"So, so, so, so," repeated the baronet, at first with unaffected astonishment, which speedily, however, deepened into intense but constrained anger--his dark, prominent eyes peering fiercely upon the young man, while, stooping forward, and clutching his crutch-handled cane hard in his lean fingers, he limped first one and then another step nearer.

"Mr. O'Connor! or my eyes deceive me."

"Yes, Sir Richard," replied O'Connor, with a haughty bow, and advancing a little toward him in turn. "I am that Edmond O'Connor whom you once knew well, and whom it would seem you still know. I ought, doubtless----"

"Nay, sir, no flowers of rhetoric, if you please," interrupted Sir Richard, bitterly--"no fustian speeches--to the point--to the point, sir. If you have ought to say to me, deliver it in six words. Your business, sir. Be brief."

"I will not indeed waste words, Sir Richard Ashwoode," replied O'Connor, firmly. "There is but one subject on which I would seek a conference with you, and that subject you well may guess."

"I _do_ guess it," retorted Sir Richard. "You would renew an absurd proposal--one opened three years since, and repeated this morning by the old b.o.o.by, your elected spokesman. To that proposal I have ever given one answer--no. I have not changed my mind, nor ever shall. Am I understood, sir? And least of all should I think of changing my purpose now," continued he, more pointedly, as a suspicion crossed his mind--"_now_, sir, that you have forfeited by your own act whatever regard you once seemed to me to merit. You did not seek _me_ here, sir.

I'm not to be fooled, sir. You did not seek me--don't a.s.sert it. I understand your purpose. You came here clandestinely to tamper like a schemer with my child. Yes, sir, a schemer!" repeated Sir Richard, with bitter emphasis, while his sharp sallow features grew sharper and more sallow still; and he struck the point of his cane at every emphatic word deep into the sod--"a mean, interested, cowardly schemer. How dare you steal into my place, you thrice-rejected, dishonourable, spiritless adventurer?"

The blood rushed to O'Connor's brow as the old man uttered this insulting invective. The fiery impulse which under other circ.u.mstances would have been uncontrollable, was, however, speedily, though with difficulty, mastered; and O'Connor replied bitterly,--

"You are an old man, Sir Richard, and _her_ father--you are safe, sir.

How much of chivalry or courage is shown in heaping insult upon one who _will_ not retort upon you, judge for yourself. Alter what has pa.s.sed, I feel that I were, indeed, the vile thing you have described, if I were again to subject myself to your unprovoked insolence: be a.s.sured, I shall never place foot of mine within your boundaries again: relieve yourself, sir, of all fears upon that score; and for your language, you know you can appreciate the respect that makes me leave you thus unanswered and unpunished."

So saying, he turned, and with long and rapid strides retraced his steps, his heart swelling with a thousand struggling emotions. Scarce knowing what he did, O'Connor rode rapidly to the "c.o.c.k and Anchor,"

and too much stunned and confounded by the scenes in which he had just borne a part to exchange a word with Mr. Audley, whom he found still established in his chamber, he threw himself dejectedly into a chair, and sank into gloomy and obstinate abstraction. The good-natured old gentleman did not care to interrupt his young friend's ruminations, and hours might have pa.s.sed away and found them still undisturbed, were it not that the door was suddenly thrown open, and the waiter announced Mr. Ashwoode. There was a spell in the name which instantly recalled O'Connor to the scene before him. Had a viper sprung up at his feet, he could not have recoiled with a stronger antipathy. With a mixture of feelings scarcely tolerable, he awaited his arrival, and after a moment or two of suspense, Henry Ashwoode entered the room.

Mr. Audley, having heard the name, scowled fearfully from the centre of the room upon the young gentleman as he entered, stuffed his hands half-way to the elbows in his breeches pockets, and turning briskly upon his heel, marched emphatically to the window, and gazed out into the inn yard with remarkable perseverance. The obvious coldness with which he was received did not embarra.s.s young Ashwoode in the least.

With perfect ease and a graceful frankness of demeanour, he advanced to O'Connor, and after a greeting of extraordinary warmth, inquired how he had gotten home, and whether he had suffered since any inconvenience from the fall which he had. He then went on to renew his protestations of grat.i.tude for O'Connor's services, with so much ardour and apparent heartiness, that spite of his prejudices, the old man was moved in his favour; and when Ashwoode expressed in a low voice to O'Connor his wish to be introduced to his friend, honest Mr. Audley felt his heart quite softened, and instead of merely bowing to him, absolutely shook him by the hand. The young man then, spite of O'Connor's evident reluctance, proceeded to relate to his new acquaintance the details of the adventures of the preceding night, in doing which, he took occasion to dwell, in the most glowing terms, upon his obligations to O'Connor.

After sitting with them for nearly half an hour, young Ashwoode took his leave in the most affectionate manner possible, and withdrew.

"Well, that _is_ a good-looking young fellow, and a warm-hearted,"

exclaimed the old gentleman, as soon as the visitor had disappeared--"what a pity he should be cursed with such a confounded old father."

CHAPTER XII.

THE APPOINTED HOUR--THE SCHEMERS AND THE PLOT.

"And here comes my dear brother," exclaimed Mary Ashwoode, joyously, as she ran to welcome the young man, now entering her father's room, in which, for more than an hour previously, she had been sitting. Throwing her arm round his neck, and looking sweetly in his face, she continued--"You _will_ stay with us this evening, dear Harry--do, for my sake--you won't refuse--it is so long since we have had you;" and though she spoke with a gay look and a gladsome voice, a sense of real solitariness called a tear to her dark eye.

"No, Mary--not this evening," said the young man coldly; "I must be in town again to-night, and before I go must have some conversation upon business with my father, so that I may not see you again till morning."

"But, dear Henry," said she, still clinging affectionately to his arm, "you have been in such danger, and I knew nothing of it until after you went out this morning: are you quite well, Henry?--you were not hurt--were you?"

"No, no--nothing--nothing--I never was better," said he, impatiently.

"Well, brother--_dear_ brother," she continued imploringly, "come early home to-night--do not be upon the road late--won't you promise?"

"There, there, there," said he rudely, "run away--take your work, or your book, or whatever it may be, down stairs; your father wants to speak with me alone," and so saying, he turned pettishly from her.

His habitual coldness and carelessness of manner had never before seemed so ungracious. The poor girl felt her heart swell within her, as though it would burst. She had never felt so keenly that in all this world there lived but one being upon whose love she might rely, and he separated, it might be for ever, from her: she gathered up her work, and ran quickly from the room, to hide the tears which she could not restrain.

Young Ashwoode was to the full as worldly and as unprincipled a man as was his father; and whatever reluctance he may have felt as to adopting Sir Richard's plans respecting O'Connor, the reader would grievously wrong him in attributing his unwillingness to any visitings of grat.i.tude, or, indeed, to any other feeling than that which he had himself avowed. A few hours' reflection had satisfied the young man of the transcendent importance of securing Lord Aspenly; and by a corresponding induction he had arrived at the conclusion to which his father had already come--namely, that it was imperatively necessary by all means to put an end effectually to his sister's correspondence with O'Connor. To effect this object both were equally resolved; and with respect to the means to be employed both were equally unscrupulous.

With Henry Ashwoode courage was const.i.tutional, and art habitual. If, therefore, either duplicity or daring could ensure success, he felt that he must triumph; and, at all events, he was sufficiently impressed with the importance of the object, to resolve to leave nothing untried for its achievement.

"You _are_ punctual, sir," said Sir Richard, glancing at his richly-chased watch; "sit down; I have considered your suggestions of this morning, and I am inclined to adopt them; it is most probable that Mary, like the rest of her s.e.x, will be taken by the splendour of the proposal--fascinated--in short, as I said this morning--dazzled. Now, whether she be or not--observe me, it shall be our object to make O'Connor believe that she _is_ so. You will have his ear, and through her maid, Carey, I can manage their correspondence; not a letter from either can reach the other, without first meeting my eye. I am very certain that the young fellow will lose no time in writing to her some more of those pa.s.sionate epistles, of which, as I told you, I have seen a sample. I shall take care to have their letters _re_-written for the future, before they come to hand; and it shall go hard, or between us we shall manage to give each a very moderate opinion of the other's constancy; thus the affair will--or rather must--die a natural death--after all, the most effectual kind of mortality in such cases."

"I called to-day upon the fellow," said the young man. "I made him out, and without approaching the point of nearest interest, I have, nevertheless, opened operations successfully--so far as a most auspicious re-commencement of our acquaintance may be so accounted."

"And, stranger still to say," rejoined the baronet, "I also encountered him to-day; but only for some dozen seconds."

"How!--saw O'Connor!" exclaimed young Ashwoode.

"Yes, sir, O'Connor--Edmond O'Connor," repeated Sir Richard. "He was coolly walking up to the house to see me, as it would seem; and I do believe the fellow speaks truth--he _did_ see me, and that is all. I fancy he will scarcely come here again uninvited; he said so pretty plainly, and I believe the fellow has spirit enough to feel an affront."

"He did not see Mary?" inquired Henry.

"I did not ask him, and don't choose to ask her; I don't mean to allude to the subject in her presence," replied Sir Richard, quickly. "I think--indeed I _know_--I can mar their plans better by appearing never once to apprehend anything from O'Connor's pretensions. I have reasons, too, for not wishing to deal harshly with Mary _at present_; we must have no _scenes_, if possible. Were I to appear suspicious and uneasy, it would put them on their guard. And now, upon the other point, did you speak to Craven about the possibility of raising ten thousand pounds on the Glenvarlogh property?"

"He says it can be done very easily, if Mary joins you," replied the young man; "but I have been thinking that if you ask her to sign any deed, it might as well be one a.s.signing over her interest absolutely to you. Aspenly does not want a penny with her--in fact, from what fell from him to-day, when I met him in town, I'm inclined to think he believes that she has not a penny in the world; so she may as well make it over to you, and then we can turn it all into money when and how we please. I desired Craven to work night and day at the deeds, and have them over by ten o'clock to-morrow morning."

"You did quite rightly," rejoined the old gentleman. "I hardly expect any opposition from the girl--at least no more than I can easily frighten her out of. Should she prove sulky, however, I do not well know where to turn: as to asking my brother Oliver, I might as well, or _better_, ask a Jew broker; he hates me and mine with his whole heart; and to say the truth, there is not much love lost between us. No, no, there's nothing to be looked for in that quarter. I daresay we'll manage one way or another--lead or drive to get Mary to sign the deed, and if so, the ship rights again. Craven comes, you say, at ten to-morrow?"

"He engaged to be here at that hour with the deeds," repeated the young man.

"Well," said his father, yawning, "you have nothing more to say, nor I neither--oblige me by withdrawing." So parted these congenial relations.

The past day had been an agitating one to Mary Ashwoode. Still suspense was to be her doom, and the same alternations of hope and of despair were again to rob her pillow of repose; yet even thus, happy was she in comparison with what she must have been, had she but known the schemes of which she was the unconscious subject. At this juncture we shall leave the actors in this true tale, and conclude the chapter with the close of day.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE INTERVIEW--THE PARCHMENT--AND THE n.o.bLEMAN'S COACH.

Sir Richard Ashwoode had never in the whole course of his life denied himself the indulgence of any pa.s.sion or of any whim. From his childhood upward he had never considered the feelings or comforts of any living being but himself alone. As he advanced in life, this selfishness had improved to a degree of hardness and coldness so intense, that if ever he had felt a kindly impulse at any moment in his existence, the very remembrance of it had entirely faded from his mind: so that generosity, compa.s.sion, and natural affection were to him not only unknown, but incredible. To him mankind seemed all either fools, or such as he himself was. Without one particle of principle of any kind, he had uniformly maintained in the world the character of an honourable man. The ordinary rules of honesty and morality he regarded as so many conventional sentiments, to which every gentleman subscribed, as a matter of course, in public, but which in private he had an unquestionable right to dispense with at his own convenience. He was imperious, fiery, and unforgiving to the uttermost; but when he conceived it advantageous to do so, he could practise as well as any man the convenient art of masking malignity, hatred, and inveteracy behind the pleasantest of all pleasant smiles. Capable of any secret meanness for the sake of the smallest advantage to be gained by it, he was yet full of fierce and overbearing pride; and although this world was all in all to him, yet there never breathed a man who could on the slightest provocation risk his life in mortal combat with more alacrity and absolute _sang froid_ than Sir Richard Ashwoode. In his habits he was unboundedly luxurious--in his expenditure prodigal to recklessness.

His own and his son's extravagance, which he had indulged from a kind of pride, was now, however, beginning to make itself sorely felt in formidable and rapidly acc.u.mulating pecuniary embarra.s.sments. These had served to embitter and exasperate a temper which at the best had never been a very sweet one, and of whose ordinary pitch the reader may form an estimate, when he hears that in the short glimpses which he has had of Sir Richard, the baronet happened to be, owing to the circ.u.mstances with which we have acquainted him, in extraordinarily good humour.

Sir Richard had not married young; and when he did marry it was to pay his debts. The lady of his choice was beautiful, accomplished, and an heiress; and, won by his agreeability, and by his well-a.s.sumed devotedness and pa.s.sion, she yielded to the pressure of his suit. They were married, and she gave birth successively to a son and a daughter.

Sir Richard's temper, as we have hinted, was not very placid, nor his habits very domestic; nevertheless, the world thought the match (putting his money difficulties out of the question) a very suitable and a very desirable one, and took it for granted that the gay baronet and his lady were just as happy as a fashionable man and wife ought to be--and perhaps they were so; but, for all that, it happened that at the end of some four years the young wife died of a broken heart. Some strange scenes, it is said, followed between Sir Richard and the brother of the deceased lady, Oliver French. It is believed that this gentleman suspected the cause of Lady Ashwoode's death--at all events he had ascertained that she had not been kindly used, and after one or two interviews with the baronet, in which bitter words were exchanged, the matter ended in a fierce and bloodily contested duel, in which the baronet received three desperate wounds. His recovery was long doubtful; but life burns strongly in some b.r.e.a.s.t.s; and, contrary to the desponding predictions of his surgeons, the valuable life of Sir Richard Ashwoode was prolonged to his family and friends.

Since then, Sir Richard had by different agencies sought to bring about a reconciliation with his brother-in-law, but without the smallest success. Oliver French was a bachelor, and a very wealthy one.

Moreover, he had it in his power to dispose of his lands and money just as he pleased. These circ.u.mstances had strongly impressed Sir Richard with a conviction that quarrels among relations are not only unseemly, but un-Christian. He was never in a more forgiving and forgetting mood.

He was willing even to make concessions--anything that could be reasonably asked of him, and even more, he was ready to do--but all in vain. Oliver was obdurate. He knew his man well. He saw and appreciated the baronet's motives, and hated and despised him ten thousand times more than ever.

Repulsed in his first attempt, Sir Richard resolved to give his adversary time to cool a little; and accordingly, after a lapse of twelve or fourteen years, his son Henry being then a handsome lad, he wrote to his brother-in-law a very long and touching epistle, in which he proposed to send his son down to Ardgillagh, the place where the alienated relative resided, with a portrait of his deceased lady, which, of course, with no object less sacred, and to no relative less near and respected, could he have induced himself to part. This, too, was a total failure. Oliver French, Esquire, wrote back a very succinct epistle, but one very full of unpleasant meaning. He said that the portrait would be odious to him, inasmuch as it would be necessarily a.s.sociated in his mind with a marriage which had killed his sister, and with persons whom he abhorred--that therefore he would not allow it into his house. He stated, that to the motives which prompted his attention he was wide awake--that he was, however, perfectly determined that no person bearing the name or the blood of Sir Richard Ashwoode should ever have one penny of his; adding, that the baronet could leave his son, Mr. Henry Ashwoode, quite enough for a gentleman to live upon respectably; and that, at all events, in his father's virtues the young gentleman would inherit a legacy such as would insure him universal respect, and a general welcome wherever he might happen to go, excepting only one locality, called Ardgillagh.

With the failure of this last attempt, of course, disappeared every hope of success with the rich old bachelor; and the forgiving baronet was forced to content himself, in the absence of all more substantial rewards, with the consciousness of having done what was, under all the circ.u.mstances, the most Christian thing he could have done, as well as played the most knowing game, though unsuccessful, which he could have played.