“Frank,” said the anxious mother, “for heaven’s sake don’t let anything stand between you and Lord Cashel; think what a thing it is you’d lose! Why; it’d pay all the debts, and leave the property worth twice what it ever was before. If Lord Cashel thinks you ought to give up the hounds, do it at once, Frank; anything rather than quarrel with him. You could get them again, you know, when all’s settled.”
“I’ve given up quite as much as I intend for Lord Cashel.”
“Now, Frank, don’t be a fool, or you’ll repent it all your life: what does it signify how much you give up to such a man as Lord Cashel? You don’t think, do you, that he objects to our being at Kelly’s Court? Because I’m sure we wouldn’t stay a moment if we thought that.”
“Mother, I wouldn’t part with a cur dog out of the place to please Lord Cashel. But if I were to do everything on earth at his beck and will, it would make no difference: he will never let me marry Fanny Wyndham if he can help it; but, thank God, I don’t believe he can.”
“I hope not—I hope not. You’ll never see half such a fortune again.”
“Well, mother, say nothing about it one way or the other, to anybody. And as you now know how the matter stands, it’s no good any of us talking more about it till I’ve settled what I mean to do myself.”
“I shall hate her,” said Sophy, “if her getting all her brother’s money changes her; but I’m sure it won’t.” And so the conversation ended.
Lord Ballindine had not rested in his paternal halls the second night, before he had commenced making arrangements for a hunt breakfast, by way of letting all his friends know that he was again among them. And so missives, in Guss and Sophy’s handwriting, were sent round by a bare-legged little boy, to all the Mounts, Towns, and Castles, belonging to the Dillons, Blakes, Bourkes, and Browns of the neighbourhood, to tell them that the dogs would draw the Kelly’s Court covers at eleven o’clock on the following Tuesday morning, and that the preparatory breakfast would be on the table at ten. This was welcome news to the whole neighbourhood. It was only on the Sunday evening that the sportsmen got the intimation, and very busy most of them were on the following Monday to see that their nags and breeches were all right—fit to work and fit to be seen. The four Dillons, of Ballyhaunis, gave out to their grooms a large assortment of pipe-clay and putty-powder. Bingham Blake, of Castletown, ordered a new set of girths to his hunting saddle; and his brother Jerry, who was in no slight degree proud of his legs, but whose nether trappings were rather the worse from the constant work of a heavy season, went so far as to go forth very early on the Monday morning to excite the Ballinrobe tailor to undertake the almost impossible task of completing him a pair of doeskin by the Tuesday morning. The work was done, and the breeches home at Castletown by eight—though the doeskin had to be purchased in Tuam, and an assistant artist taken away from his mother’s wake, to sit up all night over the seams. But then the tailor owed a small trifle of arrear of rent for his potato-garden, and his landlord was Jerry Blake’s cousin-german [34]. There’s nothing carries one further than a good connexion, thought both Jerry and the tailor when the job was finished.
Among the other invitations sent was one to Martin Kelly,—not exactly worded like the others, for though Lord Ballindine was perhaps more anxious to see him than anyone else, Martin had not yet got quite so high in the ladder of life as to be asked to breakfast at Kelly’s Court. But the fact that Frank for a moment thought of asking him showed that he was looking upwards in the world’s estimation. Frank wrote him a note himself, saying that the hounds would throw off at Kelly’s Court, at eleven; that, if he would ride over, he would be sure to see a good hunt, and that he, Lord Ballindine, had a few words to say to him on business, just while the dogs were being put into the cover. Martin, as usual, had a good horse which he was disposed to sell, if, as he said, he got its value; and wrote to say he would wait on Lord Ballindine at eleven. The truth was, Frank wanted to borrow money from him.
Another note was sent to the Glebe, requesting the Rector to come to breakfast and to look at the hounds being thrown off. The modest style of the invitation was considered as due to Mr Armstrong’s clerical position, but was hardly rendered necessary by his habits; for though the parson attended such meetings in an old suit of rusty black, and rode an equally rusty-looking pony, he was always to be seen, at the end of the day, among those who were left around the dogs.