initial commit of ebook 17769HEADmain

1 files changed, 24797 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/17769-8.txt b/17769-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..481dfb8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/17769-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,24797 @@
+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The House by the Church-Yard, by J. Sheridan
+Le Fanu
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The House by the Church-Yard
+
+
+Author: J. Sheridan Le Fanu
+
+
+
+Release Date: February 15, 2006  [eBook #17769]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Ted Garvin, Janet Blenkinship, and Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreaders Europe (http://dp.rastko.net) 
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD
+
+by
+
+J. SHERIDAN LE FANU
+
+Author of 'Uncle Silas' and 'Torlogh O'brien'
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+Dublin:
+James Duffy and Co., Ltd. New York: The MacMillan Company.
+1904.
+Printed by Edmund Burke & Co., 61 & 62 Great Strand
+Street, Dublin.
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+       CHAP.                                                         Page
+
+            A Prologue--being a dish of village chat                   1
+
+        I.--The rector's night-walk to his church                      9
+
+       II.--The nameless coffin                                       12
+
+      III.--Mr. Mervyn in his inn                                     15
+
+       IV.--The Fair-green of Palmerstown                             18
+
+        V.--How the Royal Artillery entertained some of the
+            neighbours at dinner                                      25
+
+       VI.--In which the minstrelsy proceeds                          32
+
+      VII.--Showing how two gentlemen may misunderstand one another,
+            without enabling the company to understand their quarrel  35
+
+     VIII.--Relating how Doctor Toole and Captain Devereux went
+            on a moonlight errand                                     40
+
+       IX.--How a squire was found for the knight of the rueful
+            countenance                                               44
+
+        X.--The dead secret, showing how the fireworker proved
+            to Puddock that Nutter had spied out the nakedness
+            of the land                                               48
+
+       XI.--Some talk about the haunted house--being, as I suppose,
+            only old woman's tales                                    53
+
+      XII.--Some odd facts about the Tiled House--being an
+            authentic narrative of the ghost of a hand                57
+
+     XIII.--In which the rector visits the Tiled House,
+            and Doctor Toole looks after the Brass Castle             63
+
+      XIV.--Relating how Puddock purged O'Flaherty's head--a
+            chapter which, it is hoped, no genteel person will read   66
+
+       XV.--Æsculapius to the rescue                                  69
+
+      XVI.--The ordeal by battle                                      73
+
+     XVII.--Lieutenant Puddock receives an invitation and a rap
+            over the knuckles                                         81
+
+    XVIII.--Relating how the gentlemen sat over their claret,
+            and how Doctor Sturk saw a face                           86
+
+      XIX.--In which the gentlemen follow the ladies                  91
+
+       XX.--In which Mr. Dangerfield visits the church of Chapelizod,
+            and Zekiel Irons goes a-fishing                           94
+
+      XXI.--Relating among other things how Doctor Toole walked
+            up to the Tiled House, and of his pleasant discourse with
+            Mr. Mervyn                                               100
+
+     XXII.--Telling how Mr. Mervyn fared at Belmont, and of a pleasant
+            little dejeuner by the margin of the Liffey              104
+
+    XXIII.--Which concerns the grand dinner at the King's House, and
+            who were there, and something of their talk, reveries,
+            disputes, and general jollity                            108
+
+     XXIV.--In which two young persons understand one another better,
+            perhaps, than ever they did before, without saying so    113
+
+      XXV.--In which the sun sets, and the merry-making is kept up
+            by candle-light in the King's House, and Lily receives a
+            warning which she does not comprehend                    116
+
+     XXVI.--Relating how the band of the Royal Irish Artillery played,
+            and, while the music was going on, how variously different
+            people were moved                                        122
+
+    XXVII.--Concerning the troubles and the shapes that began to gather
+            about Doctor Sturk                                       125
+
+   XXVIII.--In which Mr. Irons recounts some old recollections about
+            the Pied-horse and the Flower de Luce                    129
+
+     XXIX.--Showing how poor Mrs. Macnamara was troubled and
+            haunted too, and opening a budget of gossip              132
+
+      XXX.--Concerning a certain woman in black                      137
+
+     XXXI.--Being a short history of the great battle of Belmont that
+            lasted for so many days, wherein the belligerents showed
+            so much constancy and valour, and sometimes one side
+            and sometimes t'other was victorious                     141
+
+    XXXII.--Narrating how Lieutenant Puddock and Captain Devereux
+            brewed a bowl of punch, and how they sang and discoursed
+            together                                                 143
+
+   XXXIII.--In which Captain Devereux's fiddle plays a prelude to
+            'Over the hills and far away'                            146
+
+    XXXIV.--In which Lilias hears a stave of an old song and
+            there is a leave-taking beside the river                 148
+
+     XXXV.--In which Aunt Becky and Doctor Toole, in full blow,
+            with Dominick the footman, behind, visit Miss Lily at
+            the Elms                                                 152
+
+    XXXVI.--Narrating how Miss Lilias visited Belmont, and saw a
+            strange cocked-hat in the shadow by the window           155
+
+   XXXVII.--Showing how some of the feuds in Chapelizod wared
+            fiercer, and others were solemnly condoned               158
+
+  XXXVIII.--Dreams and troubles, and a dark look-out                 161
+
+    XXXIX.--Telling how Lilias Walsingham found two ladies awaiting
+            her arrival at the Elms                                  166
+
+       XL.--Of a messenger from Chapelizod vault who waited in the
+            Tiled House for Mr. Mervyn                               168
+
+      XLI.--In which the rector comes home, and Lily speaks her
+            mind, and time glides on, and Aunt Rebecca calls at
+            the Elms                                                 173
+
+     XLII.--In which Doctor Sturk tries this way and that for
+            a reprieve on the eve of execution                       177
+
+    XLIII.--Showing how Charles Nutter's blow descended, and what
+             part the silver spectacles bore in the crisis           180
+
+     XLIV.--Relating how, in the watches of the night, a vision came
+            to Sturk, and his eyes were opened                       184
+
+      XLV.--Concerning a little rehearsal in Captain Cluffe's lodging,
+            and a certain confidence between Doctor Sturk and Mr.
+            Dangerfield                                              187
+
+     XLVI.--The closet scene, with the part of Polonius omitted      191
+
+    XLVII.--In which pale Hecate visits the Mills, and Charles Nutter,
+            Esq., orders tea                                         195
+
+   XLVIII.--Swans on the water                                       202
+
+     XLIX.--Swans in the water                                       206
+
+        L.--Treating of some confusion, in consequence, in the
+            club-room of the Phoenix and elsewhere, and
+            of a hat that was picked up                              208
+
+       LI.--How Charles Nutter's tea, pipe, and tobacco-box were
+            all set out for him in the small parlour at the
+            Mills, and how that night was passed in the house
+            by the church-yard                                       213
+
+      LII.--Concerning a rouleau of guineas and the crack
+            of a pistol                                              218
+
+     LIII.--Relating after what fashion Doctor Sturk came home       221
+
+      LIV.--In which Miss Magnolia and Doctor Toole, in different
+            scenes, prove themselves Good Samaritans; and the
+            great Doctor Pell mounts the stairs of the House by the
+            Church-yard                                              225
+
+       LV.--In which Doctor Toole, in full costume, stands upon the
+            hearth-stone of the club, and illuminates the company
+            with his back to the fire                                230
+
+      LVI.--Doctor Walsingham and the Chapelizod Christians meet
+            to the sound of the holy bell, and a vampire sits in the
+            church                                                   233
+
+     LVII.--In which Doctor Toole and Mr. Lowe make a visit at
+            the Mills, and recognise something remarkable while
+            there                                                    235
+
+    LVIII.--In which one of little Bopeep's sheep comes home again,
+            and various theories are entertained respecting Charles
+            Nutter and Lieutenant Puddock                            235
+
+      LIX.--Telling How a Coach Drew Up at the Elms, and Two Fine
+            Ladies, Dressed For the Ball, Stepped in.                244
+
+       LX.--Being a Chapter of Hoops, Feathers, and Brilliants,
+            and Bucks And Fiddlers.                                  249
+
+      LXI.--In Which the Ghosts of a By-gone Sin Keep Tryst.         254
+
+     LXII.--Of a Solemn Resolution Which Captain Devereux Registered
+            Among His Household Gods, With a Libation.               257
+
+    LXIII.--In Which a Liberty Is Taken With Mr. Nutter's Name,
+            and Mr. Dangerfield Stands at the Altar.                 261
+
+     LXIV.--Being a Night Scene, in Which Miss Gertrude Chattesworth,
+            Being Adjured By Aunt Becky, Makes Answer.               266
+
+      LXV.--Relating Some Awful News That Reached the Village,
+            and How Dr. Walsingham Visited Captain Richard Devereux
+            at His Lodgings.                                         271
+
+     LXVI.--Of a Certain Tempest That Arose and Shook the
+            Captain's Spoons And Tea-cups; and How the Wind
+            Suddenly Went Down.                                      274
+
+    LXVII.--In Which a Certain Troubled Spirit Walks.                278
+
+   LXVIII.--How an Evening Passes at the Elms, and Dr. Toole Makes
+            a Little Excursion; and Two Choice Spirits Discourse,
+            and Hebe Trips in With The Nectar.                       281
+
+     LXIX.--Concerning a Second Hurricane That Raged in Captain
+            Devereux's Drawing-room, and Relating How Mrs. Irons
+            Was Attacked With a Sort Of Choking in Her Bed.          285
+
+      LXX.--In Which an Unexpected Visitor Is Seen in the
+            Cedar-parlour of The Tiled House, and the Story of
+            Mr. Beauclerc and the 'flower de Luce' Begins To
+            Be Unfolded.                                             290
+
+     LXXI.--In Which Mr. Irons's Narrative Reaches Merton Moor.      295
+
+    LXXII.--In Which the Apparition of Mr. Irons Is Swallowed in
+            Darkness.                                                300
+
+   LXXIII.--Concerning a Certain Gentleman, with a Black Patch
+            Over His Eye, who made some Visits with a Lady,
+            in Chapelizod and its Neighbourhood.                     304
+
+    LXXIV.--In Which Doctor Toole, in His Boots, Visits Mr. Gamble,
+            and Sees an Ugly Client of That Gentleman's; and
+            Something Crosses an Empty Room.                         307
+
+     LXXV.--How a Gentleman Paid a Visit at the Brass Castle, and
+            There Read A Paragraph in an Old Newspaper.              311
+
+    LXXVI.--Relating How the Castle Was Taken, and How Mistress
+            Moggy Took Heart Of Grace.                               316
+
+   LXXVII.--In Which Irish Melody Prevails.                          321
+
+  LXXVIII.--In Which, While the Harmony Continues in Father Roach's
+            Front Parlour, A Few Discords Are Introduced Elsewhere;
+            and Doctor Toole Arrives in The Morning With a
+            Marvellous Budget of News.                               325
+
+    LXXIX.--Showing How Little Lily's Life Began To Change Into
+            a Retrospect; And How on a Sudden She Began To Feel
+            Better.                                                  330
+
+     LXXX.--In Which Two Acquaintances Become, on a Sudden,
+            Marvellously Friendly In The Church-yard; and Mr.
+            Dangerfield Smokes a Pipe in the Brass Castle,
+            and Resolves That the Dumb Shall Speak.                  333
+
+    LXXXI.--In Which Mr. Dangerfield Receives a Visitor, and Makes
+            a Call.                                                  339
+
+   LXXXII.--In Which Mr. Paul Dangerfield Pays His Respects and
+            Compliments At Belmont; Where Other Visitors Also
+            Present Themselves.                                      343
+
+  LXXXIII.--In Which the Knight of the Silver Spectacles Makes the
+            Acquaintance Of The Sage 'black Dillon,' and Confers
+            With Him in His Retreat.                                 349
+
+   LXXXIV.--In Which Christiana Goes Over; and Dan Loftus
+            Comes Home.                                              353
+
+    LXXXV.--In Which Captain Devereux Hears the News; and Mr.
+            Dangerfield Meets An Old Friend After Dinner.            357
+
+   LXXXVI.--In Which Mr. Paul Dangerfield Mounts the Stairs of the
+            House by The Church-yard, and Makes Some Arrangements.   364
+
+  LXXXVII.--In Which Two Comrades Are Tete-a-tete in Their Old
+            Quarters, and Doctor Sturk's Cue Is Cut Off, and a
+            Consultation Commences.                                  370
+
+ LXXXVIII.--In Which Mr. Moore the Barber Arrives, and the Medical
+            Gentlemen Lock The Door.                                 376
+
+   LXXXIX.--In Which a Certain Songster Treats the Company To a
+            Dolorous Ballad Whereby Mr. Irons Is Somewhat Moved.     384
+
+       XC.--Mr. Paul Dangerfield Has Something on His Mind, and
+            Captain Devereux Receives a Message.                     390
+
+      XCI.--Concerning Certain Documents Which Reached Mr. Mervyn,
+            and the Witches' Revels at the Mills.                    396
+
+     XCII.--The Wher-wolf.                                           401
+
+    XCIII.--In Which Doctor Toole and Dirty Davy Confer in
+            the Blue-room.                                           408
+
+     XCIV.--What Doctor Sturk Brought To Mind, and All That
+            Doctor Toole Heard At Mr. Luke Gamble's.                 414
+
+      XCV.--In Which Doctor Pell Declines a Fee, and Doctor Sturk
+            a Prescription.                                          422
+
+     XCVI.--About the Rightful Mrs. Nutter of the Mills, and How
+            Mr. Mervyn Received The News.                            427
+
+    XCVII.--In Which Obediah Arrives.                                436
+
+   XCVIII.--In Which Charles Archer Puts Himself Upon the Country.   441
+
+     XCIX.--The Story Ends.                                          452
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD.
+
+A PROLOGUE--BEING A DISH OF VILLAGE CHAT.
+
+
+We are going to talk, if you please, in the ensuing chapters, of what
+was going on in Chapelizod about a hundred years ago. A hundred years,
+to be sure, is a good while; but though fashions have changed, some old
+phrases dropped out, and new ones come in; and snuff and hair-powder,
+and sacques and solitaires quite passed away--yet men and women were men
+and women all the same--as elderly fellows, like your humble servant,
+who have seen and talked with rearward stragglers of that
+generation--now all and long marched off--can testify, if they will.
+
+In those days Chapelizod was about the gayest and prettiest of the
+outpost villages in which old Dublin took a complacent pride. The
+poplars which stood, in military rows, here and there, just showed a
+glimpse of formality among the orchards and old timber that lined the
+banks of the river and the valley of the Liffey, with a lively sort of
+richness. The broad old street looked hospitable and merry, with steep
+roofs and many coloured hall-doors. The jolly old inn, just beyond the
+turnpike at the sweep of the road, leading over the buttressed bridge by
+the mill, was first to welcome the excursionist from Dublin, under the
+sign of the Phoenix. There, in the grand wainscoted back-parlour, with
+'the great and good King William,' in his robe, garter, periwig, and
+sceptre presiding in the panel over the chimneypiece, and confronting
+the large projecting window, through which the river, and the daffodils,
+and the summer foliage looked so bright and quiet, the Aldermen of
+Skinner's Alley--a club of the 'true blue' dye, as old as the Jacobite
+wars of the previous century--the corporation of shoemakers, or of
+tailors, or the freemasons, or the musical clubs, loved to dine at the
+stately hour of five, and deliver their jokes, sentiments, songs, and
+wisdom, on a pleasant summer's evening. Alas! the inn is as clean gone
+as the guests--a dream of the shadow of smoke.
+
+Lately, too, came down the old 'Salmon House'--so called from the
+blazonry of that noble fish upon its painted sign-board--at the other
+end of the town, that, with a couple more, wheeled out at right angles
+from the line of the broad street, and directly confronting the
+passenger from Dublin, gave to it something of the character of a
+square, and just left room for the high road and Martin's Row to slip
+between its flank and the orchard that overtopped the river wall. Well!
+it is gone. I blame nobody. I suppose it was quite rotten, and that the
+rats would soon have thrown up their lease of it; and that it was taken
+down, in short, chiefly, as one of the players said of 'Old Drury,' to
+prevent the inconvenience of its coming down of itself. Still a peevish
+but harmless old fellow--who hates change, and would wish things to stay
+as they were just a little, till his own great change comes; who haunts
+the places where his childhood was passed, and reverences the homeliest
+relics of by-gone generations--may be allowed to grumble a little at the
+impertinences of improving proprietors with a taste for accurate
+parallelograms and pale new brick.
+
+Then there was the village church, with its tower dark and rustling from
+base to summit, with thick piled, bowering ivy. The royal arms cut in
+bold relief in the broad stone over the porch--where, pray, is that
+stone now, the memento of its old viceregal dignity? Where is the
+elevated pew, where many a lord lieutenant, in point, and gold lace, and
+thunder-cloud periwig, sate in awful isolation, and listened to orthodox
+and loyal sermons, and took French rappee; whence too, he stepped forth
+between the files of the guard of honour of the Royal Irish Artillery
+from the barrack over the way, in their courtly uniform, white, scarlet,
+and blue, cocked hats, and cues, and ruffles, presenting arms--into his
+emblazoned coach and six, with hanging footmen, as wonderful as
+Cinderella's, and out-riders out-blazing the liveries of the troops, and
+rolling grandly away in sunshine and dust.
+
+The 'Ecclesiastical Commissioners' have done their office here. The
+tower, indeed, remains, with half its antique growth of ivy gone; but
+the body of the church is new, and I, and perhaps an elderly fellow or
+two more, miss the old-fashioned square pews, distributed by a
+traditional tenure among the families and dignitaries of the town and
+vicinage (who are they now?), and sigh for the queer, old, clumsy
+reading-desk and pulpit, grown dearer from the long and hopeless
+separation; and wonder where the tables of the Ten Commandments, in long
+gold letters of Queen Anne's date, upon a vivid blue ground, arched
+above, and flanking the communion-table, with its tall thin rails, and
+fifty other things that appeared to me in my nonage, as stable as the
+earth, and as sacred as the heavens, are gone to.
+
+As for the barrack of the Royal Irish Artillery, the great gate leading
+into the parade ground, by the river side, and all that, I believe the
+earth, or rather that grim giant factory, which is now the grand feature
+and centre of Chapelizod, throbbing all over with steam, and whizzing
+with wheels, and vomiting pitchy smoke, has swallowed them up.
+
+A line of houses fronting this--old familiar faces--still look blank and
+regretfully forth, through their glassy eyes, upon the changed scene.
+How different the company they kept some ninety or a hundred years ago!
+
+Where is the mill, too, standing fast by the bridge, the manorial
+appendage of the town, which I loved in my boyhood for its gaunt and
+crazy aspect and dim interior, whence the clapper kept time mysteriously
+to the drone of the mill-sluice? I think it is gone. Surely _that_
+confounded thing can't be my venerable old friend in masquerade!
+
+But I can't expect you, my reader--polite and patient as you manifestly
+are--to potter about with me, all the summer day, through this
+melancholy and mangled old town, with a canopy of factory soot between
+your head and the pleasant sky. One glance, however, before you go, you
+will vouchsafe at the village tree--that stalworth elm. It has not grown
+an inch these hundred years. It does not look a day older than it did
+fifty years ago, _I_ can tell you. There he stands the same; and yet a
+stranger in the place of his birth, in a new order of things, joyless,
+busy, transformed Chapelizod, listening, as it seems to me, always to
+the unchanged song and prattle of the river, with his reveries and
+affections far away among by-gone times and a buried race. Thou hast a
+story, too, to tell, thou slighted and solitary sage, if only the winds
+would steal it musically forth, like the secret of Mildas from the
+moaning reeds.
+
+The palmy days of Chapelizod were just about a hundred years ago, and
+those days--though I am jealous of their pleasant and kindly fame, and
+specially for the preservation of the few memorials they have left
+behind, were yet, I may say, in your ear, with all their colour and
+adventure--perhaps, on the whole, more pleasant to read about, and dream
+of, than they were to live in. Still their violence, follies, and
+hospitalities, softened by distance, and illuminated with a sort of
+barbaric splendour, have long presented to my fancy the glowing and
+ever-shifting combinations upon which, as on the red embers, in a
+winter's gloaming, I love to gaze, propping my white head upon my hand,
+in a lazy luxury of reverie, from my own arm-chair, while they drop,
+ever and anon, into new shapes, and silently tell their 'winter's
+tales.'
+
+When your humble servant, Charles de Cresseron, the compiler of this
+narrative, was a boy some fourteen years old--how long ago precisely
+that was, is nothing to the purpose, 'tis enough to say he remembers
+what he then saw and heard a good deal better than what happened a week
+ago--it came to pass that he was spending a pleasant week of his
+holidays with his benign uncle and godfather, the curate of Chapelizod.
+On the second day of his, or rather _my_ sojourn (I take leave to return
+to the first person), there was a notable funeral of an old lady. Her
+name was Darby, and her journey to her last home was very considerable,
+being made in a hearse, by easy stages, from her house of Lisnabane, in
+the county of Sligo, to the church-yard of Chapelizod. There was a great
+flat stone over that small parcel of the rector's freehold, which the
+family held by a tenure, not of lives, but of deaths, renewable for
+ever. So that my uncle, who was a man of an anxious temperament, had
+little trouble in satisfying himself of the meerings and identity of
+this narrow tenement, to which Lemuel Mattocks, the sexton, led him as
+straight and confidently as he could have done to the communion-table.
+
+My uncle, therefore, fiated the sexton's presentment, and the work
+commenced forthwith. I don't know whether all boys have the same liking
+for horrors which I am conscious of having possessed--I only know that I
+liked the churchyard, and deciphering tombstones, and watching the
+labours of the sexton, and hearing the old world village talk that often
+got up over the relics.
+
+When this particular grave was pretty nearly finished--it lay from east
+to west--a lot of earth fell out at the northern side, where an old
+coffin had lain, and good store of brown dust and grimy bones, and the
+yellow skull itself came tumbling about the sexton's feet. These
+fossils, after his wont, he lifted decently with the point of his
+shovel, and pitched into a little nook beside the great mound of mould
+at top.
+
+'Be the powers o' war! here's a battered head-piece for yez,' said young
+Tim Moran, who had picked up the cranium, and was eyeing it curiously,
+turning it round the while.
+
+'Show it here, Tim;' 'let _me_ look,' cried two or three neighbours,
+getting round as quickly as they could.
+
+'Oh! murdher;' said one.
+
+'Oh! be the powers o' Moll Kelly!' cried another.
+
+'Oh! bloody wars!' exclaimed a third.
+
+'That poor fellow got no chance for his life at all, at all!' said Tim.
+
+'That was a bullet,' said one of them, putting his finger into a clean
+circular aperture as large as a half-penny.
+
+'An' look at them two cracks. Och, murther!'
+
+'There's only one. Oh, I see you're right, _two_, begorra!'
+
+'Aich o' them a wipe iv a poker.'
+
+Mattocks had climbed nimbly to the upper level, and taking the skull in
+his fist, turned it about this way and that, curiously. But though he
+was no chicken, his memory did not go far enough back to throw any light
+upon the matter.
+
+'Could it be the Mattross that was shot in the year '90, as I often
+heerd, for sthrikin' his captain?' suggested a by-stander.
+
+'Oh! that poor fellow's buried round by the north side of the church,'
+said Mattocks, still eyeing the skull. 'It could not be Counsellor
+Gallagher, that was kilt in the jewel with Colonel Ruck--he was hot in
+the head--bud it could not be--augh! not at all.'
+
+'Why not, Misther Mattocks?'
+
+'No, nor the Mattross neither. This, ye see, is a dhry bit o' the yard
+here; there's ould Darby's coffin, at the bottom, down there, sound
+enough to stand on, as you see, wid a plank; an' he was buried in the
+year '93. Why, look at the coffin this skull belongs to, 'tid go into
+powdher between your fingers; 'tis nothin' but tindher.'
+
+'I believe you're right, Mr. Mattocks.'
+
+'Phiat! to be sure. 'Tis longer undher ground by thirty years, good, or
+more maybe.'
+
+Just then the slim figure of my tall mild uncle, the curate, appeared,
+and his long thin legs, in black worsted stockings and knee-breeches,
+stepped reverently and lightly among the graves. The men raised their
+hats, and Mattocks jumped lightly into the grave again, while my uncle
+returned their salute with the sad sort of smile, a regretful kindness,
+which he never exceeded, in these solemn precincts.
+
+It was his custom to care very tenderly for the bones turned up by the
+sexton, and to wait with an awful solicitude until, after the reading of
+the funeral service, he saw them gently replaced, as nearly as might be,
+in their old bed; and discouraging all idle curiosity or levity
+respecting them, with a solemn rebuke, which all respected. Therefore it
+was, that so soon as he appeared the skull was, in Hibernian phrase,
+'dropt like a hot potato,' and the grave-digger betook himself to his
+spade so nimbly.
+
+'Oh! Uncle Charles,' I said, taking his hand, and leading him towards
+the foot of the grave; 'such a wonderful skull has come up! It is shot
+through with a bullet, and cracked with a poker besides.'
+
+''Tis thrue for him, your raverence; he was murthered twiste over,
+whoever he was--rest his sowl;' and the sexton, who had nearly completed
+his work, got out of the grave again, with a demure activity, and
+raising the brown relic with great reverence, out of regard for my good
+uncle, he turned it about slowly before the eyes of the curate, who
+scrutinised it, from a little distance, with a sort of melancholy
+horror.
+
+'Yes, Lemuel,' said my uncle, still holding my hand, ''twas undoubtedly
+a murder; ay, indeed! He sustained two heavy blows, beside that gunshot
+through the head.'
+
+''Twasn't gunshot, Sir; why the hole 'id take in a grape-shot,' said an
+old fellow, just from behind my uncle, in a pensioner's cocked hat,
+leggings, and long old-world red frock-coat, speaking with a harsh reedy
+voice, and a grim sort of reserved smile.
+
+I moved a little aside, with a sort of thrill, to give him freer access
+to my uncle, in the hope that he might, perhaps, throw a light upon the
+history of this remarkable memorial. The old fellow had a rat-like gray
+eye--the other was hid under a black patch--and there was a deep red
+scar across his forehead, slanting from the patch that covered the
+extinguished orb. His face was purplish, the tinge deepening towards the
+lumpish top of his nose, on the side of which stood a big wart, and he
+carried a great walking-cane over his shoulder, and bore, as it seemed
+to me, an intimidating, but caricatured resemblance to an old portrait
+of Oliver Cromwell in my Whig grandfather's parlour.
+
+'You don't think it a bullet wound, Sir?' said my uncle, mildly, and
+touching his hat--for coming of a military stock himself, he always
+treated an old soldier with uncommon respect.
+
+'Why, please your raverence,' replied the man, reciprocating his
+courtesy; 'I _know_ it's not.'
+
+'And what _is_ it, then, my good man?' interrogated the sexton, as one
+in authority, and standing on his own dunghill.
+
+'The trepan,' said the fogey, in the tone in which he'd have cried
+'attention' to a raw recruit, without turning his head, and with a
+scornful momentary skew-glance from his gray eye.
+
+'And do you know whose skull that was, Sir?' asked the curate.
+
+'Ay do I, Sir, _well_,' with the same queer smile, he answered. 'Come,
+now, you're a grave-digger, my fine fellow,' he continued, accosting the
+sexton cynically; 'how long do you suppose that skull's been under
+ground?'
+
+'Long enough; but not so long, _my_ fine fellow, as yours has been above
+ground.'
+
+'Well, you're right there, for _I_ seen him buried,' and he took the
+skull from the sexton's hands; 'and I'll tell you more, there was some
+dry eyes, too, at his funeral--ha, ha, ha!'
+
+'You were a resident in the town, then?' said my uncle, who did not like
+the turn his recollections were taking.
+
+'Ay, Sir, that I was,' he replied; 'see that broken tooth, there--I
+forgot 'twas there--and the minute I seen it, I remembered it like this
+morning--I could swear to it--when he laughed; ay, and that sharp corner
+to it--hang him,' and he twirled the loose tooth, the last but two of
+all its fellows, from' its socket, and chucked it into the grave.
+
+'And were you--you weren't in the army, _then_?' enquired the curate,
+who could not understand the sort of scoffing dislike he seemed to bear
+it.
+
+'Be my faith I was _so_, Sir--the Royal Irish Artillery,' replied he,
+promptly.
+
+'And in what capacity?' pursued his reverence.
+
+'Drummer,' answered the mulberry-faced veteran.
+
+'Ho!--Drummer? That's a good time ago, I dare say,' said my uncle,
+looking on him reflectively.
+
+'Well, so it is, not far off fifty years,' answered he. 'He was a
+hard-headed codger, he was; but you see the sprig of shillelagh was too
+hard for him--ha, ha, ha!' and he gave the skull a smart knock with his
+walking-cane, as he grinned at it and wagged his head.
+
+'Gently, gently, my good man,' said the curate, placing his hand hastily
+upon his arm, for the knock was harder than was needed for the purpose
+of demonstration.
+
+'You see, Sir, at that time, our Colonel-in-Chief was my Lord
+Blackwater,' continued the old soldier, 'not that we often seen him, for
+he lived in France mostly; the Colonel-en-Second was General
+Chattesworth, and Colonel Stafford was Lieutenant-Colonel, and under him
+Major O'Neill; Captains, four--Cluffe, Devereux, Barton, and Burgh:
+First Lieutenants--Puddock, Delany, Sackville, and Armstrong; Second
+Lieutenants--Salt; Barber, Lillyman, and Pringle; Lieutenant
+Fireworkers--O'Flaherty--'
+
+'I beg your pardon,' interposed my uncle, '_Fireworkers_, did you say?'
+
+'Yes, Sir.'
+
+'And what, pray, does a Lieutenant _Fireworker_ mean?'
+
+'Why, law bless you, Sir! a Fireworker! 'twas his business to see that
+the men loaded, sarved, laid, and fired the gun all right. But that
+doesn't signify; you see this old skull, Sir: well, 'twas a nine days'
+wonder, and the queerest business you ever heerd tell of. Why, Sir, the
+women was frightened out of their senses, an' the men puzzled out o'
+their wits--they wor--ha, ha, ha! an' I can tell you all about it--a
+mighty black and bloody business it was--'
+
+'I--I beg your pardon, Sir: but I think--yes--the funeral has arrived;
+and for the present, I must bid you good-morning.'
+
+And so my uncle hurried to the church, where he assumed his gown, and
+the solemn rite proceeded.
+
+When all was over, my uncle, after his wont, waited until he had seen
+the disturbed remains re-deposited decently in their place; and then,
+having disrobed, I saw him look with some interest about the
+church-yard, and I knew 'twas in quest of the old soldier.
+
+'I saw him go away during the funeral,' I said.
+
+'Ay, the old pensioner,' said my uncle, peering about in quest of him.
+
+And we walked through the town, and over the bridge, and we saw nothing
+of his cocked hat and red single-breasted frock, and returned rather
+disappointed to tea.
+
+I ran into the back room which commanded the church-yard in the hope of
+seeing the old fellow once more, with his cane shouldered, grinning
+among the tombstones in the evening sun. But there was no sign of him,
+or indeed of anyone else there. So I returned, just as my uncle, having
+made the tea, shut down the lid of his silver tea-pot with a little
+smack; and with a kind but absent smile upon me, he took his book, sat
+down and crossed one of his thin legs over the other, and waited
+pleasantly until the delightful infusion should be ready for our lips,
+reading his old volume, and with his disengaged hand gently stroking his
+long shin-bone.
+
+In the meantime, I, who thirsted more for that tale of terror which the
+old soldier had all but begun, of which in that strangely battered skull
+I had only an hour ago seen face to face so grizzly a memento, and of
+which in all human probability I never was to hear more, looked out
+dejectedly from the window, when, whom should I behold marching up the
+street, at slow time, towards the Salmon House, but the identical old
+soldier, cocked-hat, copper nose, great red single-breasted coat with
+its prodigious wide button-holes, leggings, cane, and all, just under
+the village tree.
+
+'Here he is, oh! Uncle Charles, here he comes,' I cried.
+
+'Eh, the soldier, is he?' said my uncle, tripping in the carpet in his
+eagerness, and all but breaking the window.
+
+'So it is, indeed; run down, my boy, and beg him to come up.'
+
+But by the time I had reached the street, which you may be sure was not
+very long, I found my uncle had got the window up and was himself
+inviting the old boy, who having brought his left shoulder forward,
+thanked the curate, saluting soldier-fashion, with his hand to his hat,
+palm foremost. I've observed, indeed, than those grim old campaigners
+who have seen the world, make it a principle to accept anything in the
+shape of a treat. If it's bad, why, it costs them nothing; and if good,
+so much the better.
+
+So up he marched, and into the room with soldierly self-possession, and
+being offered tea, preferred punch, and the ingredients were soon on the
+little round table by the fire, which, the evening being sharp, was
+pleasant; and the old fellow being seated, he brewed his nectar, to his
+heart's content; and as we sipped our tea in pleased attention, he,
+after his own fashion, commenced the story, to which I listened with an
+interest which I confess has never subsided.
+
+Many years after, as will sometimes happen, a flood of light was
+unexpectedly poured over the details of his narrative; on my coming into
+possession of the diary, curiously minute, and the voluminous
+correspondence of Rebecca, sister to General Chattesworth, with whose
+family I had the honour to be connected. And this journal, to me, with
+my queer cat-like affection for this old village, a perfect
+treasure--and the interminable _bundles_ of letters, sorted and arranged
+so neatly, with little abstracts of their contents in red ink, in her
+own firm thin hand upon the covers, from all and to all manner of
+persons--for the industrious lady made fair copies of all the letters
+she wrote--formed for many years my occasional, and always pleasant
+winter night's reading.
+
+I wish I could infuse their spirit into what I am going to tell, and
+above all that I could inspire my readers with ever so little of the
+peculiar interest with which the old town has always been tinted and
+saddened to my eye. My boyish imagination, perhaps, kindled all the more
+at the story, by reason of it being a good deal connected with the
+identical old house in which we three--my dear uncle, my idle self, and
+the queer old soldier--were then sitting. But wishes are as vain as
+regrets; so I'll just do my best, bespeaking your attention, and
+submissively abiding your judgment.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+THE RECTOR'S NIGHT-WALK TO HIS CHURCH.
+
+
+A.D. 1767--in the beginning of the month of May--I mention it because,
+as I said, I write from memoranda, an awfully dark night came down on
+Chapelizod and all the country round.
+
+I believe there was no moon, and the stars had been quite put out under
+the wet 'blanket of the night,' which impenetrable muffler overspread
+the sky with a funereal darkness.
+
+There was a little of that sheet-lightning early in the evening, which
+betokens sultry weather. The clouds, column after column, came up
+sullenly over the Dublin mountains, rolling themselves from one horizon
+to the other into one black dome of vapour, their slow but steady motion
+contrasting with the awful stillness of the air. There was a weight in
+the atmosphere, and a sort of undefined menace brooding over the little
+town, as if unseen crime or danger--some mystery of iniquity--was
+stealing into the heart of it, and the disapproving heavens scowled a
+melancholy warning.
+
+That morning old Sally, the rector's housekeeper, was disquieted. She
+had dreamed of making the great four-post, state bed, with the dark
+green damask curtains--a dream that betokened some coming trouble--it
+might, to be sure, be ever so small--(it had once come with no worse
+result than Dr. Walsingham's dropping his purse, containing something
+under a guinea in silver, over the side of the ferry boat)--but again it
+might be tremendous. The omen hung over them doubtful.
+
+A large square letter, with a great round seal, as big as a crown piece,
+addressed to the Rev. Hugh Walsingham, Doctor of Divinity, at his house,
+by the bridge, in Chapelizod, had reached him in the morning, and
+plainly troubled him. He kept the messenger a good hour awaiting his
+answer; and, just at two o'clock, the same messenger returned with a
+second letter--but this time a note sufficed for reply. ''Twill seem
+ungracious,' said the doctor, knitting his brows over his closed folio
+in the study; 'but I cannot choose but walk clear in my calling before
+the Lord. How can I honestly pronounce hope, when in my mind there is
+nothing but _fear_--let another do it if he see his way--I do enough in
+being present, as 'tis right I should.'
+
+It was, indeed, a remarkably dark night--a rush and downpour of rain!
+The doctor stood just under the porch of the stout brick house--of King
+William's date, which was then the residence of the worthy rector of
+Chapelizod--with his great surtout and cape on--his leggings buttoned
+up--and his capacious leather 'overalls' pulled up and strapped over
+these--and his broad-leafed hat tied down over his wig and ears with a
+mighty silk kerchief. I dare say he looked absurd enough--but it was the
+women's doing--who always, upon emergencies, took the doctor's wardrobe
+in hand. Old Sally, with her kind, mild, grave face, and gray locks,
+stood modestly behind in the hall; and pretty Lilias, his only child,
+gave him her parting kiss, and her last grand charge about his shoes and
+other exterior toggery, in the porch; and he patted her cheek with a
+little fond laugh, taking old John Tracy's, the butler's, arm. John
+carried a handsome horn-lantern, which flashed now on a roadside
+bush--now on the discoloured battlements of the bridge--and now on a
+streaming window. They stepped out--there were no umbrellas in those
+days--splashing among the wide and widening pools; while Sally and
+Lilias stood in the porch, holding candles for full five minutes after
+the doctor and his 'Jack-o'-the-lantern,' as he called honest John,
+whose arm and candle always befriended him in his night excursions, had
+got round the corner.
+
+Through the back bow-window of the Phoenix, there pealed forth--faint in
+the distance and rain--a solemn royal ditty, piped by the tuneful
+Aldermen of Skinner's Alley, and neither unmusical nor somehow
+uncongenial with the darkness, and the melancholy object of the doctor's
+walk, the chant being rather monastic, wild, and dirge-like. It was a
+quarter past ten, and no other sound of life or human neighbourhood was
+stirring. If secrecy were an object, it was well secured by the sable
+sky, and the steady torrent which rolled down with electric weight and
+perpendicularity, making all nature resound with one long
+hush--sh--sh--sh--sh--deluging the broad street, and turning the
+channels and gutters into mimic mill-streams which snorted and hurtled
+headlong through their uneven beds, and round the corners towards the
+turbid Liffey, which, battered all over with rain, muddy, and sullen,
+reeled its way towards the sea, rolling up to the heavens an aspect
+black as their own.
+
+As they passed by the Phoenix (a little rivulet, by-the-bye, was
+spouting down from the corner of the sign; and indeed the night was such
+as might well have caused that suicidal fowl to abandon all thoughts of
+self-incremation, and submit to an unprecedented death by drowning),
+there was no idle officer, or lounging waiter upon the threshold.
+Military and civilians were all snug in their quarters that night; and
+the inn, except for the 'Aldermen' in the back parlour, was doing no
+business. The door was nearly closed, and only let out a tall, narrow
+slice of candle-light upon the lake of mud, over every inch of which the
+rain was drumming.
+
+The doctor's lantern glided by--and then across the street--and so
+leisurely along the foot-way, by the range of lightless hall doors
+towards the Salmon House, also dark; and so, sharp round the corner, and
+up to the church-yard gate, which stood a little open, as also the
+church door beyond, as was evidenced by the feeble glow of a lantern
+from within.
+
+I dare say old Bob Martin, the sexton, and grave Mr. Irons, the clerk,
+were reassured when they heard the cheery voice of the rector hailing
+them by name. There were now three candles in church; but the edifice
+looked unpleasantly dim, and went off at the far end into total
+darkness. Zekiel Irons was a lean, reserved fellow, with a black wig and
+blue chin, and something shy and sinister in his phiz. I don't think he
+had entertained honest Bob with much conversation from those thin lips
+of his during their grizzly _tête-à-tête_ among the black windows and
+the mural tablets that overhung the aisle.
+
+But the rector had lots to say--though deliberately and gravely, still
+the voice was genial and inspiring--and exorcised the shadows that had
+been gathering stealthily around the lesser Church functionaries. Mrs.
+Irons's tooth, he learned, was still bad; but she was no longer troubled
+with 'that sour humour in her stomach.' There were sour humours, alas!
+still remaining--enough, and to spare, as the clerk knew to his cost.
+Bob Martin thanked his reverence; the cold rheumatism in his hip was
+better.' Irons, the clerk, replied, 'he had brought two prayer-books.'
+Bob averred 'he could not be mistaken; the old lady was buried in the
+near-vault; though it was forty years before, he remembered it like last
+night. They changed her into her lead coffin in the vault--he and the
+undertaker together--her own servants would not put a hand to her. She
+was buried in white satin, and with her rings on her fingers. It was her
+fancy, and so ordered in her will. They said she was mad. He'd know her
+face again if he saw her. She had a long hooked nose; and her eyes were
+open. For, as he was told, she died in her sleep, and was quite cold and
+stiff when they found her in the morning. He went down and saw the
+coffin to-day, half an hour after meeting his reverence.'
+
+The rector consulted his great warming-pan of a watch. It was drawing
+near eleven. He fell into a reverie, and rambled slowly up and down the
+aisle, with his hands behind his back, and his dripping hat in them,
+swinging nearly to the flags,--now lost in the darkness--now emerging
+again, dim, nebulous, in the foggy light of the lanterns. When this
+clerical portrait came near, he was looking down, with gathered brows,
+upon the flags, moving his lips and nodding, as if counting them, as was
+his way. The doctor was thinking all the time upon the one text:--Why
+should this livid memorial of two great crimes be now disturbed, after
+an obscurity of twenty-one years, as if to jog the memory of scandal,
+and set the great throat of the monster baying once more at the old
+midnight horror?
+
+And as for that old house at Ballyfermot, why any one could have looked
+after it as well as he. 'Still he must live somewhere, and certainly
+this little town is quieter than the city, and the people, on the whole,
+very kindly, and by no means curious.' This latter was a mistake of the
+doctor's, who, like other simple persons, was fond of regarding others
+as harmless repetitions of himself. 'And his sojourn will be,' he says,
+'but a matter of weeks; and the doctors mind wandered back again to the
+dead, and forward to the remoter consequences of his guilt, so he heaved
+a heavy, honest sigh, and lifted up his head and slackened his pace for
+a little prayer, and with that there came the rumble of wheels to the
+church door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+THE NAMELESS COFFIN.
+
+
+Three vehicles with flambleaux, and the clang and snorting of horses
+came close to the church porch, and there appeared suddenly, standing
+within the disc of candle-light at the church door, before one would
+have thought there was time, a tall, very pale, and peculiar looking
+young man, with very large, melancholy eyes, and a certain cast of evil
+pride in his handsome face.
+
+John Tracy lighted the wax candles which he had brought, and Bob Martin
+stuck them in the sockets at either side of the cushion, on the ledge of
+the pew, beside the aisle, where the prayer-book lay open at 'the burial
+of the dead,' and the rest of the party drew about the door, while the
+doctor was shaking hands very ceremoniously with that tall young man,
+who had now stepped into the circle of light, with a short, black mantle
+on, and his black curls uncovered, and a certain air of high breeding in
+his movements. 'He reminded me painfully of him who is gone, whom we
+name not,' said the doctor to pretty Lilias, when he got home; he has
+his pale, delicately-formed features, with a shadow of his evil
+passions too, and his mother's large, sad eyes.'
+
+And an elderly clergyman, in surplice, band, and white wig, with a hard,
+yellow, furrowed face, hovered in, like a white bird of night, from the
+darkness behind, and was introduced to Dr. Walsingham, and whispered for
+a while to Mr. Irons, and then to Bob Martin, who had two short forms
+placed transversely in the aisle to receive what was coming, and a
+shovel full of earth--all ready. So, while the angular clergyman ruffled
+into the front of the pew, with Irons on one side, a little in the rear,
+both books open; the plump little undertaker, diffusing a steam from his
+moist garments, making a prismatic halo round the candles and lanterns,
+as he moved successively by them, whispered a word or two to the young
+gentleman [Mr. Mervyn, the doctor called him], and Mr. Mervyn
+disappeared. Dr. Walsingham and John Tracy got into contiguous seats,
+and Bob Martin went out to lend a hand. Then came the shuffling of feet,
+and the sound of hard-tugging respiration, and the suppressed energetic
+mutual directions of the undertaker's men, who supported the ponderous
+coffin. How much heavier, it always seems to me, that sort of load than
+any other of the same size!
+
+A great oak shell: the lid was outside in the porch, Mr. Tressels was
+unwilling to screw it down, having heard that the entrance to the vault
+was so narrow, and apprehending it might be necessary to take the coffin
+out. So it lay its length with a dull weight on the two forms. The lead
+coffin inside, with its dusty black velvet, was plainly much older.
+There was a plate on it with two bold capitals, and a full stop after
+each, thus;--
+
+     R. D. obiit May 11th, A.D. 1746. ætat 38.
+
+And above this plain, oval plate was a little bit of an ornament no
+bigger than a sixpence. John Tracy took it for a star, Bob Martin said
+he knew it to be a Freemason's order, and Mr. Tressels, who almost
+overlooked it, thought it was nothing better than a fourpenny cherub.
+But Mr. Irons, the clerk, knew that it was a coronet; and when he heard
+the other theories thrown out, being a man of few words he let them have
+it their own way, and with his thin lips closed, with their changeless
+and unpleasant character of an imperfect smile, he coldly kept this
+little bit of knowledge to himself.
+
+Earth to earth (rumble), dust to dust (tumble), ashes to ashes (rattle).
+
+And now the coffin must go out again, and down to its final abode.
+
+The flag that closed the entrance of the vault had been removed. But
+the descent of Avernus was not facile, the steps being steep and broken,
+and the roof so low. Young Mervyn had gone down the steps to see it duly
+placed; a murky, fiery light; came up, against which the descending
+figures looked black and cyclopean.
+
+Dr. Walsingham offered his brother-clergyman his hospitalities; but
+somehow that cleric preferred returning to town for his supper and his
+bed. Mervyn also excused himself. It was late, and he meant to stay that
+night at the Phoenix, and to-morrow designed to make his compliments
+in person to Dr. Walsingham. So the bilious clergyman from town climbed
+into the vehicle in which he had come, and the undertaker and his troop
+got into the hearse and the mourning coach and drove off demurely
+through the town; but once a hundred yards or so beyond the turnpike, at
+such a pace that they overtook the rollicking _cortège_ of the Alderman
+of Skinner's Alley upon the Dublin road, all singing and hallooing, and
+crowing and shouting scraps of banter at one another, in which
+recreations these professional mourners forthwith joined them; and they
+cracked screaming jokes, and drove wild chariot races the whole way into
+town, to the terror of the divine, whose presence they forgot, and whom,
+though he shrieked from the window, they never heard, until getting out,
+when the coach came to a stand-still, he gave Mr. Tressels a piece of
+his mind, and that in so alarming a sort, that the jolly undertaker,
+expressing a funereal concern at the accident, was obliged to explain
+that all the noise came from the scandalous party they had so
+unfortunately overtaken, and that 'the drunken blackguards had lashed
+and frightened his horses to a runaway pace, singing and hallooing in
+the filthy way he heard, it being a standing joke among such roisterers
+to put quiet tradesmen of his melancholy profession into a false and
+ridiculous position.' He did not convince, but only half puzzled the
+ecclesiastic, who muttering, 'credat Judæus,' turned his back upon Mr.
+Tressels, with an angry whisk, without bidding him good-night.
+
+Dr. Walsingham, with the aid of his guide, in the meantime, had reached
+the little garden in front of the old house, and the gay tinkle of a
+harpsichord and the notes of a sweet contralto suddenly ceased as he did
+so; and he said--smiling in the dark, in a pleasant soliloquy, for he
+did not mind John Tracy,--old John was not in the way--'She always hears
+my step--always--little Lily, no matter how she's employed,' and the
+hall-door opened, and a voice that was gentle, and yet somehow very
+spirited and sweet, cried a loving and playful welcome to the old man.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+MR. MERVYN IN HIS INN.
+
+
+The morning was fine--the sun shone out with a yellow splendour--all
+nature was refreshed--a pleasant smell rose up from tree, and flower,
+and earth. The now dry pavement and all the row of village windows were
+glittering merrily--the sparrows twittered their lively morning gossip
+among the thick ivy of the old church tower--here and there the village
+cock challenged his neighbour with high and vaunting crow, and the bugle
+notes soared sweetly into the air from the artillery ground beside the
+river.
+
+Moore, the barber, was already busy making his morning circuit, servant
+men and maids were dropping in and out at the baker's, and old Poll
+Delany, in her weather-stained red hood, and neat little Kitty Lane,
+with her bright young careful face and white basket, were calling at the
+doors of their customers with new laid eggs. Through half-opened hall
+doors you might see the powdered servant, or the sprightly maid in her
+mob-cap in hot haste steaming away with the red japanned 'tea kitchen'
+into the parlour. The town of Chapelizod, in short, was just sitting
+down to its breakfast.
+
+Mervyn, in the meantime, had had his solitary meal in the famous back
+parlour of the Phoenix, where the newspapers lay, and all comers were
+welcome. He was by no means a bad hero to look at, if such a thing were
+needed. His face was pale, melancholy, statuesque--and his large
+enthusiastic eyes, suggested a story and a secret--perhaps a horror.
+Most men, had they known all, would have wondered with good Doctor
+Walsingham, why, of all places in the world, he should have chosen the
+little town where he now stood for even a temporary residence. It was
+not a perversity, but rather a fascination. His whole life had been a
+flight and a pursuit--a vain endeavour to escape from the evil spirit
+that pursued him--and a chase of a chimera.
+
+He was standing at the window, not indeed enjoying, as another man
+might, the quiet verdure of the scene, and the fragrant air, and all the
+mellowed sounds of village life, but lost in a sad and dreadful reverie,
+when in bounced little red-faced bustling Dr. Toole--the joke and the
+chuckle with which he had just requited the fat old barmaid still
+ringing in the passage--'Stay there, sweetheart,' addressed to a dog
+squeezing by him, and which screeched out as he kicked it neatly round
+the door-post.
+
+'Hey, your most obedient, Sir,' cried the doctor, with a short but grand
+bow, affecting surprise, though his chief object in visiting the back
+parlour at that moment was precisely to make a personal inspection of
+the stranger. 'Pray, don't mind me, Sir,--your--ho! Breakfast ended, eh?
+Coffee not so bad, Sir; rather good coffee, I hold it, at the Phoenix.
+Cream very choice, Sir?--I don't tell 'em so though (a wink); it might
+not improve it, you know. I hope they gave you--eh?--eh? (he peeped into
+the cream-ewer, which he turned towards the light, with a whisk). And no
+disputing the eggs--forty-eight hens in the poultry yard, and ninety
+ducks in Tresham's little garden, next door to Sturk's. They make a
+precious noise, I can tell you, when it showers. Sturk threatens to
+shoot 'em. He's the artillery surgeon here; and Tom Larkin said, last
+night, it's because they only dabble and quack--and two of a trade, you
+know--ha! ha! ha! And what a night we had--dark as Erebus--pouring like
+pumps, by Jove. I'll remember it, I warrant you. Out on business--a
+medical man, you know, can't always choose--and near meeting a bad
+accident too. Anything in the paper, eh? ho! I see, Sir, haven't read
+it. Well, and what do you think--a queer night for the purpose, eh?
+you'll say--we had a funeral in the town last night, Sir--some one from
+Dublin. It was Tressel's men came out. The turnpike rogue--just round
+the corner there--one of the talkingest gossips in the town--and a
+confounded prying, tattling place it is, I can tell you--knows the
+driver; and Bob Martin, the sexton, you know--tells me there were two
+parsons, no less--hey! Cauliflowers in season, by Jove. Old Dr.
+Walsingham, our rector, a pious man, Sir, and does a world of good--that
+is to say, relieves half the blackguards in the parish--ha! ha! when
+we're on the point of getting rid of them--but means well, only he's a
+little bit lazy, and queer, you know; and that rancid, raw-boned parson,
+Gillespie--how the plague did they pick him up?--one of the mutes told
+Bob 'twas he. He's from Donegal; I know all about him; the sourest dog I
+ever broke bread with--and mason, if you please, by Jove--a prince
+pelican! He supped at the Grand Lodge after labour, one night--_you're_
+not a mason, I see; tipt you the sign--and his face was so pinched, and
+so yellow, by Jupiter, I was near squeezing it into the punch-bowl for a
+lemon--ha! ha! hey?'
+
+Mervyn's large eyes expressed a well-bred surprise. Dr. Toole paused for
+nearly a minute, as if expecting something in return; but it did not
+come.
+
+So the doctor started afresh, never caring for Mervyn's somewhat
+dangerous looks.
+
+'Mighty pretty prospects about here, Sir. The painters come out by
+dozens in the summer, with their books and pencils, and scratch away
+like so many Scotchmen. Ha! ha! ha! If you draw, Sir, there's one
+prospect up the river, by the mills--upon my conscience--but you don't
+draw?'
+
+No answer.
+
+'A little, Sir, maybe? Just for a maggot, I'll wager--like _my_ good
+lady, Mrs. Toole.' A nearer glance at his dress had satisfied Toole that
+he was too much of a maccaroni for an artist, and he was thinking of
+placing him upon the lord lieutenant's staff. 'We've capital horses
+here, if you want to go on to Leixlip,' (where--this between ourselves
+and the reader--during the summer months His Excellency and Lady
+Townshend resided, and where, the old newspapers tell us, they 'kept a
+public day every Monday,' and he 'had a levée, as usual, every
+Thursday.') But this had no better success.
+
+'If you design to stay over the day, and care for shooting, we'll have
+some ball practice on Palmerstown fair-green to-day. Seven baronies to
+shoot for ten and five guineas. One o'clock, hey?'
+
+At this moment entered Major O'Neill, of the Royal Irish Artillery, a
+small man, very neatly got up, and with a decidedly Milesian cast of
+countenance, who said little, but smiled agreeably--
+
+'Gentlemen, your most obedient. Ha, doctor; how goes it?--anything
+new--anything _on_ the _Freeman_?'
+
+Toole had scanned that paper, and hummed out, as he rumpled it
+over,--'nothing--very--particular. Here's Lady Moira's ball: fancy
+dresses--all Irish; no masks; a numerous appearance of the nobility and
+gentry--upwards of five hundred persons. A good many of your corps
+there, major?'
+
+'Ay, Lord Blackwater, of course, and the general, and Devereux, and
+little Puddock, and----'
+
+'_Sturk_ wasn't,' with a grin, interrupted Toole, who bore that
+practitioner no good-will. 'A gentleman robbed, by two foot-pads, on
+Chapelizod-road, on Wednesday night, of his watch and money, together
+with his hat, wig and cane, and lies now in a dangerous state, having
+been much abused; one of them dressed in an old light-coloured coat,
+wore a wig. By Jupiter, major, if I was in General Chattesworth's place,
+with two hundred strapping fellows at my orders, I'd get a commission
+from Government to clear that road. It's too bad, Sir, we can't go in
+and out of town, unless in a body, after night-fall, but at the risk of
+our lives. [The convivial doctor felt this public scandal acutely.] The
+bloody-minded miscreants, I'd catch every living soul of them, and burn
+them alive in tar-barrels. By Jove! here's old Joe Napper, of
+Dirty-lane's dead. Plenty of dry eyes after _him_. And stay, here's
+another row.' And so he read on.
+
+In the meantime, stout, tightly-braced Captain Cluffe of the same corps,
+and little dark, hard-faced, and solemn Mr. Nutter, of the Mills, Lord
+Castlemallard's agents, came in, and half a dozen more, chiefly members
+of the club, which met by night in the front parlour on the left,
+opposite the bar, where they entertained themselves with agreeable
+conversation, cards, backgammon, draughts, and an occasional song by Dr.
+Toole, who was a florid tenor, and used to give them, 'While gentlefolks
+strut in silver and satins,' or 'A maiden of late had a merry design,'
+or some other such ditty, with a recitation by plump little
+stage-stricken Ensign Puddock, who, in 'thpite of hith lithp,' gave
+rather spirited imitations of some of the players--Mossop, Sheridan,
+Macklin, Barry, and the rest. So Mervyn, the stranger, by no means
+affecting this agreeable society, took his cane and cocked-hat, and went
+out--the dark and handsome apparition--followed by curious glances from
+two or three pairs of eyes, and a whispered commentary and criticism
+from Toole.
+
+So, taking a meditative ramble in 'His Majesty's Park, the Phoenix;'
+and passing out at Castleknock gate, he walked up the river, between the
+wooded slopes, which make the valley of the Liffey so pleasant and
+picturesque, until he reached the ferry, which crossing, he at the other
+side found himself not very far from Palmerstown, through which village
+his return route to Chapelizod lay.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+THE FAIR-GREEN OF PALMERSTOWN.
+
+
+There were half-a-dozen carriages, and a score of led horses outside the
+fair-green, a precious lot of ragamuffins, and a good resort to the
+public-house opposite; and the gate being open, the artillery band,
+rousing all the echoes round with harmonious and exhilarating thunder,
+within--an occasional crack of a 'Brown Bess,' with a puff of white
+smoke over the hedge, being heard, and the cheers of the spectators, and
+sometimes a jolly chorus of many-toned laughter, all mixed together, and
+carried on with a pleasant running hum of voices--Mervyn, the stranger,
+reckoning on being unobserved in the crowd, and weary of the very
+solitude he courted, turned to his right, and so found himself upon the
+renowned fair-green of Palmerstown.
+
+It was really a gay rural sight. The circular target stood, with its
+bright concentric rings, in conspicuous isolation, about a hundred yards
+away, against the green slope of the hill. The competitors in their best
+Sunday suits, some armed with muskets and some with fowling pieces--for
+they were not particular--and with bunches of ribbons fluttering in
+their three-cornered hats, and sprigs of gay flowers in their breasts,
+stood in the foreground, in an irregular cluster, while the spectators,
+in pleasant disorder, formed two broad, and many-coloured parterres,
+broken into little groups, and separated by a wide, clear sweep of green
+sward, running up from the marksmen to the target.
+
+In the luminous atmosphere the men of those days showed bright and gay.
+Such fine scarlet and gold waistcoats--such sky-blue and silver--such
+pea-green lutestrings--and pink silk linings--and flashing buckles--and
+courtly wigs--or becoming powder--went pleasantly with the brilliant
+costume of the stately dames and smiling lasses. There was a pretty
+sprinkling of uniforms, too--the whole picture in gentle motion, and the
+bugles and drums of the Royal Irish Artillery filling the air with
+inspiring music.
+
+All the neighbours were there--merry little Dr. Toole in his grandest
+wig and gold-headed cane, with three dogs at his heels,--he seldom
+appeared without this sort of train--sometimes three--sometimes
+five--sometimes as many as seven--and his hearty voice was heard bawling
+at them by name, as he sauntered through the town of a morning, and
+theirs occasionally in short screeches, responsive to the touch of his
+cane. Now it was, 'Fairy, you savage, let that pig alone!' a yell and a
+scuffle--'Juno, drop it, you slut'--or 'Cæsar, you blackguard, where are
+you going?'
+
+'Look at Sturk there, with his lordship,' said Toole, to the fair
+Magnolia, with a wink and a nod, and a sneering grin. 'Good natured dog
+that--ha! ha! You'll find he'll oust Nutter at last, and get the agency;
+that's what he's driving at--always undermining somebody.' Doctor Sturk
+and Lord Castlemallard were talking apart on the high ground, and the
+artillery surgeon was pointing with his cane at distant objects. 'I'll
+lay you fifty he's picking holes in Nutter's management this moment.'
+
+I'm afraid there was some truth in the theory, and Toole--though he did
+not remember to mention it--had an instinctive notion that Sturk had an
+eye upon the civil practice of the neighbourhood, and was meditating a
+retirement from the army, and a serious invasion of his domain.
+
+Sturk and Toole, behind backs, did not spare one another. Toole called
+Sturk a 'horse doctor,' and 'the smuggler'--in reference to some affair
+about French brandy, never made quite clear to me, but in which, I
+believe, Sturk was really not to blame; and Sturk called him 'that
+drunken little apothecary'--for Toole had a boy who compounded, under
+the rose, his draughts, pills, and powders in the back parlour--and
+sometimes, 'that smutty little ballad singer,' or 'that whiskeyfied
+dog-fancier, Toole.' There was no actual quarrel, however; they met
+freely--told one another the news--their mutual disagreeabilities were
+administered guardedly--and, on the whole, they hated one another in a
+neighbourly way.
+
+Fat, short, radiant, General Chattesworth--in full, artillery
+uniform--was there, smiling, and making little speeches to the ladies,
+and bowing stiffly from his hips upward--his great cue playing all the
+time up and down his back, and sometimes so near the ground when he
+stood erect and threw back his head, that Toole, seeing Juno eyeing the
+appendage rather viciously, thought it prudent to cut her speculations
+short with a smart kick.
+
+His sister Rebecca--tall, erect, with grand lace, in a splendid stiff
+brocade, and with a fine fan--was certainly five-and-fifty, but still
+wonderfully fresh, and sometimes had quite a pretty little pink
+colour--perfectly genuine--in her cheeks; command sat in her eye and
+energy on her lip--but though it was imperious and restless, there was
+something provokingly likeable and even pleasant in her face. Her niece,
+Gertrude, the general's daughter, was also tall, graceful--and, I am
+told, perfectly handsome.
+
+'Be the powers, she's mighty handsome!' observed 'Lieutenant Fireworker'
+O'Flaherty, who, being a little stupid, did not remember that such a
+remark was not likely to pleasure the charming Magnolia Macnamara, to
+whom he had transferred the adoration of a passionate, but somewhat
+battered heart.
+
+'They must not see with my eyes that think so,' said Mag, with a
+disdainful toss of her head.
+
+'They say she's not twenty, but I'll wager a pipe of claret she's
+something to the back of it,' said O'Flaherty, mending his hand.
+
+'Why, bless your innocence, she'll never see five-and-twenty, and a bit
+to spare,' sneered Miss Mag, who might more truly have told that tale of
+herself. 'Who's that pretty young man my Lord Castlemallard is
+introducing to her and old Chattesworth?' The commendation was a shot at
+poor O'Flaherty.
+
+'Hey--so, my Lord knows him!' says Toole, very much interested. 'Why
+that's Mr. Mervyn, that's stopping at the Phoenix. A. Mervyn,--I saw
+it on his dressing case. See how she smiles.'
+
+'Ay, she simpers like a firmity kettle,' said scornful Miss Mag.
+
+'They're very grand to-day, the Chattesworths, with them two livery
+footmen behind them,' threw in O'Flaherty, accommodating his remarks to
+the spirit of his lady-love.
+
+'That young buck's a man of consequence,' Toole rattled on; 'Miss does
+not smile on everybody.'
+
+'Ay, she looks as if butter would not melt in her mouth, but I warrant
+cheese won't choke her,' Magnolia laughed out with angry eyes.
+
+Magnolia's fat and highly painted parent--poor bragging, good-natured,
+cunning, foolish Mrs. Macnamara, the widow--joined, with a venemous
+wheeze in the laugh.
+
+Those who suppose that all this rancour was produced by mere feminine
+emulations and jealousy do these ladies of the ancient sept Macnamara
+foul wrong. Mrs. Mack, on the contrary, had a fat and genial soul of her
+own, and Magnolia was by no means a particularly ungenerous rival in the
+lists of love. But Aunt Rebecca was hoitytoity upon the Macnamaras, whom
+she would never consent to more than half-know, seeing them with
+difficulty, often failing to see them altogether--though Magnolia's
+stature and activity did not always render that easy. To-day, for
+instance, when the firing was brisk, and some of the ladies uttered
+pretty little timid squalls, Miss Magnolia not only stood fire like
+brick, but with her own fair hands cracked off a firelock, and was more
+complimented and applauded than all the marksmen beside, although she
+shot most dangerously wide, and was much nearer hitting old Arthur Slowe
+than that respectable gentleman, who waved his hat and smirked
+gallantly, was at all aware. Aunt Rebecca, notwithstanding all this, and
+although she looked straight at her from a distance of only ten steps,
+yet she could not see that large and highly-coloured heroine; and
+Magnolia was so incensed at her serene impertinence that when Gertrude
+afterwards smiled and courtesied twice, she only held her head the
+higher and flung a flashing defiance from her fine eyes right at that
+unoffending virgin.
+
+Everybody knew that Miss Rebecca Chattesworth ruled supreme at Belmont.
+With a docile old general and a niece so young, she had less resistance
+to encounter than, perhaps, her ardent soul would have relished.
+Fortunately for the general it was only now and then that Aunt Becky
+took a whim to command the Royal Irish Artillery. She had other hobbies
+just as odd, though not quite so scandalous. It had struck her active
+mind that such of the ancient women of Chapelizod as were destitute of
+letters--mendicants and the like--should learn to read. Twice a week her
+'old women's school,' under that energetic lady's presidency, brought
+together its muster-roll of rheumatism, paralysis, dim eyes, bothered
+ears, and invincible stupidity. Over the fire-place in large black
+letters, was the legend, 'BETTER LATE THAN NEVER!' and out came the
+horn-books and spectacles, and to it they went with their A-B ab, etc.,
+and plenty of wheezing and coughing. Aunt Becky kept good fires, and
+served out a mess of bread and broth, along with some pungent ethics, to
+each of her hopeful old girls. In winter she further encouraged them
+with a flannel petticoat apiece, and there was besides a monthly dole.
+So that although after a year there was, perhaps, on the whole, no
+progress in learning, the affair wore a tolerably encouraging aspect;
+for the academy had increased in numbers, and two old fellows, liking
+the notion of the broth and the 6d. a month--one a barber, Will Potts,
+ruined by a shake in his right hand, the other a drunken pensioner, Phil
+Doolan, with a wooden leg--petitioned to be enrolled, and were,
+accordingly, admitted. Then Aunt Becky visited the gaols, and had a
+knack of picking up the worst characters there, and had generally two or
+three discharged felons on her hands. Some people said she was a bit of
+a Voltarian, but unjustly; for though she now and then came out with a
+bouncing social paradox, she was a good bitter Church-woman. So she was
+liberal and troublesome--off-handed and dictatorial--not without good
+nature, but administering her benevolences somewhat tyrannically, and,
+for the most part, doing more or less of positive mischief in the
+process.
+
+And now the general ('old Chattesworth,' as the scornful Magnolia
+called him) drew near, with his benevolent smirk, and his stiff bows,
+and all his good-natured formalities--for the general had no notion of
+ignoring his good friend and officer, Major O'Neill, or his sister or
+niece--and so he made up to Mrs. Macnamara, who arrested a narrative in
+which she was demonstrating to O'Flaherty the general's lineal descent
+from old Chattesworth--an army tailor in Queen Anne's time--and his
+cousinship to a live butter dealer in Cork--and spicing her little
+history with not a very nice epigram on his uncle, 'the counsellor,' by
+Dr. Swift, which she delivered with a vicious chuckle in the
+'Fireworker's' ear, who also laughed, though he did not quite see the
+joke, and said, 'Oh-ho-ho, murdher!'
+
+The good Mrs. Mack received the general haughtily and slightly, and Miss
+Magnolia with a short courtesy and a little toss of her head, and up
+went her fan, and she giggled something in Toole's ear, who grinned, and
+glanced uneasily out of the corner of his shrewd little eye at the
+unsuspicious general and on to Aunt Rebecca; for it was very important
+to Dr. Toole to stand well at Belmont. So, seeing that Miss Mag was
+disposed to be vicious, and not caring to be compromised by her tricks,
+he whistled and bawled to his dogs, and with a jolly smirk and flourish
+of his cocked-hat, off he went to seek other adventures.
+
+Thus, was there feud and malice between two houses, and Aunt Rebecca's
+wrong-headed freak of cutting the Macnamaras (for it was not 'snobbery,'
+and she would talk for hours on band-days publicly and familiarly with
+scrubby little Mrs. Toole), involved her innocent relations in scorn and
+ill-will; for this sort of offence, like Chinese treason, is not visited
+on the arch offender only, but according to a scale of consanguinity,
+upon his kith and kin. The criminal is minced--his sons lashed--his
+nephews reduced to cutlets--his cousins to joints--and so on--none of
+the family quite escapes; and seeing the bitter reprisals provoked by
+this kind of uncharity, fiercer and more enduring by much than any
+begotten of more tangible wrongs, Christian people who pray, 'lead us
+not into temptation,' and repeat 'blessed are the peace-makers,' will,
+on the whole, do wisely to forbear practising it.
+
+As handsome, slender Captain Devereux, with his dark face, and great,
+strange, earnest eyes, and that look of intelligence so racy and
+peculiar, that gave him a sort of enigmatical interest, stepped into the
+fair-green, the dark blue glance of poor Nan Glynn, of Palmerstown, from
+under her red Sunday riding-hood, followed the tall, dashing, graceful
+apparition with a stolen glance of wild loyalty and admiration. Poor
+Nan! with thy fun and thy rascalities, thy strong affections and thy
+fatal gift of beauty, where does thy head rest now?
+
+Handsome Captain Devereux!--Gipsy Devereux, as they called him for his
+clear dark complexion--was talking a few minutes later to Lilias
+Walsingham. Oh, pretty Lilias--oh, true lady--I never saw the pleasant
+crayon sketch that my mother used to speak of, but the tradition of
+thee has come to me--so bright and tender, with its rose and violet
+tints, and merry, melancholy dimples, that I see thee now, as then, with
+the dew of thy youth still on thee, and sigh as I look, as if on a lost,
+early love of mine.
+
+'I'm out of conceit with myself,' he said; 'I'm so idle and useless; I
+wish that were all--I wish myself better, but I'm such a weak coxcomb--a
+father-confessor might keep me nearer to my duty--some one to scold and
+exhort me. Perhaps if some charitable lady would take me in hand,
+something might be made of me still.'
+
+There was a vein of seriousness in this reverie which amused the young
+lady; for she had never heard anything worse of him--very young ladies
+seldom do hear the worst--than that he had played once or twice rather
+high.
+
+'Shall I ask Gertrude Chattesworth to speak to her Aunt Rebecca?' said
+Lilias slyly. 'Suppose you attend her school in Martin's Row, with
+"better late than never" over her chimneypiece: there are two pupils of
+your own sex, you know, and you might sit on the bench with poor Potts
+and good old Doolan.'
+
+'Thank you. Miss Lilias,' he answered, with a bow and a little laugh, as
+it seemed just the least bit in the world piqued; 'I know she would do
+it zealously; but neither so well nor so wisely as others might; I wish
+I dare ask _you_ to lecture me.'
+
+'I!' said that young lady. 'Oh, yes, I forgot,' she went on merrily,'
+five years ago, when I was a little girl, you once called me Dr.
+Walsingham's curate, I was so grave--do you remember?'
+
+She did not know how much obliged Devereux was to her for remembering
+that poor little joke, and how much the handsome lieutenant would have
+given, at that instant, to kiss the hand of the grave little girl of
+five years ago.
+
+'I was a more impudent fellow then,' he said, 'than I am now; won't you
+forget my old impertinences, and allow me to make atonement, and be
+your--your _very_ humble servant now?'
+
+She laughed. 'Not my servant--but you know I can't help you being my
+parishioner.'
+
+'And as such surely I may plead an humble right to your counsels and
+reproof. Yes, you _shall_ lecture me--I'll bear it from none but _you_,
+and the more you do it, the happier, at least, you make me,' he said.
+
+'Alas, if my censure is pleasant to you, 'tis a certain sign it can do
+you no good.'
+
+'It _shall_ do me good, and be it never so bitter and so true, it will
+be pleasant to me too,' he answered, with an honest and very peculiar
+light in his dark, strange eyes; and after a little pause, 'I'll tell
+you why, just because I had rather you remembered my faults, than that
+you did not remember me at all.'
+
+'But, 'tis not my business to make people angry.'
+
+'More likely you should make me sad, or perhaps happy, that is to say,
+better. I think you'd like to see your parish improve.'
+
+'So I would--but by means of my example, not my preaching. No; I leave
+that to wiser heads--to the rector, for instance'--and she drew closer
+to the dear old man, with a quick fond glance of such proud affection,
+for she thought the sun never shone upon his like, as made Devereux sigh
+a little unconscious sigh. The old man did not hear her--he was too
+absorbed in his talk--he only felt the pressure of his darling's little
+hand, and returned it, after his wont, with a gentle squeeze of his
+cassocked arm, while he continued the learned essay he was addressing to
+young, queer, erudite, simple Dan Loftus, on the descent of the Decie
+branch of the Desmonds. There was, by-the-bye, a rumour--I know not how
+true--that these two sages were concocting between them, beside their
+folios on the Castle of Chapelizod, an interminable history of Ireland.
+
+Devereux was secretly chafed at the sort of invisible, but insuperable
+resistance which pretty Lilias Walsingham, as it seemed, unconsciously
+opposed to his approaches to a nearer and tenderer sort of trifling.
+'The little Siren! there are air-drawn circles round her which I cannot
+pass--and why should I? How is it that she interests me, and yet repels
+me so easily? And--and when I came here first,' he continued aloud, 'you
+were, oh dear! how mere a child, hardly eleven years old. How long I've
+known you, Miss Lilias, and yet how formal you are with me.' There was
+reproach almost fierce in his eye, though his tones were low and gentle.
+'Well!' he said, with an odd changed little laugh, 'you _did_ commit
+yourself at first--you spoke against card-playing, and I tell you
+frankly I mean to play a great deal more, and a great deal higher than
+I've ever done before, and so adieu.'
+
+He did not choose to see the little motion which indicated that she was
+going to shake hands with him, and only bowed the lower, and answered
+her grave smile, which seemed to say, 'Now, you are vexed,' with another
+little laugh, and turned gaily away, and so was gone.
+
+'She thinks she has wounded me, and she thinks, I suppose, that I can't
+be happy away from her. I'll let her see I can; I shan't speak to her,
+no, nor look at her, for a month!'
+
+The Chattesworths by this time, as well as others, were moving away--and
+that young Mr. Mervyn, more remarked upon than he suspected, walked with
+them to the gate of the fair-green. As he passed he bowed low to good
+Parson Walsingham, who returned his salute, not unkindly--that never
+was--but very gravely, and with his gentle and thoughtful blue eyes
+followed the party sadly on their way.
+
+'Ay--there he goes--Mervyn! Well!--so--so--pray Heaven, sorrow and a
+blight follow him not into this place.' The rector murmured to himself,
+and sighed, still following him with his glance.
+
+Little Lilias, with her hand within his arm, wondered, as she glanced
+upward into that beloved face, what could have darkened it with a look
+so sad and anxious; and then her eyes also followed the retreating
+figure of that pale young man, with a sort of interest not quite unmixed
+with uneasiness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+HOW THE ROYAL IRISH ARTILLERY ENTERTAINED SOME OF THE NEIGHBOURS AT
+DINNER.
+
+
+If I stuck at a fib as little as some historians, I might easily tell
+you who won the prizes at this shooting on Palmerstown Green. But the
+truth is, I don't know; my granduncle could have told me, for he had a
+marvellous memory, but he died, a pleasant old gentleman of four-score
+and upwards, when I was a small urchin. I remember his lively old face,
+his powdered bald head and pigtail, his slight erect figure, and how
+merrily he used to play the fiddle for his juvenile posterity to dance
+to. But I was not of an age to comprehend the value of this thin, living
+volume of old lore, or to question the oracle. Well, it can't be helped
+now, and the papers I've got are silent upon the point. But there were
+jollifications to no end both in Palmerstown and Chapelizod that night,
+and declamatory conversations rising up in the street at very late
+hours, and singing, and '_hurooing_' along the moonlit roads.
+
+There was a large and pleasant dinner-party, too, in the mess-room of
+the Royal Irish Artillery. Lord Castlemallard was there in the place of
+honour, next to jolly old General Chattesworth, and the worthy rector,
+Doctor Walsingham, and Father Roach, the dapper, florid little priest of
+the parish, with his silk waistcoat and well-placed paunch, and his keen
+relish for funny stories, side-dishes, and convivial glass; and Dan
+Loftus, that simple, meek, semi-barbarous young scholar, his head in a
+state of chronic dishevelment, his harmless little round light-blue
+eyes, pinkish from late night reading, generally betraying the absence
+of his vagrant thoughts, and I know not what of goodness, as well as
+queerness, in his homely features.
+
+Good Dr. Walsingham, indeed, in his simple benevolence, had helped the
+strange, kindly creature through college, and had a high opinion of him,
+and a great delight in his company. They were both much given to books,
+and according to their lights zealous archæologists. They had got hold
+of Chapelizod Castle, a good tough enigma. It was a theme they never
+tired of. Loftus had already two folios of extracts copied from all the
+records to which Dr. Walsingham could procure him access. They could not
+have worked harder, indeed, if they were getting up evidence to prove
+their joint title to Lord Castlemallard's estates. This pursuit was a
+bond of close sympathy between the rector and the student, and they
+spent more time than appeared to his parishioners quite consistent with
+sanity in the paddock by the river, pacing up and down, and across,
+poking sticks into the earth and grubbing for old walls underground.
+
+Loftus, moreover, was a good Irish scholar, and from Celtic MSS. had
+elicited some cross-lights upon his subject--not very bright or steady,
+I allow--but enough to delight the rector, and inspire him with a tender
+reverence for the indefatigable and versatile youth, who was devoting to
+the successful equitation of their hobby so many of his hours, and so
+much of his languages, labour, and brains.
+
+Lord Castlemallard was accustomed to be listened to, and was not aware
+how confoundedly dull his talk sometimes was. It was measured, and
+dreamy, and every way slow. He was entertaining the courteous old
+general at the head of the table, with an oration in praise of Paul
+Dangerfield--a wonderful man--immensely wealthy--the cleverest man of
+his age--he might have been anything he pleased. His lordship really
+believed his English property would drop to pieces if Dangerfield
+retired from its management, and he was vastly obliged to him inwardly,
+for retaining the agency even for a little time longer. He was coming
+over to visit the Irish estates--perhaps to give Nutter a wrinkle or
+two. He was a bachelor, and his lordship averred would be a prodigious
+great match for some of our Irish ladies. Chapelizod would be his
+headquarters while in Ireland. No, he was not sure--he rather thought he
+was _not_ of the Thorley family; and so on for a mighty long time. But
+though he tired them prodigiously, he contrived to evoke before their
+minds' eyes a very gigantic, though somewhat hazy figure, and a good
+deal stimulated the interest with which a new arrival was commonly
+looked for in that pleasant suburban village. There is no knowing how
+long Lord Castlemallard might have prosed upon this theme, had he not
+been accidentally cut short, and himself laid fast asleep in his chair,
+without his or anybody else's intending it. For overhearing, during a
+short pause, in which he sipped some claret, Surgeon Sturk applying some
+very strong, and indeed, frightful language to a little pamphlet upon
+magnetism, a subject then making a stir--as from a much earlier date it
+has periodically done down to the present day--he languidly asked Dr.
+Walsingham his opinion upon the subject.
+
+Now, Dr. Walsingham was a great reader of out-of-the-way lore, and
+retained it with a sometimes painful accuracy; and he forthwith began--
+
+'There is, my Lord Castlemallard, a curious old tract of the learned Van
+Helmont, in which he says, as near as I can remember his words, that
+magnetism is a magical faculty, which lieth dormant in us by the opiate
+of primitive sin, and, therefore, stands in need of an excitator, which
+excitator may be either good or evil; but is more frequently Satan
+himself, by reason of some previous oppignoration or compact with
+witches. The power, indeed, is in the witch, and not conferred by him;
+but this versipellous or Protean impostor--these are his words--will not
+suffer her to know that it is of her own natural endowment, though for
+the present charmed into somnolent inactivity by the narcotic of
+primitive sin.'
+
+I verily believe that a fair description--none of your poetical
+balderdash, but an honest plodding description of a perfectly
+comfortable bed, and of the process of going to sleep, would,
+judiciously administered soon after dinner, overpower the vivacity of
+any tranquil gentleman who loves a nap after that meal--gently draw the
+curtains of his senses, and extinguish the bed-room candle of his
+consciousness. In the doctor's address and quotation there was so much
+about somnolency and narcotics, and lying dormant, and opiates, that my
+Lord Castlemallard's senses forsook him, and he lost, as you, my kind
+reader, must, all the latter portion of the doctor's lullaby.
+
+'I'd give half I'm pothethed of, Thir, and all my prothpecth in life,'
+lisped vehemently plump little Lieutenant Puddock, in one of those stage
+frenzies to which he was prone, 'to be the firtht Alecthander on the
+boardth.'
+
+Between ourselves, Puddock was short and fat, very sentimental, and a
+little bit of a _gourmet_; his desk stuffed with amorous sonnets and
+receipts for side-dishes; he, always in love, and often in the kitchen,
+where, under the rose, he loved to direct the cooking of critical little
+_plats_, very good-natured, rather literal, very courteous, _a
+chevallier_, indeed, _sans reproche_. He had a profound faith in his
+genius for tragedy, but those who liked him best could not help thinking
+that his plump cheeks, round, little light eyes, his lisp, and a certain
+lack-a-daisical, though solemn expression of surprise, which Nature, in
+one of her jocular moods, seemed to have fixed upon his countenance,
+were against his shining in that walk of the drama. He was blessed, too,
+with a pleasant belief in his acceptance with the fair sex, but had a
+real one with his comrades, who knew his absurdities and his virtues,
+and laughed at and loved him.
+
+'But hang it, there 'th no uthe in doing things by halves. Melpomene's
+the most jealous of the Muses. I tell you if you stand well in her
+gratheth, by Jove, Thir, you mutht give yourthelf up to her body and
+thoul. How the deuthe can a fellow that's out at drill at hicth in the
+morning, and all day with his head filled with tacticth and gunnery,
+and--and--'
+
+'And 'farced pigeons' and lovely women,' said Devereux.
+
+'And such dry professional matterth,' continued he, without noticing,
+perhaps hearing the interpolation, 'How can he pothibly have a chance
+againth geniuses, no doubt--vathly thuperior by nature'--(Puddock, the
+rogue, believed no such thing)--'but who devote themthelveth to the
+thtudy of the art incethantly, exclusively, and--and----'
+
+'Impossible,' said O'Flaherty. 'There now, was Tommy Shycock, of
+Ballybaisly, that larned himself to balance a fiddle-stick on his chin;
+and the young leedies, and especially Miss Kitty Mahony, used to be all
+around him in the ball-room at Thralee, lookin', wondhrin', and
+laughin'; and I that had twiste his brains, could not come round it,
+though I got up every morning for a month at four o'clock, and was
+obleeged to give over be rason of a soart iv a squint I was gettin' be
+looking continually at the fiddle-stick. I began with a double bass, the
+way he did--it's it that was the powerful fateaguin' exercise, I can
+tell you. Two blessed hours a-day, regular practice, besides an odd
+half-hour, now and agin, for three mortial years, it took him to larn
+it, and dhrilled a dimple in his chin you could put a marrow-fat pay
+in.'
+
+'Practice,' resumed Puddock, I need not spell his lisp, 'study--time to
+devote--industry in great things as in small--there's the secret.
+_Nature_, to be sure--'
+
+'Ay, Nature, to be sure--we must sustain Nature, dear Puddock, so pass
+the bottle,' said Devereux, who liked his glass.
+
+'Be the powers, Mr. Puddock, if I had half your janius for play-acting,'
+persisted O'Flaherty, 'nothing i'd keep me from the boards iv
+Smock-alley play-house--incog., I mean, of course. There's that
+wonderful little Mr. Garrick--why he's the talk of the three kingdoms as
+long as I can remember--an' making his thousand pounds a week--coining,
+be gannies--an' he can't be much taller than you, for he's contimptably
+small.'
+
+'I'm the taller man of the two,' said little Puddock, haughtily, who had
+made enquiries, and claimed half an inch over Rocius, honestly, let us
+hope. 'But this is building castles in the air; joking apart, however, I
+do confess I should dearly love--just for a maggot--to play two
+parts--Richard the Third and Tamerlane.'
+
+'Was not that the part you spoke that sympathetic speech out of for me
+before dinner?'
+
+'No, that was Justice Greedy,' said Devereux.
+
+'Ay, so it was--was it?--that smothered his wife.'
+
+'With a pudding clout,' persisted Devereux.
+
+'No. With a--pooh!--a--you know--and stabbed himself,' continued
+O'Flaherty.
+
+'With a larding-pin--'tis written in good Italian.'
+
+'Augh, not at all--it isn't Italian, but English, I'm thinking of--a
+pilla, Puddock, you know--the _black_ rascal.'
+
+'Well, English or Italian--tragedy or comedy,' said Devereux, who liked
+Puddock, and would not annoy him, and saw he was hurt by Othello's
+borrowing his properties from the kitchen; 'I venture to say you were
+well entertained: and for my part, Sir, there are some characters'--(in
+farce Puddock was really highly diverting)--'in which I prefer Puddock
+to any player I every saw.'
+
+'Oh--ho--ho!' laughed poor little Puddock, with a most gratified
+derisiveness, for he cherished in secret a great admiration for
+Devereux.
+
+And so they talked stage-talk. Puddock lithping away, grand and
+garrulous; O'Flaherty, the illiterate, blundering in with sincere
+applause; and Devereux sipping his claret and dropping a quiet saucy
+word now and again.
+
+'I shall never forget Mrs. Cibber's countenance in that last scene--you
+know--in the "Orphan"--Monimia _you_ know, Devereux.' And the table
+being by this time in high chat, and the chairs a little irregular,
+Puddock slipped off his, and addressing himself to Devereux and
+O'Flaherty--just to give them a notion of Mrs. Cibber--began, with a
+countenance the most wobegone, and in a piping falsetto--
+
+     'When I am laid low, i' the grave, and quite forgotten.'
+
+Monimia dies at the end of the speech--as the reader may not be aware;
+but when Puddock came to the line--
+
+     'When I am dead, as presently I shall be,'
+
+all Mrs. Cibber's best points being still to come, the little
+lieutenant's heel caught in the edge of the carpet, as he sailed with an
+imaginary hoop on grandly backward, and in spite of a surprising
+flick-flack cut in the attempt to recover his equipoise, down came the
+'orphan,' together with a table-load of spoons and plates, with a crash
+that stopt all conversation.
+
+Lord Castlemallard waked up, with a snort and a 'hollo, gentlemen!'
+
+'It's only poor dear Monimia, general,' said Devereux with a melancholy
+bow, in reply to a fiery and startled stare darted to the point by that
+gallant officer.
+
+'Hey--eh?' said his lordship, brightening up, and gazing glassily round
+with a wan smile; and I fancy he thought a lady had somehow introduced
+herself during his nap, and was pleased, for he admired the sex.
+
+'If there's any recitation going on, I think it had better be for the
+benefit of the company,' said the general, a little surly, and looking
+full upon the plump Monimia, who was arranging his frill and hair, and
+getting a little awkwardly into his place.
+
+'And I think 'twould be no harm, Lieutenant Puddock, my dear,' says
+Father Roach, testily, for he had been himself frightened by the crash,
+'if you'd die a little aisier the next time.'
+
+Puddock began to apologise.
+
+'Never mind,' said the general, recovering, 'let's fill our glasses--my
+Lord Castlemallard, they tell me this claret is a pretty wine.'
+
+'A very pretty wine,' said my lord.
+
+'And suppose, my lord, we ask these gentlemen to give us a song? I say,
+gentlemen, there are fine voices among you. Will some gentleman oblige
+the company with a song?'
+
+'Mr. Loftus sings a very fine song, I'm told,' said Captain Cluffe, with
+a wink at Father Roach.
+
+'Ay,' cried Roach, backing up the joke (a good old one, and not yet
+quite off the hooks), 'Mr. Loftus sings, I'll take my davy--I've heard
+him!'
+
+Loftus was shy, simple, and grotesque, and looked like a man who could
+not sing a note. So when he opened his eyes, looked round, and blushed,
+there was a general knocking of glasses, and a very flattering clamour
+for Mr. Loftus's song.
+
+But when silence came, to the surprise of the company he submitted,
+though with manifest trepidation, and told them that he would sing as
+the company desired. It was a song from a good old writer upon fasting
+in Lent, and was, in fact, a reproof to all hypocrisy. Hereupon there
+was a great ringing of glasses and a jolly round of laughter rose up in
+the cheer that welcomed the announcement. Father Roach looked queer and
+disconcerted, and shot a look of suspicion at Devereux, for poor Dan
+Loftus had, in truth, hit that divine strait in a very tender spot.
+
+The fact is, Father Roach was, as Irish priests were sometimes then, a
+bit of a sportsman. He and Toole used occasionally to make mysterious
+excursions to the Dublin mountains. He had a couple of mighty good dogs,
+which he lent freely, being a good-natured fellow. He liked good living
+and jolly young fellows, and was popular among the officers, who used to
+pop in freely enough at his reverence's green hall-door whenever they
+wanted a loan of his dogs, or to take counsel of the ghostly father
+(whose opinion was valued more highly even than Toole's) upon the case
+of a sick dog or a lame nag.
+
+Well, one morning--only a few weeks before--Devereux and Toole together
+had looked in on some such business upon his reverence--a little
+suddenly--and found him eating a hare!--by all the gods, it
+_was_--hare-pie in the middle of Lent!
+
+It was at breakfast. His dinner was the meal of an anchorite, and who
+would have guessed that these confounded sparks would have bounced into
+his little refectory at that hour of the morning? There was no room for
+equivocation; he had been caught in the very act of criminal
+conversation with the hare-pie. He rose with a spring, like a
+Jack-in-a-box, as they entered, and knife and fork in hand, and with
+shining chops, stared at them with an angry, bothered, and alarmed
+countenance, which increased their laughter. It was a good while before
+he obtained a hearing, such was the hilarity, so sustained the fire of
+ironical compliments, enquiries, and pleasantries, and the general
+uproar.
+
+When he did, with hand uplifted, after the manner of a prisoner
+arraigned for murder, he pleaded 'a dispensation.' I suppose it was
+true, for he backed the allegation with several most religious oaths and
+imprecations, and explained how men were not always quite so strong as
+they looked; that he might, if he liked it, by permission of his bishop,
+eat meat at every meal in the day, and every day in the week; that his
+not doing so was a voluntary abstinence--not conscientious, only
+expedient--to prevent the 'unreasonable remarks' of his parishioners (a
+roar of laughter); that he was, perhaps, rightly served for not having
+publicly availed himself of his bishop's dispensation (renewed peals of
+merriment). By this foolish delicacy (more of that detestable
+horse-laughter), he had got himself into a false position; and so on,
+till the _ad misericordiam_ peroration addressed to 'Captain Devereux,
+dear,' and 'Toole, my honey.' Well, they quizzed him unmercifully; they
+sat down and eat all that was left of the hare-pie, under his wistful
+ogle. They made him narrate minutely every circumstance connected with
+the smuggling of the game, and the illicit distillation for the mess.
+They never passed so pleasant a morning. Of course he bound them over to
+eternal secrecy, and of course, as in all similar cases, the vow was
+religiously observed; nothing was ever heard of it at mess--oh, no--and
+Toole never gave a dramatic representation of the occurrence, heightened
+and embellished with all the little doctor's genius for farce.
+
+There certainly was a monologue to which he frequently afterwards
+treated the Aldermen of Skinner's Alley, and other convivial bodies, at
+supper, the doctor's gestures were made with knife and fork in hand, and
+it was spoken in a rich brogue and tones sometimes of thrilling pathos,
+anon of sharp and vehement indignation, and again of childlike
+endearment, amidst pounding and jingling of glasses, and screams of
+laughter from the company. Indeed the lord mayor, a fat slob of a
+fellow, though not much given to undue merriment, laughed his ribs into
+such a state of breathless torture, that he implored of Toole, with a
+wave of his hand--he could not speak--to give him breathing time, which
+that voluble performer disregarding, his lordship had to rise twice, and
+get to the window, or, as he afterwards said, he should have lost his
+life; and when the performance was ended, his fat cheeks were covered
+with tears, his mouth hung down, his head wagged slowly from side to
+side, and with short gasping 'oohs,' and 'oohs,' his hands pressed to
+his pudgy ribs, he looked so pale and breathless, that although they
+said nothing, several of his comrades stared hard at him, and thought
+him in rather a queer state.
+
+Shortly after this little surprise, I suppose by way of ratifying the
+secret treaty of silence, Father Roach gave the officers and Toole a
+grand Lent dinner of fish, with no less than nineteen different _plats_,
+baked, boiled, stewed, in fact, a very splendid feast; and Puddock
+talked of some of those dishes more than twenty years afterwards.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+IN WHICH THE MINSTRELSY PROCEEDS.
+
+
+No wonder, then, if Father Roach, when Loftus, in the innocence of his
+heart, announced his song and its theme, was thoroughly uneasy, and
+would have given a good deal that he had not helped that simple youth
+into his difficulty. But things must now take their course. So amid a
+decorous silence, Dan Loftus lifted up his voice, and sang. That voice
+was a high small pipe, with a very nervous quaver in it. He leaned back
+in his chair, and little more than the whites of his upturned eyes were
+visible; and beating time upon the table with one hand, claw-wise, and
+with two or three queer, little thrills and roulades, which re-appeared
+with great precision in each verse, he delivered himself thus, in what I
+suspect was an old psalm tune:--
+
+  'Now Lent is come, let us refrain
+  From carnal creatures, quick or slain;
+  Let's fast and macerate the flesh,
+  Impound and keep it in distress.'
+
+Here there came a wonderful, unspellable choking sound, partly through
+the mouth, partly through the nose, from several of the officers; and
+old General Chattesworth, who was frowning hard upon his dessert-plate,
+cried, 'Order, gentlemen,' in a stern, but very tremulous undertone.
+Lord Castlemallard, leaning upon his elbow, was staring with a grave and
+dreamy curiosity at the songster, and neither he nor his lordship heard
+the interruption, and on went the pleasant ditty; and as the musician
+regularly repeated the last two lines like a clerk in a piece of
+psalmody, the young wags, to save themselves from bursting outright,
+joined in the chorus, while verse after verse waxed more uproarious and
+hilarious, and gave a singular relief to Loftus's thin, high, quavering
+solo:--
+
+  (_Loftus, solo._)
+
+  'But to forbear from flesh, fowl, fish,
+  And eat potatoes in a dish,
+  Done o'er with amber, or a mess
+  Of ringos in a Spanish dress
+
+  (_Chorus of Officers._)
+
+  'Done o'er with amber, or a mess
+  Of ringos in a Spanish dress.'
+
+''Tis a good song,' murmured Doctor Walsingham in Lord Castlemallard's
+ear--'I know the verses well--the ingenious and pious Howel penned them
+in the reign of King James the First.'
+
+'Ha! thank you, Sir,' said his lordship.
+
+  (_Loftus, solo._)
+
+  'Or to refrain from all high dishes,
+  But feed our thoughts with wanton wishes,
+  Making the soul, like a light wench,
+  Wear patches of concupiscence.
+
+  (_Chorus of Officers._)
+
+  'Making the soul, like a light wench,
+  Wear patches of concupiscence
+
+  (_Loftus, solo._)
+
+  'This is not to keep Lent aright,
+  But play the juggling hypocrite;
+  For we must starve the inward man,
+  And feed the outward too on bran.
+
+  (_Chorus of Officers._)
+
+  'For we must starve the inward man,
+  And feed the outward too on bran.'
+
+I believe no song was ever received with heartier bursts of laughter and
+applause. Puddock indeed was grave, being a good deal interested in the
+dishes sung by the poet. So, for the sake of its moral point, was Dr.
+Walsingham, who, with brows gathered together judicially, kept time with
+head and hand, murmuring 'true, true--_good_, Sir, good,' from time to
+time, as the sentiment liked him.
+
+But honest Father Roach was confoundedly put out by the performance. He
+sat with his blue double chin buried in his breast, his mouth pursed up
+tightly, a red scowl all over his face, his quick, little, angry,
+suspicious eyes peeping cornerwise, now this way, now that, not knowing
+how to take what seemed to him like a deliberate conspiracy to roast him
+for the entertainment of the company, who followed the concluding verse
+with a universal roaring chorus, which went off into a storm of
+laughter, in which Father Roach made an absurd attempt to join. But it
+was only a gunpowder glare, swallowed in an instant in darkness, and
+down came the black portcullis of his scowl with a chop, while clearing
+his voice, and directing his red face and vicious little eyes straight
+on simple Dan Loftus he said, rising very erect and square from an
+unusually ceremonious bow--
+
+'I don't know, Mr. Loftus, exactly what you mean by a "ring-goat in a
+Spanish dress"' (the priest had just smuggled over a wonderful bit of
+ecclesiastical toggery from Salamanca): 'and--a--person wearing patches,
+you said of--of--patches of concupiscence, I think.' (Father Roach's
+housekeeper unfortunately wore patches, though, it is right to add, she
+was altogether virtuous, and by no means young); 'but I'm bound to
+suppose, by the amusement our friends seem to derive from it, Sir, that
+a ring-goat, whatever it means, is a good joke, as well as a
+good-natured one.'
+
+'But, by your leave, Sir,' emphatically interposed Puddock, on whose ear
+the ecclesiastic's blunder grated like a discord, 'Mr. Loftus sang
+nothing about a goat, though kid is not a bad thing: he said, "ringos,"
+meaning, I conclude, eringoeous, a delicious preserve or confection.
+Have you never eaten them, either preserved or candied--a--why I--a--I
+happen to have a receipt--a--and if you permit me, Sir--a capital
+receipt. When I was a boy, I made some once at home, Sir; and, by
+Jupiter, my brother, Sam, eat of them till he was quite sick--I
+remember, _so_ sick, by Jupiter, my poor mother and old Dorcas had to
+sit up all night with him--a--and--I was going to say, if you will allow
+me, Sir, I shall be very happy to send the receipt to your housekeeper.'
+
+'You'll not like it, Sir,' said Devereux, mischievously: 'but there
+really is a capital one--quite of another kind--a lenten dish--fish, you
+know, Puddock--the one you described yesterday; but Mr. Loftus has, I
+think, a still better way.'
+
+'Have you, Sir?' asked Puddock, who had a keen appetite for knowledge.
+
+'I don't know, Captain Puddock,' murmured Loftus, bewildered.
+
+'What is it?' remarked his reverence, shortly.
+
+'A roast roach,' answered Puddock, looking quite innocently in that
+theologian's fiery face.
+
+'_Thank_ you,' said Father Roach, with an expression of countenance
+which polite little Puddock did not in the least understand.
+
+'And how _do you_ roast him--we know Loftus's receipt,' persisted
+Devereux, with remarkable cruelty.
+
+'Just like a lump,' said Puddock, briskly.
+
+'And how is that?' enquired Devereux.
+
+'Flay the lump--splat him--divide him,' answered Puddock, with great
+volubility; 'and cut each side into two pieces; season with salt,
+pepper, and nutmeg, and baste with clarified butter; dish him with
+slices of oranges, barberries, grapes, gooseberries, and butter; and you
+will find that he eats deliriously either with farced pain or gammon
+pain.'
+
+This rhapsody, delivered with the rapidity and emphasis of Puddock's
+earnest lisp, was accompanied with very general tokens of merriment from
+the company, and the priest, who half suspected him of having invented
+it, was on the point of falling foul of him, when Lord Castlemallard
+rose to take leave, and the general forthwith vacated the chair, and so
+the party broke up, fell into groups, and the greater part sauntered off
+to the Phoenix, where, in the club-room, they, with less restraint,
+and some new recruits, carried on the pleasures of the evening, which
+pleasures, as will sometimes happen, ended in something rather serious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+SHOWING HOW TWO GENTLEMEN MAY MISUNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER, WITHOUT
+ENABLING THE COMPANY TO UNDERSTAND THEIR QUARREL.
+
+
+Loftus had by this time climbed to the savage lair of his garret,
+overstrewn with tattered papers and books; and Father Roach, in the
+sanctuary of his little parlour, was growling over the bones of a
+devilled-turkey, and about to soothe his fretted soul in a generous
+libation of hot whiskey punch. Indeed, he was of an appeasable nature,
+and on the whole a very good fellow.
+
+Dr. Toole, whom the young fellows found along with Nutter over the
+draught-board in the club-room, forsook his game to devour the story of
+Loftus's Lenten Hymn, and poor Father Roach's penance, rubbed his hands,
+and slapped his thigh, and crowed and shouted with ecstasy. O'Flaherty,
+who called for punch, and was unfortunately prone to grow melancholy and
+pugnacious over his liquor, was now in a saturnine vein of sentiment,
+discoursing of the charms of his peerless mistress, the Lady Magnolia
+Macnamara--for he was not one of those maudlin shepherds, who pipe their
+loves in lonely glens and other sequestered places, but rather loved to
+exhibit his bare scars, and roar his tender torments for the edification
+of the market-place.
+
+While he was descanting on the attributes of that bewitching 'crature,'
+Puddock, not two yards off, was describing, with scarcely less unction,
+the perfections of 'pig roast with the hair on:' and the two made a
+medley like 'The Roast Beef of Old England,' and 'The Last Rose of
+Summer,' arranged in alternate stanzas. O'Flaherty suddenly stopped
+short, and said a little sternly to Lieutenant Puddock--
+
+'Does it very much signify, Sir (or as O'Flaherty pronounced it "Sorr,")
+whether the animal has hair upon it or not?'
+
+_'Every_ thing, Thir, in thith particular retheipt,' answered Puddock, a
+little loftily.
+
+'But,' said Nutter, who, though no great talker, would make an effort to
+prevent a quarrel, and at the same time winking to Puddock in token that
+O'Flaherty was just a little 'hearty,' and so to let him alone; 'what
+signifies pigs' hair, compared with human tresses?'
+
+'Compared with _human_ tresses?' interrupted O'Flaherty, with stern
+deliberation, and fixing his eyes steadily and rather unpleasantly upon
+Nutter (I think he saw that wink and perhaps did not understand its
+import.)
+
+'Ay, Sir, and Mrs. Magnolia Macnamara has as rich a head of hair as you
+could wish to see,' says Nutter, thinking he was drawing him off very
+cleverly.
+
+'As _I_ could wish to see?' repeated O'Flaherty grimly.
+
+'As _you_ could desire to see, Sir,' reiterated Nutter, firmly, for he
+was not easily put down; and they looked for several seconds in silence
+a little menacingly, though puzzled, at one another.
+
+But O'Flaherty, after a short pause, seemed to forget Nutter, and
+returned to his celestial theme.
+
+'Be the powers, Sir, that young leedy has the most beautiful dimple in
+her chin I ever set eyes on!'
+
+'Have you ever put a marrow fat pea in it, Sir?' enquired Devereux,
+simply, with all the beautiful rashness of youth.
+
+'No, Sorr,' replied O'Flaherty, in a deep tone, and with a very
+dangerous glare; 'and I'd like to see the man who, in my presence, id
+preshum to teeke that libertee.'
+
+'What a glorious name Magnolia is!' interposed little Toole in great
+haste; for it was a practice among these worthies to avert
+quarrels--very serious affairs in these jolly days--by making timely
+little diversions, and it is wonderful, at a critical moment, what may
+be done by suddenly presenting a trifle; a pin's point, sometimes--at
+least, a marvellously small one--will draw off innocuously, the
+accumulating electricity of a pair of bloated scowling thunder-clouds.
+
+'It was her noble godmother, when the family resided at Castlemara, in
+the county of Roscommon, the Lady Carrick-o'-Gunniol, who conferred it,'
+said O'Flaherty, grandly, 'upon her god-daughter, as who had a better
+right--I say, _who_ had a better right?' and he smote his hand upon the
+table, and looked round inviting contradiction. 'My godmothers, in my
+baptism--that's catechism--and all the town of Chapelizod won't put that
+down--the Holy Church Catechism--while Hyacinth O'Flaherty, of
+Coolnaquirk, Lieutenant Fireworker, wears a sword.'
+
+'Nobly said, lieutenant!' exclaimed Toole, with a sly wink over his
+shoulder.
+
+'And what about that leedy's neeme, Sir?' demanded the enamoured
+fireworker.
+
+'By Jove, Sir, it is quite true, Lady Carrick-o'-Gunniol _was_ her
+godmother:' and Toole ran off into the story of how that relationship
+was brought about; narrating it, however, with great caution and
+mildness, extracting all the satire, and giving it quite a dignified and
+creditable character, for the Lieutenant Fireworker smelt so
+confoundedly of powder that the little doctor, though he never flinched
+when occasion demanded, did not care to give him an open. Those who had
+heard the same story from the mischievous merry little doctor before,
+were I dare say, amused at the grand and complimentary turn he gave it
+now.
+
+The fact was, that poor Magnolia's name came to her in no very gracious
+way. Young Lady Carrick-o'-Gunniol was a bit of a wag, and was planting
+a magnolia--one of the first of those botanical rarities seen in
+Ireland--when good-natured, vapouring, vulgar Mrs. Macnamara's note, who
+wished to secure a peeress for her daughter's spiritual guardian,
+arrived. Her ladyship pencilled on the back of the note, 'Pray call the
+dear babe Magnolia,' and forthwith forgot all about it. But Madam
+Macnamara was charmed, and the autograph remained afterwards for two
+generations among the archives of the family; and, with great smiles and
+much complacency, she told Lord Carrick-o'-Gunniol all about it, just
+outside the grand jury-room, where she met him during the assize week;
+and, being a man of a weak and considerate nature, rather kind, and very
+courteous--although his smile was very near exploding into a laugh, as
+he gave the good lady snuff out of his own box--he was yet very much
+concerned and vexed, and asked his lady, when he went home, how she
+could have induced old Mrs. Macnamara to give that absurd name to her
+poor infant; whereat her ladyship, who had not thought of it since, was
+highly diverted; and being assured that the babe was actually
+christened, and past recovery Magnolia Macnamara, laughed very merrily,
+kissed her lord, who was shaking his head gravely, and then popped her
+hood on, kissed him again, and, laughing still, ran out to look at her
+magnolia, which, by way of reprisal, he henceforth, notwithstanding her
+entreaties, always called her 'Macnamara;' until, to her infinite
+delight, he came out with it, as it sometimes happens, at a wrong time,
+and asked old Mac--a large, mild man--then extant, Madame herself,
+nurse, infant Magnolia, and all, who had arrived at the castle, to walk
+out and see Lady Carrick-o'-Gunniol's 'Macnamara,' and perceived not the
+slip, such is the force of habit, though the family stared, and Lady C.
+laughed in an uncalled-for-way, at a sudden recollection of a tumble she
+once had, when a child, over a flower-bed; and broke out repeatedly, to
+my lord's chagrin and bewilderment, as they walked towards the exotic.
+
+When Toole ended his little family anecdote, which, you may be sure, he
+took care to render as palatable to Magnolia's knight as possible, by
+not very scrupulous excisions and interpolations he wound all up,
+without allowing an instant for criticism or question, by saying
+briskly, though incoherently.
+
+'And so, what do you say, lieutenant, to a Welsh rabbit for supper?'
+
+The lieutenant nodded a stolid assent.
+
+'Will _you_ have one, Nutter?' cried Toole.
+
+'No,' said Nutter.
+
+'And why not?' says Toole.
+
+'Why, I believe Tom Rooke's song in praise of oysters,' answered Nutter,
+'especially the verse--
+
+  '"The youth will ne'er live to scratch a gray head,
+  On a supper who goes of Welsh rabbit to bed."'
+
+How came it to pass that Nutter hardly opened his lips this evening--on
+which, as the men who knew him longest all remarked, he was
+unprecedentedly talkative--without instantaneously becoming the mark at
+which O'Flaherty directed his fiercest and most suspicious scowls? And
+now that I know the allusion which the pugnacious lieutenant
+apprehended, I cannot but admire the fatality with which, without the
+smallest design, a very serious misunderstanding was brought about.
+
+'As to _youths_ living to scratch gray heads or not, Sir,' said the
+young officer, in most menacing tones; 'I don't see what concern persons
+of your age can have in that. But I'll take leave to tell you, Sir, that
+a gentleman, whether he be a "youth" as you _say_, or aged, as you
+_are_, who endayvours to make himself diverting at the expense of
+others, runs a murdhering good risk, Sir, of getting himself scratched
+where he'll like it least.'
+
+Little Nutter, though grave and generally taciturn, had a spirit of his
+own, and no notion whatever of knocking under to a bully. It is true, he
+had not the faintest notion why he was singled out for the young
+gentleman's impertinence; but neither did he mean to enquire. His
+mahogany features darkened for a moment to logwood, and his eyes showed
+their whites fiercely.
+
+'We are not accustomed, Sir, in this part of the world, to your Connaught
+notions of politeness; we meet here for social--a--a--sociality, Sir;
+and the long and the short of it is, young gentleman, if you don't change
+your key, you'll find two can play at that game--and--and, I tell you,
+Sir, there will be wigs on the green, Sir.'
+
+Here several voices interposed.
+
+'Silence, gentlemen, and let me speak, or I'll assault him,' bellowed
+O'Flaherty, who, to do him justice, at this moment looked capable of
+anything. 'I believe, Sir,' he continued, addressing Nutter, who
+confronted him like a little game-cock, 'it is not usual for one
+gentleman who renders himself offensive to another to oblige him to
+proceed to the length of manually malthrating his person.'
+
+'Hey! eh?' said Nutter, drawing his mouth tight on one side with an ugly
+expression, and clenching his hands in his breeches pockets.
+
+'Manually malthrating his person, Sir,' repeated O'Flaherty, 'by
+striking, kicking, or whipping any part or mimber of his body; or
+offering a milder assault, such as a pull by the chin, or a finger-tap
+upon the nose. It is usual, Sir, for the purpose of avoiding
+ungentlemanlike noise, inconvenience, and confusion, that one gentleman
+should request of another to suppose himself affronted in the manner,
+whatever it may be, most intolerable to his feelings, which request I
+now, Sir, teeke the libertee of preferring to you; and when you have
+engaged the services of a friend, I trust that Lieutenant Puddock, who
+lodges in the same house with me, will, in consideration of my being an
+officer of the same honourable corps, a sthranger in this part of the
+counthry, and, above all, a gentleman who can show paydagree like
+himself [here a low bow to Puddock, who returned it]; that Lieutenant
+Puddock will be so feelin' and so kind as to receive him on my behalf,
+and acting as _my_ friend to manage all the particulars for settling, as
+easily as may be, this most unprovoked affair.'
+
+With which words he made another bow, and a pause of enquiry directed to
+Puddock, who lisped with dignity--
+
+'Sir, the duty is, for many reasons, painful; but I--I can't refuse,
+Sir, and I accept the trust.'
+
+So O'Flaherty shook his hand, with another bow; bowed silently and
+loftily round the room, and disappeared, and a general buzz and a clack
+of tongues arose.
+
+'Mr. Nutter--a--I hope things may be settled pleasantly,' said Puddock,
+looking as tall and weighty as he could; 'at present I--a--that is, at
+the moment, I--a--don't quite see--[the fact is, he had not a notion
+what the deuce it was all about]--but your friend will find me--your
+friend--a--at my lodgings up to one o'clock to-night, if necessary.'
+
+And so Puddock's bow. For the moment an affair of this sort presented
+itself, all concerned therein became reserved and official, and the
+representatives merely of a ceremonious etiquette and a
+minutely-regulated ordeal of battle. So, as I said, Puddock bowed
+grandly and sublimely to Nutter, and then magnificently to the company,
+and made his exit.
+
+There was a sort of a stun and a lull for several seconds. Something
+very decisive and serious had occurred. One or two countenances wore
+that stern and mysterious smile, which implies no hilarity, but a kind
+of reaction in presence of the astounding and the slightly horrible.
+There was a silence; the gentlemen kept their attitudes too, for some
+moments, and all eyes were directed toward the door. Then some turned to
+Charles Nutter, and then the momentary spell dissolved itself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+RELATING HOW DOCTOR TOOLE AND CAPTAIN DEVEREUX WENT ON A MOONLIGHT
+ERRAND.
+
+
+Nearly a dozen gentlemen broke out at once into voluble speech. Nutter
+was in a confounded passion; but being a man of few words, showed his
+wrath chiefly in his countenance, and stood with his legs apart and his
+arms stuffed straight into his coat pockets, his back to the fire-place,
+with his chest thrown daringly out, sniffing the air in a state of high
+tension, and as like as a respectable little fellow of five feet six
+could be to that giant who smelt the blood of the Irishman, and swore,
+with a 'Fee! Faw!! Fum!!!' he'd 'eat him for his supper that night.'
+
+'None of the corps can represent you, Nutter, you know,' said Captain
+Cluffe. 'It may go hard enough with Puddock and O'Flaherty, as the
+matter stands; but, by Jove! if any of us appear on the other side, the
+general would make it a very serious affair, indeed.'
+
+'Toole, can't you?' asked Devereux.
+
+'Out of the question,' answered he, shutting his eyes, with a frown, and
+shaking his head. 'There's no man I'd do it sooner for, Nutter knows;
+but I can't--I've refused too often; besides, you'll want me
+professionally, you know; for Sturk must attend that Royal Hospital
+enquiry to-morrow all day--but hang it, where's the difficulty? Isn't
+there?--pooh!--why there must be lots of fellows at hand. Just--a--just
+think for a minute.'
+
+'I don't care who,' said Nutter, with dry ferocity, 'so he can load a
+pistol.'
+
+'Tom Forsythe would have done capitally, if he was at home,' said one.
+
+'But he's _not_,' remarked Cluffe.
+
+'Well,' said Toole, getting close up to Devereux, in a coaxing
+undertone, 'suppose we try Loftus.'
+
+'Dan Loftus!' ejaculated Devereux.
+
+'Dan Loftus,' repeated the little doctor, testily; 'remember, it's just
+eleven o'clock. He's no great things, to be sure; but what better can we
+get.'
+
+'Allons, donc!' said Devereux, donning his cocked-hat, with a shrug, and
+the least little bit of a satirical smile, and out bustled the doctor
+beside him.
+
+'Where the deuce did that broganeer, O'Flaherty, come from?' said
+Cluffe, confidentially, to old Major O'Neill.
+
+'A Connaughtman,' answered the major, with a grim smile, for he was
+himself of that province and was, perhaps, a little bit proud of his
+countryman.
+
+'Toole says he's well connected,' pursued Cluffe; 'but, by Jupiter! I
+never saw so-mere a Teague; and the most cross-grained devil of a
+cat-a-mountain.'
+
+'I could not quite understand why he fastened on Mr. Nutter,' observed
+the major, with a mild smile.
+
+'I'll rid the town of him,' rapped out Nutter, with an oath, leering at
+his own shoebuckle, and tapping the sole with asperity on the floor.
+
+'If you are thinking of any unpleasant measures, gentlemen, I'd rather,
+if you please, know nothing of them,' said the sly, quiet major; 'for
+the general, you are aware, has expressed a strong opinion about such
+affairs; and as 'tis past my bed-hour, I'll wish you, gentlemen, a
+good-night,' and off went the major.
+
+'Upon my life, if this Connaught rapparee is permitted to carry on his
+business of indiscriminate cut-throat here, he'll make the service very
+pleasant,' resumed Cluffe, who, though a brisk young fellow of
+eight-and-forty, had no special fancy for being shot. 'I say the general
+ought to take the matter into his own hands.'
+
+'Not till I'm done with it,' growled Nutter.
+
+'And send the young gentleman home to Connaught,' pursued Cluffe.
+
+'I'll send him first to the other place,' said Nutter, in allusion to
+the Lord Protector's well-known alternative.
+
+In the open street, under the sly old moon, red little Dr. Toole, in his
+great wig, and Gipsy Devereux, in quest of a squire for the good knight
+who stood panting for battle in the front parlour of the 'Phoenix,'
+saw a red glimmer in Loftus's dormant window.
+
+'He's alive and stirring still,' said Devereux, approaching the hall
+door with a military nonchalance.
+
+'Whisht!' said Toole, plucking him back by the sash: 'we must not make a
+noise--the house is asleep. I'll manage it--leave it to me.'
+
+And he took up a handful of gravel, but not having got the range, he
+shied it all against old Tom Drought's bed-room window.
+
+'Deuce take that old sneak,' whispered Toole vehemently, 'he's always in
+the way; the last man in the town I'd have--but no matter:' and up went
+a pebble, better directed, for this time it went right through Loftus's
+window, and a pleasant little shower of broken glass jingled down into
+the street.
+
+'Confound you, Toole,' said Devereux, 'you'll rouse the town.
+
+'Plague take the fellow's glass--it's as thin as paper,' sputtered
+Toole.
+
+'Loftus, we want you,' said Toole, in a hard whispered shout, and making
+a speaking trumpet of his hands, as the wild head of the student, like
+nothing in life but a hen's nest, appeared above.
+
+'Cock-Loftus, come down, d'ye hear?' urged Devereux.
+
+'Dr. Toole and Lieutenant Devereux--I--I--dear me! yes. Gentlemen, your
+most obedient,' murmured Loftus vacantly, and knocking his head smartly
+on the top of the window frame, in recovering from a little bow. 'I'll
+be wi' ye, gentlemen, in a moment.' And the hen's nest vanished.
+
+Toole and Devereux drew back a little into the shadow of the opposite
+buildings, for while they were waiting, a dusky apparition, supposed to
+be old Drought in his night-shirt, appeared at that gentleman's windows,
+saluting the ambassadors with mop and moe, in a very threatening and
+energetic way. Just as this demonstration subsided, the hall door opened
+wide--and indeed was left so--while our friend Loftus, in a wonderful
+tattered old silk coat, that looked quite indescribable by moonlight,
+the torn linings hanging down in loops inside the skirts, pale and
+discoloured, like the shreds of banners in a cathedral; his shirt loose
+at the neck, his breeches unbuttoned at the knees, and a gigantic,
+misshapen, and mouldy pair of slippers clinging and clattering about his
+feet, came down the steps, his light, round little eyes and queer, quiet
+face peering at them into the shade, and a smokified volume of divinity
+tucked under his arm, with his finger between the leaves to keep the
+place.
+
+When Devereux saw him approaching, the whole thing--mission, service,
+man, and all--struck him in so absurd a point of view, that he burst out
+into an explosion of laughter, which only grew more vehement and
+uproarious the more earnestly and imploringly Toole tried to quiet him,
+pointing up with both hands, and all his fingers extended, to the
+windows of the sleeping townsfolk, and making horrible grimaces, shrugs,
+and ogles. But the young gentleman was not in the habit of denying
+himself innocent indulgences, and shaking himself loose of Toole, he
+walked down the dark side of the street in peals of laughter, making,
+ever and anon, little breathless remarks to himself, which his colleague
+could not hear, but which seemed to have the effect of setting him off
+again into new hemi-demi-semiquavers and roars of laughter, and left the
+doctor to himself, to conduct the negociation with Loftus.
+
+'Well?' said Devereux, by this time recovering breath, as the little
+doctor, looking very red and glum, strutted up to him along the shady
+pavement.
+
+'Well? _well?_--oh, ay, _very_ well, to be sure. I'd like to know what
+the plague we're to do now,' grumbled Toole.
+
+'Your precious armour-bearer refuses to act then?' asked Devereux.
+
+'To be sure he does. He sees _you_ walking down the street, ready to die
+o' laughing--at _nothing_, by Jove!' swore Toole, in deep disgust;
+'and--and--och! hang it! it's all a confounded pack o' nonsense. Sir, if
+you could not keep grave for five minutes, you ought not to have come at
+all. But what need _I_ care? It's Nutter's affair, not mine.'
+
+'And well for him we failed. Did you ever see such a fish? He'd have
+shot himself or Nutter, to a certainty. But there's a chance yet: we
+forgot the Nightingale Club; they're still in the Phoenix.'
+
+'Pooh, Sir! they're all tailors and green-grocers,' said Toole, in high
+dudgeon.
+
+'There are two or three good names among them, however,' answered
+Devereux; and by this time they were on the threshold of the Phoenix.
+
+'Larry,' he cried to the waiter, 'the Nightingale Club is _there_, is it
+not?' glancing at the great back parlour door.
+
+'Be the powers! Captain, you may say that,' said Larry, with a wink, and
+a grin of exquisite glee.
+
+'See, Larry,' said Toole, with importance, 'we're a little serious now;
+so just say if there's any of the gentlemen there; you--you understand,
+now; quite steady? D'ye see me?'
+
+Larry winked--this time a grave wink--looked down at the floor, and up
+to the cornice, and--
+
+'Well,' said he, 'to be candid with you, jest at this
+minute--half-an-hour ago, you see, it was different--the only gentleman
+I'd take on myself to recommend to you as perfectly sober is Mr. Macan,
+of Petticoat-lane.'
+
+'Is he in business?' asked Toole.
+
+'Does he keep a shop?' said Devereux.
+
+'A shop! _two_ shops;--a great man in the chandlery line,' responded
+Larry.
+
+'H'm! not precisely the thing we want, though,' says Toole.
+
+'There are some of them, surely, that _don't_ keep shops,' said
+Devereux, a little impatiently.
+
+'Millions!' said Larry.
+
+'Come, say their names.'
+
+'Only one of them came this evening, Mr. Doolan, of Stonnybatther--he's
+a retired merchant.'
+
+'That will do,' said Toole, under his breath, to Devereux. Devereux
+nodded.
+
+'Just, I say, tap him on the shoulder, and tell him that Dr. Toole, you
+know, of this town, with many compliments and excuses, begs one word
+with him,' said the doctor.
+
+'Hoo! Docthur dear, he was the first of them down, and was carried out
+to his coach insensible jist when Mr. Crozier of Christ Church began,
+"Come Roger and listen;" he's in his bed in Stonnybatther a good hour
+and a half ago.'
+
+'A retired merchant,' says Devereux; 'well, Toole, what do you advise
+now?'
+
+'By Jove, I think one of us must go into town. 'Twill never do to leave
+poor Nutter in the lurch; and between ourselves, that O'Flaherty's a--a
+blood-thirsty idiot, by Jove--and ought to be put down.'
+
+'Let's see Nutter--you or I must go--we'll take one of these songster's
+"noddies."'
+
+A 'noddy' give me leave to remark, was the one-horse hack vehicle of
+Dublin and the country round, which has since given place to the
+jaunting car, which is, in its turn, half superseded by the cab.
+
+And Devereux, followed by Toole, entered the front parlour again. But
+without their help, the matter was arranging itself, and a second, of
+whom they knew nothing, was about to emerge.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+HOW A SQUIRE WAS FOUND FOR THE KNIGHT OF THE RUEFUL COUNTENANCE.
+
+
+When Dr. Toole grumbled at his disappointment, he was not at all aware
+how nearly his interview with Loftus had knocked the entire affair on
+the head. He had no idea how much that worthy person was horrified by
+his proposition; and Toole walked off in a huff, without bidding him
+good-night, and making a remark in which the words 'old woman' occurred
+pretty audibly. But Loftus remained under the glimpses of the moon in
+perturbation and sore perplexity. It was so late he scarcely dared
+disturb Dr. Walsingham or General Chattesworth. But there came
+the half-stifled cadence of a song--not bacchanalian, but
+sentimental--something about Daphne and a swain--struggling through the
+window-shutters next the green hall-door close by, and Dan instantly
+bethought himself of Father Roach. So knocking stoutly at the window, he
+caused the melody to subside and the shutter to open. When the priest,
+looking out, saw Dan Loftus in his deshabille, I believe he thought for
+a moment it was something from the neighbouring churchyard.
+
+However, his reverence came out and stood on the steps, enveloped in a
+hospital aroma of broiled bones, lemons, and alcohol, and shaking his
+visitor affectionately by the hand--for he bore no malice, and the
+Lenten ditty he quite forgave as being no worse in modern parlance than
+an unhappy 'fluke'--was about to pull him into the parlour, where there
+was ensconced, he told him, 'a noble friend of his.' This was 'Pat
+Mahony, from beyond Killarney, just arrived--a man of parts and
+conversation, and a lovely singer.'
+
+But Dan resisted, and told his tale in an earnest whisper in the hall.
+The priest made his mouth into a round queer little O, through which he
+sucked a long breath, elevating his brows, and rolling his eyes slowly
+about.
+
+'A jewel! And Nutter, of all the men on the face of the airth--though I
+often heerd he was a fine shot, and a sweet little fencer in his youth,
+an' game, too--oh, be the powers! you can see that still--game to the
+back-bone--and--whisht a bit now--who's the other?'
+
+'Lieutenant O'Flaherty.'
+
+(A low whistle from his reverence). 'That's a boy that comes from a
+fighting county--Galway. I wish you saw them at an election time. Why,
+there's no end of divarsion--the divarsion of _stopping_ them, of
+course, I mean (observing a sudden alteration in Loftus's countenance).
+An' _you_, av coorse, want to stop it? And so, av coorse, do I, my dear.
+Well, then, wait a bit, now--we must have our eyes open. Don't be in a
+hurry--let us be harrumless as sarpints, but _wise_ as doves. Now, 'tis
+a fine thing, no doubt, to put an end to a jewel by active
+intherfarence, though I have known cases, my dear child, where
+suppressing a simple jewel has been the cause of half a dozen breaking
+out afterwards in the same neighbourhood, and on the very same quarrel,
+d'ye mind--though, of coorse, that's no reason here or there, my dear
+boy! But take it that a jewel is breaking down and coming to the ground
+of itself (here a hugely cunning wink), in an aisy, natural,
+accommodating way, the only effect of intherfarence is to bolster it up,
+d'ye see, so just considher how things are, my dear. Lave it all to me,
+and mind my words, it _can't_ take place without a second. The officers
+have refused, so has Toole, _you_ won't undertake it, and it's too late
+to go into town. I defy it to come to anything. Jest be said be me, Dan
+Loftus, and let sleeping dogs lie. Here I am, an old experienced
+observer, that's up to their tricks, with my eye upon them. Go you to
+bed--lave them to me--and they're checkmated without so much as seeing
+how we bring it to pass.'
+
+Dan hesitated.
+
+'Arrah! go to your bed, Dan Loftus, dear. It's past eleven
+o'clock--they're nonplussed already; and lave _me_--me that understands
+it--to manage the rest.'
+
+'Well, Sir, I do confide it altogether to you. I know I might, through
+ignorance, do a mischief.'
+
+And so they bid a mutual good-night, and Loftus scaled his garret stair
+and snuffed his candle, and plunged again into the business of two
+thousand years ago.
+
+'Here's a purty business,' says the priest, extending both his palms,
+with a face of warlike importance, and shutting the door behind him
+with what he called 'a cow's kick;' 'a jewel, my dear Pat, no less;
+bloody work I'm afeared.'
+
+Mr. Mahony, who had lighted a pipe during his entertainer's absence,
+withdrew the fragrant tube from his lips, and opened his capacious mouth
+with a look of pleasant expectation, for he, like other gentlemen of his
+day--and, must we confess, not a few jolly clerics of my creed, as well
+as of honest Father Roach's--regarded the ordeal of battle, and all its
+belongings, simply as the highest branch of sporting. Not that the
+worthy father avowed any such sentiment; on the contrary, his voice and
+his eyes, if not his hands, were always raised against the sanguinary
+practice; and scarce a duel occurred within a reasonable distance
+unattended by his reverence, in the capacity, as he said, of 'an
+unauthorised, but airnest, though, he feared, unavailing peacemaker.'
+There he used to spout little maxims of reconciliation, and Christian
+brotherhood and forbearance; exhorting to forget and forgive; wringing
+his hands at each successive discharge; and it must be said, too, in
+fairness, playing the part of a good Samaritan towards the wounded, to
+whom his green hall-door was ever open, and for whom the oil of his
+consolation and the wine of his best bin never refused to flow.
+
+'Pat, my child,' said his reverence, 'that Nutter's a divil of a
+fellow--at least he _was_, by all accounts; he'll be bad enough, I'm
+afeared, and hard enough to manage, if everything goes smooth; but if
+he's kept waiting there, fuming and boiling over, do ye mind, without a
+natural vent for his feelings, or a _friend_, do ye see, at his side
+to--to _resthrain_ him, and bring about, if possible, a friendly mutual
+understanding--why, my dear child, he'll get into that state of
+exasperation an' violence, he'll have half a dozen jewels on his hands
+before morning.'
+
+'Augh! 'tid be a murther to baulk them for want of a friend,' answered
+Mr. Mahony, standing up like a warrior, and laying the pipe of peace
+upon the chimney. 'Will I go down, Father Denis, and offer my sarvices?'
+
+'With a view to a _reconciliation_, mind,' said his reverence, raising
+his finger, closing his eyes, and shaking his florid face impressively.
+
+'Och, bother! don't I know--of coorse, reconciliation;' and he was
+buttoning his garments where, being a little 'in flesh,' as well as
+tall, he had loosed them. '_Where_ are the gentlemen now, and who will I
+ask for?'
+
+'I'll show you the light from the steps. Ask for Dr. Toole; and he's
+_certainly_ there; and if he's not, for Mr. Nutter; and just say you
+came from my house, where you--a--pooh! accidentally heard, through Mr.
+Loftus, do ye mind, there was a difficulty in finding a friend
+to--a--strive to make up matters between thim.'
+
+By this time they stood upon the door-steps; and Mr. Mahony had clapt on
+his hat with a pugnacious cock o' one side; and following, with a
+sporting and mischievous leer, the direction of the priest's hand, that
+indicated the open door of the Phoenix, through which a hospitable
+light was issuing.
+
+'There's where you'll find the gentlemen, in the front parlour,' says
+the priest. 'You remember Dr. Toole, and _he'll_ remember _you_. An'
+_mind_, dear, it's to make it up you're goin'.' Mr. Mahony was already
+under weigh, at a brisk stride, and with a keen relish for the business.
+'And the blessing of the peacemaker go with you, my child!' added his
+reverence, lifting his hands and his eyes towards the heavens, 'An' upon
+my fainy!' looking shrewdly at the stars, and talking to himself,
+'they'll have a fine morning for the business, _if_, unfortunately'--and
+here he re-ascended his door-steps with a melancholy shrug--'if
+_unfortunately_, Pat Mahony should fail.'
+
+When Mr. Pat Mahony saw occasion for playing the gentleman, he certainly
+did come out remarkably strong in the part. It was done in a noble,
+florid, glowing style, according to his private ideal of the complete
+fine gentleman. Such bows, such pointing of the toes, such graceful
+flourishes of the three-cocked hat--such immensely engaging smiles and
+wonderful by-play, such an apparition, in short, of perfect
+elegance-valour, and courtesy, were never seen before in the front
+parlour of the Phoenix.
+
+'Mr. Mahony, by jingo!' ejaculated Toole, in an accent of thankfulness
+amounting nearly to rapture. Nutter seemed relieved, too, and advanced
+to be presented to the man who, instinct told him, was to be his friend.
+Cluffe, a man of fashion of the military school, eyed the elegant
+stranger with undisguised disgust and wonder, and Devereux with that
+sub-acid smile with which men will sometimes quietly relish absurdity.
+
+Mr. Mahony, 'discoursin' a country neighbour outside the half-way-house
+at Muckafubble, or enjoying an easy _tête-à-tête_ with Father Roach, was
+a very inferior person, indeed, to Patrick Mahony, Esq., the full-blown
+diplomatist and pink of gentility astonishing the front parlour of the
+Phoenix.
+
+_There_, Mr. Mahony's periods were fluent and florid, and the words
+chosen occasionally rather for their grandeur and melody than for their
+exact connexion with the context or bearing upon his meaning. The
+consequence was a certain gorgeous haziness and bewilderment, which made
+the task of translating his harangues rather troublesome and
+conjectural.
+
+Having effected the introduction, and made known the object of his
+visit, Nutter and he withdrew to a small chamber behind the bar, where
+Nutter, returning some of his bows, and having listened without deriving
+any very clear ideas to two consecutive addresses from his companion,
+took the matter in hand himself, and said he--
+
+'I beg, Sir, to relieve you at once from the trouble of trying to
+arrange this affair amicably. I have been grossly insulted, he's not
+going to apologise, and nothing but a meeting will satisfy me. He's a
+mere murderer. I have not the faintest notion why he wants to kill me;
+but being reduced to this situation, I hold myself obliged, if I can, to
+rid the town of him finally.'
+
+'Shake hands, Sir,' cried Mahony, forgetting his rhetoric in his
+enthusiasm; 'be the hole in the wall, Sir, I honour you.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+THE DEAD SECRET, SHOWING HOW THE FIREWORKER PROVED TO PUDDOCK THAT
+NUTTER HAD SPIED OUT THE NAKEDNESS OF THE LAND.
+
+
+When Puddock, having taken a short turn or two in the air, by way of
+tranquillising his mind, mounted his lodging stairs, he found Lieutenant
+O'Flaherty, not at all more sober than he had last seen him, in the
+front drawing-room, which apartment was richly perfumed with powerful
+exhalations of rum punch.
+
+'Dhrink this, Puddock--dhrink it,' said O'Flaherty, filling a large
+glass in equal quantities with rum and water; 'dhrink it, my sinsare
+friend; it will studdy you, it will, upon my honour, Puddock!'
+
+'But--a--thank you, Sir, I am anxious to understand exactly'--said
+Puddock. Here he was interrupted by a frightful grin and a '_ha!_' from
+O'Flaherty, who darted to the door, and seizing his little withered
+French servant, who was entering, swung him about the room by his coat
+collar.
+
+'So, Sorr, you've been prating again, have you, you desateful, idle old
+dhrunken miscreant; you did it on purpose, you blundherin' old hyena;
+it's the third jewel you got your masther into; and if I lose my life,
+divil a penny iv your wages ye'll ever get--that's one comfort. Yes,
+Sorr! this is the third time you have caused me to brew my hands in
+human blood; I dono' if it's malice, or only blundherin'. Oh!' he cried,
+with a still fiercer shake, 'it's I that wishes I could be sure 'twas
+malice, I'd skiver you, heels and elbows, on my sword, and roast you
+alive on that fire. Is not it a hard thing, my darlin' Puddock, I can't
+find out.' He was still holding the little valet by the collar, and
+stretching out his right hand to Puddock. 'But I am always the sport of
+misfortunes--small and great. If there was an ould woman to be handed in
+to supper--or a man to be murthered by mistake--or an ugly girl to be
+danced with, whose turn was it, ever and always to do the business, but
+poor Hyacinth O'Flaherty's--(tears). I could tell you, Puddock,' he
+continued, forgetting his wrath, and letting his prisoner go, in his
+eager pathos--the Frenchman made his escape in a twinkling--'I was the
+only man in our regiment that tuck the mazles in Cork, when it was goin'
+among the children, bad luck to them--I that was near dyin' of it when I
+was an infant; and I was the only officer in the regiment, when we were
+at Athlone, that was prevented going to the race ball--and I would not
+for a hundred pounds. I was to dance the first minuet, and the first
+country dance, with that beautiful creature, Miss Rose Cox. I was makin'
+a glass of brandy punch--not feelin' quite myself--and I dhressed and
+all, in our room, when Ensign Higgins, a most thoughtless young man,
+said something disrespectful about a beautiful mole she had on her chin;
+bedad, Sir, he called it a wart, if you plase! and feelin' it sthrongly,
+I let the jug of scaldin' wather drop on my knees; I wish you felt it,
+my darlin' Puddock. I was scalded in half a crack from a fut above my
+knees down to the last joint of my two big toes; and I raly thought my
+sinses were leving me. I lost the ball by it. Oh, ho, wirresthrue! poor
+Hyacinth O'Flaherty!' and thereupon he wept.
+
+'You thee, Lieutenant O'Flaherty,' lisped Puddock, growing impatient,
+'we can't say how soon Mr. Nutter's friend may apply for an interview,
+and--a--I must confeth I don't yet quite understand the point of
+difference between you and him, and therefore--'
+
+'A where the devil's that blackguard little French wazel gone to?'
+exclaimed O'Flaherty, for the first time perceiving that his captive had
+escaped. 'Kokang Modate! Do you hear me, Kokang Modate!' he shouted.
+
+'But really, Sir, you must be so good as to place before me, before me,
+Sir, clearly, the--the cause of this unhappy dispute, the exact offenth,
+Thir, for otherwithe--'
+
+'Cause, to be sure! and plenty iv cause. I never fought a jewel yet,
+Puddock, my friend--and this will be the ninth--without cause. They
+said, I'm tould, in Cork, I was quarrelsome; they lied; I'm not
+quarrelsome; I only want pace, and quiet, and justice; I hate a
+quarrelsome man. I tell you, Puddock, if I only knew where to find a
+quarrelsome man, be the powers I'd go fifty miles out of my way to pull
+him be the nose. They lied, Puddock, my dear boy, an' I'd give twenty
+pounds this minute I had them on this flure, to tell them how _damnably_
+they lied!'
+
+'No doubt, Thir,' said Puddock, 'but if you pleathe I really mutht have
+a dithtinct answer to my--'
+
+'Get out o' that, Sorr,' thundered O'Flaherty, with an awful stamp on
+the floor, as the 'coquin maudit,' O'Flaherty's only bit of French, such
+as it was, in obedience to that form of invocation, appeared nervously
+at the threshold, 'or I'll fling the contints of the r-r-oo-oo-oom at
+your head, (exit Monsieur, again). Be gannies! if I thought it was he
+that done it, I'd jirk his old bones through the top of the window. Will
+I call him back and give him his desarts, will I, Puddock! Oh, ho, hone!
+my darlin' Puddock, everything turns agin me; what'll I do, Puddock,
+jewel, or what's to become o' me?' and he shed some more tears, and
+drank off the greater part of the beverage which he had prepared for
+Puddock.
+
+'I believe, Sir, that this is the sixth time I've ventured to ask a
+distinct statement from your lips, of the cauthe of your dithagreement
+with Mr. Nutter, which I plainly tell you, Thir, I don't at prethent
+underthtand, said Puddock, loftily and firmly enough.
+
+'To be sure, my darlin' Puddock,' replied O'Flaherty, 'it was that
+cursed little French whipper-snapper, with his monkeyfied
+intherruptions; be the powers, Puddock, if you knew half the mischief
+that same little baste has got me into, you would not wondher if I
+murthered him. It was he was the cause of my jewel with my cousin, Art
+Considine, and I wanting to be the very pink of politeness to him. I
+wrote him a note when he came to Athlone, afther two years in France,
+and jist out o' compliment to him, I unluckily put in a word of French:
+come an' dine, says I, and we'll have a dish of chat. I knew u-n p-l-a-t
+(spelling it), was a dish, an' says I to Jerome, that pigimy (so he
+pronounced it) you seen here at the door, that's his damnable name,
+what's _chat_ in French--c-h-a-t--spelling it to him; "sha," says he;
+"sha?" says I, "spell it, if you plase," says I; "c-h-a-t," says he, the
+stupid old viper. Well, I took the trouble to write it out, "un plat de
+chat;" "is that right?" says I, showing it to him. "It is, my lord,"
+says he, looking at me as if I had two heads. I never knew the manin' of
+it for more than a month afther I shot poor Art through the two calves.
+An' he that fought two jewels before, all about cats, one of them with a
+Scotch gentleman that he gave the lie to, for saying that French cooks
+had a way of stewing cats you could not tell them from hares; and the
+other immadiately afther, with Lieutenant Rugge, of the Royal Navy, that
+got one stewed for fun, and afther my Cousin Art dined off it, like a
+man, showed him the tail and the claws. It's well he did not die of it,
+and no wondher he resented my invitation, though upon my honour, as a
+soldier and a gentleman, may I be stewed alive myself in a pot, Puddock
+my dear, if I had the laste notion of offering him the smallest
+affront!'
+
+'I begin to despair, Sir,' exclaimed Puddock, 'of receiving the
+information without which 'tis vain for me to try to be useful to you;
+once more, may I entreat to know what _is_ the affront of which you
+complain?'
+
+'You don't know; raly and truly now, you don't know?' said O'Flaherty,
+fixing a solemn tipsy leer on him.
+
+'I tell you _no_, Thir,' rejoined Puddock.
+
+'And do you mean to tell me you did not hear that vulgar dog Nutter's
+unmanly jokes?'
+
+'Jokes!' repeated Puddock, in large perplexity, 'why I've been here in
+this town for more than five years, and I never heard in all that time
+that Nutter once made a joke--and upon my life, I don't think he could
+make a joke, Sir, if he tried--I don't, indeed, Lieutenant O'Flaherty,
+upon my honour!'
+
+And rat it, Sir, how can I help it?' cried O'Flaherty, relapsing into
+pathos.
+
+'Help what?' demanded Puddock.
+
+O'Flaherty took him by the hand, and gazing on his face with a maudlin,
+lacklustre tenderness, said:--
+
+'Absalom was caught by the hair of his head--he was, Puddock--long hair
+or short hair, or (a hiccough) no hair at all, isn't it nature's doing,
+I ask you my darlin' Puddock, _isn't_ it?' He was shedding tears again
+very fast. 'There was Cicero and Julius Cæsar, wor both as bald as
+that,' and he thrust a shining sugar basin, bottom upward, into
+Puddock's face. '_I'm_ not bald; I tell you I'm _not_--no, my darlin'
+Puddock, I'm not--poor Hyacinth O'Flaherty is _not bald_,' shaking
+Puddock by both hands.
+
+'That's very plain, Sir, but I don't see your drift,' he replied.
+
+'I want to tell you, Puddock, dear, if you'll only have a minute's
+patience. The door can't fasten, divil bother it; come into the next
+room;' and toppling a little in his walk, he led him solemnly into his
+bed-room--the door of which he locked--somewhat to Puddock's
+disquietude, who began to think him insane. Here having informed Puddock
+that Nutter was driving at the one point the whole evening, as any one
+that knew the secret would have seen; and having solemnly imposed the
+seal of secrecy upon his second, and essayed a wild and broken discourse
+upon the difference between total baldness and partial loss of hair, he
+disclosed to him the grand mystery of his existence, by lifting from the
+summit of his head a circular piece of wig, which in those days they
+called I believe, a 'topping,' leaving a bare shining disc exposed,
+about the size of a large pat of butter.
+
+'Upon my life, Thir, it'th a very fine piethe of work,' says Puddock,
+who viewed the wiglet with the eye of a stage-property man, and held it
+by a top lock near the candle. 'The very finetht piethe of work of the
+kind I ever thaw. 'Tith thertainly French. Oh, yeth--we can't do such
+thingth here. By Jove, Thir, what a wig that man would make for Cato!'
+
+'An' he must be a mane crature--I say, a mane crature,' pursued
+O'Flaherty, 'for there was not a soul in the town but Jerome, the--the
+treacherous ape, that knew it. It's he that dhresses my head every
+morning behind the bed-curtain there, with the door locked. And Nutter
+could never have found it out--_who_ was to tell him, unless that ojus
+French damon, that's never done talkin' about it;' and O'Flaherty strode
+heavily up and down the room with his hands in his breeches' pockets,
+muttering savage invectives, pitching his head from side to side, and
+whisking round at the turns in a way to show how strongly he was wrought
+upon.
+
+'Come in, Sorr!' thundered O'Flaherty, unlocking the door, in reply to a
+knock, and expecting to see his 'ojus French damon.' But it was a tall
+fattish stranger, rather flashily dressed, but a little soiled, with a
+black wig, and a rollicking red face, showing a good deal of chin and
+jaw.
+
+O'Flaherty made his grandest bow, quite forgetting the exposure at the
+top of his head; and Puddock stood rather shocked, with the candle in
+one hand and O'Flaherty's scalp in the other.
+
+'You come, Sir, I presume, from Mr. Nutter,' said O'Flaherty, with lofty
+courtesy. This, Sir, is my friend, Lieutenant Puddock of the Royal Irish
+Artillery, who does me the honour to support me with his advice and--'
+
+As he moved his hand towards Puddock, he saw his scalp dangling between
+that gentleman's finger and thumb, and became suddenly mute. He clapped
+his hand upon his bare skull, and made an agitated pluck at that
+article, but missed, and disappeared, with an imprecation in Irish,
+behind the bed curtains.
+
+'If you will be so obliging, Sir, as to precede me into that room,'
+lisped Puddock, with grave dignity, and waving O'Flaherty's scalp
+slightly towards the door--for Puddock never stooped to hide anything,
+and being a gentleman, pure and simple, was not ashamed or afraid to
+avow his deeds, words, and situations; 'I shall do myself the honour to
+follow.'
+
+'Gi' me _that_,' was heard in a vehement whisper from behind the
+curtains. Puddock understood it, and restored the treasure.
+
+The secret conference in the drawing-room was not tedious, nor indeed
+very secret, for anyone acquainted with the diplomatic slang in which
+such affairs were conducted might have learned in the lobby, or indeed
+in the hall, so mighty was the voice of the stranger, that there was no
+chance of any settlement without a meeting which was fixed to take place
+at twelve o'clock next day on the Fifteen Acres.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+SOME TALK ABOUT THE HAUNTED HOUSE--BEING, AS I SUPPOSE, ONLY OLD WOMAN'S
+TALES.
+
+
+Old Sally always attended her young mistress while she prepared for
+bed--not that Lilias required help, for she had the spirit of neatness
+and a joyous, gentle alacrity, and only troubled the good old creature
+enough to prevent her thinking herself grown old and useless.
+
+Sally, in her quiet way, was garrulous, and she had all sorts of
+old-world tales of wonder and adventure, to which Lilias often went
+pleasantly to sleep; for there was no danger while old Sally sat
+knitting there by the fire, and the sound of the rector's mounting upon
+his chairs, as was his wont, and taking down and putting up his books in
+the study beneath, though muffled and faint, gave evidence that that
+good and loving influence was awake and busy.
+
+Old Sally was telling her young mistress, who sometimes listened with a
+smile, and sometimes lost a good five minutes together of her gentle
+prattle, how the young gentleman, Mr. Mervyn, had taken that awful old
+haunted habitation, the Tiled House 'beyant at Ballyfermot,' and was
+going to stay there, and wondered no one had told him of the mysterious
+dangers of that desolate mansion.
+
+It stood by a lonely bend of the narrow road. Lilias had often looked
+upon the short, straight, grass-grown avenue with an awful curiosity at
+the old house which she had learned in childhood to fear as the abode of
+shadowy tenants and unearthly dangers.
+
+'There are people, Sally, nowadays, who call themselves free-thinkers,
+and don't believe in anything--even in ghosts,' said Lilias.
+
+'A then the place he's stopping in now, Miss Lily, 'ill soon cure him of
+free-thinking, if the half they say about it's true,' answered Sally.
+
+'But I don't say, mind, he's a free-thinker, for I don't know anything
+of Mr. Mervyn; but if he be not, he must be very brave, or very good,
+indeed. I know, Sally, I should be horribly afraid, indeed, to sleep in
+it myself,' answered Lilias, with a cosy little shudder, as the aërial
+image of the old house for a moment stood before her, with its peculiar
+malign, sacred, and skulking aspect, as if it had drawn back in shame
+and guilt under the melancholy old elms among the tall hemlock and
+nettles.
+
+'And now, Sally, I'm safe in bed. Stir the fire, my old darling.' For
+although it was the first week in May, the night was frosty. 'And tell
+me all about the Tiled House again, and frighten me out of my wits.'
+
+So good old Sally, whose faith in such matters was a religion, went off
+over the well-known ground in a gentle little amble--sometimes subsiding
+into a walk as she approached some special horror, and pulling up
+altogether--that is to say, suspending her knitting, and looking with a
+mysterious nod at her young mistress in the four-poster, or lowering her
+voice to a sort of whisper when the crisis came.
+
+So she told her how when the neighbours hired the orchard that ran up to
+the windows at the back of the house, the dogs they kept there used to
+howl so wildly and wolfishly all night among the trees, and prowl under
+the walls of the house so dejectedly, that they were fain to open the
+door and let them in at last; and, indeed, small need was there for
+dogs; for no one, young or old, dared go near the orchard after
+night-fall. No, the burnished golden pippins that peeped through the
+leaves in the western rays of evening, and made the mouths of the
+Ballyfermot school-boys water, glowed undisturbed in the morning
+sunbeams, and secure in the mysterious tutelage of the night smiled
+coyly on their predatory longings. And this was no fanciful reserve and
+avoidance. Mick Daly, when he had the orchard, used to sleep in the loft
+over the kitchen; and he swore that within five or six weeks, while he
+lodged there, he twice saw the same thing, and that was a lady in a hood
+and a loose dress, her head drooping, and her finger on her lip, walking
+in silence among the crooked stems, with a little child by the hand, who
+ran smiling and skipping beside her. And the Widow Cresswell once met
+them at night-fall, on the path through the orchard to the back-door,
+and she did not know what it was until she saw the men looking at one
+another as she told it.
+
+'It's often she told it to me,' said old Sally; 'and how she came on
+them all of a sudden at the turn of the path, just by the thick clump of
+alder trees; and how she stopped, thinking it was some lady that had a
+right to be there; and how they went by as swift as the shadow of a
+cloud, though she only seemed to be walking slow enough, and the little
+child pulling by her arm, this way and that way, and took no notice of
+her, nor even raised her head, though she stopped and courtesied. And
+old Dalton, don't you remember old Dalton, Miss Lily?'
+
+'I think I do, the old man who limped, and wore the old black wig?'
+
+'Yes, indeed, acushla, so he did. See how well she remembers! That was
+by a kick of one of the earl's horses--he was groom there,' resumed
+Sally. 'He used to be troubled with hearing the very sounds his master
+used to make to bring him and old Oliver to the door, when he came back
+late. It was only on very dark nights when there was no moon. They used
+to hear all on a sudden, the whimpering and scraping of dogs at the hall
+door, and the sound of the whistle, and the light stroke across the
+window with the lash of the whip, just like as if the earl himself--may
+his poor soul find rest--was there. First the wind 'id stop, like you'd
+be holding your breath, then came these sounds they knew so well, and
+when they made no sign of stirring or opening the door, the wind 'id
+begin again with such a hoo-hoo-o-o-high, you'd think it was laughing,
+and crying, and hooting all at once.'
+
+Here old Sally's tale and her knitting ceased for a moment, as if she
+were listening to the wind outside the haunted precincts of the Tiled
+house; and she took up her parable again.
+
+'The very night he met his death in England, old Oliver, the butler, was
+listening to Dalton--for Dalton was a scholar--reading the letter that
+came to him through the post that day, telling him to get things ready,
+for his troubles wor nearly over and he expected to be with them again
+in a few days, and maybe almost as soon as the letter; and sure enough,
+while he was reading, there comes a frightful rattle at the window, like
+some one all in a tremble, trying to shake it open, and the earl's
+voice, as they both conceited, cries from outside, "Let me in, let me
+in, let me in!" "It's him," says the butler. "'Tis so, bedad," says
+Dalton, and they both looked at the windy, and at one another--and then
+back again--overjoyed, in a soart of a way, and frightened all at onst.
+Old Oliver was bad with the rheumatiz. So away goes Dalton to the
+hall-door, and he calls "who's there?" and no answer. "Maybe," says
+Dalton, to himself, "'tis what he's rid round to the back-door;" so to
+the back-door with him, and there he shouts again--and no answer, and
+not a sound outside--and he began to feel quare, and to the hall door
+with him back again. "Who's there? do you hear? who's there?" he shouts,
+and receives no answer still. "I'll open the door at any rate," says he,
+"maybe it's what he's made his escape," for they knew all about his
+troubles, and wants to get in without noise, so praying all the
+time--for his mind misgave him it might not be all right--he shifts the
+bars and unlocks the door; but neither man, woman, nor child, nor horse,
+nor any living shape was standing there, only something or another slipt
+into the house close by his leg; it might be a dog, or something that
+way, he could not tell, for he only seen it for a moment with the corner
+of his eye, and it went in just like as if it belonged to the place. He
+could not see which way it went, up or down, but the house was never a
+happy one, or a quiet house after; and Dalton bangs the hall-door, and
+he took a sort of a turn and a trembling, and back with him to Oliver,
+the butler, looking as white as the blank leaf of his master's letter,
+that was between his finger and thumb. "What is it? _what_ is it?" says
+the butler, catching his crutch like a waypon, fastening his eyes on
+Dalton's white face, and growing almost as pale himself. "The master's
+dead," says Dalton--and so he was, signs on it.
+
+'After the turn she got by what she seen in the orchard, when she came
+to know the truth of what it was, Jinny Cresswell, you may be sure, did
+not stay there an hour longer than she could help: and she began to take
+notice of things she did not mind before--such as when she went into the
+big bed-room over the hall, that the lord used to sleep in, whenever she
+went in at one door the other door used to be pulled to very quick, as
+if some one avoiding her was getting out in haste; but the thing that
+frightened her most was just this--that sometimes she used to find a
+long straight mark from the head to the foot of her bed, as if 'twas
+made by something heavy lying there, and the place where it was used to
+feel warm--as if--whoever it was--they only left it as she came into the
+room.
+
+'But the worst of all was poor Kitty Haplin, the young woman that died
+of what she seen. Her mother said it was how she was kept awake all the
+night with the walking about of some one in the next room, tumbling
+about boxes, and pulling over drawers, and talking and sighing to
+himself, and she, poor thing, wishing to go asleep, and wondering who it
+could be, when in he comes, a fine man, in a sort of loose silk
+morning-dress, an' no wig, but a velvet cap on, and to the windy with
+him quiet and aisy, and she makes a turn in the bed to let him know
+there was some one there, thinking he'd go away, but instead of that,
+over he comes to the side of the bed, looking very bad, and says
+something to her--but his speech was thick and choakin' like a dummy's
+that id be trying to spake--and she grew very frightened, and says she,
+'I ask your honour's pardon, Sir, but I can't hear you right,' and with
+that he stretches up his neck nigh out of his cravat, turning his face
+up towards the ceiling, and--grace between us and harm!--his throat was
+cut across, and wide open; she seen no more, but dropped in a dead faint
+in the bed, and back to her mother with her in the morning, and she
+never swallied bit or sup more, only she just sat by the fire holding
+her mother's hand, crying and trembling, and peepin' over her shoulder,
+and starting with every sound, till she took the fever and died, poor
+thing, not five weeks after.'
+
+And so on, and on, and on flowed the stream of old Sally's narrative,
+while Lilias dropped into dreamless sleep, and then the story-teller
+stole away to her own tidy bed-room and innocent slumbers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+SOME ODD FACTS ABOUT THE TILED HOUSE--BEING AN AUTHENTIC NARRATIVE OF
+THE GHOST OF A HAND.
+
+
+I'm sure she believed every word she related, for old Sally was
+veracious. But all this was worth just so much as such talk commonly
+is--marvels, fabulæ, what our ancestors called winter's tales--which
+gathered details from every narrator, and dilated in the act of
+narration. Still it was not quite for nothing that the house was held to
+be haunted. Under all this smoke there smouldered just a little spark of
+truth--an authenticated mystery, for the solution of which some of my
+readers may possibly suggest a theory, though I confess I can't.
+
+Miss Rebecca Chattesworth, in a letter dated late in the autumn of 1753,
+gives a minute and curious relation of occurrences in the Tiled House,
+which, it is plain, although at starting she protests against all such
+fooleries, she has heard with a peculiar sort of interest, and relates
+it certainly with an awful sort of particularity.
+
+I was for printing the entire letter, which is really very singular as
+well as characteristic. But my publisher meets me with his _veto_; and I
+believe he is right. The worthy old lady's letter _is_, perhaps, too
+long; and I must rest content with a few hungry notes of its tenor.
+
+That year, and somewhere about the 24th October, there broke out a
+strange dispute between Mr. Alderman Harper, of High Street, Dublin, and
+my Lord Castlemallard, who, in virtue of his cousinship to the young
+heir's mother, had undertaken for him the management of the tiny estate
+on which the Tiled or Tyled House--for I find it spelt both ways--stood.
+
+This Alderman Harper had agreed for a lease of the house for his
+daughter, who was married to a gentleman named Prosser. He furnished it,
+and put up hangings, and otherwise went to considerable expense. Mr. and
+Mrs. Prosser came there sometime in June, and after having parted with a
+good many servants in the interval, she made up her mind that she could
+not live in the house, and her father waited on Lord Castlemallard, and
+told him plainly that he would not take out the lease because the house
+was subjected to annoyances which he could not explain. In plain terms,
+he said it was haunted, and that no servants would live there more than
+a few weeks, and that after what his son-in-law's family had suffered
+there, not only should he be excused from taking a lease of it, but that
+the house itself ought to be pulled down as a nuisance and the habitual
+haunt of something worse than human malefactors.
+
+Lord Castlemallard filed a bill in the Equity side of the Exchequer to
+compel Mr. Alderman Harper to perform his contract, by taking out the
+lease. But the Alderman drew an answer, supported by no less than seven
+long affidavits, copies of all which were furnished to his lordship, and
+with the desired effect; for rather than compel him to place them upon
+the file of the court, his lordship struck, and consented to release
+him.
+
+I am sorry the cause did not proceed at least far enough to place upon
+the files of the court the very authentic and unaccountable story which
+Miss Rebecca relates.
+
+The annoyances described did not begin till the end of August, when, one
+evening, Mrs. Prosser, quite alone, was sitting in the twilight at the
+back parlour window, which was open, looking out into the orchard, and
+plainly saw a hand stealthily placed upon the stone window-sill outside,
+as if by some one beneath the window, at her right side, intending to
+climb up. There was nothing but the hand, which was rather short but
+handsomely formed, and white and plump, laid on the edge of the
+window-sill; and it was not a very young hand, but one aged, somewhere
+about forty, as she conjectured. It was only a few weeks before that the
+horrible robbery at Clondalkin had taken place, and the lady fancied
+that the hand was that of one of the miscreants who was now about to
+scale the windows of the Tiled House. She uttered a loud scream and an
+ejaculation of terror, and at the same moment the hand was quietly
+withdrawn.
+
+Search was made in the orchard, but no indications of any person's
+having been under the window, beneath which, ranged along the wall,
+stood a great column of flower-pots, which it seemed must have prevented
+any one's coming within reach of it.
+
+The same night there came a hasty tapping, every now and then, at the
+window of the kitchen. The women grew frightened, and the servant-man,
+taking firearms with him, opened the back-door, but discovered nothing.
+As he shut it, however, he said, 'a thump came on it,' and a pressure as
+of somebody striving to force his way in, which frightened _him_; and
+though the tapping went on upon the kitchen window panes, he made no
+further explorations.
+
+About six o'clock on the Saturday evening following, the cook, 'an
+honest, sober woman, now aged nigh sixty years,' being alone in the
+kitchen, saw, on looking up, it is supposed, the same fat but
+aristocratic-looking hand, laid with its palm against the glass, near
+the side of the window, and this time moving slowly up and down, pressed
+all the while against the glass, as if feeling carefully for some
+inequality in its surface. She cried out, and said something like a
+prayer on seeing it. But it was not withdrawn for several seconds after.
+
+After this, for a great many nights, there came at first a low, and
+afterwards an angry rapping, as it seemed with a set of clenched
+knuckles at the back-door. And the servant-man would not open it, but
+called to know who was there; and there came no answer, only a sound as
+if the palm of the hand was placed against it, and drawn slowly from
+side to side with a sort of soft, groping motion.
+
+All this time, sitting in the back parlour, which, for the time, they
+used as a drawing-room, Mr. and Mrs. Prosser were disturbed by rappings
+at the window, sometimes very low and furtive, like a clandestine
+signal, and at others sudden, and so loud as to threaten the breaking of
+the pane.
+
+This was all at the back of the house, which looked upon the orchard as
+you know. But on a Tuesday night, at about half-past nine, there came
+precisely the same rapping at the hall-door, and went on, to the great
+annoyance of the master and terror of his wife, at intervals, for nearly
+two hours.
+
+After this, for several days and nights, they had no annoyance
+whatsoever, and began to think that nuisance had expended itself. But on
+the night of the 13th September, Jane Easterbrook, an English maid,
+having gone into the pantry for the small silver bowl in which her
+mistress's posset was served, happening to look up at the little window
+of only four panes, observed through an auger-hole which was drilled
+through the window frame, for the admission of a bolt to secure the
+shutter, a white pudgy finger--first the tip, and then the two first
+joints introduced, and turned about this way and that, crooked against
+the inside, as if in search of a fastening which its owner designed to
+push aside. When the maid got back into the kitchen we are told 'she
+fell into "a swounde," and was all the next day very weak.'
+
+Mr. Prosser being, I've heard, a hard-headed and conceited sort of
+fellow, scouted the ghost, and sneered at the fears of his family. He
+was privately of opinion that the whole affair was a practical joke or a
+fraud, and waited an opportunity of catching the rogue _flagrante
+delicto_. He did not long keep this theory to himself, but let it out by
+degrees with no stint of oaths and threats, believing that some domestic
+traitor held the thread of the conspiracy.
+
+Indeed it was time something were done; for not only his servants, but
+good Mrs. Prosser herself, had grown to look unhappy and anxious. They
+kept at home from the hour of sunset, and would not venture about the
+house after night-fall, except in couples.
+
+The knocking had ceased for about a week; when one night, Mrs. Prosser
+being in the nursery, her husband, who was in the parlour, heard it
+begin very softly at the hall-door. The air was quite still, which
+favoured his hearing distinctly. This was the first time there had been
+any disturbance at that side of the house, and the character of the
+summons was changed.
+
+Mr. Prosser, leaving the parlour-door open, it seems, went quietly into
+the hall. The sound was that of beating on the outside of the stout
+door, softly and regularly, 'with the flat of the hand.' He was going to
+open it suddenly, but changed his mind; and went back very quietly, and
+on to the head of the kitchen stair, where was a 'strong closet' over
+the pantry, in which he kept his firearms, swords, and canes.
+
+Here he called his man-servant, whom he believed to be honest, and, with
+a pair of loaded pistols in his own coat-pockets, and giving another
+pair to him, he went as lightly as he could, followed by the man, and
+with a stout walking-cane in his hand, forward to the door.
+
+Everything went as Mr. Prosser wished. The besieger of his house, so far
+from taking fright at their approach, grew more impatient; and the sort
+of patting which had aroused his attention at first assumed the rhythm
+and emphasis of a series of double-knocks.
+
+Mr. Prosser, angry, opened the door with his right arm across, cane in
+hand. Looking, he saw nothing; but his arm was jerked up oddly, as it
+might be with the hollow of a hand, and something passed under it, with
+a kind of gentle squeeze. The servant neither saw nor felt anything, and
+did not know why his master looked back so hastily, cutting with his
+cane, and shutting the door with so sudden a slam.
+
+From that time Mr. Prosser discontinued his angry talk and swearing
+about it, and seemed nearly as averse from the subject as the rest of
+his family. He grew, in fact, very uncomfortable, feeling an inward
+persuasion that when, in answer to the summons, he had opened the
+hall-door, he had actually given admission to the besieger.
+
+He said nothing to Mrs. Prosser, but went up earlier to his bed-room,
+'where he read a while in his Bible, and said his prayers.' I hope the
+particular relation of this circumstance does not indicate its
+singularity. He lay awake a good while, it appears; and, as he supposed,
+about a quarter past twelve he heard the soft palm of a hand patting on
+the outside of the bed-room door, and then brushed slowly along it.
+
+Up bounced Mr. Prosser, very much frightened, and locked the door,
+crying, 'Who's there?' but receiving no answer but the same brushing
+sound of a soft hand drawn over the panels, which he knew only too well.
+
+In the morning the housemaid was terrified by the impression of a hand
+in the dust of the 'little parlour' table, where they had been unpacking
+delft and other things the day before. The print of the naked foot in
+the sea-sand did not frighten Robinson Crusoe half so much. They were by
+this time all nervous, and some of them half-crazed, about the hand.
+
+Mr. Prosser went to examine the mark, and made light of it but as he
+swore afterwards, rather to quiet his servants than from any
+comfortable feeling about it in his own mind; however, he had them all,
+one by one, into the room, and made each place his or her hand, palm
+downward, on the same table, thus taking a similar impression from every
+person in the house, including himself and his wife; and his 'affidavit'
+deposed that the formation of the hand so impressed differed altogether
+from those of the living inhabitants of the house, and corresponded with
+that of the hand seen by Mrs. Prosser and by the cook.
+
+Whoever or whatever the owner of that hand might be, they all felt this
+subtle demonstration to mean that it was declared he was no longer out
+of doors, but had established himself in the house.
+
+And now Mrs. Prosser began to be troubled with strange and horrible
+dreams, some of which as set out in detail, in Aunt Rebecca's long
+letter, are really very appalling nightmares. But one night, as Mr.
+Prosser closed his bed-chamber-door, he was struck somewhat by the utter
+silence of the room, there being no sound of breathing, which seemed
+unaccountable to him, as he knew his wife was in bed, and his ears were
+particularly sharp.
+
+There was a candle burning on a small table at the foot of the bed,
+beside the one he held in one hand, a heavy ledger, connected with his
+father-in-law's business being under his arm. He drew the curtain at the
+side of the bed, and saw Mrs. Prosser lying, as for a few seconds he
+mortally feared, dead, her face being motionless, white, and covered
+with a cold dew; and on the pillow, close beside her head, and just
+within the curtains, was, as he first thought, a toad--but really the
+same fattish hand, the wrist resting on the pillow, and the fingers
+extended towards her temple.
+
+Mr. Prosser, with a horrified jerk, pitched the ledger right at the
+curtains, behind which the owner of the hand might be supposed to stand.
+The hand was instantaneously and smoothly snatched away, the curtains
+made a great wave, and Mr. Prosser got round the bed in time to see the
+closet-door, which was at the other side, pulled to by the same white,
+puffy hand, as he believed.
+
+He drew the door open with a fling, and stared in: but the closet was
+empty, except for the clothes hanging from the pegs on the wall, and the
+dressing-table and looking-glass facing the windows. He shut it sharply,
+and locked it, and felt for a minute, he says, 'as if he were like to
+lose his wits;' then, ringing at the bell, he brought the servants, and
+with much ado they recovered Mrs. Prosser from a sort of 'trance,' in
+which, he says, from her looks, she seemed to have suffered 'the pains
+of death:' and Aunt Rebecca adds, 'from what she told me of her visions,
+with her own lips, he might have added, "and of hell also."'
+
+But the occurrence which seems to have determined the crisis was the
+strange sickness of their eldest child, a little boy aged between two
+and three years. He lay awake, seemingly in paroxysms of terror, and the
+doctors who were called in, set down the symptoms to incipient water on
+the brain. Mrs. Prosser used to sit up with the nurse by the nursery
+fire, much troubled in mind about the condition of her child.
+
+His bed was placed sideways along the wall, with its head against the
+door of a press or cupboard, which, however, did not shut quite close.
+There was a little valance, about a foot deep, round the top of the
+child's bed, and this descended within some ten or twelve inches of the
+pillow on which it lay.
+
+They observed that the little creature was quieter whenever they took it
+up and held it on their laps. They had just replaced him, as he seemed
+to have grown quite sleepy and tranquil, but he was not five minutes in
+his bed when he began to scream in one of his frenzies of terror; at the
+same moment the nurse, for the first time, detected, and Mrs. Prosser
+equally plainly saw, following the direction of _her_ eyes, the real
+cause of the child's sufferings.
+
+Protruding through the aperture of the press, and shrouded in the shade
+of the valance, they plainly saw the white fat hand, palm downwards,
+presented towards the head of the child. The mother uttered a scream,
+and snatched the child from its little bed, and she and the nurse ran
+down to the lady's sleeping-room, where Mr. Prosser was in bed, shutting
+the door as they entered; and they had hardly done so, when a gentle tap
+came to it from the outside.
+
+There is a great deal more, but this will suffice. The singularity of
+the narrative seems to me to be this, that it describes the ghost of a
+hand, and no more. The person to whom that hand belonged never once
+appeared: nor was it a hand separated from a body, but only a hand so
+manifested and introduced that its owner was always, by some crafty
+accident, hidden from view.
+
+In the year 1819, at a college breakfast, I met a Mr. Prosser--a thin,
+grave, but rather chatty old gentleman, with very white hair drawn back
+into a pigtail--and he told us all, with a concise particularity, a
+story of his cousin, James Prosser, who, when an infant, had slept for
+some time in what his mother said was a haunted nursery in an old house
+near Chapelizod, and who, whenever he was ill, over-fatigued, or in
+anywise feverish, suffered all through his life as he had done from a
+time he could scarce remember, from a vision of a certain gentleman, fat
+and pale, every curl of whose wig, every button and fold of whose laced
+clothes, and every feature and line of whose sensual, benignant, and
+unwholesome face, was as minutely engraven upon his memory as the dress
+and lineaments of his own grandfather's portrait, which hung before him
+every day at breakfast, dinner, and supper.
+
+Mr. Prosser mentioned this as an instance of a curiously monotonous,
+individualised, and persistent nightmare, and hinted the extreme horror
+and anxiety with which his cousin, of whom he spoke in the past tense as
+'poor Jemmie,' was at any time induced to mention it.
+
+I hope the reader will pardon me for loitering so long in the Tiled
+House, but this sort of lore has always had a charm for me; and people,
+you know, especially old people, will talk of what most interests
+themselves, too often forgetting that others may have had more than
+enough of it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+IN WHICH THE RECTOR VISITS THE TILED HOUSE, AND DOCTOR TOOLE LOOKS AFTER
+THE BRASS CASTLE.
+
+
+Next morning Toole, sauntering along the low road towards the mills, as
+usual bawling at his dogs, who scampered and nuzzled hither and thither,
+round and about him, saw two hackney coaches and a 'noddy' arrive at
+'the Brass Castle,' a tall old house by the river, with a little bit of
+a flower-garden, half-a-dozen poplars, and a few old privet hedges about
+it; and being aware that it had been taken the day before for Mr.
+Dangerfield, for three months, he slackened his pace, in the hope of
+seeing that personage, of whom he had heard great things, take seisin of
+his tabernacle. He was disappointed, however; the great man had not
+arrived, only a sour-faced, fussy old lady, Mrs. Jukes, his housekeeper
+and a servant-wench and a great lot of boxes and trunks; and so leaving
+the coachman grumbling and swearing at the lady, who, bitter, shrill,
+and voluble, was manifestly well able to fight her own battles, he
+strolled back to the Phoenix, where a new evidence of the impending
+arrival met his view in an English groom with three horses, which the
+hostler and he were leading into the inn-yard.
+
+There were others, too, agreeably fidgeted about this arrival. The fair
+Miss Magnolia, for instance, and her enterprising parent, the agreeable
+Mrs. Macnamara: who both as they gaped and peeped from the windows,
+bouncing up from the breakfast-table every minute, to the silent
+distress of quiet little Major O'Neill, painted all sorts of handsome
+portraits, and agreeable landscapes, and cloud-clapped castles, each for
+her private contemplation, on the spreading canvas of her hopes.
+
+Dr. Walsingham rode down to the 'Tiled House,' where workmen were
+already preparing to make things a little more comfortable. The towering
+hall-door stood half open; and down the broad stairs--his tall, slim
+figure, showing black against the light of the discoloured
+lobby-window--his raven hair reaching to his shoulders--Mervyn, the
+pale, large-eyed genius of that haunted place, came to meet him. He led
+him into the cedar parlour, the stained and dusty windows of which
+opened upon that moss-grown orchard, among whose great trunks and arches
+those strange shapes were said sometimes to have walked at night, like
+penitents and mourners through cathedral pillars.
+
+It was a reception as stately, but as sombre and as beggarly withal as
+that of the Master of Ravenswood, for there were but two chairs in the
+cedar-parlour,--one with but three legs, the other without a bottom; so
+they were fain to stand. But Mervyn could smile without bitterness and
+his desolation had not the sting of actual poverty, as he begged the
+rector to excuse his dreary welcome, and hoped that he would find things
+better the next time.
+
+Their little colloquy got on very easily, for Mervyn liked the rector,
+and felt a confidence in him which was comfortable and almost
+exhilarating. The doctor had a cheery, kindly, robust voice, and a good,
+honest emphasis in his talk; a guileless blue eye; a face furrowed,
+thoughtful, and benevolent; well formed too. He must have been a
+handsome curate in his day. Not uncourtly, but honest; the politeness of
+a gentle and tender heart; _very_ courteous and popular among ladies,
+although he sometimes forgot that they knew no Latin.
+
+So Mervyn drew nigh to him in spirit, and liked him and talked to him
+rather more freely [though even that was enigmatically enough] than he
+had done to anybody else for a long time. It would seem that the young
+man had formed no very distinct plan of life. He appeared to have some
+thought of volunteering to serve in America, and some of entering into a
+foreign service; but his plans were, I suppose, _in nubibus_. All that
+was plain was that he was restless and eager for some change--any.
+
+It was not a very long visit, you may suppose; and just as Dr.
+Walsingham rode out of the avenue, Lord Castlemallard was riding
+leisurely by towards Chapelizod, followed by his groom.
+
+His lordship, though he had a drowsy way with him, was esteemed rather
+an active man of business, being really, I'm afraid, only what is termed
+a fidget: and the fact is, his business would have been better done if
+he had looked after it himself a good deal less.
+
+He was just going down to the town to see whether Dangerfield had
+arrived, and slackened his pace to allow the doctor to join him, for he
+could ride with him more comfortably than with parsons generally, the
+doctor being well descended, and having married, besides, into a good
+family. He stared, as he passed, at the old house listlessly and
+peevishly. He had heard of Mervyn's doings there, and did not like them.
+
+'Yes, Sir, he's a very pretty young, man, and very well dressed,' said
+his lordship, with manifest dissatisfaction: 'but I don't like meeting
+him, you know. 'Tis not his fault; but one can't help thinking of--of
+things! and I'd be glad his friends would advise him not to dress in
+velvets, you know--particularly black velvets you can understand. I
+could not help thinking, at the time, of a pall, somehow. I'm
+not--no--not pleasant near him. No--I--I can't--his face is so pale--you
+don't often, see so pale a face--no--it looks like a reflection from one
+that's still paler--you understand--and in short, even in his perfumes
+there's a taint of--of--you know--a taint of blood, Sir. Then there was
+a pause, during which he kept slapping his boot peevishly with his
+little riding-whip. 'One can't, of course, but be kind,' he recommenced.
+'I can't do much--I can't make him acceptable, you know--but I pity him,
+Dr. Walsingham, and I've tried to be kind to him, _you_ know that; for
+ten years I had all the trouble, Sir, of a guardian without the
+authority of one. Yes, of course we're kind; but body o' me! Sir, he'd
+be better any where else than here, and without occupation, you know,
+quite idle, and so conspicuous. I promise you there are more than I who
+think it. And he has commenced fitting up that vile old house--that vile
+house, Sir. It is ready to tumble down--upon my life they say so; Nutter
+says so, and Sturk--Dr. Sturk, of the Artillery here--an uncommon
+sensible man, you know, says so too. 'Tis a vile house, and ready to
+tumble down, and you know the trouble I was put to by that corporation
+fellow--a--what's his name--about it; and he can't let it--people's
+servants won't stay in it, you know, the people tell such stories about
+it, I'm told; and what business has he here, you know? It is all very
+fine for a week or so, but they'll find him out, they will, Sir. He may
+call himself Mervyn, or Fitzgerald, or Thompson, Sir, or any other name,
+but it won't do, Sir. No, Dr. Walsingham, it won't do. The people down
+in this little village here, Sir, are plaguy sharp--they're cunning;
+upon my life, I believe they are too hard for Nutter.'
+
+In fact, Sturk had been urging on his lordship the purchase of this
+little property, which, for many reasons ought to be had a bargain, and
+adjoined Lord Castlemallard's, and had talked him into viewing it quite
+as an object. No wonder, then, he should look on Mervyn's restorations
+and residence, in the light of an impertinence and an intrusion.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+RELATING HOW PUDDOCK PURGED O'FLAHERTY'S HEAD--A CHAPTER WHICH, IT IS
+HOPED, NO GENTEEL PERSON WILL READ.
+
+
+Rum disagreed with O'Flaherty confoundedly, but, being sanguine, and
+also of an obstinate courage not easily to be put down, and liking that
+fluid, and being young withal, he drank it defiantly and liberally
+whenever it came in his way. So this morning he announced to his friend
+Puddock that he was suffering under a headache 'that 'id burst a pot.'
+The gallant fellow's stomach, too, was qualmish and disturbed. He heard
+of breakfast with loathing. Puddock rather imperiously insisted on his
+drinking some tea, which he abhorred, and of which, in very imperfect
+clothing and with deep groans and occasional imprecations on 'that
+bastely clar't'--to which he chose to ascribe his indisposition--he
+drearily partook.
+
+'I tell you what, Thir,' said Puddock, finding his patient nothing
+better, and not relishing the notion of presenting his man in that seedy
+condition upon the field: 'I've got a remedy, a very thimple one; it
+used to do wondereth for my poor Uncle Neagle, who loved rum shrub,
+though it gave him the headache _always_, and sometimes the gout.'
+
+And Puddock had up Mrs. Hogg, his landlady, and ordered a pair of little
+muslin bags about the size of a pistol-cartridge each, which she
+promised to prepare in five minutes, and he himself tumbled over the
+leaves of his private manuscript quarto, a desultory and miscellaneous
+album, stuffed with sonnets on Celia's eye--a lock of hair, or a pansy
+here or there pressed between the pages--birthday verses addressed to
+Sacharissa, receipts for 'puptons,' 'farces,' &c.; and several for
+toilet luxuries, 'Angelica water,' 'The Queen of Hungary's' ditto,
+'surfeit waters,' and finally, that he was in search of, to wit, 'My
+great Aunt Bell's recipe for purging the head' (good against melancholy
+or the headache). You are not to suppose that the volume was slovenly or
+in anywise unworthy of a gentleman and officer of those days. It was
+bound in red and gold, had two handsome silver-gilt clasps and red
+edges, the writing being exquisitely straight and legible, and without a
+single blot.
+
+'I have them all except--two--_three_,' murmured the thoughtful Puddock
+when he had read over the list of ingredients. These, however, he got
+from Toole, close at hand, and with a little silver grater and a pretty
+little agate pocket pestle and mortar--an heirloom derived from poor
+Aunt Bell--he made a wonderful powder; 'nutmeg and ginger, cinnamon and
+cloves,' as the song says, and every other stinging product of nature
+and chemistry which the author of this famous family 'purge for the
+head' could bring to remembrance; and certainly it _was_ potent. With
+this the cartridges were loaded, the ends tied up, and O'Flaherty,
+placed behind a table on which stood a basin, commenced the serious
+operation, under Puddock's directions, by introducing a bag at each side
+of his mouth, which as a man of honour, he was bound to retain there
+until Puddock had had his morning's tête-à-tête with the barber.
+
+Those who please to consult old domestic receipt-books of the last
+century, will find the whole process very exactly described therein.
+
+'Be the powers, Sorr, that was the stuff!' said O'Flaherty, discussing
+the composition afterwards, with an awful shake of his head; 'my chops
+wor blazing before you could count twenty.'
+
+It was martyrdom; but anything was better than the incapacity which
+threatened, and certainly, by the end of five minutes, his head was
+something better. In this satisfactory condition--Jerome being in the
+back garden brushing his regimentals, and preparing his other
+properties--he suddenly heard voices close to the door, and gracious
+powers! one was certainly Magnolia's.
+
+'That born devil, Juddy Carrol,' blazed forth. O'Flaherty, afterwards,
+'pushed open the door; it served me right for not being in my bed-room,
+and the door locked--though who'd a thought there was such a cruel
+eediot on airth--bad luck to her--as to show a leedy into a gentleman,
+with scarcely the half of his clothes on, and undhergoin' a soart iv an
+operation, I may say.'
+
+Happily the table behind which he stood was one of those old-fashioned
+toilet affairs, with the back part, which was turned toward the door,
+sheeted over with wood, so that his ungartered stockings and rascally
+old slippers, were invisible. Even so, it was bad enough: he was arrayed
+in a shabby old silk roquelaire, and there was a towel upon his breast,
+pinned behind his neck. He had just a second to pop the basin under the
+table, and to whisk the towel violently from under his chin, drying that
+feature with merciless violence; when the officious Judy Carrol, Grand
+Chamberlain in Jerome's absence, with the facetious grin of a
+good-natured lady about to make two people happy, introduced the
+bewitching Magnolia, and her meek little uncle, Major O'Neill.
+
+In they came, rejoicing, to ask the gallant fireworker (it was a
+different element just now), to make one of a party of pleasure to
+Leixlip. O'Flaherty could not so much as hand the young lady a chair; to
+emerge from behind the table, or even to attempt a retreat, was of
+course not to be thought of in the existing state of affairs. The action
+of Puddock's recipe was such as to make his share in the little
+complimentary conversation that ensued very indistinct, and to oblige
+him, to his disgrace and despair, when the poor fellow tried a smile,
+actually to apply his towel hastily to his mouth.
+
+He saw that his visitors observed those symptoms with some perplexity:
+the major was looking steadfastly at O'Flaherty's lips, and
+unconsciously making corresponding movements with his own, and the fair
+Magnolia was evidently full of pleasant surprise and curiosity. I really
+think, if O'Flaherty had had a pistol within reach, he would have been
+tempted to deliver himself summarily from that agonising situation.
+
+'I'm afraid, lieutenant, you've got the toothache,' said Miss Mag, with
+her usual agreeable simplicity.
+
+In his alacrity to assure her there was no such thing, he actually
+swallowed one of the bags. 'Twas no easy matter, and he grew very red,
+and stared frightfully, and swallowed a draught of water precipitately.
+His misery was indeed so great that at the conclusion of a polite little
+farewell speech of the major's, he uttered an involuntary groan, and
+lively Miss Mag, with an odious titter, exclaimed--
+
+'The little creature's teething, uncle, as sure as you're not; either
+that, or he's got a hot potato in his poor little mouzey-wouzey;' and
+poor O'Flaherty smiled a great silent moist smile at the well-bred
+pleasantry. The major, who did not choose to hear Mag's banter, made a
+formal, but rather smiling salute. The lieutenant returned it, and down
+came the unlucky mortar and a china plate, on which Puddock had mingled
+the ingredients, with a shocking crash and jingle on the bare boards; a
+plate and mortar never made such a noise before, O'Flaherty thought,
+with a mental imprecation.
+
+'Nothing--hash--'appened--Shur,' said O'Flaherty, whose articulation was
+affected a good deal, in terror lest the major should arrest his
+departure.
+
+So the major and tall Miss Magnolia, with all her roses and lilies, and
+bold broad talk, and her wicked eyes, went down the stairs; and
+O'Flaherty, looking with lively emotion in the glass, at the unbecoming
+coup-d'oeil, heard that agreeable young lady laughing most riotously
+under the windows as she and the major marched away.
+
+It was well for Judy, that, being of the gentler sex, the wrath of the
+fireworker could not wreak itself upon her. The oftener he viewed
+himself in the pier-glass, trying in vain to think he did not look so
+very badly after all, the more bitter were his feelings. Oh, that
+villainous old silk morning gown! and his eyes so confoundedly red, and
+his hair all dishevelled--bad luck to that clar't! the wig was all
+right, that was his only comfort;, and his mouth, 'och, look at it;
+twiste its natural size,' though that was no trifle.
+
+'Another week I'll not stop in her lodgings,' cried poor O'Flaherty,
+grinning at himself in the glass, 'if she keeps that savage, Judy
+Carrol, here a day longer.'
+
+Then he stumbled to the stair-head to call her up for judgment; but
+changed his mind, and returned to the looking-glass, blowing the cooling
+air in short whistles through his peppered lips--and I'm sorry to say,
+blowing out also many an ejaculation and invective, as that sorry sight
+met his gaze in the oval mirror, which would have been much better not
+uttered.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+ÆSCULAPIUS TO THE RESCUE.
+
+
+It was not until Puddock had returned, that the gallant fireworker
+recollected all on a sudden that he had swallowed one of the bags.
+
+'Thwallowed?--thwallowed it!' said Puddock, looking very blank and
+uncomfortable; 'why, Thir, I told you you were to be _very_ careful.'
+
+'Why, why curse it, it's _not_, 'tisn't----'
+
+'There was a long pause, and O'Flaherty stared a very frightened and
+hideous stare at the proprietor of the red quarto.
+
+'Not _what_, Thir?' demanded Puddock, briskly, but plainly disconcerted.
+
+'Not anything--anything _bad_--or, or--there's no use in purtendin',
+Puddock,' he resumed, turning quite yellow. 'I see, Sir, I see by your
+looks, it's what you think, I'm poisoned!'
+
+'I--I--do _not_, Thir, think you're poisoned,' he replied indignantly,
+but with some flurry; 'that is, there's a great deal in it that could
+not pothibly do you harm--there's only one ingredient, yes--or, or, yes,
+perhapth three, but thertainly no more, that I don't quite know about,
+depend upon it, 'tis nothing--a--nothing--a--seriouthly--a--But why, my
+dear Thir, why on earth did you violate the thimple directions--why did
+you thwallow a particle of it?'
+
+'Och, why did I let it into my mouth at all--the divil go with it!'
+retorted poor O'Flaherty; 'an' wasn't I the born eediot to put them
+devil's dumplins inside my mouth? but I did not know what I was
+doin'--no more I didn't.'
+
+'I hope your head'th better,' said Puddock, vindicating by that
+dignified enquiry the character of his recipe.
+
+'Auch! my head be smathered, what the puck do I care about it?'
+O'Flaherty broke out. 'Ah, why the devil, Puddock, do you keep them ould
+women's charrums and devilments about you?--you'll be the death of some
+one yet, so you will.'
+
+'It's a recipe, Sir,' replied Puddock, with the same dignity 'from
+which my great uncle, General Neagle, derived frequent benefit.'
+
+'And here I am,' says O'Flaherty, vehemently; 'and you don't know
+whether I'm poisoned or no!'
+
+At this moment he saw Dr. Sturk passing by, and drummed violently at the
+window. The doctor was impressed by the summons; for however queer the
+apparition, it was plain he was desperately in earnest.
+
+'Let's see the recipe,' said Sturk, drily; 'you think you're poisoned--I
+know you do;' poor O'Flaherty had shrunk from disclosing the extent of
+his apprehensions, and only beat about the bush; 'and if you be, I lay
+you fifty, I can't save you, nor all the doctors in Dublin--show me the
+recipe.'
+
+Puddock put it before him, and Sturk looked at the back of the volume
+with a leisurely disdain, but finding no title there, returned to the
+recipe. They both stared on his face, without breathing, while he conned
+it over. When he came about half-way, he whistled; and when he arrived
+at the end, he frowned hard; and squeezed his lips together till the red
+disappeared altogether, and he looked again at the back of the book, and
+then turned it round, once more reading the last line over with a severe
+expression.
+
+'And so you actually swallowed this--this devil's dose, Sir, did you?'
+demanded Sturk.
+
+'I--I believe he did, some of it; but I warned him, I did, upon my
+honour! Now, tell him, did I not warn you, my dear lieutenant, not to
+thwallow,' interposed little Puddock, who began to grow confoundedly
+agitated; but Sturk, who rather liked shocking and frightening people,
+and had a knack of making bad worse, and an alacrity in waxing savage
+without adequate cause, silenced him with--
+
+'I p-pity you, Sir,' and 'pity' shot like a pellet from his lips. 'Why
+the deuce will you dabble in medicine, Sir? Do you think it's a thing to
+be learnt in an afternoon out of the bottom of an old cookery-book?'
+
+'Cookery-book! excuse me, Dr. Sturk,' replied Puddock offended. 'I'm
+given to underthtand, Sir, it's to be found in Culpepper.'
+
+'Culpepper!' said Sturk, viciously. 'Cull-_poison_--you have peppered
+him to a purpose, I promise you! How much of it, pray, Sir (to
+O'Flaherty,) have you got in your stomach?'
+
+'Tell him, Puddock,' said O'Flaherty, helplessly.
+
+'Only a trifle I assure you,' extenuated Puddock (I need not spell his
+lisp), 'in a little muslin bag, about the size of the top joint of a
+lady's little finger.'
+
+'Top joint o' the devil!' roared O'Flaherty, bitterly, rousing himself;
+'I tell you, Dr. Sturk, it was as big as my thumb, and a miracle it did
+not choke me.'
+
+'It may do that job for you yet, Sir,' sneered the doctor with a stern
+disgust. 'I dare say you feel pretty hot here?' jerking his finger into
+his stomach.
+
+'And--and--and--_what_ is it?--is it--do you think it's anything
+--anyways--_dangerous_?' faltered poor O'Flaherty.
+
+'Dangerous!' responded Sturk, with an angry chuckle--indeed, he was
+specially vindictive against lay intruders upon the mystery of his
+craft; 'why, yes--ha,--ha!--just maybe a little. It's only _poison_,
+Sir, deadly, barefaced poison!' he began sardonically, with a grin, and
+ended with a black glare and a knock on the table, like an auctioneer's
+'gone!'
+
+'There are no less than two--three--_five_ mortal poisons in it,' said
+the doctor with emphatic acerbity. 'You and Mr. Puddock will allow
+_that's_ rather strong.'
+
+O'Flaherty sat down and looked at Sturk, and wiping his damp face and
+forehead, he got up without appearing to know where he was going.
+Puddock stood with his hands in his breeches pockets, staring with his
+little round eyes on the doctor, I must confess, with a very foolish and
+rather guilty vacuity all over his plump face, rigid and speechless, for
+three or four seconds; then he put his hand, which did actually tremble,
+upon the doctor's arm, and he said, very thickly--
+
+'I feel, Sir, you're right; it is my fault, Sir, I've poisoned him
+--merthiful goodneth!--I--I--'
+
+Puddock's address acted for a moment on O'Flaherty. He came up to him
+pale and queer, like a somnambulist, and shook his fingers very
+cordially with a very cold grasp.
+
+'If it was the last word I ever spoke, Puddock, you're a
+good-natured--he's a gentleman, Sir--and it was _all_ my own fault; he
+warned me, he did, again' swallyin' a dhrop of it--remember what I'm
+saying, doctor--'twas _I_ that done it; I was _always_ a botch, Puddock,
+an' a fool; and--and--gentlemen--good-bye.'
+
+And the flowered dressing-gown and ungartered stockings disappeared
+through the door into the bed-room, from whence they heard a great souse
+on the bed, and the bedstead gave a dismal groan.
+
+'Is there;--_is_ there nothing, doctor--for mercy's sake, think--doctor,
+do--I conjure you--pray think--there must be something'--urged Puddock,
+imploringly.
+
+'Ay, that's the way, Sir, fellows quacking themselves and one another;
+when they get frightened, and with good reason, come to us and expect
+miracles; but as in this case, the quantity was not very much, 'tis not,
+you see, overpowering, and he _may_ do if he takes what I'll send him.'
+
+Puddock was already at his bedside, shaking his hand hysterically, and
+tumbling his words out one over the other--
+
+'You're thafe, my dear Thir--_dum thpiro thpero_--he thayth--Dr.
+Thturk--he can thave you, my dear Thir--my dear lieutenant--my dear
+O'Flaherty--he can thave you, Thir--thafe and thound, Thir.'
+
+O'Flaherty, who had turned his face to the wall in the bitterness of his
+situation--for like some other men, he had the intensest horror of death
+when he came peaceably to his bedside, though ready enough to meet him
+with a 'hurrah!' and a wave of his rapier, if he arrived at a moment's
+notice, with due dash and eclat--sat up like a shot, and gaping upon
+Puddock for a few seconds, relieved himself with a long sigh, a
+devotional upward roll of the eyes, and some muttered words, of which
+the little ensign heard only 'blessing,' very fervently, and 'catch me
+again,' and 'divil bellows it;' and forthwith out came one of the
+fireworker's long shanks, and O'Flaherty insisted on dressing, shaving,
+and otherwise preparing as a gentleman and an officer, with great gaiety
+of heart, to meet his fate on the Fifteen Acres.
+
+In due time arrived the antidote. It was enclosed in a gallipot, and was
+what I believe they called an electuary. I don't know whether it is an
+obsolete abomination now, but it looked like brick-dust and treacle, and
+what it was made of even Puddock could not divine. O'Flaherty, that
+great Hibernian athlete, unconsciously winced and shuddered like a child
+at sight of it. Puddock stirred it with the tip of a tea-spoon, and
+looked into it with inquisitive disgust, and seemed to smell it from a
+distance, lost for a minute in inward conjecture, and then with a slight
+bow, pushed it ceremoniously toward his brother in arms.
+
+'There is not much the matter with me now--I feel well enough,' said
+O'Flaherty, mildly, and eyeing the mixture askance; and after a little
+while he looked at Puddock. That disciplinarian understood the look, and
+said, peremptorily, shaking up his little powdered head, and lisping
+vehemently--
+
+'Lieutenant O'Flaherty, Sir! I insist on your instantly taking that
+physic. How you may feel, Sir, has nothing to do with it. If you
+hesitate, I withdraw my sanction to your going to the field, Sir.
+There's no--there _can_ be--no earthly excuse but a--a miserable
+objection to a--swallowing a--recipe, Sir--that isn't--that is may
+be--not intended to please the palate, but to save your _life_,
+Sir,--remember. Sir, you've swallowed a--you--you _require_, Sir--you
+don't think I fear to say it, Sir!--you have swallowed that you ought
+not to have swallowed, and don't, Sir--don't--for _both_ our sakes--for
+Heaven's sake--I implore--and insist--don't trifle, Sir.'
+
+O'Flaherty felt himself passing under the chill and dismal shadow of
+death once more, such was the eloquence of Puddock, and so impressible
+his own nature, as he followed the appeal of his second. 'Life is
+sweet;' and, though the compound was nauseous, and a necessity upon him
+of swallowing it in horrid instalments, spoonful after spoonful, yet,
+though not without many interruptions, and many a shocking apostrophe,
+and even some sudden paroxysms of horror, which alarmed Puddock, he did
+contrive to get through it pretty well, except a little residuum in the
+bottom, which Puddock wisely connived at.
+
+The clink of a horse-shoe drew Puddock to the window. Sturk riding into
+town, reined in his generous beast, and called up to the little
+lieutenant.
+
+'Well, he's taken it, eh?'
+
+Puddock smiled a pleasant smile and nodded.
+
+'Walk him about, then, for an hour or so, and he'll do.'
+
+'Thank you, Sir,' said little Puddock, gaily.
+
+'Don't thank _me_, Sir, _either_ of you, but remember the lesson you've
+got,' said the doctor, tartly, and away he plunged into a sharp trot,
+with a cling-clang and a cloud of dust. And Puddock followed that
+ungracious leech, with a stare of gratitude and admiration, almost with
+a benediction. And his anxiety relieved, he and his principal prepared
+forthwith to provide real work for the surgeons.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+THE ORDEAL BY BATTLE.
+
+
+The chronicles of the small-sword and pistol are pregnant with horrid
+and absurd illustrations of certain great moral facts. Let them pass. A
+duel, we all know, spirit of 'Punch and Judy'--a farce of murder.
+Sterne's gallant father expired, or near it, with the point of a
+small-sword sticking out two feet between his shoulders, all about a
+goose-pie. I often wondered what the precise quarrel was. But these
+tragedies smell all over of goose-pie. Why--oh, why--brave Captain
+Sterne, as with saucy, flashing knife and fork you sported with the
+outworks of that fated structure, was there no augur at thine elbow,
+with a shake of his wintry beard, to warn thee that the birds of
+fate--_thy_ fate--sat vigilant under that festive mask of crust? Beware,
+it is Pandora's pie! Madman! hold thy hand! The knife's point that seems
+to thee about to glide through that pasty is palpably levelled at thine
+own windpipe! But this time Mephistopheles leaves the revellers to use
+their own cutlery; and now the pie is opened; and now the birds begin to
+sing! Come along, then to the Fifteen Acres, and let us see what will
+come of it all.
+
+That flanking demi-bastion of the Magazine, crenelled for musketry,
+commands, with the aid of a couple of good field-glasses, an excellent
+and secret view of the arena on which the redoubted O'Flaherty and the
+grim Nutter were about to put their metal to the proof. General
+Chattesworth, who happened to have an appointment, as he told his sister
+at breakfast, in town about that hour, forgot it just as he reached the
+Magazine, gave his bridle to the groom, and stumped into the fortress,
+where he had a biscuit and a glass of sherry in the commandant's little
+parlour, and forth the two cronies sallied mysteriously side by side;
+the commandant, Colonel Bligh, being remarkably tall, slim, and
+straight, with an austere, mulberry-coloured face; the general stout and
+stumpy, and smiling plentifully, short of breath, and double chinned,
+they got into the sanctum I have just mentioned.
+
+I don't apologise to my readers, English-born and bred, for assuming
+them to be acquainted with the chief features of the 'Phoenix Park,
+near Dublin. Irish scenery is now as accessible as Welsh. Let them study
+the old problem, not in blue books, but in the green and brown ones of
+our fields and heaths, and mountains. If Ireland be no more than a great
+capability and a beautiful landscape, faintly visible in the blue haze,
+even from your own headlands, and separated by hardly four hours of
+water, and a ten-shilling fare, from your jetties, it is your own shame,
+not ours, if a nation of bold speculators and indefatigable tourists
+leave it unexplored.
+
+So I say, from this coigne of vantage, looking westward over the broad
+green level toward the thin smoke that rose from Chapelizod chimneys,
+lying so snugly in the lap of the hollow by the river, the famous
+Fifteen Acres, where so many heroes have measured swords, and so many
+bullies have bit the dust, was distinctly displayed in the near
+foreground. You all know the artillery butt. Well, that was the centre
+of a circular enclosure containing just fifteen acres, with broad
+entrances eastward and westward.
+
+The old fellows knew very well where to look.
+
+Father Roach was quite accidentally there, reading his breviary when the
+hostile parties came upon the ground--for except when an accident of
+this sort occurred, or the troops were being drilled, it was a
+sequestered spot enough--and he forthwith joined them, as usual, to
+reconcile the dread debate.
+
+Somehow, I think his arguments were not altogether judicious.
+
+'I don't ask particulars, my dear--I abominate all that concerns a
+quarrel; but Lieutenant O'Flaherty, jewel, supposin' the very
+worst--supposin', just for argument, that he has horse-whipped you----.'
+
+'An' who dar' suppose it?' glared O'Flaherty.
+
+'Or, we'll take it that he spit in your face, honey. Well,' continued
+his reverence, not choosing to hear the shocking ejaculations which this
+hypothesis wrung from the lieutenant; 'what of that, my darlin'? Think
+of the indignities, insults, and disgraces that the blessed Saint
+Martellus suffered, without allowing, anything worse to cross his lips
+than an Ave Mary or a smile in resignation.'
+
+'Ordher the priest off the ground, Sorr,' said O'Flaherty, lividly, to
+little Puddock, who was too busy with Mr. Mahony to hear him; and Roach
+had already transferred his pious offices to Nutter, who speedily
+flushed up and became, to all appearances, in his own way just as angry
+as O'Flaherty.
+
+'Lieutenant O'Flaherty, a word in your ear,' once more droned the mellow
+voice of Father Roach; 'you're a young man, my dear, and here's
+Lieutenant Puddock by your side, a young man too; I'm as ould, my
+honeys, as the two of you put together, an' I advise you, for your
+good--don't shed human blood--don't even draw your swords--don't, my
+darlins; don't be led or said by them army-gentlemen, that's always
+standin' up for fightin' because the leedies admire fightin' men.
+They'll call you cowards, polthroons, curs, sneaks, turn-tails--let
+them!'
+
+'There's no standin' this any longer, Puddock,' said O'Flaherty,
+incensed indescribably by the odious names which his reverence was
+hypothetically accumulating; 'if you want to see the fightin', Father
+Roach----.'
+
+'Apage, Sathanas!' murmured his reverence, pettishly, raising his plump,
+blue chin, and dropping his eyelids with a shake of the head, and waving
+the back of his fat, red hand gently towards the speaker.
+
+'In that case, stay here, an' look your full, an' welcome, only don't
+make a noise; behave like a Christian, an' hould your tongue; but if you
+really hate fightin', as you say----'
+
+Having reached this point in his address, but intending a good deal
+more, O'Flaherty suddenly stopped short, drew himself into a stooping
+posture, with a flush and a strange distortion, and his eyes fastened
+upon Father Roach with an unearthly glare for nearly two minutes, and
+seized Puddock upon the upper part of his arm with so awful a grip, in
+his great bony hand, that the gallant little gentleman piped out in a
+flurry of anguish--
+
+'O--O--O'Flaherty, Thir--_let_ go my arm, Thir.'
+
+O'Flaherty drew a long breath, uttered a short, deep groan, and wiping
+the moisture from his red forehead, and resuming a perpendicular
+position, was evidently trying to recover the lost thread of his
+discourse.
+
+'There'th dethidedly thomething the matter with you, Thir,' said
+Puddock, anxiously, _sotto voce_, while he worked his injured arm's a
+little at the shoulder.
+
+'You may say that,' said O'Flaherty, very dismally, and, perhaps, a
+little bitterly.
+
+'And--and--and--you don't mean to thay--why--eh?' asked Puddock,
+uneasily.
+
+'I tell you what, Puddock--there's no use in purtendin'--the poison's
+working--_that's_ what's the matter,' returned poor O'Flaherty, in what
+romance writers call 'a hissing whisper.'
+
+'Good--merthiful--graciouth--Thir!' ejaculated poor little Puddock, in a
+panic, and gazing up into the brawny fireworker's face with a pallid
+fascination; indeed they both looked unpleasantly unlike the popular
+conception of heroes on the eve of battle.
+
+'But--but it can't be--you forget Dr. Sturk and--oh, dear!--the
+antidote. It--I thay--it can't _be_, Thir,' said Puddock, rapidly.
+
+'It's no use, now; but I shirked two or three spoonfuls, and I left some
+more in the bottom,' said the gigantic O'Flaherty, with a gloomy
+sheepishness.
+
+Puddock made an ejaculation--the only violent one recorded of him--and
+turning his back briskly upon his principal, actually walked several
+steps away, as if he intended to cut the whole concern. But such a
+measure was really not to be thought of.
+
+'O'Flaherty--Lieutenant--I won't reproach you,' began Puddock.
+
+'_Reproach_ me! an' who _poisoned_ me, my tight little fellow?' retorted
+the fireworker, savagely.
+
+Puddock could only look at him, and then said, quite meekly--
+
+'Well, and my dear Thir, what on earth had we better do?'
+
+'Do,' said O'Flaherty, 'why isn't it completely Hobson's choice with us?
+What can we do but go through with it?'
+
+The fact is, I may as well mention, lest the sensitive reader should be
+concerned for the gallant O'Flaherty, that the poison had very little to
+do with it, and the antidote a great deal. In fact, it was a reckless
+compound conceived in a cynical and angry spirit by Sturk, and as the
+fireworker afterwards declared, while expressing in excited language his
+wonder how Puddock (for he never suspected Sturk's elixir) had contrived
+to compound such a poison--'The torture was such, my dear Madam, as
+fairly thranslated me into the purlieus of the other world.'
+
+Nutter had already put off his coat and waistcoat, and appeared in a
+neat little black lutestring vest, with sleeves to it, which the elder
+officers of the R.I.A. remembered well in by-gone fencing matches.
+
+'Tis a most _miserable_ situation,' said Puddock, in extreme distress.
+
+'Never mind,' groaned O'Flaherty, grimly taking off his coat; 'you'll
+have _two_ corpses to carry home with you; don't you show the laste
+taste iv unaisiness, an' I'll not disgrace you, _if_ I'm spared to see
+it out.'
+
+And now preliminaries were quite adjusted; and Nutter, light and wiry, a
+good swordsman, though not young, stepped out with his vicious weapon in
+hand, and his eyes looking white and stony out of his dark face. A word
+or two to his armour-bearer, and a rapid gesture, right and left, and
+that magnificent squire spoke low to two or three of the surrounding
+officers, who forthwith bestirred themselves to keep back the crowd, and
+as it were to keep the ring unbroken. O'Flaherty took his sword, got his
+hand well into the hilt, poised the blade, shook himself up as it were,
+and made a feint or two and a parry in the air, and so began to advance,
+like Goliath, towards little Nutter.
+
+'Now, Puddock, back him up--encourage your man,' said Devereux, who took
+a perverse pleasure in joking; 'tell him to flay the lump, splat him,
+divide him, and cut him in two pieces----.
+
+It was a custom of the corps to quiz Puddock about his cookery; but
+Puddock, I suppose, did not hear his last night's 'receipt' quoted, and
+he kept his eye upon his man, who had now got nearly within fencing
+distance of his adversary. But at this critical moment, O'Flaherty, much
+to Puddock's disgust, suddenly stopped, and got into the old stooping
+posture, making an appalling grimace in what looked like an endeavour to
+swallow, not only his under lip, but his chin also. Uttering a
+quivering, groan, he continued to stoop nearer to the earth, on which he
+finally actually sat down and hugged his knees close to his chest,
+holding his breath all the time till he was perfectly purple, and
+rocking himself this way and that.
+
+The whole procedure was a mystery to everybody except the guilty
+Puddock, who changed colour, and in manifest perturbation, skipped to
+his side.
+
+'Bleth me--bleth me--my dear O'Flaherty, he'th very ill--where ith the
+pain?'
+
+'Is it "farced pain," Puddock, or "gammon pain?"' asked Devereux, with
+much concern.
+
+Puddock's plump panic-stricken little face, and staring eye-balls, were
+approached close to the writhing features of his redoubted principal--as
+I think I have seen honest Sancho Panza's, in one of Tony Johannot's
+sketches, to that of the prostrate Knight of the Rueful Countenance.
+
+'I wish to Heaven I had thwallowed it myself--it'th dreadful--what ith
+to be--are you eathier--I _think_ you're eathier.'
+
+I don't think O'Flaherty heard him. He only hugged his knees tighter,
+and slowly turned up his face, wrung into ten thousand horrid puckers,
+to the sky, till his chin stood as high as his forehead, with his teeth
+and eyes shut, and he uttered a sound like a half-stifled screech; and,
+indeed, looked very black and horrible.
+
+Some of the spectators, rear-rank men, having but an imperfect view of
+the transaction, thought that O'Flaherty had been hideously run through
+the body by his solemn opponent, and swelled the general chorus of
+counsel and ejaculation, by all together advising cobwebs, brown-paper
+plugs, clergymen, brandy, and the like; but as none of these comforts
+were at hand, and nobody stirred, O'Flaherty was left to the resources
+of Nature.
+
+Puddock threw his cocked hat upon the ground and stamped in a momentary
+frenzy.
+
+'He'th _dying_--Devereux--Cluffe--he'th--I _tell_ you, he'th dying;' and
+he was on the point of declaring himself O'Flaherty's murderer, and
+surrendering himself as such into the hands of anybody who would accept
+the custody of his person, when the recollection of his official
+position as poor O'Flaherty's second flashed upon him, and collecting
+with a grand effort, his wits and his graces--
+
+'It'th totally impothible, gentlemen,' he said, with his most
+ceremonious bow; 'conthidering the awful condition of my
+printhipal--I--I have reathon to fear--in fact I know--Dr. Thturk has
+theen him--that he'th under the action of _poithon_--and it'th quite
+impractithable, gentlemen, that thith affair of honour can protheed at
+prethent;' and Puddock drew himself up peremptorily, and replaced his
+hat, which somebody had slipped into his hand, upon his round powdered
+head.
+
+Mr. Mahony, though a magnificent gentleman, was, perhaps, a little
+stupid, and he mistook Puddock's agitation, and thought he was in a
+passion, and disposed to be offensive. He, therefore, with a marked and
+stern sort of elegance, replied--
+
+'_Pison_, Sir, is a remarkably strong alpathet; it's language, Sir,
+which, if a gentleman uses at all, he's bound in justice, in shivalry,
+and in dacency to a generous adversary, to define with precision. Mr.
+Nutter is too well known to the best o'society, moving in a circle as he
+does, to require the panegyric of humble me. They drank together last
+night, they differed in opinion, that's true, but fourteen clear hours
+has expired, and pison being mentioned----'
+
+'Why, body o' me! Sir,' lisped Puddock, in fierce horror; 'can you
+imagine for one moment, Sir, that I or any man living could suppose for
+an instant, that my respected friend, Mr. Nutter, to whom (a low bow to
+Nutter, returned by that gentleman) I have now the misfortune to be
+opposed, is capable--capable, Sir, of poisoning any living being--man,
+woman, or child; and to put an end, Sir, at once to all misapprehension
+upon this point, it was I--_I_, Sir--myself--who poisoned him,
+altogether accidentally, of course, by a valuable, but mismanaged
+receipt, this morning, Sir--you--you _see_, Mr. Nutter!'
+
+Nutter, balked of his gentlemanlike satisfaction, stared with a
+horrified but somewhat foolish countenance from Puddock to O'Flaherty.
+
+'And now, Thir,' pursued Puddock, addressing himself to Mr. Mahony, 'if
+Mr. Nutter desires to postpone the combat, I consent; if not, I offer
+mythelf to maintain it inthead of my printhipal.'
+
+And so he made another low bow, and stood bareheaded, hat in hand, with
+his right hand on his sword hilt.
+
+'Upon my honour, Captain Puddock, it's precisely what I was going to
+propose myself, Sir,' said Mahony, with great alacrity; 'as the only way
+left us of getting honourably out of the great embarrassment in which we
+are placed by the premature _death_-struggles of your friend; for
+nothing, Mr. Puddock, but being _bonâ fide in articulo mortis_, can
+palliate his conduct.'
+
+'My dear Puddock,' whispered Devereux, in his ear, 'surely you would not
+kill Nutter to oblige two such brutes as these?' indicating by a glance
+Nutter's splendid second and the magnanimous O'Flaherty, who was still
+sitting speechless upon the ground.
+
+'Captain Puddock,' pursued that mirror of courtesy, Mr. Patrick Mahony,
+of Muckafubble, who, by-the-bye, persisted in giving him his captaincy,
+may I enquire who's _your_ friend upon this unexpected turn of affairs?'
+
+'There's no need, Sir,' said Nutter, dryly and stoutly, 'I would not
+hurt a hair of your head, Lieutenant Puddock.'
+
+'Do you hear him?' panted O'Flaherty, for the first time articulate, and
+stung by the unfortunate phrase--it seemed fated that Nutter should not
+open his lips without making some allusion to human hair: 'do you _hear_
+him, Puddock? Mr. Nutter--(he spoke with great difficulty, and in
+jerks)--Sir--Mr. Nutter--you shall--ugh--you shall render a strict
+accow-ow-oh-im-m-m!'
+
+The sound was smothered under his compressed lips, his face wrung itself
+again crimson with a hideous squeeze, and Puddock thought the moment of
+his dissolution was come, and almost wished it over.
+
+'Don't try to speak--pray, Sir, don't--there--there, now,' urged
+Puddock, distractedly; but the injunction was unnecessary.
+
+'Mr. Nutter,' said his second sulkily, 'I don't see anything to satisfy
+your outraged honour in the curious spectacle of that gentleman sitting
+on the ground making faces; we came here not to trifle, but, as I
+conceive, to dispatch business, Sir.'
+
+'To dispatch that unfortunate gentleman, you mean, and that seems pretty
+well done to your hand,' said little Dr. Toole, bustling up from the
+coach where his instruments, lint, and plasters were deposited. 'What's
+it all, eh?--oh, Dr. _Sturk's_ been with him, eh? Oh, ho, ho, ho!' and
+he laughed sarcastically, in an undertone, and shrugged, as he stooped
+down and took O'Flaherty's pulse in his fingers and thumb.
+
+'I tell you what, Mr. a--a--a--Sir,' said Nutter, with a very dangerous
+look; 'I have had the honour of knowing Lieutenant Puddock since August,
+1756; I won't hurt him, for I like and respect him; but, if fight I
+must, I'll fight _you_, Sir!'
+
+'Since August, 1756?' repeated Mr. Mahony, with prompt surprise. 'Pooh!
+why didn't you mention that before? Why, Sir, he's an old friend, and
+you _could_ not pleasantly ask him to volunteer to bare his waypon
+against the boosom of his friend. No, Sir, shivalry is the handmaid of
+Christian charity, and honour walks hand in hand with the human heart!'
+
+With this noble sentiment he bowed and shook Nutter's cold, hard hand,
+and then Puddock's plump little white paw.
+
+You are not to suppose that Pat Mahoney, of Muckafubble, was a poltroon;
+on the contrary, he had fought several shocking duels, and displayed a
+remarkable amount of savagery and coolness; but having made a character,
+he was satisfied therewith. They may talk of fighting for the fun of it,
+liking it, delighting in it; don't believe a word of it. We all hate it,
+and the hero is only he who hates it least.'
+
+'Ugh, I can't stand it any longer; take me out of this, some of you,'
+said O'Flaherty, wiping the damp from his red face. 'I don't think
+there's ten minutes' life in me.'
+
+'_De profundis conclamavi_,' murmured fat father Roach; 'lean upon me,
+Sir.'
+
+'And me,' said little Toole.
+
+'For the benefit of your poor soul, my honey, just say you forgive Mr.
+Nutter before you leave the field,' said the priest quite sincerely.
+
+'Anything at all, Father Roach,' replied the sufferer; 'only don't
+bother me.'
+
+'You forgive him then, aroon?' said the priest.
+
+'Och, bother! forgive him, to be sure I do. _That's_ supposin', mind, I
+don't recover; but if I _do_----.'
+
+'Och, pacible, pacible, my son,' said Father Roach, patting his arm, and
+soothing him with his voice. It was the phrase he used to address to his
+nag, Brian O'Lynn, when Brian had too much oats, and was disagreeably
+playful. 'Nansinse, now, can't you be pacible--pacible my son--there
+now, pacible, pacible.'
+
+Upon his two supporters, and followed by his little second, this
+towering sufferer was helped, and tumbled into the coach, into which
+Puddock, Toole, and the priest, who was curious to see O'Flaherty's last
+moments, all followed; and they drove at a wild canter--for the coachman
+was 'hearty'--over the green grass, and toward Chapelizod, though Toole
+broke the check-string without producing any effect, down the hill,
+quite frightfully, and were all within an ace of being capsized. But
+ultimately they reached, in various states of mind, but safely enough,
+O'Flaherty's lodgings.
+
+Here the gigantic invalid, who had suffered another paroxysm on the way,
+was slowly assisted to the ground by his awestruck and curious friends,
+and entered the house with a groan, and roared for Judy Carroll with a
+curse, and invoked Jerome, the _cokang modate_, with horrible
+vociferation. And as among the hushed exhortations of the good priest,
+Toole and Puddock, he mounted the stairs, he took occasion over the
+banister, in stentorian tones, to proclaim to the household his own
+awful situation, and the imminent approach of the moment of his
+dissolution.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+LIEUTENANT PUDDOCK RECEIVES AN INVITATION AND A RAP OVER THE KNUCKLES.
+
+
+The old gentlemen, from their peepholes in the Magazine, watched the
+progress of this remarkable affair of honour, as well as they could,
+with the aid of their field-glasses, and through an interposing crowd.
+
+'By Jupiter, Sir, he's through him!' said Colonel Bligh, when he saw
+O'Flaherty go down.
+
+'So he is, by George!' replied General Chattesworth; 'but, eh, which is
+he?'
+
+'The _long_ fellow,' said Bligh.
+
+'O'Flaherty?--hey!--no, by George!--though so it is--there's work in
+Frank Nutter yet, by Jove,' said the general, poking his glass and his
+fat face an inch or two nearer.
+
+'Quick work, general!' said Bligh.
+
+'Devilish,' replied the general.
+
+The two worthies never moved their glasses; as each, on his inquisitive
+face, wore the grim, wickedish, half-smile, with which an old stager
+recalls, in the prowess of his juniors, the pleasant devilment of his
+own youth.
+
+'The cool, old hand, Sir, too much for your new fireworker,' remarked
+Bligh, cynically.
+
+'Tut, Sir, this O'Flaherty has not been three weeks among us,'
+spluttered out the general, who was woundily jealous of the honour of
+his corps. 'There are lads among our fireworkers who would whip Nutter
+through the liver while you'd count ten!'
+
+'They're removing the--the--(a long pause) the _body_, eh?' said Bligh.
+'Hey! no, see, by George, he's walking but he's _hurt_.'
+
+'I'm mighty well pleased it's no worse, Sir,' said the general, honestly
+glad.
+
+'They're helping him into the coach--long legs the fellow's got,'
+remarked Bligh.
+
+'These--things--Sir--are--are--very--un--pleasant,' said the general,
+adjusting the focus of the glass, and speaking slowly--though no Spanish
+dandy ever relished a bull-fight more than he an affair of the kind. He
+and old Bligh had witnessed no less than five--not counting this--in
+which officers of the R.I.A. were principal performers, from the same
+sung post of observation. The general, indeed, was conventionally
+supposed to know nothing of them, and to reprobate the practice itself
+with his whole soul. But somehow, when an affair of the sort came off on
+the Fifteen Acres, he always happened to drop in, at the proper moment,
+upon his old crony, the colonel, and they sauntered into the
+demi-bastion together, and quietly saw what was to be seen. It was Miss
+Becky Chattesworth who involved the poor general in this hypocrisy. It
+was not exactly her money; it was her force of will and unflinching
+audacity that established her control over an easy, harmless, plastic
+old gentleman.
+
+'They are unpleasant--devilish unpleasant--somewhere in the body, I
+think, hey? they're stooping again, stooping again--eh?--_plaguy_
+unpleasant, Sir (the general was thinking how Miss Becky's tongue would
+wag, and what she might not even _do_, if O'Flaherty died). Ha! on they
+go again, and a--Puddock--getting in--and that's Toole. He's not so much
+hurt--eh? He helped himself a good deal, you saw; but (taking heart of
+grace) when a quarrel does occur, Sir, I believe, after all, 'tis better
+off the stomach at once--a few passes--you know--or the crack of a
+pistol--who's that got in--the priest--hey? by George!'
+
+'Awkward if he dies a Papist,' said cynical old Bligh--the R.I.A. were
+Protestant by constitution.
+
+'That never happens in our corps, Sir,' said the general, haughtily;
+'but, as I say, when a quarrel--does--occur--Sir--there, they're off at
+last; when it does occur--I say--heyday! what a thundering pace! a
+gallop, by George! that don't look well (a pause)--and--and--a--about
+what you were saying--you know he _couldn't_ die a Papist in our
+corps--no one does--no one ever _did_--it would be, you know--it would
+be a _trick_, Sir, and O'Flaherty's a gentleman; it _could_ not be--(he
+was thinking of Miss Becky again--she was so fierce on the Gunpowder
+Plot, the rising of 1642, and Jesuits in general, and he went on a
+little flustered); but then, Sir, as I was saying, though the thing has
+its uses----.'
+
+'I'd like to know where society'd be without it,' interposed Bligh, with
+a sneer.
+
+'Though it may have its uses, Sir; it's not a thing one can sit down and
+say is _right_--we _can't_!'
+
+'I've heard your sister, Miss Becky, speak strongly on that point,
+too,'said Bligh.
+
+'Ah! I dare say,' said the general, quite innocently, an coughing a
+little. This was a sore point with the hen-pecked warrior, and the grim
+scarcecrow by his side knew it, and grinned through his telescope; 'and
+you see--I say--eh! I think they're breaking up, a--and--I say--I--it
+seems all over--eh--and so, dear colonel, I must take my leave, and----.'
+
+And after a lingering look, he shut up his glass, and walking
+thoughtfully back with his friend, said suddenly--
+
+'And, now I think of it--it could not be _that_--Puddock, you know,
+would not suffer the priest to sit in the same coach with such a
+design--Puddock's a good officer, eh! and knows his duty.'
+
+A few hours afterwards, General Chattesworth, having just dismounted
+outside the Artillery barracks, to his surprise, met Puddock and
+O'Flaherty walking leisurely in the street of Chapelizod. O'Flaherty
+looked pale and shaky, and rather wild; and the general returned his
+salute, looking deuced hard at him, and wondering all the time in what
+part of his body (in his phrase) 'he had got it;' and how the plague the
+doctors had put him so soon on his legs again.
+
+'Ha, Lieutenant Puddock,' with a smile, which Puddock thought
+significant--'give you good-evening, Sir. Dr. Toole anywhere about, or
+have you seen Sturk?'
+
+'No, he had not.'
+
+The general wanted to hear by accident, or in confidence, all about it;
+and having engaged Puddock in talk, that officer followed by his side.
+
+'I should be glad of the honour of your company, Lieutenant Puddock, to
+dinner this evening--Sturk comes, and Captain Cluffe, and this wonderful
+Mr. Dangerfield too, of whom we all heard so much at mess, at five
+o'clock, if the invitation's not too late.'
+
+The lieutenant acknowledged and accepted, with a blush and a very low
+bow, his commanding officer's hospitality; in fact, there was a _tendre_
+in the direction of Belmont, and little Puddock had inscribed in his
+private book many charming stanzas of various lengths and structures, in
+which the name of 'Gertrude' was of frequent recurrence.
+
+'And--a--I say, Puddock--Lieutenant O'Flaherty, I thought--I--I thought,
+d'ye see, just now, eh? (he looked inquisitively, but there was no
+answer); I thought, I say, he looked devilish out of sorts, is
+he--a--_ill_?'
+
+'He _was very_ ill, indeed, this afternoon, general; a sudden attack----'
+
+The general looked quickly at Puddock's plump, consequential face; but
+there was no further light in it. 'He _was_ hurt then, I knew it'--he
+thought--'who's attending him--and why is he out--and was it a
+flesh-wound--or where was it?' all these questions silently, but
+vehemently, solicited an answer--and he repeated the last aloud, in a
+careless sort of way.
+
+'And--a--Lieutenant Puddock, you were saying--a--tell me--now--_where_
+was it?'
+
+'In the park, general,' said Puddock, in perfect good faith.
+
+'Eh? ah! in the park, was it? but I want to know, you know, what part of
+the body--d'ye see--the shoulder--or?----'
+
+'The duodenum, Dr. Toole called it--just here, general,' and he pressed
+his fingers to what is vulgarly known as the 'pit' of his stomach.
+
+'What, Sir, do you mean to say the pit of his stomach?' said the
+general, with more horror and indignation than he often showed.
+
+'Yes, just about that point, general, and the pain was very violent
+indeed,' answered Puddock, looking with a puzzled stare at the general's
+stern and horrified countenance--an officer might have a pain in his
+stomach, he thought, without exciting all that emotion. Had he heard of
+the poison, and did he know more of the working of such things than,
+perhaps, the doctors did?
+
+'And what in the name of Bedlam, Sir, does he mean by walking about the
+town with a hole through his--his what's his name? I'm hanged but I'll
+place him under arrest this moment,' the general thundered, and his
+little eyes swept the perspective this way and that, as if they would
+leap from their sockets, in search of the reckless O'Flaherty. 'Where's
+the adjutant, Sir?' he bellowed with a crimson scowl and a stamp, to the
+unoffending sentry.
+
+'That's the way to make him lie quiet, and keep his bed till he heals,
+Sir.'
+
+Puddock explained, and the storm subsided, rumbling off in half a dozen
+testy assertions on the general's part that he, Puddock, had distinctly
+used the word '_wounded_,' and now and then renewing faintly, in a
+muttered explosion, on the troubles and worries of his command, and a
+great many 'pshaws!' and several fits of coughing, for the general
+continued out of breath for some time. He had showed his cards, however,
+and so, in a dignified disconcerted sort of way, he told Puddock that he
+had heard something about O'Flaherty's having got most improperly into a
+foolish quarrel, and having met Nutter that afternoon, and for a moment
+feared he might have been hurt; and then came enquiries about Nutter,
+and there appeared to have been no one hurt, and yet the parties on the
+ground--and no fighting--and yet no reconciliation--and, in fact, the
+general was so puzzled with this conundrum, and so curious, that he was
+very near calling after Puddock, when they parted at the bridge, and
+making him entertain him, at some cost of consistency, with the whole
+story.
+
+So Puddock--his head full of delicious visions--marched homeward--to
+powder and perfume, and otherwise equip for that banquet of the gods, of
+which he was to partake at five o'clock, and just as he turned the
+corner at 'The Phoenix,' who should he behold, sailing down the Dublin
+road from the King's House, with a grand powdered footman, bearing his
+cane of office, and a great bouquet behind her, and Gertrude
+Chattesworth by her side, but the splendid and formidable Aunt Becky,
+who had just been paying her compliments to old Mrs. Colonel Stafford,
+from whom she had heard all about the duel. So as Puddock's fat cheeks
+grew pink at sight of Miss Gertrude, all Aunt Becky's colour flushed
+into her face, as her keen eye pierced the unconscious lieutenant from
+afar off, and chin and nose high in air, her mouth just a little tucked
+in, as it were, at one corner--a certain sign of coming storm--an angry
+hectic in each cheek, a fierce flirt of her fan, and two or three short
+sniffs that betokened mischief--she quickened her pace, leaving her
+niece a good way in the rear, in her haste to engage the enemy. Before
+she came up she commenced the action at a long range, and very
+abruptly--for an effective rhetorician of Aunt Becky's sort, jumps at
+once, like a good epic poet, _in medias res_; and as Nutter, who, like
+all her friends in turn, experienced once or twice 'a taste of her
+quality,' observed to his wife, 'by Jove, that woman says things for
+which she ought to be put in the watch-house.' So now and here she
+maintained her reputation--
+
+'You ought to be flogged, Sir; yes,' she insisted, answering Puddock's
+bewildered stare, 'tied up to the halberts and flogged.'
+
+Aunt Rebecca was accompanied by at least half a dozen lap-dogs, and
+those intelligent brutes, aware of his disgrace, beset poor Puddock's
+legs with a furious vociferation.
+
+'Madam,' said he, his ears tingling, and making a prodigious low bow;
+'commissioned officers are never flogged.'
+
+'So much the worse for the service, Sir; and the sooner they abolish
+that anomalous distinction the better. I'd have them begin, Sir, with
+you, and your accomplice in murder, Lieutenant O'Flaherty.'
+
+'Madam! your most obedient humble servant,' said Puddock, with another
+bow, still more ceremonious, flushing up intensely to the very roots of
+his powdered hair, and feeling in his swelling heart that all the
+generals of all the armies of Europe dare not have held such language to
+him.
+
+'Good-evening, Sir,' said Aunt Becky, with an energetic toss of her
+head, having discharged her shot; and with an averted countenance, and
+in high disdain, she swept grandly on, quite forgetting her niece, who
+said a pleasant word or two to Puddock as she passed, and smiled so
+kindly, and seemed so entirely unconscious of his mortification, that he
+was quite consoled, and on the whole was made happy and elated by the
+rencontre, and went home to his wash-balls and perfumes in a hopeful and
+radiant, though somewhat excited state.
+
+Indeed, the little lieutenant knew that kind-hearted termagant, Aunt
+Becky, too well, to be long cast down or even flurried by her onset.
+When the same little Puddock, about a year ago, had that ugly attack of
+pleurisy, and was so low and so long about recovering, and so puny and
+fastidious in appetite, she treated him as kindly as if he were her own
+son, in the matter of jellies, strong soups, and curious light wines,
+and had afterwards lent him some good books which the little lieutenant
+had read through, like a man of honour as he was. And, indeed, what
+specially piqued Aunt Becky's resentment just now was, that having had,
+about that time, a good deal of talk with Puddock upon the particular
+subject of duelling, he had, as she thought, taken very kindly to her
+way of thinking; and she had a dozen times in the last month, cited
+Puddock to the general; and so his public defection was highly
+mortifying and intolerable.
+
+So Puddock, in a not unpleasant fuss and excitement, sat down in his
+dressing-gown before the glass; and while Moore the barber, with tongs,
+powder, and pomade, repaired the dilapidations of the day, he
+contemplated his own plump face, not altogether unapprovingly, and
+thought with a charming anticipation of the adventures of the
+approaching evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+RELATING HOW THE GENTLEMEN SAT OVER THEIR CLARET, AND HOW DR. STURK SAW
+A FACE.
+
+
+Puddock drove up the avenue of gentlemanlike old poplars, and over the
+little bridge, and under the high-arched bowers of elms, walled up at
+either side with evergreens, and so into the court-yard of Belmont.
+Three sides of a parellelogram, the white old house being the largest,
+and offices white and in keeping, but overgrown with ivy, and opening to
+yards of their own on the other sides, facing one another at the flanks,
+and in front a straight Dutch-like moat, with a stone balustrade running
+all along from the garden to the bridge, with great stone flower pots
+set at intervals, the shrubs and flowers of which associated themselves
+in his thoughts with beautiful Gertrude Chattesworth, and so were
+wonderfully bright and fragrant. And there were two swans upon the
+water, and several peacocks marching dandily in the court-yard; and a
+grand old Irish dog, with a great collar, and a Celtic inscription,
+dreaming on the steps in the evening sun.
+
+It was always pleasant to dine at Belmont. Old General Chattesworth was
+so genuinely hospitable and so really glad to see you, and so hilarious
+himself, and so enjoying. A sage or a scholar, perhaps, might not have
+found a great deal in him. Most of his stories had been heard before.
+Some of them, I am led to believe, had even been printed. But they were
+not very long, and he had a good natured word and a cordial smile for
+everybody; and he had a good cook, and explained his dishes to those
+beside him, and used sometimes to toddle out himself to the cellar in
+search of a curious bon-bouche; and of nearly every bin in it he had a
+little anecdote or a pedigree to relate. And his laugh was frequent and
+hearty, and somehow the room and all in it felt the influence of his
+presence like the glow, and cheer, and crackle of a bright Christmas
+fire.
+
+Miss Becky Chattesworth, very stately in a fine brocade, and a great
+deal of point lace, received Puddock very loftily, and only touched his
+hand with the tips of her fingers. It was plain he was not yet taken
+into favour. When he entered the drawing-room, that handsome stranger,
+with the large eyes, so wonderfully elegant and easy in the
+puce-coloured cut velvet--Mr. Mervyn--was leaning upon the high back of
+a chair, and talking agreeably, as it seemed, to Miss Gertrude. He had a
+shake of the hand and a fashionable greeting from stout, dandified
+Captain Cluffe, who was by no means so young as he would be supposed,
+and made up industriously and braced what he called his waist, with
+great fortitude, and indeed sometimes looked half-stifled, in spite of
+his smile and his swagger. Sturk, leaning at the window with his
+shoulders to the wall, beckoned Puddock gruffly, and cross-examined him
+in an undertone as to the issue of O'Flaherty's case. Of course he knew
+all about the duel, but the corps also knew that Sturk would not attend
+on the ground in any affair where the Royal Irish Artillery were
+concerned, and therefore they could bring what doctor they pleased to
+the field without an affront.
+
+'And see, my buck,' said Sturk, winding up rather savagely with a sneer;
+'you've got out of that scrape, you and your _patient_, by a piece of
+good luck that's not like to happen twice over; so take my advice, and
+cut that leaf out of your--your--grandmother's cookery book, and light
+your pipe with it.'
+
+This slight way of treating both his book and his ancestors nettled
+little Puddock--who never himself took a liberty, and expected similar
+treatment--but he knew Sturk, the nature of the beast, and he only bowed
+grandly, and went to pay his respects to cowed, kindly, querulous little
+Mrs. Sturk, at the other end of the room. An elderly gentleman, with a
+rather white face, a high forehead and grim look, was chatting briskly
+with her; and Puddock, the moment his eye lighted on the stranger, felt
+that there was something remarkable about him. Taken in detail, indeed,
+he was insignificant. He was dressed as quietly as the style of that day
+would allow, yet in his toilet, there was entire ease and even a latent
+air of fashion. He wore his own hair; and though there was a little
+powder upon it and upon his coat collar, it was perfectly white, frizzed
+out a little at the sides, and gathered into a bag behind. The stranger
+rose and bowed as Puddock approached the lady, and the lieutenant had a
+nearer view of his great white forehead--his only good feature--and the
+pair of silver spectacles that glimmered under it, and his small hooked
+nose and stern mouth.
+
+''Tis a mean countenance,' said the general, talking him over when the
+company had dispersed.
+
+'No countenance,' said Miss Becky decisively, '_could_ be mean with such
+a forehead.'
+
+The fact is--if they had cared to analyse--the features, taken
+separately, with that one exception, were insignificant; but the face
+was singular, with its strange pallor, its intellectual mastery, and
+sarcastic decision.
+
+The general, who had accidentally omitted the ceremony--in those days
+essential--now strutted up to introduce them.
+
+'Mr. Dangerfield, will you permit me to present my good friend and
+officer Lieutenant Puddock. Lieutenant Puddock, Mr Dangerfield--Mr.
+Dangerfield, Lieutenant Puddock.'
+
+And there was a great deal of pretty bowing, and each was the other's
+'most obedient,' and declared himself honoured; and the conventional
+parenthesis ended, things returned to their former course.
+
+Puddock only perceived that Mrs. Sturk was giving Dangerfield a rambling
+sort of account of the people of Chapelizod. Dangerfield, to do him
+justice, listened attentively. In fact, he had led her upon that
+particular theme, and as easily and cleverly kept her close to the
+subject. For he was not a general to manoeuvre without knowing first
+how the ground lay, and had an active, enquiring mind, in which he made
+all sorts of little notes.
+
+So Mrs. Sturk prattled on, to her own and Mr. Dangerfield's content, for
+she was garrulous when not under the eye of her lord, and always gentle,
+though given to lamentation, having commonly many small hardships to
+mention. So, quite without malice or retention, she poured out the
+gossip of the town, but not its scandal. Indeed, she was a very
+harmless, and rather sweet, though dolorous little body, and was very
+fond of children, especially her own, who would have been ruined were it
+not that they quailed as much as she did before Sturk, on whom she
+looked as by far the cleverest and most awful mortal then extant, and
+never doubted that the world thought so too. For the rest, she preserved
+her dresses, which were not amiss, for an interminable time, her sheets
+were always well aired, her maids often saucy, and she often in tears,
+but Sturk's lace and fine-linen were always forthcoming in exemplary
+order; she rehearsed the catechism with the children, and loved Dr.
+Walsingham heartily, and made more raspberry jam than any other woman of
+her means in Chapelizod, except, perhaps, Mrs. Nutter, between whom and
+herself there were points of resemblance, but something as nearly a feud
+as could subsist between their harmless natures. Each believed the other
+matched with a bold bad man, who was always scheming something--they
+never quite understood what--against her own peerless lord; each on
+seeing the other, hoping that Heaven would defend the right and change
+the hearts of her enemies, or, at all events confound their politics;
+and each, with a sort of awful second-sight, when they viewed one
+another across the street, beholding her neighbour draped in a dark film
+of thunder-cloud, and with a sheaf of pale lightning, instead of a fan
+flickering in her hand.
+
+When they came down to dinner, the gallant Captain Cluffe contrived to
+seat himself beside Aunt Becky, to whom the rogue commended himself by
+making a corner on his chair, next hers, for that odious greedy little
+brute 'Fancy,' and by a hundred other adroit and amiable attentions. And
+having a perfect acquaintance with all her weak points--as everybody had
+who lived long in Chapelizod--he had no difficulty in finding topics to
+interest her, and in conversing acceptably thereupon. And, indeed,
+whenever he was mentioned for some time after, she used to remark, that
+Captain Cluffe was a very conversable and worthy young (!) man.
+
+In truth, that dinner went swiftly and pleasantly over for many of the
+guests. Gertrude Chattesworth was placed between the enamoured Puddock
+and the large-eyed, handsome, mysterious Mervyn. Of course, the hour
+flew with light and roseate wings for him. Little Puddock was in great
+force, and chatted with energy, and his theatrical lore, and his
+oddities, made him not unamusing. So she smiled on him more than usual,
+to make amends for the frowns of the higher powers, and he was as happy
+as a prince and as proud as a peacock, and quite tipsy with his success.
+
+It is not always easy to know what young ladies like best or least, or
+quite what they are driving at; and Cluffe, from the other side of the
+table, thought, though Puddock _was_ an agreeable fellow, and exerting
+himself uncommonly (for Cluffe, like other men not deep in the _literæ
+humaniores_, had a sort of veneration for 'book learning,' under which
+category he placed Puddock's endless odds and ends of play lore, and
+viewed the little lieutenant himself accordingly with some awe as a man
+of parts and a scholar, and prodigiously admired his verses, which he
+only half understood); he fancied, I say, although Puddock was unusually
+entertaining, that Miss Gertrude would have been well content to
+exchange him for the wooden lay-figure on which she hung her draperies
+when she sketched, which might have worn his uniform and filled his
+chair, and spared her his agreeable conversation, and which had eyes and
+saw not, and ears and heard not.
+
+In short, the cunning fellow fancied he saw, by many small signs, a very
+decided preference on her part for the handsome and melancholy, but
+evidently eloquent stranger. Like other cunning fellows, however, Cluffe
+was not always right; and right or wrong, in his own illusions, if such
+they were, little Puddock was, for the time, substantially blessed.
+
+The plump and happy lieutenant, when the ladies had flown away to the
+drawing-room and their small tea-cups, waxed silent and sentimental, but
+being a generous rival, and feeling that he could afford it, made a
+little effort, and engaged Mervyn in talk, and found him pleasantly
+versed in many things of which he knew little, and especially in the
+Continental stage and drama, upon which Puddock heard him greedily; and
+the general's bustling talk helped to keep the company merry, and he
+treated them to a bottle of the identical sack of which his own
+father's wedding posset had been compounded! Dangerfield, in a rather
+harsh voice, but agreeably and intelligently withal, told some rather
+pleasant stories about old wines and curious wine fanciers; and Cluffe
+and Puddock, who often sang together, being called on by the general,
+chanted a duet rather prettily, though neither, separately, had much of
+a voice. And the incorrigible Puddock, apropos of a piece of a whale
+once eaten by Dangerfield, after his wont, related a wonderful
+receipt--'a weaver surprised.' The weaver turned out to be a fish, and
+the 'surprising' was the popping him out of ice into boiling water, with
+after details, which made the old general shake and laugh till tears
+bedewed his honest cheeks. And Mervyn and Dangerfield, as much surprised
+as the weaver, both looked, each in his own way, a little curiously at
+the young warrior who possessed this remarkable knowledge.
+
+And the claret, like the general's other wines, was very good, and
+Dangerfield said a stern word or two in its praise, and guessed its
+vintage, to his host's great elation, who, with Lord Castlemallard,
+began to think Dangerfield a very wonderful man.
+
+Dr. Sturk alone sipped his claret silently; looking thoughtfully a good
+deal at Dangerfield over the way, and when spoken to, seemed to waken
+up, but dropped out of the conversation again; though this was odd, for
+he had intended giving Dangerfield a bit of his mind as to what might be
+made of the Castlemallard estates, and by implication letting in some
+light upon Nutter's mismanagement.
+
+When Dr. Sturk had come into the drawing-room before dinner, Dangerfield
+was turning over a portfolio in the shade beyond the window, and the
+evening sun was shining strongly in his own face; so that during the
+ceremony of introduction he had seen next to nothing of him, and then
+sauntered away to the bow window at the other end, where the ladies were
+assembled, to make his obeisance.
+
+But at the dinner-table, he was placed directly opposite, with the
+advantage of a very distinct view; and the face, relieved against the
+dark stamped leather hangings on the wall, stood out like a
+sharply-painted portrait, and produced an odd and unpleasant effect upon
+Sturk, who could not help puzzling himself then, and for a long time
+after, with unavailing speculations about him.
+
+The grim white man opposite did not appear to trouble his head about
+Sturk. He eat his dinner energetically, chatted laconically, but rather
+pleasantly. Sturk thought he might be eight-and-forty, or perhaps six or
+seven-and-fifty--it was a face without a date. He went over all his
+points, insignificant features, high forehead, stern countenance,
+abruptly silent, abruptly speaking, spectacles, harsh voice, harsher
+laugh, something sinister perhaps, and used for the most part when the
+joking or the story had a flavour of the sarcastic and the devilish.
+The image, as a whole, seemed to Sturk to fill in the outlines of a
+recollection, which yet was _not_ a recollection. He could not seize it;
+it was a decidedly unpleasant impression of having seen him before, but
+where he could not bring to mind. 'He got me into some confounded
+trouble some time or other,' thought Sturk, in his uneasy dream; 'the
+sight of him is like a thump in my stomach. Was he the sheriff's
+deputy at Chester, when that rascally Jew-tailor followed me?
+Dangerfield--Dangerfield--Dangerfield--no; or could it be that row at
+Taunton? or the custom-house officer--let me see--1751; no, he was a
+taller man--yes, I remember him; it is _not_ he. Or was he at Dick
+Luscome's duel?' and he lay awake half the night thinking of him; for he
+was not only a puzzle, but there was a sort of suspicion of danger and
+he knew not what, throbbing in his soul whenever his reverie conjured up
+that impenetrable, white scoffing face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+IN WHICH THE GENTLEMEN FOLLOW THE LADIES.
+
+
+Having had as much claret as they cared for, the gentlemen fluttered
+gaily into the drawing-room, and Puddock, who made up to Miss Gertrude,
+and had just started afresh, and in a rather more sentimental vein, was
+a good deal scandalised, and put out by the general's reciting with
+jolly emphasis, and calling thereto his daughter's special attention,
+his receipt for 'surprising a weaver,' which he embellished with two or
+three burlesque improvements of his own, which Puddock, amidst his
+blushes and confusion, allowed to pass without a protest. Aunt Rebecca
+was the only person present who pointedly refused to laugh; and with a
+slight shudder and momentary elevation of her eyes, said, 'wicked and
+unnatural cruelty!' at which sentiment Puddock used his
+pocket-handkerchief in rather an agitated manner.
+
+''Tis a thing I've never done myself--that is, I've never seen it done,'
+said Little Puddock, suffused with blushes, as he pleaded his cause at
+the bar of humanity--for those were the days of Howard, and the fair sex
+had taken up the philanthropist. 'The--the--receipt--'tis, you see, a
+thing I happened to meet--and--and just read it in the--in a book--and
+the--I--a----'
+
+Aunt Becky, with her shoulders raised in a shudder, and an agonised and
+peremptory 'there, there, _there_,' moved out of hearing in dignified
+disgust, to the general's high entertainment, who enjoyed her assaults
+upon innocent Puddock, and indeed took her attacks upon himself, when
+executed with moderation, hilariously enough--a misplaced good-humour
+which never failed to fire Aunt Becky's just resentment.
+
+Indeed, the general was so tickled with this joke that he kept it going
+for the rest of the evening, by sly allusions and mischievous puns. As
+for instance, at supper, when Aunt Rebecca was deploring the miserable
+depression of the silk manufacture, and the distress of the poor
+Protestant artisans of the Liberty, the general, with a solemn wink at
+Puddock, and to that officer's terror, came out with--
+
+'Yet, who knows, Lieutenant Puddock, but the weavers, poor fellows, may
+be surprised, you know, by a sudden order from the Court, as happened
+last year.'
+
+But Aunt Rebecca only raised her eyebrows, and, with a slight toss of
+her head, looked sternly at a cold fowl on the other side. But, from
+some cause or other--perhaps it was Miss Gertrude's rebellion in
+treating the outlawed Puddock with special civility that evening, Miss
+Becky's asperity seemed to acquire edge and venom as time proceeded. But
+Puddock rallied quickly. He was on the whole very happy, and did not
+grudge Mervyn his share of the talk, though he heard him ask leave to
+send Miss Gertrude Chattesworth a portfolio of his drawings made in
+Venice, to look over, which she with a smile accepted--and at supper,
+Puddock, at the general's instigation, gave them a solo, which went off
+pretty well, and, as they stood about the fire after it, on a similar
+pressure, an imitation of Barry in Othello; and upon this, Miss Becky,
+who was a furious partisan of Smock-alley Theatre and Mossop against
+Barry, Woodward, and the Crow-street play-house, went off again. Indeed,
+this was a feud which just then divided the ladies of all Dublin, and
+the greater part of the country, with uncommon acrimony.
+
+'Crow-street was set up,' she harangued, 'to ruin the old house in the
+spirit of covetousness, _you_ say' (Puddock had not said a word on the
+subject;) 'well, covetousness, we have good authority for saying, is
+idolatry--nothing less--_idolatry_, Sir,--you need not stare.' (Puddock
+certainly did stare.) 'I suppose you _once_ read your Bible, Sir, but
+every sensible man, woman, child, and infant, Sir, in the kingdom, knows
+it was malice; and malice, Holy Writ says, is _murder_--but I forgot,
+that's perhaps no very great objection with Lieutenant Puddock.'
+
+And little Puddock flushed up, and his round eyes grew rounder and
+rounder, as she proceeded, every moment; and he did not know what to
+say--for it had not struck him before that Messrs. Barry's and
+Woodward's theatrical venture might be viewed in the light of idolatry
+or murder. So dumfounded as he was, he took half of Lord Chesterfield's
+advice in such cases, that is, he forgot the smile, but he made a very
+low bow, and, with this submission, the combat (_si rixa est_) subsided.
+
+Dangerfield had gone away some time--so had Mervyn--Sturk and his wife
+went next, and Cluffe and Puddock, who lingered as long as was decent,
+at last took leave. The plump lieutenant went away very happy,
+notwithstanding the two or three little rubs he had met with, and a good
+deal more in love than ever. And he and his companion were both
+thoughtful, and the walk home was quite silent, though very pleasant.
+
+Cluffe was giving shape mentally to his designs upon Miss Rebecca's
+£20,000 and savings. He knew she had had high offers in her young days
+and refused; but those were past and gone--and gray hairs bring
+wisdom--and women grow more practicable as the time for action
+dwindles--and she was just the woman to take a fancy--and 'once the
+maggot bit,' to go any honest length to make it fact. And Cluffe knew
+that he had the field to himself, and that he was a well-made, handsome,
+agreeable officer--not so young as to make the thing absurd, yet young
+enough to inspire the right sort of feeling. To be sure, there were a
+few things to be weighed. She was, perhaps--well, she _was_ eccentric.
+She had troublesome pets and pastimes--he knew them all--was well
+stricken in years, and had a will of her own--that was all. But, then,
+on the other side was the money--a great and agreeable arithmetical fact
+not to be shaken--and she could be well-bred when she liked, and a
+self-possessed, dignified lady, who could sail about a room, and
+courtesy, and manage her fan, and lead the conversation, and do the
+honours, as Mrs. Cluffe, with a certain air of _haut ton_, and in an
+imposing way, to Cluffe's entire content, who liked the idea of
+overawing his peers.
+
+And the two warriors, side by side, marched over the bridge, in the
+starlight, and both by common consent, halted silently, and wheeled up
+to the battlement; and Puddock puffed a complacent little sigh up the
+river toward Belmont; and Cluffe was a good deal interested in the
+subject of his contemplation, and in fact, the more he thought of it,
+the better he liked it.
+
+And they stood, each in his reverie, looking over the battlement toward
+Belmont, and hearing the hushed roll of the river, and seeing nothing
+but the deep blue, and the stars, and the black outline of the trees
+that overhung the bridge, until the enamoured Cluffe, who liked his
+comforts, and knew what gout was, felt the chill air, and remembered
+suddenly that they had stopped, and ought to be in motion toward their
+beds, and so he shook up Puddock, and they started anew, and parted just
+at the Phoenix, shaking hands heartily, like two men who had just done
+a good stroke of business together.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+IN WHICH MR. DANGERFIELD VISITS THE CHURCH OF CHAPELIZOD, AND ZEKIEL
+IRONS GOES A FISHING.
+
+
+Early next morning Lord Castlemallard, Dangerfield, and Nutter, rode
+into Chapelizod, plaguy dusty, having already made the circuit of that
+portion of his property which lay west of the town. They had poked into
+the new mills and the old mills, and contemplated the quarries, and
+lime-kilns, and talked with Doyle about his holding, and walked over the
+two vacant farms, and I know not all besides. And away trotted his
+lordship to his breakfast in town. And Dangerfield seeing the church
+door open, dismounted and walked in, and Nutter did likewise.
+
+Bob Martin was up in the gallery, I suppose, doing some good, and making
+a considerable knocking here and there in the pews, and walking slowly
+with creaking shoes. Zekiel Irons, the clerk, was down below about his
+business, at the communion table at the far end, lean, blue-chinned,
+thin-lipped, stooping over his quarto prayer books, and gliding about
+without noise, reverent and sinister. When they came in, Nutter led the
+way to Lord Castlemallard's pew, which brought them up pretty near to
+the spot where grave Mr. Irons was prowling serenely. The pew would soon
+want new flooring, Mr. Dangerfield thought, and the Castlemallard arms
+and supporters, a rather dingy piece of vainglory, overhanging the main
+seat on the wall, would be nothing the worse of a little fresh gilding
+and paint.
+
+'There was a claim--eh--to one foot nine inches off the eastern end of
+the pew, on the part of--of the family--at Inchicore, I think they call
+it,' said Dangerfield, laying his riding-whip like a rule along the top
+to help his imagination--'Hey--that would spoil the pew.'
+
+'The claim's settled, and Mr. Langley goes to the other side of the
+aisle,' said Nutter, nodding to Irons, who came up, and laid his long
+clay-coloured fingers on the top of the pew door, and one long, thin
+foot on the first step, and with half-closed eyes, and a half bow, he
+awaited their pleasure.
+
+'The Langley family had _this_ pew,' said Dangerfield, with a side nod
+to that next his lordship's.
+
+'Yes, Sir,' said Irons, with the same immutable semblance of a smile,
+and raising neither his head nor his eyes.
+
+'And who's got it now?'
+
+'His reverence, Dr. Walsingham.'
+
+And so it came out, that having purchased Salmonfalls, the rector had
+compromised the territorial war that was on the point of breaking out
+among his parishioners, by exchanging with that old coxcomb Langley, the
+great square pew over the way, that belonged to that house, for the
+queer little crib in which the tenant of Inchicore had hitherto sat in
+state; and so there was peace, if not good will, in the church.
+
+'Hey--let's see it,' said Dangerfield, crossing the aisle, with Irons at
+his heels, for he was a man that saw everything for himself, that ever
+so remotely concerned him or his business.
+
+'We buried Lord ----' (and the title he spoke very low) 'in the vault
+here, just under where you stand, on Monday last, by night,' said Irons,
+very gently and grimly, as he stood behind Dangerfield.
+
+A faint galvanic thrill shot up through the flagging and his firmly
+planted foot to his brain, as though something said, 'Ay, here I am!'
+
+'Oh! indeed?' said Dangerfield, dryly, making a little nod, and raising
+his eyebrows, and just moving a little a one side--''Twas a nasty
+affair.'
+
+He looked up, with his hands in his breeches' pockets, and read a mural
+tablet, whistling scarce audibly the while. It was not reverent, but he
+was a gentleman; and the clerk standing behind him, retained his quiet
+posture, and that smile, that yet was not a smile, but a sort of
+reflected light--was it patience, or was it secret ridicule?--you could
+not tell: and it never changed, and somehow it was provoking.
+
+'And some persons, I believe, had an unpleasant duty to do there,' said
+Dangerfield, abruptly, in the middle of his tune, and turning his
+spectacles fully and sternly on Mr. Irons.
+
+The clerk's head bent lower, and he shook it; and his eyes, but for a
+little glitter through the eyelashes, seemed to close.
+
+''Tis a pretty church, this--a pretty town, and some good families in
+the neighbourhood,' said Dangerfield, briskly; 'and I dare say some
+trout in the river--hey?--the stream looks lively.'
+
+'Middling, only--poor gray troutlings, Sir--not a soul cares to fish it
+but myself,' he answered.
+
+'You're the clerk--eh?'
+
+'At your service, Sir.'
+
+'_Dublin_ man?--or--'
+
+'Born and bred in Dublin, your honour.'
+
+'Ay--well! Irons--you've heard of Mr. Dangerfield--Lord Castlemallard's
+agent--I am he. Good-morning, Irons;' and he gave him half-a-crown, and
+he took another look round; and then he and Nutter went out of the
+church, and took a hasty leave of one another, and away went Nutter on
+his nag, to the mills. And Dangerfield, just before mounting, popped
+into Cleary's shop, and in his grim, laconic way, asked the proprietor,
+among his meal-bags and bacon, about fifty questions in less than five
+minutes. 'That was one of Lord Castlemallard's houses--eh--with the bad
+roof, and manure-heap round the corner?'--and, 'Where's the pot-house
+they call the Salmon House?--doing a good business--eh?' and at
+last--'I'm told there's some trout in the stream. Is there anyone in the
+town who knows the river, and could show me the fishing?--Oh, the clerk!
+and what sort of fish is _he_--hey?--Oh! an honest, worthy man, is he?
+Very good, Sir. Then, perhaps, Mr. a--perhaps, Sir, you'll do me the
+favour to let one of your people run down to his house, and say Mr.
+Dangerfield, Lord Castlemallard's agent, who is staying, you know, at
+the Brass Castle, would be much obliged if he would bring his rod and
+tackle, and take a walk with him up the river, for a little angling, at
+ten o'clock!'
+
+Jolly Phil Cleary was deferential, and almost nervous in his presence.
+The silver-haired, grim man, with his mysterious reputation for money,
+and that short decisive way of his, and sudden cynical chuckle, inspired
+a sort of awe, which made his wishes, where expressed with that intent,
+very generally obeyed; and, sure enough, Irons appeared, with his rod,
+at the appointed hour, and the interesting anglers--Piscator and his
+'honest scholar,' as Isaac Walton hath it--set out side by side on their
+ramble, in the true fraternity of the gentle craft.
+
+The clerk had, I'm afraid, a shrew of a wife--shrill, vehement, and
+fluent. 'Rogue,' 'old miser,' 'old sneak,' and a great many worse names,
+she called him. Good Mrs. Irons was old, fat, and ugly, and she knew it;
+and that knowledge made her natural jealousy the fiercer. He had
+learned, by long experience, the best tactique under fire: he became
+actually taciturn; or, if he spoke, his speech was laconic and
+enigmatical; sometimes throwing out a proverb, and sometimes a text; and
+sometimes when provoked past endurance, spouting mildly a little bit of
+meek and venomous irony.
+
+He loved his trout-rod and the devious banks of the Liffey, where,
+saturnine and alone, he filled his basket. It was his helpmate's rule,
+whenever she did not know to a certainty precisely what Irons was doing,
+to take it for granted that he was about some mischief. Her lodger,
+Captain Devereux, was her great resource on these occasions, and few
+things pleased him better than a stormy visit from his hostess in this
+temper. The young scapegrace would close his novel, and set down his
+glass of sherry and water (it sometimes smelt very like brandy, I'm
+afraid). To hear her rant, one would have supposed, who had not seen
+him, that her lank-haired, grimly partner, was the prettiest youth in
+the county of Dublin, and that all the comely lasses in Chapelizod and
+the country round were sighing and setting caps at him; and Devereux,
+who had a vein of satire, and loved even farce, enjoyed the heroics of
+the fat old slut.
+
+'Oh! what am I to do, captain, jewel?' she bounced into the room, with
+flaming face and eyes swelled, and the end of her apron, with which she
+had been swobbing them, in her hand, while she gesticulated, with her
+right; 'there, he's off again to Island Bridge,--the owdacious sneak!
+It's all that dirty hussy's doing. I'm not such a fool, but I know how
+to put this and that together, though he thinks I don't know of his
+doings; but I'll be even with you, Meg Partlet, yet--you trollop;' and
+all this was delivered in renewed floods of tears, and stentorian
+hysterics, while she shook her fat red fist in the air, at the presumed
+level of Meg's beautiful features.
+
+'Nay, Madam,' said the gay captain; 'I prithee, weep not; the like
+discoveries, as you have read, have been made in Rome, Salamanca,
+Ballyporeen, Babylon, Venice, and fifty other famous cities.' He always
+felt in these interviews, as if she and he were extemporising a
+burlesque--she the Queen of Crim Tartary, and he an Archbishop in her
+court--and would have spoken blank verse, only he feared she might
+perceive it, and break up the conference.
+
+'And what's that to the purpose?--don't I know they're the same all over
+the world--nothing but brutes and barbarians.'
+
+'But suppose, Madam, he has only gone up the river, and just taken his
+rod----'
+
+'Oh! rod, indeed. I know where he wants a rod, the rascal!'
+
+'I tell you, Madam,' urged the chaplain, 'you're quite in the wrong.
+You've discovered after twenty years' wedlock that your husband's--a
+man! and you're vexed: would you have him anything else?'
+
+'You're all in a story,' she blubbered maniacally; 'there's no justice,
+nor feeling, nor succour for a poor abused woman; but I'll do it--I
+will. I'll go to his reverence--don't try to persuade me--the Rev. Hugh
+Walsingham, Doctor of Divinity, and Rector of Chapelizod (she used to
+give him at full length whenever she threatened Zekiel with a visitation
+from that quarter, by way of adding ponderosity to the menace)--I'll go
+to him straight--don't think to stop me--and we'll see what he'll say;'
+and so she addressed herself to go.
+
+'And when you see him, Madam, ask the learned doctor--don't ask
+me--believe the rector of the parish--he'll tell you, that it hath
+prevailed from the period at which Madam Sarah quarrelled with saucy
+Miss Hagar; that it hath prevailed among all the principal nations of
+antiquity, according to Pliny, Strabo, and the chief writers of
+antiquity; that Juno, Dido, Eleanor Queen of England, and Mrs.
+Partridge, whom I read of here (and he pointed to the open volume of Tom
+Jones), each made, or thought she made, a like discovery.' And the
+captain delivered this slowly, with knitted brow and thoughtful face,
+after the manner of the erudite and simple doctor.
+
+'Pretty Partridges, indeed! and nice game for a parish clerk!' cried the
+lady, returning. 'I wonder, so I do, when I look at him, and think of
+his goings on, how he can have the assurance to sit under the minister,
+and look the congregation in the face, and tune his throat, and sing the
+blessed psalms.'
+
+'You are not to wonder, Madam; believe the sage, who says, _omnibus hoc
+vitium est cantoribus_.'
+
+Devereux knew of old that the effect of Latin on Mrs. Irons was to
+heighten the inflammation, and so the matron burst into whole chapters
+of crimination, enlivened with a sprinkling of strong words, as the
+sages of the law love to pepper their indictments and informations with
+hot adverbs and well-spiced parentheses, 'falsely,' 'scandalously,'
+'maliciously,' and _suadente diabolo_, to make them sit warm on the
+stomachs of a loyal judge and jury, and digest easily.
+
+The neighbours were so accustomed to Mrs. Irons' griefs, that when her
+voice was audible, as upon such occasions it was, upon the high road and
+in the back gardens, it produced next to no sensation; everybody had
+heard from that loud oracle every sort of story touching Irons which
+could well be imagined, and it was all so thoroughly published by the
+good lady, that curiosity on the subject was pretty well dead and gone,
+and her distant declamation rattled over their heads and boomed in their
+ears, like the distant guns and trumpets on a review day, signifying
+nothing.
+
+And all this only shows what every man who has ruralised a little in his
+lifetime knows, more than in theory, that the golden age lingers in no
+corner of the earth, but is really quite gone and over everywhere, and
+that peace and _prisca fides_ have not fled to the nooks and shadows of
+deep valleys and bowery brooks, but flown once, and away to heaven
+again, and left the round world to its general curse. So it is even in
+pretty old villages, embowered in orchards, with hollyhocks and
+jessamine in front of the houses, and primeval cocks and hens pecking
+and scraping in the street, and the modest river dimpling and simpering
+among osiers and apple trees, and old ivied walls close by--you
+sometimes hear other things than lowing herds, and small birds singing,
+and purling streams; and shrill accents and voluble rhetoric will now
+and then trouble the fragrant air, and wake up the dim old river-god
+from his nap.
+
+As to Irons, if he was all that his wife gave out, he must have been a
+mighty sly dog indeed; for on the whole, he presented a tolerably decent
+exterior to society. It is said, indeed, that he liked a grave tumbler
+of punch, and was sardonic and silent in his liquor; that his gait was
+occasionally a little queer and uncertain, as his lank figure glided
+home by moonlight, from the 'Salmon House;' and that his fingers fumbled
+longer than need be with the latch, and his tongue, though it tried but
+a short and grim 'bar'th door, Marjry,' or 'gi' me can'le, wench,'
+sometimes lacked its cunning, and slipped and kept not time. There were,
+too, other scandals, such as the prying and profane love to shoot
+privily at church celebrities. Perhaps it was his reserve and sanctity
+that provoked them. Perhaps he was, in truth, though cautious, sometimes
+indiscreet. Perhaps it was fanciful Mrs. Irons' jealous hullabaloos and
+hysterics that did it--I don't know--but people have been observed,
+_apropos_ of him, to wink at one another, and grin, and shake their
+heads, and say: 'the nearer the church, you know'--and 'he so ancient,
+too! but 'tis an old rat that won't eat cheese,' and so forth.
+
+Just as Mrs. Irons whisked round for the seventh time to start upon her
+long threatened march to Dr. Walsingham's study to lay her pitiful case
+before him, Captain Devereux, who was looking toward the 'Phoenix,'
+saw the truant clerk and Mr. Dangerfield turn the corner together on
+their return.
+
+'Stay, Madam, here comes the traitor,' said he; 'and, on my honour, 'tis
+worse than we thought; for he has led my Lord Castlemallard's old agent
+into mischief too--and Meg Partlet has had two swains at her feet this
+morning; and, see, the hypocrites have got some trout in their basket,
+and their rods on their shoulders--and look, for all the world, as if
+they had only been fishing--sly rogues!'
+
+'Well, it's all one,' said Mrs. Irons, gaping from the other window, and
+sobering rapidly; 'if 'tisn't to-day, 'twill be to-morrow, I suppose;
+and at any rate 'tis a sin and shame to leave any poor crature in this
+miserable taking, not knowing but he might be drownded--or worse--dear
+knows it would not be much trouble to tell his wife when the gentleman
+wanted him--and sure for any honest matter I'd never say against it.'
+
+Her thoughts were running upon Dangerfield, and what 'compliment' he had
+probably made her husband at parting; and a minute or two after this,
+Devereux saw her, with her riding-hood on, trudging up to the "Salmon
+House" to make inquisition after the same.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+RELATING AMONG OTHER THINGS HOW DOCTOR TOOLE WALKED UP TO THE TILED
+HOUSE; AND OF HIS PLEASANT DISCOURSE WITH MR. MERVYN.
+
+
+Dr. Sturk's spirits and temper had not become more pleasant lately. In
+fact he brooded more, and was more savage at home than was at all
+agreeable. He used to go into town oftener, and to stay there later; and
+his language about Toole and Nutter, when there was none but submissive
+little Mrs. Sturk by, was more fierce and coarse than ever. To hear him,
+then, one would have supposed that they were actually plotting to make
+away with him, and that in self-defence he must smite them hip and
+thigh. Then, beside their moral offensiveness, they were such 'idiots,'
+and: 'noodles,' and botching and blundering right and left, so palpably
+to the danger and ruin of their employers, that no man of conscience
+could sit easy and see it going on; and all this simply because he had
+fixed his affections upon the practice of the one, and the agency of the
+other. For Sturk had, in his own belief, a genius for business of every
+sort. Everybody on whom his insolent glance fell, who had any sort of
+business to do, did it wrong, and was a 'precious disciple,' or a
+'goose,' or a 'born jackass,' and excited his scoffing chuckle. And
+little Mrs. Sturk, frightened and admiring, used to say, while he
+grinned and muttered, and tittered into the fire, with his great
+shoulders buried in his balloon-backed chair, his heels over the fender
+and his hands in his breeches' pockets--'But, Barney, you know, you're
+so clever--there's no one like you!' And he was fond of just nibbling at
+speculations in a small safe way, and used to pull out a roll of
+bank-notes, when he was lucky, and show his winnings to his wife, and
+chuckle and swear over them, and boast and rail, and tell her, if it was
+not for the cursed way his time was cut up with hospital, and field
+days, and such trumpery regimental duties, he could make a fortune while
+other men were thinking of it; and he very nearly believed it. And he
+was, doubtless, clear-headed, though wrong-headed, too, at times, and
+very energetic; but his genius was for pushing men out of their places
+to make way for himself.
+
+But with all that he had the good brute instincts too, and catered
+diligently for his brood, and their 'dam'--and took a gruff
+unacknowledged pride in seeing his wife well dressed--and had a strong
+liking for her--and thanked her in his soul for looking after things so
+well; and thought often about his boys, and looked sharply after their
+education; and was an efficient and decisive head of a household; and
+had no vices nor expensive indulgences; and was a hard but tolerably
+just man to deal with.
+
+All this time his uneasiness and puzzle about Dangerfield continued,
+and, along with other things, kept him awake often to unseasonable hours
+at night. He did not tell Mrs. Sturk. In fact, he was a man, who, though
+on most occasions he gave the wife of his bosom what he called 'his
+mind' freely enough, yet did not see fit to give her a great deal of his
+confidence.
+
+Dangerfield had his plans too. Who has not? Nothing could be more
+compact and modest than his household. He had just a housekeeper and two
+maids, who looked nearly as old, and a valet, and a groom, who slept at
+the 'Phoenix,' and two very pretty horses at livery in the same place.
+All his appointments were natty and complete, and his servants, every
+one, stood in awe of him; for no lip or eye-service would go down with
+that severe, prompt, and lynx-eyed gentleman. And his groom, among the
+coachmen and other experts of the 'Salmon House,' used to brag of his
+hunters in England; and his man, of his riches, and his influence with
+Lord Castlemallard.
+
+In England, Dangerfield, indeed, spent little more money than he did in
+Chapelizod, except in his stable; and Lord Castlemallard, who admired
+his stinginess, as he did everything else about him, used to say: 'He's
+a wonder of the world! How he retains his influence over all the people
+he knows without ever giving one among them so much as a mutton-chop or
+a glass of sherry in his house, I can't conceive. _I_ couldn't do it, I
+know.' But he had ultimate plans, if not of splendour, at least of
+luxury. His tastes, and perhaps some deeper feelings, pointed to the
+continent, and he had purchased a little paradise on the Lake of Geneva,
+where was an Eden of fruits and flowers, and wealth of marbles and
+coloured canvas, and wonderful wines maturing in his cellars, and
+aquaria for his fish, and ice-houses and baths, and I know not what
+refinements of old Roman Villa-luxury beside--among which he meant to
+pass the honoured evening of his days; with just a few more thousands,
+and, as he sometimes thought, perhaps a wife. He had not quite made up
+his mind; but he had come to the time when a man must forthwith accept
+matrimony frankly, or, if he be wise, shake hands with bleak celibacy,
+and content himself for his earthly future with monastic jollity and
+solitude.
+
+It is a maxim with charitable persons--and no more than a recognition of
+a great constitutional axiom--to assume, in the absence of proof to the
+contrary, that every British subject is an honest man. Now, if we had
+gone to Lord Castlemallard for his character--and who more competent to
+give him one--we know very well what we should have heard about
+Dangerfield; and, on the other hand, we have never found him out--have
+we, kind reader?--in a shabby action or unworthy thought; and,
+therefore, it leaves upon our mind an unpleasant impression about that
+Mr. Mervyn, who arrived in the dark, attending upon a coffin as
+mysterious as himself, and now lives solitarily in the haunted house
+near Ballyfermot, that the omniscient Dangerfield should follow him,
+when they pass upon the road, with that peculiar stern glance of
+surprise which seemed to say,--'Was ever such audacity conceived? Is the
+man mad?'
+
+But Dangerfield did not choose to talk about him--if indeed he had
+anything to disclose--though the gentlemen at the club pressed him often
+with questions, which however, he quietly parried, to the signal
+vexation of active little Dr. Toole, who took up and dropped, in turn,
+all sorts of curious theories about the young stranger. Lord
+Castlemallard knew all about him, too, but his lordship was high and
+huffy, and hardly ever in Chapelizod, except on horseback, and two or
+three times in the year at a grand dinner at the Artillery mess. And
+when Mervyn was mentioned he always talked of something else, rather
+imperiously, as though he said, 'You'll please to observe that upon that
+subject I don't choose to speak.' And as for Dr. Walsingham, when he
+thought it right to hold his tongue upon a given matter, thumb-screws
+could not squeeze it from him.
+
+In short, our friend Toole grew so feverish under his disappointment
+that he made an excuse of old Tim Molloy's toothache to go up in person
+to the 'Tiled House,' in the hope of meeting the young gentleman, and
+hearing something from him (the servants, he already knew, were as much
+in the dark as he) to alleviate his distress. And, sure enough, his luck
+stood him in stead; for, as he was going away, having pulled out old
+Molloy's grinder to give a colour to his visit, who should he find upon
+the steps of the hall-door but the pale, handsome young gentleman
+himself.
+
+Dr. Toole bowed low, and grinned with real satisfaction, reminded him of
+their interview at the 'Phoenix,' and made by way of apology for his
+appearance at the 'Tiled House,' a light and kind allusion to poor old
+Tim, of whose toothache he spoke affectionately, and with water in his
+eyes--for he half believed for the moment what he was saying--declared
+how he remembered him when he did not come up to Tim's knee-buckle, and
+would walk that far any day, and a bit further too, he hoped, to relieve
+the poor old boy in a less matter. And finding that Mr. Mervyn was going
+toward Chapelizod, he begged him not to delay on his account, and
+accompanied him down the Ballyfermot road, entertaining him by the way
+with an inexhaustible affluence of Chapelizod anecdote and scandal, at
+which the young man stared a good deal, and sometimes even appeared
+impatient: but the doctor did not perceive it, and rattled on; and told
+him moreover, everything about himself and his belongings with a minute
+and voluble frankness, intended to shame the suspicious reserve of the
+stranger. But nothing came; and being by this time grown bolder, he
+began a more direct assault, and told him, with a proper scorn of the
+village curiosity, all the theories which the Chapelizod gossips had
+spun about him.
+
+'And they say, among other things, that you're not--a--in fact--there's
+a mystery--a something--about your birth, you know,' said Toole, in a
+tone implying pity and contempt for his idle townsfolk.
+
+'They lie, then!' cried the young man, stopping short, more fiercely
+than was pleasant, and fixing his great lurid eyes upon the cunning face
+of the doctor; and, after a pause, 'Why can't they let me and my
+concerns alone, Sir?'
+
+'But there's no use in saying so, _I_ can tell you,' exclaimed little
+Toole, recovering his feet in an instant. 'Why, I suppose there isn't so
+tattling, prying, lying, scandalous a little colony of Christians on
+earth; eyes, ears, and mouths all open, Sir; heads busy, tongues
+wagging; lots of old maids, by Jove; ladies' women, and gentlemen's
+gentlemen, and drawers and footmen; club talk, Sir, and mess-table talk,
+and talk on band days, talk over cards, talk at home, Sir--talk in the
+streets--talk--talk; by Jupiter Tonans! 'tis enough to bother one's
+ears, and make a man envy Robinson Crusoe!'
+
+'So I do, Sir, if we were rid of his parrot,' answered Mervyn: and with
+a dry 'I wish you a good-morning, doctor--doctor--a--_Sir_'--turned
+sharply from him up the Palmerstown-road.
+
+'Going to Belmont,' murmured little Toole, with his face a little redder
+than usual, and stopping in an undignified way for a moment at the
+corner to look after him. 'He's close--plaguy close; and Miss Rebecca
+Chattesworth knows nothing about him neither--I wander does she
+though--and doesn't seem to care even. He's not there for nothing
+though. _Some_ one makes him welcome, depend on't,' and he winked to
+himself. 'A plaguy high stomach, too, by Jove. I bet you fifty, if he
+stays here three months, he'll be at swords or pistols with some of our
+hot bloods. And whatever his secret is--and I dare say 'tisn't worth
+knowing--the people here will ferret it out at last, I warrant you.
+There's small good in making all the fuss he does about it; if he knew
+but all, there's no such thing as a secret here--hang the one have _I_,
+I know, just because there's no use in trying. The whole town knows when
+I've tripe for dinner, and where I have a patch or a darn. And when I
+got the fourteen pigeons at Darkey's-bridge, the birds were not ten
+minutes on my kitchen table when old Widow Foote sends her maid and her
+compliments, as she knew my pie-dish only held a dozen, to beg the two
+odd birds. Secret, indeed!' and he whistled a bar or two contemptuously,
+which subsided into dejected silence, and he muttered, 'I wish I knew
+it,' and walked over the bridge gloomily; and he roared more fiercely on
+smaller occasions than usual at his dogs on the way home, and they
+squalled oftener and louder.
+
+Now, for some reason or other, Dangerfield had watched the growing
+intimacy between Mervyn and Miss Gertrude Chattesworth with an evil eye.
+He certainly did know something about this Mr. Mervyn, with his
+beautiful sketches, and his talk about Italy, and his fine music. And
+his own spectacles had carefully surveyed Miss Chattesworth, and she had
+passed the ordeal satisfactorily. And Dangerfield thought, 'These people
+can't possibly suspect the actual state of the case, and who and what
+this gentleman is _to my certain knowledge_; and 'tis a pity so fine a
+young lady should be sacrificed for want of a word spoken in season.'
+And when he had decided upon a point, it was not easy to make him stop
+or swerve.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+TELLING HOW MR. MERVYN FARED AT BELMONT, AND OF A PLEASANT LITTLE
+DEJEUNER BY THE MARGIN OF THE LIFFEY.
+
+
+Now it happened that on the very same day, the fashion of Dr.
+Walsingham's and of Aunt Rebecca's countenances were one and both
+changed towards Mr. Mervyn, much to his chagrin and puzzle. The doctor,
+who met him near his own house on the bridge, was something distant in
+manner, and looked him in the face with very grave eyes, and seemed sad,
+and as if he had something on his mind, and laid his hand upon the young
+man's arm, and addressed himself to speak; but glancing round his
+shoulder, and seeing people astir, and that they were under observation,
+he reserved himself.
+
+That both the ladies of Belmont looked as if they had heard some strange
+story, each in her own way. Aunt Rebecca received the young man without
+a smile, and was unaccountably upon her high horse, and said some dry
+and sharp things, and looked as if she could say more, and coloured
+menacingly, and, in short, was odd, and very nearly impertinent. And
+Gertrude, though very gentle and kind, seemed also much graver, and
+looked pale, and her eyes larger and more excited, and altogether like a
+brave young lady who had fought a battle without crying. And Mervyn saw
+all this and pondered on it, and went away soon; the iron entered into
+his soul.
+
+Aunt Rebecca was so occupied with her dogs, squirrels, parrots, old
+women, and convicts, that her eyes being off the cards, she saw little
+of the game; and when a friendly whisper turned her thoughts that way,
+and it flashed upon her that tricks and honours were pretty far gone,
+she never remembered that she had herself to blame for the matter, but
+turned upon her poor niece with 'Sly creature!' and so forth. And while
+owing to this inattention, Gertrude had lost the benefit of her sage
+Aunt Rebecca's counsels altogether, her venerable but frisky old
+grandmother--Madam Nature--it was to be feared, might have profited by
+the occasion to giggle and whistle her own advice in her ear, and been
+indifferently well obeyed. I really don't pretend to say--maybe there
+was nothing, or next to nothing in it; or if there was, Miss Gertrude
+herself might not quite know. And if she did suspect she liked him, ever
+so little, she had no one but Lilias Walsingham to tell; and I don't
+know that young ladies are always quite candid upon these points. Some,
+at least, I believe, don't make confidences until their secrets become
+insupportable. However, Aunt Rebecca was now wide awake, and had
+trumpeted a pretty shrill reveiller. And Gertrude had started up, her
+elbow on the pillow, and her large eyes open; and the dream, I suppose,
+was shivered and flown, and something rather ghastly at her side.
+
+Coming out of church, Dr. Walsingham asked Mervyn to take a turn with
+him in the park--and so they did--and the doctor talked with him
+seriously and kindly on that broad plateau. The young man walked darkly
+beside him, and they often stopped outright. When, on their return, they
+came near the Chapelizod gate, and Parson's lodge, and the duck-pond,
+the doctor was telling him that marriage is an affair of the heart--also
+a spiritual union--and, moreover, a mercantile partnership--and he
+insisted much upon this latter view--and told him what and how strict
+was the practice of the ancient Jews, the people of God, upon this
+particular point. Dr. Walsingham had made a love-match, was the most
+imprudent and open-handed of men, and always preaching to others against
+his own besetting sin. To hear him talk, indeed, you would have supposed
+he was a usurer. Then Mr. Mervyn, who looked a little pale and excited,
+turned the doctor about, and they made another little circuit, while he
+entered somewhat into his affairs and prospects, and told him something
+about an appointment in connexion with the Embassy at Paris, and said he
+would ask him to read some letters about it; and the doctor seemed a
+little shaken; and so they parted in a very friendly but grave way.
+
+When Mervyn had turned his back upon Belmont, on the occasion of the
+unpleasant little visit I mentioned just now, the ladies had some words
+in the drawing-room.
+
+'I have _not_ coquetted, Madam,' said Miss Gertrude, haughtily.
+
+'Then I'm to presume you've been serious; and I take the liberty to ask
+how far this affair has proceeded?' said Aunt Rebecca, firmly, and
+laying her gloved hand and folded fan calmly on the table.
+
+'I really forget,' said the young lady, coldly.
+
+'Has he made a declaration of love?' demanded the aunt, the two red
+spots on her cheeks coming out steadily, and helping the flash of her
+eyes.
+
+'Certainly not,' answered the young lady, with a stare of haughty
+surprise that was quite unaffected.
+
+At the pleasant luncheon and dance on the grass that the officers gave,
+in that pretty field by the river, half-a-dozen of the young people had
+got beside the little brook that runs simpering and romping into the
+river just there. Women are often good-natured in love matters where
+rivalry does not mix, and Miss Gertrude, all on a sudden, found herself
+alone with Mervyn. Aunt Becky, from under the ash trees at the other end
+of the field, with great distinctness, for she was not a bit
+near-sighted, and considerable uneasiness, saw their _tête-à-tête_. It
+was out of the question getting up in time to prevent the young people
+speaking their minds if so disposed, and she thought she perceived that
+in the young man's bearing, which looked like a pleading and eagerness,
+and 'Gertrude's put out a good deal--I see by her plucking at those
+flowers--but my head to a China orange--the girl won't think of him.
+She's not a young woman to rush into a horrible folly, hand-over-head,'
+thought Aunt Becky; and then she began to think they were talking very
+much at length indeed, and to regret that she had not started at once
+from her post for the place of meeting; and one, and two, and three
+minutes passed, and perhaps some more, and Aunt Becky began to grow
+wroth, and was on the point of marching upon them, when they began
+slowly to walk towards the group who were plucking bunches of woodbine
+from the hedge across the little stream, at the risk of tumbling in, and
+distributing the flowers among the ladies, amidst a great deal of
+laughing and gabble. Then Miss Gertrude made Mr. Mervyn rather a haughty
+and slight salutation, her aunt thought, and so dismissed him; he, too,
+made a bow, but a very low one, and walked straight off to the first
+lady he saw.
+
+This happened to be mild little Mrs. Sturk, and he talked a good deal to
+her, but restlessly, and, as it seemed, with a wandering mind; and
+afterwards he conversed, with an affectation of interest--it was only
+that--Aunt Becky, who observed him with some curiosity, thought--for a
+few minutes with Lilias Walsingham; and afterwards he talked with an
+effort, and so much animation and such good acceptance [though it was
+plain, Aunt Becky said, that he did not listen to one word she said,] to
+the fair Magnolia, that O'Flaherty had serious thoughts of
+horse-whipping him when the festivities were over--for, as he purposed
+informing him, his 'ungentlemanlike intherfarence.'
+
+'He has got his quietus,' thought Aunt Becky, with triumph; 'this brisk,
+laughing carriage, and heightened colour, a woman of experience can see
+through at a glance.'
+
+Yes, all this frisking and skipping is but the hypocrisy of bleeding
+vanity--_hæret lateri_--they are just the flush, wriggle, and hysterics
+of suppressed torture.
+
+Then came her niece, cold and stately, with steady eye and a slight
+flush, and altogether the air of the conscientious young matron who has
+returned from the nursery, having there administered the discipline; and
+so she sat down beside her aunt, serene and silent, and, the little glow
+passed away, pale and still.
+
+'Well, he _has_ spoken?' said her aunt to her, in a sharp aside.
+
+'Yes,' answered the young lady, icily.
+
+'And has had his answer?'
+
+'Yes--and I beg, Aunt Rebecca, the subject may be allowed to drop.' The
+young lady's eyes encountered her aunt's so directly and were so fully
+charged with the genuine Chattesworth lightning, that Miss Rebecca,
+unused to such demonstrations, averted hers, and with a slight sarcastic
+inclination, and, 'Oh! your servant, young lady,' beckoning with her fan
+grandly to little Puddock, who was hovering with other designs in the
+vicinity, and taking his arm, though he was not forgiven, but only
+employed--a distinction often made by good Queen Elizabeth--marched to
+the marquee, where, it was soon evident, the plump lieutenant was busy
+in commending, according to their merits, the best bits of the best
+_plats_ on the table.
+
+'So dear Aunt Becky has forgiven Puddock,' said Devereux, who was
+sauntering up to the tent between O'Flaherty and Cluffe, and little
+suspecting that he was descanting upon the intended Mrs. Cluffe--'and
+they are celebrating the reconciliation over a jelly and a pupton. I
+love Aunt Rebecca, I tell you--I don't know what we should do without
+her. She's impertinent, and often nearly insupportable; but isn't she
+the most placable creature on earth? I venture to say I might kill you,
+Lieutenant O'Flaherty--of course, with your permission, Sir--and she'd
+forgive me to-morrow morning! And she really does princely
+things--doesn't she? She set up that ugly widow--what's her name?--twice
+in a shop in Dame Street, and gave two hundred pounds to poor Scamper's
+orphan, and actually pensions that old miscreant, Wagget, who ought to
+be hanged--and never looks for thanks or compliments, or upbraids her
+ingrates with past kindnesses. She's noble--Aunt Becky's every inch a
+gentleman!'
+
+By this time they had reached the tent, and the hearty voice of the
+general challenged them from the shade, as he filliped a little chime
+merrily on his empty glass.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+WHICH CONCERNS THE GRAND DINNER AT THE KING'S HOUSE, AND WHO WERE THERE,
+AND SOMETHING OF THEIR TALK, REVERIES, DISPUTES, AND GENERAL JOLLITY.
+
+
+It was about this time that the dinner-party at the King's House came
+off. Old Colonel and Mrs. Stafford were hospitable, if not very
+entertaining, and liked to bring their neighbours together, without
+ceremony, round a saddle of mutton and a gooseberry pie, and other such
+solid comforts; and then, hey for a round game!--for the young people,
+Pope Joan, or what you please, in the drawing-room, with lots of
+flirting and favouritism, and a jolly little supper of broiled bones and
+whipt cream, and toasts and sentiments, with plenty of sly allusions and
+honest laughter all round the table. But twice or thrice in the year the
+worthy couple made a more imposing gathering at the King's House, and
+killed the fatted calf, and made a solemn feast to the big wigs and the
+notables of Chapelizod, with just such a sprinkling of youngsters as
+sufficed to keep alive the young people whom they brought in their
+train. There was eating of venison and farced turkeys, and other stately
+fare; and they praised the colonel's claret, and gave the servants their
+'veils' in the hall, and drove away in their carriages, with flambeaux
+and footmen, followed by the hearty good-night of the host from the
+hall-door steps, and amazing the quiet little town with their rattle and
+glare.
+
+Dinner was a five o'clock affair in those days, and the state parlour
+was well filled. There was old Bligh from the Magazine--I take the
+guests in order of arrival--and the Chattesworths, and the Walsinghams;
+and old Dowager Lady Glenvarlogh--Colonel Stratford's cousin--who
+flashed out in the evening sun from Dublin in thunder and dust and her
+carriage-and-four, bringing her mild little country niece, who watched
+her fat painted aunt all the time of dinner, with the corners of her
+frightened little eyes, across the table; and spoke sparingly, and ate
+with diffidence; and Captain Devereux was there; and the next beau who
+appeared was--of all men in the world--Mr. Mervyn! and Aunt Becky
+watched, and saw with satisfaction, that he and Gertrude met as formally
+and coldly as she could have desired. And then there was an elaborate
+macaroni, one of the Lord Lieutenant's household,--Mr. Beauchamp; and
+last, Lord Castlemallard, who liked very well to be the chief man in the
+room, and dozed after dinner serenely in that consciousness, and loved
+to lean back upon his sofa in the drawing-room, and gaze in a dozing,
+smiling, Turkish reverie, after Gertrude Chattesworth and pretty Lilias,
+whom he admired; and when either came near enough, he would take her
+hand and say,--'Well, child, how do you do?--and why don't you speak to
+your old friend? You charming rogue, you know I remember you no bigger
+than your fan. And what mischief have you been about--eh? What mischief
+have you been about, I say, young gentlewoman? Turning all the pretty
+fellows' heads, I warrant you--eh!--turning their heads?' And he used to
+talk this sort of talk very slowly, and to hold their hands all the
+while, and even after this talk was exhausted, and grin sleepily, and
+wag his head, looking with a glittering, unpleasant gaze in their faces
+all the time. But at present we are all at dinner, in the midst of the
+row which even the best bred people, assembled in sufficient numbers,
+will make over that meal.
+
+Devereux could not help seeing pretty Lilias over the way, who was
+listening to handsome Mervyn, as it seemed, with interest, and talking
+also her pleasant little share. He was no dunce, that Mervyn, nor much
+of a coxcomb, and certainly no clown, Devereux thought; but as fine a
+gentleman, to speak honestly, and as handsome, as well dressed, and as
+pleasant to listen to, with that sweet low voice and piquant smile, as
+any. Besides he could draw, and had more yards of French and English
+verses by rote than Aunt Becky owned of Venetian lace and satin ribbons,
+and was more of a scholar than he. He? _He_!--why--'he?' what the deuce
+had Devereux to do with it--was he vexed?--A fiddle-stick! He began to
+flag with Miss Ward, the dowager's niece, and was glad when the refined
+Beauchamp, at her other side, took her up, and entertained her with Lady
+Carrickmore's ball and the masquerade, and the last levee, and the
+withdrawing-room. There are said to have been persons who could attend
+to half a dozen different conversations going on together, and take a
+rational part in them all, and indulge, all the time, in a distinct
+consecutive train of thought beside. I dare say, Mr. Morphy, the
+chess-player, would find no difficulty in it. But Devereux was not by
+any means competent to the feat, though there was one conversation,
+perhaps, the thread of which he would gladly have caught up and
+disentangled. So the talk at top and bottom and both sides of the table,
+with its cross-readings, and muddle, and uproar, changed hands, and
+whisked and rioted, like a dance of Walpurgis, in his lonely brain.
+
+What he heard, on the whole, was very like
+this--'hubble-bubble-rubble-dubble--the great match of
+shuttlecock played between the gentlemen of the north and those of
+hubble-bubble--the Methodist persuasion; but--ha-ha-ha!--a squeeze of a
+lemon--rubble-dubble--ha-ha-ha!--wicked man--hubble-bubble--force-meat
+balls and yolks of eggs--rubble-dubble--musket balls from a
+steel cross-bow--upon my--hubble-bubble--throwing a sheep's
+eye--ha-ha-ha--rubble-dubble--at the two remaining heads on Temple
+Bar--hubble-bubble--and the duke left by his will--rubble-dubble--a quid
+of tobacco in a brass snuff-box--hubble-bubble--and my Lady
+Rostrevor's very sweet upon--rubble-dubble--old Alderman Wallop of
+John's-lane--hubble-bubble--ha-ha-ha--from Jericho to Bethany,
+where David, Joab, and--rubble-dubble--the whole party upset in
+the mud in a chaise marine--and--hubble-bubble--shake a little
+white pepper over them--and--rubble-dubble--his name is
+Solomon--hubble-bubble--ha-ha-ha--the poor old thing dying of cold, and
+not a stitch of clothes to cover her nakedness--rubble-dubble--play or
+pay, on Finchley Common--hubble-bubble--most melancholy
+truly--ha-ha-ha!--rubble-dubble--and old Lady Ruth is ready to swear she
+never--hubble-bubble--served High Sheriff for the county of Down
+in the reign of Queen Anne--rubble-dubble--and Dr. and Mrs.
+Sturk--hubble-bubble--Secretaries of State in the room of the Duke of
+Grafton and General Conway--rubble-dubble--venerable prelate--ha-ha-ha!
+hubble-bubble--filthy creature--hubble-bubble-rubble-dubble.'
+
+And this did not make him much wiser or merrier. Love has its fevers,
+its recoveries, and its relapses. The patient--nay even his nurse and
+his doctor, if he has taken to himself such officers in his
+distress--may believe the malady quite cured--the passion burnt out--the
+flame extinct--even the smoke quite over, when a little chance puff of
+rivalry blows the white ashes off, and, lo! the old liking is still
+smouldering. But this was not Devereux's case. He remembered when his
+fever--not a love one--and his leave of absence at Scarborough, and that
+long continental tour of hers with Aunt Rebecca and Gertrude
+Chattesworth, had carried the grave, large-eyed little girl away, and
+hid her from his sight for more than a year, very nearly _two_ years,
+the strange sort of thrill and surprise with which he saw her
+again--tall and slight, and very beautiful--no, not _beautiful_,
+perhaps, if you go to rule and compass, and Greek trigonometrical
+theories; but there was an indescribable prettiness in all her features,
+and movements, and looks, higher, and finer, and sweeter than all the
+canons of statuary will give you.
+
+How prettily she stands! how prettily she walks! what a sensitive,
+spirited, clear-tinted face it is! This was pretty much the
+interpretation of his reverie, as Colonel Stafford's large and
+respectable party obligingly vanished for a while into air. Is it sad? I
+think it _is_ sad--I don't know--and how sweetly and how drolly it
+lighted up; at that moment he saw her smile--the pleasant mischief in
+it--the dark violet glance--the wonderful soft dimple in chin and
+cheek--the little crimson mouth, and its laughing coronet of pearls--and
+then all earnest again, and still so animated! What feminine
+intelligence and character there is in that face!--'tis pleasanter to me
+than conversation--'tis a fairy tale, or--or a dream, it's so
+interesting--I never know, you see, what's coming--Is not it wonderful?
+What is she talking about now?--what does it signify?--she's so
+strangely beautiful--she's like those Irish melodies, I can't reach all
+their meaning; I only know their changes keep me silent, and are playing
+with my heart-strings.
+
+Devereux's contemplation of the animated _tête-à-tête_, for such, in
+effect, it seemed to him at the other side of the table, was, however,
+by no means altogether pleasurable. He began to think Mervyn conceited;
+there was a 'provoking probability of succeeding' about him, and
+altogether something that was beginning to grow offensive and odious.
+
+'She knows well enough I like her,' so his liking said in confidence to
+his vanity, and even _he_ hardly overheard them talk; 'better a great
+deal than I knew it myself, till old Strafford got together this
+confounded stupid dinner-party (he caught Miss Chattesworth glancing at
+him with a peculiar look of enquiry). Why the plague did he ask _me_
+here? it was Puddock's turn, and he likes venison and compots,
+and--and--but 'tis like them--the women fall in love with the man who's
+in love with himself, like Narcissus yonder--and they can't help it--not
+they--and what care I?--hang it! I say, what is't to me?--and yet--if
+she were to leave it--what a queer unmeaning place Chapelizod would be!'
+
+'And what do you say to that, Captain Devereux?' cried the hearty voice
+of old General Chattesworth, and, with a little shock, the captain
+dropped from the clouds into his chair, and a clear view of the larded
+fowl before him, and his own responsibilities and situation--
+
+'Some turkey!' he said, awaking, and touching the carving-knife and
+fork, with a smile and a bow; and he mingled once more in the business
+and bustle of life.
+
+And soon there came in the general talk and business one of those sudden
+lulls which catch speakers unawares, and Mr. Beauchamp was found
+saying--
+
+'I saw her play on Thursday, and, upon my honour, the Bellamy is a
+mockery, a skeleton and a spectacle.'
+
+'That's no reason,' said Aunt Becky, who, as usual, had got up a
+skirmish, and was firing away in the cause of Mossop and Smock-alley
+play-house; 'why, she would be fraudulently arrested in her own chair,
+on her way to the play-house, by the contrivance of the rogue Barry, and
+that wicked mountebank, Woodward.'
+
+'You're rather hard upon them, Madam,' said Mrs. Colonel Stafford, who
+stood up for Crow-street, with a slight elevation of her chin.
+
+'Very true, indeed, Mistress Chattesworth,' cried the dowager,
+overlooking Madam Stafford's parenthesis, and tapping an applause with
+her fan, and, at the same time, rewarding the champion of Smock-alley,
+for she was one of the faction, with one of her large, painted smiles,
+followed by a grave and somewhat supercilious glance at the gentleman of
+the household; 'and I don't believe _they_, at least, can think her a
+spectacle, and--a--the like, or they'd hardly have conspired to lock her
+in a sponging-house, while she should have been in the play-house. What
+say you, Mistress Chattesworth?'
+
+'Ha, ha! no, truly, my lady; but you know she's unfortunate, and a
+stranger, and the good people in this part of the world improve so safe
+an opportunity of libelling a friendless gentlewoman.'
+
+This little jet of vitriol was intended for the eye of the Castle beau;
+but he, quite innocent of the injection, went on serenely--
+
+'So they do, upon my honour, Madam, tell prodigious naughty tales about
+her: yet upon my life I do pity her from my soul: how that fellow
+Calcraft, by Jove--she says, you know, she's married to him, but we know
+better--he has half broken her heart, and treated her with most refined
+meanness, as I live; in the green-room, where she looks an infinity
+worse than on the stage, she told me----'
+
+'I dare say,' said Aunt Becky, rather stiffly, pulling him up; for
+though she had fought a round for poor George Anne Bellamy for Mossop's
+sake, she nevertheless had formed a pretty just estimate of that faded,
+good-natured, and insolvent demirep, and rather recoiled from any
+anecdotes of her telling.
+
+'And Calcraft gave her his likeness in miniature,' related the
+macaroni, never minding; 'set round with diamonds, and, will you
+believe it? when she came to examine it, they were not brilliants, but
+rose-diamonds--despicable fellow!'
+
+Here the talk began to spring up again in different places, and the
+conversation speedily turned into what we have heard it before, and the
+roar and confusion became universal, and swallowed up what remained of
+poor George Anne's persecutions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+IN WHICH TWO YOUNG PERSONS UNDERSTAND ONE ANOTHER BETTER, PERHAPS, THAN
+EVER THEY DID BEFORE, WITHOUT SAYING SO.
+
+
+And now the ladies, with their gay plumage, have flown away like foreign
+birds of passage, and the jolly old priests of Bacchus, in the parlour,
+make their libations of claret; and the young fellows, after a while,
+seeing a gathering of painted fans, and rustling hoops, and fluttering
+laces, upon the lawn, and a large immigration of hilarious neighbours
+besides, and two serious fiddlers, and a black fellow with a tambourine
+preparing for action, and the warm glitter of the western sun among the
+green foliage about the window, could stand it no longer, but stole
+away, notwithstanding a hospitable remonstrance and a protest from old
+Strafford, to join the merry muster.
+
+'The young bucks will leave their claret,' said Lord Castlemallard; 'and
+truly 'tis a rare fine wine, colonel, a mighty choice claret truly (and
+the colonel bowed low, and smiled a rugged purple smile in spite of
+himself, for his claret _was_ choice), all won't do when Venus
+beckons--when she beckons--ha, ha--all won't do, Sir--at the first
+flutter of a petticoat, and the invitation of a pair of fine eyes--fine
+eyes, colonel--by Jupiter, they're off--you can't keep 'em--I say your
+wine won't keep 'em--they'll be off, Sir--peeping under the hoods, the
+dogs will--and whispering their wicked nonsense, Dr. Walsingham--ha,
+ha--and your wine, I say--your claret, colonel, won't hold 'em--'twas
+once so with us--eh, general?--ha! ha! and we must forgive 'em now.'
+
+And he shoved round his chair lazily, with a left-backward wheel, so as
+to command the window, for he liked to see the girls dance, the little
+rogues!--with his claret and his French rappee at his elbow; and he did
+not hear General Chattesworth, who was talking of the new comedy called
+the 'Clandestine Marriage,' and how 'the prologue touches genteelly on
+the loss of three late geniuses--Hogarth, Quin, and Cibber--and the
+epilogue is the picture of a polite company;' for the tambourine and the
+fiddles were going merrily, and the lasses and lads in motion.
+
+Aunt Becky and Lilias were chatting just under those pollard osiers by
+the river. She was always gentle with Lily, and somehow unlike the
+pugnacious Aunt Becky, whose attack was so spirited and whose thrust so
+fierce; and when Lily told a diverting little story--and she was often
+very diverting--Aunt Becky used to watch her pleasant face, with such a
+droll, good-natured smile; and she used to pat her on the cheek, and
+look so glad to see her when they met, and often as if she would say--'
+I admire you a great deal more, and I am a great deal fonder of you than
+you think; but you know brave stoical Aunt Becky can't say all that--it
+would not be in character, you know.' And the old lady knew how good she
+was to the poor, and she liked her spirit, and candour, and honour--it
+was so uncommon, and somehow angelic, she thought. 'Little Lily's so
+true!' she used to say; and perhaps there was there a noble chord of
+sympathy between the young girl, who had no taste for battle, and the
+daring Aunt Becky.
+
+I think Devereux liked her for liking Lily--he thought it was for her
+own sake. Of course, he was often unexpectedly set upon and tomahawked
+by the impetuous lady; but the gay captain put on his scalp again, and
+gathered his limbs together, and got up in high good humour, and shook
+himself and smiled, after his dismemberment, like one of the old
+soldiers of the Walhalla--and they were never the worse friends.
+
+So, turning his back upon the fiddles and tambourine, Gipsy Devereux
+sauntered down to the river-bank, and to the osiers, where the ladies
+are looking down the river, and a blue bell, not half so blue as her own
+deep eyes, in Lilias's fingers; and the sound of their gay talk came
+mixed with the twitter and clear evening songs of the small birds. By
+those same osiers, that see so many things, and tell no tales, there
+will yet be a parting. But its own sorrow suffices to the day. And now
+it is a summer sunset, and all around dappled gold and azure, and sweet,
+dreamy sounds; and Lilias turns her pretty head, and sees him;--and oh!
+was it fancy, or did he see just a little flushing of the colour on her
+cheek--and her lashes seemed to drop a little, and out came her frank
+little hand. And Devereux leaned on the paling there, and chatted his
+best sense and nonsense, I dare say; and they laughed and talked about
+all sorts of things; and he sang for them a queer little snatch of a
+ballad, of an enamoured captain, the course of whose true love ran not
+smooth;--
+
+  The river ran between them,
+    And she looked upon the stream,
+  And the soldier looked upon her
+    As a dreamer on a dream.
+  'Believe me--oh! believe,'
+    He sighed, 'you peerless maid;
+      My honour is pure,
+      And my true love sure,
+  Like the white plume in my hat,
+    And my shining blade.'
+
+  The river ran between them,
+    And she smiled upon the stream,
+  Like one that smiles at folly--
+    A dreamer on a dream.
+  'I do not trust your promise,
+    I will not be betrayed;
+      For your faith is light,
+      And your cold wit bright,
+  Like the white plume in your hat,
+    And your shining blade.'
+
+  The river ran between them,
+    And he rode beside the stream,
+  And he turned away and parted,
+    As a dreamer from his dream.
+  And his comrade brought his message,
+    From the field where he was laid--
+      Just his name to repeat,
+      And to lay at her feet
+  The white plume from his hat
+    And his shining blade.[1]
+
+And he sang it in a tuneful and plaintive tenor, that had power to make
+rude and ridiculous things pathetic; and Aunt Rebecca thought he was
+altogether very agreeable. But it was time she should see what Miss
+Gertrude was about; and Devereux and Lily were such very old friends
+that she left them to their devices.
+
+'I like the river,' says he; 'it has a soul, Miss Lily, and a character.
+There are no river _gods_, but nymphs. Look at that river, Miss Lilias;
+what a girlish spirit. I wish she would reveal herself; I could lose my
+heart to her, I believe--if, indeed, I could be in love with anything,
+you know. Look at the river--is not it feminine? it's sad and it's
+merry, musical and sparkling--and oh, so deep! Always changing, yet
+still the same. 'Twill show you the trees, or the clouds, or yourself,
+or the stars; and it's so clear and so dark, and so sunny, and--so
+cold. It tells everything, and yet nothing. It's so pure, and so
+playful, and so tuneful, and so coy, yet so mysterious and _fatal_.
+I sometimes think, Miss Lilias, I've seen this river spirit;
+and she's like--very like you!'
+
+And so he went on; and she was more silent and more a listener than
+usual. I don't know all that was passing in pretty Lilias's fancy--in
+her heart--near the hum of the waters and the spell of that musical
+voice. Love speaks in allegories and a language of signs; looks and
+tones tell his tale most truly. So Devereux's talk held her for a while
+in a sort of trance, melancholy and delightful. There must be, of
+course, the affinity--the rapport--the what you please to call it--to
+begin with--it matters not how faint and slender; and then the spell
+steals on and grows. See how the poor little woodbine, or the jessamine,
+or the vine, will lean towards the rugged elm, appointed by Virgil, in
+his epic of husbandry (I mean no pun) for their natural support--the
+elm, you know it hath been said, is the gentleman of the forest:--see
+all the little tendrils turn his way silently, and cling, and long years
+after, maybe, clothe the broken and blighted tree with a fragrance and
+beauty not its own. Those feeble feminine plants, are, it sometimes
+seems to me, the strength and perfection of creation--strength perfected
+in weakness; the ivy, green among the snows of winter, and clasping
+together in its true embrace the loveless ruin; and the vine that maketh
+glad the heart of man amidst the miseries of life. I must not be
+mistaken, though, for Devereux's talk was only a tender sort of
+trifling, and Lilias had said nothing to encourage him to risk more; but
+she now felt sure that Devereux liked her--that, indeed, he took a deep
+interest in her--and somehow she was happy.
+
+And little Lily drew towards the dancers, and Devereux by her side--not
+to join in the frolic; it was much pleasanter talking. But the merry
+thrum and jingle of the tambourine, and vivacious squeak of the fiddles,
+and the incessant laughter and prattle of the gay company were a sort of
+protection. And perhaps she fancied that within that pleasant and
+bustling circle, the discourse, which was to her so charming, might be
+longer maintained. It was music heard in a dream--strange and sweet--and
+might never come again.
+
+FOOTNOTE:
+
+[Footnote 1: These little verses have been several times set to music,
+and last and very sweetly, by Miss Elizabeth Philp.]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+IN WHICH THE SUN SETS, AND THE MERRY-MAKING IS KEPT UP BY CANDLE-LIGHT
+IN THE KING'S HOUSE, AND LILY RECEIVES A WARNING WHICH SHE DOES NOT
+COMPREHEND.
+
+
+Dr. Toole, without whom no jollification of any sort could occur
+satisfactorily in Chapelizod or the country round, was this evening at
+the 'King's House,' of course, as usual, with his eyes about him and his
+tongue busy; and at this moment he was setting Cluffe right about
+Devereux's relation to the title and estates of Athenry. His uncle
+Roland Lord Athenry was, as everybody knew, a lunatic--Toole used to
+call him Orlando Furioso: and Lewis, his first cousin by his father's
+elder brother--the heir presumptive--was very little better, and
+reported every winter to be dying. He spends all his time--his spine
+being made, it is popularly believed, of gristle--stretched on his back
+upon a deal board, cutting out paper figures with a pair of scissors.
+Toole used to tell them at the club, when alarming letters arrived about
+the health of the noble uncle and his hopeful nephew--the heir
+apparent--'That's the gentleman who's back-bone's made of jelly--eh,
+Puddock? Two letters come, by Jove, announcing that Dick Devereux's
+benefit is actually fixed for the Christmas holidays, when his cousin
+undertakes to die for positively the last time, and his uncle will play
+in the most natural manner conceivable, the last act of "King Lear."' In
+fact, this family calamity was rather a cheerful subject among
+Devereux's friends; and certainly Devereux had no reason to love that
+vicious, selfish old lunatic, Lord Athenry, who in his prodigal and
+heartless reign, before straw and darkness swallowed him, never gave the
+boy a kind word or gentle look, and owed him a mortal grudge because he
+stood near the kingdom, and wrote most damaging reports of him at the
+end of the holidays, and despatched those letters of Bellerophon by the
+boy's own hand to the schoolmaster, with the natural results.
+
+When Aunt Rebecca rustled into the ring that was gathered round about
+the fiddles and tambourine, she passed Miss Magnolia very near, with a
+high countenance, and looking straight before her, and with no more
+recognition than the tragedy queen bestows upon the painted statue on
+the wing by which she enters. And Miss Mag followed her with a titter
+and an angry flash of her eyes. So Aunt Rebecca made up to the little
+hillock--little bigger than a good tea-cake--on which the dowager was
+perched in a high-backed chair, smiling over the dancers with a splendid
+benignity, and beating time with her fat short foot. And Aunt Becky told
+Mrs. Colonel Stafford, standing by, she had extemporised a living
+Watteau, and indeed it _was_ a very pretty picture, or Aunt Becky would
+not have said so; and 'craning' from this eminence she saw her niece
+coming leisurely round, not in company of Mervyn.
+
+That interesting stranger, on the contrary, had by this time joined
+Lilias and Devereux, who had returned toward the dancers, and was
+talking again with Miss Walsingham. Gertrude's beau was little Puddock,
+who was all radiant and supremely blest. But encountering rather a black
+look from Aunt Becky as they drew near, he deferentially surrendered the
+young lady to the care of her natural guardian, who forthwith presented
+her to the dowager; and Puddock, warned off by another glance, backed
+away, and fell, unawares, helplessly into the possession of Miss
+Magnolia, a lady whom he never quite understood, and whom he regarded
+with a very kind and polite sort of horror.
+
+So the athletic Magnolia instantly impounded the little lieutenant, and
+began to rally him, in the sort of slang she delighted in, with plenty
+of merriment and malice upon his _tendre_ for Miss Chattesworth, and
+made the gallant young gentleman blush and occasionally smile, and bow a
+great deal, and take some snuff.
+
+'And here comes the Duchess of Belmont again,' said the saucy Miss
+Magnolia, seeing the stately approach of Aunt Becky, as it seemed to
+Puddock, through the back of her head. I think the exertion and frolic
+of the dance had got her high blood up into a sparkling state, and her
+scorn and hate of Aunt Rebecca was more demonstrative than usual. 'Now
+you'll see how she'll run against poor little simple me, just because
+I'm small. And _this_ is the way they dance it,' cried she, in a louder
+tone; and capering backward with a bounce, and an air, and a grace, she
+came with a sort of a courtesy, and a smart bump, and a shock against
+the stately Miss Rebecca; and whisking round with a little scream and a
+look of terrified innocence, and with her fingers to her heart, to
+suppress an imaginary palpitation, dropped a low courtesy, crying--
+
+'I'm blest but I thought 'twas tall Burke, the gunner.'
+
+'You might look behind before you spring backward, young gentlewoman,'
+said Aunt Becky, with a very bright colour.
+
+'And you might look before you before you spring forward, old
+gentlewoman,' replied Miss Mag, just as angry.
+
+'Young ladies used to have a respect to decorum,' Aunt Becky went on.
+
+'So they prayed me to tell you, Madam,' replied the young lady, with a
+very meek courtesy, and a very crimson face.
+
+'Yes, Miss Mac--Mag--Madam--it used to be so,' rejoined Aunt Rebecca,
+''twas part of my education, at least, to conduct myself in a polite
+company like a civilised person.'
+
+'"I wish I could see it," says blind Hugh,' Magnolia retorted; 'but
+'twas a good while ago, Madam, and you've had time to forget.'
+
+'I shall acquaint your mother, Mrs.--Mug--Mac--Macnamara, with your
+pretty behaviour to-morrow,' said Miss Rebecca.
+
+'To-morrow's a new day, and mother may be well enough then to hear your
+genteel lamentation; but I suppose you mean to-morrow come never,'
+answered Magnolia, with another of her provoking meek courtesies.
+
+'Oh, this is Lieutenant Puddock,' said Aunt Becky, drawing off in high
+disdain, 'the bully of the town. Your present company, Sir, will find
+very pretty work, I warrant, for your sword and pistols; Sir Launcelot
+and his belle!'
+
+'Do you like a belle or beldame best, Sir Launcelot?' enquired Miss Mag,
+with a mild little duck to Puddock.
+
+'You'll have your hands pretty full, Sir, ha, ha, ha!' and with scarlet
+cheeks, and a choking laugh, away sailed Aunt Rebecca.
+
+'Choke, chicken, there's more a-hatching,' said Miss Mag, in a sort of
+aside, and cutting a flic-flac with a merry devilish laugh, and a wink
+to Puddock. That officer, being a gentleman, was a good deal
+disconcerted, and scandalised--too literal to see, and too honest to
+enjoy, the absurd side of the combat.
+
+'Twas an affair of a few seconds, like two frigates crossing in a gale,
+with only opportunity for a broadside or two; and when the Rebecca
+Chattesworth sheered off, it can't be denied, her tackling was a good
+deal more cut up, and her hull considerably more pierced, than those of
+the saucy Magnolia, who sent that whistling shot and provoking cheer in
+her majestic wake.
+
+'I see you want to go, Lieutenant Puddock--Lieutenant O'Flaherty, I
+promised to dance this country dance with you; don't let me keep _you_,
+Ensign Puddock,' said Miss Mag in a huff, observing little Puddock's
+wandering eye and thoughts.
+
+'I--a--you see, Miss Macnamara, truly you were so hard upon poor Miss
+Rebecca Chattesworth, that I fear I shall get into trouble, unless I go
+and make my peace with her,' lisped the little lieutenant, speaking the
+truth, as was his wont, with a bow and a polite smile, and a gentle
+indication of beginning to move away.
+
+'Oh, is that all? I was afraid you were sick of the mulligrubs, with
+eating chopt hay; you had better go back to her at once if she wants
+you, for if you don't with a good grace, she'll very likely come and
+take you back by the collar,' and Miss Mag and O'Flaherty joined in a
+derisive hee-haw, to Puddock's considerable confusion, who bowed and
+smiled again, and tried to laugh, till the charming couple relieved him
+by taking their places in the dance.
+
+When I read this speech about the 'mulligrubs,' in the old yellow letter
+which contains a lively account of the skirmish, my breath was fairly
+taken away, and I could see nothing else for more than a minute; and so
+soon as I was quite myself again, I struck my revising pen across the
+monstrous sentence, with uncompromising decision, referring it to a
+clerical blunder, or some unlucky transposition, and I wondered how any
+polite person could have made so gross a slip. But see how
+authentication waits upon truth! Three years afterwards, I picked up in
+the parlour of the 'Cat and Fiddle,' on the Macclesfield Road, in
+Derbyshire, a scrubby old duodecimo, which turned out to be an old
+volume of Dean Swift's works: well, I opened in the middle of 'Polite
+Conversation,' and there, upon my honour, the second sentence I read was
+'_Lady Smart_,' (mark _that_--'LADY!') 'What, you are sick of
+the mulligrubs, with eating chopt hay?' So my good old yellow
+letter-writer ('I.' or 'T.' Tresham, I can't decide what he signs
+himself)--_you_ were, no doubt, exact here as in other matters, and _I_
+was determining the probable and the impossible, unphilosophically, by
+the _rule_ of my own time. And my poor Magnolia, though you spoke some
+years--thirty or so--later than my Lady Smart, a countess for aught I
+know, you are not so much to blame. Thirty years! what of that? Don't
+we, to this hour, more especially in rural districts, encounter among
+the old folk, every now and then, one of honest Simon Wagstaff's
+pleasantries, which had served merry ladies and gentlemen so long before
+that charming compiler, with his 'Large Table Book,' took the matter in
+hands. And I feel, I confess, a queer sort of a thrill, not at all
+contemptuous--neither altogether sad, nor altogether joyous--but
+something pleasantly regretful, whenever one of those quaint and faded
+old servants of the mirth of so many dead and buried generations, turns
+up in my company.
+
+And now the sun went down behind the tufted trees, and the blue shades
+of evening began to deepen, and the merry company flocked into the
+King's House, to dance again and drink tea, and make more love, and play
+round games, and joke, and sing songs, and eat supper under old Colonel
+Stafford's snug and kindly roof-tree.
+
+Dangerfield, who arrived rather late, was now in high chat with Aunt
+Becky. She rather liked him and had very graciously accepted a gray
+parrot and a monkey, which he had deferentially presented, a step which
+called forth, to General Chattesworth's consternation, a cockatoo from
+Cluffe, who felt the necessity of maintaining his ground against the
+stranger, and wrote off by the next packet to London, in a confounded
+passion, for he hated wasting money, about a pelican he had got wind of.
+Dangerfield also entered with much apparent interest into a favourite
+scheme of Aunt Becky's, for establishing, between Chapelizod and
+Knockmaroon, a sort of retreat for discharged gaol-birds of her
+selection, a colony, happily for the character and the silver spoons of
+the neighbourhood, never eventually established.
+
+It was plain he was playing the frank, good fellow, and aiming at
+popularity. He had become one of the club. He played at whist, and only
+smiled, after his sort, when his partner revoked, and he lost like a
+gentleman. His talk was brisk, and hard, and caustic--that of a
+Philistine who had seen the world and knew it. He had the Peerage by
+rote, and knew something out-of-the-way, amusing or damnable about every
+person of note you could name; and his shrewd gossip had a bouquet its
+own, and a fine cynical flavour, which secretly awed and delighted the
+young fellows. He smiled a good deal. He was not aware that a smile did
+not quite become him. The fact is, he had lost a good many side teeth,
+and it was a hollow and sinister disclosure. He would laugh, too,
+occasionally; but his laugh was not rich and joyous, like General
+Chattesworth's, or even Tom Toole's cozy chuckle, or old Doctor
+Walsingham's hilarious ha-ha-ha! He did not know it; but there was a
+cold hard ring in it, like the crash and jingle of broken glass. Then
+his spectacles, shining like ice in the light, never removed for a
+moment--never even pushed up to his forehead--he eat in them, drank in
+them, fished in them, joked in them--he prayed in them, and, no doubt,
+slept in them, and would, it was believed, be buried in them--heightened
+that sense of mystery and mask which seemed to challenge curiosity and
+defy scrutiny with a scornful chuckle.
+
+In the meantime, the mirth, and frolic, and flirtation were drawing to a
+close. The dowager, in high good humour, was conveyed down stairs to her
+carriage, by Colonel Stafford and Lord Castlemallard, and rolled away,
+with blazing flambeaux, like a meteor, into town. There was a
+breaking-up and leave-taking, and parting jokes on the door-steps; and
+as the ladies, old and young, were popping on their mantles in the
+little room off the hall, and Aunt Becky and Mrs. Colonel Strafford were
+exchanging a little bit of eager farewell gossip beside the cabinet,
+Gertrude Chattesworth--by some chance she and Lilias had not had an
+opportunity of speaking that evening--drew close to her, and she took
+her hand and said 'Good-night, dear Lily,' and glanced over her
+shoulder, still holding Lily's hand; and she looked very pale and
+earnest, and said quickly, in a whisper:
+
+'Lily, darling, if you knew what I could tell you, if I dare, about Mr.
+Mervyn, you would cut your hand off rather than allow him to talk to
+you, as, I confess, he _has_ talked to me, as an admirer, and knowing
+what I know, and with my eye upon him--Lily--_Lily_--I've been amazed by
+him to-night. I can only _warn_ you now, darling, to beware of a great
+danger.'
+
+''Tis no danger, however, to me, Gertrude, dear,' said Lily, with a
+pleasant little smile. 'And though he's handsome, there's something, is
+there not, _funeste_ in his deep eyes and black hair; and the dear old
+man knows something strange about him, too; I suppose 'tis all the same
+story.'
+
+'And he has not told you,' said Gertrude, looking down with a gloomy
+face at her fan.
+
+'No; but I'm so curious, I know he will, though he does not like to
+speak of it; but you know, Gerty, I love a horror, and I know the
+story's fearful, and I feel uncertain whether he's a man or a ghost; but
+see, Aunt Rebecca and Mistress Strafford are kissing.'
+
+'Good-night, dear Lily, and remember!' said pale Gertrude without a
+smile, looking at her, for a moment, with a steadfast gaze, and then
+kissing her with a hasty and earnest pressure. And Lily kissed her
+again, and so they parted.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+RELATING HOW THE BAND OF THE ROYAL IRISH ARTILLERY PLAYED, AND, WHILE
+THE MUSIC WAS GOING ON, HOW VARIOUSLY DIFFERENT PEOPLE WERE MOVED.
+
+
+Twice a week the band of the Royal Irish Artillery regaled all comers
+with their music on the parade-ground by the river; and, as it was
+reputed the best in Ireland, and Chapelizod was a fashionable resort,
+and a very pretty village, embowered in orchards, people liked to drive
+out of town on a fine autumn day like this, by way of listening, and all
+the neighbours showed there, and there was quite a little fair for an
+hour or two.
+
+Mervyn, among the rest, was there, but for scarce ten minutes, and, as
+usual, received little more than a distant salutation, coldly and
+gravely returned, from Gertrude Chattesworth, to whom Mr. Beauchamp,
+whom she remembered at the Stafford's dinner, addicted himself a good
+deal. That demigod appeared in a white surtout, with a crimson cape, a
+French waistcoat, his hair _en papillote_, a feather in his hat, a
+_couteau de chasse_ by his side, with a small cane hanging to his
+button, and a pair of Italian greyhounds at his heels; and he must have
+impressed Tresham prodigiously; for I observe no other instance in which
+he has noted down costume so carefully. Little Puddock, too, was
+hovering near, and his wooing made uncomfortable by Aunt Becky's renewed
+severity, as well as by the splendour of 'Mr. Redheels,' who was
+expending his small talk and _fleuerets_ upon Gertrude. Cluffe,
+moreover, who was pretty well in favour with Aunt Rebecca, and had been
+happy and prosperous, had his little jealousies too to plague him, for
+Dangerfield, with his fishing-rod and basket, no sooner looked in, with
+his stern front and his remarkable smile, than Aunt Becky, seeming
+instantaneously to forget Captain Cluffe, and all his winning ways, and
+the pleasant story, to the point of which he was just arriving, in his
+best manner, left him abruptly, and walked up to the grim pescator del
+onda, with an outstretched hand, and a smile of encouragement, and
+immediately fell into confidential talk with him.
+
+'The minds of anglers,' says the gentle Colonel Robert Venables, 'be
+usually more calm and composed than many others; when he hath the worst
+success he loseth but a hook or line, or perhaps what he never
+possessed, a fish; and suppose he should take nothing, yet he enjoyeth a
+delightful walk by pleasant rivers, in sweet pastures, amongst
+odoriferous flowers, which gratify his senses and delight his mind; and
+if example, which is the best proof, may sway anything, I know no sort
+of men less subject to melancholy than anglers.' It was only natural,
+then, that Dangerfield should be serene and sunny.
+
+Aunt Becky led him a little walk twice or thrice up and down. She seemed
+grave, earnest, and lofty, and he grinned and chatted after his wont
+energetically, to stout Captain Cluffe's considerable uneasiness and
+mortification. He had seen Dangerfield the day before, through his
+field-glass, from the high wooded grounds in the park, across the river,
+walk slowly for a good while under the poplars in the meadow at Belmont,
+beside Aunt Becky, in high chat; and there was something particular and
+earnest in their manner, which made him uncomfortable then. And fat
+Captain Cluffe's gall rose and nearly choked him, and; he cursed
+Dangerfield in the bottom of his corpulent, greedy soul, and wondered
+what fiend had sent that scheming old land-agent three hundred miles out
+of his way, on purpose to interfere with his little interests, as if
+there were not plenty of--of--well!--rich old women--in London. And he
+bethought him of the price of the cockatoo and the probable cost of the
+pelican, rejoinders to Dangerfield's contributions to Aunt Rebecca's
+menagerie, for those birds were not to be had for nothing; and Cluffe,
+who loved money as well, at least, as any man in his Majesty's service,
+would have seen the two tribes as extinct as the dodo, before he would
+have expended sixpence upon such tom-foolery, had it not been for
+Dangerfield's investments in animated nature. 'The hound! as if two
+could not play at that game.' But he had an uneasy and bitter
+presentiment that they were birds of paradise, and fifty other cursed
+birds beside, and that in this costly competition Dangerfield could take
+a flight beyond and above him; and he thought of the flagitious waste of
+money, and cursed him for a fool again. Aunt Becky had said, he thought,
+something in which 'to-morrow' occurred, on taking leave of Dangerfield.
+'To-morrow!' 'What to-morrow? She spoke low and confidentially, and
+seemed excited and a little flushed, and very distrait when she came
+back. Altogether, he felt as if Aunt Rebecca was slipping through his
+fingers, and would have liked to take that selfish old puppy,
+Dangerfield, by the neck and drown him out of hand in the river. But,
+notwithstanding the state of his temper, he knew it might be his only
+chance to shine pre-eminently at that moment in amiability, wit, grace,
+and gallantry, and, though it was up-hill work, he did labour
+uncommonly.
+
+When Mr. Dangerfield's spectacles gleamed through the crowd upon Dr.
+Sturk, who was thinking of other things beside the music, the angler
+walked round forthwith, and accosted that universal genius. Mrs. Sturk
+felt the doctor's arm, on which she leaned, vibrate for a second with a
+slight thrill--an evidence in that hard, fibrous limb of what she used
+to call 'a start'--and she heard Dangerfield's voice over his shoulder.
+And the surgeon and the grand vizier were soon deep in talk, and Sturk
+brightened up, and looked eager and sagacious, and important, and became
+very voluble and impressive, and, leaving his lady to her own devices,
+with her maid and children, he got to the other side of the street,
+where Nutter, with taciturn and black observation, saw them busy
+pointing with cane and finger, and talking briskly as they surveyed
+together Dick Fisher's and Tom Tresham's tenements, and the Salmon
+House; and then beheld them ascend the steps of Tresham's door, and
+overlook the wall on the other side toward the river, and point this way
+and that along the near bank, as it seemed to Nutter discussing detailed
+schemes of alteration and improvement. Sturk actually pulled out his
+pocket-book and pencil, and then Dangerfield took the pencil, and made
+notes of what he read to him, on the back of a letter; and Sturk looked
+eager and elated, and Dangerfield frowned and looked impressed, and
+nodded again and again. _Diruit ædificat, mutat quadrata rotundis_,
+under his very nose--he unconsulted! It was such an impertinence as
+Nutter could ill-digest. It was a studied slight, something like a
+public deposition, and Nutter's jealous soul seethed secretly in a
+hellbroth of rage and suspicion.
+
+I mentioned that Mistress Sturk felt in that physician's arm the
+telegraphic thrill with which the brain will occasionally send an
+invisible message of alarm from the seat of government to the
+extremities; and as this smallest of all small bits of domestic gossip
+did innocently escape me, the idle and good-natured reader will, I hope,
+let me say out my little say upon the matter, in the next chapter.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+CONCERNING THE TROUBLES AND THE SHAPES THAT BEGAN TO GATHER ABOUT DOCTOR
+STURK.
+
+
+It was just about that time that our friend, Dr. Sturk, had two or three
+odd dreams that secretly acted disagreeably upon his spirits. His liver
+he thought was a little wrong, and there was certainly a little light
+gout sporting about him. His favourite 'pupton,' at mess, disagreed with
+him; so did his claret, and hot suppers as often as he tried them, and
+that was, more or less, nearly every night in the week. So he was,
+perhaps, right, in ascribing these his visions to the humours, the
+spleen, the liver, and the juices. Still they sat uncomfortably upon his
+memory, and helped his spirits down, and made him silent and testy, and
+more than usually formidable to poor, little, quiet, hard-worked Mrs.
+Sturk.
+
+Dreams! What talk can be idler? And yet haven't we seen grave people and
+gay listening very contentedly at times to that wild and awful sort of
+frivolity; and I think there is in most men's minds, sages or zanies, a
+secret misgiving that dreams may have an office and a meaning, and are
+perhaps more than a fortuitous concourse of symbols, in fact, the
+language which good or evil spirits whisper over the sleeping brain.
+
+There was an ugly and ominous consistency in these dreams which might
+have made a less dyspeptic man a little nervous. Tom Dunstan, a sergeant
+whom Sturk had prosecuted and degraded before a court-martial, who owed
+the doctor no good-will, and was dead and buried in the church-yard
+close by, six years ago, and whom Sturk had never thought about in the
+interval--made a kind of resurrection now, and was with him every night,
+figuring in these dreary visions and somehow in league with a sort of
+conspirator-in-chief, who never showed distinctly, but talked in
+scoffing menaces from outside the door, or clutched him by the throat
+from behind his chair, and yelled some hideous secret into his ear,
+which his scared and scattered wits, when he started into consciousness,
+could never collect again. And this fellow, with whose sneering
+cavernous talk--with whose very knock at the door or thump at the
+partition-wall he was as familiar as with his own wife's voice, and the
+touch of whose cold convulsive hand he had felt so often on his cheek or
+throat, and the very suspicion of whose approach made him faint with
+horror, his dreams would not present to his sight. There was always
+something interposed, or he stole behind him, or just as he was entering
+and the door swinging open, Sturk would awake--and he never saw him, at
+least in a human shape.
+
+But one night he thought he saw, as it were, his sign or symbol. As
+Sturk lay his length under the bed-clothes, with his back turned upon
+his slumbering helpmate, he was, in the spirit, sitting perpendicularly
+in his great balloon-backed chair at his writing-table, in the window of
+the back one-pair-of-stairs chamber which he called his library, where
+he sometimes wrote prescriptions, and pondering over his pennyweights,
+his Roman numerals, his guttæ and pillulæ, his 3s, his 5s, his 9s, and
+the other arabesque and astrological symbols of his mystery, he looked
+over his pen into the church-yard, which inspiring prospect he thence
+commanded.
+
+Thus, as out of the body sat our recumbent doctor in the room underneath
+the bed in which his snoring idolon lay, Tom Dunstan stood beside the
+table, with the short white threads sticking out on his blue sleeve,
+where the stitching of the stripes had been cut through on that twilight
+parade morning when the doctor triumphed, and Tom's rank, fortune, and
+castles in the air, all tumbled together in the dust of the barrack
+pavement; and so, with his thin features and evil eye turned sideways to
+Sturk, says he, with a stiff salute--'A gentleman, Sir, that means to
+dine with you,' and there was the muffled knock at the door which he
+knew so well, and a rustling behind him. So the doctor turned him about
+quickly with a sort of chill between his shoulders, and perched on the
+back of his chair sat a portentous old quizzical carrion-crow, the
+antediluvian progenitor of the whole race of carrion-crows, monstrous,
+with great shining eyes, and head white as snow, and a queer human look,
+and the crooked beak of an owl, that opened with a loud grating 'caw'
+close in his ears; and with a 'bo-o-oh!' and a bounce that shook the bed
+and made poor Mrs. Sturk jump out of it, and spin round in the curtain,
+Sturk's spirit popped back again into his body, which sat up wide awake
+that moment.
+
+It is not pretended that at this particular time the doctor was a
+specially good sleeper. The contrary stands admitted; and I don't ask
+you, sagacious reader, to lay any sort of stress upon his dreams; only
+as there came a time when people talked of them a good deal over the
+fireside in Chapelizod, and made winter's tales about them, I thought
+myself obliged to tell you that such things were.
+
+He did not choose to narrate them to his brother-officers, and to be
+quizzed about them at mess. But he opened his budget to old Dr.
+Walsingham, of course, only as a matter to be smiled at by a pair of
+philosophers like them. But Dr. Walsingham, who was an absent man, and
+floated upon the ocean of his learning serenely and lazily, drawn finely
+and whimsically, now hither, now thither, by the finest hair of
+association, glided complacently off into the dim region of visionary
+prognostics and warnings, and reminded him how Joseph dreamed, and
+Pharaoh, and Benvenuto, Cellini's father, and St. Dominick's mother, and
+Edward II. of England, and dodged back and forward among patriarchs and
+pagans, and modern Christians, men and women not at all suspecting that
+he was making poor Sturk, who had looked for a cheerful, sceptical sort
+of essay, confoundedly dismal and uncomfortable.
+
+And, indeed, confoundedly distressed he must have been, for he took his
+brother-chip, Tom Toole, whom he loved not, to counsel upon his case--of
+course, strictly as a question of dandelion, or gentian, or camomile
+flowers; and Tom, who, as we all know, loved him reciprocally,
+frightened him as well as he could, offered to take charge of his case,
+and said, looking hard at him out of the corner of his cunning, resolute
+little eye, as they sauntered in the park--
+
+'But I need not tell _you_, my good Sir, that physic is of
+small avail, if there is any sort of--a--a--vexation, or--or--in
+short--a--a--_vexation,_ you know, on your mind.'
+
+'A--ha, ha, ha!--what? Murdered my father, and married my grandmother?'
+snarled Sturk, sneeringly, amused or affecting to be so, and striving to
+laugh at the daisies before his toes, as he trudged along, with his
+hands in his breeches' pockets. 'I have not a secret on earth, Sir. 'Tis
+not a button to me, Sir, who talks about me; and I don't owe a guinea,
+Sir, that is, that I could not pay to-morrow, if I liked it; and there's
+nothing to trouble me--nothing, Sir, except this dirty, little, gouty
+dyspepsy, scarce worth talking about.
+
+Then came a considerable silence; and Toole's active little mind, having
+just made a note of this, tripped off smartly to half-a-dozen totally
+different topics, and he was mentally tippling his honest share of a
+dozen of claret, with a pleasant little masonic party at the
+Salmon-leap, on Sunday next, and was just going to charm them with his
+best song, and a new verse of his own compounding, when Sturk, in a
+moment, dispersed the masons, and brought him back by the ear at a jump
+from the Salmon-leap, with a savage----
+
+'And I'd like to know, Sir, who the deuce, or, rather, what
+the ----(_plague_ we'll say) could put into your head, Sir, to suppose any
+such matter?'
+
+But this was only one of Sturk's explosions, and he and little Toole
+parted no better and no worse friends than usual, in ten minutes more at
+the latter's door-step.
+
+So Toole said to Mrs. T. that evening----
+
+'Sturk owes money, mark my words, sweetheart. Remember _I_ say it--he'll
+cool his heels in a prison, if he's no wiser than of late, before a
+twel'month. Since the beginning of February he has lost--just wait a
+minute, and let me see--ay, that, £150 by the levanting of old Tom
+Farthingale; and, I had it to-day from little O'Leary, who had it from
+Jim Kelly, old Craddock's conducting clerk, he's bit to the tune of
+three hundred more by the failure of Larkin, Brothers, and Hoolaghan.
+You see a little bit of usury under the rose is all very well for a
+vulgar dog like Sturk, if he knows the town, and how to go about it; but
+hang, it, he knows nothing. Why, the turnpike-man, over the way, would
+not have taken old Jos. Farthingale's bill for fippence--no, nor his
+bond neither; and he's stupid beside--but he can't help that, the
+hound!--and he'll owe a whole year's rent only six weeks hence, and he
+has not a shilling to bless himself with. Unfortunate devil--I've no
+reason to like him--but, truly, I do pity him.'
+
+Saying which Tom Toole, with his back to the fire, and a look of concern
+thrown into his comic little mug, and his eyebrows raised, experienced a
+very pleasurable glow of commiseration.
+
+Sturk, on the contrary, was more than commonly silent and savage that
+evening, and sat in his drawing-room, with his fists in his breeches'
+pockets, and his heels stretched out, lurid and threatening, in a gloomy
+and highly electric state. Mrs. S. did not venture her usual 'would my
+Barney like a dish of tea?' but plied her worsted and knitting-needles
+with mild concentration, sometimes peeping under her lashes at Sturk,
+and sometimes telegraphing faintly to the children if they whispered too
+loud--all cautious pantomime--_nutu signisque loquuntur_.
+
+Sturk was incensed by the suspicion that Tom Toole knew something of his
+losses, 'the dirty, little, unscrupulous spy and tattler.' He was
+confident, however, that he could not know their extent. It was
+certainly a hard thing, and enough to exasperate a better man than
+Sturk, that the savings of a shrewd, and, in many ways, a self-denying
+life should have been swept away, and something along with them, by a
+few unlucky casts in little more than twelve months. And he such a
+clever dog, too! the best player, all to nothing, driven to the wall, by
+a cursed obstinate run of infernal luck. And he used to scowl, and grind
+his teeth, and nearly break the keys and shillings in his gripe in his
+breeches' pocket, as imprecations, hot and unspoken, coursed one another
+through his brain. Then up he would get, and walk sulkily to the
+brandy-flask and have a dram, and feel better, and begin to count up his
+chances, and what he might yet save out of the fire; and resolve to
+press vigorously for the agency, which he thought Dangerfield, if he
+wanted a useful man, could not fail to give him; and he had hinted the
+matter to Lord Castlemallard, who, he thought, understood and favoured
+his wishes. Yes; that agency would give him credit and opportunity, and
+be the foundation of his new fortunes, and the saving of him. A
+precious, pleasant companion, you may suppose, he was to poor little
+Mrs. Sturk, who knew nothing of his affairs, and could not tell what to
+make of her Barney's eccentricities.
+
+And so it was, somehow, when Dangerfield spoke his greeting at Sturk's
+ear, and the doctor turned short round, and saw his white frizzed hair,
+great glass eyes, and crooked, short beak, quizzical and sinister,
+close by, it seemed for a second as if the 'caw' and the carrion-crow of
+his dream was at his shoulder; and, I suppose, he showed his
+discomfiture a little, for he smiled a good deal more than Sturk usually
+did at a recognition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+IN WHICH MR. IRONS RECOUNTS SOME OLD RECOLLECTIONS ABOUT THE PIED HORSE
+AND THE FLOWER DE LUCE.
+
+
+It was so well known in Chapelizod that Sturk was poking after Lord
+Castlemallard's agency that Nutter felt the scene going on before his
+eyes between him and Dangerfield like a public affront. His ire was that
+of a phlegmatic man, dangerous when stirred, and there was no mistaking,
+in his rigid, swarthy countenance, the state of his temper.
+
+Dangerfield took an opportunity, and touched Nutter on the shoulder, and
+told him frankly, in effect, though _he_ wished things to go on as
+heretofore, Sturk had wormed himself into a sort of confidence with Lord
+Castlemallard.
+
+'Not confidence, Sir--_talk_, if you please,' said Nutter grimly.
+
+'Well, into talk,' acquiesced Dangerfield; 'and by Jove, I've a hard
+card to play, you see. His lordship will have me listen to Doctor
+Sturk's talk, such as it is.'
+
+'He has no talk in him, Sir, you mayn't get from any other impudent
+dunderhead in the town,' answered Nutter.
+
+'My dear Sir, understand me. I'm your friend,' and he placed his hand
+amicably upon Nutter's arm; 'but Lord Castlemallard has, now and then, a
+will of his own, I need not tell you; and somebody's been doing you an
+ill turn with his lordship; and you're a gentleman, Mr. Nutter, and I
+like you, and I'll be frank with you, knowing 'twill go no further.
+Sturk wants the agency. You have _my_ good-will. _I_ don't see why he
+should take it from you; but--but--you see his lordship takes odd
+likings, and he won't always listen to reason.'
+
+Nutter was so shocked and exasperated, that for a moment he felt
+stunned, and put his hand toward his head.
+
+'I think, Sir,' said Nutter, with a stern, deliberate oath, I'll write
+to Lord Castlemallard this evening, and throw up his agency; and
+challenge Sturk, and fight him in the morning.'
+
+'You must not resign the agency, Sir; his lordship is whimsical; but you
+have a friend at court. I've spoken in full confidence in your secrecy;
+and should any words pass between you and Dr. Sturk, you'll not mention
+my name; I rely, Sir, on your honour, as you may on my good-will;' and
+Dangerfield shook hands with Nutter significantly, and called to Irons,
+who was waiting to accompany him, and the two anglers walked away
+together up the river.
+
+Nutter was still possessed with his furious resolution to fling down his
+office at Lord Castlemallard's feet, and to call Sturk into the lists of
+mortal combat. One turn by himself as far as the turnpike, however, and
+he gave up the first, and retained only the second resolve. Half-an-hour
+more, and he had settled in his mind that there was no need to punish
+the meddler that way: and so he resolved to bide his time--a short one.
+
+In the meanwhile Dangerfield had reached one of those sweet pastures by
+the river's bank which, as we have read, delight the simple mind of the
+angler, and his float was already out, and bobbing up and down on the
+ripples of the stream; and the verdant valley, in which he and his
+taciturn companion stood side by side, resounded, from time to time,
+with Dangerfield's strange harsh laughter; the cause of which Irons did
+not, of course, presume to ask.
+
+There is a church-yard cough--I don't see why there may not be a
+church-yard laugh. In Dangerfield's certainly there was an omen--a glee
+that had nothing to do with mirth; and more dismaying, perhaps, than his
+sternest rebuke. If a man is not a laugher by nature, he had better let
+it alone. The bipeds that love mousing and carrion have a chant of their
+own, and nobody quarrels with it. We respect an owl or a raven, though
+we mayn't love him, while he sticks to his croak or to-whoo. 'Tisn't
+pleasant, but quite natural and unaffected, and we acquiesce. All we ask
+of these gentlemanlike birds is, that they mistake not their
+talent--affect not music; or if they do, that they treat not us to their
+queer warblings.
+
+Irons, with that never-failing phantom of a smile on his thin lips,
+stood a little apart, with a gaff and landing-net, and a second rod, and
+a little bag of worms, and his other gear, silent, except when spoken
+to, or sometimes to suggest a change of bait, or fly, or a cast over a
+particular spot; for Dangerfield was of good Colonel Venables' mind,
+that 'tis well in the lover of the gentle craft to associate himself
+with some honest, expert angler, who will freely and candidly
+communicate his skill unto him.'
+
+Dangerfield was looking straight at his float; but thinking of something
+else. Whenever Sturk met him at dinner, or the club, the doctor's
+arrogance and loud lungs failed him, and he fell for a while into a sort
+of gloom and dreaming; and when he came slowly to himself, he could not
+talk to anyone but the man with the spectacles; and in the midst of his
+talk he would grow wandering and thoughtful, as if over some
+half-remembered dream; and when he took his leave of Dangerfield it was
+with a lingering look and a stern withdrawal, as if he had still a last
+word to say, and he went away in a dismal reverie. It was natural, that
+with his views about the agency, Sturk should regard him with
+particular interest. But there was something more here, and it did not
+escape Dangerfield, as, indeed, very little that in anywise concerned
+him ever did.
+
+'Clever fellow, Doctor Sturk,' said the silver spectacles, looking
+grimly at the float. 'I like him. You remember him, you say, Irons?'
+
+'Ay, Sir,' said Blue-chin: 'I never forget a face.' 'Par nobile,'
+sneered the angler quietly.' In the year '45, eh--go on.'
+
+'Ay, Sir; he slept in the "Pied Horse," at Newmarket, and was in all the
+fun. Next day he broke his arm badly, and slept there in the closet off
+Mr. Beauclerc's room that night under laudanum, and remained ten days
+longer in the house. Mr. Beauclerc's chamber was the "flower de luce."
+Barnabus Sturk, Esq. When I saw him here, half the length of the street
+away, I knew him and his name on the instant. I never forget things.'
+
+'But he don't remember you?'
+
+'No,' smiled Blue-chin, looking at the float also.
+
+'Two-and-twenty-years. How came it he was not summoned?'
+
+'He was under laudanum, and could tell nothing.'
+
+'Ay,' said the spectacles, 'ay,' and he let out some more line. 'That's
+deep.'
+
+'Yes, Sir, a soldier was drownded in that hole.'
+
+'And Dr. Toole and Mr. Nutter don't love him--both brisk fellows, and
+have fought.'
+
+Blue-chin smiled on.
+
+'Very clever dog--needs be sharp though, or he'll come to--ha!' and a
+gray trout came splashing and flickering along the top of the water upon
+the hook, and Irons placed the net in Dangerfield's outstretched hand,
+and the troutling was landed, to the distant music of 'God save the
+King,' borne faintly on the air, by which the reader perceives that the
+band were now about to put up their instruments, and the gay folk to
+disperse. And at the same moment, Lord Castlemallard was doing old
+General Chattesworth the honour to lean upon his arm, as they walked to
+and fro upon the parade-ground by the river's bank, and the general
+looked particularly grand and thoughtful, and my lord was more than
+usually gracious and impressive, and was saying:--
+
+''Tis a good match every way: he has good blood in his veins, Sir, the
+Dangerfields of Redminster; and you may suppose he's rich, when he was
+ready to advance Sir Sedley Hicks thirty-five thousand pounds on
+mortgage, and to my certain knowledge has nearly as much more out on
+good securities; and he's the most principled man I think I ever met
+with, and the cleverest dog, I believe, in these kingdoms; and I wish
+you joy, General Chattesworth.'
+
+And he gave the general snuff out of his box, and shook hands, and said
+something very good, as he got into his carriage, for he laughed a good
+deal, and touched the general's ribs with the point of his gloved
+finger; and the general laughed too, moderately, and was instantaneously
+grave again, when the carriage whirled away.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+SHOWING HOW POOR MRS. MACNAMARA WAS TROUBLED AND HAUNTED TOO, AND
+OPENING A BUDGET OF GOSSIP.
+
+
+Some score pages back, when we were all assembled at the King's House,
+my reader, perhaps, may not have missed our fat and consequential, but
+on the whole, good-natured acquaintance, Mrs. Macnamara; though, now I
+remember, he _did_ overhear the gentle Magnolia, in that little colloquy
+in which she and Aunt Becky exchanged compliments, say, in substance,
+that she hoped that amiable parent might be better next day. She was not
+there, she was not well. Of late Mrs. Macnamara had lost all her pluck,
+and half her colour, and some even of her fat. She was like one of those
+portly dowagers in Numbernip's select society of metamorphosed turnips,
+who suddenly exhibited sympathetic symptoms of failure, grew yellow,
+flabby, and wrinkled, as the parent bulb withered and went out of
+season. You would not have known her for the same woman.
+
+A tall, pale female, dressed in black satin and a black velvet riding
+hood, had made her two visits in a hackney-coach; but whether these had
+any connexion with the melancholy change referred to, I don't, at this
+moment, say. I know that they had a very serious bearing upon after
+events affecting persons who figure in this true history. Whatever her
+grief was she could not bring herself to tell it. And so her damask
+cheek, and portly form, and rollicking animal spirits continued to
+suffer.
+
+The major found that her mind wandered at piquet. Toole also caught her
+thinking of something else in the midst of his best bits of local
+scandal; and Magnolia several times popped in upon her large mother in
+tears. Once or twice Toole thought, and he was right, that she was on
+the point of making a disclosure. But her heart failed her, and it came
+to nothing. The little fellow's curiosity was on fire. In his philosophy
+there was more in everything than met the eye, and he would not believe
+Magnolia, who laughed at him, that she did not know all about it.
+
+On this present morning poor Mrs. Macnamara had received a note, at
+which she grew pale as the large pat of butter before her, and she felt
+quite sick as she thrust the paper into her pocket, and tried to smile
+across the breakfast table at Magnolia, who was rattling away as usual,
+and the old major who was chuckling at her impudent mischief over his
+buttered toast and tea.
+
+'Why, mother dear,' cried Mag suddenly, 'what the plague ails your
+pretty face? Did you ever see the like? It's for all the world like a
+bad batter pudding! I lay a crown, now, that was a bill. Was it a bill?
+Come now, Mullikins (a term of endearment for mother). Show us the note.
+It is too bad, you poor dear, old, handsome, bothered angel, you should
+be fretted and tormented out of your looks and your health, by them
+dirty shopkeepers' bills, when a five-pound note, I'm certain sure, 'id
+pay every mothers skin o' them, and change to spare!' And the elegant
+Magnolia, whose soiclainet and Norwich crape petticoat were unpaid for,
+darted a glance of reproach full upon the major's powdered head, the top
+of which was cleverly presented to receive it, as he swallowed in haste
+his cup of tea, and rising suddenly, for his purse had lately suffered
+in the service of the ladies, and wanted rest--
+
+'Tis nothing at all but that confounded egg,' he said, raising that
+untasted delicacy a little towards his nose. 'Why the divil will you go
+on buying our eggs from that dirty old sinner, Poll Delany?' And he
+dropped it from its cup plump into the slop-basin.
+
+'A then maybe it was,' said poor Mrs. Mac, smiling as well as she could;
+'but I'm better.'
+
+'No you're not, Mullikins,' interposed Magnolia impatiently. 'There's
+Toole crossing the street, will I call him up?'
+
+'Not for the world, Maggy darling. I'd have to pay him, and where's the
+money to come from?'
+
+The major did not hear, and was coughing besides; and recollecting that
+he had a word for the adjutant's ear, took his sword off the peg where
+it hung, and his cocked hat, and vanished in a twinkling.
+
+'Pay Toole, indeed! nonsense, mother,' and up went the window.
+
+'Good-morrow to your nightcap, doctor!'
+
+'And the top of the morning to you, my pretty Miss chattering Mag, up on
+your perch there,' responded the physician.
+
+'And what in the world brings you out this way at breakfast time, and
+where are you going?--Oh! goosey, goosey gander, where do you wander?'
+
+'Up stairs, if you let me,' said Toole, with a flourish of his hand, and
+a gallant grin, 'and to my lady's chamber.'
+
+'And did you hear the news?' demanded Miss Mag.
+
+The doctor glanced over his shoulder, and seeing the coast clear, he was
+by this time close under the little scarlet geranium pots that stood on
+the window-sill.
+
+'Miss Chattesworth, eh?' he asked, in a sly, low tone.
+
+'Oh, bother her, no. Do you remember Miss Anne Marjoribanks, that lodged
+in Doyle's house, down there, near the mills, last summer, with her
+mother, the fat woman with the poodle, and the--don't you know?'
+
+'Ay, ay; she wore a flowered silk tabby sacque, on band days,' said
+Toole, who had an eye and a corner in his memory for female costume, 'a
+fine showy--I remember.' 'Well, middling: that's she.'
+
+'And what of her?' asked Toole, screwing himself up as close as he could
+to the flower-pots.
+
+'Come up and I'll tell you,' and she shut down the window and beckoned
+him slily, and up came Toole all alive.
+
+Miss Magnolia told her story in her usual animated way, sometimes
+dropping her voice to a whisper, and taking Toole by the collar,
+sometimes rising to a rollicking roar of laughter, while the little
+doctor stood by, his hands in his breeches' pockets, making a pleasant
+jingle with his loose change there, with open mouth and staring eyes,
+and a sort of breathless grin all over his ruddy face. Then came another
+story, and more chuckling.
+
+'And what about that lanky long may-pole, Gerty Chattesworth, the
+witch?--not that anyone cares tuppence if she rode on a broom to sweep
+the cobwebs off the moon, only a body may as well know, you know,' said
+Miss Mag, preparing to listen.
+
+'Why, by Jupiter! they say--but d'ye mind, I don't know, and faith I
+don't believe it--but they do say she's going to be married to--who do
+you think now?' answered Toole.
+
+'Old Colonel Bligh, of the Magazine, or Dr. Walsingham, may be,' cried
+Mag, with a burst of laughter; 'no young fellow would be plagued with
+her, I'm certain.'
+
+'Well, ha, ha! you _are_ a conjuror, Miss Mag, to be sure. He's _not_
+young--you're right there--but then, he's rich, he is, by Jove! there's
+no end of his--well, what do you say now to Mr. Dangerfield?'
+
+'Dangerfield! Well' (after a little pause), 'he's ugly enough and old
+enough too, for the matter of that; but he's as rich as a pork-pie; and
+if he's worth half what they say, you may take my word for it, when he
+goes to church it won't be to marry the steeple.'
+
+And she laughed again scornfully and added--
+
+''Twas plain enough from the first, the whole family laid themselves out
+to catch the old quiz and his money. Let the Chattesworths alone for
+scheming, with all their grand airs. Much I mind them! Why, the old
+sinner was not an hour in the town when he was asked over the way to
+Belmont, and Miss dressed out there like a puppet, to simper and flatter
+the rich old land agent, and butter him up--my Lord Castlemallard's
+bailiff--if you please, ha, ha, ha! and the Duchess of Belmont, that
+ballyrags every one round her, like a tipsy old soldier, as civil as
+six, my dear Sir, with her "Oh, Mr. Dangerfield, this," and her "Dear
+Mr. Dangerfield, that," and all to marry that long, sly hussy to a
+creature old enough to be her grandfather, though she's no chicken
+neither. Faugh! filthy!' and Miss Magnolia went through an elegant
+pantomime of spitting over her shoulder into the grate.
+
+Toole thought there was but one old fellow of his acquaintance who might
+be creditably married by a girl young enough to be his granddaughter,
+and that was honest Arthur Slowe; and he was going to insinuate a joke
+of the sort; but perceiving that his sly preparatory glance was not
+pleasantly responded to, and that the stalworth nymph was quite in
+earnest, he went off to another topic.
+
+The fact is that Toole knew something of Miss Mag's plans, as he did of
+most of the neighbours' beside. Old Slowe was, in certain preponderating
+respects, much to be preferred to the stalworth fireworker, Mr.
+Lieutenant O'Flaherty. And the two gentlemen were upon her list. Two
+strings to a bow is a time-honoured provision. Cupid often goes so
+furnished. If the first snap at the critical moment, should we
+bow-string our precious throttles with the pieces? Far be it from us!
+Let us waste no time in looking foolish; but pick up the gray-goose
+shaft that lies so innocently at our feet among the daisies; and it's
+odds but the second plants it i' the clout.' The lover, the hero of the
+piece, upon whose requited passion and splendid settlements the curtain
+goes down, is a _role_ not always safely to be confided to the genius
+and discretion of a single performer. Take it that the captivating
+Frederick Belville, who is announced for the part, is, along with his
+other qualifications, his gallantry, his grace, his ringlets, his
+pathetic smile, his lustrous eyes, his plaintive tenor, and
+five-and-twenty years--a little bit of a rip--rather frail in the
+particular of brandy and water, and so, not quite reliable. Will not the
+prudent manager provide a substitute respectably to fill the part, in
+the sad event of one of those sudden indispositions to which Belville is
+but too liable! It may be somewhat 'fat and scant of breath,' ay, and
+scant of hair and of teeth too. But though he has played Romeo thirty
+years ago, the perruquier, and the dentist, and the rouge-pot, and the
+friendly glare of the foot-lights will do wonders; and Podgers--steady
+fellow!--will be always at the right wing, at the right moment, know
+every line of his author, and contrive to give a very reasonable amount
+of satisfaction to all parties concerned. Following this precedent,
+then, that wise virgin, Miss Magnolia, and her sagacious mamma, had
+allotted the role in question to Arthur Slowe, who was the better
+furnished for the part, and, on the whole, the stronger 'cast.' But
+failing him, Lieutenant O'Flaherty was quietly, but unconsciously, as
+the phrase is,'under-studying' that somewhat uncertain gentleman.
+
+'And the general's off to Scarborough,' said Toole.
+
+'Old Chattesworth! I thought it was to Bath.
+
+'Oh, no, Scarborough; a touch of the old rheum, and stomach I sent him
+there; and he's away in the Hillsborough packet for Holyhead this
+morning, and Colonel Stafford's left in command.'
+
+'And my Lady Becky Belmont's superseded,' laughed Miss Magnolia,
+derisively.
+
+'And who do you think's going to make the grand tour? from Paris to
+Naples, if you please, and from Naples to Rome, and up to Venice, and
+home through Germany, and deuce knows where beside; you'll not guess in
+a twel'month,' said Toole, watching her with a chuckle.
+
+'Devereux, maybe,' guessed the young lady.
+
+'No 'tisn't,' said Toole, delighted; 'try again!'
+
+'Well, 'tis, let me see. Some wild young rogue, with a plenty of money,
+I warrant, if I could only think of him--come, don't keep me all
+day--who the plague is he, Toole?' urged the young lady, testily.
+
+'Dan Loftus,' answered Toole, 'ha, ha, ha, ha!'
+
+'Dan Loftus!--the grand tour--why, where's the world running to? Oh, ho,
+ho, ho, hoo! what a macaroni!' and they laughed heartily over it, and
+called him 'travelled monkey,' and I know not what else.
+
+'Why, I thought Dr. Walsingham designed him for his curate; but what in
+the wide world brings Dan Loftus to foreign parts--"To dance and sing
+for the Spanish King, and to sing and dance for the Queen of France?"'
+
+'Hey! Dan's got a good place, I can tell you--travelling tutor to the
+hopeful young lord that is to be--Devereux's cousin. By all the Graces,
+Ma'am, 'tis the blind leading the blind. I don't know which of the two
+is craziest. Hey, diddle-diddle--by Jupiter, such a pair--the dish ran
+away with the spoon; but Dan's a good creature, and we'll--we'll miss
+him. I like Dan, and he loves the rector--I like him for that; where
+there's gratitude and fidelity, Miss Mag, there's no lack of other
+virtues, I warrant you--and the good doctor has been a wonderful loving
+friend to poor Dan, and God bless him for it, say I, and amen.'
+
+'And amen with all my heart,' said Miss Mag, gaily; ''tis an innocent
+creature--poor Dan; though he'd be none the worse of a little more lace
+to his hat, and a little less Latin in his head. But see here, doctor,
+here's my poor old goose of a mother (and she kissed her cheek) as sick
+as a cat in a tub.'
+
+And she whispered something in Toole's wig, and they both laughed
+uproariously.
+
+'I would not take five guineas and tell you what she says,' cried Toole.
+
+'Don't mind the old blackguard, mother dear!' screamed Magnolia, dealing
+Æsculapius a lusty slap on the back; and the cook at that moment
+knocking at the door, called off the young lady to the larder, who
+cried over her shoulder as she lingered a moment at the door--'Now, send
+her something, Toole, for my sake, to do her poor heart good. Do you
+mind--for faith and troth the dear old soul is sick and sad; and I won't
+let that brute, Sturk, though he does wear our uniform, next or near
+her.'
+
+'Well, 'tisn't for me to say, eh?--and now she's gone,--just let me
+try.' And he took her pulse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+CONCERNING A CERTAIN WOMAN IN BLACK.
+
+
+And Toole, holding her stout wrist, felt her pulse and said--'Hem--I
+see--and--'
+
+And so he ran on with half-a-dozen questions, and at the end of his
+catechism said, bluntly enough--
+
+'I tell you what it is, Mrs. Mack, you have something on your mind, my
+dear Madam, and till it's off, you'll never be better.'
+
+Poor Mrs. Mack opened her eyes, and made a gesture of amazed disclaimer,
+with her hands palm upwards. It was all affectation.
+
+'Pish!' said Toole, who saw the secret almost in his grasp; 'don't tell
+me, my dear Madam--don't you think I know my business by this time o'
+day? I tell you again you'd better ease your mind--or take my word for
+it you'll be sorry too late. How would you like to go off like poor old
+Peggy Slowe--eh? There's more paralysis, apoplexy, heart-diseases, and
+lunacy, caused in one year by that sort of silly secrecy and moping,
+than by--hang it! My dear Madam,' urged Toole, breaking into a bold
+exhortation on seeing signs of confusion and yielding in his fat
+patient--'you'd tell me all that concerns your health, and know that Tom
+Toole would put his hand in the fire before he'd let a living soul hear
+a symptom of your case; and here's some paltry little folly or trouble
+that I would not--as I'm a gentleman--give a half-penny to hear, and
+you're afraid to tell me--though until you do, neither I, nor all the
+doctors in Europe, can do you a ha'porth o' good.'
+
+'Sure I've nothing to tell, doctor dear,' whimpered poor Mrs. Mack,
+dissolving into her handkerchief.
+
+'Look ye--there's no use in trying to deceive a doctor that knows what
+he's about.' Toole was by this time half mad with curiosity. 'Don't tell
+me what's on your mind, though I'd be sorry you thought I wasn't ready
+and anxious, to help you with my best and most secret services; but I
+confess, my dear Ma'am, I'd rather not hear--reserve it for some friend
+who has your confidence--but 'tis plain from the condition you're
+in'--and Toole closed his lips hard, and nodded twice or thrice--'you
+have not told either the major or your daughter; and tell it you must to
+_some_ one, or take the consequences.'
+
+'Oh! Dr. Toole, I _am_ in trouble--and I'd like to tell you; but won't
+you--won't you promise me now, on your solemn honour, if I do, you won't
+tell a human being?' blubbered the poor matron.
+
+'Conscience, honour, veracity, Ma'am--but why should I say any
+more--don't you know me, my dear Mrs. Mack?' said Toole in a hot fidget,
+and with all the persuasion of which he was master.
+
+'Indeed, I do--and I'm in great trouble--and sometimes think no one can
+take me out of it,' pursued she.
+
+'Come, come, my dear Madam, is it money?' demanded Toole.
+
+'Oh! no--it's--'tis a dreadful--that is, there _is_ money in it--but oh!
+dear Doctor Toole, there's a frightful woman, and I don't know what to
+do: and I sometimes thought you might be able to help me--you're so
+clever--and I was going to tell you, but I was ashamed--there now, it's
+out,' and she blubbered aloud.
+
+'_What's_ out?' said Toole, irritated. 'I can't stop here all day, you
+know; and if you'd rather I'd go, say so.'
+
+'Oh no, but the major, nor Maggy does not know a word about it; and so,
+for your life, don't tell them; and--and--here it is.'
+
+And from her pocket she produced a number of the _Freeman's Journal_,
+five or six weeks old and a great deal soiled.
+
+'Read it, read it, doctor dear, and you'll see.'
+
+'Read all this! thank you, Ma'am; I read it a month ago,' said the
+doctor gruffly.
+
+'Oh! no--this--only there--you see--_here_,' and she indicated a
+particular advertisement, which we here reprint for the reader's
+instruction; and thus it ran--
+
+     "MARY MATCHWELL'S most humble Respects attend the Nobility
+     and Gentry. She has the Honour to acquaint them that she transacts
+     all Business relative to Courtship and Marriage, with the utmost
+     Dispatch and Punctuality. She has, at a considerable Expense,
+     procured a complete List of all the unmarried Persons of both Sexes
+     in this Kingdom, with an exact Account of their Characters,
+     Fortunes, Ages, and Persons. Any Lady or Gentleman, by sending a
+     Description of the Husband or Wife they would chuse, shall be
+     informed where such a One is to be had, and put in a Method for
+     obtaining him, or her, in the speediest Manner, and at the smallest
+     Expense. Mrs. Matchwell's Charges being always proportioned to the
+     Fortunes of the Parties, and not to be paid till the Marriage takes
+     place. She hopes the Honour and Secrecy she will observe in her
+     Dealings, will encourage an unfortunate Woman, who hath experienced
+     the greatest Vicissitudes of Life, as will be seen in her Memoirs,
+     which are shortly to be published under the Title of 'Fortune's
+     Football.' All Letters directed to M. M., and sent Post paid to the
+     Office where this Paper is published, shall be answered with
+     Care."'
+
+'Yes, yes, I remember that--a cheating gipsy--why, it's going on
+still--I saw it again yesterday, I think--a lying jade!--and this is the
+rogue that troubles you?' said Toole with his finger on the paragraph,
+as the paper lay on the table.
+
+'Give it to me, doctor, dear. I would not have them see it for the
+world--and--and--oh! doctor--sure you wouldn't tell.'
+
+'Augh, bother!--didn't I swear my soul, Ma'am; and do you think I'm
+going to commit a perjury about "Mary Matchwell"--phiat!'
+
+Well, with much ado, and a great circumbendibus, and floods of tears,
+and all sorts of deprecations and confusions, out came the murder at
+last.
+
+Poor Mrs. Mack had a duty to perform by her daughter. Her brother was
+the best man in the world; but what with 'them shockin' forfitures' in
+her father's time (a Jacobite granduncle had forfeited a couple of
+town-lands, value £37 per annum, in King William's time, and to that
+event, in general terms, she loved to refer the ruin of her family), and
+some youthful extravagances, his income, joined to hers, could not keep
+the dear child in that fashion and appearance her mother had enjoyed
+before her, and people without pedigree or solid pretension of any sort,
+looked down upon her, just because they had money (she meant the
+Chattesworths), and denied her the position which was hers of right, and
+so seeing no other way of doing the poor child justice, she applied to
+'M. M.'
+
+'To find a husband for Mag, eh?' said Toole.
+
+'No, no. Oh, Dr. Toole, 'twas--'twas for _me_,' sobbed poor Mrs. Mack.
+Toole stared for a moment, and had to turn quickly about, and admire
+some shell-work in a glass box over the chimneypiece very closely, and I
+think his stout short back was shaking tremulously as he did so; and,
+when he turned round again, though his face was extraordinarily grave,
+it was a good deal redder than usual.
+
+'Well, my dear Madam, and where's the great harm in that, when all's
+done?' said Toole.
+
+'Oh, doctor, I had the unpardonable _wake_ness, whatever come over me,
+to write her two letters on the subject, and she'll print them, and
+expose me, unless,'--here she rolled herself about in an agony of tears,
+and buried her fat face in the back of the chair.
+
+'Unless you give her money, I suppose,' said Toole. 'There's what
+invariably comes of confidential communications with female enchanters
+and gipsies! And what do you propose to do?'
+
+'I don't know--what can I do? She got the £5 I borrowed from my brother,
+and he can't lend me more; and I can't tell him what I done with that;
+and she has £3 10s. I--I raised on my best fan, and the elegant
+soiclainet, you know--I bought it of Knox & Acheson, at the Indian
+Queen, in Dame-street;' and his poor patient turned up her small tearful
+blue eyes imploringly to his face, and her good-natured old features
+were quivering all over with tribulation.
+
+'And Mag knows nothing of all this?' said Toole.
+
+'Oh, not for the wide world,' whispered the matron, in great alarm.
+'Whisht! is that her coming?'
+
+'No; there she is across the street talking to Mrs. Nutter. Listen to
+me: I'll manage that lady, Mrs. Mary--what's her name?--Matchwell. I'll
+take her in hands, and--whisper now.'
+
+So Toole entered into details, and completed an officious little
+conspiracy; and the upshot of it was that Mrs. Mack, whenever M. M. fixed
+a day for her next extortionate visit, was to apprise the doctor, who
+was to keep in the way; and, when she arrived, the good lady was just to
+send across to him for some 'peppermint drops,' upon which hint Toole
+himself would come slily over, and place himself behind the arras in the
+bed-room, whither, for greater seclusion and secrecy, she was to conduct
+the redoubted Mary Matchwell, who was thus to be overheard, and taken by
+the clever doctor in the act; and then and there frightened not only
+into a surrender of the documents, but of the money she had already
+extracted, and compelled to sign such a confession of her guilt as would
+effectually turn the tables, and place her at the mercy of the once more
+happy Macnamara.
+
+The doctor was so confident, and the scheme, to the sanguine Celtic
+imagination of the worthy matron, appeared so facile of execution and
+infallible of success, that I believe she would at that moment have
+embraced, and even kissed, little Toole, in the exuberance of her
+gratitude, had that learned physician cared for such fooleries.
+
+The fact is, however, that neither the doctor nor his patient quite
+understood Mrs. Matchwell or her powers, nor had the least inkling of
+the marvellous designs that were ripening in her brain, and involving
+the fate of more than one of the good easy people of Chapelizod, against
+whom nobody dreamed a thunderbolt was forging.
+
+So the doctor, being a discreet man, only shook her cordially by the
+hand, at his departure, patting her encouragingly at the same time, on
+her fat shoulder, and with a sly grin and a wink, and a wag of his
+head--offering to 'lay fifty,' that between them 'they'd be too hard for
+the witch.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+BEING A SHORT HISTORY OF THE GREAT BATTLE OF BELMONT THAT LASTED FOR SO
+MANY DAYS, WHEREIN THE BELLIGERENTS SHOWED SO MUCH CONSTANCY AND VALOUR,
+AND SOMETIMES ONE SIDE AND SOMETIMES T'OTHER WAS VICTORIOUS.
+
+
+So jolly old General Chattesworth was away to Scarborough, and matters
+went by no means pleasantly at Belmont; for there was strife between the
+ladies. Dangerfield--cunning fellow--went first to Aunt Becky with his
+proposal; and Aunt Becky liked it--determined it should prosper, and
+took up and conducted the case with all her intimidating energy and
+ferocity. But Gertrude's character had begun to show itself of late in
+new and marvellous lights, and she fought her aunt with cool, but
+invincible courage; and why should she marry, and above all, why marry
+that horrid, grim old gentleman, Mr. Dangerfield. No, she had money
+enough of her own to walk through life in maiden meditation, fancy free,
+without being beholden to anybody for a sixpence. Why, Aunt Rebecca
+herself had never married, and was she not all the happier of her
+freedom? Aunt Rebecca tried before the general went away, to inflame and
+stir him up upon the subject. But he had no capacity for coercion. She
+almost regretted she had made him so very docile. He would leave the
+matter altogether to his daughter. So Aunt Rebecca, as usual, took, as
+we have said, the carriage of the proceedings.
+
+Since the grand eclaircissement had taken place between Mervyn and
+Gertrude Chattesworth, they met with as slight and formal a recognition
+as was possible, consistently with courtesy. Puddock had now little to
+trouble him upon a topic which had once cost him some uneasiness, and
+Mervyn acquiesced serenely in the existing state of things, and seemed
+disposed to be 'sweet upon' pretty Lilias Walsingham, if that young lady
+had allowed it; but her father had dropped hints about his history and
+belongings which surrounded him in her eyes with a sort of chill and
+dismal halo. There was something funeste and mysterious even in his
+beauty; and her spirits faltered and sank in his presence. Something of
+the same unpleasant influence, too, or was it fancy, she thought his
+approach seemed now to exercise upon Gertrude also, and that she, too,
+was unaccountably chilled and darkened by his handsome, but ill-omened
+presence.
+
+Aunt Becky was not a woman to be soon tired, or even daunted. The young
+lady's resistance put her upon her mettle, and she was all the more
+determined, that she suspected her niece had some secret motive for
+rejecting a partner in some respects so desirable.
+
+Sometimes, it is true, Gertrude's resistance flagged; but this was only
+the temporary acquiescence of fatigue, and the battle was renewed with
+the old spirit on the next occasion, and was all to be fought over
+again. At breakfast there was generally, as I may say, an affair of
+picquets, and through the day a dropping fire, sometimes rising to a
+skirmish; but the social meal of supper was generally the period when,
+for the most part, these desultory hostilities blazed up into a general
+action. The fortune of war as usual shifted. Sometimes Gertrude left the
+parlour and effected a retreat to her bed-room. Sometimes it was Aunt
+Rebecca's turn to slam the door, and leave the field to her adversary.
+Sometimes, indeed, Aunt Becky thought she had actually finished the
+exhausting campaign, when her artillery had flamed and thundered over
+the prostrate enemy for a full half hour unanswered; but when, at the
+close of the cannonade she marched up, with drums beating and colours
+flying, to occupy the position and fortify her victory, she found, much
+to her mortification, that the foe had only, as it were, lain down to
+let her shrapnels and canister fly over, and the advance was arrested
+with the old volley and hurrah. And there they were--not an inch
+gained--peppering away at one another as briskly as ever, with the work
+to begin all over again.
+
+'You think I have neither eyes nor understanding; but I can see, young
+lady, as well as another; ay, Madam, I've eyes, and some experience too,
+and 'tis my simple duty to my brother, and to the name I bear, not to
+mention _you_, niece, to prevent, if my influence or authority can do
+it, the commission of a folly which, I can't but suspect, may possibly
+be meditated, and which, even you, niece, would live very quickly to
+repent.'
+
+Gertrude did not answer; she only looked a little doubtfully at her
+aunt, with a gaze of deep, uneasy enquiry. That sort of insinuation
+seemed to disconcert her. But she did not challenge her aunt to define
+her meaning, and the attack was soon renewed at another point.
+
+When Gertrude walked down to the town, to the King's House, or even to
+see Lily, at this side of the bridge, Dominick, the footman, was ordered
+to trudge after her--a sort of state she had never used in her little
+neighbourly rambles--and Gertrude knew that her aunt catechised that
+confidential retainer daily. Under this sort of management, the haughty
+girl winced and fretted, and finally sulked, grew taciturn and
+sarcastic, and shut herself up altogether within the precincts of
+Belmont.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+NARRATING HOW LIEUTENANT PUDDOCK AND CAPTAIN DEVEREUX BREWED A BOWL OF
+PUNCH, AND HOW THEY SANG AND DISCOURSED TOGETHER.
+
+
+If people would only be content with that which is, let well alone, and
+allow to-day to resemble yesterday and to-morrow to day, the human race
+would be much fatter at no greater cost, and sleep remarkably well. But
+so it is that the soul of man can no more rest here than the sea or the
+wind. We are always plotting against our own repose, and as no man can
+stir in a crowd without disturbing others, it happens that even the
+quietest fellows are forced to fight for their _status quo_, and
+sometimes, though they would not move a finger or sacrifice a button for
+the chance of 'getting on,' are sulkily compelled to cut capers like the
+rest. Nature will have it so, and has no end of resources, and will not
+suffer even the sluggish to sit still, but if nothing else will do, pins
+a cracker to their skirts, in the shape of a tender passion, or some
+other whim, and so sets them bouncing in their own obese and clumsy way,
+to the trouble of others as well as their own discomfort. It is a hard
+thing, but so it is; the comfort of absolute stagnation is nowhere
+permitted us. And such, so multifarious and intricate our own mutual
+dependencies, that it is next to impossible to marry a wife, or to take
+a house for the summer at Brighton, or to accomplish any other entirely
+simple, good-humoured, and selfish act without affecting, not only the
+comforts, but the reciprocal relations of dozens of other respectable
+persons who appear to have nothing on earth to say to us or our
+concerns. In this respect, indeed, society resembles a pyramid of
+potatoes, in which you cannot stir one without setting others, in
+unexpected places, also in motion. Thus it was, upon very slight
+motives, the relations of people in the little world of Chapelizod began
+to shift and change considerably, and very few persons made a decided
+move of any sort without affecting or upsetting one or more of his
+neighbours.
+
+Among other persons unexpectedly disturbed just now was our friend
+Captain Devereux. The letter reached him at night. Little Puddock walked
+to his lodgings with him from the club, where he had just given a
+thplendid rethitation from Shakespeare, and was, as usual after such
+efforts, in a high state of excitement, and lectured his companion, for
+whom, by-the-bye, he cherished a boyish admiration, heightened very
+considerably by his not quite understanding him, upon the extraordinary
+dramatic capabilities and versatilities of Shakespeare's plays, which,
+he said, were not half comprehended.
+
+'It was only on Tuesday--the night, you know, I fired the pistol at the
+robbers, near the dog-house, through the coach window, returning all
+alone from Smock-alley Theatre. I was thinking, upon my honour, if I had
+your parts, my dear Devereux, and could write, as I know you can, I'd
+make a variation upon every play of Shakespeare, that should be strictly
+moulded upon it, and yet in no respect recognisable.'
+
+'Ay, like those Irish airs that will produce tears or laughter, as they
+are played slow or quick; or minced veal, my dear Puddock, which the
+cook can dress either savoury or sweet at pleasure; or Aunt Rebecca,
+that produces such different emotions in her different moods, and
+according to our different ways of handling her, is scarce recognisable
+in some of them, though still the same Aunt Becky,' answered Devereux,
+knocking at Irons' door.
+
+'No, but seriously, by sometimes changing an old person to a young,
+sometimes a comical to a melancholy, or the reverse, sometimes a male
+for a female, or a female for a male--I assure you, you can so entirely
+disguise the piece, and yet produce situations so new and
+surprising----.'
+
+'I see, by all the gods at once, 'tis an immortal idea! Let's take
+Othello--I'll set about it to-morrow--to-night, by Jove! A gay young
+Venetian nobleman, of singular beauty, charmed by her tales of
+"anthropophagites and men whose heads do grow beneath their shoulders,"
+is seduced from his father's house, and married by a middle-aged,
+somewhat hard-featured black woman, Juno, or Dido, who takes him
+away--not to Cyprus--we must be original, but we'll suppose to the
+island of Stromboli--and you can have an eruption firing away during the
+last act. There Dido grows jealous of our hero, though he's as innocent
+as Joseph; and while his valet is putting him to bed he'll talk to him
+and prattle some plaintive little tale how his father had a man called
+Barbarus. And then, all being prepared, and his bed-room candle put out,
+Dido enters, looking unusually grim, and smothers him with a pillow in
+spite of his cries and affecting entreaties, and---- By Jupiter! here's
+a letter from Bath, too.'
+
+He had lighted the candles, and the letter with its great red eye of a
+seal, lying upon the table, transfixed his wandering glance, and smote
+somehow to his heart with an indefinite suspense and misgiving.
+
+'With your permission, my dear Puddock?' said Devereux, before breaking
+the seal; for in those days they grew ceremonious the moment a point of
+etiquette turned up. Puddock gave him leave, and he read the letter.
+
+'From my aunt,' he said, throwing it down with a discontented air; and
+then he read it once more, thought for a while, and put it into his
+pocket. 'The countess says I must go, Puddock. She has got my leave from
+the general; and hang it--there's no help for it--I can't vex her, you
+know. Indeed, Puddock, I _would_ not vex her. Poor old aunt--she has
+been mighty kind to me--no one knows how kind. So I leave to-morrow.'
+
+'Not to stay away!' exclaimed Puddock, much concerned.
+
+'I don't know, dear Puddock. I know no more than the man in the moon
+what her plans are. Lewis, you know, is ordered by the doctors to
+Malaga; and Loftus--honest dog--I managed that trifle for him--goes with
+him; and the poor old lady, I suppose, is in the vapours, and wants
+me--and that's all. And Puddock, we must drink a bowl of punch
+together--you and I--or something--anything--what you please.'
+
+And so they sat some time longer, and grew very merry and friendly, and
+a little bit pathetic in their several ways. And Puddock divulged his
+secret but noble flame for Gertrude Chattesworth, and Devereux sang a
+song or two, defying fortune, in his sweet, sad tenor; and the nymph who
+skipt up and down stairs with the kettle grew sleepy at last; and Mrs.
+Irons rebelled in her bed, and refused peremptorily to get up again, to
+furnish the musical topers with rum and lemons, and Puddock, having
+studied his watch--I'm bound to say with a slight hiccough and
+supernatural solemnity--for about five minutes, satisfied himself it was
+nearly one o'clock, and took an affecting, though soldier-like leave of
+his comrade, who, however, lent him his arm down the stairs, which were
+rather steep; and having with difficulty dissuaded him from walking into
+the clock, the door of which was ajar, thought it his duty to see the
+gallant little lieutenant home to his lodgings; and so in the morning
+good little Puddock's head ached. He had gone to bed with his waistcoat
+and leggings on--and his watch was missing and despaired of, till
+discovered, together with a lemon, in the pocket of his surtout, hanging
+against the wall; and a variety of other strange arrangements came to
+light, with not one of which could Puddock connect himself.
+
+Indeed, he was 'dithguthted' at his condition; and if upon the occasion
+just described he had allowed himself to be somewhat 'intoxicated with
+liquor,' I must aver that I do not recollect another instance in which
+this worthy little gentleman suffered himself to be similarly overtaken.
+Now and then a little 'flashy' he might be, but nothing more
+serious--and rely upon it, this was no common virtue in those days.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+IN WHICH CAPTAIN DEVEREUX'S FIDDLE PLAYS A PRELUDE TO 'OVER THE HILLS
+AND FAR AWAY.'
+
+
+There was some little undefinable coolness between old General
+Chattesworth and Devereux. He admired the young fellow, and he liked
+good blood in his corps, but somehow he was glad when he thought he was
+likely to go. When old Bligh, of the Magazine, commended the handsome
+young dog's good looks, the general would grow grave all at once, and
+sniff once or twice, and say, 'Yes, a good-looking fellow certainly, and
+might make a good officer, a mighty good officer, but he's wild, a
+troublesome dog.' And, lowering his voice, 'I tell you what, colonel, as
+long as a young buck sticks to his claret, it is all fair; but hang it,
+you see, I'm afraid he likes other things, and he won't wait till after
+dinner--this between ourselves, you know. 'Tis not a button to me, by
+Jupiter, what he does or drinks, off duty; but hang it, I'm afraid some
+day he'll break out; and once or twice in a friendly way, you know, I've
+had to speak with him, and, to say truth, I'd rather he served under
+anyone else. He's a fine fellow, 'tis a pity there should be anything
+wrong, and it would half break my heart to have to take a public course
+with him; not, you know, that it has ever come to anything like
+that--but--but I've heard things--and--and he must pull up, or he'll not
+do for the service.' So, though the thing did not amount to a scandal,
+there was a formality between Devereux and his commanding officer, who
+thought he saw bad habits growing apace, and apprehended that ere long
+disagreeable relations might arise between them.
+
+Lord Athenry had been no friend to Devereux in his nonage, and the
+good-natured countess, to make amends, had always done her utmost to
+spoil him, and given him a great deal more of his own way, as well as of
+plum-cake, and Jamaica preserves, and afterwards a great deal more
+money, than was altogether good for him. Like many a worse person, she
+was a little bit capricious, and a good deal selfish; but the young
+fellow was handsome. She was proud of his singularly good looks, and his
+wickedness interested her, and she gave him more money than to all the
+best public charities to which she contributed put together. Devereux,
+indeed, being a fast man, with such acres as he inherited, which
+certainly did not reach a thousand, mortgaged pretty smartly, and with
+as much personal debt beside, of the fashionable and refined sort, as
+became a young buck of bright though doubtful expectations--and if the
+truth must be owned, sometimes pretty nearly pushed into a corner--was
+beholden, not only for his fun, but, occasionally for his daily bread
+and even his liberty, to those benevolent doles.
+
+He did not like her peremptory summons; but he could not afford to
+quarrel with his bread and butter, nor to kill by undutiful behaviour
+the fair, plump bird whose golden eggs were so very convenient. I don't
+know whether there may not have been some slight sign in the
+handwriting--in a phrase, perhaps, or in the structure of the
+composition, which a clever analysis might have detected, and which only
+reached him vaguely, with a foreboding that he was not to see Chapelizod
+again so soon as usual when this trip was made. And, in truth, his aunt
+had plans. She designed his retirement from the Royal Irish Artillery,
+and had negociated an immediate berth for him on the Staff of the
+Commander of the Forces, and a prospective one in the household of Lord
+Townshend; she had another arrangement 'on the anvil' for a seat in
+Parliament, which she would accomplish, if that were possible; and
+finally a wife. In fact her ladyship had encountered old General
+Chattesworth at Scarborough only the autumn before, and they had had, in
+that gay resort, a good deal of serious talk (though serious talk with
+the good countess never lasted very long), between their cards and other
+recreations, the result of which was, that she began to think, with the
+good general, that Devereux would be better where one unlucky
+misadventure would not sully his reputation for life. Besides, she
+thought Chapelizod was not safe ground for a young fellow so eccentric,
+perverse, and impetuous, where pretty faces were plentier than good
+fortunes, and at every tinkling harpsichord there smiled a possible
+_mesalliance_. In the town of Chapelizod itself, indeed, the young
+gentleman did not stand quite so high in estimation as with his aunt,
+who thought nothing was good or high enough for her handsome nephew,
+with his good blood and his fine possibilities. The village folk,
+however, knew that he was confoundedly dipped; that he was sometimes
+alarmingly pestered by duns, and had got so accustomed to hear that his
+uncle, the earl, was in his last sickness, and his cousin, the next
+heir, dead, when another week disclosed that neither one nor the other
+was a bit worse than usual, that they began to think that Devereux's
+turn might very possibly never come at all. Besides, the townspeople had
+high notions of some of their belles, and not without reason. There was
+Miss Gertrude Chattesworth, for instance, with more than fourteen
+thousand pounds to her fortune, and Lilias Walsingham, who would inherit
+her mother's money, and the good rector's estate of twelve hundred a
+year beside, and both with good blood in their veins, and beautiful
+princesses too. However, in those days there was more parental despotism
+than now. The old people kept their worldly wisdom to themselves, and
+did not take the young into a scheming partnership; and youth and
+beauty, I think, were more romantic, and a great deal less venal.
+
+Such being the old countess's programme--a plan, according to her
+lights, grand and generous, she might have dawdled over it, for a good
+while, for she did not love trouble. It was not new; the airy castle had
+been some years built, and now, in an unwonted hurry, she wished to
+introduce the tenant to the well-aired edifice, and put him in actual
+possession. For a queer little attack in her head, which she called a
+fainting fit, and to which nobody dared afterwards to make allusion, and
+which she had bullied herself and everybody about her into forgetting,
+had, nevertheless, frightened her confoundedly. And when her helpless
+panic and hysterics were over, she silently resolved, if the thing were
+done, then 'twere well 'twere done quickly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV.
+
+IN WHICH LILIAS HEARS A STAVE OF AN OLD SONG AND THERE IS A LEAVE-TAKING
+BESIDE THE RIVER.
+
+
+Devereux's move was very sudden, and the news did not reach the Elms
+till his groom had gone on to Island-bridge with the horses, and he
+himself, booted and spurred, knocked at the door. The doctor was not at
+home; he had ridden into Dublin. Of course it was chiefly to see him he
+had gone there.
+
+'And Miss Walsingham?'
+
+She was also out; no, not in the garden. John thought maybe at old Miss
+Chattesworth's school; or, Sally said, maybe at Belmont; they did not
+know.
+
+Devereux looked into the large room at the right hand of the hall, with
+the fair sad portrait of Lilias's young mother smiling, from the wall.
+Like _her_, too--and the tall glasses of flowers--and the harpsichord
+open, with the music she would play, just as usual, that evening, he
+supposed; and he stood at the door, looking round the room, booted and
+spurred, as I have said, with his cocked hat held to his breast, in a
+reverie. It was not easy for old Sally to guess what was passing in his
+mind, for whenever he was sad he smiled, but with the somewhat of bitter
+in his smile, and when he suffered he used to joke.
+
+Just at that moment Lilias Walsingham was walking along the high street
+of the village to the King's House, and stopping to say a good-natured
+little word to old Jenny Creswell, was overtaken by mild Mrs. Sturk, who
+was walking her little menagerie into the park.
+
+'And oh! dear Miss Walsingham, did you hear the news? she said; 'Captain
+Devereux is gone to England, and I believe we sha'n't see him here
+again.'
+
+Lilias felt that she grew pale, but she patted one of the children on
+the head, and smiled, and asked him some foolish little question.
+
+'But why don't you listen, dear Miss Lilias? You don't hear, I think,'
+said Mrs. Sturk.
+
+'I do hear, indeed; when did he go?' she asked, coldly enough.
+
+'About half an hour ago,' Mrs. Sturk thought: and so, with a word or two
+more, and a kissing of hands, the good lady turned, with her brood, up
+the park lane, and Lily walked on to pay her visit to Mrs. Colonel
+Stafford, feeling all the way a strange pang of anger and
+disappointment.
+
+'To think of his going away without taking leave of my father!'
+
+And when she reached the hall-door of the King's House for a moment she
+forgot what she had come for, and was relieved to find that good Mrs.
+Strafford was in town.
+
+There was then, I don't know whether there is not now, a little path
+leading by the river bank from Chapelizod to Island-bridge, just an
+angler's footpath, devious and broken, but withal very sweet and pretty.
+Leaving the King's House, she took this way home, and as she walked down
+to the river bank, the mortified girl looked down upon the grass close
+by her feet, and whispered to the daisies as she went along--'No,
+there's no more kindness nor friendliness left in the world; the people
+are all cold creatures now, and hypocrites; and I'm glad he's gone.'
+
+She paused at the stile which went over the hedge just beside an old
+fluted pier, with a grass-grown urn at top, and overgrown with a
+climbing rose-tree, just such a study as a young lady might put in her
+album; and then she recollected the long letter from old Miss Wardle
+that Aunt Becky had sent her to read, with a request, which from that
+quarter was a command, that she should return it by six o'clock, for
+Aunt Becky, even in matters indifferent, liked to name hours, and nail
+people sharp and hard to futile appointments and barren punctualities.
+
+She paused at the stile; she liked the old pier; its partner next the
+river was in fragments, and the ruin and the survivor had both been
+clothed by good Mrs. Strafford--who drew a little, and cultivated the
+picturesque--with the roses I have mentioned, besides woodbine and ivy.
+She had old Miss Wardle's letter in her hand, full, of course, of
+shocking anecdotes about lunatics, and the sufferings of Fleet
+prisoners, and all the statistics, and enquiries, and dry little
+commissions, with which that worthy lady's correspondence abounded. It
+was open in her hand, and rustled sharp and stiffly in the air, but it
+was not inviting just then. From that point it was always a pretty look
+down or up the river; and her eyes followed with the flow of its waters
+towards Inchicore. She loved the river; and in her thoughts she wondered
+why she loved it--so cold, so unimpressible--that went shining and
+rejoicing away into the sea. And just at that moment she heard a sweet
+tenor, with a gaiety somehow pathetic, sing not far away the words she
+remembered--
+
+  'And she smiled upon the stream,
+  Like one that smiles at folly,
+  A dreamer on a dream.'
+
+Devereux was coming--it was his playful salutation. Her large eyes
+dropped to the ground with the matchless blush of youth. She was
+strangely glad, but vexed at having changed colour; but when he came up
+with her, in the deep shadow thrown by the old pier, with its thick
+festooneries, he could not tell, he only knew she looked beautiful.
+
+'My dreams take wing, but my follies will not leave me. And you have
+been ill, Miss Lilias?'
+
+'Oh, nothing; only a little cold.'
+
+'And I am going--I only knew last night--really going away.' He paused;
+but the young lady did not feel called upon to say anything, and only
+allowed him to go on. In fact, she was piqued, and did not choose to
+show the least concern about his movements. 'And I've a great mind now
+that I'm departing this little world,' and he glanced, it seemed to her,
+regretfully towards the village, 'to put you down, Miss Lily, if you
+will allow it, in my codicil for a legacy----'
+
+She laughed a pleasant little careless laugh. How ill-natured! but, oh!
+wasn't it musical.
+
+'Then I suppose, if you were not to see me for some time, or maybe for
+ever, the village folks won't break their hearts after Dick Devereux?'
+
+And the gipsy captain smiled, and his eyes threw a soft violet shadow
+down upon her; and there was that in his tone which for a moment touched
+her with a strange reproach, like a bar of sweet music.
+
+But little Lily was spirited; and if _he_, so early a friend, could go
+away without bidding good-bye, why he should not suppose _she_ cared.
+
+'Break our hearts? Not at all, perhaps; but of course I--the parson's
+daughter--I should, and old Moore, the barber, and Pat Moran, the
+hackney coachman, and Mrs. Irons your fat landlady, you've been so very
+good to all of us, you know.'
+
+'Well,' he interrupted, 'I've left my white surtout to Moran: a hat, let
+me see, and a pair of buckles to Moore; and my glass and china to dear
+Mrs. Irons.'
+
+'Hat--buckles--surtout--glass--china--gone! Then it seems to me your
+earthly possessions are pretty nearly disposed of, and your worldly
+cares at an end.'
+
+'Yes; very nearly, but not quite,' he laughed. 'I have one treasure
+left--my poor monkey; he's a wonderful fellow--he has travelled half
+over the world, and is a perfect fine gentleman--and my true comrade
+until now. Do you think Dr. Walsingham, of his charity, would give the
+poor fellow free quarters at the Elms?'
+
+She was going to make answer with a jest, satirically; but her mood
+changed quickly. It was, she thought, saucy of Captain Devereux to fancy
+that she should care to have his pet; and she answered a little
+gravely--
+
+'I can't say indeed; had you cared to see him, you might have asked him;
+but, indeed, Captain Devereux, I believe you're jesting.'
+
+'Faith! Madam, I believe I am; or, it does not much matter--dreaming
+perhaps. There's our bugle!' And the sweet sounds quivered and soared
+through the pleasant air. 'How far away it sounds already; ours are
+sweet bugles--the sweetest bugles to my ear in the wide world. Yes,
+dreaming. I said I had but one treasure left,' he continued, with a
+fierce sort of tenderness that was peculiar to him: 'and I did not mean
+to tell you, but I will. Look at that, Miss Lily, 'tis the little rose
+you left on your harpsichord this morning. I stole it: 'tis mine; and
+Richard Devereux would die rather than lose it to another.'
+
+So then, after all, he had been at the Elms; and she had wronged him.
+
+'Yes, dreaming,' he continued, in his old manner; 'and 'tis time I were
+awake, awake and on the march.'
+
+'You are then really going?' she said, so that no one would have guessed
+how strangely she felt at that moment.
+
+'Yes, really going,' he said, quite in his own way; 'Over the hills and
+far away; and so, I know, you'll first wish your old friend God speed.'
+
+'I do, indeed.'
+
+'And then you'll shake hands, Miss Lily, as in old times.'
+
+And out came the frank little hand, and he looked on it, with a darkling
+smile, as it lay in his own sinewy but slender grasp; and she said with
+a smile--'Good-bye.'
+
+She was frightened lest he should possibly say more than she knew how to
+answer.
+
+'And somehow it seems to me, I have a great deal to say.'
+
+'And I've a great deal to read, you see;' and she just stirred old Miss
+Wardle's letter, that lay open in her hand, with a smile just the least
+in the world of comic distress.
+
+'A great deal,' he said.
+
+'And farewell, again,' said Lilias.
+
+'Farewell! dear Miss Lily.'
+
+And then, he just looked his old strange look upon her; and he went: and
+she dropped her eyes upon the letter. He had got into the far meadow,
+where the path makes a little turn round the clump of poplars, and hides
+itself. Just there he looked over his shoulder, a last look it might be,
+the handsome strange creature that had made so many of her hours pass
+so pleasantly; he that was so saucy with everyone else, and so gentle
+with her; of whom, she believed, she might make anything, a hero or a
+demigod! She knew a look would call him back--back, maybe, to her feet;
+but she could not give that little sign. There she stood, affecting to
+read that letter, one word of which she did not see. 'She does not care;
+but--but there's no one like her. No--she does not care,' he thought;
+and she let him think it: but her heart swelled to her throat, and she
+felt as if she could have screamed, 'Come back--my only love--my
+darling--without you I must die!' But she did not raise her head. She
+only read on, steadily, old Miss Wardle's letter--over and over--the
+same half-dozen lines. And when, after five minutes more, she lifted up
+her eyes, the hoary poplars were ruffling their thick leaves in the
+breeze--and he gone; and the plaintive music came mellowed from the
+village, and the village and the world seemed all on a sudden empty for
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV.
+
+IN WHICH AUNT BECKY AND DOCTOR TOOLE, IN FULL BLOW, WITH DOMINICK, THE
+FOOTMAN, BEHIND THEM, VISIT MISS LILY AT THE ELMS.
+
+
+After such leave-takings, especially where something like a revelation
+takes place, there sometimes supervenes, I'm told, a sort of excitement
+before the chill and ache of separation sets in. So, Lily, when she went
+home, found that her music failed her, all but the one strange little
+air, 'The river ran between them;' and then she left the harpsichord and
+went into the garden through the glass door, but the flowers had only
+half their interest, and the garden was solitary, and she felt restless,
+as if she were going to make a journey, or looking for strange news; and
+then she bethought her again of Mrs. Colonel Stafford, that she might
+have by this time returned from Dublin, and there was some little
+interest about the good old lady, even in this, that she had just
+returned by the same road that he had gone away by, that she might have
+chanced to see him as he passed; that at least she might happen to speak
+of him, and to know something of the likelihood of his return, or even
+to speculate about him; for now any talk in which his name occurred was
+interesting, though she did not know it quite herself. So she went down
+to the King's House, and did find old Mrs. Stafford at home: and after
+an entertaining gossip about some 'rich Nassau damask,' at Haughton's in
+the Coombe, that had taken her fancy mightily, and how she had chosen a
+set of new Nankeen plates and fine oblong dishes at the Music Hall, and
+how Peter Raby, the watchman, was executed yesterday morning, in web
+worsted breeches, for the murder of Mr. Thomas Fleming, of
+Thomas-street, she did come at last to mention Devereux: and she said
+that the colonel had received a letter from General Chattesworth, 'who
+by-the-bye,' and then came a long parenthesis, very pleasant, you may be
+sure, for Lily to listen to; and the general, it appeared, thought it
+most likely that Devereux would not return to Chapelizod, and the Royal
+Irish Artillery; and then she went on to other subjects, and Lily staid
+a long time, thinking she might return to Devereux, but she did not
+mention him again. So home went little Lily more pensive than she came.
+
+It was near eight o'clock, when who should arrive at the door, and
+flutter the crows in the old elms with an energetic double knock, but
+Aunt Rebecca, accompanied by no less a personage than Dr. Toole in full
+costume, and attended by old Dominick, the footman.
+
+The doctor was a little bit ruffled and testy, for having received a
+summons from Belmont, he had attended in full blow, expecting to
+prescribe for Aunt Rebecca or Miss Gertrude, and found, instead, that he
+was in for a barren and benevolent walk of half a mile on the Inchicore
+road, with the energetic Miss Rebecca, to visit one of her felonious
+pensioners who lay sick in his rascally crib. It was not the first time
+that the jolly little doctor had been entrapped by the good lady into a
+purely philanthropic excursion of this kind. But he could not afford to
+mutiny, and vented his disgust in blisters and otherwise drastic
+treatment of the malingering scoundrels whom he served out after his
+kind for the trouble and indignity they cost him.
+
+'And here we are, Lily dear, on our way to see poor dear Pat Doolan,
+who, I fear, is not very long for this world. Dominick!--he's got a
+brain fever, my dear.'
+
+The doctor said 'pish!' inaudibly, and Aunt Becky went on.
+
+'You know the unhappy creature is only just out of prison, and if ever
+mortal suffered unjustly, he's the man. Poor Doolan's as innocent as you
+or I, my dear, or sweet little Spot, there;' pointing her fan like a
+pistol at that interesting quadruped's head. 'The disgrace has broken
+his heart, and that's at the bottom of his sickness. I wish you could
+hear him speak, poor dear wretch--Dominick!' and she had a word for that
+domestic in the hall.
+
+'Hear him speak, indeed!' said Toole, taking advantage of her momentary
+absence. 'I wish you could, the drunken blackguard. King Solomon could
+not make sense of it. She gave that burglar, would you believe it,
+Ma'am? two guineas, by Jupiter: the first of this month--and whiskey
+only sixpence a pint--and he was drunk without intermission of course,
+day and night for a week after. Brain fever, indeed, 'tis just as sweet
+a little fit of delirium tremens, my dear Madam, as ever sent an
+innocent burglar slap into bliss;' and the word popped out with a
+venomous hiss and an angry chuckle.
+
+'And so, my dear,' resumed Aunt Becky, marching in again; 'good Doctor
+Toole--our good Samaritan, here--has taken him up, just for love, and
+the poor man's fee--his blessing.'
+
+The doctor muttered something about 'taking him up,' but inarticulately,
+for it was only for the relief of his own feelings.
+
+'And now, dear Lilias, we want your good father to come with us, just to
+pray by the poor fellow's bedside: he's in the study, is he?'
+
+'No, he was not to be home until to-morrow morning.'
+
+'Bless me!' cried Aunt Becky, with as much asperity as if she had said
+something different; 'and not a soul to be had to comfort a dying wretch
+in your father's parish--yes, he's dying; we want a minister to pray
+with him, and here we've a Flemish account of the rector. This tells
+prettily for Dr. Walsingham!'
+
+'Dr. Walsingham's the best rector in the whole world, and the holiest
+man and the noblest,' cried brave little Lily, standing like a deer at
+bay, with her wild shy eyes looking full in Aunt Becky's, and a flush in
+her cheeks, and the beautiful light of truth beaming like a star from
+her forehead. And for a moment it looked like battle; but the old lady
+smiled a kind of droll little smile, and gave her a little pat on the
+cheek, saying with a shake of her head, 'saucy girl!'
+
+'And you,' said Lily, throwing her arms about her neck, 'are my own Aunt
+Becky, the greatest darling in the world!' And so, as John Bunyan says,
+'the water stood in their eyes,' and they both laughed, and then they
+kissed, and loved one another the better. That was the way their little
+quarrels used always to end.
+
+'Well, doctor, we must only do what we can,' said Aunt Becky, looking
+gravely on the physician: 'and I don't see why _you_ should not
+read--you can lend us a prayer-book, darling--just a collect or two, and
+the Lord's Prayer--eh?'
+
+'Why, my dear Ma'am, the fellow's howling about King Lewis and the
+American Indians, Dominick says, and ghosts and constables, and devils,
+and worse things, Madam, and--pooh--punch and laudanum's his only
+chance; don't mind the prayer-book, Miss Lily--there's no use in it,
+Mistress Chattesworth! I give you my honour, Ma'am, he could not make
+head or tale of it.'
+
+In fact, the doctor was terrified lest Aunt Rebecca should compel him to
+officiate, and he was thinking how the fellows at the club, and the
+Aldermen of Skinner's-alley, would get hold of the story, and treat the
+subject less gravely than was desirable.
+
+So Aunt Becky, with Lily's leave, called in Dominick, to examine him
+touching the soundness of Pat Doolan's mind, and the honest footman had
+no hesitation in pronouncing him wholly _non compos_.
+
+'Pleasant praying with a chap like that, by Jove, as drunk as an owl,
+and as mad as a March hare! my dear Ma'am,' whispered Toole to Lilias.
+
+'And, Lily dear', there's poor Gertrude all alone--'twould be good
+natured in you to go up and drink a dish of tea with her; but, then,
+you're cold--you're afraid?'
+
+She was not afraid--she had been out to-day--and it had done her all the
+good in the world, and it was very good of Aunt Becky to think of it,
+for she was lonely too: and so off went the elder Miss Chattesworth,
+with her doctor and Dominick, in their various moods, on their mission
+of mercy; and Lily sent into the town for the two chairmen, Peter Brian
+and Larry Foy, the two-legged ponies, as Toole called them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI.
+
+NARRATING HOW MISS LILIAS VISITED BELMONT, AND SAW A STRANGE COCKED-HAT
+IN THE SHADOW BY THE WINDOW.
+
+
+At that time, in every hall of gentility, there stood a sedan-chair, the
+property of the lady of the house; and by the time the chairmen had
+arrived and got the poles into their places, and trusty John Tracy had
+got himself into his brown surtout, trimmed with white lace, and his
+cane in his hand--(there was no need of a lantern, for the moon shone
+softly and pleasantly down)--Miss Lilias Walsingham drew her red riding
+hood about her pretty face, and stepped into the chair; and so the door
+shut, the roof closed in, and the young lady was fairly under weigh. She
+had so much to think of, so much to tell about her day's adventure, that
+before she thought she had come half the way, they were flitting under
+the shadows of the poplars that grew beside the avenue; and, through the
+window, she saw the hospitable house spreading out its white front as
+they drew near, and opening its wings to embrace her.
+
+The hall-door stood half open, though it had been dark some time; and
+the dogs came down with a low growl, and plenty of sniffing, which
+forthwith turned into a solemn wagging of tails, for they were intimate
+with the chairmen, and with John Tracy, and loved Lilias too. So she got
+out in the hall, and went into the little room at the right, and opening
+the door of the inner and larger one--there was no candle there, and
+'twas nearly dark--saw Gertrude standing by the window which looked out
+on the lawn toward the river. That side of the house was in shade, but
+she saw that the window was thrown up, and Gertrude, she thought, was
+looking toward her, though she did not move, until she drew nearer,
+wondering why she did not approach, and then, pausing in a kind of
+unpleasant doubt, she heard a murmured talking, and plainly saw the
+figure of a man, with a cloak, it seemed, wrapped about him, and leaning
+from outside, against the window-sill, and, as she believed, holding
+Gertrude's hand.
+
+The thing that impressed her most was the sharp outline of the
+cocked-hat, with the corners so peculiarly pinched in, and the feeling
+that she had never seen that particular hat before in the parish of
+Chapelizod.
+
+Lily made a step backward, and Gertrude instantly turned round, and
+seeing her, uttered a little scream.
+
+''Tis I, Gertrude, darling--Lily--Lily Walsingham,' she said, perhaps as
+much dismayed as Gertrude herself; 'I'll return in a moment.'
+
+She saw the figure, outside, glide hurriedly away by the side of the
+wall.
+
+'Lily--Lily, darling; no, don't go--I did not expect you;' and Gertrude
+stopped suddenly, and then as suddenly said--
+
+'You are very welcome, Lily;' and she drew the window down, and there
+was another pause before she said--'Had not we better go up to the
+drawing-room, and--and--Lily darling, you're very welcome. Are you
+better?'
+
+And she took little Lily's hand, and kissed her.
+
+Little Lilias all this time had said nothing, so entirely was she
+disconcerted. And her heart beat fast with a kind of fear: and she felt
+Gertrude's cold hand tremble she fancied in hers.
+
+'Yes, darling, the drawing-room, certainly,' answered Lily. And the two
+young ladies went up stairs holding hands, and without exchanging
+another word.
+
+'Aunt Becky has gone some distance to see a sick pensioner; I don't
+expect her return before an hour.'
+
+'Yes--I know--and she came, dear Gertrude, to see me; and I should not
+have come, but that she asked me, and--and----'
+
+She stopped, for she was speaking apologetically, like an intruder, and
+she was shocked to feel what a chasm on a sudden separated them, and
+oppressed with the consciousness that their old mutual girlish
+confidence was dead and gone; and the incident of the evening, and
+Gertrude's changed aspect, and their changed relations, seemed a
+dreadful dream.
+
+Gertrude looked so pale and wretchedly, and Lily saw her eyes, wild and
+clouded, once or twice steal toward her with a glance of such dark alarm
+and enquiry, that she was totally unable to keep up the semblance of
+their old merry gossiping talk, and felt that Gertrude read in her face
+the amazement and fear which possessed her.
+
+'Lily, darling, let us sit near the window, far away from the candles,
+and look out; I hate the light.'
+
+'With all my heart,' said Lily. And two paler faces than theirs, that
+night, did not look out on the moonlight prospect.
+
+'I hate the light, Lily,' repeated Gertrude, not looking at her
+companion, but directly out through the bow-window upon the dark outline
+of the lawn and river bank, and the high grounds on the other side. 'I
+hate the light--yes, I hate the light, because my thoughts are
+darkness--yes, my thoughts are darkness. No human being knows me; and I
+feel like a person who is _haunted_. Tell me what you saw when you came
+into the parlour just now.'
+
+'Gertrude, dear, I ought not to have come in so suddenly.'
+
+'Yes, 'twas but right--'twas but kind in you, Lily--right and kind--to
+treat me like the open-hearted and intimate friend that, Heaven knows, I
+was to you, Lily, all my life. I think--at least, I think--till
+lately--but you were always franker than I--and truer. You've walked in
+the light, Lily, and that's the way to peace. I turned aside, and walked
+in mystery; and it seems to me I am treading now the valley of the
+shadow of death. Waking and talking, I am, nevertheless, in the solitude
+and darkness of the grave. And what did you see, Lily--I know you'll
+tell me truly--when you came into the parlour, as I stood by the
+window?'
+
+'I saw, I think, the form of a man in a cloak and hat, as I believe,
+talking with you in whispers, Gertrude, from without.'
+
+'The form of a man, Lily--you're right--not a man, but the form of a
+man,' she continued, bitterly; 'for it seems to me sometimes it can be
+no human fascination that has brought me under the tyranny in which I
+can scarce be said to breathe.'
+
+After an interval she said--
+
+'It will seem incredible. You've heard of Mr. Dangerfield's proposal,
+and you've heard how I've received it. Well, listen.'
+
+'Gertrude, dear!' said Lily, who was growing frightened.
+
+'I'm going,' interrupted Miss Chattesworth, 'to tell you my strange, if
+you will, but not guilty--no, _not_ guilty--secret. I'm no agent now,
+but simply passive in the matter. But you must first pledge me your
+sacred word that neither to my father nor to yours, nor to my aunt, nor
+to any living being, will you ever reveal what I am about to tell you,
+till I have released you from your promise.'
+
+Did ever woman refuse a secret? Well, Lily wavered for a moment. But
+then suddenly stooping down, and kissing her, she said:
+
+'No, Gertrude, darling--you'll not be vexed with me--but you must not
+tell me your secret. You have excuses such as I should not have--you've
+been drawn into this concealment, step by step, unwillingly; but,
+Gertrude, darling, I must not hear it. I could not look Aunt Becky in
+the face, nor the kind general, knowing that I was----'
+
+She tried to find a word.
+
+'_Deceiving_ them, Lily,' said Gertrude, with a moan.
+
+'Yes, Gertrude, darling.' And she kissed her again. 'And it might be to
+your great hurt. But I thank you all the same from my heart for your
+confidence and love; and I'm gladder than you'll ever know, Gerty, that
+they are still the same.' And thus the two girls kissed silently and
+fervently, and poor Gertrude Chattesworth wept uncomplainingly, looking
+out upon the dark prospect.
+
+'And you'll tell me, darling, when you're happier, as you soon will be?'
+said Lily.
+
+'I will--I will indeed. I'm sometimes happier--sometimes quite
+happy--but I'm very low to-night, Lily,' answered she.
+
+Then Lily comforted and caressed her friend. And I must confess she was
+very curious, too, and nothing but a terror of possessing a secret under
+such terms, withheld her from hearing Gertrude's confession. But on her
+way home she thanked Heaven for her resolution, and was quite sure that
+she was happier and better for it.
+
+They were roused by Aunt Becky's knock at the hall-door, and her voice
+and Dominick's under the window.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII.
+
+SHOWING HOW SOME OF THE FEUDS IN CHAPELIZOD WAXED FIERCER, AND OTHERS
+WERE SOLEMNLY CONDONED.
+
+
+By this time little Dr. Toole had stepped into the club, after his wont,
+as he passed the Phoenix. Sturk was playing draughts with old Arthur
+Slowe, and Dangerfield, erect and grim, was looking on the game, over
+his shoulder. Toole and Sturk were more distant and cold in their
+intercourse of late, though this formality partook of their respective
+characters. Toole used to throw up his nose, and raise his eyebrows, and
+make his brother mediciner a particularly stiff, and withal scornful
+reverence when they met. Sturk, on the other hand, made a short, surly
+nod--'twas little more--and, without a word, turned on his heel, with a
+gruff pitch of his shoulder towards Toole.
+
+The fact was, these two gentlemen had been very near exchanging pistol
+shots, or sword thrusts, only a week or two before; and all about the
+unconscious gentleman who was smiling in his usual pleasant fashion over
+the back of Sturk's chair. So Dangerfield's little dyspepsy had like to
+have cured one or other of the village leeches, for ever and a day, of
+the heart-ache and all other aches that flesh is heir to. For
+Dangerfield commenced with Toole: and that physician, on the third day
+of his instalment, found that Sturk had stept in and taken his patient
+bodily out of his hands.
+
+'I've seen one monkey force open the jaws of his brother, resolutely
+introduce his fingers, pluck from the sanctuary of his cheek the filbert
+he had just stowed there for his private nutrition and delight, and
+crunch and eat it with a stern ecstasy of selfishness, himself; and I
+fancy that the feelings of the quadrumanous victim, his jaws aching, his
+pouch outraged, and his bon-bouche in the miscreant's mouth, a little
+resembles those of the physician who has suffered so hideous a
+mortification as that of Toole.
+
+Toole quite forgave Dangerfield. That gentleman gave him to understand
+that _his_ ministrations were much more to his mind than those of his
+rival. But--and this was conveyed in strict confidence--this change was
+put upon him by a--a--in fact a nobleman--Lord Castlemallard--with whom,
+just now, Dr. Sturk can do a great deal; 'and you know I can't quarrel
+with my lord. It has pained me, I assure you, very much; and to say
+truth, whoever applied to him to interfere in the matter, was, in my
+mind, guilty of an impertinence, though, as you see, I can't resent it.'
+
+'_Whoever_ applied? 'tis pretty plain,' repeated Toole, with a vicious
+sneer. 'The whispering, undermining--and as stupid as the Hill of Howth.
+I wish you safe out of his hands, Sir.'
+
+And positively, only for Aunt Becky, who was always spoiling this sort
+of sport, and who restrained the gallant Toole by a peremptory
+injunction, there would have been, in Nutter's unfortunate phrase, 'wigs
+on the green,' next day.
+
+So these gentlemen met on the terms I've described: and Nutter's
+antipathy also, had waxed stronger and fiercer. And indeed, since
+Dangerfield's arrival, and Sturk's undisguised endeavours to ingratiate
+himself with Lord Castlemallard, and push him from his stool, they had
+by consent ceased to speak to one another. When Sturk met Nutter, he,
+being of superior stature, looked over his head at distant objects: and
+when Nutter encountered Sturk, the little gentleman's dark face grew
+instantaneously darker--first a shade--then another shadow--then the
+blackness of thunder overspread it; and not only did he speak not a word
+to Sturk, but seldom opened his lips, while that gentleman remained in
+the room.
+
+On the other hand, if some feuds grew blacker and fiercer by time, there
+were others which were Christianly condoned; foremost among which was
+the mortal quarrel between Nutter and O'Flaherty. On the evening of
+their memorable meeting on the Fifteen Acres, Puddock dined out, and
+O'Flaherty was too much exhausted to take any steps toward a better
+understanding. But on the night following, when the club had their grand
+supper in King William's parlour, it was arranged with Nutter that a
+gentlemanlike reconciliation was to take place; and accordingly, about
+nine o'clock, at which time Nutter's arrival was expected, Puddock, with
+the pomp and gravity becoming such an occasion, accompanied by
+O'Flaherty, big with his speech, entered the spacious parlour.
+
+When they came in there was a chorus of laughter ringing round, with a
+clapping of hands, and a Babel of hilarious applause; and Tom Toole was
+seen in the centre, sitting upon the floor, hugging his knees, with his
+drawn sword under his arm, his eyes turned up to the ceiling, and a
+contortion so unspeakably ludicrous upon his queer little face, as was
+very near causing little Puddock to explode in an unseemly burst of
+laughter.
+
+Devereux, sitting near the door, luckily saw them as they entered, and
+announced them in a loud tone--'Lieutenant Puddock, gentlemen, and
+Lieutenant Fireworker O'Flaherty.' For though Gipsy Devereux loved a bit
+of mischief, he did not relish it when quite so serious, as the
+Galwegian Fireworker was likely to make any sort of trifling on a point
+so tender as his recent hostilities on the Fifteen Acres.
+
+Toole bounded to his feet in an instant, adjusting his wig and eyeing
+the new comers with intense but uneasy solemnity, which produced some
+suppressed merriment among the company.
+
+It was well for the serenity of the village that O'Flaherty was about to
+make a little speech--a situation which usually deprived him of half his
+wits. Still with the suspicion of conscious weakness, he read something
+affecting himself in the general buzz and countenance of the assembly;
+and said to Devereux, on purpose loud enough for Toole to hear--'Ensign
+Puddock and myself would be proud to know what was the divarting
+tom-foolery going on about the floor, and for which we arrived
+unfortunately a little too leet?'
+
+'Tom-foolery, Sir, is an unpleasant word!' cried the little doctor,
+firing up, for he was a game-cock.
+
+'Tom Toolery he means,' interposed Devereux, 'the pleasantest word, on
+the contrary, in Chapelizod. Pray, allow me to say a word a degree more
+serious. I'm commissioned, Lieutenant Puddock and Lieutenant O'Flaherty'
+(a bow to each), 'by Mr. Mahony, who acted the part of second to Mr.
+Nutter, on the recent occasion, to pray that you'll be so obliging as to
+accept his apology for not being present at this, as we all hope most
+agreeable meeting. Our reverend friend, Father Roach whose guest he had
+the honour to be, can tell you more precisely the urgent nature of the
+business on which he departed.'
+
+Father Roach tried to stop the captain with a reproachful glance, but
+that unfeeling officer fairly concluded his sentence notwithstanding,
+with a wave of his hand and a bow to the cleric; and sitting down at the
+same moment, left him in possession of the chair.
+
+The fact was, that at an unseemly hour that morning three bailiffs--for
+the excursion was considered hazardous--introduced themselves by a
+stratagem into the reverend father's domicile, and nabbed the
+high-souled Patrick Mahony, as he slumbered peacefully in his bed, to
+the terror of the simple maid who let them in. Honest Father Roach was
+for showing fight on behalf of his guest. On hearing the row and
+suspecting its cause--for Pat had fled from the kingdom of Kerry from
+perils of the same sort--his reverence jumped out of bed with a great
+pound on the floor, and not knowing where to look for his clothes in the
+dark, he seized his surplice, which always lay in the press at the head
+of his bed, and got into it with miraculous speed, whisking along the
+floor two pounds and a half of Mr. Fogarty's best bacon, which the holy
+man had concealed in the folds of that sacred vestment, to elude the
+predatory instincts of the women, and from which he and Mr. Mahony were
+wont to cut their jovial rashers.
+
+The shutter of poor Mahony's window was by this time open, and the gray
+light disclosed the grimly form of Father Roach, in his surplice,
+floating threateningly into the chamber. But the bailiffs were picked
+men, broad-shouldered and athletic, and furnished with active-looking
+shillelaghs. Veni, vidi, victus sum! a glance showed him all was lost.
+
+'My blessin' an you, Peg Finigan! and was it you let them in?' murmured
+his reverence, with intense feeling.
+
+'At whose suit?' enquired the generous outlaw, sitting up among the
+blankets.
+
+'Mrs. Elizabeth Woolly, relict and administhrathrix of the late Mr.
+Timotheus Woolly, of High-street, in the city of Dublin, tailor,'
+responded the choragus of the officers.
+
+'Woolly--I was thinkin' so,' said the captive. 'I wisht I _had_ her by
+the wool, bad luck to her!'
+
+So away he went, to the good-natured ecclesiastic's grief, promising,
+nevertheless, with a disconsolate affectation of cheerfulness, that all
+should be settled, and he under the Priest's roof-tree again before
+night.
+
+'I don't--exactly--know the nature of the business, gentlemen,' said
+Father Roach, with considerable hesitation.
+
+'_Urgent_, however, it _was_--wasn't it?' said Devereux.
+
+'Urgent--well; _certainly_--a--and----'
+
+'And a summons there was no resisting--from a lady--eh? You said so,
+Father Roach,' persisted Devereux.
+
+'A--from a leedy--a--yes--certainly,' replied he.
+
+'A _widow_--is not she?' enquired Devereux.
+
+'A widda, undoubtedly,' said the priest.
+
+'Thay no more Thir,' said little Puddock, to the infinite relief of the
+reverend father, who flung another look of reproach at Devereux, and
+muttered his indignation to himself. 'I'm perfectly satisfied; and so, I
+venture to thay, is Lieutenant O'Flaherty----'
+
+'Is not he going to say something to Nutter?' enquired Devereux.
+
+'Yes,' whispered Puddock, 'I hope he'll get through it. I--I wrote a few
+sentences myself; but he's by no means perfect--in fact, between
+ourselves, he's a somewhat slow study.'
+
+'Suppose you purge his head again, Puddock?' Puddock did not choose to
+hear the suggestion: but Nutter, in reply to a complimentary speech from
+Puddock, declared, in two or three words, his readiness to meet
+Lieutenant O'Flaherty half-way; 'and curse me, Sir, if I know, at this
+moment, what I did or said to offend him.'
+
+Then came a magnanimous, but nearly unintelligible speech from
+O'Flaherty, prompted by little Puddock, who, being responsible for the
+composition, was more nervous during the delivery of that remarkable
+oration, than the speaker himself; and 'thuffered indethcribably' at
+hearing his periods mangled; and had actually to hold O'Flaherty by the
+arm, and whisper in an agony--'not yet--_curthe_ it--not yet'--to
+prevent the incorrigible fireworker from stretching forth his bony red
+hand before he had arrived at that most effective passage which Puddock
+afterwards gave so well in private for Dick Devereux, beginning, 'and
+thus I greet----'
+
+Thus was there a perfect reconciliation, and the gentlemen of the club,
+Toole included, were more than ever puzzled to understand the origin of
+the quarrel, for Puddock kept O'Flaherty's secret magnificently, and
+peace prevailed in O'Flaherty's breast until nearly ten months
+afterwards, when Cluffe, who was talking of the American war, asked
+O'Flaherty, who was full of volunteering, how he would like a 'clean
+shave with an Indian scalping knife,' whereupon O'Flaherty stood erect,
+and having glowered about him for a moment, strode in silence from the
+room, and consulted immediately with Puddock on the subject, who, after
+a moment's reflection found it no more than chance medley.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII.
+
+DREAMS AND TROUBLES, AND A DARK LOOK-OUT.
+
+
+So there was no feud in the club worth speaking of but those of which
+Dr. Sturk was the centre; and Toole remarked this night that Sturk
+looked very ill--and so, in truth, he did; and it was plain, too, that
+his mind was not in the game, for old Slowe, who used not to have a
+chance with him, beat him three times running, which incensed Sturk, as
+small things will a man who is in the slow fever of a secret trouble. He
+threw down the three shillings he had lost with more force than was
+necessary, and muttering a curse, clapped on his hat and took up a
+newspaper at another table, with a rather flushed face. He happened to
+light upon a dolorous appeal to those 'whom Providence had blessed with
+riches,' on behalf of a gentleman 'who had once held a commission under
+his Majesty, and was now on a sudden by some unexpected turns of
+fortune, reduced, with his unhappy wife and five small children, to want
+of bread, and implored of his prosperous fellow-citizens that charitable
+relief which, till a few months since, it was his custom and pleasure to
+dispense to others.' And this stung him with a secret pang of insecurity
+and horror. Trifles affected him a good deal now. So he pitched down the
+newspaper and walked across to his own house, with his hands in his
+pockets, and thought again of Dangerfield, and who the deuce he could
+be, or whether he had really ever, anywhere--in the body or in the
+spirit--encountered him, as he used to feel with a boding vagueness he
+had done. And then those accursed dreams: he was not relieved as he
+expected by disclosing them. The sense of an ominous meaning pointing at
+him in all their grotesque images and scenery, still haunted him.
+
+'Parson Walsingham, with all his reading,' his mind muttered, as it
+were, to itself, 'is no better than an old woman; and that knave and
+buffoon, Mr. Apothecary Toole, looked queer, the spiteful dog, just to
+disquiet me. I wonder at Dr. Walsingham though. A sensible man would
+have laughed me into spirits. On my soul, I think he believes in
+dreams.' And Sturk laughed within himself scornfully. It was all
+affectation, and addressed strictly to himself, who saw through it all;
+but still he practised it. 'If these infernal losses had not come to
+spoil my stomach. I should not have remembered them, much less let them
+haunt me this way, like a cursed file of ghosts. I'll try gentian
+to-morrow.'
+
+Everything and everyone was poking at the one point of his secret
+fears. Dr. Walsingham preached a sermon upon the text, 'remember the
+days of darkness for they are many.' It went over the tremendous themes
+of death and judgment in the rector's own queer, solemn, measured way,
+and all the day after rang in Sturk's ear as the drums and fifes in the
+muffled peal of the Dead March used to do long ago, before his ear grew
+familiar with its thrilling roll. Sermons usually affected Sturk no more
+than they did other military gentlemen. But he was in a morbid state;
+and in this one or two terms or phrases, nothing in themselves, happened
+to touch upon a sensitive and secret centre of pain in the doctor's
+soul.
+
+For instance, when he called death 'the great bankruptcy which would
+make the worldly man, in a moment, the only person in his house not
+worth a shilling,' the preacher glanced unconsciously at a secret fear
+in the caverns of Sturk's mind, that echoed back the sonorous tones and
+grisly theme of the rector with a hollow thunder.
+
+There was a time when Sturk, like other shrewd, bustling fellows, had no
+objection to hear who had an execution in his house, who was bankrupt,
+and who laid by the heels; but now he shrunk from such phrases. He hated
+to think that a clever fellow was ever absolutely beggared in the
+world's great game. He turned his eye quickly from the _Gazette_, as it
+lay with other papers on the club table; for its grim pages seemed to
+look in his face with a sort of significance, as if they might some day
+or other have a small official duty to perform by him; and when an
+unexpected bankruptcy was announced by Cluffe or Toole in the club-room,
+it made his ear ring like a slap, and he felt sickish for half an hour
+after.
+
+One of that ugly brood of dreams which haunted his nights, borrowed,
+perhaps, a hint from Dr. Walsingham's sermon. Sturk thought he heard
+Toole's well-known, brisk voice, under his windows, exclaim, 'What is
+the dirty beggar doing there? faugh!--he smells all over like
+carrion--ha, ha ha!' and looking out, in his dream, from his
+drawing-room window, he saw a squalid mendicant begging alms at his
+hall-door. 'Hollo, you, Sir; what do want there?' cried the surgeon,
+with a sort of unaccountable antipathy and fear. 'He lost his last
+shilling in the great bankruptcy, in October,' answered Dunstan's voice
+behind his ear; and in the earth-coloured face which the beggar turned
+up towards him, Sturk recognised his own features--''Tis I'--he gasped
+out with an oath, and awoke in a horror, not knowing where he was.
+'I--I'm dying.'
+
+'October,' thought Sturk--'bankruptcy. 'Tis just because I'm always
+thinking of that infernal bill, and old Dyle's renewal, and the rent.'
+
+Indeed, the surgeon had a stormy look forward, and the navigation of
+October was so threatening, awful, and almost desperate, as he stood
+alone through the dreadful watches at the helm, with hot cheek and
+unsteady hand, trusting stoically to luck and hoping against hope, that
+rocks would melt, and the sea cease from drowning, that it was almost a
+wonder he did not leap overboard, only for the certainty of a cold head
+and a quiet heart, and one deep sleep.
+
+And, then, he used to tot up his liabilities for that accursed month,
+near whose yawning verge he already stood; and then, think of every
+penny coming to him, and what might be rescued and wrung from runaways
+and bankrupts whose bills he held, and whom he used to curse in his bed,
+with his fists and his teeth clenched, when poor little Mrs. Sturk,
+knowing naught of this danger, and having said her prayers, lay sound
+asleep by his side. Then he used to think, if he could only get the
+agency in time it would set him up--he could borrow £200 the day after
+his appointment; and he must make a push and extend his practice. It was
+ridiculous, that blackguard little Toole carrying off the best families
+in the neighbourhood, and standing in the way of a man like him; and
+Nutter, too--why, Lord Castlemallard knew as well as he did, that Nutter
+was not fit to manage the property, and that _he was_--and Nutter
+without a child or anyone, and _he_ with seven! and he counted them over
+mentally with a groan. 'What was to become of them?' Then Nutter would
+be down upon him, without mercy, for the rent; and Dangerfield, if,
+indeed, he cared to do it [curse it, he trusted nobody], could not
+control him; and Lord Castlemallard, the selfish profligate, was away in
+Paris, leaving his business in the hands of that bitter old botch, who'd
+go any length to be the ruin of him.
+
+Then he turned over the chances of borrowing a hundred pounds from the
+general--as he did fifty times every day and night, but always with the
+same result--'No; curse him, he's as weak as water--petticoat
+government--he'll do nothing without his sister's leave, and she hates
+me like poison;' and then he thought--'it would not be much to ask Lord
+Castlemallard--there's still time--to give me a month or two for the
+rent, but if the old sneak thought I owed twopence, I might whistle for
+the agency, and besides, faith!--I don't think he'd interfere.'
+
+Then the clock down stairs would strike 'three,' and he felt thankful,
+with a great sigh, that so much of the night was over, and yet dreaded
+the morning.
+
+And then he would con over his chances again, and think which was most
+likely to give him a month or two. Old Dyle--'Bah! he's a stone, he
+would not give me an hour. Or Carny, curse him, unless Lucas would move
+him. And, no, Lucas is a rogue, selfish beast: he owes me his place; and
+I don't think he'd stir his finger to snatch me from perdition. Or
+Nutter--Nutter, indeed!--why that fiend has been waiting half the year
+round to put in his distress the first hour he can.'
+
+And then Sturk writhed round on his back, as we may suppose might St.
+Anthony on his gridiron, and rolled his eye-balls up toward the dark
+bed; and uttered a dismal groan, and thought of the three inexorable
+fates, Carny, Nutter, and Dyle, who at that moment held among them the
+measure, and the thread, and the shears of his destiny: and standing
+desperately in the dark at the verge of the abyss, he mentally hurled
+the three ugly spirits together into his bag, and flung them whirling
+through the mirk into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX.
+
+TELLING HOW LILIAS WALSINGHAM FOUND TWO LADIES AWAITING HER ARRIVAL AT
+THE ELMS.
+
+
+When Lilias Walsingham, being set down in the hall at the Elms, got out
+and threw back her hood, she saw two females sitting there, who rose, as
+she emerged, and bobbed a courtesy each. The elder was a slight thin
+woman of fifty or upwards, dark of feature, but with large eyes, the
+relics of early beauty. The other a youthful figure, an inch or two
+taller, slim and round, and showing only a pair of eyes, large and dark
+as the others, looking from under her red hood, earnestly and sadly as
+it seemed, upon Miss Walsingham.
+
+'Good-evening, good neighbours,' said Miss Lily in her friendly way;
+'the master is in town, and won't return till to-morrow; but may be you
+wish to speak to me?'
+
+''Tis no place for the like of yous,' said old John Tracy, gruffly, for
+he knew them, with the privilege of an old servant. 'If you want to see
+his raverence, you must come in the morning.'
+
+'But it may be something, John, that can't wait, and that I can do,'
+said Lily.
+
+'And, true for you, so it is, my lady,' said the elder woman, with
+another bob; 'an' I won't delay you, Ma'am, five minutes, if you plaze,
+an' it's the likes of you,' she said, in a shrewish aside, with a flash
+of her large eyes upon John Tracy, 'that stands betune them that's
+willin' to be good and the poor--so yez do, saucepans and
+bone-polishers, bad luck to yez.'
+
+The younger woman plucked the elder by the skirt; but Lily did not hear.
+She was already in the parlour.
+
+'Ay, there it is,' grinned old John, with a wag of his head.
+
+And so old Sally came forth and asked the women to step in, and set
+chairs for them, while Lily was taking off her gloves and hood by the
+table.
+
+'You'll tell me first who you are,' said Lily, 'my good woman--for I
+don't think we've met before--and then you will say what I can do for
+you.'
+
+'I'm the Widdy Glynn, Ma'am, at your sarvice, that lives beyant
+Palmerstown, down by the ferry, af its playsin' to you; and this is my
+little girl, Ma'am, av you plaze. Nan, look up at the lady, you slut.'
+
+She did not need the exhortation, for she was, indeed, looking at the
+lady, with a curious and most melancholy gaze.
+
+'An' what I'm goin' to say, my lady, if you plase, id best be said
+alone;' and the matron glanced at old Sally, and bobbed another
+courtesy.
+
+'Very well,' said Miss Walsingham. 'Sally, dear, the good woman wants to
+speak with me alone: so you may as well go and wait for me in my room.'
+
+And so the young lady stood alone in presence of her two visitors,
+whereupon, with a good many courtesies, and with great volubility, the
+elder dame commenced--
+
+''Tis what we heerd, Ma'am, that Captain Devereux, of the Artillery
+here, in Chapelizod, Ma'am, that's gone to England, was coortin' you my
+lady; and I came here with this little girl, Ma'am, if you plaze, to
+tell you, if so be it's thrue, Ma'am, that there isn't this minute a
+bigger villian out iv gaol--who brought my poor little girl there to
+disgrace and ruin, Ma'am?'
+
+Here Nan Glynn began to sob into her apron.
+
+''Twas you, Richard Devereux, that promised her marriage--with his hand
+on the Bible, on his bended knee. 'Twas you, Richard Devereux, you
+hardened villian--yes, Ma'am, that parjured scoundrel--(don't be cryin',
+you fool)--put that ring there, you see, on her finger, Miss, an' a
+priest in the room, an' if ever man was woman's husband in the sight of
+God, Richard Devereux is married to Nan Glynn, poor an' simple as she
+stands there.'
+
+'Stop, mother,' sobbed Nan, drawing her back by the arm; 'don't you see
+the lady's sick.'
+
+'No--no--not anything; only--only shocked,' said poor Lilias, as white
+as marble, and speaking almost in a whisper; 'but I can't say Captain
+Devereux ever spoke to me in the way you suppose, that's all. I've no
+more to say.'
+
+Nan Glynn, sobbing and with her apron still to her eyes, was gliding to
+the door, but her mother looked, with a coarse sort of cunning in her
+eye, steadily at the poor young lady, in some sort her victim, and added
+more sternly--
+
+'Well, my lady, 'tis proud I am to hear it, an' there's no harm done, at
+any rate; an' I thought 'twas only right I should tell you the thruth,
+and give you this warnin', my lady; an' here's the atturney's writin',
+Ma'am--if you'll plaze to read it--Mr. Bagshot, iv Thomas
+Street--sayin', if you'll be plazed to look at it--that 'tis a good
+marriage, an' that if he marries any other woman, gentle or simple,
+he'll take the law iv him in my daughter's cause, the black, parjured
+villian, an' transport him, with a burnt hand, for bigamany; an' 'twas
+only right, my lady, as the townspeople was talking, as if it was as
+how he was thryin' to invagle you, Miss, the desaver, for he'd charrum
+the birds off the trees, the parjurer; and I'll tell his raverence all
+about it when I see him, in the morning--for 'tis only right he should
+know. Wish the lady good-night, Nan, you slut--an the same from myself,
+Ma'am.'
+
+And, with another courtesy, the Glynns of Palmerstown withdrew.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL.
+
+OF A MESSENGER FROM CHAPELIZOD VAULT WHO WAITED IN THE TYLED HOUSE FOR
+MR. MERVYN.
+
+
+Mervyn was just about this time walking up the steep Ballyfermot Road.
+It was then a lonely track, with great bushes and hedgerows overhanging
+it; and as other emotions subsided, something of the chill and
+excitement of solitude stole over him. The moon was wading through
+flecked masses of cloud. The breath of night rustled lightly through the
+bushes, and seemed to follow her steps with a strange sort of sigh and a
+titter. He stopped and looked back under the branches of an old thorn,
+and traced against the dark horizon the still darker outline of the
+ivied church tower of Chapelizod, and thought of the dead that lay
+there, and of all that those sealed lips might tell, and old tales of
+strange meetings on moors and desolate places with departed spirits,
+flitted across his brain; and the melancholy rush of the night air swept
+close about his ears, and he turned and walked more briskly toward his
+own gloomy quarters, passing the churchyard of Ballyfermot on his right.
+There were plenty of head-stones among the docks and nettles: some short
+and some tall, some straight and some slanting back, and some with a
+shoulder up, and a lonely old ash-tree still and dewy in the midst,
+glimmering cold among the moveless shadows; and then at last he sighted
+the heavy masses of old elm, and the pale, peeping front of the 'Tyled
+House,' through the close and dismal avenue of elm, he reached the front
+of the mansion. There was no glimmer of light from the lower windows,
+not even the noiseless flitting of a bat over the dark little
+court-yard. His key let him in. He knew that his servants were in bed.
+There was something cynical in his ree-raw independence. It was unlike
+what he had been used to, and its savagery suited with his bitter and
+unsociable mood of late.
+
+But his step sounding through the hall, and the stories about the place
+of which he was conscious. He battled with his disturbed foolish
+sensations, however, and though he knew there was a candle burning in
+his bed-room, he turned aside at the foot of the great stair, and
+stumbled and groped his way into the old wainscoted back-parlour, that
+looked out, through its great bow window, upon the haunted orchard, and
+sat down in its dismal solitude.
+
+He ruminated upon his own hard fate--the meanness of man-kind--the
+burning wrongs, as he felt confident, of other times, Fortune's
+inexorable persecution of his family, and the stygian gulf that deepened
+between him and the object of his love; and his soul darkened with a
+fierce despair, and with unshaped but evil thoughts that invited the
+tempter.
+
+The darkness and associations of the place were unwholesome, and he was
+about to leave it for the companionship of his candle, but that, on a
+sudden, he thought he heard a sound nearer than the breeze among the old
+orchard trees.
+
+This was the measured breathing of some one in the room. He held his own
+breath while he listened--'One of the dogs,' he thought, and he called
+them quietly; but no dog came. 'The wind, then, in the chimney;' and he
+got up resolutely, designing to open the half-closed shutter. He fancied
+as he did so that he heard the respiration near him, and passed close to
+some one in the dark.
+
+With an unpleasant expectation he threw back the shutters, and
+unquestionably he did see, very unmistakably, a dark figure in a chair;
+so dark, indeed, that he could not discern more of it than the rude but
+undoubted outline of a human shape; and he stood for some seconds,
+holding the open shutter in his hand, and looking at it with more of the
+reality of fear than he had, perhaps, ever experienced before. Pale
+Hecate now, in the conspiracy, as it seemed, withdrew on a sudden the
+pall from before her face, and threw her beams full upon the figure. A
+slim, tall shape, in dark clothing, and, as it seemed, a countenance he
+had never beheld before--black hair, pale features, with a
+sinister-smiling character, and a very blue chin, and closed eyes.
+
+Fixed with a strange horror, and almost expecting to see it undergo some
+frightful metamorphosis, Mervyn stood gazing on the cadaverous intruder.
+
+'Hollo! who's that?' cried Mervyn sternly.
+
+The figure opened his eyes, with a wild stare, as if he had not opened
+them for a hundred years before, and rose up with an uncertain motion,
+returning Mervyn's gaze, as if he did not know where he was.
+
+'Who are you?' repeated Mervyn.
+
+The phantom seemed to recover himself slowly, and only said: 'Mr.
+Mervyn?'
+
+'Who are you, Sir?' cried Mervyn, again.
+
+'Zekiel Irons,' he answered.
+
+'Irons? what _are_ you, and what business have you here, Sir?' demanded
+Mervyn.
+
+'The Clerk of Chapelizod,' he continued, quietly and remarkably sternly,
+but a little thickly, like a man who had been drinking.
+
+Mervyn now grew angry.
+
+'The Clerk of Chapelizod--here--sleeping in my parlour! What the devil,
+Sir, do you mean?'
+
+'Sleep--Sir--sleep! There's them that sleeps with their eyes open.
+Sir--you know who they may be; there's some sleeps sound enough, like me
+and you; and some that's sleep-walkers,' answered Irons; and his
+enigmatical talk somehow subdued Mervyn, for he said more quietly--
+
+'Well, what of all this, Sirrah?'
+
+'A message,' answered Irons. The man's manner, though quiet, was dogged,
+and somewhat savage.
+
+'Give it me, then,' said Mervyn, expecting a note, and extending his
+hand.
+
+'I've nothing for your hand, Sir, 'tis for your ear,' said he.
+
+'From whom, then, and what?' said Mervyn, growing impatient again.
+
+'I ask your pardon, Mr. Mervyn; I have a good deal to do, back and
+forward, sometimes early, sometimes late, in the church--Chapelizod
+Church--all alone, Sir; and I often think of you, when I walk over the
+south-side vault.'
+
+'What's your message, I say, Sir, and who sends it,' insisted Mervyn.
+
+'Your father,' answered Irons.
+
+Mervyn looked with a black and wild sort of enquiry on the clerk--was he
+insane or what?--and seemed to swallow down a sort of horror, before his
+anger rose again.
+
+'You're mistaken--my father's dead,' he said, in a fierce but agitated
+undertone.
+
+'He's dead, Sir--yes,' said his saturnine visitor, with the same faint
+smile and cynical quietude.
+
+'Speak out, Sirrah; whom do you come from?'
+
+'The late Right Honourable the Lord Viscount Dunoran.' He spoke, as I
+have said, a little thickly, like a man who had drunk his modicum of
+liquor.
+
+'You've been drinking, and you dare to mix my--my father's name with
+your drunken dreams and babble--you wretched sot!'
+
+A cloud passed over the moon just then, and Irons darkened, as if about
+to vanish, like an offended apparition. But it was only for a minute,
+and he emerged in the returning light, and spoke--
+
+'A naggin of whiskey, at the Salmon House, to raise my heart before I
+came here. I'm not drunk--that's sure.' He answered, quite unmoved, like
+one speaking to himself.
+
+'And--why--what can you mean by speaking of him?' repeated Mervyn,
+unaccountably agitated.
+
+'I speak _for_ him, Sir, by your leave. Suppose he greets you with a
+message--and you don't care to hear it?'
+
+'You're mad,' said Mervyn, with an icy stare, to whom the whole colloquy
+began to shape itself into a dream.
+
+'Belike _you're_ mad, Sir,' answered Irons, in a grim, ugly tone, but
+with face unmoved. ''Twas not a light matter brought me here--a
+message--there--well!--your right honourable father, that lies in lead
+and oak, without a name on his coffin-lid, would have you to know that
+what he said was--as it should be--and I can prove it--'
+
+'What?--he said _what?_--what is it?--what can you prove? Speak out,
+Sirrah!' and his eyes shone white in the moonlight, and his hand was
+advanced towards Irons's throat, and he looked half beside himself, and
+trembling all over.
+
+'Put down your hand or you hear no more from me,' said Irons, also a
+little transformed.
+
+Mervyn silently lowered his hand clenched by his side, and, with
+compressed lips, nodded an impatient sign to him.
+
+'Yes, Sir, he'd have you to understand he never did it, and I can prove
+it--_but I won't!_'
+
+That moment, something glittered in Mervyn's hand, and he strode towards
+Irons, overturning a chair with a crash.
+
+'I have you--come on and you're a dead man,' said the clerk, in a hoarse
+voice, drawing into the deep darkness toward the door, with the dull
+gleam of a pistol-barrel just discernible in his extended hand.
+
+'Stay--don't go,' cried Mervyn, in a piercing voice; 'I conjure--I
+implore--whatever you are, come back--see, I'm unarmed,' (and he flung
+his sword back toward the window).
+
+'You young gentlemen are always for drawing upon poor bodies--how would
+it have gone if I had not looked to myself, Sir, and come furnished?'
+said Irons, in his own level tone.
+
+'I don't know--I don't _care_--I don't care if I were dead. Yes, yes,
+'tis true, I almost wish he had shot me.'
+
+'Mind, Sir, you're on honour,' said the clerk, in his old tone, as he
+glided slowly back, his right hand in his coat pocket, and his eye with
+a quiet suspicion fixed upon Mervyn, and watching his movements.
+
+'I don't know what or who you are, but if ever you knew what human
+feeling is--I say, if you are anything at all capable of compassion, you
+will kill me at a blow rather than trifle any longer with the terrible
+hope that has been my torture--I believe my insanity, all my life.'
+
+'Well, Sir,' said Irons, mildly, and with that serene suspicion of a
+smile on his face, 'if you wish to talk to me you must take me
+different; for, to say truth, I was nearer killing you that time than
+you were aware, and all the time I mean you no harm! and yet, if I
+thought you were going to say to anybody living, Zekiel Irons, the
+clerk, was here on Tuesday night, I believe I'd shoot you now.'
+
+'You wish your visit secret? well, you have my honour, no one living
+shall hear of it,' said Mervyn. 'Go on.'
+
+'I've little to say, your honour; but, first, do you think your servants
+heard the noise just now?'
+
+'The old woman's deaf, and her daughter dare not stir after night-fall.
+You need fear no interruption.'
+
+'Ay, I know; the house is haunted, they say, but dead men tell no tales.
+'Tis the living I fear, I thought it would be darker--the clouds broke
+up strangely; 'tis as much as my life's worth to me to be seen near this
+Tyled House; and never you speak to me nor seem to know me when you
+chance to meet me, do you mind, Sir? I'm bad enough myself, but there's
+some that's worse.'
+
+'Tis agreed, there shall be no recognition,' answered Mervyn.
+
+'There's them watching me that can see in the clouds, or the running
+waters, what you're thinking of a mile away, that can move as soft as
+ghosts, and can gripe as hard as hell, when need is. So be patient for a
+bit--I gave you the message--I tell you 'tis true; and as to my proving
+it at present, I can, you see, and I can't; but the hour is coming, only
+be patient, and swear, Sir, upon your soul and honour, that you won't
+let me come to perdition by reason of speaking the truth.'
+
+'On my soul and honour, I mean it,' answered Mervyn. 'Go on.'
+
+'Nor ever tell, high or low, rich or poor, man, woman, or child, that I
+came here; because--no matter.'
+
+'That I promise, too; for Heaven's sake go on.'
+
+'If you please, Sir, no, not a word more till the time comes,' answered
+Irons; 'I'll go as I came.' And he shoved up the window-sash and got out
+lightly upon the grass, and glided away among the gigantic old
+fruit-trees, and was lost before a minute.
+
+Perhaps he came intending more. He had seemed for a while to have made
+up his mind, Mervyn thought, to a full disclosure, and then he
+hesitated, and, on second thoughts, drew back. Barren and tantalising,
+however, as was this strange conference, it was yet worth worlds, as
+indicating the quarter from which information might ultimately be hoped
+for.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI.
+
+IN WHICH THE RECTOR COMES HOME, AND LILY SPEAKS HER MIND, AND TIME
+GLIDES ON, AND AUNT REBECCA CALLS AT THE ELMS.
+
+
+Next morning, punctual at the early breakfast-hour of those days, the
+cheery voice of the old rector was heard at the garden rails that
+fronted the house, and out ran Tom Clinton, from the stable-yard, and
+bid his 'raverence,' with homely phrase, and with a pleasant grin,
+'welcome home,' and held his bridle and stirrup, while the parson, with
+a kind smile, and half a dozen enquiries, and the air of a man who,
+having made a long journey and a distant sojourn, expands on beholding
+old faces and the sights of home again; he had been away, to be sure,
+only one night and a part of a day, but his heart clave to his home and
+his darling; and Lilias ran to the garden gate to meet him, with her old
+smile and greeting, it seemed fonder and more tender than ever, and then
+they kissed and hugged and kissed again, and he patted her cheek and
+thought she looked a little pale, but would not say anything just then
+that was not altogether cheerful; and so they stepped up the two or
+three yards of gravel walk--she at his right side, with her right hand
+in his and her left clinging by his arm, and nestling close by his side,
+and leading him up to the house like a beloved captive.
+
+And so at breakfast he narrated all his adventures, and told who were at
+the dinner party, and described two fine ladies' dresses--for the doctor
+had skill in millinery, though it was as little known as Don Quixote's
+talent for making bird-cages and tooth-picks, confided, as we remember,
+in one of his conversations with honest Sancho, under the cork trees. He
+told her his whole innocent little budget of gossip, in his own simple,
+pleasant way; and his little Lily sat looking on her beloved old man,
+and smiling, but saying little, and her eyes often filling with tears;
+and he looked, when he chanced to see it--wistfully and sadly for an
+instant, but he made no remark.
+
+And sometime after, as she happened to pass the study-door, he called
+her--'Little Lily, come here.' And in she came; and there was the
+doctor, all alone and erect before his bookshelves, plucking down a
+volume here, and putting up one there, and--
+
+'Shut the door, little Lily,' said he gently and cheerily, going on with
+his work. 'I had a letter yesterday evening, my darling, from Captain
+Devereux, and he tells me that he's very much attached to you; and I
+don't wonder at his being in love with little Lily--he could not help
+it.' And he laughed fondly, and was taking down a volume that rather
+stuck in its place, so he could not turn to look at her; for, the truth
+was, he supposed she was blushing, and could not bear to add to her
+confusion; and he, though he continued his homely work, and clapped the
+sides of his books together, and blew on their tops, and went so simply
+and plainly to the point, was flushed and very nervous himself; for,
+though he thought of her marriage at some time or another as a thing
+that was to be, still it had seemed a long way off. And now, now it was
+come, and little Lily was actually going to be married--going away--and
+her place would know her no more; and her greeting and her music would
+be missed in the evening, and the garden lonely, and the Elms dark,
+without Lily.
+
+'And he wants to marry my little Lily, if she'll have him. And what does
+my darling wish me to say to him?' and he spoke very cheerily.
+
+'My darling, _you're_ my darling; and your little Lily will never, never
+leave you. She'll stay.' And here the little speech stopped, for she was
+crying, with her arms about his neck; and the old man cried, too, and
+smiled over her, and patted her gracious head, with a little trembling
+laugh, and said, 'God bless you, my treasure.'
+
+'Well, little Lily, will you have him?' he said, after a little pause.
+
+'No, my darling, no!' she answered, still crying.
+
+'You _won't_ have him?'
+
+'No--no--never!'
+
+'Well, little Lily, I won't answer his letter to-day; there's no hurry,
+you know. And, if you are of the same mind to-morrow, you can just say
+you wish me to write.'
+
+'Change, I can't; my answer will always be the same--always the same.'
+
+And she kissed him again, and went toward the door; but she turned back,
+drying her eyes, with a smile, and said--
+
+'No, your little Lily will stay with her darling old man, and be a
+pleasant old maid, like Aunt Becky: and I'll play and sing your
+favourite airs, and Sally and I will keep the house; and we'll be
+happier in the Elms, I'm determined, than ever we were--and won't you
+call me, darling, when you're going out?'
+
+So little Lily ran away, and up stairs; and as she left the study and
+its beloved tenant, at every step the air seemed to darken round her,
+and her heart to sink. And she turned the key in her door, and threw
+herself on the bed; and, with her face to the pillow, cried as if her
+heart would break.
+
+So the summer had mellowed into autumn, and the fall of the leaf, and
+Devereux did not return; and, it was alleged in the club, on good
+authority, that he was appointed on the staff of the Commander of the
+Forces; and Puddock had a letter from him, dated in England, with little
+or no news in it; and Dr. Walsingham had a long epistle from Malaga,
+from honest Dan Loftus, full of Spanish matter for Irish history, and
+stating, with many regrets, that his honourable pupil had taken ill of a
+fever. And this bit of news speedily took wind, and was discussed with a
+good deal of interest, and some fun, at the club; and the odds were
+freely given and taken upon the event.
+
+The politics of Belmont were still pretty much in the old position. The
+general had not yet returned, and Aunt Rebecca and Gertrude fought
+pitched battles, as heretofore, on the subject of Dangerfield. That
+gentleman had carried so many points in his life by simply waiting, that
+he was nothing daunted by the obstacles which the caprice of the young
+lady presented to the immediate accomplishment of his plans. And those
+which he once deliberately formed, were never abandoned for trifles.
+
+So when Aunt Becky and Miss Gertrude at length agreed on an
+armistice--the conditions being that the question of Mr. Dangerfield's
+bliss or misery was to stand over for judgment until the general's
+return, which could not now be deferred more than two or three
+weeks--the amorous swain, on being apprised of the terms by Aunt
+Rebecca, acquiesced with alacrity, in a handsome, neat, and gallant
+little speech, and kissed Aunt Rebecca's slender and jewelled hand, with
+a low bow and a grim smile, all which she received very graciously.
+
+Of course, Dangerfield knew pretty well how matters stood; he was not a
+man to live in a dream; facts were his daily bread. He knew to a month
+how old he was, and pretty exactly how time had dealt with his personal
+charms. He had a very exact and cynical appreciation of the terms on
+which Miss Chattesworth would--if at all--become and continue to be his
+wife. But he wanted her--she suited him exactly, and all he needed to
+make his kingdom sure, when he had obtained her, was his legal rights.
+He was no Petruchio; neither was it his theory to rule by love. He had a
+different way. Without bluster, and without wheedling, he had the art of
+making those who were under his rule perfectly submissive; sooner or
+later they all came to fear him as a child does a spectre. He had no
+misgivings about the peace of his household.
+
+In the meantime Gertrude grew happier and more like herself, and Aunt
+Rebecca had her own theories about the real state of that young lady's
+affections, and her generally unsuspected relations with others.
+
+Aunt Rebecca called at the Elms to see Lilias Walsingham, and sat down
+beside her on the sofa.
+
+'Lily, child, you're not looking yourself. I'll send you some drops. You
+must positively nurse yourself. I'm almost sorry I did not bring Dr.
+Toole.'
+
+'Indeed I'm glad you did not, Aunt Becky; I take excellent care of
+myself. I have not been out for three whole days.'
+
+'And you must not budge, darling, while this east wind continues. D'ye
+mind? And what do you think, my dear, I do believe I've discovered the
+secret reason of Gertrude's repugnance to Mr. Dangerfield's most
+advantageous offer.'
+
+'Oh, indeed!' said Lily, becoming interested.
+
+'Well, I suppose you suspected she _had_ a secret?' said Aunt Rebecca.
+
+'I can only say, dear Aunt Becky, she has not told it to _me_.'
+
+'Now, listen to me, my dear,' said Aunt Becky, laying her fan upon
+Lily's arm. 'So sure as you sit there, Gertrude likes somebody, and I
+think I shall soon know who he is. Can you conjecture, my dear?' And
+Aunt Rebecca paused, looking, Lilias thought, rather pale, and with a
+kind of smile too.
+
+'No,' said Lilias; 'no, I really can't.'
+
+'Well, maybe when I tell you I've reason to think he's one of our
+officers here. Eh? Can you guess?' said Aunt Becky, holding her fan to
+her mouth, and looking straight before her.
+
+It was now Lily's turn to look pale for a moment, and then to blush so
+much that her ears tingled, and her eyes dropped to the carpet. She had
+time to recover, though, for Aunt Becky, as I've said, was looking
+straight before her, a little pale, awaiting the result of Lily's
+presumed ruminations. A moment satisfied her it could not be Devereux,
+and she was soon quite herself again.
+
+'An officer! no, Aunt Becky--there certainly is Captain Cluffe, who
+always joins your party when you and Gertrude go down to hear the band,
+and Lieutenant Puddock, too, who does the same--but you know--'
+
+'Well, my dear, all in good time. Gertrude's very secret, and proud too;
+but I shall know very soon. I've ascertained, my dear, that an officer
+came under the window the other evening, and sang a verse of a French
+chanson, from the meadow, in a cloak, if you please, with a guitar. I
+could name his name, my dear--'
+
+'Do pray tell me,' said Lily, whose curiosity was all alive.
+
+'Why--a--not yet, my dear,' answered Aunt Becky, looking down; 'there
+are--there's a reason--but the affair, I may tell you, began, in
+earnest, on the very day on which she refused Mr. Mervyn. But I forgot
+you did not know _that_ either--however, you'll never mention it.' And
+she kissed her cheek, calling her 'my wise little Lily.'
+
+'And my dear, it has been going on so regularly ever since, with, till
+very lately, so little disguise, that I only wonder everybody doesn't
+see it as plain as I do myself; and Lily, my dear,' continued Aunt
+Rebecca, energetically, rising from the sofa, as some object caught her
+eye through the glass-door in the garden, 'your beautiful roses are all
+trailing in the mud. What on earth is Hogan about? and there, see, just
+at the door, a boxful of nails!--I'd nail his ear to the wall if he were
+mine,' and Aunt Rebecca glanced sharply through the glass, this way and
+that, for the offending gardener, who, happily, did not appear. Then
+off went Aunt Becky to something else; and in a little time remembered
+the famous academy in Martin's-row, and looking at her watch, took her
+leave in a prodigious hurry, and followed by Dominick, in full livery,
+and two dogs, left Lilias again to the society of her own sad thoughts.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII.
+
+IN WHICH DR. STURK TRIES THIS WAY AND THAT FOR A REPRIEVE ON THE EVE OF
+EXECUTION.
+
+
+So time crept on, and the day arrived when Sturk must pay his rent, or
+take the ugly consequences. The day before he spent in Dublin
+financiering. It was galling and barren work. He had to ask favours of
+fellows whom he hated, and to stand their refusals, and pretend to
+believe their lying excuses, and appear to make quite light of it,
+though every failure stunned him like a blow of a bludgeon, and as he
+strutted jauntily off with a bilious smirk, he was well nigh at his
+wits' end. It was dark as he rode out by the low road to
+Chapelizod--crest-fallen, beaten--scowling in the darkness through his
+horse's ears along the straight black line of road, and wishing, as he
+passed the famous Dog-house, that he might be stopped and plundered, and
+thus furnished with a decent excuse for his penniless condition, and a
+plea in which all the world would sympathise for a short
+indulgence--and, faith! he did not much care if they sent a bullet
+through his harassed brain. But the highwaymen, like the bankers, seemed
+to know, by instinct, that he had not a guinea, and declined to give him
+even the miserable help he coveted.
+
+When he got home he sent down for Cluffe to the Phoenix, and got him
+to take Nutter, who was there also, aside, and ask him for a little
+time, or to take part of the rent. Though the latter would not have
+helped him much; for he could not make out ten pounds just then, were it
+to save his life. But Nutter only said--
+
+'The rent's not mine; I can't give it or lose it; and Sturk's not safe.
+Will _you_ lend it? _I_ can't.'
+
+This brought Cluffe to reason. He had opened the business, like a jolly
+companion, in a generous, full-blooded way.
+
+'Well, by Jove, Nutter, I can't blame you; for you see, between
+ourselves, I'm afraid 'tis as you say. We of the Royal Irish have done,
+under the rose, you know, all we can; and I'm sorry the poor devil has
+run himself into a scrape; but hang it, we must have a conscience; and
+if you think there's a risk of losing it, why I don't see that I can
+press you.
+
+The reader must not suppose when Cluffe said, 'we of the Royal Irish,'
+in connection with some pecuniary kindness shown to Sturk, that that
+sensible captain had given away any of his money to the surgeon; but
+Sturk, in their confidential conference, had hinted something about a
+'helping hand,' which Cluffe coughed off, and mentioned that Puddock had
+lent him fifteen pounds the week before.
+
+And so he had, though little Puddock was one of the poorest officers in
+the corps. But he had no vices, and husbanded his little means
+carefully, and was very kindly and off-hand in assisting to the extent
+of his little purse a brother in distress, and never added advice when
+so doing--for he had high notions of politeness--or, in all his life,
+divulged any of these little money transactions.
+
+Sturk stood at his drawing-room window, with his hat on, looking towards
+the Phoenix, and waiting for Cluffe's return. When he could stand the
+suspense no longer, he went down and waited at his door-steps. And the
+longer Cluffe stayed the more did Sturk establish himself in the
+conviction that the interview had prospered, and that his ambassador was
+coming to terms with Nutter. He did not know that the entire question
+had been settled in a minute-and-a-half, and that Cluffe was at that
+moment rattling away at backgammon with his arch-enemy, Toole, in a
+corner of the club parlour.
+
+It was not till Cluffe, as he emerged from the Phoenix, saw Sturk's
+figure stalking in the glimpses of the moon, under the village elm, that
+he suddenly recollected and marched up to him. Sturk stood, with his
+face and figure mottled over with the shadows of the moving leaves and
+the withered ones dropping about him, his hands in his pockets, and a
+crown-piece--I believe it was his last available coin just then--shut up
+fast and tight in his cold fingers, with his heart in his mouth, and
+whistling a little to show his unconcern.
+
+'Well,' said Sturk, 'he won't, of course?'
+
+Cluffe shook his head.
+
+'Very good--I'll manage it another way,' said Sturk, confidently.
+'Good-night;' and Sturk walked off briskly towards the turnpike.
+
+'He might have said "thank you," I think,' Cluffe said, looking after
+him with a haughty leer--'mixing myself up in his plaguy affairs, and
+asking favours of fellows like Nutter.' But just then, having reached
+the corner next the Phoenix, Sturk hesitated, and Cluffe, thinking he
+might possibly turn back and ask him for money, turned on his heel, and,
+like a prudent fellow, trudged rapidly off to his lodgings.
+
+Toole and O'Flaherty were standing in the doorway of the Phoenix,
+observing the brief and secret meeting under the elm.
+
+'That's Sturk,' said Toole.
+
+O'Flaherty grunted acquiescence.
+
+Toole watched attentively till the gentlemen separated, and then
+glancing on O'Flaherty from the corner of his eye, with a knowing smile,
+'tipped him the wink,' as the phrase went in those days.
+
+'An affair of honour?' said O'Flaherty, squaring himself. He smelt
+powder in everything.
+
+'More like an affair of _dishonour_,' said Toole, buttoning his coat.
+'He's been "kiting" all over the town. Nutter can distrain for his rent
+to-morrow, and Cluffe called him outside the bar to speak with him; put
+that and that together, Sir.' And home went Toole.
+
+Sturk, indeed, had no plan, and was just then incapable of forming any.
+He changed his route, not knowing why, and posted over the bridge, and a
+good way along the Inchicore road, and then turned about and strode back
+again and over the bridge, without stopping, and on towards Dublin; and
+suddenly the moon shone out, and he recollected how late it was growing,
+and so turned about and walked homeward.
+
+As he passed by the row of houses looking across the road towards the
+river, from Mr. Irons's hall-door step a well-known voice accosted him--
+
+'A thweet night, doctor--the moon tho thilver bright--the air tho
+thoft!'
+
+It was little Puddock, whose hand and face were raised toward the sweet
+regent of the sky.
+
+'Mighty fine night,' said Sturk, and he paused for a second. It was
+Puddock's way to be more than commonly friendly and polite with any man
+who owed him money; and Sturk, who thought, perhaps rightly, that the
+world of late had been looking cold and black upon him, felt, in a sort
+of way, thankful for the greeting and its cordial tone.
+
+'A night like this,' pursued the little lieutenant, 'my dear Sir, brings
+us under the marble balconies of the palace of the Capulets, and sets us
+repeating "On such a night sat Dido on the wild seabanks"--you
+remember--"and with a willow wand, waved her love back to Carthage,"--or
+places us upon the haunted platform, where buried Denmark revisits the
+glimpses of the moon. My dear doctor, 'tis wonderful--isn't it--how much
+of our enjoyment of Nature we owe to Shakespeare--'twould be a changed
+world with us, doctor, if Shakespeare had not written--' Then there was
+a little pause, Sturk standing still.
+
+'God be wi' ye, lieutenant,' said he, suddenly taking his hand. 'If
+there were more men like you there would be fewer broken hearts in the
+world.' And away went Sturk.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII.
+
+SHOWING HOW CHARLES NUTTER'S BLOW DESCENDED, AND WHAT PART THE SILVER
+SPECTACLES BORE IN THE CRISIS.
+
+
+In the morning the distress and keepers were in Sturk's house.
+
+We must not be too hard upon Nutter. 'Tis a fearful affair, and no
+child's play, this battle of life. Sturk had assailed him like a beast
+of prey; not Nutter, to be sure, only Lord Castlemallard's agent. Of
+that functionary his wolfish instinct craved the flesh, bones, and
+blood. Sturk had no other way to live and grow fat. Nutter or he must go
+down. The little fellow saw his great red maw and rabid fangs at his
+throat. If he let him off, he would devour him, and lie in his bed, with
+his cap on, and his caudles and cordials all round, as the wolf did by
+Little Red Riding Hood's grandmamma; and with the weapon which had come
+to hand--a heavy one too,--he was going, with Heaven's help, to deal him
+a brainblow.
+
+When Sturk heard in the morning that the blow was actually struck, he
+jumped out of bed, and was taken with a great shivering fit, sitting on
+the side of it. Little Mrs. Sturk, as white as her nightcap with terror,
+was yet decisive in emergency, and bethought her of the brandy bottle,
+two glasses from which the doctor swallowed before his teeth gave over
+chattering, and a more natural tint returned to his blue face.
+
+'Oh! Barney, dear, are we ruined?' faltered poor little Mrs. Sturk.
+
+'Ruined, indeed!' cried Sturk, with an oath, 'Come in here.' He thought
+his study was on the same floor with his bed-room, as it had been in old
+times in their house in Limerick, ten or twelve years before.
+
+'That's the nursery, Barney, dear,' she said, thinking, in the midst of
+the horror, like a true mother, of the children's sleep.
+
+Then he remembered and ran down to the study, and pulled out a sheaf of
+bills and promissory notes, and renewals thereof, making a very
+respectable show.
+
+'Ruined, indeed!' he cried, hoarsely, talking to his poor little wife in
+the tones and with the ferocity which the image of Nutter; with which
+his brain was filled, called up. 'Look, I say, here's one fellow owes me
+that--and that--and that--and there--there's a dozen in that by
+another--there's two more sets there pinned together--and here's an
+account of them all--two thousand two hundred--and you may say three
+hundred--two thousand three hundred--owed me here; and that miscreant
+won't give me a day.'
+
+'Is it the rent, Barney?'
+
+'The rent? To be sure; what else should it be?' shouted the doctor, with
+a stamp.
+
+And so pale little Mrs. Sturk stole out of the room, as her lord with
+bitter mutterings pitched his treasure of bad bills back again into the
+escritoire: and she heard him slam the study door and run down stairs to
+browbeat and curse the men in the hall, for he had lost his head
+somewhat, between panic and fury. He was in his stockings and slippers,
+with an old flowered silk dressing-gown, and nothing more but his shirt,
+and looked, they said, like a madman. One of the fellows was smoking,
+and Sturk snatched the pipe from his mouth, and stamped it to atoms on
+the floor, roaring at them to know what the ---- brought them there; and
+without a pause for an answer, thundered, 'And I suppose you'll not let
+me take my box of instruments out of the house--mind, it's worth fifty
+pounds; and curse me, if one of our men dies for want of them in
+hospital, I'll indict you both, and your employer along with you, _for
+murder!_' And so he railed on, till his voice failed him with a sort of
+choking, and there was a humming in his ears, and a sort of numbness in
+his head, and he thought he was going to have a fit; and then up the
+stairs he went again, and into his study, and resolved to have Nutter
+out--and it flashed upon him that he'd say, 'Pay the rent first;' and
+then--what next? why he'd post him all over Dublin, and Chapelizod, and
+Leixlip, where the Lord Lieutenant and Court were.
+
+And down he sat to a sheet of paper, with his left hand clenched on the
+table, and his teeth grinding together, as he ransacked his vocabulary
+for befitting terms; but alas, his right hand shook so that his
+penmanship would not do, in fact, it half frightened him. 'By my soul! I
+believe something bad has happened me,' he muttered, and popped up his
+window, and looked out, half dreaming over the church-yard on the park
+beyond, and the dewy overhanging hill, all pleasantly lighted up in the
+morning sun.
+
+While this was going on, little Mrs. Sturk, who on critical occasions
+took strong resolutions promptly, made a wonderfully rapid toilet, and
+let herself quietly out of the street door. She had thought of Dr.
+Walsingham; but Sturk had lately, in one of his imperious freaks of
+temper, withdrawn his children from the good doctor's catechetical
+class, and sent him besides, one of his sturdy, impertinent notes--and
+the poor little woman concluded there was no chance there. She knew
+little of the rector--of the profound humility and entire placability of
+that noble soul.
+
+Well, she took the opposite direction, and turning her back on the town,
+walked at her quickest pace toward the Brass Castle. It was not eight
+o'clock yet, but the devil had been up betimes and got through a good
+deal of his day's work, as we have seen. The poor little woman had made
+up her mind to apply to Dangerfield. She had liked his talk at Belmont,
+where she had met him; and he enquired about the poor, and listened to
+some of her woful tales with a great deal of sympathy; and she knew he
+was very rich, and that he appreciated her Barney, and so she trudged
+on, full of hope, though I don't think many people who knew the world
+better would have given a great deal for her chance.
+
+Dangerfield received the lady very affably, in his little parlour, where
+having already despatched his early meal, he was writing letters. He
+looked hard at her when she came in, and again when she sat down; and
+when she had made an end of her long and dismal tale, he opened a sort
+of strong box, and took out a thin quarto and read, turning the leaves
+rapidly over.
+
+'Ay, here we have him--Chapelizod--Sturk, Barnabas--Surgeon, R.I.A.,
+assignee of John Lowe--hey! one gale day, as you call it,
+only!--September. How came that? Rent, £40. Why, then, he owes a whole
+year's rent, £40, Ma'am. September, and his days of grace have expired.
+He ought to have paid it.'
+
+Here there came a dreadful pause, during which nothing was heard but the
+sharp ticking of his watch on the table.
+
+'Well, Ma'am,' he said, 'when a thing comes before me, I say yes or no
+promptly. I like your husband, and I'll lend him the amount of his
+rent.'
+
+Poor little Mrs. Sturk jumped up in an ecstasy, and then felt quite
+sick, and sat down almost fainting, with a deathlike smile.
+
+'There's but one condition I attach, that you tell me truly, my dear
+Ma'am, whether you came to me directly or indirectly at his suggestion.'
+
+No, indeed, she had not; it was all her own thought; she had not dared
+to mention it to him, lest he should forbid her, and now she should be
+almost afraid to tell him where she had been.
+
+'He'll not be very angry, depend on't, my good Madam; you did wisely in
+coming to me. I respect your sense and energy; and should you hereafter
+stand in need of a friendly office, I beg you'll remember once who is
+disposed to help you.'
+
+Then he sat down and wrote with a flying pen--
+
+     'MY DEAR SIR,--I have just learned from Mrs. Sturk that
+     you have an immediate concern for forty pounds, to which, I venture
+     to surmise, will be added some fees, etc. I take leave, therefore,
+     to send herewith fifty guineas, which I trust will suffice for this
+     troublesome affair. We can talk hereafter about repayment. Mrs.
+     Sturk has handed me a memorandum of the advance.
+
+                                  'Your very obedient, humble servant,
+                                           GILES DANGERFIELD.
+     The Brass Castle, Chapelizod,
+        '2nd October, 1767.'
+
+Then poor little Mrs. Sturk was breaking out into a delirium of
+gratitude. But he put his hand upon her arm kindly, and with a little
+bow and an emphasis, he said--
+
+'Pray, not a _word_, my dear Madam. Just write a line;' and he slid his
+desk before her with a sheet of paper on it; 'and say Mr. Dangerfield
+has this day handed me a loan of fifty guineas for my husband, Doctor
+Barnabas Sturk. Now sign, if you please, and add the date. Very good!'
+
+'I'm afraid you can hardly read it--my fingers tremble a little,' said
+Mrs. Sturk, with a wild little deprecatory titter, and for the first
+time very near crying.
+
+''Tis mighty well,' said Dangerfield, politely; and he accompanied the
+lady with the note and fifty guineas, made up in a little rouleau, fast
+in her hand, across his little garden, and with--'A fine morning truly,'
+and 'God bless you, Madam,' and one of his peculiar smiles, he let her
+out through his little wicket on the high road. And so away went Mrs.
+Sturk, scarce feeling the ground under her feet; and Giles Dangerfield,
+carrying his white head very erect, with an approving conscience, and
+his silver spectacles flashing through the leaves of his lilacs and
+laburnums, returned to his parlour.
+
+Mrs. Sturk, who could hardly keep from running, glided along at a
+wonderful rate, wondering now and then how quickly the whole affair--so
+awful as it seemed to her in magnitude--was managed. Dangerfield had
+neither hurried her nor himself, and yet he despatched the matter and
+got her away in less than five minutes.
+
+In little more than a quarter of an hour after, Dr. Sturk descended his
+door-steps in full costume, and marched down the street and passed the
+artillery barrack, from his violated fortress, as it were, with colours
+flying, drums beating, and ball in mouth. He paid the money down at
+Nutter's table, in the small room at the Phoenix, where he sat in the
+morning to receive his rents, eyeing the agent with a fixed smirk of
+hate and triumph, and telling down each piece on the table with a fierce
+clink that had the ring of a curse in it. Little Nutter met his stare of
+suppressed fury with an eye just as steady and malign and a countenance
+blackened by disappointment. Not a word was heard but Sturk's insolent
+tone counting the gold at every clang on the table.
+
+Nutter shoved him a receipt across the table, and swept the gold into
+his drawer.
+
+'Go over, Tom,' he said to the bailiff, in a stern low tone, 'and see
+the men don't leave the house till the fees are paid.'
+
+And Sturk laughed a very pleasant laugh, you may be sure, over his
+shoulder at Nutter, as he went out at the door.
+
+When he was gone Nutter stood up, and turned his face toward the empty
+grate. I have seen some plain faces once or twice look so purely
+spiritual, and others at times so infernal, as to acquire in their
+homeliness a sort of awful grandeur; and from every feature of Nutter's
+dark wooden face was projected at that moment a supernatural glare of
+baffled hatred that dilated to something almost sublime.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV.
+
+RELATING HOW, IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT, A VISION CAME TO STURK, AND
+HIS EYES WERE OPENED.
+
+
+Sturk's triumph was only momentary. He was in ferocious spirits, indeed,
+over the breakfast-table, and bolted quantities of buttered toast and
+eggs, swallowed cups of tea, one after the other, almost at a single
+gulp, all the time gabbling with a truculent volubility, and every now
+and then a thump, which made his spoon jingle in his saucer, and poor,
+little Mrs. Sturk start, and whisper, 'Oh, my dear!' But after he had
+done defying and paying off the whole world, and showing his wife, and
+half convincing himself, that he was the cleverest and finest fellow
+alive, a letter was handed to him, which reminded him, in a dry, short
+way, of those most formidable and imminent dangers that rose up,
+apparently insurmountable before him; and he retired to his study to
+ruminate again, and chew the cud of bitter fancy, and to write letters
+and tear them to pieces, and, finally, as was his wont, after hospital
+hours, to ride into Dublin, to bore his attorney with barren inventions
+and hopeless schemes of extrication.
+
+Sturk came home that night with a hang-dog and jaded look, and taciturn
+and half desperate. But he called for whiskey, and drank a glass of that
+cordial, and brewed a jug of punch in silence, and swallowed glass after
+glass, and got up a little, and grew courageous and flushed, and prated
+away, rather loud and thickly with a hiccough now and then, and got to
+sleep earlier than usual.
+
+Somewhere among the 'small hours' of the night he awoke suddenly,
+recollecting something.
+
+'I have it,' cried Sturk, with an oath, and an involuntary kick at the
+foot-board, that made his slumbering helpmate bounce.
+
+'What is it, Barney, dear?' squalled she, diving under the bed-clothes,
+with her heart in her mouth.
+
+'It's like a revelation,' cried Sturk, with another oath; and that was
+all Mrs. Sturk heard of it for some time. But the surgeon was wide
+awake, and all alive about it, whatever it was. He sat straight up in
+the bed, with his lips energetically compressed, and his eyebrows
+screwed together, and his shrewd, hard eyes rolling thoughtfully over
+the curtains, in the dark, and now and then an ejaculation of wonder,
+or a short oath, would slowly rise up, and burst from his lips, like a
+great bubble from the fermentation.
+
+Sturk's brain was in a hubbub. He had fifty plans, all jostling and
+clamouring together, like a nursery of unruly imps--'Take _me_'--'No,
+take _me_'--'No, _me_!' He had been dreaming like mad, and his sensorium
+was still all alive with the images of fifty phantasmagoria, filled up
+by imagination and conjecture, and a strange, painfully-sharp
+remembrance of things past--all whirling in a carnival of roystering but
+dismal riot--masks and dice, laughter, maledictions, and drumming, fair
+ladies, tipsy youths, mountebanks, and assassins: tinkling serenades,
+the fatal clang and rattle of the dice-box, and long drawn, distant
+screams.
+
+There was no more use in Sturk's endeavours to reduce all this to order,
+than in reading the Riot Act to a Walpurgis gathering. So he sat
+muttering unconscious ejaculations, and looking down, as it were, from
+his balcony, waiting for the uproar to abate; and when the air did clear
+and cool a little, there was just one face that remained impassive, and
+serenely winked before his eyes.
+
+When things arrived at this stage, and he had gathered his recollections
+about him, and found himself capable of thinking, being a man of action,
+up he bounced and struck a light, vaulted into his breeches, hauled on
+his stockings, hustled himself into his roquelaure, and, candle in hand,
+in slippered feet, glided, like a ghost, down stairs to the back
+drawing-room, which, as we know, was his study.
+
+The night was serene and breathless. The sky had cleared, and the
+moonlight slept mistily on the soft slopes of the park. The landscape
+was a febrifuge, and cooled and quieted his brain as he stood before it
+at his open window, in solitary meditation. It was not till his slowly
+wandering eye lighted on the churchyard, with a sort of slight shock,
+that he again bestirred himself.
+
+There it lay, with its white tombstones and its shadows spread under
+him, seeming to say--'Ay, here I am; the narrow goal of all your plans.
+Not one of the glimmering memorials you see that does not cover what
+once was a living world of long-headed schemes, chequered remembrances,
+and well-kept secrets. Here lie your brother plotters, all in bond, only
+some certain inches below; with their legs straight and their arms by
+their sides, as when grim Captain DEATH called the stern word
+"attention!" with their sightless faces and unthinking foreheads turned
+up to the moon. Dr. Sturk, there are lots of places for you to choose
+among--suit yourself--here--or here--or maybe here.'
+
+And so Sturk closed the window and remembered his dream, and looked out
+stealthily but sternly from the door, which was ajar, and shut it
+sharply, and with his hands in his breeches' pockets, took a quick turn
+to the window; his soul had got into harness again, and he was busy
+thinking. Then he snuffed the candle, and then quickened his invention
+by another brisk turn; and then he opened his desk, and sat down to
+write a note.
+
+'Yes,' said he to himself, pausing for a minute, with his pen in his
+fingers, ''tis as certain as that I sit here.'
+
+Well, he wrote the note. There was a kind of smile on his face, which
+was paler than usual all the while; and he read it over, and threw
+himself back in his chair, and then read it over again, and did not like
+it, and tore it up.
+
+Then he thought hard for a while, leaning upon his elbow; and took a
+couple of great pinches of snuff, and snuffed his candle again, and, as
+it were, snuffed his wits, and took up his pen with a little flourish,
+and dashed off another, and read it, and liked it, and gave it a little
+sidelong nod, as though he said, 'You'll do;' and, indeed, considering
+all the time and thought he spent upon it, the composition was no great
+wonder, being, after all, no more than this:--
+
+  'DEAR SIR,--Will you give me the honour of a meeting at
+  my house this morning, as you pass through the town? I shall
+  remain within till noon; and hope for some minutes' private discourse
+  with you.
+                   'Your most obedient, very humble servant,
+                                       'BARNABAS STURK.'
+
+Then he sealed it with a great red seal, large enough for a patent
+almost, impressed with the Sturk arms--a boar's head for crest, and a
+flaunting scroll, with 'Dentem fulmineum cave' upon it. Then he peeped
+again from the window to see if the gray of the morning had come, for he
+had left his watch under his bolster, and longed for the time of action.
+
+Then up stairs went Sturk; and so, with the note, like a loaded pistol,
+over the chimney, he popped into bed, where he lay awake in agitating
+rumination, determined to believe that he had seen the last of those
+awful phantoms--those greasy bailiffs--that smooth, smirking, formidable
+attorney; and--curse him--that bilious marshal's deputy, with the
+purplish, pimply tinge about the end of his nose and the tops of his
+cheeks, that beset his bed in a moving ring--this one pushing out a
+writ, and that rumpling open a parchment deed, and the other fumbling
+with his keys, and extending his open palm for the garnish. Avaunt. He
+had found out a charm to rout them all, and they sha'n't now lay a
+finger on him--a short and sharp way to clear himself; and so I believe
+he had.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV.
+
+CONCERNING A LITTLE REHEARSAL IN CAPTAIN CLUFFE'S, LODGING, AND A
+CERTAIN CONFIDENCE BETWEEN DR. STURK AND MR. DANGERFIELD.
+
+
+Mrs. Sturk, though very quiet, was an active little body, with a gentle,
+anxious face. She was up and about very early, and ran down to the
+King's House, to ask Mrs. Colonel Stafford, who was very kind to her,
+and a patroness of Sturk's, to execute a little commission for her in
+Dublin, as she understood she was going into town that day, and the
+doctor's horse had gone lame, and was in the hands of the farrier. So
+the good lady undertook it, and offered a seat in her carriage to Dr.
+Sturk, should his business call him to town. The carriage would be at
+the door at half-past eleven.
+
+And as she trotted home--for her Barney's breakfast-hour was drawing
+nigh--whom should she encounter upon the road, just outside the town,
+but their grim spectacled benefactor, Dangerfield, accompanied by, and
+talking in his usual short way to Nutter, the arch enemy, who, to say
+truth, looked confoundedly black and she heard the silver spectacles
+say, ''Tis, you understand, my own thoughts _only_ I speak, Mr. Nutter.'
+
+The fright and the shock of seeing Nutter so near her, made her
+salutation a little awkward; and she had, besides, an instinctive
+consciousness that they were talking about the terrible affair of
+yesterday. Dangerfield, on meeting her, bid Nutter good-morning
+suddenly, and turned about with Mrs. Sturk, who had to slacken her pace
+a little, for the potent agent chose to walk rather slowly.
+
+'A fine morning after all the rain, Madam. How well the hills look,' and
+he pointed across the Liffey with his cane; 'and the view down the
+river,' and he turned about, pointing towards Inchicore.
+
+I believe he wanted to see how far Nutter was behind them. He was
+walking in the opposite direction, looking down on the kerb-stones of
+the footpath, and touching them with his cane, as if counting them as he
+proceeded. Dangerfield nodded, and his spectacles in the morning sun
+seemed to flash two sudden gleams of lightning after him.
+
+'I've been giving Nutter a bit of my mind, Madam, about that procedure
+of his. He's very angry with me, but a great deal more so with your
+husband, who has my sympathies with him; and I think I'm safe in saying
+he's likely soon to have an offer of employment under my Lord
+Castlemallard, if it suits him.
+
+And he walked on, and talked of other things in short sentences, and
+parted with Mrs. Sturk with a grim brief kindness at the door, and so
+walked with his wiry step away towards the Brass Castle, where his
+breakfast awaited him, and he disappeared round the corner of Martin's
+Row.
+
+'And which way was he going when you met him and that--that _Nutter_?'
+demanded Sturk, who was talking in high excitement, and not being able
+to find an epithet worthy of Nutter, made it up by his emphasis and his
+scowl. She told him.
+
+'H'm! then, he can't have got my note yet!'
+
+She looked at him in a way that plainly said, 'what note?' but Sturk
+said no more, and he had trained her to govern her curiosity.
+
+As Dangerfield passed Captain Cluffe's lodgings, he heard the gay tinkle
+of a guitar, and an amorous duet, not altogether untunefully sung to
+that accompaniment; and he beheld little Lieutenant Puddock's back, with
+a broad scarlet and gold ribbon across it, supporting the instrument on
+which he was industriously thrumming, at the window, while Cluffe, who
+was emitting a high note, with all the tenderness he could throw into
+his robust countenance, and one of those involuntary distortions which
+in amateurs will sometimes accompany a vocal effort, caught the eye of
+the cynical wayfarer, and stopped short with a disconcerted little cough
+and a shake of his chops, and a grim, rather red nod, and 'Good-morning,
+Mr. Dangerfield.' Puddock also saluted, still thrumming a low chord or
+two as he did so, for he was not ashamed, like his stout playmate, and
+saw nothing incongruous in their early minstrelsy.
+
+The fact is, these gallant officers were rehearsing a pretty little
+entertainment they designed for the ladies at Belmont. It was a
+serenade, in short, and they had been compelled to postpone it in
+consequence of the broken weather; and though both gentlemen were, of
+course, romantically devoted to their respective objects, yet there were
+no two officers in his Majesty's service more bent upon making love with
+a due regard to health and comfort than our friends Cluffe and Puddock.
+Puddock, indeed, was disposed to conduct it in the true masquerading
+spirit, leaving the ladies to guess at the authors of that concord of
+sweet sounds with which the amorous air of night was to quiver round the
+walls and groves of Belmont; and Cluffe, externally acquiescing, had yet
+made up his mind, if a decent opportunity presented, to be detected and
+made prisoner, and that the honest troubadours should sup on a hot
+broil, and sip some of the absent general's curious Madeira at the feet
+of their respective mistresses, with all the advantage which a situation
+so romantic and so private would offer.
+
+So 'tinkle, tinkle, twang, twang, THRUM!' went the industrious and
+accomplished Puddock's guitar; and the voices of the enamoured swains
+kept tolerable tune and time; and Puddock would say, 'Don't you think,
+Captain Cluffe, 'twould perhapth go better if we weren't to try that
+shake upon A. Do let's try the last two barth without it;' and 'I'm
+thorry to trouble you, but jutht wonth more, if you pleathe--
+
+  '"But hard ith the chathe my thad heart mutht purthue,
+  While Daphne, thweet Daphne, thtill flieth from my view."'
+
+Puddock, indeed, had strict notions about rehearsing, and, on occasions
+like this, assumed managerial airs, and in a very courteous way took the
+absolute command of Captain Cluffe, who sang till he was purple, and his
+belts and braces cracked again, not venturing to mutiny, though he
+grumbled a little aside.
+
+So when Dangerfield passed Cluffe's lodging again, returning on his way
+into Chapelizod, the songsters were at it still. And he smiled his
+pleasant smile once more, and nodded at poor old Cluffe, who this time
+was very seriously put out, and flushed up quite fiercely, and said,
+almost in a mutiny--
+
+'Hang it, Puddock, I believe you'd keep a fellow singing ballads over
+the street all day. Didn't you see that cursed fellow, Dangerfield,
+sneering at us--curse him--I suppose he never heard a gentleman sing
+before; and, by Jove, Puddock, you know you do make a fellow go over the
+same thing so often it's enough to make a dog laugh.'
+
+A minute after Dangerfield had mounted Sturk's door-steps, and asked to
+see the doctor. He was ushered up stairs and into that back drawing-room
+which we know so well. Sturk rose as he entered.
+
+'Your most obedient, Mr. Dangerfield,' said the doctor, with an anxious
+bow.
+
+'Good-morning, Sir,' said Dangerfield. 'I've got your note, and am here
+in consequence; what can I do?'
+
+Sturk glanced at the door, to see it was shut, and then said--
+
+'Mr. Dangerfield, I've recollected a--_something_.'
+
+'You _have_? ho! Well, my good Sir?'
+
+'You, I know, were acquainted with--with _Charles Archer_?'
+
+Sturk looked for a moment on the spectacles, and then dropped his eyes.
+
+'Charles Archer,' answered Dangerfield promptly, 'yes, to be sure. But,
+Charles, you know, got into trouble, and 'tis not an acquaintance you or
+I can boast of; and, in fact, we must not mention him; and I have long
+ceased to know anything of him.'
+
+'But, I've just remembered his address; and there's something about his
+private history which I very well know, and which gives me a claim upon
+his kind feeling, and he's now in a position to do me a material
+service; and there's no man living, Mr. Dangerfield, has so powerful an
+influence with him as yourself. Will you use it in my behalf, and
+attach me to you by lasting gratitude?'
+
+Sturk looked straight at Dangerfield; and Dangerfield looked at him,
+quizzically, perhaps a little ashamed, in return; after a short pause--
+
+'I _will_,' said Dangerfield, with a sprightly decision. '_But_, you
+know, Charles is not a fellow to be trifled with--hey? and we must not
+mention his name--you understand--or hint where he lives, or anything
+about him, in short.'
+
+'That's plain,' answered Sturk.
+
+'You're going into town, Mrs. Sturk tells me, in Mrs. Strafford's
+carriage. Well, when you return this evening, put down in writing what
+you think Charles can do for you, and I'll take care he considers it.'
+
+'I thank you, Sir,' said Sturk, solemnly.
+
+'And hark ye, you'd better go about your business in town--do you
+see--just as usual; 'twill excite enquiry if you don't; so you must in
+this and other things proceed exactly as I direct you,' said
+Dangerfield.
+
+'Exactly, Sir, depend on't,' answered Sturk.
+
+'Good-day,' said Dangerfield.
+
+'Adieu,' said the doctor; and they shook hands, gravely.
+
+On the lobby Dangerfield encountered Mrs. Sturk, and had a few pleasant
+words with her, patting the bull-heads of the children, and went down
+stairs smiling and nodding; and Mrs. Sturk popped quietly into the
+study, and found her husband leaning on the chimney piece, and swabbing
+his face with his handkerchief--strangely pale--and looking, as the good
+lady afterwards said, for all the world as if he had seen a ghost.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI.
+
+THE CLOSET SCENE, WITH THE PART OF POLONIUS OMITTED.
+
+
+When Magnolia and the major had gone out, each on their several devices,
+poor Mrs. Macnamara called Biddy, their maid, and told her, in a
+vehement, wheezy, confidential whisper in her ear, though there was
+nobody by but themselves, and the door was shut.
+
+'Biddy, now mind--d'ye see--the lady that came to me in the end of
+July--do you remember?--in the black satin--you know?--she'll be here
+to-day, and we're going down together in her coach to Mrs. Nutter's; but
+that does not signify. As soon as she comes, bring her in here, into
+this room--d'ye mind?--and go across that instant minute--d'ye see
+now?--straight to Dr. Toole, and ask him to send me the peppermint drops
+he promised me.'
+
+Then she cross-questioned Biddy, to ascertain that she perfectly
+understood and clearly remembered; and, finally, she promised her
+half-a-crown if she peformed this very simple commission to her
+mistress's satisfaction and held her tongue religiously on the subject.
+She had apprised Toole the evening before, and now poor 'Mrs. Mack's
+sufferings, she hoped, were about to be brought to a happy termination
+by the doctor's ingenuity. She was, however, very nervous indeed, as the
+crisis approached; for such a beast as Mary Matchwell at bay was a
+spectacle to excite a little tremor even in a person of more nerve than
+fat Mrs. Macnamara.
+
+And what could Mary Matchwell want of a conjuring conference, of all
+persons in the world, with poor little Mrs. Nutter? Mrs. Mack had done
+in this respect simply as she was bid. She had indeed no difficulty to
+persuade Mrs. Nutter to grant the interview. That harmless little
+giggling creature could not resist the mere mention of a fortune-teller.
+Only for Nutter, who set his face against this sort of sham witchcraft,
+she would certainly have asked him to treat her with a glimpse into
+futurity at that famous-sibyl's house; and now that she had an
+opportunity of having the enchantress _tête-à-tête_ in her own snug
+parlour at the Mills, she was in a delightful fuss of mystery and
+delight.
+
+Mrs. Mack, indeed, from her own sad experience, felt a misgiving and a
+pang in introducing the formidable prophetess. But what could she do?
+She dared not refuse; all she could risk was an anxious hint to poor
+little Mrs. Nutter, 'not to be telling her _anything_, good, bad, or
+indifferent, but just to ask her what questions she liked, and no more.'
+Indeed, poor Mrs. Mack was low and feverish about this assignation, and
+would have been more so but for the hope that her Polonius, behind the
+arras, would bring the woman of Endor to her knees.
+
+All on a sudden she heard the rumble and jingle of a hackney coach, and
+the clang of the horses' hoofs pulled up close under her window; her
+heart bounded and fluttered up to her mouth, and then dropped down like
+a lump of lead, and she heard a well-known voice talk a few sentences to
+the coachman, and then in the hall, as she supposed, to Biddy; and so
+she came into the room, dressed as usual in black, tall, thin, and
+erect, with a black hood shading her pale face and the mist and chill of
+night seemed to enter along with her.
+
+It was a great relief to poor Mrs. Mack, that she actually saw Biddy at
+that moment run across the street toward Toole's hall-door, and she
+quickly averted her conscious glance from the light-heeled handmaid.
+
+'Pray take a chair, Ma'am,' said Mrs. Mack, with a pallid face and a low
+courtesy.
+
+Mistress Matchwell made a faint courtesy in return, and, without saying
+anything, sat down, and peered sharply round the room.
+
+'I'm glad, Ma'am, you had no dust to-day; the rain, Ma'am, laid it
+beautiful.'
+
+The grim woman in black threw back her hood a little, and showed her
+pale face and thin lips, and prominent black eyes, altogether a grisly
+and intimidating countenance, with something wild and suspicious in it,
+suiting by no means ill with her supernatural and malign pretensions.
+
+Mrs. Mack's ear was strained to catch the sound of Toole's approach, and
+a pause ensued, during which she got up and poured out a glass of port
+for the lady, and she presented it to her deferentially. She took it
+with a nod, and sipped it, thinking, as it seemed, uneasily. There was
+plainly something more than usual upon her mind. Mrs. Mack
+thought--indeed, she was quite sure--she heard a little fussing about
+the bed-room door, and concluded that the doctor was getting under
+cover.
+
+When Mrs. Matchwell had set her empty glass upon the table, she glided
+to the window, and Mrs. Mack's guilty conscience smote her, as she saw
+her look towards Toole's house. It was only, however, for the coach; and
+having satisfied herself it was at hand, she said--
+
+'We'll have some minutes quite private, if you please--'tisn't my
+affair, you know, but yours,' said the weird woman.
+
+There had been ample time for the arrangement of Toole's ambuscade. Now
+was the moment. The crisis was upon her. But poor Mrs. Mack, just as she
+was about to say her little say about the front windows and opposite
+neighbours, and the privacy of the back bed-room, and to propose their
+retiring thither, felt a sinking of the heart--a deadly faintness, and
+an instinctive conviction that she was altogether overmatched, and that
+she could not hope to play successfully any sort of devil's game with
+that all-seeing sorceress. She had always thought she was a plucky woman
+till she met Mistress Mary. Before _her_ her spirit died within her--her
+blood flowed hurriedly back to her heart, leaving her body cold, pale,
+and damp, and her soul quailing under her gaze.
+
+She cleared her voice twice, and faltered an enquiry, but broke down in
+panic; and at that moment Biddy popped in her head--
+
+'The doctor, Ma'am, was sent for to Lucan, an' he won't be back till six
+o'clock, an' he left no peppermint drops for you, Ma'am, an' do you want
+me, if you plase, Ma'am?'
+
+'Go down, Biddy, that'll do,' said Mrs. Mack, growing first pale, and
+then very red.
+
+Mary Matchwell scented death afar off; for her the air was always
+tainted with ominous perfumes. Every unusual look or dubious word
+thrilled her with a sense of danger. Suspicion is the baleful instinct
+of self-preservation with which the devil gifts his children; and hers
+never slept.
+
+'_What_ doctor?' said Mrs. Matchwell, turning her large, dismal, wicked
+gaze full on Mrs. Mack.
+
+'Doctor Toole, Ma'am.' She dared not tell a literal lie to that
+piercing, prominent pair of black eyes.
+
+'And why did you send for Doctor O'Toole, Ma'am?'
+
+'I did not send for the doctor,' answered the fat lady, looking down,
+for she could not stand that glance that seemed to light up all the
+caverns of her poor soul, and make her lies stand forth self-confessed.
+'I did not send for him, Ma'am, only for some drops he promised me. I've
+been very sick--I--I--I'm so miserable.'
+
+And poor Mrs. Mack's nether lip quivered, and she burst into tears.
+
+'You're enough to provoke a saint, Mrs. Macnamara,' said the woman in
+black, rather savagely, though coldly enough. 'Why you're on the point
+of fortune, as it seems to me.' Here poor Mrs. Mack's inarticulate
+lamentations waxed more vehement. 'You don't believe it--very well--but
+where's the use of crying over your little difficulties, Ma'am, like a
+great baby, instead of exerting yourself and thanking your best friend?'
+
+And the two ladies sat down to a murmuring _tête-à-tête_ at the far end
+of the room; you could have heard little more than an inarticulate
+cooing, and poor Mrs. Mack's sobs, and the stern--
+
+'And is that all? I've had more trouble with you than with fifty
+reasonable clients--you can hardly be serious--I tell you plainly, you
+must manage matters better, my good Madam; for, frankly, Ma'am, _this_
+won't do.'
+
+With which that part of the conference closed, and Mary Matchwell looked
+out of the window. The coach stood at the door, the horses dozing
+patiently, with their heads together, and the coachman, with a black
+eye, mellowing into the yellow stage, and a cut across his nose--both
+doing well--was marching across from the public-house over the way,
+wiping his mouth in the cuff of his coat.
+
+'Put on your riding-hood, if you please, Madam, and come down with me in
+the coach to introduce me to Mrs. Nutter,' said Mrs. Matchwell, at the
+same time tapping with her long bony fingers to the driver.
+
+'There's no need of that, Madam. I said what you desired, and I sent a
+note to her last night, and she expects you just now; and, indeed, I'd
+rather not go, Madam, if you please.'
+
+''Tis past that now--just do as I tell you, for come you must,' answered
+Mrs. Matchwell.
+
+As the old woman of Berkley obeyed, and got up and went quietly away
+with her visitor, though her dead flesh quivered with fear, so poor Mrs.
+Mack, though loath enough, submitted in silence.
+
+'Now, you look like a body going to be hanged--you do; what's the matter
+with you, Madam? I tell you, you mustn't look that way. Here, take a sup
+o' this;' and she presented the muzzle of a small bottle like a pistol
+at her mouth as she spoke--
+
+'There's a glass on the table, if you let me, Ma'am,' said Mrs. Mack.
+
+'Glass be----; here, take a mouthful.'
+
+And she popped it between her lips; and Mrs. Mack was refreshed and her
+spirit revived within her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII.
+
+IN WHICH PALE HECATE VISITS THE MILLS, AND CHARLES NUTTER, ESQ., ORDERS
+TEA.
+
+
+Poor Mrs. Nutter, I have an honest regard for her memory. If she was
+scant of brains, she was also devoid of guile--giggle and raspberry-jam
+were the leading traits of her character. And though she was slow to
+believe ill-natured stories, and made, in general, a horrid jumble when
+she essayed to relate news, except of the most elementary sort; and used
+to forget genealogies, and to confuse lawsuits and other family feuds,
+and would have made a most unsatisfactory witness upon any topic on
+earth, yet she was a ready sympathiser, and a restless but purblind
+matchmaker--always suggesting or suspecting little romances, and always
+amazed when the eclaircissement came off. Excellent for
+condoling--better still for rejoicing--she would, on hearing of a
+surprising good match, or an unexpected son and heir, or a
+pleasantly-timed legacy, go off like a mild little peal of joy-bells,
+and keep ringing up and down and zig-zag, and to and again, in all sorts
+of irregular roulades, without stopping, the whole day long, with 'Well,
+to be sure.' 'Upon my conscience, now, I scarce can believe it.' 'An'
+isn't it pleasant, though.' 'Oh! the creatures--but it was badly
+wanted!' 'Dear knows--but I'm glad--ha, ha, ha,' and so on. A train of
+reflection and rejoicing not easily exhausted, and readily, by simple
+transposition, maintainable for an indefinite period. And people, when
+good news came, used to say, 'Sally Nutter will be glad to hear that;'
+and though she had not a great deal of sense, and her conversation was
+made up principally of interjections, assisted by little gestures, and
+wonderful expressions of face; and though, when analysed it was not
+much, yet she made a cheerful noise, and her company was liked; and her
+friendly little gesticulation, and her turning up of the eyes, and her
+smiles and sighs, and her 'whisht a bit,' and her 'faith and troth now,'
+and 'whisper,' and all the rest of her little budget of idiomatic
+expletives, made the people somehow, along with her sterling qualities,
+fonder of her than perhaps, having her always at hand, they were quite
+aware.
+
+So they both entered the vehicle, which jingled and rattled so
+incessantly and so loud that connected talk was quite out of the
+question, and Mrs. Macnamara was glad 'twas so; and she could not help
+observing there was something more than the ordinary pale cast of
+devilment in Mary Matchwell's face--something, she thought, almost
+frightful, and which tempted her to believe in her necromantic faculty.
+
+So they reached Nutter's house, at the mills, a sober, gray-fronted
+mansion, darkened with tall trees, and in went Mrs. Mack. Little Mrs.
+Nutter received her in a sort of transport of eagerness, giggle, and
+curiosity.
+
+'And is she really in the coach now? and, my dear, does she really tell
+the wonders they say? Mrs. Molly told me--well, now, the most surprising
+things; and do you actually believe she's a conjuror? But mind you,
+Nutter must not know I had her here. He can't abide a fortune-teller.
+And what shall I ask her? I think about the pearl cross--don't you? For
+I _would_ like to know, and then whether Nutter or his enemies--you know
+who I mean--will carry the day--don't you know? Doctor Sturk, my dear,
+and--and--but that's the chief question.'
+
+Poor Mrs. Mack glanced over her shoulder to see she wasn't watched, and
+whispered her in haste--
+
+'For mercy's sake, my dear, take my advice, and that is, listen to all
+she tells you, but tell her nothing.'
+
+'To be sure, my dear, that's only common sense,' said Mrs. Nutter.
+
+And Mary Matchwell, who thought they had been quite long enough
+together, descended from the carriage, and was in the hall before Mrs.
+Nutter was aware; and the silent apparition overawed the poor little
+lady, who faltered a 'Good-evening, Madam--you're very welcome--pray
+step in.' So in they all trooped to Nutter's parlour.
+
+So soon as little Mrs. Nutter got fairly under the chill and shadow of
+this inauspicious presence, her giggle subsided, and she began to think
+of the dreadful story she had heard of her having showed Mrs. Flemming
+through a glass of fair water, the apparition of her husband with his
+face half masked with blood, the day before his murder by the watchmen
+in John's-lane. When, therefore, this woman of Endor called for water
+and glasses, and told Mrs. Mack that she must leave them alone together,
+poor little empty Mrs. Nutter lost heart, and began to feel very queer,
+and to wish herself well out of the affair; and, indeed, was almost
+ready to take to her heels and leave the two ladies in possession of the
+house, but she had not decision for this.
+
+'And mayn't Mrs. Mack stay in the room with us?' she asked, following
+that good lady's retreating figure with an imploring look.
+
+'By no means.'
+
+This was addressed sternly to Mrs. Mack herself, who, followed by poor
+Mrs. Nutter's eyes, moved fatly and meekly out of the room.
+
+She was not without her fair share of curiosity, but on the whole, was
+relieved, and very willing to go. She had only seen Mary Matchwell take
+from her pocket and uncase a small, oval-shaped steel mirror, which
+seemed to have the property of magnifying objects; for she saw her
+cadaverous fingers reflected in it to fully double their natural size,
+and she had half filled a glass with water, and peered through it askew,
+holding it toward the light.
+
+Well, the door was shut, and an interval of five minutes elapsed; and
+all of a sudden two horrible screams in quick succession rang through
+the house.
+
+Betty, the maid, and Mrs. Mack were in the small room on the other side
+of the hall, and stared in terror on one another. The old lady, holding
+Betty by the wrist, whispered a benediction; and Betty crying--'Oh! my
+dear, what's happened the poor misthress?' crossed the hall in a second,
+followed by Mrs. Mack, and they heard the door unlocked on the inside as
+they reached it.
+
+In they came, scarce knowing how, and found poor little Mrs. Nutter flat
+upon the floor, in a swoon, her white face and the front of her dress
+drenched with water.
+
+'You've a scent bottle, Mrs. Macnamara--let her smell to it,' said the
+grim woman in black, coldly, but with a scarcely perceptible gleam of
+triumph, as she glanced on the horrified faces of the women.
+
+Well, it was a long fainting-fit; but she did come out of it. And when
+her bewildered gaze at last settled upon Mrs. Matchwell, who was
+standing darkly and motionless between the windows, she uttered another
+loud and horrible cry, and clung with her arms round Mrs. Mack's neck,
+and screamed--
+
+'Oh! Mrs. Mack, _there_ she is--_there_ she is--_there_ she is.'
+
+And she screamed so fearfully and seemed in such an extremity of terror,
+that Mary Matchwell, in her sables, glided, with a strange sneer on her
+pale face, out of the room across the hall, and into the little parlour
+on the other side, like an evil spirit whose mission was half
+accomplished, and who departed from her for a season.
+
+'She's here--she's here!' screamed poor little Mrs. Nutter.
+
+'No, dear, no--she's not--she's gone, my dear, indeed she's gone,'
+replied Mrs. Mack, herself very much appalled.
+
+'Oh! is she gone--is she--_is_ she gone?' cried Mrs. Nutter, staring all
+round the room, like a child after a frightful dream.
+
+'She's gone, Ma'am, dear--she isn't here--by this crass, she's gone!'
+said Betty, assisting Mrs. Mack, and equally frightened and incensed.
+
+'Oh! oh! Betty, where is he gone? Oh! Mrs. Mack--oh! no--no--never! It
+can't be--it couldn't. It _is_ not he--he never did it.'
+
+'I declare to you, Ma'am, she's not right in her head!' cried poor
+Betty, at her wits' ends.
+
+'There--_there_ now, Sally, darling--_there_,' said frightened Mrs.
+Mack, patting her on the back.
+
+'There--there--there--I see him,' she cried again. 'Oh!
+Charley,--Charley, sure--sure I didn't see it aright--it was not real.'
+
+'There now, don't be frettin' yourself, Ma'am dear,' said Betty.
+
+But Mrs. Mack glanced over her shoulder in the direction in which Mrs.
+Nutter was looking, and with a sort of shock, not knowing whether it was
+a bodily presence or a simulacrum raised by the incantations of Mary
+Matchwell, she beheld the dark features and white eye-balls of Nutter
+himself looking full on them from the open door.
+
+'Sally--what ails you, sweetheart?' said he, coming close up to her with
+two swift steps.
+
+'Oh! Charley--'twas a dream--nothing else--a bad dream, Charley. Oh! say
+it's a dream,' cried the poor terrified little woman. 'Oh! she's
+coming--she's coming!' she cried again, with an appalling scream.
+
+'_Who_--what's the matter?' cried Nutter, looking in the direction of
+his poor wife's gaze in black wrath and bewilderment, and beholding the
+weird woman who had followed him into the room. As he gazed on that
+pale, wicked face and sable shape, the same sort of spell which she
+exercised upon Mrs. Mack, and poor Mrs. Nutter, seemed in a few seconds
+to steal over Nutter himself, and fix him in the place where he stood.
+His mahogany face bleached to sickly boxwood, and his eyes looked like
+pale balls of stone about to leap from their sockets.
+
+After a few seconds, however, with a sort of gasp, like a man awaking
+from a frightful sleep, he said--
+
+'Betty, take the mistress to her room;' and to his wife, 'go,
+sweetheart. Mrs. Macnamara, this must be explained,' he added; and
+taking her by the hand, he led her in silence to the hall-door, and
+signed to the driver.
+
+'Oh! thank you, Mr. Nutter,' she stammered; 'but the coach is not mine;
+it came with that lady who's with Mrs. Nutter.'
+
+He had up to this moved with her like a somnambulist.
+
+'Ay, that lady; and who the devil is she?' and he seized her arm with a
+sudden grasp that made her wince.
+
+'Oh! that lady!' faltered Mrs. Mack--'she's, I believe--she's Mrs.
+Matchwell--the--the lady that advertises her abilities.'
+
+'Hey! I know--the fortune-teller, and go-between,--her!'
+
+She was glad he asked her no more questions, but let her go, and stood
+in a livid meditation, forgetting to bid her good evening. She did not
+wait, however, for his courteous dismissal, but hurried away towards
+Chapelizod. The only thing connected with the last half-hour's events
+that seemed quite clear and real to the scared lady was the danger of
+being overtaken by that terrible woman, and a dreadful sense of her own
+share as an accessory in the untold mischief that had befallen poor Mrs.
+Nutter.
+
+In the midst of her horrors and agitation Mrs. Mack's curiosity was not
+altogether stunned. She wondered vaguely, as she pattered along, with
+what dreadful exhibition of her infernal skill Mary Matchwell had
+disordered the senses of poor little Mrs. Nutter--had she called up a
+red-eyed, sooty-raven to her shoulder--as old Miss Alice Lee (when she
+last had a dish of tea with her) told her she had once done before--and
+made the ominous bird speak the doom of poor Mrs. Nutter from that
+perch? or had she raised the foul fiend in bodily shape, or showed her
+Nutter's dead face through the water?
+
+With these images flitting before her brain, she hurried on at her best
+pace, fancying every moment that she heard the rumble of the accursed
+coach behind her, and longing to see the friendly uniform of the Royal
+Irish Artillery, and the familiar house fronts of the cheery little
+street, and above all, to hide herself securely among her own household
+gods.
+
+When Nutter returned to the parlour his wife had not yet left it.
+
+'I'll attend here, go you up stairs,' said Nutter. He spoke strangely,
+and looked odd, and altogether seemed strung up to a high pitch.
+
+Out went Betty, seeing it was no good dawdling; for her master was
+resolute and formidable. The room, like others in old-fashioned houses
+with thick walls, had a double door. He shut the one with a stern slam,
+and then the other; and though the honest maid loitered in the hall,
+and, indeed, placed her ear very near the door, she was not much the
+wiser.
+
+There was some imperfectly heard talk in the parlour, and cries, and
+sobs, and more talking. Then before Betty was aware, the door suddenly
+opened, and out came Mary Matchwell, with gleaming eyes, and a pale
+laugh of spite and victory and threw a look, as she passed, upon the
+maid that frightened her, and so vanished into her coach.
+
+Nutter disengaged himself from poor Mrs. Nutter's arms, in which he was
+nearly throttled, while she sobbed and shrieked--
+
+'Oh! Charley, dear--dearest Charley--Charley, darling--isn't it
+frightful?' and so on.
+
+'Betty, take care of her,' was all he said, and that sternly, like a man
+quietly desperate, but with a dismal fury in his face.
+
+He went into the little room on the other side of the now darkening
+hall, and shut the door, and locked it inside. It was partly because he
+did not choose to talk just now any more with his blubbering and
+shrieking wife. He was a very kind husband, in his way, but a most
+incapable nurse, especially in a case of hysterics.
+
+He came out with a desk in his hands.
+
+'Moggy,' he said, in a low tone, seeing his other servant-woman in the
+dusk crossing at the foot of the stairs, 'here, take this desk, leave it
+in our bed-room--'tis for the mistress; tell her so by-and-by.'
+
+The wench carried it up; but poor Mrs. Nutter was in no condition to
+comprehend anything, and was talking quite wildly, and seemed to be
+growing worse rather than better.
+
+Nutter stood alone in the hall, with his back to the door from which he
+had just emerged, his hands in his pockets, and the same dreary and
+wicked shadow over his face.
+
+'So that----Sturk will carry his point after all,' he muttered.
+
+On the hall wainscot just opposite hung his horse-pistols; and when he
+saw them, and that wasn't for a while--for though he was looking
+straight at them, he was staring, really, quite through the dingy wooden
+panel at quite other objects three hundred miles away--when he _did_ see
+them, I say, he growled in the same tone--
+
+'I wish one of those bullets was through my head, so t'other was through
+his.'
+
+And he cursed him with laconic intensity. Then Nutter slapped his
+pockets, like a man feeling if his keys and other portable chattels are
+all right before he leaves his home. But his countenance was that of one
+whose mind is absent and wandering. And he looked down on the ground, as
+it seemed in profound and troubled abstraction; and, after a while, he
+looked up again, and again glared on the cold pistols that hung before
+him--ready for anything. And he took down one with a snatch and weighed
+it in his hand, and fell to thinking again; and, as he did, kept opening
+and shutting the pan with a snap, and so for a long time, and thinking
+deeply to the tune of that castanet, and at last he roused himself, who
+knows from what dreams, and hung up the weapon again by its fellow, and
+looked about him.
+
+The hall-door lay open, as Mary Matchwell had left it. Nutter stood on
+the door-step, where he could hear faintly, from above stairs, the cries
+and wails of poor, hysterical Mrs. Nutter. He remained there a good
+while, during which, unperceived by him, Dr. Toole's pestle-and-mortar-boy,
+who had entered by the back-way, had taken a seat in the hall. He was
+waiting for an empty draught-bottle, in exchange for a replenished flask
+of the same agreeable beverage, which he had just delivered; for physic
+was one of poor Mrs. Nutter's weaknesses, though, happily, she did not
+swallow half what came home for her.
+
+When Nutter turned round, the boy--a sharp, tattling vagabond, he knew
+him well--was reading a printed card he had picked up from the floor,
+with the impress of Nutter's hob-nailed tread upon it. It was endorsed
+upon the back, 'For Mrs. Macnamara, with the humble duty of her obedient
+servant, M. M.'
+
+'What's that, Sirrah?' shouted Nutter.
+
+'For Mrs. Nutter, I think, Sir,' said the urchin, jumping up with a
+start.
+
+'Mrs. Nutter,' repeated he--'No--Mrs. Mac--Macnamara,' and he thrust it
+into his surtout pocket. 'And what brings you here, Sirrah?' he added
+savagely; for he thought everybody was spying after him now, and, as I
+said, he knew him for a tattling young dog--he had taken the infection
+from his master, who had trained him.
+
+'Here, woman,' he cried to Moggy, who was passing again, 'give that
+pimping rascal his ---- answer; and see, Sirrah, if I find you sneaking
+about the place again, I'll lay that whip across your back.'
+
+Nutter went into the small room again.
+
+'An' how are ye, Jemmie--how's every inch iv you?' enquired Moggy of the
+boy, when his agitation was a little blown over.
+
+'I'm elegant, thank ye,' he answered; 'an' what's the matther wid ye
+all? I cum through the kitchen, and seen no one.'
+
+'Och! didn't you hear? The poor mistress--she's as bad as bad can be.'
+And then began a whispered confidence, broken short by Nutter's again
+emerging, with the leather belt he wore at night on, and a short
+back-sword, called a _coutteau de chasse_, therein, and a heavy
+walking-cane in his hand.
+
+'Get tea for me, wench, in half an hour,' said he, this time quite
+quietly, though still sternly, and without seeming to observe the
+quaking boy, who, at first sight, referred these martial preparations to
+a resolution to do execution upon him forthwith; 'you'll find me in the
+garden when it's ready.'
+
+And he strode out, and pushing open the wicket door in the thick garden
+hedge, and, with his cane shouldered, walked with a quick, resolute step
+down towards the pretty walk by the river, with the thick privet hedge
+and the row of old pear trees by it. And that was the last that was
+heard or seen of Mr. Nutter for some time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII.
+
+SWANS ON THE WATER.
+
+
+At about half-past six that evening, Puddock arrived at Captain Cluffe's
+lodgings, and for the last time the minstrels rehearsed their lovelorn
+and passionate ditties. They were drest 'all in their best,' under that
+outer covering, which partly for mystery and partly for bodily
+comfort--the wind, after the heavy rains of the last week, having come
+round to the east--these prudent troubadours wore.
+
+Though they hardly glanced at the topic to one another, each had his
+delightful anticipations of the chances of the meeting. Puddock did not
+value Dangerfield a rush, and Cluffe's mind was pretty easy upon that
+point from the moment his proposal for Gertrude Chattesworth had taken
+wind.
+
+Only for that cursed shower the other night, that made it incumbent on
+Cluffe, who had had two or three sharp little visits of his patrimonial
+gout, and no notion of dying for love, to get to his quarters as quickly
+as might be--he had no doubt that the last stave of their first duet
+rising from the meadow of Belmont, with that charming roulade--devised
+by Puddock, and the pathetic twang-twang of his romantic instrument,
+would have been answered by the opening of the drawing-room window, and
+Aunt Becky's imperious summons to the serenaders to declare themselves,
+and come in and partake of supper!
+
+The only thing that at all puzzled him, unpleasantly connected with that
+unsuccessful little freak of musical love-making, was the fellow they
+saw getting away from under the open window--the very same at which
+Lilias Walsingham had unintentionally surprised her friend Gertrude. He
+had a surtout on, with the cape cut exactly after the fashion of
+Dangerfield, and a three-cocked hat with very pinched corners, in the
+French style, which identical hat Cluffe was ready to swear he saw upon
+Dangerfield's head very early one morning, as he accidentally espied him
+viewing his peas and tulips in the little garden of the Brass Castle by
+the river side.
+
+'Twas fixed, in fact, in Cluffe's mind that Dangerfield was the man; and
+what the plague need had a declared lover of any such clandestine
+manoeuvres. Was it possible that the old scoundrel was, after all,
+directing his night visits differently, and keeping the aunt in play, as
+a reserve, in the event of the failure of his suit to the niece? Plans
+as gross, he knew, had succeeded; old women were so devilish easily won,
+and loved money too, so well sometimes.
+
+These sly fellows agreed that they must not go to Belmont by
+Chapelizod-bridge, which would lead them through the town, in front of
+the barrack, and under the very sign-board of the Phoenix. No, they
+would go by the Knockmaroon-road, cross the river by the ferry, and
+unperceived, and unsuspected, enter the grounds of Belmont on the
+further side.
+
+So away went the amorous musicians, favoured by the darkness, and
+talking in an undertone, and thinking more than they talked, while
+little Puddock, from under his cloak, scratched a faint little arpeggio
+and a chord, ever and anon, upon 'the inthrument.'
+
+When they reached the ferry, the boat was tied at the near side, but
+deuce a ferryman could they see. So they began to shout and hallo,
+singly, and together, until Cluffe, in much ire and disgust, exclaimed--
+
+'Curse the sot--drunk in some whiskey-shop--the blackguard! That is the
+way such scoundrels throw away their chances, and help to fill the high
+roads with beggars and thieves; curse him, I sha'n't have a note left if
+we go on bawling this way. I suppose we must go home again.'
+
+'Fiddle-thtick!' exclaimed the magnanimous Puddock. 'I pulled myself
+across little more than a year ago, and 'twas as easy as--as--anything.
+Get in, an' loose her when I tell you.'
+
+This boat was managed by means of a rope stretched across the stream
+from bank to bank; seizing which, in both hands, the boatman, as he
+stood in his skiff, hauled it, as it seemed, with very moderate exertion
+across the river.
+
+Cluffe chuckled as he thought how sold the rascally boatman would be, on
+returning, to find his bark gone over to the other side.
+
+'Don't be uneathy about the poor fellow,' said Puddock; 'we'll come down
+in the morning and make him a present, and explain how it occurred.'
+
+'Explain _yourself_--poor fellow, be hanged!' muttered Cluffe, as he
+took his seat, for he did not part with his silver lightly. 'I say,
+Puddock, tell me when I'm to slip the rope.'
+
+The signal given, Cluffe let go, entertaining himself with a little
+jingle of Puddock's guitar, of which he had charge, and a verse or two
+of their last song; while the plump little lieutenant, standing upright,
+midships in the boat, hauled away, though not quite so deftly as was
+desirable. Some two or three minutes had passed before they reached the
+middle of the stream, which was, as Puddock afterwards remarked,
+'gigantically thwollen;' and at this point they came to something very
+like a stand-still.
+
+'I say, Puddock, keep her head a little more up the stream, will you?'
+said Cluffe, thinking no evil, and only to show his nautical knowledge.
+
+'It's easy to say keep her head up the stream,' gasped Puddock who was
+now labouring fearfully, and quite crimson in the face, tugging his
+words up with a desperate lisp, and too much out of breath to say more.
+
+The shades of the night and the roar of the waters prevented Cluffe
+observing these omens aright.
+
+'What the plague are you doing _now_? cried Cluffe, arresting a
+decorative passage in the middle, and for the first time seriously
+uncomfortable, as the boat slowly spun round, bringing what Cluffe
+called her head--though head and tail were pretty much alike--toward the
+bank they had quitted.
+
+'Curse you, Puddock, why--what are you going back for? you can't do it.'
+
+'Lend a hand,' bawled Puddock, in extremity. 'I say, help, seize the
+rope; I say, Cluffe, quick, Sir, my arms are breaking.'
+
+There was no exaggeration in this--there seldom was in any thing Puddock
+said; and the turn of the boat had twisted his arms like the strands of
+a rope.
+
+'Hold on, Puddock, curse you, I'm comin',' roared Cluffe, quite alive to
+the situation. 'If you let go, I'm _diddled_ but I'll shoot you.'
+
+'Catch the rope, I thay, Thir, or 'tith all over!'
+
+Cluffe, who had only known that he was slowly spinning round, and that
+Puddock was going to commit him to the waves, made a vehement exertion
+to catch the rope, but it was out of reach, and the boat rocked so
+suddenly from his rising, that he sat down by mistake again, with a
+violent plump that made his teeth gnash, in his own place; and the shock
+and his alarm stimulated his anger.
+
+'Hold on, Sir; hold on, you little devil, I say, one minute,
+here--hold--hollo!'
+
+While Cluffe was shouting these words, and scrambling forward, Puddock
+was crying--
+
+'Curth it, Cluffe, quick--oh! hang it, I can't thtand it--bleth my
+_thoul_!
+
+And Puddock let go, and the boat and its precious freightage, with a
+horrid whisk and a sweep, commenced its seaward career in the dark.
+
+'Take the oars, Sir, hang you!' cried Cluffe.
+
+'There are no oarth,' replied Puddock, solemnly.
+
+'Or the helm.'
+
+'There'th no helm.'
+
+'And what the devil, Sir?' and a splash of cold water soused the silken
+calves of Cluffe at this moment.
+
+'Heugh! heugh!--and what the devil _will_ you do, Sir? you don't want to
+drown me, I suppose?' roared Cluffe, holding hard by the gunwale.
+
+'_You_ can thwim, Cluffe; jump in, and don't mind me,' said little
+Puddock, sublimely.
+
+Cluffe, who was a bit of a boaster, had bragged, one evening at mess,
+of his swimming, which he said was famous in his school days; 'twas a
+lie, but Puddock believed it implicitly.
+
+'Thank you!' roared Cluffe. 'Swim, indeed!--buttoned up this
+way--and--and the gout too.'
+
+'I say, Cluffe, save the guitar, if you can,' said Puddock.
+
+In reply, Cluffe cursed that instrument through his teeth, with positive
+fury, and its owner; and, indeed, he was so incensed at this unfeeling
+request, that if he had known where it was, I think he would have gone
+nigh to smash it on Puddock's head, or at least, like the 'Minstrel
+Boy,' to tear its chords asunder; for Cluffe was hot, especially when he
+was frightened. But he forgot--though it was hanging at that moment by a
+pretty scarlet and gold ribbon about his neck.
+
+'Guitar be _diddled_!' cried he; ''tis gone--where _we're_ going--to the
+bottom. What devil possessed you, Sir, to drown us this way?'
+
+Puddock sighed. They were passing at this moment the quiet banks of the
+pleasant meadow of Belmont, and the lights twinkled from the bow-window
+in the drawing-room. I don't know whether Puddock saw them--Cluffe
+certainly did not.
+
+'Hallo! hallo!--a rope!' cried Cluffe, who had hit upon this desperate
+expedient for raising the neighbourhood. 'A rope--a rope! hallo!
+hallo!--a ro-o-o-ope!'
+
+And Aunt Becky, who heard the wild whooping, mistook it for drunken
+fellows at their diversions, and delivered her sentiments in the
+drawing-room accordingly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX.
+
+SWANS IN THE WATER.
+
+
+'We're coming to something--what's that?' said Puddock, as a long row of
+black stakes presented themselves at some distance ahead, in the dusky
+moonlight, slanting across the stream.
+
+''Tis the salmon-weir!' roared Cluffe with an oath that subsided into
+something like a sickening prayer.
+
+It was only a fortnight before that a tipsy fellow had been found
+drowned in the net. Cluffe had lost his head much more than Puddock,
+though Cluffe had fought duels. But then, he really could not swim a
+bit, and he was so confoundedly buckled up.
+
+'Sit to the right. Trim the boat, Sir!' said little Puddock.
+
+'Trim the devil!' bawled Cluffe, to whom this order of Puddock's, it
+must be owned a useless piece of marinetism in their situation, was
+especially disgusting; and he added, looking furiously ahead--''Tisn't
+the boat I'd trim, I promise you: you--you ridiculous murderer!'
+
+Just then Puddock's end of the boat touched a stone, or a post, or
+something in the current, and that in which Cluffe sat came wheeling
+swiftly round across the stream, and brought the gallant captain so near
+the bank that, with a sudden jerk, he caught the end of a branch that
+stretched far over the water, and, spite of the confounded tightness of
+his toilet, with the energy of sheer terror, climbed a good way; but,
+reaching a point where the branch forked, he could get no further,
+though he tugged like a brick. But what was a fat fellow of fifty,
+laced, and buckled, and buttoned up, like poor Cluffe--with his legs
+higher up among the foliage than his head and body--to do, and with his
+right calf caught in the fork of a branch, so as to arrest all progress,
+and especially as the captain was plainly too much for the branch, which
+was drooping toward the water, and emitting sounds premonitory of a
+smash.
+
+With a long, screaking crash the branch stooped down to the water, and,
+so soon as the old element made itself acquainted with those parts that
+reached it first, the gallant captain, with a sort of sob, redoubled his
+efforts, and down came the faithless bough, more and more
+perpendicularly, until his nicely got-up cue and bag, then his powdered
+head, and finally Captain Cluffe's handsome features, went under the
+surface. When this occurred, he instantaneously disengaged his legs with
+a vague feeling that his last struggle above water was over.
+
+His feet immediately touched the bottom; he stood erect, little above
+his middle, and quite out of the main current, within half-a-dozen steps
+of the bank, and he found himself--he scarcely knew how--on terra firma,
+impounded in a little flower-garden, with lilacs and laburnums, and
+sweet-briars, and, through a window close at hand, whom should he see
+but Dangerfield, who was drying his hands in a towel; and, as Cluffe
+stood for a moment, letting the water pour down through his sleeves, he
+further saw him make some queer little arrangements, and eventually pour
+out and swallow a glass of brandy, and was tempted to invoke his aid on
+the spot; but some small incivilities which he had bestowed upon
+Dangerfield, when he thought he cherished designs upon Aunt Rebecca,
+forbade; and at that moment he spied the little wicket that opened upon
+the road, and Dangerfield stept close up to the window, and cried
+sternly, 'Who's there?' with his grim spectacles close to the window.
+
+The boyish instinct of 'hide and seek' took possession of Cluffe, and he
+glided forth from the precincts of the Brass Castle upon the high road,
+just as the little hall-door was pushed open, and he heard the harsh
+tones of Dangerfield challenging the gooseberry bushes and hollyhocks,
+and thrashing the evergreens with his cane.
+
+Cluffe hied straight to his lodgings, and ordered a sack posset. Worthy
+Mrs. Mason eyed him in silent consternation, drenched and dishevelled,
+wild, and discharging water from every part of his clothing and
+decorations, as he presented himself without a hat, before her dim dipt
+candle in the hall.
+
+'I'll take that--that vessel, if you please, Sir, that's hanging about
+your neck,' said the mild and affrighted lady, meaning Puddock's guitar,
+through the circular orifice of which, under the chords, the water with
+which it was filled occasionally splashed.
+
+'Oh--eh?--the instrument?--confound it!' and rather sheepishly he got
+the gray red and gold ribbon over his dripping head, and placing it in
+her hand without explanation, he said--'A warming-pan as quickly as may
+be, I beg, Mrs. Mason--and the posset, I do earnestly request. You
+see--I--I've been nearly drowned--and--and I can't answer for
+consequences if there be one minute's delay.
+
+And up he went streaming, with Mrs. Mason's candle, to his bed-room, and
+dragged off his clinging garments, and dried his fat body, like a man
+coming out of a bath, and roared for hot water for his feet, and
+bellowed for the posset and warming-pan, and rolled into his bed, and
+kept the whole house in motion.
+
+And so soon as he had swallowed his cordial, and toasted his sheets, and
+with the aid of his man rolled himself in a great blanket, and clapped
+his feet in a tub of hot water, and tumbled back again into his bed, he
+bethought him of Puddock, and ordered his man to take his compliments to
+Captain Burgh and Lieutenant Lillyman, the tenants of the nearest
+lodging-house, and to request either to come to him forthwith on a
+matter of life or death.
+
+Lillyman was at home, and came.
+
+'Puddock's drowned, my dear Lillyman, and I'm little better. The ferry
+boat broke away with us. Do go down to the adjutant--they ought to raise
+the salmon nets--I'm very ill myself--very ill, indeed--else I'd have
+assisted; but you know _me_, Lillyman. Poor Puddock--'tis a sad
+business--but lose no time.'
+
+'And can't he swim?' asked Lillyman, aghast.
+
+'Swim?--ay, like a stone, poor fellow! If he had only thrown himself
+out, and held by me, hang it, I'd have brought him to shore; but poor
+Puddock, he lost his head. And I--you see me here--don't forget to tell
+them the condition you found me in, and--and--now don't lose a moment.'
+
+So off went Lillyman to give the alarm at the barrack.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L.
+
+TREATING OF SOME CONFUSION, IN CONSEQUENCE, IN THE CLUB-ROOM OF THE
+PHOENIX AND ELSEWHERE, AND OF A HAT THAT WAS PICKED UP.
+
+
+When Cluffe sprang out of the boat, he was very near capsizing it and
+finishing Puddock off-hand, but she righted and shot away swiftly
+towards the very centre of the weir, over which, in a sheet of white
+foam, she swept, and continued her route toward Dublin--bottom upward,
+leaving little Puddock, however, safe and sound, clinging to a post, at
+top, and standing upon a rough sort of plank, which afforded a very
+unpleasant footing, by which the nets were visited from time to time.
+
+'Hallo! are you safe, Cluffe?' cried the little lieutenant, quite firm,
+though a little dizzy, on his narrow stand, with the sheets of foam
+whizzing under his feet; what had become of his musical companion he had
+not the faintest notion, and when he saw the boat hurled over near the
+sluice, and drive along the stream upside down, he nearly despaired.
+
+But when the captain's military cloak, which he took for Cluffe himself,
+followed in the track of the boat, whisking, sprawling, and tumbling, in
+what Puddock supposed to be the agonies of drowning, and went over the
+weir and disappeared from view, returning no answer to his screams of
+'Strike out, Cluffe! to your right, Cluffe. Hollo! to your right,' he
+quite gave the captain over.
+
+'Surrendhur, you thievin' villain, or I'll put the contints iv this gun
+into yir carcass,' shouted an awful voice from the right bank, and
+Puddock saw the outline of a gigantic marksman, preparing to fire into
+his corresponding flank.
+
+'What do you mean, Sir?' shouted Puddock, in extreme wrath and
+discomfort.
+
+'Robbin' the nets, you spalpeen; if you throw them salmon you're hidin'
+undher your coat into the wather, be the tare-o-war--'
+
+'What salmon, Sir?' interrupted the lieutenant. 'Why, salmon's not in
+season, Sir.'
+
+'None iv yer flummery, you schamin' scoundrel; but jest come here and
+give yourself up, for so sure as you don't, or dar to stir an inch from
+that spot, I'll blow you to smithereens!'
+
+'Captain Cluffe is drowned, Sir; and I'm Lieutenant Puddock,' rejoined
+the officer.
+
+'Tare-an-ouns, an' is it yerself, Captain Puddock, that's in it?' cried
+the man. 'I ax yer pardon; but I tuk you for one of thim vagabonds
+that's always plundherin' the fish. And who in the wide world, captain
+jewel, id expeck to see you there, meditatin' in the middle of the
+river, this time o' night; an' I dunna how in the world you got there,
+at all, at all, for the planking is carried away behind you since
+yistherday.'
+
+'Give an alarm, if you please, Sir, this moment,' urged Puddock.
+'Captain Cluffe has gone over this horrid weir, not a minute since, and
+is I fear drowned.'
+
+'Dhrownded! och! bloody wars.'
+
+'Yes, Sir, send some one this moment down the stream with a rope--'
+
+'Hollo, Jemmy?' cried the man, and whistled through his crooked finger.
+
+'Jemmy,' said he to the boy who presented himself, 'run down to Tom
+Garret, at the Millbridge, and tell him Captain Cluffe's dhrownded over
+the weir, and to take the boat-hook and rope--he's past the bridge by
+this time--ay is he at the King's House--an' if he brings home the
+corpse alive or dead, before an hour, Captain Puddock here will give him
+twenty guineas reward.' So away went the boy.
+
+''Tis an unaisy way you're situated yourself, I'm afeard,' observed the
+man.
+
+'Have the goodness to say, Sir, by what meanth, if any, I can reach
+either bank of the river,' lisped Puddock, with dignity.
+
+''Tis thrue for you, captain, _that's_ the chat--how the divil to get
+you alive out o' the position you're in. Can you swim?'
+
+'No, Thir.'
+
+'An' how the dickens did you get there?'
+
+'I'd rather hear, Sir, how I'm to get away, if you please,' replied
+Puddock, loftily.
+
+'Are you bare-legged?' shouted the man.
+
+'No, Sir,' answered the little officer, rather shocked.
+
+'An' you're there wid shoes on your feet.
+
+'Of course, Sir,' answered Puddock.
+
+'Chuck them into the water this instant minute,' roared the man.
+
+'Why, there are valuable buckles, Sir,' remonstrated Puddock.
+
+'Do you mane to say you'd rather be dhrownded in yer buckles than alive
+in yer stockin' feet?' he replied.
+
+There were some cross expostulations, but eventually the fellow came out
+to Puddock. Perhaps the feat was not quite so perilous as he
+represented; but it certainly was not a pleasant one. Puddock had a rude
+and crazy sort of banister to cling to, and a rugged and slippery
+footing; but slowly and painfully, from one post to another, he made his
+way, and at last jumped on the solid, though not dry land, his life and
+his buckles safe.
+
+'I'll give you a guinea in the morning, if you come to my quarterth, Mr.
+---- Thir,' and, without waiting a second, away he ran by the footpath,
+and across the bridge, right into the Phoenix, and burst into the
+club-room. There were assembled old Arthur Slowe, Tom Trimmer, from
+Lucan, old Trumble, Jack Collop, Colonel Stafford, and half-a-dozen more
+members, including some of the officers--O'Flaherty among the number, a
+little 'flashy with liquor' as the phrase then was.
+
+Puddock stood in the wide opened door, with the handle in his hand. He
+was dishevelled, soused with water, bespattered with mud, his round face
+very pale, and he fixed a wild stare on the company. The clatter of old
+Trimmer's backgammon, Slowe's disputations over the draftboard with
+Colonel Stafford, Collop's dissertation on the points of that screw of a
+horse he wanted to sell, and the general buzz of talk, were all almost
+instantaneously suspended on the appearance of this phantom, and Puddock
+exclaimed--
+
+'Gentlemen, I'm thorry to tell you, Captain Cluffe ith, I fear,
+drowned!'
+
+'Cluffe?' 'Drowned?' 'By Jupiter!' 'You don't say so? and a round of
+such ejaculations followed this announcement.
+
+Allow me here to mention that I permit my people to swear by all the
+persons of the Roman mythology. There was a horrible profanity in the
+matter of oaths in those days, and I found that without changing the
+form of sentences, and sacrificing idioms, at times, I could not manage
+the matter satisfactorily otherwise.
+
+'He went over the salmon weir--I saw him--Coyle's--weir--headlong, poor
+fellow! I shouted after him, but he could not anthwer, so pray let's be
+off, and--'
+
+Here he recognised the colonel with a low bow and paused. The commanding
+officer instantaneously despatched Lieutenant Brady, who was there, to
+order out Sergeant Blakeney and his guard, and any six good swimmers in
+the regiment who might volunteer, with a reward of twenty guineas for
+whoever should bring in Cluffe alive, or ten guineas for his body; and
+the fat fellow all the time in his bed sipping sack posset!
+
+So away ran Brady and a couple more of the young fellows at their best
+pace--no one spared himself on this errand--and little Puddock and
+another down to the bridge. It was preposterous.
+
+By this time Lillyman was running like mad from Cluffe's lodgings along
+Martin's Row to the rescue of Puddock, who, at that moment with his
+friends and the aid of a long pole, was poking into a little floating
+tanglement of withered leaves, turf, and rubbish, under the near arch of
+the bridge, in the belief that he was dealing with the mortal remains of
+Cluffe.
+
+Lillyman overtook Toole at the corner of the street just in time to hear
+the scamper of the men, at double-quick, running down the sweep of the
+road to the bridge, and to hear the shouting that arose from the
+parade-ground by the river bank, from the men within the barrack
+precincts.
+
+Toole joined Lillyman running.
+
+'What the plague's this hubbub and hullo?' he cried.
+
+'Puddock's drowned,' panted Lillyman.
+
+'Puddock! bless us! where?' puffed Toole.
+
+'Hollo! you, Sir--have they heard it--is he _drowned?_' cried Lillyman
+to the sentry outside the gate.
+
+'Dhrownded? yes, Sir,' replied the man saluting.
+
+'Is help gone?'
+
+'Yes, Sir, Lieutenant Brady, and Sergeant Blakeney, and nine men.'
+
+'Come along,' cried Lillyman to Toole, and they started afresh. They
+heard the shouting by the river bank, and followed it by the path round
+the King's House, passing the Phoenix; and old Colonel Stafford, who
+was gouty, and no runner, standing with a stern and anxious visage at
+the door, along with old Trumble, Slowe, and Trimmer, and some of the
+maids and drawers in the rear, all in consternation.
+
+'Bring me the news,' screamed the colonel, as they passed.
+
+Lillyman was the better runner. Toole a good deal blown, but full of
+pluck, was labouring in the rear; Lillyman jumped over the stile, at the
+river path; and Toole saw an officer who resembled 'poor Puddock,' he
+thought, a good deal, cross the road, and follow in Lillyman's wake. The
+doctor crossed the stile next, and made his best gallop in rear of the
+plump officer, excited by the distant shouting, and full of horrible
+curiosity and good-nature.
+
+Nearly opposite Inchicore they fished up an immense dead pig; and Toole
+said, to his amazement, he found Puddock crying over it, and calling it
+'my brother!' And this little scene added another very popular novelty
+to the doctor's stock of convivial monologues.
+
+Toole, who loved Puddock, hugged him heartily, and when he could get
+breath, shouted triumphantly after the more advanced party, 'He's found,
+he's found!'
+
+'Oh, thank Heaven!' cried little Puddock, with upturned eyes; 'but is he
+really found?'
+
+The doctor almost thought that his perils had affected his intellect.
+
+'Is he found--are _you_ found?' cried the doctor, resuming that great
+shake by both hands, which in his momentary puzzle he had suspended.
+
+'I--a--oh, dear!--I don't quite understand--is he lost? for mercy's sake
+is Cluffe lost?' implored Puddock.
+
+'Lost in his bed clothes, maybe,' cried Lillyman, who had joined them.
+
+'But he's not--he's _not_ drowned?'
+
+'Pish! drowned, indeed! unless he's drowned in the crock of hot water
+he's clapt his legs into.'
+
+'Where is he--where's Cluffe?'
+
+'Hang it!--he's in bed, in his lodging, drinking hot punch this
+half-hour.'
+
+'But are you certain?'
+
+'Why, I saw him there myself,' answered Lillyman, with an oath.
+
+Poor little Puddock actually clasped his hands, looked up, and poured
+forth a hearty, almost hysterical, thanksgiving; for he had charged
+Cluffe's death altogether upon his own soul, and his relief was beyond
+expression.
+
+In the meantime, the old gentlemen of the club were in a thrilling
+suspense, and that not altogether disagreeable state of horror in which
+men chew the cud of bitter fancy over other men's catastrophes. After
+about ten minutes in came young Spaight.
+
+'Well,' said the colonel, 'is Cluffe safe or--eh?'
+
+'Cluffe's safe--only half drowned; but poor Puddock's lost.'
+
+'What!'
+
+'Drowned, I'm afraid.'
+
+'Drowned! who says so?' repeated the colonel.
+
+'Cluffe--everybody.'
+
+'Why, there it is!' replied the colonel, with a great oath, breaking
+through all his customary reserve and stiffness, and flinging his
+cocked-hat on the middle of the table, piteously, 'A fellow that can't
+swim a yard _will_ go by way of saving a great--a large gentleman, like
+Captain Cluffe, from drowning, and he's pulled in himself; and so--bless
+my soul! what's to be done?'
+
+So the colonel broke into a lamentation, and a fury, and a wonder.
+'Cluffe and Puddock, the two steadiest officers in the corps! He had a
+devilish good mind to put Cluffe under arrest--the idiots--Puddock--he
+was devilish sorry. There wasn't a more honourable'--_et cetera_. In
+fact, a very angry and pathetic funeral oration, during which,
+accompanied by Doctor Toole, Lieutenant Puddock, in person, entered; and
+the colonel stopped short with his eyes and mouth very wide open, and
+said the colonel very sternly.
+
+'I--I'm glad to see, Sir, you're safe: and--and--I suppose, I shall hear
+now that _Cluffe's_ drowned?' and he stamped the emphasis on the floor.
+
+While all this was going on, some of the soldiers had actually got into
+Dublin. The tide was in, and the water very high at 'Bloody Bridge.' A
+hat, near the corner, was whisking round and round, always trying to get
+under the arch, and always, when on the point, twirled round again into
+the corner--an image of the 'Flying Dutchman' and hope deferred. A
+watchman's crozier hooked the giddy thing. It was not a military hat;
+but they brought it back, and the captive was laid in the
+guard-room--mentioned by me because we've seen that identical hat
+before.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI.
+
+HOW CHARLES NUTTER'S TEA, PIPE, AND TOBACCO-BOX WERE ALL SET OUT FOR HIM
+IN THE SMALL PARLOUR AT THE MILLS; AND HOW THAT NIGHT WAS PASSED IN THE
+HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD.
+
+
+Mrs. Nutter and Mrs. Sturk, the wives of the two men who most hated one
+another within the vicinage of Chapelizod--natural enemies, holding
+aloof one from another, and each regarding the other in a puzzled way,
+with a sort of apprehension and horror, as the familiar of that worst
+and most formidable of men--her husband--were this night stricken with a
+common fear and sorrow.
+
+Darkness descended on the Mills and the river--a darkness deepened by
+the umbrageous trees that grouped about the old gray house in which poor
+Mrs. Nutter lay so ill at ease. Moggy carried the jingling tray of
+tea-things into Nutter's little study, and lighted his candles, and set
+the silver snuffers in the dish, and thought she heard him coming, and
+ran back again, and returned with the singing 'tea-kitchen,' and then
+away again, for the thin buttered toast under its china cover, which our
+ancestors loved.
+
+Then she listened--but 'twas a mistake--it was the Widow Macan's step,
+who carried the ten pailfuls of water up from the river to fill the butt
+in the backyard every Tuesday and Friday, for a shilling a week, and 'a
+cup o' tay with the girls in the kitchen.'
+
+Then Moggy lighted the fire with the stump of a candle, for the night
+was a little chill, and she set the small round table beside it, and
+laid her master's pipe and tobacco-box on it, and listened, and began to
+wonder what detained him.
+
+So she went out into the sharp still air, and stood on the hall-door
+step, and listened again. Presently she heard the Widow Macan walking up
+from the garden with the last pail on her head, who stopped when she saw
+her, and set down the vessel upon the corner of the clumsy little
+balustrade by the door-step. So Moggy declared her uneasiness, which
+waxed greater when Mrs. Macan told her that 'the masther, God bless him,
+wasn't in the garden.'
+
+She had seen him standing at the river's edge, while she passed and
+repassed. He did not move a finger, or seem to notice her, and was
+looking down into the water. When she came back the third or fourth
+time, he was gone.
+
+At Moggy's command she went back into the garden, though she assured
+her, solemnly--''twas nansince lookin' there'--and called Mr. Nutter, at
+first in a deferential and hesitating way; but, emboldened and excited
+by the silence, for she began to feel unaccountably queer, in a louder
+and louder a key, till she was certain that he was neither in the garden
+nor in the orchard, nor anywhere near the house. And when she stopped,
+the silence seemed awful, and the darkness under the trees closed round
+her with a supernatural darkness, and the river at the foot of the walk
+seemed snorting some inarticulate story of horror. So she locked the
+garden door quickly, looking over her shoulder for she knew not what,
+and ran faster than she often did along the sombre walk up to the hall
+door, and told her tale to Moggy, and begged to carry the pail in by the
+hall-door.
+
+In they came, and Moggy shut the hall-door, and turned the key in it.
+Perhaps 'twas the state in which the poor lady lay up stairs that helped
+to make them excited and frightened. Betty was sitting by her bedside,
+and Toole had been there, and given her some opiate, I suppose, for she
+had dropped into a flushed snoring sleep, a horrid counterfeit of
+repose. But she had first had two or three frightful fits, and all sorts
+of wild, screaming talk between. Perhaps it was the apparition of Mary
+Matchwell, whose evil influence was so horribly attested by the dismal
+spectacle she had left behind her, that predisposed them to panic; but
+assuredly each anticipated no good from the master's absence, and had a
+foreboding of something bad, of which they did not speak; but only
+disclosed it by looks, and listening, and long silences. The lights
+burning in Nutter's study invited them, and there the ladies seated
+themselves, and made their tea in the kitchen tea-pot, and clapped it on
+the hob, and listened for sounds from Mrs. Nutter's chamber, and for the
+step of her husband crossing the little court-yard; and they grew only
+more nervous from listening, and there came every now and then a little
+tapping on the window-pane. It was only, I think, a little sprig of the
+climbing-rose that was nailed by the wall, nodding at every breath, and
+rapping like unseen finger-tops, on the glass. But, as small things
+will, with such folk, under such circumstances, it frightened them
+confoundedly.
+
+Then, on a sudden, there came a great yell from poor Mrs. Nutter's
+chamber, and they both stood up very pale. The Widow Macan, with the cup
+in her hand that she was 'tossing' at the moment, and Moggy, all aghast,
+invoked a blessing under her breath, and they heard loud cries and
+sudden volleys of talk, and Biddy's voice, soothing the patient.
+
+Poor Mrs. Nutter had started up, all on a sudden, from her narcotic
+doze, with a hideous scream that had frightened the women down stairs.
+Then she cried--
+
+'Where am I?' and 'Oh, the witch--the witch!'
+
+'Oh! no, Ma'am, dear,' replied Betty; 'now, aisy, Ma'am, darling.'
+
+'I'm going mad.'
+
+'No, Ma'am, dear?--there now--sure 'tis poor Betty that's in it--don't
+be afear'd, Ma'am.'
+
+'Oh, Betty, hold me--don't go--I'm mad--am I mad?'
+
+Then in the midst of Betty's consolations, she broke into a flood of
+tears, and seemed in some sort relieved; and Betty gave her her drops
+again, and she began to mumble to herself, and so to doze.
+
+At the end of another ten minutes, with a scream, she started up again.
+
+'That's her step--where are you, Betty?' she shrieked, and when Betty
+ran to the bedside, she held her so hard that the maid was ready to cry
+out, leering all the time over her shoulder--'Where's Charles Nutter?--I
+saw him speaking to you.'
+
+Then the poor little woman grew quieter, and by her looks and moans, and
+the clasping of her hands, and her upturned eyes, seemed to be praying;
+and when Betty stealthily opened the press to take out another candle,
+her poor mistress uttered another terrible scream, crying--
+
+'You wretch! her head won't fit--you can't hide her;' and the poor woman
+jumped out of her bed, shrieking 'Charles, Charles, Charles!'
+
+Betty grew so nervous and frightened, that she fairly bawled to her
+colleague, Moggy, and told her she would not stay in the room unless she
+sat up all night with her. So, together they kept watch and ward, and as
+the night wore on, Mrs. Nutter's slumbers grew more natural and less
+brief, and her paroxysms of waking terror less maniacal. Still she would
+waken, with a cry that thrilled them, from some frightful vision, and
+seem to hear or see nothing aright for a good while after, and muttering
+to the frightened maids--
+
+'Listen to the knocking--oh!--breathing outside the door--bolt it,
+Betty--girls, say your prayers--'tis he,' or sometimes, ''tis she.'
+
+And thus this heavy night wore over; and the wind, which began to rise
+as the hours passed, made sounds full of sad untranslatable meaning in
+the ears of the watchers.
+
+Poor Mrs. Sturk meanwhile, in the House by the Church-yard, sat
+listening and wondering, and plying her knitting-needles in the
+drawing-room. When the hour of her Barney's expected return had passed
+some time, she sent down to the barrack, and then to the club, and then
+on to the King's House, with her service to Mrs. Stafford, to enquire,
+after her spouse. But her first and her second round of enquiries,
+despatched at the latest minute at which she was likely to find any body
+out of bed to answer them, were altogether fruitless. And the lights
+went out in one house after another, and the Phoenix shut its doors,
+and her own servants were for hours gone to bed; and the little town of
+Chapelizod was buried in the silence of universal slumber. And poor Mrs.
+Sturk still sat in her drawing-room, more and more agitated and
+frightened.
+
+But her missing soldier did not turn up, and Leonora sat and listened
+hour after hour. No sound of return, not even the solemn clank and fiery
+snort of the fiend-horse under her window, or the 'ho-lo, ho-la--my
+life, my love!' of the phantom rider, cheated her with a momentary hope.
+
+Poor Mrs. Sturk! She raised the window a few inches, that she might the
+better hear the first distant ring of his coming on the road. She forgot
+he had not his horse that night, and was but a pedestrian. But somehow
+the night-breeze through the aperture made a wolfish howling and
+sobbing, that sounded faint and far away, and had a hateful character of
+mingled despair and banter in it.
+
+She said every now and then aloud, to reassure herself--'What a noise
+the wind makes to be sure!' and after a while she opened the window
+wider. But her candle flared, and the flame tossed wildly about, and the
+perplexed lady feared it might go out absolutely. So she shut down the
+window altogether; for she could not bear the ill-omened baying any
+longer.
+
+So it grew to be past two o'clock, and she was afraid that Barney would
+be very angry with her for sitting up, should he return.
+
+She went to bed, therefore, where she lay only more
+feverish--conjecturing, and painting frightful pictures, till she heard
+the crow of the early village cock, and the caw of the jackdaw wheeling
+close to the eaves as he took wing in the gray of the morning to show
+her that the business of a new day had commenced; and yet Barney had not
+returned.
+
+Not long after seven o'clock, Dr. Toole, with Juno, Cæsar, Dido, and
+Sneak at his heels, paid his half-friendly, half-professional visit at
+the Mills.
+
+Poor little Mrs. Nutter was much better--quiet for her was everything,
+packed up, of course, with a little physic; and having comforted her,
+as well as he was able, he had a talk with Moggy in the hall, and all
+about Nutter's disappearance, and how Mrs. Macan saw him standing by the
+river's brink, and that was the last anyone near the house had seen of
+him; and a thought flashed upon Toole, and he was very near coming out
+with it, but checked himself, and only said--
+
+'What hat had he on?'
+
+So she told him.
+
+'And was his name writ in it, or how was it marked?'
+
+'Two big letters--a C and an N.'
+
+'I see; and do you remember any other mark you'd know it by?'
+
+'Well, yes; I stitched the lining only last month, with red silk, and
+that's how I remember the letters.'
+
+'I know; and are you sure it was that hat he had on?'
+
+'Certain sure--why, there's all the rest;' and she conned them over, as
+they hung on their pegs on the rack before them.
+
+'Now, don't let the mistress be downhearted--keep her up, Moggy, do you
+mind. I told her the master was with Lord Castlemallard since yesterday
+evening, on business, and don't you say anything else; keep her quiet,
+do ye mind, and humour her.'
+
+And away went Toole, at a swift pace, to the town again, and entered the
+barrack, and asked to see the adjutant, and then to look at the hat the
+corporal had fished up by 'Bloody Bridge;' and, by Jupiter! his heart
+gave a couple of great bounces, and he felt himself grow pale--they were
+the identical capitals, C N, and the clumsy red silk stitching in the
+lining.
+
+Toole was off forthwith, and had a fellow dragging the river before
+three-quarters of an hour.
+
+Dr. Walsingham, returning from an early ride to Island Bridge, saw this
+artist at work, with his ropes and great hooks, at the other side of the
+river; and being a man of enquiring mind, and never having witnessed the
+process before, he cried out to him, after some moments lost in
+conjecture--
+
+'My good man, what are you fishing for?'
+
+'A land-agent,' answered Isaac Walton.
+
+'A land-agent?' repeated the rector, misdoubting his ears.
+
+The saturnine angler made no answer.
+
+'And has a gentleman been drowned here?' he persisted.
+
+The man only looked at him across the stream, and nodded.
+
+'Eh! and his name, pray?'
+
+'Old Nutter, of the Mills,' he replied.
+
+The rector made a woeful ejaculation, and stared at the careless
+operator, who had a pipe in his mouth the while, which made him averse
+from conversation. He would have liked to ask him more questions, but he
+was near the village, and refrained himself; and he met Toole at the
+corner of the bridge who, leaning on the shoulder of the rector's horse,
+gave him the sad story in full.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII.
+
+CONCERNING A ROULEAU OF GUINEAS AND THE CRACK OF A PISTOL.
+
+
+Dangerfield went up the river that morning with his rod and net, and his
+piscatory fidus Achates, Irons, at his elbow. It was a nice gray sky,
+but the clerk was unusually silent even for him; and the sardonic
+piscator appeared inscrutably amused as he looked steadily upon the
+running waters. Once or twice the spectacles turned full upon the clerk,
+over Dangerfield's shoulder, with a cynical light, as if he were on the
+point of making one of his ironical jokes; but he turned back again with
+a little whisk, the jest untold, whatever it was, to the ripple and the
+fly, and the coy gray troutlings.
+
+At last, Dangerfield said over his shoulder, with the same amused look,
+'Do you remember Charles Archer?'
+
+Irons turned pale, and looked down embarrassed as it seemed, and began
+plucking at a tangled piece of tackle, without making any answer.
+
+'Hey? Irons,' persisted Dangerfield, who was not going to let him off.
+
+'Yes, I do,' answered the man surlily; 'I remember him right well; but
+I'd rather not, _and_ I won't speak of him, that's all.'
+
+'Well, Charles Archer's _here_, we've seen him, haven't we? and just the
+devil he always was,' said Dangerfield with a deliberate chuckle of
+infinite relish, and evidently enjoying the clerk's embarrassment as he
+eyed him through his spectacles obliquely.
+
+'He has seen _you_, too, he says; and thinks _you_ have seen _him_,
+hey?' and Dangerfield chuckled more and more knowingly, and watched his
+shiftings and sulkings with a pleasant grin, as he teased and quizzed
+him in his own enigmatical way.
+
+'Well, supposing I _did_ see him,' said Irons, looking up, returning
+Dangerfield's comic glance with a bold and lowering stare; 'and
+supposing _he_ saw _me_, so long as we've no business one of another,
+and never talks like, nor seems to remember--I think 'tisnt, no ways, no
+one's business--that's what I say.'
+
+'True, Irons, very true; you, I, and Sturk--the doctor I mean--are cool
+fellows, and don't want for nerve; but I think, don't you? we're afraid
+of Charles Archer, for all that.'
+
+'Fear or no fear, I don't want to talk _to_ him nor _of_ him, no ways,'
+replied the clerk, grimly, and looking as black as a thunder-cloud.
+
+'Nor I neither, but you know he's here, and what a devil he is; and we
+can't help it,' replied Dangerfield, very much tickled.
+
+The clerk only looked through his nearly closed eyes, and with the same
+pale and surly aspect toward the point to which Dangerfield's casting
+line had floated, and observed--
+
+'You'll lose them flies, Sir.'
+
+'Hey?' said Dangerfield, and made another cast further into the stream.
+
+'Whatever he may seem, and I think I know him pretty well,' he continued
+in the same sprightly way, 'Charles Archer would dispose of each of
+us--you understand--without a scruple, precisely when and how best
+suited his convenience. Now doctor Sturk has sent him a message which I
+know will provoke him, for it sounds like a threat. If he reads it so,
+rely on't, he'll lay Sturk on his back, one way or another, and I'm
+sorry for him, for I wished him well; but if he will play at brag with
+the _devil I_ can't help him.'
+
+'I'm a man that holds his tongue; I never talks none, even in my liquor.
+I'm a peaceable man, and no bully, and only wants to live quiet,' said
+Irons in a hurry.
+
+'A disciple of _my_ school, you're right, Irons, that's my way; _I_
+never _name_ Charles except to the two or three who meet him, and then
+only when I can't help it, just as you do; fellows of that kidney I
+always take quietly, and I've prospered. Sturk would do well to
+reconsider his message. Were _I_ in his shoes, I would not eat an egg or
+a gooseberry, or drink a glass of fair water from that stream, while he
+was in the country, for fear of _poison_! curse him! and to think of
+Sturk expecting to meet him, and walk with him, after such a message,
+together, as you and I do here. Do you see that tree?'
+
+It was a stout poplar, just a yard away from Irons's shoulder; and as
+Dangerfield pronounced the word 'tree,' his hand rose, and the sharp
+report of a pocket-pistol half-deafened Irons's ear.
+
+'I say,' said Dangerfield, with a startling laugh, observing Irons
+wince, and speaking as the puff of smoke crossed his face, 'he'd lodge a
+bullet in the cur's heart, as suddenly as I've shot that tree;' the
+bullet had hit the stem right in the centre, 'and swear he was going to
+rob him.'
+
+Irons eyed him with a livid squint, but answered nothing. I think he
+acquiesced in Dangerfield's dreadful estimate of Charles Archer's
+character.
+
+'But we must give the devil his due; Charles can do a handsome thing
+sometimes. You shall judge. It seems he saw you, and you him--here, in
+this town, some months ago, and each knew the other, and you've seen him
+since, and done likewise; but you said nothing, and he liked your
+philosophy, and hopes you'll accept of this, which from its weight I
+take to be a little rouleau of guineas.'
+
+During this speech Irons seemed both angry and frightened, and looked
+darkly enough before him on the water; and his lips were moving, as if
+in a running commentary upon it all the while.
+
+When Dangerfield put the little roll in his hand, Irons looked
+suspicious and frightened, and balanced it in his palm, as if he had
+thoughts of chucking it from him, as though it were literally a satanic
+douceur. But it is hard to part with money, and Irons, though he still
+looked cowed and unhappy, put the money into his breeches' pocket, and
+he made a queer bow, and he said--
+
+'You know, Sir, I never asked a farthing.'
+
+'Ay, so he says,' answered Dangerfield.
+
+'And,' with an imprecation, Irons added, 'I never expected to be a
+shilling the better of him.'
+
+'He knows it; and now you have the reason why I mentioned Charles
+Archer; and having placed that gold in your hand, I've done with him,
+and we sha'n't have occasion, I hope, to name his name for a good while
+to come,' said Dangerfield.
+
+Then came a long refreshing silence, while Dangerfield whipt the stream
+with his flies. He was not successful; but he did not change his flies.
+It did not seem to trouble him; indeed, mayhap he did not perceive it.
+And after fully twenty minutes thus unprofitably employed, he suddenly
+said, as if in continuation of his last sentence--
+
+'And, respecting that money you'll use caution; a hundred guineas is not
+always so honestly come by. Your wife drinks--suppose a relative in
+England had left you that gold, by will, 'twould be best not to let
+_her_ know; but give it to Dr. Walsingham, secretly, to keep for you,
+telling him the reason. He'll undertake the trust and tell no
+one--_that's_ your plan--mind ye.'
+
+Then came another long silence, and Dangerfield applied himself in
+earnest to catch some trout, and when he had accomplished half-a-dozen,
+he tired altogether of the sport, and followed by Irons, he sauntered
+homewards, where astounding news awaited him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII.
+
+RELATING AFTER WHAT FASHION DR. STURK CAME HOME.
+
+
+As Dangerfield, having parted company with Irons at the corner of the
+bridge, was walking through the town, with his rod over his shoulder and
+his basket of troutlings by his side, his attention was arrested by a
+little knot of persons in close and earnest talk at the barrack-gate,
+nearly opposite Sturk's house.
+
+He distinguished at a glance the tall grim figure of Oliver Lowe, of
+Lucan, the sternest and shrewdest magistrate who held the commission for
+the county of Dublin in those days, mounted on his iron-gray hunter, and
+holding the crupper with his right hand, as he leaned toward a ragged,
+shaggy little urchin, with naked shins, whom he was questioning, as it
+seemed closely. Half-a-dozen gaping villagers stood round.
+
+There was an indescribable something about the group which indicated
+horror and excitement. Dangerfield quickened his pace, and arrived just
+as the adjutant rode out.
+
+Saluting both as he advanced, Dangerfield asked--
+
+'Nothing amiss, I hope, gentlemen?'
+
+'The surgeon here's been found murdered in the park!' answered Lowe.
+
+'Hey--_Sturk_?' said Dangerfield.
+
+'Yes,' said the adjutant: 'this boy here says he's found him in the
+Butcher's Wood.'
+
+'The Butcher's Wood!--why, what the plague brought him _there_?'
+exclaimed Dangerfield.
+
+''Tis his straight road from Dublin across the park,' observed the
+magistrate.
+
+'Oh!--I thought 'twas the wood by Lord Mountjoy's,' said Dangerfield;
+'and when did it happen?'
+
+'Pooh!--some time between yesterday afternoon and half an hour ago,'
+answered Mr. Lowe.
+
+'Nothing known?' said Dangerfield. ''Twill be a sad hearing over the
+way;' and he glared grimly with a little side-nod at the doctor's house.
+
+Then he fell, like the others, to questioning the boy. He could tell
+them but little--only the same story over and over. Coming out of town,
+with tea and tobacco, a pair of shoes, and a bottle of whisky, for old
+Mrs. Tresham--in the thick of the wood, among brambles, all at once he
+lighted on the body. He could not mistake Dr. Sturk; he wore his
+regimentals; there was blood about him; he did not touch him, nor go
+nearer than a musket's length to him, and being frightened at the sight
+in that lonely place he ran away and right down to the barrack, where
+he made his report.
+
+Just then out came Sergeant Bligh, with his men--two of them carrying a
+bier with a mattress and cloaks thereupon. They formed, and accompanied
+by the adjutant, at quick step marched through the town for the park.
+Mr. Lowe accompanied them, and in the park-lane they picked up the
+ubiquitous Doctor Toole, who joined the party.
+
+Dangerfield walked a while beside the adjutant's horse; and, said he--
+
+'I've had as much walking as I can well manage this morning, and you
+don't want for hands, so I'll turn back when I've said just a word in
+your ear. You know, Sir, funerals are expensive, and I happen to know
+that poor Sturk was rather pressed for money--in fact, 'twas only the
+day before yesterday I myself lent him a trifle. So will you, through
+whatever channel you think best, let poor Mrs. Sturk know that she may
+draw upon me for a hundred pounds, if she requires it?'
+
+'Thank you, Mr. Dangerfield; I certainly shall.'
+
+And so Dangerfield lifted his hat to the party and fell behind, and came
+to a stand still, watching them till they disappeared over the brow of
+the hill.
+
+When he reached his little parlour in the Brass Castle, luncheon was
+upon the table. But he had not much of an appetite, and stood at the
+window, looking upon the river with his hands in his pockets, and a
+strange pallid smile over his face, mingling with the light of the
+silver spectacles.
+
+'When Irons hears of this,' he said, 'he'll come to my estimate of
+Charles Archer, and conclude he has had a finger in that pretty pie;
+'twill frighten him.'
+
+And somehow Dangerfield looked a little bit queer himself, and he drank
+off two small glasses, such as folks then used in Ireland--of Nantz; and
+setting down the glass, he mused--
+
+'A queer battle life is; ha, ha! Sturk laid low--the wretched fool!
+Widow--yes; children--ay. Charles! Charles! if there be a reckoning
+after death, your score's an ugly one. I'm tired of playing my part in
+this weary game of defence. Irons and I remain with the secret between
+us. Glasscock had his fourth of it, and tasted death. Then we three had
+it; and Sturk goes next; and now I and Irons--Irons and I--which goes
+first?' And he fell to whistling slowly and dismally, with his hands in
+his breeches' pockets, looking vacantly through his spectacles on the
+ever-running water, an emblem of the eternal change and monotony of
+life.
+
+In the meantime the party, with Tim Brian, the bare-shanked urchin,
+still in a pale perspiration, for guide, marched on, all looking ahead,
+in suspense, and talking little.
+
+On they marched, till they got into the bosky shadow of the close old
+whitethorn and brambles, and there, in a lonely nook, the small birds
+hopping on the twigs above, sure enough, on his back, in his
+regimentals, lay the clay-coloured image of Sturk, some blood, nearly
+black now, at the corners of his mouth, and under his stern brows a
+streak of white eye-ball turned up to the sky.
+
+There was a pool of blood under his pomatumed, powdered, and curled
+head, more under his right arm, which was slightly extended, with the
+open hand thrown palm upwards, as if appealing to heaven.
+
+Toole examined him.
+
+'No pulse, by Jove! Quiet there! don't stir!' Then he clapped his ear on
+Sturk's white Marseilles vest.
+
+'Hush!' and a long pause. Then Toole rose erect, but still on his knees,
+'_Will_ you be quiet there? I think there's some little action still;
+only don't talk, or shift your feet; and just--just, do be quiet!'
+
+Then Toole rose to his knees again, with a side glance fixed on the face
+of Sturk, with a puzzled and alarmed look. He evidently did not well
+know what to make of it. Then he slipped his hand within his vest, and
+between his shirt and his skin.
+
+'If he's dead, he's not long so. There's warmth here. And see, get me a
+pinch or two of that thistle-down, d'ye see?'
+
+And with the help of this improvised test he proceeded to try whether he
+was still breathing. But there was a little air stirring, and they could
+not manage it.
+
+'Well!' said Toole, standing this time quite erect, 'I--I think there's
+life there still. And now, boys, d'ye see? lift him very carefully, d'ye
+mind? Gently, very gently, for I tell you, if this hæmorrhage begins
+again, he'll not last twenty seconds.'
+
+So on a cloak they lifted him softly and deftly to the bier, and laid
+covering over him; and having received Toole's last injunctions, and
+especially a direction to Mrs. Sturk to place him in a well-warmed bed,
+and introduce a few spoonfuls of warm port wine negus into his mouth,
+and if he swallowed, to continue to administer it from time to time,
+Sergeant Bligh and his men commenced their funereal march toward Sturk's
+house.
+
+'And now, Mr. Adjutant,' said Lowe, 'had not we best examine the ground,
+and make a search for anything that may lead to a conviction?'
+
+Well, a ticket was found trod into the bloody mud, scarcely legible, and
+Sturk's cocked hat, the leaf and crown cut through with a blow of some
+blunt instrument. His sword they had found by his side not drawn.
+
+'See! here's a foot-print, too,' said Lowe; 'don't move!'
+
+It was remarkable. They pinned together the backs of two letters, and
+Toole, with his surgical scissors, cut the pattern to fit exactly into
+the impression; and he and Lowe, with great care, pencilled in the
+well-defined marks of the great hob-nails, and a sort of seam or scar
+across the heel.
+
+[Illustration: Footprint.]
+
+'Twas pretty much after this fashion. It was in a slight dip in the
+ground where the soil continued soft. They found it in two other places
+coming up to the fatal spot, from the direction of the Magazine. And it
+was traceable on for some twenty yards more faintly; then, again, very
+distinctly, where--a sort of ditch interposing--a jump had been made,
+and here it turned down towards the park wall and the Chapelizod road,
+still, however, slanting in the Dublin direction.
+
+In the hollow by the park wall it appeared again, distinctly; and here
+it was plain the transit of the wall had been made, for the traces of
+the mud were evident enough upon its surface, and the mortar at top was
+displaced, and a little tuft of grass in the mud, left by the clodded
+shoesole. Here the fellow had got over.
+
+They followed, and, despairing of finding it upon the road, they
+diverged into the narrow slip of ground by the river bank, and just
+within the park-gate, in a slight hollow, the clay of which was still
+impressible, they found the track again. It led close up to the river
+bank, and there the villain seemed to have come to a stand still; for
+the sod just for so much as a good sized sheet of letter-paper might
+cover, was trod and broken, as if at the water's edge he had stood for a
+while, and turned about and shifted his feet, like a fellow that is
+uneasy while he is stationary.
+
+From this stand-point they failed to discover any receding foot-print;
+but close by it came a little horse track, covered with shingle, by
+which, in those days, the troops used to ride their horses to water. He
+might have stepped upon this, and following it, taken to the streets; or
+he might--and this was Lowe's theory--have swam the river at this point,
+and got into some of those ruffian haunts in the rear of Watling and St.
+James's streets. So Lowe, who, with a thief or a murderer in the wind,
+had the soul of a Nimrod, rode round to the opposite bank, first telling
+Toole, who did not care to press his services at Sturk's house,
+uninvited, that he would send out the great Doctor Pell to examine the
+patient, or the body, as the case might turn out.
+
+By this time they were carrying Doctor Sturk--that gaudy and dismal
+image--up his own staircase--his pale wife sobbing and shivering on the
+landing, among whispered ejaculations from the maids, and the speechless
+wonder of the awe-stricken children, staring through the banisters--to
+lay him in the bed where at last he is to lie without dreaming.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV.
+
+IN WHICH MISS MAGNOLIA MACNAMARA AND DR. TOOLE, IN DIFFERENT SCENES,
+PROVE THEMSELVES GOOD SAMARITANS; AND THE GREAT DOCTOR PELL MOUNTS THE
+STAIRS OF THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD.
+
+
+So pulse or no pulse, dead or alive, they got Sturk into his bed.
+
+Poor, cowed, quiet little Mrs. Sturk, went quite wild at the bedside.
+
+'Oh! my Barney--my Barney--my noble Barney,' she kept crying. 'He's
+gone--he'll never speak again. Do you think he hears? Oh, Barney, my
+darling--Barney, it's your own poor little Letty--oh--Barney, darling,
+don't you hear. It's your own poor, foolish Letty.'
+
+But it was the same stern face, and ears of stone. There was no answer
+and no sign.
+
+And she sent a pitiful entreaty to Doctor Toole, who came very
+good-naturedly--and indeed he was prowling about the doorway of his
+domicile in expectation of the summons. And he shook her very cordially
+by the hand, and quite 'filled-up,' at her woebegone appeal, and told
+her she must not despair yet.
+
+And this time he pronounced most positively that Sturk was still living.
+
+'Yes, my dear Madam, so sure as you and I are. There's no mistaking.'
+
+And as the warmth of the bed began to tell, the signs of life showed
+themselves more and more unequivocally. But Toole knew that his patient
+was in a state of coma, from which he had no hope of his emerging.
+
+So poor little Mrs. Sturk--as white as the plaster on the wall--who kept
+her imploring eyes fixed on the doctor's ruddy countenance, during his
+moments of deliberation, burst out into a flood of tears, and
+thanksgivings, and benedictions.
+
+'He'll recover--something tells me he'll recover. Oh! my
+Barney--darling--you will--you will.'
+
+'While there's life--you know--my dear Ma'am,', said Toole, doing his
+best. 'But then--you see--he's been very badly abused about the head;
+and the brain you know--is the great centre--the--the--but, as I said,
+while there's life, there's hope.'
+
+'And he's so strong--he shakes off an illness so easily; he has such
+courage.'
+
+'So much the better, Ma'am.'
+
+'And I can't but think, as he did not die outright, and has shown such
+wonderful endurance. Oh! my darling, he'll get on.'
+
+'Well, well, Ma'am, there certainly have been wonderful recoveries.'
+
+'And he's so much better already, you see, and I know so well how he
+gets through an illness, 'tis wonderful, and he certainly is mightily
+improved since we got him to bed. Why, I can _see_ him breathe now, and
+you know it _must_ be a good sign; and then there's a merciful God over
+us--and all the poor little children--what would become of us?' And then
+she wiped her eyes quickly. 'The promise, you know, of length of
+days--it often comforted me before--to those that honour father and
+mother; and I believe there never was so good a son. Oh! my noble
+Barney, never; 'tis my want of reliance and trust in the Almighty's
+goodness.'
+
+And so, holding Toole by the cuff of his coat, and looking piteously
+into his face as they stood together in the doorway, the poor little
+woman argued thus with inexorable death.
+
+Fools, and blind; when amidst our agonies of supplication the blow
+descends, our faith in prayer is staggered, as if it reached not the ear
+of the Allwise, and moved not His sublime compassion. Are we quite sure
+that we comprehend the awful and far-sighted game that is being played
+for us and others so well that we can sit by and safely dictate its
+moves?
+
+How will Messrs. Morphy or Staunton, on whose calculations, I will
+suppose, you have staked £100, brook your insane solicitations to spare
+this pawn or withdraw that knight from prise, on the board which is but
+the toy type of that dread field where all the powers of eternal
+intellect, the wisdom from above and the wisdom from beneath--the
+stupendous intelligence that made, and the stupendous sagacity that
+would undo us, are pitted one against the other in a death-combat, which
+admits of no reconciliation and no compromise?
+
+About poor Mrs. Nutter's illness, and the causes of it, various stories
+were current in Chapelizod. Some had heard it was a Blackamoor witch who
+had evoked the foul fiend in bodily shape from the parlour cupboard, and
+that he had with his cloven foot kicked her and Sally Nutter round the
+apartment until then screams brought in Charles Nutter, who was smoking
+in the garden; and that on entering, he would have fared as badly as the
+rest, had he not had presence of mind to pounce at once upon the great
+family Bible that lay on the window-sill, with which he belaboured the
+infernal intruder to a purpose. Others reported 'twas the ghost of old
+Philip Nutter, who rose through the floor, and talked I know not what
+awful rhodomontade. These were the confabulations of the tap-room and
+the kitchen; but the speculations and rumours current over the
+card-table and claret glasses were hardly more congruous or
+intelligible. In fact, nobody knew well what to make of it. Nutter
+certainly had disappeared, and there was an uneasy feeling about him.
+The sinister terms on which he and Sturk had stood were quite well
+known, and though nobody spoke out, every one knew pretty well what his
+neighbour was thinking of.
+
+Our blooming friend, the handsome and stalworth Magnolia, having got a
+confidential hint from agitated Mrs. Mack, trudged up to the mills, in a
+fine frenzy, vowing vengeance on Mary Matchwell, for she liked poor
+Sally Nutter well. And when, with all her roses in her cheeks, and her
+saucy black eyes flashing vain lightnings across the room in pursuit of
+the vanished woman in sable, the Amazon with black hair and slender
+waist comforted and pitied poor Sally, and anathematised her cowardly
+foe, it must be confessed she looked plaguy handsome, wicked, and
+good-natured.
+
+'Mary Matchwell, indeed! _I'll_ match her well, wait a while, you'll see
+if I don't. I'll pay her off yet, never mind, Sally, darling. Arrah!
+Don't be crying, child, do you hear me. _What's_ that? _Charles?_ Why,
+then, is it about Charles you're crying? Charles Nutter? Phiat! woman
+dear! don't you think he's come to an age to take care of himself? I'll
+hold you a crown he's in Dublin with the sheriff, going to cart that
+jade to Bridewell. And why in the world didn't you send for _me_, when
+you wanted to discourse with Mary Matchwell? Where was the good of my
+poor dear mother? Why, she's as soft as butter. 'Twas a devil like me
+you wanted, you poor little darling. Do you think I'd a let her frighten
+you this way--the vixen--I'd a knocked her through the window as soon as
+look at her. She saw with half an eye she could frighten you both, you
+poor things. Oh! ho! how I wish I was here. I'd a put her across my knee
+and--_no_--do you say? Pooh! you don't know me, you poor innocent little
+creature; and, do ye mind now, you must not be moping here. Sally
+Nutter, all alone, you'll just come down to us, and drink a cup of tea
+and play a round game and hear the news; and look up now and give me a
+kiss, for I like you, Sally, you kind old girl.'
+
+And she gave her a hug, and a shake, and half-a-dozen kisses on each
+cheek, and laughed merrily, and scolded and kissed her again.
+
+Little more than an hour after, up comes a little _billet_ from the
+good-natured Magnolia, just to help poor little Sally Nutter out of the
+vapours, and vowing that no excuse should stand good, and that come she
+must to tea and cards. 'And, oh! what do you think?' it went on. 'Such a
+bit a newse, I'm going to tell you, so prepare for a chock;' at this
+part poor Sally felt quite sick, but went on. 'Doctor Sturk, that droav
+into town Yesterday, as grand as you Please, in Mrs. Strafford's coach,
+all smiles and Polightness--whood a bleeved! Well He's just come back,
+with two great Fractions of his skull, riding on a Bear, insensible into
+The town--there's for you. Only Think of poor Mrs. Sturk, and the Chock
+she's got on sight of Him: and how thankful and Pleasant you should be
+that Charles Nutter is not a Corpes in the Buchar's wood, and jiggin
+Home to you like Sturk did. But well in health, what I'm certain shure
+he is, taken the law of Mary Matchwell--bless the Mark--to get her
+emprisind and Publickly wiped by the commin hangman.' All which rhapsody
+conjured up a confused and dyspeptic dream, full of absurd and terrific
+images, which she could not well comprehend, except in so far as it
+seemed clear that some signal disaster had befallen Sturk.
+
+That night, at nine o'clock, the great Doctor Pell arrived in his coach,
+with steaming horses, at Sturk's hall-door, where the footman thundered
+a tattoo that might have roused the dead; for it was the family's
+business, if they did not want a noise, to muffle the knocker. And the
+doctor strode up, directed by the whispering awestruck maid, to Sturk's
+bed-chamber, with his hands in his muff, after the manner of doctors in
+his day, without asking questions, or hesitating on lobbies, for the
+sands of his minutes ran out in gold-dust. So, with a sort of awe and
+suppressed bustle preceding and following him, he glided up stairs and
+straight to the patient's bedside, serene, saturnine, and rapid.
+
+In a twinkling the maid was running down the street for Toole, who had
+kept at home, in state costume, expecting the consultation with the
+great man, which he liked. And up came Toole, with his brows knit, and
+his chin high, marching over the pavement in a mighty fuss, for he knew
+that the oracle's time and temper were not to be trifled with.
+
+In the club, Larry the drawer, as he set a pint of mulled claret by old
+Arthur Slowe's elbow, whispered something in his ear, with a solemn
+wink.
+
+'Ho!--by Jove, gentlemen, the doctor's come--Doctor Pell. His coach
+stands at Sturk's door, Larry says, and we'll soon hear how he fares.'
+And up got Major O'Neill with a 'hey! ho--ho!' and out he went, followed
+by old Slowe, with his little tankard in his fist, to the inn-door,
+where the major looked on the carriage, lighted up by the footman's
+flambeau, beneath the old village elm--up the street--smoking his pipe
+still to keep it burning, and communicating with Slowe, two words at a
+time. And Slowe stood gazing at the same object with his little faded
+blue eyes, his disengaged hand in his breeches' pocket, and ever and
+anon wetting his lips with his hot cordial, and assenting agreeably to
+the major's conclusions.
+
+'Seize ace! curse it!' cried Cluffe, who, I'm happy to say, had taken no
+harm by his last night's wetting; 'another gammon, I'll lay you fifty.'
+
+'Toole, I dare thay, will look in and tell us how poor Sturk goes on,'
+said Puddock, playing his throw.
+
+'Hang it, Puddock, mind your game--to be sure, he will. Cinque ace!
+well, _curse_ it! the same throw over again! 'Tis too bad. I missed
+taking you last time, with that stupid blot you've covered--and now, by
+Jove, it ruins me. There's no playing when fellows are getting up every
+minute to gape after doctors' coaches, and leaving the door open--hang
+it, I've lost the game by it--gammoned twice already. 'Tis very
+pleasant. I only wish when gentlemen interrupt play, they'd be good
+enough to pay the bets.'
+
+It was not much, about five shillings altogether, and little Puddock had
+not often a run of luck.
+
+'If you'd like to win it back, Captain Cluffe, I'll give you a chance,'
+said O'Flaherty, who was tolerably sober. 'I'll lay you an even guinea
+Sturk's dead before nine to-morrow morning; and two to one he's dead
+before this time to-morrow night.'
+
+'I thank you--no, Sir--two doctors over him, and his head in two
+pieces--you're very obliging, lieutenant, but I'll choose a likelier
+wager,' said Cluffe.
+
+Dangerfield, who was overlooking the party, with his back to the fire,
+appeared displeased at their levity--shook his head, and was on the
+point of speaking one of those polite but cynical reproofs, whose irony,
+cold and intangible, intimidated the less potent spirits of the
+club-room. But he dismissed it with a little shrug. And a minute after,
+Major O'Neill and Arthur Slowe became aware that Dangerfield had glided
+behind them, and was looking serenely, like themselves, at the Dublin
+doctor's carriage and smoking team. The light from Sturk's bed-room
+window, and the red glare of the footman's torch, made two little
+trembling reflections in the silver spectacles as he stood in the shade,
+peering movelessly over their shoulders.
+
+''Tis a sorry business, gentlemen,' he said in a stern, subdued tone.
+'Seven children and a widow. He's not dead yet, though: whatever Toole
+might do, the Dublin doctor would not stay with a dead man; time's
+precious. I can't describe how I pity that poor soul, his wife--what's
+to become of her and her helpless brood I know not.'
+
+Slowe grunted a dismal assent, and the major, with a dolorous gaze, blew
+a thin stream of tobacco-smoke into the night air, which floated off
+like the ghost of a sigh towards the glimmering window of Sturk's
+bed-room. So they all grew silent. It seemed they had no more to say,
+and that, in their minds, the dark curtain had come down upon the drama
+of which the 'noble Barney,' as poor Mrs. Sturk called him, was hero.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV.
+
+IN WHICH DR. TOOLE, IN FULL COSTUME, STANDS UPON THE HEARTH-STONE OF THE
+CLUB, AND ILLUMINATES THE COMPANY WITH HIS BACK TO THE FIRE.
+
+
+Two or three minutes later, the hall-door of Sturk's mansion opened
+wide, and the figure of the renowned doctor from Dublin, lighted up with
+a candle from behind, and with the link from before, glided swiftly down
+the steps, and disappeared into the coach with a sharp clang of the
+door. Up jumps the footman, and gives his link a great whirl about his
+head. The maid stands on the step with her hand before the flaring
+candle. 'The Turk's Head, in Werburgh Street,' shouts the footman, and
+smack goes the coachman's whip, and the clang and rattle begin.
+
+'That's Alderman Blunkett--he's dying,' said the major, by way of gloss
+on the footman's text; and away went the carriage with thundering
+wheels, and trailing sparks behind it, as if the wild huntsman had
+furnished its fleet and shadowy team.
+
+'He has ten guineas in his pocket for that--a guinea a minute, by Jove,
+coining, no less,' said the major, whose pipe was out, and he thinking
+of going in to replenish it. 'We'll have Toole here presently, depend
+upon it.'
+
+He had hardly spoken when Toole, in a halo of candle-light, emerged from
+Sturk's hall-door. With one foot on the steps, the doctor paused to give
+a parting direction about chicken-broth and white-wine whey.
+
+These last injunctions on the door-steps had begun, perhaps in a
+willingness to let folk see and even hear that the visit was
+professional; and along with the lowering and awfully serious
+countenance with which they were delivered, had grown into a habit, so
+that, as now, he practised them even in solitude and darkness.
+
+Then Toole was seen to approach the Phoenix, in full blow, his cane
+under his arm. With his full-dressed wig on, he was always grand and
+Æsculapian, and reserved withal, and walked with a measured tread, and a
+sad and important countenance, which somehow made him look more chubby;
+and he was a good deal more formal with his friends at the inn-door, and
+took snuff before he answered them. But this only lasted some eight or
+ten minutes after a consultation or momentous visit, and would melt away
+insensibly in the glow of the club-parlour, sometimes reviving for a
+minute, when the little mirror that sloped forward from the wall, showed
+him a passing portrait of his grand wig and toggery. And it was pleasant
+to observe how the old fellows unconsciously deferred to this temporary
+self-assertion, and would call him, not Tom, nor Toole, but 'doctor,' or
+'Doctor Toole,' when the fit was upon him.
+
+And Devereux, in his day, won two or three wagers by naming the doctor
+with whom Toole had been closeted, reading the secret in the countenance
+and by-play of their crony. When it had been with tall, cold, stately
+Dr. Pell, Toole was ceremonious and deliberate, and oppressively polite.
+On the other hand, when he had been shut up with brusque, half-savage,
+energetic Doctor Rogerson, Tom was laconic, decisive, and insupportably
+ill-bred, till, as we have said, the mirage melted away, and he
+gradually acquiesced in his identity. Then, little by little, the
+irrepressible gossip, jocularity, and ballad minstrelsy were heard
+again, his little eyes danced, and his waggish smiles glowed once more,
+ruddy as a setting sun, through the nectarian vapours of the punch-bowl.
+The ghosts of Pell and Rogerson fled to their cold dismal shades, and
+little Tom Toole was his old self again for a month to come.
+
+'Your most obedient, gentlemen--your most obedient,' said Toole, bowing
+and taking their hands graciously in the hall--'a darkish evening,
+gentlemen.'
+
+'And how does your patient, doctor?' enquired Major O'Neil.
+
+The doctor closed his eyes, and shook his head slowly, with a gentle
+shrug.
+
+'He's in a bad case, major. There's little to be said, and that little,
+Sir, not told in a moment,' answered Toole, and took snuff.
+
+'How's Sturk, Sir?' repeated the silver spectacles, a little sternly.
+
+'Well, Sir, he's not _dead_; but, by your leave, had we not better go
+into the parlour, eh?--'tis a little chill, and, as I said, 'tis not all
+told in a moment--he's not dead, though, that's the sum of it--_you_
+first, pray proceed, gentlemen.'
+
+Dangerfield grimly took him at his word; but the polite major got up a
+little ceremonious tussle with Toole in the hall. However, it was no
+more than a matter of half-a-dozen bows and waves of the hand, and
+'after you, Sir;' and Toole entered, and after a general salutation in
+the style of Doctor Pell, he established himself upon the hearth-stone,
+with his back to the fire, as a legitimate oracle.
+
+Toole was learned, as he loved to be among the laity on such occasions,
+and was in no undue haste to bring his narrative to a close. But the
+gist of the matter was this--Sturk was labouring under concussion of the
+brain, and two terrific fractures of the skull--so long, and lying so
+near together, that he and Doctor Pell instantly saw 'twould be
+impracticable to apply the trepan, in fact that 'twould be certain and
+instantaneous death. He was absolutely insensible, but his throat was
+not yet palsied, and he could swallow a spoonful of broth or sack whey
+from time to time. But he was a dead man to all intents and purposes.
+Inflammation might set in at any moment; at best he would soon begin to
+sink, and neither he nor Doctor Pell thought he had the smallest chance
+of awaking from his lethargy for one moment. He might last two or three
+days, or even a week--what did it signify?--what was he better than a
+corpse already? He could never hear, see, speak, or think again; and for
+any difference it could possibly make to poor Sturk, they might clap him
+in his grave and cover him up to-night.
+
+Then the talk turned upon Nutter. Every man had his theory or his
+conjecture but Dangerfield, who maintained a discreet reserve, much to
+the chagrin of the others, who thought, not without reason, that he knew
+more about the state of his affairs, and especially of his relations
+with Lord Castlemallard, than perhaps all the world beside.
+
+'Possibly, poor fellow, he was not in a condition to have his accounts
+overhauled, and on changing an agency things sometimes come out that
+otherwise might have kept quiet. He was the sort of fellow who would go
+through with a thing; and if he thought the best way on going out of the
+agency was to go out of the world also, out he'd go. They were always a
+resolute family--Nutter's great uncle, you know, drowned himself in that
+little lake--what do you call it?--in the county of Cavan, and 'twas
+mighty coolly and resolutely done too.'
+
+But there was a haunting undivulged suspicion in the minds of each.
+Every man knew what his neighbour was thinking of, though he did not
+care to ask about his ugly dreams, or to relate his own. They all knew
+what sort of terms Sturk and Nutter had been on. They tried to put the
+thought away, for though Nutter was not a joker, nor a songster, nor a
+story-teller, yet they liked him. Besides, Nutter might possibly turn up
+in a day or two, and in that case 'twould go best with those who had not
+risked an atrocious conjecture about him in public. So every man waited,
+and held his tongue upon that point till his neighbour should begin.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI.
+
+DOCTOR WALSINGHAM AND THE CHAPELIZOD CHRISTIANS MEET TO THE SOUND OF THE
+HOLY BELL, AND A VAMPIRE SITS IN THE CHURCH.
+
+
+The next day the Sabbath bell from the ivied tower of Chapelizod Church
+called all good church-folk round to their pews and seats. Sturk's place
+was empty--already it knew him no more--and Mrs. Sturk was absent; but
+the little file of children, on whom the neighbours looked with an awful
+and a tender curiosity, was there. Lord Townshend, too, was in the
+viceregal seat, with gentlemen of his household behind, splendid in star
+and peruke, and eyed over their prayer-books by many inquisitive
+Christians. Nutter's little pew, under the gallery, was void like
+Sturk's. These sudden blanks were eloquent, and many, as from time to
+time the dismal gap opened silent before their eyes, felt their thoughts
+wander and lead them away in a strange and dismal dance, among the
+nodding hawthorns in the Butcher's Wood, amidst the damps of night,
+where Sturk lay in his leggings, and powder and blood, and the beetle
+droned by unheeding, and no one saw him save the guilty eyes that
+gleamed back as the shadowy shape stole swiftly away among the trees.
+
+Dr. Walsingham's sermon had reference to the two-fold tragedy of the
+week, Nutter's supposed death by drowning, and the murder of Sturk. In
+his discourses he sometimes came out with a queer bit of erudition. Such
+as, while it edified one portion of his congregation, filled the other
+with unfeigned amazement.
+
+'We may pray for rain,' said he on one occasion, when the collect had
+been read; 'and for other elemental influence with humble confidence.
+For if it be true, as the Roman annalists relate, that their augurs
+could, by certain rites and imprecations, produce thunder-storms--if it
+be certain that thunder and lightning were successfully invoked by King
+Porsenna, and as Lucius Piso, whom Pliny calls a very respectable
+author, avers that the same thing had frequently been done before his
+time by King Numa Pompilius, surely it is not presumption in a Christian
+congregation,' and so forth.
+
+On this occasion he warned his parishioners against assuming that sudden
+death is a judgment. 'On the contrary, the ancients held it a blessing;
+and Pliny declares it to be the greatest happiness of life--how much
+more should we? Many of the Roman worthies, as you are aware, perished
+thus suddenly, Quintius Æmilius Lepidus, going out of his house, struck
+his great toe against the threshold and expired; Cneius Babius
+Pamphilus, a man of prætorian rank, died while asking a boy what o'clock
+it was; Aulus Manlius Torquatus, a gentleman of consular rank, died in
+the act of taking a cheese-cake at dinner; Lucius Tuscius Valla, the
+physician, deceased while taking a draught of mulsum; Appius Saufeius,
+while swallowing an egg: and Cornelius Gallus, the prætor, and Titus
+Haterius, a knight, each died while kissing the hand of his wife. And I
+might add many more names with which, no doubt, you are equally
+familiar.'
+
+The gentlemen of the household opened their eyes; the officers of the
+Royal Irish Artillery, who understood their man, winked pleasantly
+behind their cocked hats at one another; and his excellency coughed,
+with his perfumed pocket-handkerchief to his nose, a good deal; and
+Master Dicky Sturk, a grave boy, who had a side view of his excellency,
+told his nurse that the lord lieutenant laughed in church! and was
+rebuked for that scandalum magnatum with proper horror.
+
+Then the good doctor told them that the blood of the murdered man cried
+to heaven. That they might comfort themselves with the assurance that
+the man of blood would come to judgment. He reminded them of St.
+Augustan's awful words, 'God hath woollen feet, but iron hands;' and he
+told them an edifying story of Mempricius, the son of Madan, the fourth
+king of England, then called Britaine, after Brute, who murdered his
+brother Manlius, and mark ye this, after twenty years he was devoured by
+wild beasts; and another of one Bessus--'tis related by Plutarch--who
+having killed his father, was brought to punishment by means of
+swallows, which birds, his guilty conscience persuaded him, in their
+chattering language did say to one another, that Bessus had killed his
+father, whereupon he bewrayed his horrible crime, and was worthily put
+to death. 'The great Martin Luther,' he continued, 'reports such another
+story of a certain Almaigne, who, when thieves were in the act of
+murdering him, espying a flight of crows, cried aloud, "Oh crows, I take
+you for witnesses and revengers of my death." And so it fell out, some
+days afterwards, as these same thieves were drinking in an inn, a flight
+of crows came and lighted on the top of the house; whereupon the
+thieves, jesting, said to one another, "See, yonder are those who are to
+avenge the death of him we despatched t'other day," which the tapster
+overhearing, told forthwith to the magistrate, who arrested them
+presently, and thereupon they confessed, and were put to death.' And so
+he went on, sustaining his position with strange narratives culled here
+and there from the wilderness of his reading.
+
+Among the congregation that heard this sermon, at the eccentricities of
+which I have hinted, but which had, beside, much that was striking,
+simply pathetic, and even awful in it, there glided--shall I say--a
+phantom, with the light of death, and the shadows of hell, and the
+taint of the grave upon him, and sat among these respectable persons of
+flesh and blood--impenetrable--secure--for he knew there were but two in
+the church for whom clever disguises were idle and transparent as the
+air. The blue-chinned sly clerk, who read the responses, and quavered
+the Psalms so demurely, and the white-headed, silver-spectacled, upright
+man, in my Lord Castlemallard's pew, who turned over the leaves of his
+prayer-book so diligently, saw him as he was, and knew him to be Charles
+Archer, and one of these at least, as this dreadful spirit walked, with
+his light burning in the noon-day, dogged by inexorable shadows through
+a desolate world, in search of peace, he knew to be the slave of his
+lamp.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVII.
+
+IN WHICH DR. TOOLE AND MR. LOWE MAKE A VISIT AT THE MILLS, AND RECOGNISE
+SOMETHING REMARKABLE WHILE THERE.
+
+
+After church, Dr. Toole walking up to the Mills, to pay an afternoon
+visit to poor little Mrs. Nutter, was overtaken by Mr. Lowe, the
+magistrate who brought his tall, iron-gray hunter to a walk as he
+reached him.
+
+'Any tidings of Nutter?' asked he, after they had, in the old world
+phrase, given one another the time of day.
+
+'Not a word,' said the doctor; 'I don't know what to make of it; but you
+know what's thought. The last place he was seen in was his own garden.
+The river was plaguy swollen Friday night, and just where he stood it's
+deep enough, I can tell you; often I bathed there when I was a boy. He
+was consumedly in the dumps, poor fellow; and between ourselves, he was
+a resolute dog, and atrabilious, and just the fellow to make the jump
+into kingdom-come if the maggot bit: and you know his hat was fished out
+of the river a long way down. They dragged next morning,
+but--pish!--'twas all nonsense and moonshine; why, there was water
+enough to carry him to Ringsend in an hour. He was a good deal out of
+sorts, as I said, latterly--a shabby design, Sir, to thrust him out of
+my Lord Castlemallard's agency; but that's past and gone; and, besides,
+I have reason to know there was some kind of an excitement--a quarrel it
+could not be--poor Sally Nutter's too mild and quiet for that; but
+a--a--_something_--a--an--agitation--or a bad news--or something--just
+before he went out; and so, poor Nutter, you see, it looks very like as
+if he had done something rash.'
+
+Talking thus, they reached the Mills by the river side, not far from
+Knockmaroon.
+
+On learning that Toole was about making a call there, Lowe gave his
+bridle to a little Chapelizod ragamuffin, and, dismounting, accompanied
+the doctor. Mrs. Nutter was in her bed.
+
+'Make my service to your mistress,' said Toole, 'and say I'll look in on
+her in five minutes, if she'll admit me.' And Lowe and the doctor walked
+on to the garden, and so side by side down to the river's bank.
+
+'Hey!--look at that,' said Toole, with a start, in a hard whisper; and
+he squeezed Lowe's arm very hard, and looked as if he saw a snake.
+
+It was the impression in the mud of the same peculiar foot-print they
+had tracked so far in the park. There was a considerable pause, during
+which Lowe stooped down to examine the details of the footmark.
+
+'Hang it--you know--poor Mrs. Nutter--eh?' said Toole, and hesitated.
+
+'We must make a note of that--the thing's important,' said Mr. Lowe,
+sternly fixing his gray eye upon Toole.
+
+'Certainly, Sir,' said the doctor, bridling; 'I should not like to be
+the man to hit him--you know; but it _is_ remarkable--and, curse it,
+Sir, if called on, I'll speak the truth as straight as _you_, Sir--every
+bit, Sir.'
+
+And he added an oath, and looked very red and heated.
+
+The magistrate opened his pocket-book, took forth the pattern sole,
+carefully superimposed it, called Toole's attention, and said--
+
+'_You see_.'
+
+Toole nodded hurriedly; and just then the maid came out to ask him to
+see her mistress.
+
+'I say, my good woman,' said Lowe; 'just look here. Whose foot-print is
+that--do you know it?'
+
+'Oh, why, to be sure I do. Isn't it the master's brogues?' she replied,
+frightened, she knew not why, after the custom of her kind.
+
+'You observe that?' and he pointed specially to the transverse line
+across the heel. 'Do you know that?'
+
+The woman assented.
+
+'Who made or mended these shoes?'
+
+'Bill Heaney, the shoemaker, down in Martin's-row, there--'twas he made
+them, and mended them, too, Sir.'
+
+So he came to a perfect identification, and then an authentication of
+his paper pattern; then she could say they were certainly the shoes he
+wore on Friday night--in fact, every other pair he had were then on the
+shoe-stand on the lobby. So Lowe entered the house, and got pen and ink,
+and continued to question the maid and make little notes; and the other
+maid knocked at the parlour door with a message to Toole.
+
+Lowe urged his going; and somehow Toole thought the magistrate suspected
+him of making signs to his witness, and he departed ill at ease; and at
+the foot of the stairs he said to the woman--
+
+'You had better go in there--that stupid Lynn is doing her best to hang
+your master, by Jove!'
+
+And the woman cried--
+
+'Oh, dear, bless us!'
+
+Toole was stunned and agitated, and so with his hand on the clumsy
+banister he strode up the dark staircase, and round the little corner in
+the lobby, to Mrs. Nutter's door.
+
+'Oh, Madam, 'twill all come right, be sure,' said Toole, uncomfortably,
+responding to a vehement and rambling appeal of poor Mrs. Nutter's.
+
+'And do you _really_ think it will? Oh, doctor, doctor, _do_ you think
+it will? The last two or three nights and days--how many is it?--oh, my
+poor head--it seems like a month since he went away.'
+
+'And where do you think he is? Do you think it's business?'
+
+'Of course 'tis business, Ma'am.'
+
+'And--and--oh, doctor!--you really think he's safe?'
+
+'Of _course_, Madam, he's safe--what's to ail him?'
+
+And Toole rummaged amongst the old medicine phials on the chimneypiece,
+turning their labels round and round, but neither seeing them nor
+thinking about them, and only muttering to himself with, I'm sorry to
+say, a curse here and there.
+
+'You see, my dear Ma'am, you must keep yourself as quiet as you can, or
+physic's thrown away upon you; you really must,' said Toole.
+
+'But doctor,' pleaded the poor lady, 'you don't know--I--I'm
+terrified--I--I--I'll never be the same again,' and she burst into
+hysterical crying.
+
+'Now, really, Madam--confound it--my dear, good lady--you see--this will
+never do'--he was uncorking and smelling at the bottles in search of
+'the drops'--'and--and--here they are--and isn't it better, Ma'am, you
+should be well and hearty--here drink this--when--when he comes
+back--don't you see--than--a--a--'
+
+'But--oh, I wish I could tell you. She said--she said--the--the--oh, you
+don't know--'
+
+'_She_--who? _Who_ said _what_?' cried Toole, lending his ear, for he
+never refused a story.
+
+'Oh! Doctor, he's gone--I'll never--never--I know I'll never see him
+again. Tell me he's not gone--tell me I'll see him again.'
+
+'Hang it, can't she stick to one thing at a time--the poor woman's half
+out of her wits,' said Toole, provoked; 'I'll wager a dozen of claret
+there's more on her mind than she's told to anyone.'
+
+Before he could bring her round to the subject again, the doctor was
+called down to Lowe; so he took his leave for the present; and after his
+talk with the magistrate, he did not care to go up again to poor little
+Mrs. Nutter; and Moggy was as white as ashes standing by, for Mr. Lowe
+had just made her swear to her little story about the shoes; and Toole
+walked home to the village with a heavy heart, and a good deal out of
+humour.
+
+Toole knew that a warrant would be issued next day against Nutter. The
+case against him was black enough. Still, even supposing he had struck
+those trenchant blows over Sturk's head, it did not follow that it was
+without provocation or in cold blood. It looked, however, altogether so
+unpromising, that he would have been almost relieved to hear that
+Nutter's body had been found drowned in the river.
+
+Still there was a chance that he made good his retreat. If he had not
+paid his fare in Charon's packet-boat, he might, at least, have crossed
+the channel in the _Trevor_ or _Hillsborough_ to Holyhead. Then, deuce
+was in it, if he did not make a fair run for it, and earth himself
+snugly somewhere. 'Twas lighter work then than now. 'The old saying at
+London, among servants,' writes that good-natured theatrical wag, Tate
+Wilkinson, 'was, "I wish you were at York!" which the wronged cook has
+now changed for, "I wish you were at Jamaica." Scotland was then
+imagined by the cockney as a dreary place, distant almost as the West
+Indies; _now_'(reader, pray note the marvel) 'an agreeable party may,
+with the utmost ease, dine early in the week in Grosvenor Square, and
+without discomposure set down at table on Saturday or Sunday in the new
+town of Edinburgh!' From which we learn that miracles of celerity were
+already accomplishing themselves, and that the existing generation
+contemplated their triumphs complacently. But even upon these we have
+improved, and nowadays, our whole social organisation is subservient to
+detection. Cut your telegraph wires, substitute sail boats for steam,
+and your old fair and easy forty-miles-a-day stage-coaches for the train
+and the rail, disband your City police and detective organisation, and
+make the transit of a letter between London and Dublin a matter of from
+five days to nearly as many weeks, and compute how much easier it was
+then than now for an adventurous highwayman, an absconding debtor, or a
+pair of fugitive lovers, to make good their retreat. Slow, undoubtedly,
+was the flight--they did not run, they walked away; but so was pursuit,
+and altogether, without authentic lights and official helps--a matter of
+post-chaises and perplexity, cross-roads and rumour, foundering in a
+wild waste of conjecture, or swallowed in the quag of some country
+inn-yard, where nothing was to be heard, and out of which there would be
+no relay of posters to pull you until nine o'clock next morning.
+
+As Toole debouched from Martin's-row, on his return, into the
+comparative amplitude of the main street of Chapelizod, he glanced
+curiously up to Sturk's bed-room windows. There were none of the white
+signals of death there. So he ascended the door step, and paid a
+visit--of curiosity, I must say--and looked on the snorting image of his
+old foe, and the bandaged head, spell-bound and dreamless, that had
+machinated so much busy mischief against his own medical sovereignty and
+the rural administration of Nutter.
+
+As Toole touched his pulse, and saw him swallow a spoonful of chicken
+broth, and parried poor Mrs. Sturk's eager quivering pleadings for his
+life with kind though cautious evasions, he rightly judged that the
+figure that lay there was more than half in the land of ghosts
+already--that the enchanter who met him in the Butcher's Wood, and whose
+wand had traced those parallel indentures in his skull, had not only
+exorcised for ever the unquiet spirit of intrigue, but wound up the tale
+of his days. It was true that he was never more to step from that bed,
+and that his little children would, ere many days, be brought there by
+kindly, horror-loving maids, to look their last on 'the poor master,'
+and kiss awfully his cold stern mouth before the coffin lid was screwed
+down, and the white-robed image of their father hidden away for ever
+from their sight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVIII.
+
+IN WHICH ONE OF LITTLE BOPEEP'S SHEEP COMES HOME AGAIN, AND VARIOUS
+THEORIES ARE ENTERTAINED RESPECTING CHARLES NUTTER AND LIEUTENANT
+PUDDOCK.
+
+
+And just on Monday morning, in the midst of this hurly-burly of
+conjecture, who should arrive, of all the people in the world, and
+re-establish himself in his old quarters, but Dick Devereux. The gallant
+captain was more splendid and handsome than ever. But both his spirits
+and his habits had suffered. He had quarrelled with his aunt, and she
+was his bread and butter--ay, buttered on both sides. How lightly these
+young fellows quarrel with the foolish old worshippers who lay their
+gold, frankincense, and myrrh, at the feet of the handsome thankless
+idols. They think it all independence and high spirit, whereas we know
+it is nothing but a little egotistical tyranny, that unconsciously
+calculates even in the heyday of its indulgence upon the punctual return
+of the penitent old worshipper, with his or her votive offerings.
+
+Perhaps the gipsy had thought better of it, and was already sorry he had
+not kept the peace. At all events, though his toilet and wardrobe were
+splendid--for fine fellows in his plight deny themselves nothing--yet
+morally he was seedy, and in temper soured. His duns had found him out,
+and pursued him in wrath and alarm to England, and pestered him very
+seriously indeed. He owed money beside to several of his brother
+officers, and it was not pleasant to face them without a guinea. An evil
+propensity, at which, as you remember, General Chattesworth hinted, had
+grown amid his distresses, and the sting of self-reproach exasperated
+him. Then there was his old love for Lilias Walsingham, and the pang of
+rejection, and the hope of a strong passion sometimes leaping high and
+bright, and sometimes nickering into ghastly shadows and darkness.
+
+Indeed, he was by no means so companionable just now as in happier
+times, and was sometimes confoundedly morose and snappish--for, as you
+perceive, things had not gone well with him latterly. Still he was now
+and then tolerably like his old self.
+
+Toole, passing by, saw him in the window. Devereux smiled and nodded,
+and the doctor stopped short at the railings, and grinned up in return,
+and threw out his arms to express surprise, and then snapped his
+fingers, and cut a little caper, as though he would say--'Now, you're
+come back--we'll have fun and fiddling again.' And forthwith he began to
+bawl his enquiries and salutations. But Devereux called him up
+peremptorily, for he wanted to hear the news--especially all about the
+Walsinghams. And up came Toole, and they had a great shaking of hands,
+and the doctor opened his budget and rattled away.
+
+Of Sturk's tragedy and Nutter's disappearance he had already heard. And
+he now heard some of the club gossip, and all about Dangerfield's
+proposal for Gertrude Chattesworth, and how the old people were
+favourable, and the young lady averse--and how Dangerfield was content
+to leave the question in abeyance, and did not seem to care a jackstraw
+what the townspeople said or thought--and then he came to the
+Walsinghams, and Devereux for the first time really listened. The doctor
+was very well--just as usual; and wondering what had become of his old
+crony, Dan Loftus, from whom he had not heard for several months; and
+Miss Lily was not very well--a delicacy here (and he tapped his
+capacious chest), like her poor mother. 'Pell and I consulted about her,
+and agreed she was to keep within doors.' And then he went on, for he
+had a suspicion of the real state of relations between him and Lily, and
+narrated the occurrence rather with a view to collect evidence from his
+looks and manner, than from any simpler motive; and, said he, 'Only
+think, that confounded wench, Nan--you know--Nan Glynn,' And he related
+her and her mother's visit to Miss Lily, and a subsequent call made upon
+the rector himself--all, it must be confessed, very much as it really
+happened. And Devereux first grew so pale as almost to frighten Toole,
+and then broke into a savage fury--and did not spare hard words, oaths,
+or maledictions. Then off went Toole, when things grew quieter, upon
+some other theme, giggling and punning, spouting scandal and all sorts
+of news--and Devereux was looking full at him with large stern eyes, not
+hearing a word more. His soul was cursing old Mrs. Glynn, of
+Palmerstown--that mother of lies and what not--and remonstrating with
+old Dr. Walsingham--and protesting wildly against everything.
+
+General Chattesworth, who returned two or three weeks after, was not
+half pleased to see Devereux. He had heard a good deal about him and his
+doings over the water, and did not like them. He had always had a
+misgiving that if Devereux remained in the corps, sooner or later he
+would be obliged to come to a hard reckoning with him. And the handsome
+captain had not been three weeks in Chapelizod, when more than the
+general suspected that he was in nowise improved. So General
+Chattesworth did not often see or talk with him; and when he did, was
+rather reserved and lofty with him. His appointment on the staff was in
+abeyance--in fact, the vacancy on which it was expectant had not
+definitely occurred--and all things were at sixes and sevens with poor
+Dick Devereux.
+
+That evening, strange to say, Sturk was still living; and Toole reported
+him exactly in the same condition. But what did that signify? 'Twas all
+one. The man was dead--as dead to all intents and purposes that moment
+as he would be that day twelvemonths, or that day hundred years.
+
+Dr. Walsingham, who had just been to see poor Mrs. Sturk--now grown into
+the habit of hoping, and sustained by the intense quiet fuss of the sick
+room--stopped for a moment at the door of the Phoenix, to answer the
+cronies there assembled, who had seen him emerge from the murdered man's
+house.
+
+'He is in a profound lethargy,' said the worthy divine. ''Tis a
+subsidence--his life, Sir, stealing away like the fluid from the
+clepsydra--less and less left every hour--a little time will measure all
+out.'
+
+'What the plague's a clepsydra?' asked Cluffe of Toole, as they walked
+side by side into the club-room.
+
+'Ho! pooh! one of those fabulous tumours of the epidermis mentioned by
+Pliny, you know, exploded ten centuries ago--ha, ha, ha!' and he winked
+and laughed derisively, and said, 'Sure you know Doctor Walsingham.'
+
+And the gentlemen began spouting their theories about the murder and
+Nutter, in a desultory way; for they all knew the warrant was out
+against him.
+
+'My opinion,' said Toole, knocking out the ashes of his pipe upon the
+hob; for he held his tongue while smoking, and very little at any other
+time; 'and I'll lay a guinea 'twill turn out as I say--the poor fellow's
+drowned himself. Few knew Nutter--I doubt if _any_ one knew him as I
+did. Why he did not seem to feel anything, and you'd ha' swore nothing
+affected him, more than that hob, Sir; and all the time, there wasn't a
+more thin-skinned, atrabilious poor dog in all Ireland--but honest,
+Sir--thorough steel, Sir. All I say is, if he had a finger in that ugly
+pie, you know, as some will insist, I'll stake my head to a china
+orange, 'twas a fair front to front fight. By Jupiter, Sir, there wasn't
+one drop of cur's blood in poor Nutter. No, poor fellow; neither sneak
+nor assassin _there_--'
+
+'They thought he drowned himself from his own garden--poor Nutter,' said
+Major O'Neill.
+
+'Well, that he did _not_,' said Toole. 'That unlucky shoe, you know,
+tells a tale; but for all that, I'm clear of the opinion that drowned he
+is. We tracked the step, Lowe and I, to the bank, near the horse-track,
+in Barrack Street, just where the water deepens--there's usually five
+feet of water there, and that night there was little short of ten. Now,
+take it, that Nutter and Sturk had a tussle--and the thing happened, you
+know--and Sturk got the worst of it, and was, in fact, despatched, why,
+you know the kind of panic--and--and--the panic--you know--a poor dog,
+finding himself so situated, would be in--with the bitter, old quarrel
+between them--d'ye see? And this at the back of his vapours and
+blue-devils, for he was dumpish enough before, and would send a man like
+Nutter into a resolution of making away with himself; and that's how it
+happened, you may safely swear.'
+
+'And what do _you_ think, Mr. Dangerfield?' asked the major.
+
+'Upon my life,' said Dangerfield, briskly, lowering his newspaper to his
+knee, with a sharp rustle, 'these are questions I don't like to meddle
+in. Certainly, he had considerable provocation, as I happen to know; and
+there was no love lost--that I know too. But I quite agree with Doctor
+Toole--if he was the man, I venture to say 'twas a fair fight. Suppose,
+first, an altercation, then a hasty blow--Sturk had his cane, and a
+deuced heavy one--he wasn't a fellow to go down without knowing the
+reason why; and if they find Nutter, dead or alive, I venture to say
+he'll show some marks of it about him.'
+
+Cluffe wished the whole company, except himself, at the bottom of the
+Red Sea; for he was taking his revenge of Puddock, and had already lost
+a gammon and two hits. Little Puddock won by the force of the dice. He
+was not much of a player; and the sight of Dangerfield--that repulsive,
+impenetrable, moneyed man, who had 'overcome him like a summer cloud,'
+when the sky of his fortunes looked clearest and sunniest, always led
+him to Belmont, and the side of his lady-love.
+
+If Cluffe's mind wandered in that direction, his reveries were rather
+comfortable. He had his own opinion about his progress with Aunt
+Rebecca, who had come to like his conversation, and talked with him a
+great deal about Puddock, and always with acerbity; Cluffe, who was a
+sort of patron of Puddock's, always, to do him justice, defended him
+respectfully. And Aunt Rebecca would listen very attentively, and then
+shake her head, and say, 'You're a great deal too good-natured,
+captain; and he'll never thank you for your pains, _never_--_I_ can tell
+you.'
+
+Well, Cluffe knew that the higher powers favoured Dangerfield; and that,
+beside his absurd sentiment, not to say passion, which could not but be
+provoking, Puddock's complicity in the abortive hostilities of poor
+Nutter and the gallant O'Flaherty rankled in Aunt Becky's heart. She
+was, indeed, usually appeasable and forgiving enough; but in this case
+her dislike seemed inveterate and vindictive; and she would say--
+
+'Well, let's talk no more of him; 'tis easy finding a more agreeable
+subject: but you can't deny, captain, that 'twas an unworthy hypocrisy
+his pretending to sentiments against duelling to me, and then engaging
+as second in one on the very first opportunity that presented.'
+
+Then Cluffe would argue his case, and plead his excuses, and fumbled
+over it a good while; not that he'd have cried a great deal if Puddock
+had been hanged; but, I'm afraid, chiefly because, being a fellow of
+more gaiety and accomplishment than quickness of invention, it was
+rather convenient, than otherwise, to have a topic, no matter what,
+supplied to him, and one that put him in an amiable point of view, and
+in a kind of graceful, intercessorial relation to the object of his
+highly prudent passion. And Cluffe thought how patiently she heard him,
+though he was conscious 'twas rather tedious, and one time very like
+another. But then, 'twasn't the talk, but the talker; and he was glad,
+at all risks, to help poor Puddock out of his disgrace, like a generous
+soul, as he was.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIX.
+
+TELLING HOW A COACH DREW UP AT THE ELMS, AND TWO FINE LADIES, DRESSED
+FOR THE BALL, STEPPED IN.
+
+
+It was now more than a fortnight since Sturk's mishap in the Butcher's
+Wood, and he was still alive, but still under the spell of coma. He was
+sinking, but very slowly; yet it was enough to indicate the finality of
+that 'life in death.'
+
+Dangerfield once or twice attacked Toole rather tartly about Sturk's
+case.
+
+'Can nothing be done to make him speak? Five minutes' consciousness
+would unravel the mystery.'
+
+Then Toole would shrug, and say, 'Pooh--pooh! my dear Sir, you know
+nothing.'
+
+'Why, there's _life_!'
+
+'Ay, the mechanical functions of life, but the brain's over-powered,'
+replied Toole, with a wise frown.
+
+'Well, relieve it.'
+
+'By Jupiter, Sir, you make me laugh,' cried Toole with a grin, throwing
+up his eyebrows. 'I take it, you think we doctors can work miracles.'
+
+'Quite the reverse, Sir,' retorted Dangerfield, with a cold scoff. 'But
+you say he may possibly live six weeks more; and all that time the wick
+is smouldering, though the candle's short--can't you blow it in, and
+give us even one minute's light?'
+
+'Ay, a smouldering wick and a candle if you please; but enclosed in a
+glass bottle, how the deuce _are_ you to blow it?'
+
+'Pish!' said the silver spectacles, with an icy flash from his glasses.
+
+'Why, Sir, you'll excuse me--but you don't understand,' said Toole, a
+little loftily. 'There are two contused wounds along the scalp as long
+as that pencil--the whole line of each partially depressed, the
+depression all along being deep enough to lay your finger in. You can
+ask Irons, who dresses them when I'm out of the way.'
+
+'I'd rather ask you, Sir,' replied Dangerfield, in turn a little high.
+
+'Well, you can't apply the trepan, the surface is too extended, and all
+unsound, and won't bear it--'twould be simply killing him on the
+spot--don't you see? and there's no way else to relieve him.'
+
+General Chattesworth had not yet returned. On his way home he had
+wandered aside, and visited the fashionable wells of Buxton, intending a
+three days' sojourn, to complete his bracing up for the winter. But the
+Pool of Siloam did not work pleasantly in the case of the robust
+general, who was attacked after his second dip with a smart fit of the
+gout in his left great-toe, where it went on charmingly, without any
+flickering upward, quite stationary and natural for three weeks.
+
+About the end of which time the period of the annual ball given by the
+officers of the Royal Irish Artillery arrived. It was a great event in
+the town. To poor Mrs. Sturk, watching by her noble Barney, it seemed,
+of course, a marvellous insensibility and an outrage. But the world must
+follow its instinct and vocation, and attend to its business and amuse
+itself too, though noble Barneys lie a-dying here and there.
+
+Aunt Becky and Gertrude drew up at the Elms, the rector's house, with
+everything very handsome about them, and two laced footmen, with
+flambeaux, and went in to see little Lily, on their way to the ball, and
+to show their dresses, which were very fine, indeed, and to promise to
+come next day and tell her all the news; for Lily, as I mentioned, was
+an invalid, and balls and flicflacs were not for her.
+
+Little Lily smiled her bright girlish smile, and threw both her arms
+round grand Aunt Becky's neck.
+
+'You good dear Aunt Becky, 'twas so kind and like you to come--you and
+Gertie. And oh, Geminie! what a grand pair of ladies!' and she made a
+little rustic courtesy, like Nell in the farce. 'And I never saw this
+before (a near peep at Gertrude's necklace), and Aunt Becky, what
+beautiful lace. And does not she look handsome, Gertie? I _never_ saw
+her look _so_ handsome. She'll be the finest figure there. There's no
+such delicate waist anywhere.' And she set her two slender little
+forefingers and thumbs together, as if spanning it. 'You've no chance
+beside her, Gertie; she'll set all the young fellows a-sighing and
+simpering.'
+
+'You wicked little rogue! I'll beat you black and blue, for making fun
+of old Aunt Becky,' cried Miss Rebecca, and ran a little race at her,
+about two inches to a step; her fan raised in her finger and thumb, and
+a jolly smile twinkling in her face, for she knew it was true about her
+waist, and she liked to be quizzed by the daring little girl. Her
+diamonds were on too, and her last look in her mirror had given her a
+satisfactory assurance, and she always played with little Lily, when
+they met; everyone grew gay and girlish with her.
+
+So they stayed a full quarter of an hour, and the footman coughing
+laboriously outside the window reminded Aunt Rebecca at last how time
+flew; and Lily was for sitting down and playing a minuet and a country
+dance, and making them rehearse their steps, and calling in old Sally to
+witness the spectacle before they went; and so she and Aunt Becky had
+another little sportive battle--they never met, and seldom parted,
+without one. How was it that when gay little Lily provoked these little
+mimic skirmishes Aunt Becky would look for a second or two an
+inexpressibly soft and loving look upon her, and become quite girlish
+and tender? I think there is a way to every heart, and some few have the
+gift to reach it unconsciously and always.
+
+So away rustled the great ladies, leaving Lily excited, and she stood at
+the window, with flushed cheek, and her fingers on the sash, looking
+after them, and she came back with a little smile and tears in her eyes.
+She sat down, with a bright colour in her cheeks, and did play a country
+dance, and then a merry old Irish air, full of frolic and spirit, on the
+harpsichord; and gentle old Sally's face peeped in with a wistful smile,
+at the unwonted sounds.
+
+'Come, sober old Sally, my sweetheart! I've taken a whim in my head, and
+you shall dress me, for to the ball I'll go.'
+
+'Tut, tut, Miss Lily, darling,' said old Sally, with a smile and a shake
+of the head. 'What would the doctors say?'
+
+'What they please, my darling.'
+
+And up stood little Lily, with her bright colour and lustrous eyes.
+
+'Angel bright!' said the old woman, looking in that beloved and lovely
+young face, and quite 'filling up,' as the saying is, 'there is not your
+peer on earth--no--not one among them all to compare with our Miss
+Lilias,' and she paused, smiling, and then she said--'But, my darling,
+sure you know you weren't outside the door this five weeks.'
+
+'And is not that long enough, and too long, to shut me up, you cruel old
+woman? Come, come, Sally, girl, I'm resolved, and to the ball I'll go;
+don't be frightened. I'll cover my head, and send in for Aunt Becky, and
+only just peep in, muffled up, for ten minutes; and I'll go and come in
+the chair, and what harm can I take by it?'
+
+Was it spirit? Did she want to show the folk that she did not shrink
+from meeting somebody; or that, though really ill, she ventured to peep
+in, through sheer liking for the scrape of the fiddle, and the fun, to
+show them that at least she was not heart-sick? Or was it the mysterious
+attraction, the wish to see him once more, just through her hood, far
+away, with an unseen side glance, and to build endless speculations, and
+weave the filmy web of hope, for who knows how long, out of these airy
+tints, a strange, sad smile, or deep, wild glance, just seen and fixed
+for ever in memory? She had given him up in words, but her heart had not
+given him up. Poor little Lily! She hoped all that was so bad in him
+would one day mend. He was a hero still--and, oh! she hoped, would be
+true to her. So Lily's love, she scarce knew how, lived on this
+hope--the wildest of all wild hopes--waiting on the reformation of a
+rake.
+
+'But, darling Miss Lily, don't you know the poor master would break his
+heart if he thought you could do such a wild thing as to go out again
+'the doctors' orders, at this time o' night, and into that hot place,
+and out again among the cold draughts.'
+
+Little Lily paused.
+
+''Tis only a step, Sally; do you honestly think it would vex him?'
+
+'Vex him, darling? no, but break his heart. Why, he's never done asking
+about you, and--oh! its only joking you are, my darling, that's all.'
+
+'No, Sally, dear love, I meant it,' said little Lily, sadly; 'but I
+suppose it was a wild thought, and I'm better at home.'
+
+And she played a march that had somehow a dash of the pathetic in it, in
+a sort of reverie, and she said:
+
+'Sally, do you know that?'
+
+And Sally's gentle face grew reflective, and she said:
+
+'Sure, Miss Lily, that's the tune--isn't it--the Artillery plays when
+they march out to the park?'
+
+Lily nodded and smiled, and the tune moved on, conjuring up its pictured
+reverie. Those review days were grand things when little Lily was a
+child--magnanimous expenditure of hair and gunpowder was there. There
+sat General Chattesworth, behind his guns, which were now blazing away
+like fun, wearing his full uniform, point cravat and ruffles, and that
+dignified and somewhat stern aspect which he put on with the rest of his
+review-day costume, bestriding his cream-coloured charger, Bombardier,
+and his plume and powdered _ails de pigeon_, hardly distinguishable from
+the smoke which enveloped him, as a cloud does a demigod in an
+allegorical picture.
+
+Chord after chord brought up all this moving pageant, unseen by Sally's
+dim old eyes, before the saddened gaze of little Lily, whose life was
+growing to a retrospect. She stood in the sunny street, again a little
+child, holding old Sally by the hand, on a soft summer day. The sentries
+presented arms, and the corps marched out resplendent. Old General
+Chattesworth, as proud as Lucifer, on Bombardier, who nods and champs,
+prancing and curvetting, to the admiration of the women; but at heart
+the mildest of quadrupeds, though passing, like an impostor as he was,
+for a devil incarnate; the band thundering melodiously that dashing
+plaintive march, and exhilarating and firing the souls of all
+Chapelizod. Up went the windows all along the street, the rabble-rout of
+boys yelled and huzzaed like mad. The maids popped their mob-caps out of
+the attics, and giggled, and hung out at the risk of their necks. The
+serving men ran out on the hall-door steps. The village roués emerged in
+haste from their public houses. The whole scene round and along from top
+to bottom, was grinning and agape. Nature seemed to brighten up at sight
+of them; and the sun himself came out all in his best, with an
+unparalleled effulgence.
+
+Yes, the town was proud of its corps, and well it might. As gun after
+gun, with its complement of men and its lieutenant fireworkers, with a
+'right wheel,' rolled out of the gate upon the broad street, not a soul
+could look upon the lengthening pageant of blue and scarlet, with its
+symmetrical diagonals of snowy belt and long-flapped white cartouche
+boxes, moving together with measured swing; its laced cocked-hats,
+leggings, and courtly white shorts and vests, and ruffles, and all its
+buttons and brasses flashing up to the sun, without allowing it was a
+fine spirited sight.
+
+And Lily, beholding the phantom regiment, with mournful eyes, played
+their grand sad march proudly as they passed.
+
+They looked so dashing and so grand; they were the tallest, shapeliest
+fellows. Faith, I can tell you, it was no such trifle, pulling along all
+those six and four pounders; and they needed to be athletic lads; and
+the officers were, with hardly an exception, martial, high-bred
+gentlemen, with aristocratic bearing, and some of them, without
+question, confoundedly handsome.
+
+And always there was one light, tall shape; one dark handsome face, with
+darker, stranger eyes, and a nameless grace and interest, moving with
+the march of the gay pageant, before her mind's eye, to this harmonious
+and regretful music, which, as she played on, and her reverie deepened,
+grew slower and more sad, till old Sally's voice awoke the dreamer. The
+chords ceased, the vision melted, and poor little Lily smiled sadly and
+kindly on old Sally, and took her candle, and went up with her to her
+bed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LX.
+
+BEING A CHAPTER OF HOOPS, FEATHERS, AND BRILLIANTS, AND BUCKS AND
+FIDDLERS.
+
+
+It was a mighty grand affair, this ball of the Royal Irish Artillery.
+General Chattesworth had arrived that morning, just in time to preside
+over the hospitalities--he could not contribute much to the dancing--and
+his advent, still a little lame, but looking, as his friends told him,
+ten years younger for his snug little fit of the gout at Buxton,
+reinstated Aunt Becky in her place of power, to the secret
+disappointment of Madame Strafford, who had set her heart on doing the
+honours, and rehearsed for weeks, over her toilet, and even in bed, her
+little speeches, airs, and graces.
+
+Lord Castlemallard was there, of course--and the gay and splendid Lady
+Moira--whom I mention because General Chattesworth opened the ball in a
+minuet with her ladyship--hobbling with wonderful grace, and beaming
+with great ceremonious smiles through his honourable martyrdom. But
+there were more than a score of peers there beside, with their peeresses
+in tall feathers, diamonds, and monstrous hoops. And the lord lieutenant
+was very near coming--and a lord lieutenant in those days, with a
+parliament to open, and all the regalia of his office about him, was a
+far greater personage than, in our democratic age, the sovereign in
+person.
+
+Captain Cluffe had gone down in a chair to Puddock's lodgings, to borrow
+a pair of magnificent knee-buckles. Puddock had a second pair, and
+Cluffe's own had not, he thought, quite recovered their good looks since
+that confounded ducking on the night of the serenade. The gallant
+captain, learning that Puddock and Devereux intended walking--it was
+only a step across to the barrack-yard--and finding that Puddock could
+not at the moment lay his hand upon the buckles, and not wishing to keep
+the chair longer--for he knew delay would inflame the fare, and did not
+like dispensing his shillings--
+
+'Hey! walk? I like the fancy,' cried the gay captain, sending
+half-a-crown down stairs to his 'two-legged ponies,' as people
+pleasantly called them. 'I'd rather walk with you than jog along in a
+chair by myself, my gay fellows, any day.'
+
+Most young fellows of spirit, at the eve of a ball, have their heads
+pretty full. There is always some one bright particular star to whom,
+even as they look on their own handsome features in the mirror, their
+adoration is paid.
+
+Puddock's shoe-buckles flashed for Gertrude Chattesworth, as he turned
+out his toes. For her his cravat received its last careless touch--his
+ruffles shook themselves, and fell in rich elegance about his plump
+little hands. For her his diamond ring gleamed like a burning star from
+his white little finger; and for her the last fragrance was thrown over
+his pocket-handkerchief, and the last ogle thrown upon his
+looking-glass. All the interest of his elaborate toilet--the whole
+solemn process and detail--was but a worship of his divinity, at which
+he officiated. Much in the same way was Cluffe affected over his
+bedizenment in relation to his own lady-love; but in a calmer and more
+long-headed fashion. Devereux's toilet most of the young fellows held to
+be perfection; yet it seemed to trouble him less than all the rest. I
+believe it was the elegant and slender shape that would have set off
+anything, and that gave to his handsome costume and 'properties' an
+undefinable grace not their own. Indeed, as he leaned his elbow upon the
+window sash, looking carelessly across the river, he did not seem much
+to care what became of the labours of his toilet.
+
+'I have not seen her since I came; and now I'm going to this stupid ball
+on the chance of meeting her there. And she'll not come--she avoids
+me--the chance of meeting her--and she'll not come. Well! if she be not
+kind to me, what care I for whom she be? And what great matter, after
+all, if she were there. She'd be, I suppose, on her high horse--and--and
+'tis not a feather to me. Let her take her own way. What care I? If
+she's happy, why shouldn't I--why shouldn't I?'
+
+Five minutes after:--
+
+'Who the plague are these fellows in the Phoenix? How the brutes howl
+over their liquor!' said Devereux, as he and Puddock, at the door-steps,
+awaited Cluffe, who was fixing his buckles in the drawing-room.
+
+'The Corporation of Tailors,' answered Puddock, a little loftily, for he
+was not inwardly pleased that the precincts of the 'Phoenix' should be
+profaned by their mechanical orgies.
+
+Through the open bow window of the great oak parlour of the inn was
+heard the mighty voice of the president, who was now in the thick of his
+political toasts.
+
+'Odds bud!' lisped little Puddock, 'what a stentorian voice!'
+
+'Considering it issues from a tailor!' acquiesced Devereux, who thought
+he recognised the accents, and hated tailors, who plagued him with long
+bills and dangerous menaces.
+
+'May the friends of the Marquis of Kildare be ever blessed with the
+tailor's thimble,' declaimed the portentous toast master. 'May the
+needle of distress be ever pointed at all mock patriots; and a hot
+needle and a burning thread to all sewers of sedition!' and then came an
+applauding roar.
+
+'And may you ride into town on your own goose, with a hot needle behind
+you, you roaring pigmy!' added Devereux.
+
+'The Irish cooks that can't relish French sauce!' enunciated the same
+grand voice, that floated, mellowed, over the field.
+
+'Sauce, indeed!' said Puddock, with an indignant lisp, as Cluffe, having
+joined them, they set forward together; 'I saw some of them going in,
+Sir, and to look at their vulgar, unthinking countenances, you'd say
+they had not capacity to distinguish between the taste of a quail and a
+goose; but, by Jove! Sir, they have a dinner. _You're_ a politician,
+Cluffe, and read the papers. You remember the bill of fare--don't
+you?--at the Lord Mayor's entertainment in London.'
+
+Cluffe, whose mind was full of other matters, nodded his head with a
+grunt.
+
+'Well, I'll take my oath,' pursued Puddock, 'you couldn't have made a
+better dinner at the Prince of Travendahl's table. Spanish olea, if you
+please--ragou royal, cardoons, tendrons, shellfish in marinade, ruffs
+and rees, wheat-ears, green morels, fat livers, combs and notts. 'Tis
+rather odd, Sir, to us who employ them, to learn that our tailors, while
+we're eating the dinners we do--our _tailors_, Sir, are absolutely
+gorging themselves with such things--with _our_ money, by Jove!'
+
+'_Yours_, Puddock, not mine,' said Devereux. 'I haven't paid a tailor
+these six years. But, hang it, let's get on.'
+
+So, in they walked by the barrack-yard, lighted up now with a splendid
+red blaze of torches, and with different emotions, entered the already
+crowded ball-room.
+
+Devereux looked round the room, among nodding plumes and flashing
+brilliants, and smirking old bucks, and simpering young ones, amidst the
+buzz of two or three hundred voices, and the thunder and braying of the
+band. There were scores of pretty faces there--blondes and
+brunettes--blue eyes and brown--and more spirit and animation, and, I
+think, more grace too, in dance and talk, than the phlegmatic
+affectation of modern days allows; and there were some bright eyes that,
+not seeming to look, yet recognised, with a little thrill at the heart,
+and a brighter flush, the brilliant, proud Devereux--so handsome, so
+impulsive, so unfathomable--with his gipsy tint, and great enthusiastic
+eyes, and strange melancholy, sub-acid smile. But to him the room was
+lifeless, and the hour was dull, and the music but a noise and a jingle.
+
+'I knew quite well she wasn't here, and she never cared for me, and
+I--why should I trouble my head about her? She makes her cold an excuse.
+Well, maybe yet she'll wish to see Dick Devereux, and I far away. No
+matter. They've heard slanders of me, and believe them. Amen, say I. If
+they're so light of faith, and false in friendship to cast me off for a
+foul word or an idle story--curse it--I'm well rid of that false and
+foolish friendship, and can repay their coldness and aversion with a
+light heart, a bow, and a smile. One slander I'll refute--yes--and that
+done, I'll close this idle episode in _my_ cursed epic, and never,
+_never_ think of her again.'
+
+But fancy will not be controlled by resolutions, though ne'er so wise
+and strong, and precisely as the captain vowed 'never'--away glided that
+wild, sad sprite across the moonlit river, and among the old black elms,
+and stood unbidden beside Lilias. Little Lily, as they used to call her
+five years ago; and Devereux, who seemed to look so intently and so
+strangely on the flash and whirl of the dancers, saw but an old
+fashioned drawing-room, with roses clustering by the windows, and heard
+the sweet rich voice, to him the music of Ariel, like a far-off dirge--a
+farewell--sometimes a forgiveness--and sometimes the old pleasant talk
+and merry little laugh, all old remembrances or vain dreams now.
+
+But Devereux had business on his hands that night, and about eleven
+o'clock he had disappeared. 'Twas easy to go and come in such a crowd,
+and no one perceive it.
+
+But Puddock was very happy and excited. Mervyn, whom he had once feared,
+was there, a mere spectator, however, to witness that night's signal
+triumph. He had never danced so much with Miss Gertrude before, that is
+to say, at a great ball like this at which there was a plenty of bucks
+with good blood and lots of money; and indeed, it seemed to favour the
+idea of his success that Aunt Rebecca acknowledged him only with a
+silent and by no means gracious courtesy.
+
+She was talking to Toole about Lilias, and saying how much better she
+had looked that evening.
+
+'She's not better, Ma'am; I'd rather she hadn't the bright flush you
+speak of, there's something, you see, not quite right in that left lung,
+and that bright tint, Madam, is hectic--she's not better, Madam, not
+that we don't hope to see her so--Heaven forbid--but 'tis an anxious
+case;' and Toole shook his head gravely.
+
+When Aunt Becky was getting on her hood and mantle, she invariably fell
+into talk with some crony who had a story to tell, or a point to
+discuss. So as she stood listening to old Colonel Bligh's hard, reedy
+gabble, and popping in her decisive word now and then, Gertrude,
+equipped for the night air, and with little Puddock for her escort,
+glided out and took her place in the great state coach of the
+Chattesworths, and the door being shut, she made a little nod and a
+faint smile to her true knight, and said with the slightest possible
+shrug--
+
+'How cold it is to-night; my aunt, I think, will be obliged for your
+assistance, Lieutenant Puddock; as for me, I must shut up my window and
+wish you good-night.'
+
+And with another smile she accordingly shut up the window, and when his
+best bow was accomplished, she leaned back with a pale and stricken
+countenance, and a great sigh--such a one as caused Lady Macbeth's
+physician, long ago, to whisper, 'What a sigh is there! the heart is
+sorely charged.' The footmen were standing by the open door, through
+which Aunt Becky was to come, and there were half a dozen carriages
+crowded side by side, the lackeys being congregated, with links lighted,
+about the same place of exit; and things being so, there came a small
+sharp tapping at the far window of the carriage, and with a start
+Gertrude saw the identical mantle, and the three-cocked-hat with the
+peculiar corners, which had caused certain observers so much speculation
+on another night, and drawing close to the window, whereat this
+apparition presented itself, she let it down.
+
+'I know, beloved Gertrude, what you would say,' he softly said; 'but be
+it frenzy or no, I cannot forbear; I am unalterable--be you the same.'
+
+A white, slender hand glided in and seized hers, not resisting.
+
+'Yes, Mordaunt, the same; but, oh! how miserable!' said Gertrude, and
+with just the slightest movement in the fingers of her small hand,
+hardly perceptible, and yet how fond a caress!
+
+'I'm like a man who has lost his way among the catacombs--among the
+dead,' whispered this muffled figure, close to the window, still
+fervently holding her hand, 'and sees at last the distant gleam that
+shows him that his wanderings are to end. Yes, Gertrude, my
+beloved--yes, Gertrude, idol of my solitary love--the mystery is about
+to end--I'll end it. Be I what I may you know the worst, and have given
+me your love and troth--you are my affianced bride; rather than lose
+you, I would die; and I think, or I am walking in a dream, I've but to
+point my finger against two men, and all will be peace and light--light
+and peace--to me long strangers!'
+
+At this moment Aunt Becky's voice was heard at the door, and the flash
+of the flambeaux glared on the window. He kissed the hand of the pale
+girl hurriedly, and the French cocked-hat and mantle vanished.
+
+In came Aunt Rebecca in a fuss, and it must be said in no very gracious
+mood, and rather taciturn and sarcastic; and so away they rumbled over
+the old bridge towards Belmont.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXI.
+
+IN WHICH THE GHOSTS OF A BY-GONE SIN KEEP TRYST.
+
+
+Devereux, wrapped in his cloak, strode into the park, through
+Parson's-gate, up the steep hill, and turned towards Castleknock and the
+furze and hawthorn wood that interposes. The wide plain spread before
+him in solitude, with the thin vapours of night, lying over it like a
+film in the moonlight.
+
+Two or three thorn trees stood out from the rest, a pale and solitary
+group, stooping eastward with the prevailing sweep of a hundred years or
+more of westerly winds. To this the gipsy captain glided, in a straight
+military line, his eye searching the distance; and, after a while, from
+the skirts of the wood, there moved to meet him a lonely female figure,
+with her light clothing fluttering in the cold air. At first she came
+hurriedly, but as they drew near, she came more slowly.
+
+Devereux was angry, and, like an angry man, he broke out first with--
+
+'So, your servant, Mistress Nan! Pretty lies you've been telling of
+me--you and your shrew of a mother. You thought you might go to the
+rector and say what you pleased, and I hear nothing.'
+
+Nan Glynn was undefinably aware that he was very angry, and had
+hesitated and stood still before he began, and now she said
+imploringly--
+
+'Sure, Masther Richard, it wasn't me.'
+
+'Come, my lady, don't tell me. You and your mother--curse her!--went to
+the Elms in my absence--_you_ and she--and said I had promised to
+_marry_ you! There--yes or no. Didn't you? And could you or could she
+have uttered a more utterly damnable lie?'
+
+''Twas _she_, Master Richard--troth an' faith. I never knew she was
+going to say the like--no more I didn't.'
+
+'A likely story, truly, Miss Nan!' said the young rake, bitterly.
+
+'Oh! Masther Richard! by this cross!--you won't believe me--'tis as true
+as you're standin' there--until she said it to Miss Lily--'
+
+'Hold your tongue!' cried Devereux, so fiercely, that she thought him
+half wild; 'do you think 'tis a pin's point to me which of you first
+coined or uttered the lie? Listen to me; I'm a desperate man, and I'll
+take a course with you both you'll not like, unless you go to-morrow and
+see Dr. Walsingham yourself, and tell him the whole truth--yes, the
+truth--what the devil do I care?--speak that, and make the most of it.
+But tell him plainly that your story about my having promised to marry
+you--do you hear--was a lie, from first to last--a lie--a lie--without
+so much as a grain of truth mixed up in it. All a cursed--devil's--woman's
+invention. Now, mind ye, Miss Nan, if you don't, I'll bring you and your
+mother into court, or I'll have the truth out of you.'
+
+'But there's no need to threaten, sure, you know, Masther Richard, I'd
+do anything for you--I would. I'd beg, or I'd rob, or I'd die for you,
+Masther Richard; and whatever you bid me, your poor wild Nan 'ill do.'
+
+Devereux was touched, the tears were streaming down her pale cheeks, and
+she was shivering.
+
+'You're cold, Nan; where's your cloak and riding hood?' he said, gently.
+
+'I had to part them, Masther Richard.'
+
+'You want money, Nan,' he said, and his heart smote him.
+
+'I'm not cold when I'm near you, Masther Richard. I'd wait the whole
+night long for a chance of seeing you; but oh! ho--(she was crying as if
+her heart would break, looking in his face, and with her hands just a
+little stretched towards him), oh, Masther Richard, I'm nothing to you
+now--your poor wild Nan!'
+
+Poor thing! Her mother had not given her the best education. I believe
+she was a bit of a thief, and she could tell fibs with fluency and
+precision. The woman was a sinner; but her wild, strong affections were
+true, and her heart was not in pelf.
+
+'Now, don't cry--where's the good of crying--listen to me,' said
+Devereux.
+
+'Sure I heerd you were sick, last week, Masther Richard,' she went on,
+not heeding, and with her cold fingers just touching his arm
+timidly--and the moon glittered on the tears that streamed down her poor
+imploring cheeks--'an' I'd like to be caring you; an' I think you look
+bad, Masther Richard.'
+
+'No, Nan--I tell you, no--I'm very well, only poor, just now, Nan, or
+_you_ should not want.'
+
+'Sure I know, Masther Richard: it is not that. I know you'd be good to
+me if you had it: and it does not trouble me.'
+
+'But see, Nan, you must speak to your friends, and say--'
+
+'Sorra a friend I have--sorra a friend, Masther Richard; and I did not
+spake to the priest this year or more, and I darn't go near him,' said
+the poor Palmerstown lass that was once so merry.
+
+'Why won't you listen to me, child? I won't have you this way. You must
+have your cloak and hood. 'Tis very cold; and, by Heavens, Nan, you
+shall never want while I have a guinea. But you see I'm poor now, curse
+it--I'm poor--I'm sorry, Nan, and I have only this one about me.'
+
+'Oh, no, Masther Richard, keep it--maybe you'd want it yourself.'
+
+'No, child, don't vex me--there--I'll have money in a week or two, and
+I'll send you some more, Nan--I'll not forget you.' He said this in a
+sadder tone; 'and, Nan, I'm a changed man. All's over, you know, and
+we'll see one another no more. You'll be happier, Nan, for the parting,
+so here, and now, Nan, we'll say good-bye.'
+
+'Oh! no--no--no--not good-bye; you couldn't--couldn't--couldn't--your
+poor wild Nan.'
+
+And she clung to his cloak, sobbing in wild supplication.
+
+'Yes, Nan, good-bye, it must be--no other word.'
+
+'An' oh, Masther Richard, is it in airnest? You wouldn't, oh! sure you
+wouldn't.'
+
+'Now, Nan, there's a good girl; I must go. Remember your promise, and
+I'll not forget you, Nan--on my soul, I won't.'
+
+'Well, well, mayn't I chance to see you, maybe? mayn't I look at you
+marching, Masther Richard, at a distance only? I wouldn't care so much,
+I think, if I could see you sometimes.'
+
+'Now, there, Nan, you must not cry; you know 'tis all past and gone more
+than a year ago. 'Twas all d----d folly--all my fault; I'm sorry,
+Nan--I'm sorry; and I'm a changed man, and I'll lead a better life, and
+so do you, my poor girl.'
+
+'But mayn't I see you? Not to spake to you, Masther Richard. Only
+sometimes to see you, far off, maybe.' Poor Nan was crying all the time
+she spoke.--'Well, well, I'll go, I will, indeed, Masther Richard; only
+let me kiss your hand--an' oh! no, no, don't say good-bye, an' I'll
+go--I'm gone now, an' maybe--just maybe, you might some time chance to
+wish to see your poor, wild Nan again--only to see her, an' I'll be
+thinking o' that.'
+
+The old feeling--if anything so coarse deserved the name--was gone; but
+he pitied her with all his heart; and that heart, such as it was--though
+she did not know it--was bleeding for her.
+
+He saw her, poor creature, hurrying away in her light clothing, through
+the sharp, moonlight chill, which, even in the wrapping of his thick
+cloak, he felt keenly enough. She looked over her shoulder--then
+stopped; perhaps, poor thing, she thought he was relenting, and then she
+began to hurry back again. They cling so desperately to the last chance.
+But that, you know, would never do. Another pleading--another
+parting--So he turned sharply and strode into the thickets of the close
+brushwood, among which the white mists of night were hanging. He
+thought, as he stepped resolutely and quickly on, with a stern face, and
+heavy heart, that he heard a wild sobbing cry in the distance, and that
+was poor Nan's farewell.
+
+So Devereux glided on like a ghost, through the noiseless thicket, and
+scarcely knowing or caring where he went, emerged upon the broad open
+plateau, and skirting the Fifteen Acres, came, at last, to a halt upon
+the high ground overlooking the river--which ran, partly in long trains
+of silver sparkles, and partly in deep shadow beneath him. Here he
+stopped; and looked towards the village where he had passed many a
+pleasant hour--with a profound and remorseful foreboding that there were
+no more such pleasant hours for him; and his eye wandered among the
+scattered lights that still twinkled from the distant windows; and he
+fancied he knew, among them all, that which gleamed pale and dim through
+the distant elms--the star of his destiny; and he looked at it across
+the water--a greater gulf severed them--so near, and yet a star in
+distance--with a strange mixture of sadness and defiance, tenderness and
+fury.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXII.
+
+OF A SOLEMN RESOLUTION WHICH CAPTAIN DEVEREUX REGISTERED AMONG HIS
+HOUSEHOLD GODS, WITH A LIBATION.
+
+
+When Devereux entered his drawing-room, and lighted his candles, he was
+in a black and bitter mood. He stood at the window for a while, and
+drummed on the pane, looking in the direction of the barrack, where all
+the fun was going on, but thinking, in a chaotic way, of things very
+different, and all toned with that strange sense of self-reproach and
+foreboding which, of late, had grown habitual with him--and not without
+just cause.
+
+'This shall be the last. 'Twas dreadful, seeing that poor Nan; and I
+want it--I can swear, I really and honestly want it--only one glass to
+stay my heart. Everyone may drink in moderation--especially if he's
+heart-sick, and has no other comfort--one glass and no more--curse it.'
+
+So one glass of brandy--I'm sorry to say, unmixed with water--the
+handsome misanthropist sipped and sipped, to the last drop; and then sat
+down before his fire, and struck, and poked, and stabbed at it in a
+bitter, personal sort of way, until here and there some blazes leaped
+up, and gave his eyes a dreamy sort of occupation; and he sat back, with
+his hands in his pockets, and his feet on the fender, gazing among the
+Plutonic peaks and caverns between the bars.
+
+'I've had my allowance for to-night; to-morrow night, none at all. 'Tis
+an accursed habit: and I'll not allow it to creep upon me. No, I've
+never fought it fairly, as I mean to do now--'tis quite easy, if one has
+but the will to do it.'
+
+So he sat before his fire, chewing the cud of bitter fancy only; and he
+recollected he had not quite filled his glass, and up he got with a
+swagger, and says he--
+
+'We'll drink fair, if you please--one glass--one only--but that, hang
+it--a bumper.'
+
+So he made a rough calculation.
+
+'We'll say so much--here or there, 'tis no great matter. A thimble full
+won't drown me. Pshaw! that's too much. What am I to do with it?--hang
+it. Well, we can't help it--'tis the last.'
+
+So whatever the quantity may have been, he drank it too, and grew more
+moody; and was suddenly called up from the black abyss by the entrance
+of little Puddock, rosy and triumphant, from the ball.
+
+'Ha! Puddock! Then, the fun's over. I'm glad to see you. I've been
+_tête-à-tête_ with my shadow--cursed bad company, Puddock. Where's
+Cluffe?'
+
+'Gone home, I believe.'
+
+'So much the better. You know Cluffe better than I, and there's a secret
+about him I never could find out. _You_ have, maybe?'
+
+'What's that?' lisped Puddock.
+
+'What the deuce Cluffe's good for.'
+
+'Oh! tut! We all know Cluffe's a very good fellow.'
+
+Devereux looked from under his finely pencilled brows with a sad sort of
+smile at good little Puddock.
+
+'Puddock,' says he, 'I'd like to have you write my epitaph.
+
+Puddock looked at him with his round eyes a little puzzled, and then he
+said--
+
+'You think, maybe, I've a turn for making verses; and you think also I
+like you, and there you're quite right.'
+
+Devereux laughed, but kindly, and shook the fat little hand he
+proffered.
+
+'I wish I were like you, Puddock. We've the knowledge of good and evil
+between us. The knowledge of good is all yours: you see nothing but the
+good that men have; you see it--and, I dare say, truly--where I can't.
+The darker knowledge is mine.'
+
+Puddock, who thought he thoroughly understood _King John, Shylock_, and
+_Richard III._, was a good deal taken aback by Devereux's estimate of
+his penetration.
+
+'Well, I don't think you know me, Devereux,' resumed he with a
+thoughtful lisp. 'I'm much mistaken, or I could sound the depths of a
+villain's soul as well as most men.'
+
+'And if you did you'd find it full of noble qualities,' said Dick
+Devereux. 'What book is that?'
+
+'The tragical history of Doctor Faustus,' answered Puddock. 'I left it
+here more than a week ago. Have you read it?'
+
+'Faith, Puddock, I forgot it! Let's see what 'tis like,' said Devereux.
+'Hey day!' And he read--
+
+  'Now, Faustus, let thine eyes with horror stare
+  Into that vast perpetual torture-house;
+  There are the furies tossing damned souls
+  On burning forks; their bodies boil in lead;
+  There are live quarters broiling on the coals
+  That ne'er can die; this ever-burning chair
+  Is for o'er-tortured souls to rest them in;
+  These that are fed with sops of flaming fire
+  Were gluttons, and loved only delicates,
+  And laughed to see the poor starve at their gates.
+
+'Tailors! by Jupiter! Serve'em right, the rogues. Tailors lining upon
+ragou royal, Spanish olea, Puddock--fat livers, and green morels in the
+Phoenix, the scoundrels, and laughing to see poor gentlemen of the
+Royal Irish Artillery starving at their gates--hang 'em.'
+
+'Well! well! Listen to the _Good Angel_,' said Puddock, taking up the
+book and declaiming his best--
+
+  'O thou hast lost celestial happiness,
+  Pleasures unspeakable, bliss without end.
+  Hadst thou affected sweet divinity,
+  Hell or the devil had no power on thee--
+  Hadst thou kept on that way. Faustus, behold
+  In what resplendent glory thou hadst sat,
+  On yonder throne, like those bright shining spirits,
+  And triumphed over hell! That hast thou lost;
+  And now, poor soul, must thy good angel leave thee;
+  The jaws of hell are open to receive thee.'
+
+'Stop that; 'tis all cursed rant,' said Devereux. 'That is, the thing
+itself; you make the most it.'
+
+'Why, truly,' said Puddock, 'there are better speeches in it. But 'tis
+very late; and parade, you know--I shall go to bed. And you--'
+
+'No. I shall stay where I am.'
+
+'Well, I wish you good-night, dear Devereux.'
+
+'Good-night, Puddock'
+
+And the plump little fellow was heard skipping down stairs, and the
+hall-door shut behind him. Devereux took the play that Puddock had just
+laid down, and read for a while with a dreary kind of interest. Then he
+got up, and, I'm sorry to say, drank another glass of the same strong
+waters.
+
+'To-morrow I turn over a new leaf;' and he caught himself repeating
+Puddock's snatch of Macbeth, 'To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow.'
+
+Devereux looked out, leaning on the window-sash. All was quiet now, as
+if the rattle of a carriage had never disturbed the serene cold night.
+The town had gone to bed, and you could hear the sigh of the river
+across the field. A sadder face the moon did not shine upon.
+
+'That's a fine play, Faustus--Marlowe,' he said. Some of the lines he
+had read were booming funereally in his ear like a far-off bell. 'I
+wonder whether Marlowe had run a wild course, like some of us
+here--myself--and could not retrieve. That honest little mountebank,
+Puddock, does not understand a word of it. I wish I were like Puddock.
+Poor little fellow!'
+
+So, after awhile, Devereux returned to his chair before the fire, and on
+his way again drank of the waters of Lethe, and sat down, not
+forgetting, but remorseful, over the fire.
+
+'I'll drink no more to-night--there--curse me if I do.'
+
+The fire was waxing low in the grate. 'To-morrow's a new day. Why, I
+never made a resolution about it before. I can keep it. 'Tis easily
+kept. To-morrow I begin.'
+
+And with fists clenched in his pockets, he vowed his vow, with an oath
+into the fire; and ten minutes were not past and over when his eye
+wandered thirstily again to the flask on the middle of the table, and
+with a sardonic, flushed smile, he quoted the 'Good Angel's' words:--
+
+  'O, Faustus, lay that damned book aside,
+  And gaze not on it lest it tempt thy soul.'
+
+And then pouring out a dram, he looked on it, and said, with the 'Evil
+Angel'--
+
+  'Go forward, Faustus, in that famous art,
+  Wherein all Nature's treasure is contained:
+  Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,
+  Lord and commander of the elements.'
+
+And then, with a solitary sneer, he sipped it. And after awhile he drank
+one glass more--they were the small glasses then in vogue--and shoved it
+back, with--
+
+'There; that's the last.'
+
+And then, perhaps, there was one other 'last;' and after that 'the
+_very_ last.' Hang it! it _must_ be the last, and so on, I suppose. And
+Devereux was pale, and looked wild and sulky on parade next morning.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIII.
+
+IN WHICH A LIBERTY IS TAKEN WITH MR. NUTTER'S NAME, AND MR. DANGERFIELD
+STANDS AT THE ALTAR.
+
+
+Poor Mrs. Nutter continued in a state of distracted and flighty
+tribulation, not knowing what to make of it, nor, indeed, knowing the
+worst; for the neighbours did not tell her half they might, nor drop a
+hint of the dreadful suspicion that dogged her absent helpmate.
+
+She was sometimes up rummaging among the drawers, and fidgeting about
+the house, without any clear purpose, but oftener lying on her bed, with
+her clothes on, crying. When she got hold of a friend, she disburthened
+her soul, and called on him or her for endless consolations and
+assurances, which, for the most part, she herself prescribed. There
+were, of course, fits of despair as well as starts of hope; and bright
+ideas, accounting for everything, and then clouds of blackness, and
+tornadoes of lamentation.
+
+Father Roach, a good-natured apostle, whose digestion suffered when
+anyone he liked was in trouble, paid her a visit; and being somehow
+confounded with Dr. Toole, was shown up to her bed-room, where the poor
+little woman lay crying under the coverlet. On discovering where he was,
+the good father was disposed to flinch, and get down stairs, in
+tenderness to his 'character,' and thinking what a story 'them villians
+o' the world'id make iv it down at the club there.' But on second
+thoughts, poor little Sally being neither young nor comely, he ventured,
+and sat down by the bed, veiled behind a strip of curtain, and poured
+his mellifluous consolations into her open ears.
+
+And poor Sally became eloquent in return. And Father Roach dried his
+eyes, although she could not see him behind the curtain, and called her
+'my daughter,' and 'dear lady,' and tendered such comforts as his
+housekeeping afforded. 'Had she bacon in the house?' or 'maybe she'd
+like a fat fowl?' 'She could not eat?' 'Why then she could make elegant
+broth of it, and dhrink it, an' he'd keep another fattenin' until Nutter
+himself come back.'
+
+'And then, my honey, you an' himself'll come down and dine wid ould
+Father Austin; an' we'll have a grand evenin' of it entirely, laughin'
+over the remimbrance iv these blackguard troubles, acuishla! Or maybe
+you'd accept iv a couple o' bottles of claret or canaries? I see--you
+don't want for wine.'
+
+So there was just one more offer the honest fellow had to make, and he
+opened with assurances 'twas only between himself an' her--an' not a
+sowl on airth 'id ever hear a word about it--and he asked her pardon,
+but he thought she might chance to want a guinea or two, just till
+Nutter came back, and he brought a couple in his waistcoat pocket.
+
+Poor Father Roach was hard-up just then. Indeed, the being hard-up was a
+chronic affection with him. Two horses were not to be kept for nothing.
+Nor for the same moderate figure was it possible to maintain an asylum
+for unfortunates and outlaws--pleasant fellows enough, but endowed with
+great appetites and an unquenchable taste for consolation in fluid
+forms.
+
+A clerical provision in Father Roach's day, and church, was not by any
+means what we have seen it since. At all events he was not often
+troubled with the possession of money, and when half-a-dozen good
+weddings brought him in fifty or a hundred pounds, the holy man was
+constrained forthwith to make distribution of his assets among a score
+of sour, and sometimes dangerous tradespeople. I mention this in no
+disparagement of Father Roach, quite the contrary. In making the tender
+of his two guineas--which, however, Sally declined--the worthy cleric
+was offering the widow's mite; not like some lucky dogs who might throw
+away a thousand or two and be nothing the worse; and you may be sure the
+poor fellow was very glad to find she did not want it.
+
+'Rather hard measure, it strikes me,' said Dangerfield, in the club, 'to
+put him in the _Hue-and-Cry_.'
+
+But there he was, sure enough, 'Charles Nutter, Esq., formerly of the
+Mills, near Knockmaroon, in the county of Dublin;' and a full
+description of the dress he wore, as well as of his height, complexion,
+features--and all this his poor little wife, still inhabiting the Mills,
+and quite unconscious that any man, woman, or child, who could prosecute
+him to conviction, for a murderous assault on Dr. Sturk, should have £50
+reward.
+
+'News in to-day, by Jove,' said Toole, bustling solemnly into the club;
+'by the packet that arrived at one o'clock, a man taken, answering
+Nutter's description exactly, just going aboard of a Jamaica brig at
+Gravesend, and giving no account of himself. He's to be sent over to
+Dublin for identification.'
+
+And when that was thoroughly discussed two or three times over, they
+fell to talking of other subjects, and among the rest of Devereux, and
+wondered what his plans were; and, there being no brother officers by,
+whether he meant to keep his commission, and various speculations as to
+the exact cause of the coldness shown him by General Chattesworth. Dick
+Spaight thought it might be that he had not asked Miss Gertrude in
+marriage.
+
+But this was pooh-poohed. 'Besides, they knew at Belmont,' said Toole,
+who was an authority upon the domestic politics of that family, and
+rather proud of being so, 'just as well as I did that Gipsy Dick was in
+love with Miss Lilias; and I lay you fifty he'd marry her to-morrow if
+she'd have him.'
+
+Toole was always a little bit more intimate with people behind their
+backs, so he called Devereux 'Gipsy Dick.'
+
+'She's ailing, I hear,' said old Slowe.
+
+'She is, indeed, Sir,' answered the doctor, with a grave shake of the
+head.
+
+'Nothing of moment, I hope?' he asked.
+
+'Why, you see it may be; she had a bad cough last winter, and this year
+she took it earlier, and it has fallen very much on her lungs; and you
+see, we can't say, Sir, what turn it may take, and I'm very sorry she
+should be so sick and ailing--she's the prettiest creature, and the best
+little soul; and I don't know, on my conscience, what the poor old
+parson would do if anything happened her, you know. But I trust, Sir,
+with care, you know, 'twill turn out well.'
+
+The season for trout-fishing was long past and gone, and there were no
+more pleasant rambles for Dangerfield and Irons along the flowery banks
+of the devious Liffey. Their rods and nets hung up, awaiting the return
+of genial spring; and the churlish stream, abandoned to its wintry mood,
+darkled and roared savagely under the windows of the Brass Castle.
+
+One dismal morning, as Dangerfield's energetic step carried him briskly
+through the town, the iron gate of the church-yard, and the door of the
+church itself standing open, he turned in, glancing upward as he passed
+at Sturk's bed-room windows, as all the neighbours did, to see whether
+General Death's white banners were floating there, and his tedious siege
+ended--as end it must--and the garrison borne silently away in his
+custody to the prison house.
+
+Up the aisle marched Dangerfield, not abating his pace, but with a swift
+and bracing clatter, like a man taking a frosty constitutional walk.
+
+Irons was moping softly about in the neighbourhood of the reading-desk,
+and about to mark the places of psalms and chapters in the great church
+Bible and Prayer-book, and sidelong he beheld his crony of the angle
+marching, with a grim confidence and swiftness, up the aisle.
+
+'I say, where's Martin?' said Dangerfield, cheerfully.
+
+'He's gone away, Sir.'
+
+'Hey! then you've no one with you?'
+
+'No, Sir.'
+
+Dangerfield walked straight on, up the step of the communion-table, and
+shoving open the little balustraded door, he made a gay stride or two
+across the holy precinct, and with a quick right-about face, came to a
+halt, the white, scoffing face, for exercise never flushed it, and the
+cold, broad sheen of the spectacles, looked odd in the clerk's eyes,
+facing the church-door, from beside the table of the sacrament,
+displayed, as it were, in the very frame--foreground, background, and
+all--in which he was wont to behold the thoughtful, simple, holy face of
+the rector.
+
+'Alone among the dead; and not afraid?' croaked the white face
+pleasantly.
+
+The clerk seemed always to writhe and sweat silently under the banter of
+his comrade of the landing-net, and he answered, without lifting his
+head, in a constrained and dogged sort of way, like a man who expects
+something unpleasant--
+
+'Alone? yes, Sir, there's none here but ourselves.'
+
+And his face flushed, and the veins on his forehead stood out, as will
+happen with a man who tugs at a weight that is too much for him.
+
+'I saw you steal a glance at Charles when he came into the church here,
+and it strikes me I was at the moment thinking of the same thing as you,
+to wit, will he require any special service at our hands? Well, he does!
+and you or I must do it. He'll give a thousand pounds, mind ye; and
+that's something in the way of fellows like you and me; and whatever
+else he may have done, Charles has never broke his word in a money
+matter. And, hark'ee, can't you thumb over that Bible and Prayer-book on
+the table here as well as _there? Do_ so. Well--'
+
+And he went on in a lower key, still looking full front at the
+church-door, and a quick glance now and then upon Irons, across the
+communion-table.
+
+''Tis nothing at all--don't you see--what are you afraid of? It can't
+change events--'tis only a question of to-day or to-morrow--a whim--a
+maggot--hey? You can manage it this way, mark ye.'
+
+He had his pocket-handkerchief by the two corners before him, like an
+apron, and he folded it neatly and quickly into four.
+
+'Don't you see--and a little water. You're a neat hand, you know; and if
+you're interrupted, 'tis only to blow your nose in't--ha, ha, ha!--and
+clap it in your pocket; and _you_ may as well have the money--hey?
+Good-morning.'
+
+And when he had got half-way down the aisle, he called back to Irons, in
+a loud, frank voice--
+
+'And Martin's not here--could you say where he is?'
+
+But he did not await the answer, and glided with quick steps from the
+porch, with a side leer over the wavy green mounds and tombstones. He
+had not been three minutes in the church, and across the street he went,
+to the shop over the way, and asked briskly where Martin, the sexton,
+was. Well, they did not know.
+
+'Ho! Martin,' he cried across the street, seeing that functionary just
+about to turn the corner by Sturk's hall-door steps; 'a word with you.
+I've been looking for you. See, you must take a foot-rule, and make all
+the measurements of that pew, you know; don't mistake a hair's breadth,
+d'ye mind, for you must be ready to swear to it; and bring a note of it
+to me, at home, to-day, at one o'clock, and you shall have a
+crown-piece.'
+
+From which the reader will perceive--as all the world might, if they had
+happened to see him enter the church just now--that his object in the
+visit was to see and speak with Martin; and that the little bit of
+banter with Irons, the clerk, was all by-play, and parenthesis, and
+beside the main business, and, of course, of no sort of consequence.
+
+Mr. Irons, like most men of his rank in life, was not much in the habit
+of exact thinking. His ruminations, therefore, were rather confused,
+but, perhaps, they might be translated in substance, into something like
+this--
+
+'Why the ---- can't he let them alone that's willing to let him alone? I
+wish he was in his own fiery home, and better people at rest. I _can't_
+mark them places--I don't know whether I'm on my head or heels.'
+
+And he smacked the quarto Prayer-book down upon the folio Bible with a
+sonorous bang, and glided out, furious, frightened, and taciturn, to the
+Salmon House.
+
+He came upon Dangerfield again only half-a-dozen steps from the turn
+into the street. He had just dismissed Martin, and was looking into a
+note in his pocket-book, and either did not see, or pretended not to
+see, the clerk. But some one else saw and recognised Mr. Irons; and, as
+he passed, directed upon him a quick, searching glance. It was Mr.
+Mervyn, who happened to pass that way. Irons and Dangerfield, and the
+church-yard--there was a flash of association in the group and the
+background which accorded with an old suspicion. Dangerfield, indeed,
+was innocently reading a leaf in his red and gilt leather pocket-book,
+as I have said. But Irons's eyes met the glance of Mervyn, and
+contracted oddly, and altogether there gleamed out something indefinable
+in his look. It was only for a second--a glance and an intuition; and
+from that moment it was one of Mervyn's immovable convictions, that Mr.
+Dangerfield knew something of Irons's secret. It was a sort of
+intermittent suspicion before--now it was a monstrous, but fixed belief.
+
+So Mr. Irons glided swiftly on to the Salmon House, where, in a dark
+corner, he drank something comfortable; and stalked back again to the
+holy pile, with his head aching, and the world round him like a wild and
+evil dream.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIV.
+
+BEING A NIGHT SCENE, IN WHICH MISS GERTRUDE CHATTESWORTH, BEING ADJURED
+BY AUNT BECKY, MAKES ANSWER.
+
+
+In Aunt Becky's mind, the time could not be far off when the odd sort of
+relations existing between the Belmont family and Mr. Dangerfield must
+be defined. The Croesus himself, indeed, was very indulgent. He was
+assiduous and respectful; but he wisely abstained from pressing for an
+immediate decision, and trusted to reflection and to Aunt Becky's good
+offices; and knew that his gold would operate by its own slow, but sure,
+gravitation.
+
+At one time he had made up his mind to be peremptory--and politely to
+demand an unequivocal 'yes,' or 'no.' But a letter reached him from
+London; it was from a great physician there. Whatever was in it, the
+effect was to relieve his mind of an anxiety. He never, indeed, looked
+anxious, or moped like an ordinary man in blue-devils. But his servants
+knew when anything weighed upon his spirits, by his fierce, short,
+maniacal temper. But with the seal of that letter the spell broke, the
+evil spirit departed for a while, and the old jocose, laconic irony came
+back, and glittered whitely in the tall chair by the fire, and sipped
+its claret after dinner, and sometimes smoked its long pipe and grinned
+into the embers of the grate. At Belmont, there had been a skirmish over
+the broiled drum-sticks at supper, and the ladies had withdrawn in
+towering passions to their nightly devotions and repose.
+
+Gertrude had of late grown more like herself, but was quite resolute
+against the Dangerfield alliance, which Aunt Becky fought for, the more
+desperately that in their private confidences under the poplar trees she
+had given the rich cynic of the silver spectacles good assurance of
+success.
+
+Puddock drank tea at Belmont--nectar in Olympus--that evening. Was ever
+lieutenant so devoutly romantic? He had grown more fanatical and abject
+in his worship. He spoke less, and lisped in very low tones. He sighed
+often, and sometimes mightily; and ogled unhappily, and smiled
+lackadaisically. The beautiful damsel was, in her high, cold way, kind
+to the guest, and employed him about the room on little commissions, and
+listened to his speeches without hearing them, and rewarded them now and
+then with the gleam of a smile, which made his gallant little heart
+flutter up to his solitaire, and his honest powdered head giddy.
+
+'I marvel, brother,' ejaculated Aunt Becky, suddenly, appearing in the
+parlour, where the general had made himself comfortable over his novel,
+and opening her address with a smart stamp on the floor. The veteran's
+heart made a little jump, and he looked up over his gold spectacles.
+
+'I marvel, brother, what you can mean, desire, or intend, by all this
+ogling, sighing, and love-making; 'tis surely a strange way of
+forwarding Mr. Dangerfield's affair.'
+
+He might have blustered a little, as he sometimes did, for she had
+startled him, and her manner was irritating; but she had caught him in a
+sentimental passage between Lovelace and Miss Harlowe, which always
+moved him--and he showed no fight at all; but his innocent little light
+blue eyes looked up wonderingly and quite gently at her.
+
+'Who--I? _What_ ogling, Sister Becky?'
+
+'You! tut! That foolish, ungrateful person, Lieutenant Puddock; what can
+you propose to yourself, brother, in bringing Lieutenant Puddock here? I
+hate him.'
+
+'Why, what about Puddock--what has he done?' asked the general, with
+round eyes still, and closing his book on his finger.
+
+'What has he done! Why, he's at your daughter's feet,' cried Aunt Becky,
+with scarlet cheeks, and flashing eyes; 'and she--artful gipsy, has
+brought him there by positively making love to him.'
+
+'Sweet upon Toodie (the general's old pet name for Gertrude); why, half
+the young fellows are--you know--pooh, pooh,' and the general stood up
+with his back to the fire--looking uneasy; for, like many other men, he
+thought a woman's eyes saw further in such a case than his.
+
+'Do you wish the young hussy--do you--to marry Lieutenant Puddock? I
+should not wonder! Why, of course, her fortune you and she may give away
+to whom you like; but remember, she's young, and has been much admired,
+brother; and may make a great match; and in our day, young ladies were
+under direction, and did not marry without apprising their parents or
+natural guardians. Here's Mr. Dangerfield, who proposes great
+settlements. Why won't she have him? For my part, I think we're little
+better than cheats; and I mean to write to-morrow morning and tell the
+poor gentleman that you and I have been bamboozling him to a purpose,
+and meant all along to marry the vixen to a poor lieutenant in your
+corps. Speak truth, and shame the devil, brother; for my part, I'm sick
+of the affair; I'm sick of deception, ingratitude, and odious fools.
+
+Aunt Becky had vanished in a little whirlwind, leaving the general with
+his back to the fire, looking blank and uncomfortable. And from his
+little silver tankard he poured out a glassful of his mulled claret, not
+thinking, and smelled to it deliberately, as he used to do when he was
+tasting a new wine, and looked through it, and set the glass down,
+forgetting he was to drink it, for his thoughts were elsewhere.
+
+On reaching her bed-room, which she did with impetuous haste, Aunt
+Becky shut the door with a passionate slam, and said, with a sort of
+choke and a sob, 'There's nought but ingratitude on earth--the odious,
+odious, _odious_ person!'
+
+And when, ten minutes after, her maid came in, she found Aunt Rebecca
+but little advanced in her preparations for bed; and her summons at the
+door was answered by a fierce and shrilly nose-trumpeting, and a stern
+'Come in, hussy--are you deaf, child?' And when she came in, Aunt Becky
+was grim, and fussy, and her eyes red.
+
+Miss Gertrude was that night arrived just on that dim and delicious
+plateau--that debatable land upon which the last waking reverie and the
+first dream of slumber mingle together in airy dance and shifting
+colours--when, on a sudden, she was recalled to a consciousness of her
+grave bed-posts, and damask curtains, by the voice of her aunt.
+
+Sitting up, she gazed on the redoubted Aunt Becky through the lace of
+her _bonnet de nuit_, for some seconds, in a mystified and incredulous
+way.
+
+Mistress Rebecca Chattesworth, on the other hand, had drawn the
+curtains, and stood, candle in hand, arrayed in her night-dress, like a
+ghost, only she had on a pink and green quilted dressing-gown loosely
+over it.
+
+She was tall and erect, of course; but she looked softened and strange;
+and when she spoke, it was in quite a gentle, humble sort of way, which
+was perfectly strange to her niece.
+
+'Don't be frightened, sweetheart,' said she, and she leaned over and
+with her arm round her neck, kissed her. 'I came to say a word, and just
+to ask you a question. I wish, indeed I do--Heaven knows, to do my duty;
+and, my dear child, will you tell me the whole truth--will you tell me
+truly?--You will, when I ask it as a kindness.'
+
+There was a little pause, and Gertrude looked with a pale gaze upon her
+aunt.
+
+'Are you,' said Aunt Becky--'do you, Gertrude--do you like Lieutenant
+Puddock?'
+
+'Lieutenant Puddock!' repeated the girl, with the look and gesture of a
+person in whose ear something strange has buzzed.
+
+'Because, if you really are in love with him, Gertie; and that he likes
+you; and that, in short--' Aunt Becky was speaking very rapidly, but
+stopped suddenly.
+
+'In love with Lieutenant Puddock!' was all that Miss Gertrude said.
+
+'Now, do tell me, Gertrude, if it be so--tell _me_, dear love. I know
+'tis a hard thing to say,' and Aunt Becky considerately began to fiddle
+with the ribbon at the back of her niece's nightcap, so that she need
+not look in her face; 'but, Gertie, tell me truly, do you like him;
+and--and--why, if it be so, I will mention Mr. Dangerfield's suit no
+more. There now--there's all I want to say.'
+
+'Lieutenant Puddock!' repeated young Madam in the nightcap; and by this
+time the film of slumber was gone; and the suspicion struck her somehow
+in altogether so comical a way that she could not help laughing in her
+aunt's sad, earnest face.
+
+'Fat, funny little Lieutenant Puddock!--was ever so diverting a
+disgrace? Oh! dear aunt, what have I done to deserve so prodigious a
+suspicion?'
+
+It was plain, from her heightened colour, that her aunt did not choose
+to be laughed at.
+
+'What have you done?' said she, quite briskly; 'why--what have you
+done?' and Aunt Becky had to consider just for a second or two, staring
+straight at the young lady through the crimson damask curtains. 'You
+have--you--you--why, what have you _done_? and she covered her confusion
+by stooping down to adjust the heel of her slipper.
+
+'Oh! it's delightful--plump little Lieutenant Puddock!' and the graver
+her aunt looked the more irrepressibly she laughed; till that lady,
+evidently much offended, took the young gentlewoman pretty roundly to
+task.
+
+'Well! I'll tell you what you have done,' said she, almost fiercely. 'As
+absurd as he is, you have been twice as sweet upon him as he upon you;
+and you have done your endeavour to fill his brain with the notion that
+you are in love with him, young lady; and if you're not, you have acted,
+I promise you, a most unscrupulous and unpardonable part by a most
+honourable and well-bred gentleman--for that character I believe he
+bears. Yes--you may laugh, Madam, how you please; but he's allowed, I
+say, to be as honest, as true, as fine a gentleman as--as--'
+
+'As ever surprised a weaver,' said the young lady, laughing till she
+almost cried. In fact, she was showing in a new light, and becoming
+quite a funny character upon this theme. And, indeed, this sort of
+convulsion of laughing seemed so unaccountable on natural grounds to
+Aunt Rebecca, that her irritation subsided into perplexity, and she
+began to suspect that her extravagant merriment might mean possibly
+something which she did not quite understand.
+
+'Well, niece, when you have quite done laughing at nothing, you will,
+perhaps, be so good as to hear me. I put it to you now, young lady, as
+your relation and your friend, once for all, upon your sacred
+honour--remember you're a Chattesworth--upon the honour of a
+Chattesworth' (a favourite family form of adjuration on serious
+occasions with Aunt Rebecca), 'do you like Lieutenant Puddock?'
+
+It was now Miss Gertrude's turn to be nettled, and to remind her
+visitor, by a sudden flush in her cheek and a flash from her eyes, that
+she was, indeed, a Chattesworth; and with more disdain than, perhaps,
+was quite called for, she repelled the soft suspicion.
+
+'I protest, Madam,' said Miss Gertrude, ''tis _too_ bad. Truly, Madam,
+it _is vastly_ vexatious to have to answer so strange and affronting a
+question. If you ever took the trouble, aunt, to listen to, or look at,
+Lieutenant Puddock, you might--'
+
+'Well, niece,' quoth Aunt Becky, interrupting, with a little toss of her
+head, 'young ladies weren't quite so hard to please in my time, and I
+can't see or hear that he's so much worse than others.'
+
+'I'd sooner die than have him,' said Miss Gertie, peremptorily.
+
+'Then, I suppose, if ever, and whenever he asks you the question
+himself, you'll have no hesitation in telling him so?' said Aunt Becky,
+with becoming solemnity.
+
+'Laughable, ridiculous, comical, and absurd, as I always thought and
+believed Lieutenant Puddock to be, I yet believe the asking such a
+question of me to be a stretch of absurdity, from which his breeding,
+for he is a gentleman, will restrain him. Besides, Madam, you can't
+possibly be aware of the subjects on which he has invariably discoursed
+whenever he happened to sit by me--plays and players, and candied fruit.
+Really, Madam, it is too absurd to have to enter upon one's defence
+against so incredible an imagination.'
+
+Aunt Rebecca looked steadily for a few seconds in her niece's face, then
+drew a long breath, and leaning over, kissed her again on the forehead,
+and with a grave little nod, and looking on her again for a short space,
+without saying a word more, she turned suddenly and left the room.
+
+Miss Gertrude's vexation again gave way to merriment; and her aunt, as
+she walked sad and stately up stairs, heard one peal of merry laughter
+after another ring through her niece's bed-room. She had not laughed so
+much for three years before; and this short visit cost her, I am sure,
+two hours' good sleep at least.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXV.
+
+RELATING SOME AWFUL NEWS THAT REACHED THE VILLAGE, AND HOW DR.
+WALSINGHAM VISITED CAPTAIN RICHARD DEVEREUX AT HIS LODGINGS.
+
+
+And now there was news all over the town, to keep all the tongues there
+in motion.
+
+News--news--great news!--terrible news! Peter Fogarty, Mr. Tresham's
+boy, had it that morning from his cousin, Jim Redmond, whose aunt lived
+at Ringsend, and kept the little shop over against the 'Plume of
+Feathers,' where you might have your pick and choice of all sorts of
+nice and useful things--bacon, brass snuff-boxes, penny ballads, eggs,
+candles, cheese, tobacco-pipes, pinchbeck buckles for knee and instep,
+soap, sausages, and who knows what beside.
+
+No one quite believed it--it was a tradition at third hand, and Peter
+Fogarty's cousin, Jim Redmond's aunt, was easy of faith;--Jim, it was
+presumed, not very accurate in narration, and Peter, not much better.
+Though, however, it was not actually 'intelligence,' it was a startling
+thesis. And though some raised their brows and smiled darkly, and shook
+their heads, the whole town certainly pricked their ears at it. And not
+a man met another without 'Well! anything more? You've heard the report,
+Sir--eh?'
+
+It was not till Doctor Toole came out of town, early that day, that the
+sensation began in earnest.
+
+'There could be no doubt about it--'twas a wonderful strange thing
+certainly. After so long a time--and so well preserved too.'
+
+'_What_ was it--what _is_ it?'
+
+'Why, Charles Nutter's corpse is found, Sir!'
+
+'Corpse--hey!'
+
+'So Toole says. Hollo! Toole--Doctor Toole--I say. Here's Mr. Slowe
+hasn't heard about poor Nutter.'
+
+'Ho! neighbour Slowe--give you good-day, Sir--not heard it? By Jove,
+Sir--poor Nutter!--'tis true--his body's found--picked up this morning,
+just at sunrise, by two Dunleary fishermen, off Bullock. Justice Lowe
+has seen it--and Spaight saw it too. I've just been speaking with him,
+not an hour ago, in Thomas Street. It lies at Ringsend--and an inquest
+in the morning.'
+
+And so on in Doctor Toole's manner, until he saw Dr. Walsingham, the
+good rector, pausing in his leisurely walk just outside the row of
+houses that fronted the turnpike, in one of which were the lodgings of
+Dick Devereux.
+
+The good Doctor Toole wondered what brought his reverence there, for he
+had an inkling of something going on. So he bustled off to him, and told
+his story with the stern solemnity befitting such a theme, and that
+pallid, half-suppressed smile with which an exciting horror is sometimes
+related. And the good rector had many ejaculations of consternation and
+sympathy, and not a few enquiries to utter. And at last, when the theme
+was quite exhausted, he told Toole, who still lingered on, that he was
+going to pay his respects to Captain Devereux.
+
+'Oh!' said cunning little Toole, 'you need not, for I told him the whole
+matter.'
+
+'Very like, Sir,' answered the doctor; 'but 'tis on another matter I
+wish to see him.'
+
+'Oh!--ho!--certainly--very good, Sir. I beg pardon--and--and--he's just
+done his breakfast--a late dog, Sir--ha! ha! Your servant, Doctor
+Walsingham.'
+
+Devereux puzzled his comrade Puddock more than ever. Sometimes he would
+descend with his blue devils into the abyss, and sit there all the
+evening in a dismal sulk. Sometimes he was gayer even than his old gay
+self; and sometimes in a bitter vein, talking enigmatical ironies, with
+his strange smile; and sometimes he was dangerous and furious, just as
+the weather changes, without rhyme or reason. Maybe he was angry with
+himself, and thought it was with others; and was proud, sorry, and
+defiant, and let his moods, one after another, possess him as they came.
+
+They were his young days--beautiful and wicked--days of clear, rich
+tints, and sanguine throbbings, and _gloria mundi_--when we fancy the
+spirit perfect, and the body needs no redemption--when, fresh from the
+fountains of life, death is but a dream, and we walk the earth like
+heathen gods and goddesses, in celestial egotism and beauty. Oh, fair
+youth!--gone for ever. The parting from thee was a sadness and a
+violence--sadder, I think, than death itself. We look behind us, and
+sigh after thee, as on the pensive glories of a sunset, and our march is
+toward the darkness. It is twilight with us now, and will soon be
+starlight, and the hour and place of slumber, till the reveille sounds,
+and the day of wonder opens. Oh, grant us a good hour, and take us to
+Thy mercy! But to the last those young days will be remembered and worth
+remembering; for be we what else we may, young mortals we shall never be
+again.
+
+Of course Dick Devereux was now no visitor at the Elms. All _that_ for
+the present was over. Neither did he see Lilias; for little Lily was now
+a close prisoner with doctors, in full uniform, with shouldered canes,
+mounting guard at the doors. 'Twas a hard winter, and she needed care
+and nursing. And Devereux chafed and fretted; and, in truth, 'twas hard
+to bear this spite of fortune--to be so near, and yet so far--quite out
+of sight and hearing.
+
+A word or two from General Chattesworth in Doctor Walsingham's ear, as
+they walked to and fro before the white front of Belmont, had decided
+the rector on making this little call; for he had now mounted the stair
+of Devereux's lodging, and standing on the carpet outside, knocked, with
+a grave, sad face on his door panel, glancing absently through the lobby
+window, and whistling inaudibly the while.
+
+The doctor was gentle and modest, and entirely kindly. He held good
+Master Feltham's doctrine about reproofs. 'A man,' says he, 'had better
+be convinced in private than be made guilty by a proclamation. Open
+rebukes are for Magistrates, and Courts of Justice! for Stelled Chambers
+and for Scarlets, in the thronged Hall Private are for friends; where
+all the witnesses of the offender's blushes are blinde and deaf and
+dumb. We should do by them as Joseph thought to have done by Mary, seeke
+to cover blemishes with secrecy. Public reproofe is like striking of a
+Deere in the Herd; it not only wounds him to the loss of enabling blood,
+but betrays him to the Hound, his Enemy, and makes him by his fellows be
+pusht out of company.'
+
+So on due invitation from within, the good parson entered, and the
+handsome captain in all his splendours--when you saw him after a little
+absence 'twas always with a sort of admiring surprise--you had forgot
+how _very_ handsome he was--this handsome slender fellow, with his dark
+face and large, unfathomable violet eyes, so wild and wicked, and yet so
+soft, stood up surprised, with a look of welcome quickly clouded and
+crossed by a gleam of defiance.
+
+They bowed, and shook hands, however, and bowed again, and each was the
+other's 'servant;' and being seated, they talked _de generalibus_; for
+the good parson would not come like an executioner and take his prisoner
+by the throat, but altogether in the spirit of the shepherd, content to
+walk a long way about, and wait till he came up with the truant, and
+entreating him kindly, not dragging or beating him back to the flock,
+but leading and carrying by turns, and so awaiting his opportunity. But
+Devereux was in one of his moods. He thought the doctor no friend to his
+suit, and was bitter, and formal, and violent.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVI.
+
+OF A CERTAIN TEMPEST THAT AROSE AND SHOOK THE CAPTAIN'S SPOONS AND
+TEA-CUPS; AND HOW THE WIND SUDDENLY WENT DOWN.
+
+
+'I'm very glad, Sir, to have a few quiet minutes with you,' said the
+doctor, making then a little pause; and Devereux thought he was going to
+re-open the matter of his suit. 'For I've had no answer to my last
+letter, and I want to know all you can tell me of that most promising
+young man, Daniel Loftus, and his most curious works.'
+
+'Dan Loftus is dead and--' (I'm sorry to say he added something else);
+'and his works have followed him, Sir,' said the strange captain,
+savagely; for he could not conceive what business the doctor had to
+think about _him_, when Captain Devereux's concerns were properly to be
+discussed. So though he had reason to believe he was quite well, and in
+Malaga with his 'honourable' and sickly cousin, he killed him off-hand,
+and disposed summarily of his works.
+
+There was an absolute silence of some seconds after this scandalous
+explosion; and Devereux said--'In truth, Sir, I don't know. They hold
+him capable of taking charge of my wise cousin--hang him!--so I dare say
+he can take care of himself; and I don't see what the plague ill's to
+happen him.'
+
+The doctor's honest eyes opened, and his face flushed a little. But
+reading makes a full man, not a quick one; and so while he was
+fashioning his answer, the iron cooled. Indeed he never spoke in anger.
+When on sudden provocation he carried his head higher and flushed a
+little, they supposed he was angry; but if he was, this was all he
+showed of the old Adam, and he held his peace.
+
+So now the doctor looked down upon the table-cloth, for Devereux's
+breakfast china and silver were still upon the table, and he marshalled
+some crumbs he found there, sadly, with his finger, in a row first, and
+then in a circle, and then, goodness knows how; and he sighed profoundly
+over his work.
+
+Devereux was in his mood. He was proud--he had no notion of apologising.
+But looking another way, and with his head rather high, he hoped Miss
+Lilias was better.
+
+Well, well, the spring was coming; and Parson Walsingham knew the spring
+restored little Lily. 'She's like a bird--she's like a flower, and the
+winter is nearly past,' (and the beautiful words of the 'Song of Songs,'
+which little Lily so loved to read, mingled like a reverie in his
+discourse, and he said), 'the flowers will soon appear in the earth,
+the time of the singing birds will come, and the voice of the turtle be
+heard in our land.'
+
+'Sir,' said Dick Devereux, in a voice that sounded strangely, 'I have a
+request; may I make it?--a favour to beg. 'Tisn't, all things
+remembered, very much. If I write a letter, and place it open in your
+hand--a letter, Sir--to Miss Lily--will you read it to her, or else let
+her read it? Or even a message--a spoken message--will you give it?'
+
+'Captain Devereux,' said the doctor, in a reserved but very sad sort of
+way, 'I must tell you that my dear child is by no means well. She has
+had a cold, and it has not gone away so soon as usual--something I think
+of her dear mother's delicacy--and so she requires care, my little Lily,
+a great deal of care. But, thank God, the spring is before us. Yes, yes;
+the soft air and sunshine, and then she'll be out again. You know the
+garden, and her visits, and her little walks. So I don't fret or
+despair. Oh, no.' He spoke very gently, in a reverie, after his wont,
+and he sighed heavily. 'You know 'tis growing late in life with me,
+Captain Devereux,' he resumed, 'and I would fain see her united to a
+kind and tender partner, for I think she's a fragile little flower. Poor
+little Lily! Something, I often think, of her dear mother's delicacy,
+and I have always nursed her, you know. She has been a great pet;' and
+he stopped suddenly, and walked to the window. 'A great pet. Indeed, if
+she could have been spoiled, I should have spoiled her long ago, but she
+could not. Ah, no! Sweet little Lily!'
+
+Then quite firmly but gently Parson Walsingham went on:--
+
+'Now, the doctors say she mustn't be agitated, and I can't allow it,
+Captain Devereux. I gave her your message--let me see--why 'tis four,
+ay, five months ago. I gave it with a good will, for I thought well of
+you.'
+
+'And you don't any longer--there, 'tis all out,' broke in Devereux,
+fiercely.
+
+'Well, you know her answer; it was not lightly given, nor in haste, and
+first and last 'twas quite decided, and I sent it to you under my own
+hand.'
+
+'I thought you were a friend to me, Dr. Walsingham, and now I'm sure
+you're none,' said the young fellow, in the same bitter tone.
+
+'Ah, Captain Devereux, he can be no friend to you who is a friend to
+your faults; and you no friend to yourself if you be an enemy to him
+that would tell you of them. Will you like him the worse that would have
+you better?'
+
+'We've _all_ faults, Sir; mine are not the worst, and I'll have neither
+shrift nor absolution. There's some reason here you won't disclose.'
+
+He was proud, fierce, pale, and looked damnably handsome and wicked.
+
+'She gave _no_ reason, Sir;' answered Dr. Walsingham. No, she gave
+none; but, as I understood, she did not love you, and she prayed me to
+mention it no more.'
+
+'She gave no reason; but you _know_ the reason,' glared out Devereux.
+
+'Indeed, Sir, I do _not_ know the reason,' answered the rector.
+
+'But you know--you _must_--you _meant_--_you_, at least had heard some
+ill of me, and you no longer wish my suit to prosper.'
+
+'I have, indeed, of late, heard _much_ ill of you, Captain Devereux,'
+answered Dr. Walsingham, in a very deliberate but melancholy way,
+'enough to make me hold you no meet husband for any wife who cared for a
+faithful partner, or an honourable and a quiet home.'
+
+'You mean--I know you do--that Palmerstown girl, who has belied me?'
+cried Devereux.
+
+'That unhappy young woman, Captain Devereux, her name is Glynn, whom you
+have betrayed under a promise of marriage.'
+
+That moment Devereux was on his feet. It was the apparition of Devereux;
+a blue fire gleaming in his eyes, not a word from his white lips, while
+three seconds might have ticked from Mrs. Irons's prosy old clock on the
+stair-head; his slender hand was outstretched in appeal and defiance,
+and something half-celestial, half-infernal--the fallen angelic--in his
+whole face and bearing.
+
+'May my merciful Creator strike me dead, here at your feet, Doctor
+Walsingham, but 'tis a lie,' cried he. 'I never promised--she'll tell
+you. I thought she told you long ago. 'Twas that devil incarnate, her
+mother, who forged the lie, why or where-fore, except for her fiendish
+love of mischief, I know not.'
+
+'I cannot tell, Sir, about your promise,' said the doctor gravely; 'with
+or without it, the crime is heinous, the cruelty immeasurable.'
+
+'Dr. Walsingham,' cried Dick Devereux, a strange scorn ringing in his
+accents, 'with all your learning you don't know the world; you don't
+know human nature; you don't see what's passing in this very village
+before your eyes every day you live. I'm not worse than others; I'm not
+half so bad as fifty older fellows who ought to know better; but I'm
+_sorry_, and 'tisn't easy to say that, for I'm as proud, proud as the
+devil, proud as you; and if it were to my Maker, what more can I say?
+I'm sorry, and if Heaven forgives us when we repent, I think our
+wretched fellow-mortals may.'
+
+'Captain Devereux, I've nothing to forgive,' said the parson, kindly.
+
+'But I tell you, Sir, this cruel, unmeaning separation will be my
+eternal ruin,' cried Devereux. 'Listen to me--by Heaven, you shall. I've
+fought a hard battle, Sir! I've tried to forget her--to _hate_ her--it
+won't do. I tell you, Dr. Walsingham, 'tis not in your nature to
+comprehend the intensity of my love--you can't. I don't blame you. But I
+think, Sir--I think I _might_ make her like me, Sir. They come at last,
+sometimes, to like those that love them so--so _desperately: that_ may
+not be for me, 'tis true. I only ask to plead my own sad cause. I only
+want to see her--gracious Heaven--but to see her--to show her how I was
+wronged--to tell her she can make me what she will--an honourable, pure,
+self-denying, devoted man, or leave me in the dark, alone, with nothing
+for it but to wrap my cloak about my head, and leap over the precipice.'
+
+'Captain Devereux, why will you doubt me? I've spoken the truth. I have
+already said I must not give your message; and you are not to suppose I
+dislike you, because I would fain have your faults mended.'
+
+'Faults! have I? To be sure I have. So have _you, more,_ Sir, and
+_worse_ than I, maybe,' cried Devereux, wild again; 'and you come here
+in your spiritual pride to admonish and to lecture, and to _insult_ a
+miserable man, who's better, perhaps, than yourself. You've heard ill of
+me? you hear I sometimes drink maybe a glass too much--who does not? you
+can drink a glass yourself, Sir; drink more, and show it less than I
+maybe; and you listen to every damned slander that any villain, to whose
+vices and idleness you pander with what you call your alms, may be
+pleased to invent, and you deem yourself charitable; save us from such
+charity! _Charitable_, and you refuse to deliver my miserable message:
+hard-hearted Pharisee!'
+
+It is plain poor Captain Devereux was not quite himself--bitter, fierce,
+half-mad, and by no means so polite as he ought to have been. Alas! as
+Job says, 'ye imagine to reprove words; and the speeches of one that is
+desperate, which are as wind.'
+
+'Yes, hard-hearted, unrelenting Pharisee.' The torrent roared on, and
+the wind was up; it was night and storm with poor Devereux. 'You who
+pray every day--oh--damnable hypocrisy--lead us not into temptation--you
+neither care nor ask to what courses your pride and obstinacy are
+driving me--your fellow-creature.'
+
+'Ah, Captain Devereux, you are angry with me, and yet it's not my doing;
+the man that is at variance with himself will hardly be at one with
+others. You have said much to me that is unjust, and, perhaps, unseemly;
+but I won't reproach you; your anger and trouble make wild work with
+your words. When one of my people falls into sin, I ever find it is so
+through lack of prayer. Ah! Captain Devereux, have you not of late been
+remiss in the duty of private prayer?'
+
+The captain laughed, not pleasantly, into the ashes in the grate. But
+the doctor did not mind, and only said, looking upward--.
+
+'Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died.'
+
+There was kindness, and even tenderness, in the tone in which simple Dr.
+Walsingham spoke the appellative, brother; and it smote Devereux now,
+as sometimes happens with wayward fellows, and his better nature was
+suddenly moved.
+
+'I'm _sorry_, Sir--I am. You're too patient--I'm _very_ sorry; 'tis like
+an angel--you're noble, Sir, and I such an outcast. I--I wish you'd
+strike me, Sir--you're too kind and patient, Sir, and so pure--and how
+have I spoken to you? A _trial_, Sir, if you _can_ forgive me--one
+trial--my vice--you shall see me changed, a new man. Oh, Sir, let me
+swear it. I _am_, Sir--I'm reformed; don't believe me till you see it.
+Oh! good Samaritan,--don't forsake me--I'm all one wound.'
+
+Well! they talked some time longer, and parted kindly.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVII.
+
+IN WHICH A CERTAIN TROUBLED SPIRIT WALKS.
+
+
+Mr. Dangerfield was at the club that night, and was rather in spirits
+than otherwise, except, indeed, when poor Charles Nutter was talked of.
+Then he looked grave, and shrugged, and shook his head, and said--
+
+'A bad business, Sir; and where's his poor wife?'
+
+'Spending the night with us, poor soul,' said Major O'Neill, mildly,
+'and hasn't an idaya, poor thing; and indeed, I hope, she mayn't hear
+it.'
+
+'Pooh! Sir, she must hear it; but you know she might have heard worse,
+Sir, eh?' rejoined Dangerfield.
+
+'True for you, Sir,' said the major, suspending the filling of his pipe
+to direct a quiet glance of significance at Dangerfield, and then
+closing his eyes with a nod.
+
+And just at this point in came Spaight.
+
+'Well, Spaight!'
+
+'Well, Sir.'
+
+'You saw the body, eh?' and a dozen other interrogatories followed, as,
+cold and wet with melting snow, dishevelled, and storm-beaten--for it
+was a plaguy rough night--the young fellow, with a general greeting to
+the company, made his way to the fire.
+
+''Tis a tremendous night, gentlemen, so by your leave I'll stir the
+fire--and, yes, I seen him, poor Nutter--and, paugh, an ugly sight he
+is, I can tell you; here Larry, bring me a rummer-glass of punch--his
+right ear's gone, and a'most all his right hand--and screeching hot, do
+you mind--an', phiew--altogether 'tis sickening--them fishes, you
+know--I'm a'most sorry I went in--you remember Dogherty's whiskey shop
+in Ringsend--he lies in the back parlour, and wondherful little changed
+in appearance.'
+
+And so Mr. Spaight, with a little round table at his elbow, and his
+heels over the fender, sipped his steaming punch, and thawed inwardly
+and outwardly, as he answered their questions and mixed in their
+speculations.
+
+Up at the Mills, which had heard the awful news, first from the Widow
+Macan, and afterwards from Pat Moran, the maids sat over their tea in
+the kitchen in high excitement and thrilling chat--'The poor master!'
+'Oh, the poor man!' 'Oh, la, what's that?' with a start and a peep over
+the shoulders. 'And oh, dear, and how in the world will the poor little
+misthress ever live over the news?' And so forth, made a principal part
+of their talk. There was a good accompaniment of wind outside, and a
+soft pelting of snow on the window panes, 'and oh, my dear life, but
+wasn't it dark!'
+
+Up went Moggy, with her thick-wicked kitchen candle, to seek repose; and
+Betty, resolving not to be long behind, waited only 'to wash up her
+plates' and slack down the fire, having made up her mind, for she grew
+more nervous in solitude, to share Moggy's bed for that night.
+
+Moggy had not been twenty minutes gone, and her task was nearly ended,
+when--'Oh, blessed saints!' murmured Betty, with staring eyes, and
+dropping the sweeping-brush on the flags, she heard, or thought she
+heard, her master's step, which was peculiar, crossing the floor
+overhead.
+
+She listened, herself as pale as a corpse, and nearly as breathless; but
+there was nothing now but the muffled gusts of the storm, and the close
+soft beat of the snow, so she listened and listened, but nothing came of
+it.
+
+''Tis only the vapours,' said Betty, drawing a long breath, and doing
+her best to be cheerful; and so she finished her labours, stopping every
+now and then to listen, and humming tunes very loud, in fits and starts.
+Then it came to her turn to take her candle and go up stairs; she was a
+good half-hour later than Moggy--all was quiet within the house--only
+the sound of the storm--the creak and rattle of its strain, and the
+hurly-burly of the gusts over the roof and chimneys.
+
+Over her shoulder she peered jealously this way and that, as with
+flaring candle she climbed the stairs. How black the window looked on
+the lobby, with its white patterns of snow flakes in perpetual
+succession sliding down the panes. Who could tell what horrid face might
+be looking in close to her as she passed, secure in the darkness and
+that drifting white lace veil of snow? So nimbly and lightly up the
+stairs climbed Betty, the cook.
+
+If listeners seldom hear good of themselves, it is also true that
+peepers sometimes see more than they like; and Betty, the cook, as she
+reached the landing, glancing askance with ominous curiosity, beheld a
+spectacle, the sight of which nearly bereft her of her senses.
+
+Crouching in the deep doorway on the right of the lobby, the cook, I
+say, saw something--a figure--or a deep shadow--only a deep shadow--or
+maybe a dog. She lifted the candle--she peeped under the candlestick:
+'twas no shadow, as I live, 'twas a well-defined figure!
+
+He was draped in black, cowering low, with the face turned up. It was
+Charles Nutter's face, fixed and stealthy. It was only while the
+fascination lasted--while you might count one, two, three,
+deliberately--that the horrid gaze met mutually. But there was no
+mistake there. She saw the stern dark picture as plainly as ever she
+did. The light glimmered on his white eye-balls.
+
+Starting up, he struck at the candle with his hat. She uttered a loud
+scream, and flinging stick and all at the figure, with a great clang
+against the door behind, all was swallowed in instantaneous darkness;
+she whirled into the opposite bed-room she knew not how, and locked the
+door within, and plunged head-foremost under the bed-clothes, half mad
+with terror.
+
+The squall was heard of course. Moggy heard it, but she heeded not; for
+Betty was known to scream at mice, and even moths. And as her door was
+heard to slam, as was usual in panics of the sort, and as she returned
+no answer, Moggy was quite sure there was nothing in it.
+
+But Moggy's turn was to come. When spirits 'walk,' I've heard they make
+the most of their time, and sometimes pay a little round of visits on
+the same evening.
+
+This is certain; Moggy was by no means so great a fool as Betty in
+respect of hobgoblins, witches, banshees, pookas, and the world of
+spirits in general. She eat heartily, and slept soundly, and as yet had
+never seen the devil. Therefore such terrors as she that night
+experienced were new to her, and I can't reasonably doubt the truth of
+her narrative. Awaking suddenly in the night, she saw a light in the
+room, and heard a quiet rustling going on in the corner, where the old
+white-painted press showed its front from the wall. So Moggy popped her
+head through her thin curtains at the side, and--blessed hour!--there
+she saw the shape of a man looking into the press, the doors being wide
+open, and the appearance of a key in the lock.
+
+The shape was very like her master. The saints between us and harm! The
+glow was reflected back from the interior of the press, and showed the
+front part of the figure in profile with a sharp line of light. She said
+he had some sort of thick slippers over his boots, a dark coat, with the
+cape buttoned, and a hat flapping over his face; coat and hat and all,
+sprinkled over with snow.
+
+As if he heard the rustle of the curtain, he turned toward the bed, and
+with an awful ejaculation she cried, ''Tis you, Sir!'
+
+'Don't stir, and you'll meet no harm,' he said, and over he posts to the
+bedside, and he laid his cold hand on her wrist, and told her again to
+be quiet, and for her life to tell no one what she had seen, and with
+that she supposed she swooned away; for the next thing she remembered
+was listening in mortal fear, the room being all dark, and she heard a
+sound at the press again, and then steps crossing the floor, and she
+gave herself up for lost; but he did not come to the bedside any more,
+and the tread passed out at the door, and so, as she thought, went down
+stairs.
+
+In the morning the press was locked and the door shut, and the hall-door
+and back-door locked, and the keys on the hall-table, where they had
+left them the night before.
+
+You may be sure these two ladies were thankful to behold the gray light,
+and hear the cheerful sounds of returning day; and it would be no easy
+matter to describe which of the two looked most pallid, scared, and
+jaded that morning, as they drank a hysterical dish of tea together in
+the kitchen, close up to the window, and with the door shut,
+discoursing, and crying, and praying over their tea-pot in miserable
+companionship.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXVIII.
+
+HOW AN EVENING PASSES AT THE ELMS, AND DR. TOOLE MAKES A LITTLE
+EXCURSION; AND TWO CHOICE SPIRITS DISCOURSE, AND HEBE TRIPS IN WITH THE
+NECTAR.
+
+
+Up at the Elms, little Lily that night was sitting in the snug,
+old-fashioned room, with the good old rector. She was no better; still
+in doctors' hands and weak, but always happy with him, and he more than
+ever gentle and tender with her; for though he never would give place to
+despondency, and was naturally of a trusting, cheery spirit, he could
+not but remember his young wife, lost so early; and once or twice there
+was a look--an outline--a light--something, in little Lily's fair,
+girlish face, that, with a strange momentary agony, brought back the
+remembrance of her mother's stricken beauty, and plaintive smile. But
+then his darling's gay talk and pleasant ways would reassure him, and
+she smiled away the momentary shadow.
+
+And he would tell her all sorts of wonders, old-world gaieties, long
+before she was born; and how finely the great Mr. Handel played upon the
+harpsichord in the Music Hall, and how his talk was in German, Latin,
+French, English, Italian, and half-a-dozen languages besides, sentence
+about; and how he remembered his own dear mother's dress when she went
+to Lord Wharton's great ball at the castle--dear, oh! dear, how long ago
+that was! And then he would relate stories of banshees, and robberies,
+and ghosts, and hair-breadth escapes, and 'rapparees,' and adventures in
+the wars of King James, which he heard told in his nonage by the old
+folk, long vanished, who remembered those troubles.
+
+'And now, darling,' said little Lily, nestling close to him, with a
+smile, 'you _must_ tell me all about that strange, handsome Mr. Mervyn;
+who he is, and what his story.'
+
+'Tut, tut! little rogue----'
+
+'Yes, indeed, you must, and you will; you've kept your little Lily
+waiting long enough for it, and she'll promise to tell nobody.'
+
+'Handsome he is, and strange, no doubt--it was a strange fancy that
+funeral. Strange, indeed,' said the rector.
+
+'What funeral, darling?'
+
+'Why, yes, a funeral--the bringing his father's body to be laid here in
+the vault, in my church; it is their family vault. 'Twas a folly; but
+what folly will not young men do?'
+
+And the good parson poked the fire a little impatiently.
+
+'Mr. Mervyn--_not_ Mervyn--that was his mother's name; but--see, you
+must not mention it, Lily, if I tell you--_not_ Mr. Mervyn, I say, but
+my Lord Dunoran, the only son of that disgraced and blood-stained
+nobleman, who, lying in gaol, under sentence of death for a foul and
+cowardly murder, swallowed poison, and so closed his guilty life with a
+tremendous crime, in its nature inexpiable. There, that's all, and too
+much, darling.'
+
+'And was it very long ago?'
+
+'Why, 'twas before little Lily was born; and long before _that_ I knew
+him--only just a little. He used the Tiled House for a hunting-lodge,
+and kept his dogs and horses there--a fine gentleman, but vicious,
+always, I fear, and a gamester; an overbearing man, with a dangerous
+cast of pride in his eye. You don't remember Lady Dunoran?--pooh, pooh,
+what am I thinking of? No, to be sure! you could not. 'Tis from her,
+chiefly, poor lady, he has his good looks. Her eyes were large, and very
+peculiar, like _his_--his, you know, are very fine. She, poor lady, did
+not live long after the public ruin of the family.'
+
+'And has he been recognised here? The townspeople are so curious.'
+
+'Why, dear child, not one of them ever saw him before. He's been lost
+sight of by all but a few, a very few friends. My Lord Castlemallard,
+who was his guardian, of course, knows; and to me he disclosed himself
+by letter; and we keep his secret; though it matters little who knows
+it, for it seems to me he's as unhappy as aught could ever make him. The
+townspeople take him for his cousin, who squandered his fortune in
+Paris; and how is he the better of their mistake, and how were he the
+worse if they knew him for whom he is? 'Tis an unhappy family--a curse
+haunts it. Young in years, old in vice, the wretched nobleman who lies
+in the vault, by the coffin of that old aunt, scarcely better than
+himself, whose guineas supplied his early profligacy--alas! he ruined
+his ill-fated, beautiful cousin, and she died heart-broken, and her
+little child, both there--in that melancholy and contaminated house.'
+
+So he rambled on, and from one tale to another, till little Lily's early
+bed-hour came.
+
+I don't know whether it was Doctor Walsingham's visit in the morning,
+and the chance of hearing something about it, that prompted the unquiet
+Tom Toole to roll his cloak about him, and buffet his way through storm
+and snow, to Devereux's lodgings. It was only a stone's-throw; but even
+that, on such a night, was no trifle.
+
+However, up he went to Devereux's drawing-room, and found its handsome
+proprietor altogether in the dumps. The little doctor threw off his
+sleety cloak and hat in the lobby, and stood before the officer fresh
+and puffing, and a little flustered and dazzled after his romp with the
+wind.
+
+Devereux got up and received him with a slight bow and no smile, and a
+'Pray take a chair, Doctor Toole.'
+
+'Well, this _is_ a bright fit of the dismals,' said little Toole,
+nothing overawed. 'May I sit near the fire?'
+
+'Upon it,' said Devereux, sadly.
+
+'Thank'ee,' said Toole, clapping his feet on the fender, with a grin,
+and making himself comfortable. 'May I poke it?'
+
+'Eat it--do as you please--anything--everything; play that fiddle
+(pointing to the ruin of Puddock's guitar, which the lieutenant had left
+on the table), or undress and go to bed, or get up and dance a minuet,
+or take that pistol, with all my heart, and shoot me through the head.'
+
+'Thank'ee, again. A fine choice of amusements, I vow,' cried the jolly
+doctor.
+
+'There, don't mind me, nor all I say, Toole. I'm, I suppose, in the
+vapours; but, truly, I'm glad to see you, and I thank you, indeed I do,
+heartily, for your obliging visit; 'tis very neighbourly. But, hang it,
+I'm weary of the time--the world is a dull place. I'm tired of this
+planet, and should not mind cutting my throat and trying a new star.
+Suppose we make the journey together, Toole; there is a brace of pistols
+over the chimney, and a fair wind for some of them.'
+
+'Rather too much of a gale for my taste, thanking you again,' answered
+Toole with a cosy chuckle; 'but, if _you're_ bent on the trip, and can't
+wait, why, at least, let's have a glass together before parting.'
+
+'With all my heart, what you will. Shall it be punch?'
+
+'Punch be it. Come, hang saving; get us up a ha'porth of whiskey,' said
+little Toole, gaily.
+
+'Hallo, Mrs. Irons, Madam, will you do us the favour to make a bowl of
+punch as soon as may be?' cried Devereux, over the banister.
+
+'Come, Toole,' said Devereux, 'I'm very dismal. Losses and crosses, and
+deuce knows what. Whistle or talk, what you please, I'll listen; tell
+me anything; stories of horses, dogs, dice, snuff, women, cocks,
+parsons, wine--what you will. Come, how's Sturk? He's beaten poor
+Nutter, and won the race; though the stakes, after all, were scarce
+worth taking--and what's life without a guinea?--he's grown, I'm told,
+so confoundedly poor, "quis pauper? avarus." A worthy man was Sturk,
+and, in some respects, resembled the prophet, _Shylock_; but you know
+nothing of him--why the plague don't you read your Bible, Toole?'
+
+'Well,' said Toole, candidly, 'I don't know the Old Testament as well as
+the New; but certainly, whoever he's like, he's held out wonderfully.
+'Tis nine weeks since he met that accident, and there he's still, above
+ground; but that's all--just above ground, you see.'
+
+'And how's Cluffe?'
+
+'Pooh, Cluffe indeed! Nothing ever wrong with him but occasional
+over-eating. Sir, you'd a laughed to-day had you seen him. I gave him a
+bolus, twice the size of a gooseberry. "What's this?" said he. "A
+bolus," says I. "The devil," says he; "dia-bolus, then," says I--"hey?"
+said I, "well?" ha! ha! and by Jove, Sir, it actually half stuck in his
+oesophagus, and I shoved it down like a bullet, with a probang; you'd
+a died a laughing, yet 'twasn't a bit too big. Why, I tell you, upon my
+honour, Mrs. Rebecca Chattesworth's black boy, only t'other day,
+swallowed a musket bullet twice the size, ha! ha!--he did--and I set him
+to rights in no time with a little powder.'
+
+'Gunpowder?' said Devereux. 'And what of O'Flaherty? I'm told he was
+going to shoot poor Miles O'More.'
+
+'Ha, ha! hey? Well, I don't think either remembered in the morning what
+they quarrelled about,' replied Toole; 'so it went off in smoke, Sir.'
+
+'Well, and how is Miles?'
+
+'Why, ha, ha! he's back again, with a bill, as usual, and a horse to
+sell--a good one--the black one, don't you remember? He wants five and
+thirty guineas; 'tisn't worth two pounds ten. "Do you know anyone who
+wants him? I would not mind taking a bill, with a couple of good names
+upon it," says he. Upon my credit I believe he thought I'd buy him
+myself. "Well," says I, "I think I do know a fellow that would give you
+his value, and pay you cash besides," says I. 'Twas as good as a play to
+see his face. "Who is he?" says he, taking me close by the arm. "The
+knacker," says I. 'Twas a bite for Miles; hey? ha, ha, ha!'
+
+'And is it true old Tresham's going to join our club at last?'
+
+'He! hang him! he's like a brute beast, and never drinks but when he's
+dry, and then small beer. But, I forgot to tell you, by all that's
+lovely, they do say the charming Magnolia--a fine bouncing girl
+that--is all but betrothed to Lieutenant O'Flaherty.'
+
+Devereux laughed, and thus encouraged, Toole went on, with a wink and a
+whisper.
+
+'Why, the night of the ball, you know, he saw her home, and they say he
+kissed her--by Bacchus, on both sides of the face,--at the door there,
+under the porch; and you know, if he had not a right, she'd a-knocked
+him down.'
+
+'Psha! the girl's a Christian, and when she's smacked on one cheek she
+turns the other. And what says the major to it?'
+
+'Why, as it happened, he opened the door precisely as the thing
+occurred; and he wished Lieutenant O'Flaherty good-night, and paid him a
+visit in the morning. And they say 'tis all satisfactory; and--by Jove!
+'tis good punch.' And Mrs. Irons entered with a china bowl on a tray.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXIX.
+
+CONCERNING A SECOND HURRICANE THAT RAGED IN CAPTAIN DEVEREUX'S
+DRAWING-ROOM, AND RELATING HOW MRS. IRONS WAS ATTACKED WITH A SORT OF
+CHOKING IN HER BED.
+
+
+And the china bowl, with its silver ladle, and fine fragrance of lemon
+and old malt whiskey, and a social pair of glasses, were placed on the
+table by fair Mistress Irons; and Devereux filled his glass, and Toole
+did likewise; and the little doctor rattled on; and Devereux threw in
+his word, and finally sang a song. 'Twas a ballad, with little in the
+words; but the air was sweet and plaintive, and so was the singer's
+voice:--
+
+      'A star so High,
+      In my sad sky,
+  I've early loved and late:
+      A clear lone star,
+      Serene and far,
+  Doth rule my wayward fate.
+
+      'Tho' dark and chill
+      The night be still,
+  A light comes up for me:
+      In eastern skies
+      My star doth rise,
+  And fortune dawns for me.
+
+  'And proud and bold,
+      My way I hold;
+  For o'er me high I see,
+      In night's deep blue,
+      My star shine true,
+  And fortune beams on me.
+
+      'Now onward still,
+      Thro' dark and chill,
+  My lonely way must be;
+      In vain regret,
+      My star will set,
+  And fortune's dark for me.
+
+      'And whether glad,
+      Or proud, or sad,
+  Or howsoe'er I be;
+      In dawn or noon,
+      Or setting soon,
+  My star, I'll follow thee.'
+
+And so there was a pause and a silence. In the silvery notes of the
+singer there was the ring of a prophecy; and Toole half read its
+meaning. And himself loving a song, and being soft over his music, he
+remained fixed for a few seconds, and then sighed, smiling, and dried
+his light blue eyes covertly; and he praised the song and singer
+briskly; and sighed again, with his fingers on the stem of his glass.
+And by this time Devereux had drawn the window-curtain, and was looking
+across the river, through the darkness, towards the Elms, perhaps for
+that solitary distant light--his star--now blurred and lost in the
+storm. Whatever his contemplations, it was plain, when he turned about,
+that the dark spirit was upon him again.
+
+'Curse that punch,' said he, in language still more emphatic. 'You're
+like Mephistopheles in the play--you come in upon my quiet to draw me to
+my ruin. 'Twas the devil sent you here, to kill my soul, I believe; but
+you sha'n't. _Drink_, will you?--ay--I'll give you a draught--a draught
+of _air_ will cool you. Drink to your heart's content.'
+
+And to Toole's consternation up went the window, and a hideous rush of
+eddying storm and snow whirled into the room. Out went the candles--the
+curtains flapped high in air, and lashed the ceiling--the door banged
+with a hideous crash--papers, and who knows what beside, went spinning,
+hurry-scurry round the room; and Toole's wig was very near taking wing
+from his head.
+
+'Hey--hey--hey! holloo!' cried the doctor, out of breath, and with his
+artificial ringlets frisking about his chops and eyes.
+
+'Out, sorcerer--temptation, begone--avaunt, Mephistopheles--cauldron,
+away!' thundered the captain; and sure enough, from the open window,
+through the icy sleet, whirled the jovial bowl; and the jingle of the
+china was heard faint through the tempest.
+
+Toole was swearing, in the whirlwind and darkness, like a trooper.
+
+'Thank Heaven! 'tis gone,' continued Devereux; 'I'm safe--no thanks to
+you, though; and, hark ye, doctor, I'm best alone; leave me--leave me,
+pray--and pray forgive me.'
+
+The doctor groped and stumbled out of the room, growling all the while,
+and the door slammed behind him with a crash like a cannon.
+
+'The fellow's brain's disordered--_delirium tremens_, and jump out of
+that cursed window, I wouldn't wonder,' muttered the doctor, adjusting
+his wig on the lobby, and then calling rather mildly over the banisters,
+he brought up Mrs. Irons with a candle, and found his cloak, hat, and
+cane; and with a mysterious look beckoned that matron to follow him, and
+in the hall, winking up towards the ceiling at the spot where Devereux
+might at the moment be presumed to be standing--
+
+'I say, has he been feverish or queer, or--eh?--any way humorsome or out
+of the way?' And then--'See now, you may as well have an eye after him,
+and if you remark anything strange, don't fail to let me know--d'ye see?
+and for the present you had better get him to shut his window and light
+his candles.'
+
+And so the doctor, wrapped in his mantle, plunged into the hurricane and
+darkness; and was sensible, with a throb of angry regret, of a whiff of
+punch rising from the footpath, as he turned the corner of the steps.
+
+An hour later, Devereux being alone, called to Mrs. Irons, and receiving
+her with a courteous gravity, he said--
+
+'Madam, will you be so good as to lend me your Bible?'
+
+Devereux was prosecuting his reformation, which, as the reader sees, had
+set in rather tempestuously, but was now settling in serenity and calm.
+
+Mrs. Irons only said--
+
+'My----?' and then paused, doubting her ears.
+
+'Your _Bible_, if you please, Madam.'
+
+'Oh?--oh! my Bible? I--to be sure, captain, jewel,' and she peeped at
+his face, and loitered for a while at the door, for she had unpleasant
+misgivings about him, and did not know what to make of his request, so
+utterly without parallel. She'd have fiddled at the door some time
+longer, speculating about his sanity, but that Devereux turned full upon
+her with a proud stare, and rising, he made her a slight bow, and said:
+'I _thank_ you, Madam,' with a sharp courtesy, that said: 'avaunt, and
+quit my sight!' so sternly, though politely, that she vanished on the
+instant; and down stairs she marvelled with Juggy Byrne, 'what the puck
+the captain could want of a Bible! Upon my conscience it sounds well.
+It's what he's not right in his head, I'm afeared. A Bible!'--and an
+aërial voice seemed to say, 'a pistol,' and another, 'a coffin,'--'An'
+I'm sure I wish that quare little Lieutenant Puddock id come up and keep
+him company. I dunno' what's come over him.'
+
+And they tumbled about the rattletraps under the cupboard, and rummaged
+the drawers in search of the sacred volume. For though Juggy said there
+was no such thing, and never had been in her time, Mrs. Irons put her
+down with asperity. It was not to be found, however, and the matron
+thought she remembered that old Mrs. Legge's cook had borrowed it some
+time ago for a charm. So she explained the accident to Captain Devereux,
+who said--
+
+'I thank you, Madam; 'tis no matter. I wish you a good-night, Madam;'
+and the door closed.
+
+'No Bible!' said Devereux, 'the old witch!'
+
+Mrs. Irons, as you remember, never spared her rhetoric, which was
+fierce, shrill, and fluent, when the exercise of that gift was called
+for. The parish clerk bore it with a cynical and taciturn patience, not,
+perhaps, so common as it should be in his sex; and this night, when she
+awoke, and her eyes rested on the form of her husband at her bedside,
+with a candle lighted, and buckling on his shoes, with his foot on the
+chair, she sat up straight in her bed, wide awake in an instant, for it
+was wonderful how the sight of that meek man roused the wife in her
+bosom, especially after an absence, and she had not seen him since four
+o'clock that evening; so you may suppose his reception was warm, and her
+expressions every way worthy of her feelings.
+
+Meek Irons finished buckling that shoe, and then lifted the other to the
+edge of the chair, and proceeded to do the like for it, serenely, after
+his wont, and seeming to hear nothing. So Mrs. Irons proceeded, as was
+her custom when that patient person refused to be roused--she grasped
+his collar near his cheek, meaning to shake him into attention.
+
+But instantly, as the operation commenced, the clerk griped her with his
+long, horny fingers by the throat, with a snap so sure and energetic
+that not a cry, not a gasp even, or a wheeze, could escape through 'the
+trachea,' as medical men have it; and her face and forehead purpled up,
+and her eyes goggled and glared in her head; and her husband looked so
+insanely wicked, that, as the pale picture darkened before her, and she
+heard curse after curse, and one foul name after another hiss off his
+tongue, like water off a hot iron, in her singing ears, she gave herself
+up for lost. He closed this exercise by chucking her head viciously
+against the board of the bed half-a-dozen times, and leaving her
+thereafter a good deal more confused even than on the eventful evening
+when he had first declared his love.
+
+So soon as she came a little to herself, and saw him coolly buttoning
+his leggings at the bedside, his buckles being adjusted by this time,
+her fear subsided, or rather her just indignation rose above it, and
+drowned it; and she was on the point of breaking out afresh, only in a
+way commensurate with her wrongs, and proportionately more formidable;
+when, on the first symptom of attack, he clutched her, if possible,
+tighter, the gaping, goggling, purpling, the darkening of vision and
+humming in ears, all recommenced; likewise the knocking of her head with
+improved good-will, and, spite of her struggles and scratching, the
+bewildered lady, unused to even a show of insurrection, underwent the
+same horrid series of sensations at the hands of her rebellious lord.
+
+When they had both had enough of it, Mr. Irons went on with his
+buttoning, and his lady gradually came to. This time, however, she was
+effectually frightened--too much so even to resort to hysterics, for she
+was not quite sure that when he had buttoned the last button of his left
+legging he might not resume operations, and terminate their conjugal
+relations.
+
+Therefore, being all of a tremble, with her hands clasped, and too much
+terrified to cry, she besought Irons, whose bodily strength surprised
+her, for her life, and his pale, malign glance, askew over his shoulder,
+held her with a sort of a spell that was quite new to her--in fact, she
+had never respected Irons so before.
+
+When he had adjusted his leggings, he stood lithe and erect at the
+bedside, and with his fist at her face, delivered a short charge, the
+point of which was, that unless she lay like a mouse till morning he'd
+have her life, though he hanged for it. And with that he drew the
+curtain, and was hidden from her sight for some time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXX.
+
+IN WHICH AN UNEXPECTED VISITOR IS SEEN. IN THE CEDAR-PARLOUR OF THE
+TILED HOUSE, AND THE STORY OF MR. BEAUCLERC AND THE 'FLOWER DE LUCE'
+BEGINS TO BE UNFOLDED.
+
+
+It was an awful night, indeed, on which all this occurred, and that
+apparition had shown itself up at the Mills. And truly it would seem the
+devil had business on his hands, for in the cedar-parlour of the Tiled
+House another unexpected manifestation occurred just about the same
+hour.
+
+What gentleman is there of broken fortunes, undefined rights, and in
+search of evidence, without a legal adviser of some sort? Mr. Mervyn, of
+course, had his, and paid for the luxury according to custom. And every
+now and then off went a despatch from the Tiled House to the oracular
+London attorney; sometimes it was a budget of evidence, and sometimes
+only a string of queries. To-night, to the awful diapason of the
+storm--he was penning one of these--the fruit of a tedious study of many
+papers and letters, tied up in bundles by his desk, all of them redolent
+of ominous or fearful associations.
+
+I don't know why it is the hours fly with such a strange celerity in the
+monotony and solitude of such nightwork. But Mervyn was surprised, as
+many a one similarly occupied has been, on looking at his watch, to find
+that it was now long past midnight; so he threw himself back in his
+chair with a sigh, and thought how vainly his life was speeding away,
+and heard, with a sort of wonder, how mad was the roar of the storm
+without, while he had quietly penned his long rescript undisturbed.
+
+The wild bursts of supernatural fury and agony which swell and mingle in
+a hurricane, I dare say, led his imagination a strange aërial journey
+through the dark. Now it was the baying of hell hounds, and the long
+shriek of the spirit that flies before them. Anon it was the bellowing
+thunder of an ocean, and the myriad voices of shipwreck. And the old
+house quivering from base to cornice under the strain; and then there
+would come a pause, like a gasp, and the tempest once more rolled up,
+and the same mad hubbub shook and clamoured at the windows.
+
+So he let his Pegasus spread his pinions on the blast, and mingled with
+the wild rout that peopled the darkness; or, in plainer words, he
+abandoned his fancy to the haunted associations of the hour, the storm,
+and the house, with a not unpleasant horror. In one of these momentary
+lulls of the wind, there came a sharp, distinct knocking on the
+window-pane. He remembered with a thrill the old story of the
+supernatural hand which had troubled that house, and began its pranks at
+this very window.
+
+Ay, ay, 'twas the impatient rapping of a knuckle on the glass quite
+indisputably.
+
+It is all very well weaving the sort of dream or poem with which Mervyn
+was half amusing and half awing himself, but the sensation is quite
+different when a questionable sound or sight comes uninvited to take the
+matter out of the province of our fancy and the control of our will.
+Mervyn found himself on his legs, and listening in a less comfortable
+sort of horror, with his gaze fixed in the direction of that small sharp
+knocking. But the storm was up again, and drowning every other sound in
+its fury.
+
+If Mr. Mervyn had been sufficiently frightened, he would have forthwith
+made good his retreat to his bed-room, or, if he had not been frightened
+at all, he would have kept his seat, and allowed his fancies to return
+to their old channel. But, in fact, he took a light in his hand, and
+opened a bit of the window-shutter. The snow, however, was spread over
+the panes in a white, sliding curtain, that returned the light of his
+candle, and hid all without. 'Twas idle trying to peer through it, but
+as he did, the palm of a hand was suddenly applied to the glass on the
+outside, and began briskly to rub off the snow, as if to open a
+peep-hole for distinct inspection.
+
+It was to be more this time than the apparition of a hand--a human face
+was immediately presented close to the glass--not that of Nutter
+either--no--it was the face of Irons--pale, with glittering eyes and
+blue chin, and wet hair quivering against the glass in the storm.
+
+He nodded wildly to Mervyn, brushing away the snow, beckoning towards
+the back-door, as he supported himself on one knee on the window-stone,
+and, with his lips close to the glass, cried, 'let me in;' but, in the
+uproar of the storm, it was by his gestures, imperfectly as they were
+seen, rather than by his words, that Mervyn comprehended his meaning.
+
+Down went Mr. Mervyn, without a moment's hesitation, leaving the candle
+standing on the passage table, drew the bolts, opened the door, and in
+rushed Irons, in a furious gust, his cloak whirling about his head
+amidst a bitter eddying of snow, and a distant clapping of doors
+throughout the house.
+
+The door secured again, Mr. Irons stood in his beflaked and dripping
+mantle, storm-tossed, dishevelled, and alone once again in the shelter
+of the Tiled House, to explain the motive of his visit.
+
+'Irons! I could hardly believe it,' and Mervyn made a pause, and then,
+filled with the one idea, he vehemently demanded, 'In Heaven's name,
+have you come to tell me all you know?'
+
+'Well, maybe--no,' answered the clerk: 'I don't know; I'll tell you
+something. I'm going, you see, and I came here on my way; and I'll tell
+you more than last time, but not all--not all yet.'
+
+'Going? and where?--what are your plans?'
+
+'Plans?--I've _no_ plans. Where am I going!--nowhere--anywhere. I'm
+going away, that's all.'
+
+'You're leaving this place--eh, to return no more?'
+
+'I'm leaving it to-night; I've the doctor's leave, Parson Walsingham.
+What d'ye look at, Sir? d'ye think it's what I murdered any one? not but
+if I stayed here I might though,' and Mr. Irons laughed a frightened,
+half maniacal sort of laugh. 'I'm going for a bit, a fortnight, or so,
+maybe, till things get quiet--(lead us not into temptation!)--to
+Mullingar, or anywhere; only I won't stay longer at hell's door, within
+stretch of that devil's long arm.'
+
+'Come to the parlour,' said Mervyn, perceiving that Irons was chilled
+and shivering.
+
+There, with the door and window-shutters closed, a pair of candles on
+the table, and a couple of faggots of that pleasant bog-wood, which
+blazes so readily and fragrantly on the hearth, Irons shook off his
+cloak, and stood, lank and grim, and, as it seemed to Mervyn, horribly
+scared, but well in view, and trying, sullenly, to collect his thoughts.
+
+'I'm going away, I tell you, for a little while; but I'm come to see
+you, Sir, to think what I may tell you now, and above all, to warn you
+again' saying to any living soul one word of what passed between us when
+I last was here; you've kept your word honourable as yet; if you break
+it I'll not return,' and he clenched it with an oath, 'I _daren't_
+return.'
+
+'I'll tell you the way it happened,' he resumed. ''Tis a good while now,
+ay twenty-two years; your noble father's dead these twenty-two years and
+upwards. 'Twas a bad murdher, Sir: they wor both bad murdhers. I look on
+it, _he's_ a murdhered man.'
+
+'He--who?' demanded the young man.
+
+'Your father, Sir.'
+
+'My father murdered?' said Mervyn.
+
+'Well, I see no great differ; I see none at all. I'll tell you how it
+was.'
+
+And he looked over his shoulder again, and into the corners of the room,
+and then Mr. Irons began--
+
+'I believe, Sir, there's no devil like a vicious young man, with a hard
+heart and cool courage, in want of money. Of all the men I ever met
+with, or heard tell of, Charles Archer was the most dreadful. I used
+sometimes to think he _was_ the devil. It wasn't long-headed or cunning
+he was, but he knew your thoughts before you half knew them yourself. He
+knew what _every_ one was thinking of. He made up his mind at a glance,
+and struck like a thunderbolt. As for pity or fear, he did not know what
+they were, and his cunning was so deep and sure there was no catching
+him.
+
+'He came down to the Pied Horse Inn, where I was a drawer, at Newmarket,
+twice.'
+
+Mervyn looked in his face, quickly, with a ghastly kind of a start.
+
+'Ay, Sir, av coorse you know it; you read the trial; av coorse you did.
+Well, he came down there twice. 'Twas a good old house, Sir, lots of
+room, and a well-accustomed inn. An' I think there was but two bad men
+among all the servants of the house--myself and Glascock. He was an
+under hostler, and a bad boy. He chose us two out of the whole lot, with
+a look. He never made a mistake. He knew us some way like a crow knows
+carrion, and he used us cleverly.'
+
+And Irons cursed him.
+
+'He's a hard master, like his own,' said Irons; 'his wages come to
+nothing, and his services is hell itself. He could sing, and talk, and
+drink, and keep things stirring, and the gentlemen liked him; and he
+was, 'twas said, a wonderful fine player at whist, and piquet, and
+ombre, and all sorts of card-playing. So you see he could afford to play
+fair. The first time he came down, he fought three duels about a tipsy
+quarrel over a pool of Pope Joan. There was no slur on his credit,
+though; 'twas just a bit of temper. He wounded all three; two but
+trifling; but one of them--Chapley, or Capley, I think, was his
+name--through the lungs, and he died, I heard, abroad. I saw him
+killed--'twasn't the last; it was done while you'd count ten. Mr. Archer
+came up with a sort of a sneer, pale and angry, and 'twas a clash of the
+small swords--one, two, three, and a spring like a tiger--and all over.
+He was frightful strong; ten times as strong as he looked--all a
+deception.'
+
+'Well, Sir, there was a Jew came down, offering wagers, not, you see, to
+gentlemen, Sir, but to poor fellows. And Mr. Archer put me and Glascock
+up to bite him, as he said; and he told us to back Strawberry, and we
+did. We had that opinion of his judgment and his knowledge--you see, we
+thought he had ways of finding out these things--that we had no doubt of
+winning, so we made a wager of twelve pounds. But we had no money--not a
+crown between us--and we must stake gold with the host of the "Plume of
+Feathers;" and the long and the short of it was, I never could tell how
+he put it into our heads, to pledge some of the silver spoons and a gold
+chain of the master's, intending to take them out when we won the money.
+Well, Strawberry lost, and we were left in the lurch. So we told Mr.
+Archer how it was; for he was an off-handed man when he had anything in
+view, and he told us, as we thought, he'd help us if we lost. "Help
+you," says he, with a sort of laugh he had, "I want help myself; I
+haven't a guinea, and I'm afraid you'll be hanged: and then," says he,
+"stay a bit, and I'll find a way."
+
+'I think he _was_ in a bad plight just then himself; he was awful
+expensive with horses and--and--other things; and I think there was a
+writ, or maybe more, out against him, from other places, and he wanted a
+lump of money in his hand to levant with, and go abroad. Well, listen,
+and don't be starting, or making a row, Sir,' and a sulky, lowering,
+hang-dog shadow, came over Irons. 'Your father, Lord Dunoran, played
+cards; his partner was Mr. Charles Archer. Whist it was--with a
+gentleman of the name of Beauclerc, and I forget the other--he wore a
+chocolate suit, and a black wig. 'Twas I carried them their wine. Well,
+Mr. Beauclerc won, and Mr. Archer stopped playing, for he had lost
+enough; and the gentleman in the chocolate--what was his name?--Edwards,
+I think--ay, 'twas--_yes_, Edwards, it was--was tired, and turned
+himself about to the fire, and took a pipe of tobacco; and my lord, your
+father, played piquet with Mr. Beauclerc; and he lost a power of money
+to him, Sir; and, by bad luck, he paid a great part of it, as they
+played, in rouleaus of gold, for he had won at the dice down stairs.
+Well, Mr. Beauclerc was a little hearty, and he grew tired, and was for
+going to bed. But my lord was angry, and being disguised with liquor
+too, he would not let him go till they played more; and play they did,
+and the luck still went the same way; and my lord grew fierce over it,
+and cursed and drank, and that did not mend his luck you may be sure;
+and at last Mr. Beauclerc swears he'd play no more; and both kept
+talking together, and neither heard well what t'other said; but there
+was some talk about settling the dispute in the morning.
+
+'Well, Sir, in goes Mr. Beauclerc, staggering--his room was the Flower
+de luce--and down he throws himself, clothes an' all, on his bed; and
+then my lord turned on Mr. _Edwards_, I'm sure that was his name, and
+persuades him to play at piquet; and to it they went.
+
+'As I was coming in with more wine, I meets Mr. Archer coming out, "Give
+them their wine," says he, in a whisper, "and follow me." An' so I did.
+"You know something of Glascock, and have a fast hold of him," says he,
+"and tell him quietly to bring up Mr. Beauclerc's boots, and come back
+along with him; and bring me a small glass of rum." And back he goes
+into the room where the two were stuck in their cards, and talking and
+thinking of nothing else.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXI.
+
+IN WHICH MR. IRONS'S NARRATIVE REACHES MERTON MOOR.
+
+
+'Well, I did as he bid me, and set the glass of rum before him, and in
+place of drinking it, he follows me out. "I told you," says he, "I'd
+find a way, and I'm going to give you fifty guineas apiece. Stand you at
+the stair-head," says he to Glascock, "and listen; and if you hear
+anyone coming, step into Mr. Beauclerc's room with his boots, do you
+see, for I'm going to rob him." I thought I'd a fainted, and Glascock,
+that was a tougher lad than me, was staggered; but Mr. Archer had a way
+of taking you by surprise, and getting you into a business before you
+knew where you were going. "I see, Sir," says Glascock. "And come you
+in, and I'll do it," says Mr. Archer, and in we went, and Mr. Beauclerc
+was fast asleep.
+
+'I don't like talking about it,' said Irons, suddenly and savagely, and
+he got up and walked, with a sort of a shrug of the shoulders, to and
+fro half-a-dozen times, like a man who has a chill, and tries to make
+his blood circulate.
+
+Mervyn commanded himself, for he knew the man would return to his tale,
+and probably all the sooner for being left to work off his transient
+horror how he might.
+
+'Well, he did rob him, and I often thought how cunningly, for he took no
+more than about half his gold, well knowing, I'm now sure, neither he
+nor my lord, your father, kept any count; and there was a bundle of
+notes in his pocket-book, which Mr. Archer was thinning swiftly, when
+all of a sudden, like a ghost rising, up sits Mr. Beauclerc, an unlucky
+rising it was for him, and taking him by the collar--he was a powerful
+strong man--"You've robbed me, Archer," says he. I was behind Mr.
+Archer, and I could not see what happened, but Mr. Beauclerc made a sort
+of a start and a kick out with his foot, and seemed taken with a tremble
+all over, for while you count three, and he fell back in the bed with
+his eyes open, and Mr. Archer drew a thin long dagger out of the dead
+man's breast, for dead he was.
+
+"What are you afraid of, you ---- fool?" says he, shaking me up; "I know
+what I'm about; I'll carry you through; your life's in my hands, mine in
+yours, only be cool." He was that himself, if ever man was, and quick as
+light he closed the dead man's eyes, saying, "in for a penny in for a
+pound," and he threw a bit of the coverlet over his breast, and his
+mouth and chin, just as a man might draw it rolling round in the bed,
+for I suppose he thought it best to hide the mouth that was open, and
+told its tale too plainly, and out he was on the lobby the next
+instant. "Don't tell Glascock what's happened, 'twill make him look
+queer; let him put in the boots, and if he's asked, say Mr. Beauclerc
+made a turn in the bed, and a grumbling, like a man turning over in his
+sleep, while he was doing so, d'ye see, and divide this, 'twill settle
+your little trouble, you know." 'Twas a little paper roll of a hundred
+guineas. An' that's the way Mr. Beauclerc came by his death.'
+
+This to Mervyn was the sort of shock that might have killed an older
+man. The dreadful calamity that had stigmatised and beggared his
+family--the horror and shame of which he well remembered, when first
+revealed to him, had held him trembling and tongue-tied for more than an
+hour before tears came to his relief, and which had ever since blackened
+his sky, with a monotony of storm and thunder, was in a moment shown to
+be a chimera. No wonder that he was for a while silent, stunned, and
+bewildered. At last he was able--pale and cold--to lift up his clasped
+hands, his eyes, and his heart, in awful gratitude, to the Author of
+Mercy, the Revealer of Secrets, the Lord of Life and Truth.
+
+'And where is this Charles Archer--is he dead or living?' urged Mervyn
+with an awful adjuration.
+
+'Ay, where to catch him, and how--Dead? Well, he's dead to some, you
+see, and living to others; and living or dead, I'll put you on his track
+some fine day, if you're true to me; but not yet awhile, and if you turn
+a stag, or name my name to living soul (and here Mr. Irons swore an oath
+such as I hope parish clerks don't often swear, and which would have
+opened good Dr. Walsingham's eyes with wonder and horror), you'll never
+hear word more from me, and I think, Sir, you'll lose your life beside.'
+
+'Your threats of violence are lost on me, I can take care of myself,'
+said Mervyn, haughtily.
+
+The clerk smiled a strange sort of smile.
+
+'But I've already pledged my sacred honour not to mention your name or
+betray your secret.'
+
+'Well, just have patience, and maybe I'll not keep you long; but 'tis no
+trifle for a man to make up his mind to what's before _me_, maybe.'
+
+After a pause, Irons resumed--
+
+'Well, Sir, you see, Mr. Archer sat down by the fire and smoked a pipe,
+and was as easy and pleased, you'd say, to look on him, as a man need
+be; and he called for cards when my lord wanted them, and whatever else
+he needed, making himself busy and bustling--as I afterwards thought to
+make them both remember well that he was in the room with them.
+
+'In and out of the chamber I went with one thing or another, and every
+time I passed Mr. Beauclerc's room I grew more and more frightened; and,
+truth to say, I was a scared man, and I don't know how I got through my
+business; every minute expecting to hear the outcry from the dead man's
+room.
+
+'Mr. Edwards had an appointment, he said--nothing good, you may be
+sure--they were a rake-helly set--saving your presence. Neither he nor
+my lord had lost, I believe, anything to signify to one another; and my
+lord, your father, made no difficulty about his going away, but began to
+call again for Mr. Beauclerc, and to curse him--as a half-drunk man
+will, making a power of noise; and, "Where's he gone to?" and, "Where's
+his room?" and, "---- him, he shall play, or fight me." You see, Sir, he
+had lost right and left that time, and was an angry man, and the liquor
+made him half mad; and I don't think he knew rightly what he was doing.
+And out on the lobby with him swearing he should give him his revenge,
+or he'd know the reason why.
+
+"Where's Mr. Beauclerc's room?" he shouts to me, as if he'd strike me; I
+did not care a rush about that, but I was afraid to say--it stuck in my
+throat like--and I stared at Mr. Archer; and he calls to the
+chamber-maid, that was going up stairs, "Where does Mr. Beauclerc lie?"
+and she, knowing him, says at once, "The Flower de luce," and pointed to
+the room; and with that, my lord staggered up to the door, with his
+drawn sword in hand, bawling on him to come out, and fumbling with the
+pin; he could not open it; so he knocked it open with a kick, and in
+with him, and Mr. Archer at his elbow, soothing him like; and I, I don't
+know how--behind him.
+
+'By this time he had worked himself into a mad passion, and says he,
+"Curse your foxing--if you won't play like a man, you may die like a
+dog." I think 'twas them words ruined him; the chamber-maid heard them
+outside; and he struck Mr. Beauclerc half-a-dozen blows with the side of
+the small-sword across the body, here and there, quite unsteady; and
+"Hold, my lord, you've hurt him," cries Mr. Archer, as loud as he could
+cry. "Put up your sword for Heaven's sake," and he makes a sort of
+scuffle with my lord, in a friendly way, to disarm him, and push him
+away, and "Throw down the coverlet and see where he's wounded," says he
+to me; and so I did, and there was a great pool of blood--_we_ knew all
+about that--and my lord looked shocked when he seen it. "I did not mean
+that," says my lord; "but," says he, with a sulky curse, "he's well
+served."
+
+'I don't know whether Glascock was in the room or not all this while,
+maybe he was; at any rate, he swore to it afterwards; but you've read
+the trial, I warrant. The room was soon full of people. The dead man was
+still warm--'twas well for us. So they raised him up; and one was for
+trying one thing, and another; and my lord was sitting stupid-like all
+this time by the wall; and up he gets, and says he, "I hope he's not
+dead, but if he be, upon my honour, 'tis an accident--no more. I call
+Heaven to witness, and the persons who are now present; and pledge my
+sacred honour, as a peer, I meant no more than a blow or two."
+
+"You hear, gentlemen, what my lord says, he meant only a blow or two,
+and not to take his life," cries Mr. Archer.
+
+'So my lord repeats it again, cursing and swearing, like St. Peter in
+the judgment hall.
+
+'So, as nobody was meddling with my lord, out he goes, intending, I
+suppose, to get away altogether, if he could. But Mr. Underwood missed
+him, and he says, "Gentlemen, where's my Lord Dunoran? we must not
+suffer him to depart;" and he followed him--two or three others going
+along with him, and they met him with his hat and cloak on, in the
+lobby, and he says, stepping between him and the stairs,--
+
+'"My lord, you must not go, until we see how this matter ends."
+
+'"Twill end well enough," says he, and without more ado he walks back
+again.
+
+'So you know the rest--_how_ that business ended, at least for him.'
+
+'And you are that very Zekiel Irons who was a witness on the trial?'
+said Mervyn, with a peculiar look of fear and loathing fixed on him.
+
+'The same,' said Irons, doggedly; and after a pause, 'but I swore to
+very little; and all I said was true--though it wasn't the whole truth.
+Look to the trial, Sir, and you'll see 'twas Mr. Archer and Glascock
+that swore home against my lord--not I. And I don't think myself,
+Glascock was in the room at all when it happened--so I don't.'
+
+'And where _is_ that wretch, Glascock, and that double murderer Archer;
+where is _he?_'
+
+'Well, Glascock's making clay.'
+
+'What do you mean?'
+
+'Under ground, this many a day. Listen: Mr. Archer went up to London,
+and he was staying at the Hummums, and Glascock agreed with me to leave
+the "Pied Horse." We were both uneasy, and planned to go up to London
+together; and what does he do--nothing less would serve him--but he
+writes a sort of letter, asking money of Mr. Archer under a threat.
+This, you know, was after the trial. Well, there came no answer; but
+after a while--all on a sudden--Mr. Archer arrives himself at the "Pied
+Horse;" I did not know then that Glascock had writ to him--for he meant
+to keep whatever he might get to himself. "So," says Mr. Archer to me,
+meeting me by the pump in the stable-yard, "that was a clever letter you
+and Glascock wrote to me in town."
+
+'So I told him 'twas the first I heard of it.
+
+'"Why," says he, "do you mean to tell me you don't want money?"
+
+'I don't know why it was, but a sort of a turn came over me and I said,
+"_No_."
+
+'"Well," says he, "I'm going to sell a horse, and I expect to be paid
+to-morrow; you and Glascock must wait for me outside"--I think the name
+of the village was Merton--I'm not sure, for I never seen it before or
+since--"and I'll give you some money then."
+
+'"I'll have none," says I.
+
+'"What, no money?" says he. "Come, come."
+
+'"I tell you, Sir, I'll have none," says I. Something, you see, came
+over me, and I was more determined than ever. I was always afeard of
+him, but I feared him like Beelzebub now. "I've had enough of your
+money, Sir; and I tell you what, Mr. Archer, I think 'tis best to end
+our dealings, and I'd rather, if you please, Sir, never trouble you
+more."
+
+'"You're a queer dog," says he, with his eye fast on me, and musing for
+a while--as if he could see into my brain, and was diverted by what he
+found there;--"you're a queer dog, Irons. Glascock knows the world
+better, you see; and as you and he are going up to London together, and
+I must give the poor devil a lift, I'll meet you at the other side of
+Merton, beyond the quarry--you know the moor--on Friday evening, after
+dark--say seven o'clock--we must be quiet, you know, or people will be
+talking."
+
+'Well, Sir, we met him, sure enough, at the time and place.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXII.
+
+IN WHICH THE APPARITION OF MR. IRONS IS SWALLOWED IN DARKNESS.
+
+
+''Twas a darkish night--very little moon--and he made us turn off the
+road, into the moor--black and ugly it looked, stretching away four or
+five miles, all heath and black peat, stretches of little broken
+hillocks, and a pool or tarn every now and again. An' he kept looking
+back towards the road, and not a word out of him. Well, I did not like
+meeting him at all if I could help it, but I was in dread of him; and I
+thought he might suppose I was plotting mischief if I refused. So I made
+up my mind to do as he bid me for the nonce, and then have done with
+him.
+
+'By this time we were in or about a mile from the road, and we got over
+a low rising ground, and back nor forward, nor no way could we see
+anything but the moor; and I stopped all of a sudden, and says I, "We're
+far enough, I'll go no further."
+
+'"Good," says Mr. Archer; "but let's go yonder, where the stones are--we
+can sit as we talk--for I'm tired."
+
+'There was half-a-dozen white stones there by the side of one of these
+black tarns. We none of us talked much on that walk over the moor. We
+had enough to think of, each of us, I dare say.
+
+'"This will do," says Mr. Archer, stopping beside the pool; but he did
+not sit, though the stones were there. "Now, Glascock, here I am, with
+the price of my horse in my pocket; what do you want?"
+
+'Well, when it came to the point so sudden, Glascock looked a bit shy,
+and hung his head, and rowled his shoulders, and shuffled his feet a
+bit, thinking what he'd say.
+
+'"Hang it, man; what are you afraid of? we're friends," says Mr. Archer,
+cheerfully.
+
+'"Surely, Sir," says Glascock, "I did not mean aught else."
+
+'And with that Mr. Archer laughed, and says he--
+
+'"Come--you beat about the bush--let's hear your mind."
+
+'"Well, Sir, 'tis in my letter," says he.
+
+'"Ah, Glascock," says he, "that's a threatening letter. I did not think
+you'd serve me so. Well, needs must when the devil drives." And he
+laughed again, and shrugs up his shoulders, and says he, putting his
+hand in his pocket, "there's sixty pounds left; 'tis all I have; come,
+be modest--what do you say?"
+
+'"You got a lot of gold off Mr. Beauclerc," says Glascock.
+
+'"Not a doit more than I wanted," says he, laughing again. "And who,
+pray, had a better right--did not I murder him?"
+
+'His talk and his laughing frightened me more and more.
+
+'"Well, I stood to you then, Sir; didn't I?" says Glascock.
+
+'"Heart of oak, Sir--true as steel; and now, how much do you want?
+Remember, 'tis all I have--and I out at elbows; and here's my friend
+Irons, too--eh?"
+
+'"I want nothing, and I'll take nothing," says I; "not a shilling--not a
+half-penny." You see there was something told me no good would come of
+it, and I was frightened besides.
+
+'"What! you won't go in for a share, Irons?" says he.
+
+'"No; 'tis your money, Sir--I've no right to a sixpence--and I won't
+have it," says I; "and there's an end."
+
+'"Well, Glascock, what say you?--you hear Irons."
+
+'"Let Irons speak for himself--he's nothing to me. You should have
+considered me when all that money was took from Mr. Beauclerc--one done
+as much as another--and if 'twas no more than holding my tongue, still
+'tis worth a deal to you."
+
+'"I don't deny--a deal--everything. Come--there's sixty pounds
+here--but, mark, 'tis all I have--how much?"
+
+'"I'll have thirty, and I'll take no less," says Glascock, surly enough.
+
+'"Thirty! 'tis a good deal--but all considered--perhaps not too much,"
+says Mr. Archer.
+
+'And with that he took his right hand from his breeches' pocket, and
+shot him through the heart with a pistol.
+
+'Neither word, nor stir, nor groan, did Glascock make; but with a sort
+of a jerk, flat on his back he fell, with his head on the verge of the
+tarn.
+
+'I believe I said something--I don't know--I was almost as dead as
+himself--for I did not think anything _that_ bad was near at all.
+
+'"Come, Irons--what ails you--steady, Sir--lend me a hand, and you'll
+take no harm."
+
+'He had the pistol he discharged in his left hand by this time, and a
+loaded one in his right.
+
+'"'Tis his own act, Irons. _I_ did not want it; but I'll protect myself,
+and won't hold my life on ransom, at the hands of a Jew or a Judas,"
+said he, smiling through his black hair, as white as a tombstone.
+
+'"I am neither," says I.
+
+'"I know it," says he; "and so you're _here_, and he _there_."
+
+'"Well, 'tis over now, I suppose," says I. I was thinking of making off.
+
+'"Don't go yet," says he, like a man asking a favour; but he lifted the
+pistol an inch or two, with a jerk of his wrist, "you must help me to
+hide away this dead fool."
+
+'Well, Sir, we had three or four hours cold work of it--we tied stones
+in his clothes, and sunk him close under the bank, and walled him over
+with more. 'Twas no light job, I can tell you the water was near four
+feet deep, though 'twas a dry season; and then we slipped out a handsome
+slice of the bank over him; and, making him all smooth, we left him to
+take his chance; and I never heard any talk of a body being found there;
+and I suppose he's now where we left him.'
+
+And Irons groaned.
+
+'So we returned silent and tired enough, and I in mortal fear of him.
+But he designed me no hurt. There's luckily some risk in making away
+with a fellow, and 'tisn't done by any but a fool without good cause;
+and when we got on the road again, I took the London road, and he turned
+his back on me, and I don't know where he went; but no doubt his plans
+were well shaped.
+
+''Twas an ugly walk for me, all alone, over that heath, I can tell you.
+'Twas mortal dark; and there was places on the road where my footsteps
+echoed back, and I could not tell but 'twas Mr. Archer following me,
+having changed his mind, maybe, or something as bad, if that could be;
+and many's the time I turned short round, expecting to see him, or may
+be that other lad, behind, for you see I got a start like when he shot
+Glascock; and there was a trembling over me for a long time after.
+
+'Now, you see, Glascock's dead, and can't tell tales no more nor Mr.
+Beauclerc, and Dr. Sturk's a dead man too, you may say; and I think he
+knew--that is--brought to mind somewhat. He lay, you see, on the night
+Mr. Beauclerc lost his life, in a sort of a dressing-room, off his
+chamber, and the door was open; but he was bad with a fall he had, and
+his arm in splints, and he under laudanum--in a trance like--and on the
+inquest he could tell nothing; but I think he remembered something more
+or less concerning it after.' And Mr. Irons took a turn, and came back
+very close to Mervyn, and said very gently, 'and I think Charles Archer
+murdered him.'
+
+'Then Charles Archer _has_ been in Dublin, perhaps in Chapelizod, within
+the last few months,' exclaimed Mervyn, in a sort of agony.
+
+'I didn't say so,' answered Irons. 'I've told you the truth--'tis the
+truth--but there's no catching a ghost--and who'd believe my story? and
+them things is so long ago. And suppose I make a clean breast of it, and
+that I could bring you face to face with him, the world would not
+believe my tale, and I'd then be a lost man, one way or another--no one,
+mayhap, could tell how--I'd lose my life before a year, and all the
+world could not save me.'
+
+'Perhaps--perhaps Charles Nutter's the man; and Mr. Dangerfield knows
+something of him,' cried Mervyn.
+
+Irons made no answer, but sat quite silent for some seconds, by the
+fire, the living image of apathy.
+
+'If you name me, or blab one word I told you, I hold my peace for ever,'
+said he, slowly, with a quiet oath, but very pale, and how blue his chin
+looked--how grim his smile, with his face so shiny, and his eyelids
+closed. You're to suppose, Sir, 'tis possible Mr. Dangerfield has a
+guess at him. Well, he's a clever man, and knows how to put this and
+that together; and has been kind to Dr. Sturk and his family. He's a
+good man, you know; and he's a long-headed gentleman, they say; and if
+he takes a thing in hand, he'll be as like as another to bring it about.
+But sink or swim my mind's made up. Charles Archer, wherever he is, will
+not like my going--he'll sniff danger in the wind, Sir. I could not
+stay--he'd have had me--you see, body and soul. 'Twas time for me to
+go--and go or stay, I see nothing but bad before me. 'Twas an evil day I
+ever saw his face; and 'twould be better for me to have a cast for my
+life at any rate, and that I'm nigh-hand resolved on; only you see my
+heart misgives me--and that's how it is. I can't quite make up my mind.'
+
+For a little while Mervyn stood in an agony of irresolution. I'm sure I
+cannot understand all he felt, having never been, thank Heaven! in a
+like situation. I only know how much depended on it, and I don't wonder
+that for some seconds he thought of arresting that lank, pale, sinister
+figure by the fire, and denouncing him as, by his own confession, an
+accessory to the murder of Beauclerc. The thought that he would slip
+through his fingers, and the clue to vindication, fortune, and
+happiness, be for ever lost, was altogether so dreadful that we must
+excuse his forgetting for a moment his promise, and dismissing patience,
+and even policy, from his thoughts.
+
+But 'twas a transitory temptation only, and common sense seconded
+honour. For he was persuaded that whatever likelihood there was of
+leading Irons to the critical point, there was none of driving him
+thither; and that Irons, once restive and impracticable, all his hopes
+would fall to the ground.
+
+'I am going,' said Irons, with quiet abruptness; 'and right glad the
+storm's up still,' he added, in a haggard rumination, and with a strange
+smile of suffering. 'In dark an' storm--curse him!--I see his face
+everywhere. I don't know how he's got this hold over me,' and he cursed
+him again and groaned dismally. 'A night like this is my chance--and so
+here goes.'
+
+'Remember, for Heaven's sake, remember,' said Mervyn, with agonised
+urgency, as he followed him with a light along the passage to the
+back-door.
+
+Irons made no answer; and walking straight on, without turning his head,
+only lifted his hand with a movement backward, like a man who silently
+warns another from danger.
+
+So Irons went forth into the night and the roaring storm, dark and
+alone, like an evil spirit into desert places; and Mervyn barred the
+door after him, and returned to the cedar parlour, and remained there
+alone and long in profound and not unnatural agitation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIII.
+
+CONCERNING A CERTAIN GENTLEMAN, WITH A BLACK PATCH OVER HIS EYE, WHO
+MADE SOME VISITS WITH A LADY, IN CHAPELIZOD AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD.
+
+
+In the morning, though the wind had somewhat gone down, 'twas still
+dismal and wild enough; and to the consternation of poor Mrs. Macnamara,
+as she sat alone in her window after breakfast, Miss Mag and the major
+being both abroad, a hackney coach drew up at the door, which stood
+open. The maid was on the step, cheapening fish with a virulent lady who
+had a sieve-full to dispose of.
+
+A gentleman, with a large, unwholesome face, and a patch over one eye,
+popped his unpleasant countenance, black wig, and three-cocked hat, out
+of the window, and called to the coachman to let him out.
+
+Forth he came, somewhat slovenly, his coat not over-well brushed, having
+in his hand a small trunk, covered with gilt crimson leather, very
+dingy, and somewhat ceremoniously assisted a lady to alight. This dame,
+as she stepped with a long leg, in a black silk stocking, to the ground,
+swept the front windows of the house from under her velvet hood with a
+sharp and evil glance; and in fact she was Mistress Mary Matchwell.
+
+As she beheld her, poor Mrs. Mack's heart fluttered up to her mouth, and
+then dropped with a dreadful plump, into the pit of her stomach. The
+dingy, dismal gentleman, swinging the red trunk in his hand, swaggered
+lazily back and forward, to stretch his legs over the pavement, and air
+his large cadaverous countenance, and sniff the village breezes.
+
+Mistress Matchwell in the meantime, exchanging a passing word with the
+servant, who darkened and drew back as if a ghost had crossed her,
+gathered her rustling silks about her, and with a few long steps
+noiselessly mounted the narrow stairs, and stood, sallow and terrible in
+her sables, before the poor gentlewoman.
+
+With two efforts Mrs. Mack got up and made a little, and then a great
+courtesy, and then a little one again, and tried to speak, and felt very
+near fainting.
+
+'See,' says Mary Matchwell, 'I must have twenty pounds--but don't take
+on. You must make an effort, my dear--'tis the last. Come, don't be cast
+down. I'll pay you when I come to my property, in three weeks' time; but
+law expenses must be paid, and the money I must have.'
+
+Hereupon Mrs. Mack clasped her hands together in an agony, and 'set up
+the pipes.'
+
+M. M. was like to lose patience, and when she did she looked most
+feloniously, and in a way that made poor soft Mrs. Mack quiver.
+
+''Tis but twenty pounds, woman,' she said, sternly.
+'Hub-bub-bub-boo-hoo-hoo,' blubbered the fat and miserable Mrs.
+Macnamara. 'It will be all about--I may as well tell it myself. I'm
+ruined! My Venetian lace--my watch--the brocade not made up. It won't
+do. I must tell my brother; I'd rather go out for a charwoman and starve
+myself to a skeleton, than try to borrow more money.'
+
+Mrs. Matchwell advanced her face towards the widow's tearful
+countenance, and held her in the spell of her dreadful gaze as a cat
+does a bird.
+
+'Why, curse you, woman, do you think 'tis to rob you I mean?--'tisn't a
+present even--only a loan. Stop that blubbering, you great old mouth! or
+I'll have you posted all over the town in five minutes. A _loan_, Madam;
+and you need not pay it for three months--three whole months--_there_!'
+
+Well, this time it ended as heretofore--poor Mrs. Mack gave way. She had
+not a crown-piece, indeed, that she could call her own; but M. M. was
+obliging, and let her off for a bill of exchange, the nature of which,
+to her dying day, the unhappy widow could never comprehend, although it
+caused her considerable affliction some short time subsequently.
+
+Away went Mary Matchwell with her prize, leaving an odour of brandy
+behind her. Her dingy and sinister squire performed his clumsy
+courtesies, and without looking to the right or left, climbed into the
+coach after her, with his red trunk in his hand; and the vehicle was
+again in motion, and jingling on at a fair pace in the direction of
+Nutter's house, The Mills, where her last visit had ended so tragically.
+
+Now, it so happened that just as this coach, with its sombre occupants,
+drew up at The Mills, Doctor Toole was standing on the steps, giving
+Moggy a parting injunction, after his wont; for poor little Mrs. Nutter
+had been thrown into a new paroxysm by the dreadful tidings of her
+Charlie's death, and was now lying on her bed, and bathing the pillow in
+her tears.
+
+'Is this the tenement called the Mills, formerly in the occupation of
+the late Charles Nutter--eh?' demanded the gentleman, thrusting his face
+from the window, before the coachman had got to the door.
+
+'It is, Sir,' replied Toole, putting Moggy aside, and suspecting, he
+could not tell what amiss, and determined to show front, and not averse
+from hearing what the visit was about. 'But Mrs. Nutter is very far from
+well, Sir; in fact, in her bed-chamber, Sir, and laid upon her bed.'
+
+'Mrs. Nutter's _here_, Sir,' said the man phlegmatically. He had just
+got out on the ground before the door, and extended his hand toward Mary
+Matchwell, whom he assisted to alight.
+
+'_This_ is Mrs. Nutter, relict of the late Charles Nutter, of The Mills,
+Knockmaroon, in the parish of Chapelizod.'
+
+'At your service, Sir,' said Mary Matchwell, dropping a demure courtesy,
+and preparing to sail by him.
+
+'Not so fast, Ma'am, if you please,' said Toole, astonished, but still
+sternly and promptly enough. 'In with you, Moggy, and bar the kitchen
+door.'
+
+And shoving the maid back, he swung the door to, with a slam. He was
+barely in time, and Mary Matchwell, baffled and pale, confronted the
+doctor, with the devil gleaming from her face.
+
+'Who are you, man, that dare shut my own door in my face?' said the
+beldame.
+
+'Toole's my name, Madam,' said the little doctor, with a lofty look and
+a bow. 'I have the honour to attend here in a professional capacity.'
+
+'Ho! a village attorney,' cried the fortune-teller, plainly without
+having consulted the cards or the planets. 'Well, Sir, you'd better
+stand aside, for I am the Widow Nutter, and this is my house; and burn
+me, but one way or another, in I'll get.'
+
+'You'd do well to avoid a trespass, Ma'am, and better to abstain from
+house breaking; and you may hammer at the knocker till you're tired, but
+they'll not let you in,' rejoined Toole. 'And as to you being the Widow
+Nutter, Ma'am, that is widow of poor Charles Nutter, lately found
+drowned, I'll be glad to know, Ma'am, how you make _that_ out.'
+
+'Stay, Madam, by your leave,' said the cadaverous, large-faced man,
+interposing. 'We are here, Sir, to claim possession of this tenement and
+the appurtenances, as also of all the money, furniture, and other
+chattels whatsoever of the late Charles Nutter; and being denied
+admission, we shall then serve certain cautionary and other notices, in
+such a manner as the court will, under the circumstances, and in your
+presence, being, by your admission, the attorney of Sarah Hearty,
+calling herself Nutter--'
+
+'I did not say I was,' said Toole, with a little toss of his chin.
+
+The gentleman's large face here assumed a cunning leer.
+
+'Well, we have our thoughts about that, Sir,' he said. 'But by your
+leave, we'll knock at the hall-door.'
+
+'I tell you what, Sir,' said Toole, who had no reliance upon the wisdom
+of the female garrison, and had serious misgivings lest at the first
+stout summons the maids should open the door, and the ill-favoured pair
+establish themselves in occupation of poor Mrs. Nutter's domicile, 'I'll
+not object to the notices being received. There's the servant up at the
+window there--but you must not make a noise; Mrs. Nutter, poor woman, is
+sick and hypochondriac, and can't bear a noise; but I'll permit the
+service of the notices, because, you see, we can afford to snap our
+fingers at you. I say, Moggy, open a bit of that window, and take in
+the papers that this gentleman will hand you. _There_, Sir, on the end
+of your cane, if you please--very good.'
+
+''Twill do, she has them. Thank you, Miss,' said the legal practitioner,
+with a grin. 'Now, Ma'am, we'd best go to the Prerogative Court.'
+
+Mary Matchwell laughed one of her pale malevolent laughs up at the maid
+in the window, who stood there, with the papers in her hand, in a sort
+of horror.
+
+'Never mind,' said Mary Matchwell, to herself, and, getting swiftly into
+the coach, she gleamed another ugly smile up at the window of The Mills,
+as she adjusted her black attire.
+
+'To the Prerogative Court,' said the attorney to the coachman.
+
+'In that house I'll lie to-night,' said Mary Matchwell, with a terrible
+mildness, as they drove away, still glancing back upon it, with her
+peculiar smile; and then she leaned back, with a sneer of superiority on
+her pallid features, and the dismal fatigue of the spirit that rests
+not, looked savagely out from the deep, haggard windows of her eyes.
+
+When Toole saw the vehicle fairly off, you may be sure he did not lose
+time in getting into the house, and there conning over the papers, which
+puzzled him unspeakably.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIV.
+
+IN WHICH DOCTOR TOOLE, IN HIS BOOTS, VISITS MR. GAMBLE, AND SEES AN UGLY
+CLIENT OF THAT GENTLEMAN'S; AND SOMETHING CROSSES AN EMPTY ROOM.
+
+
+'Here's a conspiracy with a vengeance!' muttered Toole, 'if a body
+could only make head or tail of it. Widow!--Eh!--We'll see: why, she's
+like no woman ever _I_ saw. Mrs. Nutter, forsooth!' and he could
+not forbear laughing at the conceit. 'Poor Charles! 'tis ridiculous--though
+upon my life, I don't like it. It's just possible it may be all as
+true as gospel--they're the most devilish looking pair I've seen
+out of the dock--curse them--for many a day. I would not wonder if
+they were robbers. The _widow_ looks consumedly like a man in
+petticoats--hey!--devilish like. I think I'll send Moran and Brien up to
+sleep to-night in the house. But, hang it! if they were, they would not
+come out in the daytime to give an alarm. Hollo! Moggy, throw me out one
+of them papers till I see what it's about.'
+
+So he conned over the notice which provoked him, for he could not half
+understand it, and he was very curious.
+
+'Well, keep it safe, Moggy,' said he. 'H'm--it _does_ look like law
+business, after all, and I believe it _is_. No--they're not
+housebreakers, but robbers of another stamp--and a worse, I'll take my
+davy.'
+
+'See,' said he, as a thought struck him, 'throw me down both of them
+papers again--there's a good girl. They ought to be looked after, I dare
+say, and I'll see the poor master's attorney to-day, d'ye mind? and
+we'll put our heads together--and, that's right--_relict_ indeed!'
+
+And, with a solemn injunction to keep doors locked and windows fast, and
+a nod and a wave of his hand to Mistress Moggy, and muttering half a
+sentence or an oath to himself, and wearying his imagination in search
+of a clue to this new perplexity, he buttoned his pocket over the legal
+documents, and strutted down to the village, where his nag awaited him
+saddled, and Jimmey walking him up and down before the doctor's
+hall-door.
+
+Toole was bound upon a melancholy mission that morning. But though
+properly a minister of life, a doctor is also conversant with death, and
+inured to the sight of familiar faces in that remarkable disguise. So he
+spurred away with more coolness, though not less regret than another
+man, to throw what light he could upon the subject of the inquest which
+was to sit upon the body of poor Charles Nutter.
+
+The little doctor, on his way to Ringsend, without the necessity of
+diverging to the right or left, drew bridle at the door of Mr. Luke
+Gamble, on the Blind Quay, attorney to the late Charles Nutter, and
+jumping to the ground, delivered a rattling summons thereupon.
+
+It was a dusty, dreary, wainscoted old house--indeed, two old houses
+intermarried--with doors broken through the partition walls--the floors
+not all of a level--joined by steps up and down--and having three great
+staircases, that made it confusing. Through the windows it was not easy
+to see, such a fantastic mapping of thick dust and dirt coated the
+glass.
+
+Luke Gamble, like the house, had seen better days. It was not his fault;
+but an absconding partner had well nigh been his ruin: and, though he
+paid their liabilities, it was with a strain, and left him a poor man,
+shattered his connexion, and made the house too large by a great deal
+for his business.
+
+Doctor Toole came into the clerk's room, and was ushered by one of these
+gentlemen through an empty chamber into the attorney's sanctum. Up two
+steps stumbled the physician, cursing the house for a place where a
+gentleman was so much more likely to break his neck than his fast, and
+found old Gamble in his velvet cap and dressing-gown, in conference with
+a hard-faced, pale, and pock-marked elderly man, squinting unpleasantly
+under a black wig, who was narrating something slowly, and with effort,
+like a man whose memory is labouring to give up its dead, while the
+attorney, with his spectacles on his nose, was making notes. The speaker
+ceased abruptly, and turned his pallid visage and jealous, oblique eyes
+on the intruder.
+
+Luke Gamble looked embarrassed, and shot one devilish angry glance at
+his clerk, and then made Doctor Toole very welcome.
+
+When Toole had ended his narrative, and the attorney read the notices
+through, Mr. Gamble's countenance brightened, and darkened and
+brightened again, and with a very significant look, he said to the pale,
+unpleasant face, pitted with small-pox--
+
+'M. M.,' and nodded.
+
+His companion extended his hand toward the papers.
+
+'Never mind,' said the attorney; 'there's that here will fix M. M. in a
+mighty tight vice.'
+
+'And who's M. M., pray?' enquired Toole.
+
+'When were these notices served, doctor?' asked Mr. Gamble.
+
+'Not an hour ago; but, I say, who the plague's M. M.?' answered Toole.
+
+'M. M.,' repeated the attorney, smiling grimly on the backs of the
+notices which lay on the table; 'why there's many queer things to be
+heard of M. M.; and the town, and the country, too, for that matter, is
+like to know a good deal more of her before long; and who served them--a
+process-server, or who?'
+
+'Why, a fat, broad, bull-necked rascal, with a double chin, and a great
+round face, the colour of a bad suet-dumplin', and a black patch over
+his eye,' answered Toole.
+
+'Very like--was he alone?' said Gamble.
+
+'No--a long, sly she-devil in black, that looked as if she'd cut your
+windpipe, like a cat in the dark, as pale as paper, and mighty large,
+black, hollow eyes.'
+
+'Ay--that's it,' said Gamble, who, during this dialogue, had thrown his
+morning-gown over the back of the chair, and got on his coat, and opened
+a little press in the wall, from which he took his wig, and so completed
+his toilet.
+
+'That's it?' repeated Toole: 'what's it?--what's _what?_'
+
+'Why, 'tis David O'Regan--Dirty Davy, as we call him. I never knew him
+yet in an honest case; and the woman's M. M.'
+
+'Hey! to be sure--a woman--I know--I remember; and he was on the point
+of breaking out with poor Mrs. Macnamara's secret, but recovered in
+time. 'That's the she fortune-teller, the witch, M. M., Mary Matchwell;
+'twas one of her printed cards, you know, was found lying in Sturk's
+blood. Dr. Sturk, you remember, that they issued a warrant for, against
+our poor friend, you know.'
+
+'Ay, ay--poor Charles--poor Nutter. Are you going to the inquest?' said
+Gamble; and, on a sudden, stopped short, with a look of great fear, and
+a little beckon of his hand forward, as if he had seen something.
+
+There was that in Gamble's change of countenance which startled Toole,
+who, seeing that his glance was directed through an open door at the
+other end of the room, skipped from his chair and peeped through it.
+There was nothing, however, visible but a tenebrose and empty passage.
+
+'What did you see--eh? What frightens you?' said Toole. 'One would think
+you saw Nutter--like--like.'
+
+Gamble looked horribly perturbed at these words.
+
+'Shut it,' said he, nearing the door, on which Toole's hand rested.
+Toole took another peep, and did so.
+
+'Why, there's nothing there--like--like the women down at the Mills
+there,' continued the doctor.
+
+'What about the women?' enquired Gamble, not seeming to know very well
+what he was saying, agitated still--perhaps, intending to keep Toole
+talking.
+
+'Why, the women--the maids, you know--poor Nutter's servants, down at
+the Mills. They swear he walks the house, and they'll have it they saw
+him last night.'
+
+'Pish! Sir--'tis all conceit and vapours--women's fancies--a plague o'
+them all. And where's poor Mrs. Nutter?' said Gamble, clapping on his
+cocked-hat, and taking his cane, and stuffing two or three bundles of
+law papers into his coat pockets.
+
+'At home--at the Mills. She slept at the village and so missed the
+ghost. The Macnamaras have been mighty kind. But when the news was told
+her this morning, poor thing, she would not stay, and went home; and
+there she is, poor little soul, breaking her heart.'
+
+Mr. Gamble was not ceremonious; so he just threw a cursory and anxious
+glance round the room, clapped his hands on his coat pockets, making a
+bunch of keys ring somewhere deep in their caverns. And all being
+right--
+
+'Come along, gentlemen,' says he, 'I'm going to lock the door;' and
+without looking behind him, he bolted forth abstractedly into his dusty
+ante-room.
+
+'Get your cloak about you, Sir--remember your _cough_, you know--the air
+of the streets is sharp,' said he with a sly wink, to his ugly client,
+who hastily took the hint.
+
+'Is that _coach_ at the door?' bawled Gamble to his clerks in the next
+room, while he locked the door of his own snuggery behind him; and being
+satisfied it was so, he conducted the party out by a side door, avoiding
+the clerks' room, and so down stairs.
+
+'Drive to the courts,' said the attorney to the coachman; and that was
+all Toole learned about it that day. So he mounted his nag, and resumed
+his journey to Ringsend at a brisk trot.
+
+I suppose, when he turned the key in his door, and dropped it into his
+breeches' pocket, the gentleman attorney assumed that he had made
+everything perfectly safe in his private chamber, though Toole thought
+he had not looked quite the same again after that sudden change of
+countenance he had remarked.
+
+Now, it was a darksome day, and the windows of Mr. Gamble's room were so
+obscured with cobwebs, dust, and dirt, that even on a sunny day they
+boasted no more than a dim religious light. But on this day a cheerful
+man would have asked for a pair of candles, to dissipate the twilight
+and sustain his spirits.
+
+He had not been gone, and the room empty ten minutes, when the door
+through which he had seemed to look on that unknown something that
+dismayed him, opened softly--at first a little--then a little more--then
+came a knock at it--then it opened more, and the dark shape of Charles
+Nutter, with rigid features and white eye-balls, glided stealthily and
+crouching into the chamber, and halted at the table, and seemed to read
+the endorsements of the notices that lay there.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXV.
+
+HOW A GENTLEMAN PAID A VISIT AT THE BRASS CASTLE, AND THERE READ A
+PARAGRAPH IN AN OLD NEWSPAPER.
+
+
+Dangerfield was, after his wont, seated at his desk, writing letters,
+after his early breakfast, with his neatly-labelled accounts at his
+elbow. There was a pleasant frosty sun glittering through the twigs of
+the leafless shrubs, and flashing on the ripples and undulations of the
+Liffey, and the redbreasts and sparrows were picking up the crumbs which
+the housekeeper had thrown for them outside. He had just sealed the last
+of half-a-dozen letters, when the maid opened his parlour-door, and told
+him that a gentleman was at the hall-step, who wished to see him.
+
+Dangerfield looked up with a quick glance--
+
+'Eh?--to be sure. Show him in.'
+
+And in a few seconds more, Mr. Mervyn, his countenance more than usually
+pale and sad, entered the room. He bowed low and gravely, as the servant
+announced him.
+
+Dangerfield rose with a prompt smile, bowing also, and advanced with his
+hand extended, which, as a matter of form rather than of cordiality, his
+visitor took, coldly enough, in his.
+
+'Happy to see you here, Mr. Mervyn--pray, take a chair--a charming
+morning for a turn by the river, Sir.'
+
+'I have taken the liberty of visiting you, Mr. Dangerfield--'
+
+'Your visit, Sir, I esteem an honour,' interposed the lord of the Brass
+Castle.
+
+A slight and ceremonious bow from Mervyn, who continued--'For the
+purpose of asking you directly and plainly for some light upon a matter
+in which it is in the highest degree important I should be informed.'
+
+'You may command me, Mr. Mervyn,' said Dangerfield, crossing his legs,
+throwing himself back, and adjusting himself to attention.
+
+Mervyn fixed his dark eyes full and sternly upon that white and
+enigmatical face, with its round glass eyes and silver setting, and
+those delicate lines of scorn he had never observed before, traced about
+the mouth and nostril.
+
+'Then, Sir, I venture to ask you for all you can disclose or relate
+about one Charles Archer.'
+
+Dangerfield cocked his head on one side, quizzically, and smiled the
+faintest imaginable cynical smile.
+
+'I can't _disclose_ anything, for the gentleman never told me his
+secrets; but all I can relate is heartily at your service.'
+
+'Can you point him out, Sir?' asked Mervyn, a little less sternly, for
+he saw no traces of a guilty knowledge in the severe countenance and
+prompt, unembarrassed manner of the gentleman who leaned back in his
+chair, with the clear bright light full on him, and his leg crossed so
+carelessly.
+
+Dangerfield smiled, shook his head gently, and shrugged his shoulders
+the least thing in the world.
+
+'Don't you know him, Sir?' demanded Mervyn.
+
+'Why,' said Dangerfield, with his chin a little elevated, and the tips
+of his fingers all brought together, and his elbows resting easily upon
+the arms of his chair, and altogether an involuntary air of hauteur,
+'Charles Archer, perhaps you're not aware, was not exactly the most
+reputable acquaintance in the world; and my knowledge of him was very
+slight indeed--wholly accidental--and of very short duration.'
+
+'May I ask you, if, without leaving this town, you can lay your finger
+on him, Sir?'
+
+'Why, not conveniently,' answered Dangerfield, with the same air of
+cynical amusement. ''Twould reach in that case all the way to Florence,
+and even then we should gain little by the discovery.'
+
+'But you do know him?' pursued Mervyn.
+
+'_I did_, Sir, though very slightly,' answered Dangerfield.
+
+'And I'm given to understand, Sir, he's to be found occasionally in this
+town?' continued his visitor.
+
+'There's just one man who sees him, and that's the parish clerk--what's
+his name?--Zekiel Irons--he sees him. Suppose we send down to his house,
+and fetch him here, and learn all about it?' said Dangerfield, who
+seemed mightily tickled by the whole thing.
+
+'He left the town, Sir, last night; and I've reason to suspect, with a
+resolution of returning no more. And I must speak plainly, Mr.
+Dangerfield, 'tis no subject for trifling--the fame and fortune of a
+noble family depend on searching out the truth; and I'll lose my life,
+Sir, or I'll discover it.'
+
+Still the old cynical, quizzical smile on Dangerfield's white face, who
+said encouragingly--
+
+'Nobly resolved, Sir, upon my honour!'
+
+'And Mr. Dangerfield, if you'll only lay yourself out to help me, with
+your great knowledge and subtlety--disclosing everything you know or
+conjecture, and putting me in train to discover the rest--so that I may
+fully clear this dreadful mystery up--there is no sacrifice of fortune I
+will not cheerfully make to recompense such immense services, and you
+may name with confidence your own terms, and think nothing exorbitant.'
+
+For the first time Dangerfield's countenance actually darkened and grew
+stern, but Mervyn could not discern whether it was with anger or deep
+thought, and the round spectacles returned his intense gaze with a white
+reflected sheen, sightless as death.
+
+But the stern mouth opened, and Dangerfield, in his harsh, brief tones,
+said--
+
+'You speak without reflection, Sir, and had nigh made me lose my temper;
+but I pardon you; you're young, Sir, and besides, know probably little
+or nothing of me. Who are you, Sir, who thus think fit to address me,
+who am by blood and education as good a gentleman as any alive? The
+inducements you are pleased to offer--you may address elsewhere--they
+are not for me. I shall forget your imprudence, and answer frankly any
+questions, within my knowledge, you please to ask.'
+
+Mervyn bowed apologetically, and a silence ensued; after which he thus
+availed himself of his host's permission to question him--
+
+'You mentioned Irons, the clerk, Mr. Dangerfield, and said that he sees
+Charles Archer. Do you mean it?'
+
+'Why, thus I mean it. He _thinks_ he sees him; but, if he does, upon my
+honour, he sees a ghost,' and Dangerfield chuckled merrily.
+
+'Pray, Mr. Dangerfield, consider me, and be serious, and in Heaven's
+name explain,' said Mervyn, speaking evidently in suppressed anguish.
+
+'Why, you know--don't you? the poor fellow's not quite right here,' and
+he tapped the centre of his own towering forehead with the delicate tip
+of his white middle finger. 'I've seen a little of him; he's an angler,
+so am I; and he showed me the fishing of the river, here, last summer,
+and often amused me prodigiously. He's got some such very odd maggots! I
+don't say, mind ye, he's _mad_, there are many degrees, and he's quite a
+competent parish clerk. He's only wrong on a point or two, and one of
+them is Charles Archer. I believe for a while he thought _you_ were he;
+and Dangerfield laughed his dry, hard chuckle.
+
+'Where, Sir, do you suppose Charles Archer is now to be found?' urged
+Mervyn.
+
+'Why, what remains of him, in Florence,' answered Dangerfield.
+
+'You speak, Sir, as if you thought him dead.'
+
+'Think? I know he's dead. I knew him but three weeks, and visited him in
+his sickness--was in his room half an hour before he died, and attended
+his funeral,' said Dangerfield.
+
+'I implore of you, Sir, as you hope for mercy, don't trifle in this
+matter,' cried Mervyn, whose face was white, like that of a man about to
+swoon under an operation.
+
+'Trifle! What d'ye mean, Sir?' barked out Dangerfield, rabidly.
+
+'I mean, Sir, _this_--I've information he's positively living, and can
+relieve my father's memory from the horrible imputation that rests upon
+it. You know who I am!'
+
+'Ay, Sir, Lord Castlemallard told me.'
+
+'And my life I cheerfully devote to the task of seizing and tracing out
+the bloody clue of the labyrinth in which I'm lost.'
+
+'Good--'tis a pious as well as a prudent resolve,' said Dangerfield,
+with a quiet sneer. 'And now, Sir, give me leave to say a word. Your
+information that Charles Archer is living, is not worth the breath of
+the madman that spoke it, as I'll presently show you. By an odd chance,
+Sir, I required this file of newspapers, last week, to help me in
+ascertaining the date of Sir Harry Wyatt's marriage. Well, only last
+night, what should I hit on but this. Will you please to read?'
+
+He had turned over the pages rapidly, and then he stopped at this little
+piece of news packed up in a small paragraph at the bottom of a column,
+and, pointing his finger to it, he slid the volume of newspapers over to
+Mervyn, who read--
+
+'Died on the 4th of August, of a lingering disease, at his lodgings in
+Florence, whither he had gone for the improvement of his health, Charles
+Archer, Esq., a gentleman who some three years since gave an exceeding
+clear evidence against Lord Dunoran, for the murder of Mr. Beauclerc,
+and was well known at Newmarket. His funeral, which was private, was
+attended by several English gentlemen, who were then at Florence.'
+
+Mervyn, deadly pale, with gleaming eyes, and hand laid along his
+forehead, as if to screen off an insupportable light and concentrate his
+gaze upon the words, read and re-read these sentences with an agony of
+scrutiny such as no critic ever yet directed upon a disputed passage in
+his favourite classic. But there was no possibility of fastening any
+consolatory interpretation upon the paragraph. It was all too plain and
+outspoken.
+
+''Tis possible this may be true--_thus_ much. _A_ Charles Archer is
+dead, and yet another Charles Archer, the object of my search, still
+living,' said Mervyn.
+
+'Hey! that didn't strike me,' said Dangerfield, as much amused as was
+consistent with moderately good breeding. 'But I can quite account, Mr.
+Mervyn,' he continued, with a sudden change of tone and manner, to
+something almost of kindness, 'for your readiness to entertain any
+theory not quite destructive of hopes, which, notwithstanding, I fear,
+rest simply on the visions of that poor hypochondriac, Irons. But, for
+all that, 'tis just possible that something may strike either you or me
+in the matter not quite so romantic--hey? But still something.--You've
+not told me how the plague Charles Archer could possibly have served
+you. But on that point, perhaps, we can talk another time. I simply
+desire to say, that any experience or ability I may possess are heartily
+at your service whenever you please to task them, as my good wishes are
+already.'
+
+So, stunned, and like a man walking in a dream--all his hopes shivered
+about his feet--Mervyn walked through the door of the little parlour in
+the Brass Castle, and Dangerfield, accompanying him to the little gate
+which gave admission from the high-road to that tenement, dismissed him
+there, with a bow and a pleasant smile; and, standing, for a while, wiry
+and erect, with his hands in his pockets, he followed him, as he paced
+dejectedly away, with the same peculiar smile.
+
+When he was out of sight, Dangerfield returned to his parlour, smiling
+all the way, and stood on the hearthrug, with his back to the fire. When
+he was alone, a shadow came over his face, and he looked down on the
+fringe with a thoughtful scowl--his hands behind his back--and began
+adjusting and smoothing it with the toe of his shoe.
+
+'Sot, fool, and poltroon--triple qualification for mischief--I don't
+know why he still lives. Irons--a new vista opens, and this d----d young
+man!' All this was not, as we sometimes read, 'mentally ejaculated,' but
+quite literally muttered, as I believe every one at times mutters to
+himself. 'Charles Archer living--Charles Archer dead--or, as I sometimes
+think, neither one nor t'other quite--half man, half corpse--a
+vampire--there is no rest for thee: no sabbath in the days of thy week.
+Blood, blood--blood--'tis tiresome. Why should I be a slave to these
+d----d secrets. I don't think 'tis my judgment, so much as the devil,
+holds me here. Irons has more brains than I--instinct--calculation--which
+is oftener right? Miss Gertrude Chattesworth, a mere whim, I think
+understood her game too. I'll deal with that to-morrow. I'll send Daxon
+the account, vouchers, and cheque for Lord Castlemallard--tell Smith to
+sell my horses, and, by the next packet--hey?' and he kissed his hand,
+with an odd smirk, like a gentleman making his adieux, 'and so leave
+those who court the acquaintance of Charles Archer, to find him out,
+and catch their Tartar how they may.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVI.
+
+RELATING HOW THE CASTLE WAS TAKEN, AND HOW MISTRESS MOGGY TOOK HEART OF
+GRACE.
+
+
+That evening there came to the door of the Mills, a damsel, with a wide
+basket on her arm, the covering of which being removed, a goodly show of
+laces, caps, fans, wash-balls, buckles, and other attractions, came out
+like a parterre of flowers, with such a glow as dazzled the eyes of
+Moggy, at the study window.
+
+'Would you plaze to want any, my lady?' enquired the pedlar.
+
+Moggy thought they were, perhaps, a little bit too fine for her purse,
+but she could not forbear longing and looking, and asking the prices of
+this bit of finery and that, at the window; and she called Betty, and
+the two maids conned over the whole contents of the basket.
+
+At last she made an offer for an irresistible stay-hook of pinchbeck,
+set with half-a-dozen resplendent jewels of cut glass, and after
+considerable chaffering, and a keen encounter of their wits, they came
+at last to terms, and Moggy ran out to the kitchen for her money, which
+lay in a brass snuff-box, in a pewter goblet, on the dresser.
+
+As she was counting her coin, and putting back what she did not want,
+the latch of the kitchen door was lifted from without, and the door
+itself pushed and shaken. Though the last red gleam of a stormy sunset
+was glittering among the ivy leaves round the kitchen window, the
+terrors of last night's apparition were revived in a moment, and, with a
+blanched face, she gazed on the door, expecting, breathlessly, what
+would come.
+
+The door was bolted and locked on the inside, in accordance with Doctor
+Toole's solemn injunction; and there was no attempt to use violence. But
+a brisk knocking began thereat and Moggy, encouraged by hearing the
+voices of Betty and the vender of splendours at the little parlour
+window, and also by the amber sunlight on the rustling ivy leaves, and
+the loud evening gossip of the sparrows, took heart of grace, and
+demanded shrilly--
+
+'Who's there?'
+
+A whining beggar's voice asked admission.
+
+'But you can't come in, for the house is shut up for the night, replied
+the cook.
+
+''Tis a quare hour you lock your doors at,' said the besieger.
+
+'Mighty quare, but so it is,' she answered.
+
+'But 'tis a message for the misthress I have,' answered the applicant.
+
+'Who from?' demanded the porteress.
+
+''Tis a present o' some wine, acushla.'
+
+'Who from?' repeated she, growing more uneasy.
+
+'Auch! woman, are you going to take it in, or no?'
+
+'Come in the morning, my good man,' said she, 'for sorrow a foot you'll
+put inside the house to-night.'
+
+'An' that's what I'm to tell them that sent me.'
+
+'Neither more nor less,' replied she.
+
+And so she heard a heavy foot clank along the pavement, and she tried to
+catch a glimpse of the returning figure, but she could not, though she
+laid her cheek against the window-pane. However, she heard him whistling
+as he went, which gave her a better opinion of him, and she thought she
+heard the road gate shut after him.
+
+So feeling relieved, and with a great sigh, she counted her money over;
+and answering Betty's shrill summons to the study, as the woman was in
+haste, with a 'Coming, coming this minute,' she replaced her treasure,
+and got swiftly into poor Charles Nutter's little chamber. There was his
+pipe over the chimney, and his green, and gold-laced Sunday waistcoat
+folded on the little walnut table by the fire, and his small folio,
+'Maison Rustique, the Country Farme,' with his old green worsted purse
+set for a marker in it where he had left off reading the night before
+all their troubles began; and his silk dressing-gown was hanging by the
+window-frame, and his velvet morning-cap on the same peg--the dust had
+settled on them now. And after her fright in the kitchen, all these
+mementoes smote her with a grim sort of reproach and menace, and she
+wished the window barred, and the door of the ominous little chamber
+locked for the night.
+
+''Tis growing late,' said the dealer from without, 'and I daren't be on
+the road after dark. Gi' me my money, good girl; and here, take your
+stay-hook.'
+
+And so saying, she looked a little puzzled up and down, as not well
+knowing how they were to make their exchange.
+
+'Here,' says Moggy, 'give it in here.' And removing the fastening, she
+shoved the window up a little bit. 'Hould it, Betty; hould it up,' said
+she. And in came the woman's hard, brown hand, palm open, for her money,
+and the other containing the jewel, after which the vain soul of Moggy
+lusted.
+
+'That'll do,' said she; and crying shrilly, 'Give us a lift,
+sweetheart,' in a twinkling she shoved the window up, at the same time
+kneeling, with a spring, upon the sill, and getting her long leg into
+the room, with her shoulder under the window-sash, her foot firmly
+planted on the floor, and her face and head in the apartment. Almost at
+the same instant she was followed by an ill-looking fellow, buttoned up
+in a surtout, whose stature seemed enormous, and at sight of whom the
+two women shrieked as if soul and body were parting.
+
+The lady was now quite in the room, and standing upright showed the tall
+shape and stern lineaments of Mary Matchwell. And as she stood she
+laughed a sort of shuddering laugh, like a person who had just had a
+plunge in cold water.
+
+'Stop that noise,' said she, recognising Betty, who saw her with
+unspeakable terror. 'I'm the lady that came here, you know, some months
+ago, with Mrs. Macnamara; and I'm Mrs. Nutter, which the woman up stairs
+_is not_. I'm Mrs. Nutter, and _you're my_ servants, do ye mind? and
+I'll act a fair mistress by you, if you do me honest service. Open the
+hall-door,' she said to the man, who was by this time also in the room.
+And forth he went to do her bidding, and a gentleman, who turned out to
+be that respectable pillar of the law whom Mr. Gamble in the morning had
+referred to as 'Dirty Davy,' entered. He was followed by Mrs. Mary
+Matchwell's maid, a giggling, cat-like gipsy, with a lot of gaudy finery
+about her, and a withered, devilment leering in her face; and a
+hackney-coach drove up to the door, which had conveyed the party from
+town; and the driver railing in loud tones, after the manner of his kind
+in old times, at all things, reeking of whiskey and stale tobacco, and
+cursing freely, pitched in several trunks, one after the other; and, in
+fact, it became perfectly clear that M. M. was taking possession. And
+Betty and Moggy, at their wits' end between terror and bewilderment,
+were altogether powerless to resist, and could only whimper a protest
+against the monstrous invasion, while poor little Sally Nutter up
+stairs, roused by the wild chorus of strange voices from the lethargy of
+her grief, and even spurred into active alarm, locked her door, and then
+hammered with a chair upon the floor, under a maniacal hallucination
+that she was calling I know not what or whom to the rescue.
+
+Then Dirty Davy read aloud, with due emphasis, to the maids, copies, as
+he stated, of the affidavits sworn to that day by Mistress Mary
+Matchwell, or as he called her, Mrs. Nutter, relict of the late Charles
+Nutter, gentleman, of the Mills, in the parish of Chapelizod, barony of
+Castleknock, and county of Dublin, deposing to her marriage with the
+said Charles Nutter having been celebrated in the Church of St. Clement
+Danes, in London, on the 7th of April, 1750. And then came a copy of the
+marriage certificate, and then a statement how, believing that deceased
+had left no 'will' making any disposition of his property, or naming an
+executor, she applied to the Court of Prerogative for letters of
+administration to the deceased, which letters would be granted in a few
+days; and in the meantime the bereaved lady would remain in possession
+of the house and chattels of her late husband.
+
+All this, of course, was so much 'Hebrew-Greek,' as honest Father Roach
+was wont to phrase it, to the scared women. But M. M.--[Greek: nykti
+eoikôst]--fixing them both with her cold and terrible gaze, said quite
+intelligibly--
+
+'What's your name?'
+
+'Moggy Sullivan, if you please, Ma'am.'
+
+'And what's yours?'
+
+'Lizabet--Betty they call me--Madam; Lizabet Burke, if you please,
+Madam.'
+
+'Well, then, Moggy Sullivan and Elizabeth Burke, harkee both, while I
+tell you a thing. I'm mistress here by law, as you've just heard, and
+you're my servants; and if you so much as wind the jack or move a
+tea-cup, except as I tell you, I'll find a way to punish you; and if I
+miss to the value of a pin's head, I'll indict you for a felony, and
+have you whipped and burnt in the hand--you know what that means. And
+now, where's Mistress Sarah Harty? for she must pack and away.'
+
+'Oh! Ma'am, jewel, the poor misthress.'
+
+'_I'm_ the mistress, slut.'
+
+'Ma'am, dear, she's very bad.'
+
+'_Where_ is she?'
+
+'In her room, Ma'am,' answered Betty, with blubbered cheeks.
+
+'Where are you going, minx?' cried M. M., with a terrible voice and look,
+and striding toward the door, from which Moggy was about to escape.
+
+Now, Moggy was a sort of heroine, not in the vain matter of beauty, for
+she had high cheek bones, a snub nose, and her figure had no more waist,
+or other feminine undulations, than the clock in the hall; but like that
+useful piece of furniture, presented an oblong parallelogram, unassisted
+by art; for, except on gala days, these homely maidens never sported
+hoops. But she was, nevertheless, a heroine of the Amazonian species.
+She tripped up Pat Morgan, and laid that athlete suddenly on his back,
+upon the grass plot before the hall door, to his eternal disgrace, when
+he 'offered' to kiss her, while the fiddler and tambourine-man were
+playing. She used to wring big boys by the ears; overawe fishwives with
+her voluble invective; put dangerous dogs to rout with sticks and
+stones, and evince, in all emergencies, an adventurous spirit and an
+alacrity for battle.
+
+For her, indeed, as for others, the spell of 'M. M.'s' evil eye and
+witchlike presence was at first too much; but Moggy rallied, and, thus
+challenged, she turned about at the door and stoutly confronted the
+intruder.
+
+'Minx, yourself, you black baste; I'm goin' just wherever it plases me
+best, and I'd like to know who'll stop me; and first, Ma'am, be your
+lave, I'll tell the mistress to lock her door, and keep you and your
+rake-helly squad at the wrong side of it, and then, Ma'am, wherever the
+fancy takes me next--and that's how it is, and my sarvice to your
+ladyship.'
+
+Off went Moggy, with a leer of defiance and a snap of her fingers,
+cutting a clumsy caper, and rushed like a mad cow up the stairs,
+shouting all the way, 'Lock your door, Ma'am--lock your door.'
+
+Growing two or three degrees whiter, M. M., so soon as she recovered
+herself, glided in pursuit, like the embodiment of an evil spirit, as
+perhaps she was, and with a gleam of insanity, or murder, in her eye,
+which always supervened when her wrath was moved.
+
+The sullen face of the bailiff half lighted up with a cynical grin of
+expectation, for he saw that both ladies were game, and looked for a
+spirited encounter. But Dirty Davy spoiled all by interposing his
+person, and arresting the pursuit of his client, and delivering a wheezy
+expostulation close in her ear.
+
+''Tis a strange thing if I can't do what I will with my own--fine laws,
+i'faith!'
+
+'I only tell you, Madam, and if you do, it may embarrass us mightily
+by-and-by.'
+
+'I'd wring her neck across the banister,' murmured M. M.
+
+'An' now, plase your ladyship, will I bring your sarvice to the ladies
+and gentlemen down in the town, for 'tis there I'm going next,' said
+Moggy, popping in at the door, with a mock courtesy, and a pugnacious
+cock in her eye, and a look altogether so provoking and warlike as
+almost tempted the bailiff at the door to clap her on the back, and cry,
+had he spoken Latin, _macte virtute puer_!
+
+'Catch the slut. You sha'n't budge--not a foot--hold her,' cried M. M. to
+the bailiff.
+
+'Baugh!' was his answer.
+
+'See, now,' said Davy, 'Madam Nutter's not serious--you're _not_, Ma'am?
+We don't detain you, mind. The door's open. There's no false
+imprisonment or duress, mind ye, thanking you all the same, Miss, for
+your offer. We won't detain you, ah, ah. No, I thank you. Chalk the road
+for the young lady, Mr. Redmond.'
+
+And Davy fell to whisper energetically again in M. M.'s ear.
+
+And Moggy disappeared. Straight down to the town she went, and to the
+friendly Dr. Toole's house, but he was not expected home from Dublin
+till morning. Then she had thoughts of going to the barrack, and
+applying for a company of soldiers, with a cannon, if necessary, to
+retake the Mills. Then she bethought her o' good Dr. Walsingham, but he
+was too simple to cope with such seasoned rogues. General Chattesworth
+was too far away, and not quite the man either, no more than Colonel
+Stafford; and the young beaux, 'them captains, and the like, 'id only be
+funnin' me, and knows nothing of law business.' So she pitched upon
+Father Roach.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVII.
+
+IN WHICH IRISH MELODY PREVAILS.
+
+
+Now, Father Roach's domicile was the first house in the Chapel-lane,
+which consisted altogether of two, not being very long. It showed a
+hall-door, painted green--the national hue--which enclosed, I'm happy to
+say, not a few of the national virtues, chief among which reigned
+hospitality. As Moggy turned the corner, and got out of the cold wind
+under its friendly shelter, she heard a stentorian voice, accompanied by
+the mellifluous drone of a bagpipe, concluding in a highly decorative
+style the last verse of the 'Colleen Rue.'
+
+Respect for this celestial melody, and a desire to hear a little more of
+what might follow, held Moggy on the steps, with the knocker between her
+finger and thumb, unwilling to disturb by an unseasonable summons the
+harmonies from which she was, in fact, separated only by the thickness
+of the window and its shutter. And when the vocal and instrumental music
+came to an end together with a prolonged and indescribable groan and a
+grunt from the songster and the instrument, there broke forth a shrilly
+chorus of female cackle, some in admiration and some in laughter; and
+the voice of Father Roach was heard lustily and melodiously ejaculating
+'More power to you, Pat Mahony!'
+
+As this pleasant party all talked together, and Moggy could not clearly
+unravel a single sentence, she made up her mind to wait no longer, and
+knocked with good emphasis, under cover of the uproar.
+
+The maid, who had evidently been in the hall, almost instantaneously
+opened the door; and with a hasty welcome full of giggle and excitement,
+pulled in Moggy by the arm, shutting the door after her; and each damsel
+asked the other, 'An' how are you, and are you elegant?' and shaking her
+neighbour by both hands. The clerical handmaid, in a galloping whisper
+in Moggy's ear, told her,' 'Twas a weddin' party, and such tarin' fun
+she never see--sich dancin' and singin', and laughin' and funnin'; and
+she must wait a bit, and see the quality,' a portion of whom, indeed,
+were visible as well as over-poweringly audible, through the half-open
+door of the front parlour; 'and there was to be a thunderin' fine
+supper--a round of beef and two geese, and a tubful of oysters,' &c, &c.
+
+Now I must mention that this feast was, in fact, in its own way, more
+romantically wonderful than that of the celebrated wedding of Camacho
+the Rich, and one of the many hundred proofs I've met with in the course
+of my long pilgrimage that the honest prose of everyday life is often
+ten times more surprising than the unsubstantial fictions of even the
+best epic poets.
+
+The valiant Sir Jaufry, it is true, was ordered to a dungeon by the fair
+Brunissende, who so soon as she beheld him, nevertheless became
+enamoured of the knight, and gave him finally her hand in wedlock. But
+if the fair Brunissende had been five and forty, or by'r lady, fifty,
+the widow of a tailor, herself wondrous keen after money, and stung very
+nigh to madness by the preposterous balance due (as per ledger), and the
+inexhaustible and ingenious dodges executed by the insolvent Sir Jaufry,
+the composer of that chivalric romance might have shrunk from the happy
+winding-up as bordering too nearly upon the incredible.
+
+Yet good Father Roach understood human nature better. Man and woman have
+a tendency to fuse. And given a good-looking fellow and a woman, no
+matter of what age, who but deserves the name, and bring them together,
+and let the hero but have proper opportunities, and deuce is in it if
+nothing comes of the matter. Animosity is no impediment. On the contrary
+'tis a more advantageous opening than indifference. The Cid began his
+courtship by shooting his lady-love's pigeons, and putting her into a
+pet and a frenzy. The Cid knew what he was about. Stir no matter _what_
+passions, provided they _be_ passions, and get your image well into your
+lady's head, and you may repeat, with like success, the wooing (which
+superficial people pronounce so unnatural) of crook-backed Richard and
+the Lady Anne. Of course, there are limits. I would not advise, for
+instance, a fat elderly gentleman, bald, carbuncled, dull of wit, and
+slow of speech, to hazard that particular method, lest he should find
+himself the worse of his experiment. My counsel is for the young, the
+tolerably good-looking, for murmuring orators of the silver-tongue
+family, and romantic athletes with coaxing ways.
+
+Worthy Father Roach constituted himself internuncio between Mahony, whom
+we remember first in his pride of place doing the honours of that feast
+of Mars in which his 'friend' Nutter was to have carved up the great
+O'Flaherty on the Fifteen Acres, and next, _quantum, mutatus ab illo_! a
+helpless but manly captive in the hands of the Dublin bailiffs, and that
+very Mrs. Elizabeth Woolly, relict and sole executrix of the late
+Timotheus Woolly, of High-street, tailor, &c., &c., who was the cruel
+cause of his incarceration.
+
+Good Father Roach, though a paragon of celibacy, was of a gallant
+temperament, and a wheedling tongue, and unfolded before the offended
+eye of the insulted and vindictive executrix so interesting a picture of
+'his noble young friend, the victim of circumstance, breaking his manly
+heart over his follies and misfortunes;' and looking upon her, Mrs.
+Woolly, afar off, with an eye full of melancholy and awe, tempered with,
+mayhap, somewhat of romantic gallantry, like Sir Walter Raleigh from the
+Tower window on Queen Elizabeth, that he at length persuaded the
+tremendous 'relict' to visit her captive in his dungeon. This she did,
+in a severe mood, with her attorney, and good Father Roach; and though
+Mahony's statement was declamatory rather than precise, and dealt more
+with his feelings than his resources, and was carried on more in the way
+of an appeal to the 'leedy' than as an exposition to the man of law,
+leaving matters at the end in certainly no clearer state than before he
+began, yet the executrix consented to see the imprisoned youth once
+more, this time dispensing with her attorney's attendance, and content
+with the protection of the priest, and even upon that, on some
+subsequent visits, she did not insist.
+
+And so the affair, like one of those medleys of our Irish melodies
+arranged by poor M. Jullien, starting with a martial air, breathing turf
+and thunder, fire and sword, went off imperceptibly into a pathetic and
+amorous strain. Father Roach, still officiating as internuncio, found
+the dowager less and less impracticable, and at length a treaty was
+happily concluded. The captive came forth to wear thenceforward those
+lighter chains only, which are forged by Hymen and wreathed with roses;
+and the lady applied to his old promissory notes the torch of love,
+which in a moment reduced them to ashes. And here, at the hermitage of
+our jolly Chapelizod priest--for bride and bridegroom were alike of the
+'ancient faith'--the treaty was ratified, and the bagpipe and the
+bridegroom, in tremendous unison, splitting the rafters with 'Hymen,
+Hymen, O Hymenoee!'
+
+In the midst of this festive celebration, his reverence was summoned to
+the hall, already perfumed with the incense of the geese, the onions,
+the bacon browned at the kitchen-fire, and various other delicacies,
+toned and enriched by the vapours that exhaled from the little bottle of
+punch which, in consideration of his fatigues, stood by the elbow of the
+piper.
+
+When the holy man had heard Moggy's tale, he scratched his tonsure and
+looked, I must say, confoundedly bored.
+
+'Now, Moggy, my child, don't you see, acushla, 'tisn't to me you should
+ha' come; I'm here, my dear, engaged,' and he dried his moist and
+rubicund countenance, 'in one of the sacred offices iv the Church, the
+sacrament, my dear, iv'--here Mahony and the piper struck up again in so
+loud a key in the parlour, that as Moggy afterwards observed, 'they
+could not hear their own ears,' and the conclusion of the sentence was
+overwhelmed in, 'Many's the bottle I cracked in my time.' So his
+reverence impatiently beckoned to the hall-door, which he opened, and on
+the steps, where he was able to make himself audible, he explained the
+nature of his present engagement, and referred her to Doctor Toole.
+Assured, however, that he was in Dublin, he scratched his tonsure once
+more.
+
+'The divil burn the lot o' them, my dear, an' purty evenin' they chose
+for their vagaries--an' law papers too, you say, an' an attorney into
+the bargain--there's no influence you can bring to bear on them
+fellows. If 'twas another man, an' a couple more at his back, myself an'
+Pat Moran 'id wallop them out of the house, an' into the river, be
+gannies; as aisy as say an _ave_.'
+
+The illustration, it occurred to him, might possibly strike Moggy as
+irreverent, and the worthy father paused, and, with upturned eyes,
+murmured a Latin ejaculation, crossing himself; and having thus
+reasserted his clerical character, he proceeded to demonstrate the
+uselessness of his going.
+
+But Father Roach, though sometimes a little bit testy, and, on the
+whole, not without faults, was as good-natured an anchorite as ever said
+mass or brewed a contemplative bowl of punch. If he refused to go down
+to the Mills, he would not have been comfortable again that night, nor
+indeed for a week to come. So, with a sigh, he made up his mind, got
+quietly into his surtout and mufflers which hung on the peg behind the
+hall-door, clapped on his hat, grasped his stout oak stick, and telling
+his housekeeper to let them know, in case his guests should miss him,
+that he was obliged to go out for ten minutes or so on parish business,
+forth sallied the stout priest, with no great appetite for
+knight-errantry, but still anxious to rescue, if so it might be, the
+distressed princess, begirt with giants and enchanters, at the Mills.
+
+At the Salmon House he enlisted the stalworth Paddy Moran, with the
+information conveyed to that surprised reveller, that he was to sleep at
+'Mrs. Nutter's house' that night; and so, at a brisk pace, the clerical
+knight, his squire, and demoiselle-errant, proceeded to the Mills.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXVIII.
+
+IN WHICH, WHILE THE HARMONY CONTINUES IN FATHER ROACH'S FRONT PARLOUR, A
+FEW DISCORDS ARE INTRODUCED ELSEWHERE; AND DOCTOR TOOLE ARRIVES IN THE
+MORNING WITH A MARVELLOUS BUDGET OF NEWS.
+
+
+The good people who had established themselves in poor Nutter's domicile
+did not appear at all disconcerted by the priest's summons. His knock at
+the hall-door was attended to with the most consummate assurance by
+M. M.'s maid, just as if the premises had belonged to her mistress all
+her days.
+
+Between this hussy and his reverence, who was in no mood to be trifled
+with, there occurred in the hall some very pretty sparring, which ended
+by his being ushered into the parlour, where sat Mistress Matchwell and
+Dirty Davy, the 'tea-things' on the table, and an odour more potent than
+that of the Chinese aroma circulating agreeably through the chamber.
+
+I need not report the dialogue of the parties, showing how the honest
+priest maintained, under sore trial, his character for politeness while
+addressing a lady, and how he indemnified himself in the style in which
+he 'discoorsed' the attorney; how his language fluctuated between the
+persuasively religious and the horribly profane; and how, at one crisis
+in the conversation, although he had self-command enough to bow to the
+matron, he was on the point of cracking the lawyer's crown with the fine
+specimen of Irish oak which he carried in his hand, and, in fact,
+nothing but his prudent respect for that gentleman's cloth prevented his
+doing so.
+
+'But supposin', Ma'am,' said his reverence, referring to the astounding
+allegation of her marriage with Nutter; 'for the sake of argumint, it
+should turn out to be so, in coorse you would not like to turn the poor
+woman out iv doors, without a penny in her pocket, to beg her bread?'
+
+'Your friend up stairs, Sir, intended playing the lady for the rest of
+her days,' answered M. M., with a cat-like demureness, sly and cruel, 'at
+my cost and to my sorrow. For twenty long years, or nigh hand it, she
+has lived with my husband, consuming my substance, and keeping me in
+penury. What did she allow me all that time?--not so much as that
+crust--ha! ha!--no, not even allowed my husband to write me a line, or
+send me a shilling. I suppose she owes me for her maintenance here--in
+my house, out of my property--fully two thousand pounds. Make money of
+that, Sir;--and my lawyer advises me to make her pay it.'
+
+'Or rather to make her account, Ma'am; or you will, if she's disposed to
+act fairly, take anything you may be advised, to be reasonable and
+equitable, Ma'am,' interposed Dirty Davy.
+
+'That's it,' resumed Madam Mary. 'I don't want her four bones. Let her
+make up one thousand pounds--that's reason, Sir--and I'll forgive her
+the remainder. But if she won't, then to gaol I'll send her, and there
+she may rot for me.'
+
+'You persave, Sir,' continued the attorney; 'your client--I mane your
+friend--has fixed herself in the character of an agent--all the late
+gintleman's money, you see, went through her hands--an agent or a
+steward to Charles Nutther, desased--an' a coort iv equity'll hould her
+liable to account, ye see; an' we know well enough what money's past
+through her hands annually--an' whatever she can prove to have been
+honestly applied, we'll be quite willin' to allow; but, you see, we must
+have the balance!'
+
+'Balance!' said the priest, incensed beyond endurance; 'if you stay
+balancin' here, my joker, much longer, you'll run a raysonable risk of
+balancin' by the neck out iv one of them trees before the doore.'
+
+'So you're threatenin' my life, Sir!' said the attorney, with a sly
+defiance.
+
+'You lie like the divil, Sir--savin' your presence, Ma'am. Don't you
+know the differ, Sir, between a threat an' a warnin', you bosthoon?'
+thundered his reverence.
+
+'You're sthrivin' to provoke me to a brache iv the pace, as the company
+can testify,' said Dirty Davy.
+
+'Ye lie again, you--you fat crature--'tis thryin' to provoke you to
+_keep_ the pace I am. Listen to me, the both o' yez--the leedy up
+stairs, the misthress iv this house, and widow of poor Charles
+Nutter--Mrs. Sally Nutther, I say--is well liked in the parish; an' if
+they get the wind o' the word, all I say 's this--so sure as you're
+found here houldin' wrongful possession of her house an' goods, the boys
+iv Palmerstown, Castleknock, and Chapelizod will pay yez a visit you
+won't like, and duck yez in the river, or hang yez together, like a pair
+of common robbers, as you unquestionably _are--not_,' he added, with a
+sudden sense of legal liability.
+
+'Who's that?' demanded the lynx-eyed lady, who saw Pat Moran cross the
+door in the shadow of the lobby.
+
+'That's Mr. Moran, a most respectable and muscular man, come here to
+keep possession, Madam, for Mrs. Sally Nutther, our good friend and
+neighbour, Ma'am,' replied the priest.
+
+'As you plase, Sir,' replied the attorney; 'you're tumblin' yourself and
+your friend into a nice predicament--as good a consthructive ousther, vi
+et armis, as my client could possibly desire. Av coorse, Sir, we'll seek
+compensation in the regular way for this violent threspass; and we have
+you criminally, you'll obsarve, no less than civilly.'
+
+'Now, look--onderstand me--don't affect to misteek, av you plase,'
+said the priest, not very clear or comfortable, for he had before
+had one or two brushes with the law, and the recollection was
+disagreeable: 'I--Mr. Moran--we're here, Sir--the both iv us, as you
+see--pacibly--and--and--all to that--and at the request of Mrs. Sally
+Nutther--mind that, too--at her special desire--an' I tell you what's
+more--if you make any row here--do you mind--I'll come down with the
+magisthrate an' the soldiers, an' lave it to them to dale with you
+accordin'--mind ye--to law an' equity, civil, human, criminal, an'
+divine--an' make money o' that, ye--ye--mountain in labour--savin' your
+presence, Ma'am.'
+
+'I thank you--that'll do, Sir,' said the lawyer, with a lazy chuckle.
+
+'I'll now do myself the honour to make my compliments to Mrs. Sally
+Nutther,' said Father Roach, making a solemn bow to Mrs. Matchwell, who,
+with a shrill sneer, pursued him as he disappeared with--
+
+'The lady in the bed-room, your reverence?'
+
+Whereat Dirty Davy renewed his wheezy chuckle.
+
+Nothing daunted, the indignant divine stumped resolutely up stairs, and
+found poor Sally Nutter, to whose room he was joyfully admitted by
+honest Betty, who knew his soft honest brogue in a panic, the violence
+of which had almost superseded her grief. So he consoled and fortified
+the poor lady as well as he could, and when she urged him to remain in
+the house all night.
+
+'My dear Ma'am,' says he, lifting his hand and shaking his head, with
+closed eyes, 'you forget my ca_rac_ter. Why, the house is full iv
+faymales. My darlin' Mrs. Nutther, I--I couldn't enthertain sich an
+idaya; and, besides,' said he, with sudden energy, recollecting that the
+goose might be overdone, 'there's a religious duty, my dear Ma'am--the
+holy sacrament waitin'--a pair to be married; but Pat Moran will keep
+them quiet till mornin,' and I'll be down myself to see you then. So my
+sarvice to you, Mrs. Nutther, and God bless you, my dear Ma'am.'
+
+And with this valediction the priest departed, and from the road he
+looked back at the familiar outline of the Mills, and its thick clumps
+of chimneys, and two twinkling lights, and thought of the horrible and
+sudden change that had passed over the place and the inmates, and how a
+dreadful curse had scathed them: making it, till lately the scene of
+comfort and tranquillity, to become the hold of every foul spirit, and
+the cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
+
+Doctor Toole arrived at ten o'clock next morning, with news that shook
+the village. The inquest was postponed to the evening, to secure the
+attendance of some witnesses, who could throw a light, it was thought,
+on the enquiry. Then Doctor Toole was examined, and identified the body
+at first, confidently.
+
+'But,' said he, in the great parlour of the Phoenix, where he held
+forth, 'though the features were as like as two eggs, it struck me the
+forehead was a thought broader. So, said I, I can set the matter at rest
+in five minutes. Charles Nutter's left upper arm was broken midway, and
+I set it; there would be the usual deposit where the bone knit, and he
+had a sword thrust through his right shoulder, cicatrised, and very well
+defined; and he had lost two under-teeth. Well, the teeth _were_ gone,
+but three instead of two, and on laying the arm-bone bare, 'twas plain
+it had never been broken, and, in like manner, nothing wrong with the
+right shoulder, and there was nothing like so much deltoid and biceps as
+Nutter had. So says I, at once, be that body whose it may, 'tis none of
+Charles Nutter's, and to that I swear, gentlemen; and I had hardly made
+an end when 'twas identified for the corpse of the French hair-dresser,
+newly arrived from Paris, who was crossing the Liffey, on Tuesday night,
+you remember, at the old ferry-boat slip, and fell in and was drowned.
+So that part of the story's ended.
+
+'But, gentlemen,' continued Toole, with the important and resolute
+bearing of a man who has a startling announcement to make, 'I am sorry
+to have to tell you that poor Charles Nutter's in gaol.'
+
+In gaol! was echoed in all sorts of tones from his auditory, with an
+abundance of profane ejaculations of wonderment, concern, and horror.
+
+'Ay, gentlemen, in the body of the gaol.'
+
+Then it came out that Nutter had been arrested that very morning, in a
+sedan-chair, at the end of Cook Street, and was now in the county prison
+awaiting his trial; and that, no doubt, bail would be refused, which,
+indeed, turned out truly.
+
+So, when all these amazing events had been thoroughly discussed, the
+little gathering dispersed to blaze them abroad, and Toole wrote to Mr.
+Gamble, to tell him that the person, Mary Matchwell, claiming to be the
+wife of Charles Nutter, has established herself at the Mills, and is
+disposed to be troublesome, and terrifies poor Mrs. Sally Nutter, who is
+ill; it would be a charity to come out, and direct measures. I know not
+what ought to be done, though confident her claim is a bag of moonshine
+and lies, and, if not stopped, she'll make away with the goods and
+furniture, which is mighty hard upon this unfortunate lady,' etc., etc.
+
+'That Mary Matchwell, as I think, ought to be in gaol for the assault on
+Sturk; her card, you know, was found in the mud beside him, and she's
+fit for any devil's work.'
+
+This was addressed by Toole to his good wife.
+
+'That _card?_ said Jimmey, who happened to be triturating a powder in
+the corner for little Master Barney Sturk, and who suspended operations,
+and spoke with the pestle in his fingers, and a very cunning leer on his
+sharp features: 'I know all about that card.'
+
+'You do--do you? and why didn't you spake out long ago, you vagabond?'
+said Toole. 'Well, then! come now!--what's in your knowledge-box?--out
+with it.'
+
+'Why, I had that card in my hand the night Mr. Nutter went off.'
+
+'Well?--go on.'
+
+''Twas in the hall at the Mills, Sir; I knew it again at the Barracks
+the minute I seen it.'
+
+'Why, 'tis a printed card--there's hundreds of them--how d'ye know one
+from t'other, wisehead?'
+
+'Why, Sir, 'twas how this one was walked on, and the letter M. in Mary
+was tore across, an' on the back was writ, in red ink, for Mrs.
+Macnamara, and they could not read it down at the Barracks, because the
+wet had got at it, and the end was mostly washed away, and they thought
+it was MacNally, or MacIntire; but I knew it the minute I seen it.'
+
+'Well, my tight little fellow, and what the dickens has all that to do
+with the matter?' asked Toole, growing uneasy.
+
+'The dickens a much, I believe, Sir; only as Mr. Nutter was goin' out he
+snatched it out o' my hand--in the hall there--and stuffed it into his
+pocket.'
+
+'You did not tell that lying story, did you, about the town, you
+mischievous young spalpeen?' demanded the doctor, shaking his disciple
+rather roughly by the arm.
+
+'No--I--I didn't--I did not tell, Sir--what is it to me?' answered the
+boy, frightened.
+
+'You didn't tell--not you, truly. I lay you a tenpenny-bit there isn't a
+tattler in the town but has the story by rote--a pretty kettle o' fish
+you'll make of it, with your meddling and lying. If 'twas true, 'twould
+be another matter, but--hold your tongue;--how the plague are you to
+know one card from another when they're all alike, and Mrs. Macnamara,
+Mrs. Macfiddle. I suppose _you_ can read better than the _adjutant_, ha,
+ha! Well, mind my words, you've got yourself into a pretty predicament;
+I'd walk twice from this to the county court-house and back again, only
+to look at it; a pleasant cross-hackling the counsellors will give you,
+and if you prevaricate--you know what that is, my boy--the judge will
+make short work with you, and you may cool your heels in gaol as long as
+he pleases, for me.'
+
+'And, look'ee,' said Toole, returning, for he was going out, as he
+generally did, whenever he was profoundly ruffled; 'you remember the
+affidavit-man that was whipped and pilloried this time two years for
+perjury, eh? Look to it, my fine fellow. There's more than me knows how
+Mr. Nutter threatened to cane you that night--and a good turn 'twould
+have been--and 'twouldn't take much to persuade an honest jury that you
+wanted to pay him off for that by putting a nail in his coffin, you
+young miscreant! Go on--do--and I promise you'll get an airing yet
+you'll not like--you will.'
+
+And so Toole, with a wag of his head, and a grin over his shoulder,
+strutted out into the village street, where he was seen, with a pursed
+mouth, and a flushed visage, to make a vicious cut or two with his cane
+in the air as he walked along. And it must be allowed that Master
+Jimmey's reflections were a little confused and uncomfortable, as he
+pondered over the past and the future with the pestle in his fingers and
+the doctor's awful words ringing in his ears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXIX.
+
+SHOWING HOW LITTLE LILY'S LIFE BEGAN TO CHANGE INTO A RETROSPECT; AND
+HOW ON A SUDDEN SHE BEGAN TO FEEL BETTER.
+
+
+As time wore on, little Lilias was not better. When she had read her
+Bible, and closed it, she would sit long silent, with a sad look,
+thinking; and often she would ask old Sally questions about her mother,
+and listen to her, looking all the time with a strange and earnest gaze
+through the glass door upon the evergreens and the early snowdrops. And
+old Sally was troubled somehow, and saddened at her dwelling so much
+upon this theme.
+
+And one evening, as they sat together in the drawing-room--she and the
+good old rector--she asked him, too, gently, about her; for he never
+shrank from talking of the beloved dead, but used to speak of her often,
+with a simple tenderness, as if she were still living.
+
+In this he was right. Why should we be afraid to _speak_ of those of
+whom we think so continually? She is not dead, but sleepeth! I have met
+a few, and they very good men, who spoke of their beloved dead with this
+cheery affection, and mingled their pleasant and loving remembrances of
+them in their common talk; and often I wished that, when I am laid up in
+the bosom of our common mother earth, those who loved me would keep my
+memory thus socially alive, and allow my name, when I shall answer to it
+no more, to mingle still in their affectionate and merry intercourse.
+
+'Some conflicts my darling had the day before her departure,' he said;
+'but such as through God's goodness lasted not long, and ended in the
+comfort that continued to her end, which was so quiet and so peaceable,
+we who were nearest about her, knew not the moment of her departure. And
+little Lily was then but an infant--a tiny little thing. Ah! if my
+darling had been spared to see her grown-up, such a beauty, and so like
+her!'
+
+And so he rambled on; and when he looked at her, little Lily was
+weeping; and as he looked she said, trying to smile--
+
+'Indeed, I don't know why I'm crying, darling. There's nothing the
+matter with your little Lily--only I can't help crying: and I'm your
+foolish little Lily, you know.'
+
+And this often happened, that he found she was weeping when he looked on
+her suddenly, and she used to try to smile, and both, then, to cry
+together, and neither say what they feared, only each unspeakably more
+tender and loving. Ah, yes! in their love was mingling now something of
+the yearning of a farewell, which neither would acknowledge.
+
+'Now, while they lay here,' says sweet John Bunyan, in his 'Pilgrim's
+Progress,' 'and waited for the good hour, there was a noise in the town
+that there was a post come from the celestial city, with matter of great
+importance to one Christiana. So enquiry was made for her, and the house
+was found out where she was; so the post presented her with a letter,
+the contents whereof were, "Hail, thou good one! I bring thee tidings
+that the Master calleth for thee, and expecteth that thou shouldst stand
+in his presence, in clothes of immortality, within these ten days."'
+
+'When he had read this letter to her, he gave her therewith a sure token
+that he was a true messenger, and was come to bid her make haste to be
+gone. The token was an arrow with a point sharpened with love, let
+easily into her heart, which by degrees wrought so effectually with her,
+that at the time appointed she must be gone.
+
+'When Christiana saw that her time was come, and that she was the first
+of this company that was to go over, she called for Mr. Greatheart, her
+guide, and told him how matters were.'
+
+And so little Lily talked with Mr. Greatheart in her own way; and
+hearing of her mother, gave ear to the story as to a sweet and solemn
+parable, that lighted her dark steps. And the old man went on:--
+
+'It is St. John who says, "And the sea arose by reason of a great wind
+that blew. So when they had rowed about five-and-twenty, or thirty
+furlongs, they see the Lord walking on the sea, and drawing nigh unto
+the ship: and they were afraid. But he saith unto them, It is I, be not
+afraid." So is it with the frail bark of mortality and the trembling
+spirit it carries. When "it is now dark," and the sea arises, and the
+"great wind" blows, the vessel is tost, and the poor heart fails within
+it; and when they see the dim form which they take to be the angel of
+death walking the roaming waters, they cry out in terror, but the voice
+of the sweet Redeemer, the Lord of Life is heard, "It is I; be not
+afraid," and so the faithful ones "willingly receive him into the ship,"
+and immediately it is at the land whither they go: yes, at the land
+whither they go. But, oh! the lonely ones, left behind on the other
+shore.'
+
+One morning, old Sally, who, in her quiet way, used to tell all the
+little village news she heard, thinking to make her young mistress
+smile, or at least listen, said--
+
+'And that wild young gentleman, Captain Devereux, is growing godly, they
+say; Mrs. Irons tells me how he calls for his Bible o' nights, and how
+he does not play cards, nor eat suppers at the Phoenix, nor keep bad
+company, nor go into Dublin, but goes to church; and she says she does
+not know what to make of him.'
+
+Little Lily did not speak or raise her head; she went on stirring the
+little locket, that lay on the table, with the tip of her finger,
+looking on it silently. She did not seem to mind old Sally's talk,
+almost to hear it, but when it ended, she waited, still silent, as a
+child, when the music is over, listens for more.
+
+When she came down she placed her chair near the window, that she might
+see the snowdrops and the crocuses.
+
+'The spring, at last, Sally, my darling, and I feel so much better;' and
+Lily smiled on the flowers through the windows, and I fancy the flowers
+opened in that beautiful light.
+
+And she said, every now and then, that she felt 'so much better--so much
+stronger,' and made old Sally sit by her, and talk to her, and smiled so
+happily, and there again were all her droll engaging little ways. And
+when the good rector came in, that evening, she welcomed him in the old
+pleasant way: though she could not run out, as in other times, when she
+heard his foot on the steps, to meet him at the door, and there was such
+a beautiful colour in her clear, thin cheeks, and she sang his favourite
+little song for him, just one verse, with the clear, rich voice he loved
+so well, and then tired. The voice remained in his ears long after, and
+often came again, and that little song, in lonely reveries, while he sat
+listening, in long silence, and twilight, a swan's song.
+
+'You see, your little Lily is growing quite well again. I feel so much
+better.'
+
+There was such a childish sunshine in her smile, his trembling heart
+believed it.
+
+'Oh! little Lily, my darling!' he stopped--he was crying, and yet
+delighted. Smiling all the time, and crying, and through it a little
+laugh, as if he had waked from a dream of having lost her, and found her
+there--his treasure--safe. 'If anything happened to little Lily, I think
+the poor old man'--and the sentence was not finished; and, after a
+little pause, he said, quite cheerily--'But I knew the spring would
+bring her back. I knew it, and here she is; the light of the house;
+little Lily, my treasure.'
+
+And so he blessed and kissed her, and blessed her again, with all his
+fervent soul, laying his old hand lightly on her fair young head; and
+when she went up for the night, with gentle old Sally, and he heard her
+room door shut, he closed his own, and kneeling down, with clasped
+hands and streaming eyes, in a rapture of gratitude, he poured forth his
+thanksgivings before the Throne of all Mercies.
+
+These outpourings of gratitude, all premature, for blessings not real
+but imagined, are not vain. They are not thrown away upon that glorious
+and marvellous God who draws near to all who will draw near to Him,
+reciprocates every emotion of our love with a tenderness literally
+parental, and is delighted with his creatures' appreciation of his
+affection and his trustworthiness; who knows whereof we are made, and
+remembers that we are but dust, and is our faithful Creator. Therefore,
+friend, though thou fearest a shadow, thy prayer is not wasted; though
+thou rejoicest in an illusion, thy thanksgiving is not in vain. They are
+the expressions of thy faith recorded in Heaven, and counted--oh!
+marvellous love and compassion!--to thee for righteousness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXX.
+
+IN WHICH TWO ACQUAINTANCES BECOME, ON A SUDDEN, MARVELLOUSLY FRIENDLY IN
+THE CHURCH-YARD; AND MR. DANGERFIELD SMOKES A PIPE IN THE BRASS CASTLE,
+AND RESOLVES THAT THE DUMB SHALL SPEAK.
+
+
+On Sunday, Mervyn, after the good doctor's sermon and benediction,
+wishing to make enquiry of the rector touching the movements of his
+clerk, whose place was provisionally supplied by a corpulent and
+unctuous mercenary from Dublin, whose fat presence and panting delivery
+were in signal contrast with the lank figure and deep cavernous tones of
+the absent official, loitered in the church-yard to allow time for the
+congregation to disperse, and the parson to disrobe and emerge.
+
+He was reading an epitaph on an expansive black flag-stone, in the far
+corner of the church-yard--it is still there--upon several ancestral
+members of the family of Lowe, who slept beneath 'in hope,' as the
+stone-cutter informed the upper world; and musing, as sad men will, upon
+the dates and vanities of the record, when a thin white hand was lightly
+laid upon his sleeve from behind; and looking round, in expectation of
+seeing the rector's grave, simple, kindly countenance, he beheld,
+instead, with a sort of odd thrill, the white glittering face of Mr.
+Paul Dangerfield.
+
+'Hamlet in the church-yard!' said the white gentleman, with an ambiguous
+playfulness, very like a sneer. 'I'm too old to play Horatio; but
+standing at his elbow, if the Prince permits, I have a friendly word or
+two to say, in my own dry way.'
+
+There was in Mervyn's nature something that revolted instinctively from
+the singular person who stood at his shoulder. Their organisations and
+appetites were different, I suppose, and repellent. Cold and glittering
+was the 'gelidus anguis in herbâ'--the churchyard grass--who had lifted
+his baleful crest close to his ear.
+
+There was a slight flush on 'Hamlet's' forehead, and a glimmer of
+something dangerous in his eye, as he glanced on his stark acquaintance.
+But the feeling was transitory and unreasonable, and he greeted him with
+a cold and sad civility.
+
+'I was thinking, Mr. Mervyn,' said Mr. Dangerfield, politely, 'of
+walking up to the Tiled House, after church, to pay my respects, and ask
+the favour of five minutes' discourse with you; and seeing you here, I
+ventured to present myself.'
+
+'If I can do anything to serve Mr. Dangerfield,' began Mervyn.
+
+Dangerfield smiled and bowed. He was very courteous; but in his smile
+there was a character of superiority which Mervyn felt almost like an
+insult.
+
+'You mistake me, Sir. I'm all gratitude; but I don't mean to trouble you
+further than to ask your attention for two or three minutes. I've a
+thing to tell you, Sir. _I_'m really anxious to serve _you_. I wish I
+could. And 'tis only that I've recollected since I saw you, a
+circumstance of which possibly you may make some use.'
+
+'I'm deeply obliged, Sir--deeply,' said Mervyn, eagerly.
+
+'I'm only, Sir, too happy. It relates to Charles Archer. I've
+recollected, since I saw you, a document concerning his death. It had a
+legal bearing of some sort, and was signed by at least three gentlemen.
+One was Sir Philip Drayton, of Drayton Hall, who was with him at
+Florence in his last illness. I may have signed it myself, but I don't
+recollect. It was by his express desire, to quiet, as I remember, some
+proceedings which might have made a noise, and compromised his family.'
+
+'Can you bring to mind the nature of the document?'
+
+'Why, thus much. I'm quite sure it began with a certificate of his
+death; and then, I think, was added a statement, at his last request,
+which surprised, or perhaps, shocked us. I only say I _think_--for
+though I remember that such a statement was solemnly made, I can't bring
+to mind whether it was set out in the writing of which I speak. Only I
+am confident it referred to some crime--a confession of something; but
+for the life o' me I can't recollect what. If you could let me know the
+subject of your suspicion it might help me. I should never have
+remembered this occurrence, for instance, had it not been for our
+meeting t'other day. I can't exactly--in fact, _at all_--bring to mind
+what the crime was: forgery, or perjury--eh?'
+
+'Why, Sir, 'twas this,' said Mervyn, and stopped short, not knowing how
+far even this innocent confidence might compromise Irons. Dangerfield,
+his head slightly inclined, was disconcertingly silent and attentive.
+
+'I--I suspect,' resumed Mervyn, 'I suspect, Sir, 'twas _perjury_,' said
+Mervyn.
+
+'Oh! perjury? I see--in the matter of his testimony in that distressing
+prosecution. My Lord Dunoran--hey?'
+
+Mervyn bowed, and Dangerfield remained silent and thoughtful for a
+minute or two, and then said:--
+
+'I see, Sir--I _think_ I see; but, who then was the guilty man, who
+killed Mr. ---- pooh, What's-his-name--the deceased man,--you know?'
+
+'Why, upon that point, Sir, I should have some hesitation in speaking. I
+can only now say thus much, that I'm satisfied, he, Charles Archer, in
+swearing as he did, committed wilful perjury.'
+
+'You are?--oho!--oh! This is satisfactory. You don't, of course, mean
+mere conjecture--eh?'
+
+'I know not, Sir, how you would call it, but 'tis certainly a feeling
+fixed in my mind.'
+
+'Well, Sir, I trust it may prove well founded. I wish I had myself a
+copy of that paper; but, though I have it not, I think I can put you in
+a way to get it. It was addressed, I perfectly recollect, to the Messrs.
+Elrington, gentlemen attorneys, in Chancery-lane, London. I remember it,
+because my Lord Castlemallard employed them eight or nine years
+afterwards in some law business, which recalled the whole matter to my
+mind before it had quite faded. No doubt they have it there. 'Twas about
+a week after his death. The date of that you can have from newspapers.
+You'll not mention my name when writing, because they mayn't like the
+trouble of searching, and my Lord Castlemallard would not approve my
+meddling in other persons' affairs--even in yours.'
+
+'I sha'n't forget. But what if they refuse to seek the paper out?'
+
+'Make it worth their while in money, Sir; and, though they may grumble
+over it, I warrant they'll find it.'
+
+'Sir,' said Mervyn, suddenly, 'I cannot thank you half enough. This
+statement, should it appear attached, as you suppose, to the
+certificate, may possibly place me on the track of that lost witness,
+who yet may restore my ruined name and fortunes. I thank you, Sir. From
+my heart I _do_ thank you.'
+
+And he grasped Dangerfield's white thin hand in his, with a fervour how
+unlike his cold greeting of only a few minutes before, and shook it with
+an eager cordiality.
+
+Thus across the grave of these old Lowes did the two shake hands, as
+they had never done before; and Dangerfield, white and glittering, and
+like a frolicsome man, entering into a joke, wrung his with an
+exaggerated demonstration, and then flung it downward with a sudden
+jerk, as if throwing down a glove. The gesture, the smile, and the
+suspicion of a scowl, had a strange mixture of cordiality, banter and
+defiance, and he was laughing a quiet 'ha, ha, ha;' and, wagging his
+head, he said--
+
+'Well, I thought 'twould please you to hear this; and anything more I
+can do or think of is equally at your service.'
+
+So, side by side they returned, picking their steps among the graves and
+head-stones, to the old church porch.
+
+For a day or two after the storm, the temper of our cynical friend of
+the silver spectacles had suffered. Perhaps he did not like the news
+which had reached him since, and would have preferred that Charles
+Nutter had made good his escape from the gripe of justice.
+
+The management of Lord Castlemallard's Irish estates had devolved
+provisionally upon Mr. Dangerfield during the absence of Nutter and the
+coma of his rival; and the erect white gentleman, before his desk in his
+elbow-chair, when, after his breakfast, about to open the letters and
+the books relating to this part of his charge, used sometimes to grin
+over his work, and jabber to himself his hard scoffs and gibes over the
+sins and follies of man, and the chops and changes of this mortal life.
+
+But from and after the night of the snow-storm he had contracted a
+disgust for this part of his labours, and he used to curse Nutter with
+remarkable intensity, and with an iteration which, to a listener who
+thought that even the best thing may be said too often, would have been
+tiresome.
+
+Perhaps a little occurrence, which Mr. Dangerfield himself utterly
+despised, may have had something to do with his bitter temper, and gave
+an unsatisfactory turn to his thoughts. It took place on the eventful
+night of the tempest.
+
+If some people saw visions that night, others dreamed dreams. In a
+midnight storm like this, time was when the solemn peal and defiant
+clang of the holy bells would have rung out confusion through the winged
+hosts of 'the prince of the powers of the air,' from the heights of the
+abbey tower. Everybody has a right to his own opinion on the matter.
+Perhaps the prince and his army are no more upon the air on such a night
+than on any other; or that being so, they no more hastened their
+departure by reason of the bells than the eclipse does by reason of the
+beating of the Emperor of China's gongs. But this I aver, whatever the
+cause, upon such nights of storm, the sensoria of some men are crossed
+by such wild variety and succession of images, as amounts very nearly to
+the Walpurgis of a fever. It is not the mere noise--other noises won't
+do it. The air, to be sure, is thin, and blood-vessels expand, and
+perhaps the brain is pressed upon unduly. Well, I don't know. Material
+laws may possibly account for it. I can only speak with certainty of the
+phenomenon. I've experienced it; and some among those of my friends who
+have reached that serene period of life in which we con over our
+ailments, register our sensations, and place ourselves upon regimens,
+tell me the same story of themselves. And this, too, I know, that upon
+the night in question, Mr. Paul Dangerfield, who was not troubled either
+with vapours or superstitions, as he lay in his green-curtained bed in
+the Brass Castle, had as many dreams flitting over his brain and voices
+humming and buzzing in his ears, as if he had been a poet or a
+pythoness.
+
+He had not become, like poor Sturk before his catastrophe, a dreamer of
+dreams habitually. I suppose he did dream. The beasts do. But his
+visions never troubled him; and I don't think there was one morning in a
+year on which he could have remembered his last night's dream at the
+breakfast-table.
+
+On this particular night, however, he did dream. _Vidit somnium_. He
+thought that Sturk was dead, and laid out in a sort of state in an open
+coffin, with a great bouquet on his breast, something in the continental
+fashion, as he remembered it in the case of a great, stern, burly
+ecclesiastic in Florence. The coffin stood on tressels in the aisle of
+Chapelizod church; and, of all persons in the world, he and Charles
+Nutter stood side by side as chief mourners, each with a great waxen
+taper burning in one hand, and a white pocket-handkerchief in the other.
+
+Now in dreams it sometimes happens that men undergo sensations of awe,
+and even horror, such as waking they never know, and which the scenery
+and situation of the dream itself appear wholly inadequate to produce.
+Mr. Paul Dangerfield, had he been called on to do it, would have kept
+solitary watch in a dead man's chamber, and smoked his pipe as serenely
+as he would in the club-room of the Phoenix. But here it was
+different. The company were all hooded and silent, sitting in rows: and
+there was a dismal sound of distant waters, and an indefinable darkness
+and horror in the air; and, on a sudden, up sat the corpse of Sturk, and
+thundered, with a shriek, a dreadful denunciation, and Dangerfield
+started up in his bed aghast, and cried--'Charles Archer!'
+
+The storm was bellowing and shrieking outside, and for some time that
+grim, white gentleman, bolt upright in his shirt, did not know
+distinctly in what part of the world, or, indeed, in what world he was.
+
+'So,' said Mr. Dangerfield, soliloquising, 'Charles Nutter's alive, and
+in prison, and what comes next? 'Tis enough to make one believe in a
+devil almost! Why wasn't he drowned, d--n him? How did he get himself
+taken, d--n him again? From the time I came into this unlucky village
+I've smelt danger. That accursed beast, a corpse, and a ghost, and a
+prisoner at last--well, he has been my evil genius. _If_ he were drowned
+or hanged; born to be hanged, I hope: all I want is quiet--just _quiet_;
+but I've a feeling the play's not played out yet. He'll give the hangman
+the slip, will he: not if I can help it, though; but caution, Sir,
+caution; life's at stake--my life's on the cast. The clerk's a wise dog
+to get out of the way. Death's walking. What a cursed fool I was when I
+came here and saw those beasts, and knew them, not to turn back again,
+and leave them to possess their paradise! I think I've lost my caution
+and common sense under some cursed infatuation. That handsome, insolent
+wench, Miss Gertrude, 'twould be something to have her, and to humble
+her, too; but--but 'tis not worth a week in such a neighbourhood.'
+
+Now this soliloquy, which broke into an actual mutter every here and
+there, occurred at about eleven o'clock A.M., in the little low
+parlour of the Brass Castle, that looked out on the wintry river.
+
+Mr. Dangerfield knew the virtues of tobacco, so he charged his pipe, and
+sat grim, white, and erect by the fire. It is not everyone that is
+'happy thinking,' and the knight of the silver spectacles followed out
+his solitary discourse, with his pipe between his lips, and saw all
+sorts of things through the white narcotic smoke.
+
+'It would not do to go off and leave affairs thus; a message might
+follow me, eh? No; I'll stay and see it out, quite out. Sturk--Barnabas
+Sturk. If he came to his speech for five minutes--hum--we'll see. I'll
+speak with Mrs. Sturk about it--we must help him to his speech--a
+prating fellow; 'tis hard he should hold his tongue; yes, we'll help him
+to his speech; 'tis in the interest of justice--eternal justice--ha, ha,
+the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Let Dr. Sturk be
+sworn--ha, ha--magna est veritas--there is nothing hidden that shall not
+be revealed; ha, ha. Let Dr. Sturk be called.'
+
+So the white, thin phantom of the spectacles and tobacco pipe, sitting
+upright by the fire, amused himself with a solitary banter. Then he
+knocked the white ashes out upon the hob, stood up with his back to the
+fire, in grim rumination, for about a minute, at the end of which he
+unlocked his desk, and took forth a letter, with a large red seal. If
+was more than two months old by this time, and was, in fact, that letter
+from the London doctor which he had expected with some impatience.
+
+It was not very long, and standing he read it through, and his white
+face contracted, and darkened, and grew strangely intense and stern as
+he did so.
+
+''Tis devilish strong--ha, ha, ha--conclusive, indeed.' He was amused
+again. 'I've kept it long enough--_igni reservata_.'
+
+And holding it in the tongs, he lighted a corner, and as the last black
+fragment of it, covered with creeping sparks, flew up the chimney, he
+heard the voice of a gentleman hallooing in the court-yard.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXI.
+
+IN WHICH MR. DANGERFIELD RECEIVES A VISITOR, AND MAKES A CALL.
+
+
+Dangerfield walked out and blandly greeted the visitor, who turned out
+to be Mr. Justice Lowe.
+
+'I give you good-morning, Sir; pray, alight and step in. Hallo, Doolan,
+take Mr. Justice Lowe's horse.'
+
+So Mr. Lowe thanked him, in his cold way, and bowing, strode into the
+Brass Castle; and after the customary civilities, sat himself down, and
+says he--
+
+'I've been at the Crown Office, Sir, about this _murder_, we may call
+it, upon Sturk, and I told them you could throw a light, as I thought,
+on the matter.'
+
+'As how, Sir?'
+
+'Why, regarding the kind of feeling that subsisted between the prisoner,
+Nutter, and Doctor Sturk.'
+
+''Tis unpleasant, Sir, but I can't object.'
+
+'There was an angry feeling about the agency, I believe? Lord
+Castlemallard's agency, eh?' continued Lowe.
+
+'Well, I suppose it _was_ that; there certainly was an unpleasant
+feeling--_very_ unpleasant.'
+
+'You've heard him express it?'
+
+'Yes; I think most gentlemen who know him have. Why, he made no disguise
+of it; he was no great talker, but we've heard him on that subject.'
+
+'But you specially know how it stood between them in respect of the
+agency?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Very good, Sir,' said Lowe.
+
+'And I've a notion that something decisive should be done toward
+effecting a full discovery, and I'll consider of a method,' replied
+Dangerfield.
+
+'How do you mean?' said Lowe, looking up with a glance like a hawk.
+
+'How! why I'll talk it over with Mrs. Sturk this evening.'
+
+'Why, what has she got to tell?'
+
+'Nothing, as I suppose; I'll see her to-day; there's nothing to tell;
+but something, I think, to be done; it hasn't been set about rightly;
+'tis a botched business hitherto--that's in _my_ judgment.'
+
+'Yet 'tis rather a strong case,' answered Mr. Lowe, superciliously.
+
+'Rather a strong case, so it is, but I'll clench it, Sir; it ought to be
+certain.'
+
+'Well, Sir?' said Lowe, who expected to hear more.
+
+'Yes,' said Dangerfield, briskly, ''twill depend on _her; I'll_ suggest,
+_she'll_ decide.'
+
+'And why _she_, Sir?' said Lowe sharply.
+
+'Because 'tis her business and her right, and no one else can,' answered
+Dangerfield just as tartly, with his hands in his breeches' pockets, and
+his head the least thing o' one side, and then with a bow, 'won't you
+drink a glass of wine, Sir?' which was as much as to say, you'll get no
+more from me.
+
+'I thank you, Sir, no; 'tis a little too early for me.' And so with the
+usual ceremonies, Mr. Lowe departed, the governor of the Brass Castle
+walking beside his horse, as far as the iron gate, to do him honour; and
+as he rode away towards Lucan, Mr. Dangerfield followed him with a snowy
+smirk.
+
+Then briskly, after his wont, the knight of the shining spectacles made
+his natty toilet; and in a few minutes his cocked hat was seen gliding
+along the hedge toward Chapelizod.
+
+He glanced up at Sturk's window--it was a habit now--so soon as he came
+in sight, but all looked as usual. So he mounted the steps, and asked to
+see Mrs. Sturk.
+
+'My dear Madam,' said he, after due courtesies interchanged, 'I've but a
+few minutes; my horse waits yonder at the Phoenix, and I'm away to
+town. How does your patient to-day?'
+
+'Oh, mighty well--wonderful--that is considering how cold the weather
+is. The doctor says he's lower, indeed, but I don't mind that, for he
+must be lower while the cold continues; I always say that; and I judge
+very much by the eye; don't you, Mr. Dangerfield? by his looks, you
+know; they can't deceive me, and I assure you--'
+
+'Your house is quiet; are the children out, Ma'am?'
+
+'Oh, yes, with Mag in the park.'
+
+'Perhaps, Ma'am, you'd let me see him?'
+
+'See him?'
+
+'Yes, look on him, Ma'am, only for a moment you know.'
+
+She looked very much surprised, and perhaps a little curious and
+frightened.
+
+'I hope you haven't heard he's worse, Mr. Dangerfield. Oh, Sir, sure you
+haven't?'
+
+'No, Madam, on my honour, except from yourself, I've heard nothing of
+him to-day; but I'd like to see him, and speak a word to you, with your
+permission.'
+
+So Mrs. Sturk led the way up stairs, whispering as she ascended; for she
+had always the fancy in her head that her Barney was in a sweet light
+sleep, from which he was on no account to be awakened, forgetting, or
+not clearly knowing, that all the ordnance in the barrack-yard over the
+way had not voice enough to call him up from that dread slumber.
+
+'You may go down, my dear,' said Mr. Dangerfield to the little girl, who
+rose silently from the chair as they entered; 'with your permission,
+Mistress Sturk--I say, child, you may run down,' and he smiled a
+playful, sinister smile, with a little wave of his finger toward the
+door. So she courtesied and vanished obediently.
+
+Then he drew the curtain, and looked on Doctor Sturk. There lay the hero
+of the tragedy, his smashed head strapped together with
+sticking-plaster, and a great white fold of fine linen, like a fantastic
+turban, surmounting his grim yellow features.
+
+Then he slipped his fingers under the coverlet, and took his hand; a
+strange greeting that! But it was his pulse he wanted, and when he had
+felt it for a while--
+
+'Psha!' said he in a whisper--for the semblance of sleep affected
+everyone alike--'his pulse is just gone. Now, Madam, listen to me.
+There's not a soul in Chapelizod but yourself who does not know his
+wounds are mortal--he's _dying_, Ma'am.'
+
+'Oh--oh--o--o--oh, Mr. Dangerfield, you don't--you don't think so,'
+wildly cried the poor little lady, growing quite white with terror and
+agony.
+
+'Now, pray, my dear Mistress Sturk, compose yourself, and hear me out:
+'Tis my belief he has a chance; but none, absolutely _no_ chance, Madam,
+unless my advice be taken. There's not an evening, Ma'am, I meet Doctor
+Toole at the club, but I hear the same report--a little lower--always
+the same--lower--sinking--and _no hope_.'
+
+Here Mrs. Sturk broke out again.
+
+'Now, Madam,' I protest you'll make me regret my visit, unless you
+please to command yourself. While the doctors who are about him have got
+him in hands, there's neither hope for his life, nor for his recovering,
+for one moment, the use of his speech. Pray, Madam, hear me. They state
+as much themselves. Now, Madam, I say, we must have a chance for his
+life, and if that fails, a chance for his speech. The latter, Madam, is
+of more consequence than, perhaps, you are aware.'
+
+Poor little Mrs. Sturk was looking very pale, and breathing very hard,
+with her hand pressed to her heart.
+
+'I've done what I could, you know, to see my way through his affairs,
+and I've succeeded in keeping his creditors quiet.'
+
+At this point poor Mrs. Sturk broke out--
+
+'Oh! may the Father of the fatherless, if such they are to be bless and
+reward--oh--oh--ho--ho, Mr. Dangerfield--oh--oh-oh--Sir.'
+
+'Now, pray, Madam, oblige me and be tranquil. I say, Madam, his affairs,
+I suspect, are by no means in so bad a case as we at first supposed, and
+he has got, or I'm mistaken, large sums out, but where, neither I nor
+you can tell. Give him five minutes' speech, and it may be worth a
+thousand pounds to you--well, not to you, if you will, but to his
+children. And again, Madam, 'tis of the utmost importance that
+he should be able to state who was the villain who struck
+him--Charles--a--Charles--Mr. Nutter--you know, Madam.'
+
+'Oh! that dreadful--dreadful man--may Heaven forgive him. Oh, my Barney!
+look at him there--he'd forgive him if he could speak. You would, my
+blessed Barney--you would.'
+
+'To be sure he would. But see, Ma'am, the importance of having his
+evidence to settle the fact. Well, I know that he would not like to hang
+anybody. But suppose, Ma'am, Charles Nutter is innocent, don't you think
+he'd like to acquit him? ay, you do. Well, Ma'am, 'tis due to the
+public, you see, and to his children that he should have a chance of
+recovering his speech, and to common humanity that he should have a
+chance for his _life_--eh? and _neither_ will the doctors who have him
+in hands allow him. Now, Madam, there's a simple operation, called
+trepanning, you have heard of it, which would afford him such a chance,
+but fearing its failure they won't try it, although they allege that
+without it _he must die_, d'ye see?--ay, _die he must_, without a cast
+for his life if you won't try it.'
+
+And so, by harping on the alternatives, and demonstrating the prudence,
+humanity, and duty of action, and the inevitably fatal consequences of
+the other course, he wrought upon her at last to write a note to Surgeon
+Dillon to come out on the evening following, and to perform the
+operation. The dreadful word 'to-day,' the poor little woman could not
+abide. She pleaded for a respite, and so, half-distracted, fixed
+to-morrow.
+
+'I hope, my dear Madam, you've some little confidence in me. I think I
+have shown an interest, and I've striven to be of use.'
+
+'Oh, Sir, Mr. Dangerfield, you've been too good, our guardian angel; but
+for you, Sir, we should not have had a roof over our heads, or a bed to
+lie on; oh! may--'
+
+'Well, Ma'am, you please to speak too highly of my small services; but I
+would plead them, humble as they are, as a claim on your confidence, and
+having decided upon this wise and necessary course, pray do not say a
+word about it to anybody but myself. I will go to town, and arrange for
+the doctor's visit, and you'll soon, I hope, have real grounds for
+gratitude, not to me, Ma'am, but to Heaven.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXII.
+
+IN WHICH MR. PAUL DANGERFIELD PAYS HIS RESPECTS AND COMPLIMENTS AT
+BELMONT; WHERE OTHER VISITORS ALSO PRESENT THEMSELVES.
+
+
+Before going to town, Mr. Dangerfield, riding over the bridge and up the
+Palmerstown-road, dismounted at Belmont door-steps, and asked for the
+general. He was out. Then for Miss Rebecca Chattesworth. Yes, she was in
+the withdrawing-room. And so, light, white, and wiry, he ascended the
+stairs swiftly.
+
+'Mr. Dangerfield,' cried Dominick, throwing open the door; and that
+elderly and ill-starred wooer glided in thereat.
+
+'Madam, your most humble servant.'
+
+'Oh! Mr. Dangerfield? You're very welcome, Sir,' said Aunt Becky, with a
+grand courtesy, and extending her thin jewelled hand, which he took
+gallantly, with another bow, and a smile, and a flash from his
+spectacles.
+
+Aunt Becky laid down her volume of Richardson. She was quite alone,
+except for her little monkey--Goblin--with a silver hoop about his
+waist, and a chain thereto attached; two King Charles's dogs, whose
+barking subsided after a while; and one gray parrot on a perch in the
+bow-window, who happily was not in a very chatty mood just then. So the
+human animals were able to edge in a sentence easily enough. And Mr.
+Dangerfield said--
+
+'I'm happy in having found you, Madam; for whatever be my
+disappointments else, to Miss Rebecca Chattesworth at least I owe a debt
+of gratitude, which, despairing to repay it, I can only acknowledge; and
+leaving unacknowledged, I should have departed from Ireland most
+unhappily.'
+
+'What a fop! what a fop,' said the parrot.
+
+'You rate my poor wishes too highly, Mr. Dangerfield. I over-estimated,
+myself, my influence with the young lady; but why speak of your
+departure, Sir, so soon? A little time may yet work a change.'
+
+'You lie, you dog! you lie, you lie, you lie,' said the parrot.
+
+'Madam,' said he with a shake of his head, ''tis hoping against hope.
+Time will add to _my_ wrinkles without softening _her_ aversion. I
+utterly despair. While there remained one spark of hope I should never
+have dreamed of leaving Chapelizod.'
+
+Here there was a considerable pause, during which the parrot
+occasionally repeated, 'You lie, you lie--you dog--you lie.'
+
+'Of course, Sir, if the chance be not worth waiting for, you do well to
+be gone wherever your business or your pleasures, Sir, invite you,' said
+Aunt Becky, a little loftily.
+
+'What a fop!' said the parrot. 'You lie, you dog!'
+
+'Neither business, Madam, nor pleasures invite me. My situation here has
+been most distressing. So long as hope cheered me, I little regarded
+what might be said or thought; but I tell you honestly that hope is
+extinguished; and it has grown to me intolerable longer to remain in
+sight of that treasure for which I cannot cease to wish, and which I
+never can possess. I've grown, Madam, to detest the place.'
+
+Aunt Becky, with her head very high, adjusted in silence, the two China
+mandarins on the mantelpiece--first, one very carefully, then the other.
+And there was a pause, during which one of the lap-dogs screamed; and
+the monkey, who had boxed his ears, jumped, with a ringing of his chain,
+chattering, on the back of the arm-chair in which the grim suitor sat.
+Mr. Dangerfield would have given the brute a slap in the face, but that
+he knew how that would affect Miss Rebecca Chattesworth.
+
+'So, Madam,' said he, standing up abruptly, 'I am here to thank you most
+gratefully for the countenance given to my poor suit, which, here and
+now, at last and for ever, I forego. I shall leave for England so soon
+as my business will allow; and as I made no secret of my suit, so I
+shall make none of the reasons of my departure. I'm an outspoken man,
+Madam; and as the world knew my hopes, I shall offer them no false
+excuses for my departure; but lift my hat, and bow to fortune--a
+defeated man.'
+
+'_Avez-vous diné mon petit coquin?_' said the parrot.
+
+'Well, Sir, I will not altogether deny you have reason for what you
+design; and it may be, 'tis as well to bring the matter to a close,
+though your resolution has taken me by surprise. She hath shown herself
+so perverse in this respect, that I allow I see no present likelihood of
+a change; and indeed I do not quite understand my niece; and, very like,
+she does not comprehend herself.'
+
+Mr. Dangerfield almost smiled one of his grim disconcerting smiles, and
+a cynical light played over his face; and the black monkey behind him
+grinned and hugged himself like his familiar. The disappointed gentleman
+thought he understood Miss Gertrude pretty well.
+
+'I thought,' said Aunt Becky; 'I suspected--did you--a certain young
+gentleman in this neighbourhood--'
+
+'As having found his way to the young lady's good graces?' asked
+Dangerfield.
+
+'Yes; and I conjecture you know whom I mean,' said Aunt Rebecca.
+
+'Who--pray, Madam?' he demanded.
+
+'Why, Lieutenant Puddock,' said Aunt Becky, again adjusting the china on
+the chimneypiece.
+
+'Eh?--truly?--that did not strike me,' replied Dangerfield.
+
+He had a disconcerting way of saying the most ordinary things, and there
+was a sort of latent meaning, like a half-heard echo, underrunning the
+surface of his talk, which sometimes made people undefinably
+uncomfortable; and Aunt Becky looked a little stately and flushed; but
+in a minute more the conversation proceeded.
+
+'I have many regrets, Miss Chattesworth, in leaving this place. The loss
+of your society--don't mistake me, I never flatter--is a chief one. Some
+of your views and plans interested me much. I shall see my Lord
+Castlemallard sooner than I should had my wishes prospered; and I will
+do all in my power to engage him to give the site for the building, and
+stones from the quarry free; and I hope, though no longer a resident
+here, you will permit me to contribute fifty pounds towards the
+undertaking.'
+
+'Sir, I wish there were more gentlemen of your public spirit and
+Christian benevolence,' cried Aunt Becky, very cordially; 'and I have
+heard of all your goodness to that unhappy family of Doctor
+Sturk's--poor wretched man!'
+
+'A bagatelle, Madam,' said Dangerfield, shaking his head and waving his
+hand slightly; 'but I hope to do them, or at least the public, a service
+of some importance, by bringing conviction home to the assassin who
+struck him down, and that in terms so clear and authentic, as will leave
+no room for doubt in the minds of any; and to this end I'm resolved to
+stick at no trifling sacrifice, and, rather than fail, I'll drain my
+purse.'
+
+'Mon petit coquin!' prattled the parrot in the bow-window.
+
+'And, Madam,' said he, after he had risen to take his leave, 'as I
+before said, I'm a plain man. I mean, so soon as I can wind my business
+up, to leave this place and country--I would _to-night_, if I could; but
+less, I fear, than some days--perhaps a week will not suffice. When I'm
+gone, Madam, I beg you'll exercise no reserve respecting the cause of my
+somewhat abrupt departure; I could easily make a pretext of something
+else; but the truth, Madam, is easiest as well as best to be told; I
+protracted my stay so long as hope continued. Now my suit is ended. I
+can no longer endure the place. The remembrance of your kindness only,
+sweetens the bitterness of my regret, and that I shall bear with me so
+long, Madam, as life remains.'
+
+And saying this, as Mr. Richardson writes, 'he bowed upon her passive
+hand,' and Miss Rebecca made him a grand and gracious courtesy.
+
+As he retreated, whom should Dominick announce but Captain Cluffe and
+Lieutenant Puddock. And there was an odd smile on Mr. Dangerfield's
+visage, as he slightly acknowledged them in passing, which Aunt Rebecca
+somehow did not like.
+
+So Aunt Becky's levee went on; and as Homer, in our school-boy ear, sang
+the mournful truth, that 'as are the generations of the forest leaves so
+are the succession of men,' the Dangerfield efflorescence had no sooner
+disappeared, and that dry leaf whisked away down the stairs, than
+Cluffe and Puddock budded forth and bloomed in his place, in the
+sunshine of Aunt Rebecca's splendid presence.
+
+Cluffe, in virtue of his rank and pretensions, marched in the van, and,
+as Aunt Becky received him, little Puddock's round eyes swept the room
+in search, perhaps, of some absent object.
+
+'The general's not here,' said Aunt Becky loftily and severely,
+interpreting Puddock's wandering glance in that way. 'Your visit,
+perhaps, is for him--you'll find him in his study, with the orderly.'
+
+'My visit, Madam,' said Puddock, with a slight blush, 'was intended for
+you, Madam--not for the general, whom I had the honour of seeing this
+morning on parade.'
+
+'Oh! for me? I thank you,' said Aunt Rebecca, with a rather dry
+acknowledgment. And so she turned and chatted with Cluffe, who, not
+being at liberty to talk upon his usual theme--his poor, unhappy friend,
+Puddock, and his disgraces--was eloquent upon the monkey, and sweet upon
+the lap-dogs, and laughed till he grew purple at the humours of the
+parrot, and swore, as gentlemen then swore, 'twas a conjuror, a wonder,
+and as good as a play. While this entertaining conversation was going
+on, there came a horrid screech and a long succession of yelps from the
+court-yard.
+
+'Good gracious mercy,' cried Aunt Rebecca, sailing rapidly to the
+window, ''tis Flora's voice. Sweet creature, have they killed you--my
+angel; what is it?--where _are_ you, sweetheart?--where _can_ she be?
+Oh, dear--oh, dear!'--and she looked this way and that in her
+distraction.
+
+But the squeak subsided, and Flora was not to be seen; and Aunt Becky's
+presence of mind returned, and she said--
+
+'Captain Cluffe, 'tis a great liberty; but you're humane--and, besides,
+I know that _you_ would readily do me a kindness.' That emphasis was
+shot at poor Puddock. 'And may I pray you to try on the steps if you can
+see the dear animal, anywhere--you know Flora?'
+
+'Know her?--oh dear, yes,' cried Cluffe with alacrity, who, however, did
+_not_, but relied on her answering to her name, which he bawled lustily
+from the door-steps and about the court-yard, with many terms of
+endearment, intended for Aunt Becky's ear, in the drawing-room.
+
+Little Puddock, who was hurt at that lady's continued severity, was
+desirous of speaking; for he liked Aunt Becky, and his heart swelled
+within him at her injustice; but though he hemmed once or twice, somehow
+the exordium was not ready, and his feelings could not find a tongue.
+
+Aunt Becky looked steadfastly from the window for a while, and then
+sailed majestically toward the door, which the little ensign, with an
+humble and somewhat frightened countenance, hastened to open.
+
+'Pray, Sir, don't let me trouble you,' said Aunt Becky, in her high,
+cold way.
+
+'Madam, 'tis no trouble--it would be a happiness to me, Madam, to serve
+you in any way you would permit; but _'tis_ a trouble to me, Madam,
+indeed, that you leave the room, and a greater trouble,' said little
+Puddock, waxing fluent as he proceeded, 'that I have incurred your
+displeasure--indeed, Madam, I know not how--your goodness to me, Madam,
+in my sickness, I never can forget.'
+
+'You _can_ forget, Sir--you _have_ forgot. Though, indeed, Sir, there
+was little to remember, I--I'm glad you thought me kind, Sir. I--I wish
+you well, Sir,' said Aunt Becky. She was looking down and a little pale,
+and in her accents something hurried and almost sad. 'And as for my
+displeasure, Sir, who said I was displeased? And if I were, what could
+my displeasure be to you? No, Sir,' she went on almost fiercely, and
+with a little stamp on the floor, 'you don't care; and why should
+you?--you've proved it--you don't, Lieutenant Puddock, and you _never_
+did.'
+
+And, without waiting for an answer, Aunt Becky flashed out of the room,
+and up stairs to her chamber, the door of which she slammed fiercely;
+and Gertrude, who was writing a letter in her own chamber, heard her
+turn the key hastily in the lock.
+
+When Cluffe, who for some time continued to exercise his lungs in
+persuasive invitations to Flora, at last gave over the pursuit, and
+returned to the drawing-room, to suggest that the goddess in question
+had probably retreated to the kitchen, he was a good deal chagrined to
+find the drawing-room 'untreasured of its mistress.'
+
+Puddock looked a good deal put out, and his explanation was none of the
+clearest; and he could not at all say that the lady was coming back.
+
+'I think, Lieutenant Puddock,' said Cluffe, who was much displeased, and
+had come to regard Aunt Rebecca very much as under his especial
+protection, 'it might have been better we hadn't called here. I--you
+see--you're not--you see it yourself--you've offended Miss Rebecca
+Chattesworth somehow, and I'm afraid you've not mended matters while I
+was down stairs bawling after that cursed--that--the--little dog, you
+know. And--and for my part, I'm devilish sorry I came, Sir.'
+
+This was said after a wait of nearly ten minutes, which appeared at
+least twice as long.
+
+'I'm sorry, Sir, I embarrassed you with the disadvantage of my company,'
+answered little Puddock, with dignity.
+
+'Why, 'tisn't that, you know,' rejoined Cluffe, in a patronising 'my
+good-fellow' sort of way; 'you know I always liked your company devilish
+well. But where's the good of putting one's self in the way of being
+thought _de trop_--don't you see--by other people--and annoyed in this
+way--and--you--you don't know the _world_, Puddock--you'd much better
+leave yourself in any hands, d'ye see; and so, I suppose, we may as well
+be off now--'tis no use waiting longer.'
+
+And discontentedly and lingeringly the gallant captain, followed by
+Puddock, withdrew himself--pausing to caress the wolf-dog at the corner
+of the court-yard, and loitering as long as it was decent in the avenue.
+
+All this time Miss Gertrude Chattesworth, like her more mature relative,
+was in the quiet precincts of her chamber. She, too, had locked her
+door, and, with throbbing temples and pale face, was writing a letter,
+from which I take the liberty of printing a few scarcely coherent
+passages.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+'I saw you on Sunday--for near two hours--may Heaven forgive me,
+thinking of little else than you. And, oh! what would I not have given
+to speak, were it but ten words to you? When is my miserable probation
+to end? Why is this perverse mystery persisted in? I sometimes lose all
+hope in my destiny, and well-nigh all trust in you. I feel that I am a
+deceiver, and cannot bear it. I assure you, on my sacred honour, I
+believe there is nothing gained by all this--oh! forgive the
+word--deception. How or when is it to terminate?--what do you
+purpose?--why does the clerk's absence from the town cause you so much
+uneasiness--is there any danger you have not disclosed? A friend told me
+that you were making preparations to leave Chapelizod and return to
+England. I think I was on the point of fainting when I heard it. I
+almost regret I did not, as the secret would thus have been discovered,
+and my emancipation accomplished. How have you acquired this strange
+influence over me, to make me so deceive those in whom I should most
+naturally confide? I am persuaded they believe I really recoil from you.
+And what is this new business of Doctor Sturk? I am distracted with
+uncertainties and fears. I hear so little, and imperfectly from you, I
+cannot tell from your dark hints whether some new danger lurks in those
+unlooked-for quarters. I know not what magic binds me so to you, to
+endure the misery of this strange deceitful mystery--but you are all
+mystery; and yet be not--you cannot be--my evil genius. You will not
+condemn me longer to a wretchedness that must destroy me. I conjure you,
+declare yourself. What have we to fear? I will brave all--anything
+rather than darkness, suspense, and the consciousness of a continual
+dissimulation. Declare yourself, I implore of you, and be my angel of
+light and deliverance.'
+
+There is a vast deal more, but this sample is quite enough; and when the
+letter was finished, she signed it--
+               'Your most unhappy and too-faithful,
+                                             'GERTRUDE'.
+
+And having sealed it, she leaned her anxious head upon her hand, and
+sighed heavily.
+
+She knew very well by what means to send it; and the letter awaited at
+his house him for whom it was intended on his return that evening.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIII.
+
+IN WHICH THE KNIGHT OF THE SILVER SPECTACLES MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OF
+THE SAGE 'BLACK DILLON,' AND CONFERS WITH HIM IN HIS RETREAT.
+
+
+AT that time there had appeared in Dublin an erratic genius in the
+medical craft, a young surgeon, 'Black Dillon,' they called him, the
+glory and disgrace of his calling; such as are from time to time raised
+up to abase the pride of intellect, and terrify the dabblers in vice. A
+prodigious mind, illuminating darkness, and shivering obstacles at a
+blow, with an electric force--possessing the power of a demigod, and the
+lusts of a swine. Without order, without industry; defying all usages
+and morality; lost for weeks together in the catacombs of vice; and
+emerging to re-assert in an hour the supremacy of his intellect; without
+principles or shame; laden with debt; and shattered and poisoned with
+his vices; a branded and admired man.
+
+In the presence of this outcast genius and prodigy of vice, stood Mr.
+Dangerfield. There were two other gentlemen in the same small room, one
+of whom was doggedly smoking, with his hat on, over the fire; the other
+snoring in a crazy arm-chair, on the back of which hung his wig. The
+window was small and dirty; the air muddy with tobacco-smoke, and
+inflamed with whiskey. Singing and the clang of glasses was resounding
+from the next room, together with peals of coarse laughter, and from
+that on the other side, the high tones and hard swearing, and the
+emphatic slapping of a heavy hand upon the table, indicating a rising
+quarrel, were heard. From one door through another, across the narrow
+floor on which Mr. Dangerfield stood, every now and then lounged some
+neglected, dirty, dissipated looking inmate of these unwholesome
+precincts. In fact, Surgeon Dillon's present residence was in that
+diversorium pecatorum, the Four Courts Marshalsea in Molesworth-court.
+As these gentlemen shuffled or swaggered through, they generally nodded,
+winked, grunted, or otherwise saluted the medical gentleman, and stared
+at his visitor. For as the writer of the Harleian tract--I forget its
+name--pleasantly observes:--'In gaol they are no proud men, but will be
+quickly acquainted without ceremony.'
+
+Mr. Dangerfield stood erect; all his appointments were natty, and his
+dress, though quiet, rich in material, and there was that air of
+reserve, and decision, and command about him, which suggests money, an
+article held much in esteem in that retreat. He had a way of seeing
+every thing in a moment without either staring or stealing glances, and
+nobody suspected him of making a scrutiny. In the young surgeon he saw
+an object in strong contrast with himself. He was lean and ungainly, shy
+and savage, dressed in a long greasy silk morning gown, blotched with
+wine and punch over the breast. He wore his own black hair gathered into
+a knot behind, and in a neglected dusty state, as if it had not been
+disturbed since he rolled out of his bed. This being placed his large,
+red, unclean hands, with fingers spread, like a gentleman playing the
+harpsichord, upon the table, as he stood at the side opposite to Mr.
+Dangerfield, and he looked with a haggard, surly stare on his visitor,
+through his great dark, deep-set prominent eyes, streaming fire, the one
+feature that transfixed the attention of all who saw him. He had a great
+brutal mouth, and his nose was pimply and inflamed, for Bacchus has his
+fires as well as Cupid, only he applies them differently. How polished
+showed Mr. Dangerfield's chin opposed to the three days' beard of Black
+Dillon! how delicate his features compared with the lurid proboscis, and
+huge, sensual, sarcastic mouth of the gentleman in the dirty
+morning-gown and shapeless slippers, who confronted him with his glare,
+an image of degradation and power!
+
+'Tuppince, Docthor Dillon,' said a short, fat, dirty nymph, without
+stays or hoop, setting down a 'naggin o' whiskey' between the medical
+man and his visitor.
+
+The doctor, to do him justice, for a second or two looked confoundedly
+put out, and his eyes blazed fiercer as his face flushed.
+
+'Three halfpence outside, and twopence here, Sir,' said he with an
+awkward grin, throwing the money on the table; 'that's the way our
+shepherd _deglubat oves_, Sir; she's brought it too soon, but no
+matter.'
+
+It was not one o'clock, in fact.
+
+'They _will_ make mistakes, Sir; but you will not suffer their blunders
+long, I warrant,' said Dangerfield, lightly. 'Pray, Sir, can we have a
+room for a moment to ourselves?'
+
+'We can, Sir, 'tis a liberal house; we can have any thing; liberty
+itself, Sir--for an adequate sum,' replied Mr. Dillon.
+
+Whatever the sum was, the room was had, and the surgeon, who had
+palpably left his 'naggin' uneasily in company with the gentleman in the
+hat, and him without a wig, eyed Dangerfield curiously, thinking that
+possibly his grand-aunt Molly had left him the fifty guineas she was
+rumoured to have sewed up in her stays.
+
+'There's a great deal of diversion, Sir, in five hundred guineas, said
+Mr. Dangerfield, and the spectacles dashed pleasantly upon the doctor.
+
+'Ye may say that,' answered the grinning surgeon, with a quiet oath of
+expectation.
+
+''Tis a handsome fee, Sir, and you may have it.'
+
+'Five hundred guineas!'
+
+'Ah, you've heard, Sir, perhaps, of the attempted murder in the park, on
+Doctor Sturk, of the Artillery; for which Mr. Nutter now lies in
+prison?' said Mr. Dangerfield.
+
+'That I have, Sir.'
+
+'Well, you shall have the money, Sir, if you perform a simple
+operation.'
+
+''Tis not to hang him you want me?' said the doctor, with a gloomy
+sneer.
+
+'Hang him!--ha, ha--no, Sir, Doctor Sturk still lives, but insensible.
+He must be brought to consciousness, and speech. Now, the trepan is the
+only way to effect it; and I'll be frank with you: Doctor Pell has been
+with him half a dozen times, and he says the operation would be
+instantaneously fatal. I don't believe him. So also says Sir Hugh
+Skelton, to whom I wrote in London--I don't believe him, either. At all
+events, the man is dying, and can't last very many days longer, so
+there's nothing risked. His wife wishes the operation; here's her note;
+and I'll give you five hundred guineas and--what are you here for?'
+
+'Only eighteen, unless some more has come in this morning,' answered the
+doctor.
+
+'And your liberty, Sir, _that_ on the spot, if you undertake the
+operation, and the fee so soon as you have done it.'
+
+The doctor's face blazed with a grin of exultation; he squared his
+shoulders and shook himself a little; and after a little silence, he
+demanded--
+
+'Can you describe the case, Sir, as you stated it to Sir Hugh Skelton?'
+
+'Surely, Sir, but I rely for it and the terms, upon the description of a
+village doctor, named Toole; an ignoramus, I fear.'
+
+And with this preface he concisely repeated the technical description
+which he had compiled from various club conversations of Dr. Toole's, to
+which no person imagined he had been listening so closely.
+
+'If that's the case, Sir, 'twill kill him.'
+
+'Kill or cure, Sir, 'tis the only chance,' rejoined Dangerfield.
+
+'What sort is the wife, Sir?' asked Black Dillon, with a very odd look,
+while his eye still rested on the short note that poor Mrs. Sturk had
+penned.
+
+'A nervous little woman of some two or three and forty,' answered the
+spectacles.
+
+The queer look subsided. He put the note in his pocket, and looked
+puzzled, and then he asked--'
+
+'Is he any way related to you, Sir?'
+
+'None in life, Sir. But that does not affect, I take it, the medical
+question.'
+
+'No, it does _not_ affect the medical question--nothing _can_,' observed
+the surgeon, in a sulky, sardonic way.
+
+'Of course not,' answered the oracle of the silver spectacles, and both
+remained silent for a while.
+
+'You want to have him speak? Well, suppose there's a hundred chances to
+one the trepan kills him on the spot--what then?' demanded the surgeon,
+uncomfortably.
+
+Dangerfield pondered, also uncomfortably for a minute, but answered
+nothing; on the contrary, he demanded--
+
+'And what then, Sir?'
+
+'But here, in this case,' said Black Dillon, 'there's no chance at all,
+do you see, there's _no_ chance, good, bad, or indifferent; none at
+all.'
+
+'But _I_ believe there _is_,' replied Dangerfield, decisively.
+
+'You believe, but _I_ know.'
+
+'See, Sir,' said Dangerfield, darkening, and speaking with a strange
+snarl; 'I know what I'm about. I've a desire, Sir, that he should speak,
+if 'twere only two minutes of conscious articulate life, and then
+death--'tis not a pin's point to me how soon. Left to himself he must
+die; therefore, to shrink from the operation on which depends the
+discovery both of his actual murderer and of his money, Sir, otherwise
+lost to his family, is--is a damned affectation! _I_ think it--so do
+_you_, Sir; and I offer five hundred guineas as your fee, and Mrs.
+Sturk's letter to bear you harmless.'
+
+Then there was a pause. Dangerfield knew the man's character as well as
+his skill. There were things said about him darker than we have hinted
+at.
+
+The surgeon looked very queer and gloomy down upon the table, and
+scratched his head, and he mumbled gruffly--
+
+'You see--you know--'tis a large fee, to be sure; but then--'
+
+'Come, Sir,' said Dangerfield, looking as though he'd pull him by the
+ear; 'it _is_ a large fee, and you'll get no more--you should not stick
+at trifles, when there's--a--a--justice and humanity--and, to be brief,
+Sir--yes or no?'
+
+'_Yes_,' answered the doctor; 'but how's the fee secured?'
+
+'Hey! I'd forgot. Right, Sir--you shall be satisfied.'
+
+And he took a pen, and wrote on the back of a letter--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+'SIR--Considering the hopeless condition in which Dr. Sturk now lies,
+and the vast importance of restoring him, Dr. Sturk, of the R.I.A., to
+the power of speech, even for a few minutes, I beg to second Mrs.
+Sturk's request to you; and when you shall have performed the critical
+operation she desires, I hereby promise, whether it succeed or fail, to
+give you a fee of five hundred guineas.
+                                        PAUL DANGERFIELD.
+   'The Brass Castle, Chapelizod.'
+
+And he dated it, and handed it to the surgeon, who read it through, and
+then looked with a gruff hesitation at the writer.
+
+'Oh, you've only to enquire--anyone who knows Chapelizod will tell you
+who I am; and you'll want something--eh?--to take you out of this--how
+much?'
+
+'Only seven guineas. There's a little score here, and some fees.
+Eighteen will cover everything, unless something has come in this
+morning.'
+
+So they went to 'the Hatch,' and made enquiries, and all being well, Mr.
+Dangerfield dealt liberally with the surgeon, who promised to be in
+attendance at Dr. Sturk's house in Chapelizod, at seven o'clock next
+evening.
+
+'And pray, Dr. Dillon, come in a coach,' said Dangerfield, 'and in
+costume--you understand. They've been accustomed, you know, to see Pell
+and other doctors who make a parade.'
+
+And with these injunctions they parted; and the surgeon, whose luggage
+was trifling, jumped into a coach with it, and jingled home to his den
+and his liberty.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIV.
+
+IN WHICH CHRISTIANA GOES OVER; AND DAN LOFTUS COMES HOME.
+
+
+This evening Lily Walsingham was early tired and very weak, Sally
+thought, and more glad than usual to lie down in her bed; and there her
+old and loving nurse fancied that she looked a little strange, and that
+her thoughts sometimes wandered.
+
+She lay very quietly for a good while, and suddenly, with a beautiful
+look, and in a clear, glad voice, she said--
+
+'Mother!'
+
+And old Sally said--
+
+'There's no one, dear Miss Lily, but me.'
+
+But she was looking earnestly, and, with a wrapt smile, only said--
+
+'Oh!'
+
+She thought she saw her, I believe.
+
+Are these always illusions? Or is it only that, as the twilight deepens,
+and the shapes of earth melt into night, the stars of heaven,
+changeless and serene, reveal themselves, and shine out to the darkened
+eyes of mortals?
+
+As Aunt Becky sat that night in the drawing-room with her niece, a maid,
+with a whisper, placed a little note in Miss Gertrude's hand. There was
+a little pause.
+
+'Oh! aunt--oh!' and she looked so terrified. 'Oh! aunt,' and she threw
+her arms round her aunt's neck, and began crying wildly. 'Poor Lily's
+gone--there's the note.'
+
+Then arose the wild wailing of unavailing grief, and sobs, mixed with
+early recollections of childhood, and all poor Lily's sweet traits
+poured out.
+
+Old Aunt Rebecca took the note. Her stoicism was the point on which she
+piqued herself most. She looked very pale, and she told her niece to be
+composed; for Aunt Becky had a theory that feelings ought to be
+commanded, and that it only needed effort and resolution. So she read
+the note, holding her head very high, but the muscles of her face were
+quivering.
+
+'Oh! Gertrude, if ever there was an angel--and the poor desolate old
+man----'
+
+The theory broke down, and old Aunt Rebecca cried and sat down, and
+cried heartily, and went and put her thin arms round her niece, and
+kissed her, and cried, and cried, and kissed her again.
+
+'She was such--such a darling--oh! Gertrude dear, we must never quarrel
+any more.'
+
+Death had come so near, and all things less than itself were rebuked in
+that sublime presence; and Lily Walsingham was gone; and she who was so
+lately their gay companion, all at once so awfully angelic in the
+unearthly light of death.
+
+'Who'd ha' thought it was so near, Ma'am,' said the maid; 'the poor
+little thing! Though to be sure, Ma'am, a winding sheet came three times
+in the candle last night, and I turns it round and picks it off, that
+way, with my nail, unknownst to Mrs. Heany, for fear she'd be frettin'
+about the little boy that's lyin' at home in the small-pox; and indeed I
+thought 'twas for him it was; but man proposes, and God disposes--and
+death forgets none, the Lord be praised--and everyone has their hour,
+old and young, Ma'am; and as I was sayin', they had no notion or
+expectation up at the Elms, Ma'am, she was so bad, the heavens be her
+bed this night. 'Twas all in an instant like, Miss, she made as if she'd
+sit up, bein' leanin' on pillows--and so she put out them purty little
+hands of hers, with a smile, and that was all--the purty
+crature--everyone's sorry afther her. The man was cryin' in the hall
+that brought the note.'
+
+The poor came to the door, and made their rude and kindly
+lamentations--they were all quite sincere--'His reverence was very good,
+but he couldn't have the thought, you know.' It was quite
+true--'everyone was sorry.' The brave Magnolia's eyes were red, when
+she looked out of the window next morning, and jolly little Doctor Toole
+said at the club--
+
+'Ah, Sir, she was a bright little thing--a born lady--such a beauty--and
+the best little creature. The town might well be proud of her, in every
+way, Sir.' And he fell a blubbering; and old Major O'Neill, who was a
+quiet and silent officer, cried in a reserved way, looking into the
+fire, with his elbow on the mantelpiece. And Toole said, 'I don't know
+how I'll pass that house.'
+
+And many felt the same. Little Lily was there no more--and the Elms were
+changed--the light and the grace were gone--and they were only dark old
+trees now.
+
+And everyone felt a great desire to find some way--any way--to show
+their respect and affection for their good old rector. And I'm sure he
+understood it--for liking and reverence, one way or another, will tell
+their story. The hushed enquiries at the door, and little offers of
+useless services made by stealth through the servants, and such like
+foolish kindnesses at such a time--the evidence of a great but helpless
+sympathy--are sweet as angelic music.
+
+And who should arrive at night, with all his trunks, or at least a
+considerable number of them, and his books and rattletraps, but honest,
+simple Dan Loftus. The news was true about his young charge. He had died
+of fever at Malaga, and Dick Devereux was at last a step, and a long
+one--nearer to the title. So Dan was back again in his old garret.
+Travel had not educated him in the world's ways. In them he was the same
+queer, helpless tyro. And his costume, though he had a few handsome
+articles--for, travelling with a sprig of nobility, he thought it but
+right and seemed to dress accordingly--was on that account, perhaps,
+only more grotesque than ever. But he had acquired mountains of that
+lore in which he and good Doctor Walsingham delighted. He had
+transcribed old epitaphs and translated interminable extracts from
+archives, and bought five Irish manuscripts, all highly illustrative of
+that history on which he and the doctor were so pleasantly engaged. It
+was too late that night to go up to the Elms; but he longed to unpack
+his trunkful of manuscripts, and to expound to his beloved doctor the
+treasures he had amassed.
+
+And over his solitary tea-cup and his book the sorrowful news from the
+Elms reached him, and all his historical castles in the air were
+shivered. In the morning, before the town was stirring, he crossed the
+bridge, and knocked softly at the familiar hall-door. Honest old John
+Tracy opened it, and Dan shook hands with him, and both cried for a
+while quietly.
+
+'How is the honoured master?' at last said Loftus.
+
+'He's there in the study, Sir. Thank God, you're come, Sir. I'm sure
+he'd like to see you--I'll ask him.'
+
+Dan went into the drawing-room. He looked out at the flowers, and then
+at the harpsichord, and on her little walnut table, where her
+work-basket lay, and her thimble, and the little coral necklace--a
+childish treasure that she used to wear when she was quite a little
+thing. It was like a dream; and everything seemed to say--'Poor little
+Lily!'
+
+So old John came in, and 'Sir,' said he, 'the master will be glad to see
+you.' And Dan Loftus found himself in the study; and the good doctor and
+he wrung one another's hands for a long time.
+
+'Oh, Dan--Dan--she's gone--little Lily.'
+
+'You'll see her again, Sir--oh, you'll see her again.'
+
+'Oh, Dan! Dan! Till the heavens be no more they shall not awake, nor be
+raised out of their sleep. Oh, Dan, a day's so long--how am I to get
+over the time?'
+
+'The loving Lord, Sir, will find a way.'
+
+'But, oh! was there no pitying angel to stay the blow--to plead for a
+few years more of life? I deserved it--oh, Dan, yes!--I know it--I
+deserved it. But, oh! could not the avenger have pierced me, without
+smiting my innocent darling?'
+
+'Oh! she was taken in love, not in judgment, Sir--my pastor--but in
+love. It was the voice of the Redeemer that called her.'
+
+And honest Dan repeated, through his sobs, a verse of that 'Song of
+Songs,' which little Lily had loved so well--
+
+'My well-beloved spake, and said unto me: Arise, my love, my fair one,
+and come thy way.'
+
+The old man bowed his sorrowful head listening.
+
+'You never saw anything so beautiful,' said he after a while. 'I think,
+Dan, I could look at her for ever. I don't think it was partiality, but
+it seems to me there never was--I never saw a creature like her.'
+
+'Oh, noble! noble!' sobbed poor Dan.
+
+The doctor took him by the arm, and so into the solemn room.
+
+'I think you'd like to see her, Dan?'
+
+'I would--I would indeed, Sir.'
+
+And there was little Lily, never so like the lily before. Poor old Sally
+had laid early spring flowers on the white coverlet. A snow-drop lay by
+her pale little finger and thumb, just like a flower that has fallen
+from a child's hand it its sleep. He looked, at her--the white angelic
+apparition--a smile, or a light upon the face.
+
+'Oh, my darling, my young darling, gone--"He is not a man as I am, that
+I should answer him."'
+
+But poor Dan, loudly crying, repeated the noble words of Paul, that have
+spoken down to us through the sorrows of nigh two thousand years--
+
+'For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are
+alive, and remain unto the coming of the Lord, shall not prevent them
+which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a
+shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and
+the dead in Christ shall rise first.'
+
+And so there was a little pause, and the old man said--
+
+'It was very good of you to come to me, my good young friend, in my
+helplessness and shipwreck, for the Lord hath hid himself from me; but
+he speaks to his desolate creature, my good Dan, through your gracious
+lips. My faith!--I thought I had faith till it was brought to the test,
+and then it failed! But my good friend, Loftus, was sent to help me--to
+strengthen the feeble knees.'
+
+And Dan answered, crying bitterly, and clasping the rector's hand in
+both of his--
+
+'Oh, my master, all that ever I knew of good, I learned from you, my
+pastor, my benefactor.'
+
+So, with a long, last look, Dan followed the old man to the study, and
+they talked long there together, and then went out into the lonely
+garden, and paced its walks side by side, up and down.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXV.
+
+IN WHICH CAPTAIN DEVEREUX HEARS THE NEWS; AND MR. DANGERFIELD MEETS AN
+OLD FRIEND AFTER DINNER.
+
+
+'On the night when this great sorrow visited the Elms, Captain Richard
+Devereux, who had heard nothing of it, was strangely saddened and
+disturbed in mind. They say that a distant death is sometimes felt like
+the shadow and chill of a passing iceberg; and if this ominous feeling
+crosses a mind already saddened and embittered, it overcasts it with a
+feeling akin to despair.
+
+Mrs. Irons knocked at his door, and with the eagerness of a messenger of
+news, opened it without awaiting his answer.
+
+'Oh, captain, jewel, do you know what? There's poor Miss Lily
+Walsingham; and what do you think but she's dead--the poor little thing;
+gone to-night, Sir--not half an hour ago.'
+
+He staggered a little, and put his hand toward his sword, like a man
+struck by a robber, and looked at her with a blank stare. She thought he
+was out of his mind, and was frightened.
+
+''Tis only me, Sir, Mrs. Irons.'
+
+'A--thank you;' and he walked towards the chimney, and then towards the
+door, like a man looking for something; and on a sudden clasping his
+forehead in his hands, he cried a wild and terrible appeal to the Maker
+and Judge of all things.
+
+''Tis impossible--oh, no--oh, no--it's _not_ true.'
+
+He was in the open air, he could not tell how, and across the bridge,
+and before the Elms--a dream--the dark Elms--dark everything.
+
+'Oh, no--it can't be--oh, no--oh, no;' and he went on saying as he
+stared on the old house, dark against the sky, 'Oh, no--oh, no.'
+
+Two or three times he would have gone over to the hall-door to make
+enquiry, but he sickened at the thought. He clung to that hope, which
+was yet not a hope, and he turned and walked quickly down the river's
+side by the Inchicore-road. But the anguish of suspense soon drew him
+back again; and now his speech was changed, and he said--
+
+'Yes, she's gone--she's gone--oh, she's gone--she's certainly gone.'
+
+He found himself at the drawing-room window that looked into the little
+garden at the front of the house, and tapping at the window-pane. He
+remembered, all on a sudden--it was like waking--how strange was such a
+summons. A little after he saw a light crossing the hall, and he rang
+the door-bell. John Tracy opened the door. Yes, it was all true.
+
+The captain was looking very pale, John thought, but otherwise much as
+usual. He stared at the old servant for some seconds after he told him
+all, but said nothing, not even good-night, and turned away. Old John
+was crying; but he called after the captain to take care of the step at
+the gate: and as he shut the hall-door his eye caught, by the light of
+his candle, a scribbling in red chalk, on the white door-post, and he
+stooped to read it, and muttered, 'Them mischievous young blackguards!'
+and began rubbing it with the cuff of his coat, his cheek still wet with
+tears. For even our grief is volatile; or, rather, it is two tunes that
+are in our ears together, the requiem of the organ, and, with it, the
+faint hurdy-gurdy jig of our vulgar daily life; and now and then this
+latter uppermost.
+
+It was not till he had got nearly across the bridge that Captain
+Devereux, as it were, waked up. It was no good waking. He broke forth
+into sheer fury. It is not my business to note down the horrors of this
+impious frenzy. It was near five o'clock when he came back to his
+lodgings; and then, not to rest. To sit down, to rise again, to walk
+round the room and round, and stop on a sudden at the window, leaning
+his elbows on the sash, with hands clenched together, and teeth set; and
+so those demoniac hours of night and solitude wore slowly away, and the
+cold gray stole over the east, and Devereux drank a deep draught of his
+fiery Lethe, and cast himself down on his bed, and fell at once into a
+deep, exhausted lethargy.
+
+When his servant came to his bed-side at seven o'clock, he was lying
+motionless, with flushed cheeks, and he could not rouse him. Perhaps it
+was well, and saved him from brain-fever or madness.
+
+But after such paroxysms comes often a reaction, a still, stony, awful
+despondency. It is only the oscillation between active and passive
+despair. Poor Leonora, after she had worked out her fit, tearing 'her
+raven hair,' and reviling heaven, was visited in sadder and tenderer
+guise by the vision of the past; but with that phantom went down in fear
+and isolation to the grave.
+
+This morning several of the neighbours went into Dublin, for the bills
+were to be presented against Charles Nutter for a murderous assault,
+with intent to kill, made upon the person of Barnabas Sturk, Esq.,
+Doctor of Medicine, and Surgeon to the Royal Irish Artillery. As the day
+wore on, the honest gossips of Chapelizod looked out anxiously for news.
+And everybody who met any one else asked him--'Any news about Nutter,
+eh?'--and then they would stop to speculate--and then one would wonder
+that Dr. Walsingham's man, Clinton, had not yet returned--and the other
+would look at his watch, and say 'twas one o'clock--and then both agreed
+that Spaight, at all events, must soon come--for he has appointed two
+o'clock for looking at that brood mare of Fagan's.
+
+At last, sure enough, Spaight appeared. Toole, who had been detained by
+business in another quarter, had ridden into the town from Leixlip, and
+was now dismounted and talking with Major O'Neill upon the absorbing
+topic. These cronies saw Spaight at the turnpike, and as he showed his
+ticket, he talked with the man. Of course, the news was come. The
+turnpike-man knew it by this time; and off scampered Toole, and the
+major followed close at his heels, at double-quick. He made a dismal
+shake or two of his head, and lifted his hand as they drew near. Toole's
+heart misgave him.
+
+'Well, how is it?--what's the news?' he panted.
+
+'A true bill,' answered Spaight, with a solemn stare; 'a true bill,
+Sir.'
+
+Toole uttered an oath of consternation, and taking the words out of
+Spaight's mouth, told the news to the major.
+
+'Do you tell me so?' exclaimed the major. 'Bedad, Sir, I'm uncommon
+sorry.'
+
+'A bad business, Sir,' observed Spaight.
+
+'No worse,' said Toole. 'If they convict him on this, you know--in case
+Sturk dies, and die he will--they'll indict and convict him on the more
+_serious_ charge,' and he winked gloomily, 'the evidence is all one.'
+
+'That poor little Sally Nutter!' ejaculated the major. 'She's to be
+pitied, the crature!'
+
+''Tis mighty slender evidence to take a man's life on,' said Toole, with
+some disgust. 'Be the law, Sir, the whole thing gives me a complete
+turn. Are you to dine with Colonel Strafford to-day?'
+
+'I am, Sir,' said the major; 'an' it goes again' the colonel's grain to
+have a party at all just now, with the respect he has for the family up
+there,' and he nodded his head, pensively, toward the Elms. 'But he
+asked Lowe ten days ago, and Mr. Dangerfield, and two or three more; and
+you know he could not put them off on that ground--there being no
+relationship, you see--and, 'pon my oath, Sir, I'd rather not go myself,
+just now.'
+
+That evening, at five o'clock, Colonel Stafford's dinner party assembled
+at the King's House. The colonel was a serene man, and hospitality--even
+had he been in the dumps--demands her sacrifices. He, therefore, did the
+honours as beseemed a genial and courteous old officer of the Royal
+Irish Artillery, who, if his conversation was not very remarkable in
+quality, and certainly not exorbitant in quantity, made up by listening
+a great deal, and supplying no end of civility, and an affluence of very
+pretty claret. Mr. Justice Lowe was there, and Mr. Dangerfield, and old
+Colonel Bligh, of the Magazine, and honest Major O'Neill,
+notwithstanding his low spirits. Perhaps they required keeping up; and
+claret like Colonel Stafford's is consoling.
+
+The talk turned, of course, a good deal on Charles Nutter; and Mr.
+Dangerfield, who was in great force, and, indeed, in particularly
+pleasant spirits, except when unfortunate Nutter was actually under
+discussion--when he grew grave and properly saddened--told, in his
+clear, biting way, a curious rosary of Newgate stories--of highwaymen's
+disguises--of clever constables--of circumstantial evidence,
+marvellously elicited, and exquisitely put together--of monsters, long
+concealed, drawn from the deep by the finest tackle, into upper light,
+and dropped deftly into the landing-net of Justice. These curious
+anecdotes of Bow-street dexterity and Bagshot dodges--thrust and
+parry--mine and counter-mine--ending, for the most part, in the triumph
+of Bow-street, Justice crowned, and a Tyburn speech--tickled Lowe
+mightily, who quite enjoyed himself, and laughed more than his friend
+Colonel Stafford ever remembered to have heard him before, over some of
+the ingenious stratagems described so neatly by Dangerfield, and the gay
+irony with which he pointed his catastrophes. And Lowe actually, having
+obtained Colonel Stafford's leave, proposed that gallant officer's
+health in a bumper, and took occasion to mention their obligations to
+him for having afforded them the opportunity of enjoying Mr.
+Dangerfield's sprightly and instructive sallies; and hoped, with all his
+heart, that the neighbourhood was long to enjoy the advantage and
+pleasure of his residence among them. And Mr. Dangerfield replied gaily,
+that all that was needed to make such sweet scenery and charming company
+as the place commanded absolutely irresistible, was the sense of safety
+conferred by the presence of such a magistrate as Mr. Lowe, and the
+convivial inspiration of such wine as their gallant host provided; and
+that, for his part, being somewhat of an old boy, and having had enough
+of rambling, nothing would better please him than to spend the residue
+of his days amidst the lively quietude of their virtuous and hilarious
+neighbourhood; and some more to the like purpose, which pleased the good
+company highly, who all agreed that the white gentleman--fluent, easy,
+and pointed in his delivery--was a mighty fine speaker, indeed. Though
+there was a lurking consciousness in each, which none cared to publish,
+that there was, at times, an indefinable flavour of burlesque and irony
+in Mr. Dangerfield's compliments, which excited momentary suspicions and
+qualms, which the speaker waived off, however, easily with his jewelled
+fingers, and smiled mockingly away.
+
+Lowe was mightily taken with him. There was little warmth or veneration
+in that hard justice's nature. But Mr. Dangerfield had a way with him
+that few men with any sort of taste for the knowledge of evil could
+resist; and the cold-eyed justice of the peace hung on his words with an
+attentive rapture, and felt that he was drinking deep and pleasant
+draughts from the sparkling fountains of knowledge; and was really
+sorry, and shook him admiringly by the hand, when Dangerfield, who had
+special business at home, rose up in his brisk way, and flashed a
+farewell over the company from his spectacles.
+
+'If Mr. Dangerfield really means to stay here, he must apply for the
+commission of the peace,' said Mr. Lowe, so soon as the door shut. 'We
+must put it upon him. I protest I never met a man so fitted by nature
+and acquirements to make a perfectly useful magistrate. He and I, Sir,
+between us, we'd give a good account of this part of the county; and
+there's plenty of work, Sir, if 'twere only between this and Dublin;
+and, by George, Sir, he's a wonderful diverting fellow, full of
+anecdote. Wonderful place London, to be sure.'
+
+'And a good man, too, in a quiet way,' said Colonel Strafford, who could
+state a fact. ''Tisn't every rich man has the heart to part with his
+money as he does; he has done many charities here, and especially he has
+been most bountiful to poor Sturk's family.'
+
+'I know that,' said Lowe.
+
+'And he sent a fifty pound note by the major there to poor Sally Nutter
+o' Monday last; he'll tell you.'
+
+And thus it is, as the foul fiend, when he vanishes, leaves a smell of
+brimstone after him, a good man leaves a fragrance; and the company in
+the parlour enjoyed the aroma of Mr. Dangerfield's virtues, as he
+buttoned his white surtout over his breast, and dropped his vails into
+the palms of the carbuncled butler and fuddled footman in the hall.
+
+It was a clear, frosty, starlit night. White and stern was the face
+which he turned upward for a moment to the sky. He paused for a second
+in the ray of candle-light that gleamed through Puddock's window-shutter,
+and glanced on the pale dial of his large gold watch. It was only
+half-past eight o'clock. He walked on, glancing back over his shoulder,
+along the Dublin road.
+
+'The drunken beast. My mind misgives me he'll disappoint,' muttered the
+silver spectacles, gliding briskly onward.
+
+When he reached the main street he peered curiously before him under the
+village tree, in quest of carriage lights.
+
+'A lawless brute like that may be before his time as well as after.' So
+he walked briskly forward, and up Sturk's door-steps, and knocked.
+
+'The Dublin doctor hasn't come, eh?'--he asked.
+
+'No, Sir, he isn't come yet--'twas nine o'clock, the mistress told me.'
+
+'Very good. Tell Mrs. Sturk, pray, that I, Mr. Dangerfield, you know,
+will call, as I promised, at nine o'clock precisely.'
+
+And he turned again and walked briskly over the bridge, and away along
+the Inchicore road overhanging the river. All was silent there. Not a
+step but his own was stirring, and the road in places so overhung with
+old trees that it was difficult to see a yard before one.
+
+He slackened his pace, and listened, like a man who keeps an
+assignation, and listened again, and laughed under his breath; and sure
+enough, before long, the clink of a footstep was heard approaching
+swiftly from the Dublin direction.
+
+Mr. Dangerfield drew aside under the deep shadow of a high hawthorn
+hedge, overhung by trees; and watching intently, he saw a tall, lank
+figure, with a peculiar gait and stoop of its own, glide stealthily by.
+He smiled after it in the dark.
+
+The tall figure was that of our old friend, Zekiel Irons, the clerk. A
+sable form, as beseemed his ecclesiastical calling--and now a white
+figure was gliding without noise swiftly after him.
+
+Suddenly, as he reached an open part of the road, a thin hand was laid
+on his shoulder, and, with a start, and a 'hollo,' he sprung round.
+
+'Hey! why, you're as frightened as if you had seen Charles--Charles
+_Nutter_. Hey?--don't be uneasy. I heard from the parson yesterday
+morning you were to be with him to-night before nine o'clock, about that
+money you left in his hands, and I've chanced to meet you; and this I
+want you to understand, Charles Nutter is in gaol, and we must not let
+him get out--do you see? That business settled, we're at rest. So, Mr.
+Irons, you must not show the white feather. Be bold--speak out what you
+know--now's the time to strike. I'll put your evidence, as you reported
+it to me, into shape, and you come to me to-morrow morning at eight
+o'clock; and mind you, I'll reward you this time, and better than ever
+you've fared before. Go on. Or stay--I'll go before.'
+
+And Mr. Dangerfield laughed one of his chilly laughs--and, with a nod
+to Irons, repeated--'eight o'clock'--and so walked on a little bit.
+
+The clerk had not said a word. A perspiration broke forth on his
+forehead, and, wiping the drops away, he said--
+
+'Lord have mercy upon us--Lord deliver us--Lord have mercy upon us,'
+like a man dying.
+
+Mr. Dangerfield's bold proposition seemed quite to overpower and unman
+him.
+
+The white figure turned short, facing the clerk, and said he--
+
+'See you, Mr. Irons, I'm serious--there must be no shirking. If you
+undertake, you must go through; and, hark! in your ear--you shall have
+five hundred pounds. I put no constraint--say yes or no--if you don't
+like you needn't. Justice, I think, will be done even without your help.
+But till he's quiet--you understand--_nothing_ sure. He has been dead
+and alive again--curse him; and till he's at rest, and on the surgeon's
+table--ha! ha!--we sha'n't feel quite comfortable.'
+
+'Lord have mercy upon us!' muttered Irons, with a groan.
+
+'Amen,' said Dangerfield, with a sneering imitation.
+
+'_There_, 'tis enough--if you have nerve to speak truth and do justice,
+you may have the money. We're men of business--you and I. If not, I
+sha'n't trouble you any more. If you like it, come to me at eight
+o'clock in the morning; if not, why, stay away, and no harm's done.'
+
+And with these words, Mr. Dangerfield turned on his heel once more, and
+started at a lively pace for Chapelizod.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVI.
+
+IN WHICH MR. PAUL DANGERFIELD MOUNTS THE STAIRS OF THE HOUSE BY THE
+CHURCH-YARD, AND MAKES SOME ARRANGEMENTS.
+
+
+The white figure glided duskily over the bridge. The river rushed
+beneath in Egyptian darkness. The air was still, and a thousand
+celestial eyes twinkled down brightly through the clear deep sky upon
+the actors in this true story. He kept the left side, so that the road
+lay between him and the Phoenix door, which gaped wide with a great
+hospitable grin, and crimsoned the night air with a glow of candle-light.
+
+The white figure turned the corner, and glided onward in a straight,
+swift line--straight and swift as fate--to the door of Doctor Sturk.
+
+He knocked softly at the hall-door, and swiftly stepped in and shut it.
+
+'How's your master?'
+
+'Jist the same way, plaze yer honour; jist sleepin'--still
+sleepin'--sleepin' always,' answered the maid.
+
+'Has the Dublin doctor come?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'The mistress--where's she?'
+
+'In the room, Sir, with the masther.'
+
+'Present my service to her--Mr. Dangerfield's compliments, you know--and
+say I await her permission to come up stairs.'
+
+Presently the maid returned, with poor Mrs. Sturk's invitation to Mr.
+Dangerfield to walk up.
+
+Up he went, leaving his white surtout and cocked hat in the hall, and
+entered the chamber where pale little Mrs. Sturk, who had been crying a
+great deal, sat in a dingy old tabby saque, by the light of a solitary
+mould-candle at the bed-side of the noble Barney.
+
+The mutton-fat wanted snuffing; but its light danced and splintered
+brilliantly over Mr. Dangerfield's resplendent shoe-buckles, and up and
+down his cut-steel buttons, and also glimmered in a more phosphoric way
+upon his silver spectacles, as he bowed at the door, arrayed in a puce
+cut velvet coat, lined with pink, long embroidered satin waistcoat, fine
+lace ruffles and cravat, his well-shaped leg gleaming glossily in silk,
+and altogether, in his glimmering jewellery, and purple and fine linen,
+resembling Dives making a complimentary visit to the garret of Lazarus.
+
+Poor little Mrs. Sturk felt her obligations mysteriously enlarged by so
+much magnificence, and wondered at the goodness of this white-headed
+angel in point, diamonds, and cut velvet, who had dropped from the upper
+regions upon the sad and homely floor of her Barney's sick chamber.
+
+'Dr. Dillon not yet arrived, Madam? Well, 'tis precisely his hour; we
+shall have him soon. How does the patient? Ha! just as usual. How?--why
+there's a change, isn't there?'
+
+'As how, Sir?' enquired Mrs. Sturk, with a scared look.
+
+'Why, don't you see? But you mustn't be frightened; there's one coming
+in whom I have every confidence.'
+
+'I don't see, Sir. What is it, Mr. Dangerfield? Oh, _pray_, Sir?'
+
+'Why--a--nothing very particular, only he looks more languid than when I
+saw him last, and discoloured somewhat, and his face more sunk, I
+think--eh?'
+
+'Oh, no, Sir--'tis this bad light--nothing more, indeed, Sir. This
+evening, I assure you, Mr. Dangerfield, at three o'clock, when the sun
+was shining, we were all remarking how well he looked. I never
+saw--you'd have said so--such a wonderful improvement.'
+
+And she snuffed the candle, and held it up over Barney's grim features.
+
+'Well, Madam, I hope we soon may find it. 'Twill be a blessed
+sight--eh?--when he sits up in that bed, Madam, as I trust he may this
+very night, and speak--eh?'
+
+'Oh! my precious Barney!' and the poor little woman began to cry, and
+fell into a rhapsody of hopes, thanksgiving, anecdote and prayer.
+
+In the meanwhile Dangerfield was feeling his pulse, with his watch in
+the hollow of his hand.
+
+'And aren't they better--his pulse, Sir--they were stronger this morning
+by a great deal than last night--it was just at ten o'clock--don't you
+perceive, Sir?'
+
+'H'm--well, I hope, Ma'am, we'll soon find _all_ better. Now, have you
+got all things ready--you have, of course, a sheet well aired?'
+
+'A sheet--I did not know 'twas wanted.'
+
+'Hey, this will never do, my dear Madam--he'll be here and nothing
+ready; and you'll do well to send over to the mess-room for a lump of
+ice. 'Tis five minutes past nine. If you'll see to these things, I'll
+sit here, Madam, and take the best care of the patient--and, d'ye see,
+Mistress Sturk, 'twill be necessary that you take care that Toole hears
+nothing of Dr. Dillon's coming.'
+
+It struck me, when originally reading the correspondence which is
+digested in these pages, as hardly credible that Doctor Sturk should
+have continued to live for so long a space in a state of coma. Upon this
+point, therefore, I took occasion to ask the most eminent surgeon of my
+acquaintance, who at once quieted my doubts by detailing a very
+remarkable case cited by Sir A. Cooper in his lectures, Vol. I., p. 172.
+It is that of a seaman, who was pressed on board one of his Majesty's
+ships, early in the revolutionary war; and while on board this vessel,
+fell from the yard-arm, and was taken up insensible, in which state he
+continued living for thirteen months and some days!
+
+So with a little more talk, Mrs. Sturk, calling one of her maids, and
+leaving the little girl in charge of the nursery, ran down with
+noiseless steps and care-worn face to the kitchen, and Mr. Dangerfield
+was left alone in the chamber with the spell-bound sleeper on the bed.
+
+In about ten seconds he rose sharply from his chair and listened: then
+very noiselessly he stepped to the door and listened again, and gently
+shut it.
+
+Then Mr. Dangerfield moved to the window. There was a round hole in the
+shutter, and through it he glanced into the street, and was satisfied.
+
+By this time he had his white-pocket-handkerchief in his hands. He
+folded it deftly across and across into a small square, and then the
+spectacles flashed coldly on the image of Dr. Sturk, and then on the
+door; and there was a pause.
+
+'What's that?' he muttered sharply, and listened for a second or two.
+
+It was only one of the children crying in the nursery. The sound
+subsided.
+
+So with another long silent step, he stood by the capriole-legged old
+mahogany table, with the scallop shell containing a piece of soap and a
+washball, and the basin with its jug of water standing therein. Again he
+listened while you might count two, and dipped the handkerchief, so
+folded, into the water, and quietly squeezed it; and stood white and
+glittering by Sturk's bed-side.
+
+People moved very noiselessly about that house, and scarcely a minute
+had passed when the door opened softly, and the fair Magnolia Macnamara
+popped in her glowing face and brilliant glance, and whispered.
+
+'Are you there, Mrs. Sturk, dear?'
+
+At the far side of the bed, Dangerfield, with his flashing spectacles
+and snowy aspect, and a sort of pant, rose up straight, and looked into
+her eyes, like a white bird of prey disturbed over its carrion.
+
+She uttered a little scream--quite pale on a sudden--for she did not
+recognise the sinister phantom who glimmered at her over the prostrate
+Sturk.
+
+But Dangerfield laughed his quiet hollow 'ha! ha! ha!' and said
+promptly,
+
+'A strange old nurse I make, Miss Macnamara. But what can I do? Mrs.
+Sturk has left me in charge, and faith I believe our patient's looking
+mighty badly.'
+
+He had observed Miss Mag glancing from him to the dumb figure in the bed
+with a puzzled kind of horror.
+
+The fact is, Sturk's face had a leaden tint; he looked, evidently
+enough, even in that dim candle-light, a great deal worse than the
+curious Miss Mag was accustomed to see him.
+
+'He's very low, to-night, and seems oppressed, and his pulse is failing;
+in fact, my dear young lady, he's plainly worse to-night than I like to
+tell poor Mrs. Sturk, you understand.'
+
+'And his face looks so shiny and damp-like,' said Miss Mag, with a
+horrible sort of scrutiny.
+
+'Exactly so, Miss, 'tis _weakness_,' observed Dangerfield.
+
+'And you were wiping it with your pocket-handkerchief when I looked in,'
+continued Miss Mag.
+
+'Was I--ha, ha--'tis wonderful how quick we learn a new business. I vow
+I begin to think I should make a very respectable nursetender.'
+
+'And what the dickens brings _him_ up here?' asked Miss Mag of herself;
+so soon as the first shock was over, the oddity of the situation struck
+her as she looked with perplexed and unpleasant sort of enquiry at Mr.
+Dangerfield.
+
+Just then up came the meek little Mrs. Sturk, and the gentleman greeted
+her with a 'Well, Madam, I have not left his bedside since you went
+down; and I think he looks a little better--just a little--eh?'
+
+'I trust and pray, Sir, that when the doctor--' began Mrs. Sturk, and
+stopped short, for Mr. Dangerfield frowned quickly, and pointed towards
+Miss Mag, who was now, after her wont, looking round the room for matter
+of interest.
+
+'And is Pell comin' out to-night?' asked Miss Mag quickly.
+
+'No, truly. Madam,' answered the gentleman: 'Dr. Pell's not comin'--is
+he, Mrs. Sturk?'
+
+'Dr. Pell!--oh, la--no, Sir. No, my dear.' And, after a pause, 'Oh, ho.
+I wish it was over,' she groaned, with her hand pressed to her side,
+looking with a kind of agony on Sturk.
+
+'_What over_?' asked Miss Mag.
+
+Just then a double-knock came to the hall-door, and Mr. Dangerfield
+signed sternly to Mrs. Sturk, who first stood up, with her eyes and
+mouth wide open, and then sat down, like a woman going to faint.
+
+But the maid came up and told Miss Mag that her mother and Lieutenant
+O'Flaherty were waiting on the steps for her; and so, though loath to go
+unsatisfied, away she went, with a courtesy to Mr. Dangerfield and a
+kiss to Mrs. Sturk, who revived on hearing it was only her fat kindly
+neighbour from over the way, instead of Black Doctor Dillon, with his
+murderous case of instruments.
+
+The gentleman in the silver spectacles accompanied her to the lobby,
+and offered his hand; but she dispensed with his attendance, and jumped
+down the stairs with one hand to the wall and the other on the
+banisters, nearly a flight at a time; and the cackle of voices rose from
+the hall door, which quickly shut, and the fair vision had vanished.
+
+Dangerfield's silver spectacles gleamed phosphorically after her from
+under his lurid forehead. It was not a pleasant look, and his mouth was
+very grim. In another instant he was in the room again, and glanced at
+his watch.
+
+''Tis half-past nine,' he said, in a quiet tone, but with a gleam of
+intense fury over his face, 'and that--that--doctor named _nine_.'
+
+Dangerfield waited, and talked a little to Mrs. Sturk and the maid, who
+were now making preparations, in short sentences, by fits and starts of
+half-a-dozen words at a time. He had commenced his visit ceremoniously,
+but now he grew brusque, and took the command: and his tones were prompt
+and stern, and the women grew afraid of him.
+
+Ten o'clock came. Dangerfield went down stairs, and looked from the
+drawing-room windows. He waxed more and more impatient. Down he went to
+the street. He did not care to walk towards the King's House, which lay
+on the road to Dublin; he did not choose to meet his boon companions
+again, but he stood for full ten minutes, with one of Dr. Sturk's
+military cloaks about him, under the village tree, directing the
+double-fire of his spectacles down the street, with an incensed
+steadiness, unrewarded, unrelieved. Not a glimmer of a link; not a
+distant rumble of a coach-wheel. It was a clear, frosty night, and one
+might hear a long way.
+
+If any of the honest townsfolk had accidentally lighted upon that
+muffled, glaring image under the dark old elm, I think he would have
+mistaken it for a ghost, or something worse. The countenance at that
+moment was not prepossessing.
+
+Mr. Dangerfield was not given to bluster, and never made a noise; but
+from his hollow jaws he sighed an icy curse towards Dublin, which had a
+keener edge than all the roaring blasphemies of Donnybrook together;
+and, with another shadow upon his white face, he re-entered the house.
+
+'He'll not come to-night, Ma'am,' he said with a cold abruptness.
+
+'Oh, thank Heaven!--that is--I'm so afraid--I mean about the operation.'
+
+Dangerfield, with his hands in his pockets, said nothing. There was a
+sneer on his face, white and dark, somehow. That was all. Was he
+baffled, and was Dr. Sturk, after all, never to regain his speech?
+
+At half-past ten o'clock, Mr. Dangerfield abandoned hope. Had it been
+Dr. Pell, indeed, it would have been otherwise. But Black Dillon had not
+a patient; his fame was in the hospitals. There was nothing to detain
+him but his vices, and five hundred pounds to draw him to Chapelizod. He
+had not come. He must be either brained in a row, or drunk under a
+table. So Mr. Dangerfield took leave of good Mrs. Sturk, having told her
+in case the doctor should come, to make him wait for his arrival before
+taking any measures, and directing that he should be sent for
+immediately.
+
+So Mr. Dangerfield got into his white surtout silently in the hall, and
+shut the door quickly after him, and waited, a grim sentry, under the
+tree, with his face towards Dublin. Father Time had not blunted the
+white gentleman's perceptions, touched his ear with his numb fingers, or
+blown the smoke of his tobacco-pipe into his eyes. He was keen of eye,
+sharp of hearing; but neither sight nor sound rewarded him, and so he
+turned, after a few minutes, and glided away, like a white ghost, toward
+the Brass Castle.
+
+In less than five minutes after, the thunder of a coach shook Dr.
+Sturk's windows, followed by a rousing peal on the hall-door, and Dr.
+Dillon, in dingy splendours, and a great draggled wig, with a
+gold-headed cane in his bony hand, stepped in; and, diffusing a reek of
+whiskey-punch, and with a case of instruments under his arm, pierced the
+maid, who opened the door, through, with his prominent black eyes, and
+frightened her with his fiery face, while he demanded to see Mrs. Sturk,
+and lounged, without ceremony, into the parlour; where he threw himself
+on the sofa, with one of his bony legs extended on it, and his great
+ugly hand under his wig scratching his head.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVII.
+
+IN WHICH TWO COMRADES ARE TETE-A-TETE IN THEIR OLD QUARTERS, AND DOCTOR
+STURK'S CUE IS CUT OFF, AND A CONSULTATION COMMENCES.
+
+
+The buzz of a village, like the hum of a city, represents a very
+wonderful variety of human accent and feeling. It is marvellous how few
+families thrown together will suffice to furnish forth this _dubia
+coena_ of sweets and bitters.
+
+The roar of many waters--the ululatus of many-voiced
+humanity--marvellously monotonous, considering the infinite variety of
+its ingredients, booms on through the dark. The story-teller alone can
+take up the score of the mighty medley, and read at a glance what every
+fife and fiddle-stick is doing. That pompous thrum-thrum is the talk of
+the great white Marseilles paunch, pietate gravis; the whine comes from
+Lazarus, at the area rails; and the bass is old Dives, roaring at his
+butler; the piccolo is contributed by the studious school-boy, whistling
+over his Latin Grammar; that wild, long note is poor Mrs. Fondle's
+farewell of her dead boy; the ugly barytone, rising from the tap-room,
+is what Wandering Willie calls a sculduddery song--shut your ears, and
+pass on; and that clear soprano, in nursery, rings out a shower of
+innocent idiotisms over the half-stripped baby, and suspends the bawl
+upon its lips.
+
+So, on this night, as usual, there rose up toward the stars a throbbing
+murmur from our village--a wild chaos of sound, which we must strive to
+analyse, extracting from the hurly-burly each separate tune it may
+concern us to hear.
+
+Captain Devereux was in his lodging. He was comparatively tranquil now;
+but a savage and impious despair possessed him. Serene outwardly--he
+would not let the vulgar see his scars and sores; and was one of those
+proud spirits who build to themselves desolate places.
+
+Little Puddock was the man with whom he had least reserve. Puddock was
+so kindly, and so true and secret, and cherished beside, so great an
+admiration for him, that he greeted him rather kindly at a moment when
+another visitor would have fared scurvily enough. Puddock was painfully
+struck with his pallor, his wild and haggard eye, and something stern
+and brooding in his handsome face, which was altogether new and shocking
+to him.
+
+'I've been _thinking_, Puddock,' he said; 'and thought with me has grown
+strangely like despair--and that's all. Why, man, _think_--what is
+there for me?--all my best stakes I've lost already; and I'm fast losing
+myself. How different, Sir, is my fate from others? Worse men than
+I--every way incomparably worse--and d---- them, _they_ prosper, while I
+go down the tide. 'Tisn't just!' And he swore a great oath. ''Tis enough
+to make a man blaspheme. I've done with life--I hate it. I'll volunteer.
+'Tis my first thought in the morning, and my last at night, how well I'd
+like a bullet through my brain or heart. D---- the world, d---- feeling,
+d---- memory. I'm not a man that can always be putting prudential
+restraints upon myself. I've none of those plodding ways. The cursed
+fools that spoiled me in my childhood, and forsake me now, have all to
+answer for--I charge them with my ruin.' And he launched a curse at them
+(meaning his aunt) which startled the plump soul of honest little
+Puddock.
+
+'You must not talk that way, Devereux,' he said, still a good deal more
+dismayed by his looks than his words. 'Why are you so troubled with
+vapours and blue devils?'
+
+'Nowhy!' said Devereux, with a grim smile.
+
+'My dear Devereux, I say, you mustn't talk in that wild way. You--you
+talk like a ruined man!'
+
+'And I so comfortable!'
+
+'Why, to be sure, Dick, you have had some little rubs, and, maybe, your
+follies and your vexations; but, hang it, you are young; you can't get
+experience--at least, so I've found it--without paying for it. You
+mayn't like it just now; but it's well worth the cost. Your worries and
+miscarriages, dear Richard, will make you steady.'
+
+'Steady!' echoed Devereux, like a man thinking of something far away.
+
+'Ay, Dick--you've sown your wild oats.'
+
+On a sudden, says the captain, 'My dear little Puddock,' and he took him
+by the hand, with a sort of sarcastic flicker of a smile, and looked in
+his face almost contemptuously; but his eyes and his voice softened
+before the unconscious bonhomie of the true little gentleman. 'Puddock,
+Puddock, did it never strike you, my boy, that Hamlet never strives to
+speak a word of comfort to the forlorn old Dane? He felt it would not
+do. Every man that's worth a button knows his own case best; and I know
+the secrets of my own prison-house. Sown my wild oats! To be sure I
+have, Puddock, my boy; and the new leaf I've turned over is just this;
+I've begun to reap them; and they'll grow, my boy, and grow as long as
+grass grows; and--Macbeth has his dagger, you know, and I've my
+sickle--the handle towards my hand, that you can't see; and in the sweat
+of my brow, I must cut down and garner my sheaves; and as I sowed, so
+must I reap, and grind, and bake, the black and bitter grist of my
+curse. Don't talk nonsense, little Puddock. Wasn't it Gay that wrote the
+"Beggar's Opera?" Ay! Why don't you play Macheath? Gay!--Ay--a pleasant
+fellow, and his poems too. He writes--don't you remember--he writes,
+
+  'So comes a reckoning when the banquet's o'er--
+  The dreadful reckoning, and men smile no more.'
+
+'Puddock, throw up that window, the room's too hot--or stay never mind;
+read a book, Puddock, you like it, and I'll stroll a little along the
+path, and find you when I come back.'
+
+'Why it's dark,' remonstrated his visitor.
+
+'Dark? I dare say--yes, of course--very dark--but cool; the air is
+cool.'
+
+He talked like a man who was thinking of something else; and Puddock
+thought how strangely handsome he looked, with that pale dash of horror,
+like King Saul when the evil spirit was upon him; and there was a
+terrible misgiving in his mind. The lines of the old ballad that
+Devereux used to sing with a sort of pathetic comicality were humming in
+his ear,--
+
+  'He walked by the river, the river so clear--
+  The river that runs through Kilkenny;
+  His name was Captain Wade,
+  And he died for that fair maid.'
+
+and so following. What could he mean by walking, at that hour, alone, by
+the river's brink? Puddock, with a sinking and flutter at his heart,
+unperceived, followed him down stairs, and was beside him in the street.
+
+'The path by the river?' said Puddock.
+
+'The river--the path? Yes, Sir, the path by the river. I thought I left
+you up stairs,' said Devereux, with an odd sort of sulky shrinking.
+
+'Why, Devereux, I may as well walk with you, if you don't object,'
+lisped Puddock.
+
+'But I do object, Sir,' cried Devereux, suddenly, in a fierce high key,
+turning upon his little comrade. 'What d'ye mean, Sir? You think I mean
+to--to _drown_ myself--ha, ha, ha! or what the devil's running in your
+head? I'm not a madman, Sir, nor you a mad-doctor. Go home, Sir--or go
+to--to where you will, Sir; only go your own way, and leave me mine.'
+
+'Ah, Devereux, you're very quick with me,' said Puddock, placing his
+plump little hand on Devereux's arm, and looking very gently and gravely
+in his face.
+
+Devereux laid his hand upon Puddock's collar with an agitated sort of
+sneer. But he recollected himself, and that diabolical gloom faded from
+his face, and he looked more like himself, and slid his cold hand
+silently into little Puddock's; and so they stood for a while, by the
+door-step, to the admiration of Mrs. Irons--whom Devereux's high tones
+had called to her window.
+
+'Puddock, I don't think I'm well, and I don't know quite what I've been
+saying. I ask your pardon. You've always been very good to me, Puddock.
+I believe--I believe you're the only friend I have, and--Puddock, you
+won't leave me.'
+
+So up stairs they went together; and Mrs. Irons, from what she had
+overheard, considered herself justified in saying, that 'Captain
+Devereux was for drowning himself in the Liffey, and would have done so
+only for Lieutenant Puddock.' And so the report was set a-going round
+the garrulous town of Chapelizod.
+
+As Mr. Dangerfield glided rapidly along the silent road towards the
+Brass Castle, the little gate of his now leafless flower-garden being
+already in sight, he saw a dark figure awaiting him under the bushes
+which overhung it. It was Mr. Irons, who came forward, without speaking,
+and lifted his hat respectfully, perhaps abjectly, and paused for
+recognition.
+
+'Hey! Irons?' said Mr. Dangerfield.
+
+'At your service, Sir.'
+
+'Well, and what says his worship?' asked the gentleman, playfully.
+
+'I wanted to tell your honour that it won't make no odds, and I'll do
+it.'
+
+'Of course. You're right. It does make no odds. He'll hang whatever you
+do; and I tell you 'tis well he should, and only right _you_ should
+speak the truth, too--'twill make assurance doubly sure.'
+
+'At eight o'clock in the morning, Sir, I'll attend you,' said Irons,
+with a sort of shiver.
+
+'Good! and I'll jot down your evidence, and we'll drive over to Mr.
+Lowe's, to Lucan, and you shall swear before him. And, you understand--I
+don't forget what I promised--you'll be a happier man every way for
+having done your duty; and here's half-a-crown to spend in the Salmon
+House.'
+
+Irons only moaned, and then said--
+
+'That's all, Sir. But I couldn't feel easy till it was off my mind.'
+
+'At eight o'clock I shall expect you. Good-night, Irons.'
+
+And with his hands in his pockets he watched Irons off the ground. His
+visage darkened as for a while his steady gaze was turned toward Dublin.
+He was not quite so comfortable as he might have been.
+
+Meanwhile Black Dillon, at Mrs. Sturk's request, had stalked up stairs
+to the patient's bed-side.
+
+'Had not I best send at once for Mr. Dangerfield?' she enquired.
+
+'No occasion, Ma'am,' replied the eminent but slightly fuddled
+'Saw-bones,' spitting beside him on the floor 'until I see whether I'll
+operate to-night. What's in that jug, Ma'am? Chicken-broth? That'll do.
+Give him a spoonful. See--he swallows free enough;' and then Black
+Dillon plucked up his eyelids with a roughness that terrified the
+reverential and loving Mrs. Sturk, and examined the distorted pupils.
+
+'You see the cast in that eye, Ma'am; there's the pressure on the
+brain.'
+
+Dillon was lecturing her upon the case as he proceeded, from habit, just
+as he did the students in the hospital.
+
+'No convulsions, Ma'am?'
+
+'Oh, no, Sir, thank Heaven; nothing in the least--only quiet sleep, Sir;
+just like that.'
+
+'Sleep, indeed--that's no sleep, Ma'am. Boo-hooh! I couldn't bawl that
+way in his face, Ma'am, without disturbing him, Ma'am, if it was. Now
+we'll get him up a bit--there, that's right--aisy. He was lying, Ma'am,
+I understand, on his back, when they found him in the park, Ma'am--so
+Mr. Dangerfield says--ay. Well, slip the cap off--backward--backward,
+you fool; that'll do. Who plastered his head, Ma'am?'
+
+'Doctor Toole, Sir.'
+
+'Toole--Toole--h'm--I see--hey--hi--tut! 'tis the devil's pair of
+fractures, Ma'am. See--nearer--d'ye see, there's two converging
+lines--d'ye see, Ma'am?' and he indicated their directions with the
+silver handle of an instrument he held in his hand, 'and serrated at the
+edges, I'll be bound.'
+
+And he plucked off two or three strips of plaster with a quick whisk,
+which made poor little Mrs. Sturk wince and cry, 'Oh, dear, Sir!'
+
+'Threpan, indeed!' murmured Black Dillon, with a coarse sneer, 'did they
+run the scalpel anywhere over the occiput, Ma'am?'
+
+'I--I--truly, Sir--I'm not sure,' answered Mrs. Sturk, who did not
+perfectly understand a word he said.
+
+The doctor's hair had not been cut behind. Poor Mrs. Sturk, expecting
+his recovery every day, would not have permitted the sacrilege, and his
+dishevelled cue lay upon his shoulders. With his straight surgical
+scissors Black Dillon snipped off this sacred appendage before the good
+lady knew what he was about, and cropped the back of his head down to
+the closest stubble.
+
+'Will you send, if you please, Ma'am, for Doctor--Doctor--Thingumee?'
+
+'Doctor Toole?' enquired Mrs. Sturk.
+
+'Doctor Toole, Ma'am; yes,' answered the surgeon.
+
+He himself went down to the coach at the hall-door, and in a few minutes
+returned with a case, and something in a cloth. From the cloth he took
+an apparatus, like the cushioned back of a chair, with straps and
+buckles attached to it, and a sort of socket, the back of which was
+open, being intended to receive the head in.
+
+'Now, Ma'am, we'll prop him up comfortable with this, if you please.'
+
+And having got it into place, and lowered by a screw, the cushions
+intended to receive his head, and got the lethargic trunk and skull of
+the Artillery doctor well-placed for his purpose, he took out a roll of
+sticking-plaster and a great piece of lint, and laid them on the table,
+and unlocked his box, which was a large one, and took out several
+instruments, silver-mounted, straight and crooked, with awful
+adaptations to unknown butcheries and tortures, and then out came
+another--the veritable trepan--resembling the homely bit-and-brace, but
+slender, sinister, and quaint, with a murderous sort of elegance.
+
+'You may as well order in half-a-dozen clean towels, if you please,
+Ma'am.'
+
+'Oh! Doctor, you're not going to have an operation to-night, gasped Mrs.
+Sturk, her face quite white and damp, and her clasped hands trembling.
+
+'Twenty to one, Ma'am,' he replied with a slight hiccup, 'we'll have
+nothing of the kind; but have them here, Ma'am, and some warm water for
+fear of accidents--though maybe 'tis only for a dhrop of punch we'll be
+wanting it,' and his huge, thirsty mouth grinned facetiously; and just
+then Dr. Toole entered the room. He was confoundedly surprised when he
+found Black Dillon there. Though bent on meeting him with hauteur and
+proper reserve, on account of his damnable character, he was yet cowed
+by his superior knowledge, so that Tom Toole's address was strangely
+chequered with pomposity and alarm.
+
+Dillon's credentials there was, indeed, no disputing, so they sent for
+Moore, the barber; and, while he was coming, they put the women out of
+the room, and sat in consultation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXVIII.
+
+IN WHICH MR. MOORE THE BARBER ARRIVES, AND THE MEDICAL GENTLEMEN LOCK
+THE DOOR.
+
+
+The ladies were not much the wiser, though, I confess, they were not far
+removed from the door. The great men inside talked indistinctly and
+technically, and once Doctor Dillon was so unfeeling as to crack a
+joke--they could not distinctly hear what--and hee-haw brutally over it.
+And poor little Mrs. Sturk was taken with a great palpitation, and
+looked as white as a ghost, and was, indeed, so obviously at the point
+of swooning that her women would have removed her to the nursery, and
+placed her on the bed, but that such a procedure would have obliged them
+to leave the door of their sick master's room, just then a point of too
+lively interest to be deserted. So they consoled their mistress, and
+supported her with such strong moral cordials as compassionate persons
+in their rank and circumstances are prompt to administer.
+
+'Oh! Ma'am, jewel, don't be takin' it to heart that way--though, dear
+knows, 'tis no way surprisin' you would; for may I never sin if ever I
+seen such a murtherin' steel gimblet as the red-faced docthor--I mane
+the Dublin man--has out on the table beside the poor masther--'tid
+frighten the hangman to look at it--an' six towels, too! Why, Ma'am
+dear, if 'twas what they wor goin' to slaughter a bullock they wouldn't
+ax more nor that.'
+
+'Oh! don't. Oh! Katty, Katty--don't, oh don't'
+
+'An' why wouldn't I, my darlin' misthress, tell you what's doin', the
+way you would not be dhruv out o' your senses intirely if you had no
+notion, Ma'am dear, iv what they're goin' to do to him?'
+
+At this moment the door opened, and Doctor Dillon's carbuncled visage
+and glowing eyes appeared.
+
+'Is there a steady woman there--not a child, you know, Ma'am?
+A--_you'll_ do (to Katty). Come in here, if you please, and we'll tell
+you what you're to do.'
+
+So, being nothing loath, she made her courtesy and glided in.
+
+'Oh! doctor,' gasped poor Mrs. Sturk, holding by the hem of his garment,
+'do you think it will kill him?'
+
+'No, Ma'am--not to-night, at any rate,' he answered, drawing back; but
+still she held him.
+
+'Oh! doctor, you think it _will_ kill him?'
+
+'No, Ma'am--there's always some danger.'
+
+'Danger of what, Sir?'
+
+'Fungus, Ma'am--if he gets over the chance of inflammation. But, on the
+other hand, Ma'am, we may do him a power of good; and see, Ma'am, 'twill
+be best for you to go down or into the nursery, and we'll call you,
+Ma'am, if need be--that is, if he's better, Ma'am, as we hope.'
+
+'Oh! Mr. Moore, it's you,' sobbed the poor woman, holding fast by the
+sleeve of the barber, who that moment, with many reverences and 'your
+servant, Ma'am,' had mounted to the lobby with the look of awestruck
+curiosity, in his long, honest face, which the solemn circumstance of
+his visit warranted.
+
+'You're the man we sent for?' demanded Dillon, gruffly.
+
+''Tis good Mr. Moore,' cried trembling little Mrs. Sturk, deprecating
+and wheedling him instinctively to make him of her side, and lead him to
+take part with her and resist all violence to her husband--flesh of her
+flesh, and bone of her bone.
+
+'Why don't you spake, Sor-r-r? Are you the barber we sent for or no?
+What ails you, man?' demanded the savage Doctor Dillon, in a suppressed
+roar.
+
+'At your sarvice, Ma'am--Sir,' replied Moore, with submissive alacrity.
+
+'Come in here, then. Come in, will you?' cried the doctor, hauling him
+in with his great red hand.
+
+'There now--there now--there--there,' he said gruffly, extending his
+palm to keep off poor Mrs. Sturk.
+
+So he shut the door, and poor Mrs. Sturk heard him draw the bolt, and
+felt that her Barney had passed out of her hands, and that she could do
+nothing for him now but clasp her hands and gasp up her prayers for his
+deliverance; and so great indeed was her anguish and panic, that she had
+not room for the feminine reflection how great a brute Doctor Dillon
+was.
+
+So she heard them walking this way and that, but could not distinguish
+what they said, only she heard them talking; and once or twice a word
+reached her, but not very intelligible, such as--
+
+''Twas Surgeon Beauchamp's--see that'
+
+'Mighty curious.'
+
+Then a lot of mumbling, and
+
+'Cruciform, of course.'
+
+This was said by Doctor Dillon, near the door, where he had come to take
+an additional candle from the table that stood there; as he receded it
+lost itself in mumble again, and then she heard quite plainly--
+
+'Keep your hand there.'
+
+And a few seconds after,
+
+'Hold it there and don't let it drip.'
+
+And then a little more mumbled dialogue, and she thought she heard--
+
+'Begin now.'
+
+And there was a dead silence of many seconds; and Mrs. Sturk felt as if
+she must scream, and her heart beat at a gallop, and her dry, white
+lips silently called upon her Maker for help, and she felt quite wild,
+and very faint; and heard them speak brief, and low together, and then
+another long silence; and then a loud voice, in a sort of shriek, cry
+out that name--holy and awful--which we do not mix in tales like this.
+It was Sturk's voice; and he cried in the same horrid shriek,
+'Murder--mercy--Mr. Archer!'
+
+And poor Mrs. Sturk, with a loud hysterical cry, that quivered with her
+agony, answered from without, and wildly rattled at the door-handle, and
+pushed with all her feeble force to get in, in a kind of crescendo
+screaming--'Oh, Barney--Barney--_Barney--sweetheart_--what are they
+_doing_?'
+
+'Oh! blessed hour!--Ma'am--'tis the master himself that is talking;' and
+with a very pale face the maid, who stood in the doorway beside her,
+uttered her amazed thanksgiving.
+
+And the doctors' voices were now heard plainly enough soothing the
+patient, and he seemed to have grown more collected; and she heard
+him--she thought--repeat a snatch of a prayer, as a man might just
+rescued from a shipwreck; and he said in a tone more natural in one so
+sick and weak, 'I'm a dead man--he's done it--where is he?--he's
+murdered me.'
+
+'Who?' demanded Toole's well-known voice.
+
+'Archer--the villain--Charles Archer.'
+
+'Give me the cup with the claret and water, and the spoon--there it is,'
+said Dillon's rough bass tones.
+
+And she heard the maid's step crossing the floor, and then there was a
+groan from Sturk.
+
+'Here, take another spoonful, and don't mind talking for a while. It's
+doing mighty well. There, don't let him slip over--that's enough.'
+
+Just then Toole opened the door enough to put his head through, and
+gently restraining poor Mrs. Sturk with his hand, he said with a
+vigorous whisper--
+
+''Twill all go well, Ma'am, we hope, if he's not agitated; you must not
+go in, Ma'am, nor talk to him--by-and-by you may see him, but he must be
+quiet now; his pulse is very regular at present--but you see, Ma'am, we
+can't be too cautious.'
+
+While Toole was thus discoursing her at the door, she heard Dr. Dillon
+washing his hands, and Sturk's familiar voice, sounding so strange after
+the long silence, say very languidly and slowly--
+
+'Take a pen, Sir--some one--take and write--write down what I say.'
+
+'Now, Ma'am, you see he's bent on talking,' said Toole, whose quick ear
+caught the promise of a revelation. 'I must be at my post, Ma'am--the
+bed post--hey! We may joke now, Ma'am, that the patient's recovered his
+speech; and, you know, you mustn't come in--not till we tell you it's
+safe--there now--rely on me--I give you my word of honour he's doing as
+well as we could have hoped for.'
+
+And Toole shook her trembling little hand very cordially, and there was
+a very good-natured twinkle in his eye.
+
+And Toole closed the door again, and they heard Sturk murmur something
+more; and then the maid, who was within, was let out by Toole, and the
+door closed and bolted again, and a sort of cooing and murmuring
+recommenced.
+
+After a while, Toole, absolutely pale, and looking very stern, opened
+the door, and, said he, in a quiet way--
+
+'Ma'am, may I send Katty down to the King's House, with a note to Mr.--a
+note to the King's House, Ma'am--I thank you--and see, Katty, good girl,
+ask to see the gentleman himself, and take his answer from his own
+lips.'
+
+And he tore off the back of a letter, and pencilled on it these words--
+
+'MY DEAR SIR,--Dr. Sturk has been successfully operated upon by
+me and another gentleman; and being restored to speech and recollection,
+but very weak, desires earnestly to see you, and make an important
+disclosure to you as a justice of the peace.
+               'I am, Sir, your very obedient, humble servant,
+                                                     'THOMAS TOOLE.
+
+Upon this note he clapt a large seal with the Toole arms, and when it
+was complete, placed it in the hands of Katty, who, with her riding-hood
+on and her head within it teeming with all sorts of wild conjectures and
+horrible images, and her whole soul in a whirl of curiosity, hurried
+along the dark street, now and then glinted on by a gleam through a
+shutter, or enlivened by the jingle of a harpsichord, or a snatch of
+talk and laughter heard faintly through the windows, and along the
+Dublin-road to the gate of the King's House. The hall-door of this
+hospitable mansion stood open, and a flood of red candle-light fell upon
+one side of the gray horse, saddle, and holster pipes, which waited the
+descent of Mr. Lowe, who was shaking hands with the hospitable colonel
+at the threshold.
+
+Katty was just in time, and the booted gentleman, in his surtout and
+cape, strode back again into the light of the hall-door, and breaking
+the seal, there read, with his clear cold eye, the lines which Toole had
+pencilled, and thrusting it into his coat pocket, and receiving again
+the fuddled butler's benedictions--he had given him half-a-crown--he
+mounted his gray steed, and at a brisk trot, followed by his servant,
+was, in little more than two minutes' time, at Dr. Sturk's door.
+
+Moore, the barber, _functus officio_, was now sitting in the hall, with
+his razors in his pocket, expecting his fee, and smelling pleasantly of
+the glass of whiskey which he had just drunk to the health and long life
+of the master--God bless him--and all the family.
+
+Doctor Toole met Mr. Lowe on the lobby; he was doing the honours of the
+ghastly eclaircissement, and bowed him up to the room, with many an
+intervening whisper, and a sort of apology for Dillon, whom he treated
+as quite unpresentable, and resolved to keep as much as practicable in
+the background.
+
+But that gentleman, who exulted in a good stroke of surgery, and had no
+sort of professional delicacy, calling his absent fathers and brethren
+of the scalpel and forceps by confounded hard names when he detected a
+blunder or hit a blot of theirs, met Mr. Lowe on the upper lobby.
+
+'Your servant, Sir,' said he, rubbing his great red hands with a moist
+grin; 'you see what I've done. Pell's no surgeon, no more than
+that--(Toole, he was going to say, but modified the comparison in
+time)--that candlestick! to think of him never looking at the occiput;
+and _he_ found lying on his back--'twas well Mr. Dangerfield pitched on
+me--though I say it--why _shouldn't_ I say it--a depression, the size of
+a shilling in the back of the head--a bit of depressed bone, you see,
+over the cerebellum--the trepan has relieved him.'
+
+'And was it Mr. Dangerfield?' enquired Lowe, who was growing to admire
+that prompt, cynical hero more and more every hour.
+
+'By gannies, it just was. He promised me five hundred guineas to make
+him speak. What all them solemn asses could not compass, that's sweeping
+in their thousands every quarter, thanks to a discerning public. Baugh!
+He had heard of a rake-helly dog, with some stuff in his brain-pan, and
+he came to me--and I done it--Black Dillon done it--ha, ha! that's for
+the pack of them. Baugh!'
+
+Doctor Dillon knew that the profession slighted him; and every man's
+hand against him, his was against every man.
+
+Sturk was propped up and knew Lowe, and was, in a ghastly sort of way,
+glad to see him. He looked strangely pale and haggard, and spoke
+faintly.
+
+'Take pen and ink,' said he.
+
+There were both and paper ready.
+
+'He would not speak till you came,' whispered Toole, who looked hotter
+than usual, and felt rather small, and was glad to edge in a word.
+
+'An' don't let him talk too long; five minutes or so, and no more,' said
+Doctor Dillon; 'and give him another spoonful now--and where's Mr.
+Dangerfield?'
+
+'And do you really mean to say, Sir, he promised you a fee of
+_five_--eh?' said Toole, who could not restrain his somewhat angry
+curiosity.
+
+'Five hundred guineas--ha, ha, ha! be gannies, Sir, there's a power of
+divarsion in that.'
+
+''Tis a munificent fee, and prompted by a fine public spirit. We are all
+his debtors for it! and to you, Sir, too. He's an early man, Sir, I'm
+told. You'll not see him to-night. But, whatever he has promised is
+already performed; you may rely on his honour.'
+
+'If you come out at nine in the morning, Dr. Dillon, you'll find him
+over his letters and desk, in his breakfast parlour,' said Toole, who,
+apprehending that this night's work might possibly prove a hit for the
+disreputable and savage luminary, was treating him, though a good deal
+stung and confounded by the prodigious amount of the fee, with more
+ceremony than he did at first. 'Short accounts, you know,' said Dillon,
+locking the lid of his case down upon his instruments. 'But maybe, as
+you say, 'tis best to see him in the morning--them rich fellows is often
+testy--ha! ha! An' a word with you, Dr. Toole,' and he beckoned his
+brother aside to the corner near the door--and whispered something in
+his ear, and laughed a little awkwardly, and Toole, very red and grave,
+lent him--with many misgivings, two guineas.
+
+'An' see--don't let them give him too much of that--the chicken broth's
+too sthrong--put some wather to that, Miss, i' you plaze--and give him
+no more to-night--d'ye mind--than another half a wine-glass full of
+clar't unless the docthor here tells you.'
+
+So Dr. Dillon took leave, and his fiery steeds, whirling him onward,
+devoured, with their resounding hoofs, the road to Dublin, where he had
+mentally devoted Toole's two guineas to the pagan divinities whose
+worship was nightly celebrated at the old St. Columbkill.
+
+'We had best have it in the shape of a deposition, Sir, at once,' said
+Lowe, adjusting himself at the writing-table by the bed-side, and taking
+the pen in his fingers, he looked on the stern and sunken features of
+the resuscitated doctor, recalled, as it were, from 'the caverns of the
+dead and the gates of darkness,' to reveal an awful secret, and point
+his cold finger at the head of the undiscovered murderer.
+
+'Tell it as shortly as you can, Sir, but without haste,' said Toole,
+with his finger on his pulse. Sturk looked dismal and frightened, like a
+man with the hangman at his elbow.
+
+'It was that d--d villain--Charles Archer--write that down--'twas a foul
+blow--Sir, I'm murdered--I suppose.'
+
+And then came a pause.
+
+'Give me a spoonful of wine--I was coming out of town at dusk--this
+evening--'
+
+'No, Sir; you're here some time, stunned and unconscious.'
+
+'Eh! how long?'
+
+'No matter, Sir, now. Just say the date of the night it happened.'
+
+Sturk uttered a deep groan.
+
+'Am I dying?' said he.
+
+'No, Sir, please goodness--far from it,' said Toole.
+
+'Fracture?' asked Sturk, faintly.
+
+'Why--yes--something of the sort--indeed--altogether a fracture; but
+going on mighty well, Sir.'
+
+'Stabbed anywhere--or gunshot wound?' demanded Sturk.
+
+'Nothing of the kind, Sir, upon my honour.'
+
+'You think--I have a chance?' and Sturk's cadaverous face was moist with
+the dews of an awful suspense.
+
+'Chance,' said Toole, in an encouraging tone, 'well, I suppose you have,
+Sir--ha, ha! But, you know, you must not tire yourself, and we hope to
+have you on your legs again, Sir, in a reasonable time.'
+
+'I'm very bad--the sight's affected,' groaned Sturk.
+
+'See, Sir, you tire yourself to no purpose. You're in good hands,
+Sir--and all will go well--as we expect--Pell has been with you twice--'
+
+'H'm! Pell--that's good.'
+
+'And you're going on mighty well, Sir, especially to-night.'
+
+'Doctor, upon your honour, have I a chance?'
+
+'You have, Sir,--certainly--yes--upon my honour.'
+
+'Thank God!' groaned Sturk, turning up the whites of his eyes, and
+lifting up two very shaky hands.
+
+'But you must not spoil it--and fatigue will do that for you,' remarked
+Toole.
+
+'But, Sir, Sir--I beg pardon, Doctor Toole--but this case is not quite a
+common one. What Doctor Sturk is about to say may acquire an additional
+legal value by his understanding precisely the degree of danger in which
+he lies. Now, Doctor Sturk, you must not be over much disturbed,' said
+Lowe.
+
+'No, Sir--don't fear me--I'm not much disturbed,' said Sturk.
+
+'Well, Doctor Toole,' continued Lowe, 'we must depart a little here from
+regular medical routine--tell Doctor Sturk plainly all you think.'
+
+'Why--a'--and Doctor Toole cleared his voice, and hesitated.
+
+'Tell him what you and Doctor Dillon think, Sir. Why, Doctor Dillon
+spoke very plainly to me.'
+
+'I don't like his pulse, Sir. I think you had better not have agitated
+him,' muttered Toole with an impatient oath.
+
+''Tis worse to keep his mind doubtful, and on the stretch,' said Lowe.
+'Doctor Toole, Sir, has told you the bright side of the case. It is
+necessary, making the deposition you propose, that you should know
+t'other.'
+
+'Yes, of course--quite right--go on,' said Sturk faintly.
+
+'Why, you know,' said Toole, sniffing, and a little sulkily, 'you know,
+Doctor Sturk, we, doctors, like to put the best foot foremost; but you
+can't but be aware, that with the fractures--_two_ fractures--along the
+summit of the skull, and the operation by the trepan, behind your head,
+just accomplished, there must be, of course, some danger.'
+
+'I see. Sir,' said Sturk, very quietly, but looking awfully cadaverous;
+'all I want to know is, how long you think I may live?'
+
+'You may recover altogether, Sir--you may--but, of course--you
+may--there's a chance; and things might not go right,' said Toole,
+taking snuff.
+
+'I see--Sir--'tis enough'--and there was a pause. 'I'd like to have the
+sacrament, and pray with the clergyman a little--Lord help me!--and my
+will--only a few words--I don't suppose there's much left me; but
+there's a power of appointment--a reversion of £600, stock--I'm tired.'
+
+'Here, take this,' said Toole, and put half-a-dozen spoonsful of claret
+and water into his lips, and he seemed to revive a little. 'There's no
+immediate hurry--upon my honour, Doctor Sturk, there isn't,' said Toole.
+'Just rest aisy a bit; you're disturbed a good deal, Sir; your pulse
+shows it; and you need not, I assure you, upon my conscience and
+honour--'tis quite on the cards you may recover.'
+
+And as he spoke, Toole was dropping something from a phial into a
+wine-glass--sal volatile--ether--I can't say; but when Dr. Sturk
+swallowed it there was a 'potter-carrier's' aroma about the room.
+
+Then there was a pause for a while, and Toole kept his fingers on his
+pulse; and Sturk looked, for some time, as if he were on the point of
+fainting, which, in his case, might have proved very like dying.
+
+'Have you the claret bottle in the room?' demanded Toole, a little
+flurried; for Sturk's pulses were playing odd pranks, and bounding and
+sinking in a dance of death.
+
+'The what, Sir?' asked the maid.
+
+'The _wine_, woman--this instant,' said the doctor, with a little stamp.
+
+So, the moment he had the bottle, he poured out half a large glass, and
+began spooning it into Sturk's white parted lips.
+
+Lowe looked on very uneasily; for he expected, as Toole did also,
+prodigious revelations; though each had a suspicion that he divined
+their nature tolerably clearly.
+
+'Give him some more,' said Toole, with his fingers on the sick man's
+wrist, and watching his countenance. 'D---- it, don't be afraid--more,
+some more--more!'
+
+And so the Artillery doctor's spirit revived within him; though with
+flickerings and tremblings; and he heaved some great sighs, and moved
+his lips. Then he lay still for a while; and after that he spoke.
+
+'The pen, Sir,--write,' he said. 'He met me in the Butcher's Wood; he
+said he was going to sleep in town,' and Sturk groaned dismally; 'and he
+began talking on business--and turned and walked a bit with me. I did
+not expect to see him there--he was frank--and spoke me fair. We were
+walking slowly. He looked up in the sky with his hands in his coat
+pockets and was a step, or so, in advance of me; and he turned short--I
+didn't know--I had no more fear than you--and struck me a blow with
+something he had in his hand. He rose to the blow on his toes--'twas so
+swift, I had no time--I could not see what he struck with, 'twas like a
+short bit of rope.'
+
+'Charles Archer? Do you know him, Dr. Toole?' asked Lowe. Toole shook
+his head.
+
+'Charles Archer!' he repeated, looking at Sturk; 'where does he live?'
+and he winked to Toole, who was about speaking, to hold his peace.
+
+'Here--in this town--Chapelizod, up the river, a bit, with--with
+a--changed name,' answered Sturk. And at the name he mentioned, Lowe and
+Toole, in silence and steadfastly, exchanged a pale, grim glance that
+was awful to see.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LXXXIX.
+
+IN WHICH A CERTAIN SONGSTER TREATS THE COMPANY TO A DOLOROUS BALLAD
+WHEREBY MR. IRONS IS SOMEWHAT MOVED.
+
+
+It seemed that Mr. Dangerfield had taken Zekiel Irons's measure pretty
+exactly. The clerk had quite made up his mind to take the bold step
+urged upon him by that gentleman. He was a slow man. When one idea had
+fairly got into his head there was no room there for another. Cowardly
+and plotting; but when his cowardice was wrought upon to a certain
+pitch, he would wax daring and fierce from desperation.
+
+He walked down to the village from the little gate of the Brass Castle,
+where he had talked with Mr. Dangerfield, appointing eight o'clock next
+morning for making the deposition; late now for all purposes; but to
+nail him to a line of _vivá voce_ evidence when he should come to be
+examined on Charles Nutter's approaching trial. The whole way along he
+walked with the piece of silver, which Mr. Paul Dangerfield had given
+him, griped tight in his crooked fingers, in his breeches' pocket--no
+change in his grim and sinister face--no turn of the head--no side
+glance of the eye--all dark, rigid, and tense.
+
+The mechanism of long habit brought him round the corner to the door of
+the Salmon House, the 'public' facing, but with the length of the street
+interposing, the Phoenix, whose lights were visible through and under
+the branches of the village tree. His mind wandered back to the Mills
+with a shock, and glided stealthily past the Brass Castle without
+dwelling there, and he looked down the street. Over the bridge at the
+Elms, lay death in its awful purity. At his left, in the Gray Stone
+House, was Doctor Sturk--the witness with sealed lips--the victim of
+Charles Archer's mysterious prowess; and behind lay the church-yard,
+and the quiet little church with that vault and nameless coffin.
+Altogether, the suggestions and associations about him were not cheerful
+or comfortable. He squeezed the silver--Dangerfield's little
+remembrance--with a furious strain, and ground his teeth.
+
+'I'm like a man surrounded. I wish I was out of it all!' he muttered,
+with a care-worn glance.
+
+So he entered the public-house.
+
+There was not much business doing. Three friends, Smithfield dealers, or
+some such folk, talking loudly over their liquor of prices and
+prospects; and one fat fellow, by the fire, smoking a pipe, with a large
+glass of punch at his elbow.
+
+'Ah, then, Mr. Irons, an' is it yourself that's in it? and where in the
+world wor ye all this time?' said the landlady.
+
+'Business, Ma'am, business, Mrs. Molloy.'
+
+'An' there's your chair waitin' for you beside the fire, Mr. Irons, this
+month an' more--a cowld evening--and we all wondherin' what in the wide
+world was gone widg ye--this I do'no how long.'
+
+'Thank ye, Ma'am--a pipe and a glass o' punch.'
+
+Irons was always a man of few words, and his laconics did not strike
+Mistress Molloy as anything very strange. So she wiped the little table
+at his side, and with one foot on the fender, and his elbow on his knee,
+he smoked leisurely into the fire-place.
+
+To look at his face you would have supposed he was thinking; but it was
+only that sort of foggy vacuity which goes by the name of 'a brown
+study.' He never thought very clearly or connectedly; and his apathetic
+reveries, when his mood was gloomy, were furnished forth in a barren and
+monotonous way, with only two or three frightful figures, and a dismal
+scenery that seldom shifted.
+
+The three gentlemen at the table called for more liquor, and the stout
+personage, sitting opposite to Irons, dropped into their talk, having
+smoked out his pipe, and their conversation became more general and
+hilarious; but Irons scarce heard it. Curiosity is an idle minx, and a
+soul laden like the clerk's has no entertainment for her. But when one
+of the three gentlemen who sat together--an honest but sad-looking
+person with a flaxen wig, and a fat, florid face--placing his hand in
+the breast of his red plush waistcoat, and throwing himself back in his
+chair, struck up a dismal tune, with a certain character of psalmody in
+it, the clerk's ear was charmed for a moment, and he glanced on the
+singer and sipped some punch; and the ballad, rude and almost rhymeless,
+which he chanted had an undefined and unpleasant fascination for Irons.
+It was thus:--
+
+  'A man there was near Ballymooney,
+    Was guilty of a deed o' blood,
+  For thravellin' alongside iv ould Tim Rooney.
+    He kilt him in a lonesome wood.
+
+  'He took his purse, and his hat and cravat.
+    And stole his buckles and his prayer-book, too;
+  And neck-and-heels, like a cruel savage,
+    His corpus through the wood he drew.
+
+  'He pult him over to a big bog-hole,
+    And sunk him undher four-foot o' wather,
+  And built him down wid many a thumpin' stone.
+    And slipt the bank out on the corpus afther.'
+
+Here the singer made a little pause, and took a great pull at the
+beer-can, and Irons looked over his shoulder at the minstrel; but his
+uneasy and malignant glance encountered only the bottom of the vessel;
+and so he listened for more, which soon came thus:--
+
+  'An' says he, "Tim Rooney, you're there, my boy,
+    Kep' down in the bog-hole wid the force iv suction,
+  An' tisn't myself you'll throuble or annoy,
+    To the best o' my opinion, to the resurrection."
+
+  'With that, on he walks to the town o' Drumgoole,
+    And sot by the fire in an inn was there;
+  And sittin' beside him, says the ghost--"You fool!
+    'Tis myself's beside ye, Shamus, everywhere."'
+
+At this point the clerk stood up, and looked once more at the songster,
+who was taking a short pull again, with a suspicious, and somewhat angry
+glance. But the unconscious musician resumed--
+
+  '"Up through the wather your secret rises;
+    The stones won't keep it, and it lifts the mould,
+  An' it tracks your footsteps, and yoar fun surprises
+    An' it sits at the fire beside you black and cowld.
+
+  '"At prayers, at dances, or at wake or hurling;
+    At fair, or funeral, or where you may;
+  At your going out, and at your returning,
+    'Tis I'll be with you to your dying day."'
+
+'Is there much more o' that?' demanded Irons, rather savagely.
+
+The thirsty gentleman in the red plush waistcoat was once more, as he
+termed it, 'wetting his whistle;' but one of his comrades responded
+tartly enough--
+
+'I'd like there was--an' if you mislike it, neighbour, there's the
+door.'
+
+If he expected a quarrel, however, it did not come; and he saw by
+Irons's wandering eye, fierce as it looked, that his thoughts for the
+moment were elsewhere. And just then the songster, having wiped his
+mouth in his coat-sleeve, started afresh in these terms--
+
+  '"You'll walk the world with a dreadful knowledge,
+    And a heavy heart and a frowning brow;
+  And thinking deeper than a man in college,
+    Your eye will deaden, and your back will bow.
+
+  '"And when the pariod iv your life is over,
+    The frightful hour of judgment then will be;
+  And, Shamus Hanlon, heavy on your shoulder,
+    I'll lay my cowld hand, and you'll go wid me."'
+
+This awful ditty died away in the prolonged drone which still finds
+favour in the ears of our Irish rustic musicians, and the company now
+began to talk of congenial themes, murders, ghosts, and retributions,
+and the horrid tune went dismally booming on in Mr. Irons's ear.
+
+Trifling, and apparently wholly accidental, as was this occurrence, the
+musical and moral treat had a very permanent effect upon the fortunes of
+Irons, and those of other persons who figure in our story. Mr. Irons had
+another and another glass of punch. They made him only more malign and
+saturnine. He sat in his corner by the fire, silent and dismal; and no
+one cared what was passing in the brain behind that black and scowling
+mask. He paid sternly and furiously, like a villain who has lost at
+play; and without a 'good-night,' or any other leave taking, glided
+ominously from the room; and the gentlemen who carried on the discourse
+and convivialities of the Salmon House, followed him with a gibe or two,
+and felt the pleasanter for the removal of that ungracious presence.
+
+A few minutes later, Mr. Lowe stood on the hall-door step, and calling
+to his man, gave him a little note and some silver, and a message--very
+impressively repeated--and the groom touched his hat, and buttoned up
+his coat about his neck, the wind being from the east, and he started,
+at something very near a gallop, for Dublin.
+
+There was a man at the door of the Salmon House, who, with a taciturn
+and saturnine excitement, watched the unusual bustle going on at the
+door-steps of Doctor Sturk's dwelling. This individual had been drinking
+there for a while; and having paid his shot, stood with his back to the
+wall, and his hands in his pockets, profoundly agitated, and with a
+chaos of violent and unshaped thoughts rising and rolling in his
+darkened brain.
+
+After Lowe went into the house again, seeing the maid still upon the
+steps, talking with Mr. Moore, the barber, who was making his lingering
+adieux there, this person drew near, and just as the tonsor made his
+final farewell, and strode down the street towards his own dwelling, he
+presented himself in time to arrest the retreat of the damsel.
+
+'By your leave, Mistress Katty,' said he, laying his hand on the iron
+rail of the door-steps.
+
+'Oh, good jewel! an' is that yourself, Mr. Irons? And where in the world
+wor you this month an' more?'
+
+'Business--nothin'--in Mullingar--an' how's the docthor to-night?'
+
+The clerk spoke a little thickly, as he commonly did on leaving the
+Salmon House.
+
+'He's elegant, my dear--beyant the beyants--why, he's sittin' up,
+dhrinking chicken-broth, and talking law-business with Mr. Lowe.'
+
+'He's talkin'!'
+
+'Ay is he, and Mr. Lowe just this minute writ down all about the way he
+come by the breakin' of his skull in the park, and we'll have great
+doings on the head of it; for the master swore to it, and Doctor
+Toole----'
+
+'An'who done it?' demanded Irons, ascending a step, and grasping the
+iron rail.
+
+'I couldn't hear--nor no one, only themselves.'
+
+'An' who's that rode down the Dublin road this minute?'
+
+'That's Mr. Lowe's man; 'tis what he's sent him to Dublin wid a note.'
+
+'I see,' said Irons, with a great oath, which seemed to the maid wholly
+uncalled for; and he came up another step, and held the iron rail and
+shook it, like a man grasping a battle-axe, and stared straight at her,
+with a look so strange, and a visage so black, that she was
+half-frightened.
+
+'A what's the matther wid you, Misther Irons?' she demanded.
+
+But he stared on in silence, scowling through her face at vacancy, and
+swaying slightly as he griped the metal banister.
+
+'I _will_,' he muttered, with another most unclerklike oath, and he took
+Katty by the hand, and shook it slowly in his own cold, damp grasp as he
+asked, with the same intense and forbidding look,
+
+'Is Mr. Lowe in the house still?'
+
+'He is, himself and Doctor Toole, in the back parlour.'
+
+'Whisper him, Katty, this minute, there's a man has a thing to tell
+him.'
+
+'What about?' enquired Katty.
+
+'About a great malefactor.'
+
+Katty paused, with her mouth open, expecting more.
+
+'Tell him now; at once, woman; you don't know what delay may cost.'
+
+He spoke impetuously, and with a bitter sort of emphasis, like a man in
+a hurry to commit himself to a course, distrusting his own resolution.
+
+She was frightened at his sudden fierceness, and drew back into the hall
+and he with her, and he shut the door with a clang behind him, and then
+looked before him, stunned and wild, like a man called up from his bed
+into danger.
+
+'Thank God. I'm in for it,' muttered he, with a shudder and a sardonic
+grin, and he looked for a moment something like that fine image of the
+Wandering Jew, given us by Gustave Doreé, the talisman of his curse
+dissolved, and he smiling cynically in the terrible light of the
+judgment day.
+
+The woman knocked at the parlour door, and Lowe opened it.
+
+'Who's here?' he asked, looking at Irons, whose face he remembered,
+though he forgot to whom it belonged.
+
+'I'm Zekiel Irons, the parish-clerk, please your worship, and all I want
+is ten minutes alone with your honour.'
+
+'For what purpose?' demanded the magistrate, eyeing him sharply.
+
+'To tell you all about a damned murder.'
+
+'Hey--why--who did it?'
+
+'Charles Archer,' he answered; and screwed up his mouth with a
+convulsive grimace, glaring bloodlessly at the justice.
+
+'Ha! Charles Archer! I think we know something already about that.'
+
+'I don't think you do, though; and by your leave, you'll promise, if I
+bring it home to him, you'll see me safe through it. 'Tis what I'm the
+only witness living that knows all about it.'
+
+'Well, what is it about?'
+
+'The murder of Mr. Beauclerc, that my Lord Dunoran was tried and found
+guilty for.'
+
+'Why, all very good; but that did not happen in Ireland.'
+
+'No. At Newmarket, the "Pied Horse."'
+
+'Ay, in England. I know, and that's out of our jurisdiction.'
+
+'I don't care. I'll go to London if you like--to
+Bow-street--anywhere--so as I make sure to hang him; for my life is
+worse than death while he's at this side of the grave--and I'd rather be
+in my coffin--I would--than live within five miles of him. Anyway,
+you'll hear what I have to say, and to _swear_, and send me safe across
+the water to Bow-street, or wherever else you think best; for, if he has
+his liberty, and gets sight o' me again, I'm a dead man.'
+
+'Come in here, Mr. Irons, and take a chair,' said the justice.
+
+Doctor Toole was in the room, in a balloon-backed chair, regaling
+himself with a long pipe, and Mr. Lowe shut the door.
+
+'We have another deposition, doctor, to take; Mr. Irons, here, is
+prepared to swear informations of very singular importance.'
+
+'Irons, hollo! from what planet did you drop to-night?'
+
+'Mullingar, Sir.'
+
+'Nothing about the burning of the old woman at Tyrrell's Pass, eh?'
+
+'No--'tis an old story. I don't care what comes of it, I'm innocent,
+only you'll say I kept it too long to myself. But you can't touch my
+life. I'm more afeard of him than you, and with good cause; but I think
+he's in a corner now, and I'll speak out and take my chance, and you
+mustn't allow me to be murdered.'
+
+By this time Lowe had procured writing materials, and all being ready,
+he and the curious and astonished doctor heard a story very like what we
+have already heard from the same lips.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XC.
+
+MR. PAUL DANGERFIELD HAS SOMETHING ON HIS MIND, AND CAPTAIN DEVEREUX
+RECEIVES A MESSAGE.
+
+
+Mr. Dangerfield having parted with Irons, entered the little garden or
+shrubbery, which skirted on either side the short gravel walk, which
+expanded to a miniature court-yard before the door of the Brass Castle.
+He flung the little iron gate to with a bitter clang; so violent that
+the latch sprang from its hold, and the screaking iron swung quivering
+open again behind him.
+
+Like other men who have little religion, Mr. Paul Dangerfield had a sort
+of vague superstition. He was impressible by omens, though he scorned
+his own weakness, and sneered at, and quizzed it sometimes in the
+monologues of his ugly solitude. The swinging open of the outer gate of
+his castle sounded uncomfortably behind him, like an invitation to
+shapeless danger to step in after him. The further he left it behind
+him, the more in his spirit was the gaping void between his two little
+piers associated with the idea of exposure, defencelessness, and
+rashness. This feeling grew so strong, that he turned about before he
+reached his hall-door, and, with a sensation akin to fury, retraced the
+fifteen or twenty steps that intervened, and grasped the cold iron with
+the fiercest tension of his sinews, as if it had resented his first
+violence by a dogged defiance of his wishes, and spluttering a curse
+between his teeth, he dashed it to again--and again, as once more it
+sprang open from the shock.
+
+'Who's master _now_?' snarled Mr. Paul Dangerfield, through his clenched
+teeth, and smiting the senseless iron with a vindictive swoop of his
+cane. I fancy his face at this moment had some of the peculiar lines and
+corrugations which we observe in that of Retzsch's Mephistopheles, when
+he gripes the arm of Faust to drag him from Margaret's cell. So he stood
+behind his iron grating, glaring and grinning defiance into the
+darkness, with his fingers clenched hard upon his cane.
+
+Black Dillon's failure was a blow to the progress of his plans. It
+incensed him. 'That d----d outcast! That _he_ should presume so to treat
+a man who could master him so easily at any game, and buy and sell him
+body and soul, and had actually bargained to give him five hundred
+guineas--the needy, swinish miscreant! and paid him earnest beside--the
+stupid cheat! Drink--dice--women! Why, five hundred guineas made him
+free of his filthy paradise for a twelvemonth, and the leprous oaf could
+not quit his impurities for an hour, and keep the appointment that was
+to have made him master of his heart's desires.'
+
+At his hall-door he paused, listening intently, with his spectacles
+glimmering toward Chapelizod, for the sound of a distant step; but there
+was no messenger afoot. He heard only the chill sigh of the air through
+the leafless branches.
+
+Mr. Dangerfield had not his key with him; and he beat an unnecessarily
+loud and long tattoo upon his door, and before it could possibly have
+been answered, he thundered a second through the passages.
+
+Mrs. Jukes knew the meaning of that harsh and rabid summons. 'There was
+something on the master's mind.' His anxieties never depressed him as
+they did other men, but strung up his energies to a point of mental
+tension and exasperation which made him terrible to his domestics. It
+was not his acts--his conduct was always under control, but chiefly his
+looks, and accents, and an influence that seemed to take possession of
+him at such times that rendered him undefinably formidable to his
+servants.
+
+'Ha!--mighty obleeging (he so pronounced the word)--let in at last--cold
+outside, Ma'am. You've let out the fire I suppose?'
+
+His tones were like the bark of a wolf, and there was a devilish smirk
+in his white face, as he made her a mock salutation, and glided into his
+parlour. The fire was bright enough, however, as Mrs. Jukes was much
+relieved to see; and dropping a courtesy she enquired whether he would
+like a dish of tea, or anything?
+
+'No, Ma'am!' he snarled.
+
+'Would he like his dressing-gown and slippers?'
+
+'No, Ma'am,' again. So she dropped another courtesy, and sneaked away to
+the kitchen, with short, noiseless steps, and heard Mr. Dangerfield shut
+the door sharply.
+
+His servants were afraid of him. They could not quite comprehend him.
+They knew it was vain trying to deceive him, and had quite given up
+lying and prevaricating. Neither would he stand much talking. When they
+prattled he brought them to the point sternly; and whenever a real
+anxiety rested on his mind he became pretty nearly diabolical. On the
+whole, however, they had a strange sort of liking for him. They were
+proud of his wealth, and of his influence with great people. And though
+he would not allow them to rob, disobey, or deceive him, yet he used
+them handsomely, paid like a prince, was a considerate master, and made
+them comfortable.
+
+Now Mr. Dangerfield poked up his fire and lighted his candles. Somehow,
+the room looked smaller he thought than it had ever seemed before. He
+was not nervous--nothing could bring him to that; but his little
+altercation with the iron gate, and some uncomfortable thoughts had
+excited him. It was an illusion merely--but the walls seemed to have
+closed in a foot or two, and the ceiling to have dropped down
+proportionably, and he felt himself confined and oppressed.
+
+'My head's a little bit heated--_ira furo brevis_,' and he sneered a
+solitary laugh, more like himself, and went out into his tiny hall, and
+opened the door, and stood on the step for air, enjoying the cold wind
+that played about his temples. Presently he heard the hollow clink of
+two pair of feet walking toward the village. The pedestrians were
+talking eagerly; and he thought, as they passed the little iron gate of
+his domain, he heard his own name mentioned, and then that of Mervyn. I
+dare say it was mere fancy; but, somehow, he did not like it, and he
+walked swiftly down to the little gate by the road side--it was only
+some twenty yards--keeping upon the grass that bounded it, to muffle the
+sound of his steps. This white phantom noiselessly stood in the shadow
+of the road side. The interlocutors had got a good way on, and were
+talking loud and volubly. But he heard nothing that concerned him from
+either again, though he waited until their steps and voices were lost in
+the distance.
+
+The cool air was pleasant about his bare temples, and Mr. Paul
+Dangerfield waited a while longer, and listened, for any sound of
+footsteps approaching from the village, but none such was audible; and
+beginning to feel a little chilly, he entered his domicile again, shut
+the hall-door, and once more found himself in the little parlour of the
+Brass Castle.
+
+His housekeeper heard his harsh voice barking down the passage at her,
+and rising with a start from her seat, cried,
+
+'At your service, Sir.'
+
+'At a quarter to twelve o'clock fetch me a sandwich, and a glass of
+absynthe, and meanwhile, don't disturb me.'
+
+And she heard him enter his little parlour, and shut the door.
+
+'There's something to vex, but nothing to threaten--nothing. It's all
+that comical dream--curse it! What tricks the brain plays us! 'Tis fair
+it should though. We work it while we please, and it plays when it may.
+The slave has his saturnalia, and flouts his tyrant. Ha, ha! 'tis time
+these follies were ended. I've something to do to-night.'
+
+So Mr. Dangerfield became himself again, and applied himself keenly to
+his business.
+
+When I first thought of framing the materials which had accumulated in
+my hands into a narrative, dear little Lily Walsingham's death was a
+sore trouble to me. 'Little' Lily I call her, but though slight, she was
+not little--rather tall, indeed.
+
+It was, however, the term I always heard connected with her pretty name
+in my boyhood, when the old people, who had remembered her very long
+ago, mentioned her, as they used, very kindly, a term of endearment that
+had belonged to her, and in virtue of the childlike charm that was about
+her, had grown up with her from childhood. I had plans for mending this
+part of the record, and marrying her to handsome Captain Devereux, and
+making him worthy of her; but somehow I could not. From very early times
+I had known the sad story. I had heard her beauty talked about in my
+childhood; the rich, clear tints, the delicate outlines, those tender
+and pleasant dimples, like the wimpling of a well; an image so pure, and
+merry, and melancholy withal, had grown before me, and in twilight
+shadows visited the now lonely haunts of her brief hours; even the old
+church, in my evening rambles along the uplands of the park, had in my
+eyes so saddened a grace in the knowledge that those slender bones lay
+beneath its shadows, and all about her was so linked in my mind with
+truth, and melancholy, and altogether so sacred, that I could not trifle
+with the story, and felt, even when I imagined it, a pang, and a
+reproach, as if I had mocked the sadness of little Lily's fate; so,
+after some ponderings and trouble of mind I gave it up, and quite
+renounced the thought.
+
+And, after all, what difference should it make? Is not the generation
+among whom her girlish lot was cast long passed away? A few years more
+or less of life. What of them now? When honest Dan Loftus cited those
+lines from the 'Song of Songs,' did he not make her sweet epitaph? Had
+she married Captain Devereux, what would her lot have been? She was not
+one of those potent and stoical spirits, who can survive the wreck of
+their best affections, and retort injury with scorn. In forming that
+simple spirit, Nature had forgotten arrogance and wrath. She would never
+have fought against the cruelty of changed affections if that or the
+treasons of an unprincipled husband had come. His love would have been
+her light and life, and when that was turned away, like a northern
+flower that has lost its sun, she would have only hung her pretty head,
+and died, in her long winter. So viewing now the ways of wisdom from a
+distance, I think I can see they were the best, and how that fair, young
+mortal, who seemed a sacrifice, was really a conqueror.
+
+Puddock and Devereux on this eventful night, as we remember, having
+shaken hands at the door-steps, turned and went up stairs together, very
+amicably again, to the captain's drawing-room.
+
+So Devereux, when they returned to his lodgings, had lost much of his
+reserve, and once on the theme of his grief, stormed on in gusts, and
+lulls, and thunder, and wild upbraidings, and sudden calms; and the
+good-natured soul of little Puddock was touched, and though he did not
+speak, he often dried his eyes quietly, for grief is conversant not with
+self, but with the dead, and whatever is generous moves us.
+
+'There's no one stirring now, Puddock--I'll put my cloak about me and
+walk over to the Elms, to ask how the rector is to-night,' said
+Devereux, muffling himself in his military mantle.
+
+It was only the restlessness of grief. Like all other pain, grief is
+haunted with the illusion that change means relief; motion is the
+instinct of escape. Puddock walked beside him, and they went swiftly and
+silently together.
+
+When they reached the other side of the bridge, and stood under the
+thorn-hedge fronting the leafless elms, Devereux was irresolute.
+
+'Would you wish _me_ to enquire?' asked Puddock. Devereux held him
+doubtfully by the arm for a moment or two, and then said gently--
+
+'No, I thank you, Puddock--I'll go--yes--I'll go myself;' and so Captain
+Devereux went up to the door.
+
+John Tracy, at the steps, told him that he thought his master wished to
+speak with him; but he was not quite sure. The tall muffled figure
+therefore waited at the door while John went in to tell his master, and
+soon returned to say that Doctor Walsingham would be much obliged to him
+to step into the study.
+
+When the doctor saw Devereux, he stood up to meet him.
+
+'I hope, Sir,' said Devereux, very humbly, 'you have forgiven me.'
+
+The doctor took his hand and shook it very hard, and said, 'There's
+nothing--we're both in sorrow. Everyone--everyone is sorry, Sir, but you
+more.'
+
+Devereux did not say anything, being moved, as I suppose. But he had
+drawn his cloak about his face, and was looking down.
+
+'There was a little message--only a word or two,' said the doctor; 'but
+everything of hers is sacred.'
+
+He turned over some papers in his desk, and chose one. It was in Lily's
+pretty handwriting.
+
+'I am charged with this little message. Oh, my darling!' and the old man
+cried bitterly.
+
+'Pray, read it--you will understand it--'tis easily read. What a pretty
+hand it was!'
+
+So Devereux took the little paper, and read just the words which
+follow:--
+
+    'My beloved father will, I hope, if he thinks it right, tell Captain
+    Richard Devereux that I was not so unkind and thankless as I may
+    have seemed, but very grateful for his preference, of which I know,
+    in many ways, how unworthy I was. But I do not think we could have
+    been happy; and being all over, it is a great comfort to friends who
+    are separated here, that there is a place where all may meet again,
+    if God will; and as I did not see or speak with him since my dear
+    father brought his message, I wished that so much should be said,
+    and also to say a kind good-bye, and give him all good wishes.
+
+                                                            'LILIAS.'
+    'Friday evening.'
+
+
+Captain Richard Devereux read this simple little record through, and
+then he said:--
+
+'Oh, Sir, may I have it--isn't it mine?'
+
+We who have heard those wondrous aërial echoes of Killarney, when the
+breath has left the bugle and its cadences are silent, take up the
+broken links of the lost melody with an answer far away, sad and
+celestial, real, yet unreal, the fleeting yet lingering spirit of music,
+that is past and over, have something in memory by which we can
+illustrate the effect of these true voices of the thoughts and
+affections that have perished, returning for a few charmed moments
+regretfully and sweetly from the sea of eternal silence.
+
+And so that sad and clear farewell, never repeated, was long after, in
+many a lonely night, answered by the voice of Devereux.
+
+'Did she--did she know how I loved her? Oh, never, never! I'll never
+love any but you. Darling, darling--you can't die. Oh, no, no, no! Your
+place knows you still; your place is here--here--here.'
+
+And he smote his breast over that heart which, such as it was, cherished
+a pure affection for her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCI.
+
+CONCERNING CERTAIN DOCUMENTS WHICH REACHED MR. MERVYN, AND THE WITCHES'
+REVELS AT THE MILLS.
+
+
+I would be ashamed to say how, soon after Dangerfield had spoken to Mr.
+Mervyn in the church-yard on the Sunday afternoon, when he surprised him
+among the tombstones, the large-eyed young gentleman, with the long
+black hair, was at his desk, and acting upon his suggestion. But the
+_Hillsborough_ was to sail next day; and Mr. Mervyn's letter, containing
+certain queries, and an order for twenty guineas on a London house,
+glided in that packet with a favouring breeze from the Bay of Dublin, on
+its way to the London firm of Elrington Brothers.
+
+On the morning of the day whose events I have been describing in the
+last half-dozen chapters, Mr. Mervyn received his answer, which was to
+the following effect:--
+
+     'SIR,--Having made search for the Paper which you enquire
+     after, we have Found one answering your description in a General
+     way; and pursuant to your request and Direction, beg leave to
+     forward you a Copy thereof, together with a copy of a letter
+     concerning it, received by the same post from Sir Philip Drayton,
+     of Drayton Hall, Sometime our Client, and designed in Part to
+     explain his share in the matter. Your order for twenty guineas, on
+     Messrs. Trett and Penrose, hath come to hand, and been duly
+     honoured, and we thankfully Accept the same, in payment for all
+     trouble had in this matter.
+                                                 '&c, &c, &c.'
+
+The formal document which it enclosed said:--
+
+     'This is to certify that Charles Archer, Esq., aged, as shortly
+     before his death he reported himself, thirty-five years, formerly
+     of London, departed this life, on the 4th August, 1748, in his
+     lodgings, in the city of Florence, next door to the "Red Lion," and
+     over against the great entrance of the Church of the Holy Cross, in
+     the which, having conformed to the holy Roman faith, he is
+     buried.--Signed this 12th day of August, 1748.
+
+                                      'PHILIP DRAYTON, Baronet.
+                                      'GAETANO MELONI, M.D.
+                                      'ROBERT SMITH, Musician.
+
+     'We three having seen the said Charles Archer during his sickness,
+     and after his decease.'
+
+Then followed the copy of the baronet's letter to his attorneys, which
+was neither very long nor very business-like.
+
+     'Why the plague don't you make the scoundrel, Jekyl, pay? His
+     mother's dead only t'other day, and he must be full of money. I've
+     scarce a marvedy in hand, now; so let him have a writ in his, drat
+     him. About that certificate, I'm almost sorry I signed it. I've bin
+     thinking 'tis like enough I may be troubled about it. So you may
+     tell 'em I know no more only what is there avouched. No more I do.
+     He played at a faro-table here, and made a very pretty figure. But
+     I hear now from Lord Orland that there are many bad reports of him.
+     He was the chief witness against that rogue, Lord Dunoran, who
+     swallowed poison in Newgate, and, they say, leaned hard against
+     him, although he won much money of him, and swore with a
+     blood-thirsty intention. But that is neither here nor there; I mean
+     ill reports of his rogueries at play, and other doings, which, had
+     I sooner known, my name had not bin to the paper. So do not make a
+     noise about it, and maybe none will ask for't. As for Jack Jekyl,
+     why not take the shortest way with him. You're very pitiful
+     fellows; but I wish o' my conscience you'd take some pity o' me,
+     and not suffer me to be bubbled,' &c., &c.
+
+There was only a sentence or two more, referring in the same strain to
+other matters of business, of which, in the way of litigation, he seemed
+to have no lack, and the letter ended.
+
+'I'll go direct to London and see these people, and thence to Florence.
+Gaetano Meloni--he may be living--who knows? He will remember the priest
+who confessed him. A present to a religious house may procure--in a
+matter of justice, and where none can be prejudiced, for the case is
+very special--a dispensation, if he be the very Charles Archer--and he
+may--why not?--have disclosed all on his death-bed. First, I shall see
+Mr. Dangerfield--then those attorneys; and next make search in Florence;
+and, with the aid of whatever I can glean there, and from Irons,
+commence in England the intensest scrutiny to which a case was ever yet
+subjected.'
+
+Had it not been so late when he found this letter on his return, he
+would have gone direct with it to the Brass Castle; but that being quite
+out of the question, he read it again and again. It is wonderful how
+often a man will spell over and over the same commonplace syllables, if
+they happen to touch a subject vitally concerning himself, and what
+theories and speculations he will build upon the accidental turn of a
+phrase, or the careless dash of a pen.
+
+As we see those wild animals walk their cages in a menagerie, with the
+fierce instincts of suppressed action rolling in the vexed eye and
+vibrating in every sinew, even so we behold this hero of the flashing
+glance and sable locks treading, in high excitement, the floor of the
+cedar parlour. Every five minutes a new hope--a new conjecture, and
+another scrutiny of the baronet's letter, or of the certificate of
+Archer's death, and hour after hour speeding by in the wild chase of
+successive chimeras.
+
+While Mr. Justice Lowe's servant was spurring into town at a pace which
+made the hollow road resound, and struck red flashes from the stones, up
+the river, at the Mills, Mistress Mary Matchwell was celebrating a sort
+of orgie. Dirty Davy and she were good friends again. Such friendships
+are subject to violent vicissitudes, and theirs had been interrupted by
+a difference of opinion, of which the lady had made a note with a brass
+candlestick over his eye. Dirty Davy's expressive feature still showed
+the green and yellow tints of convalescence. But there are few
+philosophers who forgive so frankly as a thorough scoundrel, when it is
+his interest to kiss and be friends. The candlestick was not more
+innocent of all unpleasant feeling upon the subject than at that moment
+was Dirty Davy.
+
+Dirty Davy had brought with him his chief clerk, who was a facetious
+personage, and boozy, and on the confidential footing of a common
+rascality with his master, who, after the fashion of Harry V. in his
+nonage, condescended in his frolics and his cups to men of low estate;
+and Mary Matchwell, though fierce and deep enough, was not averse on
+occasion, to partake of a bowl of punch in sardonic riot, with such
+agreeable company.
+
+Charles Nutter's unexpected coming to life no more affected Mary
+Matchwell's claim than his supposed death did her spirits. Widow or
+wife, she was resolved to make good her position, and the only thing she
+seriously dreaded was that an intelligent jury, an eminent judge, and an
+adroit hangman, might remove him prematurely from the sphere of his
+conjugal duties, and forfeit his worldly goods to the crown.
+
+Next morning, however, a writ or a process of some sort, from which
+great things were expected, was to issue from the court in which her
+rights were being vindicated. Upon the granting of this, Mistress
+Matchwell and Dirty Davy--estranged for some time, as we have
+said,--embraced. She forgot the attorney's disrespectful language, and
+he the lady's brass candlestick, and, over the punch-bowl of oblivion
+and vain glory, they celebrated their common victory.
+
+Under advice, M. M. had acquiesced, pending her vigorous legal
+proceedings, in poor little Sally Nutter's occupying her bed-room in the
+house for a little while longer. The beleagured lady was comforted in
+her strait by the worthy priest, by honest Dr. Toole, and not least, by
+that handsome and stalworth nymph, the daring Magnolia. That blooming
+Amazon was twice on the point of provoking the dismal sorceress, who
+kept her court in the parlour of the Mills, to single combat. But
+fortune willed it otherwise, and each time the duel had been interrupted
+in its formal inception, and had gone no further than that spirited
+prologue in which the female sex so faithfully preserve the tradition of
+those thundering dialogues which invariably precede the manual business
+of the Homeric fray.
+
+This was the eve of a great triumph and a memorable gala. Next morning,
+Sally Nutter was to be scalped, roasted, and eaten up, and the night was
+spent in savage whoopings, songs and dances. They had got a reprobate
+blind fiddler into the parlour, where their punch-bowl steamed--a most
+agreeable and roistering sinner, who sang indescribable songs to the
+quaver of his violin, and entertained the company with Saturnalian
+vivacity, jokes, gibes, and wicked stories. Larry Cleary, thou man of
+sin and music! methinks I see thee now. Thy ugly, cunning, pitted face,
+twitching and grinning; thy small, sightless orbs rolling in thy devil's
+merriment, and thy shining forehead red with punch.
+
+In the kitchen things were not more orderly; M. M.'s lean maid was making
+merry with the bailiff, and a fat and dreadful trollop with one
+eye--tipsy, noisy, and pugnacious.
+
+Poor little Sally Nutter and her maids kept dismal vigil in her
+bed-room. But that her neighbours and her lawyer would in no sort permit
+it, the truth is, the frightened little soul would long ago have made
+herself wings, and flown anywhere for peace and safety.
+
+It is remarkable how long one good topic, though all that may be said
+upon it has been said many scores of times, will serve the colloquial
+purposes of the good folk of the kitchen or the nursery. There was
+scarcely half-an-hour in the day during which the honest maids and their
+worthy little mistress did not discuss the dreadful Mary Matchwell. They
+were one and all, though in different degrees, indescribably afraid of
+her. Her necromantic pretensions gave an indistinctness and poignancy to
+their horror. She seemed to know, by a diabolical intuition, what
+everybody was about--she was so noiseless and stealthy, and always at
+your elbow when you least expected. Those large dismal eyes of hers,
+they said, glared green in the dark like a cat's; her voice was
+sometimes so coarse and deep, and her strength so unnatural, that they
+were often on the point of believing her to be a man in disguise. She
+was such a blasphemer, too; and could drink what would lay a trooper
+under the table, and yet show it in nothing but the superintensity of
+her Satanic propensities. She was so malignant, and seemed to bear to
+all God's creatures so general a malevolence, that her consistent and
+superlative wickedness cowed and paralysed them. The enigma grew more
+horrible every day and night, and they felt, or fancied, a sort of
+influence stealing over them which benumbed their faculty of resistance,
+and altogether unstrung their nerves.
+
+The grand compotation going on in the parlour waxed louder and wilder as
+the night wore on. There were unseen guests there, elate and inspiring,
+who sat with the revellers--phantoms who attend such wassail, and keep
+the ladle of the punch-bowl clinking, the tongue of the songster glib
+and tuneful, and the general mirth alive and furious. A few honest folk,
+with the gift of a second sight in such matters, discover their uncanny
+presence--leprous impurity, insane blasphemy, and the stony grin of
+unearthly malice--and keep aloof.
+
+To heighten their fun, this jovial company bellowed their abominable
+ballads in the hall, one of them about 'Sally M'Keogh,' whose sweetheart
+was hanged, and who cut her throat with his silver-mounted razor, and
+they hooted their gibes up the stairs. And at last Mary Matchwell,
+provoked by the passive quietude of her victim, summoned the three
+revellers from the kitchen, and invaded the upper regions at their
+head--to the unspeakable terror of poor Sally Nutter--and set her demon
+fiddler a scraping, and made them and Dirty Davy's clerk dance a frantic
+reel on the lobby outside her bed-room door, locked and bolted inside,
+you may be sure.
+
+In the midst of this monstrous festivity and uproar, there came, all on
+a sudden, a reverberating double-knock at the hall-door, so loud and
+long that every hollow, nook, and passage of the old house rang again.
+Loud and untimely as was the summons, it had a character, not of riot,
+but of alarm and authority. The uproar was swallowed instantly in
+silence. For a second only the light of the solitary candle shone upon
+the pale, scowling features of Mary Matchwell, and she quenched its wick
+against the wall. So the Walpurgis ended in darkness, and the company
+instinctively held their breaths.
+
+There was a subdued hum of voices outside, and a tramping on the crisp
+gravel, and the champing and snorting of horses, too, were audible.
+
+'Does none o' yez see who's in it?' said the blind fiddler.
+
+'Hold your tongue,' hissed Mary Matchwell with a curse, and visiting the
+cunning pate of the musician with a smart knock of the candlestick.
+
+'I wisht I had your thumb undher my grinder,' said the fiddler, through
+his teeth, 'whoever you are.'
+
+But the rest was lost in another and a louder summons at the hall-door,
+and a voice of authority cried sternly,
+
+'Why don't you open the door?--hollo! there--I can't stay here all
+night.'
+
+'Open to him, Madam, I recommend you,' said Dirty Davy, in a hard
+whisper; 'will I go?'
+
+'Not a step; not a word;' and Mary Matchwell griped his wrist.
+
+But a window in Mrs. Nutter's room was opened, and Moggy's voice cried
+out--
+
+'Don't go, Sir; for the love o' goodness, don't go. Is it Father Roach
+that's in it?'
+
+''Tis I, woman--Mr. Lowe--open the door, I've a word or two to say.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCII.
+
+THE WHER-WOLF.
+
+
+About a quarter of an hour before this, Mr. Paul Dangerfield was packing
+two trunks in his little parlour, and burning letters industriously in
+the fire, when his keen ear caught a sound at which a prophetic instinct
+within him vibrated alarm. A minute or two before he had heard a
+stealthy footstep outside. Then he heard the cook walk along the
+passage, muttering to herself, to the hall-door, where there arose a
+whispering. He glanced round his shoulder at the window. It was barred.
+Then lifting the table and its load lightly from before him, he stood
+erect, fronting the door, and listening intently. Two steps on tip-toe
+brought him to it, and he placed his fingers on the key. But he
+recollected a better way. There was one of those bolts that rise and
+fall perpendicularly in a series of rings, and bar or open the door by a
+touch to a rope connected with it by a wire and a crank or two.
+
+He let the bolt softly drop into its place; the rope was within easy
+reach, and with his spectacles gleaming white on the door, he kept
+humming a desultory tune, like a man over some listless occupation.
+
+Mr. Paul Dangerfield was listening intently, and stepped as softly as a
+cat. Then, with a motion almost elegant, he dropt his right hand lightly
+into his coat-pocket, where it lay still in ambuscade.
+
+There came a puffing night air along the passage, and rattled the door;
+then a quiet shutting of the hall-door, and a shuffling and breathing
+near the parlour.
+
+Dangerfield, humming his idle tune with a white and sharpening face, and
+a gaze that never swerved, extended his delicately-shaped fingers to the
+rope, and held it in his left hand. At this moment the door-handle was
+suddenly turned outside, and the door sustained a violent jerk.
+
+'Who's there?' demanded the harsh, prompt accents of Dangerfield,
+suspending his minstrelsy. 'I'm busy.'
+
+'Open the door--we've a piece of intelligence to gi'e ye.'
+
+'Certainly--but don't be tedious.' (He drew the string, and the bolt
+shot up). 'Come in, Sir.'
+
+The door flew open; several strange faces presented themselves on the
+threshold, and at the same instant, a stern voice exclaimed--
+
+'Charles Archer, I arrest you in the king's name.'
+
+The last word was lost in the stunning report of a pistol, and the
+foremost man fell with a groan. A second pistol already gleamed in
+Dangerfield's hand, and missed. With a spring like a tiger he struck the
+hesitating constable in the throat, laying his scalp open against the
+door-frame, and stamping on his face as he fell; and clutching the third
+by the cravat, he struck at his breast with a knife, already in his
+hand. But a pistol-shot from Lowe struck his right arm, scorching the
+cloth; the dagger and the limb dropped, and he staggered back, but
+recovered his equilibrium, and confronted them with a white skull-like
+grin, and a low 'ha, ha, ha!'
+
+It was all over, and the silver spectacles lay shattered on the floor,
+like a broken talisman, and a pair of gray, strangely-set, wild eyes
+glared upon them.
+
+The suddenness of his assault, his disproportioned physical strength and
+terrific pluck, for a second or two, confounded his adversaries; but he
+was giddy--his right arm dead by his side. He sat down in a chair
+confronting them, his empty right hand depending near to the floor, and
+a thin stream of blood already trickling down his knuckles, his face
+smiling, and shining whitely with the damp of anguish, and the cold low
+'ha, ha, ha!' mocking the reality of the scene.
+
+'Heinous old villain!' said Lowe, advancing on him.
+
+'Well, gentlemen, I've shown fight, eh?--and now I suppose you want my
+watch, and money, and keys--eh?'
+
+'Read the warrant, Sir,' said Lowe, sternly.
+
+'Warrant! hey--warrant?--why, this is something new--will you be so good
+as to give me a glass of water--thank you--hold the paper a moment
+longer--I can't get this arm up.' With his left hand he set down the
+tumbler-glass, and then held up the warrant.
+
+'Thank ye. Well, this warrant's for Charles Archer.'
+
+'_Alias_ Paul Dangerfield--if you read, Sir.'
+
+'Thank you--yes--I see--that's news to me. Oh! Mr. Lowe--I did not see
+_you_--I haven't hurt you, I hope? Why the plague do you come at these
+robbing hours? We'd have all fared better had you come by daylight.'
+
+Lowe did not take the trouble to answer him.
+
+'I believe you've _killed_ that constable in the exercise of his duty,
+Sir; the man's dead,' said Lowe, sternly.
+
+'Another gloss on my text; why invade me like housebreakers?' said
+Dangerfield with a grim scoff.
+
+'No violence, Sirrah, on your peril--the prisoner's wounded,' said Lowe,
+catching the other fellow by the collar and thrusting him back: he had
+gathered himself up giddily, and swore he'd have the scoundrel's life.
+
+'Well, gentlemen, you have made a _false_ arrest, and shot me while
+defending my person--_you_--four to one!--and caused the death of your
+accomplice; what more do you want?'
+
+'You must accompany us to the county gaol, Sir; where I'll hand in your
+committal.'
+
+'Dr. Toole, I presume, may dress my arm?'
+
+'Certainly, Sir.'
+
+'Good! what more?'
+
+'There's a coach at the door, you'll please to step in, Sir.'
+
+'Good, Sir, again; and now permit me to make a remark. I submit, Sir, to
+all this violence, and will go with you, under protest, and with a
+distinct warning to you, Mr. Lowe, and to your respectable body-guard of
+prize-fighters and ruffians--how many?--two, four, five, six, upon my
+honour, counting the gentleman upon the floor, and yourself, Sir--seven,
+pitted against one old fellow, ha, ha, ha!--a distinct warning, Sir,
+that I hold you accountable for this outrage, and all its consequences.'
+
+'See to that man; I'm afraid he has killed him,', said Lowe.
+
+He was not dead, however, but, as it seemed, suffering intense pain, and
+unable to speak except in a whisper. They got him up with his back to
+the wall.
+
+'You issue a warrant against another man whom I believe to be dead, and
+execute it upon _me_--rather an Irish proceeding, Sir; but, perhaps, if
+not considered impertinent, you will permit me to enquire what is the
+particular offence which that other person has committed, and for which
+you have been pleased to shoot me?'
+
+'You may read it on the warrant, Sir; 'tis for a murderous assault on
+Doctor Sturk.'
+
+'Hey? better and better! why, I'm ready to pay five hundred guineas to
+make him speak; and you'll soon find how expensive a blunder you've
+committed, Sir,' observed Dangerfield, with a glare of menace through
+his hollow smile.
+
+'I'll stand that hazard, Sir,' rejoined Lowe, with a confident sneer.
+
+The dreadful sounds of the brief scuffle had called up the scared and
+curious servants. The smell of the pistol-smoke, the sight of blood, the
+pale faces of the angry and agitated men, and the spectacle of their
+master, mangled, ghastly, and smiling, affrighted Mrs. Jukes; and the
+shock and horror expressed themselves in tears and distracted
+lamentations.
+
+'I must have your keys, Sir, if you please,' said Mr. Lowe.
+
+'A word first--here, Jukes,' he addressed his housekeeper; 'stop that,
+you fool!' (she was blubbering loudly) ''tis a mistake, I tell you; I
+shall be back in an hour. Meanwhile, here are my keys; let Mr. Lowe,
+there, have them whenever he likes--all my papers, Sir (turning to
+Lowe). I've nothing, thank Heaven! to conceal. Pour some port wine into
+that large glass.'
+
+And he drank it off, and looked better; he appeared before on the point
+of fainting.
+
+'I beg pardon, gentlemen--will you drink some wine?'
+
+'I thank you, no, Sir. You'll be good enough to give me those keys' (to
+the housekeeper).
+
+'Give them--certainly,' said Dangerfield.
+
+'Which of them opens the chest of drawers in your master's bed-chamber
+facing the window?' He glanced at Dangerfield, and thought that he was
+smiling wider, and his jaws looked hollower, as he repeated--
+
+'If she does not know it, I'll be happy to show it you.'
+
+With a surly nod, Mr. Lowe requited the prisoner's urbanity, and
+followed Mrs. Jukes into her master's bed-chamber; there was an
+old-fashioned oak chest of drawers facing the window.
+
+'Where's Captain Cluffe?' enquired Lowe.
+
+'He stopped at his lodgings, on the way,' answered the man; 'and said
+he'd be after us in five minutes.'
+
+'Well, be good enough, Madam, to show me the key of these drawers.'
+
+So he opened the drawers in succession, beginning at the top, and
+searching each carefully, running his fingers along the inner edges, and
+holding the candle very close, and grunting his disappointment as he
+closed and locked each in its order.
+
+In the mean time, Doctor Toole was ushered into the little parlour,
+where sat the disabled master of the Brass Castle. The fussy little
+mediciner showed in his pale, stern countenance, a sense of the shocking
+reverse and transformation which the great man of the village had
+sustained.
+
+'A rather odd situation you find me in, Doctor Toole,' said white Mr.
+Dangerfield, in his usual harsh tones, but with a cold moisture shining
+on his face; 'under _duresse_, Sir, in my own parlour, charged with
+murdering a gentleman whom I have spent five hundred guineas to bring to
+speech and life, and myself half murdered by a justice of the peace and
+his discriminating followers, ha, ha, ha! I'm suffering a little pain,
+Sir; will you be so good as to lend me your assistance?'
+
+Toole proceeded to his task much more silently than was his wont, and
+stealing, from time to time, a glance at his noticeable patient with the
+wild gray eyes, as people peep curiously at what is terrible and
+repulsive.
+
+''Tis broken, of course,' said Dangerfield.
+
+'Why, yes, Sir,' answered Toole; 'the upper arm--a bullet, Sir. H'm,
+ha--yes; it lies only under the skin, Sir.'
+
+And with a touch of the sharp steel it dropped into the doctor's
+fingers, and lay on a bloody bit of lint on the table by the
+wine-glasses. Toole applied his sticking-plaster, and extemporised a set
+of splints, and had the terrified cook at his elbow tearing up one of
+her master's shirts into strips for bandages; and so went on neatly and
+rapidly with his shifty task.
+
+In the mean time, Cluffe had arrived. He was a little bit huffed and
+grand at being nailed as an evidence, upon a few words carelessly, or,
+if you will, confidentially dropped at his own mess-table, where Lowe
+chanced to be a guest; and certainly with no suspicion that his little
+story could in any way be made to elucidate the mystery of Sturk's
+murder. He would not have minded, perhaps, so much, had it not been that
+it brought to light and memory again the confounded ducking sustained by
+him and Puddock, and which, as an officer and a very fine fellow, he
+could not but be conscious was altogether an undignified reminiscence.
+
+'Yes, the drawers were there, he supposed; those were the very ones; he
+stooped but little; it must have been the top one, or the next to it.
+The thing was about as long as a drumstick, like a piece of whip handle,
+with a spring in it; it bent this way and that, as he dried it in the
+towel, and at the butt it was ribbed round and round with metal
+rings--devilish heavy.'
+
+So they examined the drawers again, took everything out of them, and
+Captain Cluffe, not thinking it a soldier-like occupation, tacitly
+declined being present at it, and, turning on his heel, stalked out of
+the room.
+
+'What's become of it, Ma'am?' said Lowe, suddenly and sternly, turning
+upon Mrs. Jukes, and fixing his eyes on hers. There was no guilty
+knowledge there.
+
+'He never had any such thing that I know of,' she answered stoutly; 'and
+nothing could be hid from me in these drawers, Sir; for I had the key,
+except when it lay in the lock, and it must ha' been his horsewhip; it
+has some rings like of leather round it, and he used to lay it on these
+drawers.'
+
+Cluffe was, perhaps, a little bit stupid, and Lowe knew it; but it was
+the weakness of that good magistrate to discover in a witness for the
+crown many mental and moral attributes which he would have failed to
+recognise in him had he appeared for the prisoner.
+
+'And where's that whip, now?' demanded Lowe.
+
+'By the hall-door, with his riding-coat, Sir,' answered the bewildered
+housekeeper.
+
+'Go on, if you please, Ma'am, and let me see it.'
+
+So to the hall they went, and there, lying across the pegs from which
+Mr. Dangerfield's surtout and riding-coat depended, there certainly was
+a whip with the butt fashioned very much in the shape described by
+Captain Cluffe; but alas, no weapon--a mere toy--leather and cat-gut.
+
+Lowe took it in his hand, and weighing it with a look of disgust and
+disappointment, asked rather impatiently--
+
+'Where's Captain Cluffe?'
+
+The captain had gone away.
+
+'Very well, I see,' said Lowe, replacing the whip; 'that will do. The
+hound!'
+
+Mr. Lowe now re-entered the little parlour, where the incongruous crowd,
+lighted up with Mr. Dangerfield's wax lights, and several kitchen
+candles flaring in greasy brass sticks, were assisting at the treatment
+of the master of the castle and the wounded constables.
+
+'Well, Sir,' said Mr. Dangerfield, standing erect, with his coat sleeve
+slit, and his arm braced up in splints, stiff and helpless in a sling,
+and a blot of blood in his shirt sleeve, contrasting with the white
+intense smirk of menace upon his face; 'if you have quite done with my
+linen and my housekeeper, Sir, I'm ready to accompany you under protest,
+as I've already said, wherever you design to convey my mangled person. I
+charge you, Sir, with the safety of my papers and my other property
+which you constrain me to abandon in this house; and I think you'll rue
+this night's work to the latest hour of your existence.'
+
+'I've done, and will do my duty, Sir,' replied Lowe, with dry decision.
+
+'You've committed a d----d outrage; duty? ha, ha, ha!'
+
+'The coach is at the door, hey?' asked Lowe
+
+'I say, Sir,' continued Dangerfield, with a wolfish glare, and speaking
+in something like a suppressed shriek, 'you _shall_ hear my warning and
+my protest, although it should occupy the unreasonable period of two
+whole minutes of your precious time. You half murder, and then arrest me
+for the offence of another man, and under the name of a man who has been
+dead and buried full twenty years. I can prove it; the eminent London
+house of Elrington Brothers can prove it; the handwriting of the late
+Sir Philip Drayton, Baronet, of Drayton Hall, and of two other
+respectable witnesses to a formal document, can prove it; dead and
+rotten--_dust_, Sir. And in your stupid arrogance, you blundering
+Irishman, you dare to libel me--your superior in everything--with his
+villainous name, and the imputation of his crimes--to violate my house
+at the dead of night--to pistol me upon my own floor--and to carry me
+off by force, as you purpose, to a common gaol. Kill Dr. Sturk, indeed!
+Are you mad, Sir? _I_ who offered a fee of five hundred guineas even to
+bring him to speech! _I_ who took the best medical advice in _London_ on
+his behalf; _I_ who have been his friend only too much with my Lord
+Castlemallard, and who, to stay his creditors, and enable his family to
+procure for him the best medical attendance, and to afford him, in
+short, the best chance of recovery and life, have, where _you_ neither
+lent or bestowed a shilling--poured out my money as profusely as you,
+Sir, have poured out my blood, every drop of which, Sir, shall cost you
+a slice of your estate. But even without Sturk's speaking one word, I've
+evidence which escaped _you_, conceited blockhead, and which, though the
+witness is as mad almost as yourself, will yet be enough to direct the
+hand of justice to the right man. There _is_ a Charles, Sir, whom all
+suspect, who awaits trial, judgment, and death in this case, the
+wretched Charles Nutter of the Mills, Sir, whose motive is patent, and
+on whose proceedings a light will, I believe, be thrown by the evidence
+of Zekiel Irons, whatever that evidence may be worth.'
+
+'I don't care to tell you, Sir, that 'tis partly on the evidence of that
+same Zekiel Irons that I've arrested _you_,' said Mr. Justice Lowe.
+
+'Zekiel Irons, _me_! What Zekiel Irons charge me with the crime which he
+was here, not two hours since, fastening on oath upon Charles Nutter!
+Why, Sir, he asked me to bring him to your residence in the morning,
+that he might swear to the information which he repeated in my presence,
+and of which there's a note in that desk. 'Pon my life, Sir, 'tis an
+agreeable society, this; bedlam broke loose--the mad directing the mad,
+and both falling foul of the sane. One word from Doctor Sturk, Sir, will
+blast you, so soon as, please Heaven, he shall speak.'
+
+'He _has_ spoken, Sir,' replied Lowe, whose angry passions were roused
+by the insults of Dangerfield, and who had, for the moment, lost his
+customary caution.
+
+'Ha!' cried Dangerfield, with a sort of gasp, and a violent smirk, the
+joyousness of which was, however, counteracted by a lurid scowl and a
+wonderful livid glare in his wild eyes; 'ha! he has? Bravo, Sir,
+bravissimo!' and he smirked wider and wider, and beat his uninjured hand
+upon the table, like a man applauding the _denouement_ of a play. 'Well,
+Sir; and notwithstanding his declaration, you arrest me upon the
+monstrous assertion of a crazy clerk, you consummate blockhead!'
+
+''Twon't do, Sir, you sha'n't sting me by insult into passion; nor
+frighten me by big words and big looks into hesitation. My duty's clear,
+and be the consequences what they may, I'll carry the matter through.'
+
+'Frighten you! ha, ha, ha!' and Dangerfield glared at his bloody
+shirt-sleeve, and laughed a chilly sneer; 'no, Sir, but I'll punish you,
+with Doctor Sturk's declaration against the babble of poor Zekiel Irons.
+I'll quickly close your mouth.'
+
+'Sir, I never made it a practice yet to hide evidence from a prisoner.
+Why should I desire to put you out of the world, if you're innocent?
+Doctor Sturk, Sir, has denounced you distinctly upon oath. Charles
+Archer, going by the name of Paul Dangerfield, and residing in this
+house, called the "Brass Castle," as the person who attempted to murder
+him in the Butcher's Wood.'
+
+'_What_, Sir? Doctor Sturk denounce _me_! Fore heaven, Sir--it seems to
+me you've all lost your wits. Doctor Sturk!--? Doctor Sturk charge _me_
+with having assaulted him! why--curse it, Sir--it can't possibly be--you
+can't believe it; and, if he said it, the man's raving still.'
+
+'He has said it, Sir.'
+
+'Then, Sir, in the devil's name, didn't it strike you as going rather
+fast to shoot me on my own hearth-stone--_me_, knowing all you do about
+me--with no better warrant than the talk of a man with a shattered
+brain, awakening from a lethargy of months? Sir, though the laws afford
+no punishment exemplary enough for such atrocious precipitation, I
+promise you I'll exact the last penalty they provide; and now, Sir, take
+me where you will; I can't resist. Having shot me, do what you may to
+interrupt my business; to lose my papers and accounts; to prevent my
+recovery, and to blast my reputation--Sir, I shall have compensation for
+all.'
+
+So saying, Dangerfield, with his left hand, clapt his cocked hat on, and
+with a ghastly smile nodded a farewell to Mrs. Jukes, who, sobbing
+plentifully, had placed his white surtout, cloakwise over his shoulders,
+buttoning it about his throat. The hall-door stood open; the candles
+flared in the night air, and with the jaunty, resolute step of a man
+marching to victory and revenge, he walked out, and lightly mounted to
+his place. She saw the constables get in, and one glimpse more of the
+white grim face she knew so well, the defiant smirk, the blood-stained
+shirt-sleeve, and the coach-door shut. At the crack of the whip and the
+driver's voice, the horses scrambled into motion, the wheels revolved,
+and the master of the Brass Castle and the equipage glided away like a
+magic lantern group, from before the eyes and the candle of the weeping
+Mrs. Jukes.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIII.
+
+IN WHICH DOCTOR TOOLE AND DIRTY DAVY CONFER IN THE BLUE-ROOM.
+
+
+The coach rumbled along toward Dublin at a leisurely jog.
+Notwithstanding the firm front Mr. Lowe had presented, Dangerfield's
+harangue had affected him unpleasantly. Cluffe's little bit of
+information respecting the instrument he had seen the prisoner lay up in
+his drawer on the night of the murder, and which corresponded in
+description with the wounds traced upon Sturk's skull, seemed to have
+failed. The handle of Dangerfield's harmless horsewhip, his mind misgave
+him, was all that would come of _that_ piece of evidence; and it was
+impossible to say there might not be something in all that Dangerfield
+had uttered. Is it a magnetic force, or a high histrionic vein in some
+men, that makes them so persuasive and overpowering, and their passion
+so formidable? But, with Dangerfield's presence, the effect of his
+plausibilities and his defiance passed away. The pointed and consistent
+evidence of Sturk, perfectly clear as he was upon every topic he
+mentioned, and the corroborative testimony of Irons, equally distinct
+and damning--the whole case blurred and disjointed, and for a moment
+grown unpleasantly hazy and uncertain in the presence of that white
+sorcerer, readjusted itself now that he was gone, and came out in iron
+and compact relief--impregnable.
+
+'Run boys, one of you, and open the gate of the Mills,' said Lowe, whose
+benevolence, such as it was, expanded in his intense feeling of relief.
+''Twill be good news for poor Mistress Nutter. She'll see her husband in
+the morning.'
+
+So he rode up to the Mills, and knocked his alarm, as we have seen and
+heard, and there told his tidings to poor Sally Nutter, vastly to the
+relief of Mistress Matchwell, the Blind Fiddler, and even of the sage,
+Dirt Davy; for there are persons upon the earth to whom a sudden summons
+of any sort always sounds like a call to judgment, and who, in any such
+ambiguous case, fill up the moments of suspense with wild conjecture,
+and a ghastly summing-up against themselves; can it be this--or that--or
+the other old, buried, distant villainy, that comes back to take me by
+the throat?
+
+Having told his good news in a few dry words to Mrs. Sally, Mr. Lowe
+superadded a caution to the dark lady down stairs, in the face of which
+she, being quite reassured by this time, grinned and snapped her
+fingers, and in terms defied, and even cursed the tall magistrate
+without rising from the chair in which she had re-established herself in
+the parlour. He mounted his hunter again, and followed the coach at a
+pace which promised soon to bring him up with that lumbering conveyance;
+for Mr. Lowe was one of those public officers who love their work, and
+the tenant of the Brass Castle was no common prisoner, and well worth
+seeing, though at some inconvenience, safely into his new lodging.
+
+Next morning, you may be sure, the news was all over the town of
+Chapelizod. All sorts of cross rumours and wild canards, of course, were
+on the wind, and every new fact or fib borne to the door-step with the
+fresh eggs, or the morning's milk and butter, was carried by the eager
+servant into the parlour, and swallowed down with their toast and tea by
+the staring company.
+
+Upon one point all were agreed: Mr. Paul Dangerfield lay in the county
+gaol, on a charge of having assaulted Dr. Sturk with intent to kill him.
+The women blessed themselves, and turned pale. The men looked queer when
+they met one another. It was altogether so astounding--Mr. Dangerfield
+was so rich--so eminent--so moral--so charitable--so above temptation.
+It had come out that he had committed, some said three, others as many
+as fifteen secret murders. All the time that the neighbours had looked
+on his white head in church as the very standard of probity, and all the
+prudential virtues rewarded, they were admiring and honouring a masked
+assassin. They had been bringing into their homes and families an
+undivulged and terrible monster. The wher-wolf had walked the homely
+streets of their village. The ghoul, unrecognised, had prowled among the
+graves of their church-yard. One of their fairest princesses, the lady
+of Belmont, had been on the point of being sacrificed to a vampire.
+Horror, curiosity, and amazement, were everywhere.
+
+Charles Nutter, it was rumoured, was to be discharged on bail early, and
+it was mooted in the club that a deputation of the neighbours should
+ride out to meet him at the boundaries of Chapelizod, welcome him there
+with an address, and accompany him to the Mills as a guard of honour;
+but cooler heads remembered the threatening and unsettled state of
+things at that domicile, and thought that Nutter would, all things
+considered, like a quiet return best; which view of the affair was,
+ultimately, acquiesced in.
+
+For Mary Matchwell, at the Mills, the tidings which had thrown the town
+into commotion had but a solitary and a selfish interest. She was glad
+that Nutter was exculpated. She had no desire that the king should take
+his worldly goods to which she intended helping herself: otherwise he
+might hang or drown for ought she cared. Dirty Davy, too, who had quaked
+about his costs, was greatly relieved by the turn which things had
+taken; and the plain truth was that, notwithstanding his escape from the
+halter, things looked very black and awful for Charles Nutter and his
+poor little wife, Sally.
+
+Doctor Toole, at half-past nine, was entertaining two or three of the
+neighbours, chiefly in oracular whispers, by the fire in the great
+parlour of the Phoenix, when he was interrupted by Larry, the waiter,
+with--
+
+'Your horse is at the door, docther' (Toole was going into town, but was
+first to keep an appointment at Doctor Sturk's with Mr. Lowe), 'and,'
+continued Larry, 'there's a fat gentleman in the blue room wants to see
+you, if you plase.'
+
+'Hey?--ho! let's see then,' said little Toole, bustling forth with an
+important air. 'The blue room, hey?'
+
+When he opened the door of that small apartment there stood a stout,
+corpulent, rather seedy and dusty personage, at the window, looking out
+and whistling with his hat on. He turned lazily about as Toole entered,
+and displayed the fat and forbidding face of Dirty Davy.
+
+'Oh! I thought it might be professionally, Sir,' said Toole, a little
+grandly; for he had seen the gentleman before, and had, by this time,
+found out all about him, and perceived he had no chance of a fee.
+
+'It _is_ professionally, Sir,' quoth Dirty Davy, 'if you'll be so
+obleeging as to give me five minutes.'
+
+With that amiable egotism which pervades human nature, it will be
+observed, each gentleman interpreted 'professionally' as referring to
+his own particular calling.
+
+So Toole declared himself ready and prepared to do his office, and Dirty
+Davy commenced.
+
+'You know me, I believe, Sir?'
+
+'Mr. David O'Reegan, as I believe,' answered Toole.
+
+'The same, Sir,' replied Davy. 'I'm on my way, Sir, to the Mills, where
+my client, Mrs. Nutter (here Toole uttered a disdainful grunt), resides;
+and I called at your house, doctor, and they sent me here; and I am
+desirous to prove to you, Sir, as a friend of Miss Sarah Harty, styling
+herself Mrs. Nutter, that my client's rights are clear and irresistible,
+in order that you may use any interest you may have with that
+ill-advised faymale--and I'm told she respects your advice and opinion
+highly--to induce her to submit without further annoyance; and I tell
+you, in confidence, she has run herself already into a very sarious
+predicament.'
+
+'Well, Sir, I'll be happy to hear you,' answered Toole.
+
+''Tis no more, Sir, than I expected from your well-known candour,'
+replied Dirty Davy, with the unctuous politeness with which he treated
+such gentlemen as he expected to make use of. 'Now, Sir, I'll open our
+case without any reserve or exaggeration to you, Sir, and that, Doctor
+Toole, is what I wouldn't do to many beside yourself. The facts is in a
+nutshell. We claim our conjugal rights. Why, Sir? Because, Sir, we
+married the oppugnant, Charles Nutter, gentleman, of the Mills, and so
+forth, on the 7th of April, Anno Domini, 1750, in the Church of St.
+Clement Danes, in London, of which marriage this, Sir, is a verbatim
+copy of the certificate. Now, Sir, your client--I mane your
+friend--Misthress Mary Harty, who at present affects the state and
+usurps the rights of marriage against my client--the rightful Mrs.
+Nutter, performed and celebrated a certain pretended marriage with the
+same Charles Nutter, in Chapelizod Church, on the 4th of June, 1758,
+seven years and ten months, wanting three days, subsequent to the
+marriage of my client. Well, Sir, I see exactly, Sir, what you'd ask:
+"Is the certificate genuine?"'
+
+Toole grunted an assent.
+
+'Well, Sir, upon that point I have to show you this,' and he handed him
+a copy of Mr. Luke Gamble's notice served only two days before, to the
+effect that, having satisfied himself by enquiring on the spot of the
+authenticity of the certificate of the marriage of Charles Nutter of the
+Mills, and so forth, to Mary Duncan, his client did not mean to dispute
+it. 'And, Sir, further, as we were preparing evidence in support of my
+client's and her maid's affidavit, to prove her identity with the Mary
+Duncan in question, having served your client--I mane, Sir, asking your
+pardon again--your friend, with a notice that such corroboratory
+evidence being unnecessary, we would move the court, in case it were
+pressed for, to give us the costs of procuring it, Mr. Luke Gamble
+fortwith struck, on behalf of his client, and admitted the sufficiency
+of the evidence. Now, Sir, I mention these things, not as expecting you
+to believe them upon my statement, you see, but simply to enquire of Mr.
+Gamble whether they be true or no; and if true, Sir, upon his admission,
+then, Sir, I submit we're entitled to your good offices, and the
+judicious inthurfarence of the Rev. Mr. Roach, your respectable priest,
+Sir.'
+
+'My friend, Sir, not my priest. I'm a Churchman, Sir, as everybody
+knows.'
+
+'Of course, Sir--I ask your pardon again, Doctor Toole--Sir, your friend
+to induce your client--_-friend_ I mane again, Sir--Mistress Sarah
+Harty, formerly housekeeper of Mr. Charless (so he pronounced it)
+Nutther, gentleman, of the Mills, and so forth, to surrendher quiet and
+peaceable possession of the premises and chattels, and withdraw from her
+tortuous occupation dacently, and without provoking the consequences,
+which must otherwise follow in the sevarest o' forms;' or, as he
+pronounced it, 'fawrums.'
+
+'The sevarest o' grandmothers. Humbug and flummery! Sir,' cried Toole,
+most unexpectedly incensed, and quite scarlet.
+
+'D'ye mane I'm a liar, Sir? Is that what you mane?' demanded Dirty Davy,
+suddenly, like the doctor, getting rid of his ceremonious politeness.
+
+'I mane what I mane, and that's what I mane,' thundered Toole,
+diplomatically.
+
+'Then, tell your _friend_ to prepare for consequences,' retorted Dirty
+Davy, with a grin.
+
+'And make my compliments to your client, or conjuror, or wife, or
+whatever she is, and tell her that whenever she wants her dirty work
+done, there's plenty of other Dublin blackguards to be got to do it,
+without coming to Docther Thomas Toole, or the Rev. Father Roach.'
+
+Which sarcasm he delivered with killing significance, but Dirty Davy had
+survived worse thrusts than that.
+
+'She's a conjuror, is she? I thank you, Sir.'
+
+'You're easily obliged, Sir,' says Toole.
+
+'We all know what that manes. And these documents _sworn_ to by my
+client and myself, is a pack o' lies! Betther and betther! I thank ye
+again, Sir.'
+
+'You're welcome, my honey,' rejoined Toole, affectionately.
+
+'An' you live round the corner. I know your hall-door, Sir--a light
+brown, wid a brass knocker.'
+
+'Which is a fine likeness iv your own handsome face, Sir,' retorted
+Toole.
+
+'An' them two documents, Sir, is a fabrication and a forgery, backed up
+wid false affidavits?' continued Mr. O'Reegan.
+
+'Mind that, Larry,' says the doctor, with a sudden inspiration
+addressing the waiter, who had peeped in; 'he admits that them two
+documents you see there, is forgeries, backed up with false affidavits;
+you heard him say so, and I'll call you to prove it.'
+
+'_You lie!_' said Dirty Davy, precipitately, for he was quite
+disconcerted at finding his own sophistical weapons so unexpectedly
+turned against him.
+
+'You scum o' the airth!' cried Toole, hitting him, with his clenched
+fist, right upon the nose, so vigorous a thump, that his erudite head
+with a sonorous crash hopped off the wainscot behind it; 'you lying
+scullion!' roared the doctor, instantaneously repeating the blow, and
+down went Davy, and down went the table with dreadful din, and the
+incensed doctor bestrode his prostrate foe with clenched fists and
+flaming face, and his grand wig all awry, and he panting and scowling.
+
+'Murdher, murdher, _murdher!_' screamed Dirty Davy, who was not much of
+a Spartan, and relished nothing of an assault and battery but the costs
+and damages.
+
+'You--you--you'
+
+'Murdher--help--help--murdher--murdher!'
+
+'Say it again, you cowardly, sneaking, spying viper; say it _again_,
+can't you?'
+
+It was a fine tableau, and a noble study of countenance and attitude.
+
+'Sich a bloody nose I never seen before,' grinned Larry rubbing his
+hands over the exquisite remembrance. 'If you only seed him, flat on his
+back, the great ould shnake, wid his knees and his hands up bawling
+murdher; an' his big white face and his bloody nose in the middle, like
+nothin' in nature, bedad, but the ace iv hearts in a dirty pack.'
+
+How they were separated, and who the particular persons that interposed,
+what restoratives were resorted to, how the feature looked half an hour
+afterwards, and what was the subsequent demeanour of Doctor Toole, upon
+the field of battle, I am not instructed; my letters stop short at the
+catastrophe, and run off to other matters.
+
+Doctor Toole's agitations upon such encounters did not last long. They
+blew off in a few thundering claps of bravado and defiance in the second
+parlour of the Phoenix, where he washed his hands and readjusted his
+wig and ruffles, and strutted forth, squaring his elbows, and nodding
+and winking at the sympathising waiters in the inn hall; and with a half
+grin at Larry--
+
+'Well, Larry, I think I showed him Chapelizod, hey?' said the doctor,
+buoyantly, to that functionary, and marched diagonally across the broad
+street toward Sturk's house, with a gait and a countenance that might
+have overawed an army.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIV.
+
+WHAT DOCTOR STURK BROUGHT TO MIND, AND ALL THAT DOCTOR TOOLE HEARD AT
+MR. LUKE GAMBLE'S.
+
+
+Just as he reached Sturk's door, wagging his head and strutting
+grimly--and, palpably, still in debate with Dirty Davy--his thoughts
+received a sudden wrench in a different direction by the arrival of Mr.
+Justice Lowe, who pulled up his famous gray hunter at the steps of the
+house by the church-yard.
+
+'You see, Doctor Toole, it won't do, waiting. The thing's too
+momentous.'
+
+And so they walked up stairs and into the drawing-room, and sent their
+compliments to Mrs. Sturk, who came down in _deshabille_, with her
+things pinned about her, and all over smiles. Poor little woman! Toole
+had not observed until now how very thin she had grown.
+
+'He's going on delightfully, gentlemen; he drank a whole cup of tea,
+weak of course, Doctor Toole, as you bid me; and he eat a slice of
+toast, and liked it, and two Naples biscuits, Mr. Lowe, and I know he'll
+be delighted to see you.'
+
+'Very good, Madam, _very_ good,' said Toole.
+
+'And he's looking better already. He waked out of that sweet sleep not
+ten minutes after you left this morning.'
+
+'Ay, he was sleeping very quietly,' said Toole to Lowe. 'May we go up,
+Ma'am?'
+
+'Oh! he'll be overjoyed, gentlemen, to see you, and 'twill do him an
+infinity of good. I can scarce believe my eyes. We've been tidying the
+study, the maid and I, and airing the cushions of his chair;' and she
+laughed a delighted little giggle. 'And even the weather has taken up
+such beautiful sunshine; everything favourable.'
+
+'Well, Doctor Sturk,' said Toole, cheerily, 'we have a good account of
+you--a vastly good account, doctor; and, by St. George, Sir, we've been
+tidying--'
+
+He was going to say the study, but little Mrs. Sturk put her finger to
+her lip in a wonderful hurry, raising her eyebrows and drawing a breath
+through her rounded lips, in such sort as arrested the sentence; for she
+knew how Barney's wrath always broke out when he thought the women had
+been in his study, and how he charged every missing paper for a month
+after upon their cursed meddling. But Sturk was a good deal gentler now,
+and had a dull and awful sort of apathy upon him; and I think it was all
+one to him whether the women had been in the study or not. So Toole said
+instead--
+
+'We've been thinking of getting you down in a little while, doctor, if
+all goes pleasantly; 'tis a lovely day, and a good omen--see how the sun
+shines in at the curtain.'
+
+But there was no responsive sunshine upon Sturk's stern; haggard face,
+as he said very low--still looking on the foot-board--'I thank you,
+doctor.'
+
+So after a few more questions, and a little bit of talk with Mrs. Sturk,
+they got that good lady out of the room, and said Lowe to the patient--
+
+'I'm sorry to trouble you, Dr. Sturk, but there's a weighty matter at
+which you last night hinted; and Dr. Toole thought you then too weak;
+and in your present state, I would not now ask you to speak at any
+length, were the matter of less serious moment.'
+
+'Yes, Sir,' said Sturk, but did not seem about to speak any more; and
+after a few seconds, Lowe continued.
+
+'I mean, Dr. Sturk, touching the murder of Mr. Beauclerc, which you then
+said was committed by the same Charles Archer, who assaulted you in the
+park.'
+
+'Ay, Sir,' said Sturk.
+
+'The same murder of which Lord Dunoran was adjudged guilty.'
+
+Sturk moved his lips with a sort of nod.
+
+'And, Doctor Sturk, you remember you then said you had yourself _seen_
+Charles Archer do that murder.'
+
+Sturk lifted his hand feebly enough to his forehead, and his lips moved,
+and his eyes closed. They thought he was praying--possibly he was; so
+they did not interrupt him; and he said, all on a sudden, but in a low
+dejected way, and with many pauses--
+
+'Charles Archer. I never saw another such face; 'tis always before me.
+He was a man that everybody knew was dangerous--a damnable profligate
+besides--and, as all believed, capable of anything, though nobody could
+actually bring anything clearly home to him but his bloody duels, which,
+however, were fairly fought. I saw him only thrice in my life before I
+saw him here. In a place, at Newmarket, where they played hazard, was
+once; and I saw him fight Beau Langton; and I saw him murder Mr.
+Beauclerc. I saw it all!' And the doctor swore a shuddering oath.
+
+'I lay in the small room or closet, off the chamber in which he slept. I
+was suffering under a bad fracture, and dosed with opium. 'Tis all very
+strange, Sir. I saw everything that happened. I saw him stab Beauclerc.
+Don't question me; it tires me. I think 'twas a dagger. It looked like a
+small bayonet I'll tell you how--all, by-and-by.'
+
+He sipped a little wine and water, and wiped his lips with a very
+tremulous handkerchief.
+
+'I never spoke of it, for I could not. The whole of that five minutes'
+work slipped from my mind, and was gone quite and clean when I awoke.
+What I saw I could not interrupt. I was in a cataleptic state, I
+suppose. I could not speak; but I saw like a lynx, and heard every
+whisper. When I awakened in the morning I remembered nothing. I did not
+know I had a secret. The knowledge was sealed up until the time came. A
+sight of Charles Archer's face at any time would have had, as I suppose,
+the same effect. When I saw him here, the first time, it was at the
+general's at Belmont; though he was changed by time, and carefully
+disguised, all would not do. I felt the sight of him was fatal. I was
+quite helpless; but my mind never stopped working upon it till--till--'
+
+Sturk groaned.
+
+'See now,' said Toole, 'there's time enough, and don't fatigue yourself.
+There, now, rest quiet a minute.'
+
+And he made him swallow some more wine; and felt his pulse and shook his
+head despondingly at Lowe, behind his back.
+
+'How is it?' said Sturk, faintly.
+
+'A little irritable--that's all,' said Toole.
+
+''Till one night, I say,'--Sturk resumed, after a minute or two, 'it
+came to me all at once, awake--I don't know--or in a dream; in a moment
+I had it all. 'Twas like a page cut out of a book--lost for so many
+years.' And Sturk moaned a despairing wish to Heaven that the secret had
+never returned to him again.
+
+'Yes, Sir--like a page cut out of a book, and never missed till 'twas
+found again; and then sharp and clear, every letter from first to last.
+Then, Sir--then--thinking 'twas no use at that distance of time taking
+steps to punish him, I--I foolishly let him understand I knew him. My
+mind misgave me from the first. I think it was my good angel that warned
+me. But 'tis no use now. I'm not a man to be easily frightened. But it
+seemed to me he was something altogether worse than a man, and
+like--like Satan; and too much for me every way. If I was wise I'd have
+left him alone. But 'tis no good fretting now. It was to be. I was too
+outspoken--'twas always my way--and I let him know; and--and you see, he
+meant to make away with me. He tried to take my life, Sir; and I think
+he has done it. I'll never rise from this bed, gentlemen. I'm done for.'
+
+'Come, Doctor Sturk, you mustn't talk that way, Pell will be out this
+evening, and Dillon may be--though faith! I don't quite know that Pell
+will meet him--but we'll put our heads together, and deuce is in it or
+we'll set you on your legs again.'
+
+Sturk was screwing his lips sternly together, and the lines of his gruff
+haggard face were quivering, and a sullen tear or two started down from
+his closed eye.
+
+'I'm--I'm a little nervous, gentlemen--I'll be right just now I'd like
+to see the--the children, if they're in the way, that's all--by-and-by,
+you know.'
+
+'I've got Pell out, you see--not that there's any special need--you
+know; but he was here before, and it wouldn't do to offend him; and
+he'll see you this afternoon.'
+
+'I thank you, Sir,' said Sturk, in the same dejected way.
+
+'And, Sir,' said Lowe, 'if you please, I'll get this statement into the
+shape of a deposition or information, for you see 'tis of the vastest
+imaginable importance, and exactly tallies with evidence we've got
+elsewhere, and 'twouldn't do, Sir, to let it slip.'
+
+And Toole thought he saw a little flush mount into Sturk's sunken face,
+and he hastened to say--
+
+'What we desire, Dr. Sturk, is to be able to act promptly in this case
+of my Lord Dunoran. Measures must be taken instantly, you see, for 'tis
+of old standing, and not a day to be lost, and there's why Mr. Lowe is
+so urgent to get your statement in white and black.'
+
+'And sworn to,' added Mr. Lowe.
+
+'I'll swear it,' said Sturk, in the same sad tones.
+
+And Mrs. Sturk came in, and Toole gave leave for chicken broth at twelve
+o'clock, about two table-spoonsful, and the same at half-past one, when
+he hoped to be back again. And on the lobby he gave her, with a cheery
+countenance, all the ambiguous comfort he could. And Lowe asked Mrs.
+Sturk for more pens and paper, and himself went down to give his man a
+direction at the door, and on the way, in the hall, Toole looking this
+way and that, to see they weren't observed, beckoned him into the front
+parlour, and, said he, in a low key--
+
+'The pulse is up a bit, not very much, but still I don't like it--and
+very hard, you see--and what we've to dread, you know's inflammation;
+and he's so shocking low, my dear Sir, we must let him have wine and
+other things, or we'll lose him that way; and you see it's a mighty
+unpleasant case.'
+
+And coming into the hall, in a loud confident voice he cried--'And I'll
+be here again by half-past one o'clock.'
+
+And so he beckoned to the boy with his horse to come up, and chatted in
+the interim with Mr. Lowe upon the steps, and told him how to manage him
+if he grew exhausted over his narrative; and then mounting his nag, and
+kissing his hand and waving his hat to Mrs. Sturk, who was looking out
+upon him from Barney's window, he rode away for Dublin.
+
+Toole, on reaching town, spurred on to the dingy residence of Mr. Luke
+Gamble. It must be allowed that he had no clear intention of taking any
+step whatsoever in consequence of what he might hear. But the little
+fellow was deuced curious; and Dirty Davy's confidence gave him a sort
+of right to be satisfied.
+
+So with his whip under his arm, and a good deal out of breath, for the
+stairs were steep, he bounced into the attorney's sanctum.
+
+'Who's _that? Is_ that?--Why, bless my soul and body! 'tis yourself,'
+cried Toole, after an astonished pause of a few seconds at the door,
+springing forward and grasping Nutter by both hands, and shaking them
+vehemently, and grinning very joyously and kindly the while.
+
+Nutter received him cordially, but a little sheepishly. Indeed, his
+experiences of life, and the situations in which he had found himself
+since they had last met, were rather eccentric and instructive than
+quite pleasant to remember. And Nutter, in his way, was a proud fellow,
+and neither liked to be gaped at nor pitied.
+
+But Toole was a thorough partisan of his, and had been urgent for
+permission to see him in gaol, and they knew how true he had been to
+poor Sally Nutter, and altogether felt very much at home with him.
+
+So sitting in that twilight room, flanked with piles of expended briefs,
+and surrounded with neatly docketed packets of attested copies, notices,
+affidavits, and other engines of legal war--little Toole having expended
+his congratulations, and his private knowledge of Sturk's revelations,
+fell upon the immediate subject of his visit.
+
+'That rogue, Davy O'Reegan, looked in on me not an hour ago, at the
+Phoenix' (and he gave them a very spirited, but I'm afraid a somewhat
+fanciful description of the combat.) 'And I'm afraid he'll give us a
+deal of trouble yet. He told me that the certificate--'
+
+'Ay--here's a copy;' and Luke Gamble threw a paper on the table before
+him.
+
+'That's it--Mary Duncan--1750--the very thing--the rascal! Well, he
+said, you know, but I knew better, that you had admitted the certificate
+formally.'
+
+'So I have. Sir,' said. Mr. Gamble, drily, stuffing his hands into his
+breeches' pockets, and staring straight at Toole with elevated eyebrows,
+and as the little doctor thought, with a very odd expression in his
+eyes.
+
+'You _have_, Sir?'
+
+'I have!' and then followed a little pause, and Mr. Gamble said--
+
+'I did so, Sir, because there's no disputing it--and--and I think,
+Doctor Toole, I know something of my business.'
+
+There was another pause, during which Toole, flushed and shocked, turned
+his gaze from Gamble to Nutter.
+
+''Tis a true bill, then?' said Toole, scarcely above his breath, and
+very dismally.
+
+A swarthy flush covered Nutter's dark face. The man was ashamed.
+
+''Tis nigh eighteen years ago, Sir,' said Nutter embarrassed, as he well
+might be. 'I was a younger man, then, and was bit, Sir, as many another
+has been, and that's all.'
+
+Toole got up, stood before the fire-place, and hung his head, with
+compressed lips, and there was a silence, interrupted by the hard man
+of the law, who was now tumbling over his papers in search of a
+document, and humming a tune as he did so.
+
+'It may be a good move for Charles Nutter, Sir, but it looks very like a
+checkmate for poor Sally,' muttered Toole angrily.
+
+Mr. Luke Gamble either did not hear him, or did not care a farthing what
+he said; and he hummed his tune very contentedly.
+
+'And I had, moreover,' said he, 'to make another admission for the same
+reason, videlicet, that Mary Matchwell, who now occupies a portion of
+the Mills, the promovent in this suit, and Mary Duncan mentioned in that
+certificate, are one and the same person. Here's our answer to their
+notice, admitting the fact.'
+
+'I thank you,' said Toole again, rather savagely, for a glance over his
+shoulder had shown him the attorney's face grinning with malicious
+amusement, as it seemed to him, while he readjusted the packet of papers
+from which he had just taken the notice; 'I saw it, Sir, your brother
+lawyer, Mr. O'Reegan, Sir, showed it me this morning.'
+
+And Toole thought of poor little Sally Nutter, and all the wreck and
+ruin coming upon her and the Mills, and began to con over his own
+liabilities, and to reflect seriously whether, in some of his brisk
+altercations on her behalf with Dirty Davy and his client, he might not
+have committed himself rather dangerously; and especially the
+consequences of his morning's collision with Davy grew in darkness and
+magnitude very seriously, as he reflected that his entire statement had
+turned out to be true, and that he and his client were on the winning
+side.
+
+'It seems to me, Sir, you might have given some of poor Mrs. Nutter's
+friends at Chapelizod a hint of the state of things. I, Sir, and Father
+Roach--we've meddled, Sir, more in the business--than--than--but no
+matter now--and all under a delusion, Sir. And poor Mistress Sally
+Nutter--_she_ doesn't seem to trouble you much, Sir.'
+
+He observed that the attorney was chuckling to himself still more and
+more undisguisedly, as he slipped the notice back again into its place.
+
+'You gentlemen of the law think of nothing, Sir, but your clients. I
+suppose 'tis a good rule, but it may be pushed somewhat far. And what do
+you propose to do for poor Mistress Sally Nutter?' demanded Toole, very
+sternly, for his blood was up.
+
+'She has heard from us this morning,' said Mr. Gamble, grining on his
+watch, 'and she knows all by this time, and 'tisn't a button to her.'
+
+And the attorney laughed in his face; and Nutter who had looked sulky
+and uncomfortable, could resist no longer, and broke into a queer
+responsive grin. It seemed to Toole like a horrid dream.
+
+There was a tap at the door just at this moment.
+
+'Come in,' cried Mr. Gamble, still exploding in comfortable little
+bursts of half-suppressed laughter.
+
+'Oh! 'tis you? Very good, Sir,' said Mr. Gamble, sobering a little. He
+was the same lanky, vulgar, and slightly-squinting gentleman, pitted
+with the small-pox, whom Toole had seen on a former occasion. And the
+little doctor thought he looked even more cunning and meaner than
+before. Everything had grown to look repulsive, and every face was
+sinister now; and the world began to look like a horrible masquerade,
+full of half-detected murderers, traitors, and miscreants.
+
+'There isn't a soul you can trust--'tis enough to turn a man's head;
+'tis sickening, by George!' grumbled the little doctor, fiercely.
+
+'Here's a gentleman, Sir,' said Gamble, waving his pen towards Toole,
+with a chuckle, 'who believes that ladies like to recover their
+husbands.'
+
+The fellow grew red, and grinned a sly uneasy grin, looking stealthily
+at Toole, who was rapidly growing angry.
+
+'Yes, Sir, and one who believes, too, that gentlemen ought to protect
+their wives,' added the little doctor hotly.
+
+'As soon as they know who they are,' muttered the attorney to his
+papers.
+
+'I think, gentlemen, I'm rather in your way,' said Toole with a gloomy
+briskness; 'I think 'tis better I should go. I--I'm somewhat amazed,
+gentlemen, and I--I wish you a good-morning.'
+
+And Toole made them a very stern bow, and walked out at the wrong door.
+
+'This way, by your leave, doctor,' said Mr. Gamble, opening the right
+one; and at the head of the stairs he took Toole by the cuff, and said
+he--
+
+'After all, 'tis but just the wrong Mrs. Nutter should give place to the
+right; and if you go down to the Mills to-morrow, you'll find she's by
+no means so bad as you think her.'
+
+But Toole broke away from him sulkily, with--
+
+'I wish you a good-morning, Sir.'
+
+It was quite true that Sally Nutter was to hear from Charles and Mr.
+Gamble that morning; for about the time at which Toole was in conference
+with those two gentlemen in Dublin, two coaches drew up at the Mills.
+
+Mr. Gamble's conducting gentleman was in one, and two mysterious
+personages sat in the other.
+
+'I want to see Mrs. Nutter,' said Mr. Gamble's emissary.
+
+'Mrs. Nutter's in the parlour, at your service,' answered the lean maid
+who had opened the door, and who recognising in that gentleman an
+adherent of the enemy, had assumed her most impertinent leer and tone on
+the instant.
+
+The ambassador looked in and drew back.
+
+'Oh, then, 'tisn't the mistress you want, but the master's old
+housekeeper; ask _her_.'
+
+And she pointed with her thumb towards Molly, whose head was over the
+banister.
+
+So, as he followed that honest hand-maiden up stairs, he drew from his
+coat-pocket a bundle of papers, and glanced at their endorsements, for
+he had a long exposition to make, and then some important measures to
+execute.
+
+Toole had to make up for lost time; and as he rode at a smart canter
+into the village, he fancied he observed the signs of an unusual
+excitement there. There were some faces at the windows, some people on
+the door-steps; and a few groups in the street; they were all looking in
+the Dublin direction. He had a nod or two as he passed. Toole thought
+forthwith of Mr. David O'Reegan--people generally refer phenomena to
+what most concerns themselves--and a dim horror of some unknown summary
+process dismayed him; but his hall-door shone peaceably in the sun, and
+his boy stood whistling on the steps, with his hands in his pockets.
+Nobody had been there since, and Pell had not yet called at Sturk's.
+
+'And what's happened--what's the neighbours lookin' after?' said Toole,
+as his own glance followed the general direction, so soon as he had
+dismounted.
+
+''Twas a coach that had driven through the town, at a thundering pace,
+with some men inside, from the Knockmaroon direction, and a lady that
+was screeching. She broke one of the coach windows in Martin's-row, and
+the other--_there_, just opposite the Phoenix.' The glass was
+glittering on the road. 'She had rings on her hand, and her knuckles
+were bleeding, and it was said 'twas poor Mrs. Nutter going away with
+the keepers to a mad-house.'
+
+Toole turned pale and ground his teeth, looking towards Dublin.
+
+'I passed it myself near Island-bridge; I did hear screeching, but I
+thought 'twas from t'other side of the wall. There was a fellow in an
+old blue and silver coat with the driver--eh?'
+
+'The same,' said the boy; and Toole, with difficulty swallowing down his
+rage, hurried into the house, resolved to take Lowe's advice on the
+matter, and ready to swear to poor Sally's perfect sanity--'the
+crature!--the villains!'
+
+But now he had only a moment to pull off his boots, to get into his
+grand costume, and seize his cane and his muff, too--for he sported one;
+and so transformed and splendid, he marched down the paved
+_trottoir_--Doctor Pell happily not yet arrived--to Sturk's house. There
+was a hackney coach near the steps.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCV.
+
+IN WHICH DOCTOR PELL DECLINES A FEE, AND DOCTOR STURK A PRESCRIPTION.
+
+
+In entering the front parlour from whence, in no small excitement, there
+issued the notes of a course diapason, which he fancied was known to
+him, he found Mr. Justice Lowe in somewhat tempestuous conference with
+the visitor.
+
+He was, in fact, no other than Black Dillon; black enough he looked just
+now. He had only a moment before returned from a barren visit to the
+Brass Castle, and was in no mood to be trifled with.
+
+''Twasn't _I_, Sir, but Mr. Dangerfield, who promised you five hundred
+guineas,' said Mr. Lowe, with a dry nonchalance.
+
+'Five hundred fiddles,' retorted Doctor Dillon--his phrase was coarser,
+and Toole at that moment entering the door, and divining the situation
+from the doctor's famished glare and wild gestures, exploded, I'm sorry
+to say in a momentary burst of laughter, into his cocked hat. 'Twas
+instantly stifled, however; and when Dillon turned his flaming eyes upon
+him, the little doctor made him a bow of superlative gravity, which the
+furious hero of the trepan was too full of his wrongs to notice in any
+way.
+
+'I was down at his house, bedad, the "Brass Castle," if you plase, and
+not a brass farthin' for my pains, nothing there but an ould woman, as
+ould and as ugly as himself, or the divil--be gannies! An' he's
+levanted, or else tuck for debt. Brass Castle! brass _forehead_, bedad.
+Brass, like Goliath, from head to heels; an' by the heels he's laid,
+I'll take my davy, considherin' at his laysure which is strongest--a
+brass castle or a stone jug. An' where, Sir, am I to get my five hundred
+guineas--where, Sir?' he thundered, staring first in Lowe's face, then
+in Toole's, and dealing the table a lusty blow at each interrogatory.
+
+'I think, Sir,' said Lowe, anticipating Toole, 'you'd do well to
+consider the sick man, Sir.' The noise was certainly considerable.
+
+'I don't know, Sir, that the sick man's considherin' me much,' retorted
+Doctor Dillon. 'Sick man--sick grandmother's aunt! If you can't speak
+like a man o' sense, _don't_ spake, at any rate, like a justice o' the
+pace. Sick man, indeed! why there's not a crature livin' barrin' a
+natural eediot, or an apothecary, that doesn't know the man's dead; he's
+_dead_, Sir; but 'tisn't so with me, an' I can't get on without vittles,
+and vittles isn't to be had without money; that's logic, Mr. Justice;
+that's a medical fact Mr. Docthor. An' how am I to get my five hundred
+guineas? I say, _you_ and _you_--the both o' ye--that prevented me of
+going last night to his brass castle--brass snuff-box--there isn't room
+to stand in it, bedad--an' gettin' my money. I hold you both liable to
+me--one an' t'other--the both o' ye.'
+
+'Why, Sir,' said Lowe, ''tis a honorarium.'
+
+''Tis no such thing, Sir; 'tis a contract,' thundered Dillon, pulling
+Dangerfield's note of promise from his pocket, and dealing it a mighty
+slap with the back of his hand.
+
+'Contract or no, Sir, there's nobody liable for it but himself.'
+
+'We'll try that, Sir; and in the meantime, what the divil am I to do,
+I'd be glad to know; for strike me crooked if I have a crown piece to
+pay the coachman. Trepan, indeed; I'm nately trepanned myself.'
+
+'If you'll only listen, Sir, I'll show you your case is well enough. Mr.
+Dangerfield, as you call him, has not left the country; and though he's
+arrested, 'tisn't for debt. If he owes you the money, 'tis your own
+fault if you don't make him pay it, for I'm credibly informed he's worth
+more than a hundred thousand pounds.'
+
+'And where is he, Sir?' demanded Black Dillon, much more cheerfully and
+amicably. 'I hope I see you well, Doctor Toole.'
+
+That learned person acknowledged the somewhat tardy courtesy, and Lowe
+made answer:
+
+'He lies in the county gaol, Sir, on a serious criminal charge; but a
+line from me, Sir, will, I think, gain you admission to him forthwith.'
+
+'I'll be much obliged for it, Sir,' answered Dillon. 'What o'clock is
+it?' he asked of Toole; for though it is believed he owned a watch, it
+was sometimes not about him; and while Lowe scribbled a note, Toole
+asked in a dignified way--
+
+'Have you seen our patient, Sir?'
+
+'Not I. Didn't I see him last night? The man's dead. He's in the last
+stage of exhaustion with an inflammatory pulse. If you feed him up he'll
+die of inflammation; and if you don't he'll die of wakeness. So he lies
+on the fatal horns of a dilemma, you see; an' not all the men in
+Derry'll take him off them alive. He's gone, Sir. Pell's coming, I hear.
+I'd wait if I could; but I must look afther business; and there's no
+good to be done here. I thank you, Mr. Lowe--Sir--your most obedient
+servant, Doctor Toole.' And with Lowe's note in his breeches' pocket, he
+strode out to the steps, and whistled for his coachman, who drove his
+respectable employer tipsily to his destination.
+
+I dare say the interview was characteristic; but I can find no account
+of it. I am pretty sure, however, that he did not get a shilling. So at
+least he stated in his declaration, in the action against Lowe, in which
+he, or rather his attorney, was nonsuited, with grievous loss of costs.
+And judging by the sort of esteem in which Mr. Dangerfield held Black
+Dillon, I fancy that few things would have pleased him better in his
+unfortunate situation than hitting that able practitioner as hard as
+might be.
+
+Just as he drove away, poor little Mrs. Sturk looked in.
+
+'Is there anything, Ma'am?' asked Toole, a little uneasily.
+
+'Only--only, I think he's just a little frightened--he's so nervous you
+know--by that Dublin doctor's loud talking--and he's got a kind of
+trembling--a shivering.'
+
+'Eh--a shivering, Ma'am?' said Toole. 'Like a man that's taken a cold,
+eh?'
+
+'Oh, he hasn't got cold--I'm sure--there's no danger of that. It's only
+nervous; so I covered him up with another pair of blankets, and gave him
+a hot drink.'
+
+'Very good, Ma'am; I'll follow you up in a minute.'
+
+'And even if it was, you know he shakes off cold in no time, he has such
+a fine constitution.'
+
+'Yes, Ma'am--that's true--very good, Ma'am. I'll be after you.'
+
+So up stairs went Mrs. Sturk in a fuss.
+
+'That's it,' said Toole so soon as they were alone, nodding two or three
+times dejectedly, and looking very glum. 'It's set in--the
+inflammation--it's set in, Sir. He's gone. That's the rigor.'
+
+'Poor gentleman,' said Lowe, after a short pause, 'I'm much concerned
+for him, and for his family.'
+
+''Tis a bad business,' said Toole, gloomily, like a man that's
+frightened. And he followed Mrs. Sturk, leaving Lowe adjusting his
+papers in the parlour.
+
+Toole found his patient laden with blankets, and shivering like a man in
+an ague, with blue sunken face. And he slipped his hand under the
+clothes, and took his pulse, and said nothing but--'Ay--ay--ay'--quietly
+to himself, from time to time, as he did so; and Sturk--signing, as well
+as he could, that he wanted a word in his ear--whispered, as well as his
+chattering teeth would let him,
+
+'You know what _this_ is.'
+
+'Well--well--there now, there; drink some of this,' said Toole, a little
+flurried, and trying to seem cool.
+
+'I think he's a little bit better, doctor,' whispered poor little Mrs.
+Sturk, in Toole's ear.
+
+'Twill pass away. Ma'am.'
+
+Toole was standing by the bedside, looking rather woefully and
+frightened on Sturk's face, and patting and smoothing the coverlet with
+the palm of his stumpy, red hand; and whispering to himself from time to
+time, 'Yes, yes,' although with rather a troubled and helpless air.
+
+Just then came the roll of a coach to the door, and a long peal at the
+knocker; and little Toole ran down to meet the great Doctor Pell in the
+hall. He was in, in a moment, and turned aside with Toole into the
+drawing-room. And Toole's voice was heard pretty volubly. It was only a
+conference of about two minutes. And Dr. Pell said in his usual _tall_
+way, as they came out--
+
+'How long ago, Sir?'
+
+'About ten--no, hardly so much--_eight_ minutes ago,' answered Toole, as
+he followed that swift phantom up the stairs.
+
+'Your most obedient, Ma'am,' said the slim and lofty doctor,
+parenthetically saluting the good lady; and he stood by the bedside,
+having laid his muff on the chair.
+
+'Well, Sir, and how do you feel? There now, that will do, Sir; don't
+mind speaking; _I_ see. And he put his hand under the clothes, and laid
+it on Sturk's arm, and slid it down to his hand, and felt his pulse.
+
+'And he's been near ten minutes this way?' said the doctor.
+
+'Oh, he was a great deal worse; 'tis a vast deal better now; isn't it,
+Doctor Toole?'
+
+'The rigor is subsiding, then. Has he had a sweat, Ma'am?' said Pell.
+
+'Oh, no--nothing like--quite nice and cool, doctor--and no fever; nice
+quiet sleep; and his appetite wonderful; tell him, Doctor Toole.'
+
+'Oh, yes, Ma'am--Doctor Pell knows; I told him all, Ma'am,' said Toole,
+who was looking with a blank and dismal sort of contemplation upon
+Sturk's fallen countenance.
+
+'Well, Ma'am,' said Pell, as he looked on his watch, 'this rigor, you
+see, will soon pass away, and you're doing everything we could wish, and
+(for he found he had time to scribble a prescription), we'll just order
+him a trifle. Good-day, Sir. Your most obedient, Ma'am.'
+
+'Pen and ink in the drawing-room, Doctor Pell,' said Toole,
+reverentially.
+
+'Oh! no, _no_, Madam, excuse me,' murmured Doctor Pell, gently pressing
+back Mrs. Sturk's fee, the residuum of Dangerfield's bounty, with his
+open palm.
+
+'Oh, but Doctor Pell,' urged she, in a persuasive aside, half behind
+him, in the shadow of the doorway.
+
+'Pray, Madam, no more--pardon me,' and Doctor Pell, with a peremptory
+bow, repelled his fee.
+
+Why do physicians take their honest earnings in this clandestine
+way--transacted like favours, secret, sweet, and precious; and pocketed
+in dark corners, and whispers, like the wages of sin? Cold Doctor Pell
+here refused a very considerable fee. He could on occasion behave
+handsomely; but I can't learn that blustering, hilarious Doctor Rogerson
+ever refused his.
+
+And the doctor descended, not hastily, but very swiftly, and was in the
+drawing-room, and the door shut.
+
+'Gone, poor gentleman!' said Toole, in an under tone--his phraseology
+became refined in Pell's presence; he'd have said 'poor devil,' or 'poor
+dog,' if he had been with Doctor Rogerson.
+
+Pell held the pen in his thin lips, while he tore off half-a-sheet of
+paper, and only shook his head funereally.
+
+So, taking the pen in his fingers, he said, 'We'll give him so and so,
+if you approve.'
+
+'Very good, Sir,' said Toole, deferentially; and Pell, not seeming to
+hear, dashed off a few spattered lines, with necromantic circles and
+zigzags at the end of each.
+
+When Sturk afterwards saw that paper in the fingers of the maid, being
+very weak, he did not care to speak; but he signed with a little motion
+of his head, and she leaned down to listen.
+
+'Recipe?' whispered the doctor; 'put it--in--the fire;' and he shut his
+eyes--tired.
+
+Pell, looking again at his watch, was Doctor Toole's very obedient
+servant, and was waylaid by poor little Mrs. Sturk on the lobby.
+
+'Well, Madam, we've put our heads together, and ordered a little matter,
+and that rigor--that shivering fit--will subside; and we trust he'll be
+easier then; and you've a very competent adviser in Doctor a--a----'
+
+'Toole,' suggested the eager little woman.
+
+'Doctor Toole, Madam, and he'll direct whatever may be necessary; and
+should he wish to consult again, you can send for me; but he's quite
+competent, Madam, and he'll tell you all we think.'
+
+He had got to the end of the stairs while talking, and made his adieux,
+and glided down and out; and before poor little Mrs. Sturk bethought her
+how little she had got from him, she heard the roll of his coach wheels
+whirling him back again to Dublin. I believe few doctors grow so
+accustomed to the ghastly _eclaircissement_ as not very willingly to
+shirk it when they may.
+
+Toole shrank from it, too, and dodged, and equivocated, and evaded all
+he could; but he did admit there was an unfavourable change; and when he
+had gone--promising to be back at four o'clock--poor little Mrs. Sturk
+broke down--all alone in the drawing-room--and cried a passionate flood
+of tears; and thinking she was too long away, dried her eyes quickly,
+and ran up, and into Barney's room with a smile on; and she battled with
+the evil fear; and hope, that faithful angel that clings to the last,
+hovered near her with blessed illusions, until an hour came, next day,
+in the evening, about four o'clock, when from Barney's room there came a
+long, wild cry. It was 'his poor foolish little Letty'--the long
+farewell--and the 'noble Barney' was gone. The courtship and the married
+days--all a faded old story now; and a few days later, reversed arms,
+and muffled drums, and three volleys in the church-yard, and a little
+file of wondering children, dressed in black, whom the old general
+afterwards took up in his arms, one by one, very kindly, and kissed,
+and told them they were to come and play in Belmont whenever they liked,
+and to eat fruit in the garden, and a great deal more; for all which a
+poor little lady, in a widow's cap, and a lonely room, hard-by, was very
+grateful.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVI.
+
+ABOUT THE RIGHTFUL MRS. NUTTER OF THE MILLS, AND HOW MR. MERVYN RECEIVED
+THE NEWS.
+
+
+Little Doctor Toole came out feeling rather queer and stunned from
+Sturk's house. It was past three o'clock by this time, and it had
+already, in his eyes, a changed and empty look, as his upturned eye for
+a moment rested upon its gray front, and the window-panes glittering in
+the reddening sun. He looked down the street towards the turnpike, and
+then up it, towards Martin's-row and the Mills. And he bethought him
+suddenly of poor Sally Nutter, and upbraided himself, smiting the point
+of his cane with a vehement stab upon the pavement, for having forgotten
+to speak to Lowe upon her case. Perhaps, however, it was as well he had
+not, inasmuch as there were a few not unimportant facts connected with
+that case about which he was himself in the dark.
+
+Mr. Gamble's conducting clerk had gone up stairs to Mrs. Nutter's door,
+and being admitted, had very respectfully asked leave to open, for that
+lady's instruction, a little statement which he was charged to make.
+
+This was in substance, that Archibald Duncan, Mary Matchwell's husband,
+was in Dublin, and had sworn informations against her for bigamy; and
+that a warrant having been issued for her arrest upon that charge, the
+constables had arrived at the Mills for the purpose of executing it, and
+removing the body of the delinquent, M. M., to the custody of the
+turnkey; that measures would be taken on the spot to expel the persons
+who had followed in her train; and that Mr. Charles Nutter himself would
+arrive in little more than an hour, to congratulate his good wife,
+Sally, on the termination of their troubles, and to take quiet
+possession of his house.
+
+You can imagine how Sally Nutter received all this, with clasped hands
+and streaming eyes, looking in the face of the man of notices and
+attested copies, unable to speak--unable quite to believe. But before he
+came to the end of his dry and delightful narrative, a loud yell and a
+scuffle in the parlour were heard; a shrilly clamour of warring voices;
+a dreadful crash of glass: a few curses and oaths in basses and
+barytones; and some laughter from the coachmen, who viewed the fray
+from outside through the window; and a brief, wild, and garrulous
+uproar, which made little Sally Nutter--though by this time used to
+commotion--draw back with her hands to her heart, and hold her breath.
+It was the critical convulsion; the evil spirit was being eliminated,
+and the tenement, stunned, bruised, and tattered, about to be at peace.
+
+Of Charles Nutter's doings and adventures during the terrible interval
+between his departure on the night of Mary Matchwell's first visit to
+the Mills, and his return on this evening to the same abode, there is a
+brief outline, in the first person, partly in answer to questions, and
+obviously intended to constitute a memorandum for his attorney's use. I
+shall reprint it with your leave--as it is not very long--verbatim.
+
+'When that woman, Sir, came out to the Mills,' says this document, 'I
+could scarce believe my eyes; I knew her temper; she was always damnably
+wicked; but I had found out all about her long ago; and I was amazed at
+her audacity. What she said was true--we _were_ married; or rather, we
+went through the ceremony, at St. Clement Danes, in London, in the year
+'50. I could not gainsay that; but I well knew what she thought was
+known but to herself and another. She had a husband living then. We
+lived together little more than three months. We were not a year parted
+when I found out all about him; and I never expected more trouble from
+her.
+
+'I knew all about him then. But seventeen years bring many changes; and
+I feared he might be dead. He was a saddler in Edinburgh, and his name
+was Duncan. I made up my mind to go thither straight. Next morning the
+_Lovely Betty_, packet, was to sail for Holyhead. I took money, and set
+out without a word to anybody. The wretch had told my poor wife, and
+showed her the certificate, and so left her half mad.
+
+'I swore to her 'twas false. I told her to wait a bit and she would see.
+That was everything passed between us. I don't think she half understood
+what I said, for she was at her wits' ends. I was scarce better myself
+first. 'Twas a good while before I resolved on this course, and saw my
+way, and worse thoughts were in my head; but so soon as I made up my
+mind to this I grew cool. I don't know how it happened that my
+foot-prints by the river puzzled them; 'twas all accident; I was
+thinking of no such matter; I did not go through the village, but
+through the Knockmaroon gate; 'twas dark by that time; I only met two
+men with a cart--they did not know me--Dublin men, I think. I crossed
+the park in a straight line for Dublin; I did not meet a living soul;
+'twas dark, but not very dark. When I reached the Butcher's Wood, all on
+a sudden, I heard a horrid screech, and two blows quick, one after the
+other, to my right, not three score steps away--heavy blows--they
+sounded like the strokes of a man beating a carpet.
+
+'With the first alarm, I hollo'd, and ran in the direction shouting as
+I went; 'twas as I ran I heard the second blow; I saw no one, and heard
+no other sound; the noise I made myself in running might prevent it. I
+can't say how many seconds it took to run the distance--not many; I ran
+fast; I was not long in finding the body; his white vest and small
+clothes showed under the shadow; he seemed quite dead. I thought when
+first I took his hand, there was a kind of a quiver in his fingers; but
+that was over immediately. His eyes and mouth were a bit open; the blood
+was coming very fast, and the wounds on his head looked very
+deep--frightful--as I conjectured they were done with a falchion (a name
+given to a heavy wooden sword resembling a New Zealand weapon); there
+was blood coming from one ear, and his mouth; there was no sign of life
+about him, and I thought him quite dead. I would have lifted him against
+a tree, but his head looked all in a smash, and I daren't move him. I
+knew him for Dr. Sturk, of the Artillery; he wore his regimentals; I did
+not see his hat; his head was bare when I saw him.
+
+'When I saw 'twas Doctor Sturk, I was frightened; he had treated me
+mighty ill, and I resented it, which I did not conceal; and I thought
+'twould look very much against me if I were any way mixed up in this
+dreadful occurrence--especially not knowing who did it--and being alone
+with the body so soon after 'twas done. I crossed the park wall
+therefore; but by the time I came near Barrack-street, I grew uneasy in
+my mind, lest Doctor Sturk should still have life in him, and perish for
+want of help. I went down to the river-side, and washed my hands, for
+there was blood upon 'em, and while so employed, by mischance I lost my
+hat in the water and could not recover it. I stood for a while by the
+river-bank; it was a lonely place; I was thinking of crossing there
+first, I was so frightened; I changed my mind, however, and went round
+by Bloody-bridge.
+
+'The further I went the more fearful I grew, lest Sturk should die for
+want of help that I might send him; and although I thought him dead, I
+got such a dread of this over me as I can't describe. I saw two soldiers
+opposite the "Royal Oak" inn, and I told them I overheard a fellow speak
+of an officer that lay wounded in the Butcher's Wood, not far from the
+park-wall, and gave them half-a-crown to have search made, which they
+promised, and took the money.
+
+'I crossed Bloody-bridge, and got into a coach, and so to Luke Gamble's.
+I told him nothing of Sturk; I had talked foolishly to him, and did not
+know what even he might think. I told him all about M. M.'s, that is Mary
+Duncan's turning up; she went by that name in London, and kept a
+lodging-house. I took his advice on the matter, and sailed next morning.
+The man Archie Duncan had left Edinburgh, but I traced him to Carlisle
+and thence to York, where I found him. He was in a very poor way, and
+glad to hear that Demirep was in Dublin, and making money. When I came
+back I was in the _Hue-and-Cry_ for the assault on Sturk.
+
+'I took no precaution, not knowing what had happened; but 'twas night
+when we arrived, Duncan and I, and we went straight to Gamble's and he
+concealed me. I kept close within his house, except on one night, when I
+took coach. I was under necessity, as you shall hear, to visit
+Chapelizod. I got out in the hollow of the road by the Knockmaroon pond,
+in the park; an awful night it was--the night of the snow-storm, when
+the brig was wrecked off the Black Rock, you remember. I wanted to get
+some papers necessary to my case against Mary Duncan. I had the key of
+the glass door; the inside fastening was broke, and there was no trouble
+in getting in. But the women had sat up beyond their hour, and saw me. I
+got the papers, however, and returned, having warned them not to speak.
+I ventured out of doors but once more, and was took on a warrant for
+assaulting Sturk. 'Twas the women talking as they did excited the
+officer's suspicions.
+
+'I have lain in prison since. The date of my committal and discharge
+are, I suppose, there.'
+
+And so ends this rough draft, with the initials, I think, in his own
+hands, C. N., at the foot.
+
+At about half-past four o'clock Nutter came out to the Mills in a coach.
+He did not drive through Chapelizod; he was shy, and wished to feel his
+way a little. So he came home privily by the Knockmaroon Park-gate. Poor
+little Sally rose into a sort of heroine. With a wild cry, and 'Oh,
+Charlie!' she threw her arms about his neck; and the 'good little
+crayture,' as Magnolia was wont to call her, had fainted. Nutter said
+nothing, but carried her in his arms to the sofa, and himself sobbed
+very violently for about a minute, supporting her tenderly. She came to
+herself very quickly, and hugged her Charlie with such a torrent of
+incoherent endearments, welcomes, and benedictions as I cannot at all
+undertake to describe. Nutter didn't speak. His arms were about her, and
+with wet eyes, and biting his nether-lip, and smiling, he looked into
+her poor little wild, delighted face with an unspeakable world of
+emotion and affection beaming from the homely lines and knots of that
+old mahogany countenance; and the maids smiling, blessing, courtesying,
+and welcoming him home again, added to the pleasant uproar which amazed
+even the tipsy coachman from the hall.
+
+'Oh! Charlie, I have you fast, my darling. Oh! but it's wonderful; you,
+yourself--my Charlie, your own self--never, never, oh! _never_ to part
+again!' and so on.
+
+And so for a rapturous hour, it seemed as if they had passed the dark
+valley, and were immortal; and no more pain, sorrow, or separation for
+them. And, perhaps, these blessed illusions are permitted now and again
+to mortals, like momentary gleams of paradise, and distant views of the
+delectable mountains, to cheer poor pilgrims with a foretaste of those
+meetings beyond the river, where the separated and beloved shall
+embrace.
+
+It is not always that the person most interested in a rumour is first to
+hear it. It was reported in Chapelizod, early that day, that Irons, the
+clerk, had made some marvellous discovery respecting Lord Dunoran, and
+the murder of which an English jury had found that nobleman guilty. Had
+people known that Mervyn was the son of that dishonoured peer--as in
+that curious little town they would, no doubt, long since have, at
+least, suspected, had he called himself by his proper patronymic
+Mordaunt--he would not have wanted a visitor to enlighten him
+half-an-hour after the rumour had began to proclaim itself in the
+streets and public haunts of the village. No one, however, thought of
+the haughty and secluded young gentleman who lived so ascetic a life at
+the Tiled House, and hardly ever showed in the town, except in church on
+Sundays; and who when he rode on his black hunter into Dublin, avoided
+the village, and took the high-road by Inchicore.
+
+When the report did reach him, and he heard that Lowe, who knew all
+about it, was at the Phoenix, where he was holding a conference with a
+gentleman from the Crown Office, half wild with excitement, he hurried
+thither. There, having declared himself to the magistrate and his
+companion, in that little chamber where Nutter was wont to transact his
+agency business, and where poor Sturk had told down his rent, guinea by
+guinea, with such a furious elation, on the morning but one before he
+received his death-blow, he heard, with such feelings as may be
+imagined, the magistrate read aloud, not only the full and clear
+information of Irons, but the equally distinct deposition of Doctor
+Sturk, and was made aware of the complete identification of the
+respectable and vivacious Paul Dangerfield with the dead and damned
+Charles Archer!
+
+On hearing all this, the young man rode straight to Belmont, where he
+was closeted with the general for fully twenty minutes. They parted in a
+very friendly way, but he did not see the ladies. The general, however,
+no sooner bid him farewell at the door-steps than he made his way to the
+drawing-room, and, big with his amazing secret, first, in a very grave
+and almost agitated way, told little 'Toodie,' as he called his
+daughter, to run away and leave him together with Aunt Rebecca, which
+being done, he anticipated that lady's imperious summons to explain
+himself by telling her, in his blunt, soldierly fashion, the wondrous
+story.
+
+Aunt Becky was utterly confounded. She had seldom before in her life
+been so thoroughly taken in. What a marvellous turn of fortune! What a
+providential deliverance and vindication for that poor young Lord
+Dunoran! What an astounding exposure of that miscreant Mr. Dangerfield!
+
+'What a blessed escape the child has had!' interposed the general with a
+rather testy burst of gratitude.
+
+'And how artfully she and my lord contrived to conceal their
+engagement!' pursued Aunt Rebecca, covering her somewhat confused
+retreat.
+
+But, somehow, Aunt Rebecca was by no means angry. On the contrary,
+anyone who knew her well would have perceived that a great weight was
+taken off her mind.
+
+The consequences of Dangerfield's incarceration upon these awful
+charges, were not confined altogether to the Tiled House and the
+inhabitants of Belmont.
+
+No sooner was our friend Cluffe well assured that Dangerfield was in
+custody of the gaoler, and that his old theory of a certain double plot
+carried on by that intriguing personage, with the object of possessing
+the hand and thousands of Aunt Rebecca, was now and for ever untenable,
+than he wrote to London forthwith to countermand the pelican. The
+answer, which in those days was rather long about coming, was not
+pleasant, being simply a refusal to rescind the contract.
+
+Cluffe, in a frenzy, carried this piece of mercantile insolence off to
+his lawyer. The stout captain was, however, undoubtedly liable, and,
+with a heavy heart, he wrote to beg they would, with all despatch, sell
+the bird in London on his account, and charge him with the difference.
+'The scoundrels!--they'll buy him themselves at half-price, and charge
+me a per centage besides; but what the plague better can I do?
+
+In due course, however, came an answer, informing Captain Cluffe that
+his letter had arrived too late, as the bird, pursuant to the tenor of
+his order, had been shipped for him to Dublin by the _Fair Venus_, with
+a proper person in charge, on the Thursday morning previous. Good Mrs.
+Mason, his landlady, had no idea what was causing the awful commotion in
+the captain's room; the fitful and violent soliloquies; the stamping of
+the captain up and down the floor; and the contusions, palpably,
+suffered by her furniture. The captain's temper was not very pleasant
+that evening, and he was fidgety and feverish besides, expecting every
+moment a note from town to apprise him of its arrival.
+
+However, he walked up to Belmont a week or two after, and had a very
+consolatory reception from Aunt Becky. He talked upon his old themes,
+and upon the subject of Puddock, was, as usual, very friendly and
+intercessorial; in fact, she showed at last signs of yielding.
+
+'Well, Captain Cluffe, tell him if he cares to come, he _may_ come, and
+be on the old friendly footing; but be sure you tell him he owes it all
+to _you_.'
+
+And positively, as she said so, Aunt Rebecca looked down upon her fan;
+and Cluffe thought looked a little flushed, and confused too; whereat
+the gallant fellow was so elated that he told her all about the pelican,
+discarding as unworthy of consideration, under circumstances so
+imminently promising, a little plan he had formed of keeping the bird
+privately in Dublin, and looking out for a buyer.
+
+Poor little Puddock, on the other hand, had heard, more than a week
+before this message of peace arrived, the whole story of Gertrude's
+engagement to Lord Dunoran, as we may now call Mr. Mervyn, with such
+sensations as may be conjectured. His heart, of course, was torn; but
+having sustained some score of similar injuries in that region upon
+other equally harrowing occasions, he recovered upon this with all
+favourable symptoms, and his wounds healed with the first intention. He
+wore his chains very lightly, indeed. The iron did not enter into his
+soul; and although, of course, 'he could never cease but with his life
+to dwell upon the image of his fleeting dream--the beautiful nymph of
+Belmont,' I have never heard that his waist grew at all slimmer, or that
+his sleep or his appetite suffered during the period of his despair.
+
+The good little fellow was very glad to hear from Cluffe, who patronised
+him most handsomely, that Aunt Rebecca had consented to receive him once
+more into her good graces.
+
+'And the fact is, Puddock, I think I may undertake to promise you'll
+never again be misunderstood in that quarter,' said Cluffe, with a
+mysterious sort of smile.
+
+'I'm sure, dear Cluffe, I'm grateful as I ought, for your generous
+pleading on my poor behalf, and I do prize the good will of that most
+excellent lady as highly as any, and owe her, beside, a debt of
+gratitude for care and kindness such as many a mother would have failed
+to bestow.'
+
+'Mother, indeed! Why, Puddock, my boy, you forget you're no chicken,'
+said Cluffe, a little high.
+
+'And to-morrow I will certainly pay her my respects,' said the
+lieutenant, not answering Cluffe's remark.
+
+So Gertrude Chattesworth, after her long agitation--often despair--was
+tranquil at last, and blessed in the full assurance of the love which
+was henceforth to be her chief earthly happiness.
+
+'Madam was very sly,' said Aunt Becky, with a little shake of her head,
+and a quizzical smile; and holding up her folded fan between her finger
+and thumb, in mimic menace as she glanced at Gertrude. 'Why, Mr.
+Mordaunt, on the very day--the day we had the pleasant luncheon on the
+grass--when, as I thought, she had given you your quietus--'twas quite
+the reverse, and you had made a little betrothal, and duped the old
+people so cleverly ever after.'
+
+'You have forgiven me, dear aunt,' said the young lady, kissing her very
+affectionately, 'but I will never quite forgive myself. In a moment of
+great agitation I made a hasty promise of secrecy, which, from the
+moment 'twas made, was to me a never-resting disquietude, misery, and
+reproach. If you, my dearest aunt, knew, as _he_ knows, all the
+anxieties, or rather the terrors, I suffered during that agitating
+period of concealment--'
+
+'Indeed, dear Madam,' said Mordaunt--or as we may now call him, Lord
+Dunoran--coming to the rescue, ''twas all my doing; on me alone rests
+all the blame. Selfish it hardly was. I could not risk the loss of my
+beloved; and until my fortunes had improved, to declare our situation
+would have been too surely to lose her. Henceforward I have done with
+mystery. _I_ will never have a secret from her, nor she from you.'
+
+He took Aunt Becky's hand. 'Am I, too, forgiven?'
+
+He held it for a second, and then kissed it.
+
+Aunt Becky smiled, with one of her pleasant little blushes, and looked
+down on the carpet, and was silent for a moment; and then, as they
+afterwards thought a little oddly, she said,
+
+'That censor must be more severe than I, who would say that concealment
+in matters of the heart is never justifiable; and, indeed, my dear,' she
+added, quite in a humble way, 'I almost think you were right.'
+
+Aunt Becky's looks and spirits had both improved from the moment of this
+_eclaircissement_. A load was plainly removed from her mind. Let us hope
+that her comfort and elation were perfectly unselfish. At all events,
+her heart sang with a quiet joy, and her good humour was unbounded. So
+she stood up, holding Lord Dunoran's hand in hers, and putting her white
+arm round her niece's neck, she kissed her again and again, very
+tenderly, and she said--
+
+'How very happy, Gertrude, you must be!' and then she went quickly from
+the room, drying her eyes.
+
+Happy indeed she was, and not least in the termination of that secrecy
+which was so full of self-reproach and sometimes of distrust. From the
+evening of that dinner at the King's House, when in an agony of jealousy
+she had almost disclosed to poor little Lily the secret of their
+engagement, down to the latest moment of its concealment, her hours had
+been darkened by care, and troubled with ceaseless agitations.
+
+Everything was now going prosperously for Mervyn--or let us call him
+henceforward Lord Dunoran. Against the united evidence of Sturk and
+Irons, two independent witnesses, the crown were of opinion that no
+defence was maintainable by the wretch, Archer. The two murders were
+unambiguously sworn to by both witnesses. A correspondence, afterwards
+read in the Irish House of Lords, was carried on between the Irish and
+the English law officers of the crown--for the case, for many reasons,
+was admitted to be momentous--as to which crime he should be first tried
+for--the murder of Sturk, or that of Beauclerc. The latter was, in this
+respect, the most momentous--that the cancelling of the forfeiture which
+had ruined the Dunoran family depended upon it.
+
+'But are you not forgetting, Sir,' said Mr. Attorney in consultation,
+'that there's the finding of _felo de se_ against him by the coroner's
+jury?'
+
+'No, Sir,' answered the crown solicitor, well pleased to set Mr.
+Attorney right. 'The jury being sworn, found only that he came by his
+death, but whether by gout in his stomach, or by other disease, or by
+poison, they had no certain knowledge; there was therefore no such
+coroner's verdict, and no forfeiture therefore.'
+
+'And I'm glad to hear it, with all my heart. I've seen the young
+gentleman, and a very pretty young nobleman he is,' said Mr. Attorney.
+Perhaps he would not have cared if this expression of his good will had
+got round to my lord.
+
+The result was, however, that their prisoner was to be first tried in
+Ireland for the murder of Doctor Barnabas Sturk.
+
+A few pieces of evidence, slight, but sinister, also turned up. Captain
+Cluffe was quite clear he had seen an instrument in the prisoner's hand
+on the night of the murder, as he looked into the little bed-chamber of
+the Brass Castle, so unexpectedly. When he put down the towel, he raised
+it from the toilet, where it lay. It resembled the butt of a whip--was
+an inch or so longer than a drumstick, and six or seven inches of the
+thick end stood out in a series of circular bands or rings. He washed
+the thick end of it in the basin; it seemed to have a spring in it, and
+Cluffe thought it was a sort of loaded baton. In those days robbery and
+assault were as common as they are like to become again, and there was
+nothing remarkable in the possession of such defensive weapons.
+Dangerfield had only run it once or twice hastily through the water,
+rolled it in a red handkerchief, and threw it into his drawer, which he
+locked. When Cluffe was shown the whip, which bore a rude resemblance to
+this instrument, and which Lowe had assumed to be all that Cluffe had
+really seen, the gallant captain peremptorily pooh-poohed it. 'Twas no
+such thing. The whip-handle was light in comparison, and it was too long
+to fit in the drawer.
+
+Now, the awful fractures which had almost severed Sturk's skull
+corresponded exactly with the wounds which such an instrument would
+inflict, and a tubular piece of broken iron, about two inches long,
+exactly corresponding with the shape of the loading described by Cluffe,
+was actually discovered in the sewer of the Brass Castle. It had been in
+the fire, and the wood or whalebone was burnt completely away. It was
+conjectured that Dangerfield had believed it to be lead, and having
+burnt the handle, had broken the metal which he could not melt, and made
+away with it in the best way he could. So preparations were pushed
+forward, and Sturk's dying declaration, sworn to, late in the evening
+before his dissolution, in a full consciousness of his approaching
+death, was, of course, relied on, and a very symmetrical and logical
+bill lay, neatly penned, in the Crown Office, awaiting the next
+commission for the county.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVII.
+
+IN WHICH OBEDIAH ARRIVES.
+
+
+In the meantime our worthy little Lieutenant Puddock--by this time quite
+reconciled to the new state of things, walked up to Belmont, with his
+head a great deal fuller--such and so great are human vagaries--of the
+interview pending between him and Aunt Becky than of the little romance
+which had exploded so unexpectedly about a fortnight ago.
+
+He actually saw Miss Gertrude and my Lord Dunoran walking side by side,
+on the mulberry walk by the river; and though he looked and felt a
+little queer, perhaps, a little absurd, he did not sigh, or murmur a
+stanza, or suffer a palpitation; but walked up to the hall-door, and
+asked for Miss Rebecca Chattesworth.
+
+Aunt Becky received him in the drawing-room. She was looking very pale,
+and spoke very little, and very gently for her. In a reconciliation
+between two persons of the opposite sexes--though the ages be wide
+apart--there is almost always some little ingredient of sentiment.
+
+The door was shut, and Puddock's voice was heard in an indistinct
+murmur, upon the lobby. Then there was a silence, or possibly, some
+speaking in a still lower key. Then Aunt Becky was crying, and the
+lieutenant's voice cooing through it. Then Aunt Becky, still crying,
+said--
+
+'A longer time than _you_ think for, lieutenant; two years, and
+more--_always_! And the lieutenant's voice rose again; and she
+said--'What a fool I've been!' which was again lost in Puddock's
+accents; and the drawing-room door opened, and Aunt Rebecca ran up
+stairs, with her handkerchief to her red nose and eyes, and slammed her
+bed-room door after her like a boarding-school miss.
+
+And the general's voice was heard shouting 'luncheon' in the hall; and
+Dominick repeated the announcement to Puddock, who stood, unusually pale
+and very much stunned, with the handle of the open drawing-room door in
+his hand, looking up toward the bed-room in an undecided sort of way, as
+if he was not clear whether it was not his duty to follow Aunt Becky. On
+being told a second time, however, that the general awaited him at
+luncheon, he apprehended the meaning of the message, and went down to
+the parlour forthwith.
+
+The general, and my lord Dunoran, and Miss Gertrude, and honest Father
+Roach, were there; and Aunt Becky being otherwise engaged, could not
+come.
+
+Puddock, at luncheon, was abstracted--frightened--silent, for the most
+part; talking only two or three sentences during that sociable meal, by
+fits and starts; and he laughed once abruptly at a joke he did not hear.
+He also drank three glasses of port.
+
+Aunt Rebecca met him with her hood on in the hall. She asked him, with a
+faltering sort of carelessness, looking very hard at the clock, and
+nearly with her back to him--
+
+'Lieutenant, will you take a turn in the garden with me?'
+
+To which Puddock, with almost a start--for he had not seen her till she
+spoke--and, upon my word, 'tis a fact, with a blush, too--made a sudden
+smile, and a bow, and a suitable reply in low tones; and forth they
+sallied together, and into the garden, and up and down the same walk,
+for a good while--a long while--people sometimes don't count the
+minutes--with none but Peter Brian, the gardener, whom they did not see,
+to observe them.
+
+When they came to the white wicket-door of the garden, Aunt Rebecca
+hastily dropped his arm, on which she had leaned; and together they
+returned to the house very affably; and there Aunt Becky bid him
+good-bye in a whisper, a little hastily; and Puddock, so soon as he
+found Dominick, asked for the general.
+
+He had gone down to the river; and Puddock followed. As he walked along
+the court, he looked up; there was a kind of face at the window. He
+smiled a great deal and raised his hat, and placed it to his heart, and
+felt quite bewildered, like a man in a dream; and in this state he
+marched down to the river's bank.
+
+They had not been together for a full minute when the stout general
+threw back his head, looking straight in his face; and then he stepped
+first one, then another, fat little pace backward, and poked his cane
+right at the ribs of the plump little lieutenant, then closing with him,
+he shook both Puddock's hands in both his, with a hearty peal of
+laughter.
+
+Then he took Puddock under his arm. Puddock had to stoop to pick up his
+hat which the general had dislodged. And so the general walks him slowly
+towards the house; sometimes jogging his elbow a little under his ribs;
+sometimes calling a halt and taking his collar in his finger and thumb,
+thrusting him out a little, and eyeing him over with a sort of swagger,
+and laughing and coughing, and whooping, and laughing again, almost to
+strangulation; and altogether extraordinarily boisterous, and hilarious,
+and familiar, as Cluffe thought, who viewed this spectacle from the
+avenue.
+
+Mr. Sterling would not have been quite so amused at a similar freak of
+Mrs. Hidleberg's--but our honest general was no especial worshipper of
+money--he was rich, too, and his daughter, well dowered, was about to
+marry a peer, and beside all this, though he loved 'Sister Becky,' her
+yoke galled him; and I think he was not altogether sorry at the notion
+of a little more liberty.
+
+At the same moment honest Peter Brien, having set his basket of winter
+greens down upon the kitchen-table, electrified his auditory by telling
+them, with a broad grin and an oath, that he had seen Lieutenant Puddock
+and Aunt Rebecca kiss in the garden, with a good smart smack, 'by the
+powers, within three yards of his elbow, when he was stooping down
+cutting them greens!' At which profanity, old Mistress Dorothy, Aunt
+Rebecca's maid, was so incensed that she rose and left the kitchen
+without a word. The sensation there, however, was immense; and Mistress
+Dorothy heard the gabble and laughter fast and furious behind her until
+she reached the hall.
+
+Captain Cluffe was asking for Aunt Rebecca when Puddock and the general
+reached the hall-door, and was surprised to learn that she was not to be
+seen. 'If she knew 'twas I,' he thought, 'but no matter.'
+
+'Oh, _we_ could have told you that; eh, Puddock?' cried the general;
+''tisn't everybody can see my sister to-day, captain; a very peculiar
+engagement, eh, Puddock?' and a sly wink and a chuckle.
+
+Cluffe smiled a little, and looked rather conscious and queer, but
+pleased with himself; and his eyes wandered over the front windows
+hastily, to see if Aunt Becky was looking out, for he fancied there was
+something in the general's quizzing, and that the lady might have said
+more than she quite intended to poor little Puddock on the subject of
+the gallant mediator; and that, in fact, he was somehow the theme of
+some little sentimental disclosure of the lady's. What the plague else
+could they both mean by quizzing Cluffe about her?
+
+Puddock and he had not gone half-way down the short avenue, when Cluffe
+said, with a sheepish smile:
+
+'Miss Rebecca Chattesworth dropped something in her talk with you,
+Puddock, I see that plain enough, my dear fellow, which the general has
+no objection I should hear, and, hang it, I don't see any myself. I say,
+I may as well hear it, eh? I venture to say there's no great harm in it.'
+
+At first Puddock was reserved, but recollecting that he had been left
+quite free to tell whom he pleased, he made up his mind to unbosom; and
+suggested, for the sake of quiet and a longer conversation, that they
+should go round by the ferry.
+
+'No, I thank you, I've had enough of that; we can walk along as quietly
+as you like, and turn a little back again if need be.'
+
+So slowly, side by side, the brother-officers paced toward the bridge;
+and little Puddock, with a serious countenance and blushing cheeks, and
+looking straight before him, made his astounding disclosure.
+
+Puddock told things in a very simple and intelligible way, and Cluffe
+heard him in total silence; and just as he related the crowning fact,
+that he, the lieutenant, was about to marry Miss Rebecca Chattesworth,
+having reached the milestone by the footpath, Captain Cluffe raised his
+foot thereupon, without a word to Puddock, and began tugging at the
+strap of his legging, with a dismal red grin, and a few spluttering
+curses at the artificer of the article.
+
+'And the lady has had the condescension to say that she has liked me for
+at least _two years_.'
+
+'And she hating you like poison, to my certain knowledge,' laughed
+Captain Cluffe, very angrily, and swallowing down his feelings. So they
+walked on a little way in silence, and Cluffe, who, with his face very
+red, and his mouth a good deal expanded, and down in the corners, was
+looking steadfastly forward, exclaimed suddenly,--
+
+'_Well_?'
+
+'I see, Cluffe,' said Puddock; 'you don't think it prudent--you think we
+mayn't be happy?'
+
+'_Prudent_,' laughed Cluffe, with a variety of unpleasant meanings; and
+after a while--'And the general knows of it?'
+
+'And approves it most kindly,' said Puddock.
+
+'What else can he do?' sneered Cluffe; ''tis a precious fancy--they
+_are_ such cheats! Why you might be almost her _grand_-son, my dear
+Puddock, ha, ha, ha. 'Tis preposterous; you're sixteen years younger
+than I.'
+
+'If you can't congratulate me, 'twould be kinder not to say anything,
+Captain Cluffe; and nobody must speak in my presence of that lady but
+with proper respect; and I--I thought, Cluffe, you'd have wished me
+well, and shaken hands and said something--something--'
+
+'Oh, as for that,' said Cluffe, swallowing down his emotions again, and
+shaking hands with Puddock rather clumsily, and trying to smile, 'I wish
+you well, Heaven knows--everything good; why shouldn't I, by George? You
+know, Puddock, 'twas I who brought you together. And--and--am I at
+liberty to mention it?'
+
+Puddock thought it better the news should be proclaimed from Belmont.
+
+'Well, so I think myself,' said Cluffe, and relapsed into silence till
+they parted, at the corner of the broad street of Chapelizod and Cluffe
+walked at an astounding pace on to his lodgings.
+
+'Here's Captain Cluffe,' said Mrs. Mason, to a plump youth, who had just
+made the journey from London, and was standing with the driver of a
+low-backed car, and saluted the captain, who was stalking in without
+taking any notice.
+
+'Little bill, if you please, captain.'
+
+'What is it?' demanded the captain, grimly.
+
+'Obediar's come, Sir.'
+
+'Obediar!' said the captain. 'What the plague do you mean, Sir?'
+
+'Obediar, Sir, is the name we give him. The pelican, Sir, from Messrs.
+Hamburgh and Slighe.'
+
+And the young man threw back a piece of green baize, and disclosed
+Obediar, who blinked with a tranquil countenance upon the captain
+through the wires of a strong wooden cage. I doubt if the captain ever
+looked so angry before or since. He glared at the pelican, and ground
+his teeth, and actually shook his cane in his fist; and if he had been
+one bit less prudent than he was, I think Obediar would then and there
+have slept with his fathers.
+
+Cluffe whisked himself about, and plucked open the paper.
+
+'And what the devil is all this for, Sir? ten--twelve pounds ten
+shillings freightage and care on the way--and twenty-five, by George,
+Sir--not far from forty pounds, Sir,' roared Cluffe.
+
+'Where'll I bring him to, Sir?' asked the driver.
+
+The captain bellowed an address we sha'n't print here.
+
+'Curse him--curse the brute! forty pounds!' and the captain swore
+hugely, 'you scoundrel! Drive the whole concern out of that, Sir. Drive
+him away, Sir, or by Jove, I'll break every bone in your body, Sir.'
+
+And the captain scaled the stairs, and sat down panting, and outside the
+window he heard the driver advising something about putting the
+captain's bird to livery, 'till sich time as he'd come to his sinses;'
+and himself undertaking to wait opposite the door of his lodgings until
+his fare from Dublin was paid.
+
+Though Cluffe was occasionally swayed by the angry passions, he was, on
+the whole, in his own small way, a long-headed fellow. He hated law,
+especially when he had a bad case; and accordingly he went down again,
+rumpling the confounded bill in his hand, and told the man that he did
+not blame _him_ for it--though the whole thing was an imposition; but
+that rather than have any words about it, he'd pay the account, and have
+done with it; and he stared again in the face of the pelican with an
+expression of rooted abhorrence and disgust, and the mild bird clapped
+its bill, perhaps expecting some refreshment, and looking upon the
+captain with a serene complacency very provoking under the
+circumstances.
+
+'How the devil people can like such misshapen, idiotic-looking, selfish,
+useless brutes; and, by George, it smells like a polecat--curse it! but
+some people have deuced queer fancies in more matters than one. The
+brute! on my soul, I'd like to shoot it.'
+
+However, with plenty of disputation over the items, and many oaths and
+vows, the gallant captain, with a heavy and wrathful heart, paid the
+bill; and although he had sworn in his drawing-room that he'd eat the
+pelican before Aunt Rebecca should have it, he thought better also upon
+this point too, and it arrived that evening at Belmont, with his
+respectful compliments.
+
+Cluffe was soon of opinion that he was in absolute possession of his own
+secret, and resolved to keep it effectually. He hinted that very evening
+at mess, and afterwards at the club, that he had been managing a very
+nice and delicate bit of diplomacy which not a soul of them suspected,
+at Belmont; and that by George, he thought they'd stare when they heard
+it. He had worked like a lord chancellor to bring it about; and he
+thought all was pretty well settled, now. And the Chapelizod folk, in
+general, and Puddock, as implicitly as any, and Aunt Rebecca, for that
+matter, also believed to their dying day that Cluffe had managed that
+match, and been a true friend to little Puddock.
+
+Cluffe never married, but grew confoundedly corpulent by degrees, and
+suffered plaguily from gout; but was always well dressed, and
+courageously buckled in, and, I dare say, two inches less in girth,
+thanks to the application of mechanics, than nature would have presented
+him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCVIII.
+
+IN WHICH CHARLES ARCHER PUTS HIMSELF UPON THE COUNTRY.
+
+
+The excitement was high in Chapelizod when the news reached that a true
+bill was found against Charles Archer for the murder of Barnabas Sturk.
+Everywhere, indeed, the case was watched with uncommon interest; and
+when the decisive day arrived, and the old judge, furrowed, yellow, and
+cross, mounted the bench, and the jury were called over, and the
+challenges began, and the grim, gentlemanlike person with the white
+hair, and his right arm in a black silk sling, whispering to his
+attorney and now and again pencilling, with his left hand, a line to his
+counsel with that indescribable air of confidence and almost defiance,
+pleaded to the indictment 'not guilty,' and the dreadful business of the
+day began, the court was crowded as it seldom had been before.
+
+A short, clear, horrible statement unfolded the case for the crown. Then
+the dying deposition of Sturk was put in evidence; then Irons the clerk
+was put up, and told his tale doggedly and distinctly, and was not to be
+shaken. 'No, it was not true that he had ever been confined in a mad
+house.' 'He had never had delirium tremens.' 'He had never heard that
+his wife thought him mad.' 'Yes, it was true he had pledged silver of
+his master's at the Pied Horse at Newmarket' 'He knew it was a felony,
+but it was the prisoner who put it into his head and encouraged him to
+do it.' 'Yes, he would swear to that.' 'He had several times spoken to
+Lord Dunoran, when passing under the name of Mervyn, on the subject of
+his father being wronged.' 'He never had any promise from my lord, in
+case he should fix the guilt of that murder on some other than his
+father.' Our friend, Captain Cluffe, was called, and delivered his
+evidence in a somewhat bluff and peremptory, but on the whole effective
+way.
+
+Charles Nutter, after some whispered consultation, was also called, and
+related what we have heard. 'Yes, he had been arrested for the murder of
+Dr. Sturk, and now stood out on bail to answer that charge.' Then
+followed some circumstances, one of which, the discovery of a piece of
+what was presumed to be the weapon with which the murder was
+perpetrated, I have already mentioned. Then came some evidence, curious
+but quite clear, to show that the Charles Archer who had died at
+Florence was _not_ the Charles Archer who had murdered Beauclerc, but a
+gentleman who had served in the army, and had afterwards been for two
+years in Italy, in the employment of a London firm who dealt in works of
+art, and was actually resident in _Italy_ at the time when the Newmarket
+murder occurred, and that the attempt to represent him as the person who
+had given evidence against the late Lord Dunoran was an elaborate and
+cunning contrivance of the prisoner at the bar. Then came the medical
+evidence.
+
+Pell was examined, and delivered only half a dozen learned sentences;
+Toole, more at length, made a damaging comparison of the fragment of
+iron already mentioned, and the outline of the fractures in the deceased
+man's head; and Dillon was questioned generally, and was not
+cross-examined. Then came the defence.
+
+The points were, that Sturk was restored to speech by the determined
+interposition of the prisoner at the bar, an unlikely thing if he was
+ruining himself thereby! That Sturk's brain had been shattered, and not
+cleared from hallucinations before he died; that having uttered the
+monstrous dream, in all its parts incredible, which was the sole
+foundation of the indictment against that every way respectable and
+eminent gentleman who stood there, the clerk, Irons, having heard
+something of it, had conceived the plan of swearing to the same story,
+for the manifest purpose of securing thereby the favour of the young
+Lord Dunoran, with whom he had been in conference upon this very subject
+without ever once having hinted a syllable against Mr. Paul Dangerfield
+until after Doctor Sturk's dream had been divulged; and the idea of
+fixing the guilt of Beauclerc's murder upon that gentleman of wealth,
+family, and station, occurred to his intriguing and unscrupulous mind.
+
+Mr. Dangerfield, in the dock nodded sometimes, or sneered or smirked
+with hollow cheeks, or shook his head in unison with the passing
+sentiment of the speaker, directing, through that hot atmosphere, now
+darkening into twilight, a quick glance from time to time upon the
+aspect of the jury, the weather-gauge of his fate, but altogether with a
+manly, sarcastic, and at times a somewhat offended air, as though he
+should say, ''Tis somewhat too good a jest that I, Paul Dangerfield,
+Esq., a man of fashion, with my known character, and worth nigh two
+hundred thousand pounds sterling, should stand here, charged with
+murdering a miserable Chapelizod doctor!' The minutes had stolen away;
+the judge read his notes by candle-light, and charged, with dry and
+cranky emphasis, dead against that man of integrity, fashion, and
+guineas; and did not appear a bit disturbed at the idea of hanging him.
+
+When the jury went in he had some soup upon the bench, and sipped it
+with great noise. Mr. Dangerfield shook hands with his counsel, and
+smirked and whispered. Many people there felt queer, and grew pale in
+the suspense, and the general gaze was fixed upon the prisoner with a
+coarse curiosity, of which he seemed resolutely unconscious; and five
+minutes passed by and a minute or two more--it seemed a very long
+time--the minute-hands of the watches hardly got on at all--and then the
+door of the jury-room opened, and the gentlemen came stumbling in,
+taking off their hats, and silence was called. There was no need; and
+the foreman, with a very pale and frightened face, handed down the
+paper.
+
+And the simple message sounded through the court--
+
+'Guilty!'
+
+And Mr. Dangerfield bowed, and lifted up a white, smiling countenance,
+all over shining now with a slight moisture.
+
+Then there was some whispering among the conductors of the prosecution;
+and the leader stood up to say, that, in consequence of a communication
+from the law officers in England, where the prisoner was to be arraigned
+on a capital indictment, involving serious consequences to others--for
+the murder, he meant, of Mr. Beauclerc--the crown wished that he should
+stand over for judgment until certain steps in that case had been taken
+at the other side. Then the court enquired whether they had considered
+so and so; and the leader explained and satisfied his lordship, who made
+an order accordingly. And Mr. Dangerfield made a low bow, with a smirk,
+to his lordship, and a nod, with the same, to his counsel; and he
+turned, and the turnkey and darkness received him.
+
+Mr. Dangerfield, or shall we say the villain, Charles Archer, with
+characteristic promptitude and coolness, availed himself of the interval
+to try every influence he could once have set in motion, and as it were
+to gather his strength for a mighty tussle with the king of terrors,
+when his pale fingers should tap at his cell door. I have seen two of
+his letters, written with consummate plausibility and adroitness, and
+which have given me altogether a very high idea of his powers. But they
+were all received with a terrifying coldness or with absolute silence.
+There was no reasoning against an intuition. Every human being felt that
+the verdict was true, and that the judgment, when it came would be
+right: and recoiled from the smiling gentleman, over whose white head
+the hempen circle hung like a diabolical glory Dangerfield, who had
+something of the Napoleonic faculty of never 'making pictures' to
+himself, saw this fact in its literality, and acquiesced in it.
+
+He was a great favourite with the gaoler, whom, so long as he had the
+command of his money, he had treated with a frank and convivial
+magnificence, and who often sat up to one o'clock with him, and enjoyed
+his stories prodigiously, for the sarcastic man of the world lost none
+of his amusing qualities: and--the fatigues of his barren correspondence
+ended--slept, and eat, and drank, pretty much as usual.
+
+This Giant Despair, who carried the keys at his girdle, did not often
+get so swell a pilgrim into his castle, and was secretly flattered by
+his familiarity, and cheered by his devilish gaiety, and was quite
+willing to make rules bend a little, and the place as pleasant as
+possible to his distinguished guest, and give him in fact, all his heart
+could desire, except a chance of escape.
+
+'I've one move left--nothing very excellent--but sometimes, you know, a
+scurvy card enough will win the trick. Between you and me, my good
+friend, I have a thing to tell that 'twill oblige my Lord Dunoran very
+much to hear. My Lord Townshend will want his vote. He means to prove
+his peerage immediately and he may give a poor devil a lift, you
+see--hey?
+
+So next day there came my Lord Dunoran and a magistrate, not Mr.
+Lowe--Mr. Dangerfield professed a contempt for him, and preferred any
+other. So it was Mr. Armstrong this time, and that is all I know of him.
+
+Lord Dunoran was more pale than usual; indeed he felt like to faint on
+coming into the presence of the man who had made his life so
+indescribably miserable, and throughout the interview he scarcely spoke
+six sentences, and not one word of reproach. The villain was down. It
+was enough.
+
+Mr. Dangerfield was, perhaps, a little excited. He talked more volubly
+than usual, and once or twice there came a little flush over his pallid
+forehead and temples. But, on the whole, he was very much the same
+brisk, sardonic talker and polite gentleman whom Mr. Mervyn had so often
+discoursed with in Chapelizod. On this occasion, his narrative ran on
+uninterruptedly and easily, but full of horrors, like a satanic reverie.
+
+'Upon my honour, Sir,' said Paul Dangerfield, with his head erect, 'I
+bear Mr. Lowe no ill-will. He is, you'll excuse me, a thief-catcher by
+nature. He can't help it. He thinks he works from duty, public spirit,
+and other fine influences; I know it is simply from an irrepressible
+instinct. I do assure you, I never yet bore any man the least ill-will.
+I've had to remove two or three, not because I hated them--I did not
+care a button for any--but because their existence was incompatible with
+my safety, which, Sir, is the first thing to me, as yours is to you.
+Human laws we respect--ha, ha!--you and I, because they subserve our
+convenience, and just so long. When they tend to our destruction, 'tis,
+of course, another thing.'
+
+This, it must be allowed, was frank enough; there was no bargain here;
+and what ever Mr. Dangerfield's plan might have been, it certainly did
+not involve making terms with Lord Dunoran beforehand, or palliating or
+disguising what he had done. So on he went.
+
+'I believe in luck, Sir, and there's the sum of my creed. I was wrong in
+taking that money from Beauclerc _when_ I did, 'twas in the midst of a
+dismal run of ill-fortune. There was nothing unfair in taking it,
+though. The man was a cheat. It was not really his, and no one could
+tell to whom it belonged; 'twas no more his because I had found it in
+his pocket than if I had found it in a barrel on the high seas. I killed
+him to prevent his killing me. Precisely the same motive, though in your
+case neither so reasonable nor so justifiable, as that on which, in the
+name of justice, which means only the collective selfishness of my
+fellow-creatures, you design in cool blood to put me publicly to death.
+'Tis only that you, gentlemen, think it contributes to your safety.
+That's the spirit of human laws. I applaud and I adopt it in my own
+case. Pray, Sir' (to Mr. Armstrong), 'do me the honour to try this
+snuff, 'tis real French rappee.
+
+'But, Sir, though I have had to do these things, which you or any other
+man of nerve would do with a sufficient motive, I never hurt any man
+without a necessity for it. My money I've made fairly, though in great
+measure by play, and no man can say I ever promised that which I did not
+perform. 'Tis quite true I killed Beauclerc in the manner described by
+Irons. That was put upon me, and I could not help it. I did right. 'Tis
+also true, I killed that scoundrel Glascock, as Irons related. Shortly
+after, being in trouble about money and in danger of arrest, I went
+abroad, and changed my name and disguised my person.
+
+'At Florence I was surprised to find a letter directed to Charles
+Archer. You may suppose it was not agreeable. But, of course, I would
+not claim it; and it went after all to him for whom it was intended.
+There was actually there a Mr. Charles Archer, dying of a decline. Three
+respectable English residents had made his acquaintance, knowing nothing
+of him but that he was a sick countryman. When I learned all about it,
+I, too, got an introduction to him; and when he died, I prevailed with
+one of them to send a note signed by himself and two more to the London
+lawyer who was pursuing me, simply stating that Charles Archer had died
+in Florence, to their knowledge, they having seen him during his last
+illness, and attended his funeral.
+
+'I told them that he had begged me to see this done, as family affairs
+made it necessary; 'twas as well to use the event--and they did it
+without difficulty. I do not know how the obituary announcement got
+into the newspapers--it was not my doing--and naming him as the evidence
+in the prosecution of my Lord Dunoran was a great risk, and challenged
+contradiction, but none came. Sir Philip Drayton was one of the
+signatures, and it satisfied the attorney.
+
+'When I came to Chapelizod, though, I soon found that the devil had not
+done with me, and that I was like to have some more unpleasant work on
+my hands. I did not know that Irons was above ground, nor he either that
+I was living. We had wandered far enough asunder in the interval to make
+the chances very many we should never meet again. Yet here we met, and I
+knew him, and he me. But he's a nervous man, and whimsical.
+
+'He was afraid of me, and never used his secret to force money from me.
+Still it was not pleasant. I did not know but that if I went away he
+might tell it. I weighed the matter; 'tis true I thought there might
+have come a necessity to deal with him; but I would not engage in
+anything of the sort, without an absolute necessity. But Doctor Sturk
+was different--a bull-headed, conceited fool. I thought I remembered his
+face at Newmarket, and changed as it was, I was right, and learned all
+about him from Irons. I saw his mind was at work on me, though he could
+not find me out, and I could not well know what course a man like that
+might take, or how much he might have seen or remembered. That was not
+pleasant either.
+
+'I had taken a whim to marry; there's no need to mention names; but I
+supposed I should have met no difficulty with the lady--relying on my
+wealth. Had I married, I should have left the country.
+
+'However, it was not to be. It might have been well for all had I never
+thought of it. For I'm a man who, when he once places an object before
+him, will not give it up without trying. I can wait as well as strike,
+and know what's to be got by one and t'other. Well, what I've once
+proposed to myself I don't forego, and that helped to hold me where I
+was.
+
+'The nature of the beast, Sturk, and his circumstances were dangerous.
+'Twas necessary for my safety to make away with him. I tried it by
+several ways. I made a quarrel between him and Toole, but somehow it
+never came to a duel; and a worse one between him and Nutter, but that
+too failed to come to a fight. It was to be, Sir, and my time had come.
+What I long suspected arrived, and he told me in his own study he knew
+me, and wanted money. The money didn't matter; of that I could spare
+abundance, though 'tis the nature of such a tax to swell to
+confiscation. But the man who gets a sixpence from you on such terms is
+a tyrant and your master, and I can't brook slavery.
+
+'I owed the fellow no ill-will; upon my honour, as a gentleman; I
+forgive him, as I hope he has forgiven me. It was all fair he should
+try. We can't help our instincts. There's something wolfish in us all. I
+was vexed at his d----d folly, though, and sorry to have to put him out
+of the way. However, I saw I must be rid of him.
+
+'There was no immediate hurry. I could afford to wait a little. I
+thought he would walk home on the night I met him. He had gone into town
+in Colonel Strafford's carriage. It returned early in the afternoon
+without him. I knew his habits; he dined at Keating's ordinary at four
+o'clock; and Mercer, whom he had to speak with, would not see him, on
+his bill of exchange business, in his counting-house. Sturk told me so;
+and he must wait till half-past five at his lodgings. What he had to say
+was satisfactory, and I allowed five minutes for that.
+
+'Then he might come home in a coach. But he was a close-fisted fellow
+and loved a shilling; so it was probable he would walk. His usual path
+was by the Star Fort, and through the thorn woods between that and the
+Magazine. So I met him. I said I was for town, and asked him how he had
+fared in his business; and turned with him, walking slowly as though to
+hear. I had that loaded whalebone in my pocket, and my sword, but no
+pistol. It was not the place for firearms; the noise would have made an
+alarm. So I turned sharp upon him and felled him. He knew by an
+intuition what was about to happen, for as the blow fell he yelled
+"murder." That d----d fellow, Nutter, in the wood at our right, scarce a
+hundred yards away, halloed in answer. I had but time to strike him two
+blows on the top of his head that might have killed an ox. I felt the
+metal sink at the second in his skull, and would have pinked him through
+with my sword, but the fellow was close on me, and I thought I knew the
+voice for Nutter's. I stole through the bushes swiftly, and got along
+into the hollow under the Magazine, and thence on.
+
+'There was a slight fog upon the park, and I met no one. I got across
+the park-wall, over the quarry, and so down by the stream at Coyles, and
+on to the road near my house. No one was in sight, so I walked down to
+Chapelizod to show myself. Near the village tree I met Dr. Toole. I
+asked him if Nutter was in the club, and he said no--nor at home, he
+believed, for his boy had seen him more than half-an-hour ago leave his
+hall door, dressed for the road.
+
+'So I made as if disappointed, and turned back again, assured that
+Nutter was the man. I was not easy, for I could not be sure that Sturk
+was dead. Had I been allowed a second or two more, I'd have made sure
+work of it. Still I was _nearly_ sure. I could not go back now and
+finish the business. I could not say whether he lay there any longer,
+and if he did, how many men Nutter might have about him by this time.
+So, Sir, the cast was made, I could not mend it, and must abide my
+fortune be it good or ill.
+
+'Not a servant saw me go out or return. I came in quietly, and went into
+my bed-room and lighted a candle. 'Twas a blunder, a blot, but a
+thousand to one it was not hit. I washed my hands. There was some blood
+on the whalebone, and on my fingers. I rolled the loaded whalebone up in
+a red handkerchief, and locked it into my chest of drawers, designing to
+destroy it, which I did, so soon as the servants were in bed; and then I
+felt a chill and a slight shiver;--'twas only that I was an older man. I
+was cool enough, but a strain on the mind was more to me then than
+twenty years before. So I drank a dram, and I heard a noise outside my
+window. 'Twas then that stupid dog, Cluffe, saw me, as he swears.
+
+'Well, next day Sturk was brought home; Nutter was gone, and the
+suspicion attached to him. That was well. But, though Pell pronounced
+that he must die without recovering consciousness, and that the trepan
+would kill him instantaneously, I had a profound misgiving that he might
+recover speech and recollection. I wrote as exact a statement of the
+case to my London physician--a very great man--as I could collect, and
+had his answer, which agreed exactly with Doctor Pell's. 'Twas agreed on
+all hands the trepan would be certain death. Days, weeks, or months--it
+mattered not what the interval--no returning glimmer of memory could
+light his death-bed. Still, Sir, I presaged evil. He was so long about
+dying.
+
+'I'm telling you everything, you see. I offered Irons what would have
+been a fortune to him--he was attending occasionally in Sturk's
+sick-room, and assisting in dressing his wounds--to watch his
+opportunity and smother him with a wet handkerchief. I would have done
+it myself afterwards, on the sole opportunity that offered, had I not
+been interrupted.
+
+'I engaged, with Mrs. Sturk's approval, Doctor Dillon. I promised him
+five hundred guineas to trepan him. That young villain, I could prove,
+bled Alderman Sherlock to death to please the alderman's young wife.
+Who'd have thought the needy profligate would have hesitated to plunge
+his trepan into the brain of a dying man--a corpse, you may say,
+already--for five hundred guineas? I was growing feverish under the
+protracted suspense. I was haunted by the apprehension of Sturk's
+recovering his consciousness and speech, in which case I should have
+been reduced to my present rueful situation; and I was resolved to end
+that cursed uncertainty.
+
+'When I thought Dillon had forgot his appointment in his swinish vices,
+I turned my mind another way. I resolved to leave Sturk to _nature_, and
+clench the case against Nutter, by evidence I would have compelled Irons
+to swear. As it turned out, _that_ would have been the better way. Had
+Sturk died without speaking, and Nutter hanged for his death, the
+question could have opened no more, and Irons would have been nailed to
+my interest.
+
+'I viewed the problem every way. I saw the danger from the first, and
+provided many expedients, which, one after the other, fortune
+frustrated. I can't confidently say even now that it would have been
+wiser to leave Sturk to die, as the doctors said he must. I had a
+foreboding, in spite of all they could say, he would wake up before he
+died and denounce me. If 'twas a mistake, 'twas a fated one, and I could
+not help it.
+
+'So, Sir, you see I've nothing to blame myself for--though all has
+broken down.
+
+'I guessed when I heard the sound at the hall-door of my house that
+Sturk or Irons had spoken, and that they were come to take me. Had I
+broken through them, I might have made my escape. It was long odds
+against me, but still I had a chance--that's all. And the matter
+affecting my Lord Dunoran's innocence, I'm ready to swear, if it can
+serve his son--having been the undesigned cause of some misfortunes to
+you, my lord, in my lifetime.'
+
+Lord Dunoran said nothing, he only bowed his head.
+
+So Dangerfield, when his statement respecting the murder of Beauclerc
+had been placed clearly in writing, made oath of its truth, and
+immediately when this was over (he had, while they were preparing the
+statement, been walking up and down his flagged chamber), he grew all on
+a sudden weak, and then very flushed, and they thought he was about to
+take a fit; but speedily he recovered himself, and in five minutes' time
+was much as he had been at the commencement.
+
+After my lord and Mr. Armstrong went away, he had the gaoler with him,
+and seemed very sanguine about getting his pardon, and was very brisk
+and chatty, and said he'd prepare his petition in the morning, and got
+in large paper for drafting it on, and said, 'I suppose at the close of
+this commission they will bring me up for judgment; that will be the day
+after to-morrow, and I must have my petition ready.' And he talked away
+like a man who had got a care off his mind, and is in high spirits; and
+when grinning, beetle-browed Giant Despair shook his hand, and wished
+him luck at parting, he stopped him, laying his white hand upon his
+herculean arm, and, said he, 'I've a point to urge they don't suspect.
+I'm sure of my liberty; what do you think of that--hey?' and he laughed.
+'And when I get away what do you say to leaving this place and coming
+after me? Upon my life, you must, Sir. I like you, and if you don't, rot
+me, but I'll come and take you away myself.'
+
+So they parted in a sprightly, genial way; and in the morning the
+turnkey called the gaoler up at an unseasonable hour, and told him that
+Mr. Dangerfield was dead.
+
+The gaoler lay in the passage outside the prisoner's cell, with his bed
+across the door, which was locked, and visited him at certain intervals.
+The first time he went in there was nothing remarkable. It was but
+half-an-hour after the gaoler had left. Mr. Dangerfield, for so he
+chose to be called, was dozing very quietly in his bed, and just opened
+his eyes, and nodded on awaking, as though he would say, 'Here I am,'
+but did not speak.
+
+When, three hours later, the officer entered, having lighted his candle
+at the lamp, he instantly recoiled. 'The room felt so queer,' said he,
+'I thought I'd a fainted, and I drew back. I tried it again a bit
+further in, and 'twas worse, and the candle almost went out--'twas as if
+the devil was there. I drew back quick, and I called the prisoner, but
+no word was there. Then I locks the door, and called Michael; and when
+he came we called the prisoner again, but to no purpose. Then we opened
+the door, and I made a rush, and smashed the glass of the window to let
+in air. We had to wait outside a good while before we could venture in;
+and when we did, there he was lying like a man asleep in his bed, with
+his nightcap on, and his hand under his cheek, and he smiling down on
+the flags, very sly, like a man who has won something cleverly. He was
+dead, and his limbs cold by this time.'
+
+There was an inquest. Mr. Dangerfield 'looked very composed in death,'
+says an old letter, and he lay 'very like sleep,' in his bed, 'his
+fingers under his cheek and temple,' with the countenance turned 'a
+little downward, as if looking upon something on the floor,' with an
+'ironical smile;' so that the ineffaceable lines of sarcasm, I suppose,
+were traceable upon that jaundiced mask.
+
+Some said it was a heart disease, and others an exhalation from the
+prison floor. He was dead, that was all the jury could say for certain,
+and they found 'twas 'by a visitation of God.' The gaoler, being a
+superstitious fellow, was plaguily nervous about Mr. Dangerfield's
+valediction, and took clerical advice upon it, and for several months
+after became a very serious and ascetic character; and I do believe that
+the words were spoken in reality with that sinister jocularity in which
+his wit sported like church-yard meteors, when crimes and horrors were
+most in his mind.
+
+The niece of this gaoler said she well remembered her uncle, when a very
+old man, three years before the rebellion, relating that Mr. Dangerfield
+came by his death in consequence of some charcoal in a warming pan he
+had prevailed on him to allow him for his bed, he having complained of
+cold. He got it with a design to make away with himself, and it was
+forgotten in the room. He placed it under the bed, and waited until the
+first call of the turnkey was over, and then he stuffed his surtout into
+the flue of the small fire-place, which afforded the only ventilation of
+his cell, and so was smothered. It was not till the winter following
+that the gaoler discovered, on lighting a fire there, that the chimney
+was stopped. He had a misgiving about the charcoal before, and now he
+was certain. Of course, he said nothing about his suspicions at first,
+nor of his discovery afterwards.
+
+So, sometimes in my musings, when I hear of clever young fellows taking
+to wild courses, and audaciously rushing--where good Christians pray
+they may not be led--into temptation, there rises before me, with
+towering forehead and scoffing face, a white image smoking his pipe
+grimly by a plutonic fire; and I remember the words of the son of
+Sirach--'The knowledge of wickedness is not wisdom, neither at any time
+the counsel of sinners prudence.'
+
+Mr. Irons, of course, left Chapelizod. He took with him the hundred
+guineas which Mr. Dangerfield had given him, as also, it was said, a
+handsome addition made to that fund by open-handed Dr. Walsingham; but
+somehow, being much pressed for time, he forgot good Mistress Irons, who
+remained behind and let lodgings pretty much as usual, and never heard
+from that time forth anything very distinct about him; and latterly it
+was thought was, on the whole, afraid rather than desirous of his
+turning up again.
+
+Doctor Toole, indeed, related in his own fashion, at the Phoenix, some
+years later, a rumour which, however, may have turned out to be no
+better than smoke.
+
+'News of Zekiel, by Jove! The prophet was found, Sir, with a friend in
+the neighbourhood of Hounslow, with a brace of pistols, a mask, a
+handful of slugs, and a powder-horn in his pocket, which he first gave
+to a constable, and then made his compliments to a justice o' the peace,
+who gave him and his friend a note of commendation to my Lord Chief
+Justice, and his lordship took such a fancy to both that, by George, he
+sent them in a procession in his best one-horse coach, with a guard of
+honour and a chaplain, the high-sheriff dutifully attending, through the
+City, where, by the king's commands, they were invested with the grand
+collar of the order of the hempen cravat, Sir, and with such an
+attention to their comfort they were not required to descend from their
+carriage, by George, and when it drove away they remained in an easy,
+genteel posture, with their hands behind their backs, in a sort of an
+ecstasy, and showed their good humour by dancing a reel together with
+singular lightness and agility, and keeping it up till they were both
+out of breath, when they remained quiet for about half an hour to cool,
+and then went off to pay their respects to the President of the College
+of Surgeons,' and so forth; but I don't think Irons had pluck for a
+highwayman, and I can't, therefore, altogether, believe the story.
+
+We all know Aunt Rebecca pretty well by this time. And looking back upon
+her rigorous treatment of Puddock, recorded in past chapters of this
+tale, I think I can now refer it all to its true source.
+
+She was queer, quarrelsome, and sometimes nearly intolerable; but she
+was generous and off-handed, and made a settlement, reserving only a
+life interest, and nearly all afterwards to Puddock.
+
+'But in a marriage settlement,' said the attorney (so they called
+themselves in those days), 'it is usual; and here his tone became so
+gentle that I can't say positively what he uttered.'
+
+'Oh--a--_that_,' she said, 'a--well, you can speak to Lieutenant
+Puddock, if you wish. I only say for myself a life estate; Lieutenant
+Puddock can deal with the remainder as he pleases.' And Aunt Rebecca
+actually blushed a pretty little pink blush. I believe she did not think
+there was much practical utility in the attorney's suggestion, and if an
+angel in her hearing had said of her what he once said of Sarah, she
+would not have laughed indeed, but I think she would have shaken her
+head.
+
+She was twenty years and upwards his senior; but I don't know which
+survived the other, for in this life the battle is not always to the
+strong.
+
+Their wedding was a very quiet affair, and the talk of the village was
+soon directed from it to the approaching splendours of the union of Miss
+Gertrude and my Lord Dunoran.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XCIX.
+
+THE STORY ENDS.
+
+
+The old minutes of the Irish House of Lords can better explain than I
+the parliamentary process by which all the consequences of the judgment
+against the late Lord Dunoran were abrogated, as respected his son. An
+ancient name rescued from the shadow of dishonour, and still greater
+estates, made my lord and lady as happy as things can. So for the
+recluse Mervyn, and the fair Gertrude Chattesworth, our story ends like
+a fairy tale.
+
+A wedding in those days was a celebration and a feast; and it was deemed
+fitting that the union of Gertrude Chattesworth and the youthful Lord
+Dunoran should await the public vindication of his family, and the
+authentic restoration of all their rights and possessions. On the eve of
+this happy day, leaning on the youthful arm of kindly Dan Loftus, there
+came a figure not seen there for many months before, very much changed,
+grown, oh, how old! It was the good rector, who asked to see Miss
+Gertrude.
+
+And so when he entered the room, she ran to meet him with a little cry;
+and she threw her arms about his neck and sobbed a good deal on that
+old, cassocked shoulder, and longed to ask him to let her be as a
+daughter to him. But he understood her and, after a while, he wished her
+joy, very kindly. And my Lord Dunoran came in, and was very glad to see
+him, and very tender and reverent too; and the good doctor, as he could
+not be at the wedding, wished to say a word 'on the eve of the great
+change which my dear young friend--little Gertie, we used to call
+her--is about to make.' And so he talked to them both. It was an
+affectionate little homily, and went on something in this sort--
+
+'But I need not say how honourable an estate it is, only, my lord, you
+will always remember your wooing is not over with your wedding. As you
+did first choose your love, you must hereafter love your choice. In
+Solomon's Song, the Redeemer the bridegroom, and the Church His spouse,
+one calls the other "love," to show that though both did not honour
+alike, yet both should love alike.
+
+'And always be kind, and the kinder the more her weakness needs it.
+Elkanah says to his wife, "Am not I better unto thee than ten sons?" As
+though he favoured her more for that which she thought herself despised.
+So a good husband will not love his wife less, but comfort her more for
+her infirmities, as this man did, that she may bear with his infirmities
+too. And if she be jealous--ay, they will be jealous--'
+
+He spoke in a reverie, with a sad fond look, not a smile, but something
+like a smile, and a little pensive shake of the head; he was thinking,
+perhaps, of very old times. And 'my lord' glanced with a sly smile at
+Gertrude, who was looking on the carpet with, I think, a blush, and I'm
+sure saw my lord's glance seeking hers, but made as though she did not.
+
+'If she be jealous, her jealousy, you know, is still the measure of her
+love. Bless God that he hath made thee to her so dear a treasure that
+she cannot hide her fears and trouble lest she should lose even a
+portion of thy love; and let thy heart thank _her_ too.
+
+'And if the husband would reprove her, it must be in such a mood as if
+he did chide with himself, and his words like Jonathan's arrows, which
+were not shot to hurt but to give warning. She must have no words but
+loving words from thee. She is come to thee as to a sanctuary to defend
+her from hurt, and canst thou hurt her thyself? Does the king trample
+his crown? Solomon calls the wife the crown of her husband; therefore,
+he who despiseth her woundeth his own honour. I am resolved to honour
+virtue in what sex soever I find it.'
+
+The doctor was speaking this like a soliloquy, slowly, and looking on
+the floor.
+
+'And I think in general I shall find it more in women than in men.'
+
+Here the young people exchanged another smile, and the doctor looked up
+and went on. 'Ay--though weaker and more infirmly guarded, I believe
+they are better; for everyone is so much the better, by how much he
+comes nearer to God; and man in nothing is more like him than in being
+merciful. Yet woman is far more merciful than man. God is said to be
+love; and I am sure in that quality woman everywhere transcends.'
+
+The doctor's serious discourses were a mosaic of old divines and
+essayists, and Greek and Latin authors, as the writings of the Apostolic
+Fathers are, in a great measure, a tesselation of holy writ. He assumed
+that everybody knew where to find them. His business was only to repeat
+the truth wherever gleaned. So I can't tell how much was the doctor's
+and how much theirs.
+
+And when he had done upon this theme, and had risen to take leave, he
+said in his gentle and simple way--
+
+'And I brought you a little present--a necklace and
+ear-rings--old-fashioned, I'm afraid--they were my dear mother's
+diamonds, and were to have been--'
+
+Here there was a little pause--they knew what was in his mind--and he
+dried his eyes quickly.
+
+'And won't you take them, Gertie, for poor little Lily's keepsake? And
+so--well, well--little Gerty--I taught you your catechism--dear, dear!
+Little Gerty going to be married! And may God Almighty bless her to you,
+and you to her, with length of days, and all goodness; and with
+children, the inheritors of your fair forms, and all your graces, to
+gladden your home with love and duty, and to close your eyes at last
+with tender reverence; and to walk after you, when your time is over, in
+the same happy and honourable paths.'
+
+Miss Gertrude was crying, and with two quick little steps she took his
+knotted old hand, and kissed it fervently and said--
+
+'I thank you, Sir, you've always been so good to me; I wish I could tell
+you--and won't you come to us, Sir, and see us very often--when we are
+settled--and bring good Mr. Loftus, and dear old Sally; and thank you,
+Sir, with all my heart, for your beautiful presents, and for your noble
+advice, Sir, which I will never forget, and for your blessing, and I
+wish I could show you how very much I love and reverence you.'
+
+And my Lord Dunoran, though he was smiling, looked as if he had been
+crying too. But men, you know, don't like to be detected in that
+weakness, though everybody knows there are moments when _bonus Homerus
+dormitat_.
+
+Good Doctor Walsingham made Dan Loftus his curate. But when in the
+course of time a day came when the old rector was to meet his
+parishioners no more, and the parish was vacant, I do not hear that
+honest Dan succeeded to it. Indeed I'm afraid that it needs sometimes a
+spice of the devil, or at least of the world, to get on in the Church.
+But Lord Dunoran took him with him on the embassage to Lisbon, and
+afterwards he remained in his household as his domestic chaplain, much
+beloved and respected. And there he had entire command of his
+lordship's fine library, and compiled and composed, and did everything
+but publish and marry.
+
+In due time the fair Magnolia made the amorous and formidable O'Flaherty
+happy. Single blessedness was not for her, and it is due to her to say,
+she turned out one of the best house-wives in Chapelizod, and made the
+fireworker account for every shilling of his pay and other revenues, and
+managed the commissariat and all other departments to admiration. She
+cured her lord very nearly of boozing, and altogether of duelling. One
+combat only he fought after his marriage, and it was rumoured that the
+blooming Magnolia actually chastised the gigantic delinquent with her
+own fair hand. That, however, I don't believe. But unquestionably she
+did, in other ways, lead the contumacious warrior so miserable a life
+for some months after that, as he averred to the major, with tears in
+his eyes, it would have been 'more to his teeste to have been shot on
+the occasion.' At first, of course, the fireworker showed fight, and
+sometimes broke loose altogether; but in the end 'his mouth was made,'
+his paces formed, and he became a very serviceable and willing animal.
+But if she was strong she was also generous, and very popular for her
+good nature and fearlessness. And they made a very happy, as well as a
+comely couple. And many handsome children were nursed at her fair
+breast, and drew many a Celtic virtue from that kindly fountain and one
+of the finest grenadiers who lay in his red coat and sash within the
+French lines on the field of Waterloo, in that great bivouac which knows
+no _reveille_ save the last trumpet, was a scion of that fine military
+stock.
+
+At length came the day of the nuptials--a grand day for Belmont--a grand
+day for the town. Half-a-dozen flags were up and floating in the
+autumnal sun. The band of the Royal Irish Artillery played noble and
+cheering strains upon the lawns of Belmont. There were pipers and
+fiddlers beside for rustic merry-makers under the poplars. Barrels of
+strong ale and sparkling cider were broached on the grass; and plenty of
+substantial fare kept the knives and forks clattering under the marquees
+by the hedgerow. The rude and hospitable feudalism of old times had not
+died out yet; marriage being an honourable estate, the bride and
+bridegroom did not steal away in a travelling carriage, trying to pass
+for something else, to unknown regions, but remained courageously upon
+the premises, the central figures of a genial gala.
+
+Need I describe the wedding? It always seems to me that I saw it, and
+see it still, I've heard the old folk talk it over so often. The
+reader's fancy will take that business off my hands. 'What's a play
+without a marriage? and what is a marriage if one sees nothing of it?'
+says Sir Roger in Gay's tragi-comic pastoral. 'Let him have his humour,
+but set the doors wide open, that we may see how all goes on.'
+
+(_Sir Roger at the door, pointing_.)
+
+'So natural! d'ye see now, neighbours? The ring, i'faith. To have and to
+hold! Right again; well play'd, doctor; well play'd, son _Thomas_. Come,
+come, I'm satisfied. Now for the fiddles and dances.'
+
+And so are we--now, then, for the fiddles and dances! And let those who
+love to foot it keep it up--after sack-posset and stocking thrown--till
+two o'clock i' the morning; and the elder folk, and such as are 'happy
+thinking,' get home betimes; and smiling still, get to their beds; and
+with hearty laughter--as it were mellowed by distance--still in their
+ears, and the cheery scrape of the fiddle, all pervading, still humming
+on; and the pleasant scuffle of light feet, and with kindly ancient
+faces, and blushing young ones all round in airy portraiture; grinning,
+roguish, faithful, fuddled old servants, beflowered and liveried,
+pronouncing benedictions at the foot of the stairs, and pocketing their
+vails; and buxom maids in their best Sunday finery, giggling and
+staring, with eyes starting out of their heads, at the capering
+'quality,', through the half-open doors; let us try to remember the
+'sentiment' delivered by that ridiculous dog, Tom Toole, after supper,
+at which we all laughed so heartily. And, ah! there were some pretty
+faces that ought to have been there--faces that were pleasant to see,
+but that won't smile or blush any more; and I missed them, though I said
+nothing. And so, altogether, it went down among my pleasant
+recollections, and I think will always remain so, for it was all kindly,
+and had its root in the heart; and the affections were up and stirring,
+and mixed in the dance with the graces, and shook hands kindly with old
+father Bacchus; and so I pull my nightcap about my ears, drop the
+extinguisher on the candle, and wish you all pleasant dreams.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+JAMES DUFFY & CO.'S
+
+Catalogue of Standard Works
+
+OF
+
+_History, Amusement, and Instruction_.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+  At ½d. Each.
+
+  Duffy's Tales for the Young, etc. Royal 32mo, fancy
+  wrapper.
+
+  Anger; or, Alice Mordaunt.
+  Beatrice Alfieri; or, the Festival of the Rosary.
+  Eulalia St. Aubert.
+  Hugh Morton; or, the Broken Vow.
+  The Little Culprit; or, the Golden Necklace.
+  Walter and Emily; or, the Fatal Effects of Disobedience.
+
+
+  At 1d. Each.
+
+  Brother James's Tales. Illustrated. Printed Wrapper. Square l6mo.
+
+  Catherine Hall; or, the Deserted Child.
+  Clare Costello; a True Story.
+  Eva O'Beirne; or, the Little Lace Maker.
+  Gerald O'Reilly; or, the Triumph of Principle.
+  Little Mary; or, the Child of Providence.
+  Miles O'Donnell; or, a Story of a Life.
+  O'Hara Blake; or, the Lost Heir.
+  Rody O'Leary; or, the Outlaw.
+  The Bequest; or, All is not Gold that Glitters.
+  The Cousins; or, the Test of Friendship.
+  The Rose and the Lily; or, the Twin Sisters.
+  The Two Friends; or, the Reward of Industry.
+
+
+  Duffy's Juvenile Library. Paper Covers. 18mo.
+
+  Busy Peter.
+  Cathleen.
+  Fidelity Rewarded.
+  Little Alice.
+  Michael and his Dog.
+  Simple Sarah.
+  The Two Friends.
+  The Young Musicians.
+  The Little Adventurer.
+  The Little Drummer.
+  The Two Boys.
+  White Lies.
+
+
+  Moore's Irish Melodies. People's Edition. Sewed.
+  The Emmet Song Book. Sewed.
+  The Story of William Orr. Sewed.
+
+  At 2d. Each.
+
+  City Man (The), and Cousin in the Third Degree. Sq. 16mo.
+  Little St. Agnes, and Frost Land.                   "
+  Rosary of Pearl (The); or, the Ordeal by Touch.     "
+  True to the Last, and other Tales.                  "
+  Life and Poems of Charles J. Kickham. Sewed.
+
+
+  At 6d. Each.
+
+  Schmid (Canon), Works by--Post 8vo, cloth.
+
+  The Inundation of the Rhine, and Clara.
+  Lewis, the Little Emigrant.
+  The Easter Eggs, and Forget-me-not.
+  The Cakes, and the Old Castle.
+  The Hop Blossoms.
+  Christmas Eve.
+  The Carrier Pigeon, the Bird's Nest, etc.
+  The Jewels, and the Redbreast.
+  The Copper Coins and Gold Coins, etc.
+  The Cray-Fish, the Melon, the Nightingale.
+  The Fire, and the Best Inheritance.
+  Henry of Eichenfels; or, the Kidnapped Boy.
+  Godfrey, the Little Hermit.
+  The Water Pitcher, and the Wooden Cross.
+  The Rose Bush, and the Forest Chapel.
+  The Lamb.
+  The Madonna, the Cherries, and Anselmo.
+  The Canary Bird, the Firefly, the Chapel of Wolfsbuhl, and
+  Titus and his Family.
+
+
+  Gerald Griffin, Works by--16mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+
+  The Kelp Gatherer, a Tale.
+  The Day of Trial.
+  The Voluptuary Cured.
+  The Young Milesian.
+  The Beautiful Queen of Leix.
+  The Story of Psyche.
+  The Knight without Reproach.
+
+
+  Altar at Woodbank; a Tale of Holy Eucharist. By Mrs.
+    Agnew. Royal l6mo, cloth, limp.
+  Art MacMurrogh, Memoir and Life. l8mo, wrapper.
+  Art Maguire; or, the Broken Pledge.    "
+  Captive Mother; a Tale of Confirmation. By Mrs. Agnew.
+    Royal l6mo, cloth, limp.
+  Davis's Literary and Historical Essays. l8mo, wrapper.
+  Emily Sunderland; a Tale of Matrimony. Ryl. l6mo, cl. limp.
+  Emmet, Robert: his Birthplace and Burial. Sewed.
+  Eve of St. Michael; a Tale of Penance. By Mrs. Agnew.
+    Royal, l6mo, cloth, limp.
+  Faversham Grange; or, the Daughter of the Piscatori.
+    Post 8vo, cloth.
+  From Sunrise to Sunrise; or, Christmas in the Olden Time.
+    Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Fun--Humour--Laughter--to while away an hour on a Journey.
+  Gerald Griffin. His Life and Poems. By John Power.
+  Hail Mary; or, the Beauties of the Angelical Salutation.
+    l6mo, cloth, gilt.
+  Heir of Rochdale; a Tale of Baptism. By Mrs. Agnew. Royal
+    l6mo, cloth, limp.
+  Historical Notes on the Services of the Irish Officers in the
+    French Army. Paper.
+  History of the Irish Volunteers, 1782. 18mo, wrapper.
+  History of the "Protestant" Reformation. By Cobbett. Post
+    8vo, wrapper.
+  Holy and Blessed Children, Legends for Children. Paper.
+    Into the Sunlight. Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Knight of Clyffe Abbey; a Tale of Extreme Unction.
+    By Mrs. Agnew.
+  Life and Times of Hugh O'Neill. By John Mitchel.
+    18mo, wrapper.
+  Life of O'Connell. By Canon O'Rourke. l8mo, wrapper.
+  Life of the Venerable Joan of Arc. Imp. 32mo, cloth, limp.
+  Mangan's Essays, in Prose and Verse. l8mo, wrapper.
+      "    German Anthology. 2 vols., wrapper, each 6d.
+  May Eve; or, the Lost Sheep restored to the Fold.
+    l6mo, cloth, gilt.
+  Mary Anne O'Halloran. l6mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+  Memoir of Cardinal M'Cabe, Archbishop of Dublin.
+  Moore's Irish Melodies. Royal 32mo, gilt edges.
+  National Ballads, Songs, and Poems. By Thomas Davis.
+    18mo, wrapper.
+  O'Connell's Memoir on Ireland, Native and Saxon. 18mo, wpr.
+  On the Snow Clad Heights. Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Paddy Blake's Sojourn among the Soupers. Wrapper.
+  Paddy Go Easy and His Wife Nancy. l8mo, wrapper.
+  Penalty of a Crime. Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Priest of Northumbria; a Tale of Holy Orders.
+    Mrs. Agnew. Royal 16mo, cloth, limp.
+  Redmond Count O'Hanlon. l8mo, wrapper.
+  Rody the Rover. l8mo, wrapper.
+  Tales for the Young. Cloth.
+  The Ballad Poetry of Ireland. By C. C. Duffy. 42nd Edition.
+    l8mo, wrapper.
+  The Book of Irish Ballads. By Denis Florence MacCarthy.
+    l8mo wrapper.
+  The Poor Scholar, and other Tales. By William Carleton.
+    l8mo, wrapper.
+  The Queen of Italy. 16mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+  The Golden Pheasant.          "
+  The Dying Woodcutter          "
+  The Danger of Ignorance.      "
+  The Red Well, and other Tales. 18mo, wrapper.
+  The Songs of Ireland. By Michael J. Barry. l8mo, wpr.
+  The Spirit of the Nation. New and Revised Ed. 18mo, wpr.
+  The White Hen; an Irish Fairy Tale. 16mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+  Thomasine's Poems. 18mo, wrapper.
+  Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry. By W. Carleton.
+    l8mo, wrapper.
+  Valentine Redmond; or, the Cross of the Forest. l6mo, cloth.
+  Voyage autour de ma Chambre. By Count X. de Maestre.
+    l8mo, wrapper.
+  Wonderful Doctor (The). An Easter Tale. Post 8vo, cloth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  At 1s. Each.
+
+  Adventures of Mr. Moses Finegan, an Irish Pervert. 18mo, cl.
+  All for Prince Charlie. By Miss E. M. Stewart. Square l6mo,
+    cloth, gilt edges.
+  A Memoir on Ireland. By the late Daniel O'Connell, M. P.
+    18mo, cloth.
+  Antonio; or, the Orphan of Florence. Cloth, gilt edges.
+  Art MacMurrogh. By Thomas D'Arcy M'Gee. 18mo, cloth.
+  Ballad Poetry of Ireland. By Sir Charles Gavan Duffy.
+    18mo, cloth.
+  Bird's Eye View of Irish History. By Sir Charles G. Duffy.
+    Wrapper.
+  Book of Irish Ballads. By Denis F. M'Carthy, M.R.I.A.
+    l8mo, cloth.
+
+
+  Carleton, Works by--18mo, cloth.
+
+  Paddy Go Easy and his Wife Nancy.
+  Redmond Count O'Hanlon.
+  Art Maguire; or, the Broken Pledge.
+  Rody the Rover; or, the Ribbonman.
+  The Poor Scholar, and other Tales.
+  The Red Well. Party Fight.
+  Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry.
+
+
+  Cobbett's History of the "Protestant" Reformation.
+    Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Colleen Bawn: A Tale of Garryowen. Paper.
+  Daughter of Tyrconnell (The). By Mrs. Sadlier.
+    Square 16mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+  Dillon's Historical Notes on Irish Officers in the French Army.
+    l8mo, cloth.
+  Erin Quintiana; or, Dublin Castle and the Irish Parliament,
+    1767-1772. Paper.
+  Essay on the Antiquity and Constitution of Parliaments in
+    Ireland. By H. J. Monck Mason. 18mo, cloth.
+  Extraordinary Adventures of a Watch. Square 16mo, cloth.
+  Fairy Minstrel of Glenmalure. By E. Leamy. Boards.
+  Fate of Father Sheehy (The). Cap. 8vo, cloth.
+  Ferdinand; or, the Triumph of Filial Love. By Fr. Charles.
+    Sq. l6mo, cloth.
+  Florestine; or, Unexpected Joy. Square 16mo, cloth, gilt.
+  Franciscan Monasteries. By Rev. C. P. Meehan. Ptd. Cover.
+  Frederic; or, the Hermit of Mount Atlas. Cloth, gilt edges.
+  Fridolin and Dietrich. By Canon Schmid. Cap. 8vo,. cloth.
+  Genevieve of Brabant. By Canon Schmid. Sq. 16mo, cl., gilt.
+  Geraldines (The). By Rev. C. P. Meehan. 18mo, cloth.
+  Gerald Marsdale; or, the Out-Quarters of St. Andrew. 8vo, cl.
+  Golden Pheasant, and other Tales. Sq. l6mo, cloth, gilt.
+  Great Day (The); or, Means of Perseverance after First Communion.
+    By Mrs. J. Sadlier. Cap. 8vo, cloth.
+  Griffin (Gerald). Life and Works. 10 vols., pictorial cover.
+    (See List in 2s. Series).
+  History of Ireland. By J. O'Neill Daunt, Esq. 18mo, cloth.
+  Ireland Since the Union. By J. O'Neill Daunt. 18mo, cloth.
+  Irish Songs (Ten), Set to Music by Professor Glover. 4to, wpr.
+  Kelp Gatherer, Day of Trial, Voluptuary Cured. Cloth, gilt
+    edges.
+  Leo; or, the Choice of a Friend. Sq. 16mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+  Life and Letters of John Martin. By the Author of the Life of
+  John Mitchel. l8mo, cloth.
+  Life and Scenery in Missouri. By a Missionary Priest.
+    l8mo, cloth.
+  Life of Hugh O'Neill. By John Mitchel. l8mo, cloth.
+  Life of John Mitchel. By P. A. S. 18mo, cloth.
+  Life of Robert Emmet. Illustrated, boards.
+  Life of Thomas Moore. By James Burke, Esq. 18mo, cloth.
+  Lights and Leaders of Irish Life. Boards.
+  Literary and Historical Essays. By Thomas Davis. l8mo, cl.
+  Little Wanderers. By Miss E. M. Stewart. Post 8vo,
+    cloth, limp.
+  Lost Genevieve. By Cecilia Mary Caddell. Sq. 16mo, cloth.
+  MacNevin--The History of the Irish Volunteers of 1782.
+    l8mo, cloth.
+  Madden (Dr.), Literary Remains of the United Irishmen,
+    1798. 18mo, cloth.
+  Mangan (J. C.) Essays in Prose and Verse. 18mo, cloth.
+  Mangan (J. C.) German Anthology. 2 vols., 1s. each.
+    18mo, cloth.
+  Martha; or, the Hospital Sister. Sq. 16mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+  Mary Anne O'Halloran, White Hen, etc. Cloth, gilt edges.
+    Square 16mo.
+  Mellifont Abbey: Its Ruins and Associations. Illustrated.
+    Paper.
+  Memories of the Irish Franciscans. By J. F. O'Donnell.
+    18mo, cloth.
+  Moore's Irish Melodies and National Airs. 18mo, cloth.
+  National Ballads. By Thomas Davis, M.R.I.A. l8mo, cloth.
+  Nettlethorpe; or, the London Miser. By Brother James. Sq.
+    l6mo, cloth.
+  Old Marquise (An). By Vin. Vincent. 18mo, cloth.
+  Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation. By Sir Jonah Barrington.
+    8vo, boards.
+  Rory of the Hills, a Tale of Irish Life. Post 8vo, boards.
+  Rosary (The) of Pearl, and Six other Tales. By Miss E. M.
+    Stewart. Sq. l6mo, cloth.
+  School and Home Song Book, Tonic Sol-Fa Edition. By P.
+    Goodman. Cloth.
+  Songs of Ireland. By Michael J. Barry, Esq., B.L. l8mo, cl.
+  Speeches of The Rt. Hon. Edmund Burke. Cr. 8vo, ptd. cover.
+      "            John P. Curran.             "      "
+      "            Henry Grattan.              "      "
+      "          Daniel O'Connell, 2 vols.     "      "
+      "          The Rt. Hon. Lord Plunket.    "      "
+      "          Richard Lalor Sheil           "      "
+  Spirit of the Nation. New and Revised Edition. 18mo, cloth.
+  The False Friend. By Brother James. Sq. l6mo, gilt edges.
+  The Hamiltons; or, Sunshine and Storm. Sq. l6mo, cloth.
+  The Life of O'Connell. By V. Rev. John Canon O'Rourke,
+    l8mo, cloth.
+  The Orange Girl. By Lady C. Thynne. Sq. l6mo, cloth.
+  The Partners; or, Fair and Easy goes Far in the Day.
+    By Brother James. Cloth.
+  The Shipwreck; or, the Deserted Island. Sq. 16mo, cloth.
+  The Solitary of Mount Carmel. Sq. 16mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+  The Young Crusader; a Catholic Tale. Sq. 16mo, cloth.
+  "Thomasine's" Poems--Wild Flowers from the Wayside. With an
+    Introduction by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy. 18mo, cloth.
+  Valentine Redmond, and other Tales. Sq. 16mo, cl., gilt edges.
+  Watch and Hope. By Miss O'Neill Daunt. Sq. 16mo, cloth,
+    gilt edges.
+  Young Milesian, Beautiful Queen of Leix, and Story of Psyche.
+    Square l6mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+
+
+  Foolscap 8vo Series., Cloth.
+
+  Coaina, the Rose of the Algonquins. By Mrs. Anna H. Dorsey.
+  Father Rowland, a North American Tale..
+  Flower Basket. By Canon Schmid.
+  Geoffrey of Killingworth; or, the Grey Friar's Legacy.
+  Life of St. Columba, or Columbkille. By Saint Adamnan.
+  Old Grey Rosary. The Refuge of Sinners, By Mrs. A. H.
+    Dorsey.
+  Oriental Pearl; or, the Catholic Emigrants.
+  Pearl among the Virtues (The); or, Words of Advice to
+    Christian Youth.
+  Simon Kerrigan; or, Confessions of an Apostate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  At 1s. 6d. Each.
+
+  All for Prince Charlie. By E. M. Stewart. 16mo, cloth, gilt.
+  Bird's Eye View of Irish History. By Sir C. G. Duffy. Square
+    16mo, cloth.
+  Caddell (Miss), Works by--16mo, fancy cloth, gilt.
+  Blind Agnese.
+  Flowers and Fruit.
+  Miner's Daughter.
+  The Virgin Mother and the Child Divine.
+
+
+  Carleton's, The Evil Eye. Post. 8vo. Illustrated, fancy cover.
+  Duffy's Juvenile Library. 18mo, fancy cloth, gilt edges.
+  Exiled from Erin, a Story of Irish Peasant Life. By M. E. T.
+    Crown 8vo, cloth.
+  Franciscan Monasteries (The Irish). By Rev. C. P. Meehan.
+    18mo, cloth.
+  Fridolin and Dietrich. By Canon Schmid. Cap. 8vo, cloth,
+    gilt edges.
+  Holly and Ivy for Christmas Holidays. By Anthony Evergreen.
+    16mo, cloth.
+  Juvenile Library (The). By Brother James. 16mo, cloth, gilt.
+  King and the Cloister. By E. M. Stewart. 16mo, cloth, gilt.
+  Legends of the Cloister. By Miss E. M. Stewart. Post 8vo, cl.
+  Life of O'Connell. By Canon O'Rourke. Cl., extra, gilt edges.
+  Light and Shade. By Rev. T. J. Potter. Cap. 8vo, cloth, gilt.
+  Loretto; or, the Choice. By George H. Miles, Esq. Cap. 8vo.
+    cloth, gilt.
+  Popular Tales; or, Deeds of Genius. By J. M. Piercy. 16mo.
+    cloth, gilt.
+  Recreative Reading. By the Rambler from Clare. Sewed.
+  Rosary of Pearl (The); and Six other Tales. By E. M. Stewart.
+    Square l6mo, cloth, gilt edges.
+  Rose of Tannenbourg. A Moral Tale. Cap. 8vo, cloth.
+  The Two Victories, a Catholic Tale. By Rev. T. J. Potter.
+    Square l6mo, cloth.
+  Victims of the Penal Laws. By E. M. Stewart. 18mo, cl., gilt.
+  Williams (Richard D'Alton), Complete Poetical Works of.
+    Edited by P. A. S. 18mo, cloth.
+  Willy Burke; or, the Irish Orphan in America. By Mrs. J. S.
+  Sadlier. 16mo, cloth, gilt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  At 2s. Each.
+
+
+  Carleton, Works by--Post 8vo, fancy cover.
+
+  Valentine M'Clutchy, the Irish Agent.
+  Willy Reilly and his Dear Colleen Bawn.
+  Black Baronet.
+  The Evil Eye. Cloth, plain.
+
+
+  Colleen Bawn: A Tale of Garryowen. Cloth.
+  Confederation of Kilkenny. By Rev. C. P. Meehan. Imp.
+    32mo, cloth.
+  Cross and Shamrock. By a Missionary Priest. Post 8vo, cloth.
+  D'Altons of Crag (The). By Dean O'Brien. Cap. 8vo, cloth.
+  Fethard: Its Abbey, etc. By Rev. J. A. Knowles. Illustrated,
+    cloth.
+  Gerald Marsdale; or, the Out-Quarters of Saint Andrew's Priory.
+    By Mrs. Stanley Carey. Post 8vo, cloth, gilt edges.
+  German Anthology and Miscellaneous Poems. By James
+  Clarence Mangan. 2 vols., cloth.
+
+
+  Griffin (Gerald) Works by--Cap. 8vo, cloth.
+
+  The Collegians.
+  Card Drawing, etc.
+  Hollandtide.
+  The Rivals; and Tracy's Ambition.
+  Tales of the Juryroom.
+  The Duke of Monmouth.
+  Poetical Works.
+  Life of. By his Brother.
+  Tales of the Five Senses, etc.
+  The Invasion.
+
+
+  Historical Sketches of Monaghan. Cloth.
+  Holly and Ivy for Christmas Holidays. Cloth, gilt.
+  Ireland Before the Union, including Lord Chief Justice
+    Clonmell's unpublished Diary. By W. J. Fitzpatrick, LL.D.
+    Sixth Edition, with Illustrations. Crown 8vo, fancy cover.
+  Jabez Murdock, Poetaster and "Adjint." By Banna Borka.
+    Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Jack Hazlitt. By Dean O'Brien. Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Life and Death of the Most Rev. Francis Kirwan, Bishop of
+    Killala. By Rev. C. P. Meehan. Square 8vo, fancy cloth.
+  Life of Robert Emmet. By D. J. O'Donoghue. Illustrated.
+    Cloth.
+  Little Wanderers. By Miss E. M. Stewart. Post 8vo,
+    cloth, gilt.
+  Orphan of Moscow (The). By Mrs. J. Sadlier.
+  People's Martyr (The). By Miss E. M. Stewart. Post 8vo,
+    cloth, gilt.
+  Prophet of the Ruined Abbey (The). Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Recreative Reading for the Million. By the Rambler from
+  Clare. Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Rise and Fall of the Irish Nation, with Black List. 8vo, cloth.
+  Robber Chieftain (The). An Historical Tale of Dublin Castle.
+    Boards.
+  Rory of the Hills, a Tale of Irish Life. Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Sally Cavanagh; or, the Untenanted Graves. By C. J. Kickham.
+    cloth.
+  Shemus Dhu; or, the Black Pedlar of Galway. By the late Rev.
+  M. Kavanagh, P. P. Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Speeches of The Rt. Hon. Philpot Curran. Cr. 8vo, cloth.
+      "        Henry Grattan.                     "
+      "    D. O'Connell, M. P. (Select.) 2 vols.  "
+      "     The Rt. Hon. Lord Plunket.            "
+      "     Richard Lalor Sheil.                  "
+      "       Edmund Burke.                       "
+      "  Daniel O'Connell. Centenary Edition. 2 vols.,
+    paper boards.
+
+  St. Patrick's Purgatory, Lough Derg. By Rev. D. Canon
+    O'Connor, P.P. Illustrated. Boards.
+  What Will the World Say? An American Tale of Real-Life.
+    Boards.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  At 2s. 6d. Each.
+
+  Ailey Moore. By R. P. O'Brien, D.D. 3rd Ed. Cap. 8vo, cl.
+  Banim's Boyne Water. Cloth.
+  Banim's The Peep o' Day, or John Doe; and Crohoore of the
+    Bill-hook. Cloth, plain.
+  Banim's The Croppy; a Tale of the Irish Rebellion 1798. Cloth,
+    plain.
+  Black Baronet. By William Carleton. Cloth, plain.
+  Brother James' Tales, with Illustrations. Cloth, gilt edges.
+  Earl Nugent's Daughter; or, the Last Days of the Penal Laws.
+    8vo, cloth.
+  Erin Quintiana; or, Dublin Castle and the Irish Parliament.
+    1767-1772. Cloth.
+  Evil Eye. By William Carleton. Cloth, gilt edges.
+  Father Charles' Flowers from Foreign Fields. 2 vols. (each).
+    Square 16mo, cloth, gilt.
+  Gift of Friendship. By Brother James. Sq. l6mo, fancy cloth,
+    gilt edges.
+  Grace Wardwood. A Tale of the County Down. Cloth.
+  Grey Friar's Legacy, and other Tales. Cap. 8vo, art linen,
+    gilt top.
+  History of the Irish Insurrection of 1798. By Edward Hay.
+    New Edition. Crown 8vo, cloth.
+  O'Connell's Speeches. Centenary Edition. 2 vols. Crown
+    8vo, fancy cover.
+  On the Snow Clad Heights, and other Tales. Cap. 8vo, art
+    linen, gilt top.
+  Rector's Daughter (The). By Rev. T. J. Potter. New Edition.
+    Cap. 8vo, cloth.
+  Tales and Stories for Youth. By Gerald Griffin. Cloth, gilt.
+  Trial and Trust. By Canon Schmid. Post 8vo, cloth, extra.
+  Trust in God. By Canon Schmid. Post 8vo, cloth, extra.
+  Two Roads of Life. By Canon Schmid. Post 8vo, cloth, extra.
+  Valentine M'Clutchy. By William Carleton. Cloth, plain.
+  What Will the World Say? By Rhoda E. White. Cloth.
+  Willy Reilly. By W. Carleton. Cloth, plain.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  At 3s. Each.
+
+  Blakes and Flanagans (The). By Mrs. J. Sadlier. Cloth.
+  Carleton's Black Baronet; or, the Chronicles of Ballytrain.
+    Cloth, gilt.
+  Carleton's Valentine M'Clutchy, the Irish Agent. Post 8vo,
+    cloth, gilt.
+  Carleton's Willy Reilly, and his dear Colleen Bawn. Post 8vo,
+    cloth, gilt.
+  Catholic Souvenir (The); or, Tales Explanatory of the Sacraments.
+    By Mrs. Agnew. Sq. 8vo, cl., bevelled, gilt edges.
+  D'Altons of Crag (The). By Dean O'Brien. Cap. 8vo, cloth,
+    gilt edges.
+  Governments in Ireland. By Wm. Field, M.P. Cloth.
+  Griffin's (Gerald) Works, per Two Shilling List. Cloth, gilt
+    edges. 10 vols.
+  Jack Hazlitt. By Dean O'Brien. Post 8vo, cloth, gilt edges.
+  Lough Derg, Its' History, Antiquities, and Surroundings. Cloth.
+  Reminiscences of Rome. By Rev. E. M'Cartan, P.P. 8vo, cl.
+  Sister Mary's Annual. Cloth, gilt edges.
+  The Poets and Poetry of Munster,' with Original Music. By the
+    late James Clarence Mangan. Sq. 16mo, fancy cloth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  At 3s. 6d. Each.
+
+  Ailey Moore. Cap. 8vo, fancy cloth, bevelled, gilt edges.
+  Beauties of Nature (The), and other Lectures, etc. By J. J.
+    O'Dea, B.A. Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Carroll O'Donoghue, a Tale of the Irish Struggles of 1866,
+    and of Recent Times. Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Catholic Keepsake. By Canon Schmid. Cloth, extra gilt.
+    Post 8vo.
+  Catholic Tales. By Canon Schmid. In one large vol.
+    Cloth, gilt.
+  Centenary Edition--O'Connell's Select Speeches. 2 vols. in
+    one, cloth.
+  Haverty's History of Ireland. Abridged. New Edition. 12mo,
+    half-bound.
+  Knocknagow; or, the Homes of Tipperary. By C. J. Kickham.
+    Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Mangan--The Poets and Poetry of Munster, with Original
+  Music. By James Clarence Mangan. Cloth, extra gilt.
+  St. Martha's Home. By Miss Emily Bowles. Post 8vo, cl., gilt.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  At 5s. Each.
+
+  Ancient History, from the Creation to Fall of Western Empire
+    in A.D. 476. With Maps and Plans. By A. J. B. Vuibert.
+    Post 8vo, cloth.
+  Burke's Lingard--History of England, abridged, 60th edition.
+    672 pp. 12mo, embossed leather.
+  Fate and Fortunes of the Earls of Tyrone and Tyrconnell. By
+    the late Rev. C. P. Meehan. Third Ed., demy 8vo, cloth.
+  History of Ireland from the Siege of Limerick to the Present
+    Time. By John Mitchel. 2 vols., crown 8vo, cloth.
+  Ireland under English Rule. Translated from the French of the
+    Most Rev. Adolphe Perraud. 8vo, cloth.
+  Lady Morgan: her Career, Literary and Personal. Cloth.
+  O'Hanlon, The Poetical Works of "Lageniensis." Cr. 8vo, cl.
+  Speeches of Thomas Francis Meagher. Cloth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  At 6s. Each.
+
+  Ballads of Ireland. By Edward Hayes. 2 vols., cr., 8vo, cloth.
+  Haverty's History of Ireland. New edition. Royal 8vo, cloth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  At 7s. 6d. Each.
+
+  Battle of the Faith in Ireland. By Very Rev. Canon O'Rourke
+    P.P. Demy 8vo, cloth.
+  Dissertations on Irish Church History. By Rev. Matthew Kelly,
+    S.J.
+  Ecclesiastical History of Ireland. By Rev. M. J. Brenan, O.S.F.
+    8vo, cloth, extra.
+  History of the Catholic Archbishops of Dublin since the Reformation.
+    By His Eminence Cardinal Moran. Vol. I.
+    (all published). 8vo, cloth.
+  Life, Times, and Correspondence of the Right Rev. Dr. Doyle
+    (J.K.L.), Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin. By W. J. Fitzpatrick,
+    M.R.I.A. New edition, 2 vols., crown 8vo, cloth.
+  Moore's Melodies. Edited by Professor Glover. 4to, with
+    Music. Cloth.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  At 10s. Each.
+
+  Griffin's (Gerald) Works. 10 vols., 1s. each.
+  History of Sligo. By Very Rev. T. O'Rorke, D.D. 2 vols.,
+    demy 8vo, cloth.
+  Malone.--Church History of Ireland. By Sylvester Malone,
+    P.P., M.R.I.A. Third edition, 2 vols., crown 8vo, cloth.
+  O'Reilly and O'Donovan's Irish-English Dictionary. 4to.
+  Songs of our Land, the Spirit of the Nation, with Music. New
+    edition. Cloth, gilt edges.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+  MISCELLANEOUS LIST.
+
+  Butler's Lives of the Saints. 12 vols. Crown 8vo, cloth, 30s.;
+    Half calf, 36s.
+  History of the Great Irish Famine, 1847. By Rev. John
+    O'Rourke, M.R.I.A. Cloth, 4s.
+  Irish Landed Gentry when Cromwell came to Ireland. By John
+    O'Hart. Demy 8vo, cloth, 12s. 6d.
+  Irish Pedigrees; Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation. By J.
+    O'Hart. 2 vols., 25s.
+  Madden (Dr.), Easter Offering. l6mo, gilt edges, 8d.
+  M'Hale's First Eight Books of Homer's Iliad translated into
+    Irish. 8vo, 20s.
+  Moore's Irish Melodies, with Symphonies and Accompaniments,
+    by Sir John Stevenson. Edited by Prof. Glover. Music
+    size, morocco, extra gilt, 21s.
+  Orators of Ireland. 7 vols. Half morocco, gilt, 42s.
+
+      "        "              Half calf, 31s. 6d.
+
+  Songs of our Land, the Spirit of the Nation. 4to. With Music.
+    New Edition, morocco, 21s.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+
+
+  James Duffy & Co., Ltd., 15 Wellington Quay, Dublin.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  CATHOLIC ART REPOSITORY.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  A VARIED ASSORTMENT
+
+  OF
+
+  STATUARY, HOLY WATER FONTS, VASES, CRUETS
+
+  ORATORY LAMPS, WICKS, TAPERS, FLOATS,
+
+  CHURCH CANDLES, BRASS WORK.
+
+
+  STATIONS OF THE HOLY WAY OF THE CROSS, framed and unframed, at prices
+  from 10s. to £100.
+
+
+  ENGRAVINGS, OLEOGRAPHS, AND CHROMOS, Chiefly of Sacred Subjects.
+
+  CRUCIFIXES, SCAPULARS, MEDALS, LACE PRINTS ROSARIES, Plain and Silver
+  Mounted.
+
+  ALTAR CHARTS, in Sheets, Mounted and Framed.
+
+  XMAS. CARDS, BIRTHDAY AND FEAST CARDS.
+
+  IN MEMORIAM AND MORTUARY CARDS, Newest styles in great variety. Patterns
+  sent Post Free.
+
+         *       *       *       *       *
+
+  FRAGRANT INCENSE
+
+  FOR THE USE OF THE ALTAR,
+
+  AND PREPARED CHARCOAL.
+
+    No. 4. Fine Quality, in Tin Packages of 1 lb.    2s. 6d.
+     "  3. Superior Quality,  do.           1 lb.    4s. 0d.
+     "  2.     Do.            do.           1 lb.    5s. 0d.
+     "  1.     Do.            do.           1 lb.    7s. 6d.
+                   Prepared Charcoal, 1s. per lb.
+
+
+  James Duffy and Co., Ltd.,
+  15 Wellington Quay, Dublin.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE HOUSE BY THE CHURCH-YARD***
+
+
+******* This file should be named 17769-8.txt or 17769-8.zip *******
+
+
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/7/7/6/17769
+
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://www.gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit:
+http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
+