“And don’t you know them?” persisted Mrs. de Lisle.
After quite a marked pause, Lady Donnelly replied: “Not now.”
“A feud—or a boycott?”
“Not exactly—although years ago there was a coolness about some shooting. To tell you the truth, we have dropped the Hegans—they are too impossible.”
“Short of murder or theft, it seems a pity to drop such very near neighbours; it would have been so nice to have them over to bridge!”
“Bridge!” repeated Sir Domnick, “I don’t suppose they have ever heard of it! Hegan and I were school-fellows, he was my fag too; he comes of a good county family, went into the service, married, and when his father departed, came back to Heganstown with a nice little wife and a baby. Then Mrs. Hegan died, and he seemed to go to pieces; took to gambling on the Stock Exchange, betting, and whisky, and married a blowzy fat creature, who was once his cook! I believe she drinks, leads him the devil of a life, and keeps the little money he has left. He is sunken in a sort of stupor, and sits in his chair all day long; they do say his brain is affected. I must confess I am sorry for that young fellow Dermot.”
“Yes; but why are you sorry?” enquired Mrs. de Lisle with an air of languid interest.
“The boy is out of his element; he went to Rugby, and did uncommonly well; was going into the Army, and had put in a couple of terms at Sandhurst, when the money ran out, and he was obliged to come home. He has been loafing about at Heganstown for the last three years.”
“Dear me, how perfectly dreadful!” ejaculated the lady.
“At first he tried his hand on the farm, and pulling the place together, but things were too far gone; his father owed money all over the country, and the land was let up to the hall door. A grazier has it, and his cattle have played Old Harry with the grounds and the plantations; there’s not a gate or a fence; the house is falling to ruin. Mrs. Hegan has made away with the good old furniture, and all the silver; last time I was in Dublin I saw Hegan’s grandfather in a shop ticketed ‘Four Pounds Ten’—of course I mean his portrait.”