Delphi Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu, Page 2

  So saying, the newcomer rose from his seat, coolly removed his black matted peruke from his shorn head, and replaced it by a dark velvet cap, which he drew from some mysterious nook in his breeches pocket; then, hanging the wig upon the back of his chair, he wheeled the seat round to the table, and for the first time offered to his companion an opportunity of looking him fairly in the face. If he were a believer in the influence of first impressions, he had certainly acted wisely in deferring the exhibition until the acquaintance had made some progress, for his countenance was, in sober truth, anything but attractive — a pair of grizzled brows overshadowed eyes of quick and piercing black, rather small, and unusually restless and vivid — the mouth was wide, and the jaw so much underhung as to amount almost to a deformity, giving to the lower part of the face a character of resolute ferocity which was not at all softened by the keen fiery glance of his eye; a massive projecting forehead, marked over the brow with a deep scar, and furrowed by years and thought, added not a little to the stern and commanding expression of the face. The complexion was swarthy; and altogether the countenance was one of that sinister and unpleasant kind which the imagination associates with scenes of cruelty and terror, and which might appropriately take a prominent place in the foreground of a feverish dream. The young traveller had seen too many ugly sights, in the course of a roving life of danger and adventure, to remember for a moment the impression which his new companion’s visage was calculated to produce. They chatted together freely; and the elder (who, by the way, exhibited no very strong Irish peculiarities of accent or idiom, any more than did the other) when he bid his companion goodnight, left him under the impression that, however forbidding his aspect might be, his physical disadvantages were more than counterbalanced by the shrewd, quick sagacity, correct judgment, and wide range of experience of which he appeared possessed.

  CHAPTER II.

  A BED IN THE “COCK AND ANCHOR” — A LANTERN AND AN UGLY VISITOR BY THE BEDSIDE.

  Leaving the public room to such as chose to push their revels beyond the modesty of midnight, our young friend betook himself to his chamber; where, snugly deposited in one of the snuggest beds which the “Cock and Anchor” afforded, with the ample tapestry curtains drawn from post to post, while the rude wind buffeted the casements and moaned through the antique chimney-tops, he was soon locked in the deep, dreamless slumber of fatigue.

  How long this sweet oblivion may have lasted it was not easy to say; some hours, however, had no doubt intervened, when the sleeper was startled from his repose by a noise at his chamber door. The latch was raised, and someone bearing a shaded light entered the room and cautiously closed the door again. In the belief that the intruder was some guest or domestic of the inn who either mistook the room or was not aware of its occupation, the young man coughed once or twice slightly in token of his presence, and observing that his signal had not the desired effect, he inquired rather sharply, —

  “Who is there?”

  The only answer returned was a long “Hist!” and forthwith the steps of the unseasonable visitor were directed to the bedside. The person thus disturbed had hardly time to raise himself half upright when the curtains at one side were drawn apart, and by the imperfect light which forced its way through the horn enclosure of a lantern, he beheld the bronzed and sinister features of his fireside companion of the previous evening. The stranger was arrayed for the road, with his cloak and cocked hat on. Both parties, the visited and the visitor, for a time remained silent and in the same fixed attitude.

  “Pray, sir,” at length inquired the person thus abruptly intruded upon, “to what special good fortune do I owe this most unlooked-for visit?”

  The elder man made no reply; but deliberately planted the large dingy lantern which he carried upon the bed in which the young man lay.

  “You have tarried somewhat too long over the wine-cup,” continued he, not a little provoked at the coolness of the intruder. “This, sir, is not your chamber; seek it elsewhere. I am in no mood to bandy jests. You will consult your own ease as well as mine by quitting this room with all dispatch.”

  “Young gentleman,” replied the elder man in a low, firm tone, “I have used short ceremony in disturbing you thus. To judge from your face you are no less frank than hardy. You will not require apologies when you have heard me. When I last night sate with you I observed about you a token long since familiar to me as the light — you wear it on your finger — it is a diamond ring. That ring belonged to a dear friend of mine — an old comrade and a tried friend in a hundred griefs and perils: the owner was Richard O’Connor. I have not heard from him for ten years or more. Can you say how he fares?”

  “The brave soldier and good man you have named was my father,” replied the young man, mournfully.

  “Was!” repeated the stranger. “Is he then no more — is he dead?”

  “Even so,” replied the young man, sadly.

  “I knew it — I felt it. When I saw that jewel last night something smote at my heart and told me, that the hand that wore it once was cold. Ah, me! it was a friendly and a brave hand. Through all the wars of King James” (and so saying he touched his hat) “we were together, companions in arms and bosom friends. He was a comely man and a strong; no hardship tired him, no difficulty dismayed him; and the merriest fellow he was that ever trod on Irish ground. Poor O’Connor! in exile; away, far away from the country he loved so well; among foreigners too. Well, well, wheresoever they have laid thee, there moulders not a truer nor a braver heart in the fields of all the world!”

  He paused, sighed deeply, and then continued, —

  “Sorely, sorely are thine old comrades put to it, day by day, and night by night, for comfort and for safety — sorely vexed and pillaged. Nevertheless — over-ridden, and despised, and scattered as we are, mercenaries and beggars abroad, and landless at home — still something whispers in my ear that there will come at last a retribution, and such a one as will make this perjured, corrupt, and robbing ascendency a warning and a wonder to all after times. Is it a common thing, think you, that all the gentlemen, all the chivalry of a whole country — the natural leaders and protectors of the people — should be stripped of their birthright, ay, even of the poor privilege of seeing in this their native country, strangers possessing the inheritances which are in all right their own; cast abroad upon the world; soldiers of fortune, selling their blood for a bare subsistence; many of them dying of want; and all because for honour and conscience sake they refused to break the oath which bound them to a ruined prince? Is it a slight thing, think you, to visit with pains and penalties such as these, men guilty of no crimes beyond those of fidelity and honour?”

  The stranger said this with an intensity of passion, to which the low tone in which he spoke but gave an additional impressiveness. After a short pause he again spoke, —

  “Young gentleman,” said he, “you may have heard your father — whom the saints receive! — speak, when talking over old recollections, of one Captain O’Hanlon, who shared with him the most eventful scenes of a perilous time. He may, I say, have spoken of such a one.”

  “He has spoken of him,” replied the young man; “often, and kindly too.”

  “I am that man,” continued the stranger; “your father’s old friend and comrade; and right glad am I, seeing that I can never hope to meet him more on this side the grave, to renew, after a kind, a friendship which I much prized, now in the person of his son. Give me your hand, young gentleman: I pledge you mine in the spirit of a tried and faithful friendship. I inquire not what has brought you to this unhappy country; I am sure it can be nothing which lies not within the eye of honour, so I ask not concerning it; but on the contrary, I will tell you of myself what may surprise you — what will, at least, show that I am ready to trust you freely. You were stopped tonight upon the Southern road, some ten miles from this. It was I who stopped you!”

  O’Connor made a sudden but involuntary movement of menace; but without regarding it, O’Hanlon
continued, —

  “You are astonished, perhaps shocked — you look so; but mind you, there is some difference between stopping men on the highway, and robbing them when you have stopped them. I took you for one who we were informed would pass that way, and about the same hour — one who carried letters from a pretended friend — one whom I have long suspected, a half-faced, cold-hearted friend — carried letters, I say, from such a one to the Castle here; to that malignant, perjured reprobate and apostate, the so-called Lord Wharton — as meet an ornament for a gibbet as ever yet made a feast for the ravens. I was mistaken: here is your sword; and may you long wear it as well as he from whom it was inherited.” Here he raised the weapon, the blade of which he held in his hand, and the young man saw it and the hilt flash and glitter in the dusky light. “And take the advice of an old soldier, young friend,” continued O’Hanlon, “and when you are next, which I hope may not be for many a long day, overpowered by odds and at their mercy, do not by fruitless violence tempt them to disable you by a simpler and less pleasant process than that of merely taking your sword and unpriming your pistols. Many a good man has thrown away his life by such boyish foolery. Upon the table by your bed you will in the morning find your rapier, and God grant that it and you may long prove fortunate companions!” He was turning to go, but recollecting himself, he added, “One word before I go. I am known here as Mr. Dwyer — remember the name, Dwyer — I am generally to be heard of in this place. Should you at any time during your stay in this city require the assistance of a friend who has a cheerful willingness to serve you, and who is not perhaps altogether destitute of power, you have only to leave a billet in the hand of the keeper of this inn, and if I be above ground it will reach me — of course address it under the name I have last mentioned — and so, young gentleman, fare you well.” So saying, he grasped the hand of his new friend, shook it warmly, and then, turning upon his heel, strode swiftly to the door, and so departed, leaving O’Connor with so much abruptness as not to allow him time to utter a question or remark on what had passed.

  The excitement of the interview speedily passed away, the fatigues of the preceding day were persuasively seconded by the soothing sound of the now abated wind and by the utter darkness of the chamber, and the young man was soon deep in the forgetfulness of sleep once more. When the broad, red light of the morning sun broke cheerily into his room, streaming through the chinks of the old shutters, and penetrating through the voluminous folds of the vast curtains of rich, faded damask which surmounted the huge hearse-like bed in which he lay, so as to make its inmate aware that the hour of repose was past and that of action come, O’Connor remembered the circumstances of the interview which had been so strangely intruded upon him but as a dream; nor was it until he saw the sword which he had believed irrecoverably lost lying safely upon the table, that he felt assured that the visit and its purport were not the creation of his slumbering fancy. In reply to his questions when he descended, he was informed by mine host of the “Cock and Anchor,” that Mr. Dwyer had left the inn-yard upon his stout hack, a good hour before daybreak.

  CHAPTER III.

  THE LITTLE MAN IN BLUE AND SILVER.

  Among the loungers who loitered at the door of the “Cock and Anchor,” as the day wore on, there appeared a personage whom it behoves us to describe. This was a small man, with a very red face and little grey eyes — he wore a cloth coat of sky blue, with here and there a piece of silver lace laid upon it without much regard to symmetry; for the scissors had evidently displaced far the greater part of the original decorations, whose primitive distribution might be traced by the greater freshness of the otherwise faded cloth which they had covered, as well as by some stray threads, which stood like stubbles here and there to mark the ravages of the sickle. One hand was buried in the deep flap pocket of a waistcoat of the same hue and material, and bearing also, in like manner, the evidences of a very decided retrenchment in the article of silver lace. These symptoms of economy, however, in no degree abated the evident admiration with which the wearer every now and then stole a glance on what remained of its pristine splendours — a glance which descended not ungraciously upon a leg in whose fascinations its owner reposed an implicit faith. His right hand held a tobacco-pipe, which, although its contents were not ignited, he carried with a luxurious nonchalance ever and anon to the corner of his mouth, where it afforded him sundry imaginary puffs — a cheap and fanciful luxury, in which my Irish readers need not be told their humbler countrymen, for lack of better, are wont to indulge. He leaned against one of the stout wooden pillars on which the front of the building was reared, and interlarded his economical pantomime of pipe-smoking with familiar and easy conversation with certain of the outdoor servants of the inn — a familiarity which argued not any sense of superiority proportionate to the pretension of his attire.

  “And so,” said the little man, turning with an aristocratic ease towards a stout fellow in a jerkin, with bluff visage and folded arms, who stood beside him, and addressing him in a most melodious brogue— “and so, for sartain, you have but five single gintlemen in the house — mind, I say single gintlemen — for, divil carry me if ever I take up with a family again — it doesn’t answer — it don’t shoot me — I was never made for a family, nor a family for me — I can’t stand their b —— y regularity; and— “ with a sigh of profound sentiment, and lowering his voice, he added— “and, the maid-sarvants — no, devil a taste — they don’t answer — they don’t shoot. My disposition, Tom, is tindher — tindher to imbecility — I never see a petticoat but it flutters my heart — the short and the long of it is, I’m always falling in love — and sometimes the passion is not retaliated by the object, and more times it is — but, in both cases, I’m aiqually the victim — for my intintions is always honourable, and of course nothin’ comes of it. My life was fairly frettin’ away in a dhrame of passion among the housemaids — I felt myself witherin’ away like a flower in autumn — I was losing my relish for everything, from bacon and table-dhrink upwards — dangers were thickening round me — I had but one way to execrate myself — I gave notice — I departed, and here I am.”

  Having wound up the sentence, the speaker leaned forward and spat passionately on the ground — a pause ensued, which was at length broken by the same speaker.

  “Only two out of the five,” said he, reflectively, “only two unprovided with sarvants.”

  “And neither of ‘em,” rejoined Tom, a blunt English groom, “very likely to want one. The one is a lawyer, with a hack as lean as himself, and more holes, I warrant, than halfpence in his breeches pocket. He’s out a-looking for lodgings, I take it.”

  “He’s not exactly what I want,” rejoined the little man. “What’s th’other like?”

  “A gentleman, every inch, or I’m no judge,” replied the groom. “He came last night, and as likely a bit of horseflesh under him as ever my two hands wisped down. He chucked me a crown-piece this morning, as if it had been no more nor a cockle shell — he did.”

  “By gorra, he’ll do!” exclaimed the little man energetically. “It’s a bargain — I’m his man.”

  “Ay, but you mayn’t answer, brother; he mayn’t take you,” observed Tom.

  “Wait a bit — jist wait a bit, till he sees me,” replied he of the blue coat.

  “Ay, wait a bit,” persevered the groom, coolly— “wait a bit, and when he does see you, it strikes me wery possible he mayn’t like your cut.”

  “Not like my cut!” exclaimed the little man, as soon as he had recovered breath; for the bare supposition of such an occurrence involved in his opinion so utter and astounding a contradiction of all the laws by which human antipathies and affections are supposed to be regulated, that he felt for a moment as if his whole previous existence had been a dream and an illusion. “Not like my cut!”

  “No,” rejoined the groom, with perfect imperturbability.

  The little man deigned no other reply than that conveyed in a glance of the most inexpressi
ble contempt, which, having wandered over the person and accoutrements of the unconscious Tom, at length settled upon his own lower extremities, where it gradually softened into a gaze of melancholy complacency, while he muttered, with a pitying smile, “Not like my cut — not like it!” and then, turning majestically towards the groom, he observed, with laconic dignity, —

  “I humbly consave the gintleman has an eye in his head.”

  This rebuke had hardly been administered when the subject of their conference in person passed from the inn into the street.

  “There he goes,” observed Tom.

  “And here I go after him,” added the candidate for a place; and in a moment he was following O’Connor with rapid steps through the narrow streets of the town, southward. It occurred to him, as he hurried after his intended master, that it might not be amiss to defer his interview until they were out of the streets, and in some more quiet place; nor in all probability would he have disturbed himself at all to follow the young gentleman, were it not that even in the transient glimpse which he had had of the person and features of O’Connor, the little man thought, and by no means incorrectly, that he recognized the form of one whom he had often seen before.

  “That’s Mr. O’Connor, as sure as my name’s Larry Toole,” muttered the little man, half out of breath with his exertions— “an’ it’s himself’ll be proud to get me. I wondher what he’s afther now. I’ll soon see, at any rate.”

  Thus communing within himself, Larry alternately walked and trotted to keep the chase in view. He might very easily have come up with the object of his pursuit, for on reaching St. Patrick’s Cathedral, O’Connor paused, and for some minutes contemplated the old building. Larry, however, did not care to commence his intended negotiation in the street; he purposed giving him rope enough, having, in truth, no peculiar object in following him at that precise moment, beyond the gratification of an idle curiosity; he therefore hung back until O’Connor was again in motion, when he once more renewed his pursuit.