The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 1

“If our claims had no other foundation, Mr. O’Reilly, our altered circumstances would now obliterate them. To live here with diminished fortune – But I ask pardon for being led away in this manner; may I beg that you will now inform me to what peculiar circumstances I owe the honor of your visit?”

“I thought,” said O’Reilly, insinuatingly, “that I had mentioned the difference of feeling entertained by my father and myself respecting certain proceedings at law.”

“You are quite correct, you did so; but I may observe, without incivility, that however complimentary to your own sense of delicacy such a difference is, for me the matter has no immediate interest.”

“Perhaps, with your kind permission, I can give it some,” replied O’Reilly, drawing his chair close, and speaking in a low and confidential voice; “but in order to let my communication have the value I would wish it, may I bespeak for myself a favorable hearing and a kind construction on what I shall say? If by an error of judgment – ”

“Ah!” said Darcy, sighing, while a sad smile dimpled his mouth – “ah! no man should be more lenient to such than myself.”

As if reassured by the kindly tone of these few words, O’Reilly resumed: —

“Some weeks ago my father waited upon Lady Eleanor Darcy with a proposition which, whether on its own merits, or from want of proper tact in his advocacy of it, met with a most unfavorable reception. It is not because circumstances have greatly altered in that brief interval – which I deeply regret to say is the case – that I dare to augur a more propitious hearing, but simply because I hope to show that in making it we were actuated by a spirit of honorable, if not of laudable, ambition. The rank and position my son will enjoy in this county, his fortune and estate, are such as to make any alliance, save with your family, a question of no possible pretension. I am well aware, sir, of the great disparity between a new house and one ennobled by centuries of descent. I have thought long and deeply on the interval that separates the rank of the mere country gentleman from the position of him who claims even higher station than nobility itself; but we live in changeful times: the Peerage has its daily accessions of rank as humble as my own; its new creations are the conscripts drawn from wealth as well as distinction in arms or learning, and in every case the new generation obliterates the memory of its immediate origin. I see you agree with me; I rejoice to find it.”

“Your observations are quite just,” said Darcy, calmly, and O’Reilly went on: —

“Now, sir, I would not only reiterate my father’s proposal, but I would add to it what I hope and trust will be deemed no ungenerous offer, which is, that the young lady’s fortune should be this estate of Gwynne Abbey, not to be endowed by her future husband, but settled on her by her father as her marriage portion. I see your meaning, – it is no longer his to give: but we are ready to make it so; the bond we hold shall be thrown into the fire the moment your consent is uttered. We prefer a thousand times it should be thus, than that the ancient acres of this noble heritage should even for a moment cease to be the property of your house. Let me recapitulate a little – ”

“I think that is unnecessary,” said Darcy, calmly; “I have bestowed the most patient attention to your remarks, and have no difficulty in comprehending them. Have you anything to add?”

“Nothing of much consequence,” said O’Reilly, not a little pleased by the favorable tone of the Knight’s manner; “what I should suggest in addition is that my son should assume the name and arms of Darcy – ”

The noise of footsteps and voices without at this moment interrupted the speaker, the door suddenly opened, and Bagenal Daly entered. He was splashed from head to foot, his high riding-boots stained with the saddle and the road, and his appearance vouching for a long and wearisome journey.

“Good morrow, Darcy,” said he, grasping the Knight’s hand with the grip of his iron fingers. – “Your servant, sir; I scarcely expected to see you here so soon.”

The emphasis with which he spoke the last words brought the color to O’Reilly’s cheek, who seemed very miserable at the interruption.

“You came to take possession,” continued Daly, fixing his eyes on him with a steadfast stare.

“You mistake, Bagenal,” said the Knight, gently; “Mr. O’Reilly is come with a very different object, – one which I trust he will deem it no breach of confidence or propriety in me if I mention it to you.”

“I regret to say, sir,” said O’Reilly, hastily, “that I cannot give my permission in this instance. Whatever the fate of the proposal I have made to you, I beg it to be understood as made under the seal of honorable secrecy.”

Darcy bowed deeply, but made no reply.

“Confound me,” cried Daly, “if I understand any compact between two such men as you to require all this privacy, unless you were hardy enough to renew your old father’s proposal for my friend’s daughter, and now had modesty enough to feel ashamed of your own impudence.”

“I am no stranger, sir, to the indecent liberties you permit your tongue to take,” said Hickman, moving towards the door; “but this is neither the time nor place to notice them.”

“So then I was right,” cried Daly; “I guessed well the game you would play – ”

“Bagenal,” interposed the Knight, “I must atop this. Mr. Hickman is now beneath my roof – ”

“Is he, faith? – not in his own estimation then. Why, his fellows are taking an inventory of the furniture at this very moment.”

“Is this true, sir?” said Darcy, turning a fierce look towards O’Reilly, whose face became suddenly of an ashy paleness.

“If so,” muttered he, “I can only assure you that it is without any orders of mine.”

“How good!” said Daly, bursting into an insolent laugh; “why, Darcy, when you meet with a fellow in your plantations with a gun in his hand and a lurcher at his heels, are you disposed to regard him as one in search of the picturesque, or a poacher? So, when a gentleman travels about the country with a sub-sheriff in his carriage and two bailiffs in the rumble, does it seem exactly the guise of one paying morning calls to his neighbors?”

“Mr. O’Reilly, I ask you to explain this proceeding.”

“I confess, sir,” stammered out the other, “I came accompanied by certain persons in authority, but who have acted in this matter entirely without my permission. The proposal I have made this day was the cause of my visit.”

“It is a subject on which I can no longer hold any secrecy,” said the Knight, haughtily. “Bagenal, you were quite correct in your surmise. Mr. O’Reilly not only intended us the honor of an alliance, but offered to merge the ancient glories of his house by assuming the more humble name and shield of Darcy.”

“What! eh! did I hear aright?” said Daly, with a broken voice; while, walking to the window, he looked down into the lawn beneath, as if calculating the height from the ground. “By Heaven, Darcy, you ‘re the best-tempered fellow in Europe – that ‘s all,” he muttered, as he walked away.

The door opened at this moment, and the shock bullet head of a bailiff appeared.

“That’s Mr. Daly! there he is!” cried out O’Reilly, who, pale with passion and trembling all over, supported himself against the back of a chair with one hand, while with the other he pointed to where Daly stood.

“In that case,” said the fellow, entering, while he drew a slip of paper from his breast, “I ‘ll take the opportunity of sarvin’ him where he stands.”

“One step nearer! one step!” said Daly, as he took a pistol from the pocket of his coat.

The man hesitated and looked at O’Reilly, as if for advice or encouragement; but terror and rage had now deprived him of all self-possession, and he neither spoke nor signed to him.

“Leave the room, sir,” said the Knight, with a motion of his hand to the bailiff; and the ruffian, whose office had familiarized him long with scenes of outrage and violence, shrank back ashamed and abashed, and slipped from the room without a word.

“I believe, Mr. O’Reilly,” continued Darcy, with an accent calm and unmoved, – “I believe our conference is now concluded. I will not insult your own acuteness by saying how unnecessary I feel any reply to your demand.”

“In that case,” said O’Reilly, “may I presume that there is no objection to proceed with those legal formalities which, although begun without my knowledge, may be effected now as well as at any other period?”

“Darcy, there is but one way of dealing with that gentleman – ”

“Bagenal, I must insist upon your leaving this matter solely with me.”

“Depend upon it, sir, your interests will not gain by your friend’s counsels,” said O’Reilly, with an insolent sneer.

“Such another remark from your lips,” said Darcy, sternly, “would make me follow them, if they went so far as – ”

“Throwing him neck and heels out of that window,” broke in Daly; “for I own to you it’s the course I ‘d have taken half an hour ago.”

“I wish you good morning, Mr. Darcy,” said O’Reilly, addressing him for the first time by the name of his family instead of his usual designation; and without vouchsafing a word to Daly, he retired from the room.

It was not until O’Reilly’s carriage drove past the window that either Darcy or his friend uttered a syllable; they stood apparently lost in thought up to that moment, when the noise of wheels and the tramp of horses aroused them.

“We must lose no time, Bagenal,” said the Knight, hastily; “I cannot count very far on that gentleman’s delicacy or forbearance. Lady Eleanor must not be exposed to the indignities the law will permit him to practise towards us; we must, if possible, leave this to-night;” and so saying, he left the room to make arrangements in accordance with his resolve.

Bagenal Daly looked after him for a moment. “Poor fellow!” muttered he, “how manfully he bears it!” When a sudden flush that covered his cheek bespoke a rapid change of sentiment, and at the same instant he left the room, and, crossing the hall and the courtyard, walked hastily towards the stables.

“Saddle a horse for me, Carney, and as fast as may be.”

“Here’s a mare ready this minute, sir; she was going out to take her gallop.”

“I’ll give it, then,” said Daly, as he buttoned up his coat; and then, breaking off a branch of the old willow that hung over the fountain, sprang in the saddle with an alertness that would not have disgraced a youth of twenty.

“There he goes,” muttered the old huntsman, as he looked after him, “and there is n’t the man between this and Killy-begs can take as much out of a baste as himself. ‘T is quiet enough the mare will be when he turns her head into this yard again.”

Whatever Daly’s purpose, it seemed one which brooked little delay, for no sooner was he on the sward than he pushed the mare to a fast gallop, and was seen sweeping along the lawn at a tremendous pace. In less than ten minutes he saw O’Reilly’s carriage, as, in a rapid trot, the horses advanced along the level avenue, and almost the moment after, he had stationed himself in the road, so as to prevent their proceeding further. The coachman, who knew him well, came to a stop at his signal, and before his master could ask the reason, Daly was beside the window of the chariot.

“I would wish a word with you, Mr. O’Reilly,” said he, in a low, subdued voice, so as to be inaudible to the sub-sheriff, who was seated beside him. “You made use of an expression a few moments ago, which, if I understood aright, convinces me I have unwittingly done you great injustice.”

O’Reilly, whose ashy cheek and affrighted air bespoke a heart but ill at ease, made no reply, and Daly went on, —

“You said, sir, that neither the time nor the place suited the notice you felt called upon to take of my remarks on your conduct. May I ask, as a very great favor, what time and what place will be more convenient to you? And I cannot better express my own sense of regret for a hasty expression than by assuring you that I shall hold myself bound to be at your service in both respects.”

“A hostile meeting, sir, is that your proposition?” said O’Reilly, aloud.

“How admirably you read a riddle!” said Daly, laughing.

“There, Mr. Jones!” cried O’Reilly, turning to his companion, “I call on you to witness the words, – a provocation to a duel offered by this gentleman.”

“Not at all,” rejoined Daly; “the provocation came from yourself, – at least, you used a phrase which men with blood in their veins understand but one way. My error – and I ‘ll not forgive myself in haste for it – was the belief that an upstart need not of necessity be a poltroon. – Drive on,” cried he to the coachman, with a sneering laugh; “your master is looking pale.” And, with these words, he turned his horse’s head, and cantered slowly back towards the abbey.

CHAPTER XXXIII. TATE SULLIVAN’S FAREWELL

The sorrows and sufferings of noble minds are melancholy themes to dwell upon; they may “point a moral,” but they scarcely “adorn a tale,” least of all such a tale as ours is intended to be. While, therefore, we would spare our readers and ourselves the pain of this narration, we cannot leave that old abbey, which we remember so full of happiness, without one parting look at it, in company with those about to quit it forever.

From the time of Mr. O’Reilly’s leave-taking, the day, notwithstanding its gloomy presage, went over rapidly. The Knight busied himself with internal arrangements, while Lionel took into his charge all the preparations for their departure on the morrow, Bagenal Daly assisting each in turn, and displaying an amount of calm foresight and circumspection in details which few would have given him credit for. Meanwhile, Lady Eleanor slept long and heavily, and awoke, not only refreshed in body, but with an appearance of quiet energy and determination she had not shown for years past. Great indeed was the Knight’s astonishment on hearing that she intended joining them at dinner; in her usual habit she dined early, and with Helen alone for her companion, so that her present resolve created the more surprise.

Dinner was ordered in the library, and poor old Tate, by some strange motive of sympathy, took a more than common pains in all the decorations of the table. The flowers which Lady Eleanor was fondest of decked the centre – alas, there was no need to husband them now! on the morrow who was to care for them? – a little bouquet of fresh violets marked her place at the table, and more than a dozen times did the old man hesitate how the light should fall through the large window, and whether it would be more soothing to his mistress to look abroad upon that fair and swelling landscape so dear to her, or more painful to gaze upon the scenes she should never see more.

“If it was myself,” muttered old Tate, “I’d like to be looking at it as long as I could, and make it follow me in my dhrames after; but sure there ‘s no knowing how great people feels! they say they never has the same kind of thought as us!”

Poor fellow, he little knew how levelling is misfortune, and that the calamities of life evoke the same sufferings in the breast of the king and the peasant. With a delicacy one more highly born might have been proud of, the old butler alone waited at dinner, well judging that his familiar face would be less irksome to them than the prying looks of the other servants.

If there are people who can expend much eloquent indignation on those social usages which exact a certain amount of decorous observance in all the trials and crosses of life, there is a great deal to be said in favor of that system of conventional good-breeding whose aim is to repress selfish indulgence, and make the individual feel that, whatever his own griefs, the claims of the world demand a fortitude and a bearing that shall not obtrude his sorrows on his neighbors. That the code may be abused, and become occasionally hypocritical in practice, is no argument against it; we would merely speak in praise of that well-bred forbearance which always merges private afflictions in the desire to make others happy. To instance our meaning, we would speak of those who now met at dinner in the old library of Gwynne Abbey.

It would be greatly to mistake us to suppose that we uphold any show or counterfeit of kindliness where there is no substance of the feeling behind it; we merely maintain that the very highest and most acute sympathy is not inconsistent with a bearing of easy, nay, almost cheerful character. So truly was it the case here that old Tate Sullivan more than once stood still in amazement at the tranquil faces and familiar quietude of those who, in his own condition of life, could have found no accents loud or piercing enough to bewail their sorrow, and whom, even with his long knowledge of them, he could scarcely acquit of insensibility.

There is a contagion in an effort of this kind most remarkable. The light and gentle attempts made by Lady Eleanor to sustain the spirits of the party were met by sallies of manly good-humor by the Knight himself, in which Lionel and Helen were not slow to join, while Bagenal Daly could scarcely repress his enthusiastic delight at the noble and high-souled courage that sustained them one and all.

While by a tacit understanding they avoided any allusion to the painful circumstances of their late misfortune, the Knight adroitly turned the conversation to their approaching journey northwards, and drew from Daly a description of “the Corvy” that actually evoked a burst of downright laughter. From this he passed on to speak of the peasantry, so unlike in every trait those of the South and West; the calm, reflective character of their minds, uninfluenced by passion and unmarked by enthusiasm, were a strong contrast to the headlong impulse and ardent temperament of the “real Irish.”

“You ‘ll scarcely like them at first, my dear Helen – ”

“Still less on a longer acquaintance,” broke in Helen. “I ‘ll not quarrel with the caution and reserve of the Scotchman, – the very mists of his native mountains may teach him doubt and uncertainty of purpose; but here at home, what have such frames of mind and thought in common with our less calculating natures?”

“It were far better had they met oftener,” said the Knight, thoughtfully; “impulse is only noble when well directed; the passionate pilots are more frequently the cause of shipwreck than of safety.”

“Nothing so wearisome as the trade-winds,” said Helen, with a saucy toss of the head; “eh, Lionel, you are of my mind?”

“They do push one’s temper very hard now and then,” said Daly, with a stern frown; “that impassive habit they have of taking everything as in the common order of events is, I own, somewhat difficult to bear with. I remember being run away with on a blood mare from a little village called Ballintray. The beast was in high condition, and I turned her, without knowing the country, at the first hill I could see; she breasted it boldly, and, though full a quarter of a mile in length, never shortened stride to the very summit. What was my surprise, when I gained the top, to see that we were exactly over the sea. It was a cliff which, projecting for some distance out, was fissured by an immense chasm, through which the waves passed; not very wide, but deep enough to make it a very awful leap. Over it she went, and then, when I expected her to dash onwards, and was already preparing to fling myself from the saddle, she stood stock still, trembling all over, and snorting with fear at the danger around her. At the same instant, a hard-featured old fellow popped his head up from amid the tall fern which he had been cutting for thatch for his cabin, and looked at me, not the slightest sign of astonishment in his cold, rigid countenance.

“‘Ye ‘ll no get back so easy, my bonnie mon,’ said he, with the slightest possible approach to a smile.

“‘Get back! no, faith, I ‘ll not try it,’ said I, looking at the yawning gulf, through which the wild waves boiled, and the opposite bank several feet higher than the ground I stood upon.

“‘I thought sae,’ was the rejoinder; when, rising slowly, he leisurely walked round the mare, as she stood riveted by fear to the one spot. ‘I ‘ll gie ye sax shilling for the hide o’ her forbye the shoes,’ added he, with a voice as imperturbable as though he were pricing the commonest commodity of a market.

“I confess it was fortunate that the ludicrous was stronger in me at the moment than indignation, for if I had not laughed at him I might have done worse.”

“I could not endure such a peasantry,” said Helen, as soon as the mirth the anecdote called forth had subsided.

“It’s quite true,” said Daly, “they have burlesqued Scotch prudence in the same way that the Anglo-Hibernian has travestied the Irish temperament. It is the danger of all imitators, they always transgress the limits of their model.”

“It is fortunate,” broke in the Knight, “that traits which conciliate so little the stranger should win their way on nearer intimacy; and such I believe to be the case with the Ulster peasant.”

“You are right,” said Daly; “no man can detest more cordially than I do the rudeness that is assumed to heighten a contrast with any good quality behind it. In most instances the kernel is not worth the trouble of breaking off the husk; but with the Northerner this is not the case: in his independence he neither apes the equality of the Frenchman nor the license of the Yankee. That he suffices for himself, and seeks neither patron nor protector, is the source of honest pride, and if this sometimes takes the guise of stubbornness, let us remember that the virtue was reared in poverty, without encouragement or example.”

“And the gentry,” said Lady Eleanor, “have they any trace of these peculiarities observable among the people?”

“Gentry!” said Daly, impetuously, “I know of none. There are some thrifty families, who, by some generations of hard saving, have risen to affluence and wealth. They are keen fellows, given to money-getting, – millers some of them, bleachers most, with a tenantry of weavers, and estates like the grass-plot of a laundry. They are as crafty and as calculating as the peasant, shrewd as stockbrokers at a bargain, and as pretentious as a Prince Palatine with a territory the size of Merrion Square. Gentry! they have neither ancestry nor tradition; they hold their estates from certain Guilds, whose very titles are a parody upon gentle breeding, – fishmongers and clothworkers!”

“I will not be their champion against you, Bagenal, but I cannot help feeling how heavily they might retort upon us. These same prudent and prosaic landlords have not spent their fortunes in wasteful extravagance and absurd display; they have not rackrented their tenantry that they might rival a neighbor.”

“I am sincerely rejoiced,” interposed Lady Eleanor, smiling, “that my English relative, Lord Netherby, was not a witness to this discussion, lest he should fancy that, between the wastefulness of the South and the thrift of the North, this poor island was but ill provided with a gentry. Pray, Mr. Daly, how does your sister like the North? She is our neighbor, is she not?”

“Yes, – that is to say, a few miles distant,” said Daly, confusedly; for he had never acknowledged that “the Corvy” had been Miss Daly’s residence. “Of the neighborhood she knows nothing; she is not free from my own prejudices, and lives a very secluded life.”

The conversation now became broken and unconnected, and the party soon after retired to the drawing-room, where, while Lady Eleanor and Helen sat together, the Knight, Daly, and Lionel gathered in a little knot, and discussed, in a low tone, the various steps for the coming journey, and the probable events of the morrow.

It was agreed upon that Daly should accompany the Darcys to the North, whither Sandy was already despatched, but that Lionel should remain at the abbey for some days longer, to complete the arrangements necessary for the removal of certain family papers and the due surrender of the property to its new owner; after which he should repair to London, and procure his exchange into some regiment of the line, and, if possible, one on some foreign station, – the meeting with friends and acquaintances, under his now altered fortunes, being judged as a trial too painful and too difficult to undergo.

Again they all met around the tea-table, and once more they talked in the same vein of mutual confidence; each conscious of the effort by which he sustained his part, and wondering how the others summoned courage to do what cost himself so much. They chatted away till near midnight, and when they shook hands at separating, it was with feelings of affection to which sorrow had only added fresh and stronger ties.