Barrington. Volume 1. Lever Charles James
now become a nature to him, or whether he had no liking for the service itself, or whether the change from a condition of almost princely state to a position of mere equality with others, chafed and irritated him, but so is it, he did not “take to” the regiment, nor the regiment to him.
Now it is a fact, and not a very agreeable fact either, that a man with a mass of noble qualities may fail to attract the kindliness and good feeling towards him which a far less worthy individual, merely by certain traits, or by the semblance of them, of a yielding, passive nature is almost sure to acquire.
Conyers was generous, courageous, and loyal, in the most chivalrous sense of that word, to every obligation of friendship. He was eminently truthful and honorable; but he had two qualities whose baneful influence would disparage the very best of gifts. He was “imperious,” and, in the phrase of his brother officers, “he never gave in.” Some absurd impression had been made on him, as a child, that obstinacy and persistency were the noblest of attributes, and that, having said a thing, no event or circumstance could ever occur to induce a change of opinion.
Such a quality is singularly unfitted to youth, and marvellously out of place in a regiment; hence was it that the “Rajah,” as he was generally called by his comrades, had few intimates, and not one friend amongst them.
If I have dwelt somewhat lengthily on these traits, it is because their possessor is one destined to be much before us in this history. I will but chronicle one other feature. I am sorry it should be a disqualifying one. Owing in great measure, perhaps altogether, to his having been brought up in the East, where Hindoo craft and subtlety were familiarized to his mind from infancy, he was given to suspect that few things were ever done from the motives ascribed to them, and that under the open game of life was another concealed game, which was the real one. As yet, this dark and pernicious distrust had only gone the length of impressing him with a sense of his own consummate acuteness, an amount of self-satisfaction, which my reader may have seen tingeing the few words he exchanged with his Colonel before separating.
Let us see him now as he sits in a great easy-chair, his sprained ankle resting on another, in a little honeysuckle-covered arbor of the garden, a table covered with books and fresh flowers beside him, while Darby stands ready to serve him from the breakfast-table, where a very tempting meal is already spread out.
“So, then, I can’t see your master, it seems,” said Con-yers, half peevishly.
“Faix you can’t; he’s ten miles off by this. He got a letter by the post, and set out half an hour after for Kilkenny. He went to your honor’s door, but seeing you was asleep he would n’t wake you; ‘but, Darby,’ says he, ‘take care of that young gentleman, and mind,’ says he, ‘that he wants for nothing.’”
“Very thoughtful of him, – very considerate indeed,” said the youth; but in what precise spirit it is not easy to say.
“Who lives about here? What gentlemen’s places are there, I mean?”
“There’s Lord Carrackmore, and Sir Arthur Godfrey, and Moore of Ballyduff, and Mrs. Powerscroft of the Grove – ”
“Do any of these great folks come down here?”
Darby would like to have given a ready assent, – he would have been charmed to say that they came daily, that they made the place a continual rendezvous; but as he saw no prospect of being able to give his fiction even twenty-four hours’ currency, he merely changed from one leg to the other, and, in a tone of apology, said, “Betimes they does, when the sayson is fine.”
“Who are the persons who are most frequently here?”
“Those two that you saw last night, – the Major and Dr. Dill. They ‘re up here every second day, fishing, and eating their dinner with the master.”
“Is the fishing good?”
“The best in Ireland.”
“And what shooting is there, – any partridges?”
“Partridges, be gorra! You could n’t see the turnips for them.”
“And woodcocks?”
“Is it woodcocks! The sky is black with the sight of them.”
“Any lions?”
“Well, maybe an odd one now and then,” said Darby, half apologizing for the scarcity.
There was an ineffable expression of self-satisfaction in Conyers’s face at the subtlety with which he had drawn Darby into this admission; and the delight in his own acuteness led him to offer the poor fellow a cigar, which he took with very grateful thanks.
“From what you tell me, then, I shall find this place stupid enough till I am able to be up and about, eh? Is there any one who can play chess hereabout?”
“Sure there’s Miss Dinah; she’s a great hand at it, they tell me.”
“And who is Miss Dinah? Is she young, – is she pretty?”
Darby gave a very cautious look all around him, and then closing one eye, so as to give his face a look of intense cunning, he nodded very significantly twice.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mane that she’ll never see sixty; and for the matter of beauty – ”
“Oh, you have said quite enough; I ‘m not curious about her looks. Now for another point. If I should want to get away from this, what other inn or hotel is there in the neighborhood?”
“There’s Joe M’Cabe’s, at Inistioge; but you are better where you are. Where will you see fresh butter like that? and look at the cream, the spoon will stand in it. Far and near it’s given up to her that nobody can make coffee like Miss Dinah; and when you taste them trout, you ‘ll tell me if they are not fit for the king.”
“Everything is excellent, – could not be better; but there’s a difficulty. There’s a matter which to me at least makes a stay here most unpleasant. My friend tells me that he could not get his bill, – that he was accepted as a guest. Now I can’t permit this – ”
“There it is, now,” said Darby, approaching the table, and dropping his voice to a confidential whisper. “That’s the master’s way. If he gets a stranger to sit down with him to dinner or supper, he may eat and drink as long as he plases, and sorra sixpence he’ll pay; and it’s that same ruins us, nothing else, for it’s then he ‘ll call for the best sherry, and that ould Maderia that’s worth a guinea a bottle. What’s the use, after all, of me inflaming the bill of the next traveller, and putting down everything maybe double? And worse than all,” continued he, in a tone of horror, “let him only hear any one complain about his bill or saying, ‘What’s this?’ or ‘I didn’t get that,’ out he’ll come, as mighty and as grand as the Lord-Liftinint, and say, ‘I ‘m sorry, sir, that we failed to make this place agreeable to you. Will you do me the favor not to mind the bill at all?’ and with that he’d tear it up in little bits and walk away.”
“To me that would only be additional offence. I ‘d not endure it.”
“What could you do? You’d maybe slip a five-pound note into my hand, and say, ‘Darby my man, settle this little matter for me; you know the ways of the place.’”
“I ‘ll not risk such an annoyance, at all events; that I ‘m determined on.”
Darby began now to perceive that he had misconceived his brief, and must alter his pleadings as quickly as possible; in fact, he saw he was “stopping an earth” he had meant merely to mask. “Just leave it all to me, your honor, – leave it all to me, and I ‘ll have your bill for you every morning on the breakfast-table. And why would n’t you? Why would a gentleman like your honor be behouldin’ to any one for his meat and drink?” burst he in, with an eager rapidity. “Why would n’t you say, ‘Darby, bring me this, get me that, fetch me the other; expinse is no object in life tome’?”
There was a faint twinkle of humor in the eye of Conyers, and Darby stopped short, and with that half-lisping simplicity which a few Irishmen understand to perfection, and can exercise whenever