The day appeared interminable. It wore away at last; and the hour drew nigh when I was to meet my young incognita. I told Isidora of my morning adventure; but I suppressed the fact, that an evening interview was to follow it. I feared that Mr. Hartley, from the habitual suspicion with which he scrutinized every transaction of life that bore a questionable feature, would not approve of my becoming patron to a girl so pretty and unprotected as the soldier’s orphan, and therefore I kept that intention to myself. Some business called him out—my mistress complained of head-ache, and retired—the clock struck nine—I rang for my cloak and stick—for of late I never went abroad after dark without a stout shillelah—and, as I was leaving the room, Dominique placed a sealed paper in my hand, which he said had been just left with the porter by a person who disappeared the moment it was delivered.
The billet was short; and the curious device attached to it, announced that it came from the gipsy. It ran thus:—
“Meet me on the right-hand side of Blackfriars Bridge, leading from the City, precisely at midnight. The crisis is at hand! I wish to prepare you for it! Fail not!”
I read the writing twice, and determined to arm myself well and obey the summons punctually. Mr. Hartley was from home. No doubt he would appear ere the hour of meeting arrived, and I waited his return for half an hour, but in vain. The evening wore heavily away—I thought of my appointment with the fair incognita—there would be time enough to keep it, and it would fill up an hour agreeably. I left the hotel, and walked briskly towards the place where the soldier’s orphan told me she would be in waiting.
I reached the “trysting place,” and stopped before the entrance of a narrow lane, which the lofty houses on either side rendered still more gloomy. That mass of masonry, St. Paul’s, flung its deep shadow over the space beneath it; and there I halted, looking towards the opening between the houses, from which I expected that my incognita would present herself. I was not kept long in waiting. A slight dark figure flitted past, and a soft voice asked, in well-remembered accents, “Is that you?” It was the soldier’s daughter. She took my arm; and under her guidance, I entered the gloomy alley from which I had seen her issue.
But I must pause. ‘Where was my foster brother? and how was that worthy personage employed? He, whose fortunes I have described as being so strangely united with mine—where was he now, when the crisis of my fate was coming? Stay, gentle reader. Leave me for a few minutes with the young lady—remember, the expedition was conducted on platonic principles—and let us inquire what befel Mark Antony O’Toole, and his excellent ally.
During the first week that Mark Antony and the rat-catcher favoured the modern Babylon with their company, no adventure of particular interest had fallen to the lot of either. As both these excellent personages enjoyed the perfect use of their limbs, their peregrinations were numerous, and every interesting object the metropolis contained, was visited from Tyburn to the Tower. In these agreeable excursions, as yet no opening to future fortune had been discovered. It is true, they had seen the world, and made sundry valuable acquaintances; and in return for blue-ruin and heavy-wet, received excellent advice, and also, a special invitation to attend the obsequies of a lamented gentlewoman, who had shuffled off this mortal coil in a back attic, two pair up, in Leg-lane. As this last token of respect to departed worth was to be strictly private and genteel, the sticks were taken from the visitors on the first landing-place as they arrived, and deposited in the ruins of a clock-case, by a man with a wooden leg, who attended funerals as chief mourner, and balls as master of ceremonies—and by this useful functionary Mark and his friend were ushered into the apartment, where all that was mortal of Mistress Ellinor Malone was lying in state.
The company were already assembled, amounting to some thirty of both sexes, all friends and relations of the deceased, and natives of the Emerald Isle—and nothing could be more imposing than the general effect which the chamber of death presented. Mistress Malone was laid out upon a bench, with a frilled cap upon her head, and a plate of snuff upon her bosom. On one side, stood a three-legged table supporting an unequal number of lights; and on the other, there was a goodly supply of gin, porter, and tobacco. Around the room the company were seated, each gentleman supporting a lady on his knee; and, to judge from appearances, a more united company had never been collected in St. Giles’s.
Being the latest arrivals from “the ould country,” the ratcatcher and his young friend obtained particular attention—and on being presented by the single-legged gentleman, they were received, in person, by the disconsolate survivor.
“Mister Macgreal, ye’r kindly welcome—and the same, to you, Mister O’Toole—we’ll brook ye’r name, for it’s a good one! I’m in grate afliixskin, as you may parsave—but God’s will be done;” and Mr. Malone crossed himself. “Patsey Doyle, fill the gintlemen a cropper ach—and put a drop in the bottom of a glass for myself, to drink to better acquaintance.”