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.”
“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 a college at Oxford, or the mess of a regiment to-morrow, and this day week you'll not know him from the rest.”
Glencore was silent; if he had heard, he never noticed Harcourt's remark.
“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 honors?”
“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.
“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 fortune—”
“Stop, Harcourt!” cried Glencore, passionately. “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 in his manner with the country people, when they salute him, and call him 'my lord'—”
“But he is not 'my lord,'” broke in Glencore.
“Of course he is not; that I am well 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 voice proclaims his mother a—”
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.
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 to a great physician.
“If it's the crown and the sceptre makes the king,” said he, “'tis the same with the science 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 derangement 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 traitin' a man of that timperament; it's the same with many of them ould families as with our racehorses—they breed them too fine.”
“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 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, “is all out of balance, every bit of him. Bleed him, and he sinks; stimulate him, and he goes ragin' mad. 'T is their physical conformation 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; I'm a phenumenon in a small way. And many people thinks, when they see and convarse with me, what a pity it is I hav' n't the advantages of edication and instruction; and that's just where they 're wrong—complately wrong.”
“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,