“And be happier while doing so,—add that, my worthy friend,” said Cashel, pressing the arm that he held within his own.
“Come along, sir; this dalliance is pleasanter to me than to you. I begin to feel that I may have done you good, and you should be a doctor to know the full ecstasy of that feeling. Let us now move on, or this man will be before us.” And so saying, they moved briskly forward towards the village of Dunkeeran.
CHAPTER XII. SHYLOCK DEMANDS HIS BOND
The debts we make by plighted vows,
Bear heaviest interest, ever!
Haywood.
The doctor's little parlor was the very “ideal” of snugness; there was nothing which had the faintest resemblance to luxury save the deep-cushioned arm-chair, into which he pressed Cashel at entering; but there were a hundred objects that told of home. The book-shelves, no mean indication of the owner's trempe, were filled with a mixture of works on medicine, the older English dramatists, and that class of writers who prevailed in the days of Steele and Addison. There was a microscope on one table, with a great bunch of fresh-plucked fern beside it. A chess-board, with an unfinished game—a problem from a newspaper, for he had no antagonist—stood on another table; while full in front of the fire, with an air that betokened no mean self-importance, sat a large black cat, with a red leather collar, the very genius of domesticity. As Cashel's eyes took a hasty survey of the room, they rested on a picture—it was the only one there—which hung over the mantelpiece. It was a portrait of Mary Leicester, and although a mere water-color sketch, an excellent likeness, and most characteristic in air and attitude.
“Ay!” said Tiernay, who caught the direction of his glance, “a birthday present to me! She had promised to dine with me, but the day, like most Irish days when one prays for sunshine, rained torrents; and so she sent me that sketch, with a note, a merry bit of doggerel verse, whose merit lies in its local allusions to a hundred little things, and people only known to ourselves; but for this, I 'd be guilty of breach of faith and show it to you.”
“Is the drawing, too, by her own hand?”
“Yes; she is a clever artist, and might, it is said by competent judges, have attained high excellence as a painter had she pursued the study. I remember an illustration of the fact worth mentioning. Carringford, the well-known miniature-painter, who was making a tour of this country a couple of years back, passed some days at the cottage, and made a picture of old Con Corrigan, for which, I may remark passingly, poor Mary paid all her little pocket-money,—some twenty guineas, saved up from Heaven knows how long. Con did not know this, of course, and believed the portrait was a compliment to his granddaughter. Carringford's ability is well known, and there is no need to say the picture was admirably painted; but still it wanted character; it had not the playful ease, the gentle, indulgent pleasantry that marks my old friend's features; in fact, it was hard and cold,—not warm, generous, and genial: so I thought, and so Mary thought, and accordingly, scarcely had the artist taken his leave, when she set to work herself, and made a portrait, which, if inferior as a work of art, was infinitely superior as a likeness. It was Con himself; it had the very sparkle of his mild blue eye, the mingled glance of drollery and softness, the slightly curled mouth, as though some quaint conceit was lingering on the lip,—all his own. Mary's picture hung on one side of the chimney, and Carringford's at the other, and so they stood when the painter came through from Limerick and passed one night at Tubber-beg, on his way to Dublin. I breakfasted there that morning, and I remember, on entering the room, I was surprised to see the frame of Carringford's portrait empty, and a bank-note, carefully folded, stuck in the corner. 'What does that mean?' said I to him, for we were alone at the time.
“'It means simply that my picture cannot stand such competitorship as that, said he; mine was a miniature, that is the man himself.' I will not say one half of the flatteries he uttered, but I have heard from others since, that he speaks of this picture as a production of high merit. Dear girl! that meagre sketch may soon have a sadder interest connected with it; it may be all that I shall possess of her! Yes, Mr. Cashel, your generosity may stave off the pressure of one peril, but there is another, from which nothing but flight will rescue my poor friend.”