Barrington. Volume 1

“Who lives about here? What gentlemen’s places are there, I mean?”

“There’s Lord Carrackmore, and Sir Arthur Godfrey, and Moore of Ballyduff, and Mrs. Powerscroft of the Grove – ”

“Do any of these great folks come down here?”

Darby would like to have given a ready assent, – he would have been charmed to say that they came daily, that they made the place a continual rendezvous; but as he saw no prospect of being able to give his fiction even twenty-four hours’ currency, he merely changed from one leg to the other, and, in a tone of apology, said, “Betimes they does, when the sayson is fine.”

“Who are the persons who are most frequently here?”

“Those two that you saw last night, – the Major and Dr. Dill. They ‘re up here every second day, fishing, and eating their dinner with the master.”

“Is the fishing good?”

“The best in Ireland.”

“And what shooting is there, – any partridges?”

“Partridges, be gorra! You could n’t see the turnips for them.”

“And woodcocks?”

“Is it woodcocks! The sky is black with the sight of them.”

“Any lions?”

“Well, maybe an odd one now and then,” said Darby, half apologizing for the scarcity.

There was an ineffable expression of self-satisfaction in Conyers’s face at the subtlety with which he had drawn Darby into this admission; and the delight in his own acuteness led him to offer the poor fellow a cigar, which he took with very grateful thanks.

“From what you tell me, then, I shall find this place stupid enough till I am able to be up and about, eh? Is there any one who can play chess hereabout?”

“Sure there’s Miss Dinah; she’s a great hand at it, they tell me.”

“And who is Miss Dinah? Is she young, – is she pretty?”

Darby gave a very cautious look all around him, and then closing one eye, so as to give his face a look of intense cunning, he nodded very significantly twice.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I mane that she’ll never see sixty; and for the matter of beauty – ”

“Oh, you have said quite enough; I ‘m not curious about her looks. Now for another point. If I should want to get away from this, what other inn or hotel is there in the neighborhood?”

“There’s Joe M’Cabe’s, at Inistioge; but you are better where you are. Where will you see fresh butter like that? and look at the cream, the spoon will stand in it. Far and near it’s given up to her that nobody can make coffee like Miss Dinah; and when you taste them trout, you ‘ll tell me if they are not fit for the king.”

“Everything is excellent, – could not be better; but there’s a difficulty. There’s a matter which to me at least makes a stay here most unpleasant. My friend tells me that he could not get his bill, – that he was accepted as a guest. Now I can’t permit this – ”

“There it is, now,” said Darby, approaching the table, and dropping his voice to a confidential whisper. “That’s the master’s way. If he gets a stranger to sit down with him to dinner or supper, he may eat and drink as long as he plases, and sorra sixpence he’ll pay; and it’s that same ruins us, nothing else, for it’s then he ‘ll call for the best sherry, and that ould Maderia that’s worth a guinea a bottle. What’s the use, after all, of me inflaming the bill of the next traveller, and putting down everything maybe double? And worse than all,” continued he, in a tone of horror, “let him only hear any one complain about his bill or saying, ‘What’s this?’ or ‘I didn’t get that,’ out he’ll come, as mighty and as grand as the Lord-Liftinint, and say, ‘I ‘m sorry, sir, that we failed to make this place agreeable to you. Will you do me the favor not to mind the bill at all?’ and with that he’d tear it up in little bits and walk away.”

“To me that would only be additional offence. I ‘d not endure it.”

“What could you do? You’d maybe slip a five-pound note into my hand, and say, ‘Darby my man, settle this little matter for me; you know the ways of the place.’”

“I ‘ll not risk such an annoyance, at all events; that I ‘m determined on.”

Darby began now to perceive that he had misconceived his brief, and must alter his pleadings as quickly as possible; in fact, he saw he was “stopping an earth” he had meant merely to mask. “Just leave it all to me, your honor, – leave it all to me, and I ‘ll have your bill for you every morning on the breakfast-table. And why would n’t you? Why would a gentleman like your honor be behouldin’ to any one for his meat and drink?” burst he in, with an eager rapidity. “Why would n’t you say, ‘Darby, bring me this, get me that, fetch me the other; expinse is no object in life tome’?”

There was a faint twinkle of humor in the eye of Conyers, and Darby stopped short, and with that half-lisping simplicity which a few Irishmen understand to perfection, and can exercise whenever the occasion requires, he said: “But sure is n’t your honor laughing at me, is n’t it just making fun of me you are? All because I’m a poor ignorant crayture that knows no better!”

“Nothing of that kind,” said Conyers, frankly. “I was only smiling at thoughts that went through my head at the moment.”

“Well, faix! there’s one coming up the path now won’t make you laugh,” said Darby, as he whispered, “It’s Dr. Dill.”

The doctor was early with his patient; if the case was not one of urgency, the sufferer was in a more elevated rank than usually fell to the chances of Dispensary practice. Then, it promised to be one of the nice chronic cases, in which tact and personal agreeability – the two great strongholds of Dr. Dill in his own estimation – were of far more importance than the materia medica. Now, if Dill’s world was not a very big one, he knew it thoroughly. He was a chronicle of all the family incidents of the county, and could recount every disaster of every house for thirty miles round.

When the sprain had, therefore, been duly examined, and all the pangs of the patient sufficiently condoled with to establish the physician as a man of feeling, Dill proceeded to his task as a man of the world. Conyers, however, abruptly stopped him, by saying, “Tell me how I’m to get out of this place; some other inn, I mean.”

“You are not comfortable here, then?” asked Dill.

“In one sense, perfectly so. I like the quietness, the delightful tranquillity, the scenery, – everything, in short, but one circumstance. I ‘m afraid these worthy people – whoever they are – want to regard me as a guest. Now I don’t know them, – never saw them, – don’t care to see them. My Colonel has a liking for all this sort of thing. It has to his mind a character of adventure that amuses him. It would n’t in the least amuse me, and so I want to get away.”

“Yes,” repeated Dill, blandly, after him, “wants to get away; desires to change the air.”

“Not at all,” broke in Conyers, peevishly; “no question of air whatever. I don’t want to be on a visit. I want an inn. What is this place they tell me of up the river, – Inis – something?”

“Inistioge. M’Cabe’s house; the ‘Spotted Duck;’ very small, very poor, far from clean, besides.”

“Is there nothing else? Can’t you think of some other place? For I can’t have my servant here, circumstanced as I am now.”

The doctor paused to reply. The medical mind is eminently ready-witted, and Dill at a glance took in all the dangers of removing his patient. Should he transfer him to his own village, the visit which now had to be requited as a journey of three miles and upwards, would then be an affair of next door. Should he send him to Thomastown, it would be worse again, for then he would be within the precincts of a greater than Dill himself, – a practitioner who had a one-horse phaeton, and whose name was written on brass. “Would you dislike a comfortable lodging in a private family, – one of the first respectability, I may make bold to call it?”

“Abhor it! – couldn’t endure it! I’m not essentially troublesome or exacting, but I like to be able to be either, whenever the humor takes me.”

“I was thinking of a house where you might freely take these liberties – ”

“Liberties! I call them rights, doctor, not liberties! Can’t you imagine a man, not very wilful, not very capricious, but who, if the whim took him, would n’t stand being thwarted by any habits of a so-called respectable family? There, don’t throw up your eyes, and misunderstand me. All I mean is, that my hours of eating and sleeping have no rule. I smoke everywhere; I make as much noise as I please; and I never brook any impertinent curiosity about what I do, or what I leave undone.”

“Under all the circumstances, you had, perhaps, better remain where you are,” said Dill, thoughtfully.

“Of course, if these people will permit me to pay for my board and lodging. If they ‘ll condescend to let me be a stranger, I ask for nothing better than this place.”

“Might I offer myself as a negotiator?” said Dill, insinuatingly; “for I opine that the case is not of the difficulty you suppose. Will you confide it to my hands?”

“With all my heart. I don’t exactly see why there should be a negotiation at all; but if there must, pray be the special envoy.”

When Dill arose and set out on his mission, the young fellow looked after him with an expression that seemed to say, “How you all imagine you are humbugging me, while I read every one of you like a book!”

Let us follow the doctor, and see how he acquitted himself in his diplomacy.