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+Project Gutenberg's Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II., 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 II.
+
+Author: Charles James Lever
+
+Illustrator: E. J. Wheeler
+
+Release Date: February 16, 2011 [EBook #35297]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE, VOLUME II. ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Widger
+
+
+
+
+
+SIR BROOK FOSSBROOKE
+
+Volume II.
+
+By Charles James Lever,
+
+With Illustrations By E. J. Wheeler
+
+Boston:
+
+Little, Brown, And Company.
+
+1917.
+
+
+[Illustration: frontispiece2]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. A LEVANTER.
+
+The storm raged fearfully during the night, and the sea rose to a
+height that made many believe some earthquake had occurred in one of
+the islands near. Old trees that resisted the gales of former hurricanes
+were uprooted, and the swollen streams tore down amongst the fallen
+timber, adding to the clamor of the elements and increasing the signs of
+desolation and ruin that abounded.
+
+It was, as Tom called it, a "regular Levanter," one of those storms
+which in a brief twenty-four hours can do the work of years in
+destruction and change.
+
+Amongst the group of fishermen who crouched under a rock on the shore,
+sad predictions were uttered as to the fate of such as were at sea that
+night, and the disasters of bygone years were recalled, and the story of
+a Russian liner that was lost off Spartivento, and the Spanish admiral
+who was wrecked on the rocks off Melissa, were told with all the details
+eyewitnesses could impart to them.
+
+"Those fellows have driven me half distracted, Lucy," said Tom, as he
+came in wet and dripping, "with their tales of shipwreck; and one of
+them declares that he saw a large paddle-wheel steamer under English
+colors drifting to the southward this morning, perfectly helpless and
+unmanageable. I wish I could get over to Cagliari, and hear tidings of
+her."
+
+"Of course that is impossible," said she, with a shudder.
+
+"So they tell me. They say there's not a boat in the island would live
+five minutes in that sea."
+
+"And the gale seems increasing too."
+
+"So it does. They say, just before the storm ends it blows its very
+hardest at the finish, and then stops as suddenly as it burst forth."
+
+By noon the gale began to decline, the sun burst out, and the sea
+gradually subsided, and in a few hours the swollen torrents changed to
+tiny rivulets, clear as crystal. The birds were singing in the trees,
+and the whole landscape, like a newly washed picture, came out in
+fresher and brighter color than ever. Nor was it easy to believe that
+the late hurricane had ever existed, so little trace of it could be seen
+on that rocky island.
+
+A little before sunset a small "latiner" rounded the point, and stood in
+towards the little bay. She had barely wind enough to carry her along,
+and was fully an hour in sight before she anchored. As it was evident
+she was a Cagliari boat, Tom was all impatient for her news, and went
+on board of her at once. The skipper handed him a letter from Sir Brook,
+saying, "I was to give you this, sir, and say I was at your orders." Tom
+broke the seal, but before he had read half-a-dozen lines, he cried out:
+"All right! shove me on shore, and come in to me in an hour. By that
+time I 'll tell you what I decide on."
+
+"Here's great news, Lucy," cried he. "The 'Cadmus' troop-ship has put
+into Cagliari disabled, foremast lost, one paddle-wheel carried away,
+all the boats smashed, but her Majesty's--th safe and sound. Colonel
+Cave very jolly, and Major Trafford, if you have heard of such a person,
+wild with joy at the disaster of being shipwrecked."
+
+"Oh, Tom, do be serious. What is it at all?" said she, as, pale with
+anxiety, she caught his arm to steady herself.
+
+"Here's the despatch,--read it yourself if you won't believe me. This
+part here is all about the storm and the other wrecks; but here, this is
+the important part, in your eyes at least.
+
+"'Cave is now with me up here, and Trafford is to join us to-night. The
+ship cannot possibly be fit for sea before ten days to come; and the
+question is, Shall we go over and visit you, or will you and Lucy come
+here? One or other of these courses it must be, and it is for you to
+decide which suits you best. You know as well as myself what a sorry
+place this is to ask dear Lucy to come to, but, on the other hand, I
+know nothing as to the accommodation your cottage offers. For my own
+part it does not signify; I can sleep on board any craft that takes me
+over; but have you room for the soldiers?--I mean Cave and Trafford.
+I have no doubt they will be easily put up; and if they could be
+consulted, would rather bivouac under the olives than not come. At all
+events, let the boat bring yourselves or the invitation for us,--and
+at once, for the impatience of one here (I am too discreet to
+particularize) is pushing my own endurance to its limits.'
+
+"Now, Lucy, what's it to be? Decide quickly, for the skipper will be
+here soon for his answer."
+
+"I declare I don't know, Tom," said she, faltering at every word. "The
+cottage is very small, the way we live here very simple: I scarcely
+think it possible we can ask any one to be a guest--"
+
+"So that you opine we ought to go over to Cagliari?" burst he in.
+
+"I think _you_ ought, Tom, certainly," said she, still more faintly.
+
+"I see," said he, dryly, "you 'll not be afraid of being left alone
+here?"
+
+"No, not in the least," said she; and her voice was now a mere whisper,
+and she swayed slightly back and forward like one about to faint.
+
+"Such being the case," resumed Tom, "what you advise strikes me as
+admirable. I can make your apologies to old Sir Brook. I can tell him,
+besides, that you had scruples on the propriety,--there may be Mrs.
+Grundys at Cagliari, who would be shocked, you know; and then, if
+you should get on here comfortably, and not feel it too lonely, why,
+perhaps, I might be able to stay with them till they sail."
+
+She tried to mutter a Yes, but her lips moved without a sound.
+
+"So that is settled, eh?" cried he, looking full at her.
+
+She nodded, and then turned away her head.
+
+"What an arrant little hypocrite it is!" said he, drawing his arm around
+her waist; "and with all the will in the world to deceive, what a poor
+actress! My child, I know your heart is breaking this very moment at
+my cruelty, my utter barbarity, and if you had only the courage, you 'd
+tell me I was a beast!"
+
+"Oh! Tom,--oh! dear Tom," said she, hiding her face on his shoulder.
+
+"Dear Tom, of course, when there 's no help for it. And this is a
+specimen of the candor and frankness you promised me!"
+
+"But, Tom," said she, faltering at every word, "it is not--as you think;
+it is not as you believe."
+
+"What is not as I believe?" said he, quickly.
+
+"I mean," added she, trembling with shame and confusion, "there is no
+more--that it 's over--all over!" And unable to endure longer, she burst
+into tears, and buried her face between her hands.
+
+"My own dear, dear sister," said he, pressing her to his side, "why have
+you not told me of this before?"
+
+"I could not, I could not," sobbed she.
+
+"One word more, Lu, and only one. Who was in fault? I mean, darling, was
+this _your_ doing or _his?_"
+
+"Neither, Tom; at least, I think so. I believe that some deceit was
+practised,--some treachery; but I don't know what, nor how. In fact, it
+is all a mystery to me; and my misery makes it none the clearer."
+
+"Tell me, at least, whatever you know."
+
+"I will bring you the letter," said she, disengaging herself from him.
+
+"And did he write to you?" asked he, fiercely.
+
+"No; _he_ did not write,--from _him_ I have heard nothing."
+
+She rushed out of the room as she spoke, leaving Tom in a state of wild
+bewilderment. Few as were the minutes of her absence, the interval
+to him seemed like an age of torture and doubt. Weak, and broken by
+illness, his fierce spirit was nothing the less bold and defiant; and
+over and over as he waited there, he swore to himself to bring Trafford
+to a severe reckoning if he found that he had wronged his sister.
+
+"How noble of her to hide all this sorrow from me, because she saw my
+suffering! What a fine nature! And it is with hearts like these fellows
+trifle and temper, till they end by breaking them! Poor thing! might
+it not be better to leave her in the delusion of thinking him not a
+scoundrel, than to denounce and brand him?"
+
+As he thus doubted and debated with himself, she entered the room. Her
+look was now calm and composed, but her face was lividly pale, and her
+very lips bloodless. "Tom," said she, gravely, "I don't think I would
+let you see this letter but for one reason, which is, that it will
+convince you that you have no cause of quarrel whatever with _him_."
+
+"Give it to me,--let me read it," burst he in, impatiently; "I have
+neither taste nor temper for any more riddles,--leave me to find my own
+road through this labyrinth."
+
+"Shall I leave you alone, Tom?" said she, timidly, as she handed him the
+letter.
+
+"Yes, do so. I think all the quicker when there's none by me." He turned
+his back to the light, as he sat down, and began the letter.
+
+"I believe I ought to tell you first," said she, as she stood with her
+hand on the lock of the door, "the circumstances under which that was
+written."
+
+"Tell me nothing whatever,--let me grope out my own road;" and now she
+moved away and left him.
+
+He read the letter from beginning to end, and then re-read it. He saw
+there were many allusions to which he had no clew; but there was a tone
+in it which there was no mistaking, and that tone was treachery. The way
+in which the writer deprecated all possible criticism of her life,
+at the outset, showed how sensitive she was to such remark, and how
+conscious of being open to it. Tom knew enough of life to be aware that
+the people who affect to brave the world are those who are past defying
+it. So far at least he felt he had read her truly; but he had to confess
+to himself that beyond this it was not easy to advance.
+
+On the second reading, however, all appeared more clear and simple. It
+was the perfidious apology of a treacherous woman for a wrong which she
+had hoped, but had not been able, to inflict. "I see it all," cried Tom;
+"her jealousy has been stimulated by discovering Trafford's love for
+Lucy, and this is her revenge. It is just possible, too, she may have
+entangled him. There are meshes that men can scarcely keep free of.
+Trafford may have witnessed the hardship of her daily life--seen the
+indignities to which she submits--and possibly pitied her; if he has
+gone no further than this, there is no great mischief. What a clever
+creature she must be!" thought he again,--"how easy it ought to be for
+a woman like that to make a husband adore her; and yet these women will
+not be content with that. Like the cheats at cards, they don't care to
+win by fair play." He went to the door, and called out "Lucy!"
+
+The tone of his voice sounded cheerily, and she came on the instant.
+
+"How did you meet after this?" asked he, as she entered.
+
+"We have not met since that. I left the Priory, and came abroad three
+days after I received it."
+
+"So then that was the secret of the zeal to come out and nurse poor
+brother Tom, eh?" said he, laughing.
+
+"You know well if it was," said she, as her eyes swam in tears.
+
+"No, no, my poor dear Lu, I never thought so; and right glad am I to
+know that you are not to live in companionship with the woman who wrote
+that letter."
+
+"You think ill of her?"
+
+"I will not tell you half how badly I think of her; but Trafford is as
+much wronged here as any one, or else I am but a sorry decipherer of
+mysterious signs."
+
+"Oh, Tom!" cried she, clasping his hand and looking at him as though she
+yearned for one gleam of hope.
+
+"It is so that I read it; but I do not like to rely upon my own sole
+judgment in such a case. Will you trust me with this letter, and will
+you let me show it to Sir Brooke? He is wonderfully acute in tracing
+people's real meaning through all the misty surroundings of expression.
+I will go over to Cagliari at once, and see him. If all be as I suspect,
+I will bring them back with me. If Sir Brook's opinion be against mine,
+I will believe him to be the wiser man, and come back alone."
+
+"I consent to everything, Tom, if you will give me but one pledge,--you
+must give it seriously, solemnly."
+
+"I guess what you mean, Lucy; your anxious face has told the story
+without words. You are afraid of my hot temper. You think I will force a
+quarrel on Trafford,--yes, I knew what was in your thoughts. Well, on my
+honor I will not. This I promise you faithfully."
+
+She threw herself into his arms and kissed him, muttering, in a low
+voice, "My own dear brother," in his ear.
+
+"It is just as likely you may see me back again tomorrow, Lucy, and
+alone too. Mind that, girl! The version I have taken of this letter may
+turn out to be all wrong. Sir Brook may show me how and where and why
+I have mistaken it; and if so, Lu, I must have a pledge from you,--you
+know what I mean."
+
+"You need none, Tom," said she, proudly; "you shall not be ashamed of
+your Sister."
+
+"That was said like yourself, and I have no fears about you now. You
+will be anxious--you can't help being anxious, my poor child--about all
+this; but your uncertainty shall be as short as I can make it. Look out
+for me, at all events, with the evening breeze. I'll try and catch the
+land-wind to take me up. If I fly no ensign, Lucy, I am alone; if you
+see the 'Jack,' it will mean I have company with me. Do you understand
+me?"
+
+She nodded, but did not speak.
+
+"Now, Lu, I'll just get my traps together, and be off; that light
+Tramontana wind will last till daybreak, and by that time the sea-breeze
+will carry me along pleasantly. How I 'd like to have you with me!"
+
+"It is best as it is, Tom," said she, trying to smile.
+
+"And if all goes wrong,--I mean if all does not go right,--Lucy, I have
+got a plan, and I am sure Sir Brook won't oppose it. We 'll just pack
+up, wish the lead and the cobalt and the rest of it a good-bye, and
+start for the Cape and join father. There's a project after your own
+heart, girl."
+
+"Oh, Tom dearest, if we could do that!"
+
+"Think over it till we meet again, and it will at least keep away darker
+thoughts."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. BY THE MINE AT LA VANNA
+
+The mine of Lavanna, on which Sir Brook had placed all his hopes of
+future fortune, was distant from the town of Cagliari about eighteen
+miles. It was an old, a very old shaft; Livy had mentioned it, and
+Pliny, in one of his letters, compares people of sanguine and hopeful
+temperament with men who believe in the silver ore of Lavanna. There had
+therefore been a traditionary character of failure attached to the spot,
+and not impossibly this very circumstance had given it a greater value
+in Fossbrooke's estimation; for he loved a tough contest with fortune,
+and his experiences had given him many such.
+
+Popular opinion certainly set down the mine as a disastrous enterprise,
+and the list of those who had been ruined by the speculation was a long
+one. Nothing daunted by all he had heard, and fully convinced in his
+own mind that his predecessors had earned their failures by their own
+mistakes, Fossbrooke had purchased the property many years before, and
+there it had remained, like many of his other acquisitions, uncared for
+and unthought of, till the sudden idea had struck him that he wanted to
+be rich, and to be rich instantaneously.
+
+He had coffee-plantations somewhere in Ceylon, and he had purchased
+largely of land in Canada; but to utilize either of these would be a
+work of time, whereas the mine would yield its metal bright and ready
+for the market. It was so much actual available money at once.
+
+His first care was to restore, so far as to make it habitable, a dreary
+old ruinous barrack of a house, which a former speculator had built
+to hold all his officials and dependants. A few rooms that opened on
+a tumble-down terrace--of which some marble urns yet remained to bear
+witness of former splendor--were all that Sir Brook could manage to make
+habitable, and even these would have seemed miserable and uncomfortable
+to any one less bent on "roughing it" than himself.
+
+Some guns and fishing-gear covered one wall of the room that served as
+dinner-room; and a few rude shelves on the opposite side contained such
+specimens of ore as were yet discovered, and the three or four books
+which formed their library; the space over the chimney displaying a
+sort of trophy of pipes of every sort and shape, from the well-browned
+meerschaum to the ignoble "dudeen" of Irish origin.
+
+These were the only attempts at decoration they had made, but it was
+astonishing with what pleasure the old man regarded them, and with what
+pride he showed the place to such as accidentally came to see him.
+
+"I'll have a room yet, just arrayed in this fashion, Tom," would he say,
+"when we have made our fortune, and go back to live in England. I 'll
+have a sort of snuggery a correct copy of this; all the old beams in the
+ceiling, and those great massive architraves round the doors, shall be
+exactly followed, and the massive stone mantelpiece; and it will remind
+us, as we sit there of a winter's night, of the jolly evenings we have
+had here after a hard day's work in the shaft. Won't I have the laugh at
+you, Tom, too, as I tell you of the wry face you used to make over our
+prospects, the hang-dog look you 'd give when the water was gaining on
+us, and our new pump got choked!"
+
+Tom would smile at all this, though secretly nourishing no such thoughts
+for the future. Indeed, he had for many a day given up all hope of
+making his fortune as a miner, and merely worked on with the dogged
+determination not to desert his friend.
+
+On one of the large white walls of their sitting-room Sir Brook had
+sketched in charcoal a picture of the mine, in all the dreariest aspect
+of its poverty, and two sad-looking men, Tom and himself, working at the
+windlass over the shaft; and at the other extremity of the space there
+stood a picturesque mansion, surrounded with great forest trees, under
+which deer were grouped, and two men--the same--were riding up the
+approach on mettlesome horses; the elder of the two, with outstretched
+arm and hand, evidently directing his companion's attention to the rich
+scenes through which they passed. These were the "now" and "then" of
+the old man's vision, and he believed in them, as only those believe who
+draw belief from their own hearts, unshaken by all without.
+
+It was at the close of a summer day, just in that brief moment when the
+last flicker of light tinges the earth at first with crimson and then
+with deep blue, to give way a moment later to black night, that Sir
+Brook sat with Colonel Cave after dinner, explaining to his visitor
+the fresco on the wall, and giving, so far as he might, his reasons to
+believe it a truthful foreshadowing of the future.
+
+"But you tell me," said Cave, "that the speculation has proved the ruin
+of a score of fellows."
+
+"So it has. Did you ever hear of the enterprise, at least of one worth
+the name, that had not its failures? or is success anything more
+in reality than the power of reasoning out how and why others have
+succumbed, and how to avoid the errors that have beset them? The men
+who embarked in this scheme were alike deficient in knowledge and in
+capital."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" muttered Cave, who did not exactly say what his looks
+implied. "Are you their superior in these requirements?"
+
+Sir Brook was quick enough to note the expression, and hastily said, "I
+have not much to boast of myself in these respects, but I possess that
+which they never had,--that without which men accomplish nothing in
+life, going through the world mere desultory ramblers, and not like
+sturdy pilgrims, ever footing onward to the goal of their ambition. I
+have Faith!"
+
+"And young Lendrick, what says he to it?"
+
+"He scarcely shares my hopes, but he shows no signs of backwardness."
+
+"He is not sanguine, then?"
+
+"Nature did not make him so, and a man can no more alter his temperament
+than his stature. I began life with such a capital of confidence that,
+though I have been an arrant spendthrift, I have still a strong store by
+me. The cunning fellows laugh at us and call us dupes; but let me tell
+you, Cave, if accounts were squared, it might turn out that even as a
+matter of policy incredulity has not much to boast of, and were it not
+so, this world would be simply intolerable."
+
+"I'd like, however, to hear that your mine was not all outlay," said
+Cave, bringing back the theme to its starting-point.
+
+"So should I," said Fossbrooke, dryly.
+
+"And I 'd like to learn that some one more conversant--more professional
+in these matters--"
+
+"Less ignorant than myself, in a word," said Fossbrooke, laughing. "You
+mean you'd like to hear a more trustworthy prophet predict as favorably;
+and with all that I agree heartily."
+
+"There's no one would be better pleased to be certain that the fine
+palace on the wall there was not a castle in Spain. I think you know
+that."
+
+"I do, Cave,--I know it well; but bear in mind, your best runs in the
+hunting-field have not always been when you have killed your fox. The
+pursuit, when it is well sustained, with its fair share of perils met,
+dared, and overcome,--this is success. Whatever keeps a man's heart up
+and his courage high to the end, is no mean thing. I own to you I hope
+to win, and I don't know that there is any such failure possible as
+would quench this hope."
+
+"Just what Trafford said of you when he came back from that
+fishing-excursion," cried Cave, as though carried away by a sudden burst
+of thought.
+
+"What a good fellow he is! Shall we have him up here to-night?"
+
+"No; some of our men have been getting into scrapes at Cagliari, and I
+have been obliged to ask him to stay there and keep things in order."
+
+"Is his quarrel with his family final, or is there still an opening to
+reconciliation?"
+
+"I 'm afraid not. Some old preference of his mother's for the youngest
+son has helped on the difference; and then certain stories she brought
+back from Ireland of Lionel's doings there, or at least imputed doings,
+have, I suspect, steeled his father's heart completely against him."
+
+"I'll stake my life on it there is nothing dishonorable to attach to
+him. What do they allege?"
+
+"I have but a garbled version of the story, for from Trafford himself I
+have heard nothing; but I know, for I have seen the bills, he has lost
+largely at play to a very dangerous creditor, who also accuses him of
+designs on his wife; and the worst of this is that the latter suspicion
+originated with Lady Trafford."
+
+"I could have sworn it. It was a woman's quarrel, and she would
+sacrifice her own son for vengeance. I 'll be able to pay her a very
+refined compliment when I next see her, Cave, and tell her that she is
+not in the least altered from the day I first met her. And has Lionel
+been passed over in the entail?"
+
+"So he believes, and I think with too good reason."
+
+"And all because he loved a girl whose alliance would confer honor on
+the proudest house in the land. I think I 'll go over and pay Holt a
+visit. It is upwards of forty years since I saw Sir Hugh, and I have a
+notion I could bring him to reason."
+
+Cave shook his head doubtingly.
+
+"Ay, to be sure," sighed Fossbrooke, "it does make a precious difference
+whether one remonstrates at the head of a fine fortune or pleads for
+justice in a miner's jacket. I was forgetting that, Cave. Indeed, I
+am always forgetting it. And have they made no sort of settlement
+on Lionel,--nothing to compensate him for the loss of his just
+expectations?"
+
+"I suspect not. He has told me nothing beyond the fact that he is to
+have the purchase-money for the lieutenant-colonelcy, which I was
+ready and willing to vacate in his favor, but which we are unable to
+negotiate, because he owes a heavy sum, to the payment of which this
+must go."
+
+"Can nothing be done with his creditor?--can we not manage to secure the
+debt and pay the interest?"
+
+"This same creditor is one not easily dealt with," said Cave, slowly.
+
+"A money-lender?"
+
+"No. He 's the man I just told you wanted to involve Trafford with his
+own wife. As dangerous a fellow as ever lived. I take shame to myself to
+own that, though acquainted with him for years, I never really knew his
+character till lately."
+
+"Don't think the worse of yourself for that, Cave. The faculty to read
+bad men at sight argues too much familiarity with badness. I like to
+hear a fellow say, 'I never so much as suspected it.' Is this, man's
+name a secret?"
+
+"No. Nothing of the kind. I don't suppose you ever met him, but he is
+well known in the service,--better perhaps in India than at home,--he
+served on Rolffe's staff in Bengal. His name is Sewell."
+
+"What! Dudley Sewell?"
+
+"Yes; that's his name. Do you know him?"
+
+"Do I know him!" muttered the old man, as he bent down and supported his
+head upon his hand.
+
+"And do I wrong him in thinking him a dangerous fellow?" asked Cave.
+But Fossbrooke made no answer; indeed, he never heard the question, so
+absorbed was he in his own thoughts.
+
+"What do you know of him?" asked Cave, in a louder voice.
+
+"Everything,--everything! I know all that he has done, and scores of
+things he would have done if he could. By what ill-luck was it that
+Trafiford came to know this man?"
+
+"They met at the Cape, and Trafford went to visit him when they came
+over to Ireland. I suspect--I do not know it--but I suspect that
+there was some flirtation in the case. She is extremely pretty, and a
+coquette."
+
+"I declare," said Fossbrooke, as he arose and paced the room, totally
+unattentive to all the other said,--"I declare I begin sometimes
+to think that the only real activity in life is on the part of the
+scoundrels. Half the honest people in the world pass their lives in
+forming good intentions, while the rogues go straight at their work and
+do it. Do you think, Cave, that Trafford would tell me frankly what has
+passed between this man and himself?"
+
+"I 'm not sure. I mean, he might have some reserve on one point, and
+that is the very point on which his candor would be most important.
+There have been letters, it would seem, that Sewell has got hold of, and
+threatens exposure, if some enormous demand be not complied with."
+
+"What! Is the scoundrel so devoid of devices that he has to go back on
+an old exploded villany? Why, he played that game at Rangoon, and got
+five thousand pounds out of poor Beresford."
+
+"I have heard something of that."
+
+"Have heard of it! Who that ever served in India is not familiar with
+the story? What does Trafford mean by not coming up here, and telling me
+the whole story?"
+
+"I 'll tell you what he means, Fossbrooke: he is heartily ashamed of
+himself; he is in love with another, and he knows that you know it; but
+he believes you may have heard stories to his detriment, and, tied as he
+is, or fancies he is, by a certain delicate reserve, he cannot go into
+his exculpation. There, in one word, is the reason that he is not here
+to-night; he asked me to put on him special duty, and save him from all
+the awkwardness of meeting you with a half-confidence."
+
+"And I, meanwhile, have written off to Tom Lendrick to come over here
+with his sister, or to let us go and pay them a visit at the island."
+
+"You never told me of this."
+
+"Why should I? I was using the rights I possess over you as my guests,
+doing for you what I deemed best for your amusement."
+
+"What answer have they given you?"
+
+"None up to this; indeed, there has been scarcely time; and now, from
+what you tell me, I do not well know what answer I'd like to have from
+them."
+
+For several minutes neither uttered a word; at last Fossbrooke said:
+"Trafford was right not to meet me. It has saved him some prevarication,
+and me some passion. Write and tell him I said so."
+
+"I can scarcely do that, without avowing that I have revealed to you
+more than I am willing to own."
+
+"When you told me in whose hands he was, you told me more than all the
+rest. Few men can live in Dudley Sewells intimacy and come unscathed out
+of the companionship."
+
+"That would tell ill for myself, for I have been of late on terms of
+much intimacy with him."
+
+"You have n't played with him?"
+
+"Ay, but I have; and, what's more, won of him," said Cave, laughing.
+
+"You profited little by that turn of fortune," said Foss-brooke,
+sarcastically.
+
+"You imply that he did not pay his debt; but you are wrong: he came to
+me the morning after we had played, and acquitted the sum lost."
+
+"Why, I am entangling myself in the miracles I hear! That Sewell
+should lose is strange enough: that he should pay his losses is simply
+incredible."
+
+"Your opinion of him would seem to be a very indifferent one."
+
+"Far from it, Cave. It is without any qualification whatever. I deem him
+the worst fellow I ever knew; nor am I aware of any greater misfortune
+to a young fellow entering on life than to have become his associate."
+
+"You astonish me! I was prepared to hear things of him that one could
+not justify, nor would have willingly done themselves, but not to learn
+that he was beyond the pale of honor."
+
+"It is exactly where he stands, sir,--beyond the pale of honor. I wish
+we had not spoken of him," said the old man, rising, and pacing the
+room. "The memory of that fellow is the bitterest draught I ever put
+to my lips; he has dashed my mind with more unworthy doubts and mean
+suspicions of other men than all my experience of life has ever taught
+me. I declare, I believe if I had never known him my heart would have
+been as hopeful to-day as it was fifty years ago."
+
+"How came it that I never heard you speak of him?"
+
+"Is it my wont, Cave, to talk of my disasters to my friends? You surely
+have known me long enough to say whether I dwell upon the reverses and
+disappointments of my life. It is a sorry choice of topics, perhaps,
+that is left to men old as myself when they must either be croakers or
+boasters. At all events, I have chosen the latter; and people bear with
+it the better because they can smile at it."
+
+"I wish with all my heart I had never played with Sewell, and still more
+that I had not won of him."
+
+"Was it a heavy sum?"
+
+"For a man like myself, a very heavy sum. I was led on--giving him his
+revenge, as it is called--till I found myself playing for a stake which,
+had I lost, would have cost me the selling my commission."
+
+Fossbrooke nodded, as though to say he had known of such, incidents in
+the course of his life.
+
+"When he appeared at my quarters the next morning to settle the debt, I
+was so overcome with shame that I pledge you my word of honor, I believe
+I 'd rather have been the loser and taken all the ruin the loss would
+have brought down upon me."
+
+"How your friend must have appreciated your difficulty!" said
+Fossbrooke, sarcastically.
+
+"He was frank enough, at all events, to own that he could not share my
+sense of embarrassment. He jeered a little at my pretension to be
+an example to my young officers, as well he might. I had selected an
+unlucky moment to advance such a claim; and then he handed me over my
+innings, with all the ease and indifference in life."
+
+"I declare, Cave, I was expecting, to the very last moment, a different
+ending to your story. I waited to hear that he had handed you a bond of
+his wife's guardian, which for prudential reasons should not be pressed
+for prompt payment."
+
+"Good heavens! what do you mean?" cried Cave, leaning over the table in
+intense eagerness. "Who could have told you this?"
+
+"Beresford told me; he brought me the very document once to my house
+with my own signature annexed to it,--an admirable forgery as ever
+was, done. My seal, too, was there. By bad luck, however, the paper was
+stolen from me that very night,--taken out of a locked portfolio. And
+when Beresford charged the fellow with the fraud, Sewell called him out
+and shot him."
+
+Cave sat for several minutes like one stunned and overcome. He looked
+vacantly before him, but gave no sign of hearing or marking what was
+said to him. At last he arose, and, walking over to a table, unlocked
+his writing-desk, and took out a large packet, of which he broke the
+seal, and without examining the contents, handed it to Fossbrooke,
+saying,--"Is that like it?"
+
+"It is the very bond itself; there's my signature. I wish I wrote as
+good a hand now," said he, laughing. "It is as I always said, Cave,"
+cried he, in a louder, fuller voice; "the world persists in calling this
+swindler a clever fellow, and there never was a greater mistake. The
+devices of the scoundrel are the very fewest imaginable; and he repeats
+his three or four tricks, with scarcely a change, throughout a life
+long."
+
+"And this is a forgery!" muttered Cave, as he bent over the document and
+scanned it closely.
+
+"You shall see me prove it such. You 'll intrust me with it. I 'll
+promise to take better care of it this time."
+
+"Of course. What do you mean to do?"
+
+"Nothing by course of law, Cave. So far I promise you, and I know it is
+of that you are most afraid. No, my good friend. If you never figure in
+a witness-box till brought there by _me_, you may snap your fingers for
+many a day at cross-examinations."
+
+"This cannot be made the subject of a personal altercation," said Cave,
+hesitatingly.
+
+"If you mean a challenge, certainly not; but it may be made the means
+of extricating Trafford from his difficulties with this man, and I can
+hardly see where and what these difficulties are."
+
+"You allude to the wife?"
+
+"We will not speak of that, Cave," said Fossbrooke, coloring deeply.
+"Mrs. Sewell has claims on my regard, that nothing her husband could do,
+nothing that he might become could efface. She was the daughter of the
+best and truest friend, and the most noble-hearted fellow I ever knew.
+I have long ceased to occupy any place in her affections, but I shall
+never cease to remember whose child she was,--how he loved her, and how,
+in the last words he ever spoke, he asked me to befriend her. In those
+days I was a rich man, and had the influence that wealth confers. I
+had access to great people, too, and, wanting nothing for myself,
+could easily be of use to others; but, where am I wandering to? I only
+intended to say that _her_ name is not to be involved in any discussion
+those things may occasion. What are these voices I hear outside in the
+court? Surely that must be Tom Lendrick I hear." He arose and flung open
+the window, and at the same instant a merry voice cried out, "Here
+we are, Sir Brook,--Trafford and myself. I met him in the Piazza at
+Cagliari, and carried him off with me."
+
+"Have you brought anything to eat with you?" asked Fossbrooke.
+
+"That I have,--half a sheep and a turkey," said Tom.
+
+"Then you are thrice welcome," said Fossbrooke, laughing; "for Cave and
+I are reduced to fluids. Come up at once; the fellows will take care of
+your horses. We 'll make a night of it, Cave," said the old man, as he
+proceeded to cover the table with bottles. "We'll drink success to the
+mine! We 'll drink to the day when, as lieutenant-general, you 'll come
+and pay me a visit in that great house yonder,--and here come the boys
+to help us."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. UP AT THE MINE
+
+Though they carried their convivialities into a late hour of the
+night, Sir Brook was stirring early on the next morning, and was at Tom
+Lendrick's bedside ere he was awake.
+
+"We had no time for much talk together, Tom, when you came up last
+night," said he; "nor is there much now, for I am off to England within
+an hour."
+
+"Off to England! and the mine?"
+
+"The mine must take care of itself, Tom, till you are stronger and able
+to look after it. My care at present is to know if Trafford be going
+back with you."
+
+"I meant that he should; in fact, I came over here expressly to ask
+you what was best to be done. You can guess what I allude to; and I
+had brought with me a letter which Lucy thought you ought to read; and,
+indeed, I intended to be as cautious and circumspect as might be, but I
+was scarcely on shore when Trafford rushed across a street and threw
+his arm over my shoulder, and almost sobbed out his joy at seeing me. So
+overcome was I that I forgot all my prudence,--all, indeed, that I came
+for. I asked him to come up with me,--ay, and to come back, too, with me
+to the island and stay a week there."
+
+"I scarcely think that can be done," said the old man, gravely. "I like
+Trafford well, and would be heartily glad I could like him still better;
+but I must learn more about him ere I consent to his going over to
+Maddalena. What is this letter you speak of?"
+
+"You 'll find it in the pocket of my dressing-case there. Yes; that's
+it."
+
+"It's a longish epistle, but in a hand I well know,--at least, I knew it
+well long ago." There was an indescribable sadness in the tone in which
+he said this, and he turned away that his face should not be seen. He
+seated himself in a recess of the window, and read the letter from end
+to end. With a heavy sigh he laid it on the table, and muttered below
+his breath, "What a long, long way to have journeyed from what I first
+saw her to _that!_"
+
+Tom did not venture to speak, nor show by any sign that he had heard
+him, and the old man went on in broken sentences: "And to think that
+these are the fine natures--the graceful--the beautiful--that are thus
+wrecked! It is hard to believe it. In the very same characters of that
+letter I have read such things, so beautiful, so touching, so tender, as
+made the eyes overflow to follow them. You see I was right, Tom," cried
+he, aloud, in a strong stern voice, "when I said that she should not be
+your sister's companion. I told Sewell I would not permit it. I was in
+a position to dictate my own terms to him, and I did so. I must see
+Trafford about this!" and as he spoke he arose and left the room.
+
+While Tom proceeded to dress himself, he was not altogether pleased with
+the turn of events. If he had made any mistake in inviting Trafford to
+return with him, there would be no small awkwardness in recalling
+the invitation. He saw plainly enough he had been precipitate, but
+precipitation is one of those errors which, in their own cases, men
+are prone to ascribe to warm-heartedness. "Had I been as distrustful
+or suspicious as that publican yonder," is the burden of their
+self-gratulation; and in all that moral surgery where men operate on
+themselves, they cut very gingerly.
+
+"Of course," muttered Tom, "I can't expect Sir Brook will take the same
+view of these things. Age and suspicion are simply convertible terms,
+and, thank Heaven, I have not arrived at either."
+
+"What are you thanking Heaven for?" said Sir Brook, entering. "In nine
+cases out of ten, men use that formula as a measure of their own vanity.
+For which of your shortcomings were you professing your gratitude, Tom?"
+
+"Have you seen Trafford, sir?" asked Tom, trying to hide his confusion
+by the question.
+
+"Yes; we have had some talk together."
+
+Tom waited to hear further, and showed by his air of expectation how
+eager he felt; but the old man made no sign of any disclosure, but sat
+there silent and wrapped in thought. "I asked him this," said the old
+man, fiercely, "'If you had got but one thousand pounds in all the
+world, would it have occurred to you to go down and stake it on a match
+of billiards against Jonathan?' 'Unquestionably not,' he replied; 'I
+never could have dreamed of such presumption.'
+
+"'And on what pretext, by what impulse of vanity,' said I, 'were you
+prompted to enter the lists with one every way your superior in tact, in
+craft, and in coquetry? If she accepted your clumsy addresses, did
+you never suspect that there was a deeper game at issue than your
+pretensions?'
+
+"'You are all mistaken,' said he, growing crimson with shame as he
+spoke. 'I made no advances whatever. I made her certain confidences,
+it is true, and I asked her advice; and then, as we grew to be more
+intimate, we wrote to each other, and Sewell came upon my letters, and
+affected to think I was trying to steal his wife's affection. She could
+have dispelled the suspicion at once. She could have given the key
+to the whole mystery, and why she did not is more than I can say. My
+unlucky accident just then occurred, and I only issued from my
+illness to hear that I had lost largely at play, and was so seriously
+compromised, besides, that it was a question whether he should shoot me,
+or sue for a divorce.'
+
+"It was clear enough that so long as he represented the heir to the Holt
+property, Sewell treated him with a certain deference; but when Trafford
+declared to his family that he would accept no dictation, but go his own
+road, whatever the cost, from that moment Sewell pressed his claims, and
+showed little mercy in his exactions.
+
+"'And what's your way out of this mess?' asked I, 'What do you propose
+to do?'
+
+"I have written to my father, begging he will pay off this debt for
+me,--the last I shall ever ask him to acquit. I have requested my
+brother to back my petition; and I have told Sewell the steps I have
+taken, and promised him if they should fail that I will sell out, and
+acquit my debt at the price of my commission.'
+
+"'And at the price of your whole career in life?'
+
+"'Just so. If you 'll not employ me in the mine, I must turn navvy.'
+
+"'And how, under such circumstances as these, can you accept Tom
+Lendrick's invitation, and go over to Maddalena?'
+
+"'I could not well say no when he asked me, but I determined not to go.
+I only saw the greater misery I should bring on myself. Cave can send
+me off in haste to Gibraltar or to Malta. In fact, I pass off the stage,
+and never turn up again during the rest of the performance. '"
+
+"Poor fellow!" said Tom, with deep feeling.
+
+"He was so manly throughout it all," said Fossbrooke, "so
+straightforward and so simple. Had there been a grain of coxcomb in his
+nature, the fellow would have thought the woman in love with him, and
+made an arrant fool of himself in consequence, but his very humility
+saved him. I 'm not sure, Master Tom, you 'd have escaped so safely,
+eh?"
+
+"I don't see why you think so."
+
+"Now for action," said Fossbrooke. "I must get to England at once. I
+shall go over to Holt, and see if I can do anything with Sir Hugh. I
+expect little, for when men are under the frown of fortune they plead
+with small influence. I shall then pass over to Ireland. With Sewell I
+can promise myself more success. I may be away three or four weeks. Do
+you think yourself strong enough to come back here and take my place
+till I return?"
+
+"Quite so. I 'll write and tell Lucy to join me."
+
+"I'd wait till Saturday," said Fossbrooke, in a low voice. "Cave says
+they can sail by Saturday morning, and it would be as well Lucy did not
+arrive till they are gone."
+
+"You are right," said Tom, thoughtfully.
+
+"It's not his poverty I 'm thinking of," cried Fossbrooke. "With health
+and strength and vigor, a man can fight poverty. I want to learn that he
+is as clean-handed in this affair with the Sewells as he thinks himself.
+If I once were sure of that, I 'd care little for his loss of fortune.
+I 'd associate him with us in the mine, Tom. There will always be more
+wealth here than we can need. That new shaft promises splendidly. Such
+fat ore I have not seen for many a day."
+
+Tom's mouth puckered, and his expression caught a strange sort of
+half-quizzical look, but he did not venture to speak.
+
+"I know well," added the old man, cautiously, "that it 's no good
+service to a young fellow to plunge him at once into ample means without
+making him feel the fatigues and trials of honest labor. He must be
+taught to believe that there is work before him,--hard work too. He
+must be made to suppose that it is only by persistence and industry, and
+steady devotion to the pursuit, that it will yield its great results."
+
+"I don't suspect our success will turn his head," said Tom, dryly.
+
+"That 's the very thing I want to guard against, Tom. Don't you see it
+is there all my anxiety lies?"
+
+"Let him take a turn of our life here, and I 'll warrant him against the
+growth of an over-sanguine disposition."
+
+"Just so," said Fossbrooke, too intensely immersed in his own thought
+either to notice the words or the accents of the other,--"just so: a
+hard winter up here in the snows, with all the tackle frozen, ice on the
+cranks, ice on the chains, ice everywhere, a dense steam from the heated
+air below, and a cutting sleet above, try a man's chest smartly; and
+then that lead colic, of which you can tell him something. These give a
+zest and a difficulty that prove what a man's nature is like."
+
+"They have proved mine pretty well," said Tom, with a bitter laugh.
+
+"And there's nothing like it in all the world for forming a man!" cried
+Fossbrooke, in a voice of triumph. "Your fair-weather fellows go through
+life with half their natures unexplored. They know no more of the
+interior country of their hearts than we do of Central Africa. Beyond
+the fact that there is something there--something--they know nothing. A
+man must have conflict, struggle, peril, to feel what stuff there 's in
+him. He must be baffled, thwarted, ay, and even defeated. He must
+see himself amongst other men as an unlucky dog that fellows will
+not willingly associate with. He must, on poor rations and tattered
+clothing, keep up a high heart,--not always an easy thing to do; and,
+hardest of all, he must train himself never in all his poverty to
+condescend to a meanness that when his better day comes he would have to
+blush for."
+
+"If you weight poverty with all those fine responsibilities, I suspect
+you'll break its back at once," said Tom, laughing.
+
+"Far from it. It is out of these self-same responsibilities that poverty
+has a backbone at all;" and the old man stood bolt upright, and threw
+back his head as though he were emblematizing what he had spoken of.
+
+"Now, Tom, for business. Are you strong enough to come back here and
+look after the shaft?"
+
+"Yes, I think so. I hope so."
+
+"I shall probably be some weeks away. I 'll have to go over to Holt; and
+I mean to run adown amongst the Cornwall fellows and show them some of
+our ore. I 'll make their mouths water when they see it."
+
+Tom bit off the end of his cigar, but did not speak.
+
+"I mean to make Beattie a present of ten shares in that new shaft, too.
+I declare it's like a renewal of youth to me to feel I can do this sort
+of thing again. I 'll have to write to your father to come back also.
+Why should he live in exile while we could all be together again in
+affluence and comfort?"
+
+Tom's eyes ranged round the bare walls and the shattered windows, and he
+raised his eyebrows in astonishment at the other's illusions.
+
+"We had a stiff 'heat' before we weathered the point, that's certain,
+Tom," said the old man. "There were days when the sky looked dark
+enough, and it needed all our pluck and all our resolution to push
+on; but I never lost heart,--I never wavered about our certainty of
+success,--did I?"
+
+"No; that you did not. And if you had, I certainly should not have
+wondered at it."
+
+"I 'll ask you to bear this testimony to me one of these days, and to
+tell how I bore up at times that you yourself were not over hopeful."
+
+"Oh, that you may. I'll be honest enough to own that the sanguine humor
+was a rare one with me."
+
+"And it's your worst fault. It is better for a young fellow to be
+disappointed every hour of the twenty-four than to let incredulity gain
+on him. Believe everything that it would be well to believe, and never
+grow soured with fortune if the dice don't turn up as you want them. I
+declare I 'm sorry to leave this spot just now, when all looks so bright
+and cheery about it. You 're a lucky dog, Tom, to come in when the
+battle is won, and nothing more to do than announce the victory." And so
+saying, he hurried off to prepare for the road, leaving Tom Lendrick in
+a state of doubt whether he should be annoyed or amused at the opinions
+he had heard from him.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. PARTING COUNSELS
+
+Quick and decided in all his movements, Fossbrooke set out almost
+immediately after this scene with Tom, and it was only as they gathered
+together at breakfast that it was discovered he had gone.
+
+"He left Bermuda in the very same fashion," said Cave. "He had bought a
+coffee-plantation in the morning, and he set out the same night; and I
+don't believe he ever saw his purchase after. I asked him about it, and
+he said he thought--he was n't quite sure--he made it a present to Dick
+Molyneux on his marriage. 'I only know,' said he, 'it's not mine now.'"
+
+As they sat over their breakfast, or smoked after it, they exchanged
+stories about Fossbrooke, all full of his strange eccentric ways, but
+all equally abounding in traits of kind-heartedness and generosity.
+Comparing him with other men of liberal mould, the great and essential
+difference seemed to be that Fossbrooke never measured his generosity.
+When he gave, he gave all that he had; he had no notion of aiding or
+assisting. His idea was to establish a man at once,--easy, affluent, and
+independent. He abounded in precepts of prudence, maxims of thrift, and
+such-like; but in practice he was recklessly lavish.
+
+"Why ain't there more like him?" cried Trafford, enthusiastically.
+
+"I 'm not sure it would be better," said Cave. "The race of idle,
+cringing, do-nothing fellows is large enough already. I suspect men like
+Fossbrooke--at least what he was in his days of prosperity--give a large
+influence to the spread of dependants."
+
+"The fault I find with him," said Tom, "is his credulity. He believes
+everything, and, what's worse, every one. There are fellows here who
+persuade him this mine is to make his fortune; and if he had thousands
+to-morrow, he would embark them all in this speculation, the only result
+of which is to enrich these people, and ruin ourselves."
+
+"Is that your view of it?" asked Cave, in some alarm.
+
+"Of course it is; and if you doubt it, come down with me into the
+gallery, as they call it, and judge for yourself."
+
+"But I have already joined the enterprise."
+
+"What! invested money in it?"
+
+"Ay. Two thousand pounds,--a large sum for me, I promise you. It was
+with immense persuasion, too, I got Fossbrooke to let me have these
+shares. He offered me scores of other things as a free gift in
+preference,--salmon-fisheries in St. John's; a saw-mill on Lake Huron; a
+large tract of land at the Cape; I don't know what else: but I was firm
+to the copper, and would have nothing but this."
+
+"I went in for lead," said Trafford, laughingly.
+
+"_You_; and are _you_ involved in this also?" asked Tom.
+
+"Yes; so far as I have promised to sell out, and devote whatever remains
+after paying my debts to the mine."
+
+"Why, this beats all the infatuation I ever heard of! You have not the
+excuse of men at a distance, who have only read or listened to plausible
+reports; but you have come here,--you have been on the spot,--you have
+seen with your own eyes the poverty-stricken air of the whole concern,
+the broken machinery, the ruined scaffoldings, the mounds of worthless
+dross that hide the very approach to the shaft; and you have seen us,
+too, and where and how we live!"
+
+"Very true," broke in Cave; "but I have heard _him_ talk, and I could no
+more resist the force of his words than I could stand in a current and
+not be carried down by it."
+
+"Exactly so," chimed in Trafford; "he was all the more irresistible that
+he did not seek to persuade. Nay, he tried his utmost to put me off the
+project, and, as with the Colonel, he offered me dozens of other ways to
+push my fortune, without costing me a farthing."
+
+"Might not we," said Cave, "ask how it comes that you, taking this
+dispiriting view of all here, still continue to embark your fortunes in
+its success?"
+
+"It is just because they are my fortunes; had it been my fortune, I had
+been more careful. There is all the difference in life between a man's
+hopes and his bank-stock. But if you ask me why I hang on here, after I
+have long ceased to think anything can come of it, my answer is, I do so
+just as I would refuse to quit the wreck, when he declared he would not
+leave it. It might be I should save my life by deserting him; but it
+would be little worth having afterwards; and I 'd rather live with him
+in daily companionship, watching his manly courageous temper and his
+high-hearted way of dealing with difficulties, than I would go down the
+stream prosperously with many another; and over and over have I said to
+myself, If that fine nature of his can make defeat so endurable, what
+splendor of triumph would it not throw over a real success!"
+
+"And this is exactly what we want to share," said Traf-ford, smiling.
+
+"But what do either of you know of the man, beyond the eccentricity, or
+the general kindliness with which he meets you? You have not seen him
+as I have, rising to his daily toil with a racking head and a fevered
+frame, without a word of complaint, or anything beyond a passing
+syllable of discomfort; never flinching, never yielding; as full of kind
+thought for others, as full of hopeful counsel, as in his best days;
+lightening labor with proverb and adage, and stimulating zeal with many
+a story. You can't picture to yourselves this man, once at the head of a
+princely fortune, which he dispensed with more than princely liberality,
+sharing a poor miner's meal of beans and oil with pleasant humor, and
+drinking a toast, in wine that would set the teeth on edge, to that good
+time when they would have more generous fare, and as happy hearts to
+enjoy it.
+
+"Nor have you seen him, as I have, the nurse beside the sick-bed, so
+gentle, so thoughtful,--a very woman in tenderness; and all that after a
+day of labor that would have borne down the strongest and the stoutest.
+And who is he that takes the world in such good part, and thinks so
+hopefully of his fellow-men? The man of all his time who has been most
+betrayed, most cheated, whose trust has been most often abused, whose
+benefits have been oftenest paid back in ingratitude. It is possible
+enough he may not be the man to guide one to wealth and fortune; but to
+whatever condition of life he leads, of one thing I am certain, there
+will be no better teacher of the spirit and temper to enjoy it; there
+will be none who will grace any rank--the highest or the humblest--with
+a more manly dignity."
+
+"It was knowing all this of him," said Cave, "that impelled me to
+associate myself with any enterprise he belonged to. I felt that if
+success were to be won by persistent industry and determination, his
+would do it, and that his noble character gave a guarantee for fair
+dealing better than all the parchments lawyers could engross."
+
+"From what I have seen of life, I 'd not say that success attends such
+men as he is," said Tom. "The world would be, perhaps, too good if it
+were so."
+
+Silence now fell upon the party, and the three men smoked on for some
+time without a word. At last Tom, rising from the bench where he had
+been seated, said, "Take my advice; keep to your soldiering, and have
+nothing to do with this concern here. You sail on Saturday next, and
+by Sunday evening, if you can forget that there is such an island as
+Sardinia, and such poor devils on it as ourselves, it will be all the
+better for you."
+
+"I am sorry to see you so depressed, Lendrick," said Cave.
+
+"I 'm not so low as you suspect; but I'd be far lower if I thought that
+others were going to share our ill-fortunes."
+
+Though the speech had no direct reference to Trafford, it chanced
+that their eyes met as he spoke, and Trafford's face flushed to a deep
+crimson as he felt the application of the words.
+
+"Come here, Tom," said he, passing his arm within Len-drick's, and
+leading him off the terrace into a little copse of wild hollies at the
+foot of it. "Let me have one word with you." They walked on some
+seconds without a word, and when Trafford spoke his voice trembled with
+agitation. "I don't know," muttered he, "if Sir Brook has told you of
+the change in my fortunes,--that I am passed over in the entail by my
+father, and am, so to say, a beggar."
+
+Lendrick nodded, but said nothing.
+
+"I have got debts, too, which, if not paid by my family, will compel me
+to sell out,--has he told you this?"
+
+"Yes; I think he said so."
+
+"Like the kind, good fellow he is," continued Trafford, "he thinks he
+can do something with my people,--talk my father over, and induce my
+mother to take my side. I 'm afraid I know them better, and that they
+'re not sorry to be rid of me at last. It is, however, just possible--I
+will not say more, but just possible--that he may succeed in making some
+sort of terms for me before they cut me off altogether. I have no claim
+whatever, for I have spent already the portion that should have come to
+me as a younger son. I must be frank with you, Tom. There 's no use in
+trying to make my case seem better than it is." He paused, and appeared
+to expect that the other would say something; but Tom smoked on and made
+no sign whatever.
+
+"And it comes to this," said Trafford, drawing a long breath and making
+a mighty effort, "I shall either have some small pittance or other,--and
+small it must be,--or be regularly cleaned out without a shilling."
+
+A slight, very slight, motion of Tom's shoulders showed that he had
+heard him.
+
+"If the worst is to befall me," said Traflford, with more energy than he
+had shown before, "I 'll no more be a burden to you than to any other of
+my friends. You shall hear little more of me; but if fortune is going to
+give me her last chance, will _you_ give me one also?"
+
+"What do you mean?" said Tom, curtly.
+
+"I mean," stammered out Trafford, whose color came and went with
+agitation as he spoke,--"I mean, shall I have your leave--that is, may
+I go over to Maddalena?--may I--O Tom," burst he out at last, "you know
+well what hope my heart clings to."
+
+"If there was nothing but a question of money in the way," broke in Tom,
+boldly, "I don't see how beggars like ourselves could start very strong
+objections. That a man's poverty should separate him from us would be a
+little too absurd; but there 's more than that in it. You have got into
+some scrape or other. I don't want to force a confidence--I don't want
+to hear about it. It's enough for me that you are not a free man."
+
+"If I can satisfy you that this is not the case--"
+
+"It won't do to satisfy _me,_" said Tom, with a strong emphasis on the
+last word.
+
+"I mean, if I can show that nothing unworthy, nothing dishonorable,
+attaches to me."
+
+"I don't suspect all that would suffice. It's not a question of your
+integrity or your honor. It's the simple matter whether when professing
+to care for one woman you made love to another?"
+
+"If I can disprove that. It 's a long story--"
+
+"Then, for Heaven's sake, don't tell it to me."
+
+"Let me, at least, show that it is not fair to shun me."
+
+There was such a tone of sorrow in his voice as he spoke that Tom
+turned at once towards him, and said: "If you can make all this affair
+straight--I mean, if it be clear that there was no more in it than such
+a passing levity that better men than either of us have now and then
+fallen into--I don't see why you may not come back with me."
+
+"Oh, Tom, if you really will let me!"
+
+"Remember, however, you come at your own peril. I tell you frankly, if
+your explanation should fail to satisfy the one who has to hear it, it
+fails with me too,--do you understand me?"
+
+"I think I do," said Trafford, with dignity.
+
+"It's as well that we should make no mistake; and now you are free to
+accept my invitation or to refuse it. What do you say?"
+
+"I say, yes. I go back with you."
+
+"I'll go and see, then, if Cave will join us," said Tom, turning hastily
+away, and very eager to conceal the agitation he was suffering, and of
+which he was heartily ashamed.
+
+Cave accepted the project with delight,--he wanted to see the
+island,--but, more still, he wanted to see that Lucy Lendrick of whom
+Sir Brook had spoken so rapturously. "I suppose," whispered he in Tom's
+ear, "you know all about Trafford. You 've heard that he has been cut
+out of the estate, and been left with nothing but his pay?"
+
+Tom nodded assent.
+
+"He's not a fellow to sail under false colors, but he might still have
+some delicacy in telling about it--"
+
+"He has told me all," said Tom, dryly.
+
+"There was a scrape, too,--not very serious, I hope,--in Ireland."
+
+"He has told me of that also," said Tom. "When shall you be ready? Will
+four o'clock suit you?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+And they parted.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. ON THE ISLAND
+
+When, shortly after daybreak, the felucca rounded the point of the
+island, and stood in for the little bay of Maddalena, Lucy was roused
+from sleep by her maid with the tidings, "Give me the glass, quickly,"
+cried she, as she rushed to the window, and after one rapid glance,
+which showed her the little craft gayly decked with the flag of England,
+she threw herself upon her bed, and sobbed in very happiness. In truth,
+there was in the long previous day's expectancy--in the conflict of her
+hope and fear--a tension that could only be relieved by tears.
+
+How delightful it was to rally from that momentary gush of emotion, and
+feel so happy! To think so well of the world as to believe that all goes
+for the best in it, is a pleasant frame of mind to begin one's day with;
+to feel that though we have suffered anxiety, and all the tortures of
+deferred hope, it was good for us to know that everything was happening
+better for us than we could have planned it for ourselves, and that
+positively it was not so much by events we had been persecuted as by our
+own impatient reading of them. Something of all these sensations passed
+through Lucy's mind as she hurried here and there to prepare for her
+guests, stopping at intervals to look out towards the sea, and wonder
+how little way the felucca made, and how persistently she seemed to
+cling to the selfsame spot.
+
+Nor was she altogether unjust in this. The breeze had died away at
+sunrise; and in the interval before the land-wind should spring up there
+was almost a dead calm.
+
+"Is she moving at all?" cried Lucy, to one of the sailors who lounged on
+the rocks beneath the window.
+
+The man thought not. They had kept their course too far from shore, and
+were becalmed in consequence.
+
+How could they have done so?--surely sailors ought to have known better!
+and Tom, who was always boasting how he knew every current, and every
+eddy of wind, what was he about? It was a rude shock to that sweet
+optimism of a few moments back to have to own that here at least was
+something that might have been better.
+
+"And what ought they to do, what can they do?" asked she, impatiently,
+of the sailor.
+
+"Wait till towards noon, when the land-breeze freshens up, and beat."
+
+"Beat means, go back and forward, scarcely gaining a mile an hour?"
+
+The sailor smiled, and owned she was not far wrong.
+
+"Which means that they may pass the day there," cried she, fretfully.
+
+"They're not going to do it, anyhow," said the man; "they are lowering a
+boat, and going to row ashore."
+
+"Oh, how much better! and how long will it take them?"
+
+"Two hours, if they 're good rowers; three, or even four, if they 're
+not."
+
+"Come in and have a glass of wine," said she; "and you shall look
+through the telescope, and tell me how they row, and who are in the
+boat,--I mean how many are in it."
+
+"What a fine glass! I can see them as if they were only a cable's length
+off. There's the Signorino Maso, your brother, at the bow oar; and then
+there's a sailor, and another sailor; and there's a signore, a large
+man,--_per Bacco_, he's the size of three,--at the stroke; and an old
+man, with white hair, and a cap with gold lace round it, steering; he
+has bright buttons down his coat."
+
+"Never mind _him_. What of the large man,--is he young?"
+
+"He pulls like a young fellow! There now, he has thrown off his coat,
+and is going at it in earnest! Ah, he's no signore after all."
+
+"How no signore?" asked she, hastily.
+
+"None but a sailor could row as he does! A man must be bred to it to
+handle an oar in that fashion."
+
+She took the glass impatiently from him, and tried to see the boat;
+but whether it was the unsteadiness of her hand, or that some dimness
+clouded her eyes, she could not catch the object, and turned away and
+left the room.
+
+The land-wind freshened, and sent a strong sea against the boat, and it
+was not until late in the afternoon that the party landed, and, led by
+Tom, ascended the path to the cottage. At his loud shout of "Lucy," she
+came to the door looking very happy indeed, but more agitated than she
+well liked. "My sister, Colonel Cave," said Tom, as they came up; "and
+here's an old acquaintance, Lucy; but he's a major now. Sir Brook is
+away to England, and sent you all manner of loving messages."
+
+"I have been watching your progress since early morning," said Lucy,
+"and, in truth, I scarcely thought you seemed to come nearer. It was a
+hard pull."
+
+"All Trafford's fault," said Tom, laughing; "he would do more than his
+share, and kept the boat always dead against her rudder."
+
+"That's not the judgment one of our boatmen here passed on him," said
+Lucy; "he said it must be a sailor, and no signore, who was at the
+stroke oar."
+
+"See what it is to have been educated at Eton," said Cave, slyly; "and
+yet there are people assail our public schools!"
+
+Thus chatting and laughing, they entered the cottage, and were soon
+seated at table at a most comfortable little dinner.
+
+"I will say," said Tom, in return for some compliment from the Colonel,
+"she is a capital housekeeper. I never had anything but limpets and
+sea-urchins to eat till she came, and now I feel like an alderman."
+
+"When men assign us the humble office of providing for them, I remark
+they are never chary of their compliments," said Lucy, laughingly.
+"Master Tom is willing to praise my cookery, though he says nothing of
+my companionship."
+
+"It was such a brotherly speech," chimed in Cave.
+
+"Well, it's jolly, certainly," said Tom, as he leaned back in his chair,
+"to sit here with that noble sea-view at our feet, and those grand old
+cliffs over us."
+
+While Cave concurred, and strained his eyes to catch some object out
+seaward, Trafford, for almost the first time, found courage to address
+Lucy. He had asked something about whether she liked the island as well
+as that sweet cottage where first he saw her, and by this they were led
+to talk of that meeting, and of the long happy day they had passed at
+Holy Island.
+
+"How I 'd like to go back to it!" said Lucy, earnestly.
+
+"To the time, or to the place? To which would you wish to go back?"
+
+"To the Nest," said Lucy, blushing slightly; "they were about the
+happiest days I ever knew, and dear papa was with us then."
+
+"And is it not possible that you may all meet together there one of
+these days? He'll not remain at the Cape, will he?"
+
+"I was forgetting that you knew him," said she, warmly; "you met papa
+since I saw you last: he wrote about you, and told how kindly and
+tenderly you had nursed him on his voyage."
+
+"Oh, did he? Did he indeed speak of me?" cried Trafford, with intense
+emotion.
+
+"He not only spoke warmly about his affection for you, but he showed
+pain and jealousy when he thought that some newer friends had robbed him
+of you--but perhaps you forget the Cape and all about it."
+
+Trafford's face became crimson, and what answer he might have made to
+this speech there is no knowing, when Tom cried out, "We are going to
+have our coffee and cigar on the rocks, Lucy, but you will come with
+us."
+
+"Of course; I have had three long days of my own company, and am quite
+wearied of it."
+
+In the little cleft to which they repaired, a small stream divided the
+space, leaving only room for two people on the rocks at either side; and
+after some little jesting as to who was to have the coffee-pot, and who
+the brandy-flask, Tom and Cave nestled in one corner, while Lucy and
+Trafford, with more caution as to proximity, seated themselves on the
+rock opposite.
+
+"We were talking about the Cape, Major Trafford, I think," said Lucy,
+determined to bring him back to the dreaded theme.
+
+"Were we? I think not; I think we were remembering all the pleasant days
+beside the Shannon."
+
+"If you please, more sugar and no brandy; and now for the Cape."
+
+"I 'll just hand them the coffee," said he, rising and crossing over to
+the others.
+
+"Won't she let you smoke, Trafford?" said Tom, seeing the unlighted
+cigar in the other's fingers; "come over here, then, and escape the
+tyranny."
+
+"I was just saying," cried Cave, "I wish our Government would establish
+a protectorate, as they call it, over these islands, and send us out
+here to garrison them; I call this downright paradise."
+
+"You may smoke, Major Trafford," said Lucy, as he returned; "I am very
+tolerant about tobacco."
+
+"I don't care for it--at least not now."
+
+"You'd rather tell me about the Cape," said she, with a sly laugh.
+"Well, I 'm all attention."
+
+"There's really nothing to tell," said he, in confusion. "Your father
+will have told you already what a routine sort of thing life is,--always
+meeting the same people,--made ever more uniform by their official
+stations. It's always the Governor, and the Chief-Justice, and the
+Bishop, and the Attorney-General."
+
+"But they have wives and daughters?"
+
+"Yes; but official people's wives and daughters are always of the same
+pattern. They are only females of the species."
+
+"So that you were terribly bored?"
+
+"Just so,--terribly bored."
+
+"What a boon from heaven it must have been then to have met the
+Sewells!" said she, with a well-put-on carelessness.
+
+"Oh, your father mentioned the Sewells, did he?" asked Trafford,
+eagerly.
+
+"I should think he did mention them! Why, they were the people he was
+so jealous of. He said that you were constantly with him till they
+came,--his companion, in fact,--and that he grieved heavily over your
+desertion of him."
+
+"There was nothing like desertion; besides," added he, after a moment,
+"I never suspected he attached any value to my society."
+
+"Very modest, certainly; and probably, as the Sewells did attach this
+value, you gave it where it was fully appreciated."
+
+"I wish I had never met them," muttered Trafford; and though the words
+were mumbled beneath his breath, she heard them.
+
+"That sounds very ungratefully," said she, with a smile, "if but one
+half of what we hear be true."
+
+"What is it you have heard?"
+
+"I 'm keeping Major Trafford from his cigar, Tom; he's too punctilious
+to smoke in my company, and so I shall leave him to you;" and so saying,
+she arose, and turned towards the cottage.
+
+Trafford followed her on the instant, and overtook her at the porch.
+
+"One word,--only one," cried he, eagerly. "I see how I have been
+misrepresented to you. I see what you must think of me; but will you
+only hear me?"
+
+"I have no right to hear you," said she, coldly.
+
+"Oh, do not say so, Lucy," cried he, trying to take her hand, but which
+she quickly withdrew from him. "Do not say that you withdraw from me the
+only interest that attaches me to life. If you knew how friendless I am,
+you would not leave me."
+
+"He upon whom fortune smiles so pleasantly very seldom wants for any
+blandishments the world has to give; at least, I have always heard that
+people are invariably courteous to the prosperous."
+
+"And do you talk of me as prosperous?"
+
+"Why, you are my brother's type of all that is luckiest in life. Only
+hear Tom on the subject! Hear him talk of his friend Trafford, and you
+will hear of one on whom all the good fairies showered their fairest
+gifts."
+
+"The fairies have grown capricious, then. Has Tom told you nothing--I
+mean since he came back?"
+
+"No; nothing."
+
+"Then let me tell it."
+
+In very few words, and with wonderfully little emotion, Trafford told
+the tale of his altered fortunes. Of course he did not reveal the
+reasons for which he had been disinherited, but loosely implied that his
+conduct had displeased his father, and with his mother he had never
+been a favorite. "Mine," said he, "is the vulgar story that almost every
+family has its instance of,--the younger son, who goes into the world
+with the pretensions of a good house, and forgets that he himself is
+as poor as the neediest man in the regiment. They grew weary of my
+extravagance, and, indeed, they began to get weary of myself, and I am
+not surprised at it! and the end has come at last. They have cast me
+off, and, except my commission, I have now nothing in the world. I told
+Tom all this, and his generous reply was, 'Your poverty only draws you
+nearer to us.' Yes, Lucy, these were his words. Do you think that his
+sister could have spoken them?"
+
+"'Before she could do so, she certainly should be satisfied on other
+grounds than those that touch your fortune," said Lucy, gravely.
+
+"And it was to give her that same satisfaction I came here," cried he,
+eagerly. "I accepted Tom's invitation on the sole pledge that I could
+vindicate myself to you. I know what is laid to my charge, and I
+know too how hard it will be to clear myself without appearing like
+a coxcomb." He grew crimson as he said this, and the shame that
+overwhelmed him was a better advocate than all his words. "But," added
+he, "you shall think me vain, conceited,--a puppy, if you will,--but you
+shall not believe me false. Will you listen to me?"
+
+"On one condition I will," said she, calmly.
+
+"Name your condition. What is it?"
+
+"My condition is this: that when I have heard you out,--heard all that
+you care to tell me--if it should turn out that I am not satisfied--I
+mean, if it appear to me a case in which I ought not to be
+satisfied--you will pledge your word that this conversation will be our
+last together."
+
+"But, Lucy, in what spirit will you judge me? If you can approach the
+theme thus coldly, it gives me little hope that you will wish to acquit
+me."
+
+A deep blush covered her face as she turned away her head, but made no
+answer.
+
+"Be only fair, however," cried he, eagerly. "I ask for nothing more." He
+drew her arm within his as he spoke, and they turned towards the beach
+where a little sweep of the bay lay hemmed in between lofty rocks. "Here
+goes my last throw for fortune," said Trafford, after they had strolled
+along some minutes in silence. "And oh, Lucy, if you knew how I would
+like to prolong these minutes before, as it may be, they are lost to me
+forever! If you knew how I would like to give this day to happiness and
+hope!"
+
+She said nothing, but walked along with her head down, her face slightly
+averted from him.
+
+"I have not told you of my visit to the Priory," said he, suddenly.
+
+"No; how came you to go there?"
+
+"I went to see the place where you had lived, to see the garden you had
+tended, and the flowers you loved, Lucy. I took away this bit of jasmine
+from a tree that overhung a little rustic seat. It may be, for aught I
+know, all that may remain to me of you ere this day closes."
+
+"My dear little garden! I was so fond of it!" she said, concealing her
+emotion as well as she could.
+
+"I am such a coward," said he, angrily; "I declare I grow ashamed of
+myself. If any one had told me I would have skulked danger in this wise,
+I 'd have scouted the idea! Take this, Lucy," said he, giving her the
+sprig of withered jasmine; "if what I shall tell you exculpate me--if
+you are satisfied that I am not unworthy of your love,--you will give it
+back to me; if I fail--" He could not go on, and another silence of some
+seconds ensued.
+
+"You know the compact now?" asked he, after a moment. She nodded assent.
+
+For full five minutes they walked along without a word, and then
+Trafford, at first timidly, but by degrees more boldly, began a
+narrative of his visit to the Sewells' house. It is not--nor need it
+be--our task to follow him through a long narrative, broken, irregular,
+and unconnected as it was. Hampered by the difficulties which on each
+side beset him of disparaging those of whom he desired to say no word of
+blame, and of still vindicating himself from all charge of dishonor,
+he was often, it must be owned, entangled, and sometimes scarcely
+intelligible. He owned to have been led into high play against his
+will, and equally against his will induced to form an intimacy with
+Mrs. Sewell, which, beginning in a confidence, wandered away into Heaven
+knows what of sentimentality, and the like. Trafford talked of Lucy
+Lendrick and his love, and Mrs. Sewell talked of her cruel husband and
+her misery; and they ended by making a little stock-fund of affection,
+where they came in common to make their deposits and draw their cheques
+on fortune.
+
+All this intercourse was the more dangerous that he never knew its
+danger; and though, on looking back, he was astonished to think what
+intimate relations subsisted between them, yet, at the time, these
+had not seemed in the least strange to him. To her sad complaints of
+neglect, ill-usage, and insult, he offered such consolations as occurred
+to him: nor did it seem to him that there was any peril in his path,
+till his mother burst forth with that atrocious charge against Mrs.
+Sewell for having seduced her son, and which, so far from repelling with
+the indignation it might have evoked, she appeared rather to bend under,
+and actually seek his protection to shelter her. Weak and broken by his
+accident at the race, these difficulties almost overcame his reason;
+never was there, to his thinking, such a web of entanglement. The
+hospitality of the house he was enjoying outraged and violated by the
+outbreaks of his mother's temper; Sewell's confidence in him betrayed
+by the confessions he daily listened to from his wife; her sorrows and
+griefs all tending to a dependence on his counsels which gave him a
+partnership in her conduct. "With all these upon me," said he, "I don't
+think I was actually mad, but very often I felt terribly close to it.
+A dozen times a day I would willingly have fought Sewell; as willingly
+would I have given all I ever hoped to possess in the world to enable
+his wife to fly his tyranny, and live apart from him. I so far resented
+my mother's outrageous conduct, that I left her without a good-bye."
+
+I can no more trace him through this wandering explanation than I
+dare ask my reader to follow. It was wild, broken, and discursive. Now
+interrupted by protestations of innocence, now dashed by acknowledgments
+of sorrow, who knows if his unartistic story did not serve him better
+than a more connected narrative,--there was such palpable truth in it!
+
+Nor was Lucy less disposed to leniency that he who pleaded before her
+was no longer the rich heir of a great estate, with a fair future before
+him, but one poor and portionless as herself. In the reserve with which
+he shrouded his quarrel with his family, she fancied she could see the
+original cause,--his love for her; and if this were so, what more had
+she need of to prove his truth and fidelity? Who knows if her woman's
+instinct had not revealed this to her? Who knows if, in that finer
+intelligence of the female mind, she had not traced out the secret of
+the reserve that hampered him, of the delicate forbearance with which he
+avoided the theme of his estrangement from his family? And if so, what a
+plea was it for him! Poor fellow, thought she, what has he not given up
+for me!
+
+Rich men make love with great advantages on their side. There is no
+doubt that he who can confer demesnes and diamonds has much in his
+favor. The power that abides in wealth adds marvellous force to the
+suitor's tale; but there is, be it owned, that in poverty which, when
+allied with a sturdy self-dependence, appeals wonderfully to a woman's
+mind. She feels all the devotion that is offered her, and she will not
+be outdone in generosity. It is so fine of him, when others care for
+nothing but wealth and riches, to be satisfied with humble fortune, and
+with _me!_ There is the summing up, and none need be more conclusive.
+
+How long Trafford might have gone on strengthening his case, and calling
+up fresh evidence to his credit,--by what force of words he might still
+have sustained his character for fidelity,--there is no saying; but his
+eloquence was suddenly arrested by the sight of Cave and Tom coming to
+meet them.
+
+"Oh, Lucy," cried he, "do not quit my arm till you tell me my fate. For
+very pity's sake, do not leave me in the misery of this anxiety," said
+he, as she disengaged herself, affecting to arrange her shawl.
+
+"I have a word to say to my brother," said she, hurriedly; "keep this
+sprig of jasmine for me. I mean to plant it somewhere;" and without
+another word she hastened away and made for the house.
+
+"So we shall have to sail at once, Trafford," said Cave. "The Admiral
+has sent over the 'Gondomar' to fetch us; and here's a lieutenant with a
+despatch waiting for us at the cottage."
+
+"The service may go--No, I don't mean that; but if you sail to-morrow
+you sail without me."
+
+"Have you made it all right?" whispered Tom in his ear.
+
+"I 'm the happiest fellow in Europe," said he, throwing his arm round
+the other's shoulder. "Come here, Tom, and let me tell you all--all."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. HOW CHANGED
+
+We are once more at the Priory; but how changed is it all! Billy Haire
+himself scarcely recognizes the old spot, and indeed comes now but
+seldom to visit it; for the Chief has launched out into the gay
+world, and entertains largely at dinner, and even gives _dejeuners
+dansants_,--foreign innovations at which he was wont to inveigh with
+vehemence.
+
+The old elm under whose shade Avonmore and the wits used to sit of an
+evening, beneath whose leafy canopy Curran had jested and Moore had
+sung, was cut down, and a large tent of gaudy blue and white spread its
+vulgar wings over innumerable breakfast-tables, set forth with what the
+newspapers call every delicacy of the season.
+
+The Horatian garden, and the Roman house--conceits of an old Lord
+Chancellor in former times, and once objects of almost veneration in Sir
+William's eyes--have been swept away, with all their attendant details
+of good or bad taste, and in their place a fountain has been erected,
+for whose aquatic displays, be it noted in parenthesis, two horses
+and as many men are kept in full employ. Of the wild old woodland
+walks--shady and cool, redolent of sweet-brier and honeysuckle--not a
+trace remains; driving-roads, wide enough for a pony-carriage, have been
+substituted for these, and ruthless gaps in the dense wood open long
+vistas to the eye, in a spot where once it was the sense of enclosure
+and seclusion that imparted the chief charm. For so it is, coming out of
+the din and bustle of a great city, there is no attraction which can vie
+with whatever breathes of tranquillity, and seems to impart peace by
+an air of unbroken quiet. It was for this very quality the Priory had
+gained its fame. Within doors the change was as great as without. New,
+and, be it admitted, more comfortable furniture had replaced the old
+ponderous objects which, in every form of ugliness, had made the former
+decorations of the rooms. All was now light, tasteful, elegant. All
+invited to ease of intercourse, and suggested that pleasant union of
+social enjoyment with self-indulgence which our age seems to cultivate.
+But of all the changes and mutations which a short time had effected,
+none could compete with that in the old Chief himself. Through life he
+had been studiously attentive to neatness and care in his dress; it was
+with something of pride that he exhibited little traits of costume that
+revived bygone memories; and his long white hak, brushed rigidly back,
+and worn as a queue behind, and his lace ruffles, recalled a time when
+these were distinctive signs of class and condition.
+
+His sharply cut and handsome features were well served by the
+well-marked temples and lofty head that surmounted them, and which
+the drawn-back hair displayed to full advantage; and what a terrible
+contrast did the expression present when a light-brown wig covered his
+head, and a lock of childlike innocence graced his forehead! The large
+massive eyebrows, so impressive in their venerable whiteness, were now
+dyed of a dark hue; and to prevent the semblance of ghastliness which
+this strong color might impart to the rest of the face, a faint tinge
+of rouge was given to the cheek, thus lending to the whole features an
+expression of mingled smirk and severity as little like the former look
+of dignified intelligence as might be.
+
+A tightly fitting frock-coat and a colored cravat, fastened with a
+massive jewelled pin, completed a travesty which, strange to say,
+imparted its character to his gait, and made itself evident in his
+carriage.
+
+His manner, too,--that admirable courtesy of a bygone day, of which,
+when unprovoked by a personal encounter, he was a master,--was now
+replaced by an assumed softness,--an ill-put-on submission that seemed
+to require all his watchfulness never to forget.
+
+If his friends deplored and his enemies exulted over this unbecoming
+change in one who, whatever his defects, had ever displayed the force
+and power of a commanding intellect, the secret was known to few. A
+violent and unseemly attack had been made in the "House" against him by
+some political partisan, who alleged that his advanced age and failing
+faculties urgently demanded his retirement from the Bench, and calling
+loudly on the Government to enforce a step which nothing but the
+tenacity and obstinacy of age would have refused to accept voluntarily
+and even gratefully.
+
+In the discussion--it was not debate--that the subject gave rise to, the
+year of his birth was quoted, the time he had been first called, and the
+long period he had served on the Bench; and if his friends were strong
+in their evidences of his unfailing powers and unclouded faculties, his
+assailants adduced instances in which he had mistaken the suitors and
+misstated the case. His temper, too, imperious even to insult, had,
+it was said, driven many barristers from his court, where few liked to
+plead except such as were his abject and devoted followers.
+
+When the attack appeared in the morning papers, Beattie drove out in all
+haste to the Priory to entreat that the newspapers should be withheld
+from him, and all mention of the offensive subject be carefully avoided.
+The doctor was shown into the room where the Sewells were at breakfast,
+and at once eagerly announced the reason for his early visit.
+
+"You are too late, doctor," said Sewell; "he had read every line of it
+before we came downstairs. He made me listen to it, too, before I could
+go to breakfast."
+
+"And how did he bear it?"
+
+"On the whole, I think well. He said they were incorrect about the
+year he was called, and also as to the time he entered Parliament. With
+regard to the man who made the attack, he said, 'It is my turn to be
+biographer now; let us see if the honorable member will call the victory
+his.'"
+
+"He must do nothing of the kind. I will not answer for his life if he
+gives way to these bursts of temper."
+
+"I declare I think I'd not interfere with him," drawled out Sewell,
+as he broke an egg. "I suspect it's better to let those high-pressure
+people blow off their steam."
+
+"I'm sure Dr. Beattie is right," interposed Mrs. Sewell, who saw in the
+doctor's face an unmistakable look of disgust at the Colonel's speech.
+
+"I repeat, sir," said Beattie, gravely, "that it is a question of Sir
+William's life; he cannot survive another attack like his last one."
+
+"It has always been a matter of wonder to me how he has lived so long.
+To go on existing, and be so sensitive to public opinion, is something
+quite beyond my comprehension."
+
+"You would not mind such attacks, then?" said Beattie, with a very
+slight sneer.
+
+"I should think not! A man must be a fool if he does n't know there are
+scores of fellows who don't like him; and he must be an unlucky dog if
+there are not others who envy him for something or other, though it only
+be his horse or his dog, his waistcoat or his wife."
+
+In the look of malevolence he threw across the table as he spoke this,
+might be read the concentrated hate of one who loved to insult his
+victim. The doctor saw it, and rose to leave, disgusted and angry. "I
+suppose Sir William knows I am here?" said he, coldly.
+
+"I suspect not," said Sewell. "If you 'll talk to my wife, or look over
+the 'Times,' I'll go and tell him."
+
+The Chief Baron was seated at his writing-table when Sewell entered, and
+angrily cried out, "Who is there?"
+
+"Sewell, my Lord. May I come in?"
+
+"Sir, you have taken that liberty in anticipation of the request. What
+do you want?"
+
+"I came to say, my Lord, that Dr. Beattie is here."
+
+"Who sent for him, sir?"
+
+"Not I, my Lord, certainly."
+
+"I repeat my question, sir, and expect a direct answer."
+
+"I can only repeat my answer, my Lord. He was not sent for by me or with
+my knowledge."
+
+"So that I am to understand that his presence here is not the result
+of any active solicitude of my family for the consequences of this new
+outrage upon my feelings;" and he clutched the newspaper as he spoke,
+and shook it with passion.
+
+"I assure you, my Lord, Beattie has come here of his own accord."
+
+"But on account of this!" and the words came from him with a hissing
+sound that denoted intense anger. Sewell made a gesture to imply that
+it might be so, but that he himself knew nothing of it. "Tell him, then,
+sir, that the Chief Baron regrets he cannot see him; that he is at this
+moment engaged with the reply to a late attack in the House of Commons,
+which he desires to finish before post hour; and add, sir, that he is
+in the best of health and in excellent spirits,--facts which will afford
+him increased enjoyment, if Dr. Beattie will only be kind enough to
+mention them widely in the course of his visits."
+
+"I 'm delighted, my Lord, to be charged with such a message," said
+Sewell, with a well-assumed joy.
+
+"I am glad, sir, to have pleased you, at the same time that I have
+gained your approbation."
+
+There was a haughty tone in the way these words were delivered that for
+an instant made Sewell doubt whether they meant approval or reprimand;
+but he thought he saw a look of self-satisfied vanity in the old man's
+face, and he merely bowed his thanks for the speech.
+
+"What do you think, sir, they have had the hardihood to say in the House
+of Commons?" cried the Chief, while his cheek grew crimson and his
+eye flashed fire. "They say that, looking to the perilous condition of
+Ireland, with a widespread conspiracy through the land, and rebellion in
+most daring form bearding the authorities of the Crown, it is no time to
+see one of the chief seats of justice occupied by one whose achievements
+in Crown prosecutions date from the state trials of '98! In which
+capacity, sir, am I assailed? Is it as Patriarch or Patriot? Am I
+held up to obloquy because I came into the world at a certain year, or
+because I was one of the counsel for Wolfe Tone? From whom, too, come
+these slanderous assaults? Do these puny slanderers not yet know that
+it is with men as with plants, and that though the dockweed is rotten
+within a few weeks, the oak takes centuries to reach maturity?
+
+"There were men in the Administration once, sir, in whom I had that
+confidence I could have placed my office in their hands with the
+full conviction it would have been worthily conferred,--men above the
+passions of party, and who saw in public life other ambitions than the
+struggles for place. I see these men no longer. They who now compose the
+Cabinet inspire no trust; with them I will not treat."
+
+Exhausted by this outburst of passion, he lay back in his chair,
+breathing heavily, and to all seeming overcome.
+
+"Shall I get you anything, my Lord?" whispered Sewell.
+
+The old man smiled faintly, and whispered, "Nothing."
+
+"I wish, my Lord," said Sewell, as he bent over his chair,--"I wish
+I could dare to speak what is passing in my mind; and that I had that
+place in your Lordship's esteem which might give my words any weight."
+
+"Speak--say on," said he, faintly.
+
+"What I would say is this, my Lord," said Sewell, with increased force,
+"that these attacks on your Lordship are in a great measure provoked by
+yourself."
+
+"Provoked by me! and how, sir?" cried the Chief, angrily.
+
+"In this wise, my Lord. You have always held your libellers so cheap
+that you actually encourage their assaults. You, in the full vigor
+of your faculties, alive to the latest events, interested in all that
+science discovers or invention develops, persist in maintaining, both in
+your mode of living and your companionship, a continued reference to
+the past. With a wit that could keep pace with the brightest, and
+an imagination more alive than the youngest men can boast, you vote
+yourself old, and live with the old. Why, my Lord, is it any wonder that
+they try you on the indictment you have yourself drawn up? I have
+only to ask you to look across the Channel and see the men--your own
+contemporaries, your colleagues too--who escape these slanders, simply
+because they keep up with the modes and habits of the day. Their
+equipages their retinues, their dress, are all such as fashion
+sanctions. Nothing in their appearance reminds the world that they lived
+with the grandfathers of those around them; and I say, my Lord, if these
+men can do this, how much easier would it be for you to do it? You,
+whose quick intellect the youngest in vain try to cope with; you who
+are readier in repartee,--younger, in fact, in all the freshness of
+originality and in all the play of fancy, than the smartest wits of the
+day.
+
+"My Lord, it has not been without a great effort of courage I have dared
+to speak thus boldly; but I have so often talked the subject over with
+my wife, and she, with a woman's wit, has so thoroughly entered into the
+theme, that I felt, even at the hazard of your displeasure, I ought to
+risk the telling you." After a pause, he added: "It was but yesterday
+my wife said, 'If papa,'--you know, my Lord, it is so she calls you in
+secret,--'if papa will only cease to dress like a church dignitary, he
+will not look above fifty,--fifty four or five at most.'"
+
+"I own," said the Judge, slowly, "it has often struck me as strange how
+little animadversion the Press bestowed upon my English colleagues for
+their advanced years, and how persistently they commented on mine;
+and yet the history of Ireland does not point to the early decline of
+intellectual power. They are fond of showing the characteristics that
+separate us, but they have never adduced this one."
+
+"I hope I have your Lordship's forgiveness for my boldness," said
+Sewell, with humility.
+
+"You have more, sir,--you have my gratitude for an affectionate
+solicitude. I will think over what you have said when I am alone."
+
+"It will make me a very proud man if I find that my words have had
+weight with you. I am to tell Beattie, my Lord, that you are engaged,
+and cannot see him?" said he, moving towards the door.
+
+"Yes. Say that I am occupied with my reply to this slander. Tell him if
+he likes to dine with me at six--"
+
+"I beg pardon, my Lord--but my wife hoped you would dine with us to-day.
+We have a few young soldiers, and two or three pretty women coming to
+us--"
+
+"Make my compliments to Mrs. Sewell, and say I am charmed to accept her
+invitation."
+
+Sewell took his leave with every token of respectful gratitude. But no
+sooner had he reached the stairs than he burst into a fit of laughter.
+"Would any one have believed that the old fool would have swallowed the
+bait? I was so terrified at my own temerity, I 'd have given the world
+to be out of the scrape! I declare, if my mother could be got rid of,
+we 'd have him leading something of sixteen to the altar. Well, if this
+acute attack of youth does n't finish him, he must have the constitution
+of an elephant."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. HOW TO MEET A SCANDAL
+
+When the Government of the day had found that all their efforts to
+induce the Chief Baron to retire from the Bench were failures,--when
+they saw him firmly decided to accept nothing less than that price which
+they would not pay,--with a littleness which, it is but fair to own,
+took its origin from Mr. Cholmondely Balfour, they determined to pass
+upon him a slight which he could not but feel most painfully.
+
+It happened in this wise. At the time I speak of Ireland was suffering
+from one of those spasmodic attacks of rebellion which every now and
+then occur through the chronic disaffection of the country, just
+as certain eruptions are thrown out over the body to relieve, as is
+supposed, some feverish tendencies of the system.
+
+Now, although the native thinks no more of these passing troubles than
+would an old Indian of an attack of the "prickly heat," to the English
+mind they always suggest danger, tend to increase the military force of
+the kingdom, and bring on in Parliament one of those Irish debates--a
+political sham fight--where, though there is a good deal of smoke,
+bustle, and confusion, nobody is hurt, nor, if the truth be told, is any
+one the better when it is over.
+
+Through such a paroxysm was Ireland now passing. It matters little to
+our purpose to give it a specific name, for the Whiteboy or the Rockite,
+the Terry-alt, the Ribbonman, or the Fenian are the same; there being
+only one character in this dreary drama, however acute Viceroys and
+energetic secretaries may affect to think they are "assisting" at the
+representation of a perfectly new piece, with new scenery, dresses, and
+decorations.
+
+In ordinary disturbances in Ireland, whenever they rose above the
+dignity of local mischief, the assistance and sympathy of France was
+always used as a sort of menace to England. It was a threat very certain
+to irritate, if it did no more. As, however, by course of time, we
+grew to form closer relations with France,--to believe, or affect to
+believe,--I am not very sure which,--that we had outlived old grudges,
+and had become rather ashamed of old rivalries, France could not
+be employed as the bugbear it had once been. Fortunately for Irish
+rebellion, America was quite prepared to take the vacant post, and with
+this immense additional gain, that the use of our own language enabled
+our disaffected in the States to revile us with a freedom and a vigor
+which, if there be that benefit which is said to exist in "seeing
+ourselves as others see us," ought unquestionably to redound to our
+future good.
+
+The present movement had gone so far as to fill the public mind with
+terror, and our jails with suspected traitors. To try these men a
+special commission had been named by the Government, from which,
+contrary to custom, the Chief Baron had been omitted. Nor was this all.
+The various newspapers supposed to be organs, or at least advocates, of
+the Ministry, kept up a continuous stream of comment on the grave injury
+to a country, at a crisis like that then present, to have one of its
+chief judicial seats occupied by one whose age and infirmities totally
+disabled him from rendering those services which the Crown and the
+nation alike had a right to expect from him.
+
+Stories, for the most part untrue, of the Chief Baron's mistakes on
+the Bench appeared daily. Imaginary suitors, angry solicitors, and
+such-like--the Bar was too dignified to join in the cry--wrote letters
+averring this, that, or the other cruel wrong inflicted upon them
+through the "senile incapacity of this obstructive and vain old man."
+
+Never was there a less adroit tactic. Every insult they hurled at him
+only suggested a fresh resolve to hold his ground. To attack such a
+man was to evoke every spark of vigorous resistance in his nature, to
+stimulate energies which nothing short of outrage could awaken, and to
+call into activity powers which, in the ordinary course of events, would
+have fallen into decline and decay. As he expressed it, "in trying to
+extinguish the lamp they have only trimmed the wick." When, through
+Sewell's pernicious counsels, the old Judge determined to convince the
+world of his judicial fitness by coming out a young man, dressed in the
+latest fashion, and affecting in his gait and manner the last fopperies
+of the day, all the reserve which respect for his great abilities
+had imposed was thrown aside, and the papers now assailed him with a
+ridicule that was downright indecent. The print shops, too, took up the
+theme, and the windows were filled with caricatures of every imaginable
+degree of absurdity.
+
+There was one man to whom these offensive attacks gave pain only
+inferior to what they inflicted on the Chief himself,--this was his
+friend Haire. To have lived to see the great object of all his homage
+thus treated by an ungrateful country, seemed to him the direst of
+all calamities. Over and over did he ponder with himself whether such
+depravity of public feeling portended the coming decline of the nation,
+and whether such gross forgetfulness of great services was not to be
+taken as a sign of approaching dissolution.
+
+It was true that since the Sewells had taken up their residence at
+the Priory he had seen but little of his distinguished friend. All the
+habits, the hours, and the associations of the house had been changed.
+The old butler, who used to receive Haire when he arrived on terms of
+humble friendship, telling him in confidence, before he went in, the
+temper in which he should find the Judge, what crosses or worries
+had recently befallen him, and what themes it might be discreet to
+avoid,--he was pensioned off, and in his place a smart Englishman, Mr.
+Cheetor, now figured,--a gentleman whose every accent, not to speak of
+his dress, would have awed poor Haire into downright subjection. The
+large back hall, through which you passed into the garden,--a favorite
+stroll of Haire's in olden times,--was now a billiard room, and
+generally filled with fine ladies and gentlemen engaged in playing;
+the very sight of a lady with a billiard cue, and not impossibly a
+cigarette, being shocks to the old man's notions only short of seeing
+the fair delinquent led off to the watchhouse. The drowsy quietude of
+the place, so grateful after the crush and tumult of a city, was gone;
+and there was the clang of a pianoforte, the rattle of the billiard
+balls, the loud talk and loud laughter of morning visitors, in its
+stead. The quaint old gray liveries were changed for coats of brilliant
+claret color. Even to the time-honored glass of brandy-and-water which
+welcomed Haire as he walked out from town there was revolution; and
+the measure of the old man's discomfiture was complete as the
+silvery-tongued butler offered him his choice of hock and seltzer or
+claret-cup!
+
+"Does the Chief like all this? Is it possible that at his age these
+changes can please him?" muttered Haire, as he sauntered one day
+homeward, sad and dispirited; and it would not have been easy to resolve
+the question.
+
+There was so much that flattered the old Judge's vanity,--so much that
+addressed itself to that consciousness that his years were no barrier to
+his sentiments, that into all that went on in life, whatever of new
+that men introduced into their ways or habits, he was just as capable of
+entering as the youngest amongst them; and this avidity to be behind in
+nothing showed itself in the way he would read the sporting papers,
+and make himself up in the odds at Newmarket and the last news of the
+Cambridge Eleven. It is true, never was there a more ready-money payment
+than the admiration he reaped from all this; and enthusiastic cornets
+went so far as to lament how the genius that might have done great
+things at Doncaster had been buried in a Court of Exchequer. "I wish he
+'d tell us who 'll win the Riggles-worth"--"I 'd give a fifty to
+know what he thinks of Polly Perkins for the cup," were the dropping
+utterances of mustachioed youths who would have turned away inattentive
+on any mention of his triumphs in the Senate or at the Bar.
+
+"I declare, mother," said Sewell, in one of those morning calls
+at Merrion Square in which he kept her alive to the events of the
+Priory,--"I declare, mother, if we could get _you_ out of the way, I
+think he 'd marry again. He 's uncommonly tender towards one of those
+Lascelles girls, nieces of the Viceroy, and I am certain he would
+propose for her."
+
+"I'm sure I'm very sorry I should be an obstacle to him, especially as
+it prevents him from crowning the whole folly of his life."
+
+"She's a great horsewoman, and he has given me a commission to get him a
+saddle-horse to ride with her."
+
+"Which of course you will not."
+
+"Which of course I will, though. I'm going about it now. He has been
+very intractable about stable matters hitherto; the utmost we could do
+was to exchange the old long-tailed coach-horses, and get rid of that
+vile old chariot; but if we get him once launched into riding hacks, we
+'ll have something to mount us."
+
+"And when his granddaughter returns, will not all go back to the former
+state?"
+
+"First of all, she's not coming. There's a split in that quarter, and in
+all likelihood an irremediable one."
+
+"How so? What has she done?"
+
+"She has fallen in love with a young fellow as poor as herself; and her
+brother Tom has written to the Chief to know if he sees any reason why
+they should not marry. The very idea of an act of such insubordination
+as falling in love of course outraged him. He took my wife into his
+counsels besides, and she, it would appear, gave a most unfavorable
+character of the suitor,--said he was a gambler,--and we all know what a
+hopeless thing that is!--that his family had thrown him off; that he had
+gone through the whole of his patrimony, and was, in short, just as bad
+'a lot' as could well be found."
+
+"She was quite right to say so," burst in Lady Lendrick. "I really do
+not see how she could have done otherwise."
+
+"Perhaps not; the only possible objection was, that there was no truth
+in it all."
+
+"Not true!"
+
+"Not a word of it, except what relates to his quarrel with his family.
+As for the rest, he is pretty much like other fellows of his age and
+time of life. He has done the sort of things they all do, and hitherto
+has come fairly enough out of them."
+
+"But what motive could she have had for blackening him?"
+
+"Ask her, mother," said he, with a grin of devilish
+spite-fulness,--"just ask her; and even if she won't tell you, your
+woman's wit will find out the reason without her aid."
+
+"I declare, Dudley, you are too bad,--too bad," said she, coloring with
+anger as she spoke.
+
+"I should say, Too good,--too good by half, mother; at least, if
+endurance be any virtue. The world is beautifully generous towards
+us husbands. We are either monsters of cruelty, or we come into that
+category the French call 'complaisant.' I can't say I have any fancy for
+either class; but if I am driven to a choice, I accept the part which
+meets the natural easiness of my disposition, the general kindliness of
+my character."
+
+For an instant Lady Lendrick's eyes flashed with a fiery indignation,
+and she seemed about to reply with anger; but with an effort she
+controlled her passion, and took a turn or two in the room without
+speaking. At last, having recovered her calm, she said, "Is the marriage
+project then broken off?"
+
+"So far as the Chief is concerned, it is. He has written a furious
+letter to his granddaughter,--dwelt forcibly on the ingratitude of her
+conduct. There is nothing old people so constantly refer to ingratitude
+as young folks falling in love. It is strange what a close tie would
+seem to connect this sin of ingratitude with the tender passion. He has
+reminded her of all the good precepts and wise examples that were placed
+before her at the Priory, and how shamefully she would seem to have
+forgotten them. He asks her, Did she ever see him fall in love? Did she
+ever see any weakness of this kind in Mrs. Beales the housekeeper, or
+Joe the gardener?"
+
+"What stuff and nonsense!" said Lady Lendrick, turning angrily away from
+him. "Sir William is not an angel, but as certainly he is not a fool."
+
+"There I differ from you altogether. He may be the craftiest lawyer,
+the wisest judge, the neatest scholar, and the best talker of his
+day,--these are all claims I cannot adjudicate on,--they are far and
+away above me. But I _do_ pretend to know something about life and the
+world we live in, and I tell you that your all-accomplished Chief Baron
+is, in whatever relates to these, as consummate an ass as ever I met
+with. It is not that he is sometimes wrong; it is that he is never
+right."
+
+"I can imagine he is not very clever at billiards, and it is possible
+that there may be persons more conversant than _he_ with the odds at
+Tattersall's," said she, with a sneer.
+
+"Not bad things to know something about, either of them," said he,
+quietly; "but not exactly what I was alluding to. It is, however,
+somewhat amusing, mother, to see you come out as his defender. I assure
+you, honestly, when I counselled him on that new wig, and advised him to
+the choice of that dark velvet paletot, I never contemplated his making
+a conquest of you."
+
+"He _has_ done some unwise things in life," said she, with a fierce
+energy; "but I do not know if he has ever done so foolish a one as
+inviting you to come to live under his roof."
+
+"No, mother; the mistake was his not having done it earlier,--done it
+when he might have fallen in more readily with the wise changes I have
+introduced into his household, and when--most important element--he had
+a better balance at his banker's. You can't imagine what sums of money
+he has gone through."
+
+"I know nothing--I do not desire to know anything--of Sir William's
+money matters."
+
+Not heeding in the slightest degree the tone of reproof she spoke in,
+he went on, in the train of his own thoughts: "Yes! It would have made
+a considerable difference to each of us had we met somewhat earlier. It
+was a sort of backing I always wanted in life."
+
+"There was something else that you needed far more," said she, with a
+sarcastic sternness.
+
+"I know what you mean, mother,--I know what it is. Your politeness will
+not permit you to mention it. You would hint that I might not have been
+the worse of a little honesty,--is n't that it? I was certain of it.
+Well, do you know, mother, there's nothing in it,--positively nothing.
+I 've met fellows who have tried it,--clever fellows too, some of
+them,--and they have universally admitted it was as great a sham as the
+other thing. As St. John said, Honesty is a sort of balloon jib, that
+will bowl you along splendidly with fair weather; but when it comes on
+to blow, you'll soon find it better to shift your canvas and bend a very
+different sail. Now, men like myself are out in all kinds of weather; we
+want a handy rig and light tackle."
+
+"Is Lucy coming to luncheon?" said Lady Lendrick, most unmistakably
+showing how little palatable to her was his discourse.
+
+"Not she. She's performing devoted mother up at the Priory, teaching
+Regy his catechism, or Cary her scales, or, what has an infinitely finer
+effect on the surrounders, dining with the children. Only dine with the
+children, and you may run a-muck through the Decalogue all the evening
+after."
+
+And with this profound piece of morality he adjusted his hat before the
+glass, trimmed his whiskers, gave himself a friendly nod, and walked
+away.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. TWO MEN WELL MET
+
+Sewell had long coveted the suite of rooms known at the Priory as "Miss
+Lucy's." They were on the ground-floor; they opened on a small enclosed
+garden of their own; they had a delicious aspect; and it was a thousand
+pities they should be consigned to darkness and spiders while he wanted
+so much a snuggery of his own,--a little territory which could be
+approached without coming through the great entrance, and where he could
+receive his familiars, and a variety of other creatures whose externals
+alone would have denied them admittance to any decent household.
+
+Now, although Sir William's letter to Lucy was the sort of document
+which, admitting no species of reply, usually closes a correspondence,
+Sewell had not courage to ask the Chief for the rooms in question. It
+would be too like peremptory action to be prudent. It might lead the
+old man to reconsider his judgment. Who knows what tender memories the
+thought might call up? Indeed, as Sewell himself remembered, he had
+seen fellows in India show great emotion at the sale of a comrade's kit,
+though they had read the news of his death with comparative composure.
+"If the old fellow were to toddle in here, and see her chair and her
+writing-table and her easel, it might undo everything," said he; so that
+he wisely resolved it would be better to occupy the premises without a
+title than endeavor to obtain them legitimately.
+
+By a slight effort of diplomacy with Mrs. Beales, he obtained possession
+of the key, and as speedily installed himself in occupancy. Indeed,
+when the venerable housekeeper came round to see what the Colonel could
+possibly want to do with the rooms, she scarcely recognized them. A
+pipe-rack covered one wall, furnished with every imaginable engine for
+smoke; a stand for rifles and fowling-pieces occupied a corner; some
+select prints of Derby winners and ballet celebrities were scattered
+about; while a small African monkey, of that color they call green, sat
+in a small arm-chair, of his own, near the window, apparently sunk in
+deep reflection. This creature, whom his master called Dundas--I am
+unable to say after what other representative of the name--was gifted
+with an instinctive appreciation of duns, and flew at the man who
+presented a bill as unerringly as ever a bull rushed at the bearer of a
+red rag.
+
+How he learned to know tailors, shoemakers, and tobacconists, and
+distinguish them from the rest of mankind, and how he recognized them
+as natural enemies, I cannot say. As for Se well, he always spoke of the
+gift as the very strongest evidence in favor of the Darwinian theory,
+and declared it was the prospective sense of troubles to come that
+suggested the instinct. The chalk head, the portrait Lucy had made of
+Sir Brook, still hung over the fireplace. It would be a curious subject
+of inquiry to know why Sewell suffered it still to hold its place
+there. If there was a man in the world whom he thoroughly hated, it
+was Fossbrooke. If there was one to injure whom he would have bartered
+fortune and benefit to himself, it was he. And how came it that he could
+bear to have this reminder of him so perpetually before his eyes?--that
+the stern features should be ever bent upon him,--darkly, reproachfully
+lowering, as he had often seen them in life? If it were simply that
+his tenure of the place was insecure, what so easy as to replace the
+picture, and why should he endure the insult of its presence there?
+No, there was some other reason,--some sentiment stronger than a
+reason,--some sense of danger in meddling with that man in any shape.
+Over and over again he vowed to himself he would hang it against a tree,
+and make a pistol-mark of it. Again and again he swore that he would
+destroy it; he even drew out his penknife to sever the head from the
+neck, significant sign of how he would like to treat the original; but
+yet he had replaced his knife, and repressed his resolve, and sat down
+again to brood over his anger inoperative.
+
+To frown at the "old rascal," as he loved to call him,--to menace him
+with his fist as he passed,--to scowl at him as he sat before the fire,
+were, after all, the limits of his wrath; but still the picture exerted
+a certain influence over him, and actually inspired a sense of fear as
+well as a sense of hatred.
+
+Am I imposing too much on my reader's memory by asking him to recall
+a certain Mr. O'Reardon, in whose humble dwelling at Cullen's Wood Sir
+Brook Fossbrooke was at one time a lodger? Mr. O'Reardon, though an
+official of one of the law courts, and a patriot by profession, may not
+have made that amount of impression necessary to retain a place in the
+reader's recollection, nor indeed is it my desire to be exacting on this
+head. He is not the very best of company, and we shall not see much of
+him.
+
+When Sewell succeeded to the office of Registrar, which the old Judge
+carried against the Castle with a high hand, he found Mr. O'Reardon
+there; he had just been promoted to the rank of keeper of the
+waiting-room. In the same quick glance with which the shrewd Colonel
+was wont to single out a horse, and knew the exact sort of quality he
+possessed, he read this man, and saw with rapid intelligence the stuff
+he was made of, and the sort of service he could render.
+
+He called him into his office, and, closing the door, asked him a few
+questions about his former life. O'Reardon, long accustomed to regard
+the man who spoke with an English accent as an easy dupe, launched out
+on his devoted loyalty, the perils it had cost him, the hate to which
+his English attachment exposed him from his countrymen, and the little
+reward all his long-proved fidelity had ever won him; but Sewell cut
+him suddenly short with: "Don't try any of this sort of balderdash
+upon _me_, old fellow,--it's only lost time: I've been dealing with
+blackguards of your stamp all my life, and I read them like print."
+
+"Oh! your honor, them's hard words,--blackguard, blackguard! to a decent
+man that always had a good name and a good character."
+
+"What I want you to understand is this," said Sewell, scanning him
+keenly while he spoke, "and to understand it well: that if you intend to
+serve me, and make yourself useful in whatever way I see fit to employ
+you, there must be no humbug about it. The first lesson you have to
+learn is, never to imagine you can take me in. As I have just told
+you, I have had my education amongst fellows more than your masters in
+craft,--so don't lose your time in trying to outrogue me."
+
+"Your honor's practical,--I always like to serve a gentleman that's
+practical," said the fellow, with a totally changed voice.
+
+"That will do,--speak that way,--drop your infernal whine,--turn out
+your patriotic sentiments to grass, and we'll get on comfortably."
+
+"Be gorra! that's practical,--practical, every word of it."
+
+"Now the first thing I want is to know who are the people who come here.
+I shall require to be able to distinguish those who are accustomed to
+frequent the office from strangers; I suppose you know the attorneys and
+solicitors, all of them?"
+
+"Every man of them, sir; there's not a man in Dublin with a pair of
+black trousers that I could n't give you the history of."
+
+"That's practical, certainly," said Sewell, adopting his phrase; and the
+other laughed pleasantly at the employment of it. "Whenever you have to
+announce persons that are strangers to you, and whose business you
+can't find out, mention that I am most busily engaged,--that persons
+of consequence are with me,--delay them, in short, and put them off for
+another day--"
+
+"Till I can find out all about them?" broke in O'Reardon.
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"And that's what I can do as well as any man in Ireland," said the
+fellow, overjoyed at the thought of such congenial labor.
+
+"I suppose you know a dun by the look of him?" asked Sewell, with a low,
+quiet laugh.
+
+"Don't I, then?" was the reply.
+
+"I 'll have none of them hanging about here,--mind that; you may tell
+them what you please, but take care that my orders are obeyed."
+
+"I will, sir."
+
+"I shall probably not come down every day to the office; it may chance
+that I may be absent a week at a time; but remember, I am always
+here,--you understand,--I am here, or I am at the Chief Baron's
+chambers,--somewhere, in short, about the Court."
+
+"Up in one of the arbitration rooms, maybe," added O'Rear-don, to show
+he perfectly comprehended his instructions.
+
+"But whether I come to the office or not, I shall expect you every
+morning at the Priory, to report to me whatever I ought to know,--who
+has called,--what rumors are afloat; and mind you tell everything as it
+reaches you. If you put on any embroidery of your own, I 'll detect it
+at once, and out you go, Master O'Reardon, notwithstanding all your long
+services and all your loyalty."
+
+"Practical, upon my conscience,--always practical," said the fellow,
+with a grin of keen approval.
+
+"One caution more; I'm a tolerably good friend to the man who serves
+me faithfully. When things go well, I reward liberally; but if a fellow
+doubles on me, if he plays me false, I 'll back myself to be the worst
+enemy he ever met with. That's practical, isn't it?"
+
+"It is indeed, sir,--nothing more so."
+
+"I'll expect you to begin your visits on Thursday, then. Don't come
+to the hall-door, but pass round by the end of the house and into the
+little garden. I 'll leave the gate open, and you 'll find my room
+easily. It opens on the garden. Be with me by eleven."
+
+Colonel Sewell was not more than just to himself when he affirmed that
+he read men very quickly. As the practised cashier never hesitates about
+the genuineness of a note, but detects the forgery at a glance, this man
+had an instinctive appreciation of a scoundrel. Who knows if there be
+not some magnetic affinity between such natures, that saves them
+the process of thought and reason? He was right in the present case.
+O'Reardon was the very man he wanted. The fellow liked the life of a spy
+and an informer. To track, trace, connect this with that, and seek out
+the missing link which gave connection to the chain, had for him the
+fascination of a game, and until now his qualities had never been fairly
+appreciated. It was with pride too that he showed his patron that his
+gifts could be more widely exercised than within the narrow limits of
+an antechamber; for he brought him the name of the man who wrote in "The
+Starlight" the last abusive article on the Chief Baron, and had date
+and place for the visit of the same man to the under-secretary, Mr.
+Cholmondely Balfour. He gave him the latest news of the Curragh, and how
+Faunus had cut his frog in a training gallop, and that it was totally
+impossible he could be "placed" for his race. There were various
+delicate little scandals in the life of society too, which, however
+piquant to Sewell's ears, would have no interest for us; while of the
+sums lost at play, and the costly devices to raise the payments, even
+Sewell himself was amazed at the accuracy and extent of his information.
+
+Mr. O'Reardon was one of a small knot of choice spirits who met every
+night and exchanged notes. Doubtless each had certain "reserves" which
+he kept strictly to himself; but otherwise they dealt very frankly
+and loyally with each other, well aware that it was only on such a
+foundation their system could be built; and the training-groom, and the
+butler, and the club-waiter, the office messenger, and the penny-postman
+became very active and potent agents in that strange drama we call life.
+
+Now, though Mr. O'Reardon had presented himself each morning with due
+punctuality at the little garden, in which he was wont to make his
+report while Sewell smoked his morning cigar, for some days back
+the Colonel had not appeared. He had gone down to the country to a
+pigeon-match, from which he returned vexed and disappointed. He had shot
+badly, lost his money, lost his time, and lost his temper,--even to
+the extent of quarrelling with a young fellow whom he had long been
+speculating on "rooking," and from whom he had now parted on terms that
+excluded further acquaintance.
+
+Although it was a lovely morning, and the garden looking its very
+brightest and best,--the birds singing sweetly on the trees, and the air
+balmy with the jasmine and the sweet-brier,--Sewell strolled out upon
+the velvety sward in anything but a mood of kindred enjoyment. His bills
+were flying about on all sides, renewals upon renewals swelling up to
+formidable sums, for which he had not made any provision. Though his
+residence at the Priory, and his confident assurance to his creditors
+that the old Judge had made him his heir, obtained a certain credit for
+him, there were "small-minded scoundrels," as he called them, who would
+n't wait for their fifty per cent. In his desperation to stave off
+the demands he could not satisfy, he had been driven to very ruinous
+expedients. He sold timber off the lawn without the old Judge's
+knowledge, and only hesitated about forging Sir William's name through
+the conviction that the document to which he would have to append it
+would itself suggest suspicion of the fraud. His increasing necessities
+had so far impaired his temper that men began to decline to play with
+him. Nobody was sure of him, and this cause augmented the difficulties
+of his position. Formerly his two or three hours at the club before
+dinner, or his evening at mess, were certain to keep him in current
+cash. He could hold out his handful of sovereigns, and offer to bet them
+in that reckless carelessness which, amongst very young men, is accepted
+as something akin to generosity. Now his supply was almost stopped,
+not to say that he found, what many have found, the rising generation
+endowed with an amount of acuteness that formerly none attained to
+without sore experiences and sharp lessons.
+
+"Confound them," he would say, "there are curs without fluff on their
+chins that know the odds at Newmarket as well as John Day! What chance
+has a man with youngsters that understand the 'call for trumps'?"
+
+It was thus moralizing over a world in decline that he strolled through
+the garden, his unlit cigar held firm between his teeth, and his hands
+deep sunk in his trousers' pockets. As he turned an angle of a walk, he
+was arrested by a very silky voice saying, "Your honor's welcome home. I
+hope your honor's well, and enjoyed yourself when you were away."
+
+"Ah, O'Reardon, that you! pretty well, thank you; quite well, I believe;
+at least, as well as any man can be who is in want of money, and does
+not know where to find it."
+
+Mr. O'Reardon grinned, as if _that_, at least, was one of the
+contingencies his affluent chief could never have had any experience of.
+"Moses is to run after all, sir," said he, after a pause; "the bandages
+was all a sham,--he never broke down."
+
+"So much the worse for me. I took the heavy odds against him on your
+fine information," said Sewell, savagely.
+
+"You 'll not be hurt this time. He 'll have a tongue as big as three on
+the day of the race; and there will be no putting a bridle on him."
+
+"I don't believe in that trick, O'Reardon."
+
+"I do, sir; and I'm laying the only ten-pound note I have on it," said
+the other, calmly.
+
+"What about Mary Draper? is she coughing still?"
+
+"She is, sir, and won't feed besides; but Mr. Harman is in such trouble
+about his wife going off with Captain Peters, that he never thinks of
+the mare. Any one goes into the stable that likes."
+
+"Confounded fool he must be! He stood heavily on that mare. When did
+Lady Jane bolt?"
+
+"On Tuesday night, sir. She was here at the Priory at luncheon with
+Captain Peters that morning. She and Mrs. Sewell were walking more than
+an hour together in the back garden."
+
+"Did you overhear anything they said?"
+
+"Only once, sir, for they spoke low; but one time your Lady said aloud,
+'If any one blames you, dear, it won't be me.' I think the other was
+crying when she said it."
+
+"Stuff and nonsense!" said Sewell, angrily.
+
+"She's gone away, at all events, sir; and Mr. Harman 's out of his mind
+about it. Cross told me this morning that he would n't be surprised if
+his master cut his throat or went to live on the Continent."
+
+"Do you happen to know anybody would lend me a thousand pounds on no
+particular security, O'Reardon?"
+
+"Not just at the minute,--perhaps if I had a day or two to think of it."
+
+"I could give you a week,--a fortnight if it was any use, but it is not;
+and you know it's not, Master O'Reardon, as well as any man breathing."
+
+There was a silence of some minutes now between them; and while Sewell
+brooded over his hard fortune, O'Reardon seemed to be reviewing in his
+mind the state of the share market, and taking a sweeping view of the
+course of the exchanges.
+
+"Well, indeed, sir, money is tight,--mighty tight, at this time. Old
+M'Cabe of the lottery office wouldn't advance three hundred to Lord
+Arthur St. Aubin without the family plate, and I saw the covered dishes
+going in myself."
+
+"I wish _I_ had family plate," sighed Sewell.
+
+"So you will yet, please God," said the other, piously. "His Lordship
+can't live forever! But jewels is as good," resumed he, after a slight
+pause.
+
+"I have just as much of the one as the other, O'Reardon. They were a
+sort of scrip I never invested in."
+
+"It is n't a bad thing to do, after all. I remember poor Mr. Giles
+Morony saying one day, 'I dined yesterday, Tom,' says he, 'off one of my
+wife's ear-rings, and I never ate a better dinner in my life; and
+with the blessing of Providence I'll go drunk to bed off the other
+to-night.'"
+
+"Was n't he hanged afterwards for a murder?"
+
+"No, sir,--sentenced, but never hanged. Mr. Wallace got him off on a
+writ of error. He was a most agreeable man. Has Mrs. Sewell any trinkets
+of value, sir?"
+
+"I believe not--I don't know--I don't care," said he, angrily; for the
+subject, as an apropos, was scarcely pleasant. "Any one at the office
+since I left?" asked he, with a twang of irritation still in his tone.
+
+"That ould man I tould your honor about called three times."
+
+"You told me nothing of any old man."
+
+"I wrote it twice to your honor since I saw you, and left the letters
+here myself."
+
+"You don't think I break open letters in such handwriting as yours, do
+you? Why, man, my table is covered with them. Who is the old man you
+speak of?"
+
+"Well, sir, that's more than I know yet; but I 'll be well acquainted
+with all about him before a week ends, for I knew him before and he
+puzzled me too."
+
+"What's his business with me?"
+
+"He would not tell. Indeed, he's not much given to talk. He just says,
+'Is Colonel Sewell here?' and when I answer, 'No, sir,' he goes on, 'Can
+you tell the day or the hour when I may find him here?' Of course I say
+that your honor might come at any moment,--that your time is uncertain,
+and such-like,--that you 're greatly occupied with the Chief Baron."
+
+"What is he like? Is he a gentleman?"
+
+"I think he is,--at least he was once; for though his clothes is not new
+and his boots are patched, there's a look about him that common people
+never have."
+
+"Is he short or tall? What is he like?" Just as Sewell had put this
+question they had gained the door of the little sitting-room, which lay
+wide open, admitting a full view of the interior. "Give me some notion
+of his appearance, if you can."
+
+"There he is, then," cried O'Reardon, pointing to the chalk head over
+the chimney. "That's himself, and as like as life."
+
+"What? that!" exclaimed Sewell, clutching the man's arm, and actually
+shaking him in his eagerness. "Do you mean that he is the same man you
+see here?"
+
+"I do indeed, sir. There's no mistaking him. His beard's a little longer
+than the picture, and he's thinner, perhaps; but that's the man."
+
+Sewell sat down on the chair nearest him, sick and faint; a cold clammy
+sweat broke over his face and temples, and he felt the horrible nausea
+of intense weakness. "Tell me," said he at last, with a great effort to
+seem calm, "just the words he said, as nearly as you can recall them."
+
+"It was what I told your honor. 'Is Colonel Sewell here? Is there no
+means of knowing when he may be found here?' And then when I'd say,
+'What name am I to give? who is it I 'm to say called?' his answer would
+be, 'That is no concern of yours. It is for me to leave my name or not,
+as it pleases me.' I was going to remind him that he once lodged in my
+house at Cullen's Wood, but I thought better of it, and said nothing."
+
+"Did he speak of calling again?"
+
+"No, but he came yesterday; and whether he thought I was denying your
+honor or not I don't know, but he sat down in the waiting-room and
+smoked a cigar there, and heard two or three come in and ask for you and
+get the same answer."
+
+Sewell groaned heavily, and covered his face with his hands.
+
+"I think," said O'Reardon, with a half-hesitating, timid manner, as
+though it was a case where any blunder would be very awkward, "that
+if it was how that this man was any trouble,--I mean any sort of an
+inconvenience to your honor,--and that it was displeasing to your honor
+to have any dealings with him, I think I could find a way to make him
+cut his stick and leave the country; or if he would n't do that, come to
+worse luck here."
+
+"What do you mean,--have you anything against him?" cried Sewell, with a
+wild eagerness.
+
+"If I 'm not much mistaken, I can soon have against him as much as his
+life 's worth."
+
+"If you could," said Sewell, clutching both his arms, and staring him
+fixedly in the face,--"if you could! I mean, if you could rid me of him,
+now and forever,--I don't care how, and I 'll not ask how,--only do it;
+and I 'll swear to you there 's nothing in my power to serve you I 'll
+refuse doing,--nothing!"
+
+"What 's between your honor and him?" said O'Reardon, with an assurance
+that his present power suggested.
+
+"How dare you ask me, sir? Do you imagine that when I take such a fellow
+as you into my service, I make him my confidant and my friend?"
+
+"That's true, sir," said the other, whose face only grew paler
+under this insult, while his manner regained all its former
+subserviency,--"that's true, sir. My interest about your honor made me
+forget myself; and I was thinking how I could be most use to you. But,
+as your honor says, it's no business of mine at all."
+
+"None whatever," said Sewell, sternly; for a sudden suspicion had
+crossed him of what such a fellow as this might become if once intrusted
+with the power of a secret.
+
+"Then it's better, your honor," said he, with a slavish whine, "that I
+'d keep to what I 'm fit for,--sweeping out the office, and taking the
+messages, and the like, and not try things that 's above me."
+
+"You 'll just do whatever my service requires, and whenever I find that
+you do it ill, do it unfaithfully, or even unwillingly, we part company,
+Master O'Reardon. Is that intelligible?"
+
+"Then, sir, the sooner you fill up my place the better. I 'll give
+notice now, and your honor has fifteen days to get one that will suit
+him better."
+
+Sewell turned on him a look of savage hatred. He read, through all the
+assumed humility of the fellow's manner, the determined insolence of his
+stand.
+
+"Go now, and go to the devil, if you like, so that I never see your
+hang-dog face again; that 's all I bargain for."
+
+"Good-morning, sir; there's the key of the office, and that's the key
+of the small safe; Mr. Simmes has the other. There 's a little account
+I have,--it's only a few shillings is coming to me. I 'll leave it here
+to-morrow; and if your honor would like me to tell the new man about the
+people that come after your honor--who 's to be let in and who 's not--"
+
+Sewell made a haughty gesture with his arm as though to say that he need
+not trouble himself on that head.
+
+"Here's them cigars your honor gave me last week. I suppose I ought to
+hand them back, now that I 'm discharged and turned away."
+
+"You have discharged yourself, my good friend. With a civil tongue in
+your head, and ordinary prudence, you might have held on to your place
+till it was time to pension you out of it."
+
+"Then I crave your honor's pardon, and you 'll never have to find the
+same fault with me again. It was just breaking my heart, it was,--the
+thought of leaving your honor."
+
+"That's enough about it; go back to your duty. Mind _your_ business; and
+take good care you never meddle with mine."
+
+"Has your honor any orders?" said O'Reardon, with his ordinary tone of
+respectful attention.
+
+"Find out if Hughes is well enough to ride; they tell me he was worse
+yesterday. Don't bother me any more about that fellow that writes the
+attacks on the Chief Baron. They do the thing better now in the English
+papers, and ask nothing for it. Look out for some one who will advance
+me a little money,--even a couple of hundreds; and above all, track the
+old fellow who called at the office; find out what he 's in Ireland for,
+and how long he stays. I intend to go to the country this evening, so
+that you 'll have to write your report,--the post-town is Killaloe."
+
+"And if the ould man presses me hard," said O'Reardon, with one eye
+knowingly closed, "your honor's gone over to England, and won't be back
+till the cock-shooting."
+
+Sewell nodded, and with a gesture dismissed the fellow, half ashamed at
+the familiarity that not only seemed to read his thoughts, but to follow
+them out to their conclusions.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. A SURPRISE
+
+In a little cabin standing on the extreme point of the promontory
+of Howth, which its fisherman owner usually let to lodgers in the
+bathing-season, Sir Brook Fossbrooke had taken up his abode. The view
+was glorious from the window where he generally sat, and took in the
+whole sweep of the bay, from Killiney, with the background of the
+Wicklow mountains, to the very cliffs at his feet; and when the
+weather was favorable,--an event, I grieve to say, not of every-day
+occurrence,--leading him often to doubt whether in its graceful outline
+and varied color he did not prefer it to Cagliari, with its waving
+orange groves and vine-clad slopes.
+
+He made a little water-color drawing to enclose in a letter to Lucy; and
+now, as he sat gazing on the scene, he saw some effect of light on the
+landscape which made him half disposed to destroy his sketch and begin
+another.
+
+"Tell your sister, Tom," wrote he, "that if my letter to her goes
+without the picture I promised her, it is because the sun has just got
+behind a sort of tattered broken cloud, and is streaming down long slips
+of light over the Wicklow hills and the woods at their feet, which are
+driving me crazy with envy; but if I look on it any longer, I shall only
+lose another post, so now to my task.
+
+"Although I remained a day in the neighborhood, I was not received at
+Holt. Sir Hugh was ill, and most probably never heard of my vicinity.
+Lady Trafford sent me a polite--a very polite--note of regrets, &c.,
+for not being able to ask me to the house, which she called a veritable
+hospital, the younger son having just returned from Madeira dangerously
+ill. She expressed a hope, more courteous possibly than sincere, that my
+stay in England would allow my returning and passing some days there, to
+which I sent a civil answer and went my way. The young fellow, I hear,
+cannot recover, so that Lionel will be the heir after all; that is, if
+Sir Hugh's temper should not carry him to the extent of disinheriting
+his son for a stranger. I was spared my trip to Cornwall; spared it
+by meeting in London with a knot of mining-people, 'Craig, Pears, and
+Denk,' who examined our ore, and pronounced it the finest ever brought
+to England. As the material for the white-lead of commerce, they say
+it is unrivalled; and when I told them that our supply might be called
+inexhaustible, they began to regard me as a sort of Croesus. I dined
+with them at a City club, called, I think, the Gresham, a very grand
+entertainment,--turtle and blackcock in abundance, and a deal of
+talk,--very bumptious talk of all the money we were all going to make,
+and how our shares, for we are to be a company, must run up within a
+week to eight or ten premium. They are, I doubt not, very honest
+fine fellows, but they are vulgar dogs, Tom, I may say it to you in
+confidence, and use freedoms with each other in intercourse that are
+scarcely pleasing. To myself personally there was no lack of courtesy,
+nor can I complain that there was any forgetful-ness of due respect. I
+could not accept their invitation to a second dinner at Greenwich, but
+deferred it till my return from Ireland.
+
+"I came on here on Wednesday last, and if you ask me what I have done,
+my answer is, Nothing--absolutely nothing. I have been four several
+times at the office where Sewell presides, but always to meet the
+same reply, 'Not in town to-day;' and now I learn that he is hunting
+somewhere in Cheshire. I am averse to going after him to the Chief
+Baron's house, where he resides, and am yet uncertain how to act. It is
+just possible he may have learned that I am in Ireland, and is keeping
+out of my way, though I have neglected no precaution of secrecy,
+have taken a humble lodging some miles from town, and have my letters
+addressed to the post-office to be called for. Up to this I have not
+met one who knows me. The Viceroy is away in England, and in broken
+health,--indeed, so ill that his return to Ireland is more than
+doubtful; and Balfour, who might have recognized me, is happily so much
+occupied with the 'Celts,' as the latest rebels call themselves, that he
+has no time to go much abroad.
+
+"The papers which I have sent you regularly since my arrival will inform
+you about this absurd movement. You will also see the debate on your
+grandfather. He will not retire, do all that they may; and now, as a
+measure of insult, they have named a special commission and omitted his
+name.
+
+"They went so far as to accuse him of senile weakness and incapacity;
+but the letter which has been published with his name is one of the most
+terrific pieces of invective I ever read: I will try and get a copy to
+send you.
+
+"I am anxious to call and see Beattie; but until I have met Sewell, and
+got this troublesome task off my mind, I have no heart for anything.
+From chance travellers in the train, as I go up to town, I hear that
+the Chief Baron is living at a most expensive rate,--large dinners every
+week, and costly morning parties, of a style Dublin has not seen before.
+They say, too, that he dresses now like a man of five-and-thirty,
+rides a blood horse, and is seen joining in all the festivities of the
+capital. Of myself, of course, I can confirm none of these stories.
+There comes the rain again. It is now dashing like hail against the
+windows; and of the beautiful bay and the rocky islands, the leafy shore
+and the indented coast-line I can see nothing,--nothing but the dense
+downpour that, thickening at every moment, shuts out all view, so that
+even the spars of the little pinnace in the bay beneath are now lost to
+me. A few minutes ago I was ready to declare that Europe had nothing to
+compare with this island, and now I 'd rather take rocky Ischia, with
+its scraggy cliffs, sunlit and scorching, than live here watery and
+bloated like a slug on a garden-wall. Perhaps my temper is not improved
+by the reflection that I 'll have to walk to the post, about two miles
+off, with this letter, and then come back to my own sad company for the
+rest of the evening.
+
+"I had half a mind to run down and look at the 'Nest,' but I am told I
+should not know it again, it has been so changed in every way. I have
+spared myself, therefore, the pain the sight would have given me, and
+kept my memory of it as I saw it on my first visit, when Lucy met me at
+the door. Tell her from me, that when--"
+
+The letter broke off here, and was continued lower down the page in a
+more hurried hand, thus:--
+
+"In their ardor to suppress the insurrection here, some one has
+denounced _me_; and my pistols and my packet of lead, and my
+bullet-mould, have so far confirmed suspicion against me, that I am to
+go forthwith before a magistrate. It is so far provoking that my name
+will probably figure in the newspapers, and I have no fancy to furnish
+a laugh to the town on such grounds. The chief of the party (there are
+three of them, and evidently came prepared to expect resistance) is
+very polite, and permits me to add these few lines to explain my abrupt
+conclusion. Tell Lucy I shall keep back my letter to her, and finish
+it to-morrow. I do not know well whether to laugh or be angry at this
+incident. If a mere mistake, it is of course absurd, but the warrant
+seems correct in every respect. The officer assures me that any
+respectable bail will be at once accepted by the magistrate; and I have
+not the courage to tell him that I do not possess a single friend or
+acquaintance in this city whom I could ask to be my surety.
+
+"After all, I take it, the best way is to laugh at the incident. It was
+only last night, as I walked home here in the dark, I was thinking I had
+grown too old for adventures, and here comes one--at least it may prove
+so--to contradict me.
+
+"The car to convey me to town has arrived; and with loves to dear Lu and
+yourself, I am, as ever, yours,
+
+"Bk. Fossbrooke.
+
+"It is a great relief to me--it will be also to you--to learn that the
+magistrate can, if he please, examine me in private."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE CHIEF AND HIS FRIEND
+
+A few days after the conversation just related in the chapter before
+the last, while the Chief Baron was undergoing the somewhat protracted
+process of a morning toilet,--for it needed a nice hand and a critical
+eye to give the curls of that wig their fitting wave, and not to
+"charge" those shrunken cheeks with any redundant color,--Mr. Haire was
+announced.
+
+"Say I shall be down immediately,--I am in my bath," said the Chief, who
+had hitherto admitted his old friend at all times and seasons.
+
+While Haire was pacing the long dinner-room with solemn steps, wondering
+at the change from those days when the Chief would never have thought
+of making him wait for an interview, Sir William, attired in a long
+dark-blue silk dressing-gown, and with a gold-tasselled cap to match,
+entered the room, bringing with him a perfumed atmosphere, so loaded
+with bergamot that his old friend almost sneezed at it. "I hurried my
+dressing, Haire, when they told me you were here. It is a rare event
+to have a visit from you of late," said the old man, as he sat down and
+disposed with graceful care the folds of his rich drapery.
+
+"No," muttered the other, in some confusion. "I have grown
+lazy,--getting old, I suppose, and the walk is not so easy as it used to
+be five-and-twenty years ago."
+
+"Then drive, sir, and don't walk. The querulous tone men employ about
+their age is the measure of their obstinate refusal to accommodate
+themselves to inevitable change. As for me, I accept the altered
+condition, but I defy it to crush me."
+
+"Every one has not your pluck and your stamina," said Haire, with a
+half-suppressed sigh.
+
+"My example, sir, might encourage many who are weaker."
+
+"Any news of Lucy lately?" asked Haire, after a pause.
+
+"Miss Lendrick, sir, has, through her brother, communicated to me her
+attachment to a young fellow in some marching regiment, and asked my
+permission to marry him. No, I am incorrect. Had she done this, there
+had been deference and respect; she asks me to forward a letter to her
+father, with this prayer, and to support it by my influence."
+
+"And why not, if he 's a good fellow, and likely to be worthy of her?"
+
+"A good fellow! Why, sir, you are a good fellow, an excellent fellow;
+but it would never occur to me to recommend you for a position of high
+responsibility or commanding power."
+
+"Heaven forbid!--or, if you should, Heaven forbid I might be fool enough
+to accept it. But what has all this to do with marriage?"
+
+"Explain yourself more fully, sir; you have assumed to call in question
+the parallelism I would establish between the tie of marriage and the
+obligation of a solemn trust; state your plea."
+
+"I 'll do nothing of the kind. I came here this morning to--to--I'll be
+shot if I remember what I came about; but I know I had something to tell
+you; let me try and collect myself."
+
+"Do, sir, if that be the name you give the painful process."
+
+"There, there; you'll not make me better by ridiculing me. What could it
+have been that I wanted to tell you?"
+
+"Not, impossibly, some recent impertinence of the press towards myself."
+
+"I think not,--I think not," said the other, musingly. "I suppose you
+'ve seen that squib in the 'Banner.'"
+
+"It is a paper, sir, I would not condescend to touch."
+
+"The fellow says that a Chief Baron without a court,--he means this in
+allusion to the Crown not bringing those cases of treason-felony into
+the Exchequer,--a Chief without a court is like one of those bishops
+_in partibus_, and that it would n't be an unwise thing to make the
+resemblance complete and stop the salary. And then another observes--"
+
+"Sir, I do not know which most to deplore,--your forgetfulness or your
+memory; try to guide your conversation without any demand upon either."
+
+"And it was about those Celts, as they call these rascals, that I wanted
+to say something. What could it have been?"
+
+"Perhaps you may have joined them. Are you a head-centre, or only
+empowered to administer oaths and affirmations?"
+
+"Oh! I have it now," cried Haire, triumphantly. "You remember, one
+day we were in the shrubbery after breakfast, you remarked that this
+insurrection was especially characterized by the fact that no man of
+education, nor, indeed, of any rank above the lowest, had joined it. You
+said something about the French Revolution, too; and how, in the Reign
+of Terror, the principles of the Girondists had filtered down, and were
+to be seen glittering like--"
+
+"Spare me, Haire,--spare me, and do not ask me to recognize the bruised
+and battered coinage, without effigy or legend, as the medal of my own
+mint."
+
+"At all events, you remember what I'm referring to."
+
+"With all your efforts to efface my handwriting I can detect something
+of my signature,--go on."
+
+"Well, they have at last caught a man of some mark and station. I saw
+Spencer, of the head office, this morning, and he told me that he had
+just committed to Newgate a man of title and consideration. He would not
+mention his name; indeed, the investigation was as private as possible,
+as it was felt that the importance of such a person being involved in
+the project would give a very dangerous impulse to the movement."
+
+"They are wrong, sir. The insurrection that is guided by men of
+condition will, however dangerous, be a game with recognized rules
+and laws. The rebellion of the ignorant masses will be a chaos to defy
+calculation. You may discuss measures, but there is no arguing with
+murder!"
+
+"That's not the way Spencer regarded it. He says the whole thing must
+be kept dark; and as they have refused to accept his bail, it's clear
+enough they think the case a very important one."
+
+"If I was not on the Bench I would defend these men! Ay, sir, defend
+them! They have not the shadow of a case to show for this rebellion.
+It is the most causeless attempt to subvert a country that ever was
+conceived; but there is that amount of stupidity,--of ignorance, not
+alone of statecraft, but of actual human nature, on the part of those
+who rule us, that it would have been the triumph of my life to assail
+and expose them. Why, sir, it was the very plebeian character of this
+insurrection that should have warned them against their plan of nursing
+and encouraging it. Had the movement been guided by gentlemen, it might
+have been politic to have affected ignorance of their intentions till
+they had committed themselves beyond retreat; but with this rabble--this
+rebellion in rags--to tamper was to foster. You had no need to dig
+pitfalls for such people; they never emerged from the depths of
+their own ignominious condition. You should have suppressed them at
+once,--stopped them before the rebel press had disseminated a catechism
+of treason, and instilled the notion through the land that the first
+duty of patriotism was assassination."
+
+"And you would have defended these men?"
+
+"I would have arraigned their accusers, and charged them as accomplices.
+I would have told those Castle officials to come down and stand in the
+dock with their confederates. What, sir! will you tell me that it was
+just or moral, or even politic, to treat these unlettered men as
+though they were crafty lawyers, skilled in all the arts to evade the
+provisions of a statute? This policy was not unfitted towards _him_ who
+boasted he could drive a coach-and-six through any Act of Parliament;
+but how could it apply to creatures more ready to commit themselves than
+even you were to entrap them? who wanted no seduction to sedition,
+and who were far more eager to play traitor than you yourself to play
+prosecutor? I say again, I wish I had my youth and my stuff-gown, and
+they should have a defender."
+
+"I am just as well pleased it is as we see it," muttered Haire.
+
+"Of course you are, sir. There are men who imagine it to be loyal to be
+always on the side that is to be strongest." He took a few turns up
+and down the room, his nostrils dilated, and his lips trembling with
+excitement. "Do me a favor, Haire," said he at last, as he approached
+and laid his hand on the other's arm. "Go and learn who this gentleman
+they have just arrested is. Ascertain whatever you can of the charge
+against him,--the refusal of bail implies it is a grave case; and
+inquire if you might be permitted to see and speak with him."
+
+"But I don't want to speak with him. I'd infinitely rather not meet him
+at all."
+
+"Sir, if you go, you go as an emissary from me," said the Chief,
+naughtily, and by a look recalling Haire to all his habitual deference.
+
+"But only imagine if it got abroad--if the papers got hold of it; think
+of what a scandal it would be, that the Chief Baron of the Exchequer was
+actually in direct communication with a man charged with treason-felony.
+I would n't take a thousand pounds, and be accessory to such an
+allegation."
+
+"You shall do it for less, sir. Yes, I repeat it, Haire, for less. Five
+shillings' car-hire will amply cover the cost. You shall drive over to
+the head-office and ask Mr. Spencer if--of course with the prisoner's
+permission--you may be admitted to see him. When I have the reply I will
+give you your instructions."
+
+"I protest I don't see--I mean, I cannot imagine--it's not possible--in
+fact, I know, that when you reflect a little over it, you will be
+satisfied that this would be a most improper thing to do."
+
+"And what is this improper thing I am about to do? Let us hear, sir,
+what you condemn so decidedly! I declare my libellers must have more
+reason than I ever conceded to them. I am growing very, very old! There
+must be the blight of age upon my faculties, or you would not have
+ventured to administer this lesson to me! this lesson on discretion and
+propriety. I would, however, warn you to be cautious. The wounded tiger
+is dangerous, though the ball should have penetrated his vitals. I
+would counsel you to keep out of reach of his spring, even in his dying
+moments."
+
+He actually shook with passion as he said this, and his hands closed and
+opened with a convulsive movement that showed the anger that possessed
+him.
+
+"I have never lectured any one; least of all would it occur to me to
+lecture you," said Haire, with much dignity. "In all our intercourse I
+have never forgotten the difference between us,--I mean intellectually;
+for I hope, as to birth and condition, there is no inequality."
+
+Though he spoke this slowly and impressively, the Chief Baron heard
+nothing of it. He was so overwhelmed by the strong passions of his
+own mind that he could not attend to another. "I shall soon be called
+incorrigible as well as incompetent," uttered he, "if the wise counsels
+of my ablest friends are powerless to admonish me."
+
+"I must be moving," said Haire, rising and taking his hat. "I promised
+to dine with Beattie at the Rock."
+
+"Say nothing of what has taken place here to-day; or if you mention me
+at all, say you found me in my usual health." Haire nodded.
+
+"My usual health and spirits," continued the Chief. "I was going to say
+temper, but it would seem an epigram. Tell Beattie to look in here as he
+goes home; there 's one of the children slightly ailing. And so, Haire,"
+cried he, suddenly, in a louder voice, "you would insinuate that my
+power of judgment is impaired, and that neither in the case of my
+granddaughter nor in that larger field of opinion--the state of
+Ireland--am I displaying that wisdom or that acuteness on which it was
+one time the habit to compliment me."
+
+"You may be quite right. I won't presume to say you 're not. I only
+declare that I don't agree with you."
+
+"In either case?"
+
+"No; not in either case."
+
+"I think I shall ride to-day," said the Chief; for they had now reached
+the hall-door, and were looking out over the grassy lawn and the
+swelling woods that enclosed it. "You lose much, Haire, in not being a
+horseman. What would my critics say if they saw me following the hounds,
+eh?"
+
+"I 'll be shot if it would surprise me to see it," muttered Haire to
+himself. "Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye, Haire. Come out and see me soon again. I 'll be better
+tempered when you come next. You 're not angry with me, I know."
+
+Haire grasped the hand that was held out to him, and shook it cordially.
+"Of course I 'm not. I know well you have scores of things to vex and
+irritate you that never touch fellows like myself. I shall never feel
+annoyed at anything you may _say_ to _me_. What would really distress me
+would be that you should do anything to lower your own reputation."
+
+The old Judge stood on the doorstep pondering over these last words of
+his friend long after his departure. "A good creature--a true-hearted
+fellow," muttered he to himself; "but how limited in intelligence! It
+is the law of compensation carried out. Where nature gives integrity she
+often grudges intellect. The finer, subtler minds play with right and
+wrong till they detect their affinities.--Who are you, my good fellow?
+What brings you here?" cried he to a fellow who was lounging in the
+copse at the end of the house.
+
+"I 'm a carman, your honor. I 'm going to drive the Colonel to the
+railway at Stoneybatter."
+
+"I never heard that he was about to leave town," muttered the old Judge.
+"I thought he had been confined to bed with a cold these days back.
+Cheetor, go and tell Colonel Sewell that I should be much obliged if he
+would come over to my study at his earliest convenience."
+
+"The Colonel will be with you, my Lord, in five minutes," was the prompt
+reply.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. A LEAP IN THE DARK
+
+Colonel Sewell received the Chief Baron's message with a smothered
+expression of no benevolent meaning.
+
+"Who said I was here? How did he know I had arrived?" cried he, angrily.
+
+"He saw the carman, sir; and asked for whom he was waiting."
+
+Another and not less energetic benediction was invoked on the rascally
+car-driver, whom he had enjoined to avoid venturing in front of the
+house.
+
+"Say I'm coming; I'll be with him in an instant," said be, as he
+hurriedly pitched some clothes into his portmanteau.
+
+Now it is but fair to own that this demand upon his time came at an
+inconvenient moment; he had run up to town by an early train, and was
+bent on going back by the next departure. During his absence, no letter
+of any kind from his agent O'Reardon had reached him, and, growing
+uneasy and impatient at this silence, he had come up to learn the
+reason. At the office he heard that O'Reardon had not been there for
+the last few days. It was supposed he was ill, but there was no means
+of ascertaining the fact; none knew his address, as, they said, "he
+was seldom in the same place for more than a week or two." Sewell had a
+profound distrust of his friend; indeed, the only reason for confiding
+in him at all was, that it was less O'Reardon's interest to be false
+than true. Since Fossbrooke's arrival, however, matters might have
+changed. They might have met and talked together. Had Sir Brook seduced
+the fellow to take service under him? Had he wormed out of him certain
+secrets of his (Sewell's) life, and thus shown how useful he might be in
+running him to earth? This was far from unlikely. It seemed the easiest
+and most natural way of explaining the fellow's absence. At the same
+time, if such were the case, would he not have taken care to write to
+him? Would not his letters, calling for some sort of reply, some answer
+to this or that query, have given him a better standing-ground with his
+new master, showing how far he possessed Sewell's confidence, and how
+able he was to make his treason to him effective? Harassed by these
+doubts, and fearing he knew not what of fresh troubles, he had passed
+a miserable week in the country. Debt and all its wretched consequences
+were familiar enough to him. His whole life had been one long struggle
+with narrow means, and with the expedients to meet expenses he should
+never have indulged in. He had acquired, together with a recklessness,
+a sort of self-reliance in these emergencies which positively seemed to
+afford him a species of pleasure, and made him a hero to himself by his
+successes; but there were graver troubles than these on his heart, and
+with the memory of these Fossbrooke was so interwoven that to recall
+them was to bring him up before him.
+
+Besides these terrors, he had learned, during his short stay at the
+Nest, a most unwelcome piece of intelligence. The vicar, Mr. Mills, had
+shown him a letter from Dr. Lendrick, in which he said that the climate
+disagreed with him, and his isolation and loneliness preyed upon him so
+heavily that he had all but determined to resign his place and return
+home. He added that he had given no intimation of this to his children,
+lest by any change of plan he might inflict disappointment upon them;
+nor had he spoken of it to his father, in the fear that if the Chief
+Baron should offer any strenuous objection, he might be unable to carry
+out his project; while to his old friend the vicar he owned that his
+heart yearned after a home, and if it could only be that home where he
+had lived so contentedly, the Nest! "If I could promise myself to
+get back there again," he wrote, "nothing would keep me here a month
+longer." Now, as Sewell had advertised the place to be let, Mills at
+once showed him this letter, believing that the arrangement was such as
+would suit each of them.
+
+It needed all Sewell's habitual self-command not to show the uneasiness
+these tidings occasioned him. Lendrick's return to Ireland might
+undo--it was almost certain to undo--all the influence he had obtained
+over the Chief Baron. The old Judge was never to be relied upon from one
+day to the next. Now it was some impulse of vindictive passion, now of
+benevolence. Who was to say when some parental paroxysm might not seize
+him, and he might begin to care for his son?
+
+Here was a new peril,--one he had never so much as imagined might befall
+him. "I 'll have to consult my wife," said he, hastily, in reply to
+Mills's question. "She is not at all pleased at the notion of giving up
+the place; the children were healthier here: in fact," added he, in some
+confusion, "I suspect we shall be back here one of these days."
+
+"I told him I'd have to consult _you_," said Sewell, with an insolent
+sneer, as he told his wife this piece of news. "I said you were so fond
+of the country, so domestic, and so devoted to your children, that I
+scarcely thought you 'd like to give up a place so suited to all your
+tastes;--wasn't I right?"
+
+She continued to look steadily at the book she had been reading, and
+made no reply.
+
+"I did n't say, though I might, that the spot was endeared to you by a
+softer, more tender reminiscence; because, being a parson, there 's no
+saying how he 'd have taken it."
+
+She raised her book higher, so as to conceal her face, but still said
+nothing.
+
+"At all events," said he, in a more careless tone, "we are not going to
+add to the inducements which attract this gentleman to return home, and
+we must not forget that our host here may turn us out at any moment."
+
+"I think it will be our fault whenever he does so," said she, quietly.
+
+"Fault and misfortune are pretty much alike, to my thinking. There is
+one thing, however, I have made up my mind on,--I 'll bolt. When he
+gives notice to quit, he shall be obliged to provide for you and the
+brats out of sheer necessity. He cannot turn you out on the streets, he
+can't send you to the Union; you have no friends to whom he can pack you
+off; so let him storm as he likes: something he must do."
+
+To this speech she seemed to give no attention whatever. Whether the
+threat was an oft-repeated one, or that she was inured to coarseness
+of this nature, or that silence was the best line to take in these
+emergencies, she never appeared to notice his words.
+
+"What about that money he promised you? Has he given it?" said he
+suddenly, when about to leave the room.
+
+"No; he said something about selling out some mining-shares,--scrip he
+called it. I forget exactly what he said, but the purport was that he
+was pressed just now."
+
+"I take it he is. My mother's allowance is in arrear, and she is not one
+to bear the delay very patiently. So you 've got nothing?"
+
+"Nothing, except ten pounds he gave Cary yesterday for her birthday."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"In that work-box,--no, in the upper part. Do you want it?"
+
+"What a question! Of course I want it, somewhat more than Gary does,
+I promise you. I was going off to-day with just five sovereigns in my
+pocket. By-bye. I shall be late if I don't hurry myself." As he reached
+the door he turned round. "What was it I had to tell you,--some piece of
+news or other,--what could it have been?"
+
+"Nothing pleasant, I 'm sure, so it's as well unremembered."
+
+"Polite, certainly," said he, walking slowly back while he seemed trying
+to recall something. "Oh, I have it. The transport that took out
+the--th has been wrecked somewhere off Sardinia. Engine broken down,
+paddle-wheels carried away, quarter-boats smashed, and, in fact, total
+wreck. I have no time to tell you more;" and so saying, he hurried away,
+but, opening the door noiselessly, he peeped in, and saw her with her
+head buried in her hands, leaning on the table; and, stealing stealthily
+down the corridor, he hastened to his room to pack up for his journey;
+and it was while thus occupied the Chief's message reached him.
+
+When the Chief Baron asked Haire to call at the Police Office and
+inquire if he might not be permitted to see the person who had been
+arrested that morning at Howth, he had not the very vaguest idea what
+step he should next take, nor what proceedings institute, if his demand
+might be acceded to. The indignant anger he felt at the slight put upon
+him by the Government in passing him over on the Commission, had got
+such entire possession of him that he only thought of a reprisal without
+considering how it was to be effected. "I am not one to be insulted with
+impunity. Are these men such ignorant naturalists as not to know that
+there is one species of whale that the boldest never harpoons? Swift was
+a Dean, but he never suffered his cassock to impede the free use of his
+limbs. I am a Judge, but they shall see that the ermine embarrasses me
+just as little. They have provoked the conflict, and it is not for me to
+decline it. They are doing scores of things every day in Ireland that,
+if there was one man of ability and courage opposed to them, would shake
+the Cabinet to its centre. I will make Pemberton's law a proverb and a
+byword. The public will soon come to suspect that the reason I am not
+on the Bench at these trials is not to be looked for in the spiteful
+malignity of the Castle, but in the conscientious scruples of one who
+warned the Crown against these prosecutions. They were not satisfied
+with native disaffection, and they have invented a new crime for
+Ireland, which they call treason-felony; but they have forgotten to
+apprise the people, who go on blunderingly into treason as of old, too
+stupid to be taught by a statute! The Act is a new one. It would give
+me scant labor to show that it cannot be made law, that its clauses are
+contradictory, its provisions erroneous, its penalties evasive. What
+is to prevent me introducing, as a digression, into my next charge to a
+grand jury, my regrets or sorrows over such bungling legislation? Who
+is to convict me for arraigning the wisdom of Parliament, or telling the
+country, You are legislated for by ignorance! your statutes are made
+by incompetence! The public press is always open, and it will soon be
+bruited about that the letter signed 'Lycurgus' was written by William
+Lendrick. I will take Barnewell or Perrin, or some other promising young
+fellow of the junior bar, and instruct him for the defence. I will
+give him law enough to confute, and he shall furnish the insolence to
+confront this Attorney-General. There never was a case better suited
+to carry the issue out of the Queen's Bench and arraign the Queen's
+advisers. Let them turn upon me if they dare: I was a citizen before
+I was a lawyer, I was an Irishman before I became a judge. There was
+a bishop who braved the Government in the days of the volunteers. They
+shall find that high station in Ireland is but another guarantee for
+patriotism." By such bursts of angry denunciation had he excited himself
+to such a degree that when Sewell entered the room the old man's face
+was flushed, his eye flashing, and his lip quivering with passion.
+
+"I was not aware of your absence, sir!" said he, sternly; "and a mere
+accident informed me that you were going away again."
+
+"A sudden call required my presence at Killaloe, my Lord; and I found
+when I had got there I had left some papers behind here."
+
+"The explanation would be unexceptionable, sir, if this house were an
+inn to which a man comes and returns as he pleases; but if I err not,
+you are my guest here, and I hope if a host has duties he has rights."
+
+"My Lord, I attached so very little importance to my presence that I
+never flattered myself by thinking I should be missed."
+
+"I seldom flatter, sir, and I never do so where I intend to censure!"
+Sewell bowed submissively, but the effort to control his temper cost him
+a sharp pang and a terrible struggle. "Enough of this, at least for the
+present; though I may mention, passingly, that we must take an early
+opportunity of placing our relations towards each other on some basis
+that may be easily understood by each of us. The law of contracts will
+guide us to the right course. My object in sending for you now is to
+ask a service at your hands, if your other engagements will leave you at
+liberty to render it."
+
+"I am entirely at your Lordship's orders."
+
+"Well, sir, I will be very brief. I must needs be so, for I have
+fatigued myself by much talking already. The papers will have informed
+you that I am not to sit on this Commission. The Ministers who cannot
+persuade me by their blandishments are endeavoring to disgust me by
+insult. They have read the fable of the sun and the wind backwards, and
+inverted the moral. It had been whispered abroad that if I tried these
+men there would have been no convictions. They raked up some early
+speeches of mine--youthful triumphs they were--in defence of Wolfe Tone,
+and Jackson, and others; and they argued--no, I am wrong--they did not
+argue, they imagined, that the enthusiasm of the advocate might have
+twined itself around the wisdom of the Judge. They have quoted, too, in
+capital letters,--it is there on the table,--the peroration of my
+speech in Neilson's case, where I implored the jury to be cautious and
+circumspect, for so deeply had the Crown advisers compromised themselves
+in the pursuit of rebellion, it needed the most careful sifting not
+to include the law-officers of the Castle, and to avoid placing the
+Attorney-General side by side with his victim."
+
+"How sarcastic! how cutting!" muttered Sewell, in praise.
+
+"It was more than sarcastic, sir. It stung the Orange jury to the quick;
+and though they convicted my client, they trembled at the daring of his
+defender.
+
+"But I turn from the past to the present," said he, after a pause. "They
+have arrested this morning, at Howth, a man who is said to be of rank
+and station. The examination, conducted in secret, has concealed his
+name; and all that we know is that bail has not been accepted, if
+offered, for him. So long as these arrests concerned the vulgar fellows
+who take to rebellion for its robberies, no case can be made. With the
+creatures of rusty pikes and ruffian natures I have no sympathy. It
+matters little whether they be transported for treason or for theft.
+With the gentleman it is otherwise. Some speculative hope, some
+imaginative aspiration of serving his country, some wild dream begotten
+of the great Revolution of France, dashed not impossibly with some
+personal wrong, drives men from their ordinary course in life, and makes
+them felons where they meant to be philanthropists. I have often thought
+if this movement now at work should throw up to the surface one of this
+stamp, what a fine occasion it might afford to test the wisdom of those
+who rule us, to examine the machinery by which they govern, and to
+consider the advantage of that system,--such a favorite system in
+Ireland, by which rebellion is fostered as a means of subsequent
+concession, as though it were necessary to manure the loyalty of the
+land by the blood of traitors.
+
+"I weary you, sir, and I am sorry for it. No, no, make no protestations.
+It is a theme cannot have the same interest for _you_ as for _me_.
+What I would ask of you is, to go down to the head-office and see
+Mr. Spencer, and learn from him if you might have an order to see the
+prisoner,--your pretext being the suspicion that he is personally known
+to you. If you succeed in getting the order, you will proceed to the
+Richmond Bridewell and have an interview with him. You are a man of the
+world, sir, and I need not give you any instructions how to ascertain
+his condition, his belongings, and his means of defence. If he be
+a gentleman, in the sense we use that term when applying its best
+attributes to it, you will be frank and outspoken, and will tell him
+candidly that your object is to make his case the groundwork of an
+attack on the Government, and the means by which all the snares that
+have led men to rebellion may be thoroughly exposed, and the craft of
+the Crown lawyer be arraigned beside the less cold-blooded cruelty of
+the traitor. Do you fully comprehend me, sir?"
+
+"I think so, my Lord, Your intention is, if I take you correctly, to
+make the case, if it be suitable, the groundwork for an attack on the
+Government of Ireland."
+
+"In which I am not to appear."
+
+"Of course, my Lord; though possibly with no objection that it should be
+known how far your sympathy is with a free discussion of the whole state
+of Ireland?"
+
+"You apprehend me aright, sir,--a free discussion of the whole state of
+Ireland."
+
+"I go, therefore, without any concert with your Lordship at present. I
+take this step entirely at my own instance?"
+
+"You do, sir. If matters eventually should take the turn which admits of
+any intervention on my part--any expression of opinion--any elucidation
+of sentiments attributed to me--I will be free to make such in the
+manner I deem suitable."
+
+"In case this person should prove one, either from his character or the
+degree in which he has implicated himself, unfitted for your Lordship's
+object, I am to drop the negotiation?"
+
+"Rather, I should say, sir, you are not to open it."
+
+"I meant as much," said Sewell, with some irritation.
+
+"It is an occasion, sir, for careful action and precise expression.
+I have no doubt you will acquit yourself creditably in each of these
+respects. Are you already acquainted with Mr. Spencer?"
+
+"We have met at the Club, my Lord; he at least knows who I am."
+
+"That will be quite sufficient. One point more--I have no need to
+caution you as to secrecy--this is a matter which cannot be talked of."
+
+"That you may rely on, my Lord; reserve is so natural to me, that I have
+to put no strain upon my manner to remember it."
+
+"I shall be curious to hear the result of your visit,--that is, if you
+be permitted to visit the Bridewell. Will you do me the favor to come to
+me at once?"
+
+Sewell promised this faithfully, and withdrew.
+
+"If ever an old fool wanted to run his head into a noose," muttered he,
+"here is one; the slightest blunder on my part, intentional or not, and
+this great Baron of the Exchequer might be shown up as abetting
+treason. To be sure, he has given me nothing under his hand--nothing
+in writing--I wonder was that designedly or not; he is so crafty in the
+middle of all his passion." Thus meditating, he went on his mission.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. SOME OF SEWELL'S OPINIONS
+
+Sewell was well received by the magistrate, and promised that he should
+be admitted to see the prisoner on the next morning; having communicated
+which tidings to the Chief Baron, he went off to dine with his mother in
+Merrion Square.
+
+"Isn't Lucy coming?" said Lady Lendrick, as he entered the drawing-room
+alone.
+
+"No. I told her I wanted a long confidential talk with you; I hinted
+that she might find it awkward if one of the subjects discussed should
+happen to be herself, and advised her to stay at home, and she concurred
+with me."
+
+"You are a great fool, Dudley, to treat her in that fashion. I tell you
+there never was a woman in the world who could forgive it."
+
+"I don't want her to forgive it, mother; there 's the mistake you are
+always making. The way she baffles me is by non-resistance. If I could
+once get her to resent something--anything--I could win the game."
+
+"Perhaps some one might resent for her," said she, dryly.
+
+"I ask nothing better. I have tried to bring it to that scores of times,
+but men have grown very cautious latterly. In the old days of duelling
+a fellow knew the cost of what he was doing; now that we have got juries
+and damages, a man thinks twice about an entanglement, without he be a
+very young fellow."
+
+"It is no wonder that she hates you," said she, fiercely.
+
+"Perhaps not," said he, languidly; "but here comes dinner."
+
+For a while the duties of the table occupied them, and they chatted away
+about indifferent matters; but when the servants left the room, Sewell
+took up the theme where they had left it, and said: "It's no use to
+either of us, mother, to get what is called judicial separation. It's
+the chain still, only that the links are a little longer--and it's the
+chain we _hate!_ We began to hate it before we were a month tied to each
+other, and time, somehow, does not smooth down these asperities. As
+to any other separation, the lawyers tell me it is hopeless. There's
+a functionary called the 'Queen's' something or other, who always
+intervenes in the interests of morality, and compels people who have
+proved their incompatibility by years of dissension to go back and
+quarrel more."
+
+"I think if it were only for the children's sake--"
+
+"For the children's sake!" broke he in. "What can it possibly matter
+whether they be brought up by their mother alone, or in a house where
+their father and mother are always quarrelling? At all events, they form
+no element in the question so far as I am concerned."
+
+"I think your best hold on the Chief Baron is his liking for the
+children; he is very fond of Reginald."
+
+"What's the use of a hold on an old man who has more caprices than he
+has years? He has made eight wills to my own knowledge since May last.
+You may fancy how far afield he strays in his testamentary dispositions
+when in one of them he makes _you_ residuary legatee."
+
+"Me! Me!"
+
+"You; and what's more, calls you his faithful and devoted wife,
+'who--for five-and-twenty years that we lived apart--contributed mainly
+to the happiness of my life.'"
+
+"The parenthesis, at least, is like him," said she, smiling.
+
+"To the children he has bequeathed I don't know what, sometimes with
+Lucy as their guardian, sometimes myself. The Lendrick girl was
+always handsomely provided for till lately, when he scratched her out
+completely; and in the last document which I saw there were the words,
+'To my immediate family I bequeath my forgiveness for their desertion
+of me, and this free of all legacy duty and other charges.' I am sure,
+mother, he's a little mad."
+
+"Nothing of the kind,--no more than you are."
+
+"I don't know that. I always suspect 'that the marvellous vigor' of old
+age gets its prime stimulus from an overexcited brain. He sat up a whole
+night last week--I know it to my cost, for I had to copy it out--writing
+a letter to the 'Times' on the Land Tenure Bill, and he nearly went out
+of his mind on seeing it in small type."
+
+"He is vain, if you like; but not mad certainly."
+
+"For a while I thought one of his fits of passion would do for him,--he
+gets crimson, and then lividly pale, and then flushed again, and his
+nails are driven into his palms, and he froths at the mouth; but somehow
+the whole subsides at last, and his voice grows gentle, and his manner
+courteous,--you 'd think him a lamb, if you had never seen him as a
+tiger. In these moods he becomes actually humble, so that the other
+night he sat down and wrote his resignation to the Home Office, stating,
+amidst a good deal of bombast, that the increasing burden of years and
+infirmity left him no other choice than that of descending from the
+Bench he had occupied so long and so unworthily, and begging her Majesty
+would graciously accord a retreat to one 'who had outlived everything
+but his loyalty.'"
+
+"What became of this?"
+
+"He asked me about it next morning, but I said I had burned it by his
+orders; but I have it this moment in my desk."
+
+"You have no right to keep it. I insist on your destroying it."
+
+"Pardon me, mother. I'd be a rich man to-day if I had n't given way to
+that foolish habit of making away with papers supposed to be worthless.
+The three lines of a man's writing, that the old Judge said he could
+hang any man on, might, it strikes me, be often used to better purpose."
+
+"I wish you would keep your sharp practices for others and spare _him_,"
+said she, severely.
+
+"It's very generous of you to say so, mother, considering the way he
+treats you and talks of you."
+
+"Sir William and I were ill-met and ill-matched, but that is not any
+reason that I should like to see him treacherously dealt with."
+
+"There's no talk of treachery here. I was merely uttering an abstract
+truth about the value of old papers, and regretting how late I came to
+the knowledge. There's that bundle of letters of that fool Trafford, for
+instance, to Lucy. I can't get a divorce on them, it's true; but I hope
+to squeeze a thousand pounds out of him before he has them back again."
+
+"I hope in my heart that the world does not know you!" said she,
+bitterly.
+
+"Do you know, mother, I rather suspect it does? The world is aware
+that a great many men, some of whom it could ill spare, live by what
+is called their wits,--that is to say, that they play the game entitled
+'Life' with what Yankees call 'the advantages;' and the world no more
+resents _my_ living by the sharp practice long experience has taught
+me, than it is angry with this man for being a lawyer, and that one for
+being a doctor."
+
+"You know in your heart that Trafford never thought of stealing Lucy's
+affections."
+
+"Perhaps I do; but I don't know what were Lucy's intentions towards
+Trafford."
+
+"Oh, fie, fie!"
+
+"Be shocked if you like. It's very proper, perhaps, that you should
+be shocked; but nature has endowed me with strong nerves or coarse
+feelings, whichever you like to call them, and consequently I can talk
+of these things with as little intermixture of sentiment as I would
+employ in discussing a protested bill. Lucy herself is not deficient
+in this cool quality, and we have discussed the social contract styled
+Marriage with a charming unanimity of opinion. Indeed, when I have
+thought over the marvellous agreement of our sentiments, I have been
+actually amazed why we could not live together without hating each
+other."
+
+"I pity her--from the bottom of my heart I pity her."
+
+"So do I, mother. I pity her, because I pity myself. It was a stupid
+bargain for each of us. I thought I was marrying an angel with sixty
+thousand pounds. She fancied she was getting a hero, with a peerage
+in the distance. Each made a 'bad book.' It is deuced hard, however,"
+continued he, in a fiercer strain, "if one must go on backing the horse
+that you know will lose, staking your money where you see you cannot
+win. My wife and myself awoke from our illusions years ago; but to
+please the world, to gratify that amiable thing called Society, we must
+go on still, just as if we believed all that we know and have proved to
+be rotten falsehoods. Now I ask you, mother, is not this rather hard?
+Would n't it be hard for a good-tempered, easy-going fellow? And is it
+not more than hard for a hasty, peevish, irritable dog like myself? We
+know and see that we are bad company for each other, but you--I mean
+the world--you insist that we should go on quarrelling to the end, as if
+there was anything edifying in the spectacle of our mutual dislike."
+
+"Too much of this. I beseech you, drop the subject, and talk of
+something else."
+
+"I declare, mother, if there was any one I could be frank and outspoken
+with on this theme, I believed it to be yourself. You have had 'your
+losses' too, and know what it is to be unhappily mated."
+
+"Whatever I may have suffered, I have not lost self-respect," said she,
+haughtily.
+
+"Heigho!" cried he, wearily, "I always find that my opinions place me in
+a minority, and so it must ever be while the world is the hypocritical
+thing we see it. Oh dear, if people could only vote by ballot, I'd like
+to see marriage put to the test."
+
+"What did Sir William say about my going to the picnic?" asked she,
+suddenly.
+
+"He said you were quite right to obtain as many attentions as you could
+from the Castle, on the same principle that the vicar's wife stipulated
+for the sheep in the picture,--'as many as the painter would put in for
+nothing.'"
+
+"So that he is firmly determined not to resign?"
+
+"Most firmly; nor will he be warned by the example of the well-bred dog,
+for he sees, or he might see, all the preparations on foot for kicking
+him out."
+
+"You don't think they would compel him to resign?"
+
+"No; but they'll compel him to go, which amounts to the same. Balfour
+says they mean to move an address to the Queen, praying her Majesty to
+superannuate him."
+
+"It would kill him,--he 'd not survive it."
+
+"So it is generally believed,--all the more because it is a course
+he has ever declared to be impossible,--I mean constitutionally
+impossible."
+
+"I hope he may be spared this insult."
+
+"He might escape it by dying first, mother; and really, under the
+circumstances, it would be more dignified."
+
+"Your morals were not, at any time, to boast of, but your manners used
+to be those of a gentleman," said she, in a voice thick with passion.
+
+"I am afraid, mother, that both morals and manners, like this hat of
+mine, are a little the worse for wear; but, as in the case of the hat
+too, use has made them pleasanter to me than spick-and-span new ones,
+with all the gloss on. At all events, I never dreamed of offending when
+I suggested the possibility of your being a widow. Indeed, I fancied it
+was feminine for widower, which I imagined to be no such bad thing."
+
+"If the Chief Baron should be compelled to leave the Bench, will it
+affect your tenure of the Registrarship?"
+
+"That is what nobody seems to know. Some opine one way, some another;
+and though all ask me what does the Chief himself say on the matter, I
+have never had the courage to ask the question."
+
+"You are quite right It would be most indiscreet to do so."
+
+"Indeed, if I were rash enough to risk the step, it would redound to
+nothing, since I am quite persuaded that he believes that whenever he
+retires from public life or quits this world altogether, a general chaos
+will ensue, and that all sorts of ignorant and incompetent people will
+jostle the clever fellows out of the way, just because the one great
+directing mind of the age has left the scene and departed."
+
+"All his favors to you have certainly not bought your gratitude,
+Dudley."
+
+"I don't suspect it is a quality I ever laid up a large stock of,
+mother,--not to say that I have always deemed it a somewhat unworthy
+thing to swallow the bad qualities of a man simply because he was civil
+to you personally."
+
+"His kindness might at least secure your silence."
+
+"Then it would be a very craven silence. But I 'll join issue with you
+on the other counts. What is this great kindness for which I am not to
+speak my mind about him? He has housed and fed me: very good things in
+their way, but benefits which never cost him anything but his money.
+Now, what have I repaid him with? My society, my time, my temper, I
+might say my health, for he has worried me to that degree some days that
+I have been actually on the verge of a fever. And if his overbearing
+insolence was hard to endure, still harder was it to stand his
+inordinate vanity without laughter. I ask you frankly, isn't he the
+vainest man, not that you ever met, but that you ever heard of?"
+
+"Vain he is, but not without some reason. He has had great triumphs,
+great distinctions in life."
+
+"So he has told me. I have listened for hours long to descriptions of
+the sensation he created in the House--it was always the Irish House,
+by the way--by his speech on the Regency Bill, or some other obsolete
+question; and how Flood had asked the House to adjourn and recover their
+calm and composure, after the overwhelming power of the speech they had
+just listened to; and how, at the Bar, Plunkett once said to a jury,
+'Short of actual guilt, there is no such misfortune can befall a man
+as to have Sergeant Lendrick against him.' I wish I was independent,--I
+mean, rich enough, to tell him what I think of him; that I had just five
+minutes--I 'd not ask more--to convey my impression of his great and
+brilliant qualities! and to show him that, between the impulses of his
+temper and his vanity together, he is, in matters of the world, little
+better than a fool! What do you think he is going to do at this very
+moment? I had not intended speaking of it, but you have pushed me to it.
+In revenge for the Government having passed him over on the Commission,
+he is going to supply some of these 'Celt' rascals with means to employ
+counsel, and raise certain questions of legality, which he thinks will
+puzzle Pemberton to meet. Of course, rash and indiscreet as he is,
+this is not to be done openly. It is to be accomplished in secret, and
+through _me!_ I am to go to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock to the
+Richmond Jail. I have the order for my admission in my pocket. I am
+there to visit Heaven knows whom; some scoundrel or other,--just as
+likely a Government spy as a rebel, who will publish the whole scheme to
+the world. At all events, I am to see and have speech of the fellow, and
+ascertain on what evidence he was committed to prison, and what kind of
+case he can make as to his innocence. He is said to be a gentleman,--the
+very last reason, to my thinking, for taking him up; for whenever a
+gentleman is found in any predicament beneath him, the presumption
+is that he ought to be lower still. The wise judge, however, thinks
+otherwise, and says, 'Here is the very opportunity I wanted.'"
+
+"It is a most disagreeable mission, Dudley. I wish sincerely you could
+have declined it."
+
+"Not at all. I stand to win, no matter how it comes off: if all goes
+right, the Chief must make me some acknowledgment on my success; if it
+be a failure, I 'll take care to be so compromised that I must get away
+out of the country, and I leave to yourself to say what recompense will
+be enough to repay a man for the loss of his home, and of his wife and
+his children."
+
+The laugh with which he concluded this speech rang out with something so
+devilish in its cadence that she turned away sickened and disgusted.
+
+"If I thought you as base as your words bespeak you, I'd never see you
+again," said she, rising and moving towards the door.
+
+"I'll have one cigar, mother, before I join you in the drawing-room,"
+said he, taking it out as he spoke. "I'd not have indulged if you had
+not left me. May I order a little more sherry?"
+
+"Ring for whatever you want," said she, coldly, and quitted the room.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE VISIT TO THE JAIL.
+
+Colonel Sewell was well known in the city, and when he presented himself
+at the jail, was received by the deputy-governor with all fitting
+courtesy. "Your house is pretty full, I believe, Mr. Bland," said
+Sewell, jocularly.
+
+"Yes, sir; I never remember to have had so many prisoners in charge; and
+the Mountjoy Prison has sent off two drafts this morning to England, to
+make room for the new committals. The order is all right, sir," said
+he, looking at the paper Sewell extended towards him. "The governor has
+given him a small room in his own house. It would have been hard to put
+him with the others, who are so inferior to him."
+
+"A man of station and rank, then?" asked Sewell.
+
+"So they say, sir."
+
+"And his name?"
+
+"You must excuse me, Colonel. It is a case for great caution; and we
+have been strictly enjoined not to let his name get abroad at present.
+Mr. Spencer's note--for he wrote to us last night--said, 'If it should
+turn out that Colonel Sewell is acquainted with the prisoner, as he
+opines, you will repeat the caution I already impressed upon him, not to
+divulge his name.' The fact is, sir," said he, lowering his voice to a
+confidential tone, "I may venture to tell you that his diary contains so
+many names of men in high position, that it is all-important we should
+proceed with great secrecy, for we find persons involved whom nobody
+could possibly have suspected could be engaged in such a scheme."
+
+"It is not easy to believe men could be such asses," said Sewell,
+contemptuously. "Is this gentleman Irish?"
+
+"Not at liberty to say, sir. My orders are peremptory on the subject of
+his personality."
+
+"You are a miracle of discretion, Mr. Bland."
+
+"Charmed to hear you say so, Colonel Se well. There 's no one whose good
+word I 'd be more proud of."
+
+"And why is n't he bailed?" said Sewell, returning to the charge. "Had
+he no one to be his surety?"
+
+"That 's strange enough, sir. Mr. Spencer put it to him that he 'd
+better have some legal adviser; and though he would n't go so far as to
+say they 'd take bail for him, he hinted that probably he would like
+to confer with some friend, and all the answer he got was, 'It's all a
+mistake from beginning to end. I 'm not the man you 're looking for; but
+if it gives the poor devil time to make his escape, perhaps he'll live
+to learn better; and so I'm at your orders.'"
+
+"I suppose that pretext did not impose upon the magistrate?"
+
+"Not for a moment, sir. Mr. Spencer is an old bird, and not to be caught
+by such chaff. He sent him off here at once. He tried the same dodge,
+though, when he came in. 'If I could have a quiet room for the few days
+I shall be here, it would be a great comfort to me,' said he to the
+governor. 'I have a number of letters to write; and if you could manage
+to give me one with a north light, it would oblige me immensely, for
+I'm fond of painting.' Not bad that, sir, for a man suspected of
+treason-felony,--a north light to paint by!"
+
+"You need not announce me by name, Mr. Bland, for it's just as likely
+I shall discover that this gentleman and I are strangers to each other;
+but simply say, 'A gentleman who wishes to see you.'"
+
+"Take Colonel Sewell up to the governor's corridor," said he to a
+turnkey, "and show him to the small room next the chapel."
+
+Musing over what Mr. Bland had told him, Sewell ascended the stairs.
+His mission had not been much to his taste from the beginning. If it at
+first seemed to offer the probability of placing the old Judge in his
+power by some act of indiscretion, by some rash step or other, a little
+reflection showed that to employ the pressure such a weakness might
+expose him to, would necessitate the taking of other people into
+confidence. "I will have no accomplices!" muttered Sewell; "no fellows
+to dictate the terms on which they will not betray me! If I cannot get
+this old man into my power by myself alone, I 'll not do it by the help
+of another."
+
+"I shall have to lock you in, sir," said the man, apologetically, as he
+proceeded to open the door.
+
+"I suppose you will let me out again?" said Sewell, laughing.
+
+"Certainly, sir. I'll return in half an hour."
+
+"I think you'd better wait and see if five minutes will not suffice."
+
+"Very well, sir. You 'll knock whenever you wish me to open the door."
+
+When Sewell entered the room, the stranger was seated at the window,
+with his back towards the door, and apparently so absorbed in his
+thoughts that he had not heard his approach. The noise of the door being
+slammed to and locked, however, aroused him, and he turned suddenly
+round, and almost as suddenly sprang to his feet. "What! Sir Brook
+Fossbrooke!" cried Sewell, falling back towards the door.
+
+[Illustration: 512]
+
+"Your surprise is not greater than mine, sir, at this meeting. I have no
+need to be told, however, that you did not come here to see me."
+
+"No; it was a mistake. The man brought me to the wrong room. My visit
+was intended for another," muttered Sewell, hastily.
+
+"Pray, sir, be seated," said Fossbrooke, presenting a chair. "Chance
+will occasionally do more for us than our best endeavors. Since I have
+arrived in Ireland I have made many attempts to meet you, but without
+success. Accident, however, has favored me, and I rejoice to profit by
+my good luck."
+
+"I have explained, Sir Brook, that I was on my way to see a gentleman to
+whom my visit is of great consequence. I hope you will allow me to take
+another opportunity of conferring with you."
+
+"I think my condition as a prisoner ought to be the best answer to your
+request. No, sir. The few words we need say to each other must be said
+now. Sit there, if you please;" and as he placed a chair for Sewell
+towards the window, he took his own place with his back to the door.
+
+"This is very like imprisonment," said Sewell, with an attempt at a
+laugh.
+
+"Perhaps, sir, if each of us had his due, you have as good a right to be
+here as myself; but let us not lose time in an exchange of compliments.
+My visit to this country was made entirely on your account."
+
+"On mine! How upon mine?"
+
+"On yours, Colonel Sewell. You may remember at our last conversation--it
+was at the Chief Baron's country-house--you made me a promise with
+regard to Miss Lendrick--"
+
+"I remember," broke in Sewell, hastily, for he saw in the flush of
+the other's cheek how the difficulty of what he had to say was already
+giving him a most painful emotion. "You stipulated something about
+keeping my wife apart from that young lady. You expressed certain fears
+about contamination--"
+
+"Oh, sir, you wrong me deeply," said the old man, with broken utterance.
+
+"I'd be happy to think I had misunderstood you," said Sewell, still
+pursuing his advantage. "Of course, it was very painful to me at the
+time. My wife, too, felt it bitterly."
+
+Fossbrooke started at this as if stung, and his brow darkened and his
+eyes flashed as he said: "Enough of this, sir. It is not the first time
+I have been calumniated in the same quarter. Let us talk of something
+else. You hold in your hand certain letters of Major Trafford,--Lionel
+Trafford,--and you make them the ground of a threat against him. Is it
+not so?"
+
+"I declare, Sir Brook, the interest you take in what relates to my wife
+somewhat passes the bounds of delicacy."
+
+"I know what you mean. I know the advantage you would take of me,
+and which you took awhile ago; but I will not suffer it. I want these
+letters,--what's their price?"
+
+"They are in the hands of my solicitors, Kane & Kincaid; and I think it
+very unlikely they will stay the proceedings they have taken on them by
+any demand of yours."
+
+"I want them, and must have them."
+
+Sewell shrugged his shoulders, and made a gesture to imply that he had
+already given him his answer.
+
+"And what suit would you pretend--But why do I ask you? What is it to me
+by what schemes you prosecute your plans? Look here, sir; I was once
+on a time possessed of a document which would have subjected you to the
+fate of a felon; it was the forgery of my name--"
+
+"My dear Sir Brook, if your memory were a little better you would
+remember that you had once to apologize for that charge, and avow it was
+totally unfounded."
+
+"It is untrue, sir; and you know it is untrue. I declared I would
+produce a document before three or four of your brother officers, and it
+was stolen from me on the night before the meeting."
+
+"I remember that explanation, and the painful impression your position
+excited at the time; but really I have no taste for going back over
+a long-past period. I 'm not old enough, I suppose, to care for these
+reminiscences. Will you allow me to take my leave of you?"
+
+"No, sir; you shall hear me out: It may possibly be to your
+own advantage to bestow a little time upon me. You are fond of
+compromises,--as you ought to be, for your life has been a series of
+them: now I have one to propose to you. Let Trafford have back his
+letters, and you shall hear of this charge no more."
+
+"Really, sir, you must form a very low estimate of my intelligence, or
+you would not have made such a proposition; or probably," added he, with
+a sneer, "you have been led away by the eminence of the position you
+occupy at this moment to make this demand."
+
+Fossbrooke started at the boldness of this speech, and looked about him,
+and probably remembered for the first time since the interview began
+that he was a prisoner. "A few days--a few hours, perhaps--will see me
+free," said the old man, haughtily. "I know too well the difficulties
+that surround men in times like these to be angry or impatient at a
+mistake whose worst consequences are a little inconvenience."
+
+"I own, sir, I was grieved to think you could have involved yourself in
+such a scheme."
+
+"Nothing of the kind, sir. You were only grieved to think that there
+could be no solid foundation for the charge against me. It would be the
+best tidings you could hear to learn that I was to leave this for the
+dock, with the convict hulk in the distance; but I forget I had promised
+myself not to discuss my own affairs with you. What say you to what I
+have proposed?"
+
+"You have proposed nothing, Sir Brook,--at least nothing serious, since
+I can scarcely regard as a proposition the offer not to renew a charge
+which broke down once before for want of evidence."
+
+"What if I have that evidence? What if I am prepared to produce it? Ay,
+sir, you may look incredulous if you like. It is not to a man of
+_your_ stamp I appeal to be believed on my word; but you shall see the
+document,--you shall see it on the same day that a jury shall see it."
+
+"I perceive, Sir Brook, that it is useless to prolong this conversation.
+Your old grudge against me is too much even for your good sense. Your
+dislike surmounts your reason. Yes, open the door at once. I am tired
+waiting for you," cried he, impatiently, as the turnkey's voice was
+heard without.
+
+"Once more I make you this offer," said Fossbrooke, rising from his
+seat. "Think well ere you refuse it."
+
+"You have no such document as you say."
+
+"If I have not, the failure is mine."
+
+The door was now open, and the turnkey standing at it.
+
+"They will accept bail, won't they?" said Sewell, adroitly turning
+the conversation. "I think," continued he, "this matter can be easily
+arranged. I will go at once to the Head Office and return here at once."
+
+"We are agreed, then?" said Fossbrooke, in a low voice.
+
+"Yes," said Sewell, hastily, as he passed out and left him.
+
+The turnkey closed and locked the door, and overtook Sewell as he walked
+along the corridor. "They are taking information this moment, sir, about
+the prisoner. The informer is in the room."
+
+"Who is he? What's his name?"
+
+"O'Reardon, sir; a fellow of great 'cuteness. He's in the pay of the
+Castle these thirty years."
+
+"Might I be present at the examination? Would you ask if I might hear
+the case?"
+
+The man assured him that this was impossible; and Sewell stood with his
+hand on the balustrade, deeply revolving what he had just heard.
+
+"And is O'Reardon a prisoner here?"
+
+"Not exactly, sir; but partly for his own safety, partly to be sure he
+'s not tampered with, we often keep the men in confinement till a case
+is finished."
+
+"How long will this morning's examination last? At what hour will it
+probably be over?"
+
+"By four, sir, or half-past, they'll be coming out."
+
+"I'll return by that time. I 'd like to speak to him."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. A GRAND DINNER AT THE PRIORY
+
+The examination was still proceeding when Sewell returned at five
+o'clock; and although he waited above an hour in the hope of its being
+concluded, the case was still under consideration; and as the Chief
+Baron had a large dinner-party on that day, from which the Colonel could
+not absent himself, he was obliged to hasten back in all speed to dress.
+
+"His Lordship has sent three times to know if you had come in, sir,"
+said his servant, as he entered his room.
+
+And while he was yet speaking came another messenger to say that the
+Chief Baron wanted to see the Colonel immediately. With a gesture of
+impatience Sewell put on again the coat he had just thrown off, and
+followed the man to the Chief's dressing-room.
+
+"I have been expecting you since three o'clock, sir," said the old man,
+after motioning to his valet to leave the room.
+
+"I feared I was late, my Lord, and was going to dress when I got your
+message."
+
+"But you have been away seven hours, sir."
+
+The tone and manner of this speech, and the words themselves, calling
+him to account in a way a servant would scarcely have brooked, so
+overcame Sewell that only by an immense effort of self-control could
+he restrain his temper, and avoid bursting forth with the long-pent-up
+passion that was consuming him.
+
+"I was detained, my Lord,--unavoidably detained," said he, with a voice
+thick and husky with anger. What added to his passion was the confusion
+he felt; for he had not determined, when he entered the room, whether to
+avow that the prisoner was Fossbrooke or not, resolving to be guided by
+the Chief's manner and temper as to the line he should take. Now this
+outburst completely routed his judgment, and left him uncertain and
+vacillating.
+
+"And now, sir, for your report," said the old man, seating himself and
+folding his arms on his chest.
+
+"I have little to report, my Lord. They affect a degree of mystery about
+this person, both at the Head Office and at the jail, which is perfectly
+absurd; and will neither give his name nor his belongings. The pretence
+is, of course, to enable them to ensnare others with whom he is in
+correspondence. I believe, however, the truth to be, he is a very vulgar
+criminal,--a gauger, it is said, from Loughrea, and no such prize as the
+Castle people fancied. His passion for notoriety, it seems, has involved
+him in scores of things of this kind; and his ambition is always to be
+his own lawyer and defend himself."
+
+"Enough, sir; a gauger and self-confident prating rascal combine the two
+things which I most heartily detest. Pem-berton may take his will of him
+for me; he may make him illustrate every blunder of his bad law, and I
+'ll not say him nay. You will take Lady Ecclesfield in to dinner to-day,
+and place her opposite me at table. Your wife speaks French well,--let
+her sit next Count de Lanoy, but give her arm to the Bishop of Down.
+Let us have no politics over our wine; I cannot trust myself with
+the law-officers before me, and at my own table they must not be
+sacrificed."
+
+"Is Pemberton coming, my Lord?"
+
+"He is, sir,--he is coming on a tour of inspection,--he wants to
+see from my dietary how soon he may calculate on my demise; and the
+Attorney-General will be here on the like errand. My hearse, sir, it is,
+that stops the way, and I have not ordered it up yet. Can you tell me is
+Lady Lendrick coming to dinner, for she has not favored me with a reply
+to my invitation?"
+
+"I am unable to say, my Lord; I have not seen her; she has, however,
+been slightly indisposed of late."
+
+"I am distressed to hear it. At all events, I have kept her place
+for her, as well as one for Mr. Balfour, who is expected from England
+to-day. If Lady Lendrick should come, Lord Kilgobbin will take her in."
+
+"I think I hear an arrival. I 'd better finish my dressing. I scarcely
+thought it was so late."
+
+"Take care that the topic of India be avoided, or we shall have Colonel
+Kimberley and his tiger stories."
+
+"I'll look to it," said Sewell, moving towards the door.
+
+"You have given orders about decanting the champagne?"
+
+"About everything, my Lord. There comes another carriage, I must make
+haste;" and so saying, he fled from the room before the Chief could add
+another question.
+
+Sewell had but little time to think over the step he had just taken, but
+in that little time he satisfied himself that he had acted wisely.
+It was a rare thing for the Chief to return to any theme he had once
+dismissed. Indeed, it would have implied a doubt of his former judgment,
+which was the very last thing that could occur to him. "My decisions
+are not reversed," was his favorite expression; so that nothing was less
+probable than that he would again revert to the prisoner or his case.
+As for Fossbrooke himself and how to deal with him, that was a weightier
+question, and demanded more thought than he could now give it.
+
+As he descended to the drawing-room, the last of the company had just
+entered, and dinner was announced. Lady Lendrick and Mr. Balfour were
+both absent. It was a grand dinner on that day, in the fullest sense
+of that formidable expression. It was very tedious, very splendid, very
+costly, and intolerably wearisome and stupid. The guests were overlaid
+by the endless round of dishes and the variety of wines, and such as had
+not sunk into a drowsy repletion occupied themselves in criticising the
+taste of a banquet, which was, after all, a travesty of a foreign dinner
+without that perfection of cookery and graceful lightness in the detail
+which gives all the elegance and charm to such entertainments. The more
+fastidious part of the company saw all the defects; the homelier ones
+regretted the absence of meats that they knew, and wines they were
+accustomed to. None were pleased,--none at their ease but the host
+himself. As for him, seated in the centre of the table, overshadowed
+almost by a towering epergne, he felt like a king on his throne. All
+around him breathed that air of newness that smacked of youth; and
+the table spread with flowers, and an ornamental dessert, seemed to
+emblematize that modern civilization which had enabled himself to
+throw off the old man and come out into the world crimped, curled, and
+carmined, be-wigged and be-waistcoated.
+
+"Eighty-seven! my father and he were contemporaries," said Lord
+Kilgobbin, as they assembled in the drawing-room; "a wonderful man,--a
+really wonderful man for his age."
+
+The Bishop muttered something in concurrence, only adding "Providence"
+to the clause; while Pemberton whispered the Attorney-General that it
+was the most painful attack of acute youth he had ever witnessed. As for
+Colonel Kimberley, he thought nothing of the Chiefs age, for he had shot
+a brown bear up at Rhumnuggher, "the natives knew to be upwards of two
+hundred years old, some said three hundred."
+
+As they took their coffee in groups or knots, Sewell drew his arm within
+Pemberton's and led him through the open sash-door into the garden. "I
+know you want a cigar," said he, "and so do I. Let us take a turn here
+and enjoy ourselves. What a bore is a big dinner! I 'd as soon
+assemble all my duns as I 'd get together all the dreary people of my
+acquaintance. It's a great mistake,--don't you think so?" said Sewell,
+who, for the first time in his life, accosted Pemberton in this tone of
+easy familiarity.
+
+"I fancy, however, the Chief likes it," said the other, cautiously; "he
+was particularly lively and witty to-day."
+
+"These displays cost him dearly. You should see him after the thing
+was over. With the paint washed off, palpitating on a sofa steeped with
+sulphuric ether, and stimulated with ammonia, one wouldn't say he'd get
+through the night."
+
+"What a constitution he must have!"
+
+"It's not that; at least, that's not the way I read him. My theory is,
+it is his temper--that violent, irascible, fervid temper--burning like a
+red-hot coal within him, sustains the heat that gives life and vigor
+to his nature. If he has a good-humored day,--it's not a very frequent
+occurrence, but it happens now and then,--he grows ten years older. I
+made that discovery lately. It seems as though if he could n't spite the
+world, he 'd have no objection to taking leave of it."
+
+"That sounds rather severe," said Pemberton, cautiously; for though he
+liked the tone of the other's conversation, he was not exactly sure it
+was quite safe to show his concurrence.
+
+"It's the fact, however, severe or not. There's nothing in our relations
+to each other that should prevent my speaking my mind about him. My
+mother had the bad luck to marry him, and being gifted with a temper not
+very unlike his own, they discovered the singular fact that two people
+who resemble each other can become perfectly incompatible. I used to
+think that she could n't be matched. I recant, however, and acknowledge
+candidly he could 'give her a distance.'"
+
+Pemberton gave a little laugh, as it were of encouragement to go on, and
+the other proceeded.
+
+"My wife understands him best of all. She gives way in everything; all
+he says is right, all he opines is wisdom, and it's astonishing how this
+yielding, compliant, submissive spirit breaks him down; he pines under
+it, just as a man accustomed to sharp exercise would waste and decay by
+a life of confinement. I declare there was one week here we had got him
+to a degree of gentleness that was quite edifying, but my mother came
+and paid a visit when we were out, and when we returned there he was!
+violent, flaring, and vigorous as ever, wild with vanity, and mad to
+match himself with the first men of the day."
+
+While Sewell talked in this open and indiscreet way of the old Judge,
+his meaning was to show with what perfect confidence he treated his
+companion, and at the same time how fair and natural it would be to
+expect frankness in return. The crafty lawyer, however, trained in the
+school where all these feints and false parries are the commonest
+tricks of fence, never ventured beyond an expression of well-got-up
+astonishment, or a laugh of enjoyment at some of Sewell's smartnesses.
+
+"You want a light?" said Sewell, seeing that the other held his cigar
+still unlit in his fingers.
+
+"Thanks. I was forgetting it. The fact is, you kept me so much amused, I
+never thought of smoking; nor am I much of a smoker at any time."
+
+"It 's the vice of the idle man, and you are not in that category.
+By the way, what a busy time you must have of it now, with all these
+commitments?"
+
+"Not so much as one might think. The cases are numerous, but they are
+all the same. Indeed, the informations are identical in nearly every
+instance. Tim Branegan had two numbers of the 'Green Flag' newspaper,
+some loose powder in his waistcoat-pocket, and an American drill-book in
+the crown of his hat."
+
+"And is that treason-felony?"
+
+"With a little filling-up it becomes so. In the rank of life these men
+belong to, it's as easy to find a rebel as it would be in Africa to
+discover a man with a woolly head."
+
+"And this present movement is entirely limited to that class?" said
+Sewell, carelessly.
+
+"So we thought till a couple of days ago, but we have now arrested one
+whose condition is that of a gentleman."
+
+"With anything like strong evidence against him?"
+
+"I have not seen the informations myself, but Burrowes, who has read
+them, calls them highly important; not alone as regards the prisoner,
+but a number of people whose loyalty was never so much as suspected.
+Now the Viceroy is away, the Chief Secretary on the Continent, and
+even Balfour, who can always find out what the Cabinet wishes,--Balfour
+absent, we are actually puzzled whether the publicity attending the
+prosecution of such a man would not serve rather than damage the rebel
+cause, displaying, as it would, that there is a sympathy for this
+movement in a quarter far removed from the peasant."
+
+"Is n't it strange that the Chief Baron should have, the other evening,
+in the course of talk, hit upon such a possibility as this, and said, 'I
+wonder would the Castle lawyers be crafty enough to see that such a case
+should not be brought to trial? One man of education, and whose motives
+might be ascribed to an exalted, however misdirected, patriotism,' said
+he, 'would lift this rabble out of the slough of their vulgar movement,
+and give it the character of a national rising.'"
+
+"But what would he do? Did he say how he would act?"
+
+"He said something about 'bail,' and he used a word I wasn't familiar
+with--like estreating: is there such a word?"
+
+"Yes, yes, there is; but I don't see how it's to be done. Would it be
+possible to have a talk with him on the matter--informally, of course?"
+"That would betray me, and he would never forgive my having told you his
+opinion already," said Sewell. "No, that is out of the question; but if
+you would confide to me the points you want his judgment on, I 'd manage
+to obtain it."
+
+Pemberton seemed to reflect over this, and walked along some paces in
+silence.
+
+"He mentioned a curious thing," said Sewell, laughingly; "he said that
+in Emmett's affair there were three or four men compromised, whom the
+Government were very unwilling to bring to trial, and that they actually
+provided the bail for them,--secretly, of course,--and indemnified the
+men for their losses on the forfeiture."
+
+"It couldn't be done now," said Pemberton.
+
+"That's what the Chief said. They could n't do it now, for they have not
+got M'Nally,--whoever M'Nally was."
+
+Pemberton colored crimson, for M'Nally was the name of the
+Solicitor-General of that day, and he knew well that the sarcasm was in
+the comparison between that clever lawyer and himself.
+
+"What I meant was, that Crown lawyers have a very different public
+to account to in the present day from what they had in those lawless
+times," said Pemberton, with irritation. "I 'm afraid the Chief Baron,
+with all his learning and all his wit, likes to go back to that
+period for every one of his illustrations. You heard how he capped the
+Archbishop's allusion to the Prodigal Son to-day?--I don't think his
+Grace liked it--that it requires more tact to provide an escape for a
+criminal than to prosecute a guilty man to conviction."
+
+"That's so like him!" said Sewell, with a bitter laugh. "Perhaps the
+great charm that attaches him to public life is to be able to utter
+his flippant impertinences _ex cathedra_. If you could hit upon some
+position from which he could fulminate his bolts of sarcasm with effect,
+I fancy he 'd not object to resign the Bench. I heard him once say, 'I
+cannot go to church without a transgression, for I envy the preacher,
+who has the congregation at his mercy for an hour.'"
+
+"Ah, he 'll not resign," sighed Pemberton, deeply.
+
+"_I_ don't know that."
+
+"At least he 'll not do so on any terms they 'll make with him."
+
+"Nor am I so sure of that," repeated the other, gravely. Sewell waited
+for some rejoinder to this speech, of which he hoped his companion would
+ask the explanation; but the cautious lawyer said not a word.
+
+"No man with a sensitive, irascible, and vain disposition is to be
+turned from his course, whatever it be, by menace or bully," said
+Sewell. "The weak side of these people is their vanity, and to approach
+them by that you ought to know and to cultivate those who are about
+them. Now, I have no hesitation in saying there were moments--ay, there
+were hours--in which, if it had been any interest to me, I could have
+got him to resign. He is eminently a man of his word, and, once pledged,
+nothing would make him retire from his promise."
+
+"I declare, after all," said Pemberton, "if he feels equal to the hard
+work of the Court, and likes it, I don't see why all this pressure
+should be put upon him. Do _you?_"
+
+"I am the last man probably to see it," said Sewell, with an easy laugh.
+"His abdication would, of course, not suit _me_, I suppose we had better
+stroll back into the house,--they 'll miss us." There was an evident
+coldness in the way these last words were spoken, and Sewell meant that
+the lawyer should see his irritation.
+
+"Have you ever said anything to Balfour about what we have been talking
+of?" said Pemberton, as they moved towards the house.
+
+"I may or I may not. I talk pretty freely on all sorts of things--and,
+unfortunately, with an incaution, too, that is not always profitable."
+
+"Because if you were to show _him_ as clearly as awhile ago you showed
+_me_, the mode in which this matter might be negotiated, I have little
+doubt--that is, I have reason to suppose--or I might go farther and say
+that I know--"
+
+"I 'll tell you what _I_ know, Mr. Solicitor, that I would n't give that
+end of a cigar," and he pitched it from him as he spoke, "to decide the
+question either way." And with this they passed on and mingled with
+the company in the drawing-room. "I have hooked you at last, my shrewd
+friend; and if I know anything of mankind, I 'll see you, or hear from
+you, before twelve hours are over."
+
+"Where have you been, Colonel, with my friend the Solicitor-General?"
+said the Chief Baron.
+
+"Cabinet-making, my Lord," said Sewell, laughingly.
+
+"Take care, sir," said the Chief, sternly,--"take care of that pastime.
+It has led more than one man to become a Joiner and a Turner!" And a
+buzz went through the room as men repeated this _mot_, and people asked
+each other, "Is this the man we are calling on to retire as worn-out,
+effete, and exhausted?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. CHIEF SECRETARY BALFOUR
+
+Mr. Balfour returned to Ireland a greater man than he left it. He had
+been advanced to the post of Chief Secretary, and had taken his seat
+in the House as member for Muddle-port. Political life was, therefore,
+dawning very graciously upon him, and his ambition was budding with
+every prospect of success.
+
+The Secretary's lodge in the Phoenix Park is somewhat of a pretty
+residence, and with its gardens, its shrubberies, and conservatory, seen
+on a summer's day when broad cloud-shadows lie sleeping on the Dublin
+mountains, and the fragrant white thorn scents the air, must certainly
+be a pleasant change from the din, the crush, and the turmoil of "town"
+at the fag end of a season. English officials call it damp. Indeed, they
+have a trick of ascribing this quality to all things Irish; and national
+energy, national common-sense, and national loyalty seem to them to
+be ever in a diluted form. Even our drollery is not as dry as our
+neighbors'.
+
+In this official residence Mr. Balfour was now installed, and while
+Fortune seemed to shower her favors so lavishly upon him, the _quid
+amarum_ was still there,--his tenure was insecure. The party to which
+he belonged had contrived to offend some of its followers and alienate
+others, and, without adopting any such decided line as might imply a
+change of policy, had excited a general sense of distrust in those who
+had once followed it implicitly. In the emergencies of party life, the
+manouvre known to soldiers as a "change of front" is often required. The
+present Cabinet were in this position. They had been for some sessions
+trading on their Protestantism. They had been Churchmen _pur sang_.
+Their bishops, their deans, their colonial appointments, had all been
+of that orthodox kind that defied slander; and as it is said that a man
+with a broad-brimmed hat and drab gaiters may indulge unsuspected in
+vices which a more smartly got-up neighbor would bring down reprobation
+upon his head for practising, so may a Ministry under the shadow of
+Exeter Hall do a variety of things denied to less sacred individuals.
+"The Protestant ticket" had carried them safely over two sessions, but
+there came now a hitch in which they needed that strange section called
+"the Irish party," a sort of political flying column, sufficiently
+uncertain always to need watching, and if not very compact or highly
+disciplined, rash and bold enough to be very damaging in moments of
+difficulty. Now, as Private Secretary, Balfour had snubbed this party
+repeatedly. They had been passed over in promotion, and their claims to
+advancement coldly received. The amenities of the Castle--that social
+Paradise of all Irish men and women--had been denied them. For them
+were no dinners, no mornings at the Lodge, and great were the murmurs
+of discontent thereat. A change, however, had come; an English defection
+had rendered Irish support of consequence, and Balfour was sent over
+to, what in the slang of party is called, conciliate, but which, in less
+euphuistic phrase, might be termed to employ a system of general and
+outrageous corruption.
+
+Some averred that the Viceroy, indignantly refusing to be a party to
+this policy, feigned illness and stayed away; others declared that his
+resignation had been tendered and accepted, but that measures of state
+required secrecy on the subject; while a third section of guessers
+suggested that, when the coarse work of corruption had been accomplished
+by the Secretary, his Excellency would arrive to crown the edifice.
+
+At all events, the Ministry stood in need of these "free lances,"
+and Cholmondely Balfour was sent over to secure them. Before all
+governmental changes there is a sort of "ground swell" amongst the
+knowing men of party that presages the storm; and so, now, scarcely had
+Balfour reached the Lodge than a rumor ran that some new turn of policy
+was about to be tried, and that what is called the "Irish difficulty"
+was going to be discounted into the English necessity.
+
+The first arrival at the Lodge was Pemberton. He had just been defeated
+at his election for Mallow, and ascribed his failure to the lukewarmness
+of the Government, and the indifference with which they had treated his
+demands for some small patronage for his supporters. Nor was it mere
+indifference; there was actual reason to believe that favor was shown to
+his opponent, and that Mr. Heffernan, the Catholic barrister of extreme
+views, had met the support of more than one of those known to be under
+Government influence. There was a story of a letter from the Irish
+Office to Father O'Hea, the parish priest. Some averred they had read
+it, declaring that the Cabinet only desired to know "the real sentiments
+of Ireland, what Irishmen actually wished and wanted," to meet them.
+Now, when a Government official writes to a priest, his party is always
+_in extremis_.
+
+Pemberton reached the Lodge feverish, irritated, and uneasy. He had, not
+very willingly, surrendered a great practice at the Bar to enter life as
+a politician, and now what if the reward of his services should turn out
+to be treachery and betrayal? Over and over again had he been told he
+was to have the Bench; but the Chief Baron would neither die nor retire,
+nor was there any vacancy amongst the other courts. Nor had he done very
+well in Parliament; he was hasty and irritable in reply, too
+discursive in statement, and, worse than these, not plodding enough nor
+sufficiently given to repetition to please the House; for the "assembled
+wisdom" is fond of its ease, and very often listens with a drowsy
+consciousness that if it did not catch what the orator said aright, it
+was sure to hear him say it again later on. He had made no "hit" with
+the House, and he was not patient enough nor young enough to toil
+quietly on to gain that estimation which he had hoped to snatch at
+starting.
+
+Besides all these grounds of discontent, he was vexed at the careless
+way in which his party defended him against the attacks of the
+Opposition. Nothing, probably, teaches a man his value to his own set
+so thoroughly as this test; and he who is ill defended in his absence
+generally knows that he may retire without cause of regret. He came out,
+therefore, that morning, to see Balfour, and, as the phrase is, "have it
+out with him." Balfour's instructions from the "other side," as Irishmen
+playfully denominate England, were to get rid of Pemberton as soon as
+possible; but, at the same time, with all the caution required, not to
+convert an old adherent into an enemy.
+
+Balfour was at breakfast, with an Italian greyhound on a chair beside
+him, and a Maltese terrier seated on the table, when Pemberton was
+announced. He lounged over his meal, alternating tea with the "Times,"
+and now and then reading scraps of the letters which lay in heaps around
+him.
+
+After inviting his guest to partake of something, and hearing that he
+had already breakfasted three hours before, Balfour began to give him
+all the political gossip of town. This, for the most part, related to
+changes and promotions,--how Griffith was to go to the Colonial, and
+Haughton to the Foreign Office; that Forbes was to have the Bath, and
+make way for Betmore, who was to be Under-Secretary. "Chadwick, you see,
+gets nothing. He asked for a com-missionership, and we offered him the
+governorship of Bermuda; hence has he gone down below the gangway, and
+sits on the seat of the scornful."
+
+"Your majority was smaller than I looked for on Tuesday night. Couldn't
+you have made a stronger muster?" said Pemberton.
+
+"I don't know: twenty-eight is not bad. There are so many of our people
+in abeyance. There are five fighting petitions against their return, and
+as many more seeking re-election, and a few more, like yourself, Pem,
+'out in the cold.'"
+
+"For which gracious situation I have to thank my friends."
+
+"Indeed! how is that?"
+
+"It is somewhat cool to ask me. Have you not seen the papers lately?
+Have you not read the letter that Sir Gray Chadwell addressed to Father
+O'Hea of Mallow?"
+
+"Of course I have read it--an admirable letter--a capital letter. I
+don't know where the case of Ireland has been treated with such masterly
+knowledge and discrimination."
+
+"And why have my instructions been always in an opposite sense? Why
+have I been given to believe that the Ministry distrusted that party and
+feared their bad faith?"
+
+"Have you ever seen Gruenzenhoff's account of the battle of Leipsic?"
+
+"No; nor have I the slightest curiosity to hear how it applies to what
+we are talking of."
+
+"But it does apply. It's the very neatest apropos I could cite for you.
+There was a moment, he says, in that history, when Schwarzenberg was
+about to outflank the Saxons, and open a terrific fire of artillery upon
+them; and either they saw what fate impended over them, or that the hour
+they wished for had come, but they all deserted the ranks of the French
+and went over to the Allies."
+
+"And you fancy that the Catholics are going to side with you?" said
+Pemberton, with a sneer.
+
+"It suits both parties to believe it, Pem."
+
+"The credulity will be all your own, Mr. Balfour. I know my countrymen
+better than you do."
+
+"That's exactly what they won't credit at Downing Street, Pem; and I
+assure you that my heart is broken defending you in the House. They
+are eternally asking about what happened at such an assize, and why the
+Crown was not better prepared in such a prosecution; and though I _am_
+accounted a ready fellow in reply, it becomes a bore at last. I 'm sorry
+to say it, Pem, but it is a bore."
+
+"I am glad, Mr. Balfour, exceedingly glad, you should put the issue
+between us so clearly; though I own to you that coming here this
+morning as the plaintiff, it is not without surprise I find myself on my
+defence."
+
+"What's this, Banks?" asked Balfour, hastily, as his private secretary
+entered with a despatch. "From Crew, sir; it must be his Excellency
+sends it."
+
+Balfour broke it open, and exclaimed: "In cipher too! Go and have it
+transcribed at once; you have the key here."
+
+"Yes, sir; I am familiar with the character, too, and can do it
+quickly." Thus saying, he left the room.
+
+While this brief dialogue was taking place, Pemberton walked up and down
+the room, pale and agitated in features, but with a compressed lip and
+bent brow, like one nerving himself for coming conflict.
+
+"I hope we 're not out," said Balfour, with a laugh of assumed
+indifference. "He rarely employs a cipher; and it must be something of
+moment, or he would not do so now."
+
+"It is a matter of perfect indifference to _me_," said Pemberton.
+"Treated as I have been, I could scarcely say I should regret it."
+
+"By Jove! the ship must be in a bad way when the officers are taking
+to the boats," said Balfour. "Why, Pem, you don't really believe we are
+going to founder?"
+
+"I told you, sir," said he, haughtily, "that it was a matter of the most
+perfect indifference to me whether you should sink or swim."
+
+"You are one of the crew, I hope, a'n't you?"
+
+Pemberton made no reply, and the other went on: "To be sure, it may be
+said that an able seaman never has long to look for a ship; and in these
+political disasters, it's only the captains that are really wrecked."
+
+"One thing is certainly clear," said Pemberton, with energy, "you have
+not much confidence in the craft you sail in."
+
+"Who has, Pem? Show me the man that has, and I 'll show you a consummate
+ass. Parliamentary life is a roadstead with shifting sands, and there's
+no going a step without the lead-line; and that's one reason why the
+nation never likes to see one of your countrymen as the pilot,--you
+won't take soundings."
+
+"There are other reasons, too," said Pemberton, sternly, "but I have not
+come here to discuss this subject. I want to know, once for all, is it
+the wish of your party that I should be in the House?"
+
+"Of course it is; how can you doubt it?"
+
+"That being the case, what steps have you taken, or what steps can you
+take, to secure me a seat?"
+
+"Why, Pem, don't you know enough of public life to know that when a
+Minister makes an Attorney-General, it is tacitly understood that the
+man can secure his return to Parliament? When I order out a chaise and
+pair, I don't expect the innkeeper to tell me I must buy breeches and
+boots for the postilion."
+
+"You deluge me with figures, Mr. Balfour, but they only confuse me. I
+am neither a sailor nor a postboy; but I see Mr. Banks wishes to confer
+with you--I will retire."
+
+"Take a turn in the garden, Pern, and I will be with you in a moment.
+Are you a smoker?"
+
+"Not in the morning," said the other, stiffly, and withdrew.
+
+"Mr. Heffernan is here, sir; will you see him?" asked the Secretary.
+
+"Let him wait; whenever I ring the bell you can come and announce him. I
+will give my answer then. What of the despatch?"
+
+"It is nearly all copied out, sir. It was longer than I thought."
+
+"Let me see it now; I will read it at once."
+
+The Secretary left the room, and soon returned with several sheets of
+note-paper in his hand.
+
+"Not all that, Banks?"
+
+"Yes, sir. It was two hundred and eighty-eight signs,--as long as the
+Queen's Speech. It seems very important too."
+
+"Read," said Balfour, lighting his cigar.
+
+"To Chief Secretary Balfour, Castle, Dublin.--What are your people
+about? What new stupidity is this they have just accomplished? Are there
+law advisers at the Castle, or are the cases for prosecution submitted
+to the members of the police force? Are you aware, or is it from me you
+are to learn, that there is now in the Richmond Jail, under accusation
+of "Celtism," a gentleman of a loyalty the equal of my own? Some
+blunder, if not some private personal malignity, procured his arrest,
+which, out of regard for me as an old personal friend, he neither
+resisted nor disputed, withholding his name to avoid the publicity which
+could only have damaged the Government. I am too ill to leave my room,
+or would go over at once to rectify this gross and most painful blunder.
+If Pemberton is too fine a gentleman for his office, where was Hacket,
+or, if not Hacket, Burrowes? Should this case get abroad and reach the
+Opposition, there will be a storm in the House you will scarcely like
+to face. Take measures--immediate measures--for his release, by bail or
+otherwise, remembering, above all, to observe secrecy. I will send you
+by post to-night the letter in which F. communicates to me the story of
+his capture and imprisonment. Had the mischance befallen any other
+than a true gentleman and an old friend, it would have cost us dearly.
+Nothing equally painful has occurred to me in my whole official life.
+
+"'Let the case be a warning to you in more ways than one. Your system of
+private information is degenerating into private persecution, and would
+at last establish a state of things perfectly intolerable. Beg F. as a
+great favor to me, to come over and see me here, and repeat that I am
+too ill to travel, or would not have delayed an hour in going to him.
+There are few men, if there be one, who would in such a predicament have
+postponed all consideration of self to thoughts about his friends
+and their interest, and in all this we have had better luck than we
+deserved.
+
+"'Wilmington'"
+
+"Go over it again," said Balfour, as he lit a cigar, and, placing
+a chair for his legs, gave himself up to a patient rehearing of the
+despatch. "I wonder who F. can be that he is so anxious about. It _is_
+a confounded mess, there's no doubt of it; and if the papers get hold
+of it, we're done for. Beg Pemberton to come here, and leave us to talk
+together."
+
+"Read that, Pem," said Balfour, as he smoked on, now and then puffing
+a whiff of tobacco at his terrier's face,--"read that, and tell me what
+you say to it."
+
+Though the lawyer made a great effort to seem calm and self-possessed,
+Balfour could see that the hand that held the paper shook as he read
+it. As he finished, he laid the document on the table without uttering a
+word.
+
+"Well?" cried Balfour, interrogatively,--"well?"
+
+"I take it, if all be as his Excellency says, that this is not the first
+case in which an innocent man has been sent to jail. Such things occur
+now and then in the model England, and I have never heard that they
+formed matter to impeach a Ministry."
+
+"You heard of this committal, then?"
+
+"No, not till now."
+
+"Not till now?"
+
+"Not till now. His Excellency, and indeed yourself, Mr. Balfour, seem to
+fall into the delusion that a Solicitor-General is a detective officer.
+Now, he is not,--nor any more is he a police magistrate. This arrest, I
+suppose,--I know nothing about it, but I suppose,--was made on certain
+sworn information. The law took its ordinary course; and the man who
+would neither tell his name nor give the clew to any one who would
+answer for him went to prison. It is unfortunate, certainly; but
+they who made this statute forgot to insert a clause that none of
+the enumerated penalties should apply to any one who knew or had
+acquaintance with the Viceroy for the time being."
+
+"Yes, as you remark, that was a stupid omission; and now, what 's to be
+done here?"
+
+"I opine his Excellency gives you ample instructions. You are to repair
+to the jail, make your apologies to F.--whoever F. may be,--induce
+him to let himself be bailed, and persuade him to go over and pass a
+fortnight at Crew Keep. Pray tell him, however, before he goes, that his
+being in prison was not in any way owing to the Solicitor-Genera's being
+a fine gentleman."
+
+"I 'll send for the informations," said Balfour, and rang his bell. "Mr.
+Heffernan, sir, by appointment," said the private secretary, entering
+with a card in his hand.
+
+"Oh, I had forgotten. It completely escaped me," said Balfour, with
+a pretended confusion. "Will you once more take a turn in the garden,
+Pem?--five minutes will do all I want."
+
+"If my retirement is to facilitate Mr. Heffernan's advance, it would be
+ungracious to defer it; but give me till to-morrow to think of it."
+
+"I only spoke of going into the garden, my dear Pem."
+
+"I will do more,--I will take my leave. Indeed, I have important
+business in the Rolls Court."
+
+"I shall want to see you about this business," said the other, touching
+the despatch.
+
+"I'll look in on you about five-at the office, and by that time you'll
+have seen Mr. F."
+
+"Mr. Heffernan could not wait, sir,--he has to open a Record case in the
+Queen's Bench," said the Secretary, entering, "but he says he will write
+to you this evening."
+
+The Solicitor-General grinned. He fancied that the whole incident had
+been a most unfortunate _malapropos_, and that Balfour was sinking under
+shame and confusion.
+
+"How I wish Baron Lendrick could be induced to retire!" said Balfour;
+"it would save us a world of trouble."
+
+"The matter has little interest for me personally."
+
+"Little interest for _you?_--how so?"
+
+"I mean what I say; but I mean also not to be questioned upon the
+matter," said he, proudly. "If, however, you are so very eager about it,
+there is a way I believe it might be done."
+
+"How is that?"
+
+"I had a talk, a half-confidential talk, last night with Sewell on the
+subject, and he distinctly gave me to understand it could be negotiated
+through _him_."
+
+"And you believed him?"
+
+"Yes, I believed him. It was the sort of tortuous, crooked transaction
+such a man might well move in. Had he told me of something very fine,
+very generous or self-devoting, he was about to do, I 'd have hesitated
+to accord him my trustfulness."
+
+"What it is to be a lawyer!" said Balfour, with affected horror.
+
+"What it must be if a Secretary of State recoils from his perfidy! Oh,
+Mr. Balfour, for the short time our official connection may last let
+us play fair! I am not so coldblooded, nor are you as crafty, as you
+imagine. We are both of us better than we seem."
+
+"Will you dine here to-day, Pem?"
+
+"Thanks, no; I am engaged."
+
+"To-morrow, then?--I'll have Branley and Keppel to meet you."
+
+"I always get out of town on Saturday night. Pray excuse me."
+
+"No tempting you, eh?"
+
+"Not in that way, certainly. Good-bye till five o'clock."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. A STARLIT NIGHT
+
+Late at night of the same day on which the conversation of last chapter
+occurred, Sewell was returning to the Priory: he was on foot, having
+failed to find a carriage at that late hour, and was depressed and
+wretched in mind, for he had lost a large sum at the Club, which he had
+no means whatever to meet on the coming morning.
+
+It was a rare event with him to take a retrospect of his life; and his
+theory was that he owed any success he had ever won to the fact that he
+brought to the present--to the actual casualty before him--an amount of
+concentration which men who look back or look forward never can command.
+Now, however, the past would force itself upon him, and his whole
+career, with all its faults and its failures, was before him.
+
+It was a bitter memory, the very bitterest one can imagine, not in
+its self-accusation or reproach, but in the thought of all the grand
+opportunities he had thrown away, the reckless way in which he had
+treated Fortune, believing that she never would fail him. All
+his regrets were for the occasions he had suffered to slip by him
+unprofitably. He did not waste a thought on those he had ruined, many of
+them young fellows starting hopefully, joyously in life. His mind only
+dwelt on such as had escaped his snares. Ay, the very fellows to whom he
+had lost largely that night, had once been in his power! He remembered
+them when they "joined;" he had met them when they landed at Calcutta,
+in all their raw inexperience of life, pressing their petty wagers upon
+him, and eagerly, almost ignominiously courting acquaintance with the
+favored aide-de-camp of the Governor-General.
+
+And there they were now, bronzed, hard-featured, shrewd men of the
+world, who had paid for their experience, and knew its worth.
+
+Nothing to be done with _them!_ Indeed, there was little now "to be
+done" anywhere. The whole machinery of life was changed. Formerly,
+when fellows started in life, they were trustful, uncalculating,
+and careless. Now, on the contrary, they were wary, cautious, and
+suspectful. Instead of attaching themselves to older men as safe guides
+and counsellors, they hung back from them as too skilful and too crafty
+to be dealt with. Except Trafford he had not seen one--not one, for many
+a day--who could be "chaffed" into a bet, or laughed into play against
+his inclination. And what had he made of Trafford? A few hundred pounds
+in hand, and those letters which now Fossbrooke had insisted on his
+giving up. How invariably it was that same man who came up at every
+crisis of his life to thwart and defeat him. And it was a hard, a
+cruelly hard, thing to remember that this very man who had been the dupe
+of hundreds, who had been rogued and swindled out of all he had, should
+still have brought all his faculties to the task of persecuting _him!_
+
+"One might have thought," said he, with a bitter laugh, "that he had
+troubles enough of his own not to have spare time to bestow upon me
+and my affairs. He was once, I own indeed, a rich man, with station and
+influence, and now he is a beggar. There was a time no society refused
+him _entree_; now it is thought a very gracious thing to know him. Why
+will these things occupy him? And this stupid rebellion! I wonder
+how far he is compromised, or how far one could manage to have him
+compromised, by it? It is doubtless some personal consideration, some
+liking for this or that man, that has entangled him in it. If Pemberton
+were not so close, he could tell this; but these lawyers are so
+reserved, so crafty, they will not even tell what a few hours later the
+whole world will read in the public papers.
+
+"If I were to have my choice, it would puzzle me sorely to determine
+whether I'd rather be left a fine estate,--four or five thousand a
+year,--or be able to send old Fossbrooke to a penal settlement. I am
+afraid, sorely afraid, my disinterestedness would gain the day, and that
+I 'd sacrifice my enjoyment to my vengeance! He has done me such a long
+list of wrongs, I 'd like to square the account. It would be a moment
+worth living for,--that instant when the word Guilty would drop from the
+jury-box, and that I could lean over the dock and exchange a look with
+him. I 'm not so sure he 'd quail, though; but the shame,--the shame
+might unman him!"
+
+He had reached the gate of the avenue as he thus mused, and was about to
+insert the key in the lock, when a man arose from a little bench beside
+the lodge, and said,--"A fine night, sir; I 'm glad you 're come."
+
+"Who are you? Stand off!" cried Se well, drawing his revolver, as he
+spoke, from his breast-pocket.
+
+"O'Reardon, your honor,--only O'Reardon," said the fellow, in his
+well-known whine.
+
+"And where the devil have you been this fortnight? What rascally
+treachery have you been hatching since I saw you? No long stories, my
+friend, and no lies. What have you been at?"
+
+"I was never on any other errand than your honor's service, so help
+me--"
+
+"Don't swear, old fellow, if you want me to believe you. Perjury has a
+sort of bird-lime attraction for scoundrels like you; so just keep away
+from an oath."
+
+O'Reardon laughed. "His honor was droll,--he was always droll,--and
+though not an Irishman himself, sorrow man living knew them better;" and
+with this double compliment to his patron and his country, the fellow
+went on to show that he had been on "the tracks of the ould man" since
+the day they parted. He had got a "case against him,"--the finest and
+fullest ever was seen. Mr. Spencer declared that "better informations
+never was sworn;" and on this they arrested him, together with his
+diary, his traps, his drawings, his arms, and his bullet-mould. There
+were grave reasons for secrecy in the case, and great secrecy was
+observed. The examination was in private, and the prisoner was sent to
+the Richmond Jail, with a blank for his name.
+
+To the very circumstantial and prolix detail which O'Reardon gave with
+all the "onction" of a genuine informer, Sewell listened with a forced
+patience. Perhaps the thought of all the indignities that were heaped
+upon his enemy compensated him for the wearisomeness of the narrative.
+At last he stopped him in his story, and said, "And how much of this
+accusation do you believe?"
+
+"All of it,--every word."
+
+"You mean to say that he is engaged in this rebellion, and a sworn
+member of the Celt association?"
+
+"I do. There 's more than thirty already off to transportation not so
+deep in it as him."
+
+"And if it should turn out that he is a man of station, and who once
+had a great fortune, and that in his whole life he never meddled with
+politics,--that he has friends amongst the first families of England,
+and has only to ask to have men of rank and position his sureties,--what
+then?"
+
+"He 'll have to show what he was 'at' a year ago when he lodged in my
+house at Cullen's Wood, and would n't give his name, nor the name of the
+young man that was with him, nor ever went out till it was dark night,
+and stole away at last with all sorts of tools and combustibles. He 'll
+have to show that I did n't give his description up at the Castle, and
+get Mr. Balfour's orders to watch him close; and what's more, that he
+did n't get a private visit one night from the Lord-Lieutenant himself,
+warning him to be off as quick as he could. I heard their words as I
+listened at the door."
+
+"So that, according to your veracious story, Mr. O'Rear-don, the Viceroy
+himself is a Celt and a rebel, eh?"
+
+"It's none of my business to put the things together, and say what shows
+this, and what disproves that; that's for Mr. Hacket and the people
+up at the Castle. I 'm to get the facts,--nothing but the facts,--and
+them's facts that I tell you."
+
+"You 're on a wrong scent this time, O'Reardon; he is no rebel. I wish
+he was. I 'd be better pleased than yourself if we could keep him fast
+where he is, and never let him leave it."
+
+"Well, he's out now, and it'll not be so easy to get him 'in' again."
+
+"How do you mean?--out!"
+
+"I mean he's free. Mr. Balfour came himself with two other gentlemen,
+and they took him away in a coach."
+
+"Where to?"
+
+"That's more than I know."
+
+"And why was I not kept informed on these matters? My last orders to you
+were to write to me daily."
+
+"I was shut up myself the morning your honor left town. When I swore the
+informations they took me off, and never liberated me till this evening
+at eight o'clock."
+
+"You 'll soon find out where he is, won't you?"
+
+"That I will. I 'll know before your honor's up in the morning."
+
+"And you 'll be able to tell what he's after,--why he is here at all;
+for, mind me, O'Reardon, I tell you again, it's not rebellion he's
+thinking of."
+
+"I 'll do that too, sir."
+
+"If we could only get him out of the country,--persuade him that
+his best course was to be off. If we could manage to get rid of him,
+O'Reardon,--to get rid of him!" and he gave a fierce energy to the last
+words.
+
+"_That_ would be easier than the other," said the fellow, slyly.
+
+"_What_ would be easier?" cried Sewell, hurriedly.
+
+"What your honor said last," said the fellow, with a knowing leer, as
+though the words were better not repeated.
+
+"I don't think I understand you,--speak out. What is it you mean?"
+
+"Just this, then, that if it was that he was a trouble to any one, or
+that he 'd be better out of the way, it would be the easiest thing in
+life to make some of the boys believe he was an informer and they 'd
+soon do for him."
+
+"Murder him, eh?"
+
+"I would n't call it murdering if a man was a traitor; nobody could call
+that murder."
+
+"We'll not discuss that point now;" and as he spoke, they came out from
+the shade of the avenue into the open space before the door, at which,
+late as it was, a carriage was now standing. "Who can be here at this
+hour?" muttered Sewell.
+
+"That's a doctor's coach, but I forget his name."
+
+"Oh! to be sure. It is Dr. Beattie's carriage. You may leave me now,
+O'Reardon; but come up here early to-morrow,--come to my room, and be
+sure to bring me some news of what we were talking about." As the man
+moved away, Sewell stood for a moment or two to listen,--he thought he
+heard voices in the hall, which, being large and vaulted, had a peculiar
+echo. Yes, he heard them now plainly enough, and had barely time to
+conceal himself in the copse when Dr. Beattie and Mrs. Sewell descended
+the steps, and walked out upon the gravel. They passed so close to where
+Sewell stood that he could hear the very rustle of her silk dress as she
+walked. It was Beattie spoke, and his voice sounded stern and severe. "I
+knew he could not stand it. I said so over and over again. It is not at
+his age that men can assume new modes of life, new associates, and new
+hours. Instead of augmenting, the wise course would have been to have
+diminished the sources of excitement to him. In the society of his
+granddaughter, and with the few old friends whose companionship pleased
+him, and for whom he exerted himself to make those little harmless
+displays of his personal vanity, he might have gone on for years in
+comparative health."
+
+"It was not I that devised these changes, doctor," broke she in. "I
+never asked for these gayeties that you are condemning."
+
+"These new-fangled fopperies, too!" went on Beattie, as though not
+heeding her apology. "I declare to you that they gave me more pain, more
+true pain, to witness than any of his wild outbursts of passion. In the
+one, the man was real; and in the other, a mere mockery. And what 's the
+consequence?" added he, fiercely; "he himself feels the unworthy part he
+has been playing; instead of being overjoyed at the prospect of seeing
+his son again, the thought of it overwhelms him with confusion. He knows
+well how he would appear to the honest eyes of poor simple-hearted Tom
+Lendrick, whose one only pride in life was his father's greatness."
+
+"And he is certainly coming?"
+
+"He has made an exchange for Malta, and will pass through here to see
+the Chief,--so he says in his short letter. He expects, too, to find
+Lucy here, and to take her out with him. I believe you don't know Tom
+Lendrick?"
+
+"I met him at the Cape. He dined with us twice, if I remember aright;
+but he was shy and awkward, and we thought at the time that he had not
+taken to us."
+
+"First acquaintance always chilled him, and his deep humility ever
+prevented him making those efforts in conversation which would have
+established his true value. Poor fellow, how little he was always
+understood! Well, well! I am keeping you out in the night air all this
+time--"
+
+"Oh, it is perfectly delicious, doctor. It is like a night in the
+tropics, so balmy and so bright."
+
+"I don't like to offer rude counsels, but my art sometimes gives a man
+scant choice," said he, after a brief pause. "I'd say, take your husband
+away, get him down to that place on the Shannon,--you have it still?
+Well, get him down there; he can always amuse himself; he's fond
+of field-sports, and people are sure to be attentive to him in the
+neighborhood; and leave the old Judge to fall back into the well-worn
+groove of his former life. He'll soon send for Tom and his daughter,
+and they 'll fall into his ways, or, what 's better, _he_ will fall
+into _theirs_,--without either ruining his health or his fortune; plain
+speaking all this, Mrs. Sewell, but you asked for frankness, and told me
+it would not be ill taken."
+
+"I don't think Colonel Sewell would consent to this plan."
+
+"Would _you?_" asked he, bluntly.
+
+"My consent would not be asked; there's no need to discuss it."
+
+"I meant, do you sufficiently concur in it to advise it?"
+
+"I can advise nothing. I advance nothing. I oppose nothing. I had
+thought, Dr. Beattie, that your visits to this house might have taught
+you the place I occupy, and the consideration I am held in."
+
+This was ground the doctor would not enter upon, and he adroitly said:
+"I think it will be the saving of Colonel Sewell himself. Club gossip
+says that he loses heavily every night; and though his means may be
+considerable--"
+
+"But they are not,--he has nothing,--not a shilling, except what this
+place brings in."
+
+"All the more reason not to play; but I must not keep you out here all
+night. I 'll come early in the morning, and hope to find him better.
+Remember how essential quiet is to him; let him not be disturbed; no
+talking by way of amusing him; pure rest--mind that."
+
+"If he wishes to see my husband, or asks for him--" "I'd make some
+excuse; say he is out. Colonel Se well excites him; he never fully
+understood Sir William; and I fear, besides, that he now and then took
+a humoristic pleasure in those bursts of temper which it is always only
+too easy to provoke."
+
+"He is very fond of my little boy,--might he go in?" "I think not. I'd
+say downright repose and isolation. You yourself can step in noiselessly
+from time to time, and only speak if you see that he wishes it; but
+on no account mention anything that could awaken interest,--nothing to
+arouse or to excite. You saw the fearful state that letter threw him
+into to-night, and the paroxysm of rage with which he called for his
+will to erase Tom Lendrick's name. Now in all probability he will have
+totally forgotten the whole incident by to-morrow. Good-night."
+
+After he drove off, she still lingered about the spot where they had
+been talking. Whatever interest the subject might have had for her, it
+was not through her affections that interest worked, for she hummed an
+opera air, "Bianca Luna," and tried to recall some lines of Alfred de
+Musset's to the "timid planet," and then sat down upon the steps and
+gazed at the stars.
+
+Sewell moved out into the avenue, and, whistling carelessly to announce
+his approach, walked up to where she was sitting. "Romantic, certainly!"
+said he. "Whose carriage was that I met driving out?"
+
+"Dr. Beattie's. He has been here to see Sir William." "Will he die this
+time, or is it only another false start?" "He is seriously ill. Some
+news he received from his son gave him a severe shock, and brought on
+one of his worst attacks. He has been raving since six o'clock."
+
+"I should like to know when he has done anything else. I should like to
+see the man who ever heard from his lips other than the wildest, crudest
+nonsense. The question is, is he going to die?"
+
+"Beattie's opinion is very unfavorable."
+
+"Unfavorable! To whom? To _him_ or to _us?_"
+
+"His death could scarcely be favorable to us."
+
+"That 's as it might be. We stand to win on one or two of these twenty
+wills he has made; and if he should recover and live on, I don't
+think--indeed I 'm full sure--I couldn't bear it much longer; so that,
+take it either way, I'd rather he'd die."
+
+"Beattie wishes his granddaughter were here."
+
+"Well, send for her. Though, if he is as ill as you say, it won't be of
+much use."
+
+"He has come through so many of these attacks, and has such great power
+of constitution, the doctor still thinks he might rally."
+
+"And so he will, I'll be sworn. There's a vitality in those people who
+plague and torment others that ought to get insurance offices to take
+them at half premium. Has he asked for _me?_"
+
+"Only in his ravings. He rang his bell violently, and inquired if you
+had been at the prison, and asked what tidings you had brought him; and
+then he went off to say that all this Celt affair was no rebellion at
+all, and that he would prove it. Then he talked of quitting the
+Bench and putting on his stuff gown to defend these men against the
+Government."
+
+"Sick or well, sane or insane, it's always the same story. His only
+theme is himself."
+
+"Beattie was struck with the profound things and the witty things he
+said throughout all his rambling. He said that the intellect was never
+actually overthrown, that it only tottered."
+
+"What rot! as if he knew anything about it! These fellows talk of a
+man's brain as if it was the ankle-joint. Was there any question of a
+will?"
+
+"Yes. He made Beattie take a will out of his writing-desk; and he erased
+the name of Lendrick in every part of it. Beattie and he had some angry
+words together, but that was before he was raving; and I heard Sir
+William tell him, 'Sir, you are neither my priest nor my lawyer; and if
+your skill as a doctor be only on a par with your tact as a friend, my
+recovery is all but hopeless.'"
+
+"That probably was one of the profound or witty things the doctor was so
+delighted with."
+
+"Dr. Beattie took nothing addressed to himself in ill part."
+
+"No; that's part of medical education. These fellows begin life as such
+'cads,' they never attain to the feeling of being gentlemen."
+
+There was not light enough for Sewell to see the scornful curl of his
+wife's lip at this speech; but in the little short cough by which she
+suppressed her temptation to reply, he noted her indignation.
+
+"I know he's one of your especial favorites, Madam," said he, harshly;
+"but even _that_ gives him no immunity with me."
+
+"I 'm sure I could never think it would."
+
+"No; not even from being aware that one of his chief claims upon the
+wife was the unhandsome way he spoke of the husband."
+
+"He seldom mentions you," said she, superciliously.
+
+"I am not so scrupulous about him, then; I have not forgotten his
+conduct when that fellow got his skull cracked at the Nest. I saw it
+all, Madam; but I have a trick of seeing and saying nothing that might
+have suggested some alarm to you ere this."
+
+"You have many tricks, but not one that alarms me," said she, coldly;
+"the wholesome fear of consequences will always be enough to keep you
+harmless."
+
+He almost sprang at her at these words; indeed, he came so close that
+his hot breath brushed her face. "It is a favorite taunt of yours to
+sneer at my courage," said he, fiercely; "you may do it once too often."
+
+She shrugged her shoulders contemptuously, and slowly arose from where
+she sat.
+
+"Where are you going?" asked he, roughly.
+
+"Going in."
+
+"I have many things to say yet; I want to hear more, too, about the old
+man's illness."
+
+"I have told you all I know. Good-night."
+
+He turned away without acknowledging her salutation, and strolled into
+the grass. What a web of troubles he was involved in, and how hopelessly
+he turned from this or that expedient to extricate himself! It was but a
+short time before that, as a member of the committee of his Club, he had
+succeeded in passing a law by which all play debts should be discharged
+within twenty-four hours, on penalty of the defaulter being declared
+excluded from the Club. He was a winner at the time; but now luck had
+changed: he had lost heavily, and had not the slightest prospect of
+being able to meet his losses. "How like my fate!" muttered he, in
+intense passion,--"how like my fate! my whole life has been a game I
+have played against myself. And that woman, too,"--it was of his wife he
+spoke,--"who once helped me through many a strait, assumes now to be too
+pure and too virtuous to be my associate, and stands quietly aloof to
+see me ruined."
+
+A long thin streak of light crossed his path as he went; he looked up,
+and saw it came from between the shutters of the Chief's room. "I wonder
+how it fares with him!" muttered he. He pondered for some time over
+the old man's case, his chances of recovery, and the spirit in which
+convalescence would find him; and then entering the house, he slowly
+mounted the stairs, one by one, his heart feeling like a load almost too
+heavy to carry. The unbroken stillness of the house seemed to whisper
+caution, and he moved along the corridor with noiseless tread till he
+came to the door of the Judge's room. There he stooped and listened.
+There were the long-drawn breathings of a heavy sleeper plainly to be
+heard, but they sounded stronger and fuller than the respirations of a
+sick man. Sewell gently turned the handle of the door and entered. The
+suspicion was right. The breathings were those of the hospital nurse,
+who, seated in a deep arm-chair, slept profoundly. Sewell stood several
+minutes at the door before he ventured further; at last he crept
+stealthily forward to the foot of the bed, and, separating the curtains
+cautiously, he peeped in. The old man lay with his eyes closed, and his
+long shrivelled arms outside the clothes. He continued to talk rapidly,
+and by degrees his voice grew stronger and dearer, and had all that
+resonance of one speaking in a large assembly. "I have now," said he,
+"shown the inexpediency of this course. I have pointed out where you
+have been impolitic; I will next explain where you are illegal. This
+Act was made in the 23d year of Henry VI., and although intended only
+to apply to cases of action personal, or indictment of trespass--What is
+the meaning of this interruption? Let there be silence in the Court. I
+will have the tribunal in which I preside respected. The public shall
+learn--the representatives of the press--and if there be, as I am told
+there are--" His voice grew weaker and weaker, and the last audible
+words that escaped him were "judgment for the plaintiff."
+
+Though his lips still moved rapidly, no sound came forth, but his
+hands were continually in motion, and his lean arms twitched with short
+convulsive jerks. Sewell now crept quietly round towards the side of the
+bed, on which several sheets of paper and writing-materials lay. One of
+the sheets alone was written on; it was in the large bold hand of the
+old Judge, who even at his advanced age wrote in a vigorous and legible
+character. It was headed, "Directions for my funeral," and began thus:
+"As Irishmen may desire to testify their respect for one who, while he
+lived, maintained with equal energy the supremacy of the law and the
+inviolability of the man, and as my obsequies may in some sort become
+an act of national homage, I write these lines to convey my last wishes,
+legacies of which my country will be the true executors.
+
+"First, I desire that I may be buried within the nave of St. Patrick's
+Cathedral. The spot I have selected is to the right of Swift's monument,
+under the fifth window, and for this purpose that hideous monument to
+Sir Hugh Brabazon may be removed, and my interment will, in this way,
+confer a double benefit upon my country. Secondly, as by my will,
+dated this twenty-eighth day of October, 18--, I have bequeathed, with
+exception of certain small legacies, all my estate, real and personal,
+to Dudley Sewell, Esq., late Colonel in her Majesty's service, it is my
+wish that he alone should--" Here the writing finished.
+
+Three several times Sewell read over the lines, and what a thrill of
+delight ran through him! It was like a reprieve to a man on the
+very steps of the scaffold! The Judge was not rich, probably, but a
+considerable sum of money he still might have, and it was money,--cash.
+It was not invested in lands or houses or ships; it was all available
+for that life that Sewell led, and which alone he liked.
+
+If he could but see this will,--it must be close at hand
+somewhere,--what a satisfaction it would be to read over the details by
+which at last--at last!--he was to be lifted above the casualties of
+a life of struggle! He tried three or four drawers of the large ebony
+cabinet in which the Chief used to throw his papers, with the negligence
+of a man who could generally rewrite as easily as he could search for
+a missing document. There were bills and receipts, notes of trials, and
+letters in abundance--but no will. The cumbrous old writing-desk, which
+Sir William rarely used, was not in its accustomed place, but stood on
+the table in the centre of the room, and the keys beside it. The will
+might possibly be there. He drew nigh the bed to assure himself that the
+old man was still sleeping, and then he turned towards the nurse, whose
+breathings were honest vouchers for insensibility; and thus fortified,
+he selected the key--he knew it well--and opened the desk. The very
+first paper he chanced upon was the will. It was a large sheet of strong
+post-paper, labelled "My last Will and Testament.--W. L." While Sewell
+stood examining the writing, the door creaked gently, and his wife moved
+softly and noiselessly into the room. If the sentiment that overcame him
+was not shame, it was something in which shame blended with anger. It
+was true she knew him well: she knew all the tortuous windings of his
+plotting, scheming nature; she knew that no sense of honor, no scruple
+of any kind, could ever stand between him and his object. He had done
+those things which, worse than deep crimes, lower a man in the eyes of
+a woman, and that woman his wife, and that she thus knew and read him he
+was well aware; but, strangely enough, there is a world of space between
+being discovered through the results of a long inquiry, and being
+detected _flagrante delicto_,--taken in the very act, red-handed in
+iniquity; and so did this cold-hearted, callous man now feel it.
+
+"What are you doing here?" said she, calmly and slowly, as she came
+forward.
+
+"I wanted to see this. I was curious to know how he treated us," said
+he, trembling as he spoke.
+
+She took the paper from his hand, replaced it in the desk, and locked it
+up, with the calm determination of one who could not be gainsaid.
+
+"But I have not read it," whispered he, in a hissing voice.
+
+"Nor need you," said she, placing the keys under the old man's pillow.
+"I heard you coming here,--I heard you enter the room. I am thankful it
+is no worse."
+
+"What do you mean by no worse?" cried he, seizing her by the wrist, and
+staring savagely at her,--"say what you mean, woman!" She made no reply;
+but the scornful curl of her lip, and the steady unflinching stare of
+her eyes showed that neither his words nor his gesture had terrified
+her.
+
+"You shall hear more of this to-morrow," said he, bending on her a look
+of intense hate; and he stole slowly away, while she seated herself at
+the bedside, and hid her face in the curtain.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. AN UNGRACIOUS ADIEU
+
+When Dr. Beattie came at seven o'clock in the morning, he found his
+patient better. The nurse gave her account, as nurses know well how to
+do, of a most favorable night,--told how calmly he slept, how sensibly
+he talked, and with what enjoyment he ate the jelly which he had never
+tasted.
+
+At all events, he was better; not stronger, perhaps,--there was no time
+for that,--but calmer and more composed.
+
+"You must not talk, nor be talked to yet awhile," said Beattie; "and I
+will station Haire here as a sentinel to enforce my orders."
+
+"Yes, I would like Haire," whispered the old man, softly. "Let him come
+and sit by me."
+
+"Can I see Mrs. Sewell? or is it too early to ask for her?" inquired the
+doctor of a maid.
+
+"She has been up all night, sir, and only just lain down."
+
+"Don't disturb her, then. I will write a line to her, and you can give
+it when she awakes."
+
+He went into the library, and wrote: "Sir William is better, but not
+out of danger. It is even more important now than before that he have
+perfect quiet. I will change the nurse, and meanwhile I desire that you
+alone should enter the room till I return."
+
+"What letter was that the doctor gave you as he went away?" said Sewell,
+who during Beattie's visit had been secretly on the watch over all that
+occurred.
+
+"For my mistress, sir," said the girl, showing the note.
+
+Sewell snatched it impatiently, threw his eyes over it, and gave it
+back. "Tell your mistress I want to see her when she is dressed.
+It's nothing to hurry for, but to come down to my room at her own
+convenience."
+
+"Better, but not out of danger! I should think not," muttered he, as he
+strolled out into the garden.
+
+"What is the meaning of stationing old Haire at the bedside? Does
+Beattie suspect? But what could he suspect? It would be a very,
+convenient thing for me, no doubt, if he would die; but I 'd scarcely
+risk my neck to help him on the way. These things are invariably
+discovered; and it would make no difference with the law whether it was
+the strong cord of a vigorous life were snapped, or the frail thread
+of a wasted existence unravelled. Just so; mere unravelling would do it
+here. No need of bold measures. A good vigorous contradiction,--a rude
+denial of something he said,--with a sneer at his shattered intellect,
+and I 'd stake my life on it his passion would do the rest. The blood
+mounts to his head at the slightest insinuation. I 'd like to see him
+tried with a good round insult. Give me ten minutes alone with him, and
+I 'll let Beattie come after me with all his bottles; and certainly
+no law could make this murder. Bad-tempered men are not to be more
+carefully guarded by the State than better-natured ones. It would be
+a strange statute that made it penal to anger an irascible fellow. I
+wonder if some suspicion of this kind has crossed Beattie's mind? Is it
+for that Haire has been called to keep the watch on deck,--and if so,
+who is to replace him? He'll tire at last,--he must sleep some time; and
+what are they to do then? My wife, perhaps. Yes; she would play their
+game willingly enough. If she has heard of this will, it will alarm her.
+She has always tried to have the children provided for. She dreads--she
+'s not so wrong there--she dreads leaving everything in my power. And
+of late she has dared to oppose me openly. My threat of suing for a
+divorce, that used to keep her so submissive once, is failing now. Some
+one has told her that I could not succeed. I can see in her manner that
+her mind is reassured on this score. She could have no difficulty
+in filching an opinion,--this house is always full of lawyers; and
+certainly nothing in the habits of the place would have imposed any
+restraint in discussing it." And he laughed--actually laughed--at the
+conceit thus evoked. "If I had but a little time before me now, I should
+work through all my difficulties. Only to think of it! One fortnight,
+less perhaps, to arrange my plans, and I might defy the world. This
+is Tuesday. By Thursday I shall have to meet those two acceptances for
+three hundred and two hundred and fifty. The last, at all events, I
+must pay, since Walcott's name was not in his own handwriting. How
+conscientiously a man meets a bill when he has forged the endorsement!"
+And again he laughed at the droll thought. "These troubles swarm around
+me," muttered he, impatiently. "There is Fossbrooke, too. Malevolent
+old fool, that will not see how needless it is to ruin me. Can't he
+wait,--can't he wait? It's his own prediction that I'm a fellow who
+needs no enemy; my own nature will always be Nemesis enough. Who's
+that?--who is there?" cried he, as he heard a rustling in the copse at
+his side.
+
+"It's me, your honor. I came out to get sight of your honor before I
+went away," said O'Reardon, in a sort of slavish cringing tone.
+
+"Away! and where to?"
+
+"They 're sending me out of the way, your honor, for a week or two, to
+prevent that ould man I arrested charging me with parjury. That's what
+they purtend, sir," said he, in a lower voice. "But the truth is, that I
+know more than they like, ay, and more than they think; for it was in
+my house at Cullen's Wood that the Lord-Liftenant himself came down, one
+evening, and sat two hours with this ould man."
+
+"Keep these sort of tales for other people, Master O'Reardon; they have
+no success with me. You are a capital terrier for rat-hunting, but you
+cut a sorry figure when you come out as a boar-hound. Do you understand
+me?"
+
+"I do, sir, right well. Your honor means that I ought to keep to
+informations against common people, and not try my hand against the
+gentlemen."
+
+"You 've hit it perfectly. It's strange enough how sharp you can be in
+some things, and what a cursed fool in others."
+
+"You never was more right in your life, sir. That's my character in one
+sentence;" and he gave a little plaintive sigh, as though the thought
+were a painful one.
+
+"And how do you mean to employ your leisure, Mr. O'Reardon? Men of your
+stamp are never thoroughly idle. Will you write your memoirs?"
+
+"Indeed, no, your honor; it might hurt people's feelings the names I 'd
+have to bring in; and I 'm just going over to France for the present."
+
+"To France?"
+
+"Yes, sir; Mr. Harman's tuk heart o' grace, and is going to sue for a
+divorce, and he 's sending me over to a place called Boulogne to get up
+evidence against the Captain."
+
+"You like that sort of thing?"
+
+"I neither like it nor dislike it," said O'Reardon, while his eye
+kindled angrily, for he thought that he who scoffed at him should stand
+on higher moral ground than Sewell's.
+
+"You once lived with Captain Peters, I think?"
+
+"Yes, sir; I was his valet for four years. I was with him at Malta and
+Corfu when he was in the Rifles."
+
+"And he treated you well?"
+
+"No man better, that I 'll say for him if he was in the dock to-morrow.
+He gave me a trunk of his clothes--mufti he called them--and ten pounds
+the day I left him."
+
+"It's somewhat hard, isn't it, to go against a man after that? Doesn't
+your fine nature rather revolt at the ingratitude?"
+
+"Well, then, to tell your honor the truth, my 'fine nature' never was
+rich enough to afford itself that thing your honor calls gratitude. It's
+a sort of thing for my betters."
+
+"I 'm sorry to hear you say so, O'Reardon. You almost shock me with such
+principles."
+
+"Well, that's the way it is, sir. When a man 's poor, he has no more
+right to fine feelin's than to fine feeding."
+
+"Why, you go from bad to worse, O'Reardon. I declare you are positively
+corrupting this morning."
+
+"Am I, sir?" said the fellow, who now eyed him with a calm and steady
+defiance, as though he had submitted to all he meant to bear. Sewell
+felt this, and though he returned the stare, it was with a far less
+courageous spirit. "Well?" cried he at last, as though, no longer able
+to endure the situation, he desired to end it at any cost,--"well?"
+
+"I suppose your honor wouldn't have time to settle with me now?"
+
+"To settle with you! What do you call settle, my good fellow? Our
+reckonings are very short ones, or I'm much mistaken. What 's this
+settlement you talk of?"
+
+"It's down here in black and white," said the other, producing a folded
+sheet of paper as he spoke. "I put down the payments as I made them, and
+the car-hire and a trifle for refreshment; and if your honor objects to
+anything, it's easy to take it off; though, considering I was often on
+the watch till daybreak, and had to come in from Howth on foot before
+the train started of a morning, a bit to eat and to drink was only
+reasonable."
+
+"Make an end of this long story. What do you call the amount?"
+
+"It's nothing to be afeard of, your honor, for the whole business,--the
+tracking him out, the false keys I had made for his trunk and
+writing-case, eight journeys back and forwards, two men to swear that he
+asked them to take the Celts' oath, and the other expenses as set down
+in the account. It's only twenty-seven pound four and eightpence."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Twenty-seven, four and eight; neither more nor less."
+
+A very prolonged whistle was Sewell's sole reply.
+
+"Do you know, O'Reardon," said he at last, "it gives me a painfully
+low opinion of myself to see that, after so many months of close
+acquaintance, I should still appear to you to be little short of
+an idiot? It is very distressing--I give you my word, it is--very
+distressing."
+
+"Make your mind easy, sir; it is not _that_ I think you at all;" and
+the fellow lent an emphasis to the "that" which gave it a most insulting
+significance.
+
+"I 'd like to know," cried Sewell, as his face crimsoned with anger,
+"if you could have dared to offer such a document as this to any man you
+didn't believe to be a fool."
+
+"The devil a drop of fool's blood is in either of us," said O'Reardon,
+with an easy air and a low laugh of quiet assurance.
+
+"I am flattered by the companionship, certainly. It almost restores me
+to self-esteem to hear your words. I'd like to pay you a compliment in
+turn if I only knew how."
+
+"Just pay me my little bill, your honor, and it will be all mask."
+
+"I'm not over-much in a joking mood this morning, and I 'd advise you
+to talk of something else. There 's a five-pound note for you;" and he
+flung the money contemptuously towards him. "Take it, and think yourself
+devilish lucky that I don't have you up for perjury in this business."
+
+O'Reardon never moved, nor made any sign to show that he noticed the
+money at his feet; but, crossing his arms on his chest, he drew himself
+haughtily up, and said: "So, then, it's defying me you 'd try now? You
+'d have me up for perjury! Well, then, I begin to believe you _are_ a
+fool, after all. No, sir, you need n't put your hand in your waistcoat.
+If you have a pistol there, I have another; and, what's more, I have a
+witness in that clump of trees, that only needs the word to stand beside
+me. There, now, Colonel, you see you 're beat, and beat at your own game
+too."
+
+"D--n you!" cried Sewell, savagely. "Can't you see that I 've got no
+money?"
+
+"If I have n't money, I 'll have money's worth. Short of twenty pounds I
+'ll not leave this."
+
+"I tell you again, you might as well ask me for two hundred or two
+thousand. I 'll be in cash, I hope, by the end of the week--"
+
+"Ay, but I'll be in France," broke in O'Reardon.
+
+"I wish you were in------," mumbled Sewell, as he believed, to himself;
+but the other heard him, and dryly said, "No, sir, not yet; it's manners
+to let _you_ go first."
+
+"I lost heavily two nights ago at the Club,--that's why I 'm so hard up;
+but I know I must have money by Saturday. By Saturday's post I 'll send
+you an order for twenty pounds. Will that content you?"
+
+"No, sir, it will not. I had a bad bout of it last night myself, and
+lost every ha'penny Mr. Harman gave me for the journey,--that's the
+reason I 'm here."
+
+"But if I have not got it? There, so help me! is every farthing I can
+call my own this minute,"--and he drew from his pocket some silver, in
+which a single gold coin or two mingled,--"take it, if you like."
+
+"No, sir; it's no good to me. Short of twenty pounds, I could n't start
+on the journey."
+
+"And if I haven't got it! Am I to go out and rob for you?" cried Sewell,
+as his eyes flashed indignantly at him.
+
+"I don't want you to rob; but it isn't a house like this hasn't twenty
+pounds in it."
+
+"You mean," said Sewell, with a sneering laugh, "that if there 's not
+cash, there must be plate, jewels, and such-like, and so I 'm to lay an
+embargo on the spoons; but you forget there is a butler who looks after
+these things."
+
+"There might be many a loose thing on your Lady's table that would do as
+well,--a ring or two, or a bracelet that she's tired of."
+
+Sewell started,--a sudden thought flashed across him; if he were to kill
+the fellow as he stood there, how should he conceal the murder and hide
+the corpse? It was quick as a lightning flash, this thought, but the
+horror of the consequences so overcame him that a cold sweat broke
+out over his body, and he staggered back to a seat, and sank into it
+exhausted and almost fainting.
+
+"Don't take it to heart that way, sir," said the fellow, gazing at him.
+"Will I get you a glass of water?"
+
+"Yes. No--no; I'll do without it. It's passing off. Wait here for a
+moment; I 'll be back presently." He arose as he spoke, and moved slowly
+away. Entering the house, he ascended the stairs and made for his wife's
+room. As he reached the door, he stopped to listen. There was not a
+sound to be heard. He turned the handle gently, and looked in. One
+shutter was partly open, and a gleam of the breaking daylight crossed
+the floor and fell upon the bed on which she lay, dressed, and fast
+asleep,--so soundly, indeed, that though the door creaked loudly as
+he pushed it wider, she never heard the noise. She had evidently
+been sitting up with a sick man, and was now overcome by fatigue. His
+intention had been to consult with her,--at least to ask her to assist
+him with whatever money she had by her,--and he had entered thus
+stealthily not to startle her; for somehow, in the revulsion of his mind
+from the late scene of outrage and insult, a sense of respect, if not of
+regard, moved him towards her, who, in his cruelest moments, had never
+ceased to have a certain influence over him. He looked at her as she
+slept; her fine features, at rest, were still beautiful, though deep
+traces of sorrow were seen in the darkened orbits and the lines about
+that mouth, while three or four glistening white hairs showed themselves
+in the brown braid over her temple. Sewell sat down beside the bed, and,
+as he looked at her, a whole life passed in review before him, from the
+first hour he met her to that sad moment of the present. How badly they
+had played their game! how recklessly misused every opportunity
+that might have secured their fortune! What had _he_ made of all his
+shrewdness and ready wit? And what had _she_ done with all her beauty,
+and a fascination as great as even her beauty? It was an evil day that
+had brought them together. Each, alone, without the other, might have
+achieved any success. There had been no trust, no accord between them.
+They wanted the same things, it is true, but they never agreed upon the
+road that led to them. As to principles, she had no more of them than
+he had; but she had scruples--scruples of delicacy, scruples of
+womanhood--which often thwarted and worried him, and ended by making
+them enemies; and here was now the end of it! _Her_ beauty was wasted,
+and _his_ luck played out, and only ruin before them.
+
+And yet it calmed him to sit there; her softly drawn breathing soothed
+his ruffled spirit. He felt it as the fevered man feels the ice-cold
+water on his brow,--a transient sense of what it would be to be well
+again. Is there that in the contemplation of sleep--image as it is of
+the great sleep of all--that subdues all rancor of heart,--all that
+spirit of conflict and jar by which men make their lives a very hell of
+undying hates, undying regrets?
+
+His heart, that a few moments ago had almost burst with passion, now
+felt almost at ease; and in the half-darkened room, the stillness,
+and the calm, there stole over him a feeling of repose that was almost
+peacefulness. As he bent over her to look at her, her lips moved. She
+was dreaming; very softly, indeed, came the sounds, but they seemed as
+if entreating. "Yes," she said,--"yes--all--everything--I consent. I
+agree to all, only--Cary--let me have Cary, and I will go."
+
+Sewell started. His face became crimson in a moment. How was it that
+these words scattered all his late musings, as the hurricane tears and
+severs the cloud-masses, and sends them riven and shattered through the
+sky? He arose and walked over to the table; a gold comb and two jewelled
+hair-pins lay on the glass; he clutched them coarsely in his hand, and
+moved away. Cautiously and noiselessly he crept down the stairs, and
+out into the garden. "Take these, and make your money of them; they are
+worth more than your claim; and mind, my good fellow,--mind it well, I
+say, or it will be worse for you,--our dealings end here. This is our
+last transaction, and our last meeting. I 'll never harm you, if you
+keep only out of my way. But take care that you never claim me, nor
+assume to know me; for I warn you I'll disown you, if it should bring
+you to the gallows. That's plain speaking, and you understand it."
+
+"I do, every word of it," said the fellow, as he buttoned up his coat
+and drew his hat over his eyes. "I 'm taking the 'fiver,' too, as it's
+to be our last meetin'. I suppose your honor will shake hands with me
+and wish me luck. Well, if you won't, there's no harm done. It's a quare
+world, where the people that's doin' the same things can't be friends,
+just because one wears fine cloth and the other can only afford
+corduroy. Good-bye, sir,--good-bye, any-_how_;" and there was a strange
+cadence in the last words no description can well convey.
+
+Sewell stood and looked after him for a moment, then turned into the
+house, and threw himself on a sofa, exhausted and worn out.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. A PLEASANT MEETING
+
+No sooner did Sir Brook find himself once more at liberty than he
+went to the post-office for his letters, of which a goodly stock had
+accumulated during his absence. A telegram, too, was amongst the number,
+despatched by Tom in great haste eight days before. It ran thus:--
+
+"Great news! We have struck silver in the new shaft. Do not sell, do not
+even treat till you hear from me. I write by this post.
+
+"Lendrick."
+
+Had Tom but seen the unmoved calm with which Foss-brooke read this
+astounding tidings,--had he only seen the easy indifference with which
+the old man threw down the slip of paper after once reading it, and
+passed on to a letter of Lord Wilmington from Crew Keep,--his patience
+would certainly have been sorely tried. Nor was it from any indifference
+to good fortune, still as little from any distrust of the tidings. It
+was simply because he had never doubted that the day was coming that
+was to see him once more rich., It might be a little later or a little
+earlier. It might be that wealth should shower itself upon him in
+a gradually increasing measure, or come down in a very deluge of
+prosperity. These were things he did not, could not know; but of the
+fact--the great Fact itself--he had as firm a belief as he had of
+his own existence; and had he died before realizing it, he would
+have bequeathed his vast fortune, with blanks for the amount, as
+conscientiously as though it were bank stock for which he held the
+vouchers.
+
+When most men build castles in the air, they know on what foundations
+their edifices are based, and through all their imaginative ardor there
+pierces the sharp pang of unreality. Not so with Fossbrooke. It was
+simply a question of time with him when the costly palace might become
+fit for habitation, and this great faith in himself rescued him from
+all that vacillation so common to those who keep a debtor and creditor
+account between their hopes and fears. Neither was he at all impatient
+because Destiny did not bestir herself and work quicker. The world was
+always pleasant, always interesting; and when to-morrow or next day
+Fortune might call him to a higher station and other modes of life, he
+almost felt he should regret the loss of that amusing existence he now
+enjoyed, amongst people all new and all strange to him.
+
+At last he came to Tom Lendrick's letter,--four closely written pages,
+all glowing with triumph. On the day week after Sir B.'s departure, he
+wrote:--
+
+"They had come upon a vein of lead so charged with silver as to seem as
+though the whole mass were of the more precious metal. All Cagliari
+came down to see a block of ore upwards of two hundred-weight, entirely
+crusted with silver, and containing in the mass forty per cent. We had
+to get a guard from the Podesta, merely to keep off the curious, for
+there was no outrage nor any threat of outrage. Indeed, your kind
+treatment of our workpeople now begins to bear its fruit, and there was
+nothing but good-will and kind feeling for our lucky fortune. The two
+Jews, Heenwitz and Voss, of the Contrada Keale, were amongst the first
+visitors, and had actually gone down into the shaft before I knew of it.
+They at once offered me a large sum for a share in the mine; and when
+I told them it was with you they must treat, they proposed to open a
+credit of three hundred thousand francs with their house in my favor,
+to go on with the working till I heard from you and learned your
+intentions. This offer, too, I have declined, till I get your letter.
+
+"This was on Tuesday, but on Thursday we struck pure silver without
+a trace of lead, the only alloy being a thin vein of cobalt, like a
+ribbon, running through the ore; and which Chiusani says--for he has
+worked in Mexico and the Brazils--is proof of a strong vein. The news
+spread like wildfire at Cagliari; and I have had such levees of the
+money folk! all offering me millions at any, or indeed at no interest,
+and actually entreating me to put my hand in their pockets, while they
+look away or close their eyes. As for the presents that pour in, we have
+no room for them; and you know how dangerous it would be to refuse these
+people. It is only a short step with them from a sworn friendship to
+the stiletto. The only disturbing element in all this joy is a sort of
+official protest from the Delegate of the province against our working
+what the Crown may claim as a royalty; but I am instructed that Sardinia
+once acquired all royal rights by a fixed payment, and Lucy thinks she
+read somewhere the details of the cession. At any rate, she and Contini,
+the lawyer, are hard at work making out the reply; and the English
+version, which Lucy does, will be forwarded to our Minister at Turin
+to-morrow. You 'd laugh if you saw how she has familiarized herself with
+not only all the legal terms, but with all our mining phraseology, and
+how acutely she marks the difference between intact royalties and the
+claims of the Crown to certain percentages on exempted mines. Contini is
+a bachelor, and I am fully persuaded intends to make her an offer of his
+legal hand and heart,--that is, if he finds that we are likely to beat
+the Crown lawyers. I cannot help thinking he's a lucky fellow that you
+are not here, nor like to be, on the day he makes his proposal.
+
+"As much for peace's sake as for convenience, I have accepted twenty
+thousand francs on loan. I have taken it from the four principal bankers
+in Cagliari, in equal sums from each, to prevent jealousy. I hope
+this was not wrong. I send you herewith bills for fifteen thousand,
+remembering, if I be right, that you borrowed some hundred pounds on the
+security of the mine, which you might like now to pay off." [After some
+business details, given at length, and with a degree of amplification
+that somewhat wearied Sir Brook to read, he summed up thus: ] "Write to
+me therefore at once, and say what course we ought to take regarding our
+rights. Could our home lawyers afford you no information of value? Shall
+we oppose or shall we compromise? I suspect they wish the latter.
+
+"Are you satisfied that I accepted this loan? I have my own misgivings,
+not about the fact, for we wanted money to go on, but as to your
+concurrence.
+
+"And when are you coming back? I cannot say how impatient I am for your
+return, all the more that you have only written that hurried note
+from Dover since you left us. Lucy is in great spirits, takes immense
+interest in all we are doing, and does all the Italian correspondence
+for me. She wears a little silver hammer, the miner's hammer, in her
+hat; and her popularity with the people is unbounded. You will be
+amused, on your return, to find that your sketch on the wall of the
+splendid palace that was to crown our successes has acquired two wings
+and a great tower; and a third figure, a lady, has been added to the
+riding-party that are cantering up the avenue. Lucy says that nothing
+but humility (!) could have devised such a house for people so rich as
+we are. It certainly was not the sentiment with which hitherto I have
+regarded this edifice. I have come to the end of my paper, but I will
+not close this till I see if the post should not bring us news of you.
+
+"Your letter has just come. The latter part of it has given us great
+uneasiness. It is precisely such a time as a private enemy--if you have
+one--would choose to work out a personal grudge. No matter how totally
+you feel yourself free from implication in these Irish troubles, do
+nothing--positively nothing--without legal advice. It will save you a
+world of trouble; not to speak of the comfort you will feel in knowing
+that your interests are matter of care and thought to another. Above
+all, keep us informed daily by telegraph how and where you are, and what
+doing.
+
+"Lucy wants to go off to you to-night, but I have had a slight return
+of my fever, a very slight one, and she half fears to leave me. If your
+next gives us good news, we shall soon forget this unpleasantness; but,
+I repeat, let no day pass without tidings of you.
+
+"The evening report has just come in from the mine,--one hundred and
+seventy-eight pounds of pure silver in the last twenty-four hours! I
+have taken on forty additional men, and the new smelting-house will be
+in full work within a week. If you only were here, I 'd have nothing
+more to wish for.
+
+"I suppose Trafford has written to you. In the short note I got from
+him yesterday there is nothing but gratitude to you. He says he owes
+everything to your friendship. He means to be in England in a few days,
+and of course will go over to you; but write, or rather telegraph.
+
+"Yours ever, T. L.
+
+"I wrote to Colonel Cave this morning to tell him his small venture
+with us would not turn out so badly. Our first dividend will be at least
+cent, per cent., so that he cannot lose by us. It's downright jolly to
+be able to send off such a despatch."
+
+The last letter of the heap was from Lady Trafford, and served in a
+measure to explain that paragraph in Tom's epistle which spoke of young
+Trafford's gratitude. It appeared that Lady Trafford's youngest son,
+on whom Sir Hugh had fixed to make the head of the family, had gone to
+winter at Madeira, and while there had fallen in love with and married
+a Portuguese girl, the daughter of his landlady. The news of this
+_mesalliance_ had nearly killed his father, who was only recovering
+from a bad attack of gout when the tidings reached him. By good luck,
+however, on the very same day came a letter from Fossbrooke, declaring
+that no matter what treatment young Trafford might meet with from his
+own family, he, Sir Brook, would stand firmly by him, so long as his
+honorable and manly conduct and his fidelity to his word to the girl he
+loved entitled him to regard and affection.
+
+"In a worldly point of view," wrote he, "such friendship as mine is a
+poor thing. I am a man of nothing, it is true; but I have lived long
+enough to know that there are other successes besides wealth and
+station. There are such things as self-respect, contentment, and the
+love of friends; and I do think my experiences will help him to secure
+some share of these.
+
+"There is, however, one entreaty I would prefer, and if there be in your
+memory any kind thought of me, you will not refuse my prayer. Your boy
+is eager to see you, and shake your hand. Let him come. If you cannot or
+will not approve, do not at least condemn what he is about to do. In
+his anxiety to obtain your sanction, he has shown all deference to your
+authority. This shows he is worthy of your esteem; and if he were to
+palter between the hope of all your fortune and the love of this girl,
+he would only deserve your contempt. Be proud of him, then, even if you
+disinherit him to-morrow. If these be the sentiments of a man who has
+nothing, remember, Trafford, that I was not always a beggar; and if I
+thought that being rich would alter these opinions, I can only say I
+hope I may die as poor as now I write myself.
+
+"There's a strong prejudice, I know, against being guided by men who
+have made such a sorry hand of their own fortunes as I have; but many a
+fellow who has been shipwrecked has proved a good sailor; at all events,
+he knows what it is to be buffeted by the waves and torn on the rocks.
+Now, I have told your son not to be afraid of these, and I think he
+trusts me.
+
+"Once more, then, I ask, let me tell Lionel you will receive him; and
+believe me faithfully your old friend,
+
+"Bk. Fossbrooke."
+
+
+Lady Trafford's note was short:--
+
+"My dear Sir Brook,--I suppose there is nothing for it but what you say,
+and Lionel may come here. We have had nothing but disasters with our
+sons. I wish I could dare to hope that this was to be the end of
+the calamities. Sir Hugh desires much that you could be here when L.
+arrives. Could you conveniently arrange this? His brother's shocking
+marriage, the terrible disappointment to our hopes, and other worries
+have almost proved too much for me.
+
+"Is there any truth in the story that Miss L.'s grandfather was
+negotiating for a peerage as the condition of his retirement from the
+Bench? If so, and that the object could be compassed, it would go far
+towards removing some of our objections to the connection. Sir Hugh's
+influence with 'the Party' would unquestionably be of use; and though
+a law lord does not mean much, it is something. Inform me fully on this
+head. It is very strange that Lionel should never have mentioned the
+matter, and, indeed, strongly indicates how little trouble he took, or
+cared to take, to obviate our natural objections to the match. I suppose
+her father is not a practising physician. At all events, he need not be
+styled doctor. Oh dear I when I think of it all, and think what an end
+my ambitions have come to, I could cry my eyes out. It often strikes me
+that people who make most sacrifices for their children are ever repaid
+in this fashion. The Dean says these are mysterious dispensations, and
+that we must submit to them. I suppose we must, but it certainly is not
+without reluctance.
+
+"I thought of asking you to write to Lionel, but I will do so myself,
+painful as it is. I feel I am very forgiving to write you in this
+strain, seeing how great was the share you took in involving us all
+in this unhappy business. At one moment I positively detested--I don't
+suspect yet that I entirely pardon--you, though I may when you come
+here, especially if you bring me any good news of this peerage business,
+which I look to as our last refuge. Lendrick is a very odd name,--are
+there many of them? Of course, it will be well understood that we only
+know the immediate relations,--father and brother, I mean. We stand no
+cousins, still less uncles or aunts.
+
+"Sir Hugh thinks I ought to write to the old Judge. I opine he would be
+flattered by the attention, but I have not yet made up my mind upon it.
+Give me some advice on this, and believe me sincerely yours."
+
+After despatching a telegram to Cagliari, to say he was well and at
+large, and would soon be on his way back again, Fossbrooke wrote a few
+lines to Lord Wilmington of regret that he could not afford time to
+go over and see him, and assuring him that the late incident that had
+befallen him was not worth a thought. "He must be a more irritable
+fellow than I am," he wrote, "who would make a personal grievance of a
+mere accident, against which, in a time of trouble, it would be hard to
+provide. While I say this, I must add that I think the spy system is a
+mistake,--that there is an over-eagerness in your officials to procure
+committals; and I declare to you I have often had more difficulty to
+get out of a crowded evening party than I should have felt in making
+my escape from your jail or bridewell, whichever be its name. I
+don't suspect your law-officers are marvels of wisdom, and your Chief
+Secretary is an ass."
+
+To Lady Trafford he wrote a very brief reply. He scarcely thought his
+engagements would enable him to make a visit to Holt. "I will, however,
+come if I can, chiefly to obtain your full and free pardon, though
+for what, beyond rendering you an invaluable service, I am puzzled
+to understand; and I repeat, if your son obtain this young lady in
+marriage, he will be, after Sir Hugh, the luckiest man of his name and
+family.
+
+"As to the peerage, I can tell you nothing. I believe there is rather a
+prejudice against sending Irishmen up to the Lords; and it is scarcely
+ever done with lawyers. In regard to writing to Baron Lendrick, I hardly
+know what to say. He is a man of great ability, but of even greater
+vanity, and it should be a cleverly worded epistle that would not ruffle
+some one of his thousand sensibilities. If you feel, however, adroit
+enough to open the negotiation, do so by 'all means;' but don't make
+me responsible for what may come of it if the rejoinder be not to your
+taste. For myself, I 'd rather poke up a grizzly bear with my umbrella
+than I 'd provoke such a man to an exchange of letters."
+
+To get back to Cagliari as soon as possible, and relieve Tom of
+that responsibility which seemed to weigh so heavily upon him, was
+Fossbrooke's first resolve. He must see Sewell at once, and finish the
+business; and however unpleasant the step might be, he must seek him at
+the Priory, if he could not meet him elsewhere. He wished also to see
+Beattie,--he wanted to repay the loan he had made him. The doctor, too,
+could tell him how he could obtain an interview with Sewell without any
+intrusion upon the Chief Baron.
+
+It was evening before Fossbrooke could make his visit to Beattie, and
+the doctor had just sat down to dinner with a gentleman who had arrived
+by the mail-packet from England, giving orders that he was not to be
+disturbed on any score.
+
+"Will you merely take in my name," said Sir Brook, "and beg, with my
+respects, to learn at what hour to-morrow Dr. Beattie would accord me
+a few minutes." The butler's hesitation was mildly overcome by the
+persuasive touch of a sovereign, and he retired with the message.
+
+Before a minute elapsed, Dr. Beattie came out, napkin in hand, and his
+face beaming with delight. "If there was a man in Europe I was wishing
+for this moment, it was yourself, Sir Brook," said he. "Do you know who
+is dining with me? Come in and see.--No, no, I 'll not be denied."
+
+A sudden terror crossed Fossbrooke's mind that his guest might be
+Colonel Sewell, and he hung back, muttering some words of apology.
+
+"I tell you," repeated the doctor, "I'll take no refusal. It's the
+rarest piece of luck ever befell, to have chanced upon you. Poor
+Lendrick is dying for some news of his son and daughter."
+
+"Lendrick! Dr. Lendrick?"
+
+"To be sure,--who else? When your knock came to the door, I was telling
+him that I heard you were in Dublin, and only doubted it because you had
+never called on me; but come along, we can say all these things over our
+soup. Look whom I have brought you, Tom," cried Beattie, as he led Sir
+Brook into the room,--"here's Sir Brook Fossbrooke come to join us." And
+the two men grasped hands in heartiest embrace, while Fossbrooke, not
+waiting for a word of question, said, "Both well and hearty. I had a
+telegram from Tom this morning."
+
+"How much I owe you!--how much, how much!" was all that Lendrick could
+say, and his eyes swam as he said it.
+
+"It is I am the debtor, and well I know what it is worth to be so! Their
+loving kindness and affection have rescued me from the one terror of my
+life,--the fear of becoming a discontented, incredulous old bachelor.
+Heaven bless them for it; their goodness has kept me out of that
+danger."
+
+"And how are they looking? Is Lucy--" He stopped and looked half
+ashamed.
+
+"More beautiful than ever," broke in Fossbrooke. "I think she is taller
+than when you last saw her, and perhaps a shade more thoughtful looking;
+and Tom is a splendid fellow. I scarcely know what career he could not
+follow, nor where he would not seem too good for whatever he was doing."
+
+"Ah, if I could but tell you how happy you have made me!" muttered
+Lendrick. "I ought never to have left them,--never broken up my home. I
+did it unwillingly, it is true; but I ought never to have done it."
+
+"Who knows if it may not turn out for the best, after all? You need
+never be separated henceforth. Tom's last letter to me--I 'll bring it
+over to you to-morrow--tells me what I well knew must befall us sooner
+or later,--that we are rolling in wealth, have silver enough to pave the
+streets, and more money than we shall be able to spend--though I once
+had rather a knack that way."
+
+"That's glorious news!" said Beattie. "It's _our_ mine, I suppose?"
+added he, laughing.
+
+"To be sure it is; and I have come prepared to buy you out, doctor, or
+pay you your first dividend, cent. per cent., whichever you prefer."
+
+"Let us hear about this mine," said Beattie.
+
+"I 'd rather talk to you about the miners, Tom and Lucy," said
+Fossbrooke.
+
+"Yes, yes, tell us of _them_. Do they ever talk of the Nest? Do they
+ever think of the happy days we passed there?" cried Lendrick.
+
+"Ay, and more. We have had a project this many a day--we can realize it
+now--to buy it out and out. And I 'm to build a cabin for myself by the
+river-side, where the swan's hut stood, and I 'm to be asked to dinner
+every Sunday."
+
+"By Jove, I think I'll run down by the rail for one of those dinners,"
+said Beattie; "but I certainly hope the company will have better
+appetites than my guests of to-day."
+
+"I am too happy to feel hungry," said Lendrick. "If I only knew that my
+poor dear father could live to see us all united,--all together again, I
+'d ask for no more in life."
+
+"And so he may, Tom; he was better this afternoon, and though weak and
+low, perfectly collected and sensible. Mrs. Sewell has been his nurse
+to-day, and she seems to manage him cleverly."
+
+"I saw her at the Cape. She was nicely mannered, and, if I remember
+aright, handsome," said Lendrick, in his half-abstracted way.
+
+"She was beautiful--perfectly beautiful--as a girl: except your own
+Lucy, I never saw any one so lovely," said Fossbrooke, whose voice shook
+with emotion as he spoke.
+
+"I wish she had better luck in a husband," said Beattie. "For all
+his graceful address and insinuating ways, I 'm full sure he's a bad
+fellow."
+
+Fossbrooke checked himself with a great effort, and merely nodded an
+assent to the other's words.
+
+"How came it, Sir Brook," asked Beattie, suddenly, "that you should have
+been in Dublin so long without once coming to see me?"
+
+"Are you very discreet?--may I be sure that neither of you will ever
+accidentally let drop a word of what I shall tell you?"
+
+"You may rely upon my secrecy, and upon Tom Lendrick's ignorance, for
+there he is now in one of his reveries, thinking of his children in all
+probability; and I 'll guarantee you to any amount, that he 'll not hear
+one word you say for the next half-hour."
+
+"The fact is, they took me up for a rebel,--some one with more zeal than
+discrimination fancied I looked like a 'Celt,' as these fellows call
+themselves; and my mode of life, and my packet of lead ore, and some
+other things of little value, completed the case against me, and they
+sent me to jail."
+
+"To jail!"
+
+"Yes; to a place called Richmond Bridewell, where I passed some seven
+or eight days, by no means unpleasantly. It was very quiet, very secure
+against intrusion. I had a capital room, and very fair food. Indeed I
+'m not sure that I did not leave it with a certain regret; but as I had
+written to my old friend Lord Wilmington, to apprise him of the mistake,
+and to warn him against the consequences such a blunder might occasion
+if it befell one less well disposed towards him than myself, I had
+nothing for it but to take a friendly farewell of my jailer and go."
+
+"I declare few men would have treated the incident so temperately."
+
+"Wilmington's father was my fag at Eton, let me see--no, I 'll not
+see--how long ago; and Wilmington himself used to come and spend his
+summer vacations with me when I had that Wiltshire place; and I was very
+fond of the boy, and as he liked my partridge-shooting, we grew to be
+fast friends; but why are we talking of these old histories when it is
+the present that should engage us? I would only caution you once again
+against letting the story get abroad: there are fellows would like to
+make a House of Commons row out of it, and I 'd not stand it. Is the
+doctor sleeping?" added he, in a whisper, as Lendrick sat with closed
+eyes and clasped hands, mute and motionless.
+
+"No," said Beattie; "it is his way when he is very happy. He is going
+over to himself all you have been telling him of his children, and he
+neither sees nor hears aught around him."
+
+"I was going to tell him another piece of news that would probably
+please him," said Sir Brook, in the same low tone. "I have nearly
+completed arrangements for the purchase of the Nest; by this day week I
+hope it will be Lucy's."
+
+"Oh! do tell him that. I know of nothing that would delight him as much.
+Lendrick," said he, touching his arm, "here is something you would like
+to hear."
+
+"No, no!" muttered he, softly. "Life is too short for these things. No
+more separations,--no more; we must live together, come what may;" and
+he stretched out his hands on either side of him, as though to grasp his
+children.
+
+"It is a pity to awaken him from such a dream," said Fossbrooke,
+cautiously; "let us steal over to the window and not disturb him."
+
+They crept cautiously away to a window-bench, and talked till late into
+the night.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. MAN TO MAN
+
+As Sewell awoke, it was already evening. Fatigue and anxiety together
+had so overcome him that he slept like one drugged by a narcotic; nor
+did he very quickly recall on awakening how and wherefore he had not
+been to bed. His servant had left two letters on his table while he
+slept, and these served to remind him of some at least of the troubles
+that last oppressed him. One was from his law-agent, regretting that he
+could not obtain for him the loan he solicited on any terms whatever,
+and mildly suggesting that he trusted the Colonel would be prepared to
+meet certain acceptances which would fall due in the coming week.
+The other was from a friend whom he had often assisted in moments of
+difficulty, and ran:--
+
+"Dear S.,--I lost two hundred last night at pool, and, what's worse,
+can't pay it. That infernal rule of yours about prompt payment will
+smash us both,--but it's so like you! You never had a run of luck yet
+that you didn't do something that turned against you afterwards. Your
+clever rule about the selling-stakes cost me the best mare I ever had;
+and now this blessed stroke of your genius leaves me in doubt whether to
+blow my brains out or start for Boulogne. As Tom Beecher said, you are
+a 'deuced deal too 'cute to prosper.' If I have to cross the water, I
+suspect you might as well come with me.--Yours,
+
+"Dick Vaughan."
+
+Sewell tore the note up into the smallest fragments, muttering savagely
+to himself the while. "I'll be bound," said he, "the cur is half
+consoled for his mishap by seeing how much worse ruin has befallen
+_me_,--What is it, Watkin? What do you want?" cried he to his servant,
+who came hastily into the room.
+
+"His Lordship has taken a bad turn, sir, and Mrs. Sewell wants to see
+you immediately."
+
+"All right! Say I'm coming. Who knows," muttered he, "but there's a
+chance for me yet?" He turned into his dressing-room and bathed his
+temples and his head with cold water, and, refreshed at once, he
+ascended the stairs.
+
+"Another attack has come on. He was sleeping calmly," said Mrs. Sewell
+as she met him, "when he awoke with a start, and broke out into wild
+raving. I have sent for Beattie; but what is to be done meanwhile?"
+
+"I 'm no doctor; I can't tell you."
+
+"Haire thinks the ice ought to be applied; the nurse says-a blister or
+mustard to the back of the neck."
+
+"Is he really in danger?--that's the question."
+
+"I believe so. I never saw him so ill."
+
+"You think he's dying?" said he, fiercely, as though he would not brook
+any sort of equivocation; but the coarseness of his manner revolted
+her, and she turned away without reply. "There's no time to be lost,"
+muttered Sewell, as he hastened downstairs. "Tell George I want the
+carriage to the door immediately," said he; and then, entering his own
+room, he opened his writing-desk, and, after some search, came upon a
+packet, which he sealed and addressed.
+
+"Are you going for Beattie?" asked Mrs. Sewell, as she appeared at the
+door; "for Haire says it would be better to fetch some one--any one--at
+once."
+
+"I have ordered the carriage. I 'll get Lysaght or Adams-if I should not
+find Beattie; and mind, if Beattie come while I am away, detain him, and
+don't let him leave this till I return. Do you mind me?"
+
+"Yes; I 'll tell him what you say."
+
+"Ay, but you must insist upon his doing it. There will be all sorts of
+stories if he should die--"
+
+"Stories? what do you mean by stories?" cried she, in alarm.
+
+"Rumors of neglect, of want of proper care of him, and such-like, which
+would be most insulting. At all events, I am resolved Beattie should be
+here at the last; and take care that he does not leave. I 'll call at
+my mother's too; she ought to come back with me. We have to deal with a
+scandal-loving world, and let us leave them as little to fall foul of
+as may be." All this was said hurriedly, as he bustled about the room,
+fussy and impatient, and with an eagerness to be off which certainly
+surprised her.
+
+"You know where to find these doctors,--you have their addresses?" asked
+she.
+
+"George knows all about them."
+
+"And William does, at all events."
+
+"I'm not taking William. I don't want a footman with a brougham. It is
+a light carriage and speedy cattle that are needed at this moment; and
+here they come. Now, mind that you keep Beattie till I come back; and
+if there be any inquiries, simply say the Chief Baron is the same as
+yesterday."
+
+"Had I not better consult Dr. Beattie?"
+
+"You will do as I tell you, Madam," said he, sternly. "You have heard
+my directions; take care that you follow them. To Mr. Lysaght's,
+George--no, first to Dr. Beattie's, Merrion Square," cried he, as he
+stepped into the carriage, "and drive fast."
+
+"Yes, sir," said the coachman, and started at once. He had not proceeded
+more than half-way down the avenue, however, when Sewell, leaning out of
+the window, said, "Don't go into town, George; make for the Park by the
+shortest cut you can, the Secretary's Lodge."
+
+"All right, sir; the beasts are fresh. We 'll be there in thirty
+minutes." True to his word, within the half-hour the horses, white with
+sweat and flanking like racero, stood at the door of the Secretary's
+Lodge. Four or five private carriages and some cabs were also at the
+door, signs of a dinner-party which had not yet broken up.
+
+"Take this card in to Mr. Balfour, Mr. Wells," said he to the butler,
+who was an old acquaintance, "and say I want one minute in private
+with him,--strictly private, mind. I 'll step into the library here and
+wait."
+
+"What's up, Sewell? Are you in a new scrape, eh?" said Balfour,
+entering, slightly flushed with wine and conversation, and half put out
+by the interruption.
+
+"Not much of a scrape,--can you give me five minutes?"
+
+"Wells said one minute, and that's why I came. The Castledowns and Eyres
+and the Ashes are here, and the Langrish girls, and Dick Upton."
+
+"A very choice company, for robbing you of which even for a moment I owe
+every apology, but still my excuse is a good one. Are you as anxious to
+promote your Solicitor-General as you were a week or two ago?"
+
+"If you mean Pemberton, I wish he was--on the Bench, or in Abraham's
+bosom--I don't much care which, for he is the most confounded bore in
+Christendom. Do you come to tell me that you'll poison him?"
+
+"No; but I can promote him."
+
+"Why--how--in what way?"
+
+"I told you a few days ago that I could manage to make the old man
+give in his resignation; that it required some tact and address, and
+especially the absence of everything like menace or compulsion."
+
+"Well, well, well--have you done it--is it a fact?"
+
+"It is."
+
+"I mean, an indisputable, irrevocable fact,--something not to be denied
+or escaped from?"
+
+"Just so; a fact not to be denied or escaped from."
+
+"It must come through me, Sewell, mind that. I took charge of the
+negotiation two years ago, and no one shall step in and rob me of my
+credit. I have had all the worry and fatigue of the transaction, and I
+insist, if there be any glory in success, it shall be mine."
+
+"You shall have all the glory, as you call it. What I aspire to is
+infinitely less brilliant."
+
+"You want a place--hard enough to find one--at least to find something
+worth having. You 'll want something as good as the Registrarship, eh?"
+
+"No; I'll not pester you with my claims. I'm not in love with official
+life. I doubt if I am well fitted for it."
+
+"You want a seat in the House,--is that it?"
+
+"Not exactly," said Sewell, laughing; "though there is a good stroke of
+business to be done in private bills and railway grants. My want is the
+simplest of all wants,--money."
+
+"Money! But how am I to give you money? Out of what fund is it to come?
+You don't imagine we live in the old days of secret-service funds, with
+unlimited corruption to back us, do you?"
+
+"I suspect that the source from which it is to come is a matter of
+perfect indifference to me. You can easily squeeze me into the estimates
+as a special envoy, or a Crown Prosecution, or a present to the Emperor
+of Morocco."
+
+"Nothing of the kind. You are totally in error. All these fine days are
+past and gone. They go over us now like a schedule in bankruptcy; and it
+would be easier to make you a colonial bishop than give you fifty pounds
+out of the Consolidated Fund."
+
+"Well, I 'd not object to the Episcopate if there was some good shooting
+in the diocese."
+
+"I 've no time for chaff," said Balfour, impatiently. "I am leaving my
+company too long, besides. Just come over here to-morrow to breakfast,
+and we 'll talk the whole thing over."
+
+"No, I 'll not come to breakfast; I breakfast in bed: and if we are to
+come to any settlement of this matter, it shall be here and now."
+
+"Very peremptory all this, considering that the question is not of
+_your_ retirement."
+
+"Quite true. It is not _my_ retirement we have to discuss, but it is,
+whether I shall choose to hand you the Chief Baron's, which I hold
+here,"--and he produced the packet as he spoke,--"or go back and induce
+him to reconsider and withdraw it. Is not that a very intelligible way
+to put the case, Balfour? Did you expect such a business-like tone from
+an idle dog like _me?_"
+
+"And I am to believe that the document in your hand contains the Chief
+Baron's resignation?"
+
+"You are to believe it or not,--that's at your option. It is the fact,
+at all events."
+
+"And what power have you to withhold it, when he has determined to
+tender it?"
+
+"About the same power I have to do this," said Sewell, as, taking up a
+sheet of note-paper from the table, he tore it into fragments, and threw
+them into the fire. "I think you might see that the same influence by
+which I induced him to write this would serve to make him withhold it.
+The Judge condescends to think me a rather shrewd man of the world, and
+takes my advice occasionally."
+
+"Well, but--another point," broke in Balfour, hurriedly. "What if he
+should recall this to-morrow or the day after? What if he were to say
+that on reconsideration he felt unwilling to retire? It is clear we
+could not well coerce him."
+
+"You know very little of the man when you suggest such a possibility. He
+'d as soon think of suicide as doubt any decision he had once formally
+announced to the world. The last thing that would ever occur to him
+would be to disparage his infallibility."
+
+"I declare I am quite ashamed of being away so long; could n't you come
+down to the office to-morrow, at your own hour, and talk the whole thing
+over quietly?"
+
+"Impossible. I 'll be very frank with you. I lost a pot of money last
+night to Langton, and have n't got it to pay him. I tried twenty
+places during the day, and failed. I tossed over a score of so-called
+securities, not worth sixpence in a time of pressure, and I came upon
+this, which has been in my hands since Monday last, and I thought,
+Now Balfour would n't exactly give me five hundred pounds for it, but
+there's no reason in life that he might not obtain that sum for me in
+some quarter. Do you see?"
+
+"I see,--that is, I see everything but the five hundred."
+
+"If you don't, then you'll never see this," said Sewell, replacing it in
+his pocket.
+
+"You won't comprehend that I've no fund to go to; that there 's no bank
+to back me through such a transaction. Just be a little reasonable,
+and you 'll see that I can't do this out of my own pocket. It is true I
+could press your claim on the party. I could say, what I am quite ready
+to say, that we owe the whole arrangement to _you_, and that, especially
+as it will cost you the loss of your Registrarship, you must not be
+forgotten."
+
+"There's the mistake, my dear fellow. I don't want that. I don't want
+to be made supervisor of mad-houses, or overlooker of light-ships.
+Until office hours are comprised between five and six o'clock of the
+afternoon, and some of the cost of sealing-wax taken out in sandwiches,
+I don't mean to re-enter public life. I stand out for cash payment. I
+hope that's intelligible."
+
+"Oh, perfectly so; but as impossible as intelligible."
+
+"Then, in that case, there 's no more to be said. All apologies for
+having taken you so long from your friends. Good-night."
+
+"Good-night," said Balfour. "I 'm sorry we can't come to some
+arrangement. Good-night."
+
+"As this document will now never see the light, and as all action in the
+matter will be arrested," said Sewell, gravely, "I rely upon your never
+mentioning our present interview."
+
+"I declare I don't see why I am precluded from speaking of it to my
+friends,--confidentially, of course."
+
+"You had better not."
+
+"Better not! better in what sense? As regards the public interests, or
+my personal ones?"
+
+"I simply repeat, you had better not." He put on his hat as he spoke,
+and without a word of leave-taking moved towards the door.
+
+"Stop one moment,--a thought has just struck me. You like a sporting
+offer. I 'll bet you twenty pounds even, you 'll not let me read the
+contents of that paper; and I 'll lay you long odds--two hundred to one,
+in pounds--that you don't give it to me."
+
+"You certainly _do_ like a good thing, Balfour. In plain words, you
+offer me two hundred and twenty. I 'll be shot if I see why they should
+have higgled so long about letting the Jews into Parliament when fellows
+like _you_ have seats there."
+
+"Be good enough to remember," said Balfour, with an easy smile, "that I
+'m the only bidder, and if the article be not knocked down to me there's
+no auction."
+
+"I was certain I'd hear that from you! I never yet knew a fellow do a
+stingy thing, that he had n't a shabbier reason to sustain it."
+
+"Come, come, there's no need of this. You can say no to my offer without
+a rudeness to myself."
+
+"Ay, that's all true, if one only had temper for it, but I have n't; and
+I have my doubts that even _you_ would if you were to be tried as sorely
+as I am."
+
+"I never do get angry; a man shows his hand when he loses his temper,
+and the fellow who keeps cool can always look at the other's cards."
+
+"Wise precepts, and worth coming out here to listen to," said Sewell,
+whose thoughts were evidently directed elsewhere. "I take your offer;
+I only make one condition,--you keep the negotiation a secret, or only
+impart it where it will be kept secret."
+
+"I think that's all fair. I agree to that. Now for the document"
+
+"There it is," said Sewell, as he threw the packet on the table, while
+he seated himself in a deep chair, and crossed his arms on his chest.
+
+Balfour opened the paper and began to read, but soon burst forth
+with--"How like him--how like him!--'Less oppressed, indeed, by years
+than sustained by the conscious sense of long services to the State.' I
+think I hear him declaiming it.
+
+"This is not bad: 'While at times afflicted by the thought, that to the
+great principles of the law, of which I had made this Court the temple
+and the sanctuary, there will now succeed the vague decisions and
+imperfect judgments of less learned expositors of justice, I am
+comforted by remembering that I leave behind me some records worthy of
+memory,--traditions that will not easily die.'"
+
+"That's the modest note; hear him when he sounds the indignant chord,"
+said Sewell.
+
+"Ay, here we have it: 'If I have delayed, my Lord, in tendering to
+you this my resignation, it is that I have waited till, the scurrilous
+tongues of slander silenced, and the smaller, but not less malevolent,
+whisperings of jealousy subdued, I might descend from the Bench amidst
+the affectionate regrets of those who regard me as the last survivor of
+that race which made Ireland a nation.' The liquor is genuine," cried
+Balfour, laughing. "There's no disputing it, you have won your money."
+
+"I should think so," was Sewell's cool reply. "He has the same knack in
+that sort of thing that the girl in the well-known shop in Seville has
+in twisting a cigarette."
+
+Balfour took out his keys to open his writing-desk, and, pondering for
+a moment or two, at last said, "I wish any man would tell me why I am
+going to give you this money,--do you know, Sewell?"
+
+"Because you promised it, I suppose."
+
+"Yes; but why should I have promised it? What can it possibly signify to
+me which of our lawyers presides in Her Majesty's Irish Exchequer? I 'm
+sure you 'd not give ten pounds to insure this man or that, in or out of
+the Cabinet."
+
+"Not ten shillings. They 're all dark horses to me, and if you offered
+me the choice of the lot, I 'd not know which to take; but I always
+heard that you political fellows cared so much for your party, and
+took your successes and failures so much to heart, that there was no
+sacrifice you were not ready to make to insure your winning."
+
+"We now and then do run a dead-heat, and one would really give something
+to come in first; but what's that?--I declare there 's a carriage
+driving off--some one has gone. I 'll have to swear that some alarming
+news has come from the South. Good-night--I must be off."
+
+"Don't forget the cash before you go."
+
+"Oh, to be sure, here you are--crisp and clean, ain't they? I got them
+this morning, and certainly never intended to part with them on such an
+errand."
+
+Sewell folded up the notes with a grim smile, and said, "I only wish I
+had a few more big-wigs to dispose of,--you should have them cheap; as
+Stag and Mantle say, 'articles no longer in great vogue.'"
+
+"There's another departure!" cried Balfour. "I shall be in great
+disgrace!" and hurried away without a "goodbye."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. ON THE DOOR-STEPS AT NIGHT
+
+It was late at night when Sewell arrived at the Priory. He had
+had another disastrous night of play, and had scattered his
+"acknowledgments" for various sums on every side. Indeed, he had not the
+vaguest idea of how much he had lost. Disputes and hot discussions, too,
+almost verging on personal quarrels, dashed with all their irritating
+influences the gloom of his bad luck; and he felt, as he arose to go
+home, that he had not even that sorry consolation of the unfortunate
+gambler,--the pitying sympathy of the looker-on.
+
+Over and over, as he went, he asked himself what Fate could possibly
+intend by this persistent persecution of him? Other fellows had their
+"innings" now and then. Their fortune came checkered with its bright and
+dark days. He never emerged, not even passingly, from his ill-luck. "I
+suppose," muttered he, "the whole is meant to tempt me--but to what? I
+need very little temptation if the bait be only money. Let me but see
+gold enough, and my resistance will not be very formidable. I 'll not
+risk my neck; short of that I 'm ready for anything." Thus thinking, he
+plodded onward through the dark night, vaguely wishing at times that no
+morning was ever to break, and that existence might prolong itself out
+to one long dark autumn night, silent and starless.
+
+As he reached the hall-door, he found his wife seated on the steps as on
+a former night. It had become a favorite spot with her to taste the cool
+refreshing night-air, and rally her from the feverish closeness of the
+sick-room.
+
+"How is he? Is it over yet?" cried he, as he came up.
+
+"He is better; he slept calmly for some hours, and woke much refreshed."
+
+"I could have sworn it!" burst he in, vehemently. "It is the one way
+Fate could have rescued me, and it is denied me. I believe there is a
+curse on me! Eh--what?"
+
+"I did n't speak," said she, meekly.
+
+"You muttered, though. I heard you mumble something below your breath,
+as if you agreed with what I said. Say it out, Madam, if you think it."
+
+She heaved a weary sigh, but said nothing.
+
+"Has Beattie been here?" asked he, hastily.
+
+"Yes; he stayed for above an hour, but was obliged to go at last to
+visit another patient. He brought Dr. Lendrick out with him; he arrived
+this evening."
+
+"Lendrick! Do you mean the man from the Cape?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"That completes it!" burst he, as he flung his arms wildly up. "I was
+just wondering what other malignant piece of spite Fortune could play
+me, and there it is! Had you any talk with this man?"
+
+"Yes; he remained with me all the time Dr. Beattie was upstairs."
+
+"And what was his tone? Has he come back to turn us out?--that of course
+he has--but does he avow it?"
+
+"He shows no such intentions. He asked whether you held much to the
+Nest, if it was a place that you liked, or if you could relinquish it
+without any regret?"
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because Sir Brook Fossbrooke has just purchased it."
+
+"What nonsense! you know as well as I do that he could n't purchase a
+dog-kennel. That property was valued at sixteen thousand pounds four
+years ago,--it is worth twenty now; and you talk to me of this beggar
+buying it!"
+
+"I tell you what he told me, and it was this: Some mine that Sir Brook
+owned in Sardinia has turned out to be all silver, and in consequence
+he has suddenly become immensely rich,--so rich, indeed, that he has
+already determined to settle this estate on Lucy Lendrick; and intends,
+if he can induce Lord Drumcarran to part with 'The Forest,' to add it to
+the grounds."
+
+Sewell grasped his hair with both hands, and ground his teeth together
+with passion as he listened.
+
+"You believe this story, I suppose?" said he at last.
+
+"Yes; why should I not believe it?"
+
+"I don't believe a word of it. I see the drift--I saw the drift of it
+before you had told me ten words. This tale is got up to lull us into
+security, and to quiet our suspicions. Lendrick knows well the alarm his
+unexpected return is likely to give us, and to allay our anxieties they
+have coined this narrative, as though to imply they will be rich enough
+not to care to molest us, nor stand between us and this old man's money.
+Don't you see that?"
+
+"I do not. It did not occur to me before, and I do not admit it now."
+
+"I ought not to have asked you. I ought to have remembered what old
+Fossbrooke once called 'the beautiful trustfulness of your nature.'"
+
+"If had it once, it has left me many a long day ago!"
+
+"But I deny that you ever had it. You had the woman's trick of affecting
+to believe, and thus making out what you assumed to think, to be a
+pledge given by another,--a bit of female craft that you all trade on so
+long as you are young and good-looking?"
+
+"And what supplies the place of this ingenious device when we are
+neither young nor good-looking?"
+
+"I don't know, for the simple reason that I never much interested myself
+in the sex after that period."
+
+"That's a very sad thing for us. I declare I never had an idea how much
+we 're to be pitied before."
+
+"You would be to be pitied if you knew how we all think of you;" and he
+spoke with a spiteful malignity almost demoniac.
+
+"It's better, then, for each of us that we should not know this. The
+trustfulness that you sneer at does us good service, after all."
+
+"And it was this story of the mine that induced Lendrick to come home
+from the Cape, wasn't it?"
+
+"No; he only heard of the mine since he arrived here."
+
+"I thought," rejoined he, with a sneer, "that he ought to have resigned
+his appointment on account of this sudden wealth, all the more because
+I have known that he intended to come back this many a day. And what is
+Fossbrooke going to do for you? Is there a diamond necklace ordered? or
+is it one of the brats he is going to adopt?"
+
+"By the way, I have been robbed; some one has carried off my gold comb
+and some pins; they were on my dressing-table last night. Jane saw them
+when I went into my room."
+
+"Now 's your time to replace the loss! It's the sort of tale old
+Fossbrooke always responded to."
+
+She made no answer; and for several minutes each sat in silence. "One
+thing is pretty evident," said he at last, as he made figures with his
+cane on the ground,--"we 'll have to troop off, whether the Lendricks
+come here or not. The place will not be tenable once they are in the
+vicinity."
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"You don't know! Do you mean that the doctor and his daughter will
+stand the French cook here, and the dinners, and let the old man make a
+blessed fool of himself, as he has been doing for the last eight or
+ten months past? or do you pretend that if we were to go back to the
+leg-of-mutton days, and old Haire for company, that it would be worth
+holding on to? _I_ don't; and I tell you frankly that I intend to demand
+my passports, as the Ministers say, and be off."
+
+"But _I_ can't 'be off.' I have no such alternative!"
+
+"The worse luck yours, or rather the worse skill; for if you had played
+your hand better, it would not have been thus with you. By the way, what
+about Trafford? I take it he 'll marry this girl now."
+
+"I have not heard," said she, pinching her lips, and speaking with a
+forced composure.
+
+"If I were you, I 'd make myself Lucy's confidante, get up the match,
+and go and live with them. These are the really happy _menages_. If
+there be such a thing as bliss, perfect bliss, in this world, it is
+where a wife has a dear friend in the house with her, who listens to all
+her sorrows, and helps her to manage the tyrant that inflicts them.
+It was a great mistake of ours not to have known this in early life.
+Marriage was meant to be a triangle."
+
+"If you go, as you speak of going, have you any objection to my
+addressing myself to Sir Brook for some assistance?"
+
+"None whatever. I think it the most natural thing in life; he was your
+guardian, and you have a right to ask what has become of your fortune."
+
+"He might refer me to _you_ for the information."
+
+"Very unmannerly if he should, and very ungallant, too, for an old
+admirer. I 'm certain if I were to be--what is the phrase?--removed,
+yes, removed--he 'd marry you. Talk of three-volume novels and virtue
+rewarded, after that."
+
+"You have been playing to-night," said she, gravely.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And lost?"
+
+"Lost heavily."
+
+"I thought so. Your courtesies to me have been the measure of your bad
+luck for many a day. I have often felt that 'four by honors' has saved
+me from a bad headache."
+
+"Then there has been more sympathy between us than I ever suspected,"
+said he, rising, and stretching himself; and after a moment or two
+added, "Must I call on this Dr. Lendrick?--will he expect me to visit
+him?"
+
+"Perhaps so," said she, carelessly; "he asked after you."
+
+"Indeed!--did he ask after Trafford too? Do you remember the day at the
+Governor's dinner he mistook you for Trafford's wife, and explained his
+mistake by the familiarity of his manner to you in the garden? It was
+the best bit of awkwardness I ever witnessed."
+
+"I suppose you felt it so?"
+
+"_I_--_I_ felt it so! I suspect not! I don't believe there was a man at
+table enjoyed the blunder as heartily."
+
+"I wish--how I wish!" said she, clasping her hands together.
+
+"Well--what?"
+
+"I wish I could be a man for one brief half-hour!" cried she; and her
+voice rang with a mild but clear resonance, that made it seem louder
+than it really was.
+
+"And then?" said he, mockingly.
+
+"Oh, do not ask me more!" cried she, as she bent down and hid her face
+in her hands.
+
+"I think I _will_ call on Lendrick," said he, after a moment. "It may
+not be exactly the sort of task a man would best like; but I opine, if
+he is about to give his daughter in marriage to this fellow, he ought
+to know more about him. Now _I_ can tell him something, and my wife can
+tell him more. There's no indiscretion in saying so much, is there?"
+
+She made no reply; and after a pause he went on: "If Trafford had n't
+been a shabby dog, he 'd not have higgled about buying up those letters.
+Cane & Kincaid offered them to him for a thousand pounds. I suspect he
+'d like to have the offer repeated now, but he shall not. He believes,
+or affects to believe, that, for my own sake, I 'll not make a public
+scandal; he doesn't know his man when he thinks this. _You_, Madam,
+might have taught him better, eh?" Still no reply, and he continued:
+"There 's not a man living despises public opinion as I do. If you are
+rich you trample on it, if poor it tramples on _you_; but so long as
+a fellow braves the world, and declares that he shrinks from
+nothing,--evades nothing,--neither turns right nor left to avoid its
+judgments,--the coward world gives away and lets him pass. _I 'll_ let
+them see that I don't care a straw for my own life, when at the price of
+it I can blow up a magazine."
+
+"No, no, no!" muttered she, in a low but clear tone.
+
+"What do you mean by No, no?" cried he, in a voice of passion.
+
+"I mean that you care a great deal for your own life, and a great
+deal for your own personal safety; and that if your tyranny to a poor,
+crushed, weak woman has any bounds, it is from your fear, your abject
+fear, that in her desperation she might seek a protector, and find him."
+
+"I told you once before, Madam, men don't like this sort of
+protectorate. The old bullying days are gone by. Modern decorum 'takes
+it out' in damages." She sat still and silent; and after waiting some
+time, he said, in a calm, unmoved voice, "These little interchanges
+of courtesy do no good to either of us; they haven't even the poor
+attraction of novelty; so, as my friend Mr. O'Reardon says, let us 'be
+practical.' I had hoped that the old gentleman upstairs was going to do
+the polite thing, and die; but it appears now he has changed his mind
+about it. This, to say the least of it, is very inconvenient to me. My
+embarrassments are such that I shall be obliged to leave the country;
+my only difficulty is, I have no money. Are you attending? Are you
+listening to me?"
+
+"Yes, I hear you," said she, in a faint whisper.
+
+"_You_, I know, cannot help me; neither can my mother. Of course the
+old Judge is out of the question. As for the fellows at the Club, I
+am deeply in debt to many of them; and Kincaid only reminds me of his
+unsettled bill of costs when I ask for a loan. A blank look-out, on the
+whole; isn't it?"
+
+She muttered something like assent, and he went on. "I have gone through
+a good many such storms before, but none fully as bad as this; because
+there are certain things which in a few days must come out--ugly little
+disclosures--one or two there will be. I inadvertently sold that beech
+timber to two different fellows, and took the money too."
+
+She lifted up her face, and stared at him without speaking.
+
+"Fact, I assure you! I have a confoundedly bad memory; it has got
+me into scores of scrapes all through life. Then, this very evening,
+thinking that the Chief could n't rub through, I made a stupid wager
+with Balfour that the seat on the Bench would be vacant within a week;
+and finished my bad run of luck by losing--I can't say how much, but
+very heavily, indeed--at the Club."
+
+A low faint sigh escaped her, but not a word.
+
+"As to bills renewed, protested, and to be protested," said he, in the
+same easy tone, "they are legion. These take their course, and are no
+worse than any other man's bills; I don't fret myself about _them_. As
+in the old days of chivalry one never cared how scurvily he treated the
+'villeins,' so he behaved like a knight to his equals; so nowadays a
+man must book up at Tattersall's though he cheat his tailor. I like the
+theory too; it keeps 'the ball rolling,' if it does nothing else."
+
+All this he rattled out as though his own fluency gave him a sort of
+Dutch courage; and who knows, too,--for there is a fund of vanity in
+these men,--if he was not vain of showing with what levity he could
+treat dangers that might have made the stoutest heart afraid?
+
+"Taking the 'tottle of the whole' of these,--as old Joe Hume used to
+say,--it's an ugly balance!"
+
+"What do you mean to do?" said she, quietly.
+
+"Bolt, I suppose. I see nothing else for it."
+
+"And will that meet the difficulty?"
+
+"No, but it will secure _me_; secure me from arrest, and the other
+unpleasant consequences that might follow arrest. To do this, however, I
+need money, and I have not five pounds--no, nor, I verily believe, five
+shillings--in the world."
+
+"There are a few trinkets of mine upstairs. I never wear them--"
+
+"Not worth fifty pounds, the whole lot; nor would one get half fifty for
+them in a moment of pressure."
+
+"We have some plate--"
+
+"We had, but I sold it three weeks ago; and that reminds me there was a
+rum old tea-urn got somehow mixed up with our things, and I sold it too,
+though it has Lendrick's crest upon it. You 'll have to get it back some
+of these days,--I told the fellow not to break it up till he heard from
+you."
+
+"Then what is to be done?" said she, eagerly.
+
+"That's the question; travelling is the one thing that can't be done on
+tick."
+
+"If you were to go down to the Nest--"
+
+"But our tenure expires on the seventeenth, just one fortnight
+hence,--not to say that I couldn't call myself safe there one hour. No,
+no; I must manage to get abroad, and instantly, that I may escape from
+my present troubles; but I must strike out some way of life,--something
+that will keep me."
+
+She sat still and almost stupefied, trying to see an escape from these
+difficulties, but actually overwhelmed by the number and the nature of
+them.
+
+"I told you awhile ago that I did not believe one word of this story
+of the mine, and the untold wealth that has fallen to old Fossbrooke:
+_you_, however, do believe it; you affirm the tale as if you had seen
+and touched the ingots; so that you need have no reluctance to ask him
+to help you."
+
+"You do not object to this course, then?" asked she, eagerly.
+
+"How can I object? If I clutch at a plank when I'm drowning, I don't
+let go because it may have nails in it. Tell him that you want to buy me
+off, to get rid of me; that by a couple of hundred pounds,--I wish he 'd
+make it five,--you can insure my leaving the country, and that my debts
+here will prevent my coming back again. It's the sort of compact he 'll
+fully concur in; and you can throw in, as if accidentally, how useless
+it is for him to go on persecuting me, that his confounded memory for
+old scores has kept my head under water all my life; and hint that those
+letters of Trafford's he insists on having--"
+
+"_He_ insists on having!"
+
+"To be sure he does; I thought I had told you what brought him over
+here! The old meddling humbug, in his grand benevolence vein, wants to
+smooth down the difficulties between Lucy Lendrick and Trafford, one of
+which was thought to be the fellow's attachment to _you_. Don't
+blush; take it as coolly as I do. I 'm not sure whether reading the
+correspondence aloud isn't the best way to dispel this illusion. You can
+say that better than I can."
+
+"Trafford never wrote one line to me of which I should be afraid or
+ashamed to see in print."
+
+"These are matters of taste. There are scores of women like publicity,
+and would rather be notorieties for scandal than models of unnoticed
+virtue, so we 'll not discuss that. There, there; don't look so
+supremely indignant and contemptuous. That expression became you well
+enough at three-and-twenty; but ten years, ten long years of not the
+very smoothest existence, leave their marks!"
+
+She shook her head mournfully, but in silence.
+
+"At all events," resumed he, "declare that you object to the letters
+being in other hands than your own; and as to a certain paper of
+mine,--a perfectly worthless document, as he well knows,--let him give
+it to you or burn it in your presence."
+
+She pushed her hair back from her temples, and pressed her hands to
+either side of her head, as though endeavoring to collect her thoughts,
+and rally herself to an effort of calm determination'.
+
+"How much of this is true?" said she, at last.
+
+"What do you mean?" said he, sternly.
+
+"I mean this," said she, resolutely,--"that I want to know, if you
+should get this money, is it really your intention to go abroad?"
+
+"You want a pledge from me on this?" said he, with a jeering laugh.
+"You are not willing to stoop to all this humiliation without having the
+price of it afterwards? Is not that your meaning?"
+
+Her lips moved, but no sound was audible.
+
+"All fair and reasonable," said he, calmly. "It's not every woman in
+the world would have the pluck to tell her husband how much meanness
+she would submit to simply to get rid of him; but you were always
+courageous, that I will say,--you have courage enough."
+
+"I had need of it."
+
+"Go on, Madam, finish your speech. I know what you would say. 'You had
+need of courage for two;' that was the courteous speech that trembled on
+your lip. The only thing that beats your courage is your candor! Well, I
+must content myself with humbler qualities. I cannot accompany you into
+these high flights of excellence, but I can go away; and that, after
+all, is something. Get me this money, and I will go,--I promise you
+faithfully,--go, and not come back."
+
+"The children," said she, and stopped.
+
+"Madam!" said he, with a mock-heroic air, "I am not a brute! I respect
+your maternal feelings, and would no more think of robbing you of your
+children--"
+
+"There,--there, that will do. Where is Sir Brook to be found,--where
+does he live?"
+
+"I have his address written down,--here it is," said he,--"the last
+cottage on the southern side of Howth. There is a porch to the door,
+which, it would seem, is distinctive, as well as three chimneys; my
+informant was as descriptive as Figaro. You had better keep this piece
+of paper as a reminder; and the trains deposit you at less than half a
+mile from the place."
+
+"I will go early to-morrow morning. Shall I find you here on my return?"
+
+"Of that you may be certain. I can't venture to leave the house all day;
+I 'm not sure there will not be a writ out against me."
+
+She arose and seemed about to say something,--hesitated for a moment or
+two, and then slowly entered the house, and disappeared.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. GOING OUT
+
+In a small dinner-room of the Viceregal Lodge, in the Phoenix Park, the
+Viceroy sat at dinner with Sir Brook Fossbrooke. He had arrived in great
+haste, and incognito, from England, to make preparations for his final
+departure from Ireland; for his party had been beaten in the House, and
+expected that, in the last debate on the measure before them, they would
+be driven to resign office. Lord Wilmington had no personal regrets on
+the subject. With high station and a large fortune, Ireland, to him,
+meant little else than estrangement from the habits and places that he
+liked, with the exposure to that species of comment and remark which
+the Press so unsparingly bestows on all public men in England. He had
+accepted office to please his party; and though naturally sorry for
+their defeat, there was a secret selfish satisfaction at being able to
+go back to a life more congenial to him that more than consoled him for
+the ministerial reverse.
+
+It is difficult for the small world of place-hunters and office-seekers
+to understand this indifference; but I have little doubt that it exists
+largely amongst men of high position and great fortune, and imparts to
+their manner that seeming dignity in adversity which we humble folk are
+so prone to believe the especial gift of the "order."
+
+Cholmondely Balfour did not take matters so coolly; he had been summoned
+over by telegram to take his part in the "third reading," and went away
+with the depressing feeling that his official sun was about to set,
+and all the delightful insolences of a "department" were about to be
+withdrawn from him.
+
+Balfour had a brief interview with the Viceroy before he started, and
+hurriedly informed him how events stood in Ireland. Nor was it without a
+sense of indignation that he saw how little his Excellency cared for the
+defeat of his party, and how much more eager he seemed to see his old
+friend Fossbrooke, and thank him for his conduct, than listen to the
+details of the critical questions of the hour.
+
+"And this is his address, you say?" said Lord Wilmington, as he held a
+card in his hand. "I must send off to him at once."
+
+"It's all Bentley's fault," said Balfour, full of the House and the
+debate. "If that fellow were drowning, and had only breath for it, he 'd
+move an amendment! And it's so provoking, now we had got so splendidly
+through our prosecutions, and were winning the Catholics round to us
+besides; not to say that I have at last managed to induce Lendrick to
+resign, and we have a Judgeship to bestow." In a few hurried words he
+recounted his negotiation with Sewell, placing in the Viceroy's hand the
+document of the resignation.
+
+Lord Wilmington's thoughts were fully as much on his old friend
+Fossbrooke all this time as on questions of office, and not a little
+disconcerted the Secretary by muttering, "I hope the dear old fellow
+bears me no ill-will. I would not for worlds that he should think me
+unmindful of him."
+
+And now they sat over their wine together, talking pleasantly of
+bygone times and old friends,--many lost to them by death, and some by
+distance.
+
+"I take it," said Fossbrooke, after a pause, "that you are not sorry to
+get back to England."
+
+Lord Wilmington smiled, but said nothing.
+
+"You never could have cared much for the pomp and state of this office,
+and I suppose beyond these there is little in it."
+
+"You have hit it exactly. There is nothing to be done here,--nothing.
+The shortness of the period that is given to any man to rule this
+country, and the insecurity of his tenure, even for that time, compel
+him to govern by a party; and the result is, we go on alternately
+pitting one faction against the other, till we end by marshalling the
+nation into two camps instead of massing them into one people. Then
+there is another difficulty. In Ireland the question is not so much what
+you do as by whom you do it. It is the men, not the measures, that are
+thought of. There is not an infringement on personal freedom I could
+not carry out, if you only let me employ for its enactment some popular
+demagogue. Give me a good patriot in Ireland, and I 'll engage to crush
+every liberty in the island."
+
+"I don't envy you your office, then," said Fossbrooke, gravely.
+
+"Of course you don't; and between ourselves, Fossbrooke, I 'm not
+heartbroken by the thought of laying it down. I suspect, too, that after
+a spell of Irish official life every statesman ought to lie fallow for
+a while: he grows so shifty and so unscrupulous here, he is not fit for
+home work."
+
+"And how soon do you leave?"
+
+"Let me see," said he, pondering. "We shall be beaten to-night or
+to-morrow night at farthest. They 'll take a day to talk it over,
+and another to see the Queen; and allowing three days more for the
+negotiations back and forward, I think I may say we shall be out by this
+day week. A week of worry and annoyance it will be!"
+
+"How so?"
+
+"All the hungry come to be fed at the last hour. They know well that an
+outgoing administration is always bent on filling up everything in their
+gift. You make a clean sweep of the larder before you give up the key
+to the new housekeeper; and one is scarcely so inquisitive as to the
+capacity of the new office-holder as he would be if, remaining in power,
+he had to avail himself of his services. For instance, Pemberton may
+not be the best man for Chief Baron, but we mean to bequeath him in that
+condition to our successors."
+
+"And what becomes of Sir William Lendrick?"
+
+"He resigns."
+
+"With his peerage?"
+
+"Nothing of the kind; he gets nothing. I 'm not quite clear how the
+matter was brought about. I heard a very garbled, confused story from
+Balfour. As well as I could gather, the old man intrusted his step-son,
+Sewell, with the resignation, probably to enable him to make some terms
+for himself; and Sewell--a shifty sort of fellow, it would seem--held it
+back--the Judge being ill, and unable to act--till he found that things
+looked ticklish. We might go out,--the Chief Baron might die,--Heaven
+knows what might occur. At all events he closed the negotiation, and
+placed the document in Balfour's hands, only pledging him not to act
+upon it for eight-and-forty hours."
+
+"This interests me deeply. I know the man Sewell well, and I know that
+no transaction in which he is mixed up can be clean-handed."
+
+"I have heard of him as a man of doubtful character."
+
+"Quite the reverse; he is the most indubitable scoundrel alive. I need
+not tell you that I have seen a great deal of life, and not always of
+its best or most reputable side. Well, this fellow has more bad in
+him, and less good, than any one I have ever met. The world has scores,
+thousands, of unprincipled dogs, who, when their own interests are
+served, are tolerably indifferent about the rest of humanity. They have
+even, at times, their little moods of generosity, in which they will
+help a fellow blackguard, and actually do things that seem good-natured.
+Not so Sewell. Swimming for his life, he 'd like to drown the fellow
+that swam alongside of him."
+
+"It is hard to believe in such a character," said the other.
+
+"So it is! I stood out long--ay, for years--against the conviction; but
+he has brought me round to it at last, and I don't think I can forgive
+the fellow for destroying in me a long-treasured belief that no heart
+was so depraved as to be without its relieving trait."
+
+"I never heard you speak so hardly before of any one, Fossbrooke."
+
+"Nor shall you ever again, for I will never mention this man more.
+These fellows jar upon one's nature, and set it out of tune towards all
+humanity."
+
+"It is strange how a shrewd old lawyer like the Chief Baron could have
+taken such a man into his confidence."
+
+"Not so strange as it seems at first blush. Your men of the world--and
+Sewell is eminently one of these--wield an immense influence over
+others immeasurably their superiors in intellect, just by force of that
+practical skill which intercourse with life confers. Think for a moment
+how often Sewell might refer some judgment or opinion of the old Chief
+to that tribunal they call 'Society,' of whose ways of thought, or whose
+prejudices, Lendrick knows as much as he knows of the domestic habits of
+the Tonga Islanders. Now Sewell was made to acquire this influence, and
+to employ it."
+
+"That would account for his being intrusted with this," said the
+Viceroy, drawing from his breast-pocket the packet Balfour had given
+him. "This is Sir William's long-waited-for resignation."
+
+"The address is in Sewell's writing. I know the hand well."
+
+"Balfour assured me that he was well acquainted with the Chief Baron's
+writing, and could vouch for the authenticity of the document. Here
+it is." As he said this, he opened the envelope, and drew forth a
+half-sheet of post paper, and handed it to Fossbrooke.
+
+"Ay, this is veritable. I know the hand, too, and the style confirms
+it." He pondered for some seconds over the paper, turned it, looked
+at the back of it, examining it all closely and carefully, and then,
+holding it out at arm's length, he said, "You know these things far
+better than I do, and you can say if this be the sort of document a man
+would send on such an occasion."
+
+"You don't mean that it is a forgery"
+
+"No, not that; nor is it because a forgery would be an act Sewell would
+hold back from, I merely ask if this looks like what it purports to be?
+Would Sir William Lendrick, in performing so solemn an act, take a half
+sheet of paper,--the first that offered, it would seem,--for see, here
+are some words scribbled on the back,--and send in his resignation
+blurred, blotted, and corrected like this?"
+
+"I read it very hurriedly. Balfour gave it to me as I landed, and I only
+ran my eyes over it; let me see it again. Yes, yes," muttered he,
+"there is much in what you say; all these smudges and alterations are
+suspicious. It looks like a draft of a despatch."
+
+"And so it is. I 'll wager my head on it,--just a draft."
+
+"I see what you mean. It was a draft abstracted by Sewell, and forwarded
+under this envelope."
+
+"Precisely. The Chief Baron, I am told, is a hot, hasty, passionate man,
+with moments of rash, impetuous action; in one of these he sat down and
+wrote this, as Italians say, 'per sfogarsi.' Warm-tempered men blow off
+their extra steam in this wise, and then go on their way like the rest
+of us. He wrote this, and, having written it, felt he had acquitted a
+debt he owed his own indignation."
+
+"It looks amazingly like it; and now I remember in a confused sort of
+way something about a bet Balfour lost; a hundred--I am not sure it was
+not two hundred--"
+
+"There, there," said Fossbrooke, laughing, "I recognize my honorable
+friend at once. I see the whole, as if it were revealed to me. He grows
+bolder as he goes on. Formerly his rascalities were what brokers call
+'time bargains,' and not to be settled for till the end of the month,
+but now he only asks a day's immunity."
+
+"A man must be a consummate scoundrel who would do this."
+
+"And so he is,--a fellow who stops at nothing. Oh, if the world only
+knew how many brigands wore diamond shirt-buttons, there would be as
+much terror in going into a drawing-room as people now feel about a tour
+in Greece. You will let me have this document for a few hours?"
+
+"To be sure, Fossbrooke. I know well I may rely on your discretion; but
+what do you mean to do with it?"
+
+"Let the Chief Baron see it, if he's well enough; if not, I 'll show
+it to Beattie, his doctor, and ask his opinion of it. Dr. Lendrick, Sir
+William's son, is also here, and he will probably be able to say if my
+suspicions are well founded."
+
+"It seems odd enough to me, Fossy, to hear _you_ talk of your
+suspicions! How hardly the world must have gone with you since we met to
+inflict you with suspicions! You never had one long ago."
+
+"And shall I tell you how I came by them, Wilmington?" said he,
+laughing. "I have grown rich again,--there 's the whole secret. There's
+no such corrupter as affluence. My mine has turned out a perfect Potosi,
+and here am I ready to think every man a knave and a rascal, and the
+whole world in a conspiracy to cheat me!"
+
+"And is this fact about the mine?--tell me all about it."
+
+And Fossbrooke now related the story of his good fortune, dwelling
+passingly on the days of hardship that preceded it; but frankly avowing
+that it was a consummation of which he never for a moment doubted. "I
+knew it," said he; "and I was not impatient. The world is always an
+amusing drama, and though one may not be 'cast' for a high part, he
+can still 'come on' occasionally, and at all events he can enjoy the
+performance."
+
+"And is this fortune to go like the others, Fossy?" said the Viceroy,
+laughing.
+
+"Have I not told you how much wiser I have grown, that I trust no one? I
+'m not sure that I 'll not set up as a moneylender."
+
+"So you were forty years ago, Fossy, to my own knowledge; but I don't
+suspect you found it very profitable."
+
+"Have I not had my fifty--ay, my five hundred--per cent in my racy
+enjoyment of life? One cannot be paid in meal and malt too; and _I_ have
+'commuted,' as they call it, and 'taken out' in cordiality what others
+prefer in cash. I do not believe there is a corner of the globe where I
+could not find some one to give me a cordial welcome."
+
+"And what are your plans?"
+
+"I have fully a thousand; my first, however, is to purchase that place
+on the Shannon, where, if you remember, we met once,--the Swan's Nest. I
+want to settle my friends the Lendricks in their old home. I shall have
+to build myself a crib near them. But before I turn squatter I 'll have
+a run over to Canada. I have a large tract there near Huron, and they
+have built a village on me, and now are asking me for a church and a
+schoolhouse and an hospital. It was but a week ago they might as well
+have asked me for the moon! I must see Ceylon too, and my coffee-fields.
+I am dying to be 'bon Prince' again and lower my rents. 'There's
+arrant snobbery,' some one told me t' other day, 'in that same love of
+popularity;' but they 'll have to give it even a worse name before they
+disgust me with it. I shall have to visit Cagliari also, and relieve Tom
+Lendrick, who would like, I have no doubt, to take that 'three months in
+Paris' which young fellows call 'going over to see their friends.'"
+
+"You are a happy fellow, Brook; perhaps the happiest I ever knew."
+
+"I'll sell my secret for it cheap," said Fossbrooke, laughing. "It is,
+never to go grubbing for mean motives in this life; never tormenting
+yourself what this might mean or that other might portend, but take the
+world for what it seems, or what it wishes you to believe it. Take it
+with its company face on, and never ask to see any one in _deshabille_
+but old and dear friends. Life has two sides, and some men spin the
+coin so as always to make the wrong face of the medal come uppermost.
+I learned the opposite plan when I was very young, and I have not
+forgotten it. Good-night now; I promised Beattie to look in on him
+before midnight, and it's not far off, I see."
+
+"We shall have a day or two of you, I hope, at Crew before you leave
+England."
+
+"When I have purchased my estate and married off my young people, I 'll
+certainly make you a visit."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. AT HOWTH
+
+On the same evening that Fossbrooke was dining with the Viceroy,
+Trafford arrived in Dublin, and set out at once for the little cottage
+at Howth to surprise his old friend by his sudden appearance. Tom
+Lendrick had given him so accurate a description of the spot that he
+had no difficulty in finding it. If somewhat disappointed at first on
+learning that Sir Brook had dined in town, and might not return till a
+late hour, his mind was so full of all he had to say and to do that he
+was not sorry to have some few hours to himself for quiet and tranquil
+thought. He had come direct from Malta without going to Holt, and
+therefore was still mainly ignorant of the sentiments of his family
+towards him, knowing nothing beyond the fact that Sir Brook had induced
+his father to see him. Even that was something. He did not look to be
+restored to his place as the future head of the house, but he wanted
+recognition and forgiveness,--the first for Lucy's sake more than his
+own. The thought was too painful that his wife--and he was determined
+she should be his wife--should not be kindly received and welcomed by
+his family. "I ask nothing beyond this," would he say over and over to
+himself. "Let us be as poor as we may, but let them treat us as kindred,
+and not regard us as outcasts. I bargain for no more." He believed
+himself thoroughly and implicitly when he said this. He was not
+conscious with what force two other and very different influences
+swayed him. He wished his father, and still more his mother, should see
+Lucy,--not alone see her beauty and gracefulness, but should see the
+charm of her manner, the fascination which her bright temperament threw
+around her. "Why, her very voice is a spell!" cried he, aloud, as he
+pictured her before him. And then, too, he nourished a sense of pride in
+thinking how Lucy would be struck by the sight of Holt,--one of the most
+perfect specimens of old Saxon architecture in the kingdom; for though
+a long line of descendants had added largely, and incongruously too, to
+the building, the stern and squat old towers, the low broad battlements
+and square casements, were there, better blazons of birth and blood than
+all the gilded decorations of a herald's college.
+
+He honestly believed he would have liked to show her Holt as a true
+type of an ancient keep, bold, bluff, and stern-looking, but with an
+unmistakable look of power, recalling a time when there were lords and
+serfs, and when a Trafford was as much a despot as the Czar himself. He
+positively was not aware how far personal pride and vanity influenced
+this desire on his part, nor how far he was moved by the secret pleasure
+his heart would feel at Lucy's wondering admiration.
+
+"If I cannot say, This is your home, this is your own, I can at least
+say, It is from the race who have lived here for centuries he who loves
+you is descended. We are no 'new rich,' who have to fall back upon our
+wealth for the consideration we count upon. We were men of mark before
+the Normans were even heard of." All these, I say, he felt, but knew
+not. That Lucy was one to care for such things he was well aware. She
+was intensely Irish in her reverence for birth and descent, and had that
+love of the traditionary which is at once the charm and the weakness of
+the Celtic nature. Trafford sat thinking over these things, and thinking
+over what might be his future. It was clear enough he could not remain
+in the army; his pay, barely sufficient for his support at present,
+would never suffice when he had a wife. He had some debts too; not very
+heavy, indeed, but onerous enough when their payment must be made out of
+the sale of his commission. How often had he done over that weary sum
+of subtraction! Not that repetition made matters better to him; for
+somehow, though he never could manage to make more of the sale of his
+majority, he could still, unhappily for him, continually go on recalling
+some debt or other that he had omitted to jot down,--an unlucky "fifty"
+to Jones which had escaped him till now; and then there was Sewell! The
+power of the unknown is incommensurable; and so it is, there is that in
+a vague threat that terrifies the stoutest heart. Just before he left
+Malta he had received a letter from a man whose name was not known to
+him in these terms:--
+
+"Sir,--It has come to my knowledge professionally, that proceedings will
+shortly be instituted against you in the Divorce Court at the suit of
+Colonel Sewell, on the ground of certain letters written by you.
+These letters, now in the hands of Messrs. Cane & Kincaid, solicitors,
+Dominick Street, Dublin, may be obtained by you on payment of one
+thousand pounds, and the costs incurred up to this date. If it be your
+desire to escape the scandal and publicity of this action, and the much
+heavier damages that will inevitably result, you may do so by addressing
+yourself to
+
+"Your very obedient and faithful servant,
+
+"James Maher,
+
+"Attorney-at-Law, Kildare Place."
+
+
+He had had no time to reply to this unpleasant epistle before he
+started, even had he known what reply to make, all that he resolved
+on being to do nothing till he saw Sir Brook. He had opened his
+writing-desk to find Lucy's last letter to him, and by ill luck it was
+this ill-omened document first came to his hand. Fortune will play us
+these pranks. She will change the glass we meant to drink out of, and
+give us a bitter draught at the moment that we dreamed of nectar! "If
+I 'm to give this thousand pounds," muttered he, moodily, "I may find
+myself with about eight hundred in the world! for I take it these costs
+he speaks of will be no trifle! I shall need some boldness to go and
+tell this to Sir William Lendrick when I ask him for his granddaughter."
+Here again he bethought him of Sir Brook, and reassured himself that
+with his aid even this difficulty might be conquered. He arose to ask
+if it were certain that Sir Brook would return home that night, and
+discovered that he was alone in the cottage, the fisherman and his wife
+who lived there having gone down to the shore to gather the seaweed left
+by the retreating tide. Trafford knew nothing of Fossbrooke's recent
+good fortune. The letters which conveyed that news reached Malta after
+he had left, and his journey to England was prompted by impatience to
+decide his fate at once, either by some arrangement with his family
+which might enable him to remain in the army, or, failing all hope of
+that, by the sale of his commission. "If Tom Lendrick can face the hard
+life of a miner, why should not I?" would he say. "I am as well able to
+rough it as any man. Fellows as tenderly nurtured as myself go out
+to the gold-diggings and smash quartz, and what is there in me that I
+should shrink from this labor?" There was a grim sort of humor in the
+way he repeated to himself the imaginary calls of his comrades. "Where
+'s Sir Lionel Traf-ford? Will some one send the distinguished baronet
+down here with his shovel?" "Lucy, too, has seen the life of hard work
+and stern privation. She showed no faintheartedness at its hardships;
+far from it. I never saw her look happier nor cheerier. To look at her,
+one would say that she liked its wild adventure, its very uncommonness.
+I 'll be sworn if we 'll not be as happy--happier, perhaps, than if we
+had rank and riches. As Sir Brook says, it all depends upon himself in
+what spirit a man meets his fortune. Whether you confront life or death,
+there are but two ways,--that of the brave man or the coward.
+
+"How I wish he were come! How impatient I am to know what success he has
+had with my father! My own mind is made up. The question is, Shall I
+be able to persuade others to regard the future as I do? Will Lucy's
+friends let her accept a beggar? No, not that! He who is able and
+willing to work need not be a beggar. Was that a tap at the door? Come
+in." As he spoke, the door slowly opened, and a lady entered; her veil,
+closely drawn and folded, completely concealed her face, and a large
+shawl wrapped her figure from shoulders to feet.
+
+As she stood for an instant silent, Trafford arose and said, "I suppose
+you wished to see Sir Brook Fossbrooke; but he is from home, and will
+not return till a late hour."
+
+"Don't you remember me, Lionel?" said she, drawing back her veil, while
+she leaned against the wall for support.
+
+"Good heavens! Mrs. Sewell!" and he sprang forward and led her to a
+seat. "I never thought to see you here," said he, merely uttering words
+at random in his astonishment.
+
+"When did you come?" asked she, faintly.
+
+"About an hour ago."
+
+"True? Is this true?"
+
+"On my honor. Why do you ask? Why should you doubt it?"
+
+"Simply to know how long you could have been here without coming to me."
+These words were uttered in a voice slightly tremulous, and full of a
+tender significance. Trafford's cheeks grew scarlet, and for a moment he
+seemed unable to reply. At last he said, in a confused way: "I came by
+the mail-packet, and at once drove out here. I was anxious to see Sir
+Brook. And you?"
+
+"I came here also to see him."
+
+"He has been in some trouble lately," said Trafford, trying to lead the
+conversation into an indifferent channel. "By some absurd mistake they
+arrested him as a Celt."
+
+"How long do you remain here, Lionel?" asked she, totally unmindful of
+his speech.
+
+"My leave is for a month, but the journey takes off half of it."
+
+"Am I much changed, Lionel, since you saw me last? You can scarcely
+know. Come over and sit beside me."
+
+Trafford drew his chair close to hers. "Well," said she, pushing back
+her bonnet, and by the action letting her rich and glossy hair fall
+in great masses over her back, "you have not answered me? How am I
+looking?"
+
+"You were always beautiful, and fully as much so now as ever."
+
+"But I am thinner, Lionel. See my poor hands, how they are wasted. These
+are not the plump fingers you used to hold for hours in your own,--all
+that dreary time you were so ill;" and as she spoke, she laid her hand,
+as if unconsciously, over his.
+
+"You were so good to me," muttered he,--"so good and so kind."
+
+"And you have wellnigh forgotten it all," said she, sighing heavily.
+
+"Forgotten it! far from it. I never think of you but with gratitude."
+
+She drew her hand hastily away, and averted her head at the same time
+with a quick movement.
+
+"Were it not for your tender care and watchfulness, I know well I could
+never have recovered from that severe illness. I cannot forget, I do
+not want to forget, the thousand little ways in which you assuaged my
+suffering, nor the still more touching kindness with which you bore my
+impatience. I often live it all over again, believe me, Mrs. Sewell."
+
+"You used to call me Lucy," said she, in a faint whisper.
+
+"Did I--did I dare?"
+
+"Yes, you dared. You dared even more than that, Lionel. You dared to
+speak to me, to write to me, as only he can write or speak who offers
+a woman his whole heart. I know the manly code on these matters is that
+when a married woman listens even once to such addresses, she admits
+the plea on which her love is sought; but I believed--yes, Lionel,
+I believed--that yours was a different nature. I knew--my heart told
+me--that you pitied me."
+
+"That I did," said he, with a quivering lip.
+
+"You pitied me because you saw the whole sad story of my life. You saw
+the cruel outrages, the insults I was exposed to! Poor Lionel'!" and she
+caught his hand as she spoke, "how severely did it often try your temper
+to endure what you witnessed!"
+
+Trafford bit his lip in silence, and she went on more eagerly: "I needed
+not defenders. I could have had scores of them. There was not a man who
+came to the house would not have been proud to be my champion. You know
+if this be a boast. You know how I was surrounded. For the very least of
+those caresess I bestowed upon you on your sick-bed, there was not one
+who would not have risked his life. Is this true?"
+
+"I believe it," muttered he.
+
+"And why did I bear all this," cried she, wildly,--"why did I endure,
+not alone and in the secrecy of my own home, but before the world,--in
+the crowd of a drawing-room,--outrage that wounds a woman's pride worse
+than a brought-home crime? Why did I live under it all? Just for this,
+that the one man who should have avenged me was sick, if not dying; and
+that if _he_ could not defend me, I would have no other. You said you
+pitied me," said she, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Do you
+pity me still?"
+
+"With all my heart I pity you."
+
+"I knew it,--I was sure of it!" said she, with a voice vibrating with a
+sort of triumph. "I always said you would come back,--that you had
+not, could not, forget me,--that you would no more desert me than a man
+deserts the comrade that has been shipwrecked with him. You see that I
+did not wrong you, Lionel."
+
+Trafford covered his face with both his hands, but never uttered a word,
+while she went on: "Your friends, indeed, if that be the name for them,
+insisted that I was mistaken in you! How often have I had to hear such
+speeches as 'Trafford always looks to himself.' 'Trafford will never
+entangle himself deeply for any one;' and then they would recount some
+little story of a heartless desertion here, or some betrayal there, as
+though your life--your whole life--was made up of these treacheries; and
+I had to listen to these as to the idle gossip one hears in the world
+and takes no account of! Would you believe it, Lionel, it was only last
+week I was making a morning call at my mother-in-law's, and I heard that
+you were coming home to England to be married! Perhaps I was ill that
+day--I had enough to have made me ill--perhaps more wretched than
+usual--perhaps, who knows, the startling suddenness of the news--I
+cannot say how, but so overcome was I by indignation that I cried out,
+'It is untrue,--every syllable of it untrue.' I meant to have stopped
+there, but somehow I went on to say--Heaven knows what--that I would
+not sit by and hear you slandered--that you were a man of unblemished
+honor--in a word, Lionel, I silenced your detractors; but in doing so,
+I sacrificed myself; and as one by one each visitor rose to
+withdraw,--they were all women,--they made me some little apology for
+whatever pain they had given me, and in such a tone of mock sorrow
+and real sarcasm that as the last left the room, I fell into a fit of
+hysterics that lasted for hours. 'Oh, Lucy, what have you done!' were
+the first words I heard, and it was _his_ mother who spoke them. Ay,
+Lionel, they were bitter words to hear! Not but that she pitied me. Yes,
+women have pity on each other in such miseries. She was very kind to me,
+and came back with me to the Priory, and stayed all the evening with me,
+and we talked of _you!_ Yes, Lionel, she forgave me. She said she had
+long foreseen what it must come to--that no woman had ever borne what I
+had--that over and over again she had warned him, conjuring him, if not
+for his own sake, for the children's--Oh, Lionel, I cannot go on!" burst
+she out, sobbing bitterly, as she fell at his feet, and rested her head
+on his knees. He carried her tenderly in his arms and placed her on a
+sofa, and she lay there to all seeming insensible and unconscious. He
+was bending anxiously over her as she lifted her eyelids and gazed at
+him,--a long steadfast look it was, as though it would read his very
+heart within him. "Well," asked she,--"well?"
+
+"Are you better?" asked he, in a kind voice.
+
+"When you have answered _my_ question, I will answer yours," said she,
+in a tone almost stern.
+
+"You have not asked me anything, Lucy," said he, tremulously.
+
+"And do you want me to say I doubt you?" cried she, with almost
+a scream. "Do you want me to humble myself to ask, Am I to be
+forsaken?--in plain words, Is there one word of truth in this story of
+the marriage? Why don't you answer me? Speak out, sir, and deny it, as
+you would deny the charge that called you a swindler or a coward. What!
+are you silent? Is it the fear of what is to come after that appalls
+you? But I absolve you from the charge, Trafford. You shall not be
+burdened by me. My mother-in-law will take me. She has offered me a
+home, and I have accepted it. There, now, you are released of that
+terror. Say that this tale of the marriage is a lie,--a foul lie,--a lie
+invented to outrage and insult me; say that, Lionel--just bow your
+head, my own--What! It is not a lie, then?" said she, in a low, distinct
+voice,--"and it is I that have been deceived, and you are--all that they
+called you."
+
+"Listen to me, Lucy."
+
+"How dare you, sir?--by what right do you presume to call me Lucy? Are
+you such a coward as to take this freedom because my husband is not here
+to resent it? Do not touch me, sir. That old man, in whose house I am,
+would strike you to the ground if you insulted me. It was to see him I
+came here,--to see him, and not you. I came here with a message from
+my husband to Sir Brook Fossbrooke--and not to listen to the insulting
+addresses of Major Trafford. Let me go, sir; and at your peril touch me
+with a finger. Look at yourself in that glass yonder,--look at yourself,
+and you will see why I despise you." And with this she arose and passed
+out, while with a warning gesture of her hand she motioned that he
+should not follow her.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. TO REPORT
+
+It was long after midnight when Mrs. Sewell reached the Priory. She
+dismissed her cab at the gate lodge, and was slowly walking up the
+avenue when Sewell met her.
+
+"I was beginning to think you did n't mean to come back at all," cried
+he, in a voice of mingled taunt and irritation,--"it is close on one
+o'clock."
+
+"He had dined in town, and I had to wait till he returned," said she, in
+a low, faint tone.
+
+"You saw him, however?"
+
+"Yes, we met at the station."
+
+"Well, what success?"
+
+"He gave me some money,--he promised me more."
+
+"How much has he given you?" cried he, eagerly.
+
+"Two hundred, I think; at least I thought he said there was two
+hundred,--he gave me his pocket-book. Let me reach the house, and have a
+glass of water before you question me more. I am tired,--very tired."
+
+"You seem weak, too; have you eaten nothing?"
+
+"No, nothing."
+
+"There is some supper on the table. We have had guests here. Old
+Lendrick and his daughter came up with Beattie. They are not above half
+an hour gone. They thought to see the old man, but Beattie found him so
+excited and irritable he advised them to defer the visit."
+
+"Did you see them?"
+
+"Yes; I passed the evening with them most amicably. The girl is
+wonderfully good-looking; and she has got rid of that shy, half-furtive
+way she had formerly, and looks at one steadfastly, and with such a pair
+of eyes too! I had no notion she was so beautiful."
+
+"Were they cordial in manner,--friendly?"
+
+"I suppose they were. Dr. Lendrick was embarrassed and timid, and with
+that fidgety uneasiness as if he wanted to be anywhere else than where
+he was; but she was affable enough,--asked affectionately about you and
+the children, and hoped to see you to-morrow."
+
+She made no reply, but, hastening her steps, walked on till she entered
+the house, when, passing into a small room off the hall, she threw off
+her bonnet, and, with a deep-drawn sigh, said, "I am dead tired; get me
+some water."
+
+"You had better have wine."
+
+"No, water. I am feverish. My head is throbbing painfully."
+
+"You want food and support. Come into the dining-room and eat something.
+I 'll keep you company, too, for I could n't eat while those people
+were here. I felt, all the time, that they had come to turn us out; and,
+indeed, Beat-tie, with a delicate tact quite his own, half avowed it, as
+he said, 'It is a pity there is not light enough for you to see your
+old flower-garden, Lucy, for I know you are impatient to be back in it
+again.'"
+
+"I 'll try and eat something," said Mrs. Sewell, rising, and with weary
+steps moving into the dining-room.
+
+Sewell placed a chair for her at the table, helped her, and filled her
+glass, and, telling the servant that he need not wait, sat down opposite
+her. "From what Beattie said I gather," said he, "that the Chief is
+out of danger, the crisis of the attack is over, and he has only to be
+cautious to come through. Is n't it like our luck?"
+
+"Hush!--take care."
+
+"No fear. They can't hear even when they try; these double doors puzzle
+them. You are not eating."
+
+"I cannot eat; give me another glass of wine."
+
+"Yes, that will do you good; it's the old thirty-four. I took it out in
+honor of Lendrick, but he is a water-drinker. I 'm sure I wish Beattie
+were. I grudged the rascal every glass of that glorious claret which he
+threw down with such gusto, telling me the while that it was infinitely
+finer than when he last tasted it."
+
+"I feel better now, but I want rest and sleep. You can wait for all I
+have to tell you till to-morrow,--can't you?"
+
+"If I must, there 's no help for it; but considering that my whole
+future in a measure hangs upon it, I 'd rather hear it now."
+
+"I am well nigh worn out," said she, plaintively; and she held out her
+glass to be filled once more; "but I 'll try and tell you."
+
+Supporting her head on both her hands, and with her eyes half closed,
+she went on in a low monotonous tone, like that of one reading from
+a book: "We met at the station, and had but a few minutes to confer
+together. I told him I had been at his house; that I came to see him,
+and ask his assistance; that you had got into trouble, and would have to
+leave the country, and were without means to go. He seemed, I thought,
+to be aware of all this, and asked me, 'Was it only now that I had
+learned or knew of this necessity?' He also asked if it were at your
+instance, and by your wish, that I had come to him? I said, Yes; you had
+sent me." Sewell started as if something sharp had pierced him, and she
+went on: "There was nothing for it but the truth; and, besides, I know
+him well, and if he had once detected me in an attempt to deceive him,
+he would not have forgiven it. He then said, 'It is not to the wife I
+will speak harshly of the husband, but what assurance have I that he
+will go out of the country?' I said, 'You had no choice between that and
+jail. 'He nodded assent, and muttered, 'A jail--and worse; and _you_,'
+said he, 'what is to become of you?' I told him 'I did not know; that
+perhaps Lady Lendrick would take me and the children.'"
+
+"He did not offer you a home with himself?" said Sewell, with a
+diabolical grin.
+
+"No," said she, calmly; "but he objected to our being separated. He said
+that it was to sacrifice our children, and we had no right to do this;
+and that, come what might, we ought to live together. He spoke much on
+this, and asked me more than once if our hard-bought experiences had not
+taught us to be more patient, more forgiving towards each other."
+
+"I hope you told him that I was a miracle of tolerance, and that I bore
+with a saintly submission what more irritable mortals were wont to go
+half mad about,--did you tell him this?"
+
+"Yes; I said you had a very practical way of dealing with life, and
+never resented an unprofitable insult."
+
+"How safe a man's honor always is in a good wife's keeping!" said
+he, with a savage laugh. "I hope your candor encouraged him to more
+frankness; he must have felt at ease after that?"
+
+"Still he persisted in saying there must be no separation."
+
+"That was hard upon you; did you not tell him that was hard upon _you?_"
+
+"No; I avoided mixing myself up in the discussion. I had come to treat
+for you, and you alone."
+
+"But you might have said that he had no right to impose upon you a life
+of--what shall I call it?--incompatibility or cruelty."
+
+"I did not; I told him I would repeat to you whatever he told me as
+nearly as I could. He then said: 'Go abroad and live together in some
+cheap place, where you can find means to educate the children. I,' said
+he, 'will take the cost of that, and allow you five hundred a year for
+your own expenses. If I am satisfied with your husband's conduct, and
+well assured of his reformation, I will increase this allowance. '"
+
+"He said nothing about you nor _your_ reformation,--did he?"
+
+"Not a word."
+
+"How much will he make it if we separate?"
+
+"He did not say. Indeed, he seemed to make our living together the
+condition of aiding us."
+
+"And if he knew of anything harder or harsher he 'd have added it. Why,
+he has gone about the world these dozen years back telling every one
+what a brute and blackguard you had for a husband; that, short of
+murder, I had gone through every crime towards you. Where was it I beat
+you with a hunting-whip?"
+
+"At Rangoon," said she, calmly.
+
+"And where did I turn you into the streets at midnight?"
+
+"At Winchester."
+
+"Exactly; these were the very lies--the infernal lies--he has been
+circulating for years; and now he says, 'If you have not yet found
+out how suited you are to each other, how admirably your tastes and
+dispositions agree, it's quite time you should do so. Go back and live
+together, and if one of you does not poison the other, I 'll give you a
+small annuity.'"
+
+"Five hundred a year is very liberal," said she, coldly.
+
+"I could manage on it for myself alone, but it 's meant to support a
+family. It 's beggary, neither more nor less."
+
+"We have no claim upon him."
+
+"No claim! What! no claim on your godfather, your guardian, not to say
+the impassioned and devoted admirer who followed you over India just
+to look at you, and spent a little fortune in getting portraits of you!
+Why, the man must be a downright impostor if he does not put half his
+fortune at your feet!"
+
+"I ought to tell you that he annexed certain conditions to any help
+he tendered us. 'They were matters,' he said, 'could best be treated
+between you and himself; that I did not, nor need not, know any of
+them.'"
+
+"I know what he alluded to."
+
+"Last of all, he said you must give him your answer promptly, for he
+would not be long in this country."
+
+"As to that, time is fully as pressing to me as to him. The only
+question is, Can we make no better terms with him?"
+
+"You mean more money?".
+
+"Of course I mean more money. Could you make him say one thousand, or at
+least eight hundred, instead of five?"
+
+"It would not be a pleasant mission," said she, with a bitter smile.
+
+"I suppose not; a ruined man's wife need not look for many 'pleasant
+missions,' as you call them. This same one of to-day was not
+over-gratifying."
+
+"Less even than you are aware," said she, slowly.
+
+"Oh, I can very well imagine the tone and manner of the old fellow;
+how much of rebuke and severity he could throw into his voice; and how
+minutely and painstakingly he would dwell upon all that could humiliate
+you."
+
+"No; you are quite wrong. There was not a word of reproach, not a
+syllable of blame; his manner was full of gentle and pitying kindness,
+and when he tried to comfort and cheer me, it was like the affection of
+a father."
+
+"Where, then, was this great trial and suffering of which you have just
+said I could take no full measure?"
+
+"I was thinking of what occurred before I met Sir Brook," said she,
+looking up, and with her eyes now widely opened, and a nostril distended
+as she spoke. "I was thinking of an incident of the morning. I have
+told you that when I reached the cottage where Sir Brook lived, I found
+that he was absent, and would not return till a late hour. Tired with my
+long walk from the station, I wished to sit down and rest before I had
+determined what to do, whether to await his arrival or go back to town.
+I saw the door open, I entered the little sitting-room, and found myself
+face to face with Major Trafford."
+
+"Lionel Trafford?"
+
+"Yes; he had come by that morning's packet from England, and gone
+straight out to see his friend."
+
+"He was alone, was he?"
+
+"Alone! there was no one in the house but ourselves."
+
+Sewell shrugged his shoulders, and said, "Go on."
+
+The insult of his gesture sent the blood to her face and forehead, and
+for an instant she seemed too much overcome by anger to speak.
+
+"Am I to tell you what this man said to me? Is _that_ what you mean?"
+said she, in a voice that almost hissed with passion.
+
+"Better not, perhaps," replied he, calmly, "if the very recollection
+overcame you so completely."
+
+"That is to say, it is better I should bear the insult how I may than
+reveal it to one who will not resent it."
+
+"When you say resent, do you intend I should call him out?--fight him?"
+
+"If I were the husband instead of the wife, it is what I should
+do,--ay," cried she, wildly, "and thank Fortune that gave me the
+chance."
+
+"I don't think I'm going to show any such gratitude," said he, with a
+cold grin. "If he made love to you, I take it he fancied you had given
+him some encouragement When you showed him that he was mistaken, he
+met his punishment. A woman always knows how to make a man look like a
+confounded fool at such a moment."
+
+"And is that enough?"
+
+"Is _what_ enough?"
+
+"I ask, is it enough to make him look like a confounded fool? Will
+_that_ soothe a wife's insulted pride, or avenge a husband's injured
+honor?"
+
+"I don't know much of the wife's part; but as to the husband's share
+in the matter, if I had to fight every fellow who made up to you, my
+wedding garment ought to have been a suit of chain-armor."
+
+"A husband need not fight for his wife's flirtations; be-. sides, he can
+make her give these up if he likes. There are insults, however, that a
+man"--; and she said the word with a fierce emphasis--"resents with the
+same instinct that makes him defend his life."
+
+"I know well enough what he 'd say; he 'd say that there was nothing
+serious in it, that he was merely indulging in that sort of larking
+talk one offers to a pretty woman who does not seem to dislike it. The
+chances are he 'd turn the tables a bit, and say that you rather led him
+on than repressed him."
+
+"And would these pleas diminish your desire to have his heart's blood?"
+cried she, wild with passion and indignation together.
+
+"Having his heart's blood is very fine, if I was sure--quite sure--he
+might not have mine. The fellow is a splendid shot."
+
+"I thought so. I could have sworn it," cried she, with a taunting laugh.
+
+"I admit no man my superior with a pistol," said Sewell, stung far more
+by her laughter than her words; "but what have I to gain if I shoot him?
+His family would prosecute me to a certainty; and it went devilish close
+with that last fellow who was tried at Newgate."
+
+"If you care so little for my honor, sir, I 'll show you how cheaply I
+can regard yours. I will go back to Sir Brook to-morrow, and return
+him his money. I will tell him, besides, that I am married to one
+so hopelessly lost to every sentiment and feeling, not merely of the
+gentleman, but of the man, that it is needless to try to help him; and
+that I will accept nothing for him,--not a shilling; that he may deal
+with you on those other matters he spoke of as he pleases; that it will
+be no favor shown me when he spares you. There, sir, I leave you now to
+compute whether a little courage would not have served you better than
+all your cunning."
+
+"You do not leave this room till you give me that pocket-book," said he,
+rising, and placing his back to the door.
+
+"I foresaw this, sir," said she, laughing quietly, "and took care to
+deposit the money in a safe place before I came here. You are welcome to
+every farthing I have about me."
+
+"Your scheme is too glaring, too palpable by half. There is a vulgar
+shamelessness in the way you 'make your book,' standing to win whichever
+of us should kill the other. I read it at a glance," said he, as
+he threw himself into a chair; "but I 'll not help to make you an
+interesting widow. Are you going? Good-night."
+
+She moved towards the door? and just as she reached it he arose and
+said, "On what pretext could I ask this man to meet me? What do I charge
+him with? How could I word my note to him?"
+
+"Let _me_ write it," said she, with a bitter laugh. "You will only have
+to copy it."
+
+"And if I consent will you do all the rest? Will you go to
+Fossbrooke and ask him for the increased allowance?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"Will you do your best--your very best--to obtain it? Will you use all
+the power and influence you have over him to dissuade him from any act
+that might injure _me?_ Will you get his pledge that he will not molest
+me in any way?"
+
+"I will promise to do all that I can with him." "And when must this come
+off,--this meeting, I mean?"
+
+"At once, of course. You ought to leave this by the early packet for
+Bangor. Harding or Vaughan--any one--will go with you. Trafford can
+follow you by the midday mail, as your note will have reached him
+early."
+
+"You seem to have a capital head for these sort of things; you arrange
+all to perfection," said he, with a sneer.
+
+"I had need of it, as I have to think for two;" and the sarcasm stung
+him to the quick. "I will go to your room and write the note. I shall
+find paper and ink there?"
+
+"Yes; everything. I'll carry these candles for you;" and he arose and
+preceded her to his study. "I wish he would not mix old Fossbrooke in
+the affair. I hope he'll not name him as his friend."
+
+"I have already thought of that," said she, as she sat down at the
+table and began to write. After a few seconds she said, "This will do, I
+think:--
+
+"'Sir,--I have just learned from my wife how grossly insulting was your
+conduct towards her yesterday, on the occasion of her calling at Sir
+Brook Fossbrooke's house. The shame and distress in which she returned
+here would fully warrant any chastisement I might inflict upon you; but
+for the sake of the cloth you wear, I offer you the alternative which I
+would extend to a man of honor, and desire you will meet me at once with
+a friend. I shall leave by the morning packet for Holyhead, and be found
+at the chief hotel, Bangor, where, waiting your pleasure, I am your
+obedient servant.
+
+"'I hope it is needless to say that my wife's former guardian, Sir B.
+F., should not be chosen to act for you on this occasion.'"
+
+"I don't think I'd say that about personal chastisement. People don't
+horsewhip nowadays."
+
+"So much the worse. I would leave it there, however. It will insult him
+like a blow."
+
+"Oh, he's ready enough,--he'll not need poking to rouse his pluck. I'll
+say that for him."
+
+"And yet I half suspect he 'll write some blundering sort of apology;
+some attempt to show that I was mistaken. I know--I know it as well as
+if I saw it--he 'll not fire at you."
+
+"What makes you think that?" "He could n't. It would be impossible for
+him." "I 'm not so sure of that. There's something very provocative in
+the sight of a pistol muzzle staring at one a few paces off. _I'd_ fire
+at my father if I saw him going to shoot at me."
+
+"I think _you_ would," said she, dryly. "Sit down and copy that note. We
+must send it by a messenger at once."
+
+"I don't think you put it strongly enough about old Foss-brooke. I 'd
+have said distinctly,--I object to his acting on account of his close
+and intimate connection with my wife's family."
+
+"No, no; leave it all as it stands. If we begin to change, we shall
+never have an end of the alterations."
+
+"If I believed he would not fire at me, I'd not shoot him," said Sewell,
+biting the end of his pen.
+
+"He 'll not fire the first time; but if you go on to a second shot, I'm
+certain he will aim at you."
+
+"I'll try and not give him this chance, then," said he, laughing.
+"Remember," added he, "I'm promising to cross the Channel, and I have
+not a pound in my pocket."
+
+"Write that, and I 'll go fetch you the money," said she, leaving the
+room; and, passing out through the hall and the front door, she put her
+arm and hand into a large marble vase, several of which stood on the
+terrace, and drew forth the pocket-book which Sir Brook had given her,
+and which she had secretly deposited there as she entered the house.
+
+"There, that's done," said he, handing her his note as she came in.
+
+"Put it in an envelope and address it. And now, where are you to find
+Harding, or whoever you mean to take with you?"
+
+"That's easy enough; they 'll be at supper at the Club by this time.
+I'll go in at once. But the money?"
+
+"Here it is. I have not counted it; he gave me the pocket-book as you
+see."
+
+"There's more than he said. There are two hundred and eighty-five
+pounds. He must be in funds."
+
+"Don't lose time. It is very late already,--nigh two o'clock; these men
+will have left the Club, possibly?"
+
+"No, no; they play on till daybreak. I suppose I'd better put my traps
+in a portmanteau at once, and not require to come back here."
+
+"I 'll do all that for you."
+
+"How amiable a wife can be at the mere prospect of getting rid of her
+husband!"
+
+"You will send me a telegram?"
+
+"Very likely. Good-bye. Adieu."
+
+"_Adieu et bonne chance_," said she, gayly.
+
+"That means a good aim, I suppose," said he, laughing.
+
+She nodded pleasantly, kissed her hand to him, and he was gone.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. A MOMENT OF CONFIDENCE
+
+Mrs. Sewell's maid made two ineffectual efforts to awaken her mistress
+on the following morning, for agitation had drugged her like a narcotic,
+and she slept the dull, heavy sleep of one overpowered by opium. "Why,
+Jane, it is nigh twelve o'clock," said she, looking at her watch. "Why
+did you let me sleep so late?"
+
+"Indeed, ma'am, I did my best to rouse you. I opened the shutters, and I
+splashed the water into your bath, and made noise enough, I 'm sure, but
+you did n't mind it all; and I brought up the doctor to see if there was
+anything the matter with you, and he felt your pulse, and put his hand
+on your heart, and said, No, it was just overfatigue; that you had been
+sitting up too much of late, and hadn't strength for it."
+
+"Where 's Colonel Sewell?" asked she, hurriedly.
+
+"He's gone off to the country, ma'am; leastways, he went away early this
+morning, and George thinks it was to Killaloe."
+
+"Is Dr. Beattie here?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; they all breakfasted with the children at nine o'clock."
+
+"Whom do you mean by all?"
+
+"Mr. Lendrick, ma'am, and Miss Lucy. I hear as how they are coming back
+to live here. They were up all the morning in his Lordship's room, and
+there was much laughing, as if it was a wedding."
+
+"Whose wedding? What were you saying about a wedding?"
+
+"Nothing, ma'am; only that they were as merry,--that's all."
+
+"Sir William must be better, then?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am,--quite out of danger; and he 's to have a partridge for
+dinner, and the doctor says he 'll be downstairs and all right before
+this day week; and I 'm sure it will be a real pleasure to see him
+lookin' like himself again, for he told Mr. Cheetor to take them wigs
+away, and all the pomatum-pots, and that he 'd have the shower-bath that
+he always took long ago. It's a fine day for Mr. Cheetor, for he has
+given him I don't know how many colored scarfs, and at least a dozen
+new waistcoats, all good as the day they were made; and he says he won't
+wear anything but black, like long ago; and, indeed, some say that old
+Rives, the butler as was, will be taken back, and the house be the way
+it used to be formerly. I wonder, ma'am, if the Colonel will let it
+be,--they say below stairs that he won't."
+
+"I'm sure Colonel Sewell cares very little on the subject. Do you know
+if they are going to dine here to-day?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, they are. Miss Lucy said the butler was to take your orders
+as to what hour you 'd like dinner."
+
+"Considerate, certainly," said she, with a faint smile.
+
+"And I heard Mr. Lendrick say, 'I think you 'd better go up yourself,
+Lucy, and see Mrs. Sewell, and ask if we inconvenience her in any way;'
+but the doctor said, 'You need not; she will be charmed to meet you.'"
+
+"He knows me perfectly, Jane," said she, calmly. "Is Miss Lucy so very
+handsome? Colonel Sewell called her beautiful."
+
+"Indeed, I don't think so, ma'am. Mr. Cheetor and me thought she was too
+robusteous for a young lady; and she's freckled, too, quite dreadful.
+The picture of her below in the study's a deal more pretty; but perhaps
+she was delicate in health when it was done."
+
+"That would make a great difference, Jane."
+
+"Yes, ma'am, it always do; every one is much genteeler-looking when they
+'re poorly. Not but old Mr. Haire said she was far more beautiful than
+ever."
+
+"And is he here too?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am. It was he that pushed Miss Lucy down into the arm-chair,
+and said, 'Take your old place there, darling, and pour out the tea, and
+we'll forget that you were ever away at all.'"
+
+"How pretty and how playful! The poor children must have felt themselves
+quite old in such juvenile company."
+
+"They was very happy, ma'am. Miss Cary sat in Miss Lucy's lap all the
+time, and seemed to like her greatly."
+
+"There's nothing worse for children than taking them out of their daily
+habits. I 'm astonished Mrs. Groves should let them go and breakfast
+below-stairs without orders from me."
+
+"It's what Miss Lucy said, ma'am. 'Are we quite sure Mrs. Sewell would
+like it?'"
+
+"She need never have asked the question; or if she did, she might have
+waited for the answer. Mrs. Sewell could have told her that she totally
+disapproved of any one interfering with the habits of her children."
+
+"And then old Mr. Haire said, 'Even if she should not like it, when she
+knows all the pleasure it has given us, she will forgive it.'"
+
+"What a charming disposition I must have, Jane, without my knowing it!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am," said the girl, with a pursed-up mouth, as though she would
+not trust herself to expatiate on the theme.
+
+"Did Colonel Sewell take Capper with him?"
+
+"No, ma'am; Mr. Capper is below. The Colonel gave him a week's leave,
+and he's going a-fishing with some other gentlemen down into Wicklow."
+
+"I suspect, Jane, that you people below-stairs have the pleasantest life
+of all. You have little to trouble you. When you take a holiday, you can
+enjoy it with all your hearts."
+
+"The gentlemen does, I believe, ma'am; but we don't. We can't go
+a-pleasuring like them; and if it a'n't a picnic, or a thing of the kind
+that's arranged for us, we have nothing for it but a walk to church and
+back, or a visit to one of our friends."
+
+"So that you know what it is to be bored!" said she, sighing
+drearily,--"I mean to be very tired of life, and sick of everything and
+everybody."
+
+"Not quite so bad as that, ma'am; put out, ma'am, and provoked at
+times,--not in despair, like."
+
+"I wish I was a housemaid."
+
+"A housemaid, ma'am!" cried the girl, in almost horror.
+
+"Well, a lady's-maid. I mean, I'd like a life where my heaviest sorrow
+would be a refused leave to go out, or a sharp word or two for an
+ill-ironed collar. See who is that at the door; there's some one tapping
+there the last two minutes."
+
+"It's Miss Lucy, ma'am; she wants to know if she may come in?"
+
+Mrs. Sewell looked in the glass before which she was sitting, and as
+speedily passed her hands across her brow, and by the action seeming to
+chase away the stern expression of her eyes; then, rising up with a face
+all smiles, she rushed to the door and clasped Lucy in her arms, kissing
+her again and again, as she said, "I never dreamed of such happiness as
+this; but why didn't you come and awaken me? Why did you rob me of one
+precious moment of your presence?"
+
+"I knew how tired and worn-out you were. Grandpapa has told me of all
+your unwearying kindness."
+
+"Come over to the light, child, and let me see you well. I 'm wildly
+jealous of you, I must own, but I 'll try to be fair and judge you
+honestly. My husband says you are the loveliest creature he ever saw;
+and I declare I 'm afraid he spoke truly. What have you done with your
+eyes? they are far darker than they used to be; and this hair,--you need
+not tell me it's all your own, child. Gold could not buy it. Yes, Jane,
+you are right, she _is_ perfectly beautiful."
+
+"Oh, do not turn my head with vanity," said Lucy, blushing.
+
+"I wish I could,--I wish I could do anything to lessen any of your
+fascinations. Do you know it's very hard--very hard indeed--to forgive
+any one being so beautiful, and hardest of all for _me_ to do so?"
+
+"Why for you?" said Lucy, anxiously.
+
+"I'll tell you another time," said she, in a half-whisper, and with
+a significant glance at her maid, who, with the officiousness of her
+order, was taking far more than ordinary trouble to put things to
+rights. "There, Jane," said her mistress, at last, "all that opening and
+shutting of drawers is driving me distracted; leave everything as it is,
+and let us have quiet. Go and fetch me a cup of chocolate."
+
+"Nothing else, ma'am?"
+
+"Nothing; and ask if there are any letters for me. It's a dreadful
+house, Lucy, for sending one's letters astray. The Chief used to have
+scores of little scented notes sent up to him that were meant for me,
+and I used to get masses of formal-looking documents that should have
+gone to him; but everything is irregular here. There was no master, and,
+worse, no mistress; but I 'll hope, as they tell me here, that there
+will soon be one."
+
+"I don't know,--I have not heard."
+
+"What a diplomatic damsel it is! Why, child, can't you be frank, and say
+if you are coming back to live here?"
+
+"I never suspected that I was in question at all; if I had, I 'd have
+told you, as I tell you now, there is not the most remote probability
+of such an event. We are going back to live at the Nest. Sir Brook has
+bought it, and made it over to papa or myself,--I don't know which, but
+it means the same in the sense I care for, that we are to be together
+again."
+
+"How delightful! I declare, child, my envy of you goes on increasing
+every minute. I never was able to captivate any man, old or young, who
+would buy a beautiful house and give it to me. Of all the fortunate
+creatures I ever heard or read of, you are the luckiest."
+
+"Perhaps I am. Indeed I own as much to myself when I bethink me how
+little I have contributed to my own good fortune."
+
+"And I," said she, with a heavy sigh, "about the most unlucky! I suppose
+I started in life with almost as fair a promise as your own. Not so
+handsome, I admit. I had neither these long lashes nor that wonderful
+hair, that gives you a look of one of those Venetian beauties Giorgione
+used to paint; still less that lovely mouth, which I envy you more
+even than your eyes or your skin; but I was good-looking enough to be
+admired, and I was admired, and some of my admirers were very great folk
+indeed; but I rejected them all and married Sewell! I need not tell
+you what came of that. Poor papa foresaw it all. I believe it helped to
+break his heart; it might have broken mine too, if I happened to have
+one. There, don't look horrified, darling. I was n't born without one;
+but what with vanity and distrust, a reckless ambition to make a figure
+in the world, and a few other like good qualities, I made of the heart
+that ought to have been the home of anything that was worthy in my
+nature, a scene of plot and intrigue, till at last I imagine it wore
+itself out, just as people do who have to follow uncongenial labor. It
+was like a lady set down to pick oakum! Why don't you laugh, dear, at my
+absurd simile?"
+
+"Because you frighten me," said Lucy, almost shuddering.
+
+"I 'm certain," resumed the other, "I was very like yourself when I
+was married. I had been very carefully brought up,--had excellent
+governesses, and was trained in all the admirable discipline of a
+well-ordered family. All I knew of life was the good side. I saw people
+at church on Sundays, and fancied that they wore the same tranquil and
+virtuous faces throughout the week. Above all things I was trustful and
+confiding. Colonel Sewell soon uprooted such delusions. He believed in
+nothing nor in any one. If he had any theory at all of life, it was that
+the world consisted of wolves and lambs, and that one must make an early
+choice which flock he would belong to. I 'm ashamed to own what a zest
+it gave to existence to feel that the whole thing was a great game in
+which, by the exercise of skill and cleverness, one might be almost sure
+to win. He soon made me as impassioned a gambler as himself, as ready to
+risk anything--everything--on the issue. But I have made you quite ill,
+child, with this dark revelation; you are pale as death."
+
+"No, I am only frightened,--frightened and grieved."
+
+"Don't grieve for me," said the other, haughtily. "There is nothing I
+could n't more easily forgive than pity. But let me turn from my odious
+self and talk of you. I want you to tell me everything about your own
+fortune, where you have been all this time, what seeing and doing, and
+what is the vista in front of you?"
+
+Lucy gave a full account of Cagliari and their life there, narrating
+how blank their first hopes had been, and what a glorious fortune had
+crowned them at last. "I 'm afraid to say what the mine returns at
+present; and they say it is a mere nothing to what it may yield when
+improved means of working are employed, new shafts sunk, and steam power
+engaged."
+
+"Don't get technical, darling; I'll take your word for Sir Brook's
+wealth; only tell me what he means to do with it. You know he gambled
+away one large fortune already, and squandered another, nobody knows
+how. Has he gained anything by these experiences to do better with the
+third?"
+
+"I have only heard of his acts of munificence or generosity," said Lucy,
+gravely.
+
+"What a reproachful face to put on, and for so little!" said the other,
+laughing. "You don't think that when I said he gambled I thought the
+worse of him."
+
+"Perhaps not; but you meant that _I_ should."
+
+"You are too sharp in your casuistry; but you have been living with only
+men latterly, and the strong-minded race always impart some of their
+hardness to the women who associate with them. You'll have to come down
+to silly creatures like me, Lucy, to regain your softness."
+
+"I shall be delighted if you let me keep your company."
+
+"We will be sisters, darling, if you will only be frank with me."
+
+"Prove me if you like; ask me anything you will, and see if I will not
+answer you freely."
+
+"Have you told me all your Cagliari life,--all?"
+
+"I think so; all at least that was worth telling."
+
+"You had a shipwreck on your island, we heard here; are such events so
+frequent that they make slight impression?"
+
+"I was but speaking of ourselves and our fortunes," said Lucy; "my
+narrative was all selfish." "Come,--I never beat about the bush,--tell
+me one thing,--it's a very abrupt way to ask, but perhaps it's the best
+way,--are you going to be married?"
+
+"I don't know," said she; and her face and neck became crimson in a
+moment.
+
+"You don't know! Do you mean that you 're like one of those young ladies
+in the foreign convents who are sent for to accept a husband whenever
+the papas and mammas have agreed upon the terms?"
+
+"Not that; but I mean that I am not sure whether grandpapa will give his
+consent, and without it papa will not either."
+
+"And why should not grandpapa say yes? Major Traf-ford,--we need n't
+talk riddles to each other,--Major Trafford has a good position, a good
+name, and will have a good estate; are not these the three gifts the
+mothers of England go in pursuit of?"
+
+"His family, I suspect, wish him to look higher; at all events, they
+don't like the idea of an Irish daughter-in-law."
+
+"More fools they! Irish women of the better class are more ready to
+respond to good treatment, and less given to resent bad usage, than any
+I ever met."
+
+"Then I have just heard since I came over that Lady Trafford has written
+to grandpapa in a tone of such condescension and gentle sorrow that
+it has driven him half crazy. Indeed, his continual inference from the
+letter is, 'What must the son of such a woman be!'"
+
+"That's most unfair!"
+
+"So they have all told him,--papa, and Beattie, and even Mr. Haire, who
+met Lionel one morning at Beattie's."
+
+"Perhaps I might be of service here; what a blush, child! dear me, you
+are crimson, far too deep for beauty. How I have fluttered the dear
+little bird! but I 'm not going to rob its nest, or steal its mate away.
+All I meant was, that I could exactly contribute that sort of worldly
+testimony to the goodness of the match that old people like and ask for.
+You must never talk to them about affections, nor so much as allude
+to tastes or tempers; never expatiate on anything that cannot be
+communicated by parchment, and attested by proper witnesses. Whatever is
+not subject to stamp-duty, they set down as mere moonshine."
+
+While she thus ran on, Lucy's thoughts never strayed from a certain
+letter which had once thrown a dark shadow over her, and even yet left a
+gloomy memory behind it. The rapidity with which Mrs. Sewell spoke, too,
+had less the air of one carried away by the strong current of feeling
+than of a speaker who was uttering everything, anything, to relieve her
+own overburdened mind.
+
+"You look very grave, Lucy," went she on. "I suspect I know what's
+passing in that little brain. You are doubting if I should be the
+fittest person to employ on the negotiation; come, now, confess it."
+
+"You have guessed aright," said Lucy, gravely.
+
+"But all that 's past and over, child. The whole is a mere memory now,
+if even so much. Men have a trick of thinking, once they have interested
+a woman on their behalf, that the sentiment survives all changes of time
+and circumstance, and that they can come back after years and claim the
+deposit; but it is a great mistake, as _he_ has found by this time. But
+don't let this make you unhappy, dear; there never was less cause for
+unhappiness. It is just of these sort of men the model husbands are
+made. The male heart is a very tough piece of anatomy, and requires a
+good deal of manipulation to make it tender, and, as you will learn
+one day, it is far better all this should be done before marriage than
+after.--Well, Jane, I did begin to think you had forgotten about the
+chocolate. It is about an hour since I asked for it."
+
+"Indeed, ma'am, it was Mr. Cheetor's fault; he was a shooting rabbits
+with another gentleman."
+
+"There, there, spare me Mr. Cheetor's diversions, and fetch me some
+sugar."
+
+"Mr. Lendrick and another gentleman, ma'am, is below, and wants to see
+Miss Lucy."
+
+"A young gentleman, Jane?" asked Mrs. Sewell, while her eyes flashed
+with a sudden fierce brilliancy.
+
+"No, ma'am, an old gentleman, with a white beard, very tall and stern to
+look at."
+
+"We don't care for descriptions of old gentlemen, Jane. Do we, Lucy?
+Must you go, darling?"
+
+"Yes; papa perhaps wants me."
+
+"Come back to me soon, pet. Now that we have no false barriers between
+us, we can talk in fullest confidence."
+
+Lucy hurried away, but no sooner had she reached the corridor than she
+burst into tears.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. THE TELEGRAM.
+
+When Lacy reached the drawing-room, she found her father and Sir Brook
+deep in conversation in one of the window-recesses, and actually unaware
+of her entrance till she stood beside them.
+
+"No," cried Lendrick, eagerly; "I can't follow these men in their
+knaveries. I don't see the drift of them, and I lose the clew to the
+whole machinery."
+
+"The drift is easy enough to understand," said Foss-brooke. "A man wants
+to escape from his embarrassments, and has little scruple as to the
+means."
+
+"But the certainty of being found out--"
+
+"There is no greater fallacy than that. Do you imagine that one-tenth of
+the cheats that men practise on the world are ever brought to light? Or
+do you fancy that all the rogues are in jail, and all the people who
+are abroad and free are honest men? Far from it. Many an inspector that
+comes to taste the prison soup and question the governor, ought to have
+more than an experimental course of the dietary; and many a juryman sits
+on the case of a creature far better and purer than himself. But here
+comes one will give our thoughts a pleasanter channel to run in. How
+well you look, Lucy! I am glad to see the sunny skies of Sardinia have
+n't blanched your cheeks."
+
+"Such a scheme as Sir Brook has discovered!--such an ignoble plot
+against my poor dear father!" said Lendrick. "Tell her--tell her the
+whole of it."
+
+In a very few words Sir Brook recounted the story of Sewell's interview
+with Balfour, and the incident of the stolen draft of the Judge's
+writing bartered for money.
+
+"It would have killed my father. The shock would have killed him," said
+Lendrick. "And it was this man,--this Sewell,--who possessed his entire
+confidence of late,--actually wielded complete influence over him. The
+whole time I sat with my father, he did nothing but quote him,--Sewell
+said so, Sewell told me, or Sewell suspected such a thing; and always
+with some little added comment on his keen sharp intellect, his clear
+views of life, and his consummate knowledge of men. It was by the
+picture Sewell drew of Lady Trafford that my father was led to derive
+his impression of her letter. Sewell taught him to detect a covert
+impertinence and a sneer where none was intended. I read the letter
+myself, and it was only objectionable on the score of its vanity.
+She thought herself a very great personage writing to another great
+personage."
+
+"Just so," said Fossbrooke. "It was right royal throughout. It might
+have begun '_Madame ma soeur_.' And as I knew something of the writer, I
+thought it a marvel of delicacy and discretion."
+
+"My father, unfortunately, deemed it a piece of intolerable pretension
+and offensive condescension, and he burned to be well enough to reply to
+it."
+
+"Which is exactly what we must not permit. If they once get to a regular
+interchange of letters, there is nothing they will not say to each
+other. No, no; my plan is the best of all. Lionel made a most favorable
+impression the only time Sir William saw him. Beattie shall bring him
+up here again as soon as the Chief can be about: the rest will follow
+naturally. Lucy agrees with me, I see."
+
+How Sir Brook knew this is not so easy to say, as Lucy had turned her
+head away persistently all the time he was speaking, and still continued
+in that attitude.
+
+"It cannot be to-night, however, and possibly not tomorrow night," said
+Fossbrooke, musing; and though Lucy turned quickly and eagerly towards
+him to explain his words, he was silent for some minutes, when at length
+he said, "Lionel started this morning by daybreak, and for England.
+It must have been a sudden thought. He left me a few lines, in pencil,
+which went thus,--'I take the early mail to Holyhead, but mean to be
+back to-morrow, or at farthest the day after. No time for more.'"
+
+"If the space were not brief that he assigns for his absence, I 'd say
+he had certainly gone to see his father," said Lendrick.
+
+"It's not at all unlikely that his mother may have arranged to meet him
+in Wales," said Sir Brook. "She is a fussy, meddlesome woman, who likes
+to be, or to think herself, the prime mover in everything. I remember
+when Hugh Trafford--a young fellow at that time--was offered a Junior
+Lordship of the Treasury, it was she who called on the Premier, Lord
+Dornington, to explain why he could not accept office. Nothing but
+great abilities or great vices enable a man to rise above the crushing
+qualities of such a wife. Trafford had neither, and the world has always
+voted him a nonentity."
+
+"There, Lucy," said Lendrick, laughing,--"there at least is one danger
+you must avoid in married life."
+
+"Lucy needs no teachings of mine," said Sir Brook. "Her own instincts
+are worth all my experiences twice told. But who is this coming up to
+the door?"
+
+"Oh, that is Mr. Haire, a dear friend of grandpapa's." And Lucy ran to
+meet him, returning soon after to the room, leaning on his arm.
+
+Lendrick and Haire were very old friends, and esteemed each other
+sincerely; and though on the one occasion on which Sir Brook and Haire
+had met, Fossbrooke had been the object of the Chief's violence and
+passion, his dignity and good temper had raised him highly in Haire's
+estimation, and made him glad to meet him again.
+
+"You are half surprised to see me under this roof, sir," said Sir Brook,
+referring to their former meeting; "but there are feelings with me
+stronger than resentments."
+
+"And when my poor father knows how much he is indebted to your generous
+kindness," broke in Lendrick, "he will be the first to ask your
+forgiveness."
+
+"That he will. Of all the men I ever met, he is the readiest to redress
+a wrong he has done," cried Haire, warmly. "If the world only knew
+him as I know him! But his whole life long he has been trying to make
+himself appear stern and cold-hearted and pitiless, with, all the while,
+a nature overflowing with kindness."
+
+"The man who has attached to himself such a friendship as yours," said
+Fossbrooke, warmly, "cannot but have good qualities."
+
+"_My friendship!_" said Haire, blushing deeply; "what a poor tribute to
+such a man as he is! Do you know, sir," and here he lowered his voice
+till it became a confidential whisper,--"do you know, sir, that since
+the great days of the country,--since the time of Burke, we have had
+nothing to compare with the Chief Baron. Plunkett used to wish he had
+his law, and Bushe envied his scholarship, and Lysaght often declared
+that a collection of Lendrick's epigrams and witty sayings would be the
+pleasantest reading of the day. And such is our public press, that it
+is for the quality in which he was least eminent they are readiest to
+praise him. You would n't believe it, sir. They call him a 'master of
+sarcastic eloquence.' Why, sir, there was a tenderness in him that would
+not have let him descend to sarcasm. He could rebuke, censure, condemn
+if you will; but his large heart had not room for a sneer."
+
+"You well deserve all the love he bears you," said Len-drick, grasping
+his hand and pressing it affectionately.
+
+"How could I deserve it? Such a man's friendship is above all the merits
+of one like me. Why, sir, it is honor and distinction before the world.
+I would not barter his regard for me to have a seat beside him on the
+Bench. By the way," added he, cautiously, "let him not see the papers
+this morning. They are at it again about his retirement. They say that
+Lord Wilmington had actually arranged the conditions, and that the Chief
+had consented to everything; and now they are beaten. You have heard, I
+suppose, the Ministry are out?"
+
+"No; were they Whigs?" asked Lendrick, innocently.
+
+Haire and Fossbrooke laughed heartily at the poor doctor's indifference
+to party, and tried to explain to him something of the struggle between
+rival factions, but his mind was full of home events, and had no place
+for more. "Tell Haire," said he at last,--"tell Haire the story of
+the letter of resignation; none so fit as he to break the tale to my
+father."
+
+Fossbrooke took from his pocket a piece of paper, and handed it to
+Haire, saying, "Do you know that handwriting?"
+
+"To be sure I do! It is the Chief's."
+
+"Does it seem a very formal document?"
+
+Haire scanned the back of it, and then scrutinized it all over for a few
+seconds. "Nothing of the kind. It's the sort of thing I have seen him
+write scores of times. He is always throwing off these sketches. I
+have seen him write the preamble to a fancied Act of Parliament,--a
+peroration to an imaginary speech; and as to farewells to the Bar,
+I think I have a dozen of them,--and one, and not the worst, is in
+doggerel."
+
+Though, wherever Haire's experiences were his guides, he could manage
+to comprehend a question fairly enough, yet where these failed him, or
+wherever the events introduced into the scene characters at all new
+or strange, he became puzzled at once, and actually lost himself while
+endeavoring to trace out motives for actions, not one of which had ever
+occurred to him to perform.
+
+Through this inability on his part, Sir Brook was not very successful in
+conveying to him the details of the stolen document; nor could Haire be
+brought to see that the Government officials were the dupes of Sewell's
+artifice as much as, or even more than, the Chief himself.
+
+"I think you must tell the story yourself, Sir Brook; I feel I shall
+make a sad mess of it if you leave it to me," said he, at last; "and I
+know, if I began to blunder, he 'd overwhelm me with questions how this
+was so, and why that had not been otherwise, till my mind would get into
+a helpless confusion, and he'd send me off in utter despair."
+
+"I have no objection whatever, if Sir William will receive me. Indeed,
+Lord Wilmington charged me to make the communication in person, if
+permitted to do so."
+
+"I 'll say that," said Haire, in a joyful tone, for already he saw a
+difficulty overcome. "I 'll say it was at his Excellency's desire
+you came;" and he hurried away to fulfil his mission. He came almost
+immediately in' radiant delight. "He is most eager to see you, Sir
+Brook; and, just as I said, impatient to make you every _amende_, and
+ask your forgiveness. He looks more like himself than I have seen him
+for many a day."
+
+While Sir Brook accompanied Haire to the Judge's room, Lendrick took
+his daughter's arm within his own, saying, "Now for a stroll through the
+wood, Lucy. It has been one of my day-dreams this whole year past."
+
+Leaving the father and daughter to commune together undisturbed, let us
+turn for a moment to Mrs. Sewell, who, with feverish anxiety, continued
+to watch from her window for the arrival of a telegraph messenger. It
+was already two o'clock. The mail-packet for Ireland would have reached
+Holyhead by ten, and there was therefore ample time to have heard what
+had occurred afterwards.
+
+From the servant who had carried Sewell's letter to Traf-ford, she had
+learned that Trafford had set out almost immediately after receiving
+it; the man heard the order given to the coachman to drive to Richmond
+Barracks. From this she gathered he had gone to obtain the assistance
+of a friend. Her first fear was that Trafford, whose courage was beyond
+question, would have refused the meeting, standing on the ground that no
+just cause of quarrel existed. This he would certainly have done had
+he consulted Fossbrooke, who would, besides, have seen the part her own
+desire for vengeance played in the whole affair. It was with this view
+that she made Sewell insert the request that Fossbrooke might not know
+of the intended meeting. Her mind, therefore, was at rest on two points.
+Trafford had not refused the challenge, nor had he spoken of it to
+Fossbrooke.
+
+But what had taken place since? that was the question. Had they met,
+and with what result? If she did not dare to frame a wish how the event
+might come off, she held fast by the thought that, happen what might,
+Trafford never could marry Lucy Lendrick after such a meeting. The
+mere exchange of shots would place a whole hemisphere between the two
+families, while the very nature of the accusation would be enough to
+arouse the jealousy and insult the pride of such a girl as Lucy. Come,
+therefore, what might, the marriage is at an end.
+
+If Sewell were to fall! She shuddered to think what the world would say
+of her! One judgment there would be no gainsaying. Her husband certainly
+believed her false, and with his life he paid for the conviction. But
+would she be better off if Trafford were the victim? That would depend
+on how Sewell behaved. She would be entirely at his mercy,--whether he
+determined to separate from her or not. _His_ mercy, seemed a sorry hope
+to cling to. Hopeless as this alternative looked, she never relented,
+even for an instant, as to what she had done; and the thought that Lucy
+should not be Trafford's wife repaid her for all and everything.
+
+While she thus waited in all the feverish torture of suspense, her mind
+travelled over innumerable contingencies of the case, in every one of
+which her own position was one of shame and sorrow; and she knew not
+whether she would deem it worse to be regarded as the repentant wife,
+taken back by a forgiving pitying husband, or the woman thrown off and
+deserted! "I suppose I must accept either of those lots, and my only
+consolation will be my vengeance."
+
+"How absurd!" broke she out, "are they who imagine that one only wants
+to be avenged on those who hate us! It is the wrongs done by people who
+are indifferent to us, and who in search of their own objects bestow no
+thought upon us,--these are the ills that cannot be forgiven. I never
+hated a human being--and there have been some who have earned my
+hate--as I hate this girl; and just as I feel the injustice of the
+sentiment, so does it eat deeper and deeper into my heart."
+
+"A despatch, ma'am," said her maid, as she laid a paper on the table and
+withdrew. Mrs. Sewell clutched it eagerly, but her hand trembled so she
+could not break the envelope. To think that her whole fate lay there,
+within that fold of paper, so overcame her that she actually sickened
+with fear as she looked on it.
+
+"Whatever is done, is done," muttered she, as she broke open the cover.
+There were but two lines; they ran thus:--
+
+"Holyhead, 12 o'clock.
+
+"Have thought better of it. It would be absurd to meet him. I start for
+town at once, and shall be at Boulogne to-morrow.
+
+"Dudley."
+
+She sat pondering over these words till the paper became blurred and
+blotted by her tears as they rolled heavily along her cheeks, and
+dropped with a distinct sound. She was not conscious that she wept.
+It was not grief that moved her; it was the blankness of despair,--the
+sense of hopelessness that comes over the heart when life no longer
+offers a plan or a project, but presents a weariful road to be
+travelled, uncheered and dreary.
+
+Till she had read these lines it never occurred to her that such a line
+of action was possible. But now that she saw them there before her, her
+whole astonishment was that she had not anticipated this conduct on his
+part. "I might have guessed it; I might have been sure of it," muttered
+she. "The interval was too long; there were twelve mortal hours for
+reflection. Cowards think acutely,--at least, they say that in their
+calculations they embrace more casualties than brave men. And so he has
+'thought better of it,'--a strange phrase. 'Absurd to meet him!' but not
+absurd to run away. How oddly men reason when they are terrified! And
+so my great scheme has failed, all for want of a little courage, which
+I could have supplied, if called on; and now comes my hour of defeat, if
+not worse,--my hour of exposure. I am not brave enough to confront it.
+I must leave this; but where to go is the question. I suppose Boulogne,
+since it is there I shall join my husband;" and she laughed hysterically
+as she said it.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. A FAMILY PARTY
+
+While the interview between Sir Brook and the Chief Baron lasted,--and
+it was a long time,--the anxiety of those below-stairs was great to
+know how matters were proceeding. Had the two old men, who differed so
+strongly in many respects, found out that there was that in each which
+could command the respect and esteem of the other, and had they gained
+that common ground where it was certain there were many things they
+would agree upon?
+
+"I should say," cried Beattie, "they have become excellent friends
+before this. The Chief reads men quickly, and Fossbrooke's nature is
+written in a fine bold hand, easy to read and impossible to mistake."
+
+"There, there," burst in Haire,--"they are laughing, and laughing
+heartily too. It does me good to hear the Chief's laugh."
+
+Lendrick looked gratefully at the old man whose devotion was so
+unvarying. "Here comes Cheetor,--what has he to say?"
+
+"My Lord will dine below-stairs to-day, gentlemen," said the butler;
+"he hopes you have no engagements which will prevent your meeting him at
+dinner."
+
+"If we had, we 'd soon throw them over," burst out Haire. "This is the
+pleasantest news I have heard this half-year."
+
+"Fossbrooke has done it. I knew he would," said Beattie; "he's just
+the man to suit your father, Tom. While the Chief can talk of events,
+Fossbrooke knows people, and they are sure to make capital company for
+each other."
+
+"There's another laugh! Oh, if one only could hear him now," said Haire;
+"he must be in prime heart this morning. I wonder if Sir Brook will
+remember the good things he is saying."
+
+"I 'm not quite so sure about this notion of dining below-stairs," said
+Beattie, cautiously; "he may be over-taxing his strength."
+
+"Let him alone, Beattie; leave him to himself," said Haire. "No man ever
+knew how to make his will his ally as he does. He told me so himself."
+
+"And in these words?" said Beattie, slyly.
+
+"Yes, in those very words."
+
+"Why, Haire, you are almost as useful to him as Bozzy was to Johnson."
+
+Haire only caught the last name, and, thinking it referred to a judge on
+the Irish bench, cried out, "Don't compare him with Johnston, sir; you
+might as well liken him to _me!_"
+
+"I must go and find Lucy," said Lendrick. "I think she ought to go and
+show Mrs. Sewell how anxious we all are to prove our respect and regard
+for her in this unhappy moment; the poor thing will need it."
+
+"She has gone away already. She has removed to Lady Lendrick's house in
+Merrion Square; and I think very wisely," said Beattie.
+
+"There 's some Burgundy below,--Chambertin, I think it is,--and Cheetor
+won't know where to find it," said Haire. "I'll go down to the cellar
+myself; the Chief will be charmed to see it on the table."
+
+"So shall I," chimed in Beattie. "It is ten years or more since I saw a
+bottle of it, and I half feared it had been finished."
+
+"You are wrong," broke in Haire. "It will be nineteen years on the 10th
+of June next. I 'll tell you the occasion. It was when your father,
+Tom, had given up the Solicitor-Generalship, and none of us knew who
+was going to be made Chief Baron. Plunkett was dining here that day, and
+when he tasted the Burgundy he said, 'This deserves a toast,
+gentlemen,' said he. 'I cannot ask you to drink to the health of the
+Solicitor-General, for I believe there is no Solicitor-General; nor
+can I ask you to pledge the Chief Baron of the Exchequer, for I believe
+there is no Chief Baron; but I can give you a toast about which there
+can be no mistake nor misgiving,--I give you the ornament of the Irish
+Bar.' I think, I hear the cheers yet. The servants caught them up, too,
+in the hall, and the house rang with a hip-hurrah till it trembled."
+
+"Well done, Bozzy!" said Beattie. "I'm glad that my want of memory
+should have recalled so glorious a recollection."
+
+At last Fossbrooke's heavy tread was heard descending the stairs, and
+they all rushed to the door to meet him.
+
+"It is all right!" cried he. "The Chief Baron has taken the whole event
+in an admirable spirit, and, like a truly generous man, he dwells on
+every proof of regard and esteem that has been shown him, and forgets
+the wrongs that others would have done him."
+
+"The shock, then, did not harm him?" asked Lendrick, eagerly.
+
+"Far from it; he said he felt revived and renovated. Yes, Beattie, he
+told me I had done him more good than all your phials. His phrase was,
+'_Your_ bitters, sir, leave no bad flavor behind them.' I am proud to
+think I made a favorable impression upon him; for he permitted me not
+only to state my own views, but to correct some of his. He agrees now to
+everything. He even went so far as to say that he will employ his first
+half-hour of strength in writing to Lady Trafford; and he charges you,
+Beattie, to invite Lionel Trafford to come and pass some days here."
+
+"_Viva!_" cried Haire; "this is grand news."
+
+"He asks, also, if Tom could not come over for the wedding, which he
+trusts may not be long deferred,--as he said with a laugh, 'At _my_ time
+of life, Sir Brook, it is best to leave as little as possible to _Nisi
+Prius._'"
+
+"You must tell me all these again, Sir Brook, or I shall inevitably
+forget them," whispered Haire in his ear.
+
+"And shall I tell you, Lendrick, what I liked best in all I saw of him?"
+said Sir Brook, as he slipped his arm within the other's, and drew him
+towards a window. "It was the way he said to me, as I rose to leave
+the room, 'One word more, Sir Brook. We are all very happy, and, in
+consequence, very selfish. Let us not forget that there is one sad heart
+here,--that there is one upstairs there who can take no part in all this
+joy. What shall we, what can we, do for her?' I knew whom he meant at
+once,--poor Mrs. Sewell; and I was glad to tell him that I had already
+thought of her. 'She will join her husband,' said I, 'and I will take
+care that they have wherewithal to live on.'
+
+"'I must share in whatever you do for her, Sir Brook,' said your father;
+'she has many attractive qualities; she has some lovable ones. Who is to
+say what such a nature might not have been, if spared the contamination
+of such a husband?'
+
+"I'm afraid I shocked, if I did not actually hurt him, by the way I
+grasped his hands in my gratitude for this speech. I know I said, 'God
+bless you for those words!' and I hurried out of the room."
+
+"Ah, _you_ know him, sir!--_you_ read him aright! And how few there are
+who do it!" cried Haire, warmly.
+
+The old Judge was too weak to appear in the drawing-room; but when the
+company entered the dining-room, they found him seated at the table,
+and, though pale and wasted, with a bright eye and a clear, fresh look.
+
+"I declare," said he, as they took their places, "this repays one for
+illness. No, Lucy,--opposite me, my dear. Yes, Tom, of course; that is
+your place,--your old place;" and he smiled benignly as he said it. "Is
+there not a place too many, Lucy?"
+
+"Yes, grandpapa. It was for Mrs. Sewell, but she sent me a line to say
+she had promised Lady Lendrick to dine with her."
+
+The old Chief's eyes met Fossbrooke's, and in the glances they exchanged
+there was much meaning.
+
+"I cannot eat, Sir Brook, till we have had a glass of wine together.
+Beattie may look as reproachfully as he likes, but it shall be a bumper.
+This old room has great traditions," he went on. "Curran and Avonmore
+and Parsons, and others scarce their inferiors, held their tournaments
+here."
+
+"I have my doubts if they had a happier party round the board than we
+have to-night," said Haire.
+
+"We only want Tom," said Dr. Lendrick. "If we had poor Tom with us, it
+would be perfect."
+
+"I think I know of another too," whispered Beattie in Lucy's ear. "Don't
+you?"
+
+"What soft nonsense is Beattie saying, Lucy? It has made you blush,"
+said the Chief. "It was all my fault, child, to have placed you in such
+bad company. I ought to have had you at my side here; but I wanted to
+look at you."
+
+Leaving them thus in happy pleasantry and enjoyment, let us turn for a
+moment to a very different scene,--to a drawing-room in Merrion Square,
+where at that same hour Lady Lendrick and Mrs. Sewell sat in close
+conference.
+
+Mrs. Sewell had related the whole story of the intended duel, and its
+finale, and was now explaining to her mother-in-law how impossible it
+would be for her to continue any longer to live under the Chief Baron's
+roof, if even--which she deemed unlikely--he would still desire it.
+
+"He 'll not turn you out, dear,--of that I am quite certain. I suspect I
+am the only one in the world he would treat in that fashion."
+
+"I must not incur the risk."
+
+"Dear me, have you not been running risks all your life, Lucy? Besides,
+what else have you open to you?"
+
+"Join my husband, I suppose, whenever he sends for me,--whenever he says
+he has a home to receive me." "Dudley, I 'm certain, will do his best,"
+said Lady Lendrick, stiffly. "It is not very easy for a poor man to make
+these arrangements in a moment. But, with all his faults,--and even his
+mother must own that he has many faults,--yet I have never known him to
+bear malice." "Certainly, Madam, you are justified in your panegyric by
+his conduct on the present occasion; he has, indeed, displayed a most
+forgiving nature."
+
+"You mean by not fighting Trafford, I suppose; but come now, Lucy, we
+are here alone, and can talk freely to each other; why should he fight
+him?"
+
+"I will not follow you, Lady Lendrick, into that inquiry, nor give you
+any pretext for saying to me what your candor is evidently eager for.
+I will only repeat that the one thing I ever knew Colonel Sewell pardon
+was the outrage that no gentleman ever endures."
+
+"He fought once before, and was greatly condemned for it."
+
+"I suppose you know why, Madam. I take it you have no need I should tell
+you the Agra story, with all its shameful details?"
+
+"I don't want to hear it; and if I did I would certainly hesitate to
+listen to it from one so deeply and painfully implicated as yourself."
+
+"Lady Lendrick, I will have no insinuations," said she, haughtily. "When
+I came here, it never occurred to me I was to be insulted."
+
+"Sit down again, Lucy, and don't be angry with me," said Lady Lendrick,
+pressing her back into her chair. "Your position is a very painful
+one,--let us not make it worse by irritation; and to avoid all
+possibility of this, we will not look back at all, but only regard the
+future."
+
+"That may be more easy for _you_ to do than for _me_"
+
+"Easy or not easy, Lucy, we have no alternative; we cannot change the
+past."
+
+"No, no, no! I know that,--I know that," cried she, bitterly, as her
+clasped hands dropped upon her knee.
+
+"For that reason then, Lucy, forget it, ignore it. I have no need to
+tell you, my dear, that my own life has not been a very happy one, and
+if I venture to give advice, it is not without having had my share of
+sorrows. You say you cannot go back to the Priory?"
+
+"No; that is impossible."
+
+"Unpleasant it would certainly be, and all the more so with these
+marriage festivities. The wedding, I suppose, will take place there?"
+
+"I don't know; I have not heard;" and she tried to say this with an easy
+indifference.
+
+"Trafford is disinherited, is he not?--passed over in the entail, or
+something or other?"
+
+"I don't know," she muttered out; but this time her confusion was not to
+be concealed.
+
+"And will this old man they talk of--this Sir Brook somebody--make such
+a settlement on them as they can live on?"
+
+"I know nothing about it at all."
+
+"I wonder, Lucy dear, it never occurred to you to fascinate Dives
+yourself. What nice crumbs these would have been for Algy and Cary!"
+
+"You forget, Madam, what a jealous husband I have!" and her eyes now
+darted a glance of almost wild malignity.
+
+"Poor Dudley, how many faults we shall find in you if we come to discuss
+you!"
+
+"Let us not discuss Colonel Sewell, Madam; it will be better for all of
+us. A thought has just occurred; it was a thing I was quite forgetting.
+May I send one of your servants with a note, for which he will wait the
+answer?"
+
+"Certainly. You will find paper and pens there."
+
+The note was barely a few lines, and addressed to George Kincaid, Esq.,
+Ely Place. "You are to wait for the answer, Richard," said she, as she
+gave it to the servant.
+
+"Do you expect he will let you have some money, Lucy?" asked Lady
+Lendrick, as she heard the name.
+
+"No; it was about something else I wrote. I'm quite sure he would not
+have given me money if I asked for it."
+
+"I wish _I_ could, my dear Lucy; but I am miserably poor. Sir William,
+who was once the very soul of punctuality, has grown of late most
+neglectful. My last quarter is over-due two months. I must own all this
+has taken place since Dudley went to live at the Priory. I hear the
+expenses were something fabulous."
+
+"There was a great deal of waste; a great deal of mock splendor and real
+discomfort."
+
+"Is it true the wine bill was fifteen hundred pounds for the last year?"
+
+"I think I heard it was something to that amount."
+
+"And four hundred for cigars?"
+
+"No; that included pipes, and amber mouthpieces, and meerschaums for
+presents,--it rained presents!"
+
+"And did Sir William make no remark or remonstrance about this?"
+
+"I believe not. I rather think I heard that he liked it. They persuaded
+him that all these indiscretions, like his new wigs, and his rouge, and
+his embroidered waistcoats, made him quite juvenile, and that nothing
+made a man so youthful as living beyond his income."
+
+"It is easy enough to see how I was left in arrear; and _you_, dear,
+were you forgotten all this while and left without a shilling?"
+
+"Oh, no; I could make as many debts as I pleased; and I pleased to make
+them, too, as they will discover one of these days. I never asked the
+price of anything, and therefore I enjoyed unlimited credit. If you
+remark, shopkeepers never dun the people who simply say, 'Send that
+home.'--How quickly you did your message, Richard! Have you brought an
+answer? Give it to me at once."
+
+She broke open the note with eager impatience, but it fell from her
+fingers as she read it, and she lay back almost fainting in her chair.
+
+"Are you ill, dear,--are you faint?" asked Lady Len-drick.
+
+"No; I 'm quite well again. I was only provoked,--put out;" and she
+stooped and took up the letter. "I wrote to Mr. Kincaid to give me
+certain papers which were in his hands, and which I know Colonel Sewell
+would wish to have in his own keeping, and he writes me this:--
+
+"Dear Madam,--I am sorry that it is not in my power to comply with the
+request of your note, inasmuch as the letters referred to were this
+morning handed over to Sir Brook Fossbrooke on his producing an order
+from Colonel Sewell to that intent.--I am, Madam, your most obedient
+servant,
+
+"George Kincaid."
+
+"They were letters, then?"
+
+"Yes, Lady Lendrick, they were letters," said she, dryly, as she arose
+and walked to the window, to hide an agitation she could no longer
+subdue. After a few minutes she turned round and said, "You will let me
+stay here to-night?"
+
+"Certainly, dear; of course I will."
+
+"But the children must be sent for,--I can't suffer them to remain
+there. Will you send for them?"
+
+"Yes; I 'll tell Rose to take the carriage and bring them over here."
+
+"This is very kind of you; I am most grateful. We shall not be a burden
+beyond to-morrow."
+
+"What do you mean to do?"
+
+"To join my husband, as I told you awhile ago. Sir Brook Fossbrooke made
+that the condition of his assisting us."
+
+"What does he call assisting you?"
+
+"Supporting us,--feeding, housing, clothing us; we shall have nothing
+but what he will give us."
+
+"That is very generous, indeed."
+
+"Yes; it is generous,--more generous than you dream of, for we did not
+always treat him very well; but _that_ also is a bygone, and I 'll not
+return to it."
+
+"Come down and have some dinner,--it has been on the table this
+half-hour; it will be nigh cold by this."
+
+"Yes; I am quite ready. I'd like to eat, too, if I could. What a great
+resource it is to men in their dark hours that they can drink and smoke!
+I think I could do both to-day if I thought they would help me to a
+little insensibility."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. PROJECTS.
+
+Trafford arrived from England on the evening after, and hastened off to
+Howth, where he found Sir Brook deeply engaged over the maps and plans
+of his new estate; for already the preliminaries had so far advanced
+that he could count upon it as his own.
+
+"Look here, Trafford," he cried, "and see what a noble extension
+we shall give to the old grounds of the Nest. The whole of this
+wood--eleven hundred and seventy acres--comes in, and this mountain down
+to that stream there is ours, as well as all these meadow-lands between
+the mountain and the Shannon,--one of the most picturesque estates it
+will be in the kingdom. If I were to have my own way, I 'd rebuild the
+house. With such foliage--fine old timber much of it--there 's
+nothing would look better than one of those Venetian villas, those
+half-castellated buildings one sees at the foot of the mountains of
+Conigliano; and they are grand spacious places to live in, with wide
+stairs, and great corridors, and terraces everywhere. I see, however,
+Lendrick's heart clings to his old cottage, and we must let him have his
+way."
+
+"What is this here?" asked Trafford, drawing out from the mass of papers
+the plan of a very pretty but very diminutive cottage.
+
+"That's to be mine. This window you see here will project over the
+river, and that little terrace will be carried on arches all along the
+river bank. I have designed everything, even to the furniture. You shall
+see a model cottage, Trafford; not one of those gingerbread things to be
+shown to strangers by ticket on Tuesdays or Saturdays, with a care-taker
+to be tipped, and a book to be scribbled full of vulgar praises of the
+proprietor, or doggerel ecstasies over some day of picnicking. But come
+and report yourself,--where have you been, and what have you done since
+I saw you?"
+
+"I have a long budget for you. First of all, read that;" and he handed
+Sir Brook Sewell's letter.
+
+"What! do you mean to say that you met him?"
+
+"No; I rejoice to say I have escaped that mischance; but you shall hear
+everything, and in as few words as I can tell it. I have already told
+you of Mrs. Sewell's visit here, and I have not a word to add to that
+recital. I simply would say that I pledge my honor to the strict truth
+of everything I have told you. You may imagine, then, with what surprise
+I was awoke from my sleep to read that note. My first impression was to
+write him a full and explicit denial of what he laid to my charge; but
+as I read the letter over a third and even a fourth time, I thought I
+saw that he had written it on some sort of compulsion,--that, in
+fact, he had been instigated to the step, which was one he but partly
+concurred in. I do not like to say more on this head."
+
+"You need not. Go on."
+
+"I then deemed that the best thing to do was to let him have his shot,
+after which my explanation would come more forcibly; and as I had
+determined not to fire at him, he would be forced to see that he could
+not persist in his quarrel."
+
+"There you mistook your man," cried Sir Brook, fiercely.
+
+"I don't think so; but you shall hear. We must have crossed over in the
+same packet, but we never met. Stanhope, who went with me, thought he
+saw him on the landing-slip at Holyhead, but was not quite sure. At
+all events, we reached the inn at the Head, and had just sat down to
+luncheon, when the waiter brought in this note, asking which of us was
+Major Trafford. Here it is:--
+
+"'Pray accept my excuses for having given you a rough sea passage;
+but, on second thoughts, I have satisfied myself that there is no valid
+reason why I should try to blow your brains out, "_et pour si peu de
+chose_." As I can say without any vanity that I am a better pistol-shot
+than you, I have the less hesitation in taking a step which, as a man
+of honor and courage, you will certainly not misconstrue. With this
+assurance, and the not less strong conviction that my conduct will be
+safely treated in any representation you make of this affair, I am your
+humble and faithful servant,
+
+"'Dudley Sewell.'
+
+"I don't think I was ever so grateful to any man in the world as I
+felt to him on reading his note, since, let the event take what turn it
+might, it rendered my position with the Lendricks a most perilous one.
+I made Stanhope drink his health, which I own he did with a very bad
+grace, telling me at the same time what good luck it was for me that
+_he_ had been my friend on the occasion, for that any man but himself
+would have thought me a regular poltroon. I was too happy to care for
+his sarcasms, such a load had been removed from my heart, and such
+terrible forebodings too.
+
+"I started almost immediately for Holt, and got there by midnight.
+All were in bed, and my arrival was only known when I came down to
+breakfast. My welcome was all I could wish for. My father was looking
+well, and in great spirits. The new Ministry have offered him his choice
+of a Lordship of the Admiralty, or something else--I forget what; and
+just because he has a fine independent fortune and loves his ease, he is
+more than inclined to take office, one of his chief reasons being 'how
+useful he could be to me.' I must own to you frankly that the prospect
+of all these new honors to the family rather frightened than flattered
+me, for I thought I saw in them the seeds of more strenuous opposition
+to my marriage; but I was greatly relieved when my mother--who you may
+remember had been all my difficulty hitherto--privately assured me that
+she had brought my father round to her opinion, and that he was
+quite satisfied--I am afraid her word was reconciled, but no
+matter--reconciled to the match. I could see that you must have
+been frightening her terribly by some menaced exposure of the family
+pretensions, for she said over and over again, 'Why is Sir Brook so
+angry with me? Can't you manage to put him in better temper with us? I
+have scarcely had courage to open his letters of late. I never got such
+lectures in my life.' And what a horrid memory you seem to have! She
+says she 'd be afraid to see you. At all events, you have done me
+good service. They agree to everything; and we are to go on a visit to
+Holt,--such, at least, I believe to be the object of the letter which my
+mother has written to Lucy."
+
+"All this is excellent news, and we 'll announce it to-night at the
+Priory. As for the Sewell episode, we must not speak of it. The old
+Judge has at last found out the character of the man to whose confidence
+he committed himself, but his pride will prevent his ever mentioning his
+name."
+
+"Is there any rumor afloat as to the Chief's advancement to the
+Peerage?"
+
+"None,--so far as I have heard."
+
+"I 'll tell you why I ask. There is an old maiden aunt of mine, a sister
+of my father, who told me, in strictest confidence, that my father had
+brought back from town the news that Baron Lendrick was to be created a
+Peer; that it was somewhat of a party move to enable the present people
+to prosecute the charge against the late Government of injustice
+towards the Judge, as well as of a very shameful intrigue to obtain his
+retirement. Now, if the story were true, or if my mother believed it
+to be true, it would perfectly account for her satisfaction with the
+marriage, and for my father's 'resignation'!"
+
+"I had hoped her consent was given on better grounds, but it may be as
+you say. Since I have turned miner, Trafford," added he, laughing, "I
+am always well content if I discover a grain of silver in a bushel of
+dross, and let us take the world in the same patient way."
+
+"When do you intend to go to the Priory?"
+
+"I thought of going this evening. I meant to devote the morning to these
+maps and drawings, so that I might master the details before I should
+show them to my friends at night."
+
+"Couldn't that be deferred? I mean, is there anything against your going
+over at once? I 'll own to you I am very uneasy lest some incorrect
+version of this affair with Sewell should get abroad. Even without any
+malevolence there is plenty of mischief done by mere blundering, and I
+would rather anticipate than follow such disclosures."
+
+"I perceive," said Sir Brook, musingly, as with longing eyes he looked
+over the colored plans and charts which strewed the table, and had for
+him all the charm of a romance.
+
+"Then," resumed Trafford, "Lucy should have my mother's letter. It might
+be that she ought to reply to it at once."
+
+"Yes, I perceive," mused Sir Brook again.
+
+"I 'm sure, besides, it would be very politic in you to keep up the good
+relations you have so cleverly established with the Chief; he holds so
+much to every show of attention, and is so flattered by every mark of
+polite consideration for him."
+
+"And for all these good reasons," said Sir Brook, slowly, "you would
+say, we should set out at once. Arriving there, let us say, for
+luncheon, and being begged to stay and dine,--which we certainly
+should,--we might remain till, not impossibly, midnight."
+
+Perhaps it was the pleasure of such a prospect sent the blood to
+Trafford's face, for he blushed very deeply as he said, "I don't think,
+sir, I have much fault to find with your arrangement."
+
+"And yet the real reason for the plan remains unstated," said
+Fossbrooke, looking him steadfastly in the face, "so true is what
+the Spanish proverb says, 'Love has more perfidies than war.' Why not
+frankly say you are impatient to see your sweetheart, sir? I would to
+Heaven the case were my own, and I 'd not be afraid nor ashamed to avow
+it; but I yield to the plea, and let us be off there at once."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. THE END OF ALL
+
+The following paragraph appeared in the Irish, and was speedily copied
+into some of the English papers: "An intrigue, which involves the
+character of more than one individual of rank, and whose object was to
+compel the Chief Baron of her Majesty's Exchequer in Ireland to resign
+his seat on the Bench, has at length been discovered, and, it is said,
+will soon be made matter of Parliamentary explanation. We hope, for the
+reputation of our public men, that the details which have reached us of
+the transaction may not be substantiated; but the matter is one which
+demands, and must have, the fullest and most searching inquiry."
+
+"So, sir," said the old Chief to Haire, who had read this passage to him
+aloud as they sat at breakfast, "they would make political capital of
+my case, and, without any thought for me or for my feelings, convert the
+conduct displayed towards me into a means of attacking a fallen party.
+What says Sir Brook Fossbrooke to this? or how would he act were he in
+my place?"
+
+"Just as you mean to act now," said Fossbrooke, promptly.
+
+"And how may that be, sir?"
+
+"By refusing all assistance to such party warfare; at least, my Lord
+Chief Baron, it is thus that I read your character."
+
+"You do me justice, sir; and it is my misfortune that I have not earlier
+had the inestimable benefit of your friendship. I trust," added he,
+haughtily, "I have too much pride to be made the mere tool of a party
+squabble; and, fortunately, I have the means to show this. Here, sir, is
+a letter I have just received from the Prime Minister. Read it,--read it
+aloud, Haire and my son will like to hear its contents also."
+
+"Downing Street, Tuesday evening.
+
+"My dear Lord Chief Baron,--It is with much pleasure I have to
+communicate to you that my colleagues unanimously agree with me in the
+propriety of submitting your name to the Queen for the Peerage. Your
+long and distinguished services and your great abilities will confer
+honor on any station; and your high character will give additional
+lustre to those qualities which have marked you out for her Majesty's
+choice. I am both proud and delighted, my Lord, that it has fallen to my
+lot to be the bearer of these tidings to you; and with every assurance
+of my great respect and esteem, I am, most sincerely yours,
+
+"Ellerton."
+
+"At last," cried Haire,--"at last! But I always knew that it would
+come."
+
+"And what answer have you returned?" cried Lendrick, eagerly.
+
+"Such an answer as will gladden your heart, Tom. I have declined the
+proffered distinction."
+
+"Declined it! Great God! and why?" cried Haire.
+
+"Because I have passed that period in which I could accommodate myself
+to a new station, and show the world that I was not inferior to my
+acquired dignity. This for my first reason; and for my second, I have a
+son whose humility would only be afflicted if such greatness were forced
+upon him. Ay, Tom, I have thought of all it would cost you, my poor
+fellow, and I have spared you."
+
+"I thank you with my whole heart," cried Lendrick, and he pressed the
+old man's hand to his lips.
+
+"And what says Lucy?" said the Judge. "Are you shocked at this epidemic
+of humility amongst us, child? Or does your woman's heart rebel against
+all our craven fears about a higher station?"
+
+"I am content, sir; and I don't think Tom, the miner, will fret that he
+wears a leather cap instead of a coronet."
+
+"I have no patience with any of you," muttered Haire. "The world will
+never believe you have refused such a splendid offer. The correspondence
+will not get abroad."
+
+"I trust it will not, sir," said the Chief. "What I have done I have
+done with regard to myself and my own circumstances, neither meaning
+to be an example nor a warning. The world has no more concern with the
+matter than with what we shall have for dinner to-day."
+
+"And yet," said Sir Brook, with a dry ripple at the angle of his
+mouth, "I think it is a case where one might forgive the indiscreet
+friend"--here he glanced at Haire--"who incautiously gave the details to
+a newspaper."
+
+"Indiscreet or not, I'll do it," said Haire, resolutely.
+
+"What, sir!" cried the Chief, with mock sternness of eye and
+manner,--"what, sir! if I even forbade you?"
+
+"Ay, even so. If you told me you'd shut your door against me, and never
+see me here again, I 'd do it."
+
+"Look at that man, Sir Brook," said the Judge, with well-feigned
+indignation; "he was my schoolfellow, my chum in college, my colleague
+at the Bar, and my friend everywhere, and see how he turns on me in my
+hour of adversity!"
+
+"If there be adversity, it is of your own making," said Haire. "It is
+that you won't accept the prize when you have won it."
+
+"I see it all now," cried the Chief, laughing, "and stupid enough of
+me not to see it before. Haire has been a bully all his life; he is the
+very terror of the Hall; he has bullied sergeants and silk gowns, judges
+and masters in equity, and his heart is set upon bullying a peer of the
+realm. Now, if I will not become a lord, he loses this chance; he stands
+to win or lose on me. Out with it, Haire; make a clean confession, and
+own, have I not hit the blot?"
+
+"Well," said Haire, with a sigh, "I have been called sly, sarcastic,
+witty, and what not, but I never thought to hear that I was a bully, or
+could be a terror to any one."
+
+The comic earnestness of this speech threw them all into a roar of
+laughing, in which even Haire himself joined at last.
+
+"Where is Lucy?" cried the old Judge. "I want her to testify how this
+man has tyrannized over me."
+
+"Lucy has gone into the garden to read a letter Trafford brought her."
+Sir Brook did not add that Trafford had gone with her to assist in the
+interpretation.
+
+"I have told Lord Ellerton," said the Chief, referring once more to the
+Minister's letter, "that I will not lend myself in any way to the attack
+on the late Government. The intrigue which they planned towards me could
+not have ever succeeded if they had not found a traitor in the garrison;
+but of him I will speak no more. The old Greek adage was, 'Call no man
+happy till he dies.' I would say, he is nearer happiness when he has
+refused some object that has been the goal of all his life, than he is
+ever like to be under other circumstances."
+
+Tom looked at his father with wistful eyes, as though he owed him
+gratitude for the speech.
+
+"When it is the second horse claims the cup, Haire," cried the old
+Judge, with a burst of his instinctive vanity, "it is because the first
+is disqualified by previous victories. And now let us talk of those
+whose happiness can be promoted without the intrigues of a Cabinet or a
+debate in the House. Sir Brook tells me that Lady Trafford has made her
+submission. She is at last willing to see that in an alliance with us
+there is no need to call condescension to her aid."
+
+"Trafford's account is most satisfactory," said Foss-brooke, "and I
+trust the letter of which he was the bearer from his mother will amply
+corroborate all he says."
+
+"I like the young man," said the Judge, with that sort of authoritative
+tone that seems to say, The cause is decided,--the verdict is given.
+
+"There's always good stuff in a fellow when he is not afraid of
+poverty," said Fossbrooke. "There are scores of men will rough it for
+a sporting tour on the Prairies or a three months' lion-shooting on the
+Gaboon; but let me see the fellow bred to affluence and accustomed to
+luxury, who will relinquish both, and address himself to the hard work
+of life rather than give up the affection of a girl he loves. That's the
+man for me."
+
+"I have great trust in him," said Lendrick, thoughtfully.
+
+"All the Bench has pronounced but one," cried the Chief. "What says our
+brother Haire?"
+
+"I 'm no great judge of men. I 'm no great judge of anything," muttered
+Haire; "but I don't think one need be a sphinx to read that he is a
+right good fellow, and worthy of the dearest girl in Christendom."
+
+"Well summed up, sir; and now call in the prisoner."
+
+Fossbrooke slipped from the room, but was speedily back again. "His
+sentence has been already pronounced outside, my Lord, and he only begs
+for a speedy execution."
+
+"It is always more merciful," said the Chief, with mock solemnity; "but
+could we not have Tom over here? I want to have you all around me."
+
+"I 'll telegraph to him to come," said Fossbrooke. "I was thinking of it
+all the morning."
+
+About three weeks after this, Chief Baron Lendrick opened the Commission
+at Limerick, and received from the grand jury of the county a most
+complimentary address on his reappearance upon the Bench, to which he
+made a suitable and dignified reply. Even the newspapers which had so
+often censured the tenacity with which he held to office, and inveighed
+against the spectacle of an old and feeble man in the discharge of
+laborious and severe duties, were now obliged to own that his speech was
+vigorous and eloquent; and though allusion had been faintly made in the
+address to the high honor to which the Crown had desired to advance him
+and the splendid reward which was placed within his reach, yet, with
+a marked delicacy, had he forborne from any reference to this passage
+other than his thankfulness at being so far restored to health that he
+could come back again to those functions, the discharge of which formed
+the pride and the happiness of his life.
+
+"Never," said the journal which was once his most bitter opponent,
+"has the Chief Baron exhibited his unquestionable powers of thought and
+expression more favorably than on this occasion. There were no artifices
+of rhetoric, no tricks of phrase, none of those conceits by which so
+often he used to mar the wisdom of his very finest displays; he was
+natural for once, and they who listened to him might well have regretted
+that it was not in this mood he had always spoken. _Si sic omnia_,--and
+the press had never registered his defects nor railed at his vanities.
+
+"The celebrated Sir Brook Fossbrooke, so notorious in the palmy days of
+the Regency, sat on the Bench beside his Lordship, and received a very
+flattering share of the cheers which greeted the party as they drove
+away to Killaloe, to be present at the wedding of Miss Lendrick, which
+takes place to-morrow."
+
+Much-valued reader, has it ever occurred to you, towards the close of a
+long, possibly not very interesting discourse, to experience a sort of
+irreverent impatience when the preacher, appearing to take what rowing
+men call "second wind," starts off afresh, and seems to threaten you
+with fully the equal of what he has already given? At such a moment it
+is far from unlikely that all the best teachings of that sermon are not
+producing upon you their full effect of edification, and that, even as
+you sat, you meditated ignoble thoughts of stealing away.
+
+I am far from desiring to expose either you or myself to this painful
+position. I want to part good friends with you; and if there may have
+been anything in my discourse worth carrying away, I would not willingly
+associate it with weariness at the last. And yet I am very loath to say
+good-bye. Authors are, _par excellence_, button-holders, and they cannot
+relinquish their grasp on the victim whose lapel they have caught. Now
+I would like to tell you of that wedding at the Swan's Nest. You 'd read
+it if in the "Morning Post," but I'm afraid you'd skip it from _me_. I
+'d like to recount the events of that breakfast, the present Sir Brook
+made the bride, and the charming little speech with which the Chief
+proposed her health. I 'd like to describe to you the uproar and
+joyous confusion when Tom, whose costume bore little trace of a wedding
+garment, fought his way through the servants into the breakfast-room.
+
+And I 'd like to grow moral and descriptive, and a bit pathetic perhaps,
+over the parting between Lucy and her father; and, last of all, I 'd
+like to add a few words about him who gives his name to this story, and
+tell how he set off once more on his wanderings, no one well knowing
+whither bent, but how, on reaching Boulogne, he saw from the steamer's
+deck, as he landed, the portly figure of Lady Lendrick walking beside
+her beautiful daughter-in-law, Sewell bringing up the rear, with
+a little child holding his hand on either side,--a sweet picture,
+combining, to Boulogne appreciation, the united charm of fashion,
+beauty, and domestic felicity; and finally, how, stealing by back
+streets to the hotel where these people stopped, he deposited to their
+address a somewhat weighty packet, which made them all very happy, or at
+least very merry, that evening as they opened it and induced Sewell to
+order a bottle of Cliquot, if not, as he said, "to drink the old buck's
+health," at least to wish him many returns of the same good dispositions
+of that morning.
+
+If, however, you are disposed to accept the will for the deed, I need
+say no more. They who have deserved some share of happiness in this tale
+are likely to have it. They who have little merited will have to meet a
+world which, neither over cruel nor over generous, has a rough justice
+that generally gives people their deserts.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II., by
+Charles James Lever
+
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