The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Charles James Lever

  CHAPTER XXIV. A GLANCE AT "THE FULL MOON."

  To rescue our friend Bagenal Daly from any imputation the circumstancemight suggest, it is as well to observe here, that when he issued theorder to his servant to seek out the boy who brought the intelligence ofGleeson's flight, he was merely relying on that knowledge of the obscurerecesses of Old Dublin which Sandy possessed, and not by any means upona distinct acquaintance with gentlemen of the same rank and station asJemmy.

  When Daly first took up his residence in the capital, many, many yearsbefore, he was an object of mob worship. He had every quality necessaryfor such. He was immensely rich, profusely spendthrift, and eccentric toan extent that some characterized as insanity. His dress, his equipage,his liveries, his whole retinue and style of living were strange andunlike other men's, while his habits of life bid utter defiance to everyordinance of society.

  In the course of several years' foreign travel he had made acquaintancesthe most extraordinary and dissimilar, and many of these were led tovisit him in his own country. Dublin being less resorted to by strangersthan most cities, the surprise of its inhabitants was proportionablygreat as they beheld, not only Hungarians and Russian nobles, withgorgeous equipages and splendid retinues, driving through the streets,but Turks, Armenians, and Greeks, in full costume; and, on one occasion,Daly's companion on a public promenade was no less remarkable a personthan a North American chief, in all the barbaric magnificence of hisnative dress. To obviate the inconvenience of that mob accompanimentsuch spectacles would naturally attract, Daly entered into a compactwith the leaders of the varions sets or parties of low Dublin, by which,on payment of a certain sum, he was guaranteed in the enjoyment ofappearing in public without a following of several hundred raggedwretches in full cry after him. Nothing could be more honorable and fairthan the conduct of both parties in this singular treaty; the subsidywas regularly paid through the hands of Sandy M'Grane, while thesubsidized literally observed every article of the contract, and notonly avoided any molestation on their own parts, but were a formidableprotective force in the event of any annoyance from others of a superiorrank in society.

  The hawkers of the various newspapers were the deputies with whomSandy negotiated this treaty, they being recognized as the legitimateinterpreters of mob opinion through the capital; men who combined aninsight into local grievances with a corresponding knowledge of generalpolitics; and certain it is, their sway must have been both respectedand well protected, for a single transgression of the compact with Dalynever occurred.

  Bagenal Daly troubled his head very little in the matter, it is true;for his own sake he would never have thought of such a bargain, but hedetested the thought of foreigners carrying away with them from Irelandany unpleasant memories of mob outrage or insult; and desired that theonly remembrance they should preserve of his native country should be ofits cordial and hospitable reception. A great many years had now elapsedsince these pleasant times, and Daly's name was scarcely more than atradition among those who now lounged in rags and idleness through thecapital,--a fact of which he could have had little doubt himself, if hehad reflected on that crowd which followed his own steps but a few daysbefore. Of this circumstance, however, he took little or no notice, andgave his orders to Sandy with the same conscious power he had wieldednearly fifty years back.

  A small public-house, called the Moon, in Duck Alley, a narrow lane offthe Cross Poddle, was the resort of this Rump Parliament, and thitherSandy betook himself on a Saturday evening, the usual night of meeting,as, there being no issue of newspapers the next morning, nothinginterfered with a prolonged conviviality. Often and often had he takenthe same journey at the same hour; but now, such is the effect of a longinterval of years, the way seemed narrower and more crooked than ever,while as he went not one familiar face welcomed him as he passed; norcould he recognize, as of yore, his acquaintances amid the variousdisguises of black eyes and smashed noses, which were frequent on everyside. It was the hour when crime and guilt, drunken rage and grief,mingled together their fearful agencies; and every street and alley wascrowded by half-naked wretches quarrelling and singing: some screamingin accents of heartbroken anguish; others shouting their blasphemieswith voices hoarse from passion; age and infancy, manhood in its prime,the mother and the young girl, were all there, reeling from drunkenness,or faint from famine; some struggling in deadly conflict, others bathingthe lips and temples of ebbing life.

  Through this human hell Sandy wended his way, occasionally followed bythe taunting ribaldry of such as remarked him: such testimonies werevery unlike his former welcomes in these regions; but for this honestSandy cared little; his real regret was to see so much more evidence ofdepravity and misery than before. Drunkenness and its attendant viceswere no new evils, it is true; but he thought all these were fearfullyaggravated by what he now witnessed: loud and violent denunciationsagainst every rank above their own, imprecations on the Parliament andthe gentry that "sowld Ireland:" as if any political perfidy couldbe the origin of their own degraded and revolting condition! Suchis, however, the very essence of that spirit that germinates amiddestitution and crime, and it is a dangerous social crisis when themasses begin to attribute their own demoralization to the vices of theirbetters. It well behooves those in high places to make their actions andopinions conform to their great destinies.

  Sandy's Northern blood revolted at these brutal excesses, and the savagemenaces he heard on every side; but perhaps his susceptibilities weremore outraged by one trail of popular injustice than all the rest, andthat was to hear Hickman O'Reilly extolled by the mob for his patrioticrejection of bribery, while the Knight of Gwynne was held up toexecration by every epithet of infamy; ribald jests and low balladsconveying the theme of attack upon his spotless character.

  The street lyrics of the day were divided in interest between the laterebellion and the act of Union; the former being, however, the favoritetheme, from a species of irony peculiar to this class of poetry, inwhich certain living characters were held up to derision or execration.The chief chorist appeared to be a fiend-like old woman, with oneeye, and a voice like a cracked bassoon: she was dressed in a cast-offsoldier's coat and a man's hat, and neither from face nor costume hadfew feminine traits. This fair personage, known by the name of Rhoudlum,was, on her appearing, closely followed by a mob of admiring amateurs,who seemed to form both her body-guard and her chorus. When Sandy foundhimself fast wedged up in this procession, the enthusiasm was at itsheight, in honor of an elegant new ballad called "The Two Majors."The air, should our reader be musically given, was the well-known one,"There was a Miller had Three Sons:"--

  "Says Major Sirr to Major Swan, You have two rebels, give me one; They pay the same for one as two, I 'll get five pounds, and I 'll share with you. Toi! loi! loi! lay."

  "That's the way the blackguards sowld yer blood, boys!" said the hag, inrecitative; "pitch caps, the ridin' house, and the gallows was iliganttratement for wearin' the green."

  "Go on, Rhoudlum, go on wid the song," chimed in her followers, whocared more for the original text than prose vulgate.

  "Arn't I goin' on wid it?" said the hag, as fire flashed in her eye; "isit the likes of you is to tache me how to modulate a strain?" And sheresumed:--

  "Says Major Swan to Major Sirr, One man's a woman! ye may take her. 'T is little we gets for them at all-- Oh! the curse of Cromwell be an ye all! Toi! loi! loll lay."

  The grand Demosthenic abruptness of the last line was the signal foran applauding burst of voices, whose sincerity it would be unfair toquestion.

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  "Where are you pushin' to! bad scran to ye! ye ugly varmint!" said thelady, as Sandy endeavored to force his passage through the crowd.

  "Hurroo! by the mortial, it's Daly's man!" screamed she, in transport,as the accidental light of a window showed Sandy's features.

  Few, if any, of those around had ever seen him; but his name and hismaster's were among the favored traditions of the plac
e, and howeverunwilling to acknowledge the acquaintance, Sandy had no help for it butto exchange greetings and ask the way to "the Moon," which he found hehad forgotten.

  "There it is fornint ye, Mr. M'Granes," said the lady, in the mostdulcet tones; "and if it's thinking of trating me ye are, 't is a'crapper' in a pint of porter I 'd take; nothing stronger would sit onmy heart now."

  "Ye shall hae it," said Sandy; "but come into the house."

  "I darn't do it, sir; the committee is sittin'--don't ye see, besides,the moon lookin' at you?" And she pointed to a rude representation of acrescent moon, formed by a kind of transparency in the middle of a largewindow, a signal which Sandy well knew portended that the council wereassembled within.

  "Wha's the man, noo?" said Sandy, with one foot on the threshold.

  "The ould stock still, darlint," said Rhoudlum,--"don't ye know hisvoice?"

  "That's Paul Donellan,--I ken him noo."

  "Be my conscience! there's no mistake. Ye can hear his screech from thePoddle to the Pigeon House when the wind's fair."

  Sandy put a shilling into the hag's hand, and, without waiting forfurther parley, entered the little dark hall, and turning a corner hewell remembered, pressed a button and opened the door into the roomwhere the party were assembled.

  "Who the blazes are you? What brings you here?" burst from a score ofrude voices together, while every hand grasped some projectile to hurlat the devoted intruder.

  "Ask Paul Donellan who I am, and he'll tell ye," said Sandy, sternly,while, with a bold contempt for the hostile demonstrations, he walkedstraight up to the head of the room.

  The recognition on which he reckoned so confidently was not forthcoming,for the old decrepit creature who, cowering beneath the wig of somedefunct chancellor, presided, stared at him with eyes bleared with ageand intemperance, but seemed unable to detect him as an acquaintance.

  "Holy Paul does n't know him!" said half-a-dozen together, as, inpassionate indignation, they arose to resent the intrusion.

  "He may remember this better," said Sandy, as, seizing a full bumperof whiskey from the board, he threw it into the lamp beneath thetransparency, and in a moment the moon flashed forth, and displayed itsface at the full. The spell was magical, and a burst of savage welcomebroke from every mouth, while Donellan, as if recalled to consciousness,put his hand trumpet-fashion to his lips, and gave a shout that made thevery glasses ring upon the board. Place was now made for Sandy at thetable, and a wooden vessel called "a noggin" set before him, whosecontents he speedily tested by a long draught.

  "I may as weel tell you," said Sandy, "that I am Bagenal Daly's man. Imind the time it wad na hae been needful to say so much,--my master'spicture used to hang upon that wall."

  Had Sandy proclaimed himself the Prince of Wales the announcement couldnot have met with more honor, and many a coarse and rugged grasp of thehand attested the pleasure his presence there afforded.

  "We have the picture still," said a young fellow, whose frank,good-humored face contrasted strongly with many of those around him;"but that old divil, Paul, always told us it was a likeness of himselfwhen he was young."

  "Confound the scoundrel!" said Sandy, indignantly; "he was no mair likemy maister than a Dutch skipper is like a chief of the Delawares. Hasthe creature lost his senses a'togither?"

  "By no manner of manes. He wakes up every now and then wid a speech, ora bit of poethry, or a sentiment."

  "Ay," said another, "or if a couple came in to be married, see how theold chap's eyes would brighten, and how he would turn the other side ofhis wig round before you could say 'Jack Robinson.'"

  This was literally correct, and was the simple manouvre by which HolyPaul converted himself into a clerical character, the back of his wigbeing cut in horse-shoe fashion, in rude imitation of that worn byseveral of the bishops.

  "Watch him now--watch him now!" said one in Sandy's ears; and the oldfellow passed his hand across his eyes as if to dispel some painfulthought, while his careworn features were lit up with a momentary flashof sardonic drollery.

  "Your health, sir," said he to Sandy; "or, as Terence has it, 'Hic tibi,Dave'--here 's to you, Davy."

  "A toast, Paul! a toast! Something agin the Union,--something agin oldDarcy."

  "Fill up, gentlemen," said Paul, in a clear and distinct voice. "Ibeg to propose a sentiment which you will drink with a bumper. Are youready?"

  "Ready!" screamed all together.

  "Here, then,--repeat after me:--

  "Whether he's out, or whether he's in, It does n't signify one pin; Here's every curse of every sin On Maurice Darcy, Knight of Gwynne."

  "Hold!" shouted Sandy, as he drew a double-barrelled pistol from hisbosom. "By the saul o' my body the man that drinks that toast shallhae mair in his waim than hot water and whiskey. Maurice Darcy is mymaister's friend, and a better gentleman never stepped in leather: whodar say no?"

  "Are we to drink it, Paul?"

  "As I live by drink," cried Paul, stretching out both hands, "this ismy _alter ego_, my duplicate self, Sanders M'Grane's, 'revisiting theglimpses of the moon,' _post totidem annos!_" And a cordial embrace nowfollowed, which at once dispelled the threatened storm.

  "Mr. M'Grane's health in three times three, gentlemen;" and, rising,Paul gave the signal for each cheer as he alone could give it.

  Sandy had now time to throw a glance around the table, where, however,not one familiar face met his own; that they were of the same callingand order as his quondam associates in the same place he could havelittle doubt, even had that fact not been proclaimed by the names ofvarious popular journals affixed to their hats, and by whose titlesthey were themselves addressed. The conversation, too, had the samesprinkling of politics, town gossip, and late calamities he wellremembered of yore, interspersed with lively commentaries on public menwhich, if printed, would have been suggestive of libel.

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  The new guest soon made himself free of the guild by a proposal to treatthe company, on the condition that he might be permitted to have fiveminutes' conversation with their president in an adjoining room. Hemight have asked much more in requital for his liberality, and without amoment's delay, or even apprising Paul of what was intended, the "DublinJournal" and the "Free Press" took him boldly between them and carriedhim into a closet off the room where the carouse was held.

  "I know what you are at," said Paul, as soon as the door closed. "Dalywants a rising of the Liberty boys for the next debate,--don't deny it,it's no use. Well, now, listen, and don't interrupt me. Tom Conolly camedown from the Castle yesterday and offered me five pounds for a goodmob to rack a house, and two-ten if they'd draw Lord Clare home; butI refused,--I did, on the virtue of my oath. There's patriotism forye!--yer soul, where 's the man wid only one shirt and a supplement tohis back would do the same?"

  "You 're wrang,--we dinna want them devils at a'; it 's a sma' matter ofinquiry I cam about. Ye ken Freney?"

  "Is it the Captain? Whew!" said Paul, with a long whistle.

  "It's no him," resumed Sandy, "but a wee bit of a callant they ca'Jamie."

  "Jemmy the diver,--the divil's own grandson, that he is."

  "Where can I find him?" said Sandy, impatiently.

  "Wait a bit, and you'll be sure to see him at home in his lodgings inNewgate."

  "I must find him out at once; put me on his track, and I 'll gie agoold guinea in yer hand, mon. I mean the young rascal no harm; it's aquestion I want him to answer me, that's all."

  "Well, I'll do my best to find him for you, but I must send down to thecountry. I'll have to get a man to go beyond Kilcullen."

  "We 'll pay any expense."

  "Sure I know that." And here Paul began a calculation to himself ofdistances and charges only audible to Sandy's ears at intervals: "Twoand four, and six, with a glass of punch at Naas--half an hour atTims'--the coach at Athy--ay, that will do it. Have ye the likes of apair of ould boots or shoes? I 've nothing but them, and the solesis made out of two pamphlets of R
oger Connor's, and them's the driestthings I could get."

  "I'll gie ye a new pair."

  "You 're the son of Fingal of the Hills, divil a less. And now if ye hada cast-off waistcoat--I don't care for the color--orange or green, blueor yellow, _Tros Tyriusve mihiy_ as we said in Trinity."

  "Ye shall hae a coat to cover your old bones. But let us hae nae mair o'this--when may I expect to see the boy?"

  "The evening after next, at eight o'clock, at the corner of EssexBridge, Capel Street--'on the Rialto'--eh? that's the cue. And now letus join the revellers--_per Jove_, but I'm dry." And so saying, themiserable old creature broke from Sandy, and, assisted by the wall,tottered back to the room to his drunken companions, where his voice wassoon heard high above the discord and din around him.

  And yet this man, so debased and degraded, had been once a scholar ofthe University, and carried off its prizes from men whose names stoodhigh among the great and valued of the land.