Barrington. Volume 1

“I can’t help smiling,” said she, “at the notion of poor Tom in a palanquin. But, seriously, sir, is all this possible? or might it not be feared that your father, when he came to see my brother – who, with many a worthy quality, has not much to prepossess in his favor, – when, I say, he came to see your protégé is it not likely that he might – might – hold him more cheaply than you do?”

“Not when he presents a letter from me; not when it’s I that have taken him up. You ‘ll believe me, perhaps, when I tell you what happened when I was but ten years old. We were up at Rangoon, in the Hills, when a dreadful hurricane swept over the country, destroying everything before it; rice, paddy, the indigo-crop, all were carried away, and the poor people left totally destitute. A subscription-list was handed about amongst the British residents, to afford some aid in the calamity, and it was my tutor, a native Moonshee, who went about to collect the sums. One morning he came back somewhat disconsolate at his want of success. A payment of eight thousand rupees had to be made for grain on that day, and he had not, as he hoped and expected, the money ready. He talked freely to me of his disappointment, so that, at last, my feelings being worked upon, I took up my pen and wrote down my name on the list, with the sum of eight thousand rupees to it Shocked at what he regarded as an act of levity, he carried the paper to my father, who at once said, ‘Fred wrote it; his name shall not be dishonored;’ and the money was paid. I ask you, now, am I reckoning too much on one who could do that, and for a mere child too?”

“That was nobly done,” said she, with enthusiasm; and though Conyers went on, with warmth, to tell more of his father’s generous nature, she seemed less to listen than to follow out some thread of her own reflections. Was it some speculation as to the temperament the son of such a father might possess? or was it some pleasurable revery regarding one who might do any extravagance and yet be forgiven? My reader may guess this, perhaps, – I cannot. Whatever her speculation, it lent a very charming expression to her features, – that air of gentle, tranquil happiness we like to believe the lot of guileless, simple natures.

Conyers, like many young men of his order, was very fond of talking of himself, of his ways, his habits, and his temper, and she listened to him very prettily, – so prettily, indeed, that when Darby, slyly peeping in at the half-opened door, announced that the boat had come, he felt well inclined to pitch the messenger into the stream.

“I must go and say good-bye to Miss Barrington,” said Polly, rising. “I hope that this rustling finery will impart some dignity to my demeanor.” And drawing wide the massive folds, she made a very deep courtesy, throwing back her head haughtily as she resumed her height in admirable imitation of a bygone school of manners.

“Very well, – very well, indeed! Quite as like what it is meant for as is Miss Polly Dill for the station she counterfeits!” said Miss Dinah, as, throwing wide the door, she stood before them.

“I am overwhelmed by your flattery, madam,” said Polly, who, though very red, lost none of her self-possession; “but I feel that, like the traveller who tried on Charlemagne’s armor, I am far more equal to combat in my every-day clothes.”

“Do not enter the lists with me in either,” said Miss Dinah, with a look of the haughtiest insolence. “Mr. Conyers, will you let me show you my flower-garden?”

“Delighted! But I will first see Miss Dill to her boat.” “As you please, sir,” said the old lady; and she withdrew with a proud toss of her head that was very unmistakable in its import.

“What a severe correction that was!” said Polly, half gayly, as she went along, leaning on his arm. “And you know that, whatever my offending, there was no mimicry in it. I was simply thinking of some great-grandmother who had, perhaps, captivated the heroes of Dettingen; and, talking of heroes, how courageous of you to come to my rescue!”

Was it that her arm only trembled slightly, or did it really press gently on his own as she said this? Certainly Conyers inclined to the latter hypothesis, for he drew her more closely to his side, and said, “Of course I stood by you. She was all in the wrong, and I mean to tell her so.”

“Not if you would serve me,” said she, eagerly. “I have paid the penalty, and I strongly object to be sentenced again. Oh, here’s the boat!”

“Why it’s a mere skiff. Are you safe to trust yourself in such a thing?” asked he, for the canoe-shaped “cot” was new to him.

“Of course!” said she, lightly stepping in. “There is even room for another.” Then, hastily changing her theme, she asked, “May I tell poor Tom what you have said to me, or is it just possible that you will come up one of these days and see us?”

“If I might be permitted – ”

“Too much honor for us!” said she, with such a capital imitation of his voice and manner that he burst into a laugh in spite of himself.

“Mayhap Miss Bamngton was not so far wrong: after all, you are a terrible mimic.”

“Is it a promise, then? Am I to say to my brother you will come?” said she, seriously.

“Faithfully!” said he, waving his hand, for the boatmen had already got the skiff under weigh, and were sending her along like an arrow from a bow.

Polly turned and kissed her hand to him, and Conyers muttered something over his own stupidity for not being beside her, and then turned sulkily back towards the cottage. A few hours ago and he had thought he could have passed his life here; there was a charm in the unbroken tranquillity that seemed to satisfy the longings of his heart, and now, all of a sudden, the place appeared desolate. Have you never, dear reader, felt, in gazing on some fair landscape, with mountain and stream and forest before you, that the scene was perfect, wanting nothing in form or tone or color, till suddenly a flash of strong sunlight from behind a cloud lit up some spot with a glorious lustre, to fade away as quickly into the cold tint it had worn before? Have you not felt then, I say, that the picture had lost its marvellous attraction, and that the very soul of its beauty had departed? In vain you try to recall the past impression; your memory will mourn over the lost, and refuse to be comforted. And so it is often in life: the momentary charm that came unexpectedly can become all in all to our imaginations, and its departure leave a blank, like a death, behind it.

Nor was he altogether satisfied with Miss Barrington. The “old woman” – alas! for his gallantry, it was so that he called her to himself – was needlessly severe. Why should a mere piece of harmless levity be so visited? At all events, he felt certain that he himself would have shown a more generous spirit. Indeed, when Polly had quizzed him, he took it all good-naturedly, and by thus turning his thoughts to his natural goodness and the merits of his character, he at length grew somewhat more well-disposed to the world at large. He knew he was naturally forgiving, and he felt he was very generous. Scores of fellows, bred up as he was, would have been perfectly unendurable; they would have presumed on their position, and done this, that, and t’ other. Not one of them would have dreamed of taking up a poor ungainly bumpkin, a country doctor’s cub, and making a man of him; not one of them would have had the heart to conceive or the energy to carry out such a project. And yet this he would do. Polly herself, sceptical as she was, should be brought to admit that he had kept his word. Selfish fellows would limit their plans to their own engagements, and weak fellows could be laughed out of their intentions; but he flattered himself that he was neither of these, and it was really fortunate that the world should see how little spoiled a fine nature could be, though surrounded with all the temptations that are supposed to be dangerous.

In this happy frame – for he was now happy – he reentered the cottage. “What a coxcomb!” will say my reader. Be it so. But it was a coxcomb who wanted to be something better.

Miss Barrington met him in the porch, not a trace of her late displeasure on her face, but with a pleasant smile she said, “I have just got a few lines from my brother. He writes in excellent spirits, for he has gained a lawsuit; not a very important case, but it puts us in a position to carry out a little project we are full of. He will be here by Saturday, and hopes to bring with him an old and valued friend, the Attorney-General, to spend a few days with us. I am, therefore, able to promise you an ample recompense for all the loneliness of your present life. I have cautiously abstained from telling my brother who you are; I keep the delightful surprise for the moment of your meeting. Your name, though associated with some sad memories, will bring him back to the happiest period of his life.”

Conyers made some not very intelligible reply about his reluctance to impose himself on them at such a time, but she stopped him with a good-humored smile, and said, —

“Your father’s son should know that where a Barrington lived he had a home, – not to say you have already paid some of the tribute of this homeliness, and seen me very cross and ill-tempered. Well, let us not speak of that now. I have your word to remain here.” And she left him to attend to her household cares, while he strolled into the garden, half amused, half embarrassed by all the strange and new interests that had grown up so suddenly around him.

CHAPTER XV. AN EXPLORING EXPEDITION

Whether from simple caprice, or that Lady Cobham desired to mark her disapprobation of Polly Dill’s share in the late wager, is not open to me to say, but the festivities at Cob-ham were not, on that day, graced or enlivened by her presence. If the comments on her absence were brief, they were pungent, and some wise reflections, too, were uttered as to the dangers that must inevitably attend all attempts to lift people into a sphere above their own. Poor human nature! that unlucky culprit who is flogged for everything and for everybody, bore the brunt of these severities, and it was declared that Polly had done what any other girl “in her rank of life” might have done; and this being settled, the company went to luncheon, their appetites none the worse for the small auto-da-fé they had just celebrated.

“You’d have lost your money, Captain,” whispered Ambrose Bushe to Stapylton, as they stood talking together in a window recess, “if that girl had only taken the river three hundred yards higher up. Even as it was, she ‘d have breasted her horse at the bank if the bridle had not given way. I suppose you have seen the place?”

“I regret to say I have not. They tell me it’s one of the strongest rapids in the river.”

“Let me describe it to you,” replied he; and at once set about a picture in which certainly no elements of peril were forgotten, and all the dangers of rocks and rapids were given with due emphasis. Stapylton seemed to listen with fitting attention, throwing out the suitable “Indeed! is it possible!” and such-like interjections, his mind, however, by no means absorbed by the narrative, but dwelling solely on a chance name that had dropped from the narrator.

“You called the place ‘Barrington’s Ford,’” said he, at last. “Who is Barrington?”

“As good a gentleman by blood and descent as any in this room, but now reduced to keep a little wayside inn, – the ‘Fisherman’s Home,’ it is called. All come of a spendthrift son, who went out to India, and ran through every acre of the property before he died.”

“What a strange vicissitude! And is the old man much broken by it?”

“Some would say he was; my opinion is, that he bears up wonderfully. Of course, to me, he never makes any mention of the past; but while my father lived, he would frequently talk to him over bygones, and liked nothing better than to speak of his son, Mad George as they called him, and tell all his wildest exploits and most harebrained achievements. But you have served yourself in India. Have you never heard of George Barrington?”

Stapylton shook his head, and dryly added that India was very large, and that even in one Presidency a man might never hear what went on in another.

“Well, this fellow made noise enough to be heard even over here. He married a native woman, and he either shook off his English allegiance, or was suspected of doing so. At all events, he got himself into trouble that finished him. It’s a long complicated story, that I have never heard correctly. The upshot was, however, old Barrington was sold out stick and stone, and if it was n’t for the ale-house he might starve.”

“And his former friends and associates, do they rally round him and cheer him?”

“Not a great deal. Perhaps, however, that’s as much his fault as theirs. He is very proud, and very quick to resent anything like consideration for his changed condition. Sir Charles would have him up here, – he has tried it scores of times, but all in vain; and now he is left to two or three of his neighbors, the doctor and an old half-pay major, who lives on the river, and I believe really he never sees any one else. Old M’Cormick knew George Barrington well; not that they were friends, – two men less alike never lived; but that’s enough to make poor Peter fond of talking to him, and telling all about some lawsuits George left him for a legacy.”

“This Major that you speak of, does he visit here? I don’t remember to have seen him.”

“M’Cormick!” said the other, laughing. “No, he ‘s a miserly old fellow that has n’t a coat fit to go out in, and he’s no loss to any one. It’s as much as old Peter Barrington can do to bear his shabby ways, and his cranky temper, but he puts up with everything because he knew his son George. That’s quite enough for old Peter; and if you were to go over to the cottage, and say, ‘I met your son up in Bombay or Madras; we were quartered together at Ram-something-or-other,’ he ‘d tell you the place was your own, to stop at as long as you liked, and your home for life.”

“Indeed!” said Stapylton, affecting to feel interested, while he followed out the course of his own thoughts.

“Not that the Major could do even that much!” continued Bushe, who now believed that he had found an eager listener. “There was only one thing in this world he’d like to talk about, – Walcheren. Go how or when you liked, or where or for what, – no matter, it was Walcheren you ‘d get, and nothing else.”

“Somewhat tiresome this, I take it!”

“Tiresome is no name for it! And I don’t know a stronger proof of old Peter’s love for his son’s memory, than that, for the sake of hearing about him, he can sit and listen to the ‘expedition.’”

There was a half-unconscious mimicry in the way he gave the last word that showed how the Major’s accents had eaten their way into his sensibilities.

“Your portrait of this Major is not tempting,” said Stapylton, smiling.

“Why would it? He’s eighteen or twenty years in the neighborhood, and I never heard that he said a kind word or did a generous act by any one. But I get cross if I talk of him. Where are you going this morning? Will you come up to the Long Callows and look at the yearlings? The Admiral is very proud of his young stock, and he thinks he has some of the best bone and blood in Ireland there at this moment.”

“Thanks, no; I have some notion of a long walk this morning. I take shame to myself for having seen so little of the country here since I came that I mean to repair my fault and go off on a sort of voyage of discovery.”

“Follow the river from Brown’s Barn down to Inistioge, and if you ever saw anything prettier I’m a Scotchman.” And with this appalling alternative, Mr. Bushe walked away, and left the other to his own guidance.

Perhaps Stapylton is not the companion my reader would care to stroll with, even along the grassy path beside that laughing river, with spray-like larches bending overhead, and tender water-lilies streaming, like pennants, in the fast-running current. It may be that he or she would prefer some one more impressionable to the woodland beauty of the spot, and more disposed to enjoy the tranquil loveliness around him; for it is true the swarthy soldier strode on, little heeding the picturesque effects which made every succeeding reach of the river a subject for a painter. He was bent on finding out where M’Cormick lived, and on making the acquaintance of that bland individual.

“That’s the Major’s, and there’s himself,” said a countryman, as he pointed to a very shabbily dressed old man hoeing his cabbages in a dilapidated bit of garden-ground, but who was so absorbed in his occupation as not to notice the approach of a stranger.

“Am I taking too great a liberty,” said Stapylton, as he raised his hat, “if I ask leave to follow the river path through this lovely spot?”

“Eh – what? – how did you come? You didn’t pass round by the young wheat, eh?” asked M’Cormick, in his most querulous voice.

“I came along by the margin of the river.”

“That’s just it!” broke in the other. “There’s no keeping them out that way. But I ‘ll have a dog as sure as my name is Dan. I’ll have a bull-terrier that’ll tackle the first of you that’s trespassing there.”

“I fancy I’m addressing Major M’Cormick,” said Stapylton, never noticing this rude speech; “and if so, I will ask him to accord me the privilege of a brother-soldier, and let me make myself known to him, – Captain Stapylton, of the Prince’s Hussars.”

“By the wars!” muttered old Dan; the exclamation being a favorite one with him to express astonishment at any startling event. Then recovering himself, he added, “I think I heard there were three or four of ye stopping up there at Cobham; but I never go out myself anywhere. I live very retired down here.”

“I am not surprised at that. When an old soldier can nestle down in a lovely nook like this, he has very little to regret of what the world is busy about outside it.”

“And they are all ruining themselves, besides,” said M’Cormick, with one of his malicious grins. “There’s not a man in this county is n’t mortgaged over head and ears. I can count them all on my fingers for you, and tell what they have to live on.”

“You amaze me,” said Stapylton, with a show of interest

“And the women are as bad as the men: nothing fine enough for them to wear; no jewels rich enough to put on! Did you ever hear them mention me?” asked he, suddenly, as though the thought flashed upon him that he had himself been exposed to comment of a very different kind.

“They told me of an old retired officer, who owned a most picturesque cottage, and said, if I remember aright, that the view from one of the windows was accounted one of the most perfect bits of river landscape in the kingdom.”

“Just the same as where you ‘re standing, – no difference in life,” said M’Cormick, who was not to be seduced by the flattery into any demonstration of hospitality.

“I cannot imagine anything finer,” said Stapylton, as he threw himself at the foot of a tree, and seemed really to revel in enjoyment of the scene. “One might, perhaps, if disposed to be critical, ask for a little opening in that copse yonder. I suspect we should get a peep at the bold cliff whose summit peers above the tree-tops.”

“You’d see the quarry, to be sure,” croaked out the Major, “if that’s what you mean.”

“May I offer you a cigar?” said Stapylton, whose self-possession was pushed somewhat hard by the other. “An old campaigner is sure to be a smoker.”

“I am not. I never had a pipe in my mouth since Walcheren.”

“Since Walcheren! You don’t say that you are an old Walcheren man?”

“I am, indeed. I was in the second battalion of the 103d, – the Duke’s Fusiliers, if ever you heard of them.”

“Heard of them! The whole world has heard of them; but I did n’t know there was a man of that splendid corps surviving. Why, they lost – let me see – they lost every officer but – ” Here a vigorous effort to keep his cigar alight interposed, and kept him occupied for a few seconds. “How many did you bring out of action, – four was it, or five? I’m certain you had n’t six!”

“We were the same as the Buffs, man for man,” said M’Cormick.

“The poor Buffs! – very gallant fellows too!” sighed Stapylton. “I have always maintained, and I always will maintain, that the Walcheren expedition, though not a success, was the proudest achievement of the British arms.”

“The shakes always began after sunrise, and in less than ten minutes you ‘d see your nails growing blue.”

“How dreadful!”

“And if you felt your nose, you would n’t know it was your nose; you ‘d think it was a bit of a cold carrot.”

“Why was that?”

“Because there was no circulation; the blood would stop going round; and you ‘d be that way for four hours, – till the sweating took you, – just the same as dead.”

“There, don’t go on, – I can’t stand it, – my nerves are all ajar already.”

“And then the cramps came on,” continued M’Cormick, in an ecstasy over a listener whose feelings he could harrow; “first in the calves of the legs, and then all along the spine, so that you ‘d be bent like a fish.”

“For Heaven’s sake, spare me! I’ve seen some rough work, but that description of yours is perfectly horrifying! And when one thinks it was the glorious old 105th – ”

“No, the 103d; the 105th was at Barbadoes,” broke in the Major, testily.

“So they were, and got their share of the yellow fever at that very time too,” said Stapylton, hazarding a not very rash conjecture.

“Maybe they did, and maybe they didn’t,” was the dry rejoinder.

It required all Stapylton’s nice tact to get the Major once more full swing at the expedition, but he at last accomplished the feat, and with such success that M’Cormick suggested an adjournment within doors, and faintly hinted at a possible something to drink. The wily guest, however, declined this. “He liked,” he said, “that nice breezy spot under those fine old trees, and with that glorious reach of the river before them. Could a man but join to these enjoyments,” he continued, “just a neighbor or two, – an old friend or so that he really liked, – one not alone agreeable from his tastes, but to whom the link of early companionship also attached us, with this addition I could call this a paradise.”

“Well, I have the village doctor,” croaked out M’Cor-mick, “and there’s Barrington – old Peter – up at the ‘Fisherman’s Home.’ I have them by way of society. I might have better, and I might have worse.”

“They told me at Cobham that there was no getting you to ‘go out;’ that, like a regular old soldier, you liked your own chimney-corner, and could not be tempted away from it.”

“They didn’t try very hard, anyhow,” said he, harshly. “I’ll be nineteen years here if I live till November, and I think I got two invitations, and one of them to a ‘dancing tea,’ whatever that is; so that you may observe they did n’t push the temptation as far as St. Anthony’s!”

Stapylton joined in the laugh with which M’Cormick welcomed his own drollery.

“Your doctor,” resumed he, “is, I presume, the father of the pretty girl who rides so cleverly?”

“So they tell me. I never saw her mounted but once, and she smashed a melon-frame for me, and not so much as ‘I ask your pardon!’ afterwards.”

“And Barrington,” resumed Stapylton, “is the ruined gentleman I have heard of, who has turned innkeeper. An extravagant son, I believe, finished him?”

“His own taste for law cost him just as much,” muttered M’Cormick. “He had a trunk full of old title-deeds and bonds and settlements, and he was always poring over them, discovering, by the way, flaws in this and omissions in that, and then he ‘d draw up a case for counsel, and get consultations on it, and before you could turn round, there he was, trying to break a will or get out of a covenant, with a special jury and the strongest Bar in Ireland. That’s what ruined him.”

“I gather from what you tell me that he is a bold, determined, and perhaps a vindictive man. Am I right?”

“You are not; he’s an easy-tempered fellow, and careless, like every one of his name and race. If you said he hadn’t a wise head on his shoulders, you ‘d be nearer the mark. Look what he ‘s going to do now!” cried he, warming with his theme: “he ‘s going to give up the inn – ”

“Give it up! And why?”

“Ay, that’s the question would puzzle him to answer; but it’s the haughty old sister persuades him that he ought to take this black girl – George Barrington’s daughter – home to live with him, and that a shebeen is n’t the place to bring her to, and she a negress. That’s more of the family wisdom!”