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to be a viscount one of these days; and some- | had nothing but misgivings. Harcourt would how, wherever he has picked it up, he has have twenty times a day wounded the feelgot a very pretty notion of the importance ings, or jarred against the susceptibility of his and rank that same title confers."

best friend; Upton could not be brought to trench upon the slightest prejudice of his greatest enemy. We might continue this contrast to every detail of their characters, but enough has now been said, and we proceed to the letter in question :

"Glencore Castle.

"Let us not speak of this now, Harcourt; I'm far too weak to enter upon what it would lead to. It is, however, the great reason for which I entreated you to come here. And tomorrow at all events in a day or two-we can speak of it fully. And now I must leave you. You'll have to rough it here, George; but as there is no man can do so with a better grace, I can spare my apologies; only, I beg, don't let the place be worse than it need be. Give your orders; get what you can; and see if your tact and knowledge of life cannot remedy many a difficulty which our ignorance the elucidation till my arrival. I found Glenor apathy have served to perpetuate.

"DEAR UPTON,-True to my promise to give you early tidings of our old friend, I sit down to pen a few lines, which, if a rickety table and some infernal lampblack for ink should make illegible, you'll have to wait for

core terribly altered; I'd not have known "I'll take the command of the garrison with him. He used to be muscular and rather full pleasure," said Harcourt, filling up his glass, in habit; he is now a mere skeleton. His and replenishing the fire. "And now a good hair and moustache were coal black; they are night's rest to you, for I half suspect I have a motley gray. He was straight as an arrowalready jeopardied some of it." pretentiously erect, many thought; he is stoopThe old campaigner sat till long past mid-ed now, and bent nearly double. His voice, night. The generous wine, his pipe, the too, the most clear and ringing in the squadcheerful wood-fire, were all companionable ron, is become a hoarse whisper. You reenough, and well-suited thoughts which took member what a passion he had for dress, and no high or heroic range, but were chiefly reve- how heartily we all deplored the chance of ries of the past, some sad, some pleasant, but his being colonel, well knowing what precious all tinged with the one philosophy, which made caprices of costly costume would be the conhim regard the world as a campaign, wherein sequence. Well, a discharged corporal, in a he who grumbles or repines is but a sorry cast-off mufti, is stylish compared to him. I soldier, and unworthy of his cloth. don't think he has a hat-I have only seen an oilskin cap; but his coat, his one coat, is a curiosity of industrious patch-work; and his trowsers are a pair of our old overalls, the same pattern we wore at Hounslow when the king reviewed us.

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It was not till the last glass was drained that he arose to seek his bed, and pleasantly humming some old air to himself, he slowly mounted the stairs to his chamber.

CHAPTER V.

COLONEL HARCOURT'S LETter. As we desire throughout this tale to make the actors themselves, wherever it be possible, the narrators, using their words in preference to our own, we shall now place before the reader a letter written by Colonel Harcourt about a week after his arrival at Glencore, which will at least serve to rescue him and ourselves from the task of repetition.

"Great as these changes are, they are nothing to the alteration in the poor fellow's disposition. He that was generous to munificence, is now an absolute miser, descending to the most pitiful economy, and moaning over every trifling outlay. He is irritable, too, to a degree. Far from the jolly, light-hearted comrade, ready to join in the laugh against himself, and enjoy a jest of which he was the object, he suspects a slight in every allusion, and bristles up to resent a mere familiarity, as though it were an insult.

It was addressed to Sir Horace Upton, Her Majesty's Envoy at Studtgard, one who had "Of course I put much of this down to the formerly served in the same regiment with score of illness, and of bad health before he Glencore and himself, but who left the army was so ill; but, depend upon it, he's not the early, to follow the career of diplomacy where- man we knew him; heaven knows if he ever in, still a young man, he had risen to the rank will be so again. The night I arrived here he of a minister. It is not important to the ob- was more natural-more like himself, in fact, ject of our story to speak more particularly than he has ever been since. His manner of his character, than that it was in almost was heartier, and in his welcome there was a every respect the opposite of his correspond- touch of the old jovial good fellow, who never ent. Where the one was frank, open, and was so happy as when sharing his quarters unguarded, the other was cold, cautious and with a comrade. Since that he has grown reserved; where one believed, the other punctilious, anxiously asking me if I am comdoubted; where one was hopeful, the other fortable, and teasing me with apologies for

what I don't miss, and excuses about things somewhat haughty, perhaps; a little spoiled that I should never have discovered wanting. by the country people calling him the young "I think I see what is passing within him; lord; but a generous fellow, and very like he wants to be confidential, and he doesn't Glencore, when he first joined us at Canterknow how to go about it. I suppose he looks bury. By way of educating him himself, on me as rather a rough father to confess Glencore has been driving Virgil and decimal to; he isn't quite sure what kind of sympathy, fractions into him; and the boy, bred in the if any, he'll meet with from me, and he more country-never out of it for a day-can't load than half dreads a certain careless, out-spoken a gun or tie a tackle. Not the worst thing way in which I have now and then addressed his boy, of whom more anon.

about the boy is his inordinate love for Glencore, whom he imagines to be about the great"I may be right, or I may be wrong, in est and most gifted being that ever lived. I this conjecture; but certain it is that nothing can scarcely help smiling at the implicitness of like confidential conversation has yet passed this honest faith; but I take good care not to between us, and each day seems to render the smile; on the contrary, I give every possible prospect of such only less and less likely. I encouragement to the belief. I conclude the wish from my heart you were here; you are disenchantment will arrive only too early at just the fellow to suit him-just calculated to last. nourish the susceptibilities that I only shock. "You'll not know what to make of such a I said as much t'other day, in a half-careless lengthy epistle from me, and you'll doubtless way, and he immediately caught it up, and torture that fine diplomatic intelligence of said "Ay, George, Upton is a man one wants yours to detect the secret motive of my longnow and then in life, and when the moment windedness; but the simple fact is, it has comes, there is no such thing as a substitute rained incessantly for the last three days, and for him." In a joking manner, I then re- promises the same cheering weather for as marked, "Why not come over to see him?" many more. Glencore doesn't fancy that the "Leave this!" cried he; "venture into the boy's lessons should be broken in upon-and world again; expose myself to its brutal inso- hinc isto litera-that's classical for you. lence, or still more brutal pity!" In a torrent of passion, he went on in this strain, till I heartily regretted that I had ever touched this unlucky topic.

"I date his greatest reserve from that same moment; and I am sure he is disposed to connect me with the casual suggestion to go over to Studtgard, and deems me, in consequence, one utterly deficient in all true feeling and delicacy.

of a

"I wish I could say when I am likely to beat my retreat. I'd stay-not very willingly, perhaps but still I'd stay, if I thought myself f any use; but I cannot persuade myself that I am such. Glencore is now about again, feeble of course, and much pulled down, but able to go about the house and the garden. I can contribute nothing to his recovery, and I fear as little to his comfort. I even doubt if he desires me to prolong my visit; but such is "I needn't tell you that my stay here is the my fear of offending him, that I actually dread reverse of a pleasure. I'm never, what fine to allude to my departure, till I can sound my people call, bored anywhere; and I could way as to how he'll take it. This fact alone amuse myself gloriously in this queer spot. I will show you how much he is changed from have shot some half dozen seals, hooked the the Glencore of long ago. Another feature in heaviest salmon I ever saw rise to a fly, and him, totally unlike his former self, struck me have had rare coursing, not to say that Glen- the other evening. We were talking of old core's table, with certain reforms I have intro-messmates-Croydon, Stanhope, Loftus, and duced, is very tolerable, and his cellar unim-yourself-and instead of dwelling, as he once peachable. I'll back his chambertin against would have done, exclusively on your traits of your excellency's; and I have discovered a character and disposition, he discussed nothing bin of red hermitage that would convert a but your abilities, and the capacity by which whole vineyard of the smallest Lafitte into you could win your way to honors and distincSneyd's claret; but with all these seductions, tion. I needn't say how, in such a valuation, I can't stand the life of continued constraint I'm reduced to. Glencore evidently sent for me to make some revelations, which, now that he sees me, he cannot accomplish. For aught I know, there may be as many changes in me to his eyes, as to mine there are in him. I only can vouch for it, that if I ride three stone heavier, I haven't the worse place, and "I have some scruples about venturing to I don't detect any striking falling off in my offer anything bordering a suggestion to a appreciation of good fare and good fellows. great and wily diplomatist like yourself; but "I spoke of the boy: he is a fine lad—if an illustrious framer of treaties and protocols

you came off best. Indeed he professes the highest esteem for your talents, and says, "You'll see Upton either a cabinet minister or ambassador at Paris yet;" and this he repeated in the same words last night, as if to show it was not dropped as a mere random observation.

would condescend to take a hint from an old dragoon colonel, I'd say that a few lines from your crafty pen might possibly unlock this poor fellow's heart, and lead him to unburthen to you what he evidently cannot persuade himself to reveal to me. I can see plainly enough that there is something on his mind; but I know it just as a stupid old hound feels there is a fox in the cover, but cannot for the life of him see how he's to 'draw' him.

equal to the effort than now," said Harcourt, laying his hand on the other's pulse.

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Don't believe my pulse, George," said Glencore, smiling faintly. "The machine may work badly, but it has wonderful holding out I've gone through enough," added he, gloomily, "to kill most men, and here I am still, breathing and suffering."

"This place doesn't suit you, Glencore.— There are not above two days in the month you can venture to take the air."

at Naples would be public enough? Is it that I may parade disgrace and infamy through Europe, that I should leave this solitude?

"A letter from you would do him good, at all events; even the little gossip of your gos- "And where would you have me go, sir?" sipping career would cheer and amuse him. broke he in fiercely. "Would you advise ParHe said, very plaintively, two nights ago, is and the Boulevards, or a palace in the Piaz'They've all forgotten me. When a man re-za di Spagna at Rome? or perhaps the Chiaja tires from the world, he begins to die, and the great event, after all, is only the coup-de-grace to a long agony of torture. Do write to him, then; the address is Glencore Castle, Leenane, Ireland,' where, I suppose, I shall be still a resident for another fortnight to come. "Glencore has just sent for me; but I must close this for the post, or it will be too late. Yours ever truly,

GEORGE HARCOURT.

"I open this to say that he sent for me to ask for your address-whether through the Foreign Office, or direct to Studtgard. You'll probably not hear for some days, for he writes with extreme difficulty, and I leave it to your wise discretion to write to him or not in the interval.

"I want to see you in a better climate, Glencore; somewhere where the sun shines occasionally."

"This suits me," said the other, bluntly; "and here I have the security that none can invade-none molest me. But it is not of myself I wish to speak-it is of my boy.”

Harcourt made no reply, but sat patiently to listen to what was coming.

"It is time to think of him," added Glencore, slowly. "The other day-it seems but the other day-and he was a mere child; a few years more-to seem when past like a long dreary night-and he will be a man."

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Very true," said Harcourt; "and Charley is one of those fellows who only make one plunge from the boy into all the responsibilities of manhood. Throw him into college at Oxford, or the mess of regiment to-morrow, and this day week you'll not know him from the rest."

"Poor fellow, he looks very ill to-day. He says that he never slept the whole night, and that the laudanum he took to induce drowsiness, only excited and maddened him. I counselled a hot jorum of mulled porter before getting into bed; but he deemed me a monster for the recommendation, and seemed quite disgusted besides. Couldn't you send him over a deGlencore was silent; if he had heard he spatch? I think such a document from Studt-never noticed Harcourt's remark. gard ought to be an unfailing soporific."

CHAPTER VI.

QUEER COMPANIONSHIP.

WHEN Harcourt repaired to Glencore's bedroom, where he still lay, wearied and feverish after a bad night, he was struck by the signs of suffering in the sick man's face. The cheeks were bloodless and fallen in, the lips pinched, and in the eyes there shone that unnatural brilliancy which results from an overwrought and over-excited brain.

"Sit down here, George," said he, pointing to a chair beside the bed; "I want to talk to you. I thought every day that I could muster courage for what I wish to say; but somehow, when the time arrived, I felt like a criminal who entreats for a few hours more of life, even though it be a life of misery."

"It strikes me that you were never less

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Has he ever spoken to you about himself, Harcourt?" asked he, after a pause. "Never, except when I led the subject in that direction; and even then reluctantly, as though it were a topic he would avoid."

"Have you discovered any strong inclination in him for a particular kind of life, or any career in preference to another?"

"None; and if I were only to credit what I see of him, I'd say that this dull monotony, and this dreary, uneventful existence, is what he likes best of all the world."

"You really think so," cried Glencore, with an eagerness that seemed out of proportion to the remark.

"So far as I see," rejoined Harcourt, guardedly, and not wishing to let his observation carry graver consequences than he might suspect.

"So that you deem him capable of passing a life of a quiet, unambitious tenor-neither

seeking for distinctions, nor fretting after hon

ors."

"How should he know of their existence, Glencore? What has the boy ever heard of life and its struggles? It's not in Homer, or Sallust, he'd learn the strife of parties and public men."

"And why need he ever know them?" broke in Glencore, fiercely.

Lord Glencore's attack was more serious than at first it was apprehended, and for three days there was every threat of a relapse of his late fever; but Billy's skill was once more successful, and on the fourth day he declared that the danger was past. During this period, Harcourt's attention was, for the first time, drawn to the strange creature who officiated as the doctor, and who, in despite of all the detracting influences of his humble garb and mean attire, aspired to be treated with the deference due

"If he doesn't know them now, he's sure to be taught them hereafter. A young fellow who will succeed to a title and a good for- to a great physician.

tune

"If it's the crown and the sceptre makes the

Stop, Harcourt," cried Glencore, passion-king," said he, "'tis the same with the science ately. "Has anything of this kind ever escaped you in intercourse with the boy?" "Not a word-not a syllable."

"Has he himself ever, by a hint, or by a chance word, implied that he was aware

of-"

Glencore faltered and hesitated, for the word he sought for did not present itself.Harcourt, however, released him from all embarrassment, by saying

"With me, the boy is rarely anything but a listener; he hears me talk away of tiger shooting, and buffalo-hunting, scarcely ever interrupting me with a question. But I can see his manner with the country people, when they salute him, and call him my lord ."

"But he is not my lord," broke in Glen

core.

"Of course he is not; that I am perfectly aware of."

"He never will-never shall be," cried Glencore, in a voice to which a long pent-up passion imparted a terrible energy.

"How-what do you mean, Glencore?" said Harcourt, eagerly. "Has he any malady?is there any deadly taint?"

"That there is, by Heaven!" cried the sick man, grasping the curtain with one hand, while he held the other firmly clenched upon his forehead. "A taint, the deadliest that can stain a human heart! Talk of station, rank, title-what are they, if they are to be coupled with shame, ignominy, and sorrow? The loud voice of the Herald calls his father Sixth Viscount of Glencore; but a still louder one proclaims his mother a

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With a wild burst of hysteric laughter, he threw himself, face downwards, on the bed; and now scream after scream burst from him, till the room was filled by the servants, in the midst of whom appeared Billy, who had only that same day returned from Leenane, whither he had gone to make a formal resignation of his functions as letter carrier.

"This is nothing but an accessio nervosa,' said Billy; "clear the room, ladies and gentlemen, and lave me with the patient." And Harcourt gave the signal for obedience by first taking his departure.

that makes the doctor; and no man can be despised when he has a rag of ould Galen's mantle to cover his shoulders."

"So you're going to take blood from him?" asked Harcourt, as he met him on the stairs, where he had awaited his coming one night when it was late.

"No, sir; 'tis more a disturbance of the great nervous centres than any decayin' of the heart and arteries," said Billy, pompously; that's what shows a real doctor, to distinguish between the effects of excitement and inflammation, which is as different as fireworks is from a bombardment."

"Not a bad simile, Master Billy; come in and drink a glass of brandy-and-water with me," said Harcourt, right glad at the prospect of such companionship.

Billy Traynor too, was flattered by the invitation, and seated himself at the fire with an air at once proud and submissive.

"You've a difficult patient to treat there," said Harcourt, when he had furnished his companion with a pipe, and twice filled his glass; "he's hard to manage, I take it?”

"Yer' right," said Billy; "every touch is a blow, every breath of air is a hurricane with him. There's no such thing as tratin' a man of that timperament; it's the same with many of them ould families as with our race horses, they breed them too fine."

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Egad, I think you are right," said Harcourt, pleased with an illustration that suited his own modes of thinking.

"Yes, sir," said Billy, gaining confidence by the approval; "a man is a ma-chine, and all the parts ought to be balanced, and as the ancients say, in equilibrio. If you give a preponderance here or there, whether it be brain or spinal marrow, cardiac functions or digestive ones, you disthroy him, and make that dangerous kind of constitution that, like a horse with a hard mouth, or a boat with a weather helm, always runs to one side."

"That's well put, well explained," said Harcourt, who really thought the illustration appropriate.

"Now my lord there," continued Billy, "18 all out of balance, every bit of him. Bleed

him, and he sinks; stimulate him, and he goes there they are in the brutes; but they're in no subjection, except by fear. Now it's out of man's motives his character is moulded, and fear is only one amongst them. D'ye apprehend me?"

ragin mad. 'Tis their physical comformation makes their character; and to know how to cure them in sickness, one ought to have some knowledge of them in health."

"How came you to know all this? You are a very remarkable fellow, Billy."

"I am, sir; Im a phenumenon in a small way. And many people thinks, when they see and convarse with me, what a pity it is I hav'nt the advantages of edication and instruction, and that's just where they're wrong, complately wrong."

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Well, I confess I don't perceive that." "I'll show you, then. There's a kind of janius natural to men like myself, in Ireland, I mean, for I never heerd of it elsewhere. That's just like our Irish emerald or Irish diamond, wonderful if one considers where you find it astonishin' if you only think how azy it is to get, but a regular disappointment, a downright take-in, if you intend to have it cut, and polished and set. No, sir; with all the care and culture in life, you'll never make a precious stone of it!"

"You've not taken the right way to convince me, by using such an illustration, Billy." "Ill try another, then," said Billy. "We are like Willy-the-Whisps, showing plenty of light where there's no road to travel, but of no manner of use on the highway, or in the dark streets of a village where one has busi

ness."

"Your own services here are the refutation to your argument, Billy," said Harcourt, filling his glass.

Tis your kindness to say so, sir," said Billy, with gratified pride; "but the sacrat was, he thrusted me-that was the whole of it. All the miracles of physic is confidence, just as all the magic of eloquence is con-viction."

"You have reflected profoundly, I see," said Harcourt.

"I made a great many observations at one time of my life--the opportunity was fa

vorable."

"When and how was that?"

"I travelled with a baste caravan for two years, sir; and there's nothing teaches one to know mankind like the study of bastes!" "Not complimentary to humanity, certainly," said Harcourt, laughing.

"Perfectly; fill your pipe." And he pushed the tobacco towards him.

“I will; and I'll drink the memory of the great and good man that first intro-duced the weed amongst us.-Here's Sir Walter Raleigh. By the same token, I was in his house, last week."

"In his house! where?"

"Down at Greyball. You Englishmen, savin' your presence, always forget that many of your celebrities lived years in Ireland. For it was the same long ago as now-a place of decent banishment for men of janius-a kind of straw yard where ye turned out your intellectual hunters till the sayson came on at home."

"I'm sorry to see, Billy, that, with all your enlightenment, you have the vulgar prejudice against the Saxon."

"And that's the rayson I have it, because it is vulgar," said Billy, eagerly. Vulgar means popular, common to many; and what's the best test of truth in anything but universal belief, or whatever comes nearest to it. I wish I was in Parliament-I just wish I was there the first night one of the nobs calls out that's vulgar; and I'd just say to him, 'Is there anything as vulgar as men and women? Show me one good thing in life that isn't vulgar? Show me an object a painter copies, or a poet describes, that isn't so?' Ayeh," cried he impatientiy, "when they wanted a hard word to fling at us, why didn't they take the right one?"

But you are unjust, Billy; the ungenerous tone ye speak of is fast disappearing. Gentlemen now-a-days use no disparaging epithets to men poorer or less happily circumstanced than themselves."

"Faix," said Billy, "it isn't sitting here, at the same table with yourself, that I ought to gainsay that remark."

And Harcourt was so struck by the air of good breeding in which he spoke, that he grasped his hand, and shook it warmly.

"And what is more," continued Billy," from this day out I'll never think so."

He drank off his glass as he spoke, giving to the libation all the ceremony of a solemn vow.

"D'ye hear that?-them's oars; there's a boat coming in."

"You have sharp hearing, master," said Harcourt, laughing.

"Yes, but it is, though; for it is by a consideration of the fera natura that you get at the raal nature of mere animal existence. You see there man in the rough, as a body might say, just as he was turned out of the first workshop, and before he was fettered with the "I got the gift when I was a smuggler," redivinus afflatus, the ethereal essence, that plied he. "I could put my ear to the ground makes him the first of creation. There's all of a still night, and tell you the tramp of a revthe qualities good and bad-love, hate, ven- enue boot as well as if I seen it. And now I'll geance, gratitude, grief, joy, ay and mirth-lay sixpence it's Pat Morissy is at the bow-oar

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