Volume Ii Part 4 (1/2)
And troth yeez shant want for paper and paste to hide and cover your dainty devices in caase any body should come in, he must needs admire the nateness of your apartment.”
”Sawing iron! ah,” said Doctor M'Kenzie, ”that is a harsh and grating amus.e.m.e.nt!” And then turning to the man of war, he said:
”They little know what ills environ The man who meddles with cold iron!”
The colonel frowned, and seemed displeased.
The honest-hearted Phelim O'Neale, for such he was with all his faults and transgressions to boot, now bade a good night to his imprisoned friends, as he called them; and then whispered aside, that on the ensuing morow he would beg the favour to make his confessions to the Reverend Clerk what time the apartment should be ready for his gallant friend, which was under preparation, and would be ready to receive him early upon the following morning. He then bowed, and wished them all ”a very good night's repose.”
CHAPTER IV.
--------In brief, he is a rogue of six reprieves, four pardons of course; thrice pilloried, twice sung _Lachrymae_ to the virginals of a cat's tail; he has been five times in the galleys, and will never truly run himself out of breath till he comes to the gallows.
THE FAIR MAID OF THE INN.
”Now, holy and most Riverend Sir, that my eyes are blessed with seeing your benevolent visage once more,” said Phelim O'Neale, ”and that I behold you in these sad towers, the abode of crime and of guilt, which indeed never belonged to you, and that we are in private, with your riverend permission, I will make my confission unto you. Don't your reverence remember me?”
”Not I, in sooth.”
”What! not remember Phelim O'Neale?”
”Not I, in sooth, honest Mr. Phelim O'Neale.”
”Oh, baring (excepting) _honest_; that any how for the present we will pa.s.s by. But, holy Father, if you knew but all, you have far too many reasons not to forget me! Do you not remember that you stood by me during my last moments, and gave me the holy ritals of the church?”
”What do I hear! Stood by you in your last moments, and gave you the holy rituals of the church! and here you are!! The poor man is deranged--quite crazed. You are beside yourself, Mr. Phelim (without _honest_) O'Neale!”
”Nay, nay, Riverend Father, I am _beside you_, or rather forenent you.
Do you not remember, your Riverence, that some tin years ago (small blame howsomdever to your Riverence any how, for grate razon you have, in troth, to remember Phelim O'Neale, if you knew but all!)--well, as I said, some tin years ago you attended me at the gaol of Tyrconnel in my last moments; you were present when I was hanged--ay, regularly hanged!!”
”Hanged! hanged!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Doctor M'Kenzie; ”and yet you are here!--You speak, you address me! How is this? It is madness all!”
”Not so neither, craving your excellent Riverence's pardon; I was tried for high-way robbery at the a.s.sizes of Tyrconnel;[18] I then most justly was found guilty, and cond.a.m.nified by the circuit-going judge, Justice Joc.u.m, to be hanged. And sure enough, by my sowl, hanged I fairly was--no doubt whatever of it! That is to say the hangman did his part, as the judge and jury had before done theirs; and my friends did the rest. Och, they did their part, sure enough--long life to them for the same! At that most memorable 'pocha of my life--or death! as it was by all supposed, thought, and credited, your worthy and excellent Riverence attended me in my last sad and awful moments. Thin you saw me mount the fatal ladder; the hangman gave me a hempen cravat, which, in troth, I but too well desarved! and the ladder having been suddenly taken away, I made a spring, and, as all thought, I jumpt into itirnity. But you remimber, or might remimber, that before I was launched from the fatal tree, I bouldly kicked off my brogues, and died true game. And och, may be I didn't kick them off in stylo! as much as to indiccate to my commeradoes, 'Yeez see, jewels, that I die true game; and moreover, none shall suffer in the dead man's shoes--not one of yeez! This plainly tould them all a true tale, that I had not confissed, or betrayed any of them by a cowardly disacknowledgment.”
[18] Now, anno salutis 1822, called Donegal.
”Oh, shame, shame!” rejoined Doctor M'Kenzie, ”kicking off your brogues upon the scaffold, on the confines of eternity, in the sad and solemn hour of death and suffering for crime! Oh, shame, shame! What blasphemy--what hardness of heart, and perversity of head! Detestable and abominable folly and wickedness. Why, I say, man, if you were upon the stage of a mountebank, performing pantomime tricks, to please and gull the stupid populace, such a proceeding would be indecent, indecorous, and irreligious; how much more so then, when parting from the stage of human life, branded with crime, and condemned by the voice of justice and the offended laws of your country! I cry shame upon such indecency, such horrible levity, upon so solemn and so awful an occasion as the departure of a guilty culprit (and guilty too by his own confession) from life to eternity, to answer in another world, before an offended G.o.d, for the crimes committed in this!”
”So may it plaze your Riverence, troth it was no livity at all, at all; but merely a sort of sharp signal or freemason's sign to my comrades that I had died intripid, and true to them, not having betrayed one of the gang, or club, as we called it. And now once more I am alive again, to repint anew of the same, which I most sartinly do.”
”Ay, indeed!--Are you sure of that, Mr. Phelim O'Neale? Can I depend upon your living word, when your dying one was false? A proof, a proof; give me a proof, and then I shall give credence to you.”
Phelim slowly drawing forth a watch from his fob: ”It is here, holy Father! this is my proof. This watch was yours, became mine by the chance of war, or rapine, and now I restore it--it is yours again! Your Riverence will examine it: the maker's name, your chain, your seals--you cannot forget them any how?”
”Yes, yes, I must confess that is, or was my watch; the ident.i.ty of that I cannot possibly gainsay. And if you can make out that it was you who deprived me of it, and that now again restore it, why a.s.suredly I shall then confess that you are _certes_ the honestest man in your calling that I have ever met with. But, Mr. Phelim O'Neale, I have a question to propose, and upon your answer to it will depend my credence of what now you say. Pray, _if_ (I say _if_) hanged, how were you restored to life.
A watch may be found, and a watch can be wound--may be stolen, and may be restored, but the vital spring of life is not so easily renovated.--Come, to the point.”
”Your Riverence must then know, that I was cut down by my friends, and through their means restored to life, after having, to all appearance, fallen a forfeit to the law.”