The Land of Bondage: A Romance

by John Bloundelle-Burton

And then he learnt that he had indeed wronged her most bitterly and, turning upon his mother and sister, went over to England where, upon his knees, he besought his wife for her pardon, weeping many tears of contrition as he did so, while she, loving him ever in spite of all, forgave him as a woman will forgive. Then they passed back to Ireland where, she being again about to become a mother, he cherished her with great care and tenderness, and watched over her until she had presented him with a son.

Yet, such was this man's sometime evil temper and brutality of nature that, on the Duke of Walton refusing to add more money to the gift he had already made her--the original fortune being now quite dissipated--he banished her from his house and she, flying to England, was forced to take refuge with the Duke and, worse still, to leave her child behind.

Now, therefore, you shall see how it befell that, at last, he owed even his coffin and his grave to charity.

When she was gone from him, he, loving the child in his strange way, proclaimed it as his heir, put it to nurse in the neighbourhood, and invariably spoke of it as the future Lord St. Amande and Marquis of Amesbury. But, unfortunately for this poor offspring of his now dead love, he became enamoured of a horrid woman, a German queen, who had come over to England at the time of the succession of King George--for over twenty years had now passed since his marriage with the Duke of Walton's niece--a woman who had set up in Dublin as a court fashioner, lace merchant and milliner. But she had no thought for him, being in truth much smitten with his younger brother, Robert, and she persuaded him that to relieve himself of the dire poverty into which he had fallen, it would be best that he should give out that his son was dead and secrete him, so that he and Robert, who would then be regarded by all men as the heir, could proceed to dispose of the estate. And my lord's intellects being now bemused with much drink and other disordered methods of life, besides that he was in bitter poverty, agreed to do this and gave out that the son was dead and that he and his brother were about to break the entail.

And even this villainy, which might have seemed likely to ward off his penury for at least some years, did nothing of the sort, but, indeed, only brought him nearer to the pauper's grave to which he was hurrying. So greedy was he for money--as also was his brother, who, knowing that while the boy lived he could never succeed to the estates, was naturally very willing to dispose of them at any price--that large properties were in very truth sold for not more than, and indeed rarely exceeded, half a year's purchase! How long was it to be imagined that the half of such sums would last this poor spendthrift who no sooner felt his purse heavy with the guineas in it than he made haste to lighten it by odious debaucheries and wassailings and carousings? His clothes, his laces, nay, even his wigs, his swords, and his general wearing apparel had long since gone to the brokers, so that, at the time of selling the properties, he was to be seen going about Dublin with a rusty cutbob upon his once handsome head, a miserable ragged coat that had once been blue but had turned to green with wear, ornamented with Brandenburgh buttons, upon his back, and a common spadroon reposing on his thigh and sticking half a foot out of its worn-out sheath, instead of the jewel-hilted swords he had once used to carry.

To conclude, he fell sick about this time--sick of his debauches, sick, it may be, from recollections of the evil he had done his innocent wife and child, and sick, perhaps, from the remembrance of how he had wasted his life and impaired the prospects of his rightful heir. Ill and sick unto death, with not one loving hand to minister to him, no loving voice to say a word of comfort to him, and dying in a garret, to pay for which the woman who rented it to him had now taken his last coat. His wife was in England, sick herself and living on a small trifle left her by her uncle, now dead; his son, sixteen years of age, had escaped from the custody of a ruffian named O'Rourke, by whom he had been kept closely confined and reported dead, and, of all men, most avoided his unnatural father. What time his brother Robert would not have given him a crust to prolong his life and was indeed looking forward to his death with glee and eager anticipation.

So he died, with none by his pallet but the hag who owned the garret and who was waiting for the breath to be out of his body to send that body to the parish mortuary. So he died, sometimes fancying that he was back in the bagnios he had found so pleasant, sometimes weeping for a sight of his child and for the wrongs he had done that child, sometimes, in his delirium, bellowing forth the profligate songs that such creatures as D'Urfey and Shadwell had made popular amongst the depraved. And sometimes, also, moaning for his Louise to come back and pity him, and forgive him once again in memory of the sweetness of their early love.

Now, therefore, you see how this once handsome lordling--and handsome as Apollo he was in his younger days, I have heard his wife say, though wicked as Satan--was brought so low that, from ruffling it with the best, he came to dying in a filthy garret and being buried at the public expense. Alas, alas! who can help but weep and wring their hands when they think on such a thing, and when they reflect on all the evil that Gerald, Lord St. Amande, wrought in his life and the bitter heritage of woe he left behind to those whom he should, instead, have loved and cherished, and made good provision for.

'Twas a dull November day, in the year of our Lord, 1727, and the first of the reign of our present King George II., that the funeral procession--if so poor and mean an interment as this may be so termed--passed over Essex Bridge on its way to the burying ground where the body was to be deposited. Yet how think you a future peer of the realm should be taken to his last home, how think you one of his rank should be taken farewell of? This man had once held the King's commission, he having carried the colours of his regiment at Donauwerth and been present as a lieutenant at Tirlemont, at both of which the great Marlborough had commanded--therefore upon his coffin there should have been a sword and a sash at least, with, perhaps, a flag. He stood near unto a marquisate, therefore his coffin should have been covered with purple velvet and the plate upon it should have been of silver. Yet there were no such things. His swords, you know by now, were pawned; his sashes had gone the way of his laces, apparel and handsome wigs. The bier on which he was drawn was, therefore, but a common thing on which the bodies of beggars, of Liffey watermen and of coach-drivers were often also drawn; the coffin was a poor, deal encasement with, nailed roughly on it, some black cloth; the name-plate bearing the description of his rank and standing--oh, hollow mockery!--was of tin.

And yet even this was obtained but at the public expense!