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diff --git a/38008-h/38008-h.htm b/38008-h/38008-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..41a8aba --- /dev/null +++ b/38008-h/38008-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4515 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> + <head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" /> +<title> + The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mated From The Morgue, by John Augustus O'Shea. +</title> +<style type="text/css"> + p {margin-top:.2em;text-align:justify;margin-bottom:.2em;text-indent:2%;} + +.ind30 {margin:5% auto 5% 30%;font-size:small;} + +.c {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;} + +.cb {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;font-weight:bold;} + +.eng {font-family:Old English Text MT, serif;} + +.nind {text-indent:0%;} + +.r {text-align:right;margin-right: 5%;} + +.ov {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;text-decoration:overline; +font-size:small;} + +small {font-size: 70%;} + + h1 {text-align:center;clear:both;margin-top:8%;} + + h2 {text-align:center;clear:both;font-size:120%;margin: 4% auto 2% auto;} + + hr.full {width: 50%;margin:5% auto 5% auto;border:4px double gray;} + + table {margin: 2% auto 2% auto;border:none;text-align:left;} + + body{margin-left:2%;margin-right:2%;background:#fdfdfd;color:black;font-family:"Times New Roman", serif;font-size:medium;} + +a:link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + + link {background-color:#ffffff;color:blue;text-decoration:none;} + +a:visited {background-color:#ffffff;color:purple;text-decoration:none;} + +a:hover {background-color:#ffffff;color:#FF0000;text-decoration:underline;} + +.smcap {font-variant:small-caps;font-size:95%;} + +.blockquot {margin:3% auto 3% auto;} + +.footnotes {border: dotted 3px gray;margin-top: 8%;clear:both;} + +.footnote {width:95%;margin:auto 3% 1% auto;font-size:0.9em;position:relative;} + +.label {position:relative;left:-.5em;top:0;text-align:left;font-size:.8em;} + +.fnanchor {vertical-align:30%;font-size:.8em;} + +.figcenter {text-align:center;text-indent:0%;margin:4% auto 4% auto;} + +img {border:none;} +</style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mated from the Morgue, by John Augustus O'Shea + +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: Mated from the Morgue + A tale of the Second Empire + +Author: John Augustus O'Shea + +Release Date: November 13, 2011 [EBook #38008] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATED FROM THE MORGUE *** + + + + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/cover_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" width="362" height="550" alt="image of the book's cover" title="image of the book's cover" /></a> +</p> + +<h1>MATED FROM THE MORGUE</h1> + +<p class="cb"><i>A TALE OF THE SECOND EMPIRE</i></p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p class="cb"><small>BY</small><br /> +JOHN AUGUSTUS O'SHEA<br /> +<small>AUTHOR OF<br /> +'LEAVES FROM THE LIFE OF A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT,' 'AN<br /> +IRON-BOUND CITY,' 'ROMANTIC SPAIN,' 'MILITARY<br /> +MOSAICS,' ETC.</small></p> + +<div class="ind30"> +<p>'La Ville de Paris a son grand mât tout de bronze, sculpté de<br /> +victoires, et pour vigie Napoléon.'—D<small>E</small> B<small>ALZAC.</small></p> +</div> + +<p class="cb">LONDON<br /> +SPENCER BLACKETT<br /> +[<span class="eng">Successor to J. & R. Maxwell</span>]<br /> +MILTON HOUSE, 35, ST. BRIDE STREET, E.C.<br /> +1889<br /> +[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</p> + +<h2><a name="APOLOGETIC" id="APOLOGETIC"></a>APOLOGETIC.</h2> + +<p class="cb">———</p> + +<p class="nind">T<small>HIS</small> tale, such as it is, has one merit. It is a study of manners, +mainly made on the spot, not evolved from the shelves of the British +Museum. There is in it, at least, a crude attempt at photography, a +process in which sunlight and air have some part, and, therefore, liker +to nature than the adumbrations of the reading-room. The localities are +faithfully drawn, the persons are not dolls with stuffing of sawdust, +but human animals who might have lived—and, mayhap, did live. If the +volume does not kill an hour, the writer is murderer only in thought.</p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p class="c"><small>TO MY FRIEND,</small><br /> +<br /> +COLONEL THE BARON CRAIGNISH,<br /> +<br /> +<small>EQUERRY TO</small><br /> +<br /> +HIS HIGHNESS THE DUKE OF SAXE-COBURG-GOTHA,<br /> +<br /> +<span class="eng">This Little Book,</span><br /> +<br /> +<small>IN TARDY THANK-OFFERING FOR THAT LARGE<br /> +LEG OF MUTTON.</small><br /> +</p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="CONTENTS"> +<tr><th colspan="3" align="center"><a name="CONTENTS" id="CONTENTS"></a><big>CONTENTS</big></th></tr> + +<tr><td colspan="3" align="center">———</td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><small>CHAPTER</small></td><td> </td><td><small>PAGE</small></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">I.</a></td><td>A HOUSELESS DOG</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_001">1</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">II.</a></td><td>A CRUSH AT THE MORGUE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_008">8</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">III.</a></td><td>LE VRAI N'EST PAS TOUJOURS VRAISEMBLABLE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_020">20</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">IV.</a></td><td>THE SONG-BIRD'S NEST</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_030">30</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">V.</a></td><td>NAPOLEONIC IDEAS</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_040">40</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">VI.</a></td><td>THE OLD BONAPARTIST'S STORY</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_052">52</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">VII.</a></td><td>FRIEZECOAT AT HOME</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_065">65</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">VIII.</a></td><td>POPPING THE QUESTION</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_075">75</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">IX.</a></td><td>A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_085">85</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">X.</a></td><td>'LA JEUNE FRANCE'</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_096">96</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">XI.</a></td><td>THE BONE OF CONTENTION</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_104">104</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">XII.</a></td><td>ORANGE BLOSSOMS</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_121">121</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">XIII.</a></td><td>THE HONEYMOON TRIP</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_128">128</a></td></tr> +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">XIV.</a></td><td>VANITAS VANITATUM</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_139">139</a></td></tr> + +<tr><td align="right"><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">XV.</a></td><td>THE FIFTH OF MAY, 1870</td><td align="right"><a href="#page_152">152</a></td></tr> + +</table> + +<p><a name="page_001" id="page_001"></a></p> + +<h1>MATED FROM THE MORGUE.</h1> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I.<br /><br /> +<small>A HOUSELESS DOG.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">T<small>HE</small> scene is Paris, the Imperial Paris, but not a quarter that is +fashionable, wealthy, or much frequented by the tourist. It is the wild, +slovenly, buoyant quarter of the Paris of the left bank, known as <i>le +Pays Latin</i>—the Land of Latin. The quarter of frolic and genius, of +vaulting ambition and limp money-bags, of generosity and meanness, of +truth and hypocrisy; the quarter which supplies the France of the future +with its mighty thinkers, the France of the passing with the forlorn +hopes of its revolutions, the world—and the <i>demi monde</i> too—very +often with its most brilliant and erratic meteors.</p> + +<p>The time is the spring of 1866. The chestnut-tree, called the Twentieth +of March, in the Champs Elysées, has shown its first blossoms. But the<a name="page_002" id="page_002"></a> +weather is cold and damp in spite of these deceitful blossoms: the skies +weep, and chill winds blow sullenly along the Seine. It is just the +weather to make the blaze of a ruddy fire a cheerful sight, and the hiss +of the crackling logs a cheerful sound; but there is neither fire nor, +indeed, grate or stove wherein to put it, in the cabinet numbered 37, on +the fifth story of the Hôtel de Suez, in the Rue du Four, into which we +ask the reader to penetrate. A portmanteau, whose half-opened lid +betrays 'the poverty of the land,' lies in a corner, a shabby suit of +man's wearing apparel hangs carelessly on a chair, and a head, thickly +covered with hair, protrudes from the blankets in a little bed in a +recess, and out of the mouth in this head protrudes a Turkish pipe of +exaggerated length, and out of the same mouth at regular intervals +filters a slender thread of smoke. The lips contract and open again, and +no smoke comes. The head is elevated, the blankets thrown back, and the +shoulders and torso of the smoker appear rising gradually from the bed +till they are erect; the bowl of the Turkish pipe is regarded a moment +deprecatingly (as if the pipe could have been kept alight without +tobacco), and the lips move again, this time to soliloquy:</p> + +<p>'Mr. Manus O'Hara, I have a great respect for your father's son: you +come of a fine proud spend-thrift old Irish family; but I tell you what, +my brilliant friend, if you don't replenish the exchequer<a name="page_003" id="page_003"></a> I shall be +obliged to cut your society. You're not in a position to pay any more +visits to that interesting elderly female acquaintance of yours, your +aunt.<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> Realize your position, sir, I beg of you. You're in a most +confounded state of impecuniosity; you haven't a sou left, and I'm +afraid your pipe is finally extinguished. Then, that delightful lady in +the den of Cerberus below, who was one long smile when you and the +sack,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> now that you are <i>en dèche</i>,<a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> is an eternal snarl like a very +dog of Hades. When you had money you had a room on the first floor at +thirty francs a month; now that you are poor she stuffs you into a +garret on the fourth at thirty-five. Perdition catch it, Mr. O'Hara, +it's very expensive to be poor. Without cash or credit! Charming +position for a young man of genius! If you had a good suit of clothes +you might have a chance of getting into the <i>hôtel des haricots</i>,<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a> but +with your present raiment there is no danger of your encouraging that +horrible temptation of ingenuous youth known as running into debt. It's +my private opinion you wouldn't get a box of matches on your solemn +oath, let alone your word, at the present crisis in your chequered +career. Good heavens! How cold it is! Without cash or credit. That's<a name="page_004" id="page_004"></a> +the burden of the litany. Shall I pray? Bah! Who could pray with hunger +gnawing his vitals? Forty-two hours without food, and still without cash +or credit to procure a bite.'</p> + +<p>The head was dipped suddenly and violently under the blankets.</p> + +<p>A long pause.</p> + +<p>The bed-covering billows as if stirred by some strong agitation of the +form beneath.</p> + +<p>All is quiet again.</p> + +<p>Now a stifled sound as of sobbing comes from under the blankets. They +are forcibly flung back, and a pale face, one feverish flush on each +cheek, emerges. The eyes flash with a sharp fitful light amid the +quick-darting big tears, and the breast heaves with convulsive sobs. At +length amid the sobs rise broken words:</p> + +<p>'Too proud to beg, and not paid for working. Must I die, then? A hound +is fed; 'tis only man is let perish by his fellow-beings!'</p> + +<p>Silence again; and suddenly and startlingly on the air to the silence +succeeds a mocking, hysterical laugh. The form springs from its +recumbent position on to the bare floor, and approaches a small mirror +fixed against the wall.</p> + +<p>That laugh again.</p> + +<p>'Ha, ha! Manus, my boy, die game!' and with the expression of this +advice, or rather intention, calm seems to come to the troubled spirit +of our<a name="page_005" id="page_005"></a> poor friend. He takes his clothes off the chair and dresses +himself, keeping up a jeering comment of self-ridicule, as he puts on +each shabby article of attire.</p> + +<p>'Ha! my pretty paper collar, I must turn you. You'll never die a +heretic. By Jove! paper collars were a great invention: they emancipate +the lord of creation from the thraldom of the washerwoman. Better to +face the free sky than to pine in this stuffy cell. Your toilette is +finished, Manus, my friend, and now to pass under the Caudine forks.'</p> + +<p>The Caudine forks was the term he applied to the passage leading by the +<i>concierge's</i> narrow office to the open street—a humiliating passage +enough, it is made, to any man of proud spirit and slim purse by the +voluble Parisian <i>concierge</i>, the warder of the entrance to the +lodging-house. The <i>concierge</i> is a perennial fountain of gossip, the +demon of grasp personified, and is popularly supposed always to have a +daughter at the Conservatory of Music. Watching his opportunity, +crouched at the bottom of the dark stairs, O'Hara bolted at a mad rush +through the hall, and never ceased running until he had gained the +Boulevard St. Michel, after traversing the intervening Rue de l'Ecole de +Médecine.</p> + +<p>He stopped a minute, laughed, tightened the belt which supported his +trousers, cried in a light voice, 'Blockade safely run!' and resumed his +way<a name="page_006" id="page_006"></a> rapidly along the boulevard till he came to the quay, then turned +to the right, past Notre Dame, until he reached the Pont d'Archevêche, +whereat he stopped. The Morgue was near—gloomy receptacle of the +unclaimed dead, sent to their God before their time by crime, +starvation, or despair, or by some of the accidents which often-times +cut short the span of the happiest human life. He looked at it with a +desperate, desponding, forlorn look for a little time, and then broke +out as if in sequence of some train of thought:</p> + +<p>'No; it's no use thinking of it. I couldn't do it. If it weren't for the +immortality of the soul, and that inconvenient religious training I've +got! Now if I were a Pagan, I could freely end my woes in that silent +river; but I'm a Christian, and must suffer them, and curse my kind.'</p> + +<p>A mournful yet affectionate whine at his feet attracted his attention. +He looked down. A lank, ugly cur, of unassignable breed, but +unmistakably currish—a rank, unmitigated cur, with melancholy visage +and moist eyes—returned the look.</p> + +<p>'Poor dog, you, too, have hunger in your face. The world has deserted +you!'</p> + +<p>The dog whined again, and rubbed his thin sides familiarly and +confidently against the bottom of O'Hara's trousers.</p> + +<p>'Alas! friend, I am like yourself—a wretched,<a name="page_007" id="page_007"></a> friendless dog. Your +imploring looks are lost on me, though, Heaven knows, I would relieve +you if I could. <i>Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco.</i> Faith! the +gender is wrong there. My grammar is going with everything else. I +suppose I should have said <i>ignarus</i>.'</p> + +<p>He faintly smiled at the notion.</p> + +<p>'But I have nothing—absolutely nothing,' running his hand expressively +across his waistcoat-pockets. It stopped—his face lit up joyfully; then +fell. 'Blessed,' continued he, 'are those who expect nothing, for they +shall not be disappointed,' and slowly putting his hand into the pocket +he extracted, with difficulty, a silver piece of ten sous. He looked at +it steadily, almost incredulously, then at the dog. 'Come, my friend,' +he cried, 'companion in misfortune, you must share my luck.' And five +minutes afterwards O'Hara and his dumb acquaintance might be seen in the +nearest <i>crêmerie</i>, O'Hara munching a roll of bread and the houseless +dog greedily lapping a bowl of hot milk.</p> + +<p>And both of them looked very happy dogs.<a name="page_008" id="page_008"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II.<br /><br /> +<small>A CRUSH AT THE MORGUE.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">W<small>HEN</small> the stray dog had finished his welcome repast, licking the sides of +the bowl which had contained it with a gusto which many a dyspeptic +favourite, fondled on the velvet cushion of my lady, and carried about +by my lady's footman, would have envied, O'Hara began to talk with him; +yes, to talk with him—and the dog answered him, as far as eyes and tail +could speak.</p> + +<p>'Well, my poor fellow, you seem to like that!'</p> + +<p>The dog curled his tail and licked his lips.</p> + +<p>'What's your name? You don't know, nor where you were born. You're as +ignorant as Topsy.'</p> + +<p>The dog sought the ground with his eyes.</p> + +<p>'I must give you a name. Suppose I call you Chance, to mark how I found +you; or Bran, like the dog in Ossian; or Hector—no, that's too +bumptious a name, and you're no bully.'</p> + +<p>The dog wisely shook his head, as if he looked on the idea of bullyism +with pity.<a name="page_009" id="page_009"></a></p> + +<p>'Let me see; egad, I'll naturalize you! I think you have a very Irish +face—an honest, open, grateful face—and I'll call you Pat.'</p> + +<p>The dog wagged his tail joyfully, stood on his hind legs, and stretched +out a paw.</p> + +<p>'Wonderful creature! can it be that I have hit on your name? Well, +Pat'—again the tail wagged—'if you belonged to a rich family you would +be housed, perhaps, in that hospital for indisposed gentlemen of your +breed I see advertised on a kiosk near the Palais Royal; but, because +you really want a friend and a crust, you are left without either. +That's the way with the world, Pat,<a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> and you're a vagabond, though +goodness knows you're ugly enough to be a pet. I declare you're as +ill-favoured as any pug I ever met sitting on a Brussels hearthrug, if +it were not for that face.'</p> + +<p>The dog gave an assenting bark.</p> + +<p>'But we mustn't be stopping here too long, Pat, though our time isn't +very precious. George Francis Train says the next best thing to money is +the suspicion of money, and I say the next best thing to occupation is +the suspicion of occupation; and, by my word, they lock you up for +having no occupation in England, though you may be wearing the soles off +your feet to get one. In the great<a name="page_010" id="page_010"></a> world they go to the theatre or the +opera or the circus after dinner to promote digestion, and I think I +know where we can enjoy ourselves cheaply after our banquet. Hi! Pat, +come along.'</p> + +<p>And, rising, our friend retraced his steps towards the bridge, stopping +for a moment at a tobacco-shop, where he purchased and lit a cigar at a +sou, at the same time giving loud expression to his regret that he had +forgotten his Turkish pipe.</p> + +<p>'We must be economic, you know, and tobacco goes farther than a weed,' +and seeming mentally to calculate the state of his finances—'three sous +for milk and two for bread, five, that leaves five'—previous to +hazarding the investment.</p> + +<p>The open space in front of the Morgue is a favourite 'pitch' of the +mountebanks who earn their livelihood on Paris streets. At the time our +pair made their appearance, it was occupied by a number of the tribe in +full swing. In one corner a low-sized, deformed figure, recalling the +Quasimodo whom Victor Hugo's genius has made historic in connection with +the neighbouring church of Notre Dame, was appealing to a crowd of +bystanders to jerk ten sous more into the ring, and he would transfer +the hump on his back to his breast. O'Hara did not wait for the tardy +money to come in; he had no taste for the crooked talents of the +posture-master.</p> + +<p>A group in another corner surrounded a tanned<a name="page_011" id="page_011"></a> fellow, with long hair +and an eye like an onyx, who beat time on a drum, as he chanted a merry +skit on a Paris by-word of the season—'<i>Avez-vous vu Lambert?</i>' to the +air of '<i>Maman, le mal que j'ai</i>,' while the woman who accompanied him +sold copies of it by the sheaf to laughing workmen, soldiers, and +nursery-maids.</p> + +<p>But by far the largest assemblage was drawn to a stout acrobat in faded +tights, which might have been washed at some remote era, bedizened with +spangles that revealed a faint tradition of glitter. He had an amazing +flow of impudent 'patter,' this acrobat, and let it spout +uninterruptedly as he flung up little metal rings, in quick succession, +high in the air, catching them as they fell on a tin cone, strapped to +his forehead, in the fashion of a unicorn's horn. Sometimes he missed +them, and they slapped with a crack on his skull, and rolled off behind +by a bald channel, which frequent misadventure of the kind had worn in +his hair. But the spectators were as highly amused when he failed as +when he succeeded—indeed, more so, if the truth must be told—for had +they not a hit and a miss together? When the cone was encircled with +rings, he flung up a monster potato, impaling it on the spike as it +descended, amid the acclamations of his admirers.</p> + +<p>'Come along, Pat,' said O'Hara; 'here is something more in our line,' as +he passed to another<a name="page_012" id="page_012"></a> group, before which the owner of a troop of +educated dogs and cats was performing.</p> + +<p>'This is M'sieu Rigolo,' cried the showman, as he placed one chair +reversed on another, and taking a poor cat, that looked as if it +couldn't get up an emotion at a family of mice round a Stilton cheese, +balanced its claws consecutively lengthwise and crosswise on the +upstanding legs. When the cat had been sufficiently tortured it was +dismissed, to its evident satisfaction, to the basket which served as +green-room to the perambulating theatre.</p> + +<p>'Present yourself, M'sieu Romulus,' cried the showman, and a poodle of +remarkably subdued mien reluctantly entered the arena, much as a slave +who was devoted to the lions might have done in the old Roman times. +M'sieu Romulus had not the boldness of his illustrious namesake of +antiquity, but he had more than his sagacity. His strong point lay in +detecting the most amorous man, the most beautiful lady, the greatest +idler and so-forth in the surrounding company. The showman, putting a +card in his mouth, asked him to point out such a one. Romulus stood up +in the attitude dogs are wont when asked to beg, moved carefully round +and finally trotted off in the way he should go, and dropped the card at +the feet of the chosen person.</p> + +<p>Romulus was dismissed in his turn to the green-<a name="page_013" id="page_013"></a>room, and the showman +called for Mademoiselle. The call was responded to by one of the saddest +short-eared dogs ever seen, girt round the middle with a miniature +crinoline which made the creature a grotesque caricature of a woman in +the prevailing fashion as she hopped into the circle painfully on her +hind-legs.</p> + +<p>'<i>Salut</i>, Ma'amselle!' said the showman; 'we want to see you dance a +minuet,' and he commenced playing on a pandean pipe. But Ma'amselle did +not dance long. Pat, who had been watching the whole performance with +canine amazement from between O'Hara's legs, suddenly rushed in, +extended his paws and lowered his head in front of the disguised member +of his species, and barked a good-natured bark. Ma'amselle dropped on +all fours, and looked up inquisitively at the showman's face. The +showman flung his pandean pipe at Pat's snout, and the poor intruder ran +howling round the amused throng. No one would make room for him to +escape, until at last a short thickset man, in a long frieze coat caught +him, pulled him to himself, and cried to the showman, in a foreign +accent, 'It is not French to strike a dog for gallantry; he simply +entered because he didn't like to see Ma'amselle dance without a +partner. Didn't you see him make his bow?'</p> + +<p>'Pardon me, sir,' said O'Hara, who had been<a name="page_014" id="page_014"></a> shut out from the inner +circle by the forward rush, as he made his way to the friendly stranger; +'but I believe I am the next of kin to this unfortunate animal.'</p> + +<p>'Have him, sir, and welcome,' said he in the frieze. 'I never like to +see an animal struck that can't strike back for itself.'</p> + +<p>'Thanks, sir,' said O'Hara, and then, turning to Pat, he continued, +speaking this time in English, 'Come, my companion, we'll leave that +brute of a showman: every dog has his day, and perhaps you'll have yours +yet.'</p> + +<p>The stranger looked after the pair sharply as they turned towards a +crowd where a little old man was expatiating on the marvellous abilities +of Madame La Blague, the celebrated clairvoyante, and muttered something +between his teeth. The celebrated clairvoyante was seated on a chair in +the centre of a crowd, her eyes bandaged like those of the figure of +Justice, and her hands crossed on her lap in the attitude of Patience on +the monument.</p> + +<p>'Now then, messieurs,' said the little old man, 'take a ticket and have +your fortune told. Only ten centimes. Tell me your hopes, your fears, +your desires, and madame will at once read the answer in the Book of +Fate when I ask her.'</p> + +<p>'Hark you, friend, I want my fortune told.'</p> + +<p>It was the man in frieze who spoke. He had moved up after O'Hara and the +dog.<a name="page_015" id="page_015"></a></p> + +<p>'Take a ticket, sir, and wait your turn,' squeaked the little old man.</p> + +<p>'Is it so? That's a thing I never do. Ten centimes, you charge; now I'll +give ten francs—that's a thousand centimes—if madame is able to return +me a single true answer to five plain questions I'll put to her myself.'</p> + +<p>'I'll try, at all events, sir,' said the woman with bandaged eyes.</p> + +<p>'I like that. To start—how old am I?'</p> + +<p>'Forty-four,' answered the woman, after a pause.</p> + +<p>'You don't flatter. I'm between the thirties and the forties still. +Guess again—what's my disposition?'</p> + +<p>'Impatient,' was the immediate answer.</p> + +<p>'You've got to earn the money yet. My profession?'</p> + +<p>'Soldier.'</p> + +<p>'What regiment?'</p> + +<p>'The Foreign Legion.'</p> + +<p>'Ha! Then you've found out I'm a foreigner. From what country, pray?'</p> + +<p>'From Ireland.'</p> + +<p>The stranger in frieze started, gave an ejaculation of surprise, and, +taking out a ten-franc piece, advanced towards the woman, and said he +could understand her guessing he was a military man from his tone of +voice, and the further fact that he had served in the Legion from his +foreign accent;<a name="page_016" id="page_016"></a> but he demanded in a puzzled tone that she would +explain how she had discovered his country before he redeemed his +promise.</p> + +<p>'We show-folk travel a great deal, sir,' she said in a low voice. 'I +have been in Ireland, and I recognised the accent.'</p> + +<p>'That explains the mystery. Like Columbus's egg, all things are easy +when they're known. Well, madame,' he continued aloud with a chuckle, +'if you've been in Ireland you know us. When we promise France we give +the Isle of St. Louis.<a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> Here is a ten-sous bit for you.'</p> + +<p>Her countenance fell until her delicate fingers conveyed to her senses +that it was, indeed, ten francs she possessed. The crowd applauded, said +he was as witty as he was generous, and the man in frieze turned on his +heel. He looked curiously towards the neat white one-storied structure +beside the footpath from the Pont d'Archevêche to the Pont St. Louis, +into which a stream of wayfarers was continually flowing, and finally +directed his steps thitherward too. It was a cheerful-looking building +that, which drew so many visitors, but, nevertheless, it was the +Morgue—half-way house between untimely death and the outcast's grave. +The stranger entered the wide door—a tall partition divided what was +inside from his view; he passed around it and was within the<a name="page_017" id="page_017"></a> grisly +hall. O'Hara mechanically followed; he had no curiosity to scan the +lineaments of the naked corpses which awaited recognition within—he was +rather <i>blasé</i> of sights of the kind, and regarded a body on a Morgue +slab as he would a carcase on a butcher's stall; but he felt a something +impelling him towards this stranger who had discovered himself to be a +countryman. As he entered, reading, perhaps for the hundredth time, the +inscriptions on the wall, which told friends who identified the deceased +that they could establish their identity with the greffier free of +charge, he caught an exclamation of surprise in English in the brusque +voice of the man in frieze.</p> + +<p>'Hah! so you've shuffled off this mortal coil, Marguerite.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara turned in the direction from which the voice came; he +distinguished his compatriot in the middle of an unusually excited mass +which pressed against the bars of this loathsome cage of mysterious +horrors, a grim smile twisting his features. He could not see any of the +twelve sloping tables on which the bodies were laid out in their last +toilette—their stiff limbs stretched, hair combed back, hands fixed by +their cold sides, and squares of black boarding covering the stomach and +thighs—because of the intervening crowd. The clothing of the unclaimed +dead, hats, jackets, and blouses, suspended from racks overhead, alone +was visible.<a name="page_018" id="page_018"></a></p> + +<p>'What's the excitement?' he asked of a grizzled soldier, who edged his +way back from the bars.</p> + +<p>'Oh, it's only a <i>cocotte</i> of the quarter, who's been fool enough to go +to the devil before the devil came to her. Sapristi! but she's been a +well-favoured wench, and's got a well-turned leg even on her +calafaque.'<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a></p> + +<p>'Marguerite, Marguerite,' said O'Hara, as if recalling some train of +thought.</p> + +<p>'Yes, that's what's yonder individual, who pretends that he knew her, +denominated her; but I inflect he's a joker.'</p> + +<p>'Tall, with an Italian face and black hair?' asked O'Hara eagerly.</p> + +<p>'Ay, ay, tall, with a handsome, despising face, and long hair, as black +as a grenadier's bearskin.'</p> + +<p>'I, too, think I know her—if it be the same.'</p> + +<p>'If it be the same! It strikes me, jokers are consolidating in the +Morgue to-day. Good-morning, bourgeois, I'm an old soldier,' and away +marched the veteran.</p> + +<p>A pretty little girl, coquettishly clad in the costume of the grisette, +a well-fitting robe of gray, relieved by a tidy patent leather belt with +clasp, setting off her figure, and large imitation coral drops +glistening under her bright chestnut hair, entered at the moment, a +basket on her arm, as if returning from her work.<a name="page_019" id="page_019"></a></p> + +<p>'Have you seen the bodies yet, please, sir?' she said to O'Hara.</p> + +<p>'Not yet, mademoiselle,' he replied graciously; 'but if you wait a +little, I shall get a place for both to see them.'</p> + +<p>She smiled her thanks.</p> + +<p>'Now, then, forward. It's the first time I have ever seen a crush at the +Morgue;' and they perseveringly made their way to the front.</p> + +<p>On a black slab lay extended the nude limbs of a woman who had been +taken from life before she had reached its noon, whilst she might have +been full of strength and lusty joy. They were bloodless to the view, +but round and beautiful of proportion, and clean of colour as a statue +of purest marble by a master hand. The head was pillowed on a luxuriant +mass of wet, matted raven hair. There was a smile on the face (which was +wickedly handsome, as the soldier had described it), even in death, and +a proud, disdainful curl had left its unchangeable impress on the mouth.</p> + +<p>'By Jove, it <i>is</i> Marguerite!' cried O'Hara involuntarily.</p> + +<p>At the same instant the little grisette, whom he had helped to a place, +turned pale and trembled, and falling back in a faint, sank into his +arms as she murmured from between her white lips, 'Merciful God! +Caroline, poor Caroline!'<a name="page_020" id="page_020"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III.<br /><br /> +<small>LE VRAI N'EST PAS TOUJOURS VRAISEMBLABLE.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">T<small>HE</small> crowd immediately gathered round the fainting grisette as she lay in +the arms of our friend, forgetting, in their eagerness for this fresh +excitement, the morbid spectacle on the slab. With the same idle gaze of +curiosity which they had bestowed on the dead girl they turned to the +inanimate form of the living. O'Hara gently permitted the body to lapse +on the ground, and quickly divesting himself of his coat, folded it in +the shape of a bolster under her head—and then looked at her and felt +embarrassed how further to act. Above all things he abhorred a 'scene' +and here he was fairly constrained to sit for one of the leading figures +in the picture. He lost his presence of mind amid the multifarious +inquiries and suggestions and proffers of help of the craning spectators +who pressed upon him and his breathless charge; and, to complete his +humiliation, he awoke to the fact that he had a piece of canvas sewed on +where the back ought to have been in the<a name="page_021" id="page_021"></a> waistcoat he exposed, just as +a well-dressed lady put a bottle of eau de Cologne into his hand, +telling him to apply it to the lips of the sufferer. How soon he might +himself be in a condition to require a restorative we might have to +tell, had not an imperious voice commanded the crowd to make way, and a +man, following it into the centre of the group, proceeded to put his +orders into force by a vigorous and skilful application of his elbows.</p> + +<p>'Stand back,' he cried; 'all the creature wants is air, and ye're +getting up a competition to smother her.'</p> + +<p>Turning to one of the busiest on-lookers, he urged him towards the door +of the greffier's office, directing him, as he was a smart fellow, to +fetch a carafe of cold water in a hurry; and then, leaning over O'Hara, +as he held the pungent bottle to the girl's nostrils, he said in +English, accompanying his words with an impatient gesture, 'Drat that +stuff; here's what'll revive her!' at the same time producing a +brandy-flask.</p> + +<p>O'Hara looked up and recognised the sturdy stranger of the frieze coat.</p> + +<p>'Well, how long will you keep staring at me? Ay, boy, that's right with +the water—see, she opens her eyes. Now to slip a little of the water of +life down her throat. Keep her mouth open with your penknife. Ho, ho! +she'll come round in a jiffy. See here, mister, you with your coat off, +will you<a name="page_022" id="page_022"></a> help me to trundle my sister out of this infernal hole? Catch +up her legs, man. Hang it! one would think you were handling glass +marked "This side uppermost."'</p> + +<p>Partly in obedience to this torrent of words, and partly because he had, +for the time being, no will of his own, his self-possession completely +gone, O'Hara obeyed the stranger, and between them the girl, still pale +and prostrate, was lifted to the door. The stranger hailed a hackney +carriage which was passing, and, helping the grisette in and pushing +O'Hara after her, he mounted beside the coachman, and drove in the +direction of the Place before the gate of Notre Dame.</p> + +<p>When they had arrived opposite the Hôtel Dieu, he stopped the carriage, +dismounted, looked in at the window, and burst into a roar of laughter.</p> + +<p>O'Hara turned from the girl, who was leaning back in a corner, her eyes +open in a wide, wondering way, and confronted the stranger with a fierce +yet perplexed look. But he only renewed his laughter.</p> + +<p>'Is it at me or your sister you're laughing, sir?' O'Hara found words at +length to say.</p> + +<p>'My sister! Ha, ha! never saw her in my life before,' and he resumed his +guffaw.</p> + +<p>'Open the door,' cried O'Hara, at last thoroughly roused.<a name="page_023" id="page_023"></a></p> + +<p>'Who's your tailor?' said the irrepressible man in the frieze coat.</p> + +<p>The pride of the poverty-stricken Irish gentleman was touched; his shame +overcame his anger, and, foolish fellow! he blushed for that of which he +had no need to be ashamed.</p> + +<p>'That's the loudest thing in vestings I know; you've got the falls of +Niagara on your back, man.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara, removing his waistcoat in a flurry of confusion, discovered that +the painted side of the old canvas, the remains of some artist friend, +had been, indeed, turned outwards when he had put it for a patch to his +waistcoat a few days before in his blundering amateur tailor fashion.<a name="FNanchor_8_8" id="FNanchor_8_8"></a><a href="#Footnote_8_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a> +Looking at it, he could not help laughing himself.</p> + +<p>'When a man wears that pattern of waistcoat, he shouldn't forget his +coat after him.'</p> + +<p>To heighten his difficulties, O'Hara now discovered for the first time +that he had left his coat behind him at the Morgue.</p> + +<p>'Can't go back,' said the stranger. 'Here, coachman, to <i>la Belle +Jardinière</i>.' (This was the name of a famous clothing warehouse in the +quarter.)</p> + +<p>'But I've no money, sir, to buy a coat, if that be what you mean by +going there,' said O'Hara.<a name="page_024" id="page_024"></a></p> + +<p>'Tell me something I don't know; you're a poor devil!'</p> + +<p>'Ah! you've discovered that,' exclaimed O'Hara, nettled.</p> + +<p>'Knew it by intuition—been one myself.'</p> + +<p>'But I am not a mendicant.'</p> + +<p>'Who said you were?'</p> + +<p>'I have money coming to me—I'll have it—in a few days.'</p> + +<p>'I know it, and I'll lend you the price of a coat in the meanwhile.'</p> + +<p>'Thanks,' cried O'Hara, with effusion, for he couldn't help feeling the +terrible awkwardness of his loss, and he began to see that his new +acquaintance was a humorist. 'What might your name be, sir?'</p> + +<p>'What might it be! It might be Beelzebub, but it isn't.'</p> + +<p>'What is it, then, if that pleases you better?'</p> + +<p>'What's in a name?'</p> + +<p>O'Hara paused a moment. 'Right!' he answered at last; 'a name is nothing +without money behind it.'</p> + +<p>'Ay, ay, my lad; "what's in a name?" as the divine Williams says: it's +nothing, as you remark—just about as much as your purse holds at +present. Don't be angry with me; been that way myself. Know Goldsmith?—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary=""> +<tr><td align="left">'"Ill fares the cove, to hastening duns a prey,</td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> Whose bills accumulate and bobs decay."</td></tr> +</table> + +<p><a name="page_025" id="page_025"></a></p> + +<p>'Ha, ha!—see the point—Bills and Bobs. But look to the lassie; she's +going off again, I fear;' and the queer stranger handed him the +brandy-flask in which he had such faith.</p> + +<p>'Caroline,' the grisette again murmured, and dropped off with glassy +eyes into a tranced sleep, irregularly punctuated with sighs.</p> + +<p>'Here you are, sir,' cried the coachman—'<i>la Belle Jardinière</i>.'</p> + +<p>'Stay where you are,' said the stranger. 'I'll fetch you out a +fifty-franc coat; can size you at a glance. Shake up that girl;' and he +disappeared rapidly.</p> + +<p>The girl, fully roused by the sudden stoppage of the vehicle, gazed +round her with a lost look, as if to collect her scattered senses, and +vainly endeavoured to realize how and why she found herself in a state +of exhaustion in a carriage with a strange man. At last, under the +influence of O'Hara's kindly reassuring face, she began to recall what +had happened. The slab in the Morgue, with its burden, which had robbed +her of her senses and strength, rose before her eyes, and she shuddered.</p> + +<p>'Courage, my dear,' cried O'Hara firmly; 'drink,' pressing the flask of +brandy to her lips; 'you are with friends!'</p> + +<p>The girl did as desired, and looked her thanks. <a name="page_026" id="page_026"></a>O'Hara commenced +chafing her hands. She smiled faintly, uttered a few gracious words, in +which the magic syllable 'home,' a spell in every land, alone could be +distinguished.</p> + +<p>'Ha! you want to get home, my pretty one; we'll take you,' said the +rough yet good-natured stranger, popping in his head at the window. +'What's the neighbourhood?'</p> + +<p>'Place du Panthéon,' whispered the girl.</p> + +<p>'All right, catch your coat and I'll follow it,' flinging the purchase +on O'Hara's lap, then turning to the coachman to give him his directions +before entering, he exclaimed, 'Hallo! What's the row?'</p> + +<p>The coachman either didn't hear him or was so busy with some object at +the other side of the carriage, which he was endeavouring to reach with +the lash of his whip, that he didn't mind him.</p> + +<p>'I'll put a flea in your ear,' and with the expression of this +benevolent intention, he jumped on the box, doubled his fist, and was +about to apply it to the side of the unconscious Jehu's head, when he +suddenly arrested it in its progress, snatched the whip out of the +uplifted hand before him instead, and broke into a hearty laugh.</p> + +<p>O'Hara felt more and more puzzled at the extraordinary conduct of this +extraordinary person, and couldn't help looking out after him, when he +heard the unexpected merriment. The stranger was descending and +encountered his bewildered stare.<a name="page_027" id="page_027"></a></p> + +<p>'Look out of the other window,' cried he; 'blessed if it ain't that +inquisitive dog!'</p> + +<p>O'Hara complied, and discovered the cause of all the commotion.</p> + +<p>It was Pat, the foundling dog, who was panting on the pavement, the +threadbare coat of the man who had befriended him held between his +teeth!<a name="FNanchor_9_9" id="FNanchor_9_9"></a><a href="#Footnote_9_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a></p> + +<p>The faithful creature was at once, of course, received into the +carriage, and the driver was ordered to proceed rapidly to the Place du +Panthéon, taking the Boulevard St. Michel on his way.</p> + +<p>'We shall call into <i>la Jeune France</i> on the route,' said the stranger, +'and get this poor little wench something to revive her.'</p> + +<p>The girl caught the words and made signs of dissent at the mention of +<i>la Jeune France</i>, which is a famous coffee-house much affected by +roystering students and the frail partners of their revels. As soon as +she could find language, she uttered a feeble but emphatic 'No.'</p> + +<p>'What! You turn up your nose at <i>la Jeune France</i>. Well, we'll cut it. +Driver, straight to the<a name="page_028" id="page_028"></a> Panthéon. Nevertheless, my child, it was there +I met your dead friend first!'</p> + +<p>'No, never,' cried the girl with gathering energy. 'Poor Caroline!' and +she burst into a comforting flood of tears.</p> + +<p>'Poor Caroline, indeed! How many aliases had she? When I knew her last +she was called Marguerite <i>la modiste</i>,<a name="FNanchor_10_10" id="FNanchor_10_10"></a><a href="#Footnote_10_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a> and that was no later than +last night.'</p> + +<p>'You met her last night?' inquired the girl in excited tones.</p> + +<p>'I danced with her at the Closerie des Lilas!'</p> + +<p>'Oh no! Say you didn't. Caroline never frequented such a place,' pleaded +the poor girl in the beseeching tone of one praying for mercy from a +threatened weapon.</p> + +<p>'It was there I made her acquaintance, too,' remarked O'Hara.</p> + +<p>'There must be some mystery here,' said the stranger, pausing; 'you call +your friend Caroline. I call her Marguerite, and she's known to the +entire quarter by that name. We shan't speak about her reputation.' With +a wink at O'Hara, '<i>De mortuis nil nisi bonum</i>, with Swift's +translation. Not meaning any compliment, she was more beloved than +respected.'</p> + +<p>'I don't understand you, monsieur, but I'm grateful to you both for your +kindness. I'll thank you<a name="page_029" id="page_029"></a> to let me alight as we arrive at the Place du +Panthéon.'</p> + +<p>The girl arose, but the effort was too much for her strength, and she +tottered back helpless to the seat, crying:</p> + +<p>'Oh, I am so weak! My head is on fire!'</p> + +<p>'Rest where you are; we'll see you to your own door, and I'll have a +doctor by your bedside in five minutes,' insisted the stranger with +gentle violence. 'What's your street and number?'</p> + +<p>'Rue de la Vieille Estrapade, thirty.'</p> + +<p>The carriage was quickly driven to the street indicated, which runs +quite near, in close parallel with the temple of St. Geneviève on its +southern side, and the Jehu, with a crack of his whip, drew up before +number thirty—a tall, substantial, square-built house.</p> + +<p>'Now, my child, take my arm,' said the stranger in the frieze coat, +rising and assisting his wearied charge to the door.</p> + +<p>No sooner had the faltering creature reached the steps of the carriage, +than a blithe female voice rang out from a window on the third story:</p> + +<p>'Welcome, Berthe—welcome, our little song-bird.'</p> + +<p>The girl raised her eyes in a stupefied daze, her frame quivered, the +blood fled from her cheeks, and for the second time she sank into the +arms of our friend, who stood luckily behind her, in a profound swoon; +but this time it was a swoon of joy.<a name="page_030" id="page_030"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV.<br /><br /> +<small>THE SONG-BIRD'S NEST.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">J<small>OY</small> seldom kills. Before the female figure, whose apparition at the +window had thrown the girl, so strangely fallen under O'Hara's +protection, into her second swoon, had time to trip down the stairs, the +attack had spent itself, even without the intervention of the +brandy-flask of him whose name was not Beelzebub. The sensitive creature +was smothered with kisses by her friend, the while the two male +observers of the situation looked on and at each other with a comical +stare of envy. The newcomer was a slender, willowy woman, of a +meridional cast of countenance—hair rich and dark in hue, features +proud and delicately chiselled, and complexion swarthy. She was tall in +stature and gracefully built, but rather inclined to the meagre, and +seemed as if she had aged before her time. She might not have been more +than twenty-three, but she looked as if verging on thirty, and yet there +was quite a youthful impetuosity in her manner, and springiness in her +movements, as she<a name="page_031" id="page_031"></a> literally devoured her little friend in her embraces. +In the middle of this tantalizing greeting, he whom we shall call +Friezecoat, for want of an introduction, called out in his rough and +ready voice:</p> + +<p>'Ho, ho, my pets! I protest against this, unless we lords of creation +are admitted into the arrangement.'</p> + +<p>The brunette turned a look of chilling surprise at him, as if +questioning who was this intruder who spoke so familiarly. Then, holding +the little girl of the chestnut hair, whom she saluted as Song-bird, at +arm's-length, as if to examine the Song-bird's plumage, she exclaimed:</p> + +<p>'Berthe, you little fool, why did you faint? How do you account for +coming home thus?'</p> + +<p>The only answer Berthe made was to lean her head forward on her friend's +breast and burst into tears.</p> + +<p>'How like that woman is to Marguerite <i>la modiste</i>!' whispered O'Hara to +Friezecoat. 'I'm not astonished at her she calls Berthe having mistaken +the body in the Morgue.'</p> + +<p>'Oh, Caroline dear, then you are alive!' said little Berthe, at length +finding words amid her sobs.</p> + +<p>'Alive!—yes, really alive, <i>ma mignonne</i>, and I shall be chastising you +presently to prove it, if you don't dry those tears. Why do you weep?'<a name="page_032" id="page_032"></a></p> + +<p>'I went into the Morgue to see the body of a girl who had drowned +herself, and, oh! it was so like you; and then, you know, Caroline, +you've been away those three days.'</p> + +<p>'And have I never been at Choisy-le-Roi for three days before? +Giddy—giddy girl, you've been to the Morgue. Don't tell this to the +grand-père.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, and I have had such a fright. Don't frown, Caroline. I thought +'twas you I saw laid out, and when I awoke I was in a carriage with +those gentlemen, who have been very kind to me and brought me home.'</p> + +<p>The brunette bowed graciously to Friezecoat and O'Hara, and said:</p> + +<p>'I thank you infinitely, messieurs, for your kindness to my young +friend; and if you'll have the goodness to wait a little, I'll call my +grandfather, and he will thank you too, and pay for this vehicle.'</p> + +<p>'Madame, you offend me,' said Friezecoat gruffly.</p> + +<p>'Pardon,' said the brunette, colouring a deep red; 'I see I have made a +mistake. At least, gentlemen'—with an emphasis on the latter word—'you +will step up to our apartment until grandfather returns you thanks in +person.'</p> + +<p>The four mounted by broad stairs to the third story, and entered a +small, lightsome chamber,<a name="page_033" id="page_033"></a> neatly furnished. The scent of violets was in +the air. The window was draped with white curtains, the walls were hung +with engravings of military subjects, a cottage pianoforte lay open at +one side of the window, a comfortable armchair was set at the other, +while high in a wicker-cage a throstle fluttered in the rosy light +between. Plaster busts of the first and third Napoleons were set on +brackets, and flanked a large print of the Imperial House, from its +founder and Josephine, Marie Louise, the King of Rome, and Hortense +Beauharnais, down to the youthful Prince Imperial, in his uniform as +corporal of Grenadiers of the Guard.</p> + +<p>After motioning them to seats, the girls disappeared into an inner room, +and almost immediately a tall, old man, with head held erect, white hair +and moustaches lending him a venerable appearance, the +chocolate-coloured ribbon of the St. Helena medal in his button-hole, +stood in its doorway.</p> + +<p>'Messieurs,' said the old man, advancing stiffly, 'you have been kind to +my grand-daughter, and I, Victor Chauvin, officer of the First Empire, +thank you. I am at your service for any duty you can ask me in return;' +and the rigid body was bent with soldierly angularity in what was +intended to be a very ceremonious bow.</p> + +<p>'And we—that is, the men of our country—are always at the service of +distressed females without<a name="page_034" id="page_034"></a> expecting or asking any return,' said +Friezecoat as formally.</p> + +<p>'What countryman are you, sir?'</p> + +<p>'We are Irish.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara regarded Friezecoat with surprise. How had this bizarre personage +discovered his nationality? He forgot that he had heard him speak.</p> + +<p>'Ah! lusty comrades as ever I met at assault on battery or bottle. I +knew some of them in the Legion in the Man's time,' said the old +soldier.</p> + +<p>'The man—who was he?'</p> + +<p>'Who was he? There was only one man in this century, and his name was +Napoleon. Sir, I'm afraid you've learned history from Père Loriquet;' +and the old soldier smiled.</p> + +<p>'Yes, he was a man.'</p> + +<p>'Sir, shake hands with me for that,' said Victor Chauvin, evidently +flattered. 'But you must let the old soldier show his gratitude for your +kindness to his child. I insist on it.'</p> + +<p>'Well, if you will have it so, tell us why your grand-daughter is called +the Song-bird, and we're repaid?'</p> + +<p>'Because she sings like the nightingale; no, that's too sad. Like a +canary; but that's a prisoner. I have it—like the morning-lark, for its +song, fresh and pure, goes up to God's gates! Berthe, enter.'</p> + +<p>At the call, our young acquaintance, the traces<a name="page_035" id="page_035"></a> of her recent +infirmities entirely removed, came radiantly into the room, smiling with +an arch smile.</p> + +<p>'Berthe, my Song-bird, treat those gentlemen, who, you have told me, +have been so good to you, to a sample of your voice.'</p> + +<p>'What shall I sing?' asked Berthe, approaching the piano.</p> + +<p>'Sing the romance that friend Bénic wrote for you—<i>le Vieil +Irlandais</i>—for these gentlemen are from that brave and faithful land; +ay, brave and faithful, for it has known how to carry the sword without +taking the cross from its hilt.'</p> + +<p>The girl skilfully passed her fingers over the instrument, executing a +tremulous prelude, and in a soft, sweet voice, trilled, to a pathetic +air, the following touching verses, the old soldier joining in at the +refrain which ended each:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Mon fils, écoute un vieillard centenaire.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tu nais à peine et moi je vais mourir,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Fuis, sans retour, par l'exil volontaire,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Le sol ingrat qui ne peut te nourrir.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Sur ce navire, où la foule s'élance,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Tu vas vogeur vers les États-Unis;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Dans ces climats, au sein de l'abondance,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Vivent heureux vingt peuples réunis.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Des flots de l'Atlantique</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Ne crains pas le courroux;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Émigré en Amérique,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 5em;">Ton sort sera plus doux.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Au jour naissant tu commençais l'ouvrage,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sous un ciel gris, pendant un rude hiver;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">J'ai vu faiblir ta force et ton courage</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">A défricher les champs d'un duc et pair.<a name="page_036" id="page_036"></a></span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Jamais ses pas n'ont foulé son domaine,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Loin de l'Irlande il voyage en seigneur.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Infortuné, la disette est prochaine,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Quitte à jamais ce séjour du malheur.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Des flots, etc.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"> </td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">En cultivant des savanes fertiles,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Garde ta foi, si tu veux prospérer;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Fais tes adieux a nos sillons stériles;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sans espérance il faut nous séparer.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">Prends cet argent, fruit de longs sacrifices,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Au centenaire un peu de pain suffit,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">La mer est belle, et les vents sont propices;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pars, mon enfant, ton aiëul te bénit.</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 4em;">Des flots, etc.<a name="FNanchor_11_11" id="FNanchor_11_11"></a><a href="#Footnote_11_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a></span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>There were tears in the woman's soft voice, and when she finished there +were tears in the eyes of at least one of her listeners.</p> + +<p>'Thanks, mademoiselle,' cried O'Hara, with emotion; 'thanks for that +little tribute to the sorrows and affection of poor Ireland. He who +wrote it knew the land, at least, in spirit.'<a name="page_037" id="page_037"></a></p> + +<p>'He has never been there, sir, has not my friend, Laurent Bénic; he is +but a humble carpenter, but he has learned to love the green Erin, the +younger sister of our France, as I have.'</p> + +<p>'Is that the Bénic who wrote "Robert Surcouf," a rattling corsair +ballad?' demanded Friezecoat.</p> + +<p>'The same, sir.'</p> + +<p>'Will you ask Mademoiselle Berthe to make me a copy of it, words and +music, and will you allow me to send her a present of some of our Irish +music in return?'</p> + +<p>'Certainly; shall we not, Berthe?' Berthe smiled happily. 'And I'll ask +you, sir, to come to hear her play your country's music. He who has been +kind to the old soldier's grand-daughter is welcome to the old soldier's +hearth.'</p> + +<p>Shortly afterwards the two Irishmen, who had made such a rare rencontre, +bade their farewells to the Frenchman and his grand-daughter, and left.</p> + +<p>'He's a regular old brick, that Chauvin,' said Friezecoat on the +doorstep, 'and I'll remember that song to his grand-daughter. If she +wasn't my sister to-day, she may be something nearer some day. +Good-night.'</p> + +<p>'You're going, and you've not told me——'</p> + +<p>'Not to-night. Search the side-pocket of that coat, and you'll find +fifty francs in it. <i>Au revoir.</i>'<a name="page_038" id="page_038"></a></p> + +<p>And this strangest of strange characters jumped into the +hackney-carriage and disappeared by a street leading to the Panthéon, +leaving O'Hara in a brown study in the brown shadows of the Rue de la +Vieille Estrapade.</p> + +<p>He was roused from his reverie by an affectionate whine, now become +familiar. It was the dog, forgotten when they entered the house, and who +had been lying patiently by its threshold. He returned the creature's +welcome with a caress, and determined, as he had fallen in with him so +curiously, and as he had shown so lively a sense of gratitude and +fidelity—much more than humanity usually permits itself to be betrayed +into—to take Pat back to his lodgings and adopt him. He did not fear +the Caudine forks now, for he had the grand passport, the jingling gold, +in his pocket, and the old pride returned to his port and the jovial +defiance to his eye. Gaily he strode down by the Rue Soufflot to the +Boulevard St. Michel—we believe he might even have been heard whistling +'Rory O'More,' to the huge delight of the dog, who capered at his +heels—until he reached the café of <i>la Jeune France</i>, where he came to +a dead stop on the pavement, as if debating something in his mind.</p> + +<p>'No,' he said at last, 'I shan't go in; I'll see, for once, if I can +keep a good resolution when I have the means of breaking it. Egad, this +is a day of adventures for me. If half these things were<a name="page_039" id="page_039"></a> written down +in a story, the world would say the author was a lunatic, or imagined he +was writing for fools!'</p> + +<p>Not the least grateful surprise awaited him at his hotel in the Rue du +Four when he re-entered. It was a letter of credit for twenty pounds +from a debtor in Ireland, which the <i>concierge</i>, who knew the +handwriting, smilingly slipped into his fingers.<a name="page_040" id="page_040"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V.<br /><br /> +<small>NAPOLEONIC IDEAS.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">F<small>EW</small> who saw the miserable despairing lodger in the Hôtel de Suez, who +looked out sadly from his thin blankets on the prospect of hope +vanishing with the last vapour of his pipe, would have recognised the +same entity a week afterwards in the gay, buoyant, flushed youth seated, +choice Havana idly turned between his lips, deep in an armchair, soft +dressing-gown falling around in showy folds, and his feet cased in +embroidered slippers, resting, American-wise, on the marble top of a +stove wherein the live logs cheerily hissed and blazed. The man was the +same; that is the form, the cubic extent of flesh and blood and +bone—but money had effected the grand transformation; money had made +out of the wretch, fearful of the shadow of a sharp-tongued <i>concierge</i>, +a very cavalier in lightsome spirit, airy courage, and happy way of +looking at life in general. Twenty pounds had done this; gold had done +it—the true philosopher's stone, whereat we be tempted to moralize +much, to ask was not this<a name="page_041" id="page_041"></a> human being as much entitled to human respect +and more to human sympathy when he was forlorn? and all that sort of +thing, and to put on our grave censor's cap and reproach the world. But +we resist the temptation. For, indeed, is not money truly great? is it +not the outward and visible representation of intrinsic worth always, +and is not the man who has made it by trafficking in cloth or herrings, +or some other articles for the good of society over a counter, +infinitely to be preferred to him who thinks, and feels, and dreams +much, and does not make money? Is he not of vastly more value to his +kind than the mere scholar or martyr, the doer of high deeds or utterer +of high thoughts? Is not the alderman—the Lord Mayor, perhaps, of next +year—riding in his gilt chariot, more worthy much than Samuel Johnson +in the attic vegetating on fourpence-halfpenny a day? For what is the +worth of anything but its money value in the market?</p> + +<p>But let us cease this teasing worn-out cynicism, which all will applaud +in theory, and in practice all will repudiate, and return to our friend, +O'Hara.</p> + +<p>He sat, gay as he looked, surrounded by lights and such flowers as the +early season furnished; a burning pastille poured out a thick unctuous +stream of perfume; fruits were on the table by his elbow, and in +companionship beside them slender bottles of sparkling wine. He had a +sensuous appreciation of the beautiful, had our friend; but not a<a name="page_042" id="page_042"></a> +selfish, for he did not sit alone. At his feet, curled like a hedgehog +on a luxurious mat, snored Pat, the foundling dog, a half-eaten bone +held between his paws. Pat had evidently fallen upon pleasant lines; he +was plump and sleek as an incipient alderman after his seven days' good +treatment, and now, as aspirants to the dignity of the fur collar and +the rapture of turtle-soup are wont, he was enjoying the snooze of +satisfaction after the repast of repletion. Then, again, another of our +acquaintances was present. Stiff and stately, as a bare old oak in +winter, on the opposite side of the fire, sat Captain +Chauvin—white-bearded, the chocolate-coloured ribbon on his breast, his +stick held bolt upright between his legs—a figure of dignity and +firmness in the frivolous air of this bachelor-chamber in gala; yet, +somehow, he did not look out of place. There was sweetness in the old +man's face, and benevolence and truth, which is beautiful everywhere.</p> + +<p>'You do not smoke, captain—you a <i>militaire</i> of the First Empire. I +wonder at that,' said O'Hara, languidly puffing the light cloud upwards +in fantastic wreath from his Havana.</p> + +<p>'No, <i>mon enfant</i>; there is a reason for it,' and the captain sighed.</p> + +<p>O'Hara finished his cigar in peace—not that he did not notice the sigh +of his guest, but he had too much delicacy to seek to fathom its cause.<a name="page_043" id="page_043"></a></p> + +<p>'At least,' he said when he resumed conversation, 'you will not refuse +to join me in a bumper.'</p> + +<p>The captain shook his head.</p> + +<p>'It is the first time I've caught you at my fireside, Captain Chauvin, +and in my land we account it the reverse of good-fellowship not to +hobnob at such a meeting. We shall drink together, as the Arabs break +bread, to friendship and better knowledge of each other.'</p> + +<p>The captain smiled—how charming is a smile on the face of manly +masculine age!—and bowed.</p> + +<p>'As it is the custom of your land, and as it is to be a gage of +friendship, I even will,' said he, at the same time proffering a worn +snuff-box, rudely wrought of horn, which he drew out of a gold case. +'<i>Mon enfant</i>, a pinch.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara took of the snuff, though he found some difficulty in performing +the operation of conveying the dust to his nostrils, sniffing it and +afterwards sneezing. To tell the truth, he did not take snuff, +considering it a dirty habit; but he felt constrained to do much to +gratify the old man.</p> + +<p>'Hola, you sneeze!' remarked the captain, surprised. 'It's rare fine +snuff.'</p> + +<p>'And that's a rare fine box you have it in; not the box, I mean, but the +casket which holds it,' answered O'Hara, taking the gold case in his +hands.</p> + +<p>'What's this? The bees which the Bonapartes brought from Corsica, the +eagle with the thunder-<a name="page_044" id="page_044"></a>bolt in his talons, and the Imperial cipher. I'm +not a judge of goldsmith's work, but I should say that's a piece of some +value.'</p> + +<p>'And the horn box—the box for which all this finery is the covering. +What d'ye think of that?'</p> + +<p>'It is not valuable in material nor artistically, and yet it may be +valuable as a souvenir,' said O'Hara, after regarding it.</p> + +<p>'Ah! I would not give that box for ten—what?—a thousand times its +weight in gems,' said the old man, kissing it reverently. 'There's a +story attached to it.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, yes, how we do cling to the relic of what has passed from us, and +each day, as we look upon it, it becomes more precious in our sight!' +said O'Hara, half in soliloquy, drawing a little parcel from his breast. +'Here it is now, only a lock of woman's hair, faded, flattened out of +curl, and she—where is she?—what does she? Does she ever think of me? +Bah!'—with a violent jerk thrusting back the parcel to its +resting-place; 'you're a fool, O'Hara! Come, captain, let me fill you a +bumper of the grape-juice.'</p> + +<p>The captain had been watching the by-play with the tress of woman's hair +with an amiable, almost sympathizing, eye. 'Young friend,' said he, +'you've loved and been disappointed, I take it; but do not despair.' +O'Hara blushed. 'At your time<a name="page_045" id="page_045"></a> of life,' continued the captain, 'one +does not die of those crosses. I know them. Do not blush; I, too, have +been disappointed in what my heart had set its affections upon, and, +alas! it has coloured my whole existence.'</p> + +<p>'A good blood-colour, I fancy,' said O'Hara with a sardonic humour.</p> + +<p>'Ah! you are disposed to take a cynical view of the sex. That is too +soon. Life for you should be a comedy, as yet violet-crowned; a toying +with honey goblets and rose-leaves; it is too soon to bring in the +daggers and the cups of gall and the cypress-wreaths.'</p> + +<p>'Life violet-crowned for me!' said O'Hara mockingly. 'It is a vile, +malodorous sham; there is nothing true, nothing sincere in it but sin +and death. The world is a mercenary, peddling world—the one only trade +which is not meanness and fraud is the soldier's trade, where man is +paid for cutting the throat of his fellow-man.'</p> + +<p>'Let us drink,' said the captain, perceiving that the better way to +alter his young friend's mood was to steal him away on other paths, not +to dip into deep reasoning with him.</p> + +<p>'Ay, ay, <i>mon ami</i>,' cried O'Hara with a return of the reckless spirit +we remarked in his character when he lay seemingly without a sou in his +pocket on his bed of bitterness, 'that is the disappointed man's friend. +We will drink, drink, not to woman<a name="page_046" id="page_046"></a> who drove Adam out of Paradise and +your humble servant out of Ireland, but to man, to the real practical +man, the man who tramples humbug and pretence under foot, and believes +in himself alone, the solid, hard-hitting, clear-seeing man. Captain, +here's to his health!'</p> + +<p>'To his memory, rather,' said the captain, rising and touching the +outstretched glass of his host with his own, 'for his soul is lost to us +these five-and-forty years. Here's to Napoleon!'</p> + +<p>'Yes, to Napoleon!' and they both drained their glasses to the lees. The +captain resumed his seat as stiffly as ever; O'Hara took a cordial +glance at the bottle, and replenishing his glass, cried as he held it +aloft between him and the light, and watched the amber beads frothing in +creamy tumult on its surface, 'Beautiful to the sight and to the taste, +strange that that liquid should be the one sure friend to whom we can +fly for the means to forget the world and its sorrows, our only certain +refuge——'</p> + +<p>'My young friend,' said the old man gravely, 'it seems to me you forget +God!'</p> + +<p>The tone in which these words were spoken was gentle rather than +monitory. They fell on our friend's troubled soul like the rain which +refreshes, not as advice too often does, and too often is meant to fall, +like blistering drops of hot wax.<a name="page_047" id="page_047"></a></p> + +<p>The youth, who had been contemplating the sparkling liquor as an artist +might a great artist creation of beauty, looked at it a moment longer, +then slowly lowering it, he said, in the calm voice of conviction, to +his aged guest:</p> + +<p>'You are right; God is <i>the</i> refuge; we should not forget Him,' and the +spirit of the grape blazed vividly up as it was spilt on the burning +logs. 'I was wrong, we were both wrong, even in drinking to the memory +of Napoleon.'</p> + +<p>'Not in that, <i>mon enfant</i>; all great men such as he was, men who sink +themselves into the time and mark it as theirs even as the maker does +his name into the sword-blade—all such men are messengers from God.'</p> + +<p>'And his nephew?'</p> + +<p>'God's messages do not come by hereditary office. He is auspicious for +France; it is strong and feared and full of prosperous life to-day; and +he is Emperor of the French. That is enough for me.'</p> + +<p>'The philosophy of a soldier' was the only comment of O'Hara.</p> + +<p>'Are you of the Opposition?' queried the captain, fancying he detected a +latent sneer at the ruling dynasty in the latter expression.</p> + +<p>'Ah I my friend,' remarked O'Hara with a smile, 'that is a delicate +question. How shall I answer it? Like an Irishman, by asking another. +Do<a name="page_048" id="page_048"></a> you not know that I am a foreigner? I love your France, but I do not +meddle in its politics. If I did, I suppose I should belong to the +Opposition, for I was born in the Opposition in my own country, and as +the sum of evil is greater than the sum of good, and usually +preponderant, I take it that it is pretty safe ground to go on that +whatever is, is wrong.'</p> + +<p>'Have another pinch of snuff,' said the captain, shaking his head and +proffering the golden box with its horn enclosure.</p> + +<p>'This great N,' said O'Hara, again examining the ornamented outer lid +with curiosity—'is that for the nephew or the uncle?'</p> + +<p>'It is for the Man,' said Monsieur Chauvin, almost offended.</p> + +<p>'Did you not say there was a story attached to it?' continued O'Hara.</p> + +<p>'Yes; but would you laugh at an old man?'</p> + +<p>'Captain Chauvin!'</p> + +<p>'Pardon, my good young friend. I will tell it you. On the day of Mont +St. Jean, the 18th of June, 1815, I was a sub-lieutenant of artillery in +the column of our glorious Ney—the laurel to his ashes! Ah! your +Wellington let him be slain like a dog; that was not soldierly. The +Emperor directed a false attack on the château of Goumont; while the +Englishman was gathering the best of his forces to its defence, the Man +stood, pale and<a name="page_049" id="page_049"></a> weary, with the same quiet, steady gaze, a smile fixed +into the earnestness of a frown, which my comrades told me he had worn +at Austerlitz, hands behind his back, and his gray great-coat lying +moist over his boots. My battery was near, and I was on its right, quite +close to the staff. "Messieurs," said he, as he saw the scarlet masses +pressing around Goumont, "we make our game. Where is Ney?" An +aide-de-camp galloped off for the Marshal, who was close at hand. The +Man, surveying Goumont with his glass, and occasionally looking intently +at La Haie-Sainte, gradually approached to where I stood. A soldier of +the battery lay dead on the ground before me—a veteran whom we all +loved. Feeling that we should shortly get the order to advance, I +resolved to secure some souvenir of Tampon, as we called him. I found a +horn snuff-box in his hand, clenched in death. The Man happened to turn +towards me, and observed the act.</p> + +<p>'"Comrade, a pinch," he said, and I handed him the box—that box; look +at it,' and the old soldier, the fire of foughten fields in his eyes, +hung over it with tenderness as over a loved living object—'that box +was in his fingers—out of it he took a pinch of snuff on the day of +Mont St. Jean.'</p> + +<p>'Did you see him after?'</p> + +<p>'Not that day. We advanced on La Haie-Sainte ten minutes after and gave +them a hail of hell-fire.<a name="page_050" id="page_050"></a> Our heavy artillery crashed through their +ranks like bolts of thunder. They shook; Ney seized the moment to bring +our guns right into the enemy's position, but we had a ravine to +traverse; our pieces of twelve settled down in the muddy rye, a regiment +of infantry came up from the rear to cover us, but Wellington was +quicker. He saw our difficulty and poured a host of dragoons in on us in +the valley. They cut our traces, overturned our guns, sabred our men. +But, sapristi! they paid for it—paid for it dearly. Our cuirassiers +rushed to the rescue like a whirlwind and swept them from earth to the +last man. Brave fellows they were! No, I did not see him after, until +all Paris turned out, six-and-twenty years ago, to welcome his remains +to the Church of the Invalides. You know his will, Monsieur O'Hara: "I +desire that my dust may rest on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of +the French people whom I loved so well."'</p> + +<p>The enthusiastic young Irishman could not but be affected at this +reminiscence of an era which appeals to all that is romantic in our +nature, told, too, by one who was an actor in it, and who carried in his +heart, still vivid and strong, the proud affection for Napoleon with +which that genius of war inspired his followers to the humblest. Nor was +his sole motive that of gratifying the captain when he demanded the +horn-box for another pinch, and,<a name="page_051" id="page_051"></a> to the exuberant delight of the old +man, with it in his hand sung <i>Les Souvenirs du Peuple</i> of Béranger.</p> + +<p>'Thanks, thanks, my young friend!' cried the captain, the tears +streaming down his cheeks; 'what a happy evening!'</p> + +<p>'But, captain, you don't enjoy yourself; you don't drink, you won't +smoke. True, you told me there was a reason for it.'</p> + +<p>'Yes, and as we are together in free friendship, I'll tell you, my dear +child, you who have sung such a beautiful song for the old soldier.'</p> + +<p>But we must reserve the captain's story for another chapter.<a name="page_052" id="page_052"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI.<br /><br /> +<small>THE OLD BONAPARTIST'S STORY.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">'W<small>HEN</small> I was young like you,' began the captain, 'I had my illusions. I +came of a royalist family which had suffered much by the Revolution, and +had stood up for the cause of the king as long as La Vendée was able to +keep a square league of ground to itself or a square inch of its flag +flying. But we had to give way; we could not conquer impossibilities: +Fortune always sides with the big battalions, as the Man used to say. +The domain passed from the hands of the Chauvins, and I, the heir of the +house, was obliged to take service with those who had helped to uproot +the family tree. I had no other alternative; my parents were dead; I, +the only scion of the ancient stock left, owed my life to the care of my +nurse, a brave peasant woman, who was married to a burly grenadier of +the Republic. They were kind in their way to the young aristocrat, and +they loved France. Poor Céline, to-day I could drop a tear over your +quiet grass-covered grave down in Burgundy:<a name="page_053" id="page_053"></a> and Tricot, too, he was a +thorough soldier. He died on the retreat from Moscow the same day that +Schramm—you know Schramm, who is president of an army commission here +now—was made brigadier-general.</p> + +<p>'Did you ever hear the story of his promotion?</p> + +<p>'He was a colonel when we made that fatal invasion, and in one of the +bloody fights on our retrograde march, fell, pierced by a bullet. The +blood bubbled in hot gouts from his wound, but the tears came faster +from his eyes. The Man saw him.</p> + +<p>'"What, weeping!" he said. "Why do you cry?"</p> + +<p>'"Because I'm going to die only a colonel," said Schramm.</p> + +<p>'"We'll settle that," said Napoleon, and made him a brigadier-general on +the spot. Schramm has not died since.</p> + +<p>'But to return to myself. I showed a mathematical taste, and early was +sent, at the expense of the commune in which Céline lived, to the +Polytechnic School. They did not keep us long over our course in those +times, and I was shortly appointed to a corps on active service. It was +there I learned to love the Man who was then leading France to a higher +eminence on the path of glory than she had ever reached. He was the idol +of the army. I had my ambition, and I often<a name="page_054" id="page_054"></a> recollected with a thrill +of pride and hope that he, too, was a mathematician, and commenced his +career as a subaltern of artillery. But, as I told you, I was only +sub-lieutenant at Mont St. Jean, and that day finished the soldier's +chances for that era in France—put a quencher on his aspirations. To +one passion succeeds another. Our life is a series of agitations, coming +changeful in aspect but regular in period as the tides of the +sea—sometimes smooth and glistening under a bright sun, sometimes +restless, sullen, heaving under the strong breath of the storm. To +glory, in my breast, followed love. I had met the daughter of another +Vendéan family in Paris, where she supported herself by giving lessons +in music. Her mother received me (she had known my mother), and +encouraged my little attentions to Caroline with her smiles. Alas; had I +been rich, at that time, what happiness might not have been mine, what +sorrows might not have been spared to her and me!'</p> + +<p>Here the aged officer stopped and busied himself with his handkerchief +about the region of the eyes.</p> + +<p>'But, sir, an officer with us who has to live on his pay cannot afford +himself the luxury of a wife. Caroline had no dowry, and I had no +position. If we had espoused each other she would have had to do without +a <i>trousseau</i>, and I certainly would not have been able to present her +with a <i>corbeille</i>. We<a name="page_055" id="page_055"></a> loved each other, and we parted—not without +some sighing, and many wishes for our meeting again under happier +circumstances. I was very fond of my cigar, and Caroline's mother +detested smoking. It was a mania with her. She had an unaccountable, +almost diseased, aversion to the habit. One evening, Caroline, out of +play, induced me to light a cigar in the chamber while she was looking +out of the window. I can never forget the fierce, pallid face with which +her mother turned on me and ordered me to leave the room on the instant. +It was only by a plentiful sprinkling of tears from Caroline that her +heart was softened to accept my excuses.</p> + +<p>'"It is his first fault, and I tempted him," said Caroline; "will you +not give him absolution, mamma?"</p> + +<p>After a while the mother relented, but said she would not admit me to +the same position in her esteem again, unless I consented to accept the +penance she would impose on me. The penance was never to smoke again. I +promised. This was when the wreck of our army was being re-formed at +Paris, under Louis XVIII., and the allies who had violated our capital +were beginning to get confident on the news which each ship conveyed +from St. Helena of the hastening end of the Man whom Sir Lowe was doing +to death. There was no chance of promotion for us if he did not come +back;<a name="page_056" id="page_056"></a> for the soldiers who loved Him, his death would indeed be the +setting of the sun of Austerlitz. I had long given up the expectation of +that marshal's bâton which every conscript fancies he carries in his +knapsack; but still I had the conviction that some chance of distinction +would present itself, even under the pacific Restoration, that might +lead me to a rank sufficient to maintain my beloved Caroline in comfort +as my wife. My regiment was ordered to Metz. The night I parted from her +I confided to her ear the idea that was before my mind, and she looked +such a cheerful, hope-inspiring look from her large liquid eyes into +mine as would have put fire into a breast of stone. It was the pure +lustre of a fresh innocent love, and as earnest that I accepted it as +sacred, I gave her my first and last kiss of holy affection. Her mother +reminded me at the door of the promise I had made about smoking, and +gave me a letter of introduction to a cousin of hers who was an officer +in the garrison to which we were ordered. This cousin, as I learned from +a comrade who knew him, was of a haughty, overbearing temper, and I was +in no hurry to hand him my credentials. About a week after my arrival I +was strolling about the fortification in the cool breezy twilight of a +sultry day, thinking of my future and of my Caroline, and looking up to +the stars in the mood of the poet, to whom the lover is so like. I tried +to shape out, in<a name="page_057" id="page_057"></a> the light clouds that were flitting across the heavens +in white flakes, some clue to my fortune. There that pale star, which is +so small and distant to-night, but will go on steadily increasing in +brightness and size until it attains its zenith, is the star of my +destiny. At the instant I gazed on it a wanton scud shut it out from +view; I tried to laugh, but I couldn't help feeling as if it were a +presentiment of coming gloom. Then I turned towards a bank of cloud +rising fantastically on the edge of the far blue horizon, and in fancy +pictured to myself that a pair of jagged peaks projecting from its +surface were the epaulettes of a general which awaited me; and, still +looking, until my eyes had almost got as visionary as my mind, I framed +out of a loose irregular mass of fleecy vapour the beamy figure of a +woman, whom I had persuaded my senses into identifying as the genius of +glory.</p> + +<p>'"It is our Napoleon who comes back to France," said I; "the soldier +will have his meat to carve again."</p> + +<p>'At the moment a tall figure passed, and recalled me from my dreaming. I +walked on, but somehow I was melancholic. I couldn't shake off the +impression which that star, blotted out of sight as I looked, had made +on my mind. I put my hand in the pocket of my uniform and involuntarily +took something out of it. It was my cigar-case. Involuntarily<a name="page_058" id="page_058"></a> still, I +opened it—there was one cigar left. I was depressed in spirits, +thinking sadly—and smoking, you know, kills thought.</p> + +<p>'The bribe was strong. I forgot my promise to Caroline's mother, or +encouraged myself to look upon it as a mere puerile engagement to humour +a woman's whim, and lit the cigar. Scarcely did the red fire take at its +end, and the first puff of smoke escape from my lips, when it was pulled +out of my mouth and cast on the ground, and a tall man stood frowning +before me, as well as I could distinguish in the dim light. My hand +immediately flew to my sword-hilt, and I put myself in an attitude of +defence.</p> + +<p>'"How dare you smoke here? don't you know the magazine is beside you?" +said the stranger, in a harsh voice.</p> + +<p>'"I did not know it," I answered; "nor will I allow any fellow to make +the fact known to me in that brutal manner."</p> + +<p>'"Fellow!" and the stranger laughed; "<i>ma foi</i>, that's amusing; and the +cockchafer has his hand on his butter-blade. Is your honour wounded, my +gallant sir?"</p> + +<p>'"Your body will be wounded shortly if you don't endeavour to civilize +your tongue," I answered, enraged.</p> + +<p>'"I positively think," said he, coolly twirling his moustaches, "that +the Gascon would fight. Does<a name="page_059" id="page_059"></a> your fancy run on being impaled like a +frog? If so, follow me, Sir Braggart," and he moved off.</p> + +<p>'I followed, wrath boiling in every vein. He stopped when he came to an +angle in the works, totally secure from observation from any side. The +moon burst out in full splendour; he cast a look upward, made a jesting +remark on the politeness of the higher powers in lighting folk to +kingdom come; and, throwing off his cloak, I discovered him to be a +staff-officer of rank by the uniform underneath.</p> + +<p>'"Has your courage failed yet?" he tauntingly asked, as he dexterously +detached his sword from the scabbard.</p> + +<p>'I was too vexed to speak. I said nothing, but fixed myself in the best +position I knew to receive his expected attack.</p> + +<p>'"Ha! Is that it?" he exclaimed, "think of your <i>maître d'armes</i>, and +recommend your soul to God, if you believe in Him."</p> + +<p>'At the last word he sprang forward, made a feint at my left leg, but +carried his weapon round in a circle in the one swing, and was bringing +it down on my sword-arm. But I knew the trick of old, and instead of +attempting to parry the feint, I turned my body aside to the left, and +held my weapon extended with a quick lunge to the front. He ran in +straight upon it with a force that made it shiver. His sword fell from +his grasp; his hands<a name="page_060" id="page_060"></a> were thrown up over his head; he fell back, gave +one convulsive shake of the limbs, and his life's blood gushed over the +lips on which the taunts that brought him to his fate were yet +trembling.</p> + +<p>'I do not know how I found my way to my quarters on that dreadful night. +The next thing I recollect was rising in the morning exhausted as if +after the delirium of a fever, and descending feebly to my breakfast at +the café opposite. A knot of officers were eagerly conversing outside +the door.</p> + +<p>'"Chauvin," said a comrade of mine from amongst them, "have you +presented that letter yet?"</p> + +<p>'I shook my head.</p> + +<p>'"You may spare yourself the trouble; your friend was found at daybreak +in a corner of the ramparts, dead as a burst shell, run through the +right lung."</p> + +<p>'I shuddered and felt as if my spine were turned to ice. Feigning urgent +private business, I sought leave of absence, and flew to Paris to +acquaint the mother of her whom I looked upon as my <i>fiancée</i> with the +dreadful secret. She heard me, never changed colour, said she believed +me; his conduct was in keeping with his character, which was +head-strong; she did not blame me for killing him—it was done in +self-defence; but, added she in the end, this would not have happened if +you had kept your promise not to smoke. "The man who cannot<a name="page_061" id="page_061"></a> keep his +word shall be no suitor for my daughter's hand—never again approach me +or mine——"</p> + +<p>'"But Caroline whom I love," I cried.</p> + +<p>'"Whom <i>you</i> love," she said, in a cutting voice—"there, there, take +your mistress to your breast," and she cast an old cigar-case at my feet +as she shut the door in my face.</p> + +<p>'I never saw Caroline again. I returned to my regiment, said nothing +about the fatal duel—nay, even wore mourning for my adversary, who was +not very much regretted. He left after him one pretty boy, a love-child; +I was not able to adopt him myself, but I watched over him and got him +admitted into the regiment as <i>enfant de troupe</i>—a brave, truthful, but +hot-headed, passionate boy. He died a soldier's death at the taking of +the Smala of Abd-el-Kader, under Lamoricière. His daughter has his +candour and generosity, without his ebullitions of temper. She's +somewhat giddy, perhaps, but very good-natured. Don't you think so?'</p> + +<p>'How should I know, captain?' said O'Hara, who had been a patient +listener to this moving story.</p> + +<p>'Ah, me! How an old man's brain wanders! Do you know,' he continued, +after a little hesitation, 'I feel the better for having opened my bosom +to you, my young friend, and I don't care for making half-confidences. I +may trust your discretion, I think,' and he smiled amiably. 'Berthe, my +Song-bird, the sunbeam in my house, is the daughter of<a name="page_062" id="page_062"></a> the boy, the +grand-daughter of him I had the misfortune to slay at Metz. No, not to +slay,' he added quickly, correcting himself, 'I did not slay him; he +rushed on his own death.'</p> + +<p>'Did Caroline's mother ever divulge the secret of your confession?' +inquired O'Hara.</p> + +<p>'Never, oh no! She was one of the old nobility, the mirror of honour. +She would not look upon any casualty in an affair of the kind other than +as a matter of ordinary course, even of professional necessity, in the +life of a soldier.'</p> + +<p>'And you never saw Caroline? Did she learn anything about it, do you +think?'</p> + +<p>Captain Chauvin sighed.</p> + +<p>'Sometimes I think she did, but I am sure she forgave me if she heard +all as it happened. She was too good in herself to think evil of anyone. +Ah! my dear sir, she was a woman. The sex, the sex! we, soldiers and men +of feeling, ought to have no commerce with it, but be let walk our ways +straightly.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara was fiddling with a certain parcel which he had stolen from his +bosom.</p> + +<p>'She married a rich politician, one of the damn—— pardon me, my dear +sir, one of the bourgeoisie class, and as Louis Philippe was king, the +bourgeoisie was everything, and Caroline's husband was a favourite and a +great man. I think she married him out of duty to her mother, to save<a name="page_063" id="page_063"></a> +her declining days from poverty. When Louis Philippe was sent to the +right-about, the mean bourgeois politician went to the right-about too, +and his fortune with him. Poor Caroline had died in giving birth to +daughters, twins. Luckily, their nurse, one of the people, had a heart; +she kept a wine-shop at Choisy-le-Roi, and she took care of the two poor +orphans: yes, they were orphans, for that shabby Orleans rascal, who +skirted, was never a real living man, nor his master either. Damn—— +pardon me, sir, but Louis Philippe was no king—he was a grocer, sir, a +grocer.'</p> + +<p>'At best he was a usurper, but a singularly mild one,' remarked O'Hara.</p> + +<p>'We shall not talk of him, sir,' said the captain; 'but now let me +complete an old man's confidences. I adopted one of those twins, she was +so like her mother in manner; she is my housekeeper. If Berthe is my +Song-bird, it is Caroline who keeps the nest tidy.'</p> + +<p>'That superb brunette!'</p> + +<p>'Ah! you think her superb,' cried the aged officer, pleased. +'Superb—that's right; she is the born image of her mother.'</p> + +<p>'And the other,' pursued O'Hara eagerly, a dark suspicion taking hold of +his imagination.</p> + +<p>A shade passed over the old man's face. 'Ah! I know nothing of her. She +was her father's daughter, not her mother's. She preferred the noisy +wine-<a name="page_064" id="page_064"></a>shop to my quiet home, and three years ago she disappeared from +our sight altogether. But the night waxes late. I must be going. So you +haven't seen your friend since?'</p> + +<p>'No, and I have anxiously desired to see him, to clear off some +obligations I am under to him.'</p> + +<p>'Well, again good-night. I pray you don't be such a stranger as he; but +sometimes call up to Victor Chauvin's humble quarters. It gladdens his +spirit to converse with youth.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara gave assurance that he would esteem it a happiness and an honour +to visit one with whom he had so many kindred sympathies.</p> + +<p>'It grows late' said the officer, 'and my pair of pretty birds will be +anxiously looking out for me if I delay. Good-night, my child, +good-night.'</p> + +<p>And as O'Hara escorted Captain Chauvin to the door, Pat accompanied +them, but only with a valedictory bark. The truth is he was too well +fed, and he was not used to it. With dogs, as with men, high feeding +begets indolence, and the indolent are not over-polite.<a name="page_065" id="page_065"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII.<br /><br /> +<small>FRIEZECOAT AT HOME.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">T<small>HE</small> morning after Captain Chauvin had admitted the young Irishman into +his confidences was wet and gloomy. At half-past ten a.m. O'Hara was +seated in front of his dressing-table engaged in an unpleasant operation +entailed by the usages of modern society, that of shaving himself. He +wore moustaches and mouche, but fashion in the French capital +necessitated the removal of the whiskers, and, razor in hand, skimming +over a surface of lathered skin, he peered into the toilet-glass, when a +loud tap resounded on the panel of the door. Before he had time to make +answer the lock was turned, the door thrown open, and the applicant for +admittance had entered with heavy step. O'Hara turned round and stared +at him.</p> + +<p>It was the very man whom he had been wishing to see, the stranger, whose +name was not Beelzebub, clad in the same long frieze coat, the skirts of +which were met by spatterdashes, which totally shut out his trousers +from view. His boots were<a name="page_066" id="page_066"></a> covered with mud, his face perspiring from +exercise; he took off his hat and sat down abruptly by the table, on +which a pile of loose journals, letters, and other literary matter was +strewn.</p> + +<p>'Welcome,' said the interrupted shaver with cheerfulness (although he +had gashed his jaw), advancing towards his visitor.</p> + +<p>'Stay where you are, Mr. Manus O'Hara, and finish your shaving. Passing +by this way—thought I'd call in to see you.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara regarded him with a broad stare of wonderment. How had this +stranger found out his name and lodging? His looks must have conveyed +the questions.</p> + +<p>'How do I know your name and where to find you? you would ask,' said the +stranger. 'Spiritual clairvoyance. Shave yourself.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara smiled, said nothing, but determined to deal with the humorist in +his own coin, and resumed his position before the glass.</p> + +<p>Friezecoat commenced fumbling amid the letters and papers on the table. +O'Hara saw the movement reflected in the mirror, turned round, and said +calmly:</p> + +<p>'There are private documents there.'</p> + +<p>'You have no right to leave them exposed,' retorted the stranger +imperturbably.</p> + +<p>'Most of my visitors are gentlemen; at least, in their habits,' said +O'Hara with quiet irony.<a name="page_067" id="page_067"></a></p> + +<p>'Not all,' said the stranger as quietly.</p> + +<p>'So I see.'</p> + +<p>'For instance, I'm not a gentleman—don't want to be one,' said the +stranger. 'I'm content to be a man. Finish your shaving.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara looked at him, undecided whether to lose temper or laugh; +finally, again turned to the glass and resumed the operation on his +beard with a studious show of deliberateness. He could see, however, +with pleasure, in the reflection of the table, that the stranger had not +chosen to meddle a second time with the loose manuscripts before him. +After removing the last wanton hair, disburdening his jaws of the +accumulated lather, wiping his cheek with the towel, softly dusting the +irritated flesh with powder, carefully drying the razor and returning it +to its case, he turned round in his seat, faced his whimsical visitor, +and said deliberately:</p> + +<p>'I have finished.'</p> + +<p>'Come away,' said the stranger, and he descended the stairs. 'You must +accompany me to the wild beast's den. I have something to say to you.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara followed him; they entered a <i>voiture</i>, and the stranger gave the +word, to the Rue des Fossés St. Victor. The street which was called +Loustarol in the revolutionary times corresponds with the Rue des Fossés +St. Victor of to-day. It<a name="page_068" id="page_068"></a> lies in the thick network of schools behind +the church of St. Etienne du Mont, between the thoroughfares named in +honour of the great French mathematician, Déscartes, and the great +Swedish naturalist, Linnæus. Its site was formerly occupied by the +cloisters of Philippe Auguste, and here stood the convent of <i>Les Dames +Anglaises</i> and the Scotch College. Even still there is a scholarly +sedateness in the neighbourhood. The house to which they were driven was +entered by a long-walled avenue with prison-like wickets at intervals, +ending in an open iron gate, which permitted a view of a blooming +flower-garden. To the left, just before reaching this gate, was a door +painted <i>Pension Bourgeoise</i>, the sort of establishment in Paris which +corresponds with our boarding-house. Friezecoat raised the latch and led +in his companion.</p> + +<p>A narrow courtyard, weakly vines trained along the wall on one side and +a range of rooms destined for lodgers on the other, conducted to the +Pension, which was a tall, narrow house, surmounted by a belvedere. A +few noisy fowls in a preternatural state of activity promenaded the +yard; a lazy dog, preternaturally lazy, too lazy even to bark, lay +curled in a corner. But the grand feature of the pension was a +one-storied wooden house, such as are frequently to be met with in +Switzerland, containing two bedrooms underneath and two in the<a name="page_069" id="page_069"></a> upper +floor, which was approached by a staircase from the outside, prolonged +into a balcony, which ran in front of the structure under the shelter of +the over-hanging eaves. Friezecoat lived in this châlet. As they drew +near, the cock, at the van of his plumed seraglio, crowed like a proud +French cock; the dog moved his head and gave an indolent growl.</p> + +<p>'Let us go aloft,' said Friezecoat, stepping on the staircase.</p> + +<p>'I pay for these two rooms on the top, I tenant but one,' continued he; +'I have the staircase to myself, so that I can be isolated when I like.'</p> + +<p>'You are comfortably situated,' said O'Hara, glancing round the room +into which they had entered, which was a square cleanly-papered +bed-chamber plainly furnished. A timepiece ticked on the mantel-shelf +under a neat mirror, a secretaire stood between it and the window, which +was furnished with <i>persiennes</i>, adding to the general appearance of +rusticity. A book-case, over which was disposed a trophy of pistols, +foils, and boxing-gloves, and having on either side prints of Protais' +celebrated sketches of the Chasseurs de Vincennes at work, <i>Avant +l'Attaque</i> and <i>Après le Combat</i>, was fixed against the wall directly +opposite the door. A fauteuil, four rush-bottomed chairs, and a commode +completed the inventory of the furniture. A screened alcove concealed +the bed, and a nook in<a name="page_070" id="page_070"></a> the same side of the room was cut off by a +partition and apportioned to the services of ablution.</p> + +<p>'The view is not splendid,' said the stranger, seating himself in the +fauteuil and motioning O'Hara to a rush-bottomed chair: 'that wall with +the high trellis confines it; outside is the playground of some sort of +an institution. I like to hear the buzz of the boys amusing themselves; +it brings back my youth; then the green trees, as I see them waving +through the lattice, call up the country. Altogether,' with a tone of +enthusiasm in his voice, 'I like the shanty; it's a bit of Switzerland +in this Paris.'</p> + +<p>'You go in for muscularity,' hinted O'Hara, glancing at the trophy of +arms.</p> + +<p>'I have found it necessary in my career,' replied the stranger quietly. +'Smoke?'</p> + +<p>'Yes.'</p> + +<p>The stranger brought out a superbly-mounted Turkish pipe from a drawer, +and handed it to his visitor. 'Will you try hasheesh?'</p> + +<p>O'Hara declined.</p> + +<p>'I like it now and again. It lifts me into an ideal world—makes me +forget the real. Drink?'</p> + +<p>O'Hara accepted.</p> + +<p>The stranger produced a dust-covered bottle with a yellow seal from the +same drawer as before, and placed it before his companion. 'Comes from +Pfungst Brothers,' was the only recommendation<a name="page_071" id="page_071"></a> he ventured; but that +was enough. The bottle was fitted with a false neck, to which a siphon, +closing hermetically, was attached, so that the champagne could be +sipped glass by glass, if desired, without loss of first freshness and +that titillating effervescence which makes its charm.</p> + +<p>O'Hara drank.</p> + +<p>'Drink again. 'Twill sweep the cobwebs from your throat.'</p> + +<p>'Do you ever feel lonely?' demanded Friezecoat, after a pause.</p> + +<p>'Yes, sometimes very much. Like most Irishmen, I am changeful in my +moods; to-day I find myself in the height of good spirits, to-morrow in +the lowest depths of depression.'</p> + +<p>'That is because you are not in your native land—have no home here—no +interior. It is not well to be alone.'</p> + +<p>The pair continued smoking. They smoked as connoisseurs, enjoying each +particular puff, following it with dreamy eyes as it ascended, until it +lost itself in gradually widening rings of lessening haze, and they +embraced the stems of their pipes for a new pull with gloating lips.</p> + +<p>'Do you like the furniture of this room?' abruptly inquired the +stranger.</p> + +<p>'Yes,' replied O'Hara; 'rich, not gaudy, as Shakespeare says.'</p> + +<p>'See any want?'<a name="page_072" id="page_072"></a></p> + +<p>'Not particularly.'</p> + +<p>'Ah! there is one piece of furniture particularly wanting,' said the +stranger, with the manner of a man who endeavours to master bashfulness +by an exaggerated show of good-humoured, rude self-possession.</p> + +<p>'What's that?'</p> + +<p>'A wife!'</p> + +<p>O'Hara turned his eyes from the pipe to Friezecoat, and Friezecoat—the +gruff, blunt-mannered, muscularly-educated Friezecoat—was positively +embarrassed, blushed like a callow boy.</p> + +<p>'Were you ever in love?' said Friezecoat, probably with a sly view of +diverting the enemy's attention by a movement in flank.</p> + +<p>The answer was an involuntary sigh.</p> + +<p>'Is that it? Do you believe in love at first sight?'</p> + +<p>'I believe in anything where love exists; it makes fools of the wisest +of us.'</p> + +<p>'That's right; and now that the cat's out of the bag I may as well tell +you that I have fallen in love at first sight, and that's what I have to +say to you.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara removed his pipe, and gave a long, low, significant whistle, +which reached even unto the dog in the yard, and stimulated him into an +inquisitive yelp, which might have been heard had it not been stifled in +its birth.</p> + +<p>'Who has glamoured you—a Frenchwoman?'<a name="page_073" id="page_073"></a></p> + +<p>'Yes; Chauvin's grand-daughter.'</p> + +<p>'The little Song-bird?'</p> + +<p>'The same; and I intend to go to-morrow—no, perhaps this very night, to +make a formal proposal for her hand to the old soldier.'</p> + +<p>'In that instance, I believe, I am justified in telling you what I know +of her history, as Captain Chauvin told it to me himself,' said O'Hara, +laying down his pipe. Simply and briefly he proceeded to narrate to his +companion the story which had been confided to him. 'So now you are the +best judge,' he finished, 'whether you are justified in offering your +hand to the daughter of a—a—to a woman who will bring a bend sinister +to your escutcheon.'</p> + +<p>'Who will bring cheerfulness to my fireside, you meant to say, sir,' +said Friezecoat, with a certain tone of displeasure in his voice. 'Bend +sinister! There's your virtuous, charitable world, that would exact +penalty of an innocent child for the sin of a progenitor who was +mouldered in his tomb before she was born. Bend sinister be blowed! +Thank God, I'm burdened with no escutcheon to put it on. There's the +coat of arms of the O'Hoolohan Roe,' stretching out his open palm, 'and +there are its supporters,' pointing to the trophy and opening a drawer, +filled with thick rouleaux of yellow Napoleons—'steel on one side and +gold on the other.'<a name="page_074" id="page_074"></a></p> + +<p>After finishing the bottle in conjunction, they parted in good +fellowship. We were near forgetting that O'Hara mentioned something +about paying one hundred francs for which he was indebted, but the +democrat thrust back the purse which was produced, and said, 'Whenever +it suits you;' and as it didn't happen just then to suit the aristocrat, +he returned the purse unopened to his pocket. There was not a syllable +more of argument, if we except a friendly quotation which Friezecoat +sent as a parting shot from his balcony to his retiring friend: 'Hallo! +Mr. O'Hara—</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'When Adam dolve, and Eve span,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Who was then the gentleman?'</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p class="nind">followed by a loud laugh.</p> + +<p>'The O'Hoolohan Roe!' said O'Hara to himself, as he lingered at the gate +of the Pension; 'that's what he called himself. Who the deuce can the +O'Hoolohan Roe be? I have heard of the M'Carthy More, of the O'Conor +Don, and of the O'Donoghue of the Glens; but never of him before.'</p> + +<p>In the interests of our readers, we, too, must endeavour to find out who +the O'Hoolohan Roe really was.<a name="page_075" id="page_075"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII.<br /><br /> +<small>POPPING THE QUESTION.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">O<small>N</small> the following day, true to his word, the O'Hoolohan Roe might be seen +pulling the bell at the door of No. 39, in the Rue de la Vieille +Estrapade. He was elaborately got up in a suit of brand-new garments of +blue cloth, which did not fit his short, stout form too nicely. He had +bought them at a cheap slop warehouse, and doubtless paid more than he +would have been asked at one of the modest, humdrum establishments where +clothes are made to wear as well as sell. His hat was new and glistened +in the sunshine, for the day was one of those pet days which surprise us +in early spring; in his gloved hands (yes, absolutely gloved) he +flourished a silver-headed Malacca cane; on his broad breast were ranged +in rainbow row, under a nosegay, perhaps a little too large, the +vari-coloured ribbons of innumerable decorations. He marched up the +staircase with a firm, a pretentiously firm step, until he reached the +corridor, off which lay the apartment of Captain Chauvin; and then he<a name="page_076" id="page_076"></a> +stopped and listened. The tinkle-tinkle of a piano, lightly touched on +the treble, reached his ears through the keyhole. He halted and +blushed—searched in the back-pockets of his new coat for his +handkerchief—drew it out and vehemently rubbed his face. His face +looked hot; the application of the handkerchief seemed to make it +hotter. When he put back his handkerchief, a waft of perfume rested on +the air. Scarcely had he restored it to his pocket, when his hand sought +the pocket again. What! can he be going to display it anew? How fidgety +the man looks! No; that is not the loud-patterned square of cambric, +three horses' heads printed on its corner, which he brings forth this +time, but—it can hardly be believed—an oval pocket-mirror. He inspects +his hot, red face in its disk, goes through the motion of raising his +shirt-collar, brushes back his hair, replaces his hat on his head, and +the mirror in his pocket, and coughs.</p> + +<p class="c">'Amour, amour, quand tu nous tiens.'</p> + +<p>What it is to be in love!</p> + +<p>Hist!—he speaks. Is he formulating the compliments he is about to make? +No; he soliloquizes, and in what a curt, unnatural voice—a shamefaced +voice! Listen:</p> + +<p>'I'm a fool. Rather lead a forlorn hope!'</p> + +<p>And then he raps at the door with a desperate audacity, with the air of +a man who had nerved himself to something heroic.<a name="page_077" id="page_077"></a></p> + +<p>The door swung back on its hinges, and the tall brunette, with the proud +melancholy face, she who was like to the dead Marguerite, stood before +him. She did not know him at first, so completely had love and the new +suit of clothes transformed him.</p> + +<p>'Good-morning, ma'amselle; how is grandfather?'</p> + +<p>Old Chauvin, who was seated in his armchair beside Berthe at the piano, +rose at the sound of the voice, and, advancing to the door, grasped him +by both hands and drew him into the middle of the room.</p> + +<p>'Welcome, welcome, my Irish friend; I was afraid you had forgotten us. I +was with Monsieur O'Hara, and he did not know your address, or I would +have called on you in person to render you my thanks for your present to +my little Song-bird. See, she was practising one of your plaintive airs +as you entered. What a world of sadness is in your Irish music! It is +like the sighing of the wind through a lonely forest in the night-time.'</p> + +<p>The O'Hoolohan Roe approached the piano. A richly-bound volume of Gaelic +music, a harp rising in golden relief from its ground of green on the +cover, lay before Berthe. The page at which it was open was headed, in +illuminated letters, <i>Eiblin-a-ruin</i>. The white neck of the maiden +suffused with a delicate pink, such a pink as we see sometimes colouring +the sea-shell, at the undisguised<a name="page_078" id="page_078"></a> glance of admiration of the Irishman. +She tossed up her pretty head, looking so classic under its canopy of +chestnut hair, and regarded him with frank eyes as he began to speak. It +was too much for the O'Hoolohan Roe; he was not proof against woman's +gaze; he got embarrassed, stuttered in the middle of some phrase of +congratulation about the correctness of her taste, and finally fell back +<i>hors de combat</i>. To add to his confusion, there was a traitorous crash +as he flopped down in a chair—the hand-mirror in his back-pocket was +broken! She followed him with an arch, wicked smile; her brown eyes +wilfully sparkled, and a line of ivory showed itself between the cherry +bordering of her lips.</p> + +<p>It was a critical moment. But the <i>esprit Français</i> is not wanting in +ingenuity. It is equal to every occasion.</p> + +<p>'Shall I play this beautiful air for our kind friend, grandfather? It is +a poor way to show my gratitude, but it is the best and only way I +have.'</p> + +<p>The O'Hoolohan Roe opened a sentence which, we dare say, might have been +very eloquent had it been completed, but unluckily a severe fit of +coughing arrested him mid-way, and necessitated the production of the +perfumed handkerchief.</p> + +<p>'Do, dear,' said Captain Chauvin.</p> + +<p>'I am in love with it; I think I could almost play it in the dark.'<a name="page_079" id="page_079"></a></p> + +<p>The O'Hoolohan Roe seemed as if he would have no particular objection to +a nether darkness—a darkness that would shut out his presence even from +himself—falling on the scene.</p> + +<p>Berthe commenced playing. The spirit of music lives and moves and has +its being in the Gaelic air, and she played as one who felt, admired, +and held communion with that spirit—not with her fingers merely, but +with her soul, a beautiful, sensitive, emotional soul. The chords +thrilled like sentient creatures, and voiced their melodious plaints, +now one by one, now in murmuring volume, until the very atmosphere was +languid with the melting sweetness, and the pathetic notes stole out by +the flowers and the enraptured throstle in the window to soar upwards to +the clouds.</p> + +<p>The O'Hoolohan Roe listened entranced. As the last note died away he +grew more fidgety than ever, and moved about uneasily in his chair. The +perfumed handkerchief was scarcely ever out of his hand. Evidently, he +was endeavouring to screw his courage to the sticking-place.</p> + +<p>The brunette, ostensibly busy over an embroidery-frame, watched him with +an amused look. Berthe toyed with the keys of the piano.</p> + +<p>'Captain Chauvin,' he began at last, 'I have something important to say +to you—something private.'</p> + +<p>The brunette rose and left for the inner room.<a name="page_080" id="page_080"></a> Berthe was preparing to +follow her, but the Irishman, whose courage fortunately appeared to +re-assert itself as the emergency neared, interposed.</p> + +<p>'Stay, ma'amselle,' he said; ''tis of you I would talk; perhaps I may +want your assistance.'</p> + +<p>She sank back in her seat with a puzzled look, regarded him a moment, +and reddened with the characters of virgin modesty. Why? The quick +instinct of woman had divined the meaning of his visit in his +countenance. She was not displeased; who could be displeased at +discovering that they are loved? As Berthe turned her eyes from this +robust, square-built man, in the palmy vigour of his manhood, and felt +that he, so strangely weak and confused at sight of her, did indeed +truly, passionately love her with the force of his sanguine temperament, +there was a pit-a-pat under her bosom which made it visibly undulate; +the blood rose to tropic heat in her veins and poured its tell-tale tide +in rosy current over her neck and arms. She was loved—ineffable +happiness for woman! Could she help loving in return? There is a +yearning in every female breast for sympathy, a sense of void to be +filled. Her naïve purity could not refuse the gift she had long desired, +long dreamed of; she filled with a gladness which she averted her face +to conceal.</p> + +<p>'Captain Chauvin,' resumed the Irishman, 'you have been a soldier.'<a name="page_081" id="page_081"></a></p> + +<p>The old Frenchman bowed acquiescence.</p> + +<p>'So have I. You have fought under many generals?'</p> + +<p>'I fought under the greatest master of war France ever produced, or the +world ever crowned with glory!' and the aged voice swelled and the aged +eye brightened.</p> + +<p>'Did you ever remark that, while some would be cautiously laying their +parallels and making all the preparations of military science to take a +fortified town, others would trust to luck, rush to the attack at once, +and seize the citadel by storm? The gods often favour audacity.'</p> + +<p>'The audacity of genius—such audacity as Napoleon possessed. Oh! I +admire the brave man who rushes forward boldly to his aim.'</p> + +<p>The O'Hoolohan Roe was getting more at ease; a smile might even be +detected lurking at the corners of his mouth.</p> + +<p>'The soldier's life is not always happy, captain; the camp and the +barrack have their excitement, but there is a—a—a sort of an +emptiness.'</p> + +<p>'Alas! yes,' and the old man sighed and carried his hand to his face. +'Alas! yes'—he brushed away something from the neighbourhood of his +eye; 'these pestering flies, how early in the season they come this +year! Here is one has got under my lashes and brings the water down my +cheeks. We were speaking about the soldier's<a name="page_082" id="page_082"></a> life. Have you ever read +Michelet's treatise on Love?'</p> + +<p>The voice was broken.</p> + +<p>'Never.'</p> + +<p>The O'Hoolohan was beginning to be curiously fidgety again.</p> + +<p>'I have been reading it these latter days. A wise, affectionate book +written by a wise, affectionate man. It was in it I found an Indian +maxim referred to which says <i>la femme c'est la maison</i>: "the wife is +the home." There, sir, you have the whole philosophy of the soldier's +unsatisfying life. He has no home; he wants the wife to make it.'</p> + +<p>The old man buried his face in his hands.</p> + +<p>There was a long pause, during which Berthe, agitated at the turn the +conversation had taken, could count the throbbing of her pulse. Her +grandfather, no longer able to dissemble his anguish, silently nursed +his grief in the cradle of memory. The suitor, who had been craftily +leading up the dialogue to the avowal he wished, yet feared to make, if +his face were index, was a prey to a violent mental struggle. At length, +with an effort, which made itself physically perceptible in a jump on +his chair, he broke the silence:</p> + +<p>'Captain Chauvin, you're listening. About this private business I would +speak with you.'</p> + +<p>The old man raised his head.</p> + +<p>'You have a grand-daughter.'<a name="page_083" id="page_083"></a></p> + +<p>Berthe tried to rise from her seat, but found herself unable. Poor, +pretty creature, she had miscalculated her strength. She had yet to +learn that there are other feelings that can rob the limbs of their +functions than terror or ecstasy of joy.</p> + +<p>The Irishman resumed:</p> + +<p>'I want a wife. <i>Voilà toute l'affaire!</i>'</p> + +<p>Sure never was a maiden wooed in such a fashion; sure never was a hand +so demanded. 'Faint heart never won fair lady,' saith the proverb, and +there is truth in it. The old man looked from his visitor to Berthe, and +from Berthe to his visitor.</p> + +<p>'You have an open face,' he said at length; 'you have been a soldier, +and I trust a soldier's honour not to betray the confidence of a +comrade. I feel that I am getting old, and my Song-bird will want a +protector. You would guard her——'</p> + +<p>'As the apple of my eye.'</p> + +<p>'You can guard her?'</p> + +<p>'I would not lead those I love on the path of misery.'</p> + +<p>'Seek your answer from the child herself; I can read it already.'</p> + +<p>Gently the strong man approached the girl, reverently almost, as one +would approach a sanctuary. He laid his hand on the soft wavy surface of +her chestnut hair, and in a voice whose soldierly firmness was modulated +to gentlest coaxing persuasion he whispered:<a name="page_084" id="page_084"></a></p> + +<p>'Darling, I wait on thee. Wilt thou accept the hand of an honest man? +'Tis rough, but there is no stain of dishonour upon it.'</p> + +<p>'<i>J'accepte!</i>' murmured the girl in reply, and raised her face aglow +with passionate trustfulness to his, and as he imprinted the kiss of +betrothal on those candid lips, innocent of contact with man's lips +before, the door of the inner room opened, and the brunette, who had +been reared with Berthe, worn out probably with waiting for her little +friend, stood transfixed, a picture of amazement, on its threshold.<a name="page_085" id="page_085"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX.<br /><br /> +<small>A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">O<small>N</small> the day following the events detailed in our last chapter, O'Hara was +seated in his chamber, hard at work at his desk, when a visitor +announced himself at the door. It was the O'Hoolohan Roe—in the old +suit.</p> + +<p>'Take a seat—scribbling away for the bare life, as you see. Just +finished.'</p> + +<p>'I've come to ask you a favour. I presume you'll grant it.'</p> + +<p>'Certainly, always presuming that it is such as a gentleman can grant.'</p> + +<p>'Still harping on the old string.'</p> + +<p>'Sir,' said O'Hara, getting annoyed, 'I have the misfortune to a certain +extent to be your debtor; but I am not your valet. Here, take back the +hundred francs you lent me, and we shall speak on more equal terms,' +holding out his purse.</p> + +<p>'Did I ever ask you for it?'</p> + +<p>'I insist on your taking it.'<a name="page_086" id="page_086"></a></p> + +<p>'If I do, I'm blest if I don't give it to the first beggar I meet on the +highway.'</p> + +<p>'That as you like, sir. I'm not a beggar—nor yet a barbarian.'</p> + +<p>'Ha, ha, ha! That's really good. Now, tell me, who should lose his +temper? Here, I take the money and beg your pardon. I didn't think you +were so thin-skinned.'</p> + +<p>'Thin-skinned! Thank you for that expression.'</p> + +<p>'What better could you expect from a barbarian?'</p> + +<p>O'Hara could not resist a smile.</p> + +<p>'Well, now,' continued his visitor, 'that you're getting into better +humour I'll try and put on my good manners. The favour I'm going to ask +of you is not much; but it's hardly fair to ask it of you without +telling you who and what I am. Would you like to hear my history?'</p> + +<p>'Candidly, I would.'</p> + +<p>'Then, attend,' said his visitor, assuming a more serious air, and after +a short pause, in which he seemed to be running over the hoards of +memory, he thus commenced:</p> + +<p>'My life is briefly told. It has been a hard life, a life of struggling, +written in plain black and white, and as such I'll tell it to you. I +haven't the genius of a romancer to make it picturesque. I was born in +Cork——'</p> + +<p>'The city?'<a name="page_087" id="page_087"></a></p> + +<p>'Yes, the beautiful city.'</p> + +<p>'Some of our most eminent literary worthies came from Cork.'</p> + +<p>'Well, I'm not one of them—my father was, though, in a way. He kept a +classical and mathematical school which was well supported, and called +himself a philomath, whatever that meant. My mother was a big-hearted, +kind woman who never sent a beggar empty-handed from her door, and +believed her husband the most learned man the world ever saw. But if she +worshipped her husband, she adored her son.'</p> + +<p>'She was a woman,' sententiously remarked O'Hara.</p> + +<p>'That's it, I suppose,' resumed O'Hoolohan with a sigh. 'Of course she +must have been,' he added, after thinking a little, as if a new +revelation had dawned upon him. 'Anyhow, he wasn't as good a boy as he +ought to have been, and 'tis sorry he is to-day to have to own it. Well, +it's no use crying over spilt milk. To get on with my tale. I raked and +I rambled—I may as well make a clean breast of it—and in the end I +took a liking to a cavalry uniform I saw in Ballincollig, and I 'listed. +My father paid the smart-money, my mother cried, and I was lugged home. +Then they bound me to a saddler. After a month I 'listed again: he +bought me off again, and the old game of tears from the mother and +promises of repentance from the hopeful<a name="page_088" id="page_088"></a> youth, and stern majesty from +the father, was repeated. Six months after, the quicksilver got up in my +constitution again. I determined not to be balked this time, so I went +to the old fellow, said I was going to 'list, and wouldn't be bought +out.</p> + +<p>'"Mother'll buy you out," says he.</p> + +<p>'"I'll 'list again," says I; "see who'll get tired of that trick first."</p> + +<p>'"She prevailed on you to leave off your soldiering notions twice +before," said he again.</p> + +<p>'"The third time has the charm," was my answer.</p> + +<p>'He reflected awhile: "Well, if you will be a soldier, I suppose it's +wrong to bar such a fine fellow the chance of getting a bullet in his +head."</p> + +<p>'"Oh!" said I gaily, "the man that is born to be hanged will never be +shot."</p> + +<p>'"Go your way, then," said he.</p> + +<p>'"You'd better let me have that one-and-twenty shillings smart you used +to pay, to drink your long life, and a healthy thirst for learning to +the rising generation of Corkonians."</p> + +<p>'If I hadn't ducked my head at the moment, I mightn't be here to tell +you. He had levelled "lamb and salad," as he used to call his +slapper—the superannuated bolt of an outhouse—at the place where my +brains ought to have been. The good man had a temper of his own.'</p> + +<p>'Is he no more?'<a name="page_089" id="page_089"></a></p> + +<p>'These ten years. So is my mother, and if I ever go back to Ireland +again, one of the businesses that will take me there is to put a stone +over their graves. The regiment which I joined was one of the medium +cavalry, and my knowledge of saddlery stood me in good stead. Because of +it I got promoted, which was not an ordinary piece of luck, for the +corps was an English one, and a Paddy had little chance of the stripes +anywhere except on his back. It was in the Tangiers Horse I learned to +be a rebel and a democrat. To see young spooneys, fresh from their +mother's apron-strings, spooneys not able to grow a beard, hemming and +hawing on a parade-ground, and strutting about in command of old +soldiers that were black with powder before they were born! It sickened +me, I tell you Pshaw! All men are equal.'</p> + +<p>'As all the fingers of our hand are of the same length,' quietly +observed O'Hara.</p> + +<p>The democratic dragoon did not regard the interruption, but continued:</p> + +<p>'It was during the Repeal Agitation I enlisted, and our regiment never +left the shores of England. We moved about from Manchester to Sheffield, +and from Sheffield to York, but never too far from Ireland. I watched +the excitement as it grew, and waited the moment till it would come to +blows. I was an Irishman before I was a soldier, thought I, and I'll +never wear a sabre against my country. I<a name="page_090" id="page_090"></a> went to the colonel and +demanded my discharge. I had saved enough in the saddlery workshop to +pay for it.</p> + +<p>'"Can't give any men their discharge now, especially a useful man like +you."</p> + +<p>'My resolution was taken on the spot. "All right, sir," I said; "I +suppose I must put up with the disappointment."</p> + +<p>'That night I deserted and put a letter with the money I had saved to +buy myself out in the Post Office, and started for this city. I was +always anxious to see foreign parts. I soon ran through my rhino, and +then, although I couldn't speak the language, the trade I had at my +fingers' ends stood my friend. But the old passion grew on me, and I +joined the Foreign Legion in the French Service. I campaigned four years +among the Kabyles in Algeria, and then, the Crimean War breaking out, I +was taken as volunteer into the battalion of ours that went out with the +Army of the East. I served through the awful winters before Sebastopol, +served from the Alma to the Tchernaya, and came back with an honourable +discharge, and not a scratch on my body. I stopped in Paris again +awhile—I make this city my harbour of refuge, the place where I put in +to refit always—but the Lombardy campaign of '59 broke out. I didn't +care to enter into another engagement under the tricolour—it was too +long—so I applied for a commission in a guerrilla<a name="page_091" id="page_091"></a> corps in the Italian +Service, and they were glad to take me on. We finished Austria at the +double-quick; I was into the thick of the whole bloody six weeks' work +from Turbigo to Solferino, and came off with the medal for military +distinction and a sabre-cut on my left elbow. I laid up for awhile, +nursing my wound and spending my money in old Paris. In 1860 I was in +harness again, but this time a free-lance. I was one of the thousand of +Garibaldi, landed with him at Marsala, marched with him through Palermo, +crossed over with him to the mainland, fought by his side at the +Volturno, and entered Naples in his triumphal procession on the Via +Toledo, after he had driven out Bombalino, the dirty Bourbon.'</p> + +<p>'Why, you have been a regular soldier of fortune! What a lot of fighting +you have seen!'</p> + +<p>'There is more to come, on the other side of the ocean. After a short +stay in Paris again, I left from Havre by the <i>Pereire</i> for New York; +didn't like it, and travelled down South to Carolina. I was there when +the first shot was fired at Sumter, and I threw in my fortunes with the +Palmetto flag.'</p> + +<p>'I wonder at a democrat doing that,' remarked O'Hara.</p> + +<p>'Oh! you are of those who imagine the North was fighting to put down +slavery in that war,' said his visitor.<a name="page_092" id="page_092"></a></p> + +<p>'Not entirely, but I'd expect an Irish democrat would range him under +the Stars and Stripes.'</p> + +<p>'And I might have expected that the natural place for an Irish rebel to +have ranged himself was on the side of the "rebels," as they were +called. But to cut that matter short, it was very much a question of +locality with most Irishmen.'</p> + +<p>'I am satisfied. Go on.'</p> + +<p>'There is not far to go now. I'm nearly at the end of my tether. I got a +captain's command in the cavalry, served under General Stuart, and left +a colonel, but broken-down in health, spirits and purse, like most of +the noble fellows who strove to lift on high the bonnie blue flag. +Fortunately I had secured some money behind me here in Paris before I +had left for America—I had always an eye to the main chance in my +campaigning, and had been able to save enough to sign myself +<i>rentier</i>—my annuity had been accumulating in my absence, and I found +myself comparatively well off. I have been gathering health in the two +years since, and now I sometimes itch for work again. I should embark +for Mexico, to join the guerrillas, but that I scruple fighting against +my old comrades of Africa, the Crimea, and Italy. Sentimental, isn't +it?'</p> + +<p>'No; on the contrary, a quite healthy feeling, and I respect you for +it,' said O'Hara.</p> + +<p>'Well, I have told you my history.'<a name="page_093" id="page_093"></a></p> + +<p>'Without telling me your name.'</p> + +<p>'You knew that already. I dropped it the other night casually in the +heat of conversation.'</p> + +<p>'And, pray, how did you discover mine?'</p> + +<p>'Nothing simpler in the world. You remember the famous old coat of yours +that the dog carried from the Morgue. Your last card fell out of it.'</p> + +<p>'How did you know it was my card?'</p> + +<p>'It was wrapped in tissue-paper. Men are not in the habit of keeping +their neighbours' cards with so much care.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara gave a long low whistle.</p> + +<p>'And now that I have told you so much about <i>my</i>self, will you answer me +a question about <i>your</i>self?' resumed O'Hoolohan.</p> + +<p>'You know my conditions.'</p> + +<p>'Well, then, why were you so poor when I first met you?'</p> + +<p>'I will answer you truly. Because I haven't self-control and firmness of +mind enough to keep money when I get it—in a word, because I'm an +Irishman. I receive a monthly allowance, and, as I wrote to a friend the +other day, the first week in the month I am the King of Yvetot, the +second comes good resolution on the heel of terrible reaction, the third +is my week of work and philosophy, and the fourth——'</p> + +<p>'Aye, the fourth?'</p> + +<p>'Why, in the fourth I generally think of throwing myself off the Pont +Neuf.'<a name="page_094" id="page_094"></a></p> + +<p>'Ha! and I came upon you at the close of your fourth week?'</p> + +<p>'That's just it.'</p> + +<p>'Alas!' said O'Hoolohan, rising, 'that is one of our national failings. +We never think of to-morrow. I had it myself, but the discipline of the +barrack-yard made me methodical and gave me habits of order that grew +into my nature. If I hadn't some foresight when I had the means of +earning money; I would be in debt to-day and the debtor is a slave. I +tell you what, sir, one of the worst lessons we Irish want to learn is +the lesson of thrift—to put by something when the sun shines against +the rainy day.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara felt himself colouring, but his visitor had delicacy enough to +pretend not to see it.</p> + +<p>'Now, may I crave the favour I came for?' asked O'Hoolohan as he rose to +leave.</p> + +<p>'Assuredly.'</p> + +<p>'Will you be my best man at the church of Saint Etienne du Mont in a +certain ceremony one of these mornings?'</p> + +<p>'With a heart-and-a-half; but have you really proposed?'</p> + +<p>'Aye, and been accepted. I never fight my battles by halves.'</p> + +<p>'Then,' said O'Hara, grasping his hands in a cordial grip, 'I sincerely +wish you joy. Count upon me to turn up at the wedding in full fig with +my holiday face on.'<a name="page_095" id="page_095"></a></p> + +<p>'Thanks,' said O'Hoolohan, 'thanks. I knew you were a brick. For the +present, farewell. The splicing will take place as soon as it can be +managed—but be sure I'll let you know in time;' and he moved towards +the door. As he reached the threshold he suddenly stopped and exclaimed, +'By Mars the immortal! I was near forgetting. This is what comes of +being in love. I have another service to ask of you.'</p> + +<p>'Name it, by all means.'</p> + +<p>'Oh! it's a mere formality. Will you be my second in a duel?'</p> + +<p>'With the greatest pleasure in life,' said O'Hara; 'but, stay, which +comes off first, the wedding or the duel?'</p> + +<p>O'Hoolohan cogitated for awhile as if he had not given that a thought +before.</p> + +<p>'The duel first—of course, the duel first!' he exclaimed. 'The wedding +can wait, but the other, you know, is an affair of honour.'</p> + +<p>'Hadn't you better let me know something about the quarrel? We may be +able to arrange it.'</p> + +<p>'Not likely,' said O'Hoolohan drily. 'I must be fairly bothered,' he +added. 'Now that I recollect, it was to tell you all about the quarrel I +came here expressly, but one thing has driven the other clean out of my +mind.'</p> + +<p>'Sit down,' said O'Hara, 'and go ahead.'<a name="page_096" id="page_096"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X.<br /><br /> +<small>'LA JEUNE FRANCE.'</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">I<small>F</small> this were not a veracious history, in the customary order of events +as they occur in the construction of fiction, the reader should have +gone straight from the quick and gracious acceptance of O'Hoolohan's +proposal of marriage to the old-fashioned formula of ringing the +wedding-bells, and leaving the united pair to the enjoyment of the +honeymoon, with the tag: 'If they don't live happy, may we!' That would +be the artistic conclusion. But we are copying from nature, and have no +pretensions to art. And O'Hoolohan's nature was one of surprises. That +phenomenally-constituted being had been very busy secretly prosecuting +researches into the manner in which the girl he had recognised in the +Morgue had come by her death, and the mode in which her body had been +disposed of.</p> + +<p>A great city like Paris, with its never-ending rush of activities, is +like to a whirlpool. It is always in surging motion; the figures that +rise to<a name="page_097" id="page_097"></a> the surface for awhile and attract a passing notice as they +circle giddily round are thought no more of, when they sink from view, +than the flotsam and jetsam sucked into the oblivion of the Maelström.</p> + +<p>Marguerite (for it was she) had run her course, and nine days after she +had disappeared from the haunts that knew her she was forgotten. How she +had died was never ascertained; but there was narrow scope for +conjecture. It was only too evident that she had committed suicide. In +the multitude of her facile acquaintances she had met one for whom she +had conceived a real attachment. He pretended to reciprocate it, and he +did, seemingly, until his student's career was finished, and he had +received his doctor's degree, and was summoned to his home in the +provinces to begin his dull professional life. The consecrated +preliminary to that in France is to marry a neighbour's daughter with a +snug dowry, who has been provided of long date by the prudence of family +councils, tenacious of tradition. The youthful doctor duly led his +destined help-meet to the altar, and by the same act consigned her +erring sister in Paris, whose very existence she had never suspected, to +the cold Seine and the nameless burial-pit.</p> + +<p>That is no novelty in the Latin Quarter, nor will ever be while woman, +degraded soever though she be, is not utterly heartless.<a name="page_098" id="page_098"></a></p> + +<p>The deserted Marguerite <i>had</i> committed suicide. She had sallied out in +the blackness of midnight, when the quays were silent and lonely, and, +watching her opportunity till the policemen and roysterers and +rag-pickers were distant, she had stealthily clambered the parapet of a +bridge and dropped into the river. That must have been the end. So it +had been settled over pipes and cards and Strasburg beer in the +<i>brasseries</i> of the Boulevard St. Michel; and so, truly, it might—nay, +must have been.</p> + +<p>O'Hoolohan had learned this from a knot of premature cynics in the café +of <i>la Jeune France</i>, where he had been in the habit of calling in among +other gay resorts of the district to pick up what information he could +on a matter that affected him much, for under his stone-like, soldierly +exterior there were hidden springs of tenderness.</p> + +<p>The café which is called after young France is much affected by those +promising pillars of the future, the students of law and medicine, +especially the latter, who reside in the Latin Quarter of Paris. A +light, varied of blue and red, blazes like a pharos over its portals to +entice the customers. It lies to the right a few hundred yards up the +Boulevard St. Michel, as it is entered from the side of the quays. Here +may be seen congregated, after dinner-hour in the evening—under the +warm<a name="page_099" id="page_099"></a> chandeliers in the winter, out in the fresh air of the +thoroughfare in the finer season—the future Berryers and Lamballes of +the most civilized nation in the world. Only they do not look like it +always, carelessly chatting behind their modest glasses of beer, often +from amid the clouds of incense floating from cheap cigars, or the +equally economic <i>caporal</i> tobacco. A gay and spacious café it is; well +lit, well furnished with softly-padded cushions, and lined with rows of +mirrors reflecting the intellectual group around busily engaged wasting +the hours in everything but the study of comparative anatomy or the +subtleties of the Code Napoleon. Dominoes and picquet are more in vogue +than jurisprudence, and the only books which are read by the novices of +the learned professions who frequent the place are woman's looks, and +folly—the loss of time and money—invariably all they teach them.</p> + +<p>The night before that on which O'Hoolohan paid his last visit to +O'Hara's chambers, the soldier of fortune had sauntered into the café +early, but it was almost deserted. It was the <i>mi-carême</i>, that oasis in +mid-Lent for the Paris student, when he avenges himself for the enforced +abstinence from his usual enjoyments by the indulgence in riot in the +interval of saturnalia allowed by custom. The habitués of the Young +France were not there. They were dancing merrily in one disguise or<a name="page_100" id="page_100"></a> +other at the ball-room higher up in the same boulevard, the Closerie des +Lilas.</p> + +<p>Why, it may be asked, did not O'Hoolohan go to the ball-room where he +had first seen her whose fate he was inquiring into? and why, knowing +that she was dead, did he seek to know more?</p> + +<p>The one answer may serve for both questions. He looked upon himself +already as a member of Captain Chauvin's household. He would not +dishonour her he loved by showing himself in any of the notorious haunts +of loose womankind now that he was her accepted suitor. But having come +to the inevitable conclusion that Marguerite was the lost sister of +Berthe's friend, Caroline, he was anxious to obtain some memorial of +her, and, if possible, to rescue her remains from the <i>fosse commune</i>, +and put over them a simple tomb. He was emotional, was this battered +campaigner, who had buffeted about the world so much, and had an +infinite pity for human weakness—and chiefly for the weaknesses of +maidenhood beset by temptation. He hung about the café until groups +returning from the Closerie in every variety of carnivalesque costume +had filled it with a noisy company. Close to the table at which he sat, +three students, disciples of Æsculapius, from their conversation, took +up their position and ordered a frugal supper before retiring to roost +in their attics hard by. They were talkative, and talked as if<a name="page_101" id="page_101"></a> they +were not very particular who listened. Our friend could not help +overhearing them, and out of their conversation had sprung the proposed +'affair of honour.'</p> + +<p>'Ah, <i>ma Marguerite</i>,' said one pale-faced, blear-eyed stripling, as he +rolled a cigarette, 'little I thought as I whirled you in a waltz a +twelvemonth ago that I'd be having a hand in your dissection to-day. She +makes a splendid subject.'</p> + +<p>'The proud minx, she never would take my arm,' said a sentimental +gentleman with blue spectacles. 'D'you know, Eugène, I cut enough of her +hair off when I got the chance, two hours after they brought her in, to +plait me a watch-guard. Garçon, a bock! Don't you think it a famous +idea?'</p> + +<p>'<i>Ma foi!</i>' said Eugène, a black-bearded fellow with a Gascon accent, +robust of frame, and several years older than his companion, 'the idea +is tolerable, but mine is better. I bought a member of Marguerite and +took it home. <i>Tiens</i>, see this paper-knife,' producing one from his +pocket. 'I thought I'd like a souvenir of <i>la modiste</i> in memory of old +times. This is made out of her tibia; I had the fibula removed. Please +to observe the beautiful polish the internal malleolus takes!'</p> + +<p>'Is that true?' exclaimed O'Hoolohan angrily, starting forward to the +table.<a name="page_102" id="page_102"></a></p> + +<p>'What business of yours is it?' retorted the Gascon.</p> + +<p>'Is it true?'</p> + +<p>'I have said it, Mr. Insolent.'</p> + +<p>'Then you're a beast, d'you hear?'</p> + +<p>'And you, sir, are an intermeddling hound!' shouted the Gascon, foaming +at the mouth in a spasm of fury.</p> + +<p>O'Hoolohan shut his lips firmly a moment, and clenched his hands as if +struggling to suppress his wrath. Then, having apparently succeeded, he +said quietly and deliberately, while a smile that was near akin to a +sneer played about his lips:</p> + +<p>'You are a braggart and a bully, like most Gascons, and it is my private +opinion at present that you are a coward into the bargain.'</p> + +<p>There was an immediate springing to the feet of all present, and a +confused hubbub of voices, everyone speaking at once.</p> + +<p>'Silence!' shouted the Gascon. 'This is my concern. You'll have to +answer for this, sir. Here is my friend's address.'</p> + +<p>'I'm at your service, and the sooner the better. Your friend will not +have to wait long for a visit from a friend of mine.' And O'Hoolohan +handed his adversary his card, and took the proffered address with a +bow. Then, removing his hat with a sarcastic coolness, he saluted the +company and left.<a name="page_103" id="page_103"></a></p> + +<p>Idiots, you will say, my dear sir or madame, to pick up this quarrel on +such foolish grounds! I admit it. But do not most quarrels rest on the +basis of folly? and are not most disputants idiots? So it has been, and +so will it be to the crack of doom.</p> + +<p>The three students were right in one point, however. Marguerite did not +even tenant a grave in the paupers' corner of a cemetery. Her body was +not claimed; in the darkness it had been bundled in a sack, and trotted +to the Ecole Pratique in the Rue de l'Ecole de Médecine, there to +contribute to the enlightenment of the rising generation of surgeons. +From the slab in the Morgue to the slab in the dissecting-room! Gruesome +journey and grim destiny!<a name="page_104" id="page_104"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI.<br /><br /> +<small>THE BONE OF CONTENTION.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">'P<small>OOR</small> Marguerite!' ejaculated O'Hara, when he had heard from his visitor +an account of the scene in <i>La Jeune France</i>. 'So this was her kismet! +<i>Sic transit gloria Aspasiæ.</i> Well, at all events, she may be more +useful in death than ever she was in life. To think of Marguerite +becoming a hand-maid of science! The wilful wench! How she would glory +in the thought of setting two men by the ears, if she could only learn +it in the sphere she now adorns! But do you know, O'Hoolohan, on +reflection, I can't help thinking you are in the wrong. How does it harm +the woman to have her shin-bone ministering to the needs of literature? +Ulric Zuingli bequeathed his skin to be made into a drum-head to rouse +his followers; and Byron, if I'm not mistaken, was fond of taking his +tipple out of a neatly-scooped skull.'</p> + +<p>'Will you act for me? Right or wrong now the thing has gone too far for +retreating.'<a name="page_105" id="page_105"></a></p> + +<p>'I fear that is only too true. Of course I'll act for you. Let me see. +You're sure he called you Mr. Insolent first.'</p> + +<p>'Certain.'</p> + +<p>'That's one point in our favour. As we are the offended party, we have +the choice of weapons. Have you any preference?'</p> + +<p>'Cavalry pistols. French duellists, as a rule, have a rooted dislike to +facing a bullet. As for small swords, that's only child's play. A +scratch, and honour is satisfied.'</p> + +<p>'Cavalry pistols be it. I shall let you know the time and place of +rendezvous, at four this afternoon, at your boarding-house.'</p> + +<p>'All right,' said O'Hoolohan; 'meantime I shall go and take a look at +the bears in the Jardin des Plantes.'</p> + +<p>'There goes a character!' muttered O'Hara to himself, as his visitor +descended the stairs. 'Hang me if I can fathom him!'</p> + +<p>The young Irishman dressed himself in his best, and was punctual in his +call at the rooms of the youth in blue spectacles. The blear-eyed +stripling was also present. Business was at once opened in a +business-like manner. Explanations were tendered on neither side. The +mutual insults were too gross and public to be blotted out except by +blows. Apology was not asked or offered. The details of the hostile +meeting were gone over with<a name="page_106" id="page_106"></a> overwhelming affability and owl-like +gravity. In negotiations of this kind, to smooth the passage of one or +two men to a premature eternity, the extremest forms of politeness are +invariably observed. If there was to be a fight, the earlier it came off +the more agreeable it must be to all concerned. Eight o'clock the next +morning was fixed as the hour of rendezvous, by unanimous consent. As +Eugène the Gascon, as his friends took care to remark, was a crack shot, +they had no prejudice against the cavalry pistols.</p> + +<p>The first discussion was on the question of the distance at which the +adversaries should be placed from each other. O'Hara, with a charming +readiness to oblige, suggested that shots should be exchanged across a +table-napkin.</p> + +<p>The Frenchman demurred.</p> + +<p>'That would be slaughter,' said Blue Spectacles.</p> + +<p>'Undoubtedly it would be very like it,' agreed O'Hara; 'but my man is +used to slaughter on a wholesale scale—an old soldier of Africa, the +Crimea, and Italy. Does your principal object to being shot?'</p> + +<p>'If he does not, most certainly I do, to being arrested as accessory to +murder,' chimed in Pale Face.</p> + +<p>Finally it was decided that the adversaries should be placed twenty +paces apart, with privilege to each to advance five paces before +delivering his<a name="page_107" id="page_107"></a> fire, if he so elected. There was to be no toss-up as to +who was to fire first; they were to consult their own judgment as to +that from the instant the signal for action, the dropping of a +handkerchief, was given. If the first exchange was harmless, the renewal +of the combat was to be left to the discretion of the witnesses.</p> + +<p>'With your permission, messieurs,' said O'Hara, 'I vote for Clamart as +the place of rendezvous. I know a retired garden there, walled round and +perfectly secure from observation. It is a most convenient spot; looks +as if it were designed by nature for the purpose. Besides, there is a +deep disused draw-well there, so that we can get rid of any dangerous +evidence of the morning's work in case of a fatal issue.'</p> + +<p>The Frenchmen winced, but as they knew of no better site for the +encounter, they agreed—provided there was a good restaurant in the +vicinity. It was contrary to all the etiquette of the code of honour in +Paris to have a duel without a breakfast after. In fact, a duel would +not be a duel if it were not followed by a comfortable repast.</p> + +<p>O'Hara eased their fears on this score.</p> + +<p>'And now, messieurs,' he added in conclusion, 'I have two conditions to +impose, in the interests of our own safety. The first is, that no one +will seek to publish an account of this meeting in the papers; the next, +that each of the principals will<a name="page_108" id="page_108"></a> sign a paper to the effect that he was +tired of a hollow and deceitful world, and meant to make away with +himself, so as to exonerate his antagonist from all responsibility in +the future.'</p> + +<p>There was a twinkle in O'Hara's eyes as he spoke. He suspected the +Gascon's witnesses would not relish assisting at the combat unless they +were to borrow some reflected renown from it; and he knew that a +document such as he mentioned would be valueless, seeing that the +quarrel had been public, and the probable result was the common gossip +of the quarter. But he plausibly wheedled the Frenchmen into assenting +to his propositions by putting the terrible perils that would accrue to +them in the event of a death in very strong light.</p> + +<p>As he was leaving, Blue Spectacles bethought him that they might have +some trouble in finding cavalry pistols. Eugène had none, he thought, +and it might lead to unpleasant consequences if they were to purchase +the weapons at a gunsmith's; they would be sure to be identified by the +prying <i>mouchards</i>.</p> + +<p>'I can oblige, messieurs, if you will trust me,' said O'Hara. 'My friend +has a brace in capital order. You can make your choice of them on the +ground.'</p> + +<p>This satisfied all requirements. O'Hara was thanked for his courtesy, +and was ushered to the<a name="page_109" id="page_109"></a> landing with an exquisite urbanity that was +touching in its kindly, well-bred thoughtfulness; it positively recalled +the manner in vogue when the Roi Soleil shed the lustre of his +countenance on Versailles. As he briskly descended the stairs, the +students shut the door and looked at each other with faces overshadowed +with anxiety.</p> + +<p>'<i>Pardi!</i>' said Blue Spectacles, 'this is serious.'</p> + +<p>'Serious!—'tis awful!' said Pale Face. 'I feel as if I must have an +<i>absinthe pure</i> at the Mère Moreau's. I would not be in Eugène's boots +for a milliard. Come on.'</p> + +<p class="cb"><br />* * * * * * *<br /> </p> + +<p>The morning of the duel broke with all the freshness and warmth and +brilliancy of the genial spring in the latitude of Paris. In the +picturesque Clamart suburb, with its market-gardens and white villas, +its plantations, its windmills, and its vine-clad slopes, the aspect was +one of ripe loveliness. It was a rosy, odorous, appetizing morn; a morn +for a pleasant woodland walk under the branches where small birds +chavished; a morn to drop gently down the river and ply the indolent +rod; a morn for a canter on a brisk cob across the sweet-scented +meadows; a morn for plucking flowers, smoking choice cigars, +love-dreaming, or poetic musing—for anything, in fact, but thoughts of +sudden and violent death. It has been remarked by some moralists that +sunny, innocent, enjoyable morns, when the<a name="page_110" id="page_110"></a> blood seems to bound +joyously in the veins, and the very act of breathing is a vivid +pleasure, have an ugly habit of intruding themselves unbidden when +armies are about to join in strife or criminals are about to tread the +scaffold.</p> + +<p>The Gascon never before realized how very comfortable a world it is, and +how very disagreeable it would be to leave it while he was yet young and +healthy, with a sound stomach and a liver unconscious of derangement. +But his pride was greater than his fears, and coating his doubts and +apprehensions under a veneer of indifference, he was the first to warn +his friends of the necessity of being punctilious at the trysting-place. +As punctuality is the courtesy of kings, so also is it of duellists.</p> + +<p>The Gascon and his party were first on the ground—four of them, the +principal, Blue Spectacles, Pale Face, and a young medical practitioner +with an ominous set of surgical instruments cunningly hidden in a +fiddle-case to disarm suspicion.</p> + +<p>Hardly had they alighted from their <i>voiture</i>, and walked towards the +village where O'Hara had arranged to meet them, when a singular +approaching whir of wheels was heard, blent with the noisy ululation of +a dog. Turning the corner, there came into view O'Hara and the +O'Hoolohan riding to the rendezvous on bicycles! They had adopted this +original method of evading the prying gendarmes of the locality. Pat had +followed them<a name="page_111" id="page_111"></a>—followed them perforce; for the now lazy animal had been +tied by a rope to the tool-box of a machine, and was forced to keep pace +with the 'steel steed.'</p> + +<p>'Pardon, gentlemen,' said O'Hara, jumping from his tiny saddle, 'but if +we are a little late it is my fault I did not think the gradients on the +road were so trying.'</p> + +<p>The Gascon's friends advanced, accepted the excuse with excessive show +of politeness, and Blue Spectacles, as the senior, presented the doctor +in form.</p> + +<p>'Very thoughtful of you, indeed!' said O'Hara, in an undertone. 'My man +never hires a surgeon—never needs one, for the matter of that. Have you +that letter I spoke of ready?' at the same time handing the young +Frenchman a document to the following effect:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'This is to certify that the bearer, O'Hoolohan, 35, Irish of +origin, and annuitant by station, unmarried, committed suicide on +the 5th day of April, 1866, at Clamart, in the Department of the +Seine, and that nobody is blamable for the despair which led him to +the act.'</p></div> + +<p>As Blue Spectacles read this curt, legally-framed document, he quaked +and whitened, and a quiver of his eyes might be detected under their +ultramarine protectors. But he nerved himself for the worst;<a name="page_112" id="page_112"></a> after all, +it is much easier to be brave when your bosom friend's fate is in the +balance than when your own precious carcass is in peril. The Frenchman, +in return, handed O'Hara a perfumed, gilt-edged billet, with an +arrow-pierced heart in chromo-lithography at the top of it. As it was +characteristic of the Gascon, it may be interesting to give its +contents:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"><p>'Away, thou hollow world, with all thy vain pomps and glittering +gauds! Farewell the friendship that is false, the love that is +venal, the happiness that deceives like the desert mirage! Dash +down the cup of revelry that brings but the fitful doze; welcome +the bullet of relief that summons repose eternal! With my own hands +I sign my doom; by my own hands I die! Not for me the roses of hope +or the laurels of ambition, but the cypress of despair and +disappointment. Cut off a tress of my hair and send it to my +mother; a locket with a portrait will be discovered over my +heart—bury it in my grave.</p> + +<p class="r">'E<small>UGÈNE</small> S<small>IRAUDIN.</small>'</p> +</div> + +<p>'That will do very nicely,' remarked O'Hara as he read this valentine +from beyond the tomb; 'it is tenderly written—Lamartine with a flavour +of De Musset. I should like to have a copy to send to the Manuscript +Room of the British Museum. I suppose we're all here?'<a name="page_113" id="page_113"></a></p> + +<p>'Where's your other witness?' asked Pale Face.</p> + +<p>'In England we consider one enough; but if you insist upon it, we shall +look upon my dog as discharging the duty.'</p> + +<p>Pale Face grew white as a Pierrot. As for Blue Spectacles, the +devil-may-care ease of the Irishman had put him into a blue funk.</p> + +<p>All this time the principals stood apart, acting the <i>rôle</i> of +unconcerned spectators. That is the correct deportment in duels. Eugène +Siraudin puffed away at a cigarette; the O'Hoolohan, who was hot and +ruddy after his exertions on the bicycle, stretched himself on his back +on the turf by the trunk of a roadside poplar.</p> + +<p>'Gentlemen, it's getting late,' cried O'Hara. 'We had better to +business,' and he led the way, thrusting his bicycle by his side, +through a gap in the field across to a postern in the wall of a villa +garden, which was all he had described it—perfectly secure from the +notice of passers-by. The doctor laid his fiddle-case on the grass, +opened it, and displayed the shining instruments. The ground was stepped +by the young Irishman. Traces were made with chalk at the extremities, +twenty paces asunder, and at the further five paces, in front of each +adversary's position, beyond which they were not to advance. O'Hara +loaded the pistols and gave them to the Gascon's witnesses to examine. +This they did in a very perfunctory way. The truth is, both<a name="page_114" id="page_114"></a> were +ignorant of the manner of loading a pistol, and, if they had the task to +accomplish themselves, were as likely as not to put in the wad before +the powder. The pistols were of the percussion and ramrod type, and the +charges of powder and ball were supposed to be put in separately and +driven home.</p> + +<p>'Take your choice,' said O'Hara to Blue Spectacles.</p> + +<p>Blue Spectacles took the first to his hand, adding that with such an +honourable man there was no room for choice.</p> + +<p>'Let your principal take what position he pleases,' said O'Hara, bowing; +'it's immaterial to us.'</p> + +<p>They got into their places, each in that nearest to where he was +standing at the moment.</p> + +<p>'Ready?' asked O'Hara.</p> + +<p>Both nodded acquiescence.</p> + +<p>'Who shall drop the handkerchief?'</p> + +<p>'Will you oblige?' prayed Blue Spectacles, with a tremor in his voice.</p> + +<p>'All right!'</p> + +<p>The handkerchief was dropped.</p> + +<p>Almost instantaneously the Gascon fired. The smoke lifted. O'Hoolohan +stood erect, unhurt, a placid self-possessed expression on his set +features.</p> + +<p>O'Hoolohan slowly moved five paces, halted; gradually raised his weapon, +and deliberately aimed first at the Gascon's heart, then at his brain. +It<a name="page_115" id="page_115"></a> was a cruel experiment, but the Gascon bore it with splendid +courage. His complexion paled, it is true, and his mouth was restive, +but his gaze was bold and almost disdainful. O'Hoolohan raised the +pistol still higher, turned its muzzle perpendicularly, and discharged +it into the air, quietly saying, 'You are no coward; I am sorry for the +expression!'</p> + +<p>After such a scene it was impossible to renew the combat. The Gascon, in +his turn, retracted the hasty language he had used, and the entire party +betook them to the hostelry where breakfast had been ordered by O'Hara's +care, all satisfied—except the surgeon, who had theories about gunshot +wounds, and was not averse to having practice in their treatment.</p> + +<p>The breakfast put them all—even the surgeon—into good humour. O'Hara +knew how to draw up a bill of fare, and O'Hoolohan had given him <i>carte +blanche</i> as to the outlay. There was everything at the repast, in season +and out of season, that could be had for money—truffles of Perigord, +melons of Cavaillon, oysters of Cancale, Montmorency cherries, and +Montreuil peaches, beside vintage and viands generous of quality and +copious in quantity.</p> + +<p>When the repast was finished, and the customary <i>demi-tasses</i> of black +Mocha, with the small glasses of liqueur beside, were laid upon the +table, O'Hara<a name="page_116" id="page_116"></a> gravely stood up in his place at the head, which had been +tacitly conceded to him, and demanded the word—the French parliamentary +equivalent for asking permission to make a speech.</p> + +<p>The permission was cordially granted by word of mouth from those whose +mouths were empty, by token of assent from those who were still cracking +nuts or coaxing tobacco into vaporous circulation.</p> + +<p>'Messieurs,' he began, 'having satisfied honour and our appetites, I +claim a few words on behalf of common-sense and conservatism. Firstly, I +am a Conservative—that is to say, I am tenacious of traditions among +other things; and it is a tradition of my country never to loose a +chance of making a speech. Several of my relatives carried the habit to +such an extent that they made public discourses on their dying +day—discourses which were discourteously interrupted by vile public +functionaries. (Emotion.) Messieurs, you who are not vile, and who are +not public functionaries, and, indeed, who are never likely to be public +functionaries—you, I trust, will not interrupt me. (Cries of 'No, no.') +I was sure of it. You yourselves are disciples of this great art of +oratory. You cultivate it at the risk of coryza over the newly-filled +graves of dead friends. (Here Blue Spectacles and Pale Face winced.) +Much as I admire eloquence, I am sincerely glad that there was no +occasion for rhetorical<a name="page_117" id="page_117"></a> display of that kind this morning, and this it +is which brings me to the common-sense side of my subject. Messieurs, in +the light of pure common-sense, I have a proposition to lay before you. +It is this:—We are all asses. (Astonishment and attention.) Asses, if +not worse, I repeat. If either of the principals in this morning's work +were to have killed the other, he would be now a homicidal ass, and that +other would be that very rare animal—a dead ass. (Sensation.) As I +should be one of the accessories, I refrain from dwelling on what their +position would be. Messieurs, the duello is a folly—nay, more, it is a +crime. What does it prove? Not that the survivor is truer or better than +the slaughtered, but that he is luckier, or more skilful, or has less +command of the nerves that are in him, not of himself so much as of +nature. Both of you, gentlemen (addressing the Gascon and O'Hoolohan), +have good command of nerves. Let me hope in the future you will have +better command of temper. To resume my thesis, the merits of a quarrel +are not affected by the issue. They remain as they were before. +Dismissing the artificial accretions to the quarrel we so pleasantly +settled an hour ago, to what does it reduce itself? Two grown men, with +friends, with duties in life, with ambitions and affections, +deliberately seek to slay each other for the sake of the shin-bone of a +woman that neither would have dared to introduce to his mother.<a name="page_118" id="page_118"></a> +(Sensation.) Both knew her equally well, perhaps; both liked her, +admired her beauty, pitied her misfortunes; but could either respect her +character? No! I will answer for all, no. Messieurs, I perceive you +agree with me; and as I understand from my friend in the blue spectacles +that he has the bone of contention in his possession, may I crave it +from him, and do with it as I like?'</p> + +<p>The Gascon said he might.</p> + +<p>The O'Hoolohan cried 'All right!'</p> + +<p>Blue Spectacles handed him the paper-knife.</p> + +<p>'Then, messieurs,' exclaimed O'Hara, opening the window, 'away with it. +Thus out of sight with aught that might cause malice between honest +men.' And he flung it spinning through the air, amid shouts of 'Bravo! +Good, good!' from all except O'Hoolohan, whose face was twisted into a +queer look of deprecation.</p> + +<p>But it had not gone out of sight. Pat the dog was watching it, and, as +it fell, sprang through the open casement and bounded after it in the +grass. O'Hara was about to whistle him back, but he sniffed a moment at +the spot where the blade had dropped, and then turned and trotted back +with an air of pitiful contempt.</p> + +<p>'That is singular!' soliloquized O'Hara aloud. 'I never knew a dog to +refuse a bone before.'</p> + +<p>He tapped on the table with a knife-handle, and on the waiter answering +to the call he requested<a name="page_119" id="page_119"></a> him to fetch the paper-knife he would find in +the grass outside.</p> + +<p>The waiter brought it back after a short search, and O'Hara carefully +examined it.</p> + +<p>'This, you are sure,' he asked of Blue Spectacles, 'was the original +bone of contention?'</p> + +<p>'Certainly,' was the ready answer.</p> + +<p>'Then there is some mistake here. Surely, monsieur,' turning to Eugène +Siraudin, 'you cannot have confounded an elephant with a human being? +<i>This knife is of ivory!</i>'</p> + +<p>O'Hoolohan jumped to his feet and snatched it. The Gascon reddened and +stammered, 'I knew it all along; I said what I did about it through mere +brag, to cap my friend's boast about the watch-guard of her hair, and I +was ashamed to explain afterwards, lest it should look like cowardice.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara sat down, ordered drinks all round, and then threw himself back +in his chair, cocked his feet upon the table, and laughed a Homeric +laugh. That laugh was contagious. Everybody laughed in a perfect gamut +of laughter, from the shrill treble of Pale Face to the morose baritone +of the surgeon, and the deep watch-dog basso-profondo of the O'Hoolohan. +And then everybody, save the surgeon, embraced everybody else; and then +everybody, the surgeon inclusive, drank their drinks.</p> + +<p>'How lucky it was, gentlemen, you did not both<a name="page_120" id="page_120"></a> kill each other!' +exclaimed O'Hara, and he burst into a franker, more joyous guffaw than +ever.</p> + +<p>The sly rascal! They little knew that he had provided himself with +pistols from a conjuring friend, and had withdrawn the bullets before +their eyes by the aid of a ramrod ending in a screw. The duel had been +fought, like that of Jeffreys and Tom Moore, with leadless weapons.</p> + +<p>And thus ended the hostile meeting at Clamart, and thus was Marguerite, +like a soldier, committed to oblivion with a discharge of harmless +gunpowder.<a name="page_121" id="page_121"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII.<br /><br /> +<small>ORANGE-BLOSSOMS.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">T<small>HERE</small> be marriages which are made in heaven, some poet tells us, but in +France they are more usually negotiated over the desk of the notary +public. This is the system: Monsieur A—— wants a wife, he goes to +Lawyer B——, says:</p> + +<p>'Old friend, you are aware of my pecuniary circumstances—it is time for +me to think of getting mated—do you know any lady with an eligible +fortune in your <i>clientèle</i>?'</p> + +<p>'Let me see,' says B——, taking a pinch of snuff. 'Oh! there's C——'s +widow, a capital alliance; got a good annuity in her own right.'</p> + +<p>Perhaps A—— is particularly nice, doesn't like widows.</p> + +<p>'Then, what d'ye think of D——'s daughter?' continues the lawyer.</p> + +<p>'Faded and ugly.'</p> + +<p>'But rich, accomplished, and of good family.'</p> + +<p>A—— shakes his head negatively.</p> + +<p><a name="page_122" id="page_122"></a>'Hem, so we must have beauty! What do you say to E——'s sister?'</p> + +<p>'Do you want me to marry my grandmother—don't like the reigning toasts +of the last generation. Good-morning.'</p> + +<p>'Stay, there's F——'s niece; that's your mark.'</p> + +<p>'Ah! now you're getting reasonable; think I could like the woman; saw +her once at the opera.'</p> + +<p>'And she has a pretty dowry and big expectations.'</p> + +<p>A——'s face is getting radiant.</p> + +<p>'Where can I meet her?'</p> + +<p>'Madame B—— will give a little <i>soirée</i> on Thursday night; we shall +invite her.'</p> + +<p>Mdlle. F—— is trotted out like a filly at Tattersail's—her paces are +shown—report favourable.</p> + +<p>'Have you any objection to receiving Monsieur A—— as a suitor?' asks +the nearest of kin.</p> + +<p>Mademoiselle blushes, but is too well-bred to say no. Monsieur comes, +dressed to death, spruce as if he stepped out of a bandbox, and +mademoiselle is prepared to receive him, nearest of kin being always +present. Mademoiselle has got her instructions; they were somewhat in +the key of the admonition little boys make to the bears in the Jardin +des Plantes: <i>fais le beau</i>, 'do the handsome.' Monsieur pays +compliments to mademoiselle, always through the nearest of kin, and she, +dear, well-bred creature, listens to monsieur with sweetest politeness, +never betraying a vulgar desire to look into the face, much less into +the heart, of the man<a name="page_123" id="page_123"></a> who is to be her future guide through life, her +partner in the tomb. Thus the comedy proceeds. Nearest of kin does the +courting, which is not too painfully elongated. The <i>trousseau</i> is +bought and exhibited. Monsieur buys the <i>corbeille</i>, which is ordinarily +expected to amount in value to one-tenth of the dowry he gets with his +wife (which dowry particular care is taken to settle on the wife +herself). The banns are published; one day a party appears before the +Mairie, and a commercial—we beg pardon, a marriage contract is signed, +a supererogatory gallop to a neighbouring church takes place to satisfy +conventionalism, and Mdlle. F—— becomes Madame A——. There is no love +before marriage in nine cases out of ten; of the love which grows up +after marriage we are too delicate to speak. It is understood—only +sometimes it will happen that monsieur has a club and madame a <i>cavalier +eservente</i>. And madame, dear, well-bred creature, endeavours to make up +for the reserve imposed on mademoiselle, and it is perfectly astonishing +to discover what a profound knowledge of the world and its schemes and +slanders the shy young maiden of last week contrives to develop all at +once in her married household.</p> + +<p>The reader will have remarked that O'Hara received the announcement that +his Irish friend had succeeded in his proposal without surprise. The +sole reason was that O'Hara had been living<a name="page_124" id="page_124"></a> sufficiently long in France +to know that marriages are arranged with the same celerity that one +would toss a pancake, and that if the financial requirements are +satisfied it is easy to fulfil the exigencies of affection.</p> + +<p>During the interval that preceded the interesting ceremony (to borrow a +phrase from the newspapers), which was not to take place until after +Easter, the O'Hoolohan Roe was a constant visitor at the Rue de la +Vieille Estrapade, only now he called himself the O'Hoolohan Dhuv, his +sly countryman having bantered him on the affix Roe, which applies only +to a light-complexioned, red-haired man, while he was tawny of +complexion and black-haired as a Spaniard of the south. A most +unmerciful bantering he did give him anent his assumption of the <i>The</i>.</p> + +<p>'You a democrat!' he said, 'how is it that you cling to that +particle?'—and then he told him the anecdotes of the English officer in +charge of a detachment of troops at Bruff, one Captain Bull, upon whom +the O'Grady of Kilballyowen left his card, who had scribbled The Bull of +Bruff on the pasteboard he left in return; and of Sir Allan M'Nab, who +had had the good taste to write on his card The <i>other</i> M'Nab, after he +had received a visit from <i>The</i> M'Nab in Scotland. But O'Hoolohan was +proof against satire, and retorted to his friend's joking that Mr. Bull +and the Canadian knight<a name="page_125" id="page_125"></a> were snobs, and deserved to be horse-whipped by +The O'Grady and The M'Nab—that he was The O'Hoolohan, and that though +his father chose to call himself Holland, he reverted to the old Irish +name, O'Hoolohan, for which it was the substitute, and which meant +'proud little man.' He repeated the lines:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'By Mac and O</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">You'll always know</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">True Irishmen, they say;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">But if they lack</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Both O and Mac,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">No Irishmen are they.'</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>And in the end O'Hara, who was also proud of his Milesian patronymic, +was obliged to admit he was right.</p> + +<p>The banns were published at the church and at the Mairie, and at the +close of the necessary three weeks, during which Berthe received a +delicious fresh bouquet every morning from her lover, and then secluded +herself over some mysterious female work with Caroline, the happy day +(we draw on the newspapers again) arrived. Two carriages were marshalled +before the municipal institution in the Place du Panthéon; two charming +girls in white and a venerable, stately, white-haired man descended from +the one; a man in the prime of life, with a younger companion of the +same sex, both in suit of ceremony, alighted from the other. There was a +brief series of interrogatories and a jotting down<a name="page_126" id="page_126"></a> of signatures +inside, and the party emerged, re-entered the carriages in the same +order, and leisurely drove to the Church of St. Stephen of the Mount at +the other side of the square. A beadle, magnificently attired, awaited +and conducted them with pompous air, pounding his staff of office at +intervals on the sacred pavement, to a little altar, where the priest +stood ready-vested. The ceremony by which two are made one was +solemnized: there was blushing as a ring was pressed on a little finger, +and a few tears as a little hand parted from the tight grasp of Captain +Chauvin; and then the nuptial Mass was said and the Benediction +pronounced in which God is prayed to make the newly-wedded amiable to +her husband as Rachel, wise as Rebecca, and faithful as Sarah. Again the +party emerged, but this time Captain Chauvin, Caroline, and O'Hara +entered the second carriage together, for the first was occupied by +Monsieur and Madame O'Hoolohan.</p> + +<p>Half an hour afterwards there was solemn silence in the apartment in the +Rue de la Vieille Estrapade, for Mr. Manus O'Hara, in a particularly +neat and appropriate speech, had proposed the memory of the Man, and +Captain Chauvin was crying, but—the wicked old man!—there was more +gladness than sorrow in his tears. The Irish are born orators. Nobody +who heard the brilliant discourse in which Monsieur O'Hoolohan gave +France, and eulogized<a name="page_127" id="page_127"></a> the <i>entente cordiale</i> which had been made that +morning before the altar between it and Ireland, could deny that fact. +His voice, like O'Brien's of the Irish Brigade, in the lyric of Thomas +Davis, was 'hoarse with joy,' as he fondly regarded his bride, and wound +up a florid and flourishing peroration by a marked allusion to future +alliances between the countries which he hoped to live to see, +illustrated by playful winks at O'Hara and the brunette. But the +brunette kept never minding, and O'Hara's hand rose involuntarily to his +shirt-bosom, under which reposed a certain tress of woman's hair. As for +Pat, who was among the guests, he had feasted so heartily in honour of +the occasion that he fell asleep while his master was on his legs.<a name="page_128" id="page_128"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII.<br /><br /> +<small>THE HONEYMOON TRIP.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">I<small>T</small> is a mistake to begin married life by gormandizing, by an outlay +which one cannot afford, by affectation of a social position to which +luxuries are common, or by servility to the despotism of fashion. Our +friends in the Rue la de Vieille Estrapade knew and dreaded all this. +They owned that the ostentatious enjoyment which brings remorse at its +heels is not worth the cost. Therefore, though they 'did the thing,' as +the bridegroom put it, properly—that is, not shabbily—they did not put +on airs and ape the grand. They did not gormandize, for gluttony leads +to a fit of indigestion, and that leads to bad temper. They did not +waste economies that might be needed after; but they had a jovial party +conducted on the principles of prescient generosity. To be paradoxical, +the wedding-breakfast and surroundings were a sample of thrifty +extravagance. No more was spent on dresses and favours, bouquets and +gloves, than could well be avoided without the semblance of meanness. No +big man of the quarter<a name="page_129" id="page_129"></a> was invited to the feast simply because he was a +big man—wore massive gold trinkets, had a balance at his banker's, a +prominent pew in church, a seat at the council of Paris magnates, or a +villa in the suburbs with a large garden. These people condescend; curse +people who condescend, but compassionate not the people who stand +condescension! They are treated as they deserve.</p> + +<p>The custom in Paris is that those who cannot go for the honeymoon to +Baden, or to a friend's country-house, pass it apart in some secluded +suburb. O'H. and Madame O'H. were not such fools; they resolved to pass +it under the captain's roof—their future home; they had no particular +wish or necessity to confine themselves to each other's society till +they lost novelty and palled on each other, seeing that they were linked +while they breathed, and would have ample leisure to improve +acquaintance, and spy out small imperfections. For, look you, this is no +romance; our heroes and heroines are real, which is saying they are +human and weak. The way to celebrate the marriage-day is just as one +celebrates any ordinary holiday; the way to enjoy the honeymoon is in +activity in the midst of bustling life, not in mooning indolence. The +place for both is at home, amongst those whom we know and who are +attached to us.</p> + +<p>This is what our friends did. They drove to the<a name="page_130" id="page_130"></a> Mairie and the church +as we have described; they had a hearty breakfast, at which none were +present but the five of the wedding party. Caroline did not fling a +shower of rice at the retreating figure of the O'Hoolohan as he left for +his château in Spain, but sensibly put the rice in a pot to boil for a +supper pudding. Nor did the captain throw an old slipper at the poll of +his departing Berthe, for old slippers are useful when one is gouty, +and, besides, they sometimes disarrange a head-dress and hurt a little +head.</p> + +<p>Rice and old slippers! What superstitious folly! And yet some very +eminent men, wise and no way credulous, have been burdened with the log +of superstition. Tyco Brahé was afraid to lay the first stone of his +observatory till the stars were in a 'happy conjunction.' The astronomer +who discovered the spots on the sun wiped his spectrum fifty times +before he could persuade himself to believe his own sight. Sainte-Beuve, +sceptic though he was, grew pale if the salt were spilt.</p> + +<p>O'Hoolohan and O'Hara were not superstitious. They were of the school +which believes that it is unlucky to walk under a ladder—only when an +awkward workman is handling bricks overhead; unlucky to sit down +thirteen at table—only when there is not food enough for more than +twelve.</p> + +<p>But Captain Chauvin was superstitious, after a kind. Like his idol, he +held by destiny, and had<a name="page_131" id="page_131"></a> faith in his planet. On all high days and holy +days it was his wont to make pilgrimage to the shrine of his patron +saint. Call this whim if you like, superstition if you will. On this +happy day his secretly-cherished idea was to carry out his habit, and +the moment he spoke of it his friends agreed to humour him. And in this +wise it came to pass that there was a honeymoon trip, but a brief one in +limit of time and travelling.</p> + +<p>Now, where should the honeymoon trip be taken? In London, that is a +question easier to answer than in Paris.</p> + +<p>'Anywhere, anywhere <i>out</i> of London,' would be the answer.</p> + +<p>But in Paris the air you breathe is pure and brisk; the flowers in the +city grass-plots are fresh and fragrant; the waters of the Seine course +swiftly on with sparkling movement; the tall trees on the boulevards +make friendly rustle; there are wide shady shrubs, clad in thick mantle +of emerald, varied with citron and flecked with brown, in the public +gardens; silvery fountains seem to dance to inaudible music; the shafts +of sunshine play through clustering branches in the Elysian Fields and +the Luxembourg, and make fretwork of black and gold on the smooth sward. +This happens when Nature is in gracious mood and scatters broadcast her +charms from her bounteous lap. In Paris her mood is usually gracious, +for Paris is the<a name="page_132" id="page_132"></a> favoured city, the queen-city, the one haunt of the +multitude where you can meet the Rus in Urbe, where you can salute the +pets of art in the bosom of the Benign Mother.</p> + +<p>In two open victorias the party started on the trip. Captain Chauvin and +Caroline were on the seat of the first, and O'Hara on the strapontin in +front of them, dangerously near to the tempting hands of the tall girl +and in full range of her witching eyes. The bridegroom and bride were in +the second victoria. The captain went foremost, for he was <i>cicerone</i>. +To the Champ de Mars they drove first and entered the Military School, +the Chelsea Hospital of France.</p> + +<p>'Go up, my children,' said Captain Chauvin; 'I am too feeble to +accompany you. Mount one hundred and seventy-three steps and you will +find the cell my saint occupied when he was a boy. There he lay in his +camp-bed; there he dreamed dreams, and there he made his first sketch. +Till your return, I shall fight an old fight with—a comrade.'</p> + +<p>When they descended, the captain escorted them to the adjoining church.</p> + +<p>'Here,' he said, 'he rests, the mortal part of him; here he was carried +to his tomb by the heirs of the dynasty he helped to overthrow. You see, +my children, he sleeps in the midst of the ancient braves at whose head +he once marched to victory;<a name="page_133" id="page_133"></a> there, on the bronze tripod, is the sword +he wore at Austerlitz; look above, where those dusty trophies droop, ah! +sixty of them—this poor arm helped to win some few—they are flags +taken from the enemy in fair fight. They are—torn, bullet-pierced, and +time-mouldered as they are—the emblems of a glory that will live while +lives the world!'</p> + +<p>The O'Hoolohan was getting excited. His brow flushed and his eyes +flashed. He tapped one foot on the marble floor like a restive charger +awaiting the trumpet-call to advance. He scanned the aisles and niches +of the sacred building as if he were searching for some lurking foe; he +clenched his right hand on an imaginary sword-hilt as if on the point of +rushing into some shock of battle. With all his calmness in actual +combat, such as we saw him at Clamart, this man was capable of being +roused to a flood-tide of passion, when his heart and imagination were +touched.</p> + +<p>'Glory, grandfather,' urged Berthe; 'is it not very dearly bought, +sometimes? Suppose we kneel and pray that France may have a crop of +glory that is not so dreadful in the offering or so sad in the fruit for +the future.'</p> + +<p>'You are right, my child,' acceded the captain, for this time it was not +the old soldier, but the old man who spoke, and they all knelt and +prayed, though it would be unsafe to pretend that they<a name="page_134" id="page_134"></a> prayed with +equal fervour, or that the object of their petitions was the same.</p> + +<p>The next stage in the pilgrimage was the Quai Conti, opposite the statue +of Henry IV., on the Pont Neuf. Here, on the fifth story of the house, +No. 5, a young officer of artillery, lately commissioned from the school +of Brienne, lived in 1785. A struggling painter poked the fire in the +garret, haunted by the shadow of the ambitious Bonaparte, the awkwardly +built, dwarfish stripling, with high cheek-bones, sallow complexion and +deep-sunken orbs, who came to the window at nights and gazed +palace-wards and sky-wards so long and earnestly, his hands clasped +behind his back, and then broke into a hurried, jerking, sentry-walk to +and fro in his circumscribed chamber.</p> + +<p>To the Hôtel de Metz in the Rue du Mail next, where Bonaparte lodged, at +No. 14 on the third story, in 1792. At that period he dined at a +restaurant in the Rue des Petits-Pères. The dishes there were cheap. +They cost but six sous each. Cheap as they were, he had once to make a +forced march with his watch upon the nearest pawn-office before he could +raise means to stay the calls of appetite.</p> + +<p>At the corner of the Rue du Mail and the Rue Montmartre is, or was, the +Hotel of the Rights of Man. By the time Bonaparte had got thus far, he<a name="page_135" id="page_135"></a> +had made comparatively good progress on the ladder of fortune. He had +four windows in a row now in his apartment, and three chambers, two of +which were shared with his brothers Louis and Junot.</p> + +<p>Three years later, Bonaparte, now a general of artillery, resided in No. +19, Rue de la Michodière, in a small furnished room. He was going up, +but he was no wastrel. Not till later on did he choose to change his +dwelling to the Hôtel Mirabeau, in the Alley of the Dauphin, near the +Tuileries. An episode of his career is laid in this hotel, which the +dramatists should seize and turn to their purposes. It might have +influenced the fate of nations. Had it come to its natural issue, the +maps might be drawn otherwise to-day. Fanchette, the daughter of Père +Thouset, the landlord, took a liking to the young general of the +Republic. She was not ill-favoured; and he might make a steady husband. +The general tried his arms in a field other than his, and, with his +usual luck, he made a conquest. Father-in-law, who was rich, consented +to a marriage, on two conditions: the first, that Bonaparte should quit +the army; the second, that he should become an hotel-keeper! But an +accident befell Fanchette which put Cupid's nose out of joint, much to +the benefit of his brother Mars.</p> + +<p>The time came when Napoleon mounted to the topmost rung, lived in +castles and palaces, was<a name="page_136" id="page_136"></a> guest and host of kings; but our friends were +satisfied—indeed, were more pleased with visiting his humble +habitations—the cell of the student, the airy garrets of the +adventurous soldier. The struggles of greatness to the light awaken +emotions more touching than all the magnificence of assured success.</p> + +<p>They trended by the Rue St. Honoré to the church of St. Roch. There it +was the tide turned—there the hero had his first chance. It was the +twelfth Vendémiaire of the year IV., that is to say, the 22nd October, +1795. Thirty-three sections of the population rose in discontent at a +decree reserving to the Convention two-thirds of the places in the +Council of the Five Hundred. They were thirty thousand strong, and +marched on the Tuileries. The Convention had but twelve thousand men to +oppose them, and gave the command to Barras, who called in Bonaparte. +The captain, obscure till then, notwithstanding his services at Toulon, +put forty-two pieces of cannon round the palace, and mowed down the +insurgents. Their headquarters was the church of St. Roch. Bonaparte, +with correct, remorseless aim, pointed two guns with his own hand on the +crowd collected on the steps of the edifice and fired. The sections were +defeated; the corner-stone was laid of the reputation that was to mount +so high.</p> + +<p>'I vote we wind up by paying a visit to the<a name="page_137" id="page_137"></a> column in the Place +Vendôme,' said the O'Hoolohan, who was an admirer of Napoleon, but who +was getting hungry and who began to think he had enough of hero-worship +for his marriage-day.</p> + +<p>'No, my son,' said Captain Chauvin, 'I always make it a point of hanging +a wreath of immortelles on the rails at the base of the column on the +5th of May, the anniversary of his death; but I never like to go there +but that one day of the twelve months. No, we shall first try a visit to +the Louvre—it is not yet closed—and I love to show, to those who can +value relics of the kind, the statue of the one man I reverenced, when +he was in the beauty of his manhood.'</p> + +<p>They went and saw the statue. It represents Napoleon as he might have +been at the epoch of Lodi, before he had trained his features to the +impassiveness of stone, before he had waxed dumpish, and wore a stiff +curl on his broad, bald forehead. An idealized Napoleon this, impetuous +energy in his gaze, expression, attitude; mastery in the eagle eyes; +vigour in the gaunt limbs; resolution in the big lean jaws; dogged +obstinacy in the close-shut lips and close-cut chin. What an +irresistible forcefulness in the balance of the eager pose! what a +cloudy-and-lightning poetry in the long wild hair sweeping like a mane +over his shoulders!</p> + +<p>Thus should heroes be eternized in brass, or granite, or marble, while +they are instinct with the<a name="page_138" id="page_138"></a> glory of action, not when they are aged and +fatten and grow bilious and use ear-trumpets. They should be given to +posterity in their prime, when they did the great things for which +posterity will remember them. Great is the anointed of Notre Dame; but +greater is the victor of Lodi!</p> + +<p>This O'Hara said, first warming with the associations of the Napoleon +room of the Louvre, and then kindled into enthusiasm by the applause of +Captain Chauvin, whose heart was so young for all his white beard and +deep wrinkles; and Caroline looked at the speaker approvingly, and he +looked back, and suddenly it was revealed to him that she was strikingly +handsome.</p> + +<p>That night when he retired to rest in his hotel in the Latin Quarter, +the tress of hair he had long kept warm at his breast was missing.</p> + +<p>Was this an omen?<a name="page_139" id="page_139"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV.<br /><br /> +<small>VANITAS VANITATUM.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">T<small>HERE</small> is a certain poet whose free-and-easy philosophy expressed in +verse, rippling and silvery, but slightly too luscious for Sunday +reading in a boarding-school conducted on correct principles, holds that +when far from the lips we love, we have but to make love to the lips we +are near. Our friend O'Hara, we fear, was much addicted to reading that +erotic bard, and had been so long removed by time and so far by distance +from his mistress, to whom belonged the tress of hair he wore over his +heart and under his watch-fob—fob without a watch—that he had not many +obstacles to conquer in persuading himself that Captain Chauvin's +unmarried <i>protégée</i> was strikingly handsome. There was that high-bred +air about her, too, which plays such havoc with the feelings of a race +accustomed to set more store by blood than pelf. Her manners were +stamped by a refined self-respecting reserve not chilled to the point of +<i>hauteur</i>. She had a commanding figure, with<a name="page_140" id="page_140"></a> brilliant eyes, and that +feature which is the greatest charm in woman—an even and undamaged set +of almond-white teeth, when her lips parted. Her hair, besides, was the +colour of his tress—as ebon and full, as thick and glossy.</p> + +<p>'Frenchwomen make good housewives,' reflected Manus to himself, as he +smoked the pipe of meditation the morning after the marriage. 'They're +not very expansive at home, it is true, but they do adore their +children. Caroline is not insipid, anyhow. In case anything happened to +Bidelia, she would be just the woman to fall back upon. Besides, I have +neither leisure nor liking for billing and cooing. How is Bidelia, by +the way? What is she doing? Egad! I'll write to London, to my cousin +Hyacinth, to ask him.'</p> + +<p>And he did write.</p> + +<p>And this was the answer he got eight-and-forty hours afterwards:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="r">'Doughty Street, London, W.C.<br /> +<span style="margin-right: 2em;">'April 27th, 1866.</span></p> + +<p><span style="margin-left: 2em;">'D<small>EAR</small> M<small>ANUS</small>,</span></p> + +<p>'Confound you, why don't you write oftener? As we used to say on +the old sod (by-the-way, is Ireland really older than any other +place?)—as we used to say, I repeat, only twisting the +phrase—it's good for sore eyes to see your crabbed fist. How am I +getting on? <i>More Hibernico</i>, I shall answer, your question by +asking one of my own. How are<a name="page_141" id="page_141"></a> <i>you</i> getting on? You haven't taken +your degree yet, with or without honours, that I can plainly +discern, <i>ma bouchal</i>. Taking lessons in anatomy from the living +subject at Bullier, I'm afraid, eh? you born divil of the O'Hara +breed and the pedigree without a blemish. Now, if you were a +suckling barrister you might have a chance of getting at the head +of your profession by phrenologically investigating the Chief +Justice's noddle; but studying the symmetry of the human form +divine from the contortions of Rigolboche and her friends is hardly +the way to rival Butcher or Brunton.</p> + +<p>'Chaffing apart, old man, I do hope you stick to your profession, +and are not carried away by your ill-starred passion for +Literature. Like Art, she is but a sorry, wanton jade to pay court +to, and leaves you in the lurch when most you stand in need of a +helping hand. Better be a mediocre sawbones than a mediocre +paper-stainer. The mediocre sawbones can always take a shop, go to +India, marry a sickly widow, or invent a patent medicine. As for +poor paper-stainer, every day that he lives he is eating his way +into his capital. My boy, they won't lend money to a pressman in +this town, even on solvent security. The other day I went myself +<i>in propria personâ</i> to ask for a small advance from an advertising +firm of usurers close to London Bridge, and after I had filled and +signed a pile of scored fools-cap, what did they tell me?—"If you +had informed<a name="page_142" id="page_142"></a> us that your were a journalist at first you might +have saved yourself all that trouble. We make it a rule to have no +business transactions with journalists!" There was a pewter +inkstand at my elbow, and I imagine it would have had a business +transaction with a greasy little Hebrew's countenance if I didn't +happen to catch a glimpse of a couple of others, who were hiding +behind the tall desks, cut-and-dry witnesses in the event of +assault and battery, I presume. Here I must stop to drink a glass +to the memory of Titus. Wasn't he the fellow that brought about the +destruction of Jerusalem? Glory be his bed and birthright this +blessed day!</p> + +<p class="cb"><br />* * * * * * *<br /> </p> + +<p>'Well, 'tis time to tell you how I am getting on. <i>Imprimis</i>, I +have <i>not</i> set the Thames ablaze, and, honestly, I must admit that +it was not for the lack of inflammable properties in the liquid. +One may be a Triton in his own parish pond, and a very minute +minnow in this huge ocean of London. The streets are not paved with +gold, nor the houses roofed with rubies. The streets are more +usually paved like those of another spot, but with big ambitions +instead of good intentions, and as to the houses, he's a lucky dog +who has one he can call his own. I have tried my hand at anything +and everything not requiring a strict preliminary training—bar +stone-breaking. I had aspirations<a name="page_143" id="page_143"></a> towards the stage, but I never +got beyond the front door—that is to say, I was hired as a +check-taker at the Vaudeville once. I thought I would write a +melodrama—an Irish one, of course—and I took it to one Mrs. +Selby, a dear old lady, who had a house devoted to comedietta and +extravaganza, legs and upholstery—how innocent of all these things +I was, you may guess from this—and she kindly recommended me to +cart it to the Surrey. I did. It was accepted on conditions, after +sundry hums and haws. The theatre was burnt down two nights +afterwards. The theatre was insured, but, alas! the manuscript of +"The Terryalts" was not, and I hadn't a copy of it.</p> + +<p>I next became a cab-driver; that is, as soon as I got to have the +map of the town sunk in <i>bas-relief</i> on my cranium. A hard life, +precarious, harassing, and not very profitable. The novelty of the +thing kept me up for a while, but I had to give in after a course +of three months. The deuce of an adventure I had but once, and that +was with a distinguished member of the craft I at present honour +with my patronage. It was outside Stone's, in Panton Street. A +portly man, with a nose the hue of a danger-signal, hailed me. +"Barnes, cabby," he said, "and look alive about it." "All right, +sir," and away I rattled till I got to Barnes, a village on the +south bank of the river, between Putney and Mortlake. I opened the +spy-hole at the top of the hansom to ask at what house I was to +stop, and, lo and behold<a name="page_144" id="page_144"></a> you! there was my fare snoring the snore +of the just. I got down and roused him. "Where are we?" he asked. I +told him. "Drat you!" he cried, "I meant Barnes' Tavern, in the +Haymarket—I wanted to borrow some tin there." I apologized. "All +right, watchman," he cried, "drive on!" and dropped back again into +the corner as sound asleep as a curled hedgehog. I drove to the +middle of Barnes Common, tenderly lifted my customer out of the +cab, and gently bedded him on his back in the shadow of a +furze-bush.</p> + +<p>'My next essay at fortune took a military turn. I went down to +Charles Street, Westminster, met a recruiting sergeant, declared my +enthusiastic yearning to join the sappers and miners, and soiled my +palm with the Saxon shilling. My martial career was not remarkably +lengthened. I failed to "pass the doctor" next morning—he told me +I had varicose veins! Bad manners to his impudence, the pursy +little humbug! I only wished you and I had him alongside us up +Keeper Hill, on one of our boyhood's rambles, and we'd soon take +the wind and the conceit out of him.</p> + +<p>'What was I to do now? I was fairly at my wits' end. To rob I was +not able—it requires genius here; to beg I was ashamed. I had +serious thoughts of trying my hand at the fine arts. I heard that +those fellows who chalk mackerel on the pavement make a tidy living +out of it, and it struck me that a new<a name="page_145" id="page_145"></a> departure in that direction +might bring me fame and fortune. My notion—it may turn up a trump +yet for somebody—was to paint caricatures in distemper on the +backs of tortoises. But I had no spare cash to lay out on stock, +either in pigments or specimens of the genus <i>testudo</i>.</p> + +<p>'At last I met Providence in the form of Dan McCarthy, of Doonas. +"Hyacinth," said he, "do you know anything of boxing?" I was +puzzled, for I wasn't sure but he meant boxing the compass, but I +found I had got into the wrong box there. The long and short of it +was, a friend of his had asked him to look up a smart man with a +ready pen and a vigorous imagination, who would undertake to write +racy accounts of some of the renowned fisticuff fights of old, for +a publican's newspaper. That's what I am doing now, God forgive me! +The pay is good, but the work does not like me, I am wise in the +"upper-cut," and am known to every "scrapper" in the "drums" of the +East and West End, and all the rest; in short, I am comparatively +comfortable, but completely demoralized. When you come over next, I +can take you, perhaps, to a "merry little mill," for I am always in +the "know."</p> + +<p>'Don't come, though, an you're sensible, in such weather as we have +now. Fog! fog!! fog!!! How I envy you the clear skies of the one +city in the world outside Ireland worth living in—wicked,<a name="page_146" id="page_146"></a> +delightful Paris. D——n the London fog! It caught me by the larynx +and laid me by the heels three days last November. It steals on you +like a garrotter, throttles you, chokes your lungs, clogs your +fancy, clouds your good-humour, and sets your drunken landlady +stealing your coal by the scuttle and your gin by the quartern.</p> + +<p class="r"> +<span style="margin-right: 2em;">'Your affectionate coz,</span><br /> +'H<small>YACINTH</small> B<small>LAKE</small>. +</p> +</div> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>'P.S.—And so it is after Bidelia Blake you'd be asking, Mr. +Slyboots? Faith! she has changed her name. Bidelia, or "Biddy," as +we knew her, transmogrified herself into Beatrice when she came +over here. Not satisfied with that, she has altered her surname to +Clarke. A fine, handsome, wealthy, warm-hearted husband he is, and +no fool. He's a deal better than Biddy deserved. They have a +mansion in Mayfair, and I have the run of the house, but I seldom +go there, as I do not wish to make myself too cheap. I met them in +the Park yesterday. Dash my buttons! as Li-Chung, the Chinaman, +says, if you'd recognise Biddy. She was rosy with health and +spirits (Nature's, not Kinahan's), and burning with jewels. I don't +know if her husband chains her up at night, but she had a something +like a brass dog-collar round her neck. And her wool—I believe you +got a tress of it once—is not black now, but yellow—the effect,<a name="page_147" id="page_147"></a> +I am seriously afraid, not so much of London sunshine or London +fog, as of golden hairwash. You had better ask her for another +tress.</p> + +<p class="r"> +'H. B.'<br /> +</p> +</div> + +<p>O'Hara's face, as he perused this letter, would have served as a model +for an actor charged with the duty of reading a similar epistle on the +stage. He liked his cousin, but he did not seek to conceal his +impatience—nobody else was present—at Blake's recital of his +meanderings in quest of a social position. The letter was humorous here +and there, but he did not appreciate the humour. He wanted to hear of +Bidelia; and when he did hear of her, in the abrupt way Hyacinth put it +in his postscript,—well, his face was a study. He coloured, he re-read +the passage, he clutched the paper tightly in his palm, he laughed, he +sat down in his arm-chair, he read the postscript for the third time, +and then he lit his pipe.</p> + +<p>It is an excellent plan to light one's pipe in moments of vexation.</p> + +<p>O'Hara <i>was</i> vexed, more vexed than sorry. He puffed and thought, and +thought and puffed, and knit his brows, and occasionally took the amber +mouthpiece from between his lips and grinned in a scornful fashion, like +the baffled villain of tragedy in a show-booth. He stood up at length, +took the paper in which the tress of hair was confined, did<a name="page_148" id="page_148"></a> not kiss it +as his wont was, but flung it into the stove, where it lit up, as if it +were well preserved in pomatum, crackled crisply, flared, and left a +sharp ugly smell of singed goose behind it. O'Hara thought there was a +peculiar repulsiveness in the odour. It was the result of his frame of +mind. The perfumed locks of Cleopatra would have smelled as foul. The +laws of nature are not affected by our prejudices. The body of the hero +putrefies by the same process as the body of Hodge.</p> + +<p>O'Hara then sat down and set himself a-thinking anew. This was the sum +of his thoughts; being literary, they wandered into quotation:</p> + +<p>'"Frailty, thy name is woman!"' (Shakespeare; this is good to begin +with!) 'Bidelia never had an ounce of sentiment in her. D——n +sentiment! I don't regret her. Pshaw! not I; in fact, I'm +pleased—pleased, no, rejoiced, that she's well married. What's this +Noll says? "She who makes her husband happy leaves nowhere in the +running the novel-reading hussy, whose sole aim is to murder mankind +with shafts from her quiver."' (This is better: substantially, it is +Goldsmith, but it has been very, very queerly committed to memory. Poor +fellow! his nerves must have been unstrung.) 'To Connaught with Bidelia +I'll marry the Frenchwoman through spite. I'll throw myself at her feet +next week, or next year—I'll swear I love, I do love her—that is to +say, I<a name="page_149" id="page_149"></a> do not dislike her—and I'll send Missus Beatrice Clarke—oh, +the short-sightedness of some girls!—an invitation to the ceremony and +the wedding-breakfast to follow, with a promise of a bit of bride-cake +to cheer her if she is debarred by previous engagements from the +pleasure of accepting my very kind invitation. Good! "Remove far from me +vanity and lies: give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with food +convenient for me."' (Holy Writ; this is getting serious, friend +O'Hara.) 'Caroline was evidently designed for me by nature. My mind is +made up.'</p> + +<p>O'Hara rose, and nearly tripped over Pat, his faithful dog, the last +henchman of the clan. He stroked him fondly on the back; and Pat, +jumping up, licked his master's hand with his moist red tongue, and then +went through a favourite gymnastic exercise—that of pursuing his own +tail. When he was tired of this canine form of search for a chimera, he +stood still, panting, and yelped and agitated his tail like a fan.</p> + +<p>'Biscuits as usual,' said O'Hara to the quadruped. 'By my troth, it +would be a great saving to me if <i>you</i> were in love, but you're not. +You've the appetite of an ogre.</p> + +<p class="cb"><br />* * * * * * *<br /> </p> + +<p>O'Hara and the O'Hoolohan might have been discovered outside the Café de +Suède one evening<a name="page_150" id="page_150"></a> a month afterwards. They were deep in conversation.</p> + +<p>'I do not believe in the constancy of woman—you know my reasons; but I +do in the necessity of marriage. You know Caroline intimately now. Do +you admire her?'</p> + +<p>It was O'Hara who spoke.</p> + +<p>'Much,' answered O'Hoolohan; 'but some people are prejudiced in favour +of brunettes.'</p> + +<p>'Ah! you mistake me. I referred to disposition, to mind—which, after +all, counts more in a union than complexion, or figure, or hair. Can I +confide in you?'</p> + +<p>'You are not obliged to give your confidence if you mistrust.'</p> + +<p>'Then I shall give it. I have spoken to her of marriage. She frankly +told me that she felt she could not love, and I as frankly told her that +neither could I.'</p> + +<p>'Then the affair is finished?'</p> + +<p>'Yes, but not as you think. We have agreed to marry, and trust to love +to come afterwards.'</p> + +<p>'Mother of Moses! I hope it may,' and O'Hoolohan leant back surprised. +'Ah! friend, have you forgotten what Moore sang?'</p> + +<p>'That poodle of literature,' said O'Hara, 'he sang any amount of +nonsense, like the rest of them. Which of his verses are you thinking of +now?'</p> + +<p>'Have it, if you must:<a name="page_151" id="page_151"></a></p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'"In France, when the heart of a woman sets sail</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">On the ocean of wedlock its fortune to try,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">Love seldom goes far in a vessel so frail,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">But just pilots her off, and then bids her good-bye!"'</span></td></tr> +</table> + +<p>'Is that <i>your</i> experience?' queried O'Hara.</p> + +<p>'Respect your seniors, <i>blanc-bec</i>,'<a name="FNanchor_12_12" id="FNanchor_12_12"></a><a href="#Footnote_12_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> growled O'Hoolohan.</p> + +<p>'At your excellency's orders,' returned O'Hara, with mock +obsequiousness. 'But I can cap your quotation with another from Master +Tommy Little, which will give us an excuse for fresh bocks at all +events:</p> + +<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" summary="poetry"> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 0em;">'"——fill the cup—where'er, boy,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">Our choice may fall, our choice may fall;</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: .25em;">We're sure to find Love there, boy,</span></td></tr> +<tr><td align="left"><span style="margin-left: 1em;">So drink them all, so drink them all!"'</span></td></tr> +</table> +<p>'I don't mind pledging that,' assented O'Hoolohan, 'but I wish all the +same the lass and you had got spooney on each other. This sort of +nuptial knot has a kink in it. As for Berthe and myself, we're happy as +Midsummer Day, but conscientiously I can offer <i>you</i> no +congratulations.'</p> + +<p>'Your good wishes are all I want. There are marriages of affection, of +interest, of spite, and of necessity; but this is the first time, I +venture to say, you have heard of a marriage of esteem,' and O'Hara +folded his arms and looked philosophic.</p> + +<p>'By my hand,' remarked O'Hoolohan, 'you're an original. I can't make you +out. I give you up.'<a name="page_152" id="page_152"></a></p> + +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV.<br /><br /> +<small>THE FIFTH OF MAY, 1870.</small></h2> + +<p class="nind">I<small>T</small> was the forty-ninth anniversary of the death of the eagle chained to +the rock—of the Prometheus who was not unbound—of Napoleon Bonaparte +imprisoned at St. Helena. Captivity, despair, dropsy—these were the +last scenes in the great world-drama of the modern Cæsar, the little +lieutenant of artillery, who sprang from the obscurity of his islet-home +in the Mediterranean to the perilous eminence of the purple. This was +the end of the spoiled child of victory.</p> + +<p>On this day the veterans of his wars, 'the old of the old,' mustered at +the foot of his monument in the Place Vendôme, in the core of the busy +city—the monument which typified him as the Conquering Hero, who was +the ideal of French martial aspirations—the being after the nation's +heart. Proudly uprises in the middle of the square the tall pillar—an +immense trophy covered with plates of bronze from the monster crucible +in which the<a name="page_153" id="page_153"></a> captured cannon of the Austrians were melted down. The +statue of the Imperial soldier is on the summit, laurel-crowned, garbed +in regal mantle, the sceptre in one hand, the orb in the other. It would +have been better if it were sword or <i>bâton</i>, instead of sceptre or +orb—the chasseur's jacket of Marengo, instead of the regal mantle—the +three-cornered hat, instead of the garland of Roman triumph.</p> + +<p>On this day the statue holds levée. Stooped veterans draw their old +uniforms from the bottom of musty drawers, put on the plumed shako +pierced with bullets, and the belts blackened with the powder of twenty +battles, and march with tottering step to lay their memorial wreaths of +the yellow-budded immortelles on the railings at the base.</p> + +<p>'Tap! tap!' brattle the drum-sticks, plied by wrinkled fingers, and +slowly comes in sight the slender company from the Hôtel des Invalides, +for some of these warriors have to hobble to the rendezvous on crutches. +The sight is one to thrill and sadden, as these glorious relics of an +era that is past file feebly by, in every variety of military dress that +recalls the First Empire. There are about five-and-thirty of them—no +more. They halt and form into line in front of the entrance to the +monument. The stalwart Municipal Guard on sentry presents arms; the +withered commander of the band advances and hangs his huge votive +circlet<a name="page_154" id="page_154"></a> of flowers on a rail, the drummer makes his most vigorous +attempt at a roulade, but there is the tremor of palsy in the sound; it +is as the rattling of clay on a coffin-lid.</p> + +<p>'<i>Vive l'Empereur!</i>' pipes the commander, and a faint cheer, a cheer as +if from out the dimness of some distant vault, is the response from his +companions.</p> + +<p>'Live the Man!' exclaims a stooped officer in cocked hat, brandishing +his stick as if it were a battle-blade. The stooped officer was Captain +Chauvin. Having acquitted themselves of the duty of loyal love, the +veterans broke up and dispersed, and our friend joined four bystanders +on the pavement of the Rue Castiglione. They were M. and Madame +O'Hoolohan, and M. and Madame O'Hara. They helped the aged warrior into +a close carriage—for he had grown sadly helpless of late—and drove +quietly to his apartment near the Panthéon. He complained of a coldness +in the limbs. They sate him in an easy-chair before the stove, and +wrapped him round with a warm cloak. He fell into a child-like slumber. +This may have lasted an hour, and then, with a loud voice, a voice with +the vibration of young manhood, the veteran exclaimed:</p> + +<p>'Farewell, my friends; they are beating the <i>appel</i> on high.'</p> + +<p>Lifting himself to his feet, by a superhuman<a name="page_155" id="page_155"></a> effort, he stood straight +as a lance for one moment, then flung out his arms and fell back dead.</p> + +<p>There was a smile on his wan thin lips, and a hectic glow on his cheeks. +He was happier than his comrades, who did not follow him till another +year had driven France to grief and Paris to delirium, had wiped out the +legend of the Empire as with a bloody sponge, and had torn down the +monument to The Man.</p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p class="c">THE END.</p> + +<p> +<br /> +<br /> +</p> + +<p class="ov"> BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD. </p> + +<div class="footnotes"><p class="cb">FOOTNOTES:</p> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> In Paris the pawn-office is called 'my aunt,' as it is +nick-named 'my uncle' in England.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> 'To have the sack,' Paris slang for 'to be in funds.'</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> To be out of money.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> The debtors' prison.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> The typical name of the Irishman, but spelt 'patte' (paw), +is a common word to dogs in France. This may explain why O'Hara fancied +he had hit on the animal's name.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> The smaller island close by the Morgue.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> The soldier must have meant catafalque. The French +<i>militaire</i> from the country is as fond of words of learned length as +Goldsmith's village schoolmaster.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_8_8" id="Footnote_8_8"></a><a href="#FNanchor_8_8"><span class="label">[8]</span></a> An anecdote of this nature is also told of Wilson, the +eminent landscape-painter. Doffing his coat one day for a game of tennis +at Rome, the picture of a splendid waterfall was discovered by way of +lining to his waistcoat.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_9_9" id="Footnote_9_9"></a><a href="#FNanchor_9_9"><span class="label">[9]</span></a> This may strike such of my readers as never have enjoyed +the confidence of a canine friend, as drawing too largely on their +credulity; but I assure them, and 'I'm serious—so are all men upon +paper'—that I had a dog once, of the Irish retriever breed, which +carried my hat after me for the length of two streets from where it had +been knocked off my head by some ruffian in an affray. I lost the same +dog in Whitechapel, and it found its way home to St. John's Wood, across +the breadth of crowded London.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_10_10" id="Footnote_10_10"></a><a href="#FNanchor_10_10"><span class="label">[10]</span></a> Margaret the milliner.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_11_11" id="Footnote_11_11"></a><a href="#FNanchor_11_11"><span class="label">[11]</span></a> My son, hearken to thy aged grandsire. Thou wert born but +yesterday, and I am nearing the gate of death. Fly, for ever fly, this +ungrateful soil that refuses thee life. On yonder ship, where the crowd +embark, thou goest to seek the United States, those climates in the +bosom of plenty, where twenty united peoples live happily together. Fear +not the storms of the Atlantic; seek America; there thy lot will be +sweeter. At the dawn of day thou hast commenced thy work under the gray +sky in the bleak winters. I have seen thy strength and courage worn out +tilling the fields of some duke and peer, whose steps have never trodden +his domain; far from Ireland he travels in state. Unfortunate, the +dearth is near. Quit for ever this sojourn of misery. In cultivating the +fertile savannahs, preserve thy faith if thou wouldst prosper: make thy +adieus to our barren furrows; we must part. Take this silver, the fruit +of long sacrifices, a crust of bread is enough for me; the sea is fair, +the winds blow soft; go, my child—thy grandsire blesses thee!</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_12_12" id="Footnote_12_12"></a><a href="#FNanchor_12_12"><span class="label">[12]</span></a> Greenhorn, Johnny Raw.</p></div> + +</div> + + +<p class="figcenter"> +<a href="images/back_lg.jpg"> +<img src="images/back.jpg" width="362" height="550" alt="image of the book's back cover" title="image of the book's back cover" /></a> +</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Mated from the Morgue, by John Augustus O'Shea + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MATED FROM THE MORGUE *** + +***** This file should be named 38008-h.htm or 38008-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/0/0/38008/ + +Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +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. 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