Jack Hinton Part 4

"Trate me well! faix, them that 'ud come here for good tratement, would go to the devil for divarsion. There's Master Phil himself, that I used to bate, when he was a child, many's the time, when his father, rest his sowl, was up at the coorts--ay, strapped him, till he hadn't a spot that wasn't sore an him--and look at him now; oh, wirra! you'd think I never took a ha'porth of pains with him. Ugh!--the haythins!--the Turks!"

"This is all very bad, Corny; hand me those boots."

"And thim's boots!" said he, with a contemptuous expression on his face that would have struck horror to the heart of Hoby. "Well, well." Here he looked up as though the profligacy and degeneracy of the age were transgressing all bounds. "When you're ready, come over to the master's, for he's waiting breakfast for you. A beautiful hour for breakfast, it is! Many's the day his father sintenced a whole dockful before the same time!"

With the comforting reflection that the world went better in his youth, Corny drained the few remaining drops of the jug, and, muttering the while something that did not sound exactly like a blessing, waddled out of the room with a gait of the most imposing gravity.

I had very little difficulty in finding my friend's quarters; for, as his door lay open, and as he himself was carolling away, at the very top of his lungs, some popular melody of the day, I speedily found myself beyond the threshold.

"Ah! Hinton, my hearty, how goes it? your headpiece nothing the worse, I hope, for either the car or the claret? By-the-by, capital claret that is! you've nothing like it in England."

I could scarce help a smile at the remark, as he proceeded,

"But come, my boy, sit down; help yourself to a cutlet, and make yourself quite at home in Mount O'Grady."

"Mount O'Grady!" repeated I. "Ha! in allusion, I suppose, to these confounded two flights one has to climb up to you."

"Nothing of the kind; the name has a very different origin. Tea or coffee? there's the tap! Now, my boy, the fact is, we O'Gradys were once upon a time very great folk in our way; lived in an uncouth old barrack, with battlements and a keep, upon the Shannon, where we ravaged the country for miles round, and did as much mischief, and committed as much pillage upon the peaceable inhabitants, as any respectable old family in the province. Time, however, wagged on; luck changed; your countrymen came pouring in upon us with new-fangled notions of reading, writing, and road-making; police and petty sessions, and a thousand other vexatious contrivances followed, to worry and puzzle the heads of simple country gentlemen; so that, at last, instead of taking to the hill-side for our mutton, we were reduced to keep a market-cart, and employ a thieving rogue in Dublin to supply us with poor claret, instead of making a trip over to Galway, where a smuggling craft brought us our liquor, with a bouquet fresh from Bordeaux. But the worst wasn't come; for you see, a litigious spirit grew up in the country, and a kind of vindictive habit of pursuing you for your debts. Now, we always contrived, somehow or other, to have rather a confused way of managing our exchequer. No tenant on the property ever precisely knew what he owed; and, as we possessed no record of what he paid, our income was rather obtained after the maimer of levying a tribute, than receiving a legal debt. Meanwhile, we pushed our credit like a new colony: whenever a loan was to be, obtained, it was little we cared for ten, twelve, or even fifteen per cent.; and as we kept a jolly house, a good cook, good claret, and had the best pack of beagles in the country, he'd have been a hardy creditor who'd have ventured to push us to extremities. Even sheep, however, they say, get courage when they flock together, and so this contemptible herd of tailors, t.i.the-proctors, butchers, barristers, and bootmakers, took heart of grace, and laid siege to us in all form.

My grandfather, Phil,--for I was called after him,--who always spent his money like a gentleman, had no notion of figuring in the Four Courts; but he sent Tom Darcy, his cousin, up to town, to call out as many of the plaintiffs as would fight, and to threaten the remainder that, if they did not withdraw their suits, they'd have more need of the surgeon than the attorney-general; for they shouldn't have a whole bone in their body by Michaelmas-day. Another cutlet, Hinton? But I am tiring you with all these family matters."

"Not at all; go on, I beg of you. I want to hear how your grandfather got out of his difficulties."

"Faith, I wish you could! it would be equally pleasant news to myself; but, unfortunately, his beautiful plan only made bad worse, for they began fresh actions. Some, for provocation to fight a duel; others, for threats of a.s.sault and battery; and the short of it was, as my grandfather wouldn't enter a defence, they obtained their verdicts, and got judgment, with all the costs."

"The devil they did! That must have pushed him hard."

"So it did; indeed it got the better of his temper, and he that was one of the heartiest, pleasantest fellows in the province, became, in a manner, morose and silent; and, instead of surrendering possession, peaceably and quietly, he went down to the gate, and took a sitting shot at the sub-sheriff, who was there in a tax-cart."

"Bless my soul! Did he kill him?"

"No; he only ruffled his feathers, and broke his thigh; but it was bad enough, for he had to go over to France till it blew over. Well, it was either vexation or the climate, or, maybe, the weak wines, or, perhaps, all three, undermined his const.i.tution, but he died at eighty-four--the only one of the family ever cut off early, except such as were shot, or the like."

"Well, but your father--"

"I am coming to him. My grandfather sent for him from school when he was dying, and he made him swear he would be a lawyer. 'Morris will be a thorn in their flesh, yet,' said he; 'and look to it, my boy,' he cried, 'I leave you a Chancery suit that has nearly broke eight families and the hearts of two chancellors;--see that you keep it goings--sell every stick on the estate--put all the beggars in the barony on the property--beg, borrow, and steal them--plough up all the grazing-land; and I'll tell you a better trick than all----' Here a fit of coughing interrupted the pious old gentleman, and, when it was over, so was he!"

"Dead!" said I.

"As a door-nail! Well, my father was dutiful; he kept the suit moving till he got called to the Bar! Once there, he gave it all his spare moments; and when there was nothing doing in the Common Pleas or King's Bench, he was sure to come down with a new bill, or a declaration, before the Master, or a writ of error, or a point of law for a jury, till at last, when no case was ready to come on, the sitting judge would call out, 'Let us hear O'Grady/ in appeal, or in error, or whatever it was. But, to make my story short, my father became a first-rate lawyer, by the practice of his own suit--rose to a silk-gown--was made solicitor and attorney-general--afterwards, chief-justice----"

"And the suit?"

"Oh! the suit survived him, and became my property; but, somehow, I didn't succeed in the management quite as well as my father; and I found that my estate cost me somewhere about fifteen hundred a year--not to mention more oaths than fifty years of purgatory could pay off. This was a high premium to pay for figuring every term on the list of trials, so I raised a thousand pounds on my commission, gave it to Nick M'Namara, to take the property off my hands, and as my father's last injunction was, 'Never rest till you sleep in Mount O'Grady,'--why, I just baptised my present abode by that name, and here I live with the easy conscience of a dutiful and affectionate child that took the shortest and speediest way of fulfilling his father's testament."

"By Jove! a most singular narrative. I shouldn't like to have parted with the old place, however."

"Faith, I don't know! I never was much there. It was a rackety, tumble-down old concern, with rattling windows, rooks, and rats, pretty much like this; and, what between my duns and Corny Delany, I very often think I am back there again. There wasn't as good a room as this in the whole house, not to speak of the pictures. Isn't that likeness of Darcy capital? You saw him last night. He sat next Curran. Come, I've no curacoa to offer you, but try this usquebaugh."

"By-the-by, that Corny is a strange character. I rather think, if I were you, I should have let him go with the property."

"Let him go! Egad, that's not so easy as you think. Nothing but death will ever part us."

"I really cannot comprehend how you endure him; he'd drive me mad."

"Well, he very often pushes me a little hard or so; and, if it wasn't that, by deep study and minute attention, I have at length got some insight into the weak parts of his nature, I frankly confess I couldn't endure it much longer."

"And, pray, what may these amiable traits be?"

"You will scarcely guess"

"Love of money, perhaps?"

"No."

"Attachment to your family, then?"

"Not that either."

"I give it up."

"Well, the truth is, Corny is a most pious Catholic. The Church has unbounded influence and control over all his actions. Secondly, he is a devout believer in ghosts, particularly my grandfather's, which, I must confess, I have personated two or three times myself, when his temper had nearly tortured me into a brain fever; so that between purgatory and apparitions, fears here and hereafter, I keep him pretty busy. There's a friend of mine, a priest, one Father Tom Loftus----"

"I've heard that name before, somewhere."

"Scarcely, I think; I'm not aware that he was ever in England; but he's a glorious fellow; I'll make you known to him, one of these days; and when you have seen a little more of Ireland, I am certain you'll like him. But I'm forgetting; it must be late; we have a field-day, you know, in the Park."

"What am I to do for a mount? I've brought no horses with me."

"Oh, I've arranged all that. See, there are the nags already. That dark chesnut I destine for you; and, come along, we have no time to lose; there go the carriages, and here comes our worthy colleague and fellow aide-de-camp. Do you know him?"

"Who is it, pray?"

"Lord Dudley de Vere, the most confounded puppy, and the emptiest a.s.s-- But here he is."

"De Vere, my friend Mr. Hinton--one of ours."

His Lords.h.i.+p raised his delicate-looking eyebrows as high as he was able, letting fall his gla.s.s at the same moment from the corner of his eye; and while he adjusted his stock at the gla.s.s, lisped out,

"Ah--yes--very happy. In the Guards, I think. Know Douglas, don't you?"

"Yes, very slightly."

"When did you come--to-day?"

"No; last night."

"Must have got a buffeting; blew very fresh. You don't happen to know the odds on the Oaks?"