Her rank was so high that none could dare to call her vulgar: what would have been gross in any one of meaner note, in her was freedom or originality, or Lady Dashfort’s way. It was Lady Dashfort’s pleasure and pride to show her power in perverting the public taste. She often said to those English companions with whom she was intimate, “Now see what follies I can lead these fools into. Hear the nonsense I can make them repeat as wit.” Upon some occasion, one of her friends ventured to fear that something she had said was too strong. “Too strong, was it? Well, I like to be strong—woe be to the weak!” On another occasion she was told that certain visitors had seen her ladyship yawning. “Yawn, did I?—glad of it—the yawn sent them away, or I should have snored;—rude, was I? they won’t complain. To say I was rude to them, would be to say, that I did not think it worth my while to be otherwise. Barbarians! are not we the civilized English, come to teach them manners and fashions? Whoever does not conform, and swear allegiance too, we shall keep out of the English pale.”
Lady Dashfort forced her way, and she set the fashion: fashion, which converts the ugliest dress into what is beautiful and charming, governs the public mode in morals and in manners; and thus, when great talents and high rank combine, they can debase or elevate the public taste.
With Lord Colambre she played more artfully: she drew him out in defence of his beloved country, and gave him opportunities of appearing to advantage; this he could not help feeling, especially when the Lady Isabel was present. Lady Dashfort had dealt long enough with human nature to know, that to make any man pleased with her, she should begin by making him pleased with himself.
Insensibly the antipathy that Lord Colambre had originally felt to Lady Dashfort wore off; her faults, he began to think, were assumed; he pardoned her defiance of good-breeding, when he observed that she could, when she chose it, be most engagingly polite. It was not that she did not know what was right, but that she did not think it always for her interest to practise it.
The party opposed to Lady Dashfort affirmed that her wit depended merely on unexpectedness; a characteristic which may be applied to any impropriety of speech, manner, or conduct. In some of her ladyship’s repartees, however, Lord Colambre now acknowledged there was more than unexpectedness; there was real wit; but it was of a sort utterly unfit for a woman, and he was sorry that Lady Isabel should hear it. In short, exceptionable as it was altogether, Lady Dashfort’s conversation had become entertaining to him; and though he could never esteem, or feel in the least interested about her, he began to allow that she could be agreeable.
“Ay, I knew how it would be,” said she, when some of her friends told her this. “He began by detesting me, and did I not tell you that, if I thought it worth my while to make him like me, he must, sooner or later? I delight in seeing people begin with me as they do with olives, making all manner of horrid faces, and silly protestations that they will never touch an olive again as long as they live; but, after a little time, these very folk grow so desperately fond of olives, that there is no dessert without them. Isabel, child, you are in the sweet line—but sweets cloy. You never heard of any body living on marmalade, did ye?”
Lady Isabel answered by a sweet smile.
“To do you justice, you play Lydia Languish vastly well,” pursued the mother; “but Lydia, by herself, would soon tire; somebody must keep up the spirit and bustle, and carry on the plot of the piece, and I am that somebody—as you shall see. Is not that our hero’s voice which I hear on the stairs?”
It was Lord Colambre. His lordship had by this time become a constant visitor at Lady Dashfort’s. Not that he had forgotten, or that he meant to disregard his friend Sir James Brooke’s parting words. He promised himself faithfully, that if any thing should occur to give him reason to suspect designs, such as those to which the warning pointed, he would be on his guard, and would prove his generalship by an able retreat. But to imagine attacks where none were attempted, to suspect ambuscades in the open country, would be ridiculous and cowardly.
“No,” thought our hero; “Heaven forefend I should be such a coxcomb as to fancy every woman who speaks to me has designs upon my precious heart, or on my more precious estate!” As he walked from his hotel to Lady Dashfort’s house, ingeniously wrong, he came to this conclusion, just as he ascended the stairs, and just as her ladyship had settled her future plan of operations.
After talking over the nothings of the day, and after having given two or three cuts at the society of Dublin, with two or three compliments to individuals, who she knew were favourites with his lordship, she suddenly turned to him. “My lord, I think you told me, or my own sagacity discovered, that you want to see something of Ireland, and that you don’t intend, like most travellers, to turn round, see nothing, and go home content.”
Lord Colambre assured her ladyship that she had judged him rightly, for that nothing would content him but seeing all that was possible to be seen of his native country. It was for this special purpose he came to Ireland.
“Ah!—well—very good purpose—can’t be better; but now how to accomplish it. You know the Portuguese proverb says, ‘You go to hell for the good things you intend to do, and to heaven for those you do.’ Now let us see what you will do. Dublin, I suppose, you’ve seen enough of by this time; through and through—round and round—this makes me first giddy, and then sick. Let me show you the country—not the face of it, but the body of it—the people.—Not Castle this, or Newtown that, but their inhabitants. I know them; I have the key, or the pick-lock to their minds. An Irishman is as different an animal on his guard and off his guard, as a miss in school from a miss out of school. A fine country for game, I’ll show you; and if you are a good marksman, you may have plenty of shots ‘at folly as it flies.’”
Lord Colambre smiled.
“As to Isabel,” pursued her ladyship, “I shall put her in charge of Heathcock, who is going with us. She won’t thank me for that, but you will. Nay, no fibs, man; you know, I know, as who does not that has seen the world? that, though a pretty woman is a mighty pretty thing, yet she is confoundedly in one’s way, when any thing else is to be seen, heard,—or understood.”
Every objection anticipated and removed, and so far a prospect held out of attaining all the information he desired, with more than all the amusement he could have expected, Lord Colambre seemed much tempted to accept the invitation; but he hesitated, because, as he said, her ladyship might be going to pay visits where he was not acquainted.
“Bless you! don’t let that be a stumbling-block in the way of your tender conscience. I am going to Killpatricks-town, where you’ll be as welcome as light. You know them, they know you; at least you shall have a proper letter of invitation from my Lord and my Lady Killpatrick, and all that. And as to the rest, you know a young man is always welcome every where, a young nobleman kindly welcome—I won’t say such a young man, and such a young nobleman, for that might put you to your bows or your blushes—but nobilitas by itself, nobility is virtue enough in all parties, in all families, where there are girls, and of course balls, as there are always at Killpatricks-town. Don’t be alarmed; you shall not be forced to dance, or asked to marry. I’ll be your security. You shall be at full liberty; and it is a house where you can do just what you will. Indeed, I go to no others. These Killpatricks are the best creatures in the world; they think nothing good or grand enough for me. If I’d let them, they would lay down cloth of gold over their bogs for me to walk upon. Good-hearted beings!” added Lady Dashfort, marking a cloud gathering on Lord Colambre’s countenance. “I laugh at them, because I love them. I could not love any thing I might not laugh at—your lordship excepted. So you’ll come—that’s settled.”
And so it was settled. Our hero went to Killpatricks-town.
“Every thing here sumptuous and unfinished, you see,” said Lady Dashfort to Lord Colambre, the day after their arrival. “All begun as if the projectors thought they had the command of the mines of Peru, and ended as if the possessors had not sixpence. Luxuries enough for an English prince of the blood: comforts not enough for an English yeoman. And you may be sure that great repairs and alterations have gone on to fit this house for our reception, and for our English eyes!—Poor people!—English visitors, in this point of view, are horribly expensive to the Irish. Did you ever hear, that in the last century, or in the century before the last, to put my story far enough back, so that it shall not touch any body living; when a certain English nobleman, Lord Blank A——, sent to let his Irish friend, Lord Blank B——, know that he and all his train were coming over to pay him a visit; the Irish nobleman, Blank B——, knowing the deplorable condition of his castle, sat down fairly to calculate whether it would cost him most to put the building in good and sufficient repair, fit to receive these English visitors, or to burn it to the ground. He found the balance to be in favour of burning, which was wisely accomplished next day.1 Perhaps Killpatrick would have done well to follow this example. Resolve me which is worst, to be burnt out of house and home, or to be eaten out of house and home. In this house, above and below stairs, including first and second table, housekeeper’s room, lady’s maids’ room, butler’s room, and gentleman’s, one hundred and four people sit down to dinner every day, as Petito informs me, besides kitchen boys, and what they call char-women, who never sit down, but who do not eat or waste the less for that; and retainers and friends, friends to the fifth and sixth generation, who ‘must get their bit and their sup;’ for ‘sure, it’s only Biddy,’ they say;” continued Lady Dashfort, imitating their Irish brogue. “And ‘sure, ‘tis nothing at all, out of all his honour my lord has. How could he feel it2?—Long life to him!—He’s not that way: not a couple in all Ireland, and that’s saying a great dale, looks less after their own, nor is more off-handeder, or open-hearteder, or greater openhouse-keeper, nor3 my Lord and my Lady Killpatrick.’ Now there’s encouragement for a lord and a lady to ruin themselves.”
Lady Dashfort imitated the Irish brogue in perfection; boasted that “she was mistress of fourteen different brogues, and had brogues for all occasions.” By her mixture of mimicry, sarcasm, exaggeration, and truth, she succeeded continually in making Lord Colambre laugh at every thing at which she wished to make him laugh; at every thing, but not at every body: whenever she became personal, he became serious, or at least endeavoured to become serious; and if he could not instantly resume the command of his risible muscles, he reproached himself.
“It is shameful to laugh at these people, indeed, Lady Dashfort, in their own house—these hospitable people, who are entertaining us.”
“Entertaining us! true, and if we are entertained, how can we help laughing?”
All expostulation was thus turned off by a jest, as it was her pride to make Lord Colambre laugh in spite of his better feelings and principles. This he saw, and this seemed to him to be her sole object; but there he was mistaken. Off-handed as she pretended to be, none dealt more in the impromptu fait à loisir; and, mentally short-sighted as she affected to be, none had more longanimity for their own interest.
It was her settled purpose to make the Irish and Ireland ridiculous and contemptible to Lord Colambre; to disgust him with his native country; to make him abandon the wish of residing on his own estate. To confirm him an absentee was her object, previously to her ultimate plan of marrying him to her daughter. Her daughter was poor, she would therefore be glad to get an Irish peer for her; but would be very sorry, she said, to see Isabel banished to Ireland; and the young widow declared she could never bring herself to be buried alive in Clonbrony Castle.
In addition to these considerations, Lady Dashfort received certain hints from Mrs. Petito, which worked all to the same point.
“Why, yes, my lady; I heard a great deal about all that, when I was at Lady Clonbrony’s,” said Petito, one day, as she was attending at her lady’s toilette, and encouraged to begin chattering. “And I own I was originally under the universal error that my Lord Colambre was to be married to the great heiress, Miss Broadhurst; but I have been converted and reformed on that score, and am at present quite in another way of thinking.”
Petito paused, in hopes that her lady would ask what was her present way of thinking? But Lady Dashfort, certain that she would tell her without being asked, did not take the trouble to speak, particularly as she did not choose to appear violently interested on the subject.
“My present way of thinking,” resumed Petito, “is in consequence of my having, with my own eyes and ears, witnessed and overheard his lordship’s behaviour and words, the morning he was coming away from Lunnun for Ireland; when he was morally certain nobody was up, nor overhearing nor overseeing him, there did I notice him, my lady, stopping in the antechamber, ejaculating over one of Miss Nugent’s gloves, which he had picked up. ‘Limerick!’ said he, quite loud enough to himself; for it was a Limerick glove, my lady—‘Limerick!—dear Ireland! she loves you as well as I do!’—or words to that effect; and then a sigh, and down stairs and off. So, thinks I, now the cat’s out of the bag. And I wouldn’t give much myself for Miss Broadhurst’s chance of that young lord, with all her Bank stock, scrip, and omnum. Now, I see how the land lies, and I’m sorry for it; for she’s no fortin; and she’s so proud, she never said a hint to me of the matter: but my Lord Colambre is a sweet gentleman; and—”
“Petito! don’t run on so; you must not meddle with what you don’t understand: the Miss Killpatricks, to be sure, are sweet girls, particularly the youngest.”
Her ladyship’s toilette was finished; and she left Petito to go down to my Lady Killpatrick’s woman, to tell, as a very great secret, the schemes that were in contemplation, among the higher powers, in favour of the youngest of the Miss Killpatricks.
“So Ireland is at the bottom of his heart, is it?” repeated Lady Dashfort to herself: “it shall not be long so.”
From this time forward, not a day, scarcely an hour passed, but her ladyship did or said something to depreciate the country, or its inhabitants, in our hero’s estimation. With treacherous ability, she knew and followed all the arts of misrepresentation; all those injurious arts which his friend, Sir James Brooke, had, with such honest indignation, reprobated. She knew how, not only to seize the ridiculous points, to make the most respectable people ridiculous, but she knew how to select the worst instances, the worst exceptions; and to produce them as examples, as precedents, from which to condemn whole classes, and establish general false conclusions respecting a nation.
In the neighbourhood of Killpatrick’s-town, Lady Dashfort said, there were several squireens, or little squires; a race of men who have succeeded to the buckeens, described by Young and Crumpe. Squireens are persons who, with good long leases, or valuable farms, possess incomes from three to eight hundred a year, who keep a pack of hounds; take out a commission of the peace, sometimes before they can spell (as her ladyship said), and almost always before they know any thing of law or justice. Busy and loud about small matters; jobbers at assizes; combining with one another, and trying upon every occasion, public or private, to push themselves forward, to the annoyance of their superiors, and the terror of those below them.
In the usual course of things, these men are not often to be found in the society of gentry except, perhaps, among those gentlemen or noblemen who like to see hangers-on at their, tables: or who find it for their convenience to have underling magistrates, to protect their favourites, or to propose and carry jobs for them on grand juries. At election times, however, these persons rise into sudden importance with all who have views upon the county. Lady Dashfort hinted to Lord Killpatrick, that her private letters from England spoke of an approaching dissolution of parliament: she knew that, upon this hint, a round of invitations would be sent to the squireens; and she was morally certain that they would be more disagreeable to Lord Colambre, and give him a worse idea of the country, than any other people who could be produced. Day after day some of these personages made their appearance; and Lady Dashfort took care to draw them out upon the subjects on which she knew that they would show the most self-sufficient ignorance, and the most illiberal spirit. They succeeded beyond her most sanguine expectations.
“Lord Colambre! how I pity you, for being compelled to these permanent sittings after dinner!” said Lady Isabel to him one night, when he came late to the ladies from the dining-room.
“Lord Killpatrick insisted upon my staying to help him to push about that never-ending, still-beginning electioneering bottle,” said Lord Colambre.
“Oh! if that were all; if these gentlemen would only drink:—but their conversation!” “I don’t wonder my mother dreads returning to Clonbrony Castle, if my father must have such company as this. But, surely, it cannot be necessary.”
“Oh, indispensable! positively indispensable!” cried Lady Dashfort; “no living in Ireland without it. You know, in every country in the world, you must live with the people of the country, or be torn to pieces: for my part, I should prefer being torn to pieces.”
Lady Dashfort and Lady Isabel knew how to take advantage of the contrast between their own conversation, and that of the persons by whom Lord Colambre was so justly disgusted: they happily relieved his fatigue with wit, satire, poetry, and sentiment; so that he every day became more exclusively fond of their company; for Lady Killpatrick and the Miss Killpatricks were mere commonplace people. In the mornings, he rode or walked with Lady Dashfort and Lady Isabel: Lady Dashfort, by way of fulfilling her promise of showing him the people, used frequently to take him into the cabins, and talk to their inhabitants. Lord and Lady Killpatrick, who had lived always for the fashionable world, had taken little pains to improve the condition of their tenants: the few attempts they had made were injudicious. They had built ornamented, picturesque cottages, within view of their park; and favourite followers of the family, people with half a century’s habit of indolence and dirt, were promoted to these fine dwellings. The consequences were such as Lady Dashfort delighted to point out: every thing let to go to ruin for the want of a moment’s care, or pulled to pieces for the sake of the most surreptitious profit: the people most assisted always appearing proportionally wretched and discontented. No one could, with more ease and more knowledge of her ground, than Lady Dashfort, do the dishonours of a country. In every cabin that she entered, by the first glance of her eye at the head, kerchiefed in no comely guise, or by the drawn-down corners of the mouth, or by the bit of a broken pipe, which in Ireland never characterizes stout labour, or by the first sound of the voice, the drawling accent on “your honour,” or, “my lady,” she could distinguish the proper objects of her charitable designs, that is to say, those of the old uneducated race, whom no one can help, because they will never help themselves. To these she constantly addressed herself, making them give, in all their despairing tones, a history of their complaints and grievances; then asking them questions, aptly contrived to expose their habits of self-contradiction, their servility and flattery one moment, and their litigious and encroaching spirit the next: thus giving Lord Colambre the most unfavourable idea of the disposition and character of the lower class of the Irish people. Lady Isabel the while standing by, with the most amiable air of pity, with expressions of the finest moral sensibility, softening all her mother said, finding ever some excuse for the poor creatures, and following, with angelic sweetness, to heal the wounds her mother inflicted.
When Lady Dashfort thought she had sufficiently worked upon Lord Colambre’s mind to weaken his enthusiasm for his native country; and when Lady Isabel had, by the appearance of every virtue, added to a delicate preference, if not partiality for our hero, ingratiated herself into his good opinion, and obtained an interest in his mind, the wily mother ventured an attack of a more decisive nature; and so contrived it was, that if it failed, it should appear to have been made without design to injure, and in total ignorance.
One day, Lady Dashfort, who, in fact, was not proud of her family, though she pretended to be so, was herself prevailed on, though with much difficulty, by Lady Killpatrick, to do the very thing she wanted to do, to show her genealogy, which had been beautifully blazoned, and which was to be produced in evidence in the lawsuit that brought her to Ireland. Lord Colambre stood politely looking on and listening, while her ladyship explained the splendid intermarriages of her family, pointing to each medallion that was filled gloriously with noble, and even with royal names, till at last she stopped short, and covering one medallion with her finger, she said, “Pass over that, dear Lady Killpatrick. You are not to see that, Lord Colambre—that’s a little blot in our scutcheon. You know, Isabel, we never talk of that prudent match of great uncle John’s: what could he expect by marrying into that family, where, you know, all the men were not sans peur, and none of the women sans reproche?”
“Oh, mamma!” cried Lady Isabel, “not one exception!”
“Not one, Isabel,” persisted Lady Dashfort: “there was Lady ——, and the other sister, that married the man with the long nose; and the daughter again, of whom they contrived to make an honest woman, by getting her married in time to a blue riband, and who contrived to get herself into Doctors’ Commons the very next year.”
“Well, dear mamma, that is enough, and too much. Oh! pray don’t go on,” cried Lady Isabel, who had appeared very much distressed during her mother’s speech. “You don’t know what you are saying: indeed, ma’am, you don’t.”
“Very likely, child; but that compliment I can return to you on the spot, and with interest; for you seem to me, at this instant, not to know either what you are saying, or what you are doing. Come, come, explain.”
“Oh, no, ma’am—Pray say no more; I will explain myself another time.”
“Nay, there you are wrong, Isabel; in point of good-breeding, any thing is better than hints and mystery. Since I have been so unlucky as to touch upon the subject, better go through with it, and, with all the boldness of innocence, I ask the question, Are you, my Lord Colambre, or are you not, related to or connected with any of the St. Omars?”
“Not that I know of,” said Lord Colambre; “but I really am so bad a genealogist, that I cannot answer positively.”
“Then I must put the substance of my question into a new form. Have you, or have you not, a cousin of the name of Nugent?”
“Miss Nugent!—Grace Nugent!—Yes,” said Lord Colambre, with as much firmness of voice as he could command, and with as little change of countenance as possible; but, as the question came upon him so unexpectedly, it was not in his power to answer with an air of absolute indifference and composure.
“And her mother was—” said Lady Dashfort.
“My aunt, by marriage; her maiden name was Reynolds, I think. But she died when I was quite a child. I know very little about her. I never saw her in my life; but I am certain she was a Reynolds.”
“Oh, my dear lord,” continued Lady Dashfort; “I am perfectly aware that she did take and bear the name of Reynolds; but that was not her maiden name—her maiden name was—; but perhaps it is a family secret that has been kept, for some good reason, from you, and from the poor girl herself; the maiden name was St. Omar, depend upon it. Nay, I would not have told this to you, my lord, if I could have conceived that it would affect you so violently,” pursued Lady Dashfort, in a tone of raillery; “you see you are no worse off than we are. We have an intermarriage with the St. Omars. I did not think you would be so much shocked at a discovery, which proves that our family and yours have some little connexion.”
Lord Colambre endeavoured to answer, and mechanically said something about “happy to have the honour.” Lady Dashfort, truly happy to see that her blow had hit the mark so well, turned from his lordship without seeming to observe how seriously he was affected; and Lady Isabel sighed, and looked with compassion on Lord Colambre, and then reproachfully at her mother. But Lord Colambre heeded not her looks, and heard none of her sighs; he heard nothing, saw nothing, though his eyes were intently fixed on the genealogy, on which Lady Dashfort was still descanting to Lady Killpatrick. He took the first opportunity he could of quitting the room, and went out to take a solitary walk.
“There he is, departed, but not in peace, to reflect upon what has been said,” whispered Lady Dashfort to her daughter. “I hope it will do him a vast deal of good.”
“None of the women sans reproche! None!—without one exception,” said Lord Colambre to himself; “and Grace Nugent’s mother a St. Omar!—Is it possible? Lady Dashfort seems certain. She could not assert a positive falsehood—no motive. She does not know that Miss Nugent is the person to whom I am attached—she spoke at random. And I have heard it first from a stranger,—not from my mother. Why was it kept secret from me? Now I understand the reason why my mother evidently never wished that I should think of Miss Nugent—why she always spoke so vehemently against the marriages of relations, of cousins. Why not tell me the truth? It would have had the strongest effect, had she known my mind.”
Lord Colambre had the greatest dread of marrying any woman whose mother had conducted herself ill. His reason, his prejudices, his pride, his delicacy, and even his limited experience were all against it. All his hopes, his plans of future happiness, were shaken to their very foundation; he felt as if he had received a blow that stunned his mind, and from which he could not recover his faculties. The whole of that day he was like one in a dream. At night the painful idea continually recurred to him; and whenever he was fallen asleep, the sound of Lady Dashfort’s voice returned upon his ear, saying the words, “What could he expect when he married one of the St. Omars? None of the women sans reproche.”
In the morning he rose early; and the first thing he did was to write a letter to his mother, requesting (unless there was some important reason for her declining to answer the question) that she would immediately relieve his mind from a great uneasiness (he altered the word four times, but at last left it uneasiness). He stated what he had heard, and besought his mother to tell him the whole truth without reserve.
CHAPTER VIII.
One morning Lady Dashfort had formed an ingenious scheme for leaving Lady Isabel and Lord Colambre tête-à-tête; but the sudden entrance of Heathcock disconcerted her intentions. He came to beg Lady Dashfort’s interest with Count O’Halloran, for permission to hunt and shoot on his grounds next season.—“Not for myself, ‘pon honour, but for two officers who are quartered at the next town here, who will indubitably hang or drown themselves if they are debarred from sporting.”
“Who is this Count O’Halloran?” said Lord Colambre.
Miss White, Lady Killpatrick’s companion, said, “he was a great oddity;” Lady Dashfort, “that he was singular;” and the clergyman of the parish, who was at breakfast, declared “that he was a man of uncommon knowledge, merit, and politeness.”
“All I know of him,” said Heathcock, “is, that he is a great sportsman, with a long queue, a gold-laced hat, and long skirts to a laced waistcoat.”
Lord Colambre expressed a wish to see this extraordinary personage; and Lady Dashfort, to cover her former design, and, perhaps thinking absence might be as effectual as too much propinquity, immediately offered to call upon the officers in their way, and carry them with Heathcock and Lord Colambre to Halloran Castle.
Lady Isabel retired with much mortification, but with becoming grace; and Major Benson and Captain Williamson were taken to the count’s. Major Benson, who was a famous whip, took his seat on the box of the barouche; and the rest of the party had the pleasure of her ladyship’s conversation for three or four miles: of her ladyship’s conversation—for Lord Colambre’s thoughts were far distant; Captain Williamson had not any thing to say; and Heathcock nothing but “Eh! re’lly now!—‘pon honour!”
They arrived at Halloran Castle—a fine old building, part of it in ruins, and part repaired with great judgment and taste. When the carriage stopped, a respectable-looking man-servant appeared on the steps, at the open hall-door.
Count O’Halloran was out fishing; but his servant said that he would he at home immediately, if Lady Dashfort and the gentlemen would be pleased to walk in.
On one side of the lofty and spacious hall stood the skeleton of an elk; on the other side, the perfect skeleton of a moose-deer, which, as the servant said, his master had made out, with great care, from the different bones of many of this curious species of deer, found in the lakes in the neighbourhood. The leash of officers witnessed their wonder with sundry strange oaths and exclamations.—“Eh! ‘pon honour—re’lly now!” said Heathcock; and, too genteel to wonder at or admire any thing in the creation, dragged out his watch with some difficulty, saying, “I wonder now whether they are likely to think of giving us any thing to eat in this place?” And, turning his back upon the moose-deer, he straight walked out again upon the steps, called to his groom, and began to make some inquiry about his led horse. Lord Colambre surveyed the prodigious skeletons with rational curiosity, and with that sense of awe and admiration, by which a superior mind is always struck on beholding any of the great works of Providence.
“Come, my dear lord!” said Lady Dashfort; “with our sublime sensations, we are keeping my old friend, Mr. Ulick Brady, this venerable person, waiting to show us into the reception-room.”
The servant bowed respectfully—more respectfully than servants of modern date.
“My lady, the reception-room has been lately painted,—the smell of paint may be disagreeable; with your leave, I will take the liberty of showing you into my master’s study.”
He opened the door, went in before her, and stood holding up his finger, as if making a signal of silence to some one within. Her ladyship entered, and found herself in the midst of an odd assembly: an eagle, a goat, a dog, an otter, several gold and silver fish in a glass globe, and a white mouse in a cage. The eagle, quick of eye but quiet of demeanour, was perched upon his stand; the otter lay under the table, perfectly harmless; the Angora goat, a beautiful and remarkably little creature of its kind, with long, curling, silky hair, was walking about the room with the air of a beauty and a favourite; the dog, a tall Irish greyhound—one of the few of that fine race, which is now almost extinct—had been given to Count O’Halloran by an Irish nobleman, a relation of Lady Dashfort’s. This dog, who had formerly known her ladyship, looked at her with ears erect, recognized her, and went to meet her the moment she entered. The servant answered for the peaceable behaviour of all the rest of the company of animals, and retired. Lady Dashfort began to feed the eagle from a silver plate on his stand; Lord Colambre examined the inscription on his collar; the other men stood in amaze. Heathcock, who came in last, astonished out of his constant “Eh! re’lly now!” the moment he put himself in at the door, exclaimed, “Zounds! what’s all this live lumber?” and he stumbled over the goat, who was at that moment crossing the way. The colonel’s spur caught in the goat’s curly beard; the colonel shook his foot, and entangled the spur worse and worse; the goat struggled and butted; the colonel skated forward on the polished oak floor, balancing himself with outstretched arms.
The indignant eagle screamed, and, passing by, perched on Heathcock’s shoulders. Too well bred to have recourse to the terrors of his beak, he scrupled not to scream, and flap his wings about the colonel’s ears. Lady Dashfort, the while, threw herself back in her chair, laughing, and begging Heathcock’s pardon. “Oh, take care of the dog, my dear colonel!” cried she; “for this kind of dog seizes his enemy by the back, and shakes him to death.” The officers, holding their sides, laughed and begged—no pardon; while Lord Colambre, the only person who was not absolutely incapacitated, tried to disentangle the spur, and to liberate the colonel from the goat, and the goat from the colonel; an attempt in which he at last succeeded, at the expense of a considerable portion of the goat’s beard. The eagle, however, still kept his place; and, yet mindful of the wrongs of his insulted friend the goat, had stretched his wings to give another buffet. Count O’Halloran entered; and the bird, quitting his prey, flew down to greet his master. The count was a fine old military-looking gentleman, fresh from fishing: his fishing accoutrements hanging carelessly about him, he advanced, unembarrassed, to Lady Dashfort; and received his other guests with a mixture of military ease and gentlemanlike dignity.
Without adverting to the awkward and ridiculous situation in which he had found poor Heathcock, he apologized in general for his troublesome favourites. “For one of them,” said he, patting the head of the dog, which lay quiet at Lady Dashfort’s feet, “I see I have no need to apologize; he is where he ought to be. Poor fellow! he has never lost his taste for the good company to which he was early accustomed. As to the rest,” said he, turning to Lady Dashfort, “a mouse, a bird, and a fish, are, you know, tribute from earth, air, and water, to a conqueror—”
“But from no barbarous Scythian!” said Lord Colambre, smiling. The count looked at Lord Colambre, as at a person worthy his attention; but his first care was to keep the peace between his loving subjects and his foreign visitors. It was difficult to dislodge the old settlers, to make room for the new comers: but he adjusted these things with admirable facility; and, with a master’s hand and master’s eye, compelled each favourite to retreat into the back settlements. With becoming attention, he stroked and kept quiet old Victory, his eagle, who eyed Colonel Heathcock still, as if he did not like him; and whom the colonel eyed as if he wished his neck fairly wrung off. The little goat had nestled himself close up to his liberator, Lord Colambre, and lay perfectly quiet, with his eyes closed, going very wisely to sleep, and submitting philosophically to the loss of one half of his beard. Conversation now commenced, and was carried on by Count O’Halloran with much ability and spirit, and with such quickness of discrimination and delicacy of taste, as quite surprised and delighted our hero. To the lady the count’s attention was first directed: he listened to her as she spoke, bending with an air of deference and devotion. She made her request for permission for Major Benson and Captain Williamson to hunt and shoot in his grounds next season: this was instantly granted.
Her ladyship’s requests were to him commands, the count said.—His gamekeeper should be instructed to give the gentlemen, her friends, every liberty, and all possible assistance.
Then, turning to the officers, he said, he had just heard that several regiments of English militia had lately landed in Ireland; that one regiment was arrived at Killpatrick’s-town. He rejoiced in the advantages Ireland, and he hoped he might be permitted to add, England, would probably derive from the exchange of the militia of both countries: habits would be improved, ideas enlarged. The two countries have the same interest; and, from the inhabitants discovering more of each other’s good qualities, and interchanging little good offices in common life, their esteem and affection for each other would increase, and rest upon the firm basis of mutual utility.
To all this Major Benson answered only, “We are not militia officers.”
“The major looks so like a stuffed man of straw,” whispered Lady Dashfort to Lord Colambre, “and the captain so like the king of spades, putting forth one manly leg.”
Count O’Halloran now turned the conversation to field sports, and then the captain and major opened at once.
“Pray now, sir,” said the major, “you fox-hunt in this country, I suppose; and now do you manage the thing here as we do? Over night, you know, before the hunt, when the fox is out, stopping up the earths of the cover we mean to draw, and all the rest for four miles round. Next morning we assemble at the cover’s side, and the huntsman throws in the hounds. The gossip here is no small part of the entertainment: but as soon as we hear the hounds give tongue—”
“The favourite hounds,” interposed Williamson.
“The favourite hounds, to be sure,” continued Benson: “there is a dead silence till pug is well out of cover, and the whole pack well in: then cheer the hounds with tally-ho! till your lungs crack. Away he goes in gallant style, and the whole field is hard up, till pug takes a stiff country: then they who haven’t pluck lag, see no more of him, and, with a fine blazing scent, there are but few of us in at the death.”
“Well, we are fairly in at the death, I hope,” said Lady Dashfort: “I was thrown out sadly at one time in the chase.”
Lord Colambre, with the count’s permission, took up a book in which the count’s pencil lay, “Pasley on the Military Policy of Great Britain;” it was marked with many notes of admiration, and with hands pointing to remarkable passages.
“That is a book that leaves a strong impression on the mind,” said the count.
Lord Colambre read one of the marked passages, beginning with “All that distinguishes a soldier in outward appearance from a citizen is so trifling—” but at this instant our hero’s attention was distracted by seeing in a black-letter book this title of a chapter: “Burial-place of the Nugents.”
“Pray now, sir,” said Captain Williamson, “if I don’t interrupt you, as you are a fisherman too; now in Ireland do you, Mr.—”
A smart pinch on his elbow from his major, who stood behind him, stopped the captain short, as he pronounced the word Mr. Like all awkward people, he turned directly to ask, by his looks, what was the matter.
The major took advantage of his discomfiture, and, stepping before him, determined to have the fishing to himself, and went on with, “Count O’Halloran, I presume you understand fishing, too, as well as hunting?”
The count bowed: “I do not presume to say that, sir.”
“But pray, count, in this country, do you arm your hook this ways? Give me leave;” taking the whip from Williamson’s reluctant hand, “this ways, laying the outermost part of your feather this fashion next to your hook, and the point next to your shank, this wise, and that wise; and then, sir,—count, you take the hackle of a cock’s neck—”
“A plover’s topping’s better,” said Williamson.
“And work your gold and silver thread,” pursued Benson, “up to your wings, and when your head’s made, you fasten all.”
“But you never showed how your head’s made,” interrupted Williamson.
“The gentleman knows how a head’s made; any man can make a head, I suppose: so, sir, you fasten all.”
“You’ll never get your head fast on that way, while the world stands,” cried Williamson.
“Fast enough for all purposes; I’ll bet you a rump and dozen, captain: and then, sir,—count, you divide your wings with a needle.”
“A pin’s point will do,” said Williamson.
The count, to reconcile matters, produced from an Indian cabinet, which he had opened for Lady Dashfort’s inspection, a little basket containing a variety of artificial flies of curious construction, which, as he spread them on the table, made Williamson and Benson’s eyes almost sparkle with delight. There was the dun-fly, for the month of March; and the stone-fly, much in vogue for April; and the ruddy-fly, of red wool, black silk, and red capon’s feathers.
Lord Colambre, whose head was in the burial-place of the Nugents, wished them all at the bottom of the sea.
“And the green-fly, and the moorish-fly!” cried Benson, snatching them up with transport; “and, chief, the sad-yellow-fly, in which the fish delight in June; the sad-yellow-fly, made with the buzzard’s wings, bound with black braked hemp, and the shell-fly, for the middle of July, made of greenish wool, wrapped about with the herle of a peacock’s tail, famous for creating excellent sport.” All these and more were spread upon the table before the sportsmen’s wondering eyes.
“Capital flies! capital, faith!” cried Williamson.
“Treasures, faith, real treasures, by G—!” cried Benson.
“Eh! ‘pon honour! re’lly now,” were the first words which Heathcock had uttered since his battle with the goat.
“My dear Heathcock, are you alive still?” said Lady Dashfort: “I had really forgotten your existence.”
So had Count O’Halloran, but he did not say so.
“Your ladyship has the advantage of me there,” said Heathcock, stretching himself; “I wish I could forget my existence, for, in my mind, existence is a horrible bore.”
“I thought you was a sportsman,” said Williamson.
“Well, sir?”
“And a fisherman?”
“Well, sir?”
“Why look you there, sir,” pointing to the flies, “and tell a body life’s a bore.”
“One can’t always fish or shoot, I apprehend, sir,” said Heathcock.
“Not always—but sometimes,” said Williamson, laughing; “for I suspect shrewdly you’ve forgot some of your sporting in Bond-street.”
“Eh! ‘pon honour! re’lly now!” said the colonel, retreating again to his safe entrenchment of affectation, from which he never could venture without imminent danger.
“‘Pon honour,” cried Lady Dashfort, “I can swear for Heathcock, that I have eaten excellent hares and ducks of his shooting, which, to my knowledge,” added she, in a loud whisper, “he bought in the market.”
“Emptum aprum!” said Lord Colambre to the count, without danger of being understood by those whom it concerned.
The count smiled a second time; but politely turning the attention of the company from the unfortunate colonel, by addressing himself to the laughing sportsmen, “Gentlemen, you seem to value these,” said he, sweeping the artificial flies from the table into the little basket from which they had been taken; “would you do me the honour to accept of them? They are all of my own making, and consequently of Irish manufacture.” Then, ringing the bell, he asked Lady Dashfort’s permission to have the basket put into her carriage.
Benson and Williamson followed the servant, to prevent them from being tossed into the boot. Heathcock stood still in the middle of the room, taking snuff.
Count O’Halloran turned from him to Lord Colambre, who had just got happily to the burial-place of the Nugents, when Lady Dashfort, coming between them, and spying the title of the chapter, exclaimed, “What have you there?—Antiquities! my delight!—but I never look at engravings when I can see realities.”
Lord Colambre was then compelled to follow, as she led the way, into the hall, where the count took down golden ornaments, and brass-headed spears, and jointed horns of curious workmanship, that had been found on his estate; and he told of spermaceti wrapped in carpets, and he showed small urns, enclosing ashes; and from among these urns he selected one, which he put into the hands of Lord Colambre, telling him, that it had been lately found in an old abbey-ground in his neighbourhood, which had been the burial-place of some of the Nugent family.
“I was just looking at the account of it, in the book which you saw open on my table.—And as you seem to take an interest in that family, my lord, perhaps,” said the count, “you may think this urn worth your acceptance.”
Lord Colambre said, “It would be highly valuable to him—as the Nugents were his near relations.”
Lady Dashfort little expected this blow; she, however, carried him off to the moose-deer, and from moose-deer to round-towers, to various architectural antiquities, and to the real and fabulous history of Ireland, on all which the count spoke with learning and enthusiasm. But now, to Colonel Heathcock’s great joy and relief, a handsome collation appeared in the dining-room, of which Ulick opened the folding-doors.
“Count, you have made an excellent house of your castle,” said Lady Dashfort.
“It will be, when it is finished,” said the count. “I am afraid,” added he, smiling, “I live like many other Irish gentlemen, who never are, but always to be, blessed with a good house. I began on too large a scale, and can never hope to live to finish it.”
“‘Pon honour! here’s a good thing, which I hope we shall live to finish,” said Heathcock, sitting down before the collation; and heartily did he eat of eel-pie, and of Irish ortolans 4, which, as Lady Dashfort observed, “afforded him indemnity for the past, and security for the future.”
“Eh! re’lly now! your Irish ortolans are famous good eating,” said Heathcock.
“Worth being quartered in Ireland, faith! to taste ‘em,” said Benson.
The count recommended to Lady Dashfort some of “that delicate sweetmeat, the Irish plum.”
“Bless me, sir,—count!” cried Williamson, “it’s by far the best thing of the kind I ever tasted in all my life: where could you get this?”
“In Dublin, at my dear Mrs. Godey’s; where only, in his majesty’s dominions, it is to be had,” said the count.
The whole vanished in a few seconds.
“‘Pon honour! I do believe this is the thing the queen’s so fond of,” said Heathcock.
Then heartily did he drink of the count’s excellent Hungarian wines; and, by the common bond of sympathy between those who have no other tastes but eating and drinking, the colonel, the major, and the captain, were now all the best companions possible for one another.
Whilst “they prolonged the rich repast,” Lady Dashfort and Lord Colambre went to the window to admire the prospect: Lady Dashfort asked the count the name of some distant hill.
“Ah!” said the count, “that hill was once covered with fine wood; but it was all cut down two years ago.”
“Who could have been so cruel?” said her ladyship.
“I forget the present proprietor’s name,” said the count; “but he is one of those who, according to the clause of distress in their leases, lead, drive, and carry away, but never enter their lands; one of those enemies to Ireland—those cruel absentees!”
Lady Dashfort looked through her glass at the mountain:—Lord Colambre sighed, and, endeavouring to pass it off with a smile, said frankly to the count, “You are not aware, I am sure, count, that you are speaking to the son of an Irish absentee family. Nay, do not be shocked, my dear sir; I tell you only because I thought it fair to do so: but let me assure you, that nothing you could say on that subject could hurt me personally, because I feel that I am not, that I never can be, an enemy to Ireland. An absentee, voluntarily, I never yet have been; and as to the future, I declare—”
“I declare you know nothing of the future,” interrupted Lady Dashfort, in a half peremptory, half playful tone—“you know nothing: make no rash vows, and you will break none.”
The undaunted assurance of Lady Dashfort’s genius for intrigue gave her an air of frank imprudence, which prevented Lord Colambre from suspecting that more was meant than met the ear. The count and he took leave of one another with mutual regard; and Lady Dashfort rejoiced to have got our hero out of Halloran Castle.