Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ such intervals! Like the fitful sunshine in the wintry sky, they throw one bright and joyous tint over the dark landscape: for a moment the valley and the mountain-top are bathed in a ruddy glow; the leafless tree and the dark moss seem to feel a touch of spring; but the next instant it is past; the lowering clouds and dark shadows intervene, and the cold blast, the moaning wind, and the dreary waste are once more before us.

      I endeavored to recall the latest events of my career, but in vain; the real and the visionary were inextricably mingled, and the scenes of my campaigns were blended with hopes and fears and doubts which had no existence save in my dreams. My curiosity to know where I was grew now my strongest feeling, and I raised myself with one arm to look around me. In the room all was still and silent, but nothing seemed to intimate what I sought for. As I looked, however, the wind blew back the curtain which half-concealed the sash-door, and disclosed to me the figure of a man seated at a table; his back was towards me, but his broad sombrero hat and brown mantle bespoke his nation; the light blue curl of smoke which wreathed gently upwards, and the ample display of long-necked, straw-wrapped flasks, also attested that he was enjoying himself with true Peninsular gusto, having probably partaken of a long siesta.

      It was a perfect picture in its way of the indolent luxury of the South, – the rich and perfumed flowers, half-closing to the night air, but sighing forth a perfumed buonas noches as they betook themselves to rest; the slender shadows of the tall shrubs, stretching motionless across the walks; the very attitude of the figure himself was in keeping as supported by easy chairs he lounged at full length, raising his head ever and anon as if to watch the wreath of eddying smoke as it rose upwards from his cigar and melted away in the distance.

      “Yes”, thought I, as I looked for some time, “such is the very type of his nation. Surrounded by every luxury of climate, blessed with all that earth can offer of its best and fairest, and yet only using such gifts as mere sensual gratifications.” Starting with this theme, I wove a whole story for the unknown personage whom, in my wandering fancy, I began by creating a grandee of Portugal, invested with rank honors, and riches; but who, effeminated by the habits and usages of his country, had become the mere idle voluptuary, living a life of easy and inglorious indolence. My further musings were interrupted at this moment for the individual to whom I had been so complimentary in my revery, slowly arose from his recumbent position, flung his loose mantle carelessly across his left shoulder, and pushing open the sash-door, entered my chamber. Directing his steps to a large mirror, he stood for some minutes contemplating himself with what, from his attitude, I judged to be no small satisfaction. Though his back was still towards me, and the dim twilight of the room too uncertain to see much, yet I could perceive that he was evidently admiring himself in the glass. Of this fact I had soon the most complete proof; for as I looked, he slowly raised his broad-leafed Spanish hat with an air of most imposing pretension, and bowed reverently to himself.

      “Come sta vostra senoria?” said he.

      The whole gesture and style of this proceeding struck me as so ridiculous, that in spite of all my efforts I could scarcely repress a laugh. He turned quickly round and approached the bed. The deep shadow of the sombrero darkened the upper part of his features, but I could distinguish a pair of fierce-looking mustaches beneath, which curled upwards towards his eyes, while a stiff point beard stuck straight from his chin. Fearing lest my rude interruption had been overheard, I was framing some polite speech in Portuguese, when he opened the dialogue by asking in that language how I did.

      I replied, and was about to ask some questions relative to where, and under whose protection I then was, when my grave-looking friend, giving a pirouette upon one leg, sent his hat flying into the air, and cried out in a voice that not even my memory could fail to recognize, —

      “By the rock of Cashel he’s cured! – he’s cured! – the fever’s over! Oh, Master Charles, dear! oh, Master, darling, and you ain’t mad, after all?”

      “Mad! no, faith! but I shrewdly suspect you must be.”

      “Oh, devil a taste! But spake to me, honey; spake to me, acushla!”

      “Where am I? Whose house is this? What do you mean by that disguise, that beard – ”

      “Whisht, I’ll tell you all, av you have patience? But are you cured? Tell me that first. Sure they was going to cut the arm off you, till you got out of bed, and with your pistols, sent them flying, one out of the window and the other down-stairs; and I bate the little chap with the saw myself till he couldn’t know himself in the glass.”

      While Mike ran on at this rate, I never took my eyes from him, and it was all my poor faculties were equal to, to convince myself that the whole scene was not some vision of a wandering intellect. Gradually, however, the well-known features recalled me to myself, and as my doubts gave way at length, I laughed long and heartily at the masquerade absurdity of his appearance.

      Mike, meanwhile, whose face expressed no small mistrust at the sincerity of my mirth, having uncloaked himself, proceeded to lay aside his beard and mustaches, saying, as he did so, —

      “There now, darling; there now, Master, dear, – don’t be grinning that way, – I’ll not be a Portigee any more, av you’ll be quiet and listen to reason.”

      “But, Mike, where am I? Answer me that one question.”

      “You’re at home, dear; where else would you be?”

      “At home?” said I, with a start, as my eye ranged over the various articles of luxury and elegance around, so unlike the more simple and unpretending features of my uncle’s house, – “at home?”

      “Ay, just so; sure, isn’t it the same thing. It’s ould Don Emanuel that owns it; and won’t it be your own when you’re married to that lovely crayture herself?”

      I started up, and placing my hand upon my throbbing temples, asked myself if I were really awake, or if some flight of fancy had not carried me away beyond the bounds of reason and sense. “Go on, go on!” said I, at length, in a hollow voice, anxious to gather from his words something like a clew to this mystery. “How did this happen?”

      “Av ye mean how you came here, faith, it was just this way. After you got the fever, and beat the doctors, devil a one would go near you but myself and the major.”

      “The major, – Major Monsoon?”

      “No, Major Power himself. Well, he told your friends up here how it was going very hard with you, and that you were like to die; and the same evening they sent down a beautiful litter, as like a hearse as two peas, for you, and brought you up here in state, – devil a thing was wanting but a few people to raise the cry to make it as fine a funeral as ever I seen. And sure, I set up a whillilew myself in the Black Horse Square, and the devils only laughed at me.

      “Well, you see they put you into a beautiful, elegant bed, and the young lady herself sat down beside you, betune times fanning you with a big fan, and then drying her eyes, for she was weeping like a waterfall. ‘Don Miguel,’ says she to me, – for ye see, I put your cloak on by mistake when I was leaving the quarters, – ‘Don Miguel, questa hidalgo é vostro amigo?’

      “‘My most particular friend,’ says I; ‘God spare him many years to be so.’

      “‘Then take up your quarters here,’ says she, ‘and don’t leave him; we’ll do everything in our power to make you comfortable.’

      “‘I’m not particular,’ says I; ‘the run of the house – ’

      “Then this is the Villa Nuova?” said I, with a faint sigh.

      “The same,” СКАЧАТЬ