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CHAPTER XXIII. SOME SAD REVELATIONS

It was on the fourth day after the memorable debate we have briefly alluded to, that the Knight of Gwynne was sitting alone in one of the large rooms of his Dublin mansion. Although his servants had strict orders to say he had left town, he had not quitted the capital, but passed each day, from sunrise till late at night, in examining his various accounts, and endeavoring with what slight business knowledge he possessed, to ascertain the situation in which he stood, and how far Gleeson’s flight had compromised him. There is no such chaotic confusion to the unaccustomed mind as the entangled web of long-standing moneyed embarrassments, and so Darcy found it. Bills for large sums had been passed, to provide for which, renewals had been granted, and this for a succession of years, until the debt accumulating had been met by a mortgage or a bond: many of these bills were missing – where were they? was the question, and what liability might yet attach to them?

Again, loans had been raised more than once to pay off these encumbrances, the interest on which was duly charged in his account, and yet there was no evidence of these payments having been made; nor among the very last sent papers from Gleeson was there any trace of that bond, to release which the enormous sum of seventy thousand pounds had been raised. That the money was handed to Hickman, Bagenal Daly was convinced; the memorandum given him by Freney was a corroboration of the probability at least, but still there was no evidence of the transaction here. Even this was not the worst, for the Knight now discovered that the rental charged in his accounts was more than double the reality, Gleeson having for many years back practised the fraud of granting leases at a low, sometimes a merely nominal, rent, while he accepted renewal fines from the tenants, which he applied to his own purposes. In fact, it at length became manifest to Darcy’s reluctant belief that his trusted agent had for years long pursued a systematic course of perfidy, merely providing money sufficient for the exigencies of the time, while he was, in reality, selling every acre of his estate.

The Knight’s last hope was in the entail. “I am ruined – I am a beggar, it is true!” muttered he, as each new discovery broke upon him, “but my boy, my dear Lionel, at my death will have his own again.” This cherished dream was not of long duration, for to his horror he discovered a sale of a considerable part of the estate in which Lionel’s name was signed as a concurring party. This was the crowning point of his affliction; the ruin was now utter, without one gleam of hope remaining.

The property thus sold was that in the possession of the O’Reillys, and the sale was dated the very day Lionel came of age. Darcy remembered well having signed his name to several papers on that morning. Gleeson had followed him from place to place, through the crowds of happy and rejoicing people assembled by the event, and at last, half vexed at the importunity, he actually put his name to several papers as he sat on horseback on the lawn: this very identical deed was thus signed; the writing was straggling and irregular as the motion of the horse shook his hand. So much for his own inconsiderate rashness, but how, or by what artifice was Lionel’s signature obtained?

Never had Lionel Darcy practised the slightest deception on his father; never concealed from him any difficulty or any embarrassment, but frankly confided to him his cares, as he would to one of his own age. How, then, had he been drawn into a step of this magnitude without apprising him? There was one explanation, and this was, that Glee-son persuaded the young man, that by thus sacrificing his own future rights he would be assisting his father, who, from motives of delicacy, could not admit of any negotiation in the matter, and that by ceding so much of his own property, he should relieve his father from present embarrassment.

Through all the revelation of the agent’s guilt now opening before him, not one word of anger, one expression of passion, escaped the Knight till his eyes fell upon this paper; but then, grasping it in both hands, he shook in every limb with indignant rage, and in accents of bitterest hate invoked a curse upon his betrayer. The very sound of his own voice in that sileut chamber startled him, while a sick tremor crept through his frame at the unhallowed wish he uttered. “No, no,” said he, with clasped hands, “it is not for one like me, whose sensual carelessness has brought my own to ruin, to speak thus of another; may Heaven assist me, and pardon him that injured me!”

The stunning effects of heavy calamity are destined in all likelihood to give time to rally against the blow – to permit exhausted Nature to fortify herself by even a brief repose against the harassing influences of deep sorrow. One who saw far into the human heart tells us that it is not the strongest natures are the first to recover from the shock of great misfortunes, but that “light and frivolous spirits regain their elasticity sooner than those of loftier character.”

The whole extent of his ruin unfolded itself gradually before Darcy’s eyes, until at length the accumulated load became too great to bear, and he sat in almost total unconsciousness gazing at the mass of law papers and accounts before him, only remembering at intervals, and then faintly, the nature of the investigation he was engaged in, and by an effort recalling himself again to the task: in this way passed the entire day we speak of. Brief struggles to exert himself in examining the various papers and letters on the table were succeeded by long pauses of apparent apathy, until, as evening drew near, these intervals of indifference grew longer, and he sat for hours in this scarce-waking condition.

It was long past midnight as a loud knocking was heard at the street door, and ere Darcy could sufficiently recall his wandering faculties from their revery, he felt a hand grasp his own – he looked up, and saw Bagenal Daly.

“Well, Darcy,” said he, in a low whisper, “how stand matters here?”

“Ruined!” said he, in an accent hardly audible, but with a look that thrilled through the stern heart of Daly.

“Come, come, there must be a long space between your fortune and ruin yet. Have you seen any legal adviser?”

“What of Gleeson, Bagenal, has he been heard of?” said the Knight, not attending to Daly’s question.

“He has had the fitting end of a scoundrel. He leaped overboard in the Channel – ”

“Poor fellow!” said Darcy, while he passed his hand across his eyes; “his spirit was not all corrupted, Bagenal; he dared not to face the world.”

“Face the world! the villain, it was the gallows he had not courage to face. Don’t speak one word of compassion about a wretch like him, or you ‘ll drive me mad. There’s no iniquity in the greatest crimes to compare with the slow, dastardly scoundrelism of your fair-faced swindler. It seems so, at least. The sailors told us that he went below immediately on their leaving the river, and, having locked the cabin door, spent his time in writing till they were in sight of the Holyhead light, when a sudden splash was heard, and a cry of ‘A man overboard!’ called every one to the deck; then it was discovered that the fellow had opened one of the stern-windows and thrown himself into the sea. They brought me this open letter, the last, it is said, he ever wrote, and, though unaddressed, evidently meant for you. You need not read it; it contains nothing but the whining excuses of a scoundrel who bases his virtue on the fact that he was more coward than cheat. Strangest thing of all, he had no property with him beyond some few clothes, a watch, and about three hundred guineas in a purse. This was deposited by the skipper with the authorities in Liverpool; not a paper, not a document of any kind. Don’t read that puling scrawl, Darcy; I have no patience with your pity!”

“I wish he had escaped with life, Bagenal,” said Darcy, feelingly; “it is a sad aggravation of all my sorrow to think of this man’s suicide.”

“And so he might, had he had the courage to take his chance. The ‘Congress’ passed us as we went up the river; she had her studding-sails set, and, with the strong tide in her favor, was cutting through the water as fast as ever a runaway scoundrel could wish or ask for. Gleeson’s servant contrived to reach her in time, and got away safe, not improbably with a heavy booty, if the truth were known.”

Daly continued to dwell on the theme, repeating circumstantially the whole of the examination before the Liverpool Justices, where the depositions of the case were taken, and the investigation conducted with strict accuracy; but Darcy paid little attention. The sad end of one for whom through years long he had entertained feelings of respect and friendship, seemed to obliterate all memory of his crime, and he had no other feelings in his heart than those of sincere grief for the suicide.

“There is but one circumstance in the whole I cannot understand,” said Daly, “and that is why Gleeson paid off Hickman’s bond last week, when he had evidently made up his mind to fly, – seventy thousand was such a sum to carry away with him, all safe and sound as he had it.”

“But where’s the evidence of such a payment?” said Darcy, sorrowfully; “the bond is not to be found, nor is it among the papers discovered at Gleeson’s house.”

“It may be found yet,” said Daly, confidently. “That the money was paid I have not a particle of doubt on my mind; Freney’s information, and the memorandum I showed you, are strong in corroborating the fact; old Hickman dared not deny it, if the bond never were to turn up.”

“Heaven grant it!” said Darcy, fervently; “that will at least save the abbey, and rescue our old house from the pollution I dreaded.”

“All that, however, does not explain the difficulty,” said Daly, thoughtfully; “I wish some shrewder head than mine had the matter before him. But now that I have told you so much, let me have some supper, Darcy, for we forgot to victual our sloop, and had no sea-store but whiskey on either voyage.”

Though this was perfectly true, Daly’s proposition was made rather to induce the Knight to take some refreshment, which it was so evident he needed, than from any personal motive.

“They carried the second reading by a large majority; I read it in Liverpool,” said Daly, as the servant laid the table for supper.

The Knight nodded an assent, and Daly resumed: “I saw also that an address was voted by the patriotic members of Daly’s to Hickman O’Reilly, Esquire, M.P., for his manly and independent conduct in the debate, when he taunted the Government with their ineffectual attempts at corruption, and spurned indignantly every offer of their patronage.”

“Is that the case?” said the Knight, smiling faintly.

“‘All fact; while the mob drew his carriage home, and nearly smoked the entire of Merrion Square into blackness with burning tar-barrels.”

“He has improved on Johnson’s definition, Bagenal, and made patriotism the first as well as the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

“I looked out in the House that evening, but could not see him, for I wanted him to second a motion for me.”

“Indeed! of what nature?”

“A most patriotic one, to this effect: that all bribes to members of either House should be in money, that we might have at least the benefit of introducing so much capital into Ireland.”

“You forget, Bagenal, how it would spoil old Hickman’s market: loans would then be had for less than ten per cent.”

“So it would, by Jove! That shows the difficulty of legislating for conflicting interests.”

This conversation was destined only to occupy the time the servant was engaged about the table, but when he had withdrawn, the Knight and his friend at once returned to the eventful theme that engaged all their anxieties, and where the altered tones of their voices and eager looks betokened the deepest interest.

It would have been difficult to find two men more generally well informed, and less capable of comprehending or unravelling the complicated tissue of a business matter. At the same time, by dint of much mutual inquiry and discussion, they attained to that first and greatest of discoveries, namely, their own insufficiency to conduct the investigation, and the urgent necessity of employing some able man of law to go through all Gleeson’s accounts, and ascertain the real condition of Darcy’s fortune. With this prudent resolve, they parted: Darcy to his room, where he sat with unclosed eyes till morning; while Daly, who had disciplined his temperament more rigidly, soon fell fast asleep, and never awoke till roused by the voice of his servant Sandy.

“You must find out the fellow that brought the note from Freney,” said Daly, the moment he opened his eyes.

“I was thinking so,” said Sandy, sententiously.

“You’d know him again?”

“I ‘d ken his twa eyes amang a thousand.”

“Very well, then, set off after breakfast and search for him; you used to know where devils of this kind were to be found.”

“Maybe I havna quite forgot it yet,” replied he, dryly; “but it winna do to gae there before nightfall.”

“Lose no more time than you can help about it,” said Daly; “bring him here if you can find him.”

We have not the necessity, and more certainly it is far from our inclination, to dwell upon the accumulated calamities of the Knight, nor recount more particularly the sad disclosures which the few succeeding days made regarding his fortunes. His own words were correct; he was utterly ruined. Every species of iniquity which perfidy could practise upon unbounded confidence had been effected. His property subdivided and leased at nominal rents, debts long supposed to have been paid yet outstanding; mortgages alleged to have been redeemed still impending; while of the large sums raised to meet these encumbrances not one shilling had been paid by Gleeson, save perhaps the bond for seventy thousand; but even of this there was no evidence, except the vague assertion of one whose testimony the law would reject.

Such, in brief, were the sad results of that investigation to which the Knight’s affairs were submitted, nor could all the practised subtlety of the lawyer suggest one reasonable chance of extrication from the difficulty.

“Your friend is a ruined man, sir,” said he to Daly, as they both arose after a seven hours’ examination of the various documents; “there is a strong presumption that many of these signatures are forged, and that the Knight of Gwynne never even saw the papers; but he appears to have written his name so carelessly, and in so many ways, as to have no clear recollection of what he did sign, and what he did not. It would be very difficult to submit a good case for a jury.”

That the payment of the seventy thousand had been made he regarded as more than doubtful, coupling the fact of Gleeson’s immediate flight with the temptation of so large a sum, while nothing could be less accurate than the robber’s testimony. “We must watch the enemy closely on this point,” said he; “we must exhibit not the slightest apparent doubt upon it. They must not be led to suspect that we have not the bond in our possession. This question will admit of a long contest, and does not press like the others. As to young Darcy’s concurrence in the sale – ”

“Ay, that is the great matter in my friend’s eyes.”

“He must be written to at once, – let him come over here without loss of time, and if it can be shown that this signature is a forgery, we might make it the ground of a compromise with the O’Reillys, who, to obtain a good title, would be glad to admit us to liberal terms.”

“Darcy will never listen to that, depend upon it,” said Daly; “his greatest affliction is for his son’s ruin.”

“We ‘ll see, we ‘ll see – the game shall open its own combinations as we go on; for the present, all the task of your friend the Knight is to carry a bold face to the world, let no rumor get abroad that matters are in their real condition. Our chance of extrication lies in the front we can show to the enemy.”

“You are making a heavier demand than you are aware of, – Darcy detests anything like concealment. I don’t believe he would practise the slightest mystery that would involve insincerity for twelve hours to free the whole estate.”

“Very honorable indeed; but at this moment we must waive a punctilio.”

“Don’t give it that name to him, – that’s all,” said Daly, sternly. “I am as little for subterfuge as any man, and yet I did my best to prevent him resigning his seat in the House; this morning he would send a request to Lord Castlereagh, begging he might be permitted to accept an escheatorship; I need not say how willingly the proposal was accepted, and his name will appear in the ‘Gazette’ to-morrow morning.”

“This conduct, if persisted in, will ruin our case,” said the lawyer, despondingly. “I cannot comprehend his reasons for it.”

“They are simple enough: his own words were, ‘I can never continue to be a member of the legislature when the only privilege it would confer is freedom from arrest.’”

“A very valuable one at this crisis, if he knew but all,” muttered the other. “You will write to young Darcy at once.”

“That he has done already, and to Lady Eleanor also; and as he expects me at seven, I ‘ll take my leave of you till to-morrow.”

“Well, Daly,” said the Knight, as his friend entered the drawing-room before dinner, “how do you like the lawyer?”

“He’s a shrewd fellow, and I suppose, for his calling, an honest one; but the habit of making the wrong seem right leads to a very great inclination to reverse the theorem, and make the right seem wrong.”

“He thinks badly of our case, is n’t that so?”

“He ‘d think much better of it, and of us too, I believe, if both were worse.”

“I am just as well pleased that it is not so,” said Darcy, smiling; “a bad case is far more endurable than a bad conscience. But here comes dinner, and I have got my appetite back again.”

CHAPTER XXIV. A GLANCE AT “THE FULL MOON.”

To rescue our friend Bagenal Daly from any imputation the circumstance might suggest, it is as well to observe here, that when he issued the order to his servant to seek out the boy who brought the intelligence of Gleeson’s flight, he was merely relying on that knowledge of the obscure recesses of Old Dublin which Sandy possessed, and not by any means upon a distinct acquaintance with gentlemen of the same rank and station as Jemmy.

When Daly first took up his residence in the capital, many, many years before, he was an object of mob worship. He had every quality necessary for such. He was immensely rich, profusely spendthrift, and eccentric to an extent that some characterized as insanity. His dress, his equipage, his liveries, his whole retinue and style of living were strange and unlike other men’s, while his habits of life bid utter defiance to every ordinance of society.

In the course of several years’ foreign travel he had made acquaintances the most extraordinary and dissimilar, and many of these were led to visit him in his own country. Dublin being less resorted to by strangers than most cities, the surprise of its inhabitants was proportionably great as they beheld, not only Hungarians and Russian nobles, with gorgeous equipages and splendid retinues, driving through the streets, but Turks, Armenians, and Greeks, in full costume; and, on one occasion, Daly’s companion on a public promenade was no less remarkable a person than a North American chief, in all the barbaric magnificence of his native dress. To obviate the inconvenience of that mob accompaniment such spectacles would naturally attract, Daly entered into a compact with the leaders of the varions sets or parties of low Dublin, by which, on payment of a certain sum, he was guaranteed in the enjoyment of appearing in public without a following of several hundred ragged wretches in full cry after him. Nothing could be more honorable and fair than the conduct of both parties in this singular treaty; the subsidy was regularly paid through the hands of Sandy M’Grane, while the subsidized literally observed every article of the contract, and not only avoided any molestation on their own parts, but were a formidable protective force in the event of any annoyance from others of a superior rank in society.

The hawkers of the various newspapers were the deputies with whom Sandy negotiated this treaty, they being recognized as the legitimate interpreters of mob opinion through the capital; men who combined an insight into local grievances with a corresponding knowledge of general politics; and certain it is, their sway must have been both respected and well protected, for a single transgression of the compact with Daly never occurred.

Bagenal Daly troubled his head very little in the matter, it is true; for his own sake he would never have thought of such a bargain, but he detested the thought of foreigners carrying away with them from Ireland any unpleasant memories of mob outrage or insult; and desired that the only remembrance they should preserve of his native country should be of its cordial and hospitable reception. A great many years had now elapsed since these pleasant times, and Daly’s name was scarcely more than a tradition among those who now lounged in rags and idleness through the capital, – a fact of which he could have had little doubt himself, if he had reflected on that crowd which followed his own steps but a few days before. Of this circumstance, however, he took little or no notice, and gave his orders to Sandy with the same conscious power he had wielded nearly fifty years back.

A small public-house, called the Moon, in Duck Alley, a narrow lane off the Cross Poddle, was the resort of this Rump Parliament, and thither Sandy betook himself on a Saturday evening, the usual night of meeting, as, there being no issue of newspapers the next morning, nothing interfered with a prolonged conviviality. Often and often had he taken the same journey at the same hour; but now, such is the effect of a long interval of years, the way seemed narrower and more crooked than ever, while as he went not one familiar face welcomed him as he passed; nor could he recognize, as of yore, his acquaintances amid the various disguises of black eyes and smashed noses, which were frequent on every side. It was the hour when crime and guilt, drunken rage and grief, mingled together their fearful agencies; and every street and alley was crowded by half-naked wretches quarrelling and singing: some screaming in accents of heartbroken anguish; others shouting their blasphemies with voices hoarse from passion; age and infancy, manhood in its prime, the mother and the young girl, were all there, reeling from drunkenness, or faint from famine; some struggling in deadly conflict, others bathing the lips and temples of ebbing life.

Through this human hell Sandy wended his way, occasionally followed by the taunting ribaldry of such as remarked him: such testimonies were very unlike his former welcomes in these regions; but for this honest Sandy cared little; his real regret was to see so much more evidence of depravity and misery than before. Drunkenness and its attendant vices were no new evils, it is true; but he thought all these were fearfully aggravated by what he now witnessed: loud and violent denunciations against every rank above their own, imprecations on the Parliament and the gentry that “sowld Ireland:” as if any political perfidy could be the origin of their own degraded and revolting condition! Such is, however, the very essence of that spirit that germinates amid destitution and crime, and it is a dangerous social crisis when the masses begin to attribute their own demoralization to the vices of their betters. It well behooves those in high places to make their actions and opinions conform to their great destinies.

Sandy’s Northern blood revolted at these brutal excesses, and the savage menaces he heard on every side; but perhaps his susceptibilities were more outraged by one trail of popular injustice than all the rest, and that was to hear Hickman O’Reilly extolled by the mob for his patriotic rejection of bribery, while the Knight of Gwynne was held up to execration by every epithet of infamy; ribald jests and low ballads conveying the theme of attack upon his spotless character.

The street lyrics of the day were divided in interest between the late rebellion and the act of Union; the former being, however, the favorite theme, from a species of irony peculiar to this class of poetry, in which certain living characters were held up to derision or execration. The chief chorist appeared to be a fiend-like old woman, with one eye, and a voice like a cracked bassoon: she was dressed in a cast-off soldier’s coat and a man’s hat, and neither from face nor costume had few feminine traits. This fair personage, known by the name of Rhoudlum, was, on her appearing, closely followed by a mob of admiring amateurs, who seemed to form both her body-guard and her chorus. When Sandy found himself fast wedged up in this procession, the enthusiasm was at its height, in honor of an elegant new ballad called “The Two Majors.” The air, should our reader be musically given, was the well-known one, “There was a Miller had Three Sons:” —

 
     “Says Major Sirr to Major Swan,
     You have two rebels, give me one;
     They pay the same for one as two,
     I ‘ll get five pounds, and I ‘ll share with you.
     Toi! loi! loi! lay.”
 

“That’s the way the blackguards sowld yer blood, boys!” said the hag, in recitative; “pitch caps, the ridin’ house, and the gallows was iligant tratement for wearin’ the green.”

“Go on, Rhoudlum, go on wid the song,” chimed in her followers, who cared more for the original text than prose vulgate.

“Arn’t I goin’ on wid it?” said the hag, as fire flashed in her eye; “is it the likes of you is to tache me how to modulate a strain?” And she resumed: —

 
     “Says Major Swan to Major Sirr,
     One man’s a woman! ye may take her.
     ‘T is little we gets for them at all —
     Oh! the curse of Cromwell be an ye all!
     Toi! loi! loll lay.”
 

The grand Demosthenic abruptness of the last line was the signal for an applauding burst of voices, whose sincerity it would be unfair to question.

“Where are you pushin’ to! bad scran to ye! ye ugly varmint!” said the lady, as Sandy endeavored to force his passage through the crowd.

“Hurroo! by the mortial, it’s Daly’s man!” screamed she, in transport, as the accidental light of a window showed Sandy’s features.

Few, if any, of those around had ever seen him; but his name and his master’s were among the favored traditions of the place, and however unwilling to acknowledge the acquaintance, Sandy had no help for it but to exchange greetings and ask the way to “the Moon,” which he found he had forgotten.

“There it is fornint ye, Mr. M’Granes,” said the lady, in the most dulcet tones; “and if it’s thinking of trating me ye are, ‘t is a ‘crapper’ in a pint of porter I ‘d take; nothing stronger would sit on my heart now.”

“Ye shall hae it,” said Sandy; “but come into the house.”

“I darn’t do it, sir; the committee is sittin’ – don’t ye see, besides, the moon lookin’ at you?” And she pointed to a rude representation of a crescent moon, formed by a kind of transparency in the middle of a large window, a signal which Sandy well knew portended that the council were assembled within.

“Wha’s the man, noo?” said Sandy, with one foot on the threshold.

“The ould stock still, darlint,” said Rhoudlum, – “don’t ye know his voice?”

“That’s Paul Donellan, – I ken him noo.”

“Be my conscience! there’s no mistake. Ye can hear his screech from the Poddle to the Pigeon House when the wind’s fair.”

Sandy put a shilling into the hag’s hand, and, without waiting for further parley, entered the little dark hall, and turning a corner he well remembered, pressed a button and opened the door into the room where the party were assembled.

“Who the blazes are you? What brings you here?” burst from a score of rude voices together, while every hand grasped some projectile to hurl at the devoted intruder.

“Ask Paul Donellan who I am, and he’ll tell ye,” said Sandy, sternly, while, with a bold contempt for the hostile demonstrations, he walked straight up to the head of the room.

The recognition on which he reckoned so confidently was not forthcoming, for the old decrepit creature who, cowering beneath the wig of some defunct chancellor, presided, stared at him with eyes bleared with age and intemperance, but seemed unable to detect him as an acquaintance.

“Holy Paul does n’t know him!” said half-a-dozen together, as, in passionate indignation, they arose to resent the intrusion.

“He may remember this better,” said Sandy, as, seizing a full bumper of whiskey from the board, he threw it into the lamp beneath the transparency, and in a moment the moon flashed forth, and displayed its face at the full. The spell was magical, and a burst of savage welcome broke from every mouth, while Donellan, as if recalled to consciousness, put his hand trumpet-fashion to his lips, and gave a shout that made the very glasses ring upon the board. Place was now made for Sandy at the table, and a wooden vessel called “a noggin” set before him, whose contents he speedily tested by a long draught.

“I may as weel tell you,” said Sandy, “that I am Bagenal Daly’s man. I mind the time it wad na hae been needful to say so much, – my master’s picture used to hang upon that wall.”

Had Sandy proclaimed himself the Prince of Wales the announcement could not have met with more honor, and many a coarse and rugged grasp of the hand attested the pleasure his presence there afforded.

“We have the picture still,” said a young fellow, whose frank, good-humored face contrasted strongly with many of those around him; “but that old divil, Paul, always told us it was a likeness of himself when he was young.”

“Confound the scoundrel!” said Sandy, indignantly; “he was no mair like my maister than a Dutch skipper is like a chief of the Delawares. Has the creature lost his senses a’togither?”