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The urn was already throwing up its column of fuming mist; and the breakfast table was covered with June flowers sent by a lady on the chance of Lord Westport's arrival.
This accident made known to the assembled mob of our fellow-travellers Lord Westport's rank, and led to a scene rather too broadly exposing the spirit of this world. The fact, however, that a young lord, and one of great expectations, was on board, brought her up. Her admiration of him, and her contempt for myself, were equally undisguised.
Lord Westport's age at that time was the same as my own; that is, we both wanted a few months of being fifteen. But I had the advantage, perhaps, in thoughtfulness and observation of life. Being thoroughly free, however, from opinionativeness, Lord Westport readily came over to any views of mine for which I could show sufficient grounds.
"You've hit it," said I. "We will have no more interrogations. However, I would much like to know how you became so intimate with Lord Westport's family." Doctor Chord blushed with something of his earlier manner. "'Tis a matter which I did not expect to have leap at me out of the darkness in this fashion," he said bashfully.
It is fenced in with chains looped up on posts a fence that nobody minds except to step over and they track the grass with paths running in every direction. Westport's mall is a long space with trees standing sentry by a river, walled in as if it were a canal. I had a wish to meet with a Mr. Smithwick, a land agent, from whom I might receive a good deal of information.
He rattled on with his nonsensical lies, and in the mean time I made up my mind to speak plainly to him, as I intended to make him of great service to me. "Stop a moment," said I good-naturedly. "I will hear no more of this rubbish from you, you impudent little impostor. You care no more for the Earl of Westport's illness than you do for telling the truth, and I know how much you care for that.
Lord Westport's mother had been, before her marriage, Lady Louisa Howe, daughter to the great admiral, Earl Howe, and intimately known to the royal family, who, on her account, took a continual and especial notice of her son. On one of these occasions I had the honor of a brief interview with the king.
There was a cousin of Lord Westport's, subsequently created Lord Oranmore, distinguished for his horsemanship, and always splendidly mounted from his father's stables at Castle M'Garret, to whom our stormy contests with ruined tempers and vicious habits yielded a regular comedy of fun; and, in order to improve it, he would sometimes bribe Lord Westport's treacherous groom into misleading us, when floundering amongst bogs, into the interior labyrinths of these morasses.
These papers are not mine, but the Earl of Westport's, and he can have them without saying as much as 'Thank you kindly' for them." Lady Mary leaned back in her chair and looked at me with half-closed eyes, then she stretched forth her hand and said: "Give me the papers."
As he emptied his bottle, the Colonel described at full length all his plans and prospects to Pen, who was interested in listening to his story, and the confessions of his daring and lawless good-humour. "I met that queer fellow Altamont the other day," Pen said to his uncle, a day or two afterwards. "Altamont? What Altamont? There's Lord Westport's son," said the Major.
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