"Just so--just so. A mere nominal guarantee," said Driscoll, still laughing. "Oh, dear! but it's a queer world, and one has to work his wits hard to live in it." And with this philosophic explanation of life's trials, Mr. Driscoll took his leave of Dunn, and walked homeward.

CHAPTER XXVI. THE OSTEND PACKET

It was a wild, stormy night, with fast-flying clouds above, and a heavy rolling sea below, as the "Osprey" steamed away for Ostend, her closed hatchways and tarpaulined sailors, as well as her sea-washed deck and dripping cordage, telling there was "dirty weather outside." Though the waves broke over the vessel as she lay at anchor, and the short distance between the shore and her gangway had to be effected at peril of life, the captain had his mail, and was decided on sailing. There were but three passengers: two went aboard with the captain; the third was already on deck when they arrived, and leisurely paraded up and down with his cigar, stopping occasionally to look at the lights on shore, or cast a glance towards the wild chaos of waves that raged without.

"Safe now, I suppose, Grog?" muttered Beecher, as the vessel, loosed from her last mooring, turned head to sea out of the harbor.

"I rather suspect you are," said Davis, as he struck a light for his cigar. "Few fellows would like to swim out here with a judge's warrant in his mouth such a night as this."

"I don't like it overmuch myself," said Beecher; "there's a tremendous sea out there, and she's only a cockleshell after all."

"A very tidy one, sir, in a sea, I promise you," said the Captain, overhearing, while with his trumpet he bellowed forth some directions to the sailors.

"You've no other passengers than ourselves, have you?" asked Beecher.

"Only that gentleman yonder," whispered the Captain, pointing towards the stranger.

"Few, I take it, fancy coming out in such weather," said Beecher.

"Very few, sir, if they have n't uncommonly strong reasons for crossing the water," replied the Captain.

"I think he had you there!" growled Grog in his ear. "Don't you go poking nonsense at fellows like that. Shut up, I tell you! shut up!"

"I begin to feel it deuced cold here," said Beecher, shuddering.

"Come down below, then, and have something hot. I 'll make a brew and turn in," said Davis, as he moved towards the ladder. "Come along."

"No, I must keep the deck, no matter how cold it is. I suffer dreadfully when I go below. Send me up a tumbler of rum-and-water, Davis, as hot as may be."

"You 'd better take your friend's advice, sir," said the Captain. "It will be dirty weather out there, and you 'll be snugger under cover."

Beecher, however, declined; and the Captain, crossing the deck, repeated the same counsel to the other passenger.

"No, I thank you," said he, gayly; "but if one of your men could spare me a cloak or a cape, I 'd be much obliged, for I am somewhat ill-provided against wet weather."

"I can let you have a rug, with pleasure," said Beecher, overhearing the request; while he drew from a recess beneath the binnacle one of those serviceable aids to modern travel in the shape of a strong woollen blanket.

"I accept your offer most willingly, and the more so as I suspect I have had the honor of being presented to you," said the stranger. "Do I address Mr. Annesley Beecher?"

"Eh?--I'm not aware--I'm not quite sure, by this light," began Beecher, in considerable embarrassment, which the other as quickly perceived, and remedied by saying,--

"I met you at poor Kellett's. My name is Conway."

"Oh, Conway,--all right," said Beecher, laughing. "I was afraid you might be a 'dark horse,' as we say. Now that I know your colors, I'm easy again."

Conway laughed too at the frankness of the confession, and they turned to walk the deck together.

"You mentioned Kellett. He 's gone 'toes up,' is n't he?" said Beecher.

"He is dead, poor fellow," said Conway, gravely. "I expected to have met you at his funeral."

"So I should have been had it come off on a Sunday," said Beecher, pleasantly; "but as in seeing old Paul 'tucked in' they might have nabbed me, I preferred being reported absent without leave."

"These were strong reasons, doubtless," said Conway, dryly.

"I liked the old fellow, too," said Beecher. "He was a bit of a bore, to be sure, about Arayo Molinos, and Albuera, and Soult, and Beresford, and the rest of 'em; but he was a rare good one to help a fellow at a pinch, and hospitable as a prince."

"That I 'm sure of!" chimed in Conway.

"I know it, I can swear to it; I used to dine with him every Sunday, regularly as the day came. I'll never forget those little tough legs of mutton,--wherever he found them there's no saying,--and those hard pellets of capers, like big swan-shot, washed down with table beer and whiskey-grog, and poor Kellett thinking all the while he was giving you haunch of venison and red hermitage."

"He 'd have given them just as freely if he had them," broke in Conway, half gruffly.

"That he would! He did so when he had it to give,--at least, so they tell me, for I never saw the old place at Kellett's Town, or Castle Kellett--"

"Kellett's Court was the name."

"Ay, to be sure, Kellett's Court. I wonder how I could forget it, for I'm sure I heard it often enough."

"One forgets many a thing they ought to remember," said Conway, significantly.

"Hit him again, he hasn't got no friends!" broke in Beecher, laughing jovially at this rebuke of himself. "You mean, that I ought to have a fresher memory about all old Paul's kindnesses, and you 're right there; but if you knew how hard the world has hit _me_, how hot they 've been giving it to me these years back, you 'd perhaps not lean so heavily on me. Since the Epsom of '42," said he, solemnly, "I never had one chance, not one, I pledge you my sacred word of honor. I 've had my little 'innings,' you know, like every one else,--punted for five-pun-notes with the small ones, but never a real chance. Now, I call that hard, deuced hard."

"I suppose it _is_ hard," said Conway; but, really, it would have been very difficult to say in what sense his words should be taken.

"And when a fellow finds himself always on the wrong side of the road,"

said Beecher, who now fancied that he was taking a moralist's view of life, and spoke with a philosophic solemnity,--"I say, when a fellow sees that, do what he will, he's never on the right horse, he begins to be soured with the world, and to think that it's all a regular 'cross.'

Not that I ever gave in. No! ask any of the fellows up at Newmarket--ask the whole ring--ask--" he was going to say Grog Davis, when he suddenly remembered the heavy judgment Conway had already fulminated on that revered authority, and then, quickly correcting himself, he said, "Ask any of the legs you like what stuff A. B. 's made of,--if he ain't hammered iron, and no mistake!"

"But what do you mean when you say you never gave in?" asked Conway, half sternly.

"What do I mean?" said Beecher, repeating the words, half stunned by the boldness of the question,--"what do I mean? Why, I mean that they never saw me 'down,'--that no man can say Annesley Beecher ever said 'die.'

Have n't I had my soup piping hot,--spiced and peppered too! Was n't I in for a pot on Blue Nose, when Mope ran a dead heat with Belshazzar for the Cloudeslie,--fifteen to three in fifties twice over, and my horse running in bandages, and an ounce of corrosive sublimate in his stomach!

Well, you 'd not believe it,--I don't ask any one to believe it that did n't see it,--but I was as cool as I am here, and I walked up to Lady Tinkerton's drag and ate a sandwich; and when she said, 'Oh!

Mr. Beecher, do come and tell me what to bet on,' I said to her, 'Quicksilver's the fastest of metals, but don't back it just now.' They had it all over the course in half an hour: 'Quicksilver's the fastest of metals--'"

"I'm afraid I don't quite catch your meaning."

"It was alluding to the bucketing, you know. They 'd just given Blue Nose corrosive sublimate, which is a kind of quicksilver."

"Oh, I perceive," said Conway.

"Good,--wasn't it?" said Beecher, chuckling. "Let A. B. alone to 'sarve them out,'--that's what all the legs said!" And then he heaved a little sigh, as though to say that, after all, even wit and smartness were only a vanity and a vexation of spirit, and that a "good book" was better than them all.

"I detest the whole concern," said Conway. "So long as gentlemen bred and trained to run their horses in honorable rivalry, it was a noble sport, and well became the first squirearchy of the world; but when it degenerated into a field for every crafty knave and trickster,--when the low cunning of the gambler succeeded to the bold daring of the true lover of racing,--then the turf became no better than the _rouge et noir_ table, without even the poor consolation of thinking that chance was any element in the result."