Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“It’s no use talking,” muttered he to himself; “a man must be bred to it, like everything else. The very servants behind his chair frighten him; he’s, maybe, eating with his knife, or he’s putting salt where he ought to put sugar, or he does n’t take the right kind of wine with his meat. Beecher says he ‘d know any fellow just by that, and then it’s ‘all up’ with him. Wonderful, wonderful!”

How would it have affected these speculations had Kellett known that, while he was indulging them, Dunn had quietly issued by a back door from his house, and, having engaged a car, set out towards Clontarf? A drearier drive of a dreary evening none need wish for. Occasional showers were borne on the gusty wind, swooping past as though hurrying to some elemental congress far away, while along the shore the waves beat with that irregular plash that betokens wild weather at sea. The fitful moonlight rather heightened than diminished the dismal aspect of the scenery. For miles the bleak strand stretched away, no headland nor even a hillock marking the coast; the spectral gable of a ruined church being the only object visible against the leaden sky. Little garlands of paper, the poor tributes of the very poor, decorated the graves and the head-stones, and, as they rustled in the night wind, sounded like ghostly whisperings. The driver piously crossed himself as they passed the “un-cannie” spot, but Dunn took no heed of it. To wrap his cloak tighter about him, to shelter more closely beneath his umbrella, were all that the dreary scene exacted from him; and except when a vivid flash of lightning made the horse swerve from the road and dash down into the rough shingle of the strand, he never adverted to the way or the weather.

“What’s this, – where are we going?” cried he, impatiently.

“‘T is the flash that frightened the beast, yer honner,” said the man; “and if it was plazin’ to you, I ‘d rather tarn back again.”

“Turn back – where to?”

“To town, yer honner.”

“Nothing of the kind; drive on, and quickly too. We have five miles yet before us, and it will be midnight ere we get over them at this rate.”

Sulkily and unwillingly did he obey; and, turning from the shore, they entered upon a low, sandy road that traversed a wide and dreary tract, barely elevated a few feet above the sea. By degrees the little patches of grass and fern disappeared, and nothing stretched on either side but low sand hummocks, scantily covered with rushes. Sea-shells crackled beneath the wheels as they went, and after a while the deep booming of the sea thundering heavily along a sandy shore, apprised them that they had crossed the narrow neck of land which divided two bays.

“Are you quite certain you I ‘ve taken the right road, my man?” cried Dunn, as he observed something like hesitation in the other’s manner.

“It ought to be somewhere hereabout we turn off,” said the man, getting down to examine more accurately from beneath. “There was a little cross put up to show the way, but I don’t see it.”

“But you have been here before. Ton told me you knew the place.”

“I was here onst, and, by the same token, I swore I ‘d never come again. I lamed the best mare I ever put a collar on, dragging through this deep sand. Wirra, wirra! why the blazes would n’t he live where other Christians do! There it is now; I see a light. Ah! bother them, it’s out again.”

Pushing forward as well as he might in the direction he had seen the light, he floundered heavily on, the wheels sinking nearly to the axles, and the horse stumbling at every step.

“Your horse is worth nothing, my good fellow; he has n’t strength to keep his legs,” said Dunn, angrily.

“Good or bad, I ‘ll give you lave to broil me on a gridiron if ever ye catch me coming the same road again. Ould Duun won’t have much company if he waits for me to bring them.”

“I ‘ll take good care not to tempt you!” said Dunn, angrily.

And now they plodded on in moody silence till they issued forth upon a little flat space, bounded on three sides by the sea, in the midst of which a small two-storied house stood, defended from the sea by a rough stone breakwater that rose above the lower windows.

“There it is now, bad luck to it!” said the carman, savagely, for his horse was so completely exhausted that he was obliged to walk at his head and lift him at every step.

“You may remain here till I want you,” said Dunn, getting down and plodding his way through the heavy sand. Flakes of frothy seadrift swept past him as he went, and the wild wind carried the spray far inland in heavy showers, beating against the walls and windows of the lonely house, and making the slates rattle. A low wall of large stones across the door showed that all entrance by that means was denied; and Dunn turned towards the back of the house, where, sheltered by the low wall, a small door was detectable. He knocked several times at this before any answer was returned; when, at last, a harsh voice from within called out, —

“Don’t ye hear who it is? confound ye! Open the door at once!” and Dunn was admitted into a large kitchen, where in a great straw chair beside the fire was seated the remains of a once powerful man, and who, although nearly ninety years of age, still preserved a keen eye, a searching look, and a quick impatience of manner rarely observable at his age.

“Well, father, how are you?” said Dunn, taking him affectionately by both hands, and looking kindly in his face.

“Hearty, – stout and hearty,” said the old man. “When did you arrive?”

“A couple of hours ago. I did not wait for anything but a biscuit and a glass of wine, when I set out here to see you. And you are well?”

“Just as you see: an odd pain or so across the back, and a swimming of the head, – a kind of giddiness now and then, that’s all. Put the light over there till I have a look at you. You ‘re thinner, Davy, – a deal thinner, than when you went away.”

“I have nothing the matter with me; a little tired or so, that’s all,” said Dunn, hastily. “And how are things doing here, father, since I left?”

“There’s little to speak of,” said the old man. “There never is much doing at this season of the year. You heard, of course, that Gogarty has lost his suit; they ‘re moving for a new trial, but they won’t get it. Lanty Moore can’t pay up the rest of the purchase for Slanestown, and I told Hankes to buy it in. Kelly’s murderer was taken on Friday last, near Kilbride, and offers to tell, God knows what, if they won’t hang him; and Sir Gilbert North is to be the new Secretary, if, as the ‘Evening Mail’ says, Mr. Davenport Dunn concurs in the appointment” – and here the old man laughed till his eyes ran over. “That’s all the news, Davy, of the last week; and now tell me yours. The papers say you were dining with kings and queens, and driving about in royal coaches all over the Continent, – was it true, Davy?”

“You got my letters, of course, father?”

“Yes; and I could n’t make out the names, they were all new and strange to me. I want to have from yourself what like the people are, – are they as hard-working, are they as ‘cute as our own? There’s just two things now in the world, – coal and industry, – sorra more than that And so you dined with the King of France?”

“With the Emperor, father. I dined twice; he took me over to Fontainebleau and made me stay the day.”

“You could tell him many a thing he’d never hear from another, Davy; you could explain to him what’s doing here, and how he might imitate it over there, – rooting out the old vermin and getting new stock in the land, – eh, Davy?”

“He needs no counsels, at least from such as me,” said Dunn.

“Faith, he might have worse, far worse. An Encumbered Estate Court would do all his work for him well, and the dirty word ‘Confiscation’ need never be uttered!”

“He knows the road he wants to go,” said Dunn, curtly.

“So he may; but that does n’t prove it ‘s the best way.”

“Whichever path he takes he’ll tread it firmly, father, and that’s more than half the battle. If you only saw what a city he has made Paris – ”

“That’s just what I don’t like. What’s the good of beautifying and gilding or ornamenting what you ‘re going to riddle with grape and smash with round shot? It’s like dressing a sweep in a field-marshal’s uniform, And we all know where it will be to-morrow or next day.”

“That we don’t, sir. You ‘re not aware that these spacious thoroughfares, these wide squares, these extended terraces, are so contrived that columns may march and manoeuvre in them, squadrons charge, and great artillery act through them. The proudest temples of that splendid city serve as bastions; the great Louvre itself is less a palace than a fortress.”

“Ay, ay, ay,” cackled the old man, to whom these revelations opened a new vista of thought. “But what’s the use of it, after all, Davy? He must trust somebody; and when it comes to that with anybody in life, where ‘s his security, tell me that? But let us talk about home. Is it true the Ministry is going out?”

“They’re safer than ever; take my word for it, father, that these fellows know the trick of it better than all that went before them. They ‘ll just do whatever the nation and the ‘Times’ dictate to them; a little slower, mayhap, than they are ordered, but they ‘ll do it They have no embarrassments of a policy of any kind; and the only pretence of a principle they possess is to sit on the Treasury benches.”

“And they ‘re right, Davy, – they ‘re right,” said the old man, energetically.

“I don’t doubt but they are, sir; the duty of the pilot is to take charge of the ship, but not to decide the port she sails for.”

“I wish you were one of them, Davy; they’d suit you, and you ‘d suit them.”

“So we should, sir; and who knows what may turn up? I’m not impatient”

“That’s right, Davy; that’s the lesson I always taught you; wait, – wait!”

“When did you see Driscoll, father?” asked Dunn, after a pause.

“He was here last week; he’s up to his ears about that claim to the Beecher estate, Lord – Lord – What’s his – ”

“Lackington.”

“Yes, Lord Lackington. He says if you were once come home, you ‘d get him leave to search the papers in the Record Tower at the Castle, and that it would be the making of himself if anything came out of it.”

“He’s always mare’s-nesting, sir,” said Dunn, carelessly.

“Faith, he has contrived to feather his own nest, anyhow,” said the old man, laughing. “He lent Lord Glengariff five thousand pounds t’ other day at six per cent, and on as good security as the Bank.”