The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 1. Lever Charles James
of the country, treating them as very subordinate persons in all the relations in which good-breeding and social intercourse are concerned; and this impression, whether well or ill founded, induced many to suspect intentional insult in those chance occurrences which arise out of thoughtlessness and want of memory.
If the party now assembled manifested any portion of this feeling, it was not sufficient to interrupt the flow of conversation, which took its course in channels the most various and dissimilar. The individuals were intimate, or, at least, familiar with each other, and, through all the topics of hunting, farming, politics, and horse-racing, ran a tone of free and easy raillery that kept a laugh moving up and down the table, or occasionally occupying it entirely. The little chill which marked Forester’s first entrance into the room wore off soon, and ere the dinner was over he had drunk wine with nearly every man of the party, and accepted invitations to hunt, course, and shoot in at least a dozen different quarters. Lionel Darcy’s friend, as he was soon known to be, was speedily made the object of every attention and civility among the younger members of the company, while even the older and less susceptible reserved their judgments on one they had at first received with some distrust.
Forester had seen in the capital some specimens of those hard-drinking habits which characterized the period, but was still unprepared for the determined and resolute devotion to the bottle which at once succeeded to the dinner. The claret-jugs coursed round the table with a rapidity that seemed sleight of hand, and few refrained from filling a bumper every time. With all his determination to preserve a cool head and a calm judgment, Forester felt that, what between the noisy tumult of the scene, the fumes of wine, and the still more intoxicating excitement of this exaggerated conviviality, he could listen to tales of miraculous performances in the hunting-field, or feats of strength and activity more than mortal, with a degree of belief, or, at least, sufferance, he could scarcely have summoned a few hours earlier.
If wine expands the heart, it has a similar influence on the credulity; and belief, when divested of the trammels of cool judgment, takes a flight which even imagination might envy. It was in a frame of mind reduced to something like this, amid the loud voices of some, the louder laughter of others, strange and absurd bets as eagerly accepted as proffered, that he became suddenly mindful of his own wager made with the stranger at Kilbeggan, and the result of which he had pledged himself to test at the very first opportunity.
No sooner had he mentioned the fact than the interests of the company, directed before into so many different channels, became centred upon the circumstance, and questions and inquiries were rapidly poured in upon him to explain the exact nature of the wager, which in the then hallucination of the party was not an over-easy task.
“You are to describe the stranger, Captain Forester, and we are to guess his name: that I take it is the substance of the bet,” said a thin-faced, dark-eyed man, with a soft silkiness of accent very unlike the others. This was Mr. Hickman O’Reilly, member for the county, and colleague of “the Knight” himself.
“Yes, that is exactly what I mean. If my portrait be recognized, I ‘ve won my bet.”
“May I ask another question?” said Mr. O’Reilly. “Are we to pronounce only from the evidence before us, or are we at liberty to guess the party from other circumstances known to ourselves?”
“Of course, from the evidence only,” interrupted a red-faced man of about five-and-thirty, with an air and manner which boded no small reliance on his own opinion; then, mimicking the solemnity of a judge, he addressed the assembled party thus: “The gentlemen of the jury will dismiss from their minds everything they may hear touching the case outside this court, and base their verdict solely on the testimony they shall now hear.” These few words were delivered in a pompous and snuffling tone, and, it was easy to see, from the laughter they excited, were an accurate imitation of some one well known to the company.
Mr. Alexander MacDonough was, however, a tolerably successful mimic, and had practised as an attorney until the death of an uncle enabled him to exercise his abilities in the not less crafty calling of a squireen gentleman; he was admitted by a kind of special favor into the best county society, for no other reason, as it seemed, than that it never occurred to any one to exclude him. He was a capital horseman, never turned from a fence in his life, and a noted shot with the pistol, in which his prowess had been more than once tried on “the ground.” Probably, however, these qualities would scarcely have procured him acceptance where he now sat, if it were not that he was looked upon as the necessary accompaniment of Mr. Hickman O’Reilly and his son Beecham, not indeed to illustrate their virtues and display their good gifts, but as a species of moral blister, irritating and maddening them eternally.
They had both more money and ambition than MacDonough, had taken higher and wider views of life, and were strenuously working up from the slough of a plebeian origin to the high and dry soil of patrician security. To them, MacDonough was a perfect curse; he was what sailors call “a point of departure,” everlastingly reminding them of the spot from which they had sailed, and tauntingly hinting how, with all their canvas spread, they had scarcely gained blue water.
Of the O’Reillys a few words are necessary. Three generations were still living, each depicting most strikingly the gradations by which successful thrift and industry transmute the man of humble position into the influential grade of an estated gentleman: the grandfather was an apothecary of Loughrea; the son, an agent, a money-lender, and an M. P.; and the grandson, an Etonian and a fellow-commoner of Balliol, emerging into life with the prospect of a great estate, unencumbered with debt, considerable county influence, and, not least of all, the ricochet of that favor with which the Government regarded his pliant parent.
To all of these, MacDonough was insupportable, nor was there any visible escape from the insolent familiarity of his manner. Flattery had been tried in vain; all their blandishments could do nothing with one who well knew that his own acceptance into society depended on his powers of annoying; if not performing the part of torturer, he had no share in the piece; a quarrel with him was equally out of the question, for even supposing such an appeal safe, – which it was very far from being, – it would have reflected most disadvantageously on the O’Reillys to have been mixed up in altercation with a man so much beneath themselves as Alexander MacDonough of “The Tenement;” for such, in slang phrase, did he designate his country residence.
Let us now return from this long but indispensable digression to the subject which suggested it.
So many questions were put, explanations demanded, doubts suggested, and advices thrown out to Forester that it was not until after a considerable lapse of time he was enabled to commence his description of the unknown traveller, nor even then was he suffered to proceed without interruption, a demand being made by MacDonough that the absent individual was entitled to counsel, who should look after his interests, and, if necessary, cross-examine the evidence. All this was done in that style of comic seriousness to which Forester was so little accustomed that, what with the effect of wine, heat, and noise, combined with the well-assumed gravity of the party, he really forgot the absurdity of the whole affair, and became as eager and attentive as though the event were one of deep importance.
It was at last decided that MacDonough should act as counsel for the unknown, and the company should vote separately, each writing down on a slip of paper their impression of the individual designated, the result being tested by the majority in favor of any one person.
“Gentlemen of the jury,” said the host, in a voice of deep solemnity, “you will hear and well weigh the evidence before you touching this case, and decide with truth and conscience on its merits; so fill a bumper and let us begin. Make your statement, Captain Forester.”
The sudden silence succeeding to the tumultuous uproar, the directed gaze of so many eager faces, and the evident attention with which his statement was awaited, conspired to make Forester nervous and uneasy; nor was it without something of an effort that he began the recital of his adventure at Kilbeggan. Warming as he proceeded, he told of the accident by which his acquaintance with the unknown traveller was opened, and at length, having given so much of preliminary, entered upon the description of the individual.
Whatever Forester’s own impression of the stranger, he soon felt how very difficult a task portrait-painting was, and how very unlike was his representation