The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 2

To construct a new party from these scattered elements – a party which, possessing wealth and station, had not yet tasted any of the sweets of patronage – was the task he now proposed to himself. By this party, of whom he himself was to be the organ, he hoped to control the Minister, and support him by turns. Of those already purchased by the Government, few would care to involve themselves once more in the fatigues of a public life. Many would gladly repose on the rewards of their victory; many would shrink from the obloquy their reappearance would inevitably excite. Mr. Heffernan had then to choose his friends either from that moderate section of politicians whom scruples of conscience or inferiority of ability had left un-bought, or the more energetic faction, suddenly called into existence by the success of the French Revolution, and of which O’Halloran was the leader. For many reasons his choice fell on the former. Not only because they possessed that standing and influence which, derived from property, would be most regarded in England, but that their direction and guidance would be an easier task; whereas the others, more numerous and more needy, could only be purchased by actual place or pension, while in O’Halloran Heffernan would always have a dangerous rival, who, if he played subordinate for a while, it would only be at the price of absolute rule hereafter.

From the moment Lord Castlereagh withdrew from Ireland, Mr. Heffernan commenced his intrigue, – at first by a tour of visits through the country, in which he contrived to sound the opinions of a great number of persons, and subsequently by correspondence, so artfully sustained as to induce many to commit themselves to a direct line of action which, when discussing, they had never speculated on seeing realized.

With a subtlety of no common kind, and an indefatigable industry, Heffernan labored in the cause during the summer and autumn, and with such success that there was scarcely a county in Ireland where he had not secured some leading adherent, while for many of the boroughs he had already entered into plans for the support of new candidates of his own opinions.

The views he put forward were simply these: Ireland can no longer be governed by an oligarchy, however powerful. It must be ruled either by the weight and influence of the country gentlemen, or left to the mercy of the demagogue. The gentry must be rewarded for their adhesion, and enabled to maintain their pre-eminence, by handing over to them the patronage, not in part or in fractions, but wholly and solely. Every civil appointment must be filled up by them, – the Church, the law, the revenue, the police, must all be theirs. “The great aristocracy,” said he, “have obtained the marquisates and earldoms; bishoprics and governments have rewarded their services. It is now our turn; and if our prizes be less splendid and showy, they are not devoid of some sterling qualities.

“To make Ireland ungovernable without us must be our aim and object, – to embarrass and confound every administration, to oppose the ministers, pervert their good objects, and exaggerate their bad. Pledged to no distinct line of acting, we can be patriotic when it suits us, and declaim on popular rights when nothing better offers. Acting in concert, and diffusing an influence in every county and town and corporation, what ministry can long resist us, or what government anxious for office would refuse to make terms with us? With station to influence society, wealth to buy the press, activity to watch and counteract our enemies, I see nothing which can arrest our progress. We must and will succeed.”

Such was the conclusion of a letter he wrote to one of his most trusted allies, – a letter written to invite his presence in Dublin, where a meeting of the leading men of the new party was to be held, and their engagements for the future determined upon.

For this meeting Heffernan made the greatest exertions, not only that it might include a great portion of the wealth and influence of the land, but that a degree of éclat and splendor should attend it, the more likely to attract notice from the secrecy maintained as to its object and intention. Many were invited on the consideration of the display their presence would make in the capital; and not a few were tempted by the opportunity for exhibiting their equipages and their liveries at a season when the recognized leaders of fashion were absent.

It is no part of our object to dwell on this well-known intrigue, one which at the time occupied no small share of public attention, and even excited the curiosity and the fears of the Government. Enough when we say that Mr. Heffernan’s disappointments were numerous and severe. Letters of apology, some couched in terms of ambiguous cordiality, others less equivocally cold, came pouring in for the last fortnight. The noble lord destined to fill the chair regretted deeply that domestic affairs of a most pressing nature would not permit of his presence. The baronet who should move the first resolution would be compelled to be absent from Ireland; the seconder was laid up with the gout. Scarcely a single person of influence had promised his attendance: the greater number had given vague and conditional replies, evidently to gain time and consult the feeling of their country neighbors.

These refusals and subterfuges were a sad damper to Mr. Heffernan’s hopes. To any one less sanguine, they would have led to a total abandonment of the enterprise. He, however, was made of sterner stuff, and resolved, if the demonstration could effect no more, it could at least be used as a threat to the Government, – a threat of not less power because its terrors were involved in mystery. With all these disappointments time sped on, the important day arrived, and the great room of the Rotunda, hired specially for the occasion, was crowded by a numerous assemblage, to whose proceedings no member of the public press was admitted. Notice was given that in due time a declaration, drawn up by a committee, would be published; but until then the most profound secrecy wrapped their objects and intentions.

The meeting, convened for one o’clock, separated at five; and, save the unusual concourse of carriages, and the spectacle of some liveries new to the capital, there seemed nothing to excite the public attention. No loud-tongued orator was heard from without, nor did a single cheer mark the reception of any welcome sentiment; and as the members withdrew, the sarcastic allusions of the mob intimated that they were supposed to be a new sect of “Quakers.” Heffernan’s carriage was the last to leave the door; and it was remarked, as he entered it, that he looked agitated and ill, – signs which few had ever remarked in him before. He drove rapidly home, where a small and select party of friends had been invited by him to dinner.

He made a hasty toilet, and entered the drawing-room a few moments after the first knock at the street-door announced the earliest guest. It was an old and intimate friend, Sir Giles St. George, a south-country baronet of old family, but small fortune, who for many years had speculated on Heffernan’s interest in his behalf. He was a shrewd, coarse man, who from eccentricity and age had obtained a species of moral “writ of ease,” absolving him from all observance of the usages in common among all well-bred people, – a privilege he certainly did not seem disposed to let rust from disuse.

“Well, Con,” said he, as he stood with his back to the fire, and his hands deeply thrust into his breeches-pockets, – “well, Con, your Convention has been a damnable failure. Where the devil did you get up such a rabble of briefless barristers, ungowned attorneys, dissenting ministers, and illegitimate sons? I’d swear, out of your seven hundred, there were not five-and-twenty possessed of a fifty-pound freehold, – not five who could defy the sheriff in their own county.”

Heffernan made no reply, but with arms crossed, and his head leaned forward, walked slowly up and down the room, while the other resumed, —

“As for old Killowen, who filled the chair, that was enough to damn the whole thing. One of King James’s lords, forsooth! – why, man, what country gentleman of any pretension could give precedence to a fellow like that, who neither reads, writes, nor speaks the King’s English – and your great gun, Mr. Hickman O’Reilly – ”

“False-hearted scoundrel!” muttered Heffernan, half aloud.

“Faith he may be, but he’s the cleverest of the pack. I liked his speech well. There was good common sense in his asking for some explicit plan of proceeding, – what you meant to do, and how to do it. Eh, Con, that was to the point.”

“To the point!” repeated Heffernan, scornfully; “yes, as the declaration of an informer, that he will betray his colleagues, is to the point.”

“And then his motion to admit the reporters,” said St. George, as with a malignant pleasure he continued to suggest matter of annoyance.

“He ‘s mistaken, however,” said Heffernan, with a sarcastic bitterness that came from his heart. “The day for rewards is gone by. He ‘ll never get the baronetcy by supporting the Government in this way. It is the precarious, uncertain ally they look more after. There is consummate wisdom, Giles, in not saying one’s last word. O’Reilly does not seem aware of that. Here come Godfrey and Hume,” said he, as he looked out of the window. “Burton has sent an apology.”

“And who is our sixth?”

“O’Reilly – and here’s his carriage. See how the people stare admiringly at his green liveries; they scarcely guess that the owner is meditating a change of color. Well, Godfrey, in time for once. Why, Robert, you seem quite fagged with your day’s exertion. Ah! Mr. O’Reilly, delighted to find you punctual. Let me present you to my old friend Sir Giles St. George. I believe, gentlemen, you need no introduction to each other. Burton has disappointed us; so we may order dinner at once.”

As Mr. Heffernan took the head of the table, not a sign of his former chagrin remained to be seen. An air of easy conviviality had entirely replaced his previous look of irritation, and in his laughing eye and mellow voice there seemed the clearest evidence of a mind perfectly at ease, and a spirit well disposed to enjoy the pleasures of the board. Of his guests, Godfrey was a leading member of the Irish bar, a man of good private fortune and a large practice, who, out of whim rather than from any great principle, had placed himself in contiuual opposition to the Government, and felt grievously injured and affronted when the minister, affecting to overlook his enmity, offered him a silk gown. Hume was a Commissioner of Customs, and had been so for some thirty years; his only ambition in life being to retire on his full salary, having previously filled his department with his sons and grandsons. The gentle remonstrances of the Secretary against his plan had made him one of the disaffected, but without courage to avow or influence to direct his animosity. Of Mr. O’Reilly the reader needs no further mention. Such was the party who now sat at a table most luxuriously supplied; for although Heffeman was very far from a frequent inviter, yet his dinners were admirably arranged, and the excellence of his wine was actually a mystery among the bons vivants of the capital. The conversation turned of course upon the great event of the day; but so artfully was the subject managed by Heffeman that the discussion took rather the shape of criticism on the several speakers, and their styles of delivery, than on the matter of the meeting itself.

“How eager the Castle folks will be to know all about it!” said Godfrey. “Cooke is, I hear, in a sad taking to learn the meaning of the gathering.”

“I fancy, sir,” said St. George, “they are more indifferent than you suppose. A meeting held by individuals of a certain rank and property, and convened with a certain degree of ostentation, can scarcely ever be formidable to a government.”

“You forget the Volunteers,” said Heffernan.

“No, I remember their assembling well enough, and a very absurd business they made of it. The Bishop of Downe was the only man of nerve amongst them; and as for Lord Charlemont, the thought of an attainder was never out of his head till the whole association was disbanded.”

“They were very formidable, indeed,” said Heffernan, gravely. “I can assure you that the Government were far more afraid of their defenders than of the French.”

“A government that is ungrateful enough to neglect its supporters,” chimed in Hume, “men that have spent their best years in its service, can scarcely esteem itself very secure. In the department I belong to myself, for instance – ”

“Yours is a very gross case,” interrupted Heffernan, who from old experience knew what was coming, and wished to arrest it.

“Thirty-four years, come November next, have I toiled as a commissioner.”

“Unpaid!” exclaimed St. George, with a well-simulated horror, – “unpaid!”

“No, sir; not without my salary, of course. I never heard of any man holding an office in the Revenue for the amusement it might afford him. Did you, Godfrey?”

“As for me,” said the lawyer, “I spurn their patronage. I well know the price men pay for such favors.”

“What object could it be to you,” said Heffernan, “to be made Attorney-General or placed on the bench, a man independent in every seuse? So I said to Castlereagh, when he spoke on the subject: ‘Never mind Godfrey,’ said I, ‘he’ll refuse your offers; you’ll only offend him by solicitation;’ and when he mentioned the ‘Rolls’ – ”

Here Heffernan paused, and filled his glass leisurely. An interruption contrived to stimulate Godfrey’s curiosity, and which perfectly succeeded, as he asked in a voice of tremulous eagerness, —

“Well, what did you say?”

“Just as I replied before, – ‘he ‘ll refuse you.’”

“Quite right, perfectly right; you have my unbounded gratitude for the answer,” said Godfrey, swallowing two bumpers as rapidly as he could fill them.

“Very different treatment from what I met, – an old and tried supporter of the party,” said Hume, turning to O’Reilly and opening upon him the whole narrative of his long-suffering neglect.

“It’s quite clear, then,” said St. George, “that we are agreed, – the best thing for us would be a change of Ministry.”

“I don’t think so at all,” interposed Heffernan.

“Why, Con,” interrupted the baronet, “they should have you at any price, – however these fellows have learned the trick, – the others know nothing about it You ‘d be in office before twenty-four hours.”

“So I might to-morrow,” said Heffernan. “There’s scarcely a single post of high emolument and trust that I have not been offered and refused. The only things I ever stipulated for in all my connection with the Government were certain favors for my personal friends.” Here he looked significantly towards O’Reilly; but the glance was intercepted by the commissioner, who cried out, – “Well, could they say I had no claim? Could they deny thirty-four years of toil and slavery?”

“And in the case for which I was most interested,” resumed Heffernan, not heeding the interruption, “the favor I sought would have been more justly bestowed from the rank and merits of the party than as a recompense for any sen-ices of mine.”

“I won’t say that, Heffernan,” said Hume, with a look of modesty, who with the most implicit good faith supposed he was the party alluded to; “I won’t go that far; but I will and must say, that after four-and-thirty years as a commissioner – ”

“A man must have laid by a devilish pretty thing for the rest of his life,” said St. George, who felt all the bitterness of a narrow income augmented by the croaking complaints of the well-salaried official.

“Well, I hope better days are coming for all of us,” said Heffernan, desirous of concluding the subject ere it should take an untoward turn.

“You have got a very magnificent seat in the west, sir,” said St. George, addressing O’Reilly, who during the whole evening had done little more than assent or smile concurrence with the several speakers.

“The finest thing in Ireland,” interrupted Heffernan.

“Nay, that is saying too much,” said O’Reilly, with a look of half-real, half-affected bashfulness. “The abbey certainly stands well, and the timber is well grown.”

“Are you able to see Clew Bay from the small drawing-room still? – for I remember remarking that the larches on the side of the glen would eventually intercept the prospect.”

“You know the Abbey, then?” asked O’Reilly, forgetting to answer the question addressed to him.

“Oh, I knew it well. My family is connected-distantly, I believe – with the Darcys, and in former days we were intimate. A very sweet place it was; I am speaking of thirty years ago, and of course it must have improved since that.”

“My friend here has given it every possible opportunity,” said Heffernan, with a courteous inclination of the head.

“I’ve no doubt of it,” said St. George; “but neither money nor bank securities will make trees grow sixty feet in a twelvemonth. The improvements I allude to were made by Maurice Darcy’s father; he sunk forty thousand pounds in draining, planting, subsoiling, and what not. He left a rent-charge in his will to continue his plans; and Maurice and his son – what’s the young fellow called? – Lionel, isn’t it? – well, they are, or rather they were, bound to expend a very heavy sum annually on the property.”

A theme less agreeable to O’Reilly’s feelings could scarcely have been started; and though Heffernan saw as much, he did not dare to interrupt it suddenly, for fear of any unpalatable remark from St. George. Whether from feeling that the subject was a painful one, or that he liked to indulge his loquacity in detailing various particulars of the Darcys and their family circumstances, the old man went on without ceasing, – now narrating some strange caprice of an ancestor in one century, now some piece of good fortune that occurred to another. “You know the old prophecy in the family, I suppose, Mr. O’Reilly?” said he, “though, to be sure, you are not very likely to give it credence.”

“I scarcely can say I remember what you allude to.”

“By Jove, I thought every old woman in the west would have told it to you. How is this the doggerel runs – ay, here it is, —

‘A new name in this house shall never beginTill twenty-one Darcys have died in Gwynne.’

Now, they say that, taking into account all of the family who have fallen in battle, been lost at sea, and so on, only eleven of the stock died at the Abbey.”

Although O’Reilly affected to smile at the old rhyme, his cheek became deadly pale, and his hand shook as he lifted the glass to his lips. It was no vulgar sense of fear, no superstitious dread that moved his cold and calculating spirit, but an emotion of suppressed anger that the ancient splendor of the Darcys should be thus placed side by side with his own unhonored and unknown family.

“I don’t think I ever knew one of these good legends have even so much of truth, – though the credit is now at an end,” said Heffernau, gayly.

“I’ll engage old Darcy’s butler wouldn’t agree with you,” replied St. George. “Ay, and Maurice himself had a great dash of old Irish superstition in him, for a clever, sensible fellow as he was.”

“It only remains for my friend here, then, to fit up a room for the Darcys and invite them to die there at their several conveniences,” said Con, laughing. “I see no other mode of fulfilling the destiny.”

“There never was a man played his game worse,” resumed St. George, who with a pertinacious persistence continued the topic. “He came of age with a large unencumbered estate, great family influence, and a very fair share of abilities. It was the fashion to say he had more, but I never thought so; and now, look at him!”

“He had very heavy losses at play,” said Heffernan, “certainly.”

“What if he had? They never could have materially affected a fortune like his. No, no. I believe ‘Honest Tom’ finished him, – raising money to pay off old debts, and then never clearing away the liabilities. What a stale trick, and how invariably it succeeds!”

“You do not seem, sir, to take into account an habitually expensive mode of living,” insinuated O’Reilly, quietly.

“An item, of course, but only an item in the sum total,” replied St. George. “No man can eat and drink above ten thousand a year, and Darcy had considerably more. No; he might have lived as he pleased, had he escaped the acquaintance of honest Tom Gleeson. By the by, Con, is there any truth in the story they tell about this fellow, and that he really was more actuated by a feeling of revenge towards Darcy than a desire for money?”

“I never heard the story. Did you, Mr. O’Reilly?” asked Heffernan.

“Never,” said O’Reilly, affecting an air of unconcern, very ill consorting with his pale cheek and anxious eye.

“The tale is simply this: that, as Gleeson waxed wealthy, and began to assume a position in life, he one day called on the Knight to request him to put his name up for ballot at ‘Daly’s.’ Darcy was thunderstruck, for it was in those days when the Club was respectable; but still the Knight had tact enough to dissemble his astonishment, and would doubtless have got through the difficulty had it not been for Bagenal Daly, who was present, and called out, ‘Wait till Tuesday, Maurice, for I mean to propose M’Cleery, the breeches-maker, and then the thing won’t seem so remarkable!’ Gleeson smiled and slipped away, with an oath to his own heart, to be revenged on both of them. If there be any truth in the story, he did ruin Daly, by advising some money-lender to buy up all his liabilities.”

“I must take the liberty to correct you, sir,” said O’Reilly, actually trembling with anger. “If your agreeable anecdote has no better foundation than the concluding hypothesis, its veracity is inferior to its ingenuity. The gentleman you are pleased to call a money-lender is my father; the conduct you allude to was simply the advance of a large sum on mortgage.”

“Foreclosed, like Darcy’s, perhaps,” said St. George, his irascible face becoming blood-red with passion.

“Come, come, Giles, you really can know nothing of the subject you are talking of; besides, to Mr. O’Reilly the matter is a personal one.”

“So it is,” muttered St. George; “and if report speaks truly, as unpleasant as personal.”

This insulting remark was not heard by O’Reilly, who was deeply engaged in explaining to the lawyer beside him the minute legal details of the circumstance.

“Shrewd a fellow as Gleeson was,” said St. George, interrupting O’Reilly, by addressing the lawyer, “they say he has left some flaw open in the matter, and that Darcy may recover a very large portion of the lost estate.”

“Yes; if for instance this bond should be destroyed. He might move in Equity – ”

“He ‘d move heaven and earth, sir, if it’s Bagenal Daly you mean,” said St. George, who had stimulated his excitement by drinking freely. “Some will tell you that he is a steadfast, firm friend; but I ‘ll vouch for it, a more determined enemy never drew breath.”

“Very happily for the world we live in, sir,” said O’Reilly, “there are agencies more powerful than the revengeful and violent natures of such men as Mr. Daly.”

“He’s every jot as quick-sighted as he’s determined; and when he wagered a hogshead of claret that Darcy would one day sit again at the head of his table in Gwynne Abbey – ”

“Did he make such a bet?” asked O’Reilly, with a faint laugh.

“Yes; he walked down the club-room, and offered it to any one present, and none seemed to fancy it; but young Kelly, of Kildare, who, being a new member just come in, perhaps thought there might be some éclat in booking a bet with Bagenal Daly.”

“Would you like to back his opinion, sir?” said O’Reilly, with a simulated softness of voice; “or although I rarely wager, I should have no objection to convenience you here, leaving the amount entirely at your option.”

“Which means,” said St. George, as his eyes sparkled with wine and passion, “that the weight of your purse is to tilt the beam against that of my opinion. Now, I beg leave to tell you – ”

“Let me interrupt you, Giles; I never knew my Burgundy disagree with any man before, but I d smash every bottle of it to-morrow if I thought it could make so pleasant a fellow so wrong-headed and unreasonable. What say you if we qualify it with some cognac and water?”