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СКАЧАТЬ Arthur Wolfe, perceiving a storm brewing, cried out with nervous merriment:

      'What! harping on the old string, Theobald? Still pining for a military frock and helmet? Boy, boy! Look at the pageant that is spread before our eyes. The triumph of this day is due to its bloodlessness. This grand array would not disgrace its cloth, I'm sure, in the battle; but happily success has been achieved by moral force alone. Right is might with the Volunteers. May their swords never leave their scabbards!'

      'You cannot deny,' persisted the froward youth, 'that yonder battalions would be a grander sight if they really represented the nation without regard to creed-if, for example, every other man among them was a Catholic!'

      My lord looked cross, my lady black as thunder, so Wolfe, the peacemaker, struck in again as he twisted his fingers in his little daughter's curls.

      'I agree that it is monstrous,' he said, with hesitation, 'that three million men with souls should be plough-horses for conscience' sake. In these days it's a scandal. Sister, you must admit that. Perhaps we are entering on a better time. A reformed parliament, if you can get it, will no doubt emancipate the Catholics. You are a hare-brained lad, my godson; but here is a Catholic little girl who shall thank you. Doreen, my treasure, you may shake hands with Theobald.'

      My lord waxed peevish, and drummed his fingers on the shutters and yawned in the face of Curran, for he sniffed in the wind a quarrel which would bore him. If folks would only refrain, he thought, from gabbling about these Catholics, what a comfort it would be. My lady, usually disagreeable, was threatening a scene; for they had got on the one subject which set all the family agog. Her spouse wished heartily that she would retire to the family vault, or be less ill-tempered; for what can be more odious than a snappish better-half?

      Religious differences had set the country by the ears ever since the Reformation, turning father against son, kinsman against kinsman; and this especial family was no exception to the rule. Lady Glandore hated the Papists with all the energy of one whose soul is filled with gall, and who lacks a fitting outlet for its bitterness. What must then have been her feelings when, ten years before the opening of this chronicle, her only brother, whom she loved, thought fit to wed a Catholic? It was a weak, faded chit of a thing who lived for a year after her marriage in terror of my lady, gave birth to a daughter and then died. The countess, who had endured her existence under protest, was glad at least that she was well behaved enough to die; some people said indeed that she had frightened Arthur's submissive wife into her untimely grave. Be this as it may, the incubus removed, my lady girded up her loins for the effacing of the blot on the escutcheon. The puling slut was gone-that was a mercy. Why had she not proved barren? There was still a way of setting matters straight. Little Doreen must be washed clean from Papist mummeries, and received into the bosom of THE Church, and the world would forget in course of time how the young lawyer, usually as soft as wax, had flown in the face of his belongings. To her horror and amazement Arthur for once proved adamant-he who had always given way rather than break a lance in the lists-sternly commanding his sister to hold her tongue. His Papist wife, whom he regretted sorely, had exacted a promise on her deathbed that Doreen should be brought up in her mother's faith, and a Papist Doreen should be, he swore, at least till she arrived at an age to settle the question for herself. He would be glad though, he continued, seeing with pain how shocked my lady looked, if in her sisterly affection she would lay prejudice aside and help to rear the child; for the sharpest of men, as all the world knows, is no better than a fool in dealing with babies. And so it befell that the Countess of Glandore, the haughty chatelaine who scoffed at 'mummeries' and worshipped King William as champion of the Faith, nourished a scorpion in her bosom for Arthur's sake, and permitted the little scarlet lady to consort with her own lads. My lady's hatred of the national creed had a more bitter cause even than class prejudice. She had a private and absorbing reason for it, more feminine than theological. That reason was-a woman, and a rival-a certain Madam Gillin, widow of a small shopkeeper, with whom the rakish earl chose to be too familiar. Vainly she had swallowed her pride to the extent of begging him to respect his wife in public. He had called her names, bidding her mind her distaff; then had carried in mischief the story to his love, who set herself straightway to be revenged upon my lady.

      'The stuck-up bit of buckram's a half-caste at the best!' she had exclaimed. 'She forgets that a Cromwellian trooper was her ancestor, whilst I can trace my lineage from a race of kings. The blood of Ollam Fodlah's in my veins. My forefathers were reigning princes before Anno Domini was thought of, and received baptism at the hands of St. Columba before Erin was a land of bondage. It is seldom that one of my faith can bring sorrow on one of hers; and, please the pigs, I'll not miss my opportunity.'

      And indeed Madam Gillin showed all a woman's ingenuity in torturing another. She dragged my lord, who was nothing loth, at her kirtle strings, all through Dublin; paraded him everywhere as her own chattel; kept him dangling by her side at ridottos and masquerades, till my lady, whose mainspring was pride, dared not to show her face at Smock Alley or Fishamble Street, or even on the public drive of Stephen's Green, for fear of being insulted by this Popish hussy. She strove to find comfort in her family, as many an outraged woman does, but that was worse than all; for she looked with groaning on her eldest born, whom his father could not endure, then at that rosy, chubby younger one, and loathed him. Truly the life of the Countess of Glandore was as bran in the mouth to her, despite the wealth of my lord, his great position, and his influence. No wonder if there was an expression of settled weariness about those handsome eyes and peevish lines about her jaded mouth.

      My lord drummed his white fingers impatiently-the dry-skinned fingers that mark the libertine-because of all things he hated being bored, and knew that religious discussions would bring reproaches anent Gillin. It was with relief that he beheld a gay coach half-filled with flowers, swaying in the crowd below, which contained the graces en titre of Dublin, Darkey Kelly, Peg Plunkett, and Maria Llewellyn-over-painted, over-feathered, over-dressed, like a parterre of full-blown peonies. Their apparition caused a diversion at the windows. All the peeresses stared stonily through gold-rimmed glasses as the trio passed with the calm impertinence of high-born fine ladies, for it stirreth the curiosity of the most blasée Ariadne to mark what manner of female it is who hath robbed her of her Theseus. My lord roared with laughter to see the sorry fashion in which the houris bore the ordeal, vowing 'fore Gad that he must go help them with his countenance; for there is naught so discomfiting to a fair one who is frail as a public display of contempt from one who is not. Out he sallied, therefore, drawing his sword as a hint for the scum to clear a passage; but, ere he could reach the Graces, they were borne away by the stream, and their coach had made way for a noddy, in which sat a comely woman, with bright mouse-like eyes, and a complexion of milk and roses. When the newcomer observed my lord buffeting in her direction, her lips parted in a gratified smile, and she cast a glance of triumph at the club-house; for she knew that at a window there a certain high nose might be discerned, which set her teeth on edge-set in a white scornful face, whose aspect made her blood to boil.

      'That woman again!' my lady was heard to murmur, as she abruptly quitted her place. 'The globe's not large enough for her and me. I hate the baggage!'

      Mr. Curran, who, if untidy and unkempt, was a man of the world and shrewd withal, tried a little joke by way of clearing the sulphur from the atmosphere; but it fell quite flat, and he looked round with a wistful air of apology as a dog does that has wagged his tail inopportunely.

      'Let's be off, Theobald, 'he suggested. 'Whatever can the Volunteers be doing? Why does their return procession tarry? They should be here by this, for 'tis past three. Ah, here's Fitzgibbon, the high and mighty Lucifer, who'd wipe his shoes upon us if he dared. Maybe he brings us news.'

      Instinctively everybody made way for Fitzgibbon, the brilliant statesman who already swept all before him. Even his enemies admitted his ability, whilst deploring his flagrant errors. In his fitful nature good and evil were ever struggling for the mastery. Was he destined to achieve perennial fame, or doomed to eternal obloquy? Liberal, hospitable, munificent, he was; but unscrupulous to boot, and arrogant and domineering. A man who must become a prodigious success, СКАЧАТЬ