The Knight Of Gwynne Volume II Part 25

As Mr. Heffernan took the head of the table, not a sign of his former chagrin remained to be seen. An air of easy conviviality had entirely replaced his previous look of irritation, and in his laughing eye and mellow voice there seemed the clearest evidence of a mind perfectly at ease, and a spirit well disposed to enjoy the pleasures of the board. Of his guests, G.o.dfrey was a leading member of the Irish bar, a man of good private fortune and a large practice, who, out of whim rather than from any great principle, had placed himself in contiuual opposition to the Government, and felt grievously injured and affronted when the minister, affecting to overlook his enmity, offered him a silk gown. Hume was a Commissioner of Customs, and had been so for some thirty years; his only ambition in life being to retire on his full salary, having previously filled his department with his sons and grandsons. The gentle remonstrances of the Secretary against his plan had made him one of the disaffected, but without courage to avow or influence to direct his animosity. Of Mr. O'Reilly the reader needs no further mention. Such was the party who now sat at a table most luxuriously supplied; for although Heffeman was very far from a frequent inviter, yet his dinners were admirably arranged, and the excellence of his wine was actually a mystery among the _bons vivants_ of the capital. The conversation turned of course upon the great event of the day; but so artfully was the subject managed by Heffeman that the discussion took rather the shape of criticism on the several speakers, and their styles of delivery, than on the matter of the meeting itself.

"How eager the Castle folks will be to know all about it!" said G.o.dfrey. "Cooke is, I hear, in a sad taking to learn the meaning of the gathering."

"I fancy, sir," said St. George, "they are more indifferent than you suppose. A meeting held by individuals of a certain rank and property, and convened with a certain degree of ostentation, can scarcely ever be formidable to a government."

"You forget the Volunteers," said Heffernan.

"No, I remember their a.s.sembling well enough, and a very absurd business they made of it. The Bishop of Downe was the only man of nerve amongst them; and as for Lord Charlemont, the thought of an attainder was never out of his head till the whole a.s.sociation was disbanded."

"They were very formidable, indeed," said Heffernan, gravely. "I can a.s.sure you that the Government were far more afraid of their defenders than of the French."

"A government that is ungrateful enough to neglect its supporters,"

chimed in Hume, "men that have spent their best years in _its_ service, can scarcely esteem itself very secure. In the department I belong to myself, for instance--"

"Yours is a very gross case," interrupted Heffernan, who from old experience knew what was coming, and wished to arrest it.

"Thirty-four years, come November next, have I toiled as a commissioner."

"Unpaid!" exclaimed St. George, with a well-simulated horror,--"unpaid!"

"No, sir; not without my salary, of course. I never heard of any man holding an office in the Revenue for the amus.e.m.e.nt it might afford him.

Did you, G.o.dfrey?"

"As for me," said the lawyer, "I spurn their patronage. I well know the price men pay for such favors."

"What object could it be to _you_," said Heffernan, "to be made Attorney-General or placed on the bench, a man independent in every seuse? So I said to Castlereagh, when he spoke on the subject: 'Never mind G.o.dfrey,' said I, 'he'll refuse your offers; you'll only offend him by solicitation;' and when he mentioned the 'Rolls'--"

Here Heffernan paused, and filled his gla.s.s leisurely. An interruption contrived to stimulate G.o.dfrey's curiosity, and which perfectly succeeded, as he asked in a voice of tremulous eagerness,--

"Well, what did you say?"

"Just as I replied before,--'he 'll refuse you.'"

"Quite right, perfectly right; you have my unbounded grat.i.tude for the answer," said G.o.dfrey, swallowing two b.u.mpers as rapidly as he could fill them.

"Very different treatment from what I met,--an old and tried supporter of the party," said Hume, turning to O'Reilly and opening upon him the whole narrative of his long-suffering neglect.

"It's quite clear, then," said St. George, "that we are agreed,--the best thing for us would be a change of Ministry."

"I don't think so at all," interposed Heffernan.

"Why, Con," interrupted the baronet, "they should have _you_ at any price,--however these fellows have learned the trick,--the others know nothing about it You 'd be in office before twenty-four hours."

"So I might to-morrow," said Heffernan. "There's scarcely a single post of high emolument and trust that I have not been offered and refused.

The only things I ever stipulated for in all my connection with the Government were certain favors for my personal friends." Here he looked significantly towards O'Reilly; but the glance was intercepted by the commissioner, who cried out,--"Well, could they say I had no claim?

Could they deny thirty-four years of toil and slavery?"

"And in the case for which I was most interested," resumed Heffernan, not heeding the interruption, "the favor I sought would have been more justly bestowed from the rank and merits of the party than as a recompense for any sen-ices of mine."

"I won't say that, Heffernan," said Hume, with a look of modesty, who with the most implicit good faith supposed he was the party alluded to; "I won't go that far; but I will and must say, that after four-and-thirty years as a commissioner--"

"A man must have laid by a devilish pretty thing for the rest of his life," said St. George, who felt all the bitterness of a narrow income augmented by the croaking complaints of the well-salaried official.

"Well, I hope better days are coming for all of us," said Heffernan, desirous of concluding the subject ere it should take an untoward turn.

"You have got a very magnificent seat in the west, sir," said St.

George, addressing O'Reilly, who during the whole evening had done little more than a.s.sent or smile concurrence with the several speakers.

"The finest thing in Ireland," interrupted Heffernan.

"Nay, that is saying too much," said O'Reilly, with a look of half-real, half-affected bashfulness. "The abbey certainly stands well, and the timber is well grown."

"Are you able to see Clew Bay from the small drawing-room still?--for I remember remarking that the larches on the side of the glen would eventually intercept the prospect."

"You know the Abbey, then?" asked O'Reilly, forgetting to answer the question addressed to him.

"Oh, I knew it well. My family is connected-distantly, I believe--with the Darcys, and in former days we were intimate. A very sweet place it was; I am speaking of thirty years ago, and of course it must have improved since that."

"My friend here has given it every possible opportunity," said Heffernan, with a courteous inclination of the head.

"I've no doubt of it," said St. George; "but neither money nor bank securities will make trees grow sixty feet in a twelvemonth. The improvements I allude to were made by Maurice Darcy's father; he sunk forty thousand pounds in draining, planting, subsoiling, and what not.

He left a rent-charge in his will to continue his plans; and Maurice and his son--what's the young fellow called?--Lionel, isn't it?--well, they are, or rather they were, bound to expend a very heavy sum annually on the property."

A theme less agreeable to O'Reilly's feelings could scarcely have been started; and though Heffernan saw as much, he did not dare to interrupt it suddenly, for fear of any unpalatable remark from St. George. Whether from feeling that the subject was a painful one, or that he liked to indulge his loquacity in detailing various particulars of the Darcys and their family circ.u.mstances, the old man went on without ceasing,--now narrating some strange caprice of an ancestor in one century, now some piece of good fortune that occurred to another. "You know the old prophecy in the family, I suppose, Mr. O'Reilly?" said he, "though, to be sure, you are not very likely to give it credence."

"I scarcely can say I remember what you allude to."

"By Jove, I thought every old woman in the west would have told it to you. How is this the doggerel runs--ay, here it is,--

'A new name in this house shall never begin Till twenty-one Darcys have died in Gwynne.'

Now, they say that, taking into account all of the family who have fallen in battle, been lost at sea, and so on, only eleven of the stock died at the Abbey."

Although O'Reilly affected to smile at the old rhyme, his cheek became deadly pale, and his hand shook as he lifted the gla.s.s to his lips. It was no vulgar sense of fear, no superst.i.tious dread that moved his cold and calculating spirit, but an emotion of suppressed anger that the ancient splendor of the Darcys should be thus placed side by side with his own unhonored and unknown family.

"I don't think I ever knew one of these good legends have even so much of truth,--though the credit is now at an end," said Heffernau, gayly.

"I'll engage old Darcy's butler wouldn't agree with you," replied St. George. "Ay, and Maurice himself had a great dash of old Irish superst.i.tion in him, for a clever, sensible fellow as he was."

"It only remains for my friend here, then, to fit up a room for the Darcys and invite them to die there at their several conveniences," said Con, laughing. "I see no other mode of fulfilling the destiny."

"There never was a man played his game worse," resumed St. George, who with a pertinacious persistence continued the topic. "He came of age with a large unenc.u.mbered estate, great family influence, and a very fair share of abilities. It was the fas.h.i.+on to say he had more, but I never thought so; and now, look at him!"

"He had very heavy losses at play," said Heffernan, "certainly."

"What if he had? They never could have materially affected a fortune like his. No, no. I believe 'Honest Tom' finished him,--raising money to pay off old debts, and then never clearing away the liabilities. What a stale trick, and how invariably it succeeds!"

"You do not seem, sir, to take into account an habitually expensive mode of living," insinuated O'Reilly, quietly.