"You need n't take it so seriously as all that, Grog," said Beecher, in a placable tone.

"Why, when I'm told that one of the hardest things to be laid to _your_ charge is the knowing _me_, it's high time to be serious, I think; not but I might just throw a shell into the enemy's own camp. The noble Lord ain't so safe as he fancies. I was head-waiter at Smykes's,--the old Cherry-tree, at Richmond--the night Mat Fortescue was ruined. I could tell the names of the partners even yet, though it's a matter of I won't say how many years ago; and when poor Fortescue blew his brains out, I know the man who drove his phaeton into town and said, 'Fortescue never had a hand light enough for these chestnuts. I always knew what I could do with them if they were my own.'"

"Lackington never said that. I 'll take my oath of it he never did!"

cried Beecher, passionately.

"Take your oath of it!" said Davis, with an insulting sneer. "Do you mind the day old Justice Blanchard--it was at the York assizes--said, 'Have a care, Mr. Beecher, what you are about to swear; if you persist in affirming that document, the consequences may be more serious than you apprehend?' And do you remember you did n't swear?"

"I 'll tell you what, Master Grog," said Beecher, over whose face a sudden paleness now spread, "you may speak of _me_ just as you like. You and I have been companions and pals for many a day; but Lackington is the head of my family, he has his seat in the Peers, he can hold up his head with the best in England, and I 'll not sit here to listen to anything against him."

"You won't, won't you?" said Grog, placing a hand on either knee, and fixing his fiery gray eyes on the other's face. "Well, then, I 'll tell you that you _shall!_ Sit down, sir,--sit down, I say, and don't budge from that chair till I tell you! Do you see that hand? and that arm,--grasp it, squeeze it,--does n't feel very like the sinews of a fellow that feared hard labor. I was the best ten stone seven man in England the year I fought Black Joe, and I 'm as tough this minute, so that Norfolk Island needn't frighten me; but the Hon. Annesley Beecher would n't like it, I 'll promise him. He 'd have precious pains in the shoulder-blades, and very sore feelings about the small of the back, after the first day's stone-breaking. Now, don't provoke me, that's all.

When the world has gone so bad with a man as it has with _me_ the last year or two, it's not safe to provoke him,--it is not."

"I never meant to anger you, old fellow," began Annesley.

"Don't do it, then,--don't, I say," repeated the other, doggedly; and he resumed the letter, saying: "When you 're a-writing the answer to this here letter, just ask Grog Davis to give you a paragraph. Just say, 'Grog, old fellow, I 'm writing to my noble brother; mayhap you have a message of some kind or other for him,' and you 'll see whether he has or not."

"You 're a rum one, Master Davis," said Beecher, with a laugh that revealed very little of a heart at ease.

"I'm one that won't stand a fellow that doesn't run straight with me,--that's what I am. And now for the noble Viscount." And he ran his eyes over the letter without reading aloud. "All this here is only saying what sums he has paid for you, what terrible embarrassment your debts have caused him. Lord love him! it's no new thing to hear of in this life that paying money is no pleasure. And then it finishes, as all the stories usually do, by his swearing he won't do it any more. 'I think,' he says, 'you might come round by a fortunate hit in marriage; but somehow you blundered in every case that I pointed out to you--'"

"That's too bad!" cried Beecher, angrily. "The only thing he ever 'put me on' was an iron-master's widow at Barnstable, and I found that the whole concern was under a contract to furnish rails for a Peruvian line at two pounds ten a ton under the market price of iron."

"It was _I_ discovered that!" broke in Grog, proudly.

"So it was, old fellow; and you got me off the match without paying forfeit."

"Well, this here looks better," continued Grog, reading.

"Young and handsome, one of two daughters of an old Irish provision merchant come abroad for the first time in their life, and consequently new to everything. The name's O'Reilly, of Mary's Abbey, so that you can have no difficulty in accurately learning all about him in Dublin.

Knowing that these things are snapped up immediately in the cities, I have induced O'R. to take a villa on the lake here for the present, so that if your inquiries turn out satisfactorily, you can come out at once, and we 'll find the birds where I have landed them.'"

"That's business-like,--that's well and sensibly put," said Davis, in a voice of no counterfeited admiration.

He read on: "'O'R. talks of forty thousand to each, but, with the prospect of connecting himself with people of station, might possibly come down more handsomely in one case, particularly when brought to see that the other girl's prospects will be proportionately bettered by this alliance; at all events, no time is to be lost in the matter, and you can draw on me, at two months, for fifty pounds, which will carry you out here, and where, if you should not find me, you will have letters of presentation to the O'R.'s. It is not a case requiring either time or money,--though it may call for more energy and determination than you are in the habit of exercising. At the proper moment I shall be ready to contribute all in my power.'

"What does that mean?" said Davis.

"I can't even guess; but no matter, the thing sounds well. You can surely learn all about this O'Reilly?"

"That's easy enough."

"I say, I say, old fellow," cried Beecher, as he flung his cigar away and walked up and down the room briskly, "this would put us all on our legs again. Wouldn't I 'go a heavy pot' on Rolfs stable! I 'd take Coulton's three-year-old for the Canterbury to-morrow, I would! and give them twelve to twenty in hundreds on the double event. We'd serve them out, Master Grog--we'd give them such a shower-bath, old boy! They say I'm a flat, but what will they say when A. B.'s number hangs out at the Stand-house?"

"There's not much to do on the turf just now," said Grog, dryly. "They 've spoiled the turf," said he, as he lighted his cigar,--"clean spoiled it. Once upon a time the gents was gents, and the legs legs, but nowadays every one 'legs' it, as he can; so I 'd like to see who's to make a livin' out of it!"

"There's truth in that!" chimed in Beecher.

"So that," resumed Grog, "if you go in for this girl, don't you be making a book; there's plenty better things to be had now than the ring.

There's companies, and banks, and speculations on every hand. You buy in at, say thirty, and sell out at eighty, ninety, or a hundred. I 've been a meditating over a new one I 'll tell you about another time,--let us first think about this here marriage,--it ain't impossible."

"Impossible! I should think not, Master Grog. But you will please to remember that Lackington has no child. I must succeed to the whole thing,--title and all."

"Good news for the Jews, would n't it be?" cried Davis. "Why, your outlying paper would n't leave much of a margin to live on. You owe upwards of a hundred thousand,--that you do."

"I could buy the whole concern to-morrow for five-and twenty thousand pounds. They can't touch the entail, old fellow!"

"My word on't, they 'd have it out of you, one way or other; but never mind, there's time enough to think of these things,--just stir yourself about this marriage."

"I 'll start on Monday. I have one or two trifling matters to look after here, and then I 'm free."

"What's this in the turn-down of Lackington's letter marked '_Strictly_ confidential'?

"'I meant to have despatched this yesterday, but fortunately deferred doing so--fortunately, I say--as Davenport Dunn has just arrived here, with a very important communication, in which your interest is only inferior to my own. The explanation would be too long for a letter, and is not necessary besides, as D. will be in Dublin a day or two after this reaches you. See him at once; his address is Merrion Square North, and he will be fully prepared for your visit. Be on your guard. In truth, D., who is my own solicitor and man of business in Ireland, is somewhat of a crafty nature, and may have other interests in his head paramount to those of, yours,

"'Lackington.'"

"Can you guess what this means, Grog? Has it any reference to the marriage scheme?"

"No; this is another match altogether," said Grog, sententiously; "and this here Dunn--I know about him, though I never seen him--is the swellest cove going. _You_ ain't fit to deal with _him_--you ain't!"

added he, contemptuously. "If you go and talk to that fellow alone, I know how 't will be."

"Come, come, I'm no flat"

Grog's look--one of intense derision--stopped him, and after stammering and blushing deeply, he was silent.

"You think, because you have a turn of speed among cripples, that you 're fast," said Grog, with one of his least amiable grins, "but I tell you that except among things of your own breeding, you'd never save a distance. Lord love ye! it never makes a fellow sharp to be 'done;'

that's one of the greatest mistakes people ever make. It makes him suspicious,--it keeps him on the look-out, as the sailors say; but what's the use of being on the look-out if you haven't got good eyes?

It's the go-ahead makes a man nowadays, and the cautious chaps have none of that. No, no; don't you go rashly and trust yourself alone with Dunn.

You 'll have to consider well over this,--you 'll have to turn it over carefully in your mind. I 'd not wonder," said he, after a pause, "but you 'll have to take _me_ with you!"

CHAPTER XIII. A MESSAGE FROM JACK

"He's come at last, Bella," said Kellett, as, tired and weary, he entered the little cottage one night after dark. "I waited till I saw him come out of the station at West-land Row, and drive off to his house."

"Did he see you, papa?--did he speak to you?" asked she, eagerly.

"See _me_--speak to _me!_ It's little he was thinking of me, darling!

with Lord Glengariff shaking one of his hands, and Sir Samuel Downie squeezing the other, and a dozen more crying out, 'Welcome home, Mr.

Bunn! it is happy we are to see you looking so well; we were afraid you were forgetting poor Ireland and not coming back to us!' And by that time the carmen took up the chorus, and began cheering and hurrahing, 'Long life and more power to Davenport Dunn!' I give you my word, you 'd have thought it was Daniel O'Connell, or at least a new Lord-Lieutenant, if you saw the uproar and excitement there was about him."

"And he--how did he take it?" asked she.

"Just as cool as if he had a born right to it all. 'Thank you very much,--most kind of you,' he muttered, with a little smile and a wave of his hand, as much as to say, 'There now, that'll do. Don't you see that I'm travelling _incog._, and don't want any more homage?'"