Barrington Volume I Part 21

"Well, this fellow made noise enough to be heard even over here. He married a native woman, and he either shook off his English allegiance, or was suspected of doing so. At all events, he got himself into trouble that finished him. It's a long complicated story, that I have never heard correctly. The upshot was, however, old Barrington was sold out stick and stone, and if it was n't for the ale-house he might starve."

"And his former friends and a.s.sociates, do they rally round him and cheer him?"

"Not a great deal. Perhaps, however, that's as much his fault as theirs.

He is very proud, and very quick to resent anything like consideration for his changed condition. Sir Charles would have him up here,--he has tried it scores of times, but all in vain; and now he is left to two or three of his neighbors, the doctor and an old half-pay major, who lives on the river, and I believe really he never sees any one else. Old M'Cormick knew George Barrington well; not that they were friends,--two men less alike never lived; but that's enough to make poor Peter fond of talking to him, and telling all about some lawsuits George left him for a legacy."

"This Major that you speak of, does he visit here? I don't remember to have seen him."

"M'Cormick!" said the other, laughing. "No, he 's a miserly old fellow that has n't a coat fit to go out in, and he's no loss to any one. It's as much as old Peter Barrington can do to bear his shabby ways, and his cranky temper, but he puts up with everything because he knew his son George. That's quite enough for old Peter; and if you were to go over to the cottage, and say, 'I met your son up in Bombay or Madras; we were quartered together at Ram-something-or-other,' he 'd tell you the place was your own, to stop at as long as you liked, and your home for life."

"Indeed!" said Stapylton, affecting to feel interested, while he followed out the course of his own thoughts.

"Not that the Major could do even that much!" continued Bushe, who now believed that he had found an eager listener. "There was only one thing in this world he'd like to talk about,--Walcheren. Go how or when you liked, or where or for what,--no matter, it was Walcheren you 'd get, and nothing else."

"Somewhat tiresome this, I take it!"

"Tiresome is no name for it! And I don't know a stronger proof of old Peter's love for his son's memory, than that, for the sake of hearing about him, he can sit and listen to the 'expedition.'"

There was a half-unconscious mimicry in the way he gave the last word that showed how the Major's accents had eaten their way into his sensibilities.

"Your portrait of this Major is not tempting," said Stapylton, smiling.

"Why would it? He's eighteen or twenty years in the neighborhood, and I never heard that he said a kind word or did a generous act by any one.

But I get cross if I talk of him. Where are you going this morning? Will you come up to the Long Callows and look at the yearlings? The Admiral is very proud of his young stock, and he thinks he has some of the best bone and blood in Ireland there at this moment."

"Thanks, no; I have some notion of a long walk this morning. I take shame to myself for having seen so little of the country here since I came that I mean to repair my fault and go off on a sort of voyage of discovery."

"Follow the river from Brown's Barn down to Inistioge, and if you ever saw anything prettier I'm a Scotchman." And with this appalling alternative, Mr. Bushe walked away, and left the other to his own guidance.

Perhaps Stapylton is not the companion my reader would care to stroll with, even along the gra.s.sy path beside that laughing river, with spray-like larches bending overhead, and tender water-lilies streaming, like pennants, in the fast-running current. It may be that he or she would prefer some one more impressionable to the woodland beauty of the spot, and more disposed to enjoy the tranquil loveliness around him; for it is true the swarthy soldier strode on, little heeding the picturesque effects which made every succeeding reach of the river a subject for a painter. He was bent on finding out where M'Cormick lived, and on making the acquaintance of that bland individual.

"That's the Major's, and there's himself," said a countryman, as he pointed to a very shabbily dressed old man hoeing his cabbages in a dilapidated bit of garden-ground, but who was so absorbed in his occupation as not to notice the approach of a stranger.

"Am I taking too great a liberty," said Stapylton, as he raised his hat, "if I ask leave to follow the river path through this lovely spot?"

"Eh--what?--how did you come? You didn't pa.s.s round by the young wheat, eh?" asked M'Cormick, in his most querulous voice.

"I came along by the margin of the river."

"That's just it!" broke in the other. "There's no keeping them out that way. But I 'll have a dog as sure as my name is Dan. I'll have a bull-terrier that'll tackle the first of you that's trespa.s.sing there."

"I fancy I'm addressing Major M'Cormick," said Stapylton, never noticing this rude speech; "and if so, I will ask him to accord me the privilege of a brother-soldier, and let me make myself known to him,--Captain Stapylton, of the Prince's Hussars."

"By the wars!" muttered old Dan; the exclamation being a favorite one with him to express astonishment at any startling event. Then recovering himself, he added, "I think I heard there were three or four of ye stopping up there at Cobham; but I never go out myself anywhere. I live very retired down here."

"I am not surprised at that. When an old soldier can nestle down in a lovely nook like this, he has very little to regret of what the world is busy about outside it."

"And they are all ruining themselves, besides," said M'Cormick, with one of his malicious grins. "There's not a man in this county is n't mortgaged over head and ears. I can count them all on my fingers for you, and tell what they have to live on."

"You amaze me," said Stapylton, with a show of interest

"And the women are as bad as the men: nothing fine enough for them to wear; no jewels rich enough to put on! Did you ever hear them mention _me?_" asked he, suddenly, as though the thought flashed upon him that he had himself been exposed to comment of a very different kind.

"They told me of an old retired officer, who owned a most picturesque cottage, and said, if I remember aright, that the view from one of the windows was accounted one of the most perfect bits of river landscape in the kingdom."

"Just the same as where you 're standing,--no difference in life,"

said M'Cormick, who was not to be seduced by the flattery into any demonstration of hospitality.

"I cannot imagine anything finer," said Stapylton, as he threw himself at the foot of a tree, and seemed really to revel in enjoyment of the scene. "One might, perhaps, if disposed to be critical, ask for a little opening in that copse yonder. I suspect we should get a peep at the bold cliff whose summit peers above the tree-tops."

"You'd see the quarry, to be sure," croaked out the Major, "if that's what you mean."

"May I offer you a cigar?" said Stapylton, whose self-possession was pushed somewhat hard by the other. "An old campaigner is sure to be a smoker."

"I am not. I never had a pipe in my mouth since Walcheren."

"Since Walcheren! You don't say that you are an old Walcheren man?"

"I am, indeed. I was in the second battalion of the 103d,--the Duke's Fusiliers, if ever you heard of them."

"Heard of them! The whole world has heard of them; but I did n't know there was a man of that splendid corps surviving. Why, they lost--let me see--they lost every officer but--" Here a vigorous effort to keep his cigar alight interposed, and kept him occupied for a few seconds. "How many did you bring out of action,--four was it, or five? I'm certain you had n't six!"

"We were the same as the Buffs, man for man," said M'Cormick.

"The poor Buffs!--very gallant fellows too!" sighed Stapylton. "I have always maintained, and I always will maintain, that the Walcheren expedition, though not a success, was the proudest achievement of the British arms."

"The shakes always began after sunrise, and in less than ten minutes you 'd see your nails growing blue."

"How dreadful!"

"And if you felt your nose, you would n't know it was your nose; you 'd think it was a bit of a cold carrot."

"Why was that?"

"Because there was no circulation; the blood would stop going round; and you 'd be that way for four hours,--till the sweating took you,--just the same as dead."

"There, don't go on,--I can't stand it,--my nerves are all ajar already."

"And then the cramps came on," continued M'Cormick, in an ecstasy over a listener whose feelings he could harrow; "first in the calves of the legs, and then all along the spine, so that you 'd be bent like a fish."

"For Heaven's sake, spare me! I've seen some rough work, but that description of yours is perfectly horrifying! And when one thinks it was the glorious old 105th--"

"No, the 103d; the 105th was at Barbadoes," broke in the Major, testily.

"So they were, and got their share of the yellow fever at that very time too," said Stapylton, hazarding a not very rash conjecture.

"Maybe they did, and maybe they didn't," was the dry rejoinder.

It required all Stapylton's nice tact to get the Major once more full swing at the expedition, but he at last accomplished the feat, and with such success that M'Cormick suggested an adjournment within doors, and faintly hinted at a possible something to drink. The wily guest, however, declined this. "He liked," he said, "that nice breezy spot under those fine old trees, and with that glorious reach of the river before them. Could a man but join to these enjoyments," he continued, "just a neighbor or two,--an old friend or so that he really liked,--one not alone agreeable from his tastes, but to whom the link of early companions.h.i.+p also attached us, with this addition I could call this a paradise."