“You reckon, then, on being a debater!” said she, quietly.
“A little of everything, Miss Bella,” said he, laughing; “like the modern painters, not particular for a shade or two. I 'd not go wasting my time with that old Tory lot,—they're all worked ont, aged and weighted, as John Scott would call them—I'd go in with the young uns,—the Manchester two-year-olds, universal—what d'ye call it?—and vote by ballot. They 're the fellows have 'the tin,' by Jove! they have.”
“Then I scarcely see how Lord Lackington would advance his family influence by promoting your views,” said she, again.
“To be sure he would. It would be the safest hedge in the world for him. He 'd square his book by it, and stand to win, no matter what horse came in. Besides, why should they buy me, if I was n't against them? You don't nobble the horse in your own stable,—eh, Kellett, old boy?”
“You're a wonderful fellow, Beecher!” said Kellett, in a most honest admiration of his friend.
“If they'd only give me a chance, Paul,—just one chance!”
It was not very easy to see what blot in the game of life he purposed to himself to “hit” when he used this expression, “if they only give me a chance;” vague and indistinct as it was, still for many a year had it served him as a beacon of hope. A shadow vision of creditors “done,” horses “nobbled,” awkward testimonies “squared,” a millenary period of bills easily discounted, with an indulgent Angel presiding over the Bankrupt Court,—these and like blessings doubtless all flitted before him as the fruits of that same “chance” which destiny held yet in store for him.
Hope is a generous fairy; she deigns to sit beside the humblest firesides,—she will linger even in the damp cell of the prison, or rest her wings on the wave-tossed raft of the shipwrecked, and in such mission is she thrice blessed! But by what strange caprice does she visit the hearts of men like this? Perhaps it is that the very spirit of her ministering is to despair of nothing.
We are by no means sure that our reader will take the same pleasure that Kellett did in Beecher's society, and therefore we shall spare him the narrative of their walk. They strolled along for hours, now by the shingly shore, on which the waves swept smoothly, now inland, through leafy lanes and narrow roads, freckled with patchy sunlight. The day was calm and still,—one of those solemn autumnal days which lend to scenery a something of sadness in their unvarying quiet. Although so near a great city, the roads were little travelled, and they sauntered for hours scarcely meeting any one.
Wherever the smoke rose above the tall beech-trees, wherever the ornamented porch of some lone cottage peeped through the copse, or the handsome entrance-gate proclaimed the well-to-do owner of some luxurious abode, Kellett would stop to tell who it was lived there,—the wealthy merchant, the affluent banker, the alderman or city dignitary, who had amassed his fortune by this or that pursuit. Through all his stories there ran the vein of depreciation, which the once landed proprietor cherished towards the men who were the “first of their name.” He was sure to remember some trait of their humble beginnings in life,—how this one had come up barefooted to Dublin fifty years before; how that had held horses in the street for hire. It was strange, but scarcely one escaped some commentary of this kind; not that there was a spark of ill-nature in the man, but that he experienced a species of self-consolation in thinking that in all his narrow fortune he had claims of kindred and connection which none of them could compete with. Beecher's thoughts took, meanwhile, a different course; whenever not awakened to interest by some trait of their sharpness or cunning, to which he listened with avidity, he revelled in the idea of their wealth, as a thing of which they might be despoiled: “Wouldn't that fellow take shares in some impossible speculation?—Couldn't the other be induced to buy some thousand pounds' worth of valueless scrip?—Would this one kindly permit himself to 'be cleared out' at hazard?—Might that one be persuaded to lose a round sum at écarté?”