Barry Lyndon

W >> William Makepeace Thackeray >> Barry Lyndon

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28

In a pretty nest of villains, indeed, was I plunged! It seemed as if
all my misfortunes were to break on me at once; for, on going home
and ascending to my bedroom in a disconsolate way, I found the
Captain and his lady there before me, my valise open, my wardrobe
lying on the ground, and my keys in the possession of the odious
Fitzsimons. 'Whom have I been harbouring in my house?' roared he, as
I entered the apartment. 'Who are you, sirrah?'

'SIRRAH! Sir,' said I, 'I am as good a gentleman as any in Ireland.'

'You're an impostor, young man: a schemer, a deceiver!' shouted the
Captain.

'Repeat the words again, and I will run you through the body,'
replied I.

'Tut, tut! I can play at fencing as well as you, Mr. REDMOND BARRY.
Ah! you change colour, do you--your secret is known, is it? You come
like a viper into the bosom of innocent families; you represent
yourself as the heir of my friends the Redmonds of Castle Redmond; I
inthrojuice you to the nobility and genthry of this methropolis'
(the Captain's brogue was large, and his words, by preference,
long); 'I take you to my tradesmen, who give you credit, and what do
I find? That you have pawned the goods which you took up at their
houses.'

'I have given them my acceptances, sir,' said I with a dignified
air.

'UNDER WHAT NAME, unhappy boy--under what name?' screamed Mrs.
Fitzsimons; and then, indeed, I remembered that I had signed the
documents Barry Redmond instead of Redmond Barry: but what else
could I do? Had not my mother desired me to take no other
designation? After uttering a furious tirade against me, in which he
spoke of the fatal discovery of my real name on my linen--of his
misplaced confidence of affection, and the shame with which he
should be obliged to meet his fashionable friends and confess that
he had harboured a swindler, he gathered up the linen, clothes,
silver toilet articles, and the rest of my gear, saying that he
should step out that moment for an officer and give me up to the
just revenge of the law.

During the first part of his speech, the thought of the imprudence
of which I had been guilty, and the predicament in which I was
plunged, had so puzzled and confounded me, that I had not uttered a
word in reply to the fellow's abuse, but had stood quite dumb before
him. The sense of danger, however, at once roused me to action.
'Hark ye, Mr. Fitzsimons,' said I; 'I will tell you why I was
obliged to alter my name: which is Barry, and the best name in
Ireland. I changed it, sir, because, on the day before I came to
Dublin, I killed a man in deadly combat--an Englishman, sir, and a
captain in His Majesty's service; and if you offer to let or hinder
me in the slightest way, the same arm which destroyed him is ready
to punish you; and by Heaven, sir, you or I don't leave this room
alive!'

So saying, I drew my sword like lightning, and giving a 'ha! ha!'
and a stamp with my foot, lunged within an inch of Fitzsimons's
heart, who started back and turned deadly pale, while his wife, with
a scream, flung herself between us.

'Dearest Redmond,' she cried, 'be pacified. Fitzsimons, you don't
want the poor child's blood. Let him escape--in Heaven's name let
him go.'

'He may go hang for me,' said Fitzsimons sulkily; 'and he'd better
be off quickly, too, for the jeweller and the tailor have called
once, and will be here again before long. It was Moses the
pawnbroker that peached: I had the news from him myself.' By which I
conclude that Mr. Fitzsimons had been with the new laced frock-coat
which he procured from the merchant tailor on the day when the
latter first gave me credit.

What was the end of our conversation? Where was now a home for the
descendant of the Barrys? Home was shut to me by my misfortune in
the duel. I was expelled from Dublin by a persecution occasioned, I
must confess, by my own imprudence. I had no time to wait and
choose: no place of refuge to fly to. Fitzsimons, after his abuse of
me, left the room growling, but not hostile; his wife insisted that
we should shake hands, and he promised not to molest me. Indeed, I
owed the fellow nothing; and, on the contrary, had his acceptance
actually in my pocket for money lost at play. As for my friend Mrs.
Fitzsimons, she sat down on the bed and fairly burst out crying. She
had her faults, but her heart was kind; and though she possessed but
three shillings in the world, and fourpence in copper, the poor soul
made me take it before I left her--to go--whither? My mind was made
up: there was a score of recruiting-parties in the town beating up
for men to join our gallant armies in America and Germany; I knew
where to find one of these, having stood by the sergeant at a review
in the Phoenix Park, where he pointed out to me characters on the
field, for which I treated him to drink.

I gave one of my shillings to Sullivan the butler of the
Fitzsimonses, and, running into the street, hastened to the little
alehouse at which my acquaintance was quartered, and before ten
minutes had accepted His Majesty's shilling. I told him frankly that
I was a young gentleman in difficulties; that I had killed an
officer in a duel, and was anxious to get out of the country. But I
need not have troubled myself with any explanations; King George was
too much in want of men then to heed from whence they came, and a
fellow of my inches, the sergeant said, was always welcome. Indeed,
I could not, he said, have chosen my time better. A transport was
lying at Dunleary, waiting for a wind, and on board that ship, to
which I marched that night, I made some surprising discoveries,
which shall be told in the next chapter.

CHAPTER IV

IN WHICH BARRY TAKES A NEAR VIEW OF MILITARY GLORY

I never had a taste for anything but genteel company, and hate all
descriptions of low life. Hence my account of the society in which I
at present found myself must of necessity be short; and, indeed, the
recollection of it is profoundly disagreeable to me. Pah! the
reminiscences of the horrid black-hole of a place in which we
soldiers were confined; of the wretched creatures with whom I was
now forced to keep company; of the ploughmen, poachers, pickpockets,
who had taken refuge from poverty, or the law (as, in truth, I had
done myself), is enough to make me ashamed even now, and it calls
the blush into my old cheeks to think I was ever forced to keep such
company. I should have fallen into despair, but that, luckily,
events occurred to rouse my spirits, and in some measure to console
me for my misfortunes.

The first of these consolations I had was a good quarrel, which took
place on the day after my entrance into the transport-ship, with a
huge red-haired monster of a fellow--a chairman, who had enlisted to
fly from a vixen of a wife, who, boxer as he was, had been more than
a match for him. As soon as this fellow--Toole, I remember, was his
name--got away from the arms of the washerwoman his lady, his
natural courage and ferocity returned, and he became the tyrant of
all round about him. All recruits, especially, were the object of
the brute's insult and ill-treatment.

I had no money, as I said, and was sitting very disconsolately over
a platter of rancid bacon and mouldy biscuit, which was served to us
at mess, when it came to my turn to be helped to drink, and I was
served, like the rest, with a dirty tin noggin, containing somewhat
more than half a pint of rum-and-water. The beaker was so greasy and
filthy that I could not help turning round to the messman and
saying, 'Fellow, get me a glass!' At which all the wretches round
about me burst into a roar of laughter, the very loudest among them
being, of course, Mr. Toole. 'Get the gentleman a towel for his
hands, and serve him a basin of turtle-soup,' roared the monster,
who was sitting, or rather squatting, on the deck opposite me; and
as he spoke he suddenly seized my beaker of grog and emptied it, in
the midst of another burst of applause.

'If you want to vex him, ax him about his wife the washerwoman, who
BATES him,' here whispered in my ear another worthy, a retired link-
boy, who, disgusted with his profession, had adopted the military
life.

'Is it a towel of your wife's washing, Mr. Toole?' said I. 'I'm told
she wiped your face often with one.'

'Ax him why he wouldn't see her yesterday, when she came to the
ship,' continued the link-boy. And so I put to him some other
foolish jokes about soapsuds, henpecking, and flat-irons, which set
the man into a fury, and succeeded in raising a quarrel between us.
We should have fallen to at once, but a couple of grinning marines,
who kept watch at the door, for fear we should repent of our bargain
and have a fancy to escape, came forward and interposed between us
with fixed bayonets; but the sergeant coming down the ladder, and
hearing the dispute, condescended to say that we might fight it out
like men with FISTES if we chose, and that the fore-deck should be
free to us for that purpose. But the use of fistes, as the
Englishman called them, was not then general in Ireland, and it was
agreed that we should have a pair of cudgels; with one of which
weapons I finished the fellow in four minutes, giving him a thump
across his stupid sconce which laid him lifeless on the deck, and
not receiving myself a single hurt of consequence.

This victory over the cock of the vile dunghill obtained me respect
among the wretches of whom I formed part, and served to set up my
spirits, which otherwise were flagging; and my position was speedily
made more bearable by the arrival on board our ship of an old
friend. This was no other than my second in the fatal duel which had
sent me thus early out into the world, Captain Fagan. There was a
young nobleman who had a company in our regiment (Gale's foot), and
who, preferring the delights of the Mall and the clubs to the
dangers of a rough campaign, had given Fagan the opportunity of an
exchange; which, as the latter had no fortune but his sword, he was
glad to make. The sergeant was putting us through our exercise on
deck (the seamen and officers of the transport looking grinning on)
when a boat came from the shore bringing our captain to the ship;
and though I started and blushed red as he recognised me--a
descendant of the Barrys--in this degrading posture, I promise you
that the sight of Fagan's face was most welcome to me, for it
assured me that a friend was near me. Before that I was so
melancholy that I would certainly have deserted had I found the
means, and had not the inevitable marines kept a watch to prevent
any such escapes. Fagan gave me a wink of recognition, but offered
no public token of acquaintance; it was not until two days
afterwards, and when we had bidden adieu to old Ireland and were
standing out to sea, that he called me into his cabin, and then,
shaking hands with me cordially, gave me news, which I much wanted,
of my family. 'I had news of you in Dublin,' he said. ''Faith you've
begun early, like your father's son; and I think you could not do
better than as you have done. But why did you not write home to your
poor mother? She has sent a half-dozen letters to you at Dublin.'

I said I had asked for letters at the post-office, but there were
none for Mr. Redmond. I did not like to add that I had been ashamed,
after the first week, to write to my mother.

'We must write to her by the pilot,' said he, 'who will leave us in
two hours; and you can tell her that you are safe, and married to
Brown Bess.' I sighed when he talked about being married; on which
he said with a laugh, 'I see you are thinking of a certain young
lady at Brady's Town.'

'Is Miss Brady well?' said I; and indeed, could hardly utter it, for
I certainly WAS thinking about her: for, though I had forgotten her
in the gaieties of Dublin, I have always found adversity makes man
very affectionate.

'There's only seven Miss Bradys now,' answered Fagan, in a solemn
voice. 'Poor Nora'--

'Good heavens! what of her?' I thought grief had killed her.

'She took on so at your going away that she was obliged to console
herself with a husband. She's now Mrs. John Quin.'

'Mrs. John Quin! Was there ANOTHER Mr. John Quin?' asked I, quite
wonder-stricken.

'No; the very same one, my boy. He recovered from his wound. The
ball you hit him with was not likely to hurt him. It was only made
of tow. Do you think the Bradys would let you kill fifteen hundred a
year out of the family?' And then Fagan further told me that, in
order to get me out of the way--for the cowardly Englishman could
never be brought to marry from fear of me--the plan of the duel had
been arranged. 'But hit him you certainly did, Redmond, and with a
fine thick plugget of tow; and the fellow was so frightened, that he
was an hour in coming to. We told your mother the story afterwards,
and a pretty scene she made; she despatched a half-score of letters
to Dublin after you, but I suppose addressed them to you in your
real name, by which you never thought to ask for them.'

'The coward!' said I (though, I confess, my mind was considerably
relieved at the thoughts of not having killed him). 'And did the
Bradys of Castle Brady consent to admit a poltroon like that into
one of the most ancient and honourable families in the world?'

'He has paid off your uncle's mortgage,' said Fagan; 'he gives Nora
a coach-and-six; he is to sell out, and Lieutenant Ulick Brady of
the Militia is to purchase his company. That coward of a fellow has
been the making of your uncle's family. 'Faith! the business was
well done.' And then, laughing, he told me how Mick and Ulick had
never let him out of their sight, although he was for deserting to
England, until the marriage was completed and the happy couple off
on their road to Dublin. 'Are you in want of cash, my boy?'
continued the good-natured Captain. 'You may draw upon me, for I got
a couple of hundred out of Master Quin for my share, and while they
last you shall never want.'

And so he bade me sit down and write a letter to my mother, which I
did forthwith in very sincere and repentant terms, stating that I
had been guilty of extravagances, that I had not known until that
moment under what a fatal error I had been labouring, and that I had
embarked for Germany as a volunteer. The letter was scarcely
finished when the pilot sang out that he was going on shore; and he
departed, taking with him, from many an anxious fellow besides
myself, our adieux to friends in old Ireland.

Although I was called Captain Barry for many years of my life, and
have been known as such by the first people of Europe, yet I may as
well confess I had no more claim to the title than many a gentleman
who assumes it, and never had a right to an epaulet, or to any
military decoration higher than a corporal's stripe of worsted. I
was made corporal by Fagan during our voyage to the Elbe, and my
rank was confirmed on TERRA FIRMA. I was promised a halbert, too,
and afterwards, perhaps, an ensigncy, if I distinguished myself; but
Fate did not intend that I should remain long an English soldier: as
shall appear presently. Meanwhile, our passage was very favourable;
my adventures were told by Fagan to his brother officers, who
treated me with kindness; and my victory over the big chairman
procured me respect from my comrades of the fore-deck. Encouraged
and strongly exhorted by Fagan, I did my duty resolutely; but,
though affable and good-humoured with the men, I never at first
condescended to associate with such low fellows: and, indeed, was
called generally amongst them 'my Lord.' I believe it was the ex-
link-boy, a facetious knave, who gave me the title; and I felt that
I should become such a rank as well as any peer in the kingdom.

It would require a greater philosopher and historian than I am to
explain the causes of the famous Seven Years' War in which Europe
was engaged; and, indeed, its origin has always appeared to me to be
so complicated, and the books written about it so amazingly hard to
understand, that I have seldom been much wiser at the end of a
chapter than at the beginning, and so shall not trouble my reader
with any personal disquisitions concerning the matter. All I know
is, that after His Majesty's love of his Hanoverian dominions had
rendered him most unpopular in his English kingdom, with Mr. Pitt at
the head of the anti-German war-party, all of a sudden, Mr. Pitt
becoming Minister, the rest of the empire applauded the war as much
as they had hated it before. The victories of Dettingen and Crefeld
were in every-body's mouths, and 'the Protestant hero,' as we used
to call the godless old Frederick of Prussia, was adored by us as a
saint, a very short time after we had been about to make war against
him in alliance with the Empress-queen. Now, somehow, we were on
Frederick's side: the Empress, the French, the Swedes, and the
Russians, were leagued against us; and I remember, when the news of
the battle of Lissa came even to our remote quarter of Ireland, we
considered it as a triumph for the cause of Protestantism, and
illuminated and bonfired, and had a sermon at church, and kept the
Prussian king's birthday; on which my uncle would get drunk: as
indeed on any other occasion. Most of the low fellows enlisted with
myself were, of course, Papists (the English army was filled with
such, out of that never-failing country of ours), and these,
forsooth, were fighting the battles of Protestantism with Frederick;
who was belabouring the Protestant Swedes and the Protestant Saxons,
as well as the Russians of the Greek Church, and the Papist troops
of the Emperor and the King of France. It was against these latter
that the English auxiliaries were employed, and we know that, be the
quarrel what it may, an Englishman and a Frenchman are pretty
willing to make a fight of it.

We landed at Cuxhaven, and before I had been a month in the
Electorate I was transformed into a tall and proper young soldier,
and having a natural aptitude for military exercise, was soon as
accomplished at the drill as the oldest sergeant in the regiment. It
is well, however, to dream of glorious war in a snug arm-chair at
home; ay, or to make it as an officer, surrounded by gentlemen,
gorgeously dressed, and cheered by chances of promotion. But those
chances do not shine on poor fellows in worsted lace: the rough
texture of our red coats made me ashamed when I saw an officer go
by; my soul used to shudder when, on going the rounds, I would hear
their voices as they sat jovially over the mess-table; my pride
revolted at being obliged to plaster my hair with flour and candle-
grease, instead of using the proper pomatum for a gentleman. Yes, my
tastes have always been high and fashionable, and I loathed the
horrid company in which I was fallen. What chances had I of
promotion? None of my relatives had money to buy me a commission,
and I became soon so low-spirited, that I longed for a general
action and a ball to finish me, and vowed that I would take some
opportunity to desert.

When I think that I, the descendant of the kings of Ireland, was
threatened with a caning by a young scoundrel who had just joined
from Eton College--when I think that he offered to make me his
footman, and that I did not, on either occasion, murder him! On the
first occasion I burst into tears (I do not care to own it) and had
serious thoughts of committing suicide, so great was my
mortification. But my kind friend Fagan came to my aid in the
circumstance, with some very timely consolation. 'My poor boy,' said
he, 'you must not take the matter to heart so. Caning is only a
relative disgrace. Young Ensign Fakenham was flogged himself at Eton
School only a month ago: I would lay a wager that his scars are not
yet healed. You must cheer up, my boy; do your duty, be a gentleman,
and no serious harm can fall on you.' And I heard afterwards that my
champion had taken Mr. Fakenham very severely to task for this
threat, and said to him that any such proceedings for the future he
should consider as an insult to himself; whereon the young ensign
was, for the moment, civil. As for the sergeants, I told one of
them, that if any man struck me, no matter who he might be, or what
the penalty, I would take his life. And, 'faith! there was an air of
sincerity in my speech which convinced the whole bevy of them; and
as long as I remained in the English service no rattan was ever laid
on the shoulders of Redmond Barry. Indeed, I was in that savage
moody state, that my mind was quite made up to the point, and I
looked to hear my own dead march played as sure as I was alive. When
I was made a corporal, some of my evils were lessened; I messed with
the sergeants by special favour, and used to treat them to drink,
and lose money to the rascals at play: with which cash my good
friend Mr. Fagan punctually supplied me.

Our regiment, which was quartered about Stade and Luneburg, speedily
got orders to march southwards towards the Rhine, for news came that
our great General, Prince Ferdinand of Brunswick, had been defeated-
no, not defeated, but foiled in his attack upon the French under the
Duke of Broglio, at Bergen, near Frankfort-on-the-Main, and had been
obliged to fall back. As the allies retreated the French rushed
forward, and made a bold push for the Electorate of our gracious
monarch in Hanover, threatening that they would occupy it; as they
had done before, when D'Estrees beat the hero of Culloden, the
gallant Duke of Cumberland, and caused him to sign the capitulation
of Closter Zeven. An advance upon Hanover always caused a great
agitation in the Royal bosom of the King of England; more troops
were sent to join us, convoys of treasure were passed over to our
forces, and to our ally's the King of Prussia; and although, in
spite of all assistance, the army under Prince Ferdinand was very
much weaker than that of the invading enemy, yet we had the
advantage of better supplies, one of the greatest Generals in the
world: and, I was going to add, of British valour, but the less we
say about THAT the better. My Lord George Sackville did not exactly
cover himself with laurels at Minden; otherwise there might have
been won there one of the greatest victories of modern times.

Throwing himself between the French and the interior of the
Electorate, Prince Ferdinand wisely took possession of the free town
of Bremen, which he made his storehouse and place of arms; and round
which he gathered all his troops, making ready to fight the famous
battle of Minden.

Were these Memoirs not characterised by truth, and did I deign to
utter a single word for which my own personal experience did not
give me the fullest authority, I might easily make myself the hero
of some strange and popular adventures, and, after the fashion of
novel-writers, introduce my reader to the great characters of this
remarkable time. These persons (I mean the romance-writers), if they
take a drummer or a dustman for a hero, somehow manage to bring him
in contact with the greatest lords and most notorious personages of
the empire; and I warrant me there's not one of them but, in
describing the battle of Minden, would manage to bring Prince
Ferdinand, and my Lord George Sackville, and my Lord Granby, into
presence. It would have been easy for me to have SAID I was present
when the orders were brought to Lord George to charge with the
cavalry and finish the rout of the Frenchmen, and when he refused to
do so, and thereby spoiled the great victory. But the fact is, I was
two miles off from the cavalry when his Lordship's fatal hesitation
took place, and none of us soldiers of the line knew of what had
occurred until we came to talk about the fight over our kettles in
the evening, and repose after the labours of a hard-fought day. I
saw no one of higher rank that day than my colonel and a couple of
orderly officers riding by in the smoke--no one on our side, that
is. A poor corporal (as I then had the, disgrace of being) is not
generally invited into the company of commanders and the great; but,
in revenge, I saw, I promise you, some very good company on the
FRENCH part, for their regiments of Lorraine and Royal Cravate were
charging us all day; and in THAT sort of MELEE high and low are
pretty equally received. I hate bragging, but I cannot help saying
that I made a very close acquaintance with the colonel of the
Cravates; for I drove my bayonet into his body, and finished off a
poor little ensign, so young, slender, and small, that a blow from
my pigtail would have despatched him, I think, in place of the butt
of my musket, with which I clubbed him down. I killed, besides, four
more officers and men, and in the poor ensign's pocket found a purse
of fourteen louis-d'or, and a silver box of sugar-plums; of which
the former present was very agreeable to me. If people would tell
their stories of battles in this simple way, I think the cause of
truth would not suffer by it. All I know of this famous fight of
Minden (except from books) is told here above. The ensign's silver
bon-bon box and his purse of gold; the livid face of the poor fellow
as he fell; the huzzas of the men of my company as I went out under
a smart fire and rifled him; their shouts and curses as we came hand
in hand with the Frenchmen,--these are, in truth, not very dignified
recollections, and had best be passed over briefly. When my kind
friend Fagan was shot, a brother captain, and his very good friend,
turned to Lieutenant Rawson and said, 'Fagan's down; Rawson, there's
your company.' It was all the epitaph my brave patron got. 'I should
have left you a hundred guineas, Redmond,' were his last words to
me, 'but for a cursed run of ill luck last night at faro.' And he
gave me a faint squeeze of the hand; then, as the word was given to
advance, I left him. When we came back to our old ground, which we
presently did, he was lying there still; but he was dead. Some of
our people had already torn off his epaulets, and, no doubt, had
rifled his purse. Such knaves and ruffians do men in war become! It
is well for gentlemen to talk of the age of chivalry; but remember
the starving brutes whom they lead--men nursed in poverty, entirely
ignorant, made to take a pride in deeds of blood--men who can have
no amusement but in drunkenness, debauch, and plunder. It is with
these shocking instruments that your great warriors and kings have
been doing their murderous work in the world; and while, for
instance, we are at the present moment admiring the 'Great
Frederick,' as we call him, and his philosophy, and his liberality,
and his military genius, I, who have served him, and been, as it
were, behind the scenes of which that great spectacle is composed,
can only look at it with horror. What a number of items of human
crime, misery, slavery, go to form that sum-total of glory! I can
recollect a certain day about three weeks after the battle of
Minden, and a farmhouse in which some of us entered; and how the old
woman and her daughters served us, trembling, to wine; and how we
got drunk over the wine, and the house was in a flame, presently;
and woe betide the wretched fellow afterwards who came home to look
for his house and his children!

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28