Agnes Castleand Egerton Castle

“ He wheeled Red Beauty suddenly round. A surly-looking postboy, with eyes well-nigh as furtive as those of his recent road acquaintance, pulled the horses to a standstill.
"By my noble father's thirst, whom have we here?" cried O'Hara.
The clamour in the chaise was succeeded by a hush. Then, "Gracious!" rose a voice, quavering in terror, "is this another of them?" Upon which, the shrill accents which O'Hara seemed to have recognised cut in, acid: "Get out your pistals, paltroon. A carse on my good nature—that I should have ever have cansarted with a City dag! ”

“ But the aggrieved highwayman, apparently, was not used to take professional work in so light-hearted a manner; the intruder's airy agility of wit disconcerted him even more than his steadiness of hand and the nimbleness of his equitation. Again he hesitated, again flung a darkling look upon the coveted steed. Then, to O'Hara's mingled disappointment and amusement, muttering between his teeth a handsomely larded phrase to the effect of his having no time to waste on fools—fairly turned tail and set off along the grey road at the best of his sorry nag's speed. ”

“ With a Rigby, sir, a gentleman can have reason on the road."
"Can he? can he? sir? can he?" exclaimed the rider, with a sudden blustering outburst, as uncertain in its aim as the wavering weapon in his hand—"can he? And gentleman, forsooth! I'll have you know by—by—and by——! that, gentleman or no gentleman, no one has right or reason on this road when I ride. When I ride, d'ye hear? And that by ancient rules of the High Toby!"
"Rules of the High Toby!" echoed O'Hara, vastly entertained by the sound of the unknown cant. "High Toby, sir? ”

“ Aye, sir, I had just been robbed—all I had!" said the poor youth, with dull, unconscious irony.
The landlord had followed O'Hara's move with some curiosity.
"I've offered the young man to make him a present of supper and bed," he here observed in tones of important philanthropy, "but he declines to partake."
Mr. O'Hara wheeled round upon him with some sternness. A man is never more disposed to rebuke his neighbour as when his own conscience is slightly uncomfortable.
"And pray, Mr. Landlord, how comes it that you have stationed this your gentleman in the kitchen with his own postboy?" ”

“ O'Hara spoke in the most mellifluous yet doctoral accents that it is possible to conceive.
"Let this be a lesson to you, young man. For the future be content with the humble lot which Providence has marked as your own. Devote yourself to the low virtues of your state in life, and refrain from endeavouring to improve yourself by imitating the high vices of your betters. Another than myself, Mr. Huggins, be assured of it, would not have——" He paused impressively and waved his hand towards the fire. ”

“ They were now drawing near the high, flat wastes of Cold Ash gorse-fields, not many miles short of Newbury, when a bleak wind began to rise, whistling shrewishly in the rider's ears, and bringing such dull, chill mists up against the sky that all its ruddy sunset promise was lost in threats of snow. The soul of the impressionable Irishman became instantly affected.
"And faith!" said he, turning up the great collar of his roquelaure to his ears, and feeling the wind pinch the tip of his boots—"faith and 'tis the devil of a lonely journey to-day! Not the nose of a nag in sight ”

“ Old-fashioned, but useful, no doubt. Fie on it, though, for its useless length of nose! A long nose, sir, is a mistake, if you can avoid it—in a pistol, I mean. What would you think now, I wonder, of the build of this pretty one?" And Mr. O'Hara (who had been holding his adversary with a fierce, dilating eye, almost as round as a pistol-rim in its wide-opened lids) here, with a swift and elegant motion of his long right hand, extracted the easy-sitting pistol, and, in his turn, balanced it with as much significance as the bully, but a vast more of elegance. ”

“ Huggins again, with a sudden yelp, as if the memory of bis wrongs had been driven into him with a bradawl.
"Three hundred guineas!" A second or two Mr. O'Hara sat stock still in his saddle, staring across the chaise towards the fields beyond. A few feathery white flakes came undulating downwards from the leaden sky: here in this valley road there was shelter from the wind, and the flakes fell fantastic slow. His brow was drawn with deep thought. Presently a slow smile overspread his countenance. ”

“ Rat you, you must do the fighting this time!"
"Spicer! as I live! 'Tis Spicer!" exclaimed Lord Kilcroney's heir, with a great burst of laughter. Through the window a long, lean, deathlike face was now gingerly protruded. At sight of the rider it broke into a sickly smile.
"Tare and 'ouns, man!" Mr. O'Hara called out, "what's up with you? You look like a fresh-made corpse! 'Tisn't considerate to suggest a wake when there's not a bottle within miles."
"I've been wounded, Mr. O'Hara," responded the gentleman with dignity. ”

“ Huggins!" cried O'Hara, "between gentlemen! Sir, your misadventure might have occurred to anyone—to anyone of your constitutional modesty. You've learned that 'tis a mistake to be at all backward in coming forward when the call is pistols, that's all! I shall be charmed to oblige you, sir, by the loan of a few guineas. The note of hand of so well known a person as yourself is as good as the Bank, I've no doubt. ”

“ As he spoke, his furtive eye shifted from O'Hara's smiling countenance to the points of the dancing mare, and thereupon became filled with a sinister, greedy glow. On his side, with bridle hand warily alert, and purposely keeping Red Beauty on the move to frustrate sudden attack, the Irishman pursued with unperturbed amiability—
"Agreed! A gentleman may have his reasons, eh, friend?"
"Reasons? Reasons? Rat me, sir! I have no more reasons than another man. I'll have you know, sir, that I'm none of your fellows with reasons. ”

“ There's nothing for it but I must all the way to Ireland and see if the old gentleman has left me a few sticks of trees to cut down, and what I can squeeze or coax out of the lawyer boys."
Yes, go he must, and that forthwith. My Lord Verney would gladly lend him a handful of guineas—to go away withal; his landlady would trust him till his return. (Where was there a woman yet that would not trust O'Hara, the handsome ne'er-do-weel? Many a one, in truth, would have been glad to trust him further than he, with his single heart, was like to ask of her.) ”

“ And, if you please, the scoundrel's pistol was at my head, sir!"
"Whereupan, sir," said Spicer, sneering hideously, "you handed him your sealskin bag, as palitely, sir, as if you were handing a snarf-bax, sir, aver your father's counter, sir. Rut it serves me right, for candescending to the City——"
"And why, Spicer, why? What would you expect of a City gentleman but counter courage?" cried O'Hara in the highest humour. "Mr. Huggins. 'tis evident, has been brought up to regard life from the safe side." ”

“ Under hat-silhouette followed promptly silhouette of flying cloak, then silhouette of straining horse.
"Company, be jabers!" cried Denis jovially; and, as he and the new-comer drew nearer to each other, he gathered up his reins to make the chestnut strike out with elegance.
"He's come apace," thought the Irishman, "whoever he be. That beast of his is dead beat; the legs are trembling under him. And by me soul! what sort of company is it at all? Bad, I'm thinking."
The stranger indeed bore no very prepossessing appearance ”

“ At first, indeed, he won; and, all that were left of my Lord Verney's thirty guineas found themselves heaped in a pile by the side of his glass. And Mr. O'Hara (enjoying himself colossally) began to see the moment when he would have surreptitiously to break one of those rouleaux that lay so snug in his pockets. ”

“ Rabbed of near everything, sir. We have been fallowed, 'tis my belief, all the way from Hounslow. This fool would prate of our gold from inn to inn——"
"Now," thought O'Hara, "the story unfolds. Now is made plain the reason of friend Copper-nose's foundered nag! A stern chase is a long chase, as your privateersman has it."
Meanwhile—"Our money! 'Twas my money!" the poor calf was whimpering. "Three hundred guineas—Aunt Matilda's legacy—all gone, all gone!"
Now, the devil would have it that Mr. O'Hara must always see the joke of the situation. ”

“ It is a question, after all, whether the little frequent joys of life do not total a better sum of satisfaction than the rare ecstasies which make so great a demand upon our human limitations and leave such void behind. ”

“ O'Hara sat quickly up in his chair and flung out a forbidding hand, as Mr. Huggins uplifted a dismal voice and carolled—
""Oh, where is the harm of a little kiss—
One, one, only one?
And what can the heart——"
"Peace!" cried the Irishman with loud authority, slapping the table with his open hand. And as the other stared, open-mouthed, round-eyed: "'Tis my infirmity, sir," proceeded Denis more civilly. "Music, somehow, turns my wine sour on me. It comes, Mr. Huggins, doubtless from an error in my upbringing ”

“ He juggled with the thought for a minute or two, cheating himself out of his sudden sense of depression and loneliness by a vivid series of fancy pictures.
"There does not seem to be a gentleman now left in the profession, if all one hears of the road be true. ”