Nalty gave a grim smile at the notion of his new professional character, and begged O'Reilly to proceed.
“Our strategy goes no further; such will be the order of battle. We must trust to my father for the mode he will engage the enemy afterwards, for the reasons which have led him to take this step,—the approaching close of a long life, unburdened with any weighty retrospect, save that which concerns the Darcy family; for, while affecting to sorrow over their changed fortunes, he can attribute their worst evils to bad counsels and rash advice, and insinuate how different had been their lot had they only consented to regard us—as they might and ought to have done—in the light of friends. Hush! who is speaking there?”
They listened for a second or two, and then came the sound of the old man's voice, as he talked to himself in his sleep; his accents were low and complaining, as if he were suffering deeply from some mental affliction, and at intervals a heavy sob would break from him.
“He is ill, sir; the old gentleman is very ill!” said Nalty, in real alarm.
“Hush!” said O'Reilly, as, with one hand on the door, he motioned silence with the other.
“Yes, my Lady,” muttered the sleeper, but in a voice every syllable of which was audible, “eighty-six years have crept to your feet, to utter this last wish and die. It is the last request of one that has already left the things of this world, and would carry from it nothing but the thought that will track him to the grave!” A burst of grief, too sudden and too natural to admit of a doubt of its sincerity, followed the words; and O'Reilly was about to enter the room, when a low dry laugh arrested his steps, and the old man said,—
“Ay! Bob Hickman, did n't I tell you that would do? I knew she 'd cry, and I told you, if she cried one tear, the day was ours!”
There was something so horrible in the baseness of a mind thus revelling in its own duplicity, that even Nalty seemed struck with dread. O'Reilly saw what was passing in the other's mind, and, affecting to laugh at these “effects of fatigue and exhaustion,” half led, half pushed him from the room, and said “Good-night.”