His abrupt and broken sentences, his sudden outbreaks of intelligence or passion, were not inaptly conveyed by the character of a handwriting which was bold, careless, and hurried. Indifferent to everything like neatness or accuracy, generally blotted, and never very legible, these defects, if they did not palliate, they might, in a measure, explain something of his habits of thought and action; but now, when about to dictate to another, the case was different, and those interruptions which Daly would have set down by a dash of his pen, were to be conveyed by the less significant medium of mere blanks.
“I 'm ready,” said Lionel, at length, as he sat for some time in silent expectation of Daly's commencement. But that gentleman was walking up and down the room with his hands behind his back, occasionally stopping to look out upon the lawn.
“Very well, begin—'My dear Lord Netherby,' or 'My dear Lord,'—it does n't signify which, though I suppose he would be of another mind, and find a whole world of difference between the two. Have you that?—very well. Then go on to mention, in such terms as you like yourself, the sudden change of fortune that has befallen your family,—briefly, but decisively.”
“Dictate it, I'll follow you,” said Lionel, somewhat put out by this mode of composition.
“Oh! it doesn't matter exactly what the words are,—say, that a d——d scoundrel, Gleeson—Honest Tom we always called him—has cut and run with something like a hundred thousand pounds, after forging and falsifying every signature to our leases for the last ten or fifteen years; we are, in consequence, ruined—obliged to leave the abbey, take to a cottage—a devilish poor one, too.”
“Don't go so fast—'we are in consequence—'”
“Utterly smashed—broken up—no home, and devilish little to live upon,—my mother's jointure being barely sufficient for herself and Helen. I want, therefore, to remind you—your Lordship, that is—to remind your Lordship of the kind pledge which you so lately made us, at a time when we little anticipated the early necessity we should have to recall it. My father, some forty-five or six years back, raised the Darcy Light Horse, equipped, armed, and mounted six hundred men, at his own expense. This regiment, of which he took the head, did good service in the Low Countries, and although distinguished in many actions, he received nothing but thanks,—happily not wanting more, if so much. Times are changed now with him, and it would be a seasonable act of kindness and a suitable reward to an old officer—highly esteemed as he is and has been through life—to make up for past neglect by some appointment—the service has many such—Confound them! the pension-list shows what fellows there are—'governors and deputy-governors,' 'acting adjutants' of this, and 'deputy assistant commissaries' of that.”
“I 'm not to write that, I suppose?”
“No, you needn't,—it would do no harm, though, to give them a hint on the subject; but never mind it now. 'As for myself, I 'll leave the Guards, and take service in the Line. I am only anxious for a regiment on a foreign station, and if in India, so much the better.' Is that down? Well—eh! that will do, I think. You may just say, that the matter ought to be arranged without any communication with your father, inasmuch as, from motives of delicacy, he might feel bound to decline what was tendered as an offer, though he would hold himself pledged to accept what was called by the name of duty. Yes, Lionel, that's the way to put the case; active service, by all means active service,—no guard-mounting at Windsor or Carlton House; no Hounslow Heath engagements.”
Lionel followed, as well as he was able, the suggestions, to which sundry short interjections and broken “hems!” and “ha's!” gave no small confusion, and at last finished a letter, which, if it conveyed some part of the intention, was even a stronger exponent of the character, of him who dictated it.