The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 2. Lever Charles James

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ himself, or they might have thought that Dodd and Dempsey was turned highwayman.

      “My grandfather was prouder of the same note, and happier that morning, than if it was an order for fifty butts of sherry. He read it over and over, and he walked up and down the little back office, picturing out the whole scene, settling the chairs till he made a little avenue between them, and practising the way he ‘d slip out slyly and surprise his Grace. No doubt, it would have been as good as a play to have looked at him.

      “One difficulty preyed upon his mind, – what dress ought he to wear? Should he be in a court suit, or ought he rather to go in his robes as an alderman? It would never do to appear in a black coat, a light gray spencer, punch-colored shorts and gaiters, white hat with a strip of black crape on it, – mere Dodd and Dempsey! That wasn’t to be thought of. If he could only ask his friend M’Hale, the fishmonger, who was knighted last year, he could tell all about it. M’Hale, however, would blab. He ‘d tell it to the whole livery; every alderman of Skinner’s Alley would know it in a week. No, no, the whole must be managed discreetly; it was a mutual confidence between the Duke and ‘D. and D.’ ‘At all events,’ said my grandfather, ‘a court dress is a safe thing;’ and out he went and bespoke one, to be sent home that evening, for he could n’t rest till he tried it on, and felt how he could move his head in the straight collar, and bow, without the sword tripping him up and pitching him into the Duke. I ‘ve heard my father say that in the days that elapsed till the time mentioned for the interview, my grandfather lost two stone in weight. He walked half over the county Dublin, lying in ambush in every little wood he could see, and jumping out whenever he could see or hear any one coming, – little surprises which were sometimes taken as practical jokes, very unbecoming a man of his age and appearance.

      “Well, ma’am, Wednesday morning came, and at six o’clock my grandfather was on the way to Ballyriggan, and at nine he was in the wood, posted at the very spot M’Claverty told him, as happy as any man could be whose expectations were so overwhelming. A long hour passed over, and another; nobody passed but a baker’s boy with a bull-dog after him, and an old woman that was stealing brushwood in the shrubbery. My grandfather remarked her well, and determined to tell his Grace of it; but his own business soon drove that out of his head, for eleven o’clock came, and now there was no knowing the moment the Duke might appear. With his watch in his hand, he counted the minutes, ay, even the seconds; if he was a thief going to be hanged, and looking out over the heads of the crowd for a fellow to gallop in with a reprieve, he could n’t have suffered more: his heart was in his mouth. At last, it might be about half-past eleven, he heard a footstep on the gravel, and then a loud, deep cough, – ‘a fine kind of cough,’ my grandfather afterwards called it. He peeped out; and there, sure enough, at about sixty paces, coming down the walk, was a large, grand-looking man, – not that he was dressed as became him, for, strange as you may think it, the Lord-Lieutenant had on a shooting-jacket, and a pair of plaid trousers, and cloth boots, and a big lump of a stick in his hand, – and lucky it was that my grandfather knew him, for he bought a picture of him. On he came nearer and nearer; every step on the gravel-walk drove out of my grandfather’s head half a dozen of the fine things he had got off by heart to say during the interview, until at last he was so overcome by joy, anxiety, and a kind of terror, that he could n’t tell where he was, or what was going to happen to him, but he had a kind of instinct that reminded him he was to jump out when the Duke was near him; and ‘pon my conscience so he did, clean and clever, into the middle of the walk, right in front of his Grace. My grandfather used to say, in telling the story, that he verily believed his feelings at that moment would have made him burst a blood-vessel if it wasn’t that the Duke put his hands to his sides and laughed till the woods rang again; but, between shame and fright, my grandfather did n’t join in the laugh.

      “‘In Heaven’s name!’ said his Grace, ‘who or what are you? – this isn’t May-day.’

      “My grandfather took this speech as a rebuke for standing so bold in his Grace’s presence; and being a shrewd man, and never deficient in tact, what does he do but drops down on his two knees before him? ‘My Lord,’ said he, ‘I am only Dodd and Dempsey.’

      “Whatever there was droll about the same house of Dodd and Dempsey I never heard, but his Grace laughed now till he had to lean against a tree. ‘Well, Dodd and Dempsey, if that’s your name, get up. I don’t mean you any harm. Take courage, man; I am not going to knight you. By the way, are you not the worthy gentleman who lent me a trifle of twenty thousand more than once?’

      “My grandfather could n’t speak, but he moved his lips, and he moved his bands, this way, as though to say the honor was too great for him, but it was all true.

      “‘Well, Dodd and Dempsey, I ‘ve a very high respect for you,’ said his Grace; ‘I intend, some of these fine days, when business permits, to go over and eat an oyster at your villa on the coast.’

      “My grandfather remembers no more; indeed, ma’am, I believe that at that instant his Grace’s condescension had so much overwhelmed him that he had a kind of vision before his eyes of a whole wood full of Lord-Lieutenants, with about thirty thousand people opening oysters for them as fast as they could eat, and he himself running about with a pepper-caster, pressing them to eat another ‘black fin.’ It was something of that kind; for when he got on his legs a considerable time must have elapsed, as he found all silent around him, and a smart rheumatic pain in his knee-joints from the cold of the ground.

      “The first thing my grandfather did when he got back to town was to remember that he had no villa on the sea-coast, nor any more suitable place to eat an oyster than his house in Abbey Street, for he could n’t ask his Grace to go to ‘Killeen’s.’ Accordingly he set out the next day in search of a villa, and before a week was over he had as beautiful a place about a mile below Howth as ever was looked at; and that he mightn’t be taken short, he took a lease of two oyster-beds, and made every preparation in life for the Duke’s visit. He might have spared himself the trouble. Whether it was that somebody had said something of him behind his back, or that politics were weighing on the Duke’s mind, – the Catholics were mighty troublesome then, – or, indeed, that he forgot it altogether, clean, but so it was, my grandfather never heard more of the visit, and if the oysters waited for his Grace to come and eat them, they might have filled up Howth harbor.

      “A year passed over, and my grandfather was taking his solitary walk in the Park, very nearly in the same place as before, – for you see, ma’am, he could n’t bear the sight of the seacoast, and the very smell of shell-fish made him ill, – when somebody called out his name. He looked up, and there was M’Claverty in a gig.

      “‘Well, D. and D., how goes the world with you?’

      “‘Very badly indeed,’ says my grandfather; his heart was full, and he just told him the whole story.

      “‘I’ll settle it all,’ said the captain; ‘leave it to me. There ‘s to be a review to-morrow in the Park; get on the back of the best horse you can find, – the Duke is a capital judge of a nag, – ride him briskly about the field; he ‘ll notice you, never fear; the whole thing will come up before his memory, and you ‘ll have him to breakfast before the week’s over.’

      “‘Do you think so? – do you really think so?’

      “‘I ‘ll take my oath of it. I say, D. and D., could you do a little thing at a short date just now?’

      “‘If it was n’t too heavy,’ said my grandfather, with a faint sigh.

      “‘Only a hundred.’

      “‘Well,’ said he, ‘you may send it down to the office. Good-bye.’ And with that he turned back towards town again; not to go home, however, for he knew well there was no time to lose, but straight he goes to Dycer’s, – it was old Tom was alive in СКАЧАТЬ