Читать книгу: «The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 1», страница 19

“By no manner of manes. He wakes up every now and then wid a speech, or a bit of poethry, or a sentiment.”

“Ay,” said another, “or if a couple came in to be married, see how the old chap’s eyes would brighten, and how he would turn the other side of his wig round before you could say ‘Jack Robinson.’”

This was literally correct, and was the simple manouvre by which Holy Paul converted himself into a clerical character, the back of his wig being cut in horse-shoe fashion, in rude imitation of that worn by several of the bishops.

“Watch him now – watch him now!” said one in Sandy’s ears; and the old fellow passed his hand across his eyes as if to dispel some painful thought, while his careworn features were lit up with a momentary flash of sardonic drollery.

“Your health, sir,” said he to Sandy; “or, as Terence has it, ‘Hic tibi, Dave’ – here ‘s to you, Davy.”

“A toast, Paul! a toast! Something agin the Union, – something agin old Darcy.”

“Fill up, gentlemen,” said Paul, in a clear and distinct voice. “I beg to propose a sentiment which you will drink with a bumper. Are you ready?”

“Ready!” screamed all together.

“Here, then, – repeat after me: —

 
     “Whether he’s out, or whether he’s in,
     It does n’t signify one pin;
     Here’s every curse of every sin
     On Maurice Darcy, Knight of Gwynne.”
 

“Hold!” shouted Sandy, as he drew a double-barrelled pistol from his bosom. “By the saul o’ my body the man that drinks that toast shall hae mair in his waim than hot water and whiskey. Maurice Darcy is my maister’s friend, and a better gentleman never stepped in leather: who dar say no?”

“Are we to drink it, Paul?”

“As I live by drink,” cried Paul, stretching out both hands, “this is my alter ego, my duplicate self, Sanders M’Grane’s, ‘revisiting the glimpses of the moon,’ post totidem annos!” And a cordial embrace now followed, which at once dispelled the threatened storm.

“Mr. M’Grane’s health in three times three, gentlemen;” and, rising, Paul gave the signal for each cheer as he alone could give it.

Sandy had now time to throw a glance around the table, where, however, not one familiar face met his own; that they were of the same calling and order as his quondam associates in the same place he could have little doubt, even had that fact not been proclaimed by the names of various popular journals affixed to their hats, and by whose titles they were themselves addressed. The conversation, too, had the same sprinkling of politics, town gossip, and late calamities he well remembered of yore, interspersed with lively commentaries on public men which, if printed, would have been suggestive of libel.

The new guest soon made himself free of the guild by a proposal to treat the company, on the condition that he might be permitted to have five minutes’ conversation with their president in an adjoining room. He might have asked much more in requital for his liberality, and without a moment’s delay, or even apprising Paul of what was intended, the “Dublin Journal” and the “Free Press” took him boldly between them and carried him into a closet off the room where the carouse was held.

“I know what you are at,” said Paul, as soon as the door closed. “Daly wants a rising of the Liberty boys for the next debate, – don’t deny it, it’s no use. Well, now, listen, and don’t interrupt me. Tom Conolly came down from the Castle yesterday and offered me five pounds for a good mob to rack a house, and two-ten if they’d draw Lord Clare home; but I refused, – I did, on the virtue of my oath. There’s patriotism for ye! – yer soul, where ‘s the man wid only one shirt and a supplement to his back would do the same?”

“You ‘re wrang, – we dinna want them devils at a’; it ‘s a sma’ matter of inquiry I cam about. Ye ken Freney?”

“Is it the Captain? Whew!” said Paul, with a long whistle.

“It’s no him,” resumed Sandy, “but a wee bit of a callant they ca’ Jamie.”

“Jemmy the diver, – the divil’s own grandson, that he is.”

“Where can I find him?” said Sandy, impatiently.

“Wait a bit, and you’ll be sure to see him at home in his lodgings in Newgate.”

“I must find him out at once; put me on his track, and I ‘ll gie a goold guinea in yer hand, mon. I mean the young rascal no harm; it’s a question I want him to answer me, that’s all.”

“Well, I’ll do my best to find him for you, but I must send down to the country. I’ll have to get a man to go beyond Kilcullen.”

“We ‘ll pay any expense.”

“Sure I know that.” And here Paul began a calculation to himself of distances and charges only audible to Sandy’s ears at intervals: “Two and four, and six, with a glass of punch at Naas – half an hour at Tims’ – the coach at Athy – ay, that will do it. Have ye the likes of a pair of ould boots or shoes? I ‘ve nothing but them, and the soles is made out of two pamphlets of Roger Connor’s, and them’s the driest things I could get.”

“I’ll gie ye a new pair.”

“You ‘re the son of Fingal of the Hills, divil a less. And now if ye had a cast-off waistcoat – I don’t care for the color – orange or green, blue or yellow, Tros Tyriusve mihiy as we said in Trinity.”

“Ye shall hae a coat to cover your old bones. But let us hae nae mair o’ this – when may I expect to see the boy?”

“The evening after next, at eight o’clock, at the corner of Essex Bridge, Capel Street – ‘on the Rialto’ – eh? that’s the cue. And now let us join the revellers —per Jove, but I’m dry.” And so saying, the miserable old creature broke from Sandy, and, assisted by the wall, tottered back to the room to his drunken companions, where his voice was soon heard high above the discord and din around him.

And yet this man, so debased and degraded, had been once a scholar of the University, and carried off its prizes from men whose names stood high among the great and valued of the land.

CHAPTER XXV. BAGENAL DALY’S COUNSELS

Every hour seemed to complicate the Knight of Gwynne’s difficulties, and to increase that intricacy by which he already was so much embarrassed. The forms of law, never grateful to him, became now perfectly odious, obscuring instead of explaining the questions on which he desired information. He hated, besides, the small and narrow expedients so constantly suggested in cases where his own sense of right convinced him of the justice of his cause, nor could he listen with common patience to the detail of all those legal subtleties by which an adverse claim might be, if not resisted, at least protracted indefinitely.

His presence, far from affording any assistance, was, therefore, only an embarrassment both to Daly and the lawyer, and they heard with unmixed satisfaction of his determination to hasten down to the West, and communicate more freely with his family, for as yet his letter to Lady Eleanor, far from disclosing the impending ruin, merely mentioned Gleeson’s flight as a disastrous event in the life of a man esteemed and respected, and adverting but slightly to his own difficulties in consequence.

“We must leave the abbey, Bagenal, I foresee that,” said Darcy, as he took his friend aside a few minutes before starting.

Daly made no reply, for already his own convictions pointed the same way.

“I could not live there with crippled means and broken fortune; ‘twould kill me in a month, by Jove, to see the poor fellows wandering about idle and unemployed, the stables nailed up, the avenue grass-grown, and not hear the cry of a hound when I crossed the courtyard. But what is to be done? Humbled as I am, I cannot think of letting it to some Hickman O’Reilly or other, some vulgar upstart, feasting his low companions in those old halls, or plotting our utter ruin at our own hearthstone; could we not make some other arrangement?”

“I have thought of one,” said Daly, calmly; “my only fear is how to ask Lady Eleanor’s concurrence to a plan which must necessarily press most heavily on her.”

“What is it?” said Darcy, hastily.

“Of course, your inclination would be, for a time at least, perfect seclusion.”

“That, above all and everything.”

“Well, then, what say you to taking up your abode in a little cottage of mine on the Antrim coast? It is a wild and lonely spot, it’s true, but you may live there without attracting notice or observation. I see you are surprised at my having such a possession. I believe I never told you, Darcy, that I bought Sandy’s cabin from him the day he entered my service, and fitted it up, and intended it as an asylum for the poor fellow if he should grow weary of my fortunes, or happily survive me. By degrees, I have added a room here and a closet there, till it has grown into a dwelling that any one, as fond of salmon-fishing as you and I were, would not despise; come, will you have it?” Darcy grasped his friend’s hand without speaking, and Daly went on: “That’s right; I’ll give orders to have everything in readiness at once; I’ll go down, too, and induct you. Ay, Darcy, and if the fellows could take a peep at us over our lobster and a glass of Isla whiskey, they ‘d stare to think those two jovial old fellows, so merry and contented, started, the day they came of age, with the two best estates in Ireland.”

“If I had not brought ruin on others, Bagenal – ”

“No more of that, Darcy; the most scandal-loving gossip of the Club will never impute, for he dare not, more than carelessness to your conduct, and I promise you, if you ‘ll only fall back on a good conscience, you ‘ll not be unhappy under the thatched roof of my poor shieling. My sincerest regards to Lady Eleanor and Helen. I see there is a crowd collecting at the sight of the four posters, so don’t delay.”

Darcy could do no more than squeeze the cordial hand that held his own, and, passing hastily out, he stepped into the travelling-carriage at the door, not unobserved, indeed, for about a hundred ragged creatures had now assembled, who saluted his appearance with groans and hisses, accompanied with ruffianly taunts about bribery and corruption; while one, more daring than the rest, mounted on the step, and with his face to the window, cried out: “My Lord, my Lord, won’t you give us a trifle to drown your new coronet?”

The words were scarcely out, when, seizing him by the neck with one hand, and taking a leg in the other, Daly hurled the fellow into the middle of the mob, who, such is their consistency, laughed loud and heartily at the fellow’s misfortunes; meanwhile, the postilions plied whip and spur, and ere the laughter had subsided, the carriage was out of sight.

“There is a gentleman in the drawing-room wishes to speak to you, sir,” said a servant to Daly, who had just sat down to a conference with the lawyer.

“Present my respectful compliments, and say that I am engaged on most important and pressing business.”

“Had you not better ask his name?” said the lawyer.

“No, no, there is nothing but interruptions here; at one moment it is Heffernan, with a polite message from Lord Castlereagh; then some one from the Club, to know if I have any objection to waive a standing order, and have that young O’Reilly balloted for once more; and here was George Falkner himself a while ago, asking if the Knight had really taken office, with a seat in the Cabinet. I said it was perfectly correct, and that he was at liberty to state it in his paper.”

“You did!”

“Yes; and that he might add that I myself had refused the see of Llandaff, preferring the command of the West India Squadron. But, what’s this? What do you want now, Richard?”

“The gentleman upstairs, sir, insists on my presenting his card.”

“Oh, indeed! – Captain Forester! – I ‘ll see him at once.” And, so saying, Daly hastened upstairs to the drawing-room, where the young officer awaited him.

Daly was not in a mood to scrutinize very closely the appearance of his visitor, but he could not fail to feel struck at the alteration in his looks since last they met; his features were paler and marked by sorrow, so much so that Daly’s first question was, “Have you been ill?” and as Forester answered in the negative, the old man fixed his eyes steadily on him, and said, “You have heard of our misfortune, then?”

“Misfortune! no. What do you mean?”

Daly hesitated, uncertain how to reply, whether to leave to time and some other channel to announce the Knight’s ruin, or at once communicate it with his own lips.

“Yes, it is the better way,” said he, half aloud, while, taking Forester’s hand, he led him over to a sofa, and pressed him down beside him. “I seldom have made an error in guessing a man’s character, throughout a long and somewhat remarkable life. I think I am safe in saying that you feel a warm interest in my friend Darcy’s family?”

“You do me but justice; gratitude alone, if I had no stronger motive, secures them every good wish of mine.”

“But you have stronger motives, young man,” said Daly, looking at him with a piercing glance; “if you had not, I ‘d think but meanly of you, nor did I want that blush to tell me so.”

Forester looked down in confusion. The abruptness of the address so completely unmanned him that he could make no answer. While Daly went on: “I force no confidences, young man, nor have I any right to ask them; enough for my present purpose that I know you care deeply for this family; now, sir, but a week back the ambition to be allied with them had satisfied the proudest wish of the proudest house – to-day they are ruined.”

Overwhelmed with surprise and sorrow, Forester sat silently, while Daly rapidly, but circumstantially, narrated the story of the Knight’s calamity, and the total wreck of his once princely fortune.

“Yes,” said Daly, as with flashing eyes he arose and uttered aloud, – “yes, the broad acres won by many a valiant deed, the lands which his ancestors watered with their blood, lost forever; not by great crimes, not forfeited by any bold but luckless venture, for there is something glorious in that, – but stolen, filched away by theft. By Heaven! our laws and liberties do but hedge round crime with so many defences that honesty has nothing left but to stand shivering outside. Better were the days when the strong hand avenged the deep wrong, or, if the courage were weak, there was the Throne to appeal to against oppression. Forester, I see how this news afflicts you; I judged you too well to think that your own dashed hopes entered into your sorrow. No, no, I know you better. But come, we have other duties than to mourn over the past. Has Lord Castlereagh received Darcy’s note, resigning his seat in Parliament?”

“He has; a new writ is preparing for Mayo.” “Sharp practice; I think I can detect the fair round hand of Mr. Heffernan there, – no matter, a few days more and the world will know all; ay, the world, so full of honorable sentiments and noble aspirations, will smile and jest on Darcy’s ruin, that they may with better grace taunt the vulgar assumption of Hickman O’Reilly. I know it well, – some would say I bought the knowledge dearly. When I set out in life, my fortune was nearly equal to the Knight’s, my ideas of living and expenditure based on the same views as his own, – that same barbaric taste for profusion which has been transmitted to us from father to son. Ay, we retained everything of feudalism save its chivalry! Well, I never knew a day nor an hour of independence till the last acre of that great estate was sold, and gone from me forever. Fawning flattery, intrigue, and trickery beset me wherever I went; ruined gamblers, match-making mothers, bankrupt speculators, plotting political adventurers, dogged me at every step; nor could I break through the trammels by which they fettered me, except at the price of my ruin; when there was no longer a stake to play for, they left the table. Poor Darcy, however, is not a lonely stem, like me, riven and lightning-struck; he has a wife and children; but for that, I would not fear to grasp his stout hand and say, ‘Come on to fortune.’ Poor Maurice, whose heart could never stand the slightest wrong done the humblest cottier on his land, how will he bear up now? Forester, you can do me a great service. Could you obtain leave for a day or two?”

“Command me how and in what way you please,” said the youth, eagerly.

“I understand that proffer, and accept it as freely as it is given.”

“Nay, you are mistaken,” said Forester, faltering. “I will be candid with you; you have a right to all my confidence, for you have trusted in me. Your suspicions are only correct in part; my affection is indeed engaged, but I have received none in return: Miss Darcy has rejected me.”

“But not without hope?”

“Without the slightest hope.”

“By Heaven, it is the only gleam of light in all the gloomy business,” said Daly, energetically; “had Helen’s love been yours, this calamity had been ten thousand times worse. Nay, nay, this is not the sentiment of cold and selfish old age; you wrong me, Forester, but the hour is come when every feeling within that noble girl’s heart is due to those who have loved and cherished her from childhood. Now is the time to repay the watchful care of infancy, and recompense the anxious fears that spring from parental affection; not a sentiment, not a thought, should be turned from that channel now. It would be treason to win one smile, one passing look of kind meaning from those eyes, every beam of which is claimed by ‘Home.’ Helen is equal to her destiny, – that I know well; and you, if you would strive to be worthy of her, do not endeavor to make her falter in her duty. Trust me, there is but one road to a heart like hers, – the path of high and honorable ambition.”

“You are right,” said Forester, in a sad and humble voice, – “you are right; I offered her a heart before it was worthy of her acceptance.”

“That avowal is the first step towards rendering it such one day,” said Daly, grasping his hand in both his own. “Now to my request: you can obtain this leave, can you?”

“Yes, yes; how can I make it of any service to you?”

“Simply thus: I have offered, and Darcy has accepted, a humble cottage on the northern coast, as a present asylum for the family. The remote and secluded nature of the place will at least withdraw them from the impertinence of curiosity, or the greater impertinence of vulgar sympathy. A maiden sister of mine is the present occupant, and I wish to communicate the intelligence to her, that she may make any preparations which may be necessary for their coming, and also provide herself with some other shelter. Maria is as great a Bedouin as myself, and with as strong a taste for vagabondage; she ‘ll have no difficulty in housing herself, that’s certain. The only puzzle is how to apprise her of the intended change: there is not a post-office within eight or ten miles of the place, nor, if there were, would she think of sending to look for a letter; there ‘s nothing for it but a special envoy: will you be the man?”

“Most willingly; only give me the route, and my instructions.”

“You shall have both. Come and dine with me here at five – order horses to your carriage for eight o’clock, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

“Agreed,” said Forester; “I’ll lose no time in getting ready for the road – the first thing is my leave.”

“Is there a difficulty there?”

“There shall be none,” said Forester, hurriedly, as he seized his hat, and, bidding Daly good-bye, hastened downstairs and into the street. “They ‘ll refuse me, I know that,” muttered he, as he went along; “and if they do, I’ll pitch up the appointment on the spot; this slight service over, I’m ready to join my regiment.” And so saying, he turned his steps towards the Castle, resolved on the course to follow.

Meanwhile Daly, after a brief consultation with the lawyer, sat down to write to his sister. Simple and easy as the act is to many – far too much so, as most men’s correspondence would testify – letter-writing, to some people, is an affair of no common difficulty. Perhaps every one in this world has some stumbling-block of this kind ever before him: some men cannot learn chess, some never can be taught to ride, others, if they were to get the world for it, could not carve a hare. It would be unfair to quote newly introduced difficulties, such as how to bray in the House of Commons, the back step in the polka, and so on; the original evils are enough for our illustration.

Bagenal Daly’s literary difficulties were manifold; he was a discursive thinker, passionate and vehement whenever the occasion prompted, and as unable to control such influences when writing as speaking; and, with very liberal ideas on the score of spelling, he wrote a hand which, if only examined upside down, might have passed for Hebrew, with an undue proportion of points; besides these defects, he entertained a thorough contempt for all writing as an exponent of men’s sentiments. His opinion was, that speech was the great prerogative of living men, all other modes of expression being feeble and miserable expedients; and, to do him justice, he conformed, as far as in him lay, to his own theory, and made his writing as like his speaking as could be. Brevity was the great quality he studied, and for this reason we venture to present the epistle to our readers: —

Dear Molly, —

The bill is carried – or, what comes to the same, the third reading comes on next Tuesday, and they ‘ll have a majority – d – n their majority, I forget the number. I was told that bribes were plenty as blackberries. I wish they ‘d leave as many stains after them. They offered me nothing – they were right there. There is a kind of bottle-nosed whale the Indians never harpoon; they call him “Hik-na-critchka,” – more bone than blubber. Darcy might have been an Earl, or a Marquis, or a Duke, perhaps; they wanted one gentleman so much, they ‘d have bid high for him. Poor fellow, he is ruined now! that scoundrel Gleeson has run away with everything, forged, falsified, and thieved to any extent. Your unlucky four thousand, of course, is gone to the devil with the rest. I ‘m sick of cant. People talk of badgers and such like, and yet no one says a word about exterminating attorneys! The rascal jumped over in the Channel, and was drowned – the shark got a bitter pill that swallowed him. I have told Darcy he might have “the Corvy;” you can easily find a wigwam down the coast. Forester, who brings this, knows all. We must all economize, I suppose. I ‘ve given up Maccabaw already, and taken to Blackguard, in compliment to the Secretary. I must sell or shoot old Drummer at last, he can’t draw his breath, and won’t draw the gig. I only remain here till the House is up, when I must be up too and stirring – there is a confounded bond – no matter, more at another time.

Yours ever,

Bagenal Daly.

St. George is to be the Chief Baron – an improvement of the allegory, “Justice will be deaf as well as blind.” Devil take them all!

The chorus of a Greek play, so seemingly abstruse and incoherent to our present thinking, was, we are told, made easily comprehensible by the aid of gesture and pantomime; and in the same way, by supplying the fancied accompaniment of her brother’s voice and action, Miss Daly was enabled to read and understand this strange epistle. Bagenal gave himself little trouble in examining how far it conveyed his meaning; but, like a careless traveller who huddles his clothes into his portmanteau, and is only anxious to make the lock meet, his greatest care was to fold up the document and inclose it within an envelope; that done, he hoped it was all right, – in any case, his functions were concluded regarding it, for, as he muttered to himself, he only contracted to write, not to read, his own letter.

Forester was punctual to the hour appointed; and if not really less depressed than before, the stimulating sense of having a service to perform made him seem less so. His self-esteem was flattered, too, by his own bold line of acting, for he had just resigned his appointment on the Staff, his application for leave having been unsuccessful. The fact that his rash conduct might involve him in trouble or difficulty was not without its own sense of pleasure, for, so is it in all rebellion, the great prompter is personal pride. He would gladly have told Daly what had happened; but a delicate fear of increasing the apparent load of obligation prevented him, and he consequently confined his remarks on the matter to bis being free, and at liberty to go wherever his friend pleased.

“Here, then,” said Daly, leading him across the room to a table, on which a large map of Ireland lay open, “I have marked your route the entire way. Follow that dark line with your eye northwards to Coleraine, – so far you can travel with your carriage and post-horses; how to cross this bit of desert here I must leave to yourself: there may be a road for a wheeled carriage or not, in my day there was none; that is, however, a good many years back; the point to strive for should be somewhere hereabouts. This is Dunluce Castle – well, if I remember aright, the spot is here: you must ask for ‘the Corvy,’ – the fishermen all know the cabin by that name; it was originally built out of the wreck of a French vessel that was lost there, and the word Corvy is a Northern version of Corvette. Once there, – and I know you ‘ll not find any difficulty in reaching it, – my sister will be glad to receive you; I need not say the accommodation does not rival Gwynne Abbey, no more than poor Molly does Helen Darcy; you will be right welcome, however, – so much I can pledge myself, not the less so that your journey was undertaken from a motive of true kindness. I don’t well know how much or how little I have said in that letter; you can explain all I may have omitted, – the chief thing is to get the cabin ready for the Darcys as soon as may be. Give her this pocket-book, – I was too much hurried to-day to transact business at the bank; but the north road is a safe one, and you ‘ll not incur any risk. And now one glass to the success of the enterprise, and I ‘ll not detain you longer; I ‘ll give you old Martin’s toast: —

 
     “May better days soon be our lot,
     Or better courage, if we have them not.”
 

Forester pledged the sentiment in a bumper, and they parted.

“Good stuff in that young fellow,” muttered Daly, as he looked after him; “I wish he had some Irish blood, though; these Saxons require a deal of the hammer to warm them, and never come to a white heat after all.”