The Luck of Barry Lyndon. William Makepeace Thackeray
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set the man into a fury, and succeeded in raising a quarrel between us. We should have fallen to at once, but a couple of grinning marines, who kept watch at the door, for fear we should repent of our bargain and have a fancy to escape, came forward and interposed between us with fixed bayonets; but the sergeant coming down the ladder, and hearing the dispute, condescended to say that we might fight it out like men with FISTES if we chose, and that the fore-deck should be free to us for that purpose. But the use of fistes, as the Englishman called them, was not then general in Ireland, and it was agreed that we should have a pair of cudgels; with one of which weapons I finished the fellow in four minutes, giving him a thump across his stupid sconce which laid him lifeless on the deck, and not receiving myself a single hurt of consequence.
This victory over the cock of the vile dunghill obtained me respect among the wretches of whom I formed part, and served to set up my spirits, which otherwise were flagging; and my position was speedily made more bearable by the arrival on board our ship of an old friend. This was no other than my second in the fatal duel which had sent me thus early out into the world, Captain Fagan. There was a young nobleman who had a company in our regiment (Gale’s foot), and who, preferring the delights of the Mall and the clubs to the dangers of a rough campaign, had given Fagan the opportunity of an exchange; which, as the latter had no fortune but his sword, he was glad to make. The sergeant was putting us through our exercise on deck (the seamen and officers of the transport looking grinning on) when a boat came from the shore bringing our captain to the ship; and though I started and blushed red as he recognised me—a descendant of the Barrys—in this degrading posture, I promise you that the sight of Fagan’s face was most welcome to me, for it assured me that a friend was near me. Before that I was so melancholy that I would certainly have deserted had I found the means, and had not the inevitable marines kept a watch to prevent any such escapes. Fagan gave me a wink of recognition, but offered no public token of acquaintance; it was not until two days afterwards, and when we had bidden adieu to old Ireland and were standing out to sea, that he called me into his cabin, and then, shaking hands with me cordially, gave me news, which I much wanted, of my family. ‘I had news of you in Dublin,’ he said. ‘’Faith you’ve begun early, like your father’s son; and I think you could not do better than as you have done. But why did you not write home to your poor mother? She has sent a half-dozen letters to you at Dublin.’
I said I had asked for letters at the post-office, but there were none for Mr. Redmond. I did not like to add that I had been ashamed, after the first week, to write to my mother.
‘We must write to her by the pilot,’ said he, ‘who will leave us in two hours; and you can tell her that you are safe, and married to Brown Bess.’ I sighed when he talked about being married; on which he said with a laugh, ‘I see you are thinking of a certain young lady at Brady’s Town.’
‘Is Miss Brady well?’ said I; and indeed, could hardly utter it, for I certainly WAS thinking about her: for, though I had forgotten her in the gaieties of Dublin, I have always found adversity makes man very affectionate.
‘There’s only seven Miss Bradys now,’ answered Fagan, in a solemn voice. ‘Poor Nora’—
‘Good heavens! what of her?’ I thought grief had killed her.
‘She took on so at your going away that she was obliged to console herself with a husband. She’s now Mrs. John Quin.’
‘Mrs. John Quin! Was there ANOTHER Mr. John Quin?’ asked I, quite wonder-stricken.
‘No; the very same one, my boy. He recovered from his wound. The ball you hit him with was not likely to hurt him. It was only made of tow. Do you think the Bradys would let you kill fifteen hundred a year out of the family?’ And then Fagan further told me that, in order to get me out of the way—for the cowardly Englishman could never be brought to marry from fear of me—the plan of the duel had been arranged. ‘But hit him you certainly did, Redmond, and with a fine thick plugget of tow; and the fellow was so frightened, that he was an hour in coming to. We told your mother the story afterwards, and a pretty scene she made; she despatched a half-score of letters to Dublin after you, but I suppose addressed them to you in your real name, by which you never thought to ask for them.’
‘The coward!’ said I (though, I confess, my mind was considerably relieved at the thoughts of not having killed him). ‘And did the Bradys of Castle Brady consent to admit a poltroon like that into one of the most ancient and honourable families in the world?’
‘He has paid off your uncle’s mortgage,’ said Fagan; ‘he gives Nora a coach-and-six; he is to sell out, and Lieutenant Ulick Brady of the Militia is to purchase his company. That coward of a fellow has been the making of your uncle’s family. ‘Faith! the business was well done.’ And then, laughing, he told me how Mick and Ulick had never let him out of their sight, although he was for deserting to England, until the marriage was completed and the happy couple off on their road to Dublin. ‘Are you in want of cash, my boy?’ continued the good-natured Captain. ‘You may draw upon me, for I got a couple of hundred out of Master Quin for my share, and while they last you shall never want.’
And so he bade me sit down and write a letter to my mother, which I did forthwith in very sincere and repentant terms, stating that I had been guilty of extravagances, that I had not known until that moment under what a fatal error I had been labouring, and that I had embarked for Germany as a volunteer. The letter was scarcely finished when the pilot sang out that he was going on shore; and he departed, taking with him, from many an anxious fellow besides myself, our adieux to friends in old Ireland.
Although I was called Captain Barry for many years of my life, and have been known as such by the first people of Europe, yet I may as well confess I had no more claim to the title than many a gentleman who assumes it, and never had a right to an epaulet, or to any military decoration higher than a corporal’s stripe of worsted. I was made corporal by Fagan during our voyage to the Elbe, and my rank was confirmed on TERRA FIRMA. I was promised a halbert, too, and afterwards, perhaps, an ensigncy, if I distinguished myself; but Fate did not intend that I should remain long an English soldier: as shall appear presently. Meanwhile, our passage was very favourable; my adventures were told by Fagan to his brother officers, who treated me with kindness; and my victory over the big chairman procured me respect from my comrades of the fore-deck. Encouraged and strongly exhorted by Fagan, I did my duty resolutely; but, though affable and good-humoured with the men, I never at first condescended to associate with such low fellows: and, indeed, was called generally amongst them ‘my Lord.’ I believe it was the ex-link-boy, a facetious knave, who gave me the title; and I felt that I should become such a rank as well as any peer in the kingdom.
It would require a greater philosopher and historian than I am to explain the causes of the famous Seven Years’ War in which Europe was engaged; and, indeed, its origin has always appeared to me to be so complicated, and the books written about it so amazingly hard to understand, that I have seldom been much wiser at the end of a chapter than at the beginning, and so shall not trouble my reader with any personal disquisitions concerning the matter. All I know is, that after His Majesty’s love of his Hanoverian dominions had rendered him most unpopular in his English kingdom, with Mr. Pitt at the head of the anti-German war-party, all of a sudden, Mr. Pitt becoming Minister, the rest of the empire applauded the war as much as they had hated it before. The victories of Dettingen and Crefeld were in every-body’s mouths, and ‘the Protestant hero,’ as we used to call the godless old Frederick of Prussia, was adored by us as a saint, a very short time after we had been about to make war against him in alliance with the Empress-queen. Now, somehow, we were on Frederick’s side: the Empress, the French, the Swedes, and the Russians, were leagued against us; and I remember, when the news of the battle of Lissa came even to our remote quarter of Ireland, we considered it as a triumph for the cause of Protestantism, and illuminated and bonfired, and had a sermon at church, and kept the Prussian king’s birthday; on which my uncle would get drunk: as indeed on any other occasion. Most of the low fellows enlisted with myself were, of course, Papists (the English army was filled with such, out of that never-failing country of ours), and these, forsooth, were fighting the battles of Protestantism with Frederick; who was belabouring the Protestant Swedes and the Protestant Saxons, as well as the Russians of the Greek Church, and the Papist