G. P. R. James

Poor Arrah Neil had passed an anxious and uneasy day, for, though the knowledge that she had a friend so near, ready to aid her in her escape, had proved no slight consolation, and though hope, of course, magnified Captain Barecolt's powers, and elevated his qualities far beyond their real extent, yet suspense is always full of terrors, and Fear usually treads close upon the steps of Hope. Ezekiel Dry had also suffered all those blessed results which intemperance is sure to entail; and having lain in his bed for several hours after the whole town was up and stirring, with sick stomach and aching head, he rose, declaring that something he had eaten at dinner had disagreed with him, and that he must have a small portion of strong waters to promote digestion. He was as morose, too, through the whole day, as a sick tiger, and would not stir beyond the doors till after he had dined. He was angry with the maid, rude to the landlady, assuring her that she was "a vessel of wrath;" and above all, irritable and even fierce with Arrah Neil.

Though it is probable that he had no cause of any kind for suspicion, yet his mind was in that state of sullen discontent from bodily suffering that gives rise to incessant jealousy. He prowled about the door of her room; sent for her twice down to the little parlour, between breakfast and dinner; looked out whenever he heard a door open; and twice stopped Mrs. White when she was going upstairs, upon the pretence of asking some question. The last time this occurred, his inquiry once more was after Mr. Hugh O'Donnell.

"Really, sir, I have not been able to hear," replied Mrs. White; "but I dare say the governor, Sir John, could tell you."

"That will not do, woman," replied Mr. Dry, pettishly: "I only seek to hold communion with the godly of the land. How can I tell that Sir John Hotham is any better than an uncircumcised Philistine? Though he have taken a part with the righteous in behalf of this poor country, peradventure it may be but with an eye to the spoil."

"Goodness, sir! think of what you are saying in Hull!" exclaimed Mrs. White, giving a glance to some of the bystanders: "you may get yourself into trouble if you speak so of the governor."

"Nay, woman; am I not called to lift up my voice and spare not?" rejoined Mr. Dry. "Is this a time for showing a respect to persons? Verily, I will take up a word against them."

"Well, then, I am sure I will not stay to hear it," replied the landlady; and away she went, leaving Mr. Dry to finish his exhortation to the maid, the ostler, and two townsmen, if he chose.

Shortly after, however, the dinner of the guest was served up to him, and gradually, under its influence, he was restored to a more placable state of mind, having sought the aid of sundry somewhat potent libations, which he termed supporting the inner man, but which Mrs. White denominated taking "a hair of the dog that had bit him."

As soon as he had satisfied both hunger and thirst, Mr. Dry took Arrah Neil back to her chamber again, and having locked the door, and sought his hat and cloak in his own room, he walked slowly down the stairs, resolved to pursue his perquisitions for Mr. Hugh O'Donnell in person; but, before he reached the door of the "Swan," his tranquillity was much overset by the entrance of a bold, swaggering, joyous-looking person, whose very cheerfulness of face was offensive in the sight of the sour and sober Mr. Dry. He looked at him, then, with a glance of amazement and reprobation, and then, while our good friend Diggory Falgate brushed past, raised his eyes towards heaven, as if inquiring whether such things as a blithe heart and cheerful countenance could be tolerated on earth.

Falgate immediately caught the look, and, as it unfortunately happened for Mr. Dry, recollected in him a personage whom he had seen in no very respectable plight in the streets of Hull the night before. He instantly paused, then, and bursting into a laugh, began to sing the well-known old words--older than they are generally supposed to be--

My wife Joan's a Presbyterian;

She won't swear, but she will lie;

I to the ale-home, she to the tavern;

She'll get drunk as well as I.

.

and, ending with another laugh, he walked on to Mrs. White's little room.

The wrath of Mr. Dry, of Longsoaken, was overpowering; but it could not find vent in words, and after once more lifting up his eyes, and his hands also, he hurried out of the house, resolved that, if he staid beyond the following day in Hull, he would quit an inn where such godless people were permitted to pass the door.

We will not pursue him on his track through the town, but return to poor Arrah Neil, whose day, as we have said, had passed in anxiety and pain; and who now sat with her hand beating time upon the table to some fancied tune, as the sun sank lower and lower, and the hues of evening began to spread over the sky.

As she thus sat, she saw Mr. Dry walk away from the door, cross over the street, and enter a house opposite. He turned before he went in, and looked up at the windows of the "Swan," but Arrah Neil was in one of those meditative moods, when the spirit seems to be separate from the body, or scarcely conscious of a connection between the two. She saw the man she so much hated and despised gaze up to where she was sitting; but in thinking of him and his baseness, of the power he had obtained over her, of his perseverance in maintaining that power, of how she could escape from him, and whither he could now be going--she seemed to forget altogether that it was upon her his eyes were turned, and, without moving her place, she remained watching him as if he were a mere piece of mechanism, whose springs and whose wheels were worthy of observation, but incapable of observation in return.

It was the best course she could have pursued, though she did so unconsciously; for, after Mr. Dry had been a minute or two in the house which he entered, he came out again, and seeing her still sitting there immoveable, with her eyes fixed upon the same spot, he muttered, "The girl is a fool, that's clear!" and went on about his business.

Other eyes had been watching him as well as those of Arrah Neil, and before he had actually quitted the street the step of Mrs. White was heard upon the stairs. But ere the good landlady could reach the top, the voice of Nancy from below, exclaimed, "Here's a gentleman, ma'am, wants to speak to you!"

Arrah waited for a moment or two, in the hope that the new guest would depart, and that the hostess would pay her her accustomed visit; for, in those moments of anxious expectation and suspense, she felt the presence of any sympathising human creature a benefit and a relief. But after a while, she turned to gaze from the window again, and murmured--for she did not sing--some lines of an old song which she had learned in her infancy. As she thus sat, she heard another step upon the stairs, slower and more heavy than that of the landlady, and without giving it a second thought, she returned to sport with her own fancies, when a key was put into the lock and the door opened.

Arrah Neil started and turned round, and not a little was her surprise to see a tall, powerful, elderly man, with white hair, and deep blue eyes, the lashes of which, as well as the eyebrows, were still black, enter her chamber, fasten the door behind him, and advance towards her. She was a little frightened, and would have been more so, but there was a kindly and gentle air in the visiter's countenance which was not calculated to produce alarm; and as he came nearer, he said, "I beg your pardon, young lady, but I much wished to see you. I have not seen you for many a long year, not since you were quite a little thing."

"Then you knew me in my childhood, sir!" exclaimed Arrah, eagerly, "and----"

"You may well say that, lady," replied Hugh O'Donnell, before she could proceed. "These arms were the first that received you when you set foot upon this shore. Oh! a sorrowful landing it was, and sorrowful was the fate that followed, and sorrowful were the days that went before; and there has been little but sorrow since. But good luck to-morrow, it may bring something brighter, and the sky won't be overcast for ever, that's impossible."

"Then you are the Mr. O'Donnell of whom Mrs. White has told me." said Arrah. "Oh, sir! I beseech you, tell me more about myself and my kindred. Whosoever's child I am, let me know it. If a peasant's, say so without fear. I would rather cast away the vain but bright dreams that have haunted me so long, and fix my best affections on the memory of some good plain people, than have this wild doubt and uncertainty any longer. Tell me--tell me anything, if it be not disgraceful to the living or the dead."

"Disgraceful!" cried Hugh O'Donnell; "I should like to hear any man say that! No, no; there's nothing disgraceful, my darling; but I cannot and I must not tell you all that I could wish, young lady--not just at present, that is to say. By-and-by you will hear all."

"And in the mean time what misfortunes may befal me!" said Arrah Neil, in an earnest tone; "what misfortunes have already befallen me, which perhaps might have been averted!"

"Why, that is true, too," replied O'Donnell, after a moment's thought; "and yet it could not be helped. What to do now I cannot rightly tell; for, from what the good woman below says, old Neil, when he was dying, wished you to know all."

"I am sure he did," answered the poor girl; "but they had swept the cottage of everything, and I much fear that the papers he wished me to have fell into the hands of this old man."

"Ay, you must be got out of his clutches; that's the first thing," said O'Donnell. "On my life! if there were anything like law in the land, we would make him prove before the justices what right he has to meddle with you. His ward indeed! But, alas! young lady, there is neither law nor justice left in England, and the simple word of that crop-eared knave would weigh down a host of what they call malignants. The only way to follow is, for you to get away secretly, and put yourself under the care of those who have already been kind to you. You are very willing to go back to Lord Walton and his sister, I suppose?"

"Oh, that I am!" exclaimed Arrah Neil, with the warm colour mounting in her fair cheek; but the next moment she cast her eyes thoughtfully down, and murmured, "And yet, and yet----"

"Yet what, young lady?" asked O'Donnell, seeing that she did not conclude the sentence.

"Nothing," replied Arrah Neil: "'tis but a vain regret. When I was in poverty and beggary they were generous and kind to me; and at times when I schooled myself to think that such must have been my original situation, notwithstanding the idle dreams of brighter days that came back to trouble me, I used to fancy that I could be well content to be their lowest servant, so that I might follow and be with them always. But since I came hither, and the memories of the past grew clear, and the mistress of this house confirmed them, I have been thinking that, perhaps, before I returned to those two kind and noble friends, I might learn all my own fate and history, and be able to tell them that, when they condescended to notice and protect a being so lowly and humble as I was when they found me, they were unknowingly showing a kindness to one not so far inferior in blood to themselves as they imagined."

"And, by the Lord, you shall be able to tell them so!" replied O'Donnell; "for, proud as they may be, I can tell them----"

"Oh, no!" said Arrah, interrupting him: "they are not proud; neither was it from any pride that I wished to tell them that poor Arrah Neil was not the lowly being they had thought; for they were so gentle and so kind, that dependence on them was sweet; but I wished them to understand how it was and why that I have been so strange and wild at times--so thoughtful. And yet there may have been pride," she added, after a moment's pause, fixing her eyes upon the ground, and speaking as if to herself. "I would not have him think me so low, so very low. But you said I should be able to tell them. Speak, speak! let me hear what it is."

"Well, then," replied Hugh O'Donnell, "you may tell them there is----"

But ere he could go on, Mrs. White ran into the room, exclaiming, "He is coming! he is coming! Nancy sees him at the end of the street. Quick! quick! Master O'Donnell!"

"Oh! speak, speak!" cried Arrah.

"I will see you again, dear lady," cried O'Donnell, quickly; "I will come with the horses myself. But in the meantime this money belongs to you; it may be needful; it may be serviceable; do not let him see it;" and, laying a small leathern purse on the table, he hurried towards the door. Before he quitted the room, however, he turned, and seeing the poor girl's beautiful eyes filled with tears, he added, "Do not be afraid; I will see you again before this time to-morrow."

The landlady of the "Swan" and her visiter hurried down to the little parlour, but, as so often happens when people are taken by surprise, they made more haste than was necessary; for, whether Mr. Dry of Longsoaken met with something to detain him, or whether he walked slowly as he came down the street, he did not make his appearance on the steps leading up to the inn for several minutes after they had descended.

"I will speak with this man, Mistress White," said O'Donnel, after a moment's thought. "Tell him that I have come to see him, that you sent for me by some one who knew where to find me."

"Are you sure that is a good plan?" asked the landlady. "We want time to get the young lady away."

"Never fear! never fear!" replied her companion. "I will keep him in play for a week, if need be."

"Well, well," said Mrs. White; and while O'Donnell took a seat and leaned his cheek upon his arm as if waiting patiently for some one's coming, the good landlady bustled about, making a noise amongst bottles and measures with as unconcerned an air as she could assume.

The next minute Mr. Dry walked solemnly up the four steps which led from the street to a little flat landing-place of stone, encircled with an iron railing, which lay without the door; and as soon as he thus became apparent, Mrs. White ran out of her parlour, exclaiming, "Sir, Sir! the gentleman you wished to see is come. The man who brings the eggs called a few minutes ago, and as he knew where to find him, I bade him tell Mr. O'Donnell to come and see you."

"That was right! that was right!" cried Mr. Dry, his small red eyes sparkling with satisfaction. "Where is he, Mrs. White?"

"Here, sir, in the bar," answered the landlady; and with a slow and solemn step, calculating how he was to proceed, and smoothing his face down to his usual gravity, Mr. Dry walked deliberately into the little room where Hugh O'Donnell was seated.

"Here is Master Dry, sir," said the hostess, opening the door for him, but Mr. Dry waved his hand pompously for silence, and then considered Mr. O'Donnell attentively.

"This good lady tells me you wish to speak with me, sir," said O'Donnell, after giving the new-comer quite sufficient time to inspect his countenance; "pray what may be your business with me?"

"It is of a private nature, Master O'Donnell," replied Mr. Dry, "and may perhaps be better explained at your own house than here, if you will tell me where that is."

O'Donnell smiled and shook his head. "I am not fond of private business at my own house, sir," he answered drily. "These are suspicious times; people will be for calling me a malignant or something of that kind. I am a plain man, sir; an honest, open merchant, and not fond of secrets. If you have anything to say, I can hear it here."

"Well, then, come into this neighbouring room, my good friend," replied Dry; "to that you can have no objection; and as to being charged with malignancy, methinks the conversation of Ezekiel Dry of Longsoaken would never bring such an accusation upon any man's head."

"I beg your pardon, sir; I did not know you," replied O'Donnell, following towards the little room where Mr. Dry had dined after his first arrival. "I have heard of you from the people of Bishop's Merton, whom I occasionally supply with dry beef and neats' tongues from Hamburgh."

"Pray be seated, Master O'Donnell," said Mr. Dry closing the door carefully after they had entered; and then, taking a chair opposite to his companion, he went on to speak as follows, interrupting his discourse with sundry hems and haws, which gave him time both to think of what he was next to say, and to examine the countenance of O'Donnell as he proceeded.

"You must know, Mr. O'Donnell," he said, "that, after the death of a certain old man--a clear and undoubted malignant--named Sergeant Neil--hum!--with whom I think you have had a good deal to do--ha!"

"Very little, sir," replied O'Donnell, as he paused: "I had to pay him some money every year sent to me by my correspondents beyond sea. I should think the man was somewhat of a malignant from some of his letters on the receipt."

"Verily was he, and a most ferocious one too," replied Mr. Dry; "but after the death of this person, I, with the consent and appointment of the authorities--hum!--took upon me the care and protection of the girl supposed to be his grand-daughter--hum!--his grand-daughter, as she was called--I say, Master O'Donnell--ha!"

"Very kind of you indeed, sir," answered O'Donnell--"especially as old Neil could not die rich."

"As poor as a rat," replied Mr. Dry, emphatically. "Pray what was it you paid him per annum, Master O'Donnell?"

"About fifty pounds a-year, as far as I recollect," said O'Donnell; "but I cannot tell till I look in my books."

"That was but a small sum," rejoined Dry, "for taking care of this girl, when her family are so wealthy and the estates so great--ha!"

"Are they, sir?" asked O'Donnell in an indifferent tone, "Pray, whereabouts do they lie?"

"Come, come, Master O'Donnell," said Mr. Dry, with a significant nod; "you know more than you pretend to know--hum! We have found letters and papers--hum!--which show that you have full information--ha!--and it is necessary that you should speak openly with me--hum! Do you understand me?--ha!"

"Oh! I understand quite well, sir," replied O'Donnell, not in the least discomposed: "my letters were all upon business. I sent the money--I announced the sending--I asked for my receipts; and, whenever there was a word or two sent over for us to forward, such as, 'All is well,' 'Things going on better,' or anything of that sort, I wrote them down just as I received them, without troubling my head about what they referred to."

Mr. Dry was somewhat puzzled how to proceed--whether to take the high and domineering tone that he had often found very successful at Bishop's Merton, or to cajole and bribe, as he had had occasion to do at other times; but, after a little reflection, he determined that the latter would be the best course at first, as he could always have recourse to the former, which, if employed too soon and without due caution, might lead to more publicity than was at all desirable.

"Now listen to me, Master O'Donnell," he said at length: "you are a wise man and prudent, not to confide your secrets to strangers, but it is of vast importance that the true rank, station, fortune, family, and connections of this young woman should be clearly ascertained; and though, perhaps, you may not like to say at once, 'I know this,' or 'I know that,' yet I ask you, can you not secretly and quietly, get me information upon all these matters, if I make it worth your while to take the trouble--well worth your while--very well worth your while?"

"That is another matter," answered O'Donnell; "quite another matter, sir; but the question is, what would make it worth my while? I'm a merchant, sir; and we must make it a matter of trade."

Mr. Dry pondered; but, before he could answer, Mr. O'Donnell added, "Come, Master Dry; let me hear distinctly what it is you want to know, and then I can better judge how much it is worth."

"That I will tell you immediately," rejoined Mr. Dry, feeling in his pocket; and at length drawing forth the bundle of papers which Captain Barecolt had examined the night before, he began to read. "'Habakkuk ii. 5. Yea, also, because he transgresseth by wine'--no, that is not it; and, besides, it was not wine but strong waters. Ah! here it is;" and he proceeded to address to his companion the series of questions which the worthy captain above-named had warned Mr. O'Donnell would be propounded to him.

"A goodly list!" said the Irishman, in a tone that Mr. Dry did not think very promising; but he went on immediately to add: "Well, I think all this information I could obtain if it were made worth my while, and a great deal more too; but you see, Mr. Dry, this is purely a mercantile transaction: you come to me for information as for goods."

"Certainly, certainly," replied he of Longsoaken; "It is all a matter of trade."

"Well, then," continued O'Donnell, "I must know to what market you intend to take the goods."

"I do not understand," said Mr. Dry.

"I'll I'll explain it to you in a moment," replied the other; "I mean, what is your object? If it should be shown that the girl is different from what she seems--if fair and probable prospects of money and such good things should spring up--what do you intend to do with her?"

"That is a question I have not yet considered with due deliberation and counsel," replied Mr. Dry.

"But it is one well worth consideration," answered his companion. "In a word, Master Dry, do you intend to put the girl and her property under the protection, as it is called, of the law, or to give her another protector--your son, or yourself perhaps?"

"What if I say to put her under the protection of the law?"

"Then I say you're a great goose for your pains," replied O'Donnell, rising; "and I'm afraid we can't deal. The law is a bad paymaster, and does not make it worth men's while to do it service, or take trouble for it, and this would cost me a great deal of pains and work. Now, if you had made up your mind to marry her quietly and secretly to your son, or any near relation, it would be a different affair, and you would not mind giving a good per-centage."

"I have no son--I have no relations," replied Dry, somewhat pettishly; "but I shall not mind giving a good per-centage notwithstanding."

"Then of course you intend to marry her yourself," said O'Donnell. "Well, that being the case, I will go home and consider between this and this hour to-morrow what I will take. I must make my calculations, for I am a man of my word, and like to know exactly what a thing is worth before I put a price upon it; but by this time to-morrow I will tell you; so good-morning, Mr. Dry: it is getting late."

"But where shall I find you? where shall I find you?" asked Mr. Dry, as the other moved towards the door.

"Oh, Mrs. White will send a boy with you," replied O'Donnell; "she knows where it is now: good afternoon;" and issuing forth, he spoke a word or two to the landlady, and then quitted the house, murmuring, "The old snake! I know them, those canting vipers--I know them!"