Charles Lever - The O'Donoghue - Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago

“Which way will they come, Mary?” said he, rising from his seat.

“Up the glen, to be sure – what other way could they from the Bay. You’ll hear them plain enough, for they shout and sing every step of the road, as if it was their own; wild devils they are.”

“Sing is it? musha, now, do they sing?”

“Ay, faix, the drollest songs ever ye heerd; French and Roosian songs – sorra the likes of them going at all.”

“Light hearts they have of their own.”

“You may say that, Lanty Lawler; fair weather or foul, them’s the boys never change; but come now be alive, and get out the baste.”

“I’m going, I’m going; it’s myself would like to hear them sing a Roosian song. Whisht! what’s that? did ye hear a shout there?”

“Here they are; that’s them,” said Mary, springing towards the door, and withdrawing the bolt, while a smart knock was heard, and the same instant, a voice called out —

“Holloa! house ahoy!”

The door at the moment flew open, and a short, thick-set looking man, in a large boat cloak, entered, followed by a taller figure, equally muffled. The former dropping his heavy envelope, and throwing off an oil-skin cap from his head, held out his arms wide as, he said —

“ Marie, ma mie! embrasse moi ;” and then, not waiting for a compliance with the request, sprang forward, and clasped the buxom landlady in his arms, and kissed her on each cheek, with an air compounded of true feeling, and stage effect.

“Here’s my friend and travelling companion, Henry Talbot, come to share your hospitality, Mary,” said he in English, to which the slightest foreign accent lent a tone of recitative. “One of us, Mary – one of us.”

The individual alluded to had by this time dropped his cloak to the ground, and displayed the figure of a slight and very young man, whose features were singularly handsome, save for a look of great effeminacy; his complexion was fair as a girl’s, and, flushed by exercise, the tint upon his cheek was of a pale rose colour; he was dressed in a riding coat, and top boots, which, in the fashion of the day, were worn short, and wrinkled around the leg; his hair he wore without powder, and long upon his neck; a heavy riding whip, ornamented with silver, the only weapon he carried, composed his costume – one as unlike his companion’s as could be.

Captain Jacques Flahault was a stout-built, dark-complexioned fellow, of some four or five and forty; his face a grotesque union of insolence and drollery; the eyes black as jet, shaded by brows so arched, as to give always the idea of laughing to a countenance, the lower part of which, shrouded in beard and moustache, was intended to look stern and savage.

His dress was a short blue frock, beneath which he wore a jersey shirt, striped in various colours, across which a broad buff leather belt, loosely slung, supported four pistols and a dirk; jack boots reached about the middle of the thigh, and were attached to his waist by thongs of strong leather, no needless precaution apparently, as in their looseness the wearer might at any moment have stepped freely from them; a black handkerchief, loosely knotted round his neck, displayed a throat brawny and massive as a bull’s, and imparted to the whole head an appearance of great size – the first impression every stranger conceived regarding him.

“Ah! ah! Lawler, you here; how goes it, my old friend? Sit down here, and tell me all your rogueries since we parted. Par St, Pierre , Henry, this is the veriest fripon in the kingdom” – Talbot bowed, and with a sweetly courteous smile saluted Lanty, as if accepting the speech in the light of an introduction – “a fellow that in the way of his trade could cheat the Saint Père himself.”

“Where’s the others, Captain Jack?” said Mary, whose patience all this time endured a severe trial – “where’s the rest?”

“ Place pour la potage! Ma Mie! – soup before a story; you shall hear every thing by and by. Let us have the supper at once.”

Lanty chimed in a willing assent to this proposition, and in a few moments the meat smoked upon the table, around which the whole party took their places with evident good-will.

“While Mary performed her attentions as hostess, by heaping up each plate, and ever supplying the deficiency caused by the appetite of the guests, the others eat on like hungry men. Captain Jacques alone intermingling with the duties of the table, a stray remark from time to time.

“ Ventre bleu! how it blows; if it veers more to the southard, there will be a heavy strain on that cable. Trinquons mon ami, Trinquons toujours; Ma belle Marie , you eat nothing.”

“‘Tis unasy I am, Captain Jack, about what’s become of the others,” said Mrs. M’Kelly.

“Another bumper, Ma Mie , and I’m ready for the story – the more as it is a brief one. Allons donc – now for it. We left the bay about nine o’clock, or half-past, perhaps, intending to push forward to the glen at once, and weigh with the morning’s tide, for it happens that this time our cargo is destined for a small creek, on the north-west coast; our only business here being to land my friend, Harry” – here Talbot bowed and smiled – “and to leave two hogsheads of Bourdeaux, for that very true-hearted, kind, brave homme , Hemsworth, at the Lodge there. You remember last winter we entered into a compact with him to stock his cellar, provided no information of our proceedings reached the revenue from any quarter. Well, the wine was safely stored in one of the caves on the coast, and we started with a light conscience; we had neither despatches nor run-brandy to trouble us – nothing to do but eat our supper; saluer madame” – here he turned round, and with an air of mock respect kissed Mary’s hand – “and get afloat again. As we came near the ‘Lodge,’ I determined to make my visit a brief one; and so leaving all my party, Harry included, outside, I approached the house, which, to my surprise, showed lights from nearly every window. This made me cautious, and so I crept stealthily to a low window, across which the curtain was but loosely drawn, and Mort de ma vie! what did I behold, but the prettiest face in Europe. Une ange de beauté . She was leaning over a table copying a drawing, or a painting of some sort or other. Tête bleu! here was a surprise. I had never seen her before, although I was with Hemsworth a dozen times.”

“Go on – go on,” said Lanty, whose curiosity was extreme to hear what happened next.

“ Eh bien – I tried the sash, but it was fastened. I then went round the house, and examined the other windows, one after the other – all the same. Que faire! I thought of knocking boldly at the back-door, but then I should have no chance of a peep at la belle in that way.”

“What did you want with a peep at her?” asked Mary, gruffly.

“ Diable! what did I want? Pour l’admirer, l’adorer – or, at least to make my respects, as becomes a stranger, and a Frenchman. Pursuivons . There was no entrée , without some noise – so I preferred the room she was in, to any other, and gently disengaging my dirk, I slipped it between the two sashes, to lift up the latch that fastened them. Mort bleu! the weapon slipped, and came slap through the pane, with a tremendous fracas. She started up, and screamed – there was no use in any more delay. I put my foot through the window, and pushed open the sash at once – but before I was well in the room, bells were ringing in every quarter of the house, and men’s voices calling aloud, and shouting to each other – when, suddenly, the door opened, and whiz went a pistol-ball close by my head, and shattered the shutter behind me. My fellows, outside, hearing the shot, unslung their pieces, and before I could get down to them, poured in a volley – why, wherefore, or upon whom, the devil himself, that instigated them, can tell. The garrison mustered strong, however, and replied – that they did, by Jove, for one of ours, Emile de Louvois, is badly wounded. I sounded the retreat, but the scoundrels would not mind me – and before I was able to prevent it, tête bleu! they had got round to the farmyard, and set fire to the corn-stacks; in a second, the corn and hay blazed up, and enveloped house and all in smoke. I sounded the retreat once more, and off the villains scampered, with poor Emile, to the boat; and I, finding my worthy friend here an inactive spectator of the whole from a grove near the road, resolved not to give up my supper – and so, me voici! – but come, can none of you explain this affair? What is Hemsworth doing, with all this armed household, and this captive princess?”