CHAPTER XX.
IN WHICH MR. DANGERFIELD VISITS THE CHURCH OF CHAPELIZOD, AND ZEKIEL
IRONS GOES A FISHING.
Early next morning Lord Castlemallard, Dangerfield, and Nutter, rode
into Chapelizod, plaguy dusty, having already made the circuit of that
portion of his property which lay west of the town. They had poked into
the new mills and the old mills, and contemplated the quarries, and
lime-kilns, and talked with Doyle about his holding, and walked over the
two vacant farms, and I know not all besides. And away trotted his
lordship to his breakfast in town. And Dangerfield seeing the church
door open, dismounted and walked in, and Nutter did likewise.
Bob Martin was up in the gallery, I suppose, doing some good, and making
a considerable knocking here and there in the pews, and walking slowly
with creaking shoes. Zekiel Irons, the clerk, was down below about his
business, at the communion table at the far end, lean, blue-chinned, thin-lipped, stooping over his quarto prayer books, and gliding about without noise, reverent and sinister. When they came in, Nutter led the way to Lord Castlemallard's pew, which brought them up pretty near to the spot where grave Mr. Irons was prowling serenely. The pew would soon want new flooring, Mr. Dangerfield thought, and the Castlemallard arms and supporters, a rather dingy piece of vainglory, overhanging the main seat on the wall, would be nothing the worse of a little fresh gilding and paint.
'There was a claim—eh—to one foot nine inches off the eastern end of
the pew, on the part of—of the family—at Inchicore, I think they call
it,' said Dangerfield, laying his riding-whip like a rule along the top
to help his imagination—'Hey—that would spoil the pew.'
'The claim's settled, and Mr. Langley goes to the other side of the
aisle,' said Nutter, nodding to Irons, who came up, and laid his long
clay-coloured fingers on the top of the pew door, and one long, thin
foot on the first step, and with half-closed eyes, and a half bow, he
awaited their pleasure.
'The Langley family had this pew,' said Dangerfield, with a side nod
to that next his lordship's.
'Yes, Sir,' said Irons, with the same immutable semblance of a smile, and raising neither his head nor his eyes.
'And who's got it now?'
'His reverence, Dr. Walsingham.'
And so it came out, that having purchased Salmonfalls, the rector had
compromised the territorial war that was on the point of breaking out
among his parishioners, by exchanging with that old coxcomb Langley, the
great square pew over the way, that belonged to that house, for the
queer little crib in which the tenant of Inchicore had hitherto sat in
state; and so there was peace, if not good will, in the church.
'Hey—let's see it,' said Dangerfield, crossing the aisle, with Irons at
his heels, for he was a man that saw everything for himself, that ever
so remotely concerned him or his business.
'We buried Lord ——' (and the title he spoke very low) 'in the vault
here, just under where you stand, on Monday last, by night,' said Irons, very gently and grimly, as he stood behind Dangerfield.
A faint galvanic thrill shot up through the flagging and his firmly
planted foot to his brain, as though something said, 'Ay, here I am!'
'Oh! indeed?' said Dangerfield, dryly, making a little nod, and raising
his eyebrows, and just moving a little a one side—'Twas a nasty
affair.'
He looked up, with his hands in his breeches' pockets, and read a mural
tablet, whistling scarce audibly the while. It was not reverent, but he
was a gentleman; and the clerk standing behind him, retained his quiet
posture, and that smile, that yet was not a smile, but a sort of
reflected light—was it patience, or was it secret ridicule?—you could
not tell: and it never changed, and somehow it was provoking.
'And some persons, I believe, had an unpleasant duty to do there,' said
Dangerfield, abruptly, in the middle of his tune, and turning his
spectacles fully and sternly on Mr. Irons.
The clerk's head bent lower, and he shook it; and his eyes, but for a
little glitter through the eyelashes, seemed to close.