O’MALLEY CASTLE, November 3.
Dear Charley,—Here we sit in the little parlor with your last
letter, the “Times,” and a big map before us, drinking your health,
and wishing you a long career of the same glorious success you have
hitherto enjoyed. Old as I am—eighty-two or eighty-three (I forget
which) in June—I envy you with all my heart. Luck has stood
to you, my boy; and if a French sabre or a bayonet finish you now,
you’ve at least had a splendid burst of it. I was right in my opinion
of you, and Godfrey himself owns it now,—a lawyer, indeed! Bad
luck to them! we’ve had enough of lawyers. There’s old Hennesy,—honest
Jack, as they used to call him,—that your uncle trusted
for the last forty years, has raised eighteen thousand pounds on the
title-deeds, and gone off to America. The old scoundrel! But it’s
no use talking; the blow is a sore one to Godfrey, and the gout
more troublesome than ever. Drumgold is making a motion in
Chancery about it, to break the sale, and the tenants are in open
rebellion and swear they’ll murther a receiver, if one is sent down
among them. Indeed, they came in such force into Galway during
the assizes, and did so much mischief, that the cases for trial were
adjourned, and the judges left with a military escort to protect them.
This, of course, is gratifying to our feelings; for, thank Providence,
there is some good in the world yet. Kilmurry was sold last week
for twelve thousand. Andy Blake would foreclose the mortgage,
although we offered him every kind of satisfaction. This has done
Godfrey a deal of harm; and some pitiful economy—taking only
two bottles of claret after his dinner—has driven the gout to his
head. They’ve been telling him he’d lengthen his days by this, and
I tried it myself, and, faith, it was the longest day I ever spent in
my life. I hope and trust you take your liquor like a gentleman and
an Irish gentleman.
Kinshela, we hear, has issued an execution against the house and
furniture; but the attempt to sell the demesne nearly killed your
uncle. It was advertised in a London paper, and an offer made for it
by an old general whom you may remember when down here. Indeed,
if I mistake not, he was rather kind to you in the beginning. It
would appear he did not wish to have his name known, but we found
him out, and such a letter as we sent him! It’s little liking he’ll
have to buy a Galway gentleman’s estate over his head, that same Sir
George Dashwood! Godfrey offered to meet him anywhere he
pleased, and if the doctor thought he could bear the sea voyage,
he’d even go over to Holyhead; but the sneaking fellow sent an
apologetic kind of a letter, with some humbug excuse about very
different motives, etc. But we’ve done with him, and I think he
with us.
When I had read thus far, I laid down the letter, unable to go on; the accumulated misfortunes of one I loved best in the world, following so fast one upon another, the insult—unprovoked, gratuitous insult—to him upon whom my hopes of future happiness so much depended, completely overwhelmed me. I tried to continue. Alas, the catalogue of evils went on; each line bore testimony to some farther wreck of fortune, some clearer evidence of a ruined house.
All that my gloomiest and darkest forebodings had pictured was come to pass; sickness, poverty, harassing unfeeling creditors, treachery, and ingratitude were goading to madness and despair a spirit whose kindliness of nature was unequalled. The shock of blasted fortunes was falling upon the dying heart; the convictions which a long life had never brought home—that men were false and their words a lie—were stealing over the man upon the brink of the grave; and he who had loved his neighbor like a brother was to be taught, at the eleventh hour, that the beings he trusted were perjured and forsworn.
A more unsuitable adviser than Considine, in difficulties like these, there could not be; his very contempt for all the forms of law and justice was sufficient to embroil my poor uncle still farther; so that I resolved at once to apply for leave, and if refused, and no other alternative offered, to leave the service. It was not without a sense of sorrow bordering on despair, that I came to this determination. My soldier’s life had become a passion with me. I loved it for its bold and chivalrous enthusiasm, its hour of battle and strife, its days of endurance and hardship, its trials, its triumphs; its very reverses were endeared by those they were shared with; and the spirit of adventure and the love of danger—that most exciting of all gambling—had now entwined themselves in my very nature. To surrender all these at once, and to exchange the daily, hourly enthusiasm of a campaign for the prospects now before me, was almost maddening. But still a sustaining sense of duty of what I owed to him, who, in his love, had sacrificed all for me, overpowered every other consideration. My mind was made up.
Father Rush’s letter was little more than a recapitulation of the count’s. Debt, distress, sickness, and the heart-burnings of altered fortunes filled it; and when I closed it, I felt like one over all whose views in life a dark and ill-omened cloud was closing forever. Webber’s I could not read; the light and cheerful raillery of a friend would have seemed, at such a time, like the cold, unfeeling sarcasm of an enemy. I sat down at last to write to the general, enclosing my application for leave, and begging of him to forward it, with a favorable recommendation, to headquarters.
This done, I lay down upon my bed, and overcome by fatigue and fretting, fell asleep to dream of my home and those I had left there; which, strangely too, were presented to my mind with all the happy features that made them so dear to my infancy.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
THE TRENCHES.
“I have not had time, O’Malley, to think of your application,” said Crawfurd, “nor is it likely I can for a day or two. Read that.” So saying, he pushed towards me a note, written, in pencil, which ran thus:—