The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 1

“With pleasure; I should have asked it myself had you not done so. Now, let us talk of the first steps to be taken in this affair; and here is a bench where we can rest ourselves while we chat.”

Forester sat down beside her, and, in the freedom of one to whom fortune had so unexpectedly presented a confidante, opened all the secret store of his cares and hopes and fears. It was late when they turned again towards “the Corvy,” but the youth’s step was lighter, and his brow more open, while his heart was higher than many a previous day had found him.

CHAPTER XXVII. THE KNIGHT’S RETURN

We must now for a brief space, return to the Knight, as with a heavy heart he journeyed homeward. Never did the long miles seem so wearisome before, often and often as he had travelled them. The little accidental delays, which once he had met with a ready jest, and in a spirit of kindly indulgence, he now resented as so many intentional insults upon his changed and ruined fortune. The gossiping landlords, to whom he had ever extended so much of freedom, he either acknowledged coldly, or repelled with distance; their liberties were now construed into want of deference and respect; the very jestings of the postboys to each other seemed so many covert impertinences, and equivocal allusions to himself; for even so much will the stroke of sudden misfortune change the nature, and convert the contented and happy spirit into a temperament of gloomy sorrow and suspicion.

Unconscious of his own altered feelings, and looking at every object through the dim light of his own calamity, he hurried along, not, as of old, recognizing each well-known face, saluting this one, inquiring after that; he sat back in his carriage, and, with his hat drawn almost over his eyes, neither noticed the way nor the wayfarers.

In this mood it was he entered Castlebar. The sight of his well-remembered carriage drew crowds of beggars to the door of the inn, every one of whom had some special prayer for aid, or some narrative of sickness for his hearing. By the time the horses drew up, the crowd numbered some hundreds of every variety, not only in age, but in raggedness, all eagerly calling on him by name, and imploring his protection on grounds the most strange and dissimilar.

“I knew the sound of the wheels; ax Biddy if I did n’t say it was his honor was coming!” cried one, in a sort of aside intended for the Knight himself.

“Ye ‘re welcome home, sir; long may you reign over us,” said an old fellow with a beard like a pilgrim. “I dreamed I seen you last night standing at the door there, wid a half-crown in your fingers. ‘Ouid Luke,’ says you, ‘come here! – ‘”

A burst of rude laughter drowned this sage parable, while a good-looking young woman, with an expression of softness in features degraded by poverty and its consequences, courtesied low, and tried to attract his notice, as she held up a miserable-looking infant to the carriage window. “Clap them, acushla! ‘t is proud he is to see you back again, sir; he never forgets the goold guinea ye gave him on New Year’s Day! Don’t be pushin’ that way, you rude cray-tures; you want to hurt the child, and it’s the image of his honor.”

“Many returns of the blessed sason to you,” growled out a creature in a bonnet, but in face and figure far more like a man than a woman; “throw us out a fippenny to buy two ounces of tay. Asy, asy; don’t be drivin’ me under the wheels – ugh! it’s no place for a faymale, among such rapscallions.”

“What did they give you, Maurice? how much did you get, honey?” cried a tall and almost naked fellow, that leaned over the heads of several others, and put his face close to the glass of the carriage, which, for safety’s sake, the Knight now let down, while he called aloud to the postboys to make haste and bring out the horses.

“Tell us all about it, Maurice, my boy, – are you a lord, or a bishop?” cried the tall fellow, with an eagerness of face that told his own sad bereavement, for he was deranged in intellect from a fall from one of the cliffs on the coast. “By my conscience, I think I must change my politics myself soon; my best pantaloons is like Nat Fitzgibbon, – it has resigned its sate! Out with a bit of silver here! – quick, I didn’t kiss the King’s face this ten days.”

To all these entreaties Darcy seemed perfectly deaf; if his eyes wandered over the crowd, they noticed nothing there, nor did he appear to listen to a word around him, while he again asked why the horses were not coming.

“We’re doing our best, your honor,” cried a postboy, “but it’s mighty hard to get through these divils; they won’t stir till the beasts is trampling them down.”

“Drive on, then, and let them take care of themselves,” said the Knight, sternly.

“O blessed Father! there’s a way to talk of the poor! O heavenly Vargin! but you are come back cruel to us, after all!”

“Drive on!” shouted out Darcy, in a voice of angry impatience.

The postboys sprang into their saddles, cracked their whips, and dashed forward, while the mob, rent in a hundred channels, fled on every side, with cries of terror and shouts of laughter, according as the distance suggested danger or security. All escaped safely, except the poor idiot, Flury, who, having one foot on the step when the carriage started, was thrown backward, when, to save himself, he grasped the spring, and was thus half dragged, half carried along to the end of the street, and there, failing strength and fear combining, he relinquished his hold and fell senseless to the ground, where the wheel grazed but did not injure him as he lay.

With a cry of terror, the Knight called out “Stop!” and, flinging wide the door, sprang out. To lift the poor fellow up to a sitting posture was the work of a second, while he asked, in accents the very kindest, if he were hurt.

“Sorra bit, Maurice,” said the fellow, whose faculties sooner rallied than if they were habitually under better control. “I was on the wrong side of the coach, that’s all; ‘t is safer to be within. The clothes is not the better of it,” said he, looking at his sleeve, now hanging in stripes.

“Never mind that, Flury; we’ll soon repair that misfortune; it does not signify much.”

“Does n’t it, faith?” said the other, shaking his head dubiously; “‘tis asy talking, but I can’t turn my coat without showing the hole in it. ‘T is only the rich can do that.”

The Knight bit his lip; for even from the fool’s sarcasm he could gather the imputations already rife upon his conduct. Another and a very different thought succeeded to this, and he blushed with shame to think how far his sense of his own misfortune had rendered him indifferent, not only to the kindly feelings, but the actual misery, of others. The right impulses of high-minded men are generally rapid in their action, like the spring of the bent bow when the cord is cut asunder. It did not cost Darcy many minutes to be again the warm-hearted, generous soul nature had made him.

“Come, Flury,” said he to the poor fellow, as he stood ruefully surveying his damaged drapery, “give that among the people there in the town, and keep this for yourself.”

“This is goold, Maurice, – yellow goold!”

“So it is; but you’re not the less welcome to it; tell them, too, that I have had troubles of my own lately; and that’s the reason I hurried on without exchanging a word with them.”

“How do you know, Maurice, but I’ll keep it all to myself?”.

“I’d trust you with a heavier sum,” said the Knight, smiling.

“I know why, – I know why, well enough, – because I’m a fool. Never mind, there’s greater fools nor me going. What did they give you up there for your vote, Maurice, – tell me, how much was it?”

The Knight shook his head, and Flury resumed: “Didn’t I say it? Wasn’t I right? By my ould hat! there’s two fools in the country now; – Maurice Darcy and Red Flury; and Maurice the biggest of the two! Whoop, the more the merrier; there ‘s room for us all!” And with this wise reflection, Flury gave a very wild caper and a wilder shout, and set off at the speed of a hare towards Castlebar.

The Knight resumed his journey, and in a more contented mood. The little incident had called on him for an exertion, and his faculties only needed the demand to respond to the call. He summoned to his aid, besides, every comforting reflection in his power; he persuaded himself that there were some hopes remaining still, and tried to believe the evil not beyond remedy. “After all,” thought he, “we are together; it is not death has been dealing with us, nor is there any stain upon our fair fame; and, save these, all ills are light, and can be borne.”

From thoughts like these he was aroused by the heavy clank of the iron gate, as it fell back to admit the carriage within the park, while a thousand welcomes saluted him.

“Thank you, Darby! – thank you, Mary! All well up at the abbey?”

But the carriage dashed past at full speed, and the answer was drowned in the tumult. The postboys, true to the etiquette of their calling, had reserved their best pace for the finish, and it was at the stride of a hunting gallop they now tore along.

It was a calm night, with a young faint moon and a starry sky, which, without displaying in bright light the details of the scenery, yet exhibited them in strong, bold masses, making all seem even more imposing and grander than in reality; the lofty mountain appeared higher, the dark woods vaster, and the wide-spreading lawn seemed to stretch away into immense plains. Darcy’s heart swelled with pride as he looked, while a pang shot through him as he thought, if even at that hour he could call them his own.

They had now reached a little glen, where the postboys were obliged to walk their blown cattle; emerging from this, they passed a thick grove of beech, and at once came in sight of the abbey. Darcy leaned anxiously from the window to catch the first sight of home, when what was his amazement to perceive that the whole was lighted up from end to end. The great suite of state rooms were a blaze of lustres, which even at that distance glittered in their starry brilliancy, and showed the shadows of figures moving within. He well knew that Lady Eleanor never saw company in his absence, – what could this mean? Tortured with doubts that in his then state of mind took every painful form, he ordered the postilions to get on faster, and at the very top of their speed they tore along, over the wide lawn, across the terrace drive, up the steep ascent to the gate tower into the courtyard.

This was also brilliantly lighted by lamps from the walls, and also by the lights of numerous carriage lamps which crowded the ample space.

“What is this? Can no one tell me?” muttered the Knight, as he leaped from the carriage, and, seizing a livery servant who was passing, said, “What is going on here? What company has the abbey?”

“Full of company,” said the man, in an English accent; “there ‘s my Lord – ”

“Who do you mean?”

“The Earl of Netherby, sir, and Sir Harry Beauclerk, and Colonel Crofton, and – ”

“When did they arrive?” said the Knight, interrupting a catalogue, every name of which, although unknown, sent a feeling like a stab through his heart.

“They came the evening before last, sir; Mr. Lionel Darcy, who arrived the same morning – ”

“Is he here?” cried the Knight; and, without waiting for more, hastened forward.

The servants, of whom there seemed a great number about, were in strange liveries, and unknown to the Knight; nor was it without undergoing a very cool scrutiny from them that Darcy succeeded in gaining admittance to his own house. At last he reached the foot of the great stair, whence the sounds of music and the din of voices filled the air; servants hurried along with refreshments, or carried orders to others in waiting; all was bustle and excitement, in the midst of which Darcy stood only half conscious of the reality of what he saw, and endeavoring to reason himself into a conviction of what he heard. It was at this moment that several officers of a newly quartered regiment passed up, admiring, as they went, the splendor of the house, and the magnificent preparations they witnessed on every side.

“I say, Dallas,” cried one, “you’re always talking of your uncle Beverley: does he do the thing in this style, eh?”

“By Jove!” interposed a short, thick-set major, with a bushy beard and eyebrows, “this is what I call going the pace: do they give dinners here?”

“Yes, that they do,” said a white-faced, ghostly looking ensign; “I heard all about this place from Giles of the 40th; he was quartered six months in this county, and used to grub here half the week. The old fellow is n’t at home now, but they say he’s a trump.”

“Let’s drink his health, Watkins,” cried the first speaker, “here’s champagne going up;” and so saying, the party gathered around two servants, one of whom carried an ice-pail with some bottles, and the other a tray of glasses.

“Does any one know his name, though?” said the major, as he held his glass to be filled.

“Yes, it’s something like – Oh, you know that fellow that joined us at Coventry?”

“Brereton, is it?”

“No, hang it! I mean the fellow that had the crop-eared cob with the white legs. Never mind, here he goes, anyhow.”

“Oh, I know who you mean, – it was Jack Quin.”

“That’s the name; and your friend here is called ‘Gwynne,’ I think. Here, gentlemen, I give you Gwynne’s health, and all the honors; may he live a few centuries more – ”

“With a warm heart and a cool cellar,” added one.

“Pink champagne, and red-coats to drink it,” chimed in the ensign.

“May I join you in that pleasant sentiment, gentlemen?” said the Knight, bowing courteously, as he took a glass from the tray and held it towards the servant.

“Make no apology, sir,” said the major, eying him rather superciliously, for the travelling dress concealed the Knight’s appearance, and distinguished him but slightly from many of those lounging around the doors.

“Capital ginger-beer that! eh?” said the ensign, as, winking at his companions, he proceeded to quiz the stranger.

“I have certainly drunk worse,” said the Knight, gravely, – “at an infantry mess.”

There was a pause before he uttered the last three words, which gave them a more direct application; a stare, half stupid, half impertinent, was, however, all they elicited, and the group moved on, while the Knight, disencumbering himself of his travelling gear, slowly followed them.

“Grim old gentlemen these, ain’t they?” said the major, gazing at the long line of family portraits that covered the walls; “that fellow with the truncheon does not seem to like the look of us.”

“Here’s a bishop, I take it, with the great wig.”

“That’s a chancellor, man; don’t you see the mace? But he’s not a whit more civil-looking than the other; commend me to the shepherdess yonder, in blue satin. But come on, we ‘re losing time; I hear the flourish of a new dance. I say,” said he, in a whisper, “do you see who we’ve got behind us?” And they turned and saw the Knight as he mounted the stairs behind them.

“A friend of the family, sir?” asked the major, in a voice that might bear the equivocal meaning of either impertinence or mere inquiry.

The Knight seemed to prefer taking it in the latter acceptation, as he answered mildly, “I have that honor.”

“Ah! indeed; well, we ‘ve the misfortune to be strangers in these parts; only arrived in the neighborhood last week, and were invited here through our colonel. Would you have any objection to present us? – Major Hopecot of the 5th, Captain Mills, Mr. Dallas, Mr. Fothergill, Mr. Watkins.”

“How the major is going it!” lisped the ensign, while his goggle eyes rolled fearfully, and the others seemed struggling to control their enjoyment of such drollery.

“It will afford me much pleasure, sir, to do your bidding,” said the Knight, calmly.

“Take the head of the column, then,” resumed the major, making way for him to pass; and the Knight entered, with the others after him.

“My father – my dearest father!” cried a voice at the moment, and, escaping from her partner, Helen was in a moment in bis arms. The next instant Lionel was also at his side.

“My dear children! – my sweet Helen! – and Lionel, how well you ‘re looking, boy! Ah! Eleanor, what a pleasant surprise you have managed for me.”

“Then perhaps you never got our letter,” said Lady Eleanor, as she took his arm and walked forward. “I wrote the moment I heard from Lionel.”

“And I, too, wrote you a long letter from London,” said Lionel.

“Neither reached me; but the last few days I have been so busy, and so much occupied. – How are you, Conolly? Delighted to see you, Martin. – And Lady Julia, is she here? I must take a tour and see all my friends. First of all, I have a duty to perform; let me introduce these gentlemen. But where are they? Oh, I see them yonder.” And, as he spoke, he led Lady Eleanor across the room to the group of officers, who, overwhelmed with shame at their discovery, stood uncertain whether they should remain or retire.

“Let me introduce Major Hopecot and the officers of the 5th,” said he, bowing courteously. “These gentlemen are strangers, Lady Eleanor; will you take care that they find partners.”

While the abashed subalterns left their major to make his speeches to Lady Eleanor, the Knight moved round the room with Helen still leaning on his arm. By this time Darcy’s arrival was generally known, and all his old friends came pressing forward to see and speak to him.

“Lord Netherby,” whispered Helen in the Knight’s ear, as a tall and very thin old man, with an excessive affectation of youthfulness, tripped forward to meet him.

“My dear Lord,” exclaimed Darcy, “what a pleasure, and what an honor to see you here!”

“You would not come to me, Knight, so there was nothing else for it,” replied the other, laughing, as he shook hands with a great display of cordiality. “And you were quite right,” continued he; “I could not have received you like this. There ‘s not so splendid a place in England, nor has it ever been my fortune to witness so much beauty.” A half bow accompanied the last words, as he turned towards Helen.

“Take care, my Lord,” said the Knight, smiling; “the flatteries of a courtier are very dangerous things when heard out of the atmosphere that makes them commonplace. We may take you literally, and have our heads turned by them.”

At this moment Lionel joined them, to introduce several of his friends and brother officers who accompanied him from England, all of whom were received by the Knight with that winning courtesy of manner of which he was a perfect master; for, not affecting either the vices or frivolities of youth as a claim to the consideration of younger men, the Knight possessed the happy temper that can concede indulgence without asking to partake of it, and, while losing nothing of the relish for wit and humor, chasten both by the fruits of a life’s experience.

“Now, Helen, you must go back to your partner; that young guardsman looks very sulkily at me for having taken you off – yes, I insist on it. Lionel, look to your friends, and I ‘ll join Lord Netherby’s whist-table, and talk whenever permitted. Where ‘s poor Tate?” whispered he in Lady Eleanor’s ear, as she just came up.

“Poor fellow! he has been ill for some days back; you know what a superstitious creature he is; and about a week since he got a fright, – some warning of a Banshee, I think; but it shook his nerves greatly, and he has kept his bed almost ever since. Lionel brought over some of these servants with him; but Lord Netherby’s people are Legion, and the servants’ hall now numbers something like seventy, I hear.”

The Knight heaved a sigh; but, catching himself, tried to conceal it by a cough. Lady Eleanor had heard it, however, and stole a quick glance towards him, to evade which he turned abruptly round and spoke to some one near.

“Seventy, my dear Eleanor!” said he, after a pause, and as if he had been reflecting over his last observation; “and what a Babel, too, it must be! I heard French, German, and Italian in the hall; I think we can promise Irish ourselves.”

“Yes,” said Lionel, “it is the most amusing scene in the world. They had a ball last night in the lower gallery, where boleros and jigs succeeded each other, while the refreshments ranged from iced lemonade to burnt whiskey.”

“And what did our worthy folk think of their visitors?” said Darcy, smiling.

“Not over much. Paddy Lennan looked with great contempt at the men sipping orgeat, and when he saw the waltzing, merely remarked, ‘We’ve a betther way of getting round the girls in Ireland;’ while old Pierre Dulange, Netherby’s valet, persists in addressing the native company as ‘Messieurs les Sauvages.’”

“I hope, for the sake of the public peace, they ‘ve not got an interpreter among them.”

“No, no, all’s safe on that score, and freedom of speech has suggested the most perfect code of good manners; for it would seem, as they can indulge themselves in the most liberal reflections on each other, they have no necessity of proceeding to overt acts.”

“Now,” said the Knight, “let me not interrupt the revelry longer. To your place, Lionel, and leave me to pay my devoirs to my friends and kind neighbors.”

The Knight’s presence seemed alone wanting to fill up the measure of enjoyment. Most of those present were his old familiar friends, glad to see once more amongst them the great promoter of kind feeling and hospitality, while from such as were strangers he easily won golden opinions, the charm of courtesy being with him like a well-fitting garment, which graced, but did not impede, the wearer’s motions.

He had a hundred questions to ask and to answer. The news of the capital travelled in those days by slow and easy stages, and the moment was sufficiently eventful to warrant curiosity; and so, as he passed from group to group, he gave the current gossip of the time as each in turn asked after this circumstance or that.

At length he took his place beside Lord Netherby, as he sat engaged at a whist-table, where the gathering crowd that gradually collected soon converted the game into a social circle of eager talkers.

Who could have suspected that easy, unconstrained manner, that winning smile, that ready laugh, the ever-present jest, to cover the working of a heart so nigh to breaking? And yet he talked pleasantly and freely, narrating with all his accustomed humor the chit-chat of the time; and while of course, the great question of the hour occupied every tongue and ear, all Lord Netherby’s practised shrewdness could not enable him to detect the exact part the Knight himself had taken.

“And so they have carried the bill,” said Conolly, with a sigh, as he listened to Darcy’s account of the second reading. “Well, though I never was a Parliament man, nor expected to be one, I’m sorry for it. You think that strange, my Lord?”

“By no means, sir. A man may love monarchy without being the heir apparent.”

“Quite true,” chimed in the Knight. “I would even go further, and say that, without any warm devotion to a king, a man may hate a regicide.”

Lord Netherby’s eyes met Darcy’s, and the wily peer smiled with a significance that seemed to say, “I know you now.”

CHAPTER XXVIIII. THE HUNT-BREAKFAST

The ball lasted till nigh daybreak; and while the greater number of the guests departed, some few remained, by special invitation, at the abbey, to join a hunting party on the following day. For this Lionel had made every possible preparation, desiring to let his English friends witness a favorable specimen of Irish sport and horsemanship. The stud and kennel were both in high condition, the weather favorable, and, as the old huntsman said, “‘It would be hard if a fox would n’t be agreeable enough to give the strange gentlemen a run.”

In high anticipation of the coming morning, and with many a prayer against a frost, they separated for the night. All within the abbey were soon sound asleep, – all save the Knight himself, who, the restraint of an assumed part withdrawn, threw himself on a sofa in his dressing-room, worn out and exhausted by his struggle. Ruin was inevitable, – that he well knew; but as yet the world knew it not, and for Lionel’s sake he resolved to keep his own secret a few days longer. The visit was to last but eight days; two were already over; for the remaining six, then, he determined – whatever it might cost him – to preserve all the appearances of his former estate, to wear the garb and seeming of prosperity, and do the princely honors of a house that was never again to be his home.