If I am not wholly without self-reproach when I bring my reader into uncongenial company, and make him pass time with Major M'Cormick he had far rather bestow upon a pleasanter companion, I am sustained by the fact—unpalatable fact though it be—that the highway of life is not always smooth, nor its banks flowery, and that, as an old Derry woman once remarked to me, “It takes a' kind o' folk to mak' a world.”
Now, although Colonel Hunter did drive twelve weary miles of road with the Major for a fellow-traveller,—thanks to that unsocial conveniency called an Irish jaunting-car,—they rode back to back, and conversed but little. One might actually believe that unpopular men grow to feel a sort of liking for their unpopularity, and become at length delighted with the snubbings they meet with, as though an evidence of the amount of that discomfort they can scatter over the world at large; just, in fact, as a wasp or a scorpion might have a sort of triumphant joy in the consciousness of its power for mischief, and exult in the terror caused by its vicinity.
“Splendid road—one of the best I ever travelled on,” said the Colonel, after about ten miles, during which he smoked on without a word.
“Why wouldn't it be, when they can assess the county for it? They're on the Grand Jury, and high up, all about here,” croaked out the Major.
“It is a fine country, and abounds in handsome places.” “And well mortgaged, too, the most of them.” “You 'd not see better farming than that in Norfolk, cleaner wheat or neater drills; in fact, one might imagine himself in England.”
“So he might, for the matter of taxes. I don't see much difference.”
“Why don't you smoke? Things look pleasanter through the blue haze of a good Havannah,” said Hunter, smiling.
“I don't want them to look pleasanter than they are,” was the dry rejoinder.
Whether Hunter did or did not, he scarcely liked his counsellor, and, re-lighting a cigar, he turned his back once more on him.
“I'm one of those old-fashioned fellows,” continued the Major, leaning over towards his companion, “who would rather see things as they are, not as they might be; and when I remarked you awhile ago so pleased with the elegant luncheon and Miss Polly's talents for housekeeping, I was laughing to myself over it all.”
“How do you mean? What did you laugh at?” said Hunter, half fiercely.
“Just at the way you were taken in, that's all.”
“Taken in?—taken in? A very strange expression for an hospitable reception and a most agreeable visit.”
“Well, it's the very word for it, after all; for as to the hospitable reception, it was n't meant for us, but for that tall Captain,—the dark-complexioned fellow,—Staples, I think they call him.”
“Captain Stapylton?”
“Yes, that's the man. He ordered Healey's car to take him over here; and I knew when the Dills sent over to Mrs. Brierley for a loan of the two cut decanters and the silver cruet-stand, something was up; and so I strolled down, by way of—to reconnoitre the premises, and see what old Dill was after.”
“Well, and then?”
“Just that I saw it all,—the elegant luncheon, and the two bottles of wine, and the ginger cordials, all laid out for the man that never came; for it would seem he changed his mind about it, and went back to head-quarters.”
“You puzzle me more and more at every word. What change of mind do you allude to? What purpose do you infer he had in coming over here to-day?”
The only answer M'Cormick vouchsafed to this was by closing one eye and putting his finger significantly to the tip of his nose, while he said, “Catch a weasel asleep!”
“I more than suspect,” said Hunter, sternly, “that this half-pay life works badly for a man's habits, and throws him upon very petty and contemptible modes of getting through his time. What possible business could it be of yours to inquire why Stapylton came, or did not come here to-day, no more than for the reason ofmyvisit?”
“Maybe I could guess that, too, if I was hard pushed,” said M'Cormick, whose tone showed no unusual irritation from the late rebuke. “I was in the garden all the time, and heard everything.”
“Listened to what I was saying to Miss Dill!” cried Hunter, whose voice of indignation could not now be mistaken.
“Every word of it,” replied the unabashed Major. “I heard all you said about a short acquaintance—a few hours you called it—but that your heart was bent upon it, all the same. And then you went on about India; what an elegant place it was, and the fine pay and the great allowances. And ready enough she was to believe it all, for I suppose she was sworn at Highgate, and would n't take the Captain if she could get the Colonel.”
By this time, and not an instant earlier, it flashed upon Hunter's mind that M'Cormick imagined he had overheard a proposal of marriage; and so amused was he by the blunder, that he totally drowned his anger in a hearty burst of laughter.
“I hope that, as an old brother-officer, you 'll be discreet, at all events,” said he, at last. “You have not come by the secret quite legitimately, and I trust you will preserve it.”
“My hearing is good, and my eyesight too, and I mean to use them both as long as they 're spared to me.”
“It was your tongue that I referred to,” said Hunter, more gravely.
“Ay, I know it was,” said the Major, crankily. “My tongue will take care of itself also.”
“In order to make its task the easier, then,” said Hunter, speaking in a slow and serious voice, “let me tell you that your eaves-dropping has, for once at least, misled you. I made no proposal, such as you suspected, to Miss Dill. Nor did she give me the slightest encouragement to do so. The conversation you so unwarrantably and imperfectly overheard had a totally different object, and I am not at all sorry you should not have guessed it. So much for the past. Now one word for the future. Omit my name, and all that concerns me, from the narrative with which you amuse your friends, or, take my word for it, you 'll have to record more than you have any fancy for. This is strictly between ourselves; but if you have a desire to impart it, bear in mind that I shall be at my quarters in Kilkenny till Tuesday next.”
“You may spend your life there, for anything I care,” said the Major. “Stop, Billy; pull up. I'll get down here.” And shuffling off the car, he muttered a “Good-day” without turning his head, and bent his steps towards a narrow lane that led from the high-road.
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“Is this the place they call Lyrath?” asked the Colonel of the driver.
“No, your honor. We're a good four miles from it yet.”
The answer showed Hunter that his fellow-traveller had departed in anger; and such was the generosity of his nature, he found it hard not to overtake him and make his peace with him.
“After all,” thought he, “he 's a crusty old fellow, and has hugged his ill-temper so long, it may be more congenial to him now than a pleasanter humor.” And he turned his mind to other interests that more closely touched him. Nor was he without cares,—heavier ones, too, than his happy nature had ever yet been called to deal with. There are few more painful situations in life than to find our advancement—the long-wished and strived-for promotion—achieved at the cost of some dearly loved friend; to know that our road to fortune had led us across the fallen figure of an old comrade, and that he who would have been the first to hail our success is already bewailing his own defeat. This was Hunter's lot at the present moment. He had been sent for to hear of a marvellous piece of good-fortune. His name and character, well known in India, had recommended him for an office of high trust,—the Political Resident of a great native court; a position not alone of power and influence, but as certain to secure, and within a very few years, a considerable fortune. It was the Governor-General who had made choice of him; and the Prince of Wales, in the brief interview he accorded him, was delighted with his frank and soldierlike manner, his natural cheerfulness, and high spirit. “We 're not going to unfrock you, Hunter,” said he, gayly, in dismissing him. “You shall have your military rank, and all the steps of your promotion. We only make you a civilian till you have saved some lacs of rupees, which is what I hear your predecessor has forgotten to do.”
It was some time before Hunter, overjoyed as he was, even bethought him of asking who that predecessor was. What was his misery when he heard the name of Ormsby Conyers, his oldest, best friend; the man at whose table he had sat for years, whose confidence he had shared, whose heart was open to him to its last secret! “No,” said he, “this is impossible. Advancement at such a price has no temptation for me. I will not accept it” He wrote his refusal at once, not assigning any definite reasons, but declaring that, after much thought and consideration, he had decided the post was one he could not accept of. The Secretary, in whose province the affairs of India lay, sent for him, and, after much pressing and some ingenious cross-questioning, got at his reasons. “These may be all reasonable scruples on your part,” said he, “but they will avail your friend nothing. Conyers must go; for his own interest and character's sake, he must come home and meet the charges made against him, and which, from their very contradictions, we all hope to see him treat triumphantly: some alleging that he has amassed untold wealth; others that it is, as a ruined man, he has involved himself in the intrigues of the native rulers. All who know him say that at the first whisper of a charge against him he will throw up his post and come to England to meet his accusers. And now let me own to you that it is the friendship in which he held you lay one of the suggestions for your choice. We all felt that if a man ill-disposed or ungenerously minded to Conyers should go out to Agra, numerous petty and vexatious accusations might be forthcoming; the little local injuries and pressure, so sure to beget grudges, would all rise up as charges, and enemies to the fallen man spring up in every quarter. It is as a successor, then, you can best serve your friend.” I need not dwell on the force and ingenuity with which this view was presented; enough that I say it was successful, and Hunter returned to Ireland to take leave of his regiment, and prepare for a speedy departure to India.
Having heard, in a brief note from young Conyers, his intentions respecting Tom Dill, Hunter had hastened off to prevent the possibility of such a scheme being carried out. Not wishing, however, to divulge the circumstances of his friend's fortune, he had in his interview with the doctor confined himself to arguments on the score of prudence. His next charge was to break to Fred the tidings of his father's troubles, and it was an office he shrunk from with a coward's fear. With every mile he went his heart grew heavier. The more he thought over the matter the more difficult it appeared. To treat the case lightly, might savor of heartlessness and levity; to approach it more seriously, might seem a needless severity. Perhaps, too, Conyers might have written to his son; he almost hoped he had, and that the first news of disaster should not come from him.
That combination of high-heartedness and bashfulness, a blended temerity and timidity,—by no means an uncommon temperament,—renders a man's position in the embarrassments of life one of downright suffering. There are operators who feel the knife more sensitively than the patients. Few know what torments such men conceal under a manner of seeming slap-dash and carelessness. Hunter was of this order, and would, any day of his life, far rather have confronted a real peril than met a contingency that demanded such an address. It was, then, with a sense of relief he learned, on arrival at the barracks, that Conyers had gone out for a walk, so that there was a reprieve at least of a few hours of the penalty that overhung him.
The trumpet-call for the mess had just sounded as Conyers gained the door of the Colonel's quarters, and Hunter taking Fred's arm, they crossed the barrack-square together.
“I have a great deal to say to you, Conyers,” said he, hurriedly; “part of it unpleasant,—none of it, indeed, very gratifying—”
“I know you are going to leave us, sir,” said Fred, who perceived the more than common emotion in the other's manner. “And for myself, I own I have no longer any desire to remain in the regiment. I might go further, and say no more zest for the service. It was through your friendship for me I learned to curb many and many promptings to resistance, and whenyougo—”
“I am very sorry,—very, very sorry to leave you all,” said Hunter, with a broken voice. “It is not every man that proudly can point to seven-and-twenty-years' service in a regiment without one incident to break the hearty cordiality that bound us. We had no bickerings, no petty jealousies amongst us. If a man joined us who wanted partisanship and a set, he soon found it better to exchange. I never expect again to lead the happy life I have here, and I 'd rather have led our bold squadrons in the field than have been a General of Division.” Who could have believed that he, whose eyes ran over, as he spoke these broken words, was, five minutes after, the gay and rattling Colonel his officers always saw him, full of life, spirit, and animation, jocularly alluding to his speedy departure, and gayly speculating on the comparisons that would be formed between himself and his successor? “I'm leaving him the horses in good condition,” said he; “and when Hargrave learns to give the word of command above a whisper, and Eyreton can ride without a backboard, he 'll scarcely report you for inefficiency.” It is fair to add, that the first-mentioned officer had a voice like a bassoon, and the second was the beau-ideal of dragoon horsemanship.
It would not have consisted with military etiquette to have asked the Colonel the nature of his promotion, nor as to what new sphere of service he was called. Even the old Major, his contemporary, dared not have come directly to the question; and while all were eager to hear it, the utmost approach was by an insinuation or an innuendo. Hunter was known for no quality more remarkably than for his outspoken frankness, and some surprise was felt that in his returning thanks for his health being drank, not a word should escape him on this point; but the anxiety was not lessened by the last words he spoke. “It may be, it is more than likely, I shall never see the regiment again; but the sight of a hussar jacket or a scarlet busby will bring you all back to my memory, and you may rely on it, that whether around the mess-table or the bivouac fire my heart will be with you.”
Scarcely had the cheer that greeted the words subsided, when a deep voice from the extreme end of the table said,—
“If only a new-comer in the regiment, Colonel Hunter, I am too proud of my good fortune not to associate myself with the feelings of my comrades, and, while partaking of their deep regrets, I feel it a duty to contribute, if in my power, by whatever may lighten the grief of our loss. Am I at liberty to do so? Have I your free permission, I mean?”
“I am fairly puzzled by your question, Captain Stapylton. I have not the very vaguest clew to your meaning, but, of course, you have my permission to mention whatever you deem proper.”
“It is a toast I would propose, sir.”
“By all means. The thing is not very regular, perhaps, but we are not exactly remarkable for regularity this evening. Fill, gentlemen, for Captain Stapylton's toast!”
“Few words will propose it,” said Stapylton. “We have just drank Colonel Hunter's health with all the enthusiasm that befits the toast, but in doing so our tribute has been paid to the past; of the present and the future we have taken no note whatever, and it is to these I would now recall you. I say, therefore, bumpers to the health, happiness, and success of Major-General Hunter, Political Resident and Minister at the Court of Agra!”
“No, no!” cried young Conyers, loudly, “this is a mistake. It is my father—it is Lieutenant-General Conyers—who resides at Agra. Am I not right, sir?” cried he, turning to the Colonel.
But Hunter's face, pale as death even to the lips, and the agitation with which he grasped Fred's hand, so overcame the youth that with a sudden cry he sprang from his seat, and rushed out of the room. Hunter as quickly followed him; and now all were grouped around Stapylton, eagerly questioning and inquiring what his tidings might mean.
“The old story, gentlemen,—the old story, with which we are all more or less familiar in this best of all possible worlds: General Hunter goes out in honor, and General Conyers comes home in—well, under a cloud,—of course one that he is sure and certain to dispel. I conclude the Colonel would rather have had his advancement under other circumstances; but in this game of leap-frog that we call life, we must occasionally jump over our friends as well as our enemies.”
“How and where did you get the news?”
“It came to me from town. I heard it this morning, and of course I imagined that the Colonel had told it to Conyers, whom it so intimately concerned. I hope I may not have been indiscreet in what I meant as a compliment.”
None cared to offer their consolings to one so fully capable of supplying the commodity to himself, and the party broke up in twos or threes, moodily seeking their own quarters, and brooding gloomily over what they had just witnessed.
I will ask my reader now to turn for a brief space to the “Fisherman's Home,” which is a scene of somewhat unusual bustle. The Barringtons are preparing for a journey, and old Peter's wardrobe has been displayed for inspection along a hedge of sweet-brier in the garden,—an arrangement devised by the genius of Darby, who passes up and down, with an expression of admiration on his face, the sincerity of which could not be questioned. A more reflective mind than his might have been carried away, at the sight to thoughts of the strange passages in the late history of Ireland, so curiously typified in that motley display. There, was the bright green dress-coat of Daly's club, recalling days of political excitement, and all the plottings and cabals of a once famous opposition. There was, in somewhat faded splendor it must be owned, a court suit of the Duke of Portland's day, when Irish gentlemen were as gorgeous as the courtiers of Versailles. Here came a grand colonel's uniform, when Barrington commanded a regiment of Volunteers; and yonder lay a friar's frock and cowl, relics of those “attic nights” with the Monks of the Screw, and recalling memories of Avonmore and Curran, and Day and Parsons; and with them were mixed hunting-coats, and shooting-jackets, and masonic robes, and “friendly brother” emblems, and long-waisted garments, and swallow-tailed affectations of all shades and tints,—reminders of a time when Buck Whalley was the eccentric, and Lord Llandaff the beau of Irish society. I am not certain that Monmouth Street would have endorsed Darby's sentiment as he said, “There was clothes there for a king on his throne!” but it was an honestly uttered speech, and came out of the fulness of an admiring heart, and although in truth he was nothing less than an historian, he was forcibly struck by the thought that Ireland must have been a grand country to live in, in those old days when men went about their ordinary avocations in such splendor as he saw there.
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Nor was Peter Barrington himself an unmoved spectator of these old remnants of the past Old garments, like old letters, bring oftentimes very forcible memories of a long ago; and as he turned over the purple-stained flap of a waistcoat, he bethought him of a night at Daly's, when, in returning thanks for his health, his shaking hand had spilled that identical glass of Burgundy; and in the dun-colored tinge of a hunting-coat he remembered the day he had plunged into the Nore at Corrig O'Neal, himself and the huntsman, alone of all the field, to follow the dogs!
“Take them away, Darby, take them away; they only set me a-thinking about the pleasant companions of my early life. It was in that suit there I moved the amendment in '82, when Henry Grattan crossed over and said, 'Barrington will lead us here, as he does in the hunting-field.' Do you see that peach-colored waistcoat? It was Lady Caher embroidered every stitch of it with her own hands, for me.”
“Them 's elegant black satin breeches,” said Darby, whose eyes of covetousness were actually rooted on the object of his desire.
“I never wore them,” said Barrington, with a sigh. “I got them for a duel with Mat Fortescue, but Sir Toby Blake shot him that morning. Poor Mat!”
“And I suppose you'll never wear them now. You couldn't bear the sight then,” said Darby, insinuatingly.
“Most likely not,” said Barrington, as he turned away with a heavy sigh. Darby sighed also, but not precisely in the same spirit.
Let me passingly remark that the total unsuitability to his condition of any object seems rather to enhance its virtue in the eyes of a lower Irishman, and a hat or a coat which he could not, by any possibility, wear in public, might still be to him things to covet and desire.
“What is the meaning of all this rag fair?” cried Miss Barrington, as she suddenly came in front of the exposed wardrobe. “You are not surely making any selections from these tawdry absurdities, brother, for your journey?”
“Well, indeed,” said Barrington, with a droll twinkle of his eye, “it was a point that Darby and I were discussing as you came up. Darby opines that to make a suitable impression upon the Continent, I must not despise the assistance of dress, and he inclines much to that Corbeau coat with the cherry-colored lining.”
“If Darby 's an ass, brother, I don't imagine it is a good reason to consult him,” said she, angrily. “Put all that trash where you found it. Lay out your master's black clothes and the gray shooting-coat, see that his strong boots are in good repair, and get a serviceable lock on that valise.”
It was little short of magic the spell these few and distinctly uttered words seemed to work on Darby, who at once descended from a realm of speculation and scheming to the commonplace world of duty and obedience. “I really wonder how you let yourself be imposed on, brother, by the assumed simplicity of that shrewd fellow.”
“I like it, Dinah, I positively like it,” said he, with a smile. “I watch him playing the game with a pleasure almost as great as his own; and as I know that the stakes are small, I 'm never vexed at his winning.”
“But you seem to forget the encouragement this impunity suggests.”
“Perhaps it does, Dinah; and very likely his little rogueries are as much triumphs to him as are all the great political intrigues the glories of some grand statesman.”
“Which means that you rather like to be cheated,” said she, scoffingly.
“When the loss is a mere trifle, I don't always think it ill laid out.”
“And I,” said she, resolutely, “so far from participating in your sentiment, feel it to be an insult and an outrage. There is a sense of inferiority attached to the position of a dupe that would drive me to any reprisals.”
“I always said it; I always said it,” cried he, laughing. “The women of our family monopolized all the com-bativeness.”
Miss Barrington's eyes sparkled, and her cheek glowed, and she looked like one stung to the point of a very angry rejoinder, when by an effort she controlled her passion, and, taking a letter from her pocket, she opened it, and said, “This is from Withering. He has managed to obtain all the information we need for our journey. We are to sail for Ostend by the regular packet, two of which go every week from Dover. From thence there are stages or canal-boats to Bruges and Brussels, cheap and commodious, he says. He gives us the names of two hotels, one of which—the 'Lamb,' at Brussels—he recommends highly; and the Pension of a certain Madame Ochteroogen, at Namur, will, he opines, suit us better than an inn. In fact, this letter is a little road book, with the expenses marked down, and we can quietly count the cost of our venture before we make it.”
“I 'd rather not, Dinah. The very thought of a limit is torture to me. Give me bread and water every day, if you like, but don't rob me of the notion that some fine day I am to be regaled with beef and pudding.”
“I don't wonder that we have come to beggary,” said she, passionately. “I don't know what fortune and what wealth could compensate for a temperament like yours.”
“You may be right, Dinah. It may go far to make a man squander his substance, but take my word for it, it will help him to bear up under the loss.”
If Barrington could have seen the gleam of affection that filled his sister's eyes, he would have felt what love her heart bore him; but he had stooped down to take a caterpillar off a flower, and did not mark it.
“Withering has seen young Conyers,” she continued, as her eyes ran over the letter “He called upon him.” Barrington made no rejoinder, though she waited for one. “The poor lad was in great affliction; some distressing news from India—of what kind Withering could not guess—had just reached him, and he appeared overwhelmed by it.”
“He is very young for sorrow,” said Barrington, feelingly.
“Just what Withering said;” and she read out, “'When I told him that I had come to make anamendefor the reception he had met with at the cottage, he stopped me at once, and said, “Great grief s are the cure of small ones, and you find me under a very heavy affliction. Tell Miss Barrington that I have no other memories of the 'Fisherman's Home' than of all her kindness towards me.”'”
“Poor boy!” said Barrington, with emotion. “And how did Withering leave him?”
“Still sad and suffering. Struggling too, Withering thought, between a proud attempt to conceal his grief and an ardent impulse to tell all about it 'Hadyoubeen there,' he writes, 'you'd have had the whole story; but I saw that he could n't stoop to open his heart to a man.'”
“Write to him, Dinah. Write and ask him down here for a couple of days.”
“You forget that we are to leave this the day after tomorrow, brother.”
“So I did. I forgot it completely. Well, what if he were to come for one day? What if you were to say come over and wish us good-bye?”
“It is so like a man and a man's selfishness never to consider a domestic difficulty,” said she, tartly. “So long as a house has a roof over it, you fancy it may be available for hospitalities. You never take into account the carpets to be taken up, and the beds that are taken down, the plate-chest that is packed, and the cellar that is walled up. You forget, in a word, that to make that life you find so very easy, some one else must pass an existence full of cares and duties.”
“There 's not a doubt of it, Dinah. There 's truth and reason in every word you 've said.”
“I will write to him if you like, and say that we mean to be at home by an early day in October, and that if he is disposed to see how our woods look in autumn, we will be well pleased to have him for our guest.”
“Nothing could be better. Do so, Dinah. I owe the young fellow a reparation, and I shall not have an easy conscience till I make it.”
“Ah, brother Peter, if your moneyed debts had only given you one-half the torment of your moral ones, what a rich man you might have been to-day!”
Long after his sister had gone away and left him, Peter Barrington continued to muse over this speech. He felt it, felt it keenly too, but in no bitterness of spirit.
Like most men of a lax and easy temper, he could mete out to himself the same merciful measure he accorded to others, and be as forgiving to his own faults as to theirs. “I suppose Dinah is right, though,” said he to himself. “I never did know that sensitive irritability under debt which insures solvency. And whenever a man can laugh at a dun, he is pretty sure to be on the high-road to bankruptcy! Well, well, it is somewhat late to try and reform, but I'll do my best!” And thus comforted, he set about tying up fallen rose-trees and removing noxious insects with all his usual zeal.
“I half wish the place did not look in such beauty, just as I must leave it for a while. I don't think that japonica ever had as many flowers before; and what a season for tulips! Not to speak of the fruit There are peaches enough to stock a market. I wonder what Dinah means to do with them? She 'll be sorely grieved to make them over as perquisites to Darby, and I know she 'll never consent to have them sold. No, that is the one concession she cannot stoop to. Oh, here she comes! What a grand year for the wall fruit, Dinah!” cried he, aloud.
“The apricots have all failed, and fully one-half of the peaches are worm-eaten,” said she, dryly.
Peter sighed as he thought, how she does dispel an illusion, what a terrible realist is this same sister! “Still, my dear Dinah, one-half of such a crop is a goodly yield.”
“Out with it, Peter Barrington. Out with the question that is burning for utterance. What's to be done with them? I have thought of that already. I have told Polly Dill to preserve a quantity for us, and to take as much more as she pleases for her own use, and make presents to her friends of the remainder. She is to be mistress here while we are away, and has promised to come up two or three times a week, and see after everything, for I neither desire to have the flower-roots sold, nor the pigeons eaten before our return.”
“That is an admirable arrangement, sister. I don't know a better girl than Polly!”
“She is better than I gave her credit for,” said Miss Barrington, who was not fully pleased at any praise not bestowed by herself. A man's estimate of a young woman's goodness is not so certain of finding acceptance from her own sex! “And as for that girl, the wonder is that with a fool for a mother, and a crafty old knave for a father, she really should possess one good trait or one amiable quality.” Barrington muttered what sounded like concurrence, and she went on: “And it is for this reason I have taken an interest in her, and hope, by occupying her mind with useful cares and filling her hours with commendable duties, she will estrange herself from that going about to fine houses, and frequenting society where she is exposed to innumerable humiliations, and worse.”
“Worse, Dinah!—what could be worse?”
“Temptations are worse, Peter Barrington, even when not yielded to; for like a noxious climate, which, though it fails to kill, it is certain to injure the constitution during a lifetime. Take my word for it, she 'll not be the better wife to the Curate for the memory of all the fine speeches she once heard from the Captain. Very old and ascetic notions I am quite aware, Peter; but please to bear in mind all the trouble we take that the roots of a favorite tree should not strike into a sour soil, and bethink you how very indifferent we are as to the daily associates of our children!”
“There you are right, Dinah, there you are right,—at least, as regards girls.”
“And the rule applies fully as much to boys. All those manly accomplishments and out-of-door habits you lay such store by, could be acquired without the intimacy of the groom or the friendship of the gamekeeper. What are you muttering there about old-maids' children? Say it out, sir, and defend it, if you have the courage!”
But either that he had not said it, or failed in the requisite boldness to maintain it, he blundered out a very confused assurance of agreement on every point.
A woman is seldom merciful in argument; the consciousness that she owes victory to her violence far more than to her logic, prompts persistence in the course she has followed so successfully, and so was it that Miss Dinah contrived to gallop over the battlefield long after the enemy was routed! But Barrington was not in a mood to be vexed; the thought of the journey filled him with so many pleasant anticipations, the brightest of all being the sight of poor George's child! Not that this thought had not its dark side, in contrition for the long, long years he had left her unnoticed and neglected. Of course he had his own excuses and apologies for all this: he could refer to his overwhelming embarrassments, and the heavy cares that surrounded him; but then she—that poor friendless girl, that orphan—could have known nothing of these things; and what opinion might she not have formed of those relatives who had so coldly and heartlessly abandoned her! Barrington took down her miniature, painted when she was a mere infant, and scanned it well, as though to divine what nature might possess her! There was little for speculation there,—perhaps even less for hope! The eyes were large and lustrous, it is true, but the brow was heavy, and the mouth, even in infancy, had something that seemed like firmness and decision,—strangely at variance with the lips of childhood.
Now, old Barrington's heart was deeply set on that lawsuit—that great cause against the Indian Government—that had formed the grand campaign of his life. It was his first waking thought of a morning, his last at night. All his faculties were engaged in revolving the various points of evidence, and imagining how this and that missing link might be supplied; and yet, with all these objects of desire before him, he would have given them up, each and all, to be sure of one thing,—that his granddaughter might be handsome! It was not that he did not value far above the graces of person a number of other gifts; he would not, for an instant, have hesitated, had he to choose between mere beauty and a good disposition. If he knew anything of himself, it was his thorough appreciation of a kindly nature, a temper to bear well, and a spirit to soar nobly; but somehow he imagined these were gifts she was likely enough to possess. George's child would resemble him; she would have his light-heartedness and his happy nature, but would she be handsome? It is, trust me, no superficial view of life that attaches a great price to personal atractions, and Barrington was one to give these their full value. Had she been brought up from childhood under his roof, he had probably long since ceased to think of such a point; he would have attached himself to her by the ties of that daily domesticity which grow into a nature. The hundred little cares and offices that would have fallen to her lot to meet, would have served as links to bind their hearts; but she was coming to them a perfect stranger, and he wished ardently that his first impression should be all in her favor.
Now, while such were Barrington's reveries, his sister took a different turn. She had already pictured to herself the dark-orbed, heavy-browed child, expanded into a sallow-complexioned, heavy-featured girl, ungainly and ungraceful, her figure neglected, her very feet spoiled by the uncouth shoes of the convent, her great red hands untrained to all occupation save the coarse cares of that half-menial existence. “As my brother would say,” muttered she, “a most unpromising filly, if it were not for the breeding.”
Both brother and sister, however, kept their impressions to themselves, and of all the subjects discussed between them not one word betrayed what each forecast about Josephine. I am half sorry it is no part of my task to follow them on the road, and yet I feel I could not impart to my reader the almost boylike enjoyment old Peter felt at every stage of the journey. He had made the grand tour of Europe more than half a century before, and he was in ecstasy to find so much that was unchanged around him. There were the long-eared caps, and the monstrous earrings, and the sabots, and the heavily tasselled team horses, and the chiming church-bells, and the old-world equipages, and the strangely undersized soldiers,—all just as he saw them last! And every one was so polite and ceremonious, and so idle and so unoccupied, and the theatres were so large and the newspapers so small, and the current coin so defaced, and the order of the meats at dinner so inscrutable, and every one seemed contented just because he had nothing to do.
“Isn't it all I have told you, Dinah dear? Don't you perceive how accurate my picture has been? And is it not very charming and enjoyable?”
“They are the greatest cheats I ever met in my life, brother Peter; and when I think that every grin that greets us is a matter of five francs, it mars considerably the pleasure I derive from the hilarity.”
It was in this spirit they journeyed till they arrived at Brussels.
When Conyers had learned from Colonel Hunter all that he knew of his father's involvement, it went no further than this, that the Lieutenant-General had either resigned or been deprived of his civil appointments, and Hunter was called upon to replace him. With all his habit of hasty and impetuous action, there was no injustice in Fred's nature, and he frankly recognized that, however painful to him personally, Hunter could not refuse to accede to what the Prince had distinctly pressed him to accept.
Young Conyers had heard over and over again the astonishment expressed by old Indian officials how his father's treatment of the Company's orders had been so long endured. Some prescriptive immunity seemed to attach to him, or some great patronage to protect him, for he appeared to do exactly as he pleased, and the despotic sway of his rule was known far and near. With the changes in the constitution of the Board, some members might have succeeded less disposed to recognize the General's former services, or endure so tolerantly his present encroachments, and Fred well could estimate the resistance his father would oppose to the very mildest remonstrance, and how indignantly he would reject whatever came in the shape of a command. Great as was the blow to the young man, it was not heavier in anything than the doubt and uncertainty about it, and he waited with a restless impatience for his father's letter, which should explain it all. Nor was his position less painful from the estrangement in which he lived, and the little intercourse he maintained with his brother-officers. When Hunter left, he knew that he had not one he could call friend amongst them, and Hunter was to go in a very few days, and even of these he could scarcely spare him more than a few chance moments!
It was in one of these flitting visits that Hunter bethought him of young Dill, of whom, it is only truth to confess, young Conyers had forgotten everything. “I took time by the forelock, Fred, about that affair,” said he, “and I trust I have freed you from all embarrassment about it.”
“As how, sir?” asked Conyers, half in pique.
“When I missed you at the 'Fisherman's Home,' I set off to pay the doctor a visit, and a very charming visit it turned out; a better pigeon-pie I never ate, nor a prettier girl than the maker of it would I ask to meet with. We became great friends, talked of everything, from love at first sight to bone spavins, and found that we agreed to a miracle. I don't think I ever saw a girl before who suited me so perfectly in all her notions. She gave me a hint about what they call 'mouth lameness' our Vet would give his eye for. Well, to come back to her brother,—a dull dog, I take it, though I have not seen him,—I said, 'Don't let him go to India, they 've lots of clever fellows out there; pack him off to Australia; send him to New Zealand.' And when she interrupted me, 'But young Mr. Conyers insisted,—he would have it so; his father is to make Tom's fortune, and to send him back as rich as a Begum,' I said, 'He has fallen in love with you, Miss Polly, that's the fact, and lost his head altogether; and I don't wonder at it, for here am I, close upon forty-eight,—I might have said forty-nine, but no matter,—close upon forty-eight, and I 'm in the same book!' Yes, if it was the sister,vicethe brother, who wanted to make a fortune in India, I almost think I could say, 'Come and share mine!'”
“But I don't exactly understand. Am I to believe that they wish Tom to be off—to refuse my offer—and that the rejection comes from them?”
“No, not exactly. I said it was a bad spec, that you had taken a far too sanguine view of the whole thing, and that as I was an old soldier, and knew more of the world,—that is to say, had met a great many more hard rubs and disappointments,—my advice was, not to risk it. 'Young Conyers,' said I, 'will do all that he has promised to the letter. You may rely upon every word that he has ever uttered. But bear in mind that he's only a mortal man; he's not one of those heathen gods who used to make fellows invincible in a battle, or smuggle them off in a cloud, out of the way of demons, or duns, or whatever difficulties beset them. He might die, his father might die, any of us might die.' Yes, by Jove! there's nothing so uncertain as life, except the Horse Guards.' And putting one thing with another, Miss Polly,' said I, 'tell him to stay where he is,'—open a shop at home, or go to one of the colonies,—Heligoland, for instance, a charming spot for the bathing-season.”
“And she, what did she say?”
“May I be cashiered if I remember! I never do remember very clearly what any one says. Where I am much interested on my own side, I have no time for the other fellow's arguments. But I know if she was n't convinced she ought to have been. I put the thing beyond a question, and I made her cry.”
“Made her cry!”
“Not cry,—that is, she did not blubber; but she looked glassy about the lids, and turned away her head. But to be sure we were parting,—a rather soft bit of parting, too,—and I said something about my coming back with a wooden leg, and she said, 'No! have it of cork, they make them so cleverly now.' And I was going to say something more, when a confounded old half-pay Major came up and interrupted us, and—and, in fact, there it rests.”
“I 'm not at all easy in mind as to this affair. I mean, I don't like how I stand in it.”
“But you stand out of it,—out of it altogether! Can't you imagine that your father may have quite enough cares of his own to occupy him without needing the embarrassment of looking after this bumpkin, who, for aught you know, might repay very badly all the interest taken in him? If it had been the girl,—if it had been Polly—” “I own frankly,” said Conyers, tartly, “it did not occur to me to make such an offer toher!”
“Faith! then, Master Fred, I was deuced near doing it,—so near, that when I came away I scarcely knew whether I had or had not done so.”
“Well, sir, there is only an hour's drive on a good road required to repair the omission.”
“That's true, Fred,—that's true; but have you never, by an accident, chanced to come up with a stunning fence,—a regular rasper that you took in a fly a few days before with the dogs, and as you looked at the place, have you not said, 'What on earth persuaded me to ride atthat?'”
“Which means, sir, that your cold-blooded reflections are against the project?”
“Not exactly that, either,” said he, in a sort of confusion; “but when a man speculates on doing something for which the first step must be an explanation to this fellow, a half apology to that,—with a whimpering kind of entreaty not to be judged hastily, not to be condemned unheard, not to be set down as an old fool who couldn't stand the fire of a pair of bright eyes,—I say when it comes to this, he ought to feel that his best safeguard is his own misgiving!”
“If I do not agree with you, sir, it is because I incline to follow my own lead, and care very little for what the world says of it.”
“Don't believe a word of that, Fred; it's all brag,—all nonsense! The very effrontery with which you fancy you are braving public opinion is only Dutch courage. What each of us in his heart thinks of himself is only the reflex of the world's estimate of him; at least, what he imagines it to be. Now, for my own part, I 'd rather ride up to a battery in full fire than I'd sit down and write to my old aunt Dorothy Hunter a formal letter announcing my approaching marriage, telling her that the lady of my choice was twenty or thereabouts, not to add that her family name was Dill. Believe me, Fred, that if you want the concentrated essence of public opinion, you have only to do something which shall irritate and astonish the half-dozen people with whom you live in intimacy. Won't they remind you about the mortgages on your lands and the gray in your whiskers, that last loan you raised from Solomon Hymans, and that front tooth you got replaced by Cartwright, though it was the week before they told you you were a miracle of order and good management, and actually looking younger than you did five years ago! You're not minding me, Fred,—not following me; you 're thinking of yourprotégé, Tom Dill, and what he 'll think and say of your desertion of him.”
“You have hit it, sir. It was exactly what I was asking myself.”
“Well, if nothing better offers, tell him to get himself in readiness, and come out with me. I cannot make him a Rajah, nor even a Zemindar; but I 'll stick him into a regimental surgeoncy, and leave him to fashion out his own future. He must look sharp, however, and lose no time. The 'Ganges' is getting ready in all haste, and will be round at Portsmouth by the 8th, and we expect to sail on the 12th or 13th at furthest.”
“I 'll write to him to-day. I 'll write this moment.”
“Add a word of remembrance on my part to the sister, and tell bumpkin to supply himself with no end of letters, recommendatory and laudatory, to muzzle our Medical Board at Calcutta, and lots of light clothing, and all the torturing instruments he 'll need, and a large stock of good humor, for he'll be chaffed unmercifully all the voyage.” And, with these comprehensive directions, the Colonel concluded his counsels, and bustled away to look after his own personal interests.
Fred Conyers was not over-pleased with the task assigned him. The part he liked to fill in life, and, indeed, that which he had usually performed, was the Benefactor and the Patron, and it was but an ungracious office for him to have to cut the wings and disfigure the plumage of his generosity. He made two, three, four attempts at conveying his intentions, but with none was he satisfied; so he ended by simply saying, “I have something of importance to tell you, and which, not being altogether pleasant, it will be better to say than to write; so I have to beg you will come up here at once, and see me.” Scarcely was this letter sealed and addressed than he bethought him of the awkwardness of presenting Tom to his brother-officers, or the still greater indecorum of not presenting him. “How shall I ask him to the mess, with the certainty of all the impertinences he will be exposed to?—and what pretext have I for not offering him the ordinary attention shown to every stranger?” He was, in fact, wincing under that public opinion he had only a few moments before declared he could afford to despise. “No,” said he, “I have no right to expose poor Tom to this. I 'll drive over myself to the village, and if any advice or counsel be needed, he will be amongst those who can aid him.”
He ordered his servant to harness his handsome roan, a thoroughbred of surpassing style and action, to the dog-cart,—not over-sorry to astonish his friend Tom by the splendor of a turn-out that had won the suffrages of Tattersall's,—and prepared for his mission to Inistioge.
Was it with the same intention of “astonishing” Tom Dill that Conyers bestowed such unusual attention upon his dress? At his first visit to the “Fisherman's Home” he had worn the homely shooting-jacket and felt hat which, however comfortable and conventional, do not always redound to the advantage of the wearer, or, if they do, it is by something, perhaps, in the contrast presented to his ordinary appearance, and the impression ingeniously insinuated that he is one so unmistakably a gentleman, no travesty of costume can efface the stamp.
It was in this garb Polly had seen him, and if Polly Dill had been a duchess it was in some such garb she would have been accustomed to see her brother or her cousin some six out of every seven mornings of the week; but Polly was not a duchess: she was the daughter of a village doctor, and might, not impossibly, have acquired a very erroneous estimate of his real pretensions from having beheld him thus attired. It was, therefore, entirely by a consideration for her ignorance of the world and its ways that he determined to enlighten her.
At the time of which I am writing, the dress of the British army was a favorite study with that Prince whose taste, however questionable, never exposed him to censure on grounds of over-simplicity and plainness. As the Colonel of the regiment Conyers belonged to, he had bestowed upon his own especial corps an unusual degree of splendor in equipment, and amongst other extravagances had given them an almost boundless liberty of combining different details of dress. Availing himself of this privilege, our young Lieutenant invented a costume which, however unmilitary and irregular, was not deficient in becomingness. Under a plain blue jacket very sparingly braided he wore the rich scarlet waistcoat, all slashed with gold, they had introduced at their mess. A simple foraging-cap and overalls, seamed with a thin gold line, made up a dress that might have passed for the easy costume of the barrack-yard, while, in reality, it was eminently suited to set off the wearer.
Am I to confess that he looked at himself in the glass with very considerable satisfaction, and muttered, as he turned away, “Yes, Miss Polly, this is in better style than that Quakerish drab livery you saw me last in, and I have little doubt that you 'll think so!”
“Is this our best harness, Holt?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right!”