Charles Lever - The Daltons; Or, Three Roads In Life. Volume II

“Your total balance is four thousand two hundred and twenty-seven florins eight kreutzers, Müntze,” said Abel, giving the sum a resonance of voice highly imposing and impressive.

“How many pounds is that now?” asked Peter.

“Something over three hundred and fifty pounds sterling, sir.”

“Is it? Faith! a neat little sum. Not but I often got rid of as much of an evening at blind-hookey, with old Carters, of the ‘Queen’s Bays.’ Ye don’t know Carters? Faix! and ye ‘d be the very man he would know, if ye were in the same neighborhood. I wish he was here to-day; and that reminds me that I must go over to the market and see what’s to be had. Ye don’t happen to know if there’s any fish to-day?”

Abel could not answer this important question, but offered to send his servant to inquire; but Dalton, declining the attention, strolled out into the street, jingling his Napoleons in his pocket as he went, and feeling all the importance and self-respect that a well-filled purse confers on him who has long known the penniless straits of poverty. He owed something on every side of him; but he could bear to face his creditors now; he was neither obliged to be occupied with a letter, nor sunk in a fit of abstraction as he passed them; nay, he was even jocular and familiar, and ventured to criticise the wares for which, once, he was almost grateful.

“Send your boy down to the house for some money – ye need n’t mind the bill; but I ‘ll give you fifty florins. There’s a trifle on account. Put them ten Naps, to my credit; that will wipe off some of our scores; it’s good for forty crowns.” Such were the brief sentences that he addressed to the amazed shopkeepers as he passed along; for Peter, like Louis Philippe, couldn’t bear the sight of an account, and always paid something in liquidation. It was with great reluctance that he abstained from inviting each of them to dinner; nothing but his fear of displeasing Nelly could have restrained him. He would have asked the whole village if he dared, ay, and made them drunk, too, if they ‘d have let him. “She’s so high in her notions,” he kept muttering to himself: “that confounded pride about family, and the like! Well, thank God! I never had that failing. If I knew we were better than other people, it never made me unneighborly; I was always free and affable; my worst enemy could n’t say other of me. I ‘d like to have these poor devils to dinner, and give them a skinful for once in their lives, just to drink Kate’s health, and Frank’s; they ‘d think of the Daltons for many a long year to come – the good old Dalton blood, that never mixed with the puddle! What a heavenly day it is! and an elegant fine market. There’s a bit of roasting beef would feed a dozen; and maybe that isn’t a fine trout! Well, well, but them’s cauliflowers!. Chickens and ducks – chickens and ducks – a whole street of them! And there’s a wild turkey – mighty good eating, too! and venison! – ah! but it has n’t the flavor, nor the fat! Faix! and not bad either, a neck of mutton with onions, if one had a tumbler of whiskey-punch afterwards.”

Thus communing with himself, he passed along, totally inattentive to the solicitations of those who usually supplied the humble wants of his household, and who now sought to tempt him by morsels whose merits lay rather in frugality than good cheer.

As Dalton drew near his own door, he heard the sounds of a stranger’s voice from within. Many a time a similar warning had apprised him that some troublesome dun had gained admittance, and was torturing poor Nelly with his importunities; and on these occasions Peter was wont, with more cunning than kindness, to steal noiselessly downstairs again, and wait till the enemy had evacuated the fortress. Now, however, a change had come over his fortunes, and with his hat set jauntily on one side, and his hands stuck carelessly in his pockets, he kicked open the door with his foot, and entered.

Nelly was seated near the stove, in conversation with a man who, in evident respect, had taken his place near the door, and from which he rose to salute Dalton as he came in. The traveller – for such his “blouse” or travelling-frock showed him to be, as well as the knapsack and stick at his feet – was a hale, fresh-looking man of about thirty; his appearance denoting an humble walk in life, but with nothing that bordered on poverty.

“Herr Brawer, papa, – Adolf Brawer,” said Nelly, whispering the last words, to remind him more quickly of the name.

“Servant, sir,” said Dalton, condescendingly; for the profound deference of the stranger’s manner at once suggested to him their relative conditions.

“I kiss your hand,” said Adolf, with the respectful salutation of a thorough Austrian, while he bowed again with even deeper humility.

“The worthy man who was so kind to Frank, papa,” said Nelly, in deep confusion, as she saw the scrutinizing and almost depreciating look with which Dalton regarded him.

“Oh, the pedler!” said Dalton, at last, as the remembrance flashed on him. “This is the pedler, then?”

“Yes, papa. He came out of his way, from Durlach, Just to tell us about Frank; to say how tall he had grown – taller than himself, he says – and so good-looking, too. It was so kind in him.”

“Oh, very kind, no doubt of it, – very kind indeed!” said Dalton, with a laugh of most dubious expression. “Did he say nothing of Frank’s debt to him? Has n’t that ‘I O U’ You were talking to me about anything to say to this visit?”

“He never spoke of it, never alluded to it,” cried she, eagerly.

“Maybe he won’t be so delicate with me,” said Dalton. “Sit down, Mr. Brawer; make no ceremony here. We ‘re stopping in this little place till our house is got ready for us. So you saw Frank, and he’s looking well?”

“The finest youth in the regiment. They know him through all Vienna as the ‘Handsome Cadet.’”

“And so gentle-mannered and unaffected,” cried Nelly.

“Kind and civil to his inferiors?” said Dalton; “I hope he’s that?”

“He condescended to know me ,” said Brawer, “and call me his friend.”

“Well, and maybe ye were,” said Peter, with a majestic wave of the hand. “A real born gentleman, as Frank is, may take a beggar off the streets and be intimate with him. Them’s my sentiments. Mark what I say, Mr. Brawer, and you ‘ll find, as you go through life, if it is n’t true; good blood may mix with the puddle every day of the year, and not be the worse of it!”

“Frank is so grateful to you,” broke in Nelly, eagerly; “and we are so grateful for all your kindness to him!”

“What an honor to me! that he should so speak of me!” said the pedler, feelingly, – “I, who had no claim upon his memory.”

“There was a trifle of money between you, I think,” said Dalton, ostentatiously; “have you any notion of what it is?”

“I came not here to collect a debt, Herr von Dalton,” said Adolf, rising, and assuming a look of almost fierceness in his pride.

“Very well, very well; just as you please,” said Dalton, carelessly; “it will come with his other accounts in the half-year; for, no matter how liberal a man is to his boys, he’ll be pestered with bills after all! There’s blaguards will be lending them money, and teachin’ them extravagance, just out of devilment, I believe. I know well how it used to be with myself when I was in old ‘Trinity,’ long ago. There was a little chap of the name of Foley, and, by the same token, a pedler, too – ”

“Oh, papa, he’s going away, and you have n’t thanked him yet!” cried Nelly, feelingly.

“What a hurry he’s in!” said Dalton, as he watched the eager haste with which the pedler was now arranging the straps of his knapsack.