‘ ; erat AUS vas 2 Y Lah ; Hee E ry RMA s ho oh \ 48 hy aa te as pane L4 Ppl oie. payee eee oe a2 ee Pree Sa ‘pS wir See uty 2 oie PINT SEMA 7 PHEW ie. ne Sas ied, 32 xe © Feelin Ses VW Sina ISas Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. Theft, mutilation, and underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result in dismissal from the University. University of Illinois Library iy - , 10L L161— 0-1096 ) ’ 4 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2021 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign — https://archive.org/details/memoirsofbarrylyO0thac_3 a ; f THE MEMOLRS BARRY LYNDON, Esa. WRITTEN BY HIMSELF AND DPE the eek BOOTS By WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY WITH ILLUSTRATIONS, BY J. Eb. MILLAIS, RA.. GEORGE CRUIKSHANKE, AND W. RALSTON LONDON pM EUDER, & CO. r5 WATERLOO PLACE 1885 <{ = ba = CONTENTS. co : GHAPTER. III. 1 MAKE A FALSE START IN THE GENTEEL WORLD 7 . : ora 49 7 CHAPTER IV. N IN WHICH BARRY TAKES A NEAR VIEW OF MILITARY GLORY. Barts "64 \. % CHAPTER V. < = 8 IN WHICH BARRY TRIES TO REMOVE AS FAR FROM MILITARY GLORY nN AS POSSIBLE . : = 14% iN wy fe CHAPTER VI; : THE CRIMP WAGGON--MILITARY EPISODES : ; : SITLL St Py CHAPTER VIL. » (10 vill CONTENTS. CHAPTER VIII. BARRY BIDS ADIEU TO THE MILITARY PROFESSION. . «»« « « CHAPTER IX, I APPEAR IN A MANNER BECOMING MY NAME AND LINEAGE ° ° CHAPTER X, MORE RUNS OF LUCK e . ‘Z . . . e e e e CHAPTER XI. IN WHICH THE LUCK GOES AGAINST BARRY : ° : eufitars CHAPTER XII. CONTAINS THE TRAGICAL HISTORY OF THE PRINCESS OF X—— ee CHAPTER XIII. I CONTINUE MY CAREER AS A MAN OF FASHION. : . : : CHAPTER XIV. I RETURN TO IRELAND, AND EXHIBIT MY SPLENDOUR AND GENEROSITY IN THAT KINGDOM . : ° ° : ° ° . sees CHAPTER XV. I PAY COURT TO MY LADY LYNDON . ; : ° : , CHAPTER XVI. I PROVIDE NOBLY FOR MY FAMILY AND ATTAIN THE HEIGHT OF MY (SEEMING) GOOD FORTUNE . . ° e . . . . CHAPTER XVII. I APPEAR AS AN ORNAMENT OF ENGLISH SOCIETY . . ° . CHAPTER XVIII. IN WHICH MY GOOD FORTUNE BEGINS TO WAVER . . e ° CHAPTER XIX. CONCLUSION . ‘ : ; : ‘ , : . : ; : PAGE 122 130 143 i161 170 191 209 237 254 276 301 CONTENTS. ix THE FATAL BOOTS. PAGE JANUARY—THE BIRTH OF THE YEAR : . . . i 5S 9 phys FEBRUARY—CUTTING WEATHER . se) 6 ° . . ‘ - 341 MARCH—SHOWERY . : . . . . ° . . » « 846 APRIL—FOOLING .. : ; . . : . . . : . ool MAY—RESTORATION DAY. r . . . . . . 5 6 Bue JUNE—MARROWBONES AND CLEAVERS . . : . . . - 361 JULY-—SUMMARY PROCEEDINGS . . . : ' . - + 366 AUGUST—DOGS HAVE THEIR DAYS ° . : . . . — By SEPLEMBER—PLUCKING A GOOSE . : . = . . sa orG OCTOBER—MARS AND VENUS IN OPPOSITION. . : : . - 831 KOVEMBER—A GENERAL POST DELIVERY . ° . . . 0 e 386 ) DECEMBER-——“ THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT ” ° 0 ° o 3al a 19 f atthe ree od ae * re fae etsy ie ae oe. Liles ee O ese AVES. THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. A RHYME FOR ARISTOTLE ? : . : . Toface page 17 BARRY LYNDON’S FIRST LOVE . A . - ha 7 20 238 THE INTERCEPTED LETTERS 2 ° ° > + 2 ° ” THE LAST DAYS OF BARRY LYNDON . ° ° ° 2 ” 331 THE FATAL BOOTS. JANUARY—THE BIRTH OF THE YEAR ° e > ° » To face page 339 FEBRUARY—CUTTING WEATHER . ; ; A : ete ” 345 MARCH—SHOWERY . , ; : ‘ 5 : ; ; 7 350 APRIL—FOOLING . : ; é : ; : : a4 i 354 MAY—RESTORATION DAY . ; : : : ° : 4 3 359 JUNE—MARROWBONES AND CLEAVERS . : : : Mh ” 364 JULY—SUMMARY PROCEEDINGS. : ; : - - : rf 369 xl LIST! OF PLATES: AUGUST—DOGS HAVE THEIR DAYS . ‘ SEPTEMBER—PLUCKING A GOOSE . . . OCIOBER—-MARS AND VENUS IN OPPOSITION . NOVEMBER—A GENERAL POST DELIVERY . . DECEMBER—“‘ THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT” To fuce page 375 ” ”) ” ” 380 382 390 394 THE MEMOLRS OF Lye Age leve ua eY IN 1D) ON THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, Esa. CHAPTER I. MY PEDIGREE AND FAMILY—UNDERGO THE INFLUENCE OF THE TENDER PASSION. INCE the days of Adam, there has been hardly a mischief done in this world but a woman has been at the bottom of it. Ever since ours was a family (and that must be very near Adam’s time,—so old, noble, and illustrious are the Barrys, as everybody knows) women have played a mighty part with the destinies of our race. I presume that there is no gentleman in Europe that has not heard of the house of Barry of Barryogue, of the kingdom of Ireland, than which a more famous name is not to be found in Gwillim or D’Hozier ; and though, as a man of the world, I have learned to despise heartily the claims of some pretenders to high birth who have no more genealogy than the lacquey who cleans my 4 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. boots, and though I laugh to utter scorn the boasting of many of my countrymen, who are all for descending from kings of Ireland, and talk of a domain no bigger than would feed a pig as if it were a principality; yet truth compels me to assert that my family was the noblest of the island, and, perhaps, of the universal world; while their possessions, now insignificant and torn from us by war, by treachery, by the loss of time, by ancestral extravagance, by adhesion to the old faith and monarch, were formerly prodigious, and embraced many counties, at a time when Ireland was vastly more prosperous than now. I would assume the Irish crown over my coat-of- arms, but that there are so many silly pretenders to that distinction who bear it and render it common. Who knows, but for the fault of a woman, I might have been wearing it now? You start with incredulity. I say, why not? Had there been a gallant chief to lead my country- men, instead of puling knaves who bent the knee to King Richard II., they might have been freemen; had there been a resolute leader to meet the murderous ruffian Oliver Crom- well, we should have shaken off the English for ever. But there was no Barry in the field against the usurper; on the contrary, my ancestor, Simon de Bary, came over with the first-named monarch, and married the daughter of the then King of Munster, whose sons in battle he pitilessly slew. In Oliver’s time it was too late for a chief of the name of Barry to lift up his war-cry against that of the murderous brewer. We were princes of the land no longer; our unhappy race had lost its possessions a century previously, and by the most shameful treason. This I know to be the fact, for my mother has often told me the story, and besides had worked it in a worsted pedigree which hung up in the yellow saloon at Barryville where we lived. That very estate which the Lyndons now possess in Ireland was once the property of my race. Rory Barry of Barryogue owned it in Elizabeth’s time, and half Munster beside. The Barry was always in feud with the O’Mahonys in those times; and, as it happened, a certain English colonel passed through the former’s country with a body of men-at-arms, on the very day when the O’Mahonys had made an inroad upon our ter- MY ANCESTORS. 5 ritories, and carried off a frightful plunder of our flocks and herds. This young Englishman, whose name was Roger Lyndon, Linden, or Lyndaine, having been most hospitably received by the Barry, and finding him just on the point of carrying an inroad into the O’Mahonys’ land, offered the aid of himself and his lances, and behaved himself so well, as it appeared, that the O’Mahonys were entirely overcome, all the Barry’s property restored, and with it, says the old chronicle, twice as much of the O’Mahonys’ goods and cattle. It was the setting in of the winter season, and the young soldier was pressed by the Barry not to quit his house of Barryogue, and remained there during several months, his men being quartered with Barry’s own gallowglasses, man by man in the cottages round about. They conducted themselves, as is their wont, with the most intolerable insolence towards the Irish; so much so, that fights and murders continually ensued, and the people vowed to destroy them. The Barry’s son (from whom I descend) was as hostile to the English as any other man on his domain; and, as they would not go when bidden, he and his friends consulted to- gether and determined on destroying these English to a man. But they had let a woman into their plot, and this was the Barry’s daughter. She was in love with the English Lyndon, and broke the whole secret to him; and the dastardly English prevented the just massacre of themselves by falling on the Irish, and destroying Phaudrig Barry, my ancestor, and many hundreds of his men. ‘The cross at Barrycross near Carrig- nadihioul is the spot where the odious butchery took place. Lyndon married the daughter of Roderick Barry, and claimed the estate which he left; and though the descendants of Phaudrig were alive, as indeed they are in my person,* on appealing to the English courts, the estate was awarded to the Englishman, as has ever been the case where English and Irish were concerned. Thus, had it not been for the weakness of a woman, I * As we have never been able to find proofs of the marriage of my ancestor Phaudrig with his wife, I make no doubt that Lyndon destroyed the contract, and murdered the priest and witnesses of the marriage.—B. L. 6 THE MEMOIRS OF, BARRY LYNDON, ESC, should have been born to the possession of those very estates which afterwards came to me by merit, as you shall hear. But to proceed with my family history. My father was well known to the best circles in this king- dom as in that of Ireland, under the name of Roaring Harry Barry. He was bred like many other young sons of genteel families to the profession of the law, being articled to a cele- brated attorney of Sackville Street in the city of Dublin; and, from his great genius and aptitude for learning, there is no doubt he would have made an eminent figure in his profession, had not his social qualities, love of field-sports, and extra- ordinary graces of manner, marked him out for a higher sphere. While he was attorney’s clerk he kept seven race- horses, and hunted regularly both with the Kildare and Wick- low hunts; and rode on his grey horse Endymion that famous match against Captain Punter, which is still remembered by lovers of the sport, and of which I caused a splendid picture to be made and hung over my dining-hall mantelpiece at Castle Lyndon. A year afterwards he had the honour of riding that very horse Endymion before his late Majesty King George II. at Newmarket, and won the plate there and the attention of the august sovereign. Although he was only the second son of our family, my dear father came naturally into the estate (now miserably reduced to 4001. a year); for my grandfather’s eldest son Cornelius Barry (called the Chevalier Borgne, from a wound which he received in Germany) remained constant to the old religion in which our family was educated, and not only served abroad with credit, but against His-Most Sacred Majesty George II. in the unhappy Scotch disturbances in °45. We shall hear more of the Chevalier hereafter. For the conversion of my father I have to thank my dear mother, Miss Bell Brady, daughter of Ulysses Brady of Castle Brady, county Kerry, Esquire and J.P. She was the most beautiful woman of her day in Dublin, and universally called the Dasher there. Seeing her at the assembly, my father became passionately attached to her; but her soul was above marrying a papist or an attorney’s clerk; and so for the love of her, the good old laws being then in force, my dear father Lf AM LEFT AN ORPHAN. 7 slipped into my uncle Cornelius’s shoes and took the family estate. Besides the force of my mother’s bright eyes, several persons, and of the genteelest society too, contributed to this happy change; and I have often heard my mother laughingly tell the story of my father’s recantation, which was solemnly pronounced at the tavern in the company of Sir Dick Ring- wood, Lord Bagwig, Captain Punter, and two or three other young sparks of the town. Roaring Harry won 3800 pieces that very night at faro, and laid the necessary information the next morning against his brother ; but his conversion caused a coolness between him and my uncle Corney, who joined the rebels in consequence. This great difficulty being settled, my Lord Bagwig lent my father his own yacht, then lying at the Pigeon House, and the handsome Bell Brady was induced to run away with him to England, although her parents were against the match, and her lovers (as I have heard her tell many thousands of times) were among the most numerous and the most wealthy in all the kingdom of Ireland. They were married at the Savoy, and my grandfather dying very soon, Harry Barry, Esquire, took possession of his paternal property and supported our illustrious name with credit in London. He pinked the famous Count Tiercelin behind Montague House, he was a member of ‘** White’s,” and a frequenter of all the chocolate-houses ; and my mother, likewise, made no small figure. At length, after his great day of triumph before His Sacred Majesty at New- market, Harry's fortune was just on the point of being made, for the gracious monarch promised to provide for him. But alas! he was taken in charge by another monarch, whose will will have no delay or denial,—by Death, namely, who seized upon my father at Chester races, leaving me a helpless orphan. Peace be to his ashes! He was not faultless, and dissipated all our princely family property; but he was as brave a fellow as ever tossed a bumper or called a main, and he drove his coach-and-six like a man of fashion. I do not know whether his gracious Majesty was much affected by this sudden demise of my father, though my mother says he shed some royal tears on the occasion. But they helped us to nothing: and all that was found in the 8 LAE MEMOIRS OF) BARRY “LYNDON, FESC. house for the wife and creditors was a purse of ninety guineas, which my dear mother naturally took, with the family plate, and my father’s wardrobe and her own; and putting them into our great coach, drove off to Holyhead, whence she took shipping for Ireland. My father’s body accompanied us in the finest hearse and plumes money could buy; for though the husband and wife had quarrelled repeatedly in life, yet at my father’s death his high-spirited widow forgot all her differences, gave him the grandest funeral that had been seen for many a day, and erected a monument over his remains (for which I subsequently paid), which declared him to be the wisest, purest, and most affectionate of men. In performing these sad duties over her deceased lord, the widow spent almost every guinea she had, and, indeed, would have spent a great deal more, had she discharged one-third of the demands which the ceremonies occasioned. But the people around our old house of Barryogue, although they did not lke my father for his change of faith, yet stood by him at this moment, and were for exterminating the mutes sent by Mr. Plumer of London with the lamented remains. The monument and vault in the church were then, alas! all that remained of my vast possessions; for my father had sold every stick of the property to one Notley, an attorney, and we received but a cold welcome in his house—a miserable old tumble-down place it was.* The splendour of the funeral did not fail to increase the widow Barry’s reputation as a woman of spirit and fashion ; and when she wrote to her brother Michael Brady, that worthy gentleman immediately rode across the country to fling himself in her arms, and to invite her in his wife’s name to Castle Brady. Mick and Barry had quarrelled, as all men will, and very high words had passed between them during Barry’s court- ship of Miss Bell. When he took her off, Brady swore he * In another part of his memoir Mr. Barry will be found to describe this mansion as one of the most splendid palaces in Europe; but this is a practice not unusual with his nation; and with respect to the Irish principality claimed by him, it is known that My. Barry’s grandfather was an attorney and maker of his own fortune. MRS.BARR YE AL CASTLETBSRADY. 9 would never forgive Barry or Bell; but coming to London in the year ’46, he fell in once more with Roaring Harry, and lived in his fine house in Clarges Street, and lost a few pieces to him at play, and broke a watchman’s head or two in his company,—all of which reminiscences endeared Bell and her son very much to the good-hearted gentleman, and he received us both with open arms. Mrs. Barry did not, perhaps wisely, at first make known to her friends what was her condition ; but arriving in a huge gilt coach with enormous armorial bearings, was taken by her sister-in-law and the rest of the county for a person of considerable property and distinction. For a time, then, and as was right and proper, Mrs. Barry gave the law at Castle Brady. She ordered the servants to and fro, and taught them, what indeed they much wanted, a little London neatness; and ‘‘ English Redmond,” as I was called, was treated like a little lord, and had a maid and a footman to himself; and honest Mick paid their wages,—which C 19 IO THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. was much more than he was used to do for his own domestics, —doing all in his power to make his sister decently comfort- able under her afflictions. Mamma, in return, determined that, when her affairs were arranged, she would make her kind brother a handsome allowance for her son’s maintenance and her own; and promised to have her handsome furniture brought over from Clarges Street to adorn the somewhat dilapidated rooms of Castle Brady. But it turned out that the rascally landlord seized upon every chair and table that ought by rights to have belonged to the widow. The estate to which I was heir was in the hands of rapacious creditors; and the only means of subsistence remaining to the widow and child was a rent-charge of 501. upon my Lord Bagwig’s property, who had many turf-dealings with the deceased. And so my dear mother’s liberal intentions towards her brother were of course never fulfilled. It must be confessed, very much to the discredit of Mrs. Brady of Castle Brady, that when her sister-in-law’s poverty was thus made manifest, she forgot all the respect which she had been accustomed to pay her, instantly turned my maid and man-servant out of doors, and told Mrs. Barry that she might follow them as soon as she chose. Mrs. Mick was of a low family, and a sordid way of thinking; and after about a couple of years (during which she had saved almost all her little income) the widow complied with Madam Brady’s desire. At the same time, giving way to a just, though prudently dissimulated resentment, she made a vow that she would never enter the gates of Castle Brady while the lady of the house remained alive within them. | She fitted up her new abode with much economy and con- siderable taste, and never, for all her poverty, abated a jot of the dignity which was her due, and which all the neighbourhood awarded to her. How, indeed, could they refuse respect to a lady who had lived in London, frequented the most fashionable society there, and had been presented (as she solemnly declared) at Court? These advantages gave her a right which seems to be pretty unsparingly exercised in Ireland by those natives who have it,—the right of looking down with scorn upon all persons who haye not had the opportunity of quitting the MY WIDOWED MOTHER. II mother-country and inhabiting England for a while. Thus, whenever Madam Brady appeared abroad in a new dress, her sister-in-law would say, ‘‘ Poor creature! how can it be expected that she should know anything of the fashion ?”’ And though pleased to be called the handsome widow, as she was, Mrs. Barry was still better pleased to be called the English widow. Mrs. Brady, for her part, was not slow to reply: she used to say that the defunct Barry was a bankrupt and a beggar ; and as for the fashionable society which he saw, he saw it from my Lord Bagwig’s side-table, whose flatterer and hanger- on he was known to be. Regarding Mrs. Barry, the lady of Castle Brady would make insinuations still more painful. However, why should we allude to these charges, or rake up private scandal of a hundred years old? It was in the reign of George II. that the above-named personages lived and quarrelled; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now; and do not the Sunday papers and the courts of law supply us every week with more novel and interesting slander ? At any rate, it must be allowed that Mrs. Barry, after her husband’s death and her retirement, lived in such a way. as to defy slander. For whereas Bell Brady had been the gayest eirl in the whole county of Wexford, with half the bachelors at her feet, and plenty of smiles and encouragement for every one of them, Bell Barry adopted a dignified reserve that almost amounted to pomposity, and was as starch as any Quakeress. Many a man renewed his offers to the widow, who had been smitten by the charms of the spinster ; but Mrs. Barry refused all offers of marriage, declaring that she lived now for her son only, and for the memory of her departed saint. “Saint forsooth!” said ill-natured Mrs. Brady. ‘‘ Harry Barry was as big a sinner as ever was known; and ’tis notorious that he and Bell hated each other. If she won’t marry now, depend on it, the artful woman has a husband in her eye for all that, and only waits until Lord Bagwig is a widower.” And suppose she did, what then? Was not the widow of a Barry fit to marry with any lord of England? and was it 12 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. not always said that a woman was to restore the fortunes of the Barry family? If my mother fancied that she was to be that woman, I think it was a perfectly justifiable notion on her part; for the Earl (my godfather) was always most atten- tive to her: I never knew how deeply this notion of advancing my interests in the world had taken possession of Mamma’s mind, until his Lordship’s marriage in the year ’57 with Miss Goldmore, the Indian nabob’s rich daughter. Meanwhile we continued to reside at Barryville, and, con- sidering the smallness of our income, kept up a wonderful state. Of the half-dozen families that formed the congrega- tion at Brady’s Town, there was not a single person whose appearance was so respectable as that of the widow, who, ~ though she always dressed in mourning, in memory of her deceased husband, took care that her garments should be made so as to set off her handsome person to the greatest advantage; and, indeed, I think, spent six hours out of every day in the week in cutting, trimming, and altering them to the fashion. She had the largest of hoops and the handsomest of furbelows, and once a month (under my Lord Bagwig’s cover) would come a letter from London containing the newest ac- counts of the fashions there. Her complexion was so brilliant that she had no call to use rouge, as was the mode in those days. No, she left red and white, she said (and hence the reader may imagine how the two ladies hated each other) to Madame Brady, whose yellow complexion no plaster could alter. In a word, she was so accomplished a beauty, that all the women in the country took pattern by her, and the young fellows from ten miles round would ride over to Castle Brady church to have the sight of her. But if (like every other woman that ever I saw or read of) she was proud of her beauty, to do her justice she was still more proud of her son, and has said a thousand times to me that I was the handsomest young fellow in the world. This is a matter of taste. A man of sixty may, however, say what he was at fourteen without much vanity, and I must say I think there was some cause for my mother’s opinion. The good soul’s pleasure was to dress me; and on Sundays and holidays I turned out in a velvet coat with a silver-hilted sword MY WIDOWED MOTHER. 13 by my side and a gold garter at my knee, as fine as any lord in the land. My mother worked me several most splendid waistcoats, and I had plenty of lace for my ruffles, and a fresh riband to my hair, and as we walked to church on Sundays, even envious Mrs. Brady was found to allow that there was not a prettier pair in the kingdom. Of course, too, the lady of Castle Brady used to sneer, because on these occasions a certain Tim, who used to be called my valet, followed me and my mother to church, carry- ing a huge prayer-book and a cane, and dressed in the livery of one of our own fine footmen from Clarges Street, which, as Tim was a bandy-shanked little fellow, did not exactly become him. But, though poor, we were gentlefolks, and not to be sneered out of these becoming appendages to our rank; and so would march up the aisle to our pew with as much state and gravity as the Lord Lieutenant’s lady and son might do. When there, my mother would give the responses and amens in a loud dignified voice that was delightful to hear, and, besides, had a fine loud voice for singing, which art she had perfected in London under a fashionable teacher; and she would exercise her talent in such a way that you would hardly hear any other voice of the little congregation which chose to join in the psalm. In fact, my mother had great gifts in every way, and believed herself to be one of the most beautiful, ac- complished, and meritorious persons in the world. Often and often has she talked to me and the neighbours regarding her own humility and piety, pointing them out in such a way that I would defy the most obstinate to disbelieve her. When we left Castie Brady we came to occupy a house in Brady’s Town, which Mamma christened Barryville. I con- fess it was but a small place, but, indeed, we made the most of it. I have mentioned the family pedigree which hung up in the drawing-room, which Mamma called the yellow saloon, and my bedroom was called the pink bedroom, and hers the orange-tawny apartment (how well I remember them all!) ; and at dinner-time Tim regularly rang a great bell, and we each had a silver tankard to drink from, and mother boasted with justice that I had as good a bottle of claret by my side as any squire of the land. So indeed I had, but I was not, of 14 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. course, allowed at my tender years to drink any of the wine; which thus attained a considerable age, even in the decanter. Uncle Brady (in spite of the family quarrel) found out the above fact one day by calling at Barryville at dinner-time, and unluckily tasting the liquor. You should have seen how he sputtered and made faces! But the honest gentleman was not particular about his wine, or the company in which he drank it. He would get drunk, indeed, with the parson or the priest indifferently ; with the latter, much to my mother’s in- dignation, for, as a true blue Nassauite, she heartily despised all those of the old faith, and would scarcely sit down in the room with a benighted Papist. But the squire had no such scruples; he was, indeed, one of the easiest, idlest, and best- natured fellows that ever lived, and many an hour would he pass with the lonely widow when he was tired of Madam Brady at home. He liked me, he said, as much as one of his own sons, and at length, after the widow had held out for a couple of years, she agreed to allow me to return to the castle; though, for herself, she resolutely kept the oath which she had made with regard to her sister-in-law. The very first day I returned to Castle Brady my trials may be said, in a manner, to have begun. My cousin, Master Mick, a huge monster of nineteen (who hated me, and I promise you I returned the compliment), insulted me at dinner about my mother’s poverty, and made all the girls of the family titter. So when we went to the stables, whither Mick always went for his pipe of tobacco after dinner, I told him a piece of my mind, and there was a fight for at least ten minutes, during which I stood to him like a man, and blacked his left eye, though I was myself only twelve years old at the time. Of course he beat me, but a beating makes only a small impression on a lad of that tender age, as I had proved many times in battles with the ragged Brady’s Town boys before, not one of whom, at my time of life, was my match. My uncle was very much pleased when he heard of my gal- lantry ; my cousin Nora brought brown paper and vinegar for my nose, and I went home that night with a pint of claret under my girdle, not a little proud, let me tell you, at having held my own against Mick so long. MY EDUCATION AND ACCOMPLISHMENTS. 15 And though he persisted in his bad treatment of me, and used to cane me whenever I fell in his way, yet I was very happy now at Castle Brady with the company there, and my cousins, or some of them, and the kindness of my uncle, with whom | became a prodigious favourite. He bought a colt for me, and taught me to ride. He took me out coursing and fowling, and instructed me to shoot flying. And at length I was released from Mick’s persecution, for his brother, Master Ulick, returning from Trinity College, and hating his elder brother, as is mostly the way in families of fashion, took me under his protection ; and from that time, as Ulick was a deal bigger and stronger than Mick, I, English Redmond, as I was called, was left alone ; except when the former thought fit to thrash me, which he did whenever he thought proper. Nor was my learning neglected in the ornamental parts, for I had an uncommon natural genius for many things, and soon topped in accomplishments most of the persons around me. I had a quick ear and a fine voice, which my mother cultivated to the best of her power, and she taught me to step a minuet gravely and gracefully, and thus laid the foundation of my future success in life. The common dances I learned (as, perhaps, I ought not to confess) in the servants’ hall, which, you may be sure, was never without a piper, and where I was considered unrivalled both at a hornpipe and a jig. _ In the matter of book-learning, I had always an uncommon taste for reading plays and novels, as the best part of a gen- tleman’s polite education, and never let a pedlar pass the village, if I had a penny, without having a ballad or two from him. As for your dull grammar, and Greek and Latin and stuff, I have always hated them from my youth upwards, and said, very unmistakably, I would have none of them. This I proved pretty clearly at the age of thirteen, when my aunt Biddy Brady’s legacy of 100/. came in to Mamma, who thought to employ the sum on my education, and sent me to Doctor Tobias Tickler’s famous academy at Ballywhacket —Backwhacket, as my uncle used to call it. But six weeks after [ had been consigned to his reverence, I suddenly made my appearance again at Castle Brady, having walked forty 16 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. miles from the odious place, and left the Doctor in a state near upon apoplexy. The fact was, that at taw, prison-bars, or boxing, I was at the head of the school, but could not be brought to excel in the classics ; and after having been flogged seven times without its doing me the least good in my Latin, I refused to submit altogether (finding it useless) to an eighth application of the rod. ‘Try some other way, sir,” said I, when he was for horsing me once more; but he wouldn't; whereon, and to defend myself, I flung a slate at him, and knocked down a Scotch usher with a leaden inkstand. All the lads huzzaed at this, and some of the servants wanted to stop me; but taking out a large clasp-knife that my cousin Nora had given me, I swore I would plunge it into the waist- coat of the first man who dared to baulk me, and faith they let me pass on. I slept that night twenty miles off Bally- whacket, at the house of a cottier, who gave me potatoes and milk, and to whom I gave a hundred guineas after, when I came to visit Ireland in my days of greatness. I wish I had the money now. But what’s the use of regret? I have had many a harder bed than that I shall sleep on to-night, and many a scantier meal than honest Phil Murphy gave me on the evening I ran away from school. So six weeks’ was all the schooling I ever got. And I say this to let parents know the value of it; for though I have met more learned book- worms in the world, especially a great hulking, clumsy, blear-eyed old doctor, whom they called Johnson, and who lived in a court off Fleet Street, in London, yet I pretty soon silenced him in an argument (at ‘“‘ Button’s Coffee-house’’) ; and in that, and in poetry, and what I call natural philosophy, or the science of life, and in riding, music, leaping, the small- sword, the knowledge of a horse, or a main of cocks, and the manners of an accomplished gentleman and a man of fashion, I may say for myself that Redmond Barry has seldom found his equal. ‘‘ Sir,” said I to Mr. Johnson, on the occasion I allude to—he was accompanied by a Mr. Buswell of Scotland, and I was presented to the club by a Mr. Goldsmith, a country- man of my own—* Sir,” said I, in reply to the schoolmaster’s great thundering quotation in Greek, ‘‘ you fancy you know a ereat deal more than me, because you quote your Aristotle ey a eA ae ee er 1 ye i iv aL a rong es Cit i aren ct) ae Py chan oe ae Se © e i Nie be PL (yA Pore 2 a 5 9° : Pr) oe A RHYME FOR ARISTOTLE. fl SILENCE* DOCTOR JOHNSONCATLT BUTTON’S. 17 and your Pluto; but can you tell me which horse will win at Kpsom Downs next week ?— Can you run six miles without breathing ?—Can you shoot the ace of spades ten times with- out missing? If so, talk about Aristotle and Pluto to me.” ‘‘TD’ye knaw who ye’re speaking to?” roared out the Scotch gentleman, Mr. Buswell, at this. ‘‘Hold your tongue, Mr. Boswell,” said the old school- master. ‘‘I had no right to brag of my Greek to the gentle- man, and he has answered me very well.” ‘** Doctor,” says I, looking waggishly at him, “do you know ever a rhyme for Aristotle?” ‘* Port, if you plaise,” says Mr. Goldsmith, laughing. And we had six rhymes for Aristotle before we left the coffee-house that evening. It became a regular joke afterwards when I told the story, and at ‘‘ White’s” or the ‘‘ Cocoa-tree”’ you would hear the wags say, ‘‘ Waiter, bring me one of Captain Barry’s rhymes for Aristotle.” Once, when I was in liquor at the latter place, young Dick Sheridan called me a great Stag- gerite, a joke which I could never understand. But I am wandering from my story, and must get back to home, and dear old Ireland again. I have made acquaintance with the best in the land since, and my manners are such, I have said, as to make me the equal of them all; and, perhaps, you will wonder how a country boy, as I was, educated amongst Irish squires, and their dependants of the stable and farm, should arrive at possessing such elegant manners as I was indisputably allowed to have. I had, the fact is, a very valuable instructor in the person of an old gamekeeper, who had served the French king at Fontenoy, and who taught me the dances and customs, and a smattering of the language of that country, with the use of the sword, both small and broad. Many and many a long mile I have trudged by his side as a lad, he telling me wonder- ful stories of the French king, and the Irish brigade, and Marshal Saxe, and the opera-dancers; he knew my uncle, too, the Chevalier Borgne, and indeed had a thousand accomplish- ments which he taught me in secret. I never knew a man like him for making or throwing a fly, for physicking a horse, or breaking, or choosing one; he taught me manly sports, D 19 18 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY, LYNDON Zs: from birds’-nesting upwards, and I always shall consider Phil Purcell as the very best tutor I could have had. His fault was drink, but for that I have always had a blind eye; and he hated my cousin Mick like poison; but I could excuse him that too. With Phil, and at the age of fifteen, I was a more accom- plished man than either of my cousins; and I think Nature had been also more bountiful to me in the matter of person. Some of the Castle Brady girls (as you shall hear presently) adored me. At fairs and races many of the prettiest lasses present said they would like to have me for their bachelor ; and yet somehow, it must be confessed, I was not popular. In the first place, everyone knew I was bitter poor; and I think, perhaps, it was my good mother’s fault that I was bitter proud too. I had a habit of boasting in company of my birth, and the splendour of my carriages, gardens, cellars, and domestics, and this before people who were perfectly aware of my real circumstances. If it was boys, and they ventured to sneer, I would beat them, or die for it; and many’s the time I’ve been brought home well-nigh killed by one or more of them, on what, when my mother asked me, I would say was ‘‘a family quarrel.” ‘ Support your name with your blood, Reddy my boy,” would that saint say, with the tears in her eyes; and so would she herself have done with her voice, ay, and her teeth and nails. Thus, at fifteen, there was scarce a lad of twenty, for half- a-dozen miles round, that I had not beat for one cause or other. There were the vicar’s two sons of Castle Brady—in course I could not associate with such beggarly brats as them, and many a battle did we have as to who should take the wall in Brady’s Town; there was Pat Lurgan, the blacksmith’s son, who had the better of me four times before we came to the crowning fight, when I overcame him; and I could mention a score more of my deeds of prowess in that way, but that fisti- cuff facts are dull subjects to talk of, and to discuss before high-bred gentlemen and ladies. However, there is another subject, ladies, on which I must discourse, and that is never out of place. Day and night you like to hear of it: young and old, you dream and think of it. THEA OBS ECin Opn Veliko te LOVE: 19 Handsome and ugly (and, faith, before fifty, I never saw such a thing as a plain woman), it’s the subject next to the hearts of all of you; and I think you guess my riddle without more trouble. Love! sure the word is formed on purpose out of the prettiest soft vowels and consonants in the language, and he or she who does not care to read about it is not worth a fig, to my thinking. My uncle’s family consisted of ten children ; who, as is the custom in such large families, were divided into two camps, or parties; the one siding with their mamma, the other taking the part of my uncle in all the numerous quarrels which arose between that gentleman and his lady. Mrs. Brady’s faction was headed by Mick, the eldest son, who hated me so, and disliked his father for keeping him out of his property: while Ulick, the second brother, was his father’s own boy; and, in revenge, Master Mick was desperately afraid of him. I need not mention the girls’ names; I had plague enough with them in after-life, Heaven knows; and one of them was the cause of all my early troubles: this was (though to be sure all her sisters denied it) the belle of the family, Miss Honoria Brady by name. She said she was only nineteen at the time; but I could read the fly-leaf in the family Bible as well as another (it was one of the three books which, with the backgammon-board, formed my uncle’s library), and know that she was born in the year 37, and christened by Doctor Swift, Dean of St. Patrick's, Dublin: hence she was three-and-twenty years old at the time she and I were so much together. When I come to think about her now, I know she never could have been handsome ; for her figure was rather of the fattest, and her mouth of the widest ; she was freckled over like a partridge’s egg, and her hair was the colour of a certain veget- able which we eat with boiled beef, to use the mildest term. Often and often would my dear mother make these remarks concerning her; but I did not believe them then, and some- how had gotten to think Honoria an angelical being, far above all the other angels of her sex. And as we know very well that a lady who is skilled in dancing or singing never can perfect herself without a deal of 20 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON ESO. study in private, and that the song or the minuet which is performed with so much graceful ease in the assembly-room has not been acquired without vast labour and perseverance in private; so it 1s with the dear creatures who are skilled in coquetting. Honoria, for instance, was always practising, and she would take poor me to rehearse her accomplishment upon; or the exciseman, when he came his rounds, or the steward, or the poor curate, or the young apothecary’s lad from Brady’s Town: whom I recollect beating once for that very reason. If he is alive now I make him my apologies. Poor fellow! as if it was his fault that he should be a victim to the wiles of one of the greatest coquettes (considering her obscure life and rustic breeding) in the world. If the truth must be told—and every word of this narrative of my life is of the most sacred veracity—my passion for Nora began in a very vulgar and unromantic way. I did not save her life; on the contrary, I once very nearly killed her, as you shall hear. I did not behold her by moonlight playing on the guitar, or rescue her from the hands of ruffians, as Alfonso does Lindamira in the novel; but one day after dinner at Brady’s Town, in summer, going into the garden to pull goose- berries for my dessert, and thinking only of gooseberries, I pledge my honour, I came upon Miss Nora and one of her sisters, with whom she was friends at the time, who were both engaged in the very same amusement. ‘‘ What’s the Latin for gooseberry, Redmond ?”’ says she. She was always “‘ poking her fun,” as the Irish phrase it. ‘‘T know the Latin for goose,” says I. “« And what’s that ?”’ cries Miss Mysie, as pert as a peacock. ‘‘Bo to you!” says I (for I had never a want of wit); and so we fell to work at the gooseberry-bush, laughing and talk- ing as happy as might be. In the course of our diversion Nora managed to scratch her arm, and it bled, and she screamed, and it was mighty round and white, and I tied it up, and I believe was permitted to kiss her hand; and though it was as big and clumsy a hand as ever you saw, yet, I thought the favour the most ravishing one that was ever conferred upon me, and went home in a rapture. I was much too simple a fellow to disguise any sentiment BARRY LYNDON’S FIRST LOVE. I BURN WITH MILITARY ARDOUR. 21 I chanced to feel in those days; and not one of the eight Castle Brady girls but was soon aware of my passion, and joked and complimented Nora about her bachelor. The torments of jealousy the cruel coquette made me endure were horrible. Sometimes she would treat me as a child, sometimes as a man. She would always leave me if ever there came a stranger to the house. ‘For after all, Redmond,” she would say, ‘‘ you are but fifteen, and you haven’t a guinea in the world.” At which I would swear that I would become the greatest hero ever known out of Ireland, and vow that before I was twenty I would have money enough to purchase an estate six times as big as Castle Brady. All which vain promises, of course, I did not keep ; but I make no doubt they influenced me in my very early life, and caused me to do those great actions for which I have been celebrated, and which shall be narrated presently in order. I must tell one of them, just that my dear young lady readers may know what sort of a fellow Redmond Barry was, and what a courage and undaunted passion he had. I question whether any of the jenny-jessamines of the present day would do half as much in the face of danger. About this time, it must be premised, the United Kingdom was in a state of great excitement from the threat generally credited of a French invasion. The Pretender was said to be in high favour at Versailles, a descent upon Ireland was especially looked to, and the noblemen and people of condition in that and all other parts of the kingdom showed their loyalty by raising regiments of horse and foot to resist the invaders. Brady’s Town sent a company to join the Kilwangan regiment, of which Master Mick was the captain; and we had a letter from Master Ulick at Trinity College, stating :hat the Univer- sity had also formed a regiment, in which he had the honour to be a corporal. How I envied them both! especially that odious Mick, as I saw him in his laced scarlet coat, with a ribbon in his hat, march off at the head of his men. He, the poor spiritless creature, was a captain, and I nothing,—I who felt I had as much courage as the Duke of Cumberland himself, and felt, too, that a red jacket would mightily become me! 22 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. My mother said I was too young to join the new regiment ; but the fact was, that it was she herself who was too poor, for the cost of a new uniform would have swallowed up half her year’s income, and she would only have her boy appear in a way suitable to his birth, riding the finest of racers, dressed in the best of clothes, and keeping the genteelest of company. Well, then, the whole country was alive with war’s alarums, | the three kingdoms ringing with military music, and every man of merit paying his devoirs at the court of Bellona, whilst poor I was obliged to stay at home in my fustian jacket and sigh for fame in secret. Mr. Mick came to and fro from the regiment, and brought numerous of his comrades with him. Their costume and swaggering airs filled me with grief, and Miss Nora’s unvyarying attentions to them served to make me half wild. No one, however, thought of attributing this sadness to the young lady’s score, but rather to my disappointment at not being allowed to join the military profession. Once the officers of the Fencibles gave a grand ball at Kilwangan, to which, as a matter of course, all the ladies of Castle Brady (and a pretty ugly coachful they were) were in- vited. I knew to what tortures the odious little flirt of a Nora would put me with her eternal coquetries with the officers, and refused for a long time to be one of the party to the ball. But she had a way of conquering me, against which all resist- ance of mine was in vain. She vowed that riding in a coach always made her ill. ‘And how can I go to the ball,” said she, ‘‘unless you take me on Daisy behind you on the pillion?”’ Daisy was a good blood-mare of my uncle’s, and to such a proposition I could not for my soul say no; so we rode in safety to Kilwangan, and I felt myself as proud as any prince when she promised to dance a country-dance with me. When the dance was ended, the little ungrateful flirt informed me that she had quite forgotten her engagement ; she had actually danced the set with an Englishman! I have endured torments in my life, but none like that. She tried to make up for her neglect, but I would not. Some of the prettiest girls there offered to console me, for I was the best dancer in the room. I made one attempt, but was too wretched to continue, and so remained alone all night in a state of TH AOU LE AND ATi EI GL LON. 23 agony. I would have played, but I had no money; only the gold piece that my mother bade me always keep in my purse asa gentleman should. I did not care for drink, or know the dreadful comfort of it in those days; but I thought of killing myself and Nora, and most certainly of making away with Captain Quin! At last, and at morning, the ball was over. The rest of our ladies went off in the lumbering creaking old coach; Daisy was brought out, and Miss Nora took her place behind me, which I let her do without a word. But we were not half a mile out of town when she began to try with her coaxing and blandishments to dissipate my ill-humour. ‘Sure it’s a bitter night, Redmond dear, and you'll catch cold without a handkerchief to your neck.” ‘To this sympa- thetic remark from the pillion, the saddle made no reply. “Did you and Miss Clancy have a pleasant evening, Redmond ? You were together, [ saw, all night.” To this the saddle only replied by grinding his teeth, and giving a lash to Daisy. “OQ mercy! youll make Daisy rear and throw me, you careless creature you: and you know, Redmond, I’m so timid.” The pillion had by this got her arm round the saddle’s waist, and perhaps gave it the gentlest squeeze in the world. ‘T hate Miss Clancy, you know I do!” answers the saddle; ‘and I only danced with her because—because—the person with whom I intended to dance chose to be engaged the whole night.” ‘Sure there were my sisters,” said the pillion, now laugh- ing outright in the pride of her conscious superiority; ‘‘ and for me, my dear, I had not been in the room five minutes before I was engaged for every single set.” ‘‘Were you obliged to dance five times with Captain Quin?” said I; and O strange delicious charm of coquetry, I do believe Miss Nora Brady at twenty-three years of age felt a pang of delight in thinking that she had so much power over a guileless lad of fifteen. Of course she replied that she did not care a fig for Captain Quin: that he danced prettily, to be sure, and was a pleasant rattle of a man; that he looked well in his regimentals too ; 24 THE MEMOIRS, OF BARRY LYNDON, 25. and if he chose to ask her to dance, how could she refuse him ? ‘But you refused me, Nora.” “Oh! I can dance with you any day,” answered Miss Nora, with a toss of her head; ‘‘and to dance with your cousin at a ball, looks as if you could find no other partner. Besides,”’ said Nora—and this was a cruel, unkind cut, which showed what a power she had over me, and how mercilessly she used it, —‘‘ besides, Redmond, Captain Quin’s a man, and you are only a boy!” “Tf ever I meet him again,” I roared out with an oath, ‘‘you shall see which is the best man of the two. Ill fight him with sword or with pistol, captain as he is. A man indeed! T]l fight any man—every man! Didn’t I stand up to Mick Brady when I was eleven years old ?— Didn't I beat Tom Sullivan, the great hulking brute, who is nineteen ?— Didn’t I do for the Scotch usher? Oh, Nora, it’s cruel of you to sneer at me so!” But Nora was in the sneering mood that night, and pursued her sarcasms ; she pointed out that Captain Quin was already known as a valiant soldier, famous as a man of fashion in London, and that it was mighty well of Redmond to talk and boast of beating ushers and farmers’ boys, but to fight an Englishman was a very different matter. Then she fell to talk of the invasion, and of military matters in general; of King Frederick (who was called, in those days, the Protestant hero), of Monsieur Thurot and his fleet, of Monsieur Conflans and his squadron, of Minorca, how it was attacked, and where it was; we both agreed it must be in America, and hoped the French might be soundly beaten there. I sighed after a while (for I was beginning to melt), and said how much I longed to be a soldier; on which Nora re- eurred to her infallible, ‘‘ Ah !. now, would you leave me, then ? But, sure, you're not big enough for anything more than a little drummer.” To which I replied, by swearing that a soldier I would be, and a general! too. As we were chattering in this silly way, we came to a place that has ever since gone by the name of Redmond’s Leap REDMOND BARRY’S LEAP. 25 Bridge. It was an old high bridge, over a stream sufficiently deep and rocky, and as the mare Daisy with her double load was crossing this bridge, Miss Nora, giving a loose to her imagination, and still harping on the military theme (I would lay a wager that she was thinking of Captain Quin)—Miss Nora said, ‘‘Suppose now, Redmond, you, who are such a hero, was passing over the bridge, and the inimy on the other side?” «T’d draw my sword, and cut my way through them.” ‘* What, with me on the pillion ? Would you kill poor me?” (This young lady was perpetually speaking of ‘‘ poor me !’’) “Well, then, Pll tell you what ’d do. Td jump Daisy into the river, and swim you both across, where no enemy could follow us.” “Jump twenty feet! you wouldn’t dare to do any such thing on Daisy. There’s the Captain’s horse, Black George, I’ve heard say that Captain Qui is She never finished the word, for maddened by the continual recurrence of that odious monosyllable, I shouted to her to “hold tight by my waist,” and, giving Daisy the spur, in a minute sprang with Nora over the parapet into the deep water below. I don’t know why, now—whether it was I wanted to drown myselfand Nora, or to perform an act that even Captain Quin should crane at, or whether I fancied that the enemy actually was in front of us, I can’t tell now; but over I went. The horse sank over his head, the girl screamed as she sank and screamed as she rose, and I landed her, half fainting, on the shore, where we were soon found by my uncle’s people, who returned on hearing the screams. I went home, and was ill speedily of a fever, which kept me to my bed for six weeks; and I quitted my couch prodigiously increased in stature, and, at the same time, still more violently in love than I had been even before. At the commencement of my illness, Miss Nora had been pretty constant in her attendance at my bedside, forgetting, for the sake of me, the quarrel between my mother and her family ; which my good mother was likewise pleased, in the most Christian manner, to forget. And, let me tell you, it was no small mark of goodness in a woman of her haughty E 19 26 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. disposition, who, as a rule, never forgave anybody, for my sake to give up her hostility to Miss Brady, and to receive her kindly. For, like a mad boy as I was, it was Nora I was always raving about and asking for; I would only accept medicines from her hand, and would look rudely and sulkily upon the good mother, who loved me better than anything else in the world, and gave up even her favourite habits, and proper and becoming jealousies, to make me happy. As I got well, I saw that Nora’s visits became daily more rare: ‘“Why don’t she come?” I would say, peevishly, a dozen times in the day; in reply to which query, Mrs. Barry would be obliged to make the best excuses she could find,— such as that Nora had sprained her ankle, or that they had quarrelled together, or some other answer to soothe me. And many a time has the good soul left me to go and break her heart in her own room alone, and come back with a smiling face, so that I should know nothing of her mortification. Nor, indeed, did I take much pains to ascertain it: nor should I, I fear, have been very much touched even had I discovered it; for the commencement of manhood, I think, is the period of our extremest selfishness. We get such a desire then to take wing and leave the parent-nest, that no tears, entreaties, or feelings of affection will counterbalance this overpowering longing after independence. She must have been very sad, that poor mother of mine—Heaven be good to her!—at that period of my life; and has often told me since what a pang of the heart it was to her to see all her care and affection of years forgotten by me in a minute, and for the sake of a little - heartless jilt, who was only playing with me while she could get no better suitor. For the fact is, that during the last four weeks of my illness, no other than Captain Quin was staying at Castle Brady, and making love to Miss Nora in form. My mother did not dare to break this news to me, and you may be sure that Nora herself kept it a secret: it was only by chance that I discovered it. Shall I tell you how? The minx had been to see me one day, as I sat up in my bed, convalescent; she was in such high spirits and so gracious and kind to me, that my heart poured over with joy and gladness, and I had even for my MY Fifsd LOVE VERSES, 27 poor mother a kind word and a kiss that morning. I felt myself so well that I ate up a whole chicken, and promised my uncle, who had come to see me, to be ready against partridge-shooting, to accompany him, as my custom was. The next day but one was a Sunday, and I[ had a project for that day which I determined to realise, in spite of all the doctor’s and my mother’s injunctions: which were that I was on no account to leave the house, for the fresh air would be the death of me. Well, I lay wondrous quiet, composing a copy of verses, the first I ever made in my life; and I give them here, spelt as I spelt them in those days when I knew no better. And though they are not so polished and elegant as ‘“‘ Ardelia ease a Love-sick Swain,” and “When Sol bedecks the Daisied Mead,” and other lyrical effusions of mine which obtained me so much reputation in after hfe, I still think them pretty good for a humble lad of fifteen :-— THE ROSE OF FLORA. Sent by a Young Gentleman of Quality to Miss Br-dy, of Castle Brady. On Brady’s tower there grows a flower, It is the loveliest flower that blows,— At Castle Brady there lives a lady (And how I love her no one knows): Her name is Nora, and the goddess Flora Presents her with this blooming rose. ‘*Q JLady Nora,” says the goddess Flora, ‘‘Pve many a rich and bright parterre ; In Brady’s towers there’s seven more flowers, But you’re the fairest lady there : Not all the county, nor Ireland’s bounty, Can projuice a treasure that’s half so fair!” What cheek is redder ? sure roses fed her! Her hair is maregolds, and her eye of blew Beneath her eyelid is like the vi’let, That darkly glistens with gentle jew! The lily’s nature is not surely whiter Than Nora’s neck is,—and her arrums too. 28 THis MEMOIRS OF BARRY VV NOV SE SO. ‘‘Come, gentle Nora,”’ says the goddess Flora, ‘‘ My dearest creature, take my advice, There is a poet, full well you know it, Who spends his lifetime in heavy sighs,— Young Redmond Barry, ’tis him you'll marry, If rhyme and raisin you’d choose likewise.”’ On Sunday, no sooner was my mother gone to church, than [I summoned Phil the valet, and insisted upon his pro- ducing my best suit, in which I arrayed myself (although I found that I had shot up so in my illness that the old dress was wofully too small for me), and, with my notable copy of verses in my hand, ran down towards Castle Brady, bent upon beholding my beauty. The air was so fresh and bright, and the birds sang so loud amidst the green trees, that I felt more elated than I had been for months before, and sprang down the avenue (my uncle had cut down every stick of the trees, by the way) as brisk as a young fawn. My heart began to thump as I mounted the grass-grown steps of the terrace, and passed in by the rickety hall-door. The master and mistress were at church, Mr. Screw the butler told me (after giving a start back at seeing my altered appearance, and gaunt lean figure), and so were six of the young ladies. ‘“Was Miss Nora one ?”’ I asked. “No, Miss Nora was not one,” said Mr. Screw, assuming a very puzzled, and yet knowing look. ‘“Where was she?” ‘To this question he answered, or rather made believe to answer, with usual Irish ingenuity, and left me to settle whether she was gone to Kilwangan on the pillion behind her brother, or whether she and her sister had gone for a walk, or whether she was ill in her room; and while I was settling this query, Mr. Screw left me abruptly. I rushed away to the back court, where the Castle Brady stables stand, and there I found a dragoon whistling the “ Roast Beef of Old England,” as he cleaned down a cavalry horse. ‘‘ Whose horse, fellow, is that ?”’ cried I. “Feller, indeed!” replied the Englishman: ‘‘the horse belongs to my captain, and he’s a better feller nor you any day.” I did not stop to break his bones, as I would on another MY YOUTHFUL JEALQUSY. 29 ~ occasion, for a horrible suspicion had come across me, and I made for the garden as quickly as I could. I knew somehow what I should see there. I saw Captain Quin and Nora pacing the alley together. Her arm was under ‘his, and the scoundrel was fondling and squeezing the hand which lay closely nestling against his odious waistcoat. Some distance beyond them was Captain Fagan of the Kilwangan regiment, who was paying court to Nora’s sister Mysie. I am not afraid of any man or ghost; but as I saw that sight my knees fell a-trembling violently under me, and such a sickness came over me, that I was fain to sink down on the grass by a tree against which I leaned, and lost almost all consciousness for a minute or two: then I gathered myself up, and, advancing towards the couple on the walk, loosened the blade of the little silver-hilted hanger I always wore in its scabbard ; for I was resolved to pass it through the bodies of the delinquents, and spit them like two pigeons. I don’t tell what feelings else besides those of rage were passing through my mind; what bitter blank disappointment, what mad wild despair, what a sensation as if the whole world was tumbling from under me; I make no doubt that my reader hath been jilted by the ladies many times, and so bid him recall his own sensations when the shock first fell upon him. “No, Norelia,” said the Captain (for it was the fashion of those times for lovers to call themselves by the most romantic names out of novels), ‘‘ except for you and four others, I vow before all the gods, my heart has never felt the soft flame!” ‘‘Ah! you men, youmen, Kugenio!’’ said she (the beast’s name was John), “‘ your passion is not equal to ours. We are hike—lhke some plant I’ve read of—we bear but one flower and then we die!” ‘Do you mean you never felt an inclination for another ?’ said Captain Quin. ‘Never, my Eugenio, but for thee! How can you ask a blushing nymph such a question ?” ‘“‘ Darling Norelia!” said he, raising her hand to his lips. I had a knot of cherry-coloured ribands, which she had given me out of her breast, and which somehow I always wore upon me. I pulled these out of my bosom, and flung them in 30 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. Captain Quin’s face, and rushed out with my little sword drawn, shrieking, ‘ She’s a liar—she’s a lar, Captain Quin ! Draw, sir, and defend yourself, if you are a man!” and with these words I leapt at the monster, and collared him, while Nora made the air echo with her screams; at the sound of which the other captain and lysie hastened up. Although I sprang up like a weed in my illness, and was now nearly attained to my full growth of six feet, yet I was but a lath by the side of the enormous English captain, who had calves and shoulders such as no chairman at Bath ever boasted. He turned very red, and then exceedingly pale at my attack upon him, and slipped back and clutched at his sword—when Nora, in an agony of terror, flung herself round him, screaming, ‘‘ Kugenio! Captain Quin, for Heaven’s sake spare the child—he is but an infant.” “ And ought to be whipped for his impudence,” said the Captain; ‘‘but never fear, Miss Brady, I shall not touch him; your favourite is safe from me.” So saying, he stooped down and picked up the bunch of ribands which had fallen at Nora’s feet, and handing it to her, said in a sareastic tone, ‘* When ladies make presents to gentlemen, it is time for other gentlemen to retire.” “Good heavens, Quin!” cried the girl; ‘‘ he is but a boy.” ‘‘T am aman,” roared I, ‘and will prove it.” ‘‘And don’t signify any more than my parrot or lap-dog. Mayn’t I give a bit of riband to my own cousin ?” “You are perfectly welcome, miss,” continued the Captain, ‘“‘as many yards as you like.” ‘“‘ Monster!” exclaimed the dear girl; ‘your father was a tailor, and you are always thinking of the shop. But I’ll have my revenge, I will! Reddy, will you see me insulted ?” ‘Indeed, Miss Nora,” says I, ‘‘I intend to have his blood as sure as my name’s Redmond.” “Tl send for the usher to cane you, little boy,” said the Captain, regaining his self-possession ; ‘‘ but as for you, miss, I have the honour to wish you a good-day.”’ He took off his hat with much ceremony, made a low congé, and was just walking off, when Mick, my cousin, came up, whose ear had likewise been caught by the scream. f CHALLENGE WY RIVAL 31 “ Hoity—toity! Jack Quin, what’s the matter here?” says Mick; ‘‘ Nora in tears, Redmond’s ghost here with his sword drawn, and you making a bow?” “Tl tell you what it is, Mr. Brady,” said the Englishman: ‘“‘T have had enough of Miss Nora, here, and your Irish ways. I ain’t used to ’em, sir.” ‘Well, well! what is it?” said Mick, good-humouredly (for he owed Quin a great deal of money as it turned out) ; ‘we'll make you used to our ways, or adopt English ones.” “Tt’s not the English way for ladies to have two lovers” (the ‘* Henglish way,” as the Captain called it), ‘“‘and so, Mr. Brady, VU thank you to pay me the sum you owe me, and I resign all claims to this young lady. If she has a fancy for schoolboys, let her take ’em, sir.” “Pooh, pooh! Quin, you are joking,” said Mick. ‘‘T never was more in earnest,” replied the other. “By Heaven, then, look to yourself!” shouted Mick. ‘‘Infamous seducer! infernal deceiver !—you come and wind your toils round this suffering angel here—you win her heart and leave her—and fancy her brother won’t defend her ? Draw this minute, you slave! and let me cut the wicked heart out of your body!” ‘This is regular assassination,” said Quin, starting back ; “there’s two on ’em on me at once. Fagan, you won’t let ‘em murder me?” “Faith!” said Captain Fagan, who seemed mightily amused, “‘ you may settle your own quarrel, Captain Quin;”’ and coming over to me, whispered, ‘‘ At him again, you little fellow.” ‘As long as Mr. Quin withdraws his claim,” said I, ‘I, of course, do not interfere.” “‘T do, sir—I do,” said Mr. Quin, more and more flustered. “Then defend yourself like a man, curse you!” cried Mick again. ‘*Mysie, lead this poor victim away—Redmond and Fagan will see fair play between us.” _ “Well now—I don’t—give me time—I’m puzzled—I—I don’t know which way to look.” ‘‘Like the donkey betwixt the two bundles of hay,” said Mr. Fagan, drily, ‘‘and there’s pretty pickings on either side.” 32 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. CHAPTER IL. IN WHICH I SHOW MYSELF TO BE. A MAN OF SPIRIT. URING this dispute, my cousin Nora did the only thing that a lady, under such circumstances, could do, and fainted in due form. I was in hot altercation with Mick at the time, or I should have, of course, flown to her assistance, but Cap- tain Fagan (a dry sort of fellow this Fagan was) pre- vented me, saying, “I advise you to leave the young lady to herself, Mas- ter Redmond, and be sure she will come to.’ And so indeed, after a while, she did, which has shown me since that Fagan knew the world pretty well, for many’s the lady I’ve seen in after times recover in a similar manner. Quin did not offer to help her, you may be sure, for, in the midst of the diversion, caused by her screaming, the faithless bully stole away. | , “Which of us is Captain Quin to engage?” said I to Mick; for it was my first affair, and I was as proud of it as of a suit of laced velvet. ‘Is it you or I, Cousin Mick, that is to have the honour of chastising this insolent Englishman ?” And I held out my hand as I spoke, for my heart melted towards my cousin under the triumph of the moment. CAP AIN OU OCINGGUite AE PILL. 33 But he rejected the proffered offer of friendship. ‘You —you!” said he, in a towering passion; “hang you for a meddling brat: your hand is in everybody’s pie. What business had you to come brawling and quarrelling here, with a gentleman who has fifteen hundred a year ?”’ ‘‘Oh,” gasped Nora, from the stone bench, ‘‘I shall die: I know I shall. I shall never leave this spot.”’ ‘‘ The Captain’s not gone yet,’ whispered Fagan; on which Nora, giving him an indignant look, jumped up and walked towards the house. “Meanwhile,” Mick continued, ‘what business have you, you meddling rascal, to interfere with a daughter of this house?” ‘“Rascal yourself!” roared I: ‘call me another such name, Mick Brady, and I'll drive my hanger into your weasand. Recollect, I stood to you when I was eleven years old. I’m your match now, and, by Jove, provoke me, and I'll beat you like—like your younger brother always did.” That was a home-cut, and I saw Mick turn blue with fury. ‘This is a pretty way to recommend yourself to the family,” said Fagan, in a soothing tone. «The girl’s old enough to be his mother,” growled Mick. “Old or not,” I replied: ‘‘ you listen to this, Mick Brady ” (and I swore a tremendous oath, that need not be put down here): ‘the man that marries Nora Brady must first kill me —do you mind that?” ‘“‘ Pooh, sir,”’ said Mick, turning away, ‘‘ kill you—flog you, you mean! [ll send for Nick the huntsman to do it;” and so he went off. Captain Fagan now came up, and taking me kindly by the hand, said I was a gallant lad, and he liked my spirit. ‘‘ But what Brady says is true,” continued he: ‘it’s a hard thing to sive a lad counsel who is in such a far-gone state as you; but, believe me, I know the world, and if you will but follow my advice, you won’t regret having taken it. Nora Brady has not a penny; you are not a whit richer. You are but fifteen, and she’s four-and-twenty. In ten years, when you’re old enough to marry, she will be an old woman; and, my poor boy, don’t you see—though it’s a hard matter to see—that she’s a flirt, and does not care a pin for you or Quin either ?” F 19 b 34 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. But who in love (or in any other point, for the matter of that) listens to advice? I never did, and I told Captain Fagan fairly, that Nora might love me or not as she liked, but that Quin should fight me before he married her—that I swore. “ Faith,” says Fagan, ‘I think you are a lad that’s likely to keep your word;” and, looking hard at me for a second or two, he walked away likewise, humming a tune: and I saw he _ looked back at me as he went through the old gate out of the garden. When he was gone, and I was quite alone, I flung myself down on the bench where Nora had made believe to faint, and had left her handkerchief; and, taking it up, hid my face in it, and burst into such a passion of tears as I would then have had nobody see for the world. The crumpled riband which I had flung at Quin lay in the walk, and I sat there for hours, as wretched as any man in Ireland, I believe, for the time being. But it’s a changeable world! When we consider how creat our sorrows seem, and how small they are; how we think we shall die of grief, and how quickly we forget, I think we ought to be ashamed of ourselves and our fickle-heartedness. For, after all, what business has time to bring us consolation ? I have not, perhaps, in the course of my multifarious adventures and experience, hit upon the right woman ; and have forgotten, after a little, every single creature I adored; but I think, if I could but have lighted on the right one, I would have loved her for ever. I must have sat for some hours bemoaning myself on the garden-bench, for it was morning when I came to Castle Brady, and the dinner-bell clanged as usual at three o'clock, which wakened me up from my reverie. Presently I gathered up the handkerchief, and once more took the riband. As I passed through the offices, | saw the Captain’s saddle was still hanging up at the stable-door, and saw his odious red-coated brute of a servant swaggering with the scullion-girls and kitchen-people. ‘The Englishman’s still there, Master Red- mond,” said one of the maids to me (a sentimental black-eyed girl, who waited on the young ladies). ‘‘He’s there in the parlour, with the sweetest fillet of vale; go in, and don’t let him browbeat you, Master Redmond.” AN AFTER-DINNER SCENE. 35 And in I went, and took my place at the bottom of the big table, as usual, and my friend the butler speedily brought me a cover. ‘‘ Hallo, Reddy my boy!” said my uncle, “up and well ? —that’s right.” ‘‘ He’d better be home with his mother,” growled my aunt. « Don’t mind her,” says Uncle Brady; ‘‘it’s the cold goose she ate at breakfast didn’t agree with her. Take a glass of spirits, Mrs. Brady, to Redmond’s health.” It was evident he did not know of what had happened ; but Mick, who was at dinner too, and Ulick, and almost all the girls, looked exceed- ingly black, and the Captain foolish ; and Miss Nora, who was again by his side, ready to cry. Captain Fagan sat smiling ; and I looked on as cold as a stone. I thought the dinner would choke me: but I was determined to put a good face on it, and when the cloth was drawn, filled my glass with the rest; and we drank the King and the Church, as gentlemen should. My uncle was in high good-humour, and especially always joking with Nora and the Captain. It was, ‘‘ Nora, divide that merry- thought with the Captain! see who'll be married first.” ‘“ Jack Quin my dear boy, never mind a clean glass for the claret, we're short of crystal at Castle Brady; take Nora’s and the wine will taste none the worse;”’ and so on. He was in the highest glee,—I did not know why. Had there been a recon- ciliation between the faithless girl and her lover since they had come into the house ? I learned the truth very soon. At the third toast, it was always the custom for the ladies to withdraw; but my uncle stopped them this time, in spite of the remonstrances of Nora, who said, ‘“‘ Oh, Pa! do let us go!” and said, “‘ No, Mrs. Brady and ladies, if you plaise; this is a sort of toast that is drunk a great dale too seldom in my family, and you'll plaise to receive it with all the honours. Here’s Caprarn anp Mrs. JoHNn (uty, and long life to them. Kiss her, Jack, you rogue: for "faith you've got a treasure!” ‘He has already ’’ T screeched out, springing up. “ Hold your tongue, you fool—hold your tongue!” said big Ulick, who sat by me; but I wouldn’t hear. ‘“‘ He has already,” I screamed, ‘‘ been slapped in the face 36 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY (LENG eC. this morning, Captain John Quin; he’s already been called coward, Captain John Quin; and this is the way I'll drink his health. Here’s your health, Captain John Quin!” And I flung a glass of claret into his face. I don’t know how he looked after it, for the next moment I myself was under the table, tripped up by Ulick, who hit me a violent cuff on the head as I went down; and I had hardly leisure to hear the general screaming and skurrying that was taking place above me, being so fully occupied with kicks, and thumps, and curses, with which Ulick was belabouring me. ‘‘ You fool!” roared he—‘“ you great blundering marplot—you silly beggarly-brat” (a thump at each), ‘hold your tongue!” These blows from Ulick, of course, I did not care for, for he had always been my friend, and had been in the habit of thrashing me all my life. When I got up from under the table all the ladies were gone ; and I had the satisfaction of seeing the Captain’s nose was bleeding, as mine was—his was cut across the bridge, and his beauty spoiled for ever. Ulick shook himself, sat down quietly, _ filled a bumper, and pushed the bottle to me. ‘There, you young donkey,” said he, ‘‘sup that; and let’s hear no more of ' your braying.”’ F ‘‘In Heaven’s name, what does all the row mean?” says my uncle. ‘Is the boy in the fever again ?”’ ‘It’s all your fault,” said Mick, sulkily: ‘‘ yours and those who brought him here.” ? ‘‘Hold your noise, Mick!” says Ulick, turning on him; “‘speak civil of my father and me, and don’t let me be called upon to teach you manners.”’ “Tt is your fault,” repeated Mick. ‘* What business has the vagabond here? If I had my will, I’d have him flogged and turned out.” “And so he should be,” said Captain Quin. “You'd best not try it, Quin,” said Ulick, who was always my champion; and, turning to his father, ‘“‘ The fact is, sir, that the young monkey has fallen in love with Nora, and find- ing her and the Captain mighty sweet in the garden to-day, he was for murdering Jack Quin.” ‘“‘Gad, he’s beginning young,” said my uncle, quite good- I ASSERT MY RIGHTS AS A MAN. 37 humouredly. ‘’Faith, Fagan, that boy’s a Brady, every inch of him.” “And [ll tell you what, Mr. B.,” cried Quin, bristling up: ‘“‘T’ve been insulted grossly in this ’ouse. I ain’t at all satisfied with these here ways of going on. I’m an Englishman I am, and a man of property; and [—I——”’ “Tf you’re insulted, and not satisfied, remember there’s two of us, Quin,” said Ulick, gruffly. On which the Captain fell to washing his nose in water, and answered never a word. “Mr. Quin,” said I, in the most dignified tone I could assume, ‘‘may also have satisfaction any time he pleases, by calling on Redmond Barry, Esquire, of Barryville.” At which speech my uncle burst out a-laughing (as he did at every- thing); and in this laugh, Captain Fagan, much to my morti- fication, joined. I turned rather smartly upon bim, however, and bade him to understand that as for my cousin Ulick, who had been my best friend through life, I could put up with rough treatment from him; yet, though I was a boy, even that sort of treatment I would bear from him no longer; and any other person who ventured on the like would find mea - man, to their cost. ‘Mr. Quin,” I added, ‘“ knows that fact very well; and if he’s a man, he’ll know where to find me.” My uncle now observed that it was getting late, and that my mother would be anxious about me. ‘One of you had better go home with him,” said he, turning to his sons, ‘‘ or the lad may be playing more pranks.” But Ulick said, with a nod to his brother, ‘‘ Both of us ride home with Quin here.” “T’m not afraid of Freny’s people,’ said the Captain, with a faint attempt at a laugh; ‘‘my man is armed, and so amielss “You know the use of arms very well, Quin,” said Ulick ; ‘‘and no one can doubt your courage; but Mick and I will see you home for all that.” “Why, you'll not be home till morning, boys. Kilwangan’s a good ten mile from here.”’ ““We'll sleep at Quin’s quarters,” replied Ulick: “we're going to stop a week there.” ‘Thank you,” says Quin, very faint; ‘it’s very kind of ’ you. 38 LHEN MEMOIRS OF BARRY WN OU ees. “You'll be lonely, you know, without us.” ‘‘Oh yes, very lonely!” says Quin. “And in another weck, my boy,” says Ulick (and here he whispered something in the Captain’s ear, in which I thought I caught the words ‘ marriage,” ‘‘ parson,” and felt all my fury returning again). “As you please,” whined out the Captain; and the horses were quickly brought round, and the three gentlemen rode away. Fagan stopped, and, at my uncle’s injunction, walked across the old treeless park with me. He said that after the quarrel at dinner, he thought I would scarcely want to see the ladies that night, in which opinion I concurred entirely ; and so we went off without an adieu. ‘“A pretty day’s work of it you have made, Master Red- mond,” said he. ‘What! you a friend to the Bradys, and knowing your uncle to be distressed for money, try and break off a match which will bring fifteen hundred a year into the family ? Quin has promised to pay off the four thousand pounds which is bothering your uncle so. He takes a girl without a penny—a girl with no more beauty than yonder bullock. Well, well, don’t look furious; let’s say she is hand- some—there’s no accounting for tastes,—a girl that has been flinging herself at the head of every man in these parts these ten years past, and missing them all. And you, as poor as herself, a boy of fifteen—well, sixteen, if you insist—and a boy who ought to be attached to your uncle as to your father ‘ ‘And so I am,” said I. ‘And this is the return you make him for his kindness ! Didn’t he harbour you in his house when you were an orphan, and hasn't he given you rent-free your fine mansion of Barry- ville yonder ? And now, when his affairs can be put into order, and a chance offers for his old age to be made comfortable, who flings himself in the way of him and competence ?—You, of all others; the man in the world most obliged to him. It’s wicked, ungrateful, unnatural. From a lad of such spirit as you are, I expect a truer courage.” “Tam not afraid of any man alive,” exclaimed I (for this ISAM Siok ONO LIGH LING: 39 latter part of the Captain’s argument had rather staggered me, and I wished, of course, to turn it—as one always should when the enemy’s too strong); ‘‘and it’s Jam the injured man, Captain Fagan. No man was ever, since the world began, treated so. Look here—look at this riband. [ve worn it in my heart for six months. I’ve had it there all the time of the fever. Didn’t Nora take it out of her own bosom and give it me? JDidn’t she kiss me when she gave it me, and call me her darling Redmond ?” “She was practising,” replied Mr. Fagan, with a sneer. ‘I know women, sir. Give them time, and let nobody else come to the house, and they’ll fall in love with a chimney-sweep. There was a young lady in Fermoy ; ““A young lady in flames,” roared I (but I used a still hotter word). ‘Mark this; come what will of it, I swear I'll fight the man who pretends to the hand of Nora Brady. Tl follow him, if it’s into the church, and meet him there. I'll have his blood, or. he shall have mine; and this riband shall be found dyed in it. Yes, and if I kill him, I'll pin it on his breast, and then she may go and take back her token.” This I said because I was very much excited at the time, and because I had not read novels and romantic plays for nothing. ‘“‘ Well,” says Fagan after a pause, ‘if it must be, it must. For a young fellow, you are the most bloodthirsty I ever saw. Quin’s a determined fellow, too.” “Will you take my message to him ?”’ said I, quite eagerly. “Hush!” said Fagan: ‘“‘ your mother may be on the look-out. Here we are, close to Barryville.”’ ‘Mind! not a word to my mother,” I said; and went into the house swelling with pride and exultation to think that I should have a chance against the Englishman I hated so. Tim, my servant, had come up from Barryville on my mother’s return from church; for the good lady was rather alarmed at my absence, and anxious for my return. But he had seen me go in to dinner, at the invitation of the senti- mental lady’s-maid ; and when he had had his own share of the sood things in the kitchen, which was always better furnished than ours at home, had walked back again to inform his mistress where I was, and, no doubt, to tell her, in his own 40 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNBON, ESQ. fashion, of all the events that had happened at Castle Brady. In spite of my precautions to secresy, then, I half suspected that my mother knew all, from the manner in which she embraced me on my arrival, and received our guest, Captain Fagan. The poor soul looked a little anxious and flushed, and every now and then gazed very hard in the Captain’s face; but she said not a word about the quarrel, for she had a noble spirit, and would as lef have seen any one of her kindred hanged asshirking from the field of honour. What has be- come of those gallant feelings nowadays? Sixty years ago a man was a man, in old Ireland, and the sword that was worn by his side was at the service of any gentleman’s gizzard, upon the slightest difference. But the good old times and usages are fast fading away. One scarcely ever hears of a fair meeting now, and the use of those cowardly pistols, in place of the honourable and manly weapon of gentlemen, has introduced a deal of knavery into the practice of duelling, that cannot be sufficiently deplored. When I arrived at home I felt that I was a man in earnest, and welcoming Captain Fagan to Barryville, and introducing him to my mother, in a majestic and dignified way, said the Captain must be thirsty after his walk, and called upon Tim to bring up a bottle of the yellow-sealed Bordeaux, and cakes and classes, immediately. Tim looked at the mistress in great wonderment: and the fact is, that six hours previous I would as soon have thought of burning the house down as calling for a bottle of claret on my own account; but I felt I was a man now, and had a right to command; and my mother felt this too, for she turned to the fellow and said, sharply, ‘‘ Don’t you hear, you rascal, what your master says! Go, get the wine, and the cakes and glasses, directly.” Then (for you may be sure she did not give Tim the keys of our little cellar) she went and got the liquor herself; and Tim brought it in, on the silver tray, in due form. My dear mother poured out the wine, and drank the Captain welcome; but I observed her hand shook very much as she performed this courteous duty, and the bottle went clink, clink, against the glass. When she had tasted her glass, she said she had a headache, and would go to bed; and so I asked CAPTAIN FAGAN BECOMES MY SECOND. 41 her blessing, as becomes a dutiful son—(the modern bloods have given up the respectful ceremonies which distinguished a gentleman in my time)—and she left me and Captain Fagan to talk over our important business. ‘“‘Indeed,” said the Captain, ‘‘I see now no other way out of the scrape than a meeting. The fact is, there was a talk of it at Castle Brady, after your attack upon Quin this afternoon, and he vowed that he would cut you in pieces; but the tears and supplications of Miss Honoria induced him, though very unwillingly, to relent. Now, however, matters have gone too far. No officer, bearing His Majesty’s commission, can receive a glass of wine on his nose—this claret of yours is very good, by the way, and by your leave we'll ring for another bottle— without resenting the affront. Fight you must; and Quin is a huge strong fellow.” ‘‘ He'll give the better mark,” said I. ‘Iam not afraid of him.” ‘‘In faith,” said the Captain, “‘I believe you are not; for a lad, I never saw more game in my life.” “ Look at that sword, sir,” says I, pointing to an elegant silver-mounted one, in a white shagreen case, that hung on the mantelpiece, under the picture of my father, Harry Barry. “Tt was with that sword, sir, that my father pinked Mohawk O’Driscol, in Dublin, in the year 1740; with that sword, sir, he met Sir Huddlestone Fuddlestone, the Hampshire baronet, and ran him through the neck. They met on horseback, with sword and pistol, on Hounslow Heath, as I dare say you have heard tell of, and those are the pistols” (they hung on each side of the picture) ‘“‘ which the gallant Barry used. He was quite in the wrong, having insulted Lady Fuddlestone, when in liquor, at the Brentford assembly. But like a gentleman, he scorned to apologise, and Sir Huddlestone received a ball through his hat, before they engaged with the sword. I am Harry Barry’s son, sir, and will act as becomes my name and my quality.” ‘Give me a kiss, my dear boy,” said Fagan, with tears in hiseyes. ‘‘ You’re aftermy ownsoul. Aslongas Jack Fagan lives you shall never want a friend or a second.” Poor fellow! he was shot six months afterwards, carrying G 19 42 LAE MEMOIRS (OF (BARRY ALVIN GNA so, orders to my Lord George Sackville, at Minden, and I lost thereby a kind friend. But we don’t know what is in store for us, and that night was a merry one at least. We had a second bottle, and a third too (I could hear the poor mother going downstairs for each, but she never came into the parlour with them, and sent them in by the butler, Mr. Tim); and we parted at length, he engaging to arrange matters with Mr. (Juin’s second that night, and to bring me news in the morn- ing as to the place where the meeting should take place. I have often thought since, how different my fate might have been, had I not fallen in love with Nora at that early age; and had I not flung the wine in Quin’s face, and so brought on the duel. I might have settled down in Ireland but for that (for Miss Quinlan was an heiress, within twenty miles of us, and Peter Burke, of Kilwangan, left his daughter Judy 700l. a year, and I might have had either of them, had I waited a few years). But it was in my fate to be a wanderer, and that battle with Quin sent me on my travels at a very early age: as you shall hear anon. I never slept sounder in my life, though I woke a little earlier than usual; and you may be sure my first thought was of the event of the day, for which I was fully prepared. I had ink and pen in my room—had I not been writing those verses to Nora but the day previous, like a poor fond fool as I was ? And now I sat down and wrote a couple of letters more: they might be the last, thought I, that I ever should write in my life. The first was to my mother :— ‘Honoured Madam ”—I wrote—‘ This will not be given you unless I fall by the hand of Captain Quin, whom I meet this day in the field of honour, with sword and pistol. If I die, it is as a good Christian and a gentleman,—how should I be otherwise when educated by such a mother as you? I forgive all my enemies—I beg your blessing as a dutiful son. I desire that my mare Nora, which my uncle gave me, and which I called after the most faith- less of her sex, may be returned to Castle Brady, and beg you will give my silver-hilted hanger to Phil Purcell, the gamekeeper. Present my duty to my uncle and Ulick, and all the girls of my party there. And I remain your dutiful son, ‘* REDMOND BarRRy.”’ TANRANGE MATTERS BEFORE THE DUEL. 43 To Nora I wrote :— «This letter will be found in my bosom along with the token you gave me. It will be dyed in my blood (unless I have Captain Quin’s, whom I hate, but forgive), and will be a pretty ornament for you on your marriage-day. Wear it, and think of the poor boy to whom you gave it, and who died (as he was always ready to do) for your sake. ‘* REDMOND.” These letters being written, and sealed with my father’s creat silver seal of the Barry arms, I went down to breakfast ; where my mother was waiting for me, you may be sure. We did not say a single word about what was takine place: on the contrary, we talked of anything but that; about who was at church the day before, and about my wanting new clothes now I was grown so tall. She said I must have a suit against winter, if—if—she could afford it. She winced rather at the ‘if,’ Heaven bless her! I knew what wasin her mind. And then she fell to telling me about the black pig that must be killed, and that she had found the speckled hen’s nest that morning, whose eggs I liked so, and other such trifling talk. Some of these eggs were for breakfast, and I ate them with a good appetite; but in helping myself to salt I spilled it, on which she started up with a scream. ‘ Thank God,” said she, “it’s fallen towards me.” And then, her heart being too full, she left theroom. Ah! they have their faults, those mothers; but are there any other women like them ? When she was gone I went to take down the sword with which my father had vanquished the Hampshire baronet, and would you believe it?—the brave woman had tied a new riband to the hilt: for indeed she had the courage of a lioness and a Brady united. And then I took down the pistols, which were always kept bright and well oiled, and put some fresh flints I had into the locks, and got balls and powder ready against the Captain shouldcome. There was claret and a cold fowl put ready for him on the sideboard, and a case-bottle of old brandy too, with a couple of little glasses on the silver tray with the Barry arms emblazoned. In after life, and in the midst of my fortune and splendour, I paid thirty-five guineas, OC, remorse consequent upon any of my affairs of honour: always considering, from the first, that where a gentleman risks his own life in manly combat, he is a fool to be ashamed because he wins. I slept at Carlow as sound as man could sleep ; drank a tankard of small beer and a toast to my breakfast ; and exchanged the first of my gold pieces to settle the bill, not forgetting to pay all the servants liberally, and as a gentleman should. I began so the first day of my life, and so have con- tinued. No man has been at greater straits than I, and has borne more pinching poverty and hardship; but nobody can say of me that, if I had a guinea, I was not free-handed with it, and did not spend it as well as a lord could do. I had no doubts of the future: thinking that a man of my person, parts, and courage, could make his way anywhere. Besides, I had twenty gold guineas in my pocket; a sum which (although I was mistaken) I calculated would last me for four months at least, during which time something would be done towards the making of my fortune. So I rode on, singing to myself, or chatting with the passers-by; and all the girls along the road said God save me for a clever gentle- man! As for Nora and Castle Brady, between to-day and yesterday there seemed to be a gap as of half-a-score of years. I vowed I would never re-enter the place but as a ereat man; and I kept my vow too, as you shall hear in due time. There was much more liveliness and bustle on the king’s high-road in those times, than in these days of stage-coaches, which carry you from one end of the kingdom to another in a few score hours. The gentry rode their own horses or drove in their own coaches, and spent three days on a journey which now occupies ten hours; so that there was no lack of company for a person travelling towards Dublin. I made part of the journey from Carlow towards Naas with a well-armed gentle- man from Kilkenny, dressed in green and a gold cord, with a patch on his eye, and riding a powerful mare. He asked me the question of the day, and whither I was bound, and whether my mother was not afraid on account of the highwaymen to let one so young as myself to travel? But I said, pulling out one of them from a holster, that I had a pair of good pistols PeSUCCOUUCA MELA TeV DISTRESS. SI that had already done execution, and were ready to do it again; and here, a pock-marked man coming up, he put spurs into his bay mare and left me. She was a much more power- ful animal than mine; and, besides, I did not wish to fatigue my horse, wishing to enter Dublin that night, and in reputable condition. As I rode towards Kilcullen, I saw a crowd of the peasant- people assembled round a one-horse chair, and my friend in green, as I thought, making off half a mile up the hill. A footman was howling ‘‘ Stop thief!” at the top of his voice ; but the country fellows were only laughing at his distress, and making all sorts of jokes at the adventure which had just befallen. «Sure you might have kept him off with your blunderbush !” says one fellow. ‘‘Oh, the coward! to let the Captain late you; and he only one eye!” cries another. «The next time my Lady travels, she’d better lave you at home!” said a third. ‘‘ What is this noise, fellows?” said I, riding up amongst them, and, seeing a lady in the carriage very pale and fright- ened, gave a slash of my whip, and bade the red-shanked ruffians keep off. ‘What has happened, madam, to annoy your Ladyship ?” I said, pulling off my hat, and bringing my mare up in a prance to the chair-window. The lady explained. She was the wife of Captain Fitz- simons, and was hastening to join the Captain at Dublin. Her chair had been stopped by a highwayman: the great oaf of a servant-man had fallen down on his knees armed as he was; and though there were thirty people in the next field working when the ruffian attacked her, not one of them would help her; but, on the contrary, wished the Captain, as they called the highwayman, good luck. ‘Sure he’s the friend of the poor,” said one fellow, ‘and good luck to him!” “Was it any business of ours?” asked another. And another told, grinning, that it was the famous Captain Freny, who, having bribed the jury to acquit him two days back at Kilkenny assizes, had mounted his horse at the gaol door, and LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 52 THE MEMOLRST OP? BARK LYNN, 50. the very next day had robbed two barristers who were going the circuit. I told this pack of rascals to be off to their work, or they should taste of my thong, and proceeded, as well as I could, to comfort Mrs. Fitzsimons under her misfortunes. ‘‘ Had she lost much?” ‘Everything: her purse, containing up- wards of a hundred guineas; her jewels, snuff-boxes, watches, and a pair of diamond shoe-buckles of the Captain’s.” These mishaps I.sincerely commiserated ; and knowing her by her accent to be an Englishwoman, deplored the difference that existed between the two countries, and said that in our country (meaning England) such atrocities were unknown. “You, too, are an Englishman?” said she, with rather a tone of surprise. On which I said I was proud to be such: as, in fact, I was; and I never knew a true Tory gentleman of Ireland who did not wish he could say as much. I rode by Mrs. Fitzsimons’s chair all the way to Naas; and, as she had been robbed of her purse, asked permission to lend her a couple of pieces to pay her expenses at the inn: which sum she was graciously pleased to accept, and was, at the same time, kind enough to invite me to share her dinner. To the lady’s questions regarding my birth and parentage, I replied that I was a young gentleman of large fortune (this was not true; but what is the use of crying bad fish? My dear mother instructed me early in this sort of prudence) and good family in the county of Waterford; that I was going to Dublin for my studies, and that my mother allowed me five hundred per annum. Mrs. Fitzsimons was equally communi- cative. She was the daughter of General Granby Somerset, of Worcestershire, of whom, of course, I had heard (and though I had not, of course I was too well-bred to say so); and had made, as she must confess, a runaway match with Ensign Fitzgerald Fitzsimons. Had I been in Donegal?—No! That was a pity. The Captain’s father possesses a hundred thousand acres there, and Fitzsimonsburgh Castle’s the finest mansion in Ireland. Captain Fitzsimons is the eldest son; and, though he has quarrelled with his father, must inherit the vast pro- perty. She went on to tell me about the balls at Dublin, the banquets at the Castle, the horse-races at the Phoenix, the MADAM FITZSIMONS. 53 J ridottos and routs, until I became quite eager to join in those pleasures; and I only felt grieved to think that my position would render secresy necessary, and prevent me from being presented at the Court, of which the Fitzsimonses were the most elegant ornaments. How different was her lively rattle to that of the vulgar wenches at the Kilwangan assemblies ! In every sentence she mentioned a lord or a person of quality. She evidently spoke French and Italian, of the former of which languages I have said I knew a few words; and,.as for her English accent, why, perhaps I was no judge of that, for, to say the truth, she was the first real English person I had ever met. She recommended me, further, to be very cautious with regard to the company I should meet at Dublin, where rogues and adventurers of all countries abounded; and my delight and gratitude to her may be imagined, when, as our con- versation grew more intimate (as we sat over our dessert), she kindly offered to accommodate me with lodgings in her own house, where her Fitzsimons, she said, would welcome with delight her gallant young preserver. ‘“‘ Indeed, madam,” said I, ‘‘I have preserved nothing for you.” Which was perfectly true; for had I not come up too late after the robbery to prevent the highwayman from carrying off her money and pearls ? ‘And sure, ma’am, them wasn’t much,” said Sullivan, the blundering servant, who had been so frightened at Freny’s approach, and was waiting on us at dinner. ‘Didn't he return you the thirteenpence in copper, and the watch, saying it was only pinchbeck ?” But his lady rebuked him for a saucy varlet, and turned him out of the room at once, saying to me when he had gone, ‘that the fool didn’t know what was the meaning of a hun- dred-pound bill, which was in the pocket-book that Freny took from her.” Perhaps had I been a little older in the world’s experience, T should have begun to see that Madam Fitzsimons was not the person of fashion she pretended to be; but, as it was, I took all her stories for truth, and, when the landlord brought the bill for dinner, paid it with the air of a lord. Indeed, she made no motion to produce the two pieces I had lent to her ; 54 THE MEMOIRS OF “RARE OV Oy mee: and so we rode on slowly towards Dublin, into which city we made our entrance at nightfall. The rattle and splendour of the coaches, the flare of the linkboys, the number and magni- ficence of the houses, struck me with the greatest wonder ; though I was careful to disguise this feeling, according to my dear mother’s directions, who told me that it was the mark of a man of fashion never to wonder at anything, and never to admit that any house, equipage, or company he saw, was more splendid or genteel than what he had been accustomed to at home. We stopped, at length, at a house of rather mean appear- ance, and were let into a passage by no means so clean as that at Barryville, where there was a great smell of supper and punch. A stout red-faced man, without a periwig, and in rather a tattered night-gown and cap, made his appearance from the parlour, and embraced his lady (for it was Captain Fitz- simons) with a great deal of cordiality. Indeed, when he saw that a stranger accompanied her, he embraced her more raptu- rously than ever. In introducing me, she persisted in saying that I was her preserver, and complimented my gallantry as much as if I had killed Freny, instead of coming up when the robbery was over. The Captain said he knew the Red- monds of Waterford intimately well; which assertion alarmed me, as I knew nothing of the family to which I was stated to belong. But I posed him, by asking which of the Redmonds he knew, for I had never heard his name in our family. He said he knew the Redmonds of Redmondstown. ‘‘ Oh,” says I, “‘mine are the Redmonds of Castle Redmond ;’ and so I put him off the scent. I went to see my nag put up at a livery-stable hard by, with the Captain’s horse and chair, and returned to my entertainer. Although there were the relics of some mutton-chops and onions on a cracked dish before him, the Captain said, ‘‘ My love, I wish I had known of your coming, for Bob Moriarty and I just finished the most delicious venison pasty, which his grace the Lord Lieutenant sent us, with a flask of sillery from his own cellar. You know the wine, my dear? But as bygones are bygones, and no help for them, what say ye to a fine lobster and a bottle of as good claret as any in Ireland ? HOSPITALITY OF CAPTAIN SHITZSIMONS. 55 Betty, clear these things from the table, and make the mistress and our young friend welconie to our home.” Not having small change, Mr. Fitzsimons asked me to lend him a tenpenny-piece to purchase the dish of lobsters ; but his lady, handing out one of the guineas I had given her, bade the eirl get the change for that, and procure the supper; which she did presently, bringing back only a very few shillings out of the guinea to her mistress, saying that the fishmonger had kept the remainder for an old account. ‘‘ And the more great big blundering fool you, for giving the gold piece to him,” roared Mr. Fitzsimons. I forget how many hundred guineas he said he had paid the fellow during the year. Our supper was seasoned, if not by any great elegance, at least by a plentiful store of anecdotes, concerning the highest personages of the city; with whom, according to himself, the Captain lived on terms of the utmost intimacy. Not to be behindhand with him, I spoke of my own estates and property as if I was as rich as a duke. I told all the stories of the nobility I had ever heard from my mother, and some that, perhaps, I had invented; and ought to have been aware that my host was an impostor himself, as he did not find out my own blunders and misstatements. But youth is ever too confident. It was some time before I knew that I had made no very desirable acquaintance in Captain Fitzsimons and his lady; and, indeed, went to bed congratulating myself upon my wonderful good luck in having, at the outset of my adventures, fallen in with so distinguished a couple. The appearance of the chamber I occupied might, indeed, have led me to imagine that the heir of Fitzsimonsburgh Castle, county Donegal, was not as yet reconciled. with his wealthy parents; and, had I been an English lad, probably my suspicion and distrust would have been aroused instantly. But perhaps, as the reader knows, we are not so particular in Ireland on the score of neatness as people are in this precise country ; hence the disorder of my bedchamber did not strike me so much. For were not all the windows broken and stuffed with rags even at Castle Brady, my uncle’s superb mansion? Was there ever a lock to the doors there, or if a lock, a handle to the lock, or a hasp to fasten it to? So, 56 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. though my bedroom boasted of these inconveniences, and a few more; though my counterpane was evidently a greased brocade dress of Mrs. Fitzsimons’s, and my cracked toilet-glass not much bigger than a half-crown, yet I was used to this sort of ways in Irish houses, and still thought myself in that of a man of fashion. There was no lock to the drawers, which, when they did open, were full of my hostess’s rouge-pots, shoes, stays, and rags; so I allowed my wardrobe to remain in my --valise, but set out my silver dressing apparatus upon the ragged cloth on the drawers, where it shone to great advantage. When Sullivan appeared in the morning, I asked him about my mare, which he informed me was doing well. I then bade him bring me hot shaving-water in a loud dignified tone. ‘“‘ Hot shaving-water!”’ says he, bursting out laughing (and I confess not without reason). ‘Is it yourself you’re going to shave ?’’ said he. ‘*And maybe when I bring you up the water [ll bring you up the cat too, and you can shave her.” I flung a boot at the scoundrel’s head in reply to this imperti- nence, and was soon with my friends in the parlour for break- faust. There was a hearty welcome, and the same cloth that had been used the night before: as I recognised by the black mark of the Irish-stew dish and the stain left by a pot of porter at supper. My host greeted me with great cordiality; Mrs. Fitzsimons said I was an elegant figure for the Phcenix; and indeed, without vanity, I may say of myself that there were worse- looking fellows in Dublin than I. I had not the powerful chest and muscular proportion which I have since attained (to be exchanged, alas! for gouty legs and chalk-stones in my fingers; but ’tis the way of mortality), but I had arrived at near my present growth of six feet, and with my hair in buckle, a handsome lace jabot and wristbands to my shirt, and a red plush waistcoat, barred with gold, looked the gentleman I was born. I wore my drab coat with plate buttons, that was erown too small for me, and quite agreed with Captain Fitz- simons that I must pay a visit to his tailor, in order to procure myself a coat more fitting my size. ‘‘T needn’t ask whether you had a comfortable bed,’ said Pere INIRODOGLIONGLOTOUCELIIN: SOCIETY. 57 he. ‘Young Fred Pimpleton (Lord Pimpleton’s second son) slept in it for seven months, during which he did me the honour to stay with me, and if he was satisfied, I don’t know who else wouldn’t be.” After breakfast we walked out to see the town, and Mr. Fitzsimons introduced me to several of his acquaintances whom we met, as his particular young friend Mr. Redmond, of Waterford county; he also presented me at his hatter’s and tailor’s as a gentleman of great expectations and large pro- perty; and although I told the latter that I should not pay him ready cash for more than one coat, which fitted me to a nicety, yet he insisted upon making me several, which I did not care to refuse. The Captain, also, who certainly wanted such a renewal of raiment, told the tailor to send him home a handsome military frock, which he selected. Then we went home to Mrs. Fitzsimons, who drove out in her chair to the Phoenix Park, where a review was, and where numbers of the young gentry were round about her; to all of whom she presented me as her preserver of the day before. Indeed, such was her complimentary account of me, that before half-an-hour I had got to be considered as a young gentleman of the highest family in the land, related to all the principal nobility, a cousin of Captain Fitzsimons, and heir to 10,000/. a year. Fitzsimons said he had ridden over every inch of my estate; and ’faith, as he chose to tell these stories for me, I let him have his way—indeed was not a little pleased (as youth is) to be made much of, and to pass for a great personage. I had little notion then that I had got among a set of impostors—that Captain Fitzsimons was only an ad- venturer, and his lady a person of no credit; but such are the dangers to which youth is perpetually subject, and hence let young men take warning by me. I purposely hurry over the description of my life in which the incidents were painful, of no great interest except to my unlucky self, and of which my companions were certainly not of a kind befitting my quality. The fact was, a young man could hardly have fallen into worse hands than those in which I now found myself. I have been to Donegal since, and have never seen the famous Castle of Fitzsimonsburgh, which is, I 19 58 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRYCLINDOW RE oC. likewise, unknown to the oldest inhabitants of that county ; nor are the Granby Somersets much better known in Hampshire. The couple into whose hands I had fallen were of a sort much more common then than at present, for the vast wars of later days have rendered it very difficult for noblemen’s footmen or hangers-on to procure commissions; and such, in fact, had been the original station of Captain Fitzsimons. Had I known his origin, of course I would have died rather than have asso- ciated with him; but in those simple days of youth I took his tales for truth, and fancied myself in high luck at being, at my outset into life, introduced into such a family. Alas! we are the sport of destiny. When I consider upon what small cir- cumstances all the great events of my life have turned, I can hardly believe myself to have been anything but a puppet in the hands of Fate; which has played its most fantastic tricks upon me. The Captain had been a gentleman’s gentleman, and his lady of no higher rank. The society which this worthy pair kept was at a sort of ordinary which they held, and at which their friends were always welcome on payment of a certain moderate sum for their dinner. After dinner, you may be sure that cards were not wanting, and that the company who played did not play for love merely. To these parties persons of all sorts would come: young bloods from the regiments garrisoned in Dublin; young clerks from the Castle; horse- riding, wine-tippling, watchman-beating men of fashion about town, such as existed in Dublin in that day more than in any other city with which I am acquainted in Europe. I never knew young fellows make such a show, and upon such small means. I never knew young gentlemen with what I may call such a genius for idleness; and whereas an English- man with fifty guineas a year is not able to do much more than starve, and toil like a slave in a profession, a young Irish buck with the same sum will keep his horses, and drink his bottle, and live as lazy as a lord. Here was a doctor who never had a patient, cheek by jow] with an attorney who never had a client: neither had a guinea—each had a good horse to ride in the Park, and the best of clothes to his back. A sporting clergyman without a living; several young wine-merchants, MY LIFE IN DUBLIN. 59 who consumed much more liquor than they had or sold; and men of similar character, formed the society at the house into which, by ill luck, I was thrown. What could happen to a man but misfortune from associating with such company ?— (I have not mentioned the ladies of the society, who were, perhaps, no better than the males)—and in a very very short time I became their prey. As for my poor twenty guineas, in three days I saw, with terror, that they had dwindled down to eight: theatres and taverns having already made such cruel inroads in my purse. At play I had lost, it is true, a couple of pieces; but seeing that everyone round about me played upon honour and gave their bills, I, of course, preferred that medium to the payment of ready money, and when I lost paid on account. With the tailors, saddlers, and others, I employed similar means; and in so far Mr. Fitzsimons’s representation did me good, for the tradesmen took him at his word regarding my fortune (I have since learned that the rascal pigeoned several other young men of property), and for a little time supplied me with any goods I might be pleased to order. At length, my cash running low, I was compelled to pawn some of the suits with which the tailor had provided me; for I did not like to part with my mare, on which I daily rode in the Park, and which I loved as the gift of my respected uncle. I raised some little money, too, on a few trinkets which I had purchased of a jeweller who pressed his credit upon me; and thus was enabled to keep up appearances for yet a little time. I asked at the post-office repeatedly for letters for Mr. Redmond, but none such had arrived; and, indeed, I always felt rather relieved when the answer of ‘‘ No” was given to me; for I was not very anxious that my mother should know my proceedings in the extravagant life which I was leading at Dublin. It could not last very long, however; for when my cash was quite exhausted, and I paid a second visit to the tailor, requesting him to make me more clothes, the fellow hummed and ha’d, and had the impudence to ask payment for those already supplied: on which, telling him I should withdraw my custom from him, I abruptly left him. The goldsmith too (a rascal Jew) declined to let me take a gold chain to which I had 60 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY, LYNDON, ESQ. a faney; and I felt now, for the first time, in some perplexity. To add to it, one of the young géntlemen who frequented Mr. Fitzsimons’s boarding-house had received from me, in the way of play, an IO U for eighteen pounds (which I lost to him at piquet), and which, owing Mr. Curbyn, the livery-stable keeper, a bill, he passed into that person’s hands. Fancy my rage and astonishment, then, on going for my mare, to find that he positively refused to let me have her out of the stable, except under payment of my promissory note! It was in vain that I offered him his choice of four notes that I had in my pocket—one of Fitzsimons’s for 20/., one of Counsellor Mulli- van’s, and so forth ; the dealer, who was a Yorkshireman, shook his head, and laughed at every one of them; and said, “I tell you what, Master Redmond, you appear a young fellow of birth and fortune, and let me whisper in your ear that you have fallen into very bad hands—it’s a regular gang of swindlers; and a gentleman of your rank and quality should never be seen in such company. Go home: pack up your valise, pay the little trifle to me, mount your mare, and ride back again to your parents,—it’s the very best thing you can do.” In a pretty nest of villains, indeed, was I plunged! It seemed as if all my misfortunes were to break on me at once; for, on going home and ascending to my bedroom in a discon- solate way, I found the Captain and his lady there before me, my valise open, my wardrobe lying on the ground, and my keys in the possession of the odious Fitzsimons. ‘ Whom have I been harbouring in my house?” roared he, as I entered the apartment. ‘ Who are you, sirrah ?” “ Strrah! Sir,” said I, “I am as good a gentleman as any in Ireland.” ‘You're an impostor, young man: a schemer, a deceiver !”’ shouted the Captain. “‘ Repeat the words again, and I will run you through the body,” replied I. “Tut, tut! I can play at fencing as well as you, Mr. Repmonp Barry. Ah! you change colour, do you—your secret is known, is it? You come like a viper into the bosom of innocent families; you represent yourself as the heir of my friends the Redmonds of Castle Redmond; I inthrojuice you MY HOST =LGRNS (UPON WE. | 61 to the nobility and genthry of this methropolis ” (the Captain’s brogue was large, and his words, by preference, long); ‘I take you to my tradesmen, who give you credit, and what do Ifind? ‘That you have pawned the goods which you took up at their houses.” | ‘‘T have given them my acceptances, sir,’ dignified air. ‘Under what name, unhappy boy—under what name ?” screamed Mrs. Fitzsimons; and then, indeed, I remembered that I had signed the documents Barry Redmond instead of Redmond Barry: but what else could I do? Had not my mother desired me to take no other designation ? After utter- ing a furious tirade against me, in which he spoke of the fatal discovery of my real name on my linen—of his misplaced confidence of affection, and the shame with which he should be obliged to meet his fashionable friends and confess that he had harboured a swindler, he gathered up the linen, clothes, silver toilet articles, and the rest of my gear, saying that he should step out that moment for an officer and give me up to the just revenge of the law. During the first part of his speech, the thought of the imprudence of which I had been guilty, and the predicament in which I was plunged, had so puzzled and confounded me, that I had not uttered a word in reply to the fellow’s abuse, but had stood quite dumb before him. The sense of danger, however, at once roused me to action. ‘‘ Hark ye, Mr. Fitz- simons,” said I; ‘I will tell you why I was obliged to alter my name: which zs Barry, and the best name in Ireland. I changed it, sir, because, on the day before I came to Dublin, I killed a man in deadly combat—an Englishman, sir, and a captain in His Majesty’s service; and if you offer to let or hinder me in the slightest way, the same arm which destroyed him is ready to punish you; and by Heaven, sir, you or { don’t leave this room alive!” So saying, I drew my sword like lightning, and giving a “ha! ha!” and a stamp with my foot, lunged within an inch of Fitzsimons’s heart, who started back and turned deadly pale, while his wife, with a scream, flung herself between us. 3 said I with a 62 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESC. ‘‘ Dearest Redmond,” she cried, ‘‘ be pacified. Fitzsimons, you don’t want the poor child’s blood. Let him escape—in Heaven’s name let him go.” “He may go hang for me,” said Fitzsimons sulkily; ‘and he’d better be off quickly, too, for the jeweller and the tailor have called once, and will be here again before long. It was Moses the pawnbroker that peached: I had the news from him myself.” By which I conclude that Mr. Fitzsimons had been with the new-laced frock-coat which he procured from the merchant-tailor on the day when the latter first gave me credit. What was the end of our conversation? Where was now a home for the descendant of the Barrys? Home was shut to me by my misfortune in the duel. I was expelled from Dublin by a persecution occasioned, I must confess, by my own imprudence. I had no time to wait and choose: no place of refuge to fly to. Fitzsimons, after his abuse of me, left the room growling, but not hostile ; his wife insisted that we should shake hands, and he promised not to molest me. Indeed, I owed the fellow nothing; and, on the contrary, had his acceptance actually in my pocket for money lost at play. As for my friend Mrs. Fitzsimons, she sat down on the bed and fairly burst out crying. She had her faults, but her heart was kind; and though she possessed but three shillings in the world, and fourpence in copper, the poor soul made me take it before I left her—to go—whither? My mind was made up: there was a score of recruiting-parties in the town beat- ing up for men to join our gallant armies in America and Germany; I knew where to find one of these, having stood by the sergeant at a review in the Pheenix Park, where he pointed out to me characters on the field, for which I treated him to drink. I gave one of my shillings to Sullivan the butler of the Fitzsimonses, and, running into the street, hastened to the little alehouse at which my acquaintance was quartered, and before ten minutes had accepted His Majesty’s shilling. I told him frankly that I was a young gentleman in difficulties; that I had killed an officer in a duel, and was anxious to get out of the country. But I need not have troubled myself with any TURN SOLDIER. 63 explanations; King George was too much in want of men then to heed from whence they came, anda fellow of my inches, the sergeant said, was always welcome. Indeed, I could not, he said, have chosen my time better. , iF i At OPO) The reader will be able to gather from the above conver- sation what my design really was. Iwas determined to escape, and to escape under the character of Lieutenant Fakenham ; taking it from him to his face, as it were, and making use of it to meet my imperious necessity. It was forgery and robbery, if you like; for I took all his money and clothes,—I don’t care to conceal it; but the need was so urgent, that I would do so again: and I knew I could not effect my escape without his HOWL CULEIED LAETALM Y, SI purse, as well as his name. Hence it became my duty to take possession of one and the other. As the lieutenant lay still in bed upstairs, I did not hesitate at all about assuming his uniform, especially after taking care to inform myself from the doctor whether any men of ours who might know me were in the town. But there were none that I could hear of; and so I calmly took my walks with Madame Lischen, dressed in the lieutenant’s uniform, made inquiries as to a horse that I wanted to purchase, reported myself to the commandant of the place as Lieutenant Fakenham, of Gale’s English regiment of foot, convalescent, and was asked to dine with the officers of the Prussian regiment at a very sorry mess they had. How Fakenham would have stormed and raged, had he known the use I was making of his name! Whenever that worthy used to inquire about his clothes, which he did with many oaths and curses that he would have me caned at the regiment for inattention, I, with a most respectful air, informed him that they were put away in perfect safety below; and, in fact, had them very neatly packed, and ready for the day when I proposed to depart. His papers and money, however, he kept under his pillow ; and, as I had purchased a horse, it became necessary to pay for it. At a certain hour, then, I ordered the animal to be brought round, when I would pay the dealer for him. (I shall pass over my adieux with my kind hostess, which were very tearful indeed), and then, making up my mind to the great action, walked upstairs to Fakenham’s room attired in his full regimentals, and with his hat cocked over my left eye. “You gweat scoundwel!” said he, with a multiplicity of oaths; “you mutinous dog! what do you mean by dwessing yourself in my wegimentals? As sure as my name’s Faken- ham, when we get back to the wegiment, I'll have your soul cut out of your body.” “I’m promoted, Lieutenant,” said I, with a sneer. ‘I’m come to take my leave of you;’’ and then going up to his bed, I said, “I intend to have your papers and purse.” With this I put my hand under his pillow; at which he gave a seream M 19 82 LHE MEMOIRS (OF BARRY LYNN ae. that might have called the whole garrison about my ears. ‘‘ Hark yé, sir!” said I, ‘‘no more noise, or you are a dead man!” and taking a handkerchief, | bound it tight around his mouth so as well-nigh to throttle him, and, pulling forward the sleeves of his shirt, tied them in a knot together, and so left him; removing the papers and the purse, you may be sure, and wishing him politely a good day. ‘It is the mad corporal,” said I to the people down below who were attracted by the noise from the sick man’s chamber ; and so taking leave of the old blind Jagdmeister, and an adieu (I will not say how tender) of his daughter, I mounted my newly purchased animal; and, as I pranced away, and the sentinels presented arms to me at the town-gates, felt once more that I was in my proper sphere, and determined never again to fall from the rank of a gentleman. I took at first the way towards Bremen, where our army was, and gave out that I was bringing reports and letters from the Prussian commandant of Warburg to headquarters ; but, as soon as I got out of sight of the advanced sentinels, I turned bridle and rode into the Hesse-Cassel territory, which is luckily not very far from Warburg: and I promise you I was very glad to see the blue-and-red stripes on the barriers, which showed me that I was out of the land occupied by our countrymen. I rode to Hof, and the next day to Cassel, giving out that I was the bearer of despatches to Prince Henry, then on the Lower Rhine, and put up at the best hotel of the place, where the field-officers of the garrison had their ordinary. These gentlemen I treated to the best wines that the house afforded, for I was determined to keep up the character of the Knelish gentleman, and I talked to them about my English estates with a fluency that almost made me believe in the stories which I invented. Iwas even asked to an assembly at Wilhelmshohe, the Elector’s palace, and danced a minuet there with the Hofmarshal’s lovely daughter, and lost a few pieces to his excellency the first huntmaster of his Highness. At our table at the inn there was a Prussian officer who treated me with great civility, and asked me a thousand questions about England; which I answered as best I might. PRIDE, WITH ACPRUSSIAN OFFICER. $3 But this best, I am bound to say, was bad enough. I knew nothing about England, and the Court, and the noble families there; but, led away by the vaingloriousness of youth (and a propensity which I possessed in my early days, but of which I have long since corrected myself, to boast and talk in a manner not altogether consonant with truth), I invented a thousand stories which I told him; described the King and the Ministers to him, said the British Ambassador at Berlin was my uncle, and promised my acquaintance a letter of recommendation to him. When the officer asked me my uncle’s name, I was not able to give him the real name, and so said his name was O’Grady: it is as good a name as any other, and those of Kilballyowen, county Cork, are as good a family as any in the world, as I have heard. As for stories about my regiment, of these, of course, I had no lack. I wish my other histories had been equally authentic. On the morning I left Cassel, my Prussian friend came to me with an open smiling countenance, and said he, too, was bound for Dusseldorf, whither I said my route lay; and so laying our horses’ heads together we jogged on. The country was desolate beyond description. The prince in whose domi- nions we were was known to be the most ruthless seller of men in Germany. He would sell to any bidder, and during the five years which the war (afterwards called the Seven Years’ War) had now lasted, had so exhausted the males of his principality, that the fields remained untilled: even the children of twelve years old were driven off to the war, and I saw herds of these wretches marching forwards, attended by a few troopers, now under the guidance of a red-coated Hano- verian sergeant, now with a Prussian sub-officer accompanying them; with some of whom my companion exchanged signs of recognition. “It hurts my feelings,” said he, ‘‘to be obliged to com- mune with such wretches; but the stern necessities of war demand men continually, and hence these recruiters whom you see market in human flesh. They get five-and-twenty dollars from our Government for every man they bring in. For fine men—for men like you,” he added, laughing, “ we would go as high as a hundred. In the old King’s time we 84 THE MEMOIRS OF BAKRY LYNDON, “ESQ. would have given a thousand for you, when he had his giant regiment that our present monarch disbanded.” ‘“‘T knew one of them,” said I, ‘‘ who served with you: we used to call him Morgan Prussia.” Indeed! and who was this Morgan Prussia ?” “Why, a huge grenadier of ours, who was somehow snapped up in Hanover by some of your recruiters.” ‘The rascals!” said my friend: ‘‘and did they dare take an Englishman ?” “’Faith this was an Irishman, and a great deal too sharp for them; as you shall hear. Morgan was taken, then, and drafted into the giant guard, and was the biggest man almost arnong all the giants there. Many of these monsters used to complain of their life, and their caning, and their long drills, and their small pay; but Morgan was not one of the grumblers. ‘It’s a deal better,’ said he, ‘to get fat here in Berlin than to starve in rags in Tipperary !’” ‘‘ Where is Tipperary ?”’ asked my companion. “That is exactly what Morgan’s friends asked him. It is a beautiful district in Ireland, the capital of which is the magnificent city of Clonmel: a city, let me tell you, sir, only inferior to Dublin and London, and far more sumptuous than any on the Continent. Well, Morgan said that his birthplace was near that city, and the only thing which caused him unhappiness, in his present situation, was the thought that his brothers were still starving at home, when they might be so much better off in His Majesty’s service. “«<’Haith,’ says Morgan to the sergeant, to whom he im- parted the information, ‘it’s my brother Bin that would make the fine sergeant of the guards, entirely !’ «Ts Ben as tall.as you are?’ asked the sergeant. “As tall as me, is 1t? Why, man, I’m the shortest of my family! There's six more of us, but Bin’s the biggest of all. Oh! out and out the biggest. Seven feet in his stockin-fut, as sure as my name’s Morgan!’ **Can’t we send and fetch them over, these brothers of yours ?’ ““*Not you. Ever since I was seduced by one of you gentlemen of the cane, they’ve a mortal aversion to all ser- A FAMILY OF i:GIANTS. 85 geants,’ answered Morgan: ‘but it’s a pity they cannot come, too. What a monster Bin would be in a grenadier’s cap!’ ‘He said nothing more at the time regarding his brothers, but only sighed as if lamenting their hard fate. However, the story was told by the sergeant to the officers, and by the officers to the King himself; and His Majesty was so inflamed by curiosity, that he actually consented to let Morgan go home in order to bring back with him his seven enormous brothers.” ‘“‘ And were they as big as Morgan pretended ?”’ asked my comrade. I could not help laughing at his simplicity. ‘‘Do you suppose,” cried I, ‘‘that Morgan ever came back? No, no; once free, he was too wise for that. He has bought a snug farm in Tipperary with the money that was given him to secure his brothers; and I fancy few men of the guards ever profited so much by it.” The Prussian captain laughed exceedingly at this story, said that the English were the cleverest nation in the world, and, on my setting him right, agreed that the Irish were even more so. We rode on very well pleased with each other ; for he had a thousand stories of the war to tell, of the skill and gallantry of Frederick, and the thousand escapes, and victories, and defeats scarcely less glorious than victories, through which the King had passed. Now that I was a gentleman, I could listen with admiration to these tales: and yet the sentiment recorded at the end of the last chapter was uppermost in my mind but three weeks back, when I remembered that it was the great general got the glory, and the poor soldier only insult and the cane. ‘“‘ By the way, to whom are you taking despatches ?” asked the officer. It was another ugly question, which I determined to answer at hap-hazard; and so I said ‘‘ To General Rolls.” I had seen the general a year before, and gave the first name in my head. My friend was quite satisfied with it, and we continued our ride until evening came on; and our horses being weary, it was agreed that we should come to a halt. ‘‘ There is a very good inn,” said the Captain, as we rode up to what appeared to me a very lonely-looking place. ‘This may be a very good inn for Germany,” said I, “ but 86 THE MEMOIRS OF BARK Y LANDON, Fes. it would not pass in old Ireland. Corbach is only a league off: let us push on for Corbach.” “Do you want to see the loveliest woman in Kurope ?”’ said the officer. ‘‘Ah! you sly rogue, I see that will in- fluence you;” and, truth to say, such a proposal was always welcome to me, as I don’t care toown. ‘‘ The people are great farmers,” said the Captain, ‘‘ as well as innkeepers;” and, indeed, the place seemed more a farm than an inn-yard. We entered by a great gate into a court walled round, and at one end of which was the building, a dingy ruinous place. A couple of covered waggons were in the court, their horses were littered under a shed hard by, and lounging about the place were some men, and a pair of sergeants in the Prussian uni- form, who both touched their hats to my friend the Captain. This customary formality struck me as nothing extraordinary ; but the aspect of the inn had something exceedingly chilling and forbidding in it, and I observed the men shut to the great yard-gates as soon as we were entered. Parties of French horsemen, the Captain said, were about the country, and one could not take too many precautions against such villains. We went in to supper, after the two sergeants had taken charge of our horses; the Captain, also, ordering one of them to take my valise to my bedroom. I promised the worthy fellow a glass of schnapps for his pains. A dish of fried eggs-and-bacon was ordered from a hideous old wench that came to serve us, in place of the lovely creature I had expected to see; and the Captain, laughing, said, ‘‘ Well, our meal is a frugal one, but a soldier has many a time a worse: and, taking off his hat, sword-belt, and gloves, with sreat ceremony, he sat down to eat. I would not be behind- hand with him in politeness, and put my weapon securely on the old chest of drawers where his was laid. The hideous old woman before mentioned brought us in a pot of very sour wine, at which and at her ugliness I felt a considerable ill-humour. ‘‘Where’s the beauty you promised me?”’ said I, as soon as the old hag had left the room. “Bah!” said he, laughing, and looking hard at me: ‘‘it was my joke. I was tired, and did not care to go farther. PORCID TO SERVE HE GCREAL PRKEDERICK. 87 There’s no prettier woman here than that. If she won’t suit your fancy, my friend, you must wait a while.” This mereased my ill-humour. “Upon my word, sir,” said I, sternly, ‘I think you have acted very coolly!” “T have acted as I think fit !”’ rephed the Captain. «Sir, said 1, *el’mra. british omicer }” ‘It’s a lie!’’ roared the other, ‘‘ you're a DESERTER! You’re an impostor, sir; I have known you for such these three hours. I suspected you yesterday. My men heard of a man escaping from Warburg, and [ thought you were the man. Your lies and folly have confirmed me. You pretend to carry despatches to a general who has been dead these ten months: you have an uncle who is an ambassador, and whose name forsooth you don’t know. Will you join and take the bounty, sir; or will you be given up ?”’ ‘‘ Neither!” said I, springing at him like a tiger. But, agile as I was, he was equally on his guard. He took two pistols out of his pocket, fired one off, and said, from the other end of the table where he stood dodging me, as it were,— ‘‘ Advance a step, and I send this bullet into your brains !”’ In another minute the door was flung open, and the two sergeants entered, armed with musket and bayonet to aid their comrade. The game was up. I flung down a knife with which I had armed myself; for the old hag on bringing in the wine had removed my sword. ‘‘T volunteer,” said I. “'That’s my good fellow. What name shall I put on my list ?” “Write Redmond Barry of Bally Barry,” said I, haughtily ; “a descendant of the Irish kings!” “T was once with the Irish brigade, Roche’s,” said the recruiter, sneering, “trying if I could get any likely fellows among the few countrymen of yours that are in the brigade, and there was scarcely one of them that was not descended from the kings of Ireland.” Sir,” said I, ‘‘ king or not, I am a gentleman, as you can 9 see. 83 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, E52: ‘“Oh! you will find plenty more in our corps,’’ answered the Captain, still in the sneering mood. ‘‘Give up your papers, Mr. Gentleman, and let us see who you really are.” As my pocket-book contained some bank-notes as well as papers of Mr. Fakenham’s, I was not willing to give up my property; suspecting very rightly that it was but a scheme on the part of the Captain to get and keep it. «Tt can matter very little to you,” said I, “‘ what my private papers are: I am enlisted under the name of Redmond Barry.” ‘Give it up, sirrah!”’ said the Captain, seizing his cane. “ T will not give it up!”’ answered I. “ FIound! do you mutiny?” screamed he, and, at the same time, gave me a lash across the face with tle cane, which had the anticipated effect of producing a struggle. I dashed forward to grapple with him, the two sergeants flung themselves on me, I was thrown to the ground and stunned again; being hit on my former wound in the head. It was bleeding severely when I came to myself, my laced coat was already torn off my back, my purse and papers gone, and my hands tied behind my back. The great and illustrious Frederick had scores of these white slave-dealers all round the frontiers of his kingdom, debauching troops or kidnapping peasants and hesitating at no crime to supply those brilliant regiments of his with food for powder; and I cannot help telling here, with some satis- faction, the fate which ultimately befell the atrocious scoundrel who, violating all the rights of friendship and good-fellowship, had just succeeded in entrapping me. This individual was a person of high family and known talents and courage, but who had a propensity to gambling and extravagance, and found his calling as a recruit-decoy far more profitable to him than his pay of second captain in the line. The sovereign, too, probably found his services more useful in the former capacity. His name was Monsieur de Galgenstein, and he was one of the most successful of the practisers of his rascally trade. He spoke all languages, and knew all countries, and hence had no difficulty in finding out the simple braggadocio of a young lad like me. About 1765, however, he came to his justly merited end. FATE OF GALGENSTEIN. 89 He was at this time living at Kehl, opposite Strasburg, and used to take his walk upon the bridge there, and get into con- versation with the French advanced sentinels; to whom he was in the habit of promising ‘‘ mountains and marvels,” as the French say, if they would take service in Prussia. One day there was on the bridge a superb grenadier, whom Galgenstein accosted, and to whom he promised a SY at least, if he would enlist under Frederick. ‘‘Ask my comrade yonder,” said the grenadier; ‘I can do nothing without him. We were born and bred together, we are of the same company, sleep in the same room, and always go in pairs. If he will go and you will give him a captaincy, I will go too.” “Bring your comrade over to Kehl,” said Galgenstein, delighted. ‘I will give you the best of dinners, and can promise to satisfy both of you.” “Had you not better speak to him on the bridge ?”’ said the grenadier. ‘‘I dare not leave my post; but you have but to pass, and talk over the matter.” Galgenstein, after a little parley, passed the sentinel ; but presently a panic took him, and he retraced his steps. But the grenadier brought his bayonet to the Prussian’s breast and bade him stand: that he was his prisoner. The Prussian, however, seeing his danger, made a bound across the bridge and into the Rhine; whither, flinging aside his musket, the intrepid sentry followed him. The Frenchman was the better swimmer of the two, seized upon the recruiter, and bore him to the Strasburg side of the stream, where he gave him up. ‘*You deserve to be shot,” said the general to him, “ for abandoning your post and arms; but you merit reward for an act of courage and daring. The King prefers to reward you,” and the man received money and promotion. As for Galgenstein, he declared his quality as a nobleman and a captain in the Prussian service, and applications were made to Berlin to know if his representations were true. But the King, though he employed men of this stamp (officers to seduce the subjects of his allies) could not acknowledge his own shame. Letters were written back from Berlin to say N 19 90 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESO. that such a family existed in the kingdom, but that the person representing himself to belong to it must be an impostor, for every officer of the name was at his regiment and his post. It was Galgenstein’s death-warrant, and he was hanged as a spy in Strasburg. * * * * * * ‘¢Turn him into the cart with the rest,” said he, as soon as I awoke from my trance. LHE CRIMP WAGGON. 91 CHAPTER VI. THE CRIMP WAGGON—MILITARY EPISODES. HE covered waggon to which I was ordered to march was standing, as I have said, in the courtyard of the farm, with another dismal vehicle of the same kind hard by it. Each was pretty well filled with a crew of men, whom the atrocious crimp who had seized upon me, had enlist- ed under the banners of the clorious Frederick; and I could see by the lanterns of the sentinels, as they thrust me into the straw, a dozen dark figures huddled together in the horrible moving prison where | was now to be confined. A scream and a curse from my opposite neighbour showed me that he was most lkely wounded, as I myself was; and, during the whole of the wretched night, the moans and sobs of the poor fellows in similar captivity kept up a continual painful chorus, which effectually prevented my getting any relief from my ills in sleep. At midnight (as far as I could judge) the horses were put to the waggons, and the creaking lumbering machines were put in motion. A couple of soldiers, strongly armed, sat on the outer bench of the cart, and their grim faces peered 92 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. in with their lanterns every now and then through the canvas curtains, that they might count the number of their prisoners. The brutes were half drunk, and were singing love and war songs, such as ‘“‘O Gretchen mein Taubchen, mein Herzens- trompet, Mein Kanon, mein Heerpauk und meine Musket,” “Prinz Eugen der edle Ritter,’ and the like; their wild whoops and jédels making doleful discord with the groans of us captives within the waggons. Many a time afterwards have I heard these ditties sung on the march, or in the barrack- room, or round the fires as we lay out at night. I was not near so unhappy, in spite of all, as I had been on my first enlisting in Ireland. At least, thought I, if 1 am degraded to be a private soldier, there will be no one of my acquaintance who will witness my shame; and that is the point which I have always cared for most. There will be no one to say, ‘ There is young Redmond Barry, the descendant of the Barrys, the fashionable young blood of Dublin, pipe- claying his belt and carrying his brown Bess.” Indeed, but for that opinion of the world, with which it is necessary that every man of spirit should keep upon equal terms, I, for my part, would have always been contented with the humblest portion. Now here, to all intents and purposes, one was as far removed from the world as in the wilds of Siberia, or in Robinson Crusoe’s island. And I reasoned with myself thus :—‘‘ Now you are caught, there is no use in repining: make the best of your situation, and get all the pleasure you can out of it. There are a thousand opportunities of plunder, &c., offered to the soldier in war-time, out of which he can get both plea- sure and profit: make use of these, and be happy. SBesides, you are extraordinarily brave, handsome, and clever: and who knows but you may procure advancement in your new service ?” In this philosophical way I looked at my misfortunes, determining not to be cast down by them; and bore my woes and my broken head with perfect magnanimity. The latter was, for the moment, an evil against which it required no small powers of endurance to contend; for the jolts of the waggon were dreadful, and every shake caused a throb in my brain which I thought would have split my skull. As the MY COMRADE IN THE CRIMP WAGGON. 93 ‘morning dawned, I saw that the man next me, a gaunt yellow- haired creature, in black, had a cushion of straw under his head. ‘Are you wounded, comrade ?”’ said I. ‘‘ Praised be the Lord,” said he, ‘‘I am sore hurt in spirit and body, and bruised in many members; wounded, however, am I not. And you, poor youth?” ‘‘T am wounded in the head,” said I, “‘and I want your pillow: give it me—I’ve a clasp-knife in my pocket!” and with this I gave him a terrible look, meaning to say (and mean it I did, for look you, a la guerre cest a la querre, and I am none of your milksops) that, unless he yielded me the accommodation, I would give him a taste of my steel. “‘T would give it thee without any threat, friend,” said the yellow-haired man, meekly, and handed me over his little sack of straw. He then leaned himself back as comfortably as he could against the cart, and began repeating, ‘‘ Hin’ feste Burg ist unser Gott,” by which I concluded that I had got into the company of a parson. With the jolts of the waggon, and acci- dents of the journey, various more exclamations and move- ments of the passengers showed what a motley company we were. Every now and then a countryman would burst into tears; a French voice would be heard to say, ‘‘O mon Dieu !— mon Dieu!” a couple more of the same nation were jabbering oaths and chattering incessantly; and a certain allusion to his own and everybody else’s eyes, which came from a stalwart figure at the far corner, told me that there was certainly an Englishman in our crew. But I was spared soon the tedium and discomforts of the journey. In spite of the clergyman’s cushion, my head, which was throbbing with pain, was brought abruptly in contact with the side of the waggon; it began to bleed afresh; I became almost light-headed. I only recollect having a draught of water here and there; once stopping at a fortified town, where an officer counted us :—all the rest of the journey was passed in a drowsy stupor, from which, when I awoke, I found myself lying in a hospital bed, with a nun in a white hood watching over me. 94 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. ‘They are in sad spiritual darkness,” said a voice from the bed next to me, when the nun had finished her kind offices and retired: ‘they are in the night of error, and yet there is the light of faith in those poor creatures.” It was my comrade of the crimp-waggon, his huge’ broad face looming out from under a white nightcap, and ensconced in the bed beside. “What! you there, Herr Pastor ?” said I. “Only a candidate, sir,” answered the white nightcap. ‘But, praised be Heaven! you have come to. You have had a wild time of it. You have been talking in the English language (with which I am acquainted) of Ireland, and a young lady, and Mick, and of another young lady, and of a house on fire, and of the British Grenadiers, concerning whom you sung us parts of a ballad, and of a number of other matters appertaining, no doubt, to your personal history.” “Tt has been a very strange one,” said I; ‘‘and, perhaps, there is no man in the world, a uh birth, siete misfortunes can at all be compared to mine.’ I do not object to own that I am disposed to brag of my birth and other acquirements; for I have always found that if a man does not give himself a good word, his friends will not do it for him. “Well,” said my fellow-patient, ‘‘I have no doubt yours is a strange tale, and shall be glad to hear it anon; but at present you must not be permitted to speak much, for your fever has been long, and your exhaustion great.” ‘‘Where are we?” I asked; and the candidate informed me that we were in the bishopric and town of Fulda, at pre- sent occupied by Prince Henry’s troops. There had been a skirmish with an out-party of French near the town, in which a shot entering the waggon, the poor candidate had been wounded. As the reader knows already my history, I will not take the trouble to repeat it here, or to give the additions with which I favoured my comrade in misfortune. But I confess that I told him ours was the greatest family and finest palace in Ireland, that we were enormously wealthy, related to all the peerage, descended from the ancient kings; &c.; and, to INV ACMILTITARYEAOSLITAL. 95 my surprise, in the course of our conversation, I found that my interlocutor knew a great deal more about Ireland than I did. When, for instance, I spoke of my descent,— ‘‘From which race of kings?” said he. “Oh!” said I (for my memory for dates was never very accurate), “from the old ancient kings of all.” «What! can you trace your origin to the sons of Japhet?” sald he. ‘“’Haith, I ean,” answered I, ‘‘and farther too,—to Nebu- chadnezzar, if you like.”’ ‘ SS NA SLAG SRA AAS SQN» Sas LS Ss SSS NY Xs Ay Nine AR Seon Sas WSS Ss NY x \ NS SS Awan, \ AS SS SQ SS NX: by Ay WN SS b . AY AS \ S Os NS SS SS WN WD x N SS SY SAS WS MM NS AS <—S . SSS HOW 1 PUSHED MY SIEGE OF THE WIDOW. 239 people of Dublin, in those days; and who, although she went dressed like one of her waiting-women, did not fail to recognise her real rank, and to describe as her future husband her per- severing adorer Redmond Barry, Esquire. This incident dis- turbed her very much. She wrote about it in terms of great wonder and terror to her female correspondents. ‘Can this monster,’ she wrote, ‘‘indeed do as he boasts, and bend even Fate to his will?—can he make me marry him though I cordially detest him, and bring me a slave to his feet? ‘The horrid look of his black serpent-like eyes fascinates and frishtens me: it seems to follow me everywhere, and even when I close my own eyes, the dreadful gaze penetrates the lids, and is still upon me.” When a woman begins to talk of a man in this way, he is an ass who does not win her; and, for my part, I used to follow her about, and put myself in an attitude opposite her, ‘‘and fascinate her with my glance,” as she said, most assidu- ously. Lord George Poynings, her former admirer, was mean- while keeping his room with his wound, and seemed determined to give up all claims to her favour; for he denied her admit- tance when she called, sent no answer to her multiplied corre- spondence, and contented himself by saying generally, that the surgeon had forbidden him to receive visitors or to answer letters. Thus, while he went into the background, I came forward, and took good care that no other rivals should pre- sent themselves with any chance of success; for, as soon as I heard of one, I had a quarrel fastened on him, and, in this way, pinked two more, besides my first victim Lord George. I always took another pretext for quarrelling with them than the real one of attention to Lady Lyndon, so that no scandal or hurt to her Ladyship’s feelings might arise in consequence ; but she very well knew what was the meaning of these duels: and the young fellows of Dublin, too, by laying two and two together, began to perceive that there was a certain dragon in watch for the wealthy heiress, and that the dragon must be subdued first before they could get at the lady. I warrant that, after the first three, not many champions were found to address the lady; and have often laughed (in my sleeve) to see many of the young Dublin beaux riding by the side of 240 THE MEMOIRS OF BARKIOLANUG Y arom, her carriage scamper off as soon as my bay-mare and green liveries made their appearance. I wanted to impress her with some great and awful in- stance of my power, and to this end had determined to confer a great benefit upon my honest cousin Ulick, and carry off for him the fair object of his affections, Miss Kiljoy, under the very eyes of her guardian and friend, Lady Lyndon; and in the teeth of the squires, the young lady’s brothers, who passed the season at Dublin, and made as much swagger and to-do about their sister’s 10,000. Irish, as if she had had a plum to her fortune. The girl was by no means averse to Mr. Brady; and it only shows how faint-spirited some men are, and how a@ superior genius can instantly overcome difficulties which to common minds seem insuperable, that he never had thought of running off with her: as I at once and boldly did. Miss Kiljoy had been a ward in Chancery until she attained her majority (before which period it would have been a dangerous matter for me to put in execution the scheme I meditated con- cerning her); but, though now free to marry whom she liked, she was a young lady of timid disposition, and as much under fear of her brothers and relatives as though she had not been independent of them. They had some friend of their own in view for the young lady, and had scornfully rejected the pro- posal of Ulick Brady, the ruined gentleman; who was quite unworthy, as these rustic bucks thought, of the hand of such a prodigiously wealthy heiress as their sister. Finding herself lonely in her great house in Dublin, the Countess of Lyndon invited her friend Miss Amelia to pass the season with her at Dublin; and, in a fit of maternal fondness, also sent for her son the little Bullingdon, and my old acquaintance his governor, to come to the capital and bear her company. A family coach brought the boy, the heiress, and the tutor from Castle Lyndon; and I de- termined to take the first opportunity of putting my plan in execution. For this chance I had not very long to wait. I have said, in a former chapter of my biography, that the kingdom of freland was at this period ravaged by various parties of banditti; who, under the name of Whiteboys, Oakboys, Steel- Lo BEFRIEND MYs COOGSIN: CLICK. 241 boys, with captains at their head, killed proctors, fired stacks, houghed and maimed cattle, and took the law into their own hands. One of these bands, or several of them for what I know, was commanded by a mysterious personage called Cap- tain Thunder ; whose business seemed to be that of marrying people with or without their own consent, or that of their parents. The Dublin Gazettes and Mercuries of that period (the year 1772) teem with proclamations from the Lord Lieu- tenant, offering rewards for the apprehension of this dreadful Captain Thunder and his gang, and describing at length various exploits of the savage aide-de-camp of Hymen. I determined to make use, if not of the services, at any rate of the name of Captain Thunder, and put my cousin Ulick in possession of his lady and her ten thousand pounds. She was no great beauty, and, I presume, it was the money he loved rather than the owner of it. On account of her widowhood, Lady Lyndon could not as yet frequent the balls and routs which the hospitable nobility of Dublin were in the custom of giving; but her friend Miss Kiljoy had no such cause for retirement, and was glad to attend any parties to which she might be invited. I made Ulick Brady a present of a couple of handsome suits of velvet, and by my influence procured him an invitation to many of the most elegant of these assemblies. But he had not had my advantages or experience of the manners of Court; was as shy with ladies as a young colt, and could no more dance a minuet than a donkey. He made very little way in the polite world or in his mistress’s heart: in fact, I could see that she preferred several other young gentlemen to him, who were more at home in the ballroom than poor Ulick; he had made his first impression upon the heiress, and felt his first flame for her, in her father’s house of Ballykiljoy, where he used to hunt and get drunk with the old gentleman. “T could do thim two well enough, anyhow,” Ulick would say, heaving a sigh; ‘‘and if it’s drinking or riding across country would do it, there’s no man in Ireland would have a better chance with Amalia.” ‘Never fear, Ulick,’” was my reply; ‘‘ you shall have your Amalia, or my name is not Redmond Barry.” et 19 242 THE MEMOIRS: OF BARRY LYNDON: £52. My Lord Charlemont—who was one of the most elegant and accomplished noblemen in Ireland in those days, a fine scholar and wit, a gentleman who had travelled much abroad, where I had the honour of knowing him—gave a magnificent masquerade at his house of Marino, some few miles from Dublin, on the Dunleary road. And it was at this entertain- ment that I was determined that Ulick should be made happy for life. Miss Kiljoy was invited to the masquerade, and the little Lord Bullingdon, who longed to witness such a scene; and it was agreed that he was to go under the guardianship of his governor, my old friend the Reverend Mr. Runt. I learned what was the equipage in which the party were to be conveyed to the ball, and took my measures accordingly. Ulick Brady was not present: his fortune and quality were not sufficient to procure him an invitation to so distin- guished a place, and I had it given out three days previous that he had been arrested for debt: a rumour which surprised nobody who knew him. I appeared that night in a character with which I was very familiar, that of a private soldier in the King of Prussia’s cuard. I had a grotesque mask made, with an immense nose and moustaches, talked a jumble of broken English and German, in which the latter greatly predominated; and had crowds round me laughing at my droll accent, and whose curiosity was increased by a knowledge of my previous history. Miss Kiljoy was attired as an antique princess, with little Bullingdon as a page of the times of chivalry; his hair was in powder, his doublet rose-colour, and pea-green and silver, and he looked very handsome and saucy as he strutted about with my sword by his side. As for Mr. Runt, he walked about very demurely in a domino, and perpetually paid his respects to the buffet, and ate enough cold chicken and drank enough punch and champagne to satisfy a company of grenadiers. The Lord Lieutenant came and went in state—the ball was magnificent. Miss Kiljoy had partners in plenty, among whom was myself, who walked a minuet with her (if the clumsy waddling of the Irish heiress may be called by such a name) ; and I took oecasion to plead my passion for Lady Lyndon in | ad LHL ALRVCUCIZONSOF Miss KILFOY. 20% the most pathetic terms, and to beg her friend’s interference in my favour. It was three hours ae midnight when the party for Lyndon House went away. Little Bullingdon had long since been asleep in one of Lady Charlemont’s china closets. Mr. Runt was exceedingly husky in talk, and unsteady in gait. A young lady of the present day would be alarmed to see a sventleman in such a condition; but it was a common sight in those jolly old times, when a gentleman was thought a milksop unless he was occasionally tipsy. I saw Miss Kiljoy to her carriage, with several other gentlemen: and, peering through the crowd of ragged linkboys, drivers, beggars, drunken men and women, who used invariably to wait round great men’s doors when festivities were going on, saw the carriage drive off, with a hurrah from the mob; then came back presently to the supper-room, where I talked German, favoured the three or four topers still there with a High-Dutch chorus, and attacked the dishes and wine with great resolution. “How can you drink aisy with that big nose on?” said one gentleman. “Go an be hangt!” said I, in the true accent, applying myself again to the wine; with which the others laughed, and I pursued my supper in silence. There was a gentleman present who had seen the Lyndon party go off, with whom I had made a bet, which I lost; and the next morning I called upon him and paid it him. All which particulars the reader will be surprised at hearing enumerated; but the fact is. that it was not I who went back to the party, but my late German valet, who was of my size, and, dressed in my mask, could perfectly pass for me. We changed clothes in a hackney-coach that stood near Lady Lyndon’s chariot, and driving after it, speedily overtook it. The fated vehicle which bore the lovely object of Ulick Brady’s affections had not advanced very far, when, in the midst of a deep rut in the road, it came suddenly to with a jolt; the footman, springing off the back, cried ‘‘ Stop!” to the coachman, warning him that a wheel was off, and that it would be dangerous to proceed with only three. Wheel-caps had not been invented in those days, as they have since been 244 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. by the ingenious builders of Long Acre. And how the linch- pin of the wheel had come out I do not pretend to say; but it possibly may have been extracted by some rogues among the crowd before Lord Charlemont’s gate. Miss Kiljoy thrust her head out of the window, screaming as ladies do; Mr. Runt the chaplain woke up from his boozy slumbers; and little Bullingdon, starting up and drawing his little sword, said, ‘‘ Don’t be afraid, Miss Amelia: if it’s foot- pads, I am armed.” The young rascal had the spirit of a lion, that’s the truth; as I must acknowledge, in spite of all my after-quarrels with him. The hackney-coach which had been following Lady Lyn- don’s chariot by this time came up, and the coachman seeing the disaster, stepped down from his box, and politely requested her Ladyship’s honour to enter his vehicle; which was as clean and elegant as any person of tiptop quality might desire. This invitation was, after a minute or two, accepted by the passengers of the chariot: the hackney-coachman promising to drive them to Dublin “in a hurry.” Thady, the valet, proposed to accompany his young master and the young lady; and the coachman, who had a friend seemingly drunk by his side on the box, with a grin told Thady to get up behind. However, as the footboard there was covered with spikes, as a defence against the street-boys, who love a ride gratis, Thady’s fidelity would not induce him to brave these; and he was persuaded to remain by the wounded chariot, for which he and the coachman manufactured a linchpin out of a neighbouring hedge. Meanwhile, although the hackney-coachman drove on rapidly, yet the party within seemed to consider it was a long distance from Dublin; and what was Miss Iiljoy’s astonish- ment, on looking out of the window at length, to see around her a lonely heath, with no signs of buildings or city. She began forthwith to scream out to the coachman to stop; but the man only whipped the horses the faster for her noise, and bade her Ladyship ‘‘ hould on—’twas a short cut he was taking.” Miss Kiljoy continued screaming, the coachman flogging, the horses galloping, until two or three men appeared suddenly ULICK BRADY'S SABINE MARRIAGE. 245 from a hedge, to whom the fair one cried for assistance; and the young Bullingdon opening the coach-door, jumped valiantly out, toppling over head and heels as he fell; but jumping up in an instant, he drew his little sword, and, running towards the carriage, exclaimed, ‘‘ This way, gentlemen! stop the rascal!”’ “Stop!” cried the men; at which the coachman pulled up with extraordinary obedience. unt all the while lay tipsy in the carriage, having only a dreamy half-consciousness of all that was going on. The newly arrived champions of female distress now held a consultation, in which they looked at the young lord and laughed considerably. ‘Do not be alarmed,” said the leader, coming up to the door; ‘‘one of my people shall mount the box by the side of that treacherous rascal, and, with your Ladyship’s leave, I and my companions will get in and see you home. We are well armed, and can defend you in case of danger.” With this, and without more ado, he jumped into the carriage, his companion following him. ‘Know your place, fellow!” cried out little Bulling- don, indignantly: ‘‘and give place to the Lord Viscount Bullingdon!” and put himself before the huge person of the new-comer, who was about to enter the hackney-coach. “Get out of that, my Lord,” said the man, in a broad brogue, and shoving him aside. On which the boy, crying «Thieves! thieves!” drew out his little hanger, and ran at the man, and would have wounded him (for a small sword will wound as well as a great one); but his opponent, who was armed with a long stick, struck the weapon luckily out of the lad’s hands: it went flying over his head, and left him aghast and mortified at his discomfiture. He then pulled off his hat, making his Lordship a low bow, and entered the carriage; the door of which was shut upon him by his confederate, who was to mount the box. Miss Kiloy might have screamed; but I presume her shrieks were stopped by the sight of an enormous horse-pistol which one of her champions produced, who said, ‘‘ No harm is intended you, ma’am, but if you ery out, we must gag you;” on which she suddenly became as mute as a fish. 246 THE MEMOIRS OF (LARRY LEVON Sc. All these events took place in an exceedingly short space of time; and when the three invaders had taken possession of the carriage, the poor little Bullingdon being left bewildered and astonished on the heath, one of them putting his head out of the window, said,— ‘‘ My Lord, a word with you.” “What is it?” said the boy, beginning to whimper: he was but eleven years old, and his courage had been excellent hitherto. ‘‘You are only two miles from Marino. Walk back till you come to a big stone, there turn to the right, and keep on straight till you get to the high-road, when you will easily find your way back. And when you see her Ladyship your mamma, give Caprain THuUNDER’s compliments, and say Miss Amelia Ktiljoy is going to be married.” ‘‘Oh heavens!” sighed out that young lady. The carriage drove swiftly on, and the poor little nobleman was left alone on the heath, just as the morning began to break. He was fairly frightened; and no wonder. He thought of running after the coach; but his courage and his little legs failed him: so he sat down upon a stone and cried for vexation. It was in this way that Ulick Brady made what I call a Sabine marriage. When he halted with his two groomsmen at the cottage where the ceremony was to be performed, Mr. Runt, the chaplain, at first declined to perform it. But a pistol was held at the head of that unfortunate preceptor, and he was told, with dreadful oaths, that his miserable brains would be blown out; when he consented to read the service. The lovely Amelia had, very likely, a similar inducement held out to her, but of that I know nothing; for I drove back to town with the coachman as soon as we had set the bridal party down, and had the satisfaction of finding Fritz, my German, arrived before me: he had come back in my carriage in my dress, having left the masquerade undiscovered, and done everything there according to my orders. Poor Runt came back the next day in a piteous plight, keeping silence as to his share in the occurrences of the even- ing, and with a dismal story of having been drunk, of having THE BRADY MARRIAGE. 247 been waylaid and bound, of having been left on the road and picked up by a Wicklow cart, which was coming in with pro- visions to Dublin, and found him helpless on the road. There was no possible means of fixing any share of the conspiracy upon him. Little Bullingdon, who, too, found his way home, was unable in any way to identify me. But Lady Lyndon knew that I was concerned in the plot, for I met her hurrying the next day to the Castle; all the town being up about the enlevement. And I saluted her with a smile so diabolical, that I knew she was aware that I had been concerned in the daring and ingenious scheme. Thus it was that I repaid Ulick Brady’s kindness to me in early days; and had the satisfaction of restoring the fallen fortunes of a deserving branch of my family. He took his bride into Wicklow, where he lived with her in the strictest seclusion until the affair was blown over; the Kiljoys striving everywhere in vain to discover his retreat. They did not for a while even know who was the lucky man who had carried off the heiress; nor was it until she wrote a letter some weeks afterwards, signed Amelia Brady, and expressing her perfect happiness in her new condition, and stating that she had been married by Lady Lyndon’s chaplain Mr. Runt, that the truth was known, and my worthy friend confessed his share of the transaction. As his good-natured mistress did not dismiss him from his post in consequence, everybody persisted in sup- posing that poor Lady Lyndon was privy to the plot; and the story of her Ladyship’s passionate attachment for me gained more and more credit. I was not slow, you may be sure, in profiting by these rumours. Everyone thought I had a share in the Brady marriage; though no one could prove it. Everyone thought I was well with the widowed Countess ; though no one could show that I said so. But there is a way of proving a thing even while you contradict it, and I used to laugh and joke so a propos that all men began to wish me joy of my great fortune, and look up to me as the affianced husband of the greatest heiress in the kingdom. The papers took up the matter; the female friends of Lady Lyndon remonstrated with her and cried “Fie!” EHvyen the Enelish journals and magazines, 248 THE MEMOIRS OF BAKRY LYNDON, ESO. cs which in those days were very scandalous, talked of the matter; and whispered that a beautiful and accomplished widow, with a title and the largest possessions in the two kingdoms, was about to bestow her hand upon a young gen- tleman of high birth and fashion, who had distinguished him- self in the service of His M——y the K— of Pr I won’t say who was the author of these paragraphs; or how two pictures, one representing myself under the title of ‘The Prussian Irishman,’ and the other Lady Lyndon as ‘The Countess of Ephesus,” actually appeared in the Town and Country Magazine, published at London, and containing the fashionable tittle-tattle of the day. Lady Lyndon was so perplexed and terrified by this continual hold upon her, that she determined to leave the country. Well, she did; and who was the first to receive her on landing at Holyhead? Your humble servant, Red- mond Barry, Esquire. And, to crown all, the Dublin Mercury, which announced her Ladyship’s departure, announced mine the day before. There was not a soul but thought she had followed me to England; whereas she was only flying me. Vain hope!—a man of my resolution was not thus to be baulked in pursuit. Had she fled to the antipodes, I would have been there: ay, and would have followed her as far as Orpheus did Eurydice ! Her Ladyship had a house in Berkeley Square, London, more splendid than that which she possessed in Dublin; and, knowing that she would come thither, I preceded her to the Enelish capital, and took handsome apartments in Hill Street, hard by. I had the same intelligence in her London house which I had procured in Dublin. The same faithful porter was there to give me all the information I required. I promised to treble his wages as soon as a certain event should happen. I won over Lady Lyndon’s companion by a present of a hundred eulneas down, and a promise of two thousand when I should be married, and gained the favours of her favourite lady’s- maid by a bribe of similar magnitude. My reputation had so far preceded me in London that, on my arrival, numbers of the genteel were eager ‘o receive me at their routs. We have no idea in this humdrum age what a gay and splendid place Pee UN SUL TAD Var rivuoiVvtdIN LONDON. 249 London was then: what a passion for play there was among young and old, male and female; what thousands were lost and won in a night; what beauties there were—how brilliant, gay, and dashing! Everybody was delightfully wicked : the Royal Dukes of Gloucester and Cumberland set the example ; the nobles followed close behind. Running away was the fashion. Ah! it was a pleasant time; and lucky was he who had fire, and youth, and money, and could live in it! I had all these ; and the old frequenters of ‘‘ White’s,” “ Wattier’s,”’ and ‘* Goosetree’s”’ could tell stories of the gallantry, spirit, and high fashion of Captain Barry. The progress of a love-story is tedious to all those who are not concerned, and I leave such themes to the hack novel- writers, and the young boarding-school misses for whom they write. It is not my intention to follow, step by step, the incidents of my courtship, or to narrate all the difficulties I had to contend with, and my triumphant manner of sur- mounting them. Suffice it to say, I did overcome these diffi- culties. J am of opinion, with my friend the late ingenious Mr. Wilkes, that such impediments are nothing in the way of a man of spirit; and that he can convert indifference and aversion into love, if he have perseverance and cleverness sufficient. By the time the Countess’s widowhood was expired, I had found means to be received into her house; I had her women perpetually talking in my favour, vaunting my powers, expatiating upon my reputation, and boasting of my success and popularity in the fashionable world. Also, the best friends I had in the prosecution of my tender suit were the Countess’s noble relatives; who were far from knowing the service that they did me, and to whom I beg leave to tender my heartfelt thanks for the abuse with which they then loaded me: and to whom [| fling my utter contempt for the calumny and hatred with which they have subsequently pursued me. The chief of these amiable persons was the Marchioness of Tiptoff, mother of the young gentleman whose audacity I had punished at Dublin. This old harridan, on the Countess’s first arrival in London, waited upon her, and favoured her with such a storm of abuse for her encouragement of me, git 19 250 LHE MEMOIRS OF BARRY ALY NOGN Soe, that I do believe she advanced my cause more than six months’ courtship could have done, or the pinking of a half-dozen of rivals. It was in vain that poor Lady Lyndon pleaded her entire innocence, and vowed she had never encouraged me. ‘« Never encouraged him!’ screamed out the old fury ; ‘ didn’t you encourage the wretch at Spa, during Sir Charles’s own life? Didn’t you marry a dependant of yours to one of this profligate’s bankrupt cousins ? When he set off for Kngland, didn’t you follow him like a madwoman the very next day ? Didn’t he take lodgings at your very door almost—and do you call this no encouragement? For shame, madam, shame ! You might have married my son—my dear and noble George; but that he did not choose to interfere with your shameful passion for the beggarly upstart whom you caused to assas- sinate him; and the only counsel [ have to give your Ladyship is this, to legitimatise the ties which you have contracted with this shameless adventurer; to make that connection legal which, real as it is now, is against both decency and religion ; and to spare your family and your son the shame of your present line of life.” With this the old fury of a marchioness left the room, and Lady Lyndon in tears: I had the whole particulars of the conversation from her Ladyship’s companion, and augured the best result from it in my favour. Thus, by the sage influence of my Lady Tiptoff, the Coun- tess of Lyndon’s natural friends and family were kept from her society. Even when Lady Lyndon went to Court, the most august lady in the realm received her with such marked coldness, that the unfortunate widow came home and took to her bed with vexation. And thus I may say that Royalty itself became an agent in advancing my suit, and helping the plans of the poor Irish soldier of fortune. So it is that Fate works with agents, great and small; and by means over which they have no control the destinies of men and women are accomplished. I shall always consider the conduct of Mrs. Bridget (Lady Lyndon’s favourite maid at this juncture) as a masterpiece of ingenuity : and, indeed, had such an opinion of her diplomatic skill, that the very instant 1 became master of the Lyndon DAM HELPED Ewell ALIGATL. 2kI estates, and paid her the promised sum—I am a man of honour, and rather than not keep my word with the woman, I raised the money of the Jews, at an exorbitant interest— as soon, I say, as I achieved my triumph, I took Mrs. Bridget by the hand, and said, ‘‘ Madam, you have shown such un- exampled fidelity in my service that I am glad to reward you, according to my promise; but you have given proofs of such extraordinary cleverness and dissimulation, that I must de- cline keeping you in Lady Lyndon’s establishment, and beg you will leave it this very day:” which she did, and went over to the Tiptoft faction, and has abused me ever since. But I must tell you what she did which was so clever. Why, it was the simplest thing in the world, as all master- strokes are. When Lady Lyndon lamented her fate and my as she was pleased to call it—shameful treatment of her, Mrs. Bridget said, ‘Why should not your Ladyship write this young gentleman word of the evil which he is causing you ? Appeal to his feelings (which, I have heard say, are very good indeed—the whole town is ringing with accounts of his spirit and generosity), and beg him to desist from a pursuit which causes the best of ladies so much pain? Do, my Lady, write: I know your style is so elegant that I, for my part, have many a time burst into tears in reading your charming letters, and I have no doubt Mr. Barry will sacrifice anything rather than hurt your feelings.”’ And, of course, the abigail swore to the fact. “Do you think so, Bridget ?”’ said her Ladyship. And my mistress forthwith penned me a letter, in her most fascinating and winning manner :— ? ‘* Why, sir,” wrote she, ‘‘ will you pursue me? why environ me in a web of intrigue so frightful that my spirit sinks under it, seeing escape is hopeless from your frightful, your diabolical art ? They say you are generous to others—be so to me. I know your bravery but too well: exercise it on men who can meet your sword, not on a poor feeble woman, who cannot resist you. Remember the friendship you once professed for me. And now, I beseech you, I implore you, to give a proof of it. Contradict the calumnies which you have spread against me, and repair, if you can, and if you have a spark of honour left, the miseries which you have caused to the heart-broken « FY... LYNDON.” 252 THTES MEMOIRS - OF “BARE YS DYINDON, FieSQ. What was this letter meant for but that I should answer it in person? My excellent ally told me where I should meet Lady Lyndon, and accordingly I followed, and found her at the Pantheon. I repeated the scene at Dublin over again ; showed her how prodigious my power was, humble as I was, and that my energy was still untired. ‘‘ But,” I added, ‘I am as great in good as I am in evil; as fond and faithful as a friend as [am terrible as an enemy. I will do everything,” I said, ‘which you ask of me, except when you bid me not to love you. That is beyond my power; and while my heart has a pulse I must follow you. It is my fate; your fate. Cease to battle against it, and be mine. Loveliest of your sex! with life alone can end my passion for you; and, indeed, it is only by dying at your command that I can be brought to obey you. Do you wish me to die?” She said, laughing (for she was a woman of a lively, humorous turn), that she did not wish me to commit self- murder; and I felt from that moment that she was mine. * * * * * * A year from that day, on the 15th of May, in the year 17738, I had the honour and happiness to lead to the altar Honoria, Countess of Lyndon, widow of the late Right Honourable Sir Charles Lyndon, K.B. The ceremony was performed at St. George’s, Hanover Square, by the Reverend Samuel Runt, her Ladyship’s chaplain. A magnificent supper and ball was given at our house in Berkeley Square, and the next morning I had a duke, four earls, three generals, and a crowd of the most dis- tinguished people in London at my levée. Walpole made a lampoon about the marriage, and Selwyn cut jokes at the ‘* Cocoa-tree.” Old Lady Tiptoff, although she had recom- mended it, was ready to bite off her fingers with vexation; and as for young Bullingdon, who was grown a tall lad of fourteen, when called upon by the Countess to embrace his papa, he shook his fist in my face and said, ‘“‘ He my father! I would as soon call one of your Ladyship’s footmen Papa!” But I could afford to laugh at the rage of the boy and the old woman, and at the jokes of the wits of St. James’s. I sent off a flaming account of our nuptials to my mother and my Pee LAL ot tee ei ie Greer OSPERT LY. 253 uncle the good Chevalier; and now, arrived at the pitch of prosperity, and having, at thirty years of age, by my own merits and energy, raised myself to one of the highest social positions that any man in England could occupy, I determined to enjoy myself as became a man of quality for the remainder of my life. After we had received the congratulations of our friends in London—for in those days people were not ashamed of being married, as they seem to be now—I and Honoria (who was all complacency, and a most handsome, sprightly, and agreeable companion) set off to visit our estates in the West of England, where I had never as yet set foot. We left London in three chariots, each with four horses; and my uncle would have been pleased could he have seen painted on their panels the Irish crown and the ancient coat of the Barrys beside the Countess’s coronet and the noble cognisance of the noble family of Lyndon. Before quitting London, I procured His Majesty’s gracious permission to add the name of my lovely lady to my own; and henceforward assumed the style and title of Barry Lynpon, I have written it in this autobiography. 254 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. CHAPTER XVII. I APPEAR AS AN ORNAMENT OF ENGLISH SOCIETY. LL the journey down to Hackton Castle, the largest and most ancient of our ancestral seats in Devon- shire, was performed with the slow and sober state becoming people of the first quality in the realm. An outrider in my livery went on before us, and bespoke our lodging from town to town; and thus we lay in state at Andover, Ilminster, and Exeter; and the fourth evening arrived in time for supper before the antique baronial mansion, of which the gate was in an odious Gothic taste that would have set Mr. Walpole wild with pleasure. The first days of a marriage are commonly very trying; and I have known couples, who lived together like turtle-doves for the rest of their lives, peck each other’s eyes out almost during the honeymoon. I did not escape the common lot: in our journey westward my Lady Lyndon chose to quarrel with me because I pulled out a pipe of tobacco (the habit of smoking which I had acquired in Germany when a soldier in Bulow’s, and could never give it over), and smoked it in the carriage ; and also her Ladyship chose to take umbrage both at Ilminster and Andover, because in the evenings when we lay there I See f , i t } A KAA BA VJ LA ‘i SS WN NAN NON Pol FIRST DAYS COL VIe FONE YMUOON. 255 chose to invite the landlords of the ‘‘ Bell” and the ‘ Lion” to crack a bottle with me. Lady Lyndon was a haughty woman, and | hate pride; and I promise you that in both instances I overcame this vice in her. On the third day of our journey I had her to light my pipe-match with her own hands, and made her deliver it to me with tears in her eyes; and at the ‘‘Swan Inn” at Exeter I had so completely subdued her, that she asked me humbly whether I would not wish the landlady as well as the host to step up to dinner with us. To this I should have had no objection, for, indeed, Mrs. Bonny- face was a very good-looking woman; but we expected a visit from my Lord Bishop, a kinsman of Lady Lyndon, and the bienséances did not permit the indulgence of my wife’s request. I appeared with her at evening service, to compliment our right reverend cousin, and put her name down for twenty-five guineas, and my own for one hundred, to the famous new organ which was then being built for the cathedral. This conduct, at the very outset of my career in the county, made me not a little popular ; and the residentiary canon, who did me the favour to sup with me at the inn, went away after the sixth bottle, hiccupping the most solemn vows for the welfare of such a p-p-pious gentleman. Before we reached Hackton Castle, we had to drive through ten miles of the Lyndon estates, where the people were out to visit us, the church bells set a-ringing, the parson and the farmers assembled in their best by the roadside, and the school children and the labouring people were loud in their hurrahs for her Ladyship. I flung money among these worthy cha- racters, stopped to bow and chat with his reverence and the farmers, and if I found that the Devonshire girls were among the handsomest in the kingdom is it my fault? These remarks my Lady Lyndon especially would take in great dudgeon; and I do believe she was made more angry by my admiration of the red cheeks of Miss Betsy Quarringdon of Clumpton, than by any previous speech or act of mine in the journey. ‘‘ Ah, ah, my fine madam, you are jealous, are you?” thought I, and reflected, not without deep sorrow, how lightly she her- self had acted in her husband’s lifetime, and that those are most jealous who themselves give most cause for jealousy. 256 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY. LYNDON, ESQ. Round Hackton village the scene of weleome was particu- larly gay: a band of music had been brought from Plymouth, and arches and flags had been raised, especially before the attorney’s and the doctor’s houses, who were both in the employ of the family. There were many hundreds of stout people at the great lodge, which, with the park-wall, bounds one side of Hackton Green, and from which, for three miles, goes (or rather went) an avenue of noble elms up to the towers of the old castle. I wished they had been oak when I cut the trees down in '79, for they would have fetched three times the money : I know nothing more culpable than the carelessness of ancestors in planting their grounds with timber of small value, when they might just as easily raise oak. Thus I have always said that the Roundhead Lyndon of Hackton, who planted these elms in Charles II.’s time, cheated me of ten thousand pounds. For the first few days after our arrival, my time was agreeably spent in receiving the visits of the nobility and gentry who came to pay their respects to the noble new married couple, and, like Bluebeard’s wife in the fairy tale, in inspect- ing the treasures, the furniture, and the numerous chambers of the castle. It is a huge old place, built as far back as Henry V.’s time, besieged and battered by the Cromwellians in the Revolution, and altered and patched up, in an odious old-fashioned taste, by the Roundhead Lyndon, who succeeded to the property at the death of a brother whose principles were excellent and of the true Cavalier sort, but who ruined himself chiefly by drinking, dicing, and a dissolute life, and a little by supporting the King. The castle stands in a fine chase, which was prettily speckled over with deer; and I can’t but own that my pleasure was considerable at first, as I sat in the oak parlour of summer evenings, with the windows open, the gold and silver plate shining in a hundred dazzling colours on the sideboards, a dozen jolly companions round the table, and could look out over the wide green park and the waving woods, and see the sun setting on the lake, and hear the deer calling to one another. The exterior was, when I first arrived, a quaint composition of all sorts of architecture ; of feudal towers, and gable-ends in HACKTON HALL. 257 Queen Bess’s style, and rough-patched walls built up to repair the ravages of the Roundhead cannon: but I need not speak of this at large, having had the place new-faced at a vast expense, under a fashionable architect, and the facade laid out in the latest. French-Greek and most classical style. There had been moats, and drawbridges, and outer walls; these I had shaved away into elegant terraces, and handsomely laid out in parterres, according to the plans of Monsieur Cornichon, the ereat Parisian architect, who visited England for the purpose. After ascending the outer steps, you entered an antique hall of vast dimensions, wainscoted with black carved oak, and ornamented with portraits of our ancestors: from the square beard of Brook Lyndon, the great lawyer in Queen Bess’s time, to the loose stomacher and ringlets of Lady Saccharissa Lyndon, whom Vandyck painted when she was a maid of honour to Queen Henrietta Maria, and down to Sir Charles Lyndon, with his riband as a knight of the Bath; and my Lady, painted by Hudson, in a white satin sack and the family diamonds, as she was presented to the old King George II. These diamonds were very fine; I first had them reset by Boehmer, when we appeared before their French Majesties at Versailles; and finally raised 18,0001. upon them, after that infernal run of ill luck at ‘‘ Goosetree’s,” when Jemmy Twitcher (as we called my Lord Sandwich), Carlisle, Charley Fox, and I played hombre for four-and-forty hours sans désemparer. Bows and pikes, huge stag-heads and hunt- ing implements, and rusty old suits of armour, that may have been worn in the days of Gog and Magog for what I know, formed the other old ornaments of this huge apartment; and were ranged round a fireplace where you might have turned a coach-and-six. This I kept pretty much in its antique condi- tion, but had the old armour eventually turned out and con- signed to the lumber-rooms upstairs; replacing it with china monsters, gilded settees from France, and elegant marbles, of which the broken noses and limbs, and ugliness, undeniably proved their antiquity : and which an agent purchased for me at Rome. But such was the taste of the times (and, perhaps, the rascality of my agent), that thirty thousand pounds’ worth of these gems of art only went for three hundred guineas at a LL 19 258 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESC. subsequent period, when I found it necessary to raise money on my collections. From this main hall branched off on either side the long series of state-rooms, poorly furnished with high-backed chairs and long queer Venice glasses, when first I came to the pro- perty ; but afterwards rendered so splendid by me, with the gold damasks of Lyons and the magnificent Gobelin tapestries I won from Richelieu at play. There were thirty-six bedrooms YS Ni \\ NNW WAN AN WN NX AK AT Sa de maitre, of which I only kept three in their antique condition, —the haunted room as it was called, where the murder was done in James II.’s time, the bed where William slept after landing at Torbay, and Queen Elizabeth’s state-room. All the rest were redecorated by Cornichon in the most elegant taste ; not a little to the scandal of some of the steady old country dowagers; for I had pictures of Boucher and Vanloo to de- corate the principal apartments, in which the Cupids and MY MODERN IMPROVEMENTS. 259 Venuses were painted in a manner so natural, that I recollect the old wizened Countess of Frumpington pinning over the curtains of her bed, and sending her daughter, Lady Blanche Whalebone, to sleep with her waiting-woman, rather than allow her to lie in a chamber hung all over with looking-glasses, after the exact fashion of the Queen’s closet at Versailles. For many of these ornaments I was not so much answer- able as Cornichon, whom Lauraguais lent me, and who was the intendant of my buildings during my absence abroad. I had given the man carte blanche, and when he fell down and broke his leg, as he was decorating a theatre in the room which had been the old chapel of the castle, the people of the country thought it was a judgment of Heaven upon him. In his rage for improvement the fellow dared anything. Without my orders he cut down an old rookery which was sacred in the country, and had a prophecy regarding it, stating, ‘‘ When the rook-wood shall fall, down goes Hackton Hall.” The rooks went over and colonised Tiptoff Woods, which lay near us (and be hanged to them!), and Cornichon built a temple to Venus and two lovely fountains on their site. Venuses and Cupids were the rascal’s adoration: he wanted to take down the Gothic screen and place Cupids in our pew there; but old Doctor Huff the rector came out with a large oak stick, and addressed the unlucky architect in Latin, of which he did not comprehend a word, yet made him understand that he would break his bones if he laid a single finger upon the sacred edifice. Cornichon made complaints about the ‘‘ Abbé Huff,” as he called him (“Et quel abbé, grand Dieu!” added he, quite bewildered, ‘un abbé avec douze enfans’’); but I en- couraged the Church in this respect, and bade Cornichon exert his talents only in the castle. There was a magnificent collection of ancient plate, to which I added much of the most splendid modern kind; a cellar which, however well furnished, required continual re- plenishing, and a kitchen which I reformed altogether. My friend, Jack Wilkes, sent me down a cook from the Mansion House, for the English cookery,—the turtle and venison de- partment: I had a chef (who called out the Englishman, by the way, and complained sadly of the gros cochon who wanted 260 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY “LYNDOA, ESQ. to meet him with coups de poing) and a couple of aides from Paris, and an Italian confectioner, as my officiers de bouche. All which natural appendages to a man of fashion, the odious, stingy old Tiptoff, my kinsman and neighbour, affected to view with horror ; and he spread through the country a report that I had my victuals cooked by Papists, lived upon frogs, and, he verily believed, fricasseed little children. But the squires ate my dinners very readily for all that, and old Doctor Huff himself was compelled to allow that my venison and turtle were most orthodox. The former gentry I knew how to conciliate, too, in other ways. There had been only a subscription pack of fox-hounds in the county and a few beggarly couples of mangy beagles, with which old Tiptoff pattered about his grounds; I built a kennel and stables, which cost 30,000/., and stocked them in a manner which was worthy of my ancestors, the Irish kings. I had two packs of hounds, and took the field in the season four times a week, with three gentlemen in my hunt-uniform to follow me, and open house at Hackton for all who belonged to the hunt. These changes and this train de vivre required, as may be supposed, no small outlay; and I confess that I have little of that base spirit of economy in my composition which some people practise and admire. For instance, old Tiptoff was hoarding up his money to repair his father’s extravagance and disencumber his estates; a good deal of the money with which he paid off his mortgages my agent procured upon mine. And, besides, it must be remembered I had only a life- interest upon the Lyndon property, was always of an easy temper in dealing with the money-brokers, and had to pay heavily for insuring her Ladyship’s life. At the end of a year Lady Lyndon presented me with a son—Bryan Lyndon I called him, in compliment to my royal ancestry: but what more had I to leave him than a noble name? Was not the estate of his mother entailed upon the odious little Turk, Lord Bullingdon ? and whom, by the way, I have not mentioned as yet, though he was living at Hackton, consigned to a new governor. The insubordination of that boy was dreadful. He used to quote passages of ‘‘ Hamlet” to his mother, which made her very angry. Once when I took f PROVIDE FOR MY SON AND HETR. 261 a horsewhip to chastise him, he drew a knife, and would have stabbed me: and, ’faith, I recollected my own youth, which was pretty similar; and, holding out my hand, burst out laughing, and proposed to him to be friends. We were recon- ciled for that time, and the next, and the next; but there was no love lost between us, and his hatred for me seemed to grow as he grew, which was apace. I determined to endow my darling boy Bryan with a pro- perty, and to this end cut down twelve thousand pounds’ worth of timber on Lady Lyndon’s Yorkshire and Irish estates: at which proceeding Bullingdon’s guardian, Tiptoff, cried out, as usual, and swore I had no right to touch a stick of the trees ; but down they went; and I commissioned my mother to re- purchase the ancient lands of Ballybarry and Barryogue, which had once formed part of the immense possessions of my house. ‘These she bought back with excellent prudence and extreme joy; for her heart was gladdened at the idea that a son was born to my name, and with the notion ot my magnificent fortunes. To say truth, I was rather afraid, now that I lived in a very different sphere from that in which she was accustomed to move, lest she should come to pay me a visit, and astonish my English friends by her bragging and her brogue, her rouge and her old hoops and furbelows of the time of George II.: in which she had figured advantageously in her youth, and which she still fondly thought to be at the height of the fashion. So I wrote to her, putting off her visit; begging her to visit us when the left wing of the castle was finished, or the stables built, and so forth. There was no need of such precaution. ‘““A hint’s enough for me, Redmond,” the old lady would reply. ‘I am not coming to disturb you among your great English friends with my old-fashioned Irish ways. It’s a blessing to me to think that my darling boy has attained the position which I always knew was his due, and for which I pinched myself to educate him. You must bring me the little Bryan, that his grandmother may kiss him, one day. Present my respectful blessing to her Ladyship his mamma. Tell her she has got a treasure in her husband, which she couldn’t have had had she taken a duke to marry her; and that the 262 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESC. Barrys and the Bradys, though without titles, have the best of blood in their veins. I shall never rest until I see you Karl of Ballybarry, and my grandson Lord Viscount Barryogue.” How singular it was that the very same ideas should be passing in my mother’s mind and my own! The very titles she had pitched upon had also been selected (naturally enough) by me; and I don’t mind confessing that I had filled a dozen sheets of paper with my signature, under the names of Bally- barry and Barryogue, and had determined with my usual impetuosity to carry my point. My mother went and esta- blished herself at Ballybarry, living with the priest there until a tenement could be erected, and dating from ‘ Ballybarry Castle ;”’ which, you may be sure, I gave out to be a place of no small importance. I had a plan of the estate in my study, both at Hackton and in Berkeley Square, and the plans of the elevation of Ballybarry Castle, the ancestral residence of Barry Lyndon, Esq., with the projected improvements, in which the castle was represented as about the size of Windsor, with more ornaments to the architecture ; and eight hundred acres of bog falling in handy, I purchased them at three pounds an acre, so that my estate upon the map looked to be no insignificant one.* I also in this year made arrangements for purchasing the Polwellan estate and mines in Cornwall from Sir John Trecothick, for 70,000/.—an imprudent bargain, which was afterwards the cause to me of much dispute and litigation. The troubles of property, the rascality of agents, the quibbles of lawyers, are endless. Humble people envy us great men, and fancy that our lives are all pleasure. Many a time in the course of my prosperity I have sighed for the days of my meanest fortune, and envied the boon companions at my table, with no clothes to their backs but such as my credit suppled them, without a guinea but what came from * On the strength of this estate, and pledging his honour that it was not mortgaged, Mr. Barry Lyndon borrowed 17,000J. in the year 1786, from young Captain Pigeon, the city merchant’s son, who had just come in for his pro- perty. As for the Polwellan estate and mines, “the cause of endless litiga- tion,’’ it must be owned that our hero purchased them; but he never paid more than the first 5,000/. of the purchase-money. Hence the litigation of which he complains, and the famous Chancery suit of “ Trecothick v. Lyndon,” in which Mr. John Scott greatly distinguished himself.—Eb. WHAT IT IS TO BE WEALTHY AND GREAT. 263 my pocket; but without one of the harassing cares and re- sponsibilities which are the dismal adjuncts of great rank and property. I did little more than make my appearance, and assume the command of my estates, in the kingdom of Ireland; re- warding generously those persons who had been kind to me in my former adversities, and taking my fitting place among the aristocracy of the land. But, in truth, I had small induce- ments to remain in it after having tasted of the genteeler and more complete pleasures of English and Continental life; and we passed our summers at Buxton, Bath, and Harrogate, while Hackton Castle was being beautified in the elegant manner already described by me, and the season at our mansion in Berkeley Square. It is wonderful how the possession of wealth brings out the virtues of a man; or, at any rate, acts as a varnish or lustre to them, and brings out their brilliancy and colour in a manner never known when the individual stood in the cold grey atmosphere of poverty. I assure you it was a very short time before I was a pretty fellow of the first class; made no small sensation at the coffee-houses in Pall Mall, and after- wards at the most famous clubs. My style, equipages, and elegant entertainments were in everybody’s mouth, and were described in all the morning prints. The needier part of Lady Lyndon’s relatives, and such as had been offended by the intolerable pomposity of old Tiptoff, began to appear at our routs and assemblies; and as for relations of my own, I found in London and Ireland more than I had ever dreamed of, of cousins who claimed affinity with me. There were, of course, natives of my own country (of which I was not particularly proud), and I received visits from three or four swaggering shabby Temple bucks, with tarnished lace and Tipperary brogue, who were eating their way to the bar in London; from several gambling adventurers at the watering-places, whom I soon speedily let to know their place; and from others of more reputable condition. Among them I may mention my cousin the Lord Kilbarry, who, on the score of his relation- ship, borrowed thirty pieces from me to pay his landlady in Swallow Street; and whom, for my own reasons, I allowed to 264 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON VESG. maintain and credit a connection for which the Heralds’ College gave no authority whatsoever. Kilbarry had a cover at my table; punted at play, and paid when he liked, which was seldom; had an intimacy with, and was under consider- able obligations to, my tailor ; and always boasted of his cousin the great Barry Lyndon of the West country. Her Ladyship and I lived, after a while, pretty separate when in London. She preferred quiet: or to say the truth, I preferred it; being a great friend to a modest tranquil be- haviour in woman, and a taste for the domestic pleasures. Hence I encouraged her to dine at home with her ladies, her chaplain, and a few of her friends; admitted three or four proper and discreet persons to accompany her to her box at the opera or play on proper occasions ; and indeed declined for her the too frequent visits of her friends and family, pre- ferring to receive them only twice or thrice in a season on our grand reception days. Besides, she was a mother, and had great comfort in the dressing, educating, and dandling our little Bryan, for whose sake it was fit that she should give up the pleasures and frivolities of the world; so she left that part of the duty of every family of distinction to be performed by me. To say the truth, Lady Lyndon’s figure and appearance were not at this time such as to make for their owner any very brilliant appearance in the fashionable world. She had grown very fat, was short-sighted, pale in complexion, careless about her dress, dullin demeanour; her conversations with me cha- racterised by a stupid despair, or a silly blundering attempt at forced cheerfulness still more disagreeable: hence our inter- course was but trifling, and my temptations to carry her into the world, or to remain in her society, of necessity exceedingly small. She would try my temper at home, too, in a thousand ways. When requested by me (often, I own, rather roughly) to entertain the company with conversation, wit, and learn- ing, of which she was a mistress: or music, of which she was an accomplished performer, she would as often as not begin to cry, and leave the room. My company from this, of course, fancied I was a tyrant over her; whereas I was only a severe and careful guardian over a silly, bad-tempered, and weak-minded lady. LADY LYNDON BECOMES DISAGREEABLE. 265 She was luckily very fond of her youngest son, and through him I had a wholesome and effectual hold of her ; for if in any of her tantrums or fits of haughtiness—(this woman was intolerably proud ; and repeatedly, at first, in our quarrels, dared to twit me with my own original poverty and low birth), —if, I say, in our disputes she pretended to have the upper hand, to assert her authority against mine, to refuse to sign such papers as I might think necessary for the distribution of our large and complicated property, I would have Master Bryan carried off to Chiswick for a couple of days; and I warrant me his lady-mother could hold out no longer, and would agree to anything I chose to propose. The servants about her I took care should be in my pay, not hers: especially the child’s head nurse was under my orders, not those of my Lady; and a very handsome, red-cheeked, impudent jade she was; and a great fool she made me make of myself. This woman was more mistress of the house than the poor-spirited lady who owned it. She gave the law to the servants; and if I showed any particular attention to any of the ladies who visited us, the slut would not scruple to show her jealousy, and to find means to send them packing. The fact is, a generous man is always made a fool of by some woman or other; and this one had such an influence over me that she could turn me round her finger.* * From these curious confessions, it would appear that Mr. Lyndon mal- treated his lady in every possible way; that he denied her society, bullied her into signing away her property, spent it in gambling and taverns, was openly unfaithful to her ; and, when she complained, threatened to remove her chil- dren from her. Nor, indeed, is he the only husband who has done the like, and has passed for ‘‘nobody’s enemy but his own:’’ a jovial good-natured fellow. The world contains scores of such amiable people; and, indeed, it is because justice has not been done them that we have edited this autobiography. Had it been that of a mere hero of romance—one of those heroic youths who figure in the novels of Scott and James—there would have been no call to introduce the reader to a personage already so often and so charmingly de- picted. Mr. Barry Lyndon is not, we repeat, a hero of the common pattern ; but let the reader look round, and ask himself, Do not as many rogues succeed in life as honest men? more fools than men of talent? And is it not just that the lives of this class should be described by the student of human nature as well as the actions of those fairy-tale princes, those perfect impos- sible heroes, whom our writers love to describe? There is something naive and simple in that time-honoured style of novel-writing by which Prince M M 19 266 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. Her infernal temper (Mrs. Stammer was the jade’s name), and my wife’s moody despondency, made my house and home not over-pleasant: hence I was driven a good deal abroad where, as play was the fashion at every club, tavern, and assembly, I, of course, was obliged to resume my old habit, and to commence as an amateur those games at which I was once unrivalled in Europe. but whether a man’s temper changes with prosperity, or his skill leaves him when, deprived of a confederate, and pursuing the game no longer professionally, he joins in it, like the rest of the world, for pastime, I know not; but certain it is, that in the seasons of 1774-5 I lost much money at ‘ White’s” and the ‘Cocoa Tree,” and was com- pelled to meet my losses by borrowing largely upon my wife’s annuities, insuring her Ladyship’s life, and so forth. The terms at which I raised these necessary sums and the outlays requi- site for my improvements, were, of course, very onerous, and clipped the property considerably ; and it was some of these papers which my Lady Lyndon (who was of a narrow, timid, and stingy turn) occasionally refused to sign: until I persuaded her, as I have before shown. My dealings on the turf ought to be mentioned, as forming part of my history at this time; but, in truth, I have no par- ticular pleasure in recalling my Newmarket doings. I was in- fernally bit and bubbled in almost every one of my transactions there ; and though I could ride a horse as well as any man in Kingland, was no match with the English noblemen at backing him. Fifteen years after my horse, Bay Bulow, by Sophy Hardeastle, out of Eclipse, lost the Newmarket stakes, for which he was the first favourite, I found that a noble earl, who shall be nameless, had got into his stable the morning before he ran; and the consequence was that an outside horse won, Prettyman, at the end of his adventures, is put in possession of every worldly prosperity, as he has been endowed with every mental and bodily excellence previously. The novelist thinks that he can do no more for his darling hero than make him a lord. Is it not a poor standard that, of the sammwm bonum ? The greatest good in life is not to be a lord; perhaps not even to be happy. Poverty, illness, a humpback, may be rewards and conditions of good, as well as that bodily prosperity which all of us unconsciously set up for worship. But this is a subject for an essay, not a note; and it is best to allow Mr. Lyndon to resume the candid and ingenious narrative of his virtues and defects. MY LOSSES ON THE TURE. 267 and your humble servant was out to the amount of fifteen thou- sand pounds. Strangers had no chance in those days on the heath: and, though dazzled by the splendour and fashion assembled there, and surrounded by the greatest persons of the land,—the royal dukes, with their wives and splendid equi- pages ; old Grafton, with his queer bevy of company, and such men as Ancaster, Sandwich, Lorn,—a man might have con- sidered himself certain of fair play and have been not a little proud of the society he kept ;- yet, I promise you, that, exalted as it was, there was no set of men in Europe who knew how to rob more genteelly, to bubble a stranger, to bribe a jockey, to doctor a horse, or to arrange a betting-book. Even J couldn’t stand against these accomplished gamesters of the highest families in Europe. Was it my own want of style, or my want of fortune? I know not. But now I was arrived at the height of my ambition both my skill and my luck seemed to be deserting me. Everything [ touched crumbled in my hand ; every speculation I had failed ; every agent I trusted deceived me. lam, indeed, one of those born to make, and not to keep fortunes; for the qualities and energy which lead a man to effect the first are often the very causes of his ruin in the latter case: indeed I know of no other reason for the misfortunes which finally befell me.* I had always a taste for men of letters, and perhaps, if the truth must be told, have no objection to playing the fine gentleman and patron among the wits. Such people are usually needy, and of low birth, and have an instinctive awe and love of a gentleman and a laced coat; as all must have remarked who have frequented their society. Mr. Reynolds, who was afterwards knighted, and certainly the most elegant painter of his day, was a pretty dexterous courtier of the wit tribe; and it was through this gentleman, who painted a piece of me, Lady Lyndon, and our little Bryan, which was greatly admired at the Exhibition (I was represented as quitting my wife, in the costume of the Tippleton Yeomanry, of which I was major; the child starting back from my helmet lke what-d’ye- call’im—Hector’s son, as described by Mr. Pope in his ‘ Iliad ’’); * The memoirs seem to have been written about the year 1814, in that calm retreat which Fortune had selected for the author at the close of his life. 268 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. it was through Mr. Reynolds that I was introduced to a score of these gentlemen, and their great chief, Mr. Johnson. I always thought their great chief a great bear. He drank tea twice or thrice at my house, misbehaving himself most grossly ; treating my opinions with no more respect than those of a schoolboy, and telling me to mind my horses and tailors, and not trouble myself about letters. His Scotch bear-leader, Mr. Boswell, was a butt of the first quality. I never saw such a ficure as the fellow cut in what he called a Corsican habit, at one of Mrs. Cornely’s balls, at Carlisle House, Soho. But that the stories connected with that same establishment are not the most profitable tales in the world, I could tell tales of scores of queer doings there. All the high and low demireps of the town gathered there, from his Grace of Ancaster down to my countryman, poor Mr. Oliver Goldsmith the poet, and from the Duchess of Kingston down to the Bird of Paradise, or Kitty Fisher. Here I have met very queer characters, who came to queer ends too: poor Hackman, that afterwards was hanged for killing Miss Reay, and (on the sly) his Reverence Doctor Simony, whom my friend Sam Foote, of the ‘‘ Little Theatre,” bade to live even after forgery and the rope cut short the unlucky parson’s career. It was a merry place, London, in those days, and that’s the truth. I’m writing now in my gouty old age, and people have grown vastly more moral and matter-of-fact than they were at the close of the last century, when the world was young with me. There was a difference between a gentleman and a common fellow in those times. We wore silk and em- broidery then. Now every man has the same coachmanlike look in his belcher and caped coat, and there is no outward difference between my Lord and his groom. Then it took a man of fashion a couple of hours to make his toilette, and he could show some taste and genius in the selecting it. What a blaze of splendour was a drawing-room, or an opera, of a gala night! What sums of money were lost and won at the delicious faro-table! My gilt curricle and outriders, blazing in green and gold, were very different objects from the equipages you see nowadays in the ring, with the stunted grooms behind them. Aman could drink four times as much as the milksops LPSELD THE Pasties lO, DUBLIN. 269 nowadays can swallow: but ‘tis useless expatiating on this theme. Gentlemen are dead and gone. The fashion has now turned upon your soldiers and sailors, and I grow quite moody and sad when I[ think of thirty years ago. This is a chapter devoted to reminiscences of what was a very happy and splendid time with me, but presenting little of mark in the way of adventure; as is generally the case when times are happy and easy. It would seem idle to fill pages with accounts of the every-day occupations of a man of fashion,—the fair ladies who smiled upon him, the dresses he wore, the matches he played, and won or lost. At this period of time, when youngsters are employed cutting the French- men’s throats in Spain and France, lying out in bivouacs, and feeding off commissariat beef and biscuit, they would not understand what a life their ancestors led; and so I shall leave further discourse upon the pleasures of the times when even the Prince was a lad in leading-strings, when Charles Fox had not subsided into a mere statesman, and Buonaparte was a beggarly brat in his native island. Whilst these improvements were going on in my estates, —my house, from an antique Norman castle, being changed to an elegant Greek temple, or palace—my gardens and woods losing their rustic appearance to be adapted to the most genteel French style—my child growing up at his mother’s knees, and my influence in the country increasing,—it must not be imagined that I stayed in Devonshire all this while, and that I neglected to make visits to London, and my various estates In England and Ireland. I went to reside at the Trecothick estate and the Polwellan Wheal, where I found, instead of profit, every kind of petti- fogging chicanery; I passed over in state to our territories in Ireland, where I entertained the gentry ina style the Lord Lieutenant himself could not equal; gave the fashion to Dublin (to be sure it was a beggarly savage city in those days; and, since the time there has been a pother about the Union, and the misfortunes attending it, I have been at a loss to account for the mad praises of the old order of things, which the fond Irish patriots have invented) ; I say I set the fashion to Dublin; and small praise to me, for a 270 THE MEMOIRS OF (BARRY LYNDON, seo, poor place it was in those times, whatever the Irish party may say. In a former chapter I have given you a description of it. It was the Warsaw of our part of the world: there was a splendid, ruined, half-civilised nobility, ruling over a_half- savage population. I say half-savage advisedly. The com- monalty in the streets were wild, unshorn, and in rags. The most public places were not safe after nightfall. The College, the public buildings, and the great gentry’s houses were splen- did (the latter unfinished for the most part); but the people were in a state more wretched than any vulgar I have ever known: the exercise of their religion was only half allowed to them; their clergy were forced to be educated out of the country; their aristocracy was quite distinct from them ; there was a Protestant nobility, and in the towns, poor in- solent Protestant corporations, with a bankrupt retinue of mayors, aldermen, and municipal officers—all of whom figured in addresses and had the public voice in the country; but there was no sympathy and connection between the upper and the lower people of the Irish. To one who had been bred so much abroad as myself, this difference between Catholic and Protestant was doubly striking; and though as firm as a rock in my own faith, yet I could not help remember- ing my grandfather held a different one, and wondering that there should be such a political difference between the two. I passed among my neighbours for a dangerous leveller, for entertaining and expressing such opinions, and especially for asking the priest of the parish to my table at Castle Lyndon. He was a gentleman, educated at Salamanca, and, to my mind, a far better bred and more agreeable companion than his comrade the rector, who had but a dozen Protestants for his congregation ; who was a lord’s son, to be sure, but he could hardly spell, and the great field of his labours was in the kennel and cockpit. I did not extend and beautify the house of Castle Lyndon as I had done our other estates, but contented myself with paying an occasional visit there; exercising an almost royal hospitality, and keeping open house during my stay. When absent, I gave to my aunt, the widow brady, and her six PARLIAMENTARY MATTERS. 27% unmarried daughiers (although they always detested me), permission to inhabit the place; my mother preferring my new mansion of Barryogue. And as my Lord Bullingdon was by this time grown excessively tall and troublesome, I determined to leave him under the care of a proper governor in Ireland, with Mrs. Brady and her six daughters to take care of him; and he was welcome to fall in love with all the old ladies if he were so minded, and thereby imitate his stepfather’s example. When tired of Castle Lyndon, his Lordship was at liberty to go and reside at my house with my mamma; but there was no love lost between him and her, and, on account of my son Bryan, I think she hated him as cordially as ever I myself could possibly do. The county of Devon is not so lucky as the neighbouring county of Cornwall, and has not the share of representatives which the latter possesses; where I have known a moderate country gentleman, with a few score of hundreds per annum from his estate, treble his income by returning three or four Members to Parliament, and by the influence with Ministers which these seats gave him. ‘The parliamentary interest of the house of Lyndon had been grossly neglected during my wife’s minority, and the incapacity of the Earl her father; or, to speak more correctly, it had been smuggled away from the Lyndon family altogether by the adroit old hypocrite of Tiptoff Castle, who acted as most kinsmen and guardians do by their wards and relatives, and robbed them. The Marquess of Tiptoff returned four Members to Parliament: two for the borough of Tippleton, which, as all the world knows, lies at the foot of our estate of Hackton, bounded on the other side by Tiptoff Park. For time out of mind we had sent Members for that borough, until Tiptoff, taking advantage of the late lord’s imbecility, put in his own nominees. When his eldest son became of age, of course my Lord was to take his seat for Tippleton ; when Rigby (Nabob Rigby, who made his fortune under Clive in India) died, the Marquess thought fit to bring down his second son, my Lord George Poynings, to whom I have introduced the reader in a former chapter, and deter- mined, in his high mightiness, that he too should go in and 272 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ, swell the ranks of the Opposition—the big old Whigs, with whom the Marquess acted. tigby had been for some time in an ailing condition previous to his demise, and you may be sure that the circum- stance of his failing health had not been passed over by the centry of the county, who were staunch Government men for the most part, and hated my Lord Tiptoffs principles as dangerous and ruinous. ‘‘ We have been looking out for a man to fight against him,” said the squires to me; ‘‘ we can only match Tiptoff out of Hackton Castle. You, Mr. Lyndon, are our man, and at the next county election we will swear to bring you in.” I hated the Tiptoffs so, that I would have fought them at any election. They not only would not visit at Hackton, but declined to receive those who visited us; they kept the women of the county from receiving my wife: they invented half the wild stories of my profligacy and extravagance with which the neighbourhood was entertained ; they said I had frightened my wife into marriage, and that she was a lost woman; they hinted that Bullingdon’s life was not secure under my roof, that his treatment was odious, and that I wanted to put him out of the way to make place for Bryan my son. I could scarce have a friend to Hackton, but they counted the bottles drunk at my table. They ferreted out my dealings with my lawyers and agents. If a creditor was unpaid, every item of his bill was known at Tiptoff Hall; if I looked at a farmer’s daughter, it was said I had ruined her. My faults are many, I confess, and as a domestic character, I can’t boast of any particular regularity, or temper ; but Lady Lyndon and I did not quarrel more than fashionable people do, and, at first, we always used to make it up pretty well. I am a man full of errors, cer- tainly, but not the devil that these odious backbiters at Tiptoff represented me to be. For the first three years I never struck my wife but when I was in liquor. When I flung the carving-knife at Bullingdon I was drunk, as every- body present can testify; but as for having any systematic scheme against the poor lad, I can declare solemnly that, beyond merely hating him (and one’s inclinations are not in one’s power), | am guilty of no evil towards him. ELECTIONEERING TACTICS. 273 I had sufficient motives, then, for enmity against the Tiptoffs, and am not a man to let a feeling of that kind lie inactive. Though a Whig, or, perhaps, because a Whig, the Marquess was one of the haughtiest men breathing, and treated commoners as his idol the great Karl used to treat them—after he came to a coronet himself—as so many low vassals, who might be proud to lick his shoe-buckle. When the Tippleton mayor and corporation waited upon him, he received them covered, never offered Mr. Mayor a chair, but retired when the refreshments were brought, or had them served to the worshipful aldermen in the steward’s room. These honest Britons never rebelled against such treatment, until instructed to do so by my patriotism. No, the dogs liked to be bullied; and, in the course of a long experience, I have met with but very few Englishmen who are not of their way of thinking. It was not until I opened their eyes that they knew their degradation. I invited the Mayor to Hackton, and Mrs. Mayoress (a very buxom pretty groceress she was, by the way) I made sit by my wife, and drove them both out to the races in my curricle. Lady Lyndon fought very hard against this condescension ; but I had a way with her, as the saying is, and though she had a temper, yet I had a better one. A temper, psha! A wild-cat has a temper, but a keeper can get the better of it; and I know very few women in the world whom I could not master. Well, I made much of the mayor and corporation; sent them bucks for their dinners, or asked them to mine; made a point of attending their assemblies, dancing with their wives and daughters, going through, in short, all the acts of polite- ness which are necessary on such occasions: and though old Tiptoff must have seen my goings on, yet his head was so much in the clouds, that he never once condescended to imagine his dynasty could be overthrown in his own town of Tippleton, and issued his mandates as securely as if he had been the Grand Turk, and the Tippletonians no better than so many slaves of his will. Every post which brought us any account of Rigby’s increasing illness, was the sure occasion of a dinner from NN 19 274 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. me; so much so, that my friends of the hunt used to laugh and say, ‘‘Rigby’s worse; there’s a corporation dinner at Hackton.” It was in 1776, when the American war broke out, that I came into Parliament. My Lord Chatham, whose wisdom his party in those days used to call superhuman, raised his oracular voice in the House of Peers against the American contest ; and my countryman, Mr. Burke—a great philosopher, but a plaguey long-winded orator—was the champion of the rebels in the Commons—where, however, thanks to British patriotism, he could get very few to back him. Old Tiptoff would have sworn black was white if the great Karl had bidden him; and he made his son give up his commission in the Guards, in imitation of my Lord Pitt, who resigned his ensigncy rather than fight against what he called his American brethren. But this was a height of patriotism extremely little relished in England, where, ever since the breaking out of hostilities, our people hated the Americans heartily; and where, when we heard of the fight of Lexington, and the glorious victory of Bunker’s Hill (as we used to call it in those days), the nation flushed out in its usual hot-headed anger. The talk was all against the philosophers after that, and the people were most indomitably loyal. It was not until the land-tax was increased, that the gentry began to grumble a little; but still my party in the West was very strong against the Tiptoffs, and I determined to take the field and win as usual. The old Marquess neglected every one of the decent pre- cautions which are requisite in a parliamentary campaign. He signified to the corporation and freeholders his intention of presenting his son, Lord George, and his desire that the latter should be elected their burgess; but he scarcely gave so much as a glass of beer to whet the devotedness of his adherents: and I, as I need not say, engaged every tavern in Tippleton in my behalf. There is no need to go over the twenty-times-told tale of an election. I rescued the borough of Tippleton from the hands of Lord Tiptoff and his son, Lord George. I had a savage sort of satisfaction, too, in forcing my wife (who had I AM RETURNED TO PARLIAMENT. 275 been at one time exceedingly smitten by her kinsman, as I have already related) to take part against him, and to wear and distribute my colours when the day of election came. And when we spoke at one another, I told the crowd that I had beaten Lord George in love, that I had beaten him in war, and that I would now beat him in Parliament; and so I did, as the event proved: for, to the inexpressible anger of the old Marquess, Barry Lyndon, Esquire, was returned member of Parliament for Tippleton, in place of John Rigby, Esquire, deceased ; and I threatened him at the next election to turn him out of both his seats, and went to attend my duties in Parliament. It was then I seriously determined on achieving for myself the Irish peerage, to be enjoyed after me by my beloved son and heir. | 276 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. CHAPTER XVIII. IN WHICH MY GOOD FORTUNE BEGINS TO WAVER. WIV Z: ND now, if any people should ne WG as Oe be disposed to think my i! history immoral (for I have heard some assert that I was a man who never de- served that so much pro- sperity should fall to my share), I will beg those cavillers to do me the favour to read the conclusion of my adventures ; when they will see 1t was no such great prize that I had won, and that wealth, splendour, thirty thousand per annum, and a seat in Parliament, are often purchased at too dear a rate, when one has to buy those enjoyments at the price of personal liberty, and saddled with the charge of a troublesome wife. They are the deuce, these troublesome wives, and that is the truth. No man knows until he tries how wearisome and disheartening the burthen of one of them is, and how the annoyance grows and strengthens from year to year, and the courage becomes weaker to bear it; so that that trouble which seemed light and trivial the first year, becomes intolerable ten years after. I have heard of one of the classical fellows in the dictionary who began by carrying a calf up a hill every TAUB VA Ne) is | ly u Us | i ie y Hs H i 45 y : “LADY LYNDON’S ODIOUS ¥EALOUSY. 277 day, and so continued until the animal grew to be a bull, which he still easily accommodated upon his shoulders ; but take my word for it, young unmarried gentlemen, a wife is a very much harder pack to the back than the biggest heifer in Smithfield: and, if I can prevent one of you from marrying, the “‘ Memoirs of Barry Lyndon, Esq.” will not be written in vain. Not that my Lady was a scold or a shrew, as some wives are; I could have managed to have cured her of that; but she was of a cowardly, crying, melancholy, maudlin temper, which is to me still more odious: do what one would to please her, she would never be happy or in good-humour. I left her alone after a while; and because, as was natural in my case, where a disagreeable home obliged me to seek amusement and com- panions abroad, she added a mean detestable jealousy to all her other faults: I could not for some time pay the com- monest attention to any other woman, but my Lady Lyndon must weep, and wring her hands, and threaten to commit suicide, and I know not what. Her death would have been no comfort to me, as I leave any person of common prudence to imagine; for that scoundrel of a young Bullingdon (who was now growing up a tall, gawky, swarthy lad, and about to become my greatest plague and annoyance) would have inherited every penny of the property, and I should have been left considerably poorer even than when I married the widow: for I spent my personal fortune as well as the lady’s income in the keeping up of our rank, and was always too much a man of honour and spirit to save a penny of Lady Lyndon’s income. Let this be flung in the teeth of my detractors, who say I never could have so injured the Lyndon property had I not been making a private purse for myself; and who believe that, even in my present painful situation, I have hoards of gold laid by somewhere, and could come out as a Croesus when I choose. I never raised a shilling upon Lady Lyndon’s property but I spent it like a man of honour; besides incurring numberless personal obliga- tions for money, which all went to the common stock. Inde- pendent of the Lyndon mortgages and incumbrances, I owe myself at least one hundred and twenty thousand pounds, which I spent while in occupancy of my wife’s estate; so that 278 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. I may justly say that property is indebted to me in the above- mentioned sum. Although I have described the utter disgust and distaste which speedily took possession of my breast as regarded Lady Lyndon; and although I took no particular pains (for I am all frankness and aboveboard) to disguise my feelings in general, yet she was of such a mean spirit, that she pursued me with her regard in spite of my indifference to her, and would kindle up at the smallest kind word I spoke to her. The fact is, between my respected reader and myself, that I was one of the handsomest and most dashing young men of England in those days, and my wife was violently in love with me; and though I say it who shouldn’t, as the phrase goes, my wife was not the only woman of rank in London who had a favourable opinion of the humble Irish adventurer. What a riddle these women are, I have often thought! I have seen the most ele- gant creatures at St. James’s grow wild for love of the coarsest and most vulgar of men; the cleverest women passionately admire the most illiterate of our sex. and so on. ‘There is no end to the contrariety in the foolish creatures; and though I don’t mean to hint that ZJ am vulgar or illiterate, as the persons mentioned above (I would cut the throat of any man who dared to whisper a word against my birth or my breeding), yet I have shown that Lady Lyndon had plenty of reason to dislike me if she chose: but, like the rest of her silly sex, she was governed by infatuation, not reason; and, up to the very last day of our being together, would be reconciled to me, and fondle me, if | addressed her a single kind word. ‘‘ Ah,” she would say, in these moments of tenderness— “Ah, Redmond, if you would always be so!” And in these fits of love she was the most easy creature in the world to be persuaded, and would have signed away her whole property, had it been possible. And, I must confess, it was with very little attention on my part that I could bring her into good- humour. To walk with her on the Mall, or at Ranelagh, to attend her to church at St. James’s, to purchase any little present or trinket for her, was enough to coax her. Such is female inconsistency! The next day she would be calling me “Mr. Barry” probably, and be bemoaning her miserable fate 1 ASPIKE- TOVISI£ PEERAGE, 279 that she ever should have been united to such a monster. So it was she was pleased to call one of the most brilliant men in His Majesty’s three kingdoms: and I warrant me other ladies had a much more flattering opinion of me. Then she would threaten to leave me; but I had a hold of her in the person of her son, of whom she was passion- ately fond: I don’t know why, for she had always neglected Bullingdon her elder son, and never bestowed a thought upon his health, his welfare, or his education. It was our young boy, then, who formed the great bond of union between me and her Ladyship; and there was no plan of ambition I could propose in which she would not join for the poor lad’s behoof, and no expense she would not eagerly incur, if it might by any means be shown to tend to his advancement. I can tell you, bribes were administered, and in high places too,—so near the royal person of His Majesty, that you would be astonished were I to mention what great personages condescended to receive our loans. I got from the English and Irish heralds a description and detailed pedigree of the Barony of Barryogue, and claimed respectfully to be reinstated in my ancestral titles, and also to be rewarded with the Viscounty of Ballybarry. ‘This head would become a coronet,” my Lady would sometimes say, in her fond moments, smoothing down my hair; and, indeed, there is many a puny whipster in their Lordships’ house who has neither my presence nor my courage, my pedigree, nor any of my merits. The striving after this peerage I consider to have been one of the most unlucky of all my unlucky dealings at this period. I made unheard-of sacrifices to bring it about. I lavished money here and diamonds there. I bought lands at ten times their value; purchased pictures and articles of vertu at ruinous prices. I gave repeated entertainments to those friends to my claims who, being about the Royal person, were likely to advance it. I lost many a bet to the Royal Dukes His Majesty’s brothers; but let these matters be forgotten, and, because of my private injuries, let me not be deficient in loyalty to my Sovereign. The only person in this transaction whom I shall mention 280 THE MEMOIRS OF BARRY LYNDON, ESQ. openly, is that old scamp and swindler, Gustavus Adolphus, thirteenth Earl of Crabs. This nobleman was one of the gentlemen of His Majesty’s closet, and one with whom the revered monarch was on terms of considerable intimacy. rs “) he ces 5 Si, re] ; ak } - fil Pk | me . jac ea Shin Lage st oa ' » t : - < ‘Td “a a yk a es t ur 4 reve Ap a = _ 7 a a t - - * = ¥ ae { ut ; - ri a + ’ TAS ee s dic: c | ne. ye ¥ «> ai caer \ ds >. 4 ’ ‘ . { » : ra . . ‘ g . ~ ‘ . ' . m) * 7 t 7 Ly A\ Ost c y i os : er” : 2 ¥ ; *? . : a > é iL me ee earn! ‘ap Av a “AeVeX 242 JO YWIG PUL— AYUVNNVE ly sy ar yp! Yj fp UY Mi Y): ee eZ Ni 2 ». My : Yan Ye. PIL La oF (HHP 2h) Yy”yp SS fz Up VMN LIGA! Cs a ha i Ie DANA R SADIE AY COLDS OS Gs Us Ne) “To Miss Hliza Kicks, in Gracechurch Street, London. ‘Ou, Eliza! your Susan is the happiest girl under heaven! My Thomas is an angel! not a tall grenadier-like looking fellow, such as I always vowed I would marry :—on the contrary, he is what the world would call dumpy; and I hesitate not to confess that lis eyes have a cast in them. _But what then? when one of his eyes is fixed on me, and one on my babe, they are lighted up with an affection which my pen cannot describe, and which, certainly, was never bestowed upon any woman so strongly as upon your happy Susan Stubbs. | ‘‘ When he comes home from shooting, or the farm, if you could see dear Thomas with me and our dear little Bob! as I sit on one knee, and baby on the other, and as he dances us both about. I often wish that we had Sir Joshua, or some great painter, to depict the group; for sure it is the prettiest picture in the whole world, to see three such loving merry people. ‘“‘ Dear baby is the most lovely little creature that can possibly be—the very wmage of Papa; he is cutting his teeth, and the deliighs of everybody. Nurse says that, when he is older, he will get rid of his squint, and -his hair will get a’ great deal less red. Doctor Bates is as kind, and skilful, and attentive as we could desire. Think what a blessing to have had him! Ever since poor baby’s birth, it has. never had a day of quiet; and he has been obliged to ceive it from three to four doses every week ;—how thankful ought we to be that the dear thing is as well as itis! It got through the measles wonderfully ; then it had a little rash; and then a nasty hooping-cough ; and then a fever, and continual pains in its poor little stomach, crying, poor dear child, from morning till night. ‘‘But dear Tom is an excellent nurse; and many and many a night has he had no sleep, dear man! in consequence of the pour little baby. He walks up and down with it for hours, singing a kind of song (dear fellow, he has no more voice than a tea-kettle), and bobbing his head backwards and forwards, and looking, in his nightcap and dressing-gown, so droll. Oh, Eliza! how you would laugh to see him. ‘¢We have one of the best nursemaids zn the world, an Ivish- woman, who is as fond of baby almost as his mother (but that can never be). She takes it to walk in the park for hours together, and I really don’t know why Thomas dislikes her. He says she is tipsy, very often, and slovenly, which I cannot conceive ;— to be sure, the nurse is sadly dirty, and sometimes smells very strong of gin. “But what of that ?—these little drawbacks only make home 340 LHE FATAL, BOOTS, more pleasant. When one thinks how many mothers have no nursemaids: how many poor dear children have no doctors: ought we not to be thankful for Mary Malowney, and that Doctor Bates’s bill is forty-seven pounds? How ill must dear baby have been, to require so much physic ! ‘‘But they are a sad expense, these dear babies, after all. Fancy, Eliza, how much this Mary Malowney costs us. ‘len shillings every week; a glass of brandy or gin at dinner; three pint-bottles of Mr. Thrale’s best porter every day—making twenty- one in a week, and nine hundred and ninety in the eleven months she has been with us. Then, for baby, there is Doctor Bates’s bill of forty-five guineas, two guineas for christening, twenty for a grand christening supper and ball (rich Uncle John mortally offended because he was made godfather, and had to give baby a silver cup: he has struck Thomas out of his will: and old Mr. Firkin quite as much hurt because he was not asked: he will not speak to me or Thomas in consequence); twenty guineas for flannels, laces, little gowns, caps, napkins, and such baby’s ware: and all this out of three hundred pounds a year! But Thomas expects to make a great deal by his farm. ‘We have got the most charming country-house you can amagine: it 1s quite shut im by trees, and so retired that, though only thirty miles from London, the post comes to us but once a week. The roads, it must be confessed, are execrable; it ig winter now, and we are up to our knees in mud and snow. Butoh, Eliza! how happy we are: with Thomas (he has had a sad attack of rheu- matism, dear man!) and little Bobby, and our kind friend Doctor Bates, who comes so far to see us, I leave you to fancy that we have a charming merry party, and do not care for all the gaieties of Ranelagh. ‘“Adieu! dear baby is crying for his mamma. A thousand kisses from your affectionate ‘Susan STUBBS.”’ There it is! Doctor’s bills, gentleman-farming, twenty-one pints of porter a week. In this way my unnatural parents were already robbing me of my property. CUTTINGAIWEATHER. 341 FEBRUARY—CUTTING WEATHER. HAVE called this chapter ‘cutting weather,” partly in compliment to the month of February, and partly in re- spect of my own misfortunes, which you are going to read about. For I have often thought that January (which is mostly twelfth-cake and holiday-time) is like the first four or five years of a little boy’s life; then comes dismal February, and the working- days with it, when chaps begin to look out for themselves, after the Christmas and the New Year’s heyday and merry- making are over, which our infancy may well be said to be. Well can I recollect that bitter first of February, when I first launched out into the world and appeared at Doctor Swishtail’s academy. I began at school that life of prudence and economy which I have carried on ever since. My mother gave me eighteen- pence on setting out (poor soul! I thought her heart would break as she kissed me, and bade God bless me) ; and, besides, I had a small capital of my own, which I had amassed for a year previous. I'll tell you what I used to do. Wherever I saw six halfpence I took one. If it was asked for, I said I had taken it, and gave it back ;—if it was not missed, I said nothing about it, as why should I ?—those who don't miss their money, 342 LHE HALAL? BOOTS. don’t lose their money. So I had a little private fortune of three shillings, besides mother’s eighteenpence. At school they called me the Copper-Merchant, I had such lots of it. Now, even at a preparatory school, a well-regulated boy may better himself; and I can tell you I did. I never was in any quarrels: I never was very high in the class or very low ; but there was no chap so much respected :—and why? Id always money. The other boys spent all theirs in the first day or two, and they gave me plenty of cakes and barley-sugar then, I can tell you. Id no need to spend my own money, for they would insist upon treating me. Well, ina week, when theirs was gone, and they had but their threepence a week to look to for the rest of the half-year, what did ldo? Why, I am proud to say that three-halfpence out of the threepence a week of almost all the young gentlemen at Doctor Swishtail’s, came into my pocket. Suppose, for instance, Tom Hicks wanted a slice of gingerbread, who had the money? Little Bob Stubbs, to be sure. ‘‘ Hicks,” I used to say, “Pll buy you three-halfp’orth of gingerbread, if you'll give me threepence next Saturday.”’ And he agreed; and next Saturday came, and he very often could not pay me more than three-half- pence. Then there was.the threepence I was to have the next Saturday. Ill tell you what | did for a whole half-year :—I lent a chap, by the name of Dick Bunting, three-halfpence the first Saturday for threepence the next: he could not pay me more than half when Saturday came, and I’m blest if I did not make him pay me three-halfpence for three-and-twenty weeks running, making two shillings and tenpence-halfpenny. But he was a sad dishonourable fellow, Dick Bunting; for, after I’d been so kind to him, and let him off for three-and-twenty weeks the money he owed me, holidays came, and threepence he owed me still. Well, according to the common principles of practice, after six weeks’ holidays, he ought to have paid me exactly sixteen shillings which was my due. For the First week the 8d. would be 6d. | Fourth week . : Mya Ba Second week . : : ls. | Fifth week ; cee Leese Third week . ; ; 2s. | Sixth week . . : . 16s. Nothing could be more just; and yet—will it be believed ?— CUTTING WEATHER. 343 J when Bunting came back he offered me three-halfpence ! the mean dishonest scoundrel. However, | was even with him, I can tell you.—He spent all his money in a fortnight, and then I screwed him down! I made hin, besides giving me a penny for a penny, pay me a quarter of his bread-and-butter at breakfast and a quarter of his cheese at supper; and before the half-year was out, I got from him a silver fruit-knife, a box of compasses, and a very pretty silver-laced waistcoat, in which I went home as proud as a king: and, what’s more, I had no less than three golden guineas in the pocket of it, besides fifteen shillings, the knife, and a brass bottle-screw, which I got from another chap. It wasn’t bad interest for twelve shillings—which was all the money I'd had in the year—was it? Heigho! I’ve often wished that I could get such a chance again in this wicked world; but men are more avaricious now than they used to be in those dear early days. Well, I went home in my new waistcoat as fine as a pea- cock; and when I gave the bottle-screw to my father, begging him to take it as a token of my affection for him, my dear mother burst into sucha fit of tears as I never saw, and kissed and hugged me fit to smother me. ‘‘ Bless him, bless him!”’ says she, “to think of his old father. And where did you purchase it, Bob ?”—‘* Why, Mother,” says I, ‘‘I purchased it out of my savings” (which was as true as the gospel).— When I said this, mother looked round to father, smiling, although she had tears in her eyes, and she took his hand, and with her other hand drew me to her. ‘Is he not a noble boy ?”’ says she to my father: ‘‘and only nine years old !”’— “Faith,” says my father, ‘he 1s a good lad, Susan. Thank thee, my boy: and here is a crown-piece in return for thy bottle-screw :—it shall open us a bottle of the very best too,” says my father. And he kept his word. I always was fond of good wine (though never, from a motive of proper self-denial, having any in my cellar); and, by Jupiter! on this night I had my little skinful,—for there was no stinting,—so pleased were my dear parents with the bottle-screw. The best of it was, it only cost me threepence originally, which a chap could not pay me. 344 TUE ARALALA BOOMS Seeing this game was such a good one, I became very generous towards my parents; and a capital way it is to en- courage liberality in children. I gave Mamma a very neat brass thimble, and she gave me a half-guinea piece. Then I gave her a very pretty needlebook, which I made myself with an ace of spades from a new pack of cards we had, and I got Sally, our maid, to cover it with a bit of pink satin her mistress had given her; and I made the leaves of the book, which I vandyked very nicely, out of a piece of flannel I had had round my neck for a sore throat. It smelt a little of hartshorn, but it was a beautiful needlebook; and Mamma was so delighted with it, that she went into town and bought me a gold-laced hat. Then I bought Papa a pretty china tobacco-stopper : but I am sorry to say of my dear father that he was not so generous as my mamma or myself, for he only burst out laughing, and did not give me so much as a half-crown piece, which was the least I expected from him. ‘‘I shan’t give you. anything, Bob, this time,” says he; ‘and I wish, my boy, you would not make any more such presents,—for, really, they are too expensive.” Expensive indeed! I hate meanness,— even in a father. I must tell you about the silver-edged waistcoat which Bunting gave me. Mamma asked me about it, and I told her the truth,—that it was a present from one of the boys for my kindness to him. Well, what does she do but writes back to Doctor Swishtail, when I went to school, thanking him for his attention to her dear son, and sending a shilling to the cvood and grateful little boy who had given me the waistcoat ! ‘‘ What waistcoat is it,” says the Doctor to me, “and who gave it to.you?”’ ‘Bunting gave it me, sir,” says I. “Call Bunting!’ And up the little ungrateful chap came. Would you believe it, he burst into tears,—told that the waistcoat had been given him by his mother, and that he had been forced to give it for a debt to Copper-Merchant, as the nasty little blackguard called me? He then said how, for three-halfpence, he had been compelled to pay me three shillings (the sneak! as if he had been obliged to borrow the three-halfpence !)-—how all the other boys had been swindled % i p vies i 4 » E v * hy eam heat ahs SEEsrras {OCH 101 e an FEBRUARY — Cutting Weather. CUTTING WEALHE KR. 345 (swindled !) by me in like manner,—and how, with only twelve shillings, I had managed to scrape together four guineas. . . . My courage almost fails me as I describe the shameful scene that followed. The boys were called in, my own little account-book was dragged out of my cupboard, to prove how much I had received from each, and every farthing of my money was paid back to them. The tyrant took the thirty shillings that my dear parents had given me, and said he should put them into the poor-box at church; and, after having made a long discourse to the boys about meanness and usury, he said, ‘‘ Take off your coat, Mr. Stubbs, and restore Bunting his waistcoat.” I did, and stood without coat and waistcoat in the midst of the nasty grinning boys. I was going to put on my coat,— “Stop!” says he. ‘ Take Down HIs BrercuEs!” Ruthless brutal villain! Sam Hopkins, the biggest boy, took them down—-horsed me—and JI was flogged, sir: yes, flogged! O revenge! I, Robert Stubbs, who had done nothing but what was right, was brutally flogged at ten years of age! —Though February was the shortest month, I remembered it long. 346 LUTE TAL TBUG bee MARCH—SHOWERY. HEN my mamma heard of the treatment of her darling she was for bringing an action against the schoolmaster, or else for tearing his eyes out (when, dear soul! she would not have torn the eyes out of a. flea, had it been her cwn in- jury), and, at the very least, for having me removed from the school where I had been so shamefully treated. But Papa was stern for once, and vowed that I had been served quite right, declared that I should not be removed from the school, and sent old Swishtail a brace of pheasants for what he called his kindness to me. Of these the old gentleman invited me to partake, and made a very queer speech at dinner, as he was cutting them up, about the excel- lence of my parents, and his own determination to be kinder still to me if ever I ventured on such practices again. So I was obliged to give up my old trade of lending: for the Doctor declared that any boy who borrowed should be flogged, and any one who paid should be flogged twice as much. There was no standing against such a prohibition as this, and my little commerce was ruined. I was not very high in the school: not having been able to get farther than that dreadful Propria que maribus in the Latin grammar, of which, though I have it by heart even now, [never could understand a syllable: but, on account of my size, SHOWERY. | 347 my age, and the prayers of my mother, was allowed to have the privilege of the bigger boys, and on holidays to walk about in the town. Great dandies we were, too, when we thus went out. I recollect my costume very well: a thunder-and-lightning coat, a white waistcoat embroidered neatly at the pockets, a lace frill, a pair of knee-breeches, and elegant white cotton or suk stockings. ‘his did very well, but still I was dissatisfied : I wanted a pair of boots. Three boys in the school had boots —I was mad to have them too. But my papa, when I wrote to him, would not hear of it; and three pounds, the price of a pair, was too large a sum for my mother to take from the housekeeping, or for me to pay, in the present impoverished state of my exchequer; but the desire for the boots was so strong, that have them I must at any rate. There was a German bootmaker who had just set up in our town in those days, who afterwards made his fortune in London. I determined to have the boots from him, and did not despair, before the end of a year or two, either to leave the school, when I should not mind his dunning me, or to screw the money from Mamma, and so pay him. So I called upon this man—Stiffelkind was his name—and he took my measure for a pair. ‘‘You are a vary yong gentleman to wear dop-boots,” said the shoemaker. ‘“‘T suppose, fellow,” says I, ‘that is my business and not yours. Hither make the boots or not—but when you speak to aman of my rank, speak respectfully!” And I poured out a number of oaths, in order to impress him with a notion of my respectability. They had the desired effect. ‘Stay, sir,” says he. ‘I have a nice littel pair of dop-boots dat I tink will jost do for you.” And he produced, sure enough, the most elegant things I ever saw. ‘‘ Dey were made,” said he, ‘ for de Honourable Mr. Stiffney, of de Gards, but were too small.” ‘Ah, indeed!” said I. ‘ Stiffney is a relation of mine. And what, you scoundrel, will you have the impudence to ask for these things?” He replied, “‘ Three pounds.” “‘ Well,” said I, “‘ they are confoundedly dear; but, as you 99 348 THE FATAL BOOT. will have a long time to wait for your money, why, I shall have my revenge, you see.” The man looked alarmed, and began a speech: ‘‘ Sare,—I cannot let dem go vidout of but a bright thought struck me, and I interrupted—“ Sir! don’t sir me. Take off the boots, fellow, and, hark ye, when you speak to a nobleman, don’t say Sir.” ‘A hundert tousand pardons, my Lort,” says he: ‘if I had known you were a lort, I vood never have called you Sir. Vat name shall I put down in my books ?” “‘ Name ?—Oh! why, Lord Cornwallis, to be sure,” said I, as I walked off in the boots. ‘ And vat shall I do vid my Lort’s shoes ?”’ “ Keep them until I send for them,” said I. And giving him a patronising bow, I walked out of the shop, as the German tied up my shoes in paper. * * * * * * This story I would not have told, but that my whole life turned upon these accursed boots. I walked back to school as proud as a peacock, and easily succeeded in satisfying the boys as to the manner in which I came by my new orna- ments. Well, one fatal Monday morning—the blackest of all black Mondays that ever I knew—as we were all of us playing between school-hours, I saw a posse of boys round a stranger, who seemed to be looking out for one of us. A sudden trem- bling seized me—I knew it was Stiffelkind. What had brought him here? He talked loud and seemed angry. So I rushed into the schoolroom, and, burying my head between my hands, began reading for dear life. ‘“T vant Lort Cornvallis,” said the horrid bootmaker. ‘‘ His Lortship belongs, I know, to dis honourable school, for I saw him vid de boys at chorch yesterday.” ‘Lord who?” “Vy, Lort Cornvallis to be sure—a very fat yong noble- man, vid red hair: he squints a little, and svears dreadfully.” ‘‘There’s no Lord Cornvallis here,” said one; and there was a pause. “Stop! I have it,” says that odious Bunting. ‘Jt must SHOWERY. 349 be Stubbs!” And “Stubbs! Stubbs!” everyone cried out, while I was so busy at my book as not to hear a word. At last, two of the biggest chaps rushed into the school- room, and, seizing each an arm, ran me into the playground —bolt up against the shoemaker. ‘‘Dis is my man. I beg your Lortship’s pardon,” says he, “T have brought your Lortship’s shoes, vich you left. See, dey have been in dis parcel ever since you vent avay in my boots.” ‘Shoes, fellow!” says I. ‘I never saw your face before.” For I knew there was nothing for it but brazening it out. ‘‘Upon the honour of a gentleman!” said I, turning round to the boys. They hesitated; and if the trick had turned in my favour, fifty of them would have seized hold of Stiffelkind and drubbed him soundly. “Stop!” says Bunting (hang him!). ‘Let’s see the shoes. If they fit him, why then the cobbler’s right.” They did fit me; and not only that, but the name of Srubss was written in them at full length. “Vat!” said Stiffelkind. ‘Is he not a lort? So help me Himmel, I never did vonce tink of looking at de shoes, which have been lying ever since in dis piece of brown paper.” And then, gathering anger as he went on, he thundered out so much of his abuse of me, in his German-English, that the boys roared with laughter. Swishtail came out in the midst of the disturbance, and asked what the noise meant. “‘Tt’s only Lord Cornwallis, sir,” said the boys, ‘ battling with his shoemaker about the price of a pair of top-boots.” ‘‘Oh, sir,” said I, “it was only in fun that I called myself Lord Cornwallis.” “In fun!—Where are the boots? And you, sir, give me your bill.”” My beautiful boots were brought ; and Stiffelkind produced his bill. ‘* Lord Cornwallis to Samuel Stiffelkind, for a pair of boots—four guineas.” “You have been fool enough, sir,” says the Doctor, looking very stern, ‘‘to let this boy impose on you as a lord; and knave enough to charge him double the value of the article you sold him. Take back the boots, sir! I won’t pay a penny of your bill; nor can you get a penny. As for you, sir, you 350 LOE ol Ad 22 LB Le miserable swindler and cheat, I shall not flog you as I did before, but I shall send you home: you are not fit to be the companion of honest boys.” “ Suppose we duck him before he goes?” piped out a very small voice. The Doctor grinned significantly, and left the playground; and the boys knew by this they might have their will. . They seized me and carried me to the playground pump: they pumped upon me until I was half dead; and the nionster, Stiffelkind, stood looking on for the half-hour the operation lasted. ) I suppose the Doctor, at last, thought I. had had pumping enough, for he rang the school-bell, and the boys were obliged to leave me. As I got out of the trough, Stiffelkind was alone with me.‘ Vell, my. Lort,” says he, ‘you have paid something for dese boots, but not all. By Jubider, you shall never hear de endof dem.” And I didn’t. SSS SSSR SNUN igs Map (NN ach 1) AY, f. iA) i r ay / wy 4, — eorge Grits hank _ MARCH —Showery . FOOLING 351 . APRIZ—FOOLING. FTER this, as you may fancy, I left this disgusting esta- blishment, and lived for some time along with Pa and Mamma at home. My edu- cation was finished, at least Mamma and I agreed that it was ; and from boyhood until hobbadyhoyhood (which I take to be about the sixteenth year of the life of a young man, and may be likened to the month of April when spring begins to bloom)—from four- teen until seventeen, I say, I remained at home, doing nothing—for which I have ever since had a great taste—the idol of my mamma, who took part in all my quarrels with father, and used regularly to rob the weekly expenses in order to find me in pocket-money. Poor soul! many and many is the guinea I have had from her in that way; and so she enabled me to cut a very pretty figure. Papa was for having me at this time articled to a merchant, or put to some profession: but Mamma and I agreed that I was born to be a gentleman and not a tradesman, and the army was the only place for me. . Everybody was a soldier in those times, for the French war had just begun, and the whole country was swarming with militia regiments. ‘ We'll get him a commission in a marching regiment,” said my 352 LHE LATAL SOU Is, father. ‘‘As we have no money to purchase him up, he’ll fight his way, I make no doubt.” And Papa looked at me with a kind of air of contempt, as much as to say he doubted whether I should be very eager for such a dangerous way of bettering myself. I wish you could have heard Mamma’s screech when he talked so coolly of my going out to fight! ‘‘ What, send him abroad, across the horrid horrid sea—to be wrecked and perhaps drowned, and only to land for the purpose of fighting the wicked Frenchmen,—to be wounded and perhaps kick— kick—killed! Oh, Thomas, Thomas! would you murder me and your boy?” There was a regular scene. However, it ended—as it always did—in Mother’s getting the better, and it was settled that I should go into the militia. And why not? The uniform is just as handsome, and the danger not half so great. I don’t think in the course of my whole military experience I ever fought anything, except an old woman, who had the impudence to hollo out, ‘ Heads up, lobster !’’—Well, I joined the North Bungays, and was fairly launched into the world. I was not a handsome man, I know; but there was something about me—that’s very evident—for the girls always laughed when they talked to me, and the men, though they affected to call me a poor little creature, squint-eyes, knock- knees, red-head, and so on, were evidently annoyed by my success, for they hated me so confoundedly. Even at the present time they go on, though I have given up gallivanting, as I call it. But in the April of my existence,—that is, in anno Domini 1791, or so—it was a different case; and having nothing else to do, and being bent upon bettering my con- dition, I did some very pretty things in that way. But I was not hot-headed and imprudent, like most young fellows. Don’t fancy I looked for beauty! Pish!—I wasn’t such a fool. Nor for temper; I don’t care about a bad temper: I could break any woman’s heart in two years. What I wanted was to get on in the world. Of course I didn’t prefer an ugly woman, or a shrew; and when the choice offered, would certainly put up with a handsome good-humoured girl, with plenty of money, as any honest man would. FOOLING. 353 Now there were two tolerably rich girls in our parts: Miss Magdalen Crutty, with twelve thousand pounds (and, to do her justice, as plain a girl as ever I saw), and Miss Mary Waters, a fine, tall, plump, smiling, peach-cheeked, golden- haired, white-skinned lass, with only ten. Mary Waters lived with her uncle, the Doctor, who had helped me into the world, and who was trusted with this little orphan charge very soon after. My mother, as you have heard, was so fond of Bates, and Bates so fond of little Mary, that both, at first, were almost always in our house; and I used to call her my little wife as soon as I could speak, and before she could walk almost. It was beautiful to see us, the neighbours said. Well, when her brother, the lieutenant of an India ship, came to be captain, and actually gave Mary five thousand pounds when she was about ten years old, and promised her five thousand more, there was a great talking, and bobbing, and smiling between the Doctor and my parents, and Mary and I were left together more than ever, and she was told to eall me her little husband. And she did; and it was consi- dered a settled thing from that day. She was really amazingly fond of me. Can anyone call me mercenary after that? Though Miss Crutty had twelve thousand, and Mary only ten (five in hand, and five in the bush), I stuck faithfully to Mary. As a matter of course, Miss Crutty hated Miss Waters. The fact was, Mary had all the country dangling after her, and not a soul would come to Magdalen, for all her twelve thousand pounds. I used to be attentive to her though (as it’s always useful to be); and Mary would sometimes laugh and some- times cry at my flirting with Magdalen. This I thought proper very quickly to check. ‘‘ Mary,” said I, ‘you know that my love for you is disinterested,—for I am faithful to you, though Miss Crutty is richer than you. Don’t fly into a rage, then, because I pay her attentions, when you know that my heart and my promise are engaged to you.” The fact is, to tell a little bit of a secret, there is nothing like the having two strings to your bow. ‘‘ Who knows?” thought I. ‘Mary may die: and then where are my Zan, 19 354 Tl Es Ad A Te DO Tes J ten thousand pounds?” So I used to be very kind indeed to Miss Crutty ; and well it was that I was so: for when I was twenty and Mary eighteen, I’m blest if news did not arrive that Captain Waters, who was coming home to England with all his money in rupees, had been taken—ship, rupees, self and all—by a French privateer; and Mary, instead of ten thousand pounds, had only five thousand, making a difference of no less than three hundred and fifty pounds per annum betwixt her and Miss Crutty. I had just joined my regiment (the famous North Bungay Fencibles, Colonel Craw commanding) when this news reached me; and you may fancy how a young man, in an expensive regiment and mess, having uniforms and what not to pay for, and a‘figure to cut in the world, felt at hearing such news! ‘“‘My dearest Robert,” wrote Miss Waters, ‘‘ will deplore my dear brother’s loss: but not, I am sure, the money which that kind and generous soul had promised me. I have still five thousand pounds, and with this and your own little fortune (I had one thousand pounds in the Five per Cents) we shall be as happy and contented as possible.” Happy and contented indeed! Didn’t I know how my father got on with his three hundred pounds a year, and how it was all he could do out of it to add.a hundred a year to my narrow income, and live himself? My mind was made up. I instantly mounted the coach and flew to our village,—to Mr. Crutty’s, of course. It was next door to Doctor Bates’s; but I had no business there. I found Magdalen in the garden. ‘‘ Heavens, Mr. Stubbs!” said she, as in my new uniform I appeared before her, ‘I really did never—such a handsome officer—expect to see you.” And she made as if she would blush, and began to tremble violently. I led her to a garden-seat. I seized her hand—it was not withdrawn. I pressed it;—I thought the pressure was returned. I flung myself on my knees, and then I poured into her ear a little speech which I had made on the top of the coach. ‘‘ Divine Miss Crutty,” said I; ‘idol of my soul! It was but to catch one glimpse of you that I passed through this garden. I never intended to breathe the secret passion ”’ (oh no; of course not) ‘ which was wearing my life away. if ip MYLO y . hy ies APR iL — Fooling hes hago ett NS ; Rae) "4 > " at Male» uct. fe 7h a FOOLING. 355 You know my unfortunate pre-engagement—it is broken, and for ever! I am free;—free, but to be your slave,—your humblest, fondest, truest slave!” And soon.... “Oh, Mr. Stubbs,” said she, as [ imprinted a kiss upon her cheek, ‘I can’t refuse you; but I fear you are a sad naughty man... .” Absorbed in the delicious reverie which was caused by the dear creature’s confusion, we were both silent for a while, and should have remained so for hours perhaps, so lost were we in happiness, had I not been suddenly roused by a voice exclaiming from behind us— “Don't cry, Mary! Hes a swindling sneaking scoundrel, and you are well rid of him!” I turned round. O Heaven, there stood Mary, weeping on Doctor Bates’s arm, while that miserable apothecary was looking at me with the utmost scorn. The gardener, who had let me in, had told them of my arrival, and now stood grin- ning behind them. ‘ Imperence!”’ was my Magdalen’s only exclamation, as she flounced by with the utmost self-posses- sion, while I, glancing daggers at the spies, followed her. We retired to the parlour, where she repeated to me the strongest assurances of her love. I thought Iwas a made man. Alas! I was only an Apr Foou! 356 THE FALAL BOOTS. MAY—RESTORATION DAY. S the month of May is con- sidered, by poets and other philosophers, to be devoted by Nature to the great pur- pose of love-making, I may as well take advantage of that season and acquaint you with the result of my amours. Young, gay, fascinating, and an ensign—I had com- pletely won the heart of my Magdalen ; and as for Miss Waters and her nasty uncle the Doctor, there was a complete split between us, as you may fancy; Miss pretending, forsooth, that she was clad I had broken off the match, though she would have given her eyes, the little minx, to have had it on again. But this was out of the question. My father, who had all sorts of queer notions, said I had acted like a rascal in the busi- ness; my mother took my part, of course, and declared I acted rightly, as I always did: and I got leave of absence from the regiment in order to press my beloved Magdalen to marry me out of hand—knowing, from reading and experience, the extraordinary mutability of human affairs. Besides, as the dear girl was seventeen years older than myself, and as bad in health as she was in temper, how was I to know that the grim king of terrors might not carry her RESTORATION DAY. 357 off before she became mine? With the tenderest warmth, then, and most delicate ardour, I continued to press my suit. The happy day was fixed—the ever memorable 10th of May, 1792. The wedding-clothes were ordered ; and, to make things secure, I penned a little paragraph for the county paper to this effect :—‘‘ Marriage in High Life. We understand that Iinsign Stubbs, of the North Bungay Fencibles, and son of Thomas Stubbs, of Sloffemsquiggle, Esquire, is about to lead to the hymeneal altar the lovely and accomplished daughter of Solomon Crutty, Esquire, of the same place. A fortune of twenty thousand pounds is, we hear, the lady’s portion. ‘ None but the brave deserve the fair.’ * * * * * * ** Have you informed your relatives, my beloved?” said I to Magdalen one day after sending the above notice; ‘ will any of them attend at your marriage ?”’ ‘‘Uncle Sam will, I dare say,” said Miss Crutty, ‘dear Mamma’s brother.” ‘“‘And who was your dear mamma?” said I: for Miss Crutty’s respected parent had been long since dead, and IL never heard her name mentioned in the family. Magdalen blushed, and cast down her eyes to the ground. ‘‘ Mamma was a foreigner,” at last she said. «And of what country ? ” ‘“A German. Papa married her when she was very young : —she was not of a very good family,” said Miss Crutty, hesitating. ‘And what care I for family, my love!” said I, tenderly kissing the knuckles of the hand which I held. ‘‘ She must have been an angel who gave birth to you.” ‘“She was a shoemaker’s daughter.” “A German shoemaker! Hang ’em!’* thought I, “I have had enough of them;” and so broke up this conversation, which did not somehow please me. * * * * * * Well, the day was drawing near: the clothes were ordered; the banns were read. My dear mamma had built a cake about the size of a washing-tub; and I was only waiting for a week to 358 THE FATAL BOOTS. pass to put me in possession of twelve thousand pounds in the Five per Cents, as they were in those days, Heaven bless ’em. Little did I know the storm that was brewing, and the dis- appointment which was to fall upon a young man who really did his best to get a fortune. * * * * * * “Oh, Robert!” said my Magdalen to me, two days before the match was to come off, ‘‘I have such a kind letter from Uncle Sam in London. I wrote to him as you wished. He says that he is coming down to-morrow; that he has heard of you often, and knows your character very well; and that he has got a very handsome present for us! What can it be, I wonder ?” “Ts he rich, my soul’s adored ?”’ says I. ‘* He is a bachelor, with a fine trade, and nobody to leave his money to.” ‘‘His present can’t be less than a thousand pounds?” says I. “Or, perhaps, a silver tea-set, and some corner-dishes,”’ says she. But we could not agree to this: it was too little—too mean for a man of her uncle’s wealth; and we both determined it must be the thousand pounds. “‘Dear good uncle! he’s to be here by the coach,” says Maedalen. ‘ Let us ask a little party to meet him.’ And so we did, and so they came: my father and mother, old Crutty in his best wig, and the parson who was to marry us the next day. The coach was to come in at six. And there was the tea-table, and there was the punch-bowl, and everybody ready and smiling to receive our dear uncle from London. Six o’clock came, and the coach, and the man from the “Green Dragon” with a portmanteau, and a fat old gentle- man walking behind, of whom I just caught a glimpse—a venerable old gentleman: I thought I'd seen him before. * * * * * * Then there was a ring at the bell; then a scuffling and bumping in the passage; then old Crutty rushed out, and a sreat laughing and talking, and ‘“‘ How are you?” and so on, 5 ‘ ; +) “alan cee ¥ 3 a wet i : r 7 ; rege. te a“ Pee! : eed ec. mh i a? we 7 bye : “7 er At, . > f.5 i i alts yar - “a TS : . Ps, ‘ ai " Bd at - CY ee t Mike as - ral ‘ . 4 @ o~ peek ’ AA pe Tec eh A we Pe RY . Py . ¥ : os. i oe, oh e ive ere ‘ eo & . fe r- ' F j ‘ Me, 4 wi " The hun. ee i ae AC | ir Z ‘ | Feeeer i) (Coctnk | elvan ey OW ag ° Ay s ay Sogn Agios i i ¥) i ny Peery , i i HK H A AW Be ® a Cc fe) 5 A) ye ° ~ n © ~ > < = = : La : ) = ip) cig Li WE = ay NBII RESTORATION DAY. 359 was heard at the door; and then the parlour-door was flung open, and Crutty cried out with a loud voice— “*Good people all! my brother-in-law, Mr. Srirreixip !” Mr. Stiffelkind /—I trembled as I heard the name ! Miss Crutty kissed him; Mamma made him a curtsey, and Papa made him a bow; and Doctor Snorter, the parson, seized his hand and shook it most warmly: then came my turn ! “Vat!” says he. ‘‘It is my dear goot yong frend from Doctor Schvischentail’s! is dis de yong gentleman’s honorable moder’? (Mamma smiled and made a curtsey), ‘“‘ and dis his fader? Sare and madam, you should be broud of soch a sonn. And you my niece, if you have him for a husband you vill be locky, dat is all. Vat dink you, broder Croty, and Madame Stobbs, I ’ave made your sonn’s boots! Ha—ha!” My mamma laughed, and said, ‘‘I did not know it, but I am sure, sir, he has as pretty a leg for a boot as any in the whole county.” Old Stiffelkind roared louder. ‘‘A very nice leg, ma’am, and a very sheap boot too. Vat! did you not know I make his boots? Perhaps you did not know something else too— p raps you did not know” (and here the monster clapped his hand on the table and made the punch-ladle tremble in the bowl)—‘‘ p’raps you did not. know as dat yong man, dat Stobbs, dat sneaking, baltry, squinting fellow, is as vicked as he is ogly. He bot a pair of boots from me and never paid for dem. Dat is noting, nobody never pays; but he bought a pair of boots, and called himself Lord Cornvallis. And I was fool enough to believe him vonce. But look you, niece Magdalen, I ’ave got five tousand pounds: if you marry him I vill not give you a benny. But look you what I will gif you: I bromised you a bresent, and I will give you pesE!” And the old monster produced THosE vERY Boots which Swishtail had made him take back. * * * * * * I didn’t marry Miss Crutty : Iam not sorry for it though. She was a nasty, ugly, ill-tempered wretch, and I’ve always said so ever since. 260 LALSPALTALELOOTS: And all this arose from those infernal boots, and that unlucky paragraph in the county paper—I'll tell you how. In the first place, it was taken up as a quiz by one of the wicked, profligate, unprincipled organs of the London press, who chose to be very facetious about the ‘“‘ Marriage in High Life,” and made all sorts of jokes about me and my dear Miss Crutty. Secondly, it was read in this London paper by my mortal enemy, Bunting, who had been introduced to old Stiffelkind’s acquaintance by my adventure with him, and had his shoes made regularly by that foreign upstart. Thirdly, he happened to want a pair of shoes made at this particular period, and as he was measured by the dis- susting old High-Dutch cobbler, he told him his old friend Stubbs was going to be married. ‘‘And to whom ?”’ said old Stiffelkind. ‘To a voman wit geld, I vill take my oath.” “Yes,” says Bunting, ‘a country girl— a Miss Magdalen Carotty or Crotty, at a place called Sloffemsquiggle.” “ Schloffemschwiegel /”’ bursts out the dreadful bootmaker. “Mein Gott, mein Gott! das geht nicht! I tell you, sare, it is no go. Miss Crotty is my niece. I vill go down myself. I vill never let her marry dat goot-for-nothing schwindler and tief.” Such was the language that the scoundrel ventured to use regarding me! MARRKROWBONES AND CLEAVERS. 361 JUNE—MARROWBONES AND CLEAVERS. c AS there ever such confounded ill-luck ? My whole life has been a tissue of ill-luck: although I have laboured perhaps harder than any man to make a for- tune, something always tumbled it down. In love and in war I was not like others. In my marriages, I had an eye to the main chance; and you see how some unlucky blow would come and throw them over. In the army I was just as prudent, and just as unfortunate. What with judicious betting, and_horse- swapping, good luck at billiards, and economy, I do believe I put up my pay every year,—and that is what few can say who have but an allowance of a hundred a year. Pll tell you how it was. I used to be very kind to the young men: I chose their horses for them, and their wine; and showed them how to play billiards, or écarté, of long mornings, when there was nothing better to do. I didn’t cheat: ('d rather die than cheat ;—but if fellows will play, I wasn’t the man to say no—why should I? There was one young chap in our regiment of whom [| really think I cleared three hundred a year. 3 His name was Dobble. He was a tailor’s son, and wanted to be a gentleman. A poor weak young creature; easy to be 3 A 19 —_ —_— — = HUT) x UA ———— > a S raf) 69 aa ~ 2 —_. ) —= = 362 THE FATAL BOOTS. made tipsy; easy to be cheated; and easy to be frightened. It was a blessing for him that I found him; for if anybody — else had, they would have plucked him of every shilling. Ensign Dobble and I were sworn friends. I rode his horses for him, and chose his champagne, and did everything, in fact, that a superior mind does for an inferior,—when the inferior has got the money. We were inseparables,— hunting every- where in couples. We even managed to fall in love with two sisters, as young soldiers will do, you know; for the dogs fall in love with every change of quarters. Well, once, in the year 1798 (it was just when the French had chopped poor Louis’s head off), Dobble and I, gay young chaps as ever wore sword by side, had cast our eyes upon two young ladies by the name of Brisket, daughters of a butcher in the town where we were quartered. The dear girls fell in love with us, of course. And many a pleasant walk in the country, many a treat toa tea-garden, many a smart riband and brooch used Dobble and I (for his father allowed him six hundred pounds, and our purses were in common) to present to these young ladies. One day, fancy our pleasure at receiving a note couched thus :— ‘‘ DEER CAPTING STUBBS AND DosBLE,—Miss Briskets presents their compliments, and as it is probble that our papa will be till twelve at the corprayshun dinner, we request the pleasure of their company to tea.” Didn’t we go! Punctually at six we were in the little back-parlour ; we quaffed more Bohea, and made more love than half-a-dozen ordinary men could. At nine, a little punch- bowl succeeded to the little teapot; and, bless the girls! a nice fresh steak was frizzling on the gridiron f>r our supper. Butchers were butchers then, and their parlour was their kitchen too; at least old Brisket’s was—one door leading into the shop, and one into the yard, on the other side of which was the slaughter-house. Fancy, then, our horror when, just at this critical time, we heard the shop-door open, a heavy staggering step on the flags, and a loud husky voice from the shop, shouting, “‘ Hallo, Susan; hallo, Betsy! show a light!” Dobble turned as white / MARROWBONES AND CLEAVERS. 363 as a sheet; the two girls each as red as a lobster; I alcne preserved my presence of mind. ‘‘ The back-door,” says I.— ‘‘The dog’s in the court,” say they. ‘‘ He’s not so bad as the man,” said I. “Stop!” cries Susan, flinging open the door and rushing to the fire. ‘Take this, and perhaps it will quiet him.” What do you think “this” was? I’m blest if it was not the steak ! She pushed us out, patted and hushed the dog, and was in again ina minute. The moon was shining on the court, and on the slaughter-house, where there hung the white ghastly- looking carcases of a couple of sheep; a great gutter ran down the court—a gutter of blood! The dog was devouring his beef-steak (our beef-steak) in silence; and we could see through the little window the girls bustling about to pack up the supper-things, and presently the shop-door being opened, old Brisket entering, staggering, angry, and drunk. What’s more, we could see, perched on a high stool, and nodding politely, as if to salute old Brisket, the feather of Dobble’s cocked hat ! When Dobble saw it, he turned white, and deadly sick; and the poor fellow, in an agony of fright, sank shivering down upon one of the butcher’s cutting-blocks, which was in the yard. We saw old Brisket look steadily (as steadily as he could) at the confounded, impudent, pert, waggling feather; and then an idea began to dawn upon his mind, that there was a head to the hat; and then he slowly rose up--he was a man of six feet, and fifteen stone—he rose up, put on his apron and sleeves, and took down his cleaver. ‘“‘ Betsy,” says he, “open the yard door.” But the poor girls screamed, and flung on their knees, and begged, and wept, and did their very best to prevent him. ‘‘OpEN THE YARD Door!” says he, with a thundering loud voice; and the great bull-dog, hearing it, started up and uttered a yell which sent me flying to the other end of the court.—Dobble couldn’t move; he was sitting on the block, blubbering like a baby. The door opened, and out Mr. Brisket came. ‘To him, Jowler!” says he. ‘ Keep him, Jowler /”’—and the horrid dog flew at me, and I flew back into the corner, and drew my sword, determining to sell my life dearly. 364 THE FATAL BOOTS. ‘That’s it,” says Brisket. ‘Keep him there,—good dog, —good dog! And now, sir,” says he, turning round to Dobble, ‘is this your hat?” “Yes,” says Dobble, fit to choke with fright. ‘Well, then,” says Brisket, ‘‘it’s my—(hic)—my painful duty to—(hic)—to tell you, that as I’ve got your hat, I must have your head ;—it’s painful, but it must be done. You’d better —(hic)—settle yourself com—comfumarably against that—(hic)—that block, and [ll chop it off before you can say Jack—(hic)—no, I mean Jack Robinson.” Dobble went down on his knees and shrieked out, “I’m an only son, Mr. Brisket! I'll marry her, sir; I will, upon my honour, sir.—Consider my mother, sir ; consider my mother.” “That's it, sir,” says Brisket—‘‘ that’s a good—(hic)—a good boy ;—just put your head down quietly—and I’ll have it off—yes, off—as if you were Louis the Six—the Sixtix—-the Siktickleteenth.—I’ll chop the other chap afterwards.” When I heard this, I made a sudden bound back, and gave such a cry as any man might who was in such a way. The ferocious Jowler, thinking I was going to escape, flew at my throat; screaming furious, I flung out my arms in a kind of desperation,—and, to my wonder, down fell the dog, dead, and run through the body! * * * *° * * At this moment a posse of people rushed in upon old Brisket,—one of his daughters had had the sense to summon them,—and Dobble’s head was saved. And when they saw the dog lying dead at my feet, my ghastly look, my bloody sword, they gave me no small credit for my bravery. “A terrible fellow that Stubbs,” said they; and so the mess said, the next day. I didn’t tell them that the dog had committed siwcide— why should I? And I didn’t.say a word about Dobble’s cowardice. I said he was a brave fellow, and fought like a tiger; and this prevented him from telling tales. I had the dogskin made into a pair of pistol-holsters, and looked so fierce, and got such a name for courage in our regiment, that when we had to meet the regulars, Bob Stubbs was always the " SUBAROID PUue SBUDQGMOUUeW — INN MARROWBONES AND CLEAVERS. 305 man put forward to support the honour of the corps. The women, you know, adore courage; and such was my reputa- tion at this time, that I might have had my pick out of half- a-dozen, with three, four, or five thousand pounds apiece, who were dying for love of me and my red coat. But I wasn’t such a fool. I had been twice on the point of marriage, and twice disappointed ; and I vowed by all the Saints to have a wife, and a rich one. Depend upon this, as an infallible maxim to guide you through life: It’s as easy io get a rich wife as a poor one ;—the same bait that will hook a trout will hook a salmon. 366 THE FATAL BOOTS. JULY—SUMMARY PROCEEDINGS. OBBLE’S reputation for cou- ‘@® rage was not increased by the : er butcher’s-dog adventure ;_ but ( WK pees mine stood very high: little a HAC 4 MG Stubbs was voted the boldest aay ; EM SNE i 4 b f \} g! SSG chap of all the bold North Bun- Z) WGfego> \\ Ry ZA Vv, SSS SOL gays. And though | must con- fess, what was proved by subse- quent circumstances, that nature has not endowed me with a large, or even, I may say, an average share of bravery, yet a man is very willing to flatter himself to the contrary ; and, after a little time, I got to believe that my killing the dog was an action of undaunted courage, and that I was as gallant as any of the one hundred thousand heroes of our army. I always had a military taste—it’s only the brutal part of the profession, the horrid fighting and blood, that I don’t like. I suppose the regiment was not very brave itself—being only militia; but certain it was, that Stubbs was considered a most terrible fellow, and I swore so much, and looked so fierce, that you would have fancied I had made half a hundred campaigns. I was second in several duels: the umpire in all disputes; and such a crack shot myself, that fellows were shy of insulting me. As for Dobble, I took him under my pro- tection ; and he became so attached to me, that we ate, drank, and rode together every day; his father didn’t care for money, so long as his son was in good company—and what so good SUMMARY PROCEEDINGS. 267 Dt as that of the celebrated Stubbs? Heigho! I was good com- pany in those days, and a brave fellow too, as I should have remained, but for—what I shall tell the public immediately. It happened, in the fatal year ninety-six, that the brave North Bungays were quartered at Portsmouth, a maritime place, which I need not describe, and which I wish I had never seen. I might have been a General now, or, at least, a rich man. The red-coats carried everything before them in those days ; and I, such a crack character as | was in my regiment, was very well received by the townspeople: many dinners I had ; many tea-parties; many lovely young ladies did I lead down the pleasant country-dances. Well, although I had had the two former rebuffs in love which I have described, my heart was still young; and the fact was, knowing that a girl with a fortune was my only chance, I made love here as furiously as ever. I shan’t describe the lovely creatures on whom I fixed, whilst at Portsmouth. I tried more than—several—and it is a singular fact, which I never have been able to account for, that, successful as I was with ladies of maturer age, by the young ones I was refused regular. But ‘faint heart never won fair lady;” and so I went on, and on, until I had got a Miss Clopper, a tolerably rich navy-contractor’s daughter, into such a way, that I really don’t think she could have refused me. Her brother, Captain Clopper, was in a line regiment, and helped me as much as ever he could ; he swore I was such a brave fellow. As I had received a number of attentions from Clopper, I determined to invite him to dinner; which I could do without any sacrifice of my principle upon this point: for the fact is, Dobble lived at an inn, and as he sent all his bills to his father, I made no scruple to use his table. We dined in the coffee- room, Dobble bringing his friend; and so we made a party carry, as the French say. Some naval officers were occupied in a similar way at a table next to ours. Well—I didn’t spare the bottle, either for myself or for my friends ; and we grew very talkative, and very affectionate as the drinking went on. Each man told stories of his gallantry in the field, or amongst the ladies, as officers will, after dinner. 368 “He AAs BOO Da, Clopper confided to the company his wish that I should marry his sister, and vowed that he thought me the best fellow in Christendom. Ensign Dobble assented to this. ‘* But let Miss Clopper beware,” says he, ‘‘for Stubbs is a sad fellow: he has had I don’t know how many laisons already; and he has been engaged to I don’t know how many women.” ‘‘Indeed!” says Clopper. ‘Come, Stubbs, tell us your adventures.” ““Psha!’’ said I modestly, ‘‘ there is nothing indeed to tell. I have been in love, my dear boy—who has not ?—and I have been jilted—who has not?” Clopper swore that he would blow his sister’s brains out if ever she served me so. ‘Tell him about Miss Crutty,” said Dobble. ‘He! he! Stubbs served that woman out, anyhow ; she didn’t jilt him, Pll be sworn.” ‘Really, Dobble, you are too bad, and should not mention names. ‘The fact is, the girl was desperately in love with me, and had money—sixty thousand pounds, upon my reputation. Well, everything was arranged, when who should come down from London but a relation.” ‘‘ Well, and did he prevent the match?” “Prevent it—yes, sir, I believe you he did; though not in the sense that you mean. He would have given his eyes— ay, and ten thousand pounds more—if I would have accepted the girl, but I would not.” “Why, in the name of goodness ?” “Sir, her uncle was a shoemaker. I never would debase myself by marrying into such a family.” “Of course not,” said Dobble; “he couldn’t, you know. Well, now—tell him about the other girl, Mary Waters, you know.” “Hush, Dobble, hush! don’t you see one of those naval officers has turned round and heard you? My dear Clopper, it was a mere childish bagatelle.”’ “ Well, but let’s have it,” said Clopper—‘ let’s have it. I won’t tell my sister, you know.” And he put his hand to his nose and looked monstrous wise. JULY —Summary Proceedings WIN uA e hE Wye | rf ‘i i ue : 7 in) SUMMARY PROCEEDINGS. 369 “Nothing of that sort, Clopper—no, no—’pon honour— little Bob Stubbs is no libertine ; and the story is very simple. You see that my father has a small place, merely a few hundred acres, at Sloffemsquiggle. Isn’t it a funny name ? Hang it, there’s the naval gentleman. staring again ’—(I looked terribly fierce as I returned this officer’s stare, and continued in a loud careless voice).. ‘‘ Well, at this Sloffem- squiggle there lived. a girl, a Miss Waters, the niece of some blackguard apothecary in the neighbourhood ; but my mother took a’ fancy to the girl, and had her up to the park and petted her. We were both young—and—and—the girl fell in love with me, that’s the fact. I was obliged to repel some rather warm advances that she made me; and-here, upon my honour as a. gentleman, you have all the story about which that silly Dobble makes such a noise.” Just as I finished this sentence, I found myself suddenly taken by the nose, and a voice shouting out, — ‘‘Mr. Stubbs, -you are a Liar. anp a ScounpreL! Take this, sir,—and this, for daring to meddle with the name of an innocent lady.” , I turned round as well as I could—for the ruffian had pulled me out of my chair—and beheld a great marine mon- ster, six feet high, who was occupied in beating and kicking me, in the most ungentlemanly manner, on my cheeks, my ribs, and between the tails of my coat. ‘‘ He is a liar, gen- tlemen, and a scoundrel! The bootmaker had detected him in swindling, and so his niece refused him. Miss Waters was engaged to him from childhood, and he deserted her for the bootmaker’s niece, who was richer.’—And then sticking a card between my stock and my coat-collar, in what is called the scruff of my neck, the disgusting brute gave me another blow behind my back, and left the coffee-room with his friends. Dobble raised me up; and taking the card from my neck, read, Captain Waters. Clopper poured me out a glass of water, and said in my ear, “ If this is true, you are an infernal scoundrel, Stubbs; and must fight me, after Captain Waters; ” and he flounced out of the room. I had but one course to pursue. I sent the Captain a 3B 19 370 LILLE PALA Le dt short and contemptuous note, saying that he was beneath my anger. As for Clopper, I did not condescend to notice his remark; but in order to get rid of the troublesome society of these low blackguards, I determined to gratify an inclina- tion I had long entertained, and make a little tour. I applied for leave of absence, and set off that very mght. 1 can fancy the disappointment of the brutal Waters, on coming, as he did, the next morning to my quarters and finding me gone. Ha! ha! After this adventure I became sick of a military life—at least the life of my own regiment, where the officers, such was their unaccountable meanness and prejudice against me, absolutely refused to see me at mess. Colonel Craw sent me a letter to this effect, which I treated as it deserved.—I never once alluded to it in any way, and have since never spoken a single word to any man in the North Bungays. DOGS -HAVE JHEIK DAYS. 371 AUGUST—DOGS HAVE THEIR DAYS. IE, now, what life is! I have had ill-luck on ill-luck from that day to this. I have sunk in the world, and, instead of riding my horse and drinking my wine, as a real gentleman should, have hardly enough now to buy a pint of ale; ay, and am very glad when any- body will treat me to one. Why, why was I born to undergo such unmerited misfortunes ? You must know that very soon after my adventure with Miss Crutty, and that cowardly ruffian, Captain Waters (he sailed the day after his insult to me, or I should most certainly have blown his brains out; now he is living in England, and is my relation ; but, of course, I cut the fellow)—very soon after these painful events another happened, which ended, too, in a sad disappointment. My dear papa died, and, instead of leaving five thousand pounds, as I expected at the very least, left only his estate, which was worth but two. The land and house were left to me; to Mamma and my sisters he left, to be sure, a sum of two thousand pounds in the hands of that eminent firm Messrs. Pump, Aldgate & Co., which failed within six months after his demise, and paid in five years about one shilling and ninepence in the pound; which really was all my dear mother and sisters had to live upon. The poor creatures were quite unused to money matters ; 372 LHE LALALT BOCTm™ and, would you believe it? when the news came of Pump and Aldgate’s failure, Mamma only smiled, and threw her eyes up to heaven, and said, ‘‘ Blessed be God, that we have still where- withal to live. There are tens of thousands in this world, dear children, who would count our poverty riches.” And with this she kissed my two sisters, who began to blubber, as cirls always will do, and threw their arms round her neck, and then round my neck, until I was half stifled with their embraces, and slobbered all over with their tears. ‘Dearest Mamma,” said I, ‘‘I am very glad to see the noble manner in which you bear your loss; and more still to know that you are so rich as to be able to put up with it.” The fact was, I really thought the old lady had got a private hoard of her own, as many of them have—a thousand pounds or so in a stocking. Had she put by thirty pounds a year, as well she might, for the thirty years of her marriage, there would have been nine hundred pounds clear, and no mistake. But still I was angry to think that any such paltry concealment had been practised—concealment too of my money; so I turned on her pretty sharply, and continued my speech. ‘ You say, ma’am, that you are rich, and that Pump & Aldgate’s failure has no effect upon you. Iam very happy to hear you say so, ma’am—very happy that you are rich; and I should like to know where your property, my father’s property, for you had none of your own,—I should like to know where this money les—where you have concealed it, ma’am; and, permit me to say, that when I agreed to board you and my two sisters for eighty pounds a year, I did not know that you had otker resources than those mentioned in my blessed father’s will.” This I said to her because I hated the meanness of concealment, not because I lost by the bargain of boarding them: for the three poor things did not eat much more than sparrows; and I’ve often since calculated that I had a clear twenty pounds a year profit out of them. | Mamma and the girls looked quite astonished when I made the speech. ‘* What does he mean?” said Lucy to Eliza. Mamma repeated the question. *‘ My beloved Robert, what cohcealment are you talking of 2?” DOGS HAVE SHELTER DAYS. 37 Go “YT am talking of concealed property, ma’am,” says I sternly. ‘And do you—what-—can you—do you really suppose that I have concealed—any of that blessed sa-a-a-aint’s prop-op-op- operty ?” screams out Mamma. “ Robert,” says she—‘ Bob, my own darling boy—my fondest, best beloved, now he is gone” (meaning my late governor—more tears)—‘‘ you don’t, you cannot fancy that your own mother, who bore you, and nutsed you, and wept for you, and would give her all to save you from a moment’s harm—you don’t suppose that she would che-e-e-eat you!” And here she gave a louder screech than ever, and flung back on the sofa; and one of my sisters went and tumbled into her arms, and t’other went round, and the kissing and slobbering scene went on again, only I was left out, thank goodness. I hate such sentimentality. “* Che-e-e-eat me,” says I, mocking her. ‘“ What do you mean, then, by saying you're so rich? Say, have you got money, or have you not?” (And I rapped out a good num- ber of oaths, too, which I don’t put in here; but I was in a dreadful fury, that’s the fact.) “So help me Heaven,” says Mamma, in answer, going down on her knees and smacking her two hands, ‘‘I have but a Queen Anne’s guinea in the whole of this wicked world.” “Then what, madam, induces you to tell these absurd stories to me, and to talk about your riches, when you know that you and your daughters are beggars, ma’am—beqgars ?” “My dearest boy, have we not got the house, and the furniture, and a hundred a year still; and have you not great talents, which will make all our fortunes ?” says Mrs. Stubbs, vetting up off her knees, and making believe to smile as she clawed hold of my hand and kissed it. This was too cool. ‘You have got a hundred a year, ma’am ?” says I—‘‘ you have got a house? Upon my soul and honour this is the first I ever heard of it; and Vl tell you what, ma’am,”’ says I (and it cut her pretty sharply too): ‘‘ As you've got it, you'd better go and live in it. Vve got quite enough to do with my own house, and every penny of my own income.” Upon this speech the old lady said nothing, but she gave 374 THE FATA LSSOO LS: a screech loud enough to be heard from here to York, and down she fell—kicking and struggling in a regular fit. * * * * * * I did not see Mrs. Stubbs for some days after this, and the girls used to come down to meals, and never speak; going up again and stopping with their mother. At last, one day, both of them came in very solemn to my study, and Eliza, the eldest, said, ‘‘ Robert, Mamma has paid you our board up to Michaelmas.” “She has,” says I; for I always took precious good care to have it in advance. “She says, Robert, that on Michaelmas Day—we’ll—-we’ll go away, Robert.” ‘Oh, she’s going to her own house, is she, Lizzy? Very good. She’ll want the furniture, I suppose, and that she may have too, for ’'m going to sell the place myself.” And so that matter was settled. * * * * * * On Michaelmas Day—and during these two months I hadn’t, I do believe, seen my mother twice (once, about two o’clock in the morning, I woke and found her sobbing over my bed)—on Michaelmas-Day morning, Eliza comes to me and says, ‘‘ Robert, they will come and fetch us at six this evening.” Well, as this was the last day, | went and got the best goose I could find (I don’t think I ever saw a primer, or ate more hearty myself), and had it roasted at three, with a good pud- ding afterwards; and a glorious bowl of punch. ‘‘ Here’s a health to you, dear girls,” says I, ‘‘and you, Ma, and good luck to all three; and as you’ve not eaten a morsel, I hope you won't object to a glass of punch. It’s the old stuff, you know, ma’am, that that Waters sent to my father fifteen years ago.” Six o’clock came, and with it came a fine barouche. As I live, Captain Waters was on the box (it was his coach); that old thief, Bates, jumped out, entered my house, and before I could say Jack Robinson, whipped off Mamma to the carriage : the girls followed, just giving mea hasty shake of the hand; aud as Mamma was helped in, Mary Waters, who was sitting Tinars d rel i i a 5 ; a aT ic aa bys ia Stee me ee 5 ; ‘ ' AUGUST — Dogs have their days . DOGS HAVE THEIR DAYS. 375 inside, flung her arms round her, and then round the girls; wnd the Doctor, who acted footman, jumped on the box, and off they went; taking no more notice of me than if I'd been a nonentity. Here’s a picture of the whole business: —Mamma and Miss Waters are sitting kissing each other in the carriage, with the two girls in the back seat; Waters is driving (a precious bad driver he is too); and I’m standing at the garden door, and whistling. That old fool Mary Malowney is crying behind the carden gate: she went off next day along with the furniture ; and I to get into that precious scrape which I shall mention next. 378 LAE VRALAL BOO Ts was duly presented to Mrs. Manasseh. The lady was as eracious as possible; and when, at the end of the walk, we parted, she said she ‘hoped Captain Dobble would bring me to her apartments that evening, where she expected a few friends.” Everybody, you see, knows everybody at Leaming- ton; and I, for my part, was well known as a retired officer of the army, who, on his father’s death, had come into seven thousand a year. Dobble’s arrival had been subsequent to mine; but putting up as he did at the ‘ Royal Hotel,” and dining at the ordinary there with the widow, he had made her acquaintance before I had. I saw, however, that if I allowed him to talk about me, as he could, I should be compelled to give up all my hopes and pleasures at Leamington; and so I determimed to be short with him. As soon as the lady had gone into the hotel, my friend Dobble was for leaving me likewise; but I stopped him, and said, ‘‘ Mr. Dobble, I saw what you meant just now: you wanted to cut me, because, forsooth, I did not choose to fight a duel at Portsmouth. Now look you, Dobble, I am no hero, but I am not such a coward as you—and you know it. You are a very different man to deal with from Waters; and J will fight this time.” Not perhaps that I would: but after the business of the butcher, I knew Dobble to be as great a coward as ever lived ; and there never was any harm in threatening, for you know you are not obliged to stick to it afterwards. My words had their effect upon Dobble, who stuttered and looked red, and then declared he never had the slightest intention of passing me by; so we became friends, and his mouth was stopped. Hle was very thick with the widow, but that lady had a very capacious heart, and there were a number of other gentlemen who seemed equally smitten with her. ‘‘ Look at that Mrs. Manasseh,” said a gentleman (it was droll, he was a Jew, too) sitting at dinner by me. ‘She is old, ugly, and yet, because she has money, all the men are flinging themselves at her.” “She has money, has she?” ‘ Hiehty thousand pounds, and twenty thousand for each of her children. I know it for a fact,’ said the strange gentleman. ‘I am in the law, and we of our faith, you LEUGRING A GOOSE. 379 know, know pretty well what the great families amongst us are worth.” ‘Who was Mr. Manasseh ?”’ said I. ‘*A man of enormous wealth—a tobacco-merchant— West Indies; a fellow of no birth, however; and who, between ourselves, married a woman that is not much better than she should be. My dear sir,” whispered he, ‘she is always in love. Now it is with that Captain Dobble; last week it was somebody else—and it may be you next week, if—ha! ha! ha !—you are disposed to enter the lists. I wouldn’t, for my part, have the woman with twice her money.” What did it matter to me whether the woman was good or not, provided she was rich? My course was quite clear. I told Dobble all that this gentleman had informed me, and being a pretty good hand at making a story, I made the widow appear so bad, that the poor fellow was quite frightened, and fairly quitted the field. Ha! ha! I’m dashed if I did not make him believe that Mrs. Manasseh had murdered her last husband. I played my game so well, thanks to the information that my friend the lawyer had given me, that ina month I had got the widow to show a most decided partiality for me. I sat by her at dinner, I drank with her at the ‘‘ Wells’’—I rode with her, I danced with her, and at a picnic to Kenilworth, where we drank a good deal of champagne, I actually popped the question, and was accepted. In another month, Robert Stubbs, Esquire, led to the altar, Leah, widow of the late Z. Manasseh, Esquire, of St. Kitt’s! * * * * * * We drove up to London in her comfortable chariot: the children and servants following in a postchaise. I paid, of course, for everything; and until our house in Berkeley Square was painted, we stopped at ‘‘ Stevens's Hotel.” * * * * * * My own estate had been sold, and the money was lying at a bank in the City. About three days after our arrival, as we took our breakfast in the hotel, previous to a visit to Mrs. Stubbs’s banker, where certain little transfers were to be 380 THE FATAL BOOTS. made, a gentleman was introduced, who, I saw at a glance, was of my wife’s persuasion. He looked at Mrs. Stubbs, and made a bow. “ Perhaps it will be convenient to you to pay this little bill, one hundred and fifty-two pounds ?” ““My love,” says she, “will you pay this—it is a trifle which I had really forgotten ? ”’ ES So soul!” said I,.‘‘ I have really not the money in the house.” “Vell, denn, Captain Shtubbsh, ” says he, ‘I must do my duty—and arrest. you—here is the writ! Tom, keep the door !”’—My ‘wife fainted—the children screamed, and fancy my condition as I was obliged to march off to a spunging- house along with a horrid sheriff's officer ! asoog & gulyonid— YaaWALdasS Apwoysymy shu a ne ne gs re ag ae fs ee SS SS ee SS SS Se SS SS ee = —_ =~ et SS eg ee oe ee sake = _- Se speetier oa << = Lag om = = Se 2S a Pepe BO tz aS SS i. Se a ee ee ee = ge a =augy SS—," SS SS = Sa = IS Fee a = ee eee = ee “ead myseeeeO —S SS SS Ew w ——— = =e 2 SS Se a ee = So = =~ = =) ——— YY = Y, Ty) SSS SSS == ore Ne Yh \/ Lif t =| \ YY) 4LMG WAZ, Yf A x yy 1) My AML = jt: typ ch ty 7 YUN, ce "yy | 2%, = Yap L /, Uy = Ns. | en Aas Lgl j Y, ty) Yi) ik apn 5 ae ZZ = Z LLL, Yj yf Tikes il wade D> : Vj Lf Yi /) Y ty Gyn y il ail (es Pee ee Gy, “yy 4, YW YY; Yp jj tipsy 7 mien Yu MEY) YY ayy Wife q U} UWVLELLE EL : (4 Yip OY iyi J, Uy Ug YMJiEE_B8v — a LUGE GY) Yj Md id ae WM Yiu j yy tyjj Y)} \ ‘ 7 i wel ay he ’ Mth! Bi Wadi ® MARS AND VENUS IN OPPOSITION. 381 - OCTOBER—MARS AND VENUS IN OPPOSITION. SHALL not describe my feelings when I found myself in a cage in Cursitor Street, instead of that fie house in Berkeley Square, which was to have been mine as the husband of Mrs. Manasseh. What a place !—in an odious dismal street leading from Chancery Lane. A hideous Jew boy opened the second of three doors and shut it when Mr. Nabb and I (almost faint- ing) had entered; then Le opened the third door, and then I was introduced to a filthy place called a coffee-room, which I exchanged for the solitary comfort of a little dingy back-parlour, where I was left for a while to brood over my miserable fate. Fancy the change between this and Berkeley Square! Was I, after all my pains, and cleverness, and perseverance, cheated at last? Had this Mrs. Manasseh been imposing upon me, and were the words of the wretch I met at the table-d’hote at Leamington only meant to mislead me and take me in? I determined to send for my wife, and know the whole truth. I saw at once that I had been the victim of an infernal plot, and that the carriage, the house in town, the West India fortune, were only so many lies which I had blindly believed. It was true the debt was but a hundred and fifty pounds ; and [ had two thousand at my bankers’. But was the loss of her eighty thousand pounds nothing? Was the destruction of my hopes nothing? The 382 LE PALATES OCIS: accursed addition to my family of a Jewish wife and three Jewish children, nothing? And all these I was to support out of my two thousand pounds. I had better have stopped at home with my mamma and sisters, whom I really did love, and who produced me eighty pounds a year. I had a furious interview with Mrs. Stubbs; and when I charged her, the base wretch! with cheating me, like a brazen serpent as she was, she flung back the cheat in my teeth, and swore I had swindled her. Why did I marry her, when she might have had twenty others ?. She only took me, she said, because I had twenty thousand pounds. I had said I possessed that sum: but in love, you know, and war all’s fair. We parted quite as angrily as we met; and I cordially vowed that when I had paid the debt into which I had been swindled by her, I would take my two thousand pounds and depart to some desert island ; or, at the very least, to America, and never’see her more, or any of her Israelitish brood. There was no use in remaining in the spunging-house (for I knew that there were such things as detainers, and that where Mrs. Stubbs owed a hundred pounds, she might owe a thousand) : so I sent for Mr. Nabb, and tendering him a cheque for one hundred and fifty pounds and his costs, requested to be let out forthwith. ‘ Here, fellow,” said I, ‘‘is a cheque on Child’s for your paltry sum.” ‘‘ It may be a sheck on Shild’s,” says Mr. Nabb; ‘but I should be a baby to let you out on such a paper as dat.” “Well,” said I, ‘‘Child’s is but a step from this: you may go and get the cash,—just give me an acknowledgment.” Nabb drew out the acknowledgment with great punc- tuality, and set off for the bankers’, whilst I prepared myself for departure from this abominable prison. He smiled as he came in. ‘“ Well,” said I, ‘you have touched your money; and now, I must tell you, that-you are the most infernal rogue and extortioner I ever met with.” ‘Oh no, Mishter Shtubbsh,” says he, grinning still. ‘‘Dere is som greater roag dan me,—mosh greater.” ‘“ Fellow,” said I, ‘don’t stand grinning before a gentle- man; but give me my hat and cloak, and let me leave your filthy den.” Sa WS an “ey fy 7G, ey fa vl WSOP NK a. Wa SS in ] o as Oe OCTOBER — Mars and Venus in Opposition . George Crukshamby WAKO AND (VENOUS JN OPPOSITION. 383 Oy; ‘Shtop, Shtubbsh,” says he, not even Mistering me this time. ‘‘ Here ish a letter, vich you had better read.” I opened the letter ; something fell to the ground ,—it was my cheque. The letter ran thus :— ‘Messrs. Child & Co. present their compliments to Captain Stubbs, and regret that they have been obliged to refuse payment of the enclosed, having been served this day with an attachment by Messrs. Solomonson & Co., which compels them to retain Captain Stubbs’s balance of 2,010/. lls. 6d. until the decision of the suit of Solomonson v. Stubbs. ‘“ Fleet Street.’ “You see,” says Mr. Nabb, as I read this dreadful letter —‘ you see, Shtubbsh, dere vas two debts,—a httle von and a big von. So dey arrested you for de little von, and attashed your money for de big von.” Don’t laugh at me for telling this story. If you knew what tears are blotting over the paper as I write it—if you knew that for weeks after I was more like a madman than a sane man,—a madman in the Fleet Prison, where I went instead of to the desert island! What had I done to deserve it? Hadn’t [always kept an eye to the main chance? Hadn't I lived economically, and not like other young men? Had I ever been known to squander or give away a single penny? No! I can lay my hand on my heart, and, thank Heaven, say, No! Why, why was I punished so ? Let me conclude this miserable history. Seven months— my wife saw me once or twice, and then dropped me altogether —TI remained in that fatal place. I wrote to my dear mamma, begging her to sell her furniture, but got no answer. All my old friends turned their backs upon me. My action went against me—I had not a penny to defend it. Solomonson proved my wife’s debt, and seized my two thousand pounds. As for the detainer against me, I was obliged to go through the court for the relief of insolvent debtors. I passed through it, and came out a beggar. But fancy the malice of that wicked Stiffelkind: he appeared in court as my creditor for three pounds, with sixteen years’ interest at five per cent., for 384 THE FATAL BOOTS. & PAIR OF Top-Boots. The old thief produced them in court, and told the whole story—Lord Cornwallis, the detection, the pumping and all. Commissioner Dubobwig was very funny about it. ‘ So Doctor Swishtail would not pay you for the boots, eh, Mr. Stiffelkind ?” “No: he said, ven I asked him for payment, dey was ordered by a yong boy, and I ought to have gone to his schoolmaster.” “What! then you came on a bootless errand, hey, sir?” (A laugh.) ‘“‘Bootless! no sare, I brought de boots back vid me. How de devil else could I show dem to you?” (Another laugh.) ‘“You’ve never soled ’em since, Mr. Tickleshins ?”’ ‘‘T never would sell dem; I svore I never vood, on porpus to be revenged on dat Stobbs.” ‘What! your wound has never been healed, eh?” ‘Vat de you mean vid your bootless errands, and your soling and healing? I tell you I have done vat I svore to do: I have exposed him at school; I have broak off a marriage for him, ven he vould have had tventy tousand pound ; and now I have showed him up in a court of justice. Dat is vat I ’ave done, and dat’s enough.” And then the old wretch went down, whilst everybody was giggling and staring at poor me—as if I was not miserable enough already. ‘‘This seems the dearest pair of boots you ever had in your life, Mr. Stubbs,” said Commissioner Dubobwig very archly, and then he began to inquire about the rest of my misfortunes. In the fulness of my heart I told him the whole of them : how Mr. Solomonson the attorney had introduced me to the rich widow, Mrs. Manasseh, who had fifty thousand pounds, and an estate in the West Indies. How I was married, and arrested on coming to town, and cast in an action for two thousand pounds brought against me by this very Solomonson for my wife’s debts. “Stop!” says a lawyer in the court. ‘Is this woman a showy black-haired woman with one eye? very often drunk, with three children ?—Solomonson, short, with red hair ? ” MAL OeIVEemY LAY CO Seley OLPOSITION. 385 ‘«‘Kxactly so,” said I, with tears in my eyes. ‘That woman has married three men within the last two years. One in Ireland, and one at Bath. A Solomonson is, I believe, her husband, and they both are off for America ten days ago.” ‘But why did you not keep your two thousand pounds?” said the lawyer. ‘«‘ Sir, they attached it.” ‘Oh, well, we may pass you. You have been unlucky, Mr. Stubbs, but it seems as if the biter had been bit in this affair.”’ “No,” said Mr. Dubobwig. ‘‘ Mr. Stubbs is the victim of @& FATAL ATTACHMENT.” 386 THE FATAL BOOTS. NOVEMBER—A GENERAL POST DELIVERY. WAS a free man when I went out of the court; but I was a beggar —I, Captain Stubbs, of the bold North Bungays, did not know where I could get a bed, or a dinner. As I was marching sadly down Portugal Street, I felt a hand on my shoulder and a rough voice which [ knew well. ‘Vell, Mr. Stobbs, have I not kept my promise? I told you dem boots would be your ruin.” I was much too miserable to reply; and only cast my eyes towards the roofs of the houses, which I could not see for the tears. “Vat! you begin to gry and blobber like a shild? you vood marry, vood you? and noting vood do for you but a vife vid monny—ha, ha—but you vere de pigeon, and she was de grow. She has plocked you, too, pretty vell—eh? ha! ha!” “Oh, Mr. Stiffelkind,” said I, ‘don’t laugh at my misery: she has not left me a single shilling under heaven. And I shall starve: I do believe I shall starve.” And I began to ery fit to break my heart. ‘‘Starf! stoff and nonsense! You vill never die of starfing —you vill die of hanging, I tink—ho! ho!—and it is moch easier yay too.” I didn’t say a word, but cried on; till every- body in the street turned round and stared. , SS a Y SENT. —_—S = =—= a AY GENERAT. HOSDT DELIVERY. 387 “Come, come,” said Stiffelkind, ‘‘do not gry, Gaptain Stobbs—it is not goot for a Gaptain to gry—ha! ha! Dere— come vid me, and you shall have a dinner, and a bregfast too, —vich shall gost you nothing, until you can bay vid your earnings.” And so this curious old man, who had persecuted me all through my prosperity, grew compassionate towards me in my ill-luck ; and took me home with him as he promised. ‘1 saw your name among de Insolvents, and I vowed, you know, to make you repent dem boots. Dere now, it is done, and forgotten, look you. Here, Betty, Bettchen, make de spare bed, and put a clean knife and fork; Lort Cornvallis is come to dine vid me.” I lived with this strange old man for six weeks. I kept his books, and did what little 1 could to make myself useful : carrying about boots and shoes, as if I had never borne His Majesty’s commission. He gave me no money, but he fed and lodged me comfortably. The men and boys used to laugh and eall me General, and Lord Cornwallis, and all sorts of nick- names; and old Stiffelkind made a thousand new ones for me. One day I can recollect—one miserable day, as I was polishing on the trees a pair of boots of Mr. Stiffelkind’s manutfacture—the old gentleman came into the shop, with a lady on his arm. ‘Vere is Gaptain Stobbs?” said he. ‘‘ Vere is dat orna- ment to His Majesty’s service ?”’ I came in from the back shop, where I was polishing the boots, with one of them in my hand. ‘* Look, my dear,” says he, ‘‘ here is an old friend of yours, his Excellency Lort Cornvallis!—Who would have thought such a nobleman vood turn shoeblack ? Captain Stobbs, here is your former flame, my dear niece, Miss Grotty. How could you, Magdalen, ever leaf such a lof of a man? Shake hands vid her, Gaptain ;—dere, never mind de blacking!” But Miss drew back. “T never shake hands with a shoeblack,” said she, mighty contemptuous. ‘Bah! my lof, his fingers vyon’t soil you. Don’t you know he has just been veterashed 2?” 388 THE FATAL BOGTS; “‘T wish, Uncle,” says she, ‘‘ you would not leave me with such low people.” ‘“‘Low, because he cleans boots? De Gaptain prefers pumps to boots I tink—ha! ha!” ‘Captain indeed; a nice Captain,” says Miss Crutty, snapping her fingers in my face, and walking away: ‘a Captain who has had his nose pulled! ha! ha!’—And how could I help it? it wasn’t by my own choice that that ruffian Waters took such liberties with me. Didn’t I show how averse I was to all quarrels by refusing altogether his challenge ?—But such is the world. And thus the people at Stiffelkind’s used to tease me, until they drove me almost mad. At last he came home one day more merry and abusive than ever. ‘‘Gaptain,” says he, ‘“‘I have goot news for you— a goot place. Your Lordship vill not be able to geep your garridge, but you vill be gomfortable, and serve His Majesty.” “Serve His Majesty ?”’ says I. ‘‘ Dearest Mr. Stiffelkind, have you got me a place under Government ?” “Yes, and somting better still—not only a place, but a uniform: yes, Gaptain Stobbs, a red goat.” “A red coat! I hope you don’t think I would demean myself by entering the ranks of the army ? I am a gentleman, Mr. Stiffelkind—I can never—no, I never ‘ “No, I know you will never—you are too great a goward —-ha! ha!—though dis is a red coat, and a place where you must give some hard knocks too—ha! ha!—do you gompre- hend ?-—and you shall be a general instead of a gaptain— ha! ha!” ‘‘A general in a red coat, Mr. Stiffelkind ?” “Yes, a GENERAL Bostman!—ha! ha! I have been vid your old friend, Bunting, and he has an uncle in the Post Office, and he has got you de place—eighteen shillings a veek, you rogue, and your goat. You must not oben any of de letters, you know.” And so it was—I, Robert Stubbs, Esquire, became the vile thing he named—a general postman ! * * * * * * I was so disgusted with Stiffelkind’s brutal jokes, which A GUWLRAL POST DELIVERY. 389 ‘were now more brutal than ever, that when I got my place in the Post Office, I never went near the fellow again; for though he had done me a favour in keeping me from starvation, he certainly had done it in a very rude disagreeable manner, and showed a low and mean spirit in shoving me into such a degraded place as that of postman. But what had Itodo? I submitted to fate, and for three years or more, Robert Stubbs, of the North Bungay Fencibles, was I wonder nobody recognised me. I lived in daily fear the first year: but afterwards grew accustomed to my situation, as all great men will do, and wore my red coat as naturally as if I had been sent into the world only for the purpose of being a letter-carrier. I was first in the Whitechapel district, where I stayed for nearly three years, when I was transferred to Jermyn Street and Duke Street—famous places for lodgings. I suppose I left a hundred letters at a house in the latter street, where lived some people who must have recognised me had they but once chanced to look at me. You see that, when I left Sloffemsquiggle, and set out in the gay world, my mamma had written to me a dozen times at least ; but I never answered her, for I knew she wanted money, and I detest writing. Well, she stopped her letters, finding she could get none from me:—but when I was in the Fleet, as I told you, I wrote repeatedly to my dear mamma, and was not a little nettled at her refusing to notice me in my distress, which is the very time one most wants notice. Stubbs is not an uncommon name; and though I saw Mrs. Srusss on a little bright brass plate, in Duke Street, and delivered so many letters to the lodgers in her house, I never thought of asking who she was, or whether she was my relation, or not. One day the young woman who took in the letters had not got change, and she called her mistress. An old lady in a poke-bonnet came out of the parlour, and put on her spec- tacles, and looked at the letter, and fumbled in her pocket for eightpence, and apologised to the postman for keeping him waiting. And when I said, ‘‘ Never mind, ma’am, it’s no trouble,” the old lady gave a start, and then she pulled off her 390 THE, FALAL DOGS: spectacles, and staggered back; and then she began mutter- ing, as if about to choke; and then she gave a great screech, and flung herself into my arms, and roared out, ‘‘ My son, my Son!” “Law, Mamma,” said I, ‘‘is that you?” and I sat down on the hall bench with her, and let her kiss me as much as ever she liked. Hearing the whining and crying, down comes another lady from upstairs,—it was my sister Eliza; and down come the lodgers. And the maid gets water and what not, and L was the regular hero of the group. I could not stay long then, having my letters to deliver. But, in the evening, after mail-time, | went back to my mamma and sister; and, over a bottle of prime old port, and a precious good leg of boiled mutton and turnips, made myself pretty comfortable, I can tell you. see = " LU TTT i) \ =F (sc = lly Mp, 1 Ww WY \. XN NOVEMBER —A General Post Delivery . Witimew ivan OUR DISCONTENT? 391 DECEMBER—“‘ THE WINTER OF OUR DISCONTENT.” AMMA had kept the house in Duke Street for more than two years. I recollected some of the chairs and tables from dear old Sloffemsquiggle, and the bowl in which I had made that famous rum-punch, the evening she went away, which she and my sisters left un- touched, and I was obliged to drink after they were gone; but that’s not to the purpose. Think of my sister Lucy’s luck! that chap, Waters, fell in love with her, and married her; and she now keeps her carriage, and lives in state near Sloffemsquiggle. I offered to make it up with Waters; but he bears malice, and never will see or speak to me.—He had the impudence, too, to say, that he took in all letters for Mamma at Sloffemsquiggle; and that as mine were ail begeing- letters, he burned them, and never said a word to her concern- ing them. He allowed Mamma fifty pounds a year, and, if she were not such a fool, she might have had three times as much; but the old lady was high and mighty forsooth, and would not be beholden, even to her own daughter, for more than she actually wanted. Even this fifty pound she was going to refuse; but when I came to live with her, of course I wanted pocket-money as well as board and lodging, and so 392 LAELSPALATADOOGES, I had the fifty pounds for my share, and eked out with it as well as I could. Old Bates and the Captain, between them, gave Mamma a hundred pounds when she left me (she had the deuce’s own luck, to be sure—much more than ever fell to me, I know); and as she said she would try and work for her living, it was thought best to take a house and let lodgings, which she did. Our first and second floor paid us four guineas a week on an average; and the front parlour and attic made forty pounds more. Mamma and Eliza used to have the front attic; but I took that, and they slept in the servants’ bedroom. Lizzy had a pretty genius for work, and earned a guinea a week that way; so that we had got nearly two hundred a year over the rent to keep house with,—and we got on pretty well. Besides, women eat nothing: my women didn’t care for meat for days together sometimes,—so that it was only necessary to dress a good steak or so for me. Mamma would not think of my continuing in the Post Office. She said her dear Robert, her husband’s son, her gallant soldier, and all that, should remain at home and be a gentleman—which I was, certainly, though I didn’t find fifty pounds a year very much to buy clothes and be a gentleman upon. ‘l’o be sure, mother found me shirts and linen, so that that wasn't in the fifty pounds. She kicked a little at paying the washing too; but she gave in at last, for I was her dear Bob, you know; and I’m blest if I could not make her give me the gown off her back. Fancy! once she cut up a very nice rich black silk scarf, which my sister Waters sent her, and made me a waistcoat and two stocks of it. She was so very soft, the old lady ! * * * * * * I’d lived in this way for five years or more, making myself content with my fifty pounds a year (perhaps I'd saved a little out of it; but that’s neither here nor there). From year’s end to year’s end I remained faithful to my dear mamma, never leaving her except for a month or so in the summer-—— when a bachelor may take a trip to Gravesend or Margate, which would be too expensive for a family. I say a bachelor, ite ae ee Ole DisGONTENT.” 393 for the fact is, I don’t know whether I am married or not— never having heard a word since of the scoundrelly Mrs. Stubbs. I never went to the public-house before meals: for, with my beggarly fifty pounds, I could not afford to dine away from home: but there I had my regular seat, and used to come home pretty glorious, | can tell you. Then bed till eleven; then breakfast and the newspaper ; then a stroll in Hyde Park or St. James’s; then home at half-past three to dinner—when I jollied, as I eall it, for the rest of the day. I was my mother’s delight; and thus, with a clear conscience, | managed to live on. * * * * * * How fond she was of me, to be sure! Being sociable my- self and loving to have my friends about me, we often used to assemble a company of as hearty fellows as you would wish to sit down with, and keep the nights up royally. ‘‘ Never mind, my boys,” I used to say, “send the bottle round: mammy pays for all.” As she did, sure enough: and sure enough we punished her cellar too. The good old lady used to wait upon us, as if for all the world she had been my servant, instead of a lady and my mamma. Never used she to repine, though I often, as I must confess, gave her occasion (keeping her up till four o’clock in the morning, because she never could sleep until she saw her ‘“‘dear Bob” in bed, and leading her a sad anxious life). She was of such a sweet temper, the old lady, that I think in the course of five years I never knew her in a passion, except twice: and then with sister Lizzy, who declared I was ruining the house, and driving the lodgers away, one by one. But Mamma would not hear of such envious spite on my sister’s part. ‘‘ Her Bob” was always right, she said. At last Lizzy fairly retreated, and went to the Waters’s.—I was glad of it, for her temper was dreadful, and we used to be squabbling from morning till night! Ah, those were jolly times! but Ma was obliged to give up the lodging-house at last—for, somehow, things went wrong after my sister’s departure—the nasty uncharitable people said, on account of me; because I drove away the lodgers by 5 oR 1y 394 LHL LATALRBOOLS; smoking and drinking, and kicking up noises in the house ; and because Ma gave me so much of her money :—so she did but if she would give it, you know, how could I help it? Heigho! L wish ['d kept it. No such luck. The business I thought was to last for ever ; but at the end of two years came a smash—shut up shop— sell-off everything. Mamma went to the Waters’s: and, will you believe it ? the ungrateful wretches would not receive me ! that: Mary, you see, was so disappointed at not marrying me. Twenty pounds a year they allow, it is true; but what’s that for a gentlenan ?.. For twenty years I have been strug- eling manfully to gain an honest livelihood, and, in the course of them, have seen a deal of life, to be sure. I’ve sold cigars and pocket-handkerchiefs at the corners of streets; I’ve been a billiard-marker; I've been a director (in the panic year) of the Imperial British Consolidated Mangle and Drying Ground Company. . I’ve been on the stage (for two years as an actor, and about a month as a cad, when I was very low); I’ve been the means of giving to the police of this empire some very valuable information: (about licensed victuallers, gentlemen's carts, and pawnbrokers’ names); I’ve been very nearly an officer again—that is, an assistant to an officer of the Sheriff of Middlesex : it was my last place. On the last day of the year 1837, even that game was up. ‘It’s a thing that very seldom happened to a gentleman, to ‘be kicked out of a: spunging-house; but such was my case. Young Nabb (who succeeded his father) drove me ignomi- miously from his door, because I had charged a gentleman in the coffee-room: seven-and-sixpence for a glass of ale and bread and cheese, the charge of the house being only six shillings. He had the-meanness to deduct the eighteenpence from my wages, and because I blustered a bit, he took me by the shoulders and turned me out—me, a gentleman, and, what is more, a poor orphan! How I did rage and swear at him when I ia out into the street! There stood he, the hideous Jew monster, at the double door, writhing under the effect of my language. I had my revenge! Heads were thrust out of every bar of his windows, laughing at him. A crowd gathered round me, as I DECEMBER —‘ The Winter of our Discontent’. FINE 10¢ A DAY Return this book on or before the Latest Date stamped below. A charge is made on all overdue books. University of Illinois Library ea UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA WN 3 0112 055299405