While Tate busied himself in laying the table, Mr. Nickie, with
bent brows and folded arms, passed up and down the apartments, still
ruminating on the affront so openly passed upon him, and cogitating
how best to avenge it. As passing and repassing he cast his eyes on the
preparations, he halted suddenly, and said, “Lay another cover here.”
Tate stood, uncertain whether he had heard aright the words, when Nickie
repeated, “Don't you hear me? I said lay another cover. The gentleman
will sup here.”
“Oh! indeed,” exclaimed Tate, as, opening his eyes to the fullest
extent, he appeared to admit a new light upon his brain; “I beg pardon,
sir, I was thinking that this gentleman might like to sup with the other
gentleman, out in the kitchen beyond!”
“I said he 'd sup here,” said Nickie, vehemently, for he felt the taunt
in all its bitterness.
“I say, old fellow,” said M'Dermot in Tate's ear, “you needn't be
sparin' of the liquor. Give us the best you have, and plenty of it. It
is all the same to yer master, you know, in a few days. I was saying,
sir,” said he to Nickie, who, overhearing him, turned sharply round,-“I
was saying, sir, that he might as well give up the ould bin with the
cobweb over it. It's the creditors suffers now, and we've many a way of
doin' a civil turn.”
“His mistress has shut the door on that,” said Nickie, savagely, “and
she may take the consequences.”
“Oh, never mind him,” whispered M'Dermot to Tate; “he 's the
best-hearted crayture that ever broke bread, but passionate, d' ye mind,
passionate.”
Poor Tate, who had suddenly become alive to the characters and objects
of his quests, was now aware that his mistress's refusal to admit the
chief might possibly be productive of very disastrous consequences;
for, like all low Irishmen, he had a very ample notion of the elastic
character of the law, and thought that its pains and penalties were
entirely at the option of him who executed it.
“Her Ladyship never liked to see much company,” said he, apologetically.
“Well, maybe so,” rejoined M'Dennot, “but in a quiet homely sort of a
way, sure she need n't have refused Mr. Anthony; little she knows, there
's not the like of him for stories about the Court of Conscience and the
Sessions.”
“I don't doubt it,” exclaimed Tate, who, in assenting, felt pretty
certain that his fascinations would scarcely have met appreciation in
the society of his mistress and her daughter.
“And if ye heerd him sing 'Hobson's Choice,' with a new verse of his own
at the end!”
Tate threw a full expression of wondering admiration into his features,
and went on with his arrangements in silence.
“Does he know anything of Dempsey, do you think?” said Nickie, in a
whisper to his follower.
“Not he,” muttered the other, scornfully; “the crayture seems half a
nat'ral.” Then, in a voice pitched purposely loud, he said, “Do you
happen to know one Dempsey in these parts?”
“Paul Dempsey?” added Nickie.
“A little, short man, with a turned-up nose, that walks with his
shoulders far back and his hands spread out? Ay, I know him well; he
dined here one day with the master, and sure enough he made the company
laugh hearty!”
“I 'd be glad to meet him, if he 's as pleasant as you say,” said
Nickie, slyly.
“There's nothing easier, then,” said Tate; “since the boarding-house is
closed there at Ballintray, he's up in Coleraine for the winter. I hear
he waits for the Dublin mail, at M'Grotty's door, every evening, to see
the passengers, and that he has a peep at the way-bill before the agent
himself.”
“Has he so many acquaintances that he is always on the look out for
one?”
“Faix, if they'd let him,” cried Tate, laughing, “I believe he 'd know
every man, woman, and child in Ireland. For curiosity, he beats all ever
I seen.”
As Tate spoke, a sudden draught of wind seemed to penetrate the
chamber,--at least the canoe and its party shook perceptibly.
“We'll have a rare night of it,” said Nickie, drawing nearer to the
fire. Then resuming, added, “And you say I'll have no difficulty to find
him?”
“Not the least, bedad! It would be far harder to escape him, from all
I hear. He watches the coach, and never leaves it till he sees the fore
boot and the hind one empty; not only looking the passengers in the
face, but tumbling over the luggage, reading all the names, and where
they 're going. Oh, he's a wonderful man for knowledge!”
“Indeed,” said Nickie, with a look of attention to draw on the garrulity
of the old man.
“I've reason to remember it well,” said Tate, putting both hands to his
loins. “It was the day he dined here I got the rheumatiz in the small of
my back. When I went to open the gate without there for him, he kept me
talking for three quarters of an hour in the teeth of an east wind that
would shave a goat,--asking me about the master and the mistress and
Miss Helen, ay, and even about myself at last,--if I had any brothers,
and what their names was, and who was Mister Daly, and whether he did
n't keep a club-house. By my conscience, it's well for him ould Bagenal
did n't hear him!”
A clattering sound from the canoe suddenly interrupted Tate's narrative;
he stopped short, and muttered, in a tone of unfeigned terror,--
“That's the way always,-may I never see glory! ye can't speak of him but
he hears ye!”
A rude laugh from Nickie, chorused still more coarsely by M'Dermot,
arrested Tate's loquacity, and he finished his arrangements without
speaking, save in a few broken sentences.
If Mr. Nickie could have been conciliated by material enjoyments, he
might decidedly have confessed that the preparations for his comfort
were ample and hospitable. A hot supper diffused its savory steam on a
table where decanters and flasks of wine of different sorts and sizes
attested that the more convivial elements of a feast were not forgotten.
Good humor was, however, not to be restored by such amends. He was
wounded in his self-love, outraged in his vanity; and he sat down in
a dogged silence to the meal, a perfect contrast in appearance to the
coarse delight of his subordinate.
While Tate remained to wait on them, Nickie's manner and bearing were
unchanged. A sullen, sulky expression sat on features which, even when
at the best, conveyed little better than a look of shrewd keenness;
nor could the appetite with which he eat suggest a passing ray of
satisfaction to his face.
“I am glad we are rid of that old fellow at last,” said he, as the door
closed upon Tate. “Whether fool or knave, I saw what he was at; he would
have been disrespectful if he dared.”
“I did n't mind him much, sir,” said M'Dermot, honestly confessing that
the good cheer had absorbed his undivided attention.
“I did, then; I saw his eyes fixed effectually on us,--on you
particularly. I thought he would have laughed outright when you helped
yourself to the entire duck.”
Nickie spoke this with an honest severity, meant to express his
discontent with his companion fully as much as with the old butler.
“Well, it was an excellent supper, anyhow,” said M'Dermot, taking the
bottle which Nickie pushed towards him somewhat rudely; “and here 's
wishing health and happiness and long life to ye, Mr. Anthony. May ye
always have as plentiful a board, and better company round it.”
There was a fawning humility in the fellow's manner that seemed to
gratify the other, for he nodded a return to the sentiment, and, after a
brief pause, said,--“The servants in these grand houses,--and that old
fellow, you may remark, was with the Darcys when they were great
people,--they give themselves airs to everybody they think below the
rank of their master.”
“Faix, they might behave better to _you_, Mr. Anthony,” said M'Dermot.
“Well, they're run their course now,” said Nickie, not heeding the
remark. “Both master and man have had their day. I 've seen more
executions on property in the last six months than ever I did in all my
life before. Creditors won't wait now as they used to do. No influence
now to make gaugers and tide-waiters and militia officers; no privilege
of Parliament to save them from arrest!”
“My blessings on them for that, anyhow,” said M'Dermot, finishing his
glass. “The Union 's a fine thing.”
“The fellows that got the bribes--and, to be sure, there was plenty of
money going--won't stay to spend it in Ireland; devil a one will remain
here, but those that are run out and ruined.”
“Bad luck to it for a Bill!” said M'Dermot, who felt obliged to
sacrifice his consistency in his desire to concur with each new
sentiment of his chief.
“The very wine we're drinking, maybe, was given for a vote. Pitt knew
well how to catch them.”
“Success attend him!” chimed in M'Dermot.
“And just think of them now,” continued Nickie, whose ruminations were
never interrupted by the running commentary,--“just think of them!
selling the country, trade, prosperity, everything, for a few hundred
pounds.”
“The blackguards!”
“Some, to be sure, made a fine thing out of it. Not like old Darcy here;
they were early in the market, and got both rank and money too.”
“Ay, that was doin' it in style!” exclaimed Mike, who expressed himself
this time somewhat equivocally, for safety's sake.
“There 's no denying it, Castlereagh was a clever fellow!”
“The best man ever I seen--I don't care who the other is.”
“He knew when to bid, and when to draw back; never became too pressing,
but never let any one feel himself neglected; watched his opportunities
slyly, and when the time came, pounced down like a hawk on his victim.”
“Oh, the thieves' breed! What a hard heart he had!” muttered M'Dermot,
perfectly regardless of whom he was speaking.
Thus did Mr. Nickie ramble on, in the popular cant, over the subject
of the day; for although the Union was now carried, and its
consequences--whatever they might be--so far inevitable, the men whose
influence effected the measure were still before the bar of public
opinion,--an ordeal not a whit more just and discriminating than it
usually is. While the current of these reminiscences ran on, varied by
some anecdote here or some observation there, both master and man
drank deeply. So long as good liquor abounded, Mr. M'Dermot could have
listened with pleasure, even to a less entertaining companion; and as
for Nickie, he felt a vulgar pride in discussing, familiarly and by
name, the men of rank and station who took a leading part in Irish
politics. The pamphlets and newspapers of the day had made so many
private histories public, had unveiled so many family circumstances
before the eyes of the world, that his dissertations had all the seeming
authenticity of personal knowledge.
It was at the close of a rather violent denunciation of the
“Traitors”--as the Government party was ever called--that Nickie,
striking the table with his fist, called on M'Dermot to sing.
“I say, Mac,” cried he, with a faltering tongue, and eyes red and
bleared from drink,--“the old lady--wouldn't accept my society--she did
n't think--An-tho-ny Nickie, Esquire--good enough--to sit down--at her
table. Let us show her what she has lost, my boy. Give her 'Bob Uniake's
Boots' or 'The Major's Prayer.'”
“Or what d' ye think of the new ballad to Lord Castlereagh, sir?”
suggested M'Dermot, modestly. “It was the last thing Rhoudlim had when I
left town.”
“Is it good?” hiccuped Nickie.
“If ye heerd Rhoudlim--”
“D----n Rhoudlim!--she used to sing that song Parsons made on the
attorneys. Parsons never liked us, Mac. You know what he said to Holmes,
who went to him for a subscription of five shillings, to help to bury
Mat Costegan. 'Was n't he an attorney?' says Parsons. 'He was,' says the
other. 'Well, here 's a pound,' says he; 'take it and bury four!'”
“Oh, by my conscience, that was mighty nate!” said M'Dermot, who
completely forgot himself.
Nickie frowned savagely at his companion, and for a moment seemed about
to express his anger more palpably, when he suddenly drank off his
glass, and said, “Well, the song,-let us have it now.”
“I 'm afraid--I don't know more than a verse here and there,” said Mac,
bashfully stroking down his hair, and mincing his words; “but with the
help of a chorus--”
“Trust me for that,” cried Nickie, who now drank glass after glass
without stopping; “I'm always ready for a song.” So saying he burst out
into a half-lachryinose chant,--
“An old maid had a roguish eye!
And she was call'd the great Kamshoodera!
Rich was she and poor was I!
Fol de dol de die do!
“I forget the rest, Mickie, but it goes on about a Nabob and a bear,
and--a--what's this ye call it, a pottle of green gooseberries that Lord
Clangoff sold to Mrs. Kelfoyle.”
“To be sure; I remember it well,” said Mac, humoring the drunken
lucubrations; “but my chant is twice as aisy to sing,--the air is the
'Black Joke;' and any one can chorus.”
“Well, open the proceedings,” hiccuped Nickie; “state the case.”
And thus encouraged, Mr. M'Dermot cleared his throat, and in a voice
loud and coarse enough to be heard above the howling din, began:--
“Though many a mile he's from Erin away,
Here 's health and long life to my Lord Castlereagh,
With his bag full of guineas so bright!
'T was he that made Bishops and Deans by the score,
And Peers, of the fashion of Lord Donoughmore!
And a Colonel of horse of our friend Billy Lake,
And Wallincourt a Lord,--t'other day but Joe Blake,
With his bag full of guineas so bright.
“Come Beresford, Bingham, Luke Fox, and Tyrone,
Come Kearney, Bob Johnston, and Arthur Malone,
With your bag full of guineas so bright;
Lord Charles Fitzgerald and Kit Fortescue,
And Henry Deane Grady,--we 'll not forget you,
Come Cuffe, Isaac Corry, and General Dunne,
And you Jemmy Vandeleur,--come every one,
With your bag full of guineas so bright.
Come Talbot and Townsend, Come Toler and Trench,
Tho' made for the gallows, ye 're now on the Bench,
With your bag full of guineas so bright
But if ever again this black list I 'll begin,
The first name I 'll take is the ould Knight of Gwynne,
Who, robb'd of his property, stripped of his pelf,
Would be glad to see Erin as poor as himself.
With no bag full of guineas so bright.
“If the Parliament 's gone, and the world it has scoffed us,
What a blessing to think that we 've Tottenham Loftus,
With his bag full of guineas so bright.
Oh, what consolation through every disaster,
To know that your Lordship is made our Postmaster,
And your uncle a Bishop, your aunt--but why mention,
Two thousand a year, 'of a long service pension'
Of a bag full of guineas so bright.
“But what is the change, since your Lordship appears!
You found us all Paupers, you left us all Peers,
With your bag full of guineas so bright.
Not a man in the island, however he boast,
But has a good reason to fill to the toast,--
From Cork to the Causeway, from Howth to Clue Bay,
A health and long life to my Lord Castlereagh,
With his bag full of guineas so bright.”
The boisterous accompaniment by which Mr. Nickie testified his
satisfaction at the early verses had gradually subsided into a low
droning sound, which at length, towards the conclusion, lapsed into a
prolonged heavy snore. “Fast!” exclaimed M'Dermot, holding the candle
close to his eyes. “Fast!” Then taking up the decanter, he added, “And
if ye had gone off before, it would have been no great harm.
Ye never had the bottle out of yer grip for the last hour and half!” He
heaped some wood on the grate, refilled his glass, and then disposing
himself so as to usurp a very large share of the blazing fire, prepared
to follow the good example of his chief. Long habit had made an
arm-chair to the full as comfortable as a bed to the worthy functionary,
and his arrangements were scarcely completed, when his nose announced by
a deep sound that he was a wanderer in the land of dreams.
Poor Mr. Dempsey--for if the reader may have forgotten him all this
while, we must not--listened long and watchfully to the heavy notes, nor
was it without considerable fear that he ventured to unveil his head and
take a peep under Daly's arm at the sleepers. Reassured by the seeming
heaviness of the slumberers, he dared a step farther, and at last seated
himself bolt upright in the canoe, glad to relieve his cramped-up legs,
even by this momentary change of position. So cautious were all his
movements, so still and noiseless every gesture, that had there been a
waking eye to mark him, it would have been hard enough to distinguish
between his figure and those of his inanimate neighbors.
[Illustration: 236]
The deep and heavy breathing of the sleepers was the only sound to be
heard; they snored as if it were a contest between them; still it
was long before Dempsey could summon courage enough to issue from his
hiding-place, and with stealthy steps approach the table. Cautiously
lifting the candle, he first held it to the face of one and then of the
other of the sleepers. His next move was to inspect the supper-table,
where, whatever the former abundance, nothing remained save the veriest
fragments: the bottles too were empty, and poor Dempsey shook his head
mournfully as he poured out and drank the last half-glass of sherry in a
decanter. This done, he stood for a few minutes reflecting what step
he should take next. A sudden change of position of Nickie startled him
from these deliberations, and Dempsey cowered down beneath the table in
terror. Scarcely daring to breathe, Paul waited while the sleeper moved
from side to side, muttering some short and broken words; at length he
seemed to have settled himself to his satisfaction, for so his prolonged
respiration bespoke. Just as he had turned for the last time, a heavy
roll of papers fell from his pocket to the floor. Dempsey eyed the
packet with a greedy look, but did not dare to reach his hand towards
it, till well assured that the step was safe.
Taking a candle from the table, Paul reseated himself on the floor, and
opened a large roll of documents tied with red tape; the very first he
unrolled seemed to arrest his attention strongly, and although passing
on to the examination of the remainder, he more than once recurred to
it, till at length creeping stealthily towards the fire, he placed it
among the burning embers, and stirred and poked until it became a mere
mass of blackened leaves.
“There,” muttered he, “Paul Dempsey 's his own man again. And now what
can he do for his friends? Ha, ha! 'Execution against Effects of Bagenal
Daly, Esq.,'” said he, reading half aloud; “and this lengthy affair
here, 'Instructions to A. N. relative to the enclosed'-let us see what
that may be.” And so saying, he opened the scroll; a bright flash of
flame burst out from among the slumbering embers, and ere it died away
Paul read a few lines of the paper. “What scoundrels!” muttered he,
as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, for already had
honest Paul's feelings excited him to the utmost. The flame was again
flickering, in another moment it would be out, when, stealing forth his
hand, he placed an open sheet upon it, and then, as the blaze caught, he
laid the entire bundle of papers on the top, and watched them till they
were reduced to ashes.
“Maybe it's a felony--I'm sure it's a misdemeanor at least--what I 've
done now,” muttered he; “but there was no resisting it. I wish I thought
it was no heavier crime to do the same by these worthy gentlemen here.”
Indeed, for a second or two, Paul's hesitation seemed very considerable.
Fear, or something higher in principle, got the victory at length, and
after a long silence he said,--
“Well, I 'll not harm them.” And with this benevolent sentiment he stood
up, and detaching Darcy's portrait from the wall, thrust it into his
capacious pocket. This done, he threw another glance over the table,
lest some unseen decanter might still remain; but no, except a water-jug
of pure element, nothing remained.
“Good-night, and pleasant dreams t'ye both,” muttered Paul, as, blowing
out one candle, he took the other, and slipped, without the slightest
noise, from the room.