"I know all about it, Polly, but I can"t describe it. I can"t describe anything; but ask me a question about it."
"Where is it,--where does it lie?"
"Isn"t it at the lower third of the humerus, where the flexors divide?"
"You are too bad,--too stupid!" cried she, angrily. "I cannot believe that anything short of a purpose, a determination to be ignorant, could make a person so unteach-able. If we have gone over this once, we have done so fifty times. It haunts me in my sleep, from very iteration."
"I wish it would haunt me a little when I "m awake," said he, sulkily.
"And when may that be, I"d like to know? Do you fancy, sir, that your present state of intelligence is a very vigilant one?"
"I know one thing. I hope there won"t be the like of you on the Court of Examiners, for I would n"t bear the half of what _you"ve_ said to me from another."
[Ill.u.s.tration: 202]
"Rejection will be harder to bear, Tom. To be sent back as ignorant and incapable will be far heavier as a punishment than any words of mine.
What are you laughing at, sir? Is it a matter of mirth to you?"
"Look at the skull, Polly,--look at the skull." And he pointed to where he had stuck his short, black pipe, between the grinning teeth of the skeleton.
She s.n.a.t.c.hed it angrily away, and threw it out of the window, saying, "You may be ignorant, and not be able to help it. I will take care you shall not be irreverent, sir."
"There"s my short clay gone, anyhow," said Tom, submissively, "and I think I "ll go to bed." And he yawned drearily as he spoke.
"Not till you have done this, if we sit here till breakfast-time," said she, resolutely. "There"s the plate, and there"s the reference. Read it till you know it!"
"What a slave-driver you "d make, Polly!" said he, with a half-bitter smile.
"What a slave I am!" said she, turning away her head.
"That"s true," cried he, in a voice thick with emotion; "and when I "m thousands of miles away, I "ll be longing to hear the bitterest words you ever said to me, rather than never see you any more."
[Ill.u.s.tration: 202]
"My poor brother," said she, laying her hand softly on his rough head, "I never doubted your heart, and I ought to be better tempered with you, and I will. Come, now, Tom,"--and she seated herself at the table next him,--"see, now, if I cannot make this easy to you." And then the two heads were bent together over the table, and the soft brown hair of the girl half mingled with the rough wool of the graceless numskull beside her.
"I will stand by him, if it were only for her sake," said Conyers to himself. And he stole slowly away, and gained the inn.
So intent upon his purpose was he that he at once set about its fulfilment. He began a long letter to his father, and, touching slightly on the accident by which he made Dr. Dill"s acquaintance, professed to be deeply his debtor for kindness and attention. With this prelude he introduced Tom. Hitherto his pen had glided along flippantly enough.
In that easy mixture of fact and fancy by which he opened his case, no grave difficulty presented itself; but Tom was now to be presented, and the task was about as puzzling as it would have been to have conducted him bodily into society.
"I was ungenerous enough to be prejudiced against this poor fellow when I first met him," wrote he. "Neither his figure nor his manners are in his favor, and in his very diffidence there is an apparent rudeness and forwardness which are not really in his nature. These, however, are not mistakes you, my dear father, will fall into. With your own quickness you will see what sterling qualities exist beneath this rugged outside, and you will befriend him at first for my sake. Later on, I trust he will open his own account in your heart. Bear in mind, too, that it was all my scheme,--the whole plan mine. It was I persuaded him to try his luck in India; it was through me he made the venture; and if the poor fellow fail, all the fault will fall back upon _me_." From this he went into little details of Tom"s circ.u.mstances, and the narrow means by which he was surrounded, adding how humble he was, and how ready to be satisfied with the most moderate livelihood. "In that great wide world of the East, what scores of things there must be for such a fellow to do; and even should he not turn out to be a Sydenham or a Harvey, he might administer justice, or collect revenue, or a.s.sist in some other way the process of that system which we call the British rule in India.
In a word, get him something he may live by, and be able, in due time, to help those he has left behind here, in a land whose "Paddy-fields"
are to the full as pauperized as those of Bengal."
He had intended, having disposed of Tom Dill"s case, to have addressed some lines to his father about the Barring-tons, sufficiently vague to be easily answered if the subject were one distasteful or unpleasing to him; but just as he reached the place to open this, he was startled by the arrival of a jaunting-car at the inn-door, whose driver stopped to take a drink. It was a chance conveyance, returning to Kilkenny, and Conyers at once engaged it; and, leaving an order to send on the reply when it arrived from the cottage, he wrote a hasty note to Tom Dill and departed. This note was simply to say that he had already fulfilled his promise of interesting his father in his behalf, and that whenever Tom had pa.s.sed his examination, and was in readiness for his voyage, he should come or write to him, and he would find him fully disposed to serve and befriend him. "Meanwhile," wrote he, "let me hear of you. I am really anxious to learn how you acquit yourself at the ordeal, for which you have the cordial good wishes of your friend, F. Conyers."
Oh, if the great men of our acquaintance--and we all of us, no matter how hermit-like we may live, have our "great men"--could only know and feel what ineffable pleasure will sometimes be derived from the chance expressions they employ towards us,--words which, little significant in themselves, perhaps have some touch of good fellowship or good feeling, now reviving a "bygone," now far-seeing a future, tenderly thrilling through us by some little allusion to a trick of our temperament, noted and observed by one in whose interest we never till then knew we had a share,--if, I say, they were but aware of this, how delightful they might make themselves!--what charming friends!--and, it is but fair to own, what dangerous patrons!
I leave my reader to apply the reflection to the case before him, and then follow me to the pleasant quarters of a well-maintained country-house, full of guests and abounding in gayety.
CHAPTER XVIII. COBHAM
My reader is already aware that I am telling of some forty years ago, and therefore I have no apologies to make for habits and ways which our more polished age has p.r.o.nounced barbarous. Now, at Cobham, the men sat after dinner over their wine when the ladies had withdrawn, and, I grieve to say, fulfilled this usage with a zest and enjoyment that unequivocally declared it to be the best hour of the whole twenty-four.
Friends could now get together, conversation could range over personalities, egotisms have their day, and bygones be disinterred without need of an explanation. Few, indeed, who did not unbend at such a moment, and relax in that genial atmosphere begotten of closed curtains, and comfort, and good claret. I am not so certain that we are wise in our utter abandonment of what must have often conciliated a difference or reconciled a grudge. How many a lurking discontent, too subtle for intervention, must have been dissipated in the general burst of a common laugh, or the racy enjoyment of a good story! Decidedly the decanter has often played peacemaker, though popular prejudice inclines to give it a different mission.
On the occasion to which I would now invite my reader, the party were seated--by means of that genial discovery, a horseshoe-table--around the fire at Cobham. It was a true country-house society of neighbors who knew each other well, sprinkled with guests,--strangers to every one.
There were all ages and all temperaments, from the hardy old squire, whose mellow cheer was known at the fox-cover, to the young heir fresh from Oxford and loud about Leicestershire; gentlemen-farmers and sportsmen, and parsons and soldiers, blended together with just enough disparity of pursuit to season talk and freshen experiences.
The conversation, which for a while was partly on sporting matters, varied with little episodes of personal achievement, and those little boastings which end in a bet, was suddenly interrupted by a hasty call for Dr. Dill, who was wanted at the "Fisherman"s Home."
"Can"t you stay to finish this bottle, Dill?" said the Admiral, who had not heard for whom he had been sent.
"I fear not, sir. It is a long row down to the cottage."
"So it "s poor Barrington again! I "m sincerely sorry for it! And now I "ll not ask you to delay. By the way, take my boat. Elwes," said he to the servant, "tell the men to get the boat ready at once for Dr. Dill, and come and say when it is so."
The doctor"s grat.i.tude was profuse, though probably a dim vista of the "tip" that might be expected from him detracted from the fulness of the enjoyment.
"Find out if I could be of any use, Dill," whispered the Admiral, as the doctor arose. "Your own tact will show if there be anything I could do.
You understand me; I have the deepest regard for old Barrington, and his sister too."
Dill promised to give his most delicate attention to the point, and departed.
While this little incident was occurring, Stapylton, who sat at an angle of the fireplace, was amusing two or three listeners by an account of his intended dinner at the "Home," and the haughty refusal of Miss Barrington to receive him.
"You must tell Sir Charles the story!" cried out Mr. Bushe. "He"ll soon recognize the old Major from your imitation of him."
"Hang the old villain! he shot a dog-fox the other morning, and he knows well how scarce they are getting in the country," said another.
"I "ll never forgive myself for letting him have a lease of that place,"
said a third; "he"s a disgrace to the neighborhood."
"You"re not talking of Barrington, surely," called out Sir Charles.
"Of course not. I was speaking of M"Cormick. Harrington is another stamp of man, and here"s his good health!"
"He"ll need all your best wishes, Jack," said the host, "for Dr. Dill has just been called away to see him."
"To see old Peter! Why, I never knew him to have a day"s illness!"
"He"s dangerously ill now," said the Admiral, gravely. "Dill tells me that he came home from the a.s.sizes hale and hearty, in high spirits at some verdict in his favor, and brought back the Attorney-General to spend a day or two with him; but that, on arriving, he found a young fellow whose father or grandfather--for I have n"t it correctly--had been concerned in some way against George Barrington, and that high words pa.s.sed between old Peter and this youth, who was turned out on the spot, while poor Barrington, overcome by emotion, was struck down with a sort of paralysis. As I have said, I don"t know the story accurately, for even Dill himself only picked it up from the servants at the cottage, neither Miss Barrington nor Withering having told him one word on the subject."
"That is the very same story I heard at the village where we dined,"
broke in Stapylton, "and M"Cormick added that he remembered the name.
Conyers--the young man is called Conyers--did occur in a certain famous accusation against Colonel Barrington."