Arthur O'Leary Part 15

"With that I turned on my heel, and left the barrack-yard, not a word being spoken by any of the others, nor any evidence of their being so much amused as they seemed to expect from my exposure.

"Did it never strike you as a strange thing, that while none but the very poorest and humblest people can bear to confess to present poverty, very few men decline to speak of the narrow circ.u.mstances they have struggled through--nay, rather take a kind of pleasure in relating what difficulties once beset their path--what obstacles were opposed to their success? The reason perhaps is, there is a reflective merit in thus surmounting opposition.

"The acknowledgment implies a sense of triumph. It seams to say--Here am I, such as you see me now, and yet time was, when I was houseless and friendless--when the clouds darkened around my path, and I saw not even the faintest glimmer of hope to light up the future; yet with a stout heart and strong courage, with the will came the way; and I conquered.

I do confess, I could dwell, and with great pleasure too, on those portions of my life when I was poorest and most forsaken, in preference to the days of my prosperity, and the hours of my greatest wealth: like me traveller who, after a long journey through some dark winter's day, finds himself at the approach of night, seated by the corner of a cheery fire in his inn; every rus.h.i.+ng gust of wind that shakes the building, every plash of the beating rain against the gla.s.s, but adds to this sense of comfort, and makes him hug himself with satisfaction to think how he is no longer exposed to such a storm--that his journey is accomplished--his goal is reached--and as he draws his chair closer to the blaze, it is the remembrance of the past, gives all the enjoyment to the present. In the same way, the pleasantest memories of old age are of those periods in youth when we have been successful over difficulty, and have won our way through every opposing obstacle. 'Joy's memory is indeed no longer joy.' Few can look back on happy hours without thinking of those with whom they spent them, and then comes the sad question, Where are they now? What man reaches even the middle term of life with a t.i.the of the friends he started with in youth; and as they drop off, one by one around him, comes the sad reflection, that the period is pa.s.sed when such ties can be formed anew--The book of the heart once closed, opens no more. But why these reflections? I must close them, and with them my story at once.

"The few pounds I possessed in the world enabled me to reach Quebec, and take my pa.s.sage in a timber vessel bound for Cork. Why I returned to Ireland, and with what intentions, I should be sorely puzzled, were you to ask of me. Some vague, indistinct feeling of home, connected with my birthplace had, perhaps, its influence over me. So it was--I did so.

[Editor's Note: Another edition of this book (Downey and Co., 1897) was scannned for the middle part of this etext as large portions of the original 1845 edition were defective.

The reader will note that the two editions initiate a quoted pa.s.sages in different ways: the 1845 edition with a double quote and the 1897 edition with a single quotation mark.]

'After a good voyage of some five weeks, we anch.o.r.ed in Cove, where I landed, and proceeded on foot to Tralee. It was night when I arrived. A few faint glimmering lights could be seen here and there from an upper window; but all the rest was in darkness. Instinctively I wandered on, till I came to the little street where my aunt had lived. I knew every stone in it. There was not a house I pa.s.sed but I was familiar with all its history. There was Mark Ca.s.sidy's provision store, as he proudly called a long dark room, the ceiling thickly studded with hams and bacon, coils of rope, candles, flakes of glue, and loaves of sugar; while a narrow pathway was eked out below between a sugar-hogshead, some sacks of flour and potatoes, hemp-seed, tar, and treacle, interspersed with scythe-blades, reaping-hooks, and sweeping-brushes--a great coffee-roaster adorning the wall, and forming a conspicuous object for the wonderment of the country-people, who never could satisfy themselves whether it was a new-fas.h.i.+oned clock or a weather-gla.s.s, or a little thras.h.i.+ng-machine or a money-box. Next door was Maurice Fitzgerald's, the apothecary, a cosy little cell of eight feet by six, where there was just s.p.a.ce left for a long-practised individual to grind with a pestle without putting his right elbow through a blue-gla.s.s bottle that figured in the front window, or his left into active intercourse with a regiment of tinctures that stood up, brown and muddy and fetid, on a shelf hard by. Then came Joe M'Evoy's, "licensed for spirits and enthertainment,"

where I had often stood as a boy to listen to the pleasant sounds of Larry Branaghan's pipes, or to the agreeable ditties of "Adieu, ye s.h.i.+nin' daisies, I loved you well and long," as sung by him, with an accompaniment. Then there was Misther Moriarty's, the attorney, a great man in the petty sessions, a bitter pill for all the country gentlemen; he was always raking up knotty cases of their decisions, and reporting them to the _Limerick Vindicator_ under the cognomen of "Brutus" or "Coriola.n.u.s." I could just see by the faint light that his house had been raised a storey higher, and little iron balconies, like railings, stuck to the drawing-room windows.

'Next came my aunt's. There it was: my foot was on the door where I stood as a child, my little heart wavering between fears of the unknown world without and hopes of doing something--Heaven knows what!--which would make me a name hereafter. And there I was now, after years of toil and peril of every kind, enough to have won me distinction, success enough to have made me rich, had either been but well directed; and yet I was poor and humble, as the very hour I quitted that home. I sat down on the steps, my heart heavy and sad, my limbs tired, and before many minutes fell fast asleep, and never awoke till the bright sun was s.h.i.+ning gaily on one side of the little street, and already the preparations for the coming day were going on about me. I started up, afraid and ashamed of being seen, and turned into the little ale-house close by, to get my breakfast. Joe himself was not forthcoming; but a fat, pleasant-looking, yellow-haired fellow, his very image, only some dozen years younger, was there, bustling about among some pewter quarts and tin measures, arranging tobacco-pipes, and making up little pennyworths of tobacco.

'"Is your name M'Evoy?" said I.

'"The same, at your service," said he, scarce raising his eyes from his occupation.

'"Not Joe M'Evoy?"

'"No, sir, Ned M'Evoy; the old man's name was Joe."

'"He 's dead, then, I suppose?"

'"Ay, sir; these eight years come Micklema.s.s. Is it a pint or a naggin of sperits?"

'"Neither; it's some breakfast, a rasher and a few potatoes, I want most. I'll take it here, or in the little room."

'"Faix, ye seem to know the ways of the place," said he, smiling, as he saw me deliberately push open a small door, and enter a little parlour once reserved for favourite visitors.

'"It's many years since I was here before," said I to the host, as he stood opposite to me, watching the progress I was making with my breakfast--"so many that I can scarce remember more than the names of the people I knew very-well. Is there a Miss O'Kelly living in the town?

It was somewhere near this, her house."

'"Yes, above Mr. Moriarty's, that's where she lived; but sure she's dead and gone, many a day ago. I mind Father Donnellan, the priest that was here before Mr. Nolan, saying Ma.s.ses for her sowl, when I was a slip of a boy."

'"Dead and gone," repeated I to myself sadly--for, though I scarcely expected to meet my poor old relative again, I cherished a kind of half hope that she might still be living. "And the priest, Father Donnellan, is he dead too?"

'"Yes, sir; he died of the fever, that was so bad four years ago."

'"And Mrs. Brown that kept the post-office?"

'"She went away to Ennis when her daughter was married there; I never heard tell of her since."

'"So that, in fact, there are none of the old inhabitants of the town remaining. All have died off?"

"Every one, except the ould captain; he's the only one left"

'"Who is he?"

'"Captain Dwyer; maybe you knew him?"

'"Yes, I knew him well; and he's alive? He must be very old by this time."

'"He 's something about eighty-six or seven; but he doesn't let on to more nor sixty, I believe; but, sure, talk of----- G.o.d preserve us, here he is!"

'As he spoke, a thin, withered-looking old man, bent double with age, and walking with great difficulty, came to the door, and, in a cracked voice, called out--

'"Ned M'Evoy; here's the paper for you; plenty of news in it, too, about Mister O'Connell and the meetings in Dublin. If Cavanagh takes any fish, buy a sole or a whiting for me, and send me the paper back."

'"There's a gentleman, inside here, was just asking for you, sir," said the host.

'"Who is he? Is it Mr. Creagh? At your service, sir," said the old man, sitting down on a chair near me, and looking at me from under the shadow of his hand spread over his brow. "You 're Mr. Studdart, I 'm thinking?"

'"No, sir; I do not suspect you know me; and, indeed, I merely mentioned your name as one I had heard of many years ago when I was here, but not as being personally known to you."

'"Oh, troth, and so you might, for I 'm well known in these parts--eh, Ned?" said he, with a chuckling cackle, that sounded very like hopeless dotage. "I was in the army--in the 'Buffs'; maybe you knew one Clancy who was in them?"

'"No, sir; I have not many military acquaintances. I came here this morning on my way to Dublin, and thought I would just ask a few questions about some people I knew a little about. Miss O'Kelly----"

'"Ah, dear! Poor Miss Judy--she's gone these two or three years."

'"Ay, these fifteen," interposed Ned.

'"No, it isn't though," said the captain crossly, "it isn't more than three at most--cut off in her prime too. She was the last of an old stock--I knew them all well. There was d.i.c.k--blazing d.i.c.k O'Kelly, as they called him--that threw the sheriff into the mill-race at Kilmacud, and had to go to France afterwards; and there was Peter--Peter got the property, but he was shot in a duel. Peter had a son--a nice devil he was too; he was drowned at sea; and except the little girl that has the school up there, Sally O'Kelly--she is one of them--there's none to the fore."

'"And who was she, sir?"

'"Sally was--what's this? Ay, Sally is daughter to a son d.i.c.k left in France. He died in the war in Germany, and left this creature; and Miss Judy heard of her, and got her over here, just the week she departed herself. She's the last of them now--the best family in Kerry--and keeping a child's school! Ay, ay, so it is; and there's property too coming to her, if they could only prove that chap's death, Con O'Kelly.

But sure no one knows anything where it happened. Sam Fitzsimon advertised him in all the papers, but to no use."

'I did not wait for more of the old captain's reminiscences, but s.n.a.t.c.hing up my hat I hurried down the street, and in less than an hour was closeted with Mr. Samuel Fitzsimon, attorney-at-law, and gravely discussing the steps necessary to be taken for the a.s.sumption of my right to a small property, the remains of my Aunt Judy's--a few hundred pounds, renewal fines of lands, that had dropped since my father's death. My next visit was to the little school, which was held in the parlour where poor Aunt Judy used to have her little card parties. The old stuffed macaw--now from dirt and smoke he might have pa.s.sed for a raven--was still over the fireplace, and there was the old miniature of my father, and on the other side was one which I had not seen before, of Father Donnellan in full robes. All the little old conchologies were there too; and except the black plethoric-looking cat that sat staring fixedly at the fire as if she was grieving over the price of coals, I missed nothing. Miss Sally was a nice modest-looking woman, with an air of better cla.s.s about her than her humble occupation would seem to imply. I made known my relations.h.i.+p in a few words, and having told her that I had made all arrangements for settling whatever property I possessed upon her, and informed her that Mr. Fitzsimon would act as her guardian, I wished her good-bye and departed. I saw that my life must be pa.s.sed in occupation of one kind or other--idleness would never do; and with the only fifty I reserved to myself of my little fortune, I started for Paris. What I was to do I had no idea whatever; but I well knew that you have only to lay the bridle on Fortune's neck, and you 'll seldom be disappointed in adventures.

'For some weeks I strolled about Paris, enjoying myself as thoughtlessly as though I had no need of any effort to replenish my failing exchequer.

The mere human tide that flowed along the Boulevards and through the gay gardens of the Tuileries would have been amus.e.m.e.nt enough for me. Then there were theatres and cafes and restaurants of every cla.s.s--from the costly style of the "Rocher" down to the dinner beside the fountain Des Innocents, where you feast for four sous, and where the lowest and poorest cla.s.s of the capital resorted. Well, well, I might tell you some strange scenes of those days, but I must hurry on.

'In my rambles through Paris, visiting strange and out-of-the-way places, dining here and supping there, watching life under every aspect I could behold it, I strolled one evening across the Pont Neuf into the Ile St. Louis, that quaint old quarter, with its narrow straggling streets, and its tall gloomy houses, barricaded like fortresses. The old _portes cocheres_ studded with nails and barred with iron, and having each a small window to peer through at the stranger without, spoke of days when outrage and attack were rife, and it behoved every man to fortify his stronghold as best he could. There were now to be found the most abandoned and desperate of the whole Parisian world; the a.s.sa.s.sin, the murderer, the housebreaker, the coiner, found a refuge in this confused wilderness of gloomy alleys and dark dismal pa.s.sages. When night falls, no lantern throws a friendly gleam along the streets; all is left in perfect darkness, save when the red light of some cabaret lamp streams across the pavement. In one of these dismal streets I found myself when night set in, and although I walked on and on, somehow I never could extricate myself, but continually kept moving in some narrow circle--so I guessed at least, for I never wandered far from the deep-toned bell of Notre Dame, that went on chanting its melancholy peal through the stillness of the night air. I often stopped to listen. Now it seemed before, now behind me; the rich solemn sound floating through those cavernous streets had something awfully impressive. The voice that called to prayer, heard in that gloomy haunt of crime, was indeed a strange and appalling thing. At last it ceased, and all was still. For some time I was uncertain how to act. I feared to knock at a door and ask my way; the very confession of my loneliness would have been an invitation to outrage, if not murder. No one pa.s.sed me; the streets seemed actually deserted.

'Fatigued with walking, I sat down on a door-sill and began to consider what was best to be done, when I heard the sound of heavy feet moving along towards me, the clattering of sabots on the rough pavement, and shortly after a man came up, who, I could just distinguish, seemed to be a labourer. I suffered him to pa.s.s me a few paces, and then called out--

'"Halloa, friend! can you tell me the shortest way to the Pont Neuf?"

'He replied by some words in a patois so strange I could make nothing of it. I repeated my question, and endeavoured by signs to express my wish. By this time he was standing close beside me, and I could mark was evidently paying full attention to all I said. He looked about him once or twice, as if in search of some one, and then turning to me said, in a thick guttural voice--

'"Halte-la, I'll come"; and with that he moved down in the direction he originally came from, and I could hear the clatter of his heavy shoes till the sounds were lost in the winding alleys.