Tales and Novels — Volume 06

CHAPTER IX.

Lord Colambre had waited with great impatience for an answer to the letter of inquiry which he had written about Miss Nugent’s mother. A letter from Lady Clonbrony arrived: he opened it with the greatest eagerness—passed over “Rheumatism—warm weather—warm bath—Buxton balls—Miss Broadhurst—your friend, Sir Arthur Berryl, very assiduous!” The name of Grace Nugent he found at last, and read as follows:—

Lord Colambre tore the letter to bits.

From the perturbation which Lady Dashfort saw in his countenance, she guessed the nature of the letter which he had been reading, and for the arrival of which he had been so impatient.

“It has worked!” said she to herself. “Pour le coup Philippe je te tiens!”

Lord Colambre appeared this day more sensible than he had ever yet seemed to the charms of the fair Isabel.

“Many a tennis-ball, and many a heart, is caught at the rebound,” said Lady Dashfort. “Isabel! now is your time!”

And so it was—or so, perhaps, it would have been, but for a circumstance which her ladyship, with all her genius for intrigue, had never taken into her consideration. Count O’Halloran came to return the visit which had been paid to him; and, in the course of conversation, he spoke of the officers who had been introduced to him, and told Lady Dashfort that he had heard a report which shocked him much—he hoped it could not be true—that one of these officers had introduced his mistress as his wife to Lady Oranmore, who lived in the neighbourhood. This officer, it was said, had let Lady Oranmore send her carriage for this woman; and that she had dined at Oranmore with her ladyship and her daughters. “But I cannot believe it! I cannot believe it to be possible, that any gentleman, that any officer could do such a thing!” said the count.

“And is this all?” exclaimed Lady Dashfort. “Is this all the terrible affair, my good count, which has brought your face to this prodigious length?”

The count looked at Lady Dashfort with astonishment.

“Such a look of virtuous indignation,” continued she, “did I never behold on or off the stage. Forgive me for laughing, count; but, believe me, comedy goes through the world better than tragedy, and, take it all in all, does rather less mischief. As to the thing in question, I know nothing about it; I dare say it is not true: but, now, suppose it were—it is only a silly quiz of a raw young officer upon a prudish old dowager. I know nothing about it, for my part: but, after all, what irreparable mischief has been done? Laugh at the thing, and then it is a jest—a bad one, perhaps, but still only a jest—and there’s an end of it: but take it seriously, and there is no knowing where it might end—in this poor man’s being broke, and in half a dozen duels, may be.”

“Of that, madam,” said the count, “Lady Oranmore’s prudence and presence of mind have prevented all danger. Her ladyship would not understand the insult. She said, or she acted as if she said, ‘Je ne veux rien voir, rien écouter, rien savoir.’ Lady Oranmore is one of the most respectable—”

“Count, I beg your pardon!” interrupted Lady Dashfort; “but I must tell you, that your favourite, Lady Oranmore, has behaved very ill to me; purposely omitted to invite Isabel to her ball; offended and insulted me:—her praises, therefore, cannot be the most agreeable subject of conversation you can choose for my amusement; and as to the rest, you, who have such variety and so much politeness, will, I am sure, have the goodness to indulge my caprice in this instance.”

“I shall obey your ladyship, and be silent, whatever pleasure it might give me to speak on that subject,” said the count; “and I trust Lady Dashfort will reward me by the assurance, that, however playfully she may have just now spoken, she seriously disapproves, and is shocked.”

“Oh, shocked! shocked to death! if that will satisfy you, my dear count.”

The count, obviously, was not satisfied: he had civil, as well as military courage, and his sense of right and wrong could stand against the raillery and ridicule of a fine lady.

The conversation ended: Lady Dashfort thought it would have no farther consequences; and she did not regret the loss of a man like Count O’Halloran, who lived retired in his castle, and who could not have any influence upon the opinion of the fashionable world. However, upon turning from the count to Lord Colambre, who she thought had been occupied with Lady Isabel, and to whom she imagined all this dispute was uninteresting, she perceived, by his countenance, that she had made a great mistake. Still she trusted that her power over Lord Colambre was sufficient easily to efface whatever unfavourable impression this conversation had made upon his mind. He had no personal interest in the affair; and she had generally found that people are easily satisfied about any wrong or insult, public or private, in which they have no immediate concern. But all the charms of her conversation were now tried in vain to reclaim him from the reverie into which he had fallen.

His friend Sir James Brooke’s parting advice occurred to our hero: his eyes began to open to Lady Dashfort’s character; and he was, from this moment, freed from her power. Lady Isabel, however, had taken no part in all this—she was blameless; and, independently of her mother, and in pretended opposition of sentiment, she might have continued to retain the influence she had gained over Lord Colambre, but that a slight accident revealed to him her real disposition.

It happened, on the evening of this day, that Lady Isabel came into the library with one of the young ladies of the house, talking very eagerly, without perceiving Lord Colambre, who was sitting in one of the recesses reading.

“My dear creature, you are quite mistaken,” said Lady Isabel, “he was never a favourite of mine; I always detested him; I only flirted with him to plague his wife. Oh, that wife! my dear Elizabeth, I do hate,” cried she, clasping her hands, and expressing hatred with all her soul, and with all her strength. “I detest that Lady de Cressy to such a degree, that, to purchase the pleasure of making her feel the pangs of jealousy for one hour, look, I would this moment lay down this finger and let it be cut off.”

The face, the whole figure of Lady Isabel, at this moment, appeared to Lord Colambre suddenly metamorphosed; instead of the soft, gentle, amiable female, all sweet charity and tender sympathy, formed to love and to be loved, he beheld one possessed and convulsed by an evil spirit—her beauty, if beauty it could be called, the beauty of a fiend. Some ejaculation, which he unconsciously uttered, made Lady Isabel start. She saw him—saw the expression of his countenance, and knew that all was over.

Lord Colambre, to the utter astonishment and disappointment of Lady Dashfort, and to the still greater mortification of Lady Isabel, announced this night that it was necessary he should immediately pursue his tour in Ireland. We pass over all the castles in the air which the young ladies of the family had built, and which now fell to the ground. We pass all the civil speeches of Lord and Lady Killpatrick; all the vehement remonstrances of Lady Dashfort; and the vain sighs of Lady Isabel. To the last moment Lady Dashfort said, “He will not go.”

But he went; and, when he was gone, Lady Dashfort exclaimed, “That man has escaped from me.” After a pause, turning to her daughter, she, in the most taunting and contemptuous terms, reproached her as the cause of this failure, concluding by a declaration, that she must in future manage her own affairs, and had best settle her mind to marry Heathcock, since every one else was too wise to think of her.

Lady Isabel of course retorted. But we leave this amiable mother and daughter to recriminate in appropriate terms, and we follow our hero, rejoiced that he has been disentangled from their snares. Those who have never been in similar peril will wonder much that he did not escape sooner; those who have ever been in like danger will wonder more that he escaped at all. They who are best acquainted with the heart or imagination of man will be most ready to acknowledge that the combined charms of wit, beauty, and flattery, may, for a time, suspend the action of right reason in the mind of the greatest philosopher, or operate against the resolutions of the greatest of heroes.

Lord Colambre pursued his way to Halloran Castle, desirous, before he quitted this part of the country, to take leave of the count, who had shown him much civility, and for whose honourable conduct and generous character he had conceived a high esteem, which no little peculiarities of antiquated dress or manner could diminish. Indeed, the old-fashioned politeness of what was formerly called a well-bred gentleman pleased him better than the indolent or insolent selfishness of modern men of the ton. Perhaps, notwithstanding our hero’s determination to turn his mind from every thing connected with the idea of Miss Nugent, some latent curiosity about the burial-place of the Nugents might have operated to make him call upon the count. In this hope he was disappointed; for a cross miller, to whom the abbey-ground was let, on which the burial-place was found, had taken it into his head to refuse admittance, and none could enter his ground.

Count O’Halloran was much pleased by Lord Colambre’s visit. The very day of his arrival at Halloran Castle, the count was going to Oranmore; he was dressed, and his carriage was waiting: therefore Lord Colambre begged that he might not detain him, and the count requested his lordship to accompany him.

“Let me have the honour of introducing you, my lord, to a family, with whom, I am persuaded, you will he pleased; by whom you will be appreciated; and at whose house you will have an opportunity of seeing the best manner of living of the Irish nobility.”

Lord Colambre accepted the invitation, and was introduced at Oranmore. The dignified appearance and respectable character of Lady Oranmore; the charming unaffected manners of her daughters; the air of domestic happiness and comfort in her family; the becoming magnificence, free from ostentation, in her whole establishment; the respect and affection with which she was treated by all who approached her, delighted and touched Lord Colambre; the more, perhaps, because he had heard this family so unjustly abused; and because he saw Lady Oranmore and her daughter in immediate contrast with Lady Dashfort and Lady Isabel.

A little circumstance which occurred during this visit, increased his interest for the family. When Lady de Cressy’s little boys came in after dinner, one of them was playing with a seal, which had just been torn from a letter. The child showed it to Lord Colambre, and asked him to read the motto. The motto was, “Deeds, not words.” His friend Sir James Brooke’s motto, and his arms. Lord Colambre eagerly inquired if this family was acquainted with Sir James, and he soon perceived that they were not only acquainted with him, but that they were particularly interested about him.

Lady Oranmore’s second daughter, Lady Harriet, appeared particularly pleased by the manner in which Lord Colambre spoke of Sir James. And the child, who had now established himself on his lordship’s knee, turned round, and whispered in his ear, “‘Twas aunt Harriet gave me the seal; Sir James is to be married to aunt Harriet, and then he will be my uncle.”

Some of the principal gentry of this part of the country happened to dine at Oranmore on one of the days Lord Colambre was there. He was surprised at the discovery, that there were so many agreeable, well-informed, and well-bred people, of whom, while he was at Killpatrick’s-town, he had seen nothing. He now discerned how far he had been deceived by Lady Dashfort.

Both the count, and Lord and Lady Oranmore, who were warmly attached to their country, exhorted him to make himself amends for the time he had lost, by seeing with his own eyes, and judging with his own understanding, of the country and its inhabitants, during the remainder of the time he was to stay in Ireland. The higher classes, in most countries, they observed, were generally similar; but, in the lower class, he would find many characteristic differences.

When he first came to Ireland, he had been very eager to go and see his father’s estate, and to judge of the conduct of his agents, and the condition of his tenantry; but this eagerness had subsided, and the design had almost faded from his mind, whilst under the influence of Lady Dashfort’s misrepresentations. A mistake, relative to some remittance from his banker in Dublin, obliged him to delay his journey a few days, and during that time, Lord and Lady Oranmore showed him the neat cottages, and well-attended schools, in their neighbourhood. They showed him not only what could be done, but what had been done, by the influence of great proprietors residing on their own estates, and encouraging the people by judicious kindness.

He saw,—he acknowledged the truth of this; but it did not come home to his feelings now as it would have done a little while ago. His views and plans were altered: he had looked forward to the idea of marrying and settling in Ireland, and then every thing in the country was interesting to him; but since he had forbidden himself to think of a union with Miss Nugent, his mind had lost its object and its spring; he was not sufficiently calm to think of the public good; his thoughts were absorbed by his private concerns. He knew and repeated to himself, that he ought to visit his own and his father’s estates, and to see the condition of his tenantry; he desired to fulfil his duties, but they ceased to appear to him easy and pleasurable, for hope and love no longer brightened his prospects.

That he might see and hear more than he could as heir-apparent to the estate, he sent his servant to Dublin to wait for him there. He travelled incognito, wrapped himself in a shabby great-coat, and took the name of Evans. He arrived at a village, or, as it was called, a town, which bore the name of Colambre. He was agreeably surprised by the air of neatness and finish in the houses and in the street, which had a nicely swept paved footway. He slept at a small but excellent inn,—excellent, perhaps, because it was small, and proportioned to the situation and business of the place. Good supper, good bed, good attendance; nothing out of repair; no things pressed into services for which they were never intended by nature or art. No chambermaid slipshod, or waiter smelling of whiskey; but all tight and right, and every body doing their own business, and doing it as if it were their every day occupation, not as if it were done by particular desire, for the first or last time this season. The landlord came in at supper to inquire whether any thing was wanted. Lord Colambre took this opportunity of entering into conversation with him, and asked him to whom the town belonged, and who were the proprietors of the neighbouring estates.

“The town belongs to an absentee lord—one Lord Clonbrony, who lives always beyond the seas, in London; and who had never seen the town since it was a town, to call a town.”

“And does the land in the neighbourhood belong to this Lord Clonbrony?”

“It does, sir; he’s a great proprietor, but knows nothing of his property, nor of us. Never set foot among us, to my knowledge, since I was as high as the table. He might as well be a West India planter, and we negroes, for any thing he knows to the contrary—has no more care, nor thought about us, than if he were in Jamaica, or the other world. Shame for him! But there’s too many to keep him in countenance.”

Lord Colambre asked him what wine he could have; and then inquired who managed the estate for this absentee.

“Mr. Burke, sir. And I don’t know why God was so kind to give so good an agent to an absentee like Lord Clonbrony, except it was for the sake of us, who is under him, and knows the blessing, and is thankful for the same.”

“Very good cutlets,” said Lord Colambre.

“I am happy to hear it, sir. They have a right to be good, for Mrs. Burke sent her own cook to teach my wife to dress cutlets.”

“So the agent is a good agent, is he?”

“He is, thanks be to Heaven! And that’s what few can boast, especially when the landlord’s living over the seas: we have the luck to have got a good agent over us, in Mr. Burke, who is a right bred gentleman; a snug little property of his own, honestly made; with the good-will, and good wishes, and respect of all.”

“Does he live in the neighbourhood?”

“Just convanient.5 At the end of the town; in the house on the hill as you passed, sir; to the left, with the trees about it, all of his own planting, grown too; for there’s a blessing on all he does, and he has done a deal.—There’s salad, sir, if you are partial to it. Very fine lettuce. Mrs. Burke sent us the plants herself.”

“Excellent salad! So this Mr. Burke has done a great deal, has he? In what way?”

“In every way, sir,—sure was not it he that had improved, and fostered, and made the town of Colambre?—no thanks to the proprietor, nor to the young man whose name it bears, neither!”

“Have you any porter, pray, sir?”

“We have, sir, as good, I hope, as you’d drink in London, for it’s the same you get there, I understand, from Cork. And I have some of my own brewing, which, they say, you could not tell the difference between it and Cork quality—if you’d be pleased to try.—Harry, the corkscrew.”

The porter of his own brewing was pronounced to be extremely good; and the landlord observed it was Mr. Burke encouraged him to learn to brew, and lent him his own brewer for a time to teach him.

“Your Mr. Burke, I find, is apropos to porter, apropos to salad, apropos to cutlets, apropos to every thing,” said Lord Colambre, smiling: “he seems to be a very uncommon agent I suppose you are a great favourite of his, and you do what you please with him.”

“Oh, no, sir, I could not say that; Mr. Burke does not have favourites any way; but, according to my deserts, I trust I stand well enough with him; for, in truth, he is a right good agent.”

Lord Colambre still pressed for particulars; he was an Englishman, and a stranger, he said, and did not exactly know what was meant in Ireland by a good agent.

“Why, he is the man that will encourage the improving tenant; and show no favour or affection, but justice, which comes even to all, and does best for all at the long run; and, residing always in the country, like Mr. Burke, and understanding country business, and going about continually among the tenantry, he knows when to press for the rent, and when to leave the money to lay out upon the land; and, according as they would want it, can give a tenant a help or a check properly. Then no duty work called for, no presents, nor glove money, nor sealing money even, taken or offered; no underhand hints about proposals, when land would be out of lease; but a considerable preference, if desarved, to the old tenant, and if not, a fair advertisement, and the best offer and tenant accepted: no screwing of the land to the highest penny, just to please the head landlord for the minute, and ruin him at the end, by the tenant’s racking the land, and running off with the year’s rent; nor no bargains to his own relations or friends did Mr. Burke ever give or grant, but all fair between landlord and tenant; and that’s the thing that will last; and that’s what I call the good agent.”

Lord Colambre poured out a glass of wine, and begged the innkeeper to drink the good agent’s health, in which he was heartily pledged. “I thank your honour:—Mr. Burke’s health! and long may he live over and amongst us; he saved me from drink and ruin, when I was once inclined to it, and made a man of me and all my family.”

The particulars we cannot stay to detail; this grateful man, however, took pleasure in sounding the praises of his benefactor, and in raising him in the opinion of the traveller.

“As you’ve time, and are curious about such things, sir, perhaps you’d walk up to the school that Mrs. Burke has for the poor children; and look at the market house, and see how clean he takes a pride to keep the town: and any house in the town, from the priest to the parson’s, that you’d go into, will give you the same character as I do of Mr. Burke; from the brogue to the boot, all speak the same of him, and can say no other. God for ever bless and keep him over us!”

Upon making further inquiries, every thing the innkeeper had said was confirmed by different inhabitants of the village. Lord Colambre conversed with the shopkeepers, with the cottagers; and, without making any alarming inquiries, he obtained all the information he wanted. He went to the village-school—a pretty, cheerful house, with a neat garden and a play-green; met Mrs. Burke; introduced himself to her as a traveller. The school was shown to him: it was just what it ought to be—neither too much nor too little had been attempted; there was neither too much interference nor too little attention. Nothing for exhibition; care to teach well, without any vain attempt to teach in a wonderfully short time. All that experience proves to be useful, in both Dr. Bell’s and Mr. Lancaster’s modes of teaching, Mrs. Burke had adopted; leaving it to “graceless zealots” to fight about the rest. That no attempts at proselytism had been made, and that no illiberal distinctions had been made in his school, Lord Colambre was convinced, in the best manner possible, by seeing the children of protestants and catholics sitting on the same benches, learning from the same books, and speaking to one another with the same cordial familiarity. Mrs. Burke was an unaffected, sensible woman, free from all party prejudices, and without ostentation, desirous and capable of doing good. Lord Colambre was much pleased with her, and very glad that she invited him to tea.

Mr. Burke did not come in till late; for he had been detained portioning out some meadows, which were of great consequence to the inhabitants of the town. He brought home to tea with him the clergyman and the priest of the parish, both of whom he had taken successful pains to accommodate with the land which suited their respective convenience. The good terms on which they seemed to be with each other, and with him, appeared to Lord Colambre to do honour to Mr. Burke. All the favourable accounts his lordship had received of this gentleman were confirmed by what he saw and heard. After the clergyman and priest had taken leave, upon Lord Colambre’s expressing some surprise, mixed with satisfaction, at seeing the harmony which subsisted between them, Mr. Burke assured him that this was the same in many parts of Ireland. He observed, that “as the suspicion of ill-will never fails to produce it,” so he had often found, that taking it for granted that no ill-will exists, has the most conciliating effect. He said, to please opposite parties, he used no arts; but he tried to make all his neighbours live comfortably together, by making them acquainted with each other’s good qualities; by giving them opportunities of meeting sociably, and, from time to time, of doing each other little services and good offices. Fortunately, he had so much to do, he said, that he had no time for controversy. He was a plain man, made it a rule not to meddle with speculative points, and to avoid all irritating discussions: he was not to rule the country, but to live in it, and make others live as happily as he could.

Having nothing to conceal in his character, opinions, or circumstances, Mr. Burke was perfectly open and unreserved in his manner and conversation; freely answered all the traveller’s inquiries, and took pains to show him every thing he desired to see. Lord Colambre said he had thoughts of settling in Ireland; and declared, with truth, that he had not seen any part of the country he should like better to live in than this neighbourhood. He went over most of the estate with Mr. Burke, and had ample opportunities of convincing himself that this gentleman was indeed, as the innkeeper had described him, “a right good gentleman, and a right good agent.”

He paid Mr. Burke some just compliments on the state of the tenantry, and the neat and flourishing appearance of the town of Colambre.

“What pleasure it will give the proprietor when he sees all you have done!” said Lord Colambre.

“Oh, sir, don’t speak of it!—that breaks my heart; he never has shown the least interest in any thing I have done: he is quite dissatisfied with me, because I have not ruined his tenantry, by forcing them to pay more than the land is worth; because I have not squeezed money from them, by fining down rents; and—but all this, as an Englishman, sir, must be unintelligible to you. The end of the matter is, that, attached as I am to this place and the people about me, and, as I hope, the tenantry are to me,—I fear I shall he obliged to give up the agency.

“Give up the agency! How so? you must not,” cried Lord Colambre, and, for the moment, he forgot himself; but Mr. Burke took this only for an expression of good-will.

“I must, I am afraid,” continued he. “My employer, Lord Clonbrony, is displeased with me—continual calls for money come upon me from England, and complaints of my slow remittances.”

“Perhaps Lord Clonbrony is in embarrassed circumstances,” said Lord Colambre.

“I never speak of my employer’s affairs, sir,” replied Mr. Burke; now for the first time assuming an air of reserve.

“I beg pardon, sir—I seem to have asked an indiscreet question.” Mr. Burke was silent.

“Lest my reserve should give you a false impression, I will add, sir,” resumed Mr. Burke, “that I really am not acquainted with the state of his lordship’s affairs in general. I know only what belongs to the estate under my own management. The principal part of his lordship’s property, the Clonbrony estate, is under another agent, Mr. Garraghty.”

“Garraghty!” repeated Lord Colambre; “what sort of a person is he? But I may take it for granted, that it cannot fall to the lot of one and the same absentee to have two such agents as Mr. Burke.”

Mr. Burke bowed, and seemed pleased with the compliment, which he knew he deserved—but not a word did he say of Mr. Garraghty; and Lord Colambre, afraid of betraying himself by some other indiscreet question, changed the conversation.

The next night the post brought a letter to Mr. Burke, from Lord Clonbrony, which he gave to his wife as soon as he had read it, saying, “See the reward of all my services!”

Mrs. Burke glanced her eye over the letter, and being extremely fond of her husband, and sensible of his deserving far different treatment, burst into indignant exclamations—“See the reward of all your services, indeed!—What an unreasonable, ungrateful man!—So, this is the thanks for all you have done for Lord Clonbrony!”

“He does not know what I have done, my dear. He never has seen what I have done.”

“More shame for him!”

“He never, I suppose, looks over his accounts, or understands them.”

“More shame for him!”

“He listens to foolish reports, or misrepresentations, perhaps. He is at a distance, and cannot find out the truth.”

“More shame for him!”

“Take it quietly, my dear; we have the comfort of a good conscience. The agency may be taken from me by this lord; but the sense of having done my duty, no lord or man upon earth can give or take away.”

“Such a letter!” said Mrs. Burke, taking it up again. “Not even the civility to write with his own hand!—only his signature to the scrawl—looks as if it was written by a drunken man, does not it, Mr. Evans?” said she, showing the letter to Lord Colambre, who immediately recognized the writing of Sir Terence O’Fay.

“It does not look like the hand of a gentleman, indeed,” said Lord Colambre.

“It has Lord Clonbrony’s own signature, let it be what it will,” said Mr. Burke, looking closely at it; “Lord Clonbrony’s own writing the signature is, I am clear of that.”

Lord Clonbrony’s son was clear of it, also; but he took care not to give any opinion on that point.

“Oh, pray read it, sir, read it,” said Mrs. Burke; “read it, pray; a gentleman may write a bad hand, but no gentleman could write such a letter as that to Mr. Burke—pray read it, sir; you who have seen something of what he has done for the town of Colambre, and what he has made of the tenantry and the estate of Lord Clonbrony.”

Lord Colambre read, and was convinced that his father had never written or read the letter, but had signed it, trusting to Sir Terence O’Fay’s having expressed his sentiments properly.

Though misrepresentation, caprice, or interest, might have induced Lord Clonbrony to desire to change his agent, yet Lord Colambre knew that his father never could have announced his wishes in such a style; and, as he returned the letter to Mrs. Burke, he repeated, he was convinced that it was impossible that any nobleman could have written such a letter; that it must have been written by some inferior person; and that his lordship had signed it without reading it.

“My dear, I’m sorry you showed that letter to Mr. Evans,” said Mr. Burke; “I don’t like to expose Lord Clonbrony; he is a well-meaning gentleman, misled by ignorant or designing people; at all events, it is not for us to expose him.”

“He has exposed himself,” said Mrs. Burke; “and the world should know it.”

“He was very kind to me when I was a young man,” said Mr. Burke; “we must not forget that now, because we are angry, my love.”

“Why, no, my love, to be sure we should not; but who could have recollected it just at this minute but yourself? And now, sir,” turning to Lord Colambre, “you see what kind of a man this is: now is it not difficult for me to bear patiently to see him ill-treated?”

“Not only difficult, but impossible, I should think, madam,” said Lord Colambre; “I know even I, who am a stranger, cannot help feeling for both of you, as you must see I do.”

“But half the world, who don’t know him,” continued Mrs. Burke, “when they hear that Lord Clonbrony’s agency is taken from him, will think perhaps that he is to blame.”

“No, madam,” said Lord Colambre, “that you need not fear; Mr. Burke may safely trust to his character: from what I have within these two days seen and heard, I am convinced that such is the respect he has deserved and acquired, that no blame can touch him.”

“Sir, I thank you,” said Mrs. Burke, the tears coming into her eyes: “you can judge—you do him justice; but there are so many who don’t know him, and who will decide without knowing any of the facts.”

“That, my dear, happens about every thing to every body,” said Mr. Burke; “but we must have patience; time sets all judgments right, sooner or later.”

“But the sooner the better,” said Mrs. Burke. “Mr. Evans, I hope you will be so kind, if ever you hear this business talked of—”

“Mr. Evans lives in Wales, my dear.”

“But he is travelling through Ireland, my dear, and he said he should return to Dublin, and, you know, there he certainly will hear it talked of; and I hope he will do me the favour to state what he has seen and knows to be the truth.”

“Be assured that I will do Mr. Burke justice—as far as it is in my power,” said Lord Colambre, restraining himself much, that he might not say more than became his assumed character. He took leave of this worthy family that night, and, early the next morning, departed.

“Ah!” thought he, as he drove away from this well-regulated and flourishing place, “how happy I might be, settled here with such a wife as—her of whom I must think no more.”

He pursued his way to Clonbrony, his father’s other estate, which was at a considerable distance from Colambre: he was resolved to know what kind of agent Mr. Nicholas Garraghty might be, who was to supersede Mr. Burke, and, by power of attorney, to be immediately entitled to receive and manage the Colambre as well as the Clonbrony estate.

CHAPTER X.

Towards the evening of the second day’s journey, the driver of Lord Colambre’s hackney chaise stopped, and jumping off the wooden bar, on which he had been seated, exclaimed, “We’re come to the bad step, now. The bad road’s beginning upon us, please your honour.”

“Bad road! that is very uncommon in this country. I never saw such fine roads as you have in Ireland.”

“That’s true; and God bless your honour, that’s sensible of that same, for it’s not what all the foreign quality I drive have the manners to notice. God bless your honour! I heard you’re a Welshman, but whether or no, I am sure you are a jantleman, any way, Welsh or other.”

Notwithstanding the shabby great coat, the shrewd postilion perceived, by our hero’s language, that he was a gentleman. After much dragging at the horses’ heads, and pushing and lifting, the carriage was got over what the postilion said was the worst part of the bad step; but as the road “was not yet to say good,” he continued walking beside the carriage.

“It’s only bad just hereabouts, and that by accident,” said he, “on account of there being no jantleman resident in it, nor near; but only a bit of an under-agent, a great little rogue, who gets his own turn out of the roads, and every thing else in life. I, Larry Brady, that am telling your honour, have a good right to know; for myself, and my father, and my brother, Pat Brady, the wheelwright, had once a farm under him; but was ruined, horse and foot, all along with him, and cast out, and my brother forced to fly the country, and is now working in some coachmaker’s yard, in London; banished he is!—and here am I, forced to be what I am—and now that I’m reduced to drive a hack, the agent’s a curse to me still, with these bad roads, killing my horses and wheels—and a shame to the country, which I think more of—Bad luck to him!”

“I know your brother; he lives with Mr. Mordicai, in Long-Acre, in London.”

“Oh, God bless you for that!”

They came at this time within view of a range of about four-and-twenty men and boys, sitting astride on four-and-twenty heaps of broken stones, on each side of the road; they were all armed with hammers, with which they began to pound with great diligence and noise as soon as they saw the carriage. The chaise passed between these batteries, the stones flying on all sides.

“How are you, Jem?—How are you Phil?” said Larry. “But hold your hand, can’t ye, while I stop and get the stones out of the horses’ feet. So you’re making up the rent, are you, for St. Dennis?”

“Whoosh!” said one of the pounders, coming close to the postilion, and pointing his thumb back towards the chaise. “Who have you in it?”

“Oh, you need not scruple, he’s a very honest man;—he’s only a man from North Wales, one Mr. Evans, an innocent jantleman, that’s sent over to travel up and down the country, to find is there any copper mines in it.”

“How do you know, Larry?”

“Because I know very well, from one that was tould, and I seen him tax the man of the King’s Head with a copper half-crown at first sight, which was only lead to look at, you’d think, to them that was not skilful in copper. So lend me a knife, till I cut a linchpin out of the hedge, for this one won’t go far.”

Whilst Larry was making the linchpin, all scruple being removed, his question about St. Dennis and the rent was answered.

“Ay, it’s the rint, sure enough, we’re pounding out for him; for he sent the driver round last night-was-eight days, to warn us Old Nick would be down a’-Monday, to take a sweep among us; and there’s only six clear days, Saturday night, before the assizes, sure: so we must see and get it finished any way, to clear the presentment again’ the swearing day, for he and Paddy Hart was the overseers themselves, and Paddy is to swear to it.”

“St. Dennis, is it? Then you’ve one great comfort and security—that he won’t be particular about the swearing; for since ever he had his head on his shoulders, an oath never stuck in St. Dennis’s throat, more than in his own brother, Old Nick’s.”

“His head upon his shoulders!” repeated Lord Colambre. “Pray, did you ever hear that St. Dennis’s head was off his shoulders?”

“It never was, plase your honour, to my knowledge.”

“Did you never, among your saints, hear of St. Dennis carrying his head in his hand?” said Lord Colambre.

“The rael saint!” said the postilion, suddenly changing his tone, and looking shocked. “Oh, don’t be talking that way of the saints, plase your honour.”

“Then of what St. Dennis were you talking just now?—Whom do you mean by St. Dennis, and whom do you call Old Nick?”

“Old Nick,” answered the postilion, coming close to the side of the carriage, and whispering,—“Old Nick, plase your honour, is our nickname for one Nicholas Garraghty, Esq., of College-green, Dublin, and St. Dennis is his brother Dennis, who is Old Nick’s brother in all things, and would fain be a saint, only he’s a sinner. He lives just by here, in the country, under-agent to Lord Clonbrony, as Old Nick is upper-agent—it’s only a joke among the people, that are not fond of them at all. Lord Clonbrony himself is a very good jantleman, if he was not an absentee, resident in London, leaving us and every thing to the likes of them.”

Lord Colambre listened with all possible composure and attention; but the postilion, having now made his linchpin of wood, and fixed himself, he mounted his bar, and drove on, saying to Lord Colambre, as he looked at the road-makers, “Poor cratures! They couldn’t keep their cattle out of pound, or themselves out of jail, but by making this road.”

“Is road-making, then, a very profitable business!—Have road-makers higher wages than other men in this part of the country?”

“It is, and it is not—they have, and they have not—plase your honour.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“No, beca-ase you’re an Englishman—that is, a Welshman—beg your honour’s pardon. But I’ll tell you how that is, and I’ll go slow over these broken stones—for I can’t go fast: it is where there’s no jantleman over these under-agents, as here, they do as they plase; and when they have set the land they get rasonable from the head landlords, to poor cratures at a rackrent, that they can’t live and pay the rent, they say—”

“Who says?”

“Them under-agents, that have no conscience at all. Not all—but some, like Dennis, says, says he, ‘I’ll get you a road to make up the rent:’ that is, plase your honour, the agent gets them a presentment for so many perches of road from the grand jury, at twice the price that would make the road. And tenants are, by this means, as they take the road by contract, at the price given by the county, able to pay all they get by the job, over and above potatoes and salt, back again to the agent, for the arrear on the land. Do I make your honour sensible6?”

“You make me much more sensible than I ever was before,” said Lord Colambre: “but is not this cheating the county?”

“Well, and suppose,” replied Larry, “is not it all for my good, and yours too, plase your honour?” said Larry, looking very shrewdly.

“My good!” said Lord Colambre, startled. “What have I to do with it?”

“Haven’t you to do with the roads as well as me, when you’re travelling upon them, plase your honour? And sure, they’d never be got made at all, if they wern’t made this ways; and it’s the best way in the wide world, and the finest roads we have. And when the rael jantleman’s resident in the country, there’s no jobbing can be, because they’re then the leading men on the grand jury; and these journeymen jantlemen are then kept in order, and all’s right.”

Lord Colambre was much surprised at Larry’s knowledge of the manner in which county business is managed, as well as by his shrewd good sense: he did not know that this is not uncommon in his rank of life in Ireland.

Whilst Larry was speaking, Lord Colambre was looking from side to side at the desolation of the prospect.

“So this is Lord Clonbrony’s estate, is it?”

“Ay, all you see, and as far and farther than you can see. My Lord Clonbrony wrote, and ordered plantations here, time back; and enough was paid to labourers for ditching and planting. And, what next?—Why, what did the under-agent do, but let the goats in through gaps, left o’ purpose, to bark the trees, and then the trees was all banished. And next, the cattle was let in trespassing, and winked at, till the land was all poached: and then the land was waste, and cried down: and Saint Dennis wrote up to Dublin to Old Nick, and he over to the landlord, how none would take it, or bid any thing at all for it: so then it fell to him a cheap bargain. Oh, the tricks of them! who knows ‘em, if I don’t?” Presently, Lord Colambre’s attention was roused again, by seeing a man running, as if for his life, across a bog, near the roadside: he leaped over the ditch, and was upon the road in an instant. He seemed startled at first, at the sight of the carriage; but, looking at the postilion, Larry nodded, and he smiled and said, “All’s safe!” “Pray, my good friend, may I ask what that is you have on your shoulder?” said Lord Colambre. “Plase your honour, it is only a private still, which I’ve just caught out yonder in the bog; and I’m carrying it in with all speed to the gauger, to make a discovery, that the jantleman may benefit by the reward: I expect he’ll make me a compliment.”

“Get up behind, and I’ll give you a lift,” said the postilion.

“Thank you kindly—but better my legs!” said the man; and, turning down a lane, off he ran again, as fast as possible.

“Expect he’ll make me a compliment,” repeated Lord Colambre, “to make a discovery!”

“Ay, plase your honour; for the law is,” said Larry, “that, if an unlawful still, that is, a still without licence for whiskey, is found, half the benefit of the fine that’s put upon the parish goes to him that made the discovery: that’s what that man is after; for he’s an informer.”

“I should not have thought, from what I see of you,” said Lord Colambre, smiling, “that you, Larry, would have offered an informer a lift.”

“Oh, plase your honour!” said Larry, smiling archly, “would not I give the laws a lift, when in my power?”

Scarcely had he uttered these words, and scarcely was the informer out of sight, when, across the same bog, and over the ditch, came another man, a half kind of gentleman, with a red silk handkerchief about his neck, and a silver-handled whip in his hand.

“Did you see any man pass the road, friend?” said he to the postilion.

“Oh! who would I see? or why would I tell?” replied Larry in a sulky tone.

“Come, come, be smart!” said the man with the silver whip, offering to put half-a-crown into the postilion’s hand; “point me which way he took.”

“I’ll have none o’ your silver! don’t touch me with it!” said Larry. “But, if you’ll take my advice, you’ll strike across back, and follow the fields, out to Killogenesawce.”

The exciseman set out again immediately, in an opposite direction to that which the man who carried the still had taken. Lord Colambre now perceived that the pretended informer had been running off to conceal a still of his own.

“The gauger, plase your honour,” said Larry, looking back at Lord Colambre; “the gauger is a still-hunting!”

“And you put him on a wrong scent!” said Lord Colambre.

“Sure, I told him no lie: I only said, ‘If you’ll take my advice.’ And why was he such a fool as to take my advice, when I wouldn’t take his fee?”

“So this is the way, Larry, you give a lift to the laws!”

“If the laws would give a lift to me, plase your honour, may be I’d do as much by them. But it’s only these revenue laws I mean; for I never, to my knowledge, broke another commandment: but it’s what no honest poor man among his neighbours would scruple to take—a glass of potsheen.”

“A glass of what, in the name of Heaven?” said Lord Colambre.

“Potsheen, plase your honour;—beca-ase it’s the little whiskey that’s made in the private still or pot; and sheen, because it’s a fond word for whatsoever we’d like, and for what we have little of, and would make much of: after taking the glass of it, no man could go and inform to ruin the cratures; for they all shelter on that estate under favour of them that go shares, and make rent of ‘em—but I’d never inform again’ ‘em. And, after all, if the truth was known, and my Lord Clonbrony should be informed against, and presented, for it’s his neglect is the bottom of the nuisance—”

“I find all the blame is thrown upon this poor Lord Clonbrony,” said Lord Colambre.

“Because he is absent,” said Larry: “it would not be so was he prisint. But your honour was talking to me about the laws. Your honour’s a stranger in this country, and astray about them things. Sure, why would I mind the laws about whiskey, more than the quality, or the jidge on the bench?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why! was not I prisint in the court-house myself, when the jidge was on the bench judging a still, and across the court came in one with a sly jug of potsheen for the jidge himself, who prefarred it, when the right thing, to claret; and when I seen that, by the laws! a man might talk himself dumb to me after again’ potsheen, or in favour of the revenue, or revenue officers. And there they may go on, with their gaugers, and their surveyors, and their supervisors, and their watching officers, and their coursing officers, setting ‘em one after another, or one over the head of another, or what way they will—we can baffle and laugh at ‘em. Didn’t I know, next door to our inn, last year, ten watching officers set upon one distiller, and he was too cunning for them; and it will always be so, while ever the people think it no sin. No, till then, not all their dockets and permits signify a rush, or a turf. And the gauging rod, even! who fears it? They may spare that rod, for it will never mend the child.”

How much longer Larry’s dissertation on the distillery laws would have continued, had not his ideas been interrupted, we cannot guess; but he saw he was coming to a town, and he gathered up the reins, and plied the whip, ambitious to make a figure in the eyes of its inhabitants.

This town consisted of one row of miserable huts, sunk beneath the side of the road, the mud walls crooked in every direction; some of them opening in wide cracks, or zigzag fissures, from top to bottom, as if there had just been an earthquake—all the roofs sunk in various places—thatch off, or overgrown with grass—no chimneys, the smoke making its way through a hole in the roof, or rising in clouds from the top of the open door—dunghills before the doors, and green standing puddles—squalid children, with scarcely rags to cover them, gazing at the carriage.

“Nugent’s town,” said the postilion, “once a snug place, when my Lady Clonbrony was at home to white-wash it, and the like.”

As they drove by, some men and women put their heads through the smoke out of the cabins; pale women, with long, black, or yellow locks—men with countenances and figures bereft of hope and energy.

“Wretched, wretched people!” said Lord Colambre.

“Then it’s not their fault, neither,” said Larry; “for my uncle’s one of them, and as thriving and hard a working man as could be in all Ireland, he was, afore he was tramped under foot, and his heart broke. I was at his funeral, this time last year; and for it, may the agent’s own heart, if he has any, burn in—”

Lord Colambre interrupted this denunciation by touching Larry’s shoulder, and asking some question, which, as Larry did not distinctly comprehend, he pulled up the reins, and the various noises of the vehicle stopped suddenly.

“I did not hear well, plase your honour.”

“What are those people?” pointing to a man and woman, curious figures, who had come out of a cabin, the door of which the woman, who came out last, locked, and carefully hiding the key in the thatch, turned her back upon the man, and they walked away in different directions: the woman bending under a huge bundle on her back, covered by a yellow petticoat turned over her shoulders; from the top of this bundle the head of an infant appeared; a little boy, almost naked, followed her with a kettle, and two girls, one of whom could but just walk, held her hand and clung to her ragged petticoat; forming, all together, a complete group of beggars. The woman stopped, and looked after the man.

The man was a Spanish-looking figure, with gray hair; a wallet hung at the end of a stick over one shoulder, a reaping-hook in the other hand: he walked off stoutly, without ever casting a look behind him.

“A kind harvest to you, John Dolan,” cried the postilion, “and success to ye, Winny, with the quality. There’s a luck-penny for the child to begin with,” added he, throwing the child a penny. “Your honour, they’re only poor cratures going up the country to beg, while the man goes over to reap the harvest in England. Nor this would not be, neither, if the lord was in it to give ‘em employ. That man, now, was a good and willing slave in his day: I mind him working with myself in the shrubberies at Clonbrony Castle, when I was a boy—but I’ll not be detaining your honour, now the road’s better.”

The postilion drove on at a good rate for some time, till he came to a piece of the road freshly covered with broken stones, where he was obliged again to go slowly.

They overtook a string of cars, on which were piled up high, beds, tables, chairs, trunks, boxes, band-boxes.

“How are you, Finnucan? you’ve fine loading there—from Dublin, are you?”

“From Bray.”

“And what news?”

“Great news and bad for Old Nick, or some belonging to him, thanks be to Heaven! for myself hates him.”

“What’s happened him?”

“His sister’s husband that’s failed, the great grocer that was, the man that had the wife that ow’d7 the fine house near Bray, that they got that time the parliament flitted, and that I seen in her carriage flaming—well, it’s all out; they’re all done up.”

“Tut! is that all? then they’ll thrive, and set up again grander than ever, I’ll engage: have not they Old Nick for an attorney at their back? a good warrant?”

“Oh, trust him for that! he won’t go security, nor pay a farthing, for his shister, nor wouldn’t, was she his father; I heard him telling her so, which I could not have done in his place, at that time, and she crying as if her heart would break, and I standing by in the parlour.”

“The neger8! And did he speak that way, and you by?”

“Ay, did he; and said, ‘Mrs. Raffarty,’ says he, ‘it’s all your own fault; you’re an extravagant fool, and ever was, and I wash my hands of you.’ that was the word he spoke; and she answered, and said, ‘And mayn’t I send the beds and blankets?’ said she, ‘and what I can, by the cars, out of the way of the creditors, to Clonbrony Castle? and won’t you let me hide there, from the shame, till the bustle’s over?’ ‘You may do that,’ says he, ‘for what I care; but remember,’ says he, ‘that I’ve the first claim to them goods;’ and that’s all he would grant. So they are coming down all o’ Monday—them are the band-boxes, and all—to settle it; and faith it was a pity of her! to hear her sobbing, and to see her own brother speak and look so hard! and she a lady.”

“Sure, she’s not a lady born, no more than himself,” said Larry; “but that’s no excuse for him. His heart’s as hard as that stone,” said Larry; “and my own people knew that long ago, and now his own know it: and what right have we to complain, since he’s as bad to his own flesh and blood as to us?”

With this consolation, and with a “God speed you,” given to the carman, Larry was driving off; but the carman called to him, and pointed to a house, at the corner of which, on a high pole, was swinging an iron sign of three horse-shoes, set in a crooked frame, and at the window hung an empty bottle, proclaiming whiskey within.

“Well, I don’t care if I do,” said Larry; “for I’ve no other comfort left me in life now. I beg your honour’s pardon, sir, for a minute,” added he, throwing the reins into the carriage to Lord Colambre, as he leaped down. All remonstrance and power of lungs to reclaim him were vain! He darted into the whiskey-house with the carman—re-appeared before Lord Colambre could accomplish getting out, remounted his seat, and, taking the reins, “I thank your honour,” said he; “and I’ll bring you into Clonbrony before it’s pitch-dark, though it’s nightfall, and that’s four good miles, but ‘a spur in the head is worth two in the heel.’”

Larry, to demonstrate the truth of his favourite axiom, drove off at such a furious rate over great stones left in the middle of the road by carmen, who had been driving in the gudgeons of their axletrees to hinder them from lacing9, that Lord Colambre thought life and limb in imminent danger; and feeling that, at all events, the jolting and bumping was past endurance, he had recourse to Larry’s shoulder, and shook and pulled, and called to him to go slower, but in vain: at last the wheel struck full against a heap of stones at a turn of the road, the wooden linchpin came off, and the chaise was overset: Lord Colambre was a little bruised, but glad to escape without fractured bones.

“I beg your honour’s pardon,” said Larry, completely sobered; “I’m as glad as the best pair of boots ever I see, to see your honour nothing the worse for it. It was the linchpin, and them barrows of loose stones, that ought to be fined any way, if there was any justice in the country.”

“The pole is broke; how are we to get on?” said Lord Colambre.

“Murder! murder!—and no smith nearer than Clonbrony; nor rope even. It’s a folly to talk, we can’t get to Clonbrony, nor stir a step backward or forward the night.”

“What, then, do you mean to leave me all night in the middle of the road?” cried Lord Colambre, quite exasperated.

“Is it me? plase your honour. I would not use any jantleman so ill, barring I could do no other,” replied the postilion, coolly: then, leaping across the ditch, or, as he called it, the gripe of the ditch, he scrambled up, and while he was scrambling, said, “If your honour will lend me your hand, till I pull you up the back of the ditch, the horses will stand while we go. I’ll find you as pretty a lodging for the night, with a widow of a brother of my shister’s husband that was, as ever you slept in your life; for Old Nick or St. Dennis has not found ‘em out yet: and your honour will he, no compare, snugger than at the inn at Clonbrony, which has no roof, the devil a stick. But where will I get your honour’s hand; for it’s coming on so dark, I can’t see rightly. There, you’re up now safe. Yonder candle’s the house.”

“Go and ask whether they can give us a night’s lodging.”

“Is it ask? when I see the light!—Sure they’d be proud to give the traveller all the beds in the house, let alone one. Take care of the potatoe furrows, that’s all, and follow me straight. I’ll go on to meet the dog, who knows me, and might be strange to your honour.”

“Kindly welcome,” were the first words Lord Colambre heard when he approached the cottage; and “kindly welcome” was in the sound of the voice and in the countenance of the old woman who came out, shading her rush-candle from the wind, and holding it so as to light the path. When he entered the cottage, he saw a cheerful fire and a neat pretty young woman making it blaze; she curtsied, put her spinning-wheel out of the way, set a stool by the fire for the stranger, and repeating, in a very low tone of voice, “Kindly welcome, sir,” retired.

“Put down some eggs, dear, there’s plenty in the bowl,” said the old woman, calling to her; “I’ll do the bacon. Was not we lucky to be up?—The boy’s gone to bed, but waken him,” said she, turning to the postilion; “and he’ll help you with the chay, and put your horses in the bier for the night.”

No: Larry chose to go on to Clonbrony with the horses, that he might get the chaise mended betimes for his honour. The table was set; clean trenchers, hot potatoes, milk, eggs, bacon, and “kindly welcome to all.”

“Set the salt, dear; and the butter, love: where’s your head, Grace, dear.”

“Grace!” repeated Lord Colambre, looking up: and, to apologize for his involuntary exclamation, he added, “Is Grace a common name in Ireland?”

“I can’t say, plase your honour; but it was give her by Lady Clonbrony, from a niece of her own, God bless her! and a very kind lady she was to us and to all when she was living in it; but those times are gone past,” said the old woman, with a sigh. The young woman sighed too; and, sitting down by the fire, began to count the notches in a little bit of stick, which she held in her hand; and after she had counted them, sighed again.

“But don’t be sighing, Grace, now,” said the old woman; “sighs is bad sauce for the traveller’s supper; and we won’t be troubling him with more,” added she, turning to Lord Colambre with a smile.

“Is your egg done to your liking?”

“Perfectly, thank you.”

“Then I wish it was a chicken, for your sake, which it should have been, and roast too, had we time. I wish I could see you eat another egg.”

“No more, thank you, my good lady; I never ate a better supper, nor received a more hospitable welcome.”

“Oh, the welcome is all we have to offer.”

“May I ask what that is?” said Lord Colambre, looking at the notched stick, which the young woman held in her hand, and on which her eyes were still fixed.

“It’s a tally, plase your honour. Oh, you’re a foreigner;—it’s the way the labourers do keep the account of the day’s work with the overseer, the bailiff; a notch for every day the bailiff makes on his stick, and the labourer the like on his stick, to tally; and when we come to make up the account, it’s by the notches we go. And there’s been a mistake, and is a dispute here between our boy and the overseer: and she was counting the boy’s tally, that’s in bed, tired, for in truth he’s overworked.”

“Would you want any thing more from me, mother?” said the girl, rising and turning her head away.

“No, child; get away, for your heart’s full.”

She went instantly.

“Is the boy her brother?” said Lord Colambre.

“No; he’s her bachelor,” said the old woman, lowering her voice.

“Her bachelor?”

“That is, her sweetheart: for she is not my daughter, though you heard her call me mother. The boy’s my son; but I am afeard they must give it up; for they’re too poor, and the times is hard, and the agent’s harder than the times: there’s two of them, the under and the upper; and they grind the substance of one between them, and then blow one away like chaff; but we’ll not be talking of that, to spoil your honour’s night’s rest. The room’s ready, and here’s the rushlight.”

She showed him into a very small but neat room.

“What a comfortable-looking bed!” said Lord Colambre.

“Ah, these red check curtains,” said she, letting them down; “these have lasted well: they were give me by a good friend, now far away, over the seas—my Lady Clonbrony; and made by the prettiest hands ever you see, her niece’s, Miss Grace Nugent’s, and she a little child that time; sweet love! all gone!”

The old woman wiped a tear from her eye, and Lord Colambre did what he could to appear indifferent. She set down the candle, and left the room; Lord Colambre went to bed, but he lay awake,