'Who said I did?' said he snappishly; 'isn't it as bad there? Ugh, ugh! the Captain won't rest aisy in his grave after the way he treated me—leaving me here alone and dissolate in this place, amongst strangers!'
'Well, you must confess the country is not so bad.'
'And why would I confess it? What's in it that I don't mislike? Is it the heap of houses and the smoke and the devil's noise that's always going on that I'd like? Why isn't it peaceful and quiet like Dublin?'
And as I conversed further with him, I found that all his dislikes proceeded from the discrepancy he everywhere discovered from what he had been accustomed to in Ireland, and which, without liking, he still preferred to our Saxon observances—the few things he saw worthy of praise being borrowed or stolen from his own side of the Channel And in this his ingenuity was striking, insomuch that the very trees in Woburn Park owed their goodness to the owner having been once a Lord Lieutenant in Ireland, where, as Corny expressed it, 'devil thank him to have fine trees! hadn't he the pick of the Fhaynix?'
I knew that candour formed a most prominent feature in Mr. Delany's character, and consequently had little difficulty in ascertaining his opinion of every member of my family; indeed, to do him justice, no one ever required less of what is called pumping. His judgment on things and people flowed from him without effort or restraint, so that ere half an hour elapsed he had expatiated on my mothers pride and vanity, apostrophised my father's hastiness and determination, and was quite prepared to enter upon a critical examination of my cousin Julia's failings, concerning whom, to my astonishment, he was not half so lenient as I expected.
'Arrah, isn't she like the rest of them, coorting one day with Captain Phil, and another with the young lord there, and then laughing at them both with the ould duke that comes here to dinner! She thinks I don't be minding her; but didn't I see her taking myself off one day on paper—making a drawing of me, as if I was a haste! Mayhe there's worse nor me,' said the little man, looking down upon his crooked shins and large knee-joints with singular complacency; 'and mayhe she'd get one of them yet.' À harsh cackle, the substitute for a laugh, closed this speech.
'Breakfast on the table, sir,' said a servant, tapping gently at the door.
'I'll engage it is, and will be till two o'clock, when they'll be calling out for luncheon,' said Corny, turning up the whites of his eyes, as though the profligate waste of the house was a sin he wished to wash his hands of. 'That wasn't the way at his honour the Jidge's; he'd never taste a bit from morning till night; and many a man he 'd send to his long account in the meantime. Ugh! I wish I was back there.'
'I have spent many happy days in Ireland, too,' said I, scarce following him in more than the general meaning of his speech.
A fit of coughing from Corny interrupted his reply, but as he left the room I could hear his muttered meditations, something in this strain: 'Happy days, indeed! A dacent life you led! tramping about the country with a fool, horse-riding and fighting! Ugh!'