Cluffe was giving shape mentally to his designs upon Miss Rebecca's L20,000 and savings. He knew she had had high offers in her young days and refused; but those were past and gone--and gray hairs bring wisdom--and women grow more practicable as the time for action dwindles--and she was just the woman to take a fancy--and 'once the maggot bit,' to go any honest length to make it fact. And Cluffe knew that he had the field to himself, and that he was a well-made, handsome, agreeable officer--not so young as to make the thing absurd, yet young enough to inspire the right sort of feeling. To be sure, there were a few things to be weighed. She was, perhaps--well, she _was_ eccentric. She had troublesome pets and pastimes--he knew them all--was well stricken in years, and had a will of her own--that was all. But, then, on the other side was the money--a great and agreeable arithmetical fact not to be shaken--and she could be well-bred when she liked, and a self-possessed, dignified lady, who could sail about a room, and courtesy, and manage her fan, and lead the conversation, and do the honours, as Mrs. Cluffe, with a certain air of _haut ton_, and in an imposing way, to Cluffe's entire content, who liked the idea of overawing his peers. And the two warriors, side by side, marched over the bridge, in the starlight, and both by common consent, halted silently, and wheeled up to the battlement; and Puddock puffed a complacent little sigh up the river toward Belmont; and Cluffe was a good deal interested in the subject of his contemplation, and in fact, the more he thought of it, the better he liked it. And they stood, each in his reverie, looking over the battlement toward Belmont, and hearing the hushed roll of the river, and seeing nothing but the deep blue, and the stars, and the black outline of the trees that overhung the bridge, until the enamoured Cluffe, who liked his comforts, and knew what gout was, felt the chill air, and remembered suddenly that they had stopped, and ought to be in motion toward their beds, and so he shook up Puddock, and they started anew, and parted just at the Phoenix, shaking hands heartily, like two men who had just done a good stroke of business together. 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.