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The Reckoning
Phiz (Hablot K. Browne)
steel engraving
12.9 cm by 9.0 cm (5 ⅛ by 3 ½ inches), framed
November 1845
Charles Lever's The O'Donoghue; A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago (scene in Chapter XLVII, "The Day of Reckoning"), frontispiece, facing title-page. Signed "HKB."
[Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
"We have neither of us much time to throw away, I fancy," said he, with a bitter laugh; "choose your place now, sir, and fire when you please — mine is yonder;" and as he spoke he turned half round to walk towards the spot indicated. With the quickness of lightning, Hemsworth seized the moment, and drawing a pistol from his bosom, aimed and fired; the ball grazed Mark's shoulder, and made him stagger forwards; but in a second he recovered himself: the casualty saved him; for while falling, a second bullet whizzed after the first. With a cry of vengeance that made the old walls ring again, Mark sprang at him; it was the deadly leap of a tiger on his prey; the impulse was such, that as he caught him in his arms, both rolled over together on the floor. The struggle was but brief; Mark, superior in youth, strength, and activity, soon got him under, and with his knee upon his chest, pinioned him down to the ground. There was a pause, the only sounds being the quick-drawn breathings of both, as with looks of hate they gazed at each other; — while with one hand he grasped Hemsworth by the throat, with the other he felt for his pistol: slowly he drew forth the weapon, and cocked it; then laying the cold muzzle upon the other's forehead, he pressed the trigger; the cock snapped, but the priming burned. He flung the weapon from him in passion, and drew another; but ere he could adjust it, Hemsworth ceased to breathe; a cold livid colour spread over his features, and a clammy sweat bedewed his forehead — he had fainted.
Mark dropped the uplifted weapon, as he muttered — "It was a fitting fate — the death of a coward." Then standing up, he approached the window that overlooked the road, and threw it wide open. The storm still blew with all its force, and in a second extinguished the lights in the room, leaving all in darkness. With cautious steps, Mark moved towards where the body lay, and lifting it in his powerful arms, carried it towards the window; with one vigorous effort he hurled the lifeless form from him, and the heavy mass was heard as it fell crashing among the brushwood that covered the precipice. [Chapter XLVII, "The Day of Reckoning," pp. 385-386 in the 1845 edition]
Although this is the first illustration that the volume reader would have encountered in November 1845 when William Curry issued the single-volume, 410-page edition, for serial readers this was one of six engravings issued for the last, "double" number (Chapters 41 through 49): Sir Archy hears something to his advantage; The Shealing; Mark makes a dash at the Soldiers; The Escape; and Mark recognised by an old Acquaintance, or The Glen — anything you please my little dear. The plate involving the life-and-death struggle of Mark O'Donoghue and William Hemsworth assured both serial and volume readers that noble Mark would eventually triumph over the plotting Hemsworth. Ironically, at the end of the chapter Kerry O'Leary, arriving at the door in rags, announces that William Hemsworth has survived being tossed out of the window from the drawing-room of the castle, since the extensive branches outside the window broke his fall. Hemsworth is now leading a strong party through the glen to Mary Kelly's cabin. A significant detail is that Mark is now wearing the uniform of an officer in the French Grenadiers, reinforcing that fact that French ships of the line are in Bantry Bay, firing their canon and discharging rockets as they prepare to land troops in support of the local uprising. To the left is one of the decaying towers of Carrig-na-curra, the O'Donoghue castle, and the moon above it establishes the nocturnal setting.
In fact, Hemsworth meets his death by his own folly at Mary Kelly's cabin in the following chapter when he uses his pistol to break the lock on what he thinks is the inn's liquor storage but is in fact the armoury. Multiple explosions blow the cabin to pieces, and kill Hemsworth, Sam Wylie, and his search party.
Lester, Valerie Browne. Phiz: The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004.
Lever, Charles. The O'Donoghue; A Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago. With 26 engravings by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Originally published by William Curry, Jun., Dublin: 1845. In One Vol. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: May 11, 2010.
Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter VIII, "Heretic Among Tories, 1844-1845." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 128-145.
Sutherland, John A. "Lever, Charles." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 372-374.
Last updated 10 January 2024 Created 18 August 2023
