"Well--well--well!" said Kellett, with a pause between each exclamation, "this is more than I can bear. Old Jerry Dunn's son,--the brat of a boy I remember in the Charter' School! He used to be sent at Christmas time up to Ely Place, when my father was in town, to get five shillings for a Christmas-box; and I mind well the day he was asked to stay and dine with my sister Matty and myself, and he taught us a new game with six little bits of sticks; how we were to do something, I forget what,--but I know how it ended,--he won every sixpence we had.

Matty had half a guinea in gold and some tenpenny pieces, and I had, I think, about fifteen shillings, and sorrow a rap he left us; and, worse still, I mortgaged my school maps, and got a severe thrashing for having lost them from Old White in Jervas Street; and poor Matty's doll was confiscated in the same way, and carried off with a debt of three-and-fourpence on her head. God forgive him, but he gave us a sorrowful night, for we cried till daybreak."

"And did you like him as a playfellow?" asked she.

"Now, that's the strangest thing of all," said Kellett, smiling.

"Neither Matty nor myself liked him; but he got a kind of influence over us that was downright fascination. No matter what we thought of doing before he came, when he once set foot in the room everything followed his dictation. It was n't that he was overbearing or tyrannical in the least; just as little could you say that he was insinuating or nattering; but somehow, by a kind of instinct, we fell into his ways, and worked out all his suggestions just as if we were mere agents of his will. Resistance or opposition we never dreamed of while he was present; but after he was gone away, once or twice there came the thought that there was something very like slavery in all this submission, and we began to concert how we might throw off the yoke.

"'I won't play toll-bar any more,' said I, resolutely; 'all my pocket-money is sure to go before it is over.'

"'And I,' said Matty, 'won't have poor "Mopsy" tried for a murder again; every time she's hanged, some of the wax comes off her neck.'"

"We encouraged each other vigorously in these resolves; but before he was half an hour in the house 'Mopsy' had undergone the last sentence of the law, and I was insolvent."

"What a clever rogue he must have been!" said Bella, laughing.

"Was n't he clever!" exclaimed Kellett. "You could not say how,--nobody could say how,--but he saw everything the moment he came into a new place, and marked every one's face, and knew, besides, the impression he made on them, just as if he was familiar with them for years."

"Did you continue to associate with him as you grew up?" asked she.

"No; we only knew each other as children. There was a distressing thing--a very distressing thing--occurred one day; I'm sure to this very hour I think of it with sorrow and shame, for I can't believe he had any blame in it. We were playing in a room next my father's study, and running every now and then into the study; and there was an old-fashioned penknife--a family relic, with a long bloodstone handle--lying on the table; and when the play was over, and Davy, as we called him, had gone home, this was missing. There was a search made for it high and low, for my father set great value on it. It was his great-great-grandmother's, I believe; at all events, no one ever set eyes on it afterwards, and nothing would persuade my father but that Davy stole it! Of course he never told us that he thought so, but the servant did, and Matty and myself cried two nights and a day over it, and got really sick.

"I remember well; I was working by myself in the garden, Matty was ill and in bed, when I saw a tall old man, dressed like a country shopkeeper, shown into the back parlor, where my father was sitting.

There was a bit of the window open, and I could hear that high words were passing between them, and, as I thought, my father getting the worst of it; for the old fellow kept repeating, 'You 'll rue it, Mister Kellett,--you 'll rue it yet!' And then my father said, 'Give him a good horsewhipping, Dunn; take my advice, and you 'll spare yourself some sorrow, and save him from even worse hereafter.' I 'll never forget the old fellow's face as he turned to leave the room. 'Davy will live to pay you off for this,' said he; 'and if _you 're_ not to the fore, it will be your children, or your children's children, will have to 'quit the debt!'

"We never saw Davy from that hour; indeed, we were strictly forbidden ever to utter his name; and it was only when alone together, that Matty and I would venture to talk of him, and cry over--and many a time we did--the happy days when we had him for our playfellow. There was a species of martyrdom now, too, in his fate, that endeared him the more to our memories; every play he had invented, every spot he was fond of, every toy he liked, were hallowed to our minds like relics. At last poor Matty and I could bear it no longer, and we sat down and wrote a long letter to Davy, assuring him of our fullest confidence in his honor, and our broken-heartedness at separation from him. We inveighed stoutly against parental tyranny, and declared ourselves ready for open rebellion, if he, that was never deficient in a device, could only point out the road. We bribed a stable-boy, with all our conjoined resources of pocket-money, to convey the epistle, and it came back next morning to my father, enclosed in one from Davy himself, stating that he could never countenance acts of disobedience, or be any party to a system by which children should deceive their parents. I was sent off to a boarding-school the same week, and poor Matty committed to the charge of Miss Morse, a vinegar-faced old maid, that poisoned the eight best years of her life!"

"And when did you next hear of him?"

"Of Davy? Let me see; the next time I heard of him was when he attempted to enter college as a sizar, and failed. Somebody or other mentioned it at Kellett's Court, and said that old Dunn was half out of his mind, insisting that some injustice was dealt out to his son, and vowing he 'd get the member for somewhere to bring the matter before Parliament.

Davy was wiser, however; he persuaded his father that, by agitating the question, they would only give notoriety to what, if left alone, would speedily be forgotten; and Davy was right I don't think there's three men now in the kingdom that remember one word about the sizarship, or, if they do, that would be influenced by it in any dealings they might have with Mr. Davenport Dunn."

"What career did he adopt after that?"

"He became a tutor, I think, in Lord Glengariff's family. There was some scandal about him there,--I forget it now,--and then he went off to America, and spent some years there, and in Jamaica, where he was employed as an overseer, I think; but I can't remember it all. My own knowledge of him next was seeing the name 'D. Dunn, solicitor,' on a neat brass-plate in Tralee, and hearing that he was a very acute fellow in election contests, and well up to dealing with the priests."

"And now he has made a large fortune?"

"I believe you well; he's the richest man in Ireland. There's scarce a county he has n't got property in. There's not a town, nor a borough, where he has n't some influence, and in every class, too,--gentry, clergy, shopkeepers, people: he has them all with him, and nobody seems to know how he does it."

"Pretty much, I suppose, as he used to manage Aunt Matty and yourself long ago," said she, laughingly.

"Well, indeed, I suppose so," said he, with a half sigh; "and if it be, all I can say is, they 'll be puzzled to find out his secret. He's the deepest fellow I ever heard or read of; for there he stands to-day, without name, family, blood, or station, higher than those that had them all,--able to do more than them; and, what's stranger still, thought more about in England than the best man amongst us."

"You have given me quite an interest about him, papa; tell me, what is he like?"

"He's as tall as myself, but not so strongly built; indeed, he's slightly round-shouldered; he is dark in the complexion, and has the blackest hair and whiskers I ever saw, and rather good-looking than otherwise,--a calm, cold, patient-looking face you'd call it; he speaks very little, but his voice is soft and low and deliberate, just like one that would n't throw away a word; and he never moves his hands or arms, but lets them hang down heavily at either side."

"And his eyes? Tell me of his eyes?"

"They 're big, black, sleepy-looking eyes, seldom looking up, and never growing a bit brighter by anything that he says or hears about him.

Indeed, any one seeing him for the first time would say, 'There's a man whose thoughts are many a mile away; he is n't minding what's going on about him here.' But that is not the case; there is n't a look, a stir, nor a gesture that he does n't remark. There 's not a chair drawn closer to another, not a glance interchanged, that he has n't noticed; and I 've heard it said, 'Many would n't open a letter before him, he's so sure to guess the contents from just reading the countenance.'"

"The world is always prone to exaggerate such gifts," said she, calmly.

"So it may be, dear, but I don't fancy it could do so here. He's one of those men that, if he had been born to high station, would be a great politician or a great general. You see that, somehow, without any effort on his part, things come up just as he wished them. I believe, after all," said he, with a heavy sigh, "it's just luck! Whatever one man puts his hand to in this world goes on right and smoothly, and another has every mishap and misfortune that can befall him. He may strive, and toil, and fret his brains over it, but devil a good it is. If he is born to ill luck, it will stick to him."

"It's not a very cheery philosophy!" said she, gently.

"I suppose not, dear; but what is very cheery in this life, when you come to find it out? Is n't it nothing but disappointment and vexation?"

Partly to rally him out of this vein of depression, and partly from motives of curiosity, she once more adverted to Dunn, and asked how it happened that they crossed each other again in life.

"He's what they call 'carrying the sale' of Kellett's Court, my dear.

You know we 're in the Encumbered Estates now; and Dunn represents Lord Lackington and others that hold the mortgages over us. The property was up for sale in November, then in May last, and was taken down by Dunn's order. I never knew why. It was then, however, he got me this thing in the Revenue,--this beggarly place of sixty-five pounds a year; and told me, through his man Hanks,--for I never met himself about it,--that he 'd take care my interests were not overlooked. After that the Courts closed, and he went abroad; and that's all there's between us, or, indeed, likely to be between us; for he never wrote me as much as one line since he went away, nor noticed any one of my letters, though I sent him four, or, indeed, I believe, five."

"What a strange man this must be!" said she, musingly. "Is it supposed that he has formed any close attachments? Are his friends devoted to him?"

"Attachments,--friendships! faith, I'm inclined to think it's little time he'd waste on one or the other. Why, child, if what we hear be true, he goes through the work of ten men every day of his life."

"Is he married?" asked she, after a pause.

"No; there was some story about a disappointment he met early in life.

When he was at Lord Glengariff's, I think, he fell in love with one of the daughters, or she with him,--I never knew it rightly,--but it ended in his being sent away; and they say he never got over it. Just as if Davenport Dunn was a likely man either to fall in love or cherish the memory of a first passion! I wish you saw him, Bella," said he, laughing, "and the notion would certainly amuse you."

"But still men of his stamp have felt--ay, and inspired--the strongest passions. I remember reading once--" "Reading, my darling,--reading is one thing, seeing or knowing is another. The fellows that write these things must invent what is n't likely,--what is nigh impossible,--or nobody would read it What we see of a man or woman in a book is just the exact reverse of what we 'll ever find in real life."

The girl could easily have replied to this assertion; indeed, the answer was almost on her lips, when she restrained herself, and, hanging down her head, fell into a musing fit.

CHAPTER IV. ONE WHO WOULD BE A "SHARP FELLOW."

One of the chief, perhaps the greatest, pleasures which Kellett's humble lot still secured him, was a long country walk of a Sunday in company with one who had been his friend in more prosperous times. A reduced gentleman like himself, Annesley Beecher could only go abroad on this one day in the week, and thus by the pressure of adverse fortune were they thrown more closely together.

Although by no means a favorite with Bella, she was far too considerate for her father, and too mindful of the few enjoyments that remained to him, ever to interpose her real opinion. She therefore limited herself to silence, as old Kellett would pronounce some glowing eulogy of his friend, calling him "good" and "amiable" and "kind-hearted,"

and extolling, as little short of miraculous, "the spirits he had, considering all he went through." But he would add, "He was always the same, and that's the reason everybody liked him,--everybody, that is, almost everybody!" And he would steal a sly glance at his daughter, half imploringly, as though to say, "How long are you to sit in that small minority?"

Whether the weather would permit of Beecher's coming out to see them, whether he 'd be able to "stay and take his bit of dinner with them,"

were subjects of as great anxiety to poor Kellett each succeeding Sunday morning as though there ever had been a solitary exception to the wished-for occurrence; and Bella would never destroy the pleasure of anticipation by the slightest hint that might impair the value he attached to the event.

"There's so many trying to get him," he would say; "they pester his life out with invitations,--the Chancellor and Lord Killybegs and the Bishop of Drumsna always asking him to name his day; but he 'd rather come out and take his bit of roast mutton with ourselves, and his glass of punch after it, than he 'd eat venison and drink claret with the best of them.

There's not a table in Dublin, from the Castle down, that would n't be proud of his company; and why not?" He would pause after uttering a challenge of this sort; and then, as his daughter would show no signs of acceptance, he would mutter on, "A real gentleman born and bred, and how anybody can _mislike_ him is more than I am really able to comprehend!"

These little grumblings, which never produced more than a smile from Bella, were a kind of weekly homily which poor Kellett liked to deliver, and he felt, when he had uttered it, as one who had paid a just tribute to worth and virtue.

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