"Oh, I never heerd her called by that name before," sobbed Oonah, "but she has a great many others just as bad."

"Ow! ow! ow!" exclaimed Andy. "Now I know what Misther d.i.c.k laughed at; well, death before dishonour--I'll go 'list for a sojer, and never live with her!"

CHAPTER XLIV

It has been necessary in an earlier chapter to notice the strange freaks madness will sometimes play. It was then the object to show how strong affections of the mind will recall an erring judgment to its true balance; but, the action of the counterpoise growing weaker by time, the disease returns, and reason again kicks the beam. Such was the old dowager's case: the death of her son recalled her to herself; but a few days produced relapse, and she was as foolish as ever. Nevertheless, as Polonius remarks of Hamlet,

"There is method in his madness;"

so in the dowager's case there was method--not of a sane intention, as the old courtier implies of the Danish Prince, but of _in_sane birth--begot of a chivalrous feeling on an enfeebled mind.

To make this clearly understood it is necessary to call attention to one other peculiarity of madness,--that, while it makes those under its influence liable to say and enact all sorts of nonsense on some subjects, it never impairs their powers of observation on those which chance to come within the reach of the un-diseased portion of the mind; and moreover, they are quite as capable of arriving at just conclusions upon what they _so_ see and hear, as the most reasonable person, and, perhaps, in proportion as the reasoning power is limited within a smaller compa.s.s, so the capability of observation becomes stronger by being concentrated.

Such was the case with the old dowager, who, while Furlong was "doing devotion" to Augusta, and appeared the pink of faithful swains, saw very clearly that Furlong did not like it a bit, and would gladly be off his bargain. Yea, while the people in their sober senses on the same plane with the parties were taken in, the old lunatic, even from the toppling height of her own mad chimney-pot, could look down and see that Furlong would not marry Augusta if he could help it.

It _was_ even so. Furlong had acted under the influence of terror when poor Augusta, shoved into his bedroom through the devilment of that rascally imp, Ratty, and found there, through the evil destiny of Andy, was flung into his arms by her enraged father, and accepted as his wife.

The immediate hurry of the election had delayed the marriage--the duel and its consequences further interrupted "the happy event"--and O'Grady's death caused a further postponement. It was delicately hinted to Furlong, that when matters had gone so far as to the wedding-dresses being ready, that the sooner the contracting parties under such circ.u.mstances were married, the better. But Furlong, with that affectation of propriety which belongs to his time-serving tribe, pleaded the "regard to appearances"-- "so soon after the ever-to-be-deplored event,"--and other such specious excuses, which were but covers to his own rascality, and used but to postpone the "wedding-day." The truth was, the moment Furlong had no longer the terrors of O'Grady's pistol before his eyes, he had resolved never to take so bad a match as that with Augusta appeared to be--indeed was, as far as regarded money; though Furlong should only have been too glad to be permitted to mix his plebeian blood with the daughter of a man of high family, whose crippled circ.u.mstances and consequent truckling conduct had reduced him to the wretched necessity of making _such a cur_ as Furlong the inmate of his house. But so it was.

The family began at last to suspect the real state of the case, and all were surprised except the old dowager; she had expected what was coming, and had prepared herself for it. All her pistol practice was with a view to call Furlong to the "last arbitrament" for this slight to her house. Gusty was too young, she considered, for the duty; therefore she, in her fantastic way of looking at the matter, looked upon _herself_ as the head of the family, and, as such, determined to resent the affront put upon it.

But of her real design the family at Neck-or-Nothing Hall had not the remotest notion. Of course, an old lady going about with a pistol, powder- flask, and bullets, and practising on the trunks of the trees in the park, could not pa.s.s without observation, and surmises there were on the subject; then her occasional exclamation of "Tremble, villain!" would escape her; and sometimes in the family circle, after sitting for a while in a state of abstraction, she would lift her attenuated hand armed with a knitting-needle or a ball of worsted, and a.s.suming the action of poising a pistol, execute a smart _click_ with her tongue, and say, "I hit him that time."

These exclamations, indicative of vengeance, were supposed at length by the family to apply to Edward O'Connor, but excited pity rather than alarm. When, however, one morning, the dowager was nowhere to be found, and Ratty and the pistols had also disappeared, an inquiry was inst.i.tuted as to the old lady's whereabouts, and Mount Eskar was one of the first places where she was sought, but without success; and all other inquiries were equally unavailing.

The old lady had contrived, with that cunning peculiar to insane people, to get away from the house at an early hour in the morning, unknown to all except Ratty, to whom she confided her intention, and he managed to get her out of the domain un.o.bserved, and thence together they proceeded to Dublin in a post-chaise. It was the day after this secret expedition was undertaken that Mr. Furlong was sitting in his private apartment at the Castle, doing "the state some service" by reading the morning papers, which heavy official duty he relieved occasionally by turning to some scented notes which lay near a morocco writing-case, whence they had been drawn by the lisping dandy to flatter his vanity. He had been carrying on a correspondence with an anonymous fair one, in whose heart, if her words might be believed, Furlong had made desperate havoc.

It happened, however, that these notes were all fict.i.tious, being the work of Tom Loftus, who enjoyed playing on a puppy as much as playing on the organ; and he had the satisfaction of seeing Furlong going through his paces in certain squares he had appointed, wearing a flower of Tom's choice and going through other antics which Tom had demanded under the signature of "Phillis," written in a delicate hand on pink satin note- paper with a lace border; one of the last notes suggested the possibility of a visit from the lady, and, after a.s.surances of "secrecy and honour"

had been returned by Furlong, he was anxiously expecting "what would become of it;" and filled with pleasing reflections of what "a devil of a fellow" he was among the ladies, he occasionally paced the room before a handsome dressing-gla.s.s (with which his apartment was always furnished), and ran his fingers through his curls with a complacent smile. While thus occupied, and in such a frame of mind, the hall messenger entered the apartment, and said a lady wished to see him.

"A lady!" exclaimed Furlong, in delighted surprise.

"She won't give her name, sir, but--"

"Show her up! show her up!" exclaimed the Lothario, eagerly.

All anxiety, he awaited the appearance of his donna; and quite a donna she seemed, as a commanding figure, dressed in black, and enveloped in a rich veil of the same, glided into the room.

"How vewy Spanish!" exclaimed Furlong, as he advanced to meet his incognita, who, as soon as she entered, locked the door, and withdrew the key.

"Quite pwactised in such secwet affairs," said Furlong slily. "Fai' lady, allow me to touch you' fai' hand, and lead you to a seat."

The mysterious stranger made no answer; but lifting her long veil, turned round on the lisping dandy, who staggered back, when the dowager O'Grady appeared before him, drawn up to her full height, and anything but an agreeable expression in her eye. She stalked up towards him, something in the style of a spectre in a romance, which she was not very unlike; and as she advanced, he retreated, until he got the table between him and this most unwelcome apparition.

"I am come," said the dowager, with an ominous tone of voice.

"Vewy happy of the hono', I am sure, Mistwess O'Gwady," faltered Furlong.

"The avenger has come." Furlong opened his eyes. "I have come to wash the stain!" said she, tapping her fingers in a theatrical manner on the table, and, as it happened, she pointed to a large blotch of ink on the table- cover. Furlong opened his eyes wider than ever, and thought this the queerest bit of madness he ever heard of; however, thinking it best to humour her, he answered, "Yes, it was a little awkwa'dness of mine--I upset the inkstand the othe' day."

"Do you mock me, sir?" said she, with increasing bitterness.

"La, no! Mistwess O'Gwady."

"I have come, I say, to wash out in your blood the stain you have dared to put on the name of O'Grady."

Furlong gasped with mingled amazement and fear.

"Tremble, villain!" she said; and she pointed toward him her long attenuated finger with portentous solemnity.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Challenge]

"I weally am quite at a loss, Mistwess O'Gwady, to compwehend--"

Before he could finish his sentence, the dowager had drawn from the depths of her side-pockets a brace of pistols, and presenting them to Furlong, said, "Be at a loss no longer, except the loss of life which may ensue: take your choice of weapons, sir."

"Gwacious Heaven!" exclaimed Furlong, trembling from head to foot.

"You won't choose, then?" said the dowager. "Well, there's one for you;"

and she laid a pistol before him with as courteous a manner as if she were making him a birthday present.

Furlong stared down upon it with a look of horror.

"Now we must toss for choice of ground," said the dowager. "I have no money about me, for I paid my last half-crown to the post-boy, but this will do as well for a toss as anything else;" and she laid her hands on the dressing-gla.s.s as she spoke. "Now the call shall be 'safe,' or 'smash;' whoever calls 'safe,' if the gla.s.s comes down unbroken, has the choice, and _vice versa_. I call first--'_Smash_,'" said the dowager, as she flung up the dressing-gla.s.s, which fell in shivers on the floor. "I have won," said she; "oblige me, sir, by standing in that far corner. I have the light in my back--and you will have something else in yours before long; take your ground, sir."

Furlong, finding himself thus cooped up with a mad woman, in an agony of terror suddenly bethought himself of instances he had heard of escape, under similar circ.u.mstances, by coinciding to a certain extent with the views of the insane people, and suggested to the dowager that he hoped she would not insist on a duel without their having a "friend" present.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said the old lady: "I quite forgot that form, in the excitement of the moment, though I have not overlooked the necessity altogether, and have come provided with one."

"Allow me to wing for him," said Furlong, rushing to the bell.

"Stop!" exclaimed the dowager, levelling her pistol at the bell-pull; "touch it, and you are a dead man!"

Furlong stood riveted to the spot where his rush had been arrested.

"No interruption, sir, till this little affair is settled. Here is my friend," she added, putting her hand into her pocket and pulling out the wooden cuckoo of her clock. "My little bird, sir, will see fair between us;" and she perched the painted wooden thing, with a bit of feather grotesquely sticking up out of its nether end, on the morocco letter-case.

"Oh, Lord!" said Furlong.

"He's a gentleman of the nicest honour, sir!" said the dowager, pacing back to the window.

Furlong took advantage of the opportunity of her back being turned, and rushed at the bell, which he pulled with great fury.

The dowager wheeled round with haste. "So you have rung," said she, "but it shall not avail you--the door is locked; take your weapon, sir,-- quick!--what!--a coward!"