'I wish I could only secure your attention, my lord, for ten minutes.'

'And what would you do, counsellor, if you had it?'

'You see, my lord, there are some very grave questions here. First of all, you and your brother magistrates had no right to accept bail. The injury was too grave: Gill's life, as the doctor's certificate will prove, was in danger. It was for a judge in Chambers to decide whether bail could be taken. They will move, therefore, in the Queen's Bench, for a mandamus--'

'May I never, if you won't drive me mad!' cried Kearney pa.s.sionately; 'and I'd rather be picking oak.u.m this minute than listening to all the possible misfortunes briefs and lawyers could bring on me.'

'Just listen to Holmes, father,' whispered d.i.c.k. 'He thinks that Gill might be got over--that if done by _you_ with three or four hundred pounds, he'd either make his evidence so light, or he'd contradict himself, or, better than all, he'd not make an appearance at the trial--'

'Compounding a felony! Catch me at it!' cried the old man, with a yell.

'Well, Joe Atlee will be here to-night,' continued d.i.c.k. 'He's a clever fellow at all rogueries. Will you let him see if it can't be arranged.'

'I don't care who does it, so it isn't Mathew Kearney,' said he angrily, for his patience could endure no more. 'If you won't leave me alone now, I won't say but that I'll go out and throw myself into a bog-hole!'

There was a tone of such perfect sincerity in his speech, that, without another word, d.i.c.k took the lawyer's arm, and led him from the room.

A third voice was heard outside as they issued forth, and Kearney could just make out that it was Major Lockwood, who was asking d.i.c.k if he might have a few minutes' conversation with his father.

'I don't suspect you'll find my father much disposed for conversation just now. I think if you would not mind making your visit to him at another time--'

'Just so!' broke in the old man, 'if you're not coming with a strait-waistcoat, or a coil of rope to hold me down, I'd say it's better to leave me to myself.'

Whether it was that the major was undeterred by these forbidding evidences, or that what he deemed the importance of his communication warranted some risk, certain it is he lingered at the door, and stood there where d.i.c.k and the lawyer had gone and left him.

A faint tap at the door at last apprised Kearney that some one was without, and he hastily, half angrily, cried, 'Come in!' Old Kearney almost started with surprise as the major walked in.

'I'm not going to make any apology for intruding on you,' cried he. 'What I want to say shall be said in three words, and I cannot endure the suspense of not having them said and answered. I've had a whole night of feverish anxiety, and a worse morning, thinking and turning over the thing in my mind, and settled it must be at once, one way or other, for my head will not stand it.'

'My own is tried pretty hard, and I can feel for you,' said Kearney, with a grim humour.

'I've come to ask if you'll give me your daughter?' said Lockwood, and his face became blood-red with the effort the words had cost him.

'Give you my daughter?' cried Kearney.

'I want to make her my wife, and as I know little about courtship, and have n.o.body here that could settle this affair for me--for Walpole is thinking of his own concerns--I've thought the best way, as it was the shortest, was to come at once to yourself: I have got a few doc.u.ments here that will show you I have enough to live on, and to make a tidy settlement, and do all that ought to be done.'

'I'm sure you are an excellent fellow, and I like you myself; but you see, major, a man doesn't dispose of his daughter like his horse, and I'd like to hear what she would say to the bargain.'

'I suppose you could ask her?'

'Well, indeed, that's true, I could ask her; but on the whole, major, don't you think the question would come better from yourself?'

'That means courtship?'

'Yes, I admit it is liable to that objection, but somehow it's the usual course.'

'No, no,' said the other slowly, 'I could not manage that. I'm sick of bachelor life, and I'm ready to send in my papers and have done with it, but I don't know how to go about the other. Not to say, Kearney,' added he, more boldly, 'that I think there is something confoundedly mean in that daily pursuit of a woman, till by dint of importunity, and one thing or another, you get her to like you! What can she know of her own mind after three or four months of what these sn.o.bs call attentions? How is she to say how much is mere habit, how much is gratified vanity of having a fellow dangling after her, how much the necessity of showing the world she is not compromised by the cad's solicitations? Take my word for it, Kearney, my way is the best. Be able to go up like a man and tell the girl, "It's all arranged. I've shown the old cove that I can take care of you, he has seen that I've no debts or mortgages; I'm ready to behave handsomely, what do you say yourself?"'

'She might say, "I know nothing about you. I may possibly not see much to dislike, but how do I know I should like you."'

'And I'd say, "I'm one of those fellows that are the same all through, to-day as I was yesterday, and to-morrow the same. When I'm in a bad temper I go out on the moors and walk it off, and I'm not hard to live with."'

'There's many a bad fellow a woman might like better.'

'All the luckier for me, then, that I don't get her.'

'I might say, too,' said Kearney, with a smile, 'how much do you know of my daughter--of her temper, her tastes, her habits, and her likings? What a.s.surance have you that you would suit each other, and that you are not as wide apart in character as in country?'

'I'll answer for that. She's always good-tempered, cheerful, and light-hearted. She's always nicely dressed and polite to every one. She manages this old house, and these stupid bog-trotters, till one fancies it a fine establishment and a first-rate household. She rides like a lion, and I'd rather hear her laugh than I'd listen to Patti.'

'I'll call all that mighty like being in love.'

'Do if you like--but answer me my question.'

'That is more than I'm able; but I'll consult my daughter. I'll tell her pretty much in your own words all you have said to me, and she shall herself give the answer.'

'All right, and how soon?'

'Well, in the course of the day. Should she say that she does not understand being wooed in this manner, that she would like more time to learn something more about yourself, that, in fact, there is something too peremptory in this mode of proceeding, I would not say she was wrong.'

'But if she says Yes frankly, you'll let me know at once.'

'I will--on the spot.'

CHAPTER LXXIX

PLEASANT CONGRATULATIONS

The news of Nina's engagement to Walpole soon spread through the castle at Kilgobbin, and gave great satisfaction; even the humbler members of the household were delighted to think there would be a wedding and all its appropriate festivity.

When the tidings at length arrived at Miss O'Shea's room, so reviving were the effects upon her spirits, that the old lady insisted she should be dressed and carried down to the drawing-room that the bridegroom might be presented to her in all form.

Though Nina herself chafed at such a proceeding, and called it a most 'insufferable pretension,' she was perhaps not sorry secretly at the opportunity afforded herself to let the tiresome old woman guess how she regarded her, and what might be their future relations towards each other.

'Not indeed,' added she, 'that we are likely ever to meet again, or that I should recognise her beyond a bow if we should.'

As for Kearney, the announcement that Miss Betty was about to appear in public filled him with unmixed terror, and he muttered drearily as he went, 'There'll be wigs on the green for this.' Nor was Walpole himself pleased at the arrangement. Like most men in his position, he could not be brought to see the delicacy or the propriety of being paraded as an object of public inspection, nor did he perceive the fitness of that display of trinkets which he had brought with him as presents, and the sight of which had become a sort of public necessity.

Not the least strange part of the whole procedure was that no one could tell where or how or with whom it originated. It was like one of those movements which are occasionally seen in political life, where, without the direct intervention of any precise agent, a sort of diffused atmosphere of public opinion suffices to produce results and effect changes that all are ready to disavow but to accept.

The mere fact of the pleasure the prospect afforded to Miss Betty prevented Kate from offering opposition to what she felt to be both bad in taste and ridiculous.

'That old lady imagines, I believe, that I am to come down like a _pretendu_ in a French vaudeville--dressed in a tail-coat, with a white tie and white gloves, and perhaps receive her benediction. She mistakes herself, she mistakes us. If there was a casket of uncouth old diamonds, or some marvellous old point lace to grace the occasion, we might play our parts with a certain decorous hypocrisy; but to be stared at through a double eye-gla.s.s by a snuffy old woman in black mittens, is more than one is called on to endure--eh, Lockwood?'

'I don't know. I think I'd go through it all gladly to have the occasion.'