“‘Sorra murder,’ said Peter, disdainfully. ‘But why shouldn’t he shoot him when the master bid him?’
“I needn’t tell you more, Charley; but in ten minutes after, feigning some excuse to leave the room, the terrified cockney took flight, and offering twenty guineas for a horse to convey him to Athlone, he left Galway, fully convinced that they don’t yet know us on the other side of the Channel.”
CHAPTER XIII.
THE JOURNEY.
The election concluded, the turmoil and excitement of the contest over, all was fast resuming its accustomed routine around us, when one morning my uncle informed me that I was at length to leave my native county and enter upon the great world as a student of Trinity College, Dublin. Although long since in expectation of this eventful change, it was with no slight feeling of emotion I contemplated the step which, removing me at once from all my early friends and associations, was to surround me with new companions and new influences, and place before me very different objects of ambition from those I had hitherto been regarding.
My destiny had been long ago decided. The army had had its share of the family, who brought little more back with them from the wars than a short allowance of members and shattered constitutions; the navy had proved, on more than one occasion, that the fate of the O’Malleys did not incline to hanging; so that, in Irish estimation, but one alternative remained, and that was the bar. Besides, as my uncle remarked, with great truth and foresight, “Charley will be tolerably independent of the public, at all events; for even if they never send him a brief, there’s law enough in the family to last his time,”—a rather novel reason, by-the-bye, for making a man a lawyer, and which induced Sir Harry, with his usual clearness, to observe to me:—
“Upon my conscience, boy, you are in luck. If there had been a Bible in the house, I firmly believe he’d have made you a parson.”
Considine alone, of all my uncle’s advisers, did not concur in this determination respecting me. He set forth, with an eloquence that certainly converted me, that my head was better calculated for bearing hard knocks than unravelling knotty points, that a shako would become it infinitely better than a wig; and declared, roundly, that a boy who began so well and had such very pretty notions about shooting was positively thrown away in the Four Courts. My uncle, however, was firm, and as old Sir Harry supported him, the day was decided against us, Considine murmuring as he left the room something that did not seem quite a brilliant anticipation of the success awaiting me in my legal career. As for myself, though only a silent spectator of the debate, all my wishes were with the count. From my earliest boyhood a military life had been my strongest desire; the roll of the drum, and the shrill fife that played through the little village, with its ragged troop of recruits following, had charms for me I cannot describe; and had a choice been allowed me, I would infinitely rather have been a sergeant in the dragoons than one of his Majesty’s learned in the law. If, then, such had been the cherished feeling of many a year, how much more strongly were my aspirations heightened by the events of the last few days. The tone of superiority I had witnessed in Hammersley, whose conduct to me at parting had placed him high in my esteem; the quiet contempt of civilians implied in a thousand sly ways; the exalted estimate of his own profession,—at once wounded my pride and stimulated my ambition; and lastly, more than all, the avowed preference that Lucy Dashwood evinced for a military life, were stronger allies than my own conviction needed to make me long for the army. So completely did the thought possess me that I felt, if I were not a soldier, I cared not what became of me. Life had no other object of ambition for me than military renown, no other success for which I cared to struggle, or would value when obtained. “Aut Caesar aut nullus,” thought I; and when my uncle determined I should be a lawyer, I neither murmured nor objected, but hugged myself in the prophecy of Considine that hinted pretty broadly, “the devil a stupider fellow ever opened a brief; but he’d have made a slashing light dragoon.”
The preliminaries were not long in arranging. It was settled that I should be immediately despatched to Dublin to the care of Dr. Mooney, then a junior fellow in the University, who would take me into his especial charge; while Sir Harry was to furnish me with a letter to his old friend, Doctor Barret, whose advice and assistance he estimated at a very high price. Provided with such documents I was informed that the gates of knowledge were more than half ajar for me, without an effort upon my part. One only portion of all the arrangements I heard with anything like pleasure; it was decided that my man Mickey was to accompany me to Dublin, and remain with me during my stay.