Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated)

by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

  Blarden consulted his huge gold watch. “It’s eleven o’clock now, every minute of it, and he’s not come — hoity toity rather, I should say, all things considered. I thought he was better up to his game by this time — but no matter — I’ll give him a lesson just now.”

  As if for the express purpose of further irritating Mr. Blarden’s already by no means angelic temper, several parties, composed of second-rate sporting characters, all laughing, swearing, joking, betting, whistling, and by every device, contriving together to produce as much clatter and uproar as it was possible to do, successively entered the place.

  “Well, Nicky, boy, how does the world wag with you?” inquired a dapper little fellow, approaching Blarden with a kind of brisk, hopping gait, and coaxingly digging that gentleman’s ribs with the butt of his silver-mounted whip.

  “What the devil brings all these chaps here at this hour?” inquired Blarden.

  “Soft is your horn, old boy,” rejoined his acquaintance, in the same arch strain of pleasantry; “two regular good mains to be fought to-day — tough ones, I promise you — Fermanagh Dick against Long White — fifty birds each — splendid fowls, I’m told — great betting — it will come off in little more than an hour.”

  “I don’t care if it never comes off,” rejoined Blarden; “I’m waiting for a chap that ought to have been here half an hour ago. Rot him, I’m sick waiting.”

  “Well, come, I’ll tell you how we’ll pass the time. I’ll toss you for guineas, as many tosses as you like,” rejoined the small gentleman, accommodatingly. “What do you say — is it a go?”

  “Sit down, then,” replied Blarden; “sit down, can’t you? and begin.”

  Accordingly the two friends proceeded to recreate themselves thus pleasantly. Mr. Blarden’s luck was decidedly bad, and he had been already “physicked,” as his companion playfully remarked, to the amount of some five-and-twenty guineas, and his temper had become in a corresponding degree affected, when he observed Sir Henry Ashwoode, jaded, haggard, and with dress disordered, approaching the place where he sat.

  “Blarden, we had better leave this place,” said Ashwoode, glancing round at the crowded benches; “there’s too much noise here. What say you?”

  “What do I say?” rejoined Blarden, in his very loudest and most insolent tone— “I say you have made an appointment and broke it, so stand there till it’s my convenience to talk to you — that’s all.”

  Ashwoode felt his blood tingling in his veins with fury as he observed the sneering significant faces of those who, attracted by the loud tones of Nicholas Blarden, watched the effect of his insolence upon its object. He heard conversations subside into whispers and titters among the low scoundrels who enjoyed his humiliation; yet he dared not answer Blarden as he would have given worlds at that moment to have done, and with the extremest difficulty restrained himself from rushing among the vile rabble who exulted in his degradation, and compelling them at least to respect and fear him. While he stood thus with compressed lips and a face pale as ashes with rage, irresolute what course to take, one of the coins for which Blarden played rolled along the table, and thence along the floor for some distance.

  “Go, fetch that guinea — jump, will you?” cried Blarden, in the same boisterous and intentionally insolent tone. “What are you standing there for, like a stick? Pick it up, sir.”

  Ashwoode did not move, and an universal titter ran round the spectators, whose attention was now effectually enlisted.

  “Do what I order you — do it this moment. D —— your audacity, you had better do it,” said Blarden, dashing his clenched fist on the table so as to make the coin thereon jump and jingle.

  Still Ashwoode remained resolutely fixed, trembling in every joint with very passion; prudence told him that he ought to leave the place instantly, but pride and obstinacy, or his evil angel, held him there.

  The sneering whispers of the crowd, who now pressed more nearly round them in the hope of some amusement, became more and more loud and distinct, and the words, “white feather,” “white liver,” “muff,” “cur,” and other terms of a like import reached Ashwoode’s ear. Furious at the contumacy of his wretched slave, and determined to overbear and humble him, Blarden exclaimed in a tone of ferocious menace, —

  “Do as I bid you, you cursed, insolent upstart — pick up that coin, and give it to me — or by the laws, you’ll shake for it.”

  Still Ashwoode moved not.

  “Do as I bid you, you robbing swindler,” shouted he, with an oath too appalling for our pages, and again rising, and stamping on the floor, “or I’ll give you to the crows.”

  The titter which followed this menace was unexpectedly interrupted. The young man’s aspect changed; the blood rushed in livid streams to his face; his dark eyes blazed with deadly fire; and, like the bursting of a storm, all the gathering rage and vengeance of weeks in one tremendous moment found vent. With a spring like that of a tiger, he rushed upon his persecutor, and before the astonished spectators could interfere, he had planted his clenched fists dozens of times, with furious strength, in Blarden’s face. Utterly destitute of personal courage, the wretch, though incomparably a more powerful man than his light-limbed antagonist, shrank back, stunned and affrighted, under the shower of blows, and stumbled and fell over a wooden stool. With murderous resolution, Ashwoode instantly drew his sword, and another moment would have witnessed the last of Blarden’s life, had not several persons thrown themselves between that person and his frantic assailant.

  “Hold back,” cried one. “The man’s down — don’t murder him.”

  “Down with him — he’s mad!” cried another; “brain him with the stool.”

  “Hold his arm, some of you, or he’ll murder the man!” shouted a third, “hold him, will you?”

  Overpowered by numbers, with his face lacerated and his clothes torn, and his naked sword still in his hand, Ashwoode struggled and foamed, and actually howled, to reach his abhorred enemy — glaring like a baffled beast upon his prey.

  “Send for constables, quick — quick, I say,” shouted Blarden, with a frantic imprecation, his face all bleeding under his recent discipline.

  “Let me go — let me go, I tell you, or by the father that made me, I’ll send my sword through half-a-dozen of you,” almost shrieked Ashwoode.

  “Hold him — hold him fast — consume you, hold him back!” shouted Blarden; “he’s a forger! — run for constables!”

  Several did run in various directions for peace officers.

  “Wring the sword from his hand, why don’t you?” cried one; “cut it out of his hand with a knife!”

  “Knock him down! — down with him! Hold on!”

  Amid such exclamations, Ashwoode at length succeeded, by several desperate efforts, in extricating himself from those who held him; and without hat, and with clothes rent to fragments in the scuffle, and his face and hands all torn and bleeding, still carrying his naked sword in his hand, he rushed from the room, and, followed at a respectable distance by several of those who had witnessed the scuffle, and by his distracted appearance attracting the wondering gaze of those who traversed the streets, he ran recklessly onward to the “Cock and Anchor.”

  CHAPTER LXIX.

  THE BOLTED WINDOW.

  Followed at some distance by a wondering crowd, he entered the inn-yard, where, for the first time, he checked his flight, and returned his sword to the scabbard.

  “Here, ostler, groom — quickly, here!” cried Ashwoode. “In the devil’s name, where are you?”

  The ostler presented himself, gazing in unfeigned astonishment at the distracted, pale, and bleeding figure before him.

  “Where have you put my horse?” said Ashwoode.

  “The boy’s whisping him down in the back stable, your honour,” replied he.

  “Have him saddled and bridled in three seconds,” said Ashwoode, striding before the man towards the place indicated. “I’ll make it worth your while. My life — my life depend
s on it!”

  “Never fear,” said the fellow, quickening his pace, “may I never buckle a strap if I don’t.”

  With these words, they entered the stable together, but the horse was not there.

  “Confound them, they brought him to the dark stable, I suppose,” said the groom, impatiently. “Come along, sir.”

  “‘Sdeath! it will be too late! Quick! — quick, man! — in the fiend’s name, be quick!” said Ashwoode, glaring fearfully towards the entrance to the inn-yard.

  Their visit to the second stable was not more satisfactory.

  “Where the devil’s Sir Henry Ashwoode’s horse?” inquired the groom, addressing a fellow who was seated on an oat-bin, drumming listlessly with his heels upon its sides, and smoking a pipe the while— “where’s the horse?” repeated he.

  The man first satisfied his curiosity by a leisurely view of Ashwoode’s disordered dress and person, and then removed his pipe deliberately from his mouth, and spat upon the ground.

  “Where’s Sir Henry’s horse?” he repeated. “Why, Jim took him out a quarter of an hour ago, walking down towards the Poddle there. I’m thinking he’ll be back soon now.”

  “Saddle a horse — any horse — only let him be sure and fleet,” cried Ashwoode, “and I’ll pay you his price thrice over!”

  “Well, it’s a bargain,” replied the groom, promptly; “I don’t like to see a gentleman caught in a hobble, if I can help him out of it. Take my advice, though, and duck your head under the water in the trough there; your face is full of blood and dust, and couldn’t but be noticed wherever you went.”

  While the groom was with marvellous celerity preparing the horse which he selected for the young man’s service, Ashwoode, seeing the reasonableness of his advice, ran to the large trough full of water which stood before the pump in the inn-yard; but as he reached it, he perceived the entrance of some four or five persons into the little quadrangle whom, at a glance, he discovered to be constables.

  “That’s him — he’s our bird! After him! — there he goes!” cried several voices.

  Ashwoode sprang up the stairs of the gallery which, as in most old inns, overhung the yard. He ran along it, and rushed into the first passage which opened from it. This he traversed with his utmost speed, and reached a chamber door. It was fastened; but hurling himself against it with his whole weight, he burst it open, the hoarse voices of his pursuers, and their heavy tread, ringing in his ears. He ran directly to the casement; it looked out upon a narrow by-lane. He strove to open it, that he might leap down upon the pavement, but it resisted his efforts; and, driven to bay, and hearing the steps at the very door of the chamber, he turned about and drew his sword.

  “Come, no sparring,” cried the foremost, a huge fellow in a great coat, and with a bludgeon in his hand; “give in quietly; you’re regularly caged.”

  As the fellow advanced, Ashwoode met him with a thrust of his sword. The constable partly threw it up with his hand, but it entered the fleshy part of his arm, and came out near his shoulder blade.

  “Murder! murder! — help! help!” shouted the man, staggering back, while two or three more of his companions thrust themselves in at the door.

  Ashwoode had hardly disengaged his sword, when a tremendous blow upon the knuckles with a bludgeon dashed it from his grasp, and almost at the same instant, he received a second blow upon the head, which felled him to the ground, insensible, and weltering in blood, the execrations and uproar of his assailants still ringing in his ears.

  “Lift him on the bed. Pull off his cravat. By the hoky, he’s done for. Devil a kick in him. Open his vest. Are you hurted, Crotty? Get some water and spirits, some of yees, an’ a towel. Begorra, we just nicked him. He’s an active chap. See, he’s opening his mouth and his eyes. Hould him, Teague, for he’s the devil’s bird. Never mind it, Crotty. Devil a fear of you. Tear open the shirt. Bedad, it was close shaving. Give him a drop iv the brandy. Never a fear of you, old bulldog.”

  These and such broken sentences from fifty voices filled the little chamber where Ashwoode lay in dull and ghastly insensibility after his recent deadly struggle, while some stuped the wounds of the combatants with spirits and water, and others applied the same medicaments to their own interiors, and all talked loud and fast together, as men are apt to do after scenes of excitement.

  We need not follow Ashwoode through the dreadful preliminaries which terminated in his trial. In vain did he implore an interview with Nicholas Blarden, his relentless prosecutor. It were needless to enter into the evidence for the prosecution, and that for the defence, together with the points made arguments, and advanced by the opposing counsel; it is enough to know that the case was conducted with much ability on both sides, and that the jury, having deliberated for more than an hour, at length found the verdict which we shall just now state. A baronet in the dock was too novel an exhibition to fail in drawing a full attendance, and the consequence was, that never was known such a crowd of human beings in a compass so small as that which packed the court-house upon this memorable occasion.

  Throughout the whole proceedings, Sir Henry Ashwoode, though deadly pale, conducted himself with singular coolness and self-possession, frequently suggesting questions to his counsel, and watching the proceedings apparently with a mind as disengaged from every agitating consciousness of personal danger as that of any of the indifferent but curious bystanders who looked on. He was handsomely dressed, and in his degraded and awful situation preserved, nevertheless, in his outward mien and attire, the dignity of his rank and former pretensions. As is invariably the case in Ireland, popular sympathy moved strongly in favour of the prisoner, a feeling of interest which the grace, beauty, and evident youth of the accused, as well as his high rank — for the Irish have ever been an aristocratic race — served much to enhance; and when the case closed, and the jury retired after an adverse charge from the learned judge, to consider their verdict, perhaps Ashwoode himself would have seemed, to the careless observer, the least interested in the result of all who were assembled in that densely crowded place, to hear the final adjudication of the law. Those, however, who watched him more narrowly could observe, in this dreadful interval, that he raised his handkerchief often to his face, keeping it almost constantly at his mouth to conceal the nervous twitching of the muscles which he could not control. The eyes of the eager multitude wandered from the prisoner to the jury-box, and thence to the impassive parchment countenance of the old ermined effigy who presided at the harrowing scene, and not one ventured to speak above his breath. At length, a sound was heard at the door of the jury-box — the jury was returning. A buzz ran through the court, and then the prolonged “hish,” enjoining silence, while one by one the jurors entered and resumed their places in the box. The verdict was — Guilty.

  In reply to the usual interrogatory from the officer of the court, Sir Henry Ashwoode spoke, and though many there were moved, even to sobs and tears, yet his manner had recovered its grace and collectedness, and his voice was unbroken and musical as when it was wont to charm all hearers in the gay saloons of fashion, and splendour, and heedless folly, in other times — when he, blasted and ruined as he stood there, was the admired and courted favourite of the great and gay.

  “My lord,” said he, “I have nothing to urge which, in the strict requirements of the law, avails to abate the solemn sentence which you are about to pronounce — for my life I care not — something is, however, due to my character and the name I bear — a name, my lord, never, never except on this day, never clouded by the shadow of dishonour — a name which will yet, after I am dead and gone, be surely and entirely vindicated; vindicated, my lord, in the entire dispersion of the foul imputations and fatal contrivances under which my fame is darkened and my life is taken. Far am I from impeaching the verdict that I have just heard. I will not arraign the jurymen, nor lay to their charge that I am this day wrongfully condemned, but to the charge of those who, on that witness table, have sworn my life away — perjurers pr
ocured for money, whose exposure I leave to time, and whose punishment to God. Knowing that although my body shall ignominiously perish, and though my fame be tarnished for an hour, yet shall truth and years, with irresistible power, bring my innocence to light — rescue my character and restore the name I bear. He who stands in the shadow of death, as I do, has little to fear in human censure, and little to gather from the applause of men. My life is forfeited, and I must soon go into the presence of my Creator, to receive my everlasting doom; and in presence of that almighty and terrible God before whom I must soon stand, and as I look for mercy when He shall judge me, I declare, that of this crime, of which I am pronounced guilty, I am altogether innocent. I am a victim of a conspiracy, the motives of which my defence hath truly showed you. I never committed the crime for which I am to suffer. I repeat that I am innocent, and in witness of the truth of what I say, I appeal to my Maker and my Judge, the Eternal and Almighty God.”

  Having thus spoken, Ashwoode received his sentence, and was forthwith removed to the condemned cell.

  Ashwoode had many and influential friends, and it required but a small exercise of their good offices to procure a reprieve. He would not suffer himself to despond — no, nor for one moment to doubt his final escape from the fangs of justice. He was first reprieved for a fortnight, and before that term expired again for six weeks. In the course of the latter term, however, an event occurred which fearfully altered his chances of escape, and filled his mind with the justest and most dreadful apprehensions. This was the recall of Wharton from the viceroyalty of Ireland.

  The new lord-lieutenant could not see, in the case of the young Whig baronet, the same extenuating circumstances which had wrought so effectually upon his predecessor, Wharton. The judge who had tried the case refused to recommend the prisoner to the mercy of the Crown; and the viceroy accordingly, in his turn, refused to entertain any application for the commutation or further suspension of his sentence; and now, for the first time, Sir Henry Ashwoode felt the tremendous reality of his situation. The term for which he was reprieved had nearly expired, and he felt that the hours which separated him from the deadly offices of the hangman were numbered. Still, in this dreadful consciousness, there mingled some faint and flickering ray of hope — by its uncertain mockery rendering the terrors of his situation but the more intolerable, and by the sleepless agonies of suspense, unnerving the resolution which he might have otherwise summoned to his aid.