“Foxy Joe! Then I’ll break every bone in his crooked body.”
“The Major is raging mad, Denis. I never saw him so bad, and mother has been crying all day. You and Lizzie are to be married in chapel, and to be packed off to Australia. Mrs. Maccabe will help to send you; that’s all I could get out of George.”
This programme was acceptable to Denis; he was sick of Bridgetstown; he would gladly go forth and see the world, and begin a new life. Visions of a free, novel, thoroughly untrammelled existence, where he could play cards whenever he pleased, and with whom he pleased, and gallop over miles of good going, on a well-bred waler, instantly rose before his mind’s eye (an eye that kept a sharp look out on its own interest). After all, “Lizzie’s row,” as he called it, was bound to come some day; best have the two rows together, he said to himself philosophically; the row about his exam., and the row about his wife: as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb; and he descended, with a certain amount of dogged courage, to face the storm!
A storm indeed! A typhoon, that raged in the latitude of Bridgetstown for ten whole days. During occasional lulls, Denis was married in chapel and in church, passages were taken, money paid in, letters written, outfits procured.
The news of Denis Malone’s match ran through the neighbourhood like wildfire, and people said that “he would never do a day’s good at home; he was well out of the country, and that for once the Major showed some sense.” Here the Major got credit for wisdom that was not his own; his share of the money he had raised by giving a bill on the furniture at Bridgetstown, and he was so furious with his son that he actually thought him a cheap riddance at the price.
But Denis’s mother was heartbroken: she wept, she implored, she even went on her knees to her husband for her poor dear boy. She abased herself before Mrs. Maccabe (who was now a connection), and it was all of no avail; that great woman was inexorable, and the bitterest drop in all her cup was the knowledge that Denis, her darling, was glad to go.
In intervals of pleading and weeping, she prepared his shirts and clothes, and packed up some portion of the household linen and (but this is in strict confidence) some of the Major’s silk socks and handkerchiefs, his second-best top-coat, a rarely remembered gold watch, and a dozen silver forks and spoons, also the pink topazes for Lizzie—or it might be another relative. A few came forward with presents for the young couple. George gave his brother a saddle and bridle, and a gun. Mrs. Finny presented him with an old case of surgical instruments. Maria gave him a piece of her mind. Miss Dopping gave Lizzie a first-rate sewing machine, and a long lecture, concluding with this pleasant little prophecy:
“If you come to want, and to earn your bread, Lizzie Malone, as I honestly believe you will, this machine, if you work it industriously, will keep you from actual starvation. You will have to support your husband too—unless you can keep him away from cards, and whisky.”
“I think I’ll be able to do that, ma’am,” returned young Mrs. Malone confidently; “and if the worst comes to the worst, I can always make my living as a cashier in a shop. I am very fond of Denis, but I’ll never earn his bread.”
In which sentiment Lizzie displayed a flash of her aunt’s high spirit. Betty Redmond presented Lizzie with a warm shawl for the voyage, Belle gave her her photograph, and Mrs. Redmond, with much pomp, presented her with a case of needles (marked two shillings). Thus, endowed with gifts and advice, the young couple set out to seek their fortune in the new world. Major Malone personally conducted them down to Queenstown, saw them on board the steamer (in case they should miss it), and waved them away from the shores of old Ireland with his best red silk pocket-handkerchief.