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Passage Illustrated: Ulick Burke Suddenly Reappears

Again the terrible foreboding crossed my mind, and without waiting to ask another question I rushed forward, cleared the little fence of the flower-garden at a spring and stood within a few yards of the window. It lay open as usual; the large china vase of moss-roses that she had plucked the evening before stood on the little table beside it. I stopped for an instant to breathe; the beating of my heart was so painful that I pressed my hand upon my side. At that instant I had given my life to have heard Louisa's voice; but for one single word I had bartered my heart's blood. But all was as hushed and still as midnight. I thought I did hear something like a sigh; yes, and now I could distinctly hear the rustling sound of some one as if turning in a chair. Sir Simon Bellew, for some cause, or other, I knew never came into that room. I listened again: yes, and now too I could see the shadow of a figure on the floor. I sprang forward to the window and cried out, 'Louisa!' The next instant I was in the room, and my eyes fell upon the figure of — Ulick Burke! Seated in a deep arm-chair, his leg resting on a low stool, he was reclining at half-length, his face pale as death, and his very lips blanched; but there rested on the mouth the same curl of insolent mockery that marked it when first we met.

'Disappointed, I fear, sir,' said he, in a tone which, however weakened by sickness, had lost nothing of its sneering bitterness.

'I confess, sir,' said I confusedly, 'that this is a pleasure I had not anticipated.'

'Nor I either, sir,' replied he, with a dark frown. 'Had I been able to ring the bell before, the letter that lies there should have been sent to you, and might have spared both of us this “pleasure,” as you are good enough to call it.'

'A letter for me?' said I eagerly; then half ashamed at my own emotion, and not indifferent to the sickly and apparently dying form before me, I hesitated, and added, 'I trust that you are recovering from the effects of your wound.'

'Damn the wound, sir; don't speak to me about it! You never came here for that, I suppose? Take your letter, sir!' A purple flush here coloured his features, as though some pang of agonising pain had shot through him, and his livid lip quivered with passion. 'Take your letter, sir!' and he threw it towards me as he spoke. [Chapter XXXIX, "An Unlooked-for Meeting," pp. 268-269]

Commentary: Hinton bruised by the ordeal at the well the night before

The illustration immediately reveals that Hinton suffered some trauma to his arm in rescuing Louisa the night before. A further complication is that the Viceroy has ordered the protagonist by letter to return to his post at Dublin Castle immediately. As he approaches the great house, he encounters a child weeping in the garden because Miss Louisa has "gone away forever!" (268). But instead of encountering a mourning father Hinton discovers his arch-enemy, who mentions that another letter is waiting for him. This Burke hurls at his feet, although Phiz depicts it on the floor beside the armchair. The reader is in utter suspense to learn what is in the second letter, whether Louisa has survived the night after her ordeal on the seashore, and whether Hinton intends to accept Burke's challenge to a second pistol duel. Once he has escaped back into the garden, Hinton is chagrined and shocked to learn that Sir Simon has fled the house with his daughter, and has forbidden them ever to see one another again. He cannot escape the conviction that the hag's remarks about Louisa's mother are somehow connected with Sir Simon's describing himself as having led a "blighted" life during which he has committed an unspecified "crime."

The illustration shows Hinton's forbearance at Burke's challenge. The enigmatic aspect of the picture is the inset portrait of the saint, presumably of Saint Senan herself. Such pictures in Phiz's illustrations usually constitute parenthetical remarks or commentaries about the scene and the characters. Phiz's intention here may simply be to remind readers of the previous scene at the Saint's well, but it may also suggest the self-sacrificing Louisa's having to renounce the man she loves in order to tend to her father.

Related Material

• "Phiz" — artist, wood-engraver, etcher, and printer — and the new reproductive processes
• The Novels of Charles Lever, 1839-72
• Phiz's Forty-four Illustrations for Lever's Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon (1840-41)
• Phiz's Forty Illustrations for Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit (1843-44)

Bibliography

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

Lever, Charles. Jack Hinton, The Guardsman. Illustrated by Hablột Knight Browne (Phiz). London: Downey & Co., 1901. [First published serially in The Dublin University Magazine January through December 1842; and subsequently in a single volume, Dublin: William Curry, Jun. December 1842, pp. 396. Illustrated with wood and steel engravings by H. K. Browne: 27 full-page plates. 8vo, 396pp. Boston: Little, Brown, 1894; New York: Croscup, 1894. 2 vols.

Stevenson, Lionel. Chapter VI, "Editor, 1841-1843." Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939. 92-107.

Sutherland, John A. "The Dublin University Magazine." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989, rpt. 1990, 200.

Thomson, David Croal. Life and Labours of Hablột Knight Browne, "Phiz". London: Chapman and Hall, 1884.

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Created 1 June 2023