Charles Lever - Jack Hinton - The Guardsman

‘Come, Hinton, have you got a sword?’ said O’Grady; ‘I ‘ve mislaid mine somehow. There, that ‘ll do. Let us try and find Paul now.’

Into the supper-room we rushed; but what a change was there! The brilliant tables, resplendent with gold plate, candelabras, and flowers, were now despoiled and dismantled. On the floor, among broken glasses, cracked decanters, pyramids of jelly, and pagodas of blancmange, lay scattered in every attitude the sleeping figures of the late guests. Mrs. Rooney alone maintained her position, seated in a large chair, her eyes closed, a smile of Elysian happiness playing upon her lips. Her right arm hung gracefully over the side of the chair, where lately his grace had kissed her hand at parting. Overcome, in all probability, by the more than human happiness of such a moment, she had sunk into slumber, and was murmuring in her dreams such short and broken phrases as the following: – ‘Ah, happy day! – What will Mrs. Tait say? – The lord mayor, indeed! – Oh, my poor head! I hope it won’t be turned. – Holy Agatha, pray for us! your grace, pray for us I – Isn’t he a beautiful man? Hasn’t he the darling white teeth?’

‘Where’s Paul?’ said O’Grady; ‘where’s Paul, Mrs. Rooney?’ as he jogged her rather rudely by the arm.

‘Ah, who cares for Paul?’ said she, still sleeping; ‘don’t be bothering me about the like of him.’

‘Egad! this is conjugal, at any rate,’ said Phil

‘I have him!’ cried I; ‘here he is!’ as I stumbled over a short, thick figure, who was propped up in a corner of the room. There he sat, his head sunk upon his bosom, his hands listlessly resting on the floor. A large jug stood beside him, in the concoction of whose contents he appeared to have spent the last moments of his waking state. We shook him, and called him by his name, but to no purpose; and, as we lifted up his head, we burst out a-laughing at the droll expression of his face; for he had fallen asleep in the act of squeezing a lemon in his teeth, the half of which not only remained there still, but imparted to his features the twisted and contorted expression that act suggests.

‘Are you coming, O’Grady?’ now cried the duke impatiently.

‘Yes, my lord,’ cried Phil, as he rushed towards the door. ‘This is too bad, Hinton: that confounded fellow could not possibly be moved. I’ll try and carry him.’ As he spoke, he hurried back towards the sleeping figure of Mr. Rooney, while I made towards the duke.

As Lord Dudley had gone to order up the carriages, his grace was standing alone at the foot of the stairs, leaning his back against the banisters, his eyes opening and shutting alternately as his head nodded every now and then forward, overcome by sleep and the wine he had drunk. Exactly in front of him, but crouching in the attitude of an Indian monster, sat Corny Delany. To keep himself from the cold, he had wrapped himself up in his master’s cloak, and the only part of his face perceptible was the little wrinkled forehead, and the malicious-looking fiery eyes beneath it, firmly fixed on the duke’s countenance.

‘Give me your sword,’ said his grace, turning to me, in a tone half sleeping, half commanding; ‘give me your sword, sir!’

Drawing it from the scabbard, I presented it respectfully.

‘Stand a little on one side, Hinton. Where is he? Ah! quite right. Kneel down, sir; kneel down, I say!’ These words, addressed to Corny, produced no other movement in him than a slight change in his attitude, to enable him to extend his expanded hand above his eyes, and take a clearer view of the duke.

‘Does he hear me, Hinton? Do you hear me, sir?’

‘Do you hear his grace?’ said I, endeavouring with a sharp kick of my foot to assist his perceptions.

‘To be sure I hear him,’ said Corny; ‘why wouldn’t I hear him?’

‘Kneel down, then,’ said I.

‘Devil a bit of me’ll kneel down. Don’t I know what he’s after well enough? Ach na bocklish! Sorrow else he ever does nor make fun of people.’

‘Kneel down, sir!’ said his grace, in an accent there was no refusing to obey. ‘What is your name?’

‘Oh, murther! Oh, heavenly Joseph!’ cried Corny, as I hurled him down upon his knees, ‘that I ‘d ever live to see the day!’

‘What is his d – d name?’ said the duke passionately.

‘Corny, your grace – Corny Delany.’

‘There, that’ll do,’ as with a hearty slap of the sword, not on his shoulder, but on his bullet head, he cried out, ‘Rise, Sir Corny Delany!’

‘Och, the devil a one of me will ever get up out of this same spot. Oh, wirra, wirra! how will I ever show myself again after this disgrace?’

Leaving Corny to his lamentations, the duke walked towards the door. Here above a hundred people were now assembled, their curiosity excited in no small degree by a picket of light dragoons, who occupied the middle of the street, and were lying upon the ground, or leaning on their saddles, in all the wearied attitudes of a night-watch. In fact, the duke had forgotten to dismiss his guard of honour, who had accompanied him to the theatre, and thus had spent the dark hours of the night keeping watch and ward over the proud dwelling of the Rooneys. A dark frown settled on the duke’s features as he perceived the mistake, and muttered between his teeth, ‘How they will talk of this in England!’ The next moment, bursting into a hearty fit of laughter, he stepped into the carriage, and amid a loud cheer from the mob, by whom he was recognised, drove rapidly away.

Seated beside his grace, I saw nothing more of O’Grady, whose efforts to ennoble the worthy attorney only exposed him to the risk of a black eye; for no sooner did Paul perceive that he was undergoing rough treatment than he immediately resisted, and gave open battle.

O’Grady accordingly left him, to seek his home on foot, followed by Corny, whose cries and heart-rending exclamations induced a considerable crowd of well-disposed citizens to accompany them to the Castle gate. And thus ended the great Rooney ball.

From what I have already stated, it may be inferred that my acquaintance with the Rooneys was begun under favourable auspices. Indeed, from the evening of the ball the house was open to me at all hours; and, as the hour of luncheon was known to every lounger about town, by dropping in about three o’clock one was sure to hear all the chit-chat and gossip of the day. All the dinners and duels of the capital, all its rows and runaway matches, were there discussed, while future parties of pleasure were planned and decided on, the Rooney equipages, horses, servants, and cellar being looked upon as common property, the appropriation of which was to be determined on by a vote of the majority.

At all these domestic parliaments O’Grady played a prominent part. He was the speaker and the whipper-in; he led for both the government and the opposition; in fact, since the ever-memorable visit of the viceroy his power in the house was absolute. How completely they obeyed, and how implicitly they followed him, may be guessed, when I say that he even persuaded Mrs. Rooney herself not only to abstain from all triumph on the subject of their illustrious guest, but actually to maintain a kind of diplomatic silence on the subject; so that many simple-minded people began to suspect his grace had never been there at all, and that poor Mrs. Rooney, having detected the imposition, prudently held her tongue and said nothing about the matter. As this influence might strike my reader as somewhat difficult in its exercise, and also as it presents a fair specimen of my friend’s ingenuity, I cannot forbear mentioning the secret of its success.

When the duke awoke late in the afternoon that followed Mrs. Rooney’s ball, his first impression was one bordering on irritation with O’Grady. His quick-sightedness enabled him at once to see how completely he had fallen into the trap of his worthy aide-de-camp; and although he had confessedly spent a very pleasant evening, and laughed a great deal, now that all was over, he would have preferred if the whole affair could be quietly consigned to oblivion, or only remembered as a good joke for after dinner. The scandal and the éclat it must cause in the capital annoyed him considerably; and he knew that before a day passed over, the incident of the guard of honour lying in bivouac around their horses would furnish matter for every caricature-shop in Dublin. Ordering O’Grady to his presence, and with a severity of manner in a great degree assumed, he directed him to remedy, as far as might be, the consequences of this blunder, and either contrive to give a totally different version of the occurrence, or else by originating some new subject of scandal to eclipse the memory of this unfortunate evening.