Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume Ii Part 48

"Well," said I, "your advice seems good; but perhaps they might object to my company."

"I've no fear; they're always with the officers. Sure, the Miss Dalrymples--"

"The Miss Dalrymples! Push ahead, boys; it must be later than I thought. We must get the chaise; I can't wait."

Ten minutes more brought us to land.

My arrangements were soon made, and as my impatience to press forward became greater the nearer I drew to my destination, I lost not a moment.

The yellow chaise--sole glory of Cove--was brought forth at my request; and by good fortune, four posters which had been down the preceding evening from Cork to some gentleman's seat near were about to return. These were also pressed into my service; and just as the first early riser of the little village was drawing his curtain to take a half-closed eye-glance upon the breaking morning, I rattled forth upon my journey at a pace which, could I only have secured its continuance, must soon have terminated my weary way.

Beautiful as the whole line of country is, I was totally unconscious of it; and even Mike's conversational powers, divided as they were between myself and the two postilions, were fruitless in arousing me from the deep pre-occupation of my mind by thoughts of home.

It was, then, with some astonishment I heard the boy upon the wheeler ask whither he should drive me to.

"Tell his honor to wake up; we're in Cork now."

"In Cork! Impossible, already!"

"Faith, may be so; but it's Cork, sure enough."

"Drive to the 'George.' It's not far from the commander-in-chief's quarters."

"'Tis five minutes' walk, sir. You'll be there before they're put to again."

"Horses for Fermoy!" shouted out the postilions, as we tore up to the door in a gallop. I sprang out, and by the a.s.sistance of the waiter, discovered Sir Henry Howard's quarters, to whom my despatches were addressed. Having delivered them into the hands of an aide-de-camp, who sat bolt upright in his bed, rubbing his eyes to appear awake, I again hurried down-stairs, and throwing myself into the chaise, continued my journey.

"Them's beautiful streets, any how!" said Mike, "av they wasn't kept so dirty, and the houses so dark, and the pavement bad. That's Mr. Beamish's, that fine house there with the bra.s.s rapper and the green lamp beside it; and there's the hospital. Faix, and there's the place we beat the police when I was here before; and the house with the sign of the Highlander is thrown down; and what's the big building with the stone posts at the door?"

"The bank, sir," said the postilion, with a most deferential air as Mike addressed him. "What bank, acushla?"

"Not a one of me knows, sir; but they call it the bank, though it's only an empty house."

"Cary and Moore's bank, perhaps?" said I, having heard that in days long past some such names had failed in Cork for a large amount.

"So it is; your honor's right," cried the postilion; while Mike, standing up on the box, and menacing the house with his clinched fist, shouted out at the very top of his voice:

"Oh, bad luck to your cobwebbed windows and iron railings! Sure, it's my father's son ought to hate the sight of you."

"I hope, Mike, your father never trusted his property in such hands?"

"I don't suspect he did, your honor. He never put much belief in the banks; but the house cost him dear enough without that."

As I could not help feeling some curiosity in this matter, I pressed Mickey for an explanation.

"But maybe it's not Cary and Moore's, after all; and I may be cursing dacent people."

Having rea.s.sured his mind by telling him that the reservation he made by the doubt would tell in their favor should he prove mistaken, he afforded me the following information:--

"When my father--the heavens be his bed!--was in the 'Cork,' they put him one night on guard at that same big house you just pa.s.sed, av it was the same; but if it wasn't that, it was another. And it was a beautiful fine night in August and the moon up, and plenty of people walking about, and all kinds of fun and devilment going on,--drinking and dancing and everything.

"Well, my father was stuck up there with his musket, to walk up and down, and not say, 'G.o.d save you kindly,' or the time of day or anything, but just march as if he was in the barrack-yard; and by reason of his being the man he was he didn't like it half, but kept cursing and swearing to himself like mad when he saw pleasant fellows and pretty girls going by, laughing and joking.

"'Good-evening, Mickey,' says one. 'Fine sport ye have all to yourself, with your long feather in your cap.'

"'Arrah, look how proud he is,' says another, 'with his head up as if he didn't see a body.'

"'Shoulder, hoo!' cried a drunken chap, with a shovel in his hand. Then they all began laughing away at my father.

"'Let the dacent man alone,' said an ould fellow in a wig. 'Isn't he guarding the bank, wid all the money in it?'

"'Faix, he isn't,' says another; 'for there's none left.'

"'What's that you're saying?' says my father.

"'Just that the bank's broke; devil a more!' says he.

"'And there's no goold in it?' says my father.

'"Divil a guinea.'

"'Nor silver?'

"'No, nor silver; nor as much as sixpence, either.'

"'Didn't ye hear that all day yesterday when the people was coming in with their notes, the chaps there were heating the guineas in a frying-pan, pretending that they were making them as fast as they could; and sure, when they had a batch red-hot they spread them out to cool; and what betune the hating and the cooling, and the burning the fingers counting them, they kept the bank open to three o'clock, and then they ran away.'

"'Is it truth yer telling?' says my father.

"'Sorra word o' lie in it! Myself had two-and-fourpence of their notes.'

"'And so they're broke,' says my father, 'and nothing left?'

"'Not a bra.s.s farden.'

"'And what am I staying here for, I wonder, if there's nothing to guard?'

"'Faix, if it isn't for the pride of the thing--'

"'Oh, sorra taste!'

"'Well, may be for divarsion.'

"'Nor that either.'

"'Faix, then you're a droll man, to spend the evening that way,' says he; and all the crowd--for there was a crowd--said the same. So with that my father unscrewed his bayonet, and put his piece on his shoulder, and walked off to his bed in the barrack as peaceable as need be. But well, when they came to relieve him, wasn't there a raal commotion? And faith, you see, it went mighty hard with my father the next morning; for the bank was open just as usual, and my father was sintinced to fifty lashes, but got off with a week in prison, and three more rowling a big stone in the barrack-yard."