“Why, we certainly don’t pretend to all the Apuleian luxuries of Handicap Lodge; but we are ignorant enough to think ourselves comfortable, and swinish enough to enjoy our pitiable state.”
“I beg ten thousand pardons, my dear fellow. I didn’t mean to offend your nationality. Castlebar, we must allow, is a fine provincial city—though Killala’s the Mayo city, I believe; and Claremorris, which is your own town I think, is, as all admit, a gem of Paradise: only it’s a pity so many of the houses have been unroofed lately. It adds perhaps to the picturesque effect, but it must, I should think, take away from the comfort.”
“Not a house in Claremorris belongs to me,” said Lord Ballindine, again rather sulky, “or ever did to any of my family. I would as soon own Claremorris, though, as I would Castleblakeney. Your own town is quite as shattered-looking a place.”
“That’s quite true—but I have some hopes that Castleblakeney will be blotted out of the face of creation before I come into possession.”
“But I was saying about Savy O’Leary,” again interposed Morris, “did you ever hear what he did?”
But Blake would not allow his guest the privilege of another story. “If you encourage Morris,” said he, “we shall never get our whist,” and with that he rose from the table and walked away into the next room.
They played high. Morris always played high if he could, for he made money by whist. Tierney was not a gambler by profession; but the men he lived among all played, and he, therefore, got into the way of it, and played the game well, for he was obliged to do so in his own defence. Blake was an adept at every thing of the kind; and though the card-table was not the place where his light shone brightest, still he was quite at home at it.
As might be supposed, Lord Ballindine did not fare well among the three. He played with each of them, one after the other, and lost with them all. Blake, to do him justice, did not wish to see his friend’s money go into the little member’s pocket, and, once or twice, proposed giving up; but Frank did not second the proposal, and Morris was inveterate. The consequence was that, before the table was broken up, Lord Ballindine had lost a sum of money which he could very ill spare, and went to bed in a very unenviable state of mind, in spite of the brilliant prospects on which his friends congratulated him.
CHAPTER XVI.
BRIEN BORU
The next morning, at breakfast, when Frank was alone with Blake, he explained to him how matters really stood at Grey Abbey. He told him how impossible he had found it to insist on seeing Miss Wyndham so soon after her brother’s death, and how disgustingly disagreeable, stiff and repulsive the earl had been; and, by degrees, they got to talk of other things, and among them, Frank’s present pecuniary miseries.