Barrington. Volume 1. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ shrill one, Major M’Cormick, but I’ll have you to believe that it has not destroyed my brother’s tympanum.”

      “It’s not the tympanum is engaged, dear lady; it’s the Eustachian tube is the cause here. There’s a passage leads down from the internal ear – ”

      “I declare, sir, I have just as little taste for anatomy as for fortification; and though I sincerely wish you could cure my brother, as I also wish these gentlemen could have taken Walcheren, I have not the slightest desire to know how.”

      “I ‘ll beg a little more tea in this, ma’am,” said the Major, holding out his cup.

      “Do you mean water, sir? Did you say it was too strong?”

      “With your leave, I ‘ll take it a trifle stronger,” said he, with a malicious twinkle in his eye, for he knew all the offence his speech implied.

      “I’m glad to hear you say so, Major M’Cormick. I’m happy to know that your nerves are stronger than at the time of that expedition you quote with such pleasure. Is yours to your liking, sir?”

      “I ‘ll ask for some water, dear lady,” broke in Dill, who began to think that the fire was hotter than usual. “As I said to Mrs. Dill, ‘Molly,’ says I, ‘how is it that I never drink such tea anywhere as at the – ‘” He stopped, for he was going to say, the Harringtons’, and he trembled at the liberty; and he dared not say the Fisherman’s Home, lest it should be thought he was recalling their occupation; and so, after a pause and a cough, he stammered out – “‘at the sweet cottage.’” Nor was his confusion the less at perceiving how she had appreciated his difficulty, and was smiling at it.

      “Very few strangers in these parts lately, I believe,” said M’Cormick, who knew that his remark was a dangerous one.

      “I fancy none, sir,” said she, calmly. “We, at least, have no customers, if that be the name for them.”

      “It’s natural, indeed, dear lady, you shouldn’t know how they are called,” began the doctor, in a fawning tone, “reared and brought up as you were.”

      The cold, steady stare of Miss Barrington arrested his speech; and though he made immense efforts to recover himself, there was that in her look which totally overcame him. “Sit down to your rubber, sir,” said she, in a whisper that seemed to thrill through his veins. “You will find yourself far more at home at the odd trick there, than attempting to console me about my lost honors.” And with this fierce admonition, she gave a little nod, half in adieu, half in admonition, and swept haughtily out of the room.

      M’Cormick heaved a sigh as the door closed after her, which very plainly bespoke how much he felt the relief.

      “My poor sister is a bit out of spirits this evening,” said Barrington, who merely saw a certain show of constraint over his company, and never guessed the cause. “We’ve had some unpleasant letters, and one thing or another to annoy us, and if she does n’t join us at supper, you ‘ll excuse her, I know, M’Cormick.”

      “That we will, with – ” He was going to add, “with a heart and a half,” for he felt, what to him was a rare sentiment, “gratitude;” but Dill chimed in, —

      “Of course, we couldn’t expect she’d appear. I remarked she was nervous when we came in. I saw an expression in her eye – ”

      “So did I, faith,” muttered M’Cormick, “and I’m not a doctor.”

      “And here’s our whist-table,” said Barrington, bustling about; “and there ‘s a bit of supper ready there for us in that room, and we ‘ll help ourselves, for I ‘ve sent Darby to bed. And now give me a hand with these cards, for they ‘ve all got mixed together.”

      Barrington’s task was the very wearisome one of trying to sort out an available pack from some half-dozen of various sizes and colors.

      “Is n’t this for all the world like raising a regiment out of twenty volunteer corps?” said M’Cormick.

      “Dill would call it an hospital of incurables,” said Barrington. “Have you got a knave of spades and a seven? Oh dear, dear! the knave, with the head off him! I begin to suspect we must look up a new pack.” There was a tone of misgiving in the way he said this; for it implied a reference to his sister, and all its consequences. Affecting to search for new cards in his own room, therefore, he arose and went out.

      “I wouldn’t live in a slavery like that,” muttered the Major, “to be King of France.”

      “Something has occurred here. There is some latent source of irritation,” said Dill, cautiously. “Barrington’s own manner is fidgety and uneasy. I have my suspicion matters are going on but poorly with them.”

      While this sage diagnosis was being uttered, M’Cormick had taken a short excursion into the adjoining room, from which he returned, eating a pickled onion. “It’s the old story; the cold roast loin and the dish of salad. Listen! Did you hear that shout?”

      “I thought I heard one awhile back; but I fancied afterwards it was only the noise of the river over the stones.”

      “It is some fellows drawing the river; they poach under his very windows, and he never sees them.”

      “I ‘m afraid we ‘re not to have our rubber this evening,” said Dill, mournfully.

      “There’s a thing, now, I don’t understand!” said M’Cormick, in a low but bitter voice. “No man is obliged to see company, but when he does do it, he oughtn’t to be running about for a tumbler here and a mustard-pot there. There’s the noise again; it’s fellows robbing the salmon-weir!”

      “No rubber to-night, I perceive that,” reiterated the doctor, still intent upon the one theme.

      “A thousand pardons I ask from each of you,” cried Barrington, coming hurriedly in, with a somewhat flushed face; “but I ‘ve had such a hunt for these cards. When I put a thing away nowadays, it’s as good as gone to me, for I remember nothing. But here we are, now, all right.”

      The party, like men eager to retrieve lost time, were soon deep in their game, very little being uttered, save such remarks as the contest called for. The Major was of that order of players who firmly believe fortune will desert them if they don’t whine and complain of their luck, and so everything from him was a lamentation. The doctor, who regarded whist pathologically, no more gave up a game than he would a patient. He had witnessed marvellous recoveries in the most hopeless cases, and he had been rescued by a “revoke” in the last hour. Unlike each, Barrington was one who liked to chat over his game, as he would over his wine. Not that he took little interest in it, but it had no power to absorb and engross him. If a man derive very great pleasure from a pastime in which, after years and years of practice, he can attain no eminence nor any mastery, you may be almost certain he is one of an amiable temperament Nothing short of real goodness of nature could go on deriving enjoyment from a pursuit associated with continual defeats. Such a one must be hopeful, he must be submissive, he must have no touch of ungenerous jealousy in his nature, and, withal, a zealous wish to do better. Now he who can be all these, in anything, is no bad fellow.

      If Barrington, therefore, was beaten, he bore it well. Cards were often enough against him, his play was always so; and though the doctor had words of bland consolation for disaster, such as the habits of his craft taught him, the Major was a pitiless adversary, who never omitted the opportunity of disinterring all his opponents’ blunders, and singing a song of triumph over them. But so it is, —tot СКАЧАТЬ