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Desault directly suspected him to be an impostor, and said suddenly, Take off your bonnet.' The boy, taken by surprise, at once raised his right arm from his side, by which it had been lying as if it were powerless, and took off his bonnet. On the outbreak of the revolution, Astley devoted himself to the duties of the hospital, and occupied his time in services useful no less to himself than to the poor wretches with which the beds were filled. He afterwards succeeded in obtaining his passport, and returned, along with his wife, to England.

In 1800 and the following year, being now surgeon to Guy's Hospital, Mr Cooper increased his fame by some valuable communications to the Royal Society on a sub-, ject connected with the ear and its peculiar functions. Among the patients who applied to him to be relieved from deafness were some in whom he found the drum of the ear perfect, whilst its external surface had at the same time become concave. The ear, like the martial instrument the drum, must be placed between two columns of air; and hence he concluded that in these cases the concavity of the membrane was caused by the pressure of the air on its external surface, its internal supply having been by some means destroyed. This he saw could only result from the closure of a certain tube, the opening of which is at the back of the throat, and admits air to the inner surface of the drum of the ear, which keeps it stretched between the two necessary columns of air. He made an opening through the membrane of the tympanum, and thus let air into the cavity of the ear. The very first operation proved to him the correctness of his conjectures, and enables us to understand how sore throat and deafness should so often go together. For his two communications on the ear and the operation for deafness, he received the Copleian medal, the highest honour which the Royal Society have it in their power to bestow.

His high surgical reputation had reached the king's ears,
and induced him to send for him. It was to see a tumour
on the summit of the king's head, which annoyed him,
and was growing larger. The operation was delayed at
that time. In 1801, Halford, Tierney, Home, Cline,
Brodie, and Cooper, all met with the monarch to settle
the tumour. Mr Cline said, 'Who is to do the opera-
tion ?' Cooper said, 'Sir Everard.' Soon after Sir Henry
Halford was called out of the room, and almost imme-
diately returning said to Astley, You are to do the
operation.' Monarchs like to choose their medical men
as well as humbler folks. Cooper was thunderstruck, and
trembled at the idea of performing such an operation,
There was no time for delay, for the king directly entered
the room and said, 'Where am I to sit ?' A chair was
placed for his Majesty near the window; and Cooper,
having received an instrument from Home, laid the
tumour open. He found that it closely adhered to the
scalp, and it was with difficulty that he got it detached
without cutting the skin. The king when it was finished
asked what they called the tumour. 'A steatome, sire,'
was the reply. Then I hope it will stay at home,' said
the king, and not annoy me any more.' His Majesty
shortly after made Cooper a baronet, and sent him a
beautiful epergne, which cost five hundred guineas.
After the death of George IV., Sir Astley was appointed
sergeant-surgeon to William IV. But we must draw our
notice of Cooper to a close. He had risen to the highest
ranks in his profession; he was intimate with the gay,
the wealthy, and the learned; honours were showered
upon him from all quarters; he was twice elected Presi-
dent of the Royal College of Surgeons; his sovereign be-
stowed on him the grand cross of the Guelphic Order;
Oxford made him doctor of civil laws. But neither de-
grees, nor honours, nor skill, will ward off the stroke of
the king of terrors, even from those whose peculiar office
it is to keep him at a distance. Sir Astley died on the
12th of February, 1841, in the seventy-third year of his
age, apparently from an affection of the chest, as diffi-
culty of breathing was what he most complained of in

The following anecdote shows what a cool eye and practical turn of mind he possessed. A Mr Isaac Blight, a shipbroker at Deptford, whilst sitting in his parlour, had his attention roused by the door of the room being suddenly opened. On turning round, he perceived an arm extended towards him, and at the same instant the re-his last illness. port of a pistol, and the sensation of a severe blow, convinced him he had been shot. He had not the least idea who had done it. The ball passed deeply into the body and was fatal. Cooper placed himself just as Mr Blight had been when he was shot, and instantly perceived that none but a left-handed man could have concealed his body and discharged the pistol with effect. When he ascertained that Mr Patch, the partner of Blight, was a left-handed man, he at once suspected him to be the murderer. No suspicion, however, was attached to him by other persons; but, in the course of the evidence, a variety of facts tended to criminate him; he was committed for trial, and convicted by a train of clear circumstantial evidence. Cooper's shrewdness crowned the case against him.

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The British and Foreign Medical Review, in noticing Cooper's last work, describes his general influence on the practice of surgery in this country as being most evident in the great share he has had in establishing pure induction as the only sure means of a just diagnosis, and in introducing a simplicity of treatment in accordance with the processes of nature. Before his time, operations were too often frightful alternatives or hazardous compromises; he gave them a scientific character; and he, moreover, succeeded in a great degree in divesting them of their terrors, by performing them unostentatiously, simply, confidently, and cheerfully, and thereby inspiring the patient with hope of relief, when, previously, resignation under misfortune had too often been all that could be expected from the sufferer.' 'The manner, too,

To give the reader an idea of the scale on which Cooper of Sir Astley towards his patients has been universally was remunerated by the wealthy patients of London and admired; and his kindness and attention as an hospitalits surrounding country, it may be stated, that Mr Wil-surgeon have been properly appreciated. We know, moreliam Coles of Mincing Lane, the first merchant of his over, that in his relation to his private patients, his chaday, for years paid him the sum of six hundred pounds racter showed to equal advantage, though this, of course, annually for attendance. In the year 1813, Astley per- cannot be so well known to the public. He never spoke formed an operation for stone upon Mr Hyatt, a West of a fee in his life; when he received none, he made it a Indian merchant, who rewarded him with a fee of a thou- rule to regard the case as one of distress, and was glad to sand guineas. The manner in which it was presented was perform an office of charity. If we receive more than somewhat singular. Cooper, after congratulating him on we expect,' he has often said, 'we return nothing; why his recovery, and listening with emotion to his grateful then should we complain on receiving sometimes less expressions, rose to leave the room, when his patient, than we deserve?'' who was sitting at the fireside, took off his nightcap and threw it at him, saying, 'There, young man, put that into your pocket.' The knowing surgeon, guessing the contents of the nightcap, took out from it a piece of paper, and threw back the comforter, saying, he would not deprive him of so useful an article, and went away. The paper was a cheque for one thousand guineas.

In 1800, Mr Cooper attended upon George IV., although not holding any official situation about his person.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.

THE REIGN OF TERROR. THE Reign of Terror! how many recollections of horror are associated with these words! Even at the distance of more than half a century, the imagination shrinks, the blood curdles at their sound; and centuries hence, that

era will probably be regarded as exhibiting the 'bloodiest in the following year and the first half of 1794, by the picture in the book of time.'

sanguinary revolutionary tribunal which had been established by Danton. This dread triumvir himself perished by its agency in the early part of the last-named year, and while bewailing his fate, and that of an amiable woman who a short time before had been united to him in marriage, he then deeply deplored his instrumentality in its erection, calling the Almighty to witness that he had never contemplated the crimes it had achieved: but his regret, as regret generally is, was unavailing.. Shortly after its creation, the revolutionary tribunal commenced its proceedings with the most fearful rapidity, and under the direction of Fouquier Tinville-a sort of fiend in human shape, who laughed and jested with his victims while he sent them to the scaffold-whole hecatombs were soon destroyed. The slightest suspicion was fatal in the eyes of this atrocious wretch, and those who appeared in court as witnesses were frequently sent to the guillotine as criminals. Almost every one tried before him was at length condemned. The Girondists were struck down in a body, on the denunciation of Robespierre; the venerable Malesherbes, for defending the late king, was, with the whole of his family, consigned to the scaffold-to which he proceeded with a gay aspect, and an air so careless, that, chancing to stumble, he said, it was a bad omen, and a Roman would have turned back,' Danton and the whole of his associates were condemned, by the instigation of the same gloomy tyrant, who felt that that bold demagogue formed the chief obstacle to the dictatorship to which he now aspired. He exhibited less courage, and for a moment his feelings seemed about to give way, when he thought of his young wife, of whom he plaintively exclaimed, 'I shall never see thec more but immediately recovering himself, and uttering the words 'Courage, Danton!' he died with fortitude. Others of a less daring temperament showed still more tranquillity; and death at last became so common that it lost its terrors. Numbers proceeded to the guillotine uttering jibes and witticisms, often extemporaneous, but in other instances studiously prepared for the occasion; and the victims at last vied almost in coolness with the crowds, who daily beheld processions to the guillotine with as much indifference, or rather as much zest, as they would have regarded any exhibition at the theatres, which were never more crowded in Paris than during this dismal period.

This name was applied to express that period in French history which intervened between the execution of Louis XVI. and the overthrow of Robespierre, to whom mainly it is supposed to have owed its origin. Some terrible scenes had previously been witnessed. In September, 1792, shortly after the overthrow of the monarchy, when the passions of the populace were excited to the highest pitch by the intelligence of the approach of the allied army, a band of assassins had at mid-day, while the assembly were sitting, proceeded to the various prisons of the metropolis, and there commenced the work of destruction on the inmates. These receptacles had previously been filled with hosts of the highest society in the capital, who had been collected, in terms of a law named that of suspicion,' after a search of three days, during which no one was allowed to leave his residence, but a body of delegated municipal authorities proceeded from house to house and seized all who fell within its sweeping denunciation. Eighty monks, incarcerated in a temple, were first assailed, and most of them either struck down on the ground, or shot in the trees of an adjoining garden to which they fled for refuge. The great prisons of L'Abbaye, La Force, and the Conciergie, were the next objects of the assassins' fury, and in each the prisoners had their throats cut in hundreds. A sort of mock tribunal was established, and these homicides constituted themselves as judges. The wretched prisoner was brought out alone, and after a few questions from his accusers at one end of the court-yard, he was consigned to the knives of the assassins, who quickly dispatched him at the other. Some telegraph or cant phrase was generally employed as the signal. At the prison of L'Abbaye, for instance, the fatal sentence was the 'à la Force and while the unsuspecting prisoner went on in the supposition that he was to be transferred to that stronghold of incarceration, he was suddenly assailed and put to death amidst the laughter of the assassins, who amused themselves with his fearful misapprehension. During three days these terrible scenes proceeded; neither the legislature nor civic authorities, in the mean time, offering the slightest interruption. The assassins, who did not exceed two hundred in number, throughout the whole period coolly went and returned to their meals, as if they had been engaged in their usual avocations. The women were worse than the men, and either joined actu- While such was the state of affairs in the capital, matally in the massacre, or stayed at home to discharge the ters were still worse in the provinces. In Paris conothers' duties, that their husbands might, as they said demnation was made a jest, and the names of those who with horrid coolness, work in the Abbey. Nay, more, had received sentence were bawled out in a street list, when the horrid 'work' was completed, they actually named, with disgusting levity, The Evening Paper,' from had the audacity to proceed to the City Hall and demand which they frequently, for the first time, received intellipayment for their deeds—a demand with which the ap-gence of their approaching death on the morrow, or were proving or terrified municipality were forced to comply; and the sums paid to these murderous labourers' for a long time remained a disgrace duly recorded in the civic records of Paris. It is impossible to calculate the number struck down on this occasion in Paris and Versailles, which, with one or two of the smaller towns in the neighbourhood, followed the capital's example. By the most moderate calculation they have been reckoned a thousand or twelve hundred, though the list has been swelled to thrice the amount. Many persons of distinction fell during the massacre; amongst whom were the famous Madame du Barri, mistress of Louis XV., who died uttering the most piercing cries, and exhibiting the most abject yet natural timidity; and the still more celebrated Princess de Lamballe, whose beauties and virtues had not been able to save her, as the friend of Marie Antoinette, from the fury of the mob. She was put to death under circumstances of peculiar atrocity, and her head was carried aloft on a pike to be exhibited before the windows of the queen in the Temple, attachment to whom seems to have been the least of her merits and the chief of her crimes.

But terrible as these scenes in 1792 were, far greater horrors were perpetrated-and in the name of justice too

said to have drawn prizes in the holy lottery of the guillotine:' but in the rural districts, execution itself was made a theme of merriment. In the north, one Lebas, an apostate monk, the revolutionary judge, generally presided at the guillotine with the whole of his friends, and in the south, another, Le Bon (literally the good,' and probably a name bestowed in jest), publicly entertained the executioner, as a distinguished functionary, at his table. Horrors scarcely inferior were perpetrated in the other districts of the republic, to which these sanguinary wretches were sent by the revolutionary tribunal in Paris, delegated with all its powers; and the guillotine at length became so much in demand, that it was proposed to have a set of what were termed 'perambulating' machines of death constructed, to move from one part of a province to another on wheels. Every being who, by his opposition or his wealth, had excited the indignation or cupidity of these emissaries, was guillotined. Were an old public functionary incorrect in his accounts, or a general unsuccessful with the enemy, he experienced the same fate. Westermann, a fierce republican general; Biron, a better soldier; Beauharnois, the husband of the amiable Josephine, Napoleon's future empress, and others of the same rank, were thus struck down; and the dread

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But even these scenes yielded in horror to the enormities committed in the western part of the kingdom on the unhappy peasantry of La Vendée. Shortly after the revolution broke out, resistance arose to it there. The inhabitants of that sequestered district, where the proprietors, generally inconsiderable, lived chiefly on their own domains, had escaped the severity of the ancient government. Instead of being ground down by the nobles, they lived on a footing of comparative equality, joining in their hunting parties, and participating in their hospitality; most of the proprietors cultivated their own grounds, or were but little removed in rank above their tenants. Here, accordingly, the new principles met with a steady opposition. Encouraged by their landlords, who were attached to the ancient régime, and instigated by their priests, who were averse to the modern oath, the peasants took the field in bodies, and resisted all who attempted to introduce revolutionary doctrines into their district. Success at first attended their arms. Their habits as hunters having made them experienced marksmen, and their knowledge of the country given them a great advantage over their opponents, they in the outset bore down the republican troops, who, while marching unsuspicious through the forest ravines with which the district teemed, were frequently fired on by unseen foes, and, while in confusion, struck down by the peasants, who then rushed from their ambuscade. Whole bodies of men were thus cut off; and the insurgents, becoming bolder by success, and assembling in larger numbers, at last defeated not only several republican generals, but captured Nantes and some adjacent towns. Under the direction of Larochejacquelein, a young and enthusiastic nobleman; Charrette, a waggoner; Stofflet, a barber; Lescure, a pious gentleman; and D'Elbée, an old naval officer, they at last attempted higher aims, and in a body a hundred thousand strong crossed the Loire with the design of marching upon Paris. But all their habits and tactics unfitted them for this purpose. They generally took the field for fighting in the same form as they had been accustomed to equip themselves for hunting; seldom carried above three days' provisions with them; and, whether successful or defeated, could rarely be retained for a longer period from home. In conflict, too, they were more successful in sudden and sharp attacks than qualified to endure the steady and sustained action of regular troops. Hence, in this great excursion, they wholly failed in their object. In several engagements with the republican troops, after varied success, they were finally defeated; Larochejacquelein, their favourite, though not ablest leader, was struck down, and his followers fled notwithstanding his inspiring war-whoop, 'If I fly, shoot me; if I advance, follow me; if I fall, avenge me!' Most of their other generals, being accustomed to charge with their men, were either killed or disabled; and their wives and children having followed them in this excursion, a crowd of a hundred thousand wretched beings were at last found, defeated, dismayed, and disordered, on the banks of the Loire;—assailed by the exasperated republicans on the one hand, cut off from their country by the river on the other; abandoned a prey to hunger, cold, wind, hail, and snow; and left to contend with horrors which disposed their superstitious imaginations to surmise the approaching termination of the world in their sinking cause.

It was upon these unhappy wretches, or such of them as had escaped those dangers, that the Jacobin fury was now to be wreaked; and though the peasants themselves had frequently been cruel in putting their prisoners to death, assuredly they never perpetrated such atrocities as those of which they were now the victims. An instrument which, like the guillotine, decapitated only one at a time, was of course wholly unable to act with sufficient promptitude for vengeance; and they were accordingly struck down in scores, and fifties, and hundreds, by mus

ketry and grape-shot. Neither sex nor age was spared on these occasions, though the soldiers, the stern executioners, were frequently interrupted by their victims, when children, clinging to their knees. But even this mode of putting them to death became too tiresome at last; and when the earth was threatened with a pestilence from their putrefying carcasses, Carrier, an ex-friar but now revolutionary pro-consul at Nantes, devised a more horrible plan for destroying them by water. Bands of wretched beings were conveyed in boats and thrown into the lakes or rivers; and when some of them escaped, or attempted to escape, by swimming, the infernal expedient was chosen of carrying them out enclosed in vessels constructed with false bottoms and closed hatchways for the purpose, when the trap being withdrawn, the waters closed over all. Thousands were thus inhumanly drowned, and these Noyades, as they were termed, at last only ceased when the fishes were poisoned by gorging on human flesh, and the waters became not less pestilential than the air.

The public mind at last sickened under these accumulated horrors, and Robespierre's associates in the capital became alarmed by the apprehension that he designed to destroy them in turn, with the view of appropriating power to himself alone. The government of the country had, on the abolition of the monarchy, been vested in two committees-one of which, the committee of public safety, watched over the general interests of the republic; while the other, named that of general safety, was intrusted with the superintendance of Paris alone. It was chiefly in the municipality that the interests of this body lay; but though confined to the capital, and made subservient to the committee of public safety, it had gradually extended its power, and by means of the affiliations or offshoots of the Jacobin Club, which were dispersed over every village, acquired an influence throughout all France. And this was the body which Robespierre designed to render instrumental to his views when he had been dismissed from the committee of public safety, in conformity with a law which enjoined that two of the ten members should go out every two months in rotation, or when he had refused to re-enter it in consequence of some quarrel with his colleagues.

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To all it was apparent that a death-struggle drew nigh, and both parties prepared for it with the full conviction that their lives were dependent on the issue. mittee trusted to the influence it possessed with the army, whose movements Carnot, the ablest and best of its members, wholly controlled: Robespierre confided in the support of the municipality, and, above all, in that of the Jacobin club. In the convention his power was also great; for that body invariably joined the stronger party, and it had recently supported a law which he brought in chiefly to justify the late massacres, and after passing which he had retired for a month from power, in order, as was supposed, to depopularize his colleagues by the odium of executing it. But this stratagem failed, if it were ever designed, and his retirement proved as fatal to him as a similar retreat had been to Danton. That bold leader of the populace had fallen a victim chiefly to the artifices which Robespierre had employed to undermine him at the Jacobins' in his absence; and he had died exclaiming that in three months his deceiver would follow him to the block. The prediction was fulfilled: the committee of public safety seized the same opportunity to destroy Robespierre, and with the same success. On the 20th of July, 1794, after a month's absence, during which his followers had almost worshipped him as a divinity, he reappeared in the convention, and delivered one of those long, mysterious, and ominous addresses with which he was accustomed to usher in his sanguinary proposals. The assembly, slavish as ever, applauded him to the echo as before; but a different reception awaited him when he next day prepared to impeach three of his late associates in the committee of public safety, and several of their adherents in the chamber. These men had in the interval received intelligence of his intentions, and

they prepared to defend themselves with the courage of despair. So soon as he renewed his speech, they boldly interrupted him by their hostile acclamations, and Robespierre's voice, for the first time, was silenced in an assembly where it always before had been heard with reverence inspired by dread. The chamber at first stood mute, like himself, with astonishment; but as the cries of his foes grew louder, and vociferations of 'Down with the tyrant!' were heard, it prepared to adopt another course; and when Barrère-a profligate ex-noble, and member of the committee of public safety, who invariably ranged himself with the stronger, and on this occasion had prepared a speech for either side-drew from his pocket and coolly proceeded to deliver a studied report against Robespierre, the cowardly legislature no longer remained uncertain, but fiercely joined in the halloo that struck him down. Foaming at the mouth, Robespierre withdrew, and hastened for safety and succour to his adherents in the municipality and Jacobin Club.

But it was too late. His enemies knew that either his life or theirs must be extinguished in the struggle, and one or more of them had attended the chamber with the resolution of destroying either him or themselves if he carried his proposal. Should it pass,' said they,' we shall have no alternative but to blow out our brains;' and the legislature was soon convinced that its own members were in similar danger. A decree was quickly passed to outlaw him; but there was difficulty in getting parties to execute it; for Henriot, the commander of the Parisian guard, was an adherent of Robespierre's, and already at the town-hall by his side. But fortune, or the frailty of this associate, aided them. Henriot, when he attempted to take the command of his troops, was so inebriated that he with difficulty retained his seat on horseback, and his soldiers either misunderstood his orders or refused to obey him. In these circumstances he rode back in dismay to the city-hall, and his cannoneers were easily persuaded by some members of the legislature to turn their guns from against it to the hostile edifice. A few adherents of the committee or chamber accompanied them, and boldly burst into the room where Robespierre and his associates were. Their triumph was easy: the confederates attempted no resistance; but some of them endeavoured to escape by the windows, while others essayed to avoid a public execution by suicide. St Just, a violent but disinterested fanatic, made this attempt and failed; his pistol snapped in the act, and was seized before he could renew the effort. Couthon, a sanguinary wretch, who, though half dead with palsy, talked of death and murder in the blandest accents, had not courage to attempt it; and Robespierre's jaw was only shattered by a shot, but whether from his own hands or another's is uncertain. Henriot threw himself from a window, and was found concealed in a sewer. The younger Robespierre, a comparatively innocent man, whose affection for his brother alone betrayed him into danger, was one of the few who conducted himself with dignity, and prepared to die with tranquillity. The whole, amounting to about forty in number, were conducted to the hall of the convention, whence, being already outlawed, they were ordered to be next day sent to the guillotine. Robespierre passed the night on a miserable bench in a room adjacent, but though suffering with agony he refused to utter a single word. Next morning, amidst the cheers and curses of the populace, among whom were many friends of his recent victims, he was conveyed to the scaffold; and though a momentary outcry escaped his lips when the executioner coarsely tore the bandage from his fractured jaw, he died, the last of his party, with fortitude. With his life the Reign of Terror terminated; and the convention, by whose abject submission it had mainly been caused, shortly afterwards made way for a different set of men, and another order of things.

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piness of their subjects. It thus furnished a sad and striking commentary on the Scripture text-'Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people.'

THE PRESBYTERIAN HORSE.

FROM NOTES OF AN EXCURSION IN IRELAND.

My arrangements compelled me to travel on Sunday. Mr Mac and his wife having agreed to accompany me to Larne, we engaged a car to be in readiness at nine o'clock in the morning to convey us there. The distance from Ballymena to Larne being but seventeen miles, I expected we would accomplish our journey early in the day; but those who have travelled in Ireland do not require to be told that punctuality, dispatch, and a due appreciation of time, if sins, are not by any means chargeable against the owners and drivers of Irish cars. It was full two hours after the time appointed when the vehicle rattled up to the door of the inn, amidst the noisy rejoicings of a squad of ragged urchins, who had congregated about the stable-yard while the car was being got ready, and who seemed to consider it a point of duty to see it safely conveyed beyond the precincts of the town. The car, with its driver, formed a most grotesque and primitive-looking specimen of an Irish turn out." The horse was a huge raw-boned gelding, a perfect personification of laziness and obstinacy, and which, from his colour, Thady, the driver, designated by the soubriquet of Grey Joe. Thady was in keeping with the rest of the equipage. One of his legs was six inches too long, or its partner was six inches too short; whichever way it was, they were evidently an ill-matched pair of legs, and, from this cause, they were a notorious source of annoyance to Thady, for his coursier, Grey Joe, could have furnished employment, not only for a much better pair of legs than Thady could boast, but for the legs of all and sundry who trusted to the use Joe should make of his own.

Thady was a little stout-built Sancho Panza looking fellow, and wore a short broad-tailed coat of whitey-brown moleskin, with indispensables of the same fabric, which latter, having been made to the measure of his short leg, would have left his long one bare from the calf downward but for the ingenuity he had displayed in stitching an old boot leg to the shoe of the same side, which completely concealed the defective longitude in that portion of these useful appendants. The other leg not requiring such an addendum, or probably from not being so great a favourite with Thady, was obliged to put up with a shoe rather the worse for wear,' and which seemed to have all but finished its course in utter ignorance of the shining properties of Day and Martin's patent polish. In other words, it was a leg about the respectability of which its owner appeared to be perfectly indifferent, from the hopelessness of any endeavour on his part to make and keep it anything like a decent Irish leg. His hat, too, had evidently been made for some one with a head of much larger calibre than his own, but he had compelled it to accommodate itself to his dimensions by a cord which he had twisted round it, in lieu of a band, so very tight, that the edge of the brim stuck out like a box-plait shirtruffle. A huge shillelah, with a thong of leather tied to one end, served him for a whip, or, if it cum in coorse,' he said, wud sarve for man or baste.'

The car was not the least remarkable feature in the group. The open-mouthed rent-holes in the cushions, and the splints and bandages by which the numerous compoundfractures of its shafts and rickety joints were kept in situ, sufficiently indicated the nature and extent of its services, and a reluctant but near approach to the period when it would enjoy a lasting indemnity from its labours. The footboards at the sides were much after the fashion of The revolution, however, with its gloomy and appalling Thady's short leg, for, on being fairly seated, my knees scenes, did not pass away without teaching mankind these were cooped up almost to my chin; nor was this my only invaluable lessons-that religion is essential to the pros- source of annoyance, for Thady's seat projected backwards perity of states, and that it is the interest as well as the nearly to the centre of the car, and as I had chosen the duty of those in power to promote by all means the hap-upper seat next front, the first rut the wheel got

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into, and the road gave sufficient indications that we would have many such, bang came the back of my head against the iron frame of Thady's seat. I verily thought my skull was fractured, but having taken credit to myself all my life for a thick skull, I now had a practical demonstration of the correctness of my previous theory. I had scarcely recovered from the shock occasioned by this unexpected salutation, and satisfied myself of the unreal nature of the stars and fiery meteors I saw dancing about my eyes, when jolt following jolt, and bang succeeding bang, I found the thickness of my skull no defence against the jumbling mess that was likely to be made of my brains inside; and before the senses had been altogether driven out of me, I fell upon the expedient of shooting my chin forward upon my knees, and there I sat clewed up like a hunchback upon a ducking-stool.

I bore my sufferings with the patience of a stoic, never so much as once manifesting to my companions that anything was wrong. The fact was, I had made up my mind, the moment I got the first knock on the head, to recommend to my lady companion, who seemed to have a still thicker skull than me, a change of seats.

Thady, the rogue, seemed to be perfectly alive to my discomforts, for addressing himself to me, he remarked, with a waggish leer, that it was a very comfortable ould car, and sat very aisy on its springs.'

Oh! very easy indeed,' said I, involuntarily applying my hand at the same time to my bump of philoprogenitiveness, which I could not help thinking considerably enlarged since Thady and I had got acquainted. Very easy,' I repeated; 'pray, has it been in use for some time past ?'

'Is it in use, you mane?' said he; 'why, bless yer hanar, its nivir out on use; we have jist returned from Derry assizes, where Joe, and me, and it have been hard worked and badly trated for a fortnight past.'

"That accounts for the condition of the poor car,' I dryly observed; no doubt it has been convicted justly.' Thady looked over his shoulder at me, not exactly comprehending the point in my remark. Is it joking ye are,' said he, 'about convictin' an ould car, or what does yer hanar mane by that same?'

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Nothing,' I replied, in the same indifferent accent, 'only, that seeing your car bearing so many marks of severe punishment, I ventured to express a hope that it had had a fair trial at the assizes.'

He gave a horse laugh, exclaiming, 'By St Patrick! its yerself that has said it; for it has had many a fair and foul trial too, and so have I in the same consarn, and I'm of the opinion that we have all trials afore us this blissed day as well as the ould car.'

As Thady concluded this prophetic apophthegm we had got to the foot of a hill, where Grey Joe made a full stop, and Thady, throwing down the reins on his back, shot his bootless leg over the side of his seat in the act of descending. I am sorry to inform yese,' said he, touching the ruffled brim of his beaver, when he had got his best leg fairly on the ground-'I am sorry to inform yese, that Joe has a particler avarshion to climb a hill in company, and devil a budge he'll do if every sowl of us doesn't come off the car.' I protested against this, as being a ruse on Thady's part to save Joe's bones and encourage his laziness, and recommended a trial of the whip, which Thady applied with heart and good will, without the slightest effect. Joe shook his head, and his tail too, in utter defiance of us, and continued to stand stock still; nor did he move a limb until we had all alighted and got in front of him, when he condescended to look behind him and ascertain that the car had been properly vacated, after which he moved onward at a slow funeral pace, which neither lashing nor language could make him alter. On arriving at the top of the hill, I recommended Mrs Mac by all means to take the seat I had occupied, and which, after a good deal of ceremony and feigned expressions of regret on her part for depriving me of it, and of heartfelt willingness to give it to her on mine, we once more got ourselves seated and Joe in motion.

We had proceeded but a few paces when I observed Mrs Mac, who was an outspoken and not very refined, but withal a warm-hearted good creature, applying her hand quickly to the back of her head; at the same time she exclaimed, in an under tone to herself, Musha, bad luck to your iron seat, Thady avick!' This was scarcely uttered when another jolt and another bang caused her to apply both hands to her head, and roar aloud, Confound your seat! Stop the car! My skull is broken!' She did not, however, wait for the execution of her commands, for having received another thwack on the pericranium, she sprang off the car with the celerity of a jackal.

Is it unaisy ye are wid yer sate, ma'am ?' said Thady, giving Joe the hint to stop.

'It is your seat, you brute!' said Mrs Mac, as she dashed the tears from her eyes and gathered herself up off the road, half choked with pain and rage.

'My sate, ma'am!' said Thady; I'm sorry it disn't sarve yese; but if ye wud be plased to keep the head av ye, ma'am, a little forret out av its rache, it wud be sarvin' both Joe an' me, an' be a mighty purtexion to yer own parson, ma'am.'

Mr Mac had alighted by this time, and proposed that his better half should accompany him to his side of the car, to which she sulkily agreed; and no opposition being offered on my part, the proposition was silently acted upon. Joe hearing us speak of broken heads and other such epithets familiar in an Irish row, seemed to think himself somehow or other implicated in the charge preferred against Thady's seat, and being willing that the matter should be freely discussed and fully settled before we started again, as was his use and wont upon such cecasions, he arranged with himself that if we did not take what he considered a proper time for the above purpose, he would regulate the time himself. Thady applied his whip, but Joe was obstinate. All the cursing, and thrashing, and bad names that Thady bestowed upon him. had no effect whatever until his own time came, and then his movements were little better than the garran of a truck-boat.

I now thought my own troubles at an end, being enabled to keep my head out of the way of Thady's seat; but in this I was mistaken, for Mrs Mac requiring more ample accommodation than me, when in a sitting posture, we had managed between us to cover the old cushion, and to keep it firm in its place, but now that she was gone I found a new source of affliction in the length of Joe's legs, which, with the lowness of the wheels of the car, and the shortness of the backband of the harness, caused the seat upon which I sat to form a descending plane, down which the cushion, carrying me with it, was constantly attempt ing to slide, threatening to send me over the end of the car head foremost every roll it gave. kept a fast hold of the rail at the upper end of the seat, to enable me to maintain my position, which brought my head now and then in contact with my old iron enemy, in spite of all I could do to avoid it.

My improved situation was not by any means a comfortable one. I was twisted to one side as if I laboured under an affection of the hip joint, an inconvenience from which an alteration in Joe's furniture, or a leg constructed on the principle of Thady's, only could redeem me.

Joe having evinced a determined purpose to go only at a slow jog-trot down hill and along levels, and at a slow dead march walking pace when his mathematical ere caught the slightest excuse for supposing a hill in his road, I had got quite sick of it, and having worked my self into a sort of ill-humour with Thady, I accused him of trifling with us, and demanded a trial of Joe myself, whose manners and pace I undertook to improve if there was any virtue in the shillelah.

Sartainly,' says Thady, choking by a forced cough a satisfactory chuckle over the pleasing probability my failure. 'Sartainly, sir,' at the same time making all possible speed to give me his berth. 'Joe, sir,' continued he, is a quare ould sinner of a baste, and may

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