“It is a message he has brought me; a matter of little consequence. I 'll look to it, Darby. Tell your mistress it shall be attended to.” Darby lingered for a moment, but the doctor motioned him away, and did not speak again till he had quitted the spot. “How these fellows will wait to pick up what passes between their betters,” said Dill, while he continued to follow him with his eyes. “I think I mentioned to you once, already, that the persons who keep this house here are reduced gentry, and it is now my task to add that, either from some change of fortune or from caprice, they are thinking of abandoning the inn, and resuming—so far as may be possible for them—their former standing. This project dates before your arrival here; and now, it would seem, they are growing impatient to effect it; at least, a very fussy old lady—Miss Barrington—has sent me word by Darby to say her brother will be back here tomorrow or next day, with some friends from Kilkenny, and she asks at what time your convalescence is likely to permit removal.”
“Turned out, in fact, doctor,—ordered to decamp! You must say, I 'm ready, of course; that is to say, that I 'll go at once. I don't exactly see how I 'm to be moved in this helpless state, as no carriage can come here; but you 'll look to all that for me. At all events, go immediately, and say I shall be off within an hour or so.”
“Leave it all to me,—leave it in my hands. I think I see what is to be done,” said the doctor, with one of his confident little smiles, and moved away.
There was a spice of irritation in Conyers's manner as he spoke. He was very little accustomed to be thwarted in anything, and scarcely knew the sensation of having a wish opposed, or an obstacle set against him, but simply because there was a reason for his quitting the place, grew all the stronger his desire to remain there. He looked around him, and never before had the foliage seemed so graceful; never had the tints of the copper-beech blended so harmoniously with the stone-pine and the larch; never had the eddies of the river laughed more joyously, nor the blackbirds sung with a more impetuous richness of melody. “And to say that I must leave all this, just when I feel myself actually clinging to it. I could spend my whole life here. I glory in this quiet, unbroken ease; this life, that slips along as waveless as the stream there! Why should n't I buy it; have it all my own, to come down to whenever I was sick and weary of the world and its dissipations? The spot is small; it couldn't be very costly; it would take a mere nothing to maintain. And to have it all one's own!” There was an actual ecstasy in the thought; for in that same sense of possession there is a something that resembles the sense of identity. The little child with his toy, the aged man with his proud demesne, are tasters of the same pleasure.
“You are to use your own discretion, my dear young gentleman, and go when it suits you, and not before,” said the doctor, returning triumphantly, for he felt like a successful envoy. “And now I will leave you. To-morrow you shall have my answer about Tom.”
Conyers nodded vaguely; for, alas! Tom, and all about him, had completely lapsed from his memory.
CHAPTER X. BEING “BORED”
It is a high testimony to that order of architecture which we call castle-building, that no man ever lived in a house so fine he could not build one more stately still out of his imagination. Nor is it only to grandeur and splendor this superiority extends, but it can invest lowly situations and homely places with a charm which, alas! no reality can rival.
Conyers was a fortunate fellow in a number of ways; he was young, good-looking, healthy, and rich. Fate had made place for him on the very sunniest side of the causeway, and, with all that, he was happier on that day, through the mere play of his fancy, than all his wealth could have made him. He had fashioned out a life for himself in that cottage, very charming, and very enjoyable in its way. He would make it such a spot that it would have resources for him on every hand, and he hugged himself in the thought of coming down here with a friend, or, perhaps, two friends, to pass days of that luxurious indolence so fascinating to those who are, or fancy they are, wearied of life's pomps and vanities.