The Knight Of Gwynne Volume I Part 54

"If it was myself," muttered old Tate, "I'd like to be looking at it as long as I could, and make it follow me in my dhrames after; but sure there 's no knowing how great people feels! they say they never has the same kind of thought as us!"

Poor fellow, he little knew how levelling is misfortune, and that the calamities of life evoke the same sufferings in the breast of the king and the peasant. With a delicacy one more highly born might have been proud of, the old butler alone waited at dinner, well judging that his familiar face would be less irksome to them than the prying looks of the other servants.

If there are people who can expend much eloquent indignation on those social usages which exact a certain amount of decorous observance in all the trials and crosses of life, there is a great deal to be said in favor of that system of conventional good-breeding whose aim is to repress selfish indulgence, and make the individual feel that, whatever his own griefs, the claims of the world demand a fort.i.tude and a bearing that shall not obtrude his sorrows on his neighbors. That the code may be abused, and become occasionally hypocritical in practice, is no argument against it; we would merely speak in praise of that well-bred forbearance which always merges private afflictions in the desire to make others happy. To instance our meaning, we would speak of those who now met at dinner in the old library of Gwynne Abbey.

It would be greatly to mistake us to suppose that we uphold any show or counterfeit of kindliness where there is no substance of the feeling behind it; we merely maintain that the very highest and most acute sympathy is not inconsistent with a bearing of easy, nay, almost cheerful character. So truly was it the case here that old Tate Sullivan more than once stood still in amazement at the tranquil faces and familiar quietude of those who, in his own condition of life, could have found no accents loud or piercing enough to bewail their sorrow, and whom, even with his long knowledge of them, he could scarcely acquit of insensibility.

There is a contagion in an effort of this kind most remarkable. The light and gentle attempts made by Lady Eleanor to sustain the spirits of the party were met by sallies of manly good-humor by the Knight himself, in which Lionel and Helen were not slow to join, while Bagenal Daly could scarcely repress his enthusiastic delight at the n.o.ble and high-souled courage that sustained them one and all.

While by a tacit understanding they avoided any allusion to the painful circ.u.mstances of their late misfortune, the Knight adroitly turned the conversation to their approaching journey northwards, and drew from Daly a description of "the Corvy" that actually evoked a burst of downright laughter. From this he pa.s.sed on to speak of the peasantry, so unlike in every trait those of the South and West; the calm, reflective character of their minds, uninfluenced by pa.s.sion and unmarked by enthusiasm, were a strong contrast to the headlong impulse and ardent temperament of the "real Irish."

"You 'll scarcely like them at first, my dear Helen--"

"Still less on a longer acquaintance," broke in Helen. "I 'll not quarrel with the caution and reserve of the Scotchman,--the very mists of his native mountains may teach him doubt and uncertainty of purpose; but here at home, what have such frames of mind and thought in common with our less calculating natures?"

"It were far better had they met oftener," said the Knight, thoughtfully; "impulse is only n.o.ble when well directed; the pa.s.sionate pilots are more frequently the cause of s.h.i.+pwreck than of safety."

"Nothing so wearisome as the trade-winds," said Helen, with a saucy toss of the head; "eh, Lionel, you are of my mind?"

"They do push one's temper very hard now and then," said Daly, with a stern frown; "that impa.s.sive habit they have of taking everything as in the common order of events is, I own, somewhat difficult to bear with.

I remember being run away with on a blood mare from a little village called Ballintray. The beast was in high condition, and I turned her, without knowing the country, at the first hill I could see; she breasted it boldly, and, though full a quarter of a mile in length, never shortened stride to the very summit. What was my surprise, when I gained the top, to see that we were exactly over the sea. It was a cliff which, projecting for some distance out, was fissured by an immense chasm, through which the waves pa.s.sed; not very wide, but deep enough to make it a very awful leap. Over it she went, and then, when I expected her to dash onwards, and was already preparing to fling myself from the saddle, she stood stock still, trembling all over, and snorting with fear at the danger around her. At the same instant, a hard-featured old fellow popped his head up from amid the tall fern which he had been cutting for thatch for his cabin, and looked at me, not the slightest sign of astonishment in his cold, rigid countenance.

"'Ye 'll no get back so easy, my bonnie mon,' said he, with the slightest possible approach to a smile.

"'Get back! no, faith, I 'll not try it,' said I, looking at the yawning gulf, through which the wild waves boiled, and the opposite bank several feet higher than the ground I stood upon.

"'I thought sae,' was the rejoinder; when, rising slowly, he leisurely walked round the mare, as she stood riveted by fear to the one spot.

'I 'll gie ye sax s.h.i.+lling for the hide o' her forbye the shoes,' added he, with a voice as imperturbable as though he were pricing the commonest commodity of a market.

"I confess it was fortunate that the ludicrous was stronger in me at the moment than indignation, for if I had not laughed at him I might have done worse."

"I could not endure such a peasantry," said Helen, as soon as the mirth the anecdote called forth had subsided.

"It's quite true," said Daly, "they have burlesqued Scotch prudence in the same way that the Anglo-Hibernian has travestied the Irish temperament. It is the danger of all imitators, they always transgress the limits of their model."

"It is fortunate," broke in the Knight, "that traits which conciliate so little the stranger should win their way on nearer intimacy; and such I believe to be the case with the Ulster peasant."

"You are right," said Daly; "no man can detest more cordially than I do the rudeness that is a.s.sumed to heighten a contrast with any good quality behind it. In most instances the kernel is not worth the trouble of breaking off the husk; but with the Northerner this is not the case: in his independence he neither apes the equality of the Frenchman nor the license of the Yankee. That he suffices for himself, and seeks neither patron nor protector, is the source of honest pride, and if this sometimes takes the guise of stubbornness, let us remember that the virtue was reared in poverty, without encouragement or example."

"And the gentry," said Lady Eleanor, "have they any trace of these peculiarities observable among the people?"

"Gentry!" said Daly, impetuously, "I know of none. There are some thrifty families, who, by some generations of hard saving, have risen to affluence and wealth. They are keen fellows, given to money-getting,--millers some of them, bleachers most, with a tenantry of weavers, and estates like the gra.s.s-plot of a laundry. They are as crafty and as calculating as the peasant, shrewd as stockbrokers at a bargain, and as pretentious as a Prince Palatine with a territory the size of Merrion Square. Gentry! they have neither ancestry nor tradition; they hold their estates from certain Guilds, whose very t.i.tles are a parody upon gentle breeding,--fishmongers and clothworkers!"

"I will not be their champion against you, Bagenal, but I cannot help feeling how heavily they might retort upon us. These same prudent and prosaic landlords have not spent their fortunes in wasteful extravagance and absurd display; they have not rackrented their tenantry that they might rival a neighbor."

"I am sincerely rejoiced," interposed Lady Eleanor, smiling, "that my English relative, Lord Netherby, was not a witness to this discussion, lest he should fancy that, between the wastefulness of the South and the thrift of the North, this poor island was but ill provided with a gentry. Pray, Mr. Daly, how does your sister like the North? She is our neighbor, is she not?"

"Yes,--that is to say, a few miles distant," said Daly, confusedly; for he had never acknowledged that "the Corvy" had been Miss Daly's residence. "Of the neighborhood she knows nothing; she is not free from my own prejudices, and lives a very secluded life."

The conversation now became broken and unconnected, and the party soon after retired to the drawing-room, where, while Lady Eleanor and Helen sat together, the Knight, Daly, and Lionel gathered in a little knot, and discussed, in a low tone, the various steps for the coming journey, and the probable events of the morrow.

It was agreed upon that Daly should accompany the Darcys to the North, whither Sandy was already despatched, but that Lionel should remain at the abbey for some days longer, to complete the arrangements necessary for the removal of certain family papers and the due surrender of the property to its new owner; after which he should repair to London, and procure his exchange into some regiment of the line, and, if possible, one on some foreign station,--the meeting with friends and acquaintances, under his now altered fortunes, being judged as a trial too painful and too difficult to undergo.

Again they all met around the tea-table, and once more they talked in the same vein of mutual confidence; each conscious of the effort by which he sustained his part, and wondering how the others summoned courage to do what cost himself so much. They chatted away till near midnight, and when they shook hands at separating, it was with feelings of affection to which sorrow had only added fresh and stronger ties.

Daly stood for some time alone in the library, wondering within himself at the n.o.ble fort.i.tude with which they severally sustained their dreadful reverse. It is only the man of stout heart can truly estimate the higher attributes of courage; but even to him these efforts seemed surprising. "Ay," muttered he, "each n.o.bly upholds the other; it is opposing a hollow square to fortune: so long as they stand firm and together, well! let but one quail and falter, let the line be broken, and they would be swept away at once and forever." Taking a caudle from the table, he left the room, and ascended the wide staircase towards his chamber. All was still and noiseless, and to prevent his footsteps being heard, he entered the little corridor which opened on the gallery of the refectory, the same from which Forester first caught sight of the party at the dinner-table.

He had scarcely, with careful hand, closed the door behind him, when, looking over the bal.u.s.trades of the gallery, he beheld a figure moving slowly along in the great apartment beneath, guided by a small lamp, which threw its uncertain light rather on the wall than on the form of him who carried it. Suddenly stopping before one of the large portraits which in a long succession graced the chamber, the light was turned fully round, so as to display the broad and ma.s.sive features of old Tate Sullivan. Curious to ascertain what the old man might be about in such a place at such an hour, Daly extinguished the candle to watch him un.o.bserved. Tate was dressed in his most accurate costume: his long cravat, edged with deep lace, descended in front of his capacious white waistcoat; silver buckles, of a size that showed there was no parsimony of the precious metal, shone in his shoes; and his newly powdered wig displayed an almost snowy l.u.s.tre. His gestures were in accordance with the careful observances of his toilet; he moved along the floor with a slow, sliding step, bowing deeply and reverentially as he went, and with all the courtesy he would have displayed if ushering a goodly company into the state drawing-room.

Bagenal Daly was not left long to speculate on honest Tate's intentions; and although to a stranger's eyes the motives might have seemed strange and dubious, the mystery was easily solved to him, who knew the old man well and thoroughly. He was there to take a last look, and bid farewell to those venerable portraits, who for more than half a century were enshrined in his memory like saints. Around them were a.s.sociated all the little incidents of his peaceful life; they were the chroniclers of his impressions in boyhood, in manhood, and in age; he could call to mind the first moments he gazed on them in awe-struck veneration; he could remember the proud period when the duty first devolved upon him of describing them to the strangers who came to see the abbey; in the history of all and each of them he was well read, versed in their n.o.ble achievements, their triumphs in camp or cabinet. To his eyes they formed a long line of heroic characters, of which the world had produced no equal; they realized in his conception the proud eulogy of the Bayards, "where all the men were brave, and all the women virtuous;" and it is not improbable that his devotion to his master was in a great measure ascribable to that awe-struck admiration with which he regarded his glorious ancestors.

The old man stood, and, holding the lamp above his head, gazed in respectful admiration at the grim figure of a Knight in armor. There might have been little to charm the lover of painting in the execution of the picture, and the mere castle-builder could scarcely have indulged his fancy in weaving a story from the countenance of the portrait, for the vizor was down, and he stood in all the unmoved sternness of his iron prison, with his glaived hands elapsed upon the cross of a long straight sword. Tate gazed on him for some moments. Heaven knows with what qualities of mind or person the old man had endowed him, for while to others he was only Sir Gavin Darcy, first Knight of Gwynne, Tate in all likelihood had invested him with traits of character and appearance, of which that external sh.e.l.l was the mere envelope.

"We're going, Sir Gavin," muttered the old man, as if addressing the portrait; "'tis the ould stock is laving the place, never to see it more; 't is your own proud heart will be sorry to-day to look down upon us. Ah, ah!" muttered he, "the world is changed; there was times when a Darcy would n't quit the house of his fathers without a blow for it--aud they say we are better now!" With a heavy sigh he pa.s.sed on, and stood before the next picture. "Yes, my Lady," said he, "ye may well cry that lost the two beautiful boys the same morning, fighting side by side; but there's heavier grief here now: the brave youths sleep in peace and in honor; but we have no home to shelter us!"

With a slow step and bent-down head, he tottered on, and, placing the lamp upon the floor, crossed his arms upon his breast. "'Tis you that can help us now," said he as he cast a timid and imploring glance at the goodly countenance and rotund figure of Bernhard Emmeric, fourth Abbot of Gwynne; "'tis your reverence can offer a prayer for your own blood that's in sore trouble and distress. Do it, my Lord; do it in the name of the Vargin. Smiling and happy you look, but it 's sorrowful your heart is in you to see what's going on here. Them, them was the happy days, when it was n't the cry of grief was heard beneath this roof, but the heavenly chants of holy men, and the prayers of the blessed ma.s.s."

He knelt down as he said this, and with trembling lips and tearful eyes recited some verses from his breviary.

This done, he arose, and, as if with renovated courage, proceeded on his way.

"Reginald Herbert de Guyon! ah! second Baron of Gwynne, Lord Protector of Munster, Knight of Malta, Chevalier of St. John of Jerusalem, Standard-Bearer to the Queen! and well you desarve it all! 'T is yourself sits your horse like a proud n.o.bleman!" He stood with eyes riveted upon the picture, while his face glowed with intense enthusiasm, and at last, as a bitter sneer pa.s.sed across his lips, he added, "Ay, faith! and them that comes after us won't like the look of you. 'T is you that 'll never disguise from them your real mind, and every day they 'll dine in the hall, that same frown will darken, and that same hand will threaten them."

He moved on now, and pa.s.sed several portraits without stopping, muttering as he went, "'T is more English than Irish blood is in your veins, and you won't feel as much for us as the rest;" then, halting suddenly, he stood before a tall figure, dressed in black velvet, with a deep collar of point lace. A connoisseur of higher pretensions than poor Tate might have gazed with even greater rapture at that splendid canvas, for it was from the hand of Vand.y.k.e, and in his very best manner. The picture represented the person of Sir Everard Darcy, Lord Privy Seal to Charles I. It was a specimen of manly beauty and high blood such as the great Fleming loved to paint; and even yet the proud and lofty forehead, the deep-set brown eyes, the thin compressed lip, the long and somewhat projecting chin, seemed to address themselves to the beholder with traits of character more than mere painting is able to convey. Tate approached the spot with an almost trembling veneration, and bowed deeply before the haughty figure. "There was a time, Sir Everard, when your word could make a duke or a marquis,--when your whisper in the king's ear could bring grief or joy to any heart in the empire. Could you do nothing for us now? They say you never were at a loss, no matter what came to pa.s.s--that you were always ready-witted to save your master from trouble--and oh! if the power hasn't left you, stand by us now. It is not because your eyes are so bright, and that quiet smile is on your lips, that your heart does not feel, for I know well that the day you were beheaded you had the same look on you as you have now. I think I see you this minute, as you lifted your head off the block to settle the lace collar that the villain, the executioner, rumpled with his b.l.o.o.d.y fingers,--I think I hear the words you spoke: 'Honest Martin, for all your practice, you are but a clumsy valet.' Weil, well! 't is a happier and a prouder day that same than to-morrow's dawn will bring to ourselves. Yes, yes, my darlings," said Tate, with a benevolent smile, as he waved his hand towards a picture where two beautiful children were represented, sitting on the gra.s.s, and playing with flowers, "be happy and amuse yourselves, in G.o.d's name; 'tis the only time for happiness your lives ever gave you. Ah! and here 's your father, with a smile on his face and a cheerful brow, for he had both till the day misfortune robbed him of his children;" and he stood in front of a portrait of an officer in an admiral's uniform. He was a distinguished member of the Darcy family; but from the nature of his services, which were all maritime, and the great number of years he had spent away from Ireland, possessed less of Tate's sympathy than most of the others.

"They say you didn't like Ireland; but I don't believe them. There never was a Darcy did n't love the ould island; but I know well whose fault it was if you did n't,--it was that dark villain that's standing at your side, ould Harry Inchiquin, the renegade, that turned many a man against his country. Ye may frown and scowl at me; but if you were alive this minute, I 'd say it to your face. It was you that first brought gambling and dicing under this blessed roof; it was you that sent the ould acres to the hammer; 'twas you that loved rioting, and duelling, and every wickedness, just like old Bagenal Daly himself, that never could sleep in his bed if he had n't a fight on hand."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 408]

"What ho! you old reprobate!" called out Daly, in a voice which, echoing under the arched roof, seemed rather to float through the atmosphere than issue from any particular quarter.

"Oh! marciful Father!" cried Tate, as, falling on his knees, the lamp dropped from his fingers, and became extinguished,--"oh! marciful Father! sure I did n't mane it; 't is what the lying books said of you,--bad luck to the villains that wrote them! O G.o.d! pardon me; I never thought you 'd hear me; and if it 's in trouble you are, I 'll say a ma.s.s for you every day till Aaster, and one every Friday as long as I live."

A hoa.r.s.e burst of laughter broke from Daly, while, pacing the gallery with heavy tread, he went forth, banging the door behind him. The terror was too great for poor Tate's endurance, and, with a faint cry for mercy, he rolled down upon the floor almost insensible.

When morning broke, he was found seated in the refectory, pale and careworn; but no entreaty, nor no pressing, could elicit from him one word of a secret in which he believed were equally involved the honor of the dead and the safety of himself.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV. A GLANCE AT PUBLIC OPINION IN THE YEAR 1800.

Among the arrangements for the departure of the family from the abbey, all of which were confided to Bagenal Daly, was one which he pressed with a more than ordinary zeal and anxiety; this was, that they should set out at a very early hour of the morning,--at dawn of day, if possible. Lady Eleanor's habits made such a plan objectionable, and it was only by representing the great sacrifice of feeling a later departure would exact, when crowds of country people would a.s.semble to take their farewells of them forever, that she consented. While Daly depicted the unnecessary sorrow to which they would expose themselves by the sight of their old and attached tenantry, he strenuously preserved silence on the real reason which actuated him, and to explain which a brief glance at the state of public feeling at the period is necessary.

To such a pitch of acrimony and animosity were parties borne by the agitation which preceded the carrying of the "Union," that all previous character and conduct of those who voted on the question were deemed as nothing in comparison with the line they adopted on the one absorbing subject. If none who advocated the Ministerial plan escaped the foulest animadversions, all who espoused the opposite side were exalted to the dignity of patriots; argument and reason went for little, principle for still less: a vote was deemed the touchstone of honesty. Such rash and hasty judgments suited the temper of the times, and, it may be said in extenuation, were not altogether without some show of reason. Each day revealed some desertion from the popular party of men who, up to that moment, had rejected all the seductions of the Crown; country gentlemen, hitherto supposed inaccessible to all the temptations of bribery, were found suddenly addressing speculative letters to their const.i.tuencies, wherein they ingeniously discussed all the contingencies of a measure they had once opposed without qualification. n.o.blemen of high rank and fortune were seen to pay long visits at the Castle, and, by a strange fatality, were found to have modified their opinions exactly at the period selected by the Crown to bestow on them designations of honor or situations of trust and dignity. Lawyers in high practice at the bar, men esteemed by their profession, and held in honor by the public, were seen to abandon their position of proud independence, and accept Government appointments, in many cases inferior both in profit and rank to what they had surrendered.

There seemed a kind of panic abroad. Men feared to walk without the protective mantle of the Crown being extended over them; the barriers of shame were broken down by the extent to which corruption had spread.

The examples of infamy were many, and several were reconciled to the ignominy of their degradation by their a.s.sociates in disgrace. That in such general corruption the judgments of the public should have been equally wholesale, is little to be wondered at; the regret is rather that they were so rarely unjust and ill-bestowed.

Public confidence was utterly uprooted; there was a national bankruptcy of honor, and none were trusted; all the guarantees for high principle and rect.i.tude a lifetime had given, all the hostages to good faith years of unimpeached honor bestowed, were forgotten in a moment, and such as opposed the Government measure with less of acrimony or activity than their neighbors, were set down "as waiting for or soliciting the bribery of the Crown."