CHAPTER X. AN INTRIGUE DETECTED
Of all the evil influences which swayed the destinies of Ireland in latter days, none can compare, in extent of importance, with the fatal taste for prodigality that characterized the habits of the gentry. Reckless, wasteful extravagance, in every detail of life, suggested modes of acting and thinking at variance with all individual and, consequently, all national prosperity. Hospitality was pushed to profusion, liberality became a spendthrift habit. The good and the bad qualities of the Irish temperament alike contributed to this passion; there was the wish to please, the desire to receive courteously, and entertain with splendor within doors, and to appear with proportionate magnificence without.
A proud sense of what they deemed befitting their station induced the gentry to vie in expenditure with the richly endowed officials of the Government, and the very thought of prudence or foresight in matters of expense would have been stigmatized as a meanness by those who believed they were sustaining the honor of their country while sapping the foundation of its prosperity.
If we have little to plead in defence or in palliation of such habits, we can at least affirm that in many cases they were practised with a taste and elegance that shed lustre over the period. Unlike the vulgar displays of newly acquired wealth, they exhibited in a striking light the generous and high-spirited features of the native character, which deemed that nothing could be too good for the guest, nor any expenditure for his entertainment either too costly or too difficult. The fatal facility of Irish nature, and the still more ruinous influence of example, hurried men along on this road to ruin; and as political prospects grew darker, a reckless indifference to the future succeeded, in which little care was taken for the morrow, until, at last, thoughtless extravagance became a habit, and moneyed difficulties the lot of almost every family of Ireland.
That a gentry so embarrassed, and with such prospects of ruin before them, should have been easy victims to Ministerial seduction, is far less surprising than that so many were to be seen who could prefer their integrity to the rich bribes of Government patronage; and it is a redeeming feature of the day that amid all the lavish and heedless course of prodigality and excess there were some who could face poverty with stouter hearts than they could endure the stigma of gilded corruption: nor is it the history of every Parliament that can say as much.
Let us leave this theme, even at the hazard of being misunderstood, for the moment, by our reader, and turn to the Knight of Gwynne, who now was seated at his breakfast in a large parlor of his house in Henrietta Street. Sad and deserted as it seems now, this was in those days the choice residence of Irish aristocracy, and the names of peers and baronets on every door told of a class which, now, should be sought for in scattered fragments among the distant cities of the Continent.
The Knight was reading the morning papers, in which, amid the fashionable news, was an account of his own wager with Lord Drogheda, when a carriage drove up hastily to the door, and, immediately after, the loud summons of a footman resounded through the street.
While the Knight was yet wondering who this early visitor should prove, the servant announced Mr. Con Heffernan.
“The very man I wished to see,” cried Darcy, eagerly; “tell me all about this unfortunate business. But, first of all, is he out of danger?”