I could not recover my self-possession for the next ten minutes. Whenever Larry was on our side of the table I was afraid he was coming to me with another agonised whisper. When he was opposite, I could not but watch him as he hobbled in his misery. It was evident that the boots were too tight for him, and had they been made throughout of iron they could not have been less capable of yielding to the feet. I pitied him from the bottom of my heart. And I pitied myself also, wishing that I was well in bed upstairs with some feigned malady, so that Larry might have had his own again.
And then for a moment I missed him from the room. He had doubtless gone to relieve his tortured feet in the servants’ hall, and as he did so was cursing my cruelty. But what mattered it? Let him curse. If he would only stay away and do that, I would appease his wrath when we were alone together with pecuniary satisfaction.
But there was no such rest in store for me. “Larry, Larry,” shouted Mr. O’Conor, “where on earth has the fellow gone to?” They were all cousins at the table except myself, and Mr. O’Conor was not therefore restrained by any feeling of ceremony. “There is something wrong with that fellow to-day; what is it, Jack?”
“Upon my word, sir, I don’t know,” said Jack.
“I think he must be tipsy,” whispered Miss O’Conor, the maiden sister, who always sat at her brother’s left hand. But a whisper though it was, it was audible all down the table.
“No, ma’am; it aint dhrink at all,” said the coachman. “It is his feet as does it.”
“His feet!” shouted Tom O’Conor.
“Yes; I know it’s his feet,” said that horrid Tizzy. “He’s got on great thick nailed shoes. It was that that made him tumble down in the hall.”
I glanced at each side of me, and could see that there was a certain consciousness expressed in the face of each of my two neighbours;—on Kate’s mouth there was decidedly a smile, or rather, perhaps, the slightest possible inclination that way; whereas on Fanny’s part I thought I saw something like a rising sorrow at my distress. So at least I flattered myself.
“Send him back into the room immediately,” said Tom, who looked at me as though he had some consciousness that I had introduced all this confusion into his household. What should I do? Would it not be best for me to make clean breast of it before them all? But alas! I lacked the courage.