The Great Hoggarty Diamond | Page 5

know the dreadful story of that poor poor artist. When he had finished that wonderful likeness for the late Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty, county Mayo, she wore it in her bosom at the Lord Lieutenant's ball, where she played a game of piquet with the Commander-in- Chief. What could have made her put the hair of her vulgar daughters round Mick's portrait, I can't think; but so it was, as you see it this day. 'Madam,' says the Commander-in-Chief, 'if that is not my friend Mick Hoggarty, I'm a Dutchman!' Those were his Lordship's very words. Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty took off the brooch and showed it to him.
"'Who is the artist?' says my Lord. 'It's the most wonderful likeness I ever saw in my life!'
"'Mulcahy,' says she, 'of Ormond's Quay.'
"'Begad, I patronise him!' says my Lord; but presently his face darkened, and he gave back the picture with a dissatisfied air. 'There is one fault in that portrait,' said his Lordship, who was a rigid disciplinarian; 'and I wonder that my friend Mick, as a military man, should have overlooked it.'
"'What's that?' says Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty.
"'Madam, he has been painted WITHOUT HIS SWORD-BELT!' And he took up the cards again in a passion, and finished the game without saying a single word.
"The news was carried to Mr. Mulcahy the next day, and that unfortunate artist WENT MAD IMMEDIATELY! He had set his whole reputation upon this miniature, and declared that it should be faultless. Such was the effect of the announcement upon his susceptible heart! When Mrs. Hoggarty died, your uncle took the portrait and always wore it himself. His sisters said it was for the sake of the diamond; whereas, ungrateful things! it was merely on account of their hair, and his love for the fine arts. As for the poor artist, my dear, some people said it was the profuse use of spirit that brought on delirium tremens; but I don't believe it. Take another glass of Rosolio."
The telling of this story always put my aunt into great good- humour, and she promised at the end of it to pay for the new setting of the diamond; desiring me to take it on my arrival in London to the great jeweller, Mr. Polonius, and send her the bill. "The fact is," said she, "that the gold in which the thing is set is worth five guineas at the very least, and you can have the diamond reset for two. However, keep the remainder, dear Sam, and buy yourself what you please with it."
With this the old lady bade me adieu. The clock was striking twelve as I walked down the village, for the story of Mulcahy always took an hour in the telling, and I went away not quite so downhearted as when the present was first made to me. "After all," thought I, "a diamond-pin is a handsome thing, and will give me a distingue air, though my clothes be never so shabby"--and shabby they were without any doubt. "Well," I said, "three guineas, which I shall have over, will buy me a couple of pairs of what-d'ye-call- 'ems;" of which, entre nous, I was in great want, having just then done growing, whereas my pantaloons were made a good eighteen months before.
Well, I walked down the village, my hands in my breeches pockets; I had poor Mary's purse there, having removed the little things which she gave me the day before, and placed them--never mind where: but look you, in those days I had a heart, and a warm one too. I had Mary's purse ready for my aunt's donation, which never came, and with my own little stock of money besides, that Mrs. Hoggarty's card parties had lessened by a good five-and-twenty shillings, I calculated that, after paying my fare, I should get to town with a couple of seven-shilling pieces in my pocket.
I walked down the village at a deuce of a pace; so quick that, if the thing had been possible, I should have overtaken ten o'clock that had passed by me two hours ago, when I was listening to Mrs. H.'s long stories over her terrible Rosolio. The truth is, at ten I had an appointment under a certain person's window, who was to have been looking at the moon at that hour, with her pretty quilled nightcap on, and her blessed hair in papers.
There was the window shut, and not so much as a candle in it; and though I hemmed and hawed, and whistled over the garden paling, and sang a song of which Somebody was very fond, and even threw a pebble at the window, which hit it exactly at the opening of the lattice,--I woke no one except a great brute of a