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Passage Illustrated: Daly receives an important message via the Familiar Imp, Jemmy

A crowd awaited them as they reached the street, by which they were escorted through the denser mass that thronged the great thoroughfare, the mere mention of their names being sufficient to force a passage even where the mob stood thickest.

The space in front of the Parliament House and before the College was filled with soldiers; while patrols of cavalry traversed every avenue leading to it, for information had reached the Government that violence might be apprehended from a mob whose force and numbers were alluded to by members within the House in terms meant to intimidate, while the presence of the soldiery was retorted by the Opposition as a measure of tyranny and oppression of the Castle party. Brushing somewhat roughly through the armed line, Daly, with the Knight beside him, entered the space, and was passing onward, when a bustle and a confused uproar behind him arrested his steps. Believing that it might be to Sandy's progress some objection was offered, Daly wheeled round, when he saw two policemen in the act of dragging away a boy, whose loud cries for help from the mob were incessant, while he mingled the name of Mr. Daly through his entreaties.

"What is it?" said Daly. "Does the fellow want me?"

"Never mind him," said Darcy; "the boy has caught up your name, and that's all."

But the urchin struggled and kicked with all his might; and, although overpowered by superior strength, gave battle to the last, screaming at the top of his voice, "One word with Mr. Daly, — just one word!"

Bagenal Daly turned back, and, approaching the scene of contest, said, "Have you anything to say to me? I am Mr. Daly."

"If they'd let me go my hands, I've something to give you," said the boy, who, although sorely bruised and beaten, seemed to care less for his own troubles than for the object of his enterprise.

At a word from Daly, the policemen relinquished their hold, and stood guard on either side, while the boy, giving himself a shake, leered up in Daly's face with an expression he could not fail to recognize.

"There's a way to treat a young gentleman at home for the Christmas holidays!" said the imp, with a compassionate glance at his torn and tattered garments, while the words and the tone they were uttered in sent a shout of laughter through the mob.

"What, Jemmy!" said Daly, stooping down and accosting him in a whisper, for it was no other than that reputable youth himself, "you here?" [Chapter XIX, "A Day of Excitement," pp. 147-148]

Commentary: A Lever Original, Jemmy the Robber's Imp

We have already encountered the Dodger-like urchin Jemmy in a very different context, in Daly surveying the robber's Imp in the April 1846 instalment. Here is another of those quintessentially Irish characters at which Lever excels, and which his illustrator delights in: a Dublin version of Dickens's Jack Dawkins, "The Artful Dodger," tattered and scruffy, but street-smart and witty. The tall bourgeois in the tophat and greatcoat behind Jemmy and to the left is Bagenal Daly, who appears to be listening attentively. Having delivered Freney's brief message about Darcy's financial manager having absconded to America, the imp easily gives the authorities the slip.

Only after the imp has escaped the clutches of the police, and Daly has a private moment with Darcy does lever reveal the contents of the pencilled nopte that Jemmy has delivered from his master, the robber Freney: "Honest" Tom Gleeson, Darcy's financial advisor, is attempting to escape by ship from Liverpool to the United States with the two hundred thousand pounds he had raised on the money-market to pay off the Knight's debts to Hickman and others. But Daly still has a chance to catch the embezzler if he can sail to Liverpool overnight, and catch Gleeson before his packetboat sails on the following day. Darcy's initial response is incredulity at Gleeson's embezzlement, for the Knight of Gwynne has always placed his complete trust in Gleeson, and relied heavily upon him to sustain his improvidence.

Bibliography

Buchanan-Brown, John. Phiz! Illustrator of Dickens' World. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1978.

Lester, Valerie Browne Lester. Chapter 11: "'Give Me Back the Freshness of the Morning!'" Phiz! The Man Who Drew Dickens. London: Chatto and Windus, 2004. Pp. 108-127.

Lever, Charles. The Knight of Gwynne; A Tale of the Time of the Union. London: Chapman and Hall, serialised January 1846 through July 1847.

Lever, Charles. The Knight of Gwynne. Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vol. I and II. In two volumes. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 28 February 2018.

Steig, Michael. Chapter Four: "Dombey and Son: Iconography of Social and Sexual Satire." Dickens and Phiz. Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1978. Pp. 86-112.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter IX, "Nomadic Patriarch, 1845-1847." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. Pp. 146-164.

_______. "The Domestic Scene." The English Novel: A Panorama. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin and Riverside, 1960.

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Created 24 July 2023