But M'Cormick had heard the request, and she flushed up with anger at the malicious glee his face exhibited.
“You 'll have to say my good-byes for me to your father, for I am sorely pressed for time; and, even as it is, shall be late for my appointment in Kilkenny.” And before Polly could do more than exchange his cordial shake hands, he was gone.
CHAPTER XXI. DARK TIDINGS
If I am not wholly without self-reproach when I bring my reader into uncongenial company, and make him pass time with Major M'Cormick he had far rather bestow upon a pleasanter companion, I am sustained by the fact—unpalatable fact though it be—that the highway of life is not always smooth, nor its banks flowery, and that, as an old Derry woman once remarked to me, “It takes a' kind o' folk to mak' a world.”
Now, although Colonel Hunter did drive twelve weary miles of road with the Major for a fellow-traveller,—thanks to that unsocial conveniency called an Irish jaunting-car,—they rode back to back, and conversed but little. One might actually believe that unpopular men grow to feel a sort of liking for their unpopularity, and become at length delighted with the snubbings they meet with, as though an evidence of the amount of that discomfort they can scatter over the world at large; just, in fact, as a wasp or a scorpion might have a sort of triumphant joy in the consciousness of its power for mischief, and exult in the terror caused by its vicinity.
“Splendid road—one of the best I ever travelled on,” said the Colonel, after about ten miles, during which he smoked on without a word.
“Why wouldn't it be, when they can assess the county for it? They're on the Grand Jury, and high up, all about here,” croaked out the Major.
“It is a fine country, and abounds in handsome places.” “And well mortgaged, too, the most of them.” “You 'd not see better farming than that in Norfolk, cleaner wheat or neater drills; in fact, one might imagine himself in England.”
“So he might, for the matter of taxes. I don't see much difference.”