Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume I. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ for a pleasant evening; and, please God, I ‘ll be playing ‘Baltiorum’ beside the fire there before this time to-night.

      ‘She ‘d a pig and boneens.

      And a bed and a dresser.

      And a nate little room

      For the father confessor;

      With a cupboard and curtains, and something, I ‘m towld.

      That his riv’rance liked when the weather was cowld.

      And it ‘s hurroo, hurroo! Biddy O’Rafferty!’

      After all, aix, the priest bates us out. There ‘s eight o’clock now, and I’m not off; devil a one’s stirring in the house either. Well, I believe I may take my leave of it; sorrow many tunes of the pipes it’s likely to hear, with Tony Basset over it. And my heart ‘s low when I think of that child there. Poor Tom! and it was you liked fun when you could have it.”

      I wanted but the compassionate tone in which these few words were spoken to decide me in a resolution that I had been for some time pondering over. I knew that ere many hours Basset would come in search of me; I felt that, once in his power, I had nothing to expect but the long-promised payment of his old debt of hatred to me. In a few seconds I ran over with myself the prospect of misery before me, and determined at once, at every hazard, to make my escape. Darby seemed to afford me the best possible opportunity for this purpose; and I dressed myself, therefore, in the greatest haste, and throwing whatever I could find of my wardrobe into my carpet-bag, I pocketed my little purse, with all my worldly wealth, – some twelve or thirteen shillings, – and noiselessly slipped downstairs to the room beneath. I reached the door at the very moment Darby opened it to issue forth. He started back with fear, and crossed himself twice.

      “Don’t be afraid. Darby,” said I, uneasy lest he should make any noise that would alarm the others; “I want to know which road you are travelling this morning.”

      “The saints be about us, but you frightened me. Master Tommy; though, intermediately, I may obsarve, I ‘m by no ways timorous. I ‘m going within two miles of Athlone.”

      “That’s exactly where I want to go. Darby; will you take me with you?” for at the instant Captain Bubbleton’s address flashed on my mind, and I resolved to seek him out and ask his advice in my difficulties.

      “I see it all,” replied Darby, as he placed the tip of his finger on his nose. “I conceive your embarrassments, – you’re afraid of Basset; and small blame to you. But don’t do it. Master Tommy, – don’t do it, alannah! that ‘s the hardest life at all.”

      “What?” said I, in amazement.

      “To ‘list! Sure I know what you’re after. Faix, it would sarve you better to larn the pipes.”

      I hastened to assure Darby of his error; and in a few words informed him of what I had overheard of Basset’s intentions respecting me.

      “Make you an attorney!” said Darby, interrupting me abruptly; “an attorney! There’s nothing so mean as an attorney. The police is gentlemen compared to them, – they fight it out fair like men; but the other chaps sit in a house planning and contriving mischief all day long, inventing every kind of wickedness, and then getting people to do it. See, now, I believe in my conscience the devil was the first attorney, and it was just to serve his own ends that he bred a ruction between Adam and Eve. But whisht! there’s somebody stirring. Are you for the road?”

      “Yes, Darby; my mind’s made up.”

      Indeed, his own elegant eulogium on legal pursuits assisted my resolution, and filled my heart with renewed disgust at the thought of such a guardian as Tony Basset.

      We walked stealthily along the gloomy passages, traversed the old hall, and noiselessly withdrew the heavy bolts and the great chain that fastened the door. The rain was sweeping along the ground in torrents, and the wind dashed it against the window panes in fitful gusts. It needed all our strength to close the door after us against the storm, and it was only after several trials that we succeeded in doing so. The hollow sound of the oak door smote upon my heart as it closed behind me; in an instant the sense of banishment, of utter destitution, was present to my mind. I turned my eyes to gaze upon the old house, – to take my last farewell of it forever! Gloomy as my prospect was, my sorrow was less for the sad future than for the misery of the moment.

      “No, Master Tom! no, you must go back,” said Darby, who watched with a tender interest the sickly paleness of my cheek, and the tottering uncertainty of my walk.

      “No, Darby,” said I, with an effort at firmness; “I’ll not look round any more.” And bending my head against the storm, I stepped out boldly beside my companion. We walked on without speaking, and soon left the neglected avenue and ruined gate lodge behind us, as we reached the highroad that led to Athlone.

      Darby, who only waited to let my first burst of sorrow find its natural vent, no sooner perceived from my step and the renewed color of my cheek that I had rallied my courage once more, than he opened all his stores of agreeability, which, to my inexperience in such matters, were by no means inconsiderable. Abandoning at once all high-flown phraseology, – which Mr. M’Keown, I afterwards remarked, only retained as a kind of gala suit for great occasions, – he spoke freely and naturally. Lightening the way with many a story, – now grave, now gay, – he seemed to care little for the inclemency of the weather, and looked pleasantly forward to a happy evening as an ample reward for the present hardship.

      “And the captain, Master Tom; you say he’s an agreeable man?” said Darby, alluding to my late companion on the coach, whose merits I was never tired of recapitulating.

      “Oh, delightful! He has travelled everywhere, and seems to know everybody and everything. He ‘s very rich, too; I forget how many houses he has in England, and elephants without number in India.”

      “Faix, you were in luck to fall in with him!” observed Darby.

      “Yes, that I was I I ‘m sure he ‘ll do something for me; and for you too, Darby, when he knows you have been so kind to me.”

      “Me! What did I do, darling? and what could I do, a poor piper like me? Wouldn’t it be honor enough for me if a gentleman’s son would travel the road with me? Darby M’Keown’s a proud man this day to have you beside him.”

      A ruined cabin in the road, whose blackened walls and charred timbers denoted its fate, here attracted my companion’s attention. He stopped for a second or two to look on it; and then, kneeling down, he muttered a short prayer for the eternal rest of some one departed, and taking up a stone, he threw it on a heap of similar ones which lay near the doorside.

      “What happened there, Darby?” said I, as he resumed his way.

      “They wor out in the thrubles!” was his only reply, as he cast a glance behind, to perceive if any one had remarked him.

      Though he made no further allusion to the fate of those who once inhabited the cabin, he spoke freely of his own share in the eventful year of ‘Ninety-eight’ justifying, as it then seemed to me, every step of the patriotic party, and explaining the causes of their unsuccess so naturally and so clearly that I could not help following with interest every detail of his narrative, and joining in his regrets for the unexpected and adverse strokes fortune dealt upon them. As he warmed with his subject, he spoke of France with an enthusiasm that I soon found contagious. He told me of the glorious career of the French armies in Italy and Austria; and of that wonderful man, of whom I then heard for the first time, as spreading a halo of victory over his nation, – contrasting, as he went on, the rewards which awaited heroism and bravery СКАЧАТЬ