“They will come before we are ready, madam; old Scratch waits for no invitation. But they say that the death-tick runs before him, and keeps time with his cloven heel.”
“Oh Lord, Sir Remnant, how dreadfully you talk! I beg you to spare me; I have had no sleep since I was told of that horrible water, and of my poor grandson. Poor Hilary! He has done great things, and spent no money of his own; and indeed he had none of his own to spend; and having denied himself so, is it right that he should be disgraced and break his heart, because he could not help losing a little money, that was not at all his own? And he had taken a town worth ten times as much; now, truly speaking, is it fair of them?”
“Certainly not, madam; pox upon them! It is the scurviest thing ever heard of.”
“And you must remember, sir, if you please, that from his childhood upward, indeed ever since he could move on two legs, he always lost every sixpence put by kind people into his pockets. I gave him a guinea on his very fifth birthday; and in the afternoon what do you think he showed me? A filthy old tobacco-pipe, and nothing else—no change whatever. And his pride was more than he could set forth; though he always was a chatterer. Now, if such a thing as that could only be properly put at the Horse Guards, by some one of good position, surely, Sir Remnant, they would make allowance; they would see that it was his nature; at least they would have done so in my time.”
“Of course they would, of course, my lady. But things have been growing, from year to year, to such a pitch of”—here Sir Remnant took advantage of the lady’s courtly indulgence towards bad language—“that—that—they seem to want almost—gadzooks, they want to treat men almost all alike?”
“They never can do that, good sir. They never could be such fools as to try it. And, bad as they may be, they must be aware that my grandson has done no harm to them. Why, the money he lost was not theirs at all; it was all for the pay of the common soldiers. It comes out of everybody’s pocket, and it goes into nobody’s. And, to my mind, it serves them all perfectly right. Who is that General—I forget his name, an Irishman, if I remember aright—who is he, or of what family, that he should put a Lorraine to look after dirty money? The heir of all the Lorraines to be put to do a cashier’s business!”
“Heaven save me from such a proud woman as this!” thought poor Sir Remnant Chapman; “if Alice is like her, the Lord have pity on our unlucky Steenie! He won’t dare have his nip of brandy, even in a corner!”
“And now, poor dear, he is very ill indeed,” continued the ancient lady, recovering from the indignation which had even wrinkled her firm and smooth forehead; “he has pledged his honour to make good the money; and my son also thinks that the dignity of our family demands it: though to me it seems quite a ridiculous thing; and you of course will agree with me. And the doctors say that he has something on his mind; and if he cannot be relieved of it, he must die, poor boy. And then what becomes of the name of Lorraine that has been here for nearly eight hundred years?”
“It becomes extinct, of course, my lady,” answered Sir Remnant, as calmly as if the revolution of the earth need not be stopped; “but it might be revived in the female line, by royal licence, hereafter.”
“That would be of very little use. Why, even your grandson might be a Lorraine! Is that what you were thinking of?”