“Go on, Dot, go on. You want to provoke
me, but you won’t. I wonder whether you’d
bear it as well, if I told you you’d die a broken-down
black-leg, without a friend or a shilling to bless
you.”
“I don’t think I should, because I should
know that you were threatening me with a fate which
my conduct and line of life would not warrant any
one in expecting.”
“Upon my word, then, I think there’s quite
as much chance of that as there is of my getting shut
up by bailiffs in Kelly’s Court, and dying drunk.
I’ll bet you fifty pounds I’ve a better
account at my bankers than you have in ten years.”
“Faith, I’ll not take it. It’ll
be hard work getting fifty pounds out of you, then!
In the meantime, come and play a game of billiards
before dinner.”
To this Lord Ballindine consented, and they adjourned
to the billiard-room; but, before they commenced playing,
Blake declared that if the names of Lord Cashel or
Miss Wyndham were mentioned again that evening, he
should retreat to his own room, and spend the hours
by himself; so, for the rest of that day, Lord Ballindine
was again driven back upon Brien Boru and the Derby
for conversation, as Dot was too close about his own
stable to talk much of his own horses and their performances,
except when he was doing so with an eye to business.
About two o’clock on the following morning,
Lord Ballindine set off for Grey Abbey, on horseback,
dressed with something more than ordinary care, and
with a considerable palpitation about his heart.
He hardly knew, himself, what or whom he feared, but
he knew that he was afraid of something. He had
a cold, sinking sensation within him, and he felt
absolutely certain that he should be signally defeated
in his present mission. He had plenty of what
is usually called courage; had his friend recommended
him instantly to call out Lord Kilcullen and shoot
him, and afterwards any number of other young men who
might express a thought in opposition to his claim
on Miss Wyndham’s hand, he would have set about
it with the greatest readiness and aptitude; but he
knew he could not baffle the appalling solemnity of
Lord Cashel, in his own study. Frank was not
so very weak a man as he would appear to be when in
the society of Blake. He unfortunately allowed
Blake to think for him in many things, and he found
a convenience in having some one to tell him what
to do; but he was, in most respects, a better, and
in some, even a wiser man than his friend. He
often felt that the kind of life he was leading—contracting
debts which he could not pay, and spending his time
in pursuits which were not really congenial to him,
was unsatisfactory and discreditable: and it was
this very feeling, and the inability to defend that
which he knew to be wrong and foolish, which made
him so certain that he would not be able successfully
to persist in his claim to Miss Wyndham’s hand
