Sir Jasper Carew Part 27

Such aid as he could proffer, therefore, promised little, and Dan felt more than half disposed to relinquish it. This, however, should be done with all respect to the feelings of Curtis, and, reflecting in what way the object could best be compa.s.sed, MacNaghten slowly sauntered onwards to the appointed place. It was not without some difficulty that he at last discovered the miserable lane, at the entrance to which a jaunting-car was now waiting,--a mark of aristocratic intercourse which seemed, by the degree of notice it attracted, to show that such equipages rarely visited this secluded region. MacNaghten's appearance, however, soon divided public curiosity with the vehicle, and he was followed by a ragged gathering of every age and s.e.x, who very unceremoniously canva.s.sed the object of his coming, and with a most laudable candor criticised his look and appearance. Although poor and wretched in the extreme, none of them asked alms, nor seemed in the slightest degree desirous of attracting attention to their own dest.i.tution.

"Is it a lodgin' yer honer wants?" whispered an old fellow on crutches, sidling close up to MacNaghten, and speaking in a confidential tone.

"I 've a back room looks out on the Poddle, for two s.h.i.+llings a week, furnished."

"I've the elegant place Mary Murdoch lived in for ten months, yer honer, in spite of all the polis', and might be livin' there yet, if she did n't take into her head to go to Fishamble Street playhouse one night and get arrested," cried a one-eyed old hag, with a drummer's coat on.

"He does n't want a room,--the gentleman is n't the likes of them that comes here," growled out a cripple, who, with the sagacity that often belongs to the maimed, seemed better to divine Dan's motives.

"You 're right, my lad; I was trying to find out where a friend of mine lived,--Mr. Curtis."

"Faix, ould Joe has company this mornin'," said the first speaker. "It was to see him that the fat man came on the jaunting-car."

"Are yiz goin' to try him agen?" said a red-eyed, fierce-looking woman, whose face was a ma.s.s of bruises.

"Sure the gentleman isn't a bailiff nor a polisman," broke in the cripple, rebukingly.

"There's not a man in the Poddle won't stand up for Joe Curtis, if he needs it," cried a powerfully built man, whose energy of manner showed that he was the leader of a party.

"Yer honer's looking for Kitty Nelligan; but she's gone," whispered a young creature, with a baby at her breast; and her eyes overran with tears as she spoke. "She died o' Friday last," added she, in a still fainter voice.

"Did n't ye hear him say it was Mister Joe he wanted? and there's the house he lives in," said another.

"Yis, but he can't go up to him now," said the man who affected to a.s.sume rule amongst them; "the one that came on the car said he was n't to be disturbed on any account."

"Begorra," chimed in the cripple, "if it's a levee, yer honer must wait yer turn!"

"I 'm quite willing," said Dan, good-humoredly; "a man has no right to be impatient in the midst of such pleasant company;" and as he spoke, he seated himself on a low stone bench beside the house door, with, all the ease of one bent on being companionable.

Had MacNaghten a.s.sumed airs of haughty superiority or insolent contempt for that motley a.s.sembly, he never could have attained to the position to which the last words, carelessly uttered as they were, at once raised him. They not only p.r.o.nounced him a gentleman, but a man of the world besides,--the two qualities in the very highest repute in that cla.s.s by which he was surrounded. Instead, therefore, of the familiar tone they had previously used towards him, they now stood silently awaiting him to speak.

"Do the people hereabouts follow any particular trade?" asked Dan.

"'T is straw chairs princ.i.p.ally, your honer," replied the cripple, "is the manufacture of the place; but most of us are on the streets."

"On the streets,--how do you mean?"

"There's Billy Glory, there yonder, he sings ballads; that man with the bit of c.r.a.pe round his hat hawks the papers; more of us cry things lost or stolen; and a few more lives by rows and rucktions at elections, and the like."

"Faix! and," sighed the strong man, "the trade isn't worth the following now. I remember when Barry O'Hara would n't walk the streets without a body-guard,--five in front, and five behind him,--and well paid they were; and I remember Hamilton Brown payin' fifty of us to keep College Green against the Government, on a great Parliament night. Ay, and we did it too!"

"They wor good times for more than you," broke in the woman in the uniform coat; "I made seven-and-sixpence on Ess.e.x Bridge in one night by the 'Shan van voght.'"

"The grandest ballad that ever was written," chimed in an old man with one eye; "does yer honer know it?"

"I'm ashamed to say not perfectly," said Dan, with an air of humility.

"Molly Daly's the one can sing it well, then," cried he; a sentiment re-echoed with enthusiasm by all.

"I'm low and down-hearted of a mornin'," said Molly, bashfully; "but maybe after a naggin and a pint I'll be better."

"Let me have the honor to treat the company," said Dan, handing a crown-piece to one near him.

"If your honor wants to hear Molly right, make her sing Tom Molloy's ballad for the Volunteers," whispered the cripple; and he struck up in a hoa.r.s.e voice,--

"'Was she not a fool, When she took off our wool, To leave us so much of the Leather--the leather!

"'It ne'er entered her pate That a sheepskin will 'bate,'

Will drive a whole nation Together--together.'"

"I'd rather she 'd sing Mosy Ca.s.san's new song on Barry Rutledge,"

growled out a bystander.

"A song on Rutledge?" cried Dan.

"Yes, sir. It was describin' how Watty Carew enticed him downstairs, to kill him. Faix, but there's murder now goin' on upstairs; do ye hear ould Joe, how he's cursin' and swearin'?"

The uproar was a.s.suredly enough to attract attention; for Curtis was heard screaming something at the top of his voice, and as if in high altercation with his visitor. Mac-Naghten accordingly sprang from his seat, and hurried up the stairs at once, followed by the powerful-looking fellow I have already mentioned. As he came near Curtis's chamber, however, the sounds died away and nothing could be heard but the low voices of persons conversing in ordinary tones together.

"Step in here, sir," said the fellow to Dan, unlocking a door at the back of the house; "step in here, and I'll tell you when Mister Joe is ready to see you."

MacNaghten accepted the offer, and now found himself in a mean-looking chamber, scantily furnished, and looking out upon some of those miserable lanes and alleys with which the place abounded. The man retired, locking the door after him, and leaving Dan to his own meditations in solitude.

He was not destined to follow these thoughts long undisturbed, for again he could hear Curtis's voice, which, at first from a distant room, was now to be heard quite close, as he came into the very chamber adjoining that where Dan was.

"Come this way, come this way, I say," cried the old man, in a voice tremulous with pa.s.sion. "If you want to seize, you shall see the chattels at once,--no need to trouble yourself about an inventory! There is my bed; I got fresh straw into the sacking on Sat.u.r.day. The blanket is a borrowed one; that horseman's cloak is my own. There 's not much in that portmanteau," cried he, kicking it with his foot against the wall. "Two ragged s.h.i.+rts and a lambskin waistcoat, and the t.i.tle-deeds of estates that not even your chicanery could get back for me. Take them all, take that old blunderbuss, and tell the Grinder that if I 'd have put it to my head twenty years ago, it would have been mercy, compared to the slow torture of his persecution!"

"My dear Mr. Curtis, my dear sir," interposed a bland, soft voice that Dan at once recognized as belonging to Mr. Crowther, the attorney, "you must allow me once more to protest against this misunderstanding. There is nothing farther from my thoughts at this moment than any measure of rigor or severity towards you."

"What do you mean, then, by that long catalogue of my debts? Why have you hunted me out to show me bills I can never pay, and bonds I can never release?"

"Pray be calm, sir; bear with me patiently, and you will see that my business here this morning is the very reverse of what you suspect it to be. It is perfectly true that Mr. f.a.gan possesses large, very large, claims upon you."

"How incurred, sir?--answer me that. Who can stand forty, fifty, ay, sixty per cent? Has he not succeeded to every acre of my estate? Have I anything, except that settle-bed, that is n't his?"

"You cannot expect me to go at length into these matters, sir," said Crowther, mildly; "they are now bygones, and it is of the future I wish to speak."

"If the past be bad, the future promises to be worse," cried Curtis, bitterly. "It is but sorry mercy to ask me to look forward!"

"I think I can convince you to the contrary, sir, if you vouchsafe me a hearing. I hope to show you that there are in all probability many happy years before you,--years of ease and affluence. Yes, sir, in spite of that gesture of incredulity, I repeat it,--of ease and affluence."

"So, then, they think to buy me at last," broke in the old man. "The scoundrels must have met with few honest men, or they had never dared to make such a proposal. What do the rascals think to bribe me with, eh?

Tell me that."

"You persist in misunderstanding me, sir. I do not come from the Government; I would not presume to wait on you in such a cause!"

"What's the peerage to me? I have no descendants to profit by my infamy.

I cannot barter my honor for my children's greatness! I 'm prouder with that old hat on my head than with the coronet; tell them that. Tell them that Joe Curtis was the only man in all Ireland they never could purchase; tell them that when I had an estate I swore to prosecute for a poacher their ducal Viceroy if he shot a snipe over my lands; and that I 'm the same man now I was then!"