We had already lost some time, and the roan mare was put to her fastest speed to make up for it. Our pace became, accordingly, a sharp one; and as the road was bad, and the tax-cart no “patent inaudible,” neither of us spoke. To me this was a great relief. The events of the last few days had given them the semblance of years, and all the reflection I could muster was little enough to make anything out of the chaotic mass,—love, mischief, and misfortune,—in which I had been involved since my leaving O’Malley Castle.
“Here we are, Charley,” said Considine, drawing up short at the door of a little country ale-house, or, in Irish parlance, shebeen, which stood at the meeting of four bleak roads, in a wild and barren mountain tract beside the Shannon. “Here we are, my boy! Jump out and let us be stirring.”
“Here, Patsey, my man,” said the count, unravelling the prostrate and doubly knotted figure at our feet; “lend a hand, Patsey.” Much to my astonishment, he obeyed the summons with alacrity, and proceeded to unharness the mare with the greatest despatch. My attention was, however, soon turned from him to my own more immediate concerns, and I followed my companion into the house.
“Joe,” said the count to the host, “is Mr. Bodkin up at the house this morning?”
“He’s just passed this way, sir, with Mr. Malowney of Tillnamuck, in the gig, on their way from Mr. Blake’s. They stopped here to order horses to go over to O’Malley Castle, and the gossoon is gone to look for a pair.”
“All right,” said Considine, and added, in a whisper, “we’ve done it well, Charley, to be beforehand, or the governor would have found it all out and taken the affair into his own hands. Now all you have to do is to stay quietly here till I come back, which will not be above an hour at farthest. Joe, send me the pony; keep an eye on Patsey, that he doesn’t play us a trick. The short way to Mr. Bodkin’s is through Scariff. Ay, I know it well; good-by, Charley. By the Lord, we’ll pepper him!”
These were the last words of the worthy count as he closed the door behind him, and left me to my own not very agreeable reflections. Independently of my youth and perfect ignorance of the world, which left me unable to form any correct judgment on my conduct, I knew that I had taken a great deal of wine, and was highly excited when my unhappy collision with Mr. Bodkin occurred. Whether, then, I had been betrayed into anything which could fairly have provoked his insulting retort or not, I could not remember; and now my most afflicting thought was, what opinion might be entertained of me by those at Blake’s table; and above all, what Miss Dashwood herself would think, and what narrative of the occurrence would reach her. The great effort of my last few days had been to stand well in her estimation, to appear something better in feeling, something higher in principle, than the rude and unpolished squirearchy about me; and now here was the end of it! What would she, what could she, think, but that I was the same punch-drinking, rowing, quarrelling bumpkin as those whom I had so lately been carefully endeavoring to separate myself from? How I hated myself for the excess to which passion had betrayed me, and how I detested my opponent as the cause of all my present misery. “How very differently,” thought I, “her friend the captain would have conducted himself. His quiet and gentlemanly manner would have done fully as much to wipe out any insult on his honor as I could do, and after all, would neither have disturbed the harmony of a dinner-table, nor made himself, as I shuddered to think I had, a subject of rebuke, if not of ridicule.” These harassing, torturing reflections continued to press on me, and I paced the room with my hands clasped and the perspiration upon my brow. “One thing is certain,—I can never see her again,” thought I; “this disgraceful business must, in some shape or other, become known to her, and all I have been saying these last three days rise up in judgment against this one act, and stamp me an impostor! I that decried—nay, derided—our false notion of honor. Would that Considine were come! What can keep him now?” I walked to the door; a boy belonging to the house was walking the roan before the door. “What had, then, become of Pat?” I inquired; but no one could tell. He had disappeared shortly after our arrival, and had not been seen afterwards. My own thoughts were, however, too engrossing to permit me to think more of this circumstance, and I turned again to enter the house, when I saw Considine advancing up the road at the full speed of his pony.
“Out with the mare, Charley! Be alive, my boy!—all’s settled.” So saying, he sprang from the pony and proceeded to harness the roan with the greatest haste, informing me in broken sentences, as he went on with all the arrangements.
“We are to cross the bridge of Portumna. They won the ground, and it seems Bodkin likes the spot; he shot Peyton there three years ago. Worse luck now, Charley, you know; by all the rule of chance, he can’t expect the same thing twice,—never four by honors in two deals. Didn’t say that, though. A sweet meadow, I know it well; small hillocks, like molehills; all over it. Caught him at breakfast; I don’t think he expected the message to come from us, but said it was a very polite attention,—and so it was, you know.”
So he continued to ramble on as we once more took our seats in the tax-cart and set out for the ground.