BENTLEY'S MISCELLANY. BRIAN O'LINN; OR, LUCK IS EVERYTHING. BY THE AUTHOR OF "WILD SPORTS OF THE WEST." CHAPTER XIII. Revelations of a Medical Practitioner.. Irish Episodes. — O'Tool versus O'Callaghan.—Memoir of the Hunsgate family.—The narrative interrupted. In the human bee-hive there was not a quieter cell than Holmesdale; and were its "short and simple annals" subjected to the most stringent examination, not an event would be discovered in its secret history save such ordinary ones as are incident to humble life. Never had the lords of the manor been implicated in high treason, nor had they expressed even a wish to interrupt the Protestant succession. No plot to take the Tower first, and afterwards rob the Exchequer, could be traced to the "Chequers"; and whilst the stocks rose and fell, Doctor Faunce sate quietly in his sanctum, and none accused him of being accessory to the ups and downs in public securities. In that pleasant farce called "Love Laughs at Locksmiths," an old gentleman remarks, that "they did nothing but die at Tadcaster." Now, in Holmesdale, they properly considered that there were other passages in life more agreeable than the last one; and much love was made, and a little marriage followed. Nor was the village without its gossip and its scandal. If Emma Smith exhibited at church that Sunday a mousseline de laine, and the next one a new Dunstable, Julia Thornhill wondered where the money came from to buy these envied articles? If Julia Thornton was found whispering with Corporal O'Tool, when the said Julia should have been in bed, why Emma Smith "would say nothing, but she could guess pretty well what these whisperings would end in.” Two events had kept Holmesdale for the last fortnight in a fever, -these were an arrival and departure, and it would be difficult to decide whether the advent of Brian O'Linn, or the exit of Roger O'Tool had occasioned the greater sensation. And yet nothing could be more dissimilar than the causes which influenced the movements of these gentlemen-for Mr. O'Linn was come to undergo an honourable ceremonial, which Mr. O'Tool had levanted to avoid. That a lover's visit to the prettiest girl within twenty miles, and that lover, too, universally admitted to be a very nice young man,— that this event should be the laisser aller for all the village tongues, was only what it ought to be,-while Corporal O'Tool had contrived to invest himself with so much interest during his brief sojourn, that his rapid retreat was held to be an event without a parallel in Holmesdale history, since the Reverend Richard Roundabout, in his seventy-fifth year, had led Miss Laura Lightbody to the hymeneal altar, on the sixteenth anniversary of the lady's birth. Corporal O'Tool was six feet in his stocking-soles, and the grena VOL. XX. B dier company of the 18th Royal Irish could not produce a cleaner soldier. For the sins of the village-as the old women avouched→ Roger O'Tool selected the " Chequers" for head-quarters, his errand being to obtain a supply of food for powder, to enable his Majesty, God bless him! to support his crown and dignity as it ought to be. That Roger was a loyal subject and a faithful servant, might be inferred from his activity and success, he having, in the brief space of three months, induced divers clean-built lads to accept the loan of a shilling over-night, and the present of a cockade in the morning. It was to be regretted that Roger O'Tool was not more circumspect in his selection of candidates for the "bubble reputation," as more than one aspirant after glory, whom the gallant corporal despatched to "the tented field," should have, according to promise, at the temple of Hymen made honourable reparation for broken In recruiting instructions, I believe, the candidate for a musket is not obliged to produce testimonials touching his former life and conversation; nor will he even be required to give his subscription to the thirty-nine articles, provided he swear obedience to the articles of war. Corporal O'Tool made no enquiry into private morals, nor cared a brass button if a recruit had been thrice called in the parish church, provided he turned standard height, and satisfied the doctor. Well, if Roger-God forgive him!-now and then induced false youths to play perfidious, he was, after all, only labouring in his vocation-but in his beating orders, was he directed to drink tea with the smith's wife, when her husband had a sick-horse-call up the country? and when he made love to Bessy Brown on the honour of a gentleman, why did he not behave as such? No wonder that popular astonishment was great, when, instead of departing with a placens uxor at his side, in the person of any one of half a dozen young ladies to whom from time to time he had tendered his hand and fortune, he, Roger, was seen on the box of the Express, cheek by jowl with Wat Whipwell, and lilting like a thrush "I'm ower young to marry yet." It was agreed nem. con. in the parlour of the "Chequers," the evening he had cut his stick, that Corporal O'Tool might be an excellent soldier, but that he was a very indifferent example for youth; while the old women, in a private coterie, enumerated such delinquencies as had come to light. There could be no doubt that Roger had committed grievous damage during his short stay; they hoped, rather than expected, that the extent of his offendings was ascertained. Mary Grey looked shocking ill; and Polly Wright, who had hitherto been a shapely girl, had become such a dowdy. "Well, well, gossips," added the femme sage, "six months more, and we 'll know the worst." While some moonlit meeting in the church lane, or a tête-à-tête across a close-clipped hedge, were quite sufficient to fix public attention in Holmesdale for a day or two, the simple people little dreamed that aught was transacting there that could affect anything beyond a village reputation. They knew not that in the Priory its gloomy lord was devising means to secure his foully-gained inheritance; while, at the same moment, a wronged orphan was listening to a tale which to strange impulses and doubts before, brought confirmation "strong as holy writ." "My dear young friend," said Doctor Faunce, addressing his guest, I feel towards you a sort of free-masonry-an order which I have the honour to belong to-which leads me to forget that we formed an accidental acquaintance on the top of a stage-coach, only four days ago. To strangers I am not very communicative; but in that light, a secret impulse tells me you are not to be considered. I will not give you partial information; and when you have heard my tale, you will admit that in you, I have placed confidence implicitly." Mr. Faunce took a sip preliminary from his tumbler, and thus commenced A DOCTOR'S REVELATIONS. "It is now five-and-thirty years since my uncle articled me to Doctor Doseum. I was an orphan; but my only relative was a kind one-and, though but a small farmer himself, he determined to give me a liberal profession. Physic then, sir, was not what physic's now. Our pharmacopoeia was, as it ought to be, extensive; and if a practitioner did not write half a sheet of paper-foolscap, of course, preferred-and two-and-twenty ingredients were required to compound the same, the patient was discontented, and the apothecary by no means pleased. The world is going railroad speed to perdition. You have been in my sanctum, my dear sir: 'tis now, alas! 'a beggarly account of empty boxes,'-my jars are untenanted, and my bottles occupied by coloured waters. In my early days, was there a flower of the field from which we did not extract a virtue, and embody it in syrup or in unguent? But now, sir, six deadly poisons, as many active purgatives, with a spatula, graduated measure, and a gallon aquæ pure-all, save the simple element, containable in Polly's basket, is quite sufficient for the medical demands upon a modern chymist, who will undertake to convey within the brief compass of a salt-spoon, what Doctor Doseum could not have managed to administer in this tumbler." The unhappy Doctor held the crystal between him and the candle, then applied it to his lips, and thus continued. "But, sir, I tire you, and you care not a farthing whether the materia medica of my sanctum would require a Pickford's waggon for its conveyance, or be transportable in a lady's reticule." A shrewder guess Dr. Faunce had never made; for Brian, with ill-suppressed impatience, appeared to listen to a Galenical tirade, when burning to hear disclosures which he fancied all-important to himself. Faunce was an oddity in his way; and little as Brian knew of mankind, he thought it better to leave him to himself. "Doseum died two years after I had completed my apprenticeship, and passed the Surgeon's Hall. By the way, they mistook poor Doseum's case altogether. At the post mortem examination of the " "Stop, my dear Doctor, for the love of Heaven!" exclaimed the unhappy listener. "If you will have a post mortem, make it mine at once.' Well, I'll come to the point with all despatch, and merely say, that I was considered, for a young man, a safe practitioner. The widow offered me the business, my uncle paid the sum demanded for the same, and here I am, successor to Daniel Doseum, M.D. -By the way, it was only an Aberdeen one, and there they'll give a degree to a horse. But I'll tell you a pleasant story about that-" Brian groaned. "I mean, another time;" and Mr. Faunce thus proceeded. "The Lord of Holmesdale Manor, to whom the present proprietor -if he be so-succeeded." And alarmed, apparently, at his own indiscretion in thus impugning existing rights, Doctor Faunce looked over his own shoulder in alarm. But it was only Polly and her empty basket that had obtruded on the symposium, to announce that her embassy was successfully completed, and if she had been what her master termed "tousled on the road, why, the bottles had escaped undamaged. The leach waved his hand as a signal for her departure, and when the door closed, he thus continued his narrative : "I mentioned that the present Squire succeeded his uncle.Ghost of Galen!" and the doctor started,-"I wonder whether that giddy girl gave my verbal directions regarding the lotion for Mrs. Bolter's ankle?" Brian groaned again. My dear fellow," observed the man of drugs, "you recall forcibly to mind a patient I once had,-by the bye, a countryman of your own. His name was O'Quillaghan-no-O'Callaghan. The story's short: let me get rid of it at once, and then I'll get back to the grand narrative. Well, Captain O'Callagan took it into his head to run away with a friend's wife;-and where did he come to spend the honeymoon but to the "Chequers." I was in the habit then of stepping in for half an hour of an evening, when returning from my night calls, to take a glass of ale in the parlour; and I remember I had just lighted a pipe, when up rattled a post-chaise, and out stepped two gentlemen. Without asking a question, they rushed up stairs, and entered the room where Mr. and Mrs. O'Quilligan-I mean Callaghan-were sitting in connubial felicity. In half a minute there was an uproar, and the landlord ran into the parlour, and begged me, for God's sake, to come up, and if possible, prevent murder. Before we could mount the stairs, I thought the house would have come down; and when we entered the room, on the sofa a lady was lying dead; Captain O'Callaghan, with his back to the fire and a red-hot poker in his hand; a stout man with black whiskers, and a mahogany box under his arm, confronting the Captain; and a little man, very like a Jew, standing in the farthest corner he could find, as if anxious to keep himself out of mischief. As we entered the apartment, the little man in the corner called out, 'Just what was wanted!-two respectable witnesses to establish the identity of the parties. We'll issue the writ at once, and proceed for criminal con-" "Issue the devil!' exclaimed the man with the mahogany box under his arm. 'I came here not to issue writs, but insist on satisfaction.' "And that you shall have, as soon as we have light to-morrow morning,' returned the man with the hot poker in his hand. "What! wait till morning,' returned he with the box, 'without drilling a hole through a scoundrel's carcass, who has robbed me of a virtuous wife, the lady at present in a quandary on the sofa there ;-not I. By the holy Frost!'-I'll never forget |