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James Oliver Curwood - "God's Country And the Woman"

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Barry Lyndon

W >> William Makepeace Thackeray >> Barry Lyndon




When the dance was ended, the little ungrateful flirt informed me
that she had quite forgotten her engagement; she had actually danced
the set with an Englishman! I have endured torments in my life, but
none like that. She tried to make up for her neglect, but I would
not. Some of the prettiest girls there offered to console me, for I
was the best dancer in the room. I made one attempt, but was too
wretched to continue, and so remained alone all night in a state of
agony. I would have played, but I had no money; only the gold piece
that my mother bade me always keep in my purse as a gentleman
should. I did not care for drink, or know the dreadful comfort of it
in those days; but I thought of killing myself and Nora, and most
certainly of making away with Captain Quin!

At last, and at morning, the ball was over. The rest of our ladies
went off in the lumbering creaking old coach; Daisy was brought out,
and Miss Nora took her place behind me, which I let her do without a
word. But we were not half-a-mile out of town when she began to try
with her coaxing and blandishments to dissipate my ill-humour.

'Sure it's a bitter night, Redmond dear, and you'll catch cold
without a handkerchief to your neck.' To this sympathetic remark
from the pillion, the saddle made no reply.

'Did you and Miss Clancy have a pleasant evening, Redmond? You were
together, I saw, all night.' To this the saddle only replied by
grinding his teeth, and giving a lash to Daisy.

'O mercy! you'll make Daisy rear and throw me, you careless creature
you: and you know, Redmond, I'm so timid.' The pillion had by this
got her arm round the saddle's waist, and perhaps gave it the
gentlest squeeze in the world.

'I hate Miss Clancy, you know I do!' answers the saddle; 'and I only
danced with her because--because--the person with whom I intended to
dance chose to be engaged the whole night.'

'Sure there were my sisters,' said the pillion, now laughing
outright in the pride of her conscious superiority; 'and for me, my
dear, I had not been in the room five minutes before I was engaged
for every single set.'

'Were you obliged to dance five times with Captain Quin?' said I;
and oh! strange delicious charm of coquetry, I do believe Miss Nora
Brady at twenty-three years of age felt a pang of delight in
thinking that she had so much power over a guileless lad of fifteen.
Of course she replied that she did not care a fig for Captain Quin:
that he danced prettily, to be sure, and was a pleasant rattle of a
man; that he looked well in his regimentals too; and if he chose to
ask her to dance, how could she refuse him?

'But you refused me, Nora.'

'Oh! I can dance with you any day,' answered Miss Nora, with a toss
of her head; 'and to dance with your cousin at a ball, looks as if
you could find no other partner. Besides,' said Nora--and this was a
cruel, unkind cut, which showed what a power she had over me, and
how mercilessly she used it,--'besides, Redmond, Captain Quin's a
man and you are only a boy!'

'If ever I meet him again,' I roared out with an oath, 'you shall
see which is the best man of the two. I'll fight him with sword or
with pistol, captain as he is. A man indeed! I'll fight any man--
every man! Didn't I stand up to Mick Brady when I was eleven years
old?--Didn't I beat Tom Sullivan, the great hulking brute, who is
nineteen?--Didn't I do for the Scotch usher? O Nora, it's cruel of
you to sneer at me so!'

But Nora was in the sneering mood that night, and pursued her
sarcasms; she pointed out that Captain Quin was already known as a
valiant soldier, famous as a man of fashion in London, and that it
was mighty well of Redmond to talk and boast of beating ushers and
farmers' boys, but to fight an Englishman was a very different
matter.

Then she fell to talk of the invasion, and of military matters in
general; of King Frederick (who was called, in those days, the
Protestant hero), of Monsieur Thurot and his fleet, of Monsieur
Conflans and his squadron, of Minorca, how it was attacked, and
where it was; we both agreed it must be in America, and hoped the
French might be soundly beaten there.

I sighed after a while (for I was beginning to melt), and said how
much I longed to be a soldier; on which Nora recurred to her
infallible 'Ah! now, would you leave me, then? But, sure, you're not
big enough for anything more than a little drummer.' To which I
replied, by swearing that a soldier I would be, and a general too.

As we were chattering in this silly way, we came to a place that has
ever since gone by the name of Redmond's Leap Bridge. It was an old
high bridge, over a stream sufficiently deep and rocky, and as the
mare Daisy with her double load was crossing this bridge, Miss Nora,
giving a loose to her imagination, and still harping on the military
theme (I would lay a wager that she was thinking of Captain Quin)--
Miss Nora said, 'Suppose now, Redmond, you, who are such a hero, was
passing over the bridge, and the inimy on the other side?'

'I'd draw my sword, and cut my way through them.'

'What, with me on the pillion? Would you kill poor me?' (This young
lady was perpetually speaking of 'poor me!')

'Well, then, I'll tell you what I'd do. I'd jump Daisy into the
river, and swim you both across, where no enemy could follow us.'

'Jump twenty feet! you wouldn't dare to do any such thing on Daisy.
There's the Captain's horse, Black George, I've heard say that
Captain Qui--'

She never finished the word, for, maddened by the continual
recurrence of that odious monosyllable, I shouted to her to 'hold
tight by my waist,' and, giving Daisy the spur, in a minute sprang
with Nora over the parapet into the deep water below. I don't know
why, now--whether it was I wanted to drown myself and Nora, or to
perform an act that even Captain Quin should crane at, or whether I
fancied that the enemy actually was in front of us, I can't tell
now; but over I went. The horse sank over his head, the girl
screamed as she sank and screamed as she rose, and I landed her,
half fainting, on the shore, where we were soon found by my uncle's
people, who returned on hearing the screams. I went home, and was
ill speedily of a fever, which kept me to my bed for six weeks; and
I quitted my couch prodigiously increased in stature, and, at the
same time, still more violently in love than I had been even before.
At the commencement of my illness, Miss Nora had been pretty
constant in her attendance at my bedside, forgetting, for the sake
of me, the quarrel between my mother and her family; which my good
mother was likewise pleased, in the most Christian manner, to
forget. And, let me tell you, it was no small mark of goodness in a
woman of her haughty disposition, who, as a rule, never forgave
anybody, for my sake to give up her hostility to Miss Brady, and to
receive her kindly. For, like a mad boy as I was, it was Nora I was
always raving about and asking for; I would only accept medicines
from her hand, and would look rudely and sulkily upon the good
mother, who loved me better than anything else in the world, and
gave up even her favourite habits, and proper and becoming
jealousies, to make me happy.

As I got well, I saw that Nora's visits became daily more rare: 'Why
don't she come?' I would say, peevishly, a dozen times in the day;
in reply to which query, Mrs. Barry would be obliged to make the
best excuses she could find,--such as that Nora had sprained her
ankle, or that they had quarrelled together, or some other answer to
soothe me. And many a time has the good soul left me to go and break
her heart in her own room alone, and come back with a smiling face,
so that I should know nothing of her mortification. Nor, indeed, did
I take much pains to ascertain it: nor should I, I fear, have been
very much touched even had I discovered it; for the commencement of
manhood, I think, is the period of our extremest selfishness. We get
such a desire then to take wing and leave the parent nest, that no
tears, entreaties, or feelings of affection will counter-balance
this overpowering longing after independence. She must have been
very sad, that poor mother of mine--Heaven be good to her!--at that
period of my life; and has often told me since what a pang of the
heart it was to her to see all her care and affection of years
forgotten by me in a minute, and for the sake of a little heartless
jilt, who was only playing with me while she could get no better
suitor. For the fact is, that during the last four weeks of my
illness, no other than Captain Quin was staying at Castle Brady, and
making love to Miss Nora in form. My mother did not dare to break
this news to me, and you may be sure that Nora herself kept it a
secret: it was only by chance that I discovered it.

Shall I tell you how? The minx had been to see me one day, as I sat
up in my bed, convalescent; she was in such high spirits, and so
gracious and kind to me, that my heart poured over with joy and
gladness, and I had even for my poor mother a kind word and a kiss
that morning. I felt myself so well that I ate up a whole chicken,
and promised my uncle, who had come to see me, to be ready against
partridge-shooting, to accompany him, as my custom was.

The next day but one was a Sunday, and I had a project for that day
which I determined to realise, in spite of all the doctor's and my
mother's injunctions: which were that I was on no account to leave
the house, for the fresh air would be the death of me.

Well, I lay wondrous quiet, composing a copy of verses, the first I
ever made in my life; and I give them here, spelt as I spelt them in
those days when I knew no better. And though they are not so
polished and elegant as 'Ardelia ease a Love-sick Swain,' and 'When
Sol bedecks the Daisied Mead,' and other lyrical effusions of mine
which obtained me so much reputation in after life, I still think
them pretty good for a humble lad of fifteen:--

THE ROSE OF FLORA.

Sent by a Young Gentleman of Quality to Miss Br-dy, of Castle Brady.

On Brady's tower there grows a flower,
It is the loveliest flower that blows,--
At Castle Brady there lives a lady
(And how I love her no one knows):
Her name is Nora, and the goddess Flora
Presents her with this blooming rose.

'O Lady Nora,' says the goddess Flora,
'I've many a rich and bright parterre;
In Brady's towers there's seven more flowers,
But you're the fairest lady there:
Not all the county, nor Ireland's bounty,
Can projuice a treasure that's half so fair!

What cheek is redder? sure roses fed her!
Her hair is maregolds, and her eye of blew
Beneath her eyelid is like the vi'let,
That darkly glistens with gentle jew?
The lily's nature is not surely whiter
Than Nora's neck is,--and her arrums too.

'Come, gentle Nora,' says the goddess Flora,
'My dearest creature, take my advice,
There is a poet, full well you know it,
Who spends his lifetime in heavy sighs,--
Young Redmond Barry, 'tis him you'll marry,
If rhyme and raisin you'd choose likewise.'

On Sunday, no sooner was my mother gone to church, than I summoned
Phil the valet, and insisted upon his producing my best suit, in
which I arrayed myself (although I found that I had shot up so in my
illness that the old dress was wofully too small for me), and, with
my notable copy of verses in my hand, ran down towards Castle Brady,
bent upon beholding my beauty. The air was so fresh and bright, and
the birds sang so loud amidst the green trees, that I felt more
elated than I had been for months before, and sprang down the avenue
(my uncle had cut down every stick of the trees, by the way) as
brisk as a young fawn. My heart began to thump as I mounted the
grass-grown steps of the terrace, and passed in by the rickety hall-
door. The master and mistress were at church, Mr. Screw the butler
told me (after giving a start back at seeing my altered appearance,
and gaunt lean figure), and so were six of the young ladies.

'Was Miss Nora one?' I asked.

'No, Miss Nora was not one,' said Mr. Screw, assuming a very
puzzled, and yet knowing look.

'Where was she?' To this question he answered, or rather made
believe to answer, with usual Irish ingenuity, and left me to settle
whether she was gone to Kilwangan on the pillion behind her brother,
or whether she and her sister had gone for a walk, or whether she
was ill in her room; and while I was settling this query, Mr. Screw
left me abruptly.

I rushed away to the back court, where the Castle Brady stables
stand, and there I found a dragoon whistling the 'Roast Beef of Old
England,' as he cleaned down a cavalry horse. 'Whose horse, fellow,
is that?' cried I.

'Feller, indeed!' replied the Englishman: 'the horse belongs to my
captain, and he's a better FELLER nor you any day.'

I did not stop to break his bones, as I would on another occasion,
for a horrible suspicion had come across me, and I made for the
garden as quickly as I could.

I knew somehow what I should see there. I saw Captain Quin and Nora
pacing the alley together. Her arm was under his, and the scoundrel
was fondling and squeezing the hand which lay closely nestling
against his odious waistcoat. Some distance beyond them was Captain
Fagan of the Kilwangan regiment, who was paying court to Nora's
sister Mysie.

I am not afraid of any man or ghost; but as I saw that sight my
knees fell a-trembling violently under me, and such a sickness came
over me, that I was fain to sink down on the grass by a tree against
which I leaned, and lost almost all consciousness for a minute or
two: then I gathered myself up, and, advancing towards the couple on
the walk, loosened the blade of the little silver-hilted hanger I
always wore in its scabbard; for I was resolved to pass it through
the bodies of the delinquents, and spit them like two pigeons. I
don't tell what feelings else besides those of rage were passing
through my mind; what bitter blank disappointment, what mad wild
despair, what a sensation as if the whole world was tumbling from
under me; I make no doubt that my reader hath been jilted by the
ladies many times, and so bid him recall his own sensations when the
shock first fell upon him.

'No, Norelia,' said the Captain (for it was the fashion of those
times for lovers to call themselves by the most romantic names out
of novels), 'except for you and four others, I vow before all the
gods, my heart has never felt the soft flame!'

'Ah! you men, you men, Eugenio!' said she (the beast's name was
John), 'your passion is not equal to ours. We are like--like some
plant I've read of--we bear but one flower and then we die!'

'Do you mean you never felt an inclination for another?' said
Captain Quin.

'Never, my Eugenio, but for thee! How can you ask a blushing nymph
such a question?'

'Darling Norelia!' said he, raising her hand to his lips.

I had a knot of cherry-coloured ribands, which she had given me out
of her breast, and which somehow I always wore upon me. I pulled
these out of my bosom, and flung them in Captain Quin's face, and
rushed out with my little sword drawn, shrieking, 'She's a liar--
she's a liar, Captain Quin! Draw, sir, and defend yourself, if you
are a man!' and with these words I leapt at the monster, and
collared him, while Nora made the air echo with her screams; at the
sound of which the other captain and Mysie hastened up.

Although I sprang up like a weed in my illness, and was now nearly
attained to my full growth of six feet, yet I was but a lath by the
side of the enormous English captain, who had calves and shoulders
such as no chairman at Bath ever boasted. He turned very red, and
then exceedingly pale at my attack upon him, and slipped back and
clutched at his sword--when Nora, in an agony of terror, flung
herself round him, screaming, 'Eugenio! Captain Quin, for Heaven's
sake spare the child--he is but an infant.'

'And ought to be whipped for his impudence,' said the Captain; 'but
never fear, Miss Brady, I shall not touch him; your FAVOURITE is
safe from me.' So saying, he stooped down and picked up the bunch of
ribands which had fallen at Nora's feet, and handing it to her, said
in a sarcastic tone, 'When ladies make presents to gentlemen, it is
time for OTHER gentlemen to retire.'

'Good heavens, Quin!' cried the girl; 'he is but a boy.'

'I am a man,' roared I, 'and will prove it.'

'And don't signify any more than my parrot or lap-dog. Mayn't I give
a bit of riband to my own cousin?'

'You are perfectly welcome, miss,' continued the Captain, 'as many
yards as you like.'

'Monster!' exclaimed the dear girl; 'your father was a tailor, and
you are always thinking of the shop. But I'll have my revenge, I
will! Reddy, will you see me insulted?'

'Indeed, Miss Nora,' says I, 'I intend to have his blood as sure as
my name's Redmond.'

'I'll send for the usher to cane you, little boy,' said the Captain,
regaining his self-possession; 'but as for you, miss, I have the
honour to wish you a good-day.'

He took off his hat with much ceremony, made a low CONGE, and was
just walking off, when Mick, my cousin, came up, whose ear had
likewise been caught by the scream.

'Hoity-toity! Jack Quin, what's the matter here?' says Mick; 'Nora
in tears, Redmond's ghost here with his sword drawn, and you making
a bow?'

'I'll tell you what it is, Mr. Brady,' said the Englishman: 'I have
had enough of Miss Nora, here, and your Irish ways. I ain't used to
'em, sir.'

'Well, well! what is it?' said Mick good-humouredly (for he owed
Quin a great deal of money as it turned out); 'we'll make you used
to our ways, or adopt English ones.'

'It's not the English way for ladies to have two lovers' (the
'Henglish way,' as the captain called it), 'and so, Mr. Brady, I'll
thank you to pay me the sum you owe me, and I'll resign all claims
to this young lady. If she has a fancy for schoolboys, let her take
'em, sir.'

'Pooh, pooh! Quin, you are joking,' said Mick.

'I never was more in earnest,' replied the other.

'By Heaven, then, look to yourself!' shouted Mick. 'Infamous
seducer! infernal deceiver!--you come and wind your toils round this
suffering angel here--you win her heart and leave her--and fancy her
brother won't defend her? Draw this minute, you slave! and let me
cut the wicked heart out of your body!'

'This is regular assassination,' said Quin, starting back; 'there's
two on 'em on me at once. Fagan, you won't let 'em murder me?'

'Faith!' said Captain Fagan, who seemed mightily amused, 'you may
settle your own quarrel, Captain Quin;' and coming over to me,
whispered, 'At him again, you little fellow.'

'As long as Mr. Quin withdraws his claim,' said I, 'I, of course, do
not interfere.'

'I do, sir--I do,' said Mr. Quin, more and more flustered.

'Then defend yourself like a man, curse you!' cried Mick again.
'Mysie, lead this poor victim away--Redmond and Fagan will see fair
play between us.'

'Well now--I don't--give me time--I'm puzzled--I--I don't know which
way to look.'

'Like the donkey betwixt the two bundles of hay,' said Mr. Fagan
drily, 'and there's pretty pickings on either side.'

CHAPTER II

I SHOW MYSELF TO BE A MAN OF SPIRIT

During this dispute, my cousin Nora did the only thing that a lady,
under such circumstances, could do, and fainted in due form. I was
in hot altercation with Mick at the time, or I should have, of
course, flown to her assistance, but Captain Fagan (a dry sort of
fellow this Fagan was) prevented me, saying, 'I advise you to leave
the young lady to herself, Master Redmond, and be sure she will come
to.' And so indeed, after a while, she did, which has shown me since
that Fagan knew the world pretty well, for many's the lady I've seen
in after times recover in a similar manner. Quin did not offer to
help her, you may be sure, for, in the midst of the diversion,
caused by her screaming, the faithless bully stole away.

'Which of us is Captain Quin to engage?' said I to Mick; for it was
my first affair, and I was as proud of it as of a suit of laced
velvet. 'Is it you or I, Cousin Mick, that is to have the honour of
chastising this insolent Englishman?' And I held out my hand as I
spoke, for my heart melted towards my cousin under the triumph of
the moment.

But he rejected the proffered offer of friendship. 'You--you!' said
he, in a towering passion; 'hang you for a meddling brat: your hand
is in everybody's pie. What business had you to come brawling and
quarrelling here, with a gentleman who has fifteen hundred a year?'

'Oh,' gasped Nora, from the stone bench, 'I shall die: I know I
shall. I shall never leave this spot.'

'The Captain's not gone yet,' whispered Fagan; on which Nora, giving
him an indignant look, jumped up and walked towards the house.

'Meanwhile,' Mick continued, 'what business have you, you meddling
rascal, to interfere with a daughter of this house?'

'Rascal yourself!' roared I: 'call me another such name, Mick Brady,
and I'll drive my hanger into your weasand. Recollect, I stood to
you when I was eleven years old. I'm your match now, and, by Jove,
provoke me, and I'll beat you like--like your younger brother always
did.' That was a home-cut, and I saw Mick turn blue with fury.

'This is a pretty way to recommend yourself to the family,' said
Fagan, in a soothing tone.

'The girl's old enough to be his mother,' growled Mick.

'Old or not,' I replied: 'you listen to this, Mick Brady' (and I
swore a tremendous oath, that need not be put down here): 'the man
that marries Nora Brady must first kill me--do you mind that?'

'Pooh, sir,' said Mick, turning away, 'kill you--flog you, you mean!
I'll send for Nick the huntsman to do it;' and so he went off.

Captain Fagan now came up, and taking me kindly by the hand, said I
was a gallant lad, and he liked my spirit. 'But what Brady says is
true,' continued he; 'it's a hard thing to give a lad counsel who is
in such a far-gone state as you; but, believe me, I know the world,
and if you will but follow my advice, you won't regret having taken
it. Nora Brady has not a penny; you are not a whit richer. You are
but fifteen, and she's four-and-twenty. In ten years, when you're
old enough to marry, she will be an old woman; and, my poor boy,
don't you see--though it's a hard matter to see--that she's a flirt,
and does not care a pin for you or Quin either?'

But who in love (or in any other point, for the matter of that)
listens to advice? I never did, and I told Captain Fagan fairly,
that Nora might love me or not as she liked, but that Quin should
fight me before he married her--that I swore.

'Faith,' says Fagan, 'I think you are a lad that's likely to keep
your word;' and, looking hard at me for a second or two, he walked
away likewise, humming a tune: and I saw he looked back at me as he
went through the old gate out of the garden. When he was gone, and I
was quite alone, I flung myself down on the bench where Nora had
made believe to faint, and had left her handkerchief; and, taking it
up, hid my face in it, and burst into such a passion of tears as I
would then have had nobody see for the world. The crumpled riband
which I had flung at Quin lay in the walk, and I sat there for
hours, as wretched as any man in Ireland, I believe, for the time
being. But it's a changeable world! When we consider how great our
sorrows SEEM, and how small they ARE; how we think we shall die of
grief, and how quickly we forget, I think we ought to be ashamed of
ourselves and our fickle-heartedness. For, after all, what business
has time to bring us consolation? I have not, perhaps, in the course
of my multifarious adventures and experience, hit upon the right
woman; and have forgotten, after a little, every single creature I
adored; but I think, if I could but have lighted on the right one, I
would have loved her for EVER.

I must have sat for some hours bemoaning myself on the garden bench,
for it was morning when I came to Castle Brady, and the dinner-bell
clanged as usual at three o'clock, which wakened me up from my
reverie. Presently I gathered up the handkerchief, and once more
took the riband. As I passed through the offices, I saw the
Captain's saddle was still hanging up at the stable-door, and saw
his odious red-coated brute of a servant swaggering with the
scullion-girls and kitchen-people. 'The Englishman's still there,
Master Redmond,' said one of the maids to me (a sentimental black-
eyed girl, who waited on the young ladies). 'He's there in the
parlour, with the sweetest fillet of vale; go in, and don't let him
browbeat you, Master Redmond.'

And in I went, and took my place at the bottom of the big table, as
usual, and my friend the butler speedily brought me a cover.

'Hallo, Reddy my boy!' said my uncle, 'up and well?--that's right.'

'He'd better be home with his mother,' growled my aunt.

'Don't mind her,' says Uncle Brady; 'it's the cold goose she ate at
breakfast didn't agree with her. Take a glass of spirits, Mrs.
Brady, to Redmond's health.' It was evident he did not know of what
had happened; but Mick, who was at dinner too, and Ulick, and almost
all the girls, looked exceedingly black, and the Captain foolish;
and Miss Nora, who was again by his side, ready to cry. Captain
Fagan sat smiling; and I looked on as cold as a stone. I thought the
dinner would choke me: but I was determined to put a good face on
it, and when the cloth was drawn, filled my glass with the rest; and
we drank the King and the Church, as gentlemen should. My uncle was
in high good-humour, and especially always joking with Nora and the
Captain. It was, 'Nora, divide that merry-thought with the Captain!
see who'll be married first.' 'Jack Quin, my dear boy, never mind a
clean glass for the claret, we're short of crystal at Castle Brady;
take Nora's and the wine will taste none the worse;' and so on. He
was in the highest glee,--I did not know why. Had there been a
reconciliation between the faithless girl and her lover since they
had come into the house?

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