Cashel Byron's Profession: Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Next day Alice accepted Miss Carew's invitation. Lydia, who seemed
to regard all conclusions as foregone when she had once signified
her approval of them, took the acceptance as a matter of course.
Alice thereupon thought fit to remind her that there were other
persons to be considered. So she said, "I should not have hesitated
yesterday but for my mother. It seems so heartless to leave her."

"You have a sister at home, have you not?"

"Yes. But she is not very strong, and my mother requires a great
deal of attention." Alice paused, and added in a lower voice, "She
has never recovered from the shock of my father's death."

"Your father is then not long dead?" said Lydia in her usual tone.

"Only two years," said Alice, coldly. "I hardly know how to tell my
mother that I am going to desert her."

"Go and tell her today, Alice. You need not be afraid of hurting
her. Grief of two years' standing is only a bad habit."

Alice started, outraged. Her mother's grief was sacred to her; and
yet it was by her experience of her mother that she recognized the
truth of Lydia's remark, and felt that it was unanswerable. She
frowned; but the frown was lost: Miss Carew was not looking at her.
Then she rose and went to the door, where she stopped to say,

"You do not know our family circumstances. I will go now and try to
prevail on my mother to let me stay with you."

"Please come back in good time for dinner," said Lydia, unmoved. "I
will introduce you to my cousin Lucian Webber. I have just received
a telegram from him. He is coming down with Lord Worthington. I do
not know whether Lord Worthington will come to dinner or not. He has
an invalid friend at the Warren, and Lucian does not make it clear
whether he is coming to visit him or me. However, it is of no
consequence; Lord Worthington is only a young sportsman. Lucian is a
clever man, and will be an eminent one some day. He is secretary to
a Cabinet Minister, and is very busy; but we shall probably see him
often while the Whitsuntide holidays last. Excuse my keeping you
waiting at the door to hear that long history. Adieu!" She waved her
hand; Alice suddenly felt that it was possible to be very fond of
Miss Carew.

She spent an unhappy afternoon with her mother. Mrs. Goff had had
the good-fortune to marry a man of whom she was afraid, and who made
himself very disagreeable whenever his house or his children were
neglected in the least particular. Making a virtue of necessity, she
had come to be regarded in Wiltstoken as a model wife and mother. At
last, when a drag ran over Mr. Goff and killed him, she was left
almost penniless, with two daughters on her hands. In this extremity
she took refuge in grief, and did nothing. Her daughters settled
their father's affairs as best they could, moved her into a cheap
house, and procured a strange tenant for that in which they had
lived during many years. Janet, the elder sister, a student by
disposition, employed herself as a teacher of the scientific
fashions in modern female education, rumors of which had already
reached Wiltstoken. Alice was unable to teach mathematics and moral
science; but she formed a dancing-class, and gave lessons in singing
and in a language which she believed to be current in France, but
which was not intelligible to natives of that country travelling
through Wiltstoken. Both sisters were devoted to one another and to
their mother. Alice, who had enjoyed the special affection of her
self-indulgent father, preserved some regard for his memory, though
she could not help wishing that his affection had been strong enough
to induce him to save a provision for her. She was ashamed, too, of
the very recollection of his habit of getting drunk at races,
regattas, and other national festivals, by an accident at one of
which he had met his death.

Alice went home from the castle expecting to find the household
divided between joy at her good-fortune and grief at losing her; for
her views of human nature and parental feeling were as yet pure
superstitions. But Mrs. Goff at once became envious of the luxury
her daughter was about to enjoy, and overwhelmed her with
accusations of want of feeling, eagerness to desert her mother, and
vain love of pleasure. Alice, who loved Mrs. Goff so well that she
had often told her as many as five different lies in the course of
one afternoon to spare her some unpleasant truth, and would have
scouted as infamous any suggestion that her parent was more selfish
than saintly, soon burst into tears, declaring that she would not
return to the castle, and that nothing would have induced her to
stay there the night before had she thought that her doing so could
give pain at home. This alarmed Mrs. Goff, who knew by experience
that it was easier to drive Alice upon rash resolves than to shake
her in them afterwards. Fear of incurring blame in Wiltstoken for
wantonly opposing her daughter's obvious interests, and of losing
her share of Miss Carew's money and countenance, got the better of
her jealousy. She lectured Alice severely for her headstrong temper,
and commanded her, on her duty not only to her mother, but also and
chiefly to her God, to accept Miss Carew's offer with thankfulness,
and to insist upon a definite salary as soon as she had, by good
behavior, made her society indispensable at the castle. Alice,
dutiful as she was, reduced Mrs. Goff to entreaties, and even to
symptoms of an outburst of violent grief for the late Mr. Goff,
before she consented to obey her. She would wait, she said, until
Janet, who was absent teaching, came in, and promised to forgive her
for staying away the previous night (Mrs. Goff had falsely
represented that Janet had been deeply hurt, and had lain awake
weeping during the small hours of the morning). The mother, seeing
nothing for it but either to get rid of Alice before Janet's return
or to be detected in a spiteful untruth, had to pretend that Janet
was spending the evening with some friends, and to urge the
unkindness of leaving Miss Carew lonely. At last Alice washed away
the traces of her tears and returned to the castle, feeling very
miserable, and trying to comfort herself with the reflection that
her sister had been spared the scene which had just passed.

Lucian Webber had not arrived when she reached the castle. Miss
Carew glanced at her melancholy face as she entered, but asked no
questions. Presently, however, she put down her book, considered for
a moment, and said,

"It is nearly three years since I have had a new dress." Alice
looked up with interest. "Now that I have you to help me to choose,
I think I will be extravagant enough to renew my entire wardrobe. I
wish you would take this opportunity to get some things for
yourself. You will find that my dress-maker, Madame Smith, is to be
depended on for work, though she is expensive and dishonest. When we
are tired of Wiltstoken we will go to Paris, and be millinered
there; but in the meantime we can resort to Madame Smith."

"I cannot afford expensive dresses," said Alice.

"I should not ask you to get them if you could not afford them. I
warned you that I should give you expensive habits."

Alice hesitated. She had a healthy inclination to take whatever she
could get on all occasions; and she had suffered too much from
poverty not to be more thankful for her good-fortune than humiliated
by Miss Carew's bounty. But the thought of being driven, richly
attired, in one of the castle carriages, and meeting Janet trudging
about her daily tasks in cheap black serge and mended gloves, made
Alice feel that she deserved all her mother's reproaches. However,
it was obvious that a refusal would be of no material benefit to
Janet, so she said,

"Really I could not think of imposing on your kindness in this
wholesale fashion. You are too good to me."

"I will write to Madame Smith this evening," said Lydia.

Alice was about to renew her protest more faintly, when a servant
entered and announced Mr. Webber. She stiffened herself to receive
the visitor. Lydia's manner did not alter in the least. Lucian,
whose demeanor resembled Miss Goff's rather than his cousin's, went
through the ceremony of introduction with solemnity, and was
received with a dash of scorn; for Alice, though secretly
awe-stricken, bore herself tyrannically towards men from habit.

In reply to Alice, Mr. Webber thought the day cooler than yesterday.
In reply to Lydia, he admitted that the resolution of which the
leader of the opposition had given notice was tantamount to a vote
of censure on the government. He was confident that ministers would
have a majority. He had no news of any importance. He had made the
journey down with Lord Worthington, who had come to Wiltstoken to
see the invalid at the Warren. He had promised to return with him in
the seven-thirty train.

When they went down to dinner, Alice, profiting by her experience of
the day before, faced the servants with composure, and committed no
solecisms. Unable to take part in the conversation, as she knew
little of literature and nothing of politics, which were the staple
of Lucian's discourse, she sat silent, and reconsidered an old
opinion of hers that it was ridiculous and ill-bred in a lady to
discuss anything that was in the newspapers. She was impressed by
Lucian's cautious and somewhat dogmatic style of conversation, and
concluded that he knew everything. Lydia seemed interested in his
information, but quite indifferent to his opinions.

Towards half-past seven Lydia proposed that they should walk to the
railway station, adding, as a reason for going, that she wished to
make some bets with Lord Worthington. Lucian looked grave at this,
and Alice, to show that she shared his notions of propriety, looked
shocked. Neither demonstration had the slightest effect on Lydia. On
their way to the station he remarked,

"Worthington is afraid of you, Lydia--needlessly, as it seems."

"Why?"

"Because you are so learned, and he so ignorant. He has no culture
save that of the turf. But perhaps you have more sympathy with his
tastes than he supposes."

"I like him because I have not read the books from which he has
borrowed his opinions. Indeed, from their freshness, I should not be
surprised to learn that he had them at first hand from living men,
or even from his own observation of life."

"I may explain to you, Miss Goff," said Lucian, "that Lord
Worthiugton is a young gentleman--"

"Whose calendar is the racing calendar," interposed Lydia, "and who
interests himself in favorites and outsiders much as Lucian does in
prime-ministers and independent radicals. Would you like to go to
Ascot, Alice?"

Alice answered, as she felt Lucian wished her to answer, that she
had never been to a race, and that she had no desire to go to one.

"You will change your mind in time for next year's meeting. A race
interests every one, which is more than can be said for the opera or
the Academy."

"I have been at the Academy," said Alice, who had made a trip to
London once.

"Indeed!" said Lydia. "Were you in the National Gallery?"

"The National Gallery! I think not. I forget."

"I know many persons who never miss an Academy, and who do not know
where the National Gallery is. Did you enjoy the pictures, Alice?"

"Oh, very much indeed."

"You will find Ascot far more amusing."

"Let me warn you," said Lucian to Alice, "that my cousin's pet
caprice is to affect a distaste for art, to which she is
passionately devoted; and for literature, in which she is profoundly
read."

"Cousin Lucian," said Lydia, "should you ever be cut off from your
politics, and disappointed in your ambition, you will have an
opportunity of living upon art and literature. Then I shall respect
your opinion of their satisfactoriness as a staff of life. As yet
you have only tried them as a sauce."

"Discontented, as usual," said Lucian.

"Your one idea respecting me, as usual," replied Lydia, patiently,
as they entered the station.

The train, consisting of three carriages and a van, was waiting at
the platform. The engine was humming subduedly, and the driver and
fireman were leaning out; the latter, a young man, eagerly watching
two gentlemen who were standing before the first-class carriage, and
the driver sharing his curiosity in an elderly, preoccupied manner.
One of the persons thus observed was a slight, fair-haired man of
about twenty-five, in the afternoon costume of a metropolitan dandy.
Lydia knew the other the moment she came upon the platform as the
Hermes of the day before, modernized by a straw hat, a
canary-colored scarf, and a suit of a minute black-and-white
chess-board pattern, with a crimson silk handkerchief overflowing
the breast pocket of the coat. His hands were unencumbered by stick
or umbrella; he carried himself smartly, balancing himself so
accurately that he seemed to have no weight; and his expression was
self-satisfied and good-humored. But--! Lydia felt that there was a
"but" somewhere--that he must be something more than a handsome,
powerful, and light-hearted young man.

"There is Lord Worthington," she said, indicating the slight
gentleman. "Surely that cannot be his invalid friend with him?"

"That is the man that lives at the Warren," said Alice. "I know his
appearance."

"Which is certainly not suggestive of a valetudinarian," remarked
Lucian, looking hard at the stranger.

They had now come close to the two, and could hear Lord Worthington,
as he prepared to enter the carriage, saying, "Take care of
yourself, like a good fellow, won't you? Remember! if it lasts a
second over the fifteen minutes, I shall drop five hundred pounds."

Hermes placed his arm round the shoulders of the young lord and gave
him a playful roll. Then he said with good accent and pronunciation,
but with a certain rough quality of voice, and louder than English
gentlemen usually speak, "Your money is as safe as the mint, my
boy."

Evidently, Alice thought, the stranger was an intimate friend of
Lord Worthington. She resolved to be particular in her behavior
before him, if introduced.

"Lord Worthington," said Lydia.

At the sound of her voice he climbed hastily down from the step of
the carriage, and said in some confusion, "How d' do, Miss Carew.
Lovely country and lovely weather--must agree awfully well with you.
Plenty of leisure for study, I hope."

"Thank you; I never study now. Will you make a book for me at
Ascot?"

He laughed and shook his head. "I am ashamed of my low tastes," he
said; "but I haven't the heap to distinguish myself in your--Eh?"

Miss Carew was saying in a low voice, "If your friend is my tenant,
introduce him to me."

Lord Worthington hesitated, looked at Lucian, seemed perplexed and
amused at the name time, and at last said,

"You really wish it?"

"Of course," said Lydia. "Is there any reason--"

"Oh, not the least in the world since you wish it," he replied
quickly, his eyes twinkling mischievously as he turned to his
companion who was standing at the carriage door admiring Lydia, and
being himself admired by the stoker. "Mr. Cashel Byron: Miss Carew."

Mr. Cashel Byron raised his straw hat and reddened a little; but, on
the whole, bore himself like an eminent man who was not proud. As,
however, he seemed to have nothing to say for himself, Lord
Worthington hastened to avert silence by resuming the subject of
Ascot. Lydia listened to him, and looked at her new acquaintance.
Now that the constraint of society had banished his former
expression of easy good-humor, there was something formidable in him
that gave her an unaccountable thrill of pleasure. The same
impression of latent danger had occurred, less agreeably, to Lucian,
who was affected much as he might have been by the proximity of a
large dog of doubtful temper. Lydia thought that Mr. Byron did not,
at first sight, like her cousin; for he was looking at him
obliquely, as though steadily measuring him.

The group was broken up by the guard admonishing the gentlemen to
take their seats. Farewells were exchanged; and Lord Worthington
cried, "Take care of yourself," to Cashel Byron, who replied
somewhat impatiently, and with an apprehensive glance at Miss Carew,
"All right! all right! Never you fear, sir." Then the train went
off, and he was left on the platform with the two ladies.

"We are returning to the park, Mr. Cashel Byron," said Lydia.

"So am I," said he. "Perhaps--" Here he broke down, and looked at
Alice to avoid Lydia's eye. Then they went out together.

When they had walked some distance in silence, Alice looking rigidly
before her, recollecting with suspicion that he had just addressed
Lord Worthington as "sir," while Lydia was admiring his light step
and perfect balance, which made him seem like a man of cork; he
said,

"I saw you in the park yesterday, and I thought you were a ghost.
But my trai--my man, I mean--saw you too. I knew by that that you
were genuine."

"Strange!" said Lydia. "I had the same fancy about you."

"What! You had!" he exclaimed, looking at her. While thus unmindful
of his steps, he stumbled, and recovered himself with a stifled
oath. Then he became very red, and remarked that it was a warm
evening.

Miss Goff, whom he had addressed, assented. "I hope," she added,
"that you are better."

He looked puzzled. Concluding, after consideration, that she had
referred to his stumble, he said,

"Thank you: I didn't hurt myself."

"Lord Worthington has been telling us about you," said Lydia. He
recoiled, evidently deeply mortified. She hastened to add, "He
mentioned that you had come down here to recruit your health; that
is all."

Cashel's features relaxed into a curious smile. But presently he
became suspicious, and said, anxiously, "He didn't tell you anything
else about me, did he?"

Alice stared at him superciliously. Lydia replied, "No. Nothing
else."

"I thought you might have heard my name somewhere," he persisted.

"Perhaps I have; but I cannot recall in what connection. Why? Do you
know any friend of mine?"

"Oh, no. Only Lord Worthington."

"I conclude then that you are celebrated, and that I have the
misfortune not to know it, Mr. Cashel Byron. Is it so?"

"Not a bit of it," he replied, hastily. "There's no reason why you
should ever have heard of me. I am much obliged to you for your kind
inquiries," he continued, turning to Alice. "I'm quite well now,
thank you. The country has set me right again."

Alice, who was beginning to have her doubts of Mr. Byron, in spite
of his familiarity with Lord Worthington, smiled falsely and drew
herself up a little. He turned away from her, hurt by her manner,
and so ill able to conceal his feelings that Miss Carew, who was
watching him, set him down privately as the most inept dissimulator
she had ever met. He looked at Lydia wistfully, as if trying to read
her thoughts, which now seemed to be with the setting sun, or in
some equally beautiful and mysterious region. But he could see that
there was no reflection of Miss Goff's scorn in her face.

"And so you really took me for a ghost," he said.

"Yes. I thought at first that you were a statue."

"A statue!"

"You do not seem flattered by that."

"It is not flattering to be taken for a lump of stone," he replied,
ruefully.

Lydia looked at him thoughtfully. Here was a man whom she had
mistaken for the finest image of manly strength and beauty in the
world; and he was so devoid of artistic culture that he held a
statue to be a distasteful lump of stone.

"I believe I was trespassing then," she said; "but I did so
unintentionally. I had gone astray; for I am comparatively a
stranger here, and cannot find my way about the park yet."

"It didn't matter a bit," said Cashel, impetuously. "Come as often
as you want. Mellish fancies that if any one gets a glimpse of me he
won't get any odds. You see he would like people to think--" Cashel
checked himself, and added, in some confusion, "Mellish is mad;
that's about where it is."

Alice glanced significantly at Lydia. She had already suggested that
madness was the real reason of the seclusion of the tenants at the
Warren. Cashel saw the glance, and intercepted it by turning to her
and saying, with an attempt at conversational ease,

"How do you young ladies amuse yourselves in the country? Do you
play billiards ever?"

"No," said Alice, indignantly. The question, she thought, implied
that she was capable of spending her evenings on the first floor of
a public-house. To her surprise, Lydia remarked,

"I play--a little. I do not care sufficiently for the game to make
myself proficient. You were equipped for lawn-tennis, I think, when
I saw you yesterday. Miss Goff is a celebrated lawn-tennis player.
She vanquished the Australian champion last year."

It seemed that Byron, after all, was something of a courtier; for he
displayed great astonishment at this feat. "The Australian
champion!" he repeated. "And who may HE--Oh! you mean the
lawn-tennis champion. To be sure. Well, Miss Goff, I congratulate
you. It is not every amateur that can brag of having shown a
professional to a back seat."

Alice, outraged by the imputation of bragging, and certain that
slang was vulgar, whatever billiards might be, bore herself still
more loftily, and resolved to snub him explicitly if he addressed
her again. But he did not; for they presently came to a narrow iron
gate in the wall of the park, at which Lydia stopped.

"Let me open it for you," said Cashel. She gave him the key, and he
seized one of the bars of the gate with his left hand, and stooped
as though he wanted to look into the keyhole. Yet he opened it
smartly enough.

Alice was about to pass in with a cool bow when she saw Miss Carew
offer Cashel her hand. Whatever Lydia did was done so well that it
seemed the right thing to do. He took it timidly and gave it a
little shake, not daring to meet her eyes. Alice put out her hand
stiffly. Cashel immediately stepped forward with his right foot and
enveloped her fingers with the hardest clump of knuckles she had
ever felt. Glancing down at this remarkable fist, she saw that it
was discolored almost to blackness. Then she went in through the
gate, followed by Lydia, who turned to close it behind her. As she
pushed, Cashel, standing outside, grasped a bar and pulled. She at
once relinquished to him the labor of shutting the gate, and smiled
her thanks as she turned away; but in that moment he plucked up
courage to look at her. The sensation of being so looked at was
quite novel to her and very curious. She was even a little out of
countenance, but not so much so as Cashel, who nevertheless could
not take his eyes away.

"Do you think," said Alice, as they crossed the orchard, "that that
man is a gentleman?"

"How can I possibly tell? We hardly know him."

"But what do you think? There is always a certain something about a
gentleman that one recognizes by instinct."

"Is there? I have never observed it."

"Have you not?" said Alice, surprised, and beginning uneasily to
fear that her superior perception of gentility was in some way the
effect of her social inferiority to Miss Carew. "I thought one could
always tell."

"Perhaps so," said Lydia. "For my own part I have found the same
varieties of address in every class. Some people enjoy a native
distinction and grace of manner--"

"That is what I mean," said Alice.

"--but they are seldom ladies and gentlemen; often actors, gypsies,
and Celtic or foreign peasants. Undoubtedly one can make a fair
guess, but not in the case of this Mr. Cashel Byron. Are you curious
about him?"

"I!" exclaimed Alice, superbly. "Not in the least."

"I am. He interests me. I seldom see anything novel in humanity; and
he is a very singular man."

"I meant," said Alice, crestfallen, "that I take no special interest
in him."

Lydia, not being curious as to the exact degree of Alice's interest,
merely nodded, and continued, "He may, as you suppose, be a man of
humble origin who has seen something of society; or he may be a
gentleman unaccustomed to society. Probably the latter. I feel no
conviction either way."

"But he speaks very roughly; and his slang is disgusting. His hands
are hard and quite black. Did you not notice them?"

"I noticed it all; and I think that if he were a man of low
condition he would be careful not to use slang. Self-made persons
are usually precise in their language; they rarely violate the
written laws of society. Besides, his pronunciation of some words is
so distinct that an idea crossed me once that he might be an actor.
But then it is not uniformly distinct. I am sure that he has some
object or occupation in life: he has not the air of an idler. Yet I
have thought of all the ordinary professions, and he does not fit
one of them. This is perhaps what makes him interesting. He is
unaccountable."

"He must have some position. He was very familiar with Lord
Worthington."

"Lord Worthington is a sportsman, and is familiar with all sorts of
people."

"Yes; but surely he would not let a jockey, or anybody of that
class, put his arm round his neck, as we saw Mr. Byron do."

"That is true," said Lydia, thoughtfully. "Still," she added,
clearing her brow and laughing, "I am loath to believe that he is an
invalid student."

"I will tell you what he is," said Alice suddenly. "He is companion
and keeper to the man with whom he lives. Do you recollect his
saying 'Mellish is mad'?"

"That is possible," said Lydia. "At all events we have got a topic;
and that is an important home comfort in the country."

Just then they reached the castle. Lydia lingered for a moment on
the terrace. The Gothic chimneys of the Warren Lodge stood up
against the long, crimson cloud into which the sun was sinking. She
smiled as if some quaint idea had occurred to her; raised her eyes
for a moment to the black-marble Egyptian gazing with unwavering
eyes into the sky; and followed Alice in-doors.

Later on, when it was quite dark, Cashel sat in a spacious kitchen
at the lodge, thinking. His companion, who had laid his coat aside,
was at the fire, smoking, and watching a saucepan that simmered
there. He broke the silence by remarking, after a glance at the
clock, "Time to go to roost."

"Time to go to the devil," said Cashel. "I am going out."

"Yes, and get a chill. Not if I know it you don't."

"Well, go to bed yourself, and then you won't know it. I want to
take a walk round the place."

"If you put your foot outside that door to-night Lord Worthington
will lose his five hundred pounds. You can't lick any one in fifteen
minutes if you train on night air. Get licked yourself more likely."

"Will you bet two to one that I don't stay out all night and knock
the Flying Dutchman out of time in the first round afterwards? Eh?"

"Come," said Mellish, coaxingly; "have some common-sense. I'm
advising you for your good."

"Suppose I don't want to be advised for my good. Eh? Hand me over
that lemon. You needn't start a speech; I'm not going to eat it."

"Blest if he ain't rubbing his 'ands with it!" exclaimed Mellish,
after watching him for some moments. "Why, you bloomin' fool, lemon
won't 'arden your 'ands. Ain't I took enough trouble with them?"

"I want to whiten them," said Cashel, impatiently throwing the lemon
under the grate; "but it's no use; I can't go about with my fists
like a nigger's. I'll go up to London to-morrow and buy a pair of
gloves."

"What! Real gloves? Wearin' gloves?"

"You thundering old lunatic," said Cashel, rising and putting on his
hat; "is it likely that I want a pair of mufflers? Perhaps YOU think
you could teach me something with them. Ha! ha! By-the-bye--now
mind this, Mellish--don't let it out down here that I'm a fighting
man. Do you hear?"

"Me let it out!" cried Mellish, indignantly. "Is it likely? Now, I
asts you, Cashel Byron, is it likely?"

"Likely or not, don't do it," said Cashel. "You might get talking
with some of the chaps about the castle stables. They are generous
with their liquor when they can get sporting news for it."

Mellish looked at him reproachfully, and Cashel turned towards the
door. This movement changed the trainer's sense of injury into
anxiety. He renewed his remonstrances as to the folly of venturing
into the night air, and cited many examples of pugilists who had
suffered defeat in consequence of neglecting the counsel of their
trainers. Cashel expressed his disbelief in these anecdotes in brief
and personal terms; and at last Mellish had to content himself with
proposing to limit the duration of the walk to half an hour.

"Perhaps I will come back in half an hour," said Cashel, "and
perhaps I won't."

"Well, look here," said Mellish; "we won't quarrel about a minute or
two; but I feel the want of a walk myself, and I'll come with you."

"I'm d--d if you shall," said Cashel. "Here, let me out; and shut
up. I'm not going further than the park. I have no intention of
making a night of it in the village, which is what you are afraid
of. I know you, you old dodger. If you don't get out of my way I'll
seat you on the fire."

"But duty, Cashel, duty," pleaded Mellish, persuasively. "Every man
oughter do his duty. Consider your duty to your backers."

"Are you going to get out of my way, or must I put you out of it?"
said Cashel, reddening ominously.

Mellish went back to his chair, bowed his head on his hands, and
wept. "I'd sooner be a dog nor a trainer," he exclaimed. "Oh! the
cusseduess of bein' shut up for weeks with a fightin' man! For the
fust two days they're as sweet as treacle; and then their con
trairyness comes out. Their tempers is puffict 'ell."

Cashel, additionally enraged by a sting of remorse, went out and
slammed the door. He made straight towards the castle, and watched
its windows for nearly half an hour, keeping in constant motion so
as to avert a chill. At last an exquisitely toned bell struck the
hour from one of the minarets. To Cashel, accustomed to the coarse
jangling of ordinary English bells, the sound seemed to belong to
fairyland. He went slowly back to the Warren Lodge, and found his
trainer standing at the open door, smoking, and anxiously awaiting
his return. Cashel rebuffed certain conciliatory advances with a
haughty reserve more dignified, but much less acceptable to Mr.
Mellish, than his former profane familiarity, and went
contemplatively to bed.

Back to chapter list of: Cashel Byron's Profession