391

LADY KILLARNEY'S HUSBAND.

It was a fine afternoon in the beginning of July when Mr. Thomas Sidcup, strolling along Piccadilly, saw coming towards him, a short way off, his old friend and crony, Lord Killarney. The earl's clothes hung upon him loosely; his hat was placed rather far back on his head; he had a dejected and neglected air, as if he cared little now what happened to him.

‘Hullo, Killarney! you don't seem particularly bright to-day,' exclaimed Tom, as he shook hands with his friend.

'Yes-eh? No. Well; I dare say not,' responded the earl, twisting his long grey moustache as he spoke.

'Anything happened?'

'Yes; something has happened,' said his lordship, with a sickly smile.

'Somebody threatening to make you a bankrupt?'

'Not exactly. They know it would be of no use.

Any little

rent that comes in goes into the pockets of the lawyers and the mortgagees.'

"What is it, then?'

'I'm going to be married.'

Tom did not know whether congratulations or condolences would be more suitable, so he merely exclaimed—

'You don't say so!'

'Yes. You see I have racing debts as well, and they had to be met. There was no way out of it.'

The lady has money, I suppose?'

'Oh, yes. Plenty. Mrs. Poole is a widow. Her husband's firm was Jacobs and Poole, the bankers. She has a fine place in Yorkshire, and a house in town.'

'Then you're in luck, old fellow, and I congratulate you,' said Thomas Sidcup, heartily. You'll find you'll shake down together after a bit. Half the year you will do the magnate down in Yorkshire; and we shall have some capital shooting. Then for the season you will be in London. What more can you desire?

The earl was not unwilling to be encouraged in his desperate enterprise; yet a foreboding filled his heart, as, bidding his friend

good day, he walked away, meditating on the face and form, the carriage and deportment, of Mrs. Joseph Poole.

The wedding took place before the end of the season, and it was not until March that the earl and his countess came back to town. One day in April Sidcup met him in the Haymarket. 'How well you are looking!' was Tom's greeting.

'Well? Yes. I believe I'm getting stout, if you call that looking well.'

Anything wrong, then?'

Everything's wrong, Tom; I give you my word I'm the most miserable beggar on earth. I wish I were that crossing-sweeper. I wish I were dead!'

'Don't, Killarney. Don't give in like that,' said his friend in a soothing tone.

'Her ladyship's out to-night, going to a big missionary meeting,' said the peer, as a sudden idea occurred to him. Come and dine with me, and I'll tell you all about it. She is going to stay with some of her friends-won't be back till to-morrow.'

Tom accepted the invitation, and at half-past seven that evening he entered Lady Killarney's house in Park Lane. The dining-room, the dinner, the host, and the servants, were alike solemn and dreary. Killarney, however, brightened up under the influence of a few glasses of old port, and when the servants had retired he began to relate his trials and grievances.

'The fact is, old man,' said he, 'I can't call my soul my own. You know I've no money. She holds the reins, and gives me a sovereign now and again, as if I were a schoolboy.'

'Good gracious!'

'I would have asked you to dine at the club instead of in this mausoleum of a place, but I haven't been able to pay my subscription. She has got to be very religious of late, and fills the house with Low Church parsons and Dissenting ministers, and they go on in a way that's enough to drive a fellow mad. As for Sundays, they are too horrible to speak of. No dinner-only cold beef and tea, upon my sacred word of honour. No smoking allowed indoors-oh, it doesn't matter for to-night. The smell will be gone by to-morrow.'

'Lady Killarney keeps a very good table,' said Sidcup, anxious to mention one alleviating circumstance.

'Ugh! Eating and drinking isn't everything. And within

the last few weeks her ladyship has taken to-you won't guess?-teetotalism! Isn't it awful?'

A look of pain and disgust overspread the earl's still handsome face, and was reflected in that of his friend.

'She gives away tracts, addresses meetings, and actually threatens to send all the wine in the house to a hospital, or pour it into the sink!'

'She must be mad,' muttered Tom.

'And that fellow,' continued the earl, nodding his head towards the butler's pantry, has private directions not to do what I tell him, if it is against his mistress's orders.'

'Monstrous! I wouldn't stand it, Killarney. I'd bolt!'

'Bolt? Without a ten-pound note in the world? No; she has me tight enough;' and the unhappy earl groaned aloud.

At that moment the dining-room door was thrown wide open, and a majestic figure, clothed in silk and fur, made its appearance. 'Algernon!'

The fumes of the cigars almost choked her ladyship's utterance.

'This is disgraceful,' said Lady Killarney, as she slowly advanced to the table. Turning my dining-room, the diningroom of a Christian woman, into a tap-room!

'Pooh, my dear,' said the nominal head of the establishment, determining to brave it out before his friend, 'it's only a cigar. We wouldn't have smoked if I had known you would be home tonight. Let me introduce to you my old friend Sidcup-Mr. Sidcup, Lady Killarney.'

'I shall speak with you to-morrow, Algernon. Good evening, sir;' and Lady Killarney swept out of the room, ignoring altogether the attempted introduction, and addressing her last words to a vacant spot about six inches above Mr. Sidcup's head.

Honest Tom sat down with a shudder, and hardly dared to glance at the earl for very pity. For some time he sat silent. Suddenly he started up, struck the table with his fist, upsetting as he did so his glass of claret, and seized his friend's hand.

'Killarney,' he said solemnly, 'I'll be your deliverer! I pledge myself to it. You shall be set free, and be your own man once more !'

The earl shook his head.

'I've no doubt you'll do your best; but you don't know Lady Killarney.'

'Never mind. I'll do it, on condition that for the next two months you follow all my directions. You promise that? Very good. In less than a fortnight you and I set out for Killarney.'

A bright May morning makes even the Strand look cheerful; and on this particular forenoon that thoroughfare was even more crowded than usual; for the May meetings were in full swing. The entrance to Exeter Hall was blocked by a large crowd of welldressed people-country parsons and their wives and daughters, wealthy retired tradesmen, rich old ladies, and a sprinkling of good young men. It was the field-day of the United Kingdom Temperance Alliance; and the announcement that, in addition to a colonial bishop, the meeting would be addressed by the Countess of Killarney, had attracted a great assemblage.

At the door of the hall were three or four young men who were busily engaged in distributing leaflets among the people who entered the building; and the good folk not only accepted the little papers (as the frequenters of Exeter Hall invariably do on such occasions), but carried them inside, that they might look them over when comfortably seated. Among the arrivals was the Countess of Killarney. She, too, received a leaflet; she, too, carried it with her into the hall.

The cheers that greeted the countess had hardly died away, when the illustrious convert to the temperance cause, taking her seat on the platform beside the colonial bishop, glanced at the tastefully got-up circular in her hand. It was not a new tract, nor a notice of a sermon, nor an advertisement of a charitable society. It was headed with the Killarney arms, and ran thus:

FINEST WHISKY IN THE WORLD!!!

LORD KILLARNEY AND CO.

ARE THE SOLE DISTILLERS AND PROPRIETORS OF

THE KILLARNEY WHISKY.

Distilled from the finest Barley, and the pure Waters of the far-famed Lakes of Killarney. It is Wholesome, Invigorating, Appetising.

On the opposite side was a prospectus of the company; the chairman of the board of directors being the Right Honourable the Earl of Killarney, C.B., and the vice-chairman, Thomas Sidcup, Esq.

The large and highly respectable audience soon became aware that something was in the wind. The pale-green-tinted circulars could be seen passing from hand to hand in the crowded hall, accompanied by the lifting of eyebrows, the shaking of heads, the wagging of beards, in one corner a suppressed groan, in another an audible titter. For Lady Killarney to address the meeting under these circumstances was plainly impossible; she left the hall in a state of speechless indignation, while the colonial bishop hinted in guarded terms at the libellous insult which had been offered to an honoured and hitherto spotless name.' It was the first time the name of Killarney had ever been thus spoken of by the clergy; but the bishop was evidently thinking of the title as belonging to the lady rather than to her husband.

Lady Killarney reached Park Lane in a state of suppressed fury, and despatched telegrams in all directions for her lord and master. Receiving no answer to these messages, she sallied forth next morning for a certain Lane in the Ward of Cheap, where the London office of Lord Killarney & Co. was situated, that she might confer with Mr. Thomas Sidcup, whom she rightly deemed to be the prime mover in this foul conspiracy.

She was received with all imaginable politeness, even with deference. She was not, of course, aware that her erring spouse was stationed in a large closet opening off Mr. Sidcup's room, in which the Company washed its hands at the close of its day's labours.

Without deigning to utter a word in reply to Mr. Sidcup's greeting, the injured woman marched up to his table, placed the obnoxious circular on his desk, laid a manly forefinger on the paper, and looked the evildoer in the face. He merely smiled in

return.

'What is the meaning of this, sir?' demanded the lady, in awe-inspiring tones.

'It means a little industrial enterprise, Lady Killarney; and I hope it will have the effect of affording work for some of your husband's tenants, and profit for himself.'

'Sir! Do you mean to tell me that this thing is true? That my husband has lent his name to a dirty trading company'[Pretty well this, for the old bill-discounter's daughter,' thought Tom]-is bad enough; but I cannot believe that the earl, my husband, is personally engaged in this unholy, this accursed