The Eve of All-Hallows Volume Ii Part 4

And troth yeez shant want for paper and paste to hide and cover your dainty devices in caase any body should come in, he must needs admire the nateness of your apartment."

"Sawing iron! ah," said Doctor M'Kenzie, "that is a harsh and grating amus.e.m.e.nt!" And then turning to the man of war, he said:

"They little know what ills environ The man who meddles with cold iron!"

The colonel frowned, and seemed displeased.

The honest-hearted Phelim O'Neale, for such he was with all his faults and transgressions to boot, now bade a good night to his imprisoned friends, as he called them; and then whispered aside, that on the ensuing morow he would beg the favour to make his confessions to the Reverend Clerk what time the apartment should be ready for his gallant friend, which was under preparation, and would be ready to receive him early upon the following morning. He then bowed, and wished them all "a very good night's repose."

CHAPTER IV.

--------In brief, he is a rogue of six reprieves, four pardons of course; thrice pilloried, twice sung _Lachrymae_ to the virginals of a cat's tail; he has been five times in the galleys, and will never truly run himself out of breath till he comes to the gallows.

THE FAIR MAID OF THE INN.

"Now, holy and most Riverend Sir, that my eyes are blessed with seeing your benevolent visage once more," said Phelim O'Neale, "and that I behold you in these sad towers, the abode of crime and of guilt, which indeed never belonged to you, and that we are in private, with your riverend permission, I will make my confission unto you. Don't your reverence remember me?"

"Not I, in sooth."

"What! not remember Phelim O'Neale?"

"Not I, in sooth, honest Mr. Phelim O'Neale."

"Oh, baring (excepting) _honest_; that any how for the present we will pa.s.s by. But, holy Father, if you knew but all, you have far too many reasons not to forget me! Do you not remember that you stood by me during my last moments, and gave me the holy ritals of the church?"

"What do I hear! Stood by you in your last moments, and gave you the holy rituals of the church! and here you are!! The poor man is deranged--quite crazed. You are beside yourself, Mr. Phelim (without _honest_) O'Neale!"

"Nay, nay, Riverend Father, I am _beside you_, or rather forenent you.

Do you not remember, your Riverence, that some tin years ago (small blame howsomdever to your Riverence any how, for grate razon you have, in troth, to remember Phelim O'Neale, if you knew but all!)--well, as I said, some tin years ago you attended me at the gaol of Tyrconnel in my last moments; you were present when I was hanged--ay, regularly hanged!!"

"Hanged! hanged!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Doctor M'Kenzie; "and yet you are here!--You speak, you address me! How is this? It is madness all!"

"Not so neither, craving your excellent Riverence's pardon; I was tried for high-way robbery at the a.s.sizes of Tyrconnel;[18] I then most justly was found guilty, and cond.a.m.nified by the circuit-going judge, Justice Joc.u.m, to be hanged. And sure enough, by my sowl, hanged I fairly was--no doubt whatever of it! That is to say the hangman did his part, as the judge and jury had before done theirs; and my friends did the rest. Och, they did their part, sure enough--long life to them for the same! At that most memorable 'pocha of my life--or death! as it was by all supposed, thought, and credited, your worthy and excellent Riverence attended me in my last sad and awful moments. Thin you saw me mount the fatal ladder; the hangman gave me a hempen cravat, which, in troth, I but too well desarved! and the ladder having been suddenly taken away, I made a spring, and, as all thought, I jumpt into itirnity. But you remimber, or might remimber, that before I was launched from the fatal tree, I bouldly kicked off my brogues, and died true game. And och, may be I didn't kick them off in stylo! as much as to indiccate to my commeradoes, 'Yeez see, jewels, that I die true game; and moreover, none shall suffer in the dead man's shoes--not one of yeez! This plainly tould them all a true tale, that I had not confissed, or betrayed any of them by a cowardly disacknowledgment."

[18] Now, anno salutis 1822, called Donegal.

"Oh, shame, shame!" rejoined Doctor M'Kenzie, "kicking off your brogues upon the scaffold, on the confines of eternity, in the sad and solemn hour of death and suffering for crime! Oh, shame, shame! What blasphemy--what hardness of heart, and perversity of head! Detestable and abominable folly and wickedness. Why, I say, man, if you were upon the stage of a mountebank, performing pantomime tricks, to please and gull the stupid populace, such a proceeding would be indecent, indecorous, and irreligious; how much more so then, when parting from the stage of human life, branded with crime, and condemned by the voice of justice and the offended laws of your country! I cry shame upon such indecency, such horrible levity, upon so solemn and so awful an occasion as the departure of a guilty culprit (and guilty too by his own confession) from life to eternity, to answer in another world, before an offended G.o.d, for the crimes committed in this!"

"So may it plaze your Riverence, troth it was no livity at all, at all; but merely a sort of sharp signal or freemason's sign to my comrades that I had died intripid, and true to them, not having betrayed one of the gang, or club, as we called it. And now once more I am alive again, to repint anew of the same, which I most sartinly do."

"Ay, indeed!--Are you sure of that, Mr. Phelim O'Neale? Can I depend upon your living word, when your dying one was false? A proof, a proof; give me a proof, and then I shall give credence to you."

Phelim slowly drawing forth a watch from his fob: "It is here, holy Father! this is my proof. This watch was yours, became mine by the chance of war, or rapine, and now I restore it--it is yours again! Your Riverence will examine it: the maker's name, your chain, your seals--you cannot forget them any how?"

"Yes, yes, I must confess that is, or was my watch; the ident.i.ty of that I cannot possibly gainsay. And if you can make out that it was you who deprived me of it, and that now again restore it, why a.s.suredly I shall then confess that you are _certes_ the honestest man in your calling that I have ever met with. But, Mr. Phelim O'Neale, I have a question to propose, and upon your answer to it will depend my credence of what now you say. Pray, _if_ (I say _if_) hanged, how were you restored to life.

A watch may be found, and a watch can be wound--may be stolen, and may be restored, but the vital spring of life is not so easily renovated.--Come, to the point."

"Your Riverence must then know, that I was cut down by my friends, and through their means restored to life, after having, to all appearance, fallen a forfeit to the law."

"As how--as how? Mr. Phelim O'Neale! explain."

"By means of hemlock juice infused by well intentioned friends into my throat and lungs. Oh, but too well I remember that, and but too well they succeeded; for after the means they used for sussicitation I recovered; but the pains which I endured were beyond those upon the fatal tree, the punishment I had endured, and the shame I had borne, for my family were indeed respectable. Upon my restoration to life, my friends disguised me in female attire, and hurried me off in a merchant vessel then in the bay, ready to slip her cables, and bound for Virginia. So away I went in the same vessel. Och, may be it was not without a sad and sorrowing heart that I left my mountain sh.o.r.es; for, sweet Ireland, still, with all thy faults, art thou dear to me; and with all my own too, with filial love yet do I adore thee, _mavourneen_, my early loved, my dear natal isle!"

Phelim O'Neale continued: "Your Riverence knows the rest of my story. A cannon shot of Marshal Rantzau's squadron soon compelled the vessel in which I was bound for Virginia[19] immediately to strike her flag; and the result of the Marshal's attack upon Ostind you are in full possession of already. Here then my story ends, but not my grat.i.tude to you, of which, before we part, I shall endeavour to convince you of with sincerity, marked by more than mere words."

[19] Virginia is noticed in "_The n.o.ble Gentleman_" of Fletcher:--

"CLERIMONT.--Sir, I had rather send her to Virginia, to help to propagate the English nation."--_Weber's Edition of the Works of Beaumont and Fletcher_, v. VII. p. 442.

Mention is likewise made of it in Ma.s.singer's "_City Madam_":--

----------------------"How! Virginia!

High heaven forbid! Remember, Sir, I beseech you, What creatures are shipp'd thither---- --------------Condemned wretches, Forfeited to the law."

_Gifford's Edit. of Ma.s.singer_, vol. IV. p. 103.

"Why, Mr. Phelim O'Neale, you have really become eloquent, and have astonished me quite by your display of words."

"No, no, Riverend Sir, they only burst forth from the heart with a full tide of over-flowing grat.i.tude to you, and with deep contrition to myself, for all the past!"

"This my friend, my _honest_ friend, (for such I now must call you, Phelim, for the rest.i.tution which you have made by words as well as in deeds, and I needs now must prize thee,) yes, this promises good; and sooth to say, I am pleased withal right well. There, take my hand, and along with it my best benison on you, your wife, and children."

Phelim knelt down, kissed his hand, and prayed that heaven might shower down its choicest blessings upon his reverend head.

Three entire days subsequent to this confession soon pa.s.sed over, and were occupied only at intervals, in order to obviate detection, in sawing _per diem_ a bar. Each bar was cut slanting, or diagonally, so as to be readily re-adjusted as if it had not been severed; and then the entire bar, when replaced, was covered over by means of paper, which was neatly pasted thereon, as if no undermining operations had been sapping the grated barriers of their prison-house.--Meanwhile the Reverend Chaplain was on the alert, sc.r.a.ping his old Cremona, and the colonel's servant thundering forth the ba.s.s tones of his clarionet, to serve as masqued batteries to drown the more subtle operations of the saw and file of the son of Mars.

Upon the evening of the third day Phelim O'Neale came into their cell just as the last bar to their enlargement was severed in twain. Suddenly then all filing and fiddling, and piping and papering, at once ceased.

"All is right," exclaimed he, "and all is well. Before two days more shall dawn you must away from this. I shall manage matters thus: I have got disguises for yeez three; you, Riverend Sir, are (in the time of travel) to be a midwife, going on a job to the town of Nieuport, three leagues from this, where I have a friend, to whom I will address a letter in behalf of all. In the furtherance of this my deep design, you shall have a silk gown, cap, rich gilt ear-rings, necklace, with a large cross--all, moreover, right tawdry enough; and a Flemish hood thrown over all, to protect Madam Needful from being sun-burnt. And, sir soldier, there shall be a lackey's dress for you; and, to boot, I have likewise got a horse, which your worship is to bestride, and which is to be mounted withal with saddle and pillion, upon which latter my lady-in-need is to ride.--And as for you, sir lackey, you shall be caparisoned in a blue check frock of true Flanders make and hue; for thou art to be a Flemish peasant riding withal in such brave company.

But mind, my youth, I warn thee, that with all meet, becoming respect, thou shalt demean thyself, and ride in the rere of these gallant personages. Three horses and a guide, when we shall fix the day and hour, shall be found waiting at the _porte de Nieuport_."

Many hearty thanks were returned for the ingenious stratagem of Mr.

Phelim O'Neale, which met with the cordial concurrence and approbation of the prisoners.

Here Mr. Phelim O'Neale resumed his speech: "It must appear that yeez all have broken prison at the time that yeez depart, so down with all the bars when yeez go, that it may fully and fidentively appear that it was any how without my will, knowledge, aid, abettance, or a.s.sistance, whatsomdever, any thing at all to the contrairy notwithstanding, that yeez fled from prison, in order that I may not suffer pains, punishments, and penalties, from these Bellawagians, who, after all, to do them justice, are fond of the English nation; and I verily and fidentially believe that the craturs would sooner again fight with Spinola Rantzau, or the d--l, nor with John Bull!"

"Yes," rejoined Doctor M'Kenzie, "that I believe to be an undoubted fact, inasmuch that the united states of Flanders ever have wished, if possible, to preserve peace and amity with England, and ever sorely have they rued the day whenever they have been forced into a war against England."

"That is most true," added Colonel Davidson, "for, Reverend Sir, you recollect the favourite saying, or apothegm, of the Emperor Charles V.:--

'_Con todo el mundo guerra, Y puz con Ingalat jerra!_'

'With all the world have war, But with England do not jar!'

And while speaking of Charles, who had the magnanimity to relinquish a throne and to retire into the monastery of Saint Just, it must not be forgotten the memorable declaration which he then made. While in the monastery he employed his leisure time in works of mechanism, such as clock-work, &c.; he then exclaimed, "_Oh, what a fool I have been!--during my whole reign I have endeavoured to make all my subjects think alike in religious matters_, AND YET I CANNOT CAUSE TWO WATCHES TO KEEP TIME TOGETHER!"