The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain Part 50

"If you weren't stuffed, then," replied the priest, who took a natural disrelish to her affectation of pride and haughtiness, knowing her as he now did--"many a better woman was. If you weren't, ma'am, it wasn't your own fault. Sir Thomas Gourlay's English cook need never be at a loss for plenty to stuff herself with."

This was an extinguisher. The heaven of her complexion was instantly concealed by a thick cloud in the shape of a veil. She laid herself back in the corner of the carriage, and maintained the silence of a vanquished woman during the remainder of the journey.

On arriving in town the pa.s.sengers, as is usual, betook themselves to their respective destinations. Father M'Mahon, with his small bundle under his arm, was about to go to the Brazen Head Tavern, when he found himself tapped on the shoulder by our friend Darby, who now held a pistol in his hand, and said:

"There are eight of us, Mr. Finnerty, and it is useless to shy Abraham.

You're bagged at last, so come off quietly to the office."

"I don't understand you," replied the priest, who certainly felt surprised at seeing himself surrounded by so many constables, for it was impossible any longer to mistake them. "What do you mean, my friend? or who do you suppose me to be?"

The constable gave him a knowing wink, adding with as knowing an air--"It's no go here, my lad--safe's the word. Tramp for the office, or we'll clap on the wrist-b.u.t.tons. We know you're a shy c.o.c.k, Mr.

Finnerty, and rather modest, too--that's the cut. Simpson, keep the right arm fast, and, you, Gamble, the left, whilst we bring up the rear.

In the meantime, before he proceeds a step, I, as senior, will take the liberty to--just--see--what--is--here," whilst, suiting the word to the action, he first drew a pistol from the left pocket, and immediately after another from the right, and--shades of Freney and O'Hanlon!--the redoubtable pocket-book of Sir Thomas Gourlay, each and all marked not only with his crest, but his name and t.i.tle at full length.

The priest was not at a moment's loss how to act. Perceiving their mistake as to his ident.i.ty, and feeling the force of appearances against him, he desired to be conducted at once to the office. There he knew he could think more calmly upon the steps necessary to his liberation than he could in a crowd which was enlarging every moment, on its being understood that Finnerty, the celebrated highwayman, had been at length taken. Not that the crowd gave expression to any feeling or ebullition that was at all unfriendly to him. So far from that, it gathered round him with strong expressions of sympathy and compa.s.sion for his unhappy fate. Many were the anecdotes reported to each other by the spectators of his humanity--his charity--his benevolence to the poor; and, above all, of his intrepidity and courage; for it may be observed here--and we leave moralists, metaphysicians, and political economists to draw whatever inferences they please from the fact--but fact it is--that in no instance is any man who has violated the law taken up publicly, on Irish ground, whether in town or country, that the people do not uniformly express the warmest sympathy for him, and a strong manifestation of enmity against his captors. Whether this may be interpreted favorably or otherwise of our countrymen, we shall not undertake to determine. As Sir Roger de Coverly said, perhaps much might be advanced on both sides.

On entering the watch-house, the heart of the humane priest was painfully oppressed at the scenes of uproar, confusion, debauchery, and shameless profligacy, of which he saw either the present exhibition or the unquestionable evidences. There was the lost and hardened female, uttering the wild screams of intoxication, or pouring forth from her dark, filthy place of confinement torrents of polluted mirth; the juvenile pickpocket, ripe in all the ribald wit and traditional slang of his profession; the ruffian burglar, with strong animal frame, dark eyebrows, low forehead, and face full of coa.r.s.eness and brutality; the open robber, reckless and jocular, indifferent to consequences, and holding his life only in trust for the hangman, or for some determined opponent who may treat him to cold lead instead of pure gold; the sneaking thief, cool and cowardly, ready-witted at the extricating falsehood--for it is well known that the thief and liar are convertible terms--his eye feeble, cunning, and circ.u.mspective, and his whole appearance redolent of duplicity and fraud; the receiver of stolen goods, affecting much honest simplicity; the good creature, whether man or woman, apparently in great distress, and wondering that industrious and unsuspecting people, struggling to bring up their families in honesty and decency, should be imposed upon and taken in by people that one couldn't think of suspecting. There, too, was the servant out of place, who first a forger of discharges, next became a thief, and heroically adventuring to the dignity of a burglar for which he had neither skill nor daring, was made prisoner in the act; and there he sits, half drunk, in that corner, repenting his failure instead of his crime, forgetting his cowardice, and making moral resolutions with himself, that, should he escape now, he will execute the next burglary in a safe and virtuous state of sobriety. But we need not proceed: there was the idle and drunken mechanic, or, perhaps, the wife, whose Sat.u.r.day night visits to the tap-room in order to fetch him home, or to rescue the wages of his industry from the publican, had at length corrupted herself.

Two other characters were there which we cannot overlook, both of whom had pa.s.sed through the world with a strong but holy scorn for the errors and failings of their fellow-creatures. One of them was a man of gross, carnal-looking features, trained, as it seemed to the uninitiated, into a severe and sanctified expression by the sheer force of religion. His face was full of G.o.dly intolerance against everything at variance with the one thing needful, whatever that was, and against all who did not, like himself, travel on fearlessly and zealously Zionward. He did not feel himself justified in the use of common and profane language; and, consequently, his vocabulary was taken princ.i.p.ally from the Bible, which he called "the Lord's word." Sunday was not Sunday with him, but "the Lord's day;" and he never went to church in his life, but always to "service." Like most of his cla.s.s, however, he seemed to be influenced by that extraordinary anomaly which characterizes the saints--that is to say, as great a reverence for the name of the devil as for that of G.o.d himself; for in his whole life and conversation he was never known to p.r.o.nounce it as we have written it. Satan--the enemy--the destroyer, were the names he applied to him: and this, we presume, lest the world might suspect that there subsisted any private familiarity between them.

His great ruling principle, however, originated in what he termed a G.o.dless system of religious liberality; in other words, he attributed all the calamities and scourges of the land to the influence of Popery.

and its toleration by the powers that be. He was a big-boned, coa.r.s.e man, with black, greasy hair, cut short; projecting cheek-bones, that argued great cruelty; dull, but lascivious eyes; and an upper lip like a dropsical sausage. We forget now the locality in which he had committed the offence that had caused him to be brought there. But it does not much matter; it is enough to say that he was caught, about three o'clock, perambulating the streets, considerably the worse for liquor, and not in the best society. Even as it was, and in the very face of those who had detected him so circ.u.mstanced, he was railing against the unG.o.dliness of our "rulers," the degeneracy of human nature, and the awful scourges that the existence of Popery was bringing on the land.

As it happened, however, this worthy representative of his cla.s.s was not without a counterpart among the moral inmates of the watch-house.

Another man, who was known among his friends as a Catholic voteen, or devotee, happened to have been brought to the game establishment, much in the same circ.u.mstances, and for some similar offence. When compared together, it was really curious to observe the extraordinary resemblance which these two men bore to each other. Each was dressed in sober clothes, for your puritan of every creed must, like his progenitors the Pharisees of old, have some peculiarity in his dress that will gain him credit for religion. Their features were marked by the same dark, sullen shade which betokens intolerance. The devotee was thinner, and not so large a man as the other; but he made up in the cunning energy which glistened from his eyes for the want of physical strength, as compared with the Protestant saint; not at all that he was deficient in it _per se_, for though a smaller man, he was better built and more compact than his brother. Indeed, so nearly identical was the expression of their features--the sensual Milesian mouth, and naturally amorous temperament, hypocrisized into formality, and darkened into bitterness by bigotry --that on discovering each other in the watch-house, neither could for his life determine whether the man before him belonged to idolatrous Rome on the one hand, or the arch heresy on the other.

There they stood, exact counterparts, each a thousand times more anxious to d.a.m.n the other than to save himself. They were not long, however, in discovering each other, and in a moment the jargon of controversy rang loud and high amidst the uproar and confusion of the place. The Protestant saint attributed all the iniquity by which the land, he said, was overflowed, and the judgments under which it was righteously suffering, to the guilt of our rulers, who forgot G.o.d, and connived at Popery.

The Popish saint, on the other hand, a.s.serted that so long as a fat and oppressive heresy was permitted to trample upon the people, the country could never prosper. The other one said, that idolatry--Popish idolatry--was the cause of all; and that it was the scourge by which "the Lord" was inflicting judicial punishment upon the country at large.

If it were not for that he would not be in such a sink of iniquity at that moment. Popish idolatry it was that brought him there; and the abominations of the Romish harlot were desolating the land.

The other replied, that perhaps she was the only harlot of the kind he would run away from; and maintained, that until all heresy was abolished, and rooted out of the country, the curse of G.o.d would sit upon them, as the corrupt law church does now in the shape of an overgrown nightmare. What brought him, who was ready to die for his persecuted church, here? He could tell the heretic;--it was Protestant ascendancy, and he could prove it;--yes, Protestant ascendancy, and nothing else, was it that brought him to that house, its representative, in which he now stood. He maintained that it resembled a watch-house; was it not full of wickedness, noise, and blasphemy; and were there any two creeds; in it that agreed together, and did not fight like devils?

How much longer this fiery discussion might have proceeded it is difficult to say. The constable of the night, finding that the two hypocritical vagabonds were a nuisance to the whole place, had them handcuffed together, and both placed in the black hole to finish their argument.

In short, there was around the good man--vice, with all her discordant sounds and hideous aspects, clanging in his ear the mult.i.tudinous din that arose from the loud and noisy tumult of her brutal, drunken, and debauched votaries.

The priest, who respected his cloth and character, did not lay aside his jock, nor expose himself to the coa.r.s.e jests and ruffianly insolence with which the vagabond minions of justice were in those days accustomed to treat their prisoners. He inquired if he could get a person to carry a message from him to a man named Corbet, living at 25 Const.i.tution Hill; adding, that he would compensate him fairly. On this, one of those idle loungers or orderlies about such places offered himself at once, and said he would bring any message he wished, provided he forked out in the first instance.

"Go, then," said the priest, handing him a piece of silver, "to No. 25 Const.i.tution Hill, where a man named Corbet--what am I saying--Dunphy, lives, and tell him to come to me immediately."

"Ha!" said Darby, laying his finger along; his nose, as he spoke to one of his a.s.sociates, "I smell an alias there. Good; first Corbet and then Dunphy. What do you call that? That chap is one of the connection. Take the message, Skipton; mark him well, and let him be here, if possible, before we bring the prisoner to Sir Thomas Gourlay's."

The fellow winked in reply, and approaching the priest, asked,

"What message have you to send, Mr. Finnerty?"

"Tell him--but stay; oblige me with a slip of paper and a pen, I will write it down."

"Yes, that's better," said Darby. "Nothing like black and white, you know," he added, aside to Skipton.

Father M'Mahon then wrote down his office only; simply saying, "The parish priest of Ballytrain wishes to see Anthony Dunphy as soon as he can come to him."

This description of himself excited roars of laughter throughout the office; nor could the good-natured priest himself help smiling at the ludicrous contrast between his real character and that which had been affixed upon him.

"Confound me," said Darby, "but that's the best alias I have heard this many a day. It's as good as Tom Green's that was hanged, and who always stuck to his name, no matter how often he changed it. At one time it was Ivy, at another Laurel, at another Yew, and so on, poor fellow, until he swung." Skipton, the messenger, took the slip of paper with high glee, and proceeded on his emba.s.sy to Const.i.tution Hill.

He had scarcely been gone, when a tumult reached their ears from outside, in which one voice was heard considerably louder and deeper than the rest; and almost immediately afterwards an old acquaintance of the reader's, to wit, the worthy student, Ambrose Gray, in a very respectable state of intoxication, made his appearance, charged with drunkenness, riot, and a blus.h.i.+ng reluctance to pay his tavern reckoning. Mr. Gray was dragged in at very little expense of ceremony, it must be confessed, but with some prospective damage to his tailor, his clothes having received considerable abrasions in the scuffle, as well as his complexion, which was beautifully variegated with tints of black, blue, and yellow.

"Well, Mr. Gray," said Darby, "back once more I see? Why, you couldn't live without us, I think. What's this now?"

"A deficiency of a.s.sets, most potent," replied Gray, with a hiccough--"unable to meet a rascally tavern reckoning;" and as Mr.

Gray spoke he thrust his tongue into his cheek, intimating by this significant act his high respect for Mr. Darby.

"You had better remember, sir, that you are addressing the senior officer here," said the latter, highly offended.

"Most potent, grave, and reverend senior, I don't forget it; nor that the grand senior can become a most gentlemanly ruffian whenever he chooses. No, senior, I respect your ruffians.h.i.+p, and your ruffians.h.i.+p ought to respect me; for well you wot that many a time before now I've greased that absorbing palm of yours."

"Ah," replied Darby, "the hemp is grown for you, and the rope is purchased that will soon be greased for your last tug. Why didn't you pay your bill, I say?"

"I told you before, most potent, that that fact originated in a deficiency of a.s.sets."

"I rather think, Mr. Gray," said Darby, "that it originated in a very different kind of deficiency--a deficiency of inclination, my buck."

"In both, most reverend senior, and I act on scriptural principles; for what does Job say? 'Base is the slave that patient pays.'"

"Well, my good fellow, if you don't pay, you'll be apt to receive, some fine day, that's all," and here he made a motion with his arm, as if he were administering the cat-o'-nine-tails; "however, this is not my business. Here comes Mrs. Mulroony to make her charge. I accordingly shove you over to Ned Nightcap, the officer for the night."

"Ah!" exclaimed Gray, "I see, most potent, you have operated before.

Kow-de-dow-de-dow, my boy. There was a professional touch in that jerk that couldn't be mistaken: that quiver at the wrist was beautiful, and the position of the arm a perfect triangle. It must have been quite a pleasure to have suffered from such a scientific hand as yours. How do you do again, Mrs. Mulroony? Mrs. Mulroony, I hope you did not come without some refreshment. And you'll withdraw the charge, for the sake of futurity, Mrs. Mulroony."

"If you do, Mrs. Mulroony," said Darby, "I'm afraid you'll have to look to futurity for payment. I mean to that part of it commonly called 'to-morrow comenever.'--Make your charge, ma'am."

Here a pale-faced, sinister-looking old fellow, in a red woollen nightcap, with baggy protuberances hanging under his red bleared eyes, now came to a little half door, inside of which stood his office for receiving all charges against the various delinquents that the Charlies, or watchmen of the period, had conducted to him.

"Here," said he, in a hoa.r.s.e, hollow voice, "what's this--what's this?

Another charge against you, Mr. Gray? Garvy," said he, addressing a watchman, "tell them vagabones that if they don't keep, quiet I'll put them in irons."

This threat was received with a chorus of derision by those to whom it was addressed, and the noise was increased so furiously, that it resembled the clamor of Babel.

"Here, Garvy," said honest Ned, "tickle some of them a bit. Touch up that bullet-headed house-breaker that's drunk--Sam Stancheon, they call him--lave a nate impression of the big kay on his head; he'll undherstand it, you know; and there's Molly Brady, or Emily Howard, as she calls herself, give her a clink on the noddle to stop her jinteelity. Blast her pedigree; nothing will serve her but she must be a lady on our hands. Tell her I'll not lave a copper ring or a gla.s.s brooch on her body if she's not quiet."

The watchman named Garvy took the heavy keys, and big with the deputed authority, swept, like the destroying angel upon a small scale, through the tumultuous crew that were a.s.sembled in this villanous pandemonium, thras.h.i.+ng the unfortunate vagabonds on the naked head, or otherwise, as the case might be, without regard to age, s.e.x, or condition, leaving b.u.mps, welts, cuts, oaths, curses, and execrations, _ad infinitum_, behind him. Owing to this distribution of official justice a partial calm was restored, and the charge of Mrs. Mulroony was opened in form.

"Well, Mrs. Mulroony, what charge is this you have against Misther Gray?"

"Because," replied Ambrose, "I wasn't in possession of a.s.sets to pay her own. Had I met her most iniquitous charge at home, honest Ned, I should have escaped the minor one here. You know of old, Ned, how she lost her conscience one night, about ten years ago; and the poor woman, although she put it in the 'Hue and Cry,' by way of novelty, never got it since.

None of the officers of justice knew of such a commodity; _ergo_, Ned, I suffer."

Here Mr. Ambrose winked at Ned, and touched his breeches pocket significantly, as much as to say, "the bribe is where you know."