Whether from simple caprice, or that Lady Cobham desired to mark her
disapprobation of Polly Dill's share in the late wager, is not open to
me to say, but the festivities at Cob-ham were not, on that day, graced
or enlivened by her presence. If the comments on her absence were brief,
they were pungent, and some wise reflections, too, were uttered as to
the dangers that must inevitably attend all attempts to lift people into
a sphere above their own. Poor human nature! that unlucky culprit who
is flogged for everything and for everybody, bore the brunt of these
severities, and it was declared that Polly had done what any other
girl “in her rank of life” might have done; and this being settled, the
company went to luncheon, their appetites none the worse for the small
_auto-da-fé_ they had just celebrated.
“You'd have lost your money, Captain,” whispered Ambrose Bushe to
Stapylton, as they stood talking together in a window recess, “if that
girl had only taken the river three hundred yards higher up. Even as it
was, she 'd have breasted her horse at the bank if the bridle had not
given way. I suppose you have seen the place?”
“I regret to say I have not. They tell me it's one of the strongest
rapids in the river.”
“Let me describe it to you,” replied he; and at once set about a picture
in which certainly no elements of peril were forgotten, and all the
dangers of rocks and rapids were given with due emphasis. Stapylton
seemed to listen with fitting attention, throwing out the suitable
“Indeed! is it possible!” and such-like interjections, his mind,
however, by no means absorbed by the narrative, but dwelling solely on a
chance name that had dropped from the narrator.
“You called the place 'Barrington's Ford,'” said he, at last. “Who is
Barrington?”
“As good a gentleman by blood and descent as any in this room, but now
reduced to keep a little wayside inn,--the 'Fisherman's Home,' it is
called. All come of a spendthrift son, who went out to India, and ran
through every acre of the property before he died.”
“What a strange vicissitude! And is the old man much broken by it?”
“Some would say he was; my opinion is, that he bears up wonderfully.
Of course, to me, he never makes any mention of the past; but while my
father lived, he would frequently talk to him over bygones, and liked
nothing better than to speak of his son, Mad George as they called him,
and tell all his wildest exploits and most harebrained achievements.
But you have served yourself in India. Have you never heard of George
Barrington?”
Stapylton shook his head, and dryly added that India was very large,
and that even in one Presidency a man might never hear what went on in
another.
“Well, this fellow made noise enough to be heard even over here. He
married a native woman, and he either shook off his English allegiance,
or was suspected of doing so. At all events, he got himself into trouble
that finished him. It's a long complicated story, that I have never
heard correctly. The upshot was, however, old Barrington was sold out
stick and stone, and if it was n't for the ale-house he might starve.”
“And his former friends and associates, do they rally round him and
cheer him?”
“Not a great deal. Perhaps, however, that's as much his fault as theirs.
He is very proud, and very quick to resent anything like consideration
for his changed condition. Sir Charles would have him up here,--he has
tried it scores of times, but all in vain; and now he is left to two or
three of his neighbors, the doctor and an old half-pay major, who lives
on the river, and I believe really he never sees any one else. Old
M'Cormick knew George Barrington well; not that they were friends,--two
men less alike never lived; but that's enough to make poor Peter fond of
talking to him, and telling all about some lawsuits George left him for
a legacy.”
“This Major that you speak of, does he visit here? I don't remember to
have seen him.”
“M'Cormick!” said the other, laughing. “No, he 's a miserly old fellow
that has n't a coat fit to go out in, and he's no loss to any one. It's
as much as old Peter Barrington can do to bear his shabby ways, and his
cranky temper, but he puts up with everything because he knew his son
George. That's quite enough for old Peter; and if you were to go over
to the cottage, and say, 'I met your son up in Bombay or Madras; we were
quartered together at Ram-something-or-other,' he 'd tell you the place
was your own, to stop at as long as you liked, and your home for life.”
“Indeed!” said Stapylton, affecting to feel interested, while he
followed out the course of his own thoughts.
“Not that the Major could do even that much!” continued Bushe, who now
believed that he had found an eager listener. “There was only one thing
in this world he'd like to talk about,--Walcheren. Go how or when you
liked, or where or for what,--no matter, it was Walcheren you 'd get,
and nothing else.”
“Somewhat tiresome this, I take it!”
“Tiresome is no name for it! And I don't know a stronger proof of old
Peter's love for his son's memory, than that, for the sake of hearing
about him, he can sit and listen to the 'expedition.'”
There was a half-unconscious mimicry in the way he gave the last
word that showed how the Major's accents had eaten their way into his
sensibilities.
“Your portrait of this Major is not tempting,” said Stapylton, smiling.
“Why would it? He's eighteen or twenty years in the neighborhood, and I
never heard that he said a kind word or did a generous act by any one.
But I get cross if I talk of him. Where are you going this morning? Will
you come up to the Long Callows and look at the yearlings? The Admiral
is very proud of his young stock, and he thinks he has some of the best
bone and blood in Ireland there at this moment.”
“Thanks, no; I have some notion of a long walk this morning. I take
shame to myself for having seen so little of the country here since I
came that I mean to repair my fault and go off on a sort of voyage of
discovery.”
“Follow the river from Brown's Barn down to Inistioge, and if you
ever saw anything prettier I'm a Scotchman.” And with this appalling
alternative, Mr. Bushe walked away, and left the other to his own
guidance.
Perhaps Stapylton is not the companion my reader would care to stroll
with, even along the grassy path beside that laughing river, with
spray-like larches bending overhead, and tender water-lilies streaming,
like pennants, in the fast-running current. It may be that he or she
would prefer some one more impressionable to the woodland beauty of the
spot, and more disposed to enjoy the tranquil loveliness around him; for
it is true the swarthy soldier strode on, little heeding the picturesque
effects which made every succeeding reach of the river a subject for a
painter. He was bent on finding out where M'Cormick lived, and on making
the acquaintance of that bland individual.
“That's the Major's, and there's himself,” said a countryman, as he
pointed to a very shabbily dressed old man hoeing his cabbages in
a dilapidated bit of garden-ground, but who was so absorbed in his
occupation as not to notice the approach of a stranger.
“Am I taking too great a liberty,” said Stapylton, as he raised his
hat, “if I ask leave to follow the river path through this lovely spot?”
“Eh--what?--how did you come? You didn't pass round by the young wheat,
eh?” asked M'Cormick, in his most querulous voice.
“I came along by the margin of the river.”
“That's just it!” broke in the other. “There's no keeping them out
that way. But I 'll have a dog as sure as my name is Dan. I'll have a
bull-terrier that'll tackle the first of you that's trespassing there.”
“I fancy I'm addressing Major M'Cormick,” said Stapylton, never noticing
this rude speech; “and if so, I will ask him to accord me the privilege
of a brother-soldier, and let me make myself known to him,--Captain
Stapylton, of the Prince's Hussars.”
“By the wars!” muttered old Dan; the exclamation being a favorite one
with him to express astonishment at any startling event. Then recovering
himself, he added, “I think I heard there were three or four of ye
stopping up there at Cobham; but I never go out myself anywhere. I live
very retired down here.”
“I am not surprised at that. When an old soldier can nestle down in a
lovely nook like this, he has very little to regret of what the world is
busy about outside it.”
“And they are all ruining themselves, besides,” said M'Cormick, with
one of his malicious grins. “There's not a man in this county is n't
mortgaged over head and ears. I can count them all on my fingers for
you, and tell what they have to live on.”
“You amaze me,” said Stapylton, with a show of interest
“And the women are as bad as the men: nothing fine enough for them to
wear; no jewels rich enough to put on! Did you ever hear them mention
_me?_” asked he, suddenly, as though the thought flashed upon him that
he had himself been exposed to comment of a very different kind.
“They told me of an old retired officer, who owned a most picturesque
cottage, and said, if I remember aright, that the view from one of the
windows was accounted one of the most perfect bits of river landscape in
the kingdom.”
“Just the same as where you 're standing,--no difference in life,”
said M'Cormick, who was not to be seduced by the flattery into any
demonstration of hospitality.
“I cannot imagine anything finer,” said Stapylton, as he threw himself
at the foot of a tree, and seemed really to revel in enjoyment of the
scene. “One might, perhaps, if disposed to be critical, ask for a little
opening in that copse yonder. I suspect we should get a peep at the bold
cliff whose summit peers above the tree-tops.”
“You'd see the quarry, to be sure,” croaked out the Major, “if that's
what you mean.”
“May I offer you a cigar?” said Stapylton, whose self-possession was
pushed somewhat hard by the other. “An old campaigner is sure to be a
smoker.”
“I am not. I never had a pipe in my mouth since Walcheren.”
“Since Walcheren! You don't say that you are an old Walcheren man?”
“I am, indeed. I was in the second battalion of the 103d,--the Duke's
Fusiliers, if ever you heard of them.”
“Heard of them! The whole world has heard of them; but I did n't know
there was a man of that splendid corps surviving. Why, they lost--let me
see--they lost every officer but--” Here a vigorous effort to keep his
cigar alight interposed, and kept him occupied for a few seconds. “How
many did you bring out of action,--four was it, or five? I'm certain you
had n't six!”
“We were the same as the Buffs, man for man,” said M'Cormick.
“The poor Buffs!--very gallant fellows too!” sighed Stapylton. “I
have always maintained, and I always will maintain, that the Walcheren
expedition, though not a success, was the proudest achievement of the
British arms.”
“The shakes always began after sunrise, and in less than ten minutes you
'd see your nails growing blue.”
“How dreadful!”
“And if you felt your nose, you would n't know it was your nose; you 'd
think it was a bit of a cold carrot.”
“Why was that?”
“Because there was no circulation; the blood would stop going round; and
you 'd be that way for four hours,--till the sweating took you,--just
the same as dead.”
“There, don't go on,--I can't stand it,--my nerves are all ajar
already.”
“And then the cramps came on,” continued M'Cormick, in an ecstasy over
a listener whose feelings he could harrow; “first in the calves of the
legs, and then all along the spine, so that you 'd be bent like a fish.”
“For Heaven's sake, spare me! I've seen some rough work, but that
description of yours is perfectly horrifying! And when one thinks it was
the glorious old 105th--”
“No, the 103d; the 105th was at Barbadoes,” broke in the Major, testily.
“So they were, and got their share of the yellow fever at that very time
too,” said Stapylton, hazarding a not very rash conjecture.
“Maybe they did, and maybe they didn't,” was the dry rejoinder.
It required all Stapylton's nice tact to get the Major once more full
swing at the expedition, but he at last accomplished the feat, and with
such success that M'Cormick suggested an adjournment within doors,
and faintly hinted at a possible something to drink. The wily guest,
however, declined this. “He liked,” he said, “that nice breezy spot
under those fine old trees, and with that glorious reach of the river
before them. Could a man but join to these enjoyments,” he continued,
“just a neighbor or two,--an old friend or so that he really liked,--one
not alone agreeable from his tastes, but to whom the link of early
companionship also attached us, with this addition I could call this a
paradise.”
“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 title-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 pass 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 assent 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!”
“And something bitter too!” croaked out M'Cormick, with a fearful grin.
“Well, if you'll not come to see me, the chances are I'll come over and
make _you_ another visit before I leave the neighborhood.” He waited a
second or two, not more, for some recognition of this offer; but none
came, and he con-tinned: “I'll get you to stroll down with me, and show
me this 'Fisherman's Home,' and its strange proprietor.”
“Oh, I 'll do _that!_” said the Major, who had no objection to a plan
which by no possibility could involve himself in any cost.
“As it is an inn, perhaps they 'd let us have a bit of dinner. What
would you say to being my guest there tomorrow? Would that suit you?”
“It would suit _me_ well enough!” was the strongly marked reply.
“Well, we 'll do it this wise. You 'll send one of your people over
to order dinner for two at--shall we say five o'clock?--yes,
five--to-morrow. That will give us a longer evening, and I 'll call here
for you about four. Is that agreed?”
“Yes, that might do,” was M'Cormick's half-reluctant assent, for, in
reality, there were details in the matter that he scarcely fancied.
First of all, he had never hitherto crossed that threshold except as an
invited guest, and he had his misgivings about the prudence of appearing
in any other character, and secondly, there was a responsibility in
ordering the dinner, which he liked just as little, and, as he muttered
to himself, “Maybe I 'll have to order the bill too!”
Some unlucky experiences of casualties of this sort had, perhaps,
shadowed his early life; for so it was, that long after Stapylton had
taken his leave and gone off, the Major stood there ruminating over this
unpleasant contingency, and ingeniously imagining all the pleas he
could put in, should his apprehension prove correct, against his own
indebtedness.
“Tell Miss Dinah,” said he to his messenger,--“tell her 't is an officer
by the name of Captain Staples, or something like that, that 's up at
Cobham, that wants a dinner for two to-morrow at five o'clock; and mind
that you don't say who the other is, for it's nothing to her. And if
she asks you what sort of a dinner, say the best in the house, for the
Captain--mind you say the Captain--is to pay for it, and the other man
only dines with him. There, now, you have your orders, and take care
that you follow them!”
There was a shrewd twinkle in the messenger's eye as he listened, which,
if not exactly complimentary, guaranteed how thoroughly he comprehended
the instructions that were given to him; and the Major saw him set forth
on his mission, well assured that he could trust his envoy.
In that nothing-for-nothing world Major M'Cormick had so long lived in,
and to whose practice and ways he had adapted all his thoughts, there
was something puzzling in the fact of a dashing Captain of Hussars of
“the Prince's Own,” seeking him out, to form his acquaintance and invite
him to dinner. Now, though the selfishness of an unimaginative man is
the most complete of all, it yet exposes him to fewer delusions than the
same quality when found allied with a hopeful or fanciful temperament.
M'Cormick had no “distractions” from such sources. He thought very ill
of the world at large; he expected extremely little from its generosity,
and he resolved to be “quits” with it. To his often put question, “What
brought him here?--what did he come for?” he could find no satisfactory
reply. He scouted the notion of “love of scenery, solitude, and so
forth,” and as fully he ridiculed to himself the idea of a stranger
caring to hear the gossip and small-talk of a mere country neighborhood.
“I have it!” cried he at last, as a bright thought darted through his
brain,--“I have it at last! He wants to pump me about the 'expedition.'
It's for that he's come. He affected surprise, to be sure, when I said
I was a Walcheren man, and pretended to be amazed, besides; but that was
all make-believe. He knew well enough who and what I was before he
came. And he was so cunning, leading the conversation away in another
direction, getting me to talk of old Peter and his son George. Wasn't
it deep?--was n't it sly? Well, maybe we are not so innocent as we look,
ourselves; maybe we have a trick in our sleeves too! 'With a good dinner
and a bottle of port wine,' says he, 'I 'll have the whole story, and
be able to write it with the signature “One who was there.”' But you 're
mistaken this time, Captain; the sorrow bit of Walcheren you 'll hear
out of my mouth to-morrow, be as pleasant and congenial as you like.
I 'll give you the Barringtons, father and son,--ay, and old Dinah, too,
if you fancy her,--but not a syllable about the expedition. It's the
Scheldt you want, but you 'll have to 'take it out' in the Ganges.” And
his uncouth joke so tickled him that he laughed till his eyes ran over;
and in the thought that he was going to obtain a dinner under false
pretences, he felt something as nearly like happiness as he had tasted
for many a long day before.