Barrington. Volume 1. Lever Charles James

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      “Might I make bold to remark,” said Dill, interposing, “that we are the guests of my friend here on this occasion?”

      “Eh, what, – guests?”

      “I am proud enough to believe that you will not refuse me the honor of your company; for though an innkeeper, I write myself gentleman,” said Barrington, blandly, though not without emotion.

      “I should think you might,” broke in the stranger, heartily; “and I’d say the man who had a doubt about your claims had very little of his own. And now a word of apology for the mode of our entrance here, and to introduce myself. I am Colonel Hunter, of the 21st Hussars; my friend is a young subaltern of the regiment.”

      A moment before, and all the awkwardness of his position was painful to Barrington. He felt that the traveller was there by a right, free to order, condemn, and criticise as he pleased. The few words of explanation, given in all the frankness of a soldier, and with the tact of a gentleman, relieved this embarrassment, and he was himself again. As for M’Cormick and Dill, the mere announcement of the regiment he commanded seemed to move and impress them. It was one of those corps especially known in the service for the rank and fortune of its officers. The Prince himself was their colonel, and they had acquired a wide notoriety for exclusiveness and pride, which, when treated by unfriendly critics, assumed a shape less favorable still.

      Colonel Hunter, if he were to be taken as a type of his regiment, might have rebutted a good deal of this floating criticism; he had a fine honest countenance, a rich mellow voice, and a sort of easy jollity in manner, that spoke well both for his spirits and his temper. He did, it is true, occasionally chafe against some susceptible spot or other of those around him, but there was no malice prepense in it, any more than there is intentional offence in the passage of a strong man through a crowd; so he elbowed his way, and pushed on in conversation, never so much as suspecting that he jostled any one in his path.

      Both Barrington and Hunter were inveterate sportsmen, and they ranged over hunting-fields and grouse mountains and partridge stubble and trout streams with all the zest of men who feel a sort of mesmeric brotherhood in the interchange of their experiences. Long after the Major and the doctor had taken their leave, they sat there recounting stories of their several adventures, and recalling incidents of flood and field.

      In return for a cordial invitation to Hunter to stay and fish the river for some days, Barrington pledged himself to visit the Colonel the first time he should go up to Kilkenny.

      “And I ‘ll mount you. You shall have a horse I never lent in my life. I ‘ll put you on Trumpeter, – sire Sir Hercules, – no mistake there; would carry sixteen stone with the fastest hounds in England.”

      Barrington shook his head, and smiled, as he said, “It’s two-and-twenty years since I sat a fence. I ‘m afraid I ‘ll not revive the fame of my horsemanship by appearing again in the saddle.”

      “Why, what age do you call yourself?”

      “Eighty-three, if I live to August next.”

      “I ‘d not have guessed you within ten years of it. I ‘ve just passed fifty, and already I begin to look for a horse with more bone beneath the knee, and more substance across the loins.”

      “These are only premonitory symptoms, after all,” said Barrington, laughing. “You’ve many a day before you come to a fourteen-hand cob and a kitchen chair to mount him.”

      Hunter laughed at the picture, and dashed away, in his own half-reckless way, to other topics. He talked of his regiment proudly, and told Barrington what a splendid set of young fellows were his officers. “I ‘ll show you such a mess,” said he, “as no corps in the service can match.” While he talked of their high-hearted and generous natures, and with enthusiasm of the life of a soldier, Barrington could scarcely refrain from speaking of his own “boy,” the son from whom he had hoped so much, and whose loss had been the death-blow to all his ambitions. There were, however, circumstances in that story which sealed his lips; and though the father never believed one syllable of the allegations against his son, though he had paid the penalty of a King’s Bench mandamus and imprisonment for horsewhipping the editor who had aspersed his “boy,” the world and the world’s verdict were against him, and he did not dare to revive the memory of a name against which all the severities of the press had been directed, and public opinion had condemned with all its weight and power.

      “I see that I am wearying you,” said Hunter, as he remarked the grave and saddened expression that now stole over Barrington’s face. “I ought to have remembered what an hour it was, – more than half-past two.” And without waiting to hear a reply, he shook his host’s hand cordially and hurried off to his room.

      While Barrington busied himself in locking up the wine, and putting away half-finished decanters, – cares that his sister’s watchfulness very imperatively exacted, – he heard, or fancied he heard, a voice from the room where the sick man lay. He opened the door very gently and looked in.

      “All right,” said the youth. “I ‘m not asleep, nor did I want to sleep, for I have been listening to you and the Colonel these two hours, and with rare pleasure, I can tell you. The Colonel would have gone a hundred miles to meet a man like yourself, so fond of the field and such a thorough sportsman.”

      “Yes, I was so once,” sighed Barrington, for already had come a sort of reaction to the late excitement.

      “Isn’t the Colonel a fine fellow?” said the young man, as eager to relieve the awkwardness of a sad theme as to praise one he loved. “Don’t you like him?”

      “That I do!” said Barrington, heartily. “His fine genial spirit has put me in better temper with myself than I fancied was in my nature to be. We are to have some trout-fishing together, and I promise you it sha’n’t be my fault if he doesn’t like me.”

      “And may I be of the party? – may I go with you?”

      “Only get well of your accident, and you shall do whatever you like. By the way, did not Colonel Hunter serve in India?”

      “For fifteen years. He has only left Bengal within a few months.”

      “Then he can probably help me to some information. He may be able to tell me – Good-night, good-night,” said he, hurriedly; “to-morrow will be time enough to think of this.”

      CHAPTER IV. FRED CONYERS

      Very soon after daybreak the Colonel was up and at the bedside of his young friend.

      “Sorry to wake you, Fred,” said he, gently; “but I have just got an urgent despatch, requiring me to set out at once for Dublin, and I did n’t like to go without asking how you get on.”

      “Oh, much better, sir. I can move the foot a little, and I feel assured it ‘s only a severe sprain.”

      “That’s all right. Take your own time, and don’t attempt to move about too early. You are in capital quarters here, and will be well looked after. There is only one difficulty, and I don’t exactly see how to deal with it. Our host is a reduced gentleman, brought down to keep an inn for support, but what benefit he can derive from it is not so very clear; for when I asked the man who fetched me hot water this morning for my bill, he replied that his master told him I was to be his guest here for a week, and not on any account to accept money from me. Ireland is a very strange place, and we are learning something new in it every day; but this is the strangest thing I have met yet.”

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