One Of Them

“Don’t waste a thought about me!” said Heathcote, good-humoredly.

“But I will!” cried O’Shea. “I ‘ll go down to the Horse Guards myself. Sure I’m forgetting already,” added he, with a sigh, “that we ‘re all ‘out;’ and now, for a trifle of five hundred, there’s a fine chance lost as ever man had. You don’t know anybody could accommodate one with a loan, – of course, on suitable terms?”

“Not one, – not one!”

“Or who ‘d do it on a bill at three months, with our own names?”

“None!”

“Is n’t it hard, I ask, – isn’t it cruel, – just as I was making a figure in the House? I was the ‘rising man of the party,’ – so the ‘Post’ called me, – and the ‘Freeman’ said, ‘O’Shea has only to be prudent, and his success is assured.’ And wasn’t I prudent? Didn’t I keep out of the divisions for half the session? Who’s your father’s banker, Heathcote?”

“Drummonds, I believe; but I don’t know them.”

“Murther! but it is hard! five hundred, – only five hundred. A real true-hearted patriot, fresh for his work, and without engagements, going for five hundred! I see you feel for me, my dear fellow,” cried he, grasping Heathcote’s hand. “I hear what your heart is saying this minute: ‘O’Shea, old boy, if I had the money, I ‘d put it in the palm of your hand without the scratch of a pen between us.’”

“I ‘m not quite so certain I should,” muttered the other, half sulkily.

“But I know you better than you know yourself, and I repeat it. You ‘d say, ‘Gorman O’Shea, I ‘m not the man to see a first-rate fellow lost for a beggarly five hundred. I ‘d rather be able to say one of these days, “Look at that man on the Woolsack, – or, maybe, Chief Justice in the Queen’s Bench – well, would you believe it? if I hadn’t helped him one morning with a few hundreds, it’s maybe in the Serpentine he ‘d have been, instead of up there.”’ And as we ‘d sit over a bottle of hock in the bay-window at Richmond, you ‘d say, ‘Does your Lordship remember the night when you heard the House was up, and you had n’t as much as would pay your fare over to Ireland?’”

“I’m not so certain of that, either,” was the dry response of Heathcote.

“And of what are you certain, then?” cried O’Shea, angrily; “for I begin to believe you trust nothing, nor any one.”

“I ‘ll tell you what I believe, and believe firmly too, – which is, that a pair of fellows so completely out at elbows as you and myself had far better break stones on a highroad for a shilling a day than stand cudgelling their wits how to live upon others.”

“That is not my sentiment at all, —suum cuique, – stone-breaking to the hard-handed; men of our stamp, Heathcote, have a right – a vested right – to a smoother existence.”

“Well, time will tell who is right,” said Heathcote, carelessly, as he put on his hat and walked to the door. A half-cold good-bye followed, and they parted.

Hour after hour he walked the streets, unmindful of a thin misty rain that fell unceasingly. He was now completely alone in the world, and there was a sort of melancholy pleasure in the sense of his desolation. “My poor father!” he would mutter from time to time; “if I could only think that he would forget me! if I could but bring myself to believe that after a time he would cease to sorrow for me!” He did not dare to utter more, nor even to himself declare how valueless he deemed life, but strolled listlessly onward, till the gray streaks in the murky sky proclaimed the approach of morning.

Was it with some vague purpose or was it by mere accident that he found himself standing at last near the barracks at Knightsbridge, around the gate of which a group of country-looking young fellows was gathered, while here and there a sergeant was seen to hover, as if speculating on his prey? It was a time in which more than one young man of station had enlisted as a private, and the sharp eye of the crimp Boon scanned the upright stature and well-knit frame of Heathcote.

“Like to be a dragoon, my man?” said he, with an easy, swaggering air.

“I have some thought of it,” said the other, coldly.

“You ‘ve served already, I suspect,” said the sergeant, in a more respectful tone.

“For what regiment are you enlisting?” asked Heathcote, coldly, disregarding the other’s inquiry.

“Her Majesty’s Bays, – could you ask better? But here’s my officer.”

Before Heathcote had well heard the words, his name was called out, and a slight, boyish figure threw his arms about him.

“Charley, how glad I am to see you!” cried he.

“Agincourt! – is this you?” said Heathcote, blushing deeply as he spoke.

“Yes, I have had my own way at last; and I’m going to India too.”

“I am not,” said Heathcote, bitterly. “They ‘ll not have me at the Horse Guards; I am too old, or too something or other for the service, and there’s nothing left me but to enter the ranks.”

“Oh, Charley,” cried the other, “if you only knew of the breaking heart you have left behind you! – if you only knew how she loves you!”

Was it that the boyish accents of these few words appealed to Heathcote’s heart with all the simple force of truth? – was it that they broke in upon his gloom so unexpectedly, – a slanting sun-ray piercing a dark cloud? But so it is, that he turned away, and drew his hand across his eyes.

“I was off for a day’s hunting down in Leicestershire,” said Agincourt. “I sent the nags away yesterday. Come with me, Charley; we shall be back again to-morrow, and you ‘ll see if my old guardian won’t set all straight with the War-Office people for you. Unless,” added he, in a half-whisper, “you choose in the mean while to put your trust in what I shall tell you, and go back again.”

“I only hope that I may do so,” said Heathcote, as he wrung the other’s hand warmly, “and I’d bless the hour that led me here this morning.”

It was soon arranged between them that Agincourt should drive round by Heathcote’s lodgings and take him up, when he had packed up a few things for the journey. O’Shea was so sound asleep that he could scarcely be awakened to hear his companion say “good-bye.” Some vague, indistinct idea floated before him that Heathcote had fallen upon some good fortune, and, as he shook his hand, he muttered, —

“Go in and win, old fellow; take all you can get, clear the beggars out, that’s my advice to you.” And with these sage counsels he turned on his pillow, and snored away once more.

“Wasn’t that Inch-o’-brogue I heard talking to you?” asked Agincourt.

“Yes. The poor fellow, like myself, is sorely hard up just now.”

“My old governor must get him something. We ‘ll think of him on our return; so jump in, Charley, or we shall be late for the train.”

How contagious was that happy boy’s good humor, and how soon did his light-heartedness impart its own quality to Heathcote’s spirits. As they whirled along through the brisk fresh air of the morning, the youth recounted all that passed with him since they met, – no very great or stirring events were they, it is true, but they were his, – and they were his first experiences of dawning manhood; and, oh! let any of us, now plodding along wearily on the shady side of life, only bethink us of the joyful sunshine of our youth, when the most commonplace incidents came upon us with freshness, and we gloried in the thought of having a “part,” an actual character to play, in that grand drama they call the World.

We would not, if we could, recall his story; we could not hope that our reader would listen as pleasurably as did Heathcote to it; enough that we say they never felt the miles go over, nor, till their journey was ended, had a thought that they were already arrived at their destination.

CHAPTER XXIX. OLD LETTERS

The little cottage at Port-na-Whapple, to which Alfred Layton had repaired to collect the last few relics of his poor mother, had so completely satisfied all his longings for quiet seclusion, that he lingered on there in a sort of dreamy abstractedness far from unpleasing. Quackinboss was with him, but never was there a companion less obtrusive. The honest American delighted in the spot; he was a fisherman, and soon became acquainted with all the choice places for the take of salmon, while he oftentimes strolled inland and whipped the mountain streams with no small success. In fact, the gun, the rod, and a well-trained greyhound amply supplied all the demands of the household; and never was there a life less crossed by outward cares than theirs. Whether the Colonel believed or not that Layton was deeply engaged in his studies, he affected to think so, and made a point of interfering as little as possible with the other’s time. If by a chance word now and then he would advert to their projected trip to America, he never pressed the theme, nor seemed in any way to evince over-eagerness regarding it. Indeed, with a delicacy of truest refinement, he abstained from making Layton ever feel himself constrained by the deep obligations he owed him, so that nothing could be freer than their intercourse; the only theme of gloom between them being the fate of Layton’s father, of which, notwithstanding all their efforts, they could obtain no tidings. From the day when he quitted the asylum, and was pronounced “cured,” nothing was known of him. Dr. Millar had assisted in all their inquiries with a most friendly interest, and endeavored to induce Alfred to accept the hospitalities of the vicarage; but this he declined, making weak health his apology. The vicar, however, did not cease to show his constant attention, feeling deeply interested in the youth. In nothing did he evince this sentiment more than the trouble he gave himself to collect the scattered papers and documents of the old Professor. The old man – accustomed ever to an existence of emergency – was in the habit of pledging his private papers and his own writings for small sums here and there through the country; and thus researches which had cost months of labor, investigations of deepest import, were oftentimes pawned at a public for a few shillings. Scarcely a day went over without some record being brought in by a farmer or a small village tradesman; sometimes valueless, sometimes of great interest. Now and then they would be violent and rebellious pasquinades against men in power, – his supposed enemies, – versified slanders upon imaginary oppressors.

Neither imbued with Alfred’s taste nor influenced by the ties of blood, Quackinboss took a pleasure in poring over these documents which the young man could not feel. The Professor, to him, seemed the true type of intellectual power, and he had that bold recklessness of all consequences which appealed strongly to the Yankee. He was, as he phrased it, an “all-mighty smasher,” and would have been a rare man for Congress! All Alfred’s eagerness to possess himself of his father’s papers was soon exceeded by the zeal of Quackinboss, who, by degrees, abandoned gun and rod to follow out his new pursuit. If he could not estimate the value of deep scientific calculations and researches, he was fully alive to the sparkling wit and envenomed satire of the various attacks upon individuals; and so enamored was he of these effusions, that many of the verse ones he had committed to memory.

Poor Alfred! what a struggle was his, as Quackinboss would recite some lines of fearful malignity, asking him, the while “if all English literature could show such another ‘tarnal screamer’ as his own parent? Warn’t he a ‘right-down scarification’? Did n’t he scald the hides of them old hogs in the House of Lords? Well, I ‘m blest if Mr. Clay could a-done it better!” To the young man’s mild suggestions that his father’s fame would rest upon very different labors, Quackinboss would hastily offer rejoinder, “No, sir, chemicals is all very well, but human natur’ is a grander study than acids and oxides. What goes on in a man’s heart is a main sight harder reading than salts and sediments.”

The Colonel had learned in the course of his wanderings that a farmer who inhabited one of the lone islands off the coast was in possession of an old writing-desk of the Professor, – the pledge for a loan of three pounds sterling, – a sum so unusually large as to imply that the property was estimated as of value. It was some time before the weather admitted of a visit to the spot, but late of a summer’s evening, as Alfred sat musingly on the door-sill of the cottage, Quackinboss was seen approaching with an old-fashioned writing-desk under his arm, while he called out, “Here it is; and without knowin’ the con-tents, I ‘d not swap the plunder for a raft of timber!”

If the moment of examining the papers was longed for by the impatient Quackinboss with an almost feverish anxiety, what was his blank disappointment at finding that, instead of being the smart squibs or bitter invectives he delighted in, the whole box was devoted to documents relating to a curious incident in medical jurisprudence, and was labelled on the inner side of the lid, “Hawke’s case, with all the tests and other papers.”

“This seems to have been a great criminal case,” said Alfred, “and it must have deeply interested my father, for he has actually drawn out a narrative of the whole event, and has even journalized his share in the story.

“‘Strange scene that I have just left,’ wrote he, in a clear, exact hand. ‘A man very ill – seriously, dangerously ill – in one room, and a party – his guests – all deeply engaged at play in the same house. No apparent anxiety about his case, – scarcely an inquiry; his wife – if she be his wife, for I have my misgivings about it – eager and feverish, following me from place to place, with a sort of irresolute effort to say something which she has no courage for. Patient worse, – the case a puzzling one; there is more than delirium tremens here. But what more? that’s the question. Remarkable his anxiety about the sense of burning in the throat; ever asking, “Is that usual? is it invariable?” Suspicion, of course, to be looked for; but why does it not extend to me also? Afraid to drink, though his thirst is excruciating. Symptoms all worse; pulse irregular; desires to see me alone; his wife, unwilling, tries by many pretexts to remain; he seems to detect her plan, and bursts into violent passion, swears at her, and cries out, “Ain’t you satisfied? Don’t you see that I ‘m dying?”’

“‘We have been alone for above an hour. He has told me all; she is not his wife, but the divorced wife of a well-known man in office. Believes she intended to leave him; knows, or fancies he knows, her whole project. Rage and anger have increased the bad symptoms, and made him much worse. Great anxiety about the fate of his child, a daughter of his former wife; constantly exclaiming, “They will rob her! they will leave her a beggar, and I have none to protect her.” A violent paroxysm of pain – agonizing pain – has left him very low.

“‘"What name do you give this malady, doctor?” he asks me.

“‘"It is a gastric inflammation, but not unaccompanied by other symptoms.”

“‘"How brought on?”