“I confess it looks very like it.”
“I read the riddle otherwise,” said Lionel; “the fellow, whoever he was, mistook me for somebody else, and there was evidently something more like a reprisal than a theft in the whole transaction.”
“But you have really lost him?” said Beanclerk.
“When I assure you that I came home on foot, I hope that question is answered.”
“By Jove! you have most singular ways of doing matters in this country,” cried the colonel; “but I suppose when a man is used to Ireland, he gets pretty much accustomed to hear of his horse being stolen away as well as the fox.”
“Oh! we'll chance upon him one of these days yet,” said the Knight; “I am half of Lionel's mind myself now,—the thing does not look like a robbery.”
“There's no end of the eccentricity of these people,” muttered Lord Netherby to himself; “they can get into a towering passion and become half mad about trifles, but they take a serious loss as coolly as possible.” And with this reflection on national character he moved into the drawing-room, where soon afterwards the party repaired to talk over Lionel's adventure, with every turn that fancy or raillery could give it.
CHAPTER XXX. BAGENAL DALY'S VISITORS
It was at a late hour of a night, some days after this event occurred, that Bagenal Daly sat closeted with Darcy's lawyer, endeavoring, by deep and long thought, to rescue him from some at least of the perils that threatened him. Each day, since the Knight's departure, had added to the evil tidings of his fortune. While Gleeson had employed his powers of attorney to withdraw large sums from the banker's hands, no information could be had concerning the great loan he had raised from the London company, nor was there to be found among the papers left behind him the bond passed to Hickman, and which he should have received had the money been paid. That such was the case, Bagenal Daly firmly believed; the memorandum given him by Freney was corroborated by the testimony of the clerks in two separate banking-houses, who both declared that Gleeson drew these sums on the morning before he started for Kildare, and to one of Daly's rapid habits of judgment such evidence was quite conclusive. This view of the subject was, unhappily, not destined to continue undisturbed, for, on the very morning after the Knight's departure from Dublin, came a formal letter from Hickman's solicitor, demanding payment of the interest on the sum of seventy-four thousand eight hundred and twenty pounds, odd shillings, at five per cent, owing by seven weeks, and accompanying which was a notice of foreclosure of the mortgage on the ensuing 17th of March, in case the full sum aforesaid were not duly paid.