Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience

by Charles James Lever

Fallrach, even in our own day of universal travel and research, is a wild and lonely spot; but at the time I refer to, it was as utterly removed from all intercourse with the world as some distant settlement of Central America. Situated in a little bend or bight of coast where the Killeries opens to the great ocean, backed by lofty mountains, and flanked either by the sea or the still less accessible crags of granite, this little cottage was almost concealed from view. Unpretending as it was without, its internal arrangements included every comfort; and my father found himself not only surrounded with all the appliances of ease and enjoyment, but in the very midst of objects well known and dear to him from old associations. It had been in our family for about a century; but up to this moment my father had never seen it, nor was he aware of the singular beauty of the neighboring coast scenery.

At first, he could do no more than sit at an open window that looked over the sea, enjoying, with dreamy languor, the calm influences of a solitude so thoroughly unbroken. To an overwrought and excited mind, this interval of quiet was a priceless luxury; and far from experiencing weariness in his lonely life, the days glided past unnoticed.

Raper was not of a nature to obtrude himself on any one; and as my father neither sought nor needed a companion, they continued to live beneath the same roof almost without meeting. While, therefore, there was the most scrupulous attention to all my father's wants, and a watchfulness that seemed even to anticipate a wish on his part, his privacy was never invaded nor disturbed. A few words each morning between Raper and himself provided for all the arrangements of the day, and there ended their intercourse.

Leaving him, therefore, in the indulgence of this placid existence, I must now turn to another scene, where very different actors and interests were engaged.

The death of Barry Rutledge had created the most intense excitement, not alone in Dublin, but throughout the country generally. He was almost universally known. His acquaintanceship embraced men of every shade of opinion, and of all parties; and if his character did not suggest any feelings of strong attachment or regard, there were social qualities about him which, at least, attracted admiration, and made him welcome in society.

Such men are often regretted by the world more deeply than is their due. Their amusing faculties are frequently traced back to some imaginary excellence in their natures, and there mingles with the sorrow for their loss a sort of tender compassion for the fate of abilities misapplied, and high gifts wasted. This was exactly the case here. Many who did not rank amongst his intimates while he lived, now affected to deplore his death most deeply; and there was a degree of sympathy felt, or assumed to be felt, for his fate, widely disproportioned to his claims upon real regard.

The manner of his death still remained a profound mystery. The verdict of the coroner's jury was simply to the effect that “he had died of wounds inflicted by a person or persons unknown,” but without an attempt at explanation. The witnesses examined deposed to very little more than the state in which the body was found, and the prints of footsteps discovered in its vicinity. These, indeed, and other marks about the spot seemed to indicate that a struggle had taken place; but a strange and unaccountable apathy prevailed as to all investigation, and the public was left to the very vaguest of speculations as they appeared from time to time in the columns of the newspapers.

Amongst those who accompanied Rutledge into the street there was a singular discrepancy of opinion, some averring that they heard him called on by his name, and others equally positive in asserting that the provocation was uttered only in the emphatic monosyllable, “a lie.” They were all men of standing and position in the world; they were persons of indisputable honor; and yet, strange to say, upon a simple matter of fact which had occupied but a few seconds, they could not be brought to anything like agreement. The most positive of all in maintaining his opinion was a Colonel Vereker, who persisted in alleging that he stood side by side with Rutledge the whole time he was speaking; that he could swear not only to the words used by the unknown speaker, but that he would go so far as to say, that such was the impression made upon his senses that he could detect the voice were he ever to hear it again.

This assertion, at first uttered in the small circle of intimacy, at last grew to be talked of abroad, and many were of opinion it would one day or other give the clew to this mysterious affair. As to Vereker himself, he felt that he was to a certain extent pledged to the proof of what he had maintained so persistently. His opinions had gained currency, and were discussed by the press, which, in the dearth of other topics of interest, devoted a large portion of their columns to commentary on this event.

Any one now looking back to the pages of the Dublin “Express” or “Falkner” of that date will scarcely fail to find that each day contributed some new and ingenious suggestion as to the manner of Rutledge's death. Some of these were arrayed with great details and the most minute arrangement of circumstances; others were constructed of materials the least probable and likely. Every view had, however, its peculiar advocates, and it was curious to see to what violence was carried the war of controversy upon the subject.