If Conyers had been in the frame of mind to notice it, the contrast
between the neat propriety of the “Fisherman's Home,” and the disorder
and slovenliness of the little inn at Inistioge could not have failed
to impress itself upon him. The “Spotted Duck” was certainly, in all its
details, the very reverse of that quiet and picturesque cottage he had
just quitted. But what did he care at that moment for the roof that
sheltered him, or the table that was spread before him? For days back he
had been indulging in thoughts of that welcome which Miss Barrington had
promised him. He fancied how, on the mere mention of his father's name,
the old man's affection would have poured forth in a flood of kindest
words; he had even prepared himself for a scene of such emotion as a
father might have felt on seeing one who brought back to mind his own
son's earlier years; and instead of all this, he found himself shunned,
avoided, repulsed. If there was a thing on earth in which his pride was
greatest, it was his name; and yet it was on the utterance of that word,
“Conyers,” old Barrington turned away and left him.
Over and over again had he found the spell of his father's name and
title opening to him society, securing him attentions, and obtaining
for him that recognition and acceptance which go so far to make life
pleasurable; and now that word, which would have had its magic at a
palace, fell powerless and cold at the porch of a humble cottage.
To say that it was part of his creed to believe his father could do
no wrong is weak. It was his whole belief,--his entire and complete
conviction. To his mind his father embodied all that was noble,
high-hearted, and chivalrous. It was not alone the testimony of those
who served under him could be appealed to. All India, the Government
at home, his own sovereign knew it. From his earliest infancy he had
listened to this theme, and to doubt it seemed like to dispute the fact
of his existence. How was it, then, that this old man refused to accept
what the whole world had stamped with its value? Was it that he impugned
the services which had made his father's name famous throughout the
entire East?
He endeavored to recall the exact words Barrington had used towards
him, but he could not succeed. There was something, he thought, about
intruding, unwarrantably intruding; or it might be a mistaken impression
of the welcome that awaited him. Which was it? or was it either of them?
At all events, he saw himself rejected and repulsed, and the indignity
was too great to be borne.
While he thus chafed and fretted, hours went by; and Mr. M'Cabe, the
landlord, had made more than one excursion into the room, under pretence
of looking after the fire, or seeing that the windows were duly
closed, but, in reality, very impatient to learn his guest's intentions
regarding dinner.
“Was it your honor said that you'd rather have the chickens roast than
biled?” said he at last, in a very submissive tone.
“I said nothing of the kind.”
“Ah, it was No. 5 then, and I mistook; I crave your honor's pardon.”
Hoping that the chord he had thus touched might vibrate, he stooped down
to arrange the turf, and give time for the response, but none came. Mr.
M'Cabe gave a faint sigh, but returned to the charge. “When there's the
laste taste of south in the wind, there 's no making this chimney draw.”
Not a word of notice acknowledged this remark.
“But it will do finely yet; it's just the outside of the turf is a
little wet, and no wonder; seven weeks of rain--glory be to Him that
sent it--has nearly desthroyed us.”
Still Conyers vouchsafed no reply.
“And when it begins to rain here, it never laves off. It isn't like in
your honor's country. Your honor is English?”
A grunt,--it might be assent, it sounded like malediction.
“'T is azy seen. When your honor came out of the boat, I said, 'Shusy,'
says I, 'he's English; and there's a coat they could n't make in Ireland
for a king's ransom.'”
“What conveyances leave this for Kilkenny?” asked Conyers, sternly.
“Just none at all, not to mislead you,” said M'Cabe, in a voice quite
devoid of its late whining intonation.
“Is there not a chaise or a car to be had?”
“Sorrow one. Dr. Dill has a car, to be sure, but not for hire.”
“Oh, Dr. Dill lives here. I forgot that. Go and tell him I wish to see
him.”
The landlord withdrew in dogged silence, but returned in about ten
minutes, to say that the doctor had been sent for to the “Fisherman's
Home,” and Mr. Barrington was so ill it was not likely he would be back
that night.
“So ill, did you say?” cried Conyers. “What was the attack,--what did
they call it?”
“'T is some kind of a 'plexy, they said. He's a full man, and advanced
in years, besides.”
“Go and tell young Mr. Dill to come over here.”
“He's just gone off with the cuppin' instruments. I saw him steppin'
into the boat.”
“Let me have a messenger; I want a man to take a note up to Miss
Barrington, and fetch my writing-desk here.”
In his eager anxiety to learn how Mr. Barrington was, Conyers hastily
scratched off a few lines; but on reading them over, he tore them up:
they implied a degree of interest on his part which, considering the
late treatment extended to him, was scarcely dignified. He tried again;
the error was as marked on the other side. It was a cold and formal
inquiry. “And yet,” said he, as he tore this in fragments, “one thing
is quite clear,--this illness is owing to _me!_ But for _my_ presence
there, that old man had now been hale and hearty; the impressions,
rightfully or wrongfully, which the sight of _me_ and the announcement
of _my_ name produced are the cause of this malady. I cannot deny it.”
With this revulsion of feeling he wrote a short but kindly worded
note to Miss Barrington, in which, with the very faintest allusion to
himself, he begged for a few lines to say how her brother was. He would
have added something about the sorrow he experienced in requiting all
her kindness by this calamitous return, but he felt that if the case
should be a serious one, all reference to himself would be misplaced and
impertinent.
The messenger despatched, he sat down beside his fire, the only light
now in the room, which the shade of coming night had darkened. He was
sad and dispirited, and ill at ease with his own heart. Mr. M'Cabe,
indeed, appeared with a suggestion about candles, and a shadowy hint
that if his guest speculated of dining at all, it was full time to
intimate it; but Conyers dismissed him with a peremptory command not to
dare to enter the room again until he was summoned to it. So odious to
him was the place, the landlord, and all about him, that he would have
set out on foot had his ankle been only strong enough to bear him. “What
if he were to write to Stapylton to come and fetch him away? He never
liked the man; he liked him less since the remark Miss Barrrington had
made upon him from mere reading of his letter, but what was he to do?”
While he was yet doubting what course to take, he heard the voices
of some new arrivals outside, and, strange enough, one seemed to be
Stapylton's. A minute or two after, the travellers had entered the room
adjoining his own, and from which a very frail partition of lath and
plaster alone separated him.
“Well, Barney,” said a harsh, grating voice, addressing the landlord,
“what have you got in the larder? We mean to dine with you.”
“To dine here, Major!” exclaimed M'Cabe. “Well, well, wondhers will
never cease.” And then hurriedly seeking to cover a speech not very
flattering to the Major's habits of hospitality, “Sure, I 've a loin of
pork, and there 's two chickens and a trout fresh out of the water, and
there's a cheese; it isn't mine, to be sure, but Father Cody's, but
he 'll not miss a slice out of it; and barrin' you dined at the
'Fisherman's Home,' you 'd not get betther.”
“That 's where we were to have dined by right,” said the Major,
crankily,--“myself and my friend here,--but we're disappointed, and so
we stepped in here, to do the best we can.”
“Well, by all accounts, there won't be many dinners up there for some
time.”
“Why so?”
“Ould Barrington was took with a fit this afternoon, and they say he
won't get over it.”
“How was it?--what brought it on?”
“Here's the way I had it. Ould Peter was just come home from Kilkenny,
and had brought the Attorney-General with him to stay a few days at the
cottage, and what was the first thing he seen but a man that come all
the way from India with a writ out against him for some of mad George
Barrington's debts; and he was so overcome by the shock, that he fainted
away, and never came rightly to himself since.”
“This is simply impossible,” said a voice Conyers well knew to be
Stapylton's.
“Be that as it may, I had it from the man that came for the doctor,
and what's more, he was just outside the window, and could hear ould
Barrington cursin' and swearin' about the man that ruined his son, and
brought his poor boy to the grave; but I 'll go and look after your
honor's dinner, for I know more about that.”
“I have a strange half-curiosity to know the correct version of this
story,” said Stapylton, as the host left the room. “The doctor is a
friend of yours, I think. Would he step over here, and let us hear the
matter accurately?”
“He's up at the cottage now, but I 'll get him to come in here when he
returns.”
If Conyers was shocked to hear how even this loose version of what had
occurred served to heighten the anxiety his own fears created, he was
also angry with himself at having learned the matter as he did. It was
not in his nature to play the eavesdropper, and he had, in reality,
heard what fell between his neighbors, almost ere he was aware of it. To
apprise them, therefore, of the vicinity of a stranger, he coughed and
sneezed, poked the fire noisily, and moved the chairs about; but though
the disturbance served to prevent him from hearing, it did not tend to
impress any greater caution upon them, for they talked away as before,
and more than once above the din of his own tumult, he heard the name of
Barrington, and even his own, uttered.
Unable any longer to suffer the irritation of a position so painful, he
took his hat, and left the house. It was now night, and so dark that
he had to stand some minutes on the door-sill ere he could accustom his
sight to the obscurity. By degrees, however, he was enabled to guide his
steps, and, passing through the little square, he gained the bridge;
and here he resolved to walk backwards and forwards till such time as
he hoped his neighbors might have concluded their convivialities, and
turned homeward.
A thin cold rain was falling, and the night was cheerless, and without
a star; but his heart was heavy, and the dreariness without best suited
that within him. For more than an hour he continued his lonely walk,
tormented by all the miseries his active ingenuity could muster. To
have brought sorrow and mourning beneath the roof where you have been
sheltered with kindness is sad enough, but far sadder is it to connect
the calamity you have caused with one dearer to you than yourself, and
whose innocence, while assured of, you cannot vindicate. “My father
never wronged this man, for the simple reason that he has never been
unjust to any one. It is a gross injustice to accuse him! If Colonel
Barrington forfeited my father's friendship, who could doubt where the
fault lay? But I will not leave the matter questionable. I will write
to my father and ask him to send me such a reply as may set the issue
at rest forever; and then I will come down here, and, with my father's
letter in my hand, say, 'The mention of my name was enough, once on a
time, to make you turn away from me on the very threshold of your own
door--'” When he had got thus far in his intended appeal, his ear was
suddenly struck by the word “Conyers,” uttered by one of two men who
had passed him the moment before, and now stood still in one of the
projections of the bridge to talk. He as hastily recognized Dr. Dill
as the speaker. He went on thus: “Of course it was mere raving, but
one must bear in mind that memory very often is the prompter of these
wanderings; and it was strange how persistently he held to the one
theme, and continued to call out, 'It was not fair, sir! It was not
manly! You know it yourself, Conyers; you cannot deny it!'”
“But you attach no importance to such wanderings, doctor?” asked one
whose deep-toned voice betrayed him to be Stapylton.
“I do; that is, to the extent I have mentioned. They are incoherencies,
but they are not without some foundation. This Conyers may have had
his share in that famous accusation against Colonel Barrington,--that
well-known charge I told you of; and if so, it is easy to connect the
name with these ravings.”
“And the old man will die of this attack,” said Stapylton, half
musingly.
“I hope not. He has great vigor of constitution; and old as he is, I
think he will rub through it.”
“Young Conyers left for Kilkenny, then, immediately?” asked he.
“No; he came down here, to the village. He is now at the inn.”
“At the inn, here? I never knew that. I am sorry I was not aware of it,
doctor; but since it is so, I will ask of you not to speak of having
seen me here. He would naturally take it ill, as his brother officer,
that I did not make him out, while, as you see, I was totally ignorant
of his vicinity.”
“I will say nothing on the subject, Captain,” said the doctor. “And now
one word of advice from you on a personal matter. This young gentleman
has offered to be of service to my son--”
Conyers, hitherto spellbound while the interest attached to his father,
now turned hastily from the spot and walked away, his mind not alone
charged with a heavy care, but full of an eager anxiety as to wherefore
Stapylton should have felt so deeply interested in Barrington's illness,
and the causes that led to it,--Stapylton, the most selfish of men, and
the very last in the world to busy himself in the sorrows or misfortunes
of a stranger. Again, too, why had he desired the doctor to preserve his
presence there as a secret? Conyers was exactly in the frame of mind to
exaggerate a suspicion, or make a mere doubt a grave question. While be
thus mused, Stapylton and the doctor passed him on their way towards the
village, deep in converse, and, to all seeming, in closest confidence.
“Shall I follow him to the inn, and declare that I overheard a few
words on the bridge which give me a claim to explanation? Shall I say,
'Captain Stapylton, you spoke of my father, just now, sufficiently aloud
to be overheard by me as I passed, and in your tone there was that which
entitles me to question you? Then if he should say, 'Go on; what is it
you ask for?' shall I not be sorely puzzled to continue? Perhaps, too,
he might remind me that the mode in which I obtained my information
precludes even a reference to it. He is one of those fellows not to
throw away such an advantage, and I must prepare myself for a quarrel.
Oh, if I only had Hunter by me! What would I not give for the brave
Colonel's counsel at such a moment as this?”
Of this sort were his thoughts as he strolled up and down for hours,
wearing away the long “night watches,” till a faint grayish tinge
above the horizon showed that morning was not very distant. The whole
landscape was wrapped in that cold mysterious tint in which tower and
hill-top and spire are scarcely distinguishable from each other,
while out of the low-lying meadows already arose the bluish vapor
that proclaims the coming day. The village itself, overshadowed by the
mountain behind it, lay a black, unbroken mass.
Not a light twinkled from a window, save close to the river's bank,
where a faint gleam stole forth and flickered on the water.
Who has not felt the strange interest that attaches to a solitary light
seen thus in the tranquil depth of a silent night? How readily do
we associate it with some incident of sorrow! The watcher beside the
sick-bed rises to the mind, or the patient sufferer himself trying to
cheat the dull hours by a book, or perhaps some poor son of toil arising
to his daily round of labor, and seated at that solitary meal which no
kind word enlivens, no companionship beguiles. And as I write, in what
corner of earth are not such scenes passing,--such dark shadows moving
over the battlefield of life?
In such a feeling did Conyers watch this light as, leaving the
high-road, he took a path that led along the river towards it. As he
drew nigher, he saw that the light came from the open window of a room
which gave upon a little garden,--a mere strip of ground fenced off
from the path by a low paling. With a curiosity he could not master, he
stopped and looked in. At a large table, covered with books and papers,
and on which a skull also stood, a young man was seated, his head
leaning on his hand, apparently in deep thought, while a girl was slowly
pacing the little chamber as she talked to him.
“It does not require,” said she, in a firm voice, “any great effort of
memory to bear in mind that a nerve, an artery, and a vein always go in
company.”
“Not for you, perhaps,--not for you, Polly.”
“Not for any one, I 'm sure. Your fine dragoon friend with the sprained
ankle might be brought to that amount of instruction by one telling of
it.”
“Oh, he 's no fool, I promise you, Polly. Don't despise him because he
has plenty of money and can lead a life of idleness.”
“I neither despise nor esteem him, nor do I mean that he should divert
our minds from what we are at. Now for the popliteal space. Can you
describe it? Do you know where it is, or anything about it?”
“I do,” said he, doggedly, as he pushed his long hair back from his
eyes, and tried to think,--“I do, but I must have time. You must n't
hurry me.”
She made no reply, but continued her walk in silence.
“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.”
[Illustration: 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 snatched 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.”
[Illustration: 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 circumstances, 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 assist 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 passed 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.