Passage Illustrated: Phiz delights in yet another horse

Strange as my equipment was, with an undress jacket flying loosely open, and a bare head, away I went. The gate which the groom spoke of was a strongly-barred one of oak timber, nearly five feet high,—its difficulty as a leap only consisted in the winding approach, and the fact that it opened upon a hard road beyond it.

In a second or two a kind of half fear came across me. My long illness had unnerved me, and my limbs felt weak and yielding; but as I pressed into the canter, that secret sympathy between the horse and his rider shot suddenly through me, I pressed my spurs to his flanks, and dashed him at it.

Unaccustomed to such treatment, the noble animal bounded madly forward. With two tremendous plunges he sprang wildly in the air, and shaking his long mane with passion, stretched out at the gallop.

My own blood boiled now as tempestuously as his; and with a shout of reckless triumph, I rose him at the gate. Just at the instant two figures appeared before it, — the copse had concealed their approach hitherto, — but they stood now as if transfixed. The wild attitude of the horse, the not less wild cry of his rider, had deprived them for a time of all energy; and overcome by the sudden danger, they seemed rooted to the ground. What I said, spoke, begged, or imprecated, Heaven knows — not I. But they stirred not! One moment more and they must lie trampled beneath my horse’s hoofs, — he was already on his haunches for the bound, — when, wheeling half aside, I faced him at the wall. It was at least a foot higher and of solid stone masonry, and as I did so I felt that I was perilling my life to save theirs. One vigorous dash of the spur I gave him, as I lifted him to the leap. He bounded beneath it quick as lightning; still, with a spring like a rocket, he rose into the air, cleared the wall, and stood trembling and frightened on the road outside.

“Safe, by Jupiter! and splendidly done, too,” cried a voice near me, that I immediately recognized as Sir George Dashwood’s.

“Lucy, my love, look up, — Lucy, my dear, there’s no danger now. She has fainted! O’Malley, fetch some water, — fast. Poor fellow, your own nerves seem shaken. Why, you’ve let your horse go! Come here, for Heaven’s sake! Support her for an instant. I’ll fetch some water.” [Chapter LXXXIII, "My Charger," 415]

Commentary: O'Malley Back in the Saddle, and Ready for Action

Feeling that Lucy Dashwood does not return his affections, O'Malley resigns as an aide-de-camp to her father, and determines to rejoin his regiment and get back into the fighting. Generously, Sir George not only accepts O'Malley's resignation, but sends his groom with a particular gift, a charger he has just acquired in England. As the young dragoon, his jacket not even done up, rides the horse furiously at the gate with the object of having the charger leap it, he suddenly encounters two figures in his way: Sir George, and his terrified daughter, Lucy. Risking both his own life and that of his spirited mount, O'Malley at the last minute avoids trampling the pair by changing course, and having the charger attempt the stone wall instead.

Phiz captures the moment effectively, with the figures to the right clearly anxious, and O'Malley concentrating on getting the horse over the wall at the Villa Nuova. The pair of shield-bearing griffins appear to be Phiz's invention. Perhaps the buildings in the background are not magnificent enough, but the scene underscores O'Malley's vigorous return to military action after a prolonged convalescence. In "trying out" the charger he has "tried" and proven himself ready and fit for active duty, so that the narrative can now return to the battlefield after all those boudoir scenes in Lisbon.

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 25 March 2023