"To be sure; I remember it well," said Mac, humoring the drunken lucubrations; "but my chant is twice as aisy to sing,--the air is the 'Black Joke;' and any one can chorus."

"Well, open the proceedings," hiccuped Nickie; "state the case."

And thus encouraged, Mr. M'Dermot cleared his throat, and in a voice loud and coa.r.s.e enough to be heard above the howling din, began:--

"Though many a mile he's from Erin away, Here 's health and long life to my Lord Castlereagh, With his bag full of guineas so bright!

'T was he that made Bishops and Deans by the score, And Peers, of the fashion of Lord Donoughmore!

And a Colonel of horse of our friend Billy Lake, And Wallincourt a Lord,--t'other day but Joe Blake, With his bag full of guineas so bright.

"Come Beresford, Bingham, Luke Fox, and Tyrone, Come Kearney, Bob Johnston, and Arthur Malone, With your bag full of guineas so bright; Lord Charles Fitzgerald and Kit Fortescue, And Henry Deane Grady,--we 'll not forget you, Come Cuffe, Isaac Corry, and General Dunne, And you Jemmy Vandeleur,--come every one, With your bag full of guineas so bright.

Come Talbot and Townsend, Come Toler and Trench, Tho' made for the gallows, ye 're now on the Bench, With your bag full of guineas so bright But if ever again this black list I 'll begin, The first name I 'll take is the ould Knight of Gwynne, Who, robb'd of his property, stripped of his pelf, Would be glad to see Erin as poor as himself.

With no bag full of guineas so bright.

"If the Parliament 's gone, and the world it has scoffed us, What a blessing to think that we 've Tottenham Loftus, With his bag full of guineas so bright.

Oh, what consolation through every disaster, To know that your Lordship is made our Postmaster, And your uncle a Bishop, your aunt--but why mention, Two thousand a year, 'of a long service pension'

Of a bag full of guineas so bright.

"But what is the change, since your Lordship appears!

You found us all Paupers, you left us all Peers, With your bag full of guineas so bright.

Not a man in the island, however he boast, But has a good reason to fill to the toast,-- From Cork to the Causeway, from Howth to Clue Bay, A health and long life to my Lord Castlereagh, With his bag full of guineas so bright."

The boisterous accompaniment by which Mr. Nickie testified his satisfaction at the early verses had gradually subsided into a low droning sound, which at length, towards the conclusion, lapsed into a prolonged heavy snore. "Fast!" exclaimed M'Dermot, holding the candle close to his eyes. "Fast!" Then taking up the decanter, he added, "And if ye had gone off before, it would have been no great harm.

Ye never had the bottle out of yer grip for the last hour and half!" He heaped some wood on the grate, refilled his gla.s.s, and then disposing himself so as to usurp a very large share of the blazing fire, prepared to follow the good example of his chief. Long habit had made an arm-chair to the full as comfortable as a bed to the worthy functionary, and his arrangements were scarcely completed, when his nose announced by a deep sound that he was a wanderer in the land of dreams.

Poor Mr. Dempsey--for if the reader may have forgotten him all this while, we must not--listened long and watchfully to the heavy notes, nor was it without considerable fear that he ventured to unveil his head and take a peep under Daly's arm at the sleepers. Rea.s.sured by the seeming heaviness of the slumberers, he dared a step farther, and at last seated himself bolt upright in the canoe, glad to relieve his cramped-up legs, even by this momentary change of position. So cautious were all his movements, so still and noiseless every gesture, that had there been a waking eye to mark him, it would have been hard enough to distinguish between his figure and those of his inanimate neighbors.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 236]

The deep and heavy breathing of the sleepers was the only sound to be heard; they snored as if it were a contest between them; still it was long before Dempsey could summon courage enough to issue from his hiding-place, and with stealthy steps approach the table. Cautiously lifting the candle, he first held it to the face of one and then of the other of the sleepers. His next move was to inspect the supper-table, where, whatever the former abundance, nothing remained save the veriest fragments: the bottles too were empty, and poor Dempsey shook his head mournfully as he poured out and drank the last half-gla.s.s of sherry in a decanter. This done, he stood for a few minutes reflecting what step he should take next. A sudden change of position of Nickie startled him from these deliberations, and Dempsey cowered down beneath the table in terror. Scarcely daring to breathe, Paul waited while the sleeper moved from side to side, muttering some short and broken words; at length he seemed to have settled himself to his satisfaction, for so his prolonged respiration bespoke. Just as he had turned for the last time, a heavy roll of papers fell from his pocket to the floor. Dempsey eyed the packet with a greedy look, but did not dare to reach his hand towards it, till well a.s.sured that the step was safe.

Taking a candle from the table, Paul reseated himself on the floor, and opened a large roll of doc.u.ments tied with red tape; the very first he unrolled seemed to arrest his attention strongly, and although pa.s.sing on to the examination of the remainder, he more than once recurred to it, till at length creeping stealthily towards the fire, he placed it among the burning embers, and stirred and poked until it became a mere ma.s.s of blackened leaves.

"There," muttered he, "Paul Dempsey 's his own man again. And now what can he do for his friends? Ha, ha! 'Execution against Effects of Bagenal Daly, Esq.,'" said he, reading half aloud; "and this lengthy affair here, 'Instructions to A. N. relative to the enclosed'-let us see what that may be." And so saying, he opened the scroll; a bright flash of flame burst out from among the slumbering embers, and ere it died away Paul read a few lines of the paper. "What scoundrels!" muttered he, as he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, for already had honest Paul's feelings excited him to the utmost. The flame was again flickering, in another moment it would be out, when, stealing forth his hand, he placed an open sheet upon it, and then, as the blaze caught, he laid the entire bundle of papers on the top, and watched them till they were reduced to ashes.

"Maybe it's a felony--I'm sure it's a misdemeanor at least--what I 've done now," muttered he; "but there was no resisting it. I wish I thought it was no heavier crime to do the same by these worthy gentlemen here."

Indeed, for a second or two, Paul's hesitation seemed very considerable.

Fear, or something higher in principle, got the victory at length, and after a long silence he said,--

"Well, I 'll not harm them." And with this benevolent sentiment he stood up, and detaching Darcy's portrait from the wall, thrust it into his capacious pocket. This done, he threw another glance over the table, lest some unseen decanter might still remain; but no, except a water-jug of pure element, nothing remained.

"Good-night, and pleasant dreams t'ye both," muttered Paul, as, blowing out one candle, he took the other, and slipped, without the slightest noise, from the room.

CHAPTER XIX. MR. DEMPSEY BEHIND THE SCENE

No very precise or determined purpose guided Mr. Dempsey's footsteps as he issued from the hall and gained the corridor, from which the various rooms of the cottage opened. Benevolent intentions of the vaguest kind towards Lady Eleanor were commingled with thoughts of his own safety, and perhaps more strongly than either, an intense curiosity to inspect the domestic arrangements of the family, not without the hope of finding something to eat.

He had now been about twenty-four hours without food, and to a man who habitually lived in a boarding-house, and felt it a point of honor to consume as much as he could for his weekly pay, the abstinence was far from agreeable. If then his best inspirations were blended with some selfishness, he was not quite unpardonable. Mr. Dempsey tried each door as he went along, and although they were all unlocked, the interiors responded to none of his antic.i.p.ations. The apartments were plainly but comfortably furnished; in some books lay about, and an open piano told of recent habitation. In one, which he judged rightly to be the Knight's drawing-room, a table was covered over with letters and law papers,--doc.u.ments which honest Paul beheld with some feeling akin to Aladdin, when he surveyed the inestimable treasures he had no means of carrying away with him from the mine. A faint gleam of light shone from beneath a door at the end of the corridor, and thither with silent footsteps he now turned. All was still: he listened as he drew near; but except the loud ticking of a clock, nothing was to be heard. Paul tried to reconnoitre by the keyhole, but it was closed. He waited for some time unable to decide on the most fitting course, and at length opened the door, and entered. Stopping short at the threshold, Paul raised the candle, to take a better view of the apartment. Perhaps any one save himself would have returned on discovering it was a bedroom. A large old-fashioned bed, with a deep and ma.s.sive curtain closely drawn, stood against one wall; beside it, on the table, was a night-lamp, from which the faint glimmer he had first noticed proceeded. Some well-stuffed arm-chairs were disposed here and there, and on the tables lay articles of female dress. Mr. Dempsey stood for a few seconds, and perhaps some secret suspicion crept over him that this visit might be thought intrusive. It might be Lady Eleanor's, or perhaps Miss Darcy's chamber.

Who was to say she was not actually that instant in bed asleep? Were the fact even so, Mr. Dempsey only calculated on a momentary shock of surprise at his appearance, well a.s.sured that his explanation would be admitted as perfectly satisfactory. Thus wrapped in his good intentions, and shrouding the light with one hand, he drew the curtain with the other. The bed was empty, the coverings were smooth, the pillows unpressed. The occupant, whoever it might be, had not yet taken possession. Mr. Dempsey's fatigue was only second to his hunger, and having failed to discover the larder, it is more than probable he would have contented himself with the gratification of a sleep, had he not just at that instant perceived a light flickering beside and beneath the folds of a heavy curtain which hung over a doorway at the farthest end of the room. His spirit of research once more encouraged, he moved towards it, and drawing it very gently, admitted his eye in the inters.p.a.ce. A gla.s.s door intervened between him and a small chamber, but permitted him to see without being heard by those within. Flattening his features on the gla.s.s, he stared at the scene; and truly one less inspired by the spirit of inquiry might have felt shocked at being thus placed. Lady Eleanor sat in her dressing-gown on a sofa, while, half kneeling, half lying at her feet, was Helen, her head concealed in her mother's lap, and her long hair loosely flowing over her neck and shoulders. Lady Eleanor was pale as death, and the marks of recent tears were ou her cheeks; but still her features wore the expression of deep tenderness and pity, rather than of selfish sorrow. Helen's face was hidden; but her att.i.tude, and the low sobbing sounds that at intervals broke the stillness, told how her heart was suffering.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 242]

"My dear, dear child," said Lady Eleanor, as she laid her hand upon the young girl's head, "be comforted. Rest a.s.sured that in making me the partner in your sorrow, I will be the happier partic.i.p.ator in your joy, whenever its day may come. Yes, Helen, and it will come."

"Had I told you earlier--"

"Had you done so," interrupted Lady Eleanor, "you had been spared much grief, for I could have a.s.sured you, as I now do, that you are not to blame,--that this young man's rashness, however we may deplore it, had no promptings from us."

Helen replied, but in so low a tone that Mr. Dempsey could not catch the words; he could hear, however, Lady Eleanor uttering at intervals words of comfort and encouragement, and at last she said,--

"Nay, Helen, no half-confidence, my child. Acknowledge it fairly, that your opinion of him is not what it was at first; or if you will not confess it, leave it to my own judgment And why should you not?" added she, in a stronger voice; "wiser heads may reprove his precipitancy, criticise what would be called his folly, but you may be forgiven for thinking that his Quixotism could deserve another and a fonder t.i.tle.

And I, Helen, grown old and chilly-hearted, each day more distrustful of the world, less sanguine in hope, more p.r.o.ne to suspect,--even I feel that devotion like his has a strong claim on your affection. And shall I own to you that on the very day he brought us that letter a kind of vague presentiment that I should one day like him stole across me. What was the noise? Did you not hear something stir?" Helen had heard it, but paid no further attention, for there was no token of any one being near.

Noise, however, there really was, occasioned by Mr. Dempsey, who, in his eagerness to hear, had pushed the door partly open. For some moments back, honest Paul had listened with as much embarra.s.sment as curiosity, sorely puzzled to divine of whom the mother and daughter were speaking.

The general tenor of the conversation left the subject no matter of difficulty. The individual was the only doubtful question. Lady Eleanor's allusion to a letter, and her own feelings at the moment, at once reminded him of her altered manner to himself on the evening he brought the epistle from Coleraine, and how she, who up to that time had treated him with unvarying distance and reserve, had as suddenly become all the reverse.

"Blood alive!" said he to himself, "I never as much as suspected it!"

His eagerness to hear further was intense; and although he had contrived to keep the door ajar, his curiosity was doomed to disappointment, for it was Helen who spoke, and her words were uttered in a low, faint tone, utterly inaudible where he stood. Whatever pleasure Mr. Dempsey might have at first derived from his contraband curiosity, was more than repaid now by the tortures of anxiety. He suspected that Helen was making a full confession of her feelings towards him, and yet he could not catch a syllable. Lady Eleanor, too, when she spoke again, it was in an accent almost equally faint; and all that Paul could gather was that the mother was using expressions of cheerfulness and hope, ending with the words,--

"His own fortunes look now as darkly as ours; mayhap the same bright morning will dawn for both together, Helen. We have hope to cheer us, for him and for us."

"Ah! true enough," muttered Paul; "she's alluding to old Bob Dempsey, and if the Lord would take him, we 'd all come right again."

Helen now arose, and seated herself beside her mother, with her head leaning ou her shoulder; and Mr. Dempsey might have been pardoned if he thought she never looked more beautiful. The loose folds of her night-dress less concealed than delineated the perfect symmetry of her form; while through the heavy ma.s.ses of the luxuriant hair that fell upon her neck and shoulders, her skin seemed more than ever delicately fair. If Paul's mind was a perfect whirl of astonishment, delight, and admiration, his doubts were no less puzzling. What was _he_ to do?

Should he at once discover himself, throw himself at Helen's feet in a rapture, confessing that he had heard her avowal, and declare that the pa.s.sion was mutual? This, although with evident advantages on the score of dramatic effect, had also its drawback. Lady Eleanor, who scarcely looked as well in dishabille as her daughter, might feel offended. She might take it ill, also, that he had been a listener. Paul had heard of people who actually deemed eavesdropping unbecoming! Who knows, among her own eccentricities, if this one might not find place? Paul, therefore, resolved on a more cautious advance, and, for his guidance, applied his ear once more to the aperture. This time, however, without success, for they spoke still lower than before; nor, after a long and patient waiting, could he hear more than that the subject was their present embarra.s.sment, and the necessity of immediately removing from "The Corvy," but where to, and how, they could not determine.

There was no time to ask Bicknell's advice; before an answer could arrive, they would be exposed to all the inconvenience, perhaps insult, which Mr. Nickie's procedure seemed to threaten. The subject appeared one to which all their canva.s.sing had brought no solution, and at last Lady Eleanor said,--

"How thankful I am, Helen, that I never wrote to Lord Netherby; more than once, when our difficulties seemed to thicken, I half made up my mind to address him. How much would it add to my present distress of mind, if I had yielded to the impulse! The very thought is now intolerable."

"Pride! pride!" muttered Paul.

"And I was so near it," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lady Eleanor.

"Yes," said Helen, sharply; "our n.o.ble cousin's kindness would be a sore aggravation of our troubles."

"Worse than the mother, by Jove!" exclaimed Paul. "Oh dear! if I had a cousin a lord, maybe he'd not hear of me."

Lady Eleanor spoke again; but Paul could only catch a stray word here and there, and again she reverted to the necessity of leaving the cottage at once.

"Could we even see this Mr. Dempsey," said she, "he knows the country well, and might be able to suggest some fitting place for the moment, at least till we could decide on better."

Paul scarcely breathed, that he might catch every syllable.