The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain Part 51

Ned, however, was strictly impartial, and declined, with most commendable virtue, to recognize the signal, until he saw whether Mrs.

Mulroony did not understand "generosity" as well as Mr. Gray.

"Misther Gray, I'll thank you to b.u.t.ton your lip, if you plaise. It's all very right, I suppose; but in the manetime let daicent Mrs. Mulroony tell her own story. How is it, ma'am?"

"Faith, plain enough," she replied; "he came in about half past five o'clock, with three or four skips from college--"

"Scamps, Mrs. Mulroony. Be just, be correct, ma'am. We were all gentlemen scamps, Ned, from college. Everybody knows that a college scamp is a respectable character, especially if he be a divinity student, a cla.s.s whom we are proud to place at our head. You are now corrected, Mrs. Mulroony--proceed."

"Well; he tould me to get a dinner for five; but first asked to see what he called 'the bill of hair.'"

"In your hands it is anything but a bill of rights, Mrs. Mulroony."

"I tould him not to trouble himself; that my dinner was as good as another's, which I thought might satisfy him; but instead o' that, he had the a.s.surance to ask me if I could give them hair soup. I knew very well what the skip was at."

"Scamp, ma'am, and you will oblige me."

"For if grief for poor Andy (weeping), that suffered mainly for what he was as innocent of as the unborn child--if grief, an' every one knows it makes the hair to fall; an' afther all it's only a bit of a front I'm wearin';--ah, you villain, it was an ill-hearted cut, that."

"It wasn't a cut did it, Mrs. Mulroony; it fell off naturally, and by instalments--or rather it was a cut, and that was what made you feel it; that youthful old gentleman, Time, gave it a touch with a certain scythe he carries. No such croppy as old Time, Mrs. Mulroony." On concluding, he winked again at old Ned, and touched his pocket as before.

"Mr. Amby, be quiet," said Ned, rather complacently though, "an' let daicent Mrs. Mulroony go on."

"'Well, then,' says he, 'if you haven't, 'hair-soup,' which was as much as to say--makin' his own fun before the strangers--that I ought to boil my very wig to plaise him--my front, I mane, 'maybe,' says he, 'you have oxtail.' Well, flesh and blood could hardly bear that, and I said it was a scandal for him to treat an industrious, un-projected widow in such a way; 'if you want a dinner, Mr. Gray,' says I, 'I can give you and your friends a jacketful of honest corned beef and greens.' Well, my dear--"

At this insinuating expression of tenderness, old Ned, aware, for the first time, that she was a widow, and kept that most convenient of establishments, an eating-house, c.o.c.ked his nightcap, with great spirit and significance, and with an attempt at a leer, which, from the force of habit, made him look upon her rather as the criminal than the accuser, he said--"It was scandalous, Mrs. Mulroony; and it is a sad thing to be unprotected, ma'am; it's a pity, too, to see sich a woman as you are without somebody to take care of her, and especially one that id undherstand swindlin'. But what happened next, ma'am?"

"Why, my dear--indeed, I owe you many thanks for your kindness--you see, my dear,"--the nightcap here seemed to move and erect itself instinctively--"this fellow turns round, and says to the other four skips--'Gentlemen,' says he, 'could you conde--condescend,' I think it was--yes--'could you condescend to dine upon corned beef and greens?

They said, not unless it would oblige him; and then he said it wasn't to oblige him, but to sarve the house he did it. So, to make a long story short, they filled themselves with my victuals, drank seven tumblers of punch each, kept playin' cards the whole night, and then fell a fightin'--smashed gla.s.s, delft, and everything; and when it was mornin', slipped out, one by one, till I caught my skip here, the last of them--"

"Scamp, Mrs. Roony; a gentleman scamp, known to every one as a most respectable character on town."

"When I caught him going off without payment, he fairly laughed in my face, and offered to toss me."

"Oh, the villain!" said Ned; "I only wish I had been there, Mrs.

Mulroony, and you wouldn't have wanted what I am sorry to see you do want--a protector. The villain, to go to toss such a woman--to go to take such scandalous liberties! Go on, ma'am--go on, my dear Mrs.

Mulroony."

"Well, my dear, he offered, as I said, to toss me for it--double or quits--and when I wouldn't stand that, he asked me if I would allow him to kiss it in, at so many kisses a-day; but I told him that coin wouldn't pa.s.s wid me."

"He's a swindler, ma'am; no doubt of it, and you'll never be safe till you have some one to protect you that understands swindlin' and imposition. Well, ma'am--well, my dear ma'am, what next?"

"Why, he then attempted to escape; but as I happened to have a stout ladle in my hand, I thought a good basting wouldn't do him any harm, and while I was layin' on him two sailors came in, and they took him out of my hands."

"Out of the frying-pan into the fire, you ought to say, Mrs. Mulroony."

"So he and they fought, and smashed another lot of gla.s.s, and then I set out and charged him on the watch. Oh, murdher sheery--to think the way my beautiful beef and greens went!"

Here Mr. Ambrose, approaching Mrs. Mulroony, whispered--"My dear Mrs.

Mulroony, remember one word--futurity; heir apparent--heir direct; so be moderate, and a short time will place you in easy circ.u.mstances. The event that's coming will be a stunner."

"What's that he's sayin' to you, my dear Mrs. Mulroony?" asked Ned; "don't listen to him, he'll only soohdher and palaver you. I'll take your charge, and lock him up."

"Darby," said Mr. Gray, now approaching that worthy, "a single word with you--we understand one another--I intended to bribe old Ned, the villain; but you shall have it."

"Very good, it's a bargain," replied the virtuous Darby; "fork out."

"Here, then, is ten s.h.i.+llings, and bring me out of it."

Darby privately pocketed the money, and moving toward Ned, whispered to him--"Don't take the charge for a few minutes. I'll fleece them both.

Amby has given me half-a-crown; another from her, and then, half and half between us. Mrs. Mulroony, a word with you. Listen--do you wish to succeed in this business?"

"To be sure I do; why not?"

"Well, then, if you do, slip me five s.h.i.+llings, or you're dished, like one of your own-dinners, and that Amby Gray will slice you to pieces.

Ned's his friend at heart, I tell you."

"Well, but you'll see me rightified?"

"Hand the money, ma'am; do you know who you're speaking to? The senior of the office."

On receiving the money, the honest senior whispers to the honest officer of the night--"A crown from both, that is, half from each; and now act as you like; but if you take the widow's charge, we'll have a free plate, at all events, whenever we call to see her, you know."

Honest Ned, feeling indignant that he was not himself the direct recipient of the bribes, and also anxious to win favor in the widow's eyes, took the charge against Mr. Gray, who was very soon locked up, with the "miscellanies," in the black hole, until bail could be procured.

On finding that matters had gone against him, Gray, who, although unaffected in speech, was yet rather tipsy, a.s.sumed a look of singular importance, as if to console himself for the degradation he was about to undergo; he composed his face into an expression that gave a ludicrous travesty of dignity.

"Well," said he, with a solemn swagger, nodding his head from side to side as he spoke, in order to impress what he uttered with a more mysterious emphasis--"you are all acting in ignorance, quite so; little you know who the person is that's before you; but it doesn't signify--I am somebody, at all events."

"A gentleman in disguise," said a voice from the black hole. "You'll find some of your friends here."

"You are right, my good fellow--you are perfectly right;" said Ambrose, nodding with drunken gravity, as before; "high blood runs in my veins, and time will soon tell that; I shall stand and be returned for the town of Ballytrain, as soon as there comes a dissolution; I'm bent on that."

"Bravo! hurra! a very proper member you'll make for it," from the black hole.

"And I shall have the Augean stables of these corrupt offices swept of their filth. Ned, the scoundrel, shall be sent to the right about; Mr.

Darby, for his honesty, shall have each wrist embraced by a namesake."

Here he was shoved by Garvy, the watchman, head foremost into the black hole, after having received an impulse from behind, kindly intended to facilitate his ingress, which, notwithstanding his drunken ambition, the boast of his high blood, and mighty promises, was made with extraordinary want of dignity.

Although we have described this scene nearly in consecutive order, without the breaks and interruptions which took place whilst it proceeded, yet the reader should imagine to himself the outrage, the yelling, the clamor, the by-battles, and scurrilous contests in the lowest description of blackguardism with which it was garnished; thus causing it to occupy at least four times the period we have ascribed to it. The simple-minded priest, who could never have dreamt of such an exhibition, scarcely knew whether he was asleep or awake, and sometimes asked himself whether it was not some terrible phantasm by which he was startled and oppressed. The horrible impress of naked and hardened villany--the light and mirthful delirium of crime--the wanton manifestations of vice, in all its shapes, and the unblus.h.i.+ng front of debauchery and profligacy--const.i.tuted, when brought together in one hideous group, a sight which made his heart groan for human nature on the one hand, and the corruption of human law on the other.

"The contamination of vice here," said he to himself, "is so concentrated and deadly, that innocence or virtue could not long resist its influence. Alas! alas!"

Old Dunphy now made his appearance; but he had scarcely time to shake hands with the priest, when he heard himself addressed from between the bars of Gray's limbo, with the words,

"I say, old Corbet, or Dunphy, or whatever the devil they call you; here's a relation of yours by the mother's side only, you old dog--mark that; here I am, Ambrose Gray, a gentleman in disguise, as you well know; and I want you to bail me out."

"An' a respectable way you ax it," said Dunphy, putting on his spectacles, and looking at him through the bars.