Kitabı oku: «Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1», sayfa 19

“If this be not raving, it is a deliberate insult!” muttered Dunn, sternly, while he rudely pushed away the other’s hand, and drew back his chair.

“Well, it’s not raving, whatever it is,” said Kellett, calmly. “The cold air of the earth that’s opening for me clears my brain, and I know well the words I ‘m saying, and the warning I ‘m giving you. Tell the people fairly that it’s only scheming you were; that the companies are a bubble and the banks a sham; that you ‘re only juggling this man’s credit against that, making the people think that you have the confidence of the Government, and the Government believe that you can do what you like with the people. Go at once and publish it, that you are only cheating them all, or you ‘ll have a gloomier ending even than this!”

“I came out of compassion for you.”

“No, you did n’t, not a bit of it. You came to tell old Mat Dunn that the score was wiped off; he came to the window here this morning and looked in at me.”

“My father? Impossible! He’s nearly ninety, and barely able to move about a room.”

“I don’t care for that: there he was, where you see that bush, and he leaned on the window-sill and looked at me; and he wiped the glass, where his breath dulled it, twice. Then I gave a shout at him that sent him off. They had to carry him to the car outside.”

“Is this true?” cried Dunn, eagerly.

“If I had had but the strength to bring me to the window, it’s little I ‘d have minded his white hair.”

“If you had dared!” said Dunn, rising, and no longer able to control his anger.

“Don’t go yet; I have more to say to you,” cried he, stretching out his hands towards him. “You think, because your roguery is succeeding, that you are great and respected. Not a bit; the gentlemen won’t have you, and your own sort won’t have you. There’s not an honest man would eat your salt, – there’s not an honest girl would bear your name. There you stand, as much alone in the world as if you came out of another country, and you ‘re the only man in Ireland does n’t see it.”

Dunn darted from the room as the last words were uttered, and gained the road. So overwhelmed was he by rage and astonishment that it was some minutes ere he could remember where he was or whither he would go.

“To Beldoyle,” said he to the carman, pointing in the direction of the low shore, where his father lived; “drive your best pace.” Then suddenly changing his mind, he said, “No, to town.”

“Is he gone, Bella?” said Kellett, as his daughter entered.

“Yes; and before I could thank him for his coming.”

“I think I said enough,” said he, with a fierce laugh, which made her suddenly turn and look at him.

It was all she could do to repress a sudden cry of horror; for one side of his face was distorted by palsy, and the mouth drawn all awry.

“What’s this here, Bella?” said he, trying to touch his cheek with his hand; “a kind of stiffness – a sort of – Eh, are you crying, darling?”

“No; it was something in my eye pained me,” said she, turning away to hide her face.

“Give me a looking-glass, quickly,” cried he.

“No, no,” said she, forcing a laugh; “you have not shaved these two days, and you are quite neglected-look-ing. You sha’n’t see yourself in such a state.”

“Bring it this minute, I say,” said he, passionately, and in a voice that grew less and less articulate every moment.

“Now pray be patient, dearest papa.”

“Then I’ll go for it myself;” and with these words he grasped the arm of the chair and tried to rise.

“There, there,” said she, softly forcing him back into his seat, “I ‘ll fetch it at once. I wish you would be persuaded, dear papa – ” began she, still holding the glass in her hands. But he snatched it rudely from her, and placed it before him.

“That’s what it is,” said he, at last; “handsome Paul Kellett they used to call me at Corfu. I wonder what they’d say now?”

“It is a mere passing thing, a spasm of some kind.”

“Ay,” said he, with a mocking laugh, to which the distortion imparted a shocking expression. “Both sides will be the same – to-morrow or next day – I know that.”

She could hear no more, but, covering her face with her hands, sobbed bitterly.

Kellett still continued to look at himself in the glass; and whether the contortion was produced by the malady or a passing emotion, a half-sardonic laugh was on his features as he said, “I was wrong when I said I’d never be chapfallen.”

CHAPTER XXV. A CHURCHYARD

There come every now and then, in our strange climate, winter days which imitate the spring, with softened sunlight, glistening leaves, and warbling birds; even the streams unite in the delusion, and run clearly along with eddying circles, making soft music among the stones. These delicious intervals are full of pleasant influences, and the garden breath that floats into the open drawing-room brings hope as well as health on its wings. It was on such a morning a little funeral procession entered the gateway of the ruined church at Kellester, and wound its way towards an obscure corner where an open grave was seen. With the exception of one solitary individual, it was easy to perceive that they who followed the coffin were either the hired mourners, or some stray passers-by indulging a sad curiosity in listlessness. It was poor Kellett’s corpse was borne along, with Conway walking after it.

The mournful task over, and the attendants gone, Conway lingered about among the graves, now reading the sad records of surviving affection, now stopping to listen to the high-soaring lark whose shrill notes vibrated in the thin air. “Poor Jack!” thought he, aloud; “he little knows the sad office I have had this morning. He always was talking of home and coming back again, and telling his dear father of all his campaigning adventures; and so much for anticipation – beneath that little mound of earth lies all that made the Home he dreamed of! He’s almost the last of the Albueras,” said he, as he stood over the grave; and at the same time a stranger drew near the spot, and, removing his hat, addressed him by name. “Ah! Mr. Dunn, I think?” said Conway.

“Yes," – said the other; “I regret to see that I am too late. I wished to pay the last tribute of respect to our poor friend, but unfortunately all was over when I arrived.”

“You knew him intimately, I believe?” said Conway.

“From boyhood,” said Dunn, coughing, to conceal some embarrassment. “Our families were intimate; but of him, personally, I saw little: he went abroad with his regiment, and when he returned, it was to live in a remote part of the country, so that we seldom met.”

“Poor fellow!” muttered Conway, “he does seem to have been well-nigh forgotten by every one. I was alone here this morning.”

“Such is life!” said Dunn.

“But such ought not death to be,” rejoined Conway. “A gallant old soldier might well have been followed to his last billet by a few friends or comrades; but he was poor, and that explains all!”

“That is a harsh judgment for one so young as you are.”

“No: if poor Kellett had fallen in battle, he had gone to his grave with every honor to his memory; but he lived on in a world where other qualities than a soldier’s are valued, and he was forgotten, – that’s the whole of it!”

“We must think of the daughter now; something must be done for her,” said Dunn.

“I have a plan about that, if you will kindly aid me with it,” said Conway, blushing as he spoke. “You are aware, perhaps, that Jack Kellett and I were comrades. He saved my life, and risked his own to do it, and I owe him more than life in the cheery, hearty spirit he inspired me with, at a time when I was rather disposed to sulk with the whole world; so that I owe him a heavy debt.” Here he faltered, and at last stopped, and it was only as Dunn made a gesture to him to continue, that he went on: “Well, I have a dear, kind old mother, living all alone in Wales, – not over well off, to be sure, but quite able to do a kind thing, and fully as willing. If Miss Kellett could be induced to come and stay with her, – it might be called a visit at first, – time would gradually show them how useful they were to each other, and they ‘d find they need n’t – they could n’t separate. That’s my plan; will you support it?”

“I ought to tell you, frankly, that I have no presumption to counsel Miss Kellett. I never saw her till the night you accompanied her to my house; we are utter strangers to each other therefore. There is, however, sufficient in your project to recommend itself, and if anything I can add will aid it, you may reckon upon me; but you will yourself see whether my counsels be admissible. There is only one question I would ask, – you ‘ll excuse the frankness of it for the sincerity it guarantees, – Miss Kellett, although in poverty, was the daughter of a gentleman of fortune, – all the habits of her life were formed in that station; now, is it likely – I mean – are your mother’s circumstances – ”

“My mother has something like a hundred a year in the world,” broke in Conway, hastily. “It’s a poor pittance, I know, and you would be puzzled to say how one could eke out subsistence on it, but she manages it very cleverly.”

“I had really no intention to obtrude my curiosity so far,” said Dunn, apologizing. “My object was to show you, generally, that Miss Kellett, having hitherto lived in a condition of comfort – ”

“Well, we ‘ll do our best – I mean my mother will,” said Conway. “Only say you will recommend the plan, and I ‘m satisfied.”

“And for yourself – have you no project, no scheme of life struck out? A man so full of youth and energy should not sink into the listless inactivity of a retired soldier.”

“You forget this,” said Conway, pointing to his armless sleeve.

“Many a one-armed officer leads his squadron into fire; and your services – if properly represented, properly supported – would perhaps meet recognition at the Horse Guards. What say you, would you serve again if they offered you a cornetcy?”

“Would I? – would I bless the day that brought me the tidings? But the question is not of me,” said he, proudly; and he turned away to leave the spot. Dunn followed him, and they walked out into the road together. A handsome chariot, splendid in all its appointments, and drawn by two powerful thoroughbreds, awaited the rich man’s coming, and the footman banged down the steps with ostentatious noise as he saw him approach.

“Let the carriage follow,” said Dunn to the servant, and walked on at Conway’s side. “If it was not that I am in a position to be of service to you, my observation would be a liberty,” said Dunn; “but I have some influence with persons in power – ”

“I must stop you at once,” said Conway, good-humoredly. “I belong to a class which does not accept of favors except from personal friends; and though I fully recognize your kind intentions towards me, remember we are strangers to each other.”

“I should wish to forget that,” said Dunn, courteously.

“I should still be ungracious enough to bear it in mind. Come, come, Mr. Dunn,” said he, “this is not the topic I want you to be interested in. If you can bring some hope and comfort into that little cottage yonder, you will do a far greater kindness than by any service you can render one like me.”

“It would scarcely be advisable to do anything for a day or two?” said Dunn, rather asking the question.

“Of course not. Meanwhile I’ll write to my mother, and she shall herself address Miss Kellett, or, if you think it better, she ‘d come over here.”

“We ‘ll think over that. Come back with me to town and eat your dinner with me, if you have no engagement.”

“Not to-day, – excuse me to-day. I am low and out of sorts, and I feel as if I ‘d rather be alone.”

“Will you let me see you to-morrow, or the day after?”

“The day after to-morrow be it. By that time I shall have heard from my mother,” said Conway. And they parted.

Long after Mr. Dunn’s handsome equipage had driven away, Charles Conway continued to linger about the neighborhood of the little cottage. The shutters were closed, and no smoke issued from the chimney, and it looked dreary and desolate. Again and again would he draw near the little wicket and look into the garden. He would have given all he possessed to have been able to ask after her, – to have seen any one who could have told him of her, – how she bore up in her dread hour of trial; but none was to be seen. More than once he adventured to approach the door, and timidly stood, uncertain what to do, and then, cautiously retracing his steps, he regained the road, again to resume his lonely watch. And so the noon passed, and the day waned, and evening drew nigh, and there he still lingered. He thought that when night closed in, some flickering light might give sign of life within, – some faint indication of her his heart was full of; but all remained dark, silent, and cheerless. Even yet could he not bear to leave the spot, and it was already far into the night ere he turned his steps towards Dublin.

Let us go back for a moment to Mr. Davenport Dunn, who was not the only occupant of the handsome chariot that rolled smoothly back to town. Mr. Driscoll sat in one corner; the blind carefully down, so as to screen him from view.

“And that was Conway!” said he, as soon as Dunn had taken his seat. “Wasn’t I right when I said you were sure to catch him here?”

“I knew as much myself,” said Dunn, curtly.

“Well, and what is he like? – is he a chap easy to deal with? – is he any way deep?”

“He’s as proud as Lucifer, – that ‘s all I can make out of him; and there are few things harder to manage than real pride.”

“Ay, if you can’t get round it,” said Driscoll, with a sly twinkle of the eye.

“I have no time for such management,” said Dunn, stiffly.

“Well, how did he take what you said to him? Did he seem as if he ‘d enter into the business kindly?”

“You don’t suppose that I spoke to him about his family or his fortune, do you? Is it in a chance meeting like this that I could approach a subject full of difficulty and complication? You have rare notions of delicacy and address, Driscoll!”

“God help me! I’m a poor crayture, but somehow I get along for all that, and I ‘m generally as far on my road at the end of the day as them that travels with four posters.”

“You’d make a pretty mess of whatever required a light hand and a fine touch, that I can tell you. The question here lies between a peer of the realm with twelve thousand a year, and a retired soldier with eightpence a day pension. It does not demand much thought to see where the balance inclines.”

“You’re forgetting one trifling matter. Who has the right to be the peer with the twelve thousand a year?”

“I am not forgetting it; I was going to it when you stopped me. Until we have failed in obtaining our terms from Lord Lackington – ”

“Ay, but what are the terms?” broke in Driscoll, eagerly.

“If you interrupt me thus at every moment, I shall never be able to explain my meaning. The terms are for yourself to name; you may write the figures how you please. As for me, I have views that in no way clash with yours. And to resume: until we fail with the Viscount, we have no need of the soldier. All that we have to think of as regards Conway is, that he falls into no hands but our own, that he should never learn anything of his claim, nor be within reach of such information till the hour when we ourselves think fit to make it known to him – ”

“He oughtn’t to keep company with that daughter of Paul Kellett, then,” broke in Driscoll. “There’s not a family history in the kingdom she hasn’t by heart.”

“I have thought of that already, and there is some danger of such an occurrence.”

“As how?”

“Young Conway is at this very moment plotting how she may be domesticated with his mother, somewhere in Wales, I believe.”

“If he’s in love with her, it will be a bad business,” said Driscoll. “She does be reading and writing, too, from morning till night. There’s no labor nor fatigue she’s not equal to, and all the searches and inquiries that weary others she’d go into out of pure amusement. Now, if she was ever to be with his mother, and heard the old woman talk about family history, she ‘d be at it hard and fast next morning.”

“There is no need she should go there.”

“No. But she must n’t go, – must never see her.”

“I think I can provide for that. It will be somewhat more difficult to take him out of the way for the present. I wish he were back in the Crimea.”

“He might get killed – ”

“Ay, but his claim would not die. Look here, Driscoll,” said he, slowly; “I ventured to tell him this morning that I would assist him with my influence if he wishes to re-enter the service as an officer, and he resented the offer at once as a liberty. Now, it might be managed in another way. Leave me to think it over, and perhaps I can hit upon the expedient. The Attorney-General is to report upon the claims to me to-morrow, next day I’m to see Conway himself, and then you shall learn all.”

“I don’t like all these delays,” began Driscoll; but at a look from Dunn he stopped, and held down his head, half angry, half abashed.

“You advance small loans of money on approved security, Driscoll,” said Dunn, with a dry expression of the mouth. “Perhaps some of these mornings you may be applied to for a few hundreds by a young fellow wishing to purchase his commission, – you understand me?”

“I believe I do,” said Driscoll, with a significant smile.

“You ‘ll not be too hard on him for the terms, especially if he has any old family papers to deposit as security, – eh?”

“Just so – just so. A mere nominal guarantee,” said Driscoll, still laughing. “Oh, dear! but it’s a queer world, and one has to work his wits hard to live in it.” And with this philosophic explanation of life’s trials, Mr. Driscoll took his leave of Dunn, and walked homeward.

CHAPTER XXVI. THE OSTEND PACKET

It was a wild, stormy night, with fast-flying clouds above, and a heavy rolling sea below, as the “Osprey” steamed away for Ostend, her closed hatchways and tarpaulined sailors, as well as her sea-washed deck and dripping cordage, telling there was “dirty weather outside.” Though the waves broke over the vessel as she lay at anchor, and the short distance between the shore and her gangway had to be effected at peril of life, the captain had his mail, and was decided on sailing. There were but three passengers: two went aboard with the captain; the third was already on deck when they arrived, and leisurely paraded up and down with his cigar, stopping occasionally to look at the lights on shore, or cast a glance towards the wild chaos of waves that raged without.

“Safe now, I suppose, Grog?” muttered Beecher, as the vessel, loosed from her last mooring, turned head to sea out of the harbor.

“I rather suspect you are,” said Davis, as he struck a light for his cigar. “Few fellows would like to swim out here with a judge’s warrant in his mouth such a night as this.”

“I don’t like it overmuch myself,” said Beecher; “there’s a tremendous sea out there, and she’s only a cockleshell after all.”

“A very tidy one, sir, in a sea, I promise you,” said the Captain, overhearing, while with his trumpet he bellowed forth some directions to the sailors.

“You’ve no other passengers than ourselves, have you?” asked Beecher.

“Only that gentleman yonder,” whispered the Captain, pointing towards the stranger.

“Few, I take it, fancy coming out in such weather,” said Beecher.

“Very few, sir, if they have n’t uncommonly strong reasons for crossing the water,” replied the Captain.

“I think he had you there!” growled Grog in his ear. “Don’t you go poking nonsense at fellows like that. Shut up, I tell you! shut up!”

“I begin to feel it deuced cold here,” said Beecher, shuddering.

“Come down below, then, and have something hot. I ‘ll make a brew and turn in,” said Davis, as he moved towards the ladder. “Come along.”

“No, I must keep the deck, no matter how cold it is. I suffer dreadfully when I go below. Send me up a tumbler of rum-and-water, Davis, as hot as may be.”

“You ‘d better take your friend’s advice, sir,” said the Captain. “It will be dirty weather out there, and you ‘ll be snugger under cover.” Beecher, however, declined; and the Captain, crossing the deck, repeated the same counsel to the other passenger.

“No, I thank you,” said he, gayly; “but if one of your men could spare me a cloak or a cape, I ‘d be much obliged, for I am somewhat ill-provided against wet weather.”

“I can let you have a rug, with pleasure,” said Beecher, overhearing the request; while he drew from a recess beneath the binnacle one of those serviceable aids to modern travel in the shape of a strong woollen blanket.

“I accept your offer most willingly, and the more so as I suspect I have had the honor of being presented to you,” said the stranger. “Do I address Mr. Annesley Beecher?”

“Eh? – I’m not aware – I’m not quite sure, by this light,” began Beecher, in considerable embarrassment, which the other as quickly perceived, and remedied by saying, —

“I met you at poor Kellett’s. My name is Conway.”

“Oh, Conway, – all right,” said Beecher, laughing. “I was afraid you might be a ‘dark horse,’ as we say. Now that I know your colors, I’m easy again.”

Conway laughed too at the frankness of the confession, and they turned to walk the deck together.

“You mentioned Kellett. He ‘s gone ‘toes up,’ is n’t he?” said Beecher.

“He is dead, poor fellow,” said Conway, gravely. “I expected to have met you at his funeral.”

“So I should have been had it come off on a Sunday,” said Beecher, pleasantly; “but as in seeing old Paul ‘tucked in’ they might have nabbed me, I preferred being reported absent without leave.”

“These were strong reasons, doubtless,” said Conway, dryly.

“I liked the old fellow, too,” said Beecher. “He was a bit of a bore, to be sure, about Arayo Molinos, and Albuera, and Soult, and Beresford, and the rest of ‘em; but he was a rare good one to help a fellow at a pinch, and hospitable as a prince.”

“That I ‘m sure of!” chimed in Conway.

“I know it, I can swear to it; I used to dine with him every Sunday, regularly as the day came. I’ll never forget those little tough legs of mutton, – wherever he found them there’s no saying, – and those hard pellets of capers, like big swan-shot, washed down with table beer and whiskey-grog, and poor Kellett thinking all the while he was giving you haunch of venison and red hermitage.”

“He ‘d have given them just as freely if he had them,” broke in Conway, half gruffly.

“That he would! He did so when he had it to give, – at least, so they tell me, for I never saw the old place at Kellett’s Town, or Castle Kellett – ”

“Kellett’s Court was the name.”

“Ay, to be sure, Kellett’s Court. I wonder how I could forget it, for I’m sure I heard it often enough.”

“One forgets many a thing they ought to remember,” said Conway, significantly.

“Hit him again, he hasn’t got no friends!” broke in Beecher, laughing jovially at this rebuke of himself. “You mean, that I ought to have a fresher memory about all old Paul’s kindnesses, and you ‘re right there; but if you knew how hard the world has hit me, how hot they ‘ve been giving it to me these years back, you ‘d perhaps not lean so heavily on me. Since the Epsom of ‘42,” said he, solemnly, “I never had one chance, not one, I pledge you my sacred word of honor. I ‘ve had my little ‘innings,’ you know, like every one else, – punted for five-pun-notes with the small ones, but never a real chance. Now, I call that hard, deuced hard.”

“I suppose it is hard,” said Conway; but, really, it would have been very difficult to say in what sense his words should be taken.

“And when a fellow finds himself always on the wrong side of the road,” said Beecher, who now fancied that he was taking a moralist’s view of life, and spoke with a philosophic solemnity, – “I say, when a fellow sees that, do what he will, he’s never on the right horse, he begins to be soured with the world, and to think that it’s all a regular ‘cross.’ Not that I ever gave in. No! ask any of the fellows up at Newmarket – ask the whole ring – ask – ” he was going to say Grog Davis, when he suddenly remembered the heavy judgment Conway had already fulminated on that revered authority, and then, quickly correcting himself, he said, “Ask any of the legs you like what stuff A. B. ‘s made of, – if he ain’t hammered iron, and no mistake!”

“But what do you mean when you say you never gave in?” asked Conway, half sternly.

“What do I mean?” said Beecher, repeating the words, half stunned by the boldness of the question, – “what do I mean? Why, I mean that they never saw me ‘down,’ – that no man can say Annesley Beecher ever said ‘die.’ Have n’t I had my soup piping hot, – spiced and peppered too! Was n’t I in for a pot on Blue Nose, when Mope ran a dead heat with Belshazzar for the Cloudeslie, – fifteen to three in fifties twice over, and my horse running in bandages, and an ounce of corrosive sublimate in his stomach! Well, you ‘d not believe it, – I don’t ask any one to believe it that did n’t see it, – but I was as cool as I am here, and I walked up to Lady Tinkerton’s drag and ate a sandwich; and when she said, ‘Oh! Mr. Beecher, do come and tell me what to bet on,’ I said to her, ‘Quicksilver’s the fastest of metals, but don’t back it just now.’ They had it all over the course in half an hour: ‘Quicksilver’s the fastest of metals – ‘”

“I’m afraid I don’t quite catch your meaning.”

“It was alluding to the bucketing, you know. They ‘d just given Blue Nose corrosive sublimate, which is a kind of quicksilver.”

“Oh, I perceive,” said Conway.

“Good, – wasn’t it?” said Beecher, chuckling. “Let A. B. alone to ‘sarve them out,’ – that’s what all the legs said!” And then he heaved a little sigh, as though to say that, after all, even wit and smartness were only a vanity and a vexation of spirit, and that a “good book” was better than them all.

“I detest the whole concern,” said Conway. “So long as gentlemen bred and trained to run their horses in honorable rivalry, it was a noble sport, and well became the first squirearchy of the world; but when it degenerated into a field for every crafty knave and trickster, – when the low cunning of the gambler succeeded to the bold daring of the true lover of racing, – then the turf became no better than the rouge et noir table, without even the poor consolation of thinking that chance was any element in the result.”

“Why, what would you have? It’s a game where the best player wins, that’s all,” broke in Beecher.

“If you mean it is always a contest where the best horse carries away the prize, I enter my denial to the assertion. If it were so, the legs would have no existence, and all that classic vocabulary of ‘nobbling,’ ‘squaring,’ and so on, have no dictionary.”

“It’s all the same the whole world over,” broke in Beecher. “The wide-awake ones will have the best seat on the coach.”

Conway made no reply; but the increased energy with which he puffed his cigar bespoke the impatience he was suffering under.

“What became of the daughter?” asked Beecher, abruptly; and then, not awaiting the answer, went on: “A deuced good-looking girl, if properly togged out, but she had n’t the slightest notion of dressing herself.”

“Their narrow fortune may have had something to say to that,” said Conway, gravely.

“Where there’s a will, there’s a way, – that ‘s my idea. I was never so hard up in life but I could make my tailor torn me out like a gentleman. I take it,” added he, returning to the former theme, “she was a proud one. Old Kellett was awfully afraid of doing many a thing from the dread of her knowing it. He told me so himself.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed Conway, with evident pleasure in the tone.

“I could have helped him fifty ways. I knew fellows who would have ‘done’ his bills, – small sums, of course, – and have shoved him along pleasantly enough, but she would n’t have it at any price.”

“I was not aware of that,” remarked Conway, inviting, by his manner, further revelations.

Beecher, however, mistaking the source of the interest he had thus excited, and believing that his own craft and shrewdness were the qualities that awakened respect, went on to show how conversant he was with all financial operations amongst Jews and money-lenders, proudly declaring that there was not a “man on town” knew the cent per centers as he did.

“I’ve had my little dealings with them,” said he, with some vanity in the manner. “I ‘ve had my paper done when there was n’t a fellow on the ‘turf’ could raise a guinea. You see,” added he, lowering his voice to a whisper that implied secrecy, “I could do them a service no money could repay. I was up to all that went on in life and at the clubs. When Etheridge got it so heavy at the ‘Rag,’ I warned Fordyce not to advance him beyond a hundred or two. I was the only gentleman knew Brookdale’s horse could win ‘the Ripsley.’ The legs, of course, knew it well before the race came off. Jemmy could have had ten thousand down for his ‘book.’ Ah! if you and I had only known each other six years ago, what a stroke of work we might have done together! Even now,” said he, with increased warmth of voice, “there’s a deuced deal to be done abroad. Brussels and Florence are far from worked out; not among the foreigners, of course, but our own fellows, – the young Oxford and Cambridge ‘saps,’ – the green ones waiting for their gazette in the Guards! Where are you bound for? – what are you doing?” asked he, as if a sudden thought had crossed his mind.

“I am endeavoring to get back to the Crimea,” said Conway, smiling at the prospect which the other had with such frankness opened to him.

“The Crimea!” exclaimed Beecher, “why, that is downright madness; they ‘re fighting away there just as fresh as ever. The very last paper I saw is filled with an account of a Russian sortie against our lines, and a lot of our fellows killed and wounded.”

“Of course there are hard knocks – ”

“It’s all very well to talk of it that way, but I think you might have been satisfied with what you saw, I ‘d just as soon take a cab down to Guy’s, or the Middlesex Hospital, and ask one of the house-surgeons to cut me up at his own discretion, as go amongst those Russian savages. I tell you it don’t pay, – not a bit of it!”