Barrington. Volume 1. Lever Charles James
half-finished decanters, – cares that his sister’s watchfulness very imperatively exacted, – he heard, or fancied he heard, a voice from the room where the sick man lay. He opened the door very gently and looked in.
“All right,” said the youth. “I ‘m not asleep, nor did I want to sleep, for I have been listening to you and the Colonel these two hours, and with rare pleasure, I can tell you. The Colonel would have gone a hundred miles to meet a man like yourself, so fond of the field and such a thorough sportsman.”
“Yes, I was so once,” sighed Barrington, for already had come a sort of reaction to the late excitement.
“Isn’t the Colonel a fine fellow?” said the young man, as eager to relieve the awkwardness of a sad theme as to praise one he loved. “Don’t you like him?”
“That I do!” said Barrington, heartily. “His fine genial spirit has put me in better temper with myself than I fancied was in my nature to be. We are to have some trout-fishing together, and I promise you it sha’n’t be my fault if he doesn’t like me.”
“And may I be of the party? – may I go with you?”
“Only get well of your accident, and you shall do whatever you like. By the way, did not Colonel Hunter serve in India?”
“For fifteen years. He has only left Bengal within a few months.”
“Then he can probably help me to some information. He may be able to tell me – Good-night, good-night,” said he, hurriedly; “to-morrow will be time enough to think of this.”
CHAPTER IV. FRED CONYERS
Very soon after daybreak the Colonel was up and at the bedside of his young friend.
“Sorry to wake you, Fred,” said he, gently; “but I have just got an urgent despatch, requiring me to set out at once for Dublin, and I did n’t like to go without asking how you get on.”
“Oh, much better, sir. I can move the foot a little, and I feel assured it ‘s only a severe sprain.”
“That’s all right. Take your own time, and don’t attempt to move about too early. You are in capital quarters here, and will be well looked after. There is only one difficulty, and I don’t exactly see how to deal with it. Our host is a reduced gentleman, brought down to keep an inn for support, but what benefit he can derive from it is not so very clear; for when I asked the man who fetched me hot water this morning for my bill, he replied that his master told him I was to be his guest here for a week, and not on any account to accept money from me. Ireland is a very strange place, and we are learning something new in it every day; but this is the strangest thing I have met yet.”
“In my case this would be impossible. I must of necessity give a deal of trouble, – not to say that it would add unspeakably to my annoyance to feel that I could not ask freely for what I wanted.”
“I have no reason to suppose, mind you, that you are to be dealt with as I have been, but it would be well to bear in mind who and what these people are.”
“And get away from them as soon as possible,” added the young fellow, half peevishly.
“Nay, nay, Fred; don’t be impatient. You’ll be delighted with the old fellow, who is a heart-and-soul sportsman. What station he once occupied I can’t guess; but in the remarks he makes about horses and hounds, all his knowing hints on stable management and the treatment of young cattle, one would say that he must have had a large fortune and kept a large establishment.”
In the half self-sufficient toss of the head which received this speech, it was plain that the young man thought his Colonel was easily imposed on, and that such pretensions as these would have very little success with him.
“I have no doubt some of your brother officers will take a run down to see how you get on, and, if so, I ‘ll send over a hamper of wine, or something of the kind, that you can manage to make him accept.”
“It will not be very difficult, I opine,” said the young man, laughingly.
“No, no,” rejoined the other, misconstruing the drift of his words. “You have plenty of tact, Fred. You ‘ll do the thing with all due delicacy. And now, good-bye. Let me hear how you fare here.” And with a hearty farewell they parted.
There was none astir in the cottage but Darby as the Colonel set out to gain the high-road, where the post-horses awaited him. From Darby, however, as he went along, he gathered much of his host’s former history. It was with astonishment he learned that the splendid house of Barring-ton Hall, where he had been dining with an earl a few days ago, was the old family seat of that poor innkeeper; that the noble deer-park had once acknowledged him for master. “And will again, plase God!” burst in Darby, who thirsted for an opportunity to launch out into law, and all its bright hopes and prospects.
“We have a record on trial in Trinity Term, and an argument before the twelve Judges, and the case is as plain as the nose on your honor’s face; for it was ruled by Chief Baron Medge, in the great cause of ‘Peter against Todd, a widow,’ that a settlement couldn’t be broke by an estreat.”
“You are quite a lawyer, I see,” said the Colonel.
“I wish I was. I ‘d rather be a judge on the bench than a king on his throne.”
“And yet I am beginning to suspect law may have cost your master dearly.”
“It is not ten, or twenty – no, nor thirty – thousand pounds would see him through it!” said Darby, with a triumph in his tone that seemed to proclaim a very proud declaration. “There ‘s families would be comfortable for life with just what we spent upon special juries.”
“Well, as you tell me he has no family, the injury has been all his own.”
“That’s true. We’re the last of the ould stock,” said he, sorrowfully; and little more passed between them, till the Colonel, on parting, put a couple of guineas in his hand, and enjoined him to look after the young friend he had left behind him.
It is now my task to introduce this young gentleman to my readers. Frederick Conyers, a cornet in his Majesty’s Hussars, was the only son of a very distinguished officer, Lieutenant-General Conyers, a man who had not alone served with great reputation in the field, but held offices of high political trust in India, the country where all his life had been passed. Holding a high station as a political resident at a native court, wielding great power, and surrounded by an undeviating homage, General Conyers saw his son growing up to manhood with everything that could foster pride and minister to self-exaltation around him. It was not alone the languor and indolence of an Eastern life that he had to dread for him, but the haughty temper and overbearing spirit so sure to come out of habits of domination in very early life.
Though he had done all that he could to educate his son, by masters brought at immense cost from Europe, the really important element of education, – the self-control and respect for other’s rights, – only to be acquired by daily life and intercourse with equals, this he could not supply; and he saw, at last, that the project he had so long indulged, of keeping his son with him, must be abandoned. Perhaps the rough speech of an old comrade helped to dispel the illusion, as he asked, “Are you bringing up that boy to be a Rajah?” His first thought was to send him to one of the Universities, his great desire being that the young man should feel some ambition for public life and its distinctions. He bethought him, however, that while the youth of Oxford and Cambridge enter upon a college career, trained by all the discipline of our public schools, Fred would approach the ordeal without any such preparation whatever. Without one to exert authority over him, little accustomed to the exercise of self-restraint, the experiment was too perilous.
To place him, therefore, where, from the very nature of his position, some guidance and control would be exercised, and where by the working of that model democracy – a mess – he would be taught to repress self-sufficiency and presumption, he determined on the army, and obtained a cornetcy in a regiment commanded by one who had long served on his own staff. To most young fellows such an opening in life would have seemed all that was delightful and enjoyable. To be just twenty,