Before a word of salutation had passed, he asked me why I had not got my gun with me; and after a weak and vain endeavour to avoid answering the question, I confessed all that had occurred. He sneered at my fears and my fathers’ warnings, and laughed away all my half-formed good resolutions,—telling me that I might just as well go and borrow one of my sister’s petticoats at once, for to that I should come at last if I was going to give up all manly pursuits. Unhappy, indeed, it was for me that I listened to the voice of the tempter, instead of keeping my good resolutions safely locked up in my own breast, and instantly hurrying away from him, as I ought to have done. Or perhaps I might have answered him, “No; I must not, and will not, listen to you. I know that what I have resolved to do is right, and that which you want to persuade me to do is wicked—an instigation of the evil one; so go away and leave me.” And if he persisted in remaining near me, I should have set off and run from him as hard as I could go. This is the only way to treat temptation in whatever form it appears. Fly from it as you would from the slippery edge of a precipice.
Instead of acting thus, I sat down on the heather by his side, and, looking foolish and humbled, I began plucking off the crisp flowers and leaves, and throwing them to the winds. He asked me if I knew where the gun was locked up. When I told him that it was not locked up at all, but merely placed on the mantelpiece in my father’s dressing-room, he laughed at me for fool because I had not before re-possessed myself of it. Fool I was, in truth; but it was to yield to the bad advice my false and false-hearted friend tendered. I own that I at first was rather shocked at what he said; but still I sat and listened, and made only weak objections, so that he very speedily overcame all my scruples; and I undertook to get back my gun at all cost, and to join him on the following morning on a shooting expedition on the property of a nobleman, some part of which was seen from the hill where we had posted ourselves.
Doolan could make himself very entertaining by narrating a variety of wild adventures in which he or his companions had been engaged, or, I may say, in some of which he pretended to have been engaged; for I since have had reason to believe that he drew considerably more on his imagination than on truth for the subjects of his tales, for the purpose of raising himself in my estimation, thereby hoping to gain a greater influence over me.
I have often since met such characters, who are very boastful and bold in the company of lads younger than themselves, or of persons whom they think will believe them, but cautious and silent in the presence of those whom they have sufficient discernment to perceive at once take them at their true value. Observe one of those fellows the instant an educated gentleman appears in the circle of which he is the attraction,—how his eye will quail and his voice sink, and he will endeavour to sneak away before his true character is exposed. I need scarcely advise my readers not to be misled by such pretenders.
The property on which we had resolved to poach was owned by Lord Fetherston. We knew that he maintained but few keepers, and that those were not very vigilant. He also, we believed, was away from the country, so that we had no fears of being detected.
I said that my father had few enemies. For some reason or other, however, Lord Fetherston was one. I did not know why; and this fact Doolan, who was well aware of it, took care to bring forward in justification of the attack we purposed to make on his property. I should have known that it was no justification whatever; but when people want reasons for committing a bad act, they are obliged to make very bad ones serve their purpose.
Pat Doolan was my senior by three years. He was the son of a man who was nominally a small farmer, but in reality a smuggler, and the owner of an illicit distillery; indeed I do not know what other lawless avocations he carried on.
Very inferior, therefore, as he was in position in life, though Pat Doolan was well supplied with money, he considered it of consequence to be intimate with me, and to gain an ascendency over my mind, which he might turn to account some time or other. He kept me sitting on the heather, and listening to his good stories, and laughing at them, for upwards of two hours, till he felt sure that my good resolutions would not come back. During this time he produced some bread and meat and whisky, of which latter he made me drink no small quantity, and he then accompanied me towards my home, in sight of which he left me, with a promise to meet him on the same spot at daybreak on the following morning.
Even that very evening, as I sat with a book in my hand pretending to read, in the same room the family occupied, and listened to the cheerful voices of my light-hearted innocent sisters, I began to repent of my engagement to Doolan; but the fear of his laughing at me, and talking again about my sisters’ petticoats, made me resolve to adhere to it.