Nor, if unto the world I ever gave it,
Would some believe that such a tale had been!"—Byron.
It was a little past the noon of a lovely day in the last Autumn, that, as I rode towards the Doncaster race-course, to enjoy an hour of its rural revelries, before the serious business of the Leger commenced, I found myself hailed by a voice, and an arm of a red silk robe de chambre, from a drawing-room window of the "Salutation." Now, when we set out in prepense search of adventure, it don't require the song of the Syrens to induce us to luff up to a hail. Turning under the gateway, therefore, I dismounted, and taking my way upstairs, made the apartment for which I was bound, with but little difficulty. The chamber was, certainly, not the worst specimen I had ever seen of the unfortunate world whereof it formed an item. The appointments combined no ordinary degree of comfort and elegance, while a table, placed at one of the windows, was stocked after a manner that would have done honour to the corporation of Bristol. Among various plats, consisting of cold partridges, French patés, devil'd grouse, and varieties of choice fruit, arose the graceful forms of tapering flasks, eloquent of many a rare and precious vintage. The lord or all, arrayed in a robe of scarlet silk, lined with purple of a like material, lay, dishevelled, in Sybarite indulgence, upon a sofa adjoining this teeming board. "Couchant," I knew him not; but as he rose to receive me, there, in that silk attire, stood confessed the worthy, a fragment of whose biography I am now in the act of perpetuating—the veritable hero of these presents, even Tom the Devil himself. As my acquaintance with him at the time (and indeed in all subsequent experience) was of a very desultory character, this introduction of him to the reader must be of a similar nature. Ireland was the land of his birth; but the particulars of his parentage were less definitely ascertained. I was assured he had an uncle (from an episode in his life that it is not convenient here to enter upon), and, indeed, he himself admitted that he was in the habit of frequent intercourse with a person distinguished by that appellation. However, for our present purpose, it is enough that he was an eccentric, endowed with little of the tedious coherence of the merely common-place. When we laugh at the samples of his compatriots, put before us by the playwright and the actor, we regard them as pleasant burlesques, cleverly, though unnaturally, got up. Reader! if haply thou hast had no personal experience of Erin as it is, permit me to offer thee this characteristic fragment.
"Ould fellow," said the fiend, clutching my hand in a monstrous horny fist, "by my sowl, I'm grately plazed to meet ye in these parts: when did ye come to Doncaster? and where do ye hang out? and how long do ye stop?" "Came by the Edinburgh mail yesterday morning; at my old lodgings at the saddler's, nearly opposite the Rooms: leave for town to-morrow," said I. "That's a nate way of doing business, sure enough," was the commentary; "ounly I can't larn the sinse of going to a private lodging, where, if you ordher a kidney for breakfast, you're expected to fork out to the butcher. See how I carry on the war, and never hard the ghost of an inquiry about coin sense I sot fut in the house. A hotel's the place for me! I've thried 'em all, from the Club-house at Kilkinny to the Clarendon, and, by the holy poker, never wish mysilf worse luck than such cantonments! Arrah! what more does a man require than a place where, if he wants a bottle of claret, all he has to do is to ring the bell for it? Dine with me to-night," continued the social economist; "they put you to trough very respectably in this same shop: ask, and have, that's the ticket." I declined, with thanks; urging a previous engagement, and made a demonstration of leave-taking.—"Fill a bumper of sparkling burgundy before you go, any how," said my hospitable host; "you'll find it a gentlemanly morning tipple! if this be war, may we never have pace; here's to our next merry meeting, and may we never know the want of oceans of wine, plantations of tobacco, cart-loads of pipes, lots of purty girls, and a large room to swear in.—Farewell."
About a fortnight after the date to which the foregoing refers, chance placed me in Dublin, and the coffee-room of Morisson's hotel, towards eight, P.M., with the remnant of a bottle of Sneyd and Barton's "twenty-two" before me. With his back to one of the fires stood what had all the outward appearance of a scare-crow—a figure made up of a coat that no respectable old clothesman would degrade his bag withal, and a superlatively "shocking bad hat." The waiters were eyeing it in a most suspicious manner, and I was wondering why they didn't kick it into the street, when, to my utter amazement, the "horrible illusion" stalked towards the place where I sat, and, in accents familiar to my ear, wheezed out, "Ould fellow, by my sowl I'm grately plazed to meet ye in these parts!" There could be no mistake about it—Tom, it was—"sed quanto mutatus ab illo diabolo." "A chair," said I, to a waiter who was now staring at us both, like the Trojan who drew Priam's curtain—"bring a chair and another wine-glass;" and pouring a bumper, I pushed it towards my vis-à-vis. "Drink, Tom," I continued; "whatever maybe your object in this masquerading, a drain of Bordeaux will never hurt you: drink, and then, unless it's treason, leave off your damnable faces and begin." "Masquerading!" exclaimed the scurvy libel upon the Doncaster Sardanapalus, with a smile as much out of character on such a face as a rose in an undertaker's button-hole; "by the piper of Blessingtown, it's rale arnest! Unless the smell of mate be disagreeable to you after dinner, for the honour of dacency tell them to get me a few steakes without delay: I'm as full of wind as a blown blather: like my ould coat, I'm dying of the stitches." Several handsome sections of a sirloin having been disposed of, without the ceremony of oyster sauce, and a wish for materials for punch (expressed with a look of intense yearning), duly administered to, "the Devil" thus detailed his progress since our parting:—
"It's mighty nice for philosophers, on three courses and a dessert, to talk about the uses of adversity being sweet; but if they'll thry a genuine sample of it, say a can of poorhouse soup (biling dish-wather, flavoured with a farthing rushlight to the gallon), perhaps they would alther their opinions a leetle. However, there's no need for these reflections now. How did the Leger serve you?—I lost (that was of very little consequence)—but I didn't win, and that was, as I was entirely without funds just thin. Well, I wint to ould——'s, at night (having transmogrified what odd togs I could muster into cash, by the assistance of my father's brother), and if it had been 'vingt un,' or 'loo,' we were playing, my fortune would have been made, for I got aces by the baker's dozen. But at hazard they're not the thing: so I was turned inside out as clane as a pudden-bag—indeed rather claner, as they got out of me about four times as much as ever I contained. Whin I rose to lave the house (who was to stay there with such a run against him?), the blaggards objected to my taking my Macintosh and hat with me, bad luck to them! and so I had to return home as classically undressed as William the Third in College Green. A man without hat or coat, however, isn't so well thought of now-a-days as among the ancient Romans; and, as misfortunes never come alone, without half a score to keep them company, I found my credit at the hotel had gone to look after that which I left at ould——'s hazard-table. No gentleman should ever demane himself by running the risk of a notice to quit; so, instead of stopping at the race-ground next morning, I walked quietly on to Newark. It's raly a purty walk from Doncaster to Liverpool—that is to say, for those who are fond of pedesthrian exercise—I like riding better; and so I wasn't sorry whin I seen the Mersey rowling away on my right. Having left my body-coat in pledge for the last night's lodging, I had to borry one that was hanging on a stick in a pay-field, and as my shoes had given in at Norman Cross, I was not just the cut for a fashionable hotel. A bit of an ague I was lucky enough to pick up at Grantham, however, qualified me for a berth in the hospital, where I remained till I was convalescent—which manes on the brink of the grave; so I left, to save them the trouble of burying me. There's no stepping from the pier-head at Liverpool to the North Wall here, so that there was nothing left for it but an application, in form of a distriss'd Irish agriculturist, to the export committee, and they furnished me with a pass for the hould of a steamer, and a fourpenny loaf for sea-store. If our passage hadn't been a bad one, I should have done well enough; but my provision was out before we reached the Orme's Head, and I was ready to ate my brogues whin I caught sight of you. Never mind! worse luck now—better another time; as Shakspeare says—'Life's a stage, and every man plays many parts.' Anthony to-day, Scrub to-morrow."
THE DUST ABOUT THE GOLD DUST.
A lac of lost rupees might make
The loser cry, "alack!"
But think upon their grief who're robb'd