The Project Gutenberg EBook of Barrington, by Charles James Lever This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Barrington Volume I (of II) Author: Charles James Lever Illustrator: Phiz. Release Date: January 8, 2011 [EBook #34882] Last Updated: September 3, 2016 Language: English Character set encoding: UTF-8 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BARRINGTON *** Produced by David Widger BARRINGTON Volume I. By Charles James Lever With Illustrations By Phiz. Boston: Little, Brown, And Company. 1907. Frontispiece titlepage (27K) CONTENTS CHAPTER I. THE FISHERMAN’S HOME CHAPTER II. A WET MORNING AT HOME CHAPTER III. OUR NEXT NEIGHBORS CHAPTER IV. FRED CONYERS CHAPTER V. DILL AS A DIPLOMATIST CHAPTER VI. THE DOCTOR’S DAUGHTER CHAPTER VII. TOM DILL’S FIRST PATIENT CHAPTER VIII. FINE ACQUAINTANCES CHAPTER IX. A COUNTRY DOCTOR CHAPTER X. BEING “BORED” CHAPTER XI. A NOTE TO BE ANSWERED CHAPTER XII. THE ANSWER CHAPTER XIII. A FEW LEAVES FROM A BLUE-BOOK CHAPTER XIV. BARRINGTON’S FORD CHAPTER XV. AN EXPLORING EXPEDITION CHAPTER XVI. COMING HOME CHAPTER XVII. A SHOCK CHAPTER XVIII. COBHAM CHAPTER XIX. THE HOUR OF LUNCHEON CHAPTER XX. AN INTERIOR AT THE DOCTOR’S CHAPTER XXI. DARK TIDINGS CHAPTER XXII. LEAVING HOME CHAPTER XXIII. THE COLONEL’S COUNSELS CHAPTER XXIV. CONYERS MAKES A MORNING CALL CHAPTER XXV. DUBLIN REVISITED CHAPTER XXVI. A VERY SAD GOOD-BYE CHAPTER XXVII. THE CONVENT ON THE MEUSE CHAPTER XXVIII. GEORGE’S DAUGHTER CHAPTER XXIX. THE RAMBLE CHAPTER XXX. UNDER THE LINDEN BARRINGTON. CHAPTER I. THE FISHERMAN’S HOME If there should be, at this day we live in, any one bold enough to confess that he fished the river Nore, in Ireland, some forty years ago, he might assist me by calling to mind a small inn, about two miles from the confluence of that river with the Barrow, a spot in great favor with those who followed the “gentle craft.” It was a very unpretending hostel, something wherein cottage and farmhouse were blended, and only recognizable as a place of entertainment by a tin trout suspended over the doorway, with the modest inscription underneath,—“Fisherman’s Home.” Very seldom is it, indeed, that hotel pledges are as honestly fulfilled as they were in this simple announcement. The house was, in all that quiet comfort and unostentatious excellence can make, a veritable Home! Standing in a fine old orchard of pear and damson trees, it was only approachable by a path which led from the highroad, about two miles off, or by the river, which wound round the little grassy promontory beneath the cottage. On the opposite side of the stream arose cliffs of considerable height, their terraced sides covered with larch and ash, around whose stems the holly, the laurel, and arbutus grew in a wild and rich profusion. A high mountain, rugged with rock and precipice, shut in the picture, and gave to the river all the semblance of a narrow lake. The Home, as may be imagined, was only resorted to by fishermen, and of these not many; for the chosen few who knew the spot, with the churlishness of true anglers, were strenuously careful to keep the secret to themselves. But another and stronger cause contributed to this seclusion. The landlord was a reduced gentleman, who, only anxious to add a little to his narrow fortune, would not have accepted a greater prosperity at the cost of more publicity, and who probably only consented to his occupation on finding how scrupulously his guests respected his position. Indeed, it was only on leave-taking, and then far from painfully, you were reminded of being in an inn. There was no noise, no bustle; books, magazines, flowers, lay about; cupboards lay open, with all their cordials free to take. You might dine under the spreading sycamore beside the well, and have your dessert for the plucking. No obsequious waiter shook his napkin as you passed, no ringleted barmaid crossed your musing steps, no jingling of bells, or discordant cries, or high-voiced remonstrances disturbed you. The hum of the summer bee, or the flapping plash of a trout, were about the only sounds in the stillness, and all was as peaceful and as calm and as dreamy as the most world-weary could have wished it. Of those who frequented the spot, some merely knew that the host had seen better days. Others, however, were aware that Peter Barrington had once been a man of large fortune, and represented his county in the Irish Parliament. Though not eminent as a politician, he was one of the great convivial celebrities of a time that boasted of Curran, and Avanmore, and Parsons, and a score of others, any one of whom, in our day, would have made a society famous. Barrington, too, was the almoner of the monks of the screw, and “Peter’s pence” was immortalized in a song by Ned Lysaght, of which I once possessed, but have lost a copy. One might imagine there could be no difficulty in showing how in that wild period of riotous living and costly rivalry an Irish gentleman ran through all his property and left himself penniless. It was, indeed, a time of utter recklessness, many seeming possessed of that devil-may-care spirit that drives a drowning crew to break open the spirit-room and go down in an orgie. But Barrington’s fortune was so large, and his successes on the turf so considerable, that it appeared incredible, when his estates came to the hammer, and all his personal property was sold off; so complete his ruin, that, as he said himself, the “only shelter he had was an umbrella, and even that he borrowed from Dan Driscoll, the sheriff’s officer.” Of course there were theories in plenty to account for the disaster, and, as usual, so many knew, many a long day ago, how hard pressed he had been for money, and what ruinous interest he was obliged to pay, till at last rumors filtered all down to one channel, and the world agreed that it was all his son’s doing, and that the scamp George had ruined his father. This son, his only child, had gone out to India in a cavalry regiment, and was celebrated all over the East for a costly splendor that rivalled the great Government officials. From every retired or invalided officer who came back from Bengal were heard stories of mad Barring-ton’s extravagance: his palace on the Hooghly, his racing stud, his elephants, his army of retainers,—all narratives which, no matter in what spirit retailed, seemed to delight old Peter, who, at every fresh story of his son’s spendthrift magnificence, would be sure to toast his health with a racy enthusiasm whose sincerity was not to be doubted. Little wonder need there be if in feeding such extravagance a vast estate melted away, and acre followed acre, till all that remained of a property that ranked next to the Ormonds’ was the little cottage over whose door the tin-trout dangled, and the few roods of land around it: sorry remnant of a princely fortune! But Barrington himself had a passion, which, inordinately indulged, has brought many to their ruin. He was intensely fond of law. It was to him all that gambling is to other men. All that gamesters feel of hope and fear, all the intense excitement they derive from the vacillating fortunes of play, Barrington enjoyed in a lawsuit. Every step of the proceeding had for him an intense interest. The driest legal documents, musty declarations, demurrers, pleadings, replies, affidavits, and counter-affidavits were his choicest reading; and never did a young lady hurry to her room with the last new novel with a stronger anticipation of delight than did Barrington when carrying away to his little snuggery a roll of parchments or rough drafts, whose very iterations and jargon would have driven most men half crazy. This same snuggery of his was a curiosity, too, the walls being all decorated with portraits of legal celebrities, not selected with reference to their merit or distinction, but solely from their connection with some suit in which he had been engaged; and thus under the likeness of Chief Baron O’Grady might be read, “Barring-ton versus Brazier, 1802; a juror withdrawn:” Justice Moore’s portrait was inscribed, “Argument in Chambers, 1808,” and so on; even to the portraits of leading counsel, all were marked and dated only as they figured in the great campaign,—the more than thirty years’ war he carried on against Fortune. Let not my reader suppose for one moment that this litigious taste grew out of a spirit of jarring discontent or distrust. Nothing of the kind. Barrington was merely a gambler; and with whatever dissatisfaction the declaration may be met, I am prepared to show that gambling, however faulty in itself, is not the vice of cold, selfish, and sordid men, but of warm, rash, sometimes over-generous temperaments. Be it well remembered that the professional play-man is, of all others, the one who has least of a gamester in his heart; his superiority lying in the simple fact that his passions are never engaged, his interest never stirred. Oh! beware of yourself in company with the polished antagonist, who only smiles when he loses, whom nothing adverse ever disturbs, but is calmly serene under the most pitiless pelting of luck. To come back: Barrington’s passion for law was an intense thirst for a certain species of excitement; a verdict was to him the odd trick. Let him, however, but win the game, there never was a man so indifferent about the stakes. For many a year back he had ceased to follow the great events of the world. For the stupendous changes in Europe he cared next to nothing. He scarcely knew who reigned over this empire or that kingdom. Indifferent to art, science, letters, and even society, his interest was intense about all that went on in the law courts, and it was an interest so catholic that it took in everything and everybody, from the great judge upon the bench to the small taxing-officer who nibbled at the bill of costs. Fortunately for him, his sister, a maiden lady of some eighteen or twenty years his junior, had imbibed nothing of this passion, and, by her prudent opposition to it, stemmed at least the force of that current which was bearing him to ruin. Miss Dinah Barrington had been the great belle of the Irish court,—I am ashamed to say how long ago,—and though at the period my tale opens there was not much to revive the impression, her high nose, and full blue eyes, and a mass of wonderfully unchanged brown hair, proclaimed her to be—what she was very proud to call herself—a thorough Barrington, a strong type of a frank nature, with a bold, resolute will, and a very womanly heart beneath it. When their reverses of fortune first befell them, Miss Barrington wished to emigrate. She thought that in Canada, or some other far- away land, their altered condition might be borne less painfully, and that they could more easily bend themselves to humble offices where none but strangers were to look on them; but Barrington clung to his country with the tenacity of an old captain to a wreck. He declared he could not bring himself to the thought of leaving his bones in a strange land, but he never confessed what he felt to be the strongest tie of all, two unfinished lawsuits, the old record of Barrington v. Brazier, and a Privy Council case of Barrington and Lot Rammadahn Mohr against the India Company. To have left his country with these still undecided seemed to him—like the act of a commander taking flight on the morning of a general action—an amount of cowardice he could not contemplate. Not that he confided this opinion to his sister, though he did so in the very fullest manner to his old follower and servant, Darby Cassan. Darby was the last remnant of a once princely retinue, and in his master’s choice of him to accompany his fallen fortunes, there was something strangely indicative of the man. Had Darby been an old butler or a body-servant, had he been a favorite groom, or, in some other capacity, one whose daily duties had made his a familiar face, and whose functions could still be available in an humble state, there would have seemed good reason for the selection; but Darby was none of these: he had never served in hall or pantry; he had never brushed the cobweb from a bottle, or led a nag to the door. Of all human professions his were about the last that could address themselves to the cares of a little household; for Darby was reared, bred, and passed fifty-odd years of his life as an earth-stopper! A very ingenious German writer has attempted to show that the sympathies of the humble classes with pursuits far above their own has always its origin in something of their daily life and habits, just as the sacristan of a cathedral comes to be occasionally a tolerable art critic from his continual reference to Rubens and Vandyck. It is possible that Darby may have illustrated the theory, and that his avocations as earth-stopper may have suggested what he assuredly possessed, a perfect passion for law. If a suit was a great game to Barrington, to Darby it was a hunt! and though his personal experiences never soared beyond Quarter Sessions, he gloried in all he saw there of violence and altercation, of vituperative language and impassioned abuse. Had he been a rich man, free to enjoy his leisure, he would have passed all his days listening to these hot discussions. They were to him a sort of intellectual bull-fight, which never could be too bloody or too cruel. Have I said enough, therefore, to show the secret link which bound the master to the man? I hope so; and that my reader is proud of a confidence with which Miss Barrington herself was never intrusted. She believed that Darby had been taken into favor from some marvellous ability he was supposed to possess, applicable to their new venture as innkeepers. Phrenology would perhaps have pronounced Darby a heaven-born host, for his organ of acquisitiveness was grandly developed. Amidst that great household, where the thriftless habits of the master had descended to the servants, and rendered all reckless and wasteful alike, Darby had thriven and grown almost rich. Was it that the Irish climate used its influence over him; for in his practice to “put by something for a rainy day,” his savings had many promptings? As the reputation of having money soon attached to him, he was often applied to in the hunting-field, or at the kennel, for small loans, by the young bloods who frequented the Hall, and, being always repaid three or four fold, he grew to have a very high conception of what banking must be when done on a large scale. Besides all this, he quickly learned that no character attracts more sympathy, especially amongst the class of young squires and sporting-men, than a certain quaint simplicity, so flattering in its contrast to their own consummate acuteness. Now, he was simple to their hearts’ content. He usually spoke of himself as “Poor Darby, God help him!” and, in casting up those wonderful accounts, which he kept by notches on a tally-stick, nothing was more amusing than to witness his bewilderment and confusion, the inconceivable blunders he would make, even to his own disadvantage, all sure to end at last in the heart-spoken confession that it was “clean beyand him,” and “he ‘d leave it all to your honor; pay just what ye plaze, and long life to ye!” Is it that women have some shrewd perception of character denied to men? Certainly Darby never imposed on Miss Barrington. She read him like a book, and he felt it. The consequence was a very cordial dislike, which strengthened with every year of their acquaintance. Though Miss Barrington ever believed that the notion of keeping an inn originated with her brother, it was Darby first conceived the project, and, indeed, by his own skill and crafty intelligence was it carried on; and while the words “Peter Barrington” figured in very small letters, it is true, over the door to comply with a legal necessity, to most of the visitors he was a mere myth. Now, if Peter Barrington was very happy to be represented by deputy,—or, better still, not represented at all,—Miss Dinah regarded the matter in a very different light. Her theory was that, in accepting the humble station to which reverse of fortune brought them, the world ought to see all the heroism and courage of the sacrifice. She insisted on being a foreground figure, just to show them, as she said, “that I take nothing upon me. I am the hostess of a little wayside inn,—no more!” How little did she know of her own heart, and how far was she from even suspecting that it was the ci-devant belle making one last throw for the admiration and homage which once were offered her freely. Such were the three chief personages who dwelt under that secluded roof, half overgrown with honeysuckle and dog-roses,— specimens of that wider world without, where jealousies, and distrusts, and petty rivalries are warring: for as in one tiny globule of water are represented the elements which make oceans and seas, so is it in the moral world; and “the family” is only humanity, as the artists say, “reduced.” For years back Miss Barrington had been plotting to depose Darby. With an ingenuity quite feminine, she managed to connect him with every chagrin that crossed and every annoyance that befell them. If the pig ploughed up the new peas in the garden, it was Darby had left the gate open; it was his hand overwound the clock; and a very significant hint showed that when the thunder soured the beer, Mr. Darby knew more of the matter than he was likely to tell. Against such charges as these, iterated and reiterated to satiety, Barrington would reply by a smile, or a good-natured excuse, or a mere gesture to suggest patience, till his sister, fairly worn out, resolved on another line of action. “As she could not banish the rats,” to use her own words, “she would scuttle the ship.” To explain her project, I must go back in my story, and state that her nephew, George Barrington, had sent over to England, some fifteen years before, a little girl, whom he, called his daughter. She was consigned to the care of his banker in London, with directions that he should communicate with Mr. Peter Barrington, announce the child’s safe arrival, and consult with him as to her future destination. Now, when the event took place, Barrington was in the very crisis of his disasters. Overwhelmed with debts, pursued by creditors, regularly hunted down, he was driven day by day to sign away most valuable securities for mere passing considerations, and obliged to accept any conditions for daily support He answered the banker’s letter, briefly stating his great embarrassment, and begging him to give the child his protection for a few weeks or so, till some arrangement of his affairs might enable him to offer her a home. This time, however, glided over, and the hoped-for amendment never came,—far from it. Writs were out against him, and he was driven to seek a refuge in the Isle of Man, at that time the special sanctuary of insolvent sinners. Mr. Leonard Gower wrote again, and proposed that, if no objection would be made to the plan, the child should be sent to a certain convent near Namur, in the Netherlands, where his own daughter was then placed for her education. Aunt Dinah would have rejected,—ay, or would have resented such a proposal as an insult, had the world but gone on better with them. That her grand-niece should be brought up a Catholic was an outrage on the whole Barring-ton blood. But calamity had brought her low,—very low, indeed. The child, too, was a heathen,—a Hindoo or a Buddhist, perhaps,—for the mother was a native woman, reputed, indeed, to be a princess. But who could know this? Who could vouch that George was ever married at all, or if such a ceremony were possible? All these were “attenuating circumstances,” and as such she accepted them; and the measure of her submission was filled up when she received a portrait of the little girl, painted by a native artist. It represented a dark-skinned, heavy-browed child, with wide, full eyes, thick lips, and an expression at once florid and sullen,—not any of the traits one likes to associate with infancy,—and it was with a half shudder Aunt Dinah closed the miniature, and declared that “the sight of the little savage actually frightened her.” Not so poor Barrington. He professed to see a great resemblance to his son. It was George all over. To be sure, his eyes were deep blue, and his hair a rich brown; but there was something in the nose, or perhaps it was in the mouth,—no, it was the chin,—ay, it was the chin was George’s. It was the Barrington chin, and no mistake about it. At all events, no opposition was made to the banker’s project, and the little girl was sent off to the convent of the Holy Cross, on the banks of the Meuse. She was inscribed on the roll as the Princess Doondiah, and bore the name till her father’s death, when Mr. Gower suggested that she should be called by her family name. The letter with the proposal, by some accident, was not acknowledged, and the writer, taking silence to mean consent, desired the superior to address her, henceforth, as Miss Barrington; the first startling intimation of the change being a strangely, quaintly written note, addressed to her grand-aunt, and signed “Josephine Barrington.” It was a cold, formal letter,—so very formal, indeed, as to read like the copy of a document,—asking for leave to enter upon a novitiate of two years’ duration, at the expiration of which she would be nineteen years of age, and in a position to decide upon taking the veil for life. The permission, very urgently pressed for by Mr. Gower in another letter, was accorded, and now we have arrived at that period in which but three months only remained of the two years whose closure was to decide her fate forever. Barrington had long yearned to see her. It was with deep and bitter self-reproach he thought over the cold neglect they had shown her. She was all that remained of poor George, his boy,—for so he called him, and so he thought of him,—long after the bronzed cheek and the prematurely whitened hair had tempered his manhood. To be sure, all the world said, and he knew himself, how it was chiefly through the “boy’s” extravagance he came to ruin. But it was over now. The event that sobers down reproach to sorrow had come. He was dead! All that arose to memory of him were the traits that suggested hopes of his childhood, or gave triumph in his riper years; and oh, is it not better thus? for what hearts would be left us if we were to carry in them the petty rancors and jealousies which once filled them, but which, one day, we buried in the cold clay of the churchyard. Aunt Dinah, moved by reasons long canvassed over in her own mind, at last began to think of recalling her grand-niece. It was so very bold a project that, at first, she could scarcely entertain it. The Popery was very dreadful! Her imagination conjured up the cottage converted into a little Baal, with false gods and graven images, and holy-water fonts at every turn; but the doubtful legitimacy was worse again. She had a theory that it was by lapses of this kind the “blue blood” of old families grew deteriorated, and that the downfall of many an ancient house was traceable to these corruptions. Far better, she deemed it, that the Barringtons should die out forever than their line be continued by this base and ignoble grafting. There is a contre for every pour in this world. It may be a weak and an insufficient one, it is true; but it is a certainty that all our projects must come to a debtor or creditor reckoning, and the very best we can do is to strike an honest balance! How Miss Dinah essayed to do this we shall learn in the next chapter and what follows it. CHAPTER II. A WET MORNING AT HOME If there was anything that possessed more than common terror for Barrington, it was a wet day at the cottage! It was on these dreary visitations that his sister took the opportunity of going into “committee of supply,”—an occasion not merely for the discussion of fiscal matters, but for asking the most vexatious questions and demanding the most unpleasant explanations. We can all, more or less, appreciate the happiness of that right honorable gentleman on the Treasury bench who has to reply to the crude and unmeaning inquiries of some aspiring Oppositionist, and who wishes to know if her Majesty’s Government have demanded an indemnity from the King of Dahomey for the consul’s family eaten by him at the last court ceremonial? What compensation is to be given to Captain Balrothery for his week’s imprisonment at Leghorn, in consequence of his having thrown the customs officer and a landing waiter into the sea? Or what mark of her Majesty’s favor will the noble lord recommend should be conferred upon Ensign Digges for the admirable imitation he gave of the dancing dervishes at Benares, and the just ridicule he thus threw upon these degrading and heathenish rites? It was to a torture of this order, far more reasonable and pertinent, however, that Barrington usually saw himself reduced whenever the weather was so decidedly unfavorable that egress was impossible. Poor fellow, what shallow pretexts would he stammer out for absenting himself from home, what despicable subterfuges to put off an audience! He had forgotten to put down the frame on that melon-bed. There was that awning over the boat not taken in. He ‘d step out to the stable and give Billy, the pony, a touch of the white oils on that swelled hock. He ‘d see if they had got the young lambs under cover. In fact, from his perturbed and agitated manner, you would have imagined that rain was one of the rarest incidents of an Irish climate, and only the very promptest measures could mitigate the calamity. “May I ask where you are off to in such haste, Peter?” asked Miss Dinah one morning, just as Barrington had completed all his arrangements for a retreat; far readier to brave the elements than the more pitiless pelting that awaited him within doors. “I just remembered,” said he, mildly, “that I had left two night-lines out at the point, and with this fresh in the river it would be as well if I ‘d step down and see—” “And see if the river was where it was yesterday,” broke she in, sneeringly. “No, Dinah. But you see that there ‘s this to be remarked about night-lines—” “That they never catch any fish!” said she, sternly. “It’s no weather for you to go tramping about in the wet grass. You made fuss enough about your lumbago last week, and I suppose you don’t want it back again. Besides,”—and here her tongue grew authoritative,—“I have got up the books.” And with these words she threw on the table a number of little greasy-looking volumes, over which poor Barrington’s sad glances wandered, pretty much as might a victim’s over the thumb-screws and the flesh-nippers of the Holy Inquisition. “I’ve a slight touch of a headache this morning, Dinah.” “It won’t be cured by going out in the rain. Sit down there,” said she, peremptorily, “and see with your own eyes how much longer your means will enable you to continue these habits of waste and extravagance.” “These what?” said he, perfectly astounded. “These habits of waste and extravagance, Peter Barring-ton. I repeat my words.” Had a venerable divine, being asked on the conclusion of an edifying discourse, for how much longer it might be his intention to persist in such ribaldries, his astonishment could scarce have been greater than Barrington’s. “Why, sister Dinah, are we not keeping an inn? Is not this the ‘Fisherman’s Home’?” “I should think it is, Peter,” said she, with scorn. “I suspect he finds it so. A very excellent name for it it is!” “Must I own that I don’t understand you, Dinah?” “Of course you don’t. You never did all your life. You never knew you were wet till you were half drowned, and that’s what the world calls having such an amiable disposition! Ain’t your friends nice friends? They are always telling you how generous you are,— how free-handed,—how benevolent. What a heart he has! Ay, but thank Providence there’s very little of that charming docility about me, is there?” “None, Dinah,—none,” said he, not in the least suspecting to what he was bearing testimony. She became crimson in a minute, and in a tone of some emotion said, “And if there had been, where should you and where should I be to-day? On the parish, Peter Barrington,—on the parish; for it ‘s neither your head nor your hands would have saved us from it.” “You’re right, Dinah; you’re right there. You never spoke a truer word.” And his voice trembled as he said it. “I did n’t mean that, Peter,” said she, eagerly; “but you are too confiding, too trustful. Perhaps it takes a woman to detect all the little wiles and snares that entangle us in our daily life?” “Perhaps it does,” said he, with a deep sigh. “At all events, you needn’t sigh over it, Peter Barring-ton. It’s not one of those blemishes in human nature that have to be deplored so feelingly. I hope women are as good as men.” “Fifty thousand times better, in every quality of kindliness and generosity.” “Humph!” said she, tossing her head impatiently. “We ‘re not here for a question in ethics; it is to the very lowly task of examining the house accounts I would invite your attention. Matters cannot go on as they do now, if we mean to keep a roof over us.” “But I have always supposed we were doing pretty well, Dinah. You know we never promised ourselves to gain a fortune by this venture; the very utmost we ever hoped for was to help us along,—to aid us to make both ends meet at the end of the year And as Darby tells me—” “Oh, Darby tells you! What a reliable authority to quote from! Oh, don’t groan so heavily! I forgot myself. I would n’t for the world impeach such fidelity or honesty as his.” “Be reasonable, sister Dinah,—do be reasonable; and if there is anything to lay to his charge—” “You ‘ll hear the case, I suppose,” cried she, in a voice high-pitched in passion. “You ‘ll sit up there, like one of your favorite judges, and call on Dinah Barrington against Cassan; and perhaps when the cause is concluded we shall reverse our places, and I become the defendant! But if this is your intention, brother Barrington, give me a little time. I beg I may have a little time.” Now, this was a very favorite request of Miss Barring-ton’s, and she usually made it in the tone of a martyr; but truth obliges us to own that never was a demand less justifiable. Not a three-decker of the Channel fleet was readier for a broadside than herself. She was always at quarters and with a port-fire burning. Barrington did not answer this appeal; he never moved,—he scarcely appeared to breathe, so guarded was he lest his most unintentional gesture should be the subject of comment. “When you have recovered from your stupefaction,” said she, calmly, “will you look over that line of figures, and then give a glance at this total? After that I will ask you what fortune could stand it.” “This looks formidable, indeed,” said he, poring over the page through his spectacles. “It is worse, Peter. It is formidable.” “After all, Dinah, this is expenditure. Now for the incomings!” “I suspect you ‘ll have to ask your prime minister for them. Perhaps he may vouchsafe to tell you how many twenty-pound notes have gone to America, who it was that consigned a cargo of new potatoes to Liverpool, and what amount he invested in yarn at the last fair of Graigue? and when you have learned these facts, you will know all you are ever likely to know of your profits!” I have no means of conveying the intense scorn with which she uttered the last word of this speech. “And he told me—not a week back—that we were going on famously!” “Why wouldn’t he? I ‘d like to hear what else he could say. Famously, indeed, for him with a strong balance in the savings-bank, and a gold watch—yes, Peter, a gold watch—in his pocket. This is no delusion, nor illusion, or whatever you call it, of mine, but a fact, —a downright fact.” “He has been toiling hard many a year for it, Dinah, don’t forget that.” “I believe you want to drive me mad, Peter. You know these are things that I can’t bear, and that’s the reason you say them. Toil, indeed! I never saw him do anything except sit on a gate at the Lock Meadows, with a pipe in his mouth; and if you asked him what he was there for, it was a ‘track’ he was watching, a ‘dog-fox that went by every afternoon to the turnip field.’ Very great toil that was!” “There was n’t an earth-stopper like him in the three next counties; and if I was to have a pack of foxhounds tomorrow—” “You ‘d just be as great a foot as ever you were, and the more sorry I am to hear it; but you ‘re not going to be tempted, Peter Barrington. It’s not foxes we have to think of, but where we ‘re to find shelter for ourselves.” “Do you know of anything we could turn to, more profitable, Dinah?” asked he, mildly. “There ‘s nothing could be much less so, I know that! You are not very observant, Peter, but even to you it must have become apparent that great changes have come over the world in a few years. The persons who formerly indulged their leisure were all men of rank and fortune. Who are the people who come over here now to amuse themselves? Staleybridge and Manchester creatures, with factory morals and bagman manners; treating our house like a commercial inn, and actually disputing the bill and asking for items. Yes, Peter, I overheard a fellow telling Darby last week that the ‘’ouse was dearer than the Halbion!’” “Travellers will do these things, Dinah.” “And if they do, they shall be shown the door for it, as sure as my name is Dinah Barrington.” “Let us give up the inn altogether, then,” said he, with a sudden impatience. “The very thing I was going to propose, Peter,” said she, solemnly. “What!—how?” cried he, for the acceptance of what only escaped him in a moment of anger overwhelmed and stunned him. “How are we to live, Dinah?” “Better without than with it,—there’s my answer to that. Let us look the matter fairly in the face, Peter,” said she, with a calm and measured utterance. “This dealing with the world ‘on honor’ must ever be a losing game. To screen ourselves from the vulgar necessities of our condition, we must submit to any terms. So long as our intercourse with life gave us none but gentlemen to deal with, we escaped well and safely. That race would seem to have thinned off of late, however; or, what comes to the same, there is such a deluge of spurious coin one never knows what is real gold.” “You may be right, Dinah; you may be right.” “I know I am right; the experience has been the growth of years too. All our efforts to escape the odious contact of these people have multiplied our expenses. Where one man used to suffice, we keep three. You yourself, who felt it no indignity to go out a-fishing formerly with a chance traveller, have to own with what reserve and caution you would accept such companionship now.” “Nay, nay, Dinah, not exactly so far as that—” “And why not? Was it not less than a fortnight ago three Birmingham men crossed the threshold, calling out for old Peter,—was old Peter to the good yet?” “They were a little elevated with wine, sister, remember that; and, besides, they never knew, never had heard of me in my once condition.” “And are we so changed that they cannot recognize the class we pertain to?” “Not you, Dinah, certainly not you; but I frankly own I can put up with rudeness and incivility better than a certain showy courtesy some vulgar people practise towards me. In the one case I feel I am not known, and my secret is safe. In the other, I have to stand out as the ruined gentleman, and I am not always sure that I play the part as gracefully as I ought.” “Let us leave emotions, Peter, and descend to the lowland of arithmetic, by giving up two boatmen, John and Terry—” “Poor Terry!” sighed he, with a faint, low accent “Oh! if it be ‘poor Terry!’ I ‘ve done,” said she, closing the book, and throwing it down with a slap that made him start. “Nay, dear Dinah; but if we could manage to let him have something,—say five shillings a week,—he ‘d not need it long; and the port wine that was doing his rheumatism such good is nearly finished; he’ll miss it sorely.” “Were you giving him Henderson’s wine,—the ‘11 vintage?” cried she, pale with indignation. “Just a bottle or two, Dinah; only as medicine.” “As a fiddlestick, sir! I declare I have no patience with you; there ‘s no excuse for such folly, not to say the ignorance of giving these creatures what they never were used to. Did not Dr. Dill tell you that tonics, to be effective, must always have some relation to the daily habits of the patient?” “Very true, Dinah; but the discourse was pronounced when I saw him putting a bottle of old Madeira in his gig that I had left for Anne M’Cafferty, adding, he ‘d send her something far more strengthening.” “Right or wrong, I don’t care; but this I know, Terry Dogherty is n’t going to finish off Henderson’s port. It is rather too much to stand, that we are to be treating beggars to luxuries, when we can’t say to-morrow where we shall find salt for our potatoes.” This was a somewhat favorite illustration of Miss Barrington,—either implying that the commodity was an essential to human life, or the use of it an emblem of extreme destitution. “I conclude we may dispense with Tom Divett’s services,” resumed she. “We can assuredly get on without a professional rat- catcher.” “If we should, Dinah, we’ll feel the loss; the rats make sad havoc of the spawn, and destroy quantities of the young fish, besides.” “His two ugly terriers eat just as many chickens, and never leave us an egg in the place. And now for Mr. Darby—” “You surely don’t think of parting with Darby, sister Dinah?” “He shall lead the way,” replied she, in a firm and peremptory voice; “the very first of the batch! And it will, doubtless, be a great comfort to you to know that you need not distress yourself about any provision for his declining years. It is a care that he has attended to on his own part. He ‘ll go back to a very well-feathered nest, I promise you.” Barrington sighed heavily, for he had a secret sorrow on that score. He knew, though his sister did not, that he had from year to year been borrowing every pound of Darby’s savings to pay the cost of law charges, always hoping and looking for the time when a verdict in his favor would enable him to restore the money twice told. With a very dreary sigh, then, did he here allude “to the well- feathered nest” of one he had left bare and destitute. He cleared his throat, and made an effort to avow the whole matter; but his courage failed him, and he sat mournfully shaking his head, partly in sorrow, partly in shame. His sister noticed none of these signs; she was rapidly enumerating all the reductions that could be made,—all the dependencies cut off; there were the boats, which constantly required repairs; the nets, eternally being renewed,—all to be discarded; the island, a very pretty little object in the middle of the river, need no longer be rented. “Indeed,” said she, “I don’t know why we took it, except it was to give those memorable picnics you used to have there.” “How pleasant they were, Dinah; how delightful!” said he, totally overlooking the spirit of her remark. “Oh! they were charming, and your own popularity was boundless; but I ‘d have you to bear in mind, brother Peter, that popularity is no more a poor man’s luxury than champagne. It is a very costly indulgence, and can rarely be had on ‘credit.’” Miss Barrington had pared down retrenchment to the very quick. She had shown that they could live not only without boatmen, rat- catchers, gardener, and manservant, but that, as they were to give up their daily newspaper, they could dispense with a full ration of candle-light; and yet, with all these reductions, she declared that there was still another encumbrance to be pruned away, and she proudly asked her brother if he could guess what it was? Now Barrington felt that he could not live without a certain allowance of food, nor would it be convenient, or even decent, to dispense with raiment; so he began, as a last resource, to conjecture that his sister was darkly hinting at something which might be a substitute for a home, and save house-rent; and he half testily exclaimed, “I suppose we ‘re to have a roof over us, Dinah!” “Yes,” said she, dryly, “I never proposed we should go and live in the woods. What I meant had a reference, to Josephine—” Barrington’s cheek flushed deeply in an instant, and, with a voice trembling with emotion, he said,— “If you mean, Dinah, that I’m to cut off that miserable pittance—that forty pounds a year—I give to poor George’s girl—” He stopped, for he saw that in his sister’s face which might have appalled a bolder heart than his own; for while her eyes flashed fire, her thin lips trembled with passion; and so, in a very faltering humility, he added: “But you never meant that sister Dinah. You would be the very last in the world to do it.” “Then why impute it to me; answer me that?” said she, crossing her hands behind her back, and staring haughtily at him. “Just because I ‘m clean at my wits’ end,—just because I neither understand one word I hear, or what I say in reply. If you ‘ll just tell me what it is you propose, I ‘ll do my best, with God’s blessing, to follow you; but don’t ask me for advice, Dinah, and don’t fly out because I ‘m not as quick-witted and as clever as yourself.” There was something almost so abject in his misery that she seemed touched by it, and, in a voice of a very calm and kindly meaning, she said,— “I have been thinking a good deal over that letter of Josephine’s; she says she wants our consent to take the veil as a nun; that, by the rules of the order, when her novitiate is concluded, she must go into the world for at least some months,—a time meant to test her faithfulness to her vows, and the tranquillity with which she can renounce forever all the joys and attractions of life. We, it is true, have no means of surrounding her with such temptations; but we might try and supply their place by some less brilliant but not less attractive ones. We might offer her, what we ought to have offered her years ago,—a home! What do you say to this, Peter?” “That I love you for it, sister Dinah, with all my heart,” said he, kissing her on each cheek; “that it makes me happier than I knew I ever was to be again.” “Of course, to bring Josephine here, this must not be an inn, Peter.” “Certainly not, Dinah,—certainly not. But I can think of nothing but the joy of seeing her,—poor George’s child I How I have yearned to know if she was like him,—if she had any of his ways, any traits of that quaint, dry humor he had, and, above all, of that disposition that made him so loved by every one.” “And cheated by every one too, brother Peter; don’t forget that!” “Who wants to think of it now?” said he, sorrowfully. “I never reject a thought because it has unpleasant associations. It would be but a sorry asylum which only admitted the well-to-do and the happy.” “How are we to get the dear child here, Dinah? Let us consider the matter. It is a long journey off.” “I have thought of that too,” said she, sententiously, “but not made up my mind.” “Let us ask M’Cormick about it, Dinah; he’s coming up this evening to play his Saturday night’s rubber with Dill. He knows the Continent well.” “There will be another saving that I did n’t remember, Peter. The weekly bottle of whiskey, and the candles, not to speak of the four or five shillings your pleasant companions invariably carry away with them,—all may be very advantageously dispensed with.” “When Josephine ‘s here, I ‘ll not miss it,” said he, good-humoredly. Then suddenly remembering that his sister might not deem the speech a gracious one to herself, he was about to add something; but she was gone. CHAPTER III. OUR NEXT NEIGHBORS Should there be amongst my readers any one whose fortune it has been in life only to associate with the amiable, the interesting, and the agreeable, all whose experiences of mankind are rose-tinted, to him I would say, Skip over two people I am now about to introduce, and take up my story at some later stage, for I desire to be truthful, and, as is the misfortune of people in my situation, I may be very disagreeable. After all, I may have made more excuses than were needful. The persons I would present are in that large category, the commonplace, and only as uninviting and as tiresome as we may any day meet in a second-class on the railroad. Flourish, therefore, penny trumpets, and announce Major M’Cormick. The Major, so confidently referred to by Barrington in our last chapter as a high authority on matters continental, was a very shattered remnant of the unhappy Walcheren expedition. He was a small, mean-looking, narrow-faced man, with a thin, bald head, and red whiskers. He walked very lame from an injury to his hip; “his wound,” he called it, though his candor did not explain that it was incurred by being thrown down a hatchway by a brother officer in a drunken brawl. In character he was a saving, penurious creature, without one single sympathy outside his own immediate interests. When some sixteen or eighteen years before the Barringtons had settled in the neighborhood, the Major began to entertain thoughts of matrimony. Old soldiers are rather given to consider marriage as an institution especially intended to solace age and console rheumatism, and so M’Cormick debated with himself whether he had not arrived at the suitable time for this indulgence, and also whether Miss Dinah Barrington was not the individual destined to share his lot and season his gruel. But a few years back and his ambition would as soon have aspired to an archduchess as to the sister of Barrington, of Barrington Hall, whose realms of social distinction separated them; but now, fallen from their high estate, forgotten by the world, and poor, they had come down—at least, he thought so—to a level in which there would be no presumption in his pretensions. Indeed, I half suspect that he thought there was something very high-minded and generous in his intentions with regard to them. At all events, there was a struggle of some sort in his mind which went on from year to year undecided. Now, there are men—for the most part old bachelors— to whom an unfinished project is a positive luxury, who like to add, day by day, a few threads to the web of fate, but no more. To the Major it was quite enough that “some fine day or other”—so he phrased it—he ‘d make his offer, just as he thought how, in the same propitious weather, he ‘d put a new roof on his cottage, and fill up that quarry-hole near his gate, into which he had narrowly escaped tumbling some half-dozen times. But thanks to his caution and procrastination, the roof, and the project, and the quarry-hole were exactly, or very nearly, in the same state they had been eighteen years before. Rumor said—as rumor will always say whatever has a tinge of ill-nature in it—that Miss Barrington would have accepted him; vulgar report declared that she would “jump at the offer.” Whether this be, or not, the appropriate way of receiving a matrimonial proposal, the lady was not called upon to display her activity. He never told his love. It is very hard to forgive that secretary, home or foreign, who in the day of his power and patronage could, but did not, make us easy for life with this mission or that com-missionership. It is not easy to believe that our uncle the bishop could not, without any undue strain upon his conscience, have made us something, albeit a clerical error, in his diocese, but infinitely more difficult is it to pardon him who, having suggested dreams of wedded happiness, still stands hesitating, doubting, and canvassing,—a timid bather, who shivers on the beach, and then puts on his clothes again. It took a long time—it always does in such cases—ere Miss Barrington came to read this man aright. Indeed, the light of her own hopes had dazzled her, and she never saw him clearly till they were extinguished; but when the knowledge did come, it came trebled with compound interest, and she saw him in all that displayed his miserable selfishness; and although her brother, who found it hard to believe any one bad who had not been tried for a capital felony, would explain away many a meanness by saying, “It is just his way,— a way, and no more!” she spoke out fearlessly, if not very discreetly, and declared she detested him. Of course she averred it was his manners, his want of breeding, and his familiarity that displeased her. He might be an excellent creature,—perhaps he was; that was nothing to her. All his moral qualities might have an interest for his friends; she was a mere acquaintance, and was only concerned for what related to his bearing in society. Then Walcheren was positively odious to her. Some little solace she felt at the thought that the expedition was a failure and inglorious; but when she listened to the fiftieth time-told tale of fever and ague, she would sigh, not for those who suffered, but over the one that escaped. It is a great blessing to men of uneventful lives and scant imagination when there is any one incident to which memory can refer unceasingly. Like some bold headland last seen at sea, it lives in the mind throughout the voyage. Such was this i...