One Of Them

Though Heathcote laughed at the boy’s mimicry, his attention was more taken by the expression “my Coach,” which not only revealed the relations of tutor and pupil between them, but showed, by its familiarity, that the youth stood in no great awe of his preceptor.

Perhaps Layton had no fancy for this liberty before a stranger; perhaps he felt ashamed of the position itself; perhaps he caught something in Heathcote’s quick glance towards him, – whatever it was, he was irritated and provoked, and angrily bit his lip, without uttering a word.

“Oh, here come the sight-seers! they are doing the grounds, and the grottos, and the marble fountains,” cried the boy, as a large group came out from a flower-garden and took their way towards an orangery. As they issued forth, however, Mrs. Morris stopped to caress a very large St. Bernard dog, who lay chained at the foot of an oak-tree. Charles Heathcote had not time to warn her of her danger, when the animal sprang fiercely at her. Had she not fallen suddenly backward, she must have been fearfully mangled; as it was, she received a severe wound in the wrist, and, overcome by pain and terror together, sank fainting on the sward.

For some time the confusion was extreme. Some thought that the dog was at liberty, and fled away in terror across the park; others averred that he was – must be – mad, and his bite fatal; a few tried to be useful; but Quackinboss hurried to the river, and, filling his hat with water, sprinkled the cold face of the sufferer and washed the wound, carefully binding it up with his handkerchief in a quick, business-like way, that showed he was not new to such casualties.

Layton meanwhile took charge of the little girl, whose cries and screams were heartrending.

“What a regular day of misfortunes, this!” said Agincourt, as he followed the mournful procession while they carried the still fainting figure back to the house. “I fancy you ‘ll not let another batch of sight-seers into your grounds in a hurry.”

“The ill-luck has all befallen our guests,” said Heathcote. “Our share of the mishap is to be associated with so much calamity.”

All that care and kindness could provide waited on Mrs. Morris, as she was carried into the villa and laid on a bed. May Leslie took all upon herself, and while the doctor was sent for, used such remedies as she had near. It was at once decided that she should not be removed, and after some delay the company departed without her; the day that had dawned so pleasantly thus closing in gloom and sadness, and the party so bent on amusement returned homeward depressed and dispirited.

“They ‘re mean vicious, these Alp dogs, and never to be trusted,” said Quackinboss.

“Heroines will be heroines,” said Mrs. Morgan, gruffly.

“Or rather won’t be heroines when the occasion comes for it. She fainted off like a school-girl,” growled out Morgan.

“I should think she did!” muttered Mosely, “when she felt the beast’s teeth in her.”

“A regular day of misfortunes!” repeated Agincourt.

“And we lost the elegant fine luncheon, too, into the bargain,” said O’Shea. “Every one seemed to think it wouldn’t be genteel to eat after the disaster.”

“It is the fate of pleasure parties,” said Layton, moodily. And so they jogged on in silence.

And thus ended a day of pleasure, as many have ended before it.

Assuredly, they who plan picnics are not animated by the spirit of an actuary. There is a marvellous lack of calculation in their composition, since, of all species of entertainment, there exists not one so much at the mercy of accident, so thoroughly dependent for success on everything going right. Like the Walcheren expedition, the “wind must not only blow from the right point, but with a certain graduated amount of force.” What elements of sunshine and shade, what combinations of good spirits and good temper and good taste! what guidance and what moderation, what genius of direction and what “respect for minorities”! We will not enter upon the material sources of success, though, indeed, it should be owned they are generally better looked to, and more cared for, than the moral ingredients thus massed and commingled.

It was late when the party reached the Bagni, and, wishing each other a half-cold good-night, separated.

And now, one last peep at the villa, where we have left the sufferer. It was not until evening that the Heathcotes had so far recovered from the shock of the morning’s disaster and its consequences as to be able to meet and talk over the events, and the actors in them.

“Well,” said Sir William, as they all sat round the tea-table, “what do you say to my Yankee now? Of all that company, was there one that showed the same readiness in a difficulty, a quick-witted aptitude to do the right thing, and at the same time so unobtrusively and quietly that when everything was over it was hard to say who had done it?”

“I call him charming. I’m in ecstasies with him,” said May, whose exaggerations of praise or censure were usually unbounded.

“I ‘m quite ready to own he ‘came out’ strong in the confusion,” said Charles, half unwillingly; “but it was just the sort of incident that such a man was sure to figure well in.”

“Show me the man who is active and ready-minded in his benevolence, and I ‘ll show you one who has not to go far into his heart to search for generous motives. I maintain it, Quackinboss is a fine fellow!” There was almost a touch of anger in Sir William’s voice as he said these words, as though he would regard any disparagement of the American as an offence to himself.

“I think Charley is a little jealous,” said May, with a sly malice; “he evidently wanted to carry the wounded lady himself, when that great giant interposed, and, seizing the prize, walked away as though he were only carrying a baby.”

“I fancied it was the tutor was disappointed,” said Charles; “and the way he devoted his cares to the little girl, when deprived of the mamma, convinced me he was the party chiefly interested.”

“Which was the tutor?” asked May, hastily. “You don’t mean the man with all the velvet on his coat?”

“No, no; that was Mr. O’Shea, the Irish M.P., who, by the way, paid you the most persevering attention.”

“A hateful creature, insufferably pretentious and impertinent! The tutor was, then, the pale young man in black?”

“A nice, modest fellow,” broke in Sir William; “and a fine boy that young Marquis of Agincourt. I ‘m glad you asked him up here, Charles. He is to come on Tuesday, is he not?”

“Yes, I said Tuesday, because I can’t get my tackle to rights before that; and I promised to make him a fly-fisher. I owe him the reparation.”

“You included the tutor, of course, in your invitation?” asked his father.

“No. How stupid! I forgot him altogether.”

“Oh! that was too bad,” said May.

“Indeed,” cried Charles, turning towards her with a look of such malicious significance that she blushed deeply, and averted her head.

“Let us invite them all up here for Tuesday, May,” said Sir William. “It would be very unfair if they were to carry away only a disagreeable memory of this visit. Let us try and efface the first unhappy impression.”

“All right,” said Charles, “and I’ll dash off a few lines to Mr. Layton, I think his name is, to say that we expect he will favor us with his company for a few days here. Am I not generosity itself, May?” said he, in a low whisper, as he passed behind her chair.

A blush still deeper than the first, and a look of offended pride, were her only answer.

“I must go in search of these good people’s cards, for I forget some of their names,” said Charles; “though I believe I remember the important ones.”

This last sally was again directed towards May, but she, apparently, did not hear it.

“Who knows but your patient upstairs may be well enough to meet her friends, May?” said Sir William.

“Perhaps so. I can’t tell,” answered she, vaguely; for she had but heard him imperfectly, and scarcely knew what she was replying.

CHAPTER VI. THE MEMBER FOR INCHABOGUE

Mr. O’Shea lay in his bed at the Bagni di Lucca. It was late in the afternoon, and he had not yet risen, being one of those who deem, to travesty the poet, —

That the best of all ways
To shorten our days
Is to add a few hours to the night, my dear.

In other words, he was ineffably bored and wearied, sick of the place, the people, and himself, and only wearing over the time as one might do the stated term of an imprisonment His agent – Mr. Mahony, the celebrated Mr. Miles Mahony, who was agent for all the Irish gentlemen of Mr. O’Shea’s politics, and who has either estates very much encumbered, or no estates at all – had written him that letter, which might be stereotyped in every agent’s office, and sent off indiscriminately by post, at due intervals, to any of the clients, for there was the same bead-roll of mishaps and calamities Ireland has been suffering under for centuries. Take any traveller or guide-book experience of the land, and it is a record of rain that never ceased. The Deluge was a passing April shower compared to the national climate. Ask any proprietor, however, more especially if a farmer, and he would tell you, “We’re ruined, entirely ruined, with the drought,” – perhaps he ‘d have called it “druth.” “If the rain doesn’t fall before twenty-four hours, there will be no potatoes, no grass, no straw, the wheat won’t fill, the cattle will be destroyed,” and so on; just as if the whole population was not soaked through like a wet sponge, and the earth a sludge of mud and swamp, to which Holland seems a sand-bank in comparison! Then came the runaway tenants, only varied by those who couldn’t be induced to “run” on any terms. There was the usual “agrarian outrage,” with the increased police force quartered on the barony in consequence, and perhaps a threat of a special commission, with more expense besides. There was the extract of the judge’s charge, saying that he never remembered so “heavy a calendar,” the whole winding up with an urgent appeal to send over ten or twenty pounds to repair the chapel or the priest’s house, or contribute to some local object, “at your indifference to which there is very great discontent at this moment.”

A pleasant postcript also mentioned that a dissolution of Parliament was daily expected, and that it would be well you ‘d “come home and look after the borough, where the Tories were working night and day to increase their influence.”

“Bad luck to them for Tories!” muttered he, as he threw the crumpled document from him. “I ‘d have been well off to-day if it was n’t for them. There’s no telling the money the contested elections cost me, while, to make out that I was a patriot, I could n’t take a place, but had to go on voting and voting out of the purity of my motives. It was an evil hour when I took to politics at all. Joe! Joe!” cried he, aloud, following up the appeal with a shrill whistle.

“Tear and ages, sure the house isn’t on fire!” said a man, rushing into the room with an air and manner that little indicated the respect due from a servant to his master; “not to say,” added he, “that it’s not dacent or becomin’ to whistle after me, as if I was a tarrier or a bull-dog.”

“Hold your prate, will you?” said Mr. O’Shea.