Roland Cashel Volume I Part 23

The whole company, probably in relief to the evident dismay created by the allusion to Lord Kilgoff, laughed heartily at this sally, and none more than the good-looking fellow the object of it.

"But what of Meek, sir?--what does he say of Downie?"

"He says vera little about Mister Meek, ava; he only inquires what changes we have in the poleetical world, and where is that d--d humbug, Downie Meek?"

Another and a heartier laugh now ran through the room, in which Mr.

Downie Meek cast the most Imploring looks around him.

"Well," cried he, at last, "that's not fair; it is really not fair of Gosford. I appeal to this excellent company if I deserve the t.i.tle."

A chorus of negatives went the round, with most energetic a.s.surances of dissenting from the censure of the letter.

"Come now, Sir Andrew," said Meek, who for once, losing his balance, would not even omit him in the number of approving voices,--"come, now, Sir Andrew, I ask you frankly, am I a humbug?"

"I canna tell," said the cautious old general, with a sly shake of the head; "I can only say, sir, be ma saul, ye never humbugged _me!_"

This time the laugh was sincere, and actually shook the table. Mrs.

Kennyf.e.c.k, who now saw that Sir Andrew, to use the phrase employed by his acquaintances, "was up," determined to withdraw, and made her telegraphic signals, which soon were answered along the line, save by Lady Janet, who stubbornly adhered to her gla.s.s of claret, with some faint hope that the lagging decanter might arrive in her neighborhood time enough for another.

Poor Mrs. Kennyf.e.c.k's devices to catch her eye were all in vain; as well might some bore of the "House" hope for the Speaker's when he was fixedly exchanging glances with "Sir Robert." She ogled and smiled, but to no purpose.

"My Leddy,--Leddy Janet," said Sir Andrew.

"I hear you, sir; I heard you twice already. If you please, my Lord, a very little,--Mr. Linton, I beg for the water. I believe, Sir Andrew, you have forgotten Mr. Gosford's kind remembrances to the Dean."

"Faith, and so I did, my Leddy. He asks after ye, Mr. Dean, wi' muckle kindness and affection, and says he never had a hearty laugh syne the day ye tried to teach Lady Caroline Jedyard to catch a sheep!"

The Dean looked stern, and Linton asked for the secret.

"It was by hauding the beast atween yer knees, and so when the Dean pit himself i' the proper position, wi' his legs out, and the shepherd drove the flock towards him, by sair ill-luck it was a ram cam first and he hoisted his reverence up i' the air, and then laid him flat on his back, amaist dead. Ech, sirs! but it was a sair fa', no' to speak o' the damage done to his black breeches!"

This was too much for Lady Janet's endurance, and, amid the loud laughter of some, and the more difficultly suppressed mirth of others, the ladies arose.

"Yer na going, leddies! I hope that naething I said, Leddy Kilgoff, Leddy Janet, ech. We mun e'en console ourselves wi' the claret." This was said _sotto_, as the door closed and the party reseated themselves at the table.

"My Jo Janet _does_ like to bide a wee," muttered he, half aloud.

"Jo!" cried the Dean, "is derived from the Italian; it's a term of endearment in both languages. It's a corruption of _Gioia mia_."

"What may that mean?"

"My joy! my life!"

"Eh, that's it, is it? Ah, sir, these derivatives gat mony a twist and turn in the way from one land to the t.i.ther!" And with this profound bit of moralizing, he sipped his gla.s.s in revery.

The conversation now became more general, fewer personalities arose; and as the Dean, after a few efforts to correct statements respecting the "pedigrees of race-horses," "the odds at hazard," "the soundings upon the coral reefs," "the best harpoons for the sulphur-bottomed whales,"

only made new failures, he sulked and sat silent, permitting talk to take its course uninterrupted. The hussar baronet paid marked attention to Cashel, and invited him to the mess for the day following. Lord Charles overheard the invitation, and said, "I'll join the party;" while Mr. Meek, leaning over the table, in a low whisper begged Cashel to preserve the whole bull adventure a secret, as the press was really a most malevolent thing in Ireland!

During the while the Chief Justice slept profoundly, only waking as the bottle came before him, and then dropping off again. The Attorney-General, an overworked man of business, spoke little and guardedly, so that the conversation, princ.i.p.ally left to the younger members of the party, ranged over the accustomed topics of hunting, shooting, and deer-stalking, varied by allusion, on Cashel's part, to sports of far higher, because more dangerous, excitement.

In the pleasant flurry of being attentively listened to,--a new sensation for Roland,--he arose and ascended to the drawing-room, where already a numerous party of refteshers had arrived. Here again Cashel discovered that he was a person of notoriety, and as, notwithstanding all Mr. Downie Meek's precaution, the "la.s.so" story had got abroad, the most wonderful versions of the incident were repeated on every side.

"How did you say he effected it, Mr. Linton?" said the old deaf Countess of Dumdrum, making an ear-trumpet of her hand.

"By doing what Mr. Meek won't do with the Catholics, my Lady,--taking the bull by the horns."

"Don't you think he found conciliation of service besides?" suggested Mr. Meek, with an angelic simplicity.

"Isn't he handsome! how graceful! So like a Corsair,--one of Byron's heroes. I 'm dying to know him. Dear me, how those Kennyf.e.c.k girls eat him up. Olivia never takes her eyes off him. He looks so bored, poor fellow! he 's longing to be let alone." Such were the muttered comments on the new object of Dublin curiosity, who himself was very far from suspecting that his personal distinction had less share in his popularity than his rent-roll and his parchments.

As we are more desirous of recording the impression he himself created, than of tracing how others appeared to him, we shall make a noiseless turn of the salons, and, spy-fashion, listen behind the chairs.

"So you don't think him even good-looking, Lady Kilgoff?" said Mr.

Linton, as he stood half behind her seat.

"Certainly not more than good-looking, and not so much as nice-looking,--very awkward, and ill at ease he seems."

"That will wear off when he has the good taste to give up talking to young ladies, and devote himself to the married ones."

"Enchanting,--positively enchanting, my dear," exclaimed Mrs. Leicester White to a young friend beside her. "That description of the forest, over which the lianas formed an actual roof, the golden fruit hanging a hundred feet above the head, was the most gorgeous picture I ever beheld."

"I wish you could persuade him," lisped a young lady with large blue eyes, and a profusion of yellow hair in ringlets, "to write that little story of the Zambo for Lady Blumter's Annual."

"I say, Charlie," whispered the baronet to the aide-decamp, "but he's wide-awake, that Master Cashel; he's a very shrewd fellow, you'll see."

"Do you mean to couch his eyes, Tom?" said Lord Charles, with his usual slow, lazy intonation; "what does he say about the races,--will he come?"

"Oh, he can't promise, old Kennyf.e.c.k has a hold upon him just now about law business."

"You will impress upon him, my dear Mr. Kennyf.e.c.k," said Mr. Meek, who held the lappet of the other's coat, "that there are positively--so to say--but two parties in the country,--the Gentleman and the Jacobin.

Whig and Tory, orange and green, have had their day; and the question is now between those who have something to lose, and those who have everything to gain."

"I really could wish that you, who are so far better qualified than I am to explain--"

"So I will; I intend, my dear sir. Now, when can you dine with me? You must come this week; next I shall be obliged to be in London. Shall we say Wednesday? Wednesday be it Above all, take care that he doesn't even meet any of that dangerous faction,--those Morgans. They are the very people to try a game of ascendancy over a young man of great prospects and large fortune. O'Growl wants a few men of standing to give an air of substance and respectability to the movement. Lord Witherton will be most kind to your young friend, but you must press upon him the necessity of being presented at once. We want to make him a D.L., and if he enters Parliament, to give him the lieutenancy of the county."

While all these various criticisms were circulating, and amid an atmosphere, as it were, impregnated by plots and schemes of every kind, Cashel stood a very amused spectator of a scene wherein he never knew he was the chief actor. It would indeed have seemed incredible to him that he could, by any change of fortune, become an object of interested speculation to lords, ladies, members of the Government, Church dignitaries, and others. He was unaware that the man of fortune, with a hand to offer, a considerable share of the influence property always gives, livings to bestow, and money to lose, may be a very legitimate mark for the enterprising schemes of mammas and ministers, suggesting hopes alike to black-coats and blacklegs.

Perhaps, among the pleasant bits of credulity which we enjoy through life, there is none sweeter than that implicit faith we repose in the cordial expressions and flattering opinions bestowed upon us, when starting in the race, by many who merely, in the jockey phrase, "standing to win" upon us, have their own, and not _our_ interest before them in the encouragement they bestow.

The discovery of the cheat is soon made, and we are too p.r.o.ne to revenge our own over-confidence by a general distrust, from which, again, experience, later on, rallies us. So that a young man's course is usually from over-simplicity to over-shrewdness, and then again to that negligent half-faith which either, according to the calibre of the wearer, conceals deep knowledge of life, or hides a mistaken notion of it. Let us return to Cashel, who now stood at the table, around which a considerable number of the party were grouped, examining a number of drawings, which Mr. Pepystell, the fashionable architect, had that day sent for Roland's inspection; houses, villas, castles, cottages, abbeys, shooting-boxes, gate-lodges, Tudor and Saxon, Norman and Saracenic,--everything that the morbid imagination of architecture run mad could devise and amalgamate between the chaste elegance of the Greek and the tinkling absurdity of the Chinese.

"I do so love a cottage _ornee_," said Mrs. White, taking up a very beautiful representation of one, where rose-colored curtains, and a group on a gra.s.s-plot, with gay dresses and parasols, entered into the composite architecture. "To my fancy, that would be a very paradise."

"Oh, mamma! isn't that so like dear old Kilgoran!" said a tall, thin young lady, handing an abbey, as large as Westminster, to another in widow's black.

"Oh, Maria! I wonder at your showing me what must bring up such sad memories!" said the mamma, affectedly, while she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes.