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The balcony creaked and trembled, and at last gave way.
Sir Luke Fildes
Swain
October 1871 (thirteenth) instalment
Wood-engraving
15.8 cm by 10.2 cm (6 ¼ by 4 inches), framed
Fourteenth wood-engraving for Charles Lever's Lord Kilgobbin: A Tale of Ireland in Our Own Time (1872), facing page 308.
[Click on image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]
The sound of voices and the tramp of feet outside now drew O’Shea to the window, and passing out on the balcony, he saw a considerable crowd of country-people assembled beneath. They were all armed with sticks, and had that look of mischief and daring so unmistakable in a mob. As the young man stood looking at them, some one pointed him out to the rest, and a wild yell, mingled with hisses, now broke from the crowd. He was turning away from the spot in disgust when he found that Gill had stationed himself at the window, and barred the passage.
"The boys want another look at ye," said Gill insolently; "go back and show yourself: it is not every day they see an informer."
"Stand back, you old fool, and let me pass," cried O’Shea.
"Touch me if you dare; only lay one finger on me in my own house," said the fellow, and he grinned almost in his face as he spoke.
"Stand back," said Gorman, and suiting the action to the word, he raised his arm to make space for him to pass out. Gill, no sooner did he feel the arm graze his chest, than he struck O’Shea across the face; and though the blow was that of an old man, the insult was so maddening that O’Shea, seizing him by the arms, dragged him out upon the balcony.
"He’s going to throw the old man over," cried several of those beneath, and amidst the tumult of voices, a number soon rushed up the stairs and out on the balcony, where the old fellow was clinging to O’Shea’s legs in his despairing attempt to save himself. The struggle scarcely lasted many seconds, for the rotten wood-work of the balcony creaked and trembled, and at last gave way with a crash, bringing the whole party to the ground together. [Chapter LIV, "How It Befell," 308]
Peter Gill, formerly Lord Kilgobbin's estate manager, mistakenly believes that he is now in possession of the O'Shea estate because Miss Betty has ineptly drawn up a deed of tenancy that Attorney McEvoy misinterprets as an outright transfer of title. Returning from Kilgobbin Castle, Gorman O'Shea writes his aunt a note of farewell, for he intends to set out for Australia with Dick Kearney to make his fortune in Australia. Aunt Betty intended Gill merely to be her tenant for a year while she makes up her mind about retiring to a convent, but Pat McEvoy has encouraged Gill to take possession in the absence of the O'Shea's. Thus, Gill's misinterpreting Betty O'Shea's intentions leads to his physical altercation with her nephew, the collapse of the balcony, and Gorman's being carted off, unconscious, to Kilbeggan to be arraigned before the Justice of the Peace there for burglary and forcible entry. By the time we read this account in Chapter LIV, "How It Befell," the Kearneys have learned of Gorman's unjust incarceration, and are coming to his rescue. Matthew Kearney will clear the matter up with his newfound best friend, the Tory magistrate, Mr. Flood.
(The fourteenth instalment's Initial-letter Vignette A in Volume XXIV of the Cornhill Magazine, p. 493.)
A total departure from his society meetings in affluent interiors, The balcony creaked and trembled, and at last gave way is full of energy and violence as the rotten balcony gives way, plummeting the "country people" to the ground as Peter Gill, supported by the tenants he now regards as his, wrestles with Gorman O'Shea. Using six Irish hats for Gill's supporters, Fildes shows O'Shea getting the better of the aged Gill as a caped tenant attempts to smash the young aristocrat on the head with his shillelagh, a stout blackthorn walking stick. Just as another tenant is about to come to Gill's aid, the railing shatters into pieces, and the decrepit balcony collapses on those assembled outside the main door below.
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin. The Cornhill Magazine. With 18 full-page illustrations and 18 initial-letter vignettes by S. Luke Fildes. Volumes XXII-XXV. October 1870-March 1872.
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin: A Tale of Ireland in Our Own Time. Illustrated by Sir Luke Fildes, R. A. London: Smith, Elder, 1872, 3 vols.; rpt., Chapman and Hall, 1873.
Lever, Charles. Lord Kilgobbin. Illustrated by Sir Luke Fildes. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vols. I-III. London: Smith, Elder, 1872, Rpt. London: Chapman & Hall, 1873, in a single volume. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 19 August 2010.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter XVI, "Exile on the Adriatic, 1867-1872." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. New York: Russell and Russell, 1939; rpt. 1969. Pp. 277-296.
Sutherland, John A. "Lord Kilgobbin." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 382.
Created 7 July 2005 Updated 1 July 2023