Tom Burke Of Ours, Volume I

by Charles James Lever

  CHAPTER XII. A CHARACTER.

  There must have been a very considerable interval from the moment I havelast recorded to that in which I next became a responsible individual;but in what manner, in what place, or in what company it was passed, thereader must excuse my indulging, for many important reasons,--one ofwhich is, I never clearly knew anything of the matter.

  To date my recollections from my first consciousness, I may state that Ifound myself on my back in a very narrow bed, a table beside me coveredwith phials and small flasks, with paper cravats, some of which hungdown, queue fashion, to an absurd extent. A few rush backed and bottomedchairs lay along the walls, which were coarsely whitewashed. A window,of very unclean and unprepossessing aspect, was partly shaded by a fadedscarlet curtain, while the floor was equally sparingly decked witha small and ragged carpet. Where was I? was the frequent butunsatisfactory query I ever put to myself. Could this be a prison? had Ibeen captured on that riotous evening, and carried off to jail? or wasI in Darby M'Keown's territory?--for somehow, a very generalimpression was on my mind that Darby's gifts of ubiquity were somewhatremarkable,--or, lastly (and the thought was not a pleasant one), wasthis the domicile of Anthony Basset, Esq., attorney-at-law? To haveresolved any or all of these doubts by rising and taking a personalsurvey of the premises would have been my first thought; but unluckilyI found one of my arms bandaged, and enclosed in a brace of woodensplints; a very considerable general impression pervaded me of bruisesand injuries all over my body; and, worse still, a kind of megrimaccompanied every attempt to lift my head from the pillow, that made meheartily glad to lie down again and be at rest.

  That I had not fallen into unfriendly hands was about the extent towhich my deductions led me; and with this consolatory fact, and a steadyresolve to remain awake three days, if necessary, so as to interrogatethe first visitor who should approach me, I mustered all my patience,and waited quietly. What hour of the day it was when first I awoketo even thus much of consciousness I cannot say; but I well rememberwatching what appeared to me twelve mortal hours in my anxiousexpectation. At last a key turned in an outer lock, a door opened, andI heard a heavy foot enter. This was shortly followed by another step,whose less imposing tread was, I suspected, a woman's.

  "Where, in the devil's name, is the candle?" said a gruff voice, thatactually seemed to me not unknown. "I left it on the table when I wentout. Oh, my shin's broke!--that infernal table!"

  "Oh, Lord! oh, Lord!" screamed the female voice.

  "Ah, you 've caught it too!" cried the other, in glee; "did you thinkyou saw a little blue flame before you when your shin was barked?"

  "You're a monster!" said the lady, in a tone of passionate indignation.

  "Here it is,--I have it," replied the other, not paying the slightestattention to the endearing epithet last bestowed; "and damn me, if it 'snot burned down to the socket. Halloo there, Peter Dodd! You scoundrel,where are you?"

  "Call him Saladin," said the lady, with a sneer, "and perhaps he 'llanswer."

  "Imp of darkness, where are you gone to? Peter--Dodd--Dodd--Peter! Ah,you young blackguard! where were you all this time?"

  "Asleep, sir; sure you know well, sir, it 's little rest I get," saida thin, childish voice in answer. "Wasn't it five o'clock this morningwhen I devilled the two kidneys ye had for supper for the four officers,and had to borrey the kian pepper over the way?"

  "I'll bore a gimlet hole through your pineal gland, and stuff it withbrass-headed nails, if you reply to me. Anna Maria, that was a finethought, eh? glorious, by Jove! There, put the candle there, hand yourmistress a chair; give me my robe-de'chambre. Confound me, if it's notgetting like the kingdom of Prussia on the map, full of very stragglingdependencies. Supper, Saladin!"

  "The sorrow taste--"

  "What, thou piece of human ebony! what do you say?"

  "Me hab no--a--ting in de larder," cried the child, in a broken voice.

  "Isn't there a back of a duck and two slices of cold bacon?" asked thelady, in the tone of a cross-examining barrister.

  "I poisoned the bacon for the rats, Miss; and for the duck--"

  "Let me strangle him with my own hands," shouted the man; "let me tearhim up into merrythoughts. Look here, sirrah," said he, in a voice likeJohn Kemble's; "there may be nothing which man eats within these walls;there may not be wherewithal to regale a sickly fly,--no, not enough forone poor spider to lunch upon; but if you ever dare to reply to me, savein Oriental phrase, I 'll throw you in a sack, call my mutes, and hurlyou into the Bosphorus."

  "Where, sir?"

  "The Dodder, you son of a burned father! My hookah."

  "My slippers," repeated the lady.

  "My lute, and the sherbet," added the gentleman.

  By the stir in the chamber, these arrangements, or something equivalentto them, seemed to have taken place; when again I heard,--"Dance alively measure, Saladin; my soul is heavy."

  Here a most vile tinkling of a guitar was heard, to which, by the soundsof the feet, I could perceive Saladin was moving in a species of dance.

  "Let the child go to bed, and don't be making a fool of yourself," saidthe lady, in a voice of bursting passion.

  "Thank Heaven," said I, half aloud, "she isn't mad."

  "Tink, tink, a - tink - a - tink, tink - a - tink - a - dido!" thrummedout her companion. "I say, Saladin, heat me a little porter, with an eggand some sugar."

  Saldin Danceth a Lively Measure 127]

  The door closed as the imp made his exit, and there was silence for someseconds, during which my uppermost thought was, "What infernal mischancehas thrown me into a lunatic asylum?" At length the man spoke,--

  "I say, Anna Maria, Cradock has this run of luck a long time."

  "He plays better than you," responded the lady, sharply.

  "I deny it," rejoined he, angrily. "I play whist better than any manthat ever lived, except the Begum of Soutancantantarahad, who beat myfather. They played for lacs of rupees on the points, and a territory onthe rub; five to two, first game against the loser, in white elephants."

  "How you do talk!" said Anna Maria. "Do you forget that all this rubbishdoes n't go down with me?"

  "Well, I mean old Hickory, that had the snuffshop in Bath, used only togive me one point in the rub, and we played for sixpence; damme, I 'llnot forget it,--he cleaned me out in no time. Tink, tink, a-tink-a-tink,tink-a-tinka-dido! Here, Saladin! bear me the spicy cup, ambrosial boy!"

  "Ahem!" said the lady, in a tone that didn't sound exactly likeconcurrence.

  "Eat a few dates, and then repose," said the deep voice.

  "I wish I had them, av they were eatable," said Saladin, as he turnedaway.

  "Wretch, you have forgotten to salaam; exit slowly. Tink, tink,a-tink-a-tink! Anna Maria, he's devilish good now for black parts; Ithink I'll make Jones bring him out. Wouldn't it be original to makeOthello talk broken English? 'Farewell de camp!' Eh, by Jove! that 's afine thought. 'De spirit stir a drum, de piercy pipe.' By Jove! I likethat notion."

  Here the gentleman rose in a glorious burst of enthusiasm, and beganrepeating snatches from Shakspeare, in the pleasant travesty he had hitupon.

  "Cradock revoked, and you never saw him," said the lady, dryly,interrupting the monologue.

  "I did see it clearly enough, but I had done so twice the same game,"said he, gayly; "and if the grave were to give up its dead, I, too,should be a murderer. Fine thought that, is n't it?"

  "He won seventeen and sixpence from you," rejoined she, pettishly.

  "Two bad half-crowns,--dowlas, filthy dowlas," was the answer.

  "And the hopeful young gentleman in the next room,--what profitableintentions, may I ask you, have you with respect to him?"

  "Burke! Tom Burke! Bless your heart, he 's only son and heir to Burkeof Mount Blazes, in the county Galway. His father keeps three packs ofharriers, one of fox, and another of staghounds,--a kind of brindleddevils, three feet eight in height; he won't take them under. His fatherand mine were schoolfellows at D
undunderamud, in the Himalaya, andhe--that is, old Burke--saved my father's life in a tiger hunt. And am Ito forget the heritage of gratitude my father left me?"

  "You ought not, perhaps, since it was the only one he bequeathed," quoththe lady.

  "What! is the territory of Shamdoonah and Bunfunterabad nothing? arethe great suits of red emeralds and blue opal, that were once the crownjewels of Saidh Sing Doolah, nothing? is the scymitar of Hafiz, withverses of the Koran in letters of pure brilliants, nothing?"

  "You'll drive me distracted with your insane folly," rejoined the lady,rising and pushing back her chair with violence. "To talk this way whenyou know you have n't got a five pound note in the world."

  "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed out the jolly voice of the other; "that's good,faith. If I only consented to dip my Irish property, I could raisefourteen hundred and seventy thousand pounds,--so Mahony tells me. But I'll never give up the royalties,--never! There, you have my last word onthe matter: rather than surrender my tin mine, I'd consent to starveon twelve thousand a year, and resign my claim to the title which,I believe, the next session will give me; and when you are LadyMachinery--something or other--maybe they won't bite, eh? Ramskinsversus wrinkles."

  A violent bang of the door announced at this moment the exit of the ladyin a rage, to which her companion paid no attention, as he continued tomumble to himself, "Surrender the royalties,--never! Oh, she 's gone.Well, she's not far wrong, after all. I dare not draw a cheque on my ownexchequer at this moment for a larger sum than--let me see--twenty-four,twenty-five, twenty-eight and tenpence; with twenty-nine shillings,the grand firm of Bubbleton and Co. must shut up and suspend theirpayments." So saying, he walked from the room in stately fashion, andclosed the door after him.

  My first thought, as I listened to this speech, was one of gratefulnessthat I had fallen into the friendly hands of my old coach companion,whose kindness still lived fresh in my memory; my next was, whatpeculiar form of madness could account for the strange outpouring I hadjust overheard, in which my own name was so absurdly introduced, coupledwith family circumstances I knew never had occurred. Sleep was now outof the question with me; for whole hours long I could do nothing butrevolve in my mind all the extraordinary odds and ends of my friendBubbleton's conversation, which I remembered to have been so struck byat my first meeting with him. The miraculous adventures of his career,his hairbreadth 'scapes, his enormous wealth, the voluptuous ease of hisdaily life, and his habits of luxury and expenditure with which he thenastounded me, had now received some solution; while, at the same time,there was something in his own common-sense observations to himselfthat puzzled me much, and gave a great difficulty to all my calculationsconcerning him.

  To all these conflicting doubts and difficulties sleep at lastsucceeded. But better far for me it had not; for with it came dreamssuch as sick men only experience: all the distorted images that rosebefore my wandering faculties, mingling with the strange fragments ofBubbleton's conversation, made a phantasmagoria the most perplexingand incomprehensible; and which, even on waking, I could not banish, socompletely had Saladin and his pas seul, the guitar, the hookah, and thesuit of red emeralds taken hold of my erring intellect.

  Candid, though not fair reader, have you ever been tipsy? Have youever gone so far over the boundaryline that separates the land of meresobriety from its neighboring territory, the country of irresponsibleimpulses, that you actually doubted which was the way back,--that youthought you saw as much good sense and good judgment on the one side ofthe frontier as the other, with only a strong balance of good-fellowshipto induce a preference? If you know this state,--if you have taken theprecise quantum of champagne or moselle mousseux that induces it, andyet goes no farther,--then do you perfectly understand all the trialsand difficulties of my waking moments, and you can appreciate thearduous task I undertook in my effort to separate the real from theimaginary, the true types from their counterfeits; in a word, thewanderings of my own brain from those of Captain Bubbleton's.

  In this agreeable and profitable occupation was I engaged; when thesame imposing tread and heavy footstep I had heard the previous eveningentered the adjoining room and approached my door. The lock turned, andthe illustrious captain himself appeared. And here let me observe,that if grave censure be occasionally bestowed on persons who, by theassumption of voice, look, or costume, seek to terrorize over infantminds, a no less heavy sentence should be bestowed on all who lord itover the frail faculties of sickness by any absurdity in their personalappearance. And that I may not seem captious, let me describe my friend.The captain, who was somewhere about the forties, was a full-faced,chubby, good-looking fellow, of some five feet ten or eleven inches inheight; his countenance had been intended by nature for the expressionof such emotions as arise from the enjoyment of turtle, milk punch,truffled turkeys, mulled port, mullagatawny, stilton, stout, and pickledoysters; a rich, mellow-looking pair of dark-brown eyes, with large bushyeyebrows meeting above the nose, which latter feature was a little "onthe snub and off the Roman;" his mouth was thick-lipped, and hadthat peculiar mobility which seems inseparable wherever eloquence orimagination predominate; in color, his face was of that uniformhue painters denominate as "warm, "--in fact, a rich sunsetClaude-Lorrainish tint that seemed a compound, the result ofhigh-seasoned meats, plethora, punch, and the tropics; in figure, he waslike a huge pudding-bag, supported on two short little dumpy pillars,that from a sense of the superincumbent weight had wisely spreadthemselves out below, giving to his lower man the appearance of astunted letter A; his arms were most preposterously short, and for theconvenience of locomotion he used them somewhat after the fashion offins. As to his costume on the morning in question, it was a singularlydirty and patched dressing-gown of antique silk, fastened about thewaist by a girdle, from which depended a scymitar on one side and ameerschaum on the other; a well-worn and not over clean-looking shawlwas fastened in fashion of a turban round his head; a pair of yellowbuskins with faded gold tassels decorated legs which occasionally peepedfrom the folds of the _robe-de-chambre_ without any other covering.

  Tom Receives a Strange Visitor 132]

  Such was the outward man of him who suddenly stopped short at thedoorway, while he held the latch in his hand, and called out,--

  "Burke, Tom Burke! don't be violent, don't be outrageous; you see I'marmed! I'd cut you down without mercy if you attempt to lift a finger!Promise me this,--do you hear me?"

  That any one even unarmed could have conceived fear from such a poorweak object as I was seemed so utterly absurd that I laughed outright;an emotion on my part that seemingly imparted but little confidenceto my friend the captain, who retreated still closer to the door, andseemed ready for flight. The first use I could make of speech, however,was, to assure him that I was not only perfectly calm and sensible, butdeeply grateful for kindness which I knew not how, nor to whom, I becameindebted.

  "Don't roll your eyes there; don't look so damned treacherous!" saidhe. "Keep down your hands; keep them under the bedclothes. I 'll put abullet through your skull if you stirred!"

  I again protested that any manifestation of quietness he asked for Iwould immediately comply with, and begged him to sit down beside me andtell me where I was and how I had come hither. Having established anoutwork of a table and two chairs between us, and cautiously having leftthe door ajar to secure his retreat, he drew the scymitar and placed itbefore him, his eyes being fixed on me the entire time.

  "Well," said he, as he assumed a seat, and leaned his arm on the table,"so you are quiet at last. Lord, what a frightful lunatic you were!Nobody would approach your bed but me. The stoutest keeper of Swift'sHospital fled from the spot; while I said, 'Leave him to me, the humaneye is your true agent to humble the pride of maniacal frenzy.'"

  With these words he fixed on me a look such as the chief murderer in amelodrama assumes at the moment he proceeds to immolate a whole family.

  "You infernal young villain, how I subdued you! how you quailed beforeme!"

  Ther
e was something so ludicrous in the contrast of this bravery withhis actual terror, that again I burst out a-laughing; upon whichhe sprang up, and brandishing his sabre, vowed vengeance on me if Istirred. After a considerable time spent thus, I at last succeeded inimpressing him with the fact, that if I had all the will in the worldto tear him to pieces, my strength would not suffice to carry me to thedoor,--an assurance which, however sorrowfully made by me, I perceivedto afford him the most unmixed satisfaction.

  "That's right, quite right," said he; "and mad should he be indeed whowould measure strength with me. The red men of Tuscarora always calledme the 'Great Buffalo.' I used to carry a bark canoe with my squaw andnine little black devils under one arm, so as to leave the other freefor my tomahawk. 'He, how, he!' that 's the war step."

  Here he stooped down to his knees, and then sprang up again, with a yellthat actually made me start, and brought a new actor on the scene inthe person of Anna Maria, whose name I had so frequently heard the nightbefore.

  "What is the matter?" said the lady, a short, squablike woman, of nearlythe captain's age, but none of his personal attractions. "We can't havehim screaming all day in that fashion."

  "It isn't he; it was I who was performing the war dance. Come, now, letdown your hair, and be a squaw,--do. What trouble is it? And bring inSaladin; we'll get up a combat scene. Devilish fine thought that!"

  The indignant look of the lady in reply to this modest proposal againoverpowered me, and I sank back in my bed exhausted with laughter,--anemotion which I was forced to subdue as well as I might on beholding theangry countenance with which the lady regarded me.

  "I say, Burke," cried the captain, "let me present you to my sister,Miss Anna Maria Bubbleton."

  A very dry recognition on Miss Anna Maria's part replied to the effortI made to salute her; and as she turned on her heel, she said to herbrother, "Breakfast's ready," and left the room.

  Bubbleton jumped up at this, rubbed his mouth pleasantly with his hand,smacked his lips; and then dropping his voice to a whisper, muttered,"Excuse me, Tom; but if I have a weakness it is for Yarmouth bloaters,and anchovy toast, milk chocolate, marmalade, hot rolls, and reindeertongue, with a very small glass of pure white brandy as a qualifier." Sosaying, he whisked about and made his exit.

  While my host was thus occupied, I was visited by the regimentalsurgeon, who informed me that my illness had now been of some weeks'duration; severe brain fever, with various attending evils, and a brokenarm, being the happy results of my evening's adventure at the ParliamentHouse.

  "Bubbleton is an old friend of yours," continued the doctor. And then,without giving me time to reply, added, "Capital fellow,--no better; alittle given to the miraculous, eh? but nothing worse."

  "Why, he does indeed seem to have a strong vein for fiction," said I,half timidly.

  "Bless your heart, he never ceases. His world is an ideal thing, fallof impossible people and events, where he has lived at least somecenturies, enjoying the intimacies of princes, statesmen, poets, andwarriors. He has, in his own estimation, unlimited wealth and unboundedresources, the want of which he is never convinced of till pressed forfive shillings to buy his dinner."

  "And his sister," said I; "what of her?"

  "Just as strange a character in the opposite direction. She is as matterof fact as he is imaginative. To all his flights she as resolutelyenters a dissentient; and he never inflates his balloon of miracleswithout her stepping forward to punch a hole in it. But here they come."

  "I say. Pepper, how goes your patient? Spare no pains, old fellow,--noexpense; only get him round. I've left a cheque for you for five hundredin the next room. This is no regimental case; come, come! it 's my way,and I insist upon it."

  Pepper bowed with an air of the deepest gratitude, and actually lookedso overpowered by the liberality that I began to suspect there mightbe less truth in his account of Bubbleton than I thought a few minutesbefore.

  "All insanity has left him,--that's pleasant. I say, Tom, you must havehad glorious thoughts, eh? When you were mad, did you ever think youwere an anaconda bolting a goat, or the Eddystone Lighthouse when thefoundation began to shift?"

  "No, never."

  "How odd! I remember being once thrown on my head off a drag. I wasbreaking in a pair of young unicorns for the Queen of--"

  "No!" said Anna Maria, in a voice of thunder, holding up her finger, atthe same moment, in token of reproof.

  The captain became mute on the instant, and the very word he was aboutto utter stuck in his throat, and he stood with his mouth open, like onein enchantment.

  "You said a little weak tea, I think," said Miss Bubbleton, turningtowards the doctor.

  "Yes; and some dry toast, if he liked it; and, in a day or two; a halfglass of wine and water."

  "Some of that tokay old Pippo Esterhazy sent us."

  "No," said the lady again, in the same tone of menace.

  "And perhaps, after a week, the open air and a little exercise in acarriage."

  "The barouche and the four ponies," interrupted Bubbleton.

  "No!" repeated Miss Anna Maria, but in such a voice of imperious meaningthat the poor captain actually fell back, and only muttered to himself,"What would be the use of wealth, if one could n't contribute to theenjoyment of one's friends?"

  "There's the drum for parade," cried the doctor; "you'll be late, and soshall I."

  They both bustled out of the room together; while Miss Anna Maria,taking her work out of a small bag she carried on her arm, drew a chairto the window and sat down, having quietly intimated to me that, asconversation was deemed injurious to me, I must not speak one syllable.