“But you mistake, Fred, they are as haughty as Lucifer.”
“Just leave it to me, sir: I fancy I know something of the world by this time. It may require more money, but the result I will answer for.”
Sir Marmaduke's confidence in his son's tact and worldly skill was one of the articles of his faith, and he sat down at the table and wrote the order on the bank at once. “Here Fred,” said he; “I only beg of you to remember, that the way to express the grateful sense I entertain of this boy's conduct is not by wounding the susceptibilities of his feelings; and if they be above the class of farmers, which I really cannot ascertain, your steps must demand all your caution.”
“I hope, sir,” said Fred with some vanity in the tone, “that I have never made you blush for my awkwardness, and I don't intend to do so now. I promise for the success of my negociation; but I must not say a word more of how I mean to obtain it.”
Sir Marmaduke was very far from feeling satisfied with himself for having even so far encouraged a plan, that his own blind confidence in his son's cleverness had for a moment entrapped him into; he would gladly have withdrawn his consent, but old experience taught him that Fred was never completely convinced he was right, until he met opposition to his opinion. So he parted with him for the night, hoping that sleep might suggest a wiser counsel and a clearer head; and that being left free to act, he might possibly feel a doubt as to the correctness of his own judgment.
As for Fred, no sooner was he alone than he began to regret the pledge his precipitancy had carried him into. What were the nature of the advances he was to make—how to open the negociation, in a quarter the habits and prejudices of which he was utterly ignorant of, he had not the most vague conception; and, as he sought his chamber, he had half persuaded himself to the conviction, that the safest, and the most honest course, after all, would be to avow in the morning that he had overstated his diplomatic abilities, and fairly abandon a task, to which he saw himself inadequate. These were his last sleeping thoughts; for his waking resolves, we must enter upon another chapter.
CHAPTER XIX. A DIPLOMATIST DEFEATED
If Frederick Travers went to sleep at night with very considerable doubts, as to the practicability of his plans regarding the O'Donoghues, his waking thoughts were very far from re-assuring him, and he heartily wished he had never engaged in the enterprize. Now, however, his honour was in a manner pledged; he had spoken so confidently of success, there was nothing for it but to go forward, and endeavour, as as well he might, to redeem his promise.
At the time we speak of, military men never for a moment divested themselves of the emblems of their career; the uniform and the sword, the plumed hat and the high boot, formed a costume not to be worn at certain periods and laid aside at others, but was their daily dress, varying merely in the degree of full or half dress, as the occasion warranted. There was no affectation of the happy freedom of “Mufti”—no pretended enjoyment of the incognito of a black coat and round hat; on the contrary, the king's livery was borne with a pride which, erring on the opposite side, suggested a degree of assumption and conscious importance in the wearer, which more or less separated the soldier from the civilian in bearing, and gradually originated a feeling of soreness on the part of the more humbly clad citizen towards the more favoured order.