Chapter XXIX: Solomon Suffers a Little Retribution (2)

“Now,” proceeded Mr. Topertoe, “I may as well inform you that I have made myself thoroughly and most intimately acquainted with your conduct in all its revolting phases; I have read and transmitted to my brother two letters which passed between you and this pious gentleman, Mr. M'Slime, here, upon the subject of Messrs. M'Loughlin and Harman's property--than which, nothing more flagitious could--in the way of business, or in the performance of any public duty--enter the heart of man. Just Heaven! a poor creature, perhaps prompted by the cravings of hunger, will steal some paltry matter, not worth half a crown--perhaps a pocket-handkerchief--and forthwith out comes justice, oh, not Justice, but Law in her stead, with sword in hand, and scales most iniquitously balanced; and, lo! the unfortunate wretch is immediately dragged to a prison, and transported for life to a penal colony; whilst at the same time, rapacious villains like you, will plunder by wholesale--will wring the hearts of the poor, first by your tyranny, and afterwards rob them in their very destitution. The unhappy, struggling widow, without a husband to defend her, you would oppress, because she is helpless, and your scoundrel son would corrupt her, were she not virtuous. You would intoxicate an aged man that he might, in the unguarded moments of inebriety, surrender a valuable lease into your keeping. You would not receive your rents, except in gold, or which you made the wretched people pay, ruinous, murderous premium, by selling it but to them from day to day. You--in fact have now neither time nor patience to enumerate your monstrous corruptions and robberies, although I know them all, as you shall find ere long. There is one act, however, so refined in diabolical depravity, so deeply narked by a spirit of cowardice, revenge, and cruelty, that I might almost question whether, in the lowest depths of hell itself, anything so damnably black and satanic could originate--I allude to the plan which you conceived and got executed by your heartless, cowardly son, aided by that old woman who stands therein your presence, for ruining the stainless reputation of Mr. M'Loughlin's only daughter.”

“I can prove that,” said Poll, “and here I am ready and willing to do so.”

“In this, however, thank God, you have failed,” he continued, “yes, in this, and every other act of your villainy you have been detected, and shall be exposed and punished before the proper tribunal. It is you, sir, and such scourges of the poor and industrious classes as you, who goad the unhappy, the destitute, and despairing people into crimes that are disgraceful to the country; it is you, and such as you, who force them, maddened by your cruelty and oppression, to fall back upon revenge, when they cannot find redress or justice in the laws of the land. Unhappily the whole kingdom is studded too thickly with such men, and until property in this unfortunate country is placed upon an equal footing between landlord and tenant--until the rights and privileges of him who farms and cultivates the soil, are as well protected and secured by law as are those of the other party, so long will there be bloodshed and crime. The murderer is justly abhorred, apprehended, and punished as he ought in the sight of God and man to be: but is there no law to reach unprincipled wretches like you, whose grinding rapacity, dishonesty, and inhumanity, furnish him with the motives and incentives to the crime he commits? As for you, gentlemen, and honest men as you are,” he proceeded, addressing M'Loughlin and Harman. “you remain, of course, in your farms; you shall have reasonable and fair leases, and, what is more, your credit shall be re-established on as firm a footing as ever. You shall be enabled to resume your business on an ample scale, and that as sure as I am master of two hundred thousand pounds. And now, O'Drive, a word with you:--I have fully discovered your treachery to both M'Clutchy and M'Slime; you were a willing agent in carrying out their hard and heartless excesses. You were, in truth, a thorough bailiff, without conscience, feeling, or remorse. In no instance have you ever been known to plead for, or take the part of a poor man; so far from that, I find that you have invited and solicited their confidence, only--in case they did not satisfy your petty extortions--that you might betray them to your relentless employer, whilst, under all possible circumstances you fleeced them by threats, and acted the vampire on a small scale. You are no longer a bailiff on this estate, and I have the further satisfaction to assure you, that in consequence of a private interview I had with the new bishop, the Right Rev. Dr. Lucre, concerning your appointment to the situation of under goaler at Castle Cumber, I have succeeded in getting it cancelled; so that you are at liberty to carry your low knavery to the best market you can get for it. In all this, I am authorized by my brother, who, I trust, will soon see the erroneous notions which he entertains upon the subject of property, and his duties as landlord. You, my dear friend, Mr. Hickman--my friend, I say with pride, and the friend of the poor with still greater pride--you will have the goodness to receive from Mr. M'Clutchy and M'Slime all books and documents pertaining,to the estate, that are in their possession.”

“Well, be my sowl,” said Darby, who was the first to break the silence that followed these observations; “if you were Lord Cumber himself, instead of his brother, I'd call that same tratement of me as purty a piece of ingratitude as ever came acrass me;--me that gave you most of the information--that sould them both, I may say--an' the letthers too that convicted them, are they forgotten?”

“There is your friend and kindred spirit, Mr. M'Clutchy,” replied Mr. Topertoe, “who, only that he never forgives an injury, might get you a secret appointment among the Castle Spies and Informers, with whom, or rather it would appear, with the gentleman who drills them, he has considerable influence. It is for such a respectable corps that your talents are best adapted.”

“Of a truth,” said Solomon, “this is a turning of the tables, to use a somewhat vulgar adage. As for me, I know it is good to be purified in the furnace, and scourged with many stripes, as it is a fresh proof that I am cared for.”

Up until this moment M'Clutchy had not uttered a single syllable, but, as we have said, he trembled very much, his temples throbbed, and his brow fell. The squint in his left eye became deeper and more guilt-like. The revulsion of feeling, coming upon him so unexpectedly as it did, was dreadful, and the tumult within him quite beyond the power of language to describe.

He merely said, and this with parched lips and slow enunciation--

“Very well, Mr. Topertoe; your wishes touching the giving up of all documents connected with the property shall be duly complied with, as far as I am concerned. That, is all I choose to say just now.”

“And so far as I am concerned,” said Solomon, “I can say that mine also shall be rendered up with rejoicing--with rejoicing that I have no further intercourse with a profligate and most unchristian landlord. I feel that in this thing I have cause to be rather thankful than otherwise.”

“Now, M'Clutchy,” said M'Loughlin, “I could overlook all your dishonesty and treacherous misrepresentation of me to Lord Cumber--your attempt to oust us out of our farms, and to put your son and M'Slime in our places--your suppressing the fact, besides that we offered a thousand pounds apiece for a renewal--your whispering away our commercial reputation, and thereby bringing us in the end to ruin--all that, I say, I could overlook and forgive; but for your foul and cowardly attempt to destroy the fair fame of our spotless child--for that, sir, in which, thank heaven, you failed, I now say, I trust, with honest pride, and tell you face to face--if you had only the manliness to look in mine--that I feel this to be the hour of my triumph--but not of my vengeance, for I trust I am a Christian man.”

“As for me, M'Olutchy,” said Harman, “really, on looking over your whole conduct--into which there comes not one single virtue belonging to our better nature--I am so filled with indignation, and a perception of the baseness and blackness of your heart and character, your revenge, your perfidy, and above all, your cowardice, that I can feel nothing for you but a loathing and abhorrence that really sicken me when I think of you.”

“What could you expect,” observed Poll Doolin, “from the son of Kate Clank and villainous ould Deaker?”

M'Clutchy never raised his eye, but taking up his hat, he and Solomon, followed soon after by Darby, took their departure in silence; Solomon occasionally shrugging his shoulders and throwing up his eyes, like a persecuted man.

“There is now no further use for preserving my incognito,” observed Mr. Topertoe, “and as you, Mr. Sheriff, have had your journey for nothing, I shall feel obliged if you will join these gentlemen at the Castle Cumber Arms to dinner, where we can have an opportunity of talking these and other matters over more at our leisure.”

“Do not expect me, sir,” said Hartley, who felt that the delicacy of his position with regard to Lord Cumber, rendered it altogether impossible that he could be the guest of a man with whose brother he was likely soon to fight a duel.

“Well,” replied Topertoe, “if you cannot come I shall regret it.”

“It is really out of my power, I assure you,” replied Hartley, as he bade him fare-Well.

The sheriff accepted the invitation; and after shaking hands with, and congratulating Messrs. M'Loughlin and Harman, also took his leave. He had scarcely gone, when a magnificent carriage and four dashed up to the door, in which Topertoe, accompanied by Hickman, took his seat, and again drove off towards. Castle Cumber, where the said carriage only had arrived that morning from, the metropolis.

Darby was certainly confounded by the unwelcome intelligence respecting the loss of the Gaolership, which was conveyed to him in such an unpleasant manner by Mr. Topertoe. He knew his own powers of wheedling, however, too well, to despair of being able, could he see Lucre, to replace himself as firmly as ever in his good opinion. With this purpose in view, he wended his way to the Glebe House, where he understood the newly made bishop yet was, having made arrangements to proceed the next morning to Dublin, in order to be consecrated. There was, therefore, no time to be lost, and he accordingly resolved to effect an interview if he could. On arriving, the servant, who was ignorant of the change against him which had been produced in his master's sentiments, instantly admitted him; and the bishop, who had expected a present of game from his neighbor, Lord Mountmortgage, desired him to be admitted--the servant having only intimated that the man was come.”

“How is this?” said the Prelate in a loud and angry voice; “how did you get in, sir?”

“Plaise your Lordship,” replied Darby, “I came in by the door, of course--an' that, your Lordship, is generally the right way; for as holy Scripture says,” he proceeded, anxious to let his Lordship see how deeply he was imbued with Scriptural truth--“as holy Scripture says, 'Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that entereth not by the door into the sheep-fold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber,' Indeed, my Lord, I never knewn the consolation that's in Scripture antil lately, glory be to God!”

The bishop looked at him with an angry and scrutinizing eye; for Darby's deportment, to say truth, puzzled him very much. Whether his conduct proceeded from audacity, or shear simplicity, he felt unable to determine, from anything that he could see in Darby's imperturbable features.

“What is your business with me now? asked the prelate.

“Why, your Lordship,” replied Darby, “I've made out a couple of proserlytes, that will be a credit to our blessed Establishment, as soon as they're convarted. One of them, my Lord, is called Barney Butther, an' the other Tom Whiskey, in regard of--”

“Go about your business, sir,” replied the prelate, reddening with indignation; “begone.”

“I will, my Lord; only, my Lord, just before I go--about the Undher Gaolership?”

“Your appointment to it is cancelled,” replied the other, “for many reasons; you avoided prosecuting that wild priest.”

“But sure I said, my Lord, that when I'd get into my situation--”

“Your appointment to it is cancelled, I repeat; the fact is, O'Drive, I have too much regard for your morals and the advances you have recently made in scriptural knowledge to place you in such a situation. It is only some hardened sinner, some irreclaimable knave, and not an honest man like you, that oughht to be appointed to such an office; the nature of its duties would only draw you into bad habits and corrupt your principles. The fact is, your very virtues and good qualities; prevent you from getting it--for get it, you assuredly shall not.”

“Is that your last detarmination, my Lord?”

“My last respecting that matter,” replied the prelate.

“Then, upon my conscience,” returned Darby, “according to that rule, hell resave the ha'porth of the kind there was to prevent you from bein' a bishop. I hear you're goin' up to Dublin to be consecrated, and be me sowl, you want it; but I'd take my book oath that all the grace in your church won't be able to consecrate you into thrue religion. The back o' my hand to you, I say; for I hate everything that is ungrateful.”

It often happens that a petty insult, coming from an unexpected source, excites our indignation more than an offence from a higher quarter. The new made prelate actually got black in the face, and giddy in the head, with the furious fit of passion which seized him on hearing this language from Darby.

In the meantime, we leave him to cool as best he can, and follow Darby to Castle Cumber, where he thought it probable he might meet Father M'Cabe; nor was he mistaken. He found that very zealous gentleman superintending the erection of a new chapel on a site given to Father Roche by Mr Hartley. The priest, who knew that the other had recently avoided him, felt considerably surprised at seeing the bailiff approach him of his own free will.

“Well,” said he, in a voice which contained equal parts of irony and anger, “what do you want with me, Mr. Protestant? Ah, what a blessed Protestant you are! and what a hawl they made when they caught you! What do you want, you shuffling scoundrel?”

“Troth, the grace o' God, I fear,” replied Darby, humbly.

“And what brings you to me then? I mean, sirra, what's your business now?”

“Why, sir, devil a one o' me but's come jack to the ould creed. Troth, your Reverence, the impressions you made on me the day we had the great argument, was, wondherful. Be my sowl, it's yourself that can send home the whi--word, your Rev-a-ence, in a way that it won't aisly be forgotten. How-an-iver, sure hell resave the wie o me, but threwn back his dirty religion to Lucre--an' left him an' it--although he offered, if I'd remain wid them, to put Johnny Short out, and make me full gaoler. My Lord,' says I, 'thruth's best. I've heard both sides o' the argument from you and Father M'Cabe; an' be me sowl, if you were a bishop ten times over, you couldn't hould a candle to him at arguin' Scripture; neither are you the mild and forgiving Christian that he is. Sure I know your church well,' says I up to him. 'It's a fat church, no doubt; an' I'll tell you what's in it.'”

“'What's that, you backslidin' vagabone?'” says he.

“'Why, then, plenty of mait,' says I, 'but no salvation;' an' salvation to me, your Reverence, but he got black over the whole face and shullers wid rank passion. But sure--would your Reverence come a little more this way; I think the men's listenin' to us--but sure,” continued Darby, in a low, wheedling, confidential, and friendly voice, “sure, sir, he wanted me to prosecute you for the religious instruction--for trath it was nothing else, glory be to God--that you gave me the day of the argument; an'---now listen, your Reverence--he offered me a bribe if I'd do it.”

“What bribe!”

“Why, sir, he put his hand, under his apron--sure he has a black silk apron on him now, jist for all the world like a big man cook, dressed out in murnin'--he put his hand undher his apron, and wid a hitch got it into his breeches pocket--'here's a fifty pound note for you,' says he, 'if you'll prosecute that wild priest--there's no end to his larnin,' says he, 'and I want to punish him for it; so, Darby, here's a fifty pound note, an' it'll be yours when the prosecution's over; and I'll bear all the expenses besides.'”

“And what did you say to that?” asked the priest.

“Troth,” replied Darby, “I jist bid him considher his fifty pound note as waste paper--an' that Was my answer.”

“And there's mine, you lying, hypocritical scoundrel,” said the priest, laying his whip across the worthy bailiff's shoulders; “you have been for thirty years in the parish, and no human being ever knew you to go to your duty--you have been a scourge on the poor---you have maligned and betrayed those who placed confidence in you--and the truth is, not a word ever comes out of your lips can be believed or trusted; when you have the marks of repentance and truth about you, I may listen to you, but not until then--begone!”

“Is that your last detarmination?” said Darby.

“No doubt of it,” replied the priest; “my last, and I'll stick to it till I see you a different scoundrel from what you are.”

“Ay,” replied Darby; “then, upon my sowl, you're all of a kidney--all jack fellow like--an' divil rasave the dacent creed among you, barrin' the Quakers, and may heaven have a hand in me, but I think I was born to be a Quaker, or, any way, a Methodist. I wish to God I understood praichin'--at aitin' the bacon and fowl I am as good a Methodist as any of them--but, be me sowl, as I don't understand praichin', I'll stick to the Quakers, for when a man praiches there, all he has to do is to say nothing.” Having uttered these sentiments in a kind of soliloquy, Darby, after having given the priest a very significant look, took his departure.

“Well,” said he to himself, “if the Quakers, bad luck to them, won't take me, I know what I'll do--upon my conscience, I'll set up a new religion for myself, and sure I have as good a right to bring out a new religion myself, as many that done so. Who knows but I may have a congregation of my own yet, and troth it may aisily be as respectable as some o' them. But sure I can't be at a loss, for, plaise God, if all fails, I can go to Oxford, where I'm tould there's a manifactory of new religions--the Lord be praised for it!”

* Darby had better success in his speculations than perhaps
he ever expected to have. We need not inform the generality
of our readers that the sect called Darbyites were founded
by him, and have been called after him to the present day,
sometimes Darbyites, and sometimes Drivers.

On returning home, Val was observed to be silent and morose. The dashing speed of his ride to M'Loughlin's was not usual to him, for his motions were generally slow; it was significant, however, of the greedy spirit which stimulated him to the long wished for glut of his revenge. Not so his return. He walked his horse as if he had been a philosopher on horseback; and when Phil (now quite tipsy), who expected to see him return with all the savage triumph of vengeance in his looks, saw that he was dumb, spiritless and absolutely crestfallen, and who also observed the symptoms we spoke of, he began naturally enough to suspect that something had gone wrong. His interrogations, however, were fruitless. Val, on his inquiring the cause of these appearances, told him in a petulant fit of that ill-temper which is pecular to cowards, “to go be hanged;” a compliment which dutiful Phil returned to his worthy father with interest. This was all that passed between them, with the single exception of an observation which fell from Phil's lips as he left the dinner-table, late in the evening.

“I tell you what, M'Clutchy, you're a confounded ill-tempered old scoundrel, an-and what-what's more--o-o-over to your disgrace, a d----d bad, rotten, and unsound Protestant. How do you ex-expect, sir, that a Protestant Establishment can be sup-support-ported in this country by such scandalous con-conduct as this? hip, hip, hurra! Instead of-of being an ex-example to your son, it is your-your son, M'Clutchy, that is an example to you, hip, hip, hur--, and so good night to you, I'm--I'm on for a neat bit of business--that's all. Go to bed, you old dog.”