“Sit down, Mr. Gray,” said Corbet, “and join us in one glass of punch.”
“I will, in half-a-dozen,” replied the student; “for I am always glad to see my friends.”
“But not to come to see them,” said Mrs. Cooper—“However, it doesn't matter; we are glad to see you, Mr. Ambrose. I hope you are getting on well at college?”
“Third place, eh, my old grinder: are you not proud of me,” said Ambrose, addressing the schoolmaster.
“I think, Mr. Gray, the pride ought to be on the other side,” replied O'Donegan, with an affectation of dignity—“but it was well, and I trust you are not insensible of the early indoctrination you received at—whose hands I will not say; but I think it might be guessed notwithstanding.”
During this conversation, the eyes of the prophetess were fixed upon the student, with an expression of the deepest and most intense interest. His personal appearance was indeed peculiar and remarkable. He was about the middle size, somewhat straggling and bony in his figure; his forehead was neither good nor bad, but the general contour of his face contained not within it a single feature with the expression of which the heart of the spectator could harmonize. He was beetle-browed, his mouth diabolically sensual, and his eyes, which were scarcely an inch asunder, were sharp and piercing, and reminded one that the deep-seated cunning which lurked in them was a thing to be guarded against and avoided. His hands and feet were large and coarse, his whole figure disagreeable and ungainly, and his voice harsh and deep.
The fortune-teller, as we have said, kept her eyes fixed upon his features, with a look which seemed to betray no individual feeling beyond that of some extraordinary and profound interest. She appeared like one who was studying his character, and attempting to read his natural disposition in his countenance, manner, and conversation. Sometimes her eye brightened a little, and again her death-like face became overshadowed with gloom, reminding one of that strange darkness which, when the earth is covered with snow, falls with such dismal effect before an approaching storm.
“I grant you, my worthy old grinder, that you did indoctrinate me, as you say, to some purpose; but, my worthy old grinder, again I say to you, that, by all the gerunds, participles, and roots you ever ground in your life, it was my own grinding that got me the third place in the scholarship.”
“Well, Mr. Ambrose,” rejoined the pedagogue, who felt disposed to draw in his horns a little, “one thing is clear, that, between us both, we did it. What bait, what line, what calling, or profession in life, do you propose to yourself, Mr. Ambrose? Your course in college has been brilliant so far, thanks to—ahem—no matter—you have distinguished yourself.”
“I have carried everything before me,” replied Ambrose—“but what then? Suppose, my worthy old magister, that I miss a fellowship—why, what remains, but to sink down into a resident mastership, and grind blockheads for the remainder of my life? But what though I fail in science, still, most revered and learned O'Donegan, I have ambition—ambition—and, come how it may, I will surge up out of obscurity, my old buck. I forgot to tell you, that I got the first classical premium yesterday, and that I am consequently—no, I didn't forget to tell you, because I didn't know it myself when I saw you to-day. Hip, hip—hurra!”
His two male companions filled their glasses, and joined him heartily. O'Donegan shook him by the hand, so did Corbet, and they now could understand the cause of his very natural elevation of spirits.
“So you have all got legacies,” proceeded Mr. Ambrose; “fifty pounds apiece, I hear, by the death of your brother, Mr. Corbet, who was steward to Lady Gourlay—I am delighted to hear it—hip, hip, hurra, again.”
“It's true enough,” observed the prophetess, “a good, kind-hearted man was my poor brother Edward.”
“How is that old scoundrel of a Black Baronet in your neighborhood—Sir Thomas—he who murdered his brother's heir?”
“For God's sake, Mr. Ambrose, don't say so. Don't you know that he got heavy damages against Captain Furlong for using the same words?”
“He be hanged,” said the tipsy student; “he murdered him as sure as I sit at this table; and God bless the worthy, be the same man or woman, who left himself, as he left his brother's widow, without an heir to his ill-gotten title and property.”
The fortune-teller rose up, and entreated him not to speak harshly against Sir Thomas Gourlay, adding, “That, perhaps, he was not so bad as the people supposed; but,” she added, “as they—that is, she and her brother—happened to be in town, they were anxious to see him (the student); and, indeed, they would feel obliged if he came with them into the front room for ten minutes or so, as they wished to have a little private conversation with him.”
The change in his features at this intimation was indeed surprising. A keen, sharp sense of self-possession, an instant recollection of his position and circumstances, banished from them, almost in an instant, the somewhat careless and tipsy expression which they possessed on his entrance.
“Certainly,” said he—“Mr. O'Donegan, will you take care of yourself until we return?”
“No doubt of it,” replied the pedagogue, as they left the room, “I shall not forget myself, no more than that the image and superscription of Sir Thomas Gourlay, the Black Baronet, is upon your diabolical visage.”
Instead of ten minutes, the conference between the parties in the next room lasted for more than an hour, during which period O'Donegan did not omit to take care of himself, as he said. The worthy pedagogue was one of those men, who, from long habit, can never become tipsy beyond a certain degree of elevation, after which, no matter what may be the extent of their indulgence, nothing in the shape of liquor can affect them. When Gray and his two friends returned, they found consequently nothing but empty bottles before them, whilst the schoolmaster viewed them with a kind of indescribable steadiness of countenance, which could not be exactly classed with either drunkenness or sobriety, but was something between both. More liquor, however, was ordered in, but, in the meantime, O'Donegan's eyes were fastened upon Mr. Gray with a degree of surprise, which, considering the change in the young man's appearance, was by no means extraordinary. Whatever the topic of their conversation may have been, it is not our purpose at present to disclose; but one thing is certain, that the transition which took place in Gray's features, as well as in his whole manner, was remarkable almost beyond belief. This, as we have said, manifested itself in some degree, on hearing that Corbet and his sister had something to say to him in the next room. Now, however, the change was decided and striking. All symptoms of tipsy triumph, arising from his success in college, had completely disappeared, and were replaced by an expression of seriousness and mingled cunning, which could not possibly escape observation. There was a coolness, a force of reflection, a keen, calm, but agitated lustre in his small eyes, that was felt by the schoolmaster to be exceedingly disagreeable to contemplate. In fact, the face of the young man was, in a surprising degree, calculating and sinister. A great portion of its vulgarity was gone, and there remained something behind that seemed to partake of a capacity for little else than intrigue, dishonesty, and villany. It was one of those countenances on which, when moved by the meditations of the mind within, nature frequently expresses herself as clearly as if she had written on it, in legible characters, 'Beware of this man'.
After a little time, now that the object of this mysterious meeting had been accomplished, the party separated.
We mentioned that Corbet and Sir Thomas Gourlay were foster-brothers—a relation which, in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, formed the basis of an attachment, on the part of the latter, stronger, in many instances, than that of nature itself. Corbet's brother stood also to him in the same relation as he did to the late Sir Edward Gourlay, under whom, and subsequently under his widow, he held the situation of house-steward until his death. Edward Corbet, for his Christian name had been given him after that of his master—his mother having nursed both brothers—was apparently a mild, honest, affectionate man, trustworthy and respectful, as far, at least,