Volume I Part 11 (1/2)
”You 'll shurely look at my claims--”
”Not one of them.”
”Nor the bills.”
”No.”
”Nor the vouchers?”
”No.”
”Oh dear! oh dear! how hard you are grown; and you so young and so handsome, so little like--”
”Never mind the resemblance, but answer me. How much?”
”It 's impossible, my Lord Shorge!” ”Will two hundred do? Well, two fifty?” ”No, nor twelve fifty, my Lord. I will have my claim.” ”That 's what I want to come at, Lazzy. How much?” This process goes on for half an hour, without any apparent result on either side; when, at last, Lord George, taking out his pocket-book, proceeds to count various bank-notes on the table. The effect is magical; the sight of the money melts Lazarus,--he hesitates, and gives in. Of course his compliance does not cost him much; fifty per cent is the very lowest we escape for! But even at this, Tom, our bargain is a good one.
I see it all, Tom; they are bent on getting to a watering-place, and that's exactly the very thing I won't stand. Our Irish notions on these subjects are all taken from Bundoran, or Kilkee, or Dunmore, or some such localities; and where, to say the least, there is not a great deal to find fault with. Tiresome they are enough; and, after a week or so, one gets wearied of always walking over ankles in deep sand, listening to the plash of the tide, or the less musical squall of some half-drowned baby, or sitting on a rock to watch some miraculous draught of fishes, that is sure to be sent off some twenty miles into the interior. These, and occasional pictorial studies of your acquaintances, in all the fascinations of oil-skin caps and wet drapery, tire at last.
But they are cheap pleasures, Tom; and, as the world goes, that is something.
Now, from all I can learn, for I know nothing of them myself, your foreign watering-place is just a big city taking an airing. The self-same habits of dress, late hours, play, dancing, debt, and dissipation; the great difference being that wickedness is cultivated in straw hats and Russia-duck, instead of its more conventional costume of black coat and trousers! From my own brief experience of life, I think a garden by moonlight is just as dangerous as a conservatory with colored lamps; and a polka in public is less perilous than a mountain excursion, even on donkeys! They 'll not catch me at that game, Tom!
I have just discovered in ”Cochrane's Guide”--for I have burned my ”John Murray”--the very place to suit me,--Bonn on the Rhine. He says it has a pleasant appearance, and contains 1,300 houses and 15,000 inhabitants, and that the Star, kept by one Schmidt, is reasonable, and that he speaks English, and takes in the ”Galignani,”--two evidences of civilization not to be despised.
I think I see you smile; but that's the fact,--we come abroad to hunt after somebody we can talk to, or find a newspaper we can read, making actual luxuries of what we had every day at home for nothing.
Besides these, Bonn has a university, and that will be a great thing for James, and masters of various kinds for the girls; but, better than all this, there's no society, no b.a.l.l.s, no dinners, no theatre. The only places of public amus.e.m.e.nt are the Cathedral and the Anatomy House; and even Mrs. D. will be puzzled to get up a jinketing in them.
I 'll write to Schmidt this evening about rooms, and I 'll show him that we are not to be ”done,” like your newly arrived Bulls; for I won't pay more than ”four-and-six” a head for dinner; and plenty it is too. I wish we could have remained here; but now that the doctors have decided against it, there's no help. It is not that I liked the place,--Heaven knows I have no right to be pleased with it,--but I 'll tell you one great advantage about it: it was actually ”breaking them all in to hate the Continent;” another month of this tinkering din, this tiresome _table d'hote_, and wearisome existence, and I 'd wager a trifle they 'd agree to any terms to get away. You 'd not believe your eyes if you saw how they are altered. The girls so thin, and no color in their cheeks; James as lank as a greyhound, and always as if half asleep; and myself, pluffy and full and short-winded, irascible about everything, and always thirsty, without anything wholesome to drink. But I 'd bear it all, Tom, for the result, or for what I at least expect the result would be. I 'd submit to it like a course of physic, looking to the cure for my recompense.
Shall I now tell you, Tom, that I have my misgivings about Mrs. D.'s illness? I was pa.s.sing the lobby last night, and I heard her laughing as heartily as ever she did in her life, though it was only two hours before she had sent down for the man of the house to witness her will.
To be sure, she always does make a will whenever she takes to bed; but this time she went further, and had a grand leave-taking of us all, which I only escaped by being wrapped up in blankets, under the ”influence,” as the doctors call it, of ”tartarized antimony,” of which I partook, to satisfy her scruples, before she would taste it. If I have to perform much longer as a pilot balloon, Tom, I 'm thinking I 'm very likely to explode.
As for one word of truth from the doctors, I 'm not such a fool as to expect it. The priest or the physician that attends your wife always seems to regard _you_ as a natural enemy. If he happen to be well bred, he conducts himself with all the observance due to a distinguished opponent; but no confidence, Tom,--nothing candid. He never forgets that he is engaged for the ”opposite party.”
Your foreign doctor, too, is a dreadful animal. He has not the bland look, the soft smile, the noiseless slide, the snowy s.h.i.+rt-frill, and the tender squeeze of the hand, of our own fellows, every syllable of whose honeyed lips seems like a lenitive electuary made vocal. He is a mean, scrubby, little, damp-looking chap, not unlike the bit of dirty cotton in the bottom of an ink-bottle, the incarnation of black draught and a bitter mixture. He won't poison you, however, for his treatment ranges between dill-water and syrup of gum; in fact, to use the expressive phrase of the French, he only comes to ”a.s.sist” at your death, and not to cause it. I have remarked that h.o.m.oopathic fellows are more attentive to the outward man than the others, whatever be the reason. Their beards and whiskers are certainly not cut on the infinitesimal principle, and, a.s.suredly, flattery is one of the medicaments they never administer in small doses. By the way, Tom, I wish this same theory could be applied to the distresses of a man's estate as well as that of his body. It would be a right comfortable thing to pay off one's mortgagees with fractional parts of a halfpenny, and get rid of one's creditors on the ”decillionth” scale.
I have now finished my paper, and I have just discovered that I have not answered one of your questions about home affairs; but, after all, does it matter much, Tom? Things in Ireland go their own way, however we may strive to direct and control them. In fact, I am half disposed to think we ought to manage our business on the principle that our countryman drove his pig,--turning his head towards Cork because he wanted him to go to Fermoy! Look at us at this moment. We never were so thoroughly divided as since we have enjoyed the benefits of a united education!
If Tullylicknaslatterley must be sold, see that it is soon done; for if we put it off till November, the boys will be shooting somebody, or doing some infernal folly or other, that will take five years off the purchase-money. These Manchester fellows are always so terrified at what is called an outrage! Sure, if they had the least knowledge of the doctrine of chances, they 'd see that the estate where a man was shot was exactly the place there would be no more mischief for many a year to come. The only spot where accidents are always recurring is the drop in front of a jail.
Try and persuade the Englishman to take Dodsborough for another year.
Tell him Ireland is looking up, prices are improving, &c. If he be Hibernian in his leanings, show him how teachable Paddy is,--how disposed to learn, and how grateful for instruction. If he be bitten by the ”Times,” tell him that the Irish are all emigrating, and that in three years there will neither be a Pat, a priest, nor a potato to be seen. As old Fitzgibbon used to say on our circuit, ”I wish I had a hundred pounds to argue it either way!”
I can manage to keep afloat for a couple of weeks, but be sure to remit me something by that time.
Yours, ever sincerely,
Kenny I. Dodd.