To such an extent had her influence spread that it became at last well-nigh impossible to conclude any bargain for land without her co-operation. Unless her award had decided, the peasant could not bring himself to believe that his claim had met a just or equitable consideration; but whatever Miss Bella decreed was final and irrevocable. From an early hour each morning the suitors to her court began to arrive. Under a large damson-tree was placed a table, at which she sat, busily writing away, and listening all the while to their long-drawn-out narratives. It was her rule never to engage in any purchase when she had not herself made a visit to the spot in question, ascertained in person all its advantages and disadvantages, and speculated how far its future value should influence its present price. In this way she had travelled far and near over the surrounding country, visiting localities the wildest and least known, and venturing into districts where a timid traveller had not dared to set foot. It required all her especial acuteness, often-times, to find out—from garbled and incoherent descriptions—the strange and out-of-the-way places no map had ever indicated. In fact, the wild and untravelled country was pathless as a sea, and nothing short of her ready-witted tact had been able to navigate it.
She was, as usual, busied one morning with her peasant levee when Mr. Hankes arrived. He brought a number of letters from the post, and was full of the importance so natural to him who has the earliest intelligence.
“Great news, Miss Bella,” said he, gayly,—“very great news. One of the French Princes announces his intention to build a villa here. He requires a small park of some forty or fifty acres, access to the sea, and a good anchorage for his yacht. This note here will give all particulars. Here is an application from Sir Craven Tollemache; he wants us to build him a house on any picturesque site near the shore, and contracts to take it on lease. Here is a demand for one hundred shares, fifty to be exchanged for shares in the Boquantilla Cobalt and Zinc Mines, now at a premium. Kelsal and Waterline wish to know what facilities we would afford them to establish yacht-building in Crooke's Harbor. If liberally dealt with, they propose to expend fifty thousand on permanent improvements. Lord Drellington is anxious for a house in Lackington Crescent. I believe he is too late. There are also seven applications for 'Arden House,' which, I fancy, has been promised to Sir Peter Parkeswith. Founde's Cliff, too, is eagerly run after; that sketch you made of it has been a great success. We must extend our territories, Miss Bella,—we must widen our frontier; never was there such a hit. It is the grandest operation of Mr. Dunn's life. Seven hundred and twenty-three thousand pounds,—one-fourth already paid, the remainder available at short calls. Those Welsh people, Plimnon and Price, are eager about our lead-mine, and we can run up the shares there to sixty-five or seventy whenever we please. Here, too, are the plans for the new Casino and Baths. This is the sketch of a Hydropathic Establishment,—a pet scheme of Lord Glengariffs; we must let him have it. And here is Truevane's report about the marble. It will serve admirably for every purpose but statuary. Our slate slabs are pronounced the finest ever imported. We mean to flag the entire terrace along the sea with them. This is from Dunn himself; it is very short, and hurriedly written: 'Chevass will move the second reading of our bill on Tuesday. I have spoken to the Chancellor, and it is all right. Before it goes to the Lords we must have a new issue of shares. I want, at least, two hundred and fifty thousand by the end of the year.' He says nothing about politics; indeed, he is so occupied with gayeties and fine company, he has little time for business. He only mentions that 'till we have done with this stupid war we cannot hope for any real extension to our great enterprise.'”
“And does he put our miserable plottings here in competition with the noble struggle of our glorious soldiers in the Crimea?” cried she, now breaking silence for the first time.
Mr. Hankes actually started with the energy of her manner, and for a moment could scarcely collect himself to reply.
“Well, you know, Miss Bella,” said he, faltering at every word, “we are men of peace,—we are people engaged in the quiet arts of trade,—we cannot be supposed indifferent to the interests our lives are passed in forwarding.”
“But you are Englishmen, besides, sir; not to say you are brothers and kinsmen of the gallant men who are fighting our enemies.”
“Very true, Miss Bella,—very true; they have their profession and we have ours. We rejoice in their success as we participate in all the enthusiasm of their gallantry. I give you my word of honor, I could n't help filling out an extra glass of sherry yesterday to the health of that fine fellow who dashed at the Russian staff and carried off a colonel prisoner. You saw it, I suppose, in the papers?”
“No. Pray let me hear it,” said she, eagerly.
“Well, it was an observation—a 'reconnaissance' I think they called it—the Russians were making of the Sardinian lines, and they came so near that a young soldier—an orderly of General La Marmora's—heard one of them say, 'Yes, I have the whole position in my head.' Determining that so dangerous a fellow should not get back to head-quarters, he watched him closely, till he knew he could not be mistaken in him, and then setting off at speed,—for he was mounted,—he crossed the Tchernaya a mile or so further up, and, waiting for them, he lay concealed in a small copse. His plan was to sell his own life for this officer's; but whether he relinquished that notion, or that chance decided the event, there's no knowing. In he dashed, into the midst of them, cut this colonel's bridle-arm across at the wrist, and, taking his horse's reins, rode for it with all speed towards his own lines. He got a start of thirty or forty strides before they could rally in pursuit, which they did actually up to the very range of the rifle-pits, and only retired at last when three fell dead or wounded.”
“But he escaped?” cried she.
“That he did, and carried his prisoner safe into the lines, and presented him to the General, modestly remarking, 'He is safer here than over yonder,'—pointing to Sebastopol; and, strangest part of the whole thing, he turns out to be an Englishman.”
“An Englishman?”
“Yes. He was serving, by some strange accident, on General La Marmora's staff, as a simple orderly, though evidently a man of some education and position,—one of those wild young bloods, doubtless, that had gone too fast at home, but who really do us no discredit when it comes to a question of pluck and daring.”
“Do us no discredit!” cried she; “and have you nothing more generous to say of one who has asserted the honor of England so nobly in the face of an entire army? Do us no discredit! Why, one such feat as this adds more glory to the nation than all the schemes of all the jobbers who deal in things like these.” And she threw contemptuously from her the colored plans and pictures that littered the table.
“Dear me, Miss Kellett, here's a whole ink-bottle spilled over the Davenport Obelisk.”
“Do us no discredit!” burst out she again. “Are we really the nation of shopkeepers that France calls us? Have we no pride save in successful bargaining, no glory save in growing rich? Is money-getting so close at the nation's heart that whatever retards or delays its hoardings savors of misfortune? When you were telling me that anecdote, how I envied the land that owned such a hero; and when you said he was our own,—our countryman; my heart felt bursting with gratitude. Tell me his name.”
“His name,—his name,—how strange that I should have forgotten it; for, as I told you, I toasted his health only yesterday.”
“Yes, you remember the sherry!” said she, bitterly.
Mr. Hankes's cheek tingled and grew crimson. It was a mood of passionate excitement he had never witnessed in her before, and he was astounded at the change in one usually so calm and self-possessed. It was then in no small confusion that he turned over the letter before him to find something which might change the topic in discussion.
“Ah, here is a matter,” said he, referring once more to Dunn's letter. “He says: 'Beg of Miss Kellett to see a small holding called “Kilmaganagh;” I cannot exactly say where, but it lies to the north of Bantry Bay. I suspect that it possesses few recommendations such as would entitle it to a place in the “scheme;” but, if to be had on reasonable terms, I would be well pleased to obtain it. Driscoll had effected a part purchase, but, having failed to pay up the instalment due last March, his claim lapses. By the way, can you ascertain for me where this same Driscoll has gone to? It is now above four months since I have heard of him. Trace him, if possible. As to Kilmaganagh, tell Miss K. that she may indulge that generosity she is not indisposed to gratify, and be on this occasion a liberal purchaser.' He fancies you lean a little to the country-people, Miss Bella,” said Hankes, as he stole a cautious glance at her now heightened color. “I will even consent to what is called a fancy price for the tenement, and certainly not lose it for a hundred or two above its actual value. Look to this, and look to Driscoll. There's a riddle here, Miss Bella, if we knew how to read it,” said Hankes, as he looked over the few lines once more.
“I have but scant wits to read riddles, Mr. Hankes. Let us see where this place lies.” And she turned to a large map on the table, the paths and cross-paths of which had been marked in different colored inks by her own hand. “I remember the name. There was an old tower called Kilmaganagh Fort, which used to be visible from the bay. Yes, here it is,—a strange, wild spot, too, and, as Mr. Dunn opines, scarcely available for his great scheme.”
“But he has so many great schemes,” said Hankes, with a sly and sidelong glance towards her.
Sybella, however, paid no attention to the remark, but, leaning over the map, continued to trace out the line of route to the spot in question. “By crossing Bantry Bay at Gortalassy, one might save above thirty miles of way. I have been over the road before, and remember it well.”
“And you really mean to undertake the journey?” asked Hankes, in some astonishment.
“Of course I do. I ask nothing better than to be fully occupied, and am well pleased when in so doing I can exchange the desk for the saddle, or, almost better, the stern-sheets of a Bantry Hooker. You are not a woman, and you cannot feel, therefore, the sense of pride inspired by mere utility.”
“I wish I might ask you a favor, Miss Kellett,” said he, after a moment's thought.
“A favor of me!” said she, laughing, as though the idea amused her.
“Yes,” said he, resuming. “I would beg to be permitted to accompany you on this same journey. I have never been any of these wild, untravelled tracts, and it would be a great additional charm to visit them in your company.”
“So far as I am concerned, I grant you the permission freely; but it were well for you to remember that you must not only be well mounted, but prepared to ride over some rough country. I go, usually, as the crow flies, and, as nearly as I can, the same pace too. Now, between this and Loughbeg, there are, at least, three trying fences: one a wall with a deep drop beyond it, and another a steep bank, where I remember that somebody narrowly escaped having an ugly fall; there's a small estuary, too, to cross, near Gortalassy. But I am ashamed to enumerate these petty obstacles; such as they are, they are the only ones,—there are none on my part.”
“When do you mean to set out?” asked Hankes, in a tone far less eager than his former question.
“There's a full moon to-morrow night, so that, leaving this about midnight, we might reach the bay by six or seven o'clock, and then, if we should be fortunate with the wind, arrive at Kilmaganagh by about four o'clock. Taking there three or four hours to see the place, we could start again about eight, or even nine—”
“Good heavens! that gives nothing for repose,—no time to recruit.”
“You forget there are fully five hours on board the boat. I 'll not be the least offended if you sleep the entire time. If there 's not wind enough to take in a reef, I 'll give the tiller to old Mark Spillane, and take a sleep myself.”
“It is really like a Tartar journey,” said the terrified Hankes.
“I have told you the worst of it, I must own,” said she, laughing, “for I feel I have no right to obtain your escort on false pretences.”
“And you would go alone over this long distance,—land and sea?”
“Land and sea are very grand words, Mr. Hankes, for some five-and-twenty miles of heather and a few hours in an open boat; but such as they are, I would go them alone.”
Mr. Hankes would like to have said something complimentary, something flattering, but it did not exactly occur to him how he was to do it. To have exalted her heroism would be like a confession of his own poltroonery; to have seen any surprising evidence of boldness in her daring might possibly reflect upon her delicacy. He felt—none could have felt more thoroughly—that she was very courageous and very full of energy; but, somehow, these were humble aid to propagate that notion,—I had almost said that fallacy. “Only hear me out,” said she, as he tried to interrupt “I began my duties in the most sanguine of all moods. Heaven knows not what dreams I had of a land of abundance and content. Well, I have seen the abundance,—the wealth has really poured in; every one is richer, better fed, clothed, housed, and cared for, and almost in an equal ratio are they grown more covetous, grasping, envious, and malevolent—You won't let me finish,” cried she, as he showed an increasing impatience. “Well, perhaps, as we stroll along the cliffs to-morrow, you will be more disposed to listen; that is, if I have not already terrified you from accepting the companionship.”
“Oh, no! by no means; but how are we to go,—do we drive?”
“Drive! why, my dear Mr. Hankes, it is only a Kerry pony has either legs or head for the path we must follow. Cast your eye along this coast-line; Jagged and fanciful as it looks, it conveys no notion of its rugged surface of rock, and its wild and darksome precipices. Take my word for it, you have as much to learn of the scenery as of the temperament of the land.”
“But I'd like to go,” repeated he, his accent being marvellously little in accordance with the sentiment.
“Nothing easier, sir. I'll give orders to have a pony—a most reliable pony—ready for you here to-morrow evening, when I shall expect you at tea.”
Mr. Hankes bowed his grateful acknowledgments.
“I suspect, sir,” said she, playfully, “that I have guessed your reason for this journey.”
“My reason, my dear Miss Kellett,” said he, in confusion,—“my reason is simply the pleasure and honor of your company, and the opportunity of visiting an interesting scene with—with—with—”
“No matter for the compliment; but I began really to imagine that you wished to learn my secret of bargaining with the people; that you wanted to witness one of these contracts you have heard so much of. Well, sir, you shall have it: our sole secret is, we trust each other.”
CHAPTER XV. A BRIDLE-PATH
Sybella Kellett was less than just when she said that the country which lay between the Hermitage and Bantry Bay had few claims to the picturesque. It may possibly have been that she spoke with reference to what she fancied might have been Mr. Hankes's judgment of such a scene. There was, indeed, little to please an English eye,—no rich and waving woods, no smiling corn-fields, no expanse of swelling lawn or upland of deep meadow; but there was a wild and grand desolation, a waving surface fissured with deep clefts opening on the sea, which boomed in many a cavern far beneath. There were cliffs upright as a wall, hundreds of feet in height, on whose bare summits some rude remains were still traceable,—the fragment of a church, or shrine, or some lone cross, symbol of a faith that dated from centuries back. Heaths of many a gorgeous hue—purple, golden, and azure—clad a surface ever changing, and ferns that would have overtopped a tall horseman mingled their sprayey leaves with the wild myrtle and the arbutus. The moon was at her full as Sybella, accompanied by Mr. Hankes, and followed by an old and faithful groom,—a servant of her father's in times past,—took her way across this solitary tract.
If my reader is astonished that Mr. Hankes should have offered himself for such an expedition, it is but fair to state that the surprise was honestly shared in by that same gentleman. Was it that he made the offer in some moment of rash enthusiasm; had any impulse of wild chivalry mastered his calmer reason; was it that curious tendency which occasionally seems to sway Cockney natures to ascend mountains, cross dangerous ledges, or peep into volcanic craters? I really cannot aver that any of these was his actual motive, while I have my suspicion that a softer, a gentler, though a deeper sentiment influenced him on this occasion. Mr. Hankes—to use a favorite phrase of his own—“had frequent occasion to remark” Miss Kellett's various qualities of mind and intelligence; he had noticed in her the most remarkable aptitude for “business.” She wrote and answered letters with a facility quite marvellous; details, however complicated, became by her treatment simple and easy; no difficulties seemed to deter her; and she possessed a gift—one of the rarest and most valuable of all—never to waste a moment on the impracticable, but to address herself, with a sort of intuition, at once, to only such means as could be rendered available.
Now, whether it was that Mr. Hankes anticipated a time when Mr. Dunn, in his greatness, might soar above the meaner cares of a business life,—when, lifted into the Elysian atmosphere of the nobility, he would look down with contemptuous apathy at the straggles and cares of enterprise,—or whether Mr. Hankes, from sources of knowledge available peculiarly to himself, knew that the fortunes of that great man were not built upon an eternal foundation, but shared in that sad lot which threatens all things human with vicissitude; whether stern facts and sterner figures taught him that all that splendid reputation, all that boundless influence, all that immense riches, might chance, one day or other, to be less real, less actual, and less positive than the world now believed them to be; whether, in a word, Mr. Hankes felt that Fortune, having smiled so long and so blandly on her favorite, might not, with that capriciousness so generally ascribed to her, assume another and very different aspect,—whatever the reason, in short, he deemed the dawn of his own day was approaching, and that, if only true to himself, Mr. Hankes was sure to be the man of the “situation,”—the next great star in the wide hemisphere that stretches from the Stock Exchange to—the Marshalsea, and includes all from Belgravia to Boulogne-sur-Mer.
Miss Kellett's abilities, her knowledge, her readiness, her tact, a certain lightness of hand in the management of affairs that none but a woman ever possesses, and scarcely one woman in ten thousand combines with the more male attributes of hard common-sense, pointed her out to Mr. Hankes as one eminently suited to aid his ambition. Now, men married for money every day in the week; and why not marry for what secured not alone money, but fame, station, and influence? Mr. Hankes was a widower; his own experience of married life had not been fortunate. The late Mrs. Hankes was a genius, and had the infirmities of that unsocial class; she despised her husband, quarrelled with him, lampooned him in a book, and ran off with the editor of a small weekly review that eulogized her novel. It was supposed she died in Australia,—at least, she never came back again; and as the first lieutenant gravely confirms the sun's altitude when he mutters, “Make it noon,” so Mr. Hankes, by as simple a fiat, said, “Make her dead,” and none disputed him. At all events, he was a widower by brevet, and eligible to be gazetted a husband at any moment.
Miss Kellett possessed many personal attractions, nor was he altogether insensible to them; but he regarded them, after all, pretty much as the intended purchaser of an estate might have regarded an ornamental fish-pond or a flower-garden on the property,—something, in short, which increased the attraction, but never augmented the value. He was glad they were there, though they by no means would have decided him to the purchase. He knew, besides, that the world set a high price on these things, and he was not sorry to possess what represented value of any kind. It was always scrip, shares, securities, even, although one could not well say how, when, or where the dividend was to be paid.
There was another consideration, too, weighed materially with him. The next best thing, in Mr. Hankes's estimation, to marrying into a good connection, was to have none at all,—no brothers, no sisters-in-law, no cousins-german or otherwise, no uncles, aunts, or any good friends of parental degree. Now, except a brother in the Crimea,—with an excellent chance of being killed,—Sybella had none belonging to her. In the happy phrase of advertisements, she had no encumbrances. There was no one to insist upon this or that settlement; none to stipulate for anything in her favor; and these were, to his thinking, vast advantages. Out of these various considerations our reader is now to fashion some of the reasons which induced Mr. Hankes to undertake an excursion alike foreign to his taste and uncongenial to his habits; but as a placeman would not decline the disagreeables of a sea-voyage as the preliminary to reaching the colony he was to govern, so this gentleman consoled himself by thinking that it was the sole penalty attached to a very remunerative ambition.
If Sybella was not without some astonishment at his proposal to accompany her, she never gave herself the slightest trouble to explain the motive. She acceded to his wish from natural courtesy and the desire to oblige, and that was all. He had been uniformly polite and civil in all their intercourse; beyond that, he was not a person whose companionship she would have sought or cared for, and so they rode along, chatting indifferently of whatever came uppermost,—the scene, the road, the season, the condition of the few people who formed the inhabitants of this wild region, and how their condition might possibly be affected by the great changes then in progress near them.
Guarded and cautious as he was in all he said, Mr. Hankes could not entirely conceal how completely he separated, in his own mind, the success of the great scheme and the advantage that might accrue to the people; nor was she slow to detect this reservation. She took too true and just a view of her companion's temper and tone to approach this theme with the scruples that agitated herself, but at once said,—
“Let us suppose this scheme to be as prosperous as its best friends can wish it, Mr. Hankes; that you all—I mean you great folk, who are directors, chairmen, secretaries, and so forth—become as rich and powerful as you desire, see your shares daily increasing in value, your speculations more and more lucrative, what becomes of the people—the poor man—all this while?”
“Why, of course he participates in all these successes; he grows rich too; he sells what he has to sell at a better market, obtains higher wages for his labor, and shares all our prosperity.”
“Granted. But who is to teach him the best use of this newly acquired prosperity? You, and others like you, have your tastes already formed; the channels are already made in which your affluence is to run: not so with him; abundance may—nay, it will—suggest waste, which will beget worse. Who are to be his guides,—who his examples?”
“Oh, as to that, his increase of fortune will suggest its own appropriate increase of wants. He will be elevated by the requirements of his own advancing condition, and even if he were not, it is not exactly any affair of ours; we do our part when we afford him the means of a higher civilization.”
“I don't think so. I suspect that not alone do you neglect a duty, but that you inflict a wrong. But come, I will take another alternative; I will suggest—what some are already predicting—that the project will not prove a success.”
“Who says that?” cried Hankes, hastily, and in his haste forgetting his habitual caution of manner.
“Many have said it. Some of those whose opinions I am accustomed to place trust in, have told myself that the speculation is too vast,—disproportioned to the country, undertaken on a scale which nothing short of imperial resources could warrant—”
“But surely you do not credit such forebodings?” broke he in.
“It is of little consequence how far I credit them. I am as nothing in the event. I only would ask, What if all were to fail?—what if ruin were to fall upon the whole undertaking, what is to become of all those who have invested their entire fortunes in the scheme? The great and affluent have many ventures,—they trust not their wealth to one argosy; but how will it be with those who have embarked their all in one vessel?”
Mr. Hankes paused, as if to reflect over his reply, and she continued: “It is a question I have already dared to address to Mr. Dunn himself. I wrote to him twice on the subject. The first time I asked what guarantee could be given to small shareholders,—those, for instance, who had involved their whole wealth in the enterprise. He gave me no answer. To my second application came the dry rejoinder that I had possibly forgotten in whose service I was retained; that I drew my resources from the Earl of Glengariff, and not from the peasantry, whose advocate I had constituted myself.”
“Well?” cried Hankes, curious to hear what turn the correspondence took.
“Well,” said she, smiling gently, “I wrote again. I said it was true I had forgotten the fact of which he reminded me, but I pleaded in excuse that neither the Earl nor her Ladyship had refreshed my memory on the circumstance by any replies to eight, or, I believe, nine letters I sent them. I mentioned, too, that though I could endure the slight of this neglect for myself, I could not put up with it for the sake of those whose interest I watched over. Hear me out,” said she, perceiving that he was about to interrupt. “It had become known in Glengariff that all the little fortune I was possessed of—the few hundred pounds Mr. Dunn had rescued for me out of the wreck of our property—was invested in this scheme. Mr. Dunn counselled this employment of the money, and I consented to it. Now, this trustfulness on my part induced many others to imitate what they deemed my example.”
“And you really did make this investment?” said Hankes, whose eagerness could not brook longer delay.
“Yes,” said she, with a quiet smile, “though, evidently, had I consulted Mr. Hankes, he would never have counselled the step.” After a moment, she resumed, “I have half a mind to tell you how it happened.”
“I pray you let me hear it.”
“Well, it was in this way: Shortly after that affair of the Ossory Bank,—the run for gold, I mean,—I received a few hurried lines from Mr. Dunn, urging me to greater exertion on the score of the Glengariff scheme, and calling upon me to answer certain newspaper insinuations against its solvency, and so forth. Before replying to these attacks, I was, of course, bound to read them; and, shall I confess it, such was the singular force of the arguments they employed, so reasonable did their inferences appear, and so terrible the consequences should the plan prove a failure, that I for the first time perceived that it was by no means impossible the vast superstructure we were raising might be actually on the brink of a volcano. I did not like exactly to tell Mr. Dunn these misgivings; in fact, though I attempted two or three letters to that effect, I could not, without great risk of offending, convey my meaning, and so I reflected and pondered over the matter several days, working my brain to find some extrication from the difficulty. At last, I bethought me of this: Mr. Dunn was my guardian; by his efforts was the small fragment of property that fell to me rescued and saved. What if I were to request him to invest the whole of it in this scheme? Were its solvency but certain, where could the employment of the money be safer or more profitable? If he consented, I might fairly suppose my fears were vain, and my misgivings unfounded. If, however, he showed any reluctance, even backwardness, to the project, the very phrase he might employ to dissuade me would have its especial significance, and I could at once have something to reason upon. Well, I wrote to him, and he answered by the next post: 'I fully coincide with your suggestion, and, acting on it, you are now the possessor of fifty-four shares in the allotment. As the moment for buying in is favorable, it is a thousand pities you could not make an equally profitable investment for your brother, whose twelve hundred pounds is yielding the very inglorious interest of the bank.'”
“And so you took the shares?” said Hankes, sighing; then added, “But let me see,—at what rate did you buy?”
“I am ashamed to confess, I forget; but I know the shares were high?”
“After the Ossory run,” muttered he,—“that was about September. Shares were then something like one hundred and twenty-seven and a quarter; higher afterwards; higher the whole month of November; shaky towards the end of the year; very shaky, indeed, in January. No, no,” said he to himself, “Dunn ought not to have done it.”
“I perceive,” said she, half smiling, “Mr. Hankes opines that the money had been better in the bank.”
“After all,” continued he, not heeding her remark, “Dunn could n't do anything else. You own, yourself, that if he had attempted to dissuade you, you would immediately have taken alarm; you 'd have said, 'This is all a sham. All these people will find themselves “let in” some fine morning;' and as Dunn could very readily make good your few hundred pounds, why, he was perfectly justified in the advice he gave.”
“Not when his counsel had the effect of influencing mine,” said she, quickly; “not when it served to make me a perfidious example to others. No, no, Mr. Hankes; if this scheme be not an honest and an upright one, I accept no partnership in its details.”
“I am only putting a case, remember,” said Hankes, hurriedly,—“a possible, but most improbable case. I am supposing that a scheme with the finest prospectus, the best list of directors, the most respectable referees in the empire, to be—what shall I say?—to be sickly,—yes, sickly,—in want of a little tonic treatment, generous diet, and so forth.”
“You 'll have to follow me here, Mr. Hankes,” broke in Sybella; “the pathway round this cliff only admits one at a time. Keep close to the rock, and if your head be not steady, don't look down.”
“Good heavens! we are not going round that precipice!” cried Hankes, in a voice of the wildest terror.
“My servant will lead your horse, if you prefer it,” said she, without answering his question; “and mind your footing, for the moss is often slippery with the spray.”
Sybella made a signal with her whip to the groom, who was now close behind, and then, without awaiting for more, moved on. Hankes watched her as she descended the little slope to the base of a large rock, around which the path wound itself on the very verge of an immense precipice. Even from where he now stood the sea could be seen surging and booming hundreds of feet below; and although the night was calm and still, the ever-restless waves beat heavily against the rocks, and sent masses of froth and foam high into the air. He saw her till she turned the angle of the path, and then she was lost to his view.
“I don't think I have head for it. I 'm not used to this kind of thing,” said Hankes, in a voice of helpless despondency to the old groom, who now stood awaiting him to dismount “Is there much danger? Is it as bad as it looks?”
“'Tis worse when you get round the rock there,” said the groom, “for it's always going down you are, steeper than the roof of a house, with a shingle footing, and sloping outwards.”
“I'll not go a step; I 'll not venture,” broke in Hankes.
“Indeed, I wouldn't advise your honor,” said the man, in a tone too sincere to be deemed sarcastic.
“I know my head could n't bear it,” said he, with the imploring accents of one who entreated a contradiction. But the old groom, too fully convinced of the sentiment to utter a word against it, was now only thinking of following his mistress.
“Wait a moment,” cried Hankes, with an immense effort. “If I were once across this”—he was going to add an epithet, but restrained himself—“this place, is there nothing more of the same kind afterwards?”
“Is n't there, faith!” cried the man. “Isn't there the Clunk, where the beast has to step over gullies five-and-thirty or forty feet deep? Isn't there Tim's Island, a little spot where you must turn your horse round with the sea four hundred feet under you? Is n't there the Devil's Nose—”
“There, there, you need n't go on, my good fellow; I 'll turn back.”
“Look where she is now,” said the man, pointing with his whip to a rocky ledge hundreds of feet down, along which a figure on horseback might be seen creeping slowly along. “'Tis there, where she's stealing along now, you need the good head and the quick hand. May I never!” exclaimed he, in terror, “if them isn't goats that's coming up to meet her! Merciful Joseph! what'll she do? There, they are under the horse's legs, forcing their way through! Look how the devils are rushing all round and about her! If the beast moves an inch—” A wild cry broke from the old man here, for a fragment of rock, displaced by the rushing herd, had just come thundering down the cliff, and splashed into the sea beneath. “The heavens be praised! she's safe,” muttered he, piously crossing himself; and then, without a word more, and as if angry at his own delay, he pressed his horse forward to follow her.
It was in vain Hankes cried to him to wait,—to stop for only an instant,—that he, too, was ready to go,—not to leave him and desert him there,—that he knew not where to turn him, nor could ever retrace his way,—already the man was lost to view and hearing, and all the vain entreaties were uttered to the winds. As for Sybella, her perilous pathway gave her quite enough to do not to bestow a thought upon her companion; nor, indeed, had she much recollection of him till the old groom overtook her on the sandy beach, and recounted to her, not without a certain touch of humor, Mr. Hankes's terror and despair.
“It was cruel to leave him, Ned,” said she, trying to repress a smile at the old man's narrative. “I think you must go back, and leave me to pursue my way alone.”
“Sorra one o' me will go back to the likes of him. 'T is for your own self, and ne'er another, I'd be riskin' my neck in the same spot,” said he, resolutely.
“But what's to become of him, Ned? He knows nothing of the country; he 'll not find his way back to Glengariff.”
“Let him alone; devil a harm he 'll come to. 'T is chaps like that never comes to mischief. He 'll wander about there till day breaks, and maybe find his way to Duffs Mill, or, at all events, the boy with the letter-bag from Caherclough is sure to see him.”
Even had this last assurance failed to satisfy Sybella, it was so utterly hopeless a task to overrule old Ned's resolve that she said no more, but rode on in silence. Not so Ned; the theme afforded him an opportunity for reflecting on English character and habits which was not to be lost.
“I 'd like to see your brother John turn back and leave a young lady that way,” said he, recurring to the youth whose earliest years he had watched over.
No matter how impatiently, even angrily, Bella replied to the old man's bigoted preference of his countrymen, Ned persisted in deploring the unhappy accident by which fate had subjected the finer and more gifted race to the control and dominion of an inferior people. To withdraw him effectually from a subject which to an Irish peasant has special attraction, she began to tell him of the war in the East and of her brother Jack, the old man listening with eager delight to the achievements of one he had carried about in his arms as a child. Her mind filled with the wondrous stories of private letters,—the intrepid daring of this one, the noble chivalry of that,—she soon succeeded in winning all his attention. It was singular, however, that of all the traits she recorded, none made such a powerful appeal to the old man's heart as the generous self-devotion of those women who, leaving home, friends, country, and all, gave themselves up to the care of the sick and wounded. He never wearied of hearing how they braved death in its most appalling shape amidst the pestilential airs of the hospital, in the midst of such horrors as no pen can picture, taking on them the most painful duties, accepting fatigue, exhaustion, and peril as the common incidents of life, braving scenes of agony such as in very recital sickened the heart, descending to all that was menial in their solicitude for some poor sufferer, and all this with a benevolence and a kindness that made them seem less human beings than ministering angels from heaven.
“Oh, Holy Joseph! is n't it yourself ought to be there?” cried the old man, enthusiastically. “Was there ever your like to give hope to a sick heart? Who ever could equal you to cheer up the sinking spirit, and even make misery bearable? Miss Bella, darling, did you never think of going out?”
“Ay, Ned, a hundred times,” said she, sighing drearily. “I often, too, said to myself, There's not one of these ladies—for they are ladies born and bred—who has n't a mother, father, sisters, and brothers dear to her, and to whom she is herself dear. She leaves a home where she is loved, and where her vacant place is daily looked at with sorrow; and yet here am I, who have none to care for, none to miss me, who would carry over the sea with me no sorrows from those I was leaving, for I am friendless,—surely I am well fitted for such a task—”
“Well,” said he, eagerly, as she seemed to hesitate, “well, and why—”
“It was not fear held me back,” resumed she. “It was not that I shrank from the sights and sounds of agony that must have been more terrible than any death; it was simply a hope—a wish, perhaps, more than a hope—that I might be doing service to those at home here, who, if I were to leave them, would not have one on their side. Perhaps I overrated what I did, or could do; perhaps I deemed my help of more value than it really was; but every day seemed to show me that the people needed some one to counsel and to guide them,—to show them where their true interests lay, and by what little sacrifices they could oftentimes secure a future benefit.”
“That's thrue, every word of it. Your name is in every cabin, with a blessing tacked to it. There's not a child does n't say a prayer for you before he goes to sleep; and there's many a grown man never thought of praying at all till he axed a blessing for yourself!”
“With that, too,” resumed she, “was coupled power, for my Lord left much to my management. I was able to help the deserving, to assist the honest and industrious; now I aided this one to emigrate, now I could contribute a little assistance of capital. In fact, Ned, I felt they wanted me, and I knew I liked them. There was one good reason for not going away. Then there were other reasons,” said she, falteringly. “It is not a good example to give to others to leave, no matter how humble, the spot where we have a duty, to seek out a higher destiny. I speak as a woman.”
“And is it thrue, Miss Bella, that it's Mister Dunn has it all here under his own hand,—that the Lord owns nothing only what Dunn allows him, and that the whole place down to Kenmare River is Dunn's?”
“It is quite true, Ned, that the control and direction of all the great works here are with Mr. Dunn. All the quarries and mines, the roads, harbors, quays, 'bridges, docks, houses, are all in his hands.”
“Blessed hour! and where does he get the money to do it all?” cried he, in amazement.
Now, natural as was the question, and easy of reply as it seemed, Sybella heard it with something almost like a shock. Had the thought not occurred to her hundreds of times? And, if so, how had she answered it? Of course there could be no difficulty in the reply; of course such immense speculations, such gigantic projects as Mr. Dunn engaged in, supplied wealth to any amount. But equally true was it, that they demanded great means; they were costly achievements,—these great lines of railroad, these vast harbors. Nor were they always successful; Mr. Hankes himself had dropped hints about certain “mistakes” that were very significant. The splendid word “Credit” would explain it all, doubtless, but how interpret credit to the mind of the poor peasant? She tried to illustrate it by the lock of a canal, in which the water is momentarily utilized for a particular purpose, and then restored, unimpaired, to the general circulation; but Ned unhappily damaged the imagery by remarking, “But what's to be done if there's no water?” Fortunately for her logic, the road became once more only wide enough for one to proceed at a time, and Sybella was again left to her own musings.
Scarcely conscious of the perilous path by which she advanced, she continued to meditate over the old man's words, and wonder within herself how it was that he, the poor, unlettered peasant, should have conceived that high notion of what her mission ought to be,—when and how her energies should be employed. She had been schooling herself for years to feel that true heroism consisted in devoting oneself to some humble, unobtrusive career, whose best rewards were the good done to others, where self-denial was a daily lesson, and humility a daily creed; but, do what she could, there was within her heart the embers of the fire that burned there in childhood. The first article of that faith taught her that without danger there is no greatness,—that in the hazardous conflicts where life is ventured, high qualities only are developed. What but such noble excitement could make heroes of those men, many of whom, without such stimulus, had dropped down the stream of life unnoticed and undistinguished? “And shall I,” cried she, aloud, “go on forever thus, living the small life of petty cares and interests, confronting no dangers beyond a dark December day, encountering no other hazards than the flippant rebuke of my employer?” “There's the yawl, Miss Bella; she's tacking about, waiting for us,” said Ned, as he pointed to a small sailboat like a speck in the blue sea beneath; and at the same instant a little rag of scarlet bunting was run up to the peak, to show that the travellers had been seen from the water.
CHAPTER XVI. THE DISCOVERY
It is possible that my reader might not unwillingly accompany Sybella as she stepped into the little boat, and, tripping lightly over the “thwarts,” seated herself in the stern-sheets. The day was bright and breezy, the sea scarcely ruffled, for the wind was off the land; the craft, although but a fishing-boat, was sharp and clean built, the canvas sat well on her, and, last of all, she who held the tiller was a very pretty girl, whose cheek, flushed with exercise, and loosely waving hair, gave to her beauty the heightened expression of which care occasionally robbed it. The broad bay, with its mountain background and its wide sea-reach, studded with tall three-masters, was a fine and glorious object; and as the light boat heeled over to the breeze, and the white foam came rustling over the prow, Sybella swept her fair hand through the water, and bathed her brow with the action of one who dismissed all painful thought, and gave herself to the full enjoyment of the hour. Yes, my dear reader, the companionship of such a girl on such a day, in such a scene, was worth having; and so even those rude fishermen thought it, as, stretched at full length on the shingle ballast, they gazed half bashfully at her, and then exchanged more meaning looks with each other as she talked with them.