Volume Iii Part 13 (1/2)

He told him his pa.s.sing woes, asked his advice, and sometimes took it.

If you are sorely troubled, and in your anxiety to conceal that you are losing your nerve, force yourself on to preposterous deeds of prowess, there is much comfort to be obtained from the sympathetic ring of a jolly voice, the warm clasp of a shoulder-of-mutton hand.

Ca.s.sidy, too, was so open and so innocent--so easily seen through.

Lord Glandore felt a sort of disdain for him, dubbing him, with patrician condescension, a big grown-up baby, and so forth--even whilst he clutched for support the giant's burly arm. And Ca.s.sidy was no whit offended, laughing more loudly than ever as his patron's jests waxed broader--till the windows shook again, and the sound-waves carried a s.h.i.+mmer of his braying from Daly's to the House of Peers.

Sometimes Lord Clare deigned to encourage his satellites by appearing in person, during an interval of debate, at a pistol-dinner, whilst Lord Castlereagh was entertaining on a grand scale at home. Then were toasts drunk with three times three--Government toasts, to which the chancellor responded in a voice broken by emotion, with a lowly visage and hand pressed on heart; toasts which were borne on the air out of open windows to the ears of pa.s.sers-by, who, scowling, hurried away.

Then, fired by his hints, the pot-valiant heroes would rush forth and run a-muck--a right jovial way of finis.h.i.+ng an evening from the point of view of a Cherokee; and the chancellor, protesting that the boys really were too lively and amusing, would return to the House alone by the private covered way.

One evening, when appearing amongst them to announce that the crisis was close at hand, he professed to be mightily alarmed by the proceedings of the opposition party. These were in the habit of meeting at my Lord Charlemont's, and on this occasion, he said with sorrow, they had dared to insult the King, in the person of his ministers, by burning himself and Lord Castlereagh in effigy in the middle of Stephen's Green. The chancellor said that it was most unkind and inconsiderate. Yet with Christian meekness he implored the faithful servants of his Majesty to take no notice of the outrage. The result was as he intended. With a wild war-whoop the lords and M.P.'s rose up from dinner, dragging the tablecloth with them in their zeal, and rushed off to Stephen's Green to fight it out. The anti-unionists were speedily put to flight, for they were few. By this means, and such tricks as this, did the crafty minister strive to browbeat the timid, many of whom, una.s.sailable from any other point, were to be coerced into submission by the bullet-test.

Two only of the diners remained behind--both of whom were usually in the very van--Lord Glandore and Ca.s.sidy. The former was much out of sorts. The latter, certain that there was something on his mind, lay in wait to discover what it could be. He was very fond of penetrating other people's mysteries, was Mr. Ca.s.sidy--for it is astonis.h.i.+ng how an ingenious mind can turn them to its own advantage--and Mr. Ca.s.sidy was always on the prowl to pick up stray wadding for his nest. He therefore, with a look of concern, sat down beside my lord, whose face lay on his arms upon the table, and rallied him about his evident depression.

'Come, come!' he cried, with a pat of his great hand. 'Sure your lords.h.i.+p's head was not well seasoned in its youth. What ails ye? The claret's good enough.'

'I wish I could be drowned in it!' Shane muttered with despondency; 'and then there'd be an end. There was a Duke of Clarence killed that way, you know--lucky fellow!'

'Is it kilt? 'Deed and your lords.h.i.+p won't come to so mean a death, I'll warrant; though ye're mighty careless of your life--more than I'd be if all you have was mine.'

Shane started up with a fierce glare. Everybody's chance arrows seemed winged to stick into his flanks. But he saw nothing in the giant's flat, round visage but an engaging air of humour and unguarded openness. What a good-natured face! Shane, weaker than his mother, yearned for sympathy and consolation; the secret she had carried so long with heroic fort.i.tude ate into his softer fibre, and devoured him. He was at his small wits' end to know how to act. Ca.s.sidy's warm heart and kindly friends.h.i.+p might perchance suggest something. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings wisdom has come ere now. Acting on the impulse, Shane, with maudlin tears, swore his dear friend to solemn secrecy, and amidst a coruscation of cries and curses, blurted out the story which we wot of.

'What a cruel, cruel world it was!' he wailed, 'and what a bitter fate was his! He would certainly come to be a beggar--would be thrown out upon the world an outcast, he, who was not fitted to battle with it--for my lady was very queer in her ways, would be certain to tell Terence some day, just as she had told him. Why had she ever told him?

wicked and unnatural mother to cause him such harrowing grief! Why was not Terence hanged? Why didn't they send him to Fort George? Once taken out of sight, the chances of my lady's blabbing would be lessened.'

Ca.s.sidy sat listening to his rambling lamentations, with his china-blue eyes staring vacantly; then hummed to himself the words of the old song while his nimble brain was working:

'A jackdaw n.o.ble, glittering in the plumes Of the old race, whose honours he a.s.sumes!'

'My lady--my lady! It's always your mother ye're bothering about,'

he said presently. 'Sure, your lords.h.i.+p's not tied to my lady's ap.r.o.n-string!'

But Shane's babble, once set going, was not to be stemmed by pertness.

He proceeded to unfold all her suggestions, mingled with his own doubts and hopes and fears; and as he talked on, new ideas sprang into shape, which hitherto had lain indistinct and dormant. He told of Doreen and her fortune, and how he would like to marry her if he could get rid of her directly afterwards--of how fortunate it was that he had sold his parliamentary interest so well--of how Terence had rebuked him on that subject, and what a crackbrained lunatic he was--girt round with old-fas.h.i.+oned prejudice--beset with starched quirks and rubbish.

Ca.s.sidy's eyes twinkled, for he detected a glittering piece of wadding which would suit his nest right well--a precious piece of wadding made of revenge and self-interest interwoven--a rare piece of wadding which should be his if craft could win it.

'Would Miss Wolfe have your lords.h.i.+p?' he said carelessly; 'sure, it's many a colleen that'd jump at your refined appearance, let alone your wealth. But she----' the sentence remained unfinished, out of respect.

He would not make disagreeable remarks to his patron for anything whatever. He therefore whistled in a deprecating and provoking manner, while the latter echoed pettishly:

'But she--what?'

'Maybe I'd best not tell ye! Well--if ye will have it--she--I fear she's sweet upon another gintleman--that's bad?'

Shane was fairly startled. It had never struck him that she could have already given herself away--to whom? As her form began to appear shadowy, he, with the usual inconsistency of man, began to hanker wildly after the ice-maiden--not for herself of course, but for the money-box.

'It's not possible!' he cried.

”Deed 'tis!' returned the other, with compa.s.sion. 'She's deep in love with Councillor Crosbie. I've known it this long while.'