"It"s a" right, I know weel enough," said Sandy, querulously; "but it wad no be a" right av ye went yersel"; they "d have a gude penny, forbye what I say."
"And what say the fellows of this wind,--is it like to last?"
"It will blow hard from the west for three or four days mair, and then draw round to the north."
"But we shall get to Liverpool before noon to-morrow."
"Maybe," said Sandy, with a low, dry laugh.
"Well, I mean if we do get there. You told them I "d double the pay if we catch the American ship in the Mersey. I"d triple it; let them know that."
"They canna do mair than they can do: ten pounds is as good as ten hundred."
While this conversation was going forward, they had walked on together, and were now at the entrance door of the House, where a group of four persons stood under the shadow of the portico.
"Mr. Daly, I presume," said one, advancing, and touching his hat in salutation. "We have waited somewhat impatiently for your coming."
"I should regret it, sir, if I was aware you did me the honor to expect me."
"I am the friend of Serjeant Nickolls, sir," said the other, in a voice meant to be eloquently meaning.
"For your sake, the fact is to be deplored," answered Daly, calmly. "But proceed."
With a great effort to subdue his pa.s.sion, the other resumed: "It does not require your experience in such matters to know that the insult you have pa.s.sed upon a high-minded and honorable gentleman--the gross and outrageous insult--should be atoned for by a meeting. We are here for this purpose, ready to accompany you, as soon as you have provided yourself with a friend, to wherever you appoint."
"Are you aware," said Daly, in a whisper, "that I am bound over in heavy recognizances--"
"Ah, indeed!" interrupted the other; "that, perhaps, may explain--"
"Explain what, sir?" said Daly, as he grasped the formidable weapon which, more club than walking-stick, he invariably carried.
"I meant nothing; I would only observe--"
"Never observe, sir, when there"s nothing to be remarked. I was informing you that I am bound over to keep the peace in this same kingdom of Ireland; circ.u.mstances compel me to be in England to-morrow morning,--circ.u.mstances of such moment that I have myself hired a vessel to convey me thither,--and although the object of my journey is far from agreeable, I shall deem it one of the happiest coincidences of my life if it can accommodate your friend"s wishes. Nothing prevents my giving him the satisfaction he desires on English ground. I have sincere pleasure in offering him, and every gentleman of his party, a pa.s.sage over--the tide serves in half an hour. Eh, Sandy?"
"At a quarter to twelve, sir."
"The wind is fair."
"It is a hurricane," replied the other, almost shuddering.
"It blows fresh," was Daly"s cool remark.
For a moment or two the stranger returned to his party, with whom he talked eagerly, and the voices of the others were also heard, speaking in evident excitement.
"You have the pistols safe, Sandy?" whispered Daly.
"They "re a" safe, and in the wherry; but you "ll no want them this time, I trow," said Sandy, with a shrug of his shoulders; "yon folk would rather bide where they are the night, than tak" a bit o" pleasure in the Channel."
Daly smiled, and turned away to hide it, when the stranger again came forward. "I have consulted with my friends, Mr. Daly, who are also the friends of Serjeant Nickolls; they are of opinion that, under the circ.u.mstances of your being bound over, this affair cannot with propriety go further, although it might not, perhaps, be unreasonable to expect that you, feeling the peculiar situation in which you stand, might express some portion of regret at the utterance of this most severe attack."
"You are really misinformed on the whole of the business," said Daly.
"In the few words I offered to the House, I was but responding to the question of your friend, who asked, I think somewhat needlessly, "Where was Bagenal Daly?" I have no regrets to express for any terms I applied to him, though I may feel sorry that the forms of the House prevented my saying more. I am ready to meet him now; or, as he seems to dislike a breeze, when the weather is calmer. Tell him so; but tell him besides, that if he utters one syllable in my absence that the most malevolent gossip of a club-room can construe into an imputation on me, by G--d I"ll break every bone in his cowardly carca.s.s! Come, Sandy, lead on.
Good evening, sir. I wish you a bolder friend, or better weather." So saying, he moved forward, and was soon hastening towards the North Wall, where the wherry was moored.
"It"s unco like the night we were wrecked in the Gulf," said Sandy. "I mind the moon had that same blue color, and the clouds were a" below, and none above her."
"So it is, Sandy,--there "s a heavy sea outside, I "m sure. How many men have we?"
"Four, and a bit o" a lad that"s as gude as anither. Lord save us! there was a flash! I wish it wud come to rain, and beat down the sea; we "d have aye wind enough after."
"Where does she lie?"
"Yonder, sir, where you see the light bobbing. By my certie, but the chiels were no far wrang. A bit fighting "s hard bought by a trip to sea on such a night as this."
CHAPTER XXI. TWO OF A TRADE
When the newspapers announced the division on the adjourned debate, they also proclaimed the flight of the defaulter; and, wide as was the disparity between the two events in point of importance, it would be difficult to say which more engaged the attention of the Dublin public on that morning, the majority for the Minister, or the published perfidy of "Honest Tom Gleeson."
Such is, however, the all-engrossing interest of a local topic, aided, as in the present case, by almost incredulous amazement, the agent"s flight was talked of and discussed in circles where the great political event was heard as a matter of course. Where had he fled to? What sum had he carried away with him? Who would be the princ.i.p.al losers? were all the questions eagerly discussed, but none of which excited so much diversity of opinion as the single one: What was the cause of his defalcation? His agencies were numerous and profitable, his mode of life neither extravagant nor ostentatious; how could a man with so few habits of expense have contracted debts of any considerable amount, or what circ.u.mstances could induce him to relinquish a station of respectability and competence for a life-long of dishonorable exile?
Such has been our progress of late years in the art of revealing to the world at large the hidden springs of every action and event around us that a secret is in reality the only thing now impossible. Forty-five years ago, this wonderful exercise of knowledge was in a great measure unknown; the guessers were then a large and respectable cla.s.s in society, and men were content with what mathematicians call approximation. In our own more accurate days, what between the newspaper, the club-room, and ""Change," such mystery is no longer practicable. One day, or two at furthest, would now proclaim every item in a man"s schedule, and afford that most sympathetic of all bodies, the world, the fruitful theme of expatiating on his folly or his criminality. In the times we refer to, however, it was only the "Con Heffermans" of society that ventured even to speculate on the secret causes of these events.
Although the debate had lasted from eight o"clock in the evening to past eleven on the following morning, before twelve Mr. Heffernan"s carriage was at the door, and the owner, without any trace of fatigue, set off to ascertain so much as might be learned of this strange and unexpected catastrophe. It was no mere pa.s.sion to know the current gossip of the day, no prying taste for the last piece of scandal in circulation,--Con Heffernan was above such weaknesses; but he had a habit--one which some men practise even yet with success--of whenever the game was safe, taking credit to himself for casualties in which he had no possible connection, and attributing events in which he had no share to his own direct influence. After all, he was in this only imitating the great navigators of the globe, who have established the rule that discovery gives a right only second to actual creation.
This was, however, a really provoking case; no one knew anything of Gleeson"s embarra.s.sments. Several of those for whom he acted as agent were in Dublin, but they were more amazed than all others at his flight; most of them had settled accounts with him very lately, some men owed him small sums. "Darcy perhaps knows something about him," was a speech Heffernan heard more than once repeated; but Darcy"s house was shut up, and the servant announced "he had left town that morning." Hickman O"Reilly was the next chance; not that he had any direct intercourse with Gleeson, but his general acquaintanceship with moneyed men and matters made him a likely source of information; while a small sealed note addressed to Dr. Hickman was in possession of a banker with whom Gleeson had transacted business the day before his departure. But O"Reilly had left town with his son. "The doctor, sir, is here still; he does not go before to-morrow," said the servant, who, knowing that Heffernan was a person of some consequence in the Dublin world, thought proper to give this piece of unasked news.
"Will you give Mr. Con Heffernan"s compliments, and say he would be glad to have the opportunity of a few minutes" conversation?" The servant returned immediately, and showed him upstairs into a back drawing-room, where, before a table covered with law papers and parchments, sat the venerable doctor. He had not as yet performed the usual offices of a toilet, and, with unshaven chin and uncombed hair, looked the most melancholy contrast of age, neglect, and misery, with the gorgeous furniture of a most splendid apartment.
He lifted his head as the door opened, and stared fixedly at the new-comer, with an expression at once fierce and anxious, so that Heffernan, when speaking of him afterwards, said that, "Dressed as he was, in an old flannel morning-gown, dotted with black tufts, he looked for all the world like a sick tiger making his will."
"Your humble servant, sir," said he, coldly, as Heffernan advanced with an air of cordiality; nor were the words and the accents they were uttered in lost upon the man they were addressed to. He saw how the land lay, in a second, and said eagerly, "He has not left town, I trust, sir; I sincerely hope your son has not gone."
"Yes, sir, he"s off; I"m sure I don"t know what he"d wait for."
"Too precipitate,--too rash by far, Mr. Hickman," said Heffernan, seating himself, and wiping his forehead with an air of well-a.s.sumed chagrin.
"Maybe so," repeated the old man two or three times over, while he lowered his spectacles to his nose, and began hunting among his papers, as though he had other occupation in hand of more moment than the present topic.
"Are you aware, sir," said Heffernan, drawing his chair close up, and speaking in a most confidential whisper,--"are you aware, sir, that your son mistook the signal,--that when Mr. Corry took out his handkerchief and opened it on his knee, that it was in token of Lord Castlereagh"s acquiescence of Mr. O"Reilly"s demand,--that, in short, the peerage was at that moment his own if he wished it?"
The look of dogged incredulity in the old man"s face would have silenced a more sensitive advocate than Heffer-nan; but he went on: "If any one should feel angry at what has occurred, I am the person; I was the guarantee for your son"s vote, and I have now to meet Lord Castle-reagh without one word of possible explanation."
"Hickman told me," said the old man, with a voice steady and composed, "that if Mr. Corry did not raise the handkerchief to his mouth, the terms were not agreed upon; that opening it before him only meant the bargain was not quite off: more delay, more talk, Mr. Heffernan; and I think there was enough of that already."
"A complete mistake, sir,--a total misconception on his part."