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+Project Gutenberg's Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I., by Charles James Lever
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.
+
+Author: Charles James Lever
+
+Illustrator: E. J. Wheeler
+
+Release Date: February 16, 2011 [EBook #35296]
+Last Updated: February 28, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE, VOLUME I. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE
+
+Volume I.
+
+By Charles James Lever,
+
+With Illustrations By E. J. Wheeler
+
+Boston:
+
+Little, Brown, And Company.
+
+1917.
+
+
+To PHILIP ROSE, Esq.
+
+My dear Rose,--You have often stopped me when endeavouring to express
+all the gratitude I felt towards you. You cannot do so now, nor prevent
+my telling aloud how much I owe-how much I esteem you. These volumes
+were not without interest for me as I wrote them, but they yielded me
+no such pleasure as I now feel in dedicating them to you; and, with this
+assurance, believe me,
+
+Your affectionate Friend,
+
+CHARLES LEVER.
+
+Spezia, October 20. 1866.
+
+
+
+
+SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. AFTER MESS
+
+The mess was over, and the officers of H. M.'s --th were grouped in
+little knots and parties, sipping their coffee, and discussing the
+arrangements for the evening. Their quarter was that pleasant city
+of Dublin, which, bating certain exorbitant demands in the matter of
+field-day and guard-mounting, stands pre-eminently first in military
+favor.
+
+“Are you going to that great ball in Merrion Square?” asked one., “Not
+so lucky; not invited.”
+
+“I got a card,” cried a third; “but I 've just heard it's not to come
+off. It seems that the lady's husband is a judge. He's Chief something
+or other; and he has been called away.”
+
+“Nothing of the kind, Tomkins; unless you call a summons to the next
+world being called away. The man is dangerously ill. He was seized with
+paralysis on the Bench yesterday, and, they say, can't recover.”
+
+There now ensued an animated conversation as to whether, on death
+vacancies, the men went up by seniority at the bar, or whether a
+subaltern could at once spring up to the top of the regiment.
+
+“Suppose,” said one, “we were to ask the Colonel's guest his opinion.
+The old cove has talked pretty nigh of everything in this world during
+dinner; what if we were to ask him about Barons of the Exchequer?”
+
+“Who is he? what is he?” asked another.
+
+“The Colonel called him Sir Brook Fossbrooke; that's all I know.”
+
+“Colonel Cave told me,” whispered the Major, “that he was the fastest
+man on town some forty years ago.”
+
+“I think he must have kept over the wardrobe of that brilliant period,”
+ said another. “I never saw a really swallow-tailed coat before.”
+
+“His ring amused _me_. It is a small smoothing-iron, with a coat-of-arms
+on it. Hush! here he comes.”
+
+The man who now joined the group was a tall, gaunt figure, with a high
+narrow head, from which the hair was brushed rigidly back to fall behind
+in something like an old-fashioned queue. His eyes were black, and
+surmounted with massive and much-arched eyebrows; a strongly marked
+mouth, stern, determined, and, except in speaking, almost cruel in
+expression, and a thin-pointed projecting chin, gave an air of severity
+and strong will to features which, when he conversed, displayed a look
+of courteous deference, and that peculiar desire to please that we
+associate with a bygone school of breeding. He was one of those men,
+and very distinctive are they, with whom even the least cautious take
+no liberties, nor venture upon any familiarity. The eccentricities of
+determined men are very often indications of some deep spirit beneath,
+and not, as in weaker natures, mere emanations of vanity or offsprings
+of self-indulgence.
+
+If he was, beyond question, a gentleman, there were also signs about him
+of narrow fortune: his scrupulously white shirt was not fine, and the
+seams of his well-brushed coat showed both care and wear.
+
+He had joined the group, who were talking of the coming Derby when the
+Colonel came up. “I have sent for the man we want, Fossbrooke. I'm not
+a fisherman myself; but they tell me he knows every lake, river, and
+rivulet in the island. He has sat down to whist, but we 'll have him
+here presently.”
+
+“On no account; don't disturb his game for me.”
+
+“Here he comes. Trafford, I want to present you to a very old friend of
+mine, Sir Brook Fossbrooke,--as enthusiastic an angler as yourself. He
+has the ambition to hook an Irish salmon. I don't suppose any one can
+more readily help him on the road to it.”
+
+The young man thus addressed was a large, strongly, almost heavily built
+young fellow, but with that looseness of limb and freedom that showed
+activity had not been sacrificed to mere power. He had a fine, frank,
+handsome face, blue-eyed and bold-looking; and as he stood to receive
+the Colonel's orders, there was in his air that blending of deference
+and good-humored carelessness that made up his whole nature.
+
+It was plain to see in him one easy to persuade, impossible to coerce;
+a fellow with whom the man he liked could do anything, bat one perfectly
+unmanageable if thrown into the wrong hands. He was the second son of
+a very rich baronet, but made the mistake of believing he had as much
+right to extravagance as his elder brother, and, having persisted in
+this error during two years in the Life Guards, had been sent to do
+the double penance of an infantry regiment and an Irish station; two
+inflictions which, it was believed, would have sufficed to calm down the
+ardor of the most impassioned spendthrift. He looked at Fossbrooke from
+head to foot. It was not exactly the stamp of man he would have selected
+for companionship, but he saw at once that he was distinctively a
+gentleman, and then the prospect of a few days away from regimental
+duty was not to be despised, and he quickly replied that both he and his
+tackle were at Sir Brook's disposal. “If we could run down to Killaloe,
+sir,” added he, turning to the Colonel, “we might be almost sure of some
+sport.”
+
+“Which means that you want two days' leave, Trafford.”
+
+“No, sir, four. It will take a day at least to get over there; another
+will be lost in exploring; all these late rains have sent such a fresh
+into the Shannon there's no knowing where to try.”
+
+“You see, Fossbrooke, what a casuistical companion I've given you. I 'll
+wager you a five-pound note that if you come back without a rise he 'll
+have an explanation that will perfectly explain it was the best thing
+could have happened.”
+
+“I am charmed to travel in such company,” said Sir Brook, bowing. “The
+gentleman has already established a claim to my respect for him.”
+
+Trafford bowed too, and looked not at all displeased at the compliment.
+“Are you an early riser, sir?” asked he.
+
+“I am anything, sir, the occasion exacts; but when I have an early start
+before me, I usually sit up all night.”
+
+“My own plan too,” cried Trafford. “And there's Aubrey quite ready to
+join us. Are you a whister, Sir Brook?”
+
+“At your service. I play all games.”
+
+“Is he a whister?” repeated the Colonel. “Ask Harry Greville, ask Tom
+Newenham, what they say of him at Grahams? Trafford, my boy, you may
+possibly give him a hint about gray hackles, but I 'll be shot if you do
+about the odd trick.”
+
+“If you 'll come over to my room, Sir Brook, we 'll have a rubber, and
+I 'll give orders to have my tax-cart ready for us by daybreak,” said
+Trafford; and, Fossbrooke promising to be with him so soon as he had
+given his servant his orders, they parted.
+
+“And are you as equal to this sitting up all night as you used to be,
+Fossbrooke?” asked the Colonel.
+
+“I don't smoke as many cigars as formerly, and I am a little more choice
+about my tobacco. I avoid mulled port, and take weak brandy-and-water;
+and I believe in all other respects I 'm pretty much where I was when we
+met last,--I think it was at Ceylon?”
+
+“I wish I could say as much for myself. You are talking of thirty-four
+years ago.”
+
+“My secret against growing old is to do a little of everything. It keeps
+the sympathies wider, makes a man more accessible to other men, and
+keeps him from dwelling too much on himself. But tell me about my young
+companion; is he one of Sir Hugh's family?”
+
+“His second son; not unlike to be his eldest, for George has gone to
+Madeira with very little prospect of recovery. This is a fine lad; a
+little wild, a little careless of money, but the very soul of honor and
+right-mindedness. They sent him to me as a sort of incurable, but I have
+nothing but good to say of him.”
+
+“There 'a great promise in a fellow when he can be a scamp and a man of
+honor. When dissipations do not degrade and excesses do not corrupt a
+man, there is a grand nature ever beneath.”
+
+“Don't tell him that, Fossbrooke,” said the Colonel, laughing.
+
+“I am not likely to do so,” said he, with a grim smile. “I am glad, too,
+to meet his father's son; we were at Christ Church together; and now I
+see he has the family good looks. 'Le beau Trafford' was a proverb in
+Paris once.”
+
+“Do you ever forget a man?” asked the Colonel, in some curiosity.
+
+“I believe not. I forget books, places, dates occasionally, but never
+people. I met an old schoolfellow t'other day at Dover whom I never saw
+since we were boys. He had gone down in the world, and was acting as
+one of the 'commissionnaires' they call them, who take your keys to the
+Custom-house to have your luggage examined; and when he came to ask me
+to employ him, I said, “'What! ain't you Jemmy Harper?' 'And who the
+devil are you?' said he. 'Fossbrooke,' said I. 'Not “Wart”?' said he.
+That was my school nickname, from a wart I once had on my chin. 'Ay, to
+be sure,' said I, 'Wart.' I wish you saw the delight of the old dog. I
+made him dine with us. Lord Brackington was with me, and enjoyed it all
+immensely.”
+
+“And what had brought him so low?”
+
+“He was cursed, he said, with a strong constitution; all the other
+fellows of his set had so timed it that when they had nothing to live on
+they ceased to live; but Jemmy told us he never had such an appetite as
+now; that he passed from fourteen to sixteen hours a day on the pier
+in all weathers; and as to gout he firmly believed it all came of the
+adulterated wines of the great wine-merchants. British gin he maintained
+to be the wholesomest liquor in existence.”
+
+“I wonder how fellows bear up under such reverses as that,” said the
+Colonel.
+
+“My astonishment is rather,” cried Fossbrooke, “how men can live on in
+a monotony of well-being, getting fatter, older, and more unwieldy, and
+with only such experiences of life as a well-fed fowl might have in a
+hencoop.”
+
+“I know that's _your_ theory,” said the other, laughing.
+
+“Well, no man can say that I have not lived up to my convictions; and
+for myself, I can aver I have thoroughly enjoyed my intercourse with the
+world, and like it as well to-day as on the first morning I made my bow
+to it.”
+
+“Listen to this, young gentlemen,” said the Colonel, turning to his
+officers, who now gathered around them. “Now and then I hear some of
+you complaining of being bored or wearied,--sick of this, tired of that;
+here's my friend, who knows the whole thing better than any of us, and
+he declares that the world is the best of all possible worlds, and
+that so far from familiarity with it inspiring disgust with life, his
+enjoyment of it is as racy as when first he knew it.”
+
+“It is rather hard to ask these gentlemen to take me as a guide on
+trust,” said Fossbrooke; “but I have known the fathers of most of those
+I see around me, and could call many of them as witnesses to character.
+Major Aylmer, your father and I went up the Nile together, when people
+talked of it as a journey. Captain Harris, I 'm sure I am not wrong in
+saying you are the son of Godfrey Harris, of Harrisburg. Your father
+was my friend on the day I wounded Lord Ecclesmore. I see four or five
+others too,--so like old companions that I find it hard to believe I am
+not back again in the old days when I was as young as themselves; and
+yet I 'm not very certain if I would like to exchange my present quiet
+enjoyment as a looker-on for all that active share I once took in life
+and its pleasures.”
+
+Something in the fact that their fathers had lived in his intimacy,
+something in his manner,--a very courteous manner it was,--and something
+in the bold, almost defiant bearing of the old man, vouching for great
+energy and dignity together, won greatly upon the young men, and they
+gathered around him. He was, however, summoned away by a message from
+Trafford to say that the whist-party waited for him, and he took his
+leave with a stately courtesy and withdrew.
+
+“There goes one of the strangest fellows in Christendom,” said the
+Colonel, as the other left the room. “He has already gone through three
+fortunes; he dissipated the first, speculated and lost the second,
+and the third he, I might say, gave away in acts of benevolence and
+kindness,--leaving himself so ill off that I actually heard the other
+day that some friend had asked for the place of barrack-master at
+Athlone for him; but on coming over to see the place, he found a poor
+fellow with a wife and five children a candidate for it; so he retired
+in his favor, and is content, as you see, to go out on the world, and
+take his chance with it.”
+
+Innumerable questions pressed on the Colonel to tell more of his strange
+friend; he had, however, little beyond hearsay to give them. Of his
+own experiences, he could only say that when first he met him it was
+at Ceylon, where he had come in a yacht like a sloop of war to hunt
+elephants,--the splendor of his retinue and magnificence of his suite
+giving him the air of a royal personage,--and indeed the gorgeous
+profusion of his presents to the King and the chief personages of the
+court went far to impress this notion. “I never met him since,” said
+the Colonel, “till this morning, when he walked into my room, dusty and
+travel-stained, to say, 'I just heard your name, and thought I 'd ask
+you to give me my dinner to-day.' I owe him a great many,--not to say
+innumerable other attentions; and his last act on leaving Trincomalee
+was to present me with an Arab charger, the most perfect animal I ever
+mounted. It is therefore a real pleasure to me to receive him. He is a
+thoroughly fine-hearted fellow, and, with all his eccentricities, one of
+the noblest natures I ever met. The only flaw in his frankness is as
+to his age; nobody has ever been able to get it from him. You heard him
+talk of your fathers,--he might talk of your grandfathers; and he would,
+too, if we had only the opportunity to lead him on to it. I know of my
+own knowledge that he lived in the Carlton House coterie, not a man of
+which except himself survives, and I have heard him give imitations of
+Burke, Sheridan, Gavin Hamilton, and Pitt, that none but one who had
+seen them could have accomplished. And now that I have told you all
+this, will one of you step over to Trafford's rooms, and whisper him
+a hint to make his whist-points as low as he can; and, what is even
+of more importance, to take care lest any strange story Sir Brook may
+tell--and he is full of them--meet a sign of incredulity, still less
+provoke any quizzing? The slightest shade of such a provocation would
+render him like a madman.”
+
+The Major volunteered to go on this mission, which indeed any of the
+others would as willingly have accepted, for the old man had interested
+them deeply, and they longed to hear more about him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. THE SWAN'S NEST
+
+As the Shannon draws near Killaloe, the wild character of the mountain
+scenery, the dreary wastes and desolate islands which marked Lough
+Derg, disappear, and give way to gently sloping lawns, dotted over with
+well-grown timber, well-kept demesnes, spacious country-houses, and
+a country which, in general, almost recalls the wealth and comfort of
+England.
+
+About a mile above the town, in a little bend of the river forming a
+small bay, stands a small but pretty house, with a skirt of rich wood
+projecting at the back, while the lawn in front descends by an easy
+slope to the river.
+
+Originally a mere farmhouse, the taste of an ingenious owner had
+taken every advantage of its irregular outline, and converted it into
+something Elizabethan in character, a style admirably adapted to the
+site, where all the features of rich-colored landscape abounded, and
+where varied foliage, heathy mountain, and eddying river, all lent
+themselves to make up a scene of fresh and joyous beauty.
+
+In the marvellous fertility of the soil, too, was found an ally to every
+prospect of embellishment. Sheltered from north and east winds, plants
+grew here in the open air, which in less favored spots needed the
+protection of the conservatory; and thus in the neatly shaven lawn were
+seen groups of blossoming shrubs or flowers of rare excellence, and the
+camellia and the salvia and the oleander blended with the tulip, the
+moss-rose, and the carnation, to stud the grass with their gorgeous
+colors.
+
+Over the front of the cottage, for cottage it really was, a South
+American creeper, a sort of acanthus, grew, its crimson flowers hanging
+in rich profusion over cornice and architrave; while a passion-tree of
+great age covered the entire porch, relieving with its softened tints
+the almost over-brilliancy of the southern plant.
+
+Seen from the water,--and it came suddenly into view on rounding a
+little headland,--few could forbear from an exclamation of wonder and
+admiration at this lovely spot; nor could all the pretentious grandeur
+of the rich-wooded parks, nor all the more imposing architecture of the
+great houses, detract from the marvellous charm of this simple home.
+
+A tradition of a swan carried away by some rising of the river from the
+Castle of Portumna, and swept down the lake till it found refuge in the
+little bay, had given the name to the place, and for more than a hundred
+years was it known as the Swan's Nest. The Swan, however, no longer
+existed, though a little thatched edifice at the water-side marked the
+spot it had once inhabited, and sustained the truth of the legend.
+
+The owner of the place was a Dr. Lendrick: he had come to it about
+twenty years before the time at which our story opens,--a widower with
+two children, a son and a daughter. He was a perfect stranger to all the
+neighborhood, though by name well known as the son of a distinguished
+judge, Baron Lendrick of the Court of Exchequer.
+
+It was rumored about, that, having displeased his father, first by
+adopting medicine instead of law as his profession, and subsequently by
+marrying a portionless girl of humble family, the Baron had ceased to
+recognize him in any way. Making a settlement of a few hundreds a year
+on him, he resolved to leave the bulk of his fortune to a step-son, the
+child of his second wife, a Colonel Sewell, then in India.
+
+It was with no thought of practising his profession that Dr. Lendrick
+had settled in the neighborhood; but as he was always ready to assist
+the poor by his advice and skill, and as the reputation of his great
+ability gradually got currency, he found himself constrained to yield
+to the insistence of his neighbors, and consent to practise generally.
+There were many things which made this course unpalatable to him. He was
+by nature shy, timid, and retiring; he was fastidiously averse to a new
+acquaintanceship; he had desired, besides, to live estranged from the
+world, devoting himself entirely to the education of his children; and
+he neither liked the forced publicity he became exposed to, nor that
+life of servitude which leaves the doctor at the hourly mercy of the
+world around him.
+
+If he yielded, therefore, to the professional calls upon him, he
+resisted totally all social claims: he went nowhere but as the doctor.
+
+No persuasion, no inducement, could prevail on him to dine out; no
+exigency of time or season prevent him returning to his home at night.
+There were in his neighborhood one or two persons whose rank might have,
+it was supposed, influenced him in some degree to comply with their
+requests,--and, certainly, whose desire for his society would have
+left nothing undone to secure it; but he was as obdurate to them as
+to others, and the Earl of Drum-carran and Sir Reginald Lacy, of Lacy
+Manor, were not a whit more successful in their blandishments than the
+Vicar of Killaloe--old Bob Mills, as he was irreverently called--or
+Lendrick's own colleague, Dr. Tobin, who, while he respected his
+superior ability and admitted his knowledge, secretly hated him as only
+a rival doctor knows how to hate a brother practitioner.
+
+For the first time for many years had Dr. Lendrick gone up to Dublin.
+A few lines from an old family physician, Dr. Beattie, had, however,
+called him up to town. The Chief Baron had been taken ill in Court, and
+was conveyed home in a state of insensibility. It was declared that he
+had rallied and passed a favorable night; but as he was a man of very
+advanced age, at no time strong, and ever unsparing of himself in the
+arduous labors of his office, grave doubts were felt that he would
+ever again resume his seat on the Bench. Dr. Beattie well knew the long
+estrangement that had separated the father from the son; and although,
+perhaps, the most intimate friend the Judge had in the world, he never
+had dared to interpose a word or drop a hint as to the advisability of
+reconciliation.
+
+Sir William Lendrick was, indeed, a man whom no amount of intimacy could
+render his friends familiar with. He was positively charming to mere
+acquaintanceship,--his manner was a happy blending of deference with
+a most polished wit Full of bygone experiences and reminiscences of
+interesting people and events, he never overlaid conversation by their
+mention, but made them merely serve to illustrate the present, either
+by contrast or resemblance. All this to the world and society was he; to
+the inmates of his house he was a perfect terror! It was said his first
+wife had died of a broken heart; his second, with a spirit fierce and
+combative as his own, had quarrelled with him so often, so seriously,
+and so hopelessly, that for the last fifteen years of life they had
+occupied separate houses, and only met as acquaintances, accepting
+and sending invitations to each other, and outwardly observing all the
+usages of a refined courtesy.
+
+This was the man of whom Dr. Beattie wrote: “I cannot presume to say
+that he is _more_ favorably disposed towards you than he has shown
+himself for years, but I would strenuously advise your being here, and
+sufficiently near, so that if a happier disposition should occur, or an
+opportunity arise to bring you once more together, the fortunate moment
+should not be lost. Come up, then, at once, come to my house, where
+your room is ready for you, and where you will neither be molested by
+visitors nor interfered with. Manage too, if you can, to remain here for
+some days.”
+
+It is no small tribute to the character of filial affection when one can
+say, and say truthfully, that scarcely any severity on a parent's part
+effaces the love that was imbibed in infancy, and that struck root in
+the heart before it could know what unkindness was! Over and over again
+in life have I witnessed this deep devotion. Over and over again have I
+seen a clinging affection to a memory which nothing short of a hallowed
+tie could have made so dear,--a memory that retained whatever could
+comfort and sustain, and held nothing that recalled shame or sorrow.
+
+Dr. Lendrick went up to town full of such emotions. All the wrong--it
+was heavy wrong too--he had suffered was forgotten, all the Injustice
+wiped out. He only asked to be permitted to see his father,--to nurse
+and watch by him. There was no thought for himself. By reconciliation
+he never meant restoration to his place as heir. Forgiveness and love he
+asked for,--to be taken back to the heart so long closed against him, to
+hear himself called Tom by that voice he knew so well, and whose accents
+sounded through his dreams.
+
+That he was not without a hope of such happiness, might be gathered from
+one circumstance. He had taken up with him two miniatures of his boy and
+girl to show “Grandfather,” if good fortune should ever offer a fitting
+moment.
+
+The first words which greeted him on reaching his friend's house were:
+“Better. A tolerably tranquil night. He can move his hand. The attack
+was paralysis, and his speech is also improved.”
+
+“And his mind? how is his mind?”
+
+“Clear as ever it was,--intensely eager to hear what is said about his
+illness, and insatiable as to the newspaper versions of the attack.”
+
+“Does he speak? Has he spoken of--his family at all?” said he,
+falteringly.
+
+“Only of Lady Lendrick. He desired to see her. He dictated a note to
+me, in terms of very finished courtesy, asking her if, without incurring
+inconvenience, she would favor him with an early call. The whole thing
+was so like himself that I saw at once he was getting better.”
+
+“And so you think him better?” asked Lendrick, eagerly.
+
+“Better! Yes--but not out of danger. I fear as much from his
+irritability as his malady. He will insist on seeing the newspapers, and
+occasionally his eye falls on some paragraph that wounds him. It was but
+yesterday that he read a sort of querulous regret from some writer that
+'the learned Judge had not retired some years ago, and before failing
+health, acting on a very irascible temperament, had rendered him a
+terror alike to the bar and the suitors.' That unfortunate paragraph
+cost twenty leeches and ice to his temples for eight hours after.”
+
+“Cannot these things be kept from him? Surely your authority ought to be
+equal to this!”
+
+“Were I to attempt it, he would refuse to see me. In fact, any utility
+I can contribute depends on my apparent submission to him in everything.
+Almost his first question to me every morning is, 'Well, sir, who is to
+be my successor?' Of course I say that we all look with a sanguine hope
+to see him soon back in his court again. When I said this yesterday, he
+replied, 'I will sit on Wednesday, sir, to hear appeals; there will be
+little occasion for me to speak, and I trust another day or two will see
+the last of this difficulty of utterance. Pemberton, I know, is looking
+to the Attorney-Generalship, and George Hayes thinks he may order his
+ermine. Tell them, however, from me, that the Chief Baron intends to
+preside in his court for many a year to come; that the intellect, such
+as it is, with which Providence endowed him, is still unchanged and
+unclouded.' This is his language,--this his tone; and you may know
+how such a spirit jars with all our endeavors to promote rest and
+tranquillity.”
+
+Lendrick walked moodily up and down the room, his head sunk, and his
+eyes downcast. “Never to speak of me,--never ask to see me,” muttered
+he, in a voice of intense sadness.
+
+“I half suspected at one time he was about to do so, and indeed he said,
+'If this attack should baffle you, Beattie, you must not omit to give
+timely warning. There are two or three things to be thought of.' When I
+came away on that morning, I sat down and wrote to you to come up here.”
+
+A servant entered at this moment and presented a note to the doctor, who
+read it hastily and handed it to Lendrick. It ran thus:--
+
+“Dear Dr. Beattie,--The Chief Baron has had an unfavorable turn, partly
+brought on by excitement. Lose no time in coming here; and believe me,
+yours sincerely,
+
+“CONSTANTIA LENDRICK.”
+
+“They've had a quarrel; I knew they would. I did my best to prevent
+their meeting; but I saw he would not go out of the world without a
+scene. As he said last night, 'I mean her to hear my “charge.” She must
+listen to my charge, Beattie;' and I 'd not be astonished if this charge
+were to prove his own sentence.”
+
+“Go to him at once, Beattie; and if it be at all possible, if you can
+compass it in any way, let me see him once again. Take these with you;
+who knows but their bright faces may plead better than words for us?”
+ and thus saying, he gave him the miniatuies; and overcome with emotion
+he could not control, turned away and left the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. A DIFFICULT PATIENT
+
+As Dr. Beattie drove off with all speed to the Chief Baron's house,
+which lay about three miles from the city, he had time to ponder as he
+went over his late interview. “Tom Lendrick,” as he still called him
+to himself, he had known as a boy, and ever liked him. He had been a
+patient, studious, gentle-tempered lad, desirous to acquire knowledge,
+without any of that ambition that wants to make the knowledge
+marketable. To have gained a professorship would have appeared to have
+been the very summit of his ambition, and this rather as a quiet retreat
+to pursue his studies further than as a sphere wherein to display his
+own gifts. Anything more unlike that bustling, energetic, daring spirit,
+his father, would be hard to conceive. Throughout his whole career
+at the bar, and in Parliament, men were never quite sure what that
+brilliant speaker and most indiscreet talker would do next. Men secured
+his advocacy with a half misgiving whether they were doing the very best
+or the very worst for success. Give him difficulties to deal with, and
+he was a giant; let all go smoothly and well, and he would hunt up
+some crotchet,--some obsolete usage,--a doubtful point, that in its
+discussion very frequently led to the damage of his client's cause, and
+the defeat of his suit.
+
+Display was ever more to him than victory. Let him have a great arena
+to exhibit in, and he was proof against all the difficulties and all
+the casualties of the conflict. Never had such a father a son less the
+inheritor of his temperament and nature; and this same disappointment
+rankling on through life--a disappointment that embittered all
+intercourse, and went so far as to make him disparage the high abilities
+of his son--created a gulf between them that Beattie knew could never
+be bridged over. He doubted, too, whether as a doctor he could
+conscientiously introduce a theme so likely to irritate and excite. As
+he pondered, he opened the two miniatures, and looked at them. The young
+man was a fine, manly, daring-looking fellow, with a determined brow and
+a resolute mouth, that recalled his grandfather's face; he was evidently
+well grown and strong, and looked one that, thrown where he might be in
+life, would be likely to assert his own.
+
+The girl, wonderfully like him in feature, had a character of subdued
+humor in her eye, and a half-hid laughter in the mouth, which the artist
+had caught up with infinite skill, that took away all the severity of
+the face, and softened its traits to a most attractive beauty. Through
+her rich brown hair there was a sort of golden _reflet_ that imparted
+great brilliancy to the expression of the head, and her large eyes of
+gray-blue were the image of candor and softness, till her laugh gave
+them a sparkle of drollery whose sympathy there was no resisting. She,
+too, was tall and beautifully formed, with that slimness of early youth
+that only escapes being angular, but has in it the charm of suppleness
+that lends grace to every action and every gesture.
+
+“I wish he could see the originals,” muttered Beattie. “If the old man,
+with his love of beauty, but saw that girl, it would be worth all the
+arguments in Christendom. Is it too late for this? Have we time for the
+experiment?”
+
+Thus thinking, he drove along the well-wooded approach, and gained the
+large ground-space before the door, whence a carriage was about to drive
+away. “Oh, doctor,” cried a voice, “I'm so glad you 're come; they are
+most impatient for you.” It was the Solicitor-General, Mr. Pemberton,
+who now came up to the window of Beattie's carriage.
+
+“He has become quite unmanageable, will not admit a word of counsel or
+advice, resists all interference, and insists on going out for a drive.”
+
+“I see him at the window,” said Beattie; “he is beckoning to me;
+good-bye,” and he passed on and entered the house.
+
+In the chief drawing-room, in a deep recess of a window, sat the Chief
+Baron, dressed as if to go out, with an overcoat and even his gloves
+on. “Come and drive with me, Beattie,” cried he, in a feeble but harsh
+voice. “If I take my man Leonard, they 'll say it was a keeper. You know
+that the 'Post' has it this morning that it is my mind which has given
+way. They say they 've seen me breaking for years back. Good heavens!
+can it be possible, think you, that the mites in a cheese speculate over
+the nature of the man that eats them? You stopped to talk with Pemberton
+I saw; what did he say to you?”
+
+“Nothing particular,--a mere greeting, I think.”
+
+“No, sir, it was not; he was asking you how many hours there lay between
+him and the Attorney-Generalship. They 've divided the carcase already.
+The lion has to assist at his autopsy,--rather hard, is n't it? How it
+embitters death, to think of the fellows who are to replace us!”
+
+“Let me feel your pulse.”
+
+“Don't trust it, Beattie; that little dialogue of yours on the grass
+plot has sent it up thirty beats; how many is it?”
+
+“Rapid,--very rapid; you need rest,--tranquillity.”
+
+“And you can't give me either, sir; neither you nor your craft. You are
+the Augurs of modern civilization, and we cling to your predictions just
+as our forefathers did, though we never believe you.”
+
+“This is not flattery,” said Beattie, with a slight smile.
+
+The old man closed his eyes, and passed his hand slowly over his
+forehead. “I suppose I was dreaming, Beattie, just before you came up;
+but I thought I saw them all in the Hall, talking and laughing over
+my death. Burrowes was telling how old I must be, because I moved the
+amendment to Flood in the Irish Parliament in '97; and Eames mentioned
+that I was Curran's junior in the great Bagenal record; and old Tysdal
+set them all in a roar by saying he had a vision of me standing at
+the gate of heaven, and instead of going in, as St. Peter invited me,
+stoutly refusing, and declaring I would move for a new trial! How like
+the rascals!”
+
+“Don't you think you'd be better in your own room? There's too much
+light and glare here.”
+
+“Do you think so?”
+
+“I am sure of it. You need quiet, and the absence of all that stimulates
+the action of the brain.”
+
+“And what do _you_, sir,--what does any one,--know about the brain's
+operations? You doctors have invented a sort of conventional cerebral
+organ, which, like lunar caustic, is decomposed by light; and in your
+vulgar materialism you would make out that what affects _your_ brain
+must act alike upon _mine_. I tell you, sir, it is darkness--obscurity,
+physical or moral, it matters not which--that irritates _me_, just as I
+feel provoked this moment by this muddling talk of yours about brain.”
+
+“And yet I 'm talking about what my daily life and habits suggest _some_
+knowledge of,” said Beattie, mildly.
+
+“So you are, sir, and the presumption is all on my side. If you'll
+kindly lend me your arm, I'll go back to my room.”
+
+Step by step, slowly and painfully, he returned to his chamber, not
+uttering a word as he went.
+
+“Yes, this is better, doctor; this half light soothes; it is much
+pleasanter. One more kindness. I wrote to Lady Lendrick this morning to
+come up here. I suppose my combative spirit was high in me, and I wanted
+a round with the gloves,--or, indeed, without them; at all events, I
+sent the challenge. But _now_, doctor, I have to own myself a craven. I
+dread the visit Could you manage to interpose? Could you suggest that
+it is by your order I am not permitted to receive her? Could you
+hint”--here he smiled half maliciously--“that you do not think the time
+has come for anodynes,--eh, doctor?”
+
+“Leave it to me. I 'll speak to Lady Lendrick.”
+
+“There 's another thing: not that it much matters; but it might perhaps
+be as well to send a few lines to the morning papers, to say the
+accounts of the Chief Baron are more favorable to-day; he passed a
+tranquil night, and so on. Pemberton won't like it, nor Hayes; but
+it will calm the fears of a very attached friend who calls here twice
+daily. You'd never guess him. He is the agent of the Globe Office, where
+I 'm insured. Ah, doctor, it was a bright thought of Philanthropy
+to establish an industrial enterprise that is bound, under heavy
+recognizances, to be grieved at our death.”
+
+“I must not make you talk, Sir William. I must not encourage you
+to exert yourself. I 'll say good-bye, and look in upon you this
+afternoon.”
+
+“Am I to have a book? Well; be it so. I I 'll sit and muse over the
+Attorney-General and his hopes.”
+
+“I have got two very interesting miniatures here. I 'll leave them with
+you; you might like to look at them.”
+
+“Miniatures! whose portraits are they?” asked the other, hastily, as he
+almost snatched them from his hand. “What a miserable juggler! what a
+stale trick this!” said he, as he opened the case which contained the
+young man's picture. “So, sir, you lend yourself to such attempts as
+these.”
+
+“I don't understand you,” said Beattie, indignantly.
+
+“Yes, sir, you understand me perfectly. You would do, by a piece of
+legerdemain, what you have not the courage to attempt openly. These are
+Tom Lendrick's children.”
+
+“They are.”
+
+“And this simpering young lady is her mother's image; pretty, pretty, no
+doubt; and a little--a shade, perhaps--of _espièglerie_ above what her
+mother possessed. She was the silliest woman that ever turned a fool's
+head. She had the ineffable folly, sir, to believe she could persuade
+me to forgive my son for having married her; and when I handed her to a
+seat,--for she was at my knees,--she fainted.”
+
+“Well. It is time to forgive him now. As for her, she is beyond
+forgiveness, or favor, either,” said Beattie, with more energy than
+before.
+
+“There is no such trial to a man in a high calling as the temptation
+it offers him to step beyond it. Take care, sir, that with all your
+acknowledged ability, this temptation be not too much for you.” The tone
+and manner in which the old judge delivered these words recalled the
+justice-seat. “It is an honor to me to have you as my doctor, sir.
+It would be to disparage my own intelligence to accept you as my
+confessor.”
+
+“A doctor but discharges half his trust when he fails to warn his
+patient against the effects of irritability.”
+
+“The man who would presume to minister to my temper or to my nature
+should be no longer medico of mine. With what intention, sir, did you
+bring me these miniatures?”
+
+“That you might see two bright and beautiful faces whose owners are
+bound to you by the strongest ties of blood.”
+
+“Do you know, sir,--have you ever heard,--how their father, by his
+wilfulness, by his folly, by his heartless denial of my right to
+influence him, ruined the fortune that cost my life of struggle and
+labor to create?”
+
+The doctor shook his head, and the other continued: “Then I will tell
+it to you, sir. It is more than seventeen years to-day when the then
+Viceroy sent for me, and said, 'Baron Lendrick, there is no man, after
+Plunkett, to whom we owe more than to yourself.' I bowed, and said,
+'I do not accept the qualification, my Lord, even in favor of the
+distinguished Chancellor. I will not believe myself second to any.' I
+need not relate what ensued; the discussion was a long one,--it was also
+a warm one; but he came back at last to the object of the interview,
+which was to say that the Prime Minister was willing to recommend my
+name to her Majesty for the Peerage,--an honor, he was pleased to say,
+the public would see conferred upon me with approval; and I refused!
+Yes, sir, I refused what for thirty-odd years had formed the pride and
+the prize of my existence! I refused it, because I would not that her
+Majesty's favor should descend to one so unworthy of it as this
+fellow, or that his low-born children should inherit a high name of my
+procuring. I refused, sir, and I told the noble Marquess my reasons. He
+tried--pretty much as you have tried--to bring me to a more forgiving
+spirit; but I stopped him by saying, 'When I hear that your Excellency
+has invited to your table the scurrilous author of the lampoon against
+you in the “Satirist,” I will begin to listen to the claims that may be
+urged on the score of forgiveness; not till then.'”
+
+“I am wrong--very wrong--to let you talk on themes like this; we must
+keep them for calmer moments.” Beattie laid his finger on the pulse as
+he spoke, and counted the beats by his watch.
+
+“Well, sir, what says Death? Will he consent to a 'nolle prosequi,' or
+must the cause go on?”
+
+“You are not worse; and even that, after all this excitement, is
+something. Good-bye now till evening. No books,--no newspapers,
+remember. Doze; dream; do anything but excite yourself.”
+
+“You are cruel, sir; you cut off all my enjoyments together. You deny
+me the resources of reading, and you deny me the solace of my wife's
+society.” The cutting sarcasm of the last words was shown in the
+spiteful sparkle of his eye, and the insolent curl of his mouth; and
+as the doctor retired, the memory of that wicked look haunted him
+throughout the day.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. HOME DIPLOMACIES
+
+“Well, it 's done now, Lucy, and it can't be helped,” said young
+Lendrick to his sister, as, with an unlighted cigar between his
+lips, and his hands in the pockets of his shooting-jacket, he walked
+impatiently up and down the drawing-room. “I 'm sure if I only suspected
+you were so strongly against it, I 'd not have done it.”
+
+“My dear Tom, I'm only against it because I think papa would be so. You
+know we never see any one here when he is at home, and why should we
+now, because he is absent?”
+
+“Just for that reason. It's our only chance, girl.”
+
+“Oh, Tom!”
+
+“Well, I don't mean that exactly, but I said it to startle you. No,
+Lucy; but, you see, here's how the matter stands. I have been three
+whole days in their company. On Tuesday the young fellow gave me that
+book of flies and the top-joint of my rod. Yesterday I lunched with
+them. To-day they pressed me so hard to dine with them that I felt
+almost rude in persisting to refuse; and it was as much to avoid the
+awkwardness of the situation as anything else that I asked them up to
+tea this evening.”
+
+“I'm sure, Tom, if it would give you any pleasure--”
+
+“Of course it gives me pleasure,” broke he in; “I don't suspect that
+fellows of my age like to live like hermits. And whom do I ever see down
+here? Old Mills and old Tobin, and Larry Day, the dog-breaker. I ask his
+pardon for putting him last, for he is the best of the three. Girls can
+stand this sort of nun's life, but I 'll be hanged if it will do for
+us.”
+
+“And then, Tom,” resumed she, in the same tone, “remember they are both
+perfect strangers. I doubt if you even know their names.”
+
+“That I do,--the old fellow is Sir Brook something or other. It 's not
+Fogey, but it begins like it; and the other is called Trafford,--Lionel,
+I think, is his Christian name. A glorious fellow, too; was in the 9th
+Lancers and in the blues, and is now here with the fifty--th because he
+went it too hard in the cavalry. He had a horse for the Derby two years
+ago.” The tone of proud triumph in which he made this announcement
+seemed to say, Now, all discussion about him may cease. “Not but,” added
+he, after a pause, “you might like the old fellow best; he has such a
+world of stories, and he draws so beautifully. The whole time we were in
+the boat he was sketching something; and he has a book full of odds
+and ends; a tea-party in China, quail-shooting in Java, a wedding in
+Candia,--I can't tell what more; but he 's to bring them up here with
+him.”
+
+“I was thinking, Tom, that it might be as well if you 'd go down and ask
+Dr. Mills to come to tea. It would take off some of the awkwardness of
+our receiving two strangers.”
+
+“But they 're not strangers, Lucy; not a bit of it. I call him Trafford,
+and he calls me Lendrick; and the old cove is the most familiar old
+fellow I ever met.”
+
+“Have you said anything to Nicholas yet?” asked she, in some eagerness.
+
+“No; and that's exactly what I want you to do for me. That old bear
+bullies us all, so that I can't trust myself to speak to him.”
+
+“Well, don't go away, and I'll send for him now;” and she rang the bell
+as she spoke. A smart-looking lad answered the summons, to whom she
+said, “Tell Nicholas I want him.”
+
+“Take my advice, Lucy, and merely say there are two gentlemen coming to
+tea this evening; don't let the old villain think you are consulting him
+about it, or asking his advice.”
+
+“I must do it my own way,” said she; “only don't interrupt. Don't
+meddle,--mind that, Tom.” The door opened, and a very short, thick-set
+old man, dressed in a black coat and waistcoat, and drab breeches and
+white stockings, with large shoe-buckles in his shoes, entered. His face
+was large and red, the mouth immensely wide, and the eyes far set from
+each other, his low forehead being shadowed by a wig of coarse red
+hair, which moved when he spoke, and seemed almost to possess a sort of
+independent vitality.
+
+He had been reading when he was summoned, and his spectacles had been
+pushed up over his forehead, while he still held the county paper in his
+hand,--a sort of proud protest against being disturbed.
+
+“You heard that Miss Lucy sent for you?” said Tom Lendrick, haughtily,
+as his eye fell upon the newspaper.
+
+“I did,” was the curt answer, as the old fellow, with a nervous shake of
+the head, seemed to announce that he was ready for battle.
+
+“What I wanted, Nicholas, was this,” interposed the girl, in a voice of
+very winning sweetness; “Mr. Tom has invited two gentlemen this evening
+to tea.”
+
+“To tay!” cried Nicholas, as if the fact staggered all credulity.
+
+“Yes, to tea; and I was thinking if you would go down to the town and
+get some biscuits, or a sponge-cake, perhaps--whatever, indeed, you
+thought best; and also beg Dr. Mills to step in, saying that as papa was
+away--”
+
+“That you was going to give a ball?”
+
+“No. Not exactly that, Nicholas,” said she, smiling; “but that two
+friends of my brother's--”
+
+“And where did he meet his friends?” cried he, with a marked emphasis on
+the “friends.” “Two strangers. God knows who or what! Poachers as like
+as anything else. The ould one might be worse.”
+
+“Enough of this,” said Tom, sternly. “Are you the master here? Go off,
+sir, and do what Miss Lucy has ordered you.”
+
+“I will not,--the devil a step,” said the old man, who now thrust the
+paper into a capacious pocket, and struck each hand on a hip. “Is it
+when the 'Jidge' is dying, when the newpapers has a column of the names
+that 's calling to ask after him, you are to be carousing and feastin'
+here?”
+
+“Dear Nicholas, there's no question of feasting. It is simply a cup
+of tea we mean to give; sorely there's no carousing in that. And as to
+grandpapa, papa says that he was certainly better yesterday, and Dr.
+Beattie has hopes now.”
+
+“I have n't, then, and I know him better than Dr. Beattie.”
+
+“What a pity they have n't sent for you for the consultation!” said Tom,
+ironically.
+
+“And look here, Nicholas,” said Lucy, drawing the old man towards the
+door of a small room that led off the drawing-room, “we could have tea
+here; it will look less formal, and give less trouble; and Mears could
+wait,--he does it very well; and you need n't be put out at all.”
+ These last words fell to a whisper; but he was beyond reserve, beyond
+flattery. The last speech of her brother still rankled in his memory,
+and all that fell upon his ear since that fell unheeded.
+
+“I was with your grandfather, Master Tom,” said the old man, slowly,
+“twenty-one years before you were born! I carried his bag down to Court
+the day he defended Neal O' Gorman for high treason, and I was with him
+the morning he shot Luke Dillon at Castle Knock; and this I 'll say and
+stand to, there 's not a man in Ireland, high or low, knows the Chief
+Baron better than myself.”
+
+“It must be a great comfort to you both,” said Tom; but his sister had
+laid her hand on his mouth and made the words unintelligible.
+
+“You'll say to Mr. Mills, Nicholas,” said she, in her most coaxing way,
+“that I did not write, because I preferred sending my message by _you_,
+who could explain why I particularly wanted him this evening.”
+
+“I'll go, Miss Lucy, resarving the point, as they say in the
+law,--resarving the point! because I don't give in that what you're
+doin' is right; and when the master comes home, I'm not goin' to defend
+it.”
+
+“We must bear up under that calamity as well as we can,” said the young
+man, insolently; but Nicholas never looked towards or seemed to hear
+him.
+
+“A barn-a-brack is better than a spongecake, because if there 's some of
+it left it does n't get stale, and one-and-six-pence will be enough; and
+I suppose you don't need a lamp?”
+
+“Well, Nicholas, I must say, I think it would be better; and two candles
+on the small table, and two on the piano.”
+
+“Why don't you mentiou a fiddler?” said he, bitterly. “If it's a ball,
+there ought to be music?”
+
+Unable to control himself longer, young Lendrick wrenched open the
+sash-door, and walked out into the lawn.
+
+“The devil such a family for temper from this to Bantry!” said Nicholas;
+“and here's the company comin' already, or I 'm mistaken. There 's a
+boat makin' for the landing-place with two men in the stern.”
+
+Lucy implored him once more to lose no time on his errand, and hastened
+away to make some change in her dress to receive the strangers.
+Meanwhile Tom, having seen the boat, walked down to the shore to meet
+his friends.
+
+Both Sir Brook and Trafford were enthusiastic in their praises of the
+spot. Its natural beauty was indeed great, but taste and culture had
+rendered it a marvel of elegance and refinement. Not merely were the
+trees grouped with reference to foliage and tint, but the flower-beds
+were so arranged that the laws of color should be respected, and thus
+these plats of perfume were not less luxuriously rich in odor than they
+were captivating as pictures.
+
+“It is all the governor's own doing,” said Tom, proudly, “and he is
+continually changing the disposition of the plants. He says variety is
+a law of the natural world, and it is our duty to imitate it. Here comes
+my sister, gentlemen.”
+
+As though set in a beautiful frame, the lovely girl stood for an instant
+in the porch, where drooping honeysuckles and the tangled branches of
+a vine hung around her, and then came courteously to meet and welcome
+them.
+
+“I am in ecstasy with all I see here, Miss Lendrick,” said Sir Brook.
+“Old traveller that I am, I scarcely know where I have ever seen such a
+combination of beauty.”
+
+“Papa will be delighted to hear this,” said she, with a pleasant smile;
+“it is the flattery he loves best.”
+
+“I 'm always saying we could keep up a salmon-weir on the river for a
+tithe of what these carnations and primroses cost us,” said Tom.
+
+“Why, sir, if you had been in Eden you 'd have made it a market garden,”
+ said the old man.
+
+“If the governor was a Duke of Devonshire, all these-caprices might be
+pardonable; but my theory is, roast-beef before roses.”
+
+While young Lendrick attached himself to Trafford, and took him here and
+there to show him the grounds, Sir Brook walked beside Lucy, who did the
+honors of the place with a most charming courtesy.
+
+“I am almost ashamed, sir,” said she, as they turned towards the house,
+“to have asked you to see such humble objects as these to which we
+attach value, for my brother tells me you are a great traveller; but
+it is just possible you have met in your journeys others who, like us,
+lived so much out of the world that they fancied they had the prettiest
+spot in it for their own.”
+
+“You must not ask me what I think of all I have seen: here, Miss
+Lendrick, till my enthusiasm calms down;” and his look of admiration,
+so palpably addressed to herself, sent a flush to her cheek. “A man's
+belongings are his history,” said Sir Brook, quickly turning the
+conversation into an easier channel: “show me his study, his stable,
+his garden; let me see his hat, his cane, the volume he thrusts into
+his pocket, and I 'll make you an indifferent good guess about his daily
+doings.”
+
+“Tell me of papa's. Come here, Tom,” cried she, as the two young men
+came towards her, “and listen to a bit of divination.”
+
+“Nay, I never promised a lecture. I offered a confidence,” said he, in
+a half whisper; but she went on: “Sir Brook says that he reads people
+pretty much as Cuvier pronounced on a mastodon, by some small minute
+detail that pertained to them. Here's Tom's cigar-case,” said she,
+taking it from his pocket; “what do you infer from that, sir?”
+
+“That he smokes the most execrable tobacco.”
+
+“But can you say why?” asked Tom, with a sly twinkle of his eye.
+
+“Probably for the same reason I do myself,” said Sir Brook, producing a
+very cheap cigar.
+
+“Oh, that's a veritable Cuban compared to one of mine,” cried Tom; “and
+by way of making my future life miserable, here has been Mr. Trafford
+filling my pocket with real havannahs, giving me a taste for luxuries I
+ought never to have known of.”
+
+“Know everything, sir, go everywhere, see all that the world can show
+you; the wider a man's experiences the larger his nature and the more
+open his heart,” said Foss-brooke, boldly.
+
+“I like the theory,” said Trafford to Miss Lendrick; “do you?”
+
+“Sir Brook never meant it for women, I fancy,” said she, in a low tone;
+but the old man overheard her, and said: “You are right. The guide ought
+to know every part of the mountain; the traveller need only know the
+path.”
+
+“Here comes a guide who is satisfied with very short excursions,” cried
+Tom, laughing; “this is our parson, Dr. Mills.”
+
+The little, mellow-looking, well-cared-for person who now joined them
+was a perfect type of old-bachelorhood, in its aspect of not unpleasant
+selfishness. Everything about him was neat, orderly, and appropriate;
+and though you saw at a glance it was all for himself and his own
+enjoyment it was provided, his good manners and courtesy were ever ready
+to extend its benefits to others; and a certain genial look he wore, and
+a manner that nature had gifted him with, did him right good service in
+life, and made him pass for “an excellent fellow, though not much of a
+parson.”
+
+He was of use now, if only that by his presence Lucy felt more at ease,
+not to say that his violoncello, which always remained at the Nest, made
+a pleasant accompaniment when she played, and that he sang with much
+taste some of those lyrics which arc as much linked to Ireland by poetry
+as by music.
+
+“I wish he was our chaplain,--by Jove I do!” whispered Trafford to
+Lendrick; “he's the jolliest fellow of his cloth I have ever met.”
+
+“And such a cook,” muttered the other.
+
+“A cook!”
+
+“Ay, a cook. I 'll make him ask us to dinner, and you 'll tell me if you
+ever ate fish as he gives it, or tasted macaroni as dressed by him. I
+have a salmon for you, doctor, a ten-pound fish. I wish it were bigger!
+but it is in splendid order.”
+
+“Did you set it?” asked the parson, eagerly.
+
+“What does he mean by set it?” whispered Trafford.
+
+“Setting means plunging it in very hot water soon after killing it,
+to preserve and harden the 'curd.' Yes; and I took your hint about the
+arbutus leaves, too, doctor. I covered it all up with them.”
+
+“You are a teachable youth, and shall be rewarded. Come and eat him
+to-morrow. Dare I hope that these gentlemen are disengaged, and will
+honor my poor parsonage? Will you favor me with your company at five
+o'clock, sir?”
+
+Sir Brook bowed, and accepted the invitation with pleasure.
+
+“And you, sir?”
+
+“Only too happy,” said Trafford.
+
+“Lucy, my dear, you must be one of us.”
+
+“Oh, I could not; it is impossible, doctor,--you know it is.”
+
+“I know nothing of the kind.”
+
+“Papa away,--not to speak of his never encouraging us to leave home,”
+ muttered she, in a whisper.
+
+“I accept no excuses, Lucy; such a rare opportunity may not occur to me
+in a hurry. Mrs. Brennan, my housekeeper, will be so proud to see you,
+that I 'm not sure she 'll not treat these gentlemen to her brandy
+peaches,--a delicacy, I feel bound to say, she has never conceded to any
+one less than the bishop of the diocese.”
+
+“Don't ask me, doctor. I know that papa--”
+
+But he broke in, saying,--“'You know I 'm your priest, and your
+conscience is mine;' and besides, I really do want to see how the
+parsonage will look with a lady at the top of the table: who knows what
+it may lead to?”
+
+“Come, Lucy, that's the nearest thing to a proposal I 've heard for some
+time. You really must go now,” said Tom.
+
+“Papa will not like it,” whispered she in his ear.
+
+“Then he'll have to settle the matter with me, Lucy,” said the doctor,
+“for it was I who overruled you.”
+
+“Don't look to me, Miss Lendrick, to sustain you in your refusal,” said
+Sir Brook, as the young girl turned towards him. “I have the strongest
+interest in seeing the doctor successful.”
+
+If Trafford said nothing, the glance he gave her more than backed the
+old man's speech, and she turned away half vexed, half pleased, puzzled
+how to act, and flattered at the same time by an amount of attention so
+new to her and so strange. Still she could not bring herself to promise
+she would go, and wished them all good-night at last, without a pledge.
+
+“Of course she will,” muttered Tom in the doctor's ear. “She's afraid
+of the governor; but I know he'll not be displeased,--you may reckon on
+her.”
+
+
+CHAPTER V. THE PICNIC ON HOLY ISLAND
+
+From the day that Sir Brook made the acquaintance of Tom Lendrick and
+his sister, he determined he would “pitch his tent,” as he called it,
+for some time at Killaloe. They had, so to say, captivated the old man.
+The young fellow, by his frank, open, manly nature, his ardent love
+of sport in every shape, his invariable good-humor, and more than all
+these, by the unaffected simplicity of his character, had strongly
+interested him; while Lucy had made a far deeper impression by her
+gentleness, her refinement, an elegance in deportment that no teaching
+ever gives, and, along with these, a mind stored with thought and
+reflectiveness. Let us, however, be just to each, and own that her
+beauty and the marvellous fascination of her smile gave her, even in
+that old man's eyes, an irresistible charm. It was a very long bygone,
+but he had once been in love, and the faint flicker of the memory
+had yet survived in his heart. It was just as likely Lucy bore no
+resemblance to her he had loved, but he fancied she did,--he imagined
+that she was her very image. That was the smile, the glance, the tone,
+the gesture which once had set his heart a-throbbing, and the illusion
+threw around her an immense fascination.
+
+She liked him too. Through all the strange incongruities of his
+character, his restless love of adventure and excitement, there ran a
+gentle liking for quiet pleasures. He loved scenery passionately, and
+with a painter's taste for color and form; he loved poetry, which he
+read with a wondrous charm of voice and intonation. Nor was it without
+its peculiar power, this homage of an old, old man, who rendered her the
+attentive service of a devoted admirer.
+
+There is very subtle flattery in the obsequious devotion of age to
+youth. It is, at least, an honest worship, an unselfish offering, and in
+this way the object of it may well feel proud of its tribute.
+
+From the vicar, Dr. Mills, Fossbrooke had learned the chief events
+of Dr. Lendrick's history, of his estrangement from his father, his
+fastidious retirement from the world, and, last of all, his narrow
+fortune, apparently now growing narrower, since within the last year he
+had withdrawn his son from the University on the score of its expense.
+
+A gold-medallist and a scholar, Dr. Lendrick would have eagerly coveted
+such honors for his son. It was, probably, the one triumph in life he
+would have set most store by, but Tom was one not made for collegiate
+successes. He had abilities, but they were not teachable qualities;
+he could pick up a certain amount of almost anything,--he could learn
+nothing. He could carry away from a chance conversation an amount of
+knowledge it had cost the talkers years to acquire, and yet set him
+down regularly to work book-fashion, and either from want of energy, or
+concentration, or of that strong will which masters difficulties just
+as a full current carries all before it--whichever of these was his
+defect,--he arose from his task wearied, worn, but unadvanced.
+
+When, therefore, his father would speak, as he sometimes did,
+in confidence to the vicar, in a tone of depression about Tom's
+deficiencies, the honest parson would feel perfectly lost in amazement
+at what he meant. To his eyes Tom Lendrick was a wonder, a prodigy.
+There was not a theme he could not talk on, and talk well too. “It was
+but the other day he told the chief engineer of the Shannon Company more
+about the geological formation of the river-basin than all his staff
+knew. Ay, and what's stranger,” added the vicar, “he understands the
+whole Colenso controversy better than I do myself.” It is just possible
+that in the last panegyric there was nothing of exaggeration or excess.
+“And with all that, sir, his father goes on brooding over his neglected
+education, and foreshadowing the worst results from his ignorance.”
+
+“He is a fine fellow,” said Fossbrooke, “but not to be compared with his
+sister.”
+
+“Not for mere looks, perhaps, nor for a graceful manner, and a winning
+address; but who would think of ranking Lucy's abilities with her
+brother's?”
+
+“Not I,” said Fossbrooke, boldly, “for I place hers far and away above
+them.”
+
+A sly twinkle of the parson's eye showed to what class of advantages
+he ascribed the other's preference; but he said no more, and the
+controversy ended.
+
+Every morning found Sir Brook at the “Swan's Nest.” He was fond of
+gardening, and had consummate taste in laying out ground, so that many
+pleasant surprises had been prepared for Dr. Lendrick's return. He drew,
+too, with great skill, and Lucy made considerable progress under his
+teaching; and as they grew more intimate, and she was not ashamed of the
+confession that she delighted in the Georgics of Virgil, they read whole
+hours together of those picturesque descriptions of rural life and its
+occupations, which are as true to nature at this hour as on the day they
+were written.
+
+Perhaps the old man fancied that it was he who had suggested this
+intense appreciation of the poet. It is just possible that the young
+girl believed that she had reclaimed a wild, erratic, eccentric nature,
+and brought him back ta the love of simple pleasures and a purer source
+of enjoyment. Whichever way the truth inclined, each was happy, each
+contented. And how fond are we all, of every age, of playing the
+missionary, of setting off into the savage districts of our neighbors'
+natures and combating their false idols, their superstitions and strange
+rites! The least adventurous and the least imaginative have these little
+outbursts of conversion, and all are more or less propagandists.
+
+It was one morning, a bright and glorious one too, that, while Tom
+and Lucy were yet at breakfast, Sir Brook arrived and entered the
+breakfast-room.
+
+“What a day for a gray hackle, in that dark pool under the larch-trees!”
+ cried Tom, as he saw him.
+
+“What a day for a long walk to Mount Laurel!” said Lucy. “You said,
+t'other morning, you wanted cloud effects on the upper lake. I 'll show
+you splendid ones to-day.”
+
+“I 'll promise you a full basket before four o'clock,” broke in Tom.
+
+“I 'll promise you a full sketch-book,” said Lucy, with one of her
+sweetest smiles.
+
+“And I 'm going to refuse both; for I have a plan of my own, and a plan
+not to be gainsaid.”
+
+“I know it, You want us to go to work on that fish-pond. I'm certain
+it's that.”
+
+“No, Tom; it's the catalogue,--the weary catalogue that he told me, as a
+punishment for not being able to find Machiavelli's comedies last week,
+he 'd make me sit down to on the first lovely morning that came.”
+
+“Better that than those dreary Georgics which remind one of school, and
+the third form. But what 's your plan, Sir Brook? We have thought of all
+the projects that can terrify us, and you look as if it ought to be a
+terror.”
+
+“Mine is a plan for pleasure, and pleasure only; so pack up at once and
+get ready. Trafford arrived this morning.”
+
+“Where is he? I am so glad! Where's Trafford?” cried Tom, delighted.
+
+“I have despatched him with the vicar and two well-filled hampers to
+Holy Island, where I mean that we shall all picnic. There 's my plan.”
+
+“And a jolly plan too! I adhere unconditionally.”
+
+“And you, Lucy, what do you say?” asked Sir Brook, as the young girl
+stood with a look of some indecision and embarrassment.
+
+“I don't say that it's not a very pleasant project, but--”
+
+“But what, Lucy? Where 's the but?”
+
+She whispered a few words in his ear, and he cried out: “Is n't this too
+bad? She tells me Nicholas does not like all this gayety; that Nicholas
+disapproves of our mode of life.”
+
+“No, Tom; I only said Nicholas thinks that papa would not like it.”
+
+“Couldn't we see Nicholas? Couldn't we have a commission to examine
+Nicholas?” asked Sir Brook, laughingly.
+
+“I 'll not be on it, that 's all I know; for I should finish by chucking
+the witness into the Shannon. Come along, Lucy; don't let us lose this
+glorious morning. I 'll get some lines and hooks together. Be sure you
+'re ready when I come back.”
+
+As the door closed after him, Sir Brook drew near to Lucy, where she
+stood in an attitude of doubt and hesitation. “I mustn't risk your good
+opinion of me rashly. If you really dislike this excursion, I will give
+it up,” said he, in a low, gentle voice.
+
+“Dislike it? No; far from it. I suspect I would enjoy it more than
+any of you. My reluctance was simply on the ground that all this is
+so unlike the life we have been leading hitherto. Papa will surely
+disapprove of it. Oh, there comes Nicholas with a letter!” cried she,
+opening the sash-window. “Give it to me; it is from papa.”
+
+She broke the seal hurriedly, and ran rapidly over the lines. “Oh, yes!
+I will go now, and go with delight too. It is full of good news. He is
+to see grandpapa, if not to-morrow, the day after. He hopes all will
+be well. Papa knows your name, Sir Brook. He says, 'Ask your friend
+Sir Brook if he be any relative of a Sir Brook Foss-brooke who rescued
+Captain Langton some forty years ago from a Neapolitan prison. The
+print-shops were filled with his likeness when I was a boy.' Was he one
+of your family?” inquired she, looking at him.
+
+“I am the man,” said he, calmly and coldly. “Langton was sentenced to
+the galleys for life for having struck the Count d'Aconi across the face
+with his glove; and the Count was nephew to the King. They had him at
+Capri working in chains, and I landed with my yacht's crew and liberated
+him.”
+
+“What a daring thing to do!”
+
+“Not so daring as you fancy. The guard was surprised, and fled. It was
+only when reinforced that they showed fight. Our toughest enemies were
+the galley-slaves, who, when they discovered that we never meant to
+liberate them, attacked us with stones. This scar on my temple is a
+memorial of the affair.”
+
+“And Langton, what became of him?”
+
+“He is now Lord Burrowfield. He gave me two fingers to shake the last
+time I met him at the Travellers'.”
+
+“Oh, don't say that! Oh, don't tell me of such ingratitude!”
+
+“My dear child, people usually regard gratitude as a debt which, once
+acknowledged, is acquitted; and perhaps they are right. It makes all
+intercourse freer and less trammelled.”
+
+“Here comes Tom. May I tell him this story, or will you tell him
+yourself?”
+
+“Not either, my dear Lucy. Your brother's blood is over-hot as it is.
+Let him not have any promptings to such exploits as these.”
+
+“But may I tell papa?”
+
+“Just as well not, Lucy. There were scores of wild things attributed to
+me in those days. He may possibly remember some of them, and begin to
+suspect that his daughter might be in better company.”
+
+“How was it that you never told me of this exploit?” asked she, looking,
+not without admiration, at the hard stern features before her.
+
+“My dear child, egotism is the besetting sin of old people, and even
+the most cautious lapse into it occasionally. Set me once a-talking of
+myself, all my prudence, all my reserve vanishes; so that, as a measure
+of safety for my friends and myself too, I avoid the theme when I can.
+There! Tom is beckoning to us. Let us go to him at once.”
+
+Holy Island, or Inishcaltra, to give it its Irish name, is a wild spot,
+with little remarkable about it, save the ruins of seven churches and
+a curious well of fabulous depth. It was, however, a favorite spot with
+the vicar, whose taste in localities was somehow always associated with
+some feature of festivity, the great merit of the present spot being
+that you could dine without any molestation from beggars. In such
+estimation, indeed, did he hold the class, that he seriously believed
+their craving importunity to be one of the chief reasons of dyspepsia,
+and was profoundly convinced that the presence of Lazarus at his gate
+counterbalanced many of the goods which fortune had bestowed upon Dives.
+
+“Here we dine in real comfort,” said he, as he seated himself under the
+shelter of an ivy-covered wall, with a wide reach of the lake at his
+feet.
+
+“When I come back from California with that million or two,” said
+Tom, “I 'll build a cottage here, where we can all come and dine
+continually.”
+
+“Let us keep the anniversary of the present day as a sort of foundation
+era,” said the vicar.
+
+“I like everything that promises pleasure,” said Sir Brook, “but I like
+to stipulate that we do not draw too long a bill on Fortune. Think how
+long a year is. This time twelvemonth, for example, you, my dear doctor,
+may be a bishop, and not over inclined to these harmless levities. Tom
+there will be, as he hints, gold-crushing, at the end of the earth.
+Trafford, not improbably, ruling some rajah's kingdom in the far East.
+Of your destiny, fair Lucy, brightest of all, it is not for me to speak.
+Of my own it is not worth speaking.”
+
+“Nolo episcopari,” said the vicar; “pass me the Madeira.”
+
+“You forget, perhaps, that is the phrase for accepting the mitre,” said
+Sir Brook, laughing. “Bishops, like belles, say 'No' when they mean
+'Yes.'”
+
+“And who told you that belles did?” broke in Lucy. “I am in a sad
+minority here, but I stand up for my sex.”
+
+“I repeat a popular prejudice, fair lady.”
+
+“And Lucy will not have it that belles are as illogical as bishops? I
+see I was right in refusing the bench,” said the vicar.
+
+“What bright boon of Fortune is Trafford meditating the rejection of?”
+ said Sir Brook; and the young fellow's cheek grew crimson as he tried to
+laugh off the reply.
+
+“Who made this salad?” cried Tom.
+
+“It was I; who dares to question it?” said Lucy. “The doctor has
+helped himself twice to it, and that test I take to be a certificate to
+character.”
+
+“I used to have some skill in dressing a salad, but I have foregone the
+practice for many a day; my culinary gift got me sent out of Austria in
+twenty-four hours. Oh, it 's nothing that deserves the name of a story,”
+ said Sir Brook, as the others looked at him for an explanation. “It was
+as long ago as the year 1806. Sir Robert Adair had been our minister at
+Vienna, when, a rupture taking place between the two Governments, he was
+recalled. He did not, however, return to England, but continued to live
+as a private citizen at Vienna. Strangely enough, from the moment that
+our embassy ceased to be recognized by the Government, our countrymen
+became objects of especial civility. I myself, amongst the rest, was
+the _bien-venu_ in some of the great houses, and even invited by Count
+Cobourg Cohari to those _déjeuners_ which he gave with such splendor at
+Maria Hülfe.
+
+“At one of these, as a dish of salad was handed round, instead of eating
+it, like the others, I proceeded to make a very complicated dressing for
+it on my plate, calling for various condiments, and seasoning my mess in
+a most refined and ingenious manner. No sooner had I given the finishing
+touch to my great achievement than the Grand-Duchess Sophia, who it
+seems had watched the whole performance, sent a servant round to beg
+that I would send her my plate. She accompanied the request with a
+little bow and a smile whose charm I can still recall. Whatever the
+reason, before I awoke next morning, an agent of the police entered my
+room and informed me my passports were made out for Dresden, and that
+his orders were to give me the pleasure of his society till I crossed
+the frontier. There was no minister, no envoy to appeal to, and nothing
+left but to comply. They said 'Go,' and I went.”
+
+“And all for a dish of salad!” cried the vicar.
+
+“All for the bright eyes of an archduchess, rather,” broke in Lucy,
+laughing.
+
+The old man's grateful smile at the compliment to his gallantry showed
+how, even in a heart so world-worn, the vanity of youth survived.
+
+“I declare it was very hard,” said Tom,--“precious hard.”
+
+“If you mean to give up the salad, so think I too,” cried the vicar.
+
+“I 'll be shot if I 'd have gone,” broke in Trafford.
+
+“You'd probably have been shot if you had stayed,” replied Tom.
+
+“There are things we submit to in life, not because the penalty of
+resistance affrights us, but because we half acquiesce in their justice.
+You, for instance, Trafford, are well pleased to be here on leave,
+and enjoy yourself, as I take it, considerably; and yet the call
+of duty--some very commonplace duty, perhaps--would make you return
+tomorrow in all haste.”
+
+“Of course it would,” said Lucy.
+
+“I 'm not so sure of it,” murmured Trafford, sullenly; “I 'd rather go
+into close arrest for a week than I 'd lose this day here.”
+
+“Bravo! here's your health, Lionel,” cried Tom. “I do like to hear a
+fellow say he is willing to pay the cost of what pleases him.”
+
+“I must preach wholesome doctrine, my young friends,” broke in the
+vicar. “Now that we have dined well, I would like to say aword on
+abstinence.”
+
+“You mean to take no coffee, doctor, then?” asked Lucy, laughing.
+
+“That I do, my sweet child,--coffee and a pipe, too, for I know you are
+tolerant of tobacco.”
+
+“I hope she is,” said Tom, “or she 'd have a poor time of it in the
+house with me.”
+
+“I 'll put no coercion upon my tastes on this occasion, for I 'll take a
+stroll through the ruins, and leave you to your wine,” said she, rising.
+
+They protested, in a mass, against her going. “We cannot lock the door,
+Lucy, _de facto_,” said Sir Brook, “but we do it figuratively.”
+
+“And in that case I make my escape by the window,” said she, springing
+through an old lancet-shaped orifice in the Abbey wall.
+
+“There goes down the sun and leaves us but a gray twilight,” said Sir
+Brook, mournfully, as he looked after her. “If there were only enough
+beauty on earth, I verily believe we might dispense with parsons.”
+
+“Push me over the bird's-eye, and let me nourish myself till your
+millennium comes,” said the vicar.
+
+“What a charming girl she is! her very beauty fades away before the
+graceful attraction of her manner!” whispered Sir Brook to the doctor.
+
+“Oh, if you but knew her as I do! If you but knew how, sacrificing all
+the springtime of her bright youth, she has never had a thought save
+to make herself the companion of her poor father,--a sad, depressed,
+sorrow-struck man, only rescued from despair by that companionship! I
+tell you, sir, there is more courage in submitting one's self to the
+nature of another than in facing a battery.”
+
+Sir Brook grasped the parson's hand and shook it cordially. The action
+spoke more than any words. “And the brother, doctor,--what say you of
+the brother?” whispered he.
+
+“One of those that the old adage says 'either makes a spoon or spoils
+the horn.' That 's Master Tom there.”
+
+Low as the words were uttered, they caught the sharp ears of him they
+spoke of, and with a laughing eye he cried out, “What 's that evil
+prediction you 're uttering about me, doctor?”
+
+“I am just telling Sir Brook here that it's pure head or tail how you
+turn out. There's stuff in you to make a hero, but it's just as likely
+you 'll stop short at a highwayman.”
+
+“I think I could guess which of the two would best suit the age we live
+in,” said Tom, gayly. “Are we to have another bottle of that Madeira,
+for I suspect I see the doctor putting up the corkscrew?”
+
+“You are to have no more wine than what's before you till you land me
+at the quay of Killaloe. When temperance means safety as well as
+forbearance, it's one of the first of virtues.”
+
+The vicar, indeed, soon grew impatient to depart. Fine as the evening
+was then, it might change. There was a feeling, too, not of damp, but
+chilliness; at all events, he was averse to being on the water late; and
+as he was the great promoter of these little convivial gatherings, his
+word was law.
+
+It is not easy to explain how it happened that Trafford sat beside Lucy.
+Perhaps the trim of the boat required it; certainly, however, nothing
+required that the vicar, who sat next Lucy on the other side, should
+fall fast asleep almost as soon as he set foot on board. Meanwhile
+Sir Brook and Tom had engaged in an animated discussion as to the
+possibility of settling in Ireland as a man settles in some lone island
+in the Pacific, teaching the natives a few of the needs of civilization
+and picking up a few convenient ways of theirs in turn, Sir Brook
+warming with the theme so far as to exclaim at last, “If I only had a
+few of those thousands left me which I lost, squandered, or gave away, I
+'d try the scheme, and you should be my lieutenant, Tom.”
+
+It was one of those projects, very pleasant in their way, where men can
+mingle the serious with the ludicrous, where actual wisdom may go hand
+in hand with downright absurdity; and so did they both understand it,
+mingling, the very sagest reflections with projects the wildest and most
+eccentric. Their life, as they sketched it, was to be almost savage in
+freedom, untrammelled by all the tiresome conventionalities of the outer
+world, and at the same time offering such an example of contentedness
+and comfort as to shame the condition of all without the Pale.
+
+They agreed that the vicar must join them; he should be their Bishop.
+He might grumble a little at first about the want of hot plates or
+finger-glasses, but he would soon fall into their ways, and some native
+squaw would console him for the loss of Mrs. Brennan's housekeeping
+gifts.
+
+And Trafford and Lucy all this time,--what did they talk of? Did they,
+too, imagine a future and plan out a life-road in company? Far too timid
+for that,--they lingered over the past, each asking some trait of the
+other's childhood, eager to hear any little incident which might
+mark character or indicate temper. And at last they came down to the
+present,--to the very hour they lived in, and laughingly wondered at
+the intimacy that had grown up between them. “Only twelve days to-morrow
+since we first met,” said Lucy, and her color rose as she said it, “and
+here we are talking away as if--as if--”
+
+“As if what?” cried he, only by an effort suppressing her name as it
+rose to his lips.
+
+“As if we knew each other for years. To me it seems the strangest thing
+in the world,--I who have never had friendships or companionships. To
+you, I have no doubt, it is common enough.”
+
+“But it is not,” cried he, eagerly. “Such fortune never befell me
+before. I have gone a good deal into life,--seen scores of people in
+country-houses and the like; but I never met any one before I could
+speak to of myself,--I mean, that I had courage to tell--not that,
+exactly--but that I wanted them to know I was n't so bad a fellow--so
+reckless or so heartless as people thought me.”
+
+“And is that the character you bear?” said she, with, though not visible
+to him, a faint smile on her mouth.
+
+“I think it's what my family would say of me,--I mean now, for once on a
+time I was a favorite at home.”
+
+“And why are you not still?”
+
+“Because I was extravagant; because I went into debt; because I got
+very easily into scrapes, and very badly out of them,--not dishonorably,
+mind; the scrapes I speak of were money troubles, and they brought me
+into collision with my governor. That was how it came about I was sent
+over here. They meant as a punishment what has turned out the greatest
+happiness of my life.”
+
+“How cold the water is!” said Lucy, as, taking off her glove, she
+suffered her hand to dip in the water beside the boat.
+
+“Deliciously cold,” said he, as, plunging in his hand, he managed, as
+though by accident, to touch hers. She drew it rapidly away, however,
+and then, to prevent the conversation returning to its former channel,
+said aloud: “What _are_ you laughing over so heartily, Sir Brook? You
+and Tom appear to have fallen upon a mine of drollery. Do share it with
+us.”
+
+“You shall hear it all one of these days, Lucy. Jog the doctor's arm now
+and wake him up, for I see the lights at the boat-house, and we shall
+soon be on shore.”
+
+“And sorry I am for it,” muttered Trafford, in a whisper; “I wish this
+night could be drawn out to years.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. WAITING ON
+
+On the sixth day after Dr. Lendrick's arrival in Dublin--a fruitless
+journey so far as any hope of reconciliation was concerned--he resolved
+to return home. His friend Beattie, however, induced him to delay
+his departure to the-next day, clinging to some small hope from a few
+words-that had dropped from Sir William on that same morning. “Let me
+see you to-night, doctor; I have a note to show you which I could not
+to-day with all these people about me.” Now, the people in question
+resolved themselves into one person, Lady Lendrick, who indeed bustled
+into the room and out of it, slammed doors and upset chairs in a fashion
+that might well have excused the exaggeration that converted her into
+a noun of multitude. A very warm altercation had occurred, too, in the
+doctor's presence with reference to some letter from India, which
+Lady Lendrick was urging Sir William to reply to, but which he firmly
+declared he would not answer.
+
+“How I am to treat a man subject to such attacks of temper, so easily
+provoked, and so incessantly irritated, is not clear to me. At all
+events I will see him to-night, and hear what he has to say to me. I am
+sure it has no concern with this letter from India.” With these words
+Beattie induced his friend to defer his journey for another day.
+
+It was a long and anxious day to poor Lendrick. It was not alone that
+he had to suffer the bitter disappointment of all his hopes of being
+received by his father and admitted to some gleam of future favor, but
+he had discovered that certain debts which he had believed long settled
+by the judge were still outstanding against him, Lady Lendrick having
+interfered to prevent their payment, while she assured the creditors
+that if they had patience Dr. Lendrick would one day or other be in a
+position to acquit them. Between two and three thousand pounds thus hung
+over him of indebtedness above all his calculations, and equally above
+all his ability to meet.
+
+“We thought you knew all this, Dr. Lendrick,” said Mr. Hack, Sir
+William's agent; “we imagined you were a party to the arrangement,
+understanding that you were reluctant to bring these debts under the
+Chief Baron's eyes, being moneys lent to your wife's relations.”
+
+“I believed that they were paid,” was all his reply, for the story was
+a painful one of trust betrayed and confidence abused, and he did not
+desire to revive it. He had often been told that his stepmother was the
+real obstacle to all hope of reconciliation with his father, but that
+she had pushed her enmity to him to the extent of his ruin was more than
+he was prepared for. They had never met, but at one time letters had
+frequently passed between them. Hers were marvels of good wishes and
+kind intentions, dashed with certain melancholy reflections over some
+shadowy unknown something which had been the cause of his estrangement
+from his father, but which time and endurance might not impossibly
+diminish the bitterness of, though with very little hope of leading to
+a more amicable relation. She would assume, besides, occasionally a kind
+of companionship in sorrow, and, as though the confession had burst from
+her unawares, avow that Sir William's temper was more than human nature
+was called upon to submit to, and that years only added to those violent
+outbursts of passion which made the existence of all around him
+a perpetual martyrdom. These always wound up with some sweet
+congratulations on “Tom's good fortune in his life of peaceful
+retirement,” and the “tranquil pleasures of that charming spot of which
+every one tells me such wonders, and which the hope of visiting is one
+of my most entrancing daydreams.” We give the passage textually,
+because it occurred without a change of a word thus in no less than five
+different letters.
+
+This formal repetition of a phrase, and certain mistakes she made
+about the names of his children, first opened Lendrick's eyes as to
+the sincerity and affection of his correspondent, for he was the least
+suspicious of men, and regarded distrust as a disgrace to him who
+entertained it.
+
+Over all these things now did he ponder during this long dreary day.
+He did not like to go out lest he should meet old acquaintances and be
+interrogated about his father, of whom he knew less than almost every
+one. He shunned the tone of compassionate interest men met him with, and
+he dreaded even the old faces that reminded him of the past. He could
+not read: he tried, but could not. After a few minutes he found that
+his thoughts wandered off from the book and centred on his own concerns,
+till his head ached with the weary round of those difficulties which
+came ever back, and back, and back again undiminished, unrelieved, and
+unsolved. The embarrassments of life are not, like chess problems, to be
+resolved by a skilful combination: they are to be encountered by temper,
+by patience, by daring at one time, by submission at another, by a
+careful consideration of a man's own powers, and by a clear-sighted
+estimate of his neighbors; and all these exercised not beforehand, nor
+in retirement, but on the very field itself where the conflict is raging
+and the fight at its hottest.
+
+It was late at night when Beattie returned home, and entered the study
+where Lendrick sat awaiting him. “I am very late, Tom,” said he, as he
+threw himself into an arm-chair, like one fatigued and exhausted; “but
+it was impossible to get away. Never in all my life have I seen him
+so full of anecdote, so abounding in pleasant recollections, so
+ready-witted, and so brilliant. I declare to you that if I could but
+recite the things he said, or give them even with a faint semblance of
+the way he told them, it would be the most amusing page of bygone
+Irish history. It was a grand review of all the celebrated men whom he
+remembered in his youth, from the eccentric Lord Bristol, the Bishop of
+Down, to O'Connell and Shiel. Nor did his own self-estimate, high as
+it was, make the picture in which he figured less striking, nor less
+memorable his concluding words, as he said, 'These fellows are all in
+history, Beattie,--every man of them. There are statues to them in our
+highways, and men visit the spots that gave them birth; and here am I,
+second to none of them. Trinity College and the Four Courts will tell
+you if I speak in vanity; and here am I; and the only question about me
+is, when I intend to vacate the bench, when it will be my good pleasure
+to resign--they are not particular which--my judgeship or my life. But,
+sir, I mean not to do either; I mean to live and protest against the
+inferiority of the men around me, and the ingratitude of the country
+that does not know how to appreciate the one man of eminence it
+possesses.' I assure you, Tom, vain and insolent as the speech was, as
+I listened I thought it was neither. There was a haughty dignity
+about him, to which his noble bead and his deep sonorous voice and his
+commanding look lent effect that overcame all thought of attributing to
+such a man any over-estimate of his powers.”
+
+“And this note that he wished to show you,--what was it?”
+
+“Oh, the note was a few lines written in an adjoining room by Balfour,
+the Viceroy's secretary. It seems that his Excellency, finding all other
+seductions fail, thought of approaching your father through you.”
+
+“Through _me!_ It was a bright inspiration.”
+
+“Yes; he sent Balfour to ask if the Chief Baron would feel gratified by
+the post of Hospital Inspector at the Cape being offered to you. It is
+worth eight hundred a year, and a house.”
+
+“Well, what answer did he give?” asked Lendrick, eagerly.
+
+“He directed Balfour, who only saw Lady Lendrick, to reduce the proposal
+to writing. I don't fancy that the accomplished young gentleman exactly
+liked the task, but he did not care to refuse, and so he sat down and
+wrote one of the worst notes I ever read.”
+
+“Worst--in what way?”
+
+“In every way. It was scarcely intelligible, without a previous
+knowledge of its contents, and so worded as to imply that when the Chief
+Baron had acceded to the proposal, he had so bound himself in gratitude
+to the Government that all honorable retreat was closed to him. I wish
+you saw your father's face when he read it. 'Beattie,' said he, 'I have
+no right to say Tom must refuse this offer; but if he should do so, I
+will make the document you see there be read in the House, and my
+name is not William Lendrick if it do not cost them more than they are
+prepared for. Go now and consult your friend;' it was so he called you.
+'If his wants are such that this place is of consequence to him, let him
+accept it. I shall not ask his reasons for whatever course he may take.
+_My_ reply is already written, and to his Excellency in person.' This
+he said in a way to imply that its tone was one not remarkable for
+conciliation or courtesy.
+
+“I thought the opportunity a favorable one to say that you were in town
+at the moment, that the accounts of his illness had brought you up, and
+that you were staying at my house.
+
+“'The sooner will you be able to communicate with him, sir,' said he,
+haughtily.”
+
+“No more than that!”
+
+“No more, except that he added, 'Remember, sir, his acceptance or his
+refusal is to be his own act, not to be intimated in any way to me, nor
+to come through me.'”
+
+“This is unnecessary harshness,” said Lendrick, with a quivering lip;
+“there was no need to tell me how estranged we are from each other.”
+
+“I fancied I could detect a struggle with himself in all his sternness;
+and his hand trembled when I took it to say 'good-bye.' I was going to
+ask if you might not be permitted to see him, even for a brief moment;
+but I was afraid, lest in refusing he might make a reconciliation still
+more remote, and so I merely said, 'May I leave you those miniatures I
+showed you a few days ago? 'His answer was, 'You may leave them, sir.'
+
+“As I came down to the hall, I met Lady Lendrick. She was in evening
+dress, going out, but had evidently waited to Catch me as I passed.
+
+“'You find the Chief much better, don't you?' asked she. I bowed and
+assented.. 'And he will be better still,' added she, 'when all these
+anxieties are over.' She saw that I did not or would not apprehend her
+meaning, and added, 'I mean about this resignation, which, of course,
+you will advise him to. The Government are really behaving so very well,
+so liberal, and withal so delicate. If they had been our own people, I
+doubt if they would have shown anything like the same generosity.'
+
+“'I have heard of nothing but the offer to Dr. Lendrick,' said I.
+
+“She seemed confused, and moved on; and then recovering herself, said,
+'And a most handsome offer it is. I hope he thinks so.'
+
+“With this we parted, and I believe now I have told you almost word for
+word everything that occurred concerning you.”
+
+“And what do _you_ say to all this, Beattie?” asked Lendrick, in a
+half-sad tone.
+
+“I say that if in your place, Tom, I would accept. It may be that the
+Chief Baron will interpose and say, Don't go; or it may be that your
+readiness to work for your bread should conciliate him; he has long had
+the impression that you are indisposed to exertion, and too fond of your
+own ease.”
+
+“I know it,--I know it; Lady Lendrick has intimated as much to me.”
+
+“At all events, you can make no mistake in entertaining the project; and
+certainly the offer is not to be despised.”
+
+“It is of him, and of him alone, I am thinking, Beattie. If he would let
+me see him, admit me once more on my old terms of affection, I would go
+anywhere, do anything that he counselled. Try, my dear friend, to bring
+this about; do your best for me, and remember I will subscribe to any
+terms, submit to anything, if he will only be reconciled to me.”
+
+“It will be hard if we cannot manage this somehow,” said Beattie; “but
+now let us to bed. It is past two o'clock. Good-night, Tom; sleep well,
+and don't dream of the Cape or the Caffres.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE FOUNTAIN OF HONOR
+
+That ancient and incongruous pile which goes by the name of the Castle
+in Dublin, and to which Irishmen very generally look as the well from
+which all honors and places flow, is not remarkable for either the
+splendor or space it affords to the inmates beneath its roof. Upheld
+by a great prestige perhaps, as in the case of certain distinguished
+people, who affect a humble exterior and very simple belongings, it may
+deem that its own transcendent importance has no need of accessories.
+Certainly the ugliness of its outside is in noway unbalanced by the
+meanness within; and even the very highest of those who claim its
+hospitality are lodged in no-princely fashion.
+
+In a corner of the old red brick quadrangle, to the right of the state
+entrance, in a small room whose two narrow windows looked into a lane,
+sat a very well-dressed young-gentleman at a writing-table. Short, and
+disposed to roundness in face as well as figure, Mr. Cholmondely Balfour
+scarcely responded in appearance to his imposing name. Nature had not
+been as bountiful, perhaps, as Fortune; for while he was rich,
+well born, and considerably gifted in abilities, his features were
+unmistakably common and vulgar, and all the aids of dress could not
+atone for the meanness in his general look. Had he simply accepted his
+image as a thing to be quietly borne and submitted to, the case might
+not have been so very bad; but he took it as something to be corrected,
+changed, and ameliorated, and the result was a perpetual struggle
+to make the most ordinary traits and commonplace features appear the
+impress of one on whom Nature had written gentleman. It would have been
+no easy task to have imposed on him in a question of his duty. He was
+the private secretary of the Viceroy, who was his maternal uncle. It
+would have been a tough task to have misled or deceived him in any
+matter open to his intelligence to examine; but upon this theme there
+was not the inventor of a hair-wash, a skin-paste, a whisker-dye, or a
+pearl-powder that might not have led him captive. A bishop might have
+found difficulty in getting audience of him,--a barber might have
+entered unannounced; and while the lieutenant of a county sat waiting in
+the antechamber, the tailor, with a new waistcoat pattern, walked
+boldly into the august presence. Entering life by that _petite porte_
+of politics, an Irish office, he had conceived a very humble estimate
+of the people amongst whom he was placed. Regarding his extradition from
+Whitehall and its precincts as a sort of probationary banishment, he
+felt, however, its necessity; and as naval men are accredited with two
+years of service for every one year on the coast of Africa, Mr. Balfour
+was aware that a grateful Government could equally recognize the
+devotion of him who gave some of the years of his youth to the Fernando
+Po of statecraft.
+
+This impression, being rarely personal in its consequences, was not of
+much moment; but it was conjoined with a more serious error, which was
+to imagine that all rule and governance in Ireland should be carried
+on with a Machiavellian subtlety. The people, he had heard, were
+quick-witted; he must therefore out-manoeuvre them. Jobbery had been,
+he was told, the ruin of Ireland; he would show its inefficiency by
+the superior skill with which he could wield its weapon. To be sure
+his office was a very minor one, its influence very restricted, but Mr.
+Balfour was ambitious; he was a Viceroy's nephew; he had sat for months
+in the House, from which he had been turned out on a petition. He had
+therefore social advantages to build on, abilities to display, and
+wrongs to avenge; and as a man too late for the train speculates during
+the day how far on his road he might have been by this time or by that,
+so did Mr. Balfour continually keep reminding himself how, but for that
+confounded petition, he might now have been a Treasury this or a
+Board of Trade that,--a corporal, in fact, in that great army whose
+commissioned officers are amongst the highest in Europe.
+
+Let us now present him to our reader, as he lay back in his chair, and
+by a hand-bell summoned his messenger.
+
+“I say, Watkins, when Clancey calls about those trousers show him
+in, and send some one over to the packet-office about the
+phosphorus blacking; you know we are on the last jar of it. If the
+Solicitor-General should come--”
+
+“He is here, sir; he has been waiting these twenty minutes. I told him
+you were with his Excellency.”
+
+“So I was,--so I always am,” said he, throwing a half-smoked cigar into
+the fire. “Admit him.”
+
+A pale, care-worn, anxious-looking man, whose face was not without
+traces of annoyance at the length of time he had been kept waiting, now
+entered and sat down.
+
+“Just where we were yesterday, Pemberton,” said Balfour, as he rose and
+stood with his back to the fire, the tails of his gorgeous dressing-gown
+hanging over his arms. “Intractable as he ever was; he won't die, and he
+won't resign.”
+
+“His friends say he is perfectly willing to resign if you agree to his
+terms.”
+
+“That may be possible; the question is, What are his terms? Have you a
+precedent of a Chief Baron being raised to the peerage?”
+
+“It's not, as I understand, the peerage he insists on; he inclines to a
+moneyed arrangement.”
+
+“We are too poor, Pemberton,--we are too poor. There's a deep gap in our
+customs this quarter. It's reduction we must think of, not outlay.”
+
+“If the changes _are_ to be made,” said the other, with a tone of
+impatience, “I certainly ought to be told at once, or I shall have no
+time left for my canvass.”
+
+“An Irish borough, Pemberton,--an Irish borough requires so little,”
+ said Balfour, with a compassionate smile.
+
+“Such is not the opinion over here, sir,” said Pemberton, stiffly; “and
+I might even suggest some caution in saying it.”
+
+“Caution is the badge of all our tribe,” said Balfour, with a burlesque
+gravity. “By the way, Pemberton, his Excellency is greatly disappointed
+at the issue of these Cork trials; why did n't you hang these fellows?”
+
+“Juries can no more be coerced here than in England; they brought them
+in not guilty.”
+
+“We know all that, and we ask you why? There certainly was little room
+for doubt in the evidence.”
+
+“When you have lived longer in Ireland, Mr. Balfour, you will learn
+that there are other considerations in a trial than the testimony of the
+witnesses.”
+
+“That's exactly what I said to his Excellency; and I remarked, 'If
+Pemberton comes into the House, he must prepare for a sharp attack about
+these trials.'”
+
+“And it is exactly to ascertain if I am to enter Parliament that I have
+come here to-day,” said the other, angrily.
+
+“Bring me the grateful tidings that the Lord Chief Baron has joined his
+illustrious predecessors in that distinguished court, I 'll answer you
+in five minutes.”
+
+“Beattie declares he is better this morning. He says that he has in all
+probability years of life before him.”
+
+“There 's nothing so hard to kill as a judge, except it be an
+archbishop. I believe a sedentary life does it; they say if a fellow
+will sit still and never move he may live to any age.”
+
+Pemberton took an impatient turn up and down the room, and then wheeling
+about directly in front of Balfour, said, “If his Excellency knew,
+perhaps, that I do not want the House of Commons--”
+
+“Not want the House,--not wish to be in Parliament?”
+
+“Certainly not. If I enter the House, it is as a law-officer of the
+Crown; personally it is no object to me.”
+
+“I'll not tell him that, Pem. I'll keep your secret safe, for I tell you
+frankly it would ruin you to reveal it.”
+
+“It's no secret, sir; you may proclaim it,--you may publish it in the
+'Gazette,' But really we are wasting much valuable time here. It is now
+two o'clock, and I must go down to Court. I have only to say that if no
+arrangement be come to before this time to-morrow--” He stopped short.
+Another word might have committed him, but he pulled up in time.
+
+“Well, what then?” asked Balfour, with a half smile.
+
+“I have heard you pride yourself, Mr. Balfour,” said the other,
+recovering, “on your skill in nice negotiation; why not try what you
+could do with the Chief Baron?”
+
+“Are there women in the family?” said Balfour, caressing his moustache.
+
+“No; only his wife.”
+
+“I 've seen her,” said he, contemptuously.
+
+“He quarrelled with his only son, and has not spoken to him, I believe,
+for nigh thirty years, and the poor fellow is struggling on as a country
+doctor somewhere in the west.”
+
+“What if we were to propose to do something for him? Men are often not
+averse to see those assisted whom their own pride refuses to help.”
+
+“I scarcely suspect you 'll acquire his gratitude that way.”
+
+“We don't want his gratitude, we want his place. I declare I think the
+idea a good one. There's a thing now at the Cape, an inspectorship of
+something,--Hottentots or hospitals, I forget which. His Excellency
+asked to have the gift of it; what if we were to appoint this man?”
+
+“Make the crier of his Court a Commissioner in Chancery, and Baron
+Lendrick will be more obliged to you,” said Pem-berton, with a sneer.
+“He is about the least forgiving man I ever knew or heard of.”
+
+“Where is this son of his to be found?”
+
+“I saw him yesterday walking with Dr. Beattie. I have no doubt Beattie
+knows his address. But let me warn you once more against the inutility
+of the step you would take. I doubt if the old Judge would as much as
+thank you.”
+
+Balfour turned round to the glass and smiled sweetly at himself, as
+though to say that he had heard of some one who knew how to make these
+negotiations successful,--a fellow of infinite readiness, a clever
+fellow, but withal one whose good looks and distinguished air left even
+his talents in the background.
+
+“I think I 'll call and see the Chief Baron myself,” said he. “His
+Excellency sends twice a day to inquire, and I 'll take the opportunity
+to make him a visit,--that is, if he will receive me.”
+
+“It is doubtful. At all events, let me give you one hint for your
+guidance. Neither let drop Mr. Attorney's name nor mine in your
+conversation; avoid the mention of any one whose career might be
+influenced by the Baron's retirement; and talk of him less as a human
+being than as an institution that is destined to endure as long as the
+British constitution.”
+
+“I wish it was a woman--if it was only a woman I had to deal with, the
+whole affair might be deemed settled.”
+
+“If you should be able to do anything before the mail goes out to-night,
+perhaps you will inform me,” said Pem-berton, as he bowed and left
+the room. “And these are the men they send over here to administer
+the country!” muttered he, as he descended the stairs,--“such are the
+intelligences that are to rule Ireland! Was it Voltaire who said
+there was nothing so inscrutable in all the ways of Providence as the
+miserable smallness of those creatures to whom the destiny of nations
+was committed?”
+
+Ruminating over this, he hastened on to a _nisi prius_ case.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. A PUZZLING COMMISSION
+
+As Colonel Cave re-entered his quarters after morning parade in the
+Royal Barracks of Dublin, he found the following letter, which the post
+had just delivered. It was headed “Strictly Private,” with three dashes
+under the words.
+
+“Holt-Trafford.
+
+“My dear Colonel Cave,--Sir Hugh is confined to bed with a severe attack
+of gout,--the doctors call it flying gout. He suffers greatly, and his
+nerves are in a state of irritation that makes all attempt at writing
+impossible. This will be my apology for obtruding upon you, though,
+perhaps, the cause in which I write might serve for excuse. We are in
+the deepest anxiety about Lionel. You are already aware how heavily his
+extravagance has cost us. His play-debts amounted to above ten thousand
+pounds, and all the cleverness of Mr. Joel has not been able to
+compromise with the tradespeople for less than as much more; nor are
+we yet done with demands from various quarters. It is not, however, of
+these that I desire to speak. Your kind offer to take him into your
+own regiment, and exercise the watchful supervision of a parent, has
+relieved us of much anxiety, and his own sincere affection for you is
+the strongest assurance we can have that the step has been a wise one.
+Our present uneasiness has however a deeper source than mere pecuniary
+embarrassment. The boy--he is very little more than a boy in years--has
+fallen in love, and gravely writes to his father for consent that he may
+marry. I assure you the shock brought back all Sir Hugh's most severe
+symptoms; and his left eye was attacked with an inflammation such as Dr.
+Gole says he never saw equalled. So far as the incoherency of his letter
+will permit us to guess, the girl is a person in a very humble condition
+of life, the daughter of a country doctor, of course without family or
+fortune. That he made her acquaintance by an accident, as he informs
+us, is also a reason to suppose that they are not people in society. The
+name, as well as I can decipher it, is Lendrich or Hendrich,--neither
+very distinguished!
+
+“Now, my dear Colonel, even to a second son, such an alliance would be
+perfectly intolerable,--totally at variance with all his father's plans
+for him, and inconsistent with the station he should occupy. But there
+are other considerations,--too sad ones, too melancholy indeed to
+be spoken of, except where the best interests of a family are to be
+regarded, which press upon us here. The last accounts of George from
+Madeira leave us scarcely a hope. The climate, from which so much was
+expected, has done nothing. The season has been unhappily most severe,
+and the doctors agree in declaring that the malady has not yielded
+in any respect. You will see, therefore, what a change any day may
+accomplish in Lionel's prospects, and how doubly important it is that
+he should contract no ties inconsistent with a station of no mean
+importance. Not that these considerations would weigh with Lionel in the
+least: he was always headstrong, rash, and self-willed; and if he were,
+or fancied that he were, bound in honor to do a thing, I know well that
+all persuasions would be unavailing to prevent him. I cannot believe,
+however, that matters can have gone so far here. This acquaintanceship
+must be of the very shortest; and however designing and crafty such
+people may be, there will surely be some means of showing them
+that their designs are impracticable, and of a nature only to bring
+disappointment and disgrace upon themselves. That Sir Hugh would give
+his consent is totally out of the question,--a thing not to be thought
+of for a moment; indeed I may tell you in confidence that his first
+thought on reading L.'s letter was to carry out a project to which
+George had already consented, and by which the entail should be cut off,
+and our third son, Harry, in that case would inherit. This will show you
+to what extent his indignation would carry him.
+
+“Now what is to be done? for, really, it is but time lost in deploring
+when prompt action alone can save us. Do you know, or do you know any
+one who does know, these Hendrichs or Lendrichs--who are they, what are
+they? Are they people to whom I could write myself, or are they in that
+rank in life which would enable us to make some sort of compromise?
+Again, could you in anyway obtain L.'s confidence, and make him open his
+heart to you _first?_ This is the more essential, because the moment he
+hears of anything like coercion or pressure, his whole spirit will rise
+in resistance, and he will be totally unmanageable. You have perhaps
+more influence over him than any one else, and even your influence he
+would resent if he suspected any dominance.
+
+“I am madly impatient to hear what you will suggest. Will it be to see
+these people, to reason with them, to explain to them the fruitlessness
+of what they are doing? Will it be to talk to the girl herself?
+
+“My first thought was to send for Lionel, as his father was so ill, but
+on consideration I felt that a meeting between them might be the thing
+of all others to be avoided. Indeed, in Sir Hugh's present temper, I
+dare not think of the consequences.
+
+“Might it be advisable to get Lionel attached to some foreign station?
+If so, I am sure I could manage it--only, would he go? there 's the
+question,--would he go? I am writing in such distress of mind, and so
+hurriedly too, that I really do not know what I have set down and what I
+have omitted. I trust, however, there is enough of this sad case before
+you to enable you to counsel me, or, what is much better, act for me. I
+wish I could send you L.'s letter, but Sir Hugh has put it away, and I
+cannot lay my hand on it. Its purport, however, was to obtain authority
+from us to approach this girl's relations as a suitor, and to show that
+his intentions were known to and concurred in by his family. The only
+gleam of hope in the epistle was his saying, 'I have not the slightest
+reason to believe she would accept me, but the approval of my friends
+will certainly give me the best chance.'
+
+“Now, my dear Colonel, compassionate my anxiety, and write to me at
+once--something--anything. Write such a letter as Sir Hugh may see; and
+if you have anything secret or confidential, enclose it as a separate
+slip. Was it not unfortunate that we refused that Indian appointment for
+him? All this misery might have been averted. You may imagine how Sir
+Hugh feels this conduct the more bitterly, coming, as I may say, on the
+back of all his late indiscretions.
+
+“Remember, finally, happen what may, this project must not go on. It is
+a question of the boy's whole future and life. To defy his father is to
+disinherit himself; and it is not impossible that this might be the most
+effectual argument you could employ with these people who now seek to
+entangle him.
+
+“I have certainly no reason to love Ireland. It was there that my cousin
+Cornwallis married that dreadful creature who is now suing him for
+cruelty, and exposing the family throughout England.
+
+“Sir Hugh gave directions last week about lodging the purchase-money
+for his company, but he wrote a few lines to Cox's last night--to what
+purport I cannot say--not impossibly to countermand it. What affliction
+all this is!”
+
+As Colonel Cave read over this letter for a second time, he was
+not without misgivings about the even small share to which he had
+contributed in this difficulty. It was evidently during the short
+leave he had granted that this acquaintanceship had been formed; and
+Fossbrooke's companionship was the very last thing in the world to deter
+a young and ardent fellow from anything high-flown or romantic. “I ought
+never to have thrown them together,” muttered he, as he walked his room
+in doubt and deliberation.
+
+He rang his bell and sent for the adjutant. “Where 's Trafford?” asked
+he.
+
+“You gave him three days' leave yesterday, sir. He's gone down to that
+fishing-village where he went before.”
+
+“Confound the place! Send for him at once--telegraph. No--let us
+see--his leave is up to-morrow?”
+
+“The next day at ten he was to report.”
+
+“His father is ill,--an attack of gout,” muttered the Colonel, to give
+some color to his agitated manner. “But it is better, perhaps, not to
+alarm him. The seizure seems passing off.”
+
+“He said something about asking for a longer term; he wants a fortnight,
+I think. The season is just beginning now.”
+
+“He shall not have it, sir. Take good care to warn him not to apply. It
+will breed discontent in the regiment to see a young fellow who has not
+been a year with us obtain a leave every ten or fifteen days.”
+
+“If it were any other than Trafford, there would be plenty of grumbling.
+But he is such a favorite!”
+
+“I don't know that a worse accident could befall any man. Many a fine
+fellow has been taught selfishness by the over-estimate others have
+formed of him. See that you keep him to his duty, and that he is to look
+for no favoritism.”
+
+The Colonel did not well know why he said this, nor did he stop to think
+what might come of it. It smacked, to his mind, however, of something
+prompt, active, and energetic.
+
+His next move was to write a short note to Lady Trafford, acknowledging
+hers, and saying that, Lionel being absent,--he did not add
+where,--nothing could be done till he should see him. “To-morrow--next
+day at farthest--I will report progress. I cannot believe the case to be
+so serious as you suppose; at all events, count upon me.”
+
+“Stay!” cried he to the adjutant, who stood in the window awaiting
+further instructions; “on second thoughts, do telegraph. Say, 'Return at
+once.' This will prepare him for something.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. A BREAKFAST AT THE VICARAGE
+
+On the day after the picnic Sir Brook went by invitation to breakfast
+with the vicar.
+
+“When a man asks you to dinner,” said Fossbrooke, “he generally wants
+you to talk; when he asks you to breakfast, he wants to talk to you.”
+
+Whatever be the truth of this adage generally, it certainly-had its
+application in the present case. The vicar wanted very much to talk to
+Sir Brook.
+
+As they sat, therefore, over their coffee and devilled kidneys, chatting
+over the late excursion and hinting at another, the vicar suddenly said:
+“By the way, I want you to tell me something of the young fellow who
+was one of us yesterday. Tobin, our doctor here, who is a perfect
+commission-agent for scandal, says he is the greatest scamp going; that
+about eight or ten months ago the 'Times' was full of his exploits in
+bankruptcy; that his liabilities were tens of thousands,--assets
+_nil_. In a word, that, notwithstanding his frank, honest look, and his
+unaffected manner, he is the most accomplished scapegrace of the age.”
+
+“And how much of this do you believe?” asked Sir Brook, as he helped
+himself to coffee.
+
+“That is not so easy to reply to; but I tell you, if you ask me, that I
+'d rather not believe one word of it.”
+
+“Nor need you. His Colonel told me something about the young fellow's
+difficulties; he himself related the rest. He went most recklessly into
+debt; betted largely on races, and lost; lent freely, and lost; raised
+at ruinous interest, and renewed at still more ruinous; but his father
+has paid every shilling of it out of that fortune which one day was to
+have come to him, so that Lionel's thirty thousand pounds is now about
+eight thousand. I have put the whole story into the fewest possible
+words, but that's the substance of it.”
+
+“And has it cured him of extravagance?”
+
+“Of course it has not. How should it? _You_ have lived some more years
+in the world than he has, and I a good many more than _you_, and
+will you tell me that time has cured either of us of any of our old
+shortcomings? _Non sum quails eram_ means, I can't be as wild as I used
+to be.”
+
+“No, no; I won't agree to that. I protest most strongly against the
+doctrine. Many men are wiser through experience, and, consequently,
+better.”
+
+“I sincerely believe I knew the world better at four-and-twenty than I
+know it now. The reason why we are less often deceived in after than
+in early life is not that we are more crafty or more keen-eyed. It is
+simply because we risk less. Let us hazard as much at sixty as we once
+did at six-and-twenty, and we 'll lose as heavily.”
+
+The vicar paused a few moments over the other's words, and then said,
+“To come back to this young man, I half suspect he has formed an
+attachment to Lucy, and that he is doing his utmost to succeed in her
+favor.”
+
+“And is there anything wrong in that, doctor?”
+
+“Not positively wrong; but there is what may lead to a great deal
+of unhappiness. Who is to say how Trafford's family would like the
+connection? Who is to answer for Lendrick's approval of Trafford?”
+
+“You induce me to make a confidence I have no right to impart; but I
+rely so implicitly on your discretion. I will tell you what was
+intrusted to me as a secret: Trafford has already written to his father
+to ask his consent.”
+
+“Without speaking to Lendrick? without even being sure of Lucy's?”
+
+“Yes, without knowing anything of either; but on my advice he has first
+asked his father's permission to pay his addresses to the young lady.
+His position with his family is peculiar; he is a younger son, but
+not exactly as free as most younger sons feel to act for themselves. I
+cannot now explain this more fully, but it is enough if you understand
+that he is entirely dependent on his father. When I came to know this,
+and when I saw that he was becoming desperately in love, I insisted on
+this appeal to his friends before he either entangled Lucy in a promise,
+or even made any declaration himself. He showed me the letter before
+he posted it. It was all I could wish. It is not a very easy task for
+a young fellow to tell his father he 's in love; but he, in the very
+frankness of his nature, acquitted himself well and manfully.”
+
+“And what answer has he received?”
+
+“None as yet. Two posts have passed. He might have heard through
+either of them; but no letter has come, and he is feverishly uneasy and
+anxious.”
+
+The vicar was silent, but a grave motion of his head implied doubt and
+fear.
+
+“Yes,” said Sir Brook, answering the gesture,--“yes, I agree with you.
+The Traffords are great folk in their own country. Trafford was a strong
+place in Saxon times. They have pride enough for all this blood, and
+wealth enough for both pride and blood.”
+
+“They 'd find their match in Lendrick, quiet and simple as he seems,”
+ said the vicar.
+
+“Which makes the matter worse. Who is to give way? Who is to _céder le
+pas?_”
+
+“I am not so sure I should have advised that letter. I am inclined to
+think I would have counselled more time, more consideration. Fathers and
+mothers are prudently averse to these loves at first sight, and they are
+merciless in dealing with what they deem a mere passing sentiment.”
+
+“Better that than suffer him to engage the girl's affections, and then
+learn that he must either desert her or marry her against the feeling
+of his family. Let us have a stroll in the garden. I have made you one
+confidence; I will now make you another.”
+
+They lit their cigars, and strolled out into a long alley fenced on one
+side by a tall dense hedge of laurels, and flanked on the other by a low
+wall, over which the view took in the wide reach of the river and the
+distant mountains of Scariff and Meelick.
+
+“Was not that where we picnicked yesterday?” asked Sir Brook, pointing
+to an island in the distance.
+
+“No; you cannot see Holy Island from this.”
+
+Sir Brook smoked on for some minutes without a word; at last, with a
+sort of abruptness, he said, “She was so like her, not only in face and
+figure, but her manner; the very tone of her voice was like; and then
+that half-caressing, half-timid way she has in conversation, and, more
+than all, the sly quietness with which she caps you when you fancy that
+the smart success is all your own.”
+
+“Of whom are you speaking?”
+
+“Of another Lucy,” said Sir Brook, with a deep melancholy. “Heaven
+grant that the resemblance follow them not in their lives as in their
+features! It was that likeness, however, which first attracted me
+towards Miss Lendrick. The first moment I saw her it overcame me; as I
+grew to know her better, it almost confused me, and made me jumble in
+your hearing things of long ago with the present. Time and space were
+both forgotten, and I found my mind straying away to scenes in the
+Himalaya with those I shall never see more. It was thus that, one day
+carried away by this delusion, I chanced to call her Lucy, and she
+laughingly begged me not to retract it, but so to call her always.” For
+some minutes he was silent, and then resumed: “I don't know if you ever
+heard of a Colonel Frank Dillon, who served on Napier's staff in Scinde.
+Fiery Frank was his nickname among his comrades, but it only applied
+to him on the field of battle, and with an enemy in front. Then he was
+indeed fiery,--the excitement rose to almost madness, and led him to
+acts of almost incredible daring. At Meanee he was nearly cut to pieces,
+and as he lay wounded, and to all appearance dying, he received a
+lance-wound through the chest that the surgeon declared must prove
+fatal. He lived, however, for eight months after,--he lived long enough
+to reach the Himalayas, where his daughter, an only child, joined him
+from England. On her way out she became acquainted with a young officer,
+who was coming out as aide-de-camp to the Governor-General. They were
+constantly thrown together on the journey, and his attentions to her
+soon showed the sentiments he had conceived for her. In fact, very soon
+after Lucy had joined her father, Captain Sewell appeared 'in the Hills'
+to make a formal demand of her in marriage.
+
+“I was there at the time, and I remember well poor Dillon's expression
+of disappointment after the first meeting with him. His daughter's
+enthusiastic description of his looks, his manner, his abilities, his
+qualities generally, had perhaps prepared him for too much. Indeed,
+Lucy's own intense admiration for the soldierlike character of her
+father's features assisted the mistake; for, as Dillon said, 'There must
+be a dash of the _sabreur_ in the fellow that will win Lucy.' I came
+into Dillon's room immediately after the first interview. The instant
+I caught his eye I read what was going on in his brain. 'Sit down here,
+Brook,' cried he, 'sit in my chair here;' and he arose painfully as he
+spoke. 'I'll show you the man.' With this he hobbled over to a table
+where his cap lay, and, placing it rakishly on one side of his head, he
+stuck his eyeglass in one eye, and, with a hand in his trousers-pocket,
+lounged forward towards where I sat, saying, 'How d' ye do, Colonel?
+Wound doing better, I hope. The breezy climate up here soon set you up.'
+'Familiar enough this, sir,' cried Dillon, in his own stern voice; 'but
+without time to breathe, as it were,--before almost I had exchanged
+a greeting with him,--he entered upon the object of his journey. I
+scarcely heard a word he said; I knew its purport,--I could mark the
+theme,--but no more. It was not the fellow himself that filled my mind;
+my whole thoughts were upon my daughter, and I went on repeating to
+myself, “Good heavens! is this Lucy's choice? Am I in a trance? Is
+it this contemptible cur (for he was a cur, sir) that has won the
+affections of my darling, high-hearted, generous girl? Is the romantic
+spirit that I have so loved to see in her to bear no better fruit than
+this? Does the fellow realize to her mind the hero that fills men's
+thoughts?” I was so overcome, so excited, so confused, Brook, that I
+begged him to leave me for a while, that one of my attacks of pain was
+coming on, and that I should not be able to converse farther He said
+something about trying one of his cheroots,--some impertinence or other,
+I forget what; but he left me, and I, who never knew a touch of girlish
+weakness in my life, who when a child had no mood of softness in my
+nature,--I felt the tears trickling along my cheeks, and my eyes dimmed
+with them.' My poor friend,” continued Fossbrooke, “could not go on; his
+emotions mastered him, and he sat with his head buried between his hands
+and in silence. At last he said, 'She 'll not give him up, Brook; I have
+spoken to her,--she actually loves him. Good heavens!' he cried, 'how
+little do we know about our children's hearts! how far astray are we as
+to the natures that have grown up beside us, imbibing, as we thought,
+our hopes, our wishes, and our prejudices! We awake some day to discover
+that some other influence has crept in to undo our teachings, and
+that the fidelity on which we would have staked our lives has changed
+allegiance.'
+
+“He talked to me long in this strain, and I saw that the effects of this
+blow to all his hopes had made themselves deeply felt on his chance of
+recovery. It only needed a great shock to depress him to make his case
+hopeless. Within two months after his daughter's arrival he was no more.
+
+“I became Lucy's guardian. Poor Dillon gave me the entire control over
+her future fortune, and left me to occupy towards her the place he had
+himself held. I believe that next to her father I held the best place
+in her affections,--of such affections, I mean, as are accorded to
+a parent. I was her godfather, and from her earliest infancy she had
+learned to love me. The reserve--it was positive coldness--with which
+Dillon had always treated Sewell had caused a certain distance, for the
+first time in their lives, between the father and daughter. She thought,
+naturally enough, that her father was unjust; that, unaccustomed to the
+new tone of manners which had grown up amongst young men,--their greater
+ease, their less rigid observance of ceremonial, their more liberal
+self-indulgence,--he was unfairly severe upon her lover. She was
+annoyed, too, that Sewells attempts to conciliate the old man should
+have turned out such complete failures. But none of these prejudices
+extended to me, and she counted much on the good understanding that she
+expected to find grow up between us.
+
+“If I could have prevented the marriage, I would. I learned many things
+of the man that I disliked. There is no worse sign of a man than to be
+at the same time a man of pleasure and friendless. These he was,--he was
+foremost in every plan of amusement and dissipation, and yet none liked
+him. Vain fellows get quizzed for their vanity, and selfish men laughed
+at for their selfishness, and close men for their avarice; but there
+is a combination of vanity, egotism, small craftiness, and
+self-preservation in certain fellows that is totally repugnant to all
+companionship. Their lives are a series of petty successes, not owing
+to any superior ability or greater boldness of daring, but to a studious
+outlook for small opportunities. They are ever alive to know the 'right
+man,' to be invited to the 'right house,' to say the 'right thing.'
+Never linked with whatever is in disgrace or misfortune, they are always
+found backing the winning horse, if not riding him.
+
+“Such men as these, so long as the world goes well with them, and events
+turn out fortunately, are regarded simply as sharp, shrewd fellows,
+with a keen eye to their own interests. When, however, the weight of
+any misfortune comes, when the time arrives that they have to bear up
+against the hard pressure of life, these fellows come forth in their
+true colors, swindlers and cheats.
+
+“Such was he. Finding that I was determined to settle the small fortune
+her father had left her inalienably on herself, he defeated me by a
+private marriage. He then launched out into a life of extravagance to
+which their means bore no proportion. I was a rich man in those days,
+and knew nothing better to do with my money than assist the daughter of
+my oldest friend. The gallant Captain did not balk my good intentions.
+He first accepted, he then borrowed, and last of all he forged my name.
+I paid the bills and saved him, not for his sake, I need not tell you,
+but for hers, who threw herself at my feet, and implored me not to see
+them ruined. Even this act of hers he turned to profit. He wrote to
+me to say that he knew his wife had been to my house, that he had long
+nurtured suspicions against me,--I that was many years older than her
+own father,--that for the future he desired all acquaintance should
+cease between us, and that I should not again cross his threshold.
+
+“By what persuasions or by what menaces he led his wife to the step, I
+do not know; but she passed me when we met without a recognition. This
+was the hardest blow of all. I tried to write her a letter; but after a
+score of attempts I gave it up, and left the place.
+
+“I never saw her for eight years. I wish I had not seen her then. I
+am an old, hardened man of the world, one whom life has taught all its
+lessons to in the sternest fashion. I have been so baffled and beaten,
+and thrown back by all my attempts to think well of the world, that
+nothing short of a dogged resolution not to desert my colors has rescued
+me from a cold misanthropy; and yet, till I saw, I did not believe
+there was a new pang of misery my heart had not tasted. What? it is
+incredible,--surely that is not she who once was Lucy Dillon,--that
+bold-faced woman with lustrous eyes and rouged cheeks,--brilliant,
+indeed, and beautiful, but not the beauty that is allied to the
+thought of virtue,--whose every look is a wile, whose every action is
+entanglement. She was leaning on a great man's arm, and in the smile she
+gave him told me how she knew to purchase such distinctions. He noticed
+me, and shook my hand as I passed. I heard him tell her who I was; and
+I heard her say that I had been a hanger-on, a sort of dependant of her
+father's, but she never liked me! I tried to laugh, but the pain was too
+deep. I came away, and saw her no more.”
+
+He ceased speaking, and for some time they walked along side by side
+without a word. At last he broke out: “Don't believe the people who say
+that men are taught by anything they experience in life. Outwardly they
+may affect it. They may assume this or that manner. The heart cannot
+play the hypocrite, and no frequency of disaster diminishes the smart.
+The wondrous resemblance Miss Lendrick bears to Lucy Dillon renews to my
+memory the bright days of her early beauty, when her poor father would
+call her to sit down at his feet and read to him, that he might gaze
+at will on her, weaving whole histories of future happiness and joy for
+her. 'Is it not like sunshine in the room to see her, Brook?' would he
+whisper to me. 'I only heard her voice as she passed under my window
+this morning, and I forgot some dark thought that was troubling me.'
+And there was no exaggeration in this. The sweet music of her tones
+“vibrated so softly on the ear, they soothed the sense, just as we feel
+soothed by the gentle ripple of a stream.
+
+“All these times come back to me since I have been here, and I cannot
+tell you how the very sorrow that is associated with them has its power
+over me. Every one knows with what attachment the heart will cling to
+some little spot in a far-away land that reminds one of a loved place at
+home,--how we delight to bring back old memories, and how we even like
+to name old names, to cheat ourselves back into the past. So it is that
+I feel when I see this girl. The other Lucy was once as my daughter; so,
+too, do I regard her, and with this comes that dreadful sorrow I have
+told you of, giving my interest in her an intensity unspeakable. When
+I saw Trafford's attention to her, the only thing I thought of was
+how unlike he was to him who won the other Lucy. His frank, unaffected
+bearing, his fine, manly trustfulness, the very opposite to the other's
+qualities, made me his friend at once. When I say friend, I mean
+well-wisher, for my friendship now bears no other fruit. Time was when
+it was otherwise.”
+
+“What is it, William?” cried the vicar, as his servant came hurriedly
+forward.
+
+“There 's a gentleman in the drawing-room, sir, wants to see Sir Brook
+Fossbrooke.”
+
+“Have I your leave?” said the old man, bowing low. “I 'll join you here
+immediately.”
+
+Within a few moments he was back again. “It was Trafford. He has just
+got a telegram to call him to his regiment. He suspects something has
+gone wrong; and seeing his agitation, I offered to go back with him. We
+start within an hour.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. LENDRICK RECOUNTS HIS VISIT TO TOWN
+
+The vicar having some business to transact in Limerick, agreed to
+go that far with Sir Brook and Trafford, and accompanied them to the
+railroad to see them off.
+
+A down train from Dublin arrived as they were waiting, and a passenger,
+descending, hastily hurried after the vicar, and seized his hand. The
+vicar, in evident delight, forgot his other friends for a moment,
+and became deeply interested in the new-comer. “We must say good-bye,
+doctor,” said Fossbrooke; “here comes our train.”
+
+“A thousand pardons, my dear Sir Brook. The unlooked-for arrival of my
+friend here--but I believe you don't know him. Lendrick, come here,
+I want to present you to Sir Brook Fossbrooke. Captain Trafford, Dr.
+Lendrick.”
+
+“I hope these gentlemen are not departing,” said Lendrick, with the
+constraint of a bashful man.
+
+“It is our misfortune to do so,” said Sir Brook; “but I have passed too
+many happy hours in this neighborhood not to come back to it as soon as
+I can.”
+
+“I hope we shall see you. I hope I may have an opportunity of thanking
+you, Sir Brook.”
+
+“Dublin! Dublin! Dublin! get in, gentlemen: first class, this way, sir,”
+ screamed a guard, amidst a thundering rumble, a scream, and a hiss. All
+other words were drowned, and with a cordial shake-hands the new friends
+parted.
+
+“Is the younger man his son?” asked Lendrick; “I did not catch the
+name?”
+
+“No; he's Trafford, a son of Sir Hugh Trafford,--a Lincolnshire man,
+isn't he?”
+
+“I don't know. It was of the other I was thinking. I felt it so strange
+to see a man of whom when a boy I used to hear so much. I have an old
+print somewhere of two over-dressed 'Bloods,' as they were called in
+those days, with immense whiskers, styled 'Fossy and Fussy,' meaning Sir
+Brook and the Baron Geramb, a German friend and follower of the Prince.”
+
+“I suspect a good deal changed since that day, in person as well as
+purse,” said the vicar, sadly.
+
+“Indeed! I heard of his having inherited some immense fortune.”
+
+“So he did, and squandered every shilling of it.”
+
+“And the chicks are well, you tell me?” said Lendrick, whose voice
+softened as he talked of home and his children.
+
+“Could n't be better. We had a little picnic on Holy Island yesterday,
+and only wanted yourself to have been perfectly happy. Lucy was for
+refusing at first.”
+
+“Why so?”
+
+“Some notion she had that you would n't like it. Some idea about not
+doing in your absence anything that was not usual when you are here.”
+
+“She is such a true girl, so loyal,” said Lendrick, proudly.
+
+“Well, I take the treason on my shoulders. I made her come. It was a
+delightful day, and we drank your health in as good a glass of Madeira
+as ever ripened in the sun. Now for your own news?”
+
+“First let us get on the road. I am impatient to be back at home again.
+Have you your car here?”
+
+“All is ready, and waiting for you at the gate.”
+
+As they drove briskly along, Lendrick gave the vicar a detailed account
+of his visit to Dublin. Passing over the first days, of which the reader
+already has heard something, we take up the story from the day on which
+Lendrick learned that his father would see him.
+
+“My mind was so full of myself, doctor,” said he, “of all the
+consequences which had followed from my father's anger with me, that I
+had no thought of anything else till I entered the room where he was.
+Then, however, as I saw him propped up with pillows in a deep chair,
+his face pale, his eyes colorless, and his head swathed up in a bandage
+after leeching, my heart sickened, alike with sorrow and shame at my
+great selfishness.
+
+“I had been warned by Beattie on no account to let any show of feeling
+or emotion escape me, to be as cool and collected as possible, and in
+fact, he said, to behave as though I had seen him the day before.
+
+“'Leave the room, Poynder,' said he to his man, 'and suffer no one to
+knock at the door--mind, not even to knock--till I ring my bell.' He
+waited till the man withdrew, and then in a very gentle voice said, 'How
+are you, Tom? I can't give you my right hand,--the rebellious member
+has ceased to know me!' I thought I should choke as the words met me; I
+don't remember what I said, but I took my chair and sat down beside him.
+
+“'I thought you might have been too much agitated, Tom, but otherwise
+I should have wished to have had your advice along with Beattie. I
+believe, on the whole, however, he has treated me well.'
+
+“I assured him that none could have done more skilfully.
+
+“The skill of the doctor with an old patient is the skill of an
+architect with an old wall. He must not breach it, or it will tumble to
+pieces.
+
+“'Beattie is very able, sir,' said I.
+
+“'No man is able,' replied he, quickly, 'when the question is to repair
+the wastes of time and years. Draw that curtain, and let me look at
+you. No; stand yonder, where the light is stronger. What! is it my eyes
+deceive me,--is your hair white?'
+
+“'It has been so eight years, sir.'
+
+“'And I had not a gray hair till my seventy-second year,--not one. I
+told Beattie, t' other day, that the race of the strong was dying out.
+Good heavens, how old you look! Would any one believe in seeing us that
+you could be my son?'
+
+“'I feel perhaps even more than I look it, sir.'
+
+“'I could swear you did. You are the very stamp of those fellows who
+plead guilty--“Guilty, my Lord; we throw ourselves on the mercy of
+the court.” I don't know how the great judgment-seat regards these
+pleas,--with _me_ they meet only scorn. Give me the man who says, “Try
+me, test me.” Drop that curtain, and draw the screen across the fire.
+Speak lower, too, my dear,' said he, in a weak soft voice; 'you suffer
+yourself to grow excited, and you excite me.'
+
+“'I will be more cautious, sir,' said I.
+
+“'What are these drops he is giving me? They have an acrid sweet taste.'
+
+“'Aconite, sir; a weak solution.'
+
+“'They say that our laws never forgot feudalism, but I declare I believe
+medicine has never been able to ignore alchemy: drop me out twenty, I
+see that your hand does not shake. Strange thought, is it not, to feel
+that a little phial like that could make a new Baron of the Exchequer?
+You have heard, I suppose, of the attempts--the indecent attempts--to
+induce me to resign. You have heard what they say of my age. They quote
+the registry of my baptism, as though it were the date of a conviction.
+I have yet to learn that the years a man has devoted to his country's
+service are counts in the indictment against his character. Age has been
+less merciful to me than to my fellows,--it has neither made me deaf
+to rancor nor blind to ingratitude. I told the Lord-Lieutenant so
+yesterday.'
+
+“'You saw him then, sir?' asked I.
+
+“'Yes, he was gracious enough to call here; he sent his secretary to ask
+if I would receive a visit from him. I thought that a little more tact
+might have been expected from a man in his station,--it is the common
+gift of those in high places. I perceive,' added he, after a pause, 'you
+don't see what I mean. It is this: royalties, or mock royalties, for
+they are the same in this, condescend to these visits as deathbed
+attentions. They come to us with their courtesies as the priest comes
+with his holy cruet, only when they have the assurance that we are
+beyond recovery. His Excellency ought to have felt that the man to
+whom he proposed this attention was not one to misunderstand its
+significance.'
+
+“'Did he remain long, sir?'
+
+“'Two hours and forty minutes. I measured it by my watch.'
+
+“'Was the fatigue not too much for you?'
+
+“'Of course it was; I fainted before he got to his carriage. He twice
+rose to go away, but on each occasion I had something to say that
+induced him to sit down again. It was the whole case of Ireland we
+reviewed,--that is, I did. I deployed the six millions before him,
+and he took the salute. Yes, sir, education, religious animosities,
+land-tenure, drainage, emigration, secret societies, the rebel priest
+and the intolerant parson, even nationality and mendicant insolence, all
+marched past, and he took the salute! “And now, my Lord,” said I, “it is
+the man who tells you these things, who has the courage to tell and the
+ability to display them, and it is this man for whose retirement your
+Ex-lency is so eager, that you have actually deigned to make him a
+visit, that he may carry away into the next world, perhaps, a pleasing
+memory of this; it is this man, I say, whom you propose to replace--and
+by what, my Lord, and by whom? Will a mere lawyer, will any amount of
+_nisi prius_ craft or precedent, give you the qualities you need on that
+bench, or that you need, sadly need, at this council-board? Go back, my
+Lord, and tell your colleagues of the Cabinet that Providence is more
+merciful than a Premier, and that the same overruling hand that has
+sustained me through this trial will uphold me, I trust, for years to
+serve my country, and save it for some time longer from your blundering
+legislation.”
+
+“'He stood up, sir, like a prisoner when under sentence; he stood up,
+sir, and as he bowed, I waved my adieu to him as though saying, You
+have heard me, and you are not to carry away from this place a hope, the
+faintest, that any change will come over the determination I have this
+day declared.
+
+“'He went away, and I fainted. The exertion was too long sustained,
+too much for me. I believe, after all,' added he, with a smile, 'his
+Excellency bore it very little better. He told the Archbishop the same
+evening that he'd not go through another such morning for “the garter.”
+ Men in his station hear so little of truth that it revolts them like
+coarse diet. They 'd rather abstain altogether till forced by actual
+hunger to touch it. When they come to me, however, it is the only fare
+they will find before them.'
+
+“There was a long pause after this,” continued Lendrick. “I saw that
+the theme had greatly excited him, and I forbore to say a word, lest
+he should be led to resume it. 'Too old for the bench!' burst he out
+suddenly; 'my Lord, there are men who are never too old, as there are
+those who are never too young. The oak is but a sapling when the pine is
+in decay. Is there that glut of intellect just now in England, are we
+so surfeited with ability that, to make room for the coming men, we, who
+have made our mark on the age, must retire into obscurity?' He tried
+to rise from his seat; his face was flushed, and his eyes flashing; he
+evidently forgot where he was, and with whom, for he sank back with
+a faint sigh, and said, 'Let us talk of it no more. Let us think of
+something else. Indeed, it was to talk of something else I desired to
+see you.' He went on, then, to say that he wished something could be
+done for me. His own means were, he said, sadly crippled; he spoke
+bitterly, resentfully, I thought. 'It is too long a story to enter on,
+and were it briefer, too disagreeable a one,' added he. 'I ought to be a
+rich man, and I am poor; I should be powerful, and I have no influence.
+All has gone ill with me.' After a silence, he continued, 'They have
+a place to offer you: the inspectorship, I think they call it, of
+hospitals at the Cape; it is worth, altogether, nigh a thousand a year,
+a thing not to be refused.'
+
+“'The offer could only be made in compliment to you, sir; and if my
+acceptance were to compromise your position--'
+
+“'Compromise _me!_' broke he in. 'I 'll take care it shall not. No man
+need instruct me in the art of self-defence, sir. Accept at once.'
+
+“'I will do whatever you desire, sir,' was my answer.
+
+“'Go out there yourself, alone,--at first, I mean. Let your boy continue
+his college career; the girl shall come to me.'
+
+“'I have never been separated from my children, sir,' said I, almost
+trembling with anxiety.
+
+“'Such separations are bearable,' added he, 'when it is duty dictates
+them, not disobedience.'
+
+“He fixed his eyes sternly on me, and I trembled as I thought that the
+long score of years was at last come to the reckoning. He did not dwell
+on the theme, however, but in a tone of much gentler meaning, went
+on: 'It will be an act of mercy to let me see a loving face, to hear a
+tender voice. Your boy would be too rough for me.'
+
+“'You would like him, sir. He is thoroughly truthful and honest.'
+
+“'So he may, and yet be self-willed, be noisy, be over-redolent of that
+youth which age resents like outrage. Give me the girl, Tom; let her
+come here, and bestow some of those loving graces on the last hours of
+my life her looks show she should be rich in. For your sake she will be
+kind to me. Who knows what charm there may be in gentleness, even to
+a tiger-nature like mine? Ask her, at least, if she will make the
+sacrifice.'
+
+“I knew not what to answer. If I could not endure the thought of
+parting from Lucy, yet it seemed equally impossible to refuse his
+entreaty,--old, friendless, and deserted as he was. I felt, besides,
+that my only hope of a real reconciliation with him lay through this
+road; deny him this, and it was clear he would never see me more. He
+said, too, it should only be for a season. I was to see how the place,
+the climate, suited for a residence. In a word, every possible argument
+to reconcile me to the project rushed to my mind, and I at last said,
+'Lucy shall decide, sir. I will set out for home at once, and you shall
+have her own answer.'
+
+“'Uninfluenced, sir,' cried he,--'mind that. If influence were to be
+used, I could perhaps tell her what might decide her at once; but I
+would not that pity should plead for me, till she should have seen if
+I be worth compassion! There is but one argument I will permit in my
+favor,--tell her that her picture has been my pleasantest companion
+these three long days. There it lies, always before me. Go now, and let
+me hear from you as soon as may be.' I arose, but somehow my agitation,
+do what I would, mastered me. It was so long since we had met! All the
+sorrows the long estrangement had cost me came to my mind, together
+with little touches of his kindness in long-past years, and I could not
+speak. 'Poor Tom! poor Tom!' said he, drawing me towards him; and he
+kissed me.”
+
+As Lendrick said this, emotion overcame him, and he covered his face
+with his hands, and sobbed bitterly. More than a mile of road was
+traversed before a word passed between them. “There they are, doctor!
+There 's Tom, there's Lucy! They are coming to meet me,” cried he.
+“Good-bye, doctor; you 'll forgive me, I know,--goodbye;” and he sprang
+off the car as he spoke, while the vicar, respecting the sacredness of
+the joy, wheeled his horse round, and drove back towards the town.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. CAVE CONSULTS SIR BROOK
+
+A few minutes after the Adjutant had informed Colonel Cave that
+Lieutenant Traflford had reported himself, Sir Brook entered the
+Colonel's quarters, eager to know what was the reason of the sudden
+recall of Traflford, and whether the regiment had been unexpectedly
+ordered for foreign service.
+
+“No, no,” said Cave, in some confusion. “We have had our turn of India
+and the Cape; they can't send us away again for some time. It was purely
+personal; it was, I may say, a private reason. You know,” added he, with
+a slight smile, “I am acting as a sort of guardian to Trafford just now.
+His family sent him over to me, as to a reformatory.”
+
+“From everything I have seen of him, your office will be an easy one.”
+
+“Well, I suspect that, so far as mere wildness goes,--extravagance and
+that sort of thing,--he has had enough of it; but there are mistakes
+that a young fellow may make in life--mistakes in judgment--which will
+damage him more irreparably than all his derelictions against morality.”
+
+“That I deny,--totally, entirely deny. I know what you mean,--that is,
+I think I know what you mean; and if I guess aright, I am distinctly at
+issue with you on this matter.”
+
+“Perhaps I could convince you, notwithstanding. Here's a letter which
+I have no right to show you; it is marked 'Strictly confidential and
+private.' You shall read it,--nay, you must read it,--because you
+are exactly the man to be able to give advice on the matter. You like
+Traflford, and wish him well. Read that over carefully, and tell me what
+you would counsel.”
+
+Fossbrooke took out his spectacles, and, having seated himself
+comfortably, with his back to the light, began in leisurely fashion to
+peruse the letter. “It's his mother who writes,” said he, turning to
+the signature,--“one of the most worldly women I ever met. She was a
+Lascelles. Don't you know how she married Trafford?”
+
+“I don't remember, if I ever heard.”
+
+“It was her sister that Trafford wanted to marry, but she was ambitious
+to be a peeress; and as Bradbrook was in love with her, she told Sir
+Hugh, 'I have got a sister so like me nobody can distinguish between us.
+She 'd make an excellent wife for you. She rides far better than me, and
+she is n't half so extravagant. I 'll send for her.' She did so, and the
+whole thing was settled in a week.”
+
+“They have lived very happily together.”
+
+“Of course they have. They didn't 'go in,' as the speculators say, for
+enormous profits; they realized very fairly, and were satisfied. I wish
+her handwriting had been more cared for. What's this she says here about
+a subscription?”
+
+“That 's supervision,--the supervision of a parent.”
+
+“Supervision of a fiddlestick! the fellow is six feet one inch high,
+and seven-and-twenty years of age; he's quite beyond supervision. Ah!
+brought back all his father's gout, has he? When will people begin to
+admit that their own tempers have something to say to their maladies?
+I curse the cook who made the mulligatawny, but I forget that I ate two
+platefuls of it. So it's the doctor's daughter she objects to. I wish
+she saw her. I wish _you_ saw her, Cave. You are an old frequenter of
+courts and drawing-rooms. I tell you you have seen nothing like this
+doctor's daughter since Laura Bedingfield was presented, and that was
+before your day.”
+
+“Every one has heard of the Beauty Bedingfield; but she was my mother's
+contemporary.”
+
+“Well, sir, her successors have not eclipsed her! This doctor's
+daughter, as your correspondent calls her, is the only rival of her that
+I have ever seen. As to wit and accomplishments, Laura could not compete
+with Lucy Lendrick.”
+
+“You know her, then?” asked the Colonel; and then added, “Tell me
+something about the family.”
+
+“With your leave, I will finish this letter first. Ah! here we have the
+whole secret. Lionel Trafford is likely to be that precious prize, an
+eldest son. Who could have thought that the law of entail could sway a
+mother's affections? 'Contract no ties inconsistent with his station.'
+This begins to be intolerable, Cave. I don't think I can go on.”
+
+“Yes, yes; read it through.”
+
+“She asks you if you know any one who knows these Hendrichs or
+Lendrichs; tell her that you do; tell her that your friend is one of
+those men who have seen a good deal of life, heard more, too, than
+he has seen. She will understand that, and that his name is Sir Brook
+Fossbrooke, who, if needed, will think nothing of a journey over to
+Lincolnshire to afford her all the information she could wish for.
+Say this, Cave, and take my word for it, she will put very few more
+questions to you.”
+
+“That would be to avow I had already consulted with you. No, no; I must
+not do that.”
+
+“The wind-up of the epistle is charming. 'I have certainly no reason to
+love Ireland.' Poor Ireland! here is another infliction upon you. Let us
+hope you may never come to know that Lady Trafford cannot love you.”
+
+“Come, come, Fossbrooke, be just, be fair; there is nothing so very
+unreasonable in the anxiety of a mother that her son, who will have a
+good name and a large estate, should not share them both with a person
+beneath him.”
+
+“Why must she assume that this is the case,--why take it for granted
+that this girl must be beneath him? I tell you, sir, if a prince of the
+blood had fallen in love with her, it would be a reason to repeal the
+Royal Marriage Act.”
+
+“I declare, Fossbrooke, I shall begin to suspect that your own heart has
+not escaped scathless,” said Cave, laughing.
+
+The old man's face became crimson, but not with anger. As suddenly it
+grew pale; and in a voice of deep agitation he said, “When an old man
+like myself lays his homage at her feet, it is not hard to believe how a
+young man might love her.”
+
+“How did you come to make this acquaintance?” said Cave, anxious to turn
+the conversation into a more familiar channel.
+
+“We chanced to fail in with her brother on the river. We found him
+struggling with a fish far too large for his tackle, and which at last
+smashed his rod and got away. He showed not alone that he was a perfect
+angler, but that he was a fine-tempered fellow, who accepted his defeat
+manfully and well; he had even a good word for his enemy, sir, and
+it was that which attracted me. Trafford and he, young-men-like, soon
+understood each other; he came into our boat, lunched with us, and asked
+us home with him to tea. There 's the whole story. As to the intimacy
+that followed, it was mostly my own doing. I own to you I never so much
+as suspected that Trafford was smitten by her; he was always with her
+brother, scarcely at all in her company; and when he came to tell me he
+was in love, I asked him how he caught the malady, for I never saw him
+near the infection. Once that I knew of the matter, however, I made him
+write home to his family.”
+
+“It was by your advice, then, that he wrote that letter?”
+
+“Certainly; I not only advised, I insisted on it,--I read it, too,
+before it was sent off. It was such a letter as, if I had been the young
+fellow's father, would have made me prouder than to hear he had got the
+thanks of Parliament.”
+
+“You and I, Fossbrooke, are old bachelors; we are scarcely able to say
+what we should have done if we had had sons.”
+
+“I am inclined to believe it would have made us better, not worse,” said
+Fossbrooke, gravely.
+
+“At all events, as it was at your instigation this letter was written,
+I can't well suggest your name as an impartial person in the
+transaction,--I mean, as one who can be referred to for advice or
+information.”
+
+“Don't do so, sir, or I shall be tempted to say more than may be
+prudent. Have you never noticed, Cave, the effect that a doctor's
+presence produces in the society of those who usually consult him,--the
+reserve,--the awkwardness,--the constraint,--the apologetic tone for
+this or that little indiscretion,--the sitting in the draught or the
+extra glass of sherry? So is it, but in a far stronger degree, when an
+old man of the world like myself comes back amongst those he formerly
+lived with,--one who knew all their past history, how they succeeded
+here, how they failed there,--what led the great man of fashion to
+finish his days in a colony, and why the Court beauty married a bishop.
+Ah, sir, we are the physicians who have all these secrets in our
+keeping. It is ours to know what sorrow is covered by that smile, how
+that merry laugh has but smothered the sigh of a heavy heart. It is only
+when a man has lived to my age, with an unfailing memory too, that he
+knows the real hollowness of life,--all the combinations falsified, all
+the hopes blighted,--the clever fellows that have turned out failures,
+or worse than failures,--the lovely women that have made shipwreck
+through their beauty. It is not only, however, that he knows this, but
+he knows how craft and cunning have won where ability and frankness
+have lost,--how intrigue and trick have done better than genius and
+integrity. With all this knowledge, sir, in their heads, and stout
+hearts within them, such men as myself have their utility in life. They
+are a sort of walking conscience that cannot be ignored. The railroad
+millionnaire talks less boastfully before him who knew him as an
+errand-boy; the _grande dame_ is less superciliously insolent in the
+presence of one who remembered her in a very different character. Take
+my word for it, Cave, Nestor may have been a bit of a bore amongst the
+young Greeks of fashion, but he had his utility too.”
+
+“But how am I to answer this letter? What advice shall I give her?”
+
+“Tell her frankly that you have made the inquiry she wished; that the
+young lady, who is as well born as her son, is without fortune, and if
+her personal qualities count for nothing, would be what the world would
+call a 'bad match.'”
+
+“Yes, that sounds practicable. I think that will do.”
+
+“Tell her, also, that if she seriously desires that her son should
+continue in the way of that reformation he has so ardently followed for
+some time back, and especially so since he has made the acquaintance of
+this family, such a marriage as this would give her better reasons
+for confidence than all her most crafty devices in match-making and
+settlements.”
+
+“I don't think I can exactly tell her that,” said Caver smiling.
+
+“Tell her, then, that if this connection be not to her liking, to
+withdraw her son at once from this neighborhood before this girl should
+come to care for him; for if she should, by heavens! he shall marry her,
+if every acre of the estate were to go to a cousin ten times removed!”
+
+“Were not these people all strangers to you t' other day, Fossbrooke?”
+ said Cave, in something like a tone of reprehension.
+
+“So they were. I had never so much as heard of them; but she, this girl,
+has a claim upon my interest, founded on a resemblance so strong that
+when I see her, I live back again in the long past, and find myself in
+converse with the dearest friends I ever had. I vow to Heaven I never
+knew the bitterness of want of fortune till now! I never felt how
+powerless and insignificant poverty can make a man till I desired to
+contribute to this girl's happiness; and if I were not an old worthless
+wreck,--shattered and unseaworthy,--I 'd set to work to-morrow to refit
+and try to make a fortune to bestow on her.”
+
+If Cave was half disposed to banter the old man on what seemed little
+short of a devoted attachment, the agitation of Fossbrooke's manner--his
+trembling lip, his shaking voice, his changing color--all warned him
+to forbear, and abstain from what might well have proved a perilous
+freedom.
+
+“You will dine with us at mess, Fossbrooke, won't you?”
+
+“No; I shall return at once to Killaloe. I made Dr. Lendrick's
+acquaintance just as I started by the train. I want to see more of
+him. Besides, now that I know what was the emergency that called young
+Trafford up here, I have nothing to detain me.”
+
+“Shall you see him before you go?”
+
+“Of course. I am going over to his quarters now.”
+
+“You will not mention our conversation?”
+
+“Certainly not.”
+
+“I 'd like to show you my letter before I send it off. I 'd be glad to
+think it was what you recommended.”
+
+“Write what you feel to be a fair statement of the case, and if by any
+chance an inclination to partiality crosses you, let it be in favor of
+the young. Take my word for it, Cave, there is a selfishness in age that
+needs no ally. Stand by the sons; the fathers and mothers will take care
+of themselves. Good-bye.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. A GREAT MAN'S SCHOOLFELLOW
+
+Whether it was that the Chief Baron had thrown off an attack which had
+long menaced him, and whose slow approaches had gradually impaired his
+strength and diminished his mental activity, or whether, as some of his
+“friends” suggested, that the old man's tenure of life had been renewed
+by the impertinences of the newspapers and the insolent attacks of
+political foes,--an explanation not by any means far-fetched,--whatever
+the cause, he came out of his illness with all the signs of renewed
+vigor, and with a degree of mental acuteness that he had not enjoyed for
+many years before.
+
+“Beattie tells me that this attack has inserted another life in my
+lease,” said he; “and I am glad of it. It is right that the men who
+speculated on my death should be reminded of the uncertainty of life by
+the negative proof. It is well, too, that there should be men long-lived
+enough to bridge over periods of mediocrity, and connect the triumphs
+of the past with the coming glories of the future. We are surely not
+destined to a perpetuity of Pendletons and Fitzgibbons?”
+
+It was thus he discoursed to an old legal comrade,--who, less gifted
+and less fortunate, still wore his stuff gown, and pleaded for the
+outer bar,--poor old Billy Haire, the dreariest advocate, and one of the
+honestest fellows that ever carried his bag into court. While nearly all
+of his contemporaries had risen to rank and eminence, Billy toiled on
+through life with small success, liked by his friends, respected by
+the world, but the terror of attorneys, who only saw in him the type of
+adverse decisions and unfavorable verdicts.
+
+For forty-odd years had he lived a life that any but himself would have
+deemed martyrdom,--his law laughed at, his eloquence ridiculed, his
+manner mimicked, jeered at by the bench, quizzed by the bar, sneered at
+by the newspapers, every absurd story tagged to his name, every stupid
+blunder fathered on him, till at last, as it were, by the mere force
+of years, the world came to recognize the incomparable temper that no
+provocation had ever been able to irritate, the grand nature that rose
+above all resentment, and would think better of its fellows than these
+moods of spiteful wit or impertinent drollery might seem to entitle them
+to.
+
+The old Judge liked him; he liked his manly simplicity of character, his
+truthfulness, and his honesty; but perhaps more than all these, did he
+like his dulness. It was so pleasant to him to pelt this poor heavy man
+with smart epigrams and pungent sarcasms on all that was doing in the
+world, and see the hopeless effort he made to follow him.
+
+Billy, too, had another use; he alone, of all the Chief Baron's friends,
+could tell him what was the current gossip of the hall,--what men
+thought, or at least what they said of him. The genuine simplicity of
+Haire's nature gave to his revelations a character so devoid of all
+spitefulness,--it was so evident that, in repeating, he never identified
+himself with his story that Lendrick would listen to words from him
+that, coming from another, his resentment would have repelled with
+indignation.
+
+“And you tell me that the story now is, my whole attack was nothing but
+temper?” said the old Judge, as the two men walked slowly up and down on
+the grass lawn before the door.
+
+“Not that exactly; but they say that constitutional irritability had
+much to say to it.”
+
+“It was, in fact, such a seizure as, with a man like yourself, would
+have been a mere nothing.”
+
+“Perhaps so.”
+
+“I am sure of it, sir; and what more do they say?”
+
+“All sorts of things, which, of course, they know nothing about. Some
+have it that you refused the peerage, others that it was not offered.”
+
+“Ha!” said the old man, irritably, while a faint flush tinged his cheek.
+
+“They say, too,” continued Haire, “that when the Viceroy informed you
+that you were not to be made a peer, you said: 'Let the Crown look to
+it, then. The Revenue cases all come to my court; and so long as I sit
+there, they shall never have a verdict.'”
+
+“You must have invented that yourself, Billy,” said the Judge, with a
+droll malice in his eye. “Come, confess it is your own. It is _so_ like
+you.”
+
+“No, on my honor,” said the other, solemnly.
+
+“Not that I would take it ill, Haire, if you had. When a man has a turn
+for epigram, his friends must extend their indulgence to the humor.”
+
+“I assure you, positively, it is not mine.”
+
+“That is quite enough; let us talk of something else. By the way, I have
+a letter to show you. I put it in my pocket this morning, to let you
+see it; but, first of all, I must show you the writer,--here she is.”
+ He drew forth a small miniature case, and, opening it, handed it to the
+other.
+
+“What a handsome girl! downright beautiful!”
+
+“My granddaughter, sir,” said the old man, proudly.
+
+“I declare, I never saw a lovelier face,” said Haire. “She must be
+a rare cheat if she be not as good as she is beautiful. What a sweet
+mouth!”
+
+“The brow is fine; there is a high intelligence about the eyes and the
+temples.”
+
+“It is the smile, that little lurking smile, that captivates me. What
+may her age be?”
+
+“Something close on twenty. Now for her letter. Read that.”
+
+While Haire perused the letter, the old Judge sauntered away, looking
+from time to time at the miniature, and muttering some low inaudible
+words as he went.
+
+“I don't think I understand it. I am at a loss to catch what she is
+drifting at,” said Haire, as he finished the first side of the letter.
+“What is she so grateful for?”
+
+“You think the case is one which calls for little gratitude, then. What
+a sarcastic mood you are in this morning, Haire!” said the Judge, with
+a malicious twinkle of the eye. “Still, there are young ladies in the
+world who would vouchsafe to bear me company in requital for being
+placed at the head of such a house as this.”
+
+“I can make nothing of it,” said the other, hopelessly.
+
+“The case is this,” said the Judge, as he drew his arm within the
+other's. “Tom Lendrick has beeu offered a post of some value--some value
+to a man poor as he is--at the Cape. I have told him that his acceptance
+in no way involves me. I have told those who have offered the place that
+I stand aloof in the whole negotiation,--that in their advancement of
+my son they establish no claim upon _me_, I have even said I will know
+nothing whatever of the incident.” He paused for some minutes, and then
+went on: “I have told Tom, however, if his circumstances were such as
+to dispose him to avail himself of this offer, that--until he assured
+himself that the place was one to his liking, that it gave a reasonable
+prospect of permanence, that the climate was salubrious, and the society
+not distasteful--I would take his daughter to live with me.”
+
+“He has a son, too, has n't he?”
+
+“He has, sir, and he fain would have induced me to take _him_ instead of
+the girl; but this I would not listen to. I have not nerves for the loud
+speech and boisterous vitality of a young fellow of four or five and
+twenty. His very vigor would be a standing insult to me, and the fellow
+would know it. When men come to my age, they want a mild atmosphere in
+morals and manners, as well as in climate. My son's physiology has not
+taught him this, doctor though he be.”
+
+“I see,--I see it all now,” said Haire; “and the girl, though sorry to
+be separated from her father, is gratified by the thought of becoming a
+tie between him and you.”
+
+“That is not in the record, sir,” said the Judge, sternly. “Keep to your
+brief.” He took the letter sharply from the other's hand as he spoke.
+“My granddaughter has not had much experience of life; but her woman's
+tact has told her that her real difficulty--her only one, perhaps--will
+be with Lady Lendrick. She cannot know that Lady Lendrick's authority
+in this house is nothing,--less than nothing. I would never have invited
+her to come here, had it been otherwise.”
+
+“Have you apprised Lady Lendrick of this arrangement?”
+
+“No, sir; nor shall I. it shall be for you to do that 'officiously,' as
+the French say, to distinguish from what is called 'officially.' I mean
+you to call upon her and say, in the course of conversation, informally,
+accidentally, that Miss Lendrick's arrival at the Priory has been
+deferred, or that it is fixed for such a date,--in fact, sir, whatever
+your own nice tact may deem the neatest mode of alluding to the topic,
+leaving to her the reply. You understand me?”
+
+“I 'm not so sure that I do.”
+
+“So much the better; your simplicity will be more inscrutable than your
+subtlety, Haire. I can deal with the one--the other masters me.”
+
+“I declare frankly I don't like the mission. I was never, so to say, a
+favorite with her Ladyship.”
+
+“Neither was I, sir,” said the other, with a peremptory loudness that
+was almost startling.
+
+“Hadn't you better intimate it by a few lines in a note? Had n't you
+better say that, having seen your son during his late visit to town, and
+learnt his intention to accept a colonial appointment--”
+
+“All this would be apologetic, sir, and must not be thought of. Don't
+you know, Haire, that every unnecessary affidavit is a flaw in a man's
+case? Go and see her; your very awkwardness will imply a secret, and she
+'ll be so well pleased with her acuteness in discovering the mystery,
+she 'll half forget its offence.”
+
+“Let me clearly understand what I' ve got to do. I 'm to tell her or to
+let her find out that you have been reconciled to your son Tom?”
+
+“There is not a word of reconciliation, sir, in all your instructions.
+You are to limit yourself to the statement that touches my
+granddaughter.”
+
+“Very well; it will be so much the easier. I'm to say, then, that you
+have adopted her, and placed her at the head of your house; that she is
+to live here in all respects as its mistress?”
+
+He paused; and as the Judge bowed a concurrence, he went on: “Of course
+you will allow me to add that I was never consulted; that you did not
+ask my opinion, and that I never gave one?”
+
+“You are at liberty to, say all this.”
+
+“I would even say that I don't exactly see how the thing will work. A
+very young girl, with of course a limited experience of life, will
+have no common difficulties in dealing with a world so new and strange,
+particularly without the companionship of one of her own sex.”
+
+“I cannot promise to supply that want, but she shall see as much of
+_you_ as possible.” And the words were uttered with a blended courtesy
+and malice, of which he was perfect master. Poor Haire, however, only
+saw the complimentary part, and hurriedly pledged himself to be at Miss
+Lendrick's orders at all times.
+
+“Come and let me show you how I mean to lodge her. I intend her to feel
+a perfect independence of me and my humors. We are to see each other
+from inclination, not constraint: I intend, sir that we should live on
+good terms; and as the Church will have nothing to say to the compact,
+it is possible it may succeed.
+
+“These rooms are to be hers,” said he, opening a door which offered a
+_vista_ through several handsomely furnished rooms, all looking out upon
+a neatly kept flower-garden. “Lady Lendrick, I believe, had long since
+destined them for a son and daughter-in-law of hers, who are on their
+way home from India. The plan will be now all the more difficult of
+accomplishment.”
+
+“Which will not make my communication to her the pleasanter.”
+
+“But redound so much the more to the credit of your adroitness, Haire,
+if you succeed. Come over here this evening and report progress.” And
+with this he nodded an easy good-bye, and strolled down the garden.
+
+“I don't envy Haire his brief in this case,” muttered he. “He'll not
+have the 'court with him,' that's certain;” and he laughed spitefully to
+himself as he went.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. LAST DAYS
+
+It may seem a hardship, but not improbably it is in its way an
+alleviation, that we are never involved in any of the great trials
+in life without having to deal with certain material embarrassments,
+questions of vulgar interest which concern our pockets and affect our
+finances.
+
+Poor Lendrick's was a case in point. He was about to leave his
+country,--to tear himself from a home he had embellished,--to separate
+from his children that he loved so dearly, to face a new life in a new
+land, friendless and alone; and with all these cares on his heart, he
+had creditors to satisfy, debts to insure payment of by security, and,
+not least of his troubles, his house to relet. Now, the value the world
+sets on that which is not for sale is very unlike its estimate for the
+same commodity when brought to market. The light claret your friend
+pronounced a very pleasant little wine at your own table, he would
+discover, when offered for purchase, to be poor, washy, and acrid. The
+horse you had left him, and whose performance he had encomiumized,
+if put up to auction, would be found spavined, or windgalled, or
+broken-down. Such a stern test is money, so fearfully does its coarse
+jingle jar upon all the music of flattery, and make discord of all
+compliment. To such a pitch is the process carried, that even pretty
+women, who as wives were objects of admiration to despairing and
+disappointed adorers, have become, by widowhood, very ordinary
+creatures, simply because they are once more “in the market.”
+
+It is well for us that heaven itself was not in the “Price Current,”
+ or we might have begun to think lightly of it. At all events we 'd have
+higgled about the cost, and tried to get there as cheaply as might be.
+
+From the day that the Swan's Nest appeared in the Dublin papers “to be
+let furnished, for the three years of an unexpired term,” Lendrick was
+besieged by letters and applications. All the world apparently wanted
+the place, but wanted it in some way or other quite out of his power
+to accord. One insisted on having it unfurnished, and for a much longer
+period than he could give. Another desired more land, and the right of
+shooting over several hundred additional acres. A third would like the
+house and garden, but would not burden himself with the lawn, and could
+not see why Lendrick might not continue to hold the meadow-land, and
+come back from the Cape or anywhere else to mow the grass and rick it in
+due season.
+
+A schoolmistress proposed he should build a dormitory for thirty young
+ladies, and make the flower-garden into a playground; and a miller from
+Limerick inquired whether he was willing to join in a suit to establish
+a right of water-power by diverting a stream from the Shannon through
+the dining-room to turn an undershot wheel.
+
+It was marvellous with what patience and courtesy Lendrick replied to
+these and such-like, politely assuring the writers how he regretted
+his inability to meet their wishes, and modestly confessing that he had
+neither the money nor the time to make his house other than it was.
+
+All these, however, were as nothing to his trials when the day arrived
+when the house and grounds, in the language of the advertisement, were
+“on view,” and the world of the curious and idle were free to invade the
+place, stroll at will through rooms and gardens, comment and criticise
+not merely the objects before them, but the taste and the fortunes, the
+habits and the lives of those who had made this their home, and these
+things part of their own natures.
+
+In a half-jesting humor, but really to save Lendrick from a
+mortification which, to a nature timid and sensitive as his, would
+have been torture, Sir Brook and Tom agreed to divide the labors of
+ciceroneship between them; the former devoting his attentions to
+the house and furniture, while Tom assumed the charge of grounds and
+gardens. To complete the arrangement, Lendrick and Lucy were banished to
+a small summer-house, and strictly enjoined never to venture abroad so
+long as the stranger horde overran the territory.
+
+“I declare, my dear, I almost think the remedy worse than the disease,”
+ said Lendrick to his daughter, as he paced with short feverish steps the
+narrow limits of his prison-house. “This isolation here has something
+secret, something that suggests shame about it. I think I could almost
+rather face all the remarks our visitors might make than sit down here
+to fancy and brood over them.”
+
+“I suspect not, dearest papa; I believe the plan will spare us much that
+might pain us.”
+
+“After all, child, these people have a right to be critical, and they
+are not bound to know by what associations you and I are tied to that
+old garden-seat or that bookstand, and we ought to be able to avoid
+showing them this.”
+
+“Perhaps we ought, papa; but could we do so? that's-the question.”
+
+“Surely the tradesman affects no such squeamishness about what he offers
+for sale.”
+
+“True, papa; because none of his wares have caught any clew to his
+identity. They have never been his in the sense which makes possession
+pleasure.”
+
+“I wish they would not laugh without there; their coarse laughter sounds
+to me so like vulgar ridicule. I hardly thought all this would have made
+me so irritable; even the children's voices jar on my nerves.”
+
+He turned away his head, but her eyes followed him, and two heavy tears
+stole slowly along her cheek, and her lip quivered as she looked.
+
+“There, they are going away,” said he, listening; “I am better now.”
+
+“That 's right, dearest papa; I knew it was a mere passing pang,” said
+she, drawing her arm within his, and walking along at his side. “How
+kind Sir Brook is!”
+
+“How kind every one, we might say. Poor Mills is like a brother, and
+Tobin too,--I scarcely expected so much heart from him. He gave me
+his old lancet-case as a keepsake yesterday, and I declare his voice
+trembled as he said good-bye.”
+
+“As for the poor people, I hear, papa, that one would think they had
+lost their nearest and dearest. Molly Dew says they were crying in her
+house this morning over their breakfast as if it was a funeral.”
+
+“Is it not strange, Lucy, that what touches the heart so painfully
+should help to heal the pang it gives? There is that in all this
+affection for us that gladdens while it grieves. All,--all are so kind
+to us! That young fellow--Trafford I think his name is--he was waiting
+at the post for his letters this morning when I came up, and it seems
+that Foss-brooke had told him of my appointment,--indiscreet of him, for
+I would not wish it talked of; but Trafford turned to him and said, 'Ask
+Dr. Lendrick, is he decided about going;' and when he heard that I was,
+he scarcely said goodbye, but jumped into a cab, and drove off full
+speed.
+
+“'What does that mean?' asked I.
+
+“'He was so fond of Tom,' said Fossbrooke, 'they were never separate
+this last month or five weeks;' so you see, darling, each of us has his
+sphere of love and affection.”
+
+Lucy was crimson over face and neck, but never spoke a word. Had she
+spoken it would have been, perhaps, to corroborate Sir Brook, and to say
+how fond the young men were of each other. I do not affirm this, I only
+hint that it is likely. Where there are blanks in this narrative, the
+reader has as much right to fill them as myself.
+
+“Sir Brook,” continued Lendrick, “thinks well of the young man; but for
+my own part I hardly like to see Tom in close companionship with one so
+much his superior in fortune. He is easily led, and has not yet learned
+that stern lesson in life, how to confess that there are many things he
+has no pretension to aspire to.”
+
+“Tom loves you too sincerely, papa, ever to do that which would
+seriously grieve you.”
+
+“He would not deliberately,--he would not in cold blood, Lucy; but young
+men, when together, have not many moods of deliberation or cold blood.
+But let us not speculate on trouble that may never come. It is enough
+for the present that he and Trafford are separated, if Trafford was even
+likely to lead him into ways of extravagance.”
+
+“What 's that! Is n't it, Tom? He's laughing heartily at something. Yes;
+here he comes.”
+
+“You may come out; the last of them has just driven off,” cried Tom,
+knocking at the door, while he continued to laugh on immoderately.
+
+“What is it, Tom? What are you laughing at?”
+
+“You should have seen it; it's nothing to tell, but it was wonderful to
+witness. I'll never forget it as long as I live.”
+
+“But what was it?” asked she, impatiently.
+
+“I thought we had fully done with all our visitors,--and a rum set they
+were, most of them, not thinking of taking the place, but come out of
+mere curiosity,--when who should drive up with two postilions and
+four spicy grays but Lady Drumcarran and a large party, three horsemen
+following? I just caught the word 'Excellency,' and found out from
+one of the servants that a tall old man with white hair and very heavy
+eyebrows was the Lord-Lieutenant. He stooped a good deal, and walked
+tenderly; and as the Countess was most eager about the grounds and the
+gardens, they parted company very soon, he going into the house to sit
+down, while she prosecuted her inquiries without doors.
+
+“I took him into the library; we had a long chat about fishing, and
+fish-curing, and the London markets, and flax, and national education,
+and land-tenure, and such-like. Of course I affected not to know who he
+was, and I took the opportunity to say scores of impertinences about
+the stupidity of the Castle, and the sort of men they send over here
+to govern us; and he asked me if I was destined for any career or
+profession, and I told him frankly that whenever I took up anything I
+always was sure to discover it was the one very thing that didn't suit
+me; and as I made this unlucky discovery in law, medicine, and the
+Church, I had given up my college career, and was now in a sort of
+interregnal period, wondering what it was to be next. I did n't like to
+own that the _res angusto_ had anything to say to it. It was no business
+of his to know about that.
+
+“'You surely have friends able and willing to suggest something that
+would fit you,' said he. 'Is not the Chief Baron your grandfather?'
+
+“'Yes, and he might make me crier of his court; but I think he has
+promised the reversion to his butler. The fact is, I 'd not do over
+well with any fixed responsibilities attached to me. I 'd rather be a
+guerilla than serve in the regulars, and so I 'll just wait and see if
+something won't turn up in that undisciplined force I 'd like to serve
+with.'
+
+“'I 'll give you my name,' said he, 'before we part, and possibly I may
+know some one who might be of use to you.'
+
+“I thanked him coolly, and we talked of something else, when there came
+a short plump little fellow, all beard and gold chains, to say that Lady
+Drumcarran was waiting for him. 'Tell her I'm coming,' said he; 'and,
+Balfour,' he cried out, 'before you go away, give this gentleman my
+address, and if he should call, take care that I see him.'
+
+“Balfour eyed me, and I eyed him, with, I take it, pretty much the same
+result, which said plainly enough, 'You 're not the man for me.'
+
+“'What in heaven's name is this?' cried the Viceroy, as he got outside
+and saw Lady Drumcarran at the head of a procession carrying plants,
+slips, and flower-pots down to the carriage.
+
+“'Her Ladyship has made a raid amongst the greeneries,' said Balfour,
+'and tipped the head-gardener, that tall fellow there with the yellow
+rose-tree; as the place is going to be sold, she thought she might well
+do a little genteel pillage.' Curious to see who our gardener could be,
+all the more that he was said to be 'tall,' I went forward, and what
+do you think I saw? Sir Brook, with a flower-pot under one arm, and
+a quantity of cuttings under the other, walking a little after the
+Countess, who was evidently giving him ample directions as to her
+intentions. I could scarcely refrain from an outburst of laughing, but I
+got away into the shrubbery and watched the whole proceedings. I was
+too far off to hear, but this much I saw. Sir Brook had deposited his
+rose-tree and his slips on the rumble, and stood beside the carriage
+with his hat off. When his Excellency came up, a sudden movement took
+place in the group, and the Viceroy, seeming to push his way through
+the others, cried out something I could not catch, and then grasped Sir
+Brook's hand with both his own. All was tumult in a moment. My Lady, in
+evident confusion and shame,--that much I could see,--was courtesying
+deeply to Sir Brook, who seemed not to understand her apologies--,
+at least, he appeared stately and courteous, as usual, and not in the
+slightest degree put out or chagrined by the incident. Though Lady
+Drumcarran was profuse of her excuses, and most eager to make amends
+for her mistake, the Viceroy took Sir Brook's arm and led him off to a
+little distance, where they talked together for a few moments.
+
+“'It's a promise, then, Fossbrooke,--you promise me!' cried he aloud, as
+he approached the carriage.
+
+“'Rely upon me,--and within a week, or ten days at farthest,' said Sir
+Brook, as they drove away.
+
+“I have not seen him since, and I scarcely know if I shall be able to
+meet him without laughing.”
+
+“Here he comes,” cried Lucy; “and take care, Tom, that you do nothing
+that might offend him.”
+
+The caution was so far unnecessary that Sir Brook's manner, as he drew
+near, had a certain stately dignity that invited no raillery.
+
+“You have been detained a long time a prisoner, Dr. Len-drick,” said
+Fossbrooke, calmly; “but your visitors were so charmed with all they saw
+that they lingered on, unwilling to take their leave.”
+
+“Tom tells me we had some of our county notabilities,--Lord and Lady
+Drumcarran, the Lacys, and others,” said Lendrick.
+
+“Yes; and the Lord-Lieutenant, too, whom I used to know at Christ
+Church. He would have been well pleased to have met you. He told me your
+father was the ablest and most brilliant talker he ever knew.”
+
+“Ah! we are very unlike,” said Lendrick, blushing modestly. “Did he
+give any hint as to whether his party are pleased or the reverse with my
+father's late conduct?”
+
+“He only said, 'I wish you knew him, Fossbrooke; I sincerely wish you
+knew him, if only to assure him that he will meet far more generous
+treatment from us than from the Opposition.' He added that we were men
+to suit each other; and this, of course, was a flattery for which I am
+very grateful.”
+
+“And the tall man with the stoop was the Lord-Lieutenant?” asked Tom. “I
+passed half an hour or more with him in the library, and he invited me
+to call upon him, and told a young fellow, named Balfour, to give me his
+address, which he forgot to do.”
+
+“We can go together, if you have no objection; for I, too, have promised
+to pay my respects,” said Sir Brook.
+
+Tom was delighted at the suggestion, but whispered in his sister's ear,
+as they passed out into the garden, “I thought I 'd have burst my sides
+laughing when I met him; but it's the very last thing in my thoughts
+now. I declare I 'd as soon pull a tiger's whiskers as venture on the
+smallest liberty with him.”
+
+“I think you are right, Tom,” said she, squeezing his arm
+affectionately, to show that she not alone agreed with him, but was
+pleased that he had given her the opportunity of doing so.
+
+“I wonder is he telling the governor what happened this morning? It can
+scarcely be that, though, they look so grave.”
+
+“Papa seems agitated too,” said Lucy.
+
+“I just caught Trafford's name as they passed. I hope he 's not saying
+anything against him. It is not only that Lionel Trafford is as good a
+fellow as ever lived, but that he fully believes Fossbrooke likes him. I
+don't think he could be so false; do you, Lucy?”
+
+“I 'm certain he is not. There, papa is beckoning to you; he wants you;”
+ and Lucy turned hurriedly away, anxious to conceal her emotion, for her
+cheeks were burning, and her lips trembled with agitation.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. TOM CROSS-EXAMINES HIS SISTER
+
+It was decided on that evening that Sir Brook and Tom should set out for
+Dublin the next morning. Lucy knew not why this sudden determination had
+been come to, and Tom, who never yet had kept a secret from her, was now
+reserved and uncommunicative. Nor was it merely that he held aloof his
+confidence, but he was short and snappish in his manner, as though she
+had someway vexed him, and vexed him in some shape that he could not
+openly speak of or resent.
+
+This was very new to her from him, and yet how was it? She had not
+courage to ask for an explanation. Tom was not exactly one of those
+people of whom it was pleasant to ask explanations., Where the matter to
+be explained might be one of delicacy, he had a way of abruptly blurting
+out the very thing one would have desired might be kept back. Just as an
+awkward surgeon will tear off the dressing, and set a wound a-bleeding,
+would he rudely destroy the work of time in healing by a moment of rash
+impatience. It was knowing this--knowing it well--that deterred Lucy
+from asking what might lead to something not over-agreeable to hear.
+
+“Shall I pack your portmanteau, Tom?” asked she. It was a task that
+always fell to her lot.
+
+“No; Nicholas can do it,--any one can do it,” said he, as he mumbled
+with an unlit cigar between his teeth.
+
+“You used to say I always did it best, Tom,--that I never forgot
+anything,” said she, caressingly.
+
+“Perhaps I did,--perhaps I thought so. Look here, Lucy,” said he, as
+though by an immense effort he had got strength to say what he wanted,
+“I am half vexed with you, if not more than half.”
+
+“Vexed with me, Tom,--vexed with _me!_ and for what?”
+
+“I don't think that you need ask. I am inclined to believe that you know
+perfectly well what I mean, and what I would much rather not say, if you
+will only let me.”
+
+“I do not,” said she, slowly and deliberately.
+
+“Do you mean to say, Lucy,” said he, and his manner was almost stern as
+he spoke, “that you have no secrets from me, that you are as frank and
+outspoken with me today as you were three months ago?”
+
+“I do say so.”
+
+“Then what's the meaning of this letter?” cried he, as, carried away
+by a burst of passion, he overstepped all the prudential reserve he had
+sworn to himself to regard. “What does this mean?”
+
+“I know nothing of that letter, nor what it contains,” said she,
+blushing till her very brow became crimson.
+
+“I don't suppose you do, for though it is addressed to you, the seal is
+unbroken; but you know whose handwriting it's in, and you know that you
+have had others from the same quarter.”
+
+“I believe the writing is Mr. Trafford's,” said she, as a deathlike
+paleness spread over her face, “because he himself once asked me to read
+a letter from him in the same handwriting.”
+
+“Which you did?”
+
+“No; I refused. I handed the letter back to him unopened, and said that,
+as I certainly should not write to him without my father's knowledge and
+permission, I would not read a letter from him without the same.”
+
+“And what was the epistle, then, that the vicar's housekeeper handed him
+from you?”
+
+“That same letter I have spoken of. He left it on my table, insisting
+and believing that on second thoughts I would read it. He thought so
+because it was not to me, though addressed to me, but the copy of a
+letter he had written to his mother, about me certainly.” Here she
+blushed deeply again. “As I continued, however, of the same mind,
+determined not to see what the letter contained, I re-enclosed it and
+gave it to Mrs. Brennan to hand to him.”
+
+“And all this you kept a secret from me?”
+
+“It was not my secret. It was his. It was his till such time as he could
+speak of it to my father, and this he told me had not yet come.”
+
+“Why not?”
+
+“I never asked him that. I do not think, Tom,” said she, with much
+emotion, “it was such a question as you would have had me ask.”
+
+“Do you love--Come, darling Lucy, don't be angry with me. I never meant
+to wound your feelings. Don't sob that way, my dear, dear Lucy. You know
+what a rough coarse fellow I am; but I'd rather die than offend you.
+Why did you not tell me of all this? I never liked any one so well as
+Trafford, and why leave me to the chance of misconstruing him? Would n't
+it have been the best way to have trusted me as you always have?”
+
+“I don't see what there was to have confided to you. Mr. Trafford might,
+if he wished. I mean, that if there was a secret at all. I don't know
+what I mean,” cried she, covering her face with her handkerchief, while
+a convulsive motion of her shoulders showed how she was moved.
+
+“I am as glad as if I had got a thousand pounds, to know you have been
+so right, so thoroughly right, in all this, Lucy; and I am glad, too,
+that Trafford has done nothing to make me think less well of him. Let's
+be friends; give me your hand, like a dear, good girl, and forgive me if
+I have said what pained you.”
+
+“I am not angry, Tom,” said she, giving her hand, but with her head
+still averted.
+
+“God knows it's not the time for us to fall out,” said he, with a
+shaking voice. “Going to separate as we are, and when to be together
+again not so easy to imagine.”
+
+“You are surely going out with papa?” asked she, eagerly.
+
+“No; they say not.”
+
+“Who says not?”
+
+“The governor himself--Sir Brook--old Mills--everybody, in fact. They
+have held a committee of the whole house on it. I think Nicholas was
+present too; and it has been decided that as I am very much given to
+idleness, bitter beer, and cigars, I ought not to be anywhere where
+these ingredients compose the chief part of existence. Now the Cape is
+precisely one of these places; and if you abstract the idleness,
+the bitter beer, and the tobacco, there is nothing left but a little
+Hottentotism, which is neither pleasant nor profitable. Voted,
+therefore, I am not to go to the Cape. It is much easier, however, to
+open the geography books, and show all the places I am unfit for, than
+to hit upon the one that will suit me. And so I am going up to Dublin
+to-morrow with Sir Brook to consult--I don't well know whom, perhaps a
+fortune-teller--what 's to be done with me. All I do know is, I am to
+see my grandfather, and to wait on the Viceroy, and I don't anticipate
+that any of us will derive much pleasure from either event.”
+
+“Oh, Tom! what happiness it would be to me if grandpapa--” She stopped,
+blushed, and tried in vain to go on.
+
+“Which is about the least likely thing in the world, Lucy,” said he,
+answering her unspoken sentence. “I am just the sort of creature he
+could n't abide,--not to add that, from all I have heard of him, I 'd
+rather take three years with hard labor at the hulks than live with him.
+It will do very well with you. You have patience, and a soft forgiving
+disposition. You 'll fancy yourself, besides, Heaven knows what of a
+heroine, for submitting to his atrocious temper, and imagine slavery to
+be martyrdom. Now, I could n't. I 'd let him understand that I was one
+of the family, and had a born right to be as ill-tempered, as selfish,
+and as unmannerly as any other Lendrick.”
+
+“But if he should like you, Tom? If you made a favorable impression upon
+him when you met?”
+
+“If I should, I think I 'd go over to South Carolina, and ask some one
+to buy me as a negro, for I 'd know in my heart it was all I could be
+fit for.”
+
+“Oh, my dear, dear Tom, I wish you would meet him in a different spirit,
+if only for poor papa's sake. You know what store he lays by grandpapa's
+affection.”
+
+“I see it, and it puzzles me. If any one should continue to ill-treat
+me for five-and-twenty years, I 'd not think of beginning to forgive him
+till after fifty more, and I 'm not quite sure I 'd succeed then.”
+
+“But you are to meet him, Tom,” said she, hopefully. “I trust much to
+your meeting.”
+
+“That 's more than I do, Lucy. Indeed, I 'd not go at all, except on the
+condition which I have made with myself, to accept nothing from him.
+I had not meant to tell you this; but it has escaped me, and can't
+be helped. Don't hang your head and pout your lip over that bad boy,
+brother Tom. I intend to be as submissive and as humble in our interview
+as if I was going to owe my life to him, just because I want him to be
+very kind and gracious to you; and I 'd not wish to give him any reason
+for saying harsh things of me, which would hurt you to listen to. If I
+only knew how--and I protest I do not--I'd even try and make a favorable
+impression upon him, for I 'd like to be able to come and see you, Lucy,
+now and then, and it would be a sore blow to me if he forbade me.”
+
+“You don't think I'd remain under his roof if he should do so?” asked
+she, indignantly.
+
+“Not if you saw him turn me away,--shutting the door in my face; but
+what scores of civil ways there are of intimating that one is not
+welcome! But why imagine all these?--none of them may happen; and, as
+Sir Brook says, the worst misfortunes of life are those that never come
+to us; and I, for one, am determined to deal only with real, actual,
+present enemies. Is n't he a rare old fellow?--don't you like him,
+Lucy?”
+
+“I like him greatly.”
+
+“He loves you, Lucy,--he told me so; he said you were so like a girl
+whose godfather he was, and that he had loved her as if she were his
+own. Whether she had died, or whether something had happened that
+estranged them, I could n't make out; but he said you had raised up
+some old half-dead embers in his heart, and kindled a flame where he had
+thought all was to be cold forever; and the tears came into his eyes,
+and that great deep voice of his grew fainter and fainter, and something
+that sounded like a sob stopped him. I always knew he was a brave,
+stout-hearted, gallant fellow; but that he could feel like this I never
+imagined. I almost think it was some girl he was going to be married
+to once that you must be so like. Don't you think so?” “I don't know;
+I cannot even guess,” said she, slowly. “It's not exactly the sort of
+nature where one would expect to find much sentiment; but, as he
+said one day, some old hearts are like old chateaux, with strange old
+chambers in them that none have traversed for years and years, and with
+all the old furniture moth-eaten and crumbling, but standing just where
+it used to be. I 'd not wonder if it was of himself he was speaking.”
+
+She remained silent and thoughtful, and he went on,--“There's a deal of
+romance under that quaint stern exterior. What do you think he said this
+morning?--'Your father's heart is wrapped up in this place, Tom; let us
+set to work to make money and buy it for him. 'I did not believe he was
+serious, and I said some stupid nonsense about a diamond necklace and
+ear-rings for you on the day of presentation; and he turned upon me with
+a fierce look, and in a voice trembling with anger, said, 'Well, sir,
+and whom would they become better? Is it her birth or her beauty would
+disparage them, if they were the jewels of a crown?' I know I 'll not
+cross another whim of his in the same fashion again; though he came
+to my room afterwards to make an apology for the tone in which he had
+spoken, and assured me it should never be repeated.” “I hope you told
+him you had not felt offended.” “I did more,--I did, at least, what
+pleased him more,--I said I was delighted with that plan of his about
+buying up the Nest, and that the very thought gave a zest to any pursuit
+I might engage in; and so, Lucy, it is settled between us that if
+his Excellency won't make me something with a fine salary and large
+perquisites, Sir Brook and I are to set out I'm not very sure where, and
+we are to do I'm not quite certain what; but two such clever fellows,
+uniting experience with energy, can't fail, and the double event--I mean
+the estate and the diamonds--are just as good as won already. Well,
+what do you want, Nicholas?” cried Tom, as the grim old man put his head
+inside the door and retired again, mumbling something as he went. “Oh,
+I remember it now; he has been tormenting the governor all day about
+getting him some place,--some situation or other; and the old rascal
+thinks we are the most ungrateful wretches under the sun, to be so full
+of our own affairs and so forgetful of his: we are certainly not likely
+to leave him unprovided for; he can't imagine that. Here he comes again.
+My father is gone into Killaloe, Nicholas; but don't be uneasy, he 'll
+not forget you.”
+
+“Forgettin's one thing, Master Tom, and rememberin's the right way is
+another,” said Nicholas, sternly. “I told him yesterday, and I repeated
+it to-day, I won't go among them Hottentots.”
+
+“Has he asked you?”
+
+“Did he ask me?” repeated the old man, leaning forward and eying him
+fiercely,--“did he ask me?”
+
+“My brother means, Nicholas, that papa could n't expect you to go so far
+away from your home and your friends.”
+
+“And where's my home and my friends?” cried the irascible old fellow;
+“and I forty-eight years in the family? Is that the way to have a home
+or friends either?”
+
+“No, Tom, no,--I entreat--I beg of you,” said Lucy, standing between her
+brother and the old man, and placing her hand on Tom's lips; “you know
+well that he can't help it.”
+
+“That's just it,” cried Nicholas, catching the words; “I can't help it.
+I 'm too old to help it. It is n't after eight-and-forty years one ought
+to be looking out for new sarvice.”
+
+“Papa hopes that grandpapa will have no objection to taking you,
+Nicholas; he means to write about it to-day; but if there should be a
+difficulty, he has another place.”
+
+“Maybe I'm to 'list and be a sodger; faix, it wouldn't be much worse
+than going back to your grandfather.”
+
+“Why, you discontented old fool,” burst in Tom, “have n't you been
+teasing our souls out these ten years back by your stories of the fine
+life you led in the Chief Baron's house?”
+
+“The eatin' was better, and the drinkin' was better,” said Nicholas,
+resolutely. “Wherever the devil it comes from, the small beer here bangs
+Banagher; but for the matter of temper he was one of yourselves! and by
+my sowl, it's a family not easily matched!”
+
+“I agree with you; any other man than my father would have pitched you
+neck and crop into the Shannon years ago,--I 'll be shot if I would
+n't.”
+
+“Mind them words. What you said there is a threat; it's what the law
+makes a constructive threat, and we 'll see what the Coorts say to it.”
+
+“I declare, Nicholas, you would provoke any one; you will let no one be
+your friend,” said Lucy; and taking her brother's arm she led him away,
+while the old man, watching them till they entered the shrubbery, seated
+himself leisurely in a deep arm-chair, and wiped the perspiration from
+his forehead. “By my conscience,” muttered he, “it takes two years off
+my life every day I have to keep yez in order.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. MR. HAIRE'S MISSION.
+
+Although the Chief Baron had assured Haire that his mission had no
+difficulty about it, that he 'd find her Ladyship would receive him in a
+very courteous spirit, and, finally, that “he'd do the thing” admirably,
+the unhappy little lawyer approached his task with considerable
+misgivings, which culminated in actual terror as he knocked at the door
+of the house where Lady Lendrick resided in Merrion Square, and sent up
+his name.
+
+“The ladies are still in committee, sir,” said a bland-looking,
+usher-like personage, who, taking up Haire's card from the salver,
+scanned the name with a half-supercilious look.
+
+“In committee! ah, indeed, I was not aware,” stammered out Haire. “I
+suspect--that is--I have reason to believe her Ladyship is aware--I mean
+my name is not unknown to Lady Lendrick--would you kindly present my
+card?”
+
+“Take it up, Bates,” said the man in black, and then turned away to
+address another person, for the hall was crowded with people of various
+conditions and ranks, and who showed in their air and manner a something
+of anxiety, if not of impatience.
+
+“Mr. MacClean,--where's Mr. MacClean?” cried a man in livery, as he held
+forth a square-shaped letter. “Is Mr. MacClean there?”
+
+“Yes, I'm Mr. MacClean,” said a red-faced, fussy-looking man. “I'm Mr.
+George Henry MacClean, of 41 Mount Street.”
+
+“Two tickets for Mr. MacClean,” said the usher, handing him the letter
+with a polite bow.
+
+“Mr. Nolan, Balls Bridge,--does any one represent Mr. Nolan of Balls
+Bridge?” said the usher, haughtily.
+
+“That 's me,” said a short man, who wiped the perspiration from his face
+with a red-spotted handkerchief, as large as a small bed-quilt,--“that's
+me.”
+
+“The references not satisfactory, Mr. Nolan,” said the usher, reading
+from a paper in his hand.
+
+“Not satisfactory?--what do you mean? Is Peter Arkins, Esquire,
+of Clontarf, unsatisfactory? Is Mr. Ryland, of Abbey Street,
+unsatisfactory?”
+
+“I am really, sir, unable to afford you the explanation you desire. I am
+simply deputed by her Ladyship to return the reply that I find written
+here. The noise is really so great here I can hear nothing. Who are you
+asking for, Bates?”
+
+“Mr. Mortimer O'Hagan.”
+
+“He's gone away,” cried a voice; “he was here since eleven o'clock.”
+
+“Application refused. Will some one tell Mr. O'Hagan his application is
+refused?” said the usher, austerely.
+
+“Might I be bold enough to ask what is going forward?” whispered Haire.
+
+“Mr. W. Haire, Ely Place,” shouted out the man in livery. “Card refused
+for want of a reference.”
+
+“You ought to have sent up two names,--well-known names, Mr. Haire,”
+ said the usher, with a politeness that seemed marked. “It's not too late
+yet; let me see,” and he looked at his watch, “we want a quarter to one;
+be back here in half an hour. Take a car,--you 'll find one at the door.
+Get your names, and I 'll see if I can't do it for you.”
+
+“I am afraid I don't understand you, and I am sure you don't understand
+me. I came here by appointment--” The rest of the sentence was lost by a
+considerable bustle and movement that now ensued, for a number of ladies
+descended the stairs, chatting and laughing freely; while servants
+rushed hither and thither, calling up carriages, or inquiring for others
+not yet come. The usher, frantically pushing the crowd aside to clear a
+path for the ladies, was profuse of apologies for the confusion; adding
+at the same time that “it was twice as bad an hour ago. There were n't
+less than two hundred here this morning.”
+
+A number of little pleasantries passed as the bland usher handed the
+ladies to their carriages; and it was evident by their laughter that his
+remarks were deemed pungent and witty. Meanwhile the hall was becoming
+deserted. The persons who had crowded there, descending singly or in
+groups, went their several ways, leaving Haire the only one behind. “And
+now, sir,” said the usher, “you see it's all over. You would n't take my
+advice. They are all gone, and it's the last meeting.”
+
+“Will you favor me so far as to say for what did they meet? What was the
+object of the gathering?”
+
+“I suppose, sir, you are not a reader of the morning papers?”
+
+“Occasionally. Indeed, I always glance at them.”
+
+“Well, sir, and has not your glance fallen upon the announcement of the
+ball,--the grand ball to be given at the-Rotundo for the orphan asylum
+called the 'Rogues Redemptory,' at Rathmines, at the head of whose
+patronesses stands my Lady's name?”
+
+Haire shook his head in negative.
+
+“And have you not come like the rest with an application for permission
+to attend the ball?”
+
+“No; I have come to speak to Lady Lendrick--and by appointment too.”
+
+A faint but prolonged “Indeed!” expressed the usher's-astonishment,
+and he turned and whispered a few words to-a footman at his side. He
+disappeared, and returned in & moment to say that her Ladyship would see
+Mr. Haire.
+
+“I trust you will forgive me, sir,” said Lady Lendrick,--a very large,
+very showy, and still handsome woman,--as she motioned him to be seated.
+“I got your card when my head was so full of this tiresome ball, and I
+made the absurd mistake of supposing you came for tickets. You are, I
+think your note says, an old friend of Mr. Thomas-Lendrick?”
+
+“I am an old friend of his father's. Madam! The Chief Baron and myself
+were schoolfellows.”
+
+“Yes, yes: I have no doubt,” said she, hurriedly; “but from your note--I
+have it here somewhere,” and she rummaged amongst a lot of papers that
+littered the table,--“your note gave me to understand that your visit
+to me regarded Mr. Thomas Lendrick, and not the Chief Baron. It is
+possible, however, I may have mistaken your meaning. I wish I could find
+it. I laid it out of my hand a moment ago. Oh, here it is! now we shall
+see which of us is right,” and with a sort of triumph she opened the
+letter and read aloud, slurring over the few commencing lines till she
+came to “that I may explain to your Ladyship the circumstances by
+which Mr. Thomas Lendrick's home will for the present be broken up,
+and entreat of you to extend to his daughter the same kind interest and
+favor you have so constantly extended to her father.” “Now, sir, I hope
+I may say that it is not _I_ have been mistaken. If I read this passage
+aright, it bespeaks my consideration for a young lady who will shortly
+need a home and a protectress.”
+
+“I suppose I expressed myself very ill. I mean, Madam, I take it, that
+in my endeavor not to employ any abruptness, I may have fallen into
+some obscurity. Shall I own, besides,” added he, with a tone of
+half-desperation in his voice, “that I had no fancy for this mission
+of mine at all,--that I undertook it wholly against my will?
+Baron Len-drick's broken health, my old friendship for him, his
+insistence,--and you can understand what _that_ is, eh?”--he thought she
+was about to speak; but she only gave a faint equivocal sort of smile,
+and he went on: “All these together overcame my scruples, and I agreed
+to come.” He paused here as though he had made the fullest and most
+ample explanation, and that it was now her turn to speak.
+
+“Well, sir,” said she, “go on; I am all ears for your communication.”
+
+“There it is: that 's the whole of it, Madam. You are to understand
+distinctly that with the arrangement itself I had no concern whatever.
+Baron Lendrick never asked my advice; I never tendered it. I 'm not sure
+that I should have concurred with his notions,--but that 's nothing to
+the purpose; all that I consented to was to come here, to tell you
+the thing is so, and why it is so--there!” and with this he wiped his
+forehead, for the exertion had heated and fatigued him.
+
+“I know I 'm very dull, very slow of comprehension; and in compassion
+for this defect, will you kindly make your explanation a little, a very
+little, fuller? What is it that is _so?_” and she emphasized the last
+word with a marked sarcasm in her tone.
+
+“Oh, I can see that your Ladyship may not quite like it. There is no
+reason why you should like it,--all things considered; but, after all,
+it may turn out very well. If she suit him, if she can hit it off with
+his temper,--and she may,--young folks have often more forbearance than
+older ones,--there 's no saying what it may lead to.”
+
+“Once for all, sir,” said she, haughtily, for her temper was sorely
+tried, “what is this thing which I am not to like, and yet bound to
+bear?”
+
+“I don't think I said that; I trust I never said your Ladyship was bound
+to bear anything. So well as I can recall the Chief Baron's words,--and,
+God forgive me, but I wish I was--no matter what or where--when I heard
+them,--this is the substance of what he said: 'Tell her,' meaning
+your Ladyship,--'tell her that, rightly understood, the presence of my
+granddaughter as mistress of my house--'”
+
+“What do you say, sir?--is Miss Lendrick coming to reside at the
+Priory?”
+
+“Of course--what else have I been saying this half-hour?”
+
+“To take the position of lady of the house?” said she, not deigning to
+notice his question.
+
+“Just so, Madam.”
+
+“I declare, sir, bold as the step is,”--she arose as she spoke, and drew
+herself haughtily up,--“bold as the step is, it is not half so bold as
+your own courage in coming to tell of it. What the Chief Baron had not
+the hardihood to communicate in writing, you dare to deliver to me by
+word of mouth,--you dare to announce to me that my place, the station
+I ought to fill, is to be occupied by another, and that whenever I pass
+the threshold of the Priory, I come as the guest of Lucy Lendrick! I
+do hope, sir, I may attribute to the confusion of your faculties--a
+confusion of which this short interview has given me proof--that you
+really never rightly apprehended the ignominy of the mission your friend
+intrusted to you.”
+
+“You 're right there,” said he, placing both his hands on the side of
+his head; “confusion is just the name for it.”
+
+“Yes, sir; but I apprehend you must have undertaken this office in a
+calm moment, and let me ask you how you could have lent yourself to
+such a task? You are aware, for the whole world is aware, that in living
+apart from the Chief Baron I am yielding to a necessity imposed by his
+horrible, his insufferable temper; now, how long will this explanation
+be valid, if my place in any respect should be occupied by another? The
+isolation in which he now lives, his estrangement from the world, serve
+to show that he has withdrawn from society, and accepted the position of
+a recluse. Will this continue now? Will these be the habits of the
+house with a young lady at its bead, free to indulge all the caprices of
+ignorant girlhood? I declare, sir, I wonder how a little consideration
+for your friend might not have led you to warn him against the
+indiscretion he was about to commit. The slight to me,” said she,
+sarcastically, and flushing deeply, “it was possible you might overlook;
+but I scarcely see how you could have forgotten the stain that must
+attach to that 'large intellect,--that wise and truly great man.' I
+am quoting a paragraph I read in the 'Post' this morning, with which,
+perhaps, you are familiar.”
+
+“I did not see it,” said Haire, helplessly.
+
+“I declare, sir, I was unjust enough to think you wrote it. I thought no
+one short of him who had come on your errand to-day could have been the
+author.”
+
+“Well, I wish with all my heart I 'd never come,” said he, with a
+melancholy gesture of his hands.
+
+“I declare, sir, I am not surprised at your confession. I suppose you
+are not aware that in the very moment adopted for this--this--this new
+establishment, there is something like studied insult to me. It is only
+ten days ago I mentioned to the Chief Baron that my son, Colonel Sewell,
+was coming back from India on a sick-leave. He has a wife and three
+little children, and, like most soldiers, is not over-well off. I
+suggested that as the Priory was a large roomy house, with abundant
+space for many people without in the slightest degree interfering with
+each other, he should offer the Sewells to take them in. I said nothing
+more,--nothing about _ménage_,--no details of any kind. I simply said:
+“Could n't you give the Sewells the rooms that look out on the back
+lawn? Nobody ever enters them; even when you receive in the summer
+evenings, they are not opened. It would be a great boon to an invalid to
+be housed so quietly, so removed from all noise and bustle.' And to mark
+how I intended no more, I added, 'They would n't bore you, nor need you
+ever see them unless you wished for it.' And what was his reply? 'Madam,
+I never liked soldiers. I 'm not sure that his young wife would n't be
+displeasing to me, and I know that his children would be insufferable.'
+
+“I said, 'Let me take the dear children, then.' 'Do, by all means, and
+their dear parents also,' he broke in. 'I should be in despair if I
+thought I had separated you.' Yes, sir, I give you his very words. This
+wise and truly great man, or truly wise and great--which is it?--had
+nothing more generous nor more courteous to say to me than a sarcasm and
+an impertinence. Are you not proud of your friend?”
+
+Never was there a more unlucky peroration, from the day when Lord Denman
+concluded an eloquent defence of a queen's innocence by appealing to
+the unhappy illustration which called forth the touching words, “Let him
+that is without sin cast the first stone at her.” Never was there a more
+signal blunder than to ask this man to repudiate the friendship which
+had formed the whole pride and glory of his life.
+
+“I should think I _am_ proud of him, Madam,” said he, rising, and
+speaking with a boldness that amazed even himself. “I was proud to be
+his class-fellow at school; I was proud to sit in the same division with
+him in college,--proud when he won his gold medal and carried off his
+fellowship. It was a proud day to me when I saw him take his seat on
+the bench; and my heart nearly burst with pride when he placed me on
+his right hand at dinner, and told the Benchers and the Bar that we
+had walked the road of life together, and that the grasp of my hand--he
+called it my honest hand--had been the ever-present earnest of each
+success he had achieved in his career. Yes, Madam, I am very proud of
+him; and my heart must be cold indeed before I cease to be proud of
+him.”
+
+“I declare, sir, you astonish, you amaze me. I was well aware how that
+truly great and wise man had often inspired the eloquence of attack.
+Many have assailed--many have vituperated him; but that any one
+should have delivered a panegyric on the inestimable value of his
+friendship!--his friendship, of all things!--is what I was not prepared
+for.”
+
+Haire heard the ringing raillery of her laugh; he was stung by he knew
+not what tortures of her scornful impertinence; bitter, biting words,
+very cruel words, too, fell over and around him like a sort of hail;
+they beat on his face and rattled over his head and shoulders. He was
+conscious of a storm, and conscious too that he sought neither shelter
+nor defence, but only tried to fly before the hurricane, whither he knew
+not.
+
+How he quitted that room, descended the stairs, and escaped from the
+house, he never was able to recall. He was far away outside the city
+wandering along through an unfrequented suburb ere he came to his full
+consciousness, murmuring to himself ever as he went, “What a woman, what
+a woman! what a temper,--ay, and what a tongue!” Without any guidance of
+his own--without any consciousness of it--he walked on and on, till
+he found himself at the gate-lodge of the Priory; a carriage was just
+passing in, and he stopped to ask whose it was. It was the Chief Baron's
+granddaughter who had arrived that morning by train. He turned back when
+he heard this, and returned to town. “Whether you like it or not, Lady
+Lendrick, it is done now, and there 's no good in carrying on the issue
+after the verdict.” And with this reflection, embodying possibly as
+much wisdom as his whole career had taught him, he hastened homeward,
+secretly determining, if he possibly could, never to reveal anything to
+the Chief Baron of his late interview with Lady Lendrick.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. SORROWS AND PROJECTS
+
+Dr. Lendrick and his son still lingered at the Swan's Nest after Lucy's
+departure for the Priory. Lendrick, with many things to arrange and
+prepare for his coming voyage, was still so overcome by the thought of
+breaking up his home and parting from his children, that he could not
+address his mind to anything like business. He would wander about for
+hours through the garden and the shrubberies, taking leave, as he
+called it, of his dear plants and flowers, and come back to the house
+distressed and miserable. Often and often would he declare to Sir Brook,
+who was his guest, that the struggle was too much for him. “I never
+was a man of ardor or energy, and it is not now, when I have passed the
+middle term of life, that I am to hope for that spring and elasticity
+which were denied to my youth. Better for me send for Lucy, and stay
+where I am; nowhere shall I be so happy again.” Then would come the
+sudden thought that all this was mere selfishness, that in this life of
+inaction and indolence he was making no provision for that dear girl be
+loved so well. Whatever hopes the reconciliation with his father might
+lead to, would of course be utterly scattered to the winds by an act
+so full of disobedience as this. “It is true,” thought he, “I may fail
+abroad as I have failed at home. Success and I are scarcely on speaking
+terms,--but the grandfather cannot leave the granddaughter whom he has
+taken from her home, totally uncared and unprovided for.”
+
+As for young Tom, Sir Brook had pledged himself to-take care of him. It
+was a vague expression enough; it might mean anything, everything, or
+nothing. Sir Brook Fossbrooke had certainly, in worldly parlance, not
+taken very good care of himself,--far from it; he had squandered and
+made away with two large estates and an immense sum in ready money. It
+was true he had friends everywhere,--some of them very great people
+with abundant influence, and well able to help those they cared for; but
+Fossbrooke was not one of those who ask; and the world has not yet come
+to the millennial beatitude in which one's friends importune them with
+inquiries how they are to be helped, what and where they wish for.
+
+Many a time in the course of country-house life--at breakfast, as
+the post came in, and during the day, as a messenger would deliver a
+telegram--some great man would say, “There is a vacancy there--such
+a one has died--so-and-so has retired. There's a thing to suit you,
+Fossbrooke,”--and Sir Brook would smile, say a word or two that implied
+nothing, and so would end the matter. If “my Lord” ever retained any
+memory of the circumstance some time after, it would be that he had
+offered something to Fossbrooke, who would n't take it, did n't care for
+it. For so is it throughout life; the event which to one is the veriest
+trifle of the hour, is to another a fate and a fortune; and then, great
+folk who lead lives of ease and security are very prone to forget that
+humble men have often a pride very disproportioned to their condition,
+and are timidly averse to stretch out the hand for what it is just
+possible it may not be intended they should touch.
+
+At all events, Fossbrooke went his way through the world a mystery to
+many and a puzzle,--some averring that it was a shame to his friends in
+power that he had “got nothing,” others as stoutly declaring that he was
+one whom no office would tempt, nor would any place requite him for the
+loss of liberty and independence.
+
+He himself was well aware of each of these theories, but too proud to
+say a word to those who professed either of them. If, however, he was
+too haughty to ask for himself, he was by no means above being a suitor
+for his friends; and many a one owed to his active solicitude the
+advancement which none stood more in need of than himself.
+
+“We shall make the Viceroy do something for us, Tom,” he would say.
+“Think over what it shall be,--for that's the invariable question, What
+is it you want? And it's better far to say, Make me an archbishop, than
+have to own that you want anything, and are, maybe, fit for nothing.”
+
+Though Lendrick was well disposed towards Fossbrooke, and fully sensible
+of his manly honesty and frankness, he could not help seeing that he
+was one of those impulsive sanguine natures that gain nothing from
+experience beyond the gift of companionship. They acquire all that can
+make them delightful in society,--boons they are,--and especially to
+those whose more prudent temperament inclines them to employ their gifts
+more profitably. Scores of these self-made men, rich to overflowing with
+all that wealth could buy around them, would say, What a happy fellow
+was Fossbrooke! what a blessing it was to have his nature, his spirits,
+buoyancy, and such-like,--to be able to enjoy life as he did! Perhaps
+they believed all that they said too,--who knows? When they made such
+speeches to himself, as they would at times, he heard them with the
+haughty humility of one who hears himself praised for that which the
+flatterer deems a thing too low for envy. He well understood how cheaply
+others estimated his wares, for they were a scrip that figured in no
+share-list, and never were quoted at a premium.
+
+Lendrick read him very correctly, and naturally thought that a more
+practical and a more worldly guide would have been better for Tom,--some
+one to hold him back, not to urge him forward; some one to whisper
+prudence, restraint, denial,--not daring, and dash, and indulgence. But
+somehow these flighty, imaginative, speculative men have very often a
+wonderful persuasiveness about them, and can give to the wildest dreams
+a marvellous air of substance and reality. A life so full of strange
+vicissitudes as Fossbrooke's seemed a guarantee for any--no matter
+what--turn of fortune. Hear him tell of where he had been, what he had
+done, and with whom, and you at once felt you were in presence of one to
+whom no ordinary laws of worldly caution or prudence applied.
+
+That his life had compassed many failures and few successes was plain
+enough. He never sought to hide the fact.
+
+Indeed, he was candor itself in his confessions, only that he
+accompanied them by little explanations, showing the exact spot and
+moment in which he had lost the game. It was wonderful what credit he
+seemed to derive from these disclosures. It was like an honest trader
+showing his balance-sheet to prove that, but for the occurrence of such
+ills as no prudence could ward off, his condition must have been one of
+prosperity.
+
+Never did he say anything more truthful than that “he had never cared
+for money.” So long as he had it he used it lavishly, thoughtlessly,
+very often generously. When he ceased to have it, the want scarcely
+appeared to touch him personally. Indeed, it was only when some
+necessity presented itself to aid this one or extricate that, he would
+suddenly remember his impotence to be of use, and then the sting of his
+poverty would sorely pain him.
+
+Like all men who have suffered reverses, he had to experience the
+different acceptance he met with in his days of humble fortune from what
+greeted him in his era of prosperity. If he felt this, none could detect
+it. His bearing and manner betrayed nothing of such consciousness. A
+very slight increase of stateliness might possibly have marked him in
+his poverty, and an air of more reserved dignity, which showed itself in
+his manner to strangers. In all other respects he was the same.
+
+That such a character should have exercised a great influence over
+a young man like Tom Lendrick--ardent, impetuous, and desirous of
+adventure--was not strange.
+
+“We must make a fortune for Lucy, Tom,” said Sir Brook. “Your father's
+nature is too fine strung to be a money-maker, and she must be cared
+for.” This was a desire which he continued to utter day after day; and
+though Fossbrooke usually smoked on after he had said it without any
+intimation as to where and when and how this same fortune was to be
+amassed, Tom Lendrick placed the most implicit faith in the assurance
+that it would be done “somehow.”
+
+One morning as Lendrick was walking with his son in the garden, making,
+as he called it, his farewell visit to his tulips and moss-roses, he
+asked Tom if any fixed plan had been decided on as to his future.
+
+“We have got several, sir. The difficulty is the choice. Sir Brook was
+at one time very full of buying a great tract in Donegal, and stocking
+it with all sorts of wild animals. We began with deer, antelopes, and
+chamois; and last night we got to wolves, bears, and a tiger. We were
+to have a most commodious shooting-box, and invite parties to come and
+sport, who, instead of going to Bohemia, the Rocky Mountains, and to
+Africa, would find all their savagery near home, and pay us splendidly
+for the privilege.
+
+“There are some difficulties in the plan, it is true; our beasts might
+not be easy to keep within bounds. The jaguar might make an excursion
+into the market-town; the bear might eat a butcher. Sir Brook, besides,
+doubts if _fero_ could be preserved under the game laws. He has sent a
+case to Brewster for his opinion.”
+
+“Don't tell me of such absurdities,” said Lendrick, trying to repress
+his quiet laugh. “I want you to speak seriously and reasonably.”
+
+“I assure you, sir, we have the whole details of this on paper, even to
+the cost of the beasts, and the pensions to the widows of the keepers
+that may be devoured. Another plan that we had, and it looked plausible
+enough too, was to take out a patent for a wonderful medical antidote.
+As Sir Brook says, there is nothing like a patent medicine to make a man
+rich; and by good luck he is possessed of the materials for one. He
+has the secret for curing the bite of the rattlesnake. He got it from
+a Tuscarora Indian, who, I believe, was a sort of father-in-law to him.
+Three applications of this to the wound have never been known to fail.”
+
+“But we are not infested with rattlesnakes, Tom.”
+
+“That's true, sir. We thought of that, and decided that we should alter
+the prospectus of our company, and we have called it 'The antidote to an
+evil of stupendous magnitude and daily recurrence.
+
+“A new method of flotation in water, by inflating the cellular membrane
+to produce buoyancy; a translation of the historical plays of Shakspeare
+into Tonga, for the interesting inhabitants of those islands; artificial
+rainfall by means of the voltaic battery: these are a few of his
+jottings down in a little book in manuscript he has entitled 'Things to
+be Done.'
+
+“His favorite project, however, is one he has revolved for years in his
+mind, and he is fully satisfied that it contains the germ of boundless
+wealth. It has been shown, he says, that in the smoke issuing from the
+chimneys of great smelt-ing-furnaces, particles of subtilized metal are
+carried away to the amount of thousands of pounds sterling: not merely
+is the quantity great, but the quality, as might be inferred, is of the
+most valuable and precious kind. To arrest and precipitate this waste is
+his project, and he has been for years making experiments to this end.
+He has at length, he believes, arrived at the long-sought-for problem;
+and as he possesses a lead-mine in the island of Sardinia, he means that
+we should set out there, and at once begin operations.”
+
+Dr. Lendrick shook his head gravely as he listeued; indeed, Tom's manner
+in detailing Sir Brook's projects was little calculated to inspire
+serious confidence.
+
+“I know, father,” cried he, “what you mean. I know well how wild
+and flighty these things appear; but if you had only heard them from
+him,--had you but listened to his voice, and heard him speak of his
+own doubts and fears,--how he canvasses, not merely the value of his
+project, but what the world will say of it and of him,--how modestly he
+rates himself,--how free of all the cant of the discoverer he is,--how
+simply he enters into explanations,--how free to own the difficulties
+that bar success,--I say, if you had experienced these, I feel sure
+you would not escape from him without catching some of that malady of
+speculation which has so long beset him. Nor is one less disposed to
+trust him that he makes no parade of these things. Indeed, they are his
+deepest, most inviolable secrets. In his intercourse with the world no
+one has ever heard him allude to one of these projects, and I have given
+him my solemn pledge not to speak of them, save to you.”
+
+“It is a reason to think better of the man, Tom, but not to put more
+faith in the discoveries.”
+
+“I believe I take the man and his work together; at all events, when I
+am along with him, and listening to him, he carries me away captive, and
+I am ready to embark in any enterprise he suggests. Here he comes, with
+two letters, I see, in his hand. Did you ever see a man less like a
+visionary, father? Is not every trait of his marked with thought and
+struggle?” This was not the way Tom's father read Fossbrooke, but there
+was no time to discuss the point further.
+
+“A letter for each of you,” said Sir Brook, handing them; and then
+taking out a cigar, he strolled down an alley, while they were engaged
+in reading.
+
+“We have got a tenant at last,” said Lendrick. “The Dublin house-agent
+has found some one who will take the place as it stands; and now, to
+think of my voyage.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. A LUNCHEON AT THE PRIORY.
+
+It was well for poor Lendrick that he was not to witness the great
+change which, in a few short weeks, had been effected in his once home.
+So complete, indeed, was the transformation, there was but very little
+left beyond the natural outline of the scenery to remind one of that
+lovely nook in which the tasteful cottage nestled. The conservatory had
+been converted into a dining-room; the former dinner-room being fitted
+up for a billiard-room. The Swiss cowhouse, a pretty little conceit, on
+which Lendrick had lavished some money and more time, was turned into
+a stable, with three loose boxes; and the neat lawn, whose velvet sward
+was scarce less beautiful than the glittering flower-beds that studded
+it, was ruthlessly cut up into a racecourse, with hurdles and fences and
+double ditches, to represent a stiff country, and offer all the features
+of a steeple-chase.
+
+It needed not the assurance of Mr. Kimball, the house-agent, to proclaim
+that his client was very unlike the last occupant of the place. “_He_
+was no recluse, no wretched misanthropist, hiding his discontent amongst
+shrubs and forcing-beds; he was a man of taste and refinement, with
+knowledge of life and its requirements. He would be an acquisition to
+any neighborhood.”
+
+Now, the last phrase--and he invariably made it his peroration--has a
+very wide and sweeping acceptation. It appeals to the neighborhood with
+all the charms that pertain to social intercourse; a guest the more and
+a host the more are no small claims in small places. It appeals to the
+parson, as another fountain from which to draw draughts of benevolence.
+To the doctor it whispers fees and familiar dinners. Galen knows that
+the luckiest of men are not exempt from human ills, and that gout comes
+as a frequent guest where the cook is good and the wine tempting;
+and the butcher himself revels in the thought of a “good family” that
+consumes sirloins and forestalls sweetbreads.
+
+It was somewhat trying to young Tom Lendrick, who had gone down to the
+Nest to fetch away some remnants of fishing-tackle he had left there, to
+hear these glowing anticipations of the new-comer, so evidently placed
+in contrast with the quiet and inexpensive life his father had led. How
+unlike were his father and this “acquisition to any neighborhood,”
+ was impressed upon him at any moment! How could a life of unobtrusive
+kindness, of those daily ministerings to poor men's wants, compete with
+the glitter and display which were to adorn a neighborhood?
+
+Already were people beginning to talk of Lendrick as odd, eccentric,
+peculiar; to set down his finest qualities as strange traits of a
+strange temperament, and rather, on the whole, to give themselves credit
+for the patience and forbearance which they had shown to one who, after
+all, was “simply an egotist.”
+
+Yes, such are not unfrequent judgments in this same world of ours; and
+if you would have men's suffrages for the good you do, take care that
+you do it conventionally. Be in all things like those around you; and if
+there be a great man in your vicinity, whenever a doubt arises in your
+mind as to any course of action, do as you may imagine he might do.
+
+Young Lendrick came away not a little disgusted with this taste of human
+fickleness. The sight of their old home changed even to desecration was
+bad enough, but this cold ingratitude was worse.
+
+Had he gone into the cabins of the poor, had he visited the humble
+dwellings where his father's generous devotion had brought him face
+to face with famine and fever, he would have heard much to redress the
+balance of these opinions. He would have heard those warm praises
+that come from sorrow-stricken hearts, the wail of the friendless and
+forlorn. Tom heard not these, and he returned to town with a feeling of
+anger and resentment against the world he had never known before.
+
+“How absurd it is in old Fossbrooke,” thought he, “to go on saying money
+cannot do this, that, and t'other! Why, it can do everything. It does
+not alone make a man great, powerful, and influential, but it gains him
+the praise of being good and kind and generous. Look at my poor father,
+who never had a thought but for others, who postponed himself to all
+around him; and yet here is some one, whose very name is unknown, more
+eagerly looked for, more ardently desired, than would he be were it to
+be announced to-morrow he was coming back to live amongst them. What
+nonsense it is to say that the world cares for any qualities save those
+it can utilize; and I am only amazed how a man could have seen so much
+of life as Sir Brook and gained so little by his experience.”
+
+It was in this mood he got back to the little lodging in a humble suburb
+called Cullen's Wood, where Sir Brook awaited him. It is not impossible
+that the disparities of temperament in this world are just as
+beneficial, just as grateful, as are the boundless variety and change we
+find in nature. To Tom Lendrick's depression, almost disgust with life,
+Sir Brook brought that bright, hopeful, happy spirit which knew how to
+throw sunlight on every path to be travelled.
+
+He had received good news, or what he thought was good news, from
+Sardinia. A new vein of ore had been struck,--very “fat” ore they called
+it,--some eighty-odd per cent, and a fair promise of silver in it. “They
+ask me for thirty thousand francs, though, Tom,” said he, with a smile;
+“they might as well have written 'pounds' when they were about it. They
+want to repair the engine and erect a new crane. They say, too, the
+chains are worn and unsafe,--a thing to be looked to, or we shall have
+some accidents. In fact, they need fully double what they ask for; and
+seeing how impossible was the performance, I am astonished at their
+modesty.”
+
+“And what do you mean to do, sir?” asked Tom, bluntly.
+
+“I have been thinking of two courses: my first thought was to make a
+formal conveyance of the mine to you and your sister, for your joint use
+and benefit. This done, and I standing aloof from all possible interest
+in it, I bethought me of a loan to be raised on the security of the
+property,--not publicly, not generally, but amongst your father's
+friends and well-wishers,--beginning with the neighborhood where he has
+lived so long, and around which he has sowed the seeds of such benefits
+as needs must ripen in gratitude.”
+
+“Indulge no delusions on that score, sir. There is not a man in the
+county, except old Mills the vicar, perhaps, has a good word for us; and
+as to going to one of them for assistance, I 'd rather sweep a
+crossing. You shake your head, Sir Brook, and you smile at my passionate
+denunciation; but it is true, every word of it. I heard, in the
+few hours I spent there, scores of stories of my poor father's
+eccentricity,--his forgetfulness, his absence, and what not,--but
+never a syllable of his noble liberality, his self-sacrifice, or his
+gentleness.”
+
+“My dear Tom,” said the old man, solemnly, “when you have lived to
+one-half my age, you will discover that the world is not so much cursed
+with ill-nature as with levity, and that when men talk disparagingly of
+their fellows, they do so rather to seem witty than to be just. There
+was not, perhaps, one of those who tried to raise a laugh at your
+father's oddities, or who assumed to be droll at his expense, who would
+not in a serious mood have conceded to him every good and great trait
+of his nature. The first step in worldly knowledge is to rise above all
+consideration of light gossip. Take my word for it, we often confirm men
+in wrong thinking by opposition, who, if left to themselves and their
+own hearts, would review their judgments, and even retract them.”
+
+Tom took a hasty turn up and down the room; a ready reply was on his
+lip; indeed, it was with difficulty he repressed it, but he did so, and
+stood in seeming acquiescence to what he had heard. At last he said,
+“And the other plan, Sir Brook,--what was that?”
+
+“Perhaps a more likely one, Tom,” said the old man, cheerfully. “It was
+to apply directly to your grandfather, a man whose great intelligence
+would enable him to examine a project with whose details he had not ever
+before versed himself, and ask whether he would not make the advance we
+require on mortgage or otherwise.”
+
+“I don't think I 'd like to ask him,” said Tom, with a grim smile.
+
+“The proposal could come from me,” said Sir Brook, proudly, “if he would
+graciously accord me an interview.”
+
+Tom turned away to hide a smile, for he thought, if such a meeting were
+to take place, what he would give to be an unseen witness of it,--to
+watch the duel between antagonists so different, and whose weapons were
+so unlike.
+
+“My sister knows him better than any of us,” said Tom, at last; “might I
+consult her as to the likelihood of any success with him?”
+
+“By all means; it is what I would have myself advised.”
+
+“I will do so, then, to-day. I ought to have gone to see her yesterday;
+but I will go to-day, and report progress when I come back. I have a
+long budget for her,” added he, with a sigh,--“a catalogue of all the
+things I am not going to do. I am not going to be a medallist, nor win
+a fellowship, nor even be a doctor; it will, however, give me great
+courage if I can say, I 'll be a miner.”
+
+Tom Lendrick was right when he said he should have gone to see his
+sister on the day before, though he was not fully aware how right. The
+Chief Baron, in laying down a few rules for Lucy's guidance, made a
+point of insisting that she should only receive visitors on one day of
+the week; and in this regulation he included even her brother. So averse
+was the old man to be exposed to even a passing meeting with strangers,
+that on these Tuesdays he either kept his room or retired to a little
+garden of which he kept the key, and from whose precincts all were
+rigorously excluded.
+
+Well knowing her brother's impatience of anything like restricted
+liberty, and how rapidly he would connect such an injunction as this
+with a life of servitude and endurance, Lucy took care to make the time
+of receiving him appear a matter of her own choice and convenience, and
+at the time of parting would say, “Good-bye till Tuesday, Tom; don't
+forget Tuesday, for we shall be sure to be alone and to ourselves.” He
+the more easily believed this, that on these same Tuesdays the whole
+place seemed deserted and desolate. The grave-looking man in black, who
+preceded him up the stairs, ushered him along the corridor, and finally
+announced him, awaited him like a piece of machinery, repeating every
+movement and gesture with an unbroken uniformity, and giving him to
+understand that not only his coming was expected, but all the details of
+his reception had been carefully prescribed and determined on.
+
+“As I follow that fellow along the passage, Lucy,” said Tom, one day, “I
+can't help thinking that I experience every sensation of a man going to
+be hanged,--his solemn face, his measured tread, the silence, and the
+gloom,--only needing pinioned arms to make the illusion perfect.”
+
+“Tie them around me, dearest Tom,” said she, laughing, and drawing him
+to a seat beside her on the sofa; “and remember,” added she, “you have
+a long day. Your sentence will not come off for another week;” and thus
+jestingly did she contrive to time his coming without ever letting him
+know the restrictions that defined his visits.
+
+Now, the day before this conversation between Sir Brook and Tom took
+place being a Tuesday, Lucy had watched long and anxiously for his
+coming. She knew he had gone down to Killaloe on the preceding Saturday,
+but he had assured her he would be back and be with her by Tuesday.
+Lucy's life was far from unhappy, but it was one of unbroken uniformity,
+and the one sole glimpse of society was that meeting with her brother,
+whose wayward thoughts and capricious notions imparted to all he said
+a something striking and amusing. He usually told her how his week had
+been passed,--where he had been and with whom,--and she had learned to
+know his companions, and ask after them by name. Her chief interest was,
+however, about Sir Brook, from whom Tom usually brought a few lines,
+but always in an unsealed envelope, inscribed, “By the favor of Mr.
+Lendrick, jun.”
+
+How often would Tom quiz her about the respectful devotion of her old
+admirer, and jestingly ask her if she could consent to marry him. “I
+know he'll ask you the question one of these days, Lucy, and it's your
+own fault if you give him such encouragement as may mislead him.” And
+then they would talk over the romance of the old man's nature, wondering
+whether the real world would be rendered more tolerable or the reverse
+by that ideal tone which so imaginative a temperament could give it “Is
+it not strange,” said Tom, one day, “that I can see all the weakness of
+his character wherever my own interests do not come, but the moment he
+presents before me some bright picture of a splendid future, a great
+name to achieve, a great fortune to make, that moment he takes me
+captive, and I regard him not as a visionary or a dreamer, but as a man
+of consummate shrewdness and great knowledge of life?”
+
+“In this you resemble Sancho Panza, Tom,” said she, laughing. “He had
+little faith in his master's chivalry, but he implicitly believed in the
+island he was to rule over;” and from that day forward she called her
+brother Sancho and Sir Brook the Don.
+
+On the day after that on which Tom's visit should have been but was
+not paid, Lucy sat at luncheon with her grandfather in a small
+breakfast-room which opened on the lawn. The old Judge was in unusual
+spirits; he had just received an address from the Bar, congratulating
+him on his recovery, and expressing hope that he might be soon again
+seen on that Bench he had so much ornamented by his eloquence and his
+wisdom. The newspapers, too, with a fickleness that seems their most
+invariable feature, spoke most flatteringly of his services, and placed
+his name beside those who had conferred highest honor on the judgeship.
+
+“It is neatly worded, Lucy,” said the old man, taking up the paper on
+which the address was written; “and the passage that compares me with
+Mansfield is able as well as true. Both Mansfield and myself understood
+how there stands above all written law that higher, greater, grander
+law, that is based in the heart of all humanity, in the hope of an
+eternal justice, and soars above every technicality, by the intense
+desire of truth. It would have been, however, no more than fair to have
+added that, to an intellect the equal of Mansfield, I brought a temper
+which Mansfield had not, and a manner which if found in the courts
+of royalty, is seldom met with on the Bench. I do not quite like
+that phrase, 'the rapid and unerring glance of Erskine.' Erskine was
+brilliant for a Scotchman, but a brilliant Scotchman is but a third-rate
+Irishman. They who penned this might have known as much. I am better
+pleased with the words, 'the noble dignity of Lord Eldon.' There, my
+child, there, they indeed have hit upon a characteristic. In Eldon
+nature seemed to have created the judicial element in a high degree. It
+would be the vulgarity of modesty to pretend not to recognize in my own
+temperament a like organization.
+
+“May I read you, Lucy, the few words in which I mean to reply to this
+courteous address? Will it bore you, my dear?”
+
+“On the contrary, sir, I shall feel myself honored as well as
+interested.”
+
+“Sit where you are, then, and I will retire to the far corner of the
+room. You shall judge if my voice and delivery be equal to the effort;
+for I mean to return my thanks in person, Lucy. I mean to add the force
+of my presence to the vigor of my sentiments. I have bethought me of
+inviting those who have signed this document to luncheon here; and it
+may probably be in the large drawing-room that I shall deliver this
+reply. If not, it may possibly be in my court before rising,--I have not
+fully determined.” So saying, he arose, and with feeble steps--assisting
+himself, as he went, by the table, and then grasping a chair--he moved
+slowly across the room. She knew him too well to dare to offer her arm,
+or appear in any way to perceive his debility. That he felt, and felt
+bitterly, “the curse of old age,” as he once profanely called it, might
+be marked in the firm compression of his lips and the stern frown that
+settled on him, while, as he sank into a seat, a sad weary sigh declared
+the utter exhaustion that overcame him.
+
+It was not till after some minutes that he rallied sufficiently to
+unroll his manuscript and adjust his spectacles. The stillness in the
+room was now perfect; not a sound was heard save the faint hum of a bee
+which had strayed into the room, and was vaguely floating about to
+find an exit. Lucy sat in an attitude of patient attention,--her hands
+crossed before her, and her eyes slightly downcast.
+
+A faint low cough, and he began, but in a voice tremulous and faint,
+“'Mr. Chief Sergeant, and Gentlemen of the Bar'--do you hear me, Lucy?”
+
+“Yes, sir, I hear you.”
+
+“I will try to be more audible; I will rest for a moment.” fie laid his
+paper on his knees, closed his eyes, and sat immovable for some seconds.
+
+It was at this moment, when to the intense stillness was added a sense
+of expectancy, the honeysuckle that grew across the window moved, the
+frail branches gave way, and a merry voice called out, “Scene the first:
+a young lady discovered at luncheon!” and with a spring Tom Lendrick
+bounced into the room, and, ere her cry of alarm had ended, was clasping
+his sister in his arms.
+
+“Oh, Tom, dearest Tom, why to-day? Grandpapa--grandpapa is here,” sighed
+she, rather than whispered, in his ear.
+
+The young man started back, more struck by the emotion he had shown than
+by her words, and the Chief Baron advanced towards him with a manner
+of blended courtesy and dignity, saying, “I am glad to know you. Your
+sister's brother must be very welcome to me.”
+
+“I wish I could make a proper excuse for this mode of entry, sir. First
+of all, I thought Lucy was alone; and, secondly--”
+
+“Never mind the second plea; I submit to a verdict on the first,” said
+the Judge, smiling.
+
+“Tom forgot; it was Tuesday was his day,” began Lucy.
+
+“I have no day; days are all alike to me, Lucy. My occupations of
+Monday could be transferred to a Saturday, or, if need be, postponed
+indefinitely beyond it.”
+
+“The glorious leisure of the fortunate,” said the Judge, with a peculiar
+smile.
+
+“Or the vacuity of the unlucky, possibly,” said Tom, with an easy laugh.
+
+“At all events, young gentleman, you carry your load jauntily.”
+
+“One reason is, perhaps, that I never knew it was a load. I have always
+paraded in heavy marching order, so that I don't mind the weight of my
+pack.”
+
+For the first time did the old man's features relax into a look of
+kindly meaning. To find the youth not merely-equal to appreciate a
+figure of speech, but able to carry on the illustration, seemed so to
+identify him with his own blood and kindred that the old Judge felt
+himself instinctively drawn towards him.
+
+“Lucy, help your brother to something; there was an excellent curry
+there awhile ago,--if it be not cold.”
+
+“I have set my affections on that cold beef. It seems tome an age since
+I have seen a real sirloin.”
+
+A slight twitch crossed the Judge's face,--a pang he felt at what might
+be an insinuated reproach at his in hospitality; and he said, in a
+tone of almost apology, “We see no one---absolutely no one--here. Lucy
+resigns herself to the companionship of a very dreary old man whom all
+else have forgotten.”
+
+“Don't say so, grandpapa, on the day when such a testimony of esteem and
+affection reaches you.”
+
+Young Lendrick looked up from his plate, turning his eyes first towards
+his sister, then towards his grandfather; his glance was so palpably an
+interrogatory, there was no-mistaking it. Perhaps the old man's first
+impulse was not to reply; but his courtesy or his vanity, or a blending
+of both, carried the day, and he said, in a voice of much feeling: “Your
+sister refers to an address I have just received,--an address which
+the Irish Bar have deemed proper to transmit to me with their
+congratulations on my recovery. It is as gratifying, it is as
+flattering, as she says. My brethren have shown that they can rise above
+all consideration of sect or party in tendering their esteem to a man
+whom no administration has ever been able to convert into a partisan.”
+
+“But you have always been a Whig, sir, haven't you?” said Tom, bluntly.
+
+“I have been a Whig, sir, in the sense that a King is a Royalist,” said
+the old man, haughtily; and though Tom felt sorely provoked to reply
+to this pretentious declaration, he only gave a wicked glance at his
+sister, and drank off his wine.
+
+“It was at the moment of your unexpected appearance,” continued the
+Judge, “that I was discussing with your sister whether my reply to this
+compliment would come better if delivered here, or from my place on the
+Bench.”
+
+“I 'd say from the Bench,” said Tom, as he helped himself to another
+slice of beef.
+
+The old man gave a short cough, with a start. The audacity of tendering
+advice so freely and positively overcame him; and his color, faint
+indeed, rose to his withered cheek, and his eye glittered as he said,
+“Might I have the benefit of hearing the reasons which have led you to
+this opinion?”
+
+“First of all,” said Tom, in a careless off-hand way, “I take it the
+thing would have more--what shall I say?--dignity; secondly, the men
+who have signed the address might feel they were treated with more
+consideration; and lastly,--it 's not a very good reason, but I 'm
+bound to own it,--I 'd like to hear it myself, which I could if it were
+delivered in public, but which I am not so likely to do if spoken here.”
+
+“Oh, Tom, dear Tom!” whispered his sister, in dismay at a speech so
+certain to be accepted in its least pleasing signification.
+
+“You have already to-day reminded me of my deficiencies in hospitality,
+sir. This second admonition was uncalled for. It is happy for _me_ that
+my defence is unassailable. It is happy for _you_ that your impeachment
+is unwitnessed.”
+
+“You have mistaken me, sir,” said Tom, eagerly. “I never thought of
+reflecting on your hospitality. I simply meant to say that as I find
+myself here to-day by a lucky accident, I scarcely look to Fortune to do
+me such another good turn in a hurry.”
+
+“Your father's fault--a fault that would have shipwrecked fourfold
+more ability than ever he possessed--was a timidity that went to very
+cowardice. He had no faith in himself, and he inspired no confidence
+in others. Yours is, if possible, a worse failing. You have boldness
+without knowledge. You have the rashness that provokes a peril, and
+no part of the skill that teaches how to meet it. It was with a wise
+prescience that I saw we should not be safe company for each other.”
+
+He arose as he spoke, and, motioning back Lucy as she approached to
+offer her arm, he tottered from the room, to all seeming more overcome
+by passion than even by years and infirmity.
+
+“Well!” said Tom, as he threw his napkin on the table, and pushed his
+chair back, “I 'll be shot if I know how I provoked that burst of
+anger, or to what I owe that very neat and candid appreciation of my
+character.”
+
+Lucy threw her arm around his neck, and, bending over his shoulder till
+her face touched his own, said, “Oh, my dearest Tom, if you only knew
+how nervous and susceptible he is, in part from his nature, but more,
+far more, from suffering and sorrow! Left to the solitude of his own
+bitter thoughts for years, without one creature to whisper a kind word
+or a hopeful thought, is it any wonder if his heart has begun to consume
+itself?”
+
+“Devilish bitter diet it must find it! Pass me over the Madeira, Lucy.
+I mean to have my last glass to the old gentleman's health and better
+temper.”
+
+“He has moments of noble generosity that would win all your love,” said
+she, enthusiastically.
+
+“You have a harder lot than ever I thought it, my poor Lucy,” said
+he, looking into her eyes with an affectionate solicitude. “This is so
+unlike our old home.”
+
+“Oh, so unlike!” said she; and her lip quivered and her eyes grew glazy.
+
+“And can you bear it, girl? Does it not seem to you like a servitude to
+put up with such causeless passion, such capricious anger as this?”
+
+She shook her head mournfully, but made no answer.
+
+“If it be your woman's nature enables you to do it, all I can say is, I
+don't envy you your sex.”
+
+“But, Tom, remember his years,--remember his age.”
+
+“By Jove, he took good care to remind me of my own!--not that he was so
+far wrong in what he said of me, Lucy. I felt all the while he had 'hit
+the blot,' and I would have owned it too, if he had n't taken himself
+off so quickly.”
+
+“If you had, Tom,--if you had said but one word to this purport,--you
+would have seen how nobly forgiving he could be in an instant.”
+
+“Forgiving,--humph! I don't think the forgiveness was to have come from
+_him_.”
+
+“Sir William wishes to speak with you, Miss Lucy,” said the butler,
+entering hastily.
+
+“I must go, Tom,--good-bye. I will write to you tomorrow,--to-night, if
+I can,--good-bye, my dearest brother; be sure to come on Tuesday,--mind,
+Tuesday. You will be certain to find me alone.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. THE FIRST LETTER HOME.
+
+The post of the morning after the events of our last chapter brought
+Lucy a letter from her father. It was the first since his departure.
+What chapters in life are these first letters after absence! How do
+they open to us glimpses of not only new scenes and incidents, but of
+emotions and sentiments which, while we had relied upon them, we had
+never so palpably realized before! There is such ecstasy in thinking
+that time and space are no barriers against love, and that, even as we
+read, the heart that sent the message is beating with affection for us.
+
+Lendrick's letter to his daughter was full of fondness; her image had
+evidently gone with him through all the changes of the voyage, and their
+old home mingled in every thought of the new life before him. It was
+plain enough how unwillingly he turned from the past to the present, and
+how far rather he would revel in the scenes around the Shannon than turn
+to the solitary existence that awaited him beyond the seas.
+
+“I console myself, dear Lucy,” wrote he, “as well as I may, by thinking
+that in my great sacrifice I have earned the love of my father,--that
+love from which I have lived so long estranged, and for which my heart
+had never ceased to yearn; and I delight to think how by this time
+you must have grown into his heart, soothed many a care for him, and
+imparted to his solitary life the blessing of that bright hopefulness
+which gave even to my own dull existence a glow of glad sunshine. Out
+of my selfishness I cannot help asking you to remind him of all I have
+given him. And now that my egotism is so fully aroused, let me tell of
+myself. The voyage was less dreary than my fears had made it. I suffered
+at first, it is true; and when at last use had inured me to the sea, I
+fell into a sort of low feverish state, more the result of homesickness,
+perhaps, than real malady. It was a condition of rather depression than
+disease. Nothing could engage, nothing interest me. I could not read,
+neither could I partake in any of the various pastimes by which my
+fellow-voyagers beguiled the hours; and I found myself in that pitiable
+state of sinking daily lower and lower, without what I could call a
+cause for the depression.
+
+“I have more than once in my experience as a doctor had to deal with
+such cases, and I own now that I have neither valued their intensity
+nor understood their importance. I did not, it is true, go to the vulgar
+extent of calling them hippishness; but I did the next worse thing,--I
+treated them as the offspring of an over-easy existence, of a placid
+frictionless life.
+
+“With much shame do I recall how often I have rallied these poor
+sufferers on the vast space that separated them from real sorrow. There
+is no unreality, dearest Lucy, in whatever so overcomes the brain that
+thought is all but madness, and so pains the heart that the whole wish
+is for death. There are subtler influences in our nature than those that
+work by the brain or the blood, and the maladies of these have but one
+physician.
+
+“It was my great good-fortune to have a fellow-traveller who took the
+kindest interest in me. If he could not cure, he certainly did much
+to console me. He was a young man, lately gazetted on the
+commander-in-chief's staff, and who came on board of us in the Downs
+from a frigate bound for England. It was the merest accident that he did
+not miss us and lose his passage.
+
+“I am not a very attractive person, and it was with some astonishment
+that I heard he desired to make my acquaintance; and on meeting he said,
+'Though you have forgotten me, Dr. Lendrick, I had the honor of being
+presented to you at Killaloe by my friend Sir Brook Fossbrooke;' and
+I then remembered all about it, and how it was his features were so
+familiar to me,--very good features, too, they were, with much candor
+and manliness in the expression,--altogether a handsome young fellow,
+and with an air of good birth about him just as distinctive as his good
+looks.
+
+“I am so unused to being singled out by a stranger as the object of
+attentions, that I never fully got over the surprise which this young
+man's attachment to me inspired; and I am not using too strong a word,
+Lucy, when I call it attachment. There might have been, at least to his
+eyes, something in our respective fortunes that suggested this drawing
+towards me. Who knows whether he too might not have parted from a loved
+home and friends!
+
+“When he first came on board, his manner was wild,--almost incoherent;
+he ran here and there, like one in search of something or of somebody,
+but whose name he had forgotten. Indeed he actually startled me by the
+eagerness with which he addressed me; and when I informed him that I was
+alone, quite alone, and as friendles as himself on board, I thought he
+would have fainted. In all this suffering and emotion I suspected that
+I found what led him to a companionship with one as sorrow-stricken as
+himself.
+
+“As it was, there was no care he did not bestow on me. My own dear boy
+himself could not have nursed me more tenderly, nor tried to rally my
+spirits with more affectionate solicitude. He read for me, played chess
+with me, he even lent himself to the sort of reading I liked best, to
+become more companionable to me, withdrawing all this while from the gay
+and pleasant society of young fellows like himself. In a word, Lucy, by
+his devotion to me, he sent through my heart a lurking thought, almost
+like a hope, that I must somehow have certain qualities for which the
+world at large had not yet credited me, which could make me of
+interest to a young, bright-natured creature, fresh to life and all its
+enjoyments; and from the self-esteem of this notion I really believe I
+drew more encouragement than from any amount of more avowed approbation.
+
+“I feel I am not wearying you, my darling Lucy, by dwelling even with
+prolixity on what beguiled the long hours of absence, the weary, weary
+days at sea.
+
+“When we landed, for a time at least, I only met him now and then;
+he had his duties, and I had mine. I had to look out for a house. My
+predecessor's family are still occupying the official residence, and
+have begged of me leave to remain there a little longer. I had my visits
+of duty or compliment to make, and a whole round of little courtesies to
+perform, for which I well know I have all your sympathy. Every one was,
+however, kind and polite; some were even friendly. Indeed, my very want
+of manner, my awkward bashfulness and deficient tact, have, I can
+see, not injured me in the esteem of those whose worldly breeding and
+knowledge have taught them to be compassionate as well as courteous.
+
+“Amongst the many persons to whom I was presented I made two
+acquaintances of more than common interest to me,--I will not go
+farther, and say of any great degree of gratification. In dining with
+the Governor, yesterday week, he said, 'You will meet a relation to-day,
+Dr. Lendrick. His ship has just put in to coal, and he and his wife dine
+with us.' Though quite persuaded the Governor was laboring under some
+mistake, I waited with anxiety as the different arrivals were announced,
+and at last came Colonel and Mrs. Sewell,--the Colonel being Lady
+Lendrick's son by her first marriage,--what relation to myself all my
+skill in genealogy is unable to pronounce.
+
+“We met, however, shook hands very cordially, and I had the honor to
+conduct Mrs. Sewell to table. I am unfortunately terribly prone to first
+impressions, and all those that I entertain regarding the Colonel
+are adverse. He is a tall, handsome man, easy in manner, and with the
+readiness in speech and address that shows familiarity with life. He
+however will never suffer your eyes to meet his, never exchange a
+frank look with you, and seems, from some cause or other, to be always
+laboring under an impatient anxiety to be somewhere else than where he
+stands at the moment.
+
+“He asked about my father, and never waited for my reply; and he
+laughingly said, with a bad taste that shocked me, 'My mother and he
+never could hit it off together.'
+
+“Mrs. Sewell interested me more than her husband. She is still very
+handsome; she must at one time have been perfectly beautiful. She is
+very gentle, low-voiced, and quiet, talking with a simplicity that even
+I can detect only covers a deep knowledge of life and the world. The
+dread of her husband seems, however, to pervade all she says or does.
+She changes color when he looks at her, and if he addresses her, she
+sometimes seems about to faint. His slightest word is accepted as a
+command; and yet with all this terror--terror it was--I caught a
+look that once passed between them that actually overwhelmed me
+with amazement. It was the very look that two accomplices might have
+interchanged in a moment when they could not communicate more freely.
+Don't think that there is any exaggeration in this, Lucy, or that I
+am assuming to possess a finer insight into human motives than my
+neighbors; but my old craft as a doctor supplies me with a technical
+skill that no acquaintance with the mere surface-life of the world could
+have given; for the _Medico_ reads mankind by a stronger and steadier
+light than ever shone out of conventionalities or social usages.
+
+“'We are on our way to England, to Ireland, perhaps,' he said to me, in
+a careless way; but she, not aware of his speech, told me they had been
+invited to the Priory,--a piece of information which I own startled
+me. First of all, they are not by any means like people who would be
+agreeable to my father, nor, so far as I can guess, are they persons who
+would easily sacrifice their own modes of life and habits to the wishes
+of a recluse. Least of all, dearest Lucy, do I desire this lady to be
+your companion. She has, I see, many attractive qualities; she may have
+others as good and excellent; but if I do not greatly err, her
+whole nature and being are in subjection to a very stern, cold, and
+unscrupulous man, and she is far from being all that she should be with
+such gifts as she possesses, and farther again from what she might have
+been with a happier destiny in marriage.
+
+“If it were not that you are so certain to meet, and not improbably see
+much of these people, I should not have filled so much of my letter with
+them; but I confess to you, since I saw them they have never been out
+of my thoughts. Our relationship--if that be the name for it--led us
+rapidly into considerable intimacy; he brought his children--two lovely
+girls, and a little cherub of a boy of three years old--to see me
+yesterday, and Mrs. Sewell comes to take me to drive every day after
+luncheon. She expresses the most ardent desire to meet you, and says she
+knows you will love each other. She carried off your picture t' other
+day, and I was in real terror till I got it back again. She seemed in
+ecstasy on being told you were living with your grandfather; but I saw a
+look she shot across to her husband as I told it, and I saw his reply by
+another glance that revealed to me how my tidings had caused surprise,
+and something more than surprise.
+
+“You must not set me down as fanciful or captious, dear Lucy; but the
+simple truth is, I have never had a quiet moment since I knew these
+people. They inspire me with the same sort of anxiety I have often felt
+when, in the course of my profession, some symptom has supervened in
+a case not very grave or startling in itself, but still such as I have
+always found heralding in very serious combinations. It is therefore the
+doctor as much as the father that takes alarm here.
+
+“It is just possible--mind, I say possible--that I am a little jealous
+of these Sewells, for they have already seduced from me my young friend
+Lionel, who was so kind to me on the voyage. I scarcely see him now, he
+is always with them; and yesterday I heard--it may not be true--that
+he is already weary of Cape Town, and means to return home by the next
+ship,--that is, along with the Sewells, who are to sail on Friday.
+
+“I am certain that Sewell is neither a good nor a safe companion for a
+young fellow so bashful and unsuspecting as Lionel Trafford.
+
+“There are men who read the world the way certain dishonest critics
+quote a book or an article, by extracting all that is objectionable,
+and, omitting context and connection, place passage after passage in
+quick sequence. By such a process as this, human life is a pandemonium.
+I half suspect Sewell to be one of this scornful school; and if so, a
+most dangerous intimate. The heartfelt racy enjoyment of his manner, as
+he records some trait of rascality or fraud, is not more marked than the
+contemptuous sneer with which he receives a story that bears testimony
+to generosity or trustfulness, throwing over his air in each that tone
+of knowledge of life and the world that seems to say, 'These are
+the things we all of us know well, though only a few have either the
+manliness or the honesty to declare them openly.'
+
+“I may have tired you with this long tirade, my dear Lucy, but I am
+pouring out to you my thoughts as they come,--come, too, out of the
+fulness of much reflection. Remember, too, my sweet child, that I have
+often told you, 'It is just some half-dozen people with whom we are
+intimate who make or mar our fate in life.' Big as the world is, we play
+a very small game in one corner of the board, and it behoves us to look
+well to those with whom we are to play it.
+
+“If I am jealous of the Sewells for having robbed me of my young friend,
+I am envious of himself also, for he is going back to England,--going
+back to the loved faces and scenes he has left,--going back to Home.
+There 's the word, Lucy, that gathers all that we come to live for, when
+life really is a blessing.
+
+“It would seem too early to pronounce, but I think I can already see
+this is not a place to which I would like to bring you; but I will not
+prejudge it. It may be that time will reconcile me to some things I
+now dislike; it may be, too, that the presence of my own around me will
+dispose me to take a cheerier view of much that now depresses me. I have
+a great deal to do; I am employed during the whole day, and never really
+free till evening, when society claims me. This latter is my only severe
+burden. You can imagine me daily dining out, and fancy the martyrdom it
+costs me.
+
+“I am most anxious to hear of you, and how you like your new life,--I
+mean how you bear it. Liking is not the word for that which entails
+separation. I feel assured that you will love my father. You will be
+generous towards those traits which the host of mere acquaintanceship
+took pleasure in exaggerating, and you will be fair enough not to
+misjudge his great qualities because of certain faults of temper. He has
+great gifts, Lucy; and as you will see, the two pendulums of his nature,
+heart and head, swing together, and he is as noble in sentiment as he is
+grand in action.
+
+“It almost consoles me for separation when I think that I have
+transferred to him the blessings of that presence that made my own
+sunshine. Mind that you send me a diary of your life. I want your whole
+day; I want to see how existence is filled, so that whenever my
+mind flies back to you I may say, 'She is in her garden,--she is
+working,--she is at her music,--she is reading to him.'
+
+“It was a mistake to send me here, Lucy. There are men in scores who
+would rejoice in the opportunities of such a place, and see in it
+the road to rapid fortune. I only look at one feature of it,--the
+banishment. Not that by nature I am discontented,--I hope and believe
+this is not so,--but I feel that there are many things in life far worse
+than poverty. I have not the same dread of narrow means most men have.
+I do not feel depressed in spirit when I lie beneath a very humble roof,
+and sit down to a coarse meal; nor has splendor the power to exhilarate
+or elevate me. I am essentially humble, and I need nothing that is not
+generally within the reach of the humble; and I vow to you in all truth,
+I 'd rather be your grandfather's gardener than be the governor of this
+great colony. There 's an ignoble confession, but keep it for yourself.
+
+“I have written a long letter to Tom by this post, and addressed it to
+Mr. Dempster, who will forward it if he should have left before this. It
+distresses me greatly when I think that I have not been able to give him
+any definite career in life before we parted. Mere aptitude has no value
+with the world. You may be willing and ready to do fifty things, but
+some fourth-rate fellow who _knows_ how to do one will beat you. The
+marketable quality in life is skill; the thing least in request is
+genius. Tom has this harsh lesson yet to learn, but learn it he must,
+for the world is a schoolmaster that will stand no skulking, and however
+little to our taste be its tasks, we must come up when called on, and go
+on with our lesson as well as we may.
+
+“In many respects Sir Brook Fossbrooke was an unfortunate companion
+for him to have chanced upon. A man of considerable resources, who has
+employed them all unprofitably, is a bad pilot. The very waywardness of
+such a nature was exactly the quality to be avoided in Tom's case; but
+what was to be done? Poverty can no more select its company than its
+climate; and it would have been worse than ungracious to have rejected a
+friendship so generously and freely offered.
+
+“I am curious--I am more than curious, I am anxious--to know if Tom
+should ever have met my father. They are so intensely alike in many
+things that I fear me their meeting could not lead to-good. I know well
+that Tom resents, and would like to show that he resents, what he
+deems the harsh treatment evinced towards me, and I dread anything
+like interchange of words between them. My whole hope is that you would
+prevent such a mischance, or, if it did occur, would take measures to
+obviate its dangers.
+
+“Tell me particularly about this when you write. Tell me also, have
+you met Lady Lendrick, and if so, on what terms? I have ever found her
+obliging and good-natured, and with many qualities which the world has
+not given her credit for. Give her my most respectful regards when you
+see her.
+
+“It is daybreak; the hot sun of Africa is already glancing into the
+room, and I must conclude. I cannot bear to think of the miles these
+lines must travel ere they meet you, but they will be with you at last,
+and they are in this more fortunate than your loving father,
+
+“T. Lendrick.”
+
+Lucy sat long pondering over this letter. She read it too, again and
+again, and by a light which was certainly not vouchsafed to him who
+wrote it. To _her_ there was no mystery in Trafford's conduct. It
+was plain enough he had gone out, expecting to find her as his
+fellow-passenger. His despair--his wretchedness--his devotion to
+her father, the last resource of that disappointment he could not
+subdue--were all intelligible enough. Less easy, however, to read the
+sudden attachment he had formed for the Sewells. What did this mean? Had
+it any meaning; and if so, was it one that concerned her to know?
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. OFFICIAL MYSTERIES
+
+“I think I had better see him myself,” said Fossbrooke, after patiently
+listening to Tom Lendrick's account of his meeting with his grandfather.
+“It is possible I may be able to smooth down matters a little, and
+dispose the old gentleman, besides, to accord us some aid in our
+Sardinian project, for I have resolved upon that, Tom.”
+
+“Indeed, sir; the gold-mine?”
+
+“No, the lead,--the lead and silver. In the rough calculation I made
+last night on this slip of paper, I see my way to something like seven
+thousand a year to begin with; untold wealth will follow. There are no
+less than eleven products available,--the black lead of pencils and the
+white used by painters being the chief; while in my new salt, which I
+am disposed to call the 'pyrochloride of plumbium,' we have a sedative
+that will allay the pangs of hydrophobia.”
+
+“I wish it would quiet the Chief Baron,” muttered Tom; and Sir Brook,
+not hearing him correctly, continued,--“I think so,--I think the Chief
+Baron eminently calculated to take a proper estimate of my discovery. A
+man of fine intellect is ever ready to accept truth, albeit it come in a
+shape and through a channel in which he has himself not pursued it. Will
+you write a line to your sister and ask if it would be his Lordship's
+convenience to receive me, and at what time?”
+
+“Of course, sir, whatever you wish,” said Tom, in some confusion; “but
+might I ask if it be your intention to ask my grandfather to aid me with
+his purse?”
+
+“Naturally. I mean that he should, by advancing, let us say, eight
+hundred pounds, put you in a position to achieve a speedy fortune. He
+shall see, too, that our first care has been your sister's interests.
+Six-sixteenths of the profits for fifty years are to be hers; three each
+we reserve for ourselves; the remaining four will form a reserve fund
+for casualties, a capital for future development, and a sum at interest
+to pay superannuations, with some other objects that you will find
+roughly jotted down here, for which, however, they will amply suffice. I
+take it his Lordship knows something of metallurgy, Tom?” “I believe
+he knows a little of everything.” “Chemistry I feel sure he must have
+studied.” “I won't answer for the study; but you 'll find that when
+you come to talk with him, you 'll scarcely wander very far out of his
+geography. But I was going to say, sir, that I 'm not quite easy at the
+thought of asking him for money.”
+
+“It's not money--at least, it's no gift--we require of him. We are in
+possession of a scheme certain to secure a fortune. We know where a
+treasure lies hid, and we want no more than the cost of the journey to
+go and fetch it. He shall be more than repaid. The very dispositions
+we make in your sister's favor will show him in what spirit we mean to
+deal. It is possible--I am willing to own it--it is possible I might
+approach a man of inferior intelligence with distrust and fear, but in
+coming before Baron Lendrick I have no misgivings. All my experience of
+life has shown me that the able men are the generous men. In the ample
+stretch of their minds they estimate mankind by larger averages, and
+thus they come to see that there is plenty of good in human nature.”
+
+“I believe the old Judge is clever enough, and some speak very well
+of his character; but his temper--his temper is something that would
+swallow up all the fine qualities that ever were accorded to one man;
+and even if you were about to go on a mission I liked better, I 'd
+say, Don't ask to see him, don't expose yourself to the risk of some
+outrageous affront,--something you could n't bear and would n't resent.”
+
+“I have never yet found myself in the predicament you speak of,”
+ said Sir Brook, drawing himself up haughtily, “nor do I know of any
+contingency in life from which I could retreat on account of its perils.
+It may be, indeed it is, more than likely, from what you tell me, that
+I shall make no appeal to your grandfather's generosity; but I shall see
+him to tender your regrets for any pain you may have caused him, and to
+tell also so much of our future intentions as it is becoming the head
+of your house should hear. I also desire to see your sister, and say
+good-bye.”
+
+“Ask her to let me do so too. I can't go away without seeing her again.”
+ Tom took a turn or two up and down the room as though he had not made up
+his mind whether to say something or not. He looked out of the window,
+possibly in search of something to distract his thoughts, and then
+turning suddenly about, he said: “I was thinking, sir, that if it was
+your opinion--mind, I don't want to insinuate that it ought to be, or
+even that it is my own--but that if you came to the conclusion that
+my sister was not happy with my grandfather--that her life was one of
+depression and suffering--what would you say to her coming along with
+us?”
+
+“To Sardinia! Coming to Sardinia, do you mean, Tom?” said the old man,
+in astonishment.
+
+“Yes, sir, that is what I meant.”
+
+“Have I not told you the sort of life that lies before us in the
+island,--the hardships, the dangers, the bitter privations we shall
+have to endure? Is it to these we can invite a young girl, trained and
+accustomed to every elegance and every comfort?”
+
+“She 'd not shrink from her share,--that much I 'll warrant you; and the
+worst roughing of that rugged life would be easier to bear than this old
+man's humor.”
+
+“No, no; it must not be thought of,” said Fossbrooke, sternly. “What
+meaning has our enterprise if it be not to secure her future fortune?
+She cannot--she shall not--pay any part of the price. Let me think over
+this, Tom. It may be that we ought not to leave her; it may be that we
+should hit upon something nearer home. I will go up to the Castle and
+see the Viceroy.”
+
+He made a light grimace as he said this. Such a visit was by no means to
+his taste. If there was anything totally repugnant to his nature, it was
+to approach men whom he had known as friends or intimates with anything
+like the request for a favor. It seemed to him to invert all the
+relations which ought to subsist between men in society. The moment
+you had stooped to such a step, in his estimation you had forfeited all
+right to that condition of equality which renders intercourse agreeable.
+
+“I must have something for this young fellow,--something that may enable
+him to offer his sister a home if she should need it. I will accept
+nothing for myself,--on that I am determined. It is a sorry part, that
+of suppliant, but so long as it is for another it is endurable. Not that
+I like it, though,--not that it sits easy on me,--and I am too old to
+acquire a new manner.” Thus muttering to himself, he went along till he
+found himself at the chief entrance of the Castle.
+
+“You will have to wait on Mr. Balfour, sir, his Excellency's private
+secretary, the second door from the corner,” said the porter, scarcely
+deigning a glance at one so evidently unversed in viceregal observances.
+Sir Brook nodded and withdrew. From a groom who was holding a
+neat-looking cob pony Fossbrooke learned that Mr. Balfour was about to
+take his morning's ride. “He'll not see you now,” said the man. “You 'll
+have to come back about four or half-past.”
+
+“I have only a question to ask,” said Sir Brook, half to himself as he
+ascended the stairs. As he gained the landing and rang, the door opened
+and Mr. Balfour appeared. “I regret to detain you, sir,” began Sir
+Brook, as he courteously raised his hat. “Mr. Balfour, I believe.”
+
+“You are right as to my name, but quite as wrong if you fancy that you
+will detain me,” said that plump and very self-satisfied gentleman, as
+he moved forward.
+
+“And yet, sir, such is my intention,” said Sir Brook, placing himself
+directly in front of him.
+
+“That is a matter very soon settled,” said Balfour, returning to the
+door and calling out, “Pollard, step down to the lower yard, and send a
+policeman here.”
+
+Sir Brook heard the order unmoved in manner, and even made way for the
+servant to pass down the stairs. No sooner, however, was the man out
+of hearing than he said, “It would be much better, sir, not to render
+either of us ridiculous. I am Sir Brook Fossbrooke, and I come here to
+learn at what time it would be his Excellency's pleasure to receive me.”
+
+The calm quiet dignity in which he spoke, even more than the words, had
+its effect on Balfour, who, with more awkwardness than he would like
+to have owned, asked Sir Brook to walk in and be seated. “I have had a
+message for you from his Excellency these three or four days back, and
+knew not where to find you.”
+
+“Did it never occur to you to try what assistance the police might
+afford, sir?” said he, with deep gravity.
+
+“One thinks of these generally as a last resource,” said Balfour,
+coolly, and possibly not sorry to show how imperturbable he could be
+under a sarcasm.
+
+“And now for the message, sir,” said Fossbrooke.
+
+“I'll be shot if I remember it. Wasn't it something about an election
+riot? You thrashed a priest, named Malcahy, eh?”
+
+“I opine not, sir,” said Sir Brook, with a faint smile.
+
+“No, no; you are the great man for acclimatization; you want to make the
+ornithorhynchus as common as the turkey. Am I right?”
+
+Sir Brook shook his head.
+
+“I never have my head clear out of office hours, that 's the fact,” said
+Balfour, impatiently. “If you had called on me between twelve and three,
+you 'd have found me like a directory.”
+
+“Put no strain upon your recollection, sir. When I see the Viceroy, it
+is probable he will repeat the message.”
+
+“You know him, then?”
+
+“I have known him eight-and-forty years.”
+
+“Oh, I have it,--I remember it all now. You used to be with Colonel
+Hanger and Hugh Seymour and O'Kelly and all the Carlton House lot.”
+
+Fossbrooke bowed a cold assent.
+
+“His Excellency told us the other evening that there was not a man in
+England who had so many stories of the Prince. Didn't Moore go to you
+about his Life of Sheridan?--yes, of course,--and you promised him some
+very valuable documents; and sent him five-and-twenty protested bills of
+poor Brinsley's, labelled 'Indubitable Records.'”
+
+“This does not lead us to the message, sir,” said Foss-brooke, stiffly.
+
+“Yes, but it does though,--I'm coming to it. I have a system of
+artificial memory, and I have just arrived at you now through Carlton
+House, milk-punch, and that story about Lord Grey and yourself riding
+postilions to Ascot, and you on the wheelers tipping up Grey with your
+whip till he grew frantic. Was n't that a fact?”
+
+“I wait for the message, sir; or rather I grow impatient at not hearing
+it.”
+
+“I remember it perfectly. It's a place he wants to offer you; it's
+a something under the Courts of Law. You are to do next to
+nothing,--nothing at all, I believe, if you prefer it, as the last
+fellow did. He lived in Dresden for the education of his children, and
+he died there, and we did n't know when he died,--at least they suspect
+he signed some dozen life certificates that his doctor used to forward
+at quarter-day. Mind, I don't give you the story as mine; but the
+impression is that he held the office for eight years after his death.”
+
+“Perhaps, sir, you would now favor me with the name and nature of the
+appointment.”
+
+“He was called the Deputy-Assistant Sub-something of somewhere in the
+Exchequer; and he had to fill, or to register, or to put a seal, or, if
+not a seal, a stamp on some papers; but the marrow of the matter is, he
+had eight hundred a year for it; and when the Act passed requiring two
+seals, he asked for an increase of salary and an assistant clerk, and
+they gave him two hundred more, but they refused the clerk. They do such
+shabby things in those short sittings over the Estimates!”
+
+“And am I to understand that his Excellency makes me an offer of this
+appointment?”
+
+“Well, not exactly; there's a hitch in it,--I may say there are
+two hitches: first of all, we 're not sure it's in our gift; and,
+secondly--”
+
+“Perhaps I may spare you the secondly,--the firstly is more than enough
+for me.”
+
+“Yes, but I'd like to explain. Here's how it is: the Chief Baron claimed
+the patronage about twenty years ago, and we made, or the people
+who were in power made, some sort of a compromise about an ultimate
+nomination, and he was to have the first. Now this man only died
+t' other day, having held the office, as I said, upwards of twenty
+years,--a most unconscionable thing,--just one of those selfish acts
+small official fellows are always doing; and so _I_ thought, as I saw
+your name down for something on his Excellency's list, that I 'd mention
+_you_ for the post as a sort of sop to Baron Lendrick, saying, 'Look
+at our man; we are not going to saddle the country with one of your
+long-annuity fellows,--_he_ 's eighty if he's a day.' I say, I 'd press
+this point, because the old Judge says he is no longer bound by
+the terms of the compromise, for that the office was abolished and
+reconstructed by the 58th of Victoria, and that he now insists on the
+undivided patronage.”
+
+“I presume that the astute reasons which induced you to think of _me_
+have not been communicated to the Viceroy.”
+
+“I should think not. I mention them to you frankly, because his
+Excellency said you were one of those men who must be dealt with openly.
+'Play on the square with Foss-brooke,' said he; 'and whether he win or
+lose, you 'll see no change in him. Try to overreach him, and you 'll
+catch a tiger.'”
+
+“I am very grateful for his kind estimate of me. It is, however, no more
+than I looked for at his hands.” This he said with a marked feeling,
+and then added, in a lighter tone, “I have also a debt of gratitude
+to yourself, of which I know not how to acquit myself better than by
+accepting this appointment, and taking the earliest opportunity to die
+afterwards.”
+
+“No, don't do that; I don't mean that. You can do like that fellow they
+made Pope because he looked on the verge of the grave, and who pitched
+his crutch into the air when he had put on the tiara.”
+
+“I understand; so that it is only in Baron Lendrick's eyes I am to look
+short-lived.”
+
+“Just so; call on him,--have a meeting with him; say that his Excellency
+desires to act with every delicacy towards him,--that should it be
+discovered hereafter the right of nomination lies with the Court and not
+with us, we 'll give him an equivalent somewhere else, till--till--”
+
+“Till I shall have vacated the post,” chimed in Sir Brook, blandly; “a
+matter, of course, of very brief space.”
+
+“You see the whole thing,--you see it in all its bearings; and now if
+you only could know something about the man you have to deal with, there
+would be nothing more to tell you.”
+
+“I have heard about him passingly.”
+
+“Oh, yes, his eccentricities are well known. The world is full of
+stories of him, but he is one of those men who play wolf on the
+species,--he must be worrying somebody to keep him from worrying
+himself; he smashed the last two Governments here, and he 'd have upset
+_us_ too if _I_ had n't been here. He hates _me_ cordially; and if you
+don't want to rouse his anger, don't let your lips murmur the name,
+Cholmondely Balfour.”
+
+“You may rely upon me, sir,” said Sir Brook, bowing. “I have scarcely
+ever met a gentleman whose name I am not more likely to recall than your
+own.”
+
+“Sharp, that; did you mean it?” said Balfour, with his glass to his eye.
+
+“I am never ambiguous, sir, though it occasionally happens to me to say
+somewhat less than I feel. I wish you a good day.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. IN COURT.
+
+When the day arrived that the Chief Baron was to resume his place on
+the Bench, no small share of excitement was seen to prevail within the
+precincts of the Four Courts. Many opined that his recovery was far
+from perfect, and that it was not his intention ever to return to the
+justice-seat. Some maintained that the illness had been far less severe
+than was pretended, and that he had employed the attack as a means of
+pressure on the Government, to accord to his age and long services
+the coveted reward. Less argumentative partisans there were who were
+satisfied to wager that he would or would not reappear on the Bench, and
+bets were even laid that he would come for one last time, as though to
+show the world in what full vigor of mind and intellect was the man the
+Government desired to consign to inactivity and neglect.
+
+It is needless to say that he was no favorite with the Bar. There was
+scarcely a man, from the highest to the lowest, whom he had not on some
+occasion or another snubbed, ridiculed, or reprimanded. Whose law had he
+not controverted? Whose acuteness had he not exposed, whose rhetoric
+not made jest of? The mere presence of ability before him seemed to
+stimulate his combative spirit, and incite him to a passage at arms with
+one able to defend himself. No first-rate man could escape the shafts of
+his barbed and pointed wit; it was only dulness, hopeless dulness,
+that left his court with praise of his urbanity and an eulogy over his
+courteous demeanor.
+
+Now, hopeless dulness is not the characteristic of the Irish Bar, and
+with the majority the Chief Baron was the reverse of popular.
+
+No small tribute was it therefore to his intellectual superiority, to
+that mental power that all acknowledged while they dreaded, that his
+appearance was greeted with a murmur of approbation, which swelled
+louder and louder as he moved across the hall, till it burst out at
+last into a hoarse, full cheer of welcome. Mounting the steps with
+difficulty, the pale old man, seared with age and wrinkled with care,
+turned round towards the vast crowd, and with an eye of flashing
+brightness, and a heightened color, pressed his hand upon his heart,
+and bowed. A very slight motion it was,--less, far less, perhaps, than
+a sovereign might have accorded; but in its dignity and grace it was a
+perfect recognition of all the honor he felt had been done him.
+
+How broken! how aged! how fearfully changed! were the whispered remarks
+that were uttered around as he took his seat on the Bench, and more
+significant even than words were the looks interchanged when he
+attempted to speak, and instead of that clear metallic ring which once
+had been audible even outside the court, a faint murmuring sound was
+only heard.
+
+A few commonplace motions were made and discharged. A somewhat wearisome
+argument followed on a motion for a new trial, and the benches of the
+Bar gradually grew thinner and thinner, as the interest of the scene
+wore off, and as each in turn had scanned, and, after his own fashion,
+interpreted, the old Judge's powers of mind and body; when suddenly,
+and as it were without ostensible cause, the court began to fill,--bench
+after bench was occupied, till at last even all the standing-space was
+crowded; and when the massive curtain moved aside, vast numbers were
+seen without, eagerly trying to enter. At first the Chief Baron appeared
+not to notice the change, but his sharp eye no sooner detected it than
+he followed with his glance the directed gaze of the crowd, and saw
+it fixed on the gallery, opposite the jury-box, now occupied by a
+well-dressed company, in the midst of whom, conspicuous above all, sat
+Lady Lendrick. So well known were the relations that subsisted between
+himself and his wife, such publicity had been given to their hates and
+quarrels, that her presence here was regarded as a measure of shameless
+indelicacy. In the very defiant look, too, that she bestowed on the body
+of the court she seemed to accept the imputation, and to dare it.
+
+Leisurely and calmly did she scan the old man's features through her
+double eyeglass, while from time to time, with a simpering smile, she
+would whisper some words to the lady at her side,--words it was not
+needful to overhear, they were so palpably words of critical comment
+upon him she gazed at.
+
+So engrossed was attention by the indecency of this intrusion, which had
+not even the shallow pretext of an interesting cause to qualify it, that
+it was only after a considerable time it was perceived that the lady who
+sat next Lady Lendrick was exceedingly beautiful. If no longer in her
+first youth, there were traits of loveliness in her perfectly formed
+features which even years respect; and in the depth of her orbits and
+the sculptural elegance of her nostrils and her mouth, there was all
+that beauty we love to call Greek, but in which no classic model ever
+could compete with the daughters of England.
+
+Her complexion was of exceeding delicacy, as was the half-warm tint of
+her light-brown hair. But it was when she smiled that the captivation
+of her beauty became perfect; and it seemed as though each and all there
+appropriated that radiant favor to himself, and felt his heart bound
+with a sort of ecstasy. It had been rumored in the morning through the
+hall that the Chief Baron, at the rising of the Court, would deliver a
+short reply to the address of the Bar; and now, as the last motion was
+being disposed of, the appearance of eager expectation and curiosity
+became conspicuous on every side.
+
+That the unlooked-for presence of his wife had irritated and embarrassed
+the old man, was plain to the least observant. The stern expression of
+his features; the steadfast way in which he gazed into the body of
+the court, to avoid even a chance glance at the gallery; the fretful
+impatience with which he moved his hands restlessly amongst his
+papers,--all showed discomposure and uneasiness. Still, it was well
+known that the moment he was called on for a mental effort intellect
+ever assumed the mastery over temper, and all felt that when he should
+arise not a trace of embarrassment would remain to mar the calm dignity
+of his manner.
+
+It was amidst a hushed silence that he stood up, and said: “Mr. Chief
+Sergeant, and Gentlemen of the Bar: I had intended to-day,--I had even
+brought down with me some notes of a reply which I purposed to make to
+the more than flattering address which you so graciously offered to me.
+I find, however, that I have overrated the strength that remains to
+me. I find I have measured my power to thank you by the depth of my
+gratitude, and not by the vigor of my frame. I am too weak to say all
+that I feel, and too deeply your debtor to ask you to accept less than I
+owe you. Had the testimony of esteem you presented to me only alluded to
+those gifts of mind and intellect with which a gracious Providence was
+pleased to endow me,--had you limited yourself to the recognition of the
+lawyer and the judge,--I might possibly have found strength to assure
+you that I accepted your praise with the consciousness that it was not
+all unmerited. The language of your address, however, went beyond this;
+your words were those of regard, even of affection. I am unused to such
+as these, gentlemen,--they unsettle--they unman me. Physicians tell us
+that the nerves of the student acquire a morbid and diseased acuteness
+for want of those habits of action and physical exertion which more
+vulgar organizations practise. So do I feel that the mental faculties
+gain an abnormal intensity in proportion as the affections are
+neglected, and the soil of the heart left untilled.
+
+“Mine have been worse than ignored,” said he, with an elevated tone, and
+in a voice that rang through the court,--“they have been outraged; and
+when the time comes that biography will have to deal with my character
+and my fortunes, if there be but justice in the award, the summing-up
+will speak of me as one ever linked with a destiny that was beneath
+him. He was a lawyer,--he ought to have been a legislator. He sat on
+the Bench, while his place was the Cabinet; and when at the end of
+a laborious life his brethren rallied round him with homage and with
+tender regard, they found him like a long beleaguered city starved
+into submission, carrying a bold port towards the enemy, but torn by
+dissension within, and betrayed by the very garrison that should have
+died in its defence.”
+
+The savage fierceness of these words turned every eye in the court to
+the gallery, where Lady Lendrick sat, and where, with a pleasant smile
+on her face, she not only listened with seeming pleasure, but beat time
+with her fan to the rhythm of the well-rounded periods.
+
+A quivering of the lip, and a strange flattening of the cheek of one
+side, succeeded to the effort with which he delivered these words, and
+when he attempted to speak again his voice failed him; and after a few
+attempts he placed his hand on his brow, and with a look of intense and
+most painful significancy, bowed around him to both sides of the court
+and retired.
+
+“That woman, that atrocious woman, has killed him,” muttered poor Haire,
+as he hastened to the Judge's robing-room.
+
+“I am sorry, my dear, you should not have heard him in a better vein,
+for he is really eloquent at times,” said Lady Lendrick to her beautiful
+companion, as they moved through the crowd to their carriage.
+
+“I trust his present excitement will not have bad consequences,” said
+the other, softly. “Don't you think we ought to wait and ask how he is?”
+
+“If you like. I have only one objection, and that is, that we may be
+misconstrued. There are people here malicious enough to impute the worst
+of motives to our anxiety. Oh, here is Mr. Pemberton! Mr. Pemberton,
+will you do me the great favor to inquire how the Chief Baron is? Would
+you do more, and say that I am most eager to know if I could be of any
+use to him?”
+
+If Mr. Pemberton had no fancy for his mission, he could not very well
+decline it. While he was absent, the ladies took a turn through the
+hall, inspecting the two or three statues of distinguished lawyers, and
+scanning the living faces, whose bewigged expression seemed to blend the
+over-wise and the ridiculous in the strangest imaginable manner.
+
+A sudden movement in the crowd betokened some event; and now, through a
+lane formed in the dense mass, the Chief Baron was seen approaching.
+He had divested himself of his robes, and looked the younger for the
+change. Indeed, there was an almost lightness in his step, as he
+came forward, and with a bland smile said: “I am most sensible of the
+courtesy that led you here. I only wish my strength had been more
+equal to the occasion.” And he took Lady Lendrick's hand with a mingled
+deference and regard.
+
+“Sir William, this is my daughter-in-law. She only arrived yesterday,
+but was determined not to lose the opportunity of hearing you.”
+
+[Illustration: 178]
+
+“To have _heard_ me to-day was disappointment,” said the old man, as
+he raised the young lady's hand to his lips; “to see her is none. I am
+charmed to meet one so closely tied to me,--of such exquisite beauty.
+Ah, Madam! it's a dear-bought privilege, this candid appreciation of
+loveliness we old men indulge in. May I offer you my arm?”
+
+And now through the dense crowd they passed along,--all surprised and
+amazed at the courteous attentions of the old Judge, whom but a few
+moments before they had seen almost convulsed with passion.
+
+“She almost had won the game, Haire,” said the Chief Baron, as, having
+handed the ladies to their carriage, he went in search of his own. “But
+I have mated her. My sarcasm has never given me one victory with
+that woman,” said he, sternly. “I have never conquered her except by
+courtesy.”
+
+“Why did she come down to court at all?” blurted out Haire; “it was
+positively indecent.”
+
+“The Spanish women go to bull-fights, but I never heard that they
+stepped down into, the arena. She has great courage,--very great
+courage.”
+
+“Who was the handsome woman with her?”
+
+“Her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Sewell. Now, that is what I call beauty,
+Haire. There is the element which is denied to us men,--to subdue
+without effort, to conquer without conflict.”
+
+“Your granddaughter is handsomer, to my thinking.”
+
+“They are like each other,--strangely like. They have the same dimpling
+of the cheek before they smile, and her laugh has the same ring as
+Lucy's.”
+
+Haire muttered something, not very intelligibly, indeed, but certainly
+not sounding like assent.
+
+“Lady Lendrick had asked me to take these Sewells in at the Priory, and
+I refused her. Perhaps I 'd have been less peremptory had I seen this
+beauty. Yes, sir! There is a form of loveliness--this woman has it--as
+distinctly an influence as intellectual superiority, or great rank,
+or great riches. To deny its power you must live out of the world, and
+reject all the ordinances of society.”
+
+“Coquettes, I suppose, have their followers; but I don't think you or I
+need be of the number.”
+
+“You speak with your accustomed acuteness, Haire; but coquetry is the
+exercise of many gifts, beauty is the display of one. I can parry off
+the one; I cannot help feeling the burning rays of the other. Come,
+come, don't sulk; I am not going to undervalue your favorite Lucy. They
+have promised to dine with me on Sunday; you must meet them.”
+
+“Dine with you!--dine with you, after what you said today in open
+court!”
+
+“That I could invite them, and they accept my invitation, is the best
+reply to those who would, in their malevolence, misinterpret whatever
+may have fallen from me. The wound of a sharp arrow is never very
+painful till some inexpert bungler endeavors to withdraw the weapon. It
+is then that agony becomes excruciating, and peril imminent.”
+
+“I suppose I am the bungler, then?”
+
+“Heaven forbid I should say so! but as I have often warned you, Haire,
+your turn for sarcasm is too strong for even your good sense. When you
+have shotted your gun with a good joke, you will make a bull's eye of
+your best friend.”
+
+“By George, then, I don't know myself, that's all; and I could as easily
+imagine myself a rich man as a witty one.”
+
+“You are rich in gifts more precious than money; and you have the
+quintessence of all wit in that property that renders you suggestive;
+it is like what chemists call latent heat. But to return to Mrs. Sewell:
+she met my son at the Cape, and reports favorably of his health and
+prospects.”
+
+“Poor fellow! what a banishment he must feel it!”
+
+“I wonder, sir, how many of us go through life without sacrifices! She
+says that he goes much into the world, and is already very popular in
+the society of the place,--a great and happy change to a man who
+had suffered his indolence and self-indulgence to master him. Had he
+remained at home, I might have been able to provide for him. George
+Ogle's place is vacant, and I am determined to exercise my right of
+appointment.”
+
+“First Registrar, was he not?”
+
+“Yes; a snug berth for incapacity,--one thousand a year. Ogle made
+more of it by means we shall not inquire into, but which shall not be
+repeated.”
+
+“You ought to give it to your grandson,” said Haire, bluntly.
+
+“You ought to know better than to say so, sir,” said the Judge, with a
+stern severity. “It is to men like myself the public look for example
+and direction, and it would be to falsify all the teaching of my life if
+I were to misuse my patronage. Come up early on Saturday morning, and
+go over the lists with me. There are one hundred and twenty-three
+applicants, backed by peers, bishops, members of Parliament, and men in
+power.”
+
+“I don't envy you your patronage.”
+
+“Of course not, sir. The one hundred and twenty-two disappointed
+candidates would present more terror to a mind like yours than any
+consciousness of a duty fulfilled would compensate for; but I am
+fashioned of other stuff.”
+
+“Well, I only hope it may be a worthy fellow gets it.”
+
+“If you mean worthy in what regards a devotion to the public service, I
+may possibly be able to assure you on that head.”
+
+“No, no; I mean a good fellow,--a true-hearted, honest fellow, to whom
+the salary will be a means of comfort and happiness.”
+
+“Sir, you ask far too much. Men in my station investigate fitness and
+capacity; they cannot descend to inquire how far the domestic virtues
+influence those whom they advance to office.”
+
+“You may drop me here: I am near home,” said Haire, who began to feel a
+little weary of being lectured.
+
+“You will not dine with me?”
+
+“Not to-day. I have some business this evening. I have a case to look
+over.”
+
+“Come up on Saturday, then,--come to breakfast; bring me any newspapers
+that treat of the appointment, and let us see if we cannot oppose this
+spirit of dictation they are so prone to assume; for I am resolved I
+will never name a man to office who has the Press for his patron.”
+
+“It may not be his fault.”
+
+“It shall be his misfortune, then. Stop, Drab; Mr. Haire wishes to get
+down. To the Priory,” said he, as his friend went his way; and now,
+leaning back in his carriage, the old man continued to talk aloud, and,
+addressing an imaginary audience, declaim against the encroaching
+spirit of the newspapers, and inveigh against the perils to which their
+irresponsible counsels exposed the whole framework of society; and thus
+speaking, and passionately gesticulating, he reached his home.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. A MORNING CALL.
+
+As Sir William waited breakfast for Haire on Saturday morning, a car
+drove up to the door, and the butler soon afterwards entered with a card
+and a letter. The card bore the name “Sir Brook Fossbrooke,” and the
+letter was sealed with the viceregal arms, and had the name “Wilmington”
+ on the corner. Sir William broke it open, and read,--
+
+“My dear Chief Baron,--This will come to your hand through Sir Brook
+Fossbrooke, one of my oldest and choicest friends. He tells me
+he desires to know you, and I am not aware of any more natural or
+legitimate ambition. It would be presumption in me to direct your
+attention to qualities you will be more quick to discover and more able
+to appreciate than myself. I would only add that your estimate will,
+I feel assured, be not less favorable that it will be formed of one
+of whose friendship I am proud. It may be that his visit to you will
+include a matter of business; if so, give it your courteous attention:
+and believe me ever, my dear Chief Baron, your faithful friend,
+
+“Wilmington.”
+
+“Show the gentleman in,” said the Judge; and he advanced towards the
+door as Sir Brook entered. “I am proud to make your acquaintance, Sir
+Brook,” said he, presenting his hand.
+
+“I would not have presumed to call on you at such an hour, my Lord Chief
+Baron, save that my minutes are numbered. I must leave for England this
+evening; and I wished, if possible, to meet you before I started.”
+
+“You will, I hope, join me at breakfast?”
+
+“I breakfasted two hours ago,--if I dare to dignify by the name my meal
+of bread and milk. But, pray, let me not keep you from yours,--that is,
+if you will permit me to speak to you while so occupied.”
+
+“I am at your orders, sir,” said the old Judge, as he seated himself and
+requested his visitor to sit beside him.
+
+“His Excellency tells me, my Lord, that there is just now vacant a
+situation of which some doubt exists as to the patron,--a Registrarship,
+I think he called it, in your Court?”
+
+“There is no doubt whatever, sir. The patronage is mine.”
+
+“I merely quote the Viceroy, my Lord,--I assert nothing of myself.”
+
+“It may not impossibly save time, sir, when I repeat that his Excellency
+has misinformed you. The office is in my gift.”
+
+“May I finish the communication with which he charged me?”
+
+“Sir, there is no case before the court,” said the Judge. “I can
+hear you, as a matter of courtesy; but it cannot be your object to be
+listened to on such terms?”
+
+“I will accept even so little. If it should prove that the view taken by
+his Excellency is the correct one--pray, sir, let me proceed--”
+
+“I cannot; I have no temper for a baseless hypothesis. I will not,
+besides, abuse your time any more than my own forbearance; and I
+therefore say that if any portion of your interest in making my
+acquaintance concerns that question you have so promptly broached, the
+minutes employed in the discussion would be thrown away by us both.”
+
+“Mr. Haire,” said the servant, at this moment; and the Chief Baron's old
+friend entered, rather heated by his walk.
+
+“You are late by half an hour, Haire; let me present you to Sir Brook
+Fossbrooke, whose acquaintance I am now honored in making. Sir Brook
+is under a delusive impression, Haire, which I told you a few days ago
+would demand some decisive step on my part; he thinks that the vacant
+registrarship is at the disposal of the Crown.”
+
+“I ask pardon,” said Fossbrooke. “As I understood his Excellency, they
+only claim the alternate appointment.”
+
+“And they shall not assert even that, sir.”
+
+“Sir William's case is strong,--it is irrefutable. I have gone over it
+myself,” broke in Haire.
+
+“There, sir! listen to that. You have now wherewithal to go back and
+tell the Viceroy that the opinion of the leading man of the Irish Bar
+has decided against his claim. Tell him, sir, that accident timed your
+visit here at the same moment with my distinguished friend's, and that
+you in this way obtained a spontaneous decision on the matter at issue.
+When you couple with that judgment the name of William Haire, you will
+have said enough.”
+
+“I bow to this great authority,” said Sir Brook, with deep courtesy,
+“and accepting your Lordship's statement to the fullest, I would only
+add, that as it was his Excellency's desire to have named me to this
+office, might I so far presume, on the loss of the good fortune that I
+had looked for, to approach you with a request, only premising that it
+is not on my own behalf?”
+
+“I own, sir, that I do not clearly appreciate the title to your claim.
+You are familiar with the turf, Sir Brook, and you know that it is only
+the second horse has a right to demand his entry.”
+
+“I have not been beaten, my Lord. You have scratched my name and
+prevented my running.”
+
+“Let us come back to fact, sir,” said the Chief Baron, not pleased with
+the retort. “How can you base any right to approach me with a request on
+the circumstance that his Excellency desired to give you what belonged
+to another?”
+
+“Yes, that puts it forcibly--unanswerably--to my thinking,” said Haire.
+
+“I may condole with disappointment, sir, but I am not bound to
+compensate defeat,” said the old Judge; and he arose and walked the room
+with that irritable look and manner which even the faintest opposition
+to him often evoked, and for which even the utterance of a flippant
+rebuke but partly compensated him.
+
+“I take it, my Lord Chief Baron,” said Fossbrooke, calmly, “that I
+have neither asked for condolence nor compensation. I told you, I hoped
+distinctly that what I was about to urge was not on my own behalf.”
+
+“Well, sir, and I think the plea is only the less sustainable. The
+Viceroy's letter might give a pretext for the one; there is nothing in
+our acquaintance would warrant the other.”
+
+“If you knew, sir, how determined I am not to take offence at words
+which certainly imperil patience, you would possibly spare me some
+of these asperities. I am in close relations of friendship with your
+grandson; he is at present living with me; I have pledged myself to his
+father to do my utmost in securing him some honorable livelihood, and
+it is in his behalf that I have presented myself before you to-day. Will
+you graciously accord me a hearing on this ground?”
+
+There was a quiet dignity of manner in which he said this, a total
+forgetfulness of self, and a manly simplicity of purpose so palpable,
+that the old Judge felt he was in presence of one whose character called
+for all his respect; at the same time he was not one to be suddenly
+carried away by a sentiment, and in a very measured voice he replied,
+“If I 'm flattered, sir, by the interest you take in a member of my
+family, I am still susceptible of a certain displeasure that it should
+be a stranger should stand before me to ask me for any favor to my own.”
+
+“I am aware, my Lord Chief Baron, that my position is a false one, but
+so is your own.”
+
+“Mine, sir! mine? What do you mean? Explain yourself.”
+
+“If your Lordship's interest had been exerted as it might have been,
+Dr. Lendrick's son would never have needed so humble a friend as he has
+found in me.”
+
+“And have you come here, sir, to lecture me on my duty to my family?
+Have you presented yourself under the formality of a viceregal letter
+of introduction to tell a perfect stranger to you how he should have
+demeaned himself to his own?”
+
+“Probably I might retort, and ask by what right you lecture me on my
+manners and behavior? But I am willing to be taught by so consummate a
+master of everything; and though I was once a courtier, I believe that
+I have much to learn on the score of breeding. And now, my Lord, let us
+leave this unpromising theme, and come to one which has more interest
+for each of us. If this registrarship, this place, whatever it be, would
+be one to suit your grandson, will the withdrawal of _my_ claim serve
+to induce your Lordship to support _his?_ In one word, my Lord, will you
+let him have the appointment?”
+
+“I distinctly refuse, sir,” said the Judge, waving his hand with an air
+of dignity. “Of the young gentleman for whom you intercede I know but
+little; but there are two disqualifications against him, more than
+enough, either of them, to outweigh your advocacy.”
+
+“May I learn them?” asked Sir Brook, meekly.
+
+“You shall, sir. He carries my name without its prestige; he inherits
+_my_ temper, but not my intellect.” The blood rushed to his face as he
+spoke, and his chest swelled, and his whole bearing bespoke the fierce
+pride that animated him; when suddenly, as it were, recollecting
+himself, he added: “I am not wont to give way thus, sir. It is only in
+a moment of forgetfulness that I could have obtruded a personal
+consideration into a question of another kind. My friend here will tell
+you if it has been the habit of my life to pension my family on the
+public.”
+
+“Having failed in one object of my coming, let me hope for better
+success in another. May I convey to your Lordship your grandson's regret
+for having offended you? It has caused him sincere sorrow and much
+self-reproach. May I return with the good tidings of your forgiveness?”
+
+“The habits of my order are opposed to rash judgments, and consequently
+to hasty reversions. I will consider the case, and let you hear my
+opinion upon it.”
+
+“I think that is about as much as you will do with him,” muttered Haire
+in Sir Brook's ear, and with a significant gesture towards the door.
+
+“Before taking my leave, my Lord, would it be too great a liberty if I
+beg to present my personal respects to Miss Lendrick?”
+
+“I will inform her of your wish, sir,” said the Judge, rising, and
+ringing the bell. After a pause of some minutes, in which a perfect
+silence was maintained by all, the servant returned to say, “Miss
+Lendrick would be happy to see Sir Brook.”
+
+“I hope, sir,” said the Chief Baron, as he accompanied him to the door,
+“I have no need to request that no portion of what has passed here
+to-day be repeated to my granddaughter.”
+
+A haughty bow of assent was all the reply.
+
+“I make my advances to her heart,” said the Judge, with a tone of more
+feeling in his voice, “through many difficulties. Let these not be
+increased to me,--let her not think me unmindful of my own.”
+
+“Give her no reason to think so, my Lord, and you may feel very
+indifferent to the chance words of a passing acquaintance.”
+
+“For the third time to-day, sir, have you dared to sit in judgment over
+my behavior to my family. You cannot plead want of experience of life,
+or want of converse with men, to excuse this audacity. I must regard
+your intrusion, therefore, as a settled project to insult me. I accept
+no apologies, sir,” said the old man, with a haughty wave of his hand,
+while his eyes glittered with passion. “I only ask, and I hope I ask as
+a right, that I may not be outraged under my own roof. Take your next
+opportunity to offend me when I may not be hampered by the character
+of your host. Come down into the open arena, and see how proud you will
+feel at the issue of the encounter.” He rang the bell violently as he
+spoke, and continued to ring it till the servant came.
+
+“Accompany this gentleman to the gate,” said he to the man.
+
+Not a change came over Sir Brook's face during the delivery of this
+speech; and as he bowed reverentially and withdrew, his manner was all
+that courtesy could desire.
+
+“I see he's not going to visit Lucy,” muttered Haire, as Sir Brook
+passed the window.
+
+“I should think not, sir. There are few men would like to linger where
+they have been so ingloriously defeated.” He walked the room with a
+proud defiant look for some minutes, and then, sinking faintly into a
+chair, said, in a weak, tremulous tone, “Haire, these trials are too
+much for me. It is a cruel aggravation of the ills of old age to have a
+heart and a brain alive to the finest sense of injury.”
+
+Haire muttered something like concurrence.
+
+“What is it you say, sir? Speak out,” cried the Judge.
+
+“I was saying,” muttered the other, “I wish they would not
+provoke--would not irritate you; that people ought to see the state your
+nerves are in, and should use a little discretion how they contradict
+and oppose you.” The bland smile of the Chief-Justice, and an assenting
+gesture of his hand, emboldened Haire to continue, and he went on: “I
+have always said, Keep away such as excite him; his condition is not one
+to be bettered by passionate outbreaks. Calm him, humor him.”
+
+“What a pearl above price is a friend endowed with discretion! Leave me,
+Haire, to think over your nice words. I would like to ponder them alone
+and to myself. I 'll send for you by and by.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. COMING-HOME THOUGHTS
+
+Had a mere stranger been a guest on that Sunday when the Chief
+Baron entertained at dinner Lady Lendrick, the Sewells, and his old
+schoolfellow Haire, he might have gone away under the impression that he
+had passed an evening in the midst of a happy and united family.
+
+Nothing could be more perfect than the blending of courtesy and
+familiarity. The old Chief himself was in his best of humors, which
+means that, with the high polish of a past age, its deference, and its
+homage, he combined all the readiness and epigrammatic smartness of a
+later period. Lady Lendrick was bland, courteous, and attentive. Colonel
+Sewell took the part assigned him by his host, alternate talker and
+listener; and Mrs. Sewell herself displayed, with true woman's wit, that
+she knew how to fall in with the Judge's humor, as though she had known
+him for years, and that, in each sally of his wit and each flash of
+his repartee he was but reviving memories of such displays in long-past
+years. As for Haire, no enchantment could be more complete; he found
+himself not only listened to but appealed to. The Chief asked him to
+correct him about some fact or other of recent history; he applied
+to him to relate some incident in a trial he had taken part in; and,
+greatest triumph of all, he was called on to decide some question about
+the dressing of Mrs. Sewell's hair, his award being accepted as the last
+judgment of connoisseurship.
+
+Lucy talked little, but seemed interested by all around her. It was
+a bit of high-life comedy, really amusing, and she had that mere
+suspicion--it was no more--of the honesty and loyalty of the talkers
+to give an added significance to all she saw and heard. This slight
+distrust, however, gave way, when Mrs. Sewell sat down beside her in the
+drawing-room, and talked to her of her father. Oh, how well she appeared
+to know him; how truly she read the guileless simplicity of his noble
+nature; how she distinguished--it was not all who did so--between his
+timid reserve and pride; how she saw that what savored of haughtiness
+was in reality an excess of humility shrouding itself from notice; how
+she dwelt on his love for children, and the instantaneous affection
+he inspired in them towards himself. Last of all, how she won the poor
+girl's heart as she said, “It will never do to leave him there, Lucy; we
+must have him here, at home with us. I think you may intrust it to me; I
+generally find my way in these sort of things.”
+
+Lucy could have fallen at her feet with gratitude as she heard these
+words, and she pressed her hand to her lips and kissed it fervently.
+“Why isn't your brother here? Is he not in Dublin?” asked Mrs. Sewell,
+suddenly.
+
+“Yes, he is in town,” stammered out Lucy, “but grandpapa scarcely knows
+him, and when they did meet, it was most unfortunate. I 'll tell you all
+about it another time.”
+
+“We have many confidences to make each other,” said Mrs. Sewell, with
+a sigh so full of sorrow that Lucy instinctively pressed her hand with
+warmth, as though to imply her trustfulness would, not be ill deposited.
+
+At last came the hour of leave-taking, and the Judge accompanied his
+guests to the door, and even bareheaded handed Lady Lendrick to her
+carriage. To each, as they said “Good-night,” he had some little
+appropriate speech,--a word or two of gracious compliment, uttered with
+all his courtesy.
+
+“I call this little dinner a success, Lucy,” said he, as he stood to say
+“Good-night” on the stairs. “Lady Lendrick was unusually amiable, and
+her daughter-in-law is beyond praise.”
+
+“She is indeed charming,” said Lucy, fervently.
+
+“I found the Colonel also agreeable,--less dictatorial than men of
+his class generally are. I suspect we shall get on well together with
+further acquaintance; but, as Haire said, I was myself to-night, and
+would have struck sparks out of the dullest rock, so that I must not
+impute to him what may only have been the reflex of myself. Ah, dear!
+there was a time when these exertions were the healthful stimulants
+of my life; now they only weary and excite,--good-night, dear child,
+good-night.”
+
+As Lady Lendrick and her party drove homeward, not a word was uttered
+for some minutes after they had taken their seats. It was not till after
+they had passed out of the grounds, and gained the high-road, that she
+herself broke silence. “Well, Dudley,” said she at last, “is he like my
+description? Was my portrait too highly colored?”
+
+“Quite the reverse. It was a faint weak sketch of the great original.
+In all my life I never met such inordinate vanity and such overweening
+pretension. I give him the palm as the most conceited man and the
+greatest bore in Christendom.”
+
+“Do you wonder now if I could n't live with him?” asked she, half
+triumphantly.
+
+“I 'll not go that far. I think I could live with him if I saw my way to
+any advantage by it.”
+
+“I'm certain you could not! The very things you now reprobate are the
+few endurable traits about him. It is in the resources of his intense
+conceit he finds whatever renders him pleasant and agreeable. I wish you
+saw his other humor.”
+
+“I can imagine it may not be all that one would desire; but still--”
+
+“It comes well from you to talk of submitting and yielding,” burst out
+Lady Lendrick. “I certainly have not yet detected these traits in your
+character; and I tell you frankly, you and Sir William could not live a
+week under the same roof together. Don't you agree with me, Lucy?”
+
+“What should she know about it?” said he, fiercely; and before she could
+reply, “I don't suspect she knows a great deal about me,--she knows
+nothing at all about _him_.”
+
+“Well, would you like to live with him yourself, Lucy?” asked Lady
+Lendrick.
+
+“I don't say I 'd _like_ it, but I think it might be done,” said she,
+faintly, and scarcely raising her eyes as she spoke.
+
+“Of course, then, my intractable temper is the cause of all our
+incompatibility; my only consolation is that I have a son and a
+daughter-in-law so charmingly endowed that their virtues are more than
+enough to outweigh my faults.”
+
+“What I say is this,” said the Colonel, sternly,--“I think the man is a
+bore or a bully, but that he need n't be both if one does n't like
+it. Now I 'd consent to be bored, to escape being bullied, which is
+precisely the reverse of what you appear to have done.”
+
+“I am charmed with the perspicuity you display. I hope, Lucy, that it
+tends to the happiness of your married life to have a husband so well
+able to read character.”
+
+Apparently this was a double-headed shot, for neither spoke for several
+minutes.
+
+“I declare I almost wish he would put you to the test,” said Lady
+Lendrick. “I mean, I wish he'd ask you to the Priory.”
+
+“I fancy it is what he means to do,” said Mrs. Sewell, in the same
+low tone,--“at least he came to me when I was standing in the small
+drawing-room, and said, 'How would you endure the quiet stillness and
+uniformity of such a life as I lead here? Would its dulness overpower
+you?'”
+
+“Of course, you said it would be paradise,” broke in her Ladyship; “you
+hinted all about your own resources, and such-like.”
+
+“She did no such thing; she took the pathetic line, put her handkerchief
+to her eyes, and implied how she would love it, as a refuge from the
+cruel treatment of a bad husband,--eh, am I right?” Harsh and insolent
+as the words were, the accents in which they were uttered were far more
+so. “Out with it, Madam! was it not something like that you said?”
+
+“No,” said she, gently. “I told Sir William I was supremely happy,
+blessed in every accident and every relation of my life, and that
+hitherto I had never seen the spot which could not suit the glad temper
+of my heart.”
+
+“You keep the glad temper confoundedly to yourself then,” burst he out.
+“I wish you were not such a niggard of it.”
+
+“Dudley, Dudley, I say,” cried Lady Lendrick, in a tone of reproof.
+
+“I have learned not to mind these amenities,” said Mrs. Sewell, in a
+quiet voice, “and I am only surprised that Colonel Sewell thinks it
+worth while to continue them.”
+
+“If it be your intention to become Sir William's guest, I must say such
+habits will require to be amended,” said her Ladyship, gravely.
+
+“So they shall, mother. Your accomplished and amiable husband, as you
+once called him in a letter to me, shall only see us in our turtle
+moods, and never be suffered to approach our cage save when we are
+billing and cooing.”
+
+The look of aversion he threw at his wife as he spoke was something
+that words cannot convey; and though she never raised eyes to meet it, a
+sickly pallor crept over her cheek as the blight fell on her.
+
+“I am to call on him to-morrow, by appointment. I wish he had not said
+twelve. One has not had his coffee by twelve; but as he said, 'I hope
+that will not be too early for you,' I felt it better policy to reply,
+'By no means;' and so I must start as if for a journey.”
+
+“What does he mean by asking you to come at that hour? Have you any
+notion what his business is?”
+
+“Not the least. We were in the hall. I was putting on my coat, when he
+suddenly turned round and asked me if I could without inconvenience drop
+in about twelve.”
+
+“I wonder what it can be for.”
+
+“I'll tell you what I hope it may not be for! I hope it may not be to
+show me his conservatory, or his Horatian garden, as he pedantically
+called it, or his fish-ponds. If so, I think I 'll invite him some
+fine morning to turn over all my protested bills, and the various writs
+issued against me. Bore for Bore, I suspect we shall come out of the
+encounter pretty equal.”
+
+“He has some rare gems. I'd not wonder if it was to get you to select a
+present for Lucy.”
+
+“If I thought so, I'd take a jeweller with me, as though my friend, to
+give me a hint as to the value.”
+
+“He admires you greatly, Lucy; he told me so as he took me downstairs.”
+
+“She has immense success with men of that age: nothing over eighty seems
+able to resist her.”
+
+This time she raised her eyes, and they met his, not with their former
+expression, but full of defiance, and of an insolent meaning, so that
+after a moment he turned away his gaze, and with a seeming struggle
+looked abashed and ashamed. “The first change I will ask you to make in
+that house,” said Lady Lendrick, who had noticed this by-play, “if ever
+you become its inmates, will be to dismiss that tiresome old hanger-on,
+Mr. Haire. I abhor him.”
+
+“My first reform will be in the sherry,--to get rid of that vile sugary
+compound of horrid nastiness he gives you After soup. The next will be
+the long-tailed black coach-horses. I don't think a man need celebrate
+his own funeral every time he goes out for a drive.”
+
+“Haire,” resumed Lady Lendrick, in a tone of severity, meant, perhaps,
+to repress all banter on a serious subject,--“Haire not only supplies
+food to his vanity, but stimulates his conceit by little daily stories
+of what the world says of him. I wish he would listen to _me_ on that
+subject,--I wish he would take _my_ version of his place in popular
+estimation.”
+
+“I opine that the granddaughter should be got rid of,” said the Colonel.
+
+“She is a fool,--only a fool,” said Lady Lendrick.
+
+“I don't think her a fool,” said Mrs. Sewell, slowly.
+
+“I don't exactly mean so much; but that she has no knowledge of life,
+and knows nothing whatever of the position she is placed in, nor how to
+profit by it.”
+
+“I'd not even go that far,” said Mrs. Sewell, in the same quiet tone.
+
+“Don't pay too much attention to _that_,” said the Colonel to his
+mother. “It's one of her ways always to see something in every one that
+nobody else has discovered.”
+
+“I made that mistake once too often for my own welfare,” said she, in a
+voice only audible to his ear.
+
+“She tells me, mother, that she made that same mistake once too often
+for her own welfare; which being interpreted, means in taking me for her
+husband,--a civil speech to make a man in presence of his mother.”
+
+“I begin to think that politeness is not the quality any of us are eager
+about,” said Lady Lendrick; “and I must say I am not at all sorry that
+the drive is over.”
+
+“If I had been permitted to smoke, you'd not have been distressed by any
+conversational excesses on my part,” said the Colonel.
+
+“I shall know better another time, Dudley; and possibly-it would be
+as well to be suffocated with tobacco as half-choked with anger. Thank
+heaven we are at the door!”
+
+“May I take your horses as far as the Club?” asked Sewell, as he handed
+her out.
+
+“Yes, but not to wait. You kept them on Tuesday night till past four
+o'clock.”
+
+“On second thought, I'll walk,” said he, turning away. “Good-night;”
+ and leaving his wife to be assisted down the steps by the footman, he
+lighted his cigar, and walked away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. A VERY HUMBLE DWELLING
+
+The little lodging occupied by Sir Brook and young Lendrick was in a
+not very distinguished suburb near Cullen's Wood. It was in a small
+one-storied cottage, whose rickety gate bore the inscription “Avoca
+Villa” on a black board, under which, in the form of permanence that
+indicated frequent changes of domicile, were the words, “Furnished
+Apartments, and Board if required.” A small enclosure, with three
+hollyhocks in a raised mound in the centre, and a luxurious crop of
+nettles around, served as garden: a narrow path of very rough shingle
+conducted to the door.
+
+The rooms within were very small, low, and meanly furnished; they
+bespoke both poverty and neglect; and while the broken windows,
+the cobwebbed ceiling, and the unwashed floor all indicated that no
+attention was bestowed on comfort or even decency, over the fireplace,
+in a large black frame, was a painting representing the genealogical
+tree of the house of the proprietor, Daniel O'Reardon, Esquire, the
+lineal descendant of Frenok-Dhubh-na-Bochlish O'Reardon, who was King of
+West Carbarry, a.d. 703, and who, though at present only a doorkeeper in
+H. M. Court of Exchequer, had royal blood in his veins, and very kingly
+thoughts in his head.
+
+If a cruel destiny compelled Mr. O'Reardon to serve the Saxon, he “took
+it out” in a most hearty hatred of his patron. He denounced him when he
+talked, and he reviled him when he sang. He treasured up paragraphs of
+all the atrocities of the English press, and he revelled in the severe
+strictures which the Irish papers bestowed on them. So far as hating
+went, he was a true patriot.
+
+If some people opined that Mr. O'Reardon's political opinions rather
+partook of what was in vogue some sixty-odd years ago than what
+characterized a time nearer our own day, there were others, less
+generous critics, who scrupled not to say that he was a paid spy of the
+Government, and that all the secret organization of treason--all the
+mysterious plotting of rebellion that seems never to die completely
+out in Ireland--were known to and reported by this man to the Castle.
+Certain it was that he lived in a way his humble salary at the Four
+Courts could not have met, and indulged in convivial excesses far beyond
+the reach of his small income.
+
+When Sir Brook and Tom Lendrick became his lodgers, he speedily saw that
+they belonged to a class far above what usually resorted to his humble
+house. However studiously simple they might be in all their demands,
+they were unmistakably gentlemen; and this fact, coupled with their
+evident want of all employment or occupation, considerably puzzled Mr.
+O'Reardon, and set him a-thinking what they could be, who they were,
+and, as he phrased it, “what they were at.” No letters came for them,
+nor, as they themselves gave no names, was there any means of tracing
+their address; and to his oft-insinuated request, “If any one asks
+for you, sir, by what name will I be able to answer?” came the same
+invariable “No one will call;” and thus was Mr. O'Reardon reduced
+to designate them to his wife as the “old chap” and the “young
+one,”--titles which Sir Brook and Tom more than once overheard through
+the frail partitions of the ill-built house.
+
+It is not impossible that O'Reardon's peculiar habits and line of life
+disposed him to attach a greater significance to the seeming mystery
+that surrounded his lodgers than others might have ascribed; it is
+probable that custom had led him to suspect everything that was in any
+way suspicious. These men draw many a cover where there is no fox, but
+they rarely pass a gorse thicket and leave one undetected. His lodgers
+thus became to him a study. Had he been a man of leisure, he would have
+devoted the whole of it to their service; he would have dogged their
+steps, learned their haunts, and watched their acquaintances,--if
+they had any. Sunday was, however, his one free day, and by some
+inconceivable perversity they usually spent the entire of it at home.
+
+The few books they possessed bore no names, some of them were in foreign
+languages, and increased thereby Mr. O'Reardon's suspicious distrust;
+but none gave any clew to their owners. There was another reason for his
+eagerness and anxiety; for a long time back Ireland had been generally
+in a condition of comparative quiet and prosperity; there was less
+of distress, and, consequently, less of outrage. The people seemed at
+length to rely more upon themselves and their own industry than on
+the specious promises of trading politicians, and Mr. O'Reardon, whose
+functions, I fear, were not above reproach in the matter of secret
+information, began to fear lest some fine morning he might be told his
+occupation was gone, and that his employers no longer needed the fine
+intelligence that could smell treason, even by a sniff; he must, he
+said, do something to revive the memory of his order, or the chance was
+it would be extinguished forever.
+
+He had to choose between denouncing them as French emissaries or
+American sympathizers. A novel of Balzac's that lay on the table decided
+for the former, for he knew enough to be aware it was in French; and
+fortified with this fact, he proceeded to draw up his indictment for the
+Castle.
+
+It was, it must be confessed, a very meagre document; it contained
+little beyond the writer's own suspicions. Two men who were poor enough
+to live in Avoca Villa, and yet rich enough to do nothing for their
+livelihood, who gave no names, went out at unseasonable hours, and
+understood French, ought to be dangerous, and required to be watched,
+and therefore he gave an accurate description of their general
+appearance, age, and dress, at the office of the Private Secretary, and
+asked for his “instructions” in consequence.
+
+Mr. O'Reardon was not a bad portrait-painter with his pen, and in
+the case of Sir Brook there were peculiarities enough to make even
+a caricature a resemblance; his tall narrow head, his long drooping
+moustache, his massive gray eyebrows, his look of stern dignity, would
+have marked him, even without the singularities of dress which recalled
+the fashions of fifty years before.
+
+Little, indeed, did the old man suspect that his high-collared coat and
+bell-shaped hat were subjecting him to grave doubts upon his loyalty.
+Little did he think, as he sauntered at evening along the green lanes
+in this retired neighborhood, that his thoughts ought to have been on
+treason and bloodshed.
+
+He had come to the little lodging, it is true, for privacy. After his
+failure in that memorable interview with Sir William Lendrick, he had
+determined that he would not either importune the Viceroy for place, or
+would he be in any way the means of complicating the question between
+the Government and the Chief Baron by exciting the Lord-Lieutenant's
+interest in his behalf.
+
+“We must change our lodging, Tom,” said he, when he came home on that
+night. “I am desirous that, for the few days we remain here, none should
+trace nor discover us. I will not accept what are called compensations,
+nor will I live on here to be either a burden or a reproach to men who
+were once only my equals.”
+
+“You found my worthy grandfather somewhat less tractable than you
+thought for, sir?” asked Tom.
+
+“He was very fiery and very haughty; but on the whole, there was much
+that I liked in him. Such vitality in a man of his years is in itself a
+grand quality, and even in its aggressiveness suggests much to regard.
+He refused to hear of me for the vacant office, and he would not accept
+_you_.”
+
+“How did he take your proposal to aid us by a loan?”
+
+“I never made it. The terms we found ourselves on after half an hour's
+discussion of other matters rendered such a project impossible.”
+
+“And Lucy, how did she behave through it all?”
+
+“She was not there; I did not see her.”
+
+“So that it turned out as I predicted,--a mere meeting to exchange
+amenities.”
+
+“The amenities were not many, Tom; and I doubt much if your grandfather
+will treasure up any very delightful recollections of my acquaintance.”
+
+“I'd like to see the man, woman, or child,” burst out Tom, “who ever got
+out of his cage without a scratch. I don't believe that Europe contains
+his equal for irascibility.”
+
+“Don't dwell on these views of life,” said Sir Brook, almost sternly.
+“You, nor I, know very little what are the sources of those intemperate
+outbreaks we so often complain of,--what sore trials are ulcerating the
+nature, what agonizing maladies, what secret terrors, what visions of
+impending misery; least of all do we know or take count of the fact that
+it is out of these high-strung temperaments we obtain those thrilling
+notes of human passion and tenderness coarser natures never attain to.
+Let us bear with a passing discord in the instrument whose cadences can
+move us to very ecstasy.”
+
+Tom hung his head in silence, but he certainly did not seem convinced.
+Sir Brook quietly resumed: “How often have I told you that the world
+has more good than bad in it,--yes, and what's more, that as we go on
+in life this conviction strengthens in us, and that our best experiences
+are based on getting rid of our disbeliefs. Hear what happened me this
+morning. You know that for some days back I have been negotiating to
+raise a small loan of four hundred pounds to take us to Sardinia and
+start our mine. Mr. Waring, who was to have lent me this sum on the
+security of the mine itself, took it into his head to hesitate at the
+last hour, and inserted an additional clause that I should insure my
+life in his behalf.
+
+“I was disconcerted, of course, by this,--so much so, that had I not
+bought a variety of tools and implements on trust, I believe I would
+have relinquished the bargain and tried elsewhere. It was, however, too
+late for this; I was driven to accept his terms, and, accredited with a
+printed formula from an insurance office, I waited on the doctor who was
+to examine me.
+
+“A very brief investigation satisfied him that I was not seaworthy; he
+discovered I know not what about the valves of my heart, that implied
+mischief, and after 'percussing' me, as he called it, and placing his
+ear to my chest, he said, 'I regret to say, sir, that I cannot pronounce
+you insurable.'
+
+“I could have told him that I came of a long-lived race on either side;
+that during my life I had scarcely known an illness, that I had borne
+the worst climates without injury, and such-like,--but I forbore; I
+had too much deference for his station and his acquirements to set
+my judgment against them, and I arose to take my leave. It is just
+possible, though I cannot say I felt it, that his announcement might
+have affected me; at all events, the disappointment did so, and I was
+terrified about the difficulties in which I saw myself involved. I
+became suddenly sick, and I asked for a glass of water; before it came I
+had fainted, a thing that never in my whole life had befallen me.
+When, I rallied, he led me to talk of my usual habits and pursuits,
+and gradually brought me to the subject which had led me-to his house.
+'What!' said he, 'ask for any security beyond the property itself! It is
+absurd; Waring is always-doing these things. Let me advance this money.
+I know a great deal more about you, Sir Brook, than you think; my friend
+Dr. Lendrick has spoken much of you, and of all your kindness to his
+son; and though you may not have heard of my name,--Beattie,--I am very
+familiar with yours.'
+
+“In a word, Tom, he advanced the money. It is now in that writing-desk;
+and I have--I feel it--a friend the-more in the world. As I left his
+door, I could not help saying to myself, What signify a few days more or
+less of life, so long as such generous traits as this follow one to the
+last? He made me a happier man by his noble trust in me than if he had
+declared me a miracle of strength and vigor. Who is that looking in at
+the window, Tom? It's the second time I have seen a face there.”
+
+Tom started to his feet and hurried to the door. There was, however, no
+one there; and the little lane was silent and deserted. He stopped a few
+minutes to listen, but not a footfall could be heard, and he returned to
+the room believing it must have been a mere illusion.
+
+“Let us light candles, Tom, and have out our maps. I want to see whether
+Marseilles will not be our best and cheapest route to the island.”
+
+They were soon poring eagerly over the opened map, Sir Brook carefully
+studying all the available modes of travel; while Tom, be it owned, let
+his eyes wander from land to land, till following out the Danube to the
+Black Sea, he crossed over and stretched away into the mountain gorges
+of Circassia, where Schamyl and his brave followers were then fighting
+for liberty. For maps, like the lands they picture, never offer to
+two minds kindred thoughts; each follows out in space the hopes and
+ambitions that his heart is charged with; and where one reads wars
+and battle-fields, another but sees pastoral pleasures and a tranquil
+existence,--home and home-happiness.
+
+“Yes, Tom; here I have it. These coasting-craft, whose sailing-lines
+are marked here, will take us and our traps to Cagliari for a mere
+trifle,--here is the route.”
+
+As the young man bent over the map, the door behind opened, and a
+stranger entered. “So I have found you, Fossbrooke!” cried he, “though
+they insisted you had left Ireland ten days ago.”
+
+“Mercy on me! Lord Wilmington!” said Sir Brook, as he shaded his eyes to
+stare at him. “What could have brought you here?”
+
+“I 'll tell you,” said he, dropping his voice. “I read a description so
+very like you in the secret report this morning, that I sent my servant
+Curtis, who knows you well, to see if it was not yourself; when he
+came back to me--for I waited for him at the end of the lane--with the
+assurance that I was right, I came on here. I must tell you that I took
+the precaution to have your landlord detained, as if for examination, at
+the Under-Secretary's office; and he is the only one here who knows me.
+Mr. Lendrick, I hope you have not forgotten me? We met some months ago
+on the Shannon.”
+
+“What can I offer you?” said Sir Brook. “Shall it be tea? We were just
+going to have it.”
+
+“I 'll take whatever you like to give me; but let us profit by the few
+moments I can stay. Tell me how was it you failed with the Chief Baron?”
+
+“He wouldn't have me; that's all. He maintains his right to an undivided
+patronage, and will accept of no dictation.”
+
+“Will he accept of your friend here? He has strong claims on him.”
+
+“As little as myself, my Lord; he grew eloquent on his public virtue,
+and of course became hopeless.”
+
+“Will he retire and let us compensate him?”
+
+“I believe not. He thinks the country has a vested interest in his
+capacity, and as he cannot be replaced, he has no right to retire.''
+
+“He may make almost his own terms with us, Fossbrooke,” said
+the Viceroy. “We want to get rid of himself and an intractable
+Solicitor-General together. Will you try what can be done?”
+
+“Not I, my Lord. I have made my first and last advances in that
+quarter.”
+
+“And yet I believe you are our last chance. He told Pemberton yesterday
+you were the one man of ability that ever called on him with a message
+from a Viceroy.”
+
+“Let us leave him undisturbed in his illusion, my Lord.”
+
+“I 'd say, let us profit by it, Fossbrooke. I have been in search of you
+these eight days, to beg you would take the negotiation in hand. Come,
+Mr. Lendrick, you are interested in this; assist me in persuading Sir
+Brook to accept this charge. If he will undertake the mission, I am
+ready to give him ample powers to treat.”
+
+“I suspect, my Lord,” said Tom, “you do not know my grandfather. He is
+not a very manageable person to deal with.”
+
+“It is for that reason I want to place him in the hands of my old friend
+here.”
+
+“No, no, my Lord; it is quite hopeless. Had we never met, I might
+have come before him with some chance of success; but I have already
+prejudiced myself in his eyes, and our one interview was not very
+gratifying to either of us.”
+
+“I'll not give in, Fossbrooke, even though I am well aware I can do
+nothing to requite the service I ask of you.”
+
+“We leave Ireland to-morrow evening. We have a project which requires
+our presence in the island of Sardinia. We are about to make our
+fortunes, my Lord, and I 'm sure you 're not the man to throw any
+obstacle in the way.”
+
+“Give me half an hour of your morning, Fossbrooke; half an hour will
+suffice. Drive out to the Priory; see the Chief Baron; tell him I
+intrusted the negotiation to you, as at once more delicate to each
+of us. You are disconnected with all party ties here. Say it is not a
+question of advancing this man or that,--that we well know how
+inferior must any successor be to himself, but that certain changes
+are all-essential to us. We have not--I may tell you in confidence--the
+right man as our law adviser in the House; and add, 'It is a moment
+to make your own terms; write them down and you shall have your reply
+within an hour,--a favorable one I may almost pledge myself it will be.
+At all events, every detail of the meeting is strictly between us, and
+on honor.' Come, now, Fossbrooke; do this for me as the greatest service
+I could entreat of you.”
+
+“I cannot refuse you any longer. I will go. I only premise that I am to
+limit myself strictly to the statement you shall desire me to repeat. I
+know nothing of the case; and I cannot be its advocate.”
+
+“Just so. Give me your card. I will merely write these words,--'See Sir
+Brook for me.--Wilmington.' Our object is his resignation, and we are
+prepared to pay handsomely for it. Now, a word with you, Mr. Lendrick. I
+heard most honorable mention of you yesterday from the vice-provost; he
+tells me that your college career was a triumph so long as you liked
+it, and that you have abilities for any walk in life. Why not continue,
+then, on so successful a path? Why not remain, take out your degree, and
+emulate that distinguished relative who has thrown such lustre on your
+family?”
+
+“First of all, my Lord, you have heard me much overrated. I am not at
+all the man these gentlemen deem me; secondly, if I were, I 'd rather
+bring my abilities to any pursuit my friend here could suggest. I 'd
+rather be _his_ companion than be my grandfather's rival. You have heard
+what he said awhile ago,--we are going to seek our fortune.”
+
+“He said to make it,” said Lord Wilmington, with a smile.
+
+“Be it so, my Lord. _I 'll_ seek, and _he 'll_ find; at all events, I
+shall be his companion; and I'm a duller dog than I think myself if I do
+not manage to be the better of it.”
+
+“You are not the only one he has fascinated,” said the Viceroy, in a
+whisper. “I 'm not sure I 'd disenchant you if I had the power.”
+
+“Must I positively undertake this negotiation?” asked Fossbrooke, with a
+look of entreaty.
+
+“You must”
+
+“I know I shall fail.”
+
+“I don't believe it.”
+
+“Well, as Lady Macbeth says, if we fail _we fail_; and though murdering
+a king be an easier thing than muzzling a Chief Baron,--here goes.”
+
+As he said this, the door was gently moved, and a head protruded into
+the room.
+
+“Who is that?” cried Tom, springing rapidly towards the door; but
+all was noiseless and quiet, and no one to be seen. “I believe we are
+watched here,” said he, coming back into the room.
+
+“Good-night, then. Let me have your report as early as may be,
+Fossbrooke. Good-night.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. A MORNING AT THE PRIORY
+
+The morning after this interview was that on which the Chief Baron had
+invited Colonel Sewell to inspect his gardens and hothouses,--a promise
+of pleasure which, it is but fair to own, the Colonel regarded with no
+extravagant delight. To his thinking, the old Judge was an insupportable
+bore. His courtesy, his smartness, his anecdotes, his reminiscences were
+all Boredom. He was only endurable when by the excess of his conceit he
+made himself ridiculous. Then alone did Sewell relish his company; for
+he belonged to that class of men, and it is a class, who feel their
+highest enjoyment whenever they witness any trait in human nature that
+serves to disparage its dignity or tarnish its lustre.
+
+That a man of unquestionable ability and power like the Chief
+Baron should render himself absurd through his vanity, was a great
+compensation to such a person as Sewell. To watch the weaknesses and
+note the flaws in a great nature, to treasure up the consolation that,
+after all, these “high intelligences” occasionally make precious fools
+of themselves, are very congenial pastimes to small folk. Perhaps,
+indeed, they are the sole features of such men they are able to
+appreciate, and, like certain reptiles, they never venture to bite save
+where corruption has preceded them.
+
+Nothing in his manner betrayed this tendency; he was polished and
+courteous to a degree. A very critical eye might have detected in
+his bearing that he had been long a subordinate. His deference was a
+little--a very little--overstrained; he listened with a slight tinge
+of over-attention; and in his humility as he heard an order, and his
+activity as he obeyed it, you could read at once the aide-decamp in
+waiting.
+
+It is not necessary to remind the reader that all this lacquer of good
+breeding covered a very coarse and vulgar nature. In manner he was
+charming,--his approach, his address, his conversation were all perfect;
+he knew well when to be silent,--when to concur by a smile with what he
+was not expected to confirm by a word,--when to seem suddenly confronted
+with a new conviction, and how to yield assent as though coerced to
+what he would rather have resisted. In a word, he was perfect in all the
+training of those superb poodles who fetch and carry for their masters,
+that they may have the recompense of snarling at all the rest of
+mankind.
+
+As there are heaven-born doctors, lawyers, divines, and engineers, so
+are there men specially created for the antechamber, and Sewell was one
+of them.
+
+The old Judge had given orders for a liberal breakfast. He deemed a
+soldier's appetite would be a hearty one, and he meant to treat him
+hospitably. The table was therefore very generously spread, and
+Sewell looked approvingly at the fare, and ventured on a few words of
+compliment on the ample preparations before him.
+
+“It is the only real breakfast-table I have seen since I left Calcutta,”
+ said he, smiling graciously.
+
+“You do me honor, sir,” replied the old man, who was not quite sure
+whether or not he felt pleased to be complimented on a mere domestic
+incident.
+
+Sewell saw the hitch at once, and resumed: “I remember an observation
+Lord Commorton made me when I joined his staff in India. I happened to
+make some remark on a breakfast set out pretty much like this, and he
+said, 'Bear in mind, Captain Sewell, that when a man who holds a high
+function sits down to a well-served breakfast, it means that he has
+already completed the really important work of the day. The full head
+means the empty stomach.'”
+
+“His Excellency was right, sir; had he always been inspired with
+sentiments of equal wisdom, we should never have been involved in that
+unhappy Cantankankarabad war.”
+
+“It was a very disastrous affair, indeed,” sighed Sewell; “I was through
+the whole of it.”
+
+“When I first heard of the project,” continued the Judge, “I remarked
+to a friend who was with me,--one of the leading men at the Bar,--'This
+campaign will tarnish our arms, and imperil our hold on India. The
+hill-tribes are eminently warlike, and however specious in their
+promises to us, their fidelity to their chiefs has never been shaken.'”
+
+“If your judgment had been listened to, it would have saved us a heavy
+reverse, and saved me a very painful wound; both bones were fractured
+here,” said Sewell, showing his wrist.
+
+The Chief Baron scarcely deigned a glance at the cicatrix; he was high
+above such puny considerations. He was at that moment Governor-General
+of India and Prime Minister of England together. He was legislating for
+hundreds of millions of dark-skins, and preparing his explanations of
+his policy for the pale faces at home.
+
+“'Mark my words, Haire,' said I,” continued the Judge, with increased
+pomposity of manner, “'this is the beginning of insurrection in India.'
+We have a maxim in law, Colonel Sewell, Like case, like rule. So was it
+there. May I help you to this curry?”
+
+“I declare, my Lord, I was beginning to forget how hungry I was. Shall I
+be deemed impertinent if I ask how you obtained your marvellous--for it
+is marvellous--knowledge of India?”
+
+“Just as I know the Japanese constitution; just as I know Central
+Africa; just as I know, and was able to quote some time back, that
+curious chapter of the Brehon laws on substitutes in penal cases. My
+rule of life has been, never to pass a day without increasing the store
+of my acquirements.”
+
+“And all this with the weighty charge and labor of your high office.”
+
+“Yes, sir; I have been eighteen years on the Bench. I have delivered
+in that time some judgments which have come to be deemed amongst the
+highest principles of British law. I have contributed largely to the
+periodical literature of the time. In a series of papers--you may not
+have heard of them--signed 'Icon,' in the 'Lawyer's Treasury of Useful
+Facts,' I have defended the Bar against the aggressive violence of the
+Legislature, I hope it is not too much to say, triumphantly.”
+
+“I remember Judge Beale, our Indian Chief-Justice, referring to those
+papers as the most splendid statement of the position and claims of the
+barrister in Great Britain.”
+
+“Beale was an ass, sir; his law was a shade below his logic,--both were
+pitiable.”
+
+“Indeed?--yes, a little more gravy. Is your cook a Provençal? that
+omelette would seem to say so.”
+
+“My cook is a woman, and an Irishwoman, sir. She came to me from Lord
+Manners, and, I need not say, with the worst traditions of her art,
+which, under Lady Lendrick's training, attained almost to the dignity of
+poisoning.”
+
+Sewell could not restrain himself any longer, but laughed out at this
+sudden outburst. The old Judge was, however, pleased to accept the
+emotion as complimentary; he smiled and went on: “I recognized her
+aptitude, and resolved to train her, and to this end I made it a
+practice to detain her every morning after prayers, and read to her
+certain passages from approved authors on cookery, making her experiment
+on the receipts for the servants' hall. We had at first some slight
+cases of illness, but not more serious than colic and violent cramps. In
+the end she was successful, sir, and has become what you see her.”
+
+“She would be a _cordon bleu_ in Paris.”
+
+“I will take care, sir, that she hears of your approval. Would you not
+like a glass of Maraschino to finish with?”
+
+“I have just tasted your brandy, and it is exquisite.”
+
+“I cannot offer you a cigar, Colonel; but you are at liberty to smoke if
+you have one.”
+
+“If I might have a stroll in that delicious garden that I see there, I
+could ask nothing better. Ah, my Lord,” said he, as they sauntered
+down a richly scented alley, “India has nothing like this,--I doubt if
+Paradise has any better.”
+
+“You mean to return to the East?”
+
+“Not if I can help it,--not if an exchange is possible. The fact is,
+my Lord, my dear wife's health makes India impossible so far as she is
+concerned; the children, too, are of the age that requires removal to
+Europe; so that, if I go back, I go back alone.” He said this with
+a voice of deep depression, and intending to inspire the sorrow that
+overwhelmed him. The old Judge, however, fancied he had heard of heavier
+calamities in life than living separated from the wife of his bosom;
+he imagined, at least, that with courage and fortitude the deprivation
+might be endured; so he merely twitched the corners of his mouth in
+silence.
+
+The Colonel misread his meaning, and went on: “Aspiring to nothing in
+life beyond a home and home-happiness, it is, of course, a heavy blow
+to me to sacrifice either my career or my comfort. I cannot possibly
+anticipate a return earlier than eight or ten years; and who is to count
+upon eight or ten years in that pestilent climate? Assuredly not a man
+already broken down by wounds and jungle fever!”
+
+The justice of the remark was, perhaps, sufficient for the Chief Baron.
+He paid no attention to its pathetic side, and _so_ did not reply.
+
+Sewell began to lose patience, but he controlled himself, and, after a
+few puffs of his cigar, went on: “If it were not for the children, I 'd
+take the thing easy enough. Half-pay is a beggarly thing, but I 'd
+put up with it. I 'm not a man of expensive tastes. If I can relish
+thoroughly such sumptuous fare as you gave me this morning, I can put up
+with very humble diet. I 'm a regular soldier in that.”
+
+“An excellent quality, sir,” said the old man, dryly.
+
+“Lucy, of course, would suffer. There are privations which fall very
+heavily on a woman, and a woman, too, who has always been accustomed to
+a good deal of luxury.”
+
+The Chief bowed an assent.
+
+“I suppose I might get a depot appointment for a year or two. I might
+also--if I sold out--manage a barrack-mastership, or become an inspector
+of yeomanry, or some such vulgar makeshift; but I own, my Lord, when
+a man has filled the places I have,--held staff appointments,--been a
+private secretary,--discharged high trusts, too, for in Mooraghabad
+I acted as Deputy-Resident for eight months,--it does seem a precious
+come-down to ask to be made a paymaster in a militia regiment, or a
+subaltern in the mounted police.”
+
+“Civil life is always open to a man of activity and energy,” said the
+Judge, calmly.
+
+“If civil life means a profession, it means the sort of labor a man is
+very unfit for after five-and-thirty. The Church, of course, is open on
+easier terms; but I have scruples about the Church. I really could not
+take orders without I could conscientiously say, This is a walk I feel
+called to.”
+
+“An honorable sentiment, sir,” was the dry rejoinder.
+
+“So that the end will be, I suppose, one of these days I shall just
+repack my bullock-trunk, and go back to the place from whence I came,
+with the fate that attends such backward journeys!”
+
+The Chief Baron made no remark. He stooped to fasten, a fallen carnation
+to the stick it had been attached to, and then resumed his walk. Sewell
+was so provoked by the sense of failure--for it had been a direct
+assault--that he walked along silent and morose. His patience could
+endure no longer, and he was ready now to resent whatever should annoy
+him.
+
+“Have you any of the requirements, sir, that civil services demand?”
+ asked the Judge, after a long pause.
+
+“I take it I have such as every educated gentleman possesses,” replied
+Sewell, tartly.
+
+“And what may these be, in your estimation?”
+
+“I can read and write, I know the first three rules of arithmetic, and I
+believe these are about the qualifications that fit a man for a place in
+the Cabinet.”
+
+“You are right, sir. With these, and the facility to talk platitudes in
+Parliament, a man may go very far and very high in life. I see that you
+know the world.”
+
+Sewell, for a moment, scarcely knew whether to accept the speech as
+irony or approval; but a sidelong glance showed him that the old man's
+face had resumed its expression of mingled insolence and vanity, and
+convinced him that he was now sincere. “The men,” said the Judge,
+pompously, “who win their way to high station in these days are either
+the crafty tricksters of party or the gross flatterers of the people;
+and whenever a man of superior mould is discovered, able to leave his
+mark on the age, and capable of making his name a memory, they have
+nothing better to offer him, as their homage, than an entreaty that he
+would resign his office and retire.”
+
+“I go with every word you say, my Lord,” cried Sewell, with a well-acted
+enthusiasm.
+
+“I want no approval, sir; I can sustain my opinions without a
+following!” A long silence ensued; neither was disposed to speak: at
+last the Judge said,--and he now spoke in a more kindly tone, divested
+alike of passion and of vanity,--“Your friends must see if something
+cannot be done for you, Colonel Sewell. I have little doubt but that
+you have many and warm friends. I speak not of myself; I am but a broken
+reed to depend on. Never was there one with less credit with his party.
+I might go farther, and say, never was there one whose advocacy would
+be more sure to damage a good cause; therefore exclude _me_ in all
+questions of your advancement. If you could obliterate our relationship,
+it might possibly serve you.”
+
+“I am too proud of it, my Lord, to think so.”
+
+“Well, sir,” said he, with a sigh, “it is possibly a thing a man need
+not feel ashamed of; at least I hope as much. But we must take the world
+as it is, and when we want the verdict of public opinion, we must not
+presume to ask for a special jury. What does that servant want? Will you
+have the kindness to ask him whom he is looking for?”
+
+“It is a visitor's card, my Lord,” said Sewell, handing it to the old
+man as he spoke.
+
+“There is some writing on it. Do me the favor to read it.”
+
+Sewell took the card and read, “See Sir B. for me.--Wilmington. Sir
+Brook Fossbrooke.” The last words Sewell spoke in a voice barely above
+a whisper, for a deadly sickness came over him, and he swayed to and fro
+like one about to faint.
+
+“What! does he return to the charge?” cried the old man, fiercely. “The
+Viceroy was a diplomatist once. Might it not have taught him that, after
+a failure, it would be as well to employ another envoy?”
+
+“You have seen this gentleman already, then?” asked Sewell, in a low
+faint tone.
+
+“Yes, sir. We passed an hour and half together,--an hour and half that
+neither of us will easily forget.”
+
+“I conjecture, then, that he made no very favorable impression upon you,
+my Lord?”
+
+“Sir, you go too fast. I have said nothing to warrant your surmise; nor
+am I one to be catechised as to the opinions I form of other men. It is
+enough on the present occasion if I say I do not desire to receive Sir
+Brook Fossbrooke, accredited though he be from so high a quarter.
+Will you do me the very great favor”--and now his voice became almost
+insinuating in its tone--“will you so deeply oblige me ate to see him
+for me? Say that I am prevented by the state of my health; that the
+rigorous injunctions of my doctor to avoid all causes of excitement--lay
+stress on excitement--deprive me of the honor of receiving him in
+person; but that _you_--mention our relationship--have been deputed by
+me to hear, and if necessary to convey to me, any communication he
+may have to make. You will take care to impress upon him that if the
+subject-matter of his visit be the same as that so lately discussed
+between ourselves, you will avail yourself of the discretion confided
+to you not to report it to me. That my nerves have not sufficiently
+recovered from the strain of that excitement to return to a topic
+no less full of irritating features than utterly hopeless of
+all accommodation. Mind, sir, that you employ the word as I give
+it,--'accommodation.' It is a Gallicism, but all the better, where one
+desires to be imperative, and yet vague. You have your instructions,
+sir.”
+
+“Yes, I think I understand what you desire me to do. My only difficulty
+is to know whether the matters Sir Brook Fossbrooke may bring forward
+be the same as those you discussed together. If I had any clew to these
+topics, I should at once be in a position to say, These are themes I
+must decline to present to the Chief Baron.”
+
+“You have no need to know them, sir,” said the old man, haughtily. “You
+are in the position of an attesting witness; you have no dealing with
+the body of the document. Ask Sir Brook the question as I have put it,
+and reply as I have dictated.”
+
+Sewell stood for a moment in deep thought. Had the old man but known
+over what realms of space his mind was wandering,--what troubles and
+perplexities that brain was encountering,--he might have been more
+patient and more merciful as he gazed on him.
+
+“I don't think, sir, I have confided to you any very difficult or very
+painful task,” said the Judge at last.
+
+“Nothing of the kind, my Lord,” replied he, quickly; “my anxiety is
+only that I may acquit myself to your perfect satisfaction. I 'll go at
+once.”
+
+“You will find me here whenever you want me.”
+
+Sewell bowed, and went his way; not straight towards the house, however,
+but into a little copse at the end of the garden, to recover his
+equanimity and collect himself. Of all the disasters that could befall
+him, he knew of none he was less ready to confront than the presence of
+Sir Brook Fossbrooke in the same town with himself. No suspicion ever
+crossed his mind that he would come to Ireland. The very last he had
+heard of him was in New Zealand, where it was said he was about to
+settle. What, too, could be his business with the Chief Baron? Had he
+discovered their relationship, and was he come to denounce and expose
+him? No,--evidently not. The Viceroy's introduction of him could not
+point in this direction, and then the old Judge's own manner negatived
+this conjecture. Had he heard but one of the fifty stories Sir Brook
+could have told of him, there would be no question of suffering him to
+cross his threshold.
+
+“How shall I meet him? how shall I address him?” muttered he again and
+again to himself, as he walked to and fro in a perfect agony of trouble
+and perplexity. With almost any other man in the world, Sewell would
+have relied on his personal qualities to carry him through a passage of
+difficulty. He could assume a temper of complete imperturbability; he
+could put on calm, coldness, deference, if needed, to any extent; he
+could have acted his part--it would have been mere acting--as man of
+honor and man of courage to the life, with any other to confront him but
+Sir Brook.
+
+This, however, was the one man on earth who knew him,--the one man by
+whose mercy he was able to hold up his head and maintain his station;
+and that this one man should now be here! here, within a few yards of
+where he stood!
+
+“I could murder him as easily as I go to meet him,” muttered Sewell, as
+he turned towards the house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. AN UNEXPECTED MEETING
+
+As Sir Brook sat in the library waiting for the arrival of the Chief
+Baron, Lucy Lendrick came in to look for a book she had been reading.
+“Only think, sir,” said she, flushing deeply with joy and astonishment
+together,--“to find you here! What a delightful surprise!”
+
+“I have come, my dear child,” said he, gravely, “to speak with Sir
+William on a matter of some importance; and evidently he is not aware
+that my moments are precious, for I have been here above half an hour
+alone.”
+
+“But now that I am with you,” said she, coquettishly, “you 'll surely
+not be so churlish of your time, will you?”
+
+“There is no churlishness, my darling Lucy, in honest thrift. I
+have nothing to give away.” The deep sadness of his voice showed how
+intensely his words were charged with a stronger significance. “We are
+off to-night.”
+
+“To-night!” cried she, eagerly.
+
+“Yes, Lucy. It's no great banishment,--only to an island in the
+Mediterranean, and Tom came up here with me in the vague, very vague
+hope he might see you. I left him in the shrubbery near the gate, for he
+would not consent to come farther.”
+
+“I 'll go to him at once. We shall meet again,” said she, as she opened
+the sash-door and hastened down the lawn at speed.
+
+After another wait of full a quarter of an hour, Foss-brooke's patience
+became exhausted, and he drew nigh the bell to summon a servant; his
+hand was on the rope, when the door opened, and Sewell entered. Whatever
+astonishment Fossbrooke might have felt at this unexpected appearance,
+nothing in his manner or look betrayed it. As for Sewell, all his
+accustomed ease had deserted him, and he came forward with an air of
+assumed swagger, but his color came and went, and his hands twitched
+almost convulsively.
+
+He bowed, and, smiling courteously, invited Fossbrooke to be seated.
+Haughtily drawing himself up to his full height, Sir Brook said, in his
+own deep sonorous voice, “There can be nothing between us, sir, that
+cannot be dismissed in a moment--and as we stand.”
+
+“As you please, sir,” rejoined Sewell, with an attempt at the same
+haughty tone. “I have been deputed by my stepfather, the Chief Baron,
+to make his excuses for not receiving you,--his health forbids
+the excitement. It is his-wish that you may make to _me_ whatever
+communication you had destined for _him_.”
+
+“Which I refuse, sir, at once,” interrupted Sir Brook. “I opine, then,
+there is no more to be said,” said Sewell, with a faint smile.
+
+“Nothing more, sir,--not a word; unless perhaps you will be gracious
+enough to explain to the Chief Baron the reasons--they cannot be unknown
+to you--why I refuse all and any communication with Colonel Sewell.”
+
+“I have no presumption to read your mind and know your thoughts,” said
+Sewell, with quiet politeness.
+
+“You would discover nothing in either to your advantage, sir,” said
+Fossbrooke, defiantly.
+
+“Might I add, sir,” said Sewell, with an easy smile, “that all your
+malevolence cannot exceed my indifference to it?”
+
+Fossbrooke waived his hand haughtily, as though to dismiss the subject
+and all discussion of it, and after a few seconds' pause said: “We have
+a score that must be settled one day. I have deferred the reckoning out
+of reverence to the memory of one whose name must not be uttered between
+us, but the day for it shall come. Meanwhile, sir, you shall pay me
+interest on your debt.”
+
+“What do you assume me to owe you?” asked Sewell, whose agitation could
+no longer be masked.
+
+“You would laugh if I said, your character before the world and the
+repute through which men keep your company; but you will not laugh--no,
+sir, not even smile--when I say that you owe me the liberty by which
+you are at large, instead of being, as I could prove you, a forger and a
+felon.”
+
+Sewell threw a hurried and terrified look around the room, as though
+there might possibly be some to overhear the words; he grasped the back
+of a chair to steady himself, and in the convulsive effort seemed as if
+he was about to commit some act of violence.
+
+“None of that, sir,” said Fossbrooke, folding his arms.
+
+“I meant nothing; I intended nothing; I was faint, and wanted support,”
+ stammered out Sewell, in a broken voice. “What do you mean by interest?
+How am I to pay interest on an indefinite sum?”
+
+“It may relieve you of some anxiety to learn that I am not speaking
+of money in the interest I require of you. What I want--what I shall
+exact--is this: that you and yours--” He stopped and grew scarlet; the
+fear lest something coarse or offensive might fall from him in a moment
+of heat and anger arrested his words, and he was silent.
+
+Sewell saw all the difficulty. A less adroit man would have deemed the
+moment favorable to assert a triumph; Sewell was too acute for this, and
+waited without speaking a word.
+
+“My meaning is this,” said Fossbrooke, in a voice of emotion. “There is
+a young lady here for whom I have the deepest interest. I desire that,
+so long as she lives estranged from her father's roof, she should not be
+exposed to other influences than such as she has met there. She is new
+to life and the world, and I would not that she should make acquaintance
+with them through any guidance save of her own nearest and dearest
+friends.”
+
+“I hear, sir; but, I am free to own, I greatly mistrust myself to
+appreciate your meaning.”
+
+“I am sorry for it,” said Fossbrooke, sighing. “I wanted to convey my
+hope that in your intercourse here Miss Lendrick might be spared the
+perils of--of--”
+
+“My wife's friendship, you would say, sir,” said Sewell, with a perfect
+composure of voice and look.
+
+Fossbrooke hung his head. Shame and sorrow alike crushed him down. Oh
+that the day should come when he could speak thus of Frank Dillon's
+daughter!
+
+“I will not say with what pain I hear you, Sir Brook,” said Sewell, in
+a low gentle voice. “I am certain that you never uttered such a speech
+without much suffering. It will alleviate your fears when I tell you
+that we only remain a few days in town. I have taken a country house,
+some sixty or seventy miles from the capital, and we mean to live there
+entirely.”
+
+“I am satisfied,” said Sir Brook, whose eagerness to make reparation was
+now extreme.
+
+“Of course I shall mention nothing of this to my wife,” said Sewell.
+
+“Of course not, sir; save with such an explanation as I could give of my
+meaning, it would be an outrage.”
+
+“I was not aware that there was--that there could be--an explanation,”
+ said Sewell, quietly; and then seeing the sudden flash that shot from
+the old man's eyes, he added hastily, “This is far too painful to dwell
+on; let it suffice, sir, that I fully understand you, and that you shall
+be obeyed.”
+
+“I ask no more,” said Fossbrooke, bowing slightly.
+
+“You will comprehend, Sir Brook,” resumed Sewell, “that as I am
+precluded from making this conversation known to my wife, I shall not be
+able to limit any intimacy between her and Miss Lendrick farther than by
+such intimations and hints as I may offer without exciting suspicion. It
+might happen, for instance, that in coming up to town we should be Sir
+William's guests. Am I to suppose that you interdict this?”
+
+“I hope I am not capable of such a condition,” said Sir Brook, flushing,
+for at every step and stage of the negotiation he felt that his zeal had
+outrun his judgment, and that he was attempting not only more than he
+could, but more than he ought to do.
+
+“In fairness, Sir Brook,” said Sewell, with an assumed candor that sat
+very well on him, “I ought to tell you that your conditions are very
+easy ones My wife has come to this country to recruit her health and
+look after her children. I myself shall probably be on my way back to
+India soon after Christmas. Our small means totally preclude living
+in the gay world; and,” added he, with a laugh, “if we really had
+any blandishments or captivations at our disposal, they would be best
+bestowed on the Horse Guards, to extend my leave, or assist me to an
+exchange.”
+
+There was high art in the way in which Sewell had so contrived to get
+the old man involved in the conflict of his own feelings that he was
+actually grateful for the easy and even familiar tone employed towards
+him.
+
+“I have wounded this man deeply,” said Fossbrooke to himself. “I have
+said to him things alike unfeeling and ungenerous, and yet he has temper
+enough to treat me amicably, even courteously.”
+
+It was almost on his lips to say that he had still some influence
+with the Horse Guards, that a great man there had been one of his most
+intimate friends in life, and that he was ready to do anything in his
+power with him, when a sudden glance at Sewell's face recalled him at
+once to himself, and he stammered out, “I will detain you no longer,
+sir. Be kind enough to explain to the Lord Chief Baron that my
+communication was of a character that could not be made indirectly. His
+Excellency's name on my card probably suggested as much. It might be
+proper to add that the subject was one solely attaching to his Lordship
+and to his Lordship's interest. He will himself understand what I mean.”
+
+Sewell bowed acquiescence. As he stood at the half-open door, he was
+disposed to offer his hand. It was a bold step, but he knew if it should
+succeed it would be a great victory. The opportunity was too good to be
+lost, and just as Sir Brook turned to say good-morning, Sewell, like one
+carried away by a sudden impulse, held out his hand, and said, “You may
+trust me, Sir Brook.”
+
+“If you wish me to do so, sir, let me not touch your hand,” said the
+old man, with a look of stern and haughty defiance, and he strode out
+without a farewell.
+
+Sewell staggered back into the room and sat down. A clammy cold
+perspiration covered his face and forehead, for the rancor that filled
+his heart sickened him like a malady. “You shall pay for this, by
+heaven! you shall,” muttered he, as he wiped the great drops from his
+brow. “The old fool himself has taught me where he was vulnerable, and
+as I live he shall feel it.”
+
+“His Lordship wants to see you, sir; he is in the garden,” said a
+servant; and Sewell rose and followed him. He stopped twice as he went
+to compose his features and regain his calm. On the last time he even
+rehearsed the few words and the smile by which he meant to accost the
+Judge. The little artifice was, however, forestalled, as Sir William
+met him abruptly with the words, “What a time you have been,
+sir,--forty-eight minutes by my watch!”
+
+“I assure you, my Lord, I'd have made it shorter if I could,” said
+Sewell, with a smile of some significance.
+
+“I am unable to see why you could not have done so. The charge I gave
+you was to report to me, not to negotiate on your own part.”
+
+“Nor did I, my Lord. Sir Brook Fossbrooke distinctly declared that he
+would only communicate with yourself personally,--that what he desired
+to say referred to yourself, and should be answered by yourself.”
+
+“On hearing which, sir, you withdrew?”
+
+“So far as your Lordship was concerned, no more was said between us.
+What passed after this I may be permitted to call private.”
+
+“What, sir! You see a person in _my_ house, at _my_ instance, and with
+_my_ instructions,--who comes to see and confer with _me_; and you
+have the hardihood to tell me that you took that opportunity to discuss
+questions which you call private!”
+
+“I trust, my Lord, you will not press me in this matter; my position is
+a most painful one.”
+
+“It is worse than painful, sir; it is humiliating. But,” added he, after
+a short pause, “I have reason to be grateful to you. You have rescued
+me from, perhaps, a very grave indiscretion. Your position--your wife's
+health--your children's welfare had all interested me. I might have--No
+matter what, sir. I have recovered the balance of my mind. I am myself
+again.”
+
+“My Lord, I will be open with you.”
+
+“I will accept of no forced confidences, sir,” said the Judge, waving
+his hand haughtily.
+
+“They are not forced, my Lord, farther than my dislike to give you pain
+renders them so. The man to whom you sent me this morning is no stranger
+to me--would that he had been!--would that I had never known nor heard
+of him! Very few words will explain why, my Lord. I only entreat that,
+before I say them, they may be in strictest confidence between us.”
+
+“If they require secrecy, sir, they shall have it.”
+
+“Quite enough, my Lord,--amply sufficient for me is this assurance. This
+person, then, my Lord, was the old friend and brother officer of Sir
+Frank Dillon, my father-in-law. They lived as young men in closest
+friendship together; shared perils, amusements, and purse together. For
+many years nothing occurred to interrupt the relations between them,
+though frequent remonstrances from Dillon's family against the intimacy
+might possibly have caused a coolness; for the world had begun to talk
+of Fossbrooke with a certain distrust, comparing his mode of living with
+the amount of his fortune, and half hinting that his successes at play
+were more than accidental.
+
+“Still Dillon held to him; and to break the tie at last, his family
+procured an Indian appointment for him, and sent him to Calcutta.
+Fossbrooke no sooner heard of it than he sold off his town house and
+horses, and actually sailed in the same packet with him.”
+
+“Let us sit down, Colonel Sewell; I am wearied with walking, and I
+should like to hear the remainder of this story.”
+
+“I will make it very brief, my Lord. Here is a nice bench to rest on.
+Arrived in India, they commenced a style of living the most costly
+and extravagant imaginable. Their receptions, their dinners, their
+equipages, their retinues, completely eclipsed the splendors of the
+native princes. For a while these were met promptly by ready money;
+later on came bills, at first duly met, and at last dishonored. On
+investigation, however, it was found that the greater number--far the
+greater number--of the acceptances were issued by Dillon alone,--a
+circumstance which puzzled none so much as Dillon himself, who never
+remembered the emergencies that had called for them.”
+
+“They were forgeries by Fossbrooke,” said the Judge.
+
+“You are right, my Lord, they were, but so adroitly done that Dillon
+was the first to declare the signatures his own; nor was the fraud
+ever discovered. To rescue his friend, as it were, Dillon sold off
+everything, and paid, I know not what amount, and they both left for
+Ceylon, where Dillon was named Commander of the Forces.
+
+“Here Dillon married, and, on the birth of his first child, Fossbrooke
+was the godfather, their affection being stronger than ever. Once
+more the life of extravagance burst forth, and now, besides the costly
+household and reckless expenditure, the stories of play became rife and
+frequent, several young fellows being obliged to leave the service and
+sell their commissions to meet their debts. The scandal reached England,
+and Dillon was given his choice to resign or resume active service at
+his old rank. He accepted the last, and went back to India. For a
+while they were separated. My father-in-law made a brilliant campaign,
+concluding with the victory of Atteyghur. He was named Political
+Resident at the seat of government, and found himself in the receipt
+of a large revenue, and might in a few years have become wealthy and
+honored. His evil genius, however, was soon at his side. Fossbrooke
+arrived, as he said, to see him before leaving for Europe; he never left
+him till his death. From that day dated my father-in-law's inevitable
+ruin. Maladministration, corruption, forced loans on every side.
+Black-mail was imposed on all the chiefs, and a system of iniquity
+instituted that rendered the laws a farce, and the office of judge a
+degradation.
+
+“Driven almost to desperation by his approaching ruin, and yet blind to
+the cause of it, Sir Frank took service against the Affghans, and fell,
+severely wounded, at Walhalla. Fossbrooke followed him to the Hills,
+where he went to die. The infatuation of that fatal man was unbroken,
+and on his deathbed he not only confided to him all the deeds and
+documents that concerned his fortune, but gave him the guardianship
+and control of his daughter. In the very last letter he ever penned are
+these words: 'Scandal may some day or other dare to asperse him (Sir
+Brook),--the best have no immunity on that score,--but I charge you,
+however fortune may deal with you, share it with him if he need it;
+your father never had so true, so noble, so generous a friend. Have full
+courage in any course he approves of, and never distrust yourself so
+completely as when he differs from you; above all, believe no ill of
+him.'
+
+“I have seen this letter,--I have read it more than once; and with my
+full knowledge of the man, with my memory stored with stories about him,
+it was very hard to see him exercise an influence in my house, and a
+power over my wife. For a while I tried to respect what had been the
+faith of her childhood; I could not bear to destroy what formed one of
+the links that bound her to her father's memory; but the man's conduct
+obliged me to abandon this clemency. He insisted on living upon us,
+and living in a style not merely costly, but openly, flagrantly
+disreputable. Of his manner to myself I will not speak; he treated me
+not alone as a dependant, but as one whose character and fortune were in
+his hands. To what comments this exposed me in my own house I leave you
+to imagine: I remonstrated at first, but my endurance became exhausted,
+and I turned him from my house.
+
+“Then began his persecution of me,--not alone of myself, but my wife,
+and all belonging to me. I must not dwell on this, or I should forget
+myself.
+
+“We left India, hoping never to hear more of him. There was a story
+that he had gone on a visit to a Rajah in Oude, and would in all
+likelihood live there till he died. Imagine what I felt, my Lord, when
+I read his name on that visiting-card. I knew, of course, what his
+presence meant, a pretended matter of business with you,--the real
+object being to traduce and vilify me. He had ascertained the connection
+between us, and determined to turn it to profit. So long as I followed
+my career in India,--a poor soldier of fortune,--I was not worth
+persecution; but here at home, with friends, possibly with friends able
+and willing to aid me, I at once assumed importance in his eyes. He well
+knows how dear to us is the memory of my wife's father, what sacrifices
+we have made, what sacrifices we would make again, that his name should
+not be harshly dealt with by the world. He feels, too, all the power and
+weight he can yield by that letter of poor Dillon's, given so frankly,
+so trustfully, and so unfortunately on his deathbed. In one word, my
+Lord, this man has come back to Europe to exert over me the pressure
+which he once on a time used over my father-in-law. For reasons I cannot
+fathom, the great people who knew him once, and who ought to know whom
+and what he has become, are still willing to acknowledge him. It is true
+he no longer frequents their houses and mixes in their society,--but
+they recognize him. The very card he sent in this morning bore the
+Viceroy's name,--and from this cause alone, even if there were not
+others, he would be dangerous. I weary you, my Lord, and I will
+conclude. By an accidental admission he let drop that he would soon
+leave Ireland for a while; let it seem, my Lord, so long as he remains
+here, that I am less intimate here, less frequent as a visitor, than he
+has imagined. Let him have grounds to imagine that my presence here was
+a mere accident, and that I am not at all likely to enjoy any share of
+your Lordship's favor,--in fact, let him believe me as friendless here
+as he saw me in India, and he will cease to speculate on persecuting
+me.”
+
+“There would be indignity in such a course, sir,” cried the Judge,
+fiercely; “the man has no terrors for _me_.”
+
+“Certainly not, my Lord, nor for me personally. I speak on my wife's
+behalf; it is for her sake and for her peace of mind I am alone thinking
+here.”
+
+“I will speak to her myself on this head.”
+
+“I entreat you not, my Lord. I implore you never to approach the
+subject. She has for years been torn between the terrible alternative of
+obeying the last injunctions of her father or yielding to the wishes of
+her husband. Her life has been a continual struggle, and her shattered
+health has been the consequence. No, my Lord; let us go down for a few
+weeks or months--as it may be--to this country place they have taken for
+us; a little quietness will do us both good. My leave will not expire
+till March; there is still time to look about me.”
+
+“Something shall be done for you, sir,” said the Judge, pompously.
+Sewell bowed low: he knew how to make his bow a very deep acknowledgment
+of gratitude; he knew the exact measure of deference and trustfulness
+and thankfulness to throw into his expression as he bent his head, while
+he seemed too much overpowered to speak.
+
+“Yes, sir, you shall be cared for,” said the old man. “And if this
+person, this Sir Brook Fossbrooke, return here, it is with _me_ he will
+have to deal,--not _you_.”
+
+“My Lord, I entreat you never to admit him; neither see nor correspond
+with him. The man is a desperado, and holds his own life too cheap to
+care for another's.”
+
+“Sir, you only pique my curiosity to meet with him. I have heard of such
+fellows, but never saw one.”
+
+“From all I have heard, my Lord, _your_ courage requires no proofs.”
+
+“You have heard the truth, sir. It has been tested in every way, and
+found without alloy. This man came here a few days ago to ask me to
+nominate my grandson to an office in my gift; but, save a lesson for his
+temerity, he 'took nothing by his motion.'” The old Judge walked up and
+down with short impatient steps, his eyebrows moving fiercely, And his
+mouth twitching angrily. “The Viceroy must be taught that it is not
+through such negotiators he can treat with men like myself. We hear much
+about the dignity of the Bench. I would that his Excellency should know
+that the respect for it is a homage to be rendered by the highest as
+well as the lowest, and that I for one will accept of nothing less than
+all the honors that befit my station.”
+
+Relieved, as it were, by this outburst of vanity, his heart unburdened
+of a load of self-conceit, the old man felt freer And better; and in
+the sigh he heaved there seemed a something that indicated a sense of
+alleviation. Then, turning to Sewell, with a softened voice, he said,
+“How grieved I am that you should have passed such a morning! It was
+certainly not what I had intended for you.”
+
+“You are too good to me, my Lord,--far too good, and too thoughtful of
+me,” said Sewell, with emotion.
+
+“I am one of those men who must go to the grave misconstrued and
+misrepresented. He who would be firm in an age of cowardice, he who
+would be just in an age of jobbery, cannot fail to be calumniated. But,
+sir, there is a moral stature, as there is a material stature, that
+requires distance for its proportions; and it is possible posterity will
+be more just to me than my contemporaries.”
+
+“I would only hope, my Lord, that the time for such a judgment may be
+long deferred.”
+
+“You are a courtier, sir,” said the Judge, smiling. “It was amongst
+courtiers I passed my early youth, and I like them. When I was a young
+man, Colonel Sewell, it was the fashion to make the tour of Europe as a
+matter of education and good breeding. The French Court was deemed, and
+justly deemed, the first school of manners, and I firmly believe France
+herself has suffered in her forms of politeness from having ceased to
+be the centre of supply to the world. She adulterated the liquor as the
+consumers decreased in taste and increased in number.”
+
+“How neatly, how admirably expressed!” said Sewell, bowing.
+
+“I had some of that gift once,” said the old man, with a sigh; “but it
+is a weapon out of use nowadays. Epigram has its place in a museum now
+as rightfully as an Andrea Ferrara.”
+
+“I declare, my Lord, it is two o'clock. Here is your servant coming to
+announce luncheon. I am ashamed to-think what a share of your day I have
+monopolized.”
+
+“You will stay and take some mutton broth, I hope?”
+
+“No, my Lord. I never eat luncheon, and I am, besides, horrified at
+inflicting you so long already.”
+
+“Sir, if I suffer many of the miseries of old age, I avail myself of
+some of its few privileges. One of the best of these is, never to be
+bored. I am old and feeble enough to be able to say to him who wearies
+me, Leave me--leave-me to myself and my own dreariness. Had you
+'inflicted' me, as you call it, I 'd have said as much two hours ago.
+Your company was, however, most agreeable. You know how to talk, and,
+what is rarer, you know how to listen.”
+
+Sewell bowed respectfully and in silence.
+
+“I wish the school that trains aides-de-camp could be open to junior
+barristers and curates,” muttered he, half to himself; then added aloud,
+“Come and see me soon again. Come to breakfast, or, if you prefer it, to
+dinner. We dine at seven;” and without further adieu than a slight wave
+of his hand, he turned away and entered the house.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. SIR BROOK IN CONFUSION
+
+Tom Lendrick had just parted with his sister as Fossbrooke came up, and,
+taking his arm in silence, moved slowly down the road.
+
+Seeing his deep preoccupation, Tom did not speak for some time, but
+walked along without a word. “I hope you found my grandfather in better
+temper, sir?” asked Tom, at last.
+
+“He refused to receive me; he pleaded illness, or rather he called it
+by its true name, indisposition. He deputed another gentleman to meet
+me,--a Colonel Sewell, his stepson.”
+
+“That 's the man my father saw at the Cape; a clever sort of person he
+called him, but, I suspect, not one to his liking; too much man of the
+world,--too much man of fashion for poor Dad.”
+
+“I hope so,” muttered Fossbrooke, unconsciously.
+
+“Indeed, sir; and why?” asked Tom, eagerly.
+
+“What of Lucy?” said Sir Brook, abruptly; “how did you think she was
+looking?”
+
+“Well, sir, on the whole, well. I've seen her jollier; but, to be sure,
+it was a leave-taking to-day, and that's not the occasion to put one in
+high spirits. Poor girl, she said, 'Is it not hard, Tom? There are only
+three of us, and we must all live apart.'”
+
+“So it is,--hard, very hard. I 'd have tried once more to influence the
+old Judge if he 'd have given me a meeting. He may do worse with that
+office than bestow it on you, Tom. I believe I'd have told him as much.”
+
+“It's perhaps as well, sir, that you did not see him,” said Tom, with a
+faint smile.
+
+“Yes,” said Fossbrooke, following along the train of his own thoughts,
+and not noticing the other's remark. “He may do worse; he may give it
+to _him_, and thus draw closer the ties between them; and if _that_ man
+once gets admission there, he'll get influence.”
+
+“Of whom are you talking, sir?”
+
+“I was not speaking, Tom. I was turning over some things in my mind. By
+the way, we have much to do before evening. Go over to Hodgen's about
+those tools; he has not sent them yet: and the blasting-powder, too, has
+not come down. I ought, if I could manage the time, to test it; but it
+'s too late. I must go to the Castle for five minutes,--five minutes
+will do it; and I 'll pass by Grainger's on my way back, and buy the
+flannel--miners' flannel they call it in the advertisement. We must look
+our _métier_, Tom, eh? You told Lucy where to write, and how to address
+us, I hope?”
+
+“Yes, sir, she wrote it down. By the way, that reminds me of a letter
+she gave me for you. It was addressed to her care, and came yesterday.”
+
+The old man thrust it in his pocket without so much as a look at it.
+
+“I think the post-mark was Madeira,” said Tom, to try and excite some
+curiosity.
+
+“Possibly. I have correspondents everywhere.”
+
+“It looked like Trafford's writing, I thought.”
+
+“Indeed! let us see;” and he drew forth the letter, and broke the
+envelope. “Right enough, Tom,--it is Trafford.”
+
+He ran his eyes rapidly over the first lines, turned to the next side,
+and then to the end of the letter, and then once more began at the
+beginning.
+
+“This is his third attempt, he says, to reach me, having written twice
+without any acknowledgment; hence he has taken the liberty--and a very
+great liberty too--to address the present to the care of your sister.
+His brother died in March last, and the younger brother has now shown
+symptoms of the same malady, and has been sent out to Madeira. 'I could
+not,' he writes,--'I could not refuse to come out here with him, however
+eager I was to go to Ireland. You can well believe,'”--here the old
+man slurred over the words, and murmured inaudibly for some seconds. “I
+see,” added he at last, “he has gone back to his old regiment, with good
+hopes of the majority. 'Hinks is sick of the service, and quite willing
+to leave. Harvey, however, stands above me, and deems it a cruel thing
+to be passed over. I must have your advice about this, as well as
+about--'” Here again he dropped his voice and mumbled unintelligibly.
+At length he read on: “'What is Tom doing? What a shame it would be if a
+fellow with such abilities should not make his way!'”
+
+“A crying shame,” burst in Tom, “but I neither see the abilities nor the
+way; would he kindly indicate how to find either or both?”
+
+“'My mother suggested,'” read on Sir Brook, “'two or three things which
+my father could readily obtain, but you know the price of the promotion;
+you know what I would have to--'” Here, once more, the old man stopped
+abruptly.
+
+“Pray go on, sir,” cried Tom, eagerly; “this interests me much, and as
+it touches myself I have half a claim to hear it.”
+
+Sir Brook gave no heed to the request, but read on in silence and to
+himself. Turning to the last page, he said: “'I may then hope to be
+in England by the end of the month. I shall not go down to Holt, but
+straight to Dublin. My leave will expire on the 28th, and this will give
+me a good excuse for not going home. I am sure you will agree with me
+that I am doing the right thing.
+
+“'If I am fortunate enough to meet you in Dublin, I can ask your advice
+on many things which press for solution; but if you should have left
+Ireland and gone heaven knows where, what is to become of me?'”
+
+“Got into debt again, evidently,” said Tom, as he puffed his cigar.
+
+“Nothing of the kind. I know thoroughly what he alludes to, though I am
+not at liberty to speak of it. He wishes me to leave our address with
+Colonel Cave at the barracks, and that if we should have left Ireland
+already, he 'll try and manage a month's leave, and pay us a visit.”
+
+“I declare I guessed that!” burst out Tom. “I had a dread of it, from
+the very day we first planned our project. I said to myself, So sure as
+we settle down to work,--to work like men who have no thought but how to
+earn their bread,--some lavender-gloved fellow, with a dressing-case
+and three hat-boxes, will drop down to disgust us alike with our own
+hardships and _his_ foppery.”
+
+“He'll not come,” said Sir Brook, calmly; “and if he should, he will be
+welcome.”
+
+“Oh! as to that,” stammered out Tom, somewhat ashamed of his late
+warmth, “Trafford is perhaps the one exception to the sort of thing I am
+afraid of. He is a fine, manly, candid fellow, with no affectations nor
+any pretensions.”
+
+“A gentleman, sir,--just a gentleman, and of a very good type.”
+
+The last few lines of the letter were small and finely written, and cost
+the old man some time to decipher. At last he read them aloud. “'Am I
+asking what you would see any objection to accord me, if I entreat you
+to give me some letter of introduction or presentation to the Chief
+t Baron? I presume that you know him; and I presume that he might not
+refuse to know _me_. It is possible I may be wrong in either or both
+of these assumptions. I am sure you will be frank in your reply to
+this request of mine, and say No, if you dislike to say Yes. I made the
+acquaintance of Colonel Sewell, the Judge's step-son, at the Cape; but
+I suspect--I may be wrong--but I suspect that to be presented by
+the Colonel might not be the smoothest road to his Lordship's
+acquaintance,--I was going to write “favor,” but I have no pretension,
+as yet at least, to aspire that far.'
+
+“'The Colonel himself told me that his mother and Sir William never met
+without a quarrel. His affectionate remark was that the Chief Baron was
+the only creature in Europe whose temper was worse than Lady Lendrick's,
+and it would be a blessing to humanity if they could be induced to live
+together.
+
+“'I saw a good deal of the Se wells at the Cape. She is charming! She
+was a Dillon, and her mother a Lascelles, some forty-fifth cousin of my
+mother's,--quite enough of relationship, however, to excuse a very rapid
+intimacy, so that I dined there when I liked, and uninvited. I did not
+like _him_ so well; but then he beat me at billiards, and always won my
+money at _écarté_, and of course these are detracting ingredients which
+ought not to be thrown into the scale.
+
+“'How she sings! I don't know how you, with your rapturous love of
+music, would escape falling in love with her: all the more that she
+seems to me one who expects that sort of homage, and thinks herself
+defrauded if denied it. If the Lord Chief Baron is fond of ballads, he
+has been her captive this many a day.
+
+“'My love to Tom, if with you or within reach of you; and believe me,
+ever yours affectionately,--Lionel Trafford.'”
+
+“It was the eldest son who died,” said Tom, carelessly.
+
+“Yes, the heir. Lionel now succeeds to a splendid fortune and the
+baronetcy.”
+
+“He told me once that his father had made some sort of compact with his
+eldest son about cutting off the entail, in case he should desire to do
+it. In fact, he gave me to understand that he was n't a favorite with
+his father, and that, if by any course of events he were likely to
+succeed to the estate, it was more than probable his father would use
+this power, and merely leave him what he could not alienate,--a very
+small property that pertained to the baronetage.”
+
+“With reference to what did he make this revelation to you? What had you
+been talking of?”
+
+“I scarcely remember. I think it was about younger sons,--how hardly
+they were treated, and how unfairly.”
+
+“Great hardship truly that a man must labor! not to say that there
+is not a single career in life he can approach without bringing to it
+greater advantages than befall humbler men,--a better and more liberal
+education, superior habits as regards society, powerful friends, and
+what in a country like ours is inconceivably effective,--the prestige of
+family. I cannot endure this compassionate tone about younger sons. To
+my thinking they have the very best opening that life can offer, if they
+be men to profit by it; and if they are not, I care very little what
+becomes of them.”
+
+“I do think it hard that my elder brother should have fortune and wealth
+to over-abundance, while my pittance will scarcely keep me in cigars.”
+
+“You have no right, sir, to think of his affluence. It is not in
+the record; the necessities of your position have no-relation to his
+superfluities. Bethink you of yourself, and if cigars are too expensive
+for you, smoke cavendish. Trafford was full of this cant about the
+cruelty of primogeniture, but I would have none of it. Whenever a man
+tells me that he deems it a hardship that he should do anything for his
+livelihood, I leave him, and hope never to see more of him.”
+
+“Trafford surely did not say so.”
+
+“No,--certainly not; there would have been no correspondence between us
+if he had. But I want to see these young fellows showing the world that
+they shrink from no competitorship with any. They have long proved that
+to confront danger and meet death they are second to none. Let me show
+that in other qualities they admit of no inferiority,--that they are as
+ready for enterprise, as well able to stand cold and hunger and thirst,
+to battle with climate and disease. _I_ know well they can do it, but I
+want the world to know it.”
+
+“As to intellectual distinctions,” said Tom, “I think they are the
+equals of any. The best man in Trinity in my day was a fellow-commoner.”
+
+This speech seemed to restore the old man to his best humor. He slapped
+young Lendrick familiarly on the shoulder and said: “It would be a grand
+thing, Tom, if we could extend the application of that old French adage,
+'noblesse oblige,' and make it apply to every career in life and every
+success. Come along down this street; I want to buy some nails,--we can
+take them home with us.”
+
+They soon made their purchases; and each, armed with a considerably
+sized brown-paper parcel, issued from the shop,--the old man eagerly
+following up the late theme, and insisting on all the advantages good
+birth and blood conferred, and what a grand resource was the gentleman
+element in moments of pressure and temptation.
+
+“His Excellency wishes to speak to you, sir,” said a footman,
+respectfully standing hat in hand before him “The carriage is over the
+way.”
+
+Sir Brook nodded an assent, and then, turning to Torn, said, “Have
+the kindness to hold this for me for a moment; I will not detain you
+longer;” and placing in young Lendrick's hands a good-sized parcel, he
+stepped across the street, totally forgetting that over his left arm,
+the hand of which was in his pocket, a considerable coil of strong rope
+depended, being one of his late purchases. As he drew nigh the carriage,
+he made a sign that implied defeat; and mortified as the Viceroy was
+at the announcement, he could not help smiling at the strange guise in
+which the old man presented himself.
+
+“And how so, Fossbrooke?” asked he, in answer to the other's signal.
+
+“Simply, he would not see me, my Lord. Our first meeting had apparently
+left no very agreeable memories of me, and he scarcely cared to
+cultivate an acquaintance that opened so inauspiciously.”
+
+“But you sent him your card with my name?”
+
+“Yes; and his reply was to depute another gentleman to receive me and
+take my communication.”
+
+“Which you refused, of course, to make?”
+
+“Which I refused.”
+
+“Do you incline to suppose that the Chief Baron guessed the object of
+your visit?”
+
+“I have no means of arriving at that surmise, my Lord. His refusal of me
+was so peremptory that it left me no clew to any guess.”
+
+“Was the person deputed to receive you one with whom it was at all
+possible to indicate such an intimation of your business as might convey
+to the Chief Baron the necessity of seeing you?”
+
+“Quite the reverse, my Lord; he was one with whom, from previous
+knowledge, I could hold little converse.”
+
+“Then there is, I fear, nothing to be done.”
+
+“Nothing.”
+
+“Except to thank you heartily, my dear Fossbrooke, and ask you once
+more, why are you going away?”
+
+“I told you last night I was going to make a fortune. I have--to my own
+astonishment I own it--begun to feel that narrow means are occasionally
+most inconvenient; that they limit a man's action in so many ways that
+he comes at last to experience a sort of slavery; and instead of chafing
+against this, I am resolved to overcome it, and become rich.”
+
+“I hope, with all my heart, you may. There is no man whom wealth will
+more become, or who will know how to dispense it more reputably.”
+
+“Why, we have gathered a crowd around us, my Lord,” said Fossbrooke,
+looking to right and left, where now a number of people had gathered,
+attracted by the Viceroy's presence, but still more amused by the
+strange-looking figure with the hank of rope over his arm, who
+discoursed so freely with his Excellency. “This is one of the penalties
+of greatness, I take it,” continued he. “It's your Excellency's Collar
+of St. Patrick costs you these attentions--”
+
+“I rather suspect it's _your 'grand cordon_,' Fossbrooke,” said the
+Viceroy, laughing, while he pointed to the rope.
+
+“Bless my stars!” exclaimed Sir Brook, blushing deeply, “how forgetful I
+am growing! I hope you forgive me. I am sure you could not suppose--”
+
+“I could never think anything but good of you, Fossbrooke. Get in, and
+come out to 'the Lodge' to dinner.”
+
+“No, no; impossible. I am heartily ashamed of myself. I grow worse
+and worse every day; people will lose patience at last, and cut me;
+good-bye.”
+
+“Wait one moment. I want to ask you something about young Lendrick.
+Would he take an appointment in a colonial regiment? Would he--” But
+Fossbrooke had elbowed his way through the dense crowd by this time, and
+was far out of hearing,--shocked with himself, and overwhelmed with the
+thought that in his absurd forgetfulness he might have involved another
+in ridicule.
+
+“Think of me standing talking to his Excellency with this on my arm,
+Tom!” said he, flushing with shame and annoyance: “how these absent
+fits keep advancing on me! When a man begins to forget himself in this
+fashion, the time is not very distant when his friends will be glad to
+forget him. I said so this moment to Lord Wilmington, and I am afraid
+that he agreed with me. Where are the screws, Tom,--have I been
+forgetting them also?”
+
+“No, sir, I have them here; the holdfasts were not finished, but
+they will be sent over to us this evening, along with the cramps you
+ordered.”
+
+“So, then, my head was clear so far,” cried he, with a smile. “In my
+prosperous days, Tom, these freaks of mine were taken as good jokes,
+and my friends laughed at them over my Burgundy; but when a man has
+no longer Burgundy to wash down his blunders with, it is strange how
+different becomes the criticism, and how much more candid the critic.”
+
+“So that, in point of enlightenment, sir, it is better to be poor.”
+
+“It is what I was just going to observe to you,” said he, calmly. “Can
+you give me a cigar?”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. THE TWO LUCYS
+
+Within a week after this incident, while Fossbrooke and young Lendrick
+were ploughing the salt sea towards their destination, Lucy sat in her
+room one morning engaged in drawing. She was making a chalk copy from
+a small photograph her brother had sent her, a likeness of Sir Brook,
+taken surreptitiously as he sat smoking at a window, little heeding or
+knowing of the advantage thus taken of him.
+
+The head was considerably advanced, the brow and the eyes were nearly
+finished, and she was trying for the third time to get an expression
+into the mouth which the photograph had failed to convey, but which she
+so often observed in the original. Eagerly intent on her work, she never
+heard the door open behind her, and was slightly startled as a very
+gentle hand was laid on her shoulder.
+
+“Is this a very presumptuous step of mine, dear Lucy?” said Mrs. Sewell,
+with one of her most bewitching smiles: “have I your leave for coming in
+upon you in this fashion?”
+
+“Of course you have, my dear Mrs. Sewell; it is a great pleasure to me
+to see you here.”
+
+“And I may take off my bonnet and my shawl and my gloves and my company
+manner, as my husband calls it?”
+
+“Oh! _you_ have no company manner,” broke in Lucy.
+
+“I used to think not; but men are stern critics, darling, and especially
+when they are husbands. You will find out, one of these days, how neatly
+your liege lord will detect every little objectionable trait in
+your nature, and with what admirable frankness he will caution you
+against--yourself.”
+
+“I almost think I 'd rather he would not.”
+
+“I 'm very certain of it, Lucy,” said the other, with greater firmness
+than before. “The thing we call love in married life has an
+existence only a little beyond that of the bouquet you carried to the
+wedding-breakfast; and it would be unreasonable in a woman to expect
+it, but she might fairly ask for courtesy and respect, and you would
+be amazed how churlish even gentlemen can become about expending these
+graces in their own families.”
+
+Lucy was both shocked and astonished at what she heard, and the grave
+tone in which the words were uttered surprised her most of all.
+
+Mrs. Sewell had by this time taken off her bonnet and shawl, and,
+pushing back her luxuriant hair from her forehead, looked as though
+suffering from headache, for her brows were contracted, and the orbits
+around her eyes dark and purple-looking.
+
+“You are not quite well to-day,” said Lucy, as she sat down on the sofa
+beside her, and took her hand.
+
+“About as well as I ever am,” said she, sighing; and then, as if
+suddenly recollecting herself, added, “India makes such an inroad on
+health and strength! No buoyancy of temperament ever resisted that fatal
+climate. You would n't believe it, Lucy, but I was once famed for high
+spirits.”
+
+“I can well believe it.”
+
+“It was, however, very long ago. I was little more than a child at the
+time--that is, I was about fourteen or fifteen--when I left England, to
+which I returned in my twentieth year. I went back very soon afterwards
+to nurse my poor father, and be married.”
+
+The depth of sadness in which she spoke the last words made the silence
+that followed intensely sad and gloomy.
+
+“Yes,” said she, with a deep melancholy smile, “papa called me madcap.
+Oh dear, if our fathers and mothers could look back from that eternity
+they have gone to, and see how the traits they traced in our childhood
+have saddened and sobered down into sternest features, would they
+recognize us as their own? I don't look like a madcap now, Lucy, do
+I?” As she said this, her eyes swam in tears, and her lip trembled
+convulsively. Then standing hastily up, she drew nigh the table, and
+leaned over to look at the drawing at which Lucy had been engaged.
+
+“What!” cried she, with almost a shriek,--“what is this? Whose portrait
+is this? Tell me at once; who is it?”
+
+“A very dear friend of mine and of Tom's. One you could not have ever
+met, I'm sure.”
+
+“And how do you know whom I have met?” cried she, fiercely. “What can
+you know of my life and my associates?”
+
+“I said so, because he is one who has lived long estranged from the
+world,” said Lucy, gently; for in the sudden burst of the other's
+passion she only saw matter for deep compassion. It was but another part
+of a nature torn and distracted by unceasing anxieties.
+
+“But his name,--his name?” said Mrs. Sewell, wildly.
+
+“His name is Sir Brook Fossbrooke.”
+
+“I knew it, I knew it!” cried she, wildly,--“I knew it!” and said it
+over and over again. “Go where we will we shall find him. He haunts;
+us like a curse,--like a curse!” And it was in almost a shriek the last
+word came forth.
+
+“You cannot know the man if you say this of him,” said Lucy, firmly.
+
+“Not know him!--not know him! You will tell me next that I do not know
+myself,--not know my own name,--not know the life of bitterness I have
+lived,--the shame of it,--the ineffable shame of it!” and she threw
+herself on her face on the sofa, and sobbed convulsively. Long and
+anxiously did Lucy try all in her power to comfort and console her. She
+poured out her whole heart in pledges of sisterly love and affection.
+She assured her of a sympathy that would never desert her; and, last
+of all, she told her that her judgment of Sir Brook was a mistaken
+one,--that in the world there lived not one more true-hearted, more
+generous, or more noble.
+
+“And where did you learn all this, young woman?” said the other,
+passionately. “In what temptations and trials of your life have these
+experiences been gained? Oh, don't be angry with me, dearest Lucy;
+forgive this rude speech of mine; my head is turning, and I know not
+what I say. Tell me, child, did this man speak to you of my husband?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Nor of myself?”
+
+“Not a word. I don't believe he was aware that we were related to each
+other.”
+
+“He not aware? Why, it's his boast that he knows every one and every
+one's connections. You never heard him speak without this parade of
+universal acquaintanceship. But why did he come here? How did you happen
+to meet him?”
+
+“By the merest accident. Tom found him one day fishing the river close
+to our house, and they got to talk together; and it ended by his
+coming to us to tea. Intimacy followed very quickly, and then a close
+friendship.”
+
+“And do you mean to tell me that all this while he never alluded to us?”
+
+“Never.”
+
+“This is so unlike him,--so unlike him,” muttered she, half to herself.
+“And the last place you saw him,--where was it?”
+
+“Here in this house.”
+
+“Here! Do you mean that he came here to see you?”
+
+“No; he had some business with grandpapa, and called one morning, but
+he was not received. Grandpapa was not well, and sent Colonel Sewell to
+meet him.”
+
+“He sent my husband! And did he go?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Are you sure of that?”
+
+“I know it.”
+
+“I never heard of this,” said she, holding her hands to her temples.
+“About what time was it?”
+
+“It was on Friday last. I remember the day, because it was the last time
+I saw poor Tom.”
+
+“On Friday last,” said she, pondering. “Yes, you are right. I do
+remember that Friday;” and she drew up the sleeve of her dress, and
+looked at a dark-blue mark upon the fair white skin of her arm; but so
+hastily was the action done that Lucy did not remark it.
+
+“It was on Friday morning. It was on the forenoon of Friday, was it
+not?”
+
+“Yes. The clock struck one, I remember, as I got back to the house.”
+
+“Tell me, Lucy,” said she in a caressing tone, as she drew her arm round
+the girl's waist,--“tell me, darling, how did Colonel Sewell look after
+that interview? Did he seem angry or irritated? I'll tell you why I
+ask this some other time,--but I want to know if he seemed vexed or
+chagrined by meeting this man.”
+
+“I did not see him after; he went away almost immediately after Sir
+Brook. I heard his voice talking with grandpapa in the garden, but I
+went to my room, and we did not meet.”
+
+“As they spoke in the garden, were their voices raised? Did they talk
+like men excited or in warmth?”
+
+“Yes. Their tone and manner were what you say,--so much so that I went
+away, not to overhear them. Grandpapa, I know, was angry at something;
+and when we met at luncheon, he barely spoke to me.”
+
+“And what conclusion did you draw from all this?”
+
+“None! There was nothing to induce me to dwell on the circumstance;
+besides,” added she, with some irritation, “I am not given to reason
+upon the traits of people's manner, or their tone in speaking.”
+
+“Nor perhaps accustomed to inquire, when your grandfather is vexed, what
+it is that has irritated him.”
+
+“Certainly not. It is a liberty I should not dare to take.”
+
+“Well, darling,” said she, with a saucy laugh, “he is more fortunate in
+having _you_ for a granddaughter than me. I 'm afraid I should have less
+discretion,--at all events, less dread.”
+
+“Don't be so sure of that,” said Lucy, quietly. “Grandpapa is no
+common person. It is not his temper but his talent that one is loath to
+encounter.”
+
+“I do not suspect that either would terrify me greatly. As the soldiers
+say, Lucy, I have been under fire pretty often, and I don't mind it now.
+Do you know, child, that we have got into a most irritable tone with
+each other? Each of us is saying something that provokes a sharp reply,
+and we are actually sparring without knowing it.”
+
+“I certainly did not know it,” said Lucy, taking her hand within both
+her own, “and I ask pardon if I have said anything to hurt you.”
+
+Leaving her hand to Lucy unconsciously, and not heeding one word of what
+she had said, Mrs. Sewell sat with her eyes fixed on the floor deep in
+thought. “I 'm sure, Lucy,” said she at last, “I don't know why I asked
+you all those questions awhile ago. That man--Sir Brook, I mean--is
+nothing to me; he ought to be, but he is not. My father and he were
+friends; that is, my father thought he was his friend, and left him the
+guardianship of me on his deathbed.”
+
+“Your guardian,--Sir Brook your guardian?” cried Lucy, with intense
+eagerness.
+
+“Yes; with more power than the law, I believe, would accord to any
+guardian.” She paused and seemed lost in thought for some seconds, and
+then went on: “Colonel Sewell and he never liked each other. Sir Brook
+took little trouble to be liked by him; perhaps Dudley was as careless
+on his side. What a tiresome vein I have got in! How should _you_ care
+for all this?”
+
+“But I do care--I care for all that concerns you.”
+
+“I take it, if you were to hear Sir Brook's account, we should not make
+a more brilliant figure than himself. He 'd tell you about our mode of
+life, and high play, and the rest of it; but, child, every one plays
+high in India, every one does scores of things there they would n't
+do at home, partly because the _ennui_ of life tempts to
+anything,--anything that would relieve it; and then all are tolerant
+because all are equally--I was going to say wicked; but I don't mean
+wickedness,--I mean bored to that degree that there is no stimulant left
+without a breach of the decalogue.”
+
+“I think that might be called wickedness,” said Lucy, dryly.
+
+“Call it what you like, only take my word for it you 'd do the selfsame
+things if you lived there. I was pretty much what you are now when I
+left England; and if any naughty creature like myself were to talk, as
+I am doing to you now, and make confession of all her misdeeds and
+misfortunes, I'm certain I'd have known how to bridle up and draw away
+my hand, and retire to a far end of the sofa, and look unutterable
+pruderies, just as you do this moment.”
+
+“Without ever suspecting it, certainly,” said Lucy laughing.
+
+“Tear up that odious drawing, dear Lucy,” said she, rising and walking
+the room with impatience. “Tear it up; or, if you won't do that, let me
+write a line under it--one line, I ask for no more--so that people may
+know at whom they are looking.”
+
+“I will do neither; nor will I sit here to listen to one word against
+him.”
+
+“Which means, child, that your knowledge of life is so-much greater than
+mine, you can trust implicitly to your own judgment. I can admire your
+courage, certainly, though I am not captivated by your prudence.”
+
+“It is because I have so little faith in my own judgment that I am
+unwilling to lose the friend who can guide me.”
+
+“Perhaps it would be unsafe if I were to ask you to choose between _him_
+and me,” said Mrs. Sewell, very slowly, and with her eyes fully bent on
+Lucy.
+
+“I hope you will not.”
+
+“With such a warning I certainly shall not do so. Who-could have
+believed it was so late?” said she, hastily looking at her watch;
+“What a seductive creature you must be, child, to slip over one's whole
+morning without knowing it,--two o'clock already. You lunch about this
+time?”
+
+“Yes, punctually at two.”
+
+“Are you sufficiently lady of the house to invite me, Lucy?”
+
+“I am sure _you_ need no invitation here; you are one of us.”
+
+“What a little Jesuit it is!” said Mrs. Sewell, patting her cheek.
+“Come, child, I 'll be equal with you. I 'll enter the room on your arm,
+and say, 'Sir William, your granddaughter insisted on my remaining; I
+thought it an awkwardness, but she tells me she is the mistress here,
+and I obey.'”
+
+“And you will find he will be too well-bred to contradict you,” said
+Lucy, while a deep blush covered her face and throat.
+
+“Oh, I think him positively charming!” said Mrs. Sewell, as she arranged
+her hair before the glass; “I think him charming. My mother-in-law and
+I have a dozen pitched battles every day on the score of his temper and
+his character. _My_ theory is, the only intolerable thing on earth is
+a fool; and whether it be that Lady Lendrick suspects me of any secret
+intention to designate one still nearer to her by this reservation, I
+do not know, but the declaration drives her half crazy. Come, Lucy, we
+shall be keeping grandpapa waiting for us.”
+
+They moved down the stairs arm-in-arm, without a word; but as they
+gained the door of the dining-room, Mrs. Sewell turned fully round
+and said, in a low deep voice, “Marry anything,--rake, gambler,
+villain,--anything, the basest and the blackest; but never take a fool,
+for a fool means them all combined.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. THE NEST WITH STRANGE “BIRDS” IN IT
+
+To the Swan's Nest, very differently tenanted from what we saw it at
+the opening of our story, we have now to conduct our reader. Its present
+occupant--“the acquisition to any neighborhood,” as the house-agent
+styled him--was Colonel Sewell.
+
+Lady Lendrick had taken the place for her son on finding that Sir
+William would not extend his hospitality to him. She had taken the
+precaution not merely to pay a year's rent in advance, but to make a
+number of changes in the house and its dependencies, which she hoped
+might render the residence more palatable to him, and reconcile him in
+some degree to its isolation and retirement.
+
+The Colonel was, however, one of those men--they are numerous enough
+in this world--who canvass the mouth of the gift-horse, and have few
+scruples in detecting the signs of his age. He criticised the whole
+place with a most commendable frankness. It was a “pokey little hole.”
+ It was dark; it was low-ceilinged. It was full of inconveniences.
+The furniture was old-fashioned. You had to mount two steps into the
+drawing-room and go down three into the dining-room. He had to cross
+a corridor to his bath-room, and there was a great Tudor window in the
+small breakfast-parlor, that made one feel as if sitting in a lantern.
+
+As for the stables, “he would n't put a donkey into them.” No light,
+no ventilation,--no anything, in short. To live surrounded with so many
+inconveniences was the most complete assertion of his fallen condition,
+and, as he said, “he had never realized his fall in the world till he
+settled down in that miserable Nest.”
+
+There are men whose especial delight it is to call your attention to
+their impaired condition, their threadbare coat, their patched shoes,
+their shabby equipage, or their sorry dwelling, as though they were
+framing a sort of indictment against Fate, and setting forth the
+hardships of persons of merit like them being subjected to this
+unjustifiable treatment by Fortune.
+
+“I suppose you never thought to see me reduced to this,” is the burden
+of their song; and it is very strange how, by mere repetition and
+insistence, these people establish for themselves a sort of position,
+and oblige the world to yield them a black-mail of respect and
+condolence.
+
+“This was not the sort of tipple I used to set before you once on a
+time, old fellow,” will be uttered by one of whose hospitalities you
+have never partaken. “It was another guess sort of beast I gave you for
+a mount when we met last,” will be said by a man who never rose above
+a cob pony; and one is obliged to yield a kind of polite assent to such
+balderdash, or stand forward as a public prosecutor and arraign the
+rascal for a humbug.
+
+In this self-commiseration Sewell was a master, and there was not
+a corner of the house he did not make the butt of his ridicule,--to
+contrast its littleness and vulgarity with the former ways and
+belongings of his own once splendor.
+
+“You're capital fellows,” said he to a party of officers from the
+neighboring garrison, “to come and see me in this dog-hole. Try and find
+a chair you can sit on, and I 'll ask my wife if we can give you some
+dinner. You remember me up at Rangoon, Hobbes? Another guess sort of
+place, wasn't it? I had the Rajah's palace and four elephants at my
+orders. At Guzerat, too, I was the Resident, and, by Jove, I never
+dreamed of coming down to this!”
+
+Too indolent or too indifferent to care where or how she was lodged, his
+wife gave no heed to his complaints, beyond a little half-supercilious
+smile as he uttered them. “If a fellow will marry, however, he deserves
+it all,” was his usual wind-up to all his lamentations; and in this he
+seemed to console himself by the double opportunity of pitying himself
+and insulting his wife.
+
+All that Colonel Cave and his officers could say in praise of the spot,
+its beauty, its neatness, and its comfort, were only fresh aliment to
+his depreciation, and he more than half implied that possibly the place
+was quite good enough for _them_, but that was not exactly the question
+at issue.
+
+Some men go through life permitted to say scores of things for which
+their neighbor would be irrevocably cut and excluded from society.
+Either that the world is amused at their bitterness, or that it is
+regarded as a malady, far worse to him who bears than to him who
+witnesses it,--whatever the reason,--people endure these men, and make
+even a sort of vicious pets of them. Sewell was of this order, and a
+fine specimen too.
+
+All the men around him were his equals in every respect, and yet there
+was not one of them who did not accept a position of quiet, unresisting
+inferiority to him for the sake of his bad temper and his bad tongue. It
+was “his way,” they said, and they bore it.
+
+He was a consummate adept in all the details of a household; and his
+dinners were perfection, his wine good, and his servants drilled to
+the very acme of discipline. These were not mean accessories to any
+pretension; and as they sat over their claret, a pleasanter and more
+social tone succeeded than the complaining spirit of their host had at
+first promised.
+
+The talk was chiefly professional. Pipeclay will ever assert its
+pre-eminence, and with reason, for it is a grand leveller; and Digges,
+who joined three months ago, may have the Army List as well by heart
+as the oldest major in the service: and so they discussed, Where was
+Hobson? what made Jobson sell out? how did Bobson get out of that scrape
+with the paymaster? and how long will Dobson be able to live at his
+present rate in that light-cavalry corps? Everything that fell from them
+showed the most thorough intimacy with the condition, the fortune, and
+the prospects of the men they discussed,--familiarity there was enough
+of, but no friendship. No one seemed to trouble himself whether the
+sick-leave or the sell-out meant hopeless calamity,--all were dashed
+with a species of well-bred fatalism that was astonished with nothing,
+rejoiced at nothing, repined at nothing.
+
+“I wish Trafford would make up his mind!” cried one. “Three weeks ago he
+told me positively he would leave, and now I hear he offered Craycroft
+three thousand pounds to retire from the majority.”
+
+“That 's true; Craycroft told me so himself; but old Joe is a wily bird,
+and he 'll not be taken so easily.”
+
+“He's an eldest son now!” broke in another. “What does he care whether
+he be called major or captain?”
+
+“An eldest son!” cried Sewell, suddenly; “how is that? When I met him at
+the Cape, he spoke of an elder brother.”
+
+“So he had, then, but he's 'off the hooks.'”
+
+“I don't think it matters much,” said the Colonel. “The bulk of the
+property is disentailed, and Sir Hugh can leave it how he likes.”
+
+“That's what I call downright shameful,” said one; but he was the
+minority, for a number of voices exclaimed,--“And perfectly right; that
+law of primogeniture is a positive barbarism.”
+
+While the dispute waxed warm and noisy, Sewell questioned the Colonel
+closely about Trafford,--how it happened that the entail was removed,
+and why there was reason to suppose that Sir Hugh and his son were not
+on terms of friendship.
+
+Cave was frank enough when he spoke of the amount of the fortune and the
+extent of the estate, but used a careful caution in speaking of family
+matters, merely hinting that Trafford had gone very fast, spent a deal
+of money, had his debts twice paid by his father, and was now rather
+in the position of a reformed spendthrift, making a good character for
+prudence and economy.
+
+“And where is he?--not in Ireland?” asked Se well, eagerly.
+
+“No; he is to join on Monday. I got a hurried note from him this
+morning, dated Holyhead. You said you had met him?”
+
+“Yes, at the Cape; he used to come and dine with us there occasionally.”
+
+“Did you like him?”
+
+“In a way. Yes, I think he was a nice fellow,--that is, he might be made
+a nice fellow, but it was always a question into what hands he fell; he
+was at the same time pliant and obstinate. He would always imitate,--he
+would never lead. So he seemed to me; but, to tell you the truth, I left
+him a good deal to the women; he was too young and too fresh for a man
+like myself.”
+
+“You are rather hard on him,” said Cave, laughing; “but you are partly
+right. He has, however, fine qualities,--he is generous and trustful to
+any extent.”
+
+“Indeed!” said Sewell, carelessly, as he bit off the end of a cigar.
+
+“Nothing would make him swerve from his word; and if placed in a
+difficulty where a friend was involved, his own interests would be the
+last he 'd think of.”
+
+“Very fine, all that. Are you drinking claret?--if so, finish that
+decanter, and let's have a fresh bottle.”
+
+Cave declined to take more wine, and he arose, with the rest, to repair
+to the drawing-room for coffee.
+
+It was not very usual for Sewell to approach his wife or notice her in
+society; now, however, he drew a chair near her as she sat at the fire,
+and in a low whisper said, “I have some pleasant news for you.”
+
+“Indeed!” she said coldly,--“what a strange incident!”
+
+“You mean it is a strange channel for pleasant news to come through,
+perhaps,” said he, with a curl of his lip.
+
+“Possibly that is what I meant,” said she, as quietly as before.
+
+“None of these fine-lady airs with me, Madam,” said he, reddening with
+anger; “there are no two people in Europe ought to understand each other
+better than we do.”
+
+“In that I quite agree with you.”
+
+“And as such is the case, affectations are clean thrown away, Madam; we
+_can_ have no disguises for each other.”
+
+A very slight inclination of her head seemed to assent to this remark,
+but she did not speak.
+
+“We came to plain speaking many a day ago,” said he, with increased
+bitterness in his tone. “I don't see why we are to forego the advantage
+of it now,--do you?”
+
+“By no means. Speak as plainly as you wish; I am quite ready to hear
+you.”
+
+“You have managed, however, to make people observe us,” muttered he,
+between his teeth,--“it's an old trick of yours, Madam. You can play
+martyr at the shortest notice.” He rose hastily and moved to another
+part of the room, where a very noisy group were arranging a party for
+pool at billiards.
+
+“Won't you have me?” cried Sewell, in his ordinary tone. “I'm a perfect
+boon at pool; for I am the most unlucky dog in everything.”
+
+“I scarcely think you'll expect us to believe _that_,” said Cave, with a
+glance of unmistakable admiration towards Mrs. Sewell.
+
+“Ay,” cried Sewell, fiercely, and answering the unspoken
+sentiment,--“ay, sir, and _that_,”--he laid a stern emphasis on the
+word,--“and _that_ the worst luck of all.”
+
+“I 've been asking Mrs. Sewell to play a game with us, and she says she
+has no objections,” said a young subaltern, “if Colonel Sewell does not
+dislike it.”
+
+“I'll play whist, then,” said Sewell. “Who 'll make a rubber?--Cave,
+will you? Here's Houghton and Mowbray,--eh?”
+
+“No, no,” said Mowbray,--“you are all too good for me.”
+
+“How I hate that,--too good for me,” said Sewell. “Why, man, what
+better investment could you ask for your money than the benefit of good
+teaching? Always ride with the best hounds, play with the best players,
+talk with the best talkers.”
+
+“And make love to the prettiest women,” added Cave, in a whisper, as
+Mowbray followed Mrs. Sewell into the billiard-room.
+
+“I heard you, Cave,” whispered Sewell, in a still lower whisper;
+“there's devilish little escapes my ears, I promise you.” The bustle and
+preparation of the card-table served in part to cover Cave's confusion,
+but his cheek tingled and his hand shook with mingled shame and
+annoyance.
+
+Sewell saw it all, and knew how to profit by it. He liked high play,
+to which Cave generally objected; but he well knew that on the present
+occasion Cave would concur in anything to cover his momentary sense of
+shame.
+
+“Pounds and fives, I suppose,” said Sewell; and the others bowed, and
+the game began.
+
+As little did Cave like three-handed whist, but he was in no mood to
+oppose anything; for, like many men who have made an awkward speech, he
+exaggerated the meaning through his fears, and made it appear absolutely
+monstrous to himself.
+
+“Whatever you like,” was therefore his remark; and he sat down to the
+game.
+
+Sewell was a skilled player; but the race is no more to the swift in
+cards than in anything else,--he lost, and lost heavily. He undervalued
+his adversaries too, and, in consequence, he followed up his bad luck
+by increased wagers. Cave tried to moderate the ardor he displayed,
+and even remonstrated with him on the sums they were staking, which, he
+good-humoredly remarked, were far above his own pretensions; but
+Sewell resented the advice, and replied with a coarse insinuation about
+winners' counsels. The ill-luck continued, and Sewell's peevishness and
+ill-temper increased with every game. “What have I lost to you?” cried
+he, abruptly, to Cave; “it jars on my nerves every time you take out
+that cursed memorandum, so that all I can do is not to fling it into the
+fire.”
+
+“I'm sure I wish you would, or that you would let me do it,” said Cave,
+quietly.
+
+“How much is it?--not short of three hundred, I'll be bound.”
+
+“It is upwards of five hundred,” said Cave, handing the book across the
+table.
+
+“You'll have to wait for it, I promise you. You must give me time, for
+I am in all sorts of messes just now.” While Cave assured him that
+there was no question of pressing for payment,--to take his own perfect
+convenience,--Sewell, not heeding him, went on: “This confounded place
+has cost me a pot of money. My wife, too, knows how to scatter her
+five-pound notes; in short, we are a wasteful lot. Shall we have one
+rubber more, eh?”
+
+“As you like. I am at your orders.”
+
+“Let us say double or quits, then, for the whole sum.”
+
+Cave made no reply, and seemed not to know how to answer.
+
+“Of course, if you object,” said Sewell, pushing back his chair from the
+table, as though about to rise, “there's no more to be said.”
+
+“What do _you_ say, Houghton?” asked Cave.
+
+“Houghton has nothing to say to it; _he_ hasn't won twenty pounds from
+me,” said Sewell, fiercely.
+
+“Whatever you like, then,” said Cave, in a tone in which it was easy to
+see irritation was with difficulty kept under, and the game began.
+
+The game began in deep silence. The restrained temper of the players and
+the heavy sum together impressed them, and not a word was dropped. The
+cards fell upon the table with a clear, sharp sound, and the clink of
+the counters resounded through the room, the only noises there.
+
+As they played, the company from the billiard-room poured in and drew
+around the whist-table, at first noisily enough; but seeing the deep
+preoccupation of the players, their steadfast looks, their intense
+eagerness, made more striking by their silence, they gradually lowered
+their voices, and at last only spoke in whispers and rarely.
+
+The first game of the rubber had been contested trick by trick, but
+ended by Cave winning it. The second game was won by Sewell, and the
+third opened with his deal.
+
+As he dealt the cards, a murmur ran through the bystanders that
+the stake was something considerable, and the interest increased in
+consequence. A few trifling bets were laid on the issue, and one of
+the group, in a voice slightly raised above the rest, said, “I'll back
+Sewell for a pony.”
+
+“I beg you will not, sir,” said Sewell, turning fiercely round. “I'm in
+bad luck already, and I don't want to be swamped altogether. There, sir,
+your interference has made me misdeal,” cried he, passionately, as he
+flung the cards on the table.
+
+Not a word was said as Cave began his deal. It was too plain to every
+one that Sewell's temper was becoming beyond control, and that a word or
+a look might bring the gravest consequences.
+
+“What cards!” said Cave, as he spread his hand on the table: “four
+honors and nine trumps.” Sewell stared at them, moved his fingers
+through them to separate and examine them, and then, turning his head
+round, he looked behind. It was his wife was standing at the back of his
+chair, calm, pale, and collected. “By Heaven!” cried he, savagely, “I
+knew who was there as well as if I saw her. The moment Cave spread out
+his cards, I 'd have taken my oath that _she_ was standing over me.”
+
+She moved hastily away at the ruffianly speech, and a low murmur of
+indignant anger filled the room. Cave and Houghton quitted the table,
+and mingled with the others; but Sewell sat still, tearing up the
+cards one by one, with a quiet, methodical persistence that betrayed no
+passion. “There!” said he, as he threw the last fragment from him, “you
+shall never bring good or bad luck to any one more.” With the ease
+of one to whom such paroxysms were not un-frequent, he joined in the
+conversation of a group of young men, and with a familiar jocularity
+soon set them at their ease towards him; and then, drawing his arm
+within Cave's, he led him apart, and said: “I 'll go over to the Barrack
+to-morrow and breakfast with you. I have just thought of how I can
+settle this little debt.”
+
+“Oh, don't distress yourself about that,” said Cave. “I beg you will not
+let it give you a moment's uneasiness.”
+
+“Good fellow!” said Sewell, clapping him on the shoulder; “but I
+have the means of doing it without inconvenience, as I 'll show you
+to-morrow. Don't go yet; don't let your fellows go. We are going to have
+a broil, or a devilled biscuit, or something.” He walked over and rang
+the bell, and then hastily passed on into a smaller room, where his wife
+was sitting on a sofa, an old doctor of the regiment seated at her side.
+
+“I won't interrupt the consultation,” said Sewell, “but I have just one
+word to say.” He leaned over the back of the sofa, and whispered in her
+ear, “Your friend Trafford is become an eldest son. He is at the
+Bilton Hotel, Dublin; write and ask him here. Say I have some
+cock-shooting,--there are harriers in the neighborhood. Are you
+listening to me, Madam?” said he, in a harsh hissing voice, for she had
+half turned away her head, and her face had assumed an expression of
+sickened disgust. She nodded, but did not speak. “Tell him that I've
+spoken to Cave--he'll make his leave all right--that I 'll do my best
+to make the place pleasant to him, and that--in fact, I needn't toy to
+teach you to write a sweet note. You understand me, eh?”
+
+“Oh, perfectly,” said she, rising; and a livid paleness now spread over
+her face, and even her lips were bloodless.
+
+“I was too abrupt with my news. I ought to have been more considerate;
+I ought to have known it might overcome you,” said he, with a sneering
+bitterness. “Doctor, you 'll have to give Mrs. Se well some cordial,
+some restorative,--that's the name for it. She was overcome by some
+tidings I brought her. Even pleasant news will startle us occasionally.
+As the French comedy has it, _La joie fait peur_;” and with a listless,
+easy air, he sauntered away into another room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. SEWELL VISITS CAVE
+
+Punctual to his appointment, Sewell appeared at breakfast the next
+morning with Colonel Cave. Of all the ill-humor and bad conduct of the
+night before, not a trace now was to be seen. He was easy, courteous,
+and affable. He even made a half-jesting apology for his late display of
+bad temper; attributing it to an attack of coming gout. “So long as
+the malady,” said he, “is in a state of menace, one's nerves become so
+fine-strung that there is no name for the irritability; but when once a
+good honest seizure has taken place, a man recovers himself, and stands
+up to his suffering manfully and well.
+
+“To-day, for instance,” said he, pointing to a shoe divided by long
+incisions, “I have got my enemy fixed, and I let him do his worst.”
+
+The breakfast proceeded pleasantly; Cave was in admiration of his
+guest's agreeability; for he talked away, not so much of things as of
+people. He had in a high degree that-man-of-the-world gift of knowing
+something about every one. No name could turn up of which he could not
+tell you something the owner of it had said or done, and these “scratch”
+ biographies are often very amusing, particularly when struck off with
+the readiness of a practised talker.
+
+It was not, then, merely that Sewell obliterated every memory of the
+evening before, but he made Cave forget the actual object for which he
+had come that morning. Projects, besides, for future pleasure did Sewell
+throw out, like a man who had both the leisure, the means, and the taste
+for enjoyment. There was some capital shooting he had just taken; his
+neighbor, an old squire, had never cared for it, and let him have
+it “for a song.” They were going to get up hack races, too, in the
+Park,--“half-a-dozen hurdles and a double ditch to tumble over,” as he
+said, “will amuse our garrison fellows,--and my wife has some theatrical
+intentions--if you will condescend to help her.”
+
+Sewell talked with that blended munificence and shiftiness, which seems
+a specialty with a certain order of men. Nothing was too costly to be
+done, and yet everything must be accomplished with a dexterity that was
+almost a dodge. The men of this gift are great scene-painters. They dash
+you off a view--be it a wood or a rich interior, a terraced garden or an
+Alpine hut--in a few loose touches. Ay! and they “smudge” them out again
+before criticism has had time to deal with them. “By the way,” cried he,
+suddenly, stopping in the full swing of some description of a possible
+regatta, “I was half forgetting what brought me here this morning. I am
+in your debt, Cave.”
+
+He stopped as though his speech needed some rejoinder, and Cave grew
+very red and very uneasy--tried to say something--anything--but could
+not. The fact was, that, like a man who had never in all his life
+adventured on high play or risked a stake that could possibly be of
+importance to him, he felt pretty much the same amount of distress at
+having won as he would have felt at having lost. He well knew that if by
+any mischance he had incurred such a loss as a thousand pounds, it would
+have been a most serious embarrassment--by what right, then, had he won
+it? Now, although feelings of this sort were about the very last to find
+entrance into Sewell's heart, he well knew that there were men who were
+liable to them, just as there were people who were exposed to plague
+or yellow fever, and other maladies from which he lived remote. It
+was, then, with a sort of selfish delight that he saw Cave's awkward
+hesitating manner, and read the marks of the shame that was overwhelming
+him.
+
+“A heavy sum too,” said Sewell, jauntily; “we went the whole 'pot' on
+that last rubber.”
+
+“I wish I could forget it--I mean,” muttered Cave, “I wish we could both
+forget it.”
+
+“I have not the least objection to that,” said Sewell gayly; “only let
+it first be paid.”
+
+“Well, but--what I meant was--what I wanted to say, or rather, what I
+hoped--was--in plain words, Sewell,” burst he out, like a man to whom
+desperation gave courage,--“in plain words, I never intended to play
+such stakes as we played last night,--I never have--I never will again.”
+
+“Not to give me my revenge?” said Sewell, laughing.
+
+“No, not for anything. I don't know what I 'd have done--I don't know
+what would have become of me--if I had lost; and I pledge you my honor,
+I think the next worst thing is to have won.”
+
+“Do you, by George!”
+
+“I do, upon my sacred word of honor. My first thoughts on waking this
+morning were more wretched than they have been for any day in the last
+twenty years of life, for I was thoroughly ashamed of myself.”
+
+“You 'll not find many men afflicted with your malady, Cave; and, at all
+events, it's not contagious.”
+
+“I know nothing about that,” said Cave, half irritably; “I never was a
+play man, and have little pretension to understand their feelings.”
+
+“They have n't got any,” said Sewell, as he lit his cigar.
+
+“Perhaps not; so much the worse for them. I can only say, if the misery
+of losing be only proportionate to the shame of winning, I don't envy a
+gambler. Such an example, too, to exhibit to my young officers! It was
+too bad--too bad.”
+
+“I declare I don't understand this,” said Sewell, carelessly; “when I
+commanded a battalion, I never imagined I was obliged to be a model to
+the subs or the junior captains.” The tone of banter went, this time,
+to the quick; and Cave flushed a deep crimson, and said,--“I'm not sorry
+that my ideas of my duty are different; though, in the present case, I
+have failed to fulfil it.”
+
+“Well, well, there's nothing to grow angry about,” said Sewell,
+laughing, “even though you won't give me my revenge. My present business
+is to book up;” and, as he spoke, he sat down at the table, and drew a
+roll of papers from his pocket and laid it before him.
+
+“You distress me greatly by all this, Sewell,” said Cave, whose
+agitation now almost overcame him. “Cannot we hit upon some way? can't
+we let it lie over? I mean,--is there no arrangement by which this
+cursed affair can be deferred? You understand me?”
+
+“Not in the least. Such things are never deferred without loss of honor
+to the man in default. The stake that a man risks is supposed to be
+in his pocket, otherwise play becomes trade, and accepts all the
+vicissitudes of trade.”
+
+“It's the first time I ever heard them contrasted to the disparagement
+of honest industry.”
+
+“And I call billiards, tennis, whist, and écarté honest industries, too,
+though I won't call them trades. There, there,” said he, laughing at the
+other's look of displeasure, “don't be afraid; I am not going to preach
+these doctrines to your young officers, for whose morals you are so much
+concerned. Sit down here, and just listen to me for one moment.”
+
+Cave obeyed, but his face showed in every feature how reluctantly.
+
+“I see, Cave,” said Sewell, with a quiet smile,--“I see you want to do
+me a favor,--so you shall. I am obliged to own that I am an exception to
+the theory I have just now enunciated. I staked a thousand pounds, and I
+had _not_ the money in my pocket. Wait a moment,--don't interrupt me.
+I had not the money in gold or bank-notes, but I had it here”--and he
+touched the papers before him--“in a form equally solvent, only that it
+required that he who won the money should be not a mere acquaintance,
+but a friend,--a friend to whom I could speak with freedom and in
+confidence. This,” said he, “is a bond for twelve hundred pounds, given
+by my wife's guardian in satisfaction of a loan once made to him; he was
+a man of large fortune, which he squandered away recklessly, leaving
+but a small estate, which he could neither sell nor alienate. Upon this
+property this is a mortgage. As an old friend of my father-in-law,--a
+very unworthy one, by the way,--I could of course not press him for the
+interest, and, as you will see, it has never been paid; and there is now
+a balance of some hundred pounds additional against him. Of this I
+could not speak, for another reason,--we are not without the hope of
+inheriting something by him, and to allude to this matter would be
+ruinous. Keep this, then. I insist upon it. I declare to you, if you
+refuse, I will sell it to-morrow to the first moneylender I can find,
+and send you my debt in hard cash. I 've been a play-man all my life,
+but never a defaulter.”
+
+There was a tone of proud indignation in the way he spoke that awed Cave
+to silence; for in good truth he was treating of themes of which he knew
+nothing whatever: and of the sort of influences which swayed gamblers,
+of the rules that guided and the conventionalities that bound them, he
+was profoundly ignorant.
+
+“You 'll not get your money, Cave,” resumed Sewell, “till this old
+fellow dies; but you will be paid at last,--of that I can assure you.
+Indeed, if by any turn of luck I was in funds myself, I 'd like to
+redeem it. All I ask is, therefore, that you 'll not dispose of it, but
+hold it over in your own possession till the day--and I hope it may be
+an early one--it will be payable.”
+
+Cave was in no humor to dispute anything. There was no condition to
+which he would not have acceded, so heartily ashamed and abashed was
+he by the position in which he found himself. What he really would have
+liked best, would have been to refuse the bond altogether, and say,
+Pay when you like, how you like, or, better still, not at all. This of
+course was not possible, and he accepted the terms proposed to him at
+once.
+
+“It shall be all as you wish,” said he, hurriedly. “I will do everything
+you desire; only let me assure you that I would infinitely rather this
+paper remained in _your_ keeping than in _mine_. I'm a careless fellow
+about documents,” added he, trying to put the matter on the lesser
+ground of a safe custody. “Well, well, say no more; you don't wish it,
+and that's enough.”
+
+“I must be able to say,” said Sewell, gravely, “that I never lost over
+night what I had not paid the next morning; and I will even ask of you
+to corroborate me so far as this transaction goes. There were several
+of your fellows at my house last night; they saw what we played for, and
+that I was the loser. There will be--there always is--plenty of gossip
+about these things, and the first question is, 'Has he-booked up?' I'm
+sure it's not asking more than you are ready to do, to say that I paid
+my debt within twenty-four hours.”
+
+“Certainly; most willingly. I don't know that any one has a right to
+question me on the matter.”
+
+“I never said he had. I only warned you how people will talk, and how
+necessary it is to be prepared to stifle a scandal even before it has
+flared out.”
+
+“It shall be cared for. I'll do exactly as you wish,” said Cave, who
+was too much flurried to know what was asked of him, and to what he was
+pledged.
+
+“I'm glad this is off my mind,” said Sewell, with a long sigh of relief.
+“I lay awake half the night thinking of it; for there are scores of
+fellows who are not of your stamp, and who would be for submitting these
+documents to their lawyer, and asking, Heaven knows, what this affair
+related to. Now I tell you frankly, I 'd have given no explanations. He
+who gave that bond is, as I know, a consummate rascal, and has robbed
+me--that is, my wife--out of two-thirds of her fortune; but _my_ hands
+are tied regarding him. I could n't touch him, except he should try to
+take my life,--a thing, by the way, he is quite capable of. Old Dillon,
+my wife's father, believed him to be the best and truest of men, and my
+wife inherited this belief, even in the face of all the injuries he had
+worked us. She went on saying, 'My father always said, “Trust Fossy:
+there's at least one man in the world that will never deceive you.'””
+
+“What was the name you said?” asked Cave, quickly.
+
+“Oh, only a nickname. I don't want to mention his name. I have sealed up
+the bond, with this superscription,--'Colonel Sewell's bond.' I did this
+believing you would not question me farther; but if you desire to read
+it over, I 'll break the envelope at once.”
+
+“No, no; nothing of the kind. Leave it just as it is.”
+
+“So that,” said Sewell, pursuing his former line of thought, “this man
+not alone defrauded me, but he sowed dissension between me and my wife.
+Her faith is shaken in him, I have no doubt, but she 'll not confess it.
+Like a genuine woman, she will persist in asserting the convictions
+she has long ceased to be held by, and quote this stupid letter of her
+father in the face of every fact.
+
+“I ought not to have got into these things,” said Sewell, as he walked
+impatiently down the room. “These family bedevilments should be kept
+from one's friends; but the murder is out now, and you can see how
+I stand--and see besides, that if I am not always able to control my
+temper, a friend might find an excuse for me.”
+
+Cave gave a kindly nod of assent to this, not wishing, even by a word,
+to increase the painful embarrassment of the scene.
+
+“Heigh ho!” cried Sewell, throwing himself down in a chair, “there's one
+care off my heart, at least! I can remember a time when a night's bad
+luck would n't have cost me five minutes of annoyance; but nowadays
+I have got it so hot and so heavy from fortune, I begin not to know
+myself.” Then, with a sudden change of tone, he added: “When are you
+coming out to us again? Shall we say Tuesday?”
+
+“We are to be inspected on Tuesday. Trafford writes me that he is coming
+over with General Halkett,--whom, by the way, he calls a Tartar,--and
+says, 'If the Sewells are within hail, say a kind word to them on my
+part.'”
+
+“A good sort of fellow, Trafford,” said Sewell, carelessly.
+
+“An excellent fellow,--no better living!”
+
+“A very wide-awake one too,” said Sewell, with one eye closed, and a
+look of intense cunning.
+
+“I never thought so. It is, to my notion, to the want of that faculty he
+owes every embarrassment he has ever suffered. He is unsuspecting to a
+fault.”
+
+“It's not the way _I_ read him; though, perhaps, I think as well of him
+as _you_ do. I 'd say that for his years he is one of the very shrewdest
+young fellows I ever met.”
+
+“You astonish me! May I ask if you know him well?”
+
+“Our acquaintance is not of very old date, but we saw a good deal of
+each other at the Cape. We rode out frequently, dined, played, and
+conversed freely together; and the impression he made upon me was that
+every sharp lesson the world had given him he 'd pay back one day or
+other with a compound interest.”
+
+“I hope not,--I fervently hope not!” cried Cave. “I had rather hear
+to-morrow that he had been duped and cheated out of half his fortune
+than learn he had done one act that savored of the--the--” He stopped,
+unable to finish, for he could not hit upon the word that might be
+strong enough for his meaning, and yet not imply an offence.
+
+“Say blackleg. Is n't that what you want? There's my wife's pony chaise.
+I 'll get a seat back to the Nest. Goodbye, Cave. If Wednesday is open,
+give it to us, and tell Trafford I'd be glad to see him.”
+
+Cave sat down as the door closed after the other, and tried to recall
+his thoughts to something like order. What manner of man was that who
+had just left him? It was evidently a very mixed nature. Was it the good
+or the evil that predominated? Was the unscrupulous tone he displayed
+the result of a spirit of tolerance, or was it the easy indifference of
+one who trusted nothing,--believed nothing?
+
+Was it possible his estimate of Trafford could be correct? and
+could this seemingly generous and open manner cover a nature cold,
+calculating, and treacherous? No, no. _That_ he felt to be totally out
+of the question.
+
+He thought long and intently over the matter, but to no end; and as he
+arose to deposit the papers left by Sewell in his writing-desk, he felt
+as unsettled and undecided as when he started on the inquiry.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX. THE RACES ON THE LAWN
+
+A bright October morning, with a blue sky and a slight, very slight
+feeling of frost in the air, and a gay meeting on foot and horseback on
+the lawn before the Swan's Nest, made as pretty a picture as a painter
+of such scenes could desire. I say of such scenes, because in the
+_tableau de genre_ it is the realistic element that must predominate,
+and the artist's skill is employed in imparting to very commonplace
+people and costumes whatever poetry can be lent them by light and shade,
+by happy groupings, and, more than all these, by the insinuation of
+some incident in which they are the actors,--a sort of storied interest
+pervading the whole canvas, which gives immense pleasure to those who
+have little taste for the fine arts.
+
+There was plenty of color even in the landscape. The mountains had put
+on their autumn suit, and displayed every tint from a pale opal to
+a deep and gorgeous purple, while the river ran on in those circling
+eddies which come to the surface of water under sunshine as naturally as
+smiles to the face of flattered beauty.
+
+Colonel Sewell had invited the country-side to witness hack-races in his
+grounds, and the country-side had heartily responded to the invitation.
+There were the county magnates in grand equipages,--an earl with
+two postilions and outriders, a high sheriff with all his official
+splendors, squires of lower degree in more composite vehicles, and a
+large array of jaunting-cars, through all of which figured the red coats
+of the neighboring garrison, adding to the scene that tint of warmth in
+color so dear to the painter's heart.
+
+The wonderful beauty of the spot, combining, as it did, heath-clad
+mountain, and wood, and winding river, with a spreading lake in the
+distance, dotted with picturesque islands, was well seconded by
+a glorious autumnal day,--one of those days when the very air has
+something of champagne in its exhilarating quality, and gives to every
+breath of it a sense of stimulation.
+
+The first three races--they were on the flat--had gone off admirably.
+They were well contested, well ridden, and the “right horse” the winner.
+All was contentment, therefore, on every side, to which the interval of
+a pleasant moment of conviviality gave hearty assistance, for now came
+the hour of luncheon; and from the “swells” in the great marquée, and
+the favored intimates in the dining-room, to the assembled unknown in
+the jaunting-cars, merry laughter issued, with clattering of plates
+and popping of corks, and those commingled sounds of banter and jollity
+which mark such gatherings.
+
+The great event of the day was, however, yet to come off. It was a
+hurdle race, to which two stiff fences were to be added, in the shape
+of double ditches, to test the hunting powers of the horses. The hurdles
+were to be four feet eight in height, so that the course was by no means
+a despicable one, even to good cross-country riders. To give increased
+interest to the race, Sewell himself was to ride, and no small share
+of eagerness existed amongst the neighboring gentry to see how the
+new-comer would distinguish himself in the saddle,--some opining he
+was too long of leg; some, that he was too heavy; some, that men of his
+age--he was over five-and-thirty--begin to lose nerve; and many going
+so far as to imply “that he did not look like riding,”--a judgment whose
+vagueness detracts nothing from its force.
+
+“There he goes now, and he sits well down too!” cried one, as a group
+of horsemen swept past, one of whom, mounted on a “sharp” pony, led
+the way, a white macintosh and loose overalls covering him from head to
+foot. They were off to see that the fences were all being properly put
+up, and in an instant were out of sight.
+
+“I'll back Tom Westenra against Sewell for a twenty-pound note,” cried
+one, standing up on the seat of his car to proclaim the challenge.
+
+“I'll go further,” shouted another,--“I 'll do it for fifty.”
+
+“I 'll beat you both,” cried out a third,--“I 'll take Tom even against
+the field.”
+
+The object of all this enthusiasm was a smart, cleanshaven little
+fellow, with a good blue eye, and a pleasant countenance, who smoked his
+cigar on the seat of a drag near, and nodded a friendly recognition to
+their confidence.
+
+“If Joe Slater was well of his fall, I 'd rather have him than any one
+in the county,” said an old farmer, true to a man of his own class and
+standing.
+
+“Here's one can beat them both!” shouted another; “here's Mr. Creagh of
+Liskmakerry!” and a thin, ruddy-faced, keen-eyed man of about fifty
+rode by on a low-sized horse, with that especial look of decision in his
+mouth, and a peculiar puckering about the corners that seem to belong to
+those who traffic in horse-flesh, and who, it would appear, however much
+they may know about horses, understand humanity more thoroughly still.
+
+“Are you going to ride, Creagh?” cried a friend from a high tax-cart.
+
+“Maybe so, if the fences are not too big for me;” and a very malicious
+drollery twinkled in his gray eye.
+
+“Faix, and if they are,” said a farmer, “the rest may stay at home.”
+
+“I hope you 'll ride, Creagh,” said the first speaker, “and not let
+these English fellows take the shine out of us. Yourself and Tom are the
+only county names on the card.”
+
+“Show it to me,” said Creagh, listlessly; and he took the printed list
+in his hand and conned it over, as though it had all been new to him.
+“They 're all soldiers, I see,” said he. “It's Major This, and Captain
+That--Who is the lady?” This question was rapidly called forth by a
+horsewoman who rode past at an easy canter in the midst of a group of
+men. She was dressed in a light-gray habit and hat of the same color,
+from which a long white feather encircling the hat hung on one side.
+
+“That's Mrs. Sewell,--what do you think of her riding?”
+
+“If her husband has as neat a hand, I 'd rather he was out of the
+course. She knows well what she 's about.”
+
+“They say there's not her equal in the park in London.”
+
+“That's not park riding; that's something very different, take my word
+for it. She could lead half the men here across the country.”
+
+Nor was she unworthy of the praise, as, with her hand low, her head a
+little forward, but her back well curved in, she sat firmly down in her
+saddle; giving to the action of the horse that amount of movement that
+assisted the animal, but never more. The horse was mettlesome enough to
+require all her attention. It was his first day under a sidesaddle, and
+he chafed at it, and when the heavy skirt smote his flank, bounded with
+a lunge and a stroke of his head that showed anger.
+
+“That's a four-hundred guinea beast she 's on. He belongs to the tall
+young fellow that's riding on her left.”
+
+“I like his own horse better,--the liver-chestnut with the short legs. I
+wish I had a loan of him for the hurdle-race.”
+
+“Ask him, Phil; or get the mistress there to ask him,” said another,
+laughing. “I 'm mighty mistaken or he wouldn't refuse her.”
+
+“Oh, is that it?” said Creagh, with a knowing look.
+
+“So they tell me here, for I don't know one of them myself; but the
+story goes that she was to have married that young fellow when Sewell
+earned her off.”
+
+“I must go and get a better look at her,” said Creagh, as he spurred his
+horse and cantered away.
+
+“Is any one betting?” said little Westenra, as he descended from his
+seat on the drag. “I have not seen a man to-day with five pounds on the
+race.”
+
+“Here's Sewell,” muttered another; “he's coming up now, and will give or
+take as much as you like.”
+
+“Did you see Mrs. Sewell, any of you?” asked Sewell, cavalierly, as he
+rode up with an open telegram in his hand; and as the persons addressed
+were for the most part his equals, none responded to the insolent
+demand.
+
+“Could you tell me, sir,” said Sewell, quickly altering his tone, while
+he touched his hat to Westenra, “if Mrs. Sewell passed this way?”
+
+“I haven't the honor to know Mrs. Sewell, but I saw a lady ride past,
+about ten minutes ago, on a black thoroughbred.”
+
+“Faix, and well she rode him too,” broke in an old farmer.
+
+“She took the posy out of that young gentleman's button-hole, while her
+beast was jumping, and stuck it in her breast, as easy as I 'm sitting
+here.”
+
+Sewel's face grew purple as he darted a look of savage anger at the
+speaker, and, turning his horse's head, he dashed out at speed and
+disappeared.
+
+“Peter Delaney,” said Westenra, “I thought you had more discretion than
+to tell such a story as that.”
+
+“Begorra, Mister Tom! I didn't know the mischief I was making till I saw
+the look he gave me!”
+
+It was not till after a considerable search that Sewell came up with
+his wife's party, who were sauntering leisurely along the river-side,
+through a gorse-covered slope.
+
+“I 've had a devil of a hunt after you!” he cried, as he rode up, and
+the ringing tone of his voice was enough to intimate to her in what
+temper he spoke. “I 've something to say to you,” said he, as though
+meant for her private ear; and the others drew back, and suffered them
+to ride on together. “There 's a telegram just come from that old beast
+the Chief Baron; he desires to see me to-night. The last train leaves
+at five, and I shall only hit it by going at once. Can't you keep your
+horse quiet, Madam, or must you show off while I 'm speaking to you?”
+
+“It was the furze that stung him,” said she, coldly, and not showing the
+slightest resentment at his tone.
+
+“If the old bear means anything short of dying, and leaving me his heir,
+this message is a shameful swindle.”
+
+“Do you mean to go?” asked she, coldly.
+
+“I suppose so; that is,” added he, with a bitter grin, “if I can tear
+myself away from _you_;” but she only smiled.
+
+“I 'll have to pay a forfeit in this match,” continued he, “and my book
+will be all smashed, besides. I say,” cried he, “would Trafford ride for
+me?”
+
+“Perhaps he would.”
+
+“None of your mock indifference, Madam. I can't afford to lose a
+thousand pounds every time you have a whim. Ay, look astonished if you
+like! but if you had n't gone into the billiard-room on Saturday evening
+and spoiled my match, I 'd have escaped that infernal whist-table.
+Listen to me now! Tell him that I have been sent for suddenly,--it might
+be too great a risk for me to refuse to go,--and ask him to ride
+Crescy; if he says Yes,--and he will say yes if you ask him as you
+_ought_,”--her cheek grew crimson as he uttered the last word with a
+strong emphasis,--“tell him to take up my book. Mind you use the words
+'take up;' _he'll_ understand you.”
+
+“But why not say all this yourself?--he 's riding close behind at this
+minute.”
+
+“Because I have a wife, Madam, who can do it so much better; because I
+have a wife who plucks a carnation out of a man's coat, and wears it in
+her bosom, and this on an open race-course, where people can talk of it!
+and a woman with such rare tact ought to be of service to her husband,
+eh?” She swayed to and fro in her saddle for an instant as though about
+to fall, but she grasped the horn with both hands and saved herself.
+
+“Is that all?” muttered she, faintly.
+
+“Not quite. Tell Trafford to come round to my dressing-room, and I 'll
+give him a hint or two about the horse. He must come at once, for I have
+only time to change my clothes and start. You can make some excuse
+to the people for my absence; say that the old Judge has had another
+attack, and I only wish it may be true. Tell them I got a telegram, and
+_that_ may mean anything. Trafford will help you to do the honors, and
+I 'll swear him in as viceroy before I go. Is n't that all that could
+be asked of me?” The insolence of his look as he said this made her turn
+away her head as though sickened and disgusted.
+
+“They want you at the weighing-stand, Colonel Sewell,” said a gentleman,
+riding up.
+
+“Oh, they do! Well, say, please, that I 'm coming. Has he given you that
+black horse?” asked he, in a hurried whisper.
+
+“No; he offered him, but I refused.”
+
+“You had no right to refuse; he's strong enough to carry _me_; and the
+ponies that I saw led round to the stable-yard, whose are they?”
+
+“They are Captain Trafford's.”
+
+“You told him you thought them handsome, I suppose, didn't you?”
+
+“Yes, I think them very beautiful.”
+
+“Well, don't take them as a present. Win them if you like at piquet or
+écarté,--any way you please, but don't take them as a gift, for I heard
+Westenra say they were meant for you.”
+
+She nodded; and as she bent her head, a smile, the very strangest,
+crossed her features. If it were not that the pervading expression of
+her face was at the instant melancholy, the look she gave him would have
+been almost devilish.
+
+“I have something else to say, but I can't remember it.”
+
+“You don't know when you'll be back?” asked she, carelessly.
+
+“Of course not,--how can I? I can only promise that I'll not arrive
+unexpectedly, Madam; and I take it that's as much as any gentleman can
+be called on to say. Bye-bye.”
+
+“Good-bye,” said she, in the same tone.
+
+“I see that Mr. Balfour is here. I can't tell who asked him; but mind
+you don't invite him to luncheon; take no notice of him whatever;
+he'll not bet a guinea; never plays; never risks anything,--even his
+_affections!_”
+
+“What a creature!”
+
+“Isn't he! There! I'll not detain you from pleasanter company; good-bye;
+see you here when I come back, I suppose?”
+
+“Most probably,” said she, with a smile; and away he rode, at a tearing
+gallop, for his watch warned him that he was driven to the last minute.
+
+“My husband has been sent for to town, Captain Traf-ford,” said she,
+turning her head towards him as he resumed his place at her side; “the
+Chief Baron desires to see him immediately, and he sets off at once.”
+
+“And his race? What 's to become of his match?”
+
+“He said I was to ask you to ride for him.”
+
+“Me--I ride! Why, I am two stone heavier than he is.”
+
+“I suppose he knew that,” said she, coldly, and as if the matter was
+one of complete indifference to her. “I am only delivering a message,”
+ continued she, in the same careless tone; “he said, 'Ask Captain
+Trafford to ride for me and take up my book; 'I was to be particular
+about the phrase 'take up;' I conclude you will know what meaning to
+attach to it.”
+
+“I suspect I do,” said he, with a low soft laugh.
+
+“And I was to add something about hints he was to give you, if you 'd
+go round to his dressing-room at once; indeed, I believe you have little
+time to spare.”
+
+“Yes, I'll go,--I 'll go now; only there 's one thing I 'd like to
+ask--that is--I'd be very glad to know--”
+
+“What is it?” said she, after a pause, in which his confusion seemed to
+increase with every minute.
+
+“I mean, I should like to know whether you wished me to ride this race
+or not?”
+
+“Whether _I_ wished it?” said she, in a tone of astonishment.
+
+“Well, whether you cared about the matter one way or other?” replied he,
+in still deeper embarrassment.
+
+“How could it concern me, my dear Captain Trafford?” said she, with an
+easy smile; “a race never interests me much, and I 'd just as soon see
+Blue and Orange come in as Yellow and Black; but you 'll be late if you
+intend to see my husband; I think you 'd better make haste.”
+
+“So I will, and I 'll be back immediately,” said he, not sorry to escape
+a scene where his confusion was now making him miserable.
+
+“You _are_ a very nice horse!” said she, patting the animal's neck, as
+he chafed to dash off after the other. “I 'd like very much to own you;
+that is, if I ever was to call anything my own.”
+
+“They 're clearing the course, Mrs. Sewell,” said one of her companions,
+riding up; “we had better turn off this way, and ride down to the
+stand.”
+
+“Here's a go!” cried another, coming up at speed. “Big Trafford is going
+to ride Crescy; he 's well-nigh fourteen stone.”
+
+“Not thirteen: I 'll lay a tenner on it.”
+
+“He can ride a bit,” said a third.
+
+“I 'd rather he 'd ride his own horse than mine.”
+
+“Sewell knows what he 's about, depend on 't.”
+
+“That's his wife,” whispered another; “I'm certain she heard you.”
+
+Mrs. Sewell turned her head as she cantered along, and, in the strange
+smile her features wore, seemed to confirm the speaker's words; but the
+hurry and bustle of the moment drowned all sense of embarrassment, and
+the group dashed onward to the stand.
+
+Leaving that heaving, panting, surging tide of humanity for an instant,
+let us turn to the house, where Sewell was already engaged in preparing
+for the road.
+
+“You are going to ride for me, Trafford?” said Sewell, as the other
+entered his dressing-room, where, with the aid of his servant, he was
+busily packing up for the road.
+
+“I 'm not sure; that is, I don't like to refuse, and I don't see how to
+accept.”
+
+“My wife has told you; I 'm sent for hurriedly.”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Well?” said he, looking round at him from his task.
+
+“Just as I have told you already; I 'd ride for you as well as a heavy
+fellow could take a light-weight's place, but I don't understand about
+your book--am I to stand your engagements?”
+
+“You mean, are you to win all the money I'm sure to pocket on the
+match?”
+
+“No, I don't mean that,” said he, laughing; “I never thought of trading
+on another man's brains; I simply meant, am I to be responsible for the
+losses?”
+
+“If you ride Crescy as you ought to ride him, you needn't fret about the
+losses?”
+
+“But suppose that I do not--and the case is a very possible one--that,
+not knowing your horse--”
+
+“Take this portmanteau down, Bob, and the carpet-bag; I shall only lose
+my train,” said Sewell, with a gesture of hot impatience; and as the
+servant left the room, he added: “Pray don't think any more about this
+stupid race; scratch Crescy, and tell my wife that it was a change of
+mind on “my” part,--that I did not wish you to ride; good-bye;” and he
+waved a hasty adieu with his hand, as though to dismiss him at once.
+
+“If you 'll let me ride for you, I 'll do my best,” blundered out
+Trafford; “when I spoke of your engagements, it was only to prepare you
+for what perhaps you were not aware of, that I 'm not very well off just
+now, and that if anything like a heavy sum--”
+
+“You are a most cautious fellow; I only wonder how you ever did get into
+a difficulty; but I 'm not the man to lead you astray, and wreck such
+splendid principles; adieu!”
+
+“I 'll ride, let it end how it may!” said Trafiford, angrily, and left
+the room at once, and hurried downstairs.
+
+Sewell gave a parting look at himself in the glass; and as he set his
+hat jauntily on one side, said, “There 's nothing like a little mock
+indignation to bully fellows of _his_ stamp; the keynote of their
+natures is the dread of being thought mean, and particularly of being
+thought mean by a woman.” He laughed pleasantly at this conceit, and
+went on his way.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. SEWELL ARRIVES IN DUBLIN
+
+It was late at night when Sewell reached town. An accidental delay to
+the train deferred the arrival for upwards of an hour after the usual
+time; and when he reached the Priory, the house was all closed for the
+night, and not a light to be seen.
+
+He knocked, however, and rang boldly; and after a brief delay, and
+considerable noise of unbolting and unbarring, was admitted. “We gave
+you up, sir, after twelve o'clock,” said the butler, half reproachfully,
+“and his Lordship ordered the servants to bed. Miss Lendrick, however,
+is in her drawing-room still.”
+
+“Is there anything to eat, my good friend? That is what I stand most in
+need of just now.”
+
+“There's a cold rib of beef, sir, and a grouse pie; but if you 'd like
+something hot, I 'll call the cook.”
+
+“No, no, never mind the cook; you can give me some sherry, I 'm sure?”
+
+“Any wine you please, sir. We have excellent Madeira, which ain't to be
+had everywhere nowadays.”
+
+“Madeira be it, then; and order a fire in my room. I take it you have a
+room for me?”
+
+“Yes, sir, all is ready; the bath was hot about an hour ago, and I 'll
+have it refreshed in a minute.”
+
+“Now for the grouse pie. By the way, Fenton, what is the matter with his
+Lordship? He was n't ill, was he, when he sent off that despatch to me?”
+
+“No, sir; he was in court to-day, and he dined at the Castle, and was in
+excellent spirits before he went out.”
+
+“Has anything gone wrong, then, that he wanted me up so hurriedly?”
+
+“Well, sir, it ain't so easy to say, his Lordship excites himself so
+readily; and mayhap he had words with some of the judges,--mayhap with
+his Excellency, for they 're always at him about resigning, little
+knowing that if they 'd only let him alone he 'd go of himself, but if
+they press him he 'll stay on these twenty years.”
+
+“I don't suspect he has got so many as twenty years before him.”
+
+“If he wants to live, sir, he 'll do it. Ah, you may laugh, sir, but I
+have known him all my life, and I never saw the man like him to do the
+thing he wishes to do.”
+
+“Cut me some of that beef, Fenton, and fetch me some draught beer. How
+these old tyrants make slaves of their servants,” said he, aloud, as the
+man left the room,--“a slavery that enthralls mind as well as body.”
+ A gentle tap came to the door, and before Sewell could question the
+summons, Miss Lendrick entered. She greeted him cordially, and said how
+anxiously her grandfather had waited for him till midnight. “I don't
+know when I saw him so eager or so impatient,” she said.
+
+“Have you any clew to his reason for sending for me?” said he, as he
+continued to eat, and assumed an air of perfect unconcern.
+
+“None whatever. He came into my room about two o'clock, and told me to
+write his message in a good bold hand; he seemed in his usual health,
+and his manner displayed nothing extraordinary. He questioned me about
+the time it would take to transmit the message from the town to your
+house, and seemed satisfied when I said about half an hour.”
+
+“It's just as likely, perhaps, to be some caprice,--some passing fancy.”
+
+She shook her head dissentingly, but made no reply.
+
+“I believe the theory of this house is, 'he can do no wrong,'” said
+Sewell, with a laugh.
+
+“He is so much more able in mind than all around him, such a theory
+might prevail; but I 'll not go so far as to say that it does.”
+
+“It's not his mind gives him his pre-eminence, Miss Lucy,--it's his
+temper; it's that same strong will that overcomes weaker natures by dint
+of sheer force. The people who assert their own way in life are not the
+most intellectual, they are only the best bullies.”
+
+“You know very little of grandpapa, Colonel Sewell, that's clear.”
+
+“Are you so sure of that?” asked he, with a dubious-smile.
+
+“I _am_ sure of it, or in speaking of him you would never have used such
+a word as bully.”
+
+“You mistake me,--mistake me altogether, young lady. I spoke of a class
+of people who employ certain defects of temper to supply the place of
+certain gifts of intellect; and if your grandfather, who has no occasion
+for it, chooses to take a weapon out of their armory, the worse taste
+his.”
+
+Lucy turned fiercely round, her face flushed, and her lip trembling.
+An angry reply darted through her mind, but she repressed it by a great
+effort, and in a faint voice she said, “I hope you left Mrs. Sewell
+well?”
+
+“Yes, perfectly well, amusing herself vastly. When I saw her last, she
+had about half a dozen young fellows cantering on either side of her,
+saying, doubtless, all those pleasant things that you ladies like to
+hear.”
+
+Lucy shrugged her shoulders, without answering.
+
+“Telling you,” continued he, in the same strain, “that if you are
+unmarried you are angels, and that if married you are angels and martyrs
+too; and it is really a subject that requires investigation, how
+the best of wives is not averse to hearing her husband does not half
+estimate her. Don't toss your head so impatiently, my dear Miss Lucy; I
+am giving you the wise precepts of a very thoughtful life.”
+
+“I had hoped, Colonel Sewell, that a very thoughtful life might have
+brought forth pleasanter reflections.” “No, that is precisely what it
+does not do. To live as long as I have, is to arrive at a point when all
+the shams have been seen through, and the world exhibits itself pretty
+much as a stage during a day rehearsal.”
+
+“Well, sir, I am too young to profit by such experiences, and I will
+wish you a very good-night,--that is, if I can give no orders for
+anything you wish.”
+
+“I have had everything. I will finish this Madeira--to your health--and
+hope to meet you in the morning, as beautiful and as trustful as I see
+you now,--_felice notte_.” He bowed as he opened the door for her to
+pass out, and she went, with a slight bend of the head and a faint
+smile, and left him.
+
+“How I could make you beat your wings against your cage, for all your
+bravery, if I had only three days here, and cared to do it,” said he, as
+he poured the rest of the wine into his glass. “How weary I could make
+you of this old house and its old owner. Within one month--one short
+month--I 'd have you repeating as wise saws every sneer and every
+sarcasm that you just now took fire at. And if I am to pass three days
+in this dreary old dungeon, I don't see how I could do better. What can
+he possibly want with me?” All the imaginable contingencies he could
+conjure up now passed before his mind. That the old man was sick
+of solitude, and wanted him to come and live with them; that he was
+desirous of adopting one of the children, and which of them? then,
+that he had held some correspondence with Fossbrooke, and wanted some
+explanations,--a bitter pang, that racked and tortured him while he
+revolved it; and, last of all, he came back to his first guess,--it was
+about his will he had sent for him. He had been struck by the beauty
+of the children, and asked their names and ages twice or thrice over;
+doubtless he was bent on making some provision for them. “I wish I could
+tell him that I'd rather have ten thousand down, than thrice the sum
+settled on Reginald and the girls. I wish I could explain to him that
+mine is a ready-money business, and that cash is the secret of success;
+and I wish I could show him that no profits will stand the reverses of
+loans raised at two hundred per cent! I wonder how the match went off
+to-day; I'd like to have the odds that there were three men down at
+the double rail and bank.” Who got first over the brook, was his next
+speculation, and where was Trafford? “If he punished Crescy, I think I
+could tell _that_,” muttered he, with a grin of malice. “I only wish I
+was there to see it;” and in the delight this thought afforded he tossed
+off his last glass of wine, and rang for his bedroom candle.
+
+“At what time shall I call you, sir?” asked the butler.
+
+“When are you stirring here,--I mean, at what hour does Sir William
+breakfast?”
+
+“He breakfasts at eight, sir, during term; but he does not expect to see
+any one but Miss Lucy so early.”
+
+“I should think not. Call me at eleven, then, and bring me some coffee
+and a glass of rum when you come. Do you mean to tell me,” said he, in a
+somewhat stern tone, “that the Chief Baron gets up at seven o'clock?”
+
+“In term-time, sir, he does every day.”
+
+“Egad! I 'm well pleased that I have not a seat on the Bench. I 'd not
+be Lord Chancellor at that price.”
+
+“It 's very hard on the servants, sir,--very hard indeed.”
+
+“I suppose it is,” said Sewell, with a treacherous twinkle of the eye.
+
+“If it was n't that I'm expecting the usher's place in the Court, I 'd
+have resigned long ago.”
+
+“His Lordship's pleasant temper, however, makes up for everything,
+Fenton, eh?”
+
+“Yes, sir, that's true;” and they both laughed heartily at the pleasant
+conceit; and in this merry humor they went their several ways to bed.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. MORNING AT THE PRIORY
+
+Sewell was awoke from a sound and heavy sleep by the Chief Baron's valet
+asking if it was his pleasure to see his Lordship before he went down to
+Court, in which case there was not much time to be lost.
+
+“How soon does he go?” asked Sewell, curtly.
+
+“He likes to be on the Bench by eleven exactly, sir, and he has always
+some business in Chamber first.”
+
+“All that tells me nothing, my good friend. How much time have I now to
+catch him in before he starts?”
+
+“Half an hour, sir. Forty minutes, at most.”
+
+“Well, I 'll try and do it. Say I 'm in my bath, and that I 'll be with
+him immediately.”
+
+The man was not well out of the room when Sewell burst out into a
+torrent of abuse of the old Judge and his ways: “His inordinate vanity,
+his consummate conceit, to imagine that any activity of an old worn-out
+intellect like his could be of service to the public! If he knew but
+all, he is just as useful in his nightcap as in his wig, and it would
+be fully as dignified to sleep in his bed as in the Court of Exchequer.”
+ While he poured forth this invective, he dressed himself with all
+possible haste; indeed his ill-temper stimulated his alacrity, and he
+very soon issued from his room, trying to compose his features into a
+semblance of pleasure on meeting with his host.
+
+“I hope and trust I have not disturbed you unreasonably,” said the
+Judge, rising from the breakfast-table, as Sewell entered. “I know you
+arrived very late, and I 'd have given you a longer sleep if it were in
+my power.”
+
+“An old soldier, my Lord, knows how to manage with very little. I am
+only sorry if I have kept you waiting.”
+
+“No man ever presumed to keep me waiting, sir. It is a slight I have yet
+to experience.”
+
+“I mean, my Lord, it would have grieved me much had I occasioned you an
+inconvenience.”
+
+“If you had, sir, it might have reacted injuriously upon yourself.”
+
+Sewell bowed submissively, for what he knew not; but he surmised that
+as there was an opening for regret, there might also be a reason for
+gratitude; he waited to see if he were right.
+
+“My telegram only told you that I wanted you; it could not say for
+what,” continued the Judge; and his voice still retained the metallic
+ring the late irritation had lent it.
+
+“There has been a contested question between the Crown and myself as to
+the patronage to an office in my Court. I have carried my point. They
+have yielded. They would have me believe that they have submitted out
+of deference to myself personally, my age, and long services. I know
+better, sir. They have taken the opinion of the Solicitor-General in
+England, who, with no flattering opinion of what is called 'Irish law,'
+has pronounced against them. The gift of the office rests with me, and
+it is my intention to confer it upon _you_.”
+
+“Oh, my Lord, I have no words to express my gratitude!”
+
+“Very well, sir, it shall be assumed to have been expressed. The salary
+is one thousand a year. The duties are almost nominal.”
+
+“I was going to ask, my Lord, whether my education and habits are such
+as would enable me to discharge these duties?”
+
+“I respect your conscientious scruple, sir. It is creditable and
+commendable. Your mind may, however, be at ease. Your immediate
+predecessor passed the last thirteen years at Tours, in France, and
+there was never a complaint of official irregularity till, three
+years ago, when he came over to afford his substitute a brief leave of
+absence, he forgot to sign his name to certain documents,--a mistake the
+less pardonable that his signature formed his whole and sole official
+drudgery.”
+
+It was on Sewell's lips to say, “that if _he_ had not signed his name a
+little too frequently in life, his difficulties would not have been such
+as they now were.”
+
+“I am afraid I did not catch what you said, sir,” said the Judge.
+
+“I did not speak, my Lord,” replied he, bowing.
+
+“You will see, therefore, sir, that the details of your official life
+need not deter you, although I have little doubt the Ministerial
+press will comment sharply upon your absence, if you give them the
+opportunity, and will reflect severely upon your unfitness, if they can
+detect a flaw in you. Is there anything, therefore, in your former life
+to which these writers can refer--I will not say disparagingly--but
+unpleasantly?”
+
+“I am not aware, my Lord, of anything.”
+
+“Of course, sir, I could not mean what might impugn your honor or
+affect your fame. I spoke simply of what soldiers are, perhaps,
+more exposed to than civilians,--the lighter scandals of society. You
+apprehend me?”
+
+“I do, my Lord; and, I repeat that I have a very easy conscience on
+this score: for though I have filled some rather responsible stations at
+times, and been intrusted with high functions, all my tastes and habits
+have been so domestic and quiet--I have been so much more a man of home
+than a man of pleasure--that I have escaped even the common passing
+criticisms bestowed on people who are before the world.”
+
+“Is this man--this Sir Brook Fossbrooke--one likely to occasion you any
+trouble?”
+
+“In the first place, my Lord, he is out of the country, not very likely
+to return to it; and secondly, it is not in his power--not in any man 's
+power--to make me a subject for attack.”
+
+“You are fortunate, sir; more fortunate than men who have served their
+country longer. It will scarcely be denied that I have contributed to
+the public service, and yet, sir, _I_ have been arraigned before the
+bar of that insensate jury they call Public Opinion, and it is only in
+denying the jurisdiction I have deferred the award.”
+
+Sewell responded to the vainglorious outburst by a look of admiring
+wonder, and the Judge smiled a gracious acceptance of the tribute. “I
+gather, therefore, sir, that you can accept this place without fear of
+what scandal or malignity may assail you by--”
+
+“Yes, my Lord, I can say as much with confidence.”
+
+“It is necessary, sir, that I should be satisfied on this-head. The very
+essence of the struggle between the Crown and myself is in the fact
+that _my_ responsibility is pledged, _my_ reputation is in bond for the
+integrity and the efficiency of this officer, and I will not leave to
+some future biographer of the Irish Chief Barons of the Exchequer the
+task of apology for one who was certainly not the least eminent of the
+line.”
+
+“Your Lordship's high character shall not suffer through me,” said
+Sewell, bowing respectfully.
+
+“The matter, then, is so far settled; perhaps, however, you would like
+to consult your wife? She might be averse to your leaving the army.”
+
+“No, my Lord. She wishes--she has long wished it. We are both domestic
+in our tastes, and we have always-been looking to the time when we could
+live more for each other, and devote ourselves to the education of our
+children.”'
+
+“Commendable and praiseworthy,” said the Judge, with a half grunt,
+as though he had heard something of this-same domesticity and
+home-happiness, but that his own experiences scarcely corroborated the
+report. “There are-certain steps you will have to take before leaving
+the service; it may, then, be better to defer your public nomination to
+this post till they be taken?”
+
+This, which was said in question, Sewell answered at once, saying,
+“There need be no delay on this score, my Lord; by this day week I shall
+be free.”
+
+“On this day week, then, you shall be duly sworn in. Now, there is
+another point--I throw it out simply as a suggestion--you will not
+receive it as more if you are indisposed to it. It may be some time
+before you can find a suitable house or be fully satisfied where to
+settle down. There is ample room here; one entire wing is unoccupied.
+May I beg to place it at your disposal?”
+
+“Oh, my Lord, this is really too much kindness. You overwhelm me with
+obligations. I have never heard of such generosity.”
+
+“Sir, it is not all generosity,--I reckon much on the value of your
+society. Your companionable qualities are gifts I would secure by a
+'retainer.'”
+
+“In your society, my Lord, the benefits would be all on my side.”
+
+“There was a time, sir,--I may say it without boastful-ness,--men
+thought me an agreeable companion. The three Chiefs, as we were called
+from our separate Courts, were reputed to be able talkers. I am the sole
+survivor; and it would be a gain to those who care to look back on the
+really great days of Ireland, if some record should remain of a time
+when there were giants in the land. I have myself some very curious
+materials--masses of letters and such-like--which we may turn over some
+winter's evening together.”
+
+Sewell professed his delight at such a prospect; and the Judge
+then, suddenly bethinking himself of the hour,--it was already nigh
+eleven,--arose. “Can I set you down anywhere? Are you for town?” asked
+he.
+
+“Yes, my Lord; I was about to pay my mother a visit.”
+
+“I 'll drop you there; perhaps you would convey a message from me,
+and say how grateful I should feel if she would give us her company at
+dinner,--say seven o'clock. I will just step up to say good-bye to my
+granddaughter, and be with you immediately.”
+
+Sewell had not time to bethink him of all the strange events which a few
+minutes had grouped around him, when the Chief Baron appeared, and they
+set out.
+
+As they drove along, their converse was most agreeable. Sewell's
+attentive manner was an admirable stimulant, and the old Judge was
+actually sorry to lose his companion, as the carriage stopped at Lady
+Lendrick's door.
+
+“What on earth brought you up, Dudley?” said she, as he entered the room
+where she sat at breakfast.
+
+“Let me have something to eat, and I 'll tell you,” said he, seating
+himself at table, and drawing towards him a dish of cutlets. “You may
+imagine what an appetite I have when I tell you whose guest I am.”
+
+“Whose?”
+
+“Your husband's.”
+
+“You! at the Priory! and how came that to pass?”
+
+“I told you already I must eat before I talk. When I got downstairs this
+morning, I found the old man just finishing his breakfast, and instead
+of asking me to join him, he entertained me with the siege of Derry, and
+some choice anecdotes of Lord Bristol and 'the Volunteers.' This coffee
+is cold.”
+
+“Ring, and they 'll bring you some.”
+
+“If I am to take him as a type of Irish hospitality as well as Irish
+agreeability, I must say I get rid of two delusions together.”
+
+“There 's the coffee. Will you have eggs?”
+
+“Yes, and a rasher along with them. You can afford to be liberal with
+the larder, mother, for I bring you an invitation to dine.”
+
+“At the Priory?”
+
+“Yes; he said seven o'clock.”
+
+“Who dines there?”
+
+“Himself and his granddaughter and I make the company, I believe.”
+
+“Then I shall not go. I never do go when there 's not a party.”
+
+“He's safer, I suppose, before people?”
+
+“Just so. I could not trust to his temper under the temptation of a
+family circle. But what Drought you to town?”
+
+“He sent for me by telegraph; just, too, when I had the whole county
+with me, and was booked to ride a match I had made with immense trouble.
+I got his message,--'Come up immediately.' There was not the slightest
+reason for haste, nor for the telegraph at all. The whole could have
+been done by letter, and replied to at leisure, besides--”
+
+“What was it, then?”
+
+“It is a place he has given me,--a Registrarship of something in his
+Court, that he has been fighting the Castle people about for eighteen
+years, and to which Heaven knows if he has the right of appointment this
+minute.”
+
+“What'sit worth?”
+
+“A thousand a year net. There were pickings,--at least, the last man
+made a good thing of them,--but there are to be no more. We are
+to inaugurate, as the newspapers say, a reign of integrity and
+incorruptibility.”
+
+“So much the better.”
+
+“So much the worse,” say I. “My motto is, Full batta and plenty of loot;
+and it's every man's motto, only that every man is not honest enough to
+own it.”
+
+“And when are you to enter upon the duties of your office?”
+
+“Immediately. I 'm to be sworn in--there's an oath, it seems--this day
+week, and we 're to take up our abode at the Priory till we find a house
+to suit us.”
+
+“At the Priory?”
+
+“Yes. May I light a cigarette, mother: only one? He gave the invitation
+most royally. A whole wing is to be at our disposal. He said nothing
+about the cook or the wine-cellar, and these are the very ingredients I
+want to secure.”
+
+She shook her head dubiously, but made no answer.
+
+“You don't think, then, that he meant to have us as his guests?”
+
+“I think it unlikely.”
+
+“How shall I find out? It's quite certain I 'll not go live under his
+roof--which means his surveillance--without an adequate compensation. I
+'ll only consent to being bored by being fed.”
+
+“House-rent is something, however.”
+
+“Yes, mother, but not everything. That old man would be inquiring who
+dined with me, how late he stayed, who came to supper, and what they did
+afterwards. Now, if he take the whole charge of us, I 'll put up with a
+great deal, because I could manage a little '_pied à terre_' somewhere
+about Kingstown or Dalkey, and 'carry on' pleasantly enough. You
+must find out his intentions, mother, before I commit myself to an
+acceptance. You must, indeed.”
+
+“Take my advice, Dudley, and look out for a house at once. You 'll not
+be in _his_ three weeks.”
+
+“I can submit to a great deal when it suits me, mother,” said he, with a
+derisive smile, and a look of intense treachery at the same time.
+
+“I suppose you can,” said she, nodding in assent. “How is she?”
+
+“As usual,” said he, with a shrug of the shoulders.
+
+“And the children?”
+
+“They are quite well. By the way, before I forget it, don't let the
+Judge know that I have already sent in my papers to sell out. I want him
+to believe that I do so now in consequence of his offer.”
+
+“It is not likely we shall soon meet, and I may not have an opportunity
+of mentioning the matter.”
+
+“You 'll come to dinner to-day, won't you?”
+
+“No.”
+
+“You ought, even out of gratitude on _my_ account. It would be only
+commonly decent to thank him.”
+
+“I could n't.”
+
+“Couldn't what? Couldn't come, or couldn't thank him?”
+
+“Could n't do either. You don't know, Dudley, that whenever our
+intercourse rises above the common passing courtesies of mere
+acquaintanceship, it is certain to end in a quarrel. We must never
+condemn or approve. We must never venture upon an opinion, lest it lead
+to a discussion, for discussion means a fight.”
+
+“Pleasant, certainly,--pleasant and amiable too!”
+
+“It would be better, perhaps, that I had some of that happy disposition
+of my son,” said she, with a cutting tone, “and could submit to whatever
+suited me.”
+
+He started as if he had seen something, and turning on her a look of
+passionate anger, began: “Is it from _you_ that this should come?” Then
+suddenly recollecting himself, he subdued his tone, and said: “We 'll
+not do better by losing our tempers. Can you put me in the way to raise
+a little money? I shall have the payment for my commission in about a
+fortnight; but I want a couple of hundred pounds at once.”
+
+“It's not two months since you raised five hundred.”
+
+“I know it, and there 's the last of it. I left Lucy ten sovereigns
+when I came away, and this twenty pounds is all that I now have in the
+world.”
+
+“And all these fine dinners and grand entertainments that I have been
+told of,--what was the meaning of them?”
+
+“They were what the railway people call 'preliminary expenses,' mother.
+Before one can get fellows to come to a house where there is play, there
+must be a sort of easy style of good living established that all men
+like: excellent dinners and good wine are the tame elephants, and
+without them you 'll not get the wild ones into your 'compounds.'”
+
+“And to tell me that this could pay!”
+
+“Ay, and pay splendidly. If I had three thousand pounds in the world to
+carry on with, I 'd see the old Judge and his rotten place at Jericho
+before I 'd accept it. One needs a little capital, that's all. It's
+just like blockade-running,--you must be able to lose three for one you
+succeed with.”
+
+“I see nothing but ruin--disreputable ruin--in such a course.”
+
+“Come down and look at it, mother, and you 'll change your mind. You
+'ll own you never saw a better ordered society in your life,--the _beau
+idéal_ of a nice country-house on a small scale. I admit our _chef_ is
+not a Frenchman, and I have only one fellow out of livery; but the thing
+is well done, I promise you. As for any serious play, you 'll never
+hear of it--never suspect it--no more than a man turning over Leech's
+sketches in a dentist's drawing-room suspects there's a fellow getting
+his eye-tooth extracted in the next room.”
+
+“I disapprove of it all, Dudley. It is sure to end ill.”
+
+“For that matter, mother, so shall I! All I have asked from Fate this
+many a year is a deferred sentence; a long day, my Lord,--a long day!”
+
+“Tell Sir William I am sorry I can't dine at the Priory to-day. It is
+one of my cruel headache-days. Say you found me looking very poorly.
+It puts him in good-humor to hear it; and if you can get away in the
+evening, come in to tea.”
+
+“You will think of this loan I want,--won't you?”
+
+“I 'll think of it, but I don't know what good thinking will do.” She
+paused, and after a few minutes' silence, said, “If you really are
+serious about taking up your abode at the Priory, you 'll have to get
+rid of the granddaughter.”
+
+“We could marry her off easily enough.”
+
+“You might, and you mightn't. If she marry to Sir William's
+satisfaction, he'll leave her all he has in the world.”
+
+“Egad, he must have a rare taste in a son-in-law if he likes the fellow
+I 'll promote to the place.”
+
+“You seem to forget, Dudley, that the young lady has a will of her own.
+She's a Lendrick too.”
+
+“With all my heart, mother. She 'll not be a match for Lucy.”
+
+“And would _she_--”
+
+“Ay, would she,” interrupted he, “if her pride as a woman--if her
+jealousy was touched. I have made her do more than that when I wounded
+her self-love!”
+
+“You are a very amiable husband, I must say.”
+
+“We might be better, perhaps, mother; but I suspect we are pretty much
+like our neighbors. And it's positive you won't come to dinner?”
+
+“No! certainly not.”
+
+“Well, I 'll try and look in at tea-time. You 'll not forget what I
+spoke of. I shall be in funds in less than three weeks.”
+
+She gave a little incredulous laugh as she said “Goodbye!” She had heard
+of such pledges before, and knew well what faith to attach to them.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. EVENING AT THE PRIORY
+
+The Chief Baron brought his friend Haire back from Court to dine with
+him. The table had been laid for five, and it was only when Sewell
+entered the drawing-room that it was known Lady Lendrick had declined
+the invitation. Sir William heard the apology to the end; he even waited
+when Sewell concluded, to see if he desired to add anything more, but
+nothing came.
+
+“In that case,” said he, at length, “we 'll order dinner.” That his
+irritation was extreme needed no close observation to detect, and the
+bell-rope came down with the pull by which he summoned the servant.
+
+The dinner proceeded drearily enough. None liked to adventure on a
+remark which might lead to something unpleasant in discussion, and
+little was spoken on any side. Sewell praised the mutton, and the
+Chief Baron bowed stiffly. When Haire remarked that the pale sherry was
+excellent, he dryly told the butler to “fill Mr. Haire's glass;” and
+though Lucy, with more caution, was silent, she did not escape, for he
+turned towards her and said, “We have not been favored with a word
+from your lips, Miss Lendrick; I hope these neuralgic headaches are not
+becoming a family affection.”
+
+“I am perfectly well, sir,” said she, with a smile.
+
+“It is Haire's fault, then,” said the Judge, with one of his malicious
+twinkles of the eye,--“all Haire's fault if we are dull. It is ever so
+with wits, Colonel Sewell; they will not perform to empty benches.”
+
+“I don't know whom you call a wit,” began Haire.
+
+“My dear friend, the men of pleasantry and happy conceits must no more
+deny the reputation that attaches to them than must a rich merchant
+dishonor his bill; nor need a man resent more being called a Wit, than
+being styled a Poet, a Painter, a Chief Baron, or”--here he waved his
+hand towards Sewell, and bowing slightly, added--“a Chief Registrar to
+the Court of Exchequer.”
+
+“Oh, have you got the appointment?” said Haire to the Colonel. “I am
+heartily glad of it. I 'm delighted to know it has been given to one of
+the family.”
+
+“As I said awhile ago,” said the Judge, with a smile of deeper malice,
+“these witty fellows spare nobody! At the very moment he praises the
+sherry he disparages the host. Why should not this place be filled by
+one of my family, Haire? I call upon you to show cause.”
+
+“There's no reason against it. I never said there was. Nay, I was far
+from satisfied with you on the day you refused my prayer on behalf of
+one belonging to you.”
+
+“Sir, you are travelling out of the record,” said the Judge, angrily.
+
+“I can only say,” added Haire, “that I wish Colonel Sewell joy with all
+my heart; and if he 'll allow me, I 'll do it in a bumper.”
+
+“'A reason fair to drink his health again!' That 's not the line. How
+does it go, Lucy? Don't you remember the verse?”
+
+“No, sir; I never heard it.”
+
+“'A reason fair,--a reason fair.' I declare I believe the newspapers are
+right. I am losing my memory. One of the scurrilous rascals t'other day
+said they saw no reason Justice should be deaf as well as blind. Haire,
+was that yours?”
+
+“A thousand a year,” muttered Haire to Sewell.
+
+“What is that, Haire?” cried the old Judge. “Do I hear you aright? You
+utter one thousand things just as good every year?”
+
+“I was speaking of the Registrar's salary,” said Haire, half testily.
+
+“A thousand a year is a pittance,--a mere pittance, sir, in a country
+like England. It is like the place at a window to see a procession. You
+may gaze on the passing tide of humanity, but must not dare to mix in
+it.”
+
+“And yet papa went half across the globe for it,” said Lucy, with a
+flushed and burning cheek.
+
+“In your father's profession the rewards are less money, Lucy, than the
+esteem and regard of society. I have ever thought it wise of our rulers
+not to bestow titles on physicians, but to leave them the unobtrusive
+and undistinguished comforters of every class and condition. The equal
+of any,--the companion of all.”
+
+It was evident that the old Judge was eager for discussion on anything.
+He had tried in vain to provoke each of his guests, and he was almost
+irritable at the deference accorded him.
+
+“Do I see you pass the decanter, Colonel Sewell? Are you not drinking
+any wine?”
+
+“No, my Lord.”
+
+“Perhaps you like coffee? Don't you think, Lucy, you could give him
+some?”
+
+“Yes, sir. I shall be delighted.”
+
+“Very well. Haire and I will finish this magnum, and then join you in
+the drawing-room.”
+
+Lucy took Sewells arm and retired. They were scarcely well out of the
+room when Sewell halted suddenly, and in a voice so artificial that, if
+Lucy had been given to suspectfulness, she would have detected at
+once, said, “Is the Judge always as pleasant and as witty as we saw him
+today?”
+
+“To-day he was very far from himself; something, I 'm sure, must have
+irritated him, for he was not in his usual mood.”
+
+“I confess I thought him charming; so full of neat reply, pleasant
+apropos, and happy quotation.”
+
+“He very often has days of all that you have just said, and I am
+delighted with them.”
+
+“What an immense gain to a young girl--of course, I mean one whose
+education and tastes have fitted her for it--to be the companion of such
+a mind as his! Who is this Mr. Haire?”
+
+“A very old friend. I believe he was a schoolfellow of grandpapa's.”
+
+“Not his equal, I suspect, in ability or knowledge.”
+
+“Oh, nothing like it; a most worthy man, respected by every one, and
+devotedly attached to grandpapa, but not clever.”
+
+“The Chief, I remarked, called him witty,” said Sewell with a faint
+twinkle in his eye.
+
+“It was done in jest. He is fond of fathering on him the smart sayings
+of the day, and watching his attempts to disown them.”
+
+“And Haire likes that?”
+
+“I believe he likes grandpapa in every mood he has.”
+
+“What an invaluable friend! I wish to Heaven he could find such another
+for me. I want--there 's nothing I want more than some one who would
+always approve of me.”
+
+“Perhaps you might push this fidelity further than grandpapa does,” said
+she, with a smile.
+
+“You mean that it might not always be so easy to applaud _me_.”
+
+She only laughed, and made no effort to disclaim the assertion.
+
+“Well,” said he, with a sigh, “who knows but if I live to be old and
+rich I may be fortunate enough to have such an accommodating friend?
+Who are the other 'intimates' here? I ask because we are going to be
+domesticated also.”
+
+“I heard so this morning.”
+
+“I hope with pleasure, though you have n't said as much.”
+
+“With pleasure, certainly; but with more misgiving than pleasure.”
+
+“Pray explain this.”
+
+“Simply that the very quiet life we lead here would not be endurable by
+people who like the world, and whom the world likes. We never see any
+one, we never go out, we-have not even those second-hand glances at
+society that people have who admit gossiping acquaintances; in fact,
+regard what you have witnessed to-day as a dinner-party, and then
+fashion for yourself our ordinary life.”
+
+“And do _you_ like it?”
+
+“I know nothing else, and I am tolerably happy. If papa and Tom were
+here, I should be perfectly happy.”
+
+“By Jove! you startle me,” said he, throwing away the unlighted cigar
+he had held for some minutes in his fingers; “I did n't know it was so
+bad.”
+
+“It is possible he may relax for you and Mrs. Sewell; indeed, I think it
+more than likely that he will.”
+
+“Ay, but the relaxation might only be in favor of a few more like that
+old gent we had to-day. No, no; the thing will never work. I see it at
+once. My mother said we could not possibly stand it three weeks, and I
+perceive it is your opinion too.”
+
+“I did not say so much,” said she, smiling.
+
+“Joking apart,” said he, in a tone that assuredly bespoke sincerity, “I
+could n't stand such a dinner as we had to-day very often. I can bear
+being bullied, for I was brought up to it. I served on Rolffe's staff in
+Bombay for four years, and when a man has been an aide-de-camp he knows
+what being bullied means; but what I could not endure is that outpouring
+of conceit mingled with rotten recollections. Another evening of it
+would kill me.”
+
+“I certainly would not advise your coming here at that price,” said she,
+with a gravity almost comical.
+
+“The difficulty is how to get off. He appears to me to resent as an
+affront everything that differs from his own views.”
+
+“He is not accustomed to much contradiction.”
+
+“Not to any at all!”
+
+The energy with which he said this made her laugh heartily, and he half
+smiled at the situation himself.
+
+“They are coming upstairs,” said she; “will you ring for tea?--the bell
+is beside you.”
+
+“Oh, if they 're coming I 'm off. I promised my mother a short visit
+this evening. Make my excuses if I am asked for;” and with this he
+slipped from the room and went his way.
+
+“Where's the Colonel, Lucy? Has he gone to bed?”
+
+“No, sir, he has gone to see his mother; he had made some engagement to
+visit her this evening.”
+
+“This new school of politeness is too liberal for my taste. When we were
+young men, Haire, we would not have ventured to leave the house where we
+had dined without saluting the host.”
+
+“I take it we must keep up with the spirit of our time.” “You mistake,
+Haire,--it is the spirit of our time is in arrear. It is that same
+spirit lagging behind, and deserting the post it once occupied, makes
+us seem in default. Let us have the cribbage-board, Lucy. Haire has said
+all the smart things he means to give us this evening, and I will take
+my revenge at the only game at which I am his master. Haire, who reads
+men like a book, Lucy,” continued the Chief, as he dealt the cards,
+“says that our gallant friend will rebel against our humdrum life here.
+I demur to the opinion,--what say you?” But he was now deep in his game,
+and never heeded the answer.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV. SEWELL'S TROUBLES
+
+“A letter for you by the post, sir, and his Lordship's compliments to
+say he is waiting breakfast,” were the first words which Sewell heard
+the next morning.
+
+“Waiting breakfast! Tell him not to wait,--I mean, make my respects to
+his Lordship, and say I feel very poorly to-day,--that I think I 'll not
+get up just yet.”
+
+“Would you like to see Dr. Beattie, sir? He's in the drawing-room.”
+
+“Nothing of the kind. It's a complaint I caught in India; I manage it
+myself. Bring me up some coffee and rum in about an hour, and mind,
+don't disturb me on any account till then. What an infernal house!”
+ muttered he, as the man withdrew. “A subaltern called up for morning
+parade has a better life than this. Nine o'clock only! What can this old
+ass mean by this pretended activity? Upon whom can it impose? Who will
+believe that it signifies a rush whether he lay abed till noon or rose
+by daybreak?” A gentle tap came to the door, but as he made no reply
+there came after a pause another, a little louder. Sewell still
+preserved silence, and at last the sound of retiring footsteps along the
+corridor. “Not if I know it,” muttered he to himself, as he turned round
+and fell off asleep again.
+
+“The coffee, sir, and a despatch; shall I sign the receipt for you?”
+ said the servant, as he reappeared about noon.
+
+“Yes; open the window a little, and leave me.”
+
+Leaning on his arm, he tore open the envelope and glanced at the
+signature,--“Lucy.” He then read, “Send down Eccles or Beattie by next
+train; he is worse.” He read and re-read this at least half-a-dozen
+times over before he bethought him of the letter that lay still unopened
+on the bed.
+
+He now broke the seal; it was also from his wife, dated the preceding
+evening, and very brief:--
+
+“Dear Dudley,--Captain Trafford has had a severe fall. Crescy balked
+at the brook and fell afterwards. Trafford was struck on the head as he
+rose by Mr. Creagh's horse. It is feared the skull is fractured. You
+are much blamed for having asked him to ride a horse so much under his
+weight. All have refused to accept their bets but Kinshela the grocer.
+I have written to Sir H. Trafford, and I telegraphed to him Dr. Tobin's
+opinion, which is not favorable. I suppose you will come back at once;
+if not, telegraph what you advise to be done. Mr. Balfour is here still,
+but I do not find he is of much use. The veterinary decided Crescy
+should be shot, as the plate-bone, I think he called it, was
+fractured; and as he was in great pain, I consented. I hope I have done
+right.--Yours truly,
+
+“Lucy Sewell.”
+
+“Here's a go! a horse I refused four hundred and fifty for on Tuesday
+last! I _am_ a lucky dog, there 's no denying it. I did n't know there
+was a man in Europe could have made that horse balk his fence. What
+a rumpus to make about a fellow getting a 'cropper'! My share of the
+disaster is a deuced deal the worst. I 'll never chance on such a horse
+again. How am I to find either of these men?” muttered he, as he took up
+the telegram. He rang the bell violently, and scarcely ceased to pull at
+it till the servant entered.
+
+“Where does Dr. Eccles live?”
+
+“Sir Gilbert, sir?”
+
+“Ay, if he be Sir Gilbert.”
+
+“Merrion Square, sir,” said the man reproachfully, for he thought it
+rather hard to ignore one of the great celebrities of the land.
+
+“Take this note to him, that I 'll write now, and if he be from home go
+to the other man,--what's his name?--Beattie.”
+
+“Dr. Beattie is coming to dinner to-day, sir,” said the servant,
+thinking to facilitate matters.
+
+“Just do as I tell you, my good fellow, and don't interrupt. If I am to
+take up my quarters here, you'll all of you have to change some of
+your present habits.” As he spoke, he dashed off a few hasty lines,
+addressing them to Sir Gilbert Eccles or Dr. Beattie. “Ask if it's 'all
+right;' that will be sufficient reply; and now send me my bath.” As he
+proceeded with his dressing,--a very lengthy affair it always was,--he
+canvassed with himself whether or not he ought to take the train and
+go down to the country with the doctor. Possibly few men in such
+circumstances would have given the matter a doubt. The poor fellow who
+had incurred the mishap had been, at his insistence, acting for him. Had
+it not been for Se well's pressing this task upon him, Trafford would
+at that moment have been hale and hearty. Sewell knew all this well; he
+read the event just as nineteen out of every twenty would have read
+it, but having done so, he proceeded to satisfy himself why all these
+reasonings should give way to weightier considerations.
+
+First of all, it would not be quite convenient to let the old Judge know
+anything of these doings in the country. His strait-laced notions might
+revolt at races and betting-rings. It might not be perhaps decorous that
+a registrar of a high court should be the patron of such sports. These
+were prudential reasons, which he dilated on for some time. Then came
+some, others more sentimental. It was to a house of doctors and nurses
+and gloom and sorrow he should go back. All these were to him peculiarly
+distasteful. He should be tremendously “bored” by it all, and being
+“bored” was to him whatever was least tolerable in life. It was strange
+that there was one other reason stronger than all these,--a reason that
+really touched him in what was the nearest thing in his nature to heart.
+He couldn't go back and look at the empty loose-box where his favorite
+horse once stood, and where he was never to stand more. Crescy the
+animal he was so proud of,--the horse he counted on for who knows what
+future triumphs,--the first steeplechase horse, he felt convinced, in
+Ireland, if not in the kingdom,--such strength, such power in the loins,
+such square joints, such courage, should he ever see united again? If
+there was anything in that man's nature that represented affection, he
+had it for this horse. He knew well to what advantage he looked when on
+his back,--he knew what admiration and envy it drew upon him to see
+him thus mounted. He had won him at billiards from a man who was half
+broken-hearted at parting with him, and who offered immense terms rather
+than lose him.
+
+“He said I'd have no luck with him,” muttered Sewell, now in his
+misery,--“and, confound the fellow! he was right. No, I can't go back to
+look at his empty stall. It would half kill me.”
+
+It was very real grief, all this; he was as thoroughly heart-sore as it
+was possible for him to be. He sorrowed for what nothing in his future
+life could replace to him; and this is a very deep sorrow.
+
+Trafford's misfortune was so much the origin and cause of his own
+disaster that he actually thought of him with bitterness. The man who
+could make Crescy balk! What fate could be too hard for him?
+
+Nor was he quite easy in his mind about that passage in his wife's
+letter stating that men would not take their bets. Was this meant as
+reflecting upon him? Was it a censure on him for making Trafford ride
+a horse beneath his weight? “They get up some stupid cry of that sort,”
+ muttered he, “as if I am not the heaviest loser of all. I lost a horse
+that was worth a score of Traffords.”
+
+When dressed, Sewell went down to the garden and lit his cigar. His
+sorrow had grown calmer, and he began to think that in the new life
+before him he should have had to give up horses and sport of every kind.
+“I must make my book now on this old fellow, and get him to make me his
+heir. He cares little for his son, and he can be made to care just as
+little for his granddaughter. That's the only game open to me,--a dreary
+life it promises to be, but it's better than a jail.”
+
+The great large wilderness of a garden, stretching away into an orchard
+at the end, was in itself a place to suggest sombre thoughts,--so
+silent and forsaken did it all appear. The fruit lay thick on the ground
+uncared for; the artichokes, grown to the height of shrubs, looked
+monsters of uncouthness; and even in the alleys flower-seeds had fallen
+and given birth to flowers, which struggled up through the gravel and
+hung their bright petals over the footway. There was in the neglect, the
+silence, the un-cared-for luxuriance of the place, all that could make
+a moody man moodier; and as he knocked off the great heads of the tall
+hollyhocks, he thought, and even said aloud, “This is about as much
+amusement as such a spot offers.”
+
+“Oh no, not so bad as that,” said a laughing voice; and Lucy peeped over
+a laurel-hedge with a rake in her hand, and seemed immensely amused at
+his discomfiture.
+
+[Illustration: 302]
+
+“Where are you?--I mean, how is one to come near you?” said he, trying
+to laugh, but not successfully.
+
+“Go round yonder by the fish-pond, and you 'll find a wicket. This is
+_my_ garden, and I till it myself.”
+
+“So!” said he, entering a neat little enclosure, with beds of flowers
+and flowering shrubs, “this is your garden?”
+
+“Yes,--what do you think of it?”
+
+“It's very pretty,--it 's very nice. I should like it larger, perhaps.”
+
+“So would I; but, being my own gardener, I find it quite big enough.”
+
+“Why doesn't the Chief give you a gardener?--he's rich enough, surely.”
+
+“He never cared for gardening himself. Indeed, I think it is the wild
+confusion of foliage here that he likes. He said to me one day, 'In _my_
+old garden a man loses himself in thought. In this trimly kept place one
+is ever occupied by the melon-frame or the forcing-house.'”
+
+“That's the dreadful thing about old people; they are ever for making
+the whims and crotchets of age the rules of life to others. I wonder you
+bear this so well.”
+
+“I didn't know that I bore anything,” said she, with a smile.
+
+“That's true slave doctrine, I must say; and when one does not feel
+bondage, there's no more to be said.”
+
+“I suspect I have a great deal more freedom than most girls; my time is
+almost all my own, to dispose of as I will. I read, or play, or walk,
+or work, as I feel inclined. If I wish to occupy myself with household
+matters, I am the mistress here.”
+
+“In other words, you are free to do everything that is not worth
+doing,--you lead the life of a nun in a convent, only that you have not
+even a sister nun to talk to.”
+
+“And which are the things you say are worth doing?”
+
+“Would you not care to go out into the world, to mix in society, to go
+to balls, theatres, fêtes, and such-like? Would you not like to ride? I
+don't mean it for flattery, but would you not, like the admiration you
+would be sure to meet,--the sort of homage people render to beauty,
+the ouly tribute the world ever paid freely,--are all these not worth
+something?”
+
+“I am sure they are: they are worth a great deal to those who can enjoy
+them with a happy heart; but remember, Colonel Se well, I have a father
+living in exile, simply to earn a livelihood, and I have a brother
+toiling for his bread in a strange land: is it likely I could forget
+these, or is it likely that I could carry such cares about with me, and
+enjoy the pleasures you tell of?”
+
+“Oh! as for that, I never met the man, nor woman either, that could
+bring into the world a mind unburdened by care. You must take life as it
+is. If I was to wait for a heart at ease before I went into society, I
+'d have to decline a few dinner-parties. Your only chance of a little
+respite, besides, is at your age. The misfortunes of life begin as a
+little drizzle, but become a regular downpour when one gets to _my_ time
+of life. Let me just tell you what this morning brought forth. A letter
+and then a telegram from my wife, to tell me that my favorite horse--an
+animal worth five hundred pounds if he was worth five shillings--the
+truest, bravest, best horse I ever backed--has just been killed by a
+stupid fellow I got to ride for me. What he did to make the horse refuse
+his leap, what magic he used, what conjuring trick he performed, I can't
+tell. With _me_ it was enough to show him his fence, and if I wanted it
+I could n't have held him back. But this fellow--a dragoon, too, and the
+crack rider of his regiment--contrives to discourage my poor beast, then
+rushes him at the jump at half speed. I know it was a widish brook, and
+they tumbled in, and my horse smashed his blade bone,--of course there
+was nothing for it but to shoot him.”
+
+“How sad! I am really sorry for you.”
+
+“And all this came of the old Judge's message, the stupidity of sending
+me five words in a telegram, instead of writing a proper note, and
+saying what he wanted. But for that I 'd have stayed at home, ridden my
+horse, won my match, and spared myself the whole disaster.”
+
+“Grandpapa is often very hasty in his decisions, but I believe he seldom
+sees cause to revoke them.”
+
+“The old theory, 'The King can do no wrong,'” said Sewell, with a saucy
+laugh; “but remember he can often do a deal of mischief incidentally, as
+it were,--as on the present occasion.”
+
+“And the rider, what of him? Did he escape unhurt?” said she, eager to
+avoid unpleasant discussion.
+
+“The rider! my dear young lady,” said he, with affected slowness,--“the
+rider came to grief. What he did, or how he did it, to throw my poor
+horse down, is his own secret, and, from what I hear, he is likely to
+keep it. No, no, don't look so horrified,--he's not killed, but I don't
+suspect he's a long way off it. He got a smashing fall at a fence I 'd
+have backed myself to ride with my hands tied. Ay, and to have my good
+horse back again, I 'd ride in that fashion to-morrow.”
+
+“And the poor fellow, where is he now?”
+
+“The poor fellow is receiving the very sweetest of Mrs. Sewell's
+attentions. He is at my house,--in all likelihood in my room,--not that
+he is very conscious of all the favors bestowed upon him.”
+
+“Oh, don't talk with that pretended indifference! You must be, you
+cannot help being, deeply sorry for what has happened.”
+
+“There can be very little doubt on that score. I've lost such a horse as
+I never shall own again.”
+
+“Pray think of something beside your horse. Who was he? What's his
+name?”
+
+“A stranger,--an Englishman; you never heard of him; and I wish I had
+never heard of him!”
+
+“What are you smiling at?” said she, after a pause, for he stood as
+though reflecting, and a very strange half-smile moved his mouth.
+
+“I was just thinking,” said he, gravely, “what his younger brother ought
+to give me; for this fellow was an elder son, and heir to a fine estate
+too.”
+
+She turned an indignant glance towards him, and moved away. He was
+quickly after her, however, and, laying his hand on her arm, said
+good-humoredly: “Come, don't be angry with me. I 'm sorry, if you
+like,--I 'm very sorry for this poor fellow. I won't say that my own
+loss does not dash my sorrow with a little anger,--he was such a horse!
+and the whole thing was such a blunder! as fair a brook,--with a high
+bank, it's true,--but as fair a fence as ever & man rode at, and ground
+like this we 're walking over to take off from.”
+
+“Is he in danger?”
+
+“I believe so; here's what my wife says. Oh, I haven't got the letter
+about me, but it comes to this, I was to send down one of the best
+doctors by the first train, telling him it was a case of compression
+or concussion, which is it? And so I have despatched Beattie, your
+grandfather's man. I suppose there 's no better?”
+
+“But why have you not gone back yourself? He was a friend, was he not?”
+
+“Yes, he was what people would call a friend. I 'm like the hare in the
+fable, I have many friends; but if I must be confidential, I 'll tell
+you why I did _not_ go. I had a notion, just as likely to be wrong
+as right, that the Chief would take offence at his Registrar being a
+sporting character, and that if I were to absent myself just now, he'd
+find out the reason, whereas by staying here I could keep all quiet, and
+when Beattie came back I could square _him_.”
+
+“You could what?”
+
+“A thousand pardons for my bit of slang; but the fact is, just as one
+talks French when he wants to say nothings, one takes to slang when one
+requires to be shifty. I meant to say, I could manage to make the doctor
+hold his tongue.”
+
+“Not if grandpapa were to question him.”
+
+Sewell smiled, and shook his head in dissent.
+
+“No, no. You're quite mistaken in Dr. Beattie; and what's more, you 're
+quite mistaken in grandpapa too, if you imagine that he 'll think the
+better of you for forgetting the claims of friendship.”
+
+“There was none.”
+
+“Well, of humanity, then! It was in _your_ cause this man suffered, and
+it is in _your_ house he lies ill. I think you ought to be there also.”
+
+“Do you think so?”
+
+“I 'm sure of it. You know the world a great deal better than I do,
+and you can tell what people will say of your absence; but I think it
+requires no knowledge of more than one's own nature to feel what is
+right and proper here.”
+
+“Indeed!” said he, reflectingly.
+
+“Don't you agree with me?”
+
+“Perhaps,--that is, in part. I suppose what you mean about the world is,
+that there will be some scandal afloat, the 'young wife' story, and all
+that sort of balderdash?”
+
+“I really do not understand you.”
+
+“You don't?”
+
+“No. Certainly not. What do you mean?”
+
+“Possibly you did not understand me. Well, if I am to go, there 's no
+time to be lost. It's four o'clock already, and the last train leaves at
+five-forty. I will go.”
+
+“You are quite right.”
+
+“You 'll make my excuses to the Chief. You 'll tell him that my wife's
+message was so alarming that I could not delay my departure. Beattie
+will probably be back tomorrow, and bring you news of us.”
+
+“Won't you write a few lines?”
+
+“I 'm not sure,--I 'll not promise. I'm a bad penman, but my wife will
+write, I 've no doubt. Say all sorts of affectionate and dutiful things
+to the Chief for me; tell him I went away in despair at not being able
+to say good-bye; he likes that style of thing, does n't he?”
+
+“I don't think he cares much for 'that style of thing,'” said she, with
+a saucy smile.
+
+“What a capital mimic you are! Do you know I am just beginning to
+suspect that you are, for all your quiet simplicity of manner, a deuced
+deep one. Am I right?”
+
+She shook her head, but made no reply.
+
+“Not that I 'd like you the less for it,” said he, eagerly; “on the
+contrary, we 'd understand each other all the better; there's nothing
+like people talking the same language, eh?”
+
+“I hope you'll not lose your train,” said she, looking at her watch; “I
+am half-past four.”
+
+“A broad hint,” said he, laughing; “bye-bye,--_à bientôt_.”
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV. BEATTIE'S RETURN
+
+The old Chief sat alone in his dining-room over his wine. If somewhat
+fatigued by the labors of the day,--for the Court had sat late,--he
+showed little of exhaustion; still less was he, as his years might have
+excused, drowsy or heavy. He sat bolt upright in his chair, and by an
+occasional gesture of his hand, or motion of his head, seemed as though
+he were giving assent to some statement he was listening to, or making
+his comments on it as it proceeded.
+
+The post had brought a letter to Lucy just as dinner was over. It bore
+the post-mark “Cagliari,” and was in her brother's hand; and the old
+man, with considerate kindness, told her to go to her room and read it.
+“No, my dear child,” said he, as she arose to leave the room; “no! I
+shall not be lonely,--where there is memory there are troops of friends.
+Come back and tell me your news when you have read your letter.”
+
+More than an hour passed over, and he sat there heedless of time. A
+whole long life was passing in review before him, not connectedly, or in
+due sequence of events, but in detached scenes and incidents. Now it
+was some stormy night in the old Irish House, when Flood and Grattan
+exchanged their terrific denunciations and insults,--now it was a
+brilliant dinner at Ponsonby's, with all the wits of the day,--now he
+was leading the famous Kitty O'Dwyer, the beauty of the Irish Court, to
+her carriage, amid such a murmur of admiration as made the progress a
+triumph; or, again, it was a raw morning of November, and he was driving
+across the park to be present at Curran's meeting with Egan.
+
+A violent ring of the hall bell startled him, and before he could
+inquire the cause a servant had announced Dr. Beattie.
+
+“I thought I might be fortunate enough to catch you before bed-hour,”
+ said the doctor, “and I knew you would like to hear some tidings of my
+mission.”
+
+“You have been to--Where have you been?” said the old Judge, embarrassed
+between the late flood of his recollections and the sudden start of his
+arrival.
+
+“To Killaloe, to see that poor fellow who had the severe fall in the
+hurdle-race.”
+
+“Ay--to be sure--yes. I remember all now. Give me a moment, however.” He
+nodded his head twice or thrice, as if concurring with some statement,
+and then said, “Go on, sir; the Court is with you.”
+
+Beattie proceeded to detail the accident and the state of the
+sufferer,--of whom he pronounced favorably,--saying that there was no
+fracture, nor anything worse than severe concussion. “In fact,” said he,
+“were it an hospital case, I'd say there was very little danger.”
+
+“And do you mean to tell me, sir,” said the Judge, who had followed the
+narrative with extreme attention, “that the man of birth and blood must
+succumb in any conflict more readily than the low-born?”
+
+“It's not the individual I was thinking of, so much as his belongings
+here. What I fear for in the present case is what the patient must
+confront every day of his convalescence.”
+
+Seeing that the Judge waited for some explanation, Beattie began to
+relate that, as he had started from Dublin the day before, he found
+himself in the same carriage with the young man's mother, who had been
+summoned by telegraph to her son's bedside.
+
+“I have met,” said he, “in my time, nearly all sorts and conditions
+of people. Indeed, a doctor's life brings him into contact with more
+maladies of nature and temperament than diseases of material origin;
+but anything like this woman I never saw before. To begin: she combined
+within herself two qualities that seem opposed to each other,--a most
+lavish candor on the score of herself and her family, and an intense
+distrust of all the rest of mankind. She told me she was a baronet's
+wife; how she had married him; where they lived; what his estate was
+worth; how this young fellow had become, by the death of a brother, the
+heir to the property; and how his father, indignant at his extravagance,
+had disentailed the estate, to leave it to a younger son if so disposed.
+She showed at times the very greatest anxiety about her son's state; but
+at other moments just as intense an eagerness to learn what schemes and
+intrigues were being formed against him,--who were the people in whose
+house he then was, what they were, and how he came there. To all my
+assurances that they were persons in every respect her son's equals,
+she answered by a toss of the head or a saucy half-laugh. 'Irish?' asked
+she. 'Yes, Irish.' 'I thought so,' rejoined she; 'I told Sir Hugh I
+was sure of it, though he said there were English Sewells.' From this
+instant her distrust broke forth. All Ireland had been in a conspiracy
+against her family for years. She had a brother, she said it with a
+shiver of horror, who was cruelly beaten by an attorney in Cork for a
+little passing pleasantry to the man's sister; he had kissed her, or
+something of the kind, in a railroad carriage; and her cousin,--poor
+dear Cornwall is Merivale,--it was in Ireland he found that creature
+that got the divorce against him two years since. She went on to say
+that there had been a plot against her son, in the very neighborhood
+where he now lay ill, only a year ago,--some intrigue to involve him in
+a marriage, the whole details of which she threatened me with the first
+time we should be alone.
+
+“Though at some moments expressing herself in terms of real affection
+and anxiety about her poor son, she would suddenly break off to
+speculate on what might happen from his death. 'You know, doctor, there
+is only one more boy, and if his life lapsed, Holt and the Holt estate
+goes to the Carringtons.'”
+
+“An odious woman, sir,--a most odious woman; I only wonder why you
+continued to travel in the same carriage with her.”
+
+“My profession teaches great tolerance,” said the doctor, mildly.
+
+“Don't call tolerance, sir, what there is a better word
+for,--subserviency. I am amazed how you endured this woman.”
+
+“Remember--it is to'be remembered--that in my version of her I have
+condensed the conversation of some hours, and given you, as it were, the
+substance of much talking; and also that I have not attempted to convey
+what certainly was a very perfect manner. She had no small share of
+good looks, a very sweet voice, and considerable attraction in point of
+breeding.”
+
+“I will accept none of these as alleviations, sir; her blandishments
+cannot blind the Court.”
+
+“I will not deny their influence upon myself,” said Beattie, gently.
+
+“I can understand you, sir,” said the Judge, pompously. “The habits of
+your profession teach you to swallow so much that is nauseous in a sweet
+vehicle, that you carry the same custom into morals.”
+
+Beattie laughed so heartily at the analogy that the old man's good-humor
+returned to him, and he bade him continue his narrative.
+
+“I have not much more to tell. We reached the house by about eleven
+o'clock at night, and my fellow-traveller sat in the carriage till I
+announced her to Mrs. Sewell. My own cares called me to the sick-room,
+and I saw no more of the ladies till this morning, just before I came
+away.”
+
+“She is, then, domesticated there? She has taken up her quarters at the
+Sewells' house?”
+
+“Yes. I found her maid, too, had taken possession of Colonel Sewell's
+dressing-room, and dispossessed a number of his chattels to make room
+for her own.”
+
+“It is a happy thing, a very happy thing for me, that I have not been
+tried by these ordeals,” said the Judge, with a long-drawn breath. “I
+wonder how Colonel Sewell will endure it.”
+
+“I have no means of knowing; he arrived late at night, and was still in
+bed and asleep when I left.”
+
+“You have not told me these people's name?”
+
+“Trafford,--Sir Hugh Beecham Trafford, of Holt-Trafford, Staffordshire.”
+
+“I have met the man, or rather his father, for it was nigh fifty years
+ago,--an old family, and of Saxon origin; and his wife,--who was she?”
+
+“Her name was Merivale. Her father, I think, was Governor of Madras.”
+
+“If so, sir, she has hereditary claims for impertinence and presumption.
+Sir Ulysses Merivale enjoyed the proud distinction of being the most
+insolent man in England. It is well that you have told me who she was,
+Beattie, for I might have made a very fatal blunder. I was going to
+write to Sewell to say, 'As this is a great issue, I would advise you
+to bring down your mother, “special,”' but I recall my intention. Lady
+Lendrick would have no chance against Lady Trafford. Irish insolence has
+not the finish of the English article, and we put an alloy of feeling in
+it that destroys it altogether. Will the young man recover?”
+
+“He is going on favorably, and I see nothing to apprehend, except,
+indeed, that the indiscretions of his mother may prejudice his case. She
+is very likely to insist on removing him; she hinted it to me as I took
+my leave.”
+
+“I will write to the Sewells to come up here at once. They shall
+evacuate the territory, and leave her in possession. As persons closely
+connected with my family, they must not have this outrage put upon
+them.” He rang the bell violently, and desired the servant to request
+Miss Lendrick to come to him.
+
+“She is not very well, my Lord, and has gone to her room. She told Mrs.
+Beales to serve your Lordship's tea when you were ready for it.”
+
+“What is this? What does all this mean?” said the old Judge, eagerly;
+for the idea of any one presuming to be ill without duly apprising
+him--without the preliminary step of ascertaining that it could not
+inconvenience him--was more than he was fully prepared for.
+
+“Tell Mrs. Beales I want her,” said he, as he rose and left the room.
+Muttering angrily as he went, he ascended the stairs and traversed the
+long corridor which led to Lucy's room; but before he had reached the
+door the housekeeper was at his side.
+
+“Miss Lucy said she 'd like to see your Lordship, if it was n't too much
+trouble, my Lord.”
+
+“I am going to see her. Ask her if I may come in.”
+
+“Yes, my Lord,” said Mrs. Beales from the open door. “She is awake.”
+
+“My own dear grandpapa,” said Lucy, stretching out her arms to him from
+her bed, “how good and kind of you to come here!”
+
+“My dear, dear child,” said he, fondly; “tell me you are not ill; tell
+me that it is a mere passing indisposition.”
+
+“Not even so much, grandpapa. It is simply a headache. I was crying, and
+I was ashamed that you should see it; and I walked out into the air; and
+I came back again, trying to look at ease; and my head began to throb
+and to pain me so that I thought it best to go to bed. It was a letter I
+got,--a letter from Cagliari. Poor Tom has had the terrible fever of
+the island. He said nothing about it at first, but now he has relapsed.
+There are only three lines in his own hand,--the rest is from his
+friend. You shall see what he says. It is very short, and not very hard
+to read.”
+
+The old man put on his spectacles and read:--
+
+“'My very dear Lucy.'
+
+“Who presumes to address you in this way? 'Brook Fossbrooke?' What! is
+this the man who is called Sir Brook Fossbrooke? By what means have you
+become so intimate with a person of his character?”
+
+“I know nothing better, nothing more truly noble and generous, than his
+character,” said she, holding her temples as she spoke, for the pain of'
+her head was almost agony. “Do read on,--read on, dearest grandpapa.”
+
+He turned again to the letter, and read it over in silence till he came
+to the few words in Tom's hand, which he read aloud: “Darling Lu--I
+shall be all right in a week. Don't fret, but write me a long--long”--he
+had forgotten the word “letter,”--“and love me always.”
+
+She burst into tears, as the old man read the words, for by some strange
+magic, the syllables of deep affection, uttered by one unmoved, smite
+the heart with a pang that is actual torture.
+
+“I will take this letter down to Beattie, Lucy, and hear what he says of
+it,” said the old man, and left the room.
+
+“Read this, Beattie, and tell me what you say to it,” said the Chief
+Baron, as he handed the doctor Sir Brook's letter; “I'll tell you of the
+writer when you have read it.”
+
+Beattie read the note in silence, and as he laid it on the table said,
+“I know the man, and his strange old-fashioned writing would have
+recalled him without his name.”
+
+“And what do you know of him, sir?” asked the Judge, sternly.
+
+“I can tell you the story in three words: He came to consult me one
+morning, about six or eight months ago. It was about an insurance on his
+life,--a very small sum he wanted to raise, to go out to this very place
+he writes from. He got to talk about the project, and I don't exactly
+know how it came about,--I forget the details now,--but it ended by my
+lending him the money myself.”
+
+“What, sir! do you combine usury with physic?”
+
+“On that occasion I appear to have done so,” said Beattie, laughing.
+
+“And you advanced a sum of money to a man whom you saw for the first
+time, simply on his showing that his life was too insecure to guarantee
+repayment?”
+
+“That puts the matter a little too nakedly.”
+
+“It puts it truthfully, sir, I apprehend.”
+
+“If you mean that the man impressed me so favorably that I was disposed
+to do him a small service, you are right.”
+
+“You and I, Beattie, are too old for this impulsive generosity,--too old
+by thirty years! After forty philanthropy should take a chronic form,
+and never have paroxysms. I think I am correct in my medical language.”
+
+“Your medicine pleases me more than your morality,” said Beattie,
+laughing; “but to come back to this Sir Brook, I wish you had seen him.”
+
+“Sir, I have seen him, and I have heard of him, and if not at liberty
+to say what I have heard of him, it is quite enough to state that _my_
+information cannot corroborate _your_ opinion.”
+
+“Well, my Lord, the possibility of what I might hear will not shake the
+stability of what I have seen. Remember that we doctors imagine we read
+human nature by stronger spectacles than the laity generally.”
+
+“You imagine it, I am aware, sir; but I have met with no such instances
+of acuteness amongst your co-professionals as would sustain the claim;
+but why are we wandering from the record? I gave you that letter to read
+that you might tell me, is this boy's case a dangerous one?”
+
+“It is a very grave case, no doubt; this is the malaria fever of
+Sardinia,--bad enough with the natives, but worse with strangers. He
+should be removed to better air at once if he could bear removal.”
+
+“So is it ever with your art,” said the Judge, in a loud declamatory
+voice. “You know nothing in your difficulties but a piteous entreaty to
+the unknown resources of nature to assist you. No, sir; I will not
+hear your defence; there is no issue before the Court. What sort of
+practitioners have they in this island?”
+
+“Rude enough, I can believe.”
+
+“Could a man of eminence be found to go out there and see him?”
+
+“A man in large practice could not spare the time; but there are men of
+ability who are not yet in high repute: one of these might be possibly
+induced.”
+
+“And what might the expense be?”
+
+“A couple of hundred--say three hundred pounds, would perhaps suffice.”
+
+“Go upstairs and see my granddaughter. She is very nervous and feverish;
+calm her mind so far as you are able; say that we are concerting
+measures for her brother's benefit; and by the time you shall come down
+again I will have made up my mind what to do.”
+
+Beattie was a valued friend of Lucy's, and she was glad to see him enter
+her room, but she would not suffer him to speak of herself; it was
+of poor Tom alone she would talk. She heard with delight the generous
+intentions of her grandfather, and exclaimed with rapture,--“This is his
+real nature, and yet it is only by the little foibles of his temper that
+the world knows him; but we, doctor,--we, who see him as he is, know how
+noble-hearted and affectionate he can be!”
+
+“I must hasten back to him,” said Beattie, after a short space; “for
+should he decide on sending out a doctor, I must lose no time, as I must
+return to see this young fellow at Killaloe to-morrow.”
+
+“Oh, in my greater anxieties I forgot him! How is he,--can he recover?”
+
+“Yes, I regard him as out of danger,--that is, if Lady Trafford can be
+persuaded not to talk him into a relapse.”
+
+“Lady Trafford! who is she?”
+
+“His mother; she arrived last night.”
+
+“And his name is Trafford, and his Christian name Lionel?”
+
+“Lionel Wentworth Trafford. I took it from his dressing-case when I
+prescribed for him.”
+
+Lucy had been leaning on her arm as she spoke, but she now sank slowly
+backward and fainted.
+
+It was a long time before consciousness came back, and even then she
+lay voiceless and motionless, and, though she heard what Beattie said
+to her, unable to speak to him, or intimate by a gesture that she heard
+him.
+
+The doctor needed no confidences,--he read the whole story. There are
+expressions in the human face which have no reference to physical ills;
+nor are there any indications of bodily suffering. He who asked, “Canst
+thou minister to a mind diseased?” knew how hopeless was his question;
+and this very despair it is--this sense of an affliction beyond the
+reach of art--gives a character to the expression which the doctor's eye
+never fails to discriminate from the look worn by mere malady.
+
+As she lay there motionless, her large eyes looking at him with that
+expression in which eagerness struggles against debility, he saw how he
+had become her confidant.
+
+“Come, my dear child,” said he, taking her hand between both his own,
+“you have no occasion for fears on this score,--so far I assure you on
+my honor.”
+
+She gave his hand a slight, a very slight pressure, and tried to say
+something, but could not. “I will go down now, and see what is to be
+done about your brother.” She nodded, and he continued: “I will pay you
+another visit to-morrow early, before I leave town, and let me find
+you strong and hearty; and remember that though I force no confidences,
+Lucy, I will not refuse them if you offer.”
+
+“I have none, sir,--none,” said she, in a voice of deep melancholy.
+
+“So that I know all that is to be known?” asked he.
+
+“All, sir,” said she, with a trembling lip.
+
+“Well, accept me as a friend whom you may trust, my dear Lucy. If you
+want me, I will not fail you; and if you have no need of me, there is
+nothing that has passed to-day between us ever to be remembered,--you
+understand me?”
+
+“I do, sir. You will come to-morrow, won't you?”
+
+He nodded assent, and left her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI. AN EXIT
+
+Colonel Sewell stood at the window of a small drawing-room he
+called “his own,” watching the details of loading a very cumbrous
+travelling-carriage which was drawn up before the door. Though the
+postilions were in the saddle, and all ready for a start, the process of
+putting up the luggage went on but slowly,--now a heavy imperial
+would be carried out, and after a while taken in again; dressing-boxes
+carefully stowed away would be disinterred to be searched for some
+missing article; bags, baskets, and boxes of every shape and sort came
+and went and came again; and although the two footmen who assisted these
+operations showed in various ways what length of training had taught
+them to submit to in the way of worry and caprice, the smart “maid,” who
+now and then appeared to give some order, displayed most unmistakable
+signs of ill-humor on her face. “Drat those dogs! I wish they were down
+the river!” cried she, of two yelping, barking Maltese terriers, which,
+with small bells jingling on their collars, made an uproar that was
+perfectly deafening.
+
+“Well, Miss Morris, if it would oblige _you_--” said one of the tall
+footmen, as he caressed his whisker, and gave a very languishing
+look, more than enough, he thought, to supply the words wanting to his
+sentence.
+
+“It would oblige _me_ very much, Mr. George, to get away out of this
+horrid place. I never did--no, never--in all my life pass such a ten
+days.”
+
+“We ain't a-going just yet, after all,” said footman number two, with a
+faint yawn.
+
+“It's so like you, Mr. Breggis, to say something disagreeable,” said
+she, with a toss of her head.
+
+“It's because it's true I say it, not because it's onpleasant, Miss
+Caroline.”
+
+“I'm not Miss Caroline, at least from you, Mr. Breggis.”
+
+“Ain't she haughty,--ain't she fierce?” But his colleague would not
+assent to this judgment, and looked at her with a longing admiration.
+
+“There's her bell again,” cried the girl; “as sure as I live, she's rung
+forty times this morning;” and she hurried back to the house.
+
+“Why do you think we're not off yet?” asked George.
+
+“It's the way I heerd her talking that shows me,” replied the other.
+“Whenever she 's really about to leave a place she goes into them fits
+of laughing and crying and screaming one minute, and a-whimpering the
+next; and then she tells the people--as it were, unknownst to her--how
+she hated them all,--how stingy they was,--the shameful way they starved
+the servants, and such-like. There's some as won't let her into their
+houses by reason of them fits, for she'll plump out everything she knows
+of a family,--who ran away with the Misses, and why the second daughter
+went over to France.”
+
+“You know her better than me, Breggis.”
+
+“I do think I does; it's eight years I 've had of it. Eh, what's
+that,--was n't that a screech?” and as he spoke a wild shrill scream
+resounded through the house, followed by a rapid succession of notes
+that might either have been laughter or crying.
+
+Sewell drew the curtain; and wheeling an arm-chair to the fireside, lit
+his cigar, and began to smoke.
+
+The house was so small that the noises could be heard easily in every
+part of it; and for a time the rapid passage of persons overhead, and
+the voices of many speaking together, could be detected, and, above
+these, a wild shriek would now and then rise above all, and ring through
+the house. Sewell smoked on undisturbed; it was not easy to say that he
+so much as heard these sounds. His indolent attitude, and his seeming
+enjoyment of his cigar, indicated perfect composure; nor even when the
+door opened, and his wife entered the room, did he turn his head to see
+who it was.
+
+“Can William have the pony to go into town?” asked she, in a
+half-submissive voice.
+
+“For what?”
+
+“To tell Dr. Tobin to come out; Lady Trafford is taken ill.”
+
+“He can go on foot; I may want the pony.”
+
+“She is alarmingly ill, I fear,--very violent spasms; and I don't think
+there is any time to be lost.”
+
+“Nobody that makes such a row as that can be in any real danger.”
+
+“She is in great pain, at all events.”
+
+“Send one of her own people,--despatch one of the postboys,--do what you
+like, only don't bore _me_.”
+
+She was turning to leave the room, when he called out, “I say, when the
+attack came on did she take the opportunity to tell you any pleasant
+little facts about yourself or your family?” She smiled faintly, and
+moved towards the door. “Can't you tell me, ma'am? Has this woman been
+condoling with you over your hard fate and your bad husband? or has she
+discovered how that 'dear boy' upstairs broke his head as well as his
+heart in your service?”
+
+“She did ask me certainly if there was n't a great friendship between
+you and her son,” said she, with a tone of quiet disdain.
+
+“And what did you reply?” said he, throwing one leg over the arm of the
+chair as he swung round to face her.
+
+“I don't well remember. I may have said _you_ liked _him_, or that _he_
+liked _you_. It was such a commonplace reply I made, I forget it.”
+
+“And was that all that passed on the subject?”
+
+“I think I'd better send for the doctor,” said she, and left the room
+before he could stop her, though that such was his intention was evident
+from the way he arose from his chair with a sudden spring.
+
+“You shall hear more of this, Madam,--by Heaven, you shall!” muttered
+he, as he paced the room with rapid steps. “Who's that? Come in,” cried
+he, as a knock came to the door. “Oh, Balfour! is it you?”
+
+“Yes; what the deuce is going on upstairs? Lady Trafford appears to have
+gone mad.”
+
+“Indeed! how unpleasant!”
+
+“Very unpleasant for your wife, I take it. She has been saying all sorts
+of unmannerly things to her this last hour,--things that, if she were
+n't out of her reason, she ought to be thrown out of the window for.”
+
+“And why didn't you do so?”
+
+“It was a liberty I couldn't think of taking in another man's house.”
+
+“Lord love you, I'd have thought nothing of it! I'm the best-natured
+fellow breathing. What was it she said?”
+
+“I don't know how I can repeat them.”
+
+“Oh, I see, they reflect on me. My dear young friend, when you live to
+my age you will learn that anything can be said to anybody, provided it
+only be done by 'the third party.' Whatever the law rejects as evidence,
+assumes in social life the value of friendly admonition. Go on, and tell
+me who it is is in love with my wife.”
+
+Cool as Mr. Cholmondely Balfour was, the tone of this demand staggered
+him.
+
+“Art thou the man, Balfour?” said Sewell at last, staring at him with a
+mock frown.
+
+“No, by Jove! I never presumed that far.”
+
+“It's the sick fellow, then, is the culprit?”
+
+“So his mother opines. She is an awful woman! I was sitting with your
+wife in the small drawing-room when she burst into the room and cried
+out, 'Mrs. Sewell, is your name Lucy? for, if so, my son has been
+rambling on about you this last hour in a wonderful way: he has told me
+about fifty times that he wants to see you before he dies; and now that
+the doctor says he is out of danger he never ceases talking of dying.
+I suppose you have no objection to the interview; at least they tell me
+you were constantly in his room before my arrival.”
+
+“How did my wife take this?--what did she say?” asked Sewell, with an
+easy smile as he spoke.
+
+“She said something about agitation or anxiety serving to excuse conduct
+which otherwise would be unpardonable; and she asked me to send her maid
+to her,--as I think, to get me away.”
+
+“Of course you rang the bell and sat down again.”
+
+“No; she gave me a look that said, I don't want you here, and I went;
+but the storm broke out again as I closed the door, and I heard Lady
+Trafford's voice raised to a scream as I came downstairs.”
+
+“It all shows what I have said over and over again,” said Sewell,
+slowly, “that whenever a man has a grudge or a grievance against a
+woman, he ought always to get another woman to torture her. I 'll lay
+you fifty pounds Lady Traf-ford cut deeper into my wife's flesh by
+her two or three impertinences than if I had stormed myself into an
+apoplexy.”
+
+“And don't you mean to turn her out of the house?”
+
+“Turn whom out?”
+
+“Lady Trafford, of course.”
+
+“It's not so easily done, I suspect. I'll take to the long-boat myself
+one of these days, and leave her in command of the ship.”
+
+“I tell you she's a dangerous, a very dangerous woman; she has
+been ransacking her son's desk, and has come upon all sorts of ugly
+memoranda,--sums lost at play, and reminders to meet bills, and
+such-like.”
+
+“Yes; he was very unlucky of late,” said Sewell, coldly.
+
+“And there was something like a will, too; at least there was a packet
+of trinkets tied up in a paper, which purported to be a will, but only
+bore the name Lucy.”
+
+“How delicate! there's something touching in that, Balfour; isn't
+there?” said Sewell, with a grin. “How wonderfully you seem to have got
+up the case! You know the whole story. How did you manage it?”
+
+“My fellow Paxley had it from Lady Trafford's maid. She told him that
+her mistress was determined to show all her son's papers to the Chief
+Baron, and blow you sky high.”
+
+“That's awkward, certainly,” said Sewell, in deep thought. “It would be
+a devil of a conflagration if two such combustibles came together. I 'd
+rather she 'd fight it out with my mother.”
+
+“Have you sent in your papers to the Horse Guards?”
+
+“Yes; it's all finished. I am gazetted out, or I shall be on Tuesday.”
+
+“I'm sorry for it. Not that it signifies much as to this registrarship.
+We never intended to relinquish our right to it, we mean to throw the
+case into Chancery, and we have one issue already to submit to trial at
+bar.”
+
+“Who are _we_ that are going to do all this?”
+
+“The Crown,” said Balfour, haughtily.
+
+“_Ego et rex meus_; that's the style, is it? Come now, Balfy, if you 're
+for a bet, I 'll back my horse, the Chief Baron, against the field. Give
+me sporting odds, for he 's aged, and must run in bandages besides.”
+
+“That woman's coming here at this moment was most unlucky.”
+
+“Of course it was; it would n't be _my_ lot if it were anything else.
+I say,” cried he, starting up, and approaching the window, “what's up
+now?”
+
+“She's going at last, I really believe.”
+
+The sound of many and heavy footsteps was now heard descending the
+stairs slowly, and immediately after two men issued from the door,
+carrying young Trafford on a chair; his arms hung listlessly at his
+side, and his head was supported by his servant.
+
+“I wonder whose doing is this? Has the doctor given his concurrence to
+it? How are they to get him into the coach, and what are they to do with
+him when he is there?” Such was the running commentary Balfour kept
+up all the time they were engaged in depositing the sick man in the
+carriage. Again a long pause of inaction ensued, and at last a tap came
+to the door of the room, and a servant inquired for Mr. Balfour.
+
+“There!” cried Sewell, “it's _your_ turn now. I only hope she 'll insist
+on your accompanying her to town.”
+
+Balfour hurried out, and was seen soon afterwards escorting Lady
+Trafford to the carriage. Whether it was that she was not yet decided
+as to her departure, or that she had so many injunctions to give before
+going, the eventful moment was long delayed. She twice tried the seat in
+the carriage, once with cushions and then without. She next made Balfour
+try whether it might not be possible to have a sort of inclined plane to
+lie upon. At length she seemed overcome with her exertions, sent for
+a chair, and had a glass of water given her, to which her maid added
+certain drops from a phial.
+
+“You will tell Colonel Sewell all I have said, Mr. Balfour,” said she,
+aloud, as she prepared to enter the carriage. “It would have been more
+agreeable to me had he given me the opportunity of saying it to himself,
+but his peculiar notions on the duties of a host have prevented this. As
+to Mrs. Sewell, I hope and believe I have sufficiently explained myself.
+She at least knows my sentiments as to what goes on in this house. Of
+course, sir, it is very agreeable to _you_. Men of pleasure are not
+persons to be overburdened with scruples,--least of all such scruples as
+interfere with self-indulgence. This sort of life is therefore charming;
+I leave you to all its delights, sir, and do not even warn you against
+its dangers. I will not promise the same discretion, however, when I go
+hence. I owe it to all mothers who have sons, Mr. Balfour,--I owe it to
+every family in which there is a name to be transmitted, and a fortune
+to be handed down, to declare what I have witnessed under this roof. No,
+Lionel,--no, my dear boy; nothing shall prevent my speaking out.” This
+was addressed to her son, who by a deep sigh seemed to protest against
+the sentiments he was not able to oppose. “It may suit Mr. Balfour's
+habits, or his tastes, to remain here,--with these I have nothing to do.
+The Duke of Bayswater might possibly think his heir could keep better
+company,--with that I have no concern; though when the matter comes to
+be discussed before me,--as it one day will, I have no doubt,--I shall
+hold myself free to state my opinion. Good-bye, sir; you will, perhaps,
+do me the favor to call at the Bilton; I shall remain till Saturday
+there; I have resolved not to leave Ireland till I see the Viceroy; and
+also have a meeting with this Judge, I forget his name, Lam--Lena--what
+is it? He is the Chief something, and easily found.”
+
+A few very energetic words, uttered so low as to be inaudible to all but
+Balfour himself, closed this address.
+
+“On my word of honor,--on my sacred word of honor,--Mr. Balfour,” said
+she, aloud as she placed one foot on the step, “Caroline saw it,--saw
+it with her own eyes. Don't forget all I have said; don't drop that
+envelope; be sure you come to see me.” And she was gone.
+
+“Give me five minutes to recover myself,” said Balfour, as he entered Se
+well's room, and threw himself on a sofa; “such a 'breather' as that I
+have not had for many a day.”
+
+“I heard a good deal of it,” said Sewell, coolly. “She screams,
+particularly when she means to be confidential; and all that about my
+wife must have reached the gardener in the shrubbery. Where is she off
+to?”
+
+“To Dublin. She means to see his Excellency and the Chief Baron; she
+says she can't leave Ireland till she has unmasked all your wickedness.”
+
+“She had better take a house on a lease then; did you tell her so?”
+
+“I did nothing but listen,--I never interposed a word. Indeed, she won't
+let one speak.”
+
+“I 'd give ten pounds to see her with the Chief Baron. It would be such
+a 'close thing.' All his neat sparring would go for nothing against her;
+for though she hits wide, she can stand a deal of punishment without
+feeling it.”
+
+“She 'll do you mischief there.”
+
+“She might,” said he, more thoughtfully. “I think I 'll set my mother at
+her; not that she 'll have a chance, but just for the fun of the thing.
+What 's the letter in your hand?”
+
+“Oh, a commission she gave me. I was to distribute this amongst your
+household;” and he drew forth a banknote. “Twenty pounds! you have no
+objection to it, have you?”
+
+“I know nothing about it; of course you never hinted such a thing to
+me;” and with this he arose and left the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII. A STORMY MOMENT
+
+Within a week after the first letter came a second from Cagliari. It was
+but half a dozen lines from Tom himself.
+
+“They are sending me off to a place called Maddalena, dearest Lucy, for
+change of air The priest has given me his house, and I am to be Robinson
+Crusoe there, with an old hag for Friday,--how I wish for you! Sir Brook
+can only come over to me occasionally. Look out for three rocks--they
+call them islands--off the N. E. of Sardinia; one of them is mine.--Ever
+your own,
+
+“Tom L.”
+
+Lucy hastened down with this letter in her hand to her grandfather's
+room, but met Mr. Haire on the stairs, who whispered in her ear, “Don't
+go in just yet, my dear; he is out of sorts this morning; Lady Lendrick
+has been here, and a number of unpleasant letters have arrived, and it
+is better not to disturb him further.”
+
+“Will you take this note,” said she, “and give it to him at any fitting
+moment? I want to know what I shall reply,--I mean, I 'd like to hear if
+grandpapa has any kind message to send the poor fellow.”
+
+“Leave it with me. I 'll take charge of it, and come up to tell you when
+you can see the Judge.” Thus saying, he passed on, and entered the room
+where the Chief Baron was sitting. The curtains were closely drawn, and
+in one of the windows the shutters were closed,--so sensitive to light
+was the old man in his periods of excitement. He lay back in a deep
+chair, his eyes closed, his face slightly flushed, breathing heavily,
+and the fingers of one hand twitching slightly at moments; the other was
+held by Beattie, as he counted the pulse. “Dip that handkerchief in the
+cold lotion, and lay it over his forehead,” whispered Beattie to Haire.
+
+“Speak out, sir; that muttering jars on my nerves, and irritates me,”
+ said the Judge, in a slow firm tone.
+
+“Come,” said Beattie, cheerfully, “you are better now; the weakness has
+passed off.”
+
+“There is no weakness in the case, sir,” said the old man, sitting bolt
+upright in the chair, as he grasped and supported himself by the arms.
+“It is the ignoble feature of your art to be materialist. You can see
+nothing in humanity but a nervous cord and a circulation.”
+
+“The doctor's ministry goes no further,” said Beattie, gently.
+
+“Your art is then but left-handed, sir. Where 's Haire?”
+
+“Here, at your side,” replied Haire.
+
+“I must finish my story, Haire. Where was it that I left off? Yes; to
+be sure,--I remember now. This boy of Sewell's--Reginald Victor
+Sewell--was, with my permission, to take the name of Lendrick, and be
+called Reginald Victor Sewell Lendrick.”
+
+“And become the head of your house?”
+
+“The head of my house, and my heir. She did not say so, but she could
+not mean anything short of it.”
+
+“What has your son done to deserve this?” asked Haire, bluntly.
+
+“My son's rights, sir, extend but to the modest fortune I inherited from
+my father. Whatever other property I possess has been acquired by my own
+ability and labor, and is mine to dispose of.”
+
+“I suppose there are other rights as well as those of the statute-book?”
+
+“Listen to this, Beattie,” cried the old Judge, with a sparkle of the
+eye,--“listen to this dialectician, who discourses to me on the import
+of a word. It is not generous I must say, to come down with all the
+vigor of his bright, unburdened faculties upon a poor, weak, and
+suffering object like myself. You might have waited, Haire, till I had
+at least the semblance of power to resist you.”
+
+“What answer did you give her?” asked Haire, bluntly.
+
+“I said,--what it is always safe to say,--'_Le roi s'avisera_.' Eh,
+Beattie? this is the grand principle of your own craft. Medicine is very
+little else than 'the wisdom of waiting.' I told her,” continued he, “I
+would think of it,--that I would see the child. 'He is here,' said she,
+rising and leaving the room, and in a few moments returned, leading a
+little boy by the hand,--a very noble-looking child, I will say, with
+a lofty head and a bold brow. He met me as might a prince, and gave
+his hand as though it were an honor he bestowed. What a conscious
+power there is in youth! Ay, sirs, that is the real source of all the
+much-boasted vigor and high-heartedness. Beattie will tell us some story
+of arterial action or nervous expansion; but the mystery lies deeper.
+The conscious force of a future development imparts a vigor that all the
+triumphs of after life pale before.”
+
+“'_Fiat justitia, ruât coelum_,'” said Haire,--“I'd not provide for
+people out of my own family.”
+
+“It is a very neat though literal translation, sir, and, like all that
+comes from you, pointed and forcible.”
+
+“I'd rather be fair and honest than either,” said Haire, bluntly.
+
+“I appeal to you, Beattie, and I ask if I have deserved this;” and the
+old Judge spoke with an air of such apparent sincerity as actually to
+impose upon the doctor. “The sarcasms of this man push my regard for him
+to the last intrenchment.”
+
+“Haire never meant it; he never intended to reflect upon you,” said
+Beattie, in a low tone.
+
+“He knows well enough that I did not,” said Haire, half sulky; for he
+thought the Chief was pushing his raillery too far.
+
+“I 'm satisfied,” said the Judge, with a sigh. “I suppose he can't help
+it. There are fencers who never believe they have touched you till they
+see the blood. Be it so; and now to go back. She went away and left the
+child with me, promising to take him up after paying a visit she had to
+make in the neighborhood. I was not sorry to have the little fellow's
+company. He was most agreeable, and, unlike Haire, he never made me his
+butt. Well, I have done; I will say no more on that head. I was actually
+sorry when she came to fetch him, and I believe I said so. What does
+that grunt mean, Haire?”
+
+“I did not speak.”
+
+“No, sir; but you uttered what implied an ironical assent,--a _nisi
+prius_ trick,--like the leer I have seen you bestow upon the jury-box.
+How hard it is for the cunning man to divest himself of the subtlety of
+his calling!”
+
+“I want to hear how it all ended,” muttered Haire.
+
+“You shall hear, sir, if you will vouchsafe me a little patience. When
+men are in the full vigor of their faculties, they should be tolerant
+to those footsore and weary travellers who, like myself, halt behind and
+delay the march. But bear in mind, Haire, I was not always thus. There
+was a time when I walked in the van. Ay, sir, and bore myself bravely
+too. I was talking with that child when they announced Mr. Balfour, the
+private secretary, a man most distasteful to me; but I told them to show
+him in, curious, indeed, to hear what new form of compromise they were
+about to propose to me. He had come with a secret and confidential
+message from the Viceroy, and really seemed distressed at having to
+speak before a child of six years old, so mysterious and reserved was
+he. He made a very long story of it,--full an hour; but the substance
+was this: The Crown had been advised to dispute my right of appointment
+to the registrarship, and to make a case for a jury; but--mark the
+'but'--in consideration for my high name and great services, and in
+deference to what I might be supposed to feel from an open collision
+with the Government, they were still willing for an accommodation, and
+would consent to ratify any appointment I should make, other than that
+of the gentleman I had already named,--Colonel Sewell.
+
+“Self-control is not exactly the quality for which my friends give me
+most credit. Haire, there, will tell you I am a man of ungovernable
+temper, and who never even tried to curb his passion; but I would
+hope there is some injustice in this award. I became a perfect dove
+in gentleness, as I asked Balfour for the reasons which compelled his
+Excellency to make my stepson's exclusion from office a condition. 'I am
+not at liberty to state them,' was the cool reply. 'They are personal,
+and, of course, delicate?' asked I, in a tone of submission, and he gave
+a half assent in silence. I concurred,--that is, I yielded the point. I
+went even further. I hinted, vaguely of course, at the courteous
+reserve by which his Excellency was willing to spare me such pain as an
+unpleasant disclosure--if there were such--might occasion me. I added,
+that old men are not good subjects for shocks; and I will say, sirs,
+that he looked at me as I spoke with a compassionate pity which won all
+my gratitude! Ay, Beattie, and though my veins swelled at the temples,
+and I felt a strange rushing sound in my ears, I had no fit, and in a
+moment or two was as calm as I am this instant.
+
+“'Let me be clear upon this point,' said I to him. 'I am to nominate to
+the office any one except Sewell, and you will confirm such nomination?'
+'Precisely,' replied he. 'Such act on my part in no way to prejudice
+whatever claim I lay to the appointment in perpetuity, or jeopardize
+any rights I now assert?' 'Certainly not,' said he. 'Write it,' said I,
+pushing towards him a pen and paper; and so overjoyed was he with his
+victorious negotiation that he wrote word for word as I dictated. When
+I came to the name Sewell, I added, 'To whose nomination his Excellency
+demurs, on grounds of character and conduct sufficient in his
+Excellency's estimation to warrant such exclusion; but which, out of
+deference to the Chief Baron's feelings, are not set forth in this
+negotiation.' 'Is this necessary?' asked he, as he finished writing. 'It
+is,' was my reply; 'put your name at foot, and the date;' and he did so.
+
+“I now read over the whole aloud; he winced at the concluding lines, and
+said, 'I had rather, with your permission, erase these last words; for
+though I know the whole story, and believe it too, there 's no occasion
+for entering upon it here.'
+
+“As he spoke, I folded the paper and placed it in my pocket. 'Now, sir,'
+said I, 'let _me_ hear the story you speak of.' 'I cannot. I told you
+before I was not at liberty to repeat it.' I insisted, and he refused.
+There was a positive altercation between us and he raised his voice in
+anger, and demanded back from me the paper which he said I had tricked
+him into writing. I will not say that he meant to use force, but he
+sprang from his chair and came towards me with such an air of menace
+that the boy, who was playing in the corner, rushed at him and struck
+him with his drumstick, saying, 'You sha'n't beat grandpapa!' I believe
+I rang the bell; yes, I rang the bell sharply. The child was crying when
+they came. I was confused and flurried. Balfour was gone.”
+
+“And the paper?” asked Haire.
+
+“The paper is here, sir,” said he, touching his breastpocket. “The
+country shall ring with it, or such submission shall I exact as will
+bring that Viceroy and his minions to my feet in abject contrition. Were
+you to ask me now, I know not what terms I would accept of.”
+
+“I would rather you said no more at present,” said Beattie. “You need
+rest and quietness.”
+
+“I need reparation and satisfaction, sir; that is what I need.”
+
+“Of course--of course; but you must be strong and well to enforce it,”
+ said Beattie.
+
+“I told Lady Lendrick to leave the child with me. She said she would
+bring him back to-morrow. I like the boy. What does my pulse say,
+Beattie?”
+
+“It says that all this talking and agitation are injurious to you,--that
+you must be left alone.”
+
+The old man sighed faintly, but did not speak.
+
+“Haire and I will take a turn in the garden, and be within call if you
+want us,” said Beattie.
+
+“Wait a moment,--what was it I had to say? You are too abrupt, Beattie;
+you snap the cords of thought by such rough handling, and we old men
+lose our dexterous knack of catching the loose ends, as we once did.
+There, there--leave me now; the skein is all tangled in hopeless
+confusion.” He waved his hand in farewell, and they left him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII. A LADY'S LETTER
+
+“Lucy asked me to show him this note from her brother,” said Haire, as
+he strolled with Beattie down the lawn. “It was no time to do so. Look
+over it and say what you advise.”
+
+“The boy wants a nurse, not a doctor,” said Beattie. “A little care and
+generous diet would soon bring him round; but they are a strange race,
+these Lendricks. They have all the stern qualities that brave danger,
+and they are terribly sensitive to some small wound to their self-love.
+Let that young fellow, for instance, only begin to feel that he is
+forgotten or an outcast, and he 'll droop at once. A few kind words, and
+a voice he loved, _now_, will do more than all my art could replace a
+little later.”
+
+“You mean that we ought to have him back here?” asked Haire, bluntly.
+
+“I mean that he ought to be where he can be carefully and kindly
+treated.”
+
+“I 'll tell the Chief you think so. I 'll say that you dropped the
+remark to myself, of course,--never meaning to dictate anything to
+_him_.”
+
+Beattie shook his head in sign of doubt.
+
+“I know him well, better perhaps than any one, and I know there's no
+more generous man breathing; but he must not be coerced,--he must not be
+even influenced, where the question be one for a decision. As he said to
+me one day, 'I want the evidence, sir, I don't want your speech to it.'”
+
+“There 's the evidence, then,” said Beattie,--“that note with its
+wavering letters, weak and uncertain as the fingers that traced
+them,--show him that. Say, if you like, that _I_ read it and thought
+the lad's case critical. If, after that, he wishes to talk to me on the
+subject, I 'm ready to state my opinion. If the boy be like his father,
+a few tender words and a little show of interest for him will be worth
+all the tonics that ever were brewed.”
+
+“It's the grandfather's nature too; but the world has never known
+it,--probably never will know it,” said Haire.
+
+“In that I agree with you,” said Beattie, dryly.
+
+“He regards it as a sort of weakness when people discover any act of
+generosity or any trait of kindliness about him; and do you know,” added
+he, confidentially, “I have often thought that what the world
+regarded as irritability and sharpness was nothing more nor less than
+shyness,--just shyness.”
+
+“I certainly never suspected that he was the victim of that quality.”
+
+“No, I imagine not. A man must know him as I do to-understand it. I
+remember one day, long, long ago, I went so far as to throw out a half
+hint that I thought he labored under this defect; he only smiled and
+said, 'You suspect me of diffidence. I am diffident,--no man more so,
+sir; but it is of the good or great qualities in other men.' Was n't
+that a strange reply? I never very clearly understood it,--do you?”
+
+“I suspect I do; but here comes a message to us.”
+
+Haire spoke a word with the servant, and then, turning: to Beattie,
+said: “He wants to see me. I 'll just step in, and be back in a moment.”
+
+Beattie promised not to leave till he returned, and strolled along
+by the side of a little brook which meandered tastefully through the
+greensward. He had fallen into a revery,--a curious inquiry within
+himself whether it were a boon or an evil for a man to have acquired
+that sort of influence over another mind which makes his every act and
+word seem praiseworthy and excellent. “I wonder is the Chief the better
+or the worse for this indiscriminating attachment? Does it suggest
+a standard to attain to, or does it merely minister to self-love and
+conceit? Which is it? which is it?” cried he, aloud, as he stood and
+gazed on the rippling rivulet beside him.
+
+“Shall I tell you?” said a low, sweet voice; and Lucy Lendrick slipped
+her arm within his as she spoke,--“shall I tell you, doctor?”
+
+“Do, by all means.”
+
+“A little of both, I opine. Mind,” said she, laughing, “I have not the
+vaguest notion of what you were balancing in your mind, but somehow
+I suspect unmixed good or evil is very rare, and I take my stand on a
+compromise. Am I right?”
+
+“I scarcely know, but I can't submit the case to you. I have an
+old-fashioned prejudice against letting young people judge their
+seniors. Let us talk of something else. What shall it be?”
+
+“I want to talk to you of Tom.”
+
+“I have just been speaking to Haire about him. We must get him back
+here, Lucy,--we really must.”
+
+“Do you mean here, in this house, doctor?”
+
+“Here, in this house. Come, don't shake your head, Lucy. I see the
+necessity for it on grounds you know nothing of. Lady Lendrick is
+surrounding your grandfather with her family, and I want Tom back here
+just that the Chief should see what a thorough Lendrick he is. If your
+grandfather only knew the stuff that's in him, he 'd be prouder of him
+than of all his own successes.”
+
+“No, no, no,--a thousand times no, doctor! It would never do,--believe
+me, it would never do. There are things which a girl may submit to in
+quiet obedience, which in a man would require subserviency. The Sewells,
+too, are to be here on Saturday, and who is to say what that may bring
+forth?”
+
+“She wrote to you,” said the doctor, with a peculiar significance in his
+voice.
+
+“Yes, a strange sort of note too; I almost wish I could show it to
+you,--I 'd so like to hear what you 'd say of the spirit of the writer.”
+
+“She told me she would write,” said he again, with a more marked meaning
+in his manner.
+
+“You shall see it,” said she, resolutely; “here it is;” and she drew
+forth the letter and handed it to him. For an instant she seemed as
+if about to speak, but suddenly, as if changing her mind, she merely
+murmured, “Read it, and tell me what you think of it.” The note ran
+thus:--
+
+“My dearest Lucy,--We are to meet to-morrow, and I hope and trust to
+meet like sisters who love each other. Let me make one brief explanation
+before that moment arrives. I cannot tell what rumors may have reached
+you of all that has happened here. I know nothing of what people say,
+nor have I the faintest idea how our life may have been represented. If
+you knew me longer and better, you would know that I neither make this
+ignorance matter of complaint nor regret. I have lived about long enough
+to take the world at its just value, and not to make its judgments of
+such importance as can impair my self-esteem and my comfort. It would,
+however, have been agreeable to me to have known what you may have heard
+of me--of us--as it is not impossible I might have felt the necessity to
+add something,--to correct something,--perhaps to deny something. I am
+now in the dark, and pray forgive me if I stumble rudely against you,
+where I only meant to salute you courteously.
+
+“You at least know the great disaster which befell here. Dr. Beattie
+has told you the story,--what more he may have said I cannot guess. If
+I were to wait for our meeting, I should not have to ask you. I should
+read it in your face, and hear it in every accent of your voice; but I
+write these few lines that you may know me at once in all frankness
+and openness, and know that if _you_ be innocent of _my_ secret, _I_ at
+least have _yours_ in my keeping. Yes, Lucy, I know all; and when I say
+all, I mean far more than you yourself know.
+
+“If I were treacherous, I would not make this avowal to you. I should be
+satisfied with the advantage I possessed, and employ it to my
+benefit. Perhaps with any other woman than yourself I should play this
+part,--with you I neither can nor will. I will declare to you frankly
+and at once, you have lost the game and I have won it. That I say this
+thus briefly, is because in amplifying I should seem to be attempting to
+explain what there is no explaining. That I say it in no triumph, my own
+conscious inferiority to you is the best guarantee. I never would have
+dreamed of a rivalry had I been a girl. It is because I cannot claim the
+prize I have won it. It is because my victory is my misery I have gained
+it. I think I know your nature well enough to know that you will bear me
+no ill-will. I even go so far as to believe I shall have your compassion
+and your sympathy. I need them more, far more, than you know of. I could
+tell you that had matters fallen out differently it would not have
+been to _your_ advantage, for there were obstacles--family
+obstacles--perfectly insurmountable. This is no pretence: on my honor I
+pledge to the truth of what I say. So long as I believed they might be
+overcome, I was in _your_ interest, Lucy. You will not believe me, will
+you, if I swear it? Will you if I declare it on my knees before you?
+
+“If I have not waited till we met to say these things, it is that we may
+meet with open hearts, in sorrow, but in sincerity. When I have told
+you everything, you will see that I have not been to blame. There may
+be much to grieve over, but there is nothing to reprehend--anywhere.
+And now, how is our future to be? It is for you to decide. I have not
+wronged you, and yet I am asking for forgiveness. Can you give me your
+love, and what I need as much, your pity? Can you forget your smaller
+affliction for the sake of my heavier one, for it is heavier?
+
+“I plead guilty to one only treachery; and this I stooped to, to avoid
+the shame and disgrace of an open scandal. I told his mother that,
+though Lucy was my name, it was yours also; and that you were the Lucy
+of all his feverish wanderings. Your woman's heart will pardon me this
+one perfidy.
+
+“She is a very dangerous woman in one sense. She has a certain position
+in the world, from which she could and would open a fire of slander on
+any one. She desires to injure me. She has already threatened, and she
+is capable of more than threatening. She says she will see Sir William.
+This she may not be able to do; but she can write to him. You know
+better than I do what might ensue from two such tempers meeting; for
+myself I cannot think of it.
+
+“I have written you a long letter, dear Lucy, when I only meant to have
+written five or six lines. I have not courage to read it over; were I
+to do so, I am sure I would never send it. Perhaps you will not thank
+me for my candor. Perhaps you will laugh at all my scrupulous
+honesty. Perhaps you will--no, that you never will--I mean, employ my
+trustfulness against myself.
+
+“Who knows if I have not given to this incident an importance which you
+will only smile at? There are people so rich that they never are aware
+if they be robbed. Are you one of these, Lucy? and, if so, will you
+forgive the thief who signs herself your ever-loving sister,
+
+“Lucy Skwell.
+
+“I have told Dr. Beattie I would write to you; he looked as if he knew
+that I might, or that I ought,--which is it? Doctors see a great deal
+more than they ought to see. The great security against them is, that
+they acquire an indifference to the sight of suffering, which, in
+rendering them callous, destroys curiosity, and then all ills that can
+neither be bled nor blistered they treat as trifles, and end by ignoring
+altogether. Were it otherwise,--that is, had they any touch of humanity
+in their nature,--they would be charming confidants, for they know
+everything and can go everywhere. If Beattie should be one of your pets,
+I ask pardon for this impertinence; but don't forget it altogether, as,
+one day or other, you will be certain to acknowledge its truth.
+
+“We arrive by the 4.40 train on Saturday afternoon. If I see you at the
+door when we drive up, I shall take it as a sign I am forgiven.”
+
+Beattie folded the letter slowly, and handed it to Lucy without a
+word. “Tell me,” said he, after they had walked on several seconds in
+silence,--“tell me, do you mean to-be at the door as she arrives?”
+
+“I think not,” said she, in a very low voice.
+
+“She has a humble estimate of doctors; but there is one touch of nature
+she must not deny them,--they are very sensitive about contagion. Now,
+Lucy, I wish with all my heart that you were not to be the intimate
+associate of this woman.”
+
+“So do I, doctor; but how is it to be helped?”
+
+He walked along silent and in deep thought.
+
+“Shall I tell you, doctor, how it can be managed, but only by your help
+and assistance? I must leave this.”
+
+“Leave the Priory! but for where?”
+
+“I shall go and nurse Tom: he needs _me_, doctor, and I believe I need
+_him_; that is, I yearn after that old companionship which made all my
+life till I came here--Come now, don't oppose this plan; it is only by
+your hearty aid it can ever be carried out. When you have told grandpapa
+that the thought is a good one, the battle will be more than half won.
+You see yourself I ought not to be here.”
+
+“Certainly not here with Mrs. Sewell; but there comes the grave
+difficulty of how you are to be lodged and cared for in that wild
+country where your brother lives?”
+
+“My dear doctor, I have never known pampering till I came here. Our life
+at home--and was it not happy!--was of the very simplest. To go back
+again to the same humble ways will be like a renewal of the happy past;
+and then Tom and I suit each other so well,--our very caprices are
+kindred. Do say you like this notion, and tell me you will forward it.”
+
+“The very journey is an immense difficulty.”
+
+“Not a bit, doctor; I have planned it all. From this to Marseilles
+is easy enough,--only forty hours; once there, I either go direct to
+Cagliari, or catch the Sardinian steamer at Genoa--”
+
+“You talk of these places as if they were all old acquaintances; but, my
+dear child, only fancy yourself alone in a foreign city. I don't speak
+of the difficulties of a new language.”
+
+“You might, though, my dear doctor. My French and Italian, which carry
+me on pleasantly enough with Racine and Ariosto, will expose me sadly
+with my 'commissionnaire.'”
+
+“But quite alone you cannot go,--that's certain.”
+
+“I must not take a maid, that's as certain; Tom would only send us both
+back again. If you insist, and if grandpapa insists upon it, I will take
+old Nicholas. He thinks it a great hardship that he has not been carried
+away over seas to see the great world; and all his whims and tempers
+that tortured us as children will only amuse us now; his very tyranny
+will be good fun.”
+
+“I declare frankly,” said the doctor, laughing, “I do not see how the
+difficulties of foreign travel are to be lessened by the presence of old
+Nicholas; but are you serious in all this?”
+
+“Perfectly serious, and fully determined on it, if I be permitted.”
+
+“When would you go?”
+
+“At once! I mean as soon as possible. The Sewells are to be here on
+Saturday. I would leave on Friday evening by the mail-train from London.
+I would telegraph to Tom to say on what day he might expect me.”
+
+“To-day is Tuesday; is it possible you could be ready?”
+
+“I would start to-night, doctor, if you only obtain my leave.”
+
+“It is all a matter of the merest chance how your grandfather will take
+it,” said Beattie, musing.
+
+“But _you_ approve? tell me you approve of it.”
+
+“There is certainly much in the project that I like. I cannot bear to
+think of your living here with the Sewells; my experience of them
+is very brief, but it has taught me to know there could be no worse
+companionship for you; but as these are things that cannot be spoken
+of to the Chief, let us see by what arguments we should approach him.
+I will go at once. Haire is with him, and he is sure to see that what I
+suggest has come from you. If it should be the difficulty of the journey
+your grandfather objects to, Lucy, I will go as far as Marseilles with
+you myself, and see you safely embarked before I leave you.”
+
+She took his hand and kissed it twice, but was not able to utter a word.
+
+“There, now, my dear child, don't agitate yourself; you need all your
+calm and all your courage. Loiter about here till I come to you, and it
+shall not be long.”
+
+“What a true, kind friend you are!” said she, as her eyes grew dim with
+tears. “I am more anxious about this than I like to own, perhaps.
+Will you, if you bring me good tidings, make me a signal with your
+handkerchief?”
+
+He promised this, and left her.
+
+Lucy sat down under a large elm-tree, resolving to wait there patiently
+for his return; but her fevered anxiety was such that she could not rest
+in one place, and was forced to rise and walk rapidly up and down.
+She imagined to herself the interview, and fancied she heard her
+grandfather's stern question,--whether she were not satisfied with her
+home? What could he do more for her comfort or happiness than he had
+done? Oh, if he were to accuse her of ingratitude, how should she bear
+it? Whatever irritability he might display towards others, to herself he
+had always been kind and thoughtful and courteous.
+
+She really loved him, and liked his companionship, and she felt that if
+in leaving him she should consign him to solitude and loneliness, she
+could scarcely bring herself to go; but he was now to be surrounded with
+others, and if they were not altogether suited to him by taste or habit,
+they would, even for their own sakes, try to conform to his ways and
+likings.
+
+Once more she bethought her of the discussion, and how it was faring.
+Had her grandfather suffered Beattie to state the case fully, and say
+all that he might in its favor? or had he, as was sometimes his wont,
+stopped him short with a peremptory command to desist? And then what
+part had Haire taken? Haire, for whose intelligence the old Judge
+entertained the lowest possible estimate, had somehow an immense
+influence over him, just as instincts are seen too strong for reason.
+Some traces of boyish intercourse yet survived and swayed his mind with
+his consciousness of its power.
+
+“How long it seems!” murmured she. “Does this delay augur ill for
+success, or is it that they are talking over the details of the plan?
+Oh, if I could be sure of that! My poor dear Tom, how I long to be
+near you--to care for you--and watch you!” and as she said this, a cold
+sickness came over her, and she muttered aloud: “What perfidy it all is!
+As if I was not thinking of myself, and my own sorrows, while I try to
+believe I am but thinking of my brother.” And now her tears streamed
+fast down her cheeks, and her heart felt as if it would burst. “It must
+be an hour since he left this,” said she, looking towards the house,
+where all was still and motionless. “It is not possible that they are
+yet deliberating. Grandpapa is never long in coming to a decision.
+Surely all has been determined on before this, and why does he not come
+and relieve me from my miserable uncertainty?”
+
+At last the hall door opened, and Haire appeared; he beckoned to her
+with his hand to come, and then re-entered the house. Lucy knew not what
+to think of this, and she could scarcely drag her steps along as she
+tried to hasten back. As she entered the hall, Haire met her, and,
+taking her hand cordially, said, “It is all right; only be calm, and
+don't agitate him. Come in now;” and with this she found herself in
+the room where the old Judge was sitting, his eyes closed and his whole
+attitude betokening sleep. Beattie sat at his side, and held one hand in
+his own. Lucy knelt down and pressed her lips to the other hand, which
+hung over the arm of the chair. Gently drawing away the hand, the old
+man laid it on her head, and in a low faint voice said: “I must not look
+at you, Lucy, or I shall recall my pledge. You are going away!”
+
+The young girl turned her tearful eyes towards him, and held her lips
+firmly closed to repress a sob, while her cheeks trembled with emotion.
+
+“Beattie tells me you are right,” continued he, with a sigh; and then,
+with a sort of aroused energy, he added; “But old age, amongst its other
+infirmities, fancies that right should yield to years. '_Ce sont les
+droits de la decrepitude_,' as La Rochefoucauld calls them. I will
+not insist upon my 'royalties,' Lucy, this time. You shall go to your
+brother.” His hand trembled as it lay on her head, and then fell heavily
+to his side. Lucy clasped it eagerly, and pressed it to her cheek, and
+all was silent for some seconds in the room.
+
+At last the old man spoke, and it was now in a clear distinct voice,
+though weak. “Beattie will tell you everything, Lucy; he has all my
+instructions. Let him now have yours. To-morrow we shall, both of us, be
+calmer, and can talk over all together. To-morrow will be Thursday?”
+
+“Wednesday, grandpapa.”
+
+“Wednesday,--all the better, my dear child; another day gained. I say,
+Beattie,” cried he in a louder tone, “I cannot have fallen into the
+pitiable condition the newspapers describe, or I could never have gained
+this victory over my selfishness. Come, sir, be frank enough to own that
+where a man combats himself, he asserts his identity. Haire will go out
+and give that as his own,” muttered he; and as he smiled, he lay back,
+his breathing grew heavier and longer, and he sank into a quiet sleep.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX. SOME CONJUGAL COURTESIES
+
+“You have not told me what she wrote to you,” said Sewell to his wife,
+as he smoked his cigar at one side of the fire while she read a novel
+at the other. It was to be their last evening at the Nest; on the morrow
+they were to leave it for the Priory. “Were there any secrets in it, or
+were there allusions that I ought not to see?”
+
+“Not that I remember,” said she, carelessly.
+
+“What about our coming? Does the old man seem to wish for it?--how does
+she herself take it?”
+
+“She says nothing on the subject, beyond her regret at not being there
+to meet us.”
+
+“And why can't she?--where will she be?”
+
+“At sea, probably, by that time. She goes off to Sardinia to her
+brother.”
+
+“What! do you mean to that fellow who is living with Fossbrooke? Why did
+n't you tell me this before?”
+
+“I don't think I remembered it; or, if I did, it's possible I thought it
+could not have much interest for you.”
+
+“Indeed, Madam! do you imagine that the only things I care for are the
+movements of _your_ admirers? Where 's this letter? I 'd like to see
+it.”
+
+“I tore it up. She begged me to do so when I had read it.”
+
+“How honorable! I declare you ladies conduct your intercourse with an
+integrity that would be positively charming to think of if only your
+male friends were admitted to any share of the fair dealing. Tell me so
+much as you can remember of this letter.”
+
+“She spoke of her brother having had a fever, and being now better, but
+so weak and reduced as to require great care and attention, and obliged
+to remove for change of air to a small island off the coast.”
+
+“And Fossbrooke,--does she mention _him?_”
+
+“Only that he is not with her brother, except occasionally: his business
+detains him near Cagliari.”
+
+“I hope it may continue to detain him there! Has this-young woman gone
+off all alone on this journey?”
+
+“She has taken no maid. She said it might prove inconvenient to her
+brother; and has only an old family servant she calls Nicholas with
+her.”
+
+“So, then, we have the house to ourselves so far. She 'll not be in a
+hurry back, I take it. Anything would be better than the life she led
+with her grandfather.”
+
+“She seems sorry to part with him, and recurs three or four times to his
+kindness and affection.”
+
+“His kindness and affection! His vanity and self-love are nearer the
+mark. I thought I had seen something of conceit and affectation, but
+that old fellow leaves everything in that line miles behind. He is,
+without exception, the greatest bore and the most insupportable bully I
+ever encountered.”
+
+“Lucy liked him.”
+
+“She did not,--she could not. It suits you women to say these things,
+because you cultivate hypocrisy so carefully that you carry on the game
+with each other! How could any one, let her be ever so abject, like that
+incessant homage this old man exacted,--to be obliged to be alive to his
+vapid jokes and his dreary stories, to his twaddling reminiscences of
+college success or House of Commons--Irish House too--triumphs? Do
+you think if I wasn't a beggar I 'd go and submit myself to such a
+discipline?”
+
+To this she made no reply, and for a while there was a silence in the
+room. At last he said, “_You'll_ have to take up that line of character
+that _she_ acted. _You'll_ have to 'swing the incense' now. I'll be shot
+if _I_ do.”
+
+She gave no answer, and he went on: “You 'll have to train the brats
+too to salute him, and kiss his hand and call him--what are they to call
+him--grandpapa? Yes, they must say grandpapa. How I wish I had not sent
+in my papers! If I had only imagined I could have planted you all here,
+I could have gone back to my regiment and served out my time.”
+
+“It might have been better,” said she, in a low voice.
+
+“Of course it would have been better; each of us would have been
+free, and there are few people, be it said, take more out of their
+freedom,--eh, Madam?”
+
+She shrugged her shoulders carelessly, but a slight, a very slight,
+flush colored her cheek.
+
+“By the way, now we're on that subject, have you answered Lady
+Trafford's letter?”
+
+“Yes,” said she; and now her cheek grew crimson.
+
+“And what answer did you send?”
+
+“I sent back everything.”
+
+“What do you mean?--your rings and trinkets, the bracelet with the
+hair--mine, of course,--it could be no one's but mine.”
+
+“All, everything,” said she, with a gulp.
+
+“I must read the old woman's letter over again. You have n't burnt
+_that_, I hope?”
+
+“No; it's upstairs in my writing-desk.”
+
+“I declare,” said he, rising and standing with his back to the fire,
+“you women, and especially fine ladies, say things to each other that
+men never would dare to utter to other men. That old dame, for
+instance, charged you with what we male creatures have no equivalent
+for,--cheating at play would be mild in comparison.”
+
+“I don't think that _you_ escaped scot-free,” said she, with an intense
+bitterness, though her tone was studiously subdued and low.
+
+“No,” said he, with a jeering laugh. “I figured as the accessory or
+accomplice, or whatever the law calls it. I was what polite French
+ladies call _le mari complaisant_,--a part I am so perfect in, Madam,
+that I almost think I ought to play it for my Benefit.' What do you say?”
+
+“Oh, sir, it is not for me to pass an opinion on your abilities.”
+
+“I have less bashfulness,” said he, fiercely. “I 'll venture to say a
+word on _yours_. I 've told you scores of times--I told you in India,
+I told you at the Cape, I told you when we were quarantined at Trieste,
+and I tell you now--that you never really captivated any man much under
+seventy. When they are tottering on to the grave, bald, blear-eyed, and
+deaf, you are perfectly irresistible; and I wish--really I say it in all
+good faith--you would limit the sphere of your fascinations to such very
+frail humanities. Trafford only became spooney after that smash on the
+skull; as he grew better, he threw off his delusions,--did n't he?”
+
+“So he told me,” said she, with perfect calm.
+
+“By Jove! that was a great fluke of mine,” cried he, aloud. “That was a
+hazard I never so much as tried. So that this fellow had made some sort
+of a declaration to you?”
+
+“I never said so.”
+
+“What was it then that you _did_ say, Madam? Let us understand each
+other clearly.”
+
+“Oh, I am sure we need no explanations for that,” said she, rising, and
+moving towards the door.
+
+“I want to hear about this before you go,” said he, standing between her
+and the door.
+
+“You are not going to pretend jealousy, are you?” said she, with an easy
+laugh.
+
+“I should think not,” said he, insolently. “That is about one of the
+last cares will ever rob me of my rest at night. I 'd like to know,
+however, what pretext I have to send a ball through your young friend.”
+
+“Oh, as to that peril, it will not rob _me_ of a night's rest,” said
+she, with such a look of scorn and contempt as seemed actually to sicken
+him, for he staggered back as though about to fall and she passed out
+ere he could recover himself.
+
+“It is to be no quarter between us then! Well, be it so,” cried he, as
+he sank heavily into a seat. “She's playing a bold game when she goes
+thus far.” He leaned his head on the table, and sat thus so long that he
+appeared to have fallen asleep; indeed, the servant who came to tell
+him that tea was served, feared to disturb him, and retired without
+speaking. Far from sleeping, however, his head was racked with a
+maddening pain, and he kept on muttering to himself, “This is the second
+time--the second time she has taunted me with cowardice. Let her beware!
+Is there no one will warn her against what she is doing?”
+
+“Missis says, please, sir, won't you have a cup of tea?” said the maid
+timidly at the door.
+
+“No; I'll not take any.”
+
+“Missis says too, sir, that Miss Blanche is tuk poorly, and has a
+shiverin' over her, and a bad headache, and she hopes you 'll send in
+for Dr. Tobin.”
+
+“Is she in bed?”
+
+“Yes, sir, please.”
+
+“I'll go up and see her;” and with this he arose and passed up the
+little stair that led to the nursery. In one bed a little dark-haired
+girl of about three years old lay fast asleep; in the adjoining bed a
+bright blue-eyed child of two years or less lay wide awake, her cheeks
+crimson, and the expression of her features anxious and excited. Her
+mother was bathing her temples with cold water as Sewell entered, and
+was talking in a voice of kind and gentle meaning to the child.
+
+“That stupid woman of yours said it was Blanche,” said Sewell,
+pettishly, as he gazed at the little girl.
+
+“I told her it was Cary; she has been heavy all day, and eaten nothing.
+No, pet,--no, darling,” said she, stooping over the sick child, “pa is
+not angry; he is only sorry that little Cary is ill.”
+
+“I suppose you'd better have Tobin to see her,” said he, coldly. “I 'll
+tell George to take the tax-cart and fetch him out. It's well it was n't
+Blanche,” muttered he, as he sauntered out of the room. His wife's eyes
+followed him as he went, and never did a human face exhibit a stronger
+show of repressed passion than hers, as, with closely compressed lips
+and staring eyes, she watched him as he passed out.
+
+“The fool frightened me,--she said it was Blanche,” were the words he
+continued to mutter as he went down the stairs.
+
+Tobin arrived in due time, and pronounced the case not serious,--a mere
+feverish attack that only required a day or two of care and treatment.
+
+“Have you seen Colonel Sewell?” said Mrs. Sewell, as she accompanied the
+doctor downstairs.
+
+“Yes; I told him just what I 've said to you.”
+
+“And what reply did he make?”
+
+“He said, 'All right! I have business in town, and must start to-morrow.
+My wife and the chicks can follow by the end of the week.'”
+
+“It's so like him!--so like him!” said she, as though the pent-up
+passion could no longer be restrained.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL. MR. BALFOUR'S OFFICE
+
+On arriving in Dublin, Sewell repaired at once to Balfour's office in
+the Castle yard; he wanted to “hear the news,” and it was here that
+every one went who wanted to “hear the news.” There are in all cities,
+but more especially in cities of the second order, certain haunts where
+the men about town repair; where, like the changing-houses of bankers,
+people exchange their “credits,”--take up their own notes, and give up
+those of their neighbors.
+
+Sewell arrived before the usual time when people dropped in, and found
+Balfour alone and at breakfast. The Under-Secretary's manner was dry, so
+much Sewell saw as he entered; he met him as though he had seen him the
+day before, and this, when men have not seen each other for some time,
+has a certain significance. Nor did he ask when he had come up, nor
+in any way recognize that his appearance was matter of surprise or
+pleasure.
+
+“Well, what's going on here?” said Sewell, as he flung himself into an
+easy-chair, and turned towards the fire. “Anything new?”
+
+“Nothing particular. I don't suppose you care for the Cattle Show or the
+Royal Irish Academy?”
+
+“Not much,--at least, I can postpone my inquiries about them. How about
+my place here? Are you going to give me trouble about it?”
+
+“Your place,--your place?” muttered the other, once or twice; and then,
+standing up with his back to the fire, and his skirts over his arms,
+he went on. “Do you want to hear the truth about this affair, or are we
+only to go on sparring with the gloves, eh?”
+
+“The truth, of course, if such a novel proceeding should not be too much
+of a shock to you.”
+
+“No, I suspect not. I do a little of everything every day just to keep
+my hand in.”
+
+“Well, go on now, out with this truth.”
+
+“Well, the truth is,--I am now speaking confidentially,--if I were you I
+'d not press my claim to that appointment,--do you perceive?”
+
+“I do not; but perhaps I may when you have explained yourself a little
+more fully.”
+
+“And,” continued he, in the same tone, and as though no interruption had
+occurred, “that's the opinion of Halkett, and Doyle, and Jocelyn, and
+the rest.”
+
+“Confidentially, of course,” said Sewell, with a sneer so slight as not
+to be detected.
+
+“I may say confidentially, because it was at dinner we talked it
+over, and we were only the household,--no guests but Byam Herries and
+Barrington.”
+
+“And you all agreed?”
+
+“Yes, there was not a dissentient voice but Jocelyn's, who said, if he
+were in your place, he'd insist on having all the papers and letters
+given up to him. His view is this: 'What security have I that the same
+charges are not to be renewed again and again? I submit now, but am I
+always to submit? Are my Indian'--(what shall I call them? I forget what
+he called them; I believe it was escapades)--'my Indian escapades to
+declare me unfit to hold anything under the Crown?' He said a good deal
+in that strain, but we did not see it. It was hard, to be sure, but we
+did not see it. As Halkett said, 'Sewell has had his innings already in
+India. If, with a pretty wife and a neat turn for billiards, he did not
+lay by enough to make his declining years comfortable, I must say that
+he was not provident.' Doyle, however, remarked that after that affair
+with Loftus up at Agra--wasn't it Agra?”--Sewell nodded--“it was n't
+so easy for you to get along as many might think, and that you were
+a devilish clever fellow to do what you had done. Doyle likes you,
+I think.” Sewell nodded again, and, after a slight pause, Balfour
+proceeded: “And it was Doyle, too, said, 'Why not try for something in
+the colonies? There are lots of places a man can go and nothing be ever
+heard of him. If I was Sewell, I 'd say, Make me a barrackmaster in the
+Sandwich Islands, or a consul in the Caraccas.'
+
+“They all concurred in one thing, that you never did so weak a thing in
+your whole life as to have any dealings with Trafford. It was his mother
+went to the Duke--ay, into the private office at the Horse Guards--and
+got Clifford's appointment cancelled, just for a miserable five hundred
+pounds Jack won off the elder brother,--that fellow who died last year
+at Madeira. She's the most dangerous woman in Europe. She does not care
+what she says, nor to whom she says it. She 'd go up to the Queen at a
+drawing-room and make a complaint as soon as she 'd speak to you or
+me. As it is, she told their Excellencies here all that went on in your
+house, and I suppose scores of things that did not go on either, and
+said, 'And are you going to permit this man to be'--she did not remember
+what, but she said--'a high official under the Crown? and are you going
+to receive his wife amongst your intimates?' What a woman she is! To
+hear her you 'd think her 'dear child,' instead of being a strapping
+fellow of six feet two, was a brat in knickerbockers, with a hat and
+feather. The fellow himself must be a consummate muff to be bullied
+by her; but then the estate is not entailed, they say, and there's a
+younger brother may come into it all. His chances look well just now,
+for Lionel has got a relapse, and the doctors think very ill of him.”
+
+“I had not heard that,” said Sewell, calmly.
+
+“Oh, he was getting on most favorably,--was able to sit up at the
+window, and move a little about the room,--when, one morning Lady
+Trafford had driven over to the Lodge to luncheon, he stepped downstairs
+in his dressing-gown as he was, got into a cab, and drove off into the
+country. All the cabman could tell was that he ordered him to take the
+road to Rathfarnham, and said, 'I 'll tell you by and by where to;' and
+at last he said, 'Where does Sir William Lendrick live?' and though the
+man knew the Priory, he had taken a wrong turn and got down to ask
+the road. Just at this moment a carriage drove by with two grays and a
+postilion--A young lady was inside with an elderly gentleman, and the
+moment Trafford saw her he cried out, 'There she is,--that is she!' As
+hard as they could they hastened after; but they smashed a trace, and
+lost several minutes in repairing it, and as many more in finding out
+which way the carriage had taken. It was to Kingstown, and, as the
+cabman suspected, to catch the packet for Holyhead; for just as they
+drove up, the steamer edged away from the pier, and the carriage with
+the grays drove off with only the old man, Trafford fell back in a
+faint, and appeared to have continued so, for when they took him out of
+the cab at Bilton's he was insensible.
+
+“Beattie says he'll come through it, but Maclin thinks he 'll never be
+the same man again; he 'll have a hardening or a softening--which is
+it?--of the brain, and that he'll be fit for nothing.”
+
+“Except a place in the viceregal household, perhaps. I don't imagine you
+want gold-medallists for your gentlemen-in-waiting?”
+
+“We have some monstrous clever fellows, let me tell you. Halkett made
+a famous examination at Sandhurst, and Jocelyn wrote that article in
+'Bell's Life,' 'The Badger Drawn at Last.'”
+
+“To come back to where we were, how are you to square matters with the
+Chief Baron? Are you going to law with him about this appointment, or
+are you about to say that _I_ am the objection? Let me have a definite
+answer to this question.”
+
+“We have not fully decided; we think of doing either, and we sometimes
+incline to do both. At all events, we are not to have it; that's the
+only thing certain.”
+
+“Have you got a cigar? No, not these things; I mean something that can
+be smoked.”
+
+“Try this,” said Balfour, offering his case.
+
+“They 're the same as those on the chimney. I must say, Balfour, the
+traditional hospitalities of the Castle are suffering in their present
+hands. When I dined here the last time I was in town, they gave me two
+glasses of bad sherry and one glass of a corked Gladstone; and I came
+to dinner that day after reading in Barrington all about the glorious
+festivities of the Irish Court in the olden days of Richmond and
+Bedford.”
+
+“Lady Trafford insists that your names--your wife's as well as your
+own--are to be scratched from the dinner-list. Sir Hugh has three votes
+in the House, and she bullies us to some purpose, I can tell you. I
+can't think how you could have made this woman so much your enemy. It is
+not dislike,--it is hatred.”
+
+“Bad luck, I suppose,” said Sewell, carelessly.
+
+“She seems so inveterate too; she'll not give you up, very probably.”
+
+“Women generally don't weary in this sort of pursuit.”
+
+“Couldn't you come to some kind of terms? Couldn't you contrive to let
+her know that you have no designs on her boy? You've won money of him,
+have n't you?”
+
+“I have some bills of his,--not for a very large amount, though; you
+shall have them a bargain.”
+
+“I seldom speculate,” was the dry rejoinder.
+
+“You are right; nor is this the case to tempt you.”
+
+“They 'll be paid, I take it?”
+
+“Paid! I'll swear they shall!” said Sewell, fiercely. “I'll stand a deal
+of humbug about dinner invitations, and cold salutations, and such-like;
+but none, sir, not one, about what touches a material interest.”
+
+“It's not worth being angry about,” said Balfour, who was really glad to
+see the other's imperturbability give way.
+
+“I'm not angry. I was only a little impatient, as a man may be when he
+hears a fellow utter a truism as a measure of encouragement. Tell your
+friends--I suppose I must call them your friends--that they make an
+egregious mistake when they push a man like me to the wall. It is
+intelligible enough in a woman to do it; women don't measure their
+malignity, nor their means of gratifying it; but _men_ ought to know
+better.”
+
+“I incline to think I'll tell my 'friends' nothing whatever on the
+subject.”
+
+“That's as you please; but remember this,--if the day should come that
+I need any of these, details you have given me this morning, I'll quote
+them, and you too, as their author; and if I bring an old house about
+your ears, look out sharp for a falling chimney-pot! You gave me a piece
+of advice awhile ago,” continued he, as he put on his hat before the
+glass, and arranged his necktie. “Let me repay you with two, which you
+will find useful in their several ways: Don't show your hand when
+you play with as shrewd men as myself; and, Don't offer a friend such
+execrable tobacco as that on the chimney;” and with this he nodded and
+strolled out, humming an air as he crossed the Castle yard and entered
+the city.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI. THE PRIORY IN ITS DESERTION
+
+The old Judge was very sad after Lucy's departure from the Priory. While
+she lived there they had not seen much of each other, it is true.
+They met at meal-times, and now and then Sir William would send up
+the housekeeper to announce a visit from him; but there is a sense of
+companionship in the consciousness that under the same roof with you
+dwells one upon whose affection you can draw, whose sympathy will be
+with you in your hour of need; and this the old man now felt to be
+waiting; and he wandered restlessly about the house and the garden,
+tenacious to see that nothing she liked or loved was threatened with any
+change, and repeating to all that she must find everything as she left
+it when she came back again.
+
+Sewell had been recalled to the country by the illness of his child, and
+they were not expected at the Priory for at least a week or two longer.
+Haire had gone on circuit, and even Beattie the Judge only saw hurriedly
+and at long intervals. With Lady Lendrick he had just had a most angry
+correspondence, ending in one of those estrangements which, had they
+been nations instead of individuals, would have been marked by the
+recall of their several envoys, but which they were satisfied to
+signalize by an order at the Priory gate-lodge not to admit her
+Ladyship's carriage, and an equally determined command at Merrion Square
+for the porter to take in no letters that came from the Chief Baron.
+
+Lest the world should connect this breach with any interest in my story,
+I may as well declare at once the incident had no possible bearing upon
+it. It was a little episode entirely self-contained, and consisted
+in Lady Lendrick having taken advantage of Sir William's illness and
+confinement to house to send for and use his carriage-horses,--a liberty
+which he resented by a most furious letter, to which the rejoinder
+begot another infinitely more sarcastic,--the correspondence ending by
+a printed notice which her Ladyship received in an envelope, that the
+Chief Baron's horses would be sold on the ensuing Saturday at Dycer's to
+the highest bidder, his Lordship having no further use for them.
+
+Let me own that the old Judge was sincerely sorry when this incident
+was concluded. So long as the contest lasted, while he was penning his
+epistle or waiting for the reply, his excitement rallied and sustained
+him. He used to sit after the despatch of one of his cutting letters
+calculating with himself the terror and consternation it produced, just
+as the captain of a frigate might have waited with eager expectancy
+that the smoke might drift away and show him the shattered spars or the
+yawning bulwarks of his enemy. But when his last missive was returned
+unopened, and the messenger reported that the doctor's carriage was at
+her Ladyship's door as he came away, the Judge collapsed at once, and
+all the dreariness of his deserted condition closed in upon him.
+
+Till Sewell returned to-town, Sir William resolved not to proceed
+farther with respect to the registrarship. His plan, long determined
+upon, was to induct him into the office, administer the oaths, and
+leave him to the discharge of the duties. The scandal of displacing an
+official would, he deemed, be too great a hazard for any government
+to risk. At all events, if such a conflict came, it would be a great
+battle, and with the nation for spectators.
+
+“The country shall ring with it,” was the phrase he kept repeating
+over and over as he strolled through his neglected garden or his leafy
+shrubberies; but as he plodded along, alone and in silence, the dreary
+conviction would sometimes shoot across his mind that he had run his
+race, and that the world had wellnigh forgotten him. “In a few days
+more,” sighed he out, “it will be over, and I shall be chronicled as
+the last of them.” And for a moment it would rally him to recall
+the glorious names with which he claimed companionship, and compare
+them--with what disparagement!--with the celebrities of the time.
+
+It was strange how bright the lamp of intellect would shine out as the
+wick was fast sinking in the socket. His memory would revive some stormy
+scene in the House, some violent altercation at the Bar, and all the
+fiery eloquence of passion would recur to him, stirring his heart and
+warming his blood, till he half forgot his years, and stood forth, with
+head erect and swelling chest, strong with a sense of power and a whole
+soul full of ambition.
+
+“Beattie would not let me take my Circuit,” would he say. “I wish he
+saw me to-day. Decaying powers! I would tell them that the Coliseum
+is grander in its ruin than all their stuccoed plastering in its trim
+propriety. Had he suffered me to go, the grand jury would have heard
+a charge such as men's ears have not listened to since Avonmore!
+Avon-more! what am I saying?--Yelverton had not half my law, nor a tenth
+part of my eloquence.”
+
+In his self-exaltation he began to investigate whether he was greater as
+an advocate or as prosecutor. How difficult to decide! After all, it
+was in the balance of the powers thus displayed that he was great as a
+judge. He recalled the opinions of the press when he was raised to the
+bench, and triumphantly asked aloud, had he not justified every hope and
+contradicted every fear that was entertained of him? “Has my learning
+made me intolerant, or my brilliancy led me into impatience? Has the
+sense of superiority that I possess rendered me less conciliatory? Has
+my 'impetuous genius'--how fond they were of that phrase!--carried me
+away into boundless indiscretions? and have I, as one critic said, so
+concentrated the attention of the jury on myself that the evidence went
+for nothing and the charge was everything?”
+
+It was strange how these bursts of inordinate vanity and self-esteem
+appeared to rally and invigorate the old man, redressing, as it were,
+the balance of the world's injustice--such he felt it--towards him. They
+were like a miser's hoard, to be counted and re-counted in secret with
+that abiding assurance that he had wealth and riches, however others
+might deem him poor.
+
+It was out of these promptings of self-love that he drew the energetic
+powers that sustained him, broken and failing and old as he was.
+
+Carried on by his excited thoughts, he strayed away to a little mound,
+on which, under a large weeping-ash, a small bench was placed, from
+which a wide view extended over the surrounding country. There was a
+tradition of a summer-house on the spot in Curran's day, and it was
+referred to more than once in the diaries and letters of his friends;
+and the old Chief loved the place, as sacred to great memories.
+
+He had just toiled up the ascent, and gained the top, when a servant
+came to present him with a card and a letter, saying that the gentleman
+who gave them was then at the house. The card bore the name, “Captain
+Trafford,--th Regiment.” The letter was of a few lines, and ran thus:--
+
+“My dear Sir William,--I had promised my friend and late patient Captain
+Trafford to take him over to the Priory this morning and present him to
+you. A sudden call has, however, frustrated the arrangement; and as
+his time is very brief, I have given him this as a credential to your
+acquaintance, and I hope you will permit him to stroll through the
+garden and the shrubberies, which he will accept as a great favor.
+I especially beg that you will lay no burden on your own strength to
+become his entertainer: he will be amply gratified by a sight of
+your belongings, of which he desires to carry the memory beyond
+seas.--Believe me very sincerely yours,
+
+“J. Beattie.”
+
+“If the gentleman who brought this will do me the favor to come up here,
+say I shall be happy to see him.”
+
+As the servant went on his message, the old man lay back on his seat,
+and, closing his eyes, muttered some few dropping words, implying his
+satisfaction at this act of reverential homage. “A young soldier too;
+it speaks well for the service when the men of action revere the men of
+thought. I am glad it is a good day with me; he shall carry away other
+memories than of woods and streams. Ah! here he comes.”
+
+Slowly, and somewhat feebly, Trafford ascended the hill, and with a most
+respectful greeting approached the Judge.
+
+“I thank you for your courtesy in coming here, sir,” said the Chief;
+“and when we have rested a little, I will be your _Cicerone_ back to the
+house.” The conversation flowed on pleasantly between them, Sir William
+asking where Traflford had served, and what length of time he had been
+in Ireland,--his inquiries evidently indicating that he had not heard of
+him before, or, if he had, had forgotten him.
+
+“And now you are going to Malta?”
+
+“Yes, my Lord; we sail on the 12th.”
+
+“Well, sir, Valetta has no view to rival that. See what a noble sweep
+the bay takes here, and mark how well the bold headlands define the
+limits! Look at that stretch of yellow beach, like a golden fillet round
+the sea; and then mark the rich woods waving in leafy luxuriance to
+the shore! Those massive shadows are to landscape what times of silent
+thought are to our moral natures. Do you like your service, sir?”
+
+“Yes, my Lord; there is much in it that I like. I would like it all if
+it were in 'activity.'”
+
+“I have much of the soldier in myself, and the qualities by which I
+have gained any distinction I have won are such as make generals,--quick
+decision, rapid intelligence, prompt action.”
+
+Traflford bowed to this pretentions summary, but did not speak.
+
+The old Judge went on to describe what he called the military
+mind, reviewing in turn the generals of note from Hannibal down to
+Marlborough. “What have they left us by way of legacy, sir? The game,
+lost or won, teaches us as much! Is not a letter of Cicero, is not an
+ode of Horace worth it all? And as for battle-fields, it is the painter,
+not the warrior, has made them celebrated. Wouvermans has done more for
+war than Turenne!”
+
+“But, my Lord, there must be a large number of men like myself who make
+very tolerable soldiers, but who would turn out sorry poets or poor
+advocates.”
+
+“Give me your arm now, and I will take you round by the fish-pond and
+show you where the 'Monks of the Screw' held their first meeting. You
+have heard of that convivial club?” Trafiford bowed; and the Judge went
+on to tell of the strange doings of those grave and thoughtful men,
+who-deemed no absurdity too great in their hours of distraction and
+levity. When they reached the house, the old man was so fatigued that
+he had to sit down in the porch to rest. “You have seen all, sir; all I
+have of memorable. You say you 'd like to see the garden, but there is
+not a memory connected with it. See it, however, by all means; saunter
+about till I have rallied a little, and then join me at my early dinner.
+I 'll send to tell you when it is ready. I am sorry it will be such
+a lonely meal; but she who could have thrown sunshine over it is
+gone--gone!” And he held his hands over his face, and said no more.
+Trafiford moved silently away, and went in search of the garden. He
+soon found the little wicket, and ere many minutes was deep in the leafy
+solitude of the neglected spot. At last he came upon the small gate
+in the laurel hedge, passing through which he entered the little
+flower-garden. Yes, yes; there was no doubting it! This was hers! Here
+were the flowers she tended; here the heavy bells from which she emptied
+the rain-drops; here the tendrils her own hands had trained! Oh, force
+of love, that makes the very ground holy, and gives to every leaf and
+bud an abiding value! He threw himself upon the sward and kissed it.
+There was a little seat under a large ilex--how often had she sat there
+thinking!--could it be thinking over the days beside the Shannon,--that
+delicious night they came back from Holy Island, the happiest of all his
+life? Oh, if he could but believe that she loved him! if he could only
+know that she did not think of him with anger and resentment!--for
+she might! Who could tell what might have been said of his life at the
+Sewells'? He had made a confidante of one who assumed to misunderstand
+him, and who overwhelmed him with a confession of her own misery, and
+declared she loved him; and this while he lay in a burning fever, his
+head racked with pain, and his mind on the verge of wandering. Was
+there-ever a harder fate than his? That he had forfeited the affection
+of his family, that he had wrecked his worldly fortunes, seemed little
+in his eyes to the danger of being thought ill of by her he loved.
+
+His father's last letter to him had been a command to leave the army and
+return home, to live there as became the expectant head of the house.
+“I will have your word of honor to abandon this ignoble passion”--so he
+called his love; “and in addition, your solemn pledge never to marry an
+Irishwoman.” These words were, he well knew, supplied by his mother. It
+had been the incessant burden of her harangues to him during the tedious
+days of his recovery; and even when, on the morning of this very day,
+she had been suddenly recalled to England by a severe attack of illness
+of her husband, her last act before departure was to write a brief note
+to Lionel, declaring that if he should not follow her within a week, she
+would no longer conceive herself bound to maintain his interests against
+those of his more obedient and more affectionate brother.
+
+“Won't that help my recovery, doctor?” said he, showing the kind and
+generous epistle to Beattie. “Are not these the sort of tonic stimulants
+your art envies?”
+
+Beattie shook his head in silence, and after a long pause said, “Well,
+what was your reply to this?”
+
+“Can you doubt it? Don't you know it; or don't you know _me?_”
+
+“Perhaps I guess.”
+
+“No, but you are certain of it, doctor. The regiment is ordered to
+Malta, and sails on the 12th. I go with them! Holt is a grand old place,
+and the estate is a fine one; I wish my brother every luck with both.
+Will you do me a favor,--a great favor?”
+
+“If in my power, you may be certain I will. What is it?”
+
+“Take me over to the Priory; I want to see it. You can find some pretext
+to present me to the Chief Baron, and obtain his leave to wander through
+the grounds.”
+
+“I perceive--I apprehend,” said Beattie, slyly. “There is no difficulty
+in this. The old Judge cherishes the belief that the spot is little
+short of sacred; he only wonders why men do not come as pilgrims to
+visit it. There is a tradition of Addison having lived there, while
+secretary in Ireland; Curran certainly did; and a greater than either
+now illustrates the locality.”
+
+It was thus that Trafford came to be there; with what veneration for the
+haunts of genius let the reader picture to himself!
+
+“His Lordship is waiting dinner, sir,” said a servant, abruptly, as he
+sat there--thinking, thinking; and he arose and followed the man to the
+house.
+
+The Chief Baron had spent the interval since they parted in preparing
+for the evening's display. To have for his guest a youth so imbued
+with reverence for Irish genius and ability, was no common event. Young
+Englishmen and soldiers, too, were not usually of this stuff; and the
+occasion to make a favorable impression was not to be lost.
+
+When he entered the dinner-room, Trafford was struck by seeing that
+the table was laid for three, though they were but two; and that on the
+napkin opposite to where he sat a small bouquet of fresh flowers was
+placed.
+
+“My granddaughter's place, sir,” said the old Judge, as he caught his
+eye. “It is reserved for her return. May it be soon!”
+
+How gentle the old man's voice sounded as he said this, and how
+kindly his eyes beamed! Trafford thought there was something actually
+attractive in his features, and wondered he had not remarked it before.
+
+Perhaps on that day when the old Judge well knew how agreeable he was,
+what stores of wit and pleasantry he was pouring forth, his convictions
+assured him that his guest was charmed. It was a very pardonable
+delusion,--he talked with great brilliancy and vigor. He possessed the
+gift--which would really seem to be the especial gift of Irishmen of
+that day--to be a perfect relater. To a story he imparted that slight
+dash of dramatic situation and dialogue that made it lifelike, and yet
+never retarded the interest nor prolonged the catastrophe. Acute as was
+his wit, his taste was fully as conspicuous, never betraying him for an
+instant, so long as his personal vanity could be kept out of view.
+
+Trafford's eager and animated attention showed with what pleasure he
+listened; and the Chief, like all men who love to talk and know they
+talk well, talked all the better for the success vouchsafed to him. He
+even arrived at that stage of triumph in which he felt that his guest
+was no common man, and wondered if England really turned out many young
+fellows of this stamp,--so well read, so just, so sensible, so keenly
+alive to nice distinction, and so unerring in matters of taste.
+
+“You were schooled at Rugby, sir, you told me; and Rugby has reason
+to be proud if she can turn out such young men. I am only sorry Oxford
+should not have put the fine edge on so keen an intellect.”
+
+Trafford blushed at a compliment he felt to be so unmerited, but the old
+man saw nothing of his confusion,--he was once again amongst the great
+scenes and actors of his early memories.
+
+“I hope you will spare me another day before you leave Ireland. Do you
+think you could give me Saturday?” said the Chief, as his guest arose to
+take leave.
+
+“I am afraid not, my Lord; we shall be on the march by that day.”
+
+“Old men have no claim to use the future tense, or I should ask you to
+come and see me when you come back again.”
+
+“Indeed will I. I cannot thank you enough for having asked me.”
+
+“Why are there not more young men of that stamp?” said the old Judge,
+as he looked after him as he went. “Why are they not more generally
+cultivated and endowed as he is? It is long since I have found one more
+congenial to me in every way. I must tell Beattie I like his friend. I
+regret not to see more of him.”
+
+It was in this strain Sir William ruminated and reflected; pretty much
+like many of us, who never think our critics so just or so appreciative
+as when they applaud ourselves.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII. NECESSITIES OP STATE
+
+It is, as regards views of life and the world, a somewhat narrowing
+process to live amongst sympathizers; and it may be assumed as an axiom,
+that no people so much minister to a man's littleness as those who pity
+him.
+
+Now, when Lady Lendrick separated from Sir William, she carried away
+with her a large following of sympathizers. The Chief Baron was well
+known; his haughty overbearing temper at the bar, his assuming attitude
+in public life, his turn for sarcasm and epigram, had all contributed to
+raise up for him a crowd of enemies; and these, if not individually well
+disposed to Lady Lendrick, could at least look compassionately on one
+whose conjugal fate had been so unfortunate. All _her_ shortcomings were
+lost sight of in presence of _his_ enormities, for the Chief Baron's
+temper was an Aaron's rod of irascibility, which devoured every other;
+and when the verdict was once passed, that “no woman could live with
+him,” very few women offered a word in his defence.
+
+It is just possible that if it had not been for this weight in the
+opposite scale, Lady Lendrick herself would not have stood so high. Sir
+William's faults, however, were accounted to her for righteousness,
+and she traded on a very pretty capital in consequence. Surrounded by a
+large circle of female friends, she lived in a round of those charitable
+dissipations by which some people amuse themselves; and just as dull
+children learn their English history through a game, and acquire their
+geography through a puzzle, these grown-up children take in their
+Christianity by means of deaf and dumb bazaars, balls for blind
+institutions, and private theatricals for an orphan asylum. This
+devotion, made easy to the lightest disposition, is not, perhaps, a
+bad theory,--at least, it does not come amiss to an age which likes to
+attack its gravest ills in a playful spirit, to treat consumption with
+cough lozenges, and even moderate the excesses of insanity by soft
+music. There is another good feature, too, in the practice: it furnishes
+occupation and employment to a large floating class which,' for the
+interest and comfort of society, it is far better should be engaged in
+some pursuit, than left free to the indulgence of censorious tastes and
+critical habits. Lady Lendrick lived a sort of monarch amongst
+these. She was the patroness of this, the secretary of that, and
+the corresponding member of some other society. Never was an active
+intelligence more actively occupied; but she liked it all, for she liked
+power, and, strange as it may seem, there is in a small way an
+exercise of power even in these petty administrations. Loud, bustling,
+overbearing, and meddlesome, she went everywhere, and did everything.
+The only sustaining hope of those she interfered with was that she was
+too capricious to persist in any system of annoyance, and was prone
+to forget to-day the eternal truths she had propounded for reverence
+yesterday.
+
+I am not sure that she conciliated--I am not sure that she would have
+cared for--much personal attachment; but she had what certainly she
+did like, a large following of very devoted supporters. All her little
+social triumphs--and occasionally she had such--were blazoned abroad by
+those people who loved to dwell on the courtly attentions bestowed
+upon their favorite, what distinguished person had taken her “down” to
+dinner, and the neat compliment that the Viceroy paid her on the taste
+of her “tabinet.”
+
+It need scarcely be remarked that the backwater of all this admiration
+for Lady Lendrick was a swamping tide of ill-favor for her husband. It
+would have been hard to deny him ability and talent. But what had he
+made of his ability and talent? The best lawyer of the bar was not even
+Chief-Justice of the Queen's Bench. The greatest speaker and scholar of
+his day was unknown, except in the reminiscences of a few men almost
+as old as himself. Was the fault in himself, or was the disqualifying
+element of his nature the fact of being an Irishman? For a number of
+years the former theory satisfied all the phenomena of the case, and
+the restless, impatient disposition--irritable, uncertain, and almost
+irresponsible--seemed reason enough to deter the various English
+officials who came over from either seeking the counsels or following
+the suggestions of the bold Baron of the Exchequer. A change, however,
+had come, in pail; induced by certain disparaging articles of the
+English press as to the comparative ability of the two countries; and
+now it became the fashion to say that had Sir William been born on
+the sunnier side of St. George's Channel, and had his triumphs been
+displayed at Westminster instead of the Four Courts, there would have
+been no limit to the praise of his ability as a lawyer, nor any delay in
+according him the highest honors the Crown could bestow.
+
+Men shook their heads, recalled the memorable “curse” recorded by Swift,
+and said, “Of course there is no favor for an Irishman.” It is not the
+place nor the time to discuss this matter here. I would only say that
+a good deal of the misconception which prevails upon it is owing to the
+fact that the qualities which win all the suffrages of one country are
+held cheaply enough in the other. Plodding unadorned ability, even of
+a high order, meets little favor in Ireland, while on the other side
+of the Channel Irish quickness is accounted as levity, and the rapid
+appreciation of a question without the detail of long labor and thought,
+is set down as the lucky hit of a lively but very idle intelligence.
+I will not let myself wander away further in this digression, but come
+back to my story. Connected with this theory of Irish depreciation, was
+the position that but for the land of his birth Sir William would have
+been elevated to the peerage.
+
+Of course it was a subject to admit of various modes of telling,
+according to the tastes, the opportunities, and the prejudices of the
+tellers. The popular version of the story, however, was this: that Sir
+William declined to press a claim that could not have been resisted,
+on account of the peculiarly retiring, unambitious character of him
+who should be his immediate successor. His very profession--adopted
+and persisted in, in despite of his father's wish--was a palpable
+renunciation of all desire for hereditary honor. As the old Judge said,
+“The _Libro d, Oro_ of nobility is not the Pharmacopoeia;” and the
+thought of a doctor in the peerage might have cost “Garter” a fit of
+apoplexy.
+
+Sir William knew this well,--no man better; but the very difficulties
+gave all the zest and all the flavor to the pursuit. He lived, too, in
+the hope that some Government official might have bethought him of this
+objection, that he might spring on him, tiger-like, and tear him in
+fragments.
+
+“Let them but tell me this,” muttered he, “and I will rip up the whole
+woof, thread by thread, and trace them! The noble duke whose ancestor
+was a Dutch pedler, the illustrious marquess whose great-grandfather was
+a smuggler, will have to look to it. Before this cause be called on I
+would say to them, better to retain me for the Crown! Ay, sirs, such is
+my advice to you.”
+
+While these thoughts agitated Sir William's mind, the matter of them
+was giving grave and deep preoccupation to the Viceroy. The Cabinet had
+repeatedly pressed upon him the necessity of obtaining the Chief Baron's
+retirement from the bench,--a measure the more imperative that while
+they wanted to provide for an old adherent, they were equally anxious to
+replace him in the House by an abler and readier debater; for so is it,
+when dulness stops the way, dulness must be promoted,--just as the most
+tumble-down old hackney-coach must pass on before my Lord's carriage can
+draw up.
+
+“Pemberton must go up,” said the Viceroy. “He made a horrid mess of that
+explanation t' other night in the House. His law was laughed at, and
+his logic was worse; he really must go on the bench. Can't you hit upon
+something, Balfour? Can you devise nothing respecting the Chief Baron?”
+
+“He 'll take nothing but what you won't give him; I hear he insists on
+the peerage.”
+
+“I'd give it, I declare,--I 'd give it to-morrow. As I told the Premier
+t' other day, Providence always takes care that these law lords have
+rarely successors. They are life peerages and no more; besides, what
+does it matter a man more or less in 'the Lords'? The peer without
+hereditary rank and fortune is like the officer who has been raised from
+the ranks,--he does not dine at mess oftener than he can help it.”
+
+Balfour applauded the illustration, and resolved to use it as his own.
+
+“I say again,” continued his Excellency, “I'd give it, but they won't
+agree with me; they are afraid of the English bar,--they dread what the
+benchers of Lincoln's Inn would say.”
+
+“They'd only say it for a week or two,” mumbled Balfour.
+
+“So I remarked: you'll have discontent, but it will be passing. Some
+newspaper letters will appear, but Themis and Aristides will soon tire,
+and if they should not, the world who reads them will tire; and probably
+the only man who will remember the event three months after will be the
+silversmith who is cresting the covered dishes of the new creation. You
+think you can't go and see him, Balfour?”
+
+“Impossible, my Lord, after what occurred between us the last time.”
+
+“I don't take it in that way. I suspect he 'll not bear any malice.
+Lawyers are not thin-skinned people; they give and take such hard knocks
+that they lose that nice sense of injury other folks are endowed with. I
+think you might go.”
+
+“I 'd rather not, my Lord,” said he, shaking his head.
+
+“Try his wife, then.”
+
+“They don't live together. I don't know if they're on speaking terms.”
+
+“So much the better,--she'll know every chink of his armor, and perhaps
+tell us where he is vulnerable. Wait a moment. There has been some talk
+of a picnic on Dalkey Island. It was to be a mere household affair. What
+if you were to invite her?--making of course the explanation that it was
+a family party, that no cards had been sent out; in fact, that it was to
+be so close a thing the world was never to hear of it.”
+
+“I think the bait would be irresistible, particularly when she found out
+that all her own set and dear friends had been passed over.”
+
+“Charge her to secrecy,--of course she'll not keep her word.”
+
+“May I say we 'll come for her? The great mystery will be so perfectly
+in keeping with one of the household carriages and your Excellency's
+liveries.”
+
+“Won't that be too strong, Balfour?” said the Viceroy, laughing.
+
+“Nothing is too strong, my Lord, in this country. They take their
+blunders neat as they do their sherry, and I'm sure that this part of
+the arrangement will, in the gossip it will give rise to, be about the
+best of the whole exploit.”
+
+“Take your own way, then; only make no such mistake as you made with
+the husband. No documents, Balfour,--no documents, I beg;” and with
+this warning laughingly given, but by no means so pleasantly taken, his
+Excellency went off and left him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII. MR. BALFOUR'S MISSION
+
+Lady Lendrick was dictating to her secretary, Miss Morse, the Annual
+Report of the “Benevolent Ballad-Singers' Aid Society,” when her servant
+announced the arrival of Mr. Cholmondely Balfour. She stopped abruptly
+short at a pathetic bit of description,--“The aged minstrel, too old
+for erotic poetry, and yet debarred by the stern rules of a repressive
+policy from the strains of patriotic song,”--for, be it said
+parenthetically, Lady Lendrick affected “Irishry” to a large
+extent,--and, dismissing Miss Morse to an adjoining room, she desired
+the servant to introduce Mr. Balfour.
+
+Is it fancy, or am I right in supposing that English officials have a
+manner specially assumed for Ireland and the Irish,--a thing like the
+fur cloak a man wears in Russia, or the snowshoes he puts on in Lapland,
+not intended for other latitudes, but admirably adapted for the locality
+it is made for? I will not insist that this theory of mine is faultless,
+but I appeal to a candid public of my own countrmen if they have not
+in their experience seen what may support it. I do not say it is a bad
+manner,--a presuming manner,--a manner of depreciation towards these it
+is used to, or a manner indicative of indifference in him who uses it. I
+simply say that they who employ it keep it as especially for Ireland as
+they keep their macintosh capes for wet weather, and would no more think
+of displaying it in England than they would go to her Majesty's levee in
+a shooting-jacket. Mr. Balfour was not wanting in this manner. Indeed,
+the Administration of which he formed a humble part were all proficients
+in it. It was a something between a mock homage and a very jocular
+familiarity, so that when he arose after a bow, deep and reverential
+enough for the presence of majesty, he lounged over to a chair and threw
+himself down with the ease and unconcern of one perfectly at home.
+
+“And how is my Lady? and how are the fourscore and one associations for
+turnkeys' widows and dog-stealers' orphans doing? What 's the last new
+thing in benevolence? Do tell me, for I 've won five shillings at loo,
+and want to invest it.”
+
+“You mean you have drawn your quarter's salary, Mr. Balfour.”
+
+“No, by Jove; they don't pay us so liberally. We have the run of our
+teeth and no more.”
+
+“You forget your tongue, sir; you are unjust.”
+
+“Why, my Lady, you are as quick as Sir William himself; living with that
+great wit has made you positively dangerous.”
+
+“I have not enjoyed over-much of the opportunity you speak of.”
+
+“Yes, I know that; no fault of yours, though. The world is agreed on
+that point. I take it he's about the most impossible man to live with
+the age has yet produced. Sewell has told me such things of him!--things
+that would be incredible if I had not seen him.”
+
+“I beg pardon for interrupting, but of course you have not come to
+dilate on the Chief Baron's defects of temper to his wife.”
+
+“No, only incidentally,--parenthetically, as one may say,--just as one
+knocks over a hare when he's out partridge-shooting.”
+
+“Never mind the hare, then, sir; keep to your partridges.”
+
+“My partridges! my partridges! which are my partridges? Oh, to be sure!
+I want to talk to you about Sewell. He has told you perhaps how ill we
+have behaved to him,--grossly, shamefully ill, I call it.”
+
+“He has told me that the Government object to his having this
+appointment, but he has not explained on what ground.”
+
+“Neither can I. Official life has its mysteries, and, hate them as one
+may, they must be respected; he ought n't to have sold out,--it was
+rank folly to sell out. What could he have in the world better than
+a continued succession of young fellows fresh from home, and knowing
+positively nothing of horse-flesh or billiards?”
+
+“I don't understand you, sir,--that is, I hope I misunderstand you,”
+ said she, haughtily.
+
+“I mean simply this, that I'd rather be a lieutenant-colonel with such
+opportunities than I 'd be Chairman of the Great Overland.”
+
+“Opportunities--and for what?”
+
+“For everything,--for everything; for game off the balls, on every race
+in the kingdom, and as snug a thing every night over a devilled kidney
+as any man could wish for. Don't look shocked,--it's all on the square;
+that old hag that was here last week would have given her diamond
+ear-rings to find out something against Sewell, and she could n't.”
+
+“You mean Lady Trafford?”
+
+“I do. She stayed a week here just to blacken his character, and she
+never could get beyond that story of her son and Mrs. Sewell.”
+
+“What story? I never heard of it.”
+
+“A lie, of course, from beginning to end; and it's hard to imagine that
+she herself believed it.”
+
+“But what was it?”
+
+“Oh, a trumpery tale of young Trafford having made love to Mrs. Sewell,
+and proposed to run off with her, and Sewell having played a game at
+écarté on it, and lost,--the whole thing being knocked up by Trafford's
+fall. But you must have heard it! The town talked of nothing else for a
+fortnight.”
+
+“The town never had the insolence to talk of it to _me_.”
+
+“What a stupid town! If there be anything really that can be said to be
+established in the code of society, it is that you may say anything
+to anybody about their relations. But for such a rule how could
+conversation go on?--who travels about with his friend's family-tree
+in his pocket? And as to Sewell,--I suppose I may say it,--he has not a
+truer friend in the world than myself.”
+
+She bowed a very stiff acknowledgment of the speech, and he went on: “I
+'m not going to say he gets on well with his wife,--but who does? Did
+you ever hear of him who did? The fact I take to be this, that every one
+has a certain capital of good-nature and kindliness to trade on, and he
+who expends this abroad can't have so much of it for home consumption;
+that's how your insufferable husbands are such charming fellows for the
+world! Don't you agree with me?”
+
+A very chilling smile, that might mean anything, was all her reply.
+
+“I was there all the time,” continued he, with unabated fluency. “I
+saw everything that went on: Sewell's policy was what our people call
+non-intervention; he saw nothing, heard nothing, believed nothing; and
+I will say there 's a great deal of dignity in that line; and when your
+servant comes to wake you in the morning, with the tidings that your
+wife has run away, you have established a right before the world to be
+distracted, injured, overwhelmed, and outraged to any extent you may
+feel disposed to appear.”
+
+“Your thoughts upon morals are, I must say, very edifying, sir.”
+
+“They 're always practical, so much I will say. This world is a
+composite sort of thing, with such currents of mixed motives running
+through it, if a man tries to be logical he is sure to make an ass of
+himself, and one learns at last to become as flexible in his opinions
+and as elastic as the great British constitution.
+
+“I am delighted with your liberality, sir, and charmed with your candor;
+and as you have expressed your opinion so freely upon my husband and my
+son, would it appear too great a favor if I were to ask what you would
+say of myself?”
+
+“That you are charming, Lady Lendrick,--positively charming,”
+ replied he, rapturously. “That there is not a grace of manner, nor
+a captivation, of which you are not mistress; that you possess that
+attraction which excels all others in its influence; you render all who
+come within the sphere of your fascination so much your slaves that the
+cold grow enthusiastic, the distrustful become credulous, and even
+the cautious reserve of office gives way, and the well-trained private
+secretary of a Viceroy betrays himself into indiscretions that would
+half ruin an aide-de-camp.”
+
+“I assure you, sir, I never so much as suspected my own powers.”
+
+“True as I am here; the simple fact is, I have come to say so.”
+
+“You have come to say so! What do you mean?”
+
+With this he proceeded to explain that her Excellency had deputed him
+to invite Lady Lendrick to join the picnic on the island. “It was
+so completely a home party, that, except himself and a few of the
+household, none had even heard of it. None but those really intimate
+will be there,” said he; “and for once in our lives we shall be able
+to discuss our absent friends with that charming candor that gives
+conversation its salt. When we had written down all the names, it was
+her Excellency said, 'I 'd call this perfect if I could add one more to
+the list.' 'I'll swear I know whom you mean,' said his Excellency; and
+he took his pencil and wrote a line on a card. 'Am I right?' asked he.
+She nodded, and said, 'Balfour, go and ask her to come. Be sure you
+explain what the whole thing is, how it was got up, and that it must not
+be talked of.' Of course, do what one will, these things do get about.
+Servants will talk of them, and tradespeople talk of them, and we must
+expect a fair share of ill-nature and malice from that outer world which
+was not included in the civility; but it can't be helped. I believe it's
+one of the conditions of humanity, that to make one man happy you may
+always calculate on making ten others miserable.”
+
+This time Lady Lendrick had something else to think of besides Mr.
+Balfour's ethics, and so she only smiled and said nothing.
+
+“I hope I 'm to bring back a favorable answer,” said he, rising to take
+leave. “Won't you let me say that we 're to call for you?”
+
+“I really am much flattered. I don't know how to express my grateful
+sense of their Excellencies' recollection of me. It is for Wednesday,
+you say?”
+
+“Yes, Wednesday. We mean to leave town by two o'clock, and there will be
+a carriage here for you by that hour. Will that suit you?”
+
+“Perfectly.”
+
+“I am overjoyed at my success. Good-bye till Wednesday, then.” He moved
+towards the door, and then stopped. “What was it? I surely had something
+else to say. Oh, to be sure, I remember. Tell me, if you can, what are
+Sir William's views about retirement: he is not quite pleased with us
+just now, and we can't well approach him; but we really would wish to
+meet his wishes, if we could manage to come at them.” All this he said
+in a sort of careless, easy way, as though it were a matter of little
+moment, or one calling for very slight exercise of skill to set right.
+
+“And do you imagine he has taken me into his confidence, Mr. Balfour?”
+ asked she, with a smile.
+
+“Not formally, perhaps,--not what we call officially; but he may have
+done so in that more effective way termed 'officiously.'”
+
+“Not even that. I could probably make as good a guess about your own
+future intentions as those of the Chief Baron.”
+
+“You have heard him talk of them?”
+
+“Scores of times.”
+
+“And in what tone,--with what drift?”
+
+“Always as that of one very ill-used, hardly treated, undervalued, and
+the like.”
+
+“And the remedy? What was the remedy?”
+
+“To make him a peer,--at least, so his friends say.”
+
+“But taking that to be impossible, what next?”
+
+“He becomes 'impossible' also,” said she, laughing.
+
+“Are we to imagine that a man of such intelligence as he possesses
+cannot concede something to circumstances,--cannot make allowances for
+the exigencies of 'party,'--cannot, in fact, take any other view of a
+difficulty but the one that must respond to his own will?”
+
+“Yes; I think that is exactly what you are called on to imagine. You
+are to persuade yourself to regard this earth as inhabited by the Chief
+Baron, and some other people not mentioned specifically in the census.”
+
+“He is most unreasonable, then.”
+
+“Of course he is; but I wouldn't have you tell him so. You see, Mr.
+Balfour, the Chief imagines all this while that he is maintaining and
+upholding the privileges of the Irish Bar. The burden of his song is,
+'There would have been no objection to my claim had I been the Chief
+Baron of the English Court.'”
+
+“Possibly,” murmured Balfour; and then, lower again, “Fleas are not--”
+
+“Quite true,” said she, for her quick ear caught his words,--“quite
+true. Fleas are not lobsters,--bless their souls! But, as I said before,
+I 'd not remind them of that fact. 'The Fleas' are just sore enough upon
+it already.”
+
+Balfour for once felt some confusion. He saw what a slip he had made,
+and now it had damaged his whole negotiation. Nothing but boldness would
+avail now, and he resolved to be bold.
+
+“There is a thing has been done in England, and I don't see why we might
+not attempt it in the present case. A great lawyer there obtained a
+peerage for his wife--”
+
+She burst out into a fit of laughter at this, at once so hearty and so
+natural that at last he could not help joining, and laughing too.
+
+“I must say, Mr. Balfour,” said she, as soon as she could speak,--“I
+must say there is ingenuity in your suggestion. The relations that
+subsist between Sir William and myself are precisely such as to
+recommend your project.”
+
+“I am not so sure that they are obstacles to it. I have always heard
+that he had a poor opinion of his son, who was a common-place sort of
+man that studied medicine. It could be no part of the Chief Baron's plan
+to make such a person the head of a house. Now, he likes Sewell, and he
+dotes on that boy,--the little fellow I saw at the Priory. These are all
+elements in the scheme. Don't you think so?”
+
+“Let me ask you one question before I answer yours: Does this thought
+come from yourself alone, or has it any origin in another quarter?”
+
+“Am I to be candid?”
+
+“You are.”
+
+“And are _you_ to be confidential?”
+
+“Certainly.”
+
+“In that case,” said he, drawing a long breath, as though about to
+remove a perilous weight off his mind, “I will tell you frankly, it
+comes from authority. Now, don't ask me more,--not another question. I
+have already avowed what my instructions most imperatively forbid me
+to own,--what, in fact, would be ruin to me if it were known that I
+revealed. What his Excellency--I mean, what the other person said
+was, 'Ascertain Lady Lendrick's wishes on this subject; learn, if you
+can,--but, above all, without compromising yourself,--whether she really
+cares for a step in rank; find out, if so, what aid she can or will lend
+us.' But what am I saying? Here am I entering upon the whole detail?
+What would become of me if I did not know I might rely upon you?”
+
+“It's worth thinking over,” said she, after a pause.
+
+“I should think it is. It is not every day of our lives such a brilliant
+offer presents itself. All I ask, all I stipulate for, is that you make
+no confidences, ask no advice from any quarter. Think it well over in
+your own mind, but impart it to none, least of all to Sewell.”
+
+“Of course not to _him_,” said she, resolutely, for she knew well to
+what purposes he would apply the knowledge.
+
+“Remember that we want to have the resignation before Parliament
+meets,--bear that in mind. Time is all-important with us; the rest will
+follow in due course.” With this he said “Good-bye,” and was gone.
+
+“The rest will follow in due course,” said she to herself, repeating his
+last words as he went. “With your good leave, Mr. Balfour, the 'rest'
+shall precede the beginning.”
+
+Was n't it Bolingbroke that said constitutional government never could
+go on without lying,--audacious lying too? If the old Judge will only
+consent to go, her Ladyship's peerage will admit of a compromise. Such
+was Mr. Balfour's meditation as he stepped into his cab.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV. AFTER-DINNER THOUGHTS
+
+Her Majesty's--th had got their orders for Malta, and some surmised
+for India, though it was not yet known; but all agreed it was
+hard,--“confoundedly hard,” they called it. “Had n't they had their turn
+of Inidan service?--how many years had that grim old major passed in the
+Deccan,--what weary winters had the bronzed bald captain there spent at
+Rangoon!”
+
+How they inveighed against the national niggardliness that insisted on
+making a small army do the work of a large one! How they scouted the
+popular idea that regiments were treated alike and without favoritism!
+_They_ knew better. They knew that if they had been the Nine Hundred and
+Ninth, or Three Thousand and First, there would have been no thought of
+sending them back to cholera and jungle fever. Some, with a little sly
+flattery, ascribed the order to their efficiency, and declared that they
+had done their work so well at Gonurshabad, the Government selected them
+at once when fresh troubles were threatening; and a few old grumblers,
+tired of service, sick of the Horse Guards,--not over-enamored of
+even life,--agreed that it was rank folly to join a regiment where the
+Lieutenant-Colonel was not a man of high connections; as they said, “If
+old Cave there had been a Lord George or even an Honorable, we 'd have
+had ten years more of home service.”
+
+With the exception of two or three raw subalterns who had never been out
+of England, and who wanted the glory of pig-sticking and the brevet
+to tell tiger stories, there were gloom and depression everywhere. The
+financially gifted complained that as they had all or nearly all
+bought their commissions, there was no comparison between the treatment
+administered to them and to officers in any foreign army; and such as
+knew geography asked triumphantly whether a Frenchman, who could be only
+sent to Africa, or an Austrian, whose most remote banishment was the
+“Banat,” was in the same position as an unfortunate Briton, who could be
+despatched to patrol the North Pole to-day, and to-morrow relieve guard
+at New Zealand? By a unanimous vote it was carried that the English
+army was the worst paid, hardest worked, and most ill-treated service in
+Europe; but the roast-beef played just at the moment, and they went in
+to dinner.
+
+As the last bars of that prandial melody were dying away, two men
+crossed the barrack-yard towards the mess-house. They were in close
+confabulation, and although evidently on their way to dinner, showed by
+their loitering pace how much more engrossed they were by the subject
+that engaged them than by any desire for the pleasures of the table.
+They were Colonel Cave and Sewell.
+
+“I can scarcely picture to my mind as great a fool as that,” said
+Sewell, angrily. “Can you?”
+
+“I don't know,” said Cave, slowly and doubtingly. “First of all, I never
+was heir to a large estate; and, secondly, I was never, that I remember,
+in love.”
+
+“In love! in fiddlestick. Why, he has not seen the girl this year and
+half; he scarcely knows her. I doubt greatly if she cares a straw for
+him; and for a caprice--a mere caprice--to surrender his right to a fine
+fortune and a good position is absolute idiocy; but I tell you more,
+Cave, though worse--far worse.” Here his voice grew harsh and grating,
+as he continued: “When I and other men like me played with Trafford, we
+betted with the man who was to inherit Holt. When I asked the fellow to
+my house, and suffered a certain intimacy--for I never liked him--it was
+because he represented twelve thousand a year in broad acres. I 'd
+stand a good deal from a man like that, that I 'd soon pull another up
+for,--eh?”
+
+The interrogative here puzzled Cave, who certainly was not a concurring
+party to the sentiment, and yet did not want to make it matter of
+discussion.
+
+“We shall be late,--we've lost our soup already,” said he, moving more
+briskly forward.
+
+“I 'd no more have let that fellow take on him, as he did under my roof,
+than I 'd sufifer him to kennel his dogs in my dressing-room. You
+don't know--you can't know--how he behaved.” These words were spoken in
+passionate warmth, and still there was that in the speaker's manner that
+showed a want of real earnestness; so it certainly seemed to Cave, who
+secretly determined to give no encouragement to further disclosures.
+
+“There are things,” resumed Sewell, “that a man can't speak on,--at
+least, he can only speak of them when they become the talk of the town.”
+
+“Come along, I want my dinner. I'm not sure I have not a guest, besides,
+who does not know any of our fellows. I only remembered him this
+instant. Is n't this Saturday?”
+
+“One thing I 'll swear,--he shall pay me every shilling he owes me, or
+he does not sail with the regiment. I 'll stand no nonsense of renewals;
+if he has to sell out for it, he shall book up. You have told him, I
+hope, he has nothing to expect from my forbearance?”
+
+“We can talk this all over another time. Come along now,--we 're very
+late.”
+
+“Go on, then, and eat your dinner; leave me to my cigar--I 've no
+appetite. I 'll drop in when you have dined.”
+
+“No, no; you shall come too,--your absence will only make fellows talk;
+they are talking already.”
+
+“Are they? and in what way?” asked he, sternly.
+
+“Nothing seriously, of course,” mumbled Cave, for he saw how he had
+fallen into an indiscretion; “but you must come, and you must be
+yourself too. It's the only way to meet flying rumors.”
+
+“Come along, then,” said Sewell, passing his arm within the other's; and
+they hurried forward without another word being spoken by either.
+
+It was evident that Sewell's appearance caused some surprise. There was
+a certain awkward significance in the way men looked at him and at each
+other that implied astonishment at his presence.
+
+“I didn't know you were down here,” said the old Major, making an
+involuntary explanation of his look of wonderment.
+
+“Nothing very remarkable, I take it, that a man is stopping at his own
+house,” said Se well, testily. “No--no fish. Get me some mutton,” added
+he to the mess-waiter.
+
+“You have heard that we 've got our orders,” said a captain opposite
+him.
+
+“Yes; Cave told me.”
+
+“I rather like it,--that is, if it means India,” said a very
+young-looking ensign.
+
+Sewell put up his eye-glass and looked at the speaker, and then, letting
+it drop, went on with his dinner without a word.
+
+“There 's no man can tell you more about Bengal than Colonel Sewell
+there,” said Cave, to some one near him. “He served on the staff there,
+and knows every corner of it.”
+
+“I wish I did n't, with all my heart. It's a sort of knowledge that
+costs a man pretty dearly.”
+
+“I 've always been told India was a capital place,” said a gay,
+frank-looking young lieutenant, “and that if a man did n't drink, or
+take to high play, he could get on admirably.”
+
+“Nor entangle himself with a pretty woman,” added another.
+
+“Nor raise a smashing loan from the Agra Bank,” cried a third.
+
+“You are the very wisest young gentlemen it has ever been my privilege
+to sit down with,” said Sewell, with a grin. “Whence could you have
+gleaned all these prudent maxims?”
+
+“I got mine,” said the Lieutenant, “from a cousin. Such a good fellow
+as he was! He always tipped me when I was at Sandhurst, but he's past
+tipping any one now.”
+
+“Dead?”
+
+“No; I believe it would be better he were; but he was ruined
+in India,--'let in' on a race, and lost everything, even to his
+commission.”
+
+“Was his name Stanley?”
+
+“No, Stapyleton,--Frank Stapyleton,--he was in the Grays.”
+
+“Sewell, what are you drinking?” cried Cave, with a loudness that
+overbore the talk around him. “I can't see you down there. You 've got
+amongst the youngsters.”
+
+“I am in the midst of all that is agreeable and entertaining,” said
+Sewell, with a smile of most malicious meaning. “Talk of youngsters,
+indeed! I'd like to hear where you could match them for knowledge of
+life and mankind.”
+
+There was certainly nothing in his look or manner as he spoke these
+words that suggested distrust or suspicion to those around him, for they
+seemed overjoyed at his praise, and delighted to hear themselves called
+men of the world. The grim old Major at the opposite side of the table
+shook his head thoughtfully, and muttered some words to himself.
+
+“They 're a shady lot, I take it,” said a young captain to his neighbor,
+“those fellows who remain in India, and never come home; either they
+have done something they can't meet in England, or they want to do
+things in India they couldn't do here.”
+
+“There's great truth in that remark,” said Sewell. “Captain Neeves, let
+us have a glass of wine together. I have myself seen a great deal to
+bear out your observation.”
+
+Neeves colored with pleasure at this approval, and went on: “I heard of
+one fellow--I forget his name--I never remember names; but he had a very
+pretty wife, and all the fellows used to make up to her, and pay her
+immense attention, and the husband rooked them all at écarté, every man
+of them.”
+
+“What a scoundrel!” said Sewell, with energy. “You ought to have
+preserved the name, if only for a warning.”
+
+“I think I can get it, Colonel. I 'll try and obtain it for you.”
+
+“Was it Moorcroft?” cried one.
+
+“Or Massingbred?” asked another.
+
+“I'll wager a sovereign it was Dudgeon; wasn't it Dudgeon?”
+
+But no; it was none of the three. Still, the suggestions opened a whole
+chapter of biographical details, in which each of these worthies vied
+with the other. No man ever listened to the various anecdotes narrated
+with a more eager interest than Sewell. Now and then, indeed, a slight
+incredulity--a sort of puzzled astonishment that the world could be so
+very wicked, that there really were such fellows--would seem to distract
+him; but he listened on, and even occasionally asked an explanation
+of this or of that, to show the extreme attention he vouchsafed to the
+theme.
+
+To be sure, their attempts to describe the way some trick was played
+with the cards or the dice, how the horse was “nobbled” or the match
+“squared,” were neither very remarkable for accuracy nor clearness. They
+had not been well “briefed,” as lawyers say, or they had not mastered
+their instructions. Sewell, however, was no captious critic; he took
+what he got, and was thankful.
+
+When they arose from the table, the old Major, dropping behind the line
+of those who lounged into the adjoining room, caught a young officer by
+the arm, and whispered some few words in his ear.
+
+“What a scrape I 'm in!” cried the young fellow as he listened.
+
+“I think not, this time; but let it be a caution to you how you talk of
+rumors in presence of men who are strangers to you.”
+
+“I say, Major,” asked a young captain, coming up hurriedly, “isn't that
+Sewell the man of the Agra affair?”
+
+“I don't think I 'd ask him about it, that's all,” said the Major,
+slyly, and moved away.
+
+“I got amongst a capital lot of young fellows at my end of the
+table--second battalion men, I think,--who were all new to me, but very
+agreeable,” said Sewell to Cave, as he sipped his coffee.
+
+“You'd like your rubber, Sewell, I know,” said Cave; “let us see if we
+haven't got some good players.”
+
+“Not to-night,--thanks,--I promised my wife to be home early; one of the
+chicks is poorly.”
+
+“I want so much to have a game with Colonel Sewell,” said a young
+fellow. “They told me up at Delhi that you hadn't your equal at whist or
+billiards.”
+
+Sewell's pale face grew flushed; but though he smiled and bowed, it
+was not difficult to see that his manner evinced more irritation than
+pleasure.
+
+“I say,” said another, who sat shuffling the cards by himself at a
+table, “who knows that trick about the double ace in picquet? That was
+the way Beresford was rooked at Madras.”
+
+“I must say good-night,” said Sewell; “it's a long drive to the Nest You
+'ll come over to breakfast some morning before you leave, won't you?”
+
+“I 'll do my best. At all events, I 'll pay my respects to Mrs. Sewell;”
+ and with a good deal of hand-shaking and some cordial speeches Sewell
+took his leave and retired.
+
+Had any one marked the pace at which Sewell drove home that night, black
+and dark as it was, he would have said, “There goes one on some errand
+of life or death.” There was something of recklessness in the way
+he pushed his strong-boned thoroughbred, urging him up hill and down
+without check or relief, nor slackening rein till he drew up at his own
+door, the panting beast making the buggy tremble with the violent action
+of his respiration. Low muttering to himself, the groom led the beast
+to the stable, and Sewell passed up the stairs to the small drawing-room
+where his wife usually sat.
+
+She was reading as he entered; a little table with a tea equipage at
+her side. She did not raise her eyes from her book when he came in; but
+whether his footstep on the stair had its meaning to her quick ears
+or not, a slight flush quivered on her cheek, and her mouth trembled
+faintly.
+
+“Shall I give you some tea?” asked she, as he threw himself into a seat.
+He made no answer, and she laid down her book, and sat still and silent.
+
+“Was your dinner pleasant?” said she, after a pause.
+
+“How could it be other than pleasant, Madam,” said he, fiercely, “when
+they talked so much of _you?_”
+
+“Of _me?_--talked of _me?_”
+
+“Just so; there were a set of young fellows who had just joined from
+another battalion, and who discoursed of you, of your life in India, of
+your voyage home, and lastly of some incidents that were attributed to
+your sojourn here. To me it was perfectly delightful. I had my opinion
+asked over and over again, if I thought that such a levity was so
+perfectly harmless, and such another liberty was the soul of innocence?
+In a word, Madam, I enjoyed the privilege, very rarely accorded to a
+husband, I fancy, to sit in judgment over his own wife, and say what he
+thought of her conduct.”
+
+“Was there no one to tell these gentlemen to whom they were speaking?”
+ said she, with a subdued, quiet tone.
+
+“No; I came in late and took my place amongst men all strangers to me. I
+assure you I profited largely by the incident. It is so seldom one gets
+public opinion in its undiluted form, it 's quite refreshing to taste
+it neat. Of course they were not always correct. I could have set them
+right on many points. They had got a totally wrong version of what they
+called the 'Agra row,' though one of the party said he was Beresford's
+cousin.”
+
+She grasped the table convulsively to steady herself, and in so doing
+threw it down, and the whole tea equipage with it.
+
+“Yes,” continued he, as though responding to this evidence of emotion on
+her part,--“yes; it pushed one's patience pretty hard to be obliged to
+sit under such criticism.”
+
+“And what obliged you, sir? was it fear?”
+
+“Yes, Madam, you have guessed it. I was afraid--terribly afraid to own I
+was your husband.”
+
+A low faint groan was all she uttered, as she covered her face with her
+hands. “I had next,” continued he, “to listen to a dispute as to whether
+Trafford had ever seriously offered to run away with you or not. It was
+almost put to the vote. Faith, I believe my casting voice might have
+carried the thing either way if I had only known how to give it.” She
+murmured something too low to be heard correctly, but he caught at
+part of it, and said: “Well, that was pretty much what I suspected. The
+debate was, however, adjourned; and as Cave called me by my name at the
+moment, the confidences came to an abrupt conclusion. As I foresaw that
+these youngsters, ignorant of life and manners as they were, would be at
+once for making apologetic speeches and such-like, I stole away and
+came home, _more domestico_, to ruminate over my enjoyments at my own
+fireside.”
+
+“I trust, sir, they were strangers to your own delinquencies. I hope
+they had no unpleasant reminders to give you of yourself.”
+
+“Pardon, Madam. They related several of what you pleasantly call my
+delinquencies, but they only came in as the by-play of the scene where
+you were the great character. We figured as brigands. It was _you_
+always who stunned the victim; _I_ only rifled his pockets--fact, I
+assure you. I'm sorry that china is smashed. It was Saxe,--wasn't it?”
+
+She nodded.
+
+“And a present of Trafford's too! What a pity! I declare I believe
+we shall not have a single relic of the dear fellow, except it be a
+protested bill or two.” He paused a moment or so, and then said, “Do you
+know, it just strikes me that if they saw how ill--how shamefully you
+played your cards in this Trafford affair, they 'd actually absolve you
+of all the Circe gifts the world ascribes to you.”
+
+She fixed her eyes steadfastly on him, and as her clasped hands dropped
+on her knees, she leaned forward and said: “What do you mean by it? What
+do you want by this? If these men, whose insolent taunts you had not
+courage to arrest or to resent, say truly, whose the fault? Ay, sir,
+whose the fault? Answer me, if you dare, and say, was not my shame
+incurred to cover and conceal _yours?_”
+
+“Your tragedy-queen airs have no effect upon me. I 've been too long
+behind the scenes to be frightened by stage thunder. What is past
+is past. You married a gambler; and if you shared his good luck, you
+oughtn't to grumble at partaking his bad fortune. If you had been tired
+of the yoke, I take it you 'd have thrown it behind you many a day ago.”
+
+“If I had not done so, you know well why,” said she, fiercely.
+
+“The old story, I suppose,--the dear darlings upstairs. Well, I can't
+discuss what I know nothing about. I can only promise you that such ties
+would never bind _me_.”
+
+“I ask you once again what you mean by this?” cried she, as her lips
+trembled and her pale cheeks shook with agitation. “What does it point
+to? What am I to do? What am I to be?”
+
+“That's the puzzle,” said he, with an insolent levity; “and I 'll be
+shot if I can solve it! Sometimes I think we 'd do better to renounce
+the partnership, and try what we could do alone; and sometimes I
+suspect--it sounds odd, does n't it?--but I suspect that we need each
+other.”
+
+She had by this time buried her face between her hands, and by the
+convulsive motion of her shoulders, showed she was weeping bitterly.
+
+“One thing is certainly clear,” said he, rising, and standing with his
+back to the fire,--“if we decide to part company, we have n't the means.
+If either of us would desert the ship, there 's no boat left to do it
+with.”
+
+She arose feebly from her chair, but sank down again, weak and overcome.
+
+“Shall I give you my arm?” asked he.
+
+“No; send Jane to me,” said she, in a voice barely above a whisper.
+
+He rang the bell, and said, “Tell Jane her mistress wants her;” and with
+this he searched for a book on the table, found it, and strolled off to
+his room, humming an air as he went.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV. THE TIDELESS SHORES
+
+They who only know the shores of the Mediterranean in the winter months,
+and have but enjoyed the contrast--and what a contrast!--between our
+inky skies and rain-charged atmosphere with that glorious expanse of
+blue heaven and that air of exciting elasticity,--they, I say, can still
+have no conception of the real ecstasy of life in a southern climate
+till they have experienced a summer beside the tideless sea.
+
+Nothing is more striking in these regions than the completeness of
+the change from day to night. It is not alone the rapidity with which
+darkness succeeds,--and in this our delicious twilight is ever to be
+regretted; what I speak of is the marvellous transition from the world
+of sights and sounds to the world of unbroken silence and dimness. In
+the day the whole air rings with life. The flowers flaunt out their
+gorgeous petals, not timidly or reluctantly, but with the bold
+confidence of admitted beauty. The buds unfold beneath your very eyes,
+the rivulets sing in the clear air, and myriads of insects chirp till
+the atmosphere seems to be charged with vitality. This intense vitality
+is the striking characteristic of the scene; and it is to this that
+night succeeds, grand, solemn, and silent, at first to all seeming in
+unrelieved blackness, but soon to be displayed in a glorious expanse
+of darkest, deepest blue, with stars of surpassing size. To make this
+change more effective, too, it is instantaneous. It was but a moment
+back, and you were gazing on the mountain peaks bathed in an opal
+lustre, the cicala making the air vibrate with his song; a soft
+sea-breeze was blowing, and stirring the oranges amongst the leaves;
+and now all is dim and silent and breathless, as suddenly as though an
+enchanter's wand had waved and worked the miracle.
+
+In a little bay--rather a cleft in the shore than a bay--bounded by
+rocks and backed by a steep mountain overgrown with stunted olives,
+stood a small cottage,--so very small that it looked rather like a toy
+house than a human dwelling, a resemblance added to now as the windows
+lay wide open, and all the interior was a blaze of light from two lamps.
+All was still and silent within; no human being was to be seen, nor was
+there a sign of life about the place; for it was the only dwelling on
+the eastern shore of the island, and that island was Maddalena, off
+Sardinia.
+
+In a little nook among the rocks, close to the sea, sat Tom and Lucy
+Lendrick. They held hands, but were silent; for they had come down into
+the darkness to muse and ponder, and drink in the delicious tranquillity
+of that calm hour. Lucy had now been above a week on the island, and
+every day Tom made progress towards recovery. She knew exactly, and
+as none other knew, what amount of care and nursing he would accept of
+without resistance,--where companionship would gratify and where oppress
+him; she knew, besides, when to leave him to the full swing of his own
+wild discursive talk, and never to break in upon his moods of silent
+reflection.
+
+For upwards of half an hour they had sat thus without a word, when Tom,
+suddenly turning round, and looking towards the cottage, said, “Is n't
+this the very sort of thing we used to imagine and wish for long ago,
+Lucy?”
+
+“It was just what was passing through my mind. I was thinking how often
+we longed to have one of the islands on Lough Derg, and to go and live
+there all by ourselves.”
+
+“We never dreamed of anything so luxurious as this, though. We knew
+nothing of limes and oranges, Lucy. We never fancied such a starry
+sky, or an air so loaded with perfume. I declare,” cried he, with more
+energy, “it repays one for all the disappointment, to come and taste the
+luxury of such a night as this.”
+
+“And what is the disappointment you speak of, Tom?”
+
+“I mean about our project-that blessed mine, by which we were to have
+amassed a fortune, and which has only yielded lead enough to shoot
+ourselves with.”
+
+“I never suspected that,” said she, with a sigh.
+
+“Of course you never did; nor am I in a great hurry to tell it even now.
+I'd not whisper it if Sir Brook were on the same island with us. Do you
+know, girl, that he resents a word against the mine as if it was a stain
+upon his own honour. For a while I used to catch up his enthusiasm, and
+think if we only go on steadily, if we simply persist, we are sure to
+succeed in the end. But when week after week rolled over, and not a
+trace of a mineral appeared when the very workmen said we were toiling
+in vain when I felt half-ashamed to meet the jeering questions of
+the neighbours, and used to skulk up to the shaft by the back way,--he
+remarked it, and said to me one morning, 'I am afraid, Tom, it is
+your sense of loyalty to me that keeps you here, and not your hope of
+success. Be frank, and tell me if this be so.' I blundered out something
+about my determination to share his fate, whatever it might be, and it
+would have been lucky if I had stopped there; but I went on to say that
+I thought the mine was an arrant delusion, and that the sooner we turned
+our backs on it, and addressed our energies to another quarter, the
+better. 'You think so?' said he, looking almost fiercely at me. 'I am
+certain of it,' said I, decisively; for I thought the moment had come
+when a word of truth could do him good service. He went out without
+speaking, and instead of going to Lavanna, where the mine is, he went
+over to Cagliari, and only came home late at night. The next morning,
+while we were taking our coffee before 'setting out, he said to me,
+'Don't strap on your knapsack to-day. I don't mean you should come down
+into the shaft again.' 'How so?' asked I; 'what have I said or done that
+could offend you?' 'Nothing, my dear boy,' said he, laying his hand on
+my shoulder; 'but I cannot bear you should meet this dreary life of toil
+without the one thing that can lighten its gloom--Hope. I have managed,
+therefore, to raise a small sum on the mine; for,' said he, with a sly
+laugh, 'there are men in Cagliari who don't take the despondent view
+you have taken of it; and I have written to my old friend at the Horse
+Guards to give you a commission, and you shall go and be a soldier.'
+And leave you here, sir, all alone?' 'Far from alone, lad. I have that
+companion which you tell me never joined _you_. I have Hope with _me_.'
+
+“'Then I'll stay too, sir, and try if he'll not give me his company yet.
+At all events, I shall have _yours_; and there is nothing I know that
+could recompense me for the loss of it.' It was not very easy to turn
+him from his plan, but I insisted so heartily-for I'd have stayed on
+now, if it were to have entailed a whole life of poverty-that he gave in
+at last; and from that hour to this, not a word of other than agreement
+has passed between us. For my own part, I began to work with a will,
+and a determination that I never felt before; and perhaps I overtaxed my
+strength, for I caught this fever by remaining till the heavy dews began
+to fall, and in this climate it is always a danger.”
+
+“And the mine, Tom--did it grow better?” “Not a bit. I verily believe
+we never saw ore from that day. We got upon yellow clay, and lower down
+upon limestone rock, and then upon water; and we are pumping away yet,
+and old Sir Brook is just as much interested by the decrease of the
+water as if he saw a silver floor beneath it. 'We've got eight inches
+less this morning, Tom; we are doing famously now.' I declare to you,
+Lucy, when I saw his fine cheery look and bright honest eye, I thought
+how far better this man's fancies are than the hard facts of other
+people; and I'd rather have his great nature than all the wealth success
+could bring us.”
+
+“My own dear brother!” was all she could say, as she grasped his hand,
+and held it with both her own.
+
+“The worst of all is, that in the infatuation he feels about this mining
+project he forgets everything else. Letters come to him from agents and
+men of business asking for speedy answers; some occasionally come to
+tell that funds upon which he had reckoned to meet certain payments
+had been withdrawn from his banker long sinca When he reads these, he
+ponders a moment, and mutters, 'The old story, I suppose. It is so easy
+to write Brook Fossbrooke;' and then the whole seems to pass out of his
+mind, and he'll say, 'Come along, Tom; we must push matters a little;
+I'll want some coin by the end of the month.'
+
+“When I grew so weak that I could n't go to the mine, the accounts he
+used to give me daily made me think we must be prospering. He would come
+back every night so cheery and so hopeful, and his eyes would sparkle
+as he 'd tell of a bright vein that they 'd just 'struck.' He owned that
+the men were less sanguine, but what could they know? They had no other
+teaching than the poor experiences of daily labor. If they saw lead or
+silver, they believed in it. To him, however, the signs of the coming
+ore were enough; and then he would open a paper full of dark earth in
+which a few shining particles might be detected, and point them out to
+me as the germs of untold riches. 'These are silver, Tom, every one
+of them; they are oxidized, but still perfectly pure. I 've seen the
+natives in Ceylon washing earth not richer than this;' and the poor
+fellow would make this hopeful tidings the reason for treating me to
+champagne, which in an unlucky moment the doctor said would be good for
+me, and which Sir Brook declared always disagreed with him. But I don't
+believe it, Lucy,--I don't believe it! I am certain that he suffered
+many a privation to give me luxuries that he would n't share. Shall I
+tell you the breakfast I saw him eating one morning? I had gone to his
+room to speak to him before he started to the mine, and, opening the
+door gently, I surprised him at his breakfast,--a piece of brown bread
+and a cup of coffee without milk was his meal, to support him till he
+came home at nightfall. I knew if he were aware that I had seen him that
+it would have given him great distress, so I crept quietly back to my
+bed, and lay down to think of this once pampered, flattered gentleman,
+and how grand the nature must be that could hold up uncomplaining and
+unshaken under such poverty as this. Nor is it that he ignores the past,
+Lucy, or strives to forget it,--far from that. He is full of memories
+of bygone events and people, but he talks of his own part in the grand
+world he once lived in as one might talk of another individual; nor is
+there the semblance of a regret that all this splendor has passed away
+never to return. He will be here on Sunday to pay us a visit, Lucy; and
+though perhaps you 'll find him sadly changed in appearance, you 'll see
+that his fine nature is the same as ever.”
+
+“And will he persist in this project, Tom, in spite of all failure and
+in defiance of hope?”
+
+“That's the very point I 'm puzzled about. If he decide to go on, so
+must I. I 'll not leave him, whatever come of it.”
+
+“No, no, Tom; that I know you will not do.”
+
+“His confidence of success is unshaken. It was only t' other night, as
+we sat at a very frugal supper, he said, 'You 'll remember all this,
+Tom, one of these days; and as you sip your Burgundy, you 'll tell your
+friends how jolly we thought ourselves over our little acid wine and an
+onion.' I did not dare to say what was uppermost in my thoughts, that I
+disbelieved in the Burgundy era.”
+
+“It would have been cruel to have done it.”
+
+“He had the habit, he tells me, in his days of palmiest prosperity, of
+going off by himself on foot, and wandering about for weeks, roughing it
+amongst all sorts of people,---gypsies, miners, charcoal-burners in the
+German forests, and such-like. He said, without something of this sort,
+he would have grown to believe that all the luxuries he lived amongst
+were _bona fide_ necessities of life. He was afraid too, he said, they
+would become part of him; for his theory is, never let your belongings
+master your own nature.”
+
+“There is great romance in such a man.”
+
+“Ah! there you have it, Lucy; that's the key to his whole temperament;
+and I 'd not be surprised if he had been crossed in some early love.”
+
+“Would that account for all his capricious ways?” said she, smiling.
+
+“My own experiences can tell me nothing; but I have a sister who could
+perhaps help me to an explanation. Eh, Lucy? What think you?”
+
+She tried to laugh off the theme, but the attempt only half succeeded,
+and she turned away her head to hide her confusion.
+
+Tom took her hand between his own, and patted it affectionately.
+
+“I want no confessions, my own dear Lucy,” said he, gently; “but if
+there is anything which, for your own happiness or for my honor, I ought
+to know, you will tell me of it, I am certain.”
+
+“There is nothing,” said she, with a faint gasp.
+
+“And you would tell me if there had been?”
+
+She nodded her head, but did not trust herself to speak.
+
+“And grandpapa, Lucy?” said he, trying to divert her thoughts from what
+he saw was oppressing her; “has he forgiven me yet, or does he still
+harp on about my presumption and self-sufficiency?”
+
+“He is more forgiving than you think, Tom,” said she, smiling.
+
+“I am not so sure of that. He wrote me a long letter some time back,--a
+sort of lecture on the faults and shortcomings of my disposition,
+in which he clearly showed that if I had all the gifts which my own
+self-confidence ascribed to me, and a score more that I never dreamed
+of, they would go for nothing,--absolutely nothing, so long as they
+were allied with my unparalleled--no, he did n't call it impudence, but
+something very near it. He told me that men of my stamp were like the
+people who traded on credit, and always cut a sorry figure when their
+accounts came to be audited; and, perhaps to stave off the hour of my
+bankruptcy, he enclosed me fifty pounds.”
+
+“So like him!” said she, proudly.
+
+“I suppose it was. Indeed, as I read his note, I thought I heard him
+talking it. There was an acrid flippancy about it that smacked of his
+very voice.”
+
+“Oh, Tom, I will not let you say that.”
+
+“I 'll think it all the same, Lucy. His letter brought him back to my
+mind so palpably that I thought I stood there before him on that
+morning when he delivered that memorable discourse on my character after
+luncheon.”
+
+“Did you reply to him?”
+
+“Yes, I replied,” said he, with a dry sententiousness that sounded as
+though he wished the subject to drop.
+
+“Do tell me what you said. I hope you took it in good part. I am sure
+you could not have shown any resentment at his remarks.”
+
+“No; I rather think I showed great forbearance. I simply said, 'My dear
+Lord Chief Baron, I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter, of
+which I accept everything but the enclosure.--I am, faithfully yours.'”
+
+“And refused his gift?”
+
+“Of course I did. The good counsel without the money, or the last
+without the counsel, would have beeu all very well; but coming together,
+in what a false position the offer placed me! I remember that same day
+we happened to have an unusually meagre dinner, but I drank the old
+man's health after it in some precious bad wine; and Sir Brook, who knew
+nothing about the letter, joined in the toast, and pronounced a very
+pretty little eulogium on his vigor and energy; and thus ended the whole
+incident.”
+
+“If you only knew him better, Tom! if you knew him as I know him!”
+
+Tom shrugged his shoulders, and merely said, “It was nicely done,
+though, not to tell _you_ about this. There was delicacy in _that_.”
+
+Lucy went on now to relate all his kind intentions towards Tom when the
+news of his illness arrived,--how he had conferred with Beattie about
+sending out a doctor, and how, at such a sacrifice to his own daily
+habits, he had agreed that she should come out to Cagliari. “And you
+don't know how much this cost him, Master Tom,” said she, laughing; “for
+however little store you may lay by my company, he prizes it, and prizes
+it highly too, I promise you; and then there was another reason which
+weighed against his letting me come out here,--he has got some absurd
+prejudice against Sir Brook. I call it absurd, because I have tried to
+find out to what to trace it, and could not; but a chance expression or
+two that fell from Mrs. Sewell leads me to suppose the impression was
+derived from them.”
+
+“I don't believe he knows the Sewells. I never heard him speak of them.
+I 'll ask when he comes over here. By the way, how do you like them
+yourself?”
+
+“I scarcely know. I liked her at first,--that is, I thought I should
+like her; and I fancied, too, it was her wish that I might--but--”
+
+“But what? What does this 'but' mean?”
+
+“It means that she has puzzled me, and my hope of liking her depends on
+my discovering that I have misunderstood her.”
+
+“That's a riddle, if ever there was one! but I suppose it comes to this,
+that if you have read her aright you do not like her.”
+
+“I wish I could show you a letter she wrote me.”
+
+“And why can't you?”
+
+“I don't think I can tell you even that, Tom.”
+
+“What a mysterious damsel you have grown! Does this come of your living
+with that great law lord, Lucy? If so, tell him from me he has spoiled
+you sadly. How frank you were long ago!”
+
+“That is true,” said she, sighing.
+
+“How I wish we could go back to that time, with all its dreaminess and
+all its castle-building. Do you remember, Lu, when we used to set off
+of a morning in the boat on a voyage of discovery, as we called it, and
+find out new islands and new creeks, and give them names?”
+
+“Do I not? Oh, Tom, were we not a thousand times happier then than we
+knew we were?”
+
+“That's a bit of a bull, Lucy, but it's true all the same. I know all
+you mean, and I agree with you.”
+
+“If we had troubles, what light ones they were!”
+
+“Ay, that's true. We were not grubbing for lead in those days, and
+finding only quartz; and our poor hearts, Lucy, were whole enough then.”
+ He gave a half malicious laugh as he said this; but, correcting himself
+quickly, he drew her towards him and said, “Don't be angry with me, dear
+Lu; you know of old what a reckless tongue I 've got.”
+
+“Was that thunder, Tom? There it is again. What is it?”
+
+“That's a storm getting up. It's coming from the south'ard. See how the
+drift is flying overhead, and all the while the sea beneath is like a
+mill-pond! Watch the stars now, and you 'll see how, one by one, they
+will drop out, as if extinguished; and mark the little plash--it
+is barely audible--that begins upon the beach. There! did you hear
+that,--that rushing sound like wind through the trees? That's the sea
+getting up. How I wish I was strong enough to stay out here. I 'd like
+to show you a 'Levanter,' girl,--a regular bit of Southern passion, not
+increasing slowly, like a Northern wrath, but bursting out in its full
+fury in an instant. Here it comes!” and as he spoke two claps of thunder
+shook the air, followed by a long clattering roll like musketry, and
+the sea, upheaving, surged heavily hither and thither, while the air was
+still and calm; and then, as though let loose from their caverns, the
+winds swept past with a wild shrill whistle that swelled into a perfect
+roar. The whole surface of the sea became at once white, and the wind,
+sweeping across the crests of the waves, carried away a blinding drift
+that added to the darkness. The thunder, too, rolled on unceasingly, and
+great flashes of lightning broke through the blackness, and displayed
+tall masts and spars of ships far out to sea, rocking fearfully, and in
+the next instant lost to sight in the dense darkness.
+
+“Here comes the rain, and we must run for it,” said Tom, as a few heavy
+drops fell. A solemn pause in the storm ensued, and then, as though the
+very sky was rent, the water poured down in cataracts. Laughing merrily,
+they made for the cottage, and though but a few yards off, were drenched
+thoroughly ere they reached it.
+
+“It's going to be a terrific night,” said Tom, as he passed from window
+to window, looking to the bars and fastenings. “The great heat always
+brings one of the Levant storms, and the fishermen here know it so well
+that on seeing certain signs at sunset they draw up all their boats on
+shore, and even secure the roofs of their cabins with strong spars and
+stones.”
+
+“I hope poor old Nicholas is safe by this time. Could he have reached
+Cagliari by this?” said Lucy.
+
+“Yes, he is snug enough. The old rogue is sitting at his supper this
+minute, cursing the climate and the wine and the place, and the day he
+came to it.”
+
+“Come, Tom! I think he bears everything better than I expected.”
+
+“Bears everything better! Why, child, what has he to bear that you and
+I have not to bear? Is there one privation here that falls to his share
+without coming to us?”
+
+“And what would be the value of that good blood you are so proud of,
+Tom, if it would not make us as proof against petty annoyances as
+against big dangers?”
+
+“I declare time and place make no change on you. You are the same
+disputatious damsel here that you used to be beside the Shannon. Have
+I not told you scores of times you must never quote what one has once
+said, when it comes in opposition to a present opinion?”
+
+“But if I cease to quote you, Tom, whence am I to derive those maxims of
+wisdom I rely upon so implicitly?”
+
+“Take care, young lady,--take care,” said he, shaking his finger at
+her. “Every fort has its weak side. If you assail me by the brain, I
+may attack you at the heart! How will it be then, eh?” Coloring till
+her face and neck were crimson, she tried to laugh; but though her lips
+parted, no sound came forth, and after a second or two of struggle, she
+said, “Good-night,” and rushed away.
+
+“Good-night, Lu,” cried he after her. “Look well to your
+window-fastenings, or you will be blown away before morning.”
+
+END OF VOL. I.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I., by
+Charles James Lever
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