The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 2

For some time he had looked to England as the means of establishing for himself and his son a social position. The refusal of the minister to accord the baronetcy was a death-blow to this hope, while he discovered that mere wealth, unassisted by the sponsorship of some one in repute, could not suffice to introduce Beeeham into the world of fashion. Although these things had preyed on him severely, there was no urgent necessity to act in respect of them till the time came, as it now had done, for a general election.

The strict retirement of his life must now give way before the requirements of an election candidate, and he must consent to take the field once more as a public man, or, by abandoning his seat in Parliament, accept a condition of what he knew to be complete obscurity. The old doctor was indeed favorable to the latter course, – the passion for hoarding had gone on increasing with age. Money was, in his estimation, the only species of power above the changes and caprice of the world. Bank-notes were the only things he never knew to deceive; and he took an almost fiendish delight in contrasting the success of his own penurious practices with all the disappointments his son O’Reilly had experienced in his attempts at what he called “high life.” Every slight shown him, each new instance of coldness or aversion of the neighborhood, gave the old man a diabolical pleasure, and seemed to revive his youth in the exercise of a malignant spirit.

O’Reilly’s only hope of reconciling his father to the cost of a new election was in the prospect held out that the seat might at last be secured in perpetuity for Beeeham, and the chance of a rich marriage in England thus provided. Even this view he was compelled to sustain by the assurance that the expense would be a mere trifle, and that, by the adoption of popular principles, he should come in almost for nothing. To make the old doctor a convert to these notions, he had called in Heffernau and O’Halloran, who both, during the dinner, had exerted themselves with their natural tact, and now that the doctor had dropped asleep, were reposing themselves, and recruiting the energies so generously expended.

Hence the party seemed to have a certain gloom and weight over it, as the shadow of coming night fell on the figures seated, almost in silence, around the table. None spoke save an occasional word or two, as they passed round the bottle. Each retreated into his own reflections, and communed with himself. Men who have exhibited themselves to each other, in a game of deceit and trick, seem to have a natural repugnance to any recurrence to the theme when the occasion is once over. Even they whose hearts have the least self-respect will avoid the topic if possible.

“How is the bottle? – with you, I believe,” said O’Reilly to Heffernan, in the low tone to which they had all reduced the conversation.

“I have just filled my glass; it stands with the Counsellor.”

O’Halloran poured out the wine and sipped it slowly. “A very remarkable man,” said he, sententiously, with a slight gesture of his head to the chair where the old doctor lay coiled up asleep. “His faculties seem as clear, and his judgment as acute, as if he were only five-and-forty, and I suppose he must be nearly twice that age.”

“Very nearly,” replied O’Reilly; “he confesses commonly to eighty-six; but when he is weak or querulous, he often says ninety-one or two.”

“His memory is the most singular thing about him,” said Heffernan. “Now, the account of Swift’s appearance in the pulpit with his gown thrust back, and his hands stuck in the belt of his cassock, brow-beating the lord mayor and aldermen for coming in late to church, – it came as fresh as if he were talking of an event of last week.”

“How good the imitation of voice was, too,” added Heffernan: “‘Giving two hours to your dress, and twenty minutes to your devotions, you come into God’s house looking more like mountebanks than Christian men!’”

“I ‘ve seldom seen him so much inclined to talk and chat away as this evening,” said O’Reilly; “but I think you chimed in so well with his humor, it drew him on.”

“There was something of dexterity,” said Heffernan, “in the way he kept bringing up these reminiscences and old stories, to avoid entering upon the subject of the election. I saw that he would n’t approach that theme, no matter how skilfully you brought it forward.”

“You ought not to have alluded to the Darcys, however,” said O’Halloran. “I remarked that the mention of their name gave him evident displeasure; indeed, he soon after pushed his chair back from the table and became silent.”

“He always sleeps after dinner,” observed O’Reilly, carelessly. “It was about his usual time.”

Another pause now succeeded, in which the only sounds heard were the deep-drawn breathings of the sleeper.

“You saw Lord Castlereagh, I think you told me?” said O’Reilly, anxious to lead Heffernan into something like a declaration of opinion.

“Oh, repeatedly; I dined either with him or in his company, three or four times every week of my stay in town.”

“Well, is he satisfied with the success of his measure?” asked O’Halloran, caustically. “Is this Union working to his heart’s content?”

“It is rather early to pass a judgment on that point, I think.”

“I’m not of that mind,” rejoined O’Halloran, hastily. “The fruits of the measure are showing themselves already. The men of fortune are flying the country; their town houses are to let; their horses are advertised for sale at Dycer’s. Dublin is, even now, beginning to feel what it may become when the population has no other support than itself.”

“Such will always be the fortune of a province. Influence will and must converge to the capital,” rejoined Heffernan.

“But what if the great element of a province be wanting? What if we have not that inherent respect and reverence for the metropolis provincials always should feel? What if we know that our interests are misunderstood, our real wants unknown, our peculiar circumstances either undervalued or despised?”

“If the case be as you represent it – ”

“Can you deny it? Tell me that.”

“I will not deny or admit it. I only say, if it be such, there is still a remedy, if men are shrewd enough to adopt it.”

“And what may that remedy be?” said O’Reilly, calmly.

“An Irish party!”

“Oh, the old story; the same plot over again we had this year at the Rotunda?” said O’Reilly, contemptuously.

“Which only failed from our own faults,” added Heffer-nan, angrily. “Some of us were lukewarm and would do nothing; some waited for others to come forward; and some again wanted to make their hard bargain with the minister before they made him feel the necessity of the compact.”

O’Reilly bit his lip in silence, for he well understood at whom this reproof was levelled.

“The cause of failure was very different,” said O’Hallo-ran, authoritatively. “It was one which has dissolved many an association, and rendered many a scheme abortive, and will continue to do so, as often as it occurs. You failed for want of a ‘Principle.’ You had rank and wealth, and influence more than enough to have made your weight felt and acknowledged, but you had no definite object or end. You were a party, and you had not a purpose.”

“Come, come,” said Heffernan, “you are evidently unaware of the nature of our association, and seem not to have read the resolutions we adopted.”

“No, – on the contrary, I read them carefully; there was more than sufficient in them to have made a dozen parties. Had you adopted one steadfast line of action, set out with one brief intelligible proposition, – I care not what, – Slave Emancipation, or Catholic Emancipation, Repeal of Tests Acts, or Parliamentary Reform, any of them, – taken your stand on that, and that alone, you must have succeeded. Of course, to do this is a work of time and labor; some men will grow weary and sink by the way, but others take up the burden, and the goal is reached at last There must be years long of writing and speaking, meeting, declaring, and plotting; you must consent to be thought vulgar and low-minded, – ay, and to become so, for active partisans are only to be found in low places. You will be laughed at and jeered, abused, mocked, and derided at first; later on, you will be assailed more powerfully and more coarsely; but, all this while, your strength is developing, your agencies are spreading. Persuasion will induce some, notoriety others, hopes of advantage many more, to join you. You will then have a press as well as a party, and the very men that sneered at your beginnings will have to respect the persistence and duration of your efforts. I don’t care how trumpery the arguments used; I don’t value one straw the fallacy of the statements put forward. Let one great question, one great demand for anything, be made for some five-and-twenty or thirty years, – let the Press discuss, and the Parliament debate it, – you are sure of its being accorded in the end. Now, it will be a party ambitious of power that will buy your alliance at any price; now, a tottering Government anxious to survive the session and reach the snug harbor of the long vacation. Now, it will be the high ‘bid’ of a popular administration; now, it will be the last hope of second-rate capacities, ready to supply their own deficiencies by incurring a hazard. However it come, you are equally certain of it.”

There was a pause as O’Halloran concluded. Heffernan saw plainly to what the Counsellor pointed, and that he was endeavoring to recruit for that party of which he destined the future leadership for himself, and Con had no fancy to serve in the ranks of such an army. O’Reilly, who thought that the profession of a popular creed might be serviceable in the emergency of an election, looked with more favor on the exposition, and after a brief interval said, —

“Well, supposing I were to see this matter in your light, what support could you promise me? I mean at the hustings.”

“Most of the small freeholders, now, – all of them, in time; the priests to a man, the best election agents that ever canvassed a constituency. By degrees the forces will grow stronger, according to the length and breadth of the principle you adopt, – make it emancipation, and I ‘ll insure you a lease of the county.” Heffernan smiled dubiously. “Ah, never mind Mr. Heffernan’s look; these notions don’t suit him. He ‘s one of the petty traders in politics, who like small sales and quick returns.”

“Such dealing makes fewest bankrupts,” said Heffernan, coolly.

“I own to you,” said O’Halloran, “the rewards are distant, but they ‘re worth waiting for. It is not the miserable bribe of a situation, or a title, both beneath what they would accord to some state apothecary; but power, actual power, and real patronage are in the vista.”

A heavy sigh and a rustling sound in the deep armchair announced that the doctor was awaking, and after a few struggles to throw off the drowsy influence, he sat upright, and made a gesture that he wished for wine.

“We ‘ve been talking about political matters, sir,” said O’Reilly. “I hope we didn’t disturb your doze?”

“No; I was sleeping sound,” croaked the old man, in a feeble whine, “and I had a very singular dream! I dreamed I was sitting in a great kitchen of a big house, and there was a very large, hairy turnspit sitting opposite to me, in a nook beside the fire, turning a big spit with a joint of meat on it. ‘Who’s the meat for?’ says I to him. ‘For my Lord Castlereagh,’ says he, ‘devil a one else.’ ‘For himself alone?’ says I. ‘Just so,’ says he; ‘don’t you know that’s the Irish Parliament that we ‘re roasting and basting, and when it’s done,’ says he, ‘we ‘ll sarve it up to be carved.’ ‘And who are you?’ says I to the turnspit. ‘I’m Con Heffernan,’ says he; ‘and the devil a bit of the same meat I ‘m to get, after cooking it till my teeth ‘s watering.’”

A loud roar of laughter from O’Halloran, in which Heffernan endeavored to take a part, met this strange revelation of the doctor’s sleep, nor was it for a considerable time after that the conversation could be resumed without some jesting allusion of the Counsellor to the turnspit and his office.

“Your dream tallies but ill, sir, with the rumors through Dublin,” said O’Reilly, whose quick glance saw through the mask of indifference by which Heffernan concealed his irritation.

“I did n’t hear it. What was it, Bob?”

“That the ministry had offered our friend here the secretaryship for Ireland.”

“Sure, if they did – ” He was about to add, “That he ‘d have as certainly accepted it,” when a sense of the impropriety of such a speech arrested the words.

“You are mistaken, sir,” interposed Heffernan, answering the unspoken sentence. “I did refuse. The conditions on which I accorded my humble support to the bill of the Union have been shamefully violated, and I could not, if I even wished it, accept office from a Government that have been false to their pledges.”

“You see my dream was right, after all,” chuckled the old man. “I said they kept him working away in the kitchen, and gave him none of the meat afterwards.”

“What if I had been stipulating for another, sir?” said Heffernan, with a forced smile. “What if the breach of faith I allude to had reference not to me, but to your son yonder, for whom, and no other, I asked – I will not say a favor, but a fair and reasonable acknowledgment of the station he occupies?”

“Ah, that weary title!” exclaimed the doctor, crankily. “What have we to do with these things?”

“You are right, sir,” chimed in O’Halloran. “Your present position, self-acquired and independent, is a far prouder one than any to be obtained by ministerial favor.”

“I ‘d rather he’d help us to crush these Darcys,” said the old man, as his eyes sparkled and glistened like the orbs of a serpent. “I ‘d rather my Lord Castlereagh would put his heel upon them than stretch out the hand to us.”

“What need to trouble your head about them?” said Heffernan, conciliatingly; “they are low enough in all conscience now.”

“My father means,” said O’Reilly, “that he is tired and sick of the incessant appeals to law this family persist in following; that these trials irritate and annoy him.”

“Come sir,” cried O’Halloran, encouragingly, “you shall see the last of them in a few weeks. I have reason to know that an old maiden sister of Bagenal Daly’s has supplied Bicknell with the means of the present action. It’s the last shot in the locker. We ‘ll take care to make the gun recoil on the hand that fires it.”

“Darcy and Daly are both out of the country,” observed the old man, cunningly.

“We ‘ll call them up for judgment, however,” chimed in O’Halloran. “That same Daly is one of those men who infested our country in times past, and by the mere recklessness of their hold on life, bullied and oppressed all who came before them. I am rejoiced to have an opportunity of showing up such a character.”

“I wish we had done with them all,” sighed the doctor.

“So you shall, with this record. Will you pledge yourself not to object to the election expenses if I gain you the verdict?”

“Come, that’s a fair offer,” said Heffernan, laughing.

“Maybe, they ‘ll come to ten thousand,” said the doctor, cautiously.

“Not above one half the sum, if Mr. O’Reilly will consent to take my advice.”

“And why wouldn’t he?” rejoined the old man, querulously. “What signifies which side he takes, if it saves the money?”

“Is it a bargain, then?”

“Will you secure me against more trials at law? Will you pledge yourself that I am not to be tormented by these anxieties and cares?”

“I can scarcely promise that much; but I feel so assured that your annoyance will end here, that I am willing to pledge myself to give you my own services without fee or reward in future, if any action follow this one.”

“I think that is most generous,” said Heffernan.

“It is as much as saying, he ‘ll enter into recognizances for an indefinite series of five-hundred-pound briefs,” added O’Reilly.

“Done, then. I take you at your word,” said the doctor; while stretching forth his lean and trembling hand, he grasped the nervous fingers of the Counsellor in token of ratification.

“And now woe to the Darcys!” muttered O’Halloran, as he arose to say good-night, Heffernan arose at the same time, resolved to accompany the Counsellor, and try what gentle persuasion could effect in the modification of views which he saw were far too explicit to be profitable.

CHAPTER XXXIII. THE CHANCES OF TRAVEL

Neither our space nor our inclination prompt us to dwell on Forester’s illness; enough when we say that his recovery, slow at first, made at length good progress, and within a month after the commencement of the attack, he was once more on the road, bent on reaching the North, and presenting himself before Lady Eleanor and her daughter.

Miss Daly, who had been his kind and watchful nurse for many days and nights ere his wandering faculties could recognize her, contributed more than all else to his restoration. The impatient anxiety under which he suffered was met by her mild but steady counsels; and although she never ventured to bid him hope too sanguinely, she told him that his letter had reached Helen’s hand, and that he himself must plead the cause he had opened.

“Your greatest difficulty,” said she, in parting with him in Dublin, “will be in the very circumstance which, in ordinary cases, would be the guarantee of your success. Your own rise in fortune has widened the interval between you. This, to your mind, presents but the natural means of overcoming the obstacles I allude to; but remember there are others whose feelings are to be as intimately consulted, – nay, more so than your own. Think of those who never yet made an alliance without feeling that they were on a footing of perfect equality; and reflect that even if Helen’s affections were all your own, Maurice Darcy’s daughter can enter into no family, however high and proud it may be, save as the desired and sought-for by its chief members. Build upon anything lower than this, and you fail. More still,” added she, almost sternly, “your failure will meet with no compassion from me. Think not, because I have gone through life a lone, uncared-for thing, that I undervalue the strength and power of deep affection, or that I could counsel you to make it subservient to views of worldliness and advantage. You know me little if you think so. But I would tell you this, that no love deserving of the name ever existed without those high promptings of the heart that made all difficulties easy to encounter, – ay, even those worst of difficulties that spring from false pride and prejudice. It is by no sudden outbreak of temper, no selfish threat of this or that insensate folly, that your lady-mother’s consent should be obtained. It is by the manly dignity and consistency of a character that in the highest interests of a higher station give a security for sound judgment and honorable motives. Let it appear from your conduct that you are not swayed by passion or caprice. You have already won men’s admiration for the gallantry of your daring. There is something better still than this, the esteem and regard that are never withheld from a course of honorable and independent action. With these on your side, rely upon it, a mother’s heart will not be the last in England to acknowledge and glory in your fame. And now, good-bye; you have a better travelling-companion than me, – you have hope with you.”

She returned the cordial pressure of his hand, and was turning away, when, after what had seemed a kind of struggle with her feelings, she added, —

“One word more, even at the hazard of wearying you. Above all and everything, be honest, be candid; not only with others, but with yourself! Examine well your heart, and let no sense of false shame, let no hopes of some chance or accident deceive you, by which your innermost feelings are to be guessed at, and not avowed. This is the blackest of calamities; this can even embitter every hour of a long life.”

Her voice trembled at the last words; and as she concluded, she wrung his hand once more affectionately, and moved hurriedly away. Forester looked after her with a tender interest. For the first time in his life he heard her sob. “Yes,” thought he, as he lay back and covered his eyes with his hand, “she, too, has loved, and loved unhappily.”

There are few sympathies stronger, not even those of illness itself, than connect those whose hearts have struggled under unrequited affection; and so, for many an hour as he travelled, Forester’s thoughts recurred to Miss Daly, and the last troubled accents of her parting speech. Perhaps he did not dwell the less on that theme because it carried him away from his own immediate hopes and fears, – emotions that rendered him almost irritable by their intensity.

While on the road, Forester travelled with all the speed he could accomplish. His weakness did not permit of his being many hours in a carriage, and he endeavored to compensate for this by rapid travelling at the time. His impatience to get forward was, however, such that he scarcely arrived at any halting-place without ordering horses to be at once got ready, so that, when able, he resumed the road without losing a moment.

In compliance with this custom, the carriage was standing all ready with its four posters at the door of the inn of Castle Blayney; while Forester, overcome by fatigue and exhaustion, had thrown himself on the bed and fallen asleep. The rattling crash of a mail-coach and its deep-toned horn suddenly awoke him: he started, and looked at his watch. Was it possible? It was nearly midnight; he must have slept more than three hours! Half gratified by the unaccustomed rest, half angry at the lapse of time, he arose to depart. The night was the reverse of inviting; a long-threatened storm had at last burst forth, and the rain was falling in torrents, while the wind, in short and fitful gusts, shook the house to its foundation, and scattered tiles and slates over the dreary street.

So terrible was the hurricane, many doubts were entertained that the mail could proceed further; and when it did at length set forth, gloomy prognostics of danger – dark pictures of precipices, swollen torrents, and broken bridges – were rife in the bar and the landlord’s room. These arguments, if they could be so called, were all renewed when Forester called for his bill, as a preparation to depart, and all the perils that ever happened by land or by water recapitulated to deter him.

“The middle arch of the Slaney bridge was tottering when the up-mail passed three hours before. A horse and cart were just fished out of Mooney’s pond, but no driver as yet discovered. The forge at the cross roads was blown down, and the rafters were lying across the highway.” These, and a dozen other like calamities, were bandied about, and pitched like shuttlecocks from side to side, as the impatient traveller descended the stairs.

Had Forester cared for the amount of the reckoning, which he did not, he might have entertained grave fears of its total, on the principle well known to travellers, that the speed of its coming is always in the inverse ratio of the sum, and that every second’s delay is sure to swell its proportions. Of this he never thought once; but he often reflected on the tardiness of waiters, and the lingering tediousness of the moments of parting.

“It’s coming, sir; he ‘s just adding it up,” said the head waiter, for the sixth time within three minutes, while he moved to and fro, with the official alacrity that counterfeits despatch. “I ‘m afraid you ‘ll have a bad night, sir. I ‘m sure the horses won’t be able to face the storm over Grange Connel.”

Forester made no reply, but walked up and down the hall in moody silence.

“The gentleman that got off the mail thought so too,” added the waiter; “and now he ‘s pleasanter at his supper, iu the coffee-room, than sitting out there, next to the guard, wet to the skin, and shivering with cold.”

Less to inspect the stranger thus alluded to than to escape the impertinent loquacity of the waiter, Forester turned the handle of the door, and entered the coffee-room. It was a large, dingy-looking chamber, whose only bright spot seemed within the glow of a blazing turf-fire, where at a little table a gentleman was seated at supper. His back was turned to Forester; but even in the cursory glance the latter gave, he could perceive that he was an elderly personage, and one who had not abandoned the almost bygone custom of a queue.