It was on the fourth day after the memorable debate we have briefly alluded to, that the Knight of Gwynne was sitting alone in one of the large rooms of his Dublin mansion. Although his servants had strict orders to say he had left town, he had not quitted the capital, but passed each day, from sunrise till late at night, in examining his various accounts, and endeavoring with what slight business knowledge he possessed, to ascertain the situation in which he stood, and how far Gleeson's flight had compromised him. There is no such chaotic confusion to the unaccustomed mind as the entangled web of long-standing moneyed embarrassments, and so Darcy found it. Bills for large sums had been passed, to provide for which, renewals had been granted, and this for a succession of years, until the debt accumulating had been met by a mortgage or a bond: many of these bills were missing—where were they? was the question, and what liability might yet attach to them?
Again, loans had been raised more than once to pay off these encumbrances, the interest on which was duly charged in his account, and yet there was no evidence of these payments having been made; nor among the very last sent papers from Gleeson was there any trace of that bond, to release which the enormous sum of seventy thousand pounds had been raised. That the money was handed to Hickman, Bagenal Daly was convinced; the memorandum given him by Freney was a corroboration of the probability at least, but still there was no evidence of the transaction here. Even this was not the worst, for the Knight now discovered that the rental charged in his accounts was more than double the reality, Gleeson having for many years back practised the fraud of granting leases at a low, sometimes a merely nominal, rent, while he accepted renewal fines from the tenants, which he applied to his own purposes. In fact, it at length became manifest to Darcy's reluctant belief that his trusted agent had for years long pursued a systematic course of perfidy, merely providing money sufficient for the exigencies of the time, while he was, in reality, selling every acre of his estate.
The Knight's last hope was in the entail. “I am ruined—I am a beggar, it is true!” muttered he, as each new discovery broke upon him, “but my boy, my dear Lionel, at my death will have his own again.” This cherished dream was not of long duration, for to his horror he discovered a sale of a considerable part of the estate in which Lionel's name was signed as a concurring party. This was the crowning point of his affliction; the ruin was now utter, without one gleam of hope remaining.
The property thus sold was that in the possession of the O'Reillys, and the sale was dated the very day Lionel came of age. Darcy remembered well having signed his name to several papers on that morning. Gleeson had followed him from place to place, through the crowds of happy and rejoicing people assembled by the event, and at last, half vexed at the importunity, he actually put his name to several papers as he sat on horseback on the lawn: this very identical deed was thus signed; the writing was straggling and irregular as the motion of the horse shook his hand. So much for his own inconsiderate rashness, but how, or by what artifice was Lionel's signature obtained?
Never had Lionel Darcy practised the slightest deception on his father; never concealed from him any difficulty or any embarrassment, but frankly confided to him his cares, as he would to one of his own age. How, then, had he been drawn into a step of this magnitude without apprising him? There was one explanation, and this was, that Glee-son persuaded the young man, that by thus sacrificing his own future rights he would be assisting his father, who, from motives of delicacy, could not admit of any negotiation in the matter, and that by ceding so much of his own property, he should relieve his father from present embarrassment.
Through all the revelation of the agent's guilt now opening before him, not one word of anger, one expression of passion, escaped the Knight till his eyes fell upon this paper; but then, grasping it in both hands, he shook in every limb with indignant rage, and in accents of bitterest hate invoked a curse upon his betrayer. The very sound of his own voice in that sileut chamber startled him, while a sick tremor crept through his frame at the unhallowed wish he uttered. “No, no,” said he, with clasped hands, “it is not for one like me, whose sensual carelessness has brought my own to ruin, to speak thus of another; may Heaven assist me, and pardon him that injured me!”
The stunning effects of heavy calamity are destined in all likelihood to give time to rally against the blow—to permit exhausted Nature to fortify herself by even a brief repose against the harassing influences of deep sorrow. One who saw far into the human heart tells us that it is not the strongest natures are the first to recover from the shock of great misfortunes, but that “light and frivolous spirits regain their elasticity sooner than those of loftier character.”
The whole extent of his ruin unfolded itself gradually before Darcy's eyes, until at length the accumulated load became too great to bear, and he sat in almost total unconsciousness gazing at the mass of law papers and accounts before him, only remembering at intervals, and then faintly, the nature of the investigation he was engaged in, and by an effort recalling himself again to the task: in this way passed the entire day we speak of. Brief struggles to exert himself in examining the various papers and letters on the table were succeeded by long pauses of apparent apathy, until, as evening drew near, these intervals of indifference grew longer, and he sat for hours in this scarce-waking condition.
It was long past midnight as a loud knocking was heard at the street door, and ere Darcy could sufficiently recall his wandering faculties from their revery, he felt a hand grasp his own—he looked up, and saw Bagenal Daly.
“Well, Darcy,” said he, in a low whisper, “how stand matters here?”
“Ruined!” said he, in an accent hardly audible, but with a look that thrilled through the stern heart of Daly.
“Come, come, there must be a long space between your fortune and ruin yet. Have you seen any legal adviser?”
“What of Gleeson, Bagenal, has he been heard of?” said the Knight, not attending to Daly's question.
“He has had the fitting end of a scoundrel. He leaped overboard in the Channel—”
“Poor fellow!” said Darcy, while he passed his hand across his eyes; “his spirit was not all corrupted, Bagenal; he dared not to face the world.”
“Face the world! the villain, it was the gallows he had not courage to face. Don't speak one word of compassion about a wretch like him, or you 'll drive me mad. There's no iniquity in the greatest crimes to compare with the slow, dastardly scoundrelism of your fair-faced swindler. It seems so, at least. The sailors told us that he went below immediately on their leaving the river, and, having locked the cabin door, spent his time in writing till they were in sight of the Holyhead light, when a sudden splash was heard, and a cry of 'A man overboard!' called every one to the deck; then it was discovered that the fellow had opened one of the stern-windows and thrown himself into the sea. They brought me this open letter, the last, it is said, he ever wrote, and, though unaddressed, evidently meant for you. You need not read it; it contains nothing but the whining excuses of a scoundrel who bases his virtue on the fact that he was more coward than cheat. Strangest thing of all, he had no property with him beyond some few clothes, a watch, and about three hundred guineas in a purse. This was deposited by the skipper with the authorities in Liverpool; not a paper, not a document of any kind. Don't read that puling scrawl, Darcy; I have no patience with your pity!”
“I wish he had escaped with life, Bagenal,” said Darcy, feelingly; “it is a sad aggravation of all my sorrow to think of this man's suicide.”
“And so he might, had he had the courage to take his chance. The 'Congress' passed us as we went up the river; she had her studding-sails set, and, with the strong tide in her favor, was cutting through the water as fast as ever a runaway scoundrel could wish or ask for. Gleeson's servant contrived to reach her in time, and got away safe, not improbably with a heavy booty, if the truth were known.”
Daly continued to dwell on the theme, repeating circumstantially the whole of the examination before the Liverpool Justices, where the depositions of the case were taken, and the investigation conducted with strict accuracy; but Darcy paid little attention. The sad end of one for whom through years long he had entertained feelings of respect and friendship, seemed to obliterate all memory of his crime, and he had no other feelings in his heart than those of sincere grief for the suicide.
“There is but one circumstance in the whole I cannot understand,” said Daly, “and that is why Gleeson paid off Hickman's bond last week, when he had evidently made up his mind to fly,—seventy thousand was such a sum to carry away with him, all safe and sound as he had it.”
“But where's the evidence of such a payment?” said Darcy, sorrowfully; “the bond is not to be found, nor is it among the papers discovered at Gleeson's house.”
“It may be found yet,” said Daly, confidently. “That the money was paid I have not a particle of doubt on my mind; Freney's information, and the memorandum I showed you, are strong in corroborating the fact; old Hickman dared not deny it, if the bond never were to turn up.”
“Heaven grant it!” said Darcy, fervently; “that will at least save the abbey, and rescue our old house from the pollution I dreaded.”
“All that, however, does not explain the difficulty,” said Daly, thoughtfully; “I wish some shrewder head than mine had the matter before him. But now that I have told you so much, let me have some supper, Darcy, for we forgot to victual our sloop, and had no sea-store but whiskey on either voyage.”
Though this was perfectly true, Daly's proposition was made rather to induce the Knight to take some refreshment, which it was so evident he needed, than from any personal motive.
“They carried the second reading by a large majority; I read it in Liverpool,” said Daly, as the servant laid the table for supper.
The Knight nodded an assent, and Daly resumed: “I saw also that an address was voted by the patriotic members of Daly's to Hickman O'Reilly, Esquire, M.P., for his manly and independent conduct in the debate, when he taunted the Government with their ineffectual attempts at corruption, and spurned indignantly every offer of their patronage.”
“Is that the case?” said the Knight, smiling faintly.
“'All fact; while the mob drew his carriage home, and nearly smoked the entire of Merrion Square into blackness with burning tar-barrels.”
“He has improved on Johnson's definition, Bagenal, and made patriotism the first as well as the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
“I looked out in the House that evening, but could not see him, for I wanted him to second a motion for me.”
“Indeed! of what nature?”
“A most patriotic one, to this effect: that all bribes to members of either House should be in money, that we might have at least the benefit of introducing so much capital into Ireland.”
“You forget, Bagenal, how it would spoil old Hickman's market: loans would then be had for less than ten per cent.”
“So it would, by Jove! That shows the difficulty of legislating for conflicting interests.”
This conversation was destined only to occupy the time the servant was engaged about the table, but when he had withdrawn, the Knight and his friend at once returned to the eventful theme that engaged all their anxieties, and where the altered tones of their voices and eager looks betokened the deepest interest.
It would have been difficult to find two men more generally well informed, and less capable of comprehending or unravelling the complicated tissue of a business matter. At the same time, by dint of much mutual inquiry and discussion, they attained to that first and greatest of discoveries, namely, their own insufficiency to conduct the investigation, and the urgent necessity of employing some able man of law to go through all Gleeson's accounts, and ascertain the real condition of Darcy's fortune. With this prudent resolve, they parted: Darcy to his room, where he sat with unclosed eyes till morning; while Daly, who had disciplined his temperament more rigidly, soon fell fast asleep, and never awoke till roused by the voice of his servant Sandy.
“You must find out the fellow that brought the note from Freney,” said Daly, the moment he opened his eyes.
“I was thinking so,” said Sandy, sententiously.
“You'd know him again?”
“I 'd ken his twa eyes amang a thousand.”
“Very well, then, set off after breakfast and search for him; you used to know where devils of this kind were to be found.”
“Maybe I havna quite forgot it yet,” replied he, dryly; “but it winna do to gae there before nightfall.”
“Lose no more time than you can help about it,” said Daly; “bring him here if you can find him.”
We have not the necessity, and more certainly it is far from our inclination, to dwell upon the accumulated calamities of the Knight, nor recount more particularly the sad disclosures which the few succeeding days made regarding his fortunes. His own words were correct; he was utterly ruined. Every species of iniquity which perfidy could practise upon unbounded confidence had been effected. His property subdivided and leased at nominal rents, debts long supposed to have been paid yet outstanding; mortgages alleged to have been redeemed still impending; while of the large sums raised to meet these encumbrances not one shilling had been paid by Gleeson, save perhaps the bond for seventy thousand; but even of this there was no evidence, except the vague assertion of one whose testimony the law would reject.
Such, in brief, were the sad results of that investigation to which the Knight's affairs were submitted, nor could all the practised subtlety of the lawyer suggest one reasonable chance of extrication from the difficulty.
“Your friend is a ruined man, sir,” said he to Daly, as they both arose after a seven hours' examination of the various documents; “there is a strong presumption that many of these signatures are forged, and that the Knight of Gwynne never even saw the papers; but he appears to have written his name so carelessly, and in so many ways, as to have no clear recollection of what he did sign, and what he did not. It would be very difficult to submit a good case for a jury.”
That the payment of the seventy thousand had been made he regarded as more than doubtful, coupling the fact of Gleeson's immediate flight with the temptation of so large a sum, while nothing could be less accurate than the robber's testimony. “We must watch the enemy closely on this point,” said he; “we must exhibit not the slightest apparent doubt upon it. They must not be led to suspect that we have not the bond in our possession. This question will admit of a long contest, and does not press like the others. As to young Darcy's concurrence in the sale—”
“Ay, that is the great matter in my friend's eyes.”
“He must be written to at once,—let him come over here without loss of time, and if it can be shown that this signature is a forgery, we might make it the ground of a compromise with the O'Reillys, who, to obtain a good title, would be glad to admit us to liberal terms.”
“Darcy will never listen to that, depend upon it,” said Daly; “his greatest affliction is for his son's ruin.”
“We 'll see, we 'll see—the game shall open its own combinations as we go on; for the present, all the task of your friend the Knight is to carry a bold face to the world, let no rumor get abroad that matters are in their real condition. Our chance of extrication lies in the front we can show to the enemy.”
“You are making a heavier demand than you are aware of,—Darcy detests anything like concealment. I don't believe he would practise the slightest mystery that would involve insincerity for twelve hours to free the whole estate.”
“Very honorable indeed; but at this moment we must waive a punctilio.”
“Don't give it that name to him,—that's all,” said Daly, sternly. “I am as little for subterfuge as any man, and yet I did my best to prevent him resigning his seat in the House; this morning he would send a request to Lord Castlereagh, begging he might be permitted to accept an escheatorship; I need not say how willingly the proposal was accepted, and his name will appear in the 'Gazette' to-morrow morning.”
“This conduct, if persisted in, will ruin our case,” said the lawyer, despondingly. “I cannot comprehend his reasons for it.”
“They are simple enough: his own words were, 'I can never continue to be a member of the legislature when the only privilege it would confer is freedom from arrest.'”
“A very valuable one at this crisis, if he knew but all,” muttered the other. “You will write to young Darcy at once.”
“That he has done already, and to Lady Eleanor also; and as he expects me at seven, I 'll take my leave of you till to-morrow.”
“Well, Daly,” said the Knight, as his friend entered the drawing-room before dinner, “how do you like the lawyer?”
“He's a shrewd fellow, and I suppose, for his calling, an honest one; but the habit of making the wrong seem right leads to a very great inclination to reverse the theorem, and make the right seem wrong.”
“He thinks badly of our case, is n't that so?”
“He 'd think much better of it, and of us too, I believe, if both were worse.”
“I am just as well pleased that it is not so,” said Darcy, smiling; “a bad case is far more endurable than a bad conscience. But here comes dinner, and I have got my appetite back again.”
To rescue our friend Bagenal Daly from any imputation the circumstance might suggest, it is as well to observe here, that when he issued the order to his servant to seek out the boy who brought the intelligence of Gleeson's flight, he was merely relying on that knowledge of the obscure recesses of Old Dublin which Sandy possessed, and not by any means upon a distinct acquaintance with gentlemen of the same rank and station as Jemmy.
When Daly first took up his residence in the capital, many, many years before, he was an object of mob worship. He had every quality necessary for such. He was immensely rich, profusely spendthrift, and eccentric to an extent that some characterized as insanity. His dress, his equipage, his liveries, his whole retinue and style of living were strange and unlike other men's, while his habits of life bid utter defiance to every ordinance of society.
In the course of several years' foreign travel he had made acquaintances the most extraordinary and dissimilar, and many of these were led to visit him in his own country. Dublin being less resorted to by strangers than most cities, the surprise of its inhabitants was proportionably great as they beheld, not only Hungarians and Russian nobles, with gorgeous equipages and splendid retinues, driving through the streets, but Turks, Armenians, and Greeks, in full costume; and, on one occasion, Daly's companion on a public promenade was no less remarkable a person than a North American chief, in all the barbaric magnificence of his native dress. To obviate the inconvenience of that mob accompaniment such spectacles would naturally attract, Daly entered into a compact with the leaders of the varions sets or parties of low Dublin, by which, on payment of a certain sum, he was guaranteed in the enjoyment of appearing in public without a following of several hundred ragged wretches in full cry after him. Nothing could be more honorable and fair than the conduct of both parties in this singular treaty; the subsidy was regularly paid through the hands of Sandy M'Grane, while the subsidized literally observed every article of the contract, and not only avoided any molestation on their own parts, but were a formidable protective force in the event of any annoyance from others of a superior rank in society.
The hawkers of the various newspapers were the deputies with whom Sandy negotiated this treaty, they being recognized as the legitimate interpreters of mob opinion through the capital; men who combined an insight into local grievances with a corresponding knowledge of general politics; and certain it is, their sway must have been both respected and well protected, for a single transgression of the compact with Daly never occurred.
Bagenal Daly troubled his head very little in the matter, it is true; for his own sake he would never have thought of such a bargain, but he detested the thought of foreigners carrying away with them from Ireland any unpleasant memories of mob outrage or insult; and desired that the only remembrance they should preserve of his native country should be of its cordial and hospitable reception. A great many years had now elapsed since these pleasant times, and Daly's name was scarcely more than a tradition among those who now lounged in rags and idleness through the capital,—a fact of which he could have had little doubt himself, if he had reflected on that crowd which followed his own steps but a few days before. Of this circumstance, however, he took little or no notice, and gave his orders to Sandy with the same conscious power he had wielded nearly fifty years back.
A small public-house, called the Moon, in Duck Alley, a narrow lane off the Cross Poddle, was the resort of this Rump Parliament, and thither Sandy betook himself on a Saturday evening, the usual night of meeting, as, there being no issue of newspapers the next morning, nothing interfered with a prolonged conviviality. Often and often had he taken the same journey at the same hour; but now, such is the effect of a long interval of years, the way seemed narrower and more crooked than ever, while as he went not one familiar face welcomed him as he passed; nor could he recognize, as of yore, his acquaintances amid the various disguises of black eyes and smashed noses, which were frequent on every side. It was the hour when crime and guilt, drunken rage and grief, mingled together their fearful agencies; and every street and alley was crowded by half-naked wretches quarrelling and singing: some screaming in accents of heartbroken anguish; others shouting their blasphemies with voices hoarse from passion; age and infancy, manhood in its prime, the mother and the young girl, were all there, reeling from drunkenness, or faint from famine; some struggling in deadly conflict, others bathing the lips and temples of ebbing life.
Through this human hell Sandy wended his way, occasionally followed by the taunting ribaldry of such as remarked him: such testimonies were very unlike his former welcomes in these regions; but for this honest Sandy cared little; his real regret was to see so much more evidence of depravity and misery than before. Drunkenness and its attendant vices were no new evils, it is true; but he thought all these were fearfully aggravated by what he now witnessed: loud and violent denunciations against every rank above their own, imprecations on the Parliament and the gentry that “sowld Ireland:” as if any political perfidy could be the origin of their own degraded and revolting condition! Such is, however, the very essence of that spirit that germinates amid destitution and crime, and it is a dangerous social crisis when the masses begin to attribute their own demoralization to the vices of their betters. It well behooves those in high places to make their actions and opinions conform to their great destinies.
Sandy's Northern blood revolted at these brutal excesses, and the savage menaces he heard on every side; but perhaps his susceptibilities were more outraged by one trail of popular injustice than all the rest, and that was to hear Hickman O'Reilly extolled by the mob for his patriotic rejection of bribery, while the Knight of Gwynne was held up to execration by every epithet of infamy; ribald jests and low ballads conveying the theme of attack upon his spotless character.
The street lyrics of the day were divided in interest between the late rebellion and the act of Union; the former being, however, the favorite theme, from a species of irony peculiar to this class of poetry, in which certain living characters were held up to derision or execration. The chief chorist appeared to be a fiend-like old woman, with one eye, and a voice like a cracked bassoon: she was dressed in a cast-off soldier's coat and a man's hat, and neither from face nor costume had few feminine traits. This fair personage, known by the name of Rhoudlum, was, on her appearing, closely followed by a mob of admiring amateurs, who seemed to form both her body-guard and her chorus. When Sandy found himself fast wedged up in this procession, the enthusiasm was at its height, in honor of an elegant new ballad called “The Two Majors.” The air, should our reader be musically given, was the well-known one, “There was a Miller had Three Sons:”—
“That's the way the blackguards sowld yer blood, boys!” said the hag, in recitative; “pitch caps, the ridin' house, and the gallows was iligant tratement for wearin' the green.”
“Go on, Rhoudlum, go on wid the song,” chimed in her followers, who cared more for the original text than prose vulgate.
“Arn't I goin' on wid it?” said the hag, as fire flashed in her eye; “is it the likes of you is to tache me how to modulate a strain?” And she resumed:—
The grand Demosthenic abruptness of the last line was the signal for an applauding burst of voices, whose sincerity it would be unfair to question.
“Where are you pushin' to! bad scran to ye! ye ugly varmint!” said the lady, as Sandy endeavored to force his passage through the crowd.
“Hurroo! by the mortial, it's Daly's man!” screamed she, in transport, as the accidental light of a window showed Sandy's features.
Few, if any, of those around had ever seen him; but his name and his master's were among the favored traditions of the place, and however unwilling to acknowledge the acquaintance, Sandy had no help for it but to exchange greetings and ask the way to “the Moon,” which he found he had forgotten.
“There it is fornint ye, Mr. M'Granes,” said the lady, in the most dulcet tones; “and if it's thinking of trating me ye are, 't is a 'crapper' in a pint of porter I 'd take; nothing stronger would sit on my heart now.”
“Ye shall hae it,” said Sandy; “but come into the house.”
“I darn't do it, sir; the committee is sittin'—don't ye see, besides, the moon lookin' at you?” And she pointed to a rude representation of a crescent moon, formed by a kind of transparency in the middle of a large window, a signal which Sandy well knew portended that the council were assembled within.
“Wha's the man, noo?” said Sandy, with one foot on the threshold.
“The ould stock still, darlint,” said Rhoudlum,—“don't ye know his voice?”
“That's Paul Donellan,—I ken him noo.”
“Be my conscience! there's no mistake. Ye can hear his screech from the Poddle to the Pigeon House when the wind's fair.”
Sandy put a shilling into the hag's hand, and, without waiting for further parley, entered the little dark hall, and turning a corner he well remembered, pressed a button and opened the door into the room where the party were assembled.
“Who the blazes are you? What brings you here?” burst from a score of rude voices together, while every hand grasped some projectile to hurl at the devoted intruder.
“Ask Paul Donellan who I am, and he'll tell ye,” said Sandy, sternly, while, with a bold contempt for the hostile demonstrations, he walked straight up to the head of the room.
The recognition on which he reckoned so confidently was not forthcoming, for the old decrepit creature who, cowering beneath the wig of some defunct chancellor, presided, stared at him with eyes bleared with age and intemperance, but seemed unable to detect him as an acquaintance.
“Holy Paul does n't know him!” said half-a-dozen together, as, in passionate indignation, they arose to resent the intrusion.
“He may remember this better,” said Sandy, as, seizing a full bumper of whiskey from the board, he threw it into the lamp beneath the transparency, and in a moment the moon flashed forth, and displayed its face at the full. The spell was magical, and a burst of savage welcome broke from every mouth, while Donellan, as if recalled to consciousness, put his hand trumpet-fashion to his lips, and gave a shout that made the very glasses ring upon the board. Place was now made for Sandy at the table, and a wooden vessel called “a noggin” set before him, whose contents he speedily tested by a long draught.
“I may as weel tell you,” said Sandy, “that I am Bagenal Daly's man. I mind the time it wad na hae been needful to say so much,—my master's picture used to hang upon that wall.”
Had Sandy proclaimed himself the Prince of Wales the announcement could not have met with more honor, and many a coarse and rugged grasp of the hand attested the pleasure his presence there afforded.
“We have the picture still,” said a young fellow, whose frank, good-humored face contrasted strongly with many of those around him; “but that old divil, Paul, always told us it was a likeness of himself when he was young.”
“Confound the scoundrel!” said Sandy, indignantly; “he was no mair like my maister than a Dutch skipper is like a chief of the Delawares. Has the creature lost his senses a'togither?”
“By no manner of manes. He wakes up every now and then wid a speech, or a bit of poethry, or a sentiment.”
“Ay,” said another, “or if a couple came in to be married, see how the old chap's eyes would brighten, and how he would turn the other side of his wig round before you could say 'Jack Robinson.'”
This was literally correct, and was the simple manouvre by which Holy Paul converted himself into a clerical character, the back of his wig being cut in horse-shoe fashion, in rude imitation of that worn by several of the bishops.
“Watch him now—watch him now!” said one in Sandy's ears; and the old fellow passed his hand across his eyes as if to dispel some painful thought, while his careworn features were lit up with a momentary flash of sardonic drollery.
“Your health, sir,” said he to Sandy; “or, as Terence has it, 'Hic tibi, Dave'—here 's to you, Davy.”
“A toast, Paul! a toast! Something agin the Union,—something agin old Darcy.”
“Fill up, gentlemen,” said Paul, in a clear and distinct voice. “I beg to propose a sentiment which you will drink with a bumper. Are you ready?”
“Ready!” screamed all together.
“Here, then,—repeat after me:—
“Hold!” shouted Sandy, as he drew a double-barrelled pistol from his bosom. “By the saul o' my body the man that drinks that toast shall hae mair in his waim than hot water and whiskey. Maurice Darcy is my maister's friend, and a better gentleman never stepped in leather: who dar say no?”
“Are we to drink it, Paul?”
“As I live by drink,” cried Paul, stretching out both hands, “this is my alter ego, my duplicate self, Sanders M'Grane's, 'revisiting the glimpses of the moon,' post totidem annos!” And a cordial embrace now followed, which at once dispelled the threatened storm.
“Mr. M'Grane's health in three times three, gentlemen;” and, rising, Paul gave the signal for each cheer as he alone could give it.
Sandy had now time to throw a glance around the table, where, however, not one familiar face met his own; that they were of the same calling and order as his quondam associates in the same place he could have little doubt, even had that fact not been proclaimed by the names of various popular journals affixed to their hats, and by whose titles they were themselves addressed. The conversation, too, had the same sprinkling of politics, town gossip, and late calamities he well remembered of yore, interspersed with lively commentaries on public men which, if printed, would have been suggestive of libel.
The new guest soon made himself free of the guild by a proposal to treat the company, on the condition that he might be permitted to have five minutes' conversation with their president in an adjoining room. He might have asked much more in requital for his liberality, and without a moment's delay, or even apprising Paul of what was intended, the “Dublin Journal” and the “Free Press” took him boldly between them and carried him into a closet off the room where the carouse was held.
“I know what you are at,” said Paul, as soon as the door closed. “Daly wants a rising of the Liberty boys for the next debate,—don't deny it, it's no use. Well, now, listen, and don't interrupt me. Tom Conolly came down from the Castle yesterday and offered me five pounds for a good mob to rack a house, and two-ten if they'd draw Lord Clare home; but I refused,—I did, on the virtue of my oath. There's patriotism for ye!—yer soul, where 's the man wid only one shirt and a supplement to his back would do the same?”
“You 're wrang,—we dinna want them devils at a'; it 's a sma' matter of inquiry I cam about. Ye ken Freney?”
“Is it the Captain? Whew!” said Paul, with a long whistle.
“It's no him,” resumed Sandy, “but a wee bit of a callant they ca' Jamie.”
“Jemmy the diver,—the divil's own grandson, that he is.”
“Where can I find him?” said Sandy, impatiently.
“Wait a bit, and you'll be sure to see him at home in his lodgings in Newgate.”
“I must find him out at once; put me on his track, and I 'll gie a goold guinea in yer hand, mon. I mean the young rascal no harm; it's a question I want him to answer me, that's all.”
“Well, I'll do my best to find him for you, but I must send down to the country. I'll have to get a man to go beyond Kilcullen.”
“We 'll pay any expense.”
“Sure I know that.” And here Paul began a calculation to himself of distances and charges only audible to Sandy's ears at intervals: “Two and four, and six, with a glass of punch at Naas—half an hour at Tims'—the coach at Athy—ay, that will do it. Have ye the likes of a pair of ould boots or shoes? I 've nothing but them, and the soles is made out of two pamphlets of Roger Connor's, and them's the driest things I could get.”
“I'll gie ye a new pair.”
“You 're the son of Fingal of the Hills, divil a less. And now if ye had a cast-off waistcoat—I don't care for the color—orange or green, blue or yellow, Tros Tyriusve mihiy as we said in Trinity.”
“Ye shall hae a coat to cover your old bones. But let us hae nae mair o' this—when may I expect to see the boy?”
“The evening after next, at eight o'clock, at the corner of Essex Bridge, Capel Street—'on the Rialto'—eh? that's the cue. And now let us join the revellers—per Jove, but I'm dry.” And so saying, the miserable old creature broke from Sandy, and, assisted by the wall, tottered back to the room to his drunken companions, where his voice was soon heard high above the discord and din around him.
And yet this man, so debased and degraded, had been once a scholar of the University, and carried off its prizes from men whose names stood high among the great and valued of the land.
Every hour seemed to complicate the Knight of Gwynne's difficulties, and to increase that intricacy by which he already was so much embarrassed. The forms of law, never grateful to him, became now perfectly odious, obscuring instead of explaining the questions on which he desired information. He hated, besides, the small and narrow expedients so constantly suggested in cases where his own sense of right convinced him of the justice of his cause, nor could he listen with common patience to the detail of all those legal subtleties by which an adverse claim might be, if not resisted, at least protracted indefinitely.
His presence, far from affording any assistance, was, therefore, only an embarrassment both to Daly and the lawyer, and they heard with unmixed satisfaction of his determination to hasten down to the West, and communicate more freely with his family, for as yet his letter to Lady Eleanor, far from disclosing the impending ruin, merely mentioned Gleeson's flight as a disastrous event in the life of a man esteemed and respected, and adverting but slightly to his own difficulties in consequence.
“We must leave the abbey, Bagenal, I foresee that,” said Darcy, as he took his friend aside a few minutes before starting.
Daly made no reply, for already his own convictions pointed the same way.
“I could not live there with crippled means and broken fortune; 'twould kill me in a month, by Jove, to see the poor fellows wandering about idle and unemployed, the stables nailed up, the avenue grass-grown, and not hear the cry of a hound when I crossed the courtyard. But what is to be done? Humbled as I am, I cannot think of letting it to some Hickman O'Reilly or other, some vulgar upstart, feasting his low companions in those old halls, or plotting our utter ruin at our own hearthstone; could we not make some other arrangement?”
“I have thought of one,” said Daly, calmly; “my only fear is how to ask Lady Eleanor's concurrence to a plan which must necessarily press most heavily on her.”
“What is it?” said Darcy, hastily.
“Of course, your inclination would be, for a time at least, perfect seclusion.”
“That, above all and everything.”
“Well, then, what say you to taking up your abode in a little cottage of mine on the Antrim coast? It is a wild and lonely spot, it's true, but you may live there without attracting notice or observation. I see you are surprised at my having such a possession. I believe I never told you, Darcy, that I bought Sandy's cabin from him the day he entered my service, and fitted it up, and intended it as an asylum for the poor fellow if he should grow weary of my fortunes, or happily survive me. By degrees, I have added a room here and a closet there, till it has grown into a dwelling that any one, as fond of salmon-fishing as you and I were, would not despise; come, will you have it?” Darcy grasped his friend's hand without speaking, and Daly went on: “That's right; I'll give orders to have everything in readiness at once; I'll go down, too, and induct you. Ay, Darcy, and if the fellows could take a peep at us over our lobster and a glass of Isla whiskey, they 'd stare to think those two jovial old fellows, so merry and contented, started, the day they came of age, with the two best estates in Ireland.”
“If I had not brought ruin on others, Bagenal—”
“No more of that, Darcy; the most scandal-loving gossip of the Club will never impute, for he dare not, more than carelessness to your conduct, and I promise you, if you 'll only fall back on a good conscience, you 'll not be unhappy under the thatched roof of my poor shieling. My sincerest regards to Lady Eleanor and Helen. I see there is a crowd collecting at the sight of the four posters, so don't delay.”
Darcy could do no more than squeeze the cordial hand that held his own, and, passing hastily out, he stepped into the travelling-carriage at the door, not unobserved, indeed, for about a hundred ragged creatures had now assembled, who saluted his appearance with groans and hisses, accompanied with ruffianly taunts about bribery and corruption; while one, more daring than the rest, mounted on the step, and with his face to the window, cried out: “My Lord, my Lord, won't you give us a trifle to drown your new coronet?”
The words were scarcely out, when, seizing him by the neck with one hand, and taking a leg in the other, Daly hurled the fellow into the middle of the mob, who, such is their consistency, laughed loud and heartily at the fellow's misfortunes; meanwhile, the postilions plied whip and spur, and ere the laughter had subsided, the carriage was out of sight.
“There is a gentleman in the drawing-room wishes to speak to you, sir,” said a servant to Daly, who had just sat down to a conference with the lawyer.
“Present my respectful compliments, and say that I am engaged on most important and pressing business.”
“Had you not better ask his name?” said the lawyer.
“No, no, there is nothing but interruptions here; at one moment it is Heffernan, with a polite message from Lord Castlereagh; then some one from the Club, to know if I have any objection to waive a standing order, and have that young O'Reilly balloted for once more; and here was George Falkner himself a while ago, asking if the Knight had really taken office, with a seat in the Cabinet. I said it was perfectly correct, and that he was at liberty to state it in his paper.”
“You did!”
“Yes; and that he might add that I myself had refused the see of Llandaff, preferring the command of the West India Squadron. But, what's this? What do you want now, Richard?”
“The gentleman upstairs, sir, insists on my presenting his card.”
“Oh, indeed!—Captain Forester!—I 'll see him at once.” And, so saying, Daly hastened upstairs to the drawing-room, where the young officer awaited him.
Daly was not in a mood to scrutinize very closely the appearance of his visitor, but he could not fail to feel struck at the alteration in his looks since last they met; his features were paler and marked by sorrow, so much so that Daly's first question was, “Have you been ill?” and as Forester answered in the negative, the old man fixed his eyes steadily on him, and said, “You have heard of our misfortune, then?”
“Misfortune! no. What do you mean?”
Daly hesitated, uncertain how to reply, whether to leave to time and some other channel to announce the Knight's ruin, or at once communicate it with his own lips.
“Yes, it is the better way,” said he, half aloud, while, taking Forester's hand, he led him over to a sofa, and pressed him down beside him. “I seldom have made an error in guessing a man's character, throughout a long and somewhat remarkable life. I think I am safe in saying that you feel a warm interest in my friend Darcy's family?”
“You do me but justice; gratitude alone, if I had no stronger motive, secures them every good wish of mine.”
“But you have stronger motives, young man,” said Daly, looking at him with a piercing glance; “if you had not, I 'd think but meanly of you, nor did I want that blush to tell me so.”
Forester looked down in confusion. The abruptness of the address so completely unmanned him that he could make no answer. While Daly went on: “I force no confidences, young man, nor have I any right to ask them; enough for my present purpose that I know you care deeply for this family; now, sir, but a week back the ambition to be allied with them had satisfied the proudest wish of the proudest house—to-day they are ruined.”
Overwhelmed with surprise and sorrow, Forester sat silently, while Daly rapidly, but circumstantially, narrated the story of the Knight's calamity, and the total wreck of his once princely fortune.
“Yes,” said Daly, as with flashing eyes he arose and uttered aloud,—“yes, the broad acres won by many a valiant deed, the lands which his ancestors watered with their blood, lost forever; not by great crimes, not forfeited by any bold but luckless venture, for there is something glorious in that,—but stolen, filched away by theft. By Heaven! our laws and liberties do but hedge round crime with so many defences that honesty has nothing left but to stand shivering outside. Better were the days when the strong hand avenged the deep wrong, or, if the courage were weak, there was the Throne to appeal to against oppression. Forester, I see how this news afflicts you; I judged you too well to think that your own dashed hopes entered into your sorrow. No, no, I know you better. But come, we have other duties than to mourn over the past. Has Lord Castlereagh received Darcy's note, resigning his seat in Parliament?”
“He has; a new writ is preparing for Mayo.” “Sharp practice; I think I can detect the fair round hand of Mr. Heffernan there,—no matter, a few days more and the world will know all; ay, the world, so full of honorable sentiments and noble aspirations, will smile and jest on Darcy's ruin, that they may with better grace taunt the vulgar assumption of Hickman O'Reilly. I know it well,—some would say I bought the knowledge dearly. When I set out in life, my fortune was nearly equal to the Knight's, my ideas of living and expenditure based on the same views as his own,—that same barbaric taste for profusion which has been transmitted to us from father to son. Ay, we retained everything of feudalism save its chivalry! Well, I never knew a day nor an hour of independence till the last acre of that great estate was sold, and gone from me forever. Fawning flattery, intrigue, and trickery beset me wherever I went; ruined gamblers, match-making mothers, bankrupt speculators, plotting political adventurers, dogged me at every step; nor could I break through the trammels by which they fettered me, except at the price of my ruin; when there was no longer a stake to play for, they left the table. Poor Darcy, however, is not a lonely stem, like me, riven and lightning-struck; he has a wife and children; but for that, I would not fear to grasp his stout hand and say, 'Come on to fortune.' Poor Maurice, whose heart could never stand the slightest wrong done the humblest cottier on his land, how will he bear up now? Forester, you can do me a great service. Could you obtain leave for a day or two?”
“Command me how and in what way you please,” said the youth, eagerly.
“I understand that proffer, and accept it as freely as it is given.”
“Nay, you are mistaken,” said Forester, faltering. “I will be candid with you; you have a right to all my confidence, for you have trusted in me. Your suspicions are only correct in part; my affection is indeed engaged, but I have received none in return: Miss Darcy has rejected me.”
“But not without hope?”
“Without the slightest hope.”
“By Heaven, it is the only gleam of light in all the gloomy business,” said Daly, energetically; “had Helen's love been yours, this calamity had been ten thousand times worse. Nay, nay, this is not the sentiment of cold and selfish old age; you wrong me, Forester, but the hour is come when every feeling within that noble girl's heart is due to those who have loved and cherished her from childhood. Now is the time to repay the watchful care of infancy, and recompense the anxious fears that spring from parental affection; not a sentiment, not a thought, should be turned from that channel now. It would be treason to win one smile, one passing look of kind meaning from those eyes, every beam of which is claimed by 'Home.' Helen is equal to her destiny,—that I know well; and you, if you would strive to be worthy of her, do not endeavor to make her falter in her duty. Trust me, there is but one road to a heart like hers,—the path of high and honorable ambition.”
“You are right,” said Forester, in a sad and humble voice,—“you are right; I offered her a heart before it was worthy of her acceptance.”
“That avowal is the first step towards rendering it such one day,” said Daly, grasping his hand in both his own. “Now to my request: you can obtain this leave, can you?”
“Yes, yes; how can I make it of any service to you?”
“Simply thus: I have offered, and Darcy has accepted, a humble cottage on the northern coast, as a present asylum for the family. The remote and secluded nature of the place will at least withdraw them from the impertinence of curiosity, or the greater impertinence of vulgar sympathy. A maiden sister of mine is the present occupant, and I wish to communicate the intelligence to her, that she may make any preparations which may be necessary for their coming, and also provide herself with some other shelter. Maria is as great a Bedouin as myself, and with as strong a taste for vagabondage; she 'll have no difficulty in housing herself, that's certain. The only puzzle is how to apprise her of the intended change: there is not a post-office within eight or ten miles of the place, nor, if there were, would she think of sending to look for a letter; there 's nothing for it but a special envoy: will you be the man?”
“Most willingly; only give me the route, and my instructions.”
“You shall have both. Come and dine with me here at five—order horses to your carriage for eight o'clock, and I'll take care of the rest.”
“Agreed,” said Forester; “I'll lose no time in getting ready for the road—the first thing is my leave.”
“Is there a difficulty there?”
“There shall be none,” said Forester, hurriedly, as he seized his hat, and, bidding Daly good-bye, hastened downstairs and into the street. “They 'll refuse me, I know that,” muttered he, as he went along; “and if they do, I'll pitch up the appointment on the spot; this slight service over, I'm ready to join my regiment.” And so saying, he turned his steps towards the Castle, resolved on the course to follow.
Meanwhile Daly, after a brief consultation with the lawyer, sat down to write to his sister. Simple and easy as the act is to many—far too much so, as most men's correspondence would testify—letter-writing, to some people, is an affair of no common difficulty. Perhaps every one in this world has some stumbling-block of this kind ever before him: some men cannot learn chess, some never can be taught to ride, others, if they were to get the world for it, could not carve a hare. It would be unfair to quote newly introduced difficulties, such as how to bray in the House of Commons, the back step in the polka, and so on; the original evils are enough for our illustration.
Bagenal Daly's literary difficulties were manifold; he was a discursive thinker, passionate and vehement whenever the occasion prompted, and as unable to control such influences when writing as speaking; and, with very liberal ideas on the score of spelling, he wrote a hand which, if only examined upside down, might have passed for Hebrew, with an undue proportion of points; besides these defects, he entertained a thorough contempt for all writing as an exponent of men's sentiments. His opinion was, that speech was the great prerogative of living men, all other modes of expression being feeble and miserable expedients; and, to do him justice, he conformed, as far as in him lay, to his own theory, and made his writing as like his speaking as could be. Brevity was the great quality he studied, and for this reason we venture to present the epistle to our readers:—
Dear Molly,—
The bill is carried—or, what comes to the same, the third reading comes on next Tuesday, and they 'll have a majority—d——n their majority, I forget the number. I was told that bribes were plenty as blackberries. I wish they 'd leave as many stains after them. They offered me nothing—they were right there. There is a kind of bottle-nosed whale the Indians never harpoon; they call him “Hik-na-critchka,”—more bone than blubber. Darcy might have been an Earl, or a Marquis, or a Duke, perhaps; they wanted one gentleman so much, they 'd have bid high for him. Poor fellow, he is ruined now! that scoundrel Gleeson has run away with everything, forged, falsified, and thieved to any extent. Your unlucky four thousand, of course, is gone to the devil with the rest. I 'm sick of cant. People talk of badgers and such like, and yet no one says a word about exterminating attorneys! The rascal jumped over in the Channel, and was drowned—the shark got a bitter pill that swallowed him. I have told Darcy he might have “the Corvy;” you can easily find a wigwam down the coast. Forester, who brings this, knows all. We must all economize, I suppose. I 've given up Maccabaw already, and taken to Blackguard, in compliment to the Secretary. I must sell or shoot old Drummer at last, he can't draw his breath, and won't draw the gig. I only remain here till the House is up, when I must be up too and stirring—there is a confounded bond—no matter, more at another time.
Yours ever,
Bagenal Daly.
St. George is to be the Chief Baron—an improvement of the allegory, “Justice will be deaf as well as blind.” Devil take them all!
The chorus of a Greek play, so seemingly abstruse and incoherent to our present thinking, was, we are told, made easily comprehensible by the aid of gesture and pantomime; and in the same way, by supplying the fancied accompaniment of her brother's voice and action, Miss Daly was enabled to read and understand this strange epistle. Bagenal gave himself little trouble in examining how far it conveyed his meaning; but, like a careless traveller who huddles his clothes into his portmanteau, and is only anxious to make the lock meet, his greatest care was to fold up the document and inclose it within an envelope; that done, he hoped it was all right,—in any case, his functions were concluded regarding it, for, as he muttered to himself, he only contracted to write, not to read, his own letter.
Forester was punctual to the hour appointed; and if not really less depressed than before, the stimulating sense of having a service to perform made him seem less so. His self-esteem was flattered, too, by his own bold line of acting, for he had just resigned his appointment on the Staff, his application for leave having been unsuccessful. The fact that his rash conduct might involve him in trouble or difficulty was not without its own sense of pleasure, for, so is it in all rebellion, the great prompter is personal pride. He would gladly have told Daly what had happened; but a delicate fear of increasing the apparent load of obligation prevented him, and he consequently confined his remarks on the matter to bis being free, and at liberty to go wherever his friend pleased.
“Here, then,” said Daly, leading him across the room to a table, on which a large map of Ireland lay open, “I have marked your route the entire way. Follow that dark line with your eye northwards to Coleraine,—so far you can travel with your carriage and post-horses; how to cross this bit of desert here I must leave to yourself: there may be a road for a wheeled carriage or not, in my day there was none; that is, however, a good many years back; the point to strive for should be somewhere hereabouts. This is Dunluce Castle—well, if I remember aright, the spot is here: you must ask for 'the Corvy,'—the fishermen all know the cabin by that name; it was originally built out of the wreck of a French vessel that was lost there, and the word Corvy is a Northern version of Corvette. Once there,—and I know you 'll not find any difficulty in reaching it,—my sister will be glad to receive you; I need not say the accommodation does not rival Gwynne Abbey, no more than poor Molly does Helen Darcy; you will be right welcome, however,—so much I can pledge myself, not the less so that your journey was undertaken from a motive of true kindness. I don't well know how much or how little I have said in that letter; you can explain all I may have omitted,—the chief thing is to get the cabin ready for the Darcys as soon as may be. Give her this pocket-book,—I was too much hurried to-day to transact business at the bank; but the north road is a safe one, and you 'll not incur any risk. And now one glass to the success of the enterprise, and I 'll not detain you longer; I 'll give you old Martin's toast:—