Sir Jasper Carew Part 18

"This is to speak hardly, f.a.gan," said my father, mildly. "Men like poor Rutledge have their good qualities, though they be not such as you and I set store by. I never thought so myself, but others, indeed, deemed him a most amusing companion, and with more than an ordinary share of wit and pleasantry."

"The wit and pleasantry were both exerted to make his friends ridiculous, sir," said f.a.gan, severely. "He was a man that lived upon a reputation for smartness, gained at the expense of every good feeling."

"I'll wager a trifle, Tony," said my father, laughing, "that he died deep in your books. Come, be frank, and say how much this unhappy affair will cost you."

"Not so dearly as it may you, sir," whispered f.a.gan in my father's ear; and the words nearly overcame him.

"How so?--what do you mean?" muttered my father, in a broken, faltering voice.

"Come this way for a moment, Mr. Carew," said the other, aloud, "and I'll show you my snuggery, where I live, apart from all the world."

My father followed him into a small chamber, where f.a.gan at once closed the door and locked it, and then, approaching him, pulled forth from beneath his loose cuff a lace ruffle stained and clotted with blood.

"It is fortunate for you, Mr. Carew," said he, "that Raper is so un.o.bservant; any other than he would have seen this, and this;" and as he spoke the last words, he pointed to a small portion of a b.l.o.o.d.y handkerchief which projected outside the s.h.i.+rt-frill.

So overwhelmed was my father by these evidences that he sank powerless into a chair, without strength to speak.

"How was it?--how did it occur?" asked f.a.gan, sitting down in front of him, and placing one hand familiarly on my father's knee. Simple as the action was, it was a liberty that he had never dared before to take with my father, who actually shuddered at the touch, as though it had been a pollution.

"Unpremeditated, of course, I conclude," said f.a.gan, still endeavoring to lead him on to some explanation. My father nodded.

"Unwitnessed also," said f.a.gan, slowly. Another nod implied a.s.sent.

"Who knows of your presence in Dublin?--Who has seen you since your arrival in Dublin?" asked he.

"None of my acquaintances, so far, at least, as I know. I went, by a mere accident, to an hotel where I am not known. By another accident, if I dare so call it, I fell upon this rencontre. I will endeavor to tell you the whole, as it occurred,--that is, if I can sufficiently collect myself; but first let me have some wine, f.a.gan, for I am growing weak."

As f.a.gan left the room, he pa.s.sed the desk where Raper was already seated, hard at work, and, laying his hand on the clerk's shoulder, he whispered,--

"Be cautious that you do not mention Mr. Carew's arrival here. There is a writ out against him for debt, and he has come up here to be out of the way."

Raper heard the words without even discontinuing to write, and merely muttered a brief "Very well," in reply.

When f.a.gan re-entered the chamber, he found my father just rallying from a fainting-fit, which loss of blood and agitation together had brought on. Two or three gla.s.ses of wine, hastily swallowed, restored him, and he was again able to converse.

"Can you be traced to this house? Is there any clew to you here?" asked f.a.gan, resuming his former seat.

"None, so far as I know. The affair occurred thus--"

"Pardon my interrupting you," broke in f.a.gan; "but the most important thing at this moment is, to provide for your safety, in the event of any search after you. Have you any ground to apprehend this?"

"None whatever. You shall hear the story."

"They are talking of it outside!" whispered f.a.gan, with a gesture of his hand to enforce caution; "let us listen to them." And he slowly unlocked the door, and left it to stand ajar.

The outer shop was by this time filling with the small fruit-vendors of the capital,--a cla.s.s peculiarly disposed to collect and propagate the gossip of the day; and f.a.gan well knew how much the popular impression would depend upon the coloring of their recital.

"'T is lucky," said one, "that his watch and money was on him, or they 'd say at once it was the boys done it."

"Faix! they could n't do that," broke in another; "there's marks about the place would soon contradict them."

"What marks?"

"The print of an elegant boot. I saw it myself; it is small in the heel, and sharp in the toe,--very unlike yours or mine, Tim."

"Begad! so much the better," said the other, laughing.

"And I 'll tell you more," resumed the former speaker: "it was a dress-sword--what they wear at the Castle--killed him. You could scarce see the hole. It 's only a little blue spot between the ribs."

"Oh, dear! oh, dear!" exclaimed a woman's voice; "and they say he was an elegant, fine man!"

"As fine a figure of a man as ever ye looked at!"

"And n.o.body knows the reason of it at all?" asked she again.

"I'll engage it was about a woman!" muttered a husky, old, cracked voice, that was constantly heard, up to this moment, bargaining for oranges.

And f.a.gan quickly made a sign to my father to listen attentively.

"That's Denny Ca.s.sin," whispered he, "the greatest newsmonger in Dublin."

"The devil recave the fight ever I heerd of hadn't a woman in it, somehow or other; an' if she did n't begin it, she was sure to come in at the end, and make it worse. Was n't it a woman that got Hemphill Daly shot? Was n't it a woman was the death of Major Brown, of Coolmiues? Was n't it a woman--"

"Arrah! bother ye, Denny!" broke in the representative of the s.e.x, who stood an impatient listener to this long indictment; "what's worth fightin' for in the world barrin' ourselves?"

A scornful laugh was all the reply he deigned to this appeal; and he went on,--

"I often said what Barry Rutledge 'ud come to,--ay, and I told himself so. 'You 've a bad tongue,' says I, 'and you 've a bad heart. Some day or other you 'll be found out;' and ye see, so he was."

"I wonder who did it!" exclaimed another.

"My wonder is," resumed Denny, "that it was n't done long ago; or instead of one wound in his skin, that he had n't fifty. Do you know that when I used to go up to the officers' room with oranges, I'd hear more wickedness out of his mouth in one mornin' than I 'd hear in Pill Lane, here, in a month of Sundays. There was n't a man dined at the Castle, there was n't a lady danced at the Coort, that he had n't a bad story about; and he always began by saying: 'He and I were old schoolfellows,' or 'She 's a great friend of mine.' I was up there the morning after the Coort came home from Carew Castle; and if ye heard the way he went on about the company. He began with Curtis, and finished with Carew himself."

f.a.gan closed the door here, and, walking over, sat down beside my father's chair.

"We 've heard enough now, sir," said he, "to know what popular opinion will p.r.o.nounce upon this man. Denny speaks with the voice of a large ma.s.s of this city; and if they be not either very intelligent or exalted, they are at least fellows who back words by deeds, and are quite ready to risk their heads for their convictions,--a test of honesty that their betters, perhaps, would shrink from. From what he says, there will be little sympathy for Rutledge. The law, of course, will follow its due path; but the law against popular feeling is like the effort of the wind to resist the current of a fast river: it may ruffle the surface, but never will arrest the stream. Now, sir, just tell me, in a few words, what took place between you?"

My father detailed everything, from the hour of his arrival in Dublin, down to the very moment of his descending at f.a.gan's door. He faltered, indeed, and hesitated about the conversation of the coffee-room, for even in all the confidence of a confession, he shrunk from revealing the story of his marriage. And in doing so, he stammered and blundered so much that f.a.gan could collect little above the bare facts, that my mother had been wagered at a card-table, and won by my father.

Had my father been in a cooler mood, he could not have failed to remark how much deeper was the interest f.a.gan took in the story of his first meeting with my mother than in all the circ.u.mstances of the duel. So far as it was safe,--further than it would have been so at any other moment,--the Grinder cross-questioned my father as to her birth, the manner of her education, and the position she held before her marriage.

"This is all beside the matter," cried my father, at last, impatiently.

"I am now to think what is best to be done here. Shall I give myself up at once?--And why not, f.a.gan?" added he, abruptly, interrogating the look of the other.

"For two sufficient reasons, sir: first, that you would be needlessly exposing yourself to great peril; and, secondly, you would certainly be exposing another to great--" He stopped and faltered, for there was that in my father's face that made the utterance of a wrong word dangerous.

"Take care what you say, Master Tony; for, however selfish you may deem me, I have still enough of heart left to consider those far worthier of thought than myself."