Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent. William Carleton

up and greasy.

      Squire Deaker's language was not more moral than his life—for he not only enforced his principles by his example, but also by his precept. His conversation consequently resolved itself into a mingled stream of swearing and obscenity. Ridicule of religion, and a hardened triumph in his own iniquitous exploits, illustrated and confirmed by a prodigality of blasphemous asservations, constituted the staple of his thoughts and expressions. According to his own principles he could not look forward to another life, and consequently all that remained for him was to look back upon an unbroken line of seduction and profligacy—upon wealth and influence not merely abused, but prostituted to the lowest and grossest purposes of our worst passions—upon systematic crime—unmanly treachery—and that dishonest avarice which constituted the act of heartless desertion in himself the ultimate ruin and degradation of his victims. Such was this well known squire of the old school, whose portrait, taken from life, will be recognized by every one who ever knew him, should any such happen to peruse these pages.

      At the period of which we write Squire Deaker was near eighty, and although feeble and broken down, he still exhibited the remains of a large, coarse, strong-boned animal, not without a vigorous twinkle of low cunning in his eye, and a duplicity of character and principle about his angular and ill-shaped eye-brows which could not be mistaken. He was confined to his bed, and for the first time during many years, was unable to attend the Castle Cumber quarter sessions.

      It was the second or third day after their close that about the hour of ten o'clock, a.m., he awoke from a heavy and unhealthy doze, which could scarcely be termed sleep, but rather a kind of middle state between that and waking. At length he raised his head, gasped, and on finding no one in the room, he let fly a volley of execrations, and rang the bell.

      “Is there any one there? Any one within hearing? I say Isabel, Isabel, jezabel, are you all dead and d——d?”

      “No, your honor, not yet—some of us at least,” replied a shrewd-looking lad of about eighteen, nicking his appearance.

      “Ha, Lanty—it's you, is it? What do you mean by that, you devil's pick-tooth? Where's Isabel? Where's Jezabel? Playing her pranks, I suppose—where is she, you devil's tooth-brush? eh?”

      “Do you want your brandy and wather, sir?”

      “Brandy and h—l, you scoundrel! Where's Miss Puzzle?”

      “Why, she's just rinsing her mouth, sir, wid a drop of “—

      “Of what, you devil's imp; but I know—she's drinking—she's drunk, you young candidate for perdition?”

      “I'm not an ould one, sir, any how; as to Miss Fuzzle, sir, she bid me say, that she's doin' herself the pleasure of drinkin' your health”—

      “Ha, ha, ha! Oh, if I were near her—that's all! drinking my health! She's tipsy, the she scoundrel, she never sends me that message unless when she's tipsy”—

      “Not tipsy, your honor, only unwell—she's a little touched wid the falling sickness—she always takes it after rinsing her mouth, sir; for she's fond of a sweet breath, your honor.”

      “Ah, she's a confounded blackguard—a living quicksand, and nothing else. Lanty, my lad, if the Mississippi was brandy grog, she'd dry the river—drinking at this hour!—well, never mind, I was drunk myself last night, and I'm half drunk yet. Here, you devil's tinder box, mix me a glass of brandy and water.”

      “Wouldn't you do it better yourself, sir?”

      “No, you whelp, don't you see how my hands, and be hanged to them, tremble and shake. Put in another glass, I say—carry it to my mouth now; hold, you croil—here's the glorious, pious, and immortal memory! Ho! Lanty, there's nothing like being a good Protestant after all—so I'll stand to glorious Bill, to the last; nine times nine, and one cheer more! hurra!”

      He then laid himself back, and attempted to whistle the Boyne Water, but having only one tusk in front, the sound produced resembled the wild whistle of the wind through the chink of a door—shrill and monotonous; after which he burst out into a chuckling laugh, tickled, probably, at the notion of that celebrated melody proving disloyal in spite of him, as refusing, as it were, to be whistled.

      At this moment Miss Isabel, or as he most frequently called her Miss Jezabel Puzzle, came in with a gleaming eye and an unsteady step—her hair partially dishevelled, and her dress most negligently put on. The moment Deaker saw her, his whole manner changed, notwithstanding his previous violence—the swagger departed from him, his countenance fell, and he lay mute and terror-stricken before her. It was indeed clear that her sway over him was boundless, and such was the fact. On this occasion she simply looked at him significantly, held up her hand in a menacing attitude, and having made a mock curtesy, immediately left the room.

      “Lanty,” said he in an undertone, when she had gone, “Lanty, you clip, go and tell her to forgive me; I said too much, and I'm sorry for it, say—go you scoundrel.”

      “Faix I'll do no such thing, sir,” replied Lanty, alarmed at the nature of the message; “I know better than to come across her now; she'd whale the life out o' me. Sure she's afther flailing the cook out o' the kitchen—and Tom Corbet the butler has one of his ears, he says, hangin' off him as long as a blood-hound's.”

      “Speak easy,” said Doaker, in a voice of terror, “speak lower, or she may hear you—Isn't it strange,” he said to himself, “that I who never feared God or man, should quail before this Jezabel!”

      “Begad, an' here's one, your honor, that'll make her quail, if he meets her.”

      “Who is it,” asked the other eagerly, “who is it you imp?”

      “Why, Mr. M'Clutchy, sir; he's ridin' up the avenue.”

      “Ay, Val the Vulture—Val the Vulture—I like that fellow—like him for his confoundedly clever roguery; only he's a hypocrite, and doesn't set the world at defiance as I do;—no, he's a cowardly, skulking hypocrite, nearly as great a one as M'Slime, but doesn't talk so much about religion as that oily gentleman.”

      In a few moments M'Clutchy entered. “Good morrow, Val. Well, Val—well, my Vulture, what's in the wind now? Who's to suffer? Are you ready for a pounce? Eh?”

      “I was sorry to hear that your health's not so good, sir, as it was.”

      “You lie, my dear Vulture, you lie in your throat, I tell you. You're watching for my carcase, snuffing the air at a distance under the hope of a gorge. No—you didn't care the devil had me, provided you could make a haul by it.”

      “I hope sir, there's no——”

      “Hope! You rascally hypocrite, what's hope good for? Hope to rot in the grave is it? To melt into corruption and feed the worms? What a precious putrid carcase I'll make, when I'm a month in the dirt. Maybe you wouldn't much relish the scent of me then, my worthy Vulture. Curse your beak, at all events! what do you want? what did you come for?”

      Val, who knew his worthy sire well, knew also the most successful method of working out any purpose with him. He accordingly replied, conscious that hypocrisy was out of the question—

      “The fact is, sir, I want you to aid me in a piece of knavery.”

      “I'll do it—I'll do it. Hang me if I don't. Come—I like that—it shows that there's no mock modesty between us—that we know one another. What's the knavery?”

      “Why, sir, I'm anxious, in the first place, to have Hickman, the head agent, out, and in the next, to get into his place, if possible. Now, I know that you can assist me in both, if you wish.”

      “How?” asked Deaker, who was quite as able a tactician as his son; and who, in fact, had contrived to put himself so completely! in possession of the political influence of the county as to be able to return any one he wished. “How is it to be done? Tell me that?”

      “I have understood from George Gamble, Lord Cumber's own man, that