The Luck of Barry Lyndon

Since the days of Adam, there has been hardly a mischief done in this world but a woman has been at the bottom of it. Ever since ours was a family (and that must be very near Adam’s time⁠—so old, noble, and illustrious are the Barrys, as everybody knows) women have played a mighty part with the destinies of our race.

I presume that there is no gentleman in Europe that has not heard of the house of Barry of Barryogue, of the kingdom of Ireland, than which a more famous name is not to be found in Gwillim or D’Hozier; and though, as a man of the world, I have learned to despise heartily the claims of some pretenders to high birth who have no more genealogy than the lackey who cleans my boots, and though I laugh to utter scorn the boasting of many of my countrymen, who are all for descending from kings of Ireland, and talk of a domain no bigger than would feed a pig as if it were a principality; yet truth compels me to assert that my family was the noblest of the island, and, perhaps, of the universal world; while their possessions, now insignificant and torn from us by war, by treachery, by the loss of time, by ancestral extravagance, by adhesion to the old faith and monarch, were formerly prodigious, and embraced many counties, at a time when Ireland was vastly more prosperous than now. I would assume the Irish crown over my coat-of-arms, but that there are so many silly pretenders to that distinction who bear it and render it common.

If the truth must be told⁠—and every word of this narrative of my life is of the most sacred veracity⁠—my passion for Nora began in a very vulgar and unromantic way. I did not save her life; on the contrary, I once very nearly killed her, as you shall hear. I did not behold her by moonlight playing on the guitar, or rescue her from the hands of ruffians, as Alfonso does Lindamira in the novel; but one day, after dinner at Brady’s Town, in summer, going into the garden to pull gooseberries for my dessert, and thinking only of gooseberries, I pledge my honour, I came upon Miss Nora and one of her sisters, with whom she was friends at the time, who were both engaged in the very same amusement.

“What’s the Latin for gooseberry, Redmond?” says she. She was always “poking her fun,” as the Irish phrase it.

“I know the Latin for goose,” says I.

“And what’s that?” cries Miss Mysie, as pert as a peacock.

“Bo to you!” says I (for I had never a want of wit); and so we fell to work at the gooseberry-bush, laughing and talking as happy as might be. In the course of our diversion Nora managed to scratch her arm, and it bled, and she screamed, and it was mighty round and white, and I tied it up, and I believe was permitted to kiss her hand; and though it was as big and clumsy a hand as ever you saw, yet I thought the favour the most ravishing one that was ever conferred upon me, and went home in a rapture.

I had a knot of cherry-coloured ribands, which she had given me out of her breast, and which somehow I always wore upon me. I pulled these out of my bosom, and flung them in Captain Quin’s face, and rushed out with my little sword drawn, shrieking, “She’s a liar⁠—she’s a liar, Captain Quin! Draw, sir, and defend yourself, if you are a man!” and with these words I leapt at the monster, and collared him, while Nora made the air echo with her screams; at the sound of which the other captain and Mysie hastened up.

Although I sprang up like a weed in my illness, and was now nearly attained to my full growth of six feet, yet I was but a lath by the side of the enormous English captain, who had calves and shoulders such as no chairman at Bath ever boasted. He turned very red, and then exceedingly pale at my attack upon him, and slipped back and clutched at his sword⁠—when Nora, in an agony of terror, flung herself round him, screaming, “Eugenio! Captain Quin, for Heaven’s sake spare the child⁠—he is but an infant.”

“And ought to be whipped for his impudence,” said the Captain; “but never fear, Miss Brady, I shall not touch him; your favourite is safe from me.” So saying, he stooped down and picked up the bunch of ribands which had fallen at Nora’s feet, and handing it to her, said in a sarcastic tone, “When ladies make presents to gentlemen, it is time for other gentlemen to retire.”

At a certain hour, then, I ordered the animal to be brought round, when I would pay the dealer for him. (I shall pass over my adieux with my kind hostess, which were very tearful indeed). And then, making up my mind to the great action, walked upstairs to Fakenham’s room attired in his full regimentals, and with his hat cocked over my left eye.

“You gweat scoundwel!” said he, with a multiplicity of oaths; “you mutinous dog! what do you mean by dwessing yourself in my wegimentals? As sure as my name’s Fakenham, when we get back to the wegiment, I’ll have your soul cut out of your body.”

“I’m promoted, Lieutenant,” said I, with a sneer. “I’m come to take my leave of you;” and then going up to his bed, I said, “I intend to have your papers and purse.” With this I put my hand under his pillow; at which he gave a scream that might have called the whole garrison about my ears. “Hark ye, sir!” said I, “no more noise, or you are a dead man!” and taking a handkerchief, I bound it tight around his mouth so as well-nigh to throttle him, and, pulling forward the sleeves of his shirt, tied them in a knot together, and so left him; removing the papers and the purse, you may be sure, and wishing him politely a good day.

“It is the mad corporal,” said I to the people down below who were attracted by the noise from the sick man’s chamber; and so taking leave of the old blind Jagdmeister, and an adieu (I will not say how tender) of his daughter,

With these instructions, and a very small gratuity, the Captain left me. When I again saw him, he was amused at the change in my appearance. I had, not without a pang (for they were as black as jet, and curled elegantly), shaved off my moustaches; had removed the odious grease and flour, which I always abominated, out of my hair; had mounted a demure French grey coat, black satin breeches, and a maroon plush waistcoat, and a hat without a cockade. I looked as meek and humble as any servant out of place could possibly appear; and I think not my own regiment, which was now at the review at Potsdam, would have known me. Thus accoutred, I went to the Star Hotel, where this stranger was⁠—my heart beating with anxiety, and something telling me that this Chevalier de Balibari was no other than Barry, of Ballybarry, my father’s eldest brother, who had given up his estate in consequence of his obstinate adherence to the Romish superstition. Before I went in to present myself, I went to look in the remises at his carriage. Had he the Barry arms? Yes, there they were: argent, a bend gules, with four escallops of the field⁠—the ancient coat of my house. They were painted in a shield about as big as my hat, on a smart chariot handsomely gilded, surmounted with a coronet, and supported by eight or nine Cupids, cornucopias, and flower-baskets, according to the queer heraldic fashion of those days.