CHAPTER XIX. A DAY OF EXCITEMENT

Great was the Knight's astonishment, and not less his satisfaction, as he entered the breakfast-room the morning after his dinner with the Secretary, to find Bagenal Daly there before him. They met with all the cordial warmth of men whose friendship had continued without interruption for nigh half a century; each well disposed to prize good faith and integrity at a time when so many lapsed from the path of honor and principle.

"Well, Darcy," cried Daly, the first greetings over, "there is little hope left us; that rascally newspaper already proclaims the triumph,--a majority of twenty-eight."

"They calculate on many more; you remember what old Hayes, of the Recruiting Staff, used to say: 'There was no getting fellows to enlist when the bounty was high; make it half-a-crown,' said he, 'and I 'll raise a battalion in a fortnight.'"

"Is Castlereagh adopting the policy?"

"Yes, and with infinite success! Some that held out for English Peerages are fain to take Irish Baronetcies, expectant Bishops put up with Deaneries, and an acquaintance of ours, that would take nothing below a separate command, is now satisfied to make his son a clerk in the War Office."

"I 'm sorry for it," said Daly, as he arose and paced the room backwards and forwards, "sincerely sorry. I had fostered the hope that if they succeeded in corrupting _our_ gentry, they had polluted _their own_ Peerage. I wish every fellow had been bought by an Earldom at least. I would like to think that this Judas Peerage might become a jest and a scoff among their order."

"Have no such expectation, Bagenal," said the Knight, reflectively; "their origin will be forgiven before the first generation dies out.

To all purposes of worldly respect and esteem, they 'll be as high and mighty Lords as the best blood of all the Howards. The penalty will fall upon England in another form."

"How? Where?"

"In the Lower House, politics will become a trade to live by, and the Irish party, with such an admirable market for grievances, will be a strong and compact body in Parliament, too numerous to be bought by anything save great concessions. Englishmen will never understand the truth of the condition of the country from these men, nor how little personal importance they possess at home. They will be regarded as the exponents of Irish opinion; they will browbeat, denounce, threaten, fawn, and flatter by turns; and Ireland, instead of being easier to govern, will be rendered ten times more difficult, by all the obscuring influences of falsehood and misrepresentation. But let us quit the theme. How have you left all at the Abbey?"

"Well and happy; here are my despatches." And he laid on the table several letters, the first the Knight had received since his arrival, save a few hurried lines from Lady Eleanor. Darcy broke the envelopes, and skimmed the contents of each.

"How good!" cried he, handing Lord Netherby's letter across the table; "this is really amusing!"

"I have seen it," said Daly, dryly. "Lady Eleanor asked my opinion as to what answer she should make."

"Insolent old miser!" broke in Darcy, who, without attending to Daly's remark, had been reading Lady Eleanor's account of Dr. Hickman's proposal. "I say, Bagenal, you 'll not believe this. What social earthquakes are we to look for next? Read that." And with a trembling hand he presented the letter to Daly.

If the Knight's pa.s.sion had been more openly displayed, Daly's indignation seemed to evoke deeper emotion, for his brows met, and his stern lips were clenched, as he perused the lines.

"Darcy," said he, at length, "O'Reilly must apologize for this; he must be made to disavow any share in the old man's impertinence--"

"No, no," interrupted Darcy, "never speak of it again; rest a.s.sured that Lady Eleanor received the offer suitably. The best thing we can do is to forget it. If," added he, after a pause, "the daring that prompted such a proposition has not a deeper foundation than mere presumption. You know these Hickmans have purchased up my bonds and other securities?"

"I heard as much."

"Well, Gleeson is making arrangements for the payment. One large sum, something like 20,000--"

"Was paid the day before yesterday," said Daly; "here is a memorandum of the moneys."

"How the deuce came you by the information? I have heard nothing of it yet."

"That entails somewhat of a story," said Daly; "but I 'll be brief with it." And in a few words he narrated his meeting with the robber Freney, and how he had availed himself of his hospitality and safe convoy as far as Maynooth.

"Ireland forever!" said the Knight, in a burst of happy laughter; "for every species of incongruity, where was ever its equal? An independent member of the Legislature sups with a highwayman, and takes a loan of his hackney!"

"Ay, faith," said Daly, joining in the laugh; "and had I not been one of the Opposition, I had been worth robbing, and consequently not so civilly treated. By Jove! Darcy, I felt an evening with Freney to be a devilish good preparation for the company I should be keeping up in town."

"I'll wager ten pounds you talked politics together."

"That we did, and he is as stout an Anti-Unionist as the best of us, though he told me he signed a pet.i.tion in favor of the Bill when confined in Clonmel jail."

"Is that true, Bagenal? did they hawk a pet.i.tion for signature among the prisoners of a jail?"

"He took his oath of it to me, and I intend to declare it in the House."

"What if asked for your authority?"

"I 'll give it," said Daly, determinedly. "Ay, faith, and if I catch a sneer or a scoff amongst them, I 'll tell them that a highwayman is about as respectable and somewhat more courageous than a bribed representative."

If the Knight enjoyed the absurdity of Daly's supper with the noted Freney, he laughed till the tears came at the account of his dining with Con Heffernan. Darcy could appreciate the dismay of Heffernan, and the cool, imperturbable tyranny of Daly's manner throughout, and would have given largely to have witnessed the _tete-a-tete_.

"I will do him the justice to say," said Daly, "that when he found escape impossible, he behaved as well as any man, his conversation was easy and unaffected, and his manner perfectly well-bred. Freney was more anecdotic, but Heffernan saw deeper into mankind."

"I hope you hinted the comparison?" said Darcy, slyly.

"Yes, I observed upon the superiority practical men possess in all the relations of social intercourse, and quoted Freney and himself as instances!"

"And he took it well?"

"Admirably. Once, and only once, did he show a little disposition to turn restive; it was when I remarked upon the discrepancy in point of destiny, the one being employed to empty, the other to fill, the pockets of his Majesty's lieges. He winced, but it was over in a second. His time was up at ten o'clock, but we sat chatting till near twelve, and we parted with what the French term a 'sense of the most distinguished consideration' on each side."

"By Jove! I envy the fellows who sat at the other tables and saw you."

"They were most discreet in their observations," remarked Daly, significantly. "One young fellow, it is true, coughed twice or thrice as a signal to a friend across the room, but I ordered the waiter to bring me a plate, and, taking three or four bullets out of my pocket, sent them over to him, with my respectful compliments, as 'admirable pills for a cough.' The cure was miraculous."

"Excellent! Men have taken out a patent for a poorer remedy. And now, Bagenal, for the reason of your journey. What, in the name of everything strange and eccentric, brought you up to town? Don't affect to tell me you came for the debate."

"And why not?" said Daly, who, unwilling to reveal the true cause, preferred to do battle on this pretence. "I admit as freely as ever I did, I'm no lover of Parliament. I have slight respect or esteem for deliberative a.s.semblies split up into factions and parties. A Government, to my thinking, should represent unity as the chief element of strength; but such as it is,--bad enough and base enough, in all conscience,--yet it is the last remnant of national power left, the frail barrier between us and downright provincialism. But I had another reason for coming up,--half-a-dozen other reasons, for that matter,--one of them was, to see your invaluable business man, Gleeson, who, from some caprice or other about a higher rate of interest, has withdrawn my sister's fortune from the funds to invest it in some confounded mortgage. I suppose it's all right, and judicious to boot; but Maria, like every other Daly I ever heard of, has a will of her own, and has commissioned me to have the money restored to its former destination.

I verily believe, Darcy, the most troublesome animal on the face of the globe is an old maid with a small funded capital. At one moment deploring the low rate of interest and dying for a more profitable use of the money; at another, decrying all deposit save the Bank, she inveighs against public theft and private credit, and takes off three-and-a-half per cent of her happiness in pure fretting."

"Is she quite well?" said the Knight, in an accent which a more shrewd observer than Daly might have perceived was marked by some agitation.

"I never knew her better; as fearless as we both remember her at sixteen; and, save those strange intervals of depression she has labored under all through her life, the same gay-hearted spirit she was when the flattered heiress and beauty long, long years ago."

The Knight heaved a sigh. It might have been for the years thus pa.s.sed, the pleasant days of early youth and manhood so suddenly called up before him; it might have been that other and more tender memories were crowding on his mind; but he turned away, and leaned on the chimney-piece, lost in deep thought.

"Poor girl," said Daly, "there is no question of it, Darcy, but she must have formed some unfortunate attachment; she had pride enough always to rescue her from the dangers of an unsuitable marriage, but her heart, I feel convinced, was touched, and yet I never could find a clew to it. I suspected something of the kind when she refused Donington,--a handsome fellow, and an old t.i.tle. I pressed her myself on the subject,--it was the only time I did so,--and I guessed at once, from a chance phrase she dropped, that there had been an old attachment somewhere. Well, well, what a lesson might be read from both our fortunes! The beauty--and you remember how handsome she was--the beauty with a splendid fortune, a reduced maiden lady; and myself"--he heaved a heavy sigh, and, with clasped hands, sat back in the chair, as he added--"the shattered wreck of every hope I once set out with."

The two old men's eyes met, and, although undesignedly, exchanged looks of deepest, most affectionate interest. Daly was the first to rally from his brief access of despondency, and he did so with the physical effort he would have used to shake a load from his shoulders.

"Well, Darcy, let us be up and stirring; there's a meeting at Barrington's at two: we must not fail to be there."

"I wish to see Gleeson in the mean while," said the Knight; "I am uneasy to learn what has been done with Hickman, and what day I can leave town."

"Send Sandy out with a note, and tell him to come to dinner here at six."