Roland Cashel Volume I Part 27

"I meant when--this--occurred," replied he, faltering; "was he in his usual health this morning?"

"Yes, perfectly,--a little less composed; anxious about his letters; uneasy at the delay,--but no more."

"You do not know if he received any unpleasant tidings, or heard anything to distress him?"

"He may have done so," answered she, sadly, "for he locked his door and read over his letters by himself. When I saw him next, he was standing at the window, and beckoning to me."

A gentle tap at the door here interrupted the colloquy, and the old housekeeper whispered, "The master, miss, wants to spake with the doctor; he's better now."

"Oh, let me see him," cried Mary, springing towards the door. But Dr.

Tiernay interposed gently, and said, "No, this might prove dangerous; remain here till I have seen and spoken with him." Mary a.s.sented by a gesture, and sat down without speaking.

"Sit down, Tiernay," said the sick man, as the doctor came to his bedside,--"sit down, and let me speak while I have strength. Everything is against us, Tiernay. We are not to get the renewal; this young Mr.

Cashel wants the cottage,--we must turn out. I'll have to do so, even before the gale-day; but what matter about me! It 's that poor child I 'm thinking of--" Here he stopped, and was some minutes before he could resume. "There,--read that; that will tell you all."

Tiernay took the crumpled letter, which the old man had all this while held firmly in his closed grasp, and read it.

"Well, that 's bad news, is n't it?" said Corrigan. "Not the bill,--I don't mean that; but _he 's_ coming back; do you see the threat?--he's coming back again."

"How can he?" said the doctor. "The man committed a forgery. How will he dare to return here and place his neck in a halter?"

"You forget whose evidence alone can convict him,--mine; the name he forged was mine, the sum he took was mine,--nearly all I had in the world; but he has nothing to fear from me, whatever I may have to dread from _him_."

"How can he have any terror for _you!_"

"He can take _her_ away,--not from me, for she 'll soon be separated by a stronger hand than his; but I can't bear to think that she 'll be in his power. Tiernay, this is what is cutting into my heart now as I lie here, and leaves me no rest to think of the brief minutes before me.

Tell me, is there no way to avoid this? Think of something, my old friend,--take this weight off my dying heart, and my last breath will bless you."

"Are there any relations, or friends?"

"None, not one; I 'm the last of the tree,--the one old rotten branch left. I was thinking of a nunnery, Tiernay, one of those convents in France or the Low Countries; but even there, if he found her out, he could legally demand her to be restored to him,--and he would find her, ay, that he would! There never was a thing yet that man could n't do when he set his heart on it; and the more the obstacles, the greater his wish. I heard him say it with his own lips, that he never had any fancy for my poor Lucy till he overheard her one day saying that 'she never hated any one till she knew him.' From that hour, he swore to himself she should be his wife! Heaven knows if the hate was not better bestowed than the love; and yet, she did love him to the last,--ay, even, after cruelty and desertion, ay, after his supposed death; when she heard that he married another, and was living in splendor at Cadiz, ay,--Tiernay!

after all that, she told me on her death-bed, she loved him still!"

"I think the nunnery is the best resource," said the doctor, recalling the sick man from a theme where his emotions were already too powerfully excited.

"I believe it is," said the old man, with more of energy than before; "and I feel almost as if Providence would give me strength and health to take her there myself, and see her safe before I die. Feel that pulse now: isn't it stronger?"

"You are better, much better already," said the doctor; "and now, keep quiet and composed. Don't speak--if it was possible, I 'd say, don't think--for a few hours. The worst is nigh over."

"I thought so, Tiernay. I felt it was what old Joe Henchy used to call 'a runaway knock.'" And, with a faint smile, the old man pressed his hand, and said, "Good-bye."

Scarcely, however, had the doctor reached the door, when he called him back.

"Tiernay," said he, "it's of no use telling me to lie still, and keep quiet, and the rest of it. I continue, asleep or awake, to think over what's coming. There is but one way to give me peace,--give me some hope. I 'll tell you now how that is to be done; but, first of all, can you spare three days from home?"

"To be sure I can; a week, if it would serve you. Where am I to go?"

"To Dublin, Tiernay. You 'll have to go up there, and see this young man, Cashel, yourself, and speak to him for me. Tell him nothing of our present distress or poverty, but just let him see who it is that he is turning out of the lands where their fathers lived for hundreds of years. Tell him that the Corrigans is the oldest stock in the whole country; that the time was, from the old square tower on Garraguin, you could n't see a spot of ground that was n't our own! Tell him,"--and, as he spoke, his flashing eye and heightened color showed how the theme agitated and excited him,--"tell him that if he turns us from hearth and home, it is not as if it was like some poor cotter--" He paused, his lips trembled, and the big tears burst from his eyes and rolled heavily down his face. "Oh! G.o.d forgive me for saying the words!" cried he, in an accent of deep agony. "Why wouldn't the humblest peasant that ever crouched to his meal of potatoes, beside the little turf fire of his cabin, love his home as well as the best blood in the land? No, no, Mat, it's little kindness we 'd deserve on such a plea as that."

"There, there, don't agitate yourself. I know what you mean, and what you'd like me to say."

"You do not," rejoined the old man, querulously, "for I have n't said it yet. Nor I can't think of it now. Ah, Mat," here his voice softened once more into its habitual key, "that was a cruel thought of me a while ago; and faith, Mr. Cashel might well suspect, if he heard it, that I was n't one of the old good blood of the Corrigans, that could talk that way of the poor; but so it is. There is n't a bad trait in a man's heart that is not the twin-brother of his selfishness. And now I'll say no more; do the best you can for us, that's all. I was going to bid you tell him that we have an old claim on the whole estate that some of the lawyers say is good,--that the Crown have taken off the confiscation in the time of my great father, Phil Corrigan; but sure he would n't mind that,--besides, that's not the way to ask a favor."

"You must n't go on talking this way; see how hot your hand is!"

"Well, maybe it will be cold enough soon! There is another thing, Mat.

You must call on Murphy, with the bill of sale of the furniture and the books, and get money to meet these bills. There they are; I indorsed them this morning. Tell Green it's no use sending me the other bills; I 'll not have means to take them up, and it would be only disgracing my name for nothing to write it on them. I 'll be longing to see you back again, Mat, and hear your tidings; so G.o.d bless you, and send you safe home to us."

"I 'll set off to-night," said the doctor, rising, and shaking his hand.

"Your attack is pa.s.sed over, and there's no more danger, if you 'll keep quiet."

"There's another thing, Mat," said the sick man, smiling faintly, and with a strange meaning. "Call at 28 Drogheda Street, and ask the people to show you the room Con Corrigan fought the duel in with Colonel Battley. It was only twelve feet long and ten wide, a little place off the drawing-room, and the colonel would n't even consent that we should stand in the corners. Look and see if the bullet is in the wall still.

The old marquis used to have it fresh painted red every year, on the anniversary of the day. Oh, dear, oh, dear, but they were the strange times, then! ay, and pleasant times too." And with such reflections on the past, he fell off into a dreamy half-consciousness, during which Tiernay stole from the room and left him alone.

Faint and trembling with agitation, Mary Leicester was standing all this while at the door of the sick chamber. "Did I hear aright, Doctor?" said she; "was that his voice that sounded so cheerfully?"

"Yes, my dear Miss Mary, the peril is by; but be cautious. Let him not speak so much, even with you. This is a sweet quiet spot,--Heaven grant he may long enjoy it!"

Mary's lips muttered some words in audibly, and they parted. She sat down alone, in the little porch under the eave. The day was a delicious one in autumn, calm, mellow, and peaceful; a breeze, too faint to ripple the river, stirred the flowers and shook forth their odor. The cottage, the leafy shade, through which the tempered sunlight fell in fanciful shapes upon the gravel, the many colored blossoms of the rich garden, the clear and tranquil river, the hum of the distant waterfall,--they were all such sights and sounds as breathe of home and home's happiness; and so had she felt them to be till an unknown fear found entrance into her heart and spread its darkness there. What a terrible sensation comes with a first sorrow!

CHAPTER XIV. MR. LINTON REVEALS HIS DESIGNS.

With fame and fortune on the cast, He never rose a winner, And learned to know himself, at last, "A miserable sinner."

Bell.

It was about ten days or a fortnight after the great Kennyf.e.c.k dinner, when all the gossip about its pretension, dulness, and bad taste had died away, and the worthy guests so bored by the festivity began to wonder "when they would give another," that a gentleman sat at breakfast in one of those large, dingy-looking, low-ceilinged apartments which are the choice abodes of the viceregal staff in the Castle of Dublin. The tawdry and time-discolored gildings, the worn and faded silk hangings, the portraits of bygone state councillors and commanders-in-chief, grievously riddled by rapier-points and pistol-shots, were not without an emblematic meaning of the past glories of that seat of Government, now so sadly fallen from its once high and palmy state.

Although still a young man, the present occupant of the chamber appeared middle-aged, so much had dissipation and excess done the work of time on his const.i.tution. A jaded, wearied look, a sleepy, indolent expression of the eye, certain hard lines about the angles of the mouth, betokened one who played a high game with life, and rarely arose a winner.

Although his whole appearance bespoke birth and blood rather than intellect or ability, there was enough in his high and squarely shaped head, his deep dark eye, and his firm, sharply cut mouth, to augur that incapacity could not be reckoned among the causes of any failures he incurred in his career. He was, in every respect, the _beau ideal_ of that strange solecism in our social code, "the younger son." His brother, the Duke of Derwent, had eighty thousand a year. _He_ had exactly three hundred. His Grace owned three houses, which might well be called palaces, besides a grouse lodge in the Highlands, a yachting station at Cowes, and a villa at Hyeres in France. My Lord was but too happy to be the possessor of the three cobwebbed chambers of a viceregal aide-decamp, and enjoy the pay of his troop without joining his regiment.

Yet these two men were reared exactly alike! As much habituated to every requirement and luxury of wealth as his elder brother, the younger suddenly discovered that, once beyond the shadow of his father's house, all his worldly resources were something more than what the cook, and something less than the valet, received. He had been taught one valuable lesson, however, which was, that as the State loves a rich aristocracy, it burdens itself with the maintenance of all those who might prove a drain on its resources, and that it is ever careful to provide for the Lord Georges and Lord Charleses of its n.o.ble houses. To this provision he believed he had a legal claim,--at all events, he knew it to be a right uncontested by those less highly born.

The system which excludes men from the career of commerce, in compensation opens the billiard-room, the whist-table, and the betting-ring; and many a high capacity has been exercised in such spheres as these, whose resources might have won honor and distinction in very different fields of enterprise. Whether Lord Charles Frobisher knew this, and felt that there was better in him, or whether his successes were below his hopes, certain is it, he was a depressed, dejected man, who lounged through life in a languid indolence, caring for nothing, not even himself.

There was some story of an unfortunate attachment, some love affair with a very beautiful but portionless cousin, who married a marquis, to which many ascribed the prevailing melancholy of his character; but they who remembered him as a schoolboy said he was always shy and reserved, and saw nothing strange in his bearing as a man. The breakfast-table, covered with all that could stimulate appet.i.te, and yet withal untasted, was not a bad emblem of one who, with many a gift to win an upward way, yet lived on in all the tawdry insignificance of a court aide-de-camp.

A very weak gla.s.s of claret and water, with a piece of dry toast, formed his meal; and even these stood on the corner of a writing-table, at which he sat, rising sometimes to look out of the window, or pace the room with slow, uncertain steps. Before him lay an unfinished letter, which, to judge from the slow progress it made, and the frequent interruptions to its course, seemed to occasion some difficulty in the composition; and yet the same epistle began "My dear Sydney," and was addressed to his brother. Here it is:--

My dear Sydney,--I suppose, from not hearing from you some weeks back, that my last, which I addressed to the Clarendon, has never reached you, nor is it of any consequence. It would be too late now to ask you about Scott's horses. Cobham told us how you stood yourself, and that was enough to guide the poor devils here with their ponies and fifties. We all got a squeeze on the "mare." I hear you won seven thousand besides the stakes. I hope the report may be true. Is Raucus in training for the Spring Meeting, or not? If so, let me have some trifle on him in your own book.

I perceive you voted on Brougham's amendment against our people; I conclude you were right, but it will make them very stubborn with me about the exchange. N------has already remarked upon what he calls the "intolerable independence of some n.o.ble lords." I wish I knew the clew to your proceeding: are you at liberty to give it? I did not answer the question in your last letter.--Of course I am tired of Ireland; but as the alternatives are a "compound in Calcutta, or the Government House, Quebec," I may as well remain where I am. I don't know that a staff-officer, like Madeira, improves by a sea-voyage.

You say nothing of Georgina, so that I hope her chest is better, and that Nice may not be necessary. I believe, if climate were needed, you would find Lisbon, or rather Cintra, better than any part of Italy, and possessed of one great advantage,--few of our rambling countrymen. N------ commended your haunch so highly, and took such pains to record his praises, that I suspect he looks for a repet.i.tion of the favor. If you _are_ shooting bucks, perhaps you would send him a quarter.

Two sentences, half finished and erased, here showed that the writer experienced a difficulty in continuing. Indeed, his flurried manner as he resumed the letter proved it. At last he went on:--