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THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE
By Charles James Lever
With Illustrations By E. J. Wheeler and W. Cubitt Cooke
Boston: Little, Brown, And Company.
1902
CONTENTS
PREFACE.
THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE
CHAPTER I. A LONELY LANDSCAPE
CHAPTER II. GLENCORE CASTLE
CHAPTER III. BILLY TRAYNOR—POET, PEDLAR, AND PHYSICIAN
CHAPTER IV. A VISITOR
CHAPTER V. COLONEL HARCOUUT’S LETTER
CHAPTER VI. QUEER COMPANIONSHIP
CHAPTER VII. A GREAT DIPLOMATIST
CHAPTER VIII. THE GREAT MAN’S ARRIVAL
CHAPTER IX. A MEDICAL VISIT
CHAPTER X. A DISCLOSURE
CHAPTER XI. SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE
CHAPTER XII. A NIGHT AT SEA
CHAPTER XIII. A “VOW” ACCOMPLISHED
CHAPTER XIV. BILLY TRAYNOR AND THE COLONEL
CHAPTER XV. A SICK BED
CHAPTER XVI. THE “PROJECT”
CHAPTER XVII. A TÊTE-À-TÊTE
CHAPTER XVIII. BILLY TRAYNOR AS ORATOR
CHAPTER XIX. THE CASCINE AT FLORENCE
CHAPTER XX. THE VILLA FOSSOMBRONI
CHAPTER XXI. SOME TRAITS OF LIFE
CHAPTER XXII. AN UPTONIAN DESPATCH
CHAPTER XXIII. THE TUTOR AND HIS PUPIL
CHAPTER XXIV. HOW A “RECEPTION” COMES TO ITS CLOSE
CHAPTER XXV. A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER
CHAPTER XXVI. ITALIAN TROUBLES
CHAPTER XXVII. CARRARA
CHAPTER XXVIII. A NIGHT SCENE
CHAPTER XXIX. A COUNCIL OF STATE
CHAPTER XXX. THE LIFE THEY LED AT MASSA
CHAPTER XXXI. AT MASSA
CHAPTER XXXII. THE PAVILION IN THE GARDEN
CHAPTER XXXIII. NIGHT THOUGHTS
CHAPTER XXXIV. A MINISTER’S LETTER
CHAPTER XXXV. HARCOURT’S LODGINGS
CHAPTER XXXVI. A FEVERED MIND
CHAPTER XXXVII. THE VILLA AT SORRENTO
CHAPTER XXXVIII. A DIPLOMATIST’S DINNER
CHAPTER XXXIX. A VERY BROKEN NARRATIVE
CHAPTER XL. UPTONISM
CHAPTER XLI. AN EVENING IN FLORENCE
CHAPTER XLIII. MADAME DE SABBLOUKOFF IN THE MORNING
CHAPTER XLIII. DOINGS IN DOWNING STREET
CHAPTER XLIV. THE SUBTLETIES OF STATECRAFT
CHAPTER XLV. SOME SAD REVERIES
CHAPTER XLVI. THE FLOOD IN THE MAGRA
CHAPTER XLVII. A FRAGMENT OF A LETTER
CHAPTER XLVIII. HOW A SOVEREIGN TREATS WITH HIS MINISTER
CHAPTER XLIX. SOCIAL DIPLOMACIES
CHAPTER L. ANTE-DINNER REFLECTIONS
CHAPTER LI. CONFLICTING THOUGHTS
CHAPTER LII. MAJOR SCARESBY’S VISIT
CHAPTER LIII. A MASK IN CARNIVAL TIME
CHAPTER LIV. THE END
PREFACE.
I am unwilling to suffer this tale to leave my hands without a word of explanation to my reader. If I have never disguised from myself the grounds of any humble success I have attained to as a writer of fiction; if I have always had before me the fact that to movement and action, the stir of incident, and a certain light-heartedness and gayety of temperament, more easy to impart to others than to repress in one’s self, I have owed much, if not all, of whatever popularity I have enjoyed, I have yet felt, or fancied that I felt, that it would be in the delineation of very different scenes, and the portraiture of very different emotions, that I should reap what I would reckon as a real success. This conviction, or impression if you will, has become stronger with years and with the knowledge of life; years have imparted, and time has but confirmed me in, the notion that any skill I possess lies in the detection of character, and the unravelment of that tangled skein which makes up human motives.
I am well aware that no error is more common than to mistake one’s own powers; nor does anything more contribute to this error than a sense of self-depreciation for what the world has been pleased to deem successful in us. To test my conviction, or to abandon it as a delusion forever, I have written the present story of “Glencore.”
I make but little pretension to the claim of interesting; as little do I aspire to the higher credit of instructing. All I have attempted-all I have striven to accomplish-is the faithful portraiture of character, the close analysis of motives, and correct observation as to some of the manners and modes of thought which mark the age we live in.
Opportunities of society as well as natural inclination have alike disposed me to such studies. I have stood over the game of life very patiently for many a year, and though I may have grieved over the narrow fortune which has prevented me from “cutting in,” I have consoled myself by the thought of all the anxieties defeat might have cost me, all the chagrin I had suffered were I to have risen a loser. Besides this, I have learned to know and estimate what are the qualities which win success in life, and what the gifts by which men dominate above their fellows.
If in the world of well-bred life the incidents and events be fewer, because the friction is less than in the classes where vicissitudes of fortune are more frequent, the play of passion, the moods of temper, and the changeful varieties of nature are often very strongly developed, shadowed and screened though they be by the polished conventionalities of society. To trace and mark these has long constituted one of the pleasures of my life; if I have been able to impart even a portion of that gratification to my reader, I will not deem the effort in vain, nor the “Fortunes of Glencore” a failure.
Let me add that although certain traits of character in some of the individuals of my story may seem to indicate sketches of real personages, there is but one character in the whole book drawn entirely from life.
This is Billy Traynor. Not only have I had a sitter for this picture, but he is alive and hearty at the hour I am writing. For the others, they are purely, entirely fictitious. Certain details, certain characteristics, I have of course borrowed,—as he who would mould a human face must needs have copied an eye, a nose, or a chin from some existent model; but beyond this I have not gone, nor, indeed, have I found, in all my experience of life, that fiction ever suggests what has not been implanted unconsciously by memory; originality in the delineation of character being little beyond a new combination of old materials derived from that source.
I wish I could as easily apologize for the faults and blemishes of my story as I can detect and deplore them; but, like the failings in one’s nature, they are very often difficult to correct, even when acknowledged. I have, therefore, but to throw myself once more upon the indulgence which, “old offender” that I am, has never forsaken me, and subscribe myself,
Your devoted friend and servant,
C. L.
THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE
CHAPTER I. A LONELY LANDSCAPE
Where that singularly beautiful inlet of the sea known in the west of Ireland as the Killeries, after narrowing to a mere strait, expands into a bay, stands the ruin of the ancient Castle of Glencore. With the bold steep sides of Ben Creggan behind, and the broad blue Atlantic in front, the proud keep would seem to have occupied a spot that might have bid defiance to the boldest assailant. The estuary itself here seems entirely landlocked, and resembles, in the wild, fantastic outline of the mountains around, a Norwegian fiord, rather than a scene in our own tamer landscape. The small village of Leenane, which stands on the Galway shore, opposite to Glencore, presents the only trace of habitation in this wild and desolate district, for the country around is poor, and its soil offers little to repay the task of the husbandman. Fishing is then the chief, if not the sole, resource of those who pass their lives in this solitary region; and thus in every little creek or inlet of the shore may be seen the stout craft of some hardy venturer, and nets, and tackle, and such-like gear, lie drying on every rocky eminence. We have said that Glencore was a ruin; but still its vast proportions, yet traceable in massive fragments of masonry, displayed specimens of various eras of architecture, from the rudest tower of the twelfth century to the more ornate style of a later period; while artificial embankments and sloped sides of grass showed the remains of what once had been terrace and “parterre,” the successors, it might be presumed, of fosse and parapet. Many a tale of cruelty and oppression, many a story of suffering and sorrow, clung to those old walls, for they had formed the home of a haughty and a cruel race, the last descendant of which died at the close of the past century. The Castle of Glencore, with the title, had now descended to a distant relation of the house, who had repaired and so far restored the old residence as to make it habitable,—that is to say, four bleak and lofty chambers were rudely furnished, and about as many smaller ones fitted for servant accommodation; but no effort at embellishment, not even the commonest attempt at neatness, was bestowed on the grounds or the garden; and in this state it remained for some five-and-twenty or thirty years, when the tidings reached the little village of Leenane that his lordship was about to return to Glencore, and fix his residence there.
Such an event was of no small moment in such a locality, and many were the speculations as to what might be the consequence of his coming. Little, or indeed nothing, was known of Lord Glencore; his only visit to the neighborhood had occurred many years before, and lasted but for a day. He had arrived suddenly, and, taking a boat at the ferry, as it was called, crossed over to the Castle, whence he returned at nightfall, to depart as hurriedly as he came.
Of those who had seen him in this brief visit the accounts were vague and most contradictory. Some called him handsome and well built; others said he was a dark-looking, downcast man, with a sickly and forbidding aspect. None, however, could record one single word he had spoken, nor could even gossips pretend to say that he gave utterance to any opinion about the place or the people. The mode in which the estate was managed gave as little insight into the character of the proprietor. If no severity was displayed to the few tenants on the property, there was no encouragement given to their efforts at improvement; a kind of cold neglect was the only feature discernible, and many went so far as to say that if any cared to forget the payment of his rent, the chances were it might never be demanded of him; the great security against such a venture, however, lay in the fact that the land was held at a mere nominal rental, and few would have risked his tenure by such an experiment.
It was little to be wondered at that Lord Glencore was not better known in that secluded spot, since even in England his name was scarcely heard of. His fortune was very limited, and he had no political influence whatever, not possessing a seat in the Upper House; so that, as he spent his life abroad, he was almost totally forgotten in his own country.
All that Debrett could tell of him was comprised in a few lines, recording simply that he was sixth Viscount Glencore and Loughdooner; born in the month of February, 180-, and married in August, 18—, to Clarissa Isabella, second daughter of Sir Guy Clifford, of Wytchley, Baronet; by whom he had issue, Charles Conyngham Massey, born 6th June, 18—. There closed the notice.
Strange and quaint things are these short biographies, with little beyond the barren fact that “he had lived” and “he had died;” and yet, with all the changes of this work-a-day world, with its din, and turmoil, and gold-seeking, and “progress,” men cannot divest themselves of reverence for birth and blood, and the veneration for high descent remains an instinct of humanity. Sneer as men will at “heaven-born legislators,” laugh as you may at the “tenth transmitter of a foolish face,” there is something eminently impressive in the fact of a position acquired by deeds that date back to centuries, and preserved inviolate to the successor of him who fought at Agincourt or at Cressy. If ever this religion shall be impaired, the fault be with those who have derogated from their great prerogative, and forgotten to make illustrious by example what they have inherited illustrious by descent.
When the news first reached the neighborhood that a lord was about to take up his residence in the Castle, the most extravagant expectations were conceived of the benefits to arise from such a source. The very humblest already speculated on the advantages his wealth was to diffuse, and the thousand little channels into which his affluence would be directed. The ancient traditions of the place spoke of a time of boundless profusion, when troops of mounted followers used to accompany the old barons, and when the lough itself used to be covered with boats, with the armorial bearings of Glencore floating proudly from their mastheads. There were old men then living who remembered as many as two hundred laborers being daily employed on the grounds and gardens of the Castle; and the most fabulous stories were told of fortunes accumulated by those who were lucky enough to have saved the rich earnings of that golden period.
Colored as such speculations were with all the imaginative warmth of the west, it was a terrible shock to such sanguine fancies when they beheld a middle-aged, sad-looking man arrive in a simple postchaise, accompanied by his son, a child of six or seven years of age, and a single servant,—a grim-looking old dragoon corporal, who neither invited intimacy nor rewarded it. It was not, indeed, for a long time that they could believe that this was “my lord,” and that this solitary attendant was the whole of that great retinue they had so long been expecting; nor, indeed, could any evidence less strong than Mrs. Mulcahy’s, of the Post-office, completely satisfy them on the subject. The address of certain letters and newspapers to the Lord Viscount Glencore was, however, a testimony beyond dispute; so that nothing remained but to revenge themselves on the unconscious author of their self-deception for the disappointment he gave them. This, it is true, required some ingenuity, for they scarcely ever saw him, nor could they ascertain a single fact of his habits or mode of life.
He never crossed the “Lough,” as the inlet of the sea, about three miles in width, was called. He as rigidly excluded the peasantry from the grounds of the Castle; and, save an old fisherman, who carried his letter-bag to and fro, and a few laborers in the spring and autumn, none ever invaded the forbidden precincts.
Of course, such privacy paid its accustomed penalty; and many an explanation, of a kind little flattering, was circulated to account for so ungenial an existence. Some alleged that he had committed some heavy crime against the State, and was permitted to pass his life there, on the condition of perpetual imprisonment; others, that his wife had deserted him, and that in his forlorn condition he had sought out a spot to live and die in, unnoticed and unknown; a few ascribed his solitude to debt; while others were divided in opinion between charges of misanthropy and avarice,—to either of which accusations his lonely and simple life fully exposed him.
In time, however, people grew tired of repeating stories to which no new evidence added any features of interest. They lost the zest for a scandal which ceased to astonish, and “my lord” was as much forgotten, and his existence as unspoken of, as though the old towers had once again become the home of the owl and the jackdaw.
It was now about eight years since “the lord” had taken up his abode at the Castle, when one evening, a raw and gusty night of December, the little skiff of the fisherman was seen standing in for shore,—a sight somewhat uncommon, since she always crossed the “Lough” in time for the morning’s mail.
“There’s another man aboard, too,” said a bystander from the little group that watched the boat, as she neared the harbor; “I think it’s Mr. Craggs.”
“You ‘re right enough, Sam,—it’s the Corporal; I know his cap, and the short tail of hair he wears under it. What can bring him at this time of night?”
“He’s going to bespeak a quarter of Tim Healey’s beef, maybe,” said one, with a grin of malicious drollery.
“Mayhap it’s askin’ us all to spend the Christmas he’d be,” said another.
“Whisht! or he ‘ll hear you,” muttered a third; and at the same instant the sail came clattering down, and the boat glided swiftly past, and entered a little natural creek close beneath where they stood.
“Who has got a horse and a jaunting-car?” cried the Corporal, as he jumped on shore. “I want one for Clifden directly.”
“It’s fifteen miles—devil a less,” cried one.
“Fifteen! no, but eighteen! Kiely’s bridge is brack down, and you ‘ll have to go by Gortnamuck.”
“Well, and if he has, can’t he take the cut?”
“He can’t.”
“Why not? Did n’t I go that way last week?”
“Well, and if you did, did n’t you lame your baste?”
“‘T was n’t the cut did it.”
“It was—sure I know better—Billy Moore tould me.”
“Billy’s a liar!”
Such and such-like comments and contradictions were very rapidly exchanged, and already the debate was waxing warm, when Mr. Craggs’s authoritative voice interposed with—
“Billy Moore be blowed! I want to know if I can have a car and horse?”
“To be sure! why not?—who says you can’t?” chimed in a chorus.
“If you go to Clifden under five hours my name isn’t Terry Lynch,” said an old man in rabbitskin breeches.
“I ‘ll engage, if Barny will give me the blind mare, to drive him there under four.”
“Bother!” said the Rabbitskin, in a tone of contempt.
“But where’s the horse?” cried the Corporal.
“Ay, that’s it,” said another; “where’s the horse?”
“Is there none to be found in the village?” asked Craggs, eagerly.
“Divil a horse, barrin’ an ass. Barny’s mare has the staggers the last fortnight, and Mrs. Kyle’s pony broke his two knees on Tuesday carrying sea-weed up the rocks.”
“But I must go to Clifden; I must be there to-night,” said Craggs.
“It’s on foot, then, you’ll have to do it,” said the Rabbitskin.
“Lord Glencore’s dangerously ill, and needs a doctor,” said the Corporal, bursting out with a piece of most uncommon communicativeness. “Is there none of you will give his horse for such an errand?”
“Arrah, musha!—it’s a pity!” and such-like expressions of compassionate import, were muttered on all sides; but no more active movement seemed to flow from the condolence, while in a lower tone were added such expressions as, “Sorra mend him—if he wasn’t a naygar, wouldn’t he have a horse of his own? It’s a droll lord he is, to be begging the loan of a baste!”
Something like a malediction arose to the Corporal’s lips; but restraining it, and with a voice thick from passion, he said,—
“I ‘m ready to pay you—to pay you ten times over the worth of your—”
“You need n’t curse the horse, anyhow,” interposed Rabbitskin, while with a significant glance at his friends around him, he slyly intimated that it would be as well to adjourn the debate,—a motion as quickly obeyed as it was mooted; for in less than five minutes Craggs was standing beside the quay, with no other companion than a blind beggar-woman, who, perfectly regardless of his distress, continued energetically to draw attention to her own.
“A little fivepenny bit, my lord—the last trifle your honor’s glory has in the corner of your pocket, that you ‘ll never miss, and that ‘ll sweeten ould Molly’s tay to-night? There, acushla, have pity on ‘the dark,’ and that you may see glory—”
But Craggs did not wait for the remainder, but, deep in his own thoughts, sauntered down towards the village. Already had the others retreated within their homes; and now all was dark and cheerless along the little straggling street.
“And this is a Christian country!—this a land that people tell you abounds in kindness and good-nature!” said he, in an accent of sarcastic bitterness.
“And who’ll say the reverse?” answered a voice from behind, and, turning, he beheld the little hunchbacked fellow who carried the mail on foot from Oughterard, a distance of sixteen miles, over a mountain, and who was popularly known as “Billy the Bag,” from the little leather sack which seemed to form part of his attire. “Who ‘ll stand up and tell me it’s not a fine country in every sense,—for natural beauties, for antiquities, for elegant men and lovely females, for quarries of marble and mines of gould?”
Craggs looked contemptuously at the figure who thus declaimed of Ireland’s wealth and grandeur, and, in a sneering tone, said,—
“And with such riches on every side, why do you go barefoot—why are you in rags, my old fellow?”
“Is n’t there poor everywhere? If the world was all gould and silver, what would be the precious metals—tell me that? Is it because there’s a little cripple like myself here, that them mountains yonder is n’t of copper and iron and cobalt? Come over with me after I lave the bags at the office, and I ‘ll show you bits of every one I speak of.”
“I’d rather you’d show me a doctor, my worthy fellow,” said Craggs, sighing.
“I’m the nearest thing to that same going,” replied Billy. “I can breathe a vein against any man in the barony. I can’t say, that for any articular congestion of the aortic valves, or for a sero-pulmonic diathesis—d’ye mind?—that there isn’t as good as me; but for the ould school of physic, the humoral diagnostic touch, who can beat me?”
“Will you come with me across the lough, and see my lord, then?” said Craggs, who was glad even of such aid in his emergency.
“And why not, when I lave the bags?” said Billy, touching the leather sack as he spoke.
If the Corporal was not without his misgivings as to the skill and competence of his companion, there was something in the fluent volubility of the little fellow that overawed and impressed him, while his words were uttered in a rich mellow voice, that gave them a sort of solemn persuasiveness.
“Were you always on the road?” asked the Corporal, curious to learn some particulars of his history.
“No, sir; I was twenty things before I took to the bags. I was a poor scholar for four years; I kept school in Erris; I was ‘on’ the ferry in Dublin with my fiddle for eighteen months; and I was a bear in Liverpool for part of a winter.”
“A bear!” exclaimed Craggs. “Yes, sir. It was an Italian—one Pipo Chiassi by name—that lost his beast at Manchester, and persuaded me, as I was about the same stature, to don the sable, and perform in his place. After that I took to writin’ for the papers—‘The Skibbereen Celt’—and supported myself very well till it broke. But here we are at the office, so I ‘ll step in, and get my fiddle, too, if you ‘ve no objection.”
The Corporal’s meditations scarcely were of a kind to reassure him, as he thought over the versatile character of his new friend; but the case offered no alternative—it was Billy or nothing—since to reach Clifden on foot would be the labor of many hours, and in the interval his master should be left utterly alone. While he was thus musing, Billy reappeared, with a violin under one arm and a much-worn quarto under the other.
“This,” said he, touching the volume, “is the ‘Whole Art and Mystery of Physic,’ by one Fabricius, of Aquapendente; and if we don’t find a cure for the case down here, take my word for it, it’s among the morba ignota, as Paracelsus says.”
“Well, come along,” said Craggs, impatiently, and set off at a speed that, notwithstanding Billy’s habits of foot-travel, kept him at a sharp trot. A few minutes more saw them, with canvas spread, skimming across the lough, towards Glencore.
“Glencore—Glencore!” muttered Billy once or twice to himself, as the swift boat bounded through the hissing surf. “Did you ever hear Lady Lucy’s Lament?” And he struck a few chords with his fingers as he sang:—
“‘I care not for your trellised vine,
I love the dark woods on the shore,
Nor all the towers along the Rhine
Are dear to me as old Glencore.
The ragged cliff, Ben Creggan high,
Re-echoing the Atlantic roar,
Are mingling with the seagull’s cry
My welcome back to old Glencore.’
And then there’s a chorus.”
“That’s a signal to us to make haste,” said the Corporal, pointing to a bright flame which suddenly shot up on the shore of the lough. “Put out an oar to leeward there, and keep her up to the wind.”
And Billy, perceiving his minstrelsy unattended to, consoled himself by humming over, for his own amusement, the remainder of his ballad.
The wind freshened as the night grew darker, and heavy seas repeatedly broke on the bow, and swept over the boat in sprayey showers.
“It’s that confounded song of yours has got the wind up,” said Craggs, angrily; “stand by the sheet, and stop your croning!”
“That’s an error vulgaris, attributing to music marine disasters,” said Billy, calmly; “it arose out of a mistake about one Orpheus.”
“Slack off there!” cried Craggs, as a squall struck the boat, and laid her almost over.
Billy, however, had obeyed the mandate promptly, and she soon righted, and held on her course.
“I wish they’d show the light again on shore,” muttered the Corporal; “the night is black as pitch.”
“Keep the top of the mountain a little to windward, and you ‘re all right,” said Billy. “I know the lough well; I used to come here all hours, day and night, once, spearing salmon.”
“And smuggling, too!” added Craggs.
“Yes, sir; brandy, and tay, and pigtail, for Mister Sheares, in Oughterard.”
“What became of him?” asked Craggs.
“He made a fortune and died, and his son married a lady!”
“Here comes another; throw her head up in the wind,” cried Craggs.
This time the order came too late; for the squall struck her with the suddenness of a shot, and she canted over till her keel lay out of water, and, when she righted, it was with the white surf boiling over her.
“She’s a good boat, then, to stand that,” said Billy, as he struck a light for his pipe, with all the coolness of one perfectly at his ease; and Craggs, from that very moment, conceived a favorable opinion of the little hunchback.
“Now we’re in the smooth water, Corporal,” cried Billy; “let her go a little free.”
And, obedient to the advice, he ran the boat swiftly along till she entered a small creek, so sheltered by the highlands that the water within was still as a mountain tarn.
“You never made the passage on a worse night, I ‘ll be bound,” said Craggs, as he sprang on shore.
“Indeed and I did, then,” replied Billy. “I remember—it was two days before Christmas—we were blown out to say in a small boat, not more than the half of this, and we only made the west side of Arran Island after thirty-six hours’ beating and tacking. I wrote an account of it for the ‘Tyrawly Regenerator,’ commencing with—
“‘The elemential conflict that with tremendious violence raged, ravaged, and ruined the adamantine foundations of our western coast, on Tuesday, the 23rd of December—‘”
“Come along, come along,” said Craggs; “we’ve something else to think of.”
And with this admonition, very curtly bestowed, he stepped out briskly on the path towards Glencore.
CHAPTER II. GLENCORE CASTLE
When the Corporal, followed by Billy, entered the gloomy hall of the Castle, they found two or three country people conversing in a low but eager voice together, who speedily turned towards them, to learn if the doctor had come.
“Here ‘s all I could get in the way of a doctor,” said Craggs, pushing Billy towards them as he spoke.
“Faix, and ye might have got worse,” muttered a very old man; “Billy Traynor has the lucky hand.’”
“How is my lord, now, Nelly?” asked the Corporal of a woman who, with bare feet, and dressed in the humblest fashion of the peasantry, appeared.
“He’s getting weaker and weaker, sir; I believe he’s sinking. I’m glad it’s Billy is come; I’d rather see him than all the doctors in the country.”
“Follow me,” said Craggs, giving a signal to step lightly; and he led the way up a narrow stone stair, with a wall on either hand. Traversing a long, low corridor, they reached a door, at which having waited for a second or two to listen, Craggs turned the handle and entered. The room was very large and lofty, and, seen in the dim light of a small lamp upon the hearthstone, seemed even more spacious than it was. The oaken floor was uncarpeted, and a very few articles of furniture occupied the walls. In one corner stood a large bed, the heavy curtains of which had been gathered up on the roof, the better to admit air to the sick man.
As Billy drew nigh with cautious steps, he perceived that, although worn and wasted by long illness, the patient was a man still in the very prime of life. His dark hair and beard, which he wore long, were untinged with gray, and his forehead showed no touch of age. His dark eyes were wide open, and his lips slightly parted, his whole features exhibiting an expression of energetic action, even to wildness. Still he was sleeping; and, as Craggs whispered, he seldom slept otherwise, even when in health. With all the quietness of a trained practitioner, Billy took down the watch that was pinned to the curtain and proceeded to count the pulse.
“A hundred and thirty-eight,” muttered he, as he finished; and then, gently displacing the bedclothes, laid his hand upon the heart.
With a long-drawn sigh, like that of utter weariness, the sick man moved his head round and fixed his eyes upon him.
“The doctor!” said he, in a deep-toned but feeble voice. “Leave me, Craggs—leave me alone with him.”
And the Corporal slowly retired, turning as he went to look back towards the bed, and evidently going with reluctance.
“Is it fever?” asked the sick man, in a faint but unfaltering accent.
“It’s a kind of cerebral congestion,—a matter of them membranes that’s over the brain, with, of course, febrilis generalis.”
The accentuation of these words, marked as it was by the strongest provincialism of the peasant, attracted the sick man’s attention, and he bent upon him a look at once searching and severe.
“What are you—who are you?” cried he, angrily.
“What I am is n’t so aisy to say; but who I am is clean beyond me.”
“Are you a doctor?” asked the sick man, fiercely.
“I’m afear’d I’m not, in the sense of a gradum Universitatis,—a diplomia; but sure maybe Paracelsus himself just took to it, like me, having a vocation, as one might say.”
“Ring that bell,” said the other, peremptorily.
And Billy obeyed without speaking.
“What do you mean by this, Craggs?” said the Viscount, trembling with passion. “Who have you brought me? What beggar have you picked off the highway? Or is he the travelling fool of the district?”
But the anger that supplied strength hitherto now failed to impart energy, and he sank back wasted and exhausted. The Corporal bent over him, and spoke something in a low whisper, but whether the words were heard or not, the sick man now lay still, breathing heavily.
“Can you do nothing for him?” asked Craggs, peevishly—“nothing but anger him?”
“To be sure I can if you let me,” said Billy, producing a very ancient lancet-case of boxwood tipped with ivory. “I’ll just take a dash of blood from the temporal artery, to relieve the cerebrum, and then we’ll put cowld on his head, and keep him quiet.”
And with a promptitude that showed at least self-confidence, he proceeded to accomplish the operation, every step of which he effected skilfully and well.
“There, now,” said he, feeling the pulse, as the blood continued to flow freely, “the circulation is relieved at once; it’s the same as opening a sluice in a mill-dam. He ‘s better already.”
“He looks easier,” said Craggs.
“Ay, and he feels it,” continued Billy. “Just notice the respiratory organs, and see how easy the intercostials is doing their work now. Bring me a bowl of clean water, some vinegar, and any ould rags you have.”
Craggs obeyed, but not without a sneer at the direction.
“All over the head,” said Billy; “all over it,—back and front,—and with the blessing of the Virgin, I’ll have that hair off of him if he is n’t cooler towards evening.”
So saying, he covered the sick man with the wetted cloths, and bathed his hands in the cooling fluid.
“Now to exclude the light and save the brain from stimulation and excitation,” said Billy, with a pompous enunciation of the last syllables; “and then quies—rest—peace!”
And with this direction, imparted with a caution to enforce its benefits, he moved stealthily towards the door and passed out.
“What do you think of him?” asked the Corporal, eagerly.
“He ‘ll do—he ‘ll do,” said Billy. “He’s a sanguineous temperament, and he’ll bear the lancet. It’s just like weatherin’ a point at say. If you have a craft that will carry canvas, there’s always a chance for you.”
“He perceived that you were not a doctor,” said Craggs, when they reached the corridor.
“Did he, faix?” cried Billy, half indignantly. “He might have perceived that I did n’t come in a coach; that I had n’t my hair powdered, nor gold knee-buckles in my smallcloths; but, for all that, it would be going too far to say that I was n’t a doctor! ‘T is the same with physic and poetry—you take to it, or you don’t take to it! There’s chaps, ay, and far from stupid ones either, that could n’t compose you ten hexameters if ye’d put them on a hot griddle for it; and there’s others that would talk rhyme rather than rayson! And so with the ars medicatrix—everybody has n’t an eye for a hectic, or an ear for a cough—non contigit cuique adire Corintheum. ‘T is n’t every one can toss pancakes, as Horace says.”
“Hush—be still!” muttered Craggs, “here’s the young master.” And as he spoke, a youth of about fifteen, well grown and handsome, but poorly, even meanly clad, approached them.
“Have you seen my father? What do you think of him?” asked he, eagerly.
“‘Tis a critical state he’s in, your honor,” said Billy, bowing; “but I think he ‘ll come round—deplation, deplation, deplation—actio, actio, actio; relieve the gorged vessels, and don’t drown the grand hydraulic machine, the heart—them’s my sentiments.”
Turning from the speaker with a look of angry impatience, the boy whispered some words in the Corporal’s ear.
“What could I do, sir?” was the answer; “it was this fellow or nothing.”
“And better, a thousand times better, nothing,” said the boy, “than trust his life to the coarse ignorance of this wretched quack.” And in his passion the words were uttered loud enough for Billy to overhear them.
“Don’t be hasty, your honor,” said Billy, submissively, “and don’t be unjust. The realms of disaze is like an unknown tract of country, or a country that’s only known a little, just round the coast, as it might be; once ye’re beyond that, one man is as good a guide as another, coeteris paribus, that is, with ‘equal lights.’”
“What have you done? Have you given him anything?” broke in the boy, hurriedly.
“I took a bleeding from him, little short of sixteen ounces, from the temporial,” said Billy, proudly, “and I’ll give him now a concoction of meadow saffron with a pinch of saltpetre in it, to cause diaphoresis, d’ye mind? Meanwhile, we’re disgorging the arachnoid membranes with cowld applications, and we’re relievin’ the cerebellum by repose. I challenge the Hall,” added Billy, stoutly, “to say is n’t them the grand principles of ‘traitment.’ Ah! young gentleman,” said he, after a few seconds’ pause, “don’t be hard on me, because I ‘m poor and in rags, nor think manely of me because I spake with a brogue, and maybe bad grammar, for, you see, even a crayture of my kind can have a knowledge of disaze, just as he may have a knowledge of nature, by observation. What is sickness, after all, but just one of the phenomenons of all organic and inorganic matter—a regular sort of shindy in a man’s inside, like a thunderstorm, or a hurry-cane outside? Watch what’s coming, look out and see which way the mischief is brewin’, and make your preparations. That’s the great study of physic.”
The boy listened patiently and even attentively to this speech, and when Billy had concluded, he turned to the Corporal and said, “Look to him, Craggs, and let him have his supper, and when he has eaten it send him to my room.”
Billy bowed an acknowledgment, and followed the Corporal to the kitchen.
“That’s my lord’s son, I suppose,” said he, as he seated himself, “and a fine young crayture too—puer ingenuus, with a grand frontal development.” And with this reflection he addressed himself to the coarse but abundant fare which Craggs placed before him, and with an appetite that showed how much he relished it.
“This is elegant living ye have here, Mr. Craggs,” said Billy, as he drained his tankard of beer, and placed it with a sigh on the table; “many happy years of it to ye—I could n’t wish ye anything better.”
“The life is not so bad,” said Craggs, “but it’s lonely sometimes.”
“Life need never be lonely so long as a man has health and his faculties,” said Billy; “give me nature to admire, a bit of baycon for dinner, and my fiddle to amuse me, and I would n’t change with the King of Sugar ‘Candy.’”
“I was there,” said Craggs, “it’s a fine island.”
“My lord wants to see the doctor,” said a woman, entering hastily.
“And the doctor is ready for him,” said Billy, rising and leaving the kitchen with all the dignity he could assume.
CHAPTER III. BILLY TRAYNOR—POET, PEDLAR, AND PHYSICIAN
“Didn’t I tell you how it would be?” said Billy, as he re-entered the kitchen, now crowded by the workpeople, anxious for tidings of the sick man. “The head is re-leaved, the congestive symptoms is allayed, and when the artarial excitement subsides, he ‘ll be out of danger.”
“Musha, but I ‘m glad,” muttered one; “he ‘d be a great loss to us.”
“True for you, Patsey; there’s eight or nine of us here would miss him if he was gone.”
“Troth, he doesn’t give much employment, but we couldn’t spare him,” croaked out a third, when the entrance of the Corporal cut short further commentary; and the party gathered around the cheerful turf fire with that instinctive sense of comfort impressed by the swooping wind and rain that beat against the windows.
“It’s a dreadful night outside; I would n’t like to cross the lough in it,” said one.
“Then that’s just what I’m thinking of this minit,” said Billy. “I’ll have to be up at the office for the bags at six o’clock.”
“Faix, you ‘ll not see Leenane at six o’clock to-morrow.”
“Sorra taste of it,” muttered another; “there’s a sea runnin’ outside now that would swamp a life-boat.”
“I’ll not lose an illigant situation of six pounds ten a year, and a pair of shoes at Christmas, for want of a bit of courage,” said Billy; “I’d have my dismissal if I wasn’t there as sure as my name is Billy Traynor.”
“And better for you than lose your life, Billy,” said one.
“And it’s not alone myself I’d be thinking of,” said Billy; “but every man in this world, high and low, has his duties. My duty,” added he, somewhat pretentiously, “is to carry the King’s mail; and if anything was to obstruckt, or impade, or delay the correspondience, it’s on me the blame would lie.”
“The letters wouldn’t go the faster because you were drowned,” broke in the Corporal.
“No, sir,” said Billy, rather staggered by the grin of approval that met this remark—“no, sir, what you ob-sarve is true; but nobody reflects on the sintry that dies at his post.”
“If you must and will go, I’ll give you the yawl,” said Craggs; “and I ‘ll go with you myself.”
“Spoke like a British Grenadier,” cried Billy, with enthusiasm.
“Carbineer, if the same to you, master,” said the other, quietly; “I never served in the infantry.”
“Tros Tyriusve mihi,” cried Billy; “which is as much as to say,—
“‘To storm the skies, or lay siege to the moon,
Give me one of the line, or a heavy dragoon,’
it’s the same to me, as the poet says.”
And a low murmur of the company seemed to accord approval to the sentiment.
“I wish you ‘d give us a tune, Billy,” said one, coaxingly.
“Or a song would be better,” observed another.
“Faix,” cried a third, “‘tis himself could do it, and in Frinch or Latin if ye wanted it.”
“The Germans was the best I ever knew for music,” broke in Craggs. “I was brigaded with Arentschild’s Hanoverians in Spain; and they used to sit outside the tents every evening, and sing. By Jove! how they did sing—all together, like the swell of a church organ.”
“Yes, you’re right,” said Billy, but evidently yielding an unwilling assent to this doctrine. “The Germans has a fine national music, and they ‘re great for harmony. But harmony and melody is two different things.”
“And which is best, Billy?” asked one of the company.
“Musha, but I pity your ignorance,” said Billy, with a degree of confusion that raised a hearty laugh at his expense.
“Well, but where’s the song?” exclaimed another.
“Ay,” said Craggs, “we are forgetting the song. Now for it, Billy. Since all is going on so well above stairs, I’ll draw you a gallon of ale, boys, and we ‘ll drink to the master’s speedy recovery.”
It was a rare occasion when the Corporal suffered himself to expand in this fashion, and great was the applause at the unexpected munificence.
Billy at the same moment took out his fiddle and began that process of preparatory screwing and scraping which, no matter how distressing to the surrounders, seems to afford intense delight to performers on this instrument. In the present case, it is but fair to say, there was neither comment nor impatience; on the contrary, they seemed to accept these convulsive throes of sound as an earnest of the grand flood of melody that was coming. That Billy was occupied with other thoughts than those of tuning was, however, apparent, for his lips continued to move rapidly; and at moments he was seen to beat time with his foot, as though measuring out the rhythm of a verse.
“I have it now, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, making a low obeisance to the company; and so saying, he struck up a very popular tune, the same to which a reverend divine wrote his words of “The night before Larry was Stretched;” and in a voice of a deep and mellow fulness, managed with considerable taste, sang—
“‘A fig for the chansons of France,
Whose meaning is always a riddle;
The music to sing or to dance
Is an Irish tune played on the fiddle.
To your songs of the Rhine and the Rhone
I ‘m ready to cry out I am satis;
Just give us something of our own
In praise of our Land of Potatoes.
Tol lol de lol, etc.
“‘What care I for sorrows of those
Who speak of their heart as a cuore;
How expect me to feel for the woes
Of him who calls love an amore!
Let me have a few words about home,
With music whose strains I ‘d remember,
And I ‘ll give you all Florence and Rome,
Tho’ they have a blue sky in December.
Tol lol de lol, etc.
“‘With a pretty face close to your own,
I ‘m sore there’s no rayson for sighing;
Nor when walkin’ beside her alone,
Why the blazes be talking of dying!
That’s the way tho’, in France and in Spain,
Where love is not real, but acted,
You must always portend you ‘re insane,
Or at laste that you ‘re partly distracted.
Tol lol de lol, etc.’”
It is very unlikely that the reader will estimate Billy’s impromptu as did the company; in fact, it possessed the greatest of all claims to their admiration, for it was partly incomprehensible, and by the artful introduction of a word here and there, of which his hearers knew nothing, the poet was well aware that he was securing their heartiest approval. Nor was Billy insensible to such flatteries. The irritabile genus has its soft side, and can enjoy to the uttermost its own successes. It is possible, if Billy had been in another sphere, with much higher gifts, and surrounded by higher associates, that he might have accepted the homage tendered him with more graceful modesty, and seemed at least less confident of his own merits; but under no possible change of places or people could the praise have bestowed more sincere pleasure.
“You’re right, there, Jim Morris,” said he, turning suddenly round towards one of the company; “you never said a truer thing than that. The poetic temperament is riches to a poor man. Wherever I go—in all weathers, wet and dreary, and maybe footsore, with the bags full, and the mountain streams all flowin’ over—I can just go into my own mind, just the way you’d go into an inn, and order whatever you wanted. I don’t need to be a king, to sit on a throne; I don’t want ships, nor coaches, nor horses, to convay me to foreign lands. I can bestow kingdoms. When I haven’t tuppence to buy tobacco, and without a shoe to my foot, and my hair through my hat, I can be dancin’ wid princesses, and handin’ empresses in to tay.”
“Musha, musha!” muttered the surrounders, as though they were listening to a magician, who in a moment of unguarded familiarity condescended to discuss his own miraculous gifts.
“And,” resumed Billy, “it isn’t only what ye are to yourself and your own heart, but what ye are to others, that without that sacret bond between you, wouldn’t think of you at all. I remember, once on a time, I was in the north of England travelling, partly for pleasure, and partly with a view to a small speculation in Sheffield ware—cheap penknives and scissors, pencil-cases, bodkins, and the like—and I wandered about for weeks through what they call the Lake Country, a very handsome place, but nowise grand or sublime, like what we have here in Ireland—more wood, forest timber, and better-off people, but nothing beyond that!
“Well, one evening—it was in August—I came down by a narrow path to the side of a lake, where there was a stone seat, put up to see the view from, and in front was three wooden steps of stairs going down into the water, where a boat might come in. It was a lovely spot, and well chosen, for you could count as many as five promontories running out into the lake; and there was two islands, all wooded to the water’s edge; and behind all, in the distance, was a great mountain, with clouds on the top; and it was just the season when the trees is beginnin’ to change their colors, and there was shades of deep gold, and dark olive, and russet brown, all mingling together with the green, and glowing in the lake below under the setting sun, and all was quiet and still as midnight; and over the water the only ripple was the track of a water-hen, as she scudded past between the islands; and if ever there was peace and tranquillity in the world it was just there! Well, I put down my pack in the leaves, for I did n’t like to see or think of it, and I stretched myself down at the water’s edge, and I fell into a fit of musing. It’s often and often I tried to remember the elegant fancies that came through my head, and the beautiful things that I thought I saw that night out on the lake fornint me! Ye see I was fresh and fastin’; I never tasted a bit the whole day, and my brain, maybe, was all the better; for somehow janius, real janius, thrives best on a little starvation. And from musing I fell off asleep; and it was the sound of voices near that first awoke me! For a minute or two I believed I was dreaming, the words came so softly to my ear, for they were spoken in a low, gentle voice, and blended in with the slight splash of oars that moved through the water carefully, as though not to lose a word of him that was speakin’.
“It’s clean beyond me to tell you what he said; and, maybe, if I could, ye would n’t be able to follow it, for he was discoorsin’ about night and the moon, and all that various poets said about them; ye’d think that he had books, and was reading out of them, so glibly came the verses from his lips. I never listened to such a voice before, so soft, so sweet, so musical, and the words came droppin’ down, like the clear water filterin’ over a rocky ledge, and glitterin’ like little spangles over moss and wild-flowers.
“It wasn’t only in English but Scotch ballads, too, and once or twice in Italian that he recited, till at last he gave out, in all the fulness of his liquid voice, them elegant lines out of Pope’s Homer:—
“‘As when the moon, refulgent lamp of night,
O’er heaven’s clear azure spreads her sacred light,
When not a breath disturbs the deep serene,
And not a cloud o’ercasts the solemn scene,
Around her throne the vivid planets roll,
And stars unnumbered gild the glowing pole:
O’er the dark trees a yellower verdure shed,
And top with silver every mountain’s head;
Then shine the vales; the rocks in prospect rise—
A flood of glory bursts from all the skies;
The conscious swains, rejoicing in the sight,
Eye the blue vault and bless the useful light.’
“The Lord forgive me, but when he came to the last words and said, ‘useful light,’ I couldn’t restrain myself, but broke out, ‘That’s mighty like a bull, anyhow, and reminds me of the ould song,—
“‘Good luck to the moon, she’s a fine noble creature,
And gives us the daylight all night in the dark.’
“Before I knew where I was, the boat glided in to the steps, and a tall man, a little stooped in the shoulders, stood before me.
“‘Is it you,’ said he, with a quiet laugh, ‘that accuses Pope of a bull?’
“‘It is,’ says I; ‘and, what’s more, there isn’t a poet from Horace downwards that I won’t show bulls in; there’s bulls in Shakspeare and in Milton; there’s bulls in the ancients; I ‘ll point out a bull in Aristophanes.’
“‘What have we here?’ said he, turning to the others.
“‘A poor crayture,’ says I, ‘like Goldsmith’s chest of drawers,—
“‘With brains reduced a doable debt to pay, To dream by night, sell Sheffield ware by day.’
“Well, with that he took a fit of laughing, and handing the rest out of the boat, he made me come along at his side, discoorsin’ me about my thravels, and all I seen, and all I read, till we reached an elegant little cottage on a bank right over the lake; and then he brought me in and made me take tay with the family; and I spent the night there; and when I started the next morning there was n’t a ‘screed’ of my pack that they did n’t buy, penknives, and whistles, and nut-crackers, and all, just, as they said, for keepsakes. Good luck to them, and happy hearts, wherever they are, for they made mine happy that day; ay, and for many an hour afterwards, when I just think over their kind words and pleasant faces.”
More than one of the company had dropped off asleep during Billy’s narrative, and of the others, their complaisance as listeners appeared taxed to the utmost, while the Corporal snored loudly, like a man who had a right to indulge himself to the fullest extent.
“There’s the bell again,” muttered one, “that’s from the ‘lord’s room;’” and Craggs, starting up by the instinct of his office, hastened off to his master’s chamber.
“My lord says you are to remain here,” said he, as he re-entered a few minutes later; “he is satisfied with your skill, and I’m to send off a messenger to the post, to let them know he has detained you.”
“I ‘m obaydient,” said Billy, with a low bow; “and now for a brief repose!” And so saying, he drew a long woollen nightcap from his pocket, and putting it over his eyes, resigned himself to sleep with the practised air of one who needed but very little preparation to secure slumber.
CHAPTER IV. A VISITOR
The old Castle of Glencore contained but one spacious room, and this served all the purposes of drawing-room, dining-room, and library. It was a long and lofty chamber, with a raftered ceiling, from which a heavy chandelier hung by a massive chain of iron. Six windows, all in the same wall, deeply set and narrow, admitted a sparing light. In the opposite wall stood two fireplaces, large, massive, and monumental, the carved supporters of the richly-chased pediment being of colossal size, and the great shield of the house crowning the pyramid of strange and uncouth objects that were grouped below. The walls were partly occupied by bookshelves, partly covered by wainscot, and here and there displayed a worn-out portrait of some bygone warrior or dame, who little dreamed how much the color of their effigies should be indebted to the sad effects of damp and mildew. The furniture consisted of every imaginable type, from the carved oak and ebony console to the white and gold of Versailles taste, and the modern compromise of comfort with ugliness which chintz and soft cushions accomplish. Two great screens, thickly covered with prints and drawings, most of them political caricatures of some fifty years back, flanked each fireplace, making, as it were, in this case two different apartments.
At one of those, on a low sofa, sat, or rather lay, Lord Glencore, pale and wasted by long illness. His thin hand held a letter, to shade his eyes from the blazing wood-fire, and the other hand hung listlessly at his side. The expression of the sick man’s face was that of deep melancholy—not the mere gloom of recent suffering, but the deep-cut traces of a long-carried affliction, a sorrow which had eaten into his very heart, and made its home there.
At the second fireplace sat his son, and, though a mere boy, the lineaments of his father marked the youth’s face with a painful exactness. The same intensity was in the eyes, the same haughty character sat on the brow; and there was in the whole countenance the most extraordinary counterpart of the gloomy seriousness of the older face. He had been reading, but the fast-falling night obliged him to desist, and he sat now contemplating the bright embers of the wood fire in dreamy thought. Once or twice was he disturbed from his revery by the whispered voice of an old serving-man, asking for something with that submissive manner assumed by those who are continually exposed to the outbreaks of another’s temper; and at last the boy, who had hitherto scarcely deigned to notice the appeals to him, flung a bunch of keys contemptuously on the ground, with a muttered malediction on his tormentor.
“What’s that?” cried out the sick man, startled at the sound.
“‘Tis nothing, my lord, but the keys that fell out of my hand,” replied the old man, humbly. “Mr. Craggs is away to Leenane, and I was going to get out the wine for dinner.”
“Where’s Mr. Charles?” asked Lord Glencore.
“He’s there beyant,” muttered the other, in a low voice, while he pointed towards the distant fireplace; “but he looks tired and weary, and I did n’t like to disturb him.”
“Tired! weary!—with what? Where has he been; what has he been doing?” cried he, hastily. “Charles, Charles, I say!”
And slowly rising from his seat, and with an air of languid indifference, the boy came towards him.
Lord Glencore’s face darkened as he gazed on him.
“Where have you been?” asked he, sternly.
“Yonder,” said the boy, in an accent like the echo of his own.
“There’s Mr. Craggs, now, my lord,” said the old butler, as he looked out of the window, and eagerly seized the opportunity to interrupt the scene; “there he is, and a gentleman with him.”
“Ha! go and meet him, Charles,—it’s Harcourt. Go and receive him, show him his room, and then bring him here to me.”
The boy heard without a word, and left the room with the same slow step and the same look of apathy. Just as he reached the hall the stranger was entering it. He was a tall, well-built man, with the mingled ease and stiffness of a soldier in his bearing; his face was handsome, but somewhat stern, and his voice had that tone which implies the long habit of command.
“You’re a Massy, that I’ll swear to,” said he, frankly, as he shook the boy’s hand; “the family face in every lineament. And how is your father?”
“Better; he has had a severe illness.”
“So his letter told me. I was up the Rhine when I received it, and started at once for Ireland.”
“He has been very impatient for your coming,” said the boy; “he has talked of nothing else.”
“Ay, we are old friends. Glencore and I have been schoolfellows, chums at college, and messmates in the same regiment,” said he, with a slight touch of sorrow in his tone. “Will he be able to see me now? Is he confined to bed?”
“No, he will dine with you. I ‘m to show you your room, and then bring you to him.”
“That ‘s better news than I hoped for, boy. By the way, what’s your name?”
“Charles Conyngham.”
“To be sure, Charles; how could I have forgotten it! So, Charles, this is to be my quarters; and a glorious view there is from this window. What’s the mountain yonder?”
“Ben Creggan.”
“We must climb that summit some of these days, Charley. I hope you ‘re a good walker. You shall be my guide through this wild region here, for I have a passion for explorings.”
And he talked away rapidly, while he made a brief toilet, and refreshed himself from the fatigues of the road.
“Now, Charley, I am at your orders; let us descend to the drawing-room.”
“You ‘ll find my father there,” said the boy, as he stopped short at the door; and Harcourt, staring at him for a second or two in silence, turned the handle and entered.
Lord Glencore never turned his head as the other drew nigh, but sat with his forehead resting on the table, extending his hand only in welcome.
“My poor fellow!” said Harcourt, grasping the thin and wasted fingers,—“my poor fellow, how glad I am to be with you again!” And he seated himself at his side as he spoke. “You had a relapse after you wrote to me?”
Glencore slowly raised his head, and, pushing back a small velvet skull-cap that he wore, said,—
“You ‘d not have known me, George. Eh? see how gray I am! I saw myself in the glass to-day for the first time, and I really could n’t believe my eyes.”
“In another week the change will be just as great the other way. It was some kind of a fever, was it not?”
“I believe so,” said the other, sighing.
“And they bled you and blistered you, of course. These fellows are like the farriers—they have but the one system for everything. Who was your torturer; where did you get him from?”
“A practitioner of the neighborhood, the wild growth of the mountain,” said Glencore, with a sickly smile; “but I must n’t be ungrateful; he saved my life, if that be a cause for gratitude.”
“And a right good one, I take it. How like you that boy is, Glencore! I started back when he met me. It was just as if I was transported again to old school-days, and had seen yourself as you used to be long ago. Do you remember the long meadow, Glencore?”
“Harcourt,” said he, falteringly, “don’t talk to me of long ago,—at least not now;” and then, as if thinking aloud, added, “How strange that a man without a hope should like the future better than the past!”
“How old is Charley?” asked Harcourt, anxious to engage him on some other theme.
“He ‘ll be fifteen, I think, his next birthday; he seems older, does n’t he?”
“Yes, the boy is well grown and athletic. What has he been doing—have you had him at a school?”
“At a school!” said Glencore, starting; “no, he has lived always here with myself. I have been his tutor; I read with him every day, till that illness seized me.”
“He looks clever; is he so?”
“Like the rest of us, George, he may learn, but he can’t be taught. The old obstinacy of the race is strong in him, and to rouse him to rebel all you have to do is to give him a task; but his faculties are good, his apprehension quick, and his memory, if he would but tax it, excellent. Here ‘s Craggs come to tell us of dinner; give me your arm, George, we haven’t far to go—this one room serves us for everything.”
“You’re better lodged than I expected—your letters told me to look for a mere barrack; and the place stands so well.”
“Yes, the spot was well chosen, although I suppose its founders cared little enough about the picturesque.”
The dinner-table was spread behind one of the massive screens, and, under the careful direction of Craggs and old Simon, was well and amply supplied,—fish and game, the delicacies of other localities, being here in abundance. Har-court had a traveller’s appetite, and enjoyed himself thoroughly, while Glencore never touched a morsel, and the boy ate sparingly, watching the stranger with that intense curiosity which comes of living estranged from all society.
“Charley will treat you to a bottle of Burgundy, Har-court,” said Glencore, as they drew round the fire; “he keeps the cellar key.”
“Let us have two, Charley,” said Harcourt, as the boy arose to leave the room, “and take care that you carry them steadily.”
The boy stood for a second and looked at his father, as if interrogating, and then a sudden flush suffused his face as Glencore made a gesture with his hand for him to go.
“You don’t perceive how you touched him to the quick there, Harcourt? You talked to him as to how he should carry the wine; he thought that office menial and beneath him, and he looked at me to know what he should do.”
“What a fool you have made of the boy!” said Harcourt, bluntly. “By Jove! it was time I should come here!”
When the boy came back he was followed by the old butler, carefully carrying in a small wicker contrivance, Hibernicè called a cooper, three cobwebbed and well-crusted bottles.
“Now, Charley,” said Jarcourt, gayly, “if you want to see a man thoroughly happy, just step up to my room and fetch me a small leather sack you ‘ll find there of tobacco, and on the dressing-table you ‘ll see my meerschaum pipe; be cautious with it, for it belonged to no less a man than Poniatowski, the poor fellow who died at Leipsic.”
The lad stood again irresolute and confused, when a signal from his father motioned him away to acquit the errand.
“Thank you,” said Harcourt, as he re-entered; “you see I am not vain of my meerschaum without reason. The carving of that bull is a work of real art; and if you were a connoisseur in such matters, you ‘d say the color was perfect. Have you given up smoking, Glencore?—you used to be fond of a weed.”
“I care but little for it,” said Glencore, sighing.
“Take to it again, my dear fellow, if only that it is a bond ‘tween yourself and every one who whiffs his cloud. There are wonderfully few habits—I was going to say enjoyments, and I might say so, but I ‘ll call them habits—that consort so well with every condition and every circumstance of life, that become the prince and the peasant, suit the garden of the palace and the red watch-fire of the bivouac, relieve the weary hours of a calm at sea, or refresh the tired hunter in the prairies.”
“You must tell Charley some of your adventures in the West.—The Colonel has passed two years in the Rocky Mountains,” said Glencore to his son.
“Ay, Charley, I have knocked about the world as much as most men, and seen, too, my share of its wonders. If accidents by sea and land can interest you, if you care for stories of Indian life and the wild habits of a prairie hunter, I ‘m your man. Your father can tell you more of salons and the great world, of what may be termed the high game of life—”
“I have forgotten it, as much as if I had never seen it,” said Glencore, interrupting, and with a severity of voice that showed the theme displeased him. And now a pause ensued, painful perhaps to the others, but scarcely felt by Harcourt, as he smoked away peacefully, and seemed lost in the windings of his own fancies.
“Have you shooting here, Glencore?” asked he at length.
“There might be, if I were to preserve the game.”
“And you do not. Do you fish?”
“No; never.”
“You give yourself up to farming, then?”
“Not even that; the truth is, Harcourt, I literally do nothing. A few newspapers, a stray review or so, reach me in these solitudes, and keep me in a measure informed as to the course of events; but Charley and I con over our classics together, and scrawl sheets of paper with algebraic signs, and puzzle our heads over strange formulas, wonderfully indifferent to what the world is doing at the other side of this little estuary.”
“You of all men living to lead such a life as this! a fellow that never could cram occupation enough into his short twenty-four hours,” broke in Harcourt.
Glencore’s pale cheek flushed slightly, and an impatient movement of his fingers on the table showed how ill he relished any allusion to his own former life.
“Charley will show you to-morrow all the wonders of our erudition. Harcourt,” said he, changing the subject; “we have got to think ourselves very learned, and I hope you ‘ll be polite enough not to undeceive us.”
“You ‘ll have a merciful critic, Charley,” said the Colonel, laughing, “for more reasons than one. Had the question been how to track a wolf or wind an antelope, to outmanoeuvre a scout party or harpoon a calf-whale, I’d not yield to many; but if you throw me amongst Greek roots or double equations, I ‘m only Samson with his hair en crop!”
The solemn clock over the mantelpiece struck ten, and the boy arose as it ceased.
“That’s Charley’s bedtime,” said Glencore, “and we are determined to make no stranger of you, George. He ‘ll say good-night.”
And with a manner of mingled shyness and pride the boy held out his hand, which the soldier shook cordially, saying,—
“To-morrow, then, Charley, I count upon you for my day, and so that it be not to be passed in the library I ‘ll acquit myself creditably.”
“I like your boy, Glencore,” said he, as soon as they were alone. “Of course I have seen very little of him; and if I had seen more I should be but a sorry judge of what people would call his abilities. But he is a good stamp: ‘Gentleman’ is written on him in a hand that any can read; and, by Jove! let them talk as they will, but that’s half the battle of life!”
“He is a strange fellow; you’ll not understand him in a moment,” said Glencore, smiling half sadly to himself.
“Not understand him, Glencore? I read him like print, man. You think that his shy, bashful manner imposes upon me; not a bit of it; I see the fellow is as proud as Lucifer. All your solitude and estrangement from the world have n’t driven out of his head that he’s to be a Viscount one of these days; and somehow, wherever he has picked it up, he has got a very pretty notion of the importance and rank that same title confers.”
“Let us not speak of this now, Harcourt; I’m far too weak to enter upon what it would lead to. It is, however, the great reason for which I entreated you to come here. And to-morrow—at all events in a day or two—we can speak of it fully. And now I must leave you. You ‘ll have to rough it here, George; but as there is no man can do so with a better grace, I can spare my apologies; only, I beg, don’t let the place be worse than it need be. Give your orders; get what you can; and see if your tact and knowledge of life cannot remedy many a difficulty which our ignorance or apathy have served to perpetuate.”
“I ‘ll take the command of the garrison with pleasure,” said Harcourt, filling up his glass, and replenishing the fire. “And now a good night’s rest to you, for I half suspect I have already jeopardied some of it.”
The old campaigner sat till long past midnight. The generous wine, his pipe, the cheerful wood-fire, were all companionable enough, and well suited thoughts which took no high or heroic range, but were chiefly reveries of the past,—some sad, some pleasant, but all tinged with the one philosophy, which made him regard the world as a campaign, wherein he who grumbles or repines is but a sorry soldier, and unworthy of his cloth.
It was not till the last glass was drained that he arose to seek his bed, and presently humming some old air to himself, he slowly mounted the stairs to his chamber.
CHAPTER V. COLONEL HARCOUUT’S LETTER
As we desire throughout this tale to make the actors themselves, wherever it be possible, the narrators, using their words in preference to our own, we shall now place before the reader a letter written by Colonel Harcourt about a week after his arrival at Glencore, which will at least serve to rescue him and ourselves from the task of repetition.
It was addressed to Sir Horace Upton, Her Majesty’s Envoy at Stuttgard, one who had formerly served in the same regiment with Glencore and himself, but who left the army early to follow the career of diplomacy, wherein, still a young man, he had risen to the rank of a minister. It is not important, at this moment, to speak more particularly of his character, than that it was in almost every respect the opposite of his correspondent’s. Where the one was frank, open, and unguarded, the other was cold, cautious, and reserved; where one believed, the other doubted; where one was hopeful, the other had nothing but misgivings. Harcourt would have twenty times a day wounded the feelings, or jarred against the susceptibility, of his best friend; Upton could not be brought to trench upon the slightest prejudice of his greatest enemy. We might continue this contrast to every detail of their characters; but enough has now been said, and we proceed to the letter in question:
Glencore Castle. Dear Upton,—True to my promise to give you early tidings of our old friend, I sit down to pen a few lines, which if a rickety table and some infernal lampblack for ink should make illegible, you ‘ll have to wait for the elucidation till my arrival. I found Glencore terribly altered; I ‘d not have known him. He used to be muscular and rather full in habit; he is now a mere skeleton. His hair and mustache were coal black; they are a motley gray.
He was straight as an arrow—pretentiously erect, many thought; he is stooped now, and bent nearly double. His voice, too, the most clear and ringing in the squadron, is become a hoarse whisper. You remember what a passion he had for dress, and how heartily we all deplored the chance of his being colonel, well knowing what precious caprices of costly costume would be the consequence; well, a discharged corporal in a cast-off mufti is stylish compared to him. I don’t think he has a hat—I have only seen an oilskin cap; but his coat, his one coat, is a curiosity of industrious patchwork; and his trousers are a pair of our old overalls, the same pattern we wore at Hounslow when the King reviewed us.
Great as these changes are, they are nothing to the alteration in the poor fellow’s disposition. He that was generous to munificence is now an absolute miser, descending to the most pitiful economy and moaning over every trifling outlay. He is irritable, too, to a degree. Far from the jolly, light-hearted comrade, ready to join in the laugh against himself, and enjoy a jest of which he was the object, he suspects a slight in every allusion, and bristles up to resent a mere familiarity as though it were an insult.
Of course I put much of this down to the score of illness, and of bad health before he was so ill; but, depend upon it, he’s not the man we knew him. Heaven knows if he ever will be so again. The night I arrived here he was more natural, more like himself, in fact, than he has ever been since. His manner was heartier, and in his welcome there was a touch of the old jovial good fellow, who never was so happy as when sharing his quarters with a comrade. Since that he has grown punctilious, anxiously asking me if I am comfortable, and teasing me with apologies for what I don’t miss, and excuses about things that I should never have discovered wanting.
I think I see what is passing within him; he wants to be confidential, and he does n’t know how to go about it. I suppose he looks on me as rather a rough father to confess to; he is n’t quite sure what kind of sympathy, if any, he ‘ll meet with from me, and he more than half dreads a certain careless, outspoken way in which I have now and then addressed his boy, of whom more anon.
I may be right, or I may be wrong, in this conjecture; but certain it is, that nothing like confidential conversation has yet passed between us, and each day seems to render the prospect of such only less and less likely. I wish from my heart you were here; you are just the fellow to suit him,—just calculated to nourish the susceptibilities that I only shock. I said as much t’ other day, in a half-careless way, and he immediately caught it up, and said,
“Ay, George, Upton is a man one wants now and then in life, and when the moment comes, there is no such thing as a substitute for him.” In a joking manner, I then remarked, “Why not come over to see him?” “Leave this!” cried he; “venture in the world again; expose myself to its brutal insolence, or still more brutal pity!” In a torrent of passion, he went on in this strain, till I heartily regretted that I had ever touched this unlucky topic.
I date his greatest reserve from that same moment; and I am sure he is disposed to connect me with the casual suggestion to go over to Stuttgard, and deems me, in consequence, one utterly deficient in all true feeling and delicacy.
I need n’t tell you that my stay here is the reverse of a pleasure. I ‘m never what fine people call bored anywhere; and I could amuse myself gloriously in this queer spot. I have shot some half-dozen seals, hooked the heaviest salmon I ever saw rise to a fly, and have had rare coursing,—not to say that Glencore’s table, with certain reforms I have introduced, is very tolerable, and his cellar unimpeachable. I’ll back his chambertin against your Excellency’s, and I have discovered a bin of red hermitage that would convert a whole vineyard of the smallest Lafitte into Sneyd’s claret; but with all these seductions, I can’t stand the life of continued restraint I ‘m reduced to. Glencore evidently sent for me to make some revelations, which, now that he sees me, he cannot accomplish. For aught I know, there may be as many changes in me to his eyes as to mine there are in him. I only can vouch for it, that if I ride three stone heavier, I have n’t the worse place, and I don’t detect any striking falling off in my appreciation of good fare and good fellows.
I spoke of the boy; he is a fine lad,—somewhat haughty, perhaps; a little spoiled by the country people calling him the young lord; but a generous fellow, and very like Glencore when he first joined us at Canterbury. By way of educating him himself, Glencore has been driving Virgil and decimal fractions into him; and the boy, bred in the country,—never out of it for a day,—can’t load a gun or tie a hackle. Not the worst thing about the lad is his inordinate love for Glencore, whom he imagines to be about the greatest and most gifted being that ever lived. I can scarcely help smiling at the implicitness of this honest faith; but I take good care not to smile; on the contrary, I give every possible encouragement to the belief. I conclude the disenchantment will arrive only too early at last.
You ‘ll not know what to make of such a lengthy epistle from me, and you ‘ll doubtless torture that fine diplomatic intelligence of yours to detect the secret motive of my long-windedness; but the simple fact is, it has rained incessantly for the last three days, and promises the same cheering weather for as many more. Glencore doesn’t fancy that the boy’s lessons should be broken in upon, and hinc istæ litteræ,—that’s classical for you.
I wish I could say when I am likely to beat my retreat. I ‘d stay—not very willingly, perhaps, but still I ‘d stay—if I thought myself of any use; but I cannot persuade myself that I am such. Glencore is now about again, feeble of course, and much pulled down, but able to go about the house and the garden. I can contribute nothing to his recovery, and I fear as little to his comfort. I even doubt if he desires me to prolong my visit; but such is my fear of offending him, that I actually dread to allude to my departure, till I can sound my way as to how he ‘ll take it. This fact alone will show you how much he is changed from the Glencore of long ago. Another feature in him, totally unlike his former self, struck me the other evening. We were talking of old messmates—Croydon, Stanhope, Loftus, and yourself—and instead of dwelling, as he once would have done, exclusively on your traits of character and disposition, he discussed nothing but your abilities, and the capacity by which you could win your way to honors and distinction. I need n’t say how, in such a valuation, you came off best. Indeed, he professes the highest esteem for your talents, and says, “You’ll see Upton either a cabinet minister or ambassador at Paris yet;” and this he repeated in the same words last night, as if to show it was not dropped as a mere random observation.
I have some scruples about venturing to offer anything bordering on a suggestion to a great and wily diplomatist like yourself; but if an illustrious framer of treaties and protocols would condescend to take a hint from an old dragoon colonel, I ‘d say that a few lines from your crafty pen might possibly unlock this poor fellow’s heart, and lead him to unburthen to you what he evidently cannot persuade himself to reveal to me. I can see plainly enough that there is something on his mind; but I know it just as a stupid old hound feels there is a fox in the cover, but cannot for the life of him see how he’s to “draw” him.
A letter from you would do him good, at all events; even the little gossip of your gossiping career would cheer and amuse him. He said very plaintively, two nights ago, “They ‘ve all forgotten me. When a man retires from the world he begins to die, and the great event, after all, is only the coup de grace to a long agony of torture.” Do write to him, then; the address is “Glencore Castle, Leenane, Ireland,” where, I suppose, I shall be still a resident for another fortnight to come.
Glencore has just sent for me; but I must close this for the post, or it will be too late.
Yours ever truly,
George Harcourt.
I open this to say that he sent for me to ask your address,—whether through the Foreign Office, or direct to Stuttgard. You ‘ll probably not hear for some days, for he writes with extreme difficulty, and I leave it to your wise discretion to write to him or not in the interval.
Poor fellow, he looks very ill to-day. He says that he never slept the whole night, and that the laudanum he took to induce drowsiness only excited and maddened him. I counselled a hot jorum of mulled porter before getting into bed; but he deemed me a monster for the recommendation, and seemed quite disgusted besides. Could n’t you send him over a despatch? I think such a document from Stuttgard ought to be an unfailing soporific.
CHAPTER VI. QUEER COMPANIONSHIP
When Harcourt repaired to Glencore’s bedroom, where he still lay, wearied and feverish after a bad night, he was struck by the signs of suffering in the sick man’s face. The cheeks were bloodless and fallen iq, the lips pinched, and in the eyes there shone that unnatural brilliancy which results from an over-wrought and over-excited brain.
“Sit down here, George,” said he, pointing to a chair beside the bed; “I want to talk to you. I thought every day that I could muster courage for what I wish to say; but somehow, when the time arrived, I felt like a criminal who entreats for a few hours more of life, even though it be a life of misery.”
“It strikes me that you were never less equal to the effort than now,” said Harcourt, laying his hand on the other’s pulse.
“Don’t believe my pulse, George,” said Glencore, smiling faintly. “The machine may work badly, but it has wonderful holding out. I ‘ve gone through enough,” added he, gloomily, “to kill most men, and here I am still, breathing and suffering.”
“This place doesn’t suit you, Glencore. There are not above two days in the month you can venture to take the air.”
“And where would you have me go, sir?” he broke in, fiercely. “Would you advise Paris and the Boulevards, or a palace in the Piazza di Spagna at Rome; or perhaps the Chiaja at Naples would be public enough? Is it that I may parade disgrace and infamy through Europe that I should leave this solitude?”
“I want to see you in a better climate, Glencore,—in a place where the sun shines occasionally.”
“This suits me,” said the other, bluntly; “and here I have the security that none can invade,—none molest me. But it is not of myself I wish to speak,—it is of my boy.”
Harcourt made no reply, but sat patiently to listen to what was coming.
“It is time to think of him,” added Glencore, slowly. “The other day,—it seems but the other day,—and he was a mere child; a few years more,—to seem when past like a long dreary night,—and he will be a man.”
“Very true,” said Harcourt; “and Charley is one of those fellows who only make one plunge from the boy into all the responsibilities of manhood. Throw him into a college at Oxford, or the mess of a regiment to-morrow, and this day week you’ll not know him from the rest.”
Glencore was silent; if he had heard, he never noticed Harcourt’s remark.
“Has he ever spoken to you about himself, Harcourt?” asked he, after a pause.
“Never, except when I led the subject in that direction; and even then reluctantly, as though it were a topic he would avoid.”
“Have you discovered any strong inclination in him for a particular kind of life, or any career in preference to another?”
“None; and if I were only to credit what I see of him, I ‘d say that this dull monotony and this dreary uneventful existence is what he likes best of all the world.”
“You really think so?” cried Glencore, with an eagerness that seemed out of proportion to the remark.
“So far as I see,” rejoined Harcourt, guardedly, and not wishing to let his observation carry graver consequences than he might suspect.
“So that you deem him capable of passing a life of a quiet, unambitious tenor,—neither seeking for distinctions nor fretting after honors?”
“How should he know of their existence, Glencore? What has the boy ever heard of life and its struggles? It’s not in Homer or Sallust he ‘d learn the strife of parties and public men.”
“And why need he ever know them?” broke in Glencore, fiercely.
“If he doesn’t know them now, he’s sure to be taught them hereafter. A young fellow who will succeed to a title and a good fortune—”
“Stop, Harcourt!” cried Glencore, passionately. “Has anything of this kind ever escaped you in intercourse with the boy?”
“Not a word—not a syllable.”
“Has he himself ever, by a hint, or by a chance word, implied that he was aware of—”
Glencore faltered and hesitated, for the word he sought for did not present itself. Harcourt, however, released him from all embarrassment by saying,—
“With me the boy is rarely anything but a listener; he hears me talk away of tiger-shooting and buffalo-hunting, scarcely ever interrupting me with a question. But I can see in his manner with the country people, when they salute him, and call him ‘my lord’—”
“But he is not ‘my lord,’” broke in Glencore.
“Of course he is not; that I am well aware of.”
“He never will—never shall be,” cried Glencore, in a voice to which a long pent-up passion imparted a terrible energy.
“How!—what do you mean, Glencore?” said Harcourt, eagerly. “Has he any malady; is there any deadly taint?”
“That there is, by Heaven!” cried the sick man, grasping the curtain with one hand, while he held the other firmly clenched upon his forehead,—“a taint, the deadliest that can stain a human heart! Talk of station, rank, title—what are they, if they are to be coupled with shame, ignominy, and sorrow? The loud voice of the herald calls his father Sixth Viscount of Glencore, but a still louder voice proclaims his mother a—”
With a wild burst of hysteric laughter, he threw himself, face downwards, on the bed; and now scream after scream burst from him, till the room was filled by the servants, in the midst of whom appeared Billy, who had only that same day returned from Leenane, whither he had gone to make a formal resignation of his functions as letter-carrier.
“This is nothing but an accessio nervosa,” said Billy; “clear the room, ladies and gentlemen, and lave me with the patient.” And Harcourt gave the signal for obedience by first taking his departure.
Lord Glencore’s attack was more serious than at first it was apprehended, and for three days there was every threat of a relapse of his late fever; but Billy’s skill was once more successful, and on the fourth day he declared that the danger was past. During this period, Harcourt’s attention was for the first time drawn to the strange creature who officiated as the doctor, and who, in despite of all the detracting influences of his humble garb and mean attire, aspired to be treated with the deference due to a great physician.
“If it’s the crown and the sceptre makes the king,” said he, “‘tis the same with the science that makes the doctor; and no man can be despised when he has a rag of ould Galen’s mantle to cover his shoulders.”
“So you’re going to take blood from him?” asked Harcourt, as he met him on the stairs, where he had awaited his coming one night when it was late.
“No, sir; ‘tis more a disturbance of the great nervous centres than any derangement of the heart and arteries,” said Billy, pompously; “that’s what shows a real doctor,—to distinguish between the effects of excitement and inflammation, which is as different as fireworks is from a bombardment.”
“Not a bad simile, Master Billy; come in and drink a glass of brandy-and-water with me,” said Harcourt, right glad at the prospect of such companionship.
Billy Traynor, too, was flattered by the invitation, and seated himself at the fire with an air at once proud and submissive.
“You’ve a difficult patient to treat there,” said Harcourt, when he had furnished his companion with a pipe, and twice filled his glass; “he’s hard to manage, I take it?”
“Yer’ right,” said Billy; “every touch is a blow, every breath of air is a hurricane with him. There ‘s no such thing as traitin’ a man of that timperament; it’s the same with many of them ould families as with our racehorses,—they breed them too fine.”
“Egad! I think you are right,” said Harcourt, pleased with an illustration that suited his own modes of thinking.
“Yes, sir,” said Billy, gaining confidence by the approval; “a man is a ma-chine, and all the parts ought to be balanced, and, as the ancients say, in equilibrio. If preponderance here or there, whether it be brain or spinal marrow, cardiac functions or digestive ones, you disthroy him, and make that dangerous kind of constitution that, like a horse with a hard mouth, or a boat with a weather helm, always runs to one side.”
“That’s well put, well explained,” said Harcourt, who really thought the illustration appropriate.
“Now, my lord there,” continued Billy, “is all out of balance, every bit of him. Bleed him, and he sinks; stimulate him, and he goes ragin’ mad. ‘T is their physical conformation makes their character; and to know how to cure them in sickness, one ought to have some knowledge of them in health.”
“How came you to know all this? You are a very remarkable fellow, Billy.”
“I am, sir; I’m a phenumenon in a small way. And many people thinks, when they see and convarse with me, what a pity it is I hav’ n’t the advantages of edication and instruction; and that’s just where they ‘re wrong,—complately wrong.”
“Well, I confess I don’t perceive that.”
“I’ll show you, then. There’s a kind of janius natural to men like myself,—in Ireland I mean, for I never heerd of it elsewhere,—that’s just like our Irish emerald or Irish diamond,—wonderful if one considers where you find it, astonishin’ if you only think how azy it is to get, but a regular disappointment, a downright take-in, if you intend to have it cut and polished and set. No, sir; with all the care and culture in life, you ‘ll never make a precious stone of it!”
“You’ve not taken the right way to convince me, by using such an illustration, Billy.”
“I ‘ll try another, then,” said Billy. “We are like Willy-the-Whisps, showing plenty of light where there’s no road to travel, but of no manner of use on the highway, or in the dark streets of a village where one has business.”
“Your own services here are the refutation to your argument, Billy,” said Harcourt, filling his glass.
“‘Tis your kindness to say so, sir,” said Billy, with gratified pride; “but the sacrat was, he thrusted me,—that was the whole of it. All the miracles of physic is confidence, just as all the magic of eloquence is conviction.”
“You have reflected profoundly, I see,” said Harcourt.
“I made a great many observations at one time of my life,—the opportunity was favorable.”
“When and how was that?”
“I travelled with a baste caravan for two years, sir; and there’s nothing taches one to know mankind like the study of bastes!”
“Not complimentary to humanity, certainly,” said Harcourt, laughing.
“Yes, but it is, though; for it is by a consideration of the fero naturo that you get at the raal nature of mere animal existence. You see there man in the rough, as a body might say, just as he was turned out of the first workshop, and before he was infiltrated with the divinus afflatus, the ethereal essence, that makes him the first of creation. There ‘s all the qualities, good and bad,—love, hate, vengeance, gratitude, grief, joy, ay, and mirth,—there they are in the brutes; but they ‘re in no subjection, except by fear. Now, it’s out of man’s motives his character is moulded, and fear is only one amongst them. D’ ye apprehend me?”
“Perfectly; fill your pipe.” And he pushed the tobacco towards him.
“I will; and I ‘ll drink the memory of the great and good man that first intro-duced the weed amongst us—Here’s Sir Walter Raleigh! By the same token, I was in his house last week.”
“In his house! where?”
“Down at Greyhall. You Englishmen, savin’ your presence, always forget that many of your celebrities lived years in Ireland; for it was the same long ago as now,—a place of decent banishment for men of janius, a kind of straw-yard where ye turned out your intellectual hunters till the sayson came on at home.”
“I ‘m sorry to see, Billy, that, with all your enlightenment, you have the vulgar prejudice against the Saxon.”
“And that’s the rayson I have it, because it is vulgar,” said Billy, eagerly. “Vulgar means popular, common to many; and what’s the best test of truth in anything but universal belief, or whatever comes nearest to it? I wish I was in Parliament—I just wish I was there the first night one of the nobs calls out ‘That ‘s vulgar;’ and I ‘d just say to him, ‘Is there anything as vulgar as men and women? Show me one good thing in life that is n’t vulgar! Show me an object a painter copies, or a poet describes, that is n’t so!’ Ayeh,” cried he, impatiently, “when they wanted a hard word to fling at us, why didn’t they take the right one?”
“But you are unjust, Billy; the ungenerous tone you speak of is fast disappearing. Gentlemen nowadays use no disparaging epithets to men poorer or less happily circumstanced than themselves.”
“Faix,” said Billy, “it isn’t sitting here at the same table with yourself that I ought to gainsay that remark.”
And Harcourt was so struck by the air of good breeding in which he spoke, that he grasped his hand, and shook it warmly.
“And what is more,” continued Billy, “from this day out I ‘ll never think so.”
He drank off his glass as he spoke, giving to the libation all the ceremony of a solemn vow.
“D’ ye hear that?—them’s oars; there’s a boat coming in.”
“You have sharp hearing, master,” said Harcourt, laughing.
“I got the gift when I was a smuggler,” replied he. “I could put my ear to the ground of a still night, and tell you the tramp of a revenue boot as well as if I seen it. And now I’ll lay sixpence it’s Pat Morissy is at the bow oar there; he rows with a short jerking stroke there ‘s no timing. That’s himself, and it must be something urgent from the post-office that brings him over the lough to-night.”
The words were scarcely spoken when Craggs entered with a letter in his hand.
“This is for you, Colonel,” said he; “it was marked ‘immediate,’ and the post-mistress despatched it by an express.”
The letter was a very brief one; but, in honor to the writer, we shall give it a chapter to itself.
CHAPTER VII. A GREAT DIPLOMATIST
My dear Harcourt,—I arrived here yesterday, and by good fortune caught your letter at F. O., where it was awaiting the departure of the messenger for Germany.
Your account of poor Glencore is most distressing. At the same time, my knowledge of the man and his temper in a measure prepared me for it. You say that he wishes to see me, and intends to write. Now, there is a small business matter between us, which his lawyer seems much disposed to push on to a difficulty, if not to worse. To prevent this, if possible,—at all events to see whether a visit from me might not be serviceable,—I shall cross over to Ireland on Tuesday, and be with you by Friday, or at latest Saturday. Tell him that I am coming, but only for a day. My engagements are such that I must be here again early in the following week. On Thursday I go down to Windsor.
There is wonderfully little stirring here, but I keep that little for our meeting. You are aware, my dear friend, what a poor, shattered, broken-down fellow I am; so that I need not ask you to give me a comfortable quarter for my one night, and some shell-fish, if easily procurable, for my one dinner.
Yours, ever and faithfully,
H. U.
We have already told our reader that the note was a brief one, and yet was it not altogether uncharacteristic. Sir Horace Upton—it will spare us both some repetition if we present him at once—was one of a very composite order of human architecture; a kind of being, in fact, of which many would deny the existence, till they met and knew them, so full of contradictions, real and apparent, was his nature. Chivalrous in sentiment and cunning in action, noble in aspiration and utterly sceptical as regards motives, one half of his temperament was the antidote to the other. Fastidious to a painful extent in matters of taste, he was simplicity itself in all the requirements of his life; and with all a courtier’s love of great people, not only tolerating, but actually preferring the society of men beneath him. In person he was tall, and with that air of distinction in his manner that belongs only to those who unite natural graces with long habits of high society. His features were finely formed, and would have been strikingly handsome, were the expression not spoiled by a look of astuteness,—a something that implied a tendency to overreach,—which marred their repose and injured their uniformity. Not that his manner ever betrayed this weakness; far from it,—his was a most polished courtesy. It was impossible to conceive an address more bland or more conciliating. His very gestures, his voice, languid by a slight habit of indisposition, seemed as though exerted above their strength in the desire to please, and making the object of his attentions to feel himself the mark of peculiar honor. There ran through all his nature, through everything he did or said or thought, a certain haughty humility, which served, while it assigned an humble place to himself, to mark out one still more humble for those about him. There were not many things he could not do; indeed, he had actually done most of those which win honor and distinction in life. He had achieved a very gallant but brief military career in India, made a most brilliant opening in Parliament, where his abilities at once marked him out for office, was suspected to be the writer of the cleverest political satire, and more than suspected to be the author of “the novel” of the day. With all this, he had great social success. He was deep enough for a ministerial dinner, and “fast” enough for a party of young Guardsmen at Greenwich. With women, too, he was especially a favorite; there was a Machiavelian subtlety which he could throw into small things, a mode of making the veriest trifles little Chinese puzzles of ingenuity, that flattered and amused them. In a word, he had great adaptiveness, and it was a quality he indulged less for the gratification of others than for the pleasure it afforded himself.
He had mixed largely in society, not only of his own, but of every country of Europe. He knew every chord of that complex instrument which people call the world, like a master; and although a certain jaded and wearied look, a tone of exhaustion and fatigue, seemed to say that he was tired of it all, that he had found it barren and worthless, the real truth was, he enjoyed life to the full as much as on the first day in which he entered it; and for this simple reason,—that he had started with an humble opinion of mankind, their hopes, fears, and ambitions, and so he continued, not disappointed, to the end.
The most governing notion of his own life was an impression that he had a disease of the chest, some subtle and mysterious affection which had defied the doctors, and would go on to defy them to the last. He had been dangerously wounded in the Burmese war, and attributed the origin of his malady to this cause. Others there were who said that the want of recognition to his services in that campaign was the direst of all the injuries he had received. And true it was, a most brilliant career had met with neither honors nor advancement, and Upton left the service in disgust, carrying away with him only the lingering sufferings of his wound. To suggest to him that his malady had any affinity to any known affection was to outrage him, since the mere supposition would reduce him to a species of equality with some one else,—a thought infinitely worse than any mere physical suffering; and, indeed, to avoid this shocking possibility, he vacillated as to the locality of his disorder, making it now in the lung, now in the heart, at one time in the bronchial tubes, at another in the valves of the aorta. It was his pleasure to consult for this complaint every great physician of Europe, and not alone consult, but commit himself to their direction, and this with a credulity which he could scarcely have summoned in any other cause.
It was difficult to say how far he himself believed in this disorder,—the pressure of any momentous event, the necessity of action, never finding him unequal to any effort, no matter how onerous. Give him a difficulty,—a minister to outwit, a secret scheme to unravel, a false move to profit by,—and he rose above all his pulmonary symptoms, and could exert himself with a degree of power and perseverance that very few men could equal, none surpass. Indeed it seemed as though he kept this malady for the pastime of idle hours, as other men do a novel or a newspaper, but would never permit it to interfere with the graver business of life.
We have, perhaps, been prolix in our description; but we have felt it the more requisite to be thus diffuse, since the studious simplicity which marked all his manner might have deceived our reader, and which the impression of his mere words have failed to convey.
“You will be glad to hear Upton is in England, Glen-core,” said Harcourt, as the sick man was assisted to his seat in the library, “and, what is more, intends to pay you a visit.”
“Upton coming here!” exclaimed Glencore, with an expression of mingled astonishment and confusion; “how do you know that?”
“He writes me from Long’s to say that he ‘ll be with us by Friday, or, if not, by Saturday.”
“What a miserable place to receive him!” exclaimed Glencore. “As for you, Harcourt, you know how to rough it, and have bivouacked too often under the stars to care much for satin curtains. But think of Upton here! How is he to eat, where is he to sleep?”
“By Jove! we ‘ll treat him handsomely. Don’t you fret yourself about his comforts; besides, I ‘ve seen a great deal of Upton, and, with all his fastidiousness and refinement, he’s a thorough good fellow at taking things for the best. Invite him to Chatsworth, and the chances are he’ll find fault with twenty things,—with the place, the cookery, and the servants; but take him down to the Highlands, lodge him in a shieling, with bannocks for breakfast and a Fyne herring for supper, and I ‘ll wager my life you ‘ll not see a ruffle in his temper, nor hear a word of impatience out of his mouth.”
“I know that he is a well-bred gentleman,” said Glencore, half pettishly; “but I have no fancy for putting his good manners to a severe test, particularly at the cost of my own feelings.”
“I tell you again he shall be admirably treated; he shall have my room; and, as for his dinner, Master Billy and I are going to make a raid amongst the lobster-pots. And what with turbot, oysters, grouse-pie, and mountain mutton, I ‘ll make the diplomatist sorrow that he is not accredited to some native sovereign in the Arran islands, instead of some ‘mere German Hertzog.’ He can only stay one day.”
“One day!”
“That’s all; he is over head and ears in business, and he goes down to Windsor on Thursday, so that there is no help for it.”
“I wish I may be strong enough; I hope to Heaven that I may rally—” Glencore stopped suddenly as he got thus far, but the agitation the words cost him seemed most painful.
“I say again, don’t distress yourself about Upton,—leave the care of entertaining him to me. I ‘ll vouch for it that he leaves us well satisfied with his welcome.”
“It was not of that I was thinking,” said he, impatiently; “I have much to say to him,—things of great importance. It may be that I shall be unequal to the effort; I cannot answer for my strength for a day,—not for an hour. Could you not write to him, and ask him to defer his coming till such time as he can spare me a week, or at least some days?”
“My dear Glencore, you know the man well, and that we are lucky if we can have him on his own terms, not to think of imposing ours; he is sure to have a number of engagements while he is in England.”
“Well, be it so,” said Glencore, sighing, with the air of a man resigning himself to an inevitable necessity.
CHAPTER VIII. THE GREAT MAN’S ARRIVAL.
“Not come, Craggs!” said Harcourt, as late on the Saturday evening the Corporal stepped on shore, after crossing the lough.
“No, sir, no sign of him. I sent a boy away to the top of ‘the Devil’s Mother,’ where you have a view of the road for eight miles, but there was nothing to be seen.”
“You left orders at the post-office to have a boat in readiness if he arrived?”
“Yes, Colonel,” said he, with a military salute; and Harcourt now turned moodily towards the Castle.
Glencore had scarcely ever been a very cheery residence, but latterly it had become far gloomier than before. Since the night of Lord Glencore’s sudden illness, there had grown up a degree of constraint between the two friends which to a man of Harcourt’s disposition was positive torture. They seldom met, save at dinner, and then their reserve was painfully evident.
The boy, too, in unconscious imitation of his father, grew more and more distant; and poor Harcourt saw himself in that position, of all others the most intolerable,—the unwilling guest of an unwilling host.
“Come or not come,” muttered he to himself, “I ‘ll bear this no longer. There is, besides, no reason why I should bear it. I ‘m of no use to the poor fellow; he does not want, he never sees me. If anything, my presence is irksome to him; so that, happen what will, I ‘ll start to-morrow, or next day at farthest.”
He was one of those men to whom deliberation on any subject was no small labor, but who, once that they have come to a decision, feel as if they had acquitted a debt, and need give themselves no further trouble in the matter. In the enjoyment of this newly purchased immunity he entered the room where Glencore sat impatiently awaiting him.
“Another disappointment!” said the Viscount, anxiously.
“Yes; Craggs has just returned, and says there’s no sign of a carriage for miles on the Oughterard road.”
“I ought to have known it,” said the other, in a voice of guttural sternness. “He was ever the same; an appointment with him was an engagement meant only to be binding on those who expected him.”
“Who can say what may have detained him? He was in London on business,—public business, too; and even if he had left town, how many chance delays there are in travelling.”
“I have said every one of these things over to myself, Harcourt; but they don’t satisfy me. This is a habit with Upton. I ‘ve seen him do the same with his Colonel, when he was a subaltern; I ‘ve heard of his arrival late to a Court dinner, and only smiling at the dismay of the horrified courtiers.”
“Egad,” said Harcourt, bluntly, “I don’t see the advantage of the practice. One is so certain of doing fifty things in this daily life to annoy one’s friends, through mere inadvertence or forgetfulness, that I think it is but sorry fun to incur their ill-will by malice prepense.”
“That is precisely why he does it.”
“Come, come, Glencore; old Rixson was right when he said, ‘Heaven help the man whose merits are canvassed while they wait dinner for him.’ I ‘ll order up the soup, for if we wait any longer we ‘ll discover Upton to be the most graceless vagabond that ever walked.”
“I know his qualities, good and bad,” said Glencore, rising, and pacing the room with slow, uncertain steps; “few men know him better. None need tell me of his abilities; none need instruct me as to his faults. What others do by accident, he does by design. He started in life by examining how much the world would bear from him; he has gone on, profiting by the experience, and improving on the practice.”
“Well, if I don’t mistake me much, he ‘ll soon appear to plead his own cause. I hear oars coming speedily in this direction.”
And so saying, Harcourt hurried away to resolve his doubts at once. As he reached the little jetty, over which a large signal-fire threw a strong red light, he perceived that he was correct, and was just in time to grasp Upton’s hand as he stepped on shore.
“How picturesque all this, Harcourt,” said he, in his soft, low voice; “a leaf out of ‘Rob Roy.’ Well, am I not the mirror of punctuality, eh?”
“We looked for you yesterday, and Glencore has been so impatient.”
“Of course he has; it is the vice of your men who do nothing. How is he? Does he dine with us? Fritz, take care those leather pillows are properly aired, and see that my bath is ready by ten o ‘clock. Give me your arm, Harcourt; what a blessing it is to be such a strong fellow!”
“So it is, by Jove! I am always thankful for it. And you—how do you get on? You look well.”
“Do I?” said he, faintly, and pushing back his hair with an almost fine-ladylike affectation. “I ‘m glad you say so. It always rallies me a little to hear I ‘m better. You had my letter about the fish?”
“Ay, and I’ll give you such a treat.”
“No, no, my dear Harcourt; a fried mackerel, or a whiting and a few crumbs of bread,—nothing more.”
“If you insist, it shall be so; but I promise you I’ll not be of your mess, that’s all. This is a glorious spot for turbot—and such oysters!”
“Oysters are forbidden me, and don’t let me have the torture of temptation. What a charming place this seems to be!—very wild, very rugged.”
“Wild—rugged! I should think it is,” muttered Harcourt.
“This pathway, though, does not bespeak much care. I wish our friend yonder would hold his lantern a little lower. How I envy you the kind of life you lead here,—so tranquil, so removed from all bores! By the way, you get the newspapers tolerably regularly?”
“Yes, every day.”
“That’s all right. If there be a luxury left to any man after the age of forty, it is to be let alone. It’s the best thing I know of. What a terrible bit of road! They might have made a pathway.”
“Come, don’t grow faint-hearted. Here we are; this is Glencore.”
“Wait a moment. Just let him raise that lantern. Really this is very striking—a very striking scene altogether. The doorway excellent, and that little watch-tower, with its lone-star light, a perfect picture.”
“You ‘ll have time enough to admire all this; and we are keeping poor Glencore waiting,” said Harcourt, impatiently.
“Very true; so we are.”
“Glencore’s son, Upton,” said Harcourt, presenting the boy, who stood, half pride, half bashfulness, in the porch.
“My dear boy, you see one of your father’s oldest friends in the world,” said Upton, throwing one arm on the boy’s shoulder, apparently caressing, but as much to aid himself in ascending the stair. “I’m charmed with your old Schloss here, my dear,” said he, as they moved along. “Modern architects cannot attain the massive simplicity of these structures. They have a kind of confectionery style with false ornament, and inappropriate decoration, that bears about the same relation to the original that a suit of Drury Lane tinfoil does to a coat of Milanese mail armor. This gallery is in excellent taste.”
And as he spoke, the door in front of him opened, and the pale, sorrow-struck, and sickly figure of Glencore stood before him. Upton, with all his self-command, could scarcely repress an exclamation at the sight of one whom he had seen last in all the pride of youth and great personal powers; while Glencore, with the instinctive acuteness of his morbid temperament, as quickly saw the impression he had produced, and said, with a deep sigh,—
“Ay, Horace, a sad wreck.”
“Not so, my dear fellow,” said the other, taking the thin, cold hand within both his own; “as seaworthy as ever, after a little dry-docking and refitting. It is only a craft like that yonder,” and he pointed to Harcourt, “that can keep the sea in all weathers, and never care for the carpenter. You and I are of another build.”
“And you—how are you?” asked Glencore, relieved to turn attention away from himself, while he drew his arm within the other’s.
“The same poor ailing mortal you always knew me,” said Upton, languidly; “doomed to a life of uncongenial labor, condemned to climates totally unstated to me, I drag along existence, only astonished at the trouble I take to live, knowing pretty well as I do what life is worth.”
“‘Jolly companions every one!’ By Jove!” said Har-court, “for a pair of fellows who were born on the sunny side of the road, I must say you are marvellous instances of gratitude.”
“That excellent hippopotamus,” said Upton, “has no-thought for any calamity if it does not derange his digestion! How glad I am to see the soup! Now, Glencore, you shall witness no invalid’s appetite.”
As the dinner proceeded, the tone of the conversation grew gradually lighter and pleasanter. Upton had only to permit his powers to take their free course to be agreeable, and now talked away on whatever came uppermost, with a charming union of reflectiveness and repartee. If a very rigid purist might take occasional Gallicisms in expression, and a constant leaning to French modes of thought, none could fail to be delighted with the graceful ease with which he wandered from theme to theme, adorning each with some trait of that originality which was his chief characteristic. Harcourt was pleased without well knowing how or why, while to Glencore it brought back the memory of the days of happy intercourse with the world, and all the brilliant hours of that polished circle in which he had lived. To the pleasure, then, which his powers conferred, there succeeded an impression of deep melancholy, so deep as to attract the notice of Harcourt, who hastily asked,—
“If he felt ill?”
“Not worse,” said he, faintly, “but weak—weary; and I know Upton will forgive me if I say good-night.”
“What a wreck indeed!” exclaimed Upton, as Glencore left the room with his son. “I’d not have known him.”
“And yet until the last half-hour I have not seen him so well for weeks past. I ‘m afraid something you said about Alicia Villars affected him,” said Harcourt.
“My dear Harcourt, how young you are in all these things,” said Upton, as he lighted his cigarette. “A poor heart-stricken fellow, like Glencore, no more cares for what you would think a painful allusion, than an old weather-beaten sailor would for a breezy morning on the Downs at Brighton. His own sorrows lie too deeply moored to be disturbed by the light winds that ruffle the surface. And to think that all this is a woman’s doing! Is n’t that what’s passing in your mind, eh, most gallant Colonel?”
“By Jove, and so it was! They were the very words I was on the point of uttering,” said Harcourt, half nettled at the ease with which the other read him.
“And of course you understand the source of the sorrow?”
“I’m not quite so sure of that,” said Harcourt, more and more piqued at the tone of bantering superiority with which the other spoke.
“Yes, you do, Harcourt; I know you better than you know yourself. Your thoughts were these: Here’s a fellow with a title, a good name, good looks, and a fine fortune, going out of the world of a broken heart, and all for a woman!”
“You knew her,” said Harcourt, anxious to divert the discussion from himself.
“Intimately. Ninetta della Torre was the belle of Florence—what am I saying? of all Italy—when Glencore met her, about eighteen years ago. The Palazzo della Torre was the best house in Florence. The old Prince, her grandfather,—her father was killed in the Russian campaign,—was spending the last remnant of an immense fortune in every species of extravagance. Entertainments that surpassed those of the Pitti Palace in splendor, fêtes that cost fabulous sums, banquets voluptuous as those of ancient Rome, were things of weekly occurrence. Of course every foreigner, with any pretension to distinction, sought to be presented there, and we English happened just at that moment to stand tolerably high in Italian estimation. I am speaking of some eighteen or twenty years back, before we sent out that swarm of domestic economists who, under the somewhat erroneous notion of foreign cheapness, by a system of incessant higgle and bargain, cutting down every one’s demand to the measure of their own pockets, end by making the word ‘Englishman’ a synonym for all that is mean, shabby, and contemptible. The English of that day were of another class; and assuredly their characteristics, as regards munificence and high dealing, must have been strongly impressed upon the minds of foreigners, seeing how their successors, very different people, have contrived to trade upon the mere memory of these qualities ever since.”
“Which all means that ‘my lord’ stood cheating better than those who came after him,” said Harcourt, bluntly.
“He did so; and precisely for that very reason he conveyed the notion of a people who do not place money in the first rank of all their speculations, and who aspire to no luxury that they have not a just right to enjoy. But to come back to Glencore. He soon became a favored guest at the Palazzo della Torre. His rank, name, and station, combined with very remarkable personal qualities, obtained for him a high place in the old Prince’s favor, and Ninetta deigned to accord him a little more notice than she bestowed on any one else. I have, in the course of my career, had occasion to obtain a near view of royal personages and their habits, and I can say with certainty that never in any station, no matter how exalted, have I seen as haughty a spirit as in that girl. To the pride of her birth, rank, and splendid mode of life were added the consciousness of her surpassing beauty, and the graceful charm of a manner quite unequalled. She was incomparably superior to all around her, and, strangely enough, she did not offend by the bold assertion of this superiority. It seemed her due, and no more. Nor was it the assumption of mere flattered beauty. Her house was the resort of persons of the very highest station, and in the midst of them—some even of royal blood—she exacted all the deference and all the homage that she required from others.”
“And they accorded it?” asked Harcourt, half contemptuously.
“They did; and so had you also if you had been in their place! Believe me, most gallant Colonel, there is a wide difference between the empty pretension of mere vanity and the daring assumption of conscious power. This girl saw the influence she wielded. As she moved amongst us she beheld the homage, not always willing, that awaited her. She felt that she had but to distinguish any one man there, and he became for the time as illustrious as though touched by the sword or ennobled by the star of his sovereign. The courtier-like attitude of men, in the presence of a very beautiful woman, is a spectacle full of interest. In the homage vouchsafed to mere rank there enters always a sense of humiliation, and in the observances of respect men tender to royalty, the idea of vassalage presents itself most prominently; whereas in the other case, the chivalrous devotion is not alloyed by this meaner servitude, and men never lift their heads more haughtily than after they have bowed them in lowly deference to loveliness.”
A thick, short snort from Harcourt here startled the speaker, who, inspired by the sounds of his own voice and the flowing periods he uttered, had fallen into one of those paroxysms of loquacity which now and then befell him. That his audience should have thought him tiresome or prosy, would, indeed, have seemed to him something strange; but that his hearer should have gone off asleep, was almost incredible.
“It is quite true,” said Upton to himself; “he snores ‘like a warrior taking his rest.’ What wonderful gifts some fellows are endowed with! and, to enjoy life, there is none of them all like dulness. Can you show me to my room?” said he, as Craggs answered his ring at the bell.
The Corporal bowed an assent.
“The Colonel usually retires early, I suppose?” said Upton.
“Yes, sir; at ten to a minute.”
“Ah! it is one—nearly half-past one—now, I perceive,” said he, looking at his watch. “That accounts for his drowsiness,” muttered he, between his teeth. “Curious vegetables are these old campaigners. Wish him good night for me when he awakes, will you?”
And so saying, he proceeded on his way, with all that lassitude and exhaustion which it was his custom to throw into every act which demanded the slightest exertion.
“Any more stairs to mount, Mr. Craggs?” said he, with a bland but sickly smile.
“Yes, sir; two flights more.”
“Oh, dear! couldn’t you have disposed of me on the lower floor?—I don’t care where or how, but something that requires no climbing. It matters little, however, for I’m only here for a day.”
“We could fit up a small room, sir, off the library.”
“Do so, then. A most humane thought; for if I should remain another night—Not at it yet?” cried he, peevishly, at the aspect of an almost perpendicular stair before him.
“This is the last flight, sir; and you’ll have a splendid view for your trouble, when you awake in the morning.”
“There is no view ever repaid the toil of an ascent, Mr. Craggs, whether it be to an attic or the Righi. Would you kindly tell my servant, Mr. Schöfer, where to find me, and let him fetch the pillows, and put a little rosemary in a glass of water in the room,—it corrects the odor of the night-lamp. And I should like my coffee early,—say at seven, though I don’t wish to be disturbed afterwards. Thank you, Mr. Craggs,—good-night. Oh! one thing more. You have a doctor here: would you just mention to him that I should like to see him to-morrow about nine or half-past? Good night, good night.”
And with a smile worthy of bestowal upon a court beauty, and a gentle inclination of the head, the very ideal of gracefulness, Sir Horace dismissed Mr. Craggs, and closed the door.
CHAPTER IX. A MEDICAL VISIT
Mr. Schöfer moved through the dimly lighted chamber with all the cat-like stealthiness of an accomplished valet, arranging the various articles of his master’s wardrobe, and giving, so far as he was able, the semblance of an accustomed spot to this new and strange locality. Already, indeed, it was very unlike what it had been during Harcourt’s occupation. Guns, whips, fishing-tackle, dog-leashes, and landing-nets had all disappeared, as well as uncouth specimens of costume for boating or the chase; and in their place were displayed all the accessories of an elaborate toilet, laid out with a degree of pomp and ostentation somewhat in contrast to the place. A richly embroidered dressing-gown lay on the back of a chair, before which stood a pair of velvet slippers worked in gold. On the table in front of these, a whole regiment of bottles, of varied shape and color, were ranged, the contents being curious essences and delicate odors, every one of which entered into some peculiar stage of that elaborate process Sir Horace Upton went through, each morning of his life, as a preparation for the toils of the day.
Adjoining the bed stood a smaller table, covered with various medicaments, tinctures, essences, infusions, and extracts, whose subtle qualities he was well skilled in, and but for whose timely assistance he would not have believed himself capable of surviving throughout the day. Beside these was a bulky file of prescriptions, the learned documents of doctors of every country of Europe, all of whom had enjoyed their little sunshine of favor, and all of whom had ended by “mistaking his case.” These had now been placed in readiness for the approaching consultation with “Glencore’s doctor;” and Mr. Schöfer still glided noiselessly from place to place, preparing for that event.
“I ‘m not asleep, Fritz,” said a weak, plaintive voice from the bed. “Let me have my aconite,—eighteen drops; a full dose to-day, for this journey has brought back the pains.”
“Yes, Excellenz,” said Fritz, in a voice of broken accentuation.
“I slept badly,” continued his master, in the same complaining tone. “The sea beat so heavily against the rocks, and the eternal plash, plash, all night irritated and worried me. Are you giving me the right tincture?”
“Yes, Excellenz,” was the brief reply.
“You have seen the doctor,—what is he like, Fritz?”
A strange grimace and a shrug of the shoulders were Mr. Schöfer’s only answer.
“I thought as much,” said Upton, with a heavy sigh. “They called him the wild growth of the mountains last night, and I fancied what that was like to prove. Is he young?”
A shake of the head implied not.
“Nor old?”
Another similar movement answered the question.
“Give me a comb, Fritz, and fetch the glass here.” And now Sir Horace arranged his silky hair more becomingly, and having exchanged one or two smiles with his image in the mirror, lay back on the pillow, saying, “Tell him I am ready to see him.”
Mr. Schöfer proceeded to the door, and at once presented the obsequious figure of Billy Traynor, who, having heard some details of the rank and quality of his new patient, made his approaches with a most deferential humility. It was true, Billy knew that my Lord Glencore’s rank was above that of Sir Horace, but to his eyes there was the far higher distinction of a man of undoubted ability,—a great speaker, a great writer, a great diplomatist; and Billy Traynor, for the first time in his life, found himself in the presence of one whose claims to distinction stood upon the lofty basis of personal superiority. Now, though bashful-ness was not the chief characteristic of his nature, he really felt abashed and timid as he drew near the bed, and shrank under the quick but searching glance of the sick man’s cold gray eyes.
“Place a chair, and leave us, Fritz,” said Sir Horace; and then, turning slowly round, smiled as he said, “I’m happy to make your acquaintance, sir. My friend, Lord Glencore, has told me with what skill you treated him, and I embrace the fortunate occasion to profit by your professional ability.”
“I’m your humble slave, sir,” said Billy, with a deep, rich brogue; and the manner of the speaker, and his accent, seemed so to surprise Upton that he continued to stare at him fixedly for some seconds without speaking.
“You studied in Scotland, I believe?” said he, with one of the most engaging smiles, while he hazarded the question.
“Indeed, then, I did not, sir,” said Billy, with a heavy sigh; “all I know of the ars medicâtrix I picked up,—currendo per campos,—as one may say, vagabondizing through life, and watching my opportunities. Nature gave me the Hippocratic turn, and I did my best to improve it.”
“So that you never took out a regular diploma?” said Sir Horace, with another and still blander smile.
“Sorra one, sir! I ‘m a doctor just as a man is a poet,—by sheer janius! ‘T is the study of nature makes both one and the other; that is, when there’s the raal stuff,—the divinus afflatus,—inside. Without you have that, you ‘re only a rhymester or a quack.”
“You would, then, trace a parallel between them?” said Upton, graciously.
“To be sure, sir! Ould Heyric says that the poet and the physician is one:—
“‘For he who reads the clouded skies,
And knows the utterings of the deep,
Can surely see in human eyes
The sorrows that so heart-locked sleep.’
The human system is just a kind of universe of its own; and the very same faculties that investigate the laws of nature in one case is good in the other.”
“I don’t think the author of ‘King Arthur’ supports your theory,” said Upton, gently.
“Blackmoor was an ass; but maybe he was as great a bosthoon in physic as in poetry,” rejoined Billy, promptly.
“Well, Doctor,” said Sir Horace, with one of those plaintive sighs in which he habitually opened the narrative of his own suffering, “let us descend to meaner things, and talk of myself. You see before you one who, in some degree, is the reproach of medicine. That file of prescriptions beside you will show that I have consulted almost every celebrity in Europe; and that I have done so unsuccessfully, it is only necessary that you should look on these worn looks—these wasted fingers—this sickly, feeble frame. Vouchsafe me a patient hearing for a few moments, while I give you some insight into one of the most intricate cases, perhaps, that has ever engaged the faculty.”
It is not our intention to follow Sir Horace through his statement, which in reality comprised a sketch of half the ills that the flesh is heir to. Maladies of heart, brain, liver, lungs, the nerves, the arteries, even the bones, contributed their aid to swell the dreary catalogue, which, indeed, contained the usual contradictions and exaggerations incidental to such histories. We could not assuredly expect from our reader the patient attention with which Billy listened to this narrative. Never by a word did he interrupt the description; not even a syllable escaped him as he sat; and even when Sir Horace had finished speaking, he remained with slightly drooped head and clasped hands in deep meditation.
“It’s a strange thing,” said he, at last; “but the more I see of the aristocracy, the more I ‘m convinced that they ought to have doctors for themselves alone, just as they have their own tailors and coachmakers,—-chaps that could devote themselves to the study of physic for the peerage, and never think of any other disorders but them that befall people of rank. Your mistake, Sir Horace, was in consulting the regular middle-class practitioner, who invariably imagined there must be a disease to treat.”
“And you set me down as a hypochondriac, then,” said Upton, smiling.
“Nothing of the kind! You have a malady, sure enough, but nothing organic. ‘Tis the oceans of tinctures, the sieves full of pills, the quarter-casks of bitters you ‘re takin’, has played the divil with you. The human machine is like a clock, and it depends on the proportion the parts bear to each other, whether it keeps time. You may make the spring too strong, or the chain too thick, or the balance too heavy for the rest of the works, and spoil everything just by over security. That’s what your doctors was doing with their tonics and cordials. They didn’t see, here’s a poor washy frame, with a wake circulation and no vigor. If we nourish him, his heart will go quicker, to be sure; but what will his brain be at? There’s the rub! His brain will begin to go fast too, and already it’s going the pace. ‘T is soothin’ and calmin’ you want; allaying the irritability of an irrascible, fretful nature, always on the watch for self-torment. Say-bathin’, early hours, a quiet mopin’ kind of life, that would, maybe, tend to torpor and sleepiness,—them’s the first things you need; and for exercise, a little work in the garden that you ‘d take interest in.”
“And no physic?” asked Sir Horace.
“Sorra screed! not as much as a powder or a draught,—barrin’,” said he, suddenly catching the altered expression of the sick man’s face, “a little mixture of hyoscyamus I’ ll compound for you myself. This, and friction over the region of the heart, with a mild embrocation, is all my tratement!”
“And you have hopes of my recovery?” asked Sir Horace, faintly.
“My name isn’t Billy Traynor if I’d not send you out of this hale and hearty before two months. I read you like a printed book.”
“You really give me great confidence, for I perceive you understand the tone of my temperament. Let us try this same embrocation at once; I’ll most implicitly obey you in everything.”
“My head on a block, then, but I’ll cure you,” said Billy, who determined that no scruples on his side should mar the trust reposed in him by the patient. “But you must give yourself entirely up to me; not only as to your eatin’ and drinkin’, but your hours of recreation and study, exercise, amusement, and all, must be at my biddin’. It is the principle of harmony between the moral and physical nature constitutes the whole sacret of my system. To be stimulatin’ the nerves, and lavin’ the arteries dormant, is like playing a jig to minuet time,—all must move in simultaneous action; and the cerebellum, the great flywheel of the whole, must be made to keep orderly time. D’ye mind?”
“I follow you with great interest,” said Sir Horace, to whose subtle nature there was an intense pleasure in the thought of having discovered what he deemed a man of original genius under this unpromising exterior. “There is but one bar to these arrangements: I must leave this at once; I ought to go to-day. I must be off to-morrow.”
“Then I’ll not take the helm when I can’t pilot you through the shoals,” said Billy. “To begin my system, and see you go away before I developed my grand invigoratin’ arcanum, would be only to destroy your confidence in an elegant discovery.”
“Were I only as certain as you seem to be——” began
Sir Horace, and then stopped.
“You ‘d stay and be cured, you were goin’ to say. Well, if you did n’t feel that same trust in me, you ‘d be right to go; for it is that very confidence that turns the balance. Ould Babbington used to say that between a good physician and a bad one there was just the difference between a pound and a guinea. But between the one you trust and the one you don’t, there’s all the way between Billy Traynor and the Bank of Ireland!”
“On that score every advantage is with you,” said Upton, with all the winning grace of his incomparable manner; “and I must now bethink me how I can manage to prolong my stay here.” And with this he fell into a musing fit, letting drop occasionally some stray word or two, to mark the current of his thoughts: “The Duke of Headwater’s on the thirteenth; Ardroath Castle the Tuesday after; More-hampton for the Derby day. These easily disposed of. Prince Boratinsky, about that Warsaw affair, must be attended to; a letter, yes, a letter, will keep that question open. Lady Grencliffe is a difficulty; if I plead illness, she ‘ll say I ‘m not strong enough to go to Russia. I ‘ll think it over.” And with this he rested his head on his hands, and sank into profound reflection. “Yes, Doctor,” said he, at length, as though summing up his secret calculations, “health is the first requisite. If you can but restore me, you will be—I am above the mere personal consideration—you will be the means of conferring an important service on the King’s Government. A variety of questions, some of them deep and intricate, are now pending, of which I alone understand the secret meaning. A new hand would infallibly spoil the game; and yet, in my present condition, how could I hear the fatigues of long interviews, ministerial deliberations, incessant note-writing, and evasive conversations?”
“Utterly unpossible!” exclaimed the doctor.
“As you observe, it is utterly impossible,” rejoined Sir Horace, with one of his own dubious smiles; and then, in a manner more natural, resumed: “We public men have the sad necessity of concealing the sufferings on which others trade for sympathy. We must never confess to an ache or a pain, lest it be rumored that we are unequal to the fatigues of office; and so is it that we are condemned to run the race with broken health and shattered frame, alleging all the while that no exertion is too much, no effort too great for us.”
“And maybe, after all, it’s that very struggle that makes you more than common men,” said Billy. “There’s a kind of irritability that keeps the brain at stretch, and renders it equal to higher efforts than ever accompany good everyday health. Dyspepsia is the soul of a prose-writer, and a slight ossification of the aortic valves is a great help to the imagination.”
“Do you really say so?” asked Sir Horace, with all the implicit confidence with which he accepted any marvel that had its origin in medicine.
“Don’t you feel it yourself, sir?” asked Billy. “Do you ever pen a reply to a knotty state-paper as nately as when you’ve the heartburn?—are you ever as epigrammatic as when you’re driven to a listen slipper?—and when do you give a minister a jobation as purtily as when you are laborin’ under a slight indigestion? Not that it would sarve a man to be permanently in gout or the colic; but for a spurt like a cavalry charge, there’s nothing like eatin’ something that disagrees with you.”
“An ingenious notion,” said the diplomatist, smiling.
“And now I ‘ll take my lave,” said Billy, rising. “I’m going out to gather some mountain-colchicum and sorrel, to make a diaphoretic infusion; and I’ve to give Master Charles his Greek lesson; and blister the colt,—he’s thrown out a bone spavin; and, after that, Handy Care’s daughter has the shakin’ ague, and the smith at the forge is to be bled,—all before two o ‘dock, when ‘the lord’ sends for me. But the rest of the day, and the night too, I’m your honor’s obaydient.”
And with a low bow, repeated in a more reverential man-ner at the door, Billy took his leave and retired.
CHAPTER X. A DISCLOSURE
“Have you seen Upton?” asked Glencore eagerly of Harcourt as he entered his bedroom.
“Yes; he vouchsafed me an audience during his toilet, just as the old kings of France were accustomed to honor a favorite with one.”
“And is he full of miseries at the dreary place, the rough fare and deplorable resources of this wild spot?”
“Quite the reverse; he is charmed with everything and everybody. The view from his window is glorious; the air has already invigorated him. For years he has not breakfasted with the same appetite; and he finds that of all the places he has ever chanced upon, this is the one veritable exact spot which suits him.”
“This is very kind on his part,” said Glencore, with a faint smile. “Will the humor last, Harcourt? That is the question.”
“I trust it will,—at least it may well endure for the short period he means to stay; although already he has extended that, and intends remaining till next week.”
“Better still,” said Glencore, with more animation of voice and manner. “I was already growing nervous about the brief space in which I was to crowd in all that I want to say to him; but if he will consent to wait a day or two, I hope I shall be equal to it.”
“In his present mood there is no impatience to be off; on the contrary, he has been inquiring as to all the available means of locomotion, and by what convenience he is to make various sea and land excursions.”
“We have no carriage,—we have no roads, even,” said Glencore, peevishly.
“He knows all that; but he is concerting measures about a certain turf-kish, I think they call it, which, by the aid of pillows to lie on, and donkeys to drag, can be made a most useful vehicle; while, for longer excursions, he has suggested a ‘conveniency’ of wheels and axles to the punt, rendering it equally eligible on land or water. Then he has been designing great improvements in horticulture, and giving orders about a rake, a spade, and a hoe for himself. I ‘m quite serious,” said Harcourt, as Glencore smiled with a kind of droll incredulity. “It is perfectly true; and as he hears that the messenger occasionally crosses the lough to the post, when there are no letters there, he hints at a little simple telegraph for Leenane, which should announce what the mail contains, and which might be made useful to convey other intelligence. In fact, all my changes here will be as for nothing to his reforms, and between us you ‘ll not know your own house again, if you even be able to live in it.”
“You have already done much to make it more habitable, Harcourt,” said Glencore, feelingly; “and if I had not the grace to thank you for it, I ‘m not the less grateful. To say truth, my old friend, I half doubted whether it was an act of friendship to attach me ever so lightly to a life of which I am well weary. Ceasing as I have done for years back to feel interest in anything, I dread whatever may again recall me to the world of hopes and fears,—that agitated sea of passion wherein I have no longer vigor to contend. To speak to me, then, of plans to carry out, schemes to accomplish, was to point to a future of activity and exertion; and!”—here he dropped his voice to a deep and mournful tone—“can have but one future,—the dark and dreary one before the grave!”
Harcourt was too deeply impressed by the solemnity of these words to venture on a reply, and he sat silently contemplating the sorrow-struck but placid features of the sick man.
“There is nothing to prevent a man struggling, and successfully too, against mere adverse fortune,” continued Glencore. “I feel at times that if I had been suddenly reduced to actual beggary,—left without a shilling in the world,—there are many ways in which I could eke out subsistence. A great defeat to my personal ambition I could resist. The casualty that should exclude me from a proud position and public life, I could bear up against with patience, and I hope with dignity. Loss of fortune, loss of influence, loss of station, loss of health even, dearer than them all, can be borne. There is but one intolerable ill, one that no time alleviates, no casuistry diminishes,—loss of honor! Ay, Harcourt, rank and riches do little for him who feels himself the inferior of the meanest that elbows him in a crowd; and the man whose name is a scoff and a jibe has but one part to fill,—to make himself forgotten.”
“I hope I ‘m not deficient in a sense of personal honor, Glencore,” said Harcourt; “but I must say that I think your reasoning on this point is untenable and wrong.”
“Let us not speak more of it,” said Glencore, faintly. “I know not how I have been led to allude to what it is better to bear in secret than to confide even to friendship;” and he pressed the strong fingers of the other as he spoke, in his own feeble grasp. “Leave me now, Harcourt, and send Upton here. It may be that the time is come when I shall be able to speak to him.”
“You are too weak to-day, Glencore,—too much agitated. Pray defer this interview.”
“No, Harcourt; these are my moments of strength. The little energy now left to me is the fruit of strong excitement. Heaven knows how I shall be to-morrow.”
Harcourt made no further opposition, but left the room in search of Upton.
It was full an hour later when Sir Horace Upton made his appearance in Glencore’s chamber, attired in a purple dressing-gown, profusely braided with gold, loose trousers as richly brocaded, and a pair of real Turkish slippers, resplendent with costly embroidery; a small fez of blue velvet, with a deep gold tassel, covered the top of his head, at either side of which his soft silky hair descended in long massy waves, apparently negligently, but in reality arranged with all the artistic regard to effect of a consummate master. From the gold girdle at his waist depended a watch, a bunch of keys, a Turkish purse, an embroidered tobacco-bag, a gorgeously chased smelling-bottle, and a small stiletto, with a topaz handle. In one hand he carried a meerschaum, the other leaned upon a cane, and with all the dependence of one who could not walk without its aid. The greeting was cordial and affectionate on both sides; and when Sir Horace, after a variety of preparations to ensure his comfort, at length seated himself beside the bed, his features beamed with all their wonted gentleness and kindness.
“I’m charmed at what Harcourt has been telling me, Upton,” said Glencore; “and that you really can exist in all the savagery of this wild spot.”
“I’m in ecstasy with the place, Glencore. My memory cannot recall the same sensations of health and vigor I have experienced since I came here. Your cook is first-rate; your fare is exquisite; the quiet is a positive blessing; and that queer creature, your doctor, is a very remarkable genius.”
“So he is,” said Glencore, gravely.
“One of those men of original mould who leave cultivation leagues behind, and arrive at truth by a bound.”
“He certainly treated me with considerable skill.”
“I’m satisfied of it; his conversation is replete with shrewd and intelligent observation, and he seems to have studied his art more like a philosopher than a mere physician of the schools. And depend upon it, Glencore, the curative art must mainly depend upon the secret instinct which divines the malady, less by the rigid rules of acquired skill than by that prerogative of genius, which, however exerted, arrives at its goal at once. Our conversation had scarcely lasted a quarter of an hour, when he revealed to me the exact seat of all my sufferings, and the most perfect picture of my temperament. And then his suggestions as to treatment were all so reasonable, so well argued.”
“A clever fellow, no doubt of it,” said Glencore.
“But he is far more than that, Glencore. Cleverness is only a manufacturing quality,—that man supplies the raw article also. It has often struck me as very singular that such heads are not found in our class,—they belong to another order altogether. It is possible that the stimulus of necessity engenders the greatest of all efforts, calling to the operations of the mind the continued strain for contrivance; and thus do we find the most remarkable men are those, every step of whose knowledge has been gained with a struggle.”
“I suspect you are right,” said Glencore, “and that our old system of school education, wherein all was rough, rugged, and difficult, turned out better men than the present-day habit of everything-made-easy and everybody-made-any-thing. Flippancy is the characteristic of our age, and we owe it to our teaching.”
“By the way, what do you mean to do with Charley?” said Upton. “Do you intend him for Eton?”
“I scarcely know,—I make plans only to abandon them,” said Glencore, gloomily.
“I’m greatly struck with him. He is one of those fellows, however, who require the nicest management, and who either rise superior to all around them, or drop down into an indolent, dreamy existence, conscious of power, but too bashful or too lazy to exert it.”
“You have hit him off, Upton, with all your own subtlety; and it was to speak of that boy I have been so eager to see you.”
Glencore paused as he said these words, and passed his hand over his brow, as though to prepare himself for the task before him.
“Upton,” said he, at last, in a voice of deep and solemn meaning, “the resolution I am about to impart to you is not unlikely to meet your strenuous opposition; you will be disposed to show me strong reasons against it on every ground; you may refuse me that amount of assistance I shall ask of you to carry out my purpose; but if your arguments were all unanswerable, and if your denial to aid me was to sever the old friendship between us, I ‘d still persist in my determination. For more than two years the project has been before my mind. The long hours of the day, the longer ones of the night, have found me deep in the consideration of it. I have repeated over to myself everything that my ingenuity could suggest against it; I have said to my own heart all that my worst enemy could utter, were he to read the scheme and detect my plan; I have done more,—I have struggled with myself to abandon it; but in vain. My heart is linked to it; it forms the one sole tie that attaches me to life. Without it, the apathy that I feel stealing over me would be complete, and my existence become a mournful dream. In a word, Upton, all is passionless within me, save one sentiment; and I drag on life merely for a ‘Vendetta.’”
Upton shook his head mournfully, as the other paused here, and said,—
“This is disease, Glencore!”
“Be it so; the malady is beyond cure,” said he, sternly.
“Trust me it is not so,” said Upton, gently; “you listened to my persuasions on a more—”
“Ay, that I did!” cried Glencore, interrupting; “and have I ever ceased to rue the day I did so? But for your arguments, and I had not lived this life of bitter, self-reproaching misery; but for you, and my vengeance had been sated ere this!”
“Remember, Glencore,” said the other, “that you had obtained all the world has decreed as satisfaction. He met you and received your fire; you shot him through the chest,—not mortally, it is true, but to carry to his grave a painful, lingering disease. To have insisted on his again meeting you would have been little less than murder. No man could have stood your friend in such a quarrel. I told you so then, I repeat it now, he could not fire at you; what, then, was it possible for you to do?”
“Shoot him,—shoot him like a dog!” cried Glencore, while his eyes gleamed like the glittering eyes of an enraged beast. “You talk of his lingering life of pain: think of mine; have some sympathy for what I suffer! Would all the agony of his whole existence equal one hour of the torment he has bequeathed to me, its shame and ignominy?”
“These are things which passion can never treat of, my dear Glencore.”
“Passion alone can feel them,” said the other, sternly. “Keep subtleties for those who use like weapons. As for me, no casuistry is needed to tell me I am dishonored, and just as little to tell me I must be avenged! If you think differently, it were better not to discuss this question further between us; but I did think I could have reckoned upon you, for I felt you had barred my first chance of a vengeance.”
“Now, then, for your plan, Glencore,” said Upton, who, with all the dexterity of his calling, preferred opening a new channel in the discussion, to aggravating difficulties by a further opposition.
“I must rid myself of her! There’s my plan!” cried Glencore, savagely. “You have it all in that resolution. Of no avail is it that I have separated my fortune from hers, so long as she bears my name, and renders it infamous in every city of Europe. Is it to you, who live in the world,—who mix with men of every country,—that I need tell this? If a man cannot throw off such a shame, he must sink under it.”
“But you told me you had an unconquerable aversion to the notion of seeking a divorce.”
“So I had; so I have! The indelicate, the ignominious course of a trial at law, with all its shocking exposure, would be worse than a thousand deaths! To survive the suffering of all the licensed ribaldry of some gowned coward aspersing one’s honor, calumniating, inventing, and, when invention failed, suggesting motives, the very thought of which in secret had driven a man to madness! To endure this—to read it—to know it went published over the wide globe, till one’s shame became the gossip of millions—and then—with a verdict extorted from pity, damages awarded to repair a broken heart and a sullied name—to carry this disgrace before one’s equals, to be again discussed, sifted, and cavilled at! No, Upton; this poor shattered brain would give way under such a trial; to compass it in mere fancy is already nigh to madness! It must be by other means than these that I attain my object!”
The terrible energy with which he spoke actually frightened Upton, who fancied that his reason had already begun to show signs of decline.
“The world has decreed,” resumed Glencore, “that in these conflicts all the shame shall be the husband’s; but it shall not be so here! She shall have her share, ay, and, by Heaven, not the smaller share either!”
“Why, what would you do?” asked Upton, eagerly.
“Deny my marriage; call her my mistress!” cried Glencore, in a voice shaken with passion and excitement.
“But your boy,—your son, Glencore!”
“He shall be a bastard! You may hold up your hands in horror, and look with all your best got-up disgust at such a scheme; but if you wish to see me swear to accomplish it, I’ll do so now before you, ay, on my knees before you! When we eloped from her father’s house at Castellamare, we were married by a priest at Capri; of the marriage no trace exists. The more legal ceremony was performed before you, as Chargé d’Affaires at Naples,—of that I have the registry here; nor, except my courier, Sanson, is there a living witness. If you determine to assert it, you will do so without a fragment of proof, since every document that could substantiate it is in my keeping. You shall see them for yourself. She is, therefore, in my power; and will any man dare to tell me how I should temper that power?”
“But your boy, Glencore, your boy!”
“Is my boy’s station in the world a prouder one by being the son of the notorious Lady Glencore, or as the offspring of a nameless mistress? What avail to him that he should have a title stained by her shame? Where is he to go? In what land is he to live, where her infamy has not reached? Is it not a thousand times better that he enter life ignoble and unknown,—to start in the world’s race with what he may of strength and power,—than drag on an unhonored existence, shunned by his equals, and only welcome where it is disgrace to find companionship?”
“But you surely have never contemplated all the consequences of this rash resolve. It is the extinction of an ancient title, the alienation of a great estate, when once you have declared your boy illegitimate.”
“He is a beggar: I know it; the penalty he must pay is a heavy one. But think of her, Upton,—think of the haughty Viscountess, revelling in splendor, and, even in all her shame, the flattered, welcomed guest of that rotten, corrupt society she lives in. Imagine her in all the pride of wealth and beauty, sought after, adulated, worshipped as she is, suddenly struck down by the brand of this disgrace, and left upon the world without fortune, without rank, without even a name. To be shunned like a leper by the very meanest of those it had once been an honor when she recognized them. Picture to yourself this woman, degraded to the position of all that is most vile and contemptible. She, that scarcely condescended to acknowledge as her equals the best-born and the highest, sunk down to the hopeless infamy of a mistress. They tell me she laughed on the day I fainted at seeing her entering the San Carlos at Naples,—laughed as they carried me down the steps into the fresh air! Will she laugh now, think you? Shall I be called ‘Le Pauvre Sire’ when she hears this? Was there ever a vengeance more terrible, more complete?”
“Again, I say, Glencore, you have no right to involve others in the penalty of her fault. Laying aside every higher motive, you can have no more right to deny your boy’s claim to his rank and fortune than I or any one else. It cannot be alienated nor extinguished; by his birth he became the heir to your title and estates.”
“He has no birth, sir, he is a bastard: who shall deny it? You may,” added he, after a second’s pause; “but where’s your proof? Is not every probability as much against you as all documentary evidence, since none will ever believe that I could rob myself of the succession, and make over my fortune to Heaven knows what remote relation?”
“And do you expect me to become a party to this crime?” asked Upton, gravely.
“You balked me in one attempt at vengeance, and I think you owe me a reparation!”
“Glencore,” said Upton, solemnly, “we are both of us men of the world,—men who have seen life in all its varied aspects sufficiently to know the hollowness of more than half the pretension men trade upon as principle; we have witnessed mean actions and the very lowest motives amongst the highest in station; and it is not for either of us to affect any overstrained estimate of men’s honor and good faith; but I say to you, in all sincerity, that not alone do I refuse you all concurrence in the act you meditate, but I hold myself open to denounce and frustrate it.”
“You do!” cried Glencore, wildly, while with a bound he sat up in his bed, grasping the curtain convulsively for support.
“Be calm, Glencore, and listen to me patiently.”
“You declare that you will use the confidence of this morning against me!” cried Glencore, while the lines in his face became indented more deeply, and his bloodless lips quivered with passion. “You take your part with her!”
“I only ask that you would hear me.”
“You owe me four thousand five hundred pounds, Sir Horace Upton,” said Glencore, in a voice barely above a whisper, but every accent of which was audible.
“I know it, Glencore,” said Upton, calmly. “You helped me by a loan of that sum in a moment of great difficulty. Your generosity went farther, for you took, what nobody else would, my personal security.”
Glencore made no reply, but, throwing back the bedclothes, slowly and painfully arose, and with tottering and uncertain steps approached a table. With a trembling hand he unlocked a drawer, and taking out a paper, opened and scanned it over.
“There’s your bond, sir,” said he, with a hollow, cavernous voice, as he threw it into the fire, and crushed it down into the flames with a poker. “There is now nothing between us. You are free to do your worst!” And as he spoke, a few drops of dark blood trickled from his nostril, and he fell senseless upon the floor.
CHAPTER XI. SOME LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF DIPLOMATIC LIFE
There is a trait in the lives of great diplomatists of which it is just possible some one or other of my readers may not have heard, which is, that none of them have ever attained to any great eminence without an attachment—we can find no better word for it—to some woman of superior understanding who has united within herself great talents for society with a high and soaring ambition.
They who only recognize in the world of politics the dry details of ordinary parliamentary business, poor-law questions, sanitary rules, railroad bills, and colonial grants can form but a scanty notion of the excitement derived from the high interests of party, and the great game played by about twenty mighty gamblers, with the whole world for the table, and kingdoms for counters. In this “grand rôle” women perform no ignoble part; nay, it were not too much to say that theirs is the very motive-power of the whole vast machinery.
Had we any right to step beyond the limits of our story for illustration, it would not be difficult to quote names enough to show that we are speaking not at hazard, but “from book,” and that great events derive far less of their impulse from “the lords” than from “the ladies of creation.” Whatever be the part they take in these contests, their chief attention is ever directed, not to the smaller battle-field of home questions, but to the greater and wider campaign of international politics. Men may wrangle and hair-split, and divide about a harbor bill or a road cession; but women occupy themselves in devising how thrones may be shaken and dynasties disturbed,—how frontiers may be changed, and nationalities trafficked; for, strange as it may seem, the stupendous incidents which mould human destinies are more under the influence of passion and intrigue than the commonest events of every-day life.
Our readers may, and not very unreasonably, begin to suspect that it was in some moment of abstraction we wrote “Glencore” at the head of these pages, and that these speculations are but the preface to some very abstruse reflections upon the political condition of Europe. But no; they are simply intended as a prelude to the fact that Sir Horace Upton was not exempt from the weakness of his order, and that he, too, reposed his trust upon a woman’s judgment.
The name of his illustrious guide was the Princess Sabloukoff, by birth a Pole, but married to a Russian of vast wealth and high family, from whom she separated early in life, to mingle in the world with all the “prestige” of position, riches, and—greater than either—extreme beauty, and a manner of such fascination as made her name of European celebrity.
When Sir Horace first met her, he was the junior member of our Embassy at Naples, and she the distinguished leader of fashion in that city. We are not about to busy ourselves with the various narratives which professed to explain her influence at Court, or the secret means to which she owed her ascendency over royal highnesses, and her sway over cardinals. Enough that she possessed such, and that the world knew it. The same success attended her at Vienna and at Paris. She was courted and sought after everywhere; and if her arrival was not fêted with the public demonstrations that await royalty, it was assuredly an event recognized with all that could flatter her vanity or minister to her self-esteem.
When Sir Horace was presented to her as an Attaché, she simply bowed and smiled. He renewed his acquaintance some ten years later as a Secretary, when she vouchsafed to say she remembered him. A third time, after a lapse of years, he came before her as a Chargé d’Affaires, when she conversed with him; and lastly, when time had made him a Minister, and with less generosity had laid its impress upon herself, she gave him her hand, and said,—
“My dear Horace, how charming to see an old friend, if you will be good enough to let me call you so.”
And he was so; he accepted the friendship as frankly as it was proffered. He knew that time was when he could have no pretension to this distinction: but the beautiful Princess was no longer young; the fascinations she had wielded were already a kind of Court tradition; archdukes and ambassadors were no more her slaves; nor was she the terror of jealous queens and Court favorites. Sir Horace knew all this; but he also knew that, she being such, his ambition had never dared to aspire to her friendship, and it was only in her days of declining fortune that he could hope for such distinction.
All this may seem very strange and very odd, dear reader; but we live in very strange and very odd times, and more than one-half the world is only living on “second-hand,”—second-hand shawls and second-hand speeches, second-hand books, and Court suits and opinions are all rife; and why not second-hand friendships?
Now, the friendship between a bygone beauty of forty—and we will not say how many more years—and a hackneyed, half-disgusted man of the world, of the same age, is a very curious contract. There is no love in it; as little is there any strong tie of esteem: but there is a wonderful bond of self-interest and mutual convenience. Each seems to have at last found “one that understands him;” similarity of pursuit has engendered similarity of taste. They have each seen the world from exactly the same point of view, and they have come out of it equally heart-wearied and tired, stored with vast resources of social knowledge, and with a keen insight into every phase of that complex machinery by which one-half the world cheats the other.
Madame de Sabloukoff was still handsome; she had far more than what is ill-naturedly called the remains of good looks. She had a brilliant complexion, lustrous dark eyes, and a profusion of the most beautiful hair. She was, besides, a most splendid dresser. Her toilet was the very perfection of taste, and if a little inclining to over-magnificence, not the less becoming to one whose whole air and bearing assumed something of queenly dignity.
In the world of society there is a very great prestige attends those who have at some one time played a great part in life. The deposed king, the ex-minister, the banished general, and even the bygone beauty, receive a species of respectful homage, which the wider world without-doors is not always ready to accord them. Good breeding, in fact, concedes what mere justice might deny; and they who have to fall back upon “souvenirs” for their greatness, always find their advantage in associating with the class whose prerogative is good manners.
The Princess Sabloukoff was not, however, one of those who can live upon the interest of a bygone fame. She saw that, when the time of coquetry and its fascinations has passed, still, with faculties like hers, there was yet a great game to be played. Hitherto she had only studied characters; now she began to reflect upon events. The transition was an easy one, to which her former knowledge contributed largely its assistance. There was scarcely a royalty, hardly a leading personage, in Europe she did not know personally and well. She had lived in intimacy with ministers, and statesmen, and great politicians. She knew them in all that “life of the salon” where men alternately expand into frankness, and practise the wily devices of their crafty callings. She had seen them in all the weaknesses, too, of inferior minds, eager after small objects, tormented by insignificant cares. They who habitually dealt with these mighty personages only beheld them in their dignity of station, or surrounded by the imposing accessories of office. What an advantage, then, to regard them closer and nearer,—to be aware of their shortcomings, and acquainted with the secret springs of their ambitions!
The Princess and Sir Horace very soon saw that each needed the other. When Robert Macaire accidentally met an accomplished gamester who “turned the king” as often as he did, and could reciprocate every trick and artifice with him, he threw down the cards, saying, “Embrassons-nous, nous sommes frères!” Now, the illustration is a very ignoble one, but it conveys no very inexact idea of the bond which united these two distinguished individuals.
Sir Horace was one of those fine, acute intelligences which may be gapped and blunted if applied to rough work, but are splendid instruments where you would cut cleanly and cut deep. She saw this at once. He, too, recognized in her a wonderful knowledge of life, joined to vast powers of employing it with profit. No more was wanting to establish a friendship between them. Dispositions must be, to a certain degree, different between those who are to live together as friends, but tastes must be alike. Theirs were so. They had the same veneration for the same things, the same regard for the same celebrities, and the same contempt for the small successes which were engaging the minds of many around them. If the Princess had a real appreciation of the fine abilities of Sir Horace, he estimated at their full value all the resources of her wondrous tact and skill, and the fascinations which even yet surrounded her.
Have we said enough to explain the terms of this alliance, or must we make one more confession, and own that her insidious praise—a flattery too delicate and fine ever to be committed to absolute eulogy—convinced Sir Horace that she alone, of all the world, was able to comprehend the vast stores of his knowledge, and the wide measure of his capacity as a statesman?
In the great game of statecraft, diplomatists are not above looking into each other’s hands; but this must always be accomplished by means of a confederate. How terribly alike are all human rogueries, whether the scene be a conference at Vienna, or the tent of a thimblerig at Ascot! La Sabloukoff was unrivalled in the art. She knew how to push raillery and persiflage to the very frontiers of truth, and even peep over and see what lay beyond. Sir Horace traded on the material with which she supplied him, and acquired the reputation of being all that was crafty and subtle in diplomacy.
How did Upton know this? Whence came he by that? What mysterious source of information is he possessed of? Who could have revealed such a secret to him? were questions often asked in that dreary old drawing-room of Downing Street, where men’s destinies are shaped, and the fate of millions decided, from four o’clock to six of an afternoon.
Often and often were the measures of the Cabinet shaped by the tidings which arrived with all the speed of a foreign courier; over and over again were the speeches in Parliament based upon information received from him. It has even happened that the news from his hand has caused the telegraph of the Admiralty to signalize the “Thunderer” to put to sea with all haste. In a word, he was the trusted agent of our Government, whether ruled by a Whig or a Tory, and his despatches were ever regarded as a sure warranty for action.
The English Minister at a Foreign Court labors under one great disadvantage, which is, that his policy, and all the consequences that are to follow it, are rarely, if ever, shaped with any reference to the state of matters then existing in his own country. Absorbed as he is in great European questions, how can he follow with sufficient attention the course of events at home, or recognize, in the signs and tokens of the division list, the changeful fortunes of party? He may be advising energy when the cry is all for temporizing; counselling patience and submission, when the nation is eager for a row; recommend religious concessions in the very week that Exeter Hall is denouncing toleration; or actually suggesting aid to a Government that a popular orator has proclaimed to be everything that is unjust and ignominious.
It was Sir Horace Upton’s fortune to have fallen into one of these embarrassments. He had advised the Home Government to take some measures, or at least look with favor on certain movements of the Poles in Russia, in order the better to obtain some concessions then required from the Cabinet of the Czar. The Premier did not approve of the suggestion, nor was it like to meet acceptance at home. We were in a pro-Russian fever at the moment. Some mob disturbances at Norwich, a Chartist meeting at Stockport, and something else in Wales, had frightened the nation into a hot stage of conservatism; and never was there such an ill-chosen moment to succor Poles or awaken dormant nationalities.
Upton’s proposal was rejected. He was even visited with one of those disagreeable acknowledgments by which the Foreign Office reminds a speculative minister that he is going ultra crepidam. When an envoy is snubbed, he always asks for leave of absence. If the castigation be severe, he invariably, on his return to England, goes to visit the Leader of the Opposition. This is the ritual. Sir Horace, however, only observed it in half. He came home; but after his first morning’s attendance at the Foreign Office, he disappeared; none saw or heard of him. He knew well all the value of mystery, and he accordingly disappeared from public view altogether.
When, therefore, Harcourt’s letter reached him, proposing that he should visit Glencore, the project came most opportunely; and that he only accepted it for a day, was in the spirit of his habitual diplomacy, since he then gave himself all the power of an immediate departure, or permitted the option of remaining gracefully, in defiance of all pre-engage-ments, and all plans to be elsewhere. We have been driven, for the sake of this small fact, to go a great way round in our history; but we promise our readers that Sir Horace was one of those people whose motives are never tracked without a considerable détour. The reader knows now why he was at Glencore,—he already knew how.
The terrible interview with Glencore brought back a second relapse of greater violence than the first, and it was nigh a fortnight ere he was pronounced out of danger. It was a strange life that Harcourt and Upton led in that dreary interval. Guests of one whose life was in utmost peril, they met in that old gallery each day to talk, in half-whispered sentences, over the sick man’s case, and his chances of recovery.
Harcourt frankly told Upton that the first relapse was the consequence of a scene between Glencore and himself. Upton made no similar confession. He reflected deeply, however, over all that had passed, and came to the conclusion that, in Glencore’s present condition, opposition might prejudice his chance of recovery, but never avail to turn him from his project. He also set himself to study the boy’s character, and found it, in all respects, the very type of his father’s. Great bashfulness, united to great boldness, timidity, and distrust, were there side by side with a rash, impetuous nature that would hesitate at nothing in pursuit of an object. Pride, however, was the great principle of his being,—the good and evil motive of all that was in him. He had pride on every subject. His name, his rank, his station, a consciousness of natural quickness, a sense of aptitude to learn whatever came before him,—all gave him the same feeling of pride.
“There’s a deal of good in that lad,” said Harcourt to Upton, one evening, as the boy had left the room; “I like his strong affection for his father, and that unbounded faith he seems to have in Glencore’s being better than every one else in the world.”
“It is an excellent religion, my dear Harcourt, if it could only last!” said the diplomat, smiling amiably.
“And why should n’t it last?” asked the other, impatiently.
“Just because nothing lasts that has its origin in ignorance. The boy has seen nothing of life, has had no opportunity for forming a judgment or instituting a comparison between any two objects. The first shot that breaches that same fortress of belief, down will come the whole edifice!”
“You ‘d give a lad to the Jesuits, then, to be trained up in every artifice and distrust?”
“Far from it, Harcourt. I think their system a mistake all through. The science of life must be self-learned, and it is a slow acquisition. All that education can do is to prepare the mind to receive it. Now, to employ the first years of a boy’s life by storing him with prejudices, is just to encumber a vessel with a rotten cargo that she must throw overboard before she can load with a profitable freight.”
“And is it in that category you’d class his love for his father?” asked the Colonel.
“Of course not; but any unnatural or exaggerated estimate of him is a great error, to lead to an equally unfair depreciation when the time of deception is past. To be plain, Harcourt, is that boy fitted to enter one of our great public schools, stand the hard, rough usage of his own equals, and buffet it as you or I have done?”
“Why not? or, at least, why should n’t he become so after a month or two?”
“Just because in that same month or two he’d either die broken-hearted, or plunge his knife into the heart of some comrade who insulted him.”
“Not a bit of it. You don’t know him at all. Charley is a fine give-and-take fellow; a little proud, perhaps, because he lives apart from all that are his equals. Let Glencore just take courage to send him to Harrow or Rugby, and my life on it, but he ‘ll be the manliest fellow in the school.”
“I ‘ll undertake, without Harrow or Rugby, that the boy should become something even greater than that,” said Upton, smiling.
“Oh, I know you sneer at my ideas of what a young fellow ought to be,” said Harcourt; “but, somehow, you did not neglect these same pursuits yourself. You can shoot as well as most men, and you ride better than any I know of.”
“One likes to do a little of everything, Harcourt,” said Upton, not at all displeased at this flattery; “and somehow it never suits a fellow, who really feels that he has fair abilities, to do anything badly; so that it comes to this: one does it well, or not at all. Now, you never heard me touch the piano?”
“Never.”
“Just because I’m only an inferior performer, and so I only play when perfectly alone.”
“Egad, if I could only master a waltz, or one of the melodies, I’d be at it whenever any one would listen to me.”
“You’re a good soul, and full of amiability, Harcourt,” said Upton; but the words sounded very much as though he said, “You’re a dear, good, sensible creature, without an atom of self-respect or esteem.”
Indeed, so conscious was Harcourt that the expression meant no compliment that he actually reddened and looked away. At last he took courage to renew the conversation, and said,—
“And what would you advise for the boy, then?”
“I ‘d scarcely lay down a system; but I ‘ll tell you what I would not do. I ‘d not bore him with mathematics; I ‘d not put his mind on the stretch in any direction; I ‘d not stifle the development of any taste that may be struggling within him, but rather encourage and foster it, since it is precisely by such an indication you ‘ll get some clew to his nature. Do you understand me?”
“I ‘m not quite sure I do; but I believe you’d leave him to something like utter idleness.”
“What to you, my dear Harcourt, would be utter idleness, I’ve no doubt; but not to him, perhaps.”
Again the Colonel looked mortified, but evidently knew not how to resent this new sneer.
“Well,” said he, after a pause, “the lad will not require to be a genius.”
“So much the better for him, probably; at all events, so much the better for his friends, and all who are to associate with him.”
Here he looked fixedly at Upton, who smiled a most courteous acquiescence in the opinion,—a politeness that made poor Harcourt perfectly ashamed of his own rudeness, and he continued hurriedly,—
“He’ll have abundance of money. The life Glencore leads here will be like a long minority to him. A fine old name and title, and the deuce is in it if he can’t rub through life pleasantly enough with such odds.”
“I believe you are right, after all, Harcourt,” said Upton, sighing, and now speaking in a far more natural tone; “it is ‘rubbing through’ with the best of us, and no more!”
“If you mean that the process is a very irksome one, I enter my dissent at once,” broke in Harcourt. “I ‘m not ashamed to own that I like life prodigiously; and if I be spared to say so, I ‘m sure I ‘ll have the same story to tell fifteen or twenty years hence; and yet I ‘m not a genius!”
“No,” said Upton, smiling a bland assent.
“Nor a philosopher either,” said Harcourt, irritated at the acknowledgment.
“Certainly not,” chimed in Upton, with another smile.
“Nor have I any wish to be one or the other,” rejoined Harcourt, now really provoked. “I know right well that if I were in trouble or difficulty to-morrow,—if I wanted a friend to help me with a loan of some thousand pounds,—it is not to a genius or a philosopher I ‘d look for the assistance.”
It is ever a chance shot that explodes a magazine, and so is it that a random speech is sure to hit the mark that has escaped all the efforts of skilful direction.
Upton winced and grew pale at these last words, and he fixed his penetrating gray eyes upon the speaker with a keenness all his own. Harcourt, however, bore the look without the slightest touch of uneasiness. The honest Colonel had spoken without any hidden meaning, nor had he the slightest intention of a personal application in his words. Of this fact Upton appeared soon to be convinced, for his features gradually recovered their wonted calmness.
“How perfectly right you are, my dear Harcourt,” said he, mildly. “The man who expects to be happier by the possession of genius is like one who would like to warm himself through a burning-glass.”
“Egad, that is a great consolation for us slow fellows,” said Harcourt, laughing; “and now what say you to a game at écarté; for I believe it is just the one solitary thing I am more than your match in?”
“I accept inferiority in a great many others,” said Upton, blandly; “but I must decline the challenge, for I have a letter to write, and our post here starts at daybreak.”
“Well, I’d rather carry the whole bag than indite one of its contents,” said the Colonel, rising; and, with a hearty shake of the hand, he left the room.
A letter was fortunately not so great an infliction to Upton, who opened his desk at once, and with a rapid hand traced the following lines:—
Mv dear Princess,—My last will have told you how and when I came here; I wish I but knew in what way to explain why I still remain! Imagine the dreariest desolation of Calabria in a climate of fog and sea-drift: sunless skies, leafless trees, impassable roads, the out-door comforts; the joys within depending on a gloomy old house, with a few gloomier inmates, and a host on a sick bed. Yet, with all this, I believe I am better; the doctor, a strange, unsophisticated creature, a cross between Galen and Caliban, seems to have hit off what the great dons of science never could detect,—the true seat of my malady. He says—and he really reasons out his case ingeniously—that the brain has been working for the inferior nerves, not limiting itself to cerebral functions, but actually performing the humbler office of muscular direction, and so forth; in fact, a field-marshal doing duty for a common soldier! I almost fancy I can corroborate his view, from internal sensations; I have a kind of secret instinct that he is right. Poor brain! why it should do the work of another department, with abundance of occupation of its own, I cannot make out. But to turn to something else. This is not a bad refuge just now. They cannot make out where I am, and all the inquiries at my club are answered by a vague impression that I have gone back to Germany, which the people at F. O. are aware is not the case. I have already told you that my suggestion has been negatived in the Cabinet: it was ill-timed, Allington says; but I ventured to remind his Lordship that a policy requiring years to develop, and more years still to push to a profitable conclusion, is not to be reduced to the category of mere à propos measures. He was vexed, and replied weakly and angrily. I rejoined, and left him. Next day he sent for me, but my reply was, “I was leaving town;” and I left. I don’t want the Bath, because it would be “ill-timed;” so that they must give me Vienna, or be satisfied to see me in the House and the Opposition!
Your tidings of Brekenoff came exactly in the nick. Allington said pompously that they were sure of him; so I just said, “Ask him if they would like our sending a Consular Agent to Cracow?” It seems that he was so flurried by a fancied detection that he made a full acknowledgment of all. But even at this, Allington takes no alarm. The malady of the Treasury benches is deafness, with a touch of blindness. What a cumbrous piece of bungling machinery is this boasted “representative government” of ours! No promptitude, no secrecy! Everything debated, and discussed, and discouraged, before begun; every blot-hit for an antagonist to profit by! Even the characters of our public men exposed, and their weaknesses displayed to view, so that every state of Europe may see where to wound us, and through whom! There is no use in the Countess remaining here any longer; the King never noticed her at the last ball; she is angry at it, and if she shows her irritation she ‘ll spoil all. I always thought Josephine would fail in England. It is, indeed, a widely different thing to succeed in the small Courts of Germany, and our great whirlpool of St. James. You could do it, my dear friend; but where is the other dare attempt it?
Until I hear from you again I can come to no resolution. One thing is clear,—they do not, or they will not, see the danger I have pointed out to them. All the home policy of our country is drifting, day by day, towards a democracy: how, in the name of common sense, then, is our foreign policy to be maintained at the standard of the Holy Alliance? What an absurd juxtaposition is there between popular rights and an alliance with the Czar! This peril will overtake them one day or another, and then, to escape from national indignation, the minister, whoever he may be, will be driven to make war. But I can’t wait for this; and yet, were I to resign, my resignation would not embarrass them,—it would irritate and annoy, but not disconcert. Brekenoff will surely go home on leave. You ought to meet him; he is certain to be at Ems. It is the refuge of disgraced diplomacy. Try if something cannot be done with him. He used to say formerly yours were the only dinners now in Europe. He hates Allington. This feeling, and his love for white truffles, are, I believe, the only clews to the man. Be sure, however, that the truffles are Piedmontese; they have a slight flavor of garlic, rather agreeable than otherwise. Like Josephine’s lisp, it is a defect that serves for a distinction. The article in the “Beau Monde” was clever, prettily written, and even well worked out; but state affairs are never really well treated save by those who conduct them. One must have played the game himself to understand all the nice subtleties of the contest. These, your mere reviewer or newspaper scribe never attains to; and then he has no reserves,—none of those mysterious concealments that are to negotiations like the eloquent pauses of conversation: the moment when dialogue ceases, and the real interchange of ideas begins.
The fine touch, the keen aperçu, belongs alone to those who have had to exercise these same qualities in the treatment of great questions; and hence it is that though the Public be often much struck, and even enlightened, by the powerful “article” or the able “leader,” the Statesman is rarely taught anything by the journalist, save the force and direction of public opinion.
I had a deal to say to you about poor Glencore, whom you tell me you remember; but, how to say it? He is broken-hearted—literally broken-hearted—by her desertion of him. It was one of those ill-assorted leagues which cannot hold together. Why they did not see this, and make the best of it,—sensibly, dispassionately, even amicably,—it is difficult to say. An Englishman, it would seem, must always hate his wife if she cannot love him; and, after all, how involuntary are all affections, and what a severe penalty is this for an unwitting offence!
He ponders over this calamity just as if it were the crushing stroke by which a man’s whole career was to be finished forever.
The stupidity of all stupidities is in these cases to fly from the world and avoid society. By doing this a man rears a barrier he never can repass; he proclaims aloud his sentiment of the injury, quite forgetting all the offence he is giving to the hundred and fifty others who, in the same predicament as himself, are by no means disposed to turn hermits on account of it. Men make revolutionary governments, smash dynasties, transgress laws, but they cannot oppose convenances!
I need scarcely say that there is nothing to be gained by reason-ing with him. He has worked himself up to a chronic fury, and talks of vengeance all day long, like a Corsican. For company here I have an old brother officer of my days of tinsel and pipe-clay,—an excellent creature, whom I amuse myself by tormenting. There is also Glencore’s boy,—a strange, dreamy kind of haughty fellow, an exaggeration of his father in disposition, but with good abilities. These are not the elements of much social agreeability; but you know, dear friend, how little I stand in need of what is called company. Your last letter, charming as it was, has afforded me all the companionship I could desire. I have re-read it till I know it by heart. I could almost chide you for that delightful little party in my absence, but of course it was, as all you ever do is, perfectly right; and, after all, I am, perhaps, not sorry that you had those people when I was away, so that we shall be more chez nous when we meet. But when is that to be? Who can tell? My medico insists upon five full weeks for my cure. Allington is very likely, in his present temper, to order me back to my post. You seem to think that you must be in Berlin when Seckendorf arrives, so that—But I will not darken the future by gloomy forebodings. I could leave this—that is, if any urgency required it—at once; but, if possible, it is better I should remain at least a little longer. My last meeting with Glencore was unpleasant. Poor fellow! his temper is not what it used to be, and he is forgetful of what is due to one whose nerves are in the sad state of mine. You shall hear all my complainings when we meet, dear Princess; and with this I kiss your hand, begging you to accept all “mes hommages” et mon estime,
H. U.
Your letter must be addressed “Leenane, Ireland.” Your last had only “Glencore” on it, and not very legible either, so that it made what I wished I could do, “the tour of Scotland,” before reaching me.
Sir Horace read over his letter carefully, as though it had been a despatch, and, when he had done, folded it up with an air of satisfaction. He had said nothing that he wished unsaid, and he had mentioned a little about everything he desired to touch upon. He then took his “drops” from a queer-looking little phial he carried about with him, and having looked at his face in a pocket-glass, he half closed his eyes in revery.
Strange, confused visions were they that flitted through his brain. Thoughts of ambition the most daring, fancies about health, speculations in politics, finance, religion, literature, the arts, society,—all came and went. Plans and projects jostled each other at every instant. Now his brow would darken, and his thin lips close tightly, as some painful impression crossed him; now again a smile, a slight laugh even, betrayed the passing of some amusing conception. It was easy to see how such a nature could suffice to itself, and how little he needed of that give-and-take which companionship supplies. He could—to steal a figure from our steam language—he could “bank his fires,” and await any emergency, and, while scarcely consuming any fuel, prepare for the most trying demand upon his powers. A hasty movement of feet overhead, and the sound of voices talking loudly, aroused him from his reflections, while a servant entered abruptly to say that Lord Glencore wished to see him immediately.
“Is his Lordship worse?” asked Upton.
“No, sir; but he was very angry with the young lord this evening about something, and they say that with the passion he opened the bandage on his head, and set the vein a-bleed-ing again. Billy Traynor is there now trying to stop it.”
“I’ll go upstairs,” said Sir Horace, rising, and beginning to fortify himself with caps, and capes, and comforters,—precautions that he never omitted when moving from one room to the other.
CHAPTER XII. A NIGHT AT SEA
Glencore’s chamber presented a scene of confusion and dismay as Upton entered. The sick man had torn off the bandage from his temples, and so roughly as to reopen the half-closed artery, and renew the bleeding. Not alone the bedclothes and the curtains, but the faces of the attendants around him, were stained with blood, which seemed the more ghastly from contrast with their pallid cheeks. They moved hurriedly to and fro, scarcely remembering what they were in search of, and evidently deeming his state of the greatest peril. Traynor, the only one whose faculties were unshaken by the shock, sat quietly beside the bed, his fingers firmly compressed upon the orifice of the vessel, while with the other hand he motioned to them to keep silence.
Glencore lay with closed eyes, breathing long and labored inspirations, and at times convulsed by a slight shivering. His face, and even his lips, were bloodless, and his eyelids of a pale, livid hue. So terribly like the approach of death was his whole appearance that Upton whispered in the doctor’s ear,—
“Is it over? Is he dying?”
“No, Upton,” said Glencore; for, with the acute hearing of intense nervousness, he had caught the words. “It is not so easy to die.”
“There, now,—no more talkin’,—no discoorsin’—azy and quiet is now the word.”
“Bind it up and leave me,—leave me with him;” and Glencore pointed to Upton.
“I dar’ n’t move out of this spot,” said Billy, addressing Upton. “You’d have the blood coming out, per saltim, if I took away my finger.”
“You must be patient, Glencore,” said Upton, gently; “you know I’m always ready when you want me.”
“And you’ll not leave this,—you’ll not desert me?” cried the other, eagerly.
“Certainly not; I have no thought of going away.”
“There, now, hould your prate, both of ye, or, by my conscience, I ‘ll not take the responsibility upon me,—I will not!” said Billy, angrily. “‘Tis just a disgrace and a shame that ye haven’t more discretion.”
Glencore’s lips moved with a feeble attempt at a smile, and in his faint voice he said,—
“We must obey the doctor, Upton; but don’t leave me.”
Upton moved a chair to the bedside, and sat down without a word.
“Ye think an artery is like a canal, with a lock-gate to it, I believe,” said Billy, in a low, grumbling voice, to Upton, “and you forget all its vermicular motion, as ould Fabricius called it, and that it is only by a coagalum, a kind of barrier, like a mud breakwater, that it can be plugged. Be off out of that, ye spalpeens! be off, every one of yez, and leave us tranquil and paceable!”
This summary command was directed to the various servants, who were still moving about the room in imaginary occupation. The room was at last cleared of all save Upton and Billy, who sat by the bedside, his hand still resting on the sick man’s forehead. Soothed by the stillness, and reduced by the loss of blood, Glencore sank into a quiet sleep, breathing softly and gently as a child.
“Look at him now,” whispered Billy to Upton, “and you ‘ll see what philosophy there is in ascribin’ to the heart the source of all our emotions. He lies there azy and comfortable just because the great bellows is working smoothly and quietly. They talk about the brain, and the spinal nerves, and the soliar plexus; but give a man a wake, washy circulation, and what is he? He’s just like a chap with the finest intentions in the world, but not a sixpence in his pocket to carry them out! A fine well-regulated, steady-batin’ heart is like a credit on the bank,—you draw on it, and your draft is n’t dishonored!”
“What was it brought on this attack?” asked Upton, in a whisper.
“A shindy he had with the boy. I was n’t here; there was nobody by. But when I met Master Charles on the stairs, he flew past me like lightning, and I just saw by a glimpse that something was wrong. He rushed out with his head bare, and his coat all open, and it sleetin’ terribly! Down he went towards the lough, at full speed, and never minded all my callin’ after him.”
“Has he returned?” asked Upton.
“Not as I know, sir. We were too much taken up with the lord to ask for him.”
“I ‘ll just step down and see,” said Sir Horace, who arose, and left the room on tiptoe.
To Upton’s inquiry all made the same answer. None had seen the young lord,—none could give any clew as to whither he had gone. Sir Horace at once hastened to Harcourt’s room, and, after some vigorous shakes, succeeded in awakening the Colonel, and by dint of various repetitions at last put him in possession of all that had occurred.
“We must look after the lad,” cried Harcourt, springing from his bed, and dressing with all haste. “He is a rash, hot-headed fellow; but even if it were nothing else, he might get his death in such a night as this.”
The wind dashed wildly against the window-panes as he spoke, and the old timbers of the frame rattled fearfully.
“Do you remain here, Upton. I’ll go in search of the boy. Take care Glencore hears nothing of his absence.” And with a promptitude that bespoke the man of action, Harcourt descended the stairs and set out.
The night was pitch dark; sweeping gusts of wind bore the rain along in torrents, and the thunder rolled incessantly, its clamor increased by the loud beating of the waves as they broke upon the rocks. Upton had repeated to Harcourt that Billy saw the boy going towards the sea-shore, and in this direction he now followed. His frequent excursions had familiarized him with the place, so that even at night Harcourt found no difficulty in detecting the path and keeping it. About half an hour’s brisk walking brought him to the side of the lough, and the narrow flight of steps cut in the rock, which descended to the little boat-quay. Here he halted, and called out the boy’s name several times. The sea, however, was running mountains high, and an immense drift, sweeping over the rocks, fell in sheets of scattered foam beyond them; so that Harcourt’s voice was drowned by the uproar. A small shealing under the shelter of the rock formed the home of a boatman; and at the crazy door of this humble cot Harcourt now knocked violently.
The man answered the summons at once, assuring him that he had not heard or seen any one since the night closed in; adding, at the same time, that in such a tempest a boat’s crew might have landed without his knowing it.
“To be sure,” continued he, after a pause, “I heard a chain rattlin’ on the rock soon after I went to bed, and I ‘ll Just step down and see if the yawl is all right.”
Scarcely had he left the spot, when his voice was heard calling out from below,—
“She’s gonel the yawl is gone! the lock is broke with a stone, and she’s away!”
“How could this be? No boat could live in such a sea,” cried Harcourt, eagerly.
“She could go out fast enough, sir. The wind is northeast, due; but how long she’ll keep the say is another matter.”
“Then he ‘ll be lost!” cried Harcourt, wildly.
“Who, sir,—who is it?” asked the man.
“Your master’s son!” cried he, wringing his hands in anguish.
“Oh, murther! murther!” screamed the boatman; “we ‘ll never see him again. ‘T is out to say, into the wild ocean, he’ll be blown!”
“Is there no shelter,—no spot he could make for?”
“Barrin’ the islands, there’s not a spot between this and America.”
“But he could make the islands,—you are sure of that?”
“If the boat was able to live through the say. But sure I know him well; he ‘ll never take in a reef or sail, but sit there, with the helm hard up, just never carin’ what came of him! Oh, musha! musha! what druv him out such a night as this!”
“Come, it’s no time for lamenting, my man; get the launch ready, and let us follow him. Are you afraid?”
“Afraid!” replied the man, with a touch of scorn in his voice; “faix, it’s little fear troubles me. But, may be, you won’t like to be in her yourself when she’s once out. I ‘ve none belongin’ to me,—father, mother, chick or child; but you may have many a one that’s near to you.”
“My ties, are, perhaps, as light as your own,” said Harcourt. “Come, now, be alive. I’ll put ten gold guineas in your hand if you can overtake him.”
“I’d rather see his face than have two hundred,” said the man, as, springing into the boat, he began to haul out the tackle from under the low half-deck, and prepare for sea.
“Is your honor used to a boat, or ought I to get another man with me?” asked the sailor.
“Trust me, my good fellow; I have had more sailing than yourself, and in more treacherous seas too,” said Harcourt, who, throwing off his cloak, proceeded to help the other, with an address that bespoke a practised hand.
The wind blew strongly off the shore, so that scarcely was the foresail spread than the boat began to move rapidly through the water, dashing the sea over her bows, and plunging wildly through the waves.
“Give me a hand now with the halyard,” said the boatman; “and when the mainsail is set, you ‘ll see how she ‘ll dance over the top of the waves, and never wet us.”
“She ‘s too light in the water, if anything,” said Harcourt, as the boat bounded buoyantly under the increased press of canvas.
“Your honor’s right; she’d do better with half a ton of iron in her. Stand by, sir, always, with the peak halyards; get the sail aloft in, when I give you the word.”
“Leave the tiller to me, my man,” said Harcourt, taking it as he spoke. “You ‘ll soon see that I ‘m no new hand at the work.”
“She’s doing it well,” said the man. “Keep her up! keep her up! there’s a spit of land runs out here; in a few minutes more we’ll have say room enough.”
The heavier roll of the waves, and the increased force of the wind, soon showed that they had gained the open sea; while the atmosphere, relieved of the dark shadows of the mountain, seemed lighter and thinner than in shore.
“We ‘re to make for the islands, you say, sir?”
“Yes. What distance are they off?”
“About eighteen miles. Two hours, if the wind lasts, and we can bear it.”
“And could the yawl stand this?” said Harcourt, as a heavy sea struck the bow, and came in a cataract over them.
“Better than ourselves, if she was manned. Luff! luff!—that’s it!” And as the boat turned up to wind, sheets of spray and foam flew over her. “Master Charles hasn’t his equal for steerin’, if he wasn’t alone. Keep her there!—now! steady, sir!”
“Here’s a squall coming,” cried Harcourt; “I hear it hissing.”
Down went the peak, but scarcely in time, for the wind, catching the sail, laid the boat gunwale under. After a struggle, she righted, but with nearly one-third of her filled with water.
“I’d take in a reef, or two reefs,” said the man; “but if she could n’t rise to the say, she ‘ll fill and go down. We must carry on, at all events.”
“So say I. It’s no time to shorten sail, with such a sea running.”
The boat now flew through the water, the sea itself impelling her, as with every sudden gust the waves struck the stern.
“She’s a brave craft,” said Harcourt, as she rose lightly over the great waves, and plunged down again into the trough of the sea; “but if we ever get to land again, I’ll have combings round her to keep her dryer.”
“Here it comes!—here it comes, sir!”
Nor were the words well out, when, like a thunder-clap, the wind struck the sail, and bent the mast over like a whip. For an instant it seemed as if she were going down by the prow; but she righted again, and, shivering in every plank, held on her way.
“That ‘s as much as she could do,” said the sailor; “and I would not like to ax her to do more.”
“I agree with you,” said Harcourt, secretly stealing his feet back again into his shoes, which he had just kicked off.
“It’s freshening it is every minute,” said the man; “and I’m not sure that we could make the islands if it lasts.”
“Well,—what then?”
“There’s nothing for it but to be blown out to say,” said he, calmly, as, having filled his tobacco-pipe, he struck a light and began to smoke.
“The very thing I was wishing for,” said Harcourt, touching his cigar to the bright ashes. “How she labors! Do you think she can stand this?”
“She can, if it’s no worse, sir.” “But it looks heavier weather outside.”
“As well as I can see, it’s only beginnin’.”
Harcourt listened with a species of admiration to the calm and measured sentiment of the sailor, who, fully conscious of all the danger, yet never, by a word or gesture, showed that he was flurried or excited.
“You have been out on nights as bad as this, I suppose?” said Harcourt.
“Maybe not quite, sir, for it’s a great say is runnin’; and, with the wind off shore, we could n’t have this, if there was n’t a storm blowing farther out.”
“From the westward, you mean?”
“Yes, sir,—a wind coming over the whole ocean, that will soon meet the land wind.”
“And does that often happen?”
The words were but out, when, with a loud report like a cannon-shot, the wind reversed the sail, snapping the strong sprit in two, and bringing down the whole canvas clattering into the boat. With the aid of a hatchet, the sailor struck off the broken portion of the spar, and soon cleared the wreck, while the boat, now reduced to a mere foresail, labored heavily, sinking her prow in the sea at every bound. Her course, too, was now altered, and she flew along parallel to the shore, the great cliffs looming through the darkness, and seeming as if close to them.
“The boy!—the boy!” cried Harcourt; “what has become of him? He never could have lived through that squall.”
“If the spar stood, there was an end of us, too,” said the sailor; “she’d have gone down by the stern, as sure as my name is Peter.”
“It is all over by this time,” muttered Harcourt, sorrowfully.
“Pace to him now!” said the sailor, as he crossed himself, and went over a prayer.
The wind now raged fearfully; claps, like the report of cannon, struck the frail boat at intervals, and laid her nearly keel uppermost; while the mast bent like a whip, and every rope creaked and strained to its last endurance. The deafening noise close at hand told where the waves were beating on the rock-bound coast, or surging with the deep growl of thunder through many a cavern. They rarely spoke, save when some emergency called for a word. Each sat wrapped up in his own dark reveries, and unwilling to break them. Hours passed thus,—long, dreary hours of darkness, that seemed like years of suffering, so often in this interval did life hang in the balance.
As morning began to break with a grayish blue light to the westward, the wind slightly abated, blowing more steadily, too, and less in sudden gusts; while the sea rolled in large round waves, unbroken above, and showing no crest of foam.
“Do you know where we are?” asked Harcourt.
“Yes, sir; we ‘re off the Rooks’ Point, and if we hold on well, we ‘ll soon be in slacker water.”
“Could the boy have reached this, think you?”
The man shook his head mournfully, without speaking.
“How far are we from Glencore?”
“About eighteen miles, sir; but more by land.”
“You can put me ashore, then, somewhere hereabouts.”
“Yes, sir, in the next bay; there’s a creek we can easily run into.”
“You are quite sure he couldn’t have been blown out to sea?”
“How could he, sir? There’s only one way the wind could dhrive him. If he isn’t in the Clough Bay, he’s in glory.”
All the anxiety of that dreary night was nothing to what Harcourt now suffered, in his eagerness to round the Rooks’ Point, and look in the bay beyond it. Controlling it as he would, still would it break out in words of impatience and even anger.
“Don’t curse the boat, yer honor,” said Peter, respectfully, but calmly; “she’s behaved well to us this night, or we ‘d not be here now.”
“But are we to beat about here forever?” asked the other, angrily.
“She’s doin’ well, and we ought to be thankful,” said the man; and his tone, even more than his words, served to reprove the other’s impatience. “I’ll try and set the mainsail on her with the remains of the sprit.”
Harcourt watched him, as he labored away to repair the damaged rigging; but though he looked at him, his thoughts were far away with poor Glencore upon his sick bed, in sorrow and in suffering, and perhaps soon to hear that he was childless. From these he went on to other thoughts. What could have occurred to have driven the boy to such an act of desperation? Harcourt invented a hundred imaginary causes, to reject them as rapidly again. The affection the boy bore to his father seemed the strongest principle of his nature. There appeared to be no event possible in which that feeling would not sway and control him. As he thus ruminated, he was aroused by the sudden cry of the boatman.
“There’s a boat, sir, dismasted, ahead of us, and drifting out to say.”
“I see her!—I see her!” cried Harcourt; “out with the oars, and let’s pull for her.”
Heavily as the sea was rolling, they now began to pull through the immense waves, Harcourt turning his head at every instant to watch the boat, which now was scarcely half a mile ahead of them.
“She’s empty!—there’s no one in her!” said Peter, mournfully, as, steadying himself by the mast, he cast a look seaward.
“Row on,—let us get beside her,” said Harcourt.
“She’s the yawl!—I know her now,” cried the man.
“And empty?”
“Washed out of her with a say, belike,” said Peter, resuming his oar, and tugging with all his strength.
A quarter of an hour’s hard rowing brought them close to the dismasted boat, which, drifting broadside on the sea, seemed at every instant ready to capsize.
“There’s something in the bottom,—in the stern-sheets!” screamed Peter. “It’s himself! O blessed Virgin, it’s himself!” And, with a bound, he sprang from his own boat into the other.
The next instant he had lifted the helpless body of the boy from the bottom of the boat, and, with a shout of joy, screamed out,—
“He’s alive!—he’s well!—it’s only fatigue!”
Harcourt pressed his hands to his face, and sank upon his knees in prayer.
CHAPTER XIII. A “VOW” ACCOMPLISHED
Just as Upton had seated himself at that fragal meal of weak tea and dry toast he called his breakfast, Harcourt suddenly entered the room, splashed and road-stained from head to foot, and in his whole demeanor indicating the work of a fatiguing journey.
“Why, I thought to have had my breakfast with you,” cried he, impatiently, “and this is like the diet of a convalescent from fever. Where is the salmon—where the grouse pie—where are the cutlets—and the chocolate—and the poached eggs—and the hot rolls, and the cherry bounce?”
“Say, rather, where are the disordered livers, worn-out stomachs, fevered brains, and impatient tempers, my worthy Colonel?” said Upton, blandly. “Talleyrand himself once told me that he always treated great questions starving.”
“And he made a nice mess of the world in consequence,” blustered out Harcourt. “A fellow with an honest appetite and a sound digestion would never have played false to so many masters.”
“It is quite right that men like you should read history in this wise,” said Upton, smiling, as he dipped a crust in his tea and ate it.
“Men like me are very inferior creatures, no doubt,” broke in Harcourt, angrily; “but I very much doubt if men like you had come eighteen miles on foot over a mountain this morning, after a night passed in an open boat at sea,—ay, in a gale, by Jove, such as I sha’ n’t forget in a hurry.”
“You have hit it perfectly, Harcourt; suum caique; and if only we could get the world to see that each of us has his speciality, we should all of us do much better.”
By the vigorous tug he gave the bell, and the tone in which he ordered up something to eat, it was plain to see that he scarcely relished the moral Upton had applied to his speech. With the appearance of the good cheer, however, he speedily threw off his momentary displeasure, and as he ate and drank, his honest, manly face lost every trace of annoyance. Once only did a passing shade of anger cross his countenance. It was when, suddenly looking up, he saw Upton’s eyes settled on him, and his whole features expressing a most palpable sensation of wonderment and compassion.
“Ay,” cried he, “I know well what’s passing in your mind this minute. You are lost in your pitying estimate of such a mere animal as I am; but, hang it all, old fellow, why not be satisfied with the flattering thought that you are of another stamp,—a creature of a different order?”
“It does not make one a whit happier,” sighed Upton, who never shrunk from accepting the sentiment as his own.
“I should have thought otherwise,” said Harcourt, with a malicious twinkle of the eye; for he fancied that he had at last touched the weak point of his adversary.
“No, my dear Harcourt, the crasso naturo have rather the best of it, since no small share of this world’s collisions are actually physical shocks; and that great strong pipkin that encloses your brains will stand much that would smash the poor egg-shell that shrouds mine.”
“Whenever you draw a comparison in my favor, I always find at the end I come off worst,” said Harcourt, bluntly; and Upton laughed one of his rich, musical laughs, in which there was indeed nothing mirthful, but something that seemed to say that his nature experienced a sense of enjoyment higher, perhaps, than anything merely comic could suggest.
“You came off best this time, Harcourt,” said he, good-humoredly; and such a thorough air of frankness accompanied the words that Harcourt was disarmed of all distrust at once, and joined in the laugh heartily.
“But you have not yet told me, Harcourt,” said the other, “where you have been, and why you spent your night on the sea.”
“The story is not a very long one,” replied he; and at once gave a full recital of the events, which our reader has already had before him in our last chapter, adding, in conclusion,
“I have left the boy in a cabin at Belmullet; he is in a high fever, and raving so loud that you could hear him a hundred yards away. I told them to keep cold water on his head, and give him plenty of it to drink,—nothing more,—till I could fetch our doctor over, for it will be impossible to move the boy from where he is for the present.”
“Glencore has been asking for him already this morning. He did not desire to see him, but he begged of me to go to him and speak with him.”
“And have you told him that he was from home,—that he passed the night away from this?”
“No; I merely intimated that I should look after him, waiting for your return to guide myself afterwards.”
“I don’t suspect that when we took him from the boat the malady had set in; he appeared rather like one overcome by cold and exhaustion. It was about two hours after,—he had taken some food and seemed stronger,—when I said to him, ‘Come, Charley, you ‘ll soon be all right again; I have sent a fellow to look after a pony for you, and you ‘ll be able to ride back, won’t you?’
“‘Ride where?’ cried he, eagerly.
“‘Home, of course,’ said I, ‘to Glencore.’
“‘Home! I have no home,’ cried he; and the wild scream he uttered the words with, I ‘ll never forget. It was just as if that one thought was the boundary between sense and reason, and the instant he had passed it, all was chaos and confusion; for now his raving began,—the most frantic imaginations; always images of sorrow, and with a rapidity of utterance there was no following. Of course in such cases the delusions suggest no clew to the cause, but all his fancies were about being driven out of doors an outcast and a beggar, and of his father rising from his sick bed to curse him. Poor boy! Even in this his better nature gleamed forth as he cried, ‘Tell him’—and he said the words in a low whisper—‘tell him not to anger himself; he is ill, very ill, and should be kept tranquil. Tell him, then, that I am going—going away forever, and he’ll hear of me no more.’” As Harcourt repeated the words, his own voice faltered, and two heavy drops slowly coursed down his bronzed cheeks. “You see,” added he, as if to excuse the emotion, “that was n’t like raving, for he spoke this just as he might have done if his very heart was breaking.”
“Poor fellow!” said Upton; and the words were uttered with real feeling.
“Some terrible scene must have occurred between them,” resumed Harcourt; “of that I feel quite certain.”
“I suspect you are right,” said Upton, bending over his teacup; “and our part, in consequence, is one of considerable delicacy; for until Glencore alludes to what has passed, we of course, can take no notice of it. The boy is ill; he is in a fever: we know nothing more.”
“I’ll leave you to deal with the father; the son shall be my care. I have told Traynor to be ready to start with me after breakfast, and have ordered two stout ponies for the journey. I conclude there will be no objection in detaining the doctor for the night: what think you, Upton?”
“Do you consult the doctor on that head; meanwhile, I ‘ll pay a visit to Glencore. I ‘ll meet you in the library.” And so saying, Upton rose, and gracefully draping the folds of his dressing-gown, and arranging the waving lock of hair which had escaped beneath his cap, he slowly set out towards the sick man’s chamber.
Of all the springs of human action, there was not one in which Sir Horace Upton sympathized so little as passion. That any man could adopt a line of conduct from which no other profit could result than what might minister to a feeling of hatred, jealousy, or revenge, seemed to him utterly contemptible. It was not, indeed, the morality of such a course that he called in question, although he would not have contested that point. It was its meanness, its folly, its insufficiency. His experience of great affairs had imbued him with all the importance that was due to temper and moderation. He scarcely remembered an instant where a false move had damaged a negotiation that it could not be traced to some passing trait of impatience, or some lurking spirit of animosity biding the hour of its gratification.
He had long learned to perceive how much more temperament has to do, in the management of great events, than talent or capacity, and his opinion of men was chiefly founded on this quality of their nature. It was, then, with an almost pitying estimate of Glenoore that he now entered the room where the sick man lay.
Anxious to be alone with him, Glenoore had dismissed all the attendants from his room, and sat, propped up by pillows, eagerly awaiting his approach.
Upton moved through the dimly lighted room like one familiar to the atmosphere of illness, and took his seat beside the bed with that noiseless quiet which in him was a kind of instinct.
It was several minutes before Glencore spoke, and then, in a low, faint voice, he said, “Are we alone, Upton?”
“Yes,” said the other, gently pressing the wasted fingers which lay on the counterpane before him.
“You forgive me, Upton,” said he,—and the words trembled as he uttered them,—“You forgive me, Upton, though I cannot forgive myself.”
“My dear friend, a passing moment of impatience is not to breach the friendship of a lifetime. Your calmer judgment would, I know, not be unjust to me.”
“But how am I to repair the wrong I have done you?”
“By never alluding to it,—never thinking of it again, Glenoore.”
“It is so unworthy, so ignoble in me!” cried Glenoore, bitterly; and a tear fell over his eyelid and rested on his wan and worn cheek.
“Let us never think of it, my dear Glenoore. Life has real troubles enough for either of us, not to dwell on those which we may fashion out of our emotions. I promise you, I have forgotten the whole incident.”
Glenoore sighed heavily, but did not speak; at last he said, “Be it so, Upton,” and, covering his face with his hand, lay still and silent. “Well,” said he, after a long pause, “the die is cast, Upton: I have told him!”
“Told the boy?” said Upton.
He nodded an assent. “It is too late to oppose me now, Upton,—the thing is done. I didn’t think I had strength for it; but revenge is a strong stimulant, and I felt as though once more restored to health, as I proceeded. Poor fellow! he bore it like a man. Like a man, do I say? No, but better than man ever bore such crushing tidings.”
“He asked me to stop once, while his head reeled, and said, ‘In a minute I shall be myself again,’ and so he was, too; you should have seen him, Upton, as he rose to leave me. So much of dignity was there in his look that my heart misgave me; and I told him that still, as my son, he should never want a friend and a protector. He grew deadly pale, and caught at the bed for support. Another moment, and I ‘d not have answered for myself. I was already relenting; but I thought of her, and my resolution came back in all its force. Still, I dared not look on him. The sight of that wan cheek, those quivering lips and glassy eyes, would certainly have unmanned me. I turned away. When I looked round, he was gone!’ As he ceased to speak, a clammy perspiration burst forth over his face and forehead, and he made a sign to Upton to wet his lips.
“It is the last pang she is to cost me, Upton, but it is a sore one!” said he, in a low, hoarse whisper.
“My dear Glencore, this is all little short of madness; even as revenge it is a failure, since the heaviest share of the penalty recoils upon yourself.”
“How so?” cried he, impetuously.
“Is it thus that an ancient name is to go out forever? Is it in this wise that a house noble for centuries is to crumble into ruin? I will not again urge upon you the cruel wrong you are doing. Over that boy’s inheritance you have no more right than over mine,—you cannot rob him of the protection of the law. No power could ever give you the disposal of his destiny in this wise.”
“I have done it, and I will maintain it, sir,” cried Glencore; “and if the question is, as you vaguely hint, to be one of law—”
“No, no, Glencore; do not mistake me.”
“Hear me out, sir,” said he, passionately. “If it is to be one of law, let Sir Horace Upton give his testimony,—tell all that he knows,—and let us see what it will avail him. You may—it is quite open to you—place us front to front as enemies. You may teach the boy to regard me as one who has robbed him of his birthright, and train him up to become my accuser in a court of justice. But my cause is a strong one, it cannot be shaken; and where you hope to brand me with tyranny, you will but visit bastardy upon him. Think twice, then, before you declare this combat. It is one where all your craft will not sustain you.”
“My dear Glencore, it is not in this spirit that we can speak profitably to each other. If you will not hear my reasons calmly and dispassionately, to what end am I here? You have long known me as one who lays claim to no more rigid morality than consists with the theory of a worldly man’s experiences. I affect no high-flown sentiments. I am as plain and practical as may be; and when I tell you that you are wrong in this affair, I mean to say that what you are about to do is not only bad, but impolitic. In your pursuit of a victim, you are immolating yourself.”
“Be it so; I go not alone to the stake; there is another to partake of the torture,” cried Glencore, wildly; and already his flushed cheek and flashing eyes betrayed the approach of a feverish access.
“If I am not to have any influence with you, then,” resumed Upton, “I am here to no purpose. If to all that I say—to arguments you cannot answer—you obstinately persist in opposing an insane thirst for revenge, I see not why you should desire my presence. You have resolved to do this great wrong?”
“It is already done, sir,” broke in Glencore.
“Wherein, then, can I be of any service to you?”
“I am coming to that. I had come to it before, had you not interrupted me. I want you to be guardian to the boy. I want you to replace me in all that regards authority over him. You know life well, Upton. You know it not alone in its paths of pleasure and success, but you understand thoroughly the rugged footway over which humble men toil wearily to fortune. None can better estimate a man’s chances of success, nor more surely point the road by which he is to attain it. The provision which I destine for him will be an humble one, and he will need to rely upon his own efforts. You will not refuse me this service, Upton. I ask it in the name of our old friendship.”
“There is but one objection I could possibly have, and yet that seems to be insurmountable.”
“And what may it be?” cried Glencore.
“Simply, that in acceding to your request, I make myself an accomplice in your plan, and thus aid and abet the very scheme I am repudiating.”
“What avails your repudiation if it will not turn me from my resolve? That it will not, I ‘ll swear to you as solemnly as ever an oath was taken. I tell you again, the thing is done. For the consequences which are to follow on it you have no responsibility; these are my concern.”
“I should like a little time to think over it,” said Upton, with the air of one struggling with irresolution. “Let me have this evening to make up my mind; to-morrow you shall have my answer.”
“Be it so, then,” said Glencore; and, turning his face away, waved a cold farewell with his hand.
We do not purpose to follow Sir Horace as he retired, nor does our task require that we should pry into the secret recesses of his wily nature; enough if we say that in asking for time, his purpose was rather to afford another opportunity of reflection to Glencore than to give himself more space for deliberation. He had found, by the experience of his calling, that the delay we often crave for, to resolve a doubt, has sufficed to change the mind of him who originated the difficulty.
“I’ll give him some hours, at least,” thought he, “to ponder over what I have said. Who knows but the argument may seem better in memory than in action? Such things have happened before now.” And having finished this reflection, he turned to peruse the pamphlet of a quack doctor who pledged himself to cure all disorders of the circulation by attending to tidal influences, and made the moon herself enter into the materia medica. What Sir Horace believed, or did not believe, in the wild rhapsodies of the charlatan, is known only to himself. Whether his credulity was fed by the hope of obtaining relief, or whether his fancy only was aroused by the speculative images thus suggested, it is impossible to say. It is not altogether improbable that he perused these things as Charles Fox used to read all the trashiest novels of the Minerva Press, and find, in the very distorted and exaggerated pictures, a relief and a relaxation which more correct views of life had failed to impart. Hard-headed men require strange indulgences.
CHAPTER XIV. BILLY TRAYNOR AND THE COLONEL
It was a fine breezy morning as the Colonel set out with Billy Traynor for Belmullet. The bridle-path by which they travelled led through a wild and thinly inhabited tract,—now dipping down between grassy hills, now tracing its course along the cliffs over the sea. Tall ferns covered the slopes, protected from the west winds, and here and there little copses of stunted oak showed the traces of what once had been forest. It was, on the whole, a silent and dreary region, so that the travellers felt it even relief as they drew nigh the bright blue sea, and heard the sonorous booming of the waves as they broke along the shore.
“It cheers one to come up out of those dreary dells, and hear the pleasant plash of the sea,” said Harcourt; and his bright face showed that he felt the enjoyment.
“So it does, sir,” said Billy. “And yet Homer makes his hero go heavy-hearted as he hears the ever-sounding sea.”
“What does that signify, Doctor?” said Harcourt, impatiently. “Telling me what a character in a fiction feels affects me no more than telling me what he does. Why, man, the one is as unreal as the other. The fellow that created him fashioned his thoughts as well as his actions.”
“To be sure he did; but when the fellow is a janius, what he makes is as much a crayture as either you or myself.”
“Come, come, Doctor, no mystification.”
“I don’t mean any,” broke in Billy. “What I want to say is this, that as we read every character to elicit truth,—truth in the working of human motives, truth in passion, truth in all the struggles of our poor weak natures,—why would n’t a great janius like Homer, or Shakspeare, or Milton, be better able to show us this in some picture drawn by themselves, than you or I be able to find it out for ourselves?”
Harcourt shook his head doubtfully.
“Well, now,” said Billy, returning to the charge, “did you ever see a waxwork model of anatomy? Every nerve and siny of a nerve was there,—not a vein nor an artery wanting. The artist that made it all just wanted to show you where everything was; but he never wanted you to believe it was alive, or ever had been. But with janius it’s different. He just gives you some traits of a character, he points him out to you passing,—just as I would to a man going along the street,—and there he is alive for ever and ever; not like you and me, that will be dead and buried to-morrow or next day, and the most known of us three lines in a parish registhry, but he goes down to posterity an example, an illustration—or a warning, maybe—to thousands and thousands of living men. Don’t talk to me about fiction! What he thought and felt is truer than all that you and I and a score like us ever did or ever will do. The creations of janius are the landmarks of humanity; and well for us is it that we have such to guide us!”
“All this may be very fine,” said Harcourt, contemptuously, “but give me the sentiments of a living man, or one that has lived, in preference to all the imaginary characters that have ever adorned a story.”
“Just as I suppose that you’d say that a soldier in the Blues, or some big, hulking corporal in the Guards, is a finer model of the human form than ever Praxiteles chiselled.”
“I know which I ‘d rather have alongside of me in a charge, Doctor,” said Harcourt, laughing; and then, to change the topic, he pointed to a lone cabin on the sea-shore, miles away, as it seemed, from all other habitations.
“That’s Michel Cady’s, sir,” said Traynor; “he lives by birds,—hunting them saygulls and cormorants through the crevices of the rocks, and stealing the eggs. There isn’t a precipice that he won’t climb, not a cliff that he won’t face.”
“Well, if that be his home, the pursuit does not seem a profitable one.”
“‘Tis as good as breaking stones on the road for four-pence a day, or carrying sea-weed five miles on your back to manure the potatoes,” said Billy, mournfully.
“That’s exactly the very thing that puzzles me,” said Harcourt, “why, in a country so remarkable for fertility, every one should be so miserably poor!”
“And you never heard any explanation of it?”
“Never; at least, never one that satisfied me.”
“Nor ever will you,” said Billy, sententiously.
“And why so?”
“Because,” said he, drawing a long breath, as if preparing for a discourse,—“because there’s no man capable of going into the whole subject; for it’s not merely an economical question or a social one, but it is metaphysical, and religious, and political, and ethnological, and historical,—ay, and geographical too! You have to consider, first, who and what are the aborigines. A conquered people that never gave in they were conquered. Who are the rulers? A Saxon race that always felt that they were infarior to them they ruled over!”
“By Jove, Doctor, I must stop you there; I never heard any acknowledgment of this inferiority you speak of.”
“I’d like to get a goold medal for arguin’ it out with you,” said Billy.
“And, after all, I don’t see how it would resolve the original doubt,” said Harcourt. “I want to know why the people are so poor, and I don’t want to hear of the battle of Clontarf, or the Danes at Dundalk.”
“There it is, you’d like to narrow down a great question of race, language, traditions, and laws to a little miserable dispute about labor and wages. O Manchester, Manchester! how ye’re in the heart of every Englishman, rich or poor, gentle or simple! You say you never heard of any confession of inferiority. Of course you did n’t; but quite the reverse,—a very confident sense of being far better than the poor Irish; and I’ll tell you how, and why, just as you, yourself, after a discusshion with me, when you find yourself dead bate, and not a word to reply, you ‘ll go home to a good dinner and a bottle of wine, dry clothes and a bright fire; and no matter how hard my argument pushed you, you’ll remember that I’m in rags, in a dirty cabin, with potatoes to ate and water to drink, and you ‘ll say, at all events, ‘I ‘m better off than he is;’ and there’s your superiority, neither more or less,—there it is! And all the while, I’m saying the same thing to myself,—‘Sorrow matter for his fine broadcloth, and his white linen, and his very best roast beef that he’s atin’,—I ‘m his master! In all that dignifies the spacies in them grand qualities that makes us poets, rhetoricians, and the like, in those elegant attributes that, as the poet says,—
“In all our pursuits
Lifts us high above brutes,’”
—in these, I say again, I ‘m his master!’”
As Billy finished his growing panegyric upon his country and himself, he burst out in a joyous laugh, and cried, “Did ye ever hear conceit like that? Did ye ever expect to see the day that a ragged poor blackguard like me would dare to say as much to one like you? And, after all, it’s the greatest compliment I could pay you.”
“How so, Billy? I don’t exactly see that.”
“Why, that if you weren’t a gentleman,—a raal gentleman, born and bred,—I could never have ventured to tell you what I said now. It is because, in your own refined feelings, you can pardon all the coarseness of mine, that I have my safety.”
“You’re as great a courtier as you are a scholar, Billy,” said Harcourt, laughing; “meanwhile, I’m not likely to be enlightened as to the cause of Irish poverty.”
“‘T is a whole volume I could write on the same subject,” said Billy; “for there’s so many causes in operation, com-binin’, and assistin’, and aggravatin’ each other. But if you want the head and front of the mischief in one word, it is this, that no Irishman ever gave his heart and sowl to his own business, but always was mindin’ something else that he had nothin’ to say to; and so, ye see, the priest does be thinkin’ of politics, the parson’s thinkin’ of the priest, the people are always on the watch for a crack at the agent or the tithe-proctor, and the landlord, instead of looking after his property, is up in Dublin dinin’ with the Lord-Leftinint and abusin’ his tenants. I don’t want to screen myself, nor say I’m better than my neighbors, for though I have a larned profession to live by, I ‘d rather be writin’ a ballad, and singin’ it too, down Thomas Street, than I ‘d be lecturin’ at the Surgeons’ Hall.”
“You are certainly a very strange people,” said Harcourt.
“And yet there’s another thing stranger still, which is, that your countrymen never took any advantage of our eccentricities, to rule us by; and if they had any wit in their heads, they ‘d have seen, easy enough, that all these traits are exactly the clews to a nation’s heart. That’s what Pitt meant when he said, ‘Let me make the songs of a people, and I don’t care who makes the laws.’ Look down now in that glen before you, as far as you can see. There’s Belmullet, and ain’t you glad to be so near your journey’s end? for you’re mighty tired of all this discoorsin’.”
“On the contrary, Billy, even when I disagree with what you say, I’m pleased to hear your reasons; at the same time, I ‘m glad we are drawing nigh to this poor boy, and I only trust we may not be too late.”
Billy muttered a pious concurrence in the wish, and they rode along for some time in silence. “There’s the Bay of Belmullet now under your feet,” cried Billy, as he pulled up short, and pointed with his whip seaward. “There’s five fathoms, and fine anchoring ground on every inch ye see there. There’s elegant shelter from tempestuous winds. There’s a coast rich in herrings, oysters, lobsters, and crabs; farther out there’s cod, and haddock, and mackerel in the sayson. There’s sea wrack for kelp, and every other con-vanience any one can require; and a poorer set of devils than ye ‘ll see when we get down there, there’s nowhere to be found. Well, well! ‘if idleness is bliss, it’s folly to work hard.’” And with this paraphrase, Billy made way for the Colonel, as the path had now become too narrow for two abreast, and in this way they descended to the shore.
CHAPTER XV. A SICK BED
Although the cabin in which the sick boy lay was one of the best in the village, its interior presented a picture of great poverty. It consisted of a single room, in the middle of which a mud wall of a few feet in height formed a sort of partition, abutting against which was the bed,—the one bed of the entire family,—now devoted to the guest. Two or three coarsely fashioned stools, a rickety table, and a still more rickety dresser comprised all the furniture. The floor was uneven and fissured, and the solitary window was mended with an old hat,—thus diminishing the faint light which struggled through the narrow aperture.
A large net, attached to the rafters, hung down in heavy festoons overhead, the corks and sinks dangling in dangerous proximity to the heads underneath. Several spars and oars littered one corner, and a newly painted buoy filled another; but, in spite of all these encumbrances, there was space around the fire for a goodly company of some eight or nine of all ages, who were pleasantly eating their supper from a large pot of potatoes that smoked and steamed in front of them.
“God save all here!” cried Billy, as he preceded the Colonel into the cabin.
“Save ye kindly,” was the courteous answer, in a chorus of voices; at the same time, seeing a gentleman at the door, the whole party arose at once to receive him. Nothing could have surpassed the perfect good-breeding with which the fisherman and his wife did the honors of their humble home; and Harcourt at once forgot the poverty-struck aspect of the scene in the general courtesy of the welcome.
“He ‘s no better, your honor,—no better at all,” said the man, as Harcourt drew nigh the sick bed. “He does be always ravin’,—ravin’ on,—beggin’ and implorin’ that we won’t take him back to the Castle; and if he falls asleep, the first thing he says when he wakes up is, ‘Where am I?—tell me I’m not at Glencore!’ and he keeps on screechin’, ‘Tell me, tell me so!’”
Harcourt bent down over the bed and gazed at him. Slowly and languidly the sick boy raised his heavy lids and returned the stare.
“You know me, Charley, boy, don’t you?” said he, softly.
“Yes,” muttered he, in a weak tone.
“Who am I, Charley? Tell me who is speaking to you.”
“Yes,” said he again.
“Poor fellow!” Bighed Harcourt, “he does not know me!”
“Where’s the pain?” asked Billy, suddenly.
The boy placed his hand on his forehead, and then on his temples.
“Look up! look at me!” said Billy. “Ay, there it is! the pupil does not contract,—there’s mischief in the brain. He wants to say something to you, sir,” said he to Harcourt; “he’s makin’ signs to you to stoop down.”
Harcourt put his ear close to the sick boy’s lips, and listened.
“No, my dear child, of course not,” said he, after a pause. “You shall remain here, and I will stay with you too. In a few days your father will come—”
A wild yell, a shriek that made the cabin ring, now broke from the boy, followed by another, and then a third; and then with a spring he arose from the bed, and tried to escape. Weak and exhausted as he was, such was the strength supplied by fever, it was all that they could do to subdue him and replace him in the bed; violent convulsions followed this severe access, and it was not till after hours of intense suffering that he calmed down again and seemed to slumber.
“There’s more than we know of here, Colonel,” said Billy, as he drew him to one side. “There’s moral causes as well as malady at work.”
“There may be, but I know nothing of them,” said Harcourt; and in the frank air of the speaker the other did not hesitate to repose his trust.
“If we hope to save him, we ought to find out where the mischief lies,” said Billy; “for, if ye remark, his ravin’ is always upon one subject; he never wanders from that.”
“He has a dread of home. Some altercation with his father has, doubtless, impressed him with this notion.”
“Ah, that isn’t enough, we must go ‘deeper; we want a clew to the part of the brain engaged. Meanwhile, here’s at him, with the antiphlogistic touch;” and he opened his lancet-case, and tucked up his cuffs. “Houlde the basin, Biddy.”
“There, Harvey himself couldn’t do it nater than that. It’s an elegant study to be feelin’ a pulse while the blood is flowin’. It comes at first like a dammed-up cataract, a regular out-pouring, just as a young girl would tell her love, all wild and tumultuous; then, after a time, she gets more temperate, the feelings are relieved, and the ardor is moderated, till at last, wearied and worn out, the heart seems to ask for rest; and then ye’ll remark a settled faint smile coming over the lips, and a clammy coldness in the face.”
“He’s fainting, sir,” broke in Biddy.
“He is, ma’am, and it’s myself done it,” said Billy. “Oh, dear, oh, dear! If we could only do with the moral heart what we can with the raal physical one, what wonderful poets we ‘d be!”
“What hopes have you?” whispered Harcourt.
“The best, the very best. There ‘s youth and a fine constitution to work upon; and what more does a doctor want? As ould Marsden said, ‘You can’t destroy these in a fortnight, so the patient must live.’ But you must help me, Colonel, and you can help me.”
“Command me in any way, Doctor.”
“Here’s the modus, then. You must go back to the Castle and find out, if you can, what happened between his father and him. It does not signify now, nor will it for some days; but when he comes to the convalescent stage, it’s then we ‘ll need to know how to manage him, and what subjects to keep him away from. ‘T is the same with the brain as with a sprained ankle; you may exercise if you don’t twist it; but just come down once on the wrong spot, and maybe ye won’t yell out!”
“You ‘ll not quit him, then.”
“I’m a senthry on his post, waiting to get a shot at the enemy if he shows the top of his head. Ah, sir, if ye only knew physic, ye ‘d acknowledge there ‘s nothing as treacherous as dizaze. Ye hunt him out of the brain, and then he is in the lungs. Ye chase him out of that, and he skulks in the liver. At him there, and he takes to the fibrous membranes, and then it’s regular hide-and-go-seek all over the body. Trackin’ a bear is child’s play to it.” And so saying, Billy held the Colonel’s stirrup for him to mount, and giving his most courteous salutation, and his best wishes for a good journey, he turned and re-entered the cabin.
CHAPTER XVI. THE “PROJECT”
It was not without surprise that Harcourt saw Glencore enter the drawing-room a few minutes before dinner. Very pale and very feeble, he slowly traversed the room, giving a hand to each of his guests, and answering the inquiries for his health by a sickly smile, while he said, “As you see me.”
“I am going to dine with you to-day, Harcourt,” said he, with an attempt at gayety of manner. “Upton tells me that a little exertion of this kind will do me good.”
“Upton’s right,” cried the Colonel, “especially if he added that you should take a glass or two of that admirable Burgundy. My life on ‘t but that is the liquor to set a man on his legs again.”
“I did n’t remark that this was exactly the effect it produced upon you t’ other night,” said Upton, with one of his own sly laughs.
“That comes of drinking it in bad company,” retorted Harcourt; “a man is driven to take two glasses for one.”
As the dinner proceeded, Glencore rallied considerably, taking his part in the conversation, and evidently enjoying the curiously contrasted temperaments at either side of him. The one, all subtlety, refinement, and finesse; the other, out-spoken, rude, and true-hearted; rarely correct in a question of taste, but invariably right in every matter of honorable dealing. Though it was clear enough that Upton relished the eccentricities whose sallies he provoked, it was no less easy to see how thoroughly he appreciated the frank and manly nature of the old soldier; nor could all the crafty habits of his acute mind overcome the hearty admiration with which he regarded him.
It is in the unrestricted ease of these “little dinners,” where two or three old friends are met, that social intercourse assumes its most charming form. The usages of the great world, which exact a species of uniformity of breeding and manners, are here laid aside, and men talk with all the bias and prejudices of their true nature, dashing the topics discussed with traits of personality, and even whims, that are most amusing. How little do we carry away of tact or wisdom from the grand banquets of life; and what pleasant stores of thought, what charming memories remain to us, after those small gatherings!
How, as I write this, one little room rises to my recollection, with its quaint old sideboard of carved oak; its dark-brown cabinets, curiously sculptured; its heavy old brocade curtains, and all its queer devices of knick-knackery, where such meetings once were held, and where, throwing off the cares of life,—shut out from them, as it were, by the massive folds of the heavy drapery across the door,—. we talked in all the fearless freedom of old friendship, rambling away from theme to theme, contrasting our experiences, balancing our views in life, and mingling through our converse the racy freshness of a boy’s enjoyment with the sager counsels of a man’s reflectiveness. Alas! how very early is it sometimes in life that we tread “the banquet-hall deserted.” But to our story: the evening wore pleasantly on; Upton talked, as few but himself could do, upon the public questions of the day; and Harcourt, with many a blunt interruption, made the discourse but more easy and amusing. The soldier was, indeed, less at his ease than the others. It was not alone that many of the topics were not such as he was most familiar with, but he felt angry and indignant at Glencore’s seeming indifference as to the fate of his son. Not a single reference to him even occurred; his name was never even passingly mentioned. Nothing but the careworn, sickly face, the wasted form and dejected expression before him, could have restrained Harcourt from alluding to the boy. He bethought him, however, that any indiscretion on his part might have the gravest consequences. Upton, too, might have said something to quiet Glencore’s mind. “At all events, I’ll wait,” said he to himself; “for wherever there is much delicacy in a negotiation, I generally make a mess of it.” The more genially, therefore, did Glencore lend himself to the pleasure of the conversation, the more provoked did Harcourt feel at his heartlessness, and the more did the struggle cost him to control his own sentiments.
Upton, who detected the secret working of men’s minds with a marvellous exactness, saw how the poor Colonel was suffering, and that, in all probability, some unhappy explosion would at last ensue, and took an opportunity of remarking that though all this chit-chat was delightful for them, Glencore was still a sick man.
“We must n’t forget, Harcourt,” said he, “that a chicken-broth diet includes very digestible small-talk; and here we are leading our poor friend through politics, war, diplomacy, and the rest of it, just as if he had the stomach of an old campaigner and—”
“And the brain of a great diplomatist! Say it out, man, and avow honestly the share of excellence you accord to each of us,” broke in Harcourt, laughing.
“I would to Heaven we could exchange,” sighed Upton, languidly.
“The saints forbid!” exclaimed the other; “and it would do us little good if we were able.”
“Why so?”
“I’d never know what to do with that fine intellect if I had it; and as for you, what with your confounded pills and mixtures, your infernal lotions and embrocations, you’d make my sound system as bad as your own in three months’ time.”
“You are quite wrong, my dear Harcourt; I should treat the stomach as you would do the brain,—give it next to nothing to do, in the hopes it might last the longer.”
“There now, good night,” said Harcourt; “he’s always the better for bitters, whether he gives or takes them.” And with a good-humored laugh he left the room.
Glencore’s eyes followed him as he retired; and then, as they closed, an expression as of long-repressed suffering settled down on his features so marked that Upton hastily asked,—
“Are you ill, are you in pain, Glencore?”
“In pain? Yes,” said he, “these two hours back I have been suffering intensely; but there’s no help for it! Must you really leave this to-morrow, Upton?”
“I must. This letter from the Foreign Office requires my immediate presence in London, with a very great likelihood of being obliged to start at once for the Continent.”
“And I had so much to say,—so many things to consult you on,” sighed the other.
“Are you equal to it now?” asked Upton.
“I must try, at all events. You shall learn my plan.” He was silent for some minutes, and sat with his head resting on his hand, in deep reflection. At last he said, “Has it ever occurred to you, Upton, that some incident of the past, some circumstance in itself insignificant, should rise up, as it were, in after life to suit an actual emergency, just as though fate had fashioned it for such a contingency?”
“I cannot say that I have experienced what you describe, if, indeed, I fully understand it.”
“I’ll explain better by an instance. You know now,”—here his voice became slow, and the words fell with a marked distinctness,—“you know now what I intend by this woman. Well, just as if to make my plan more feasible, a circumstance intended for a very different object offers itself to my aid. When my uncle, Sir Miles Herrick, heard that I was about to marry a foreigner, he declared that he would never leave me a shilling of his fortune. I am not very sure that I cared much for the threat when it was uttered. My friends, however, thought differently; and though they did not attempt to dissuade me from my marriage, they suggested that I should try some means of overcoming this prejudice; at all events, that I should not hurry on the match without an effort to obtain his consent. I agreed,—not very willingly, indeed,—and so the matter remained. The circumstance was well known amongst my two or three most intimate friends, and constantly discussed by them. I need n’t tell you that the tone in which such things are talked of as often partakes of levity as seriousness. They gave me all manner of absurd counsels, one more outrageously ridiculous than the other. At last, one day,—we were picnicking at Baia,—Old Clifford,—you remember that original who had the famous schooner-yacht ‘The Breeze,’—well, he took me aside after dinner, and said, ‘Glencore, I have it,—I have just hit upon the expedient. Your uncle and I were old chums at Christ Church fifty years ago. What if we were to tell him that you were going to marry a daughter of mine? I don’t think he’d object. I ‘m half certain he ‘d not. I have been abroad these five-and-thirty years. Nobody in England knows much about me now. Old Herrick can’t live forever; he is my senior by a good ten or twelve years; and if the delusion only lasts his time—’
“‘But perhaps you have a daughter?’ broke I in.
“‘I have, and she is married already, so there is no risk on that score.’ I need n’t repeat all that he said for, nor that I urged against, the project; for though it was after dinner, and we all had drunk very freely, the deception was one I firmly rejected. When a man shows a great desire to serve you on a question of no common difficulty, it is very hard to be severe upon his counsels, however unscrupulous they may be. In fact, you accept them as proofs of friendship only the stronger, seeing how much they must have cost him to offer.”
Upton smiled dubiously, and Glencore, blushing slightly, said, “You don’t concur in this, I perceive.”
“Not exactly,” said Upton, in his silkiest of tones; “I rather regard these occasions as I should do the generosity of a man who, filling my hand with base money, should say, ‘Pass it if you can!’”
“In this case, however,” resumed Glencore, “he took his share of the fraud, or at least was willing to do so, for I distinctly said ‘No’ to the whole scheme. He grew very warm about it; at one moment appealing to my ‘good sense, not to kick seven thousand a year out of the window;’ at the next, in half-quarrelsome mood, asking ‘if it were any objection I had to be connected with his family.’ To get rid of a very troublesome subject, and to end a controversy that threatened to disturb a party, I said at last, ‘We ‘ll talk it over to-morrow, Clifford, and if your arguments be as good as your heart, then perhaps they may yet convince me.’ This ended the theme, and we parted. I started the next day on a shooting excursion into Calabria, and when I got back it was not of meeting Clifford I was thinking. I hastened to meet the Delia Torres, and then came our elopement. You know the rest. We went to the East, passed the winter in Upper Egypt, and came to Cairo in spring, where Charley was born. I got back to Naples after a year or two, and then found that my uncle had just died, and in consequence of my marrying the daughter of his old and attached friend, Sir Guy Clifford, had reversed the intention of his will, and by a codicil left me his sole heir. It was thus that my marriage, and even my boy’s birth, became inserted in the Peerage; my solicitor, in his vast eagerness for my interests, having taken care to indorse the story with his own name. The disinherited nephews and nieces, the half-cousins and others, soon got wind of the real facts, and contested the will, on the ground of its being executed under a delusion. I, of course, would not resist their claim, and satisfied myself by denying the statement as to my marriage; and so, after affording the current subject of gossip for a season, I was completely forgotten, the more as we went to live abroad, and never mixed with English. And now, Upton, it is this same incident I would utilize for the present occasion, though, as I said before, when it originally occurred it had a very different signification.”
“I don’t exactly see how,” said Upton.
“In this wise. My real marriage was never inserted in the Peerage. I’ll now manage that it shall so appear, to give me the opportunity of formally contradicting it, and alluding to the strange persistence with which, having married me some fifteen years ago to a lady who never existed, they now are pleased to unite me to one whose character might have secured me against the calumny. I ‘ll threaten an action for libel, etc., obtain a most full, explicit, and abject apology, and then, when this has gone the round of all the journals of Europe, her doom is sealed!”
“But she has surely letters, writings, proofs of some sort.”
“No, Upton, I have not left a scrap in her possession; she has not a line, not a letter to vindicate her. On the night I broke open her writing-desk, I took away everything that bore the traces of my own hand. I tell you again she is in my power, and never was power less disposed to mercy.”
“Once more, my dear friend,” said Upton, “I am driven to tell you that I cannot be a profitable counsellor in a matter to every detail of which I object. Consider calmly for one moment what you are doing. See how, in your desire to be avenged upon her, you throw the heaviest share of the penalty on your own poor boy. I am not her advocate now. I will not say one word to mitigate the course of your anger towards her, but remember that you are actually defrauding him of his birthright. This is not a question where you have a choice. There is no discretionary power left you.”
“I ‘ll do it,” said Glencore, with a savage energy.
“In other words, to wreak a vengeance upon one, you are prepared to immolate another, not only guiltless, but who possesses every claim to your love and affection.”
“And do you think that if I sacrifice the last tie that attaches me to life, Upton, that I retire from this contest heart-whole? No, far from it; I go forth from the struggle broken, blasted, friendless!”
“And do you mean that this vengeance should outlive you? Suppose, for instance, that she should survive you.”
“It shall be to live on in shame, then,” cried he, savagely.
“And were she to die first?”
“In that case—I have not thought well enough about that. It is possible,—it is just possible; but these are subtleties, Upton, to detach me from my purpose, or weaken my resolution to carry it through. You would apply the craft of your calling to the case, and, by suggesting emergencies, open a road to evasions. Enough for me the present. I neither care to prejudge the future, nor control it. I know,” cried he, suddenly, and with eyes flashing angrily as he spoke,—“I know that if you desire to use the confidence I have reposed in you against me, you can give me trouble and even difficulty; but I defy Sir Horace Upton, with all his skill and all his cunning, to outwit me.”
There was that in the tone in which he uttered these words, and the exaggerated energy of his manner, that convinced Upton, Glencore’s reason was not intact. It was not what could amount to aberration in the ordinary sense, but sufficient evidence was there to show that judgment had become so obscured by passion that the mental power was weakened by the moral.
“Tell me, therefore, Upton,” cried he, “before we part, do you leave this house my friend or my enemy?”
“It is as your sincere, attached friend that I now dispute with you, inch by inch, a dangerous position, with a judgment under no influence from passion, viewing this question by the coldest of all tests,—mere expediency—’
“There it is,” broke in Glencore; “you claim an advantage over me, because you are devoid of feeling; but this is a case, sir, where the sense of injury gives the instinct of reparation. Is it nothing to me, think you, that I am content to go down dishonored to my grave, but also to be the last of my name and station? Is it nothing that a whole line of honorable ancestry is extinguished at once? Is it nothing that I surrender him who formed my sole solace and companionship in life? You talk of your calm, unbiassed mind; but I tell you, till your brain be on fire like mine, and your heart swollen to very bursting, that you have no right to dictate to me! Besides, it is done! The blow has fallen,” added he, with a deeper solemnity of voice. “The gulf that separates us is already created. She and I can meet no more. But why continue this contest? It was to aid me in directing that boy’s fortunes I first sought your advice, not to attempt to dissuade me from what I will not be turned from.”
“In what way can I serve you?” said Upton, calmly.
“Will you consent to be his guardian?”
“I will.”
Glencore seized the other’s hand, and pressed it to his heart, and for some seconds he could not speak.
“This is all that I ask, Upton,” said he. “It is the greatest boon friendship could accord me. I need no more. Could you have remained here a day or two more, we could have settled upon some plan together as to his future life; as it is, we can arrange it by letter.”
“He must leave this,” said Upton, thoughtfully.
“Of course,—at once!”
“How far is Harcourt to be informed in this matter; have you spoken to him already?”
“No; nor mean to do so. I should have from him nothing but reproaches for having betrayed the boy into false hopes of a station he was never to fill. You must tell Harcourt. I leave it to yourself to find the suitable moment.”
“We shall need his assistance,” said Upton, whose quick faculties were already busily travelling many a mile of the future. “I ‘ll see him to-night, and try what can be done. In a few days you will have turned over in your mind what you yourself destine for him,—the fortune you mean to give—”
“It is already done,” said Glencore, laying a sealed letter on the table. “All that I purpose in his behalf you will find there.”
“All this detail is too much for you, Glencore,” said the other, seeing that a weary, depressed expression had come over him, while his voice grew weaker with every word. “I shall not leave this till late to-morrow, so that we can meet again. And now good night.”
CHAPTER XVII. A TÊTE-À-TÊTE
When Harcourt was aroused from his sound sleep by Upton, and requested in the very blandest tones of that eminent diplomatist to lend him every attention of his “very remarkable faculties,” he was not by any means certain that he was not engaged in a strange dream; nor was the suspicion at all dispelled by the revelations addressed to him.
“Just dip the end of that towel in the water, Upton, and give it to me,” cried he at last; and then, wiping his face and forehead, said, “Have I heard you aright,—there was no marriage?”
Upton nodded assent.
“What a shameful way he has treated this poor boy, then!” cried the other. “I never heard of anything equal to it in cruelty, and I conclude it was breaking this news to the lad that drove him out to sea on that night, and brought on this brain fever. By Jove, I ‘d not take his title, and your brains, to have such a sin on my conscience!”
“We are happily not called on to judge the act,” said Upton, cautiously.
“And why not? Is it not every honest man’s duty to reprobate whatever he detects dishonorable or disgraceful? I do judge him, and sentence him too, and I say, moreover, that a more cold-blooded piece of cruelty I never heard of. He trains up this poor boy from childhood to fancy himself the heir to his station and fortune; he nurses in him all the pride that only a high rank can cover; and then, when the lad’s years have brought him to the period when these things assume all their value, he sends for him to tell him he is a bastard.”
“It is not impossible that I think worse of Glencore’s conduct than you do yourself,” said Upton, gravely.
“But you never told him so, I’ll be sworn,—you never said to him it was a rascally action. I’ll lay a hundred pounds on it, you only expostulated on the inexpediency, or the inconvenience, or some such trumpery consideration, and did not tell him, in round numbers, that what he had done was an infamy.”
“Then I fancy you’d lose your money, pretty much as you are losing your temper,—that is, without getting anything in requital.”
“What did you say to him, then?” said Harcourt, slightly abashed.
“A great deal in the same strain as you have just spoken in, doubtless not as warm in vituperation, but possibly as likely to produce an effect; nor is it in the least necessary to dwell upon that. What Glencore has done, and what I have said about it, both belong to the past. They are over,—they are irrevocable. It is to what concerns the present and the future I wish now to address myself, and to interest you.”
“Why, the boy’s name was in the Peerage,—I read it there myself.”
“My dear Harcourt, you must have paid very little attention to me a while ago, or you would have understood how that occurred.”
“And here were all the people, the tenantry on the estate, calling him the young lord, and the poor fellow growing up with the proud consciousness that the title was his due.”
“There is not a hardship of the case I have not pictured to my own mind as forcibly as you can describe it,” said Upton; “but I really do not perceive that any reprobation of the past has in the slightest assisted me in providing for the future.”
“And then,” murmured Harcourt,—for all the while he was pursuing his own train of thought, quite irrespective of all Upton was saying,—“and then he turns him adrift on the world without friend or fortune.”
“It is precisely that he may have both the one and the other that I have come to confer with you now,” replied Upton. “Glencore has made a liberal provision for the boy, and asked me to become his guardian. I have no fancy for the trust, but I did n’t see how I could decline it. In this letter he assigns to him an income, which shall be legally secured to him. He commits to me the task of directing his education, and suggesting some future career, and for both these objects I want your counsel.”
“Education,—prospects,—why, what are you talking about? A poor fellow who has not a name, nor a home, nor one to acknowledge him,—what need has he of education, or what chance of prospects? I’d send him to sea, and if he wasn’t drowned before he came to manhood, I’d give him his fortune, whatever it was, and say, ‘Go settle in some of the colonies.’ You have no right to train him up to meet fresh mortifications and insults in life; to be flouted by every fellow that has a father, and outraged by every cur whose mother was married.”
“And are the colonies especially inhabited by illegitimate offspring?” said Upton, dryly.
“At least he’d not be met with a rebuff at every step he made. The rude life of toil would be better than the polish of a civilization that could only reflect upon him.”
“Not badly said, Harcourt,” said Upton, smiling; “but as to the boy, I have other prospects. He has, if I mistake not, very good faculties. You estimate them even higher. I don’t see why they should be neglected. If he merely possess the mediocrity of gifts which make men tolerable lawyers and safe doctors, why, perhaps, he may turn them into some channel. If he really can lay claim to higher qualities, they must not be thrown away.”
“Which means that he ought to be bred up to diplomacy,” said Harcourt.
“Perhaps,” said the other, with a bland inclination of the head.
“And what can an old dragoon like myself contribute to such an object?” asked Harcourt.
“You can be of infinite service in many ways,” said Upton; “and for the present I wish to leave the boy in your care, till I can learn something about my own destiny. This, of course, I shall know in a few days. Meanwhile you ‘ll look after him, and as soon as his removal becomes safe you ‘ll take him away from this,—it does not much matter whither; probably some healthy, secluded spot in Wales, for a week or two, would be advisable. Glencore and he must not meet again; if ever they are to do so, it must be after a considerable lapse of time.”
“Have you thought of a name for him, or is his to be still Massy?” asked Harcourt, bluntly.
“He may take the maternal name of Glencore’s family, and be called Doyle, and the settlements could be drawn up in that name.”
“I’ll be shot if I like to have any share in the whole transaction! Some day or other it will all come out, and who knows how much blame may be imputed to us, perhaps for actually advising the entire scheme,” said Harcourt.
“You must see, my dear Harcourt, that you are only refusing aid to alleviate an evil, and not to devise one. If this boy—”
“Well—well—I give in. I’d rather comply at once than be preached into acquiescence. Even when you do not convince me, I feel ashamed to oppose myself to so much cleverness; so, I repeat, I ‘m at your orders.”
“Admirably spoken,” said Upton, with a smile.
“My greatest difficulty of all,” said Harcourt, “will be to meet Glencore again after this. I know—I feel—I never can forgive him.”
“Perhaps he will not ask forgiveness, Harcourt,” said the other, with one of his slyest of looks. “Glencore is a strange, self-opinionated fellow, and has amongst other odd notions that of going the road he likes best himself. Besides, there is another consideration here, and with no man will it weigh more than with yourself. Glencore has been dangerously ill,—at this moment we can scarcely say that he has recovered; his state is yet one of anxiety and doubt. You are the last who would forget such infirmity; nor is it necessary to secure your pity that I should say how seriously the poor fellow is now suffering.”
“I trust he’ll not speak to me about this business,” said Harcourt, after a pause.
“Very probably he will not. He will know that I have already told you everything, so that there will be no need of any communication from him.”
“I wish from my heart and soul I had never come here. I would to Heaven I had gone away at once, as I first intended. I like that boy; I feel he has fine stuff in him; and now—”
“Come, come, Harcourt, it’s the fault of all soft-hearted fellows, like yourself, that their kindliness degenerates into selfishness, and they have such a regard for their own feelings that they never agree to anything that wounds them. Just remember that you and I have very small parts in this drama, and the best way we can do is to fill them without giving ourselves the airs of chief characters.”
“You’re at your old game, Upton; you are always ready to wet yourself, provided you give another fellow a ducking.”
“Only if he get a worse one, or take longer to dry after it,” remarked Upton, laughing.
“Quite true, by Jove!” chimed in the other; “you take special care to come off best. And now you ‘re going,” added he, as Upton rose to withdraw, “and I’m certain that I have not half comprehended what you want from me.”
“You shall have it in writing, Harcourt; I’ll send you a clear despatch the first spare moment I can command after I reach town. The boy will not be fit to move for some time to come, and so good-bye.”
“You don’t know where they are going to send you?”
“I cannot frame even a conjecture,” sighed Upton, languidly. “I ought to be in the Brazils for a week or so about that slave question; and then the sooner I reach Constantinople the better.”
“Sha’ n’t they want you at Paris?” asked Harcourt, who felt a kind of quiet vengeance in developing what he deemed the weak vanity of the other.
“Yes,” sighed he again; “but I can’t be everywhere.” And so saying, he lounged away, while it would have taken a far more subtle listener than Harcourt to say whether he was mystifying the other, or the dupe of his own self-esteem.
CHAPTER XVIII. BILLY TRAYNOR AS ORATOR
Three weeks rolled over,—an interval not without its share of interest for the inhabitants of the little village of Leenane, since on one morning Mr. Craggs had made his appearance on his way to Clifden, and after an absence of two days returned to the Castle. The subject for popular discussion and surmise had not yet declined, when a boat was seen to leave Glencore, heavily laden with trunks and travelling gear; and as she neared the land, the “lord” was detected amongst the passengers, looking very ill,—almost dying; he passed up the little street of the village, scarcely noticing the uncovered heads which saluted him respectfully. Indeed, he scarcely lifted up his eyes, and, as the acute observers remarked, never once turned a glance towards the opposite shore, where the Castle stood.
He had not reached the end of the village, when a chaise with four horses arrived at the spot. No time was lost in arranging the trunks and portmanteaus, and Lord Glencore sat moodily on a bank, listlessly regarding what went forward. At length Craggs came up, and, touching his cap in military fashion, announced all was ready.
Lord Glencore arose slowly, and looked languidly around him; his features wore a mingled expression of weariness and anxiety, like one not fully awakened from an oppressive dream. He turned his eyes on the people, who at a respectful distance stood around, and in a voice of peculiar melancholy said, “Good-bye.”
“A good journey to you, my Lord, and safe back again to us,” cried a number together.
“Eh—what—what was that?” cried he, suddenly; and the tones were shrill and discordant in which he spoke.
A warning gesture from Craggs imposed silence on the crowd, and not a word was uttered.
“I thought they said something about coming back again,” muttered Glencore, gloomily.
“They were wishing you a good journey, my Lord,” replied Craggs.
“Oh, that was it, was it?” And so saying, with bent-down head he walked feebly forward and entered the carriage. Craggs was speedily on the box, and the next moment they were away.
It is no part of our task to dwell on the sage speculations and wise surmises of the village on this event. They had not, it is true, much “evidence” before them, but they were hardy guessers, and there was very little within the limits of possibility which they did not summon to the aid of their imaginations. All, however, were tolerably agreed upon one point,—that to leave the place while the young lord was still unable to quit his bed, and too weak to sit up, was unnatural and unfeeling; traits which, “after all,” they thought “not very surprising, since the likes of them lords never cared for anybody.”
Colonel Harcourt still remained at Glencore, and under his rigid sway the strictest blockade of the coast was maintained, nor was any intercourse whatever permitted with the village. A boat from the Castle, meeting another from Leenane, half way in the lough, received the letters and whatever other resources the village supplied. All was done with the rigid exactness of a quarantine regulation; and if the mainland had been scourged with plague, stricter measures of exclusion could scarcely have been enforced.
In comparison with the present occupant of the Castle, the late one was a model of amiability; and the village, as is the wont in the case, now discovered a vast number of good qualities in the “lord,” when they had lost him. After a while, however, the guesses, the speculations, and the comparisons all died away, and the Castle of Glencore was as much dreamland to their imaginations as, seen across the lough in the dim twilight of an autumn evening, its towers might have appeared to their eyes.
It was about a month after Lord Glencore’s departure, of a fine, soft evening in summer, Billy Traynor suddenly appeared in the village. Billy was one of a class who, whatever their rank in life, are always what Coleridge would have called “noticeable men.” He was soon, therefore, surrounded with a knot of eager and inquiring friends, all solicitous to know something of the life he was leading, what they were doing “beyant at the Castle.”
“It’s a mighty quiet studious kind of life,” said Billy, “but agrees with me wonderfully; for I may say that until now I never was able to give my ‘janius’ fair play. Professional life is the ruin of the student; and being always obleeged to be thinkin’ of the bags destroyed my taste for letters.” A grin of self-approval at his own witticism closed this speech.
“But is it true, Billy, the lord is going to break up house entirely, and not come back here?” asked Peter Slevin, the sacristan, whose rank and station warranted his assuming the task of cross-questioner.
“There ‘s various ways of breakin’ up a house,” said Billy. “Ye may do so in a moral sinse, or in a physical sinse; you may obliterate, or extinguish, or, without going so far, you may simply obfuscate,—do you perceave?”
“Yes!” said the sacristan, on whom every eye was now bent, to see if he was able to follow subtleties that had outwitted the rest.
“And whin I say obfuscate,” resumed Billy, “I open a question of disputed etymology, bekase tho’ Lucretius thinks the word obfuscator original, there’s many supposes it comes from ob and fucus, the dye the ancients used in their wool, as we find in Horace, lana fuco medicata; while Cicero employs it in another sense, and says, facere fucum, which is as much as to say, humbuggin’ somebody,—do ye mind?”
“Begorra, he might guess that anyhow!” muttered a shrewd little tailor, with a significance that provoked hearty laughter.
“And now,” continued Billy, with an air of triumph, “we’ll proceed to the next point.”
“Ye needn’t trouble yerself then,” said Terry Lynch, “for Peter has gone home.”
And so, to the amusement of the meeting, it turned out to be the case; the sacristan had retired from the controversy. “Come in here to Mrs. Moore’s, Billy, and take a glass with us,” said Terry; “it isn’t often we see you in these parts.”
“If the honorable company will graciously vouchsafe and condescind to let me trate them to a half-gallon,” said Billy, “it will be the proudest event of my terrestrial existence.”
The proposition was received with a cordial enthusiasm, flattering to all concerned; and in a few minutes after, Billy Traynor sat at the head of a long table in the neat parlor of “The Griddle,” with a company of some fifteen or sixteen very convivially disposed friends around him.
“If I was Cæsar, or Lucretius, or Nebuchadnezzar, I couldn’t be prouder,” said Billy, as he looked down the board. “And let moralists talk as they will, there’s a beautiful expansion of sentiment, there’s a fine genial overflowin’ of the heart, in gatherin’s like this, where we mingle our feelin’s and our philosophy; and our love and our learning walk hand in hand like brothers—pass the sperits, Mr. Shea. If we look to the ancient writers, what do we see!—Lemons! bring in some lemons, Mickey.—What do we see, I say, but that the very highest enjoyment of the haythen gods was—Hot wather! why won’t they send in more hot wather?”
“Begorra, if I was a haythen god, I ‘d like a little whisky in it,” muttered Terry, dryly.
“Where was I?” asked Billy, a little disconcerted by this sally, and the laugh it excited. “I was expatiatin’ upon celestial convivialities. The nodes coenoeque deum,—them elegant hospitalities where wisdom was moistened with nectar, and wit washed down with ambrosia. It is not, by coorse, to be expected,” continued he, modestly, “that we mere mortials can compete with them elegant refections. But, as Ovid says, we can at least diem jucundam decipere.”
The unknown tongue had now restored to Billy all the reverence and respect of his auditory, and he continued to expatiate very eloquently on the wholesome advantages to be derived from convivial intercourse, both amongst gods and men; rather slyly intimating that either on the score of the fluids, or the conversation, his own leanings lay towards “the humanities.”
“For, after all,” said he, “‘tis our own wakenesses is often the source of our most refined enjoyments. No, Mrs. Cassidy, ye need n’t be blushin’. I ‘m considerin’ my subject in a high ethnological and metaphysical sinse.” Mrs. Cassidy’s confusion, and the mirth it excited, here interrupted the orator.
“The meeting is never tired of hearin’ you, Billy,” said Terry Lynch; “but if it was plazin’ to ye to give us a song, we’d enjoy it greatly.”
“Ah!” said Billy, with a sigh, “I have taken my partin’ kiss with the Muses; non mihi licet increpare digitis lyram:—
“‘No more to feel poetic fire,
No more to touch the soundin’ lyre;
But wiser coorses to begin,
I now forsake my violin.’”
An honest outburst of regret and sorrow broke from the assembly, who eagerly pressed for an explanation of this calamitous change.
“The thing is this,” said Billy: “if a man is a creature of mere leisure and amusement, the fine arts—and by the fine arts I mean music, paintin’, and the ladies—is an elegant and very refined subject of cultivation; but when you raise your cerebrial faculties to grander and loftier considerations, to explore the difficult ragions of polemic or political truth, to investigate the subtleties of the schools, and penetrate the mysteries of science, then, take my word for it, the fine arts is just snares,—devil a more than snares! And whether it is soft sounds seduces you, or elegant tints, or the union of both,—women, I mane,—you ‘ll never arrive at anything great or tri-um-phant till you wane yourself away from the likes of them vanities. Look at the haythen mythology; consider for a moment who is the chap that represents Music,—a lame blackguard, with an ugly face, they call Pan. Ay, indeed, Pan! If you wanted to see what respect they had for the art, it’s easy enough to guess, when this crayture represints it; and as to Paintin’, on my conscience, they have n’t a god at all that ever took to the brush.—Pass up the sperits, Mickey,” said he, somewhat blown and out of breath by this effort. “Maybe,” said he, “I’m wearin’ you.”
“No, no, no,” loudly responded the meeting.
“Maybe I’m imposin’ too much of personal details on the house,” added he, pompously.
“Not at all; never a bit,” cried the company.
“Because,” resumed he, slowly, “if I did so, I ‘d have at least the excuse of say in’, like the great Pitt, ‘These may be my last words from this place.’”
An unfeigned murmur of sorrow ran through the meeting, and he resumed:—
“Ay, ladies and gintlemin, Billy Traynor is takin’ his ‘farewell benefit;’ he’s not humbuggin’. I ‘m not like them chaps that’s always positively goin’, but stays on at the unanimous request of the whole world. No; I’m really goin’ to leave you.”
“What for? Where to, Billy?” broke from a number of voices together.
“I ‘ll tell ye,” said he,—“at least so far as I can tell; because it would n’t be right nor decent to ‘print the whole of the papers for the house,’ as they say in parliamint. I ‘m going abroad with the young lord; we are going to improve our minds, and cultivate our janiuses, by study and foreign travel. We are first to settle in Germany, where we ‘re to enter a University, and commince a coorse of modern tongues, French, Sweadish, and Spanish; imbibin’ at the same time a smatterin’ of science, such as chemistry, conchology, and the use of the globes.”
“Oh dear! oh dear!” murmured the meeting, in wonder and admiration.
“I ‘m not goin’ to say that we ‘ll neglect mechanics, metaphysics, and astrology; for we mane to be cosmonopolists in knowledge. As for myself, ladies and gintlemin, it’s a proud day that sees me standin’ here to say these words. I, that was ragged, without a shoe to my foot,—without breeches,—never mind, I was, as the poet says, nudus nummis ac vestimentis,—
“‘I have n’t sixpence in my pack,
I have n’t small clothes to my back.’
carryin’ the bag many a weary mile, through sleet and snow, for six pounds tin per annum, and no pinsion for wounds or superannuation; and now I ‘m to be—it is n’t easy to say what—to the young lord a spacies of humble companion,—not maniai, do you mind, nothing manial; what the Latins called a __famulus, which was quite a different thing from a servus. The former bein’ a kind of domestic adviser, a deputy-assistant, monitor-general, as a body might say. There, now, if I discoorsed for a month, I could n’t tell you more about myself and my future prospects. I own to you that I ‘m proud of my good luck, and I would n’t exchange it to be Emperor of Jamaica, or King of the Bahamia Islands.”
If we have been prolix in our office of reporter to Billy Traynor, our excuse is that his discourse will have contributed so far to the reader’s enlightenment as to save us the task of recapitulation. At the same time, it is but justice to the accomplished orator that we should say we have given but the most meagre outline of an address which, to use the newspaper phrase, “occupied three hours in the delivery.” The truth was, Billy was in vein; the listeners were patient, the punch strong: nor is it every speaker who has had the good fortune of such happy accessories.
CHAPTER XIX. THE CASCINE AT FLORENCE
It was spring, and in Italy! one of those half-dozen days, at very most, when, the feeling of winter departed, a gentle freshness breathes through the air; trees stir softly, and as if by magic; the earth becomes carpeted with flowers, whose odors seem to temper, as it were, the exciting atmosphere. An occasional cloud, fleecy and jagged, sails lazily aloft, marking its shadow on the mountain side. In a few days—a few hours, perhaps—the blue sky will be unbroken, the air hushed, a hot breath will move among the leaves, or pant over the trickling fountains.
In this fast-flitting period,—we dare not call it season,—the Cascine of Florence is singularly beautiful; on one side, the gentle river stealing past beneath the shadowing foliage; on the other, the picturesque mountain towards Fiesole, dotted with its palaces and terraced gardens. The ancient city itself is partly seen, and the massive Duomo and the Palazzo Vecchio tower proudly above the trees! What other people of Europe have such a haunt?—what other people would know so thoroughly how to enjoy it? The day was drawing to a close, and the Piazzone was now filled with equipages. There were the representatives of every European people, and of nations far away over the seas,—splendid Russians, brilliant French, splenetic, supercilious English, and ponderous Germans, mingled with the less marked nationalities of Belgium and Holland, and even America. Everything that called itself Fashion was there to swell the tide; and although a choice military band was performing with exquisite skill the favorite overtures of the day, the noise and tumult of conversation almost drowned their notes. Now, the Cascine is to the world of society what the Bourse is to the world of trade. It is the great centre of all news and intelligence, where markets and bargains of intercourse are transacted, and where the scene of past pleasure is revived, and the plans of future enjoyment are canvassed. The great and the wealthy are there, to see and to meet with each other. The proud equipages lie side by side, like great liners; while phaetons, like fast frigates, shoot swiftly by, and solitary dandies flit past in varieties of conveyance to which sea-craft can offer no analogies. All are busy, eager, and occupied. Scandal holds here its festival, and the misdeeds of every capital of Europe are now being discussed. The higher themes of politics occupy but few; the interests of literature attract still less. It is essentially of the world they talk, and it must be owned they do it like adepts. The last witticism of Paris,—the last duel at Berlin,—who has fled from his creditors in England,—who has run away from her husband at Naples,—all are retailed with a serious circumstantiality that would lead one to believe that gossip maintained its “own correspondent” in every city of the Continent. Moralists might fancy, perhaps, that in the tone these subjects are treated they would mingle a reprobation of the bad, and a due estimate of the opposite, if it ever occurred at all; but as surely would they be disappointed. Never were censors more lenient,—never were critics so charitable. The transgressions against good-breeding—the “gaucheries” of manner, the solecisms in dress, language, or demeanor—do indeed meet with sharp reproof and cutting sarcasm; but, in recompense for such severity, how gently do they deal with graver offences! For the felonies they can always discover “the attenuating circumstances;” for the petty larcenies of fashion they have nothing but whipcord.
Amidst the various knots where such discussions were carried on, one was eminently conspicuous. It was around a handsome open carriage, whose horses, harnessing, and liveries were all in the most perfect taste. The equipage might possibly have been deemed showy in Hyde Park; but in the Bois de Boulogne or the Cascine it must be pronounced the acme of elegance. Whatever might have been the differences of national opinion on this point, there could assuredly have been none as to the beauty of those who occupied it.
Though a considerable interval of years divided them, the aunt and her niece had a wonderful resemblance to each other. They were both—the rarest of all forms of beauty—blond Italians; that is, with light hair and soft gray eyes. They had a peculiar tint of skin, deeper and mellower than we see in Northern lands, and an expression of mingled seriousness and softness that only pertains to the South of Europe. There was a certain coquetry in the similarity of their dress, which in many parts was precisely alike; and although the niece was but fifteen, and the aunt above thirty, it needed not the aid of flattery to make many mistake one for the other.
Beauty, like all other “Beaux Arts,” has its distinctions. The same public opinion that enthrones the sculptor or the musician, confers its crown on female loveliness; and by this acclaim were they declared Queens of Beauty. To any one visiting Italy for the first time, there would have seemed something very strange in the sort of homage rendered them: a reverence and respect only accorded elsewhere to royalties,—a deference that verged on actual humiliation,—and yet all this blended with a subtle familiarity that none but an Italian can ever attain to. The uncovered head, the attitude of respectful attention, the patient expectancy of notice, the glad air of him under recognition, were all there; and yet, through these, there was dashed a strange tone of intimacy, as though the observances were but a thin crust over deeper feelings. “La Contessa”—for she was especially “the Countess,” as one illustrious man of our own country was “the Duke”—possessed every gift which claims preeminence in this fair city. She was eminently beautiful, young, charming in her manners, with ample fortune; and, lastly,—ah! good reader, you would surely be puzzled to supply that “lastly,” the more as we say that in it lies an excellence without which all the rest are of little worth, and yet with it are objects of worship, almost of adoration,—she was—separated from her husband! There must have been an epidemic, a kind of rot, among husbands at one period; for we scarcely remember a very pretty woman, from five-and-twenty to five-and-thirty, who had not been obliged to leave hers from acts of cruelty or acts of brutality, etc., that only husbands are capable of, or of which their poor wives are ever the victims.
If the moral geography of Europe be ever written, the region south of the Alps will certainly be colored with that tint, whatever it be, that describes the blessedness of a divorced existence. In other lands, especially in our own, the separated individual labors under no common difficulty in his advances to society. The story—there must be a story—of his separation is told in various ways, all, of course, to his disparagement. Tyrant or victim, it is hard to say under which title he comes out best,—so much for the man; but for the woman there is no plea: judgment is pronounced at once, without the merits. Fugitive, or fled from,—who inquires? she is one that few men dare to recognize. The very fact that to mention her name exacts an explanation, is condemnatory. What a boon to all such must it be that there is a climate mild enough for their malady, and a country that will suit their constitution; and not only that, but a region which actually pays homage to their infirmity, and makes of their martyrdom a triumph! As you go to Norway for salmon-fishing,—to Bengal to hunt tigers,—to St. Petersburg to eat caviare, so when divorced, if you really know the blessing of your state, go take a house on the Arno. Vast as are the material resources of our globe, the moral ones are infinitely greater; nor need we despair, some day or other, of finding an island where a certificate of fraudulent bankruptcy will be deemed a letter of credit, and an evidence of insolvency be accepted as qualification to open a bank.
La Contessa inhabited a splendid palace, furnished with magnificence; her gardens were one of the sights of the capital, not only for their floral display, but that they contained a celebrated group by Canova, of which no copy existed. Her gallery was, if not extensive, enriched with some priceless treasures of art; and with all these she possessed high rank, for her card bore the name of La Comtesse de Glencore, née Comtesse della Torre.
The reader thus knows at once, if not actually as much as we do ourselves, all that we mean to impart to him; and now let us come back to that equipage around which swarmed the fashion of Florence, eagerly pressing forward to catch a word, a smile, or even a look, and actually perched on every spot from which they could obtain a glimpse of those within. A young Russian Prince, with his arm in a sling, had just recited the incident of his’ late duel; a Neapolitan Minister had delivered a rose-colored epistle from a Royal Highness of his own court. A Spanish Grandee had deposited his offering of camellias, which actually covered the front cushions of the carriage; and now a little lane was formed for the approach of the old Duke de Brignolles, who made his advance with a mingled courtesy and haughtiness that told of Versailles and long ago.
A very creditable specimen of the old noblesse of France was the Duke, and well worthy to be the grandson of one who was Grand Maréchal to Louis XIV. Tall, thin, and slightly stooped from age, his dark eye seemed to glisten the brighter beneath his shaggy white eyebrows. He had served with distinction as a soldier, and been an ambassador at the court of the Czar Paul; in every station he had filled sustaining the character of a true and loyal gentleman,—a man who could reflect nothing but honor upon the great country he belonged to. It was amongst the scandal of Florence that he was the most devoted of La Contessa’s admirers; but we are quite willing to believe that his admiration had nothing in it of love. At all events, she distinguished him by her most marked notice. He was the frequent guest of her choicest dinners, and the constant visitor at her evenings at home. It was, then, with a degree of favor that many an envious heart coveted, she extended her hand to him as he came forward, which he kissed with all the lowly deference he would have shown to that of his prince.
“Mon cher Duc” said she, smiling, “I have such a store of grievances to lay at your door. The essence of violets is not violets, but verbena.”
“Charming Comtesse, I had it direct from Pierrot’s.”
“Pierrot is a traitor, then, that’s all; and where’s Ida’s Arab? is he to be here to-day, or to-morrow? When are we to see him?”
“Why, I only wrote to the Emir on Tuesday last.”
“Mais à quoi bon l’Emir if he can’t do impossibilities? Surely the very thought of him brings up the Arabian Nights and the Calif Haroun. By the way, thank you for the poignard. It is true Damascus, is it not?”
“Of course. I ‘d not have dared—”
“To be sure not. I told the Archduchess it was. I wore it in my Turkish dress on Wednesday, and you, false man, would n’t come to admire me!”
“You know what a sad day was that for me, madam,” said he, solemnly. “It was the anniversary of her fate who was your only rival in beauty, as she had no rival in undeserved misfortunes.”
“Pauvre Reine!” sighed the Countess, and held her bouquet to her face.
“What great mass of papers is that you have there, Duke?” resumed she. “Can it be a journal?”
“It is an English newspaper, my dear Countess. As I know you do not receive any of his countrymen, I have not asked your permission to present the Lord Selby; but hearing him read out your name in a paragraph here, I carried off his paper to have it translated for me. You read English, don’t you?”
“Very imperfectly, and I detest it,” said she, impatiently; “but Prince Volkoffsky can, I am sure, oblige you.” And she turned away her head, in ill humor.
“It is here somewhere. Parbleu, I thought I marked the place,” muttered the Duke, as he handed the paper to the Russian. “Is n’t that it?”
“This is all about theatres,—Madame Pasta and the Haymarket.”
“Ah! well, it is lower down; here, perhaps.”
“Court news. The Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar—”
“No, no; not that.”
“Oh, here it is. ‘Great Scandal in High Life.—A very singular correspondence has just passed, and will soon, we believe, be made public, between the Heralds’ College and Lord Glencore.’” Here the reader stopped, and lowered his voice at the next word.
“Read on, Prince. C’est mon mari,” said she, coldly, while a very slight movement of her upper lip betrayed what might mean scorn or sorrow, or even both.
The Prince, however, had now run his eyes over the paragraph, and crushing the newspaper in his hand, hurried away from the spot. The Duke as quickly followed, and soon overtook him.
“Who gave you this paper, Duke?” cried the Russian, angrily.
“It was Lord Selby. He was reading it aloud to a friend.”
“Then he is an infame! and I ‘ll tell him so,” cried the other, passionately. “Which is he? the one with the light moustache, or the shorter one?” And, without waiting for reply, the Russian dashed between the carriages, and thrusting his way through the prancing crowd of moving horses, arrived at a spot where two young men, evidently strangers to the scene, were standing, calmly surveying the bright panorama before them.
“The Lord Selby,” said the Russian, taking off his hat and saluting one of them.
“That’s his Lordship,” replied the one he addressed, pointing to his friend.
“I am the Prince Volkoffsky, aide-de-camp to the Emperor,” said the Russian; “and hearing from my friend the Duke de Brignolles that you have just given him this newspaper, that he might obtain the translation of a passage in it which concerns Lady Glencore, and have the explanation read out at her own carriage, publicly, before all the world, I desire to tell you that your Lordship is unworthy of your rank; that you are an infame! and if you do not resent this, a polisson!”
“This man is mad, Selby,” said the short man, with the coolest air imaginable.
“Quite sane enough to give your friend a lesson in good manners; and you too, sir, if you have any fancy for it,” said the Russian.
“I’d give him in charge to the police, by Jove! if there were police here,” said the same one who spoke before; “he can’t be a gentleman.”
“There ‘s my card, sir,” said the Russian; “and for you too, sir,” said he, presenting another to him who spoke.
“Where are you to be heard of?” said the short man.
“At the Russian legation,” said the Prince, haughtily, and turned away.
“You’re wrong, Baynton, he is a gentleman,” said Lord Selby, as he pocketed the card, “though certainly he is not a very mild-tempered specimen of his order.”
“You did n’t give the newspaper as he said—”
“Nothing of the kind. I was reading it aloud to you when the royal carriages came suddenly past; and, in taking off my hat to salute, I never noticed that the old Duke had carried off the paper. I know he can’t read English, and the chances are, he has asked this Scythian gentleman to interpret for him.”
“So, then, the affair is easily settled,” said the other, quietly.
“Of course it is,” was the answer; and they both lounged about among the carriages, which already were thinning, and, after a while, set out towards the city.
They had but just reached the hotel, when a stranger presented himself to them as the Count de Marny. He had come as the friend of Prince Volkoffsky, who had fully explained to him the event of that afternoon.
“Well,” said Baynton, “we are of opinion your friend has conducted himself exceedingly ill, and we are here to receive his excuses.”
“I am afraid, messieurs,” said the Frenchman, bowing, “that it will exhaust your patience if you continue to wait for them. Might it not be better to come and accept what he is quite prepared to offer you,—satisfaction?”
“Be it so,” said Lord Selby: “he ‘ll see his mistake some time or other, and perhaps regret it. Where shall it be?—and when?”
“At the Fossombroni Villa, about two miles from this. To-morrow morning, at eight, if that suit you.”
“Quite well. I have no other appointment. Pistols, of course?”
“You have the choice, otherwise my friend would have preferred the sword.”
“Take him at his word, Selby,” whispered Baynton; “you are equal to any of them with the rapier.”
“If your friend desire the sword, I have no objection,—I mean the rapier.”
“The rapier be it,” said the Frenchman; and with a polite assurance of the infinite honor he felt in forming their acquaintance, and the gratifying certainty that they were sure to possess of his highest consideration, he bowed, backed, and withdrew.
“Well-mannered fellow, the Frenchman,” said Baynton, as the door closed; and the other nodded assent, and rang the bell for dinner.
CHAPTER XX. THE VILLA FOSSOMBRONI
The grounds of the Villa Fossombroni were, at the time we speak of, the Chalk Farm, or the Fifteen Acres of Tuscany. The villa itself, long since deserted by the illustrious family whose name it bore, had fallen into the hands of an old Pied-montese noble, ruined by a long life of excess and dissipation. He had served with gallantry in the imperial army of France, but was dismissed the service for a play transaction in which his conduct was deeply disgraceful; and the Colonel Count Tasseroni, of the 8th Hussars of the Guards, was declared unworthy to wear the uniform of a Frenchman.
For a number of years he had lived so estranged from the world that many believed he had died; but at last it was known that he had gone to reside in a half-ruined villa near Florence, which soon became the resort of a certain class of gamblers whose habits would have speedily attracted notice if practised within the city. The quarrels and altercations, so inseparable from high play, were usually settled on the spot in which they occurred, until at last the villa became famous for these meetings, and the name of Fossombroni, in a discussion, was the watchword for a duel.
It was of a splendid spring morning that the two Englishmen arrived at this spot, which, even on the unpleasant errand that they had come, struck them with surprise and admiration. The villa itself was one of those vast structures which the country about Florence abounds in. Gloomy, stern, and jail-like without, while within, splendid apartments opened into each other in what seems an endless succession. Frescoed walls and gorgeously ornamented ceilings, gilded mouldings and rich tracery, were on every side; and these, too, in chambers where the immense proportions and the vast space recalled the idea of a royal residence. Passing in by a dilapidated “grille” which once had been richly gilded, they entered by a flight of steps a great hall which ran the entire length of the building. Though lighted by a double range of windows, neglect and dirt had so dimmed the panes that the place was almost in deep shadow. Still, they could perceive that the vaulted roof was a mass of stuccoed tracery, and that the colossal divisions of the wall were of brilliant Sienna marble. At one end of this great gallery was a small chapel, now partly despoiled of its religious decorations, which were most irreverently replaced by a variety of swords and sabres of every possible size and shape, and several pairs of pistols, arranged with an evident eye to picturesque grouping.
“What are all these inscriptions here on the walls, Baynton?” cried Selby, as he stood endeavoring to decipher the lines on a little marble slab, a number of which were dotted over the chapel.
“Strange enough this, by Jove!” muttered the other, reading to himself, half aloud, “‘Francesco Ricordi, ucciso da Gieronimo Gazzi, 29 Settembre, 1818.’”
“What does that mean?” asked Selby.
“It is to commemorate some fellow who was killed here in ‘18.”
“Are they all in the same vein?” asked the other.
“It would seem so. Here ‘s one: ‘Gravamente ferito,’—badly wounded; with a postscript that he died the same night.”
“What’s this large one here, in black marble?” inquired Selby.
“To the memory of Carlo Luigi Guiccidrini, ‘detto il Carnefice,’ called ‘the slaughterer:’ cut down to the forehead by Pietro Baldasseroni, on the night of July 8th, 1819.”
“I confess any other kind of literature would amuse me as well,” said Selby, turning back again into the large hall. Baynton had scarcely joined him when they saw advancing towards them through the gloom a short, thickset man, dressed in a much-worn dressing-gown and slippers.
He removed his skull-cap as he approached, and said, “The Count Tasseroni, at your orders.”
“We have come here by appointment,” said Baynton.
“Yes, yes. I know it all. Volkoffsky sent me word. He was here on Saturday. He gave that French colonel a sharp lesson. Ran the sword clean through the chest. To be sure, he was wounded too, but only through the arm; but ‘La Marque’ has got his passport.”
“You’ll have him up there soon, then,” said Baynton, pointing towards the chapel.
“I think not. We have not done it latterly,” said the Count, musingly. “The authorities don’t seem to like it; and, of course, we respect the authorities!”
“That’s quite evident,” said Baynton, who turned to translate the observation to his friend.
Selby whispered a word in his ear.
“What does the signore say?” inquired the Count.
“My friend thinks that they are behind the time.”
“Per Baccho! Let him be easy as to that. I have known some to think that the Russian came too soon. I never heard of one who wished him earlier! There they are now: they always come by the garden.” And so saying, he hastened off to receive them.
“How is this fellow to handle a sword, if his right arm be wounded?” said Selby.
“Don’t you know that these Russians use the left hand indifferently with the right, in all exercises? It may be awkward for you; but, depend upon it, he’ll not be inconvenienced in the least.”
As he spoke, the others entered the other end of the hall. The Prince no sooner saw the Englishmen than he advanced towards them with his hat off. “My lord,” said he, rapidly, “I have come to make you an apology, and one which I trust you will accept in all the frankness that I offer it. I have learned from your friend the Duc de Brignolles how the incident of yesterday occurred. I see that the only fault committed was my own. Will you pardon, then, a momentary word of ill-temper, occasioned by what I wrongfully believed to be a great injury?”
“Of course, I knew it was all a mistake on your part. I told Colonel Baynton, here, you’d see so yourself,—when it is too late, perhaps.”
“I thank you sincerely,” said the Russian, bowing; “your readiness to accord me this satisfaction makes your forgiveness more precious to me. And now, as another favor, will you permit me to ask you one question?”
“Yes, certainly.”
“Why, when you could have so easily explained this misconception on my part, did you not take the trouble of doing so?”
Selby looked confused, blushed, looked awkwardly from side to side, and then, with a glance towards his friend, seemed to say, “Will you try and answer him?”
“I think you have hit it yourself, Prince,” said Baynton. “It was the trouble, the bore of an explanation, deterred him. He hates writing, and he thought there would be a shower of notes to be replied to, meetings, discussions, and what not; and so he said, ‘Let him have his shot, and have done with it.’”
The Russian looked from one to the other as he listened, and seemed really as if not quite sure whether this speech was uttered in seriousness or sarcasm. The calm, phlegmatic faces of the Englishmen,—the almost apathetic expression they wore,—soon convinced him that the words were truthfully spoken; and he stood actually confounded with amazement before them.
Lord Selby and his friend freely accepted the polite invitation of the Prince to breakfast, and they all adjourned to a small but splendidly decorated room, where everything was already awaiting them. There are few incidents in life which so much predispose to rapid intimacy as the case of an averted duel. The revulsion from animosity is almost certain to lead to, if not actual friendship, what may easily become so. In the present instance, the very diversities of national character gave a zest and enjoyment to the meeting; and while the Englishmen were charmed by the fascination of manners and conversational readiness of their hosts, the Russians were equally struck with a cool imperturbability and impassiveness, of which they had never seen the equal.
By degrees the Russian led the conversation to the question by which their misunderstanding originated. “You know my Lord Glencore, perhaps?” said he.
“Never saw, scarcely ever heard of him,” said Selby, in his dry, laconic tone.
“Is he mad, or a fool?” asked the Prince, half angrily.
“I served in a regiment once where he commanded a troop,” said Baynton; “and they always said he was a good sort of fellow.”
“You read that paragraph this morning, I conclude?” said the Russian. “You saw how he dares to stigmatize the honor of his wife,—to degrade her to the rank of a mistress,—and, at the same time, to bastardize the son who ought to inherit his rank and title?”
“I read it,” said Selby, dryly; “and I had a letter from my lawyer about it this morning.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed he, anxious to hear more, and yet too delicate to venture on a question.
“Yes; he writes to me for some title-deeds or other. I did n’t pay much attention, exactly, to what he says. Glen-core’s man of business had addressed a letter to him.”
The Russian bowed, and waited for him to resume; but, apparently, he had rather fatigued himself by such unusual loquacity, and so he lay back in his chair, and puffed his cigar in indolent enjoyment.
“A goodish sort of thing for you it ought to be,” said Baynton, between the puffs of his tobacco smoke, and with a look towards Selby.
“I suspect it may,” said the other, without the slightest change of tone or demeanor.
“Where is it,—somewhere in the south?”
“Mostly, Devon. There’s something in Wales too, if I remember aright.”
“Nothing Irish?”
“No, thank Heaven,—nothing Irish;” and his grim Lordship made the nearest advance to a smile of which his unplastic features seemed capable.
“Do I understand you aright, my Lord,” said the Prince, “that you receive an accession of fortune by this event?”
“I shall, if I survive Glencore,” was the brief reply.
“You are related, then?”
“Some cousinship,—I forget how it is. Do you remember, Baynton?”
“I’m not quite certain. I think it was a Coventry married one of Jack Conway’s sisters, and she afterwards became the wife of Sir something Massy. Isn’t that it?”
“Yes, that’s it,” muttered the other, in the tone of a man who was tired of a knotty problem.
“And, according to your laws, this Lord Glencore may marry again?” cried the Russian.
“I should think so, if he has no wife living,” said Selby; “but I trust, for my sake, he’ll not.”
“And what if he should, and should be discovered the wedded husband of another?”
“That would be bigamy,” said Selby. “Would they hang him, Baynton?”
“I think not,—scarcely,” rejoined the Colonel.
The Prince tried in various ways to obtain some insight into Lord Glencore’s habits, his tastes and mode of life, but all in vain. They knew, indeed, very little, but even that little they were too indolent to repeat. Lord Selby’s memory was often at fault, too, and Baynton’s had ill supplied the deficiency. Again and again did the Russian mutter curses to himself over the apathy of these stony islanders. At moments he fancied that they suspected his eagerness, and had assumed their most guarded caution against him; but he soon perceived that this manner was natural to them, not prompted in the slightest degree by any distrust whatever.
“After all,” thought the Russian, “how can I hope to stimulate a man who is not excited by his own increase of fortune? Talk of Turkish fatalism, these fellows would shame the Moslem.”
“Do you mean to prolong your stay at Florence, my Lord?” asked the Prince, as they arose from the table.
“I scarcely know. What do you say, Baynton?”
“A week or so, I fancy,” muttered the other.
“And then on to Rome, perhaps?”
The two Englishmen looked at each other with an air of as much confusion as if subjected to a searching examination in science.
“Well, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Selby, at last, with a sigh.
“Yes, it may come to that,” said Baynton, like a man who had just overcome a difficulty.
“You ‘ll be in time for the Holy Week and all the ceremonies,” said the Prince.
“Mind that, Baynton,” said his Lordship, who wasn’t going to carry what he felt to be another man’s load; and Baynton nodded acquiescence.
“And after that comes the season for Naples,—you have a month or six weeks, perhaps, of such weather as nothing in all Europe can vie with.”
“You hear, Baynton!” said Selby.
“I’ve booked it,” muttered the other; and so they took leave of their entertainer, and set out towards Florence. Neither you nor I, dear reader, will gain anything by keeping them company, for they say scarcely a word by the way. They stop at intervals, and cast their eyes over the glorious landscape at their feet. Their glances are thrown over the fairest scene of the fairest of all lands; and whether they turn towards the snow-capt Apennines, by Vall’ombrosa, or trace the sunny vineyards along the Val’ d’ Arno, they behold a picture such as no canvas ever imitated; still, they are mute and uncommunicative. Whatever of pleasure their thoughts suggest, each keeps for himself. Objects of wonder, strange sights and new, may present themselves, but they are not to be startled out of national dignity by so ignoble a sentiment as surprise. And so they jog onward,—doubtless richer in reflection than eloquent in communion; and so we leave them.
Let us not be deemed unjust or ungenerous if we assert that we have met many such as these. They are not individuals,—they are a class; and, strange enough too, a class which almost invariably pertains to a high and distinguished rank in society. It would be presumptuous to ascribe such demeanor to insensibility. There is enough in their general conduct to disprove the assumption. As little is it affectation; it is simply an acquired habit of stoical indifference, supposed to be—why, Heaven knows!—the essential ingredient of the best breeding. If the practice extinguish all emotion, and obliterate all trace of feeling from the heart, we deplore the system. If it only gloss over the working of human sympathy, we pity the men. At all events, they are very uninteresting company, with whom longer dalliance would only be wearisome.
CHAPTER XXI. SOME TRAITS OF LIFE
It was the night Lady Glencore received; and, as usual, the street was crowded with equipages, which somehow seemed to have got into inextricable confusion,—some endeavoring to turn back, while others pressed forward,—the court of the palace being closely packed with carriages which the thronged street held in fast blockade. As the apartments which faced the street were not ever used for these receptions, the dark unlighted windows suggested no remark; but they who had entered the courtyard were struck by the gloomy aspect of the vast building: not only that the entrance and the stairs were in darkness, but the whole suite of rooms, usually brilliant as the day, were now in deep gloom. From every carriage window heads were protruded, wondering at this strange spectacle; and eager inquiries passed on every side for an explanation. The explanation of “sudden illness” was rapidly disseminated, but as rapidly contradicted, and the reply given by the porter to all demands quickly repeated from mouth to mouth, “Her Ladyship will not receive.”
“Can no one explain this mystery?” cried the old Princess Borinsky, as, heavy with fat and diamonds, she hung out of her carriage window. “Oh, there ‘s Major Scaresby; he is certain to know, if it be anything malicious.”
Scaresby was, however, too busy in recounting his news to others to perceive the signals the old Princess held out; and it was only as her chasseur, six feet three of green and gold, bent down to give her Highness’s message, that the Major hurried off, in all the importance of a momentary scandal, to the side of her carriage.
“Here I am, all impatience. What is it, Scaresby? Tell me quickly,” cried she.
“A smash, my dear Princess,—nothing more or less,” said he, in a voice which nature seemed to have invented to utter impertinences, so harsh and grating, and yet so painfully distinct in all its accents,—“as complete a smash as ever I heard of.”
“You can’t mean that her fortune is in peril?”
“I suppose that must suffer also. It is her character—her station as one of us—that’s shipwrecked here.”
“Go on, go on,” cried she, impatiently; “I wish to hear it all.”
“All is very briefly related, then,” said he. “The charming Countess, you remember, ran away with a countryman of mine, young Glencore, of the 8th Hussars; I used to know his father intimately.”
“Never mind his father.”
“That ‘s exactly what Glencore did. He came over here and fell in love with the girl, and they ran off together; but they forgot to get married, Princess. Ha—ha—ha!” And he laughed with a cackle a demon could not have rivalled.
“I don’t believe a word of it,—I’ll never believe it,” cried the Princess.
“That’s exactly what I was recommending to the Mar-quesa Guesteni. I said, you need n’t believe it. Why, how do we go anywhere, nowadays, except by ‘not believing’ the evil stories that are told of our entertainers.”
“Yes, yes; but I repeat that this is an infamous calumny. She, a Countess, of a family second to none in all Italy; her father a Grand d’Espagne. I ‘ll go to her this moment.”
“She’ll not see you. She has just refused to see La Genori,” said the Major, tartly. “Though, if a cracked reputation might have afforded any sympathy, she might have admitted her.”
“What is to be done?” exclaimed the Princess, sorrowfully.
“Just what you suggested a few moments ago,—don’t believe it. Hang me, but good houses and good cooks are growing too scarce to make one credulous of the ills that can be said of their owners.”
“I wish I knew what course to take,” muttered the Princess.
“I’ll tell you, then. Get half a dozen of your own set together to-morrow morning, vote the whole story an atrocious falsehood, and go in a body and tell the Countess your mind. You know as well as I, Princess, that social credit is as great a bubble as commercial; we should all of us be bankrupts if our books were seen. Ay, by Jove! and the similitude goes farther too; for when one old established house breaks, there is generally a crash in the whole community around it.”
While they thus talked, a knot had gathered around the carriage, all eager to hear what opinion the Princess had formed on the catastrophe.
Various were the sentiments expressed by the different speakers,—some sorrowfully deploring the disaster; others more eagerly inveighing against the infamy of the man who had proclaimed it. Many declared that they had come to the determination to discredit the story. Not one, however, sincerely professed that he disbelieved it.
Can it be, as the French moralist asserts, that we have a latent sense of satisfaction in the misfortunes of even our best friends; or is it, as we rather suspect, that true friendship is a rarer thing than is commonly believed, and has little to do with those conventional intimacies which so often bear its name?
Assuredly of all this well-bred, well-dressed, and wellborn company, now thronging the courtyard of the palace and the street in front of it, the tone was as much sarcasm as sorrow, and many a witty epigram and smart speech were launched over a disaster which might have been spared such levity. At length the space slowly began to thin. Slowly carriage after carriage drove off,—the heaviest grief of their occupants often being over a lost soirée, an unprofited occasion to display toilette and jewels; while a few, more reflective, discussed what course was to be followed in future, and what recognition extended to the victim.
The next day Florence sat in committee over the lost Countess. Witnesses were heard and evidence taken as to her case. They all agreed it was a great hardship,—a terrible calamity; but still, if true, what could be done?
Never was there a society less ungenerously prudish, and yet there were cases—this, one of them—which transgressed all conventional rule. Like a crime which no statute had ever contemplated, it stood out self-accused and self-condemned. A few might, perhaps, have been merciful, but they were overborne by numbers. Lady Glencore’s beauty and her vast fortune were now counts in the indictment against her, and many a jealous rival was not sorry at this hour of humiliation. The despotism of beauty is not a very mild sway, after all; and perhaps the Countess had exercised her rule right royally. At all events, it was the young and the good-looking who voted her exclusion, and only those who could not enter into competition with her charms who took the charitable side. They discussed and debated the question all day; but while they hesitated over the reprieve, the prisoner was beyond the law. The gate of the palace, locked and barred all day, refused entrance to every one; at night, it opened to admit the exit of a travelling-carriage. The next morning large bills of sale, posted over the walls, declared that all the furniture and decorations-were to be sold.
The Countess had left Florence, none knew whither.
“I must really have those large Sèvres jars,” said one.
“And I, the small park phaeton,” cried another.
“I hope she has not taken Horace with her; he was the best cook in Italy. Splendid hock she had,—I wonder is there much of it left?”
“I wish we were certain of another bad reputation to replace her,” grunted out Scaresby; “they are the only kind of people who give good dinners, and never ask for returns.”
And thus these dear friends—guests of a hundred brilliant fêtes—discussed the fall of her they once had worshipped.
It may seem small-minded and narrow to stigmatize such conduct as this. Some may say that for the ordinary courtesies of society no pledges of friendship are required, no real gratitude incurred. Be it so. Still, the revulsion, from habits of deference and respect, to disparagement, and even sarcasm, is a sorry evidence of human kindness; and the threshold, over which for years we had only passed as guests, might well suggest sadder thoughts as we tread it to behold desolation.
The fair Countess had been the celebrity of that city for many a day. The stranger of distinction sought her, as much as a matter of course as he sought presentation to the sovereign. Her salons had the double eminence of brilliancy in rank and brilliancy in wit; her entertainments were cited as models of elegance and refinement; and now she was gone! The extreme of regret that followed her was the sorrow of those who were to dine there no more; the grief of him who thought he should never have a house like it.
The respectable vagabonds of society are a large family, much larger than is usually supposed. They are often well born, almost always well mannered, invariably well dressed. They do not, at first blush, appear to discharge any very great or necessary function in life; but we must by no means, from that, infer their inutility. Naturalists tell us that several varieties of insect existence we rashly set down as mere annoyances, have their peculiar spheres of usefulness and good; and, doubtless, these same loungers contribute in some mysterious manner to the welfare of that state which they only seem to burden. We are told that but for flies, for instance, we should be infested with myriads of winged tormentors, insinuating themselves into our meat and drink, and rendering life miserable. Is there not something very similar performed by the respectable class I allude to? Are they not invariably devouring and destroying some vermin a little smaller than themselves, and making thus a healthier atmosphere for their betters? If good society only knew the debt it owes to these defenders of its privileges, a “Vagabonds’ Home and Aged Asylum” would speedily figure amongst bur national charities.
We have been led to these thoughts by observing how distinctly different was Major Scaresby’s tone in talking of the Countess when he addressed his betters or spoke in his own class. To the former he gave vent to all his sarcasm and bitterness; they liked it just because they would n’t condescend to it themselves. To his own he put on the bullying air of one who said, “How should you possibly know what vices such great people have, any more than you know what they have for dinner? I live amongst them,—I understand them,—I am aware that what would be very shocking in you is quite permissible to them. They know how to be wicked; you only know how to be gross.” And thus Scaresby talked, and sneered, and scoffed, making such a hash of good and evil, such a Maelstrom of right and wrong, that it were a subtle moralist who could have extracted one solitary scrap of uncontaminated meaning from all his muddy lucubrations.
He, however, effected this much: he kept the memory of her who had gone, alive by daily calumnies. He embalmed her in poisons, each morning appearing with some new trait of her extravagance, till the world, grown sick of himself and his theme, vowed they would hear no more of either; and so she was forgotten.
Ay, good reader, utterly forgotten! The gay world, for so it likes to be called, has no greater element of enjoyment amongst all its high gifts than its precious power of forgetting. It forgets not only all it owes to others,—gratitude, honor, and esteem,—but even the closer obligations it has contracted with itself. The Palazzo della Torre was for a fortnight the resort of the curious and the idle. At the sale crowds appeared to secure some object of especial value to each; and then the gates were locked, the shutters closed, and a large, ill-written notice on the door announced that any letters for the proprietor were to be addressed to “Pietro Arretini, Via del Sole.”
CHAPTER XXII. AN UPTONIAN DESPATCH
British Legation, Naples. My dear Harcourt,—It would seem that a letter of mine to you must have miscarried,—a not unfrequent occurrence when entrusted to our Foreign Office for transmission. Should it ever reach you, you will perceive how unjustly you have charged me with neglecting your wishes. I have ordered the Sicilian wine for your friend; I have obtained the Royal leave for you to shoot in Calabria; and I assure you it is rather a rare incident in my life to have forgotten nothing required of me! Perhaps you, who know me well, will do me this justice, and be the more grateful for my present promptitude.
It was quite a mistake sending me here; for anything there is to be done, Spencer or Lonsdale would perfectly suffice. I ought to have gone to Vienna,—and so they know at home; but it’s the old game played over again. Important questions! why, my dear friend, there is not a matter between this country and our own that rises above the capacity of a Colonel of Dragoons. Meanwhile really great events are preparing in the East of Europe,—not that I am going to inflict them upon you, nor ask you to listen to speculations which even those in authority turn a deaf ear to.
It is very kind of you to think of my health. I am still a sufferer; the old pains rather aggravated than relieved by this climate. You are aware that, though warm, the weather here has some exciting property, some excess or other of a peculiar gas in the atmosphere, prejudicial to certain temperaments. I feel it greatly; and though the season is midsummer, I am obliged to dress entirely in a light costume of buckskin, and take Marsalla baths, which refresh me, at least for the while. I have also taken to smoke the leaves of the nux vomica, steeped in arrack, and think it agrees with me. The King has most kindly placed a little villa at Ischia at my disposal; but I do not mean to avail myself of the politeness. The Duke of San Giustino has also offered me his palace at Baia; but I don’t fancy leaving this just now, where there is a doctor, a certain Luigi Buffeloni, who really seems to have hit off my case. He calls it arterial arthriticis,—a kind of inflammatory action of one coat of the arterial system; his notion is highly ingenious, and wonderfully borne out by the symptoms. I wish you would ask Brodie, or any of our best men, whether they have met with this affection; what class it affects, and what course it usually takes? My Italian doctor implies that it is the passing malady of men highly excitable, and largely endowed with mental gifts. He may, or may not, be correct in this. It is only nature makes the blunder of giving the sharpest swords the weakest scabbards. What a pity the weapon cannot be worn naked!
You ask me if I like this place. I do, perhaps, as well as I should like anywhere. There is a wonderful sameness over the world just now, preluding, I have very little doubt, some great outburst of nationality from all the countries of Europe,—just as periods of Puritanism succeed intervals of gross licentiousness.
Society here is, therefore, what you see it in London or Paris; well-bred people, like Gold, are current everywhere. There is really little peculiar to observe. I don’t perceive that there is more levity than elsewhere. The difference is, perhaps, that there is less shame about it, since it is under the protection of the Church.
I go out very little; my notion is, that the Diplomatist, like the ancient Augur, must not suffer himself to be vulgarized by contact. He can only lose, not gain, by that mixed intercourse with the world. I have a few who come when I want them, and go in like manner. They tell me “what is going on,” far better and more truthfully than paid employees, and they cannot trace my intentions through my inquiries, and hasten off to retail them at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Of my colleagues I see as little as possible, though, when we do meet, I feel an unbounded affection for them. So much for my life, dear Harcourt; on the whole, a very tolerable kind of existence, which if few would envy, still fewer would care to part with.
I now come to the chief portion of your letter. This boy of Glencore’s, I rather like the account you give of him, better than you do yourself. Imaginative and dreamy he may be, but remember what he was, and where we have placed him. A moonstruck, romantic youth at a German University. Is it not painting the lily?
I merely intended he should go to Göttingen to learn the language,—always a difficulty, if not abstracted from other and more dulcet sounds. I never meant to have him domesticated with some rusty Hochgelehrter, eating sauer-kraut in company with a green-eyed Fraulein, and imbibing love and metaphysics together. Let him “moon away,” as you call it, my dear Harcourt. It is wonderfully little consequence what any one does with his intellect till he be three or four and twenty. Indeed, I half suspect that the soil might be left quietly to rear weeds till that time; and as to dreaminess, it signifies nothing if there be a strong “physique.” With a weak frame, imagination will play the tyrant, and never cease till it dominates over all the other faculties; but where there is strength and activity, there is no fear of this.
You amuse me with your account of the doctor; and so the Germans have actually taken him for a savant, and given him a degree “honoris causa.” May they never make a worse blunder. The man is eminently remarkable,—with his opportunities, miraculous. I am certain, Harcourt, you never felt half the pleasure on arriving at a region well stocked with game, that he did on finding himself in a land of Libraries, Museums, and Collections. Fancy the poor fellow’s ecstasy at being allowed to range at will through all ancient literature, of which hitherto a stray volume alone had reached him. Imagine his delight as each day opened new stores of knowledge to him, surrounded as he was by all that could encourage zeal and reward research. The boy’s treatment of him pleases me much; it smacks of the gentle blood in his veins. Poor lad, there is something very sad in his case.
You need not have taken such trouble about accounts and expenditure; of course, whatever you have done I perfectly approve of. You say that the boy has no idea of money or its value. There is both good and evil in this. And now as to his future. I should have no objection whatever to having him attached to my Legation here, and perhaps no great difficulty in effecting his appointment; but there is a serious obstacle in his position. The young men who figure at embassies and missions are all “cognate numbers.” They each of them know who and what the other is, whence he came, and so on. Now, our poor boy could not stand this ordeal, nor would it be fair he should be exposed to it. Besides this, it was never Glencore’s wish, but the very opposite to it, that he should be brought prominently forward in life. He even suggested one of the Colonies as the means of withdrawing him at once, and forever, from public gaze.
You have interested me much by what you say of the boy’s progress. His tastes, I infer, lie in the direction which, in a worldly sense, are least profitable; but, after all, Harcourt, every one has brains enough, and to spare, for any career. Let us only decide upon that one most fitted for him, and, depend upon it, his faculties will day by day conform to his duties, and his tastes be merely dissipations, just as play or wine is to coarser natures.
If you really press the question of his coming to me, I will not refuse, seeing that I can take my own time to consider what steps subsequently should be adopted. How is it that you know nothing of Glencore,—can he not be traced?
Lord Selby, whom you may remember in the Blues formerly, dined here yesterday, and mentioned a communication he had received from his lawyer with regard to some property entail, which, if Glencore should leave no heir male, devolved upon him. I tried to find out the whereabouts and the amount of this heritage; but, with the admirable indifference that characterizes him, he did not know or care.
As to my Lady, I can give you no information whatever. Her house at Florence is uninhabited, the furniture is sold off; but no one seems even to guess whither she has betaken herself. The fast and loose of that pleasant city are, as I hear, actually houseless since her departure. No asylum opens there with fire and cigars. A number of the destitute have come down here in half despair, amongst the rest Scaresby,—Major Scaresby, an insupportable nuisance of flat stories and stale gossip; one of those fellows who cannot make even malevolence amusing, and who speak ill of their neighbors without a single spark of wit. He has left three cards upon me, each duly returned; but I am resolved that our inter-change of courtesies shall proceed no farther.
I trust I have omitted nothing in reply to your last despatch, except it be to say that I look for you here about September, or earlier, if as convenient to you; you will, of course, write to me, however, meanwhile.
Do not mention having heard from me, at the clubs or in society. I am, as I have the right to be, on the sick list, and it is as well my rest should remain undisturbed.
I wish you had any means of making it known that the article in the “Quarterly,” on our Foreign relations, is not mine. The newspapers have coolly assumed me to be the author, and of course I am not going to give them the éclat of a personal denial. The fellow who wrote it must be an ass; since had he known what he pretends, he had never revealed it. He who wants to bag his bird, Colonel, never bangs away at nothing. I have now completed a longer despatch to you than I intend to address to the Noble Secretary at F. O., and am yours, very faithfully,
Horace Upton.
Whose Magnesia is it that contains essence of Bark? Tripley’s or Chipley’s, I think. Find it out for me, and send me a packet through the office; put up Fauchard’s pamphlet with it, on Spain, and a small box of those new blisters,—Mouches they are called; they are to be had at Atkinson’s. I have got so accustomed to their stimulating power that I never write without one or two on my forehead. They tell me the cautery, if dexterously applied, is better; but I have not tried it.
CHAPTER XXIII. THE TUTOR AND HIS PUPIL
We are not about to follow up the correspondence of Sir Horace by detailing the reply which Harcourt sent, and all that thereupon ensued between them.
We pass over, then, some months of time, and arrive at the late autumn.
It is a calm, still morning; the sea, streaked with tinted shadows, is without a ripple; the ships of many nations that float on it are motionless, their white sails hung out to bleach, their ensigns drooping beside the masts. Over the summit of Vesuvius—for we are at Naples—a light blue cloud hangs, the solitary one in all the sky. A mild, plaintive song, the chant of some fishermen on the rocks, is the only sound, save the continuous hum of that vast city, which swells and falls at intervals.
Close beside the sea, seated on a rock, are two figures. One is that of a youth of some eighteen or nineteen years; his features, eminently handsome, wear an expression of gloomy pride as in deep preoccupation he gazes out over the bay; to all seeming, indifferent to the fair scene before him, and wrapped in his own sad thoughts. The other is a short, square-built, almost uncouth figure, overshadowed by a wide straw hat, which seems even to diminish his stature; a suit of black, wide and ample enough for one twice his size, gives his appearance a grotesqueness to which his features contribute their share.
It is, indeed, a strange physiognomy, to which Celt and Calmuc seem equally to contribute. The low, overhanging forehead, the intensely keen eye, sparkling with an almost imp-like drollery, are contrasted by a firmly compressed mouth and a far-projecting under-jaw that imply sternness even to cruelty; a mass of waving black hair, that covers neck and shoulders, adds a species of savagery to a head which assuredly has no need of such aid. Bent down over a large quarto volume, he never lifts his eyes; but, intently occupied, his lips are rapidly repeating the words as he reads them.
“Do you mean to pass the morning here?” asks the youth, at length, “or where shall I find you later on?”
“I ‘ll do whatever you like best,” said the other, in a rich brogue; “I ‘m agreeable to go or stay,—ad utrumque pa-ratus.” And Billy Traynor, for it was he, shut up his venerable volume.
“I don’t wish to disturb you,” said the boy, mildly, “you can read. I cannot; I have a fretful, impatient feeling over me that perhaps will go off with exercise. I’ll set out, then, for a walk, and come back here towards evening, then go and dine at the Rocca, and afterwards whatever you please.”
“If you say that, then,” said Billy, in a voice of evident delight, “we’ll finish the day at the Professor Tadeucci’s, and get him to go over that analysis again.”
“I have no taste for chemistry. It always seems to me to end where it began,” said the boy, impatiently. “Where do all researches tend to? how are you elevated in intellect? how are your thoughts higher, wider, nobler, by all these mixings and manipulations?”
“Is it nothing to know how thunder and lightning is made; to understand electricity; to dive into the secrets of that old crater there, and see the ingredients in the crucible that was bilin’ three thousand years ago?”
“These things appeal more grandly to my imagination when the mystery of their forces is unrevealed. I like to think of them as dread manifestations of a mighty will, rather than gaseous combinations or metallic affinities.”
“And what prevents you?” said Billy, eagerly. “Is the grandeur of the phenomenon impaired because it is in part intelligible? Ain’t you elevated as a reasoning being when you get what I may call a peep into God’s workshop, rather than by implicitly accepting results just as any old woman accepts a superstition?”
“There is something ignoble in mechanism,” said the boy, angrily.
“Don’t say that, while your heart is beatin’ and your arteries is contractin; never say it as long as your lungs dilate or collapse. It’s mechanism makes water burst out of the ground, and, swelling into streams, flow as mighty rivers through the earth. It’s mechanism raises the sap to the topmost bough of the cedar-tree that waves over Lebanon. ‘T is the same power moves planets above, just to show us that as there is nothing without a cause, there is one great and final ‘Cause’ behind all.”
“And will you tell me,” said the boy, sneeringly, “that a sunbeam pours more gladness into your heart because a prism has explained to you the composition of light?”
“God’s blessings never seemed the less to me because he taught me the beautiful laws that guide them,” said Billy, reverently; “every little step that I take out of darkness is on the road, at least, to Him.”
In part abashed by the words, in part admonished by the tone of the speaker, the boy was silent for some minutes. “You know, Billy,” said he, at length, “that I spoke in no irreverence; that I would no more insult your convictions than I would outrage my own. It is simply that it suits my dreamy indolence to like the wonderful better than the intelligible; and you must acknowledge that there never was so palatable a theory for ignorance.”
“Ay, but I don’t want you to be ignorant,” said Billy, earnestly; “and there’s no greater mistake than supposing that knowledge is an impediment to the play of fancy. Take my word for it, Master Charles, imagination, no more than any one else, does not work best in the dark.”
“I certainly am no adept under such circumstances,” said the boy. “I have n’t told you what happened me in the studio last night. I went in without a candle, and, trying to grope my way to the table, I overturned the large olive jar, full of clay, against my Niobe, and smashed her to atoms.”
“Smashed Niobe!” cried Billy, in horror.
“In pieces. I stood over her sadder than ever she felt herself, and I have not had the courage to enter the studio since.”
“Come, come, let us see if she couldn’t be restored,” said Billy, rising. “Let us go down there together.”
“You may, if you have any fancy,—there’s the key,” said the boy. “I ‘ll return there no more till the rubbish be cleared away.” And so saying, he moved off, and was soon out of sight.
Deeply grieving over this disaster, Billy Traynor hastened from the spot, but he had only reached the garden of the Chiaja when he heard a faint, weak voice calling him by his name; he turned, and saw Sir Horace Upton, who, seated in a sort of portable arm-chair, was enjoying the fresh air from the sea.
“Quite a piece of good fortune to meet you, Doctor,” said he, smiling; “neither you nor your pupil have been near me for ten days or more.”
“‘Tis our own loss then, your Excellency,” said Billy, bowing; “even a chance few minutes in your company is like whetting the intellectual razor,—I feel myself sharper for the whole day after.”
“Then why not come oftener, man? Are you afraid of wearing the steel all away?”
“‘T is more afraid I am of gapping the fine edge of your Excellency by contact with my own ruggedness,” said Billy, obsequiously.
“You were intended for a courtier, Doctor,” said Sir Horace, smiling.
“If there was such a thing as a court fool nowadays, I’d look for the place.”
“The age is too dull for such a functionary. They’ll not find ten men in any country of Europe equal to the office,” said Sir Horace. “One has only to see how lamentably dull are the journals dedicated to wit and drollery, to admit this fact; though written by many hands, how rare it is to chance upon what provokes a laugh. You ‘ll have fifty metaphysicians anywhere before you ‘ll hit on one Molière. Will you kindly open that umbrella for me? This autumnal sun, they say, gives sunstroke. And now what do you think of this boy? He’ll not make a diplomatist, that’s clear.”
“He ‘ll not make anything,—just for one simple reason, because he could be whatever he pleased.”
“An intellectual spendthrift,” sighed Sir Horace “What a hopeless bankruptcy it leads to!”
“My notion is ‘twould be spoiling him entirely to teach him a trade or a profession. Let his great faculties shoot up without being trimmed or trained; don’t want to twist or twine or turn them at all, but just see whether he won’t, out of his uncurbed nature, do better than all our discipline could effect. There’s no better colt than the one that was never backed till he was a five-year-old.”
“He ought to have a career,” said Sir Horace, thoughtfully. “Every man ought to have a calling, if only that he may be able to abandon it.”
“Just as a sailor has a point of departure,” said Billy.
“Precisely,” said Sir Horace, pleased at being so well appreciated.
“You are aware, Doctor,” resumed he, after a pause, “that the lad will have little or no private fortune. There are family circumstances that I cannot enter into, nor would your own delicacy require it, that will leave him almost dependent on his own efforts. Now, as time is rolling over, we should bethink us what direction it were wisest to give his talents; for he has talents.”
“He has genius and talents both,” said Billy; “he has the raw material, and the workshop to manufacture it.”
“I am rejoiced to hear such an account from one so well able to pronounce,” said Sir Horace, blandly; and Billy bowed, and blushed with a sense of happiness that none but humble men, so praised, could ever feel.
“I should like much to hear what you would advise for him,” said Upton.
“He’s so full of promise,” said Billy, “that whatever he takes to he ‘ll be sure to fancy he ‘d be better at something else. See, now,—it isn ‘t a bull I ‘m sayin’, but I ‘ll make a blunder of it if I try to explain.”
“Go on; I think I apprehend you.”
“By coorse you do. Well, it’s that same feelin’ makes me cautious of sayin’ what he ought to do. For, after all, a variety of capacity implies discursiveness, and discursiveness is the mother of failure.”
“You speak like an oracle, Doctor.”
“If I do, it’s because the priest is beside me,” said Billy, howmg. “My notion is this: I’d let him cultivate his fine gifts for a year or two in any way he liked,—in work or idleness; for they ‘ll grow in the fallow as well as in the tilled land. I ‘d let him be whatever he liked,—striving always, as he’s sure to be striving, after something higher, and greater, and better than he’ll ever reach; and then, when he has felt both his strength and his weakness, I ‘d try and attach him to some great man in public life; set a grand ambition before him, and say, ‘Go on.’”
“He’s scarcely the stuff for public life,” muttered Sir Horace.
“He is,” said Billy, boldly.
“He ‘d be easily abashed,—easily deterred by failure.”
“Sorra bit. Success might cloy, but failure would never damp him.”
“I can’t fancy him a speaker.”
“Rouse him by a strong theme and a flat contradiction, and you ‘ll see what he can do.”
“And then his lounging, idle habits—”
“He’ll do more in two hours than any one else in two days.”
“You are a warm admirer, my dear Doctor,” said Sir Horace, smiling blandly. “I should almost rather have such a friend than the qualities that win the friendship.—Have you a message for me, Antoine?” said he to a servant who stood at a little distance, waiting the order to approach. The man came forward, and whispered a few words. Sir Horace’s cheek gave a faint, the very faintest possible, sign of flush as he listened, and uttering a brief “Very well,” dismissed the messenger.
“Will you give me your arm, Doctor?” said he, languidly; and the elegant Sir Horace Upton passed down the crowded promenade, leaning on his uncouth companion, without the slightest consciousness of the surprise and sarcasm around him. No man more thoroughly could appreciate conventionalities; he would weigh the effect of appearances to the veriest nicety; but in practice he seemed either to forget his knowledge or despise it. So that, as leaning on the little dwarf’s arm he moved along, his very air of fashionable languor seemed to heighten the absurdity of the contrast. Nay, he actually seemed to bestow an almost deferential attention to what the other said, bowing blandly his acquiescence, and smiling with an urbanity all his own.
Of the crowd that passed, nearly all knew the English Minister. Uncovered heads were bent obsequiously; graceful salutations met him as he went; while a hundred conjectures ran as to who and what might be his companion.
He was a Mesmeric Professor, a Writer in Cipher, a Rabbi, an Egyptian Explorer, an Alchemist, an African Traveller, and, at last, Monsieur Thiers!—and so the fine world of Naples discussed the humble individual whom you and I, dear reader, are acquainted with as Billy Traynor.
CHAPTER XXIV. HOW A “RECEPTION” COMES TO ITS CLOSE
On the evening of that day the handsome saloons of the great Hôtel “Universo” were filled with a brilliant assemblage to compliment the Princess Sabloukoff on her arrival. We have already introduced this lady to the reader, and have no need to explain the homage and attention of which she was the object. There is nothing which so perfectly illustrates the maxim of ignotum pro magnifico as the career of politics; certain individuals obtaining, as they do, a pre-eminence and authority from a species of mysterious prestige about them, and a reputation of having access at any moment to the highest personage in the world of state affairs. Doubtless great ministers are occasionally not sorry to see the public full cry on a false scent, and encourage to a certain extent this mystification; but still it would be an error to deny to such persons as we speak of a knowledge, if not actually an influence, in great affairs.
When the Swedish Chancellor uttered his celebrated sarcasm on the governing capacities of Europe, the political salon, as a state engine, was not yet in existence. What additional energy might it have given to his remark, had he known that the tea-table was the chapel of ease to the council-room, and gossip a new power in the state. Despotic governments are always curious about public opinion; they dread while affecting to despise it. They, however, make a far greater mistake than this, for they imagine its true exponent to be the society of the highest in rank and station.
It is not necessary to insist upon an error so palpable, and yet it is one of which nearly every capital of Europe affords example; and the same council-chamber that would treat a popular movement with disdain would tremble at the epigram launched by some “elegant” of society. The theory is, “that the masses act, but never think; the higher ranks think, and set the rest in motion.” Whether well or ill founded, one consequence of the system is to inundate the world with a number of persons who, no matter what their station or pretensions, are no other than spies. If it be observed that, generally speaking, there is nothing worth recording; that society, too much engaged with its own vicissitudes, troubles itself little with those of the state,—let it be remembered that the governments which employ these agencies are in a position to judge of the value of what they receive; and as they persevere in maintaining them, they are, doubtless, in some degree, remunerated.
To hold this high detective employ, a variety of conditions are essential. The individual must have birth and breeding to gain access to the highest circles; conciliating manners and ample means. If a lady, she is usually young and a beauty, or has the fame of having once been such. The strangest part of all is, that her position is thoroughly appreciated. She is recognized everywhere for what she is; and yet her presence never seems to impose a restraint or suggest a caution. She becomes, in reality, less a discoverer than a depositary of secrets. Many have something to communicate, and are only at a loss as to the channel. They have found out a political puzzle, hit a state blot, or unravelled a cabinet mystery. Others are in possession of some personal knowledge of royalty. They have marked the displeasure of the Queen Dowager, or seen the anger of the Crown Prince. Profitable as such facts are, they are nothing without a market. Thus it is that these characters exercise a wider sphere of influence than might be naturally ascribed to them, and possess besides a terrorizing power over society, the chief members of which are at their mercy.
It is, doubtless, not a little humiliating that such should be the instruments of a government, and that royalty should avail itself of such agencies; but the fact is so, and perhaps an inquiry into the secret working of democratic institutions might not make one a whit more proud of Popular Sovereignty.
Amongst the proficients in the great science we speak of, the Princess held the first place. Mysterious stories ran of her acquaintance with affairs the most momentous; there were narratives of her complicity in even darker events. Her name was quoted by Savary in his secret report of the Emperor Paul’s death; an allusion to her was made by one of the assassins of Murat; and a gloomy record of a celebrated incident in Louis Philippe’s life ascribed to her a share in a terrible tragedy. Whether believed or not, they added to the prestige that attended her, and she was virtually a “puissance” in European politics.
To all the intriguists in state affairs her arrival was actually a boon. She could and would give them, out of her vast capital, enough to establish them successfully in trade. To the minister of police she brought accurate descriptions of suspected characters,—the signalements of Carbonari that were threatening half the thrones of Europe. To the foreign secretary she brought tidings of the favor in which a great Emperor held him, and a shadowy vision of the grand cross he was one day to have. She had forbidden books for the cardinal confessor, and a case of smuggled cigars for the minister of finance. The picturesque language of a “Journal de Modes” could alone convey the rare and curious details of dress which she imported for the benefit of the court ladies. In a word, she had something to secure her a welcome in every quarter,—and all done with a tact and a delicacy that the most susceptible could not have resisted.
If the tone and manner of good society present little suitable to description, they are yet subjects of great interest to him who would study men in their moods of highest subtlety and astuteness. To mere passing careless observation, the reception of the Princess was a crowded gathering of a number of well-dressed people, in which the men were in far larger proportion than the other sex. There was abundance of courtesy; not a little of that half-flattering compliment which is the small change of intercourse; some—not much—scandal, and a fair share of small-talk. It was late when Sir Horace Upton entered, and, advancing to where the Princess stood, kissed her gloved hand with all the submissive deference of a courtier. The most lynx-eyed observer could not have detected either in his manner or in hers that any intimacy existed between them, much less friendship; least of all, anything still closer. His bearing was a most studied and respectful homage,—hers a haughty, but condescending, acceptance of it; and yet, with all this, there was that in those around that seemed to say, “This man is more master here than any of us.” He did not speak long with the Princess, but, respectfully yielding his place to a later arrival, fell back into the crowd, and soon after took a seat beside one of the very few ladies who graced the reception. In all, they were very few, we are bound to acknowledge; for although La Sabloukoff was received at court and all the embassies, they who felt, or affected to feel, any strictness on the score of morals avoided rather than sought her intimacy.
She covered over what might have seemed this disparagement of her conduct, by always seeking the society of men, as though their hardy and vigorous intellects were more in unison with her own than the graceful attributes of the softer sex; and in this tone did the few lady friends she possessed appear also to concur. It was their pride to discuss matters of state and politics; and whenever they condescended to more trifling themes, they treated them with a degree of candor and in a spirit that allowed men to speak as unreservedly as though no ladies were present.
Let us be forgiven for prolixity, since we are speaking less of individuals than of a school,—a school, too, on the increase, and one whose results will be more widely felt than many are disposed to believe.
As the evening wore on, the guests bartered the news and bons mots; scraps of letters from royal hands were read; epigrams from illustrious characters repeated; racy bits of courtly scandal were related; and shrewd explanations hazarded as to how this was to turn out, and that was to end. It was a very strange language they talked,—so much seemed left for inference, so much seemed left to surmise. There was a shadowy indistinctness, as it were, over all; and yet their manner showed a perfect and thorough appreciation of whatever went forward. Through all this treatment of great questions, one striking feature pre-eminently displayed itself,—a keen appreciation of how much the individual characters, the passions, the prejudices, the very caprices of men in power modified the acts of their governments; and thus you constantly heard such remarks as, “If the Duke of Wellington disliked the Emperor less; or, so long as Metternich has such an attachment to the Queen Dowager; when we get over Carini’s dread of the Archduchess; or, if we could only reconcile the Prince to a visit from Nesselrode,”—showing that private personal feelings were swaying the minds of those whose contemplation might have seemed raised to a far loftier level. And then what a mass of very small gossip abounded,—incidents so slight and insignificant that they only were lifted into importance by the actors in them being Kings and Kaisers! By what accidents great events were determined; on what mere trifles vast interests depended,—it were, doubtless, no novelty to record; still, it would startle many to be told that a casual pique, a passing word launched at hazard, some petty observance omitted or forgotten, have changed the destinies of whole nations.
It is in such circles as these that incidents of this kind are recounted. Each has some anecdote, trivial and unimportant it may be, but still illustrating the life of those who live under the shadow of Royalty. The Princess herself was inexhaustible in these stores of secret biography; there was not a dynastic ambition to be consolidated by a marriage, not a Coburg alliance to patch up a family compact, that she was not well versed in. She detected in the vaguest movements plans and intentions, and could read the signs of a policy in indications that others would have passed without remark.
One by one the company retired, and at length Sir Horace found himself the last guest of the evening. Scarcely had the door closed on the last departure, when, drawing his arm-chair to the side of the fire opposite to that where the Princess sat, he took out his cigar-case, and, selecting a cheroot, deliberately lighted and commenced to smoke it.
“I thought they ‘d never go,” said she, with a sigh; “but I know why they remained,—they all thought the Prince of Istria was coming. They saw his carriage stop here this evening, and heard he had sent up to know if I received. I wrote on a card, ‘To-morrow at dinner, at eight;’ so be sure you are here to meet him.”
Sir Horace bowed, and smiled his acceptance.
“And your journey, dear Princess,” said he, between the puffs of his smoke, “was it pleasant?”
“It might have been well enough, but I was obliged to make a great détour. The Duchess detained me at Parma for some letters, and then sent me across the mountains of Pontremoli—a frightful road—on a secret mission to Massa.”
“To Massa! of all earthly places.”
“Even so. They had sent down there, some eight or nine months ago, the young Count Wahnsdorf, the Archduchess Sophia’s son, who, having got into all manner of dissipation at Vienna, and lost largely at play, it was judged expedient to exile him for a season; and as the Duke of Modena offered his aid to their plans, he was named to a troop in a dragoon regiment, and appointed aide-de-camp to his Royal Highness. Are you attending; or has your Excellency lost the clew of my story?”
“I am all ears; only waiting anxiously to hear: who is she?”
“Oh, then, you suspect a woman in the case?”
“I am sure of it, dear Princess. The very accents of your voice prepared me for a bit of romance.”
“Yes, you are right; he has fallen in love,—so desperately in love that he is incessant in his appeals to the Duchess to intercede with his family and grant him leave to marry.”
“To marry whom?” asked Sir Horace.
“That’s the very question which he cannot answer himself; and when pressed for information, can only reply that ‘she is an angel.’ Now, angels are not always of good family; they have sometimes very humble parents, and very small fortunes.”
“Hélas!” sighed the diplomatist, pitifully.
“This angel, it would seem, is untraceable. She arrived with her mother, or what is supposed to be her mother, from Corsica; they landed at Spezzia, with an English passport, calling them Madame and Mademoiselle Harley. On arriving at Massa they took a villa close to the town, and established themselves with all the circumstance of people well-off as to means. They, however, neither received visits nor made acquaintance with any one. They even so far withdrew themselves from public view that they rarely left their own grounds, and usually took their carriage-airing at night. You are not attending, I see.”
“On the contrary, I am an eager listener; only, it is a story one has heard so often. I never heard of any one preserving the incognito except where disclosure would have revealed a shame.”
“Your Excellency mistakes,” replied she; “the incognito is sometimes, like a feigned despatch in diplomacy, a means of awakening curiosity.”
“Ces ruses ne se font plus, Princess,—they were the fashion in Talleyrand’s time; now we are satisfied to mystify by no meaning.”
“If the weapons of the old school are not employed, there is another reason, perhaps,” said she, with a dubious smile.
“That modern arms are too feeble to wield them, you mean,” said he, bowing courteously. “Ah! it is but too true, Princess;” and he sighed what might mean regret over the fact, or devotion to herself,—perhaps both. At all events, his submission served as a treaty of peace, and she resumed.
“And now, revenons à nos moutons,” said she, “or at least to our lambs. This Wahnsdorf is quite capable of contracting a marriage without any permission, if they appear inclined to thwart him; and the question is, What can be done? The Duke would send these people away out of his territory, only that, if they be English, as their passports imply, he knows that there will be no end of trouble with your amiable Government, which is never paternal till some one corrects one of her children. If Wahnsdorf be sent away, where are they to send him? Besides, in all these cases the creature carries his malady with him, and is sure to marry the first who sympathizes with him. In a word, there were difficulties on all sides, and the Duchess sent me over, in observation, as they say, rather than with any direct plan of extrication.”
“And you went?”
“Yes; I passed twenty-four hours. I couldn’t stay longer, for I promised the Cardinal Caraffa to be in Rome on the 18th, about those Polish nunneries. As to Massa, I gathered little more than I had heard beforehand. I saw their villa; I even penetrated as far as the orangery in my capacity of traveller,—the whole a perfect Paradise. I ‘m not sure I did not get a peep at Eve herself,—at a distance, however. I made great efforts to obtain an interview, but all unsuccessfully. The police authorities managed to summon two of the servants to the Podestà, on pretence of some irregularity in their papers, but we obtained nothing out of them; and, what is more, I saw clearly that nothing could be effected by a coup de main. The place requires a long siege, and I had not time for that.”
“Did you see Wahnsdorf?”
“Yes; I had him to dinner with me alone at the hotel, for, to avoid all observation, I only went to the Palace after nightfall. He confessed all his sins to me, and, like every other scapegrace, thought marriage was a grand absolution for past wickedness. He told me, too, how he made the acquaintance of these strangers. They were crossing the Magra with their carriage on a raft, when the cable snapped, and they were all carried down the torrent. He happened to be a passenger at the time, and did something very heroic, I ‘ve no doubt, but I cannot exactly remember what; but it amounted to either being, or being supposed to be, their deliverer. He thus obtained leave to pay his respects at the villa. But even this gratitude was very measured; they only admitted him at rare intervals, and for a very brief visit. In fact, it was plain he had to deal with consummate tacticians, who turned the mystery of their seclusion and the honor vouchsafed him to an ample profit.”
“He told them his name and his rank?”
“Yes; and he owned that they did not seem at all impressed by the revelation. He describes them as very naughty, very condescending in manner, très grandes dames, in fact, but unquestionably born to the class they represent. They never dropped a hint of whence they had come, or any circumstance of their past lives, but seemed entirely engrossed by the present, which they spent principally in cultivating the arts; they both drew admirably, and the young lady had become a most skilful modellist in clay, her whole day being passed in a studio which they had just built. I urged him strongly to try and obtain permission for me to see it, but he assured me it was hopeless,—the request might even endanger his own position with them.
“I could perceive that, though very much in love, Wahns-dorf was equally taken with the romance of this adventure. He had never been a hero to himself before, and he was perfectly enchanted by the novelty of the sensation. He never affected to say that he had made the least impression on the young lady’s heart; but he gave me to understand that the nephew of an Emperor need not trouble his head much on that score. He is a very good-looking, well-mannered, weak boy, who, if he only reach the age of thirty without some great blunder, will pass for a very dignified Prince for the rest of his life.”
“Did you give him any hopes?”
“Of course, if he only promised to follow my counsels; and as these same counsels are yet in the oven, he must needs wait for them. In a word, he is to write to me everything, and I to him; and so we parted.”
“I should like to see these people,” said Upton, languidly.
“I’m sure of it,” rejoined she; “but it is perhaps unnecessary;” and there was that in the tone which made the words very significant.
“Chelmsford—he ‘s now Secretary at Turin—might perhaps trace them,” said he; “he always knows everything of those people who are secrets to the rest of the world.”
“For the present, I am disposed to think it were better not to direct attention towards them,” replied she. “What we do here must be done adroitly, and in such a way as that it can be disavowed if necessary, or abandoned if unsuccessful.”
“Said with all your own tact, Princess,” said Sir Horace, smiling. “I can perceive, however, that you have a plan in your head already. Is it not so?”
“No,” said she, with a faint sigh; “I took wonderfully little interest in the affair. It was one of those games where the combinations are so few you don’t condescend to learn it. Are you aware of the hour?”
“Actually three o’clock,” said he, standing up. “Really, Princess, I am quite shocked.”
“And so am I,” said she, smiling; “on se compromet si facilement dans ce bas monde. Good night.” And she courtesied and withdrew before he had time to take his hat and retire.
CHAPTER XXV. A DUKE AND HIS MINISTER
In this age of the world, when everybody has been everywhere, seen everything, and talked with everybody, it may savor of an impertinence if we ask of our reader if he has ever been at Massa. It may so chance that he has not, and, if so, as assuredly has he yet an untasted pleasure before him.
Now, to be sure, Massa is not as it once was. The little Duchy, whose capital it formed, has been united to a larger state. The distinctive features of a metropolis, and the residence of a sovereign prince, are gone. The life and stir and animation which surround a court have subsided; grass-grown streets and deserted squares replace the busy movement of former days; a dreamy weariness seems to have fallen over every one, as though life offered no more prizes for exertion, and that the day of ambition was set forever. Yet are there features about the spot which all the chances and changes of political fortune cannot touch. Dynasties may fall, and thrones crumble, but the eternal Apennines will still rear their snow-clad summits towards the sky. Along the vast plain of ancient olives the perfumed wind will still steal at evening, and the blue waters of the Mediterranean plash lazily among the rocks, over which the myrtle and the arbutus are hanging. There, amidst them all, half hid in clustering vines, bathed in soft odors from orange-groves, with plashing fountains glittering in the sun, and foaming streams gushing from the sides of marble mountains,—there stands Massa, ruined, decayed, and deserted, but beautiful in all its desolation, and fairer to gaze on than many a scene where the tide of human fortune is at the flood.
As you wander there now, passing the deep arch over which, hundreds of feet above you, the ancient fortress frowns, and enter the silent streets, you would find it somewhat difficult to believe how, a very few years back, this was the brilliant residence of a court,—the gay resort of strangers from every land of Europe,—that showy equipages traversed these weed-grown squares, and highborn dames swept proudly beneath these leafy alleys. Hard, indeed, to fancy the glittering throng of courtiers, the merry laughter of light-hearted beauty, beneath these trellised shades, where, moodily and slow, some solitary figure now steals along, “pondering sad thoughts over the bygone!”
But a few, a very few years ago, and Massa was in the plenitude of its prosperity. The revenues of the state were large,—more than sufficient to have maintained all that such a city could require, and nearly enough to gratify every caprice of a prince whose costly tastes ranged over every theme, and found in each a pretext for reckless expenditure. He was one of those men whom Nature, having gifted largely, “takes out” the compensation by a disposition of instability and fickleness that renders every acquirement valueless. He could have been anything,—orator, poet, artist, soldier, statesman; and yet, in the very diversity of his abilities there was that want of fixity of purpose that left him ever short of success, till he himself, wearied by repeated failures, distrusted his own powers, and ceased to exert them.
Such a man, under the hard pressure of a necessity, might have done great things; as it was, born to a princely station, and with a vast fortune, he became a reckless spendthrift,—a dreamy visionary at one time, an enthusiastic dilettante at another. There was not a scheme of government he had not eagerly embraced and abandoned in turn. He had attracted to his little capital all that Europe could boast of artistic excellence, and as suddenly he had thrown himself into the most intolerant zeal of Papal persecution,—denouncing every species of pleasure, and ordaining a more than monastic self-denial and strictness. There was only one mode of calculating what he might be, which was, by imagining the very opposite to what he then was. Extremes were his delight, and he undulated between Austrian tyranny and democratic licentiousness in politics, just as he vacillated between the darkest bigotry of his church and open infidelity.
At the time when we desire to present him to our readers (the exact year is not material), he was fast beginning to weary of an interregnum of asceticism and severity. He had closed theatres, and suppressed all public rejoicings; and for an entire winter he had sentenced his faithful subjects to the unbroken sway of the Priest and the Friar,—a species of rule which had banished all strangers from the Duchy, and threatened, by the injury to trade, the direst consequences to his capital. To have brought the question formally before him in all its details would have ensured the downfall of any minister rash enough for such daring. There was, indeed, but one man about the court who had courage for the enterprise; and to him we would devote a few lines as we pass. He was an Englishman, named Stubber. He had originally come out to Italy with horses for his Highness, and been induced, by good offers of employment, to remain. He was not exactly stable-groom, nor trainer, nor was he of the dignity of master of the stables; but he was something whose attributes included a little of all, and something more. One thing he assuredly was,—a consummately clever fellow, who could apply all his native Yorkshire shrewdness to a new sphere, and make of his homespun faculties the keen intelligence by which he could guide himself in novel and difficult circumstances.
A certain freedom of speech, with a bold hardihood of character, based, it is true, upon a conscious sense of honor, had brought him more than once under the notice of the Prince. His Highness felt such pleasure in the outspoken frankness of the man that he frequently took opportunities of conversing with him, and even asking his advice. Never deterred by the subject, whatever it was, Stubber spoke out his mind; and by the very force of strong native sense, and an unswerving power of determination, soon impressed his master that his best counsels were to be had from the Yorkshire jockey, and not from the decorated and gilded throng who filled the antechambers.
To elevate the groom to the rank of personal attendant, to create him a Chevalier, and then a Count, were all easy steps to such a Prince. At the time we speak of, Stubber was chief of the Cabinet,—the trusted adviser of his master in knottiest questions of foreign politics, the arbiter of the most difficult points with other states, the highest authority in home affairs, and the absolute ruler over the Duke’s household and all who belonged to it. He was one of those men of action who speedily distinguish themselves wherever the game of life is being played. Smart to discern the character of those around him, prompt to avail himself of their knowledge, little hampered by the scruples which conventionalities impose on men bred in a higher station, he generally attained his object before others had arranged their plans to oppose him. To these qualities he added a rugged, unflinching honesty, and a loyal attachment to the person of his Prince. Strong in his own conscious rectitude, and in the confiding regard of his sovereign, Stubber stood alone against all the wiles and machinations of his formidable rivals.
Were we giving a history of this curious court and its intrigues, we could relate some strange stories of the mechanism by which states are ruled. We have, however, no other business with the subject than as it enters into the domain of our own story, and to this we return.
It was a calm evening of the early autumn, as the Prince, accompanied by Stubber alone, and unattended by even a groom, rode along one of the alleys of the olive wood which skirts the sea-shore beneath Massa. His Highness was unusually moody and thoughtful, and as he sauntered carelessly along, seemed scarcely to notice the objects about him.
“What month are we in, Stubber?” asked he, at length.
“September, Altezza,” was the short reply.
“Per Bacco! so it is; and in this very month we were to have been in Bohemia with the Archduke Stephen,—the best shooting in all Europe, and the largest stock of pheasants in the whole world, perhaps; and I, that love field-sports as no man ever loved them! Eh, Stubber?” and he turned abruptly round to seek a confirmation of what he asserted. Either Stubber did not fully agree in the judgment, or did not deem it necessary to record his concurrence; but the Prince was obliged to reiterate his statement, adding, “I might say, indeed, it is the one solitary dissipation I have ever permitted myself.”
Now, this was a stereotyped phrase of his Highness, and employed by him respecting music, literature, field-sports, picture-buying, equipage, play, and a number of other pursuits not quite so pardonable, in each of which, for the time, his zeal would seem to be exclusive.
A scarcely audible ejaculation—a something like a grunt—from Stubber, was the only assent to this proposition.
“And here I am,” added the Prince, testily, “the only man of my rank in Europe, perhaps, without society, amusement, or pleasure, condemned to the wearisome details of a petty administration, and actually a slave,—yes, sir, I say, a slave—What the deuce is this? My horse is sinking above his pasterns. Where are we, Stubber?” and with a vigorous dash of the spurs he extricated himself from the deep ground.
“I often told your Highness that these lands were ruined for want of drainage. You may remark how poor the trees are along here; the fruit, too, is all deteriorated,—all for want of a little skill and industry. And, if your Highness remarked the appearance of the people in that village, every second man has the ague on him.”
“They did look very wretched. And why is it not drained? Why isn’t everything done as it ought, Stubber, eh?”
“Why is n’t your Highness in Bohemia?”
“Want of means, my good Stubber; no money. My man, Landelli, tells me the coffer is empty; and until this new tax on the Colza comes in, we shall have to live on our credit or our wits,—I forget which, but I conclude they are about equally productive.”
“Landelli is a ladro,” said Stubber. “He has money enough to build a new wing to his château in Serravezza, and to give fifty thousand scudi of fortune to his daughter, though he can’t afford your Highness the common necessaries of your station.”
“Per Bacco! Billy, you are right; you must look into these accounts yourself. They always confuse me.”
“I have looked into them, and your Highness shall have two hundred thousand francs to-morrow on your dressing-table, and as much more within the week.”
“Well done, Billy! you are the only fellow who can unmask these rogueries. If I had only had you with me long ago! Well! well! well! it is too late to think of it. What shall we do with this money? Bohemia is out of the question now. Shall we rebuild the San Felice? It is really too small; the stage is crowded with twenty people on it. There’s that gate towards Carrara, when is it to be completed? There’s a figure wanted for the centre pedestal. As for the fountain, it must be done by the municipality. It is essentially the interest of the townspeople. You ‘d advise me to spend the money in draining these low lands, or in a grant to that new company for a pier at Marina; but I ‘ll not; I have other thoughts in my head. Why should not this be the centre of art to the whole Peninsula? Carrara is a city of sculptors. Why not concentrate their efforts here—by a gallery? I have myself some glorious things,—the best group Canova ever modelled; the original Ariadne too,—far finer than the thing people go to see at Frankfort. Then there’s Tanderini’s Shepherd with the Goats.—Who lives yonder, Stubber? What a beautiful garden it is!” And he drew up short in front of a villa whose grounds were terraced in a succession of gardens down to the very margin of the sea. Plants and shrubs of other climates were mingled with those familiar to Italy, making up a picture of singular beauty, by diversity of color and foliage. “Isn’t this the ‘Ombretta,’ Stubber?”
“Yes, Altezza; but the Morelli have left it. It is let now to a stranger,—a French lady. Some call her English, I believe.”
“To be sure; I remember. There was a demand about a formal permission to reside here. Landelli advised me not to sign it,—that she might turn out English, or have some claim upon England, which was quite equivalent to placing the Duchy, and all within it, under that blessed thing they call British protection.”
“There are worse things than even that,” muttered Stubber.
“British occupation, perhaps you mean; well, you may be right. At all events, I did not take Landelli’s advice, for I gave the permission, and I have never heard more of her. She must be rich, I take it. See what order this place is kept in; that conservatory is very large indeed, and the orange-trees are finer than ours.”
“They seem very fine indeed,” said Stubber.
“I say, sir, that we have none such at the Palace. I’ll wager a zecchino they have come from Naples. And look at that magnolia: I tell you, Stubber, this garden is very far superior to ours.”
“Your Highness has not been in the Palace gardens lately, perhaps. I was there this morning, and they are really in admirable order.”
“I’ll have a peep inside of these grounds, Stubber,” said the Duke, who, no longer attentive to the other, only followed out his own train of thought. At the same instant he dismounted, and, without giving himself any trouble about his horse, made straight for a small wicket which lay invitingly open in front of him. The narrow skirting of copse passed, the Duke at once found himself in the midst of a lovely garden, laid out with consummate skill and taste, and offering at intervals the most beautiful views of the surrounding scenery. Although much of what he beheld around him was the work of many years, there were abundant traces of innovation and improvement. Some of the statues were recently placed, and a small temple of Grecian architecture seemed to have been just restored. A heavy curtain hung across the doorway; drawing back which, the Duke entered what he at once perceived to be a sculptor’s studio. Casts and models lay carelessly about, and a newly begun group stood enshrouded in the wetted drapery with which artists clothe their unfinished labors. No mean artist himself, the Duke examined critically the figures before him; nor was he long in perceiving that the artist had committed more than one fault in drawing and proportion. “This is amateur work,” said he to himself; “and yet not without cleverness, and a touch of genius too. Your dilettante scorns anatomy, and will not submit to drudgery; hence, here are muscles incorrectly developed, and their action ill expressed.” So saying, he sat down before the model, and taking up one of the tools at his side, began to correct some of the errors in the work. It was exactly the kind of task for which his skill adapted him. Too impatient and too discursive to accomplish anything of his own, he was admirably fitted to correct the faults of another, and so he worked away vigorously,—totally forgetting where he was, how he had come there, and as utterly oblivious of Stubber, whom he had left without. Growing more and more interested as he proceeded, he arose at length to take a better view of what he had done, and, standing some distance off, exclaimed aloud, “Per Bacco! I have made a good thing of it—there ‘s life in it now!”
“So indeed is there,” cried a gentle voice behind him; and, turning, he beheld a young and very beautiful girl, whose dress was covered by the loose blouse of a sculptor. “How I thank you for this!” said she, blushing deeply, as she courtesied before him. “I have had no teaching, and never till this moment knew how much I needed it.”
“And this is your work, then?” said the Duke, who turned again towards the model. “Well, there is promise in it. There is even more. Still, you have hard labor before you, if you would be really an artist. There is a grammar in these things, and he who would speak the tongue must get over the declensions. I know but little myself—”
“Oh, do not say so!” cried she, eagerly; “I feel that I am in a master’s presence.”
The Duke started, partly struck by the energy of her manner, in part by the words themselves. It is often difficult for men in his station to believe that they are not known and recognized; and so he stood wondering at her, and thinking who she could be that did not know him to be the Prince. “You mistake me,” said he, gently, and with that dignity which is the birthright of those born to command. “I am but a very indifferent artist. I have studied a little, it is true; but other pursuits and idleness have swept away the small knowledge I once possessed, and left me, as to art, pretty much as I am in morals,—that is, I know what is right, but very often I can’t accomplish it.”
“You are from Carrara, I conclude?” said the young girl, timidly, still curious to hear more about him.
“Pardon me,” said he, smiling; “I am a native of Massa, and live here.”
“And are you not a sculptor by profession?” asked she, still more eagerly.
“No,” said he, laughing pleasantly; “I follow a more precarious trade, nor can I mould the clay I work in so deftly.”
“At least you love art,” said she, with an enthusiasm heightened by the changes he had effected in her group.
“Now it is my turn to question, Signorina,” said he, gayly. “Why, with a talent like yours, have you not given yourself to regular study? You live in a land where instruction should not be difficult to obtain. Carrara is one vast studio; there must be many there who would not alone be willing, but even proud, to have such a pupil. Have you never thought of this?”
“I have thought of it,” said she, pensively, “but my aunt, with whom I live, desires to see no one, to know no one;—even now,” added she, blushing deeply, “I find myself conversing with an utter stranger, in a way—” She stopped, overwhelmed with confusion, and he finished her sentence for her.
“In a way which shows how naturally a love of art establishes a confidence between those who profess it.” As he spoke, the curtain was drawn back, and a lady entered, who, though several years older, bore such a likeness to the young girl that she might readily have been taken for her sister.
“It is at length time I should make my excuses for this intrusion, madame,” said he, turning towards her; and then in a few words explained how the accidental passing by the spot, and the temptation of the open wicket, had led him to a trespass, “which,” added he, smiling, “I can only say I shall be charmed if you will condescend to retaliate. I, too, have some objects of art, and gardens which are thought worthy of a visit.”
“We live here, sir, apart from the world. It is for that reason we have selected this residence,” replied she, coldly.
“I shall respect your seclusion, madame,” answered he, with a deep bow, “and only beg once more to tender my sincere apologies for the past.” He moved towards the door as he spoke, the ladies courtesied deeply, and, with a still lowlier reverence, he passed out.
The Duke lingered in the garden, as though unwilling to leave the spot. For a while some doubt as to whether he had been recognized passed through his mind, but he soon satisfied himself that such was not the case, and the singularity of the situation amused him.
“I am culling a souvenir, madame,” said he, plucking a moss-ross as the lady passed.
“I will give you a better one, sir,” said she, detaching one from her bouquet, and handing it to him. And so they parted.
“Per Bacco! Stubber, I have seen two very charming women. They are evidently persons of condition; find out all about them, and let me hear it to-morrow.” And so say-ing, his Highness rode away, thinking pleasantly over his adventure, and fancying a hundred ways in which it might be amusingly carried out. The life of princes is rarely fertile in surprises; perhaps, therefore, the uncommon and unusual are the pleasantest of all their sensations.
CHAPTER XXVI. ITALIAN TROUBLES
Stubber knew his master well. There was no need for any “perquisitions” on his part; the ladies, the studio, and the garden were totally forgotten ere nightfall. Some rather alarming intelligence had arrived from Carrara, which had quite obliterated every memory of his late adventure. That little town of artists had long been the resort of an excited class of politicians, and it was more than rumored that the “Carbonari” had established there a lodge of their order. Inflammatory placards had been posted through the town—violent denunciations of the Government—vengeance, even on the head of the sovereign, openly proclaimed, and a speedy day promised when the wrongs of an enslaved people should be avenged in blood. The messenger who brought the alarming tidings to Massa carried with him many of the inflammatory documents, as well as several knives and poniards, discovered by the activity of the police in a ruined building at the sea-shore. No arrests had as yet been made, but the authorities were in possession of information with regard to various suspicious characters, and the police prepared to act at a moment’s notice.
It was an hour after midnight when the Council met; and the Duke sat, pale, agitated, and terrified, at the table, with Landelli, the Prime Minister, Caprini, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and General Ferrucio, the War Minister; a venerable ecclesiastic, Monsignore Abbati, occupying the lowest place, in virtue of his humble station as confessor of his Highness. He who of all others enjoyed his master’s confidence, and whose ready intelligence was most needed in the emergency, was not present; his title of Minister of the Household not qualifying him for a place at the Council.
Whatever the result, the deliberation was a long one. Even while it continued, there was time to despatch a courier to Carrara, and receive the answer he brought back; and when the Duke returned to his room, it was already far advanced in the morning. Fatigued and harassed, he dismissed his valet at once, and desired that Stubber might attend him. When he arrived, however, his Highness had fallen off asleep, and lay, dressed as he was, on his bed.
Stubber sat noiselessly beside his master, his mind deeply pondering over the events which, although he had not been present at the Council, had all been related to him. It was not the first time he had heard of that formidable conspiracy, which, under the title of the Carbonari, had established themselves in every corner of Europe.
In the days of his humbler fortune he had known several of them intimately; he had been often solicited to join their band; but while steadily refusing this, he had detected much which to his keen intelligence savored of treachery to the cause amongst them. This cause was necessarily recruited from those whose lives rejected all honest and patient labor. They were the disappointed men of every station, from the highest to the lowest. The ruined gentleman, the beggared noble, the bankrupt trader, the houseless artisan, the homeless vagabond, were all there; bold, daring, and energetic, fearless as to the present, reckless as to the future. They sought for any change, no matter what, seeing that in the convulsion their own condition must be bettered. Few troubled their heads how these changes were to be accomplished; they cared little for the real grievances they assumed to redress: their work was demolition. It was to the hour of pillage alone they looked for the recompense of their hardihood. Some, unquestionably, took a different view of the agencies and the objects; dreamy, speculative men, with high aspirations, hoped that the cruel wrongs which tyranny inflicted on many a European state might be effectually curbed by a glorious freedom, when each man’s actions should be made comformable to the benefit of the community, and the will of all be typified in the conduct of each. There was, however, another class, and to these Stubber had given deep attention. It was a party whose singular activity and energy were always in the ascendant,—ever suggesting bold measures whose results could scarcely be more than menaces, and advocating actions whose greatest effect could not rise above acts of terror and dismay. And thus while the leaders plotted great political convulsions, and the masses dreamed of sack and pillage, these latter dealt in acts of assassination,—the vengeance of the poniard and the poison-cup. These were the men Stubber had studied with no common attention. He fancied he saw in them neither the dupes of their own excited imaginations, nor the reckless followers of rapine, but an order of men equal to the former by intelligence, but far transcending the last in crime and infamy. In his own early experiences he had perceived that more than one of these had expatriated themselves suddenly, carrying away to foreign shores considerable wealth, and, that, too, under circumstances where the acquisition of property seemed scarcely possible. Others he had seen as suddenly, throwing off their political associates, rise into stations of rank and power; and one memorable case he knew where the individual had become the chief adviser of the very state whose destruction he had sworn to accomplish. Such a one he now fancied he had detected among the advisers of his Prince; and deeply ruminating on this theme, he sat at the bedside.
“Is it a dream, Stubber, or have we really heard bad news from Carrara? Has Fraschetti been stabbed, or not?”
“Yes, your Highness, he has been stabbed exactly two inches below where he was wounded in September last,—then, it was his pocket-book saved him; now, it was your Highness’s picture, which, like a faithful follower, he always carried about him.”
“Which means, that you disbelieve the whole story.”
“Every word of it.”
“And the poniards found at the Bocca di Magra?”
“Found by those who placed them there.”
“And the proclamations?”
“Blundering devices. See, here is one of them, printed on the very paper supplied to the Government offices. There ‘s he water-mark, with the crown and your own cipher on it.”
“Per Bacco!so it is. Let me show this to Landelli.”
“Wait awhile, your Highness; let us trace this a little farther. No arrests have been made?”
“None.”
“Nor will any. The object in view is already gained; they have terrified you, and secured the next move.”
“What do you mean?”
“Simply, that they have persuaded you that this state is the hotbed of revolutionists; that your own means of security and repression are unequal to the emergency; that disaffection exists in the army; and that, whether for the maintenance of the Government or your safety, you have only one course remaining.”
“Which is—”
“To call in the Austrians.”
“Per Bacco! it is exactly what they have advised. How did you come to know it? Who is the traitor at the Council-board?”
“I wish I could tell you the name of one who was not such. Why, your Highness, these fellows are not your Ministers, except in so far as they are paid by you. They are Metternich’s people; they receive their appointments from Vienna, and are only accountable to the cabinet held at Schönbrunn. If wise and moderate counsels prevailed here, if our financial measures prospered, if the people were happy and contented, how long, think you, would Lombardy submit to be ruled by the rod and the bayonet? Do you imagine that you will be suffered to give an example to the Peninsula of a good administration?”
“But so it is,” broke in the Prince; “I defy any man to assert the opposite. The country is prosperous, the people are contented, the laws justly administered, and, I hesitate not to say, myself as popular as any sovereign of Europe.”
“And I tell your Highness, just as distinctly, that the country is ground down with taxation, even to export duties on the few things we have to export; that the people are poor to the very verge of starvation; that if they do not take to the highways as brigands, it is because some traditions as honest men yet survive amongst them; that the laws only exist as an agent of tyranny, arrest and imprisonment being at the mere caprice of the authorities. Nor is there a means by which an innocent man can demand his trial, and insist on being confronted with his accuser. Your jails are full, crowded to a state of pestilence with supposed political offenders, men that, in a free country, would be at large, toiling industriously for their families, and whose opinions could never be dangerous, if not festering in the foul air of a dungeon. And as to your own popularity, all I say is, don’t walk in the Piazza at Carrara after dusk. No, nor even at noonday.”
“And you dare to speak thus to me, Stubber!” said the Prince, his face covered with a deadly pallor as he spoke, and his white lips trembling, but less in passion than in fear.
“And why not, sir? Of what value could such a man as I am be to your service, if I were not to tell you what you ‘ll never hear from others,—the plain, simple truth? Is it not clear enough that if I only thought of my own benefit, I ‘d say whatever you’d like best to hear?—I’d tell you, like Landelli, that the taxes were well paid, or say, as Cerreccio did t’other day, that your army would do credit to any state in Europe, when he well knew at the time that the artillery was in mutiny from arrears of pay, and the cavalry horses dying from short rations!”
“I am well weary of all this,” said the Duke, with a sigh. “If the half of what I hear of my kingdom every day be but true, my lot in life is worse than a galley-slave’s. One assures me that I am bankrupt; another calls me a vassal of Austria; a third makes me out a Papal spy; and you aver that if I venture into the streets of my own town, in the midst of my own people, I am almost sure to be assassinated!”
“Take no man’s word, sir, for what, while you can see for yourself, it is your own duty to ascertain,” said Stubber, resolutely. “If you really only desire a life of ease and indolence, forgetting what you owe to yourself and those you rule over, send for the Austrians. Ask for a brigade and a general. You ‘ll have them for the asking. They ‘d come at a word, and try your people at the drum-head, and flog and shoot them with as little disturbance to you as need be. You may pension off the judges; for a court-martial is a far speedier tribunal, and a corporal’s guard is quite an economy in criminal justice. Trade will not, perhaps, prosper with martial law, nor is a state of siege thought favorable to commerce. No matter. You ‘ll sleep safe so long as you keep within doors, and the band under your window will rouse the spirit of nationality in your heart, as it plays, ‘God preserve the Emperor!’”
“You forget yourself, sir, and you forget me!” said the Duke, sternly, as he drew himself up, and threw a look of insolent pride at the speaker.
“Mayhap I do, your Highness,” was the ready answer; “and out of that very forgetfulness let your Highness take a warning. I say, once more, I distrust the people about you; and as to this conspiracy at Carrara, I’ll wager a round sum on it that it was hatched on t ‘other side of the Alps, and paid for in good florins of the Holy Roman Empire. At all events, give me time to investigate the matter. Let me have till the end of the week to examine into it, and, if I find nothing to confirm my views, I ‘ll say not one word against all the measures of precaution that your Council are bent on importing from Austria.”
“Take your own way; I promise nothing,” said the Duke, haughtily; and, with a motion of his hand, dismissed his adviser.
CHAPTER XXVII. CARRARA
To all the luxuriant vegetation and cultivated beauty of Massa, glowing in the “golden glories” of its orange-groves,—steeped in the perfume of its thousand gardens,—Carrara offers the very strongest contrast. Built in a little cleft of the Apennines, it is begirt with great mountains,—wild, barren, and desolate. Some, dark and precipitous, have no traces in their sides but those of the torrents which are formed by the melting snows; others show the white caves, as they are called, of that pure marble which has made the name of the spot famous throughout Europe. High in the mountain sides, escarped amidst rocks, and zig-zagging over many a dangerous gorge and deep abyss, are the rough roads trodden by the weary oxen,—trailing along their massive loads and straining their stout chests to drag the great white blocks of glittering stone. Far down below, crossed and recrossed by splashing torrents, sprinkled with the spray of a hundred cataracts, stands Carrara itself,—a little marble city of art, every house a studio, every citizen a sculptor. Hither are sent all the marvellous conceptions of genius,—the models which mighty imaginations have begotten,—to be converted into imperishable stone. Here are the grand conceptions gathered for every land and clime, treasures destined to adorn the great galleries of nations, or the splendid palaces of kings.
Some of these studios are of imposing size and vast proportions, and not devoid of a certain architectural pretension,—a group, a figure, or a bas-relief usually adorning the space over the door, and by its subject giving some indication of the tastes of the proprietor. Thus, Madonnas and saints are of frequent occurrence; and the majority of the artists display their faith by an image of the saint whose patronage they claim. Others exhibit some ideal conception; and a few denote their nationality by the bust of their sovereign, or some prince of his house.
One of these buildings, a short distance from the town, and so small as to be little more than a mere crypt, was distinguished by the chaste and simple elegance of its design, and the tasteful ornament with which its owner had decorated the most minute details of the building. He was a young artist who had arrived in Carrara friendless and unknown, but whose abilities had soon obtained for him consideration and employment. At first, the tasks intrusted to him were the humbler ones of friezes and decorative art; but at length, his skill becoming acknowledged, to his hands were confided the choicest conceptions of Danneker, the most rare creations of Canova. Little or nothing was known of him; his habits were of the strictest seclusion,—he went into no society, he formed no friendships. His solitary life, after a while, ceased to attract any notice; and men saw him pass, and come and go, without question,—almost without greeting; and, save when some completed work was about to be packed off to its destination, the name of Sebastian Greppi was rarely heard in Carrara.
His strict retirement had not, however, exempted him from the jealous suspicions of the authorities; on the contrary, the seeming mystery of his life had sharpened their curiosity and aroused their zeal; and more than once was he summoned to the Prefecture to answer some frivolous questions about his passport or his means of subsistence.
It was on one of these errands that he stood one morning in the antechamber of the Podestà’s court, awaiting his turn to be called and interrogated. The heat of a crowded chamber, the wearisome delay,—perhaps, too, some vexation at the frequency of these irritating calls,—had partially excited him; and when he was at length introduced, his manner was confused, and his replies vague and almost wandering.
Two strangers, whose formal permission to reside were then being filled up by a clerk, were accommodated with seats in the room, and listened with no slight interest to a course of inquiry so strange and novel to their ears.
“Greppi!” cried the harsh voice of the President, “come forward;” and a youth stood up, dressed in the blue blouse of a common workman, and wearing the coarse shoes of the very humblest laborer; but yet, in the calm dignity of his mien and the mild character of his sad but handsome features, already proclaiming that he came of a class whose instincts denote good blood.
“Greppi, you have a servant, it would seem, whose name is not in your passport. How is this?”
“He is an humble friend who shares my fortunes, sir,” said the artist. “They asked no passport from him when we crossed the Tuscan frontier; and he has been here some months without any demand for one.”
“Does he assist you in your work?”
“He does, sir, by advice and counsel; but he is not a sculptor. Poor fellow! he never dreamed that his presence here could have attracted any remark.”
“His tongue and accent betray a foreign origin, Greppi?”
“Be it so,—so do mine, perhaps. Are we the less submissive to the laws?”
“The laws can make themselves respected,” said the Podestà, sternly. “Where is this man,—how is he called?”
“He is known as Guglielmo, sir. At this moment he is ill; he has caught the fever of the Campagna, and is confined to bed.”
“We shall send to ascertain the fact,” was the reply.
“Then my word is doubted!” said the youth haughtily.
The Podestà started, but more in amazement than anger. There was, indeed, enough to astonish him in the haughty ejaculation of the poorly clad boy.
“I am given to believe that you are not—as your passport would imply—a native of Capri, nor a Neapolitan born,” said the Podestà.
“If my passport be regular and my conduct blameless, what have you or any one to do with my birthplace? Is there any charge alleged against me?”
“You are forgetting where you are, boy; but I may take measures to remind you of it,” said the Podestà, whispering to a sergeant of the gendarmes at his side.
“I hope I have said nothing that could offend you,” said the boy, eagerly; “I scarcely know what I have said. My wish is to submit myself in all obedience to the laws; to live quietly and follow my trade. If my presence here give displeasure to the authorities, I will, however sorry, take my departure, though I cannot say whither to.” The last words were uttered falteringly, and in a kind of soliloquy, and only overheard by the two strangers, who now, having received their papers, arose to withdraw.
“Will you call at our inn and speak with us? That’s my card,” said one, as he passed out, and gave a visiting-card into the youth’s hand.
He took it without a word; indeed, he was too deeply engaged in his own thoughts to pay much attention to the request.
“The sergeant will accompany you, my good youth, to your lodgings, and verify what you have stated as to your companion. To-morrow you will appear here again, to answer certain questions we shall put to you as to your subsistence, and the means by which you live.”
“Is it a crime to have wherewithal to subsist upon?” asked the boy.
“He whose means of living are disproportionate to his evident station may well be an object of suspicion,” said the other, with a sneer.
“And who is to say what is my station, or what becomes it? Will you take upon you to pronounce upon the question?” cried the boy, boldly.
“Mayhap it is what I shall do very soon!” was the calm answer.
“Then let me have done with this. I’ll leave the place as soon as my friend be able to bear removal.”
“Even that I ‘ll not promise for.”
“Why, you ‘ll not detain me here by force?” exclaimed the youth. \
A cold, ambiguous smile was the only reply he received to this speech.
“Well, let us see when this restraint is to begin,” cried the boy, passionately, as he moved towards the door; but no impediment was offered to his departure. On the contrary, the servant, at a signal from the Prefect, threw wide the two sides of the folding-doors, and the youth passed out, down the stairs, and into the street.
His mind obscured by passion, his heart bursting with indignation, he threaded his way through many a narrow lane and alley, till he reached a small rustic bridge, crossing over which he ascended a narrow flight of steps cut in the solid rock, and gained a little terrace, on which stood a small cottage of the humblest kind.
As usual in Italy, during the summer-time, the glass sashes of the windows had been removed, and the shutters closed. Opening one of these gently with his hand, he peeped in, and as suddenly a voice cried out, “Are you come back? Oh, how my heart was aching to see you here again! Come in quickly, and let me touch your hand.”
The next moment the boy was seated by the bed, where lay a man greatly emaciated by sickness, and bearing in his worn features the traces of a severe tertian.
“It’s going off now,” said he, “but the fit was a long one. This morning it began at eight o’clock; but I ‘m throwing it off now, and I ‘ll soon be better.”
“My poor fellow,” said the boy, caressing the cold fingers within his own hands, “it was in these midnight rambles of mine you caught the terrible malady. As it ever has been, your fidelity is fatal to you. I told you a thousand times that I was born to hard luck, and carried more than enough to swamp all who might try to succor me.
“And don’t I say, as the ould heathen philosopher did of fortune, ‘Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia’?” Is it necessary to say that the speaker was Billy Traynor, and the boy his pupil?
“Prudentia,” said the youth, scoffingly, “may mean anything, from trickery to downright meanness; since, by such acts as these, men grow great in life. Prudentia is thrift and self-denial; but it is more too,—it is a compromise between a man’s dignity and his worldly success—it is the compact that says, Bear this that that may happen; and so I ‘ll none of it.”
“Tell me how you fared with the Prefect,” asked Billy.
“You shall hear, and judge for yourself,” said the other; and related, as well as his memory would serve him, the circumstances of his late interview.
“Well, well!” said Billy, “it might be worse.”
“I knew you ‘d say so, poor fellow!” said the youth, affectionately; “you accept the rubs of life as cheerfully as I take them with impatience. But, after all, this is matter of temperament too. You can forgive,—I love better to resist.”
“Mine is the better philosophy, though,” said Billy, “since it will last one’s lifetime. Forgiveness must dignify old age, when your virtue of resistance be no longer possible.”
“I never wish to reach the time when I may be too old for it,” said the boy, passionately.
“Hush! don’t say that. It’s not for you to determine how long you are to live, nor in what frame of mind years are to find you.” He paused, and there was a long unbroken silence between them.
“I have been at the post,” said the youth, at last, “and found that letter, which, by the Neapolitan postmark, must have been despatched many weeks since.”
Billy Traynor took up the letter, whose seal was yet unbroken, and having examined it carefully, returned it to him, saying, “You did n’t answer his last, I think?”
“No; and I half hoped he might have felt offended, and given up the correspondence. What have we to do with ambassadors or great ministers, Billy? Ours is not the grand highway in life, but the humble path on the mountain side.”
“I’m content if it only lead upwards,” said the sick man; and the words were uttered firmly, but with the solemn fervor of prayer.
