CHAPTER XIX

"THE RIVER'S BRIM"

Daisy was sick of the Channel. He had crossed and recrossed it so often of late as to loathe its dancing waters, yawning in the face of Welsh and Wicklow mountains alike, wearied even of the lovely scenery that adorns the coast on either side.

He voted himself so tired in body and mind that he must stay a day or two in Dublin to refresh.

A man who balances on the verge of ruin always has plenty of money in his pocket for immediate necessities. The expiring flame leaps up with a flash; the end of the bottle bubbles out with a gush; and the ebbing tide of wealth leaves, here and there, a handful of loose cash on the deserted shore.

Daisy drove to the most expensive hotel in Dublin, where he ordered a capital breakfast and a comfortable room. The future seemed very uncertain. In obedience to an instinct of humanity that bids men pause and dally with any crisis of their fate, he determined to enjoy to-day, and let to-morrow take care of itself.

Nobody could be more unlikely to analyse his own sensations. It was not the practice of the Regiment; but had Daisy been given to self-examination it would have puzzled him to explain why he felt in such good humour, and so well satisfied--buoyed up with hope, when he ought to have been sunk and overwhelmed in despair.

"Waiter," said the fugitive, while he finished his tea and ordered a glass of curaçao, "has Mr. Sullivan been here this morning?"

"He _did_, sur," answered the waiter, with a pleasant grin. "Sure he brought a harse for the master to see. Five years old, Captain. A clane-bred one, like what ye ride yerself. There's not the aqual of him, they do be braggin', for leppin', in Westmeath an' thim parts where he was trained."

Now Daisy wanted a horse no more than he wanted an alligator. He could neither afford to buy nor keep one, and had two or three of his own that it was indispensable to sell, yet his eye brightened, his spirits rose, with the bare possibility of a deal. He might see the animal, at any rate, he thought, perhaps ride it--there would be others probably to show; he could spend a few pleasant hours in examining their points, discussing their merits, and interchanging with Mr. Sullivan those brief and pithy remarks, intelligible only to the initiated, which he esteemed the essence of pleasant conversation. Like many other young men, Daisy was bitten with hippomania. He thoroughly enjoyed the humours of a dealer's yard. The horses interested, the owners amused him. He liked the selection, the bargaining, the running up and down, the speculation, and the slang. To use his own words--"He never could resist the _rattle of a hat_!"

It is no wonder then that "the Captain," as Mr. Sullivan called him, spent his whole afternoon at a snug little place within an easy drive of Dublin, where that worthy, though not by way of being in the profession, inhabited a clean whitewashed house, with a few acres of marvellously green paddock, and three or four loose boxes, containing horses of various qualities, good, bad, and indifferent. Here, after flying for an hour or two over the adjoining fields and fences, Daisy, with considerable difficulty, resisted the purchase (on credit) of a worn-out black, a roan with heavy shoulders, and a three-year-old engaged in the following autumn at the Curragh, but afforded their owner perfect satisfaction by the encomiums he passed on their merits, no less than by the masterly manner in which he handled them, at the formidable fences that bordered Mr. Sullivan's domain.

"An' ye'll take nothing away with ye but a fishing-rod," said the latter, pressing on his visitor the refreshment of whiskey, with or without water. "Ye're welcome to't, anny how--more by token that ye'll bring it back again when ye done with it, Captain, and proud I'll be to get another visit from ye, when ye're travelling the country, to or from Dublin, at anny time. May be in the back end of the year I'll have wan to show ye in thim boxes that ye niver seen the likes of him for lep-racin'. Whisper now. He's bet the Black Baron in a trial; and for Shaneen, him that wan the race off _your_ mare at Punchestown,--wait till I tell ye,--at even weights, he'd go and _lose_ little Shaneen in two miles!"

Promising to return at a future time for inspection of this paragon, and disposing the borrowed fishing-rod carefully on an outside car he had chartered for his expedition, Daisy returned to Dublin, ate a good dinner, drank a bottle of dry champagne, and went to sleep in the comfortable bedroom of his comfortable hotel, as if he had not a care nor a debt in the world.

Towards morning his lighter slumbers may have been visited by dreams, and if so it is probable that fancy clothed her visions in a similitude of Norah Macormac. Certainly his first thought on waking was for that young lady, as his opening eyes rested on the fishing-rod, which he had borrowed chiefly on her account.

In truth, Daisy felt inclined to put off as long as possible the exile--for he could think of it in no more favourable light--that he had brought on himself in the Roscommon mountains.

Mr. Sullivan, when the sport of fly-fishing came in his way, was no mean disciple of the gentle art. Observing a salmon-rod in that worthy's sitting-room, of which apartment, indeed, with two foxes' brushes and a barometer it constituted the principal furniture, Daisy bethought him that on one of his visits to Cormac's-town its hospitable owner had given him leave and licence to fish the Dabble whenever he pleased, whether staying at the Castle or not. The skies were cloudy--as usual in Ireland, there was no lack of rain--surely this would be a proper occasion to take advantage of Macormac's kindness, protract his stay in Dublin, and run down daily by the train to fish, so long as favourable weather lasted and his own funds held out.

We are mostly self-deceivers though there exists something _within_ each of us that is not to be hoodwinked nor imposed upon by the most specious of fallacies.

It is probable Daisy never confessed to himself how the fish he _really_ wanted to angle for was already more than half-hooked: how it was less the attraction of a salmon than a mermaid that drew him to the margin of the Dabble; and how he cared very little that the sun shone bright or the river waned so as he might but hear the light step of Norah Macormac on the shingle, look in the fair face that turned so pale and sad when he went away, that would smile and blush its welcome so kindly when he came again.

He must have loved her without knowing it; and perhaps such insensible attachments, waxing stronger day by day, strike the deepest root, and boast the longest existence: hardy plants that live and flourish through the frowns of many winters, contrasting nobly with more brilliant and ephemeral posies, forced by circumstances to sudden maturity and rapid decay--

"As flowers that first in spring-time burst, The earliest wither too."

Nevertheless, for both sexes,

"'Tis all but a dream at the best:"

and Norah Macormac's vision, scarcely acknowledged while everything went smoothly, assumed very glowing colours when the impossibility of its realisation dawned on her; when Lady Mary pointed out the folly of an attachment to a penniless subaltern unsteady in habits, while addicted overmuch to sports of the field.

With average experience and plenty of common-sense, the mother had been sorely puzzled how to act. She was well aware, that advice in such cases, however judiciously administered, often irritates the wound it is intended to heal; that "warnings"--to use her own words--"only put things in people's heads;" and that a fancy, like a heresy, sometimes dies out unnoticed when it is not to be stifled by argument nor extirpated with the strong hand. Yet how might she suffer this pernicious superstition to grow, under her very eyes? Was she not a woman? and must she not speak her mind? Besides, she blamed her own blindness, that her daughter's intimacy with the scape-grace had been unchecked in its commencement, and, smarting with self-reproach, could not forbear crying aloud, when she had better have held her tongue!

So Miss Norah discovered she was in love, after all. Mamma said so! no doubt mamma was right. The young lady had herself suspected something of the kind long ago, but Lady Mary's authority and remonstrances placed the matter beyond question. She was very fond of her mother, and, to do her justice, tried hard to follow her ladyship's advice. So she thought the subject over, day by day, argued it on every side, in accordance with, in opposition to, and independent of, her own inclinations, to find as a result, that during waking and sleeping hours alike, the image of Daisy was never absent from her mind.

Then a new beauty seemed to dawn in the sweet young face. The very peasants about the place noticed a change; little Ella, playing at being grown-up, pretended she was "Sister Norah going to be married;" and papa, when she retired with her candle at night, turning fondly to his wife, would declare--

"She'll be the pick of the family now, mamma, when all's said and done! They're a fair-looking lot, even the boys. Divil thank them, then, on the mother's side! But it's Norah that's likest yourself, my dear, when we were young, only not quite so stout, maybe, and a thought less colour in her cheek."

Disturbed at the suggestion, while gratified by the compliment, Lady Mary, in a fuss of increased anxiety, felt fonder than ever of her child. In Norah's habits also there came an alteration, as in her countenance. She sat much in the library, with a book on her knee, of which she seldom turned a page; played long _solos_ on the pianoforte, usually while the others were out; went to bed early, but lay awake for hours; rode very little, and walked a great deal, though the walks were often solitary, and almost invariably in the direction of a certain waterfall, to which she had formerly conducted Miss Douglas, while showing off to her new friend the romantic beauties of the Dabble.

The first day Mr. Walters put his borrowed rod together on the banks of this pretty stream, it rained persistently in a misty drizzle, borne on the soft south wind. He killed an eight pound fish, yet returned to Dublin in an unaccountable state of disappointment, not to say disgust. He got better after dinner, and, with another bottle of dry champagne, determined to try again.

The following morning rose in unclouded splendour--clear blue sky, blazing sun, and not a breath of wind. A more propitious day could scarcely be imagined for a cricket-match, an archery-meeting, or a picnic; but in such weather the crafty angler leaves rod and basket at home. Daisy felt a little ashamed of these _paraphernalia_ in the train, but proceeded to the waterside, nevertheless, and prepared deliberately for his task, looking up and down the stream meanwhile with considerable anxiety.

All at once he felt his heart beating fast, and began to flog the waters with ludicrous assiduity.

It is difficult to explain the gentleman's perturbation (for why was he there at all?), though the lady's astonishment can easily be accounted for, when Norah, thinking of him every moment, and visiting this particular spot only because it reminded her of his presence, found herself, at a turn in the river, not ten paces from the man whom, a moment before, she feared she was never to see again!

Yet did she remain outwardly the more composed of the two, and was first to speak.

"Daisy!" she exclaimed--"Captain Walters--I never thought you were still in Ireland. You'll be coming to the Castle to dinner, anyhow."

He blushed, he stammered, he looked like a fool (though Norah didn't think so), he got out with difficulty certain incoherent sentences about "fishing," and "flies," and "liberty from your father," and lastly, recovering a little, "the ten-pounder _I_ rose and _you_ landed, by the black stump there, under the willow."

As he regained his confidence, she lost hers--almost wishing she hadn't come, or had put her veil down, or, she didn't exactly know what. In a trembling voice, and twining her fingers nervously together, she propounded the pertinent question:--

"How--how did you find your brother-officers when you got back to the regiment?"

Its absurdity struck them both. Simultaneously, they burst out laughing: their reserve vanished from that moment. He took both her hands in his, and the rod lay neglected on the shingle, while he exclaimed--

"I _am_ so pleased to see you again! Miss Macormac--Norah! I fished here all yesterday, hoping you'd come. I'm glad though you didn't; you'd have got such a wetting."

"Did you, now?" was her answer, while the beautiful grey eyes deepened, and the blood mantled in her cheek. "Indeed, then, it's for little I'd have counted the wetting, if I'd only known. But how _was_ I to know, Captain Walters--well, Daisy, then--that you'd be shooting up the river, like a young salmon, only to see _me_? And supposing I _had_ known it, or thought it, or wished it even, I'm afraid I ought never to have come."

"But now you _are_ here," argued Daisy, with some show of reason, "you'll speak to me, won't you? and help me to fish, and let me walk back with you part of the way home?"

It seemed an impotent conclusion, but she was in no mood to be censorious.

"I'm very pleased to see you, and that's the truth," she answered; "but as for fishing, I'll engage ye'll never rise a fish in the Dabble with a sky like that. I'll stay just five minutes, though, while ye wet your line, anyhow. Oh! Daisy, don't you remember what a trouble we had with the big fish down yonder, the time I ran to fetch the gaff?"

"Remember!" said Daisy, "I should think I _do_! How quick you were about it. I didn't think any girl in the world could run so fast. I can remember everything you've said and done since I've known you. That's the worst of it, Norah. It's got to be different after to-day."

She had been laughing and blushing at his recollections of her activity; but she glanced quickly in his face now, while her own turned very grave and pale.

"Ye're coming to the Castle, of course," said she. "I'll run home this minute, and tell mamma to order a room, and we'll send the car round to the station for your things."

She spoke in hurried nervous accents, dreading to hear what was coming, yet conscious she had never felt so happy in her life.

Formerly she considered Daisy the lightest-hearted of men. Hitherto she scarcely remembered to have seen a cloud on his face. She liked it none the worse for its gravity now.

"I've been very unlucky, Norah," said he, holding her hand, and looking thoughtfully on the river as it flowed by. "Perhaps it's my own fault. I shall never visit at Cormacs'-town, nor go into any society where I've a chance of meeting _you_ again. And yet I've done nothing wrong nor disgraceful as yet."

"I knew it!" she exclaimed; "I'd have sworn it on the Book! I told mamma so. He's a _gentleman_, I said, and that's enough for _me_!"

"Thank you, dear," answered Daisy, in a failing voice. "I'm glad _you_ didn't turn against me. It's bad enough without that."

"But what _has_ happened," she asked, drawing closer to his side. "Couldn't any of us help you? Couldn't papa advise you what to do?"

"_This_ has happened, Norah," he answered gravely; "I am completely ruined. I have got nothing left in the world. Worse still, I am afraid I can scarce pay up all I've lost."

The spirit of her ancestors came into her eyes and bearing. Ruin to these, like personal danger, had never seemed a matter of great moment, so long as, at any sacrifice, honour might be preserved. She raised her head proudly, and looked straight in his face.

"The last _must_ be done," said she. "_Must_ be done, I'm telling you, Daisy, and _shall_ be, if we sell the boots, you and me, off our very feet! How near can you get to what you owe for wages and things? Of course they'll have to be paid the first."

"If _everything_ goes, I don't see my way to pay up all," he answered. "However, they _must_ give me a little time. Where I'm to go, though, or what to do, is more than I can tell. But Norah, dear Norah! what I mind most is, that I mustn't hope to see _you_ again!"

Her tears were falling fast. Her hands were busy with a locket she wore round her neck, the only article of value Norah possessed in the world. But the poor fingers trembled so they failed to undo the strip of velvet on which it hung. At last she got it loose, and pressed it into his hand. "Take it, Daisy," said she, smiling with her wet eyes; "I don't value it a morsel. It was old Aunt Macormac gave it me on my birth-day. There's diamonds in it--not Irish, dear--and it's worth something, anyway, though not much. Ah, Daisy! now, if ye won't take it, I'll think ye never cared for me one bit!"

But Daisy stoutly refused to despoil her of the keepsake, though he begged hard, of course, for the velvet ribbon to which it was attached; and those who have ever found themselves in a like situation will understand that he did not ask in vain.

So Miss Macormac returned to the Castle, and the maternal wing, too late for luncheon; but thus far engaged to her ruined admirer that, while he vowed to come back the very moment his prospects brightened, and the "something" turned up--which we all expect, but so few of us experience, she promised, on her part, "never to marry (how could you think it now, Daisy!) nor so much as look at anybody else till she saw him again, if it wasn't for a hundred years!"

I am concerned to add that Mr. Sullivan's rod remained forgotten on the shingle, where it was eventually picked up by one of Mr. Macormac's keepers, but handled by its rightful owner no more. There was nothing to keep Daisy in Dublin now, and his funds were getting low. In less than twenty-four hours from his parting with Norah Macormac he found himself crossing that wild district of Roscommon where he had bought the famous black mare that had so influenced his fortunes. Toiling on an outside car, up the long ascent that led to the farmer's house, he could scarcely believe so short a time had elapsed since he visited the same place in the flush of youth and hope. He felt quite old and broken by comparison. Years count for little compared to events; and age is more a question of experience than of time. He had one consolation, however, and it lay in the shape of a narrow velvet ribbon next his heart.

Ere he had clasped the farmer's hand, at his own gate, and heard his cheery hospitable greeting, he wondered how he could feel so happy.

"I'm proud to see ye, Captain!" said Denis, flourishing his hat round his head, as if it was a slip of blackthorn. "Proud am I an' pleased to see ye back again--an' that's the truth! Ye're welcome, I tell ye! Step in, now, an' take something at wanst. See, Captain, there's a two-year-old in that stable; the very moral of your black mare. Ye never seen her likes for leppin'! Ye'll try the baste this very afternoon, with the blessin'. I've had th' ould saddle mended, an' the stirrups altered to your length."