The Daltons Volume I Part 17

If Dalton's impatience had been excited by the old man's absurd terrors and foolish warnings, his own heart was not devoid of a certain vague dread, as he slowly wended his way upwards. It was true he did not partake of old Andy's fear of the dread official of the law. Andy, who, forgetting time and place, not knowing that they were in another land, where the King's writ never ran, saw in the terrible apparition the shadows of coming misfortune. Every calamity of his master's house had been heralded by such a visit, and he could as soon have disconnected the banshee with a sudden death, as the sight of an attorney with an approaching disaster.

It is true, Dalton did not go this far; but still old impressions were not so easily effaced. And as the liberated captive is said to tremble at the clanking of a chain, so his heart responded to the fear that memory called up of past troubles and misfortunes.

"What can he want with me now?" muttered he, as he stopped to take breath. "They 've left me nothing but life, and they can't take that. It 's not that I 'd care a great deal if they did! Maybe it's more bother about them t.i.tles; but I'll not trouble my head about them. I sold the land, and I spent the money; ay, and what 's more, I spent it at home among my own people, like a gentleman! and if I 'm an absentee it 's not my fault. I suppose he couldn't arrest me," said he, after a pause; "but, G.o.d knows, they 're making new laws every day, and it 's hard to say if they 'll let a man have peace or ease in any quarter of the world before long. Well, well! there's no use guessing. I have nothing to sell nothing to lose; I suppose they don't make it a hanging matter even for an Irishman to live a trifle too fast." And with this piece of rea.s.suring comfort, he pulled up his cravat, threw back the breast of his coat, and prepared to confront the enemy bravely.

Although Dalton made some noise in unlocking the door, and not less in crossing the little pa.s.sage that led to the sitting-room, his entrance was unperceived by the stranger, who was busily engaged in examining a half-finished group by Nelly. It represented an old soldier, whose eyes were covered by a bandage, seated beside a well, while a little drummer-boy read to him the bulletin of a great victory. She had destined the work for a present to Frank, and had put forth all her genius in its composition. The glowing enthusiasm of the blind veteran, his half-opened lips,' his att.i.tude of eagerness as he drank in the words, were finely contrasted with the childlike simplicity of the boy, more intent, as it seemed, in spelling out the lines than following the signification.

If the stranger was not a finished connoisseur, he was certainly not ignorant of art, and was deep in its contemplation when Dalton accosted him.

"I beg pardon, Mr. Dalton, I presume; really this clever composition has made me forget myself totally. May I ask, is it the work of a native artist?"

"It was done in this place, sir," replied Dalton, whose pride in his daughter's skill was overlaid by a less worthy feeling, shame that a Dalton should condescend to such an occupation.

"I have seen very inferior productions highly prized and praised; and if I am not indiscreet--"

"To prevent any risk of that kind," observed Dalton, interrupting him, "I 'll take the liberty of asking your name, and the object of this visit."

"Prichard, sir; of the firm of Prichard and Harding, solicitors, Lincoln's Inn Fields," replied the other, whose voice and manner at once a.s.sumed a business-like tone.

"I never heard the names before," said Dalton, motioning to a chair. The stranger seated himself, and, placing a large roll of papers before him on the table, proceeded to untie and arrange them most methodically, and with the air of a man too deeply impressed with the importance of his occupation to waste a thought upon the astonishment of a bystander.

"Prichard and Harding are mighty cool kind of gentlemen," thought Dalton, as he took his seat at the opposite side of the table, trying, but not with any remarkable success, to look as much at ease as his visitor.

"Copy of deed draft of instructions bill of sale of stock no, here it is! This is what we want," muttered Prichard, half aloud. "I believe that letter, sir, is in your handwriting?"

Dalton put on his spectacles and looked at the doc.u.ment for a few seconds, during which his countenance gradually appeared to light up with an expression of joyful meaning; for his eye glistened, and a red flush suffused his cheek.

"It is, sir, that's mine, every word of it; and what's more, I 'm as ready to stand to it to-day as the hour I wrote it."

Mr. Prichard, scarcely noticing the reply, was again deep in his researches; but the object of them must be reserved for another chapter.

CHAPTER XIV. AN EMBARRa.s.sING QUESTION.

How very seldom it is that a man looks at a letter he has written some twenty years or so before, and peruses it with any degree of satisfaction! No matter how pleasurable the theme, or how full of interest at the time, years have made such changes in circ.u.mstances, have so altered his relations with the world, dispelled illusions here, created new prospects there, that the chances are he can feel nothing but astonishment for what once were his opinions, and a strange sense of misgiving that he ever could have so expressed himself.

Rare as this pleasure is, we left Mr. Dalton in the fullest enjoyment of it, in our last chapter; and as he read and re-read his autograph, every feature of his face showed the enjoyment it yielded him.

"My own writing, sure enough! I wish I never put my hand to paper in a worse cause. Is n't it strange," he muttered, "how a man's heart will outlive his fingers? I could n't write now as well as I used then, but I can feel just the same. There 's the very words I said." And with this he read, half aloud, from the paper: "'But if you my consent to send lawyers and attorneys to the devil, and let the-matter be settled between us, like two gentlemen, Peter Dalton will meet you when, where, and how you like, and take the satisfaction as a full release of every claim and demand he makes on you.' Just so; and a fairer offer never was made; but I grieve to say it wasn't met in the same spirit."

"When you wrote that letter, Mr. Dalton," said Prichard, not looking up from the papers before him, "you were doubtless suffering under the impression of a wrong at the hands of Sir Stafford Ouslow."

"Faith, I believe you. The loss of a fine estate was n't a trifle, whatever you may think it."

"The question ought rather to be, what right had you to attribute that loss to him?"

"What right is it? All the right in the world. Who got the property?

Answer me that. Was n't it he came in as a sole legatee? But what am I talking about? Sure the thing is done and ended, and what more does he want?"

"I'm just coming to that very point, sir," said Prichard. "Sir Stafford's attention having been accidentally called to this transaction, he perceives that he has unwittingly done you a great injustice, and that there is one matter, at least, on which he is bound, even for his own satisfaction."

"Satisfaction, is it?" broke in Dalton, catching at the only word that struck his ear with a distinct signification. "Better late than never; and it 's proud I am to oblige him. Not but there 's people would tell you that the time 's gone by, and all that sort of thing; but them was never my sentiments. 'Never a bad time for a good deed,' my poor father used to say, and you may tell him that I 'll think the better of his countrymen to the day of my death, for what he 's going to do now."

Prichard laid down the paper he was reading, and stared at the speaker in mute amazement.

"You 're his friend, I perceive," said Dalton.

"Sir Stafford is kind enough to consider me in that light."

"Faith, the kindness is all the other way," rejoined Dalton, laughing, "at least, in this country; for the seconds are just as guilty as the princ.i.p.als, and have no fun for their money. But, sure, we can cross over to Landau; they tell me it's Barbaria there, over the Rhine."

"Bavaria, perhaps?" interposed the other.

"Yes, that 's what I said. We can be over the frontier in two hours.

There 's every conveniency in life," said he, rubbing his hands in high glee.

"Our business, I trust, sir, can be all arranged here, and without much delay, either."

"Just as you like; I 'm not fond of moving since my knee was bad, and I 'm agreeable to anything."

"You seem to contemplate a hostile meeting, sir, if I understand you aright," said Prichard, slowly; "but if you had been kind enough to hear me out, you 'd have seen that nothing was further from my friend's thoughts or my own."

"Oh, murther!" groaned Dal ton, as he sank down into a chair.

"We never entertained any such intention."

"No duel?"

"Nothing of the kind."

"Sure, I heard you say satisfaction. I 'll take my oath you said satisfaction."

"I hope sincerely, sir, that the word may bear a peaceful signification."

"Oh dear, oh dear!" cried Dalton, as, clasping his hands on his knees, he sat, a perfect type of disappointed hope, and totally inattentive to a very eloquent explanation that Prichard was pouring forth.

"You see, now, sir, I trust," cried the latter, triumphantly, "that if my friend's intentions are not precisely what you looked for, they are not less inspired by an anxious desire to cultivate your friends.h.i.+p and obtain your good opinion."

"I wasn't listening to a word you were saying," said Dalton, with a sincerity that would have made many men smile; but Mr. Prichard never laughed, or only when the joke was uttered by a silk gown, or the initiative given by the bench itself.

"I was endeavoring, sir, to convey," said he again, and with infinite patience, "that, by a clause of the late Mr. G.o.dfrey's will, the suggestion was made to the effect that, if Sir Stafford Onslow should deem it fitting and suitable, the testator would not be averse to an annuity of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred pounds per annum being settled on Mr. Peter Dalton for the term of his life. This clause has now been brought under Sir Stafford's notice for the first time, as he never, in fact, saw the will before. The doc.u.ment was lodged in our hands; and as certain proceedings, of which the letter you have just acknowledged forms a part, at that period placed you in a peculiar position of hostility to Sir Stafford, we, as his legal advisers, did not take any remarkable pains to impress this recommendation on his memory."

"Go on; I 'm listening to you," said Dalton.

"Well, sir, Sir Stafford is now desirous of complying with this injunction, the terms of which he reads as more obligatory upon him than his legal friends would be willing to substantiate. In fact, he makes the matter a question of feeling and not of law; and this, of course, is a point wherein we have no right to interpose an opinion. Something like ten years have elapsed since Mr. G.o.dfrey's death, and taking the sum at two hundred pounds, with interest at five per cent, a balance of above three thousand two hundred will now be at your disposal, together with the annuity on your life; and to arrange the payment of these moneys, and take measures for their future disburs.e.m.e.nt, I have the honor to present myself before you. As for these letters, they are your own; and Sir Stafford, in restoring them, desires to efface all memory of the transaction they referred to, and to a.s.sure you that, when circ.u.mstances enable him to meet you, it may be on terms of perfect cordiality and friends.h.i.+p."