Charles OMalley, vol 2 | Page 3

time. Wine, too, was heavy on us; for though we often changed our wine merchant, and rarely paid him, there was an awful consumption at the mess!
"Now, what I have mentioned may prepare you for the fact that before we were eight weeks in garrison, Shaugh and myself, upon an accurate calculation of our conjoint finances, discovered that except some vague promises of discounting here and there through the town, and seven and fourpence in specie, we were innocent of any pecuniary treasures. This was embarrassing; we had both embarked in several small schemes of pleasurable amusement, had a couple of hunters each, a tandem, and a running account--I think it _galloped_--at every shop in the town.
"Let me pause for a moment here, O'Mealey, while I moralize a little in a strain I hope may benefit you. Have you ever considered--of course you have not, you're too young and unreflecting--how beautifully every climate and every soil possesses some one antidote or another to its own noxious influences? The tropics have their succulent and juicy fruits, cooling and refreshing; the northern latitudes have their beasts with fur and warm skin to keep out the frost-bites; and so it is in Ireland. Nowhere on the face of the habitable globe does a man contract such habits of small debt, and nowhere, I'll be sworn, can he so easily get out of any scrape concerning them. They have their tigers in the east, their antelopes in the south, their white bears in Norway, their buffaloes in America; but we have an animal in Ireland that beats them all hollow,--a country attorney!
"Now, let me introduce you to Mr. Matthew Donevan. Mat, as he was familiarly called by his numerous acquaintances, was a short, florid, rosy little gentleman of some four or five-and-forty, with a well-curled wig of the fairest imaginable auburn, the gentle wave of the front locks, which played in infantine loveliness upon his little bullet forehead, contrasting strongly enough with a cunning leer of his eye, and a certain nisi prius laugh that however it might please a client, rarely brought pleasurable feelings to his opponent in a cause.
"Mat was a character in his way; deep, double, and tricky in everything that concerned his profession, he affected the gay fellow,--liked a jolly dinner at Brown's Hotel, would go twenty miles to see a steeple-chase and a coursing match, bet with any one when the odds were strong in his favor, with an easy indifference about money that made him seem, when winning, rather the victim of good luck than anything else. As he kept a rather pleasant bachelor's house, and liked the military much, we soon became acquainted. Upon him, therefore, for reasons I can't explain, both our hopes reposed; and Shaugh and myself at once agreed that if Mat could not assist us in our distresses, the case was a bad one.
"A pretty little epistle was accordingly concocted, inviting the worthy attorney to a small dinner at five o'clock the next day, intimating that we were to be perfectly alone, and had a little business to discuss. True to the hour, Mat was there; and as if instantly guessing that ours was no regular party of pleasure, his look, dress, and manner were all in keeping with the occasion,--quiet, subdued, and searching.
"When the claret had been superseded by the whiskey, and the confidential hours were approaching, by an adroit allusion to some heavy wager then pending, we brought our finances upon the tapis. The thing was done beautifully,--an easy adagio movement, no violent transition; but hang me if old Mat didn't catch the matter at once.
"'Oh, it's there ye are, Captain!' said he, with his peculiar grin. 'Two-and-sixpence in the pound, and no assets.'
"'The last is nearer the mark, my old boy,' said Shaugh, blurting out the whole truth at once. The wily attorney finished his tumbler slowly, as if giving himself time for reflection, and then, smacking his lips in a preparatory manner, took a quick survey of the room with his piercing green eye.
"'A very sweet mare of yours that little mouse-colored one is, with the dip in the back; and she has a trifling curb--may be it's a spavin, indeed--in the near hind-leg. You gave five-and-twenty for her, now, I'll be bound?'
"'Sixty guineas, as sure as my name's Dan,' said Shaugh, not at all pleased at the value put upon his hackney; 'and as to spavin and curb, I'll wager double the sum she has neither the slightest trace of one nor the other.'
"'I'll not take the bet,' said Mat, dryly. 'Money's scarce in these parts.'
"This hit silenced us both; and our friend continued,--
"'Then there's the bay horse,--a great strapping, leggy beast he is for a tilbury; and the hunters, worth nothing here; they don't know this country.