Miss Barrtngton waited with impatience for Conyers's appearance at the breakfast-table,—she had received such a pleasant note from her brother, and she was so eager to read it. That notion of imparting some conception of a dear friend by reading his own words to a stranger is a very natural one. It serves so readily to corroborate all we have already said, to fill up that picture of which wo have but given the mere outline, not to speak of the inexplicable charm there is in being able to say, “Here is the man without reserve or disguise; here he is in all the freshness and warmth of genuine feeling; no tricks of style, no turning of phrases to mar the honest expression of his nature. You see him as we see him.”
“My brother is coming home, Mr. Conyers; he will be here to-day. Here is his note,” said Miss Dinah, as she shook hands with her guest “I must read it for you:—
“'At last, my dear Dinah—at last I am free, and, with all my love of law and lawyers, right glad to turn my steps homeward. Not but I have had a most brilliant week of it; dined with my old schoolfellow Longmore, now Chief Baron, and was the honored guest of the “Home Circuit,” not to speak of one glorious evening with a club called the “Unbriefed,” the pleasantest dogs that ever made good speeches for nothing!—an amount of dissipation upon which I can well retire and live for the next twelve months. How strange it seems to me to be once more in the “world,” and listening to scores of things in which I have no personal interest; how small it makes my own daily life appear, but how secure and how homelike, Dinah! You have often heard me grumbling over the decline of social agreeability, and the dearth of those pleasant speeches that could set the table in a roar. You shall never hear the same complaint from me again. These fellows are just as good as their fathers. If I missed anything, it was that glitter of scholarship, that classical turn which in the olden day elevated table-talk, and made it racy with the smart aphorisms and happy conceits of those who, even over their wine, were poets and orators. But perhaps I am not quite fair even in this. At all events, I am not going to disparage those who have brought back to my old age some of the pleasant memories of my youth, and satisfied me that even yet I have a heart for those social joys I once loved so dearly!
“'And we have won our suit, Dinah,—at least, a juror was withdrawn by consent,—and Brazier agrees to an arbitration as to the Moyalty lands, the whole of Clanebrach and Barrymaquilty property being released from the sequestration.'
“This is all personal matter, and technical besides,” said Miss Barrington; “so I skip it.”
“'Withering was finer than ever I heard him in the speech to evidence. We have been taunted with our defensive attitude so suddenly converted into an attack, and he compared our position to Wellington's at Torres Vedras. The Chief Justice said Curran, at his best, never excelled it, and they have called me nothing but Lord Wellington ever since. And now, Dinah, to answer the question your impatience has been putting these ten minutes: “What of the money part of all this triumph?” I fear much, my dear sister, we are to take little by our motion. The costs of the campaign cut up all but the glory! Hogan's bill extends to thirty-eight folio pages, and there's a codicil to it of eleven more, headed “Confidential between Client and Attorney,” and though I have not in a rapid survey seen anything above five pounds, the gross total is two thousand seven hundred and forty-three pounds three and fourpence. I must and will say, however, it was a great suit, and admirably prepared. There was not an instruction Withering did not find substantiated, and Hogan is equally delighted withhim, With all my taste for field sports and manly games, Dinah, I am firmly convinced that a good trial at bar is a far finer spectacle than the grandest tournament that ever was tilted. There was a skirmish yesterday that I 'd rather have witnessed than I 'd have seen Brian de Bois himself at Ashby-de-la-Zouch. And, considering that my own share for this passage at arms will come to a trifle above two thousand pounds, the confession may be taken as an honest one.
“'And who is your young guest whom I shall be so delighted to see? This gives no clew to him, Dinah, for you know well how I would welcome any one who has impressed you so favorably. Entreat of him to prolong his stay for a week at least, and if I can persuade Withering to come down with me, we 'll try and make his sojourn more agreeable. Look out for me—at least, about five o'clock—and have the green-room ready for W., and let Darby be at Holt's stile to take the trunks, for Withering likes that walk through the woods, and says that he leaves his wig and gown on the holly-bushes there till he goes back.'”
The next paragraph she skimmed over to herself. It was one about an advance that Hogan had let him have of two hundred pounds. “Quite ample,” W. says, “for our excursion to fetch over Josephine.” Some details as to the route followed, and some wise hints about travelling on the Continent, and a hearty concurrence on the old lawyer's part with the whole scheme.
“These are little home details,” said she, hurriedly, “but you have heard enough to guess what my brother is like. Here is the conclusion:—
“'I hope your young friend is a fisherman, which will give me more chance of his company than walking up the partridges, for which I am getting too old. Let him however understand that we mean him to enjoy himself in his own way, to have the most perfect liberty, and that the only despotism we insist upon is, not to be late for dinner.
“'Your loving brother,
“'Peter Barrington.
“'There is no fatted calf to feast our return, Dinah, but Withering has an old weakness for a roast sucking-pig. Don't you think we could satisfy it?'”
Conyers readily caught the contagion of the joy Miss Barrington felt at the thought of her brother's return. Short as the distance was that separated him from home, his absences were so rare, it seemed as though he had gone miles and miles away, for few people ever lived more dependent on each other, with interests more concentrated, and all of whose hopes and fears took exactly the same direction, than this brother and sister, and this, too, with some strong differences on the score of temperament, of which the reader already has an inkling.
What a pleasant bustle that is of a household that prepares for the return of a well-loved master! What feeling pervades twenty little offices of every-day routine! And how dignified by affection are the smallest cares and the very humblest attentions! “He likes this!” “He is so fond of that!” are heard at every moment It is then that one marks how the observant eye of love has followed the most ordinary tricks of habit, and treasured them as things to be remembered. It is not the key of the street door in your pocket, nor the lease of the premises in your drawer, that make a home. Let us be grateful when we remember that, in this attribute, the humblest shealing on the hillside is not inferior to the palace of the king!
Conyers, I have said, partook heartily of Miss Barring-ton's delight, and gave a willing help to the preparations that went forward. All were soon busy within doors and without. Some were raking the gravel before the door; while others were disposing the flower-pots in little pyramids through the grass plats; and then there were trees to be nailed up, and windows cleaned, and furniture changed in various ways. What superhuman efforts did not Conyers make to get an old jet d'eau to play which had not spouted for nigh twenty years; and how reluctantly he resigned himself to failure and assisted Betty to shake a carpet!
And when all was completed, and the soft and balmy air sent the odor of the rose and the jessamine through the open windows, within which every appearance of ease and comfort prevailed, Miss Barrington sat down at the piano and began to refresh her memory of some Irish airs, old favorites of Withering's, which he was sure to ask for. There was that in their plaintive wildness which strongly interested Conyers; while, at the same time, he was astonished at the skill of one at whose touch, once on a time, tears had trembled in the eyes of those who listened, and whose fingers had not yet forgot their cunning.
“Who is that standing without there?” said Miss Barrington, suddenly, as she saw a very poor-looking countryman who had drawn close to the window to listen. “Who are you? and what do you want here?” asked she, approaching him.
“I 'm Terry, ma'am,—Terry Delany, the Major's man,” said he, taking off his hat.
“Never heard of you; and what 's your business?”
“'T is how I was sent, your honor's reverence,” began he, faltering at every word, and evidently terrified by her imperious style of address. “'Tis how I came here with the master's compliments,—not indeed his own but the other man's,—to say, that if it was plazing to you, or, indeed, anyhow at all, they 'd be here at five o'clock to dinner; and though it was yesterday I got it, I stopped with my sister's husband at Foynes Gap, and misremembered it all till this morning, and I hope your honor's reverence won't tell it on me, but have the best in the house all the same, for he's rich enough and can well afford it.”
“What can the creature mean?” cried Miss Barrington. “Who sent you here?”
“The Major himself; but not for him, but for the other that's up at Cobham.”
“And who is this other? What is he called?”
“'Twas something like Hooks, or Nails; but I can't remember,” said he, scratching his head in sign of utter and complete bewilderment.
“Did any one ever hear the like! Is the fellow an idiot?” exclaimed she, angrily.
“No, my lady; but many a one might be that lived with ould M'Cormick!” burst out the man, in a rush of unguardedness.
“Try and collect yourself, my good fellow,” said Miss Barrington, smiling, in spite of herself, at his confession, “and say, if you can, what brought you here?”
“It's just, then, what I said before,” said he, gaining a little more courage. “It's dinner for two ye're to have; and it's to be ready at five o'clock; but ye 're not to look to ould Dan for the money, for he as good as said he would never pay sixpence of it, but 't is all to come out of the other chap's pocket, and well affordin' it. There it is now, and I defy the Pope o' Rome to say that I did n't give the message right!”
“Mr. Conyers,” began Miss Barrington, in a voice shaking with agitation, “it is nigh twenty years since a series of misfortunes brought us so low in the world that—” She stopped, partly overcome by indignation, partly by shame; and then, suddenly turning towards the man, she continued, in a firm and resolute tone, “Go back to your master and say, 'Miss Barrington hopes he has sent a fool on his errand, otherwise his message is so insolent it will be far safer he should never present himself here again!' Do you hear me? Do you understand me?”
“If you mane you'd make them throw him in the river, the divil a straw I 'd care, and I would n't wet my feet to pick him out of it!”
“Take the message as I have given it you, and do not dare to mix up anything of your own with it.”
“Faix, I won't. It's trouble enough I have without that! I 'll tell him there's no dinner for him here to-day, and that, if he 's wise, he won't come over to look for it.”
“There, go—be off,” cried Conyers, impatiently, for he saw that Miss Barrington's temper was being too sorely tried.
She conquered, however, the indignation that at one moment had threatened to master her, and in a voice of tolerable calm said,—
“May I ask you to see if Darby or any other of the workmen are in the garden? It is high time to take down these insignia of our traffic, and tell our friends how we would be regarded in future.”
“Will you let me do it? I ask as a favor that I may be permitted to do it,” cried Conyers, eagerly; and without waiting for her answer, hurried away to fetch a ladder. He was soon back again and at work.
“Take care how you remove that board, Mr. Conyers,” said she. “If there be the tiniest sprig of jessamine broken, my brother will miss it. He has been watching anxiously for the time when the white bells would shut out every letter of his name, and I like him not to notice the change immediately. There, you are doing it very handily indeed. There is another holdfast at this corner. Ah, be careful; that is a branch of the passion-tree, and though it looks dead, you will see it covered with flowers in spring. Nothing could be better. Now for the last emblem of our craft,—can you reach it?”
“Oh, easily,” said Conyers, as he raised his eyes to where the little tin fish hung glittering above him. The ladder, however, was too short, and, standing on one of the highest rungs, still he could not reach the little iron stanchion. “I must have it, though,” cried he; “I mean to claim that as my prize. It will be the only fish I ever took with my own hands.” He now cautiously crept up another step of the ladder, supporting himself by the frail creepers which covered the walls. “Help me now with a crooked stick, and I shall catch it.”
190
“I'll fetch you one,” said she, disappearing within the porch.
Still wistfully looking at the object of his pursuit, Conyers never turned his eyes downwards as the sound of steps apprised him some one was near, and, concluding it to be Miss Barrington, he said, “I'm half afraid that I have torn some of this jessamine-tree from the wall; but see here's the prize!” A slight air of wind had wafted it towards him, and he suatched the fish from its slender chain and held it up in triumph.
“A poacher caught in the fact, Barrington!” said a deep voice from below; and Conyers, looking down, saw two men, both advanced in life, very gravely watching his proceedings.
Not a little ashamed of a situation to which he never expected an audience, he hastily descended the ladder; but before he reached the ground Miss Barrington was in her brother's arms, and welcoming him home with all the warmth of true affection. This over, she next shook hands cordially with his companion, whom she called Mr. Withering.
“And now, Peter,” said she, “to present one I have been longing to make known to you. You, who never forget a well-known face, will recognize him.”
“My eyes are not what they used to be,” said Barrington, holding out his hand to Conyers, “but they are good enough to see the young gentleman I left here when I went away.”
“Yes, Peter,” said she, hastily; “but does the sight of him bring back to you no memory of poor George?”
“George was dark as a Spaniard, and this gentleman—But pray, sir, forgive this rudeness of ours, and let us make ourselves better acquainted within doors. You mean to stay some time here, I hope.”
“I only wish I could; but I have already overstayed my leave, and waited here only to shake your hand before I left.”
“Peter, Peter,” said Miss Dinah, impatiently, “must I then tell whom you are speaking to?”
Barrington seemed pazzled. He looked from the stranger to his sister, and back again.
She drew near and whispered in his ear: “The son of poor George's dearest friend on earth,—the son of Ormsby Conyers.”
“Of whom?” said Barrington, in a startled and half-angry voice.
“Of Ormsby Conyers.”
Barrington trembled from head to foot; his face, for an instant crimson, became suddenly of an ashy paleness, and his voice shook as he said,—
“I was not—I am not—prepared for this honor. I mean, I could not have expected that Mr. Conyers would have desired—Say this—do this for me, Withering, for I am not equal to it,” said the old man, as, with his hands pressed over his face, he hurried within the house, followed by his sister.
“I cannot make a guess at the explanation my friend has left me to make,” cried Withering, courteously; “but it is plain to see that your name has revived some sorrow connected with the great calamity of his life. You have heard of his son, Colonel Barrington?”
“Yes, and it was because my father had been his dearest friend that Miss Barrington insisted on my remaining here. She told me, over and over again, of the joy her brother would feel on meeting me—”
“Where are you going,—what's the matter?” asked Withering, as a man hurriedly passed out of the house and made for the river.
“The master is taken bad, sir, and I 'm going to Inistioge for the doctor.”
“Let me go with you,” said Conyers; and, only returning by a nod the good-bye of Withering, he moved past and stepped into the boat.
“What an afternoon to such a morning!” muttered he to himself, as the tears started from his eyes and stole heavily along his cheeks.
If Conyers had been in the frame of mind to notice it, the contrast between the neat propriety of the “Fisherman's Home,” and the disorder and slovenliness of the little inn at Inistioge could not have failed to impress itself upon him. The “Spotted Duck” was certainly, in all its details, the very reverse of that quiet and picturesque cottage he had just quitted. But what did he care at that moment for the roof that sheltered him, or the table that was spread before him? For days back he had been indulging in thoughts of that welcome which Miss Barrington had promised him. He fancied how, on the mere mention of his father's name, the old man's affection would have poured forth in a flood of kindest words; he had even prepared himself for a scene of such emotion as a father might have felt on seeing one who brought back to mind his own son's earlier years; and instead of all this, he found himself shunned, avoided, repulsed. If there was a thing on earth in which his pride was greatest, it was his name; and yet it was on the utterance of that word, “Conyers,” old Barrington turned away and left him.
Over and over again had he found the spell of his father's name and title opening to him society, securing him attentions, and obtaining for him that recognition and acceptance which go so far to make life pleasurable; and now that word, which would have had its magic at a palace, fell powerless and cold at the porch of a humble cottage.
To say that it was part of his creed to believe his father could do no wrong is weak. It was his whole belief,—his entire and complete conviction. To his mind his father embodied all that was noble, high-hearted, and chivalrous. It was not alone the testimony of those who served under him could be appealed to. All India, the Government at home, his own sovereign knew it. From his earliest infancy he had listened to this theme, and to doubt it seemed like to dispute the fact of his existence. How was it, then, that this old man refused to accept what the whole world had stamped with its value? Was it that he impugned the services which had made his father's name famous throughout the entire East?
He endeavored to recall the exact words Barrington had used towards him, but he could not succeed. There was something, he thought, about intruding, unwarrantably intruding; or it might be a mistaken impression of the welcome that awaited him. Which was it? or was it either of them? At all events, he saw himself rejected and repulsed, and the indignity was too great to be borne.
While he thus chafed and fretted, hours went by; and Mr. M'Cabe, the landlord, had made more than one excursion into the room, under pretence of looking after the fire, or seeing that the windows were duly closed, but, in reality, very impatient to learn his guest's intentions regarding dinner.
“Was it your honor said that you'd rather have the chickens roast than biled?” said he at last, in a very submissive tone.
“I said nothing of the kind.”
“Ah, it was No. 5 then, and I mistook; I crave your honor's pardon.” Hoping that the chord he had thus touched might vibrate, he stooped down to arrange the turf, and give time for the response, but none came. Mr. M'Cabe gave a faint sigh, but returned to the charge. “When there's the laste taste of south in the wind, there 's no making this chimney draw.”
Not a word of notice acknowledged this remark.
“But it will do finely yet; it's just the outside of the turf is a little wet, and no wonder; seven weeks of rain—glory be to Him that sent it—has nearly desthroyed us.”
Still Conyers vouchsafed no reply.
“And when it begins to rain here, it never laves off. It isn't like in your honor's country. Your honor is English?”
A grunt,—it might be assent, it sounded like malediction.
“'T is azy seen. When your honor came out of the boat, I said, 'Shusy,' says I, 'he's English; and there's a coat they could n't make in Ireland for a king's ransom.'”
“What conveyances leave this for Kilkenny?” asked Conyers, sternly.
“Just none at all, not to mislead you,” said M'Cabe, in a voice quite devoid of its late whining intonation.
“Is there not a chaise or a car to be had?”
“Sorrow one. Dr. Dill has a car, to be sure, but not for hire.”
“Oh, Dr. Dill lives here. I forgot that. Go and tell him I wish to see him.”
The landlord withdrew in dogged silence, but returned in about ten minutes, to say that the doctor had been sent for to the “Fisherman's Home,” and Mr. Barrington was so ill it was not likely he would be back that night.
“So ill, did you say?” cried Conyers. “What was the attack,—what did they call it?”
“'T is some kind of a 'plexy, they said. He's a full man, and advanced in years, besides.”
“Go and tell young Mr. Dill to come over here.”
“He's just gone off with the cuppin' instruments. I saw him steppin' into the boat.”
“Let me have a messenger; I want a man to take a note up to Miss Barrington, and fetch my writing-desk here.”
In his eager anxiety to learn how Mr. Barrington was, Conyers hastily scratched off a few lines; but on reading them over, he tore them up: they implied a degree of interest on his part which, considering the late treatment extended to him, was scarcely dignified. He tried again; the error was as marked on the other side. It was a cold and formal inquiry. “And yet,” said he, as he tore this in fragments, “one thing is quite clear,—this illness is owing tome!But formypresence there, that old man had now been hale and hearty; the impressions, rightfully or wrongfully, which the sight ofmeand the announcement ofmyname produced are the cause of this malady. I cannot deny it.” With this revulsion of feeling he wrote a short but kindly worded note to Miss Barrington, in which, with the very faintest allusion to himself, he begged for a few lines to say how her brother was. He would have added something about the sorrow he experienced in requiting all her kindness by this calamitous return, but he felt that if the case should be a serious one, all reference to himself would be misplaced and impertinent.
The messenger despatched, he sat down beside his fire, the only light now in the room, which the shade of coming night had darkened. He was sad and dispirited, and ill at ease with his own heart. Mr. M'Cabe, indeed, appeared with a suggestion about candles, and a shadowy hint that if his guest speculated of dining at all, it was full time to intimate it; but Conyers dismissed him with a peremptory command not to dare to enter the room again until he was summoned to it. So odious to him was the place, the landlord, and all about him, that he would have set out on foot had his ankle been only strong enough to bear him. “What if he were to write to Stapylton to come and fetch him away? He never liked the man; he liked him less since the remark Miss Barrrington had made upon him from mere reading of his letter, but what was he to do?” While he was yet doubting what course to take, he heard the voices of some new arrivals outside, and, strange enough, one seemed to be Stapylton's. A minute or two after, the travellers had entered the room adjoining his own, and from which a very frail partition of lath and plaster alone separated him.
“Well, Barney,” said a harsh, grating voice, addressing the landlord, “what have you got in the larder? We mean to dine with you.”
“To dine here, Major!” exclaimed M'Cabe. “Well, well, wondhers will never cease.” And then hurriedly seeking to cover a speech not very flattering to the Major's habits of hospitality, “Sure, I 've a loin of pork, and there 's two chickens and a trout fresh out of the water, and there's a cheese; it isn't mine, to be sure, but Father Cody's, but he 'll not miss a slice out of it; and barrin' you dined at the 'Fisherman's Home,' you 'd not get betther.”
“That 's where we were to have dined by right,” said the Major, crankily,—“myself and my friend here,—but we're disappointed, and so we stepped in here, to do the best we can.”
“Well, by all accounts, there won't be many dinners up there for some time.”
“Why so?”
“Ould Barrington was took with a fit this afternoon, and they say he won't get over it.”
“How was it?—what brought it on?”
“Here's the way I had it. Ould Peter was just come home from Kilkenny, and had brought the Attorney-General with him to stay a few days at the cottage, and what was the first thing he seen but a man that come all the way from India with a writ out against him for some of mad George Barrington's debts; and he was so overcome by the shock, that he fainted away, and never came rightly to himself since.”
“This is simply impossible,” said a voice Conyers well knew to be Stapylton's.
“Be that as it may, I had it from the man that came for the doctor, and what's more, he was just outside the window, and could hear ould Barrington cursin' and swearin' about the man that ruined his son, and brought his poor boy to the grave; but I 'll go and look after your honor's dinner, for I know more about that.”
“I have a strange half-curiosity to know the correct version of this story,” said Stapylton, as the host left the room. “The doctor is a friend of yours, I think. Would he step over here, and let us hear the matter accurately?”
“He's up at the cottage now, but I 'll get him to come in here when he returns.”
If Conyers was shocked to hear how even this loose version of what had occurred served to heighten the anxiety his own fears created, he was also angry with himself at having learned the matter as he did. It was not in his nature to play the eavesdropper, and he had, in reality, heard what fell between his neighbors, almost ere he was aware of it. To apprise them, therefore, of the vicinity of a stranger, he coughed and sneezed, poked the fire noisily, and moved the chairs about; but though the disturbance served to prevent him from hearing, it did not tend to impress any greater caution upon them, for they talked away as before, and more than once above the din of his own tumult, he heard the name of Barrington, and even his own, uttered.
Unable any longer to suffer the irritation of a position so painful, he took his hat, and left the house. It was now night, and so dark that he had to stand some minutes on the door-sill ere he could accustom his sight to the obscurity. By degrees, however, he was enabled to guide his steps, and, passing through the little square, he gained the bridge; and here he resolved to walk backwards and forwards till such time as he hoped his neighbors might have concluded their convivialities, and turned homeward.
A thin cold rain was falling, and the night was cheerless, and without a star; but his heart was heavy, and the dreariness without best suited that within him. For more than an hour he continued his lonely walk, tormented by all the miseries his active ingenuity could muster. To have brought sorrow and mourning beneath the roof where you have been sheltered with kindness is sad enough, but far sadder is it to connect the calamity you have caused with one dearer to you than yourself, and whose innocence, while assured of, you cannot vindicate. “My father never wronged this man, for the simple reason that he has never been unjust to any one. It is a gross injustice to accuse him! If Colonel Barrington forfeited my father's friendship, who could doubt where the fault lay? But I will not leave the matter questionable. I will write to my father and ask him to send me such a reply as may set the issue at rest forever; and then I will come down here, and, with my father's letter in my hand, say, 'The mention of my name was enough, once on a time, to make you turn away from me on the very threshold of your own door—'” When he had got thus far in his intended appeal, his ear was suddenly struck by the word “Conyers,” uttered by one of two men who had passed him the moment before, and now stood still in one of the projections of the bridge to talk. He as hastily recognized Dr. Dill as the speaker. He went on thus: “Of course it was mere raving, but one must bear in mind that memory very often is the prompter of these wanderings; and it was strange how persistently he held to the one theme, and continued to call out, 'It was not fair, sir! It was not manly! You know it yourself, Conyers; you cannot deny it!'”
“But you attach no importance to such wanderings, doctor?” asked one whose deep-toned voice betrayed him to be Stapylton.
“I do; that is, to the extent I have mentioned. They are incoherencies, but they are not without some foundation. This Conyers may have had his share in that famous accusation against Colonel Barrington,—that well-known charge I told you of; and if so, it is easy to connect the name with these ravings.”
“And the old man will die of this attack,” said Stapylton, half musingly.
“I hope not. He has great vigor of constitution; and old as he is, I think he will rub through it.”
“Young Conyers left for Kilkenny, then, immediately?” asked he.
“No; he came down here, to the village. He is now at the inn.”
“At the inn, here? I never knew that. I am sorry I was not aware of it, doctor; but since it is so, I will ask of you not to speak of having seen me here. He would naturally take it ill, as his brother officer, that I did not make him out, while, as you see, I was totally ignorant of his vicinity.”
“I will say nothing on the subject, Captain,” said the doctor. “And now one word of advice from you on a personal matter. This young gentleman has offered to be of service to my son—”
Conyers, hitherto spellbound while the interest attached to his father, now turned hastily from the spot and walked away, his mind not alone charged with a heavy care, but full of an eager anxiety as to wherefore Stapylton should have felt so deeply interested in Barrington's illness, and the causes that led to it,—Stapylton, the most selfish of men, and the very last in the world to busy himself in the sorrows or misfortunes of a stranger. Again, too, why had he desired the doctor to preserve his presence there as a secret? Conyers was exactly in the frame of mind to exaggerate a suspicion, or make a mere doubt a grave question. While be thus mused, Stapylton and the doctor passed him on their way towards the village, deep in converse, and, to all seeming, in closest confidence.
“Shall I follow him to the inn, and declare that I overheard a few words on the bridge which give me a claim to explanation? Shall I say, 'Captain Stapylton, you spoke of my father, just now, sufficiently aloud to be overheard by me as I passed, and in your tone there was that which entitles me to question you? Then if he should say, 'Go on; what is it you ask for?' shall I not be sorely puzzled to continue? Perhaps, too, he might remind me that the mode in which I obtained my information precludes even a reference to it. He is one of those fellows not to throw away such an advantage, and I must prepare myself for a quarrel. Oh, if I only had Hunter by me! What would I not give for the brave Colonel's counsel at such a moment as this?”
Of this sort were his thoughts as he strolled up and down for hours, wearing away the long “night watches,” till a faint grayish tinge above the horizon showed that morning was not very distant. The whole landscape was wrapped in that cold mysterious tint in which tower and hill-top and spire are scarcely distinguishable from each other, while out of the low-lying meadows already arose the bluish vapor that proclaims the coming day. The village itself, overshadowed by the mountain behind it, lay a black, unbroken mass.
Not a light twinkled from a window, save close to the river's bank, where a faint gleam stole forth and flickered on the water.
Who has not felt the strange interest that attaches to a solitary light seen thus in the tranquil depth of a silent night? How readily do we associate it with some incident of sorrow! The watcher beside the sick-bed rises to the mind, or the patient sufferer himself trying to cheat the dull hours by a book, or perhaps some poor son of toil arising to his daily round of labor, and seated at that solitary meal which no kind word enlivens, no companionship beguiles. And as I write, in what corner of earth are not such scenes passing,—such dark shadows moving over the battlefield of life?
In such a feeling did Conyers watch this light as, leaving the high-road, he took a path that led along the river towards it. As he drew nigher, he saw that the light came from the open window of a room which gave upon a little garden,—a mere strip of ground fenced off from the path by a low paling. With a curiosity he could not master, he stopped and looked in. At a large table, covered with books and papers, and on which a skull also stood, a young man was seated, his head leaning on his hand, apparently in deep thought, while a girl was slowly pacing the little chamber as she talked to him.
“It does not require,” said she, in a firm voice, “any great effort of memory to bear in mind that a nerve, an artery, and a vein always go in company.”
“Not for you, perhaps,—not for you, Polly.”
“Not for any one, I 'm sure. Your fine dragoon friend with the sprained ankle might be brought to that amount of instruction by one telling of it.”
“Oh, he 's no fool, I promise you, Polly. Don't despise him because he has plenty of money and can lead a life of idleness.”
“I neither despise nor esteem him, nor do I mean that he should divert our minds from what we are at. Now for the popliteal space. Can you describe it? Do you know where it is, or anything about it?”
“I do,” said he, doggedly, as he pushed his long hair back from his eyes, and tried to think,—“I do, but I must have time. You must n't hurry me.”
She made no reply, but continued her walk in silence.
“I know all about it, Polly, but I can't describe it. I can't describe anything; but ask me a question about it.”
“Where is it,—where does it lie?”
“Isn't it at the lower third of the humerus, where the flexors divide?”
“You are too bad,—too stupid!” cried she, angrily. “I cannot believe that anything short of a purpose, a determination to be ignorant, could make a person so unteach-able. If we have gone over this once, we have done so fifty times. It haunts me in my sleep, from very iteration.”
“I wish it would haunt me a little when I 'm awake,” said he, sulkily.
“And when may that be, I'd like to know? Do you fancy, sir, that your present state of intelligence is a very vigilant one?”
“I know one thing. I hope there won't be the like of you on the Court of Examiners, for I would n't bear the half of whatyou'vesaid to me from another.”
202
“Rejection will be harder to bear, Tom. To be sent back as ignorant and incapable will be far heavier as a punishment than any words of mine. What are you laughing at, sir? Is it a matter of mirth to you?”
“Look at the skull, Polly,—look at the skull.” And he pointed to where he had stuck his short, black pipe, between the grinning teeth of the skeleton.
She snatched it angrily away, and threw it out of the window, saying, “You may be ignorant, and not be able to help it. I will take care you shall not be irreverent, sir.”
“There's my short clay gone, anyhow,” said Tom, submissively, “and I think I 'll go to bed.” And he yawned drearily as he spoke.
“Not till you have done this, if we sit here till breakfast-time,” said she, resolutely. “There's the plate, and there's the reference. Read it till you know it!”
“What a slave-driver you 'd make, Polly!” said he, with a half-bitter smile.
“What a slave I am!” said she, turning away her head.
“That's true,” cried he, in a voice thick with emotion; “and when I 'm thousands of miles away, I 'll be longing to hear the bitterest words you ever said to me, rather than never see you any more.”
“My poor brother,” said she, laying her hand softly on his rough head, “I never doubted your heart, and I ought to be better tempered with you, and I will. Come, now, Tom,”—and she seated herself at the table next him,—“see, now, if I cannot make this easy to you.” And then the two heads were bent together over the table, and the soft brown hair of the girl half mingled with the rough wool of the graceless numskull beside her.
“I will stand by him, if it were only for her sake,” said Conyers to himself. And he stole slowly away, and gained the inn.
So intent upon his purpose was he that he at once set about its fulfilment. He began a long letter to his father, and, touching slightly on the accident by which he made Dr. Dill's acquaintance, professed to be deeply his debtor for kindness and attention. With this prelude he introduced Tom. Hitherto his pen had glided along flippantly enough. In that easy mixture of fact and fancy by which he opened his case, no grave difficulty presented itself; but Tom was now to be presented, and the task was about as puzzling as it would have been to have conducted him bodily into society.
“I was ungenerous enough to be prejudiced against this poor fellow when I first met him,” wrote he. “Neither his figure nor his manners are in his favor, and in his very diffidence there is an apparent rudeness and forwardness which are not really in his nature. These, however, are not mistakes you, my dear father, will fall into. With your own quickness you will see what sterling qualities exist beneath this rugged outside, and you will befriend him at first for my sake. Later on, I trust he will open his own account in your heart. Bear in mind, too, that it was all my scheme,—the whole plan mine. It was I persuaded him to try his luck in India; it was through me he made the venture; and if the poor fellow fail, all the fault will fall back uponme.” From this he went into little details of Tom's circumstances, and the narrow means by which he was surrounded, adding how humble he was, and how ready to be satisfied with the most moderate livelihood. “In that great wide world of the East, what scores of things there must be for such a fellow to do; and even should he not turn out to be a Sydenham or a Harvey, he might administer justice, or collect revenue, or assist in some other way the process of that system which we call the British rule in India. In a word, get him something he may live by, and be able, in due time, to help those he has left behind here, in a land whose 'Paddy-fields' are to the full as pauperized as those of Bengal.”
He had intended, having disposed of Tom Dill's case, to have addressed some lines to his father about the Barring-tons, sufficiently vague to be easily answered if the subject were one distasteful or unpleasing to him; but just as he reached the place to open this, he was startled by the arrival of a jaunting-car at the inn-door, whose driver stopped to take a drink. It was a chance conveyance, returning to Kilkenny, and Conyers at once engaged it; and, leaving an order to send on the reply when it arrived from the cottage, he wrote a hasty note to Tom Dill and departed. This note was simply to say that he had already fulfilled his promise of interesting his father in his behalf, and that whenever Tom had passed his examination, and was in readiness for his voyage, he should come or write to him, and he would find him fully disposed to serve and befriend him. “Meanwhile,” wrote he, “let me hear of you. I am really anxious to learn how you acquit yourself at the ordeal, for which you have the cordial good wishes of your friend, F. Conyers.”
Oh, if the great men of our acquaintance—and we all of us, no matter how hermit-like we may live, have our “great men”—could only know and feel what ineffable pleasure will sometimes be derived from the chance expressions they employ towards us,—words which, little significant in themselves, perhaps have some touch of good fellowship or good feeling, now reviving a “bygone,” now far-seeing a future, tenderly thrilling through us by some little allusion to a trick of our temperament, noted and observed by one in whose interest we never till then knew we had a share,—if, I say, they were but aware of this, how delightful they might make themselves!—what charming friends!—and, it is but fair to own, what dangerous patrons!
I leave my reader to apply the reflection to the case before him, and then follow me to the pleasant quarters of a well-maintained country-house, full of guests and abounding in gayety.
My reader is already aware that I am telling of some forty years ago, and therefore I have no apologies to make for habits and ways which our more polished age has pronounced barbarous. Now, at Cobham, the men sat after dinner over their wine when the ladies had withdrawn, and, I grieve to say, fulfilled this usage with a zest and enjoyment that unequivocally declared it to be the best hour of the whole twenty-four.
Friends could now get together, conversation could range over personalities, egotisms have their day, and bygones be disinterred without need of an explanation. Few, indeed, who did not unbend at such a moment, and relax in that genial atmosphere begotten of closed curtains, and comfort, and good claret. I am not so certain that we are wise in our utter abandonment of what must have often conciliated a difference or reconciled a grudge. How many a lurking discontent, too subtle for intervention, must have been dissipated in the general burst of a common laugh, or the racy enjoyment of a good story! Decidedly the decanter has often played peacemaker, though popular prejudice inclines to give it a different mission.
On the occasion to which I would now invite my reader, the party were seated—by means of that genial discovery, a horseshoe-table—around the fire at Cobham. It was a true country-house society of neighbors who knew each other well, sprinkled with guests,—strangers to every one. There were all ages and all temperaments, from the hardy old squire, whose mellow cheer was known at the fox-cover, to the young heir fresh from Oxford and loud about Leicestershire; gentlemen-farmers and sportsmen, and parsons and soldiers, blended together with just enough disparity of pursuit to season talk and freshen experiences.
The conversation, which for a while was partly on sporting matters, varied with little episodes of personal achievement, and those little boastings which end in a bet, was suddenly interrupted by a hasty call for Dr. Dill, who was wanted at the “Fisherman's Home.”
“Can't you stay to finish this bottle, Dill?” said the Admiral, who had not heard for whom he had been sent.
“I fear not, sir. It is a long row down to the cottage.”
“So it 's poor Barrington again! I 'm sincerely sorry for it! And now I 'll not ask you to delay. By the way, take my boat. Elwes,” said he to the servant, “tell the men to get the boat ready at once for Dr. Dill, and come and say when it is so.”
The doctor's gratitude was profuse, though probably a dim vista of the “tip” that might be expected from him detracted from the fulness of the enjoyment.
“Find out if I could be of any use, Dill,” whispered the Admiral, as the doctor arose. “Your own tact will show if there be anything I could do. You understand me; I have the deepest regard for old Barrington, and his sister too.”
Dill promised to give his most delicate attention to the point, and departed.
While this little incident was occurring, Stapylton, who sat at an angle of the fireplace, was amusing two or three listeners by an account of his intended dinner at the “Home,” and the haughty refusal of Miss Barrington to receive him.
“You must tell Sir Charles the story!” cried out Mr. Bushe. “He'll soon recognize the old Major from your imitation of him.”
“Hang the old villain! he shot a dog-fox the other morning, and he knows well how scarce they are getting in the country,” said another.
“I 'll never forgive myself for letting him have a lease of that place,” said a third; “he's a disgrace to the neighborhood.”
“You're not talking of Barrington, surely,” called out Sir Charles.
“Of course not. I was speaking of M'Cormick. Harrington is another stamp of man, and here's his good health!”
“He'll need all your best wishes, Jack,” said the host, “for Dr. Dill has just been called away to see him.”
“To see old Peter! Why, I never knew him to have a day's illness!”
“He's dangerously ill now,” said the Admiral, gravely. “Dill tells me that he came home from the Assizes hale and hearty, in high spirits at some verdict in his favor, and brought back the Attorney-General to spend a day or two with him; but that, on arriving, he found a young fellow whose father or grandfather—for I have n't it correctly—had been concerned in some way against George Barrington, and that high words passed between old Peter and this youth, who was turned out on the spot, while poor Barrington, overcome by emotion, was struck down with a sort of paralysis. As I have said, I don't know the story accurately, for even Dill himself only picked it up from the servants at the cottage, neither Miss Barrington nor Withering having told him one word on the subject.”
“That is the very same story I heard at the village where we dined,” broke in Stapylton, “and M'Cormick added that he remembered the name. Conyers—the young man is called Conyers—did occur in a certain famous accusation against Colonel Barrington.”
“Well, but,” interposed Bushe, “isn't all that an old story now? Is n't the whole thing a matter of twenty years ago?”
“Not so much as that,” said Sir Charles. “I remember reading it all when I was in command of the 'Madagascar,'—I forget the exact year, but I was at Corfu.”
“At all events,” said Bushe, “it's long enough past to be forgotten or forgiven; and old Peter was the very last man I could ever have supposed likely to carry on an ancient grudge against any one.”
“Not where his son was concerned. Wherever George's name entered, forgiveness of the man that wronged him was impossible,” said another.
“You are scarcely just to my old friend,” interposed the Admiral. “First of all, we have not the facts before us. Many of us here have never seen, some have never heard of the great Barrington Inquiry, and of such as have, if their memories be not better than mine, they can't discuss the matter with much profit.”
“I followed the case when it occurred,” chimed in the former speaker, “but I own, with Sir Charles, that it has gone clean out of my head since that time.”
“You talk of injustice, Cobham, injustice to old Peter Barrington,” said an old man from the end of the table; “but I would ask, are we quite just to poor George? I knew him well. My son served in the same regiment with him before he went out to India, and no finer nor nobler-hearted fellow than George Barrington ever lived. Talk of him ruining his father by his extravagance! Why, he'd have cut off his right hand rather than caused him one pang, one moment of displeasure. Barrington ruined himself; that insane passion for law has cost him far more than half what he was worth in the world. Ask Withering; he 'll tell you something about it. Why, Withering's own fees in that case before 'the Lords' amount to upwards of two thousand guineas.”
“I won't dispute the question with you, Fowndes,” said the Admiral. “Scandal says you have a taste for a trial at bar yourself.”
The hit told, and called for a hearty laugh, in which Fowndes himself joined freely.
“I'm a burned child, however, and keep away from the fire,” said he, good-humoredly; “but old Peter seems rather to like being singed. There he is again with his Privy Council case for next term, and with, I suppose, as much chance of success as I should have in a suit to recover a Greek estate of some of my Phoenician ancestors.”
It was not a company to sympathize deeply with such a litigious spirit. The hearty and vigorous tone of squiredom, young and old, could not understand it as a passion or a pursuit, and they mainly agreed that nothing but some strange perversion could have made the generous nature of old Barrington so fond of law. Gradually the younger members of the party slipped away to the drawing-room, till, in the changes that ensued, Stapylton found himself next to Mr. Fowndes.
“I'm glad to see, Captain,” said the old squire, “that modern fashion of deserting the claret-jug has not invaded your mess. I own I like a man who lingers over his wine.”
“We have no pretext for leaving it, remember that,” said Stapylton, smiling.
“Very true. Theplaceus uxoris sadly out of place in a soldier's life. Your married officer is but a sorry comrade; besides, how is a fellow to be a hero to the enemy who is daily bullied by his wife?”
“I think you said that you had served?” interposed Stapylton.
“No. My son was in the army; he is so still, but holds a Governorship in the West Indies. He it was who knew this Barrington we were speaking of.”
“Just so,” said Stapylton, drawing his chair closer, so as to converse more confidentially.
“You may imagine what very uneventful lives we country gentlemen live,” said the old squire, “when we can continue to talk over one memorable case for something like twenty years, just because one of the parties to it was our neighbor.”
“You appear to have taken a lively interest in it,” said Stapylton, who rightly conjectured it was a favorite theme with the old squire.
“Yes. Barrington and my son were friends; they came down to my house together to shoot; and with all his eccentricities—and they were many—I liked Mad George, as they called him.”
“He was a good fellow, then?”
“A thoroughly good fellow, but the shyest that ever lived; to all outward seeming rough and careless, but sensitive as a woman all the while. He would have walked up to a cannon's mouth with a calm step, but an affecting story would bring tears to his eyes; and then, to cover this weakness, which he was well ashamed of, he 'd rush into fifty follies and extravagances. As he said himself to me one day, alluding to some feat of rash absurdity, 'I have been taking another inch off the dog's tail,'—he referred to the story of Alcibiades, who docked his dog to take off public attention from his heavier transgressions.”
“There was no truth in these accusations against him?”
“Who knows? George was a passionate fellow, and he 'd have made short work of the man that angered him. I myself never so entirely acquitted him as many who loved him less. At all events, he was hardly treated; he was regularly hunted down. I imagine he must have made many enemies, for witnesses sprung up against him on all sides, and he was too proud a fellow to ask for one single testimony in his favor! If ever a man met death broken-hearted, he did!”
A pause of several minutes occurred, after which the old squire resumed,—
“My son told me that after Barrington's death there was a strong revulsion in his favor, and a great feeling that he had been hardly dealt by. Some of the Supreme Council, it is said, too, were disposed to behave generously towards his child, but old Peter, in an evil hour, would hear of nothing short of restitution of all the territory, and a regular rehabilitation of George's memory, besides; in fact, he made the most extravagant demands, and disgusted the two or three who were kindly and well disposed towards his cause. Had they, indeed,—as he said,—driven his son to desperation, he could scarcely ask them to declare it to the world; and yet nothing short of this would satisfy him! 'Come forth,' wrote he,—I read the letter myself,—'come forth and confess that your evidence was forged and your witnesses suborned; that you wanted to annex the territory, and the only road to your object was to impute treason to the most loyal heart that ever served the King!' Imagine what chance of favorable consideration remained to the man who penned such words as these.”
“And he prosecutes the case still?”
“Ay, and will do to the day of his death. Withering—who was an old schoolfellow of mine—has got me to try what I could do to persuade him to come to some terms; and, indeed, to do old Peter justice, it is not the money part of the matter he is so obstinate about; it is the question of what he calls George's fair fame and honor; and one cannot exactly say to him, 'Who on earth cares a brass button whether George Barrington was a rebel or a true man? Whether he deserved to die an independent Rajah of some place with a hard name, or the loyal subject of his Majesty George the Third?' I own I, one day, did go so close to the wind, on that subject, that the old man started up and said, 'I hope I misapprehend you, Harry Fowndes. I hope sincerely that I do so, for if not, I 'll have a shot at you, as sure as my name is Peter Barrington.' Of course I 'tried back' at once, and assured him it was a pure misconception of my meaning, and that until the East India folk fairly acknowledged that they had wronged his son,hecould not, with honor, approach the question of a compromise in the money matter.”
“That day, it may be presumed, is very far off,” said Stapylton, half languidly.
“Well, Withering opines not. He says that they are weary of the whole case. They have had, perhaps, some misgivings as to the entire justice of what they did. Perhaps they have learned something during the course of the proceedings which may have influenced their judgment; and not impossible is it that they pity the old man fighting out his life; and perhaps, too, Barrington himself may have softened a little, since he has begun to feel that his granddaughter—for George left a child—had interests which his own indignation could not rightfully sacrifice; so that amongst all these perhapses, who knows but some happy issue may come at last?”
“That Barrington race is not a very pliant one,” said Stapylton, half dreamily; and then, in some haste, added, “at least, such is the character they give them here.”
“Some truth there may be in that. Men of a strong temperament and with a large share of self-dependence generally get credit from the world for obstinacy, just because the roadtheysee out of difficulties is not the popular one. But even with all this, I 'd not call old Peter self-willed; at least, Withering tells me that from time to time, as he has conveyed to him the opinions and experiences of old Indian officers, some of whom had either met with or heard of George, he has listened with much and even respectful attention. And as all their counsels have gone against his own convictions, it is something to give them a patient hearing.”
“He has thus permitted strangers to come and speak with him on these topics?” asked Stapylton, eagerly.
“No, no,—not he. These men had called on Withering,—met him, perhaps, in society,—heard of his interest in George Barrington's case, and came good-naturedly to volunteer a word of counsel in favor of an old comrade. Nothing more natural, I think.”
“Nothing. I quite agree with you; so much so, indeed, that having served some years in India, and in close proximity, too, to one of the native courts, I was going to ask you to present me to your friend Mr. Withering, as one not altogether incapable of affording him some information.”
“With a heart and a half. I 'll do it.”
“I say, Harry,” cried out the host, “if you and Captain Stapylton will neither fill your glasses nor pass the wine, I think we had better join the ladies.”
And now there was a general move to the drawing-room, where several evening guests had already assembled, making a somewhat numerous company. Polly Dill was there, too,—not the wearied-looking, careworn figure we last saw her, when her talk was of “dead anatomies,” but the lively, sparkling, bright-eyed Polly, who sang the Melodies to the accompaniment of him who could make every note thrill with the sentiment his own genius had linked to it. I half wish I had not a story to tell,—that is, that I had not a certain road to take,—that I might wander at will through by-path and lane, and linger on the memories thus by a chance awakened! Ah, it was no small triumph to lift out of obscure companionship and vulgar associations the music of our land, and wed it to words immortal, to show us that the pebble at our feet was a gem to be worn on the neck of beauty, and to prove to us, besides, that our language could be as lyrical as Anacreon's own!
“I am enchanted with your singing,” whispered Stapylton, in Polly's ear; “but I 'd forego all the enjoyment not to see you so pleased with your companion. I begin to detest the little Poet.”
“I 'll tell him so,” said she, half gravely; “and he 'll know well that it is the coarse hate of the Saxon.”
“I'm no Saxon!” said he, flushing and darkening at the same time. And then, recovering his calm, he added, “There are no Saxons left amongst us, nor any Celts for us to honor with our contempt; but come away from the piano, and don't let him fancy he has bound you by a spell.”
“But he has,” said she, eagerly,—“he has, and I don't care to break it.”
But the little Poet, running his fingers lightly over the keys, warbled out, in a half-plaintive whisper,—