The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 2

“Grove, – Dempsey’s Grove,” said Paul, with a look of anger.

“I ask your pardon, humbly, – I would say of Dempsey’s Grove, – might be an accepted suitor in the very highest quarters. At all events, from news I have heard this morning it is more than likely that the Knight will be in London before many weeks, and I dare not assume either the responsibility of favoring your views, or incurring his displeasure by an act of interference. I think her Ladyship coucurs with me.”

“Perfectly. The case is really one which, however we may and do feel the liveliest interest in, lies quite beyond our influence or control.”

“Mr. Dempsey may rest assured that, even from so brief an acquaintance, we have learned to appreciate some of his many excellent qualities of head and heart.”

Lady Netherby bowed an acquiescence cold and stately; and, his Lordship rising at the same time, Paul saw that the audience drew to a close. He arose then slowly, and with a faint sigh, – for he thought of his long and dreary journey, made to so little profit.

“So I may jog back again as I came,” muttered he, as he drew on his gloves. “Well, well, Lady Eleanor knew him better than I did. Good-morning, my Lady. I hope you are about to enjoy better health. Good-bye, my Lord.”

“Do you make any stay in town, Mr. Dempsey?” inquired his Lordship, in that bland voice that best became him. “Till I pack my portmanteau, my Lord, and pay my bill at the ‘Tavistock,’ – not an hour longer.”

“I ‘m sorry for that. I had hoped, and Lady Netherby also expected, we should have the pleasure of seeing you again.”

“Very grateful, my Lord; but I see how the land lies as well as if I was here a month.”

And with this significant speech Mr. Dempsey repeated his salutations and withdrew.

“What presumption!” exclaimed Lady Netherby, as the door closed behind him. “But how needlessly Lady Eleanor Darcy must have lowered herself to incur such acquaintanceship!”

Lord Netherby made no reply, but gave a glance towards the still open door of the drawing-room. Her Ladyship understood it at once, and said, —

“Oh, let us release poor Richard from his bondage. Tell him to come in.”

Lord Netherby walked forward; but scarcely had he entered the drawing-room, when he called out, “He ‘s gone!”

“Gone! when? – how?” cried Lady Netherby, ringing the bell. “Did you see Lord Wall incourt when he was going, Davenport?” asked she, at once assuming her own calm deportment.

“Yes, my Lady.”

“I hope he took the carriage.”

“No, my Lady, his Lordship went on foot.”

“That will do, Davenport. I don’t receive to-day.”

“I must hasten after him,” said Lord Netherby, as the servant withdrew. “We have, perhaps, incurred the very hazard we hoped to obviate.”

“I half feared it,” exclaimed Lady Netherby, gravely. “Lose no time, however, and bring him to dinner; say that I feel very poorly, and that his society will cheer me greatly. If he is unfit to leave the house, stay with him; but above all things let him not be left alone.”

Lord Netherby hastened from the room, and his carriage was soon heard at a rapid pace proceeding down the square.

Lady Netherby sat with her eyes fixed on the carpet, and her hands clasped closely, lost in thought. “Yes,” said she, half aloud, “there is a fate in it! This Lady Eleanor may have her vengeance yet!”

It was about an hour after this, and while she was still revolving her own deep thoughts, that Lord Netherby re-entered the room.

“Well, is he here?” asked she, impatiently.

“No, he’s off to Ireland; the very moment he reached the hotel he ordered four horses to his carriage, and while his servant packed some trunks he himself drove over to Lord Castlereagh’s, but came back almost immediately. They must have used immense despatch, for Long told me that they would be nigh Barnet when I called.”

“He ‘s a true Wallincourt,” said her Ladyship, bitterly. “Their family motto is ‘Rash in danger,’ and they have well deserved it.”

CHAPTER XXXI. A LESSON FOR EAVES-DROPPING

Forester – for so to the end we must call him – but exemplified the old adage in his haste. The debility of long illness was successfully combated for some hours by the fever of excitement; but as that wore off, symptoms of severe malady again exhibited themselves, and when on the second evening of his journey he arrived at Bangor, he was dangerously ill. With a head throbbing, and a brain almost mad, he threw himself upon a bed, perhaps the thought of his abortive effort to reach Ireland the most agonizing feeling of his tortured mind. His first care was to inquire after the sailing of the packet; and learning that the vessel would leave within an hour, he avowed his resolve to go at every hazard. As the time drew nigh, however, more decided evidences of fever set in, and the medical man who had been called to his aid pronounced that his life would pay the penalty were he to persist in his rash resolve. His was not a temper to yield to persuasion on selfish grounds, and nothing short of his actual inability to endure moving from where he lay at last compelled him to cede; even then he ordered his only servant to take the despatches which Lord Castlereagh had given him, and proceed with them to Dublin, where he should seek out Mr. Bicknell, and place them in his hands, with strict injunctions to have them forwarded to Lady Eleanor Darcy at once. The burning anxiety of a mind weakened by a tedious and severe malady, the fever of travelling, and the impatient struggles be made to be clear and explicit in his directions, repeated as they were full twenty times over, all conspired to exaggerate the worst features of his case; and ere the packet sailed, his head was wandering in wild delirium.

Linwood knew his master too well to venture on a contradiction; and although with very grave doubts that he should ever see him again alive, he set out, resolving to spare no exertions to be back soon again in Bangor. The transit of the Channel forty-five years ago was, however, very different from that at present, and it was already the evening of the following day when he reached Dublin.

There was no difficulty in finding out Mr. Bicknell’s residence; a very showy brass-plate on a door in a fashionable street proclaimed the house of the well-known man of law. He was not at home, however, nor would be for some hours; he had gone out on a matter of urgent business, and left orders that except for some most pressing reason, he was not to be sent for. Linwood did not hesitate to pronounce his business such, and at length obtained the guidance of a servant to the haunt in question.

It was in a street of a third or fourth-rate rank, called Stafford Street, that Bicknell’s servant now stopped, and having made more than one inquiry as to name and number, at last knocked at the door of a sombre-looking, ruinous old house, whose windows, broken or patched with paper, bespoke an air of poverty and destitution. A child in a ragged and neglected dress opened the door, and answering to the question “If Mr. Bicknell were there,” in the affirmative, led Linwood up stairs creaking as they went with rottenness and decay.

“You ‘re to rap there, and he ‘ll come to you,” said the child, as they reached the landing, where two doors presented themselves; and so saying, she slipped noiselessly and stealthily down the stairs, leaving him alone in the gloomy lobby. Linwood was not without astonishment at the place in which he found himself; but there was no time for the indulgence of such a feeling, and he knocked, at first gently, and then, as no answer came, more loudly, and at last when several minutes elapsed, without any summons to enter, he tapped sharply at the panel with his cane. Still there was no reply; the deep silence of the old house seemed like that of a church at midnight; not a sound was heard to break it. There was a sense of dreariness and gloom over the ruinous spot and the fast-closing twilight that struck Linwood deeply; and it is probable, had the mission with which he was intrusted been one of less moment than his master seemed to think it, that Linwood would quietly have descended the stairs, and deferred his interview with Mr. Bicknell to a more suitable time and place. He had come, however, bent on fulfilling his charge; and so, after waiting what he believed to be half an hour, and which might possibly have been five or ten minutes, he applied his hand to the lock, and entered the room.

It was a large, low-ceilinged apartment, whose moth-eaten furniture seemed to rival with the building itself, and which, though once not without some pretension to respectability, was now crumbling to decay, or coarsely mended by some rude hand. A door, not quite shut, led into an inner apartment; and from this room the sound of voices proceeded, whose conversation in all probability had prevented Linwood’s summons from being heard.

Whether the secret instincts of his calling were the prompter, – for Linwood was a valet, – or that the strange circumstances in which he found himself had suggested a spirit of curiosity, but Linwood approached the door and peeped in. The sin of eaves-dropping, like most other sins, would seem only difficult at the first step; the subsequent ones came easily, for, as the listener established himself in a position to hear what went forward, he speedily became interested in what he heard.

By the gray half-light three figures were seen. One was a lady; so at least her position and attitude bespoke her, although her shawl was of a coarse and humble stuff, and her straw bonnet showed signs of time and season. She sat back in a deep leather chair, with hands folded, and her head slightly thrown forward, as if intently listening to the person who at a distance of half the room addressed lier. He was a thick-set, powerful man, in a jockey-cut coat and top-boots; a white hat, somewhat crushed and travel-stained, was at his feet, and across it a heavy horsewhip; his collar was confined by a single fold of a spotted handkerchief that thus displayed a brawny throat and a deep beard of curly black hair that made the head appear unnaturally large. The third figure was of a little, dapper, smart-looking personage, with a neatly powdered head and a scrupulously white cravat, who, standing partly behind the lady’s chair, bestowed an equal attention on the speaker.

The green-coated man, it was clear to see, was of an order in life far inferior to the others, and in the manner of his address, his attitude as he sat, and his whole bearing, exhibited a species of rude deference to the listeners.

“Well, Jack,” cried the little man, in a sharp lively voice, “we knew all these facts before; what we were desirous of was something like proof, – something that might be brought out into open court and before a jury.”

“I’m afraid then, sir,” replied the other, “I can’t help you there. I told Mr. Daly all I knew and all I suspected, when I was up in Newgate; and if he had n’t been in such a hurry that night to leave Dublin for the north, I could have brought him to the very house this fellow Garret was living in.”

“Who is Garret?” broke in the lady, in a deep, full voice.

“The late Mr. Gleeson’s butler, ma’am,” said the little man; “a person we have never been able to come at. To summon him as a witness would avail us nothing; it is his private testimony that might be of such use to us.”

“Well, you see, sir,” continued the green coat, or, as he was familiarly named by the other, Jack, whom, perhaps, our reader has already recognized as Freney, the others being Miss Daly and Bicknell, – “well, you see, sir, Mr. Daly was angry at the way things was done that night, – and sure enough he had good cause, – and sorra bit of a word he ‘d speak to me when I was standing with the tears in my eyes to thank him; no, nor he wouldn’t take the mare that was ready saddled and bridled in Healey’s stables waiting for him, but he turned on his heel with ‘D – n you for a common highwayman; it’s what a man of blood and birth ever gets by stretching a hand to save you.’”

“He should have thought of that before,” remarked Miss Daly, solemnly.

“Faith, and if he did, ma’am, your humble servant would have had to dance upon nothing!” rejoined Freney, with a laugh that was very far from mirthful.

“And what was the circumstance which gave Mr. Daly so much displeasure, Jack?” asked Bicknell. “I thought that everything went on exactly as he had planned it.”

“Quite the contrary, sir; nothing was the way it ought to be. The fire was never thought of – ”

“Never thought of! Do you mean to say it was an accident?”

“No, I don’t, sir; I mean that all we wanted was to make believe that the jail was on fire, which was easy enough with burning straw; the rest was all planned safe and sure. And when we saw the real flames shooting up, sorra one was more frightened than some of ourselves; each accusing the other, cursing and shouting, and crying like mad! Ay, indeed! there was an ould fellow in for sheep-stealing, and nothing would convince him but that it was ‘the devil took us at our word,’ and sent his own fire for us. Not one of them was more puzzled than myself. I turned it every way in my mind, and could make nothing of it; for although I knew well that Mr. Daly would burn down Dublin from Barrack Street to the North Wall if he had a good reason for it, I knew also he ‘d not do it out of mere devilment. Besides, ma’am, the way matters was going, it was likely none of us would escape. There was I – saving your presence – with eight-pound fetters on my legs. Ay, faix! I went down the ladder with them afterwards.”

“But the fire.”

“I ‘m coming to it, sir. I was sitting this way, with my chin on my hands, at the window of my cell, trying to get a taste of fresh air, for the place was thick of smoke, when I seen the flames darting out of the windows of a public-house at the corner, the sign of the ‘Cracked Padlock,’ and at the same minute out came the fire through the roof, a great red spike of flame higher than the chimney. ‘That’s no accident,’ says I to myself, ‘whatever them that’s doing it means;’ and sure enough, the blaze broke out in the other corner of the street just as I said the words. Well, ma’am, of all the terrible yells and cries that was ever heard, the prisoners set up then; for though there was eight lying for execution on Saturday, and twice as many more very sure of the same end after the sessions, none of us liked to face such a dreadful thing as fire. Just then, ma’am, at that very minute, there came, as it might be, under my window, a screech so loud and so piercing that it went above all the other cries, just the way the yellow fire darted through the middle of the thick lazy smoke. Sorra one could give such a screech but a throat I knew well, and so I called out at the top of my voice, ‘Ah, ye limb of the devil, this is your work!’ and as sure as I ‘m here, there came a laugh in my ears; and whether it was the devil himself gave it or Jemmy, I often doubted since.”

“And who is Jemmy?” asked Bicknell.

“A bit of a ‘gossoon’ I had to mind the horses, and meet me with a beast here and there, as I wanted. The greatest villain for wickedness that was ever pinioned!”

“And so he was really the cause of the fire?”

“Ay, was he! He not only hid the tinder and chips – ”

Just as Freney had got thus far, he drew his legs up close beneath him, sunk down his head as if into his neck, and with a spring, such as a tiger might have given, cleared the space between himself and the door, and rolled over on the floor, with the trembling figure of Linwood under him. So terribly sudden was the leap, that Miss Daly and Bicknell scarcely saw the bound ere they beheld him with one hand upon the victim’s throat, while with the other he drew forth a clasp-knife, and opened the blade with his teeth.

“Keep back, keep back!” said Freney, as Bicknell drew nigh; and the words came thick and guttural, like the deep growl of a mastiff.

“Who are you, and what brings you here?” said Freney, as, setting his knee on the other’s chest, he relinquished the grasp by which he had almost choked him.

“I came to see Mr. Bicknell,” muttered the nearly lifeless valet.

“What did you want with me?”

“Wait a bit,” interposed Freney. “Who brought you here? How came you to be standing by that door?”

“Mr. Bicknell’s servant showed me the house, and a child brought me to this room.”

“There, sir,” said Freney, turning his head towards

Bicknell, without releasing the strong pressure by which he pinned the other down, – “there, sir, so much for your caution. You told me if I came to this lady’s lodgings here, that I was safe, and now here ‘s this fellow has heard us and everything we ‘ve said, maybe these two hours.”

“I only heard about Newgate,” muttered the miserable Linwood; “I was but a few minutes at the door, and was going to knock. I came from Lord Wall incourt with papers of great importance for Mr. Bicknell. I have them, if you’ll let me – ”

“Let him get up,” said Miss Daly, calmly.

Freney stood back, and retired between his victim and the door, where he stood, with folded arms and bent brows, watching him.

“He has almost broke in my ribs,” said Linwood, as he pressed his hands to his side, with a grimace of true suffering.

“So much for eaves-dropping. You need expect no pity from me,” said Miss Daly, sternly. “Where are these papers?”

“My Lord told me,” said the man, as he took them from his breast, “that I was to give them into Mr. Bicknell’s own hands, with strictest directions to have them forwarded at the instant But for that,” added he, whining, “I had never come to this.”

“Let it be a lesson to you about listening, sir,” said Miss Daly. “Had my brother been here – ”

“Oh, by the powers!” broke in Freney, “he ‘d have pitched you neck and crop into the water-hogshead below, if your master was the Lord-Lieutenant.”

By this time Bicknell was busy reading the several addresses on the packets, and the names inscribed in the corners of each.

“If I ‘m not mistaken, madam,” said he to Miss Daly, “this Lord Wallincourt is the new peer, whose brother died at Lisbon. The name is Forester.”

“Yes, sir, you are right,” muttered Linwood.

“The same Mr. Richard Forester my brother knew, the cousin of Lord Castlereagh?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Linwood.

“Where is he? Is he here?”

“No, ma’am, he’s lying dangerously ill, if he be yet alive, at Bangor. He wanted to bring these papers over himself, but was only able to get so far when the fever came on him again.”

“Is he alone?”

“Quite alone, ma’am, no one knows even his name. He would not let me say who he was.”

Miss Daly turned towards Bicknell, and spoke for several minutes in a quick and eager voice. Meanwhile Freney, now convinced that he had not to deal with a spy or a thief-catcher, came near and addressed Linwood.

“I did n’t mean to hurt ye till I was sure ye deserved it, but never play that game any more.”

Linwood appeared to receive both apology and precept with equal discontent.

“Another thing,” resumed Freney: “I ‘m sure you are an agreeable young man in the housekeeper’s room and the butler’s parlor, very pleasant and conversable, with a great deal of anecdote and amusing stories; but, mind me, let nothing tempt ye to talk about what ye heard me say tonight. It’s not that I care about myself, – it’s worse than jail-breaking they can tell of me, – but I won’t have another name mentioned. D ‘ye mind me?”

As if to enforce the caution, he seized the listener between his finger and thumb; and whether there was something magnetic in the touch, or that it somehow conveyed a foretaste of what disobedience might cost, but Linwood winced till the tears came, and stammered out, —

“You may depend on it, sir, I ‘ll never mention it.”

“I believe you,” said the robber, with a grin, and fell back to his place.

“I will not lose a post, rely upon it, madam,” said Bick-nell; “and am I to suppose you have determined on this journey?”

“Yes,” said Miss Daly, “the case admits of little hesitation; the young man is alone, friendless, and unknown. I ‘ll hasten over at once, – I am too old for slander, Mr. Bicknell. Besides, let me see who will dare to utter it.”

There was a sternness in her features as she spoke that made her seem the actual image of her brother. Then, turning to Linwood, she continued, —

“I ‘ll go over this evening to Bangor in the packet, let me find you there.”

“I ‘ll see him safe on board, ma’am,” said Freney, with a leer, while, slipping his arm within the valet’s, he half led, half drew him from the room.

CHAPTER XXXII. A LESSON IN POLITICS

In the deep bay-window of a long, gloomy-looking dinner-room of a Dublin mansion, sat a party of four persons around a table plentifully covered with decanters and bottles, and some stray remnants of a dessert which seemed to have been taken from the great table in the middle of the apartment. The night was falling fast, for it was past eight o’clock of an evening in autumn, and there was barely sufficient light to descry the few scrubby-looking ash and alder trees that studded the barren grass-plot between the house and the stables. There was nothing to cheer in the aspect without, nor, if one were to judge from the long pauses that ensued after each effort at conversation, the few and monotonous words of the speakers, were there any evidences of a more enlivening spirit within doors. The party consisted of Dr. Hickman and his son Mr. O’Reilly, Mr. Heffernan, and “Counsellor” O’Halloran.

At first, and by the dusky light in the chamber, it would seem as if but three persons were assembled; for the old doctor, whose debility had within the last few months made rapid strides, had sunk down into the recess of the deep chair, and save by a low quavering respiration, gave no token of his presence. As these sounds became louder and fuller, the conversation gradually dropped into a whisper, for the old man was asleep. In the subdued tone of the speakers, the noiseless gestures as they passed the bottle from hand to hand, it was easy to mark that they did not wish to disturb his slumbers. It is no part of our task to detail how these individuals came to be thus associated. The assumed object which at this moment drew them together was the approaching trial at Galway of a record brought against the Hickmans by Darcy. It was Bick-nell’s last effort, and with it must end the long and wearisome litigation between the houses.

The case for trial had nothing which could suggest any fears as to the result. It was on a motion for a new trial that the cause was to come on. The plea was misdirection and want of time, so that, in itself, the matter was one of secondary importance. The great question was that a general election now drew nigh, and it was necessary for O’Reilly to determine on the line of political conduct he should adopt, and thus give O’Halloran the opportunity of a declaration of his client’s sentiments in his address to the jury.

The conduct of the Hickmans since their accession to the estate of Gwynne Abbey had given universal dissatisfaction to the county gentry. Playing at first the game of popularity, they assembled at their parties people of every class and condition; and while affronting the better-bred by low association, dissatisfied the inferior order by contact with those who made their inferiority more glaring. The ancient hospitalities of the Abbey were remembered in contrast with the ostentatious splendor of receptions in which display and not kindness was intended. Vulgar presumption and purse-pride had usurped the place once occupied by easy good breeding and cordiality; and even they who had often smarted under the cold reserve of Lady Eleanor’s manner, were now ready to confess that she was born to the rank she assumed, and not an upstart, affecting airs of superiority. The higher order of the county gentry accordingly held aloof, and at last discontinued their visits altogether; of the second-rate many who were flattered at first by invitations, became dissatisfied at seeing the same favors extended to others below them, and they, too, ceased to present themselves, until, at last, the society consisted of a few sycophantic followers, who swallowed the impertinence of the host with the aid of his claret, and buried their own self-respect, if they were troubled with such a quality, under the weight of good dinners.

Hickman O’Reilly for a length of time affected not to mark the change in the rank and condition of his guests, but as one by one the more respectable fell off, and the few left were of a station that the fine servants of the house regarded as little above their own, he indignantly declined to admit any company in future, reduced the establishment to the few merely necessary for the modest requirements of the family, and gave it to be known that the uncongenial tastes and habits of his neighbors made him prefer isolation and solitude to such association.