The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 2

“‘Dress up one of Dycer’s fellows like you; let him go by the Lord-Lieutenant prancing and rearing, and then you yourself can appear on the ground, all splashed and spurred, half an hour after.’

“‘No,’ says my grandfather, ‘I ‘ll go myself.’

“For so it is, there ‘s no denying, when a man has got ambition in his heart it puts pluck there. Well, eleven o’clock came, and the whole of Abbey Street was on foot to see my grandfather; there was n’t a window had n’t five or six faces in it, and every blackguard in the town was there to see him go off, just as if it was a show.

“‘Bad luck to them,’ says my grandfather; ‘I wish they had brought the horse round to the stable-yard, and let me get up in peace.’

“And he was right there, – for the stirrup, when my grandfather stood beside the horse, was exactly even with his chin; but somehow, with the help of the two clerks and the book-keeper and the office stool, he got up on his back with as merry a cheer as ever rung out to welcome him, while a dirty blackguard, with two old pocket-handkerchiefs for a pair of breeches, shouted out, ‘Old Dempsey’s going to get an appetite for the oysters!’

“Considering everything, 176 behaved very well; he did n’t plunge, and he did n’t kick, and my grandfather said, ‘Providence was kind enough not to let him rear!’ but somehow he wouldn’t go straight but sideways, and kept lashing his long tail on my grandfather’s legs and sometimes round his body, in a way that terrified him greatly, till he became used to it.

“‘Well, if riding be a pleasure,’ says my grandfather, ‘people must be made different from me.’

“For, saving your favor, ma’am, he was as raw as a griskin, and there was n’t a bit of him the size of a half-crown he could sit on without a cry-out; and no other pace would the beast go but this little jig-jig, from side to side, while he was tossing his head and flinging his mane about, just as if to say, ‘Could n’t I pitch you sky-high if I liked? Could n’t I make a Congreve-rocket of you, Dodd and Dempsey?’

“When he got on the ‘Fifteen Acres,’ it was only the position he found himself in that destroyed the grandeur of the scene; for there were fifty thousand people assembled at least, and there was a line of infantry of two miles long, and the artillery was drawn up at one end, and the cavalry stood beyond them, stretching away towards Knockmaroon.

“My grandfather was now getting accustomed to his sufferings, and he felt that, if 176 did no more, with God’s help he could bear it for one day; and so he rode on quietly outside the crowd, attracting, of course, a fair share of observation, for he wasn’t always in the saddle, but sometimes a little behind or before it. Well, at last there came a cloud of dust, rising at the far end of the field, and it got thicker and thicker, and then it broke, and there were white plumes dancing, and gold glittering, and horses all shaking their gorgeous trappings, for it was the staff was galloping up, and then there burst out a great cheer, so loud that nothing seemed possible to be louder, until bang – bang – bang, eighteen large guns went thundering together, and the whole line of infantry let off a clattering volley, till you ‘d think the earth was crashing open.

“‘Devil’s luck to ye all! couldn’t you be quiet a little longer?’ says D. and D., for he was trying to get an easy posture to sit in; but just at this moment 176 pricked up his ears, made three bounds in the air, as if something lifted him up, shook his head like a fish, and away he went: wasn’t it wonderful that my grandfather kept his seat? He remembers, he says, that at each bound he was a yard over his back; but as he was a heavy man, and kept his legs open, he had the luck to come down in the same place, and a sore place it must have been! for he let a screech out of him each time that would have pierced the heart of a stone. He knew very little more what happened, except that he was galloping away somewhere, until at last he found himself in a crowd of people, half dead with fatigue and fright, and the horse thick with foam.

“‘Where am I?’ says my grandfather.

“‘You ‘re in Lucan, sir,’ says a man.

“‘And where ‘s the review?’ says my grandfather.

“‘Five miles behind you, sir.’

“‘Blessed Heaven!’ says he; ‘and where ‘s the Duke?’

“‘God knows,’ said the man, giving a wink to the crowd, for they thought he was mad.

“‘Won’t you get off and take some refreshment?’ says the man, for he was the owner of a little public.

“‘Get off!’ says my grandfather; ‘it’s easy talking! I found it hard enough to get on. Bring me a pint of porter where I am.’ And so he drained off the liquor, and he wiped his face, and he turned the beast’s head once more towards town.

“When my grandfather reached the Park again, he was, as you may well believe, a tired and a weary man; and, indeed, for that matter, the beast did n’t seem much fresher than himself, for he lashed his sides more rarely, and he condescended to go straight, and he didn’t carry his head higher than his rider’s. At last they wound their way up through the fir copse at the end of the field, and caught sight of the review, and, to be sure, if poor D. and D. left the ground before under a grand salute of artillery and small arms, another of the same kind welcomed him back again. It was an honor he ‘d have been right glad to have dispensed with, for when 176 heard it, he looked about him to see which way he ‘d take, gave a loud neigh, and, with a shake that my grandfather said he ‘d never forget, he plunged forward, and went straight at the thick of the crowd; it must have been a cruel sight to have seen the people running for their lives. The soldiers that kept the line laughed heartily at the mob; but they hadn’t the joke long to themselves, for my grandfather went slap at them into the middle of the field; and he did that day what I hear has been very seldom done by cavalry, – he broke a square of the Seventy-ninth Highlanders, and scattered them over the field.

In truth, the beast must have been the devil himself; for wherever he saw most people, it was there he always went. There were at this time three heavy dragoons and four of the horse-police, with drawn swords, in pursuit of my grandfather; and if he were the enemy of the human race, the cries of the multitude could not have been louder, as one universal shout arose of ‘Cut him down! Cleave him in two!’ And, do you know, he said, afterwards, he ‘d have taken it as a mercy of Providence if they had. Well, my dear, when he had broke through the Highlanders, scattered the mob, dispersed the band, and left a hole in the big drum you could have put your head through, 176 made for the staff, who, I may remark, were all this time enjoying the confusion immensely. When, however, they saw my grandfather heading towards them, there was a general cry of ‘Here he comes! here he comes! Take care, your Grace!’ And there arose among the group around the Duke a scene of plunging, kicking, and rearing, in the midst of which in dashed my grandfather. Down went an aide-de-camp on one side; 176 plunged, and off went the town-major at the other; while a stroke of a sabre, kindly intended for my grandfather’s skull, came down on the horse’s back and made him give plunge the third, which shot his rider out of the saddle, and sent him flying through the air like a shell, till he alighted under the leaders of a carriage where the Duchess and the Ladies of Honor were seated.

“Twenty people jumped from their horses now to finish him; if they were bunting a rat, they could not have been more venomous.

“‘Stop! stop!’ said the Duke; ‘he’s a capital fellow, don’t hurt him. Who are you, my brave little man? You ride like Chifney for the Derby.’

“‘God knows who I am!’ says my grandfather, creeping out, and wiping his face. ‘I was Dodd and Dempsey when I left home this morning; but I ‘m bewitched, devil a lie in it.’

“‘Dempsey, my Lord Duke,’ said M’Claverty, coming up at the moment. ‘Don’t you know him?’ And he whispered a few words in his Grace’s ear.

“‘Oh, yes, to be sure,’ said the Viceroy. ‘They tell me you have a capital pack of hounds, Dempsey. What do you hunt?’

“‘Horse, foot, and dragoons, my Lord,’ said my grandfather; and, to be sure, there was a jolly roar of laughter after the words, for poor D. and D. was just telling his mind, without meaning anything more.

“‘Well, then,’ said the Duke, ‘if you ‘ve always as good sport as to-day, you ‘ve capital fun of it.’

“‘Oh, delightful, indeed!’ said my grandfather; ‘never enjoyed myself more in my life.’

“‘Where ‘s his horse?’ said his Grace.

“‘He jumped down into the sand-quarry and broke his neck, my Lord Duke.’

“‘The heavens be praised!’ said my grandfather; ‘if it’s true, I am as glad as if I got fifty pounds.’

“The trumpets now sounded for the cavalry to march past, and the Duke was about to move away, when M’Claverty again whispered something in his ear.

“‘Very true,’ said he; ‘well thought of. I say, Dempsey, I ‘ll go over some of these mornings and have a run with your hounds.’

“My grandfather rubbed his eyes and looked up, but all he saw was about twenty staff-officers with their hats off; for every man of them saluted my father as they passed, and the crowd made way for him with as much respect as if it was the Duke himself. He soon got a car to bring him home, and notwithstanding all his sufferings that day, and the great escape he had of his life, there wasn’t as proud a man in Dublin as himself.

“‘He’s coming to hunt with my hounds!’ said he; ‘’t is n’t to take an oyster and a glass of wine, and be off again! – no, he’s coming down to spend the whole day with me.’

“The thought was ecstasy; it only had one drawback. Dodd and Dempsey’s house had never kept hounds. Well, ma’am, I needn’t detain you long about what happened; it’s enough if I say that in less than six weeks my grandfather had bought up Lord Tyrawley’s pack, and his hunting-box and horses, and I believe his grooms; and though he never ventured on the back of a beast himself, he did nothing from morning to night but listen and talk about hunting, and try to get the names of the dogs by heart, and practise to cry ‘Tally-ho!’ and ‘Stole away!’ and ‘Ho-ith! ho-ith!’ with which, indeed, he used to start out of his sleep at night, so full he was of the sport. From the 1st of September he never had a red coat off his back. ‘Pon my conscience, I believe he went to bed in his spurs, for he did n’t know what moment the Duke might be on him, and that’s the way the time went on till spring; but not a sign of his Grace, not a word, not a hint that he ever thought more of his promise! Well, one morning my grandfather was walking very sorrowfully down near the Curragh, where his hunting-lodge was, when he saw them roping-in the course for the races, and he heard the men talking of the magnificent cup the Duke was to give for the winner of the three-year-old stakes, and the thought flashed on him, ‘I’ll bring myself to his memory that way.’ And what does he do, but he goes back to the house and tells his trainer to go over to the racing-stables, and buy, not one, nor two, but the three best horses that were entered for the race. Well, ma’am, their engagements were very heavy, and he had to take them all on himself, and it cost him a sight of money. It happened that this time he was on the right scent, for down comes M’Claverty the same day with orders from the Duke to take the odds, right and left, on one of the three, a little mare called Let-Me-Alone-Before-the-People; she was one of his own breeding, and he had a conceit out of her. Well, M’Claverty laid on the money here and there, till he stood what between the Duke’s bets and all the officers of the staff and his own the heaviest winner or loser on that race.

“‘She’s Martin’s mare, is n’t she?’ said M’Claverty.

“‘No, sir, she was bought this morning by Mr. Dempsey, of Tear Fox Lodge.’

“‘The devil she is,’ said M’Claverty; and he jumped on his horse, and he cantered over to the Lodge.

“‘Mr. Dempsey at home?’ says he.

“‘Yes, sir.’

“‘Give him this card, and say, I beg the favor of seeing him for a few moments.’

“The man went off, and came back in a few minutes, with the answer, ‘Mr. Dempsey is very sorry, but he ‘s engaged.’

“‘Oh, oh! that’s it!’ says M’Claverty to himself; ‘I see how the wind blows. I say, my man, tell him I ‘ve a message from his Grace the Lord-Lieutenant.’

“Well, the answer came for the captain to send the message in, for my grandfather could n’t come out.

“‘Say, it’s impossible,’ said M’Claverty; ‘it’s for his own private ear.’

“Dodd and Dempsey was strong in my grandfather that day: he would listen to no terms.

“‘No,’ says he, ‘if the goods are worth anything, they never come without an invoice. I ‘ll have nothing to say to him.’

“But the captain wasn’t to be balked; for, in spite of everything, he passed the servant, and came at once into the room where my grandfather was sitting, – ay, and before he could help it, was shaking him by both hands as if he was his brother.

“‘Why the devil didn’t you let me in?’ said he; ‘I came from the Duke with a message for you.’

“‘Bother!’ says my grandfather.

“‘I did, though,’ says he; ‘he’s got a heavy book on your little mare, and he wants you to make your boy ride a waiting race, and not win the first beat, – you understand?’

“‘I do,’ says my grandfather, ‘perfectly; and he’s got a deal of money on her, has he?’

“‘He has,’ said the captain; ‘and every one at the Castle, too, high and low, from the chief secretary down to the second coachman, – we are all backing her.’

“‘I am glad of it, – I am sincerely glad of it,’ said my grandfather, rubbing his hands.

“‘I knew you would be, old boy!’ cried the captain, joyfully.

“‘Ah, but you don’t know why; you ‘d never guess.’

“M’Claverty stared at him, but said nothing.

“‘Well, I’ll tell you,’ resumed my grandfather; ‘the reason is this: I ‘ll not let her run, – no, divil a step! I ‘ll bring her up to the ground, and you may look at her, and see that she ‘s all sound and safe, in top condition, and with a skin like a looking-glass, and then I ‘ll walk her back again! And do you know why I ‘ll do this?’ said he, while his eyes flashed fire, and his lip trembled; ‘just because I won’t suffer the house of Dodd and Dempsey to be humbugged as if we were greengrocers! Two years ago, it was to “eat an oyster with me;” last year it was a “day with my hounds;” maybe now his Grace would join the race dinner; but that’s all past and gone, – I ‘ll stand it no longer.’

“‘Confound it, man,’ said the captain, ‘the Duke must have forgotten it. You never reminded him of his engagement. He ‘d have been delighted to have come to you if he only recollected.’

“‘I am sorry my memory was better than his,’ said my grandfather, ‘and I wish you a very good morning.’

“‘Oh, don’t go; wait a moment; let us see if we can’t put this matter straight. You want the Duke to dine with you?’

“‘No, I don’t; I tell you I ‘ve given it up.’

“‘Well, well, perhaps so; will it do if you dine with him?’

“My grandfather had his hand on the lock, – he was just going, – he turned round, and fixed his eyes on the captain.

“‘Are you in earnest, or is this only more of the same game?’ said he, sternly.

“‘I’ll make that very easy to you,’ said the captain; ‘I ‘ll bring the invitation to you this night; the mare doesn’t run till to-morrow; if you don’t receive the card, the rest is in your own power.’

“Well, ma’am, my story is now soon told; that night, about nine o’clock, there comes a footman, all splashed and muddy, in a Castle livery, up to the door of the Lodge, and he gave a violent pull at the bell, and when the servant opened the door, he called out in a loud voice, ‘From his Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant,’ and into the saddle he jumped, and away he was like lightning; and, sure enough, it was a large card, all printed, except a word here and there, and it went something this way: —

“‘I am commanded by his Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant to request the pleasure of Mr. Dempsey’s company at dinner on Friday, the 23d instant, at the Lodge, Phoenix Park, at seven o’clock.

“‘Granville Vereker, Chamberlain.

“‘Swords and Bags.’

“‘At last!’ said my grandfather, and he wiped the tears from his eyes; for to say the truth, ma’am, it was a long chase without ever getting once a ‘good view.’ I must hurry on; the remainder is easy told. Let-Me-Alone-Before-the-People won the cup, my grandfather was chaired home from the course in the evening, and kept open house at the Lodge for all comers while the races lasted; and at length the eventful day drew near on which he was to realize all his long-coveted ambition. It was on the very morning before, however, that he put on his Court suit for about the twentieth time, and the tailor was standing trembling before him while my grandfather complained of a wrinkle here or a pucker there.

“‘You see,’ said he, ‘you’ve run yourself so close that you ‘ve no time now to alter these things before the dinner.’

“‘I ‘ll have time enough, sir,’ says the man, ‘if the news is true.’

“‘What news?’ says my grandfather, with a choking in his throat, for a sudden fear came over him.

“‘The news they have in town this morning.’

“‘What is it? – speak it out, man!’

“‘They say – But sure you ‘ve heard it, sir?’

“‘Go on!’ says my grandfather; and he got him by the shoulders and shook him. ‘Go on, or I’ll strangle you!’

“‘They say, sir, that the Ministry is out, and – ’

“‘And, well – ’

“‘And that the Lord-Lieutenant has resigned, and the yacht is coming round to Dunleary to take him away this evening, for he won’t stay longer than the time to swear in the Lords Justices, – he’s so glad to be out of Ireland.’

“My grandfather sat down on the chair, and began to cry, and well he might, for not only was the news true, but he was ruined besides. Every farthing of the great fortune that Dodd and Dempsey made was lost and gone, – scattered to the winds; and when his affairs were wound up, he that was thought one of the richest men in Dublin was found to be something like nine thousand pounds worse than nothing. Happily for him, his mind was gone too, and though he lived a few years after, near Finglass, he was always an innocent, didn’t remember anybody, nor who he was, but used to go about asking the people if they knew whether his Grace the Lord-Lieutenant had put off his dinner-party for the 23d; and then he ‘d pull out the old card to show them, for he kept it in a little case, and put it under his pillow every night till he died.”

While Mr. Dempsey’s narrative continued, Tom Leonard indulged freely and without restraint in the delights of the Knight’s sherry, forgetting not only all his griefs, but the very circumstances and people around him. Had the party maintained a conversational tone, it is probable that he would have been able to adhere to the wise resolutions he had planned for his guidance on leaving home; unhappily, the length of the tale, the prosy monotony of the speaker’s voice, the deepening twilight which stole on ere the story drew to a close, were influences too strong for prudence so frail; an instinct told him that the decanter was close by, and every glass he drained either drowned a care or stifled a compunction.

The pleasant buzz of voices which succeeded to the anecdote of Dodd and Dempsey aroused Leonard from his dreary stupor. Wine and laughter and merry voices were adjuncts he had not met for many a day before; and, strangely enough, the only emotions they could call up were some vague, visionary sorrowings over his fallen and degraded condition.

“By Jove!” said Dempsey, in a whisper to Darcy, “the lieutenant has more sympathy for my grandfather than I have myself, – I ‘ll be hanged if he is n’t wiping his eyes! So you see, ma’am,” added he, aloud, “it was a taste for grandeur ruined the Dempseys; the same ambition that has destroyed states and kingdoms has brought your humble servant to a trifle of thirty-eight pounds four and nine per annum for all worldly comforts and virtuous enjoyments; but, as the old ballad says, —

‘Though classic ‘t is to show one’s grief,And cry like Carthaginian Marius,I ‘ll not do this, nor ask relief,Like that ould beggar Belisarius.’

No, ma’am, ‘Never give in while there’s a score behind the door,’ – that’s the motto of the Dempseys. If it’s not on their coat-of-arms, it’s written in their hearts.”

“Your grandfather, however, did not seem to possess the family courage,” said the Knight, slyly.

“Well, and what would you have? Wasn’t he brave enough for a wine-merchant?”

“The ladies will give us some tea, Leonard,” said the Knight, as Lady Eleanor and her daughter had, some time before, slipped unobserved from the room.

“Yes, Colonel, always ready.”

“That’s the way with him,” whispered Dempsey; “he’d swear black and blue this minute that you commanded the regiment he served in. He very often calls me the quartermaster.”

The party rose to join the ladies; and while Leonard maintained his former silence, Dempsey once more took on himself the burden of the conversation by various little anecdotes of the Fumbally household, and sketches of life and manners at Port Ballintray.

So perfectly at ease did he find himself, so inspired by the happy impression he felt convinced he was making, that he volunteered a song, “if the young lady would only vouchsafe few chords on the piano” by way of accompaniment, – a proposition Helen acceded to.

Thus passed the evening, – a period in which Lady

Eleanor more than once doubted if the whole were not a dream, and the persons before her the mere creations of disordered fancy; an impression certainly not lessened as Mr. Dempsey’s last words at parting conveyed a pressing invitation to a “little thing he ‘d get up for them at Mother Finn’s.”

CHAPTER III. SOME VISITORS AT GWYNNE ABBEY

It is a fact not only well worthy of mention, but pregnant with its own instruction, that persons who have long enjoyed all the advantages of an elevated social position better support the reverses which condemned them to humble and narrow fortunes, than do the vulgar-minded, when, by any sudden caprice of the goddess, they are raised to a conspicuous and distinguished elevation.

There is in the gentleman, and still more in the gentlewoman, – as the very word itself announces, – an element of placidity and quietude that suggests a spirit of accommodation to whatever may arise to ruffle the temper or disturb the equanimity. Self-respect and consideration for others are a combination not inconsistent or unfrequent, and there are few who have not seen, some time or other, a reduced gentleman dispensing in a lowly station the mild graces and accomplishments of his order, and, while elevating others, sustaining himself.

The upstart, on the other hand, like a mariner in some unknown sea without chart or compass, has nothing to guide him; impelled hither or thither as caprice or passion dictate, he is neither restrained by a due sense of decorum, nor admonished by a conscientious feeling of good breeding. With the power that rank and wealth bestow he becomes not distinguished, but eccentric; unsustained by the companionship of his equals, he tries to assimilate himself to them rather by their follies than their virtues, and thus presents to the world that mockery of rank and station which makes good men sad, and bad men triumphant.

To these observations we have been led by the altered fortunes of those two families of whom our story treats. If the Darcys suddenly found themselves brought down to a close acquaintanceship with poverty and its fellows, they bore the change with that noble resignation that springs from true regard for others at the sacrifice of ourselves. The little shifts and straits of narrowed means were ever treated jestingly, the trials that a gloomy spirit had converted into sorrows made matters of merriment and laughter; and as the traveller sees the Arab tent in the desert spread beside the ruined temple of ancient grandeur, and happy faces and kind looks beneath the shade of ever-vanished splendor, so did this little group maintain in their fall the kindly affection and the high-souled courage that made of that humble cottage a home of happiness and enjoyment.

Let us now turn to the west, where another and very different picture presented itself. Although certain weighty questions remained to be tried at law between the Darcys and the Hickmans, Bicknell could not advise the Knight to contest the mortgage under which the Hickmans had now taken possession of the abbey.