“That 's the greatest folly of all,” broke out M'Cormick; “and it's to get money for that now that he's going to mortgage this place here,—ay, the very ground under our feet!” And this he said with a sort of tremulous indignation, as though the atrocity bore especially hard upon them. “Kinshela, the attorney from Kilkenny, was up with me about it yesterday. 'It's an elegant investment, Major,' says he, 'and you 're very likely to get the place into your hands for all the chance old Peter has of paying off the charge. His heart is in that suit, and he 'll not stop as long as he has a guinea to go on with it.'
“I said, 'I 'd think of it: I 'd turn it over in my mind;' for there's various ways of looking at it.”
“I fancy I apprehend one of them,” said Stapylton, with a half-jocular glance at his companion. “You have been reflecting over another investment, eh? Am I not right? I remarked you at dinner. I saw how the young brunette had struck you, and I said to myself, 'She has made a conquest already!'”
“Not a bit of it; nothing of the kind,” said M'Cormick, awkwardly. “I 'm too 'cute to be caught that way.”
“Yes, but remember it might be a very good catch. I don't speak of the suit, because I agree with you, the chances in that direction are very small, indeed, and I cannot understand the hopeful feeling with which he prosecutes it; but she is a fine, handsome girl, very attractive in manner, and equal to any station.”
“And what's the good of all that to me? Wouldn't it be better if she could make a pease-pudding, like Polly Dill, or know how to fatten a turkey, or salt down a side of bacon?”
“I don't think so; I declare, I don't think so,” said Stapylton, as he lighted a fresh cigar. “These are household cares, and to be bought with money, and not expensively, either. What a man like you or I wants is one who should give a sort of tone,—impart a degree of elegance to his daily life. We old bachelors grow into self-indulgence, which is only another name for barbarism. With a mistaken idea of comfort we neglect scores of little observances which constitute the small currency of civilization, and without which all intercourse is unpleasing and ungraceful.”
“I'm not quite sure that I understand you aright, but there's one thing I know, I 'd think twice of it before I 'd ask that young woman to be Mrs. M'Cormick. And, besides,” added he, with a sly side-look, “if it's so good a thing, why don't you think of it for yourself?”
“I need not tell an old soldier like you that full pay and a wife are incompatible. Every wise man's experience shows it; and when a fellow goes to the bishop for a license, he should send in his papers to the Horse Guards. Now, I 'm too poor to give up my career. I have not, like you, a charming cottage on a river's bank, and a swelling lawn dotted over with my own sheep before my door. I cannot put off the harness.”
“Who talks of putting off the harness?” cried Withering, gayly, as he joined them. “Who ever dreamed of doing anything so ill-judging and so mistaken? Why, if it were only to hide the spots where the collar has galled you, you ought to wear the trappings to the last. No man ever knew how to idle, who had n't passed all his life at it! Some go so far as to say that for real success a man's father and grandfather should have been idlers before him. But have you seen Barrington? He has been looking for you all over the grounds.”