Passage Illustrated: A Daring Escape from French Pursuers

Beneath me in the foaming current the two horsemen laboured, — now stemming the rush of water, now reeling almost beneath. A sharp cry burst from Mike as I looked, and I saw the poor fellow bend nearly to his saddle. I could see no more, for the chase was now hot upon myself. Behind me rode a French dragoon, his carbine pressed tightly to his side, ready to fire as he pressed on in pursuit. I had but one chance; so drawing my pistol I wheeled suddenly in my saddle, and fired straight at him. The Frenchman fell, while a regular volley from his party rung around me, one ball striking my horse, and another lodging in the pommel of my saddle. The noble animal reeled nearly to the earth, but as if rallying for a last effort, sprang forward with renewed energy, and plunged boldly into the river.

For a moment, so sudden was my leap, my pursuers lost sight of me; but the bank being somewhat steep, the efforts of my horse to climb again discovered me, and before I reached the field two pistol-balls took effect upon me, — one slightly grazed my side, but my bridle-arm was broken by the other, and my hand fell motionless to my side. A cheer of defiance was, however, my reply, as I turned round in my saddle, and the next moment I was far beyond the range of their fire. [Chapter LXX, "The Lines of Ciudad Rodrigo," pp. 353-354]

Commentary: Not So Easy as it Seems

Phiz makes O'Malley's task look easy as all he has to do in the engraving is outrun his French pursuers at the tributary to the Aguda. In fact, the mounted trooper behind him proves something of a marksman, severely wounding O'Malley's mount just before the horse must plunge into the river. That O'Malley actually shoots the dragoon seems is miraculous. That the shot breaks his bridle-arm suggests that, in Phiz's sequence, this illustration should precede Mickey's Joy upon finding his Master, facing p. 335, in which O'Malley appears with a bandaged arm — in fact, Phiz intended this to serve as the frontispiece in the second (1841) volume. Brilliantly, Phiz realizes the very moment when, having received O'Malley's pistol-ball at close range, the French cavalry officer falls from his mount, dropping his carbine. Although Lever indicates that O'Malley's horse has been wounded, the mount in the plate races forward, unimpaired, as the pursuing Frenchmen to rear regard O'Malley's escape with consternation. Thus, the nocturnal adventure behind enemy lines ends with O'Malley, Hampden, and Mickey riding back at daybreak to warn General Crawford of an impending surprise attack by the French, fifty-thousand strong at Ciudad Rodrigo. For his heroism, Crawford plans to make O'Malley a member of his suite.

In the 1841 first (Dublin) edition, the illustration is juxtaposed against the last page of Chapter LXX, page 20 in the second volume, so that it marks the transition between O'Malley's providential escape and the surgeon's dealing with the dragoon's wound, "a fractured bone" (Chapter LXXI, "The Doctor," 20).

Related Material

• Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (1840-41)
• Hablot Knight Browne, 1815-1882; A Brief Biography
• Cattermole and Phiz: The First illustrators of Barnaby Rudge: A Team Effort by "The Clock Works" (1841)
• Horses by "Phiz" for Charles Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (Nov.-Dec. 1841, rpt., 1873)
• Phiz: 'A Good Hand at a Horse'" — A Gallery and Brief Overview of Phiz's Illustrations of Horses for Defoe, Dickens, Lever, and Ainsworth (1836-64)

Bibliography

Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.

Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. "Edited by Harry Lorrequer." Dublin: William Curry, Jun. London: W. S. Orr, 1841. 2 vols.

Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Published serially in The Dublin University Magazine from Vol. XV (March 1840) through XVIII (December 1841). Dublin: William Curry, March 1840 through December 1841. London: Samuel Holdsworth, 1842; rpt., Chapman and Hall, 1873.

Lever, Charles. Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablot Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 2 September 2016.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Two: "The Beginnings of 'Phiz': Pickwick, Nickleby, and the Emergence from Caricature." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 24-50.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter V, "Renegade from Physic, 1839-1841." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 73-93.

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Created 20 March 2023