To very high rank and great personal advantages he united a manner of the most perfect kind. Dignified enough always to mark his station and his own consciousness of it, it was cordial without effort, frank and easy without display. If he could speak with all the weight of authority, he knew how to listen with actual deference; and there was that amount of change and “play” in his demeanor that made his companion, whoever for the moment he might be, believe that his views and arguments had made a deep impression on the Viceroy. To those unacquainted with such men, and the school to which they belong, there might have appeared something unreal, almost dramatic, in the elegant gracefulness of his bow, the gentle affability of his smile, the undeviating courtesy which he bestowed on all around him; but they were all of the man himself,—his very instincts,—his nature.
It had apparently been amongst his Excellency's instructions from his government to seek out such rising men of the Roman Catholic party as might be elevated and promoted on the just claims of their individual merits,—men, in fact, whose conduct and bearing would be certain to justify their selection for high office. It could not be supposed that a party long proscribed, long estranged from all participation in power, could be rich in such qualifications. At the bar, the ablest men usually threw themselves into the career of politics, and of course by strong partisanship more or less prejudiced their claims to office. It was rare indeed to find one who, with the highest order of abilities, was satisfied to follow a profession whose best rewards were denied him. Such was Joseph Nelligan when he was first “called,” and such he continued to the very hour we now see him. Great as had been his college successes, his triumphs at the bar overtopped them all. They who remembered his shy and reserved manner wondered whence he came by his dignity; they who knew his youth could not imagine how he came by his “law.”
Mr. M'Casky, the castle law-adviser, an old recruiting-serjeant of capacities, who had “tipped the shilling” to men of every party, had whispered his name to the Under-Secretary, who had again repeated it to the Viceroy. He was, as M'Casky said, “the man they wanted, with talent enough to confront the best of the opposite party, and wealthy enough to want nothing that can figure in a budget.” Hence was he, then, there a favored guest, and seated on his Excellency's left hand.
For the magic influence of that manner which we have mentioned as pertaining to the Viceroy, we ask for no better evidence than the sense of perfect ease which Joe Nelligan now enjoyed. The suave dignity of the Marquis was blended with a something like personal regard, a mysterious intimation that seemed to say, “This is the sort of man I have long been looking for; how gratifying that I should have found him at last!” They concurred in so many points, too, not merely in opinions, but actually in the very expressions by which they characterized them; and when at last his Excellency, having occasion to quote something he had said, called him “Nelligan,” the spell was complete.
Oh dear! when we torture our brains to legislate for apothecaries, endeavoring in some way or other to restrict the sale of those subtle ingredients on every grain or drop of which a human life may hang, why do we never think of those far more subtle elements of which great people are the dispensers,—flatteries more soothing than chloroform, smiles more lulling than poppy-juice! Imagine poor Nelligan under a course of this treatment, dear reader; fancy the delicious poison as it insinuates itself through his veins, and if you have ever been so drugged yourself, picture to your mind all the enjoyment he experienced.
By one of those adroit turns your social magician is master of, the Viceroy had drawn the conversation towards Nelligan's county and his native town.
“I was to have paid a visit to poor Martin there,” said he, “and I certainly should have looked in upon you.”
Nelligan's cheek was in a flame; pride and shame were both there, warring for the mastery.
“Poor fellow!” said his Excellency, who saw the necessity of a diversion, “I fear that he has left that immense estate greatly embarrassed. Some one mentioned to me, the other day, that the heir will not succeed to even a fourth of the old property.”
“I have heard even worse, my Lord,” said Nelligan. “There is a rumor that he is left without a shilling.”