Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1

CHAPTER XXI

THE PHOENIX PARK

What a glorious thing it is when our first waking thoughts not only dispel some dark, depressing dream, but arouse us to the consciousness of a new and bright career suddenly opening before us, buoyant in hope, rich in promise for the future! Life has nothing better than this. The bold spring by which the mind clears the depth that separates misery from happiness is ecstasy itself; and then what a world of bright visions come teeming before us, – what plans we form; what promises we make to ourselves in our own hearts; how prolific is the dullest imagination; how excursive the tamest fancy, at such a moment! In a few short and fleeting seconds, the events of a whole life are planned and pictured before us. Dreams of happiness and visions of bliss, of which all our after-years are insufficient to eradicate the prestige, come in myriads about us; and from that narrow aperture through which this new hope pierces into our heart, a flood of light is poured that illumines our path to the very verge of the grave. How many a success in after-days is reckoned but as one step in that ladder of ambition some boyish review has framed, perhaps, after all, destined to be the first and only one! With what triumph we hail some goal attained, some object of our wishes gained, less for its present benefit, than as the accomplishment of some youthful prophecy, when picturing to our hearts all that we would have in life, we whispered within us the flattery of success.

Who is there who has not had some such moment; and who would exchange it, with all the delusive and deceptive influences by which it comes surrounded, for the greatest actual happiness he has partaken of? Alas, alas, it is only in the boundless expanse of such imaginations, unreal and fictitious as they are, that we are truly blessed! Our choicest blessings in life come even so associated with some sources of care that the cup of enjoyment is not pure but dregged in bitterness.

To such a world of bright anticipation did I awake on the morning after the events I have detailed in the last chapter. The first thing my eyes fell upon was an official letter from the Horse Guards: —

“The commander of the forces desires that Mr. O’Malley will report himself, immediately on the receipt of this letter, at the headquarters of the regiment to which he is gazetted.”

Few and simple as the lines were, how brimful of pleasure they sounded to my ears. The regiment to which I was gazetted! And so I was a soldier at last! The first wish of my boyhood was then really accomplished. And my uncle, what will he say; what will he think?

“A letter, sir, by the post,” said Mike, at the moment.

I seized it eagerly; it came from home, but was in Considine’s handwriting. How my heart failed me as I turned to look at the seal. “Thank God!” said I, aloud, on perceiving that it was a red one. I now tore it open and read: —

My Dear Charley, – Godfrey, being laid up with the gout, has desired me to write to you by this day’s post. Your appointment to the 14th, notwithstanding all his prejudices about the army, has given him sincere pleasure. I believe, between ourselves, that your college career, of which he has heard something, convinced him that your forte did not lie in the classics; you know I said so always, but nobody minded me. Your new prospects are all that your best friends could wish for you: you begin early; your corps is a crack one; you are ordered for service. What could you have more?

Your uncle hopes, if you can get a few days’ leave, that you will come down here before you join, and I hope so too; for he is unusually low-spirited, and talks about his never seeing you again, and all that sort of thing.

I have written to Merivale, your colonel, on this subject, as well as generally on your behalf. We were cornets together forty years ago. A strict fellow you’ll find him, but a trump on service. If you can’t manage the leave, write a long letter home at all events.

And so, God bless you, and all success!

Yours sincerely,

W. Considine.

I had thought of writing you a long letter of advice for your new career; and, indeed, half accomplished one. After all, however, I can tell you little that your own good sense will not teach you as you go on; and experience is ever better than precept. I know of but one rule in life which admits of scarcely any exception, and having followed it upwards of sixty years, approve of it only the more:

Never quarrel when you can help it; but meet any man, – your tailor, your hairdresser, – if he wishes to have you out.

W. C.

I had scarcely come to the end of this very characteristic epistle, when two more letters were placed upon my table. One was from Sir George Dashwood, inviting me to dinner to meet some of my “brother officers.” How my heart beat at the expression. The other was a short note, marked “Private,” from my late tutor, Dr. Mooney, saying, “that if I made a suitable apology to the bursar for the late affair at my room, he might probably be induced to abandon any further step; otherwise – ” then followed innumerable threats about fine, penalties, expulsion, etc., that fell most harmlessly upon my ears. I accepted the invitation; declined the apology; and having ordered my horse, cantered off to the barracks to consult my friend Power as to all the minor details of my career.

As the dinner hour grew near, my thoughts became again fixed upon Miss Dashwood; and a thousand misgivings crossed my mind as to whether I should have nerve enough to meet her, without disclosing in my manner the altered state of my feelings; a possibility which I now dreaded fully as much as I had longed some days before to avow my affection for her, however slight its prospect of return. All my valiant resolves and well-contrived plans for appearing unmoved and indifferent in her presence, with which I stored my mind while dressing and when on the way to dinner, were, however, needless, for it was a party exclusively of men; and as the coffee was served in the dining-room, no move was made to the drawing-room by any of the company. “Quite as well as it is!” was my muttered opinion, as I got into my cab at the door. “All is at an end as regards me in her esteem, and I must not spend my days sighing for a young lady that cares for another.” Very reasonable, very proper resolutions these; but, alas! I went home to bed, only to think half the night long of the fair Lucy, and dream of her the remainder of it.

When morning dawned my first thought was, Shall I see her once more? Shall I leave her forever thus abruptly? Or, rather, shall I not unburden my bosom of its secret, confess my love, and say farewell? I felt such a course much more in unison with my wishes than the day before; and as Power had told me that before a week we should present ourselves at Fermoy, I knew that no time was to be lost.

My determination was taken. I ordered my horse, and early as it was, rode out to the Royal Hospital. My heart beat so strongly as I rode up to the door that I half resolved to return. I rang the bell. Sir George was in town. Miss Dashwood had just gone, five minutes before, to spend some days at Carton. “It is fate!” thought I as I turned from the spot and walked slowly beside my horse towards Dublin.

In the few days that intervened before my leaving town, my time was occupied from morning to night; the various details of my uniform, outfit, etc., were undertaken for me by Power. My horses were sent for to Galway; and I myself, with innumerable persons to see, and a mass of business to transact, contrived at least three times a day to ride out to the Royal Hospital, always to make some trifling inquiry for Sir George, and always to hear repeated that Miss Dashwood had not returned.

Thus passed five of my last six days in Dublin; and as the morning of the last opened, it was with a sorrowing spirit that I felt my hour of departure approach without one only opportunity of seeing Lucy, even to say good-by. While Mike was packing in one corner, and I in another was concluding a long letter to my poor uncle, my door opened and Webber entered.

“Eh, O’Malley, I’m only in time to say adieu, it seems. To my surprise this morning I found you had cut the ‘Silent Sister.’ I feared I should be too late to catch one glimpse of you ere you started for the wars.”

“You are quite right, Master Frank, and I scarcely expected to have seen you. Your last brilliant achievement at Sir George’s very nearly involved me in a serious scrape.”

“A mere trifle. How confoundedly silly Power must have looked, eh? Should like so much to have seen his face. He booked up next day, – very proper fellow. By-the-bye, O’Malley, I rather like the little girl; she is decidedly pretty, and her foot, – did you remark her foot? – capital.”

“Yes, she’s very good-looking,” said I, carelessly.

“I’m thinking of cultivating her a little,” said Webber, pulling up his cravat and adjusting his hair at the glass. “She’s spoiled by all the tinsel vaporing of her hussar and aide-de-camp acquaintances; but something may be done for her, eh?”

“With your most able assistance and kind intentions.”

“That’s what I mean exactly. Sorry you’re going, – devilish sorry. You served out Stone gloriously: perhaps it’s as well, though, – you know they’d have expelled you; but still something might turn up. Soldiering is a bad style of thing, eh? How the old general did take his sister-in-law’s presence to heart! But he must forgive and forget, for I am going to be very great friends with him and Lucy. Where are you going now?”

“I am about to try a new horse before troops,” said I. “He’s stanch enough with the cry of the fox-pack in his ears; but I don’t know how he’ll stand a peal of artillery.”

“Well, come along,” said Webber; “I’ll ride with you.” So saying, we mounted and set off to the Park, where two regiments of cavalry and some horse artillery were ordered for inspection.

The review was over when we reached the exercising ground, and we slowly walked our horses towards the end of the Park, intending to return to Dublin by the road. We had not proceeded far, when, some hundred yards in advance, we perceived an officer riding with a lady, followed by an orderly dragoon.

“There he goes,” said Webber; “I wonder if he’d ask me to dinner, if I were to throw myself in his way?”

“Who do you mean?” said I.

“Sir George Dashwood, to be sure, and, la voilà, Miss Lucy. The little darling rides well, too; how squarely she sits her horse. O’Malley, I’ve a weakness there; upon my soul I have.”

“Very possible,” said I; “I am aware of another friend of mine participating in the sentiment.”

“One Charles O’Malley, of his Majesty’s – ”

“Nonsense, man; no, no. I mean a very different person, and, for all I can see, with some reason to hope for success.”

“Oh, as to that, we flatter ourselves the thing does not present any very considerable difficulties.”

“As how, pray?”

“Why, of course, like all such matters, a very decisive determination to be, to do, and to suffer, as Lindley Murray says, carries the day. Tell her she’s an angel every day for three weeks. She may laugh a little at first, but she’ll believe it in the end. Tell her that you have not the slightest prospect of obtaining her affections, but still persist in loving her. That, finally, you must die from the effects of despair, etc., but rather like the notion of it than otherwise. That you know she has no fortune; that you haven’t a sixpence; and who should marry, if people whose position in the world was similar did not?”

“But halt; pray, how are you to get time and place for all such interesting conversations?”

“Time and place! Good Heavens, what a question! Is not every hour of the twenty-four the fittest? Is not every place the most suitable? A sudden pause in the organ of St. Patrick’s did, it is true, catch me once in a declaration of love, but the choir came in to my aid and drowned the lady’s answer. My dear O’Malley, what could prevent you this instant, if you are so disposed, from doing the amiable to the darling Lucy there?”

“With the father for an umpire in case we disagreed,” said I.

“Not at all. I should soon get rid of him.”

“Impossible, my dear friend.”

“Come now, just for the sake of convincing your obstinacy. If you like to say good-by to the little girl without a witness, I’ll take off the he-dragon.”

“You don’t mean – ”

“I do, man; I do mean it.” So saying, he drew a crimson silk handkerchief from his pocket, and fastened it round his waist like an officer’s sash. This done, and telling me to keep in their wake for some minutes, he turned from me, and was soon concealed by a copse of white-thorn near us.

I had not gone above a hundred yards farther when I heard Sir George’s voice calling for the orderly. I looked and saw Webber at a considerable distance in front, curvetting and playing all species of antics. The distance between the general and myself was now so short that I overheard the following dialogue with his sentry: —

“He’s not in uniform, then?”

“No, sir; he has a round hat.”

“A round hat!”

“His sash – ”

“A sword and sash. This is too bad. I’m determined to find him out.”

“How d’ye do, General?” cried Webber, as he rode towards the trees.

“Stop, sir!” shouted Sir George.

“Good-day, Sir George,” replied Webber, retiring.

“Stay where you are, Lucy,” said the general as, dashing spurs into his horse, he sprang forward at a gallop, incensed beyond endurance that his most strict orders should be so openly and insultingly transgressed.

Webber led on to a deep hollow, where the road passed between two smooth slopes, covered with furze-trees, and from which it emerged afterwards in the thickest and most intricate part of the Park. Sir George dashed boldly after, and in less than half a minute both were lost to my view, leaving me in breathless amazement at Master Frank’s ingenuity, and some puzzle as to my own future movements.

“Now then, or never!” said I, as I pushed boldly forward, and in an instant was alongside of Miss Dashwood. Her astonishment at seeing me so suddenly increased the confusion from which I felt myself suffering, and for some minutes I could scarcely speak. At last I plucked up courage a little, and said: —

“Miss Dashwood, I have looked most anxiously, for the last four days, for the moment which chance has now given me. I wished, before I parted forever with those to whom I owe already so much, that I should at least speak my gratitude ere I said good-by.”

“But when do you think of going?”

“To-morrow. Captain Power, under whose command I am, has received orders to embark immediately for Portugal.”

I thought – perhaps it was but a thought – that her cheek grew somewhat paler as I spoke; but she remained silent; and I, scarcely knowing what I had said, or whether I had finished, spoke not either.

“Papa, I’m sure, is not aware,” said she, after a long pause, “of your intention of leaving so soon, for only last night he spoke of some letters he meant to give you to some friends in the Peninsula; besides, I know,” here she smiled faintly, – “that he destined some excellent advice for your ears, as to your new path in life, for he has an immense opinion of the value of such to a young officer.”

“I am, indeed, most grateful to Sir George, and truly never did any one stand more in need of counsel than I do.” This was said half musingly, and not intended to be heard.

“Then, pray, consult papa,” said she, eagerly; “he is much attached to you, and will, I am certain, do all in his power – ”

“Alas! I fear not, Miss Dashwood.”

“Why, what can you mean. Has anything so serious occurred?”

“No, no; I’m but misleading you, and exciting your sympathy with false pretences. Should I tell you all the truth, you would not pardon, perhaps not hear me.”

“You have, indeed, puzzled me; but if there is anything in which my father – ”

“Less him than his daughter,” said I, fixing my eyes full upon her as I spoke. “Yes, Lucy, I feel I must confess it, cost what it may; I love you. Stay, hear me out; I know the fruitlessness, the utter despair, that awaits such a sentiment. My own heart tells me that I am not, cannot be, loved in return; yet would I rather cherish in its core my affection, slighted and unblessed, such as it is, than own another heart. I ask for nothing, I hope for nothing; I merely entreat that, for my truth, I may meet belief, and for my heart’s worship of her whom alone I can love, compassion. I see that you at least pity me. Nay, one word more; I have one favor more to ask, – it is my last, my only one. Do not, when time and distance may have separated us, perhaps forever, think that the expressions I now use are prompted by a mere sudden ebullition of boyish feeling; do not attribute to the circumstance of my youth alone the warmth of the attachment I profess, – for I swear to you, by every hope that I have, that in my heart of hearts my love to you is the source and spring of every action in my life, of every aspiration in my heart; and when I cease to love you, I shall cease to feel.”

“And now, farewell, – farewell forever!” I pressed her hand to my lips, gave one long, last look, turned my horse rapidly away, and ere a minute was far out of sight of where I had left her.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ROAD

Power was detained in town by some orders from the adjutant-general, so that I started for Cork the next morning with no other companion than my servant Mike. For the first few stages upon the road, my own thoughts sufficiently occupied me to render me insensible or indifferent to all else. My opening career, the prospects my new life as a soldier held out, my hopes of distinction, my love of Lucy with all its train of doubts and fears, passed in review before me, and I took no note of time till far past noon. I now looked to the back part of the coach, where Mike’s voice had been, as usual, in the ascendant for some time, and perceived that he was surrounded by an eager auditory of four raw recruits, who, under the care of a sergeant, were proceeding to Cork to be enrolled in their regiment. The sergeant, whose minutes of wakefulness were only those when the coach stopped to change horses, and when he got down to mix a “summat hot,” paid little attention to his followers, leaving them perfectly free in all their movements, to listen to Mike’s eloquence and profit by his suggestions, should they deem fit. Master Michael’s services to his new acquaintances, I began to perceive, were not exactly of the same nature as Dibdin is reported to have rendered to our navy in the late war. Far from it. His theme was no contemptuous disdain for danger; no patriotic enthusiasm to fight for home and country; no proud consciousness of British valor, mingled with the appropriate hatred of our mutual enemies, – on the contrary, Mike’s eloquence was enlisted for the defendant. He detailed, and in no unimpressive way either, the hardships of a soldier’s life, – its dangers, its vicissitudes, its chances, its possible penalties, its inevitably small rewards; and, in fact, so completely did he work on the feelings of his hearers that I perceived more than one glance exchanged between the victims that certainly betokened anything save the resolve to fight for King George. It was at the close of a long and most powerful appeal upon the superiority of any other line in life, petty larceny and small felony inclusive, that he concluded with the following quotation: —

“Thrue for ye, boys!

‘With your red scarlet coat,You’re as proud as a goat,And your long cap and feather.’

But, by the piper that played before Moses! it’s more whipping nor gingerbread is going on among them, av ye knew but all, and heerd the misfortune that happened to my father.”

“And was he a sodger?” inquired one.

“Troth was he, more sorrow to him; and wasn’t he a’most whipped one day for doing what he was bid?”

“Musha, but that was hard!”

“To be sure it was hard; but faix, when my father seen that they didn’t know their own minds, he thought, anyhow, he knew his, so he ran away, – and devil a bit of him they ever cotch afther. May be ye might like to hear the story; and there’s instruction in it for yez, too.”

A general request to this end being preferred by the company, Mike took a shrewd look at the sergeant, to be sure that he was still sleeping, settled his coat comfortably across his knees, and began: —

Well, it’s a good many years ago my father ‘listed in the North Cork, just to oblige Mr. Barry, the landlord there. For,’ says he, ‘Phil,’ says he, ‘it’s not a soldier ye’ll be at all, but my own man, to brush my clothes and go errands, and the like o’ that; and the king, long life to him! will help to pay ye for your trouble. Ye understand me?’ Well, my father agreed, and Mr. Barry was as good as his word. Never a guard did my father mount, nor as much as a drill had he, nor a roll-call, nor anything at all, save and except wait on the captain, his master, just as pleasant as need be, and no inconvenience in life.

“Well, for three years this went on as I am telling, and the regiment was ordered down to Bantry, because of a report that the ‘boys’ was rising down there; and the second evening there was a night party patrolling with Captain Barry for six hours in the rain, and the captain, God be marciful to him! tuk could and died. More by token, they said it was drink, but my father says it wasn’t: ‘for’ says he, ‘after he tuk eight tumblers comfortable,’ my father mixed the ninth, and the captain waived his hand this way, as much as to say he’d have no more. ‘Is it that ye mean?’ says my father; and the captain nodded. ‘Musha, but it’s sorry I am,’ says my father, ‘to see you this way; for ye must be bad entirely to leave off in the beginning of the evening.’ And thrue for him, the captain was dead in the morning.

“A sorrowful day it was for my father when he died. It was the finest place in the world; little to do, plenty of divarsion, and a kind man he was, – when he was drunk. Well, then, when the captain was buried and all was over, my father hoped they’d be for letting him away, as he said, ‘Sure, I’m no use in life to anybody, save the man that’s gone, for his ways are all I know, and I never was a sodger.’ But, upon my conscience, they had other thoughts in their heads, for they ordered him into the ranks to be drilled just like the recruits they took the day before.

“‘Musha, isn’t this hard?’ said my father. ‘Here I am, an ould vitrin that ought to be discharged on a pension with two-and-sixpence a day, obliged to go capering about the barrack-yard, practising the goose-step, or some other nonsense not becoming my age nor my habits.’ But so it was. Well, this went on for some time, and sure, if they were hard on my father, hadn’t he his revenge; for he nigh broke their hearts with his stupidity. Oh, nothing in life could equal him! Devil a thing, no matter how easy, he could learn at all; and so far from caring for being in confinement, it was that he liked best. Every sergeant in the regiment had a trial of him, but all to no good; and he seemed striving so hard to learn all the while that they were loath to punish him, the ould rogue!

“This was going on for some time, when, one day, news came in that a body of the rebels, as they called them, was coming down from the Gap of Mulnavick to storm the town and burn all before them. The whole regiment was of coorse under arms, and great preparations was made for a battle. Meanwhile patrols were ordered to scour the roads, and sentries posted at every turn of the way and every rising ground to give warning when the boys came in sight; and my father was placed at the Bridge of Drumsnag, in the wildest and bleakest part of the whole country, with nothing but furze mountains on every side, and a straight road going over the top of them.

“‘This is pleasant,’ says my father, as soon as they left him there alone by himself, with no human creature to speak to, nor a whiskey-shop within ten miles of him; ‘cowld comfort,’ says he, ‘on a winter’s day; and faix, but I have a mind to give ye the slip.’

“Well, he put his gun down on the bridge, and he lit his pipe, and he sat down under an ould tree and began to ruminate upon his affairs.

“‘Oh, then, it’s wishing it well I am,’ says he, ‘for sodgering; and bad luck to the hammer that struck the shilling that ‘listed me, that’s all,’ for he was mighty low in his heart.