Charles Lever - Barrington. Volume 1

“May I ask where you are off to in such haste, Peter?” asked Miss Dinah one morning, just as Barrington had completed all his arrangements for a retreat; far readier to brave the elements than the more pitiless pelting that awaited him within doors.

“I just remembered,” said he, mildly, “that I had left two night-lines out at the point, and with this fresh in the river it would be as well if I ‘d step down and see – ”

“And see if the river was where it was yesterday,” broke she in, sneeringly.

“No, Dinah. But you see that there ‘s this to be remarked about night-lines – ”

“That they never catch any fish!” said she, sternly. “It’s no weather for you to go tramping about in the wet grass. You made fuss enough about your lumbago last week, and I suppose you don’t want it back again. Besides,” – and here her tongue grew authoritative, – “I have got up the books.” And with these words she threw on the table a number of little greasy-looking volumes, over which poor Barrington’s sad glances wandered, pretty much as might a victim’s over the thumb-screws and the flesh-nippers of the Holy Inquisition.

“I’ve a slight touch of a headache this morning, Dinah.”

“It won’t be cured by going out in the rain. Sit down there,” said she, peremptorily, “and see with your own eyes how much longer your means will enable you to continue these habits of waste and extravagance.”

“These what?” said he, perfectly astounded.

“These habits of waste and extravagance, Peter Barring-ton. I repeat my words.”

Had a venerable divine, being asked on the conclusion of an edifying discourse, for how much longer it might be his intention to persist in such ribaldries, his astonishment could scarce have been greater than Barrington’s.

“Why, sister Dinah, are we not keeping an inn? Is not this the ‘Fisherman’s Home’?”

“I should think it is, Peter,” said she, with scorn. “I suspect he finds it so. A very excellent name for it it is!”

“Must I own that I don’t understand you, Dinah?”

“Of course you don’t. You never did all your life. You never knew you were wet till you were half drowned, and that’s what the world calls having such an amiable disposition! Ain’t your friends nice friends? They are always telling you how generous you are, – how free-handed, – how benevolent. What a heart he has! Ay, but thank Providence there’s very little of that charming docility about me , is there?”

“None, Dinah, – none,” said he, not in the least suspecting to what he was bearing testimony.

She became crimson in a minute, and in a tone of some emotion said, “And if there had been, where should you and where should I be to-day? On the parish, Peter Barrington, – on the parish; for it ‘s neither your head nor your hands would have saved us from it.”

“You’re right, Dinah; you’re right there. You never spoke a truer word.” And his voice trembled as he said it.

“I did n’t mean that , Peter,” said she, eagerly; “but you are too confiding, too trustful. Perhaps it takes a woman to detect all the little wiles and snares that entangle us in our daily life?”

“Perhaps it does,” said he, with a deep sigh.

“At all events, you needn’t sigh over it, Peter Barring-ton. It’s not one of those blemishes in human nature that have to be deplored so feelingly. I hope women are as good as men.”

“Fifty thousand times better, in every quality of kindliness and generosity.”

“Humph!” said she, tossing her head impatiently. “We ‘re not here for a question in ethics; it is to the very lowly task of examining the house accounts I would invite your attention. Matters cannot go on as they do now, if we mean to keep a roof over us.”

“But I have always supposed we were doing pretty well, Dinah. You know we never promised ourselves to gain a fortune by this venture; the very utmost we ever hoped for was to help us along, – to aid us to make both ends meet at the end of the year And as Darby tells me – ”

“Oh, Darby tells you! What a reliable authority to quote from! Oh, don’t groan so heavily! I forgot myself. I would n’t for the world impeach such fidelity or honesty as his.”

“Be reasonable, sister Dinah, – do be reasonable; and if there is anything to lay to his charge – ”

“You ‘ll hear the case, I suppose,” cried she, in a voice high-pitched in passion. “You ‘ll sit up there, like one of your favorite judges, and call on Dinah Barrington against Cassan; and perhaps when the cause is concluded we shall reverse our places, and I become the defendant! But if this is your intention, brother Barrington, give me a little time. I beg I may have a little time.”

Now, this was a very favorite request of Miss Barring-ton’s, and she usually made it in the tone of a martyr; but truth obliges us to own that never was a demand less justifiable. Not a three-decker of the Channel fleet was readier for a broadside than herself. She was always at quarters and with a port-fire burning.

Barrington did not answer this appeal; he never moved, – he scarcely appeared to breathe, so guarded was he lest his most unintentional gesture should be the subject of comment.

“When you have recovered from your stupefaction,” said she, calmly, “will you look over that line of figures, and then give a glance at this total? After that I will ask you what fortune could stand it.”

“This looks formidable, indeed,” said he, poring over the page through his spectacles.

“It is worse, Peter. It is formidable.”

“After all, Dinah, this is expenditure. Now for the incomings!”

“I suspect you ‘ll have to ask your prime minister for them . Perhaps he may vouchsafe to tell you how many twenty-pound notes have gone to America, who it was that consigned a cargo of new potatoes to Liverpool, and what amount he invested in yarn at the last fair of Graigue? and when you have learned these facts, you will know all you are ever likely to know of your profits! ” I have no means of conveying the intense scorn with which she uttered the last word of this speech.

“And he told me – not a week back – that we were going on famously!”

“Why wouldn’t he? I ‘d like to hear what else he could say. Famously, indeed, for him with a strong balance in the savings-bank, and a gold watch – yes, Peter, a gold watch – in his pocket. This is no delusion, nor illusion, or whatever you call it, of mine, but a fact, – a downright fact.”

“He has been toiling hard many a year for it, Dinah, don’t forget that.”

“I believe you want to drive me mad, Peter. You know these are things that I can’t bear, and that’s the reason you say them. Toil, indeed! I never saw him do anything except sit on a gate at the Lock Meadows, with a pipe in his mouth; and if you asked him what he was there for, it was a ‘track’ he was watching, a ‘dog-fox that went by every afternoon to the turnip field.’ Very great toil that was!”

“There was n’t an earth-stopper like him in the three next counties; and if I was to have a pack of foxhounds tomorrow – ”

“You ‘d just be as great a foot as ever you were, and the more sorry I am to hear it; but you ‘re not going to be tempted, Peter Barrington. It’s not foxes we have to think of, but where we ‘re to find shelter for ourselves.”

“Do you know of anything we could turn to, more profitable, Dinah?” asked he, mildly.

“There ‘s nothing could be much less so, I know that! You are not very observant, Peter, but even to you it must have become apparent that great changes have come over the world in a few years. The persons who formerly indulged their leisure were all men of rank and fortune. Who are the people who come over here now to amuse themselves? Staleybridge and Manchester creatures, with factory morals and bagman manners; treating our house like a commercial inn, and actually disputing the bill and asking for items. Yes, Peter, I overheard a fellow telling Darby last week that the ‘’ouse was dearer than the Halbion!’”