Arthur O'Leary: His Wanderings And Ponderings In Many Lands. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ have a chat with you about the turf.

      “As I followed Miss Blundell into the drawing-room, my heart was heavy and depressed.

      “Few of the misfortunes in life come on us without foreboding. The clouds that usher in the storm, cast their shadows on the earth before they break; and so it is with our fate. A gloomy sense of coming evil, presages the blow about to fall, and he who would not be stunned by the stroke, must not neglect the warning.

      “The room was full of people – the ordinary buzz and chit-chat of an evening-party was going forward, and an hundred pleasant projects were forming for the next day’s amusement, among which, I heard my name bandied about, on every side.

      “‘O’Kelly will arrange this,’ cried one – ‘leave it all to O’Kelly – he must decide it;’ and so on, when suddenly Blundell called out —

      “‘O’Kelly, come up here,’ and then taking me by the arm, he led me to the end of the room, where with his back turned towards us, a tall fashionable-looking man was talking to his sister.

      “‘Harry,’ cried the host, as he touched his elbow, ‘let me introduce a very particular friend of mine – Mr. O’Kelly.’

      “Captain Douglas wheeled sharply round, and, fixing on me a pair of dark eyes, overshadowed with heavy beetling brows, looked at me sternly without speaking. A cold thrill ran through me from head to foot as I met his gaze; the last time we had seen each other was in a square of the Royal Barracks, where he, was purchasing a remount for his troop, and I, was the horse-dealer.

      “‘Your friend, Mr. O’Kelly!’ said he, as he fixed his glass in his eye, and a most insulting curl, half smile, half sneer, played about his mouth.

      “‘How very absurd you are, Harry,’ said Miss Blundell, endeavouring by an allusion to something they were speaking of, to relieve the excessive awkwardness of the moment.

      “‘Yes, to be sure, my friend,’ chimed in Sir Harvey, ‘and a devilish good fellow too, and the best judge of horse-flesh.’

      “‘I havn’t a doubt of it,’ was the dry remark of the Captain; ‘but how did he get here?’

      “‘Sir,’ said I, in a voice scarce audible with passion, ‘whatever, or whoever I am, by birth at least I am fully your equal.’

      “‘D – n your pedigree,’ said he coolly.

      “‘Why, Harry, interrupted Blundell: ‘what are you thinking of? Mr. O’Kelly is – ’

      “‘A jockey – a horse-dealer, if you will, and the best hand at passing off a screw, I’ve met for some time. I say, sir,’ continued he in a louder tone, ‘that roan charger hasn’t answered his warranty – he stands at Dycer’s for you.’

      “Had a thunderbolt fallen in the midst of us, the consternation could not have been greater – as for me, everything around bore a look of mockery and scorn: derision and contempt sat on every feature, and a wild uncertainty of purpose, like coming insanity, flitted through my brain: what I said, or how I quitted the spot, I am unable to say; my last remembrance of that accursed moment was the burst of horrid laughter that filled my ears, as I rushed out. I almost think that I hear it still, like the yell of the furies; its very cadence was torture. I ran from the house – I crossed the fields without a thought of whither I was going – escape, concealment, my only object. I sought to hide myself for ever from the eyes of those who had looked upon me with such withering contempt; and I would have been thankful to him who would have given me refuge, beneath the dank grass of the churchyard.

      “Never did a guilty man fly from the scene of his crime with more precipitate haste, than did I from the spot which had witnessed my shame, and degradation. At every step, I thought of the cruel speeches, the harsh railings, and the bitter irony, of all, before whom, but one hour ago, I stood chief and pre-eminent; and although I vowed to myself never to meet any of them again, I could not pluck from my heart the innate sense of my despicable condition, and how low I must now stand in the estimation of the very lowest, I had so late looked down upon. And here let me passingly remark, that while we often hold lightly the praise of those, upon whose powers of judgment and reach of information we place little value, by some strange contrariety we feel most bitterly the censure of these very people, whenever any trivial circumstance, any small or petty observance with which they are acquainted, gives them, for the time, the power of an opinion. The mere fact of our contempt for them adds a poignancy to their condemnation, and I question much if we do not bear up better against the censure of the wise, than the scoff of the ignorant.

      “On I went, and on, never even turning my head; for though I had left all the little wealth I possessed in the world, I would gladly have given it, ten times told, to have blotted out even a particle of the shame that rested on my character. Scarcely had I reached the high road, when I heard the quick tramp of horses, and the rattle of wheels behind me; and, so strong were the instincts of my fear, that I scarcely dared to look back; at length I did so, and beheld the mail-coach coming towards me at a rapid pace. As it neared, I hailed the coachman, and without an inquiry as to where it was going, I sprung up to a place on the roof, thankful that ere long I should leave miles between me, and my torturers.

      “The same evening we arrived in Cork; during the journey I made acquaintance with a sergeant of a light dragoon regiment, who was proceeding in charge of three recruits, to the depot at Cove. With the quick eye of his calling, the fellow saw something in my dispirited state that promised success to his wishes; and he immediately began the thousand-times-told tale of the happiness of a soldier’s life. I stopped him short at once, for my mind was already made up, and before the day broke, I had enlisted in his Majesty’s Twelfth Light Dragoons, at that time serving in America.

      “If I have spared you the recital of many passages in my life, whose painful memory would hurt me to call up, I shall also pass over this portion of my career, which, though not marked by any distinct feature of calamity, was, perhaps, the most painful I ever knew. He who thinks that in joining the ranks or an army, his only trials will be the severity of an unaccustomed discipline, and the common hardship of a soldier’s life, takes but a very shallow view of what is before him. Coarse and vulgar associates – depraved tastes and brutal habits – the ribald jest of the barrack-room – the comrade spirit of a class, the very lowest and meanest – these are the trials, the almost insupportable trials, of him who has known better days.

      “As hour by hour, he finds himself yielding to the gradual pressure of his fate, and feels his mind assuming, one by one, the prejudices of those about him, his self-esteem falls with his condition, and he sees that the time is not distant, when all inequality between him and his fellows shall cease, and every trait of his former self be washed away, for ever.

      “After four months of such endurance as I dare not even now suffer myself to dwell upon, orders arrived at Cove for the recruits of the different regiments at once to proceed to Chatham, whence they were to be forwarded to their respective corps. I believe in my heart, had this order not come, I should have deserted; so unendurable had my life become. The thought of active service, the prospect of advancement, however remote, cheered my spirits, and, for the first time since I joined, my heart was light on the morning when the old ‘Northumberland’ transport anchored in the harbour, and the signal for embarking the troops floated from the mast-head. A motley crew we were – frieze-coated, red-coated, and no-coated; some, ruddy-cheeked farmer’s boys, sturdy good-humoured fellows, with the bloom of country life upon their faces; some, the pale, sickly, inhabitants of towns, whose sharpened features and quick penetrating eyes, betokened how much their wits had contributed to their maintenance. A few there were, like myself, drawn from a better class, but already scarce distinguishable amid the herd. We were nearly five hundred in number, one feature of equality СКАЧАТЬ