Jack Hinton Part 3

"Oh! the watchmen, it seems, could read, and, as your trunks were addressed to the Castle, they concluded you ought to go there also. You have despatches, haven't you?"

"Yes," said I, producing the packet; "when must they be delivered?"

"Oh, at once. Do you think you could make a little change in your dress, and manage to come over? his Grace always likes it better; there's no stiffness, no formality whatever; most of the dinner-party have gone home; there are only a few of the government people, the Duke's friends, remaining, and, besides, he's always kind and good-natured."

"I'll see what I can do," replied I, as I rose from the sofa; "I put myself into your hands altogether."

"Well, come along," said he; "you'll find everything ready in this room. I hope that old villain has left hot water. Corny! Corny, I say!

Confound him, he's gone to bed, I suppose."

Having no particular desire for Mr. Delany's attentions, I prevailed on his master not to disturb him, and proceeded to make my toilette as well as I was able.

"Didn't that stupid scoundrel come near you at all?" cried O'Grady.

"Oh yes, we have had a long interview; but, somehow, I fear I did not succeed in gaining his good graces."

"The worst-tempered old villain in Europe."

"Somewhat of a character, I take it."

"A crab-tree planted in a lime-kiln, cranky and cross-grained; but he is a legacy, almost the only one my father left me. I've done my best to part with him every day for the last twelve years, but he sticks to me like a poor relation, giving me warning every night of his life, and every morning kicking up such a row in the house that every one is persuaded I am beating him to a jelly before turning him out to starve in the streets."

"Oh, the haythins! the Turks!" said I, slyly.

"Confound it!" cried he, "the old devil has been opening upon you already; and Jet, with all that, I don't know how I should get on without Corny; his gibes, his jeers, his everlasting ill-temper, his crankiness that never sleeps, seem to agree with me: the fact is, one enjoys the world from all its contrasts. The olive is a poor thing in itself, but it certainly improves the smack of your Burgundy. In this way Corny Delany does me good service. Come, by Jove, you have not been long dressing. This way: now follow' me." So saying, Captain O'Grady led the way down the stairs to the colonnade, following which to the opposite side of the quadrangle we arrived at a brilliantly lighted hall, where several servants in full-dress liveries were in waiting.

Pa.s.sing hastily through this, we mounted a handsome staircase, and, traversing several ante-chambers, at length arrived at one whose contiguity to the dinner-room I could guess at from the loud sound of many voices. "Wait one moment here," said my companion, "until I speak to his Grace." He disappeared as he spoke, but before a minute had elapsed he was again beside me. "Come this way; it's all right," said he. The next moment I found myself in the dinner-room.

The scene before me was altogether so different from what I had expected, that for a moment or two I could scarce do aught else than stand still to survey it. At a table which had been laid for about forty persons, scarcely more than a dozen were now present. Collected together at one end of the board, the whole party were roaring with laughter at some story of a strange, melancholy-looking man, whose whining voice added indescribable ridicule to the drollery of his narrative.

Grey-headed general officers, grave-looking divines, lynx-eyed lawyers, had all given way under the irresistible impulse, and the very table shook with laughter.

"Mr. Hinton, your Excellency," said O'Grady for the third time, while the Duke wiped his eye with his napkin, and, pus.h.i.+ng his chair a little back from the table, motioned me to approach.

"Ah, Hinton, glad to see you; how is your father?--a very old friend of mine, indeed; and Lady Charlotte--well, I hope? O'Grady tells me you've had an accident--something slight, I trust. So these are the despatches." Here he broke the seal of the envelope, and ran his eye over the contents. "There, that's your concern." So saying, he pitched a letter across the table to a shrewd-looking personage in a horse-shoe wig. "They won't do it, Dean, and we must wait. Ah!--so they don't like my new commissioners; but, Hinton, my boy, sit down. O'Grady, have you room there? A gla.s.s of wine with you."

"Nothing the worse of your mishap, sir?" said the melancholy-looking man who sat opposite to me.

I replied by briefly relating my accident.

"Strange enough," said he, in a compa.s.sionate tone, "your head should have suffered; your countrymen generally fall upon their legs in Ireland." This was said with a sly look at the Viceroy, who, deep in his despatches, paid no attention to the allusion.

"A very singular thing, I must confess," said the Duke, laying down the paper. "This is the fourth time the bearer of despatches has met with an accident. If they don't run foul of a rock in the Channel, they are sure to have a delay on the pier."

"It is so natural, my Lord," said the gloomy man, "that the carriers should stop at the Pigeon-house."

"Do be quiet, Curran," cried the Duke, "and pa.s.s round the decanter.

They'll not take the duty off claret, it seems."

"And Day, my Lord, won't put the claret on duty; he has kept the wine at his elbow for the last half-hour. Upon my soul, your Grace ought to knight him."

"Not even his Excellency's habits," said a sharp, clever-looking man, "would excuse his converting Day into Knight."

Amid a shower of smart, caustic, and witty sayings, droll stories, retort and repartee, the wine circulated freely from hand to hand; the presence of the Duke adding fresh impulse to the sallies of fun and merriment around him. Anecdotes of the army, the bench, and the bar, poured in unceasingly, accompanied by running commentaries of the hearers, who never let slip an opportunity for a jest or a rejoinder.

To me, the most singular feature of all this was, that no one seemed too old or too dignified, too high in station, or too venerable from office, to join in this headlong current of conviviality. Austere churchmen, erudite chief-justices, profound politicians, privy councillors, military officers of high rank and standing, were here all mixed up together into one strange medley, apparently bent on throwing an air of ridicule over the graver business of life, and laughing alike at themselves and the world. Nothing was too grave for a jest, nothing too solemn for a sarcasm. All the soldier's experience of men and manners, all the lawyer's acuteness of perception and readiness of wit, all the politician's practised tact and habitual subtlety, were brought to bear upon the common topics of the day with such prompt.i.tude, and such power, that one knew not whether to be more struck by the ma.s.s of information they possessed, or by that strange fatality which could make men, so great and so gifted, satisfied to jest where they might be called on to judge.

Play and politics, wine and women, debts and duels, were discussed, not only with an absence of all restraint, but with a deep knowledge of the world and a profound insight into the heart, which often imparted to the careless and random speech the sharpness of the most cutting sarcasm.

Personalities, too, were rife; no one spared his neighbour, for he did not expect mercy for himself; and the luckless wight who tripped in his narrative, or stumbled in his story, was a.s.sailed on every side, until some happy expedient of his own, or some new victim being discovered, the attack would take another direction, and leave him once more at liberty. I feel how sadly inadequate I am to render even the faintest testimony to the talents of those, any one of whom, in after life, would have been considered to have made the fortune of a dinner-party, and who now were met together, not in the careless ease and lounging indifference of relaxation, but in the open arena where wit met wit, and where even the most brilliant talker, the happiest relater, the quickest in sarcasm, and the readiest in reply, felt he had need of all his weapons to defend and protect him. This was a _melee_ tournament, where each man rode down his neighbour, with no other reason for attack than detecting a rent in his armour. Even the Viceroy himself, who, as judge of the lists, might be supposed to enjoy an immunity, was not safe here, and many an arrow, apparently shot at an adversary, was sent quivering into his corslet.

As I watched, with all the intense excitement of one to whom such a display was perfectly new, I could not help feeling how fortunate it was that the grave avocations and the venerable pursuits of the greater number of the party should prevent this firework of wit from bursting into the blaze of open animosity. I hinted as much to my neighbour, O'Grady, who at once broke into a fit of laughter at my ignorance; and I now learnt to my amazement that the Common Pleas had winged the Exchequer, that the Attorney-General had pinked the Bolls, and, stranger than all, that the Provost of the University himself had planted his man in the Phoenix.

"It is just as well for us," continued he, in a whisper, "that the churchmen can't go out; for the Dean, yonder, can snuff a candle at twenty paces, and is rather a hot-tempered fellow to boot. But come, now, his Grace is about to rise. We have a field-day to-morrow in the Park, and break up somewhat earlier in consequence."

As it was now near two o'clock, I could see nothing to cavil at as to the earliness of the hour, although, I freely confess, tired and exhausted as I felt, I could not contemplate the moment of separation without a sad foreboding that I ne'er should look upon the like again.

The party rose at this moment, and the Duke, shaking hands cordially with each person as he pa.s.sed down, wished us all a good night. I followed with O'Grady and some others of the household, but when I reached the ante-chamber, mv new friend volunteered his services to see me to my quarters.

On traversing the lower castle-yard, we mounted an old-fas.h.i.+oned and rickety stair, which conducted to a gloomy, ill-lighted corridor. I was too much fatigued, however, to be critical at the moment, and so, having thanked O'Grady for all his kindness, I threw off my clothes hastily, and, before my head was well upon the pillow, was sound asleep.

CHAPTER IV. THE BREAKFAST

There are few persons so unreflective as not to give way to a little self-examination on waking for the first time in a strange place. The very objects about are so many appeals to your ingenuity or to your memory, that you cannot fail asking yourself how you became acquainted with them: the present is thus made the herald of the past, and it is difficult, when unravelling the tangled web of doubt that a.s.sails you, not to think over the path by which you have been travelling.

As for me, scarcely were my eyes opened to the light, I had barely thrown one glance around my cold and comfortless chamber, when thoughts of home came rus.h.i.+ng to my mind. The warm earnestness of my father, the timid dreads of my poor mother, rose up before me, as I felt myself, for the first time, alone in the world. The elevating sense of heroism, that more or less blends with every young man's dreams of life, gilds our first journey from our father's roof. There is a feeling of freedom in being the arbiter of one's actions, to go where you will and when you will. Till that moment the world has been a comparative blank; the trammels of school or the ties of tutors.h.i.+p have bound and restrained you. You have been living, as it were, within the rules of court--certain petty privileges permitted, certain small liberties allowed; but now you come forth disenchanted, disenthralled, emanc.i.p.ated, free to come as to go--a man in all the plenitude of his volition; and, better still, a man without the heavy, depressing weight of responsibility that makes manhood less a blessing than a burden. The first burst of life is indeed a glorious thing; youth, health, hope, and confidence have each a force and vigour they lose in after years: life is then a splendid river, and we are swimming with the stream--no adverse waves to weary, no billows to buffet us, we hold on our course rejoicing.

The sun was peering between the curtains of my window, and playing in fitful flashes on the old oak floor, as I lay thus ruminating and dreaming over the fature. How many a resolve did I then make for my guidance--how many an intention did I form--how many a groundwork of principle did I lay down, with all the confidence of youth! I fas.h.i.+oned to myself a world after my own notions; in which I conjured up certain imaginary difficulties, all of which were surmounted by my admirable tact and consummate cleverness. I remembered how, at both Eton and Sandhurst, the Irish boy was generally made the subject of some jest or quiz, at one time for his accent, at another for his blunders. As a Guardsman, short as had been my experience of the service, I could plainly see that a certain indefinable tone of superiority was ever a.s.serted towards our friends across the sea. A wide-sweeping prejudice, whose limits were neither founded in reason, justice, or common sense, had thrown a certain air of undervaluing import over every one and every thing from that country. Not only were its faults and its follies heavily visited, but those accidental and trifling blemishes--those slight and scarce perceptible deviations from the arbitrary standard of fas.h.i.+on--were deemed the strong characteristics of the nation, and condemned accordingly; while the slightest use of any exaggeration in speech--the commonest employment of a figure or a metaphor--the casual introduction of an anecdote or a repartee, were all heavily censured, and p.r.o.nounced "so very Iris.h.!.+" Let some fortune-hunter carry off an heiress--let a lady trip over her train at the drawing-room--let a minister blunder in his mission--let a powder-magazine explode and blow up one-half of the surrounding population, there was but one expression to qualify all--"How Iris.h.!.+ how very Iris.h.!.+" The adjective had become one of depreciation; and an Irish lord, an Irish member, an Irish estate, and an Irish diamond, were held pretty much in the same estimation.

Reared in the very hot-bed, the forcing-house, of such exaggerated prejudice, while imbibing a very sufficient contempt for everything in that country, I obtained proportionably absurd notions of all that was Irish. Our principles may come from our fathers; our prejudices certainly descend from the female branch. Now, my mother, notwithstanding the example of the Prince Regent himself, whose chosen a.s.sociates were Irish, was most thoroughly exclusive on this point. She would admit that a native of that country could be invited to an evening party under extreme and urgent circ.u.mstances--that some brilliant orator, whose eloquence was at once the dread and the delight of the House--that some gifted poet, whose verses came home to the heart alike of prince and peasant--that the painter, whose canvas might stand unblus.h.i.+ngly amid the greatest triumphs of art--could be asked to lionise for those cold and callous votaries of fas.h.i.+on, across the lake of whose stagnant nature no breath of feeling stirred, esteeming it the while, that in her card of invitation he was reaping the proudest proof of his success; but that such could be made acquaintances or companions, could be regarded in the light of equals or intimates, the thing never entered into her imagination, and she would as soon have made a confidant of the King of Kongo as a gentleman from Connaught.

Less for the purposes of dwelling upon my lady-mother's "Hibernian horrors," than of showing the school in which I was trained, I have made this somewhat lengthened _expose_. It may, however, convey to my reader some faint impression of the feelings which animated me at the outset of my career in Ireland.

I have already mentioned the delight I experienced with the society at the Viceroy's table. So much brilliancy, so much wit, so much of conversational power, until that moment I had no conception of. Now, however, while reflecting on it, I was actually astonished to find how far the whole scene contributed to the support of my ancient prejudices.

I well knew that a party of the highest functionaries--bishops and law-officers of the crown--would not have conducted themselves in the same manner in England. I stopped not to inquire whether it was more the wit or the will that was wanting; I did not dwell upon the fact that the meeting was a purely convivial one, to which I was admitted by the kindness and condescension of the Duke; but, so easily will a warped and bigoted impression find food for its indulgence, I only saw in the meeting an additional evidence of my early convictions. How far my theorising on this point might have led me--whether eventually I should have come to the conclusion that the Irish nation were lying in the darkest blindness of barbarism, while, by a special intervention of Providence, I, was about to be erected into a species of double revolving light--it is difficult to say, when a tap at the door suddenly aroused me from my musings.

"Are ye awake, yet?" said a harsh, husky voice, like a bear in bronchitis, which I had no difficulty in p.r.o.nouncing to be Corny's.

"Yes, come in," cried I; "what hour is it?"

"Somewhere after ten," replied he, sulkily; "you're the first I ever heerd ask the clock, in the eight years I have lived here. Are ye ready for your morning?"

"My what?" said I, with some surprise.

"Didn't I say it, plain enough? Is it the brogue that bothers you?"

As he said this with a most sarcastic grin he poured, from a large jug he held in one hand, a br.i.m.m.i.n.g goblet full of some white compound, and handed it over to me. Preferring at once to explore, rather than to question the intractable Corny, I put it to my lips, and found it to be capital milk punch, concocted with great skill, and seasoned with what O'Grady afterwards called "a notion of nutmeg."

"Oh! devil fear you, that he'll like it. Sorrow one of you ever left as much in the jug as 'ud make a foot-bath for a flea."

"They don't treat you over well, then, Corny," said I, purposely opening the sorest wound of his nature.