University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER VI.

After the departure of Dennis, I approached the
place of communication between myself and Wilson,
(who of course had heard most of the conversation between
me and Dennis.) When he informed me of his
good cheer, mutual congratulations took place, upon the
change in our situation; and we drew favourable omens
from the interest which this fair unknown took in our
misfortunes.

Although our situation was greatly improved, yet still
it was such as to render it impossible for any human being
to exist in it long. My dungeon was about eight
feet by six, damp, and several feet under ground. Not
a ray of light, and very little air. Wilson's, he told me,
was nearly the same. Both were without flooring, and
the water we drank was of a very bad quality; but, as
we had brought the misfortune on ourselves, we concluded
to meet it with fortitude and patience.

Wilson had, generally, been free from sickness, but
he now complained of a head-ache, occasioned as he
supposed, by drinking too much of the wine, and indulging
in the good things which had been sent him by Leanora.

It was about eleven oclock, as we conjectured, when,
concluding some accident had deprived us, for that night,
of Dennis, we began to prepare for sleep. Soon, however,
the doors began to open, and Dennis entered my
Dungeon with a dark lantern in his hand.

“May the powers bless us! but I've had a tramp of
it, comin in the dark,” said Dennis; “here's all the
things your honour tould me to bring. My lady sends
a thousand good wishes to you, and hopes you'll have
your liberty soon.”

“I thank her, from my soul, Dennis. Her kindness
greatly overbalances the cruelty of the monsters who detain
me in this dungeon. But let us see what you have
brought.”

Upon looking over the books, I found Sterne, Goldsmith,
Pope, Ariosto's Orlando, Don Quixote, and a few
novels.

“My lady says she will sind you more, and she will
sind your friend some too. But for the love of God
don't be saying anny thing about it, or it might cause a
dale of harm.”

“There is not much danger of that, Dennis. Your
Spanish gentry will not trouble me much with their company,
and I should be sorry if they did.”

“I'll tell you what—my mistress is coming to see
you to-morrow night, herself; to see how you are—and
says I must make you a fresh bed, and take away this
ould hay; and she would send you both some bed-clothes
if it was not for fear—Och! if her mother was alive
it would not be this way you'd be sarved.

“Many's the prisoner she has released from these
cursed dungeons. She used to say that none but the divil
himself would think of burying paiple alive. And my
maister, poor sowl! is not a bad man naither. But if he
was to show you any lenity he would be dungeon'd himself,
and maybe lose his head into the bargain!”

Finding his volubility of tongue had somewhat abated,
I essayed to slip in a word, for though it was no easy
matter to thwart Dennis in the midst of his oratorical
career, yet I could change its course at pleasure.

I therefore asked him “if he had enquired of his lady
respecting our men?” He answered that he had, and
she told him they were seen, and attacked by the Spaniards,
fought valiantly, and made their escape.

“I am glad of that, Dennis. Here's a guinea for
you—your fidelity however, is above all price, and you
are more than a friend.”

“Here take your money—d'ye think I'd take any
thing in way of parquisites? Why, if my lady was to
know of my doing such a thing, she'd never let me darken
her door!”

Dennis handed back the guinea, with something like
contempt in his countenance, saying he thanked me; but
his mistress never suffered him to be without money.

“You say she is coming to-morrow? You must bring

me some razors in the morning. Can you shave pretty
well, Dennis?”

“Yes—and I reckon it will be a task too, your beard
is a fright, as my lady used to say to me when she'd be
sending me with letters and compliments; the sowl is in
them for ladies—there's none of your outlandish females
that come up to them.

“Folks may say what they plaise, but give me an
Irish lady—that's the lady after all, none can compare
with them, and that you know; for I'll warrant many's
the one you've seen in them there States.”

“I shall not understand your mistress, Dennis. I
am afraid I shall need your assistance to aid me in expressing
myself to her, as I ought.”

“My stars alive! Why sure you are not crazy yet,
are you? Didn't I tell your honour that my mistress
spoke Inglish; and went to Paris, and London, and
Madrid, and all the world over, to get her eddication—
and larned all the languages? I'm sure I ought to know,
when I went with her myself.

“Oh, I could tell you a great dale about my rakes and
rambles: if I have not seen the scenes of life, I wonder!”
said he, sitting himself down on the rude bed by
my side.

“You have lived in the family, then, some time?”

“Man and boy, I have lived in it forty years. My
lady took me when I was only ten years old. She lived
at Tiperara, in Ireland, and had a liking for my mother,
rest her sowl! and when my mother died she took me
home and made a pet of me, and sint me to school, and
dressed me up, and gave me good larnin, and who should
she have to wait on her but Dennis?

“Well, as little I could do, but I never wore livery—
She said Mary O'Conner's son should never come to
that!”

“And she took you to Portugal?”

“I'll tell how it was,” said Dennis, setting in for a
night's siege, at least. “My lady was sickly at times,
and the doctors said that nothing but a sea-voyage would
help her. And so they carries her to Portigal, and there
does her mother marry a great Portigeese lord, or duke,

I can't tell what he was: and so she never went back to
Ireland, no never more! And so we staid at this Lisbon,
it was a great town, to be sure, but the paiple was a
gloomy sort of heathens. Lord how feared I used to be
of my Lord, when I used to stand behind my lady's
chair. I don't know what the divil she could see in him,
for he looked, for all the world, like a hangman: but they
said there was some family connection—the divil take
the connection!” said Dennis, sighing deeply.

“It has caused me many a bitter sigh! it is the cause
of my being here now—but it's all one, my father and
mother are both dead long ago. And so as I was telling
you, my lady's mother she married—”

“And did your lady marry in this country or in Portugal?”

“I'll tell you how it was. My present master's father,
who they say was a far-out relation of the lord
that married my lady's mother; (but it makes no odds)
he was travelling with his family; he was a Spaniard
and lived in Spain, and he came to the same house where
we was, and happened to pop in there just at the celebration
of the nuptials, and who should my young gentleman,
his son, fall in love with but my lady, she as fair as a
lily and he as dingy as a Creole. How the divil she
could fancy such an Indian of a fellow doesn't signify—
the Lord forgive me! And so they gets married, and I
used to carry letters and messages backwards and forwards
between them—I thought then what it would come
to. But for all my lady married him to plaise her mother
and her jesuite looking husband, I shall niver think
she loved him, to her dying day: but this cursed goold
will do any thing.”

“But how came she in this country?”

“Well, I'm going to tell you. This great man, the
young man's father that married my lady, was a Spaniard,
as I could have tould you before, and his wife was a
kin to the Viceroy in this city, and so this Viceroy
writes to my master's father to send his son over here,
and promised him oceans of goold, but what signifies all
their goold whin they're nothing but a parcel of brute
bastes after all, with their Inquisition, and all their cursed

doings, burning paiple alive, God forgive me! many's
the time I've wondered that the earth don't open and
swallow them up.”

“And so you and your lady come here after her marriege?”
said I, wishing to confine Dennis to the thread
of his story.

“No indeed! my lady would do no sich a thing, for
she stood to it, to the bitter end, that she would never
laive her mother, poor woman! I shall never forget it,
her mother died, and so she didn't care where she went
to, and set sail with her husband, my present master, for
this city.”

“And your present mistress—was she born in Portugal
or in this city?”

“I'm going to tell you—she was born here. And a
fine boy, the very spirit of his mother, died crossing the
ocean. Ah! that was a sight, to see my lady when the
dear little craiture was a dying. And so he died and my
lady had the corse brought here and buried in the garden
where she was buried herself—rest her sowl! She died
on michaelmas day, in the morning, and laid her Irish
bones in this country; and never will I forget the
charge she gave me about her child.”

“And you accompanied your mistress to this inhospitable
country?”

“Indeed, and I did that very thing; I would have
followed her to the worlds end. We came very near it
anyway; for we had all lik'd to have been cast away on
the passage.”

“And would you not like to visit your native country
again?”

“Oh, maybe I wouldn't like to lay my bones there—
and my lady has a warm liking to Ireland, too; but
laive her I never will—she would break her heart. The
very last word her mother spake (I was sitting by her
bed-side) was, “Dennis, while you live, never forsake
my child.”

“And how old was her child when she died?”

“Three years and nine months. She will be seventeen
years old, come Easter Monday, next. But as I
was saying: my lady was never well. The first time

she set foot in this city I think she was crossed with love.
Many's the time she and I would talk about Ireland, and
the beautiful green meadows, and the birds, and the
jackdaws, and kape me up the live long night, telling
stories about ghosts, and spirits, and fairies, and all
them there things. `Ah! Dennis,' she would say to me,
`how much happier would I have been with Sir William
O'Nale, in Ireland. You remember him, Dennis?' says
she. And why shouldn't I, says I, when many's the
copper he gave me to buy ginger-bread? When you would
take me to walk with you in the grove, who should we
pop on but sir William? and you would say `Not a
word, Dennis!'

“Faith, I was no fool; I was no tell-tale. Poor Sir
William! never shall I forget how he looked whin my
lady and he parted. I could a tould the reason, but I'd
a cut my tongue out first. Manny a sly notion I've had,
that her mother took her away for fear she would marry
Sir William; and I shall ever think she loved him to her
dying day. But I wouldn't be after telling tales out of
school.”

“And has your young lady always lived here?”

“Why sure, no; she lived here—but thin she wint
abroad to git her edication; and her father payed great
respect to her mother; and promised to tache her all the
languages, and to let me go with her wherever she wint;
and so I wint with her to London, and Paris, and Spain,
and Lord knows where, besides. We was gone three
years, and thin she brought two of thim gloomy sort of
heathens with her over here, to larn her music and other
things. Why, I'd as as lief see her with the divil as to
see her with those masters of hers. A body's afear'd to
spake, where they are, the cursed cut throats! lookin
for all the world like the inquisition; and I don't think
my lady likes a bone in their skin. How should she?”

Dennis paused for the first time—willing to protract
his visit as long as possible, I enquired if he had ever been
married himself.

“Lord love your sowl! d'ye think I would go for to
marry one of them savage paple, and to mix my blood
with such heathens? No, and I hope my lady will niver

marry, while she lives; without she marrys somebody
that's more like a christian human,” giving me a significant
look at the same time. He sighed deeply as he
rose to depart, and bidding me good night, proceeded to
lock and unlock the ponderous doors of my dungeon.

I pass over the intervening time, which was spent in
reading, in the hearing of Wilson, that he might receive
the same amusement that I enjoyed myself.

Next morning Dennis came earlier than usual, and
brought with him the necessary implements for shaving;
also a warm and comfortable breakfast, which was sent,
as he informed me, from his lady's own table. After
having shaved and breakfasted, Dennis removed my
bed, (which was nothing more nor less than a bundle of
hay,) and replaced it with a quantity of fresh grass,
which had been cured in the sun for the purpose. This
was to me a delightful improvement; the hay being intermingled
with flowers of most exquisite odour, a bed
of down would not have been half so acceptable.

After expressing my thanks, to Dennis, for his kindness
on the occasion, he replied, that what he had done,
was in obedience to his master's orders; and that the
same had been ordered for Wilson.

Dennis remained some time, and continued to amuse
me with his lively conversation; but at length, took his
leave. Whilst he was unfastening the door of my dungeon,
I enquired of him, whether I was to have a visit
from his mistress that day. He replied, that she dared
not venture to see me until midnight, when every one
was asleep; that if it were known, it would go near to
affect her life—or in words to that amount. “Sure you
wouldn't like to hear that; but harm shall never come
on her, while Dennis has blood in his veins. I'll see
my lady safe, I warrant ye: let me alone for that.”

After he left me, I threw myself on the bed of hay,
with better feelings than I had enjoyed since my imprisonment;
and had it not been for the deplorable condition
to which my sister would be reduced, I should have resigned
myself to my fate without a murmur, let that be
what it might. But she haunted all my waking hours;
but complaint was useless, and indeed I went so far as to

indulge in some pleasantries, for the sole purpose of
cheering Wilson, whose distress was even greater than
my own. I would, however, often beguile him of laughter
while reading Sterne's Tristram Shandy: particularly
that part of it where Doctor Slop was defeated in his efforts
to untie the bag—and my uncle Toby's reply to
Slop, after the tedious oath against Obadiah.

But I pass over the various occurrences of the day,
and that part of the night preceding the arrival of Donna
Leanora.

Between eleven and twelve o'clock at night, I heard
the rattling of keys and the shrieking of hinges; my heart
at the moment beat as though it would fly out of my body,
and before I could collect my thoughts sufficiently to meet
the occasion, Dennis entered my dungeon, followed by
two females covered by long black veils. I made shift
to get on my feet, and saluted them with all the respect I
could command—addressing myself to the principal,
who was pointed out to me by Dennis, as he officiously
whispered, “now all the world over did you ever see
her match.” I told her I was informed by Dennis of
of this honour, and that words were a poor channel to
convey the high sense I entertained of her humanity;
that she had laid me under eternal obligations, for the
interest she had taken in my distress—“But ceremony,
madam,” said I, “in such a place as this would be misplaced,
and unseasonable, and particularly to one whose
noble actions are their own reward.” As I expressed
myself thus, I invited her and her attendant to take a
seat on the hay, which she accepted without the least
hesitation, while I stretched myself at their feet. Dennis
having set something which he carried under his arm in
one corner of the dungeon, likewise seated himself flat
on the floor. Leanora looked round and seemed to
shrink instinctively; the deep gloom of these dreadful
dungeons, some fathoms under ground, damp and dismal,
would appal the stoutest heart; and yet this female, led
by the goodness of her heart, regardless of the consequences,
had dared to visit me in this place at the dead
hour of the night, to minister comfort, and assuage my
sufferings, when my limbs were lacerated with the chains,
and death in all its horrors threatened my existence.

Leanora was, indeed, beautiful; but the surrounding
objects formed such a striking contrast to her person,
that I would suppose she never appeared to more advantage.—She
was tall, slender and elegantly formed: her
features (as near as I could distinguish through her vail)
were regular—her face of an oval cast, which was diffused
with a deep crimson blush—her complexion was
dark, her hair and eyes were jet black, but there was
still something in her countenance that I am unable to
describe—it was something not earthly, and unlike any
thing I had ever seen before. She was dressed in black,
which was embroidered with gold—her veil was of the
same costly materials: in short, both exceeded any thing
I had ever seen of the sort for richness and beauty. She
expressed herself in terms of undisguised frankness, and
deplored the rigidness of the government, which she said,
knew no mercy nor set bounds to cruelty, and added that
no language could express the sorrow she felt for me
whilst I was sick, and never ceased to intercede with
her father till the rigour of my treatment was mitigated.
I told her “I had neither father nor mother to lament
after me, but I had a sister.” I was unable to add
another word for some time, when I proceeded—“that
will be left poor and friendless should my captivity affect
my life, of which I am under some apprehension;”
here she eagerly interrupted me and said my life was
safe—“that no design of that nature was meant by the
government, but that frequent depredations being committed
by your people of late, and no proof hitherto
could be obtained of the facts, you are detained in custody
to convince your government (who had always disclaimed
it) of the truth of those charges: at least, I have
been so informed by my father—who informed me that
a messenger has been dispatched to your government
with an account of your intrusion and capture.” Finding
myself arraigned as a criminal by my fair friend, I
summoned my resolution to reply; the justness of the
charge and the eloquence with which it had been made,
required a prompt and definite replication. I declared
to her my innocence, and “that, let the object of my superiors
be what it might, I was totally ignorant of it until

about the time I was made prisoner, and that a disinterested
friendship for a young man was the principal
cause of my misfortune, and that when we discovered the
object of our party we separated from them and determined
to return to our own country, when we were unfortunately
made prisoners by the Spaniards. This was really
and religiously true. “You have a sister then, said she, I
feel for her, she must lament your loss, but I hope you
will soon be liberated, and epend upon me as a friend.
I shall continue to exert all the influence I have in favor
both of you and your friend. But I must remind you
that our people are cruel and vindictive—our laws are
rigid and enforced without mercy—meantime I shall
continue to send you some nourishment daily, though I
am in great terror lest it might be discovered—you
might lose your trusty Dennis, and bad will be your
case then indeed. On my father's account you have
nothing to fear, but should it come to the ears of government
it would go hard even with him. He has had a
trial of the same nature heretofore, though it was before
my memory.—My mother, it seems, persuaded him to
favor some unfortunate prisoner or criminal (I don't recollect
which,) and he like to have paid dear for his conduct;
but so long as your life is reported to be in danger,
so long you may expect a continuation of your present
treatment.—Your friend I am told is likewise unwell—my
father will send Dennis to see him to-morrow,
this he has orders to do lest you might die in prison and
involve them perhaps in a war. They will, however,
treat you with little kindness; they will do every thing
but take your life, and that they dare not do.” Finding
she paused, I begged of her to intreat her father to let
us have more air, as it was indispensable to our health.
She answered that she would, and after exchanging a
few more remarks she withdrew, saying she would call
on Wilson the next night. To make any comments on
the conduct of this magnanimous female would be superfluous,
led by humanity alone to venture in the dead of
night into a loathsome prison to visit a stranger who
was represented as an enemy to her country, is perhaps
without a parallel.

After her departure, I communicated the substance of
our interview to Wilson, the most of which, however,
he overheard, and having read some time was in the act
of preparing for sleep, when I discovered the bundle I
had seen Dennis lay in the corner of my cell. It proved
to be a change of clean linen and other clothes which
delicacy no doubt forbid Leanora to mention. Next
morning Dennis came as usual, and informed me that he
had orders from his master to visit Wilson also, take
him clean clothes and shave him, and that he had orders
to throw all the doors open except the iron grates. My
astonishment was never more excited than when the light
burst down upon me from an immense distance, almost
over my head!