THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND(大钻石)

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THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

THE GREAT

HOGGARTY DIAMOND

By Thackeray

THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

CHAPTER I

GIVES AN ACCOUNT OF OUR VILLAGE AND THE FIRST

GLIMPSE OF THE DIAMOND

When I came up to town for my second year, my aunt Hoggarty made

me a present of a diamond-pin; that is to say, it was not a diamond- pin

then, but a large old-fashioned locket, of Dublin manufacture in the year

1795, which the late Mr. Hoggarty used to sport at the Lord Lieutenant's

balls and elsewhere. He wore it, he said, at the battle of Vinegar Hill,

when his club pigtail saved his head from being taken off,--but that is

neither here nor there.

In the middle of the brooch was Hoggarty in the scarlet uniform of the

corps of Fencibles to which he belonged; around it were thirteen locks of

hair, belonging to a baker's dozen of sisters that the old gentleman had;

and, as all these little ringlets partook of the family hue of brilliant auburn,

Hoggarty's portrait seemed to the fanciful view like a great fat red round

of beef surrounded by thirteen carrots. These were dished up on a plate

of blue enamel, and it was from the GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND (as

we called it in the family) that the collection of hairs in question seemed as

it were to spring.

My aunt, I need not say, is rich; and I thought I might be her heir as

well as another. During my month's holiday, she was particularly pleased

with me; made me drink tea with her often (though there was a certain

person in the village with whom on those golden summer evenings I

should have liked to have taken a stroll in the hayfields); promised every

time I drank her bohea to do something handsome for me when I went

back to town,--nay, three or four times had me to dinner at three, and to

whist or cribbage afterwards. I did not care for the cards; for though we

always played seven hours on a stretch, and I always lost, my losings were

never more than nineteenpence a night: but there was some infernal sour

black-currant wine, that the old lady always produced at dinner, and with

the tray at ten o'clock, and which I dared not refuse; though upon my word

and honour it made me very unwell.

THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

Well, I thought after all this obsequiousness on my part, and my aunt's

repeated promises, that the old lady would at least make me a present of a

score of guineas (of which she had a power in the drawer); and so

convinced was I that some such present was intended for me, that a young

lady by the name of Miss Mary Smith, with whom I had conversed on the

subject, actually netted me a little green silk purse, which she gave me

(behind Hicks's hayrick, as you turn to the right up Churchyard Lane)--

which she gave me, I say, wrapped up in a bit of silver paper. There was

something in the purse, too, if the truth must be known. First there was a

thick curl of the glossiest blackest hair you ever saw in your life, and next

there was threepence: that is to say, the half of a silver sixpence hanging

by a little necklace of blue riband. Ah, but I knew where the other half of

the sixpence was, and envied that happy bit of silver!

The last day of my holiday I was obliged, of course, to devote to Mrs.

Hoggarty. My aunt was excessively gracious; and by way of a treat

brought out a couple of bottles of the black currant, of which she made me

drink the greater part. At night when all the ladies assembled at her party

had gone off with their pattens and their maids, Mrs. Hoggarty, who had

made a signal to me to stay, first blew out three of the wax candles in the

drawing-room, and taking the fourth in her hand, went and unlocked her

escritoire.

I can tell you my heart beat, though I pretended to look quite

unconcerned.

"Sam my dear," said she, as she was fumbling with her keys, "take

another glass of Rosolio" (that was the name by which she baptised the

cursed beverage): "it will do you good." I took it, and you might have

seen my hand tremble as the bottle went click--click against the glass.

By the time I had swallowed it, the old lady had finished her operations at

the bureau, and was coming towards me, the wax-candle bobbing in one

hand and a large parcel in the other.

"Now's the time," thought I.

"Samuel, my dear nephew," said she, "your first name you received

from your sainted uncle, my blessed husband; and of all my nephews and

nieces, you are the one whose conduct in life has most pleased me."

THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

When you consider that my aunt herself was one of seven married

sisters, that all the Hoggarties were married in Ireland and mothers of

numerous children, I must say that the compliment my aunt paid me was a

very handsome one.

"Dear aunt," says I, in a slow agitated voice, "I have often heard you

say there were seventy-three of us in all, and believe me I do think your

high opinion of me very complimentary indeed: I'm unworthy of it--

indeed I am."

"As for those odious Irish people," says my aunt, rather sharply, "don't

speak of them, I hate them, and every one of their mothers" (the fact is,

there had been a lawsuit about Hoggarty's property); "but of all my other

kindred, you, Samuel, have been the most dutiful and affectionate to me.

Your employers in London give the best accounts of your regularity and

good conduct. Though you have had eighty pounds a year (a liberal

salary), you have not spent a shilling more than your income, as other

young men would; and you have devoted your month's holidays to your

old aunt, who, I assure you, is grateful."

"Oh, ma'am!" said I. It was all that I could utter.

"Samuel," continued she, "I promised you a present, and here it is. I

first thought of giving you money; but you are a regular lad; and don't

want it. You are above money, dear Samuel. I give you what I value

most in life--the p,--the po, the po-ortrait of my sainted Hoggarty" (tears),

"set in the locket which contains the valuable diamond that you have often

heard me speak of. Wear it, dear Sam, for my sake; and think of that

angel in heaven, and of your dear Aunt Susy."

She put the machine into my hands: it was about the size of the lid of

a shaving-box: and I should as soon have thought of wearing it as of

wearing a cocked-hat and pigtail. I was so disgusted and disappointed

that I really could not get out a single word.

When I recovered my presence of mind a little, I took the locket out of

the bit of paper (the locket indeed! it was as big as a barndoor padlock),

and slowly put it into my shirt. "Thank you, Aunt," said I, with

admirable raillery. "I shall always value this present for the sake of you,

who gave it me; and it will recall to me my uncle, and my thirteen aunts in

THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

Ireland."

"I don't want you to wear it in THAT way!" shrieked Mrs. Hoggarty,

"with the hair of those odious carroty women. You must have their hair

removed."

"Then the locket will be spoiled, Aunt."

"Well, sir, never mind the locket; have it set afresh."

"Or suppose," said I, "I put aside the setting altogether: it is a little

too large for the present fashion; and have the portrait of my uncle framed

and placed over my chimney-piece, next to yours. It's a sweet miniature."

"That miniature," said Mrs. Hoggarty, solemnly, "was the great

Mulcahy's chef-d'oeuvre" (pronounced shy dewver, a favourite word of

my aunt's; being, with the words bongtong and ally mode de Parry, the

extent of her French vocabulary). "You know the dreadful story of that

poor poor artist. When he had finished that wonderful likeness for the

late Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty, county Mayo, she wore it in her

bosom at the Lord Lieutenant's ball, where she played a game of piquet

with the Commander-in- Chief. What could have made her put the hair

of her vulgar daughters round Mick's portrait, I can't think; but so it was,

as you see it this day. 'Madam,' says the Commander-in-Chief, 'if that is

not my friend Mick Hoggarty, I'm a Dutchman!' Those were his

Lordship's very words. Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty took off the

brooch and showed it to him.

"'Who is the artist?' says my Lord. 'It's the most wonderful likeness I

ever saw in my life!'

"'Mulcahy,' says she, 'of Ormond's Quay.'

"'Begad, I patronise him!' says my Lord; but presently his face

darkened, and he gave back the picture with a dissatisfied air. 'There is one

fault in that portrait,' said his Lordship, who was a rigid disciplinarian;

'and I wonder that my friend Mick, as a military man, should have

overlooked it.'

"'What's that?' says Mrs. Hoggarty of Castle Hoggarty.

"'Madam, he has been painted WITHOUT HIS SWORD-BELT!'

And he took up the cards again in a passion, and finished the game

without saying a single word.

THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

"The news was carried to Mr. Mulcahy the next day, and that

unfortunate artist WENT MAD IMMEDIATELY! He had set his whole

reputation upon this miniature, and declared that it should be faultless.

Such was the effect of the announcement upon his susceptible heart!

When Mrs. Hoggarty died, your uncle took the portrait and always wore it

himself. His sisters said it was for the sake of the diamond; whereas,

ungrateful things! it was merely on account of their hair, and his love for

the fine arts. As for the poor artist, my dear, some people said it was the

profuse use of spirit that brought on delirium tremens; but I don't believe it.

Take another glass of Rosolio."

The telling of this story always put my aunt into great good- humour,

and she promised at the end of it to pay for the new setting of the diamond;

desiring me to take it on my arrival in London to the great jeweller, Mr.

Polonius, and send her the bill. "The fact is," said she, "that the gold in

which the thing is set is worth five guineas at the very least, and you can

have the diamond reset for two. However, keep the remainder, dear Sam,

and buy yourself what you please with it."

With this the old lady bade me adieu. The clock was striking twelve

as I walked down the village, for the story of Mulcahy always took an

hour in the telling, and I went away not quite so downhearted as when the

present was first made to me. "After all," thought I, "a diamond-pin is a

handsome thing, and will give me a distingue air, though my clothes be

never so shabby"--and shabby they were without any doubt. "Well," I

said, "three guineas, which I shall have over, will buy me a couple of pairs

of what-d'ye-call- 'ems;" of which, entre nous, I was in great want, having

just then done growing, whereas my pantaloons were made a good

eighteen months before.

Well, I walked down the village, my hands in my breeches pockets; I

had poor Mary's purse there, having removed the little things which she

gave me the day before, and placed them--never mind where: but look

you, in those days I had a heart, and a warm one too. I had Mary's purse

ready for my aunt's donation, which never came, and with my own little

stock of money besides, that Mrs. Hoggarty's card parties had lessened by

a good five-and-twenty shillings, I calculated that, after paying my fare, I

THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

should get to town with a couple of seven-shilling pieces in my pocket.

I walked down the village at a deuce of a pace; so quick that, if the

thing had been possible, I should have overtaken ten o'clock that had

passed by me two hours ago, when I was listening to Mrs. H.'s long stories

over her terrible Rosolio. The truth is, at ten I had an appointment under

a certain person's window, who was to have been looking at the moon at

that hour, with her pretty quilled nightcap on, and her blessed hair in

papers.

There was the window shut, and not so much as a candle in it; and

though I hemmed and hawed, and whistled over the garden paling, and

sang a song of which Somebody was very fond, and even threw a pebble

at the window, which hit it exactly at the opening of the lattice,--I woke no

one except a great brute of a house-dog, that yelled, and howled, and

bounced so at me over the rails, that I thought every moment he would

have had my nose between his teeth.

So I was obliged to go off as quickly as might be; and the next

morning Mamma and my sisters made breakfast for me at four, and at five

came the "True Blue" light six-inside post-coach to London, and I got up

on the roof without having seen Mary Smith.

As we passed the house, it DID seem as if the window curtain in her

room was drawn aside just a little bit. Certainly the window was open,

and it had been shut the night before: but away went the coach; and the

village, cottage, and the churchyard, and Hicks's hayricks were soon out of

sight.

* * *

"My hi, what a pin!" said a stable-boy, who was smoking a cigar, to

the guard, looking at me and putting his finger to his nose.

The fact is, that I had never undressed since my aunt's party; and being

uneasy in mind and having all my clothes to pack up, and thinking of

something else, had quite forgotten Mrs. Hoggarty's brooch, which I had

stuck into my shirt-frill the night before.

THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

CHAPTER II

TELLS HOW THE DIAMOND IS BROUGHT UP TO LONDON,

AND PRODUCES WONDERFUL EFFECTS BOTH IN THE CITY

AND AT THE WEST END

The circumstances recorded in this story took place some score of

years ago, when, as the reader may remember, there was a great mania in

the City of London for establishing companies of all sorts; by which many

people made pretty fortunes.

I was at this period, as the truth must be known, thirteenth clerk of

twenty-four young gents who did the immense business of the

Independent West Diddlesex Fire and Life Insurance Company, at their

splendid stone mansion in Cornhill. Mamma had sunk a sum of four

hundred pounds in the purchase of an annuity at this office, which paid her

no less than six-and-thirty pounds a year, when no other company in

London would give her more than twenty-four. The chairman of the

directors was the great Mr. Brough, of the house of Brough and Hoff,

Crutched Friars, Turkey Merchants. It was a new house, but did a

tremendous business in the fig and sponge way, and more in the Zante

currant line than any other firm in the City.

Brough was a great man among the Dissenting connection, and you

saw his name for hundreds at the head of every charitable society

patronised by those good people. He had nine clerks residing at his

office in Crutched Friars; he would not take one without a certificate from

the schoolmaster and clergyman of his native place, strongly vouching for

his morals and doctrine; and the places were so run after, that he got a

premium of four or five hundred pounds with each young gent, whom he

made to slave for ten hours a day, and to whom in compensation he taught

all the mysteries of the Turkish business. He was a great man on 'Change,

too; and our young chaps used to hear from the stockbrokers' clerks (we

commonly dined together at the "Cock and Woolpack," a respectable

house, where you get a capital cut of meat, bread, vegetables, cheese, half

a pint of porter, and a penny to the waiter, for a shilling)--the young

THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

stockbrokers used to tell us of immense bargains in Spanish, Greek, and

Columbians, that Brough made. Hoff had nothing to do with them, but

stopped at home minding exclusively the business of the house. He was

a young chap, very quiet and steady, of the Quaker persuasion, and had

been taken into partnership by Brough for a matter of thirty thousand

pounds: and a very good bargain too. I was told in the strictest

confidence that the house one year with another divided a good seven

thousand pounds: of which Brough had half, Hoff two-sixths, and the

other sixth went to old Tudlow, who had been Mr. Brough's clerk before

the new partnership began. Tudlow always went about very shabby, and

we thought him an old miser. One of our gents, Bob Swinney by name,

used to say that Tudlow's share was all nonsense, and that Brough had it

all; but Bob was always too knowing by half, used to wear a green

cutaway coat, and had his free admission to Covent Garden Theatre. He

was always talking down at the shop, as we called it (it wasn't a shop, but

as splendid an office as any in Cornhill)--he was always talking about

Vestris and Miss Tree, and singing

"The bramble, the bramble, The jolly jolly bramble!"

one of Charles Kemble's famous songs in "Maid Marian;" a play that

was all the rage then, taken from a famous story-book by one Peacock, a

clerk in the India House; and a precious good place he has too.

When Brough heard how Master Swinney abused him, and had his

admission to the theatre, he came one day down to the office where we all

were, four-and-twenty of us, and made one of the most beautiful speeches

I ever heard in my life. He said that for slander he did not care,

contumely was the lot of every public man who had austere principles of

his own, and acted by them austerely; but what he DID care for was the

character of every single gentleman forming a part of the Independent

West Diddlesex Association. The welfare of thousands was in their

keeping; millions of money were daily passing through their hands; the

City- -the country looked upon them for order, honesty, and good example.

And if he found amongst those whom he considered as his children-- those

whom he loved as his own flesh and blood--that that order was departed

from, that that regularity was not maintained, that that good example was

THE GREAT HOGGARTY DIAMOND

not kept up (Mr. B. always spoke in this emphatic way)--if he found his

children departing from the wholesome rules of morality, religion, and

decorum--if he found in high or low--in the head clerk at six hundred a

year down to the porter who cleaned the steps--if he found the slightest

taint of dissipation, he would cast the offender from him--yea, though he

were his own son, he would cast him from him!

As he spoke this, Mr. Brough burst into tears; and we who didn't know

what was coming, looked at each other as pale as parsnips: all except

Swinney, who was twelfth clerk, and made believe to whistle. When Mr.

B. had wiped his eyes and recovered himself, he turned round; and oh,

how my heart thumped as he looked me full in the face! How it was

relieved, though, when he shouted out in a thundering voice -

"MR. ROBERT SWINNEY!"

"Sir to you," says Swinney, as cool as possible, and some of the chaps

began to titter.

"Mr. SWINNEY!" roared Brough, in a voice still bigger than before,

"when you came into this office--this family, sir, for such it is, as I am

proud to say--you found three-and-twenty as pious and well- regulated

young men as ever laboured together--as ever had confided to them the

wealth of this mighty capital and famous empire. You found, sir, sobriety,

regularity, and decorum; no profane songs were uttered in this place sacred

to--to business; no slanders were whispered against the heads of the

establishment--but over them I pass: I can afford, sir, to pass them by--

no worldly conversation or foul jesting disturbed the attention of these

gentlemen, or desecrated the peaceful scene of their labours. You found

Christians and gentlemen, sir!"

"I paid for my place like the rest," said Swinney. "Didn't my

governor take sha-?"

"Silence, sir! Your worthy father did take shares in this establishment,

which will yield him one day an immense profit. He DID take shares, sir,

or you never would have been here. I glory in saying that every one of

my young friends around me has a father, a brother, a dear relative or

friend, who is connected in a similar way with our glorious enterprise; and

that not one of them is there but has an interest in procuring, at a liberal

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THEGREATHOGGARTYDIAMOND1THEGREATHOGGARTYDIAMONDByThackerayTHEGREATHOGGARTYDIAMOND2CHAPTERIGIVESANACCOUNTOFOURVILLAGEANDTHEFIRSTGLIMPSEOFTHEDIAMONDWhenIcameuptotownformysecondyear,myauntHoggartymademeapresentofadiamond-pin;thatistosay,itwasnotadiamond-pinthen,butalargeold-fashionedlocket,ofDublinmanu...

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