Previous - next
and they'll fall in love with a chimney-sweep. There was a young
lady in Fermoy'--
'A young lady in flames,' roared I (but I used a still hotter word).
'Mark this; come what will of it, I swear I'll fight the man who
pretends to the hand of Nora Brady. I'll follow him, if it's into
the church, and meet him there. I'll have his blood, or he shall
have mine; and this riband shall be found dyed in it. Yes, and if I
kill him, I'll pin it on his breast, and then she may go and take
back her token.' This I said because I was very much excited at the
time, and because I had not read novels and romantic plays for
nothing.
'Well,' says Fagan after a pause, 'if it must be, it must. For a
young fellow, you are the most blood-thirsty I ever saw. Quin's a
determined fellow, too.'
'Will you take my message to him?' said I, quite eagerly.
'Hush!' said Fagan: 'your mother may be on the look-out. Here we
are, close to Barryville.'
'Mind! not a word to my mother,' I said; and went into the house
swelling with pride and exultation to think that I should have a
chance against the Englishman I hated so.
Tim, my servant, had come up from Barryville on my mother's return
from church; for the good lady was rather alarmed at my absence, and
anxious for my return. But he had seen me go in to dinner, at the
invitation of the sentimental lady's-maid; and when he had had his
own share of the good things in the kitchen, which was always better
furnished than ours at home, had walked back again to inform his
mistress where I was, and, no doubt, to tell her, in his own
fashion, of all the events that had happened at Castle Brady. In
spite of my precautions to secrecy, then, I half suspected that my
mother knew all, from the manner in which she embraced me on my
arrival, and received our guest, Captain Fagan. The poor soul looked
a little anxious and flushed, and every now and then gazed very hard
in the Captain's face; but she said not a word about the quarrel,
for she had a noble spirit, and would as lief have seen anyone of
her kindred hanged as shirking from the field of honour. What has
become of those gallant feelings nowadays? Sixty years ago a man was
a MAN, in old Ireland, and the sword that was worn by his side was
at the service of any gentleman's gizzard, upon the slightest
difference. But the good old times and usages are fast fading away.
One scarcely every hears of a fair meeting now, and the use of those
cowardly pistols, in place of the honourable and manly weapon of
gentlemen, has introduced a deal of knavery into the practice of
duelling, that cannot be sufficiently deplored.
When I arrived at home I felt that I was a man in earnest, and
welcoming Captain Fagan to Barryville, and introducing him to my
mother, in a majestic and dignified way, said the Captain must be
thirsty after his walk, and called upon Tim to bring up a bottle of
the yellow-sealed Bordeaux, and cakes and glasses, immediately.
Tim looked at the mistress in great wonderment: and the fact is,
Previous - next
