"Well, I have the village doctor," croaked out M"Cor-mick, "and there"s Barrington--old Peter--up at the "Fisherman"s Home." I have _them_ by way of society. I might have better, and I might have worse."
"They told me at Cobham that there was no getting you to "go out;" that, like a regular old soldier, you liked your own chimney-corner, and could not be tempted away from it."
"They didn"t try very hard, anyhow," said he, harshly. "I"ll be nineteen years here if I live till November, and I think I got two invitations, and one of them to a "dancing tea," whatever that is; so that you may observe they did n"t push the temptation as far as St. Anthony"s!"
Stapylton joined in the laugh with which M"Cormick welcomed his own drollery.
"Your doctor," resumed he, "is, I presume, the father of the pretty girl who rides so cleverly?"
"So they tell me. I never saw her mounted but once, and she smashed a melon-frame for me, and not so much as "I ask your pardon!" afterwards."
"And Barrington," resumed Stapylton, "is the ruined gentleman I have heard of, who has turned innkeeper. An extravagant son, I believe, finished him?"
"His own taste for law cost him just as much," muttered M"Cormick. "He had a trunk full of old t.i.tle-deeds and bonds and settlements, and he was always poring over them, discovering, by the way, flaws in this and omissions in that, and then he "d draw up a case for counsel, and get consultations on it, and before you could turn round, there he was, trying to break a will or get out of a covenant, with a special jury and the strongest Bar in Ireland. That"s what ruined him."
"I gather from what you tell me that he is a bold, determined, and perhaps a vindictive man. Am I right?"
"You are not; he"s an easy-tempered fellow, and careless, like every one of his name and race. If you said he hadn"t a wise head on his shoulders, you "d be nearer the mark. Look what he "s going to do now!"
cried he, warming with his theme: "he "s going to give up the inn--"
"Give it up! And why?"
"Ay, that"s the question would puzzle him to answer; but it"s the haughty old sister persuades him that he ought to take this black girl--George Barrington"s daughter--home to live with him, and that a shebeen is n"t the place to bring her to, and she a negress. That"s more of the family wisdom!"
"There may be affection in it."
"Affection! For what,--for a black! Ay, and a black that they never set eyes on! If it was old Withering had the affection for her, I wouldn"t be surprised."
"What do you mean? Who is he?"
"The Attorney-General, who has been fighting the East India Company for her these sixteen years, and making more money out of the case than she "ll ever get back again. Did you ever hear of Barrington and Lot Rammadahn Mohr against the India Company? That"s the case. Twelve millions of rupees and the interest on them! And I believe in my heart and soul old Peter would be well out of it for a thousand pounds."
"That is, you suspect he must be beaten in the end?"
"I mean that I am sure of it! We have a saying in Ireland, "It"s not fair for one man to fall on twenty," and it"s just the same thing to go to law with a great rich Company. You "re sure to have the worst of it."
"Did it never occur to them to make some sort of compromise?"
"Not a bit of it. Old Peter always thinks he has the game in his hand, and nothing would make him throw up the cards. No; I believe if you offered to pay the stakes, he "d say, "Play the game out, and let the winner take the money!""
"His lawyer may, possibly, have something to say to this spirit."
"Of course he has; they are always bolstering each other up. It is, "Barrington, my boy, you "ll turn the corner yet. You "ll drive up that old avenue to the house you were born in, Barrington, of Barrington Hall;" or, "Withering, I never heard you greater than on that point before the twelve Judges;" or, "Your last speech at Bar was finer than Curran." They"d pa.s.s the evening that way, and call me a cantankerous old hound when my back was turned, just because I did n"t hark in to the cry. Maybe I have the laugh at them, after all." And he broke out into one of his most discordant cackles to corroborate his boast.
"The sound sense and experience of an old Walcheren man might have its weight with them. I know it would with me."
"Ay," muttered the Major, half aloud, for he was thinking to himself whether this piece of flattery was a bait for a little whiskey-and-water.
"I "d rather have the unbought judgment of a shrewd man of the world than a score of opinions based upon the quips and cranks of an attorney"s instructions."
"Ay!" responded the other, as he mumbled to himself, "he"s mighty thirsty."
"And what"s more," said Stapylton, starting to his legs, "I "d follow the one as implicitly as I"d reject the other. I "d say, "M"Cormick is an old friend; we have known each other since boyhood.""
"No, we haven"t I never saw Peter Barrington till I came to live here."
"Well, after a close friendship of years with his son--"
"Nor that, either," broke in the implacable Major. "He was always cutting his jokes on me, and I never could abide him, so that the close friendship you speak of is a mistake."
"At all events," said Stapylton, sharply, "it could be no interest of yours to see an old--an old acquaintance lavishing his money on lawyers and in the pursuit of the most improbable of all results. _You_ have no design upon him. _You_ don"t want to marry his sister!"
"No, by Gemini! "--a favorite expletive of the Major"s in urgent moments.
"Nor the Meer"s daughter, either, I suppose?"
"The black! I think not. Not if she won the lawsuit, and was as rich as--she never will be."
"I agree with you there, Major, though I know nothing of the case or its merits; but it is enough to hear that a beggared squire is on one side, and Leadenhall Street on the other, to predict the upshot, and, for my own part, I wonder they go on with it."
"I"ll tell you how it is," said M"Cormick, closing one eye so as to impart a look of intense cunning to his face. "It"s the same with law as at a fox-hunt: when you "re tired out beating a cover, and ready to go off home, one dog--very often the worst in the whole pack--will yelp out. You know well enough he"s a bad hound, and never found in his life.
What does that signify? When you "re wishing a thing, whatever flatters your hopes is all right,--is n"t that true?--and away you dash after the yelper as if he was a good hound."
"You have put the matter most convincingly before me."
"How thirsty he is now!" thought the Major; and grinned maliciously at his reflection.
"And the upshot of all," said Stapylton, like one summing up a case,--"the upshot of all is, that this old man is not satisfied with his ruin if it be not complete; he must see the last timbers of the wreck carried away ere he leaves the scene of his disaster. Strange, sad infatuation!"
"Ay," muttered the Major, who really had but few sympathies with merely moral abstractions.
"Not what I should have done in a like case; nor _you_ either, Major, eh?"
"Very likely not"
"But so it is. There are men who cannot be practical, do what they will.
This is above them."
A sort of grunt gave a.s.sent to this proposition; and Stapylton, who began to feel it was a drawn game, arose to take his leave.
"I owe you a very delightful morning, Major," said he. "I wish I could think it was not to be the last time I was to have this pleasure. Do you ever come up to Kilkenny? Does it ever occur to you to refresh your old mess recollections?"
Had M"Cormick been asked whether he did not occasionally drop in at Holland House, and brush up his faculties by intercourse with the bright spirits who resorted there, he could scarcely have been more astounded.
That he, old Dan M"Cormick, should figure at a mess-table,--he, whose wardrobe, a mere skeleton battalion thirty years ago, had never since been recruited,--he should mingle with the gay and splendid young fellows of a "crack" regiment!
"I"d just as soon think of--of--" he hesitated how to measure an unlikelihood-- "of marrying a young wife, and taking her off to Paris!"
"And I don"t see any absurdity in the project There is certainly a great deal of brilliancy about it!"