Volume I Part 24 (2/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: 314]

My first thoughts were to affect sleep and not answer, but I saw that there was an eagerness in the manner that would not brook denial, and answered, ”Who 's there?”

”It is I, my dear friend,” said Mrs. Gore Hampton, entering, and closing the door behind her. She came forward to where I was sitting despondingly on the side of the bed, and took a chair in front of me.

”What's the matter; you are surely not ill in reality?” asked she, tenderly.

”I believe I am,” replied I. ”They say in Ireland 'mocking is catching,'

and, faith, I half suspect I 'm going to pay the price of my own deceitfulness.”

”Oh, no, no! you only say that to alarm me. You will be perfectly well when you leave this; the confinement disagrees with you.”

”I think it does,” said I; ”but when are we to go?”

”Immediately; to-night, if possible. I have just received a few lines from the dear Princess--”

”Oh, the Princess!” e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed I, with a faint groan.

”Why, what do you mean?” asked she, eagerly.

”Oh, nothing; go on.”

”But, first tell me, what made you sigh so when I spoke of the Princess?”

”G.o.d knows,” said I; ”I believe my head was wandering.”

”Poor, dear head!” said she, patting me as if I was a small King Charles's spaniel, ”it will be better in the fresh air. The Princess writes to say that we must meet her at Eisenach, since she finds herself too ill to come on here. She urges us to lose no time about it, because the Empress Sophia will be on a visit with her in a few days, which of course would interfere with our seeing her frequently. The letter should have been here yesterday, but she gave it to the Archduke Nicholas, and he only remembered it when he was walking with me this evening.”

These high and mighty names only made me sigh heartily, and she seemed at once to read all that was pa.s.sing within me.

”I see what it is,” said she, with deep emotion; ”you are growing weary of me. You are beginning to regret the n.o.ble chivalry, the generous devotion you had shown me. You are asking yourself, 'What am I to her?

Why should she cling to me?' Cruel question--of a still more cruel answer! But go, sir, return to your family, and leave me if you will to those heartless courtiers who mete out their sympathies by a sovereign's smiles, and only bestow their pity when royalty commands it; and yet, before we part forever, let me here, on my bended knees, thank and bless--” I can't do it, Tom; I can't write it. I find I am blubbering away just as badly as when the scene occurred. Blue eyes half swimming in tears, silky-brown ringlets, and a voice broken by sobs, are shamefully unfair odds against an Irish gentleman on the shady side of fifty-two or three.

It 's all very well for you--sitting quietly at your turf fire--with an old sleepy spaniel snoring on the hearth-rug, and nothing younger in the house than Mrs. Shea, your late wife's aunt--to talk about ”My time of life”--”Grownup daughters”--and so on. ”He scoffs at wounds who never felt a scar.” The fact is, I 'm not a bit more susceptible than other people; I even think I am less yielding--less open to soft influences than many of my acquaintances. I can answer for it, I never found that the strongest persuasions of a tax-gatherer disposed me to look favorably on ”county cess, or a rate-in-aid.” Even the priest acknowledges me a tough subject on the score of Easter dues and offerings. If I know anything about my own nature, it is that I have rather a casuistic, hair-splitting kind of way with me,--the very reverse of your soft, submissive, easily seduced fellows. I was always known as the obstinate juryman at our a.s.sizes, that preferred starvation and a cart to a glib verdict like the others. I am not sure that anybody ever found it an easy task to convince me about anything, except, perhaps, Mrs. D., and then, Tom, it was not precisely ”conviction,”--_that_ was something else.

I think I have now made out a sufficient defence of myself, and I'll not make the lawyer's blunder of proving too much. Give me the same lat.i.tude that is always conceded to great men when their actions will not square with their previous sentiments. Think of the Duke and Sir Robert, and be merciful to Kenny Dodd.

We left Ems, like a thief, in the night; the robbery, however, was performed by the landlord, whose bill for five days amounted to upwards of twenty-seven pounds sterling. Whether Grgoire and Mademoiselle Virginie drank all the champagne set down in it I cannot say; but if so, they could never have been sober since their arrival. There are some other curious items, too, such as maraschino and eau de Dantzic, and a large a.s.sessment for ”real Havannahs”! Who sipped and smoked the above is more than I know.

With regard to out-of-door amus.e.m.e.nts, Mrs. G. must have ridden, at the least, four donkeys daily, not to speak of carriages, and a sort of sedan-chair for the evening.

I a.s.sure you I left the place with a heart even lighter than my purse.

I was failing into a very alarming kind of melancholy, and couldn't much longer have answered for my actions.

If we loitered inactively at Ems, we certainly suffered no gra.s.s to grow under our feet now. Four horses on the level, six when the road was heavy or newly gravelled; bulls at all the hills.

It's the truth I 'm telling you, Tom, for a light London britschka, the usual team on a rising ground was six horses and three oxen, with about two men per quadruped,--boys and beggars _ad libitum_, I laughed heartily at it, till it came to paying for them, after which it became one of the worst jokes you can imagine. Onward we went, however, in one fas.h.i.+on or another, walking to ”blow the cattle” when the road was level and smooth, and keeping a very pretty hunting-pace when the ruts were deep, and the rocks rugged.

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