The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 2

As winter closed in, they removed to Dublin, and established themselves temporarily in an old-fashioned family hotel, selected by Bicknell, in a quiet, unpretending street. Neither their means nor inclination would have prompted them to select a more fashionable resting-place, while the object of strict seclusion was here secured. The ponderous gloom of the staid old house, where, from the heavy sideboard of almost black mahogany to the wrinkled visage of the grim waiter, all seemed of a bygone century, were rather made matters of mutual pleasantry among the party than sources of dissatisfaction; while the Knight assured them that this was in his younger days the noisy resort of the gay and fashionable of the capital.

“Indeed,” added he, “I am not quite sure that this is not where the ‘Townsends,’ as the club was then called, used to meet in Swift’s time. Bicknell will tell us all about it, for he’s coming to dine with us.”

Forester was the first to appear in the drawing-room before dinner. It is possible that he hurried his toilet in the hope of speaking a few words to Helen, who not un-frequently came down before her mother. If so, he was doomed to disappointment, as the room was empty when he entered; and there was nothing for it but to wait, impatiently indeed, and starting at every footstep on the stairs and every door that shut or opened.

At last he heard the sound of approaching steps, softened by the deep old carpet. They came, – he listened, – the door opened, and the waiter announced a name, what and whose Forester paid no attention to, in his annoyance that it was not hers he expected. The stranger-a very plump, joyous little personage in deep black – did not appear quite unknown to Forester; but as the recognition interested him very little, he merely returned a formal bow to the other’s more cordial salute, and turned to the window where he was standing.

“The Knight, I believe, is dressing?” said the new arrival, advancing towards Forester.

“Yes; but I have no doubt he will be down in a few moments.”

“Time enough, – no hurry in life. They told me below stairs that you were here, and so I came up at once. I thought that I might introduce myself. Paul Dempsey, – Dempsey’s Grove. You’ve heard of me before, eh?”

“I have had that pleasure,” said Forester, with more animation of manner; for now he remembered the face and figure of the worthy Paul, as he had seen both in the large mirror of his mother’s drawing-room.

“Ha! I guessed as much,” rejoined Paul, with a chuckling laugh; “the ladies are here, too, ain’t they?”

Forester assented, and Paul went on.

“Only heard of it from Bicknell half an hour ago. Took a car, and came off at once. And when did you come?”

Forester stared with amazement at a question whose precise meaning he could not guess at, and to which he could only reply by a half-smile, expressive of his difficulty.

“You were away, weren’t you?” asked Dempsey.

“Yes; I have been out of England,” replied Forester, more than ever puzzled how this fact could or ought to have any interest for the other.

“Never be ashamed of it. Soldiering ‘s very well in its way, though I ‘d never any taste for it myself, – none of that martial spirit that stirred the bumpkin as he sang, —

Perhaps a recruitMight chance to shootGreat General Buonaparte.

Well, well! it seems you soon got tired of glory, of which, from all I hear, a little goes very far with any man’s stomach; and no wonder. Except a French bayonet, there ‘s nothing more indigestible than commissary bread.”

“The service is not without some hardships,” said Forester, blandly, and preferring to shelter himself under generality than invite further inquisitiveness.

“Cruelties you might call them,” rejoined Dempsey, with energy. “The frightful stories we read in the papers! – and I suppose they are all true. Were you ever touched up a bit yourself?” This Paul said in his most insinuating manner; and as Forester’s stare showed a total ignorance of his meaning, he added, “A little four-and-twenty, I mean,” mimicking, as he spoke, the action of flogging.

“Sir!” exclaimed Forester, with an energy almost ferocious; and Dempsey made a spring backwards, and intrenched himself behind a sofa-table.

“Blood alive!” he exclaimed, “don’t be angry. I wouldn’t offend you for the world; but I thought – ”

“Never mind, sir, – your apology is quite sufficient,” said Forester, who had no small difficulty to repress laughing at the terrified face before him. “I am quite convinced there was no intention to give offence.”

“Spoke like a man,” said Dempsey, coming out from his ambush with an outstretched hand; and Forester, not usually very unbending in such cases, could not help accepting the salutation so heartily proffered.

“Ah, my excellent friend, Mr. Dempsey!” said the Knight, entering at the same moment, and gayly tapping him on the shoulder. “A man I have long wished to see, and thank for many kind offices in my absence. – I ‘m glad to see you are acquainted with Mr. Dempsey. – Well, and how fares the world with you?”

“Better, rather better, Knight,” said Paul, who had scarcely recovered the fright Forester had given him. “You’ve heard that old Bob’s off? Didn’t go till he could n’t help it, though; and now your humble servant is the head of the house.”

While the Knight expressed his warm congratulations, Lady Eleanor and Helen came in; and by their united invitation Paul was persuaded to remain for dinner, – an event which, it must be owned, Forester could not possibly comprehend.

Bicknell’s arrival soon after completed the party, which, however discordant in some respects, soon exhibited signs of perfect accordance and mutual satisfaction. Mr. Dempsey’s presence having banished all business topics for discussion, he was permitted to launch out into his own favorite themes, not the least amusing feature of which was the perfect amazement of Forester at the man and his intimacy.

As the ladies withdrew to the drawing-room, Paul became more moody and thoughtful, now and then interchanging glances with Bicknell, and seeming as if on the verge of something, and yet half doubting how to approach it. Two or three hastily swallowed bumpers, and a look, which he believed of encouragement, from Bicknell, at length rallied Mr. Dempsey, and after a slight hesitation, he said, —

“I believe, Knight, we are all friends here; it is, strictly speaking, a cabinet council?”

If Darcy did not fathom the meaning of the speech, he had that knowledge of the speaker which made his assent to it almost a matter of course.

“That’s what I thought,” resumed Paul; “and it is a moment I have been anxiously looking for. Has our friend here said anything?” added he, with a gesture towards Bicknell.

“I, sir? I said nothing, I protest!” exclaimed the man of law, with an air of deprecation. “I told you, Mr. Dempsey, that I would inform the Knight of the generous proposition you made about the loan; but, till the present moment, I have not had the opportunity.”

“Pooh, pooh! a mere trifle,” interrupted Paul. “It is not of that I was thinking: it is of a very different subject I would speak. Has Lady Eleanor or Miss Darcy – has she told you nothing of me?” said he, addressing the Knight.

“Indeed they have, Mr. Dempsey, both spoken of you repeatedly, and always in the same terms of grateful remembrance.”

“It isn’t that, either,” said Paul, with a half-sigh of disappointment.

“You are unjust to yourself, Mr. Dempsey,” said Darcy, good-humoredly, “to rest a claim to our gratitude on any single instance of kindness; trust me that we recognize the whole debt.”

“But it’s not that,” rejoined Paul, with a shake of the head. “Lord bless us! how close women are about these things,” muttered he to himself. “There is nothing for it but candor, I suppose, eh?”

This being put in the form of a direct question, and the Knight having as freely assented, Paul resumed, – “Well, here it is. Being now at the head of an ancient name, and very pretty independence, – Bicknell has seen the papers, – I have been thinking of that next step a man takes who would wish to – wish to-hand down a little race of Dempseys. You understand?” Darcy smiled approvingly, and Paul continued: “And as conformity of temper, taste, and habits are the surest pledges of such felicity, I have set the eyes of my affections upon – Miss Darcy.”

So little prepared was the Knight for what was coming, that up to that moment he had been listening with a smile of easy enjoyment; but when the last word was spoken, he started as if he had been stung by a reptile, nor could all his habitual self-control master the momentary flush of irritation that covered his face.

“I know,” said Paul, with a dim consciousness that his proposition was but half acceptable, “that we are not exactly, so to say, the same rank and class; but the Dempseys are looking up, and – ”

“‘The Darcys looking down,’ you would add,” said the Knight, with a gleam of his habitual humor in his eye.

“And, like the buckets in a well, the full and empty ones meet half-way,” added Dempsey, laughing. “I know well, as I said before, we are not the same kind of people, and perhaps this would have deterred me from indulging any thoughts on the subject, but for a chance, a bit of an accident, as a body may call it, that gave me courage.”

“This is the very temple of candor, Mr. Dempsey,” said the Knight, smiling. “Pray proceed, and let us hear the source of your encouragement; what was it?”

“Say, who was it, rather,” interposed Paul.

“Be it so, then. Who was it? You have only made my curiosity stronger.”

“Lady Eleanor, – ay, and Miss Helen herself.”

A start of anger and a half-spoken exclamation were as quickly interrupted by a fit of laughing; and the Knight leaned back in his chair, and shook with the emotion.

“You doubt it; you think it absurd,” said Dempsey, himself laughing, and not exhibiting the slightest irritation. “What if they say it’s true, – will that content you?”

“I’m afraid it would not,” said Darcy, equivocally; “there’s nothing less likely to do so. Still, I assure you, Mr. Dempsey, if the ladies are of the mind you attribute to them, I shall find it very difficult to disbelieve anything I ever hear hereafter.”

“I’m satisfied to stand or fall by their verdict,” said Paul, resolutely. “I’m not a fool, exactly; and do you think if I had not something stronger than mere suspicion to guide me, that I’d have gone that same journey to London? Oh, I forgot – I did not tell you about my going to Lord Netherby.”

“You went to Lord Netherby, and on this subject?” said Darcy, whose face became suffused with shame, an emotion doubly painful from Forester’s presence.

“That I did,” rejoined the unabashed Paul, “and a long conversation we had over the matter. He introduced me to his wife too. Lord bless us, but that is a bit of pride!”

“You are aware that the lady is Lord Wallincourt’s mother,” interposed Darcy, sternly.

“Faith, so that she is n’t mine,” said the inexorable Paul, “I don’t care! There she was, lying in state, with a greyhound with silver bells on his neck at her feet; and when I came into the room, she lifts up her head and gives me a look, as much as to say, ‘Oh, that’s him.’ – ‘Mr. Dempsey, of Dempsey’s Hole,’ – for hole he would call it, in spite of me, – ‘Mr. Dempsey, my love,’ said my Lord, bowing as ceremoniously as if he never saw her before; and so, taking the hint, I began a little course of salutations, when she called out, ‘Tell him not to do that, Netherby, – tell him not to do that-’”

This was too much for Mr. Dempsey’s hearers, who, however differently minded as to the narrative, now concurred in one outbreak of hearty laughter.

“Well, my Lord,” said Darcy, turning to Forester, “you certainly have shown evidence of a most enviable good temper. Had your Lordship – ”

“His Lordship!” exclaimed Paul, in amazement. “Is n’t that your son, – Captain Darcy?”

“No, indeed, Mr. Dempsey,” said the Knight; “I thought, as I came into the drawing-room, that you were acquainted, or I should have presented you to the Earl of Wallincourt.”

“Oh, ain’t I in for it now!” cried Paul, in an accent of grief most ludicrously natural. “Oh! by the powers, I ‘m up to the knees in trouble! And that was your mother! oh dear! oh dear!”

“You see, my worthy friend,” said Darcy, smiling, “how easy a thing deception is. Is it not possible that your misconceptions do not end here?”

“I ‘ll never get over it, I know I’ll not!” exclaimed Paul, wringing his hands as he arose from the table. “Bad luck to it for grandeur!” muttered he between his teeth; “I never had a minute’s happiness since I got the taste for it.” And with this honest avowal he rushed out of the room.

It was some time before the party in the dining-room adjourned upstairs; but when they did, they found Mr. Dempsey seated at the fire, recounting to the ladies his late unhappy discomfiture, – a narrative which even Lady Eleanor’s gravity was not enabled to withstand. A kind audience was always a boon of the first water to honest Paul; and very little pressing was needed to induce him to continue his revelations, for the Knight wisely felt that such pretensions as his could not be buried so satisfactorily as beneath the load of ridicule.

Mr. Dempsey’s scruples soon vanished and thawed under the warmth of encouraging voices and smiles, and he began the narrative of his night at “The Corvy,” his painful durance in the canoe, his escape, the burning of the law papers, and each step of his progress to the very moment that he stood a listener at Lady Eleanor’s door. Then he halted abruptly and said, “Now I’m dumb! racks and thumbscrews wouldn’t get more out of me.”

“You cannot mean, sir,” said Lady Eleanor, calmly but haughtily, “that you overheard the conversation that passed between my daughter and myself?”

“Every word of it!” replied Paul, bluntly.

“Oh, really, sir, I can scarcely compliment you on the spirit of your curiosity; for although the theme we talked on, if I remember aright, was the speedy necessity of removing, – the urgency of seeking some place of refuge – ”

“If I had n’t heard which, I could not have assisted you in your departure,” rejoined the unabashed Paul: “the old Loyola maxim, ‘Evil, that Good may come of it.’”

Helen sat pale and terrified all this time; for although Lady Eleanor had forgotten the discussion of any other topic on that night save that of their legal difficulties, she well remembered a theme nearer and dearer to her heart. Whether from the distress of these thoughts, or in the hope of propitiating Mr. Dempsey to silence, so it was, she fixed her eyes upon him with an expression Paul thought he could read, and he gave a look of such conscious intelligence in return as brought the blush to her cheek. “I ‘m not going to say one word about it,” said he, in a stage whisper that even the Knight himself overheard.

“Then I must myself insist upon Mr. Dempsey’s revelations,” said Darcy, not at all satisfied with the air of mystery Dempsey threw around his intercourse.

Another look from Helen here met Paul’s, and he stood uncertain how to act.

“Really, sir,” said Lady Eleanor, “however little the subject we discussed was intended for other ears than our own, I must beg of you now to repeat what you remember of it.”

“Well, what can I do?” exclaimed Paul, looking at Helen with an expression of the most helpless misery; “I know you are angry, and I know that when you like it, you can blaze up like a Congreve rocket. Oh, faith! I don’t forget the day I showed you the newspaper about the English officer thrashing O’Halloran!”

Helen grew scarlet, and turned away, but not before Forester had caught her eyes, and read in them more of hope than his heart had known for many a day before.

“These are more mysteries, Mr. Dempsey; and if you continue to scatter riddles as you go, we shall never get to the end of this affair.”

“Perhaps,” interposed Bicknell, hoping to close the unpleasant discussion, – “perhaps Mr. Dempsey, feeling that he had personally no interest in the conversation between Lady Eleanor and Miss Darcy – ”

“Had n’t he, then?” exclaimed Paul, – “maybe not. If I hadn’t, then, who had? – tell me that. Wasn’t it then and there I first heard of the kind intentions towards me?”

“Towards you, sir! Of what are you speaking?”

“Blood alive! will you tell me that I ‘m not Paul Dempsey, of Dempsey’s Grove?” exclaimed he, driven beyond all patience by what he deemed equivocation. “Will you tell me that your Ladyship didn’t allude to the day I brought the letter from Coleraine, and say that you actually began to like me from that hour? Did n’t you tell Miss Helen not to lie down-hearted, because there were better days in store for us? Miss Darcy remembers it, I see, – ay, and your Ladyship does now. Did n’t you call me rash and headstrong and ambitious? I forgive it all; I believe it is true. And was n’t I your bond-slave from that hour? Oh, mercy on me! the pleasant time I had of it at Mother Fum’s! Then came the days and nights I was watching over you at Ballintray. Ay, faith, and money was very scarce with me when I gave old Denny Nolan five shillings for the loan of his nankeen jacket to perform the part of waiter at the little inn. Do you remember a little note, in the shape of a friendly warning? Eh, now, my Lady, I think your memory is something fresher.”

If the confusion of Lady Eleanor and her daughter was extreme at this outpouring of Mr. Dempsey’s confessions, the amazement of Darcy and the utter stupefaction of Forester were even greater; to throw discredit upon him would be to acknowledge the real bearing of the circumstances, which would be far worse than all his imputations; so there was no alternative but to lie under every suspicion his narrative might suggest.

Forester felt annoyed as much that such a person should have obtained this assumed intimacy as by the pretensions he well knew were only absurd, and took an early leave under the pretence of fatigue. Bicknell soon followed; and now the Knight, arresting Dempsey’s preparations for departure, led him back towards the fire, and placing a chair for him between Lady Eleanor and himself, obliged him to recount his scattered reminiscences once more, and, what was a far less pleasing duty to him, to listen to Lady Eleanor while she circumstantially unravelled the web of his delusion, and, in order, explained on what unsubstantial grounds he had built the edifice of his hope. Perhaps honest Paul was not more afflicted at any portion of the disentanglement than that which, in disavowing his pretensions, yet confessed that some other held the favorable place, while that other’s name was guarded as a secret. This was, indeed, a sore blow, and he could n’t rally from it; and willingly would he have bartered all the gratitude they expressed for his many friendly offices to know his rival’s name.

“Well,” exclaimed he, as Lady Eleanor concluded, “it’s clear I was n’t the man. Only think of my precious journey to London, and the interview with that terrible old Countess, – all for nothing! No matter, – it’s all past and over. As for the loan, I ‘ve arranged it all; you shall have the money when you like.”

“I must decline your generous offer, not without feeling your debtor for it; but I have determined to abandon these proceedings. The Government have promised me some staff appointment, quite sufficient for my wishes and wants; and I will neither burden my friends nor wear out myself by tiresome litigation.”

“That’s the worst of all,” exclaimed Dempsey; “I thought you would not refuse me this.”

“Nor would I, my dear Dempsey, but that I have no occasion for the sum. To-morrow I set out to witness the last suit I shall ever engage in; and as I believe there is little doubt of the issue, I have nothing of sanguine feeling to suffer by disappointment.”

“Well, then, to-morrow I ‘ll start for Dempsey’s Grove,” said Paul, sorrowfully. “With very different expectations I quitted it a few days ago. Good-bye, Lady Eleanor; good-bye, Miss Helen. I suppose there ‘s no use in guessing?”

Mr. Dempsey’s leave-taking was far more rueful than his wont, and woe seemed to have absorbed all other feeling; but when he reached the door, he turned round and said, —

“Now I am going, – never like to see him again; do tell me the name.”

A shake of the head, and a merry burst of laughter, was all the answer; and Paul departed.

CHAPTER XXXVII. THE LAST STRUGGLE

That the age of chivalry is gone, we are reminded some twenty times in each day of our commonplace existence, Perhaps the changed tone of society exhibits nowhere a more practical but less picturesque advantage than in the fact that the “joust” of ancient times is now replaced by the combat of the law court. Some may regret – we will not say if we are not of the number – that the wigged Baron of the Exchequer is scarcely so pleasing an arbiter as the Queen of Love and Beauty. Others may deem the knotted subtleties of black-letter a sorry recompense for the “wild crash and tumult of the fray.” The crier of the Common Pleas would figure to little advantage beside the gorgeously clad Herald of the Lists; nor are the artificial distinctions of service so imposing that a patent of precedency could vie with the white cross on the shield of a Crusader. Still, there are certain counterbalancing interests to be considered; and it is possible that the veriest décrier of the law’s uncertainty “would rather stake life and fortune on the issue of a ‘trial of law,’ than on the thews and sinews of the doughtiest champion that ever figured in an ‘ordeal of battle.’”

In one respect there is a strong similarity between the two institutions. Each, in its separate age, possessed the same sway and influence over men’s minds, investing with the deepest interest events of which they were hitherto ignorant, and enlisting partisans of opinion in cases where, individually, there was nothing at stake.

An important trial has all the high interest of a most exciting narrative, whose catastrophe is yet to come, and where so many influential agencies are in operation to mould it. The proofs themselves, the veracity of witnesses, their self-possession and courage under the racking torture of cross-examination, the ability and skill of the advocate, the temper of the judge, his character of rashness or patience, of doubt or decisiveness; and then, more vague than all besides, the verdict of twelve perhaps rightly minded but as certainly very ordinarily endowed men, on questions sometimes of the greatest subtlety and obscurity. The sum of such conflicting currents makes up a “cross sea,” where everything is possible, from the favoring tide that leads to safety, to the swell and storm of utter shipwreck.

At the winter assizes of Galway, in the year 1802, all the deep sympathies of a law-loving population were destined to be most heartily engaged by the record of Darcy versus Hickman, now removed by a change of venue for trial to that city. It needed not the unusual compliment of Galway being selected as a likely spot for the due administration of justice, to make the plaintiff somewhat popular on this occasion. The reaction which for some time back had taken place in favor of the “real gentry” had gone on gaining in strength, so that public opinion was already inclining to the side of those who had earned a sort of prescriptive right to public confidence. The claptraps of patriotism, associated as they were often found to be with cruel treatment of tenants and dependants, were contrasted with the independent bearing of men who, rejecting dictation and spurning mob popularity, devoted the best energies of mind and fortune to the interests of all belonging to them. All the vindictiveness and rancor of a party press could not obliterate these traits, and character sufficed to put down calumny.

Hickman O’Reilly, accompanied by the old doctor, had arrived in Galway the evening before the trial, in all the pomp of a splendid travelling-carriage, drawn by four posters. The whole of “Nolan’s” Head Inn had been already engaged for them and their party, who formed a tolerably numerous suite of lawyers, solicitors, and clerks, together with some private friends, curious to witness the proceedings.

In a very quiet but comfortable old inn called the “Devil and the Bag of Nails,” – a corruption of the ancient Satyr and the Bacchanals, – Mr. Bicknell had pitched his camp, having taken rooms for the Knight and Forester, who were to arrive soon after him, but whose presence in Ireland was not even suspected by the enemy.