ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'T'
wice a week the band of the Royal Irish Artillery regaled all comers with their music on the parade-ground by the river; and, as it was reputed the best in Ireland, and Chapelizod was a fashionable resort, and a very pretty village, embowered in orchards, people liked to drive out of town on a fine autumn day like this, by way of listening, and all the neighbours showed there, and there was quite a little fair for an hour or two.
Mervyn, among the rest, was there, but for scarce ten minutes, and, as usual, received little more than a distant salutation, coldly and gravely returned, from Gertrude Chattesworth, to whom Mr. Beauchamp, whom she remembered at the Stafford's dinner, addicted himself a good deal. That demigod appeared in a white surtout, with a crimson cape, a French waistcoat, his hairen papillote, a feather in his hat, acouteau de chasseby his side, with a small cane hanging to his button, and a pair of Italian greyhounds at his heels; and he must have impressed Tresham prodigiously; for I observe no other instance in which he has noted down costume so carefully. Little Puddock, too, was hovering near, and his wooing made uncomfortable by Aunt Becky's renewed severity, as well as by the splendour of 'Mr. Redheels,' who was expending his small talk andfleueretsupon Gertrude. Cluffe, moreover, who was pretty well in favour with Aunt Rebecca, and had been happy and prosperous, had his little jealousies too to plague him, for Dangerfield, with his fishing-rod and basket, no sooner looked in, with his stern front and his remarkable smile, than Aunt Becky, seeming instantaneously to forget Captain Cluffe, and all his winning ways, and the pleasant story, to the point of which he was just arriving, in his best manner, left him abruptly, and walked up to the grim pescator del onda, with an outstretched hand, and a smile of encouragement, and immediately fell into confidential talk with him.
'The minds of anglers,' says the gentle Colonel Robert Venables, 'be usually more calm and composed than many others; when he hath the worst success he loseth but a hook or line, or perhaps what he never possessed, a fish; and suppose he should take nothing, yet he enjoyeth a delightful walk by pleasant rivers, in sweet pastures, amongst odoriferous flowers, which gratify his senses and delight his mind; and if example, which is the best proof, may sway anything, I know no sort of men less subject tomelancholy than anglers.' It was only natural, then, that Dangerfield should be serene and sunny.
Aunt Becky led him a little walk twice or thrice up and down. She seemed grave, earnest, and lofty, and he grinned and chatted after his wont energetically, to stout Captain Cluffe's considerable uneasiness and mortification. He had seen Dangerfield the day before, through his field-glass, from the high wooded grounds in the park, across the river, walk slowly for a good while under the poplars in the meadow at Belmont, beside Aunt Becky, in high chat; and there was something particular and earnest in their manner, which made him uncomfortable then. And fat Captain Cluffe's gall rose and nearly choked him, and; he cursed Dangerfield in the bottom of his corpulent, greedy soul, and wondered what fiend had sent that scheming old land-agent three hundred miles out of his way, on purpose to interfere with his little interests, as if there were not plenty of—of—well!—rich old women—in London. And he bethought him of the price of the cockatoo and the probable cost of the pelican, rejoinders to Dangerfield's contributions to Aunt Rebecca's menagerie, for those birds were not to be had for nothing; and Cluffe, who loved money as well, at least, as any man in his Majesty's service, would have seen the two tribes as extinct as the dodo, before he would have expended sixpence upon such tom-foolery, had it not been for Dangerfield's investments in animated nature. 'The hound! as if two could not play at that game.' But he had an uneasy and bitter presentiment that they were birds of paradise, and fifty other cursed birds beside, and that in this costly competition Dangerfield could take a flight beyond and above him; and he thought of the flagitious waste of money, and cursed him for a fool again. Aunt Becky had said, he thought, something in which 'to-morrow' occurred, on taking leave of Dangerfield. 'To-morrow!' 'What to-morrow? She spoke low and confidentially, and seemed excited and a little flushed, and very distrait when she came back. Altogether, he felt as if Aunt Rebecca was slipping through his fingers, and would have liked to take that selfish old puppy, Dangerfield, by the neck and drown him out of hand in the river. But, notwithstanding the state of his temper, he knew it might be his only chance to shine pre-eminently at that moment in amiability, wit, grace, and gallantry, and, though it was up-hill work, he did labour uncommonly.
When Mr. Dangerfield's spectacles gleamed through the crowd upon Dr. Sturk, who was thinking of other things beside the music, the angler walked round forthwith, and accosted that universal genius. Mrs. Sturk felt the doctor's arm, on which she leaned, vibrate for a second with a slight thrill—an evidence in that hard, fibrous limb of what she used to call 'a start'—and she heard Dangerfield's voice over his shoulder. And the surgeon and the grand vizier were soon deep in talk, and Sturkbrightened up, and looked eager and sagacious, and important, and became very voluble and impressive, and, leaving his lady to her own devices, with her maid and children, he got to the other side of the street, where Nutter, with taciturn and black observation, saw them busy pointing with cane and finger, and talking briskly as they surveyed together Dick Fisher's and Tom Tresham's tenements, and the Salmon House; and then beheld them ascend the steps of Tresham's door, and overlook the wall on the other side toward the river, and point this way and that along the near bank, as it seemed to Nutter discussing detailed schemes of alteration and improvement. Sturk actually pulled out his pocket-book and pencil, and then Dangerfield took the pencil, and made notes of what he read to him, on the back of a letter; and Sturk looked eager and elated, and Dangerfield frowned and looked impressed, and nodded again and again.Diruit ædificat, mutat quadrata rotundis, under his very nose—he unconsulted! It was such an impertinence as Nutter could ill-digest. It was a studied slight, something like a public deposition, and Nutter's jealous soul seethed secretly in a hellbroth of rage and suspicion.
I mentioned that Mistress Sturk felt in that physician's arm the telegraphic thrill with which the brain will occasionally send an invisible message of alarm from the seat of government to the extremities; and as this smallest of all small bits of domestic gossip did innocently escape me, the idle and good-natured reader will, I hope, let me say out my little say upon the matter, in the next chapter.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'I'
t was just about that time that our friend, Dr. Sturk, had two or three odd dreams that secretly acted disagreeably upon his spirits. His liver he thought was a little wrong, and there was certainly a little light gout sporting about him. His favourite 'pupton,' at mess, disagreed with him; so did his claret, and hot suppers as often as he tried them, and that was, more or less, nearly every night in the week. So he was, perhaps, right, in ascribing these his visions to the humours, the spleen, the liver, and the juices. Still they sat uncomfortably upon his memory, and helped his spirits down, and made him silent and testy, and more than usually formidable to poor, little, quiet, hard-worked Mrs. Sturk.
Dreams! What talk can be idler? And yet haven't we seen grave people and gay listening very contentedly at times to that wild and awful sort of frivolity; and I think there is in most men's minds, sages or zanies, a secret misgiving that dreams may have an office and a meaning, and are perhaps more than a fortuitous concourse of symbols, in fact, the language which good or evil spirits whisper over the sleeping brain.
There was an ugly and ominous consistency in these dreams which might have made a less dyspeptic man a little nervous. Tom Dunstan, a sergeant whom Sturk had prosecuted and degraded before a court-martial, who owed the doctor no good-will, and was dead and buried in the church-yard close by, six years ago, and whom Sturk had never thought about in the interval—made a kind of resurrection now, and was with him every night, figuring in these dreary visions and somehow in league with a sort of conspirator-in-chief, who never showed distinctly, but talked in scoffing menaces from outside the door, or clutched him by the throat from behind his chair, and yelled some hideous secret into his ear, which his scared and scattered wits, when he started into consciousness, could never collect again. And this fellow, with whose sneering cavernous talk—with whose very knock at the door or thump at the partition-wall he was as familiar as with his own wife's voice, and the touch of whose cold convulsive hand he had felt so often on his cheek or throat, and the very suspicion of whose approach made him faint with horror, his dreams would not present to his sight. There was always something interposed, or he stole behind him, or just as he was entering and the door swinging open, Sturk would awake—and he never saw him, at least in a human shape.
But one night he thought he saw, as it were, his sign or symbol. As Sturk lay his length under the bed-clothes, with his back turned upon his slumbering helpmate, he was, in the spirit, sitting perpendicularly in his great balloon-backed chair at his writing-table, in the window of the back one-pair-of-stairs chamber which he called his library, where he sometimes wrote prescriptions, and pondering over his pennyweights, his Roman numerals, his guttæ and pillulæ, his 3s, his 5s, his 9s, and the other arabesque and astrological symbols of his mystery, he looked over his pen into the church-yard, which inspiring prospect he thence commanded.
Thus, as out of the body sat our recumbent doctor in the room underneath the bed in which his snoring idolon lay, Tom Dunstan stood beside the table, with the short white threads sticking out on his blue sleeve, where the stitching of the stripes had been cut through on that twilight parade morning when the doctor triumphed, and Tom's rank, fortune, and castles in the air, all tumbled together in the dust of the barrack pavement; and so, with his thin features and evil eye turned sideways to Sturk, says he, with a stiff salute—'A gentleman, Sir, that means to dine with you,' and there was the muffled knock at the door which he knew so well, and a rustling behind him. So the doctor turned him about quickly with a sort of chill between his shoulders, and perched on the back of his chair sat a portentous old quizzical carrion-crow, the antediluvian progenitor of the whole race of carrion-crows, monstrous, with great shining eyes, and head white as snow, and a queer human look, and the crooked beak of an owl, that opened with a loud grating 'caw' close in his ears; and with a 'bo-o-oh!' and a bounce that shook the bed and made poor Mrs. Sturk jump out of it, and spin round in the curtain, Sturk's spirit popped back again into his body, which sat up wide awake that moment.
It is not pretended that at this particular time the doctor was a specially good sleeper. The contrary stands admitted; and I don't ask you, sagacious reader, to lay any sort of stress upon his dreams; only as there came a time when people talked of them a good deal over the fireside in Chapelizod, and made winter's tales about them, I thought myself obliged to tell you that such things were.
He did not choose to narrate them to his brother-officers, and to be quizzed about them at mess. But he opened his budget to old Dr. Walsingham, of course, only as a matter to be smiled at by a pair of philosophers like them. But Dr. Walsingham, who was an absent man, and floated upon the ocean of his learning serenely and lazily, drawn finely and whimsically, now hither, now thither, by the finest hair of association, glided complacently off into the dim region of visionary prognostics and warnings, and reminded him how Joseph dreamed, and Pharaoh, and Benvenuto, Cellini's father, and St. Dominick's mother, and EdwardII. of England, and dodged back and forward among patriarchs and pagans, and modern Christians, men and women not at all suspecting that he was making poor Sturk, who had looked for a cheerful, sceptical sort of essay, confoundedly dismal and uncomfortable.
And, indeed, confoundedly distressed he must have been, for he took his brother-chip, Tom Toole, whom he loved not, to counsel upon his case—of course, strictly as a question of dandelion, or gentian, or camomile flowers; and Tom, who, as we all know, loved him reciprocally, frightened him as well as he could, offered to take charge of his case, and said, looking hard at him out of the corner of his cunning, resolute little eye, as they sauntered in the park—
'But I need not tellyou, my good Sir, that physic is of small avail, if there is any sort of—a—a—vexation, or—or—in short—a—a—vexation,you know, on your mind.'
'A—ha, ha, ha!—what? Murdered my father, and married my grandmother?' snarled Sturk, sneeringly, amused or affecting to be so, and striving to laugh at the daisies before his toes, as he trudged along, with his hands in his breeches' pockets. 'I have not a secret on earth, Sir. 'Tis not a button to me, Sir, who talks about me; and I don't owe a guinea, Sir, that is, that I could not pay to-morrow, if I liked it; and there's nothing to trouble me—nothing, Sir, except this dirty, little, gouty dyspepsy, scarce worth talking about.
Then came a considerable silence; and Toole's active little mind, having just made a note of this, tripped off smartly to half-a-dozen totally different topics, and he was mentally tippling his honest share of a dozen of claret, with a pleasant little masonic party at the Salmon-leap, on Sunday next, and was just going to charm them with his best song, and a new verse of his own compounding, when Sturk, in a moment, dispersed the masons, and brought him back by the ear at a jump from the Salmon-leap, with a savage——
'And I'd like to know, Sir, who the deuce, or, rather, what the ——(plaguewe'll say) could put into your head, Sir, to suppose any such matter?'
But this was only one of Sturk's explosions, and he and little Toole parted no better and no worse friends than usual, in ten minutes more at the latter's door-step.
So Toole said to Mrs. T. that evening——
'Sturk owes money, mark my words, sweetheart. RememberIsay it—he'll cool his heels in a prison, if he's no wiser than of late, before a twel'month. Since the beginning of February he has lost—just wait a minute, and let me see—ay, that, £150 by the levanting of old Tom Farthingale; and, I had it to-day from little O'Leary, who had it from Jim Kelly, old Craddock's conducting clerk, he's bit to the tune of three hundred more by the failure of Larkin, Brothers, and Hoolaghan. You see a little bitof usury under the rose is all very well for a vulgar dog like Sturk, if he knows the town, and how to go about it; but hang, it, he knows nothing. Why, the turnpike-man, over the way, would not have taken old Jos. Farthingale's bill for fippence—no, nor his bond neither; and he's stupid beside—but he can't help that, the hound!—and he'll owe a whole year's rent only six weeks hence, and he has not a shilling to bless himself with. Unfortunate devil—I've no reason to like him—but, truly, I do pity him.'
Saying which Tom Toole, with his back to the fire, and a look of concern thrown into his comic little mug, and his eyebrows raised, experienced a very pleasurable glow of commiseration.
Sturk, on the contrary, was more than commonly silent and savage that evening, and sat in his drawing-room, with his fists in his breeches' pockets, and his heels stretched out, lurid and threatening, in a gloomy and highly electric state. Mrs. S. did not venture her usual 'would my Barney like a dish of tea?' but plied her worsted and knitting-needles with mild concentration, sometimes peeping under her lashes at Sturk, and sometimes telegraphing faintly to the children if they whispered too loud—all cautious pantomime—nutu signisque loquuntur.
Sturk was incensed by the suspicion that Tom Toole knew something of his losses, 'the dirty, little, unscrupulous spy and tattler.' He was confident, however, that he could not know their extent. It was certainly a hard thing, and enough to exasperate a better man than Sturk, that the savings of a shrewd, and, in many ways, a self-denying life should have been swept away, and something along with them, by a few unlucky casts in little more than twelve months. And he such a clever dog, too! the best player, all to nothing, driven to the wall, by a cursed obstinate run of infernal luck. And he used to scowl, and grind his teeth, and nearly break the keys and shillings in his gripe in his breeches' pocket, as imprecations, hot and unspoken, coursed one another through his brain. Then up he would get, and walk sulkily to the brandy-flask and have a dram, and feel better, and begin to count up his chances, and what he might yet save out of the fire; and resolve to press vigorously for the agency, which he thought Dangerfield, if he wanted a useful man, could not fail to give him; and he had hinted the matter to Lord Castlemallard, who, he thought, understood and favoured his wishes. Yes; that agency would give him credit and opportunity, and be the foundation of his new fortunes, and the saving of him. A precious, pleasant companion, you may suppose, he was to poor little Mrs. Sturk, who knew nothing of his affairs, and could not tell what to make of her Barney's eccentricities.
And so it was, somehow, when Dangerfield spoke his greeting at Sturk's ear, and the doctor turned short round, and saw his white frizzed hair, great glass eyes, and crooked, short beak, quizzical and sinister, close by, it seemed for a second as if the 'caw' and the carrion-crow of his dream was at his shoulder; and, I suppose, he showed his discomfiture a little, for he smiled a good deal more than Sturk usually did at a recognition.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'I'
t was so well known in Chapelizod that Sturk was poking after Lord Castlemallard's agency that Nutter felt the scene going on before his eyes between him and Dangerfield like a public affront. His ire was that of a phlegmatic man, dangerous when stirred, and there was no mistaking, in his rigid, swarthy countenance, the state of his temper.
Dangerfield took an opportunity, and touched Nutter on the shoulder, and told him frankly, in effect, thoughhewished things to go on as heretofore, Sturk had wormed himself into a sort of confidence with Lord Castlemallard.
'Not confidence, Sir—talk, if you please,' said Nutter grimly.
'Well, into talk,' acquiesced Dangerfield; 'and by Jove, I've a hard card to play, you see. His lordship will have me listen to Doctor Sturk's talk, such as it is.'
'He has no talk in him, Sir, you mayn't get from any other impudent dunderhead in the town,' answered Nutter.
'My dear Sir, understand me. I'm your friend,' and he placed his hand amicably upon Nutter's arm; 'but Lord Castlemallard has, now and then, a will of his own, I need not tell you; and somebody's been doing you an ill turn with his lordship; and you're a gentleman, Mr. Nutter, and I like you, and I'll be frank with you, knowing 'twill go no further. Sturk wants the agency. You havemygood-will.Idon't see why he should take it from you; but—but—you see his lordship takes odd likings, and he won't always listen to reason.'
Nutter was so shocked and exasperated, that for a moment he felt stunned, and put his hand toward his head.
'I think, Sir,' said Nutter, with a stern, deliberate oath, I'll write to Lord Castlemallard this evening, and throw up his agency; and challenge Sturk, and fight him in the morning.'
'You must not resign the agency, Sir; his lordship is whimsical; but you have a friend at court. I've spoken in full confidence in your secrecy; and should any words pass between you and Dr. Sturk, you'll not mention my name; I rely, Sir, on your honour, as you may on my good-will;' and Dangerfield shookhands with Nutter significantly, and called to Irons, who was waiting to accompany him, and the two anglers walked away together up the river.
Nutter was still possessed with his furious resolution to fling down his office at Lord Castlemallard's feet, and to call Sturk into the lists of mortal combat. One turn by himself as far as the turnpike, however, and he gave up the first, and retained only the second resolve. Half-an-hour more, and he had settled in his mind that there was no need to punish the meddler that way: and so he resolved to bide his time—a short one.
In the meanwhile Dangerfield had reached one of those sweet pastures by the river's bank which, as we have read, delight the simple mind of the angler, and his float was already out, and bobbing up and down on the ripples of the stream; and the verdant valley, in which he and his taciturn companion stood side by side, resounded, from time to time, with Dangerfield's strange harsh laughter; the cause of which Irons did not, of course, presume to ask.
There is a church-yard cough—I don't see why there may not be a church-yard laugh. In Dangerfield's certainly there was an omen—a glee that had nothing to do with mirth; and more dismaying, perhaps, than his sternest rebuke. If a man is not a laugher by nature, he had better let it alone. The bipeds that love mousing and carrion have a chant of their own, and nobody quarrels with it. We respect an owl or a raven, though we mayn't love him, while he sticks to his croak or to-whoo. 'Tisn't pleasant, but quite natural and unaffected, and we acquiesce. All we ask of these gentlemanlike birds is, that they mistake not their talent—affect not music; or if they do, that they treat not us to their queer warblings.
Irons, with that never-failing phantom of a smile on his thin lips, stood a little apart, with a gaff and landing-net, and a second rod, and a little bag of worms, and his other gear, silent, except when spoken to, or sometimes to suggest a change of bait, or fly, or a cast over a particular spot; for Dangerfield was of good Colonel Venables' mind, that 'tis well in the lover of the gentle craft to associate himself with some honest, expert angler, who will freely and candidly communicate his skill unto him.'
Dangerfield was looking straight at his float; but thinking of something else. Whenever Sturk met him at dinner, or the club, the doctor's arrogance and loud lungs failed him, and he fell for a while into a sort of gloom and dreaming; and when he came slowly to himself, he could not talk to anyone but the man with the spectacles; and in the midst of his talk he would grow wandering and thoughtful, as if over some half-remembered dream; and when he took his leave of Dangerfield it was with a lingering look and a stern withdrawal, as if he had still a last word to say, and he went away in a dismal reverie. It was natural, that with his views about the agency, Sturk should regard him with particular interest. But there was something more here, and it did not escape Dangerfield, as, indeed, very little that in anywise concerned him ever did.
'Clever fellow, Doctor Sturk,' said the silver spectacles, looking grimly at the float. 'I like him. You remember him, you say, Irons?'
'Ay, Sir,' said Blue-chin: 'I never forget a face.' 'Par nobile,' sneered the angler quietly.' In the year '45, eh—go on.'
'Ay, Sir; he slept in the "Pied Horse," at Newmarket, and was in all the fun. Next day he broke his arm badly, and slept there in the closet off Mr. Beauclerc's room that night under laudanum, and remained ten days longer in the house. Mr. Beauclerc's chamber was the "flower de luce." Barnabus Sturk, Esq. When I saw him here, half the length of the street away, I knew him and his name on the instant. I never forget things.'
'But he don't remember you?'
'No,' smiled Blue-chin, looking at the float also.
'Two-and-twenty-years. How came it he was not summoned?'
'He was under laudanum, and could tell nothing.'
'Ay,' said the spectacles, 'ay,' and he let out some more line. 'That's deep.'
'Yes, Sir, a soldier was drownded in that hole.'
'And Dr. Toole and Mr. Nutter don't love him—both brisk fellows, and have fought.'
Blue-chin smiled on.
'Very clever dog—needs be sharp though, or he'll come to—ha!' and a gray trout came splashing and flickering along the top of the water upon the hook, and Irons placed the net in Dangerfield's outstretched hand, and the troutling was landed, to the distant music of 'God save the King,' borne faintly on the air, by which the reader perceives that the band were now about to put up their instruments, and the gay folk to disperse. And at the same moment, Lord Castlemallard was doing old General Chattesworth the honour to lean upon his arm, as they walked to and fro upon the parade-ground by the river's bank, and the general looked particularly grand and thoughtful, and my lord was more than usually gracious and impressive, and was saying:—
''Tis a good match every way: he has good blood in his veins, Sir, the Dangerfields of Redminster; and you may suppose he's rich, when he was ready to advance Sir Sedley Hicks thirty-five thousand pounds on mortgage, and to my certain knowledge has nearly as much more out on good securities; and he's the most principled man I think I ever met with, and the cleverest dog, I believe, in these kingdoms; and I wish you joy, General Chattesworth.'
And he gave the general snuff out of his box, and shook hands, and said something very good, as he got into his carriage,for he laughed a good deal, and touched the general's ribs with the point of his gloved finger; and the general laughed too, moderately, and was instantaneously grave again, when the carriage whirled away.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'S'
ome score pages back, when we were all assembled at the King's House, my reader, perhaps, may not have missed our fat and consequential, but on the whole, good-natured acquaintance, Mrs. Macnamara; though, now I remember, hedidoverhear the gentle Magnolia, in that little colloquy in which she and Aunt Becky exchanged compliments, say, in substance, that she hoped that amiable parent might be better next day. She was not there, she was not well. Of late Mrs. Macnamara had lost all her pluck, and half her colour, and some even of her fat. She was like one of those portly dowagers in Numbernip's select society of metamorphosed turnips, who suddenly exhibited sympathetic symptoms of failure, grew yellow, flabby, and wrinkled, as the parent bulb withered and went out of season. You would not have known her for the same woman.
A tall, pale female, dressed in black satin and a black velvet riding hood, had made her two visits in a hackney-coach; but whether these had any connexion with the melancholy change referred to, I don't, at this moment, say. I know that they had a very serious bearing upon after events affecting persons who figure in this true history. Whatever her grief was she could not bring herself to tell it. And so her damask cheek, and portly form, and rollicking animal spirits continued to suffer.
The major found that her mind wandered at piquet. Toole also caught her thinking of something else in the midst of his best bits of local scandal; and Magnolia several times popped in upon her large mother in tears. Once or twice Toole thought, and he was right, that she was on the point of making a disclosure. But her heart failed her, and it came to nothing. The little fellow's curiosity was on fire. In his philosophy there was more in everything than met the eye, and he would not believe Magnolia, who laughed at him, that she did not know all about it.
On this present morning poor Mrs. Macnamara had received a note, at which she grew pale as the large pat of butter before her, and she felt quite sick as she thrust the paper into her pocket, and tried to smile across the breakfast table at Magnolia,who was rattling away as usual, and the old major who was chuckling at her impudent mischief over his buttered toast and tea.
'Why, mother dear,' cried Mag suddenly, 'what the plague ails your pretty face? Did you ever see the like? It's for all the world like a bad batter pudding! I lay a crown, now, that was a bill. Was it a bill? Come now, Mullikins (a term of endearment for mother). Show us the note. It is too bad, you poor dear, old, handsome, bothered angel, you should be fretted and tormented out of your looks and your health, by them dirty shopkeepers' bills, when a five-pound note, I'm certain sure, 'id pay every mothers skin o' them, and change to spare!' And the elegant Magnolia, whose soiclainet and Norwich crape petticoat were unpaid for, darted a glance of reproach full upon the major's powdered head, the top of which was cleverly presented to receive it, as he swallowed in haste his cup of tea, and rising suddenly, for his purse had lately suffered in the service of the ladies, and wanted rest—
'Tis nothing at all but that confounded egg,' he said, raising that untasted delicacy a little towards his nose. 'Why the divil will you go on buying our eggs from that dirty old sinner, Poll Delany?' And he dropped it from its cup plump into the slop-basin.
'A then maybe it was,' said poor Mrs. Mac, smiling as well as she could; 'but I'm better.'
'No you're not, Mullikins,' interposed Magnolia impatiently. 'There's Toole crossing the street, will I call him up?'
'Not for the world, Maggy darling. I'd have to pay him, and where's the money to come from?'
The major did not hear, and was coughing besides; and recollecting that he had a word for the adjutant's ear, took his sword off the peg where it hung, and his cocked hat, and vanished in a twinkling.
'Pay Toole, indeed! nonsense, mother,' and up went the window.
'Good-morrow to your nightcap, doctor!'
'And the top of the morning to you, my pretty Miss chattering Mag, up on your perch there,' responded the physician.
'And what in the world brings you out this way at breakfast time, and where are you going?—Oh! goosey, goosey gander, where do you wander?'
'Up stairs, if you let me,' said Toole, with a flourish of his hand, and a gallant grin, 'and to my lady's chamber.'
'And did you hear the news?' demanded Miss Mag.
The doctor glanced over his shoulder, and seeing the coast clear, he was by this time close under the little scarlet geranium pots that stood on the window-sill.
'Miss Chattesworth, eh?' he asked, in a sly, low tone.
'Oh, bother her, no. Do you remember Miss Anne Marjoribanks, that lodged in Doyle's house, down there, near the mills,last summer, with her mother, the fat woman with the poodle, and the—don't you know?'
'Ay, ay; she wore a flowered silk tabby sacque, on band days,' said Toole, who had an eye and a corner in his memory for female costume, 'a fine showy—I remember.' 'Well, middling: that's she.'
'And what of her?' asked Toole, screwing himself up as close as he could to the flower-pots.
'Come up and I'll tell you,' and she shut down the window and beckoned him slily, and up came Toole all alive.
Miss Magnolia told her story in her usual animated way, sometimes dropping her voice to a whisper, and taking Toole by the collar, sometimes rising to a rollicking roar of laughter, while the little doctor stood by, his hands in his breeches' pockets, making a pleasant jingle with his loose change there, with open mouth and staring eyes, and a sort of breathless grin all over his ruddy face. Then came another story, and more chuckling.
'And what about that lanky long may-pole, Gerty Chattesworth, the witch?—not that anyone cares tuppence if she rode on a broom to sweep the cobwebs off the moon, only a body may as well know, you know,' said Miss Mag, preparing to listen.
'Why, by Jupiter! they say—but d'ye mind, I don't know, and faith I don't believe it—but they do say she's going to be married to—who do you think now?' answered Toole.
'Old Colonel Bligh, of the Magazine, or Dr. Walsingham, may be,' cried Mag, with a burst of laughter; 'no young fellow would be plagued with her, I'm certain.'
'Well, ha, ha! youarea conjuror, Miss Mag, to be sure. He'snotyoung—you're right there—but then, he's rich, he is, by Jove! there's no end of his—well, what do you say now to Mr. Dangerfield?'
'Dangerfield! Well' (after a little pause), 'he's ugly enough and old enough too, for the matter of that; but he's as rich as a pork-pie; and if he's worth half what they say, you may take my word for it, when he goes to church it won't be to marry the steeple.'
And she laughed again scornfully and added—
''Twas plain enough from the first, the whole family laid themselves out to catch the old quiz and his money. Let the Chattesworths alone for scheming, with all their grand airs. Much I mind them! Why, the old sinner was not an hour in the town when he was asked over the way to Belmont, and Miss dressed out there like a puppet, to simper and flatter the rich old land agent, and butter him up—my Lord Castlemallard's bailiff—if you please, ha, ha, ha! and the Duchess of Belmont, that ballyrags every one round her, like a tipsy old soldier, as civil as six, my dear Sir, with her "Oh, Mr. Dangerfield, this,"and her "Dear Mr. Dangerfield, that," and all to marry that long, sly hussy to a creature old enough to be her grandfather, though she's no chicken neither. Faugh! filthy!' and Miss Magnolia went through an elegant pantomime of spitting over her shoulder into the grate.
Toole thought there was but one old fellow of his acquaintance who might be creditably married by a girl young enough to be his granddaughter, and that was honest Arthur Slowe; and he was going to insinuate a joke of the sort; but perceiving that his sly preparatory glance was not pleasantly responded to, and that the stalworth nymph was quite in earnest, he went off to another topic.
The fact is that Toole knew something of Miss Mag's plans, as he did of most of the neighbours' beside. Old Slowe was, in certain preponderating respects, much to be preferred to the stalworth fireworker, Mr. Lieutenant O'Flaherty. And the two gentlemen were upon her list. Two strings to a bow is a time-honoured provision. Cupid often goes so furnished. If the first snap at the critical moment, should we bow-string our precious throttles with the pieces? Far be it from us! Let us waste no time in looking foolish; but pick up the gray-goose shaft that lies so innocently at our feet among the daisies; and it's odds but the second plants it i' the clout.' The lover, the hero of the piece, upon whose requited passion and splendid settlements the curtain goes down, is arolenot always safely to be confided to the genius and discretion of a single performer. Take it that the captivating Frederick Belville, who is announced for the part, is, along with his other qualifications, his gallantry, his grace, his ringlets, his pathetic smile, his lustrous eyes, his plaintive tenor, and five-and-twenty years—a little bit of a rip—rather frail in the particular of brandy and water, and so, not quite reliable. Will not the prudent manager provide a substitute respectably to fill the part, in the sad event of one of those sudden indispositions to which Belville is but too liable! It may be somewhat 'fat and scant of breath,' ay, and scant of hair and of teeth too. But though he has played Romeo thirty years ago, the perruquier, and the dentist, and the rouge-pot, and the friendly glare of the foot-lights will do wonders; and Podgers—steady fellow!—will be always at the right wing, at the right moment, know every line of his author, and contrive to give a very reasonable amount of satisfaction to all parties concerned. Following this precedent, then, that wise virgin, Miss Magnolia, and her sagacious mamma, had allotted the role in question to Arthur Slowe, who was the better furnished for the part, and, on the whole, the stronger 'cast.' But failing him, Lieutenant O'Flaherty was quietly, but unconsciously, as the phrase is,'under-studying' that somewhat uncertain gentleman.
'And the general's off to Scarborough,' said Toole.
'Old Chattesworth! I thought it was to Bath.
'Oh, no, Scarborough; a touch of the old rheum, and stomach I sent him there; and he's away in the Hillsborough packet for Holyhead this morning, and Colonel Stafford's left in command.'
'And my Lady Becky Belmont's superseded,' laughed Miss Magnolia, derisively.
'And who do you think's going to make the grand tour? from Paris to Naples, if you please, and from Naples to Rome, and up to Venice, and home through Germany, and deuce knows where beside; you'll not guess in a twel'month,' said Toole, watching her with a chuckle.
'Devereux, maybe,' guessed the young lady.
'No 'tisn't,' said Toole, delighted; 'try again!'
'Well, 'tis, let me see. Some wild young rogue, with a plenty of money, I warrant, if I could only think of him—come, don't keep me all day—who the plague is he, Toole?' urged the young lady, testily.
'Dan Loftus,' answered Toole, 'ha, ha, ha, ha!'
'Dan Loftus!—the grand tour—why, where's the world running to? Oh, ho, ho, ho, hoo! what a macaroni!' and they laughed heartily over it, and called him 'travelled monkey,' and I know not what else.
'Why, I thought Dr. Walsingham designed him for his curate; but what in the wide world brings Dan Loftus to foreign parts—"To dance and sing for the Spanish King, and to sing and dance for the Queen of France?"'
'Hey! Dan's got a good place, I can tell you—travelling tutor to the hopeful young lord that is to be—Devereux's cousin. By all the Graces, Ma'am, 'tis the blind leading the blind. I don't know which of the two is craziest. Hey, diddle-diddle—by Jupiter, such a pair—the dish ran away with the spoon; but Dan's a good creature, and we'll—we'll miss him. I like Dan, and he loves the rector—I like him for that; where there's gratitude and fidelity, Miss Mag, there's no lack of other virtues, I warrant you—and the good doctor has been a wonderful loving friend to poor Dan, and God bless him for it, say I, and amen.'
'And amen with all my heart,' said Miss Mag, gaily; ''tis an innocent creature—poor Dan; though he'd be none the worse of a little more lace to his hat, and a little less Latin in his head. But see here, doctor, here's my poor old goose of a mother (and she kissed her cheek) as sick as a cat in a tub.'
And she whispered something in Toole's wig, and they both laughed uproariously.
'I would not take five guineas and tell you what she says,' cried Toole.
'Don't mind the old blackguard, mother dear!' screamed Magnolia, dealing Æsculapius a lusty slap on the back; and the cook at that moment knocking at the door, called off theyoung lady to the larder, who cried over her shoulder as she lingered a moment at the door—'Now, send her something, Toole, for my sake, to do her poor heart good. Do you mind—for faith and troth the dear old soul is sick and sad; and I won't let that brute, Sturk, though he does wear our uniform, next or near her.'
'Well, 'tisn't for me to say, eh?—and now she's gone,—just let me try.' And he took her pulse.
ORNAMENTAL CAPITAL 'A'
nd Toole, holding her stout wrist, felt her pulse and said—'Hem—I see—and—'
And so he ran on with half-a-dozen questions, and at the end of his catechism said, bluntly enough—
'I tell you what it is, Mrs. Mack, you have something on your mind, my dear Madam, and till it's off, you'll never be better.'
Poor Mrs. Mack opened her eyes, and made a gesture of amazed disclaimer, with her hands palm upwards. It was all affectation.
'Pish!' said Toole, who saw the secret almost in his grasp; 'don't tell me, my dear Madam—don't you think I know my business by this time o' day? I tell you again you'd better ease your mind—or take my word for it you'll be sorry too late. How would you like to go off like poor old Peggy Slowe—eh? There's more paralysis, apoplexy, heart-diseases, and lunacy, caused in one year by that sort of silly secrecy and moping, than by—hang it! My dear Madam,' urged Toole, breaking into a bold exhortation on seeing signs of confusion and yielding in his fat patient—'you'd tell me all that concerns your health, and know that Tom Toole would put his hand in the fire before he'd let a living soul hear a symptom of your case; and here's some paltry little folly or trouble that I would not—as I'm a gentleman—give a half-penny to hear, and you're afraid to tell me—though until you do, neither I, nor all the doctors in Europe, can do you a ha'porth o' good.'
'Sure I've nothing to tell, doctor dear,' whimpered poor Mrs. Mack, dissolving into her handkerchief.
'Look ye—there's no use in trying to deceive a doctor that knows what he's about.' Toole was by this time half mad with curiosity. 'Don't tell me what's on your mind, though I'd be sorry you thought I wasn't ready and anxious, to help you with my best and most secret services; but I confess, my dear Ma'am, I'd rather not hear—reserve it for some friend who has your confidence—but 'tis plain from the condition you're in'—andToole closed his lips hard, and nodded twice or thrice—'you have not told either the major or your daughter; and tell it you must tosomeone, or take the consequences.'
'Oh! Dr. Toole, Iamin trouble—and I'd like to tell you; but won't you—won't you promise me now, on your solemn honour, if I do, you won't tell a human being?' blubbered the poor matron.
'Conscience, honour, veracity, Ma'am—but why should I say any more—don't you know me, my dear Mrs. Mack?' said Toole in a hot fidget, and with all the persuasion of which he was master.
'Indeed, I do—and I'm in great trouble—and sometimes think no one can take me out of it,' pursued she.
'Come, come, my dear Madam, is it money?' demanded Toole.
'Oh! no—it's—'tis a dreadful—that is, thereismoney in it—but oh! dear Doctor Toole, there's a frightful woman, and I don't know what to do: and I sometimes thought you might be able to help me—you're so clever—and I was going to tell you, but I was ashamed—there now, it's out,' and she blubbered aloud.
'What'sout?' said Toole, irritated. 'I can't stop here all day, you know; and if you'd rather I'd go, say so.'
'Oh no, but the major, nor Maggy does not know a word about it; and so, for your life, don't tell them; and—and—here it is.'
And from her pocket she produced a number of theFreeman's Journal, five or six weeks old and a great deal soiled.
'Read it, read it, doctor dear, and you'll see.'
'Read all this! thank you, Ma'am; I read it a month ago,' said the doctor gruffly.
'Oh! no—this—only there—you see—here,' and she indicated a particular advertisement, which we here reprint for the reader's instruction; and thus it ran—