Roland Cashel, Volume I (of II)

“We were talking of poor Ireland,” said Tiernay, “and all her sorrows.”

“I’ll engage you were,” cried Corrigan, laughing, “and I ‘ll swear you did not make a mournful topic a whit less gloomy by your way of treating it – And that’s what he calls entertaining a stranger, sir, – like a bankrupt merchant amusing a party by a sight of his schedule. Now, I ‘ll wager a trifle my young friend would rather hear where a brace of cocks was to be found, or the sight of a neat grass country to ride over after the fox-hounds, – and I can do both one and the other. But here comes Mary, – my granddaughter, Miss Leicester, sir.”

Mary saluted the stranger with an easy gracefulness, and she shook the doctor’s hand cordially.

“You are a little late, doctor,” said she, as she led the way into the breakfast-room.

“That was in part owing to that rogue Keane, who has taken to locking the gate of the avenue, by way of seeming regular, and some one else has done the same with the wicket here. Now, as for fifty years back all the cows of the country have strayed through the one, and all the beggars through the other, I don’t know what ‘s to come of it.”

“I suppose the great house is filling?” said Mary, to withdraw him from a grumbling theme; “we heard the noise of several arrivals this morning early.”

“This gentleman can inform you best upon all that,” said Tiernay; “he himself is one of the company.”

“But I am ignorant of everything,” said Cashel; “I only arrived here a little after daybreak, and, not caring to sleep, I strolled out, when my good fortune threw me into your way.”

“Your friends are likely to have fine weather, and I am glad of it,” said Corrigan. “This country, pretty enough in sunshine, looks bleak and dreary when the sky is lowering; but I ‘ve no doubt you’d rather have

‘A southerly wind and a cloudy sky,’

as the song says, than the brightest morning that ever welcomed a lark. Are you fond of hunting?”

“I like every kind of sport where horse, or gun, or hound can enter; but I ‘ve seen most of such pastimes in distant countries, where the game is different from here, and the character of the people just as unlike.”

“‘I have hunted the wild boar myself,” said old Corrigan, proudly, “in the royal forests at Meudon and Fontainebleau.”

“I speak of the antelope and the jaguar, the dark leopard of Guiana, or the brown bison of the Andes.”

“That is indeed a manly pastime!” said Mary, enthusiastically.

“It is so,” said Cashel, warmed by the encouragement of her remark, “more even for the endurance and persevering energy it demands than for its peril. The long days of toil in search of game, the nights of waking watchfulness, and then the strange characters and adventures among which you are thrown, all make up a kind of life so unlike the daily world.”

“There is, as you say, something highly exciting in all that,” said Corrigan; “but, to my thinking, hunting is a royal pastime, and loses half of its prestige when deprived of the pomp and circumstance of its courtly following. When I think of the old forest echoing to the tantarara of the cor de chasse, the scarlet-clad piqueurs with lance and cutlass, the train of courtiers mounted on their high-mettled steeds, displaying all the address of the salon, and all the skill of the chase, to him who was the centre of the group, – the king himself – ”

“Are you not forgetting the fairest part of the pageants papa?” broke in Mary.

“No, my dear, that group usually waited to join us as we returned. Then, when the ‘Retour de la Chasse’ rang out from every horn, and the whole wood re-echoed with the triumphant sounds, then might be seen the queen and her ladies advancing to meet us. I think I see her yet, the fair-haired queen, the noblest and most beautiful in all that lovely circle, mounted on her spotted Arabian, who bore himself proudly beneath his precious burden. Ah! too truly did Burke say, ‘the Age of Chivalry was past,’ or never had such sorrows gone unavenged. Young gentleman, I know not whether you have already conceived strong opinions upon politics, and whether you incline to one or other of the great parties that divide the kingdom, but one thing I would beseech you, – be a Monarchist. There is a steadfast perseverance in clinging to the legitimate Sovereign. Like the very observance of truth itself, shake the conviction once, and there is no limit to scepticism.”

“Humph!” muttered Tiernay, half aloud. “Considering how royalty treated your ancestors, your ardor in their favor might be cooled a little.”

“What’s Tiernay saying?” said the old man.

“Grumbling, as usual, papa,” said Mary, laughing, and not willing to repeat the remark.

“Trying to give a man a bias in politics,” said the doctor, sarcastically, “is absurd, except you accompany the advice with a place. A man’s political opinions are born with him, and he has as much to do with the choice of his own Christian name as whether he ‘ll be a Whig or a Tory.”

“Never mind him, sir,” said Corrigan to Cashel; “one might travesty the well-known epigram, and say of him that he never said a kind thing, nor did a rude one, in his life.”

“The greater fool he, then,” mattered Tiernay, “for the world likes him best who does the exact opposite; and here comes one to illustrate my theory. There, I see him yonder; so I ‘ll step into the library and look over the newspaper.”

“He cannot endure a very agreeable neighbor of ours, – a Mr. Linton,” said Corrigan, as the doctor retired, – “and makes so little secret of his dislike that I am always glad when they avoid a meeting.”

“Mr. Linton is certainly more generous,” said Mary, “for he enjoys the doctor’s eccentricity without taking offence at his rude humor.”

“Good-breeding can be almost a virtue,” said the old man, with a smile.

“It has this disadvantage, however,” said Cashel: “it deceives men who, like myself, have little knowledge of life, to expect far more from politeness than it is ever meant to imply, – just as on the Lima shore, when we carried off a gold Madonna, we were never satisfied if we missed the diamond eyes of the image.”

The old man and his granddaughter almost started at the strange illustration; but their attention was now called off by the approach of Linton, whom they met as he reached the porch.

“Come here a moment, sir,” said the doctor, addressing Cashel, from the little boudoir; “here are some weapons of very old date found among the ruins beside where we stand.” And Roland had just time to quit the breakfast-room before Linton entered it.

“The menagerie fills fast,” said Linton, as he advanced gayly into the apartment: “some of our principal lions have come; more are expected; and all the small cages have got their occupants.”

“I am dying of curiosity,” said Mary. “Tell us everything about everybody. Who have arrived?”

“We have everything of a household save the host. He is absent; and, stranger than all, no one knows where.”

“How singular!” exclaimed Corrigan.

“Is it not? He arrived this morning with the Kilgoffs, and has not since been heard of. I left his amiable guests at the breakfast-table conversing on his absence, and endeavoring to account for it under every variety of ‘shocking accident’ one reads of in the morning papers. The more delicately minded were even discussing, in whispers, how long it would be decent to stay in a house if the owner committed suicide.”

“This is too shocking,” said Mary.

“And yet there are men who do these things! Talleyrand it was, I believe, who said that the fellow who shot himself showed a great want of savoir vivre. Well, to come back: we have the Kilgoffs, whom I have not seen as yet; the Meeks, father and daughter; the MacFarlines; Mrs. White and her familiar, a distinguished author; the whole Kennyfeck tribe; Frobisher; some five or six cavalry subalterns; and a large mob of strange-looking people, of both sexes, making up what in racing slang is called the ‘ruck’ of the party.”

“Will it not tax your ingenuity, Mr. Linton, to amuse, or even to preserve concord among such a heterogeneous multitude?” said Mary.

“I shall amuse them by keeping them at feud with each other, and, when they weary of that, let them have a grand attack of the whole line upon their worthy host and entertainer. Indeed, already signs of rebellious ingratitude have displayed themselves. You must know that there has been a kind of petty scandal going about respecting Lady Kilgoff and Mr. Cashel.”

“My dear sir,” said Mr. Corrigan, gravely, but with much courtesy, “when my granddaughter asked you for the latest news of your gay household, she did so in all the inconsiderate ignorance her habits and age may warrant; but neither she nor I cared to hear more of your guests than they ought to have reported of them, or should be repeated to the ears of a young lady.”

“I accept the rebuke with less pain,” said Linton, smiling easily, “because it is, in part at least, unmerited. If you had permitted me to continue, you should have seen as much.” Then, turning to Miss Leicester, he added: “You spoke of amusement, and you ‘ll acknowledge we are not idle. Lord Charles Frobisher is already marking out a race-course; Meek is exploring the political leaning of the borough; the Kennyfecks are trying their voices together in every room of the house; and Lady Janet has every casserole in the kitchen engaged in the preparation of various vegetable abominations which she and Sir Andrew take before breakfast; and what with the taking down and putting up of beds, the tuning of pianofortes, sol-fa-ing here, bells ringing there, cracking of tandem whips, firing off percussion-caps, screaming to grooms out of window, and slamming of doors, Babel was a scene of peaceful retirement in comparison. As this, too, is but the beginning, pray forgive me if my visits here be more frequent and enduring than ever.”

“Your picture of the company is certainly not flattering,” said Mary.

“Up to their merits, notwithstanding; but how could it be otherwise? To make a house pleasant, to bring agreeable people together, – to assemble those particles whose aggregate solidifies into that compact mass called society, – is far harder than is generally believed; vulgar folk attempt it by getting some celebrity to visit them. But what a failure that is! One lion will no more make a party than one swallow a summer. New people, like our friend Cashel, try it by asking everybody. They hope, by firing a heavy charge, that some of the shot will hit. Another mistake! He little knows how many jealousies, rivalries, and small animosities are now at breakfast together at his house, and how ready they are, when no other game offers, to make him the object of all their apite and scandal.”

“But why?” said Mary. “Is not his hospitality as princely as it is generously offered? Can they cavil with anything in either the reception itself or the manner of it?”

“As that part of the entertainment entered into my functions, Miss Leicester, I should say, certainly not. The whole has been well ‘got up.’ I can answer for everything save Cashel himself; as Curran said, ‘I can elevate all save the host.’ He is irreclaimably en arrière, – half dandy, half Delaware, affecting the man of fashion, but, at heart, a prairie hunter.”

“Hold, sir!” cried Cashel, entering suddenly, his face crimson with passion. “By what right do you presume to speak of me in this wise?”

“Ha! ha! ha!” broke out Linton, as he fell into a chair in a burst of admirably feigned laughter. “I told you, Miss Leicester, how it would be; did I not say I should unearth the fox? Ah! Roland, confess it; you were completely taken in.”

Cashel stared around for an explanation, and in the astonishment of each countenance he fancied he read a condemnation of his conduct All his impulses were quick as thought, and so he blushed deeply for his passionate outbreak, as he said, —

“I ask pardon of you, sir, and this lady for my unseemly anger. This gentleman certainly deserves no apology from me. Confound it, Master Tom, but assuredly you don’t fire blank cartridge to startle your game.”

“No use to tickle lions with straws,” said Linton; and the insinuated flattery succeeded.

“Let me now bid you welcome to my cottage, Mr. Cashel,” said Corrigan; “although this incognito visit was an accident, I feel happy to see you here.”

“Thank you, thank you,” replied Cashel. “I shall be even more grateful still if you permit me to join in Linton’s petition, and occasionally escape from the noisy festivities of the Hall, and come here.”

While Corrigan and Cashel continued to interchange mutual assurances of esteem and regard, Linton walked to a window with Miss Leicester.

“We had no conception that our guest was Mr. Cashel,” said Mary; “he met Dr. Tiernay accidentally in the park, and came along with him to breakfast.”

“And did not the doctor remember him?” said Linton, shrewdly.

“Oh, no; he may probably recollect something of having met him before, three weeks hence, but he is so absent!”

“I thought Roland would have taken the quizzing better,” said Linton, thoughtfully. “There ‘s no knowing any man, or – woman either. You perceived what I was at, certainly.”

“No, indeed. I was as much deceived as Mr. Cashel. I thought, to be sure, that you were unusually severe, but I never suspected the object.”

“How droll! Well, I am a better actor than I fancied,” said Linton, laughing; then added, in a lower tone, “Not that the lesson should be lost upon him; for, in sober earnest, there was much truth in it.”

“We were greatly pleased with him,” said Mary, “and now, knowing who he is, and what temptations such a young man has to over-estimate himself, are even more struck by his unassuming quietude.”

Linton only smiled, but it was a smile of most compassionate pity.

“I conclude that you mean to show yourself to your company, then, Mr. Cashel?” said he, turning suddenly about.

“I’m ready,” said Roland. “I’d go, however, with an easier conscience if Mr. Corrigan would only promise me to come and see us there sometimes.”

“I’m a very old fellow, Mr. Cashel, and have almost outlived the habits of society; but if any one’s invitation shall bring me beyond these walls, it shall be yours.”

“I must be content with that,” said Roland, as he shook the proffered hand; and then, with a cordial farewell to Miss Leicester, took Linton’s arm, and retired.

CHAPTER XXXV. MISS JEMIMA MEEK

If you show him in Hyde Park – Lauk! how they will stare!Though a very smart figure in Bloomsbury Square,The Snob.

Cashel’s was not a nature to dwell upon a grievance, and he would have, at once and forever, forgotten the late scene with Linton if it were not coupled in his mind with suspicions derived from various different sources. This made him silent and reserved as he walked along, and so palpably inattentive to all his companion’s efforts at agreeability that Linton at last said, “Well, Cashel, if you can dispense with sleep, you certainly seem to take the compensation in dreaming. Here have I been retailing for you the choicest bits of gossip and small-talk, not only without the slightest gratitude, but even without common attention on your part!”

“Very true,” said Cashel; “the reproach is quite just, and no man can be more agreeable at the expense of his friends than yourself.”

“Still harping on my daughter, eh?” cried Linton. “I never thought you the man to misconstrue a jest; but if you really are offended with my folly – ”

“If I really were offended,” said Cashel, almost sternly, “I should not leave it to be inferred from my manner.”

“That I am sure of,” cried Linton, assuming an air of frankness; “and now, since all that silly affair is forgotten – ”

“I did not say so much,” interrupted Cashel. “I cannot forget it; and that is the very reason I am annoyed with myself, with you, and with all the world.”

“Pooh! nonsense, man; you were not used to be so thin-skinned. Let us talk of something else. Here are all our gay friends assembled: how are we to occupy and amuse them?”

Cashel made no reply, but walked on, seemingly lost in thought.

“By the way,” said Linton, “you’ve told me nothing of your adventures. Haven’t you had something very like a shipwreck?”

“The yacht is lost,” said Cashel, dryly.

“Actually lost!” echoed the other, with well-assumed astonishment. “How fortunate not to have had the Kennyfeck party on board, as I believe you expected.”

“I had the Kilgoffs, however,” rejoined Roland.

“The Kilgoffs! you amaze me. How did my Lord ever consent to trust his most precious self on such an enterprise?”

Cashel shrugged his shoulders, without uttering a word in reply.

“But come, do condescend to be a little more communicative. How, and when, and where did the mishap occur?”

“She foundered on the southern coast some time after midnight on the 15th. The crew and passengers escaped by the boats, and the craft went to pieces.”

“And the Kilgoffs, how did they behave in the moment of peril?”

“My Lord seemed insensible to all around; Lady Kilgoff with a dignified courage quite admirable.”

“Indeed!” said Linton, slowly, while he fixed his eyes on Cashel’s face, where an expression of increased animation now displayed itself.

“She has a fine generous nature,” continued Cashel, not heeding the remark. “It is one of the saddest things to think of, how she has been mated.”

“She is a peeress,” said Linton, curtly.

“And what of that? Do your aristocratic distinctions close the heart against every high and noble sentiment, or can they compensate for the absence of every tie that attaches one to life? Is not some poor Indian girl who follows her wild ranchero husband through the dark valleys of Guiana, not only a happier, but a better wife than your proud peeress?”

Linton shook his head and smiled, but did not reply.

“I see how my old prejudices shock you,” said Cashel. “I only grieve to think how many of them have left me; for I am sick – sick at heart – of your gay and polished world. I am weary of its double-dealing, and tired of its gilded falsehood. Since I have been a rich man, I have seen nothing but the servile flattery of sycophancy, or the insidious snares of deeper iniquity. There is no equality for one like myself. The high-born wealthy would treat me as a parvenu, the vulgar rich only reflect back my own errors in broader deformity. I have known no other use of wealth than to squander it to please others; I have played high, and lost deeply; I have purchased a hundred things simply because some others wished to sell them; I have entertained and sat among my company, waiting to catch and resent the covert insult that men pass upon such as me; and will you tell me – you, who know the world well – that such a life repays one?”

“Now, let me write the credit side of the account,” said Linton, laughing, and affecting a manner of easy jocularity. “You are young, healthy, and high-spirited, with courage for anything, and more money than even recklessness can get rid of; you are the most popular fellow among men, and the greatest favorite of the other sex, going; you get credit for everything you do, and a hundred others that men know you could, but have not done; you have warm, attached friends, – I can answer for one, at least, who ‘ll lay down his life for you.” He paused, expecting some recognition, but Cashel made no sign, and he resumed: “You have only to propose some object to your ambition, whether it be rank, place, or a high alliance, to feel that you are a favorite with fortune.”

“And is it by knowing beforehand that one is sure to win that gambling fascinates?” said Roland, slowly.

“If you only knew how the dark presage of failure deters the unlucky man, you ‘d scarce ask the question!” rejoined Linton, with an accent of sorrow, by which he hoped to awaken sympathy. The stroke failed, however, for Cashel took no notice of it.

“There goes one whose philosophy of life is simple enough,” said Linton, as he stopped at a break in the holly hedge, beside which they were walking, and pointed to Lord Charles, who, mounted on a blood-horse, was leading the way for a lady, equally well carried, over some sporting-looking fences.

“I say, Jim,” cried Frobisher, “let her go a little free at them; she ‘s always too hot when you hold her back.”

“You don’t know, perhaps, that Jim is the lady,” whispered Linton, and withdrawing for secrecy behind the cover of the hedge. “Jim,” continued Linton, “is the familiar for Jemima. She’s Meek’s daughter, and the wildest romp – ”

“By Jove! how well she cleared it. Here she comes back again,” cried Cashel, in all the excitement of a favorite sport.

“That ‘s all very pretty, Jim,” called out Frobisher, “but let me observe it’s a very Brummagem style of thing, after all. I want you to ride up to your fence with your mare in hand, touch her lightly on the flank, and pop her over quietly.”

“She is too fiery for all that,” said the girl, as she held in the mettlesome animal, and endeavored to calm her by patting her neck.

“How gracefully she sits her saddle,” muttered Cashel; and the praise might have been forgiven from even a less ardent admirer of equestrianism, for she was a young, fresh-looking girl, with large hazel eyes, and a profusion of bright auburn hair which floated and flaunted in every graceful wave around her neck and shoulders. She possessed, besides, that inestimable advantage as a rider which perfect fearlessness supplies, and seemed to be inspired with every eager impulse of the bounding animal beneath her.

As Cashel continued to look, she had taken the mare a canter round a large grass field, and was evidently endeavoring, by a light hand and a soothing, caressing voice, to calm down her temper; stooping, as she went, in the saddle to pat the animal’s shoulder, and almost bending her own auburn curls to the counter.

“She is perfect!” cried Roland, in a very ecstasy. “See that, Linton! Mark how she sways herself in her saddle!”

“That comes of wearing no stays,” said Linton, dryly, as he proceeded to light a cigar.

“Now she’s at it. Here she comes!” cried Cashel almost breathless with anxiety; for the mare, chafed by the delay, no sooner was turned towards the fence once more, than she stretched out and dashed wildly at it.

It was a moment of intense interest, for the speed was far too great to clear a high leap with safety; the fear was, however, but momentary, for, with a tremendous bound, the mare cleared the fence, and, after a couple of minutes’ cantering, stood with heaving flanks and swelling nostril beside the other horse.

“You see my misfortune, I suppose?” said the girl, addressing Frobisher.

“No. She ‘s not cut about the legs?” said he, as he bent down in his saddle and took a most searching survey of the animal.

“No, the hack is all right But don’t you perceive that bit of blue cloth flaunting yonder on the hedge? – that is part of my habit. See what a tremendous rent is here; I declare, Charley, it is scarcely decent” And to illustrate the remark, she wheeled her horse round so as to show the fringed and jagged end of her riding-habit, beneath which a very finely turned ankle and foot were now seen.

“Then why don’t you wear trousers, like everybody else?” said Frobisher, gruffly, and scarce bestowing even a passing glance at the well-arched instep.

“Because I never get time to dress like any one else. You order me out like one of your Newmarket boys,” replied she, pettishly.

“By Jove! I wish any one of them had got your hand.”

“To say nothing of the foot, Charley,” said she, roguishly, and endeavoring to arrange her torn drapery to the best advantage.

“No; that may do to astonish our friend Cashel, and make ‘my lady’ jealous. By the way, Jim, I don’t see why you should n’t ‘enter for the plate’ as well as the Kennyfeck girls.”

“I like you better, Charley,” said she, curveting her horse, and passaging him alternately from side to side.

“This is the second time to-day I have played the eavesdropper unconsciously,” said Roland, in a whisper, “and with the proverbial fortune of the listener in both cases.” And with these words he moved on, leaving Linton still standing opposite the opening of the hedge.

Cashel had not advanced many paces beneath the shelter of the tall hollies, when Frobisher accidentally caught sight of Linton, and called out, “Ha, Tom, – found you at last! Where have you been hiding the whole morning? – you that should, at least, represent our host here.”