Roland Cashel, Volume II (of II)

“You should speak to Linton about that,” whispered Meek.

“Here’s Jim’s health, – hip, hip, hurrah!” cried out a white-moustached boy, who had joined a hussar regiment a few weeks before, and was now excessively tipsy.

The laughter at this toast was increased by Meek’s holding out his glass to be filled as he asked, “Of course, – whose health is it?”

“One of Frobisher’s trainers,” said Upton, readily.

“No, it’s no such thing,” hiccoughed the hussar. “I was proposing a bumper to the lightest snaffle hand from this to Doncaster – the best judge of a line of country in the kingdom – ”

“That’s me,” said a jolly voice, and at the same instant the door was flung wide, and Tom Linton, splashed from the road, and travel-stained, entered.

“I must say, gentlemen, you are no churls of your wit and pleasantry, for, as I came up the stairs, I could hear every word you were saying.”

“Oh dear, how dreadful! and we were talking of you too,” said Meek, with a piteous air that made every one laugh.

A thousand questions as to where he had been, whom with, and what for? – all burst upon Linton, who only escaped importunity by declaring that he was half dead with hunger, and would answer nothing till he had eaten.

“So,” said he, at length, after having devoted twenty minutes to a grouse-pie of most cunning architecture, “you never guessed where I had been?”

“Oh! we had guesses enough, if that served any purpose.”

“I thought it was a bolt, Tom,” said Upton; “but as she appeared at breakfast, as usual, I saw my mistake.”

“Meek heard that you had gone over to Downing Street to ask for the Irish Secretaryship,” said Jennings.

“I said you had been to have a talk with Scott about ‘Regulator;’ was I far off the mark?”

“Mrs. White suggested an uncle’s death,” said Frobisher; “but uncles don’t die nowadays.”

“Did you buy the colt? – Have you backed ‘Runjeet Singh?’ – Are you to have the agency? – How goes on the borough canvass?” and twenty similar queries now poured in on him.

“Well, I see,” cried he, laughing, “I shall sadly disappoint all the calculations founded on my shrewdness and dexterity, for the whole object of my journey was to secure a wardrobe for our fancy ball, which I suddenly heard of as being at Limerick; and so, not trusting the mission to another, I started off myself, and here I am, with materials for more Turks, Monks, Sailors, Watchmen, Greeks, Jugglers, and Tyrolese, than ever travelled in anything save a caravan with one horse.”

“Are your theatrical intentions all abandoned?” cried Jennings.

“I trust not,” said Linton; “but I heard that Miss Meek had decided on the ball to come off first.”

“Hip! hip! hip!” was moaned out, in very lachrymose tone, from a sofa where the boy hussar, very sick and very tipsy, lay stretched on his back.

“Who is that yonder?” asked Linton.

“A young fellow of ours,” said Jennings, indolently.

“I thought they made their heads better at Sandhurst.”

“They used in my time,” said Upton; “but you have no idea how the thing has gone down.”

“Quite true,” chimed in another; “and I don’t think we ‘ve seen the worst of it yet. Do you know, they talk of an examination for all candidates for commissions!”

“Well, I must say,” lisped the guardsman, “I believe it would be an improvement for the ‘line.’”

“The household brigade can dispense with information,” said an infantry captain.

“I demur to the system altogether,” said Linton. “Physicians tell us that the intellectual development is always made at the expense of the physical, and as one of the duties of a British army is to suffer yellow fever in the West Indies and cholera in the East, I vote for leaving them strong in constitution and intact in strength as vacant heads and thoughtless skulls can make them.”

“Oh dear me! yes,” sighed Meek, who, by one of his mock concurrences, effectually blinded the less astute portion of the audience from seeing Linton’s impertinence.

“What has been doing here in my absence?” said Linton; “have you no event worth recording for me?”

“There is a story,” said Upton, “that Cashel and Kennyfeck have quarrelled, – a serious rupture, they say, and not to be repaired.”

“How did it originate? Something about the management of the property?”

“No, no, – it was a row among the women. They laid some scheme for making Cashel propose for one of the girls.”

“Not Olivia, I hope?” said Upton, as he lighted a new cigar.

“I rather suspect it was,” interposed another.

“In any case, Linton,” cried Jennings, “you are to be the gainer, for the rumor says, Cashel will give you the agency, with his house to live in, and a very jolly thing to spend, while he goes abroad to travel.”

“If this news be true, Tom,” said Frobisher, “I ‘ll quarter my yearlings on you; there is a capital run for young horses in those flats along the river.”

“The house is cold at this season,” said Meek, with a sad smile; “but I think it would be very endurable in the autumn months. I should n’t say but you may see us here again at that time.”

“I hope ‘ours’ may be quartered at Limerick,” said an infantryman, with a most suggestive look at the comforts of the apartment, which were a pleasing contrast to barrack-room accommodation.

“Make yourselves perfectly at home here, gentlemen, when that good time comes,” said Linton, with one of his careless laughs. “I tell you frankly, that if Cashel does make me such a proposal – a step which, from his knowledge of my indolent, lazy habits, is far from likely – I only accept on one condition.”

“What is that?” cried a dozen voices.

“That you will come and pass your next Christmas here.”

“Agreed – agreed!” was chorused on every side.

“I suspect from that bit of spontaneous hospitality,” whispered Frobisher to Meek, “that the event is something below doubtful.”

Meek nodded.

“What is Charley saying?” cried Linton, whose quick eye caught the glance interchanged between the two.

“I was telling Meek,” said Frobisher, “that I don’t put faith enough in the condition to accept the invitation.”

“Indeed!” said Linton, while he turned to the table and filled his glass, to hide a passing sign of mortification.

“Tom Linton for a man’s agent, seems pretty like what old Frederick used to call keeping a goat for a gardener.”

“You are fond of giving the odds, Frobisher,” said Linton, who, for some minutes, continued to take glass after glass of champagne; “now, what’s your bet that I don’t do the honors here next Christmas-day?”