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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79387 ***
+
+                      EACH VOLUME SOLD SEPARATELY.
+
+
+
+
+                               COLLECTION
+                                   OF
+                            BRITISH AUTHORS
+
+                           TAUCHNITZ EDITION.
+
+
+                               VOL. 810.
+
+                   MAXWELL DREWITT BY F. G. TRAFFORD
+
+                            IN TWO VOLUMES.
+
+                                VOL. 2.
+
+
+                      LEIPZIG: BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ.
+
+             PARIS: C. REINWALD, 15, RUE DES SAINTS PÈRES.
+
+                            _This Collection
+    is published with copyright for Continental circulation, but all
+  purchasers are earnestly requested not to introduce the volumes into
+                  England or into any British Colony._
+
+
+
+
+                               COLLECTION
+
+                                   OF
+
+                            BRITISH AUTHORS.
+
+                               VOL. 810.
+
+
+                   MAXWELL DREWITT BY F. G. TRAFFORD.
+
+                            IN TWO VOLUMES.
+
+                                VOL. II.
+
+
+
+
+                            MAXWELL DREWITT
+                                A NOVEL.
+
+
+                                   BY
+
+                            F. G. TRAFFORD,
+
+                     AUTHOR OF “GEORGE GEITH,” ETC.
+
+
+                          _COPYRIGHT EDITION._
+
+                            IN TWO VOLUMES.
+
+                                VOL. II.
+
+
+                                LEIPZIG
+
+                           BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ
+
+                                 1866.
+
+                _The Right of Translation is reserved._
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+                             OF VOLUME II.
+
+
+                                                      Page
+              CHAPTER     I. Brian’s Difficulties        1
+                 —       II. At the Dawning             14
+                 —      III. After the Funeral          26
+                 —       IV. Farewell                   41
+                 —        V. The Hour of Success        53
+                 —       VI. On the Way to Durrow       68
+                 —      VII. Another Difficulty         83
+                 —     VIII. Harold in Trouble          95
+                 —       IX. An Unfortunate Likeness   113
+                 —        X. Hearing is not Believing  132
+                 —       XI. Called Home               151
+                 —      XII. Geraldine is Satisfied    161
+                 —     XIII. Country Gossip            179
+                 —      XIV. What met Brian            191
+                 —       XV. Madcap’s Last Leap        204
+                 —      XVI. After Long Years          216
+                 —     XVII. The Beginning of the End  228
+                 —    XVIII. Man’s Vengeance           239
+                 —      XIX. Through Connemara         254
+                 —       XX. Brian’s Repentance        266
+                 —      XXI. Sickness unto Death       279
+                 —     XXII. Brighter Days             285
+                             Conclusion                300
+
+
+
+
+                            MAXWELL DREWITT.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+                         Brian’s Difficulties.
+
+
+Mr. Gyton returned to London with his uncle, greatly to his disgust, for
+he was really enamoured of Geraldine Drewitt; “But the idea of staying
+on with a blue-book and a rouge-pot without you!” he remarked to Mr.
+Pryor.
+
+“Cannot you ride?” asked the barrister.
+
+“Over those winding roads for ever? No. Human nature demands a change.”
+
+“Cannot you fish?”
+
+“No. I cannot live on fried trout, and ham and eggs, and whiskey, in
+those districts where fish is plentiful: add to which, that I agree with
+Dr. Johnson—was not it?—who said a fishing-rod had a worm at one end and
+a fool at the other.”
+
+“Can you not superintend matters at Durrow?”
+
+“Durrow be hanged! We will come over with a party, but till then, Durrow
+sees nothing of your humble servant.”
+
+“Can you not cultivate a friendship with Harold Drewitt?”
+
+“Much obliged, but Mr. Harold Drewitt is a young gentleman whom I admire
+much more than I like. No, uncle, I return with you to London by the
+Kingston and Holyhead packet, if you please.” And Mr. Francis Gyton
+locked his portmanteau determinedly.
+
+“When shall we see you in Connemara again?” asked Lady Emmeline, with
+her sweetest smile.
+
+“Not until next summer, I fear,” answered Mr. Pryor, and his hostess
+looked inconsolable.
+
+“I wish we were going to spend the winter in London,” she said, with a
+sigh; and Mrs. Gyton heard of that sigh, and asked her Ladyship to visit
+London after Christmas; a visit which Lady Emmeline enjoyed greatly, and
+which was most probably the happiest time she ever spent during all the
+years that had passed since her marriage with Maxwell Drewitt.
+
+As for the owner of the Headlands, he felt rejoiced exceedingly when Mr.
+Pryor took his leave. The visit had not turned out according to his
+anticipations.
+
+There were several matters in which he had desired Mr. Pryor’s
+co-operation and assistance, but he decided that it would be more
+prudent to let those matters wait.
+
+“Twelve months can make no material difference,” argued Mr. Maxwell
+Drewitt; “and when he returns, those young people at Kincorth will be
+singing to a different tune. And that reminds me I may as well call
+round with Ryan, and give him instructions how to proceed.”
+
+But on the road Maxwell met Mr. Ryan coming post haste to him.
+
+“Look here,” said the attorney—by this time a shabby, shuffling man of
+close on fifty, who smelt even at the earliest hours in the morning of
+whiskey, and who would now as soon have thought of calling his employer
+Max, as he would of addressing Lord Marsden as “Bob.”
+
+There had been a time when the pair were very intimate; when they stood
+very close together on Fortune’s wheel; but the wheel had gone round
+since that, and carried Drewitt up and Ryan down. They were very far
+apart now—far as master and man can stand—and though the attorney said
+“Look here,” it was not said familiarly, but rather out of the excess of
+his own astonishment, with a great anxiety to know how Mr. Drewitt would
+receive the contents of the letter he held out for him to read.
+
+Maxwell glanced over it—then he looked at Ryan.
+
+“What the devil is the meaning of this?” he said.
+
+“That there is a fresh hand at the helm,” was the reply. “It is that
+young Brian.”
+
+“Damn him!” said Maxwell heartily. “Had not they some clause by which,
+if the interest were not paid, they could sell without power of
+redemption?”
+
+“Yes, if the interest were demanded; but the interest has not been
+demanded lately.”
+
+“And curse you for a fool; why has it not been demanded?”
+
+“By your own order, sir; by your own order, I assure you,” said Ryan.
+“You were afraid of exciting Mr. Drewitt’s apprehensions, and
+consequently——”
+
+“Mr. Archibald, you mean. I am Mr. Drewitt. I am the eldest son of the
+eldest son, remember that, if you please.”
+
+“Mr. Archibald’s apprehensions,” corrected Ryan, “and——”
+
+“You must get to know what this means,” interrupted Maxwell. “You must
+go to old Neill, and ascertain all about it.”
+
+“I have been, sir, and Neill is quite in the dark himself. This is the
+last transaction he is ever to be engaged in for them. Master Brian
+requested him to write to us. Had he seen him first he says he would not
+have done it. He refused to give him any further information, and begged
+him to send all his father’s papers back to Kincorth.”
+
+“What will be the next move do you expect?” asked Maxwell.
+
+“To pay off the principal.”
+
+“They have got a backer,” muttered Maxwell Drewitt, with a shocking
+oath, “and that backer is Geoffry Pryor. Are all the papers likely to go
+back, Ryan?” he asked, with a certain significance, which made the other
+turn a little pale.
+
+“Neill will not give them up till his costs are paid, and he has a
+pretty tidy bill against Mr. Drewitt. He thinks also if he retains the
+papers he may get back the business.”
+
+“You keep him up to that idea,” said Maxwell; “and as for this interest,
+let them pay it if they can; and the principal too, for that matter,
+curse them! That young fool thinks to get the better of me. So much the
+worse for him, that is all.”
+
+And Maxwell Drewitt turned on his heel, and retraced his steps towards
+the Headlands, swearing to himself as he walked along. It was a new
+thing for Mr. Maxwell Drewitt to find himself worsted, and he had been
+worsted here.
+
+He thought he had but to step up to Kincorth and take possession, and
+behold Kincorth was as far from him as ever.
+
+Farther perhaps—for there was, as Mr. Ryan had said, a fresh hand at the
+helm, who was evidently about to follow his cousin’s example and make
+the old property valuable.
+
+“He is ploughing, he is digging, he is sowing,” Maxwell remarked to Ryan
+about three months afterwards; “where does he get the money?” and Ryan’s
+thoughts ran back to a time when he had put the same question to himself
+with regard to Maxwell, and wondered if this younger and better Drewitt
+would be equally successful with his cousin.
+
+“It is not likely, I suppose,” remarked Mr. Ryan, “that he will do as
+well as you have done.”
+
+“No, faith,” was the reply, “he is working in chains. If the young
+beggar did not richly deserve all he gets, I should pity any one who was
+trying to work under my uncle. I would rather work for the devil. He
+would know his own mind; a thing Archibald Drewitt never did.”
+
+And what Maxwell Drewitt said was true.
+
+“But for Kincorth,” wrote Brian to Mr. Pryor, “but for the sake of the
+dear old place whose roof I want to keep over the heads of my father and
+mother if I am able, I could sometimes almost wish I had rented a
+portion of Durrow from you, and tried my luck there. No person can
+imagine how hard I find it to carry any point, or to maintain it when
+carried. My father thinks I am taking too much on me, and latterly even
+Harold has gone over to the enemy. I have no one with me except my
+mother and Geraldine. Even my mother thought I ought to defer more to my
+father’s opinions, and so I had to tell her about the mortgage. Since
+then she has been with me, heart and soul, and indeed but for her I
+should often have felt inclined to give up in despair. But I am in the
+river now, and I do not mean to sink if I can help it. We have never got
+those papers back yet from Mr. Neill. He is keeping them against his
+costs, and as the papers cannot be of much importance, I think I shall
+not speak again to my father on the subject till you come over. Connor
+is doing wonders with Durrow. If the place were his own he could not be
+working harder to increase its value. My father’s health does not
+improve; on the contrary, those attacks are more frequent. I have been
+urging him to go to Dublin, but he seems to think I want him out of the
+way. Perhaps when you are next here you may be able to persuade him to
+get some first-rate advice. My speaking seems to do more harm than
+good.”
+
+And Brian was quite right. The fact of his proposing anything made Mr.
+Drewitt object to it.
+
+“It is hard upon you Brinbaldy,” said Wilhelmina, who had married years
+and years before Mr. Goldich, a man far below herself in birth and
+social position. “It is hard upon you. I can remember the time when my
+uncle would not cut down a tree because you might not like it; when he
+was going to build a house for you at Analore; when we were not allowed
+to have a door open for fear the draught might kill you, precious baby
+that you were; and now all the county is talking about how badly you and
+he hit it off, and how sorry he is Harold is not the eldest son.”
+
+“If Harold could keep the property together, I am sure I wish he were
+the eldest,” sighed Brian.
+
+“Dear, dear! to think about the fuss they made over you once, and to see
+how that young jack-a-napes has cut you out now. My husband says, Brian,
+that if he were you, he would not let Maxwell and Harold be so much
+together. He says Harold will go to the dogs entirely if he is not got
+out of this neighbourhood, and that you ought to see to him.”
+
+“Can I do everything?” asked Brian. “Am I Harold’s father? am I the
+owner of Kincorth? How is it possible for me to do more than I am doing?
+Do you think I am master here?”
+
+“Well, you need not be angry at me for repeating what he says; you need
+not snap me up like that for giving you good advice. Go on as you
+choose, only don’t blame us if any harm happens to Harold.”
+
+“There is no harm likely to happen to Harold,” Brian would answer; but
+spite of this, as often as not he went straight off to his brother, and
+entreated him to stay more at home, not to drink so much, not to mix so
+freely with the lower orders, but to remember he was a Drewitt, and
+being such, to keep himself to himself.
+
+“You want to make me a sneak like yourself,” the boy retorted. “You take
+too much on you; you set yourself up a great deal too high; you are not
+a bit like what you used to be; you are too much of the master before
+your time, as Maxwell says.”
+
+Then calmly, and without a change of colour, Brian damned Maxwell.
+
+“We will be quits some day,” he remarked.
+
+“When you have made your fortune out of mangold-wurzel and your fine new
+English sheep, I suppose,” taunted Harold, for the English sheep had
+proved failures, and the success of the mangold was problematical.
+
+“I would rather lose money on mangolds than take it out of my wife’s
+pocket,” returned Brian; and thus they wrangled on, till oftentimes the
+elder brother was sick and tired of his thankless labour—of the work
+which was never done, and which, in the opinion of many people, had
+better never have been attempted.
+
+It was hard; and this lad of twenty felt the difficulty of his position
+keenly. He rose early, he went to bed late, he fought hard for what he
+believed to be right. He did his best to fulfil his promise to Mr.
+Pryor, and yet the consequence was that, when Mr. Pryor returned to
+Connemara, he found Mr. Drewitt dreadfully dissatisfied with his
+son—full of complaints, full of grievances.
+
+“It is very hard for a man to be so treated by his own child, Mr.
+Pryor,” sobbed the invalid. “There is no use in my making any
+suggestions. He is only twenty, and I am sixty-four; yet you would
+think, to see the way he gets on, he was sixty-four instead of me. I am
+sure I managed my own property for many a year before he was born, but
+he ignores me completely—completely, sir.”
+
+“I hope Brian is never disrespectful,” observed the Englishman.
+
+“No; I cannot make any complaint on that score; he only takes his own
+way; he will not be guided by me. Now there’s flax. I wanted him to sow
+flax; but do you think he would do it? and I ordered the men to plant
+some young trees round that piece of land he is reclaiming over by the
+Point. You would hardly credit it, I suppose, but he told them to go on
+ploughing, and leave the trees till another season. And those trees,
+sir! when he comes to lay that down in grass he will have no shelter for
+his cattle; not as much as would shade a sheep.”
+
+Mr. Pryor took the old man’s hand kindly in his own—
+
+“My dear Mr. Drewitt,” he began, and his heart was grieved, as he spoke
+both for the father and the son. “Will you go back in your own mind
+twelve months, and think of your position then—of your position now? I
+know, I have good reason for knowing, that had I not advanced money—had
+I not, in fact, taken the mortgages on Kincorth myself—the former
+mortgagee would have foreclosed ere this; and Brian knew this as well,
+and the lad is now working hard to free your property from its
+incumbrances. If in all cases he does not follow your advice, I am
+confident it is only because he feels that whatever returns money in the
+present is of more importance than any improvements calculated to
+beautify the property in the future.”
+
+“But trees, Mr. Pryor—trees are always valuable,” persisted Mr. Drewitt.
+
+“Not until they grow,” answered Mr. Pryor, with a smile, and that smile
+weakened the force of all he had said previously.
+
+“Of course, I know nothing,” said the old man; “of course, my opinion is
+of no weight. I am your debtor, sir, and Brian sees with your eyes—and
+I—I might as well be in my coffin.” Having arrived at which sensible
+conclusion, Mr. Drewitt burst into tears.
+
+All in vain, Mr. Pryor begged him to consider how hard Brian was
+working, how his endeavours had caused several of Mr. Drewitt’s most
+troublesome creditors to cease their persecutions, how there was
+comparative comfort at Kincorth.
+
+“Good Heavens! Mr. Drewitt, what would you have?” went on the
+Englishman. “How can Brian possibly do more for you than he is doing?”
+
+“For himself, Mr. Pryor, you mean,” answered Brian’s parent. “He thinks
+the estate will come to him absolutely, when I am dead and gone. It is
+not right for a son to act as if his father were already dead and
+buried; and I must look out for Harold’s interests—I must see to them.”
+
+“If you would attend to Harold’s interests in the present,” returned Mr.
+Pryor, whose patience was by this time exhausted, “and insist that he
+should spend his days in some profitable manner, instead of drinking,
+hunting, and consorting with all kinds of bad characters, it would be
+more to the purpose, I think, than exalting him over the son who is
+trying his best to do his duty.”
+
+“There you are,” interrupted Mr. Drewitt, “taking Brian’s side, of
+course: it only shows me more and more that I must see to Harold—poor
+lad—for who would be on his side if I and his mother were gone?”
+
+“You are right, Mr. Drewitt,” answered Mr. Pryor; “it will be better for
+you to see to Harold; it will save much heartburning on the boy’s part
+and much misconception on your own. I am sorry you are so ill-advised as
+to believe the interests of your two sons can for the present be
+separated; but I have done: every man must manage his family and his
+affairs for himself, and strangers only do more harm than good by
+meddling. I am sure I have,” muttered the lawyer to himself, as he
+returned slowly and thoughtfully towards Durrow.
+
+He had not, however, gained the top of the hill above Kincorth before he
+heard some one calling—
+
+“Oh! Mr. Pryor, do stop, pray, pray do!” and stopping and looking back
+he saw Geraldine flying after him.
+
+“I have run so fast,” she panted. “I want to speak to you. I want to
+talk with you so much: may I walk part of the way to Durrow?”
+
+Might she?—part of the way?—when he would have given all Durrow to have
+heard her promise to walk with him all through life.
+
+At what age does a man’s heart cease to beat faster, I wonder, when a
+pretty girl—that is, the pretty girl of his especial fancy—speaks to
+him?
+
+There was a dreadful disparity between them—a quarter of a century, or
+thereabouts—which made Geoffry Pryor feel occasionally that he was mad
+for thinking of such a thing.
+
+And perhaps he was mad; but he thought about Geraldine, from morning
+till night, for all that.
+
+“I do so want to talk to you about Brian,” she began. “Home is so
+wretched for him, you can have no idea, Mr. Pryor—none;” and Geraldine
+lifted her soft dark eyes to the Englishman’s face to see if he were
+attending to what she said. “I sometimes think he would be better away,
+for poor papa seems to fancy he can do nothing right—nothing.”
+
+“Your papa is not in a fit state of health to judge accurately on any
+subject,” was the reply.
+
+“But it is so miserable for Brian.”
+
+“Brian is doing his duty.”
+
+“It is so hard for him to have to be doing his duty so young,” she
+answered.
+
+“He will find it all the easier when he is old,” replied Mr. Pryor; but
+there was nothing unkind in his tone, harsh though the truth might be.
+
+“Could he not do his duty any place else?” she asked. “He tells me he
+could not; that he must make a struggle to keep Kincorth; that he chose
+to go into battle, and that he will not turn his back on the fray: but
+still, I thought I would ask you,” finished Geraldine; and the dark eyes
+were lifted to his once again, and her soft Irish voice laid an accent
+at once pathetic and imploring on the “you.”
+
+“Dear child,” answered Mr. Pryor—she seemed so young and so trustful, so
+childlike and so pretty, that he would have liked to gather her in his
+arms and carry her to his home, out of the way of sorrow and
+trouble—“you would not have your brother a coward; he has elected to
+tread a rough road, but he will reach the end some day; and you must
+help, and not hinder him on his way.”
+
+“But if you knew, Mr. Pryor; if you knew—papa is so—so jealous of him,
+and Harold is the same; and everybody seems against him—every—every
+one.”
+
+“What a foolish little girl you are!” he said; and the longing grew
+stronger to take such a little bundle of folly to himself for ever. “I
+am not against Brian, you are not against Brian, your mamma is not
+against Brian, many people are very much for Brian, and think him an
+amazingly fine young fellow. Besides, he is doing right, and he will be
+glad hereafter to think he did strive to keep a roof over his father’s
+head. Although Mr. Drewitt does not thank him for it now, Brian will be
+glad to remember at some future day how he stood between his father and
+the world.”
+
+“I wish I could be of any use,” she said, with such a wistful look in
+her sweet face that Geoffry Pryor would have given more than Durrow to
+touch it just once with his lips.
+
+“You can be of use,” he answered; “you can tell Brian, whenever he is
+dispirited, not to lose heart: you can tell him that the evil is only
+apparent while the good is real: beyond all”—he hesitated for a moment,
+and then went on—“you can tell him to be kind to, and patient and
+forbearing with his father; patient as he would be if he were lying on
+his death-bed; because, dear Geraldine—may I call you Geraldine?”
+
+“Yes, anything,” she replied; “because why?”
+
+“He will not, I fear, have to exercise his patience so long as he
+would——”
+
+“Oh! Mr. Pryor—Mr. Pryor!” and the colour faded out of her face and the
+tears sprang into her eyes.
+
+“My dear, it is true,” he said; “and that thought will make both you and
+him very tender and very good.”
+
+“Papa, my poor, poor papa:” it was all she could say; but she stretched
+out her hands towards Mr. Pryor, as though in this dumb fashion she were
+asking his help.
+
+“God knows when it may be,” he went on, taking her hands, “but you must
+be prepared any day, my poor child—Geraldine.”
+
+“Mamma, mamma!” and Geraldine drew her hands away from him and covered
+her face from sight; “mamma, mamma! I think I will go home now,” she
+added after a pause. “I think I will go back to him: thank you, Mr.
+Pryor;” and she left him crying bitterly.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+                            At the Dawning.
+
+
+It was easy enough to see from Geraldine’s manner that although she had
+never put the precarious state of her father’s health before herself
+plainly, yet that she had vaguely dreaded the worst.
+
+As a rule, our fears travel so much faster than actual danger, that
+before danger absolutely appears in sight, we are well prepared for its
+advent; and there was not one of Mr. Drewitt’s family, unless indeed it
+might be Harold, who had not been long prepared for the worst.
+
+Mrs. Drewitt, and Brian and Geraldine had known, for many a day, that he
+could never be better. Once admit the idea that improvement is
+impossible, and it is not difficult to imagine that the last change of
+all is probable.
+
+There are times when it is the truest wisdom to look upon our living as
+dying; when it is well to meet the mournful truth boldly and without
+disguise; when it is well to buckle on all our charity and forbearance;
+to call together love, and duty, and tenderness, so that we may not pain
+the departing by opposition which might be imperative for their sakes as
+well as our own, were they not already at the mouth of that river where
+all human leave-takings must be ended.
+
+“If we had but known how ill he was—If we had only imagined he was
+dying!”
+
+“Had we thought he was in danger!”
+
+How often we hear these sentences—happy only if we have never had need
+to utter them ourselves!
+
+Geoffry Pryor resolved that Geraldine should have no sorrow of this
+kind. It was right for her to understand, and yet the intelligence did
+not seem strange to her.
+
+She had feared—and the fear was true—and she went down the hill towards
+Kincorth, crying, as I have said, bitterly.
+
+As she went Mr. Pryor began to marvel whether he had done right;
+whether, after all, Mr. Drewitt’s case was so hopeless; but then he
+remembered many an unfailing symptom which assured him that Kincorth
+would soon be in want of a new master.
+
+“And the sooner the better, say I,” was the conclusion he arrived at;
+but then his conscience chid him, and he added, “though God knows best.”
+
+As for Harold, nothing could induce him to think badly of his father’s
+state.
+
+“You told me more than a year ago he could not be cured, and he is alive
+now,” he argued.
+
+“I said I feared he never could be better, and I was right,” answered
+Brian.
+
+“Well, he may live for a hundred years yet,” was the reply. “He is
+dying—you are dying—I am dying; but although we are dying we are not
+near our deaths; at least I hope not,” added Harold; and he went
+whistling out of the gates, to seek for more cheerful companionship
+abroad.
+
+He did not like all work and no play, not he; give him a good tumbler of
+punch, a pretty country-girl for partner, and a jolly good dance up at
+Regan’s—a public-house on the way to Cragantlet, where he and a lot of
+other young fellows got together—and Kincorth might go hang.
+
+                “‘For I’m a fine young Irish gentleman,
+                  All of the ancient school,’”
+
+Master Harold would shout out as he came reeling home, arm-in-arm with
+three or four more as drunk as himself; and Brian, who had never taken a
+glass too much wine in his life, looked at his brother and asked
+helplessly—“What can I do? what can I do?”
+
+He never knew where to find Harold when he wanted him; and one night
+when the worst, so long apprehended, had to be faced, Brian, flinging
+himself on the fastest thing in the stable—Madcap—knew no more where to
+go to look for his brother than if he were the greatest stranger in the
+world.
+
+“There is a dance up at Regan’s to-night, sir,” said the man who had
+saddled the chesnut; “and if you’ll ride up there, I’ll cut across the
+hills to Durrow, for Mr. Maxwell’s dining with Mr. Pryor, and should
+Master Harold not be at Regan’s he’ll be there.”
+
+“Which is the nearest road to Regan’s?” Brian asked, stroking the neck
+of the chesnut, who was one of the most fidgety brutes a man ever
+undertook to ride.
+
+“Straight on till Cragantlet, then take the turn before you come to the
+gates, and keep on about half-a-mile. He’s nearly sure to be there; but
+if he’s not there, you might call at Dan Glynn’s as you’re comin’ back.”
+
+“I’ll call there as I’m going,” was the reply; for Dan Glynn was an
+individual who resided about a mile inland from Duranmore, and who was
+reputed to make his living by less honest means than tilling bad land or
+sending lean sheep to Ballinasloe fair for the Leinster graziers to buy
+and fatten.
+
+It was a dark night for August, but Brian knew every inch of the road,
+and so for that matter did the chesnut, who brought him to the Moor Farm
+in less than a quarter of an hour.
+
+Brian rode straight up to the door and, without dismounting, rapped for
+admittance with the handle of his whip.
+
+There were no lights to be seen, there was no one stirring about the
+place; but the youth knew Mr. Glynn’s habits, and not thinking these at
+all sufficient reasons for supposing the household had retired to rest,
+he jumped to the ground, and with whip and boots made such vigorous
+onslaughts on the door as soon brought Mr. Glynn out of his bed to
+inquire what the —— he wanted.
+
+“I want my brother, Glynn; do you know where he is?”
+
+“The Lord be good to me, it’s Mister Brian. I beg your pardon, sir, I’m
+sure; I thought it was some damned gauger. No, I haven’t seen Masther
+Harold, not these two days. Anything wrong, sir? can I be of any help?”
+
+“No, thank you,” answered Brian, who had one foot already in the
+stirrup. “I’ll go on to Regan’s.”
+
+“How’s the Masther, Mister Brian?”
+
+“Dying, Glynn,” was the reply that came back through the night, for the
+chesnut was galloping down the cross road leading to Duranmore, and
+Brian turned round in his saddle to shout out these words.
+
+“Faith, then, an’ if he’s dyin’ it’s not Dan Glynn that’ll go back till
+his bed, an’ sleep contint. I’ll follow the boy: shure an’ it’s at a
+time like this a man stands in need of company, let him be rich or let
+him be poor.” And straightway Mr. Glynn “clapped a saddle” on his black
+pony Tom, and cantered away to Cragantlet in pursuit of Brian Drewitt.
+
+Brian, meantime, had gone galloping on under the darkness. He gave the
+chesnut her head, and she went tearing away as though she thought he was
+riding a steeple-chase. Over those lonely roads, what did it matter?
+Among those desolate hills, who cared if he rode like a fiend through
+the night? The same country as Maxwell had traversed, while the moon
+shone down on lake, and hill, and bog, and ravine, Brian now dashed
+through without turning his eyes to right or left. He thought of his
+father—of the great mystery—of how hard he had tried to do his duty—and
+of how his reward was—
+
+“Harold, Harold,” but never once, “Brian, my son.”
+
+And now his father was going where all his eldest born had tried to
+effect could benefit him no more. He would never see Kincorth clear of
+debt; never know how disinterested Brian had been; never understand how
+this boy-man had worked to free him from anxiety; never comprehend how
+wild and reckless, how selfish and thoughtless, his favourite son was
+growing up.
+
+“It is best as it is,” thought Brian, bitterly; “better for him to die
+than for Harold to break his heart!” And as he thought this, the sound
+of music was borne down the lane, and he heard shouting and laughing and
+the noise of the dancers’ feet as they were thumped at regular intervals
+upon the earthen floor.
+
+“Hold my horse, boy,” he shouted to an urchin standing by the open door,
+and the boy ran forward and took the mare, and was about to lead her
+round to the yard, when Brian stopped him.
+
+“Don’t put her up,” he said, “I only want to speak a word inside. I
+shall be out again in a minute,” and he strode into the house, a
+finer-looking man than Harold was ever likely to grow to.
+
+“Is my brother within, Mrs. Regan?” he asked of the landlady, who met
+him at the door.
+
+“Mr. Brian! an’ it’s welcome ye are, sir. Your brother? I’m not just
+sure, sir; will ye step in and sit down while I see?”
+
+“I’ll see for myself, Mrs. Regan, if you please,” answered Brian, gently
+putting the landlady on one side. “You need not be afraid; I’m not going
+to scold the boy; nobody is going to be angry with him, only his father
+wants to see him before he dies!”
+
+“God save us all, is he that bad, Mr. Brian?” But Brian had already
+flung open the kitchen-door and was among the merrymakers.
+
+In a moment every dancer stood still, every voice was hushed, and only
+the piper who had been playing Paddy O’Rafferty went on with his tune,
+unmindful of the intruder.
+
+“Hush! Jamsie,” said one in his ear, “it is the young master;” and the
+piper stopped.
+
+Although it was summer, a tremendous turf-fire blazed on the hearth, and
+collected together in the kitchen were a number of pretty young
+country-girls, young farmers, labourers, and two or three gentlemen’s
+sons, foremost among whom stood Harold.
+
+There were wooden forms round the room for the convenience of the
+lookers on; there was whiskey in abundance; one or two dogs lay on the
+hearth, and the blind piper was accommodated with a seat in a dark
+corner.
+
+“Welcome, Brian!” shouted out Harold, boisterously; “welcome! we’ll get
+you a pretty partner and drink your health with three times three.”
+
+“Not to-night, Harold,” answered Brian. “I want you a minute; come
+here;” and thinking all the time of the room in which he had left his
+father, of the contrast between the one scene and the other, he led his
+brother into the passage, and told him he must hurry home.
+
+Like one listening in a dream, Harold heard all Brian said in silence.
+
+In silence also he allowed himself to be taken out of the house into the
+darkness, to the spot where the chesnut was standing.
+
+“Don’t spare her, Harold,” said Brian, helping his brother into the
+saddle; “lose no time.”
+
+“But you, Brian—but you?” and Harold was on the ground again.
+
+“I’ll walk back,” was the answer. “Hang it! can’t you do as I tell you
+for once? Jump up; it is you he wants to see—not me.”
+
+And Brian almost lifted his brother into his seat as he spoke.
+
+“Are you all right now?” he asked.
+
+“Yes, only I wish——”
+
+Brian struck the mare on her flank, and the creature was off through the
+darkness, through the night, bearing Harold towards Kincorth.
+
+A mile after leaving Regan’s, Brian met Glynn. “Take my pony, Master
+Brian,” he said; “I brought him up here on purpose, and I can send to
+Kincorth for him in the morning.”
+
+“And you, Glynn?”
+
+“I can tramp it,” was the answer; and Brian accepted his offer; only as
+he rode he wondered how much of all the respect and civility which was
+accorded to him he owed to the fact of his being the eldest son, the
+next heir.
+
+“It is Harold they like,” he reflected, “and not me.”
+
+But Brian was wrong; the country-people liked Harold much, but they
+liked him better. They were fond of the free-mannered impetuous boy, but
+they were fonder still of the young gentleman who was doing his best so
+soon; who was out with the labourers in the morning, and was overseeing
+the men, and planning this and measuring that, from sunrise to sunset.
+
+“Doing his best to keep the ould place from the stranger,” as they
+pathetically said.
+
+It was two o’clock before Brian reached home. Glynn’s pony cast a shoe
+six miles from Kincorth, and the young man had been obliged to walk him
+every step of those six miles home.
+
+“An’ ye never stopped to pick up the shoe, Master Brian,” said Nannie,
+who was now stooped with age, and old and withered, regretfully. “I only
+hope no harm will come of it. Won’t you eat a bite before you go up to
+him? He has been asking for you.”
+
+“For my brother, I suppose you mean,” answered Brian; “is he not with
+him?”
+
+“Yes; but it has been Brian, Brian, this last two hours. You look white
+like, won’t you have a drop of something?”
+
+“No, Nannie, not now; let me alone, like a good soul. Where is my
+mother?”
+
+“Where wud she be but wid him?” was the reply; and Brian ascended the
+staircase and entered his father’s room.
+
+There lay Mr. Drewitt, waiting for the final summons; there sat Mrs.
+Drewitt, and Harold, and Geraldine, and Doctor Sheen. From side to side
+the dying man tossed restlessly. “Brian, Brian!” he cried; and Brian
+answered, “I am here.”
+
+“Will you take care of your mother, Brian, and your sister, and—and
+Harold?”
+
+“I will, father,” and the young man bowed his head as though he felt
+himself in the presence of something mightier than mortality.
+
+“Will you be good to him, patient with him?”
+
+“I will,” and Brian Drewitt took his father’s hand.
+
+“Swear it,” murmured the dying man.
+
+“As I hope for peace here and salvation hereafter, I swear!” said Brian.
+
+“I have left you all,” Mr. Drewitt muttered feebly; “perhaps it is not
+right—and I did not mean to do it—but you will be good to him, Brian,
+you will?”
+
+“Before God!” was the reply.
+
+“And may He enable you to fulfil your vow!” said a voice behind him; and
+Brian, looking round, saw the Rector of Duranmore, who laid a kindly
+hand on his shoulder.
+
+“My boy,” he whispered, “you have undertaken great responsibilities this
+night; but God will give you strength if you ask for His help.”
+
+And then they all knelt down, while the clergyman prayed that
+intensely-pathetic prayer which is ordered, in the visitation of the
+sick, for those for whom there appeareth small hope of recovery.
+
+“Amen,” said the sick man, but there was no other Amen, only sobs from
+the women and Harold, and a profound silence as regarded Brian and
+Doctor Sheen.
+
+“Amen!”—the sands in the glass had almost run out; the sun of his life
+was close upon its setting; the river of his existence was flowing out
+into the sea.
+
+Amen! His day was declining; his grass withering. This man was going to
+his long home, and the mourners were gathered round about him.
+
+Amen! He could not take up his life again and make a better thing of it;
+he could not go back through the years and redress the wrong, and undo
+the misery he had brought on others. For him in this world there was no
+future, only a barren and unprofitable past.
+
+Amen! Throw open the shutters, and fling up the windows, that he may
+look his last in the grey light of morning, over the country he has
+loved so long.
+
+“Lift me up,” he said feebly; and they raised him up that he might see
+the trees standing quietly in the first blush of dawn—the sea lying
+still as a glassy lake—the grand old mountains and Eversbeg’s Head.
+
+From the far-off mountains, from the nearer hills, from the sea and the
+woods, and the cold grey sky, the dying man’s eyes came back slowly to
+the room where was a “sound of weeping and a noise of lamentation.”
+
+Maxwell had come in and stood beside the bed, waiting till his uncle
+should notice him. Against an old-fashioned escritoire leant Mr. Pryor,
+who felt himself an intruder and a stranger in the midst of such a
+scene. The Rector supported the sick man, and whispered some words of
+consolation to him. He saw the end coming; he knew the moment when the
+keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men bow themselves, and the
+grinders cease, was close at hand; and though he could not hear what the
+dying man was muttering, he yet liked to see his lips move, hoping it
+was in prayer.
+
+He looked very peaceful; his face was calm and placid; but as he brought
+back his eyes from the Bennebeola mountains, from Eversbeg and the
+nearer hills, his glance fell on Maxwell, who stepped closer to speak to
+him.
+
+But his uncle turned from him, and calling out “Brian—Brian!” fell
+forward into the arms of his first-born.
+
+And over his father’s grey head, which lay on his bosom, Brian looked
+defiantly at his cousin. There was no man living could step between them
+now; in that hour his son was closer to Archibald Drewitt than the wife
+of his bosom.
+
+As the magnet attracts iron, so the stronger nature attracts the weaker
+in the hour of its most grievous need.
+
+No man could separate the father and his child now—for still the grey
+head lay on Brian’s breast, growing heavier—heavier each moment.
+
+There was a great silence in the chamber, and then Doctor Sheen walked
+round the bed, and taking one cold hand in his, felt the pulse.
+
+It was gone—the “silver cord was loosed, and the golden bowl broken, and
+the pitcher broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the
+cistern.”
+
+The dust had returned to the earth, and the spirit unto God who gave it.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+                           After the Funeral.
+
+
+It was all over—another Drewitt was gone from Kincorth—another Drewitt
+was about to swell that grim assemblage who lay shrouded and coffined in
+Eversbeg Abbey, waiting for the judgment—and through the darkened rooms
+and about the accustomed passages the family moved slowly and
+mournfully. Not one was glad Archibald Drewitt had passed to his last
+home—not one—child—servant—tenant—relative, unless indeed it might be
+Maxwell Drewitt, who was, his wife remarked, a little more irritable
+than usual, if that were possible.
+
+Naturally Brian took the management of affairs. He ordered a hearse from
+Galway, the nearest town where such a luxury was obtainable. He
+despatched intimations of the death to all the gentry in the
+neighbourhood; he sent hat-bands and scarfs to all the clergy,
+dissenting, Roman Catholic and Protestant, within reach, (you perceive,
+reader, more devolves upon the relations in Ireland than in England,)
+and he saw that popular requirements were attended to in the kitchen and
+servants’ hall.
+
+Brian was not one to throw disrespect on his father’s memory by
+neglecting any of the customary conventionalities, and accordingly,
+while the corpse was watched up stairs by a profusion of ancient women,
+in a room lighted by wax candles, whiskey was drunk _ad libitum_ in the
+servants’ department, and the house slept neither by day nor by night.
+
+There is nothing in which Ireland differs more from England than in her
+observances concerning the dead; there is nothing which grates more
+against English feeling than the riot and disorder of an Irish household
+after a death; while the stately and undemonstrative propriety of an
+establishment on this side of the water, where there is mourning for the
+departed, strikes the Hibernian as cold and unfeeling.
+
+In Kincorth the popular taste was allowed to run riot. By the lower
+orders, Archibald Drewitt had been idolized; by the lower orders, his
+loss was lamented exceedingly. It is possible for a vast amount of
+regret to co-exist with an unlimited supply of whiskey, and Duranmore
+sorrowed over Archibald Drewitt exceedingly.
+
+As for the family, what more can I say than that they mourned—that Mrs.
+Drewitt’s grief was silent, and Harold’s passionate, and Brian’s
+stern—that the wife bowed down her head and wept for the husband of her
+youth—that the children bewailed themselves for the father they should
+never in this world see more?
+
+All the latter and more unamiable part of Archibald Drewitt’s life was
+by common consent ignored—his family, his tenantry, his dependents, and
+society generally, never spoke of the man who, grey and bent, full of
+fancies and of grievances, had gone about among them, but rather they
+talked of the genial Irish gentleman—of the loving, gracious parent—of
+the kindly, reckless master, who had dwelt with them for so long.
+
+“An’ it’s Mr. Brian that will be the proper man to fill his shoes,”
+crooned the old people over the turf-fire in the kitchen; “though he is
+not so free as his father, and is quieter like, still it’s the cliver
+man he’ll make, and it’s the fine place Kincorth will be yit, God bliss
+it! The poor Masther had not the same sinse as his son, and he went
+through a power of money too, intirely.”
+
+“But the poor man niver was turned from his dure.”
+
+“An’ he niver spoke a hard word to man, woman, or child.”
+
+“An’ he was easily served.”
+
+“An’ he had always the kind look and the pleasant smile, meet him where
+you would.”
+
+“An’ shure, it wasn’t his fault if he niver looked afther the dirty
+money. He wasn’t reared to the like.”
+
+“Ay, but it ‘ud be betther now for Mr. Brian if his father had thought
+o’ them that was to come afther him.”
+
+“Ye can’t both spend and have,” remarked one man, oracularly; “an’ it’s
+no use frettin’ about the goold that can niver be brought back again. He
+was good to many a poor body the time of the distress, and it will be
+remimbered till him now, God rest his soul!” and the speaker crossed
+himself.
+
+Thus they talked over the turf-fire while the whiskey circulated, and
+the servants, who were called away at intervals, returned to communicate
+any strange piece of intelligence that had been made known to them
+upstairs.
+
+How the mistress was looking—how Master Harold was taking on—how Miss
+Geraldine had fallen fast asleep on the drawing-room sofa, “tired out
+wid the grief, poor thing”—how the corpse was looking more and more
+beautiful—how they did say the funeral was going to be the grandest
+thing ever seen in West Connemara.
+
+Brian Drewitt had determined in his own soul that what the people said
+should prove true. He would do honour to his father. No man should
+whisper that a Drewitt of Kincorth went to his long home with a badge of
+poverty on his coffin, though that badge had been won for himself by
+years of prodigality—of reckless expenditure—of senseless profusion.
+
+Poor they were, heaven knew—poor in consequence of his father’s bad
+management; but they would scrape together enough to bury him, as he
+himself might have desired, right royally—as the Drewitts had been wont
+to travel to their vault in Eversbeg Abbey, down by the sea.
+
+The fourth day was that fixed for the funeral. Like Abraham, the Irish
+would lose no time about burying their dead “out of their sight.” Not
+out of their memories, for there is no country in the world where the
+dead are remembered longer, or mourned for more earnestly. Only out of
+their sight; and this speedy interment, which so shocks and astonishes
+the English, has, I think, its origin in the different customs of the
+two countries with regard to the bodies of the deceased.
+
+Till earth receives earth, the Irish never willingly leave a corpse
+alone for a moment. Till the grave is closed, nothing in a house of any
+kind, sort, or description, can go on as usual.
+
+Now, human nature cannot remain with the clay, whence the soul has
+departed, beyond a certain period; further, an establishment cannot sit
+up for ever. Moreover, the novelty even of a death wears off. It is like
+a state visit, exciting for the time, but apt to grow wearisome if long
+protracted; and for all these reasons, and for many more of the same
+kind, which it would take too long to mention, a “rest day, a guest day,
+and a prest day,” are the utmost measure of time that a body honoured,
+as is the case in Ireland, ought to intrude its presence on the family.
+
+The prest day is a stretch of courtesy across the channel; but not to
+fail in due respect, Brian accorded it to his father’s remains.
+
+He required the time to arrange matters to his liking, and when the
+morning came he had everything prepared to do honour to the man who was
+going, after all these years, to lie down beside Nicholas Drewitt, and
+George Drewitt, and all the long line of Drewitts who were waiting in
+Eversbeg Abbey for that hour when the “heavens and the earth shall flee
+away, and the sea give up her dead, and every mountain and island be
+moved out of their place.”
+
+It was a magnificent funeral; never had such a one passed through
+Duranmore before. All the gentry for twenty miles round came in their
+private carriages, drawn by the best horses their stables could turn
+out; people who had not carriages came on cars, in dogcarts, in gigs, on
+horseback. All the men who had ever paid rent to Archibald Drewitt,
+though many of them had passed with his lands into the hands of
+strangers, came to do honour to him now; all Maxwell Drewitt’s tenantry,
+all Lady Emmeline’s, all Mr. Pryor’s, all the tradesfolk out of
+Duranmore, all the fishermen, all the labourers, fell into rank behind
+the black hearse, with its nodding plumes, with its four stately horses,
+that led the way to Eversbeg.
+
+Under the trees that bent their branches over the road; round the bay
+where the waves came rippling up on the shore; through Duranmore—where
+the dead had once made himself so busy about rival candidates, about
+forgotten politics—past the cottage where Ryan had again taken up his
+abode; over the hill beyond Duranmore, and down into the hollow where
+the Abbey stood lonely and desolate, the funeral procession wound sadly
+and slowly.
+
+It was as fine a day as ever shone upon the earth; the sunbeams fell in
+great patches on the tombstones, on the monuments, on the grass in
+Eversbeg graveyard; the great mountains lifted their heads to the blue
+sky grandly and unsympathizingly as ever; outside Eversbeg Bay the
+Atlantic lay calm and quiet as a lake. The ivy about the east window
+waved its branches as the light breeze passed by: frightened at the
+incursion of such a multitude, the birds flew out with a great noise and
+twitter, while the sheep bounded away like wild deer over the broken
+wall and up the hill-side to a convenient distance, where they turned
+and looked down upon the scene below as though it had been a spectacle
+and they the spectators.
+
+The rusty gate of the churchyard stood wide, but the hearse could not
+pass through it, and the nearest of kin accordingly bore the coffin into
+the centre of the ruins, preceded by the Rector of Duranmore, who walked
+slowly along, telling to the sea and to the mountains, to the sunshine
+and to the mourners, the one great truth that shall endure when there is
+no more sea and no more sorrow—
+
+“He that believeth in me, though he were dead yet shall he live, and
+whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”
+
+They placed the coffin on trestles, in what had once been the centre of
+the Abbey; and there, with no covering but the sky, in the midst of that
+ruined church, with nettles and grass underfoot, with the elder-tree
+spreading abroad its branches in the chancel, with ferns growing where
+the holy water had wont to be placed, the funeral service proceeded.
+
+Think, oh! reader, of what that service must have sounded at such a time
+in such a place.
+
+Pigmies seemed the men in comparison to the eternal hills, but yet the
+Rector lifted up his voice, and declared—
+
+“‘Lord, thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another, before
+the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were
+made. Thou art God from everlasting and world without end.’”
+
+Many a one present sobbed when that psalm was read out. As David bowed
+the heart of all the men of Judah even as the heart of one man, so
+almost as one man that great assemblage was moved at the words of the
+sweet singer of Israel. But there were two present whose eyes never
+moistened, but who looked straight at one another over the coffin, each
+seemingly keeping watch on his fellow.
+
+It was the same when they stood beside the vault; and when the Rector
+said, with a perhaps unintentional emphasis—
+
+“‘Thou knowest, Lord, the secrets of our hearts,’” more than one of the
+group round the grave noticed the look Brian Drewitt gave Maxwell.
+
+“What’s up, do you suppose?” whispered Connor to Dan Glynn, who chanced
+to be close at his elbow.
+
+“I don’t know,” was the reply; “but did you not see the shove Maxwell
+gave him when he went to take the right hand in the procession? I
+thought coffin and all would have been over.”
+
+“Have you any idea what it means?”
+
+“No good,” said Dan, prophetically; and very vaguely Mr. Pryor was
+thinking the same thing.
+
+He could not imagine what had gone wrong, but he felt satisfied the day
+would not pass over peaceably; and when the service was finished, when
+all that man could ever do for Archibald Drewitt was accomplished, when
+the living had left the dead to take his long rest under the shadow of
+the hills, within sound of the great sea, the barrister, sitting in the
+same carriage with the cousins, would have given much to know the
+probable result of the next few hours.
+
+“Can he have any power we know nothing of?” speculated Mr. Pryor: “have
+they had any quarrel unheard of by me?” and he ran over possible and
+impossible circumstances likely to account for the hostile attitude
+assumed by both.
+
+Almost in silence the four drove back to Kincorth. In one corner of the
+carriage, with his back to the horses, Harold was crying. Beside him
+Brian sat with his arms crossed, staring defiantly at Maxwell, who,
+employed in biting his nails down to below the quick, never troubled
+himself to open his lips to any one.
+
+But as they passed through the entrance gates and up under the arching
+trees to the house, Mr. Pryor noticed that Maxwell bent forward and
+looked out—out over lawn and field and garden, with the air of triumph
+he had noticed once before.
+
+“What can be the meaning of it?” marvelled Mr. Pryor, but he was not
+left very long in doubt.
+
+Had Brian not been a drop’s blood to the late owner of Kincorth, Maxwell
+could not more completely have ignored his existence than was the case.
+
+“Pull up those blinds,” were the first words he spoke when he entered
+the house.
+
+“Do nothing of the kind, Robert,” said Brian, and once again he and
+Maxwell exchanged glances of defiance.
+
+“Shall I go away?” asked Mr. Pryor; “you would rather, I am sure, not
+have any stranger present when the will is read?”
+
+“No, stay, if you please,” answered Brian. “I feel as if something were
+going to happen, though I have not the remotest idea what. Mr. James
+Butler will read the will. Shall we get it over at once?”
+
+They passed into the dining-room, where Mr. Butler was already seated,
+with one sealed packet and several loose papers lying before him. As
+Mrs. Drewitt and Geraldine entered he rose, and remained standing till
+they had taken their places. For a minute afterwards indeed he stood as
+if irresolute, but then drawing up his chair to the table, he said,
+addressing himself to Mr. Pryor—
+
+“I have looked, at Mr. Brian Drewitt’s desire, through all the papers
+left by his late father, and can discover no trace of a will likely to
+be available at the present moment. I find two or three rough drafts,
+which were prepared for him by his former legal adviser, Mr. Bartholomew
+Neill, none of which Mr. Neill informs me met with his approval. It
+would seem as though he had intended to make some separate provision for
+his younger son, but he has failed to carry out that design. An
+unfortunate difference between my father and the late Mr. Drewitt
+prevented our having such an intimate knowledge of his affairs as might
+now be desirable. Mr. Neill has intimated that a will was made by him,
+and executed by Mr. Drewitt, which will it would seem as though Mr.
+Drewitt must subsequently have destroyed, as I can discover no vestige
+of it.”
+
+“What is that sealed packet there, Mr. Butler?” asked Maxwell.
+
+“It is a will, dated on the cover, 1818, which would of course be
+inoperative at the present juncture, since Mr. Drewitt’s marriage took
+place fourteen years subsequently, and marriage renders all wills made
+Pryor to that event null and void.”
+
+“Not all wills, Mr. Butler,” said Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Read this one, at all events,” broke in Brian Drewitt; and Mr. Butler
+took up the packet. “But stop a moment,” he added. “Suppose it should be
+of no effect; what would then be the result?”
+
+“Just the same as though your father had died intestate.”
+
+“And if he had died intestate?”
+
+“You would succeed, of course.”
+
+Across the room Brian looked defiantly at Maxwell, who returned the look
+calmly and steadily.
+
+“Had not we better proceed to business?” he said, addressing Mr. Butler.
+“I shall be glad to return home as soon as possible.”
+
+“And so shall I,” murmured Wilhelmina, thinking of her last baby.
+
+Mr. Pryor walked across the room and seated himself beside Brian, while
+Mr. Butler broke the seals, took out the enclosure, and began.
+
+There is no need for me, reader, to weary you with the contents of that
+will. It had been made shortly after Mr. Drewitt’s accession to
+Kincorth, and set forth that as he, the testator, had succeeded to the
+property to the exclusion of his eldest brother and his family, he
+desired to restore the property to the elder branch after his death.
+Never being likely to marry, (he proceeded to declare,) it was his
+desire that all his estates, real and personal, should pass to his
+brother; or, in the event of his brother’s decease, to Maxwell, son of
+the said George Drewitt, chargeable with so-and-so and so-and-so.
+
+It was a tremendously lengthy document, and Mr. James Butler read on
+through the catalogue of estates that had now most of them passed into
+other hands—wearily and rapidly.
+
+“I should think my father must have paid for it by the foot,” he was
+considering, when suddenly he turned over the last page and caught sight
+of something that made him pause, and glance across at Brian.
+
+“Go on,” said the young man; “I am attending,” and Mr. Butler went on—to
+signed, sealed, and delivered, when he stopped once again.
+
+“Is that all?” asked Mr. Pryor.
+
+“No, there is a codicil.”
+
+“Of what date?” inquired the barrister, rising and standing with both
+hands on the table, while Maxwell’s eyes grew darker and darker, and the
+veins in his forehead swelled and blackened—“of what date?”
+
+“September 28th, 1832, more than three months after Mr. Drewitt’s
+marriage.”
+
+“What is the codicil?” said Brian.
+
+“Read it,” suggested Mr. Pryor, and Mr. Butler read on.
+
+When he had finished, every man present looked in the face of his
+neighbour, for the codicil confirmed the will. It mentioned Mrs.
+Drewitt’s jointure; all present were clear on this point, for Mr. Butler
+was requested by Mr. Pryor to read it over again. Then the barrister
+took the will and looked at it.
+
+“When will Brian be of age, Mrs. Drewitt?” he asked, turning towards the
+widow.
+
+“The third of next April,” she replied.
+
+“And what is the date of the codicil, Mr. Butler?” was his next
+question.
+
+“September the 28th, sir,” answered Mr. Butler.
+
+Mr. Pryor went through a mental calculation, through every turn of which
+Maxwell followed him.
+
+“Did not the 28th fall on a Sunday?” he said, suddenly addressing
+Maxwell; but Maxwell was not to be trapped.
+
+“I am sure I cannot tell,” he said, and he thrust his hands into the
+very bottom of his pockets.
+
+“The best thing, it seems to me, now that we can do is to send for Mr.
+Neill,” remarked Mr. Pryor.
+
+“I doubt if he will come,” said Mr. Butler.
+
+“Who was Mr. Drewitt’s solicitor in 1832?” asked the barrister.
+
+“My father,” answered Mr. James Butler.
+
+“Oh!” remarked Mr. Pryor; then he said to Mr. James Butler, “Is there
+anything more to be done?” and Mr. James Butler said that there was not,
+so far as he knew.
+
+“Then we need not detain Mrs. Drewitt: all this must be very unpleasant
+to her,” was Mr. Pryor’s next observation, and he held the door open for
+her and her daughter to pass out.
+
+“What does it all mean, Mr. Pryor?” she whispered. “I do not understand
+it.”
+
+“I do not exactly understand it myself yet,” he replied. “We must make
+inquiries about the missing will.”
+
+And he walked back into the dining-room, without, however, closing the
+door behind him.
+
+“I suppose we cannot do any good by standing here, looking at one
+another,” he said, making a sign to Brian to remain silent, while
+Maxwell marched across the apartment, and taking one hand out of his
+pocket slammed to the door.
+
+“I wish to make a remark,” he commenced, returning to his former
+position. “I wish to state that this will has taken me unawares.”
+
+“You lie!” interrupted Brian.
+
+“I have not the slightest doubt on the point, Mr. Drewitt,” answered Mr.
+Pryor. “And if such a proceeding were not illegal, I should say the best
+thing you could do would be to put this will in the fire, and proceed as
+though your uncle had died intestate.”
+
+Maxwell bit his lip, but putting a curb on his temper, he proceeded—
+
+“I shall do nothing rashly, I shall make no hasty promises. I must think
+over the position in which this will places me, before committing myself
+in any way. Thirty-seven years have elapsed since my father was
+disinherited in favour of Brian’s father, and now, by a curious
+fatality, Brian is disinherited for me. The estates were then valuable;
+now, most of those estates are owned by strangers, and the property
+which is left is heavily mortgaged, as no one knows better than you, Mr.
+Pryor. With a large rent-roll, my uncle did nothing for us. Out of the
+little his extravagance has left, I will, however, do something for his
+children, if they permit me.”
+
+“You shall never do anything for me,” retorted Brian. “I will never take
+a sixpence from you; nor shall one belonging to me, if I can help it.”
+
+“Be silent, Brian,” entreated Mr. Pryor.
+
+“I will not be silent,” said Brian. “He has cheated us somehow; if that
+other will be destroyed, he had some hand in making away with it. He has
+determined for years and years and years to own Kincorth; and he has got
+it. Curse you, Maxwell Drewitt! curse you, for a false-hearted,
+double-faced, lying scoundrel!”
+
+“Don’t stop so soon,” sneered Maxwell; “it is safe to insult a man in
+his own house.”
+
+“Then if it be your house, may it prove a sorrowful one to you! may you
+never have an hour’s happiness in it! as you are childless, so may you
+die desolate!”
+
+“Take that, you foul-tongued young beggar,” said Maxwell, and he struck
+him a back-handed blow across the mouth.
+
+“Oh! Brian, Brian!” cried Harold, and he flew at Maxwell like a tiger.
+
+But Maxwell put the boy aside, and holding him from him at arm’s length,
+went on—
+
+“Take your protégé with you, Mr. Pryor, out of my sight; and keep him
+out of it, or I may do him an injury. Is it my fault that his father was
+a fool? Is it my fault that Kincorth should come back to its rightful
+owner? If Brian thinks it does not now belong to me in law, as it always
+did in equity, let him contest the point. For my part, I swear that,
+while I have a shilling, he shall never now own an acre of my land.”
+
+“You have done for yourself, at any rate, Brian,” remarked Mr. Goldich,
+taking the young man by the arm, and forcibly leading him out of the
+room. “What an idiot you must be,” went on Mr. Maxwell Drewitt’s
+brother-in-law, “not to stick up to him! because, if the other will be
+destroyed—and I have not the remotest doubt in life myself but that your
+father did put it in the fire when he took that notion about
+Harold—where are you without his help—just tell me that?”
+
+But Brian refused to answer that or any other question which Mr. Goldich
+might feel inclined to propound.
+
+He said, “I wish to heaven you would leave me alone!” and with this
+explicit declaration separated himself from his relative at the foot of
+the staircase.
+
+Very slowly and very wearily he ascended to his own apartment, while Mr.
+Goldich returned to the dining-room.
+
+Maxwell met him in the doorway.
+
+“You came here to hear the will read, I believe, sir,” he observed.
+
+“Yes—with Wilhelmina,” answered Mr. Goldich.
+
+“Then, as you have heard the will read, you and Wilhelmina can both go
+home.”
+
+“Well, I’m damned!” exclaimed Mr. Goldich; and he never put his foot
+inside Kincorth again.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+                               Farewell.
+
+
+The first thing Maxwell Drewitt did when he got rid of his visitors was
+to order a room to be prepared for his accommodation.
+
+“And, Robert, tell Flynn to put the saddle on Madcap, and to bring her
+round directly.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Give my compliments to Mrs. Drewitt, and say I shall be glad to speak
+to her alone for a few minutes.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+And he walked up and down the room until Robert reappeared.
+
+“Mrs. Drewitt’s compliments, sir, and she is in the breakfast-parlour.”
+
+That was the first note of war on Mrs. Drewitt’s part; and Maxwell
+accepted it as such.
+
+Nevertheless, he repaired to the breakfast-parlour, where Mrs. Drewitt
+was talking to Mr. Pryor.
+
+“I thought,” said Maxwell, “I saw you leave with Mr. Butler.”
+
+“I only went so far as the gate. I wished to speak to Mrs. Drewitt
+before I returned to Durrow; but I have said all I had to say, and am
+going directly.”
+
+“Not on my account, I hope,” answered Maxwell, with a great accession of
+civility. “I merely wanted to tell Mrs. Drewitt that I trust she will
+consider Kincorth her home for the present. I have no desire to make her
+position at all unpleasant. I am quite willing to meet her half-way in
+any reasonable plan for the future. And if Brian will apologize for his
+extraordinary conduct, I am ready to forgive and forget.”
+
+“But I am not, Maxwell,” she answered. “You have always hated me; and
+you have always hated my children. Twenty-one years ago you told me you
+disliked me, and why? For twenty-one years you have been scheming and
+plotting to get us out of Kincorth; and your schemes and your plots have
+been successful. I cannot forget, and I cannot forgive. As if it were
+not trouble enough to lose my husband, I must also see my children
+beggars.” At which point Mrs. Drewitt burst into tears, and Maxwell
+answered—
+
+“When my father lost this property he accepted that loss without a
+murmur. Many a one now living can tell you that. It is not half so hard
+for your sons as it was for my father, for they are unencumbered, and he
+was married and had a family: you have your jointure; my father had not
+a sixpence. Kincorth, and the other farms and estates, which we have
+usually put under one head and called Kincorth, brought in at that day
+fifteen thousand a year. Without mortgages its nett value was probably
+eight thousand a year. Am I stating my case fairly, Mr. Pryor?”
+
+“I have no reason to suppose otherwise,” was the reply.
+
+“After thirty-seven years Kincorth returns to the elder branch
+absolutely valueless; so valueless that I declare to you, were it not
+that it has been in the family for more generations than I could tell
+you, I would let Mr. Pryor foreclose to-morrow and trouble myself with
+the place no more: do you believe what I am saying?”
+
+She made no answer, and he proceeded.
+
+“I must ask you, Mrs. Drewitt, now, to look back to the time when you
+came first to Kincorth. What had we out of the property?—food. Had we
+anything else? were we well-dressed? were we well-lodged? were not we
+thrust to the wall? were we not intruders and dependents in the house of
+our fathers? Had we anything which a gentleman’s children had a right to
+expect at the hands of the person who had supplanted that gentleman?
+Many and various were the humiliations I experienced in those the early
+days of my life. But I have no desire to pay back my uncle’s family in
+kind. Many a long year ago, Mrs. Drewitt, you were good enough to
+sympathise with me and to entreat me not to leave Kincorth—”
+
+She made a gesture of impatience, but he disregarded it and went on.
+
+“Since then I have succeeded; I have been prosperous; I am wealthy, and
+the owner of the place where I once was little better than a servant. I
+do not forget your kindness, but entreat you to remain; to consider this
+house your home; to let me help you and your children as you were once
+anxious to help me.”
+
+He had made his speech, and it was not a bad one; and now he waited to
+hear what effect it had produced on Mrs. Drewitt.
+
+“Maxwell,” she answered, “I always admitted your position in life was
+not what it ought to have been, until by your own industry and
+cleverness you made yourself what you are. I always thought your
+grandfather’s will most unjust; and even in this house, from whence my
+dead husband has so lately been carried, I am not afraid to say that,
+had he acted more wisely and fairly by his brother, his life would have
+been a more prosperous one. But,” and here Mrs. Drewitt rose, as if she
+could not find breath to speak sitting—as if in her nervous excitement
+it was needful for every muscle to be strained, every limb stretched,
+“my husband did not act unfairly by design, or through any premeditated
+wickedness. He came honestly into Kincorth, and sure am I in my inmost
+heart, Maxwell, that you have come dishonestly. I know that for
+twenty-one years you have kept this end in view; and you have achieved
+your object so far. When I think of my poor boy—when I think of
+Brian”—and as she spoke the tears fell like rain over her altered
+face—“when I think of how he has worked, of how you set his father
+against him, of how you sowed dissension between him and Harold, and of
+how you have destroyed every hope and plan of his life, I feel that if I
+were to eat your bread it would choke me; that if I were to accept any
+grace, any favour, at your hands I should be as bad as you.”
+
+“What do you think of that, Mr. Pryor, as a civil answer to a kind
+offer?” asked Maxwell.
+
+“I will tell you by-and-by,” replied the Englishman; “meantime I think
+Mrs. Drewitt will be more composed at Durrow, where she has no old
+associations, where everything will be fresh and new. She is not capable
+at present of appreciating your kindness, or in fact of clearly
+understanding what you say; and as you are going to take up your
+quarters here to-night, your aunt and cousins will accompany me back to
+Durrow.”
+
+“If they do then,” said Maxwell Drewitt, “they shall never return to
+Kincorth.”
+
+“Oh! Kincorth—dear, dear Kincorth,” broke out the widow, and she fell on
+her knees, and burying her head in the sofa pillow, sobbed passionately.
+
+“You had better leave her,” suggested Mr. Pryor, and he drew Maxwell out
+of the room.
+
+“They are a nice comfortable sort of people to have to do with, are not
+they?” said Maxwell, with a forced laugh, slowly drawing on his
+left-hand glove, and smoothing every wrinkle out of the kid while he
+spoke. “There are not many men who would bear having their kindness
+flung back in their face as I do. What do you think of the family now,
+Mr. Pryor?”
+
+“I think that they have received a great shock, following on the top of
+another great shock, and that consequently every allowance ought to be
+made for them, and for what they say under the circumstances.”
+
+“And what do you think about the whole affair—about the will I mean?”
+
+“That it must be very unpleasant for you,” was the reply.
+
+“Well, it is: the property is not worth that,” and Maxwell snapped his
+fingers, “only I am glad to have back the old place. If Brian had gone
+on with his improvements it would soon have come to the hammer.”
+
+“I cannot quite agree with you there,” answered the Englishman. He could
+see the chesnut waiting for her new master, and he added, “You are going
+to ride Harold’s mare?”
+
+“Harold’s, indeed! I really was not aware.”
+
+“I thought it was his: did his father not give her to him?”
+
+“He said so,” answered Maxwell; “but, on the same principle, Brian might
+say his father gave him Kincorth.”
+
+“Of course; you are right. Then you are not going to confirm your
+uncle’s present?”
+
+“Give a lad like that a mare worth two hundred and fifty guineas? If you
+have made your money so easily, Mr. Pryor, I have not.”
+
+The Englishman did not press the point further. “Good-bye,” he said, “I
+suppose you will not be back before we leave.”
+
+“We! Then you really are going to adopt the entire family? Be advised—a
+widow and three children is no light responsibility. Besides, you ought
+really to consider _les convenances_.”
+
+“What _convenances_?” asked Mr. Pryor, hurriedly.
+
+“Why, the world may say one of two things—either that you are going to
+marry the widow, who is only about a year or so older than yourself; or
+else that you are in love with the daughter. I have long inclined to the
+latter opinion myself, and I congratulate you on an arrangement which
+will give you such ample opportunities of winning her young affections.”
+
+“I am your debtor, Mr. Maxwell Drewitt.”
+
+“Not at all; if you were so, I should be only too proud to be your
+creditor.”
+
+“You are very kind, but I prefer paying my bills as I go on. You have
+asked me twice within the last ten minutes what I thought of your
+position. Let me give you my answer now. If you have come into Kincorth
+honestly, I think we are all dealing very hardly by you; but if you have
+come into Kincorth dishonestly, then I think you have not had half your
+deserts. And in either case,” added Mr. Pryor, “I must say that I
+consider your manner unfortunate.”
+
+“Our opinions with regard to each other may be identical on the latter
+point,” retorted Maxwell; “but I suppose that need not hinder our being
+friends in the future as we have been in the past. Good-bye for the
+present,” and he held out his hand.
+
+But Geoffry Pryor refused to take it. He bowed stiffly and walked back
+across the hall to the breakfast-parlour, where he had left Mrs.
+Drewitt.
+
+“As you like, my fine fellow,” muttered the new owner of Kincorth;
+“those that win may laugh.” But somehow Maxwell Drewitt did not laugh.
+He looked—while he rode down the avenue and out of the gates, of that
+property which was now his own for life—as unlike a person who had the
+remotest intention of laughing as it is possible to conceive.
+
+After all, the cup of prosperity is not entirely sweet. There are an
+immense number of bitters in the pharmacopœia even of success.
+
+But he had succeeded in annoying Mr. Pryor, that was one great
+consolation; and if he could have imagined how desperately he had
+wounded his opponent he would have been better pleased still.
+
+To a man like Geoffry Pryor it does not matter much what the world says;
+but it matters excessively what his own conscience tells him; and his
+own conscience told him Maxwell had not spoken altogether falsely, for
+that he should find it very sweet to have Geraldine living under the
+same roof as that which covered his own head.
+
+“I must go to Waller’s; it is the only way of cutting that knot,” he
+decided; and more determined than ever that, so long as he had a shelter
+to offer her, Mrs. Drewitt should not remain at Kincorth, he pressed
+upon her the necessity of packing her things as soon as possible, and of
+taking her departure before Maxwell returned.
+
+“Your maid could follow with your luggage,” he suggested.
+
+“Poor old Nannie was the only maid I could ever boast of,” answered Mrs.
+Drewitt through her tears.
+
+“Well, let Nannie put your things together, and the boys can soon find
+their own; and I will send Flynn over to Durrow for the car and a light
+cart. If there are any of the servants you would like to accompany you
+we can make room for them at Durrow.”
+
+“But how should I ever be able to keep servants?” she inquired.
+
+“If you are not able to do so, I will find something for them,” he
+answered.
+
+“If I were to take one or two the rest would think I did not care for
+them. I had better leave all, I had indeed.”
+
+She was right, and Mr. Pryor could not help marvelling how so sensible a
+woman had never been able to make a wiser man of the owner of Kincorth.
+
+While he went round to the stable-yard to despatch Flynn to Durrow, she
+called the servants together and told them all what they knew
+beforehand—that Mr. Brian was heir no longer, that Mr. Maxwell now owned
+Kincorth and everything in it.
+
+“You must not think,” she added, for her sense of justice prevented her
+saying anything to prejudice the servants against their new master, or
+leaving anything unsaid which it was right they should know—“you must
+not think Mr. Maxwell Drewitt is turning us out of Kincorth; on the
+contrary, he offered me its hospitality for as long as I liked to
+remain. It is by my own wish I leave the house I have loved so well.”
+(“Ah! hear that, the craythur!” said some one in the rear.) “I could not
+be happy here; and though it is very kind of Mr. Maxwell (dark faces and
+lowering looks among the men), still I feel it is best for me to avail
+myself of Mr. Pryor’s kindness and go to Durrow till I see what the
+future may bring forth. It is so soon—” and Mrs. Drewitt paused to
+recover herself—“so soon after my dear husband’s death, and altogether
+so sudden and unexpected, that I cannot tell yet where I may go or what
+I may do; but wherever I am—”
+
+She paused again:—“wherever I am”—but it would not do: she put her
+handkerchief to her face, and then the women crowded round her weeping
+and bewailing themselves, and Mrs. Drewitt sobbed out too.
+
+She was like a queen among them—she who had come there so lonely and
+unwelcomed—and when she said, “You have been my friends; I have loved
+you all,” and held out her hand for each to shake ere she departed, they
+stooped down and kissed it, men and women alike, and a bitter cry of
+lamentation arose to the chamber where Brian sat all alone.
+
+He knew right well what was the meaning of it. He knew his mother and he
+could be but of one mind, and that she meant to leave the house, and
+leave it at once; but he did not think where she proposed going, and so
+he descended the staircase and entered the drawing-room, where she and
+Geraldine and Harold stood, and walked up to her.
+
+“An’ here’s Masther Brian, ma’am; an’ it’s himself’ll be the comfort to
+you from this day forth for ever.”
+
+“An’ haven’t ye yer childer, ma’am? Shure there’s nobody living can take
+them from ye: an’ wouldn’t him that has got Kincorth give Kincorth to
+have any one of them for his own?”
+
+“There’s a silver lining to ivery cloud.”
+
+“But it’s us that’ll feel it, losing masther and misthress within the
+week.”
+
+“An’ it’s the good masther he was.”
+
+“An’ the kind misthress you’ve been.”
+
+“An’ the blissin’ of God will follow ye; and the prayers of the poor
+have gone before ye.”
+
+“She can’t stand it,” said Brian, huskily; “think of what she has gone
+through and let her be quiet, Mother; come with me—mother darling.”
+
+He led her through the servants, who made a way for them to pass out,
+and took her to her own room, where he inquired what she meant to do,
+what plan she had laid out.
+
+Then he took the management of affairs on himself. He went and asked Mr.
+Pryor what his mother was legally entitled to carry out of Kincorth, and
+when Mr. Pryor told him, in strict law, only the clothes she wore, Brian
+observed there would be the less packing needful.
+
+“_He_ can send them after us if he likes,” said Brian, pointing towards
+Headlands; “but she shall take nothing except what she has a clear right
+to take.”
+
+“And you, Brian?”
+
+“I want to be alone for a while. I will walk over the hills to Durrow.”
+
+“Let me walk with you;” and Brian saw that the Englishman was afraid of
+what he might be meaning to do.
+
+“Trust me,” he said; “I would not shoot Maxwell if there were no gallows
+on earth. I am not going to seek an interview with him—upon my honour I
+am not;” and Mr. Pryor was satisfied.
+
+“Mamma wants to go all round the grounds, and would like you to go with
+her,” Geraldine came whispering at this juncture. “She wants to go alone
+with you,” the girl added, and Brian went.
+
+Had Mrs. Drewitt been remaining on at Kincorth, I wonder how long a time
+would have elapsed ere she set foot on lawn, in field, in garden? But
+now, on the very day when the husband she had loved was laid in Eversbeg
+Abbey, she walked about the place bidding to each tree and plant and
+flower a sorrowful adieu.
+
+Up the glen she went, and over a plank which was thrown across the
+waterfall. She had been timid about that plank in former days, and
+afraid to cross it; but now she stepped over without a helping hand.
+Where the summer-house had once been she stood and looked down on the
+country, speaking never a word. She plucked a leaf here and another
+there; she picked up a pebble out of the stream, and pulled a fern and a
+piece of moss from beside the waterfall. She went into the garden and
+gathered for herself lavender, and heliotrope, and a sprig of bay, and
+another of lemon verbena, a morsel of heath, a late-blooming rose, a
+spray of fuchsia, two or three scarlet geraniums, and a handful of
+woodruffe, and these she tied all together with a piece of ribbon, and
+laid aside.
+
+“When I am dead, Brian,” she said, “you will find those flowers
+somewhere among my possessions. You will put them in my coffin. Promise
+me, my son.”
+
+“Mother, mother!” he remonstrated.
+
+“Promise me,” she insisted, and he did as she wished.
+
+Thus Agnes Drewitt bade farewell to Kincorth. In her heart she knew she
+should tread its pleasant lawns, its shady walks, its sunny gardens, no
+more for ever.
+
+When she drove down the avenue with her children about her to the lodge,
+where the way was blocked by a crowd eager to do her honour, eager to
+tell her they sorrowed with her sorrow and sympathized with her
+distress, she felt that, let who else would, return to Kincorth in
+triumph, let who else would, come back to dwell in the familiar rooms,
+to take their rest under those magnificent trees, she might return to
+Kincorth no more!
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+                          The Hour of Success.
+
+
+Near the gates of Kincorth Brian separated himself from his mother, and
+promising to meet her at Durrow, walked back up the avenue towards the
+house. He had many things to put together—some few presents to make,
+some last words to speak, ere he went out into the world to push his
+fortune; and accordingly he retraced his steps slowly up the drive,
+thinking of the change that twenty-four hours had wrought in his
+prospects, and considering what it would be best for him to do now.
+Half-way, Maxwell overtook him, and dismounting, walked with Brian to
+the house, leading the chesnut, who looked distressed, as though she had
+been ridden fast and far.
+
+“I am glad to have an opportunity of talking with you alone, Brian,”
+said Mr. Maxwell Drewitt. “Is there any earthly reason why we should not
+be friends? why you should leave Kincorth at all?”
+
+“I think there is,” Brian answered.
+
+“Will you explain what you mean? Will you explain to me why there should
+be ill-will between you and me any more than there was between your
+father and my father?”
+
+“Your father and my father were probably different men to what you and I
+are,” was the reply. “Your father was wilfully disinherited, and he knew
+why; I am disinherited by an accident, or by a fraud; you can best tell
+which,” and Brian’s lip curled.
+
+“You cannot think it other than accidental, surely,” said Maxwell.
+
+“What I think cannot signify to you so long as you have got Kincorth,”
+was the reply.
+
+“Well now, Brian, that I have got Kincorth, will you tell me what I am
+ever likely to make out of it? The mortgages, as you know, are almost
+equal to its value. It is not a cheap house to keep up. More will be
+expected from the owner of Kincorth than was ever looked for from the
+owner of the Headlands. The place will be an expense to me, not a gain;
+you must have sense enough to see that yourself.”
+
+“Give it to me,” said Brian, grimly, “and see if I will complain.”
+
+“Why, boy, you could never have made money out of it.”
+
+“I should have tried,” was the reply. And there ensued a long silence,
+which Maxwell broke, by saying as they approached the house—
+
+“Shall we be friends?”
+
+“No,” Brian answered; “for I mean to put you out of Kincorth, if I can.
+If I cannot, then I mean to bide my time, and take my revenge. You need
+not look so black, Mr. Maxwell Drewitt. I shall not shoot you; I shall
+not come behind you in the dark and smite you under the fifth rib; but I
+shall find out your weak point and hurt you there. A year or two is
+nothing; I can wait: when you least look for me I shall be at your
+side.”
+
+“You are mad, Brian,” said his cousin.
+
+“Then it is you who have made me so,” was the reply.
+
+“Let us be friends.”
+
+“I told you no, once; I tell you no, twice. There are places where even
+you, Maxwell Drewitt, will be unable to injure me, to hinder my
+succeeding; and I shall succeed yet; and I shall come back to Kincorth
+yet. Let me pass, I am not going to steal anything out of the house. It
+is yours now, I know, but it has not been so for long. Let me pass.”
+
+“Can he have found another will?”—that was the thought which crossed
+Maxwell’s mind, and for a moment he stood irresolute. Then he made way,
+and Brian entered the house.
+
+Before many minutes had elapsed he came down the staircase, with a bunch
+of keys in his hand.
+
+“Harold’s luggage and mine is together, and I will send over for both
+to-morrow morning. Meantime, if you would like to see that we have taken
+nothing belonging to you, there are the keys. Take them,” he insisted,
+as Maxwell drew back, and he flung them at his cousin’s feet.
+
+“I am going now,” the youth said, looking round him with a terrible
+despair. “I am going now. Have you anything to say to me before I go?”
+
+“Let us be friends.”
+
+“You struck me to-day, Maxwell.”
+
+“I am sorry for it.”
+
+“You pushed me aside at my father’s funeral.”
+
+“Inadvertently.”
+
+“You have got Kincorth.”
+
+“Accidentally.”
+
+“For years you have been trying to put my father against me; you made
+him misjudge me towards the last; you tried to frustrate all my efforts
+for freeing Kincorth.”
+
+“I thought I was acting for the best.”
+
+“Then,” answered Brian Drewitt, “I think I am acting for the best now,
+when I refuse your friendship; when I say you are a coward and a
+hypocrite; when I cross this threshold, saying that at peace with you I
+will never re-enter it.”
+
+“Brian, you will repent.”
+
+“And so will you.”
+
+With which mutual assurances the cousins separated, and while Maxwell
+took possession of his new home, Brian strode out of the house and took
+the hill-path leading to Durrow.
+
+He had to pass by the stables on his way through the plantations, and he
+turned aside to speak to Flynn, who was the last man to leave the yard.
+
+“Mr. Maxwell wants you, I think, Flynn,” he said; “and I wish to say
+good-bye to the horses; so you can come back here after you have seen
+him;” and with that Mr. Brian Drewitt thrust a crumpled note into the
+man’s hand, remarking—
+
+“That will pay you for your overtime.”
+
+“I don’t need it, Masther Brian,” said Flynn. “I’d work night and day
+for you, I would, if working could give you back your own.”
+
+“Keep it,” returned Brian. “I am not poor—keep it, I can make more; only
+go—go away,” and he crossed the yard and pushed open the stable-door,
+and went in, closing, but not latching it after him.
+
+“Gently, my lady,” said the youth: he had walked up the stable and
+entered Madcap’s loose box. At sound of his voice, the chesnut turned
+round and whinnied.
+
+Then Brian drew a pistol out of his pocket, looked to the priming,
+cocked it, and took aim.
+
+At the moment, Madcap put her head against his breast, asking in her
+mute fashion for the caress to which she was accustomed: finding no
+caress given, she lifted her head and looked at him with soft and
+inquiring eyes.
+
+“I cannot do it, Chessy,” he said. “I meant to shoot you, but I must
+leave you for others to ride; for others to maltreat if they will—my
+beauty—my pet! It would be greater kindness for me to put it out of
+anybody’s power to do this; but I cannot—I cannot;” and he put his arms
+round her slender neck, and leaned his head against her shoulder, the
+chesnut standing still and quiet all the time, as though she had some
+human comprehension of what was the matter with him.
+
+At last she turned her head, and began rubbing it against his breast as
+usual. Brian had always petted her more than anybody else, and she in
+return, though he was not her master, had been wont to follow him about
+the yard and round the meadows like a dog.
+
+“I must go now, beauty,” Brian said, and he stroked her silky coat
+slowly—slowly. “Good-bye,” and thinking there was no one near to see
+him, he kissed the white star on her forehead, and then stepped back and
+looked at her soft wondering eyes again.
+
+“Good-bye, Chessy—good-bye,” and he walked out of the stall, not knowing
+that Flynn and his cousin were standing in the next box, which chanced
+to be vacant, looking on at his leave-taking.
+
+As he went the chesnut turned round in her stall, and followed him to
+the door. She put her head over the top of it, and watched him, with her
+great brown sorrowful eyes, out of the stable.
+
+“Hasn’t she a face just like a Christian, sir?” asked Flynn, but Maxwell
+never answered him.
+
+He had come to the yard suspecting his cousin’s design the moment Flynn
+said Mister Brian had told him to go to the house. He had thought to
+catch the boy doing mischief, and behold! he only saw that leave-taking,
+which is always so pathetic, between a man and a favourite animal.
+
+Something about the manner of that leave-taking caused Maxwell to walk
+back to the house slowly and thoughtfully. He had got Kincorth, a
+valueless property, for which he had paid a tremendous price. The man
+who once stood between it and him was dead, the man’s widow was gone,
+the man’s children were departed likewise, and now as he passed from
+room to room, he found each in succession desolate and deserted.
+
+He ascended the staircase and entered the chamber he had occupied in the
+days which were now gone and passed away for ever. He crossed the bare
+floor—he threw open the window and looked out.
+
+In the gathering twilight, the mountains seemed frowning upon him, the
+trees to be sunk in gloom; and that feeling of desperate depression he
+had felt for the first time as he rode home one night, years and years
+before, under the moonlight, came upon him once more.
+
+Life was then before him: where was his life now? Half gone—more than
+half gone—even if he survived to that threescore years and ten beyond
+which man’s strength is but labour and sorrow. The twenty-one years had
+passed like a watch in the night, like a tale that was told! Twenty more
+years, and he should be as old as the man whom he had seen laid that day
+in Eversbeg Abbey.
+
+For twenty-one years he had been scheming, and planning, and plotting,
+and his schemes had been in the main successful—he had gained wealth,
+position, houses, and lands.
+
+Suppose he lived for twenty years more, and for twenty to the back of
+that, and through the whole of the time went on adding house to house,
+and acre to acre—still the twenty, and the twenty, must come to an end
+at last, and where would he be then?
+
+That was Maxwell Drewitt’s dark hour: many such had come to him lately;
+for it does not require a man to have either a very sensitive
+conscience, or to think much on holy things, to make such considerations
+strike home to him at times.
+
+On the contrary, as sickness seems most terrible to the strong; as pain
+seems most dreadful to those who have been exempt from it; as age seems
+most wretched to the young; as poverty seems most frightful to the
+affluent—so the very fact of a man rarely taking courage to face this
+bugbear of our common mortality is sure to make its aspect more
+unendurable when it forces itself upon him.
+
+Maxwell had heard read that morning, beside his uncle’s grave, the words
+which he knew must one day be read over his own:—
+
+“Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full
+of misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower; he fleeth as it
+were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.” And now, without in
+the least knowing that thousands and thousands of years before the same
+ideas had passed through the soul of one in great distress and
+tribulation, the owner of Kincorth, leaning out into the night, and
+looking away to the lonely hills, was thinking precisely the same
+thoughts as those to which Job in his anguish gave utterance.
+
+“There is hope of a tree, if it be cut down, that it will sprout again,
+and that the tender branch thereof will not cease. Though the root
+thereof wax old in the earth, and the stock thereof die in the ground;
+yet through the scent of water it will bud, and bring forth boughs like
+a plant. But man dieth, and wasteth away: yea, man giveth up the ghost,
+and where is he? As the waters fail from the sea, and the flood decayeth
+and dryeth up: so man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no
+more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.”
+
+Friends, oh! friends, is there not something unutterably mournful in the
+figure of that man standing lonely, lonely as ever, in the room he had
+left when a young man, so many years before? He had been solitary then,
+he was solitary now; when he was lying in his grave he could not be more
+alone than he felt standing there, looking out into the night.
+
+Beyond all that he could have expected the wild dreams of his youth had
+met with fulfilment. From the position of a dependent he had raised
+himself to that of the first landed proprietor in the neighbourhood;
+from beggary he had risen to wealth; from indigence, to prosperity and
+consideration. If all Galway were not his, he owned quite enough of the
+county to make the name of Drewitt a wonder to tourists—a memory in
+Connemara.
+
+There was not a house whose doors did not fly open at his approach. If
+he had not effected all he had intended for the people’s good—for the
+people’s advancement—that certainly was more their fault than his. He
+had learned, as he assured Mr. Pryor, that a nation cannot be civilized
+in a day; that a love of tidiness and of cleanliness, a desire for
+luxuries, cannot be implanted in one generation, nor yet in two. He had
+long comprehended that there was the same distinction between the upper
+and lower classes in Ireland in the nineteenth century as existed
+between lord and serf in the earlier portions of English history; not to
+the extent of a power of life and death—not to the extent of a power of
+oppression, or imprisonment, or disposal of the bodies of the poor; but
+the same social difference. The lords lived in profusion, with a certain
+wasteful magnificence, while their hinds were contented with the
+coarsest fare. The lords went about in grand attire, while the serfs
+were clothed meanly. Between the two classes in those days there could
+have been no more distinction than there is between the rich and the
+poor to the present day in Connemara; and it was this state of things
+which Maxwell Drewitt at last declared to himself he was not sent into
+the world to alter.
+
+“The rice pot to the Hindoo,” he was wont to say, “the potato kish to
+the Irish;” but the meal barrel and the potato kish were both better
+supplied on the estates belonging to Maxwell Drewitt than on the estates
+of any other man in West Connemara.
+
+He had no cause to be greatly disappointed on that score; he had done
+something for his countrymen and countrywomen, and having done as much
+as he thought possible without their own co-operation, Maxwell rested
+content. He loved Ireland better than he loved her sons and daughters;
+but he loved himself better than Ireland.
+
+And now having gained the summit of the hill of success, he stood on the
+top looking out into the night a lonely man. Most lonely! Was this what
+he had bargained for in those days of poverty and struggle? Was this the
+end he had striven to reach? Was it thus he had expected to feel when
+that end was compassed? Money—station—health—position: he possessed all
+these, and yet the man whom he had followed to his grave that morning
+was not so lonely as he.
+
+There is a story current in Ireland about a traitor, by name Parese, who
+undertook to give the Castle of Maynooth into the hands of an enemy of
+the Fitzgeralds. He stipulated for a certain sum of money, but forgot to
+stipulate also for his life; the consequence of which oversight resulted
+in the “devil betraying the betrayer,” whose head was cut off as soon as
+the reward was counted out.
+
+Whether this tale be true or false, we need not stop to inquire, seeing
+how often analogous cases must have come under the observation of all of
+us; but I think that what happened to Parese happened also in a great
+measure to Maxwell Drewitt. He had bargained for money and power, and
+money and power he had, but nothing more.
+
+When the bells that now hang in the tower of the church of St. Nicholas,
+in Galway, were being cast, it is related that from far and from near,
+men and women brought their golden brooches and rings, their precious
+ornaments and their stores of silver and gold, and threw them in with
+the iron, to the end that all might he fused together. And it is further
+stated that the precious metals may be seen shining to this day in the
+bells, and that those offerings of the faithful have caused their tones
+to be peculiarly sweet and beautiful.
+
+It is a lovely legend, and all the more lovely because it is so tenderly
+suggestive, so touchingly pathetic. The men and the women who flocked to
+the place where the casting went on have passed away, and their names
+are forgotten on earth; but still the bells peal out the sweet music,
+still their silver and their gold make the tone fuller, the notes more
+exquisite.
+
+I cannot help recalling these two stories while I think of Maxwell
+standing there in the darkness, spite of all his wealth, alone—alone! He
+had not bargained for happiness, thinking success would insure
+happiness.
+
+He cast no stores of love into time’s furnace on faith that he would
+receive back, in some shape, principal and interest, and lo! the dark
+days were advancing towards him, and there was never a one to take him
+by the hand and bid him be of good cheer.
+
+For money, he had, like Parese, sold his best friends, deserted the
+woman who had trusted him, married a wife for whom he did not care; for
+money he had schemed to ruin his uncle, and when his schemes failed, he
+had accomplished his purpose by more dishonest means still. Money he had
+elected to serve—Mammon had been his god, and, as has been cleverly
+said, cent. per cent. his prophet; but a man cannot serve two masters—a
+man cannot hoard all his wealth, or else spend it entirely on himself,
+and still hear God’s bells making sweet music in his ears—music that
+never sounds so sweet as to the sick and weary.
+
+There was a preacher who once undertook to prove that life’s voyage
+would be a pleasant one, even were there no hope of land on the other
+side, nothing but the long sleep and the cold grave as a finish to each
+man’s story. His theory seemed to be, that there is so much enjoyment in
+the goodly company, in the lively conversation, in the health-giving
+breeze, in the witty anecdote, in the daily work, as to make the journey
+a desirable one in itself, without any reference to an expected haven;
+and while the goodly company is around us, while the conversation never
+flags, while the sky is clear and the body strong, perhaps he may be
+right. I have known many who seemed to think so. Only, reader, how is it
+when man has to go below; when he is lying in his narrow berth; when the
+guests have dropped off one by one; when the voices of the singers are
+hushed; when the evil days are come and the years draw nigh when he
+shall say, “I have no pleasure in them;” when the sun and the light, and
+the stars and the moon be darkened, and the clouds return after the
+rain—how is it then?
+
+Standing in the gathering night—type of that still deeper night which he
+would one day have to pass through, Maxwell Drewitt was seized in the
+hour of his success, in the hour of his victory, with a strange
+horror—with a frightful dread. It seemed but a day to him since he was
+young; it would be but a day till he was old, and then—
+
+Maxwell closed the window, and groped his way out of the room. All in
+darkness, he descended the staircase, and when he reached the hall, he
+took his hat, and saying to one of the servants, “You need not wait up
+for me. I shall not sleep here just at present,” walked out of the
+house, and down the avenue, under the trees, past the porter’s
+lodge—home.
+
+“I do not think I shall go up to Kincorth till you can go with me,” he
+said to his wife, and Lady Emmeline looked at him in amazement.
+
+It was the first time during sixteen years she had heard him express a
+wish for her companionship, and so much affection astonished her.
+
+Further, instead of kicking her poodle out of his way with a curse,
+Maxwell, thinking of that scene in the stable of which he could not get
+rid, stretched his hand towards the creature, and called it by
+name—“Prince—Prince!” But Prince, unused, like its mistress, to such
+attentions, only crouched behind Lady Emmeline, who, pushing the dog off
+the sofa, said—
+
+“Go, Prince, there.”
+
+“Come here, Prince,” added Maxwell, and he made a movement to stroke
+him; but Prince backed from the proffered caress, and, barking and
+growling, retreated under the sofa.
+
+“Prince is not accustomed to your noticing him,” said Lady Emmeline,
+apologetically, but Maxwell did not seem to hear her words. He was
+walking up and down the room with his hands buried in his pockets, his
+head bent down, his face looking stern and thoughtful.
+
+“Has Mrs. Drewitt really left Kincorth?” asked Lady Emmeline after a
+long pause.
+
+“Yes, they are all gone,” he answered.
+
+“Dear, dear; I am very sorry; poor things!”
+
+“I do not see why the devil you should be sorry for them,” he said,
+stopping in his walk; “nor why you should call them poor things. I did
+not want them to go. Heaven knows, I would much rather they had stayed.
+And as for their being ‘poor things,’ they cannot be a great deal poorer
+than they were; and I suspect Mrs. Drewitt knew pretty well what she was
+about when she went to Durrow. Pryor is sure to marry Geraldine, and
+that, you may say, will be a provision for the family.”
+
+“How very clever you are, Maxwell,” remarked Lady Emmeline, her old face
+lighted up with admiration. “Who could ever have pieced that all
+together as you have done? I never should; but now it is as clear as
+possible. It is not exactly nice; but still one can scarcely blame
+her—can one?”
+
+“Blame her! though she has placed me in a most awkward position, I
+commend her prudence. Candidly, I did not think Mrs. Drewitt had so much
+sense,” and Maxwell looked as he spoke at his wife’s face, and wondered
+with an unutterable astonishment how he ever came to marry such a fright
+of a woman.
+
+“And Mr. Pryor is so nice, and Geraldine so pretty,” said Lady Emmeline.
+
+“The only drawback—” Maxwell began, but he stopped in his speech
+suddenly and resumed his walk.
+
+“Is what?” inquired his wife.
+
+“I was wrong—there is no drawback,” said Maxwell, who did not intend to
+make any remarks for the future about disparity of age, if he could
+avoid doing so. He had been thinking of something he meant to ask his
+wife to do for him, and to compass that object he intended to be civil
+to her; civil so far as it was in his nature to be towards any one with
+whom he was thrown in daily communication.
+
+Many a taunt he had flung at her, but he would try to taunt no more. If
+she fell into his plan and helped him to carry it out, he would bear
+with her silliness; he would say nothing to her about their childless
+hearth—about her rouge—her age—her affectation. He would command his
+temper and his tongue, and do his best for her, if she would do her best
+for him.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+                         On the Way to Durrow.
+
+
+Through the twilight Brian Drewitt pursued his way over the hills to
+Durrow, keeping as near the sea as the nature of the country would
+permit.
+
+Instinctively he felt that the waters rolling on the shore, that the
+plash of the waves which rose to his ears, that the noise of the ocean
+washing up to the base of the cliffs calmed and comforted him.
+
+When no human being could have quieted his heart, the voices of the
+night and the murmurs of the sea came round and about him, bringing
+tranquillity and repose with them.
+
+All his plans had that day been wrecked, all his hopes had foundered. It
+is no easy matter to realize the full extent of such a misfortune in a
+minute, and Brian sometimes caught himself wondering about the leases,
+about the grass land, about how soon the oats would be fit to reap, even
+while he knew, in a dull, stupid kind of way, that the leases, the grass
+lands and the oats could never more signify anything to him.
+
+When we go out of the light we find it difficult to see clearly in the
+darkness; and after the flare of excitement in which he had been living
+all the day, Brian discovered that the intense stillness, the utter lull
+of human passions and human wishes around him, prevented any distinct
+thoughts or plans taking shape in his mind.
+
+For a time everything seemed mixed and confused. He walked on like a
+person in a dream, now thinking of one thing, now of another, until at
+last, as he drew near Durrow, every incident of the past week came back
+to his memory clearly and separately. When it did so, Brian Drewitt
+threw himself down on the grass by the edge of the cliff—lay with his
+face touching the cool earth—thinking of his past, tracing out his
+future.
+
+He thought of his father; of the coldness that had come between them; of
+the way in which he had worked and struggled to free Kincorth; of how
+his endeavours had fretted his parent; of how his motives had been
+misunderstood, his intentions doubted; of how Harold had been preferred
+to him; of how Harold had been everything, he nothing—and Brian’s heart,
+as he lay and considered these things, became a perfect well of
+bitterness.
+
+But then, again, he remembered how his father’s grey head had lain on
+his breast, how his father’s last action on earth had been to stretch
+out his arms towards him, and Brian’s heart was softened, and grew
+exceeding tender and sorrowful within him.
+
+And the waves came rolling on the shore, slowly and gently, and the sea
+washed the base of Durrow Cliffs, and it seemed as though he could hear
+the voices of the great waters coming nearer and nearer, talking to him,
+mourning with him, as if they too had suffered.
+
+He recollected what his father had said about having left everything to
+him. He repeated to himself the warning he had received years and years
+before. He called up every word and look of Maxwell’s, and then
+suspicion became certainty. Kincorth _had_ been procured by fraud;
+though by what fraud Brian was unable to imagine. Which idea brought him
+almost to the end of his reflections on the past, by causing him to
+wonder what he should do in the future.
+
+There, however, all seemed vague and shadowy. He could not yet tell what
+he ought to do. He had no idea on what course his mother would decide.
+He must talk the matter over with Mr. Pryor; and having settled so much,
+Brian rose from the ground, and walked onwards for a little distance
+towards the house.
+
+Then he turned and went back to the cliff once more, where he sat down
+and listened dreamily to the song which the ocean was murmuring so far
+below. Heaven knows what the waves whispered to him, what message the
+soft wind brought to his soul—I only can tell, that with hands clasped
+over his head, with his face bowed forward on his knees, Brian hearkened
+to the sermon which nature preached to him that night, taking, as we all
+do, his own construction out of it.
+
+We have, most of us, some memory of this kind—some scene that, so often
+as we think of any great trouble, immediately recurs to our memory.
+
+With one it is a forest glade, where the sunbeams pour through the
+branches and make bright patterns and golden traceries on the turf
+beneath; with another, it is a bare expanse of country, upon which the
+winter afternoon is darkening down; with a third, it is some river
+reach, where trees overhang the waters, and the grass looks green and
+beautiful on the banks, and a boat or two is gliding past; while a
+fourth sees in imagination the city streets all lighted up, and full of
+people hurrying—hurrying away.
+
+But sadder to my mind than all, is the memory of a sunset watched from a
+lonely seashore; a sunset seen over a waste of angry waters, of roaring
+billows; or a night-watch on the deck of a vessel, while the stormy
+waves are lashing themselves to fury all around; or such a vigil as that
+kept by Brian Drewitt, during which his soul seemed to go out of him,
+and stand on the shore below, greeting the white foam as it was thrown
+upon the shingle, and asking the waters questions that might only be
+fitly put if the ocean washed, on one side, the sands of time, but on
+the other the headlands of Eternity.
+
+His life—it was all before him then, to make what he would out of. His
+life—he had reached that point in the highway of existence where his
+father had once stood, where Maxwell had once stood, where all those who
+have grown to man’s estate must surely have paused for a moment to
+survey their road. His life—what a much grander thing life would have
+seemed to this youth had he looked out at it from the windows of
+Kincorth instead of from the cliffs of Durrow! And yet, to my thinking,
+it was in his power to make as good a thing of his existence one place
+as another; unencumbered by a mortgaged estate, as burdened by it; free
+to go where he liked, instead of being chained to one spot, and forced
+to make his fortune there. For he determined to make his fortune. He
+resembled Maxwell in that respect, and he resembled him, unfortunately,
+in another—viz., in his resolution to win back Kincorth.
+
+“Earth fighting for earth, earth struggling after earth, earth losing
+its youthfulness, its innocence, its light-heartedness to gain earth!”
+Did the wind and the waves utter no such plaint as this in his ears, as
+he sat listening to their voices? Had the night, which had spoken so
+plainly to Maxwell, nothing to tell Brian?
+
+Life, oh! life—who is there that has lived, who would not go back and
+try to make a better of it if he could? Who, when the last day comes,
+does not think that, if he might be permitted to retrace his steps, to
+stand once more on the threshold of existence, his prayer would be to
+wash his hands in innocency, and to keep himself unspotted from the
+world?
+
+Stained and soiled, torn and defiled, who does not wish that he could
+commence wearing the fleshy garments of our poor mortality once again,
+fondly believing he could keep them out of the mire, and bring them
+almost white to the end of the journey? And yet, as the instrument can
+give forth no music till its strings have been played upon—as we can
+never tell the quality of the gold till it comes forth from the
+furnace—as we know little of our own capabilities till our strength has
+been tested and tried in the battlefield of the world—so there is no
+man, or woman either, who dare say that, if return were possible, a
+better working out of the great problem would be probable also.
+
+And for these reasons I do not say that Brian would have passed through
+the fire scatheless had he laid out a different course to travel; though
+I believe it would have made all the difference had he decided to pursue
+his onward path without permitting hatred to gain dominion over
+him—without letting envy and malice and all uncharitableness find
+lodging in his young heart.
+
+But yet it was scarcely Brian’s fault that he disliked his cousin so
+intensely. He had drunk in that enmity with his mother’s milk; he had
+fed on it from his youth upward. Mrs. Drewitt was the one to blame here.
+She had been pleased to see Brian at war with Maxwell. She had done her
+best to make her son hate the man who desired her son’s inheritance:
+for, like all weak people, in striving only to put Brian on his guard
+against his cousin’s machinations, she had overdone her part, and caused
+her boy to look with suspicion on every act of his relative—to search
+for some hidden meaning under every word—to listen greedily to stories
+concerning Maxwell’s wickedness, Maxwell’s avariciousness, Maxwell’s
+heartlessness—to consider the owner of the Headlands, in fact, as the
+_bête noire_ of the county, and to believe that honey could as soon be
+bitter as any act of Maxwell Drewitt’s good.
+
+Add to this the well-meant warning which he had received, and his own
+experience of his cousin, and you will see that, unless Brian Drewitt
+made up his mind to leave Ireland entirely, to forget Kincorth and
+Connemara, and Maxwell, and to start on a new life which should have no
+sort of connexion with the past, there could be nothing between the pair
+but war to the death for ever.
+
+In his hour of triumph it might be that Brian would hold out his hand to
+Maxwell, and contemptuously offer him friendship as his cousin had
+offered friendship to him; but even that was scarcely likely; for in his
+hates Brian was more sincere than his cousin. He was a staunch friend,
+an open enemy; and if his constitution, his education, his temperament,
+his country, and his misfortunes, all tended to render him implacable,
+who may blame him?
+
+It is not so easy to turn the other cheek as those who have never
+received a blow on one, would have us believe. We are all rather more
+apt to fight for our coat than to bestow our cloak on the thief also.
+What man is there that, having Brian Drewitt’s strength of character,
+would venture to say he could always keep clear of that dangerous
+frontier ground where strength becomes sin?
+
+Nevertheless, I would it were possible for me to record that the voices
+of the night, the murmurs of the sea, the light wind that came down from
+among the tops of the hills, taught Brian a different lesson; but alas!
+when the youth arose he was the same as when he sat down; death had not
+softened him, suffering had not subdued him, nature and silence had no
+power to change him.
+
+When in the after years he returned to Ireland and sat on the cliffs of
+Durrow, listening to the plash of the waves, to the sighing of the wind,
+he would have given all his wealth, all his influence, aye, and his life
+also, if he could but have kept that sorrowful vigil once again, and
+learned a different lesson out of it—if he could but have started on his
+journey through the world resolved never to look back, but always
+forward.
+
+Through the years, the sea ebbed out, and the sea flowed in; through the
+years, in storm and tempest, in calm and sunshine, the waves stole up on
+the sands, and kissed the feet of the great rocks lovingly; through the
+years, the shore-birds built their nests, and fed their young, and
+winged their flight far out over the ocean, and then came back, with
+pinions weary and drooping, to the land; through the years, the
+fishermen dried their nets, and put out their lines, and pushed off
+their boats; through the years, the ships went by, staggering among the
+billows, or with their white sails glistening and shining, sped onwards
+to their destined haven; through the years, the sun set, and the
+darkness drew on, and the great hills hid themselves behind the curtains
+of the night; through the years, the deeps never ceased calling unto one
+another, now softly, now in louder tones; through the years, the youth
+who had once sat and listened to them was a stranger in a strange
+country, working for his daily bread.
+
+He did not know as, at last, he walked away from the edge of the cliff,
+that it would be necessary for him to leave Connemara; on the contrary,
+he had some vague idea of renting a cottage for his mother, near
+Analore, and of trying to make his fortune there. He knew that with
+worse land Maxwell had done well, and although there was no Lady
+Emmeline for him to marry, yet he thought that, with Mr. Pryor’s help,
+he could, perhaps, still weather the storm.
+
+“I must talk to him,” thought Brian, and he went up to Durrow House,
+where Mrs. Connor met Brian in the hall, and informed him that his
+mother and brother and sister were all gone to bed, “tired out” as Jenny
+expressed it.
+
+“And Mr. Pryor?” Brian asked.
+
+“He is staying at Eversbeg with Mr. Waller.”
+
+“What’s that for?” inquired the youth.
+
+“He said he thought Mrs. Drewitt would be more comfortable if she felt
+she had the house to herself,” was the reply. And then Mrs. Connor went
+on to ask what he would have to eat, and brought in supper herself, and
+made the boy a cup of strong coffee. Look at her as she sits in the
+candlelight—would you think that from her eyes had ever fallen such
+passionate tears, that she had ever pleaded so vehemently, that she had
+ever loved so unavailingly, as you can remember to have been the case?
+
+Those calm, kind eyes look now as though sorrow had never dimmed them.
+Away in her girlhood, far, far back, lies the dream, and the grief, and
+the sorrow, and the sin.
+
+To such natures, to such gentle, loving women, time is very kind; he
+refuses to wear channels in their cheeks, to draw lines across their
+foreheads, to take away their beauty, or to destroy their power of
+conferring happiness upon others; and thus Jenny was still pleasant to
+look upon—pleasant, though she was young no more; though the flush of
+her girlish loveliness had faded off her cheeks, though the warm
+brightness of her hair was dulled, though the years that had come and
+gone could not come and go without leaving traces behind them, still
+Jenny was pretty still, and Brian, who liked her greatly, found her face
+pleasant, as I have said, to look on.
+
+Had she done wrong to marry? Jenny’s nature, facile as it was, had yet
+set itself resolutely against marrying or giving in marriage; but time,
+as it passed by, worked wonders, and Connor’s patient devotion and
+enduring constancy prevailed at last. All were dead who knew her
+secret—all save Maxwell and one other; and so, after ten years, she
+married, and came, as we have seen, with her husband to take charge of
+the great house at Durrow.
+
+Mr. Pryor’s agency was of course immense promotion to Connor. There was
+a wonderful difference between living at Durrow Park and in Duranmore
+Cottage. Altogether, the Connors were rising people, greatly loved by
+the poor, and much appreciated by their employer; and Brian could not
+help thinking; while Jenny coaxed him to eat, and set dainty viands
+before him, that the Englishman had been fortunate; that no man and no
+woman could have been found in the length and breadth of Connemara
+likely to suit him better.
+
+For many a day Jenny and Brian had been friends. She it was who, seeing
+the boy idling away his time, sought opportunity and occasion to give
+him the caution he spoke of to Mr. Pryor; and now, when all his
+struggles, all his efforts had proved of no avail, Mrs. Connor spoke
+tearfully of the sorrow that had come upon them, and told the son how
+deeply she grieved for his mother.
+
+“You must be a good boy to her,” she said; “you must make up to her for
+what she has lost.”
+
+“Yes,” answered Brian, “and I mean to try and give her back what she has
+lost.”
+
+“You cannot give her back the dead,” Mrs. Connor remarked, sorrowfully.
+
+“No; but I may give her back Kincorth,” the youth replied.
+
+“Mr. Brian,” began Jenny, “since ever I came to Duranmore I have heard
+of Kincorth—heard of it as a bone of contention, as a place about which
+there had been quarrels, and broils, and heart-burnings, generation
+after generation. But for Kincorth, maybe your cousin might have been a
+better man: not that I have any reason to speak ill of him,” she went on
+hurriedly; “for though I am afraid he did put Timothy out of Mr.
+Waller’s agency, still he has stood his friend since, and he has been
+very kind to Dennis; but still everybody knows, unless by chance his
+wife, that Mr. Maxwell has not been a good man, which I think he might
+only for Kincorth——”
+
+“How do you make that out, Mrs. Connor?” asked Brian, pushing away his
+plate as he spoke.
+
+“You are not eating a bit,” said Jenny, piteously.
+
+“Never mind me,” answered the young man. “You were speaking about
+Maxwell: how do you think Kincorth made him what he is?”
+
+“Why, this way,” she replied. “He always thought himself wronged, you
+know, and it is not for anybody to say, Mr. Brian, that your grandfather
+did the thing that was right when he passed by his own eldest son and
+left all to your father. Do you think, Mr. Brian, it would have been
+fair for Mr. Drewitt to cut you out for Master Harold? Would it, now?”
+and Jenny’s voice grew quite earnest and pathetic as she pleaded the
+cause of the man she had once loved too well.
+
+“Putting it in that way, Mrs. Connor, I must agree with you,” he
+answered; “but then it was not with Maxwell a question between brother
+and brother, but between uncle and nephew. If George Drewitt had been
+bitter about the matter, I must say his feelings would have seemed to me
+perfectly natural, and if Harold had superseded me, perhaps I should
+have felt angry too. That, however, would have been no reason why my son
+should feel himself injured. There is no just cause why Maxwell should
+have imagined Kincorth belonged of right to him.”
+
+“Yes, there was, Mr. Brian,” she persisted. “Your father said he would
+never marry, and then he did marry. He promised to be a father to his
+brother’s children, and then——”
+
+“Mrs. Connor, he was buried to-day; let what he did and what he left
+undone be buried with him,” Brian interrupted.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” she said, humbly, and the tears came up into her
+eyes as she saw how hurt the lad was. “He was a good man and a true,
+even if he did leave many a thing undone he ought to have seen to; and
+all I meant to say was, that as Kincorth has been a curse and a snare to
+your cousin, I hope and pray, Mr. Brian, you will never let it be either
+to you. Sure there’s many a place as nice in Ireland. To my fancy, this
+house, with its look-out over the sea, is heartsomer than those woods
+and mountains”—poor Jenny! she shivered as she spoke—“and I think Dennis
+is right in saying you are better without so large a property so heavily
+mortgaged. And, indeed,” finished Jenny, “if I was a young gentleman I
+would not stay in these parts at all. I would go to England, and see the
+world, and make money, and come back here maybe for a month or two in
+the year, as Mr. Pryor does, but no longer. For many and many a day
+before I was married I used to wish I could go away. I did—I did.”
+
+“I have not a notion what I shall do yet,” Brian answered, while he took
+another cup of coffee from her. “There is one thing, however, I do
+know—that wherever I go I shall always feel grateful to you for making
+me what I am. But for you I do not think I should have been fit for
+anything; and now I do not feel afraid of turning out into the world to
+earn my bread.”
+
+“I told you before, Mr. Brian, that your mother had been my friend once
+in a time of bitter trouble, and that if at any hour of the day or night
+I could serve her or hers I would get up to do it. You have no call to
+feel grateful to me. There is nothing I could do for her, God knows,
+that would be half enough—not half.”
+
+“I cannot fancy your ever having had a trouble, Mrs. Connor,” said the
+lad. She was the same in middle age as she had been in youth, a woman
+who took men’s fancies, to whom it came easy and natural for them to
+talk. “You look as if you never could have known a care.”
+
+“Do I?” and she dropped her head forward for a moment on her hands.
+“There are few who come to my time of life,” she went on, “that have not
+met trouble; but there are few who, when in trouble, find such a friend
+as I did in your mother. If I could have died to keep this grief from
+her, Mr. Brian, I would have done it. You may think that strange now,
+having both Dennis and the children to value my life for; but I would,
+and it is because I love her, and because I love you for her sake, that
+I bid you quit caring for Kincorth—that I want you to make her quit
+caring for it too.”
+
+Brian turned away. He could not bear to think of his mother dependent
+even for a shelter on the kindness of friends, on the courtesy of
+strangers.
+
+For himself it would not have mattered, but for her—
+
+That was the keystone of the lad’s character; that was what had made a
+man of him, whilst in years he was yet a boy—love for her—love for the
+mother who had not been true to her first allegiance, but who had loved
+two other babies since, and her last child, Harold, most of all.
+
+“What am I to do?” he asked after a pause; “how can I make her cease
+caring for her home, for the place to which she came a wife, which she
+has left a widow? Tell me, Mrs. Connor,” he added, “what made you think
+so many years ago that Maxwell was determined to have Kincorth; what
+induced you to warn me; I should like to know that now.”
+
+“Well, then, you cannot know,” she replied, taking one of the candles
+off the table; “for I shall not tell you. If I had to do it again, I am
+not sure that I should act as I did then, though I meant my warning for
+your good;” and with that Jenny stretched out her hand a little
+hesitatingly towards Brian, who stooped and kissed it as though she had
+been a queen. As he did so Jenny tore her hand away and broke out crying
+hysterically.
+
+“Have I offended you, Mrs. Connor?” he said, standing abashed at his
+boyish gallantry; which was no impertinence, but an act of pure, and
+honest homage, and liking. “I am very sorry; I never meant to vex you.
+Forgive me—pray, forgive!”
+
+“Forgive!” she cried; “what have I to forgive? only, Mr. Brian, don’t do
+that again—don’t. And may God bless—and may God keep you!”
+
+Having completed which intelligible sentence Mrs. Connor left the room,
+only turning back at the door to suggest that Brian should accompany her
+and see the apartment which had been prepared for him.
+
+“Try to get some sleep,” were her parting words; and worn out in body
+and in mind, Brian followed her advice, and was soon forgetful alike of
+past, present, and future.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+                          Another Difficulty.
+
+
+“I have been considering the suggestion you made about Analore, Brian,”
+Mr. Pryor said one morning, a fortnight after Mr. Drewitt’s funeral;
+“but I should not advise you to commence operations there.”
+
+“Why not?” asked Brian. He had been over to Analore, and seen the
+foundations built up of the house his father had intended for his
+residence, and had drawn the granite for some twenty years before. “I
+think a good deal might be made of it, and with a comparatively small
+outlay, too. The land is very fair—fair, of course I mean, for
+Connemara; and my mother would be only too glad to let me do the best I
+could with it.”
+
+“That I supposed; but the reason I object to your doing anything with
+Analore is, that it would scarcely answer your purpose, to spend your
+youth, money, and time in reclaiming another person’s property. To farm
+land is a very different affair from reclaiming it.”
+
+“But my mother’s interests and mine are identical. What is best for her
+must be best for me; and if I reclaim Analore it will be quite as much
+to the advantage of all of us as of one.”
+
+“We need not discuss that question,” answered Mr. Pryor, “since it has
+nothing to do with the matter. What I mean is this: Analore only belongs
+to your mother for life; and though I trust she will stay with us till
+her hair is white, still you would not care to plough and drain and sow
+and plant for your cousin’s benefit.”
+
+“He has nothing to do with Analore. It will surely belong to me—or to
+all of us after——”
+
+“Your mother’s death. No, Brian, it will not; and it is very lucky that
+before you began to delve and dig I looked into her settlement. I cannot
+imagine how any lawyer could overlook the probability of her having a
+family; but that it has been overlooked is certain. Analore belongs to
+your mother for life, and to Maxwell afterwards. It would have belonged
+to you had your father died intestate. Unless your father were swamped
+with debt at the time of his marriage, and that some pressure was
+brought to bear upon him, the whole affair is inexplicable; but no one
+can alter the wording now, and it is for this reason I say you had
+better do nothing with Analore; because, in the first place, you would
+be spending your strength on another man’s property; and, in the second,
+you would—supposing any one advanced money on the place—have to insure
+your mother’s life to secure the lender against loss.”
+
+“Beaten,” said Brian, “at every turn;” and the pair walked on a step or
+two in silence.
+
+“You will not tell my mother,” were the next words spoken.
+
+“Why not? I think it is much better for your mother to understand
+exactly how you are situated,” replied Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Harold and Geraldine?” Brian said; and the Englishman understood that
+he meant it would pain Mrs. Drewitt to know they would be totally
+penniless.
+
+“I have been down with Neill,” Brian went on; “but he can tell me
+nothing about the missing will. He says he gave it back to my father
+himself; but that he has some impression the will was returned to his
+office; that is, he says, he remembers my father making some mention of
+either having left it with Ryan—who was then Neill’s clerk—or of his
+having intended to do so.”
+
+“Rather vague,” remarked Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Then I went to Ryan. ‘Upon my word, Mr. Brian,’ he said, ‘if I knew
+where that will was I would tell you; but Mr. Drewitt never gave it back
+to me.’
+
+“‘Mr. Neill thinks my father said something to him about having returned
+it.’
+
+“‘Burned it—depend upon it that was what he said.’
+
+“‘But why should he burn the one and not the other?’ I inquired.
+
+“‘My opinion is,’ he said, ‘that he forgot all about the other, he was
+so mighty keen on, just at that time, aye, and indeed for long after you
+thought he had done with Mr. Neill, considering how he could leave your
+brother independent of you, that it is not for me, or you, or anybody to
+say what he did or what he did not do, what he thought or what he did
+not think.’ And then what do you think he proposed?” asked Brian.
+
+“I have not the remotest idea.”
+
+“He offered to lend me five hundred pounds to work Analore. I asked him
+if it was Maxwell’s; but he said every penny of it was his own that he
+had made by hard work. ‘I tried to keep it, thinking my sister might
+want it some day,’ he added; ‘but if you have it, she can ask for it
+should she need it, and it may be of use to you now.’”
+
+“Well, Brian?”
+
+“Well, Mr. Pryor, I refused it, of course; but wasn’t it good of him? As
+I came home, I called again on Mr. Neill, and told him what Ryan said.
+‘It is very possible,’ was all I could get out of him. Then I inquired
+if my father had been with him after the mortgage was transferred, and
+he said, ‘Yes, often.’ ‘About leaving Harold independent of me,’ I
+inquired, and Mr. Neill nodded. So I am beaten there again, you
+see—beaten again.”
+
+“What do you think of doing now?” asked Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Of trying my old scheme. I should like to get a situation and endeavour
+to push my way.”
+
+“Right; you cannot do better than adhere to that resolution.”
+
+“Dan Glynn offers, as you know, two hundred and fifty pounds a year for
+Analore. I do not think, if I am not to farm it, that we can do better.”
+
+“Perhaps not. What does Mr. Dan Glynn expect to make out of it?”
+
+“Potheen, I suspect,” said Brian, laughing; “but does that signify to
+us?”
+
+“Not in the least, if he pays his rent; and at any rate it will be much
+less trouble to look up one man than twenty or thirty tenants. He will
+not turn the present occupiers out?”
+
+“They are only occupiers of the ground, you know,” replied Brian; “there
+is but one hut on the fifteen hundred acres, and that has the roof off
+it. Glynn, however, will not send any of them adrift. He will keep them
+all to help.”
+
+“And now, with regard to this plan of your mother’s about living in
+Dublin? Do you not think she had better stay on for a year, at any rate,
+at Durrow? The house is there, and empty, and——”
+
+“I think she would be happier away,” Brian interrupted. “In a house of
+her own, no matter how small, she would feel more settled than she could
+ever do at Durrow; and besides, Mr. Pryor, there is Harold—we must get
+him away from Connemara, at all hazards.”
+
+“He would be better away certainly, and he must do something to earn his
+living; but, Brian, promise me now—promise faithfully you will not
+encourage this notion of Mrs. Drewitt’s about going to law: she has not
+an inch of ground to stand upon, and it would be beggary. You have no
+idea how soon law runs away with money; and she could about as soon
+overturn Bennobeola, as put your cousin out of Kincorth now.”
+
+“Not even if that codicil were proved to be a forgery?”
+
+“How could it be proved such?” asked Mr. Pryor; but Brian remained
+silent, and the barrister went on.
+
+“I will be perfectly frank with you in this matter. I believe that
+codicil to be a forgery. I thought so the moment I heard it read. I
+thought it because of many trivial circumstances I had noticed
+previously. But you could never convert a jury to the same opinion; it
+would be waste of time, of money, and of patience to attempt such a
+thing. The solicitor who made the original will, and who, it is
+supposed, added the codicil, has been paralyzed these six years, and has
+now lost all power of speech. The witnesses are dead. It is the distance
+of time, you see, that is so much against us. In law, the codicil is
+perfectly regular, and what is worse, perfectly natural. Mr. Neill
+explains the absence of another will; and we have no reason to suppose
+that Mr. Neill speaks otherwise than truthfully. As for your father’s
+talk on his death-bed about having left the place to you, the first
+question would be, was he delirious at all during his last illness? and
+what could Sheen answer but that he frequently wandered? It is quite one
+thing, you see, to be satisfied oneself, and quite another to satisfy a
+jury. For which reasons, take my advice, and leave Kincorth to its fate.
+After all, the estate is not worth the trouble. Your father did not
+leave it as he got it.”
+
+Brian winced. No one let him imagine Maxwell had secured so great a
+prize as he wanted to believe.
+
+“You will go out into the world,” went on Mr. Pryor, “and make your
+fortune, and forget all about Kincorth, as I have forgotten all about my
+disappointment when I was beaten at Duranmore before you were born. We
+will get you something to do, and you shall do it, and be a rich man
+yet; richer than Maxwell, perhaps, and much happier, we will hope.”
+
+Having uttered which sanguine expectation, Mr. Pryor mounted his horse,
+and without asking Brian to accompany him, rode straight to Duranmore.
+The first person he went to was Mr. James Butler, with whom he had a
+long and confidential chat. Having put up his horse at the “Marsden
+Arms,” he walked from The Retreat to Mr. Neill’s office in Duranmore,
+and satisfied himself Mr. Neill, at any rate, was not one of the
+conspirators. From Mr. Neill’s office he crossed over to Mr. Ryan’s, and
+after taking the chair that was nervously handed to him, he commenced
+the conversation by thanking the lawyer for his friendly offer to Mr.
+Brian Drewitt, “about which offer,” he added, “I have come to speak to
+you.”
+
+“Indeed! it is very kind,” and Mr. Ryan looked as though he would have
+liked to skulk round the corner of the next street and get a glass of
+whiskey before proceeding to business.
+
+“Not at all; it is only my duty. I am quite certain when you made so
+liberal a proposal that you were not aware of the actual position of
+affairs regarding Analore, and a five hundred pound legacy is not one
+which it is safe to jeopardize. Uncles do not die every day—do they, Mr.
+Ryan?” added the barrister, mercilessly following every thought which
+was passing through his listener’s mind.
+
+“He is considering now whether he told Brian it was a legacy,” thought
+Mr. Pryor; while Mr. Ryan answered, vaguely, “That they did not indeed.”
+
+“And most probably, if anything went astray with this five hundred, you
+have no further expectations from your relatives?”
+
+“None, sir, none—he was the last;” and Mr. Pryor wondered whether Mr.
+Ryan had any idea of weeping.
+
+“That is precisely what I thought: you have got five hundred pounds to
+lend, but you have not got five hundred pounds to lose. Analore is not a
+desirable property, therefore, for you to risk anything upon, since Mrs.
+Drewitt has no power of mortgaging it.”
+
+“What do you mean, sir?—what do you mean?” and Mr. Pryor saw at once
+that his suspicion about Ryan being mixed up in this matter also, was
+unfounded.
+
+“Precisely what I say. Mrs. Drewitt has only a life interest in Analore.
+At her death it reverts to Maxwell Drewitt.”
+
+“And the children?”
+
+“Have not a sixpence in the world.”
+
+“The Lord help them!” exclaimed Mr. Ryan.
+
+“He had need,” answered the other, a little bitterly, “for it would seem
+that they are not likely to get much help from man. Mr. Ryan,” he went
+on, “probably you know the mystery of that marriage settlement—of course
+nothing can make a better or a worse of it now—but as a simple matter of
+curiosity, I should like greatly to know how such an instrument came to
+be drawn.”
+
+“I was not Mr. Maxwell’s solicitor then, sir. I had nothing to do with
+him then at all, I assure you, sir.”
+
+“Of course not; and that is the reason why I ask you for information on
+the subject—as a mere matter of curiosity.”
+
+“I do not know anything about it, sir.”
+
+“Are you quite certain? Was no pressure put on Mr. Drewitt?”
+
+“There might have been: if there were it wasn’t by me. I was only a
+beginner then. I had no good clients at all.”
+
+“Nor any five hundred pound legacies, we may suppose, Mr. Ryan,” said
+the other, with a smile. “I hope you are getting good interest.”
+
+“I—I haven’t put it out yet—I have it in hand.”
+
+“Then your amiable relative has died recently, I presume?”
+
+“Within the last three months.”
+
+“What a strange people you Irish are!” remarked the other, rising to
+depart. “You get a five hundred pound legacy, offer to lend it to a mere
+lad on no sufficient security, and still grudge the expense of a
+hat-band to prove how sincerely you deplore the dead!”
+
+The two men were standing and their eyes met. In a moment Mr. Pryor knew
+that what he had suspected was true; and Mr. Ryan knew the Englishman
+was in possession of his secret. Then Mr. Pryor said good-morning, and
+was going away, but the other detained him.
+
+“For God’s sake, Mr. Pryor,” he said, laying a hand on his shoulder,
+“never mention what you are now thinking to any one. He would kill me,
+he would. If ever you hear of my being found dead by the roadside, with
+a bullet through me, you will know whose bullet it is; though as likely
+as not some innocent man may be hung for the murder.”
+
+“Why do you not leave the country?”
+
+“I will if you drive me to it,” was the significant answer.
+
+“Mrs. Drewitt intends to contest the will,” remarked Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Does she?—then I wish her well out of her troubles,” replied Mr. Ryan.
+“If need were, he’d take it from court to court for twenty years. She
+has not an inch of ground; you must see that yourself. There is some law
+place in London that they say it is as bad for a man to get into as for
+a cat to go through hell without her claws. Well, Mrs. Drewitt will find
+going to law with her nephew as bad as that, or worse.”
+
+“And yet you have been his friend for twenty years?”
+
+“Have I?—more fool Timothy Ryan; that is all I have got to say: but
+friend or no friend can make no difference about Mrs. Drewitt. You can
+just tell her in confidence, out of your own mind as it were, that those
+who sup with the devil need to have a long spoon.”
+
+The notion tickled the barrister’s fancy, and he laughed outright.
+
+“I think Mrs. Drewitt would be greatly surprised if I did,” he said.
+
+“Surprised or not, it is the truth I’m telling you; but I would not tell
+it to you if himself wasn’t safe in Dublin at this blessed minute.”
+
+“If he is in Dublin, he is in Duranmore as well,” answered Mr. Pryor. “I
+see his chesnut mare at the door, and I see him throwing the reins to
+his groom.”
+
+“Lord save us! I think he is the devil,” murmured Ryan, nervously
+shuffling among his papers. “Good-morning, sir—good-morning,” he added
+aloud as his visitor reached the door.
+
+“I beg your pardon,” said the owner of Kincorth, who was entering the
+office as the Englishman left it; “your most obedient, Mr. Pryor,” and
+he almost swept the floor with his hat, his mocking bow was so low and
+deferential.
+
+Without answering him by a word, Mr. Pryor bowed in acknowledgment and
+passed out, while Maxwell walking straight up to Ryan, took him by the
+arm.
+
+“What brought him here?” said the great man, looking his accomplice full
+in the face, as if expecting him to falter in his reply.
+
+But desperation gave Ryan courage. “He came to inquire about Mrs.
+Drewitt’s settlement.”
+
+“What about it?”
+
+“She has it only for her lifetime, with no remainder to her children. He
+seemed to think I knew all about it, but I did not. I told him it was
+the first I had heard of the matter.”
+
+Maxwell dropped his hold of Mr. Ryan’s arm, and leaning over the back of
+a chair, indulged in a long low whistle of delight.
+
+“Better and better,” he said. “I did not know that either, Ryan. I did
+not,” he repeated, noticing a look of incredulity on the lawyer’s face.
+“Do you imagine I have had time to read over every paper concerning the
+property since I came into possession of it? No such thing. I shall find
+plenty to pay, I expect, when I do take that trouble. But if this should
+prove to be correct, we may as well make her an offer for Analore. You
+can write on chance, Ryan, and tell her she shall have three hundred
+a-year for Analore if she likes the offer; or should she prefer to sell
+her life interest, I will take the place off her hands.
+
+“When shall I write, Mr. Drewitt?”
+
+“To-day, if you choose—yes, better do it at once, for I should like to
+have Analore,” answered Maxwell.
+
+Acting upon which suggestion, Ryan penned a polite epistle to Mrs.
+Drewitt, who at once declined the proposal.
+
+“Having already let Analore,” she finished.
+
+“Well, it cannot be helped,” sighed Maxwell; “and, besides, it is only
+for her life.”
+
+“Only for her life!” echoed back some mocking fiend within him: “she is
+not more than two years older than you! Only for her life!—you may be
+dead before her; and then, to whom will you leave Kincorth, and the
+Headlands, and Cherryfield, and the property in the Joyce country, and
+Analore?”
+
+Maxwell had decided that point. There was a boy finishing his education
+at a very select school in the county Wicklow, whom he meant to make his
+heir, whom he intended to send to one of the English universities and
+bring up in the way he should go.
+
+There was a boy to inherit—but alas! that could not make the idea of
+“passing away” at all more endurable to the man, who, though he had no
+fear of God, had yet an intense horror of death.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+                           Harold in Trouble.
+
+
+It was summer once again: summer twelve months after the events recorded
+in the last few chapters, and Mrs. Drewitt and Brian, and Harold and
+Geraldine, were living far away from Duranmore, far beyond the Connemara
+Alps, far beyond sound of the great ocean that washes the headlands of
+the “wild west.”
+
+Brian had got a situation in Dublin, which however necessitated frequent
+absences from home. He was working hard, and giving great satisfaction
+to his employers; and Mrs. Drewitt, who had greatly crippled her income
+by feeing lawyers and running after all manner of people who advised her
+to dispute her husband’s will, resided with Harold and Geraldine in a
+small house in the outskirts of Dublin.
+
+From whence Harold walked into the city every morning, and sat at a desk
+from nine o’clock till four; an amusement he was never weary of
+grumbling about; while his mother, likewise, never wearied in
+commiserating him for it.
+
+In the present, as in the past, it was Harold she pitied, Harold she
+loved; it was the bold-eyed, bright-faced boy she clung to—her youngest
+born—the Benjamin of her life to her!
+
+Such likings are natural, perhaps; but they do not generally tend to
+make matters pleasanter in the family circle, and perhaps it was quite
+as well that Brian’s occupation took him much from home, as otherwise he
+might have had less patience than was the case with Harold’s
+repinings—with Harold’s conduct.
+
+For Harold was the same in Dublin as he had been in Connemara—wild,
+reckless, dissipated. His acquaintances were none of the most desirable,
+his life none of the most regular; but still the mother would not
+see—the mother would not believe.
+
+He was her darling, and nothing it was in his power to do could make him
+otherwise. When he found she came to meet him in the summer afternoons,
+he walked by a circuitous route home; when he found she sat up for him
+at night, he came home early, went to bed with the rest of the
+household, and then stole down in his stocking-soles, with his boots in
+his hand, and let himself out, taking the door-key with him.
+
+Of course their servant—who was often unfastening the shutters when
+Harold reappeared—knew of these pranks; but she had never the heart to
+tell his mother.
+
+And if she had told Mrs. Drewitt, what difference could it have made?
+His mother had no influence over him—none whatever. He had nothing to
+say but “I will leave the house,” or “I will go and ask food and lodging
+from Maxwell,” and she was silent at once.
+
+Whenever Maxwell came to Dublin, which was not seldom, Harold always
+dined with him, and always came back reeling drunk.
+
+“Told him—I—bore—no grudge—welcome to—Madcap—poor—old—girl,” the young
+rascal would hiccup out, and when induced to go to bed, he invariably
+did so under protest, retiring from view between the sheets in his
+boots, coat, waistcoat and trousers, and refusing to let go of Mary’s
+hand—Mary was their maid-of-all work—until she promised to call him
+early.
+
+“Don’t f—get, Marish. If you’re waking—you know—call me early, Marish
+dear.”
+
+And indeed had it not been for Mary’s repeated calls, Harold could
+hardly have kept his situation so long as was the case.
+
+“Damn business—curse work!” I think that was the refrain of almost every
+sentence Harold Drewitt uttered for some months after starting in the
+world on his own account, and Mrs. Drewitt listened sympathetically, and
+would oftentimes confide to Mary, the maid-of-all-work before honourably
+mentioned, the fact, “that she thought that office was killing her poor
+boy—he looked so pale, and ill, and thin since he left the country.”
+
+Mary had her own opinions, which, seeing Master Harold was the lamb
+without blemish in his mother’s eyes, she wisely kept to herself.
+
+But even the fondest parent cannot remain blind for ever, and
+accordingly there came a time when Mrs. Drewitt, instead of pitying
+Harold, went up to her own room and wept; when she prayed him not to go
+to the hotel where Maxwell stopped while in town; when she entreated him
+to remember that by business he must live, and that to live he must
+work.
+
+“Look at Brian,” she would remark, and the injudicious speech invariably
+made Harold shrug his shoulders, and declare Brian “never was fit to be
+anything better than a horse in a mill, or a counting-house drudge, or a
+pack-horse which he is,” finished Harold.
+
+“Now Harold, do not say such things of Brian!” Geraldine would exclaim,
+her cheeks all a-glow; and then Harold was wont to laugh and declare—
+
+“Oh! we all know what makes you so much in love with business; don’t we,
+mamma?” For which speech Mrs. Drewitt invariably pulled Master Harold
+up.
+
+In her heart, the mother did not like the way in which Mr. Gyton was
+always running over from London; she wished he would either propose or
+stay away; and yet, she argued, a man must have some opportunity for
+making up his mind. Altogether, I cannot say that the position of the
+Drewitt family was one perfectly free from care; but still time
+travelled on—on—and the seasons came and went; as they will do whether
+people are happy or whether people are sad.
+
+It was summer once again, and though there is, perhaps, no town in the
+three kingdoms where the country seems so near and stone walls so little
+oppressive as in Dublin, still Mrs. Drewitt missed the hills, and the
+valleys, and the ocean more than she would have cared to acknowledge.
+
+She had loved Connemara, and she had no other strong ties to any part of
+the earth. Mother, and father, and sister, had long been dead, and Sir
+Everard Ebbutt was married again, and her sister’s children were very
+aristocratic young ladies, who would scarcely have cared to acknowledge
+so very unfortunate an individual for their aunt. Altogether, she
+mourned greatly after Connemara; and many a time when she and Geraldine
+were walking along the Monkstown Road, or pacing slowly round Stephen’s
+Green, or sitting at work together in their modestly-furnished house,
+the poor lady would say suddenly—“I wonder how the Twelve Pins are
+looking now, Geraldine! Must not the sea seem calm seen from Durrow
+cliffs to-day?”
+
+“Yes, mamma,” Geraldine would answer, a little guiltily conscious that
+she had kept one thing from her mother’s knowledge, viz., her own
+refusal of Durrow and its owner.
+
+She could have given a comfortable home for life to her mother; she
+could have let her spend all the remaining days of her life among the
+scenes and the people she had learned to love so much—and she refused.
+
+Had she done right? For many days Geraldine pondered that question over
+and over again, and at last took courage and referred it to her mother.
+
+They were sitting side by side in one of the loneliest parts of the
+Phœnix Park—in one of the glades where the blackberries and the brambles
+grow—and in reply to a remark from Mrs. Drewitt about the quietness
+being pleasant—about the place being almost as solitary as Connemara,
+though so close to Dublin, Geraldine took her mother’s hand in hers, and
+said—
+
+“Mamma, I want to ask you something.”
+
+“He has proposed”—that was Mrs. Drewitt’s first idea, as she beheld her
+daughter’s face covered with blushes. “He has proposed”—the “he” having
+reference to Mr. Gyton, who was at that present moment galloping as fast
+as an Irish horse could take him to the Broadstone Terminus, whence he
+was soon travelling, at the mild pace which seems in fashion across the
+Channel by express train, to Galway.
+
+“I wish you were coming down with me, old fellow,” he said to Harold
+Drewitt, who had accompanied him to the station, and who stood with his
+hands on the top of the carriage-door, looking very wretched and
+disconsolate. “A run into Connemara would do you good.”
+
+“I know that,” Harold answered, mournfully.
+
+“Ask leave, and come down on Saturday. There is a car or something that
+will bring you on from Galway to Durrow in no time; and my uncle will be
+delighted. Shall I tell him to expect you?”
+
+“I don’t see how I can get away,” hesitated the boy.
+
+“Nonsense; come on Saturday. Remember, I shall be looking out for you.
+Good-bye;” and the train steamed away from the platform, and went
+leisurely onwards into the country, through which it proceeded in a
+quiet, inoffensive manner, stopping at all sorts of out-of-the-way
+stations, where no passengers ever seemed to get in or out; but where
+there was always a knot of idlers collected to see the engine and
+carriages, as if the seventh wonder of the world were taking a little
+tour through Ireland.
+
+“No need to ask where one is,” remarked Mr. Gyton to a fellow-passenger,
+who chanced to be an Englishman; “battered hats, short pipes, ragged
+clothes, and plenty of policemen—I beg their pardons—of the constabulary
+force.”
+
+“Fine country, though,” returned the other.
+
+“So I am told,” answered Mr. Gyton, drily.
+
+“And the women are so handsome! positively, walking about Dublin
+yesterday I met hundreds of lovely faces!” pursued the enthusiastic
+gentleman.
+
+“The town is not large,” remarked his companion, “and it is within the
+bounds of possibility that you may have met the same faces many times
+over.”
+
+“There is something in that,” considered the other.
+
+“And then,” continued Mr. Gyton, “if you pay particular attention to the
+subject, you will observe that most Irishwomen—the women who wear gloves
+I mean—have a slit in those gloves; either the lady’s hands are plump,
+in which case there is an aperture at the side; or her fingers are long,
+in which case the nails make a way for themselves through the tips; or
+the articles are of an inferior make, which causes gaps about the thumb;
+or they are too small and refuse to button. I have made gloves my
+study,” added the young swell, “and I never get into a railway carriage
+in which there is a woman without adding to my stock of information. I
+came up from Kingston yesterday morning with a young lady, and ’pon my
+honour, for a long time I thought she had on mittens, she was out at
+every finger down to the middle joint!” and Mr. Gyton complacently
+surveyed his own well-fitting glove, towards which his companion’s
+glance was directed also.
+
+“Do you smoke?” asked the younger man at last, presenting his cigar-case
+to the stranger, who, being graciously pleased to avail himself of the
+offered politeness, lit one of Mr. Gyton’s prime Havannah’s, and the
+pair, stretched out one on each side the carriage, smoked until they
+reached Mullingar, at which point they abandoned their cigars, and
+wrapping their railway rugs about them, slept on until the guard came to
+collect the tickets and to inform them that “when they reached the next
+station they’d be there.”
+
+“A most original and valuable piece of information,” remarked Mr. Gyton,
+yawning desperately. “Now what do you make out of that—we shall be
+there? Does he mean we shall be at the next station, or at Galway?”
+
+“The next station is Galway,” replied the other, referring to his
+time-table, and failing in his sleepy condition of mind to perceive any
+wit in the young man’s brilliant remarks. “I hope we shall be able to
+get a bed.”
+
+“If my memory serves me right, you can have your choice of about a
+hundred,” answered Mr. Gyton, collecting his effects, and humming an
+opera air softly the while.
+
+This was the “he” to whom Mrs. Drewitt had mentally referred while
+waiting for the rest of her daughter’s sentence.
+
+“You often talk, mamma, about Connemara, about the mountains, about the
+Atlantic, about those exquisite little bays, about all sorts of things,
+in fact,” and Geraldine leaned back her head till it rested gently on
+her mother’s shoulder as she spoke.
+
+“Yes, love.”
+
+“Would you like to go back there, mamma—to go back to live?” and the
+evening sunbeams rested upon the pair, upon the deep mourning of mother
+and child, and Mrs. Drewitt stretched out her hand towards those patches
+of golden light as though she could touch and retain them.
+
+“That would depend, Geraldine,” was the answer. “Home to me is now
+wherever my children are: if you were all in Connemara, I should love
+the West; as you are all in Dublin, I am learning to love it.”
+
+“You are certain, sure, positive, mamma?” and the pretty head nestled
+itself down on Mrs. Drewitt’s shoulder as well as was possible,
+considering the millinery miracle, which seemed to be stuck on the top
+of various rolls and twists of hair.
+
+“Certain, love—why?”
+
+“Because, mamma, we might all go back to Connemara—to Durrow, if I were
+to marry Mr. Pryor. He asked me, and I said no; and I have been
+miserable ever since—wondering, wondering, whether it was not wrong of
+me, when we are so poor, and when he likes me so much.”
+
+There was a long pause, during the continuance of which Mrs. Drewitt
+held her daughter’s hand in hers, and stroked it slowly, slowly, very
+tenderly and very gently. “Poor fellow,” she said at last, and Geraldine
+began to cry.
+
+“Have I done wrong, mamma? have I done wrong?”
+
+“You do not love him, darling?”
+
+“No, mamma.”
+
+“You would only marry him for the sake of Durrow, and for what he might
+do for me, and Harold, and Brian?”
+
+“Yes, mamma.”
+
+“Then, Geraldine, you have done quite right, and never vex yourself
+about the matter again. Only it is a pity of him, a great pity!” And
+Mrs. Drewitt took up her daughter’s hand and commenced stroking it once
+more.
+
+“I felt that, mamma,” whispered the girl, “but I could not help saying
+no. I thought only of myself then; but I have cried myself to sleep many
+a night since thinking about you.”
+
+“My poor child, and I never knew anything about it,” said the mother,
+sorrowfully.
+
+“I could not tell you. I was afraid you might be vexed; I was vexed
+myself, and——” Geraldine paused.
+
+“And what, darling?”
+
+“Oh, mamma—mamma!” that was all the confession, but it was enough. The
+mother knew the daughter’s secret, and the daughter knew her mother
+understood the whole business without another word being spoken.
+
+They sat on for a few minutes longer in silence, and then they walked
+home side by side still saying little, and that little having no
+connexion with the subject on which they had been talking.
+
+Mrs. Drewitt made no further remark, asked no single question; only that
+night Geraldine cried herself to sleep in her mother’s arms, and until
+the early dawning of the summer’s morning Mrs. Drewitt lay awake, and
+thought about the husband she should see no more on earth—about the
+children whose future seemed so vague and uncertain.
+
+As for Harold, the household had not much of a life with him until he
+worried permission out of his employers to grant him a holiday; then the
+very same evening he started for Galway, and worked his way thence by
+car and coach to Duranmore, where Mr. Pryor met him.
+
+“Your letter and Frank’s must have crossed each other,” he said. “He
+left for Dublin by the first train from Galway this morning, and wrote
+begging you to meet him at Morrison’s.”
+
+“Then we both slept at the same hotel last night, and never knew it,”
+said Harold, disconsolately; “will he be long in Dublin?”
+
+“Only a few hours. He leaves to-night for Holyhead, and is going direct
+to London. His father is very ill.”
+
+“Wasn’t it queer we should both be in Galway together, and never know
+it?” repeated Harold, whose sympathies were none of the keenest, and who
+would not have cared very much who lived or who died providing he had
+his little comforts. Mr. Pryor, though he had known much more singular
+coincidences in the course of his life, agreed that it was “queer,”
+while he gave the reins into Harold’s eager hands, and let him drive
+back the ten miles to Durrow within the hour.
+
+For the sister’s sake, Mr. Pryor was very kind to Harold, though his
+affection for the boy had never been overwhelming, and consequently
+Harold found his stay in Connemara exceedingly pleasant, and was very
+much grieved—grieved to the extent of tears when he had to leave.
+
+“My time’s up,” he said disconsolately to Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Is it?” remarked that gentleman, sympathetically; “you must get leave
+to come and see me next summer.”
+
+“Ay; but that is such a devilishly long time to look forward to,”
+answered Harold.
+
+“You must employ the interval in breaking yourself of a bad habit,” Mr.
+Pryor observed.
+
+“What is that?” asked Harold, quickly.
+
+“Swearing,” was the reply.
+
+“There is no harm in swearing—everybody swears but you.” Fancy the
+feelings of a middle-aged gentleman who was obliged to bear such
+speeches from a lad. “I don’t know a fellow that does not swear,” went
+on Harold; “but then, to be sure, all the fellows I know are young.”
+
+It would have done Mr. Pryor good to have pitched Master Harold over
+Durrow cliff, but one cannot always do as one likes in this world, and
+he refrained.
+
+“You may think I am making fun,” resumed the boy, “but I am not: next
+summer does seem a devilishly long time away—that is not swearing, it is
+truth—and I sometimes feel when I am looking about me here that I am
+looking for the last time—you may laugh if you like, but I do.”
+
+“What does the lad mean?” marvelled Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Just what I say; neither more nor less: maybe I may see Connemara
+again, and maybe not; but most likely maybe not. I have gone to every
+place I could think of to-day, and said good-bye. I feel that I shall
+never come back—never—never—never.” And the boy twined his hand in the
+branch of a tree against which he was leaning, and, resting his head on
+his arm, sobbed aloud.
+
+“Would you rather not return to Dublin at present?” asked Mr. Pryor, who
+really felt impressed by Harold’s grief. “I dare say I could make it all
+right with your employers.”
+
+“No, I must go; but I feel that I am going to meet my fate, Mr. Pryor.
+If nothing comes of this, try not to think me a fool; but last night,
+after I had been asleep for about a couple of hours, I awoke suddenly in
+a cold perspiration and shivering from head to foot. I think you might
+have heard my heart beating. I was in such a horrible fright, and there
+was a dread on me—a terror; what was it? tell me;” and the boy turned
+towards Mr. Pryor, who thought in a moment about Maxwell’s words—
+
+“He will never make old bones;” and it was true, poor Harold!
+
+“You were ill,” answered the Englishman.
+
+“I was not ill,” returned Harold, petulantly; “I was as well as you are.
+I had neither ache nor pain; only I was frightened: what frightened me?”
+
+“You had been dreaming disagreeably.”
+
+“I had not been dreaming at all—at least if I had I do not remember
+anything about it. I was wide awake in the time you could clap hands,
+and thinking about death, about Eversbeg, and my father, and that Kathie
+I used to hear them talking over when I was a child, Maxwell’s sister. I
+have not got over it all day. Do you think me a coward? I am not a
+coward; only—only it would be very hard to die and never see Connemara
+again.”
+
+“It would, Harold; but I hope and believe you will see Connemara many
+times before you die. And promise me you will go (quietly by yourself,
+you know, and without alarming your mother) to some good doctor in
+Dublin, and tell him you are not very strong, and to give you a tonic.
+Promise me,” and Mr. Pryor slipped a five-pound note into the boy’s
+hand, which Harold looked at as well as tears would let him see it.
+
+“In the night,” he began again, “I made good resolutions—I did, Mr.
+Pryor. I wish I could keep to them; I wish I could quit drinking; I wish
+I could quit vexing my mother. I’d like to be good. I think it must be
+nice to feel good when one wakes like that in the middle of the night.”
+
+That was the note on which Harold’s sentences began and ended. It was
+the common chord of his conversation, until at last Mr. Pryor became
+really anxious.
+
+“He would not get on this way if he were in good health,” thought the
+barrister, and when he parted with Harold he felt many misgivings as to
+whether he ought not to go so far as Galway, at any rate, with him.
+
+But there was an absurdity on the face of the thing which could not fail
+to strike Mr. Pryor. “The boy does not want to go to work,” he thought;
+“and if we make too much of him he will never be good for anything.” As
+for spirits, out of doors, Harold’s were at fever-point!
+
+“Put on your hat, man,” he said to Doyle, who, happy as a lord, was
+standing flourishing an old white apology for a hat in the middle of the
+High Street of Duranmore. “I have often been drunk myself.”
+
+“And good-bye, Kitty,” he called out to the barmaid at the “Marsden
+Arms;” “see that you’re married against I come back.”
+
+“Good-bye, Maxwell,” he shouted to his cousin, who was riding by on
+Trumpeter. “Take care of Madcap; I may come down some day in the hunting
+season, and ask you to let me have one more ride on her.”
+
+“And good-bye, Mr. Pryor,” he said last of all; “try not to think about
+what I told you—it was folly.”
+
+“Write to me what the doctor says, Harold,” entreated his friend. “All
+right,” was the reply and the car drove off.
+
+Far as he could see, Harold kept waving first his hat and then his
+handkerchief, and it was not until the vehicle turned round the base of
+the mountain, on the road to Cragantlet, and bore the boy off through
+the land of a hundred lakes, that Mr. Pryor could prevail on himself to
+retrace his way towards Durrow.
+
+He could not sleep for thinking of the lad; he resolved to write to
+Brian concerning him, and he worried himself almost into a fever over
+the matter, while Harold was shouting out snatches of songs, and
+pitching compliments to the pretty country girls as they tripped so
+daintily over the grass by the wayside, and telling stories, and
+plaguing the driver’s life out to let him take the reins, and eating his
+supper in Galway, and lying fast asleep in one of those huge beds at the
+Railway Hotel in which Finn Macoul and his whole family might find ample
+accommodation.
+
+“If you believe me, sir,” said Harold, who travelled second class, to a
+fat priest, his fellow-passenger in the railway carriage the next
+morning as far as Athlone, “I had to ring the bell to find myself; I
+went wandering over the bed every time I woke trying to discover where
+on earth I was;” and the priest took kindly to the boy, and laughed at
+his light-hearted merriment, and all the way up to Dublin, Harold found
+some one to talk to, some one to laugh with.
+
+As he drove along the streets leading from Broadstone Station to
+Carlisle Bridge, he chatted to the car-driver, and was, as the man
+expressed it, “in great heart entirely.” “Pull up at the first shop,”
+ordered Mr. Harold, “where they sell cigars; I want some;” and obedient
+to the command the man pulled up at a shop in College Green, where
+Harold alighted.
+
+He picked over the cigars with the air of a connoisseur, and, selecting
+three dozen of what he considered the best, threw down a pound-note in
+payment. He had changed Mr. Pryor’s gift in Galway, and this pound-note
+was part of the proceeds.
+
+“I must send out for silver, sir,” said the man behind the counter, who
+had never taken his eyes off Harold’s face (when Harold was not looking
+at him) for a moment.
+
+“All right,” remarked Harold.
+
+“Sorry to keep you so long waiting,” remarked the shopkeeper, politely
+handing his customer a chair.
+
+“It is of no consequence;” but Harold was kicking his heels with
+impatience for all that.
+
+Time went on. “I think,” said the lad, “they must be quarrying that
+silver.”
+
+“Not at all,” said the shopkeeper; and at the words his messenger
+re-entered the place, in company with a policeman.
+
+“There is your prisoner,” remarked the cigar-dealer; and the policeman
+laid his hand on Harold’s shoulder.
+
+“Come along, young gentleman,” he said. “The less fuss you make, the
+better.”
+
+Advice which Harold followed by striking the policeman right between the
+eyes, and then asking what the devil he meant by his cursed impudence.
+
+“It is your cursed impudence, I think,” said the shopkeeper, “coming
+here to change another of your notes.”
+
+“I never set foot in your doors before, to my knowledge,” answered
+Harold, amazed.
+
+“Well, you have to mine, which is more to the purpose,” was the reply.
+
+“Will you tell me what you all mean? Are you all mad?” asked Harold, who
+began to feel that the affair was getting serious.
+
+Then half a dozen people began talking at once, and all Harold could
+make out as they dragged him along the streets was—
+
+“Robbery of two thousand pounds—fifty pounds reward—assaulting a
+constable in the discharge of his duty—passing the stopped notes.”
+
+“But now look here, sir,” remarked Harold, to the inspector. “I know no
+more what you are all talking about than a baby in arms. That is my name
+and address; and I have just come up from Galway, where I have been
+staying at Durrow Park with Mr. Geoffry Pryor.”
+
+“You are not bound to criminate yourself,” interposed the inspector.
+“What you say after this caution will be used in evidence against you.”
+
+“Let it. I am trying to vindicate myself—though, upon my conscience, I
+have not the remotest idea of the nature of the crime with which you
+charge me. I tell you what it is,” he added, “you have got the wrong
+bird in crib; you must have mistaken me for somebody else; before God, I
+know nothing of any two thousand pounds!” he added passionately. “I
+never saw so much money together in all my life—I never did!”
+
+“If you can persuade his worship of that, it will be all the better for
+you,” was the incredulous reply; and forthwith Harold was locked up, but
+not before he sent this message to his mother:—
+
+“Tell her,” he said to a policeman, “that I am in the station-house; I
+have not the remotest idea why. I have done nothing. I cannot think what
+you have brought me here for—unless you are all mad.”
+
+But though the police delivered this message with tolerable accuracy,
+they persisted in hunting over all his little possessions, trying to
+find some trace of the missing money—of something to criminate the boy.
+
+“You see he is innocent, you see,” Mrs. Drewitt kept saying, in her
+frantic sorrow.
+
+“Yes, ma’am, we see,” answered the police; and all through that long,
+long night Geraldine and her mother kept repeating, as if to reassure
+their own faith, “He is innocent! Harold could never have done a thing
+like that!”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+                        An Unfortunate Likeness.
+
+
+Next day Harold Drewitt was brought before Mr. Boice, charged with
+having on the first of August, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred
+and fifty-four, stolen two thousand pounds, the property of the Dundalk
+and Drogheda Banking Company; when the following evidence was produced:—
+
+Jeremiah Kearns having been sworn, deposed, that on the day in question
+he was an up passenger by the five o’clock express train from Dundalk to
+Drogheda. Had with him two thousand pounds in notes, and one thousand
+pounds in gold and silver. The gold and silver was packed in a wooden
+box hooped with iron; the notes he carried in a black bag. Asked the
+guard not to put any one in the carriage with him, and his request was
+complied with, until the train arrived at Dunleer, about eight miles
+from Drogheda. At that station the guard said he would be obliged to
+give him a fellow-passenger, but it was only a young gentleman going on
+to Dublin. Seeing the prisoner, made no objection, and they travelled on
+together to Drogheda, where the witness got out.
+
+When he reached the Bank, he found he had lost his bag; spoke to the
+car-driver about it, but the car-driver was positive no bag had been
+among the luggage, nothing but a portmanteau and the box. Telegraphed at
+once to Dublin to search the carriages on the arrival of the train in
+Amiens-street. Telegraphed also that the guard would recollect witness’s
+fellow-passenger.
+
+Telegraphed, and sent messages to all their branches, stopping payment
+of the notes.
+
+Several of the notes had been changed by Dublin shopkeepers during the
+period which had elapsed between the first and the fifteenth.
+
+Had received a telegram from the inspector on the previous evening, and
+identified the prisoner at the police-station. He was dressed
+differently on the day in question, and his hair was now a little
+longer, but he had no hesitation in swearing to him as the youth who had
+got in at Dunleer.
+
+Prisoner assisted him to lift the box out at Drogheda, and made a remark
+to the effect that it must have something of value inside. Witness did
+not suspect such a respectable-looking lad, travelling first class, and
+belonging apparently to the upper ranks, of stealing his bag. He thought
+he, witness, had forgotten the bag, and that if any other passengers got
+in between Drogheda and Dublin, prisoner would be able to give
+information concerning them. Had heard the description given by several
+Dublin tradesmen of the person who had changed the notes, and identified
+that description as answering to his fellow-passenger and the prisoner
+at the bar.
+
+Had no hesitation in declaring the two to be one and the same person.
+Was confident he never mentioned that he was carrying money with him;
+but thought the guard made some joke about there being no fear of that
+young gentleman robbing him. Was in the habit of taking money from one
+bank to another; the guard knew him perfectly well.
+
+Peter Monaghan being sworn, stated, that on the night in question he was
+acting as guard on the up express train, which arrived at Dundalk at
+five minutes to five o’clock. Recollected Mr. Kearns getting in at that
+station, and requesting him, witness, to keep the compartment he
+occupied empty if possible. Knew Mr. Kearns well. At Dunleer there were
+an unusual number of passengers waiting for the up train, and
+consequently asked Mr. Kearns’ permission to put prisoner in the same
+compartment. He was such a genteel-looking young gentleman that he
+thought there could be no objection. Believed he did make some remark to
+that effect, but could not be just certain. At Drogheda Mr. Kearns got
+out, and bade witness good-evening. When witness collected the tickets
+prisoner was in the train. When the express reached Dublin the
+station-master told witness about the telegraphic message, and they both
+asked the prisoner if Mr. Kearns had left a bag in the carriage.
+Prisoner said, not to his knowledge—that he had not noticed any article
+at all when the gentleman got out at Drogheda. Had he done so, he would
+have mentioned it to him, witness, at Balbriggan. Several passengers got
+into the same compartment at Balbriggan, and one lady who got in at
+Drogheda travelled on to Malahide, where every one in that particular
+carriage got out except the prisoner. About a mile on the Dublin side of
+Malahide a black bag was found next morning by a labourer working on the
+line. It must have been thrown out of the right-hand window of the
+carriage, as it lay between the metals on the down line. He thought from
+the young gentleman’s manner that Mr. Kearns must have taken the bag out
+of the train, and lost it between the station and the Bank. Never
+suspected the prisoner.
+
+Had identified him at the station-house the previous evening, but should
+not have known him in the “wide-awake” he wore. He had on a hat at
+Dunleer. A hat was sent for and tried on. He was able to swear to him
+then, though he had fallen away in flesh during the fortnight.
+
+Michael Brinny, tobacconist, was then sworn and examined. Had a shop in
+College Green. Recollected the first of August. Just as his shutters
+were being put up on the evening of that day, prisoner came in, and
+bought a pipe and some Cavendish tobacco. He had not silver enough to
+pay for these articles, and so he laid down a pound-note, out of which
+witness returned him twelve and threepence change. Never saw him before,
+and never saw him since, until the previous afternoon, when he came to
+his shop again, and purchased three dozen of cigars, offering a Bank of
+Ireland one-pound note in payment.
+
+Witness made an excuse about having to send out for change, and kept him
+in conversation till his assistant fetched a policeman. Prisoner was
+very violent, struck the policeman in the face, declared he did not know
+what they were talking about, and gave a great deal of trouble before he
+was removed to the station-house. Knew him the moment he came into the
+shop, though his hair had grown longer, and his face thinner since he
+changed the first note. Thought he tried to disguise his voice, and that
+he spoke with more of a West of Ireland accent than when he bought the
+Cavendish.
+
+John Garvan, Daniel Laharan, Thomas Molrhany, and several other
+respectable shopkeepers identified the prisoner as having made small
+purchases, and changed notes at their establishments; while Barry
+Croggan, who appeared with a great lump on his forehead, gave an account
+of the assault committed on him by the prisoner; and stated that, but
+for the assistance rendered by Mr. Brinny and his shopman, he could not
+have retained his prisoner until another policeman came to help him.
+
+In answer to all these charges, Harold, having been duly cautioned not
+to criminate himself, stated that there must be some mistake; that he
+never was at Drogheda in his life; that he knew nothing whatever of the
+robbery, never having even heard of it till the policeman told him about
+it the previous day. Very earnestly Harold protested his innocence; he
+said he had not gone out of Dublin the whole summer, except for a week,
+the entire of which time he had spent with Mr. Pryor, of Durrow Park.
+Being asked by the magistrate if he could recollect where he was on the
+first of August, he said he could not; but upon being told what day of
+the week the first fell on, he declared he had spent the whole of it in
+the company of Mr. Francis Gyton, who could swear to the fact.
+
+Being requested to send for Mr. Francis Gyton, he said he did not know
+where that gentleman was; which reply produced a malevolent chuckle from
+the “cloud of witnesses,” and a statement from police constable Croggan
+to the effect that prisoner was anything but a respectable young
+gentleman, though he believed he had respectable friends. Many of
+Harold’s proceedings were recounted for the magistrate’s edification;
+and whilst every old sin, every mad prank, every boyish folly was
+brought up in judgment against him, the lad leaned forward and covered
+his face with his hands to hide the tears of shame and mortification
+that he had not strength enough to keep back.
+
+He had never been alone in any trouble before—never; and now, in the
+hour of his bitterest trial, he had not a soul to speak a word in his
+favour.
+
+“If you give me time, sir,” he said at last, looking up and addressing
+the magistrate, “I will be able to prove I never was near the place;
+that it is all a mistake—” and then he gave a cry of joy, for Brian, who
+he thought was far away from Dublin, entered the court at the moment,
+and offered to find bail to any amount for his reappearance.
+
+If he had not assaulted the officer, most probably his brother’s
+application would have been listened to; but as it was, the magistrate
+refused to entertain the idea even for a moment.
+
+He could not think of accepting bail in so serious a case, he remarked,
+and remanded the prisoner.
+
+“I am innocent, Brian. I know nothing about the money. Don’t let them
+take me back there!” panted out the poor lad in his terror and distress;
+but Brian could do nothing except go to a solicitor and place the case
+in his hands, write to Mr. Pryor, and send a telegram to London begging
+that Mr. Gyton would, if possible, come back to Dublin without delay.
+
+Then he went home, and it was the hardest day’s work Brian Drewitt ever
+performed, facing his mother without Harold. Poor lady! poor mother!
+though she did not believe one word of the accusation they had brought
+against her youngest born, still she wept till she had no more tears
+left to shed at the thought of her boy being in prison—of her darling
+being dragged to the dock and tried like a common felon.
+
+“I did all I could,” said Brian, hoarsely. “I offered to get bail, but
+they refused it. I was not there time enough to get a solicitor for him,
+but I have found one since. I have written to Mr. Pryor and telegraphed
+for Mr. Gyton. Is there anything else you would like tried? Is there
+anywhere else you would like me to go? Tell me. You have nothing to do
+but say what you would wish, and I will endeavour to accomplish it,
+mother.”
+
+It would not be possible in a whole volume to describe the intense
+tenderness—the womanly compassion Brian managed to put into that one
+word; and as he spoke it Mrs. Drewitt went up to him and, without
+speaking a sentence, flung her arms round his neck and kissed him over
+and over again.
+
+“Mother,” he said, “mother darling,” and he touched her hair, which was
+growing grey, grey, and he kissed her forehead, and he let her poor
+weary head lie on his breast, but her plaint was still, “Harold, Harold,
+my boy, my boy!”
+
+“I could do no more, mother,” Brian repeated, “and nobody can do
+anything more for a week yet. Mr. Gyton will be over here by that time,
+and then Harold is sure to be liberated at once.”
+
+“Brian,” the dear fingers fidgeted with his neck-tie—with the studs in
+his shirt, “Brian.”
+
+“Yes, mother.”
+
+“Where did Harold get all the money he has lately had to spend?”
+
+“I have given him some,” answered Brian.
+
+“But not enough. I should fear not enough.”
+
+In a moment Brian saw where the sting lay; in an instant he perceived
+that though she would not believe, still that she dreaded.
+
+“Make your mind easy,” he answered confidently. “Wherever Harold had his
+money from, it was not got dishonestly. There is some great mistake, but
+I could stake my life he is as innocent as I am; whatever the world may
+think, we must not turn against him—must we?”
+
+She placed a hand on each shoulder, and looked Brian full in the face.
+
+“You are not saying that to comfort me?” she asked. “You have no doubt
+yourself?”
+
+“Not the slightest.”
+
+“You feel confident he was with Mr. Gyton?”
+
+“I know he was. At least, I remember your writing to me on the evening
+of the first that Mr. Gyton had passed that day through Dublin on his
+way to Durrow, and that Harold had seen him off from the Broadstone
+Station. Harold could not have been at Broadstone and Drogheda on the
+same day; besides, he says he never was at Drogheda in his life. And
+whatever his faults may be, he is neither a thief nor a liar. Make your
+mind easy. It is a case of mistaken identity; but it is confoundedly
+hard lines for Harold to be locked up instead of the fellow who really
+did steal the notes.”
+
+“You think they were stolen then?” said Mrs. Drewitt.
+
+“They were certainly stolen, and by some one very like Harold; but I
+have never seen anybody like Harold in my life. It is a strange
+business, and we must wait with patience for the mystery to be
+explained.”
+
+“It is not easy to have patience, Brian,” remarked Mrs. Drewitt, and
+then she began crying again about her boy—her poor delicate boy, while
+Brian thought within himself that if the one-half he had heard during
+the day concerning Harold’s mode of life were true, it was no wonder he
+grew delicate, and pale, and thin.
+
+“Not home any night till well on in the small hours, Mister Brian, as I
+am a living sinner,” remarked Mary-of-all-work to him, “and dhrunk five
+nights out of the six, and not at the office regular as he ought be. I’m
+just telling _you_,” she finished, “for I wouldn’t like that the
+misthress would hear anything of it. Dear pity her poor sowl! She thinks
+the sun was made to rise and set for him.” All of which was exceedingly
+agreeable information for a young man to hear who had his own way to
+make in the world, and who had not found his path so far strewed at all
+with roses.
+
+“Never mind,” he thought, as he flung himself wearily on his bed, “it is
+all in the day’s work, we shall find rest sometime.”
+
+Possibly, but the day occasionally proves very long, and the rest is
+frequently delayed for an unreasonable period. So Brian discovered, as
+the years went on, bringing little repose with them.
+
+The Dublin papers were posted as regularly to Kincorth as “The Times” to
+Durrow, and accordingly Mr. Maxwell Drewitt had the pleasure of seeing
+his cousin’s name figuring largely in a column headed,
+
+“Robbery on the Dublin and Drogheda Railway. Arrest of the Supposed
+Thief.”
+
+“That is the end of you, Master Harold, is it?” remarked Maxwell, as he
+finished reading the report. “I wish it had been Brian instead. Why,
+bless my soul! he must have been caught the very day he returned from
+Galway. I will go up to hear if he can prove his alibi, though I dare
+swear it is a lie, and that he was not with Gyton at all. He will very
+likely be transported.” Having settled Harold’s affairs in which summary
+fashion, Maxwell went about the house and grounds in his usual manner,
+and slept soundly, not knowing what the post was bringing to him.
+
+He got his missive while he sat at breakfast, and opened it dreading no
+evil.
+
+“I should like to see you at once,” he read. “Come to Dublin
+immediately, if possible. It is important that you should do so.”
+
+“What can the fellow mean?” marvelled the owner of Kincorth. “What on
+earth can he want?” Then all in a moment he remembered the trial, and
+connected the two things together.
+
+“My God!” he thought, “can he have been mixed up in that? Have they
+mistaken the one for the other?”
+
+He looked for the newspaper which he had put aside in his desk, and
+spelled over every word of the evidence. “Thinner—hair longer—more of a
+Connaught accent—did not know him till he put on a hat,” he repeated to
+himself, “and they have got that other boy locked up for it.”
+
+He put the paper away again, told his servant to pack his portmanteau,
+and to order post-horses, “For I must catch the night mail from Galway
+to Dublin,” he explained to the man, who did not seem to understand
+things, while he invoked a hundred curses on the head of his wife, who
+querulously remarked that he was always going from home.
+
+“And always likely to do till you are out of it,” he answered, savagely.
+They had been living a more wretched life than ever, lately, for Lady
+Emmeline had unexpectedly turned restive, and refused to fall in with
+her husband’s plans, as he had fondly hoped she would.
+
+“Anything but that,” she said, firmly. “Anything but another woman’s
+child;” and she relapsed into hysterics whenever he ventured to approach
+the subject, and adopting the mode of warfare most in favour with her
+sex, of digging a moat round her citadel and filling it with tears,
+rendered her position alike invulnerable to threats and entreaties.
+
+He might have known he had no chance of success with her, and by holding
+his tongue have kept peace, at any rate; but he preferred trying to
+compass his end, and the result was a state of domestic warfare which
+caused the servants to declare emphatically that Kincorth was like hell.
+
+“They never are but bickering and quarrelling, and snapping at one
+another from morning till night,” said Lady Emmeline’s maid to a select
+assemblage in the servants’ hall. “It was only this morning I heard
+master saying he could wait till she was dead; and mistress answered she
+would live to spite him.”
+
+This was what marriage had done for Maxwell Drewitt and for Lady
+Emmeline. He had paid his price and got the article he coveted, and this
+was the result. No wonder he spent much of his time in Dublin; no wonder
+his heart—for he had some human feelings, some need for human
+affection—turned hopefully towards his son, whom he meant to make a
+great man of one day.
+
+A great man! Alas! already his dream castle was tottering to its
+foundation. It was to prop it up and save it he hastened to Dublin,
+where the first person he went to seek was a schoolmaster, grave and
+discreet, who resided near that loveliest of all sea-bathing villages,
+Bray.
+
+“You wanted to speak to me, Mr. Blosse,” began Maxwell; he had travelled
+all night and looked haggard and exhausted. “You wanted to speak to me.”
+
+“Yes, Mr. Drewitt, particularly,” was the reply. “I think we might take
+a walk if you are not tired. I should like to say what I have got to say
+out of doors.”
+
+“Let us go then,” and Maxwell put on his hat.
+
+“You will have some breakfast?”
+
+“Not any; I am ready to go if you are.”
+
+“Will you not take a glass of wine?”
+
+“At this hour? no, thank you, Mr. Blosse; let us go,” and he moved
+nervously towards the door.
+
+When they were once out into the open air, he turned towards his
+companion inquiringly; but Mr. Blosse said, “Not yet,” and they walked
+on—on to the very top of Bray Head; where, unmindful of the view,
+unmindful of everything in earth, or sea, or heaven, Maxwell demanded
+what was the matter; what Mr. Blosse had to say.
+
+“That trial, Mr. Drewitt—you know the trial I mean?”
+
+“Yes,” Maxwell answered.
+
+“Is not the accused some relative of yours?”
+
+“My first cousin—go on.”
+
+“I take it for granted there must be some extraordinary likeness between
+him and Arthur,” continued Mr. Blosse.
+
+“I do not know why you should take anything of the kind for granted, Mr.
+Blosse,” said Maxwell, stiffly. “I really do not.”
+
+“The youth who is in custody did not take that money, Mr. Drewitt,”
+observed Mr. Blosse, “and Arthur did; therefore I say some extraordinary
+likeness must exist between them.”
+
+He had been expecting this all along. He had hoped for nothing different
+from the moment he opened his letters the previous morning. He had faced
+the question as he drove past the desolate lakes, under the shadow of
+the lonely hills. He had not concealed the probability of such an
+announcement greeting him on his arrival at Bray; and yet now, when the
+blow did fall, Maxwell felt it in every nerve of his body—in every vein
+of his heart.
+
+He did not know till then what hopes he had built on the chance of what
+this handsome illegitimate flesh of his flesh and blood of his blood
+might turn out. He had not realized what dreams he had cherished about
+him; how he had been turning year after year more and more to this one
+thing which belonged to him, which he called his own on earth, till,
+standing on Bray Head, with the blue sea washing a far different strand
+from that whereon he was accustomed to gaze below him, with the clear
+sky above him, he heard Mr. Blosse speak words that might have been read
+out of a death-warrant, judging by the effect they produced.
+
+For a long time Maxwell stood silent; for a long time he remained
+staring down on the sea, while he swallowed, drop by drop, the contents
+of that bitter cup. Then when at last he could speak—when at last his
+voice would answer to his will, he asked Mr. Blosse to explain
+himself—to tell him all the particulars.
+
+“Begin at the beginning,” said Maxwell, “and do not stop till you get to
+the end.”
+
+“He spent his holidays, as you know,” commenced Mr. Blosse, “partly at
+Killarney, with you, and partly with one of his schoolfellows, whose
+father has a property near Carlow. He was to have returned here on the
+first of August; but he never made his appearance until the evening of
+the third, when he stated that he had gone down with a friend to the
+North, and that he had come back from Derry that day. I asked him who
+his friend was? and he said an officer who was going to be married to
+Grey’s sister. I knew Grey’s sister was engaged to an officer, and so I
+never thought of disbelieving his story at the time, though I have since
+had reason to think he did not go to Derry at all, but only to
+Carlingford, in company with some not very desirable acquaintances.”
+
+“Go on,” interrupted Maxwell. “It is the last part of the story I want
+to hear. What makes you think Arthur——”
+
+“Is the culprit? I think so—because I found the notes secreted in his
+bedroom. I noticed something strange about him ever since his return,
+and determined to watch his movements. I remarked that he was
+perpetually making excuses to leave the library; that he was always
+going upstairs; that——”
+
+“Go on!” entreated Maxwell. “I do not want to know what you noticed; I
+want to know what you found.”
+
+“I found there was a short piece of board loose in his room, and that
+these notes were under it—or, rather, not under it, but pushed far away
+to one side below the sound boards. I should never have guessed it but
+for his own over-anxiety. He could not rest away from the packet; he was
+always fancying somebody had discovered it.”
+
+Maxwell tried hard to keep his hands off the man who had dogged and
+watched and trapped his son; and who now sat and told him—not without a
+certain subdued triumph—how his sagacity had been rewarded—his trouble
+repaid. He dug his nails into his flesh, and looked at his clenched
+fists, with the dark look of his wicked youth gathering deeper and
+deeper about his eyes.
+
+“Go on!” he repeated; and Mr. Blosse went on.
+
+“I had heard of the robbery,” he said; “I had listened to the story
+without any great interest, as one does listen to such things, unless
+there is some circumstance of special importance connected with them;
+but when I saw the notes I taxed Arthur with the theft, and he confessed
+all. How Mr. Kearns left the bag behind him——”
+
+“You can stop now,” Maxwell interrupted; “you have told me all I care to
+hear. Now listen to me. I know exactly all you would say, and I can
+guess your questions without hearing one of them. First of all, the
+money must be sent back to this precious Drogheda Banking Company.
+Secondly, this boy—this Harold Drewitt—he must be cleared. He can do
+that for himself, I know. Mr. Gyton did leave Dublin for Galway on the
+first, and Harold was in his company all the afternoon, at any rate.
+Thirdly, you want Arthur out of your house, and you want no fuss,
+because you think a fuss would damage you with the parents of your other
+pupils. I will take Arthur away with me; and last, but not least, you
+desire a pecuniary acknowledgment from me—a suitable thank-offering for
+the silence you have maintained, and will maintain, on this subject. Is
+there anything which I have overlooked, Mr. Blosse?”
+
+“Nothing. You are thoughtfulness itself,” was the reply.
+
+“Now, you can go back to your house and leave me here for half an hour,”
+said Maxwell; “at the end of that time I shall want to see Arthur.”
+
+“But, Mr. Drewitt——”
+
+“I know my own business, sir, and shall transact it after my own
+fashion,” interrupted the owner of Kincorth, and he followed the
+retreating figure with his eyes as it grew less and less in the
+distance—followed it till it was mixed up among other figures, and lost
+to view; then Maxwell himself descended slowly to the shore, and walking
+along the beach, which was bare and dry, the tide being out, he kicked
+the pebbles before him just as he had done so many years previously when
+he lounged home to Kincorth by the edge of Duranmore Bay.
+
+He had been worsted, and a man like Maxwell Drewitt does not bear such
+an indignity patiently. He had longed to kick Mr. Blosse—to taunt him—to
+dare him—to defy him; but he was afraid. Mr. Blosse could transport the
+boy. He had father and son in his power, and he only refrained from
+using that power because he thought it might injure his reputation as an
+instructor of the sons of the “nobility and gentry” if it were known a
+felon had come out of such an unexceptionable establishment.
+
+“He has the ball,” reflected Maxwell, “and can make what terms he
+chooses, damn him!” and at this point Mr. Drewitt lit a fresh cigar, and
+walked on more slowly and leisurely than ever.
+
+He was thinking—thinking what to do with Arthur. “I will take him to
+England,” he decided. “I will put him under the care of some good
+clergyman, if there is such a _rara avis_ to be found. I will try to
+reform him, for he is mine, and he is all I have.”
+
+Oh! lonely and desolate, poor and unregarded. There was something about
+the departure of that pair—of that father and son, from under his roof
+which touched even Mr. Blosse.
+
+“You may depend upon me, Mr. Drewitt, you may, indeed,” were his parting
+words, and he spoke them with a certain warmth of manner upon which
+Maxwell’s reply fell like ice.
+
+“I do not doubt it, Mr. Blosse, for you know it will be to your interest
+to remain true to me,” and having uttered this pleasant speech, Maxwell
+turned his back on Mr. Blosse, and telling the car-driver to take them
+leisurely to Kingston, he and Arthur left Bray behind them.
+
+Maxwell did not breathe freely until they reached Holyhead, and were
+speeding along through the darkness to Chester. He had never reproached
+his son—never spoken to him, in fact, on the subject, and he did not
+mean to do so till they were safe in London. The notes were in his
+possession; but he could do nothing with them for the present.
+
+Harold was still a prisoner, and “he must remain a prisoner unless Mr.
+Gyton can prove a satisfactory alibi,” thought Maxwell. “After all, he
+is out of harm’s way where he is, which is more than could be said if he
+were at large.” And so far Maxwell was right, for Harold had nothing to
+do the whole day long except form good resolutions, and vow, and
+declare, and swear he would turn over a new leaf when once he got out of
+his present scrape.
+
+He had been up again before the magistrate, but his solicitor had
+procured another remand. Mr. Gyton was in the south of France with his
+father, but he would return to England immediately. Mr. Pryor pledged
+himself to that, and in order to make assurance doubly sure, started off
+in search of his nephew. Brian grew dreadfully anxious as day after day
+passed over and still brought no tidings of Mr. Gyton’s movements. He
+began to feel on how slight a thread Harold’s chance of escape was
+hanging. If anything happened to Frank Gyton—if he were killed in a
+railway accident—if he caught a fever and died—if he could not swear to
+the date—if, like Mrs. Drewitt, Geraldine, and Harold’s employers, he
+had attached no definite memory to the day, or the hour, or the date,
+why, then Harold would be convicted; without doubt he would be
+convicted.
+
+“And he never could live out his sentence,” thought Brian, in despair,
+“and it would kill my mother; her hair is getting quite white with this
+suspense, and that certainly would kill her.”
+
+He was making some observation of the kind to the solicitor who had
+undertaken Harold’s defence, when a telegram arrived from Mr. Gyton.
+
+“Am in London,” ran the message; “shall be in Dublin to-morrow morning.”
+
+“I hope he will,” said the lawyer; “for your brother, remember, is to be
+brought up again on Thursday, and nothing can save him but a miracle or
+an alibi.”
+
+Which speech sounded anything rather than consolatory, under the
+circumstances.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+                       Hearing is not believing.
+
+
+Thursday arrived, and Harold Drewitt was again brought up on remand
+before the magistrate.
+
+He had been taken into custody on the 15th of August, and it was now the
+middle of September; and as he came into court, two or three people
+remarked that the air had not seemed to agree with him—that he evidently
+wanted a change. “Which he is not likely to get to-day,” observed one
+policeman.
+
+“His witness is here, though, I am told,” was the reply.
+
+“I don’t care if fifty witnesses were here, they could not bring him out
+clear,” answered the other, oracularly; and, indeed, this was the
+general feeling in the court. Everybody thought Harold had made a
+mistake in not pleading guilty, and begging for mercy, as it was his
+first offence, and the temptation had been great.
+
+In one way the policeman was right. Mr. Gyton could clear him in law,
+but Mr. Gyton could never wash him white in the estimation of the
+public; and poor Harold appeared to feel this, as he looked round the
+court, and saw every eye fastened on him, not compassionately, but
+curiously.
+
+He never seemed to have courage except when he glanced at Brian, who had
+been faithful to him through all—faithful, as he had promised his
+father, on his death-bed, that he would be to Harold.
+
+There was the magistrate, severe and incredulous; there were some of the
+directors of the Dundalk and Drogheda Banking Company, eager for
+revenge; there was Mr. Jeremiah Kearns; there were all the witnesses,
+mentally checking off the depositions as they were read aloud, and
+thinking how impossible it was any man living could prove an alibi in
+the face of such overwhelming evidence.
+
+One or two fresh witnesses had been procured by the bank from impossible
+regions of the earth: the lady who got into the carriage at Drogheda;
+the passengers who had travelled from Balbriggan to Malahide;—all were
+there to swear to Harold’s identity with the thief.
+
+The lady was the only person who hesitated about the matter. She could
+not swear to the prisoner being her fellow-passenger. “He was very like
+him; but—”
+
+“But what, my dear madam?” suggested the solicitor for the prosecution;
+and the court waited for her reply, while the lady still hesitated.
+
+“Pray tell us in what respect the prisoner is unlike?” suggested the
+magistrate, insinuatingly; for the lady was pretty, and his worship had
+eyes in his head.
+
+There was a profound silence in the court, while the witness turned and
+looked again at Harold.
+
+Very imploringly he lifted his eyes to hers, and perhaps that settled
+the matter.
+
+“I cannot swear to the prisoner being the young gentleman with whom I
+travelled from Drogheda. He is very like—but——”
+
+“Pray proceed, we are all attention;” and the solicitor for the
+prosecution struck an attitude while he waited for the rest of the
+sentence.
+
+“The young gentleman I travelled with had a slight suspicion of a
+moustache and beard coming,” said the lady, desperately, “and——”
+
+A roar of laughter, in which the magistrate himself could not help
+joining, drowned the remainder of her words.
+
+“You mean, I conclude, that the prisoner’s hirsute appendages have not
+as yet made their appearance,” suggested the magistrate.
+
+“He has likely been hungry where he was, and ate them off,” remarked
+some one in the rear.
+
+“If I hear any more indecent interruptions,” said his worship, “I will
+order the court to be cleared.”
+
+“If ye’d have it cleaned,” observed the same voice; whereupon the police
+made a dive into the crowd, and seizing an old woman and a boy, hustled
+them outside the door.
+
+Meantime the solicitor for the prosecution was asking the witness, “if
+she did not think it possible she was mistaken—that she had been
+thinking of some one else?”
+
+Upon which the lady got cross and said, “She was not mistaken, and that
+she was not thinking of any one else;” and as nothing more could be made
+of her, she was ordered to stand down.
+
+The solicitor for the defence, when it came to his turn, said very
+little about the business—as little as he could help. He remarked, that
+it was clearly a case of mistaken identity, and observed that the
+prisoner had been in Dublin at the very hour when the robbery was said
+to have been committed. In support of which he produced Mr. Francis
+Gyton, whose appearance made an impression both on the magistrate and
+the court generally.
+
+Mr. Francis Gyton being sworn, deposed, that he was a son of Mr. Gyton,
+of the firm of Gyton, Lark, Munday, Hatfield, & Co., Austinfriars,
+London.
+
+“He has got fathers enough,” remarked the former speaker from among the
+crowd, and the police made a fresh dive, and this time carried off in
+triumph a woman who had an infant in her arms.
+
+Mr. Gyton proceeded—Knew the prisoner Harold Drewitt very well indeed;
+called at his mother’s house, and subsequently at the office of his
+employers, on the first of August last. Remembered the day, because he
+left London on the evening of the thirty-first of July, by the
+twenty-five minutes past eight express, and crossed to Kingston by the
+night mail-packet. Was only the one day in Dublin. Left the very evening
+of his arrival for Galway. Slept in Galway at the Railway Hotel, and
+proceeded the next day to Durrow Park, near Duranmore, the residence of
+his uncle, Mr. Henry Pryor. The prisoner dined with him and accompanied
+him to the railway station.
+
+Cross-examined.—Was certain he did not stop the night at Chester. He had
+a glass of very bad sherry there, and returned to the compartment he
+occupied immediately. Was not left behind. Begged the solicitor for the
+prosecution would recollect to whom he was speaking. Had not the
+slightest idea whether it was the Ulster, Munster, Leinster, or
+Connaught, he came over in. If he, the solicitor, sent down to Kingston,
+very probably he could find which of those steam-vessels arrived at
+Kingston from Holyhead on the morning of the first of August.
+
+Knew they had a good passage. Could not possibly be mistaken as to
+Harold’s identity, Had been acquainted with him too long for that. Was
+certain he only remained in Dublin one day. Did he, the lawyer, think he
+should forget his own name next? Left Broadstone by the half-past seven
+train. There was one gentleman in the compartment with him. Arrived in
+Galway about twelve. Had some cold beef; remembered it, because he had
+never seen such a joint before, or since; and a glass of brandy and
+water. Slept at the Railway Hotel. Could not recollect the number of his
+room; but knew it had three windows in it, and that all of them would
+open. Had never in any other house in Ireland seen a window that would
+open, or a door that would shut. Was not in love with Ireland. The
+solicitor for the prosecution was perfectly correct in that supposition;
+but came often to Ireland to see his uncle. Had frequently been told it
+was a fine country, but could not say of his own knowledge that such was
+the fact.
+
+Admitted that he liked English customs best. Did not admire Irish
+peculiarities when they carried people to the length of shooting
+landlords, and locking up an innocent boy for a month, on suspicion of
+his having stolen a black bag from a bank clerk. Would swear fifty
+times, if the solicitor wished it, that the prisoner could not have been
+at Drogheda, because he was at Broadstone; and he, Mr. Gyton, supposed
+that even an Irishman was unable to appear in two places at once. Had
+kept none of his hotel bills; always tore up the rubbish the moment he
+was outside the door; did not consider that a proof of English
+extravagance, and could not see, if it were, that it had anything to do
+with the matter in hand. Did not know whether the prisoner led a
+respectable life or not, and was at a loss to understand what his life
+signified to anybody except Mr. Harold Drewitt, and Mr. Harold Drewitt’s
+friends. Had come back from France solely for the purpose of giving
+evidence in this case; would have come from Jericho for that matter. Was
+quite certain prisoner had dined with and accompanied him to the
+Broadstone Station. Did not think it at all singular that he could
+remember the name of a station while he forgot the name of a boat. Most
+probably he had never indeed heard the name of the steamer. Was positive
+about the date. How much oftener was the solicitor going to ask him that
+question?
+
+Henry Pryor, sworn, stated that his nephew, the last witness, arrived at
+his house on the second of August, and told him he had parted with
+Harold Drewitt at the Broadstone Terminus of the Midland Great Western
+Railway on the preceding evening. His nephew informed him (Mr. Pryor)
+that he had asked Harold to come down to Connemara, and that the boy
+would endeavour to get permission to do so. Mr. Gyton was suddenly
+summoned back to London, in consequence of the dangerous illness of his
+father, with whom he subsequently proceeded abroad, and consequently,
+when Harold Drewitt did arrive at Durrow, Mr. Gyton had left that place.
+Was certain his nephew arrived in Connemara on the second, and that he
+said he had not slept in Dublin, but in Galway. He had known Harold
+Drewitt for two years, and believed him to be quite incapable of the
+crime laid to his charge.
+
+After which evidence, the solicitor for the defence intimated that he
+did not purpose calling any other witness. It was, as he stated in the
+commencement, a clear case of mistaken identity. From the first his
+client had said he never travelled by the Belfast Junction, or Dublin
+and Drogheda Railway, in his life, and an alibi had now been
+unmistakably proved.
+
+After a good deal of hesitation, his worship fell into this view, and
+having remarked that Mr. Gyton’s evidence was irreconcilable with the
+assumption of the prisoner’s guilt, and that it appeared to be a most
+singular case of mistaken identity, he said that the prisoner must be
+discharged.
+
+There was, however, something in the magistrate’s manner which seemed to
+imply “not guilty, but don’t do it again;” for he assured Harold he had
+had a very narrow escape, advised him for the future to lead a more
+regular life, and began a lecture which the prisoner cut short by
+saying—
+
+“I did not steal those notes, I know nothing about them, who stole them,
+or whether they ever were stolen. I never was at Drogheda in my life,
+nor at Dundalk either. I never, to my recollection, entered Mr. Brinny’s
+shop before the time I went in there for those cigars, and if ever I
+chance to meet the person who appears to be so like me, I will take the
+value out of his bones for what he has made me suffer during the past
+month.”
+
+This indiscretion on the part of Harold was a perfect godsend to the
+magistrate, who told him such language was highly improper, remarked
+that he did not seem duly grateful for his escape, and finally dismissed
+him with a caution.
+
+Then the next case was called on, and Harold, to quote the newspaper
+reports, left the court with his friends.
+
+There is, perhaps, no way in which a person can be acquitted which is so
+eminently unpleasant as for an acquaintance to come forward and swear
+that on such a day, and at such an hour, the accused was with him in
+such a place.
+
+Of course it is better to get off in this way rather than not at all;
+but an alibi always sounds too like a pretext to be perfectly
+satisfactory to the public; while the released prisoner (if he be
+innocent) invariably leaves the court with the comfortable idea either
+that a score of people have been in league against him, or else that
+there is some blackguard walking about the world wearing his face,
+assuming his gait, speaking with his voice, who may be committing fifty
+crimes that will, in due time, be fathered on him.
+
+Harold Drewitt was not, however, old enough to comprehend all that a man
+would have felt, had a man stood in the boy’s shoes. He knew he had got
+off, and it was impossible that he should understand he had escaped
+being committed for trial by the merest shave of the wheel of accident.
+Had he been with any of his ordinary companions during the afternoon in
+question, there can be no doubt but that the magistrate would have
+pooh-poohed the evidence in the prisoner’s favour, while probably the
+witnesses for the defence might have got so worried and tormented as to
+narrowly escape being committed for perjury.
+
+Mr. Gyton and Mr. Pryor were not, however, people whose testimony could
+be treated with disrespect. They might be mistaken. In his heart the
+magistrate thought they were; but still he had no choice but to act on
+their evidence and allow Harold to leave the court with his friends;
+while many people remarked—that the young fellow had been born under a
+lucky planet, and that if he had been a poor boy he would have been
+transported.
+
+“He would, as sure as God made little apples,” observed one man,
+indignantly elbowing his way out of the crowd; “for it’s meself knows
+the dacent chap that was hung on half the ividence they brought against
+this one. If he didn’t stole that money I’d be very glad to know who
+did.”
+
+That was the general feeling throughout Dublin; but Harold knew nothing
+about the general feeling, and only remembering that he was free once
+more, returned home on a car laughing and amusing himself as usual.
+
+He mimicked the magistrate; he mimicked the witnesses; he mimicked the
+policeman, and went rollicking about the house in the wildest spirits
+imaginable.
+
+He was as thin as a whipping-post and as pale as a corpse; but he
+insisted that he was not ill, that his mother should make herself happy
+about him.
+
+“I am not ill,” he said; “not a bit ill; all I want is something to eat
+and to get out into the fresh air. We shall have many a walk before the
+fine weather is quite gone. There is a fortnight still left of
+September. Am I to go back to the office or not?” he added, looking
+towards Brian, who said—
+
+“Your place has been filled up.”
+
+“Has it? A good job too. There was not one of them came to speak a word
+for me, and none of the fellows sent me a line or a message, though they
+must have known I did not do it—mustn’t they, mother?”
+
+“Yes, Harold.”
+
+“We will go down for a day to Bray, and take a car on to the Dargle,
+shall we, mother? I should like that. I’d like to see the purple bloom
+of the heather if it’s not quite gone off, and I love the sea down
+there.”
+
+“May we go with you?” asked Mr. Pryor, and Mr. Gyton at once followed
+suit, and voted that it would be nice for them to make up several little
+parties and go wherever Harold chose. There was an indescribable
+tenderness in the manner of all towards the boy who had been, as they
+knew, so hardly done by, and who presently insisted on going as far as
+Sackville Street, “Just to be sure I am free,” he laughed.
+
+As Brian had business to attend to, and Mr. Gyton appeared a little loth
+to leave Geraldine, Mr. Pryor offered to accompany Harold; and the pair
+accordingly sallied forth and walked into Dublin, where the youth at
+every turn met some one he knew, some one he paused involuntarily to
+speak with.
+
+But no one voluntarily spoke to him: a cold bow; a nod; a how-d’ye-do; a
+reluctant shake hands. Harold could not understand it, and at last
+appealed to Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Am I not innocent? It looks almost as though they thought me guilty,
+does not it?” and he drew closer to his companion, who told him—
+
+“Not to trouble himself about it; that they would learn better in time.”
+
+“I think,” remarked Harold, after another old acquaintance had passed
+without taking the slightest notice of his salutation, “I think it is
+nearly time for us to go home;” and, accordingly, they turned and went
+back over Carlisle Bridge, and along Westmoreland Street, and past
+College Green, and down Nassau Street, and so on to the suburb where
+Mrs. Drewitt resided. As they walked along Merrion Square a
+disreputable-looking fellow came up and, accosting Harold, shook him so
+heartily by the hand as to threaten dislocation of his wrist.
+
+“Glad to see you out,” he said; “thought at one time you were in Queer
+Street for life: when will you be round our way?”
+
+“I don’t know,” answered Harold, nervously feeling Mr. Pryor touch his
+arm warningly. “I am not very well—that is, I have friends—that is, I am
+going out of town.”
+
+“Well, it’s about the best thing you can do till the talk has blown
+over. It is a wicked world, and living’s hard work. Good-bye.”
+
+“Who is that man, Harold?” Mr. Pryor asked a little sternly, and his
+tone at once put Harold’s bristles up.
+
+“He was a very respectable person—very indeed; but had been unfortunate
+in business. His name was Grinnell, and he lived some place up near
+Mountjoy Square.”
+
+“Does he really? I should have thought some of those nice respectable
+streets in the neighbourhood of St. Patrick’s would have been much more
+in his way.”
+
+Of which speech Harold refused to take any notice.
+
+“I hope,” continued Mr. Pryor, “that you do not intend keeping up your
+acquaintance with him; you are but just starting in life; you have been
+extricated with considerable difficulty from a most awkward position,
+And it behoves you, therefore, to be doubly careful for the future in
+choosing your associates.”
+
+Still Harold made no answer.
+
+“I wish you would promise not to have anything more to do with people of
+that description: you will ruin your own prospects, and break your
+mother’s heart.”
+
+“Hang it!” interrupted Harold, “one must speak to somebody, and he is
+the only fellow who has said a civil word to me since I came out. You
+must see for yourself that the ‘genteels’ have cut me; don’t you now?”
+
+“If they have, do you think you will mend matters by taking up with all
+the riff-raff who come and shake hands with you?”
+
+“You need not call them names if they are not gentlemen,” suggested
+Harold.
+
+“I think I, or any one else who styled the person from whom we have just
+parted an honest man would be calling him very much out of his name.”
+
+“I suppose I am not good enough for you, then?” said Harold pausing.
+
+“Nonsense, boy. I want to save you from the consequences of your own
+want of firmness. You believe in everybody who says a kind word to you,
+and the result is you have made intimates and associates of people with
+whom you ought never to have exchanged a word. Do you not remember what
+the police stated about the character of your companions—swindlers,
+betting-men, drunkards, profligates, of every description? If your
+mother had only heard the one-half we have heard about you, Harold, she
+would be more anxious about you than she is.”
+
+“I wonder you are not ashamed to be seen out walking with me,” said the
+boy. “I am sure I am not fit company for a rich swell like you. Had not
+you better take the other side of the street?” added Harold, who was by
+this time worked up to a pitch of passionate fury. “We may meet somebody
+else who will come between the wind and your nobility. Go on; I will
+follow, if you like; it cannot be pleasant for you to feel that you are
+out walking with—with—a blackguard and a thief!”
+
+“Don’t be an idiot, Harold;” and Mr. Pryor laid a hand on the boy’s
+shoulder, and led him, or, rather, pushed him, on towards home.
+
+“I’m not an idiot,” said Harold. “I know you all think I am, and that I
+do not understand anything—that I am a fool; but I am as wise as Brian,
+though I may not be such an old-fashioned sneak; and I will speak to
+whom I like, and go with whom I like, and visit whom I like, without
+consulting anybody.”
+
+“You are resolved to be independent, at any rate,” observed Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Yes, I am. I mean to stick by the friends who stick by me——”
+
+“Would you think me impertinent if I ventured to remind you, I and my
+nephew have tried to be your friends?” said the barrister.
+
+“I know you have; I know why, too; because Maxwell told me something
+long ago. It is not because you like me, it isn’t. Nobody likes me; and
+now you are going to set my mother against me, and tell her every little
+thing I have ever done.”
+
+Having completed which dreadful picture, Harold stopped again in the
+very middle of the pavement, and seemed disposed to have a good cry on
+the spot.
+
+There was a car passing at the moment, which Mr. Pryor hailed. “You are
+tired, Harold,” he said; “you have tried your strength too much. Jump
+up, and let us drive home.”
+
+When they reached home, Harold went off to bed; but whether because he
+was sick, or whether he was sulky, Mr. Pryor could not decide.
+
+Next day, however, he saw clearly that the young gentleman’s temper was
+greatly damaged; for he insisted, against the advice of every one of his
+family, on going to his late employers, and asking why they had filled
+up his berth.
+
+“I wish you would not do anything so foolish,” Brian remarked.
+
+“I am not a child,” was the reply; “and I mean to see to my own business
+for myself. I won’t be kept in the dark by anybody.”
+
+And accordingly he went.
+
+It was the best thing that could have happened to a youth of Harold’s
+peculiar disposition, to be able to hear for himself what the world said
+of him.
+
+He had been so pampered and spoiled at home, that he was never likely to
+learn the truth there. Strangers, however, did not stand on so much
+ceremony, and when Harold grew impudent, gave him quite as good as he
+brought.
+
+“I know you have got off,” said one of his late employers; “and I know
+how you have got off, also—by an alibi; for which I would not give
+that!” and he threw a scrap of waste paper on the floor. “Of course, I
+am sure Mr. Gyton would not have said what he did unless he fully
+believed it to be the truth; but he was mistaken, that is all; and a
+very lucky mistake it turned out for you. I really wonder at your
+assurance in coming here at all. As for taking you back, I am only too
+glad to be rid of you; there is not another house in Dublin who would
+have kept so idle, useless, and disreputable a young vagabond for a
+week.”
+
+Harold walked out of the inner office, and as he passed through the
+outer looked defiantly at the clerks he had once been intimate with: one
+or two nodded; but none came forward to shake hands—to say they were
+pleased at his escape.
+
+He felt tired, but he had no heart to go home; he had taken his own way,
+and his own way not having proved a pleasant one, he did not like to go
+back and confess to such a disappointment: accordingly he went on—on
+along the North Wall, where his respectable friend of the preceding
+evening dropped upon him, and proposed that they should go out for a
+drive together: “Round by the strawberry-beds, and on as far as Lucan.”
+
+Harold jumped at the idea. “And we can have some dinner together, and
+then spend the evening at Birdley’s; there are to be a lot of fellows
+there. What do you say? will ‘the old folks at home,’ be singing all the
+evening, ‘Willie, we have missed you?’”
+
+“No,” answered Harold; “I’m your man.” And while Mrs. Drewitt was
+marvelling what in the world could have become of her boy, he was
+rattling through the Dublin streets, talking and laughing and joking, as
+though he had never been in any trouble, as though he had never been a
+prisoner in his life.
+
+Before evening came he was pretty well exhausted, but still his
+companion insisted on taking him to Birdley’s, where he was greeted by
+the assembled guests with great enthusiasm; his health being drunk with
+all the honours.
+
+“Now tell us how you did it?” exclaimed one. “How many of the flimsies
+did you manage to get off?” asked another.
+
+“I suppose you have made a bonfire of the rest: it would be no go trying
+to pass them now,” said a third.
+
+“You must have made a tidy haul of it though, altogether,” observed one
+unwholesome-looking young man.
+
+“And how did you contrive to hoodwink those respectable friends of
+yours, for I suppose they would have been above sharing the swag.”
+
+“Tell us all about it?” repeated the first speaker. “Silence now,
+gentlemen, if you please. Mr. Harold Drewitt rises to address the
+meeting.”
+
+“I want to know something,” cried Harold, who was indeed on his legs.
+“Do you really think I stole those notes?”
+
+“Draw it mild,” suggested the young man above referred to; who looked
+very much as though he had been buried and dug up again. “Stole is such
+a confoundedly ugly way of putting it.”
+
+“Do you believe then I ever was at Drogheda? Do you think I ever saw
+that money? Do you imagine that all I said was lies?”
+
+“Well, very few people looked upon it as the truth,” was the reply.
+
+“You consider me a thief, then, in plain words?”
+
+“Oh! no, nothing of the kind; you merely annexed the contents of that
+carpet-bag——”
+
+“I did not—I did not,” Harold vehemently interrupted. “I know no more
+who took that money than you do.” (Here the auditors winked at one
+another.) “If I never should speak another word, I am as innocent in
+this matter as any man among you.”
+
+“Well, then, who the devil is guilty?” asked the chairman; “for no
+person in his senses can suppose all those witnesses were in collusion
+against you. It must have been you or your twin brother, if you have
+one.”
+
+“If you look closely at his face, it must strike you as too old, too
+second-hand, if I may use the expression, to have served only one body,”
+said Mr. Grinnell. “Rely upon it there’s another trunk somewhere that
+borrows that face and goes out with it at nights while this good child
+is sleeping it its bed.”
+
+“Gentlemen,” began Harold.
+
+“We are all attention.”
+
+“I wish you would believe me.”
+
+“Lord help the boy, we are so simple we could be made believe anything,”
+said his neighbour.
+
+“I never saw that money. I never changed one of those notes. Everybody
+is against me, though I am innocent—innocent;” and Harold’s voice began
+to shake a little and his lips to tremble.
+
+“Really this is becoming affecting,” remarked the corpse-like young
+gentleman, addressing Mr. Grinnell.
+
+“Allow me to perform a parent’s part,” said the chairman, offering
+Harold a handkerchief.
+
+But Harold’s temper was now up: he pitched the handkerchief back at the
+speaker; he threw off his coat, and declaring he would fight the matter
+out, dared any one to say he was a liar, and requested the company
+generally to “come on!”
+
+“Now, now,” said Mr. Grinnell; “now, now,” and he walked round the
+table, and picked up Harold’s coat, and begged him to put it on, and to
+sit down and take things peaceably.
+
+“How can I take things peaceably when you are all against me—all?” asked
+Harold, looking first at one of his tormentors and then at another. “Are
+you cowards, that none of you will come on, when I ask you? Will you not
+even let me fight for my good name? will you not——”
+
+“Catch him, some of you,” cried the chairman, and involuntarily every
+man sprang to his feet, and stretched out his arms towards the boy, who,
+stopping suddenly in his sentence, reeled back a few paces, and then
+fell into the chair he had pushed away from him.
+
+“Send for a doctor,” said one.
+
+“Give him some punch.”
+
+“He’s had too much already.”
+
+“No, he hasn’t,” said Grinnell, “he has scarcely tasted a drop.”
+
+“Get him some water.”
+
+“Stand back, stand back,” entreated Grinnell, “and open the windows,
+some of you; it is not a common faint though, he’s quite gone,” and he
+wiped the perspiration from Harold’s face, and put the hair back off his
+forehead, and took the clammy hands in his and chafed them gently.
+
+“I will take him home,” he said, when Harold recovered a little. “Tell
+the waiter to call a car. Birdley will lend me something warm to wrap
+round him. Are you able to walk now, do you think?” he continued,
+addressing Harold, “or shall I carry you? That is right; take hold of my
+arm; don’t be afraid of leaning. Now come with me.”
+
+“Good-night, gentlemen,” Harold said, turning round and addressing the
+group that were looking after him. “Likely I shall never see any of you
+again; but, whether you believe it or not, I am innocent of what you
+think.”
+
+“He looks to me,” remarked the chairman after he had left the room, “as
+though he were going precious fast to that place where it’s best known
+what he is. It is a pity, too, for he is a plucky lad;” and there ensued
+a great silence, during which every man present was employed wondering
+whether it were indeed within the bounds of possibility that Harold had
+been mistaken for some one else, who might be thinking at that very
+moment how deucedly lucky it was for him that he had escaped scot free.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XI.
+                              Called Home.
+
+
+The September wind blew cold and keen as Mr. Grinnell and Harold drove
+along the quays to Carlisle Bridge, and the man that had so strongly
+excited Mr. Pryor’s disapproval drew the borrowed rug closer round the
+boy, who shivered and trembled as the blast swept by.
+
+It was better when they entered the south side; there they were
+sheltered from the cutting wind, and Harold grew quieter and calmer as
+the car bore him nearer and nearer home. He asked Mr. Grinnell not to
+drive up to the door, but to set him down at the end of the street where
+his mother resided; and then they had a quarrel as to which should pay
+the man, that resulted in Harold, as usual, having it all his own way.
+
+On one point, however, Mr. Grinnell was firm—he would not let the sick
+lad walk up the street alone, neither would he allow him to throw aside
+Birdley’s rug. “I will take it back with me,” he said. “I am resolved to
+see you safe and sound to your own door.”
+
+Which he did, and then bidding Harold a cheery “good-night,” left Harold
+as Brian admitted him.
+
+“Who was that came with you?” the elder brother asked.
+
+“A friend of mine, a man who brought me home. I have been ill, Brian—I
+have indeed,” and Harold dropped into a chair and put out his white thin
+hand deprecatingly towards his brother.
+
+“I am going to be good,” he said. “I am. If you all will only do what I
+ask you, I will never get drunk again. I will try to be a credit to
+everybody belonging to me yet. It is not too late, I think, is it?” and
+with a gesture which was unspeakably touching, he put Brian’s hand on
+the table, and laid his cheek upon it.
+
+Brian had persuaded his mother and Geraldine to go to bed. The servant,
+however, was still up, and now stood in the doorway. She came to ask if
+anything more were needed; but seeing Harold’s head bent down and his
+brother leaning over him, she remained silent.
+
+Brian saw her and whispered the one word “Doctor.”
+
+In a moment, Mary was running down the street, and late though the hour
+was, returned in five minutes with a surgeon.
+
+“My brother is not very well,” said Brian, after the first greetings
+were over. “Can you suggest any little thing that will set him to
+rights?”
+
+“I would rather not see a doctor. I do not want any medicine,” remarked
+Harold, lifting his head, and looking with his great dark eyes straight
+in the face of the surgeon who was feeling his pulse, and counting its
+beats with the greatest apparent indifference. “I am quite well,” he
+went on, pettishly, trying to wrench away his wrist; and then he dropped
+his face again on Brian’s hand, and his brother knew it was to hide the
+hot tears, that were falling thick and fast as rain.
+
+“Hysterical,” said the doctor, calmly; and Harold gave Brian a push, as
+a hint that he should contradict the medical statement.
+
+“His strength has been greatly tried lately, as most probably you know,”
+answered the elder brother; and his low, full voice had a great virtue
+of quietness in it. “He has suffered much, both mentally and bodily; but
+we hope rest and change may do wonders for him. Don’t we, Harold?”
+
+The boy made no reply, but he pressed his lips on Brian’s hand.
+
+“Is this the young gentleman, then, who was charged with a crime that
+some one else committed?” asked the surgeon; and for those words Harold
+turned round and thanked him.
+
+“Nobody would believe me, sir,” he said. “Nobody, that is, out of my own
+home. But I did not do it. I did not, indeed.”
+
+“That I am sure you did not!” answered the surgeon, heartily; and
+immediately he and Harold became good friends; and the boy, pushing back
+the mass of black hair that had fallen forward over his face, answered
+all the doctor’s questions, and told all his symptoms, so far as he knew
+them himself.
+
+“It is the nights I dread,” he finished. “If you could only give me
+something to prevent my being so frightened. It is horrible to be all
+alone in the dark, like that;” and he clutched Brian’s hand, and held it
+fast while he spoke.
+
+“Why did you never tell any one of these attacks before?” asked Brian.
+
+“I told Mr. Pryor. The first of them I ever had at night was the time I
+was staying at Durrow; and he tipped me a five-pound note, and made me
+promise him to go to some of the great guns here, and ask them about it;
+and I meant to go, only, you know, they took me up the very day I came
+back—they did.”
+
+“Poor lad!” said the surgeon, compassionately.
+
+“I was a poor lad, I think,” answered Harold. “There’s nobody ever can
+know what it was—to be like what I have been to-night, in that horrid
+place. Another week of it would have killed me; I am sure it would.”
+
+“Well, we must try to set you up again now,” observed the surgeon,
+cheerfully. “If your servant can come with me,” he added, addressing
+Brian, “I will send back some medicine with her, and see your brother
+early to-morrow morning;” and he stretched out his hand, which the two
+youths shook gratefully and departed.
+
+“You won’t leave me to-night, Brian, will you?” pleaded Harold; and
+Brian was just saying that he would not, when Mrs. Drewitt, who had got
+up and dressed herself at the sound of a strange voice, came
+down-stairs, asking what was the matter.
+
+“I did not feel up to the mark,” Harold answered; “and that obstinate
+Brian must needs go disturb the whole neighbourhood by fetching a doctor
+to see me. What a shame it is to have roused you up! but now that you
+are here, I want to ask you a favour. I want you and Brian to do
+something for me.”
+
+“What is it, dear?” She was sitting on a chair, drawn close up to his;
+her arms were about him, and his head was resting on her breast.
+
+“I want to go away. I want you to leave Dublin, and take me where I
+shall not be known—where I shall not be called a thief and a liar at
+every turn.”
+
+“Who dares call you either the one or the other?” and Brian’s hand
+clenched, and his mouth was drawn tight as he asked the question.
+
+Harold laughed out.
+
+            “Who killed Kildare? who dared Kildare to kill?—
+              I killed Kildare, and dare kill whom I will,”
+
+he repeated. “He would go out and fight for me, I do believe,” he said,
+turning to his mother; “but he would have to fight all Dublin if he took
+up that quarrel. I have found out to-day,” Harold went on, as he kept
+curling and uncurling the broad strings of the widow’s cap that fitted
+so closely to Mrs. Drewitt’s face, “that there is no place like home,
+after all, and that there are no people like our own people, when they
+are true to us.”
+
+“Come up to bed, Harold,” interposed Brian, who dreaded another fit of
+weeping. “Come along;” and he lifted his brother off his chair.
+
+“Wait a moment,” entreated Harold, standing with his arm round Brian’s
+neck, and Brian’s arm supporting him. “Wait a moment; will you do what I
+say? Will you leave Dublin?”
+
+Mrs. Drewitt’s glance wandered for a moment round the room. It was not
+large; it was not well furnished; but it had been a shelter, and it had
+seemed like home. For the instant it appeared hard to have to turn out
+once more into the world; to be in middle age a wanderer on the face of
+the earth; but the feeling only lasted for a moment; then she said—
+
+“I will do whatever may be best for my children, and the child that has
+most need of me I must consider first.”
+
+The last few words were addressed to Brian, who answered—
+
+“Harold has most need of you, mother. Do what he asks. Leaving Ireland
+may be the making of him yet.”
+
+“Do you wish to leave Ireland, Harold?” Mrs. Drewitt inquired, and the
+boy nodded.
+
+“I should like to go to London,” he said; “I want to be lost; I want to
+be able to be a good boy. I am tired and sick of being bad and foolish.”
+
+“Then God forbid we should keep you in the way of temptation!” exclaimed
+Brian: “but now come to bed; if you are to travel to London you must
+make haste and get strong.”
+
+“Oh! I shall be all right enough,” answered the lad as he crawled up the
+staircase, with Brian’s arm still encircling him, with his right hand
+still twined round Brian’s neck.
+
+And thus it came to pass that, instead of going to the Dargle, or to the
+Seven Churches, or to the meeting of the waters, or any of the lovely
+places to which Mr. Gyton had planned little excursions, the Drewitts
+set about packing up their effects forthwith and removing to London.
+
+“You can do as you please about it, of course,” said the surgeon to
+Brian; “but——”
+
+“It is his fancy,” the elder brother answered; “and I would not baulk it
+for any consideration. And do not tell my mother, Mr. Ross; she will
+find it out for herself in time. I know what you mean. I have been
+afraid of it from the first.”
+
+And there was another person who knew also; upon whom the feeling that
+he was dying came slowly but surely; who day by day clung to his mother
+with a more despairing attachment, with a more passionate love.
+
+After they removed to London he and she were never separate. In the dull
+winter days he sat at the windows of their lodgings, looking out on the
+constantly-changing panorama that was passing below. For the sake of her
+boy, Mrs. Drewitt had rented apartments in a house that commanded the
+view of a crowded thoroughfare; and it was Harold’s delight to sit from
+noon to dusk, and from dusk to nightfall, watching the people passing
+and repassing, the endless conveyances, the lights, the bustle, the
+noise, the excitement.
+
+Hand clasped in hand, mother and son spent the days thus together. It
+was a fearful winter, that of 1854–5, but Harold lived through it. The
+spring of 1855 was late, and the season ungenial; but Harold lived to
+smell the violets which Geraldine bought for him, and to see the
+primrose-roots hawked in baskets about the streets.
+
+It was a lovely summer, and Harold lived to take many a drive and many a
+walk through the great Babylon. He loved the parks—he liked to go where
+there were hundreds and hundreds of people, and not a face he knew among
+them save one, his mother’s; while she—it was impossible for her not to
+know that to Harold’s life there could be but one sequel—an early death:
+and when at last, in the September following their arrival in London,
+the heart that had once throbbed so high with youth and hope and courage
+was cold and quiet, Mrs. Drewitt, alone with her dead, fell on her knees
+and thanked God that her boy—her frail, erring, unfortunate boy—belonged
+at last solely to Him and her.
+
+She made no mourning for her child, she raised no cry of grievous
+lamentation, of unutterable woe, but she lay through the night thinking
+of how he had come home at last—home to the one sure shelter to die in
+peace. The touch of his hand seemed never to depart from her; she could
+not forget how day after day he had pillowed his head on her bosom; she
+could not shut her ears to the “mother—mother” that he kept repeating
+towards the last if she left his side for a moment.
+
+“God has been very good to me, Brian,” she said. “He gave my boy back to
+me before he died, and I am content.”
+
+With some difficulty Brian at last found a resting-place for Harold: not
+in one of the great cemeteries, but in a quiet churchyard in one of the
+northern suburbs, where the evening sun falls aslant over the graves,
+where great trees throw a pleasant shade across the grass, where the
+grey church-tower flings its shadow over the tombs, where the bells ring
+out Sunday after Sunday, where there is quiet without loneliness, rest
+without desertion.
+
+There Brian laid his brother down to sleep, himself the solitary
+mourner.
+
+Mr. Pryor and Mr. Gyton were both out of town; and in the vast city
+Brian Drewitt had no other friend.
+
+As he left the grave, his thoughts went back to another funeral, at
+which he had been chief mourner likewise: where, under the shadow of the
+mountains, within sound of the sea, he had seen the mortal remains of
+his father placed in the vault of the Drewitts.
+
+He would have felt better satisfied had Harold slept there likewise. He
+would have liked a train of mourners, and a procession such as had wound
+down the avenue at Kincorth, and under the trees, and round the bay, and
+over Duranmore Hill, and down into the hollow.
+
+Each man has his special weakness, and this was Brian’s. He had never
+felt so fully that they were Drewitts of Kincorth no longer, as when he
+followed his brother to the grave alone.
+
+What did the words graven on his headstone, “Harold Drewitt,” imply to
+the men and the women who passed through that churchyard Sunday after
+Sunday? Nothing. They only served to show that there a stranger had laid
+him down to rest.
+
+What guess could they make about how the nineteen years of his young
+life had been spent? What could they know of his story—his errors—his
+repentance—his wrongs?
+
+But as though it had been all contained in a single page, Brian read the
+tale which was now finished over again—over and over again.
+
+He could see the boy riding round and round the meadows; he could see
+the proud glances which both father and mother directed towards their
+youngest born; he could see the daring imp taking his leaps, bearing his
+tosses, laughing advice to scorn, and mocking at all grave counsels. He
+could see him walking about with Maxwell; looking defiantly across the
+dinner-table, at the Headlands, at his more prudent brother, and then
+draining off his bumper out of mere bravado. He thought of him that
+night at Regan’s: he saw him disappear through the darkness on Madcap;
+he remembered his life in Dublin, and the great trial which had, so far
+as any human being could see, saved his soul, while it destroyed his
+life; and then—then there came the days when Harold was tractable as a
+child—when he clung to his mother—when he turned back home to die.
+
+The short story was finished—the tale told—the book closed in this world
+for ever.
+
+It was with the life of Harold Drewitt “as it is with a ship that
+passeth over the waves of the sea, which, when it is gone by, the trace
+thereof cannot be found, neither the pathway of the keel in the waves;
+or, as when a bird hath flown through the air, there is no token of the
+way to be found; or, as when an arrow is shot at a mark, it parteth the
+air, which immediately cometh together again.” He had “passed away like
+a shadow, or as a post that hasteth by.”
+
+Maxwell Drewitt had been right. It was a young body that Brian left,
+with an exceeding bitter and sorrowful heart, to sleep in the grave
+until the Judgment-day.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XII.
+                        Geraldine is Satisfied.
+
+
+In the lives of all men there come long pauses, when the river of
+existence seems to flow on without a ripple, when day succeeds to day
+without any event of sufficient importance to be set down and chronicled
+occurring in the even course of their experience.
+
+Such a time was the year following Harold’s death to Brian Drewitt.
+Though some changes had taken place, they had come about so naturally
+that they scarcely seemed changes to him. All perhaps he noticed
+specially or cared for particularly was, that he found it would take him
+a long time to grow rich, and that during that time he was separated
+from revenge and Maxwell and Kincorth.
+
+Had he forgotten Kincorth, do you imagine? Had trouble driven all
+thoughts of vengeance out of his head? Had struggling with the world not
+tamed him, experience not subdued him, time not softened him? No, my
+reader. The object he had planned to work for in Connemara he was
+working for still, and though the end seemed no nearer of attainment,
+but further off than ever, yet Brian Drewitt never withdrew his eyes
+from it, but kept that distant goal in view by day and night, in
+solitude and when he was mixing among his fellows.
+
+Long ago, I said a person had but to look in Brian Drewitt’s face to
+know that he could wait through years. He was waiting through years now
+for the end.
+
+He had been very fortunate in business; fortunate, that is, considering
+his training and the age at which he made his start in the world; but
+still Brian felt dissatisfied.
+
+It is not easy to be content with pounds when you have been calculating
+thousands; it is difficult to work for small pay when you desire to make
+money _ad libitum_ for the purpose of wiping out old scores; and thus,
+though Brian was in the receipt of a hundred and fifty pounds a year, he
+worked like a galley-slave to make himself of more value to his
+employers, who were now not the Dublin firm in whose establishment he
+had made his first start in life, but the great London house of Gyton,
+Lark, Munday, Hatfield and Company, Austinfriars.
+
+After his brother’s death he felt that he would like to be nearer his
+mother than could possibly be the case if he retained his situation in
+Dublin.
+
+As for asking Mrs. Drewitt and Geraldine to return there, to return to a
+country which was now so full of painful associations, he felt that such
+a request would be both foolish and unreasonable, and when Mr. Frank
+Gyton proposed to him that he should take his chance of the “governor’s
+temper,” at a salary of one hundred and fifty, which was an advance of
+fifty on the pay of the Dublin firm, Brian close with the offer on the
+spot, and three months afterwards walked into the city office as
+corresponding and foreign clerk.
+
+That Mr. Gyton had a temper; that Mr. Munday had a worse; that the
+managing clerk had a worse temper than all his principals’ tempers put
+together, Brian was not long of finding out; but he had sense enough to
+find out at the same time that if he did his work no one could find
+fault with him; that if he kept his time, held his tongue, did what he
+was told and refrained from idling, nobody would meddle with him.
+
+Had he been gay and light-hearted, like other lads; had he been given to
+merriment, or to merry-making; had he been sociable and lively, like
+Harold, with a jeer or a joke for every one, probably he would never
+have made way in the good graces of Mr. Gyton; but as matters stood that
+gentleman took to him in due time amazingly.
+
+Mr. Gyton, in the City, was a different man from Mr. Gyton at the
+West-end. At the west he did not seem to have much voice in any matter
+on which his son and wife chanced to entertain a decided opinion; but in
+the City he was an individual of many prejudices, with old-fashioned
+ideas; who gave himself all the airs of a millionaire; who was a
+martinet in Austinfriars, and who liked to see old heads set on young
+shoulders.
+
+In this respect Brian suited him to a nicety. Brian might have been a
+thousand years of age.
+
+“A most discreet young man,” he remarked to Mr. Munday; and Mr. Munday
+agreed that he was, but ventured to observe that it was a pity he
+chanced to be born on the wrong side of the channel.
+
+“As for that, sir,” answered Mr. Gyton, drawing himself up, and taking a
+pinch of snuff out of his box, without offering any to Mr. Munday, “as
+for that, sir, the Gytons have some Irish blood in their veins. My
+grandfather married the niece of an Irish Earl, and my father-in-law was
+Irish to the back-bone. Well trained, sir, and well bred, the Irish can
+run as well as the best of us.”
+
+“Then I suppose it is quite true what I hear about your son?” said Mr.
+Munday, a little maliciously.
+
+“What about my son, sir?—what—what about Frank?”
+
+“It is generally said that Mr. Drewitt has a very charming sister——”
+
+“And if he have a dozen sisters, Mr. Munday——”
+
+“Why, in that case, your son could have choice enough.”
+
+“Of course he could, and he can choose whom he pleases, and he can marry
+whom he likes, without consulting every idiot in London on the subject,
+I suppose.”
+
+“Certainly, Mr. Gyton, his own father not excepted, we may conclude.”
+
+And then the partners had quite a quarrel; they tried who could hit
+hardest, who could say the sharpest things, and went on wrangling and
+snarling, until Mr. Gyton, looking as red as a turkey-cock and as
+pompous as a beadle, remarked, that he supposed his private affairs
+might be regarded as separate from those of the firm; and that he wished
+Mr. Munday would recollect for the future that he had expressed such a
+wish; after which observation, which was delivered in the tone of a
+royal command, Mr. Gyton summoned Brian into his private office, and
+began catechizing him.
+
+“How long have you been with us, Drewitt?”
+
+“Six months, sir.”
+
+“And you like the business?”
+
+“I like anything out of which money can be made,” was the reply.
+
+“Anything honest, I suppose, you mean.”
+
+“Anything honest and honourable,” agreed Brian. “Anything that a
+gentleman may do, and still remain one.”
+
+“Humph! You call yourself a gentleman, then, do you?”
+
+Brian flushed scarlet, but had sense enough to make no reply.
+
+“There—there—don’t be annoyed. I only asked for information. I wanted to
+know more of you. An employer ought to understand clearly the position
+in life of a person holding your responsible office. Let me see—how did
+you happen to come here?—who recommended you?—with whom were you last?”
+
+Brian told him.
+
+“And wasn’t there something about your father cutting you out?—what was
+all that?”
+
+Once again, Brian gave him the information he wanted.
+
+“And which of your family have you with you in London?” was the next
+question.
+
+“My mother and only sister,” answered the young man.
+
+“Dependent upon you, of course?”
+
+“No, sir; my mother has her settlement, which is quite enough for all
+her wants,” Brian said, stiffly.
+
+“Hah! so much the better. Now just begin and tell me your story right
+through—don’t keep anything back—be frank with me, and I will be fair
+with you. I am not asking out of idle curiosity—I am not, upon my
+honour.”
+
+Thus exhorted, Brian told all—told everything, even to Harold’s mishap;
+and during the course of the recital, Mr. Gyton senior indulged himself
+in many pinches of snuff—in many hems, and haws, and God bless me’s, and
+upon my soul’s.
+
+It was early summer, and Mr. Gyton was arrayed in those wonderfully
+light trousers for which most City magnates seem to have some kind of
+mania; he had on a white waistcoat, displayed an imposing amount of
+shirt-collar, wore a lightblue silk cravat, and was shaved as clean as
+it was in the art of man to shave a human chin.
+
+He always carried an immense white silk pocket-handkerchief and an
+equally enormous bandana.
+
+The bandana was now spread out over his knee, like a flag laid over a
+railing, and he contemplated the way in which his boots were blacked;
+while with his plump legs well apart, and his stomach swelling out under
+his white waistcoat, and his heavy guard-chain strolling about over his
+chest, he sat and listened to Brian, interrupting him only with the
+remarks I have mentioned.
+
+“Hah! poor lady—very sad—very sad indeed: has Mrs. Gyton been to see her
+yet—eh?”
+
+Mr. Gyton was always fancying his wife was in league with his son, and
+he put the question fully expecting to hear that Mrs. Gyton and Mrs.
+Drewitt were bosom friends.
+
+No such thing however.
+
+“My brother took that affair I mentioned so much to heart,” answered
+Brian, “and his health was so bad from the time we left Ireland, that he
+could not bear the sight of a stranger at all, and since his death my
+mother has never recovered her spirits sufficiently to care for
+visiting.”
+
+“Wonderful—bless me—extraordinary!”
+
+“We are so differently situated now,” began Brian, who really did not
+know what else to say; but Mr. Gyton interrupted him with the remark
+that he should have thought—but of course everybody knew their own
+business best (the millionaire was apt at times to be ungrammatical)—a
+little friendly visiting would have done Mrs. Drewitt good. “It’s not
+well to sit moping,” went on the great man; “brooding over sorrow only
+makes it worse; and we none of us can live alone—at least, that is my
+experience. I am sure when I was so ill, this time two years—let me see,
+is it two years? yes, it must be pretty nearly two years—the doctors
+told me I must speak to no one, see no one, and think of nothing, for at
+least three months.”
+
+“They considered your case so serious?” suggested Brian, imagining some
+observation was expected from him.
+
+“Serious? yes, indeed, it was serious; but their prescription would have
+killed me. I might as well have been put in my coffin at once, and so I
+told them. I went abroad, certainly, but what did I do there? I amused
+myself as much as possible. I saw everything there was to be seen. I
+drove about, I ate foreign kickshaws, I talked French (Brian thought he
+would have given something to hear the French to which Dives had treated
+the Parisians), and what was the consequence?”
+
+His clerk faintly hoped that he had come back better.
+
+“Better! why you see me now. I have been better since than I ever was in
+my life; and that’s what your mother ought to have, change and variety,
+instead of mouching in the house all day. Mrs. Gyton shall call upon
+her; yes, that she shall;” and Mr. Gyton having uttered the last words
+as if in answer to an internal protest against any such erratic
+proceedings, took a pinch of snuff, blew his nose violently and looked
+straight at Brian, who said—
+
+“I hope, sir, you will not think me rude and ungrateful, but——”
+
+“But what—what is it you have got to say?”
+
+“I think my mother would rather—that is, we are so completely removed
+from the circle we——”
+
+“Bless my soul! what ails the boy? he cannot finish a single sentence!”
+exclaimed Mr. Gyton, pettishly. “That is a shocking habit for any one to
+get into. Out with it!” he finished, working himself up to a pitch of
+desperation; “out with whatever you have got to say.”
+
+“I am quite certain,” said Brian, steadily—so steadily that Mr. Gyton
+never guessed what the effort cost him—“that you would rather our house
+and your house were kept completely separate, when I tell you Mr.
+Francis Gyton once thought my sister very pretty; as she is,” added
+Brian. “All things considered, my mother decided it was best he should
+not see so much of her, nor she of him. I hope I am not doing wrong in
+telling you this, sir. We know exactly where we stand, and we do not
+wish to push ourselves into any house under false pretences;” and Mr.
+Brian drew himself up to his full height, and looked the very
+incarnation of pride and determination.
+
+“Do you mean to say my son was ever fond of your sister?” asked Mr.
+Gyton, facing slowly round.
+
+“I believe he was. I do not think my mother would ever have said it was
+best for him not to see Geraldine, had there not been something of the
+kind—and something definite, too.”
+
+“The young dog!” remarked the parent.
+
+“I should be sorry to say anything calculated to annoy you, or to
+prejudice you against Mr. Francis. But the matter is all settled now;
+and you will understand, from what I have said, why I think my mother
+would rather Mrs. Gyton did not call.”
+
+“Thank you. It is always best to speak out fairly and frankly, is not
+it? Now there is something else I want to talk to you about. You have
+done your best, I think, since you came to us?”
+
+“I have tried to do my best,” answered Brian, who was in horror lest he
+was going to be dismissed.
+
+“Yes; and those who try generally succeed, don’t they?” said Mrs. Gyton,
+whose face seemed to Brian to get redder every moment, while his
+shirt-collar became more imposing. “I have been thinking of sending you
+abroad, very shortly.”
+
+“Do you mean to any of the colonies?” asked Brian, hurriedly.
+
+“No, no—only to France; it is rather a delicate piece of business, and I
+want it managed cleverly. If you conducted it to our satisfaction, I
+have no doubt we should be able to raise your salary next year.”
+
+“You are very kind to me, sir,” Brian said.
+
+“Not at all, not at all. I know what I am about. Take care of what you
+do, and you may make your way in the world yet. Now you can go; that is
+all I wanted.”
+
+But still Brian hesitated.
+
+“I can have no objection to your repeating to Mr. Francis what has
+passed between us to-day; but at the same time, sir, I almost wish you
+would not mention the matter to him. It is all settled now; and——”
+
+“Yes—yes—yes—yes,” exclaimed Mr. Gyton, impatiently waving his hand; “I
+understand perfectly; be satisfied, I shall not make any mischief;” and
+Mr. Gyton rose from his chair as a hint that the interview must be
+considered ended, while Brian went back to his desk wondering greatly
+whither all his principal’s questions had tended.
+
+As for Mr. Gyton, he took an early opportunity of seeing Mr. Pryor and
+asking him what kind of girl that sister of Drewitt’s might be; which
+question Mr. Pryor answered by inquiring why his brother-in-law wanted
+to know.
+
+“Curiosity,” was the reply.
+
+“Nonsense,” exclaimed Mr. Pryor; “you have heard some of that chatter of
+Munday’s about Frank being fond of her, as Frank was, for that matter;
+but do not let it influence you against Brian; for though Munday does
+not like him, you will never get a more faithful nor trustworthy clerk.”
+
+“But I want to hear about this girl. Have you seen her?”
+
+“Have I seen her?” repeated Mr. Pryor, with a nervous laugh. “Have I
+seen you? Did not I see them every day in Connemara before they ever
+left Kincorth? Did not I tell you I was in the house when her father
+died, and that I heard the will read over too? Seen her! I should think
+I had.”
+
+“Do you think Frank really was fond of her?”
+
+“How is it possible for me to answer such a question? He was at one time
+never out of the house, and he proposed for her. There, now the cat is
+out of the bag. But he had not courage to ask your consent, and Mrs.
+Drewitt would not allow the affair to go on without your knowledge.
+Frank asked me about it, and said he feared there was no chance of your
+approval; in which opinion, knowing there was no money nor prospect of
+any money, I agreed with him.” Mr. Pryor was never weary of having a
+fling at his brother-in-law’s money-bags.
+
+“And so Frank gave her up?”
+
+“I don’t think he did; I think he is waiting for an opportunity to speak
+to you.”
+
+Thereupon Mr. Gyton grew rampant: was he a bear, was he a brute, was he
+a beast, that his own son should be afraid to speak to him on such a
+subject? “Hang it! sir,” he said, “was I rolling in money when I married
+your sister?”
+
+“No,” was the reply; “but then neither were you dependent on your father
+for your support; and Frank knows, as I know, that there are probably
+many young ladies you would prefer to a girl without fortune, and she an
+Irishwoman.”
+
+“Now I’ll tell you what it is, Geoffry,” and at this point Mr. Gyton
+became almost purple in the face with indignation, “I won’t have you or
+anybody settling my affairs for me, and saying what I should like, or
+what I should not. If you must know what I should not like, it would be
+one of those Munday girls. I wonder,” he went on, “that you, having just
+come into such a handsome property, should not have offered to make
+things square for Frank, and he your only near male relative. Not that I
+want the money; only I wonder, when these Drewitts seem to be such
+_protégés_ of yours.”
+
+“You need not wonder,” was the reply. “I may marry yet, myself.”
+
+“The deuce you may!” and Mr. Gyton surveyed him with perplexed
+amazement. “Ho, ho! I am beginning to see daylight, I think. Perhaps you
+are in love with the girl yourself?”
+
+“Perhaps I am;” and Geoffry Pryor, seeing that his last chance of
+winning Geraldine was slipping through his fingers, stood at bay.
+“Indeed,” he proceeded, “there is no use in my making any pretence about
+the matter. I did hope—I have hoped year after year since I first knew
+her, that some day I might be able to persuade her to become my wife. It
+may seem to you a ridiculous rivalry,” added Mr. Pryor, hastily; “but I
+think I should have been far the honester lover of the two. Had I
+approved of Frank’s conduct in the affair—had I thought it likely he
+would make her happy—I love her so well, that—”
+
+“You would have taken his part against me. I am obliged to you,
+Geoffry.”
+
+“—That I would have done what I could to help him and her, though I do
+not pretend to much Quixotism either,” finished Mr. Pryor.
+
+“I must see this young lady, who seems to have turned all your heads,”
+remarked Mr. Gyton.
+
+“Well, then, listen to one word first. Frank has treated her very
+badly.”
+
+“How dare you say such a thing of my son, sir?”
+
+“I shall say what I please about my nephew,” retorted Mr. Pryor, coolly.
+“And I repeat, Frank has treated her very badly. Now, do not you go and
+treat her badly also. Make up your mind what your intentions are in the
+matter, and see that Frank has not changed his, and then do what you
+like; only don’t let him keep beating about the bush as he has been
+doing, ever since he first saw her.”
+
+“What relative is she to that Lady Emmeline woman who stayed with us one
+spring?”
+
+“Lady Emmeline’s husband and Miss Drewitt are first cousins,” Mr. Pryor
+replied.
+
+“Was that the fellow who got the estate?”
+
+“The same.”
+
+“Any chance at all of our clerk having it back again?”
+
+“Not the slightest.”
+
+“Are you going over to Ireland this year?”
+
+“I do not know. No, I think not. I have some intention of selling
+Durrow, and buying a place in England.”
+
+“How long have you taken that idea into your head?”
+
+“Not very long;” and Mr. Pryor returned his brother-in-law’s stare
+unflinchingly.
+
+“Don’t take it to heart,” said Mr. Gyton, with a certain kindness and
+sympathy in his manner; “don’t, there’s a good fellow.”
+
+“If you don’t take it to heart, I am sure I need not,” answered the
+barrister, bitterly; “I thought the very mention of such a _mésalliance_
+would have driven you out of your mind. The longer I live the less I see
+one need expect any person to act as it might have been supposed he
+would.”
+
+“Then you are sorry I do not altogether disapprove of the business.”
+
+“Do you think I am made of iron, that I should be glad?” was the reply;
+but Mr. Pryor never afterwards repeated this remark; on the contrary,
+when his sister told him how Frank’s wandering habits and unsettled mode
+of life had been a source of grief and anxiety to both her and his
+father, how anxious they were for their only son to be “settled,” and
+how thankful for her part she felt that he had chosen that “dear, sweet,
+pretty Geraldine, who was so fond of him,” the barrister resigned
+himself to the inevitable, and began marvelling whether he could ever
+look on Geraldine as his niece.
+
+He did not much think his nephew would make any woman very happy; but
+still, they were both young, and both in love; and, who knew but that it
+was best as it was?
+
+Geoffry Pryor could not say it was not best, though it ended his dream,
+though it crushed out of his heart the hope he had been cherishing for
+years.
+
+“I thought you would have liked Frank to marry either rank or fortune,”
+he remarked to his sister.
+
+“So we should, but Frank has never shown the slightest predilection for
+either one or the other, and really young men now-a-days do make such
+matches that I am thankful he has chosen a lady by birth, and one whom
+we need not be ashamed to present to any person or in any place. There
+is young Munday—married his sister’s maid! Mr. Lark has just had to send
+his son abroad to keep him out of the way of some most disreputable
+connexion. There is Lady Ackington’s step-son run off with the
+governess—and in short, my dear Geoffry—”
+
+“In short, my dear Maria, you think, with me, that Miss Drewitt will
+make almost too good a wife for Frank.”
+
+“I think no such thing,” retorted Mrs. Gyton, indignantly; “for a young
+lady in Miss Drewitt’s destitute position to make such a capital match
+is remarkable; and had Mr. Gyton not taken such a fancy to her brother
+it never could have been brought about. Of course we shall be glad to
+see Frank settled. He has promised his father that he will really settle
+down to business now, and take that position to which, as the son of the
+head of the firm, he is entitled; and if he does that I shall say
+meeting with Miss Drewitt was the greatest blessing which could have
+befallen him. But, at the same time, I must add, that had he fancied
+Miss Ackington, or even one of the Miss Larks, I should infinitely have
+preferred a connexion which might have advanced his worldly interests as
+well as insured his domestic happiness.”
+
+“You really are getting eloquent, Maria.”
+
+“It is enough to make any one indignant to hear the way you talk. A
+stranger would really go away with the impression that Miss Drewitt had
+ten thousand a year, and that she was conferring some honour on Frank by
+accepting him, instead of being only too glad to secure such a catch.
+Not but what,” continued Mrs. Gyton, noticing an angry look in her
+brother’s face; “not but what I will say, they behaved admirably in the
+business, which proves that, though they are poor, they have been
+educated in all the ideas of the highest ranks.”
+
+“What are the ideas of the highest ranks, Maria?” inquired Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Not to take advantage—to act honourably—to do as you would be done by,
+and so forth.”
+
+“Oh! indeed!” remarked her brother; “after that, I think I may go home
+and propose to my housekeeper.” But he did not go home, neither did he
+propose to his housekeeper: he drove to the house in Islington which
+Brian had taken for his mother after Harold’s death, and found Geraldine
+alone in the drawing-room.
+
+“I have come to wish you joy, dear,” he said; but there was an
+unsteadiness in his voice as he spoke, and the hand which held hers
+trembled a little. “I hope you will be happy, and wealthy, and wise;”
+and he tried to smile; which proved so futile an attempt, that the tears
+came into Geraldine’s eyes as she looked at him.
+
+“I was foolish once,” he went on, “and thought—Ah! well, you know what I
+thought. But that is all gone and past now, my child, and we will be
+good friends for ever, won’t we?”
+
+She put her other hand on his shoulder and said, “yes,” with a sob in
+her voice.
+
+“And if ever you are in any trouble or perplexity, you will come to me
+as you would to—I am going to be your uncle,” he added abruptly; “so
+what need I say more?”
+
+“I will come,” she replied.
+
+“And we will forget all the past. You will forget I was ever silly
+enough to overlook the fact that I was old enough to be your father;
+that the time when I might have found favour in a young girl’s eyes was
+in the summers before you were born.”
+
+“Don’t,” she pleaded; “don’t; I can’t bear it.”
+
+He put the hair back from her forehead, he held her away from him at
+arms’ length, he looked at her sweet sorrowful face—looked at it as he
+knew he might never look in her face, or in the face of any other woman
+again, and then he took her to him and kissed her, as he had longed to
+do that day when they stood together on the hill above Kincorth.
+
+“Is not there a nursery rhyme, Geraldine, which declares that some go
+up, and some go down? I feel that I have been among the latter class;
+and yet, if you are happy, my dear, I will make myself happy too. It was
+a mistake; that is all; and in this world it has often seemed to me we
+pay as dearly for our mistakes as we do for our sins. You may think it a
+strange fancy, child. I am not going away from London; at least, I am
+only going to Durrow for a month, and I hope often to see you when I
+come back; constantly, indeed, after a time: yet still, I want to say
+good-bye; that was the chief word I came to speak to you to-day.”
+
+She knew what he meant; knew that it was not to her he was bidding
+farewell, but to the dream that had been so sweet and so exceeding
+beautiful. She knew that from thenceforth he wanted her to forget, as he
+intended to forget—that from that day forward, she was to seem to him
+his nephew’s affianced wife, nothing more.
+
+Nothing more. When he was standing on the cliffs above Durrow it seemed
+to him that the sea kept repeating that refrain eternally:
+
+Nothing more—nothing—so long as the rain fell, and the wind blew,
+nothing for ever!
+
+But Geraldine was happy, and talked with her mother of brighter days to
+come, when she should have no anxiety about ways and means; no need to
+pinch and save; no trouble, no sorrow.
+
+“And they will push Brian on, mamma, and he will get, oh! so rich, and
+Frank wants him also to live with us till he marries; so that you need
+have no hesitation now about coming to us; and we will make you so
+comfortable, mamma, and take every care from you, and you shall be so
+happy—so happy!”
+
+Should she? After a talk like this Mrs. Drewitt would go to her own
+room, and fall on her knees, and pray that her son and daughter might
+somehow learn the truth which she had not courage enough to tell
+them—that the days were not very far off when she should indeed have no
+more care, when she should be very happy, but not in this world—ah! no,
+not here.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XIII.
+                            Country Gossip.
+
+
+Mr. Pryor did not make a very long stay in Ireland. He merely remained a
+sufficient length of time to receive Mr. Connor’s numerous reports; to
+ride round his property; to point out a few improvements he wished made;
+to distribute much charity; to be blessed with blessings that were
+beyond reason as they were without stint; to drive out a few times; to
+renew his acquaintance with the Durrow fishermen, and to hear all the
+local news.
+
+Considering that Mr. Connor had a whole year’s budget to unfold, the
+amount of information was not great, although it might be interesting.
+The gaugers had been over several times, and the constabulary, too,
+about the stills and the smugglers; “And one gauger was not afraid to
+say,” went on Mr. Connor, “that if you, sir, did your duty, there would
+soon not be a still in Durrow; and about the smugglers, the coastguard
+people declared I got share of the cargoes.”
+
+“We can both bear such remarks, I suppose, Mr. Connor,” said Mr. Pryor,
+smiling.
+
+“They are wild about it, that is the thing, you know, sir. Why, they do
+say that even Mr. Drewitt has turned against the stills, and is hunting
+them off his property there in the Joyce county. You would not know Mr.
+Maxwell, sir, if you were to see him now; he is all for law and order,
+and is making himself perfectly detested by everybody, high and low. He
+is abroad now, sir; travelling on the Continent with a Mr. Campnell from
+Oxford, who they do say is going to be his heir, and who, many people
+think, is something nearer even than that; and Lady Emmeline has left
+him—did you never hear of it, sir? She has left him and is gone to live
+with Mr. Vervensoe and his wife up at Cragantlet. The famine made a poor
+man of him, rich though he was once; and they are glad enough to have
+Lady Emmeline with them for the sake of what she pays. They do say the
+life he led that misguided woman, sir, lately was shocking—shocking. I
+could not tell you half the stories that are in everybody’s mouth about
+his wickedness, and his cruelty; and it all began, that is, the cruelty,
+because she refused to have this young man come to the house as her
+nephew, or come to the house while she was in it, in fact, at all.”
+
+“One cannot wonder at her doing so,” remarked Mr. Pryor.
+
+“No; but I am told he did—that he said, as she had no children, the
+least she could do was to let him have one of his own in the house; and
+then she threatened him—I could never rightly make out with what; and
+then he struck her; and then she got worse, and said she would leave
+him, and expose him; and after that he begged her pardon, and talked to
+her for more than an hour, and got somehow to the soft side of her; so
+that she said, at last, if he would let her go, and take what she
+brought with her, there might be peace between them.”
+
+“That could only have come through the servants,” remarked Mr. Pryor,
+thoughtfully.
+
+“It came to me, most of it, from my brother-in-law; but where he got it
+I cannot say.”
+
+“And so Lady Emmeline is really gone?”
+
+“Yes, sir. I met her the other day out driving with Mr. and Mrs.
+Vervensoe; and she looked ninety. And, indeed, I was sorry to see her,”
+finished Mr. Connor.
+
+“I wonder if Maxwell Drewitt was married before he met with Lady
+Emmeline—secretly, I mean,” said Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Not a bit of it, sir; there never was a man less in the marrying notion
+than that same Mr. Drewitt, if all I have heard from Ryan about his
+young days is true. And if you are thinking that he was married first,
+and then married Lady Emmeline afterwards, you may put that notion away
+altogether. He was always far too wide-awake to get himself into any
+mess of that kind. Have you been round by Kincorth, sir? He is putting
+up the handsomest entrance there is in this part of the country at all;
+and they do tell me the house is like a palace, and that the gardens are
+just a show. He has made a second avenue, leading out on Calgillan Road;
+so that the drive now goes right through the property. I heard say—but I
+don’t know whether it was true or not—that some young lady in England
+took a fancy to him, not knowing he was married; and that when he came
+home, he cursed and swore at Lady Emmeline for living too long, and
+standing in his way.”
+
+“I think that story must be an invention,” answered Mr. Pryor; “at
+least, I give my countrywomen credit for more taste than that would
+imply they were possessed of.”
+
+“I don’t know,” said Mr. Connor; “I fancy there is no way Mr. Drewitt
+cannot put on him when he likes. I am sure he came over here one day
+wanting gravel out of Durrow River, for his new avenue, and you would
+have thought I was Prince Albert, at the very least.”
+
+“Who is living at the Headlands, now?” asked Mr. Pryor.
+
+“A Captain Crabbe, his name is; and awful work he and Mr. Drewitt have
+about the place not being kept in good order; and about the cows getting
+among the plantations. I don’t wonder, myself, at Mr. Drewitt’s being
+vexed to see the grounds—you remember how he used to have them; and now
+they are as bad as Cragantlet. He says he will never let it to anybody
+again, unless an Englishman; and not to him, unless he signs an
+agreement to keep the place as it ought to be kept. He goes on
+dreadfully, though, when anything puts him out. When you are going along
+the Calgillan Road you can hear him cursing his men half a mile off.”
+
+“What do you suppose is the cause of his ill-temper?”
+
+“Goodness knows, sir! He never had much of a temper, and now it is worse
+than ever. Ryan says, he thinks it must be that the devil he has inside
+him wears away his patience, and that he is glad to break out on
+anybody. There is one thing sure, he has been worse since Mr. Harold
+died. My brother-in-law told me he shut himself up for a whole day when
+the news came over, and that no one durst go near him; and I believe he
+sent to Galway, and telegraphed over to Mr. Brian, would he like to bury
+him in Eversbeg. But Mr. Brian wrote back, he would not be indebted to
+him for enough ground even to lay a dog in, let alone a brother.”
+
+“What an unforgiving set they are!”
+
+“Yes, sir; and little though you might think it, Mr. Archibald Drewitt
+was just the same in some things. There was a man talking to me about
+him only the other day, a poor fellow of the name of Byrne, who was
+turned off one of Mr. Drewitt’s lots the time you stood for Duranmore.
+He would vote for you, and so Mr. Drewitt said he should go, and he got
+a farm under Mr. Waller; but someway, nothing went well with him, and
+then he took a place as labourer, with Mr. Maxwell. He had always liked
+Mr. Drewitt, for he had a kind, affable way with him, and a friendly
+look and a pleasant word for tenant and labourer just the same; and of
+course whenever he met Mr. Drewitt, for a while he touched his hat to
+him, expecting that Mr. Drewitt would give him time of day,[1] or say it
+was fine weather for the crops; or perhaps, how are the pigs? or is the
+wife getting better, Barney? But Mr. Drewitt never took the least notice
+of him, no more than if he hadn’t been speaking to him every week for
+the previous ten years. As you may suppose, Barney quit touching his
+hat; but he said that about two months before Mr. Drewitt’s death, he
+saw him creeping along the road, and that his mind misgave him the
+master was not long for this world. So he thought he would like to speak
+to him once before he went, (the old fellow cried when he told me about
+it), and he stood up close to the roadside of the footpath, so that Mr.
+Drewitt could not help seeing him; and he touched his hat, after twenty
+years, to his old landlord again, and says: “I was sorry to hear you had
+been bad, sir; I hope your honour’s better.” Mr. Drewitt looked him all
+over from head to foot, and the man was ragged enough; so perhaps, he
+thought his politics had not done much for him; but he never answered
+him, no more than if he had been dirt under his feet. Byrne never saw
+him after that, but he followed his coffin and saw it put in Eversbeg
+Abbey. I call a thing like that carrying hatred too far; but of course I
+am no judge.”
+
+Footnote 1:
+
+  Meaning good-morning, or good-evening.
+
+Mr. Pryor walked on for a few steps in silence, slowly, thinking of all
+his agent had told him while he walked.
+
+Then he began showing Mr. Connor the alterations he desired to have
+made, remarking at the same time—
+
+“It is very likely my nephew and Miss Geraldine may pay you a visit next
+summer, and I should like the place to look its best in honour of them.”
+
+“Are they going,” began Connor, considering in what suitable form of
+words to clothe his question, “are they going to make a match of it?”
+
+“They are talking of doing so,” answered Mr. Pryor, with a smile which
+he could not suppress.
+
+“I am right glad to hear it, sir, if I may make so free as to say so. If
+Miss Geraldine is half as well as every one here wishes her, she will
+make him a good wife, and he will be a good husband to her!”
+
+“Thank you, Connor.” Mr. Pryor said this simply, and as though he was
+thanking Connor for some compliment paid to himself.
+
+“And you think they will come next summer, sir?”
+
+“I hope so,” answered Mr. Pryor: but many things happened before that
+next summer which the barrister then had no idea the future could bring
+to pass.
+
+He went to call on Lady Emmeline ere he returned to London, and found
+her what Connor had described—an old withered woman, bent and aged, but
+still rouged to the eyes, and dressed in the extreme of the fashion.
+
+“I am so glad to see you, Mr. Pryor,” she said, entering the room with
+skirts so voluminous and crinoline so extensive that it was some time
+before the barrister could see which was woman and which steel and silk
+and lace. “It was so kind of you to come, considering all things, so
+very kind.”
+
+Mr. Pryor ventured to think it was very kind of her ladyship to say so.
+
+“It is the truth, it is nothing but the truth; there are not many who
+would come running after an old woman like me, though there was a time—”
+and Lady Emmeline stopped, and would have coloured had not the rouge on
+her face rendered such a performance as impossible as it was
+unnecessary. “Do you remember the election at Duranmore, Mr. Pryor? Ah!
+who that saw me then would ever have thought I could come to this?”
+
+When a woman’s case is beyond flattery it is beyond consolation. Mr.
+Pryor felt this and held his tongue.
+
+“You have heard, I suppose,” resumed Lady Emmeline, after leaving a
+decent space for compliment had he chosen to fill it up, “that
+unfortunate circumstances have compelled me to accept an asylum here.
+Ah! dear; to think my husband should ever have treated me as he has
+done: and I made him, Mr. Pryor; it was my money made him; and I did
+once think he was fond of me, I did indeed.” Poor Lady Emmeline! there
+was no falsehood nor affectation about those words; and although her
+tears might wear strange channels down her cheeks, giving her a
+generally wrung-out and draggled appearance about the face, Mr. Pryor
+did not feel inclined even to smile, but listened sympathetically while
+the neglected poetess proceeded.
+
+“I often think of those sweet lines by Moore,” and she repeated—
+
+                 “‘When first I met thee warm and true,
+                   There shone such truth about thee,
+                 And on thy lips such promise hung
+                   I thought ’twere sin to doubt thee.’
+
+“That was just my case, Mr. Pryor. I believed in him implicitly. I
+thought he could say nothing but what was good and true; that he was
+brave and honest. I have found how much mistaken I was since those days.
+But it is too late now for repentance, almost for regret;” and she went
+on whispering, as was her wont, the remainder of the lines—
+
+                “‘Go, deceiver, go—
+                  The heart whose hopes could make it
+                Trust one so false, so low,
+                  Deserved that thou shouldst break it.’
+
+“So false, so low,” she said, shaking her head sadly; “aye, and so base
+and cruel, too.”
+
+Thinking to divert her attention, Mr. Pryor asked her when she had been
+last in London, and when she intended paying it another visit, and in
+return got more than he bargained for.
+
+In the spring she hoped to go to London again, but not till then,
+unless, indeed, dear Geraldine’s marriage took place first, in which
+case she should make a point of being present.
+
+“I was so truly delighted to hear of the probability of her settling so
+well,” went on Lady Emmeline. “At one time, do you know, Mr. Pryor, we
+all thought you were to be the fortunate man. Shows how wrongly people
+may judge sometimes—even the cleverest people.” Which was a back-handed
+blow at her husband.
+
+Mr. Pryor winced—the wound was still green—but the lady proceeded. “I
+was always very fond of Geraldine—fonder than of either of her
+brothers—though Brian was a gentlemanlike lad, and promised to grow up
+handsome. I thought Geraldine took most after her mother. I suppose she
+is greatly improved in her appearance since she went to London?”
+
+The barrister paused for a moment before he answered. He was thinking of
+the Geraldine who had stood talking with him on the way to Durrow, and
+wondering in what way Lady Emmeline could imagine it possible for such a
+vision of loveliness to be improved.
+
+“She is thinner,” he said; that seemed the truest and most unconcerned
+statement he could make, under the circumstances; “but otherwise I do
+not think her much altered.”
+
+“Ah! Well, that would be an improvement,” said Lady Emmeline. “She was
+always a little too plump for perfect elegance.”
+
+“Opinions may differ on that point,” Mr. Pryor would have answered, but
+he fortunately remembered that Lady Emmeline, who had always prided
+herself on her graceful figure and perfect elegance, was as thin as a
+thread-paper.
+
+He therefore contented himself with saying, that when she came to London
+she would be able to judge for herself; and shortly afterwards took his
+leave, though earnestly entreated by Mrs. Vervensoe, _née_ Munks, to
+stop for dinner.
+
+“I had five hundred and sixty-one things I wanted to ask you about,”
+said that energetic lady; “and I had twice as many, I know, to tell you;
+but, however, if you must go, why you must. It is treating us very
+shabbily, though; and I do not know what Mr. Vervensoe will say to me
+when he comes in, about letting you go.”
+
+“You should tell him, ‘a wilful man must have his way,’ and then he can
+say nothing,” answered Mr. Pryor.
+
+“But, really now, is not it mean and shabby?”
+
+“It would be, perhaps, if I could remain; but as I cannot, you must
+exercise your charity, and think as well of me as you can.”
+
+“There is no fear of our not thinking well of you. Good-bye, then, if it
+must be good-bye. Give my love to Geraldine, and tell her I shall expect
+a piece of the wedding-cake; she had a bit of mine to dream on, I know,
+when she was not three years old.”
+
+With which pleasing reminiscence Mrs. Vervensoe allowed their visitor to
+depart; and accordingly Mr. Pryor rode away from Cragantlet, which,
+though twenty miles from Durrow, supposing Duranmore were taken by the
+way, was not more than fifteen, if the traveller turned up the lane
+leading past Regan’s, crossed the Calgillan coach-road, and then kept
+straight on for the ruins of Castle Cronach.
+
+Under any circumstances it was a long ride, and a lonely; and Mr. Pryor
+had got very weary of his own thoughts before he reached the highway,
+with its many turnings and windings, along which they had trotted all
+four abreast the first day he ever beheld Durrow.
+
+He had not gone a mile, however, past Castle Cronach, when a new subject
+for thought presented itself, in the shape of a jaunting-car, on which
+were seated two gentlemen, one on each side, with the driver occupying
+the position that of right belongs to him, but which in Ireland he seems
+never to assume, unless dire necessity compels his doing so.
+
+One of the gentlemen was Maxwell Drewitt; the other, a dark moustached
+youth, apparently not more than two and twenty, though he had a beard
+that might have been growing for a dozen years.
+
+“Mr. Campnell, I presume,” thought Mr. Pryor, as the car pursued its way
+to Duranmore and he to Durrow. “I wonder if he wears that mass of hair
+to prevent any one tracing a likeness to his father; if it be his
+father,” corrected the barrister.
+
+“Where could they be coming from, Connor?” he asked during the course of
+the evening.
+
+“Most likely from Castlebar. It is nearer from here to Castlebar than it
+is from Galway to here, and a nicer country to pass through too. And so
+you saw Mr. Campnell; and what kind of a looking young gentleman is he,
+sir, if I may inquire?”
+
+“He is so covered with hair, it is almost impossible to say what he is
+like. He has dark eyes, as well as I could observe, and that is all I
+can tell you about him.”
+
+“And he is only twenty-one, I hear.”
+
+There was the rustling of a woman’s dress through the hall, and Mr.
+Pryor, turning round sharply, guessed that Mrs. Connor had been
+listening at the open door.
+
+There was nothing in their conversation that he cared if all Ireland
+were cognizant of, yet the circumstance gave him an uncomfortable
+impression, and made him feel a little doubtful about Mrs. Connor’s
+entire trustworthiness.
+
+While she, poor Jenny! she stole out to a field at the back of the
+house, where her children were playing in the summer’s evening, and
+sitting down on the grass, took the youngest to her heart, while she
+thought about the boy she had borne in the times gone by; whom she had
+never nursed on her knees; whom she had never folded in her arms; whom
+she had been forced to send away; whom she had never through the years
+set eyes on; who would never be told the name of his mother, but whom,
+she knew, was coming to Kincorth that day, to be, if he lived,
+Kincorth’s owner, when perhaps she and his father were both dead.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIV.
+                            What met Brian.
+
+
+A winter’s day in London, more especially when that winter’s day happens
+to be raw, damp, drizzling and foggy, is one, I think, of the most
+depressing ordeals through which a human being can be called to pass—a
+day when the streets are sloppy; when the pavements are greasy; when the
+passing omnibuses are full of wet men, and wetter women; when people
+poke you in the eyes with their umbrellas; when more people poke you in
+the ribs, and jostle you into the middle of another set of people, who
+shove you back again and probably anathematize you into the bargain;
+when there is no business doing in shops, where the gas is lighted, nor
+in offices, where the gas is lighted likewise; when if you are out
+collecting money, nobody will pay you; when if you owe any person any
+money, everybody makes a point of boring you (in the gaslight), and
+saying they felt sure of finding you within; when the apples in the
+costermongers’ carts look damp and dirty; when there is a dull yellow,
+leaden sky above, and an atmosphere you can taste around you; when
+London Bridge looks as much like water as the Thames; when you do not
+feel as if there ever had been any fine weather on earth; when you are
+quite certain there will never be any fine weather again;—this, I say,
+is the kind of day to try a man’s equanimity, and to put his
+cheerfulness to the test.
+
+There was one man however who, having been set down by an omnibus coming
+from the Borough at the corner of Mansion House and Princes Streets,
+walked along, careless of the weather, careless of the passers-by,
+careless of the dull leaden sky, of the greasy pavements and the sloppy
+horse-roads. He looked neither to right nor left as he strode away after
+his business; he was evidently thinking of something pleasant, carrying
+his sunshine along with him, as some country-people carry lanterns: that
+man was Brian Drewitt; he had just come from Paris, and he was bound for
+Austinfriars.
+
+He wanted to see Mr. Gyton before he left the City, and as it was
+getting on for three o’clock he hurried his pace and dashed on towards
+Austinfriars as though he were walking for a wager.
+
+If you do not know Austinfriars, reader, you are not acquainted with one
+of the queerest nooks that the march of modern improvement and the
+heartlessness of railway companies has left us. Before some new
+extension gets its bill passed, I should recommend you to go and see
+that curious spot, where, in 1253, says Pennant, “was erected by
+Humphrey Bohun, Earl of Hereford, the house of the Augustins, for friars
+eremites of that order.” Until very recently, one of the oldest churches
+in London (built before 1361) stood about the centre of Austinfriars;
+the external walls still, I believe, remain, but the interior was,
+unhappily, destroyed by fire some few years since.
+
+In it were laid great people: Edmund Guy de Meric, who, it is stated,
+incited Richard II. to the murder of the Duke of Gloucester; Lucie,
+daughter of Barnaby, Lord of Milan; the great Earl of Arundel, beheaded
+on Tower Hill, in 1397; the Earl of Oxford, who suffered a similar fate
+in 1463; Edward Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, in 1521; while,
+twenty-five years afterwards, this church was filled with herrings, by
+order of Henry VIII., who used Grey Friars, at the same period, as a
+warehouse for wine.
+
+There are fewer historical records of Austinfriars than of almost any
+other spot about the City. In a map of London, A. D. 1563, the old house
+of the Augustines is not even marked; yet some gleams of the olden glory
+still lie here and there—in its out-of-the-way courts—in its
+old-fashioned houses—under the stones of its ancient church—for the
+curious in such matters to note, as they pass by.
+
+Some time, it may be, that I shall ask you, reader who have so often
+before this, strayed with me into world-forgotten corners—into silent
+and deserted nooks—to turn aside from the bustle and din of the City
+streets, and spend a few minutes with me in Austinfriars; but that day
+must not be now, when Brian Drewitt is hurrying along to catch the head
+of the great house of Gyton, Lark, Munday, Hatfield, and Company, before
+he takes his portly person westward.
+
+Very cheerfully, Brian Drewitt pursued his way. He knew that he had
+accomplished the business on which he was sent abroad satisfactorily.
+
+He felt certain he should receive the praise of his employers for the
+manner in which he had performed his mission. It had been intimated to
+him more than once, that in being sent abroad he was also being put on
+his trial, and that if he stood the test of the negotiation entrusted to
+him, his salary would be at once increased, and every facility afforded
+him for pushing his way up to the very top of the tree.
+
+When he reached the top, he had then his vague designs of vengeance to
+gratify; but upon the lower branches were hanging sweet home fruits,
+that Brian longed to gather. He wanted to prevail on his mother not to
+live with Geraldine; to live near, but not with her; to have her all to
+himself, to provide with the little luxuries that her delicate health
+required—that it would he a pleasure and a pride to him to place around
+her.
+
+If she went with Geraldine, it would be Frank Gyton, and not Brian
+Drewitt, whose money might anticipate her wants, and outspeed her very
+wishes. No one knew better than Brian how both he and she had saved, and
+pinched, to pay the expenses attendant on Harold’s trial—on their
+removal to London—on his long sickness—on his early death. Even
+Geraldine never fully understood all her mother had denied herself, so
+that Harold might not suffer for lack of anything he desired. And now,
+hungrily and greedily, the son who did comprehend everything, longed to
+have his mother, who had suffered so much, all to himself, that he might
+make her life a happy one at last, and render the evening of her days
+the calmest, the brightest, the peacefulest portion of her existence.
+
+There are some men who, from their youth upwards, need to have something
+to love—something upon which to pour out all their affection, all their
+devotion. It may be father, brother, sister, mother, child, that they
+gather into their heart, and keep there: whatever the object may be, it
+is love they give, rather than love they receive. It is necessary to
+their very existence to be planning, thinking, working, for some one;
+and during the entire of his short life, Brian Drewitt had been
+planning, thinking, working, for others rather than himself.
+
+He could scarcely remember the time when the love he felt for his mother
+was not a species of idolatry. Instinctively, perhaps, even from
+childhood, the stronger nature knew that the weaker had need of it; and
+as years went by, and the child became a boy, and the boy a man, this
+feeling grew stronger and stronger, till at last Brian came to
+understand that whatsoever his mother stood in need of, if it were in
+the power of a human being to procure it, she should have her wish
+gratified.
+
+And at last he felt that it would soon be in his power to make his
+mother’s life comfortable and happy, and to free it from care.
+Comfortable and happy—did I not say once before, that was not to be in
+this world for ever?
+
+Onwards he sped; eager, sanguine, triumphant. Mr. Gyton, senior, was not
+gone; and with his snuffbox on the table, with his bandana ready for
+use, with his coat thrown well back, and his thumbs stuck in the
+arm-holes of his superfine black cloth waistcoat, he listened to Brian’s
+narration with every sign of approval visible in his face.
+
+When Brian had quite finished he said—
+
+“We did not expect you home until to-morrow; but now that you are here I
+believe my son has something to say to you. Meantime, I may add that you
+can draw your salary at the rate of two hundred and fifty pounds per
+annum from to-morrow.”
+
+Mr. Gyton had a way of uttering those two words “per annum” which always
+seemed to give money its true value in the listener’s ears; and
+accordingly, Brian Drewitt thanked him very heartily for the advance,
+and had just reached the middle of a neatly-turned sentence when Mr.
+Gyton, junior, entered.
+
+“Don’t stand wasting your time here, Brian,” he said; “but go home at
+once. There’s something up there. Geraldine sent here this morning to
+know your address, and telegraphed for you.”
+
+“What is it?” Brian asked: he stretched out his one hand and seized the
+table tightly as he spoke.
+
+“Your mother is very ill, I believe; don’t turn so white, Brian; it may
+be nothing to signify. I have told them to get you a cab. Should you
+like me to go with you?”
+
+“No, thank you,” Brian answered; “no—no.” Even then he wanted to have
+her all to himself, and he blindly made his way out of Mr. Gyton’s
+presence-chamber, and across the clerks’ office, and down the stairs,
+and so out into the court, at the entrance to which a hansom was waiting
+for him.
+
+“Drive fast!” that was all he could say; but the man obeyed his
+instructions literally. Up the City Road, round by Duncan Terrace, out
+across the Lower Road, and then up Upper Street, till they were close to
+Canonbury Tower.
+
+“Set me down here,” Brian said, pushing up the little trap-door, and the
+driver pulled up instantly.
+
+“Your fare?” was the next question; and Brian counted him out a sum,
+which even the man’s conscience pricked him for demanding, without a
+remonstrance, but stupidly, and as though he were drunk.
+
+He never could tell what feeling possessed him to stop the cab and walk
+quietly up the street where was his home. He never knew how he got from
+the cab to the door opposite his own door, where he paused and looked
+across the way.
+
+Every blind in the house was down.
+
+He saw a gentleman coming out; a gentleman whose carriage stood waiting
+for him to enter. Brian crossed the street and asked him what was the
+matter.
+
+“A poor lady has done with all suffering,” was the reply.
+
+“Mrs. Drewitt?”
+
+“Yes; are you her son?”
+
+It was too much, the reaction was too great; and Brian would have fallen
+on the pavement, but that he staggered by chance against the doctor’s
+brougham.
+
+“Come in,” said the doctor, “and I will go in with you.”
+
+“I won’t,” answered Brian; and he turned and walked back down the
+street, like one in a dream.
+
+For hours and hours he walked about before he could face the house
+again. With his clothes soaked through, with his hair damp and wet,
+shivering with the cold, heartbroken and miserable, Brian Drewitt at
+last made up his mind to face the inevitable, and retraced his steps
+towards home.
+
+It was late in the evening when he approached the door; the street-lamps
+had long been lighted; the shops in Upper Street were all brilliantly
+illuminated as he passed by; the pavements were crowded with people,
+well-dressed, lively, happy, thoughtless; with women going to make their
+purchases; with women only curious to look through the windows at the
+goods displayed within; with men on their way from the City to Holloway
+and Highbury; with the husbands, and the brothers, and the lovers of the
+females, who were going shopping, or window-gazing, with idlers and
+loungers of all descriptions—amongst whom Brian made his way, with a
+dull, stupid sorrow tearing at his heart, with a conviction that he was
+going home to meet something very dreadful—something that he still
+doubted whether he should have strength of mind to meet.
+
+He lifted his hand to the knocker, and rapped hesitatingly for
+admittance. When the servant opened the door she put her apron to her
+eyes, and said, “Oh! sir——”
+
+“I have heard,” Brian interrupted, sharp and stern, and walked straight
+into the parlour.
+
+There sat Geraldine—her eyes red with weeping, her cheeks pale with
+watching. Mrs. Gyton was holding one hand, and Frank the other, while a
+man whom Brian had never seen before was standing with his back to the
+fire, talking vehemently and positively.
+
+At sight of Brian, he stopped short, and while Geraldine, with a cry,
+ran towards her brother, he stooped down and inquired of Mr. Gyton who
+the new comer might be.
+
+“Her brother,” was the answer; and when Brian came forward into the
+room, he found his hand clasped in that of the stranger, who said—
+
+“It is a poor welcome home for you, this—but we did all for her we
+could.”
+
+“May I ask your name?” Brian’s tone was as quiet as though nothing
+unusual were lying in the house.
+
+“Murphy—at your service. It is many a year since I saw you; and it is
+just the same time since I saw your poor mother. God help her! she must
+have gone through an awful lot of trouble. I can remember her as
+young-looking as your sister is now, with her hair as soft and dark
+every bit as yours, Miss; but there is one comfort, she can feel no more
+sorrow where she is gone: women’s heads are not turned grey with grief
+there. Just let him be,” he whispered to Francis Gyton. “You know he
+must feel it, so do not try to get him to put on a face before you.”
+
+Brian had sat down at the table and rested his head on his hand. All at
+once he looked up, with no dimness in his eye, with no hesitation in his
+voice—
+
+“I should like to see her,” he said; “may I go up stairs?”
+
+Geraldine rose to go with him, but Mr. Murphy gently pushed her aside.
+
+“With your permission,” he observed, taking one of the candles off the
+table, and he and Brian left the room.
+
+“Did you attend her?” Brian asked.
+
+“No, I was only called in last night. She had a very good doctor,
+though—very good. The whole College of Surgeons could not have saved
+her, nor all the physicians in London to the back of that.”
+
+“It was sudden, I suppose?” Brian scarcely spoke above a whisper, and he
+drew Mr. Murphy nervously into the drawing-room, still evidently
+unwilling to look upon the dead.
+
+“Towards the last, very; but these cases always are sudden. She must
+have known how it would end for a considerable time past.”
+
+“Can you tell me if she had been long under treatment?”
+
+“Twelve months, her doctor says; but your sister never knew a syllable
+of what was the matter with her. She does not appear to have told a
+living soul belonging to her a word about her disease.”
+
+“And was it incurable from the first?”
+
+“Yes.”
+
+“Could money have kept her with us a little longer? had anxiety any
+share in hastening her death?”
+
+“I do not know; I cannot tell. Anxiety always aggravates sickness, as a
+rule; and money also, as a rule, alleviates it; but in this particular
+case I cannot say. I do not know how she has lived; I can only guess how
+she must have suffered.”
+
+There was a moment’s silence; then Mr. Murphy said, “Are you ready?” and
+Brian bent his head in answer.
+
+The bed-chamber opened off the drawing-room with folding-doors: as Mr.
+Murphy turned the handle of one of these, Brian put his hand on the
+surgeon’s and held it so tight that he could not shoot back the lock.
+
+“Shall we wait a while?” he asked.
+
+“No—no;” and Brian relaxed his grasp and put up his right hand to his
+head, as though, fancying he had on his hat, he was going to remove it.
+
+The bed was made, and unoccupied; there was a fearful formality in the
+arrangement of the furniture; something terrible in the prim, frigid
+neatness which pervaded the apartment.
+
+There had been a space cleared in the centre, and there on trestles
+stood the shell.
+
+Mr. Murphy laid his hand on the lid, and looked inquiringly at his
+companion.
+
+Brian nodded, and the surgeon pushed the lid aside.
+
+There she lay; there she slept the sleep that on this side eternity
+knows no waking. She had been tossed by the billows; she had been amid
+the waves; she had been buffeted by the winds; she had been beaten
+hither and thither by the world’s storms; she had crossed the ocean of
+suffering; she had been out in seas of trouble; she had felt the deeps
+go over her head, and passed through torrents of tribulation—but it was
+all over now—the voyage, the fear, the struggle, the misery—for the Lord
+had taken her, after much weariness, unto Himself to rest, and she was
+at last brought by Him “unto the haven where she would be.”
+
+There she lay, with the wrinkles smoothed out of her face; with the
+lines care had written erased from her forehead; with the beauty of her
+youth almost restored to her—so unlike what she had been in her later
+life, so different to what he could remember her, that Brian Drewitt
+looked in Mr. Murphy’s face incredulously.
+
+“That is not my mother?” he said; and he drew back a step.
+
+“It is all you will ever again see for your mother here,” was the reply,
+uttered slowly and thoughtfully.
+
+Brian stooped over the coffin. Mr. Murphy always believed he was
+listening to hear if she breathed; but he was only touching her lips
+with his lips—only silently whispering words of tenderness—of passionate
+sorrow—that he had a vague feeling she might understand, though she
+could never answer.
+
+“Would you mind leaving me for a minute?” he said, at last. “Would you
+go into the next room and wait for me?—if you go down stairs some of
+them will be coming up.”
+
+Without uttering a syllable, Mr. Murphy placed the candle on the
+chimneypiece, and left Brian, closing the folding-doors after him.
+
+The surgeon thought that very likely Brian wanted to have a good cry
+unnoticed—unpitied. He had seen as strong natures weeping in their agony
+and despair. He knew the blow must have been heavy—the wound sharp; and
+he knew, likewise, that at such times sorrow must have its way in some
+form or other: for all of which reasons, he left Brian willingly, and,
+walking to one of the windows in the drawing-room, lifted a corner of
+the blind and looked out.
+
+Had he been able to see what was passing in the inner chamber, he would
+scarcely have remained contemplating the wet street and the flickering
+gas-lamps for so long.
+
+At the head of his mother’s coffin Brian stood erect; one arm was
+stretched out over the dead, and he was swearing an oath, to himself,
+full of vengeance and of hate. Beside her coffin he was pouring out
+imprecations on all who had ever caused her misery—just as Maxwell had
+said the peasants sat beside their desolate hearths, cursing the men who
+had taken the roofs off their heads, and left them without a shelter
+from the storm.
+
+There were no tears in Brian Drewitt’s eyes—there was no softness in
+Brian Drewitt’s heart. We had best come out and close the door, and
+leaving him alone; for the days were nigh at hand when he repented him
+of his blasphemy—when he covered his face, and acknowledged his sin, and
+bowed his head, while that angel of the Lord,—which teaches unto men all
+manner of good things—suffering—showed him how God’s ways are not as
+man’s ways—how they are eternally wise and eternally just, although, to
+our short-sightedness, they may oftentimes seem indeed inscrutable and
+past finding out.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XV.
+                          Madcap’s last Leap.
+
+
+There was a great meet of the Duranmore foxhounds at Kincorth, and on
+the lawn and about the drive were hunters in abundance: gentlemen in
+scarlet coats and buckskins by the dozen, grooms _ad libitum_, and
+hangers-on past counting.
+
+It was a clear, bright morning. Every man’s spirits were of the highest;
+every man’s girths of the tightest; everybody was expecting prime sport;
+and the breakfast of which they had just partaken was one certainly not
+calculated to damp their courage or to retard their pace.
+
+Wine had been drunk freely—conversation had circulated more freely
+still. Mr. Maxwell Drewitt was a good host, and knew how to make his
+guests comfortable; and the absence of a lady of the house tended, in
+the opinion of most present, to make the repast pleasanter still. Mr.
+Drewitt was perhaps the gayest of all present. He laughed, he joked, he
+talked, he drank—not to excess—but certainly beyond his wont; and he
+backed his mare, Madcap, to leap Durrow River—if, as was most likely,
+the fox took that course—better than the youngest hunter on the lawn.
+“She is nine years old,” he said; “but I would not change her for any
+other animal in my stable.”
+
+“It is a shame for you to be hunting her still,” remarked Mr. Frost, who
+was Lady Marsden’s nephew.
+
+“It would be a shame for you to hunt her,” retorted Maxwell; “for you
+ride, I suppose, thirteen stone every pound of it; but I, who am a light
+weight, cannot possibly distress her; and then she loves the tally-ho!
+and the long swinging gallop after the hounds as much as either of us.”
+
+They had all risen from table by this time, and were standing, some on
+the lawn, some in the hall, some on the drive, making altogether a
+bright and animated picture.
+
+Nothing prettier indeed in its way can be imagined than the scene at
+Kincorth that morning. Far below lay Duranmore Bay, with its green
+islands shining like emeralds in the beams of the midday sun. Although
+it was winter, the morning had broken up clear and bright and pleasant;
+the mountains were not enveloped in mists; you could see over the
+country for miles and miles; in the distance the Twelve Pins showed blue
+and distinct against the sky, while for foreground the looker-on had the
+lawn and trees and gardens of Kincorth; steeds plunging and pawing;
+grooms running hither and thither; the dogs kept in order by the
+whipper-in, and red coats and buckskins and top-boots appearing at every
+turn.
+
+The fulness of life seemed to be in that place at that moment; it was
+impossible to imagine sickness prostrating one of those men, sorrow
+touching one of their hearts, anguish wringing one of their souls.
+
+The winter’s sun looked down upon the scene, brightening and beautifying
+all it touched.
+
+“One moment, Mr. Drewitt, if you please.” It was Ryan, who spoke to his
+employer when Maxwell came out to mount.
+
+“Make haste, then.”
+
+“I should like to see you alone.”
+
+“What a fool you must be, Ryan, coming at this time! I cannot leave my
+guests. Say what you have got to say here, or else leave it to a more
+convenient opportunity.”
+
+“I must speak to you in private. Lead your horse up to that privet
+hedge, if you do not wish to come into the house, for speak to you I
+must and will.”
+
+Maxwell looked at the man who uttered these words, looked at him from
+head to foot, but Ryan never flinched.
+
+“I am in earnest,” he said; “and I am sober. Let me speak to you; I will
+not keep you five minutes.”
+
+Mr. Drewitt flung the reins to a groom.
+
+“Hold her a second,” he said, and turned aside with his lawyer.
+
+“Now, what excuse have you to make for intruding upon me?” he fiercely
+demanded: “what do you mean by coming up here at such a time?”
+
+“I have a letter from London this morning,” said Ryan. “Mrs. Drewitt is
+dead.”
+
+“How the devil does her death concern me?” asked Maxwell.
+
+“It concerns me,” answered Ryan. “There is her son dead—here is she
+dead. Mr. Drewitt, I can’t stand it. I won’t stand it any longer.”
+
+“What do you mean? Do you think I killed them?”
+
+“Yes, I do,” returned Ryan; “you and I between us. I wish to God I had
+let old Neill do his worst! I wish to the Lord I had been hung, drawn,
+and quartered, before I ever was indebted to you for sixpence! But I
+won’t hold my tongue any longer. You promised me to do well for Mrs.
+Drewitt and her children, and this is the end of it—this!”
+
+“Ryan, you are drunk,” said his employer, putting a curb upon his temper
+as he spoke.
+
+“If I am, it is on grief then,” was the reply. “Oh! why did I ever put
+it in your power to beggar them—to send them away from home, and
+friends, and all, to die!”
+
+“That is a question you ought to be able to answer for yourself without
+any difficulty,” sneered Maxwell Drewitt; “and as for holding your
+tongue, or not holding it, you can exercise your own discretion. I am
+not in your power. You may try to ruin me if you like, but you will only
+ruin yourself. You may say you gave the later will to me, and added the
+codicil to the former will yourself, at my dictation; but you have only
+your own word; you have no proof, no corroborative evidence. And look
+here, Ryan,” he added; “so sure as you begin a game of that kind, I will
+have you shut up in a mad-house for life. Poor fool! you thought to
+frighten me, I suppose. Go home, man, go home; I am not such a born
+idiot as to let any created being have the whip-hand of me.”
+
+“But I have the whip-hand of you,” answered Ryan; “and if you don’t do
+the thing that is right by that woman’s children, by—I’ll use it. I am
+no fool either, Maxwell Drewitt. Yes, for all your properties, you are
+no more than Maxwell Drewitt to me now. And I knew that that Campnell
+you are so taken on with is your own son, and that it was he, not Harold
+Drewitt, who should have stood in the dock. Ha! have I touched you at
+last? Who is the fool now? Can nobody put two and two together, do you
+think, but yourself? I won’t keep silence,” he went on passionately; “it
+was only last night I was dreaming about Mrs. Drewitt, and I thought she
+came to the foot of my bed and said: ‘Ryan, you know all about that
+robbery; clear my poor boy’s memory.’ And I believe she was there, that
+is, her spirit. I am sure she came and parted the curtains, and spoke
+just those very words to me; and I will clear his memory, unless you
+give back Kincorth, or Kincorth’s value, to him who has the best right
+to it.”
+
+“They are waiting for me, and I must go,” said Maxwell Drewitt, and his
+voice sounded so strange and unnatural, that Ryan’s rage was quieted for
+the moment. “What do you mean to do?” he asked.
+
+“What do you mean to do?” and Maxwell faced round on him like a maniac.
+
+“I mean to go to London and tell Brian Drewitt all,” was the reply.
+
+“You can tell nothing without criminating yourself,” said Maxwell.
+
+“I know that.”
+
+“And you will tell him—about—tell him of what you suspect, in short?”
+
+“Yes, everything. I swore long ago I would be even with you one day; and
+I will be even with you now.”
+
+“Are you sure?”
+
+“Yes, I am;” and the pair drew back a step or two from one another, and
+looked each in his enemy’s face as they had done years before—years and
+years previously, in that little cottage down by the sea.
+
+“I don’t think you will,” began Maxwell, after he had stared for a
+moment full into Ryan’s eyes; “I don’t think you will. You say Arthur
+Campnell is my son, and you say right; but you have not said who Arthur
+Campnell’s mother is. Can you guess?”
+
+“No, and do not want to guess. What can it signify to me who she was?”
+
+“Will you guess?”
+
+“I have told you I will not.”
+
+“Shall I tell you her name?”
+
+“If you like.”
+
+“Do you ask me to tell you?”
+
+“I do not.”
+
+“Then I will tell you without your asking. Arthur Campnell’s mother
+lives over at Durrow, and her husband’s name is Connor. Now do your
+worst. The man must get up very early in the morning who means to play
+card against card with me.”
+
+“You are the damndest villain, and the most cursed liar!”
+
+“Am I? Go and ask your sister if I lie.”
+
+“I will; and if I find you are lying, as I feel sure you are—if I make
+sure you have thrown dirt on her name to shield your son from disgrace,
+then, Maxwell Drewitt, then the dogs pity your cries, for I won’t. I
+swear I won’t!”
+
+But he spoke the last words to the air, for Mr. Drewitt had already left
+him, and was walking rapidly across the lawn to the spot where his horse
+stood.
+
+In his heart he was cursing the hunt and the guests, the sunshine and
+the breeze; and as he rode to the piece of plantation on the side of
+Calgillan Hill, where the underwood was thick and the fox hidden away,
+he wished he had sent Ryan out of the country long before, and that, let
+come or go what would, he had not told him anything about Jenny, whom he
+had betrayed and ruined and deserted in the years that were now so very
+far behind him—in the years that could return no more.
+
+“You were right—he has made for Durrow,” said Mr. Frost; and the words
+were scarcely out of his lips before the hounds were off in full cry,
+and the horses off after them.
+
+On and away; galloping across the fields; leaping the eternal stone
+fences; plunging through bogs; dashing over the moorland—in the
+excitement of that mad ride Maxwell forgot everything save the wild
+pleasure which is caused by passing at the full top of a horse’s speed
+through the air—forgot everything save the pace at which Madcap was
+going, and the ease with which she took her leaps.
+
+“Now for the river!” he said, and as though Madcap had heard his words,
+she laid back her ears, and bounded on like a thing possessed, towards
+the bank.
+
+Age had not stiffened her limbs, nor crippled her pace. There was not a
+horse in the field could keep up with her save one, and that was a
+hunter belonging to Captain Crabbe, and ridden by that gentleman’s son,
+who, having been trying all the way to pass Madcap, now shot by, almost
+touching the chesnut as he did so, and eliciting a volley of oaths from
+Maxwell for his awkwardness.
+
+Boring on the bit, Madcap tore along. All her spirit was up, and she
+flew after Captain Crabbe’s fleabitten old screw, as Maxwell had often
+contemptuously called the horse, like the wind.
+
+Maxwell had his work cut out to hold her. It was a beautiful piece of
+turf, smooth and level as a bowling-green. There was no break, no pause,
+till they came to the river, which ran broad and deep between two steep
+and awkward banks away to the sea. Mr. Crabbe was already close on the
+brink; but at that very moment, when he thought he was going to beat the
+chesnut for ever—when with a blow of his heel and cut of his whip he was
+urging his horse to the leap, the brute swerved suddenly round, and
+sticking its plain ugly neck out straight before it, galloped back as
+hard as it could go along the way it had come.
+
+Mr. Crabbe, taken completely unawares by this sudden manœuvre, had
+scarcely recovered himself from the shock of the sudden baulk before
+there came a tremendous crash.
+
+Maxwell, tearing on for the leap himself, could not get out of the way.
+He saw the collision coming, but was powerless to avert it. He felt a
+shock just as though a battering ram had come up against him; a shock
+which lifted him right out of the saddle—lifted him so high, that he
+could remember the reins being jerked out of his hand; and then he came
+down flat, with his back on the ground and his face to the sky; in which
+position he lay while the whole field jumped over him.
+
+“Drewitt’s down—Drewitt’s dead!” was the shout; but not a man could stop
+his horse to look after him until Mr. Frost, who had not been going at
+quite so furious a pace as the others, managed to pull up, and dismount.
+
+“I’m not dead,” Maxwell managed to say, “but I’m badly hurt; don’t touch
+me. I didn’t try to move because I knew the horses would leap me, and
+that if I stirred I should likely have my brains knocked out. Let me lie
+quiet for a while; don’t stop for me, go on.”
+
+But there were about half a dozen gathered about him by this time who
+would not go on; who sent to the nearest cabin and had a door taken off
+its hinges, on which Maxwell, groaning with pain, was laid gently and
+tenderly.
+
+“The mare?” he said; but nobody answered him.
+
+“The mare?” he repeated, and Mr. Frost asked—
+
+“Where is the chesnut? he wants to know.”
+
+“She is all right,” answered some one.
+
+“You are not telling me the truth?” Maxwell said, turning his eyes on
+the speaker, for he was too much shaken to move his head. “I want to
+know about the mare.”
+
+“Well, then, if you must know, poor old Madcap has taken her last leap,
+and she died in taking it.”
+
+The injured man made no answer; he closed his eyes; whilst all the
+people around looked at one another.
+
+There was not a person present who did not feel grieved at Madcap’s end.
+
+She had been to each of them almost as a friend—so gallant, so fleet, so
+daring, so proud of herself, and her small head, and her arched neck,
+and her flowing mane, and her shining coat—so proud, so petted, so
+dainty, so conceited, and so beautiful, that Lord Marsden once said, “He
+thought there must be a woman’s soul inside her, for that he had never
+seen an animal give herself such airs and graces before.”
+
+Poor Chessy—poor Madcap! She had made on like the rest for her leap, and
+taken it—taken it at the worst point she could have chosen. Missing her
+footing on the other side, she fought desperately for a moment to keep
+herself from slipping while she tried to scramble up the bank. One man
+made a clutch at her bridle, but missed it, fortunately, perhaps, for
+him; for, with a scream almost such as a human being might have uttered,
+she fell backwards into the river.
+
+Flynn had always said she was as sensible as a Christian, and those who
+saw that mad struggle for life, who heard that sound which is never
+uttered by a horse, save under the influence of some terrible pain, or
+some frightful fear, thought that Madcap must have had a kind of human
+comprehension of what the river’s bed held for her—great blocks of
+granite, which cut her all to bits; huge stones, against which she was
+knocked all to pieces; and just enough water to float her, lying on her
+side and kicking convulsively, down the stream, which was dyed red with
+her blood.
+
+Poor Madcap—poor beauty! She kept her head up as long as she could, but
+soon her strength failed, her neck sank below the surface, the water
+filled her nostrils, and before many minutes it was all over.
+
+“She had,” as Maxwell’s informant truly said, “taken her last leap, and
+died in taking it.”
+
+“And there’s not her like left in Ireland,” remarked Flynn, who in the
+course of the afternoon dragged her, stiff and stark, out of the river,
+at a curve half a mile below where the accident happened, and then he
+fell to sobbing over her like a child.
+
+“I’ll hamstring that brute of Crabbe’s the first time I get the chance,”
+he said to the grooms who came with him; “a score of such ill-looking
+divils wouldn’t make one of her. Not but what we must all die some day,”
+he concluded; “and I don’t know that I wouldn’t as soon she had died
+that way as any other.”
+
+As for Maxwell, in the midst of his own pain, in the midst of his own
+agony, he could not get the thought of that dead animal out of his mind.
+
+It was not because he had ever cared for her, as some men do care for
+their horses; it was not that her wise, winning ways, her playful
+tricks, her never-failing spirit had made him feel for her any real
+affection; but he had been proud of her, vain of her. She had been his,
+and she was the best mare in the county; and above and beyond all this,
+there seemed to Maxwell something more than mere accident about the
+whole affair.
+
+Like many men who are utterly irreligious, he was superstitious; and,
+lying there with his eyes shut, his mind was busy, piecing, in a kind of
+delirium, past, present, and future into a connected whole.
+
+He saw Brian bidding his farewell to that mare the night he left
+Kincorth and went out into the world. He saw Harold taking that
+desperate leap at the Headlands; and he remembered, at the same time,
+that Harold was dead. He had heard that morning of Mrs. Drewitt’s death;
+he had been asked by Ryan to act justly at last by his uncle’s living
+children—and he refused. Ryan had threatened him; and he in return
+stabbed the lawyer in his tenderest point.
+
+He had ridden out on Harold’s mare; and now Madcap was dead, too; while
+he was being carried, though he did not know it, straight as the mare
+who bore him could go to Durrow.
+
+The same thing, or worse, might have happened, no matter on what horse
+he had been mounted; but, as the “wicked flee when no man pursueth,” so
+the wicked likewise are apt to be superstitious about circumstances to
+which better men would attach no importance; and the fever, which was
+already upon him, made Maxwell look at all things with a fearful and
+troubled mind.
+
+He thought of what Ryan had said about Mrs. Drewitt; and he wondered if,
+when he was alone, she would come and stand at the foot of his bed, too.
+
+How many more times was Harold going to take that hedge?—how often was
+his uncle’s head to drop forward on Brian’s breast? He knew they were
+carrying him to Kincorth; for he could see Kathleen standing at the
+hall-door; and Jenny, too—Jenny, with a child in her arms; he and she
+were wandering through the glen. They could not get the cover of the
+will opened—the seals would not break. They need not mind—he could tell
+them what was in the codicil—he had got Ryan to add it. Yes, and he
+could let them into a secret about what would make ink look faded! What
+was that? Was the house falling? He was going up in the air—up—up—up;
+and then his mind ceased to wander—for he fainted.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XVI.
+                           After long Years.
+
+
+Ryan stood in the spot where Maxwell had left him until the riders were
+all gone—until the last red coat, the last groom, the last whipper-in,
+had disappeared from view; then, like a man rousing him from a dream, he
+moved slowly away, and took the hill-path towards Durrow.
+
+Most men have some sense of honour—some point where, if you cut down
+deep enough, blood will spout out; and a woman’s virtue was that
+sensitive place in Timothy Ryan.
+
+To him it seemed that a woman should be pure as snow—that for her fame
+to be breathed on was for it to be sullied. He had his own ideal of what
+the sex should be: and that ideal was very lofty and very beautiful.
+Pretty well he knew what men were; he knew more of their bad than of
+their good, perhaps; but women!
+
+The angels were not purer or more holy than the generality of women, in
+Ryan’s estimation; and one of the women whom he had loved, honoured, and
+adored, for many a year past, was his own sister, of whom Maxwell had
+asserted such things as made his very heart stand still.
+
+But he did not believe it—he would not believe it unless her own lips
+condemned her. While he walked across the hills he kept saying this to
+himself, and then he would hurry on for a few steps, only again to stop
+and linger—linger by the way.
+
+He sat down on blocks of granite, and pulled the grass and heather up by
+the roots, while he thought the matter over, till he went almost mad.
+
+His own life had not been peculiarly honest or honourable. He had done
+many a dirty trick; he had helped Maxwell Drewitt to serve many a man a
+mean turn; he had not been scrupulous in the way of business; he had
+lent a hand at forging the codicil; he had given, or, rather, allowed
+Maxwell to take the second will.
+
+He had not been at all nice as to what filth he put his hand into, and
+he had not felt many qualms of conscience in his life; but now, behold,
+there was a spot on his sister’s robe, and he could not bear it; could
+not endure to think she had deceived him and her husband, and—and
+everybody, thought the poor fellow.
+
+“I will not believe it,” he ended. “I will go on; I will ask her about
+the matter, and then I will return to Kincorth and cram his words down
+his lying throat if there were a hundred people with him; for I will not
+believe Jenny could be bad—I will not—I will not.”
+
+It was easy enough to say this—easy enough to repeat the words over and
+over, over and over again—but, alas! the more he repeated them the less
+he believed them; the more surely conviction stole over his heart that
+Jenny had once fallen from her high estate; that Jenny was not pure, not
+innocent, not what he had fondly imagined his sister, and Connor’s wife,
+and the mother of her children, to be—a woman as much above fear as
+beyond reproach.
+
+Onwards towards Durrow, with the mountains to his right hand and the
+Atlantic to his left. But Ryan never looked either to right or left;
+never looked, that is, noticing the hills or the sea. His heart was full
+to bursting. He had been a bad man, and an unscrupulous, and now the
+hour of reckoning was at hand. His health was ruined by drinking, his
+nerves were shattered, he had been unhinged by hearing of Mrs. Drewitt’s
+death, and now it seemed to him as though sorrows were multiplying upon
+him, while he paused at intervals, and asked himself—
+
+“What if it be true—what if he did not speak falsely after all?”
+
+Mrs. Connor was alone, and sitting at work in one of the upper rooms,
+when her brother entered. He was a frequent visitor, so Jenny did not
+attach any importance to his coming till he had been seated for a few
+minutes, when, noticing the anxious, troubled expression of his face,
+she asked him what was the matter, whether anything was amiss.
+
+“There is a good deal amiss, Jenny, that I want to talk with you about.
+Is Dennis out?”
+
+“Yes, he has gone to Duranmore, I think. What is wrong, Timothy? Can I
+be of any use to you? Is it money? Sure Dennis is always willing to lend
+to you when he has it. What is wrong? Tell me.”
+
+She had laid down her work, and was close beside him. She was a woman
+who never could grow old—who had such gentle, clinging ways, such
+loving, winning manners, that she was always to Ryan the young sister,
+the sweet Jenny whom he had once trembled might go off with Maxwell.
+
+Once! what was that dread to this?
+
+“It is not money, Jenny,” he answered. “I wish to God it were! I have
+got many a thing to say to you. Go back to your chair, dear, and sit
+down. Let me see, where was I?”
+
+“Going to tell me about this trouble that has come to you,” she said. It
+never struck her it could be any trouble relating to her; she had been
+safe for so long. There were none alive that knew her secret who would
+reveal it; through the years it had never oozed out, and she did not
+imagine that after long years her sin could be brought to her
+remembrance by any human being.
+
+“I have bad news, Jenny,” he began, after a moment’s hesitation. She sat
+with her hands folded together in her lap, her eyes fixed on his face,
+her lips a little parted, and he felt he could not plunge into _that_
+question without leading up to it in some indirect manner. “I have bad
+news. Mrs. Drewitt is dead!”
+
+“Dead!” Mrs. Connor repeated, and the slight colour faded out of her
+cheeks, and her eyes brimmed full of tears. “I am very sorry to hear it.
+She was a nice lady.”
+
+“And hardly done by.”
+
+“I am afraid she was. My heart was sore for her that night she came here
+after Mr. Drewitt’s funeral. How did you hear about it, Timothy? did Mr.
+Brian write to Mr. Maxwell?”
+
+“Mr. Brian will never write to Mr. Maxwell, and small blame to him for
+it. No, it was Mr. Murphy wrote to me, whatever possessed him—Murphy
+that used to be with Sheen, I mean, who was so sweet on you. He’s a
+great man now, I believe. Somebody told me he was making two or three
+thousand a-year; but maybe it is not true.”
+
+“She did not stay long after Mr. Harold. I wonder if it was the fretting
+killed her.”
+
+“I don’t know, I am sure—likely as not, for she worshipped the ground he
+walked on. He was a fine lad.”
+
+“He was,” answered Jenny, simply; “but I was fondest of Mr. Brian.”
+
+“Did you ever see anybody Harold favoured?” asked Ryan, suddenly.
+
+“Never. Mr. Pryor always said he was the image of his cousin. I never
+could see it, though.”
+
+“Mr. Pryor was right; but there is another person who is more like
+Harold than his cousin ever was; that is, another person who must have
+been like Harold when he was Harold’s age.”
+
+“Who is that?”
+
+“Mr. Campnell, the young gentleman who was at Kincorth last autumn.”
+
+“I never saw him.” But the colour came back into her cheek, and her eyes
+drooped under the look of eager, anxious inquiry her brother fixed upon
+her.
+
+“Say that again, Jenny; say you never saw him.”
+
+“I never saw him,” she repeated.
+
+“Is it the truth you are telling me, or is it a lie?” He rose in his
+suspense and misery, and stood directly facing her.
+
+“Why should I tell you a lie about the matter?” she asked. “What can Mr.
+Campnell be to me that I should fear to speak the truth? I never set
+eyes on him.”
+
+“And yet Maxwell Drewitt told me, not two hours ago, you were his
+mother?”
+
+The work she had taken up again dropped from her fingers; she lifted her
+face to her brother’s with a cry of helpless despair. Against any other
+testimony she might have maintained her innocence; but it was useless to
+attempt any further denial. Against him—false first and last—false as
+cruel—deceitful as relentless—there was no appeal.
+
+“You need not speak, Jenny,” he said; “you need not rack your brain to
+think what other falsehood you can coin to try and deceive me. I see it
+is all true. Oh! Jenny, Jenny.”
+
+She did not say a word—she could not say a word—she was so stunned, so
+confused, so wretched, that she could do nothing but sit and wonder if
+the misery of the past would all have to be endured over again; if she
+had not suffered enough then, that this fresh disgrace was come to
+her—that this blow had been dealt to her by _him_.
+
+“I suppose this was the reason you would not marry for so long. I
+suppose this was what made you refuse offer after offer, and live on
+single till I’m sure I thought you never were going to be a wife at all.
+But though you deceived me, Jenny, I hope you did not deceive him. I
+hope you never let any honest man take you as you were, ignorantly.”
+
+She put out her hands, and there came such a look of horror into her
+white face as made Ryan turn round to see what could have caused it.
+
+Behind him stood Connor, who, having heard the last part of his
+brother-in-law’s sentence, asked hoarsely what they were talking
+about—what it all meant.
+
+“It means, I ought never to have married you, Dennis,” she broke out
+passionately. “It means, I am all he says, and worse. It means, that
+years, and years, and years ago I sinned, and that now my sin has found
+me out.”
+
+“What is it?” he repeated. “I do not understand it at all. Are you both
+mad? What is it, Tim? Tell me what she says.”
+
+“She says she is not what we both took her to be,” answered Ryan,
+bitterly. “She confesses—that—that boy Maxwell Drewitt has ‘adopted’ is
+her son, and his son, and their son.”
+
+“And God knows, Dennis, that many a time I would have given anything to
+have been able to tell you this—that when you have been telling me how
+happy—” the poor creature’s voice was choked with sobs—“how happy you
+were, I felt my heart turn cold, thinking about my fault. I did not want
+to marry you, Dennis; you know I didn’t. And I have been true and
+faithful to you since; and I was so young, and I am the mother of your
+children, and you have had every thought of my heart, and every bit of
+my love, since ever you took me home. Won’t you forgive, Dennis?—sure
+you couldn’t cast me off?”
+
+She stretched out her arms towards him, but he made no step forward to
+take her to him. He averted his face that he might not look at the woman
+who had deceived him; who had lain in his bosom, and lived with him
+through the years and borne him children, knowing what she knew about
+herself all the time.
+
+“Dennis!” and she was going to fling herself at his feet, but her
+brother prevented her.
+
+“Connor,” he said, holding her back, and standing resolutely between
+them, “I don’t ask you—I can’t ask you to keep her. She has brought
+shame and disgrace to both of us. She is no more to you now than if she
+had never been your wife; but she is my own sister just the same as
+ever; so I will e’en take her with me;” and suiting the action to the
+word, Ryan drew her arm within his and led her, spite of her struggles
+and remonstrances towards the door.
+
+It was stern justice, stern and sharp, and Jenny rebelled against it.
+
+“Let me go back to him,” she said; “don’t try to take me from him, Tim.
+He is not that hard—he will listen to me, and forgive me.”
+
+They had reached the door by this time, and one of her children, her
+youngest, came running along the passage, calling out “Mammy—Mammy.”
+
+At the words she fought to free herself, and succeeding, caught the
+little fellow to her heart and covered his face with kisses.
+
+Very resolutely, Ryan took the boy from her and setting him down, said—
+
+“Run away, Johnny, and play yourself; run away, you have no mother now;”
+and he drew his sister’s arm in his once more and walked on towards the
+head of the staircase.
+
+This time Jenny made no effort to free herself; no struggle to return.
+With the full sense of her dishonour brought home by that one solitary
+sentence, she staggered forward, weeping bitter tears for her shame and
+their disgrace.
+
+Weeping for a stain that the floods of Niagara could not have washed
+away; for hearts broken; for sin discovered; for confidence abused; for
+love betrayed!
+
+So they descended the stairs together; she crying audibly; he weeping
+tears not to be noticed of men, but seen of God—tears not of brine from
+his eyes, but of blood from his heart.
+
+So, clasping her hand closer and tighter, he guided her down step by
+step: he who had never forsaken her in joy or in sorrow—who was true to
+her in bad report as in good—who, reckless and unscrupulous and
+unprincipled though he might be in most things—who, fallen though he
+knew her to be, was her faithful brother still.
+
+Step by step they descended that broad staircase; but when they reached
+the bottom, a hoarse voice called after them to stop; and Connor,
+running down the flight, laid his hand on Jenny’s shoulder.
+
+“Give me my wife!” he said; “she has been a good wife to me, and you
+shall not take her from me. Jenny, haven’t you loved me? haven’t you
+been true to me since we came together? Only say that, and I won’t mind
+the rest. I’ll try to forget it, Jenny—I’ll think it was a bad dream.
+There—there—darling; don’t fret. I was stunned like for the minute; but
+I could not have let you go; no, I couldn’t, dear, I couldn’t.”
+
+Her arms were about his neck; her head was resting on his shoulder; her
+tears were falling like rain; and she was striving to articulate some
+words of thankfulness and blessing, when there was a trampling over the
+ground outside of many horses’ hoofs, and of many men’s feet; then a
+loud knocking; and then followed a scene of indescribable confusion.
+
+“It was nearer to bring him here than take him to Kincorth. Shall we
+carry him upstairs? He is not dead, though he is badly hurt. Who is it,
+d’ye say? It is Mr. Drewitt; who else? He was thrown just on the other
+side Durrow River; and the chesnut mare is killed.”
+
+“God help us!” exclaimed Connor.
+
+“And we have sent for the doctor; and there’s a heap of gentlemen
+outside there; and shall we take him upstairs, or will you make him up a
+bed down here? That would be best, if you could do it.”
+
+“Where is he hurt?”
+
+“Sorra a one of me knows,” answered the man addressed; “he groaned that
+bad at first, I am sure you might have heard him up here; but he’s
+fainted now, I think. Likely as not he won’t get over it.”
+
+By this time several of the gentlemen had alighted and entered the
+house. From them Connor learned the particulars of the accident.
+
+“The rest are gone after the fox,” said Mr. Frost; “but I have have had
+enough hunting for to-day; and so I think have my friends here. I never
+was more upset in my life.”
+
+Whereupon Mr. Connor suggested that a little whiskey might not be
+unacceptable; or “some wine,” he added. “Mr. Pryor’s Madeira is very
+good, I’m told.”
+
+“Let us have two or three bottles up, then. I should like to hear the
+doctor’s opinion of Mr. Drewitt. I have been thinking since, that we
+ought perhaps to have taken him to Kincorth; for I suspect he won’t be
+able to move from here for many and many a day—unless, indeed, he is
+moved away in his coffin.”
+
+“Well, sir, we must only do our best for him, if he does stay,” answered
+Connor, who could not, at such a time, remember his own injuries, or
+nurse his own anger.
+
+Sickness, like death, is a great soother of human passions; and Maxwell
+Drewitt’s state was for a long time sufficiently critical to render it
+doubtful whether he should ever leave Durrow again, except for his
+grave.
+
+Day followed day—week succeeded to week—and month to month—but still
+Maxwell was unable to leave his bed. What he thought of, as he lay
+there, weak and faint and helpless, who can tell?—not even Jenny could
+imagine—though, judging by the words he let fall in his delirium, his
+reveries could scarcely, during convalescence, have been pleasant.
+
+All through that illness he was nursed and tended by the people he had
+injured—by Ryan and Connor and Jenny; and that he ever recovered
+sufficiently to leave Durrow and return to Kincorth, was owing more to
+their care and attention than to any other cause.
+
+But Maxwell was not grateful for their kindness. I think he hated them
+all bitterly for thus heaping coals of fire upon his head. I believe he
+could have struck Ryan when he told him how he had kept forwarding money
+to Mr. Campnell, at that gentleman’s request, without waiting for Mr.
+Drewitt’s recovery, or troubling him on the subject till he should
+regain his strength.
+
+“And in a letter I had from him the other day,” proceeded the lawyer,
+“he says he wishes you would reconsider your decision and purchase him a
+commission, as he should prefer a soldier’s life to any other.”
+
+“If he choose a soldier’s life he must go as a private, and never look
+for a shilling from me,” retorted Mr. Drewitt. “The boy is a fool, and
+he must be brought to his senses.”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVII.
+                       The Beginning of the End.
+
+
+Once again the summer sun was shining over Kincorth—brightly as on the
+day this story opened—and under the shadow of the overarching trees
+Maxwell Drewitt stood gazing up at the house just as he had done
+twenty-five years previously.
+
+He was then three-and-twenty; he was now eight-and-forty: he was then
+full of youth and health and strength; he was now older than his age, a
+man stricken and feeble, who might never have a vigorous body or a sound
+constitution again. That fall, though it had failed to kill, had yet
+injured him permanently. He could know no more what it was to be free
+from ache and pain, to care nothing about the weather, to be insensible
+to fatigue, to have an iron frame, an indomitable spirit.
+
+A minute—less than a minute—had sufficed to make him a perfect wreck; a
+worn, sickly man, who, having formed no sweet home-ties for himself in
+the days of his strength, was now, in the time of his weakness, lonely
+and desolate.
+
+Upon him the sunlight that streamed through the branches of the trees
+fell brightly, as they had fallen brightly, if you remember,
+five-and-twenty years before. He was starting on life’s journey then;
+that journey was nearly over now.
+
+He had planned then, he had hoped. The plans were now realities, the
+hopes certainties. He had longed to possess, and Kincorth was his. He
+had determined to be wealthy, and behold he had gold at his command. He
+had resolved to make the name of Drewitt notable, and the name of
+Drewitt had become remarkable. He had declared he would make the estate
+valuable, the property something to talk about, and in the length and
+breadth of Connemara there were not two lovelier places than Kincorth
+and Headlands. He had made up his mind to have his revenge, and uncle
+and aunt and youngest-born were all gone to their graves, poor, and
+stricken, and sorrowful, while Brian was a clerk in London—Brian, who
+ought to have had Kincorth.
+
+If success be happiness, Maxwell Drewitt should have been a man without
+a care; but the best-mounted horseman has as often that imp sitting
+behind him on the crupper as the poorest man riding on the shaggiest
+pony. Care, as a rule, indeed, loves high places, and care never left
+Maxwell Drewitt’s side now by day or night.
+
+Care for his own life; care for the man who was to come after him; care
+lest the winds of heaven might blow upon his own cheek too roughly; lest
+Arthur, the only thing he had on earth belonging to him, should go
+hopelessly astray.
+
+He was doing no good at college; he was spending money as though he had
+an income of a thousand pounds a week; he was wild, he was reckless, he
+was intractable; and yet Maxwell, in his own fashion, loved him, perhaps
+on the same principle that a prisoner loves a rat; namely, because he
+had nothing else to care for.
+
+And the youth knew this, and traded on it; winding the man who had never
+been weak before round his finger as easily as Maxwell had wound others
+in the days gone by.
+
+Of his son and of his health, Maxwell Drewitt was thinking while he
+stood under the trees, looking up at Kincorth. He felt that for him,
+life was over—life with its purposes, its hopes, its successes; and
+occasionally he could not help asking himself how it would be when not
+only the life of work was over, but the bare life—the living and
+breathing that would, he knew, continue after every capacity for
+exertion, every power of action had been taken from him.
+
+House to house, acre to acre, property to property! for this end—to be
+standing with the best part of his existence—health—taken away from him;
+thinking in solitude of that unknown world concerning which the clergy
+preached continually; the secrets of which not one of the departed had
+ever returned to reveal.
+
+The next world! There is a something very terrible to a man like Maxwell
+Drewitt in the idea of leaving all he has most enjoyed, most coveted,
+most valued, and going away to the cold and silent grave. He could not
+bear it; he shrank from the reality of death; he turned away from the
+grim spectre; he fled from the unwelcome thoughts that would intrude
+themselves upon him. He could not bear to be alone; he would have
+anybody to sit with him rather than remain in solitude. He wished he had
+not quarrelled with his wife, and made overtures of reconciliation to
+her; but Lady Emmeline, now resident in London, refused his offers, and
+treated his advances with indifference and coldness.
+
+He could not get Ryan to come and chat with him, and the evenings were
+frightful. He had no strength to endure the racket of company, and it
+was not likely that the men he knew would take pity on an invalid, and
+bear with his temper in sickness as they had borne with it in health.
+
+The rector would have come; but Maxwell, after one or two trials,
+abandoned that experiment.
+
+He thought of going away, but he did not know where to go, and, besides,
+it was in his nature to cling to his home and his country—to remain in
+the midst of the scenery he knew so well rather than take up his abode
+in the midst of a great city. He wished he had some one to stay always
+with him, always to speak to, always to have at his elbow, whom he could
+tell to drive away that demon who always would persist in reminding him
+that the days were passing—passing; that there must come an hour when
+soul and body would have to be parted—when time would be the shadow, and
+eternity the substance.
+
+If he had even Wilhelmina; but Wilhelmina and her husband and her
+children had sailed a year before for America. Susan was in the
+country—that is, in England; but then he had always hated Susan, and he
+had quarrelled fearfully with Captain, now Colonel, Ellenham about her
+fortune. When that individual, who had long been a widower, discovered
+that under Mr. Drewitt’s will Susan was entitled to a small fortune, he
+married her forthwith; and over the matter of that fortune he and
+Maxwell had exchanged such letters as few people have inclination to
+send, or leisure to pen.
+
+No, he had not a soul excepting his son; and his son would not consent
+to take up his abode permanently in Connemara—not, at any rate, until he
+had seen the world. He wanted to be an officer—he would be an officer;
+his father must purchase him a commission.
+
+In his very last letter he repeated this statement, and expressed a wish
+that a remittance might be forwarded to him immediately.
+
+“I must stop the supplies,” Mr. Drewitt decided, as he walked away from
+under the trees, and retraced his steps towards the house slowly and
+painfully. “Yes, I must stop the supplies; that will bring him to his
+senses.”
+
+The next letter from his son announced that he had gone to London, and
+begged again for money. In reply, Maxwell referred him to his former
+letter, and desired him to return home.
+
+During the week, Arthur wrote once more, and intimated that if “the
+needful,” as he called it, were not forthcoming from Connemara, he must
+get it elsewhere, and in some mode which might be disagreeable to his
+father.
+
+The tone of the correspondence was, by this time, waxing warm, and
+accordingly Mr. Drewitt answered—
+
+“That for Arthur’s own sake, he hoped he would get it honestly.”
+
+After that there came a lull; for a month there was not a line from this
+unrepentant prodigal, and Maxwell was getting most seriously anxious
+about his black sheep, when one morning the post brought two pleasant
+pieces of intelligence to him at the same time: news that his son had
+enlisted and that the mutiny in India had broken out.
+
+Arthur was very penitent, very submissive; he had seen quite enough of
+soldiering to satisfy him. He wanted to be bought off. If his father
+would but buy him off, he would do everything he required. He would
+settle in Connemara, and never ask to stir outside the gates of
+Kincorth, unless his father permitted him to do so. He would make it the
+study of his life to obey and please his parent; he would thankfully
+accept any conditions his father chose to impose. He confessed he had
+been a bad son; that considering his birth, he had not estimated Mr.
+Drewitt’s kindness at its proper value, and he wound up by imploring his
+father to get him out of the service somehow.
+
+“I have got into, perhaps, the very worst regiment I could have done,”
+he finished, “and our colonel is one of the most detestable men, they
+tell me, in the whole of the British army. His name is Ellenham.
+
+                                                “Your affectionate son.”
+
+
+Maxwell dropped the letter on the carpet. Were his troubles to have no
+end? Had he been prosperous for so long only that the tide might turn at
+last, and bring nothing but sorrow to him on its waves?
+
+What had he done, that in middle life he should be stricken down in the
+pride of his health and strength?
+
+Wherein did he now differ from the Maxwell of former years—that
+everything he touched in those days should have gone well with him—while
+nothing that he now desired would come to pass—nothing?
+
+In a moment he had grasped all the facts of the case—in a moment he
+realized the complicated difficulties of his position. He knew, if
+Colonel Ellenham guessed Arthur to be his son, that he would throw such
+obstacles in the way of purchasing his discharge as might make that
+discharge impossible to obtain. He was well aware how much the war in
+India would increase his embarrassment; and he sat on, pondering and
+pondering what he should do—how it would be best for him to proceed,
+while his son’s letter lay on the carpet and the newspaper was spread
+out before him.
+
+Look at him now, reader. Would you know him? Remembering what he was
+when this story opened, would you have imagined it within the bounds of
+probability that—long before old age had laid its hand upon him—long
+before winter’s withering frosts had come to pick the green leaves off
+the goodly tree—to dry up its sap, to strip it of its beauty, and to
+leave it bare and destitute of foliage, almost in the summer of his
+life—he could have changed to this?
+
+Sitting alone there, the terrible ravages sickness and pain had made
+were plainly to be traced; and, with Maxwell Drewitt, when once his
+physical beauty was destroyed, everything was destroyed; and he who had
+once been so haughty—so insolent—so handsome—was now but as any other
+bowed and beaten man.
+
+And in that hour he was humbling himself mentally—he was bending his
+proud spirit to ask a favour from a man whom he detested. He only knew
+one person in London who would, he felt sure, work for his son’s release
+heart and soul—and that person was Geoffry Pryor.
+
+Yet Geoffry Pryor had read him through in the days gone by; and, reading
+him, had refused his proffered hand, and never grasped it since.
+
+Nevertheless, it was to him Maxwell Drewitt made up his mind to apply.
+
+“I will send Ryan to Dublin by this night’s mail,” he decided; “and he
+can cross to Holyhead to-morrow morning.”
+
+Sickness had not dulled the keen brain, though it had wasted and worn
+his body. He could think rapidly, though it was pain and misery to him
+to move swiftly. He could still chalk out a plan, and make others act
+upon it, though the days were gone for ever when he could execute his
+designs himself and be dependent on no other man living to see that they
+were carried out to his satisfaction.
+
+“Do you think I had better follow you?” he inquired; but Ryan answered,
+“No. I am certain, if any person can get him off, Mr. Pryor will find
+that man; and you will only knock yourself up by going travelling in
+such hot weather as this. No; you keep yourself quiet, and rely on us. I
+will do my best—if only for _her_ sake—be sure of that.”
+
+Yes, they were all rowing in the same boat now. Ryan could never
+disassociate his interests from Maxwell, nor Maxwell his from Ryan in
+the future for ever.
+
+The comparison may not seem complimentary to the married state; but in
+one respect guilt is very like matrimony. Whether people like or hate,
+they must endure each his fellow’s company when once they have bound
+themselves together in the bonds of sin.
+
+It is as difficult for rogues to get a divorce as for husband and wife;
+and accordingly what Maxwell and Ryan had been in the beginning, so they
+continued to the end.
+
+“I had better ride to Galway, I suppose,” Ryan observed; “there is no
+dependence to be placed on those post-horses.”
+
+“Nonsense,” answered his employer. “The mail-car can take you as safely
+as the letters, I should imagine.”
+
+“I won’t risk it,” returned Ryan; “there might not he a vacant seat.”
+
+“And how about your luggage?”
+
+“The car can bring a carpet-bag after me; there is sure to be room for
+that.”
+
+“One word more, Ryan. Don’t let him out of your sight; bring him
+straight back with you here, till we try if we cannot make something of
+him. I wish to heaven he was as wise as he is handsome!”
+
+“He’ll never be wise, I’m right sure of that,” was the reply; “but I
+will do what you tell me. I will bring him back to you.” And with that
+Ryan left the room, while Maxwell remained fuming over his last words.
+
+“What right had any man to say his son would never be wise? Was not he
+clever enough? was not he young? If he had gone wrong once, what of
+that? He should be a credit and a comfort to him yet. Once let him
+(Maxwell) have him back again in Connemara, and he would look him out a
+wife who should keep him in order, and give him an interest in the
+county.
+
+“Many a girl would snap at such a chance, and he, Maxwell, could take
+the opportunity of making a proviso that his heir should assume the name
+of Drewitt.
+
+“It would be pleasant for him to have his son and his son’s wife living
+in the house, and the chatter of children’s tongues and the patter of
+children’s feet might yet break the funeral silence of the empty rooms,
+by the doors of which he dreaded to pass.”
+
+Always this man had longed for children, and now, with a more terrible
+longing than ever, he desired to hear young voices ringing in his
+ears—to have something lively and bright to chase away the gloom that
+was enveloping him.
+
+With all his heart and with all his soul he wished he had brought Arthur
+home sooner; that he had insisted years and years before on having him
+at the Headlands, instead of leaving him among strangers.
+
+He recollected why he had not done so. How he had calculated on Lady
+Emmeline’s death, and on his second marriage, and on the chances of
+legitimate issue.
+
+The scroll of his life could not have been pleasant reading in the days
+of which I am now writing, and it was little marvel that Maxwell Drewitt
+opened that manuscript as seldom as possible.
+
+Rather he preferred to dream dreams, and see visions; to picture to
+himself the young wife who would make the old house seem home-like and
+cheerful, the children who might gambol on the lawn.
+
+Dreams—dreams—sad and pitiful to think that they could never be
+realized! visions so bright that when the disillusion came the man whose
+life was almost over could not bear the blow!
+
+It was on himself he had built before; it was on another he was building
+now: that made all the difference. He had been always able to tell what
+course he should pursue; but the course his son might adopt was darkness
+to him.
+
+One of the children of this world, he had been wise in his generation;
+one of the fools of this world, there was no counting upon what Arthur
+might do from day to day.
+
+And what he finally did was this:—
+
+While Mr. Pryor, after vainly trying to come to some arrangement with
+Colonel Ellenham, was running after one great man after another, to try
+to procure Arthur’s discharge, that young gentleman, wearied of the
+ill-success attendant on his friend’s efforts, coolly did the most
+foolish thing possible under the circumstances, namely, took the matter
+into his own hands and deserted.
+
+“That I ever should have been father to such an idiot!” exclaimed
+Maxwell Drewitt when the news reached him. “There is no hope for him
+now, unless we can discover where he is and get him out of the country.”
+
+And even, in fancy, he never again heard the chatter of children’s
+tongues or the patter of children’s feet; the lonely rooms he could fill
+no more, even in dreams, with light and life and merriment.
+
+Deeper and darker grew the night, lonelier and more desolate grew the
+man—sad and pitiful! sinner that he had been—for the days were come at
+last when he said he had no pleasure in them. He had thought to live
+long, and to have much enjoyment, and behold he found out in a moment
+that what Solomon said was true: “Man knoweth not his time: as the
+fishes are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the
+snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it falleth
+suddenly upon them.”
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XVIII.
+                            Man’s Vengeance.
+
+
+The world had prospered with Brian Drewitt since his mother’s death; his
+salary was still indeed not excessive, but he was promised an increase
+very shortly, and Mr. Francis Gyton had further thrown out many vague
+hints to the effect that in his, Frank Gyton’s opinion, it would be far
+jollier if they (he and Brian) were to cut the old connection, and start
+in business on their own account.
+
+“I know I could not stand Munday, so there is no use in my father
+talking of taking me into partnership,” he said one evening when he and
+Brian were walking up westward together from the City. “I think such a
+lot of partners are a damned nuisance, and I should like to get clear of
+them. So, to cut the matter short, Brian, whenever I am married I should
+like to commence with you. I can find the tin, and you the brains—is it
+a bargain?”
+
+“Your father?” hesitated Brian.
+
+“My father will be a little restive at first, but when he is tired of
+opposition he will give in, and it is of no use mincing the matter,
+Brian; Mr. Munday and I cannot remain in the same business together.
+What do you say—will you be my man, or will you not?”
+
+“I will not, without speaking first to your father in the matter. He has
+been very kind to me, and—”
+
+“And you will do the respectful and all the rest of it, and I will do
+the dutiful; so that, between us, the old gentleman will be as easily
+managed as possible. I should not wonder if he came over to us himself,
+for he likes Munday no better than I do.”
+
+Mrs. Drewitt’s death had of course postponed Geraldine’s marriage, and
+as it had also crippled their means, brother and sister were now living
+in a cottage at Highgate, which Mr. Gyton entertained some idea of
+purchasing for his son.
+
+“Throw out a drawing-room there, and build a conservatory here, and put
+the kitchens at the back, and it would really make a very charming
+little residence. Love in a cottage, eh, Geraldine?”
+
+Whereupon Geraldine blushed and laughed, while the evening sunshine fell
+upon her.
+
+“And you will require coach-house and stabling; in fact, the whole place
+will need alteration; but it is a lovely situation—lovely!” and the
+great man stood back to admire the view. “I tell you what it is, Miss,”
+he went on; “I shall get so fond of this cottage one of these days, that
+you will have me taking up my abode here,” and he pinched the girl’s
+cheek, who, passing her hand through his arm, said coaxingly—
+
+“Something has taken up its abode here that would astonish you. I wonder
+if I might tell you, or whether you would be shocked. It is a deserter,
+a countryman of my own.”
+
+“A deserter?—you are jesting, Geraldine.”
+
+“I am not jesting at all,” she answered. “Our servant found him in the
+wood-shed, this morning, and he is half-starved, and badly clad, and ill
+and miserable.”
+
+“Good bless me!” exclaimed Mr. Gyton.
+
+“And I want your help to send him over to America, or Newfoundland, or
+some place,” added Geraldine, with that charming ambiguity of expression
+which is so pleasing a characteristic of her sex.
+
+“But—but—but all this is very illegal; extremely improper,” began Mr.
+Gyton.
+
+“We don’t care for law at all in Ireland,” answered Geraldine, demurely;
+“and in such a case as this, not much for propriety.”
+
+“You incorrigible little girl, I don’t know what I must say to you.”
+
+“Say you will pay his passage out to America,” she suggested. “If I had
+the money, I would do it in a minute.”
+
+“But it is against law: the proper course for you to pursue, would be to
+go down to Scotland Yard, and give information that such and such a
+person was concealed on your premises.”
+
+Geraldine broke out into a peal of laughter. “Should you really like me
+to go to Scotland Yard, Mr. Gyton?” she suggested. “Would a note not do
+as well, or could Frank not call round in the morning? Is there any
+reward? I think I should like to get a reward.”
+
+“What are you talking about?” demanded Lady Emmeline, who was likewise
+of the party. “I declare, any person might think it was you and Mr.
+Gyton who were engaged, instead of you and Frank.”
+
+“So we are engaged for life, as father and daughter,” replied the
+millionaire; “we were talking about a deserter. Geraldine, it appears,
+keeps one among her coals and wood.”
+
+“You are not serious?”
+
+“Perfectly serious. I dare say the young man is on view at the present
+moment.”
+
+“Dear me! how romantic!”
+
+“It is romantic,” added Geraldine; “for he is evidently a gentleman; he
+has been to Oxford, at the University, I mean—a student there, or
+whatever you call it.”
+
+“I think, Mr. Gyton, that this affair ought to be investigated,” said
+Lady Emmeline.
+
+“I think so, too,” was the reply. “Suppose we send for a policeman?”
+
+“If a policeman come here I will smash his skull for him!” remarked
+Brian, at this juncture.
+
+“Dear! dear! what a set of people you Irish are!” observed Mr. Gyton. “A
+man has only to shoot his landlord—or be a rebel—or a deserter—or
+something of that kind, to engage all your sympathies!”
+
+“You would not have us give him up?” exclaimed Brian, his voice sounding
+loud and angry, as he spoke.
+
+“Certainly not, sir. To an Englishman I might suggest such a course; but
+to an Irishman—never. The proper thing for you to do, is to feed him,
+clothe him, love him, and then send him over to America, to hate the
+English, and say we are the cause of all Ireland’s misfortunes.”
+
+For the life of him, Brian could not help laughing. The sketch was so
+true—so real and so ready.
+
+“Could not we get a peep at him?” asked Lady Emmeline.
+
+“Certainly,” answered Brian; “at five pounds a head.”
+
+“Is he worth the money, Lady Emmeline, do you consider?” inquired Mr.
+Gyton.
+
+“Now, how can one possibly tell that unless one sees him?” demanded Lady
+Emmeline. “You really must allow us some discretion, Brian.”
+
+“As much as you please,” Brian answered, “if you give me five pounds.”
+
+“Is it as a charity?” inquired her ladyship.
+
+“As a charity,” Brian replied, bowing low.
+
+“Then there is my five pounds,” said Lady Emmeline, putting five
+sovereigns into Brian’s hand.
+
+“And five pounds for me and five for my wife,” added Mr. Gyton.
+
+“You won’t charge me anything, Brian? I am one of the family,” said Mr.
+Francis Gyton.
+
+“And well able to afford to pay for the sight,” added Brian.
+
+“What a leech you are! Won’t my I O U do as well? Won’t you trust me?
+’Pon my honour, I have not five pounds about me.”
+
+“I will pay for him,” said Geraldine, drawing out her purse; “but
+remember, Frank, it is out of my housekeeping money; so you must give it
+back to me honestly.”
+
+And thus, amidst much laughing, they collected twenty pounds, on the
+strength of which the deserter was brought by Brian into the little
+parlour of Spring Lodge.
+
+“Well, but really now, you know—joking apart, excuse me, but, my good
+fellow, this is really very irregular,” remarked Mr. Gyton, senior.
+
+“I suppose no one can know that better than he,” said Brian, looking at
+the thin pale face, the hollow cheeks, the unshaved chin, the grisly
+moustache, with an interest he could neither have explained nor defined.
+
+“And where do you come from?” asked Frank Gyton.
+
+“From Yorkshire,” was the reply; “that young lady (indicating Geraldine)
+will have it that I am from Ireland, but she is mistaken.”
+
+“No, I am not,” answered Geraldine. “No Englishman ever pronounced ‘have
+it’—‘haf’t’—as you do.”
+
+“What is your name?” inquired Mr. Gyton.
+
+“Ward,” he said; “Charles Ward.”
+
+“It is not,” exclaimed Lady Emmeline; “it is Campnell, and you are Mr.
+Maxwell Drewitt’s illegitimate son.”
+
+“Do you know him?” asked Brian, hurriedly.
+
+“Know him? To be sure I do. Didn’t I see him in Connemara last year?
+Have not you noticed the likeness between him and Harold?”
+
+In a moment Brian comprehended what had attracted him about the
+deserter. In an instant he formed his plans. The hour of vengeance was
+striking at last, and it would be his own fault if he faltered in his
+design.
+
+Through Maxwell’s son he must hurt Maxwell; and soon after he rose, and
+left the room.
+
+While they were all talking together, speaking to Arthur Campnell,
+asking him how he chanced to enlist, how he came to desert, Geraldine
+left the room likewise. She searched all over the house, she made
+inquiries of the servants, their own, and Mr. Gyton, and Lady
+Emmeline’s. None knew where Brian had gone; but one man had seen him go
+out of the gate, and walk down the hill.
+
+“Tell Mr. Gyton I want him,” Geraldine said; “not Mr. Frank, but Mr.
+Gyton.” And Mr. Gyton came out. “Brian is gone to give information,” she
+said; “we must get him away, and at once.”
+
+“Geraldine, you are dreaming,” exclaimed Mr. Gyton.
+
+“Am I? You don’t know Brian as well as I do. So long as he thought that
+man was simply a deserter, he would have died before letting a hair of
+his head be touched; but now he knows him to be Maxwell’s son, he would
+put a rope round his neck, and hang him.”
+
+“God bless my soul! you don’t say no!”
+
+“I do say so,” she answered; “and I say you know nothing of the Irish,
+whose hate is as strong as their love. I noticed his face change, the
+moment Lady Emmeline said who Arthur was, and I know he must be got away
+from here without a moment’s delay.”
+
+“But really, that is, you know——”
+
+“Take him to Mr. Pryor; he will see to him—he will get him off,” said
+Geraldine. And accordingly, greatly to his disgust, Mr. Gyton was
+persuaded to drive off, with a deserter in his carriage personating
+Frank.
+
+“And now, Geoffry,” added Mr. Gyton, when he had finished his narrative,
+“let me entreat of you to get him away as soon as possible. He is no
+credit to the family; and one really cannot get through life
+respectably, if deserters, and so forth, are to be hidden in our
+coal-cellars and larders. Really, Mr. Maxwell Drewitt ought to have more
+consideration,” he continued; but Mr. Pryor smiled.
+
+“Maxwell Drewitt does not know what to do with this boy, whom he means
+to make his heir. It is a lamentable business altogether; but, as you
+say, there is nothing for it except to get him to Ireland, and out of
+the country as soon as possible.”
+
+“I did not think Brian would really have informed,” remarked Mr. Gyton.
+
+“It would be hard to say what he might, or what he might not do, where
+his cousin is concerned,” was the reply.
+
+“And with regard to this youth?”
+
+“Leave him to me.”
+
+Meanwhile, there were high words waging at Highgate between Geraldine
+and her brother.
+
+She was accusing him of meanness, cowardice, vindictiveness.
+
+He retorted by saying she was cold, insensible, heartless.
+
+“Indifferent to our mother’s sufferings—to Harold’s disgrace.”
+
+“Our mother, on her death-bed, said, that you were to forgive, as you
+hoped to be forgiven,” answered Geraldine.
+
+“You should not talk about what you do not understand, Geraldine,” he
+said.
+
+“I understood that well enough,” she replied; “and I know that long
+letter she wrote to you was full of nothing else but regrets for ever
+having encouraged your dislike of Maxwell, and not having checked your
+desire for revenge.”
+
+“She was an angel.”
+
+“She was.”
+
+“Who never could carry a feeling of resentment; and therefore it behoves
+me—I tell you, Geraldine, it behoves me to remember her wrongs, and have
+no mercy.”
+
+“That is not what she would tell you, Brian, if she were alive. But
+there is no use in our arguing this point out now, for Maxwell’s son is
+now beyond the reach of your vindictiveness.”
+
+“Are you quite satisfied of that?”
+
+“Yes, I am. Oh, Brian! do not push this matter further. Think if it had
+been Harold!—and he is so like Harold.”
+
+“So was the lad who stole those notes.”
+
+“Do you think it was he that took them?”
+
+“Think!” he repeated, contemptuously; “I am sure of it. What is your
+opinion of your protégé, now?”
+
+There was a long pause, during the continuance of which Geraldine sat
+weeping silently. At last, she said—
+
+“Brian, do you imagine it would comfort Harold to know you were pursuing
+that young man for his sake?”
+
+“It comforts me,” he replied.
+
+“Now, when he is gone where his innocence is known, what can it matter
+to him who goes free on earth?”
+
+“It matters to his memory, Geraldine.”
+
+“And who cares for his memory? who but a few that, believing him
+innocent in life, cannot doubt him in death?”
+
+“We need not talk any further about the matter,” said Brian, angrily. “I
+am doing what I consider right; and no one shall convince me to the
+contrary.”
+
+“I think I could,” said Mr. Pryor, who, late though the hour was,
+entered at the moment. “Brian, you have done very wrong!”
+
+“I have not!” was the answer.
+
+“I told you yourself, years ago, you were preparing a bitter cup; but
+you would not listen to my warning. That youth was safe here. No one
+would have suspected his being concealed in such a house as this; and we
+could easily have shipped him off from here to some place of safety.
+Now, I candidly say, I do not know what we are to do. Every plan seems
+beset with danger and difficulty!”
+
+“I am glad to hear it,” remarked Brian, sullenly.
+
+“No, Brian, you are not. Vindictive though you may be, you could not in
+cool blood—you could not, I am sure—give that boy over to be flogged and
+branded!”
+
+“I could! believing, as I do, that his father will feel every lash and
+every touch of the iron through him.”
+
+“And his mother, Brian?”
+
+“The mother of such a son must be as bad as his father.”
+
+“She is not! I know her well; and I know she is not! Shall I tell you
+her name, Brian?”
+
+“It can have no interest for me,” he answered; “but you may tell me, if
+you like.”
+
+“Mrs. Connor!”
+
+“No!” Brian started to his feet. “No! I tell you it is not—it shall not
+be!”
+
+“How can you prevent it? the fact is so. Mrs. Connor, when she was Jenny
+Bourke—young, pretty, guileless—brought that boy into the world, whom
+you have tried your best this night, Brian, to give up to trial and
+punishment.”
+
+“Mr. Pryor, God is my witness! I thought I was only doing my duty!”
+
+“Duty toward whom?”
+
+“To my mother’s memory—to Harold’s! For myself and Geraldine, I do not
+care—I never have cared; but no soul can give _them_ any comfort or
+happiness here. And I vowed—I swore—if ever I could pay Maxwell back any
+portion of the suffering he had caused them, I would do so.”
+
+“Did not your mother leave some parting message for you—some words that
+must have sounded as though uttered from her coffin?” asked Mr. Pryor.
+
+“She did,” was the reply; “but though she might forgive for herself, I
+did not think myself bound to comply with her request and forgive for
+her. So long as we are in the flesh we must act like men; and it is not
+like a man to forgive and forget such injuries as Maxwell heaped on us.”
+
+“Brian, do you think it is our affair to manage the world—to avenge
+wrongs, to requite the virtuous and punish the wicked?”
+
+“How can I tell?” he answered. “I suppose we are instruments; and when
+one sees a man like Maxwell prosperous, happy, respected, what is one to
+do—how is one to act?”
+
+“Not as you have done, at any rate; we are all so mixed up here, that if
+we strike a blow we never can tell whose heart may feel the wound most
+severely. As in this case, for instance, you never guessed Mrs. Connor
+could be mixed up in such a matter.”
+
+“Well, the young fellow is gone,” answered Brian, impatiently; “he is
+not caught, I suppose; and wherever Geraldine sent him, I conclude he is
+safe enough.”
+
+“Is he? there were inquiries at my house not half an hour ago, and if I
+had not been quicker than they suspected, the boy would have been now on
+his way back to barracks.”
+
+Brian made no answer; he sat for a long time silent, for many minutes he
+never spoke one word; then he rose and left the room in silence.
+
+“He is sorry,” Geraldine remarked; and Geraldine was right. Brian was
+gone away, to mourn in solitude; not that he had tried to punish
+Maxwell’s son, but that Maxwell’s son was also Jenny’s boy—poor Jenny,
+to whom he had once vowed to be grateful for life.
+
+Next morning Ryan and his nephew started for Ireland; proceeding
+thither, not by the Dublin and Holyhead route, but running down by the
+Great Western to Milford Haven, whence they crossed to Waterford; from
+which place Mr. Ryan meant to work their way by all manner of curious
+routes to Connemara.
+
+“Once there we shall be safe,” thought Mr. Ryan; but he reckoned without
+his host.
+
+“I wonder if they have reached Kincorth?” Mr. Pryor remarked, the day
+but one after their departure, to Brian, who had never opened his lips
+on the subject from the night he discovered who the deserter really was
+until that present moment.
+
+“If who have reached Kincorth?” asked the younger man.
+
+“Ryan and his nephew.”
+
+“They have not gone to Ireland, surely—they have not been so mad as
+that?” exclaimed Brian, all in a hurry and tremble.
+
+“Why not? it seemed to me a much safer place than London.”
+
+“But I told them whose son he was—they are certain to be on the
+look-out. Why did you say nothing to me—oh! why did not you?”
+
+They were walking down the Holloway Road at the moment, and Mr. Pryor,
+without answering Brian by a word, called a passing Hansom, and jumped
+in.
+
+“Where are you going?” asked Brian.
+
+“I am going to Lothbury, to the Telegraph Office, to stop your work, if
+I can.”
+
+“Let me go with you.”
+
+“No;” and Mr. Pryor banged the door of the Hansom and was off.
+
+Brian had never seen him angry before, never out of temper; and as he
+stood there alone on the edge of the broad pavement, between the Seven
+Sisters Road and the railway bridge, he began to feel that he had indeed
+done more evil than he could readily undo, that he had let his revenge
+get the better not merely of his charity but of his prudence, and that
+unless he could give some assistance in the matter he should feel
+wretched for life.
+
+Wretched for life! Did he know the meaning of the words he was
+whispering to his own soul? had he other than the vaguest comprehension
+of the misery he had wrought both for others and himself?
+
+Flogged—branded! Somehow he derived no sort of satisfaction from the
+idea of his enemy being punished now.
+
+He had kept his pebble and turned it, taken it out and slung it, and
+struck his foe in the very place where it had delighted him to think the
+blow would take effect. But now that it had taken effect—now that his
+enemy was worsted, that his pebble was gone out of his own keeping, that
+he had taken his own way, and revenged himself at once on the man who
+had cast them out of Kincorth, and the boy who had damaged Harold’s
+character past repair—he could not help asking himself what good there
+was likely to come of it all to her, or him, or them.
+
+To him or her? Should he go up to the churchyard sloping towards the
+west and tell the earth how he had taken one step forward to the end he
+had laid out for himself? Should he whisper to the dead that he had made
+the living wretched for their sakes? Should he tell the wind that
+stirred the grass growing green on Harold’s grave how the delinquent was
+at last discovered, how he had set the officers of justice on his track?
+Would not the dead be gratified; could not he make them hear that; would
+not the words bring them back to life? Had not he well obeyed his
+mother’s dying injunction, that he should forgive as he hoped to be
+forgiven; and from the heavens would she not look approvingly at the
+base act of vindictive hatred of which he had been guilty?
+
+Dimly as he walked along all this passed through his mind; vaguely he
+began to see he had chosen the wrong path, that others had been right,
+that he had been wrong. Somewhere he had heard of a better way of
+avenging oneself upon an enemy than by branding and scourging, of a way
+which did not raise every feeling of a man’s heart into ten times worse
+hatred and antagonism, but which instead “heaped coals of fire upon his
+head.” Nothing he could do—nothing—nothing for ever might comfort or
+soothe the departed: the “dull cold ear of death” could hearken to no
+words that it was in his power to frame: if he killed Maxwell and laid
+his body on their graves, what could it profit them? Could he bring them
+back again? and if he could, oh God! if he could, would it not be awful
+to see them rise up and rejoice because their enemy was brought low?
+
+Very speedily Brian made up his mind he would follow Mr. Pryor, hear
+what he had done, and then, if need were, start that night for Ireland.
+
+He might be of some use, he might be able to render some assistance; and
+“I declare to you, Mr. Pryor,” he said, “that if I could retrace my
+steps I would; if I could take that night back and act my part in it
+over again, I would not do one thing I have done, not one.”
+
+“Even a savage would not have been so treacherous, so inhospitable,”
+answered Mr. Pryor.
+
+“I know it,” was the reply; “but are we always able to argue out such
+questions coolly? Does the man live who has never believed he has seen
+clearly walking through the darkness?”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XIX.
+                           Through Connemara.
+
+
+Maxwell Drewitt sat alone in the dining-room at Kincorth, waiting for
+his son; he had waited many days and yet the fugitive came not, neither
+had any tidings of Arthur reached him.
+
+He had watched for the post, he had strained his ears to catch the sound
+of horses’ feet, the noise of coming wheels. He had risen early, and
+gone to bed late; he had lain through the night wakeful and restless,
+and still there arrived no tidings; he had no data to go upon except Mr.
+Pryor’s telegram which he held in his hand.
+
+Sorrow had told upon him; the suspense, the agony, the alternations of
+hope and fear had broken him down more and more. He was old—old and
+stricken; and as he crouched over the fire, which a damp autumnal
+evening had rendered acceptable, I think a more hopeless picture of the
+vanity of human wishes, of the end of human desires, could not have been
+presented for consideration.
+
+Where was the erect carriage, the bold, defiant glance, the indolent
+grace of movement, the insolent overbearing manner? Gone, friends,
+gone—like the raven hue of his own glossy hair; like the cold brightness
+of his eyes; like the beauty he had been proud of, and that women had
+been won by; gone—gone for ever.
+
+The passionless sneer had left his lips and given place to a sort of
+irrepressible convulsion. He could not walk now as he had walked in
+former years along the shore of Duranmore Bay, kicking the pebbles
+before him; but when at last he arose from his chair, in order to make
+his way to one of the windows, he had to support himself with a stick
+and to catch at chairs and tables as he passed by.
+
+It was a wild night; the equinoctial gales were blowing their fiercest,
+and Maxwell, standing leaning against the window-frame, thought of how
+the waves must be lashing up against Eversbeg Head; how the billows must
+be raging and tossing outside the bay.
+
+There was a something so dreary in the idea of that limitless ocean;
+those thousands of miles of tempestuous waters; that great expanse of
+sea without an island, without a shore, without a rock; those great
+deeps, shouting under the night to one another, while the floods clapped
+their hands—that Maxwell could not bear it; he had to turn from the
+window, and make his way feebly to the hearth, and stir up the fire, and
+try to think of a more cheerful subject.
+
+But what cheerful subject had he to think of—this man, who had lived for
+the midday, and not for the night?
+
+He could think of his boy, but of nothing else—of his boy, who, all
+unknown to him, was fleeing through Connemara towards Kincorth; who was
+trying to outstrip his pursuers, whom Ryan had promised to mislead, if
+possible, at Oughterard.
+
+Through the night he was riding as if for his life; while the wind
+howled down among the mountains and through the valleys, and washed the
+waters of the lakes over the low stone walls that are in some places all
+that separates them from the highway—he rode on.
+
+He had lost his hat about six miles on the Duranmore side of Oughterard,
+and now, as he galloped through the darkness, the wind tossed his hair
+hither and thither, now leaving his forehead bare, and again blinding
+him with locks that were dead-black as Harold’s had been. On—on—without
+a pause, except when the steepness of the ground necessitated pulling up
+his horse and walking—on past the giant mountains; past the eternal
+lakes; past the long low line of hills that lay between him and the sea;
+past bogs and morasses; over mountain-streams, over brawling
+torrents—still on through the darkness towards Kincorth.
+
+Having gained the Calgillan road, he dismounted, unfastened his girths,
+took the saddle off his good steed’s back, and the bridle off his head,
+and then turned the animal adrift. Saddle and bridle he carried till he
+reached the plantations of Kincorth, when he left the main road, and
+hiding his belongings deep in the underwood, made his way across the
+fields towards the house.
+
+“They are after me, father,” were his first words; “but I have got the
+start. Mr. Ryan said you were not to keep me here, but forward me on to
+Durrow. I don’t know my way there.”
+
+He stood in the centre of the room while he spoke, with the firelight
+flickering over his pale face, with his straight hair tangled and
+matted, with a weary, anxious look on his countenance, with a hunted
+expression in his dark eyes.
+
+“Who let you in?” Maxwell asked. It was no time for the interchange of
+much ceremony—for many words to be wasted.
+
+“Dickson; and I have warned him.”
+
+“Go into the next room for a minute while I ring the bell. Bring wine,”
+Maxwell ordered, “and, Dickson, come here for a moment.”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“Is Flynn gone?”
+
+“He leaves at six, you know, sir, usually, and it is now eleven.”
+
+“Could you put the roan horse in the car?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“The other servants are gone to-bed, I suppose?”
+
+“All, except the cook, sir.”
+
+“Take the horse and car round to the back avenue, and then sit up for
+me. If anybody comes here asking where I am, say I have gone to Lord
+Marsden’s to dinner, and will not be back till late—perhaps not till
+morning, and—and—you know the rest, Dickson.”
+
+“Yes, sir. I am to say Mr. Arthur has not been here.”
+
+“Now go. Of course you will sit up for me. Should there be danger, light
+a candle in the blue room, and I will be on my guard; you understand?”
+
+“Perfectly, sir. But surely you are not going out to-night; excuse me,
+sir, but——”
+
+“Necessity knows no law,” finished Maxwell Drewitt, with something of
+his old decision of manner. “Now, Arthur, drink some wine, to put life
+into you; for it may be many a night before you are able to put your
+head under a roof again.” And while his son followed his advice in
+silence, the wretched father sat and looked at the only child he ever
+had.
+
+“Surely you are not coming with me?” said Arthur, as his father arose
+and intimated it was time for them to depart. “It is an awful night,
+cold, and bleak, and threatening for rain. Let me try to find my way
+alone, if you would rather not trust Dickson.”
+
+“I am not afraid of trusting Dickson,” was the reply; “but I must leave
+some one to answer their inquiries should they come.” Arthur shuddered;
+too well he knew who _they_ meant. “And as for the night, I shall be
+better out; the cold air will not hurt me.”
+
+Would not it? He knew better; but he knew, also, that anything would be
+preferable to remaining at home in suspense; and, besides, after all,
+whom could he trust so well as himself—who could keep the secret like he
+and Arthur?
+
+Through the night they pressed on together—father and son.
+
+As they drove along that interminable road towards Durrow, Maxwell could
+not help thinking, that at some previous time he had traversed it under
+circumstances similar to the present; and all at once, as they drew near
+Castle Cronach, he remembered what Mr. Gyton had said about riding for
+one’s life through Connemara; and about how a man who was doing so would
+curse those bends and twists and curves.
+
+There are some things which impress us with such a sense of reality—with
+such a feeling that at a future day we shall pass through what we fancy
+then—as gives us the idea, when the future day arrives, that we have not
+prefigured the event, but that it has actually happened at some former
+period.
+
+This was Maxwell’s state of mind, at all events; and as the keen wind
+swept by—as the rain began pattering in his face—as he felt the nipping
+night air blowing through and through him, he could not help
+occasionally marvelling which was the dream, and which the reality—which
+was the shadow, and which the substance. Had he ever ridden along that
+road with three companions? Was he driving it in very truth then? Had he
+ever been strong enough to ride? Was he only imagining he was driving
+now? Were there people following them? Did he hear the sound of horses’
+hoofs behind?
+
+“It is only the wind,” Arthur kept saying; but Maxwell lashed the roan
+on for all that.
+
+How long the road was! How he did curse those curves! how he did
+anathematize the engineer who planned, and the men who made it! How
+every winding seemed to double itself in length! how every mile appeared
+to quadruple itself in distance! But there, at last, thank God! at last,
+was Durrow!
+
+They soon knocked Mr. Connor up, and explained to him the state of the
+case.
+
+“You are on good terms with the fishermen, Connor,” said Mr. Drewitt;
+“get Skerritt to stow Arthur away till he can be taken off in some
+smuggling craft. Make it all right with the men; and say, I don’t mind
+five hundred pounds when I hear he is safe in France. It is more than
+you are worth, boy,” he added. “Don’t you think, now, you have been more
+trouble than profit to me, all your life long?”
+
+His voice shook and trembled as he spoke; and Mr. Connor drew back,
+knowing they were about to say farewell to one another.
+
+“It will be safest for us to leave you in their hands entirely,”
+explained Mr. Drewitt; “I am not afraid of any informers among them.
+Write to me, when you get clear off. You will have money and clothes
+provided for you on board the vessel. If I can, I will join you in
+France; but do not attempt to come back to these countries. And now
+good-bye, for the present. Good-bye!”
+
+He held out his hand—he had never been much given to caressing, and it
+was the only mode of leave-taking he knew; but Arthur fell on his neck
+and wept; and Maxwell felt those tears dropping down into his heart, one
+by one.
+
+It had been a cold heart and a dead—it had lain numb through life, only
+to waken up with pain and grief towards the last; and now he felt not
+only his son’s tears softening him, but the memory of other tears he had
+seen flow—of other sobs he had heard in the night—of other anguish he
+had let go away unsoothed—came up before him then—the ghosts of dead
+realities, the shadows of things that had all once been.
+
+A few seconds and it was over; that was no time at which to waste
+precious moments in grief or in adieux; and while Connor took Arthur
+with him down to the shore, Maxwell drove back to Kincorth through the
+night alone.
+
+That seemed to be his doom—alone—alone for ever—in adversity as in
+prosperity—at the end as in the beginning. But in the beginning solitude
+had not seemed terrible as it did towards the end; and that fact made
+all the difference.
+
+Through that desolate wilderness he drove back, as I have said, alone;
+past great stretches of country, across which the wind went howling and
+howling as though, with shrieks and laughter, the storm were running
+races over the flat tracts of moorland. For a little distance the road
+wound along by the side of Durrow River, where the chesnut had died
+taking her leap so gallantly, and then great mountains hemmed him in for
+a mile or so, when they swept grandly off to right and left, leaving the
+traveller breathing space once more.
+
+It is a grand country, this Connemara, but desolate beyond all power of
+description; the ends of the world seem to be reached when you are
+journeying through it; and even when a person has no pressing care, no
+special cause for unhappiness, when he is strong and free from anxiety
+of mind, there is a weirdness and a solemnity about a night-ride through
+his part of that land of the Wild West which must be felt to be
+comprehended.
+
+What, then, must that solitary drive have proved to Maxwell Drewitt,
+whose strength was turned into weakness, whose powers of endurance were
+not equal to such an undertaking—who, racked with mental and bodily
+pain, prostrated by physical suffering, fancied, now that the mountains
+were advancing towards him—now that the road was slipping away—now that
+the air was full of strange sounds—and again that through the valleys
+and up the defiles were coming hundreds and hundreds of armed men
+seeking after his son?
+
+It was fortunate that the roan knew his way to his stable, knew every
+turn in the road, every point of danger, every awkward curve, the
+position almost of every block of granite, or else Maxwell could
+scarcely have guided him home.
+
+As it was, between two and three o’clock in the morning, when the wind
+was a little lulled, and the rain coming down in torrents, the unhappy
+man reached Kincorth, and lifting his eyes instinctively to the windows,
+saw no light in them.
+
+“You must be just drowned, sir,” said Dickson, as he helped him off the
+car and took the reins out of his trembling hand and assisted him into
+the house; “I have a good fire in your own room, sir, and you had better
+get off your wet things and go straight away to bed.”
+
+“Who is that, Dickson, who is that?” Maxwell whispered, seeing that a
+man had taken the horse’s head and was leading him round towards the
+stables. “There was no light burning—who is it?”
+
+“No one, sir, but Mr. Brian Drewitt, who came in not ten minutes after
+you left. He said he would put up the roan, and set everything right for
+the morning, so that I could stay with you. He seems dreadfully
+downhearted, and he hasn’t put bite nor sup in his lips since he entered
+the doors.”
+
+“Go to him, Dickson, and tell him not to lay a finger on any horse of
+mine; tell him that he shall not stay in my house, nor meddle in my
+concerns. It is owing to him that my son is a fugitive this night,
+without a place to lay his head in. He has come to gloat over me, to
+exult in my defeat; but he shall not stay here; he shall not, by——!”
+
+Very unceremoniously, Dickson marched his master off to bed.
+
+“I don’t think, sir,” he answered, “that you rightly know what you are
+talking about. I never saw a young gentleman seem in less notion of
+exulting, as you call it, than that same Mr. Brian was to-night; and I
+am certain sure if Mr. Arthur had been his own brother he could not have
+appeared more cut up than he was. When you’re warm in your bed, just see
+him, and hear what he has got to say; and if you don’t think then he
+means fair, why tell me to put him out, and if I don’t do it my name is
+not Michael Dickson. And sure, is not he making himself of use at this
+very minute, washing the car and rubbing down the horse, and doing a
+stable-boy’s work, only better than any stable-boy ever did it? I know
+what Mr. Brian can do. Many a time when I used to be coming up here, I
+saw him at work just like a labourer. Let him stay, sir, let him stay;
+we’ll want him yet.”
+
+“It was he gave the information,” muttered Maxwell.
+
+“So he told me; and he told me why he did it, and how sorry he had been
+since. He talked to me for an hour in the dining-room there—for an hour
+at the least. And he spoke about his mother, and Mr. Harold, so that it
+would have melted the heart of a stone.”
+
+With a shudder, Maxwell Drewitt turned his head away, and laid it on the
+furthermost pillow.
+
+“Let him come,” he said, faintly; “it may be that we have cross accounts
+to settle; let him come;” and Brian came accordingly.
+
+“Maxwell,” he began, “I am here to help you, if I can. I am here to make
+what poor reparation is in my power. There was a time,” he went on,
+“when I swore I never would re-enter your doors at peace with you: over
+my dead mother’s body, I renewed that oath; and I swore then that if
+ever I had a chance of vengeance offered me, I would avail myself of
+that chance to the uttermost. Maxwell, I have recalled those oaths. I
+would undo that which I have done if I could. I want to help you, if in
+my power. Had I known who Arthur’s mother really was, I would have cut
+out my tongue before bringing sorrow upon her. Do you believe me,
+Maxwell? I never spoke falsely to you in my life; and you may believe it
+is the truth I am telling you now.”
+
+There ensued a long silence, broken only by the sick man’s sobs. “I am
+so ill,” he said, “I am so weak—Brian, I thank you—I will take your
+offer, I will trust you. If you will, there shall be peace between us at
+last. Do you forgive me?”
+
+“You are pressing me hard, Maxwell,” answered the other. “Hearing what I
+hear, guessing what I guess; with my dear ones where no reparation can
+be made to them, I cannot say I forgive. But I may try to forgive; will
+that content you?”
+
+“And you will stay with me, Brian, you will stay. I am so sick, and I am
+so lonely. It was a fall off the chesnut did it; but I suppose you heard
+all about that?”
+
+“Yes, poor Madcap!”
+
+“It was not her fault, it was that fool of a Crabbe—it has made wild
+work with me, Brian, has not it? I shall never be a man again while I
+live—never!”
+
+While he lived. Brian, keeping watch by the sick man’s bedside, knew
+that his existence could not be prolonged much longer, and looking at
+that poor wreck of mortality—at that old worn man—he found it hard to
+identify him with the Maxwell he had last seen standing just within the
+hall door of that house in which he was at length master.
+
+Then he had been handsome, strong, resolute; now he was a stricken and
+hesitating creature, dying by inches, while there was not a human being
+related to him, by any close ties of blood, to take his hand and bid him
+be of good cheer, as he glided onward to that valley where is the
+blackness of the shadow of death.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XX.
+                          Brian’s Repentance.
+
+
+Before many days Mr. Pryor appeared at Durrow, anxious to know what had
+become of Arthur, and how Brian and his cousin were settling their old
+scores.
+
+As for Arthur, Mr. Connor informed him the lad was still lying concealed
+in one of the caves in Durrow cliff—“the secretest of all their
+hiding-places, Skerritt informs me,” he proceeded—“a cave that no gauger
+or coast-guardsman could find out unless he were the devil.”
+
+“Then as I never heard of the devil taking the form of an exciseman, and
+going about the country looking after private stills and cargoes of
+smuggled goods, I suppose we may conclude there is every chance of the
+young gentleman getting off safe.”
+
+“He’ll get off right enough, the first time the schooner comes round
+this way again. The reward Mr. Drewitt has offered ought to put the men
+on their mettle—not, to do them justice, that they need such an
+inducement—it’s enough for them to know that a man is flying from the
+constituted authorities, and they will strain every nerve to assist him
+to escape.”
+
+“That characteristic of your country-people it is which makes Ireland so
+much pleasanter a residence for rogues than for honest men,” remarked
+Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Ah, well, sir; sure you see by this that even very respectable fathers
+may have sons in trouble.”
+
+“I hope you do not call Mr. Drewitt a respectable father, because, in my
+opinion, he is nothing of the kind,” answered Mr. Pryor.
+
+“He is fond of the boy, at any rate,” said Connor, simply; and his
+thoughts flew back to that night when through the storm Maxwell drove
+his son over to Durrow, and had stood silent while Arthur wept tears of
+penitence upon his neck.
+
+“He’ll never get the better of it, Mr. Brian tells me,” went on the
+agent, pursuing his own train of reflection. “He was wet to the skin,
+and has not been able to be out of bed since. Well, let him have been
+what he will, Mr. Pryor, you would be sorry for him if you were to see
+him now—just a shadow of himself, and with the grey hairs more plentiful
+than the black, and crow’s feet about his eyes, and a drop of the mouth,
+and a twitching of the face that you would wonder what ailed him.”
+
+“I think I’ll go over and see him,” observed Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Indeed, sir, and I just would,” agreed Connor; “maybe the day’s not so
+very far off when you’ll be glad to remember you did it.”
+
+“Do you mean, Connor, you really think he is going to die so soon as all
+that comes to?”
+
+“Think, sir! I am sure I believe in my heart he’ll never rise from his
+bed again; that he did his last piece of work in this world, the night
+he came over here with Mr. Arthur. I did all I could to get him to stop,
+and so did my wife, too; but he was so mortally afraid of any of the
+Duranmore people guessing where his son was hid away, that nothing would
+serve him but round with the horse’s head and back to Kincorth, though
+the wind was coming down from among those hills, and blowing off the
+Atlantic, fit to tear the house down. And then it began pelting with
+rain. I don’t know how he ever got home, and him in the state of health
+he was—I do not.”
+
+Next morning Mr. Pryor walked over the hills to Kincorth, to pay his
+visit to Maxwell Drewitt.
+
+“He will see you if you come upstairs,” Brian said, in answer to the
+Englishman’s inquiries; “but I must warn you that he is very
+ill—dangerously ill, in my opinion. I have thought it right to tell Lady
+Emmeline what I believe about him; and it is very probable she may be
+here to-morrow afternoon.”
+
+“Are you glad you came, Brian?” asked Mr. Pryor.
+
+“I would not have come for all the property Maxwell owns;” and Brian,
+who was head nurse in the sick-room, led his friend gently to the
+darkened chamber, which Maxwell was never again to leave till he was
+carried out in his coffin.
+
+“You were right about me, Mr. Pryor,” said Maxwell. “I was not an honest
+man; and I did not come into Kincorth fairly; but Brian shall get it
+back again when I am gone; and I hope he will have more enjoyment of it
+than ever I had.”
+
+“I trust,” answered Mr. Pryor, “you will live for many a long year to
+keep him out of it. Brian will be better and happier working for his
+living in London than he ever could be dawdling about Kincorth.”
+
+He spoke these words cheerfully and heartily, but Maxwell shook his
+head.
+
+“My race is run,” he said, “my day almost finished; and if I could but
+once know the boy was safe, I am so tired that I think I would lay my
+head down and never raise it again.”
+
+“You will think differently when once he is clear off,” answered Mr.
+Pryor.
+
+“Shall I?” and Maxwell’s hand strayed idly and listlessly over the
+coverlet, picking bits of cotton out of it while he spoke.
+
+“Why of course you will; anxiety is the chief thing that is the matter
+with you now.”
+
+“Is it?” and the poor wasted fingers still kept picking, picking.
+
+“I don’t know what I should have done without him,” he said, after a
+short pause, turning his eyes towards Brian. “I could not have lived so
+long had I been alone. He has been gentler to me than any woman I ever
+had about me; and when I look at him I think of his mother, and believe
+she has forgiven me——”
+
+“You can clear that matter up, about Harold,” suggested Mr. Pryor.
+
+“Yes, when I am gone, and when Arthur is off, you will find a parcel and
+letter in that safe over there. You can make what use you like of both;
+of course they would not take any proceedings at this distance of time,
+but you will settle that with them, won’t you?”
+
+“And I mean to settle that you shall not talk any more at present, and
+that if Mr. Pryor comes here to discuss unpleasant topics he must be
+forbidden the house,” broke in Brian.
+
+“Will you come to my house, then, to-morrow, to dinner?” asked Mr.
+Pryor; and Brian promised that if his patient were no worse, he would;
+having received which assurance, Mr. Pryor walked back over the hills as
+he had come, and noticed as he walked a wicked-looking little schooner
+tacking and tacking between Duranmore Point and Durrow. “That is our
+friend,” he thought, “and twenty-four hours more will see Arthur out of
+the country.”
+
+“Yes, sir, that’s her,” remarked Skerritt with a knowing wink. “She is
+only making believe tacking about there; she is really bound for Mayo,
+and then she will be back here about this time to-morrow. We have sent
+word to the captain, and it will be all correct.”
+
+Mr. Pryor was truly rejoiced to hear it, and said so. It was wretched to
+think of that lad lying in the cave night after night while he slept
+comfortably in a good house close at hand; and his sympathy was strongly
+excited for the unhappy father, whose first question when he awoke in
+the mornings was always, “Has Arthur got off yet?” and whose last sigh
+at night sounded like a moan for the son who had made such grievous
+shipwreck of his life.
+
+“You will bring me back a report of how things are going on, Brian,” he
+said as his cousin was leaving for Durrow; “a true report,
+remember,—promise me that;” and Brian promised ere he departed.
+
+It was a lovely afternoon in the early part of October; the trees about
+Kincorth were getting very bare of foliage, but there were still enough
+leaves left to make the woods look very beautiful in their autumnal
+deckings of brown and orange and gold. The sky was clear and bright, and
+though there was a stiff breeze blowing, Brian after long watching in
+his cousin’s sick room found the wind only make his walk the pleasanter.
+
+He did not feel in bad spirits as he climbed the hill and pursued the
+short cut towards Durrow; rather, on the contrary, his heart was lighter
+than it had been for many a day past, for he began to be certain Arthur
+would effect his escape safely, and he knew if the youth were once
+landed in France that a load of anxiety would be lifted from his
+shoulders, a burden of self-reproach taken off his soul.
+
+It was a delicious afternoon; there was just that feeling of chilliness
+in the air which is pleasant when a man who can walk fast has likewise
+to walk far; and Brian hurried over the ground feeling that there are
+some days in the year when living is a pleasure, and that this was one
+of them.
+
+But yet, as he drew near Durrow, he fancied he saw on the side of the
+hill, looking seaward, something which alarmed him—a man with a
+telescope. Brian immediately charged down the incline, and came upon a
+commonplace-looking individual apparently engaged in digging up bait.
+
+It seemed a strange place to select for such a purpose; but of course
+the man had a right to choose an inconvenient position if he chose, and
+Brian remained talking with him for a few minutes while he looked about
+to see if he could discover any trace of the telescope or discover what
+part of Durrow was best commanded from the spot.
+
+The whole of Durrow village was concealed by Durrow cliff, and there was
+nothing to be discerned except the south side of the principal rock,
+which rose sheer out of the sea which now washed its base.
+
+Any trace of the telescope he failed to detect, though he could have
+sworn he saw the brass tube glitter for a moment in the afternoon sun.
+
+“He was there, was he, the divil!” remarked Skerritt, whom Brian at once
+informed of the circumstance. “I wish I had caught him at his spying.
+You’re not sure he was spying, arn’t ye? Well, I am, and that’s enough.
+Digging earth-worms, too, for a make-believe! Pity he wasn’t feedin’
+them, that’s all I have got to say.”
+
+“Will it hinder Arthur getting away?” asked Brian, anxiously.
+
+“Will it hinder the say comin’ in to-morrow morning?” inquired Mr.
+Skerritt, which, being decidedly an unlikely result, Brian took heart
+again.
+
+“Are you going out fishing to-night, Skerritt?” inquired Brian, noticing
+that the man was preparing his nets and getting his boat ready for sea.
+
+“I go out fishing most nights,” was the answer; “and now, sir, if you
+are as tired of asking questions as I am of answerin’ them, I wish ye
+just would go up till the house, and stay in your proper place, which is
+up there with the quality,[2] instead of down here with me.”
+
+Footnote 2:
+
+  Gentlefolks.
+
+“Your best friends can’t say much for your civility, Skerritt,” remarked
+Brian as he moved away.
+
+“If I am not very civil I am very wise,” was the significant answer; and
+Brian departed on the instant.
+
+“I wish to-night was over—and well over,” said Mr. Pryor, as they stood
+together on the lawn, while the afternoon light faded away, and the
+twilight deepened, and the darkness drew on.
+
+“And so do I. Have you any notion at what hour they mean to make their
+venture?” returned Brian.
+
+“Not the least. Skerritt would give me no information on the subject,
+and I have not seen a sign of the schooner to-day. The first
+intelligence I expect to hear is that he is off safe and sound, and
+half-way to France.”
+
+“Heaven grant it!” Brian replied.
+
+The words were scarcely out of his lips before there arose such a shout
+from the shore, as made Mr. Pryor and Brian exclaim, at the same moment—
+
+“There is something wrong: let us go down;” and they ran round to the
+shelving side of the cliff, and hurried down the path leading to the
+sea.
+
+“They have found the cave,” explained Skerritt; “and they are all here,
+police, and gaugers, and soldiers, and all.”
+
+“And where is Arthur?”
+
+“You’ll see in a minit,” was the reply. “Now Patsey, my man. Run down
+for your life, Mr. Arthur, and out into the sea!” he cried in a voice
+like thunder, and, at the same instant, there flared out from the shore
+a flame of light that just flashed across the waters and then was
+extinguished.
+
+Quick as thought, another light glanced out from the little schooner,
+which had been quietly stealing round a line of rocks that stretched far
+away into the ocean; and, next moment, while his eyes were still dazzled
+by the sudden glare, Brian heard the plash of oars, and knew that Arthur
+was safe in the boat and making for the vessel that alone could ever
+bear him to freedom.
+
+Hoarsely the command for the boat to stop rung out through the night,
+and, as a mocking laugh came back across the waters, the corporal gave
+the order to fire.
+
+Three balls went instantly whizzing over the sea; and then there was a
+shriek such as Brian never had heard in all his life before—the shriek
+of a strong man in his death agony.
+
+But the boat went on.
+
+“Fire!” was again the command, and again the balls sought their mark: no
+shriek followed this discharge, and, for a minute or two, the corporal
+seemed to think his men must have made some mistake, but it was only for
+a moment.
+
+The next, cries for help were borne by the wind to the shore, and there
+were frantic entreaties among the women that a boat might be launched on
+the instant.
+
+“Lord help you, mother,” said Skerritt’s son; “don’t you remember every
+boat was sent to Duranmore, that they might not be able to get the
+advantage over us that way? but then if he is not hit he can swim. There
+it is again! That’s not my father’s shout, it is the young fellow’s, and
+the boat is settling.”
+
+The boat was settling. Every one of the balls, except that which struck
+Skerritt, had gone through her side. There can be no doubt but that the
+men must have happened to fire as she rose on the waves; and now, with
+their hands loosely holding their muskets, they stood listening to the
+screams of the drowning men.
+
+“I can’t bear this,” cried Brian; “I must do something;” and he made a
+rush towards the sea, but half a dozen people were before him in an
+instant, and kept him back from his design. “Have you not got a boat?”
+he gasped.
+
+“Not one. Do you think if we had, it’s myself would be talking to you
+now, and my own father and brother out there in the middle of it all?”
+
+“How many were there altogether?”
+
+“Just three; and, out of the three, there were two of us.”
+
+“God pity you,” said Brian, as he sat down on the shore. “And God pity
+me, too,” he added to himself, “for this is my doing.”
+
+There was silence on the sea—silence only broken by the whistling of the
+wind—by the plashing of the waves against the rocks.
+
+Each moment it was growing darker and darker, and though the people
+under the cliffs were running hither and thither with lighted torches in
+their hands, still nothing could be seen of the tragedy that had just
+been enacted.
+
+Sullenly the sea came rolling up on the shore—sullenly it swept along,
+wave succeeding to wave, and billow to billow: though they strained
+their eyes out into the night they could see nothing but a waste of
+water, but an eternity of ocean.
+
+Till morning dawned they would not be able to distinguish any object,
+and when morning dawned where would be the objects they desired to see?
+
+“I’ll go and get a boat some place or other,” whispered young Skerritt
+to his mother, “and I’ll row round the rocks; may be one of them may
+have drifted that way with one of the oars.”
+
+It was a forlorn hope; but perhaps in the future it comforted that widow
+and her son to know everything which could be done, had been done.
+
+There was no one near the rocks, no one had reached the schooner; but a
+week afterwards Skerritt’s body was washed ashore near Clew Head, while
+Arthur’s drifted into a little bay about five miles north of Durrow.
+
+“It was better than being caught,” Mr. Pryor ventured to say at length
+to Brian; “but I am grieved about Skerritt.”
+
+“And it is all my doing,” Brian moaned out; “I shall feel now like a
+murderer to the end of my days.”
+
+For hours Brian sat repeating this one sentence, and it was not until
+Mr. Pryor reminded him Maxwell would be expecting tidings, that he could
+rouse him from his fit of despairing remorse.
+
+“I think I had better go round with you and break the news to him,” said
+the barrister.
+
+“No, I will do it—I—and I only,” answered Brian.
+
+“But it will be so dreadful a task for you.”
+
+“Only part of my punishment,” he said, with a sort of gloomy
+satisfaction; “and I was so happy to-day, and I made so certain he would
+get off.” And as he thought of that, he sat down and covered his face
+with his hands once more.
+
+“Brian,” said Mr. Pryor, “some one must go to Kincorth and break this
+news to Maxwell; if you do not go, I will; for otherwise he will hear it
+suddenly, and in his state of health a shock of the kind might prove
+fatal.”
+
+“Come with me then!” exclaimed Brian, “I have not courage to go alone.”
+And accordingly they drove round to Kincorth by the same road as that
+Maxwell Drewitt had followed when he took his son to Durrow.
+
+It was late when they reached Kincorth, but the sick man was still
+awake, and anxiously expecting Brian’s return.
+
+He knew, the moment he saw his cousin and Mr. Pryor enter the room
+together, that some misfortune had happened.
+
+“You bring me bad tidings,” he said.
+
+“I have no good news,” Brian answered.
+
+“He is taken?”
+
+“No, he is not taken; he has escaped that fate.”
+
+“What do you mean?—if he is not taken, he must have escaped; or has he
+not got off yet? Will neither of you speak?—there, you need not tell me,
+I know the worst—he’s dead.”
+
+Brian knelt down by the bedside and buried his face in the coverlet. Mr.
+Pryor took one of the wasted hands in his, and drawing a chair close up
+to Maxwell’s pillow, told him how his boy had been drowned, how the very
+efforts they had made to secure his escape had caused his destruction.
+
+Very quietly Maxwell listened to him; through the night he talked of
+nothing else, but still Brian knelt by the bedside with his face hidden
+in the coverlet praying in a very agony of supplication to the Lord Most
+High.
+
+This was vengeance! this was what he had longed for, waited for; this
+was the end of all his oaths, of all his hate, ay, and of all his love—a
+terrible memory which should abide with him to the end—a gnawing remorse
+which, though its teeth might get less sharp in time, was yet certain
+never quite to loosen its hold upon him.
+
+This was vengeance: he would have given his life to be able to live the
+past year over again with his present experience, retaining his present
+feelings. Oh, for power to wipe the sin he had committed off his
+conscience, to bring that boy to life again, to restore even comparative
+health to his cousin!
+
+This was vengeance—to pass through such agony as he had never felt
+before, to wrestle with his anguish, to have to rise up and face his
+misery, to hear Maxwell’s voice saying faintly, “Do not vex yourself
+about it, Brian; I am content that it should be so.”
+
+This was vengeance. Like him who, in the olden days, drew a bow at a
+venture and slew the king of Israel, so Brian had drawn his bow at a
+venture, and this was the ruin his arrow had wrought.
+
+Still the waves rolled on and the sea mourned upon the shore; still the
+wind blew keen over the ocean, and the billows tossed and lamented, and
+the deeps called out to one another through the night; still in the
+darkness the great mountains stood proudly aloof; still Mr. Pryor talked
+while the thin fingers picked the cotton more restlessly out of the
+coverlet, for the end was very nigh at hand, and Maxwell Drewitt was
+soon about to pass into that unknown land which is so “very far off.”
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER XXI.
+                          Sickness onto Death.
+
+
+Lady Emmeline arrived from London on the day following that on which the
+tragedy recorded in the last chapter was acted out, and with her came
+Mrs. Ellenham, who repaired, on hearing of her brother’s illness, by
+command of her husband, to the Euston Square railway station, where she
+proceeded _viâ_ Holyhead and Kingstown to Galway.
+
+She had never been in Ireland from the day of her elopement, until she
+travelled back thither to see her brother on his death-bed, and she
+would not have gone then, only the law of Colonel Ellenham was as that
+of the Medes and Persians, and if he said, “go”—which he did in hopes of
+a bequest—there was no alternative but to pack up and depart.
+
+Poor Lady Emmeline was inexpressibly shocked at sight of her husband.
+All the love she had once felt for him woke to live again in a moment,
+and she wept as genuine tears as she had ever shed in her life when he
+put up his white lips to kiss her.
+
+They had lived latterly like cat and dog, but yet she once loved him,
+and she loved him now again when he lay dying, thinking, thinking not of
+her, but of many a more attractive woman and most of all of Jenny
+Bourke, whom he could see standing by the stream at the back of her
+brother’s cottage in all the beauty of her young loveliness, so
+innocent, so pure, so tender, and so true.
+
+As for Susan, her brother saw her, but that was about all he would do.
+From others she heard the story of his unhappy son; from others she
+learned how her husband was mixed up in the matter.
+
+“I would go back to London at once,” she said to Mr. Pryor, “if I were
+not afraid.” And accordingly, as she was afraid, she remained at
+Kincorth, keeping as much out of the way as possible, and generally
+conducting herself after a fashion as unlike all the fashions of Susan
+Drewitt as can well be imagined.
+
+Matrimony, or perhaps the absence of matrimony for so many years, had
+tamed her effectually, and so she roamed about the place and looked at
+the improvements, and wondered if Brian would get Kincorth back again,
+and wrote long explanatory letters to her husband, and was considered a
+very quiet kind of lady by the servants.
+
+As for Brian, he never left the sick man by day nor by night; and when
+the end drew very near, when every one saw that the sickness could never
+be cured, the disease never mastered; when it became a question not of
+weeks but of hours, Maxwell could not bear his cousin to leave him for
+an instant.
+
+They had been at deadly feud once, but they were united now; they had
+been bitter enemies, but they were now fast friends; and it was Brian,
+who, when the last moments came, wiped the damp dews off Maxwell’s face,
+and held his hand while he passed through the portals of death.
+
+Thus he departed. Many a time since, Brian Drewitt has recalled that
+scene.
+
+It was noon—noon on a dull, damp November day.
+
+The sick man had been lying all the morning thinking, thinking, and at
+last he began to talk.
+
+“What’s that you are saying?” he broke out—and Brian knew from his tone
+that he was wandering—“That I made nothing? Give me those maps—reach me
+those plans;” and then he went on muttering some words which Brian could
+not catch. “There is The Headlands,” he said, in a louder key, “and
+Cherryfield, and the Calgillan estates. Isn’t it getting very dark, eh?
+What’s that? Are you there, Brian? Have I been asleep?”
+
+“I don’t know. Do you feel tired?”
+
+“No; but it is time I was getting to sleep—these winter nights are very
+dark. Ring for lights, Brian, I cannot bear this gloom.”
+
+Brian knew then what was coming, and rose and put his strong arms about
+his cousin, and lifted him up a little.
+
+“Can you see any better now?” he said.
+
+“No; it is all darkness, all; Brian, is it night or day? Is it light to
+you?”
+
+“It is day, Maxwell, though a very dull day, and I can see well enough.”
+
+“Then this is death,” he said; and he stood at last face to face with
+the foe he had dreaded all his life.
+
+There was an utter silence for a moment, during which Maxwell appeared
+to be solving some problem in his mind.
+
+Over and over he appeared to be turning the question, while his dim eyes
+moved restlessly about, as though striving to catch some gleam, however
+feeble, of light.
+
+“It grows darker,” he said, at last, and the cold dew of death was on
+his forehead.
+
+“It grows darker—don’t leave me, Brian.” But Brian had no thought of
+leaving him.
+
+He had lived without God, but he should not die without man—that was the
+idea which passed swiftly through his cousin’s mind.
+
+“Do not let me go,” he murmured; and the hand which Brian held tight in
+his, grew cold as marble.
+
+“I think I have made a great mistake,”—he spoke these words out so
+loudly, that Brian almost started, and they were the last he ever
+uttered. The problem was solved, the life-story finished, the purpose
+accomplished, the end of all earthly things reached; and with a sigh,
+Maxwell Drewitt, who had raised his head a little, fell back dead on his
+pillow.
+
+That was the end.
+
+He laboured and planted, he sowed and reaped, he got him great
+possessions, he amassed wealth in abundance, he accomplished what he
+said he would; he made the howling wilderness a smiling plain; he found
+Headlands a wretched piece of barren land, and he left it an Eden.
+Whatsoever his hand found to do, that he performed; whatsoever his mind
+planned, that he executed; and yet when he spoke the last words of his
+life—when he summed up the whole story of his endeavours and his
+successes—it proved to have been all “a great mistake.”
+
+Pitiful! most pitiful! In his prime this man was taken away from among
+his treasures—from the place he had longed to possess—from the country
+of his birth—from the scenes he had loved to gaze over. What did it
+matter, then, whether he had been rich or poor, wealthy or indigent,
+lofty or lowly, peer or peasant?—what did it matter? what even in life
+had the lands and the houses, had the silver and the gold, profited him?
+
+“I think I have made a great mistake.” Was that sentence spoken in time
+or in eternity? Was it uttered as his last farewell to earth, or when he
+had passed into the land of shadows? His soul was on the threshold of
+both worlds at the moment—to which world was the truth addressed? Was it
+spoken with the gloom he had complained of settling down upon him, or
+with light ineffable flooding the secrets of our humanity, and making
+all those things plain which here we see but as through a glass darkly?
+
+Draw down the blinds, and tread lightly across the room, wherein there
+is no life left, but only the body which once held a soul.
+
+Maxwell Drewitt has passed into that dim land which he so dreaded to
+face. He has gone away, and left his work to be taken up by another
+after him.
+
+Never more may he walk by the sea shore, or stand under the arching
+trees that shade the avenue, or ride by lake and river, past mountains
+and through the valleys—never more for ever.
+
+His works remain after him, but he himself is departed into that silent
+land where no echoes of the waves of time can reach the ears of the
+sleepers.
+
+With great pomp and ceremony, with grandeur befitting his wealth and his
+influence, and the height to which he had climbed, they bore him to
+Eversbeg Abbey, and laid him down to rest.
+
+There, so near to where he made his first start in life, he sleeps
+well—free from ambitious hopes, from regretful longings. From all
+dreads, from all alarms, he is delivered at last. The unquiet heart is
+still, the busy mind hushed into repose. The summer’s sun comes each
+year and falls warm and bright on the graves in Eversbeg; but the
+summer’s sun cannot quicken the cold body into life.
+
+The great mountains rear their blue summits to heaven, the lakes ripple
+and ripple, the rivers flow onward to the sea, and the boulders and the
+blocks of granite lie scattered about on the hill sides—the great
+Atlantic beats against the iron-bound coast, and up the thousand bays
+the waves steal gently as ever—on that strange country through which
+Maxwell rode when he was still young, when he had life all before him,
+the moon looks down with as cold a light, playing as many fantastic
+tricks, creeping up the hills, and lying in the waters just as she did
+then.
+
+And in the dancing sunlight Kincorth is beautiful as of old; but the man
+who coveted Kincorth,—who vowed to have it, who declared before God that
+neither woman nor devil should keep it from him,—where is he?
+
+Lying with the rest of his kindred amid the ruins of Eversbeg,
+slumbering with the ivy trailing over his tomb, with the birds
+chattering all the day long above his head, dreamlessly, until the hour
+comes when he shall have to give an account of that life concerning
+which he said—he had made a great mistake.
+
+
+
+
+                             CHAPTER XXII.
+                             Brighter Days.
+
+
+When Maxwell Drewitt’s will came to be read, it was discovered that he
+had left everything which he possessed to his son; but, as Arthur died
+before Maxwell, this will became of none effect, and Brian, the
+heir-at-law, succeeded to the properties.
+
+And what properties they were! There had never been a Drewitt so rich
+for many a long day—never been a Drewitt without mortgages—without
+debt—without incumbrances, until Maxwell made his fortune, as I have
+told you, and left it for Brian to enjoy.
+
+Amongst the dead man’s papers were found the notes which had been stolen
+from Mr. Kearns; and these were delivered to the Dundalk and Drogheda
+Banking Company, in precisely the same state as that in which they were
+discovered.
+
+Whatever could be done to clear Harold’s memory from the stain that had
+lain on it, was done: there were paragraphs inserted in the newspapers;
+there were statements read in court; there were communications made to
+friends. Mr. Blosse was induced to open his mouth; and every one agreed
+that Harold had been shamefully treated; but that the whole proceeding
+was “just on a piece” with the rest of Mr. Maxwell Drewitt’s
+performances.
+
+“There is no chance now, old fellow, I suppose, of your coming into
+partnership with me,” said Mr. Francis Gyton, when he and Brian met once
+more at Highgate. “Like all the rest of your countrymen, you will begin
+to turn up your nose at business—cut the money-making establishment
+altogether, and take to doing the idle and patriarchal.”
+
+“I’ll tell you what I have a great mind to do,” answered Brian.
+
+“Listen attentively, Geraldine,” said Mr. Gyton. “Crœsus has a great
+mind to do something; perhaps it may be something for our benefit.”
+
+“No, it is not,” Brian replied. “I have a very great mind to sell all
+those Irish properties, and go abroad.”
+
+“Bless my soul!” exclaimed his brother-in-law elect.
+
+“I hate the places!” went on Brian; “I hate the associations! I hate the
+country—”
+
+“And you hate the people! That is right, go it, my boy!”
+
+“I wish, Frank, that you would not interrupt me so continually,” said
+Brian Drewitt, a little irritably. “There is no human being but myself,”
+he proceeded, “can understand the misery I have endured in Ireland—nor
+the wretched memories it recalls! If I retain the properties I shall
+never reside in Connemara.”
+
+“You need not offer any of them to me, if that is your benevolent
+intention,” said Mr. Gyton, hastily; “for I would not be hired to live
+in Ireland at a salary of ten thousand a year! It is all very well when
+the weather is fine—and it is all very well when you don’t want much
+society; but it is the devil when it rains! and when one is shut up in
+the house all day—with a fine sea-view and the toothache! London for
+me!” finished Mr. Gyton. “I am of London, Londony; I am of the streets,
+streety. I detest high tragedy; and your prodigious funerals; and your
+outrageous grief; and your excessive sensibilities; and your despairing
+remorse; and your eternal hatreds; and your desperate revenges, seem to
+me quite out of place in the civilized nineteenth century!”
+
+“The end, and aim, and object of which civilized nineteenth century is
+to destroy all hatred, as it has destroyed all love!”
+
+“Well, now, that is really too bad; what do you know about love,
+sir?—you who have, ever since I had the honour of making your
+acquaintance, been so occupied with a kind of Hibernian Vendetta, that
+you have had no leisure even to look at a pretty girl, let alone fall in
+love with her.”
+
+“I was not talking about love of that sort, Frank,” answered Brian; “but
+about all descriptions of love—love of friends, parents, children,
+sisters, brothers.”
+
+“If you have any compassion, Brian, do stop,” entreated Mr. Gyton; “do
+not treat me to a long dissertation on vehement attachments, or
+never-to-be-forgotten griefs. Allow me to remark that, had you been born
+in any other country than in Ireland, you would have been a much more
+agreeable individual than is the case.”
+
+“Now, Francis,” interposed Geraldine.
+
+“My sweet child, I am only speaking the truth. Had your brother stood in
+my shoes, he would either have been sent to Oxford or put to business
+about the time he began nourishing those romantic ideas on the subject
+of Kincorth, which ideas have, fortunately for him, been realised.
+Hem!—where was I?—oh! yes, at Oxford or the desk. There are two things
+in this world which leave a man very little time for developing his
+eccentricities, viz., business and pleasure. In a country where you have
+neither, as in Ireland, it follows naturally—”
+
+“Excuse me interrupting you,” observed Brian, “but Ireland is usually
+considered to be a very pleasure-seeking country.”
+
+“Is it really? where do the poor devils go to seek for it? Precious far
+afield I should say. It struck me as being one of the most melancholy
+corners of the earth that ever I set my foot in.”
+
+“Yet I suppose you will allow that there is a small portion of wit in
+Ireland?”
+
+“There may be; I never heard any Irish wit excepting in England.”
+
+“Probably that was not the fault of the Irish,” answered Brian, with a
+slight sneer.
+
+“Thank you for the implied compliment. What I meant to say when you
+tripped me up so short was, that one hears a certain number of stock
+anecdotes on this side the channel which spoil one for ordinary Irish
+conversation. Every Dublin car-driver is not a wit; on the contrary, I
+have never heard a really clever speech from one of them, nor am I
+acquainted with any person who has. The manner is amusing, I admit; but
+the matter will not bear inspection: all of which brings me round to
+what I said at first. I would not have to reside in Ireland—indeed I
+would not reside in any place at a great distance from London for ten
+thousand a year.”
+
+“I certainly was not going to ask you to reside in Ireland,” observed
+Brian.
+
+“Then we need not fear any misunderstanding on the subject,” remarked
+Mr. Gyton; “and you can proceed with what you were about to say.”
+
+“I have said all I was about to say.”
+
+“No, you have not; you were going to tell us why you thought of going
+abroad, where you intended travelling to, and what you purposed doing
+when you had reached your destination.”
+
+“There is no use, Frank, in trying to talk seriously to you. Everything
+seems to you to bear a comical aspect. To hear you speak I am sure
+anybody might think the world was a place only intended by the Almighty
+for jibes and jeers, for the fool’s motley, for the cap and bells.”
+
+“After all, the fool’s bells make more lively music than the passing
+bells; which appear to be what you delight to listen to. In sober
+earnest though, Brian, I do hate to see a man, a wise man, taking life
+after your fashion. Is not there happiness in this world, is not there
+sunshine, are not there women’s voices, are not there flowers, and birds
+and bees and butterflies? Do you think God ever intended we should let
+any sorrow or any suffering so dim our eyes that we should never again
+be able to look out on life with a sense of enjoyment, with a thrill of
+pleasure? Talk to him, Geraldine; tell him what a madman he is to dwell
+so sorrowfully on the past, instead of taking pleasure in the present.
+Brian,” he added, and for the first time during their acquaintance there
+came a touch of passionate entreaty into his voice, “Brian, my brother,
+for God’s sake, put that unhappy boy out of your mind; bury your dead,
+and leave their graves, and come and stand out in the sunshine, so that
+you may make both yourself and those belonging to you happy once more.”
+
+With a gesture almost of despair, Brian lifted his head, and looking
+over the great city which lay below them, answered—
+
+“It is too soon yet. You do not know, no man can know, what my life has
+been, what I have suffered, how I have sinned. You have never stood, as
+I have, at one death-bed after another, where the life had been either
+unhappy or wicked. Think of it, Frank: out of your own brighter
+experience, judge what mine must have been. Father, mother, brother,
+cousin, and cousin’s son—all in five years. Those whom I wanted to make
+happy, whom I would have laid down my life to save from grief and
+trouble, are all gone where the wealth that is now mine is unavailing. I
+never was young; I never had a boy’s heart; I never was like other men I
+met, gay and thoughtless and light-hearted. I think you are right,
+Frank, after all, and that I was wrong. I believe, had I been brought up
+in England, I should have been a better man and a happier than I am ever
+likely to be now. Like Maxwell, I have made a great mistake.”
+
+“Well, rectify it then,” answered Mr. Gyton. “It is not too late; it is
+never too late while you have breath in your body. I know what you were
+going to say: you were going to make some remark about that Arthur,
+whose death you have taken a fancy to charge at your own door. There
+never was a better day’s work done for that young gentleman than when he
+was put so easily out of harm’s way.”
+
+“What shocking things you do say, Frank!” remarked Geraldine.
+
+“If being true makes things shocking, I have no doubt they are so,” he
+replied; “but the fact is this. Supposing he had escaped drowning, he
+would have lived to be hung to a certainty. I am as positive of that as
+I am that I am living. Those are just the kind of youths who come as
+surely to the gallows, let them start from what point they may, as that
+the sparks fly upward. My uncle is of the same opinion; he thinks that
+for the sake of all parties interested it was a great blessing Mr.
+Arthur Campnell, or Bourke, or Drewitt, or whatever his name might be,
+made his exit when he did. Just fancy that boy in possession of those
+properties. I ask you just to fancy it. He would have more misery than
+we should ever be able to estimate. Those notes! why you know the lad
+who could carry a thing of that kind through coolly must have been the
+making of a thorough scoundrel; and if it were only for the suffering he
+caused Harold, he richly deserved all he got.”
+
+“That was the way I argued,” Brian groaned. “Heaven, forgive me!”
+
+“There can be no worse article for every-day wear than a delicate
+conscience like yours; which first thinks it a duty to avenge the dead,
+and then turns round and repents having inflicted punishment on the
+object of its deadliest hatred. I think you were born a few centuries
+too late, Brian. You would have been a capital fellow for the sack-cloth
+and scourging days; and in one respect I think those days were a vast
+deal better than our own. Men then wore their sorrow out of sight, and
+their penitence too; now they go about with faces as long as my arm,
+making everybody they meet miserable, because of some trifling sin that
+they chance to have committed in years gone by.”
+
+“That cap fits well, if it were made at random.”
+
+“I did not make it for you,” answered Mr. Gyton, colouring with vexation
+at his own stupidity; “and I don’t want to say anything to vex you, only
+take my advice. Come out of your shell—mix in the world—share its
+pleasures—enjoy its sunshine—don’t go moping about the Continent alone,
+and beyond all things, don’t go shut yourself up in those old Irish
+estates till you become a monomaniac. Look out for a nice wife—marry—and
+forget. If you have done wrong, you must try and do right for the
+future. If you have made a mistake, thank God it is not on your
+death-bed you have found it out; but with life, years of it before you,
+I trust, to make a better thing of than any Drewitt I ever heard of
+dreamt of attempting.”
+
+“What are you sermonizing about, Frank?” asked Mr. Pryor, who came at
+this moment into the room.
+
+“I am preaching the doctrine of work and common sense in the ears of a
+morbid sinner,” was the reply.
+
+“And is he converted?” inquired his uncle, with a smile.
+
+“Give me time,” Brian answered, “give me time; only, of one thing be
+sure—I will not sit down with my hands folded and sorrow vainly. I will
+do my best. I will not fly my duties. I will not attempt to get rid of
+my responsibilities; and should it ever please God to remove the weight
+that is lying on my heart, I will become a laughing philosopher like
+you, Frank, and find sunshine in the darkest places.”
+
+“That is right!” cried Mr. Gyton, clapping him on the back; while Mr.
+Pryor went up to Brian and silently took his hand.
+
+Perhaps the barrister could better estimate the length and breadth, and
+height and depth, of the agony that Brian had passed through than any
+other man on earth. He had traced the boy’s progress to manhood, and
+seen how each year had brought its trial, each day its necessity for
+self-command and self-forgetfulness.
+
+He knew, who better? how long even a slight wound takes to heal with
+some mental constitutions, and he could not marvel at the effect all his
+trials had produced on Brian Drewitt.
+
+For himself, it was many a long day before he could forget either that
+night-scene on the coast of the wild West, or that darkened room to
+which the man who had thought once no domain large enough for him, was
+confined at last.
+
+His life had been prosperous, but the end was so unutterably sorrowful
+that it left an impression on Mr. Pryor’s mind like the wail of a
+mournful melody, or the sobbing of the wind among the pines at night.
+
+Unmourned, unlamented, the man had passed to his long home, without one
+to weep over him and say, “Alas! my brother.”
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+It was autumn in Connemara once again; the hills were clad in their
+robes of purple heather, and the country looked its loveliest, and there
+was a great peace on land, on lake, on sea; while under the arching
+trees a bridal party came forth from Kincorth; for the daughter of the
+house was going to be married to the man she had loved for so long.
+
+As a matter of choice, and as a matter of convenience, the bridegroom
+would certainly have preferred that the wedding should be solemnized in
+London; but it was a fancy of Brian’s that Frank Gyton should take his
+sister from amongst her own people; that in the place where she had been
+born she should be married; that with much stately ceremony, with every
+festive rejoicing, the son of the English merchant should mate with the
+daughter of the Irish gentleman.
+
+Brian would not have been a Drewitt had he not been likewise proud, and
+it was more out of pride than out of ostentation that he prepared so
+great a feast, and bade so many guests to partake of it. Duranmore had
+never seen such a wedding before; such strings of carriages, such
+strewing of flowers, such passing under wreaths and garlands, was
+unprecedented even in a place where many a well-born bride had been
+wooed, and won, and married.
+
+It was a gay sight, and the hearts of the tenantry rejoiced to see such
+a cavalcade leaving the gates of Kincorth. Many a day it was since such
+a festival had been held at the old home of the Drewitts; and it seemed,
+as the people said, like the good old times come back again when the
+bride, blushing and happy, walked out of the church porch, leaning on
+her husband’s arm, and passed through the people who had known her from
+a child, receiving blessings and praises as she went by.
+
+Half the county was at the wedding, and there were great folks from
+London staying at Durrow, and the whole country side was alive with
+carriages and servants, and spectators and guests.
+
+Lady Emmeline graced the scene with her presence, and presented the
+bride with some sweet verses of her own composition, which she secretly
+hoped might be read aloud at the breakfast.
+
+She was looking very old and very haggard, poor lady, but she enjoyed
+that wedding immensely, and told everybody how fond she had always been
+of Geraldine, and how “many people had taken them for mother and
+daughter when they were in London together.”
+
+Mr. Gyton was in great force; he was perfectly stupendous in the way of
+waistcoat, and gold chain and pocket-handkerchiefs. He drank champagne,
+and he grew pathetic; he partook of all manner of good things, and did
+such justice to the viands set before him that Frank Gyton sent round a
+card to Brian Drewitt, on which he had written, in pencil—
+
+“I hope there is a clever doctor among the company—dread apoplexy.”
+
+Altogether it was, as Mr. Gyton, junior, declared, enormously jolly.
+
+“I think that everybody should come to Ireland to be married,” said one
+tremendous young swell, who turned R into W in the most cruel and
+unintelligible manner imaginable. “I think every body should come to
+Ireland to be married, it is such fun.”
+
+“Yes, and the ten miles’ drive gives one such an appetite,” remarked Mr.
+Gyton, senior.
+
+“And, Frank, what did you mean about the climate?” asked his mother. “We
+have had three days without a single drop of rain.”
+
+“That is because it never rains single drops in Ireland,” was the reply;
+“they always fall plenty at a time.”
+
+“Well, now, you know this is charming,” said one City man. “If one could
+make certain of not being shot, I think I should like to end my days
+here.”
+
+“Did you ever see such a view?”
+
+“What a delicious house!”
+
+“And how exquisitely furnished!”
+
+“Don’t you wonder Mr. Drewitt has never married?”
+
+“Hasn’t had the property long; was a clerk in Mr. Gyton’s office in the
+City.”
+
+“Dear me, how singular!”
+
+“And he proposed for her in her poverty?”
+
+“Yes, and takes her from here with a handsome fortune, I am told.”
+
+“How romantic!”
+
+“Virtue rewarded.”
+
+And so the talk ran on, while the groom’s-man implored one of the
+bridesmaids to tell him who that wonderful piece of antiquity was,
+seated on the other side of the table.
+
+“That, sir,” said the young lady, demurely, “is my cousin, Lady Emmeline
+Drewitt.”
+
+“I am sure, I beg your pardon; really that is—”
+
+“She is the widow of the late proprietor of Kincorth,” proceeded Miss
+Vervensoe, who rather enjoyed her companion’s confusion. “She is very
+wealthy, and has been considered very handsome.”
+
+“Really, now you speak of it—yes, to be sure, bears traces of having
+been very beautiful.”
+
+“I have never detected those traces myself,” said the young Irish belle,
+“for it is little more than a tradition with us. Mr. Pryor, however,
+declares he can remember her a most graceful and fascinating woman when
+he stood for Duranmore in 1832.”
+
+“I had not the least idea Pryor was so old—1832 carries us back into the
+remote ages of antiquity.”
+
+“I suppose it does, to about the time the Pyramids were built,” answered
+Miss Vervensoe, a little pertly. She had some pretensions to talent, and
+indulged in satirical poetry, and on her return home wrote some very
+smart lines descriptive of the wedding-breakfast generally, and of her
+conversational friend particularly.
+
+“Are you coming to the ball to-night?” she asked.
+
+Of course he was. Did not every one intend coming to it, or rather
+staying for it, who had got an invitation? “For his part,” and here the
+speaker became slightly tender in his manner; “for his part, he quite
+agreed with Mr. Sherwood and Mr. Gyton, that everybody ought to come to
+Ireland to get married.”
+
+Which observation Miss Vervensoe shrined in her poem with an addendum of
+her own, to the effect that she thought a good many people would have to
+bring the wives with them.
+
+On the whole, Miss Vervensoe was not a nice young lady; not a young lady
+it would have been well for Brian Drewitt to marry; though it was her
+mother’s intention that he should marry her, if the thing were
+compassable.
+
+Lady Emmeline, also, was very desirous that her sweetest “Anne” should
+become mistress of Kincorth; and Mr. Dolf Vervensoe told his daughter
+that he should think her a “damned deal cleverer even than she thought
+herself, if she could bring Brian Drewitt to book!”
+
+But through that danger the young man passed scatheless. He was not a
+person very easy to satisfy, either in the matter of beauty or of
+anything else; and accordingly, he waited, and waited, till, quite by
+chance, as it seemed to them both, he met one day with a bright,
+loveable, English country-girl, who had been brought up very quietly in
+her father’s old-fashioned parsonage-house—whence Brian Drewitt took her
+to himself, without any fuss or ceremonial or excitement whatsoever.
+
+Geraldine always declared he took a fancy to the girl because she
+resembled their mother; and Brian did not contradict her assertion.
+
+When the spring was shyly putting out its soft green leaves—when the
+winter’s frosts were over, and the winter’s snows gone—when the balmy
+south wind began to blow, bringing flowers and buds on its genial
+breath, Brian Drewitt took his young wife home to Kincorth, which he has
+never talked of selling from that hour.
+
+She was his home-angel! his sweet, pretty, cheerful treasure! and he
+told her so one day, when she began, in her winning way, to coax him to
+tell her why he ever married her—he, so rich! so grand! who might have
+wooed and won some wonderful heiress—some great beauty; and he added,
+also, a statement which was true as Holy Writ—viz., that, when he first
+looked in her face, he felt its expression comfort him as nothing else
+had comforted him since that sad day when he stood beside his mother’s
+coffin, and felt almost as though his heart were broken!
+
+
+
+
+                              CONCLUSION.
+
+
+Thus they were all at rest at last—they who had loved, and they who had
+hated; the years had passed by, and brought peace with them—peace to the
+dead—peace to the living.
+
+As for Brian Drewitt, who is a good landlord and a faithful steward, he
+can think over the past now without anguish—without despair.
+
+There was once a time in his life when, had any one foretold that into
+so quiet a haven his soul could ever drift, he would have derided the
+idea, and scoffed it to scorn; there was once a time when he lived but
+for vengeance—once—but that was gone.
+
+Like a tale that was told—like a watch in the night—like a storm which
+was spent, so the great thirst for revenge had died out, and left, it
+might be, a still greater grief, but a more holy feeling behind.
+
+The draught he had once panted and sickened for—the power to ruin
+Maxwell—to hurl him from his pinnacle of worldly greatness into the very
+depths of poverty—never slackened his feverish thirst, it is true; but
+he had drained another goblet to the dregs, and found at the bottom,
+bitterness—in its sweetness, death.
+
+Well, it was all over now; the desire, the sin, the remorse—the fever
+which had once dried up his very blood—which had burnt and consumed
+him—which had eaten into his heart and torn at his vitals, had subsided;
+and he now looked back at the days and the years of his awful sickness
+as one might who, having recovered from the frenzy of madness, tries to
+recall the sensations, and the events and the phases, and the once great
+leading passion of his lunacy.
+
+So he looked back from a safe and sure haven at last, over the waves of
+that troublous ocean where he had waged so unequal a fight; where he had
+seen his purest and best hopes shipwrecked; where he had beheld _her_ go
+down amongst the billows, never to rise till eternity again; where he
+had struck out madly to reach his enemy; where after years he stood by
+the shore watching Maxwell sink lower and lower in the flood,
+proclaiming with his last breath that life had not been to him all
+happiness—that somewhere, or all through, he had made a great mistake.
+
+The storm had swept by, but it had left traces behind it—such traces as,
+that wife, nor child, nor friend, ever after saw Brian Drewitt laugh.
+
+He said he was well and happy; and so he was; but such passions as had
+dwelt in his breast are enemies who never quit a man without leaving
+tracks of sorrow and traces of sin, long deep scars and ugly furrows
+behind them, that not even the soft caresses of his loving wife, the
+sunshine of domestic happiness could entirely heal.
+
+There was a shade, even to that bright sunshine; for long after his lips
+had ceased to pronounce her name; when to mere casual observers the sore
+seemed healed, the wound cicatrized; when children climbed his knee, and
+young tongues called him father, and tiny hands clutched his hair, and
+little essayists in the sublime mystery of walking came toddling towards
+him, forcing the grave, stern face to relax and smile—Brian Drewitt was
+still weeping at heart for her who had been his mother.
+
+Whenever he visited London, he often took long morning walks alone, and
+by his resolute persistency in refusing her companionship his sister
+knew whither he was gone.
+
+In one direction he invariably turned his steps—to that churchyard
+where, as I have said, the setting sun casts its departing rays on the
+graves of the loved and lost.
+
+In that churchyard there is still one little piece of ground kept bright
+and beautiful by the living, in remembrance of the dead; and beside that
+grave Brian Drewitt will stand motionless, with his arms folded and his
+eyes fixed on the only inscription except her name which the white
+marble bears: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.”
+
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+                   PRINTING OFFICE OF THE PUBLISHER.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                             December 1883.
+
+                           Tauchnitz Edition.
+
+
+                            Latest Volumes:
+
+ A Chance Acquaintance. By William D. Howells, 1 vol.
+ Treherne’s Temptation. By Alaric Carr, 2 vols.
+ The Ghost of Charlotte Cray, etc. By Florence Marryat, 1 vol.
+ Life’s Aftermath. By Emma Marshall, 1 vol.
+ French Poets and Novelists. By Henry James, 1 vol.
+ Disarmed. By Miss Betham-Edwards, 1 vol.
+ Through one Administration. By Mrs. Burnett, 2 vols.
+ The Mistletoe Bough and other Stories. By Anthony Trollope, 1 vol.
+ Their Wedding Journey. By W. D. Howells, 1 vol.
+ Regimental Legends. By J. S. Winter, 1 vol.
+ June. By Mrs. Forrester, 2 vols.
+ Phantom Fortune. By Miss Braddon, 3 vols.
+ Belinda. By Miss Rhoda Broughton, 2 vols.
+ Phyllis. By the Author of “Molly Bawn,” 2 vols.
+ A Book of Sibyls. By Miss Thackeray, 1 vol.
+ Frescoes and other Stories. By Ouida, 1 vol.
+ Altiora Peto. By Laurence Oliphant, 2 vols.
+ An Autobiography. By Anthony Trollope, 1 vol.
+ A Fearful Responsibility, etc. By William D. Howells, 1 vol.
+ The Professor at the Breakfast-Table. By Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1 vol.
+ A short History of our own Times. By Justin M^cCarthy, 2 vols.
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+ Klytia. By George Taylor. From the German by Sutton Fraser Corkran, 2
+ vols. (_German Authors._)
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+ Rex and Regina; or, The Song of the River. By E. Marshall. With
+ Illustrations, 1 vol. (_Series for the Young._)
+
+A complete Catalogue of the Tauchnitz Edition is attached to this work.
+
+------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+
+
+
+                          TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
+
+
+ Page           Changed from                      Changed to
+
+  132 He never seemed to have courage  He never seemed to have courage
+      expect when he                   except when he
+
+  202 increased, and very facility     increased, and every facility
+      afforded him for pushing         afforded him for pushing
+
+  270 bare of foliage, but there were  bare of foliage, but there were
+      still enough leaver              still enough leaves
+
+ ● Fixed typos; non-standard spelling and dialect retained.
+ ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
+ ● The caret (^) is used to indicate superscript, whether applied to a
+     single character (as in 2^d) or to an entire expression (as in
+     1^{st}).
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79387 ***