The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer – Complete. Lever Charles James

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      Some hours after, I also betook myself to my rest, from which, however, towards midnight I was awoke by the heavy working and pitching of the little vessel, as she laboured in a rough sea. As I looked forth from my narrow crib, a more woe-begone picture can scarcely be imagined than that before me. Here and there through the gloomy cabin lay the victims of the fell malady, in every stage of suffering, and in every attitude of misery. Their cries and lamentings mingled with the creaking of the bulk-heads and the jarring twang of the dirty lamp, whose irregular swing told plainly how oscillatory was our present motion. I turned from the unpleasant sight, and was about again to address myself to slumber with what success I might, when I started at the sound of a voice in the very berth next to me — whose tones, once heard, there was no forgetting. The words ran as nearly as I can recollect thus: —

      "Oh, then, bad luck to ye for pigs, that ever brought me into the like of this. Oh, Lord, there it is again." And here a slight interruption to eloquence took place, during which I was enabled to reflect upon the author of the complaint, who, I need not say, was Mrs. Mulrooney.

      "I think a little tay would settle my stomach, if I only could get it; but what's the use of talking in this horrid place? They never mind me no more than if I was a pig. Steward, steward — oh, then, it's wishing you well I am for a steward. Steward, I say;" and this she really did say, with an energy of voice and manner that startled more than one sleeper. "Oh, you're coming at last, steward."

      "Ma'am," said a little dapper and dirty personage, in a blue jacket, with a greasy napkin negligently thrown over one arm "ex officio," "Ma'am, did you call?"

      "Call, is it call? No; but I'm roaring for you this half hour. Come here. Have you any of the cordial dhrops agin the sickness? — you know what I mean."

      "Is it brandy, ma'am?"

      "No, it isn't brandy;"

      "We have got gin, ma'am, and bottled porter — cider, ma'am, if you like."

      "Agh, no! sure I want the dhrops agin the sickness."

      "Don't know indeed, ma'am."

      "Ah, you stupid creature; maybe you're not the real steward. What's your name?"

      "Smith, ma'am."

      "Ah, I thought so; go away, man, go away."

      This injunction, given in a diminuendo cadence, was quickly obeyed, and all was silence for a moment or two. Once more was I dropping asleep, when the same voice as before burst out with —

      "Am I to die here like a haythen, and nobody to come near me? Steward, steward, steward Moore, I say,"

      "Who calls me?" said a deep sonorous voice from the opposite side of the cabin, while at the same instant a tall green silk nightcap, surmounting a very aristocratic-looking forehead, appeared between the curtains of the opposite berth.

      "Steward Moore," said the lady again, with her eyes straining in the direction of the door by which she expected him to enter.

      "This is most strange," muttered the baronet, half aloud. "Why, madam, you are calling me!"

      "And if I am," said Mrs. Mulrooney, "and if ye heerd me, have ye no manners to answer your name, eh? Are ye steward Moore?"

      "Upon my soul ma'am I thought so last night, when I came on board; but you really have contrived to make me doubt my own identity."

      "And is it there ye're lying on the broad of yer back, and me as sick as a dog fornent ye?"

      "I concede ma'am the fact; the position is a most irksome one on every account."

      "Then why don't ye come over to me?" and this Mrs. Mulrooney said with a voice of something like tenderness — wishing at all hazards to conciliate so important a functionary.

      "Why, really you are the most incomprehensible person I ever met."

      "I'm what?" said Mrs. Mulrooney, her blood rushing to her face and temples as she spoke — for the same reason as her fair townswoman is reported to have borne with stoical fortitude every harsh epithet of the language, until it occurred to her opponent to tell her that "the divil a bit better she was nor a pronoun;" so Mrs. Mulrooney, taking "omne ignotum pro horribili," became perfectly beside herself at the unlucky phrase. "I'm what? repate it av ye dare, and I'll tear yer eyes out? Ye dirty bla — guard, to be lying there at yer ease under the blankets, grinning at me. What's your thrade — answer me that — av it isn't to wait on the ladies, eh?"

      "Oh, the woman must be mad," said Sir Stewart.

      "The devil a taste mad, my dear — I'm only sick. Now just come over to me, like a decent creature, and give me the dhrop of comfort ye have. Come, avick."

      "Go over to you?"

      "Ay, and why not? or if it's so lazy ye are, why then I'll thry and cross over to your side."

      These words being accompanied by a certain indication of change of residence on the part of Mrs. Mulrooney, Sir Stewart perceived there was no time to lose, and springing from his berth, he rushed half-dressed through the cabin, and up the companion-ladder, just as Mrs. Mulrooney had protruded a pair of enormous legs from her couch, and hung for a moment pendulous before she dropped upon the floor, and followed him to the deck. A tremendous shout of laughter from the sailors and deck passengers prevented my hearing the dialogue which ensued; nor do I yet know how Mrs. Mulrooney learned her mistake. Certain it is, she no more appeared among the passengers in the cabin, and Sir Stewart's manner the following morning at breakfast amply satisfied me that I had had my revenge.

      CHAPTER X.

      UPSET — MIND — AND BODY

      No sooner in Liverpool, than I hastened to take my place in the earliest conveyance for London. At that time the Umpire Coach was the perfection of fast travelling; and seated behind the box, enveloped in a sufficiency of broad-cloth, I turned my face towards town with as much anxiety and as ardent expectations as most of those about me. All went on in the regular monotonous routine of such matters until we reached Northampton, passing down the steep street of which town, the near wheel-horse stumbled and fell; the coach, after a tremendous roll to one side, toppled over on the other, and with a tremendous crash, and sudden shock, sent all the outsides, myself among the number, flying through the air like sea-gulls. As for me, after describing a very respectable parabola, my angle of incidence landed me in a bonnet-maker's shop, having passed through a large plate-glass window, and destroyed more leghorns and dunstables than a year's pay would recompense. I have but light recollection of the details of that occasion, until I found myself lying in a very spacious bed at the George Inn, having been bled in both arms, and discovering by the multitude of bandages in which I was enveloped, that at least some of my bones were broken by the fall. That such fate had befallen my collar-bone and three of my ribs I soon learned; and was horror-struck at hearing from the surgeon who attended me, that four or five weeks would be the very earliest period I could bear removal with safety. Here then at once was a large deduction from my six months' leave, not to think of the misery that awaited me for such a time, confined to my bed in an inn, without books, friends, or acquaintances. However even this could be remedied by patience, and summoning up all I could command, I "bided my time," but not before I had completed a term of two months' imprisonment, and had become, from actual starvation, something very like a living transparency.

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