Volume Ii Part 15 (2/2)

He nodded again twice.

”And they say, too,--of course, on very insufficient knowledge,--that if you would have abated your demands once on a time, you might readily have got a hundred thousand pounds, or even more.”

”That's not impossible,” muttered Barrington.

”But that, now--” he stammered for an instant, and then stopped.

”But now? Go on.”

”Sure, sir, they can know nothing about it; it's just idle talk, and no more.”

”Go on, and tell me what they say _now_,” said Barrington, with a strong force on the last word.

”They say you 'll be beaten, sir,” said he, with an effort.

”And do they say why, Kinshela?”

”Yes, sir; they say you won't take advice; and no matter what Mr.

Withering counsels, or is settled in consultation, you go your own way and won't mind them; and that you have been heard to declare you 'll have all, or nothing.”

”They give me more credit than I deserve, Kinshela. It is, perhaps, what I ought to have said, for I have often _thought it_. But in return for all the kind interest my neighbors take about me, let them know that matters look better for us than they once did. Perhaps,” added he, with a laugh,--”perhaps I have overcome my obstinacy, or perhaps my opponents have yielded to it. At all events, Joe, I believe I see land at last, and it was a long 'lookout' and many a fog-bank I mistook for it.”

”And what makes you think now you'll win?” said the other, growing bolder by the confidence reposed in him.

Barrington half started at the presumption of the question; but he suddenly remembered how it was he himself who had invited the discussion, so he said calmly,--

”My hope is not without a foundation. I expect by the mail to-night a friend who may be able to tell me that I have won, or as good as won.”

Kinshela was dying to ask who the friend was, but even his curiosity had its prudential limits; so he merely took out his watch, and, looking at it, remarked that the mail would pa.s.s in about twenty minutes or so.

”By the way, I must n't forget to send a servant to wait on the roadside;” and he rang the bell and said, ”Let Darby go up to the road and take Major Stapylton's luggage when he arrives.”

”Is that the Major Stapylton is going to be broke for the doings at Manchester, sir?” asked Kinshela.

”He is the same Major Stapylton that a rascally press is now libelling and calumniating,” said Barrington, hotly. ”As to being broke, I don't believe that we have come yet to that pa.s.s in England that the discipline of our army is administered by every scribbler in a newspaper.”

”I humbly crave your pardon, sir, if I have said the slightest thing to offend; but I only meant to ask, was he the officer they were making such a fuss about?” ”He is an officer of the highest distinction, and a wellborn gentleman to boot,--two admirable reasons for the a.s.saults of a contemptible party. Look you, Kinshela; you and I are neither of us very young or inexperienced men, but I would ask you, have we learned any wiser lesson from our intercourse with life than to withhold our judgment on the case of one who rejects the sentence of a mob, and appeals to the verdict of his equals?”

”But if he cut the people down in cold blood,--if it be true that he laid open that poor black fellow's cheek from the temple to the chin--”

”If he did no such thing,” broke in Barrington; ”that is to say, if there is no evidence whatever that he did so, what will your legal mind say then, Joe Kinshela?”

”Just this, sir. I'd say--what all the newspapers are saying--that he got the man out of the way,--bribed and sent him off.”

”Why not hint that he murdered him, and buried him within the precincts of the jail? I declare I wonder at your moderation.”

<script>