For the heavy sums he had lost at play, for all the wasteful outlay of his money, Cashel cared little; but for the humiliating sense of being a “dupe” and a “tool,” his outraged pride suffered deeply; and when Lady Kilgoff drew a picture, half real, half imaginary, of the game which his subtle associate was playing, Roland could scarce restrain himself from openly declaring a rupture, and, if need be, a quarrel with him.
It needed all her persuasions to oppose this course; and, indeed, if she had not made use of one unanswerable argument, could she have succeeded. This was the inevitable injury Linton could inflict upon her, by ascribing the breach to her influence. It would be easy enough, from such materials as late events suggested, to compose a history that would ruin her. Lord Kilgoff's lamentable imbecility, the result of that fatal night of danger; Cashel's assiduous care of her; her own most natural dependence upon him,—all these, touched on with a woman's tact and delicacy, she urged, and at last obtained his pledge that he would leave to time and opportunity the mode of terminating an intimacy he had begun to think of with abhorrence.
If there be certain minds to whom the very air they breathe is doubt, there are others to whom distrust is absolute misery. Of these latter Cashel was one. Nature had made him frank and free-spoken, and the circumstances of his early life had encouraged the habit. To nourish a grudge would have been as repulsive to his sense of honor as it would be opposed to all the habits of his buccaneering life. To settle a dispute with the sword was invariably the appeal among his old comrades; and such arbitraments are those which certainly leave the fewest traces of lingering malice behind them. To cherish and store up a secret wrong, and wait in patience for the day of reckoning, had something of the Indian about it that, in Roland's eyes, augmented its atrocity.
Oppressed with thoughts like these, and associating every vexation he suffered as in some way connected with that wealth whose possession he fancied was to satisfy every wish and every ambition, he sauntered on, little disposed to derive pleasure from the presence of those external objects which fortune had made his own.
“When I was poor,” thought he, “I had warm and attached friends, ready to exult in my successes, and sympathize with me in my sorrows. If I had enemies, they were brave fellows, as willing to defend their cause with the sword as myself. None flattered or frowned on him who was richer than the rest. No subtle schemes lay in wait for him whose unsuspecting frankness exposed him to deception; we were bons camarades, at least,” said he, aloud, “and from what I have seen of the great world, I 've lived to prize the distinction.”
From this revery he was suddenly recalled by observing, directly in front of him, an elderly gentleman, who, in a stooping posture, seemed to seek for something among the dry leaves and branches beside a low wicket.
“This is the first fruit of our gay neighborhood,” said the old man, testily, as he poked the dead leaves with his cane; “we 're lucky if they leave us without more serious inconvenience.”
“Can I assist you in your search?—have you lost something?” said Cashel, approaching.
“There is a key—the key of the wicket—hid somewhere hereabouts, young man,” said the other, who, scarcely bestowing a look upon Roland, continued his investigation as busily as before.
Cashel, undaunted by the somewhat ungracious reception, now aided him in his search, while the other continued: “I 've known this path for nigh forty years, and never remember this wicket to have been locked before. But so it is. My old friend is afraid of the invasion of this noisy neighborhood, and has taken to lock and key to keep them out. The key he promised to hide at the foot of this tree.”