“Very well; if you won’t be a gold stick, there’s the other alternative: fortify Kelly’s Court, and prepare for the sheriff’s officers. Of the two, there’s certainly more fun in it; and you can go out with the harriers on a Sunday afternoon, and live like a ‘ra’al O’Kelly of the ould times’;—only the punch’ll kill you in about ten years.”
“Go on, Dot, go on. You want to provoke me, but you won’t. I wonder whether you’d bear it as well, if I told you you’d die a broken-down black-leg, without a friend or a shilling to bless you.”
“I don’t think I should, because I should know that you were threatening me with a fate which my conduct and line of life would not warrant any one in expecting.”
“Upon my word, then, I think there’s quite as much chance of that as there is of my getting shut up by bailiffs in Kelly’s Court, and dying drunk. I’ll bet you fifty pounds I’ve a better account at my bankers than you have in ten years.”
“Faith, I’ll not take it. It’ll be hard work getting fifty pounds out of you, then! In the meantime, come and play a game of billiards before dinner.”
To this Lord Ballindine consented, and they adjourned to the billiard-room; but, before they commenced playing, Blake declared that if the names of Lord Cashel or Miss Wyndham were mentioned again that evening, he should retreat to his own room, and spend the hours by himself; so, for the rest of that day, Lord Ballindine was again driven back upon Brien Boru and the Derby for conversation, as Dot was too close about his own stable to talk much of his own horses and their performances, except when he was doing so with an eye to business.
CHAPTER XI.
THE EARL OF CASHEL
About two o’clock on the following morning, Lord Ballindine set off for Grey Abbey, on horseback, dressed with something more than ordinary care, and with a considerable palpitation about his heart. He hardly knew, himself, what or whom he feared, but he knew that he was afraid of something. He had a cold, sinking sensation within him, and he felt absolutely certain that he should be signally defeated in his present mission. He had plenty of what is usually called courage; had his friend recommended him instantly to call out Lord Kilcullen and shoot him, and afterwards any number of other young men who might express a thought in opposition to his claim on Miss Wyndham’s hand, he would have set about it with the greatest readiness and aptitude; but he knew he could not baffle the appalling solemnity of Lord Cashel, in his own study. Frank was not so very weak a man as he would appear to be when in the society of Blake. He unfortunately allowed Blake to think for him in many things, and he found a convenience in having some one to tell him what to do; but he was, in most respects, a better, and in some, even a wiser man than his friend. He often felt that the kind of life he was leading—contracting debts which he could not pay, and spending his time in pursuits which were not really congenial to him, was unsatisfactory and discreditable: and it was this very feeling, and the inability to defend that which he knew to be wrong and foolish, which made him so certain that he would not be able successfully to persist in his claim to Miss Wyndham’s hand in opposition to the trite and well-weighed objections, which he knew her guardian would put forward. He consoled himself, however, with thinking that, at any rate, they could not prevent his seeing her; and he was quite sanguine as to her forgiveness, if he but got a fair opportunity of asking it. And when that was obtained, why should the care for any one? Fanny would be of age, and her own mistress, in a few days, and all the solemn earls in England, and Ireland too, could not then prevent her marrying whom and when she liked.
He thought a great deal on all his friend had said to his future poverty; but then, his ideas and Blake’s were very different about life. Blake’s idea of happiness was, the concentrating of every thing into a focus for his own enjoyment; whereas he, Frank, had only had recourse to dissipation and extravagance, because he had nothing to make home pleasant to him. If he once had Fanny Wyndham installed as Lady Ballindine, at Kelly’s Court, he was sure he could do his duty as a country gentleman, and live on his income, be it what it might, not only without grumbling, but without wishing for anything more. He was fond of his country, his name, and his countrymen: he was fully convinced of his folly in buying race-horses, and in allowing himself to be dragged on the turf: he would sell Brien Boru, and the other two Irish chieftains, for what they would fetch, and show Fanny and her guardian that he was in earnest in his intention of reforming. Blake might laugh at him if he liked; but he would not stay to be laughed at. He felt that Handicap Lodge was no place for him; and besides, why should he bear Dot’s disagreeable sarcasms? It was not the part of a real friend to say such cutting things as he continually did. After all, Lord Cashel would be a safer friend, or, at any rate, adviser; and, instead of trying to defeat him by coolness or insolence, he would at once tell him of all his intentions, explain to him exactly how matters stood, and prove his good resolutions by offering to take whatever steps the earl might recommend about the horses. This final determination made him easier in this mind, and, as he entered the gates of Grey Abbey Park, he was tolerably comfortable, trusting to his own good resolutions, and the effect which he felt certain the expression of them must have on Lord Cashel.
Grey Abbey is one of the largest but by no means one of the most picturesque demesnes in Ireland. It is situated in the county of Kildare, about two miles from the little town of Kilcullen, in a flat, uninteresting, and not very fertile country. The park itself is extensive and tolerably well wooded, but it wants water and undulation, and is deficient of any object of attraction, except that of size and not very magnificent timber. I suppose, years ago, there was an Abbey here, or near the spot, but there is now no vestige of it remaining. In a corner of the demesne there are standing the remains of one of those strong, square, ugly castles, which, two centuries since, were the real habitations of the landed proprietors of the country, and many of which have been inhabited even to a much later date. They now afford the strongest record of the apparently miserable state of life which even the favoured of the land then endured, and of the numberless domestic comforts which years and skill have given us, apt as we are to look back with fond regret to the happy, by-gone days of past periods.