Loe raamatut: «Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2», lehekülg 24

CHAPTER XLII

THE RETURN

A rude shock awoke me as I lay asleep in the corner of the chaise; a shout followed, and the next moment the door was torn open, and I heard the postilion’s voice crying to me: —

“Spring out! Jump out quickly, sir!”

A whole battery of kicks upon the front panel drowned the rest of his speech; but before I could obey his injunction, he was pitched upon the road, the chaise rolled over and the pole snapped short in the middle, while the two horses belabored the carriage and each other with all their might. Managing, as well as I was able, to extricate myself, I leaped out upon the road, and by the aid of a knife, and at the cost of some bruises, succeeded in freeing the horses from their tackle. The postboy, who had escaped without any serious injury, labored manfully to aid me, blubbering the whole time upon the consequences his misfortune would bring down upon his head.

“Bad luck to ye!” cried he, apostrophizing the off-horse, a tall, raw-boned beast, with a Roman nose, a dipped back, and a tail ragged and jagged like a hand-saw, – “bad luck to ye! there never was a good one of your color!”

This, for the information of the “unjockeyed,” I may add, was a species of brindled gray.

“How did it happen, Patsey; how did it happen, my lad?”

“It was the heap o’ stones they left in the road since last autumn; and though I riz him at it fairly, he dragged the ould mare over it and broke the pole. Oh, wirra, wirra!” cried he, wringing his hands in an agony of grief, “sure there’s neither luck nor grace to be had with ye since the day ye drew the judge down to the last assizes!”

“Well, what’s to be done?”

“Sorra a bit o’ me knows; the shay’s ruined intirely, and the ould divil there knows he’s conquered us. Look at him there, listening to every word we’re saying! You eternal thief, may be its ploughing you’d like better!”

“Come, come,” said I, “this will never get us forward. What part of the country are we in?”

“We left Banagher about four miles behind us; that’s Killimur you see with the smoke there in the hollow.”

Now, although I did not see Killimur (for the gray mist of the morning prevented me recognizing any object a few hundred yards distant), yet from the direction in which he pointed, and from the course of the Shannon, which I could trace indistinctly, I obtained a pretty accurate notion of where we were.

“Then we are not very far from Portumna?”

“Just a pleasant walk before your breakfast.”

“And is there not a short cut to O’Malley Castle over that mountain?”

“Faix, and so there is; and ye can be no stranger to these parts if ye know that.”

“I have travelled it before now. Just tell me, is the wooden bridge standing over the little stream? It used to be carried away every winter in my time.”

“It’s just the same now. You’ll have to pass by the upper ford; but it comes to the same, for that will bring you to the back gate of the demesne, and one way is just as short as the other.”

“I know it, I know it; so now, do you follow me with my luggage to the castle, and I’ll set out on foot.”

So saying, I threw off my cloak, and prepared myself for a sharp walk of some eight miles over the mountain. As I reached the little knoll of land which, overlooking the Shannon, affords a view of several miles in every direction, I stopped to gaze upon the scene where every object around was familiar to me from infancy: the broad, majestic river, sweeping in bold curves between the wild mountains of Connaught and the wooded hills and cultivated slopes of the more fertile Munster, the tall chimneys of many a house rose above the dense woods where in my boyhood I had spent hours and days of happiness. One last look I turned towards the scene of my late catastrophe ere I began to descend the mountain. The postboy, with the happy fatalism of his country, and a firm trust in the future, had established himself in the interior of the chaise, from which a blue curl of smoke wreathed upward from his pipe; the horses grazed contentedly by the roadside; and were I to judge from the evidence before me, I should say that I was the only member of the party inconvenienced by the accident. A thin sleeting of rain began to fall; the wind blew sharply in my face, and the dark clouds, collecting in masses above, seemed to threaten a storm. Without stopping for even a passing look at the many well-known spots about, I pressed rapidly on. My old experience upon the moors had taught me that sling trot in which jumping from hillock to hillock over the boggy surface, you succeed in accomplishing your journey not only with considerable speed, but perfectly dryshod.

By the lonely path which I travelled, it was unlikely I should meet any one. It was rarely traversed except by the foot of the sportsman, or some stray messenger from the castle to the town of Banagher. Its solitude, however, was in no wise distasteful to me; my heart was full to bursting. Each moment as I walked some new feature of my home presented itself before me. Now it was all happiness and comfort; the scene of its ancient hospitable board, its warm hearth, its happy faces, and its ready welcome were all before me, and I increased my speed to the utmost, when suddenly a sense of sad and sorrowing foreboding would draw around me, and the image of my uncle’s sick-bed, his worn features, his pallid look, his broken voice would strike upon my heart, and all the changes that poverty, desertion, and decay can bring to pass would fall upon my heart, and weak and trembling I would stand for some moments unable to proceed.

Oh, how many a reproachful thought came home to me at what I scrupled not to call to myself the desertion of my home! Oh, how many a prayer I uttered, in all the fervor of devotion, that my selfish waywardness and my yearning for ambition might not bring upon me, in after-life, years of unavailing regret! As I thought thus, I reached the brow of a little mountain ridge, beneath which, at a distance of scarcely more than a mile, the dark woods of O’Malley Castle stretched, before me. The house itself was not visible, for it was situated in a valley beside the river. But there lay the whole scene of my boyhood: there the little creek where my boat was kept, and where I landed on the morning after my duel with Bodkin; there stretched for many a mile the large, callow meadows, where I trained my horses, and schooled them for the coming season; and far in the distance, the brown and rugged peak of old Scariff was lost in the clouds. The rain by this time had ceased, the wind had fallen, and an almost unnatural stillness prevailed around; but yet the heavy masses of vapor frowned ominously, and the leaden hue of land and water wore a gloomy and depressing aspect. My impatience to get on increased every moment, and descending the mountain at the top of my speed, I at length reached the little oak paling that skirted the wood, opened the little wicket, and entered the path. It was the self-same one I had trod in revery and meditation the night before I left my home. I remember, too, sitting down beside the little well which, enclosed in a frame of rock, ran trickling across the path to be lost among the gnarled roots and fallen leaves around. Yes, this was the very spot.

Overcome for the instant by my exertion and by my emotion, I sat down upon the stone, and taking off my cap, bathed my heated and throbbing temples in the cold spring, Refreshed at once, I was about to rise and press onward, when suddenly my attention was caught by a sound which, faint from distance, scarce struck upon my ear. I listened again; but all was still and silent, the dull splash of the river as it broke upon the reedy shore was the only sound I heard. Thinking it probably some mere delusion of my heated imagination, I rose to push forward; but at the moment a slight breeze stirred in the leaves around me, the light branches rustled and bent beneath it, and a low moaning sound swelled upward, increasing each instant as it came; like the distant roar of some mighty torrent it grew louder as the wind bore it towards me, and now falling, now swelling, it burst forth into one loud, prolonged cry of agony and grief. O God! it was the death-wail! I fell upon my knees, my hands clasped in agony; the sweat of misery dropped off my brow, and with a heart bleeding and breaking I prayed – I know not what. Again the terrible cry smote upon my ear, and I could mark the horrible cadences of the death-song, as the voices of the mourners joined in chorus.

My suspense became too great to bear. I dashed madly forward, one sound still ringing in my ears, one horrid image before my eyes. I reached the garden wall; I cleared the little rivulet beside the flower-garden; I traversed its beds (neglected and decayed); I gained the avenue, taking no heed of the crowds before me, – some on foot, some on horseback, others mounted upon the low country car, many seated in groups upon the grass, their heads bowed upon their bosoms, silent and speechless. As I neared the house the whole approach was crowded with carriages and horsemen. At the foot of the large flight of steps stood the black and mournful hearse, its plumes nodding in the breeze. With the speed of madness and the recklessness of despair I tore my way through the thickly standing groups upon the steps; I could not speak, I could not utter. Once more the frightful cry swelled upward, and in its wild notes seemed to paralyze me; for with my hands upon my temples, I stood motionless and still. A heavy footfall as of persons marching in procession came nearer and nearer, and as the sounds without sank into sobs of bitterness and woe, the black pall of a coffin, borne on men’s shoulders, appeared at the door, and an old man whose gray hair floated in the breeze, and across whose stern features a struggle for self-mastery – a kind of spasmodic effort – was playing, held out his hand to enforce silence. His eye, lack-lustre and dimmed with age, roved over the assembled multitude, but there was no recognition in his look until at last he turned it on me. A slight hectic flush colored his pale cheek, his lip trembled, he essayed to speak, but could not. I sprang towards him, but choked by agony, I could not utter; my look, however, spoke what my tongue could not. He threw his arms around me, and muttering the words, “Poor Godfrey!” pointed to the coffin.

CHAPTER XLIII

HOME

Many, many years have passed away since the time I am now about to speak of, and yet I cannot revert, even for a moment, to the period without a sad and depressing feeling at my heart. The wreck of fortune, the thwarting of ambition, the failure in enterprise, great though they be, are endurable evils. The never-dying hope that youth is blessed with will find its resting-place still within the breast, and the baffled and beaten will struggle on unconquered; but for the death of friends, for the loss of those in whom our dearest affections were centred, there is no solace, – the terrible “never” of the grave knows no remorse, and even memory, that in our saddest hours can bring bright images and smiling faces before us, calls up here only the departed shade of happiness, a passing look at that Eden of our joys from which we are separated forever. And the desolation of the heart is never perfect till it has felt the echoes of a last farewell on earth reverberating within it.

Oh, with what tortures of self-reproach we think of all former intercourse with him that is gone! How would we wish to live our lives once more, correcting each passage of unkindness or neglect! How deeply do we blame ourselves for occasions of benefit lost, and opportunities unprofited by; and how unceasingly, through after-life, the memory of the departed recurs to us! In all the ties which affection and kindred weave around us, one vacant spot is there, unseen and unknown by others, which no blandishments of love, no caresses of friendship can fill up; although the rank grass and the tall weeds of the churchyard may close around the humble tomb, the cemetery of the heart is holy and sacred, pure from all the troubled thoughts and daily cares of the busy world. To that hallowed spot do we retire as into our chamber, and when unrewarded efforts bring discomfiture and misery to our minds, when friends are false, and cherished hopes are blasted, we think on those who never ceased to love till they had ceased to live; and in the lonely solitude of our affliction we call upon those who hear not, and may never return.

Mine was a desolate hearth. I sat moodily down in the old oak parlor, my heart bowed down with grief. The noiseless steps, the mourning garments of the old servants; the unnatural silence of those walls within which from my infancy the sounds of merriment and mirth had been familiar; the large old-fashioned chair where he was wont to sit, now placed against the wall, – all spoke of the sad past. Yet, when some footsteps would draw near, and the door would open, I could not repress a thrill of hope that he was coming; more than once I rushed to the window and looked out; I could have sworn I heard his voice.

The old cob pony he used to ride was grazing peacefully before the door; poor Carlo, his favorite spaniel, lay stretched upon the terrace, turning ever and anon a look towards the window, and then, as if wearied of watching for him who came not, he would utter a long, low, wailing cry, and lie down again to sleep. The rich lawn, decked with field flowers of many a hue, stretched away towards the river, upon whose calm surface the white-sailed lugger scarce seemed to move; the sounds of a well-known Irish air came, softened by distance, as some poor fisherman sat mending his net upon the bank, and the laugh of children floated on the breeze. Yes, they were happy.

Two months had elapsed since my return home; how passed by me I know not; a lethargic stupor had settled upon me. Whole days long I sat at the window, looking listlessly at the tranquil river, and watching the white foam as, borne down from the rapids, it floated lazily along. The count had left me soon, being called up to Dublin by some business, and I was utterly alone. The different families about called frequently to ask after me, and would, doubtless, have done all in their power to alleviate my sorrow, and lighten the load of my affliction; but with a morbid fear, I avoided every one, and rarely left the house except at night-fall, and then only to stroll by some lonely and deserted path.

Life had lost its charm for me; my gratified ambition had ended in the blackest disappointment, and all for which I had labored and longed was only attained that I might feel it valueless.

Of my circumstances as to fortune I knew nothing, and cared not more; poverty and riches could matter little now; all my day dreams were dissipated now, and I only waited for Considine’s return to leave Ireland forever. I had made up my mind, if by any unexpected turn of fate the war should cease in the Peninsula, to exchange into an Indian regiment. The daily association with objects which recalled but one image to my brain, and that ever accompanied by remorse of conscience, gave me not a moment’s peace. My every thought of happiness was mixed up with scenes which now presented nothing but the evidences of blighted hope; to remain, then, where I was, would be to sink into the heartless misanthropist, and I resolved that with my sword I would carve out a soldier’s fortune and a soldier’s grave.

Considine came at last. I was sitting alone, at my usual post beside the window, when the chaise rattled up to the door; for an instant I started to my legs; a vague sense of something like hope shot through me, the whole might be a dream, and he– The next moment I became cold and sick, a faintish giddiness obscured my sight, and though I felt his grasp as he took my hand, I saw him not. An indistinct impression still dwells upon my mind of his chiding me for my weakness in thus giving way; of his calling upon me to assert my position, and discharge the duties of him whose successor I now was. I heard him in silence; and when he concluded, faintly pledging myself to obey him, I hurried to my room, and throwing myself upon my bed burst into an agony of tears. Hitherto my pent up sorrow had wasted me day by day; but the rock was now smote, and in that gush of misery my heart found relief.

When I appeared the following morning, the count was struck with my altered looks; a settled sorrow could not conceal the changes which time and manhood had made upon me; and as from a kind of fear of showing how deeply I grieved, I endeavored to conceal it, by degrees I was enabled to converse calmly and dispassionately upon my fortunes.

“Poor Godfrey,” said he, “appointed me his sole executor a few days before it happened; he knew the time was drawing near, and strange enough, Charley, though he heard of your return to England, he would not let us write. The papers spoke of you as being at Carlton House almost daily; your name appeared at every great festival; and while his heart warmed at your brilliant success, he absolutely dreaded your coming home. ‘Poor fellow,’ he would say, ‘what a change for him, to leave the splendor and magnificence of his Prince’s board for our meagre fare and altered fortunes! And then,’ he added, ‘as for me – God forgive me! – I can go now; but how should I bear to part with him if he comes back to me.’ And now,” said the count, when he had concluded a detailed history of my dear uncle’s last illness, – “and now, Charley, what are your plans?”

Briefly, and in a few words, I stated to him my intentions. Without placing much stress upon the strongest of my reasons – my distaste to what had once been home – I avowed my wish to join my regiment at once.

He heard me with evident impatience, and as I finished, seized my arm in his strong grasp. “No, no, boy, none of this; your tone of assumed composure cannot impose on Bill Considine. You must not return to the Peninsula – at least not yet awhile; the disgust of life may be strong at twenty, but it’s not lasting; besides, Charley,” here his voice faltered slightly, “his wishes you’ll not treat lightly. Read this.”

As he spoke, he took a blotted and ill-written letter from his breast-pocket, and handed it to me. It was in my poor uncle’s hand, and dated the very morning of his death. It ran thus: —

Dear Bill, – Charley must never part with the old house, come what will; I leave too many ties behind for a stranger’s heritage;

he must live among my old friends, and watch, protect and comfort them. He has done enough for fame; let him now do something for affection. We have none of us been over good to these poor people; one of the name must try and save our credit. God bless you both! It is, perhaps, the last time I shall utter it.

G. O’M.

I read these few and, to me, affecting lines over and over, forgetful of all save of him who penned them; when Considine, who supposed that my silence was attributable to doubt and hesitation, called out: —

“Well, what now?”

“I remain,” said I, briefly.

He seized me in his arms with transport, as he said: —

“I knew it, boy, I knew it. They told me you were spoiled by flattery, and your head turned by fortune; they said that home and country would weigh lightly in the balance against fame and glory; but I said no, I knew you better. I told them indignantly that I had nursed you on my knee; that I watched you from infancy to boyhood, from boy to man; that he of whose stock you came had one feeling paramount to all, his love of his own fatherland, and that you would not disgrace him. Besides, Charley, there’s not an humble hearth for many a long mile around us, where, amidst the winter’s blast, tempered not excluded, by frail walls and poverty, – there’s not one such but where poor Godfrey’s name rises each night in prayer, and blessings are invoked on him by those who never felt them themselves.”

“I’ll not desert them.”

“I know you’ll not, boy, I know you’ll not. Now for the means.”

Here he entered into a long and complicated exposure of my dear uncle’s many difficulties, by which it appeared that, in order to leave the estate free of debt to me, he had for years past undergone severe privations. These, however, – such is the misfortune of an unguided effort, – had but ill succeeded, and there was scarcely a farm on the property without its mortgage. Upon the house and demesne a bond for three thousand pounds still remained; and to pay off this, Considine advised my selling a portion of the property.

“It’s old Blake lent the money; and only a week before your uncle died, he served a notice for repayment. I never told Godfrey; it was no use. It could only embitter his last few hours; and, besides, we had six months to think of it. The half of that time has now elapsed, however; we must see to this.”

“And did Blake really make this demand, knowing my poor uncle’s difficulties?”

“Why, I half think he did not; for Godfrey was too fine a fellow ever to acknowledge anything of the sort. He had twelve sheep killed for the poor in Scariff, at a time when not a servant of the house tasted meat for months; ay, and our own table, too, none of the most abundant, I assure you.”

What a picture was this, and how forcibly did it remind me of what I had witnessed in times past. Thus meditating, we returned to the house; and Considine, whose activity never slumbered, sat down to con over the rent-roll with old Maguire the steward.

When I joined the count in the evening, I found him surrounded by maps, rent-rolls, surveys, and leases. He had been poring over these various documents, to ascertain from which portion of the property we could best recruit our failing finances. To judge from the embarrassed look and manner with which he met me, the matter was one of no small difficulty. The encumbrances upon the estate had been incurred with an unsparing hand; and except where some irreclaimable tract of bog or mountain rendered a loan impracticable, each portion of the property had its share of debt.

“You can’t sell Killantry, for Basset has above six thousand pounds on it already. To be sure, there’s the Priest’s Meadows, – fine land and in good heart; but Malony was an old tenant of the family, and I cannot recommend your turning him over to a stranger. The widow M’Bride’s farm is perhaps the best, after all, and it would certainly bring the sum we want; still, poor Mary was your nurse, Charley, and it would break her heart to do it.”

Thus, wherever we turned, some obstacle presented itself, if not from moneyed causes, at least from those ties and associations which, in an attached and faithful tenantry, are sure to grow up between them and the owner of the soil.

Feeling how all-important these things were – endeavoring as I was to fulfil the will and work out the intentions of my uncle – I saw at once that to sell any portion of the property must separate me, to a certain extent, from those who long looked up to our house, and who, in the feudalism of the west, could ill withdraw their allegiance from their own chief to swear fealty to a stranger. The richer tenants were those whose industry and habits rendered them objects of worth and attachment; to the poorer ones, to whose improvidence and whose follies (if you will) their poverty was owing, I was bound by those ties which the ancient habit of my house had contracted for centuries. The bond of benefit conferred can be stronger than the debt of gratitude itself. What was I then to do? My income would certainly permit of my paying the interest upon my several mortgages, and still retaining wherewithal to live; the payment of Blake’s bond was my only difficulty, and small as it was, it was still a difficulty.

“I have it, Charley!” said Considine; “I’ve found out the way of doing it. Blake will have no objection, I’m sure, to take the widow’s farm in payment of his debt, giving you a power of redemption within five years. In that time, what with economy, some management, perhaps,” added he, smiling slightly, – “perhaps a wife with money may relieve all your embarrassments at once. Well, well, I know you are not thinking of that just now; but come, what say you to my plan?”

“I know not well what to say. It seems to be the best; but still I have my misgivings.”

“Of course you have, my boy; nor could I love you if you’d part with an old and faithful follower without them. But, after all, she is only a hostage to the enemy; we’ll win her back, Charley.”

“If you think so – ”

“I do. I know it.”

“Well, then, be it so; only one thing I bargain, – she must herself consent to this change of masters. It will seem to her a harsh measure that the child she had nursed and fondled in her arms should live to disunite her from those her oldest attachments upon earth. We must take care, sir, that Blake cannot dispossess her; this would be too hard.”

“No, no; that we’ll guard against. And now, Charley, with prudence and caution, we’ll clear off every encumbrance, and O’Malley Castle shall yet be what it was in days of yore. Ay, boy, with the descendant of the old house for its master, and not that general – how do you call him? – that came down here to contest the county, who with his offer of thirty thousand pounds thought to uproot the oldest family of the west. Did I ever show you the letter we wrote him?”

“No, sir,” replied I, trembling with agitation as I spoke; “you merely alluded to it in one of yours.”

“Look here, lad!” said he, drawing it from the recesses of a black leather pocket-book. “I took a copy of it; read that.”

The document was dated, “O’Malley Castle, December 9th.” It ran thus: —

Sir, – I have this moment learned from my agent, that you, or some one empowered by you for the purpose, made an offer of several thousand pounds to buy up the different mortgages upon my property, with a subsequent intention of becoming its possessor. Now, sir, I beg to tell you, that if your ungentlemanlike and underhand plot had succeeded, you dared not darken with your shadow the door-sill of the house you purchased. Neither your gold nor your flattery – and I hear you are rich in both – could wipe out from the minds and hearts of my poor tenantry the kindness of centuries. Be advised, then, sir; withdraw your offer; let a Galway gentleman settle his own difficulties his own way; his troubles and cares are quite sufficient, without your adding to them. There can be but one mode in which your interference with him could be deemed acceptable:

need I tell you, sir, who are a soldier, how that is? As I know your official duties are important, and as my nephew – who feels with me perfectly in this business – is abroad, I can only say that failing health and a broken frame shall not prevent my undertaking a journey to England, should my doing so meet your wishes on this occasion. I am, sir,

Your obedient servant,

GODFREY O’MALLEY.

“This letter,” continued Considine, “I enclosed in an envelope, with the following few lines of my own:” —

“Count Considine presents his compliments to Lieutenant-General Dashwood; and feeling that as the friend of Mr. Godfrey O’Malley, the mild course pursued by that gentleman may possibly be attributed to his suggestion, he begs to assure General Dashwood that the reverse was the case, and that he strenuously counselled the propriety of laying a horsewhip upon the general’s shoulders, as a preliminary step in the transaction.

“Count Considine’s address is No. 16 Kildare Street.”

“Great God!” said I, “is this possible?”

“Well may you say so, my boy: for – would you believe it? – after all that, he writes a long blundering apology, protesting I know not what about motives of former friendship, and terminating with a civil hint that we have done with him forever. And of my paragraph he takes no notice; and thus ends the whole affair.”

“And with it my last hope also!” muttered I to myself.

That Sir George Dashwood’s intentions had been misconstrued and mistaken I knew perfectly well; that nothing but the accumulated evils of poverty and sickness could have induced my poor uncle to write such a letter I was well aware; but now the mischief was accomplished, the evil was done, and nothing remained but to bear with patience and submission, and to endeavor to forget what thus became irremediable.

“Sir George Dashwood made no allusion to me, sir, in his reply?” inquired I, catching at anything like a hope.

“Your name never occurs in his letter. But you look pale, boy; all these discussions come too early upon you; besides, you stay too much at home, and take no exercise.”

So saying, Considine bustled off towards the stables to look after some young horses that had just been taken up; and I walked out alone to ponder over what I had heard, and meditate on my plans for the future.