That ancient and incongruous pile which goes by the name of the Castle in Dublin, and to which Irishmen very generally look as the well from which all honors and places flow, is not remarkable for either the splendor or space it affords to the inmates beneath its roof. Upheld by a great prestige perhaps, as in the case of certain distinguished people, who affect a humble exterior and very simple belongings, it may deem that its own transcendent importance has no need of accessories. Certainly the ugliness of its outside is in noway unbalanced by the meanness within; and even the very highest of those who claim its hospitality are lodged in no-princely fashion.
In a corner of the old red brick quadrangle, to the right of the state entrance, in a small room whose two narrow windows looked into a lane, sat a very well-dressed young-gentleman at a writing-table. Short, and disposed to roundness in face as well as figure, Mr. Cholmondely Balfour scarcely responded in appearance to his imposing name. Nature had not been as bountiful, perhaps, as Fortune; for while he was rich, well born, and considerably gifted in abilities, his features were unmistakably common and vulgar, and all the aids of dress could not atone for the meanness in his general look. Had he simply accepted his image as a thing to be quietly borne and submitted to, the case might not have been so very bad; but he took it as something to be corrected, changed, and ameliorated, and the result was a perpetual struggle to make the most ordinary traits and commonplace features appear the impress of one on whom Nature had written gentleman. It would have been no easy task to have imposed on him in a question of his duty. He was the private secretary of the Viceroy, who was his maternal uncle. It would have been a tough task to have misled or deceived him in any matter open to his intelligence to examine; but upon this theme there was not the inventor of a hair-wash, a skin-paste, a whisker-dye, or a pearl-powder that might not have led him captive. A bishop might have found difficulty in getting audience of him,—a barber might have entered unannounced; and while the lieutenant of a county sat waiting in the antechamber, the tailor, with a new waistcoat pattern, walked boldly into the august presence. Entering life by that petite porte of politics, an Irish office, he had conceived a very humble estimate of the people amongst whom he was placed. Regarding his extradition from Whitehall and its precincts as a sort of probationary banishment, he felt, however, its necessity; and as naval men are accredited with two years of service for every one year on the coast of Africa, Mr. Balfour was aware that a grateful Government could equally recognize the devotion of him who gave some of the years of his youth to the Fernando Po of statecraft.
This impression, being rarely personal in its consequences, was not of much moment; but it was conjoined with a more serious error, which was to imagine that all rule and governance in Ireland should be carried on with a Machiavellian subtlety. The people, he had heard, were quick-witted; he must therefore out-manoeuvre them. Jobbery had been, he was told, the ruin of Ireland; he would show its inefficiency by the superior skill with which he could wield its weapon. To be sure his office was a very minor one, its influence very restricted, but Mr. Balfour was ambitious; he was a Viceroy's nephew; he had sat for months in the House, from which he had been turned out on a petition. He had therefore social advantages to build on, abilities to display, and wrongs to avenge; and as a man too late for the train speculates during the day how far on his road he might have been by this time or by that, so did Mr. Balfour continually keep reminding himself how, but for that confounded petition, he might now have been a Treasury this or a Board of Trade that,—a corporal, in fact, in that great army whose commissioned officers are amongst the highest in Europe.
Let us now present him to our reader, as he lay back in his chair, and by a hand-bell summoned his messenger.
“I say, Watkins, when Clancey calls about those trousers show him in, and send some one over to the packet-office about the phosphorus blacking; you know we are on the last jar of it. If the Solicitor-General should come—”
“He is here, sir; he has been waiting these twenty minutes. I told him you were with his Excellency.”
“So I was,—so I always am,” said he, throwing a half-smoked cigar into the fire. “Admit him.”
A pale, care-worn, anxious-looking man, whose face was not without traces of annoyance at the length of time he had been kept waiting, now entered and sat down.
“Just where we were yesterday, Pemberton,” said Balfour, as he rose and stood with his back to the fire, the tails of his gorgeous dressing-gown hanging over his arms. “Intractable as he ever was; he won't die, and he won't resign.”
“His friends say he is perfectly willing to resign if you agree to his terms.”
“That may be possible; the question is, What are his terms? Have you a precedent of a Chief Baron being raised to the peerage?”
“It's not, as I understand, the peerage he insists on; he inclines to a moneyed arrangement.”
“We are too poor, Pemberton,—we are too poor. There's a deep gap in our customs this quarter. It's reduction we must think of, not outlay.”
“If the changes are to be made,” said the other, with a tone of impatience, “I certainly ought to be told at once, or I shall have no time left for my canvass.”
“An Irish borough, Pemberton,—an Irish borough requires so little,” said Balfour, with a compassionate smile.
“Such is not the opinion over here, sir,” said Pemberton, stiffly; “and I might even suggest some caution in saying it.”
“Caution is the badge of all our tribe,” said Balfour, with a burlesque gravity. “By the way, Pemberton, his Excellency is greatly disappointed at the issue of these Cork trials; why did n't you hang these fellows?”
“Juries can no more be coerced here than in England; they brought them in not guilty.”
“We know all that, and we ask you why? There certainly was little room for doubt in the evidence.”
“When you have lived longer in Ireland, Mr. Balfour, you will learn that there are other considerations in a trial than the testimony of the witnesses.”
“That's exactly what I said to his Excellency; and I remarked, 'If Pemberton comes into the House, he must prepare for a sharp attack about these trials.'”
“And it is exactly to ascertain if I am to enter Parliament that I have come here to-day,” said the other, angrily.
“Bring me the grateful tidings that the Lord Chief Baron has joined his illustrious predecessors in that distinguished court, I 'll answer you in five minutes.”
“Beattie declares he is better this morning. He says that he has in all probability years of life before him.”
“There 's nothing so hard to kill as a judge, except it be an archbishop. I believe a sedentary life does it; they say if a fellow will sit still and never move he may live to any age.”
Pemberton took an impatient turn up and down the room, and then wheeling about directly in front of Balfour, said, “If his Excellency knew, perhaps, that I do not want the House of Commons—”
“Not want the House,—not wish to be in Parliament?”
“Certainly not. If I enter the House, it is as a law-officer of the Crown; personally it is no object to me.”
“I'll not tell him that, Pem. I'll keep your secret safe, for I tell you frankly it would ruin you to reveal it.”
“It's no secret, sir; you may proclaim it,—you may publish it in the 'Gazette,' But really we are wasting much valuable time here. It is now two o'clock, and I must go down to Court. I have only to say that if no arrangement be come to before this time to-morrow—” He stopped short. Another word might have committed him, but he pulled up in time.
“Well, what then?” asked Balfour, with a half smile.
“I have heard you pride yourself, Mr. Balfour,” said the other, recovering, “on your skill in nice negotiation; why not try what you could do with the Chief Baron?”
“Are there women in the family?” said Balfour, caressing his moustache.
“No; only his wife.”
“I 've seen her,” said he, contemptuously.
“He quarrelled with his only son, and has not spoken to him, I believe, for nigh thirty years, and the poor fellow is struggling on as a country doctor somewhere in the west.”
“What if we were to propose to do something for him? Men are often not averse to see those assisted whom their own pride refuses to help.”
“I scarcely suspect you 'll acquire his gratitude that way.”
“We don't want his gratitude, we want his place. I declare I think the idea a good one. There's a thing now at the Cape, an inspectorship of something,—Hottentots or hospitals, I forget which. His Excellency asked to have the gift of it; what if we were to appoint this man?”
“Make the crier of his Court a Commissioner in Chancery, and Baron Lendrick will be more obliged to you,” said Pem-berton, with a sneer. “He is about the least forgiving man I ever knew or heard of.”
“Where is this son of his to be found?”
“I saw him yesterday walking with Dr. Beattie. I have no doubt Beattie knows his address. But let me warn you once more against the inutility of the step you would take. I doubt if the old Judge would as much as thank you.”
Balfour turned round to the glass and smiled sweetly at himself, as though to say that he had heard of some one who knew how to make these negotiations successful,—a fellow of infinite readiness, a clever fellow, but withal one whose good looks and distinguished air left even his talents in the background.
“I think I 'll call and see the Chief Baron myself,” said he. “His Excellency sends twice a day to inquire, and I 'll take the opportunity to make him a visit,—that is, if he will receive me.”
“It is doubtful. At all events, let me give you one hint for your guidance. Neither let drop Mr. Attorney's name nor mine in your conversation; avoid the mention of any one whose career might be influenced by the Baron's retirement; and talk of him less as a human being than as an institution that is destined to endure as long as the British constitution.”
“I wish it was a woman—if it was only a woman I had to deal with, the whole affair might be deemed settled.”
“If you should be able to do anything before the mail goes out to-night, perhaps you will inform me,” said Pem-berton, as he bowed and left the room. “And these are the men they send over here to administer the country!” muttered he, as he descended the stairs,—“such are the intelligences that are to rule Ireland! Was it Voltaire who said there was nothing so inscrutable in all the ways of Providence as the miserable smallness of those creatures to whom the destiny of nations was committed?”
Ruminating over this, he hastened on to a nisi prius case.
As Colonel Cave re-entered his quarters after morning parade in the Royal Barracks of Dublin, he found the following letter, which the post had just delivered. It was headed “Strictly Private,” with three dashes under the words.
“Holt-Trafford.
“My dear Colonel Cave,—Sir Hugh is confined to bed with a severe attack of gout,—the doctors call it flying gout. He suffers greatly, and his nerves are in a state of irritation that makes all attempt at writing impossible. This will be my apology for obtruding upon you, though, perhaps, the cause in which I write might serve for excuse. We are in the deepest anxiety about Lionel. You are already aware how heavily his extravagance has cost us. His play-debts amounted to above ten thousand pounds, and all the cleverness of Mr. Joel has not been able to compromise with the tradespeople for less than as much more; nor are we yet done with demands from various quarters. It is not, however, of these that I desire to speak. Your kind offer to take him into your own regiment, and exercise the watchful supervision of a parent, has relieved us of much anxiety, and his own sincere affection for you is the strongest assurance we can have that the step has been a wise one. Our present uneasiness has however a deeper source than mere pecuniary embarrassment. The boy—he is very little more than a boy in years—has fallen in love, and gravely writes to his father for consent that he may marry. I assure you the shock brought back all Sir Hugh's most severe symptoms; and his left eye was attacked with an inflammation such as Dr. Gole says he never saw equalled. So far as the incoherency of his letter will permit us to guess, the girl is a person in a very humble condition of life, the daughter of a country doctor, of course without family or fortune. That he made her acquaintance by an accident, as he informs us, is also a reason to suppose that they are not people in society. The name, as well as I can decipher it, is Lendrich or Hendrich,—neither very distinguished!
“Now, my dear Colonel, even to a second son, such an alliance would be perfectly intolerable,—totally at variance with all his father's plans for him, and inconsistent with the station he should occupy. But there are other considerations,—too sad ones, too melancholy indeed to be spoken of, except where the best interests of a family are to be regarded, which press upon us here. The last accounts of George from Madeira leave us scarcely a hope. The climate, from which so much was expected, has done nothing. The season has been unhappily most severe, and the doctors agree in declaring that the malady has not yielded in any respect. You will see, therefore, what a change any day may accomplish in Lionel's prospects, and how doubly important it is that he should contract no ties inconsistent with a station of no mean importance. Not that these considerations would weigh with Lionel in the least: he was always headstrong, rash, and self-willed; and if he were, or fancied that he were, bound in honor to do a thing, I know well that all persuasions would be unavailing to prevent him. I cannot believe, however, that matters can have gone so far here. This acquaintanceship must be of the very shortest; and however designing and crafty such people may be, there will surely be some means of showing them that their designs are impracticable, and of a nature only to bring disappointment and disgrace upon themselves. That Sir Hugh would give his consent is totally out of the question,—a thing not to be thought of for a moment; indeed I may tell you in confidence that his first thought on reading L.'s letter was to carry out a project to which George had already consented, and by which the entail should be cut off, and our third son, Harry, in that case would inherit. This will show you to what extent his indignation would carry him.
“Now what is to be done? for, really, it is but time lost in deploring when prompt action alone can save us. Do you know, or do you know any one who does know, these Hendrichs or Lendrichs—who are they, what are they? Are they people to whom I could write myself, or are they in that rank in life which would enable us to make some sort of compromise? Again, could you in anyway obtain L.'s confidence, and make him open his heart to you first? This is the more essential, because the moment he hears of anything like coercion or pressure, his whole spirit will rise in resistance, and he will be totally unmanageable. You have perhaps more influence over him than any one else, and even your influence he would resent if he suspected any dominance.
“I am madly impatient to hear what you will suggest. Will it be to see these people, to reason with them, to explain to them the fruitlessness of what they are doing? Will it be to talk to the girl herself?
“My first thought was to send for Lionel, as his father was so ill, but on consideration I felt that a meeting between them might be the thing of all others to be avoided. Indeed, in Sir Hugh's present temper, I dare not think of the consequences.
“Might it be advisable to get Lionel attached to some foreign station? If so, I am sure I could manage it—only, would he go? there 's the question,—would he go? I am writing in such distress of mind, and so hurriedly too, that I really do not know what I have set down and what I have omitted. I trust, however, there is enough of this sad case before you to enable you to counsel me, or, what is much better, act for me. I wish I could send you L.'s letter, but Sir Hugh has put it away, and I cannot lay my hand on it. Its purport, however, was to obtain authority from us to approach this girl's relations as a suitor, and to show that his intentions were known to and concurred in by his family. The only gleam of hope in the epistle was his saying, 'I have not the slightest reason to believe she would accept me, but the approval of my friends will certainly give me the best chance.'
“Now, my dear Colonel, compassionate my anxiety, and write to me at once—something—anything. Write such a letter as Sir Hugh may see; and if you have anything secret or confidential, enclose it as a separate slip. Was it not unfortunate that we refused that Indian appointment for him? All this misery might have been averted. You may imagine how Sir Hugh feels this conduct the more bitterly, coming, as I may say, on the back of all his late indiscretions.
“Remember, finally, happen what may, this project must not go on. It is a question of the boy's whole future and life. To defy his father is to disinherit himself; and it is not impossible that this might be the most effectual argument you could employ with these people who now seek to entangle him.
“I have certainly no reason to love Ireland. It was there that my cousin Cornwallis married that dreadful creature who is now suing him for cruelty, and exposing the family throughout England.
“Sir Hugh gave directions last week about lodging the purchase-money for his company, but he wrote a few lines to Cox's last night—to what purport I cannot say—not impossibly to countermand it. What affliction all this is!”
As Colonel Cave read over this letter for a second time, he was not without misgivings about the even small share to which he had contributed in this difficulty. It was evidently during the short leave he had granted that this acquaintanceship had been formed; and Fossbrooke's companionship was the very last thing in the world to deter a young and ardent fellow from anything high-flown or romantic. “I ought never to have thrown them together,” muttered he, as he walked his room in doubt and deliberation.
He rang his bell and sent for the adjutant. “Where 's Trafford?” asked he.
“You gave him three days' leave yesterday, sir. He's gone down to that fishing-village where he went before.”
“Confound the place! Send for him at once—telegraph. No—let us see—his leave is up to-morrow?”
“The next day at ten he was to report.”
“His father is ill,—an attack of gout,” muttered the Colonel, to give some color to his agitated manner. “But it is better, perhaps, not to alarm him. The seizure seems passing off.”
“He said something about asking for a longer term; he wants a fortnight, I think. The season is just beginning now.”
“He shall not have it, sir. Take good care to warn him not to apply. It will breed discontent in the regiment to see a young fellow who has not been a year with us obtain a leave every ten or fifteen days.”
“If it were any other than Trafford, there would be plenty of grumbling. But he is such a favorite!”
“I don't know that a worse accident could befall any man. Many a fine fellow has been taught selfishness by the over-estimate others have formed of him. See that you keep him to his duty, and that he is to look for no favoritism.”
The Colonel did not well know why he said this, nor did he stop to think what might come of it. It smacked, to his mind, however, of something prompt, active, and energetic.
His next move was to write a short note to Lady Trafford, acknowledging hers, and saying that, Lionel being absent,—he did not add where,—nothing could be done till he should see him. “To-morrow—next day at farthest—I will report progress. I cannot believe the case to be so serious as you suppose; at all events, count upon me.”
“Stay!” cried he to the adjutant, who stood in the window awaiting further instructions; “on second thoughts, do telegraph. Say, 'Return at once.' This will prepare him for something.”
On the day after the picnic Sir Brook went by invitation to breakfast with the vicar.
“When a man asks you to dinner,” said Fossbrooke, “he generally wants you to talk; when he asks you to breakfast, he wants to talk to you.”
Whatever be the truth of this adage generally, it certainly-had its application in the present case. The vicar wanted very much to talk to Sir Brook.
As they sat, therefore, over their coffee and devilled kidneys, chatting over the late excursion and hinting at another, the vicar suddenly said: “By the way, I want you to tell me something of the young fellow who was one of us yesterday. Tobin, our doctor here, who is a perfect commission-agent for scandal, says he is the greatest scamp going; that about eight or ten months ago the 'Times' was full of his exploits in bankruptcy; that his liabilities were tens of thousands,—assets nil. In a word, that, notwithstanding his frank, honest look, and his unaffected manner, he is the most accomplished scapegrace of the age.”
“And how much of this do you believe?” asked Sir Brook, as he helped himself to coffee.
“That is not so easy to reply to; but I tell you, if you ask me, that I 'd rather not believe one word of it.”
“Nor need you. His Colonel told me something about the young fellow's difficulties; he himself related the rest. He went most recklessly into debt; betted largely on races, and lost; lent freely, and lost; raised at ruinous interest, and renewed at still more ruinous; but his father has paid every shilling of it out of that fortune which one day was to have come to him, so that Lionel's thirty thousand pounds is now about eight thousand. I have put the whole story into the fewest possible words, but that's the substance of it.”
“And has it cured him of extravagance?”
“Of course it has not. How should it? You have lived some more years in the world than he has, and I a good many more than you, and will you tell me that time has cured either of us of any of our old shortcomings? Non sum quails eram means, I can't be as wild as I used to be.”
“No, no; I won't agree to that. I protest most strongly against the doctrine. Many men are wiser through experience, and, consequently, better.”
“I sincerely believe I knew the world better at four-and-twenty than I know it now. The reason why we are less often deceived in after than in early life is not that we are more crafty or more keen-eyed. It is simply because we risk less. Let us hazard as much at sixty as we once did at six-and-twenty, and we 'll lose as heavily.”
The vicar paused a few moments over the other's words, and then said, “To come back to this young man, I half suspect he has formed an attachment to Lucy, and that he is doing his utmost to succeed in her favor.”
“And is there anything wrong in that, doctor?”
“Not positively wrong; but there is what may lead to a great deal of unhappiness. Who is to say how Trafford's family would like the connection? Who is to answer for Lendrick's approval of Trafford?”
“You induce me to make a confidence I have no right to impart; but I rely so implicitly on your discretion. I will tell you what was intrusted to me as a secret: Trafford has already written to his father to ask his consent.”
“Without speaking to Lendrick? without even being sure of Lucy's?”
“Yes, without knowing anything of either; but on my advice he has first asked his father's permission to pay his addresses to the young lady. His position with his family is peculiar; he is a younger son, but not exactly as free as most younger sons feel to act for themselves. I cannot now explain this more fully, but it is enough if you understand that he is entirely dependent on his father. When I came to know this, and when I saw that he was becoming desperately in love, I insisted on this appeal to his friends before he either entangled Lucy in a promise, or even made any declaration himself. He showed me the letter before he posted it. It was all I could wish. It is not a very easy task for a young fellow to tell his father he 's in love; but he, in the very frankness of his nature, acquitted himself well and manfully.”
“And what answer has he received?”
“None as yet. Two posts have passed. He might have heard through either of them; but no letter has come, and he is feverishly uneasy and anxious.”
The vicar was silent, but a grave motion of his head implied doubt and fear.
“Yes,” said Sir Brook, answering the gesture,—“yes, I agree with you. The Traffords are great folk in their own country. Trafford was a strong place in Saxon times. They have pride enough for all this blood, and wealth enough for both pride and blood.”
“They 'd find their match in Lendrick, quiet and simple as he seems,” said the vicar.
“Which makes the matter worse. Who is to give way? Who is to céder le pas?”
“I am not so sure I should have advised that letter. I am inclined to think I would have counselled more time, more consideration. Fathers and mothers are prudently averse to these loves at first sight, and they are merciless in dealing with what they deem a mere passing sentiment.”
“Better that than suffer him to engage the girl's affections, and then learn that he must either desert her or marry her against the feeling of his family. Let us have a stroll in the garden. I have made you one confidence; I will now make you another.”
They lit their cigars, and strolled out into a long alley fenced on one side by a tall dense hedge of laurels, and flanked on the other by a low wall, over which the view took in the wide reach of the river and the distant mountains of Scariff and Meelick.
“Was not that where we picnicked yesterday?” asked Sir Brook, pointing to an island in the distance.
“No; you cannot see Holy Island from this.”
Sir Brook smoked on for some minutes without a word; at last, with a sort of abruptness, he said, “She was so like her, not only in face and figure, but her manner; the very tone of her voice was like; and then that half-caressing, half-timid way she has in conversation, and, more than all, the sly quietness with which she caps you when you fancy that the smart success is all your own.”
“Of whom are you speaking?”
“Of another Lucy,” said Sir Brook, with a deep melancholy. “Heaven grant that the resemblance follow them not in their lives as in their features! It was that likeness, however, which first attracted me towards Miss Lendrick. The first moment I saw her it overcame me; as I grew to know her better, it almost confused me, and made me jumble in your hearing things of long ago with the present. Time and space were both forgotten, and I found my mind straying away to scenes in the Himalaya with those I shall never see more. It was thus that, one day carried away by this delusion, I chanced to call her Lucy, and she laughingly begged me not to retract it, but so to call her always.” For some minutes he was silent, and then resumed: “I don't know if you ever heard of a Colonel Frank Dillon, who served on Napier's staff in Scinde. Fiery Frank was his nickname among his comrades, but it only applied to him on the field of battle, and with an enemy in front. Then he was indeed fiery,—the excitement rose to almost madness, and led him to acts of almost incredible daring. At Meanee he was nearly cut to pieces, and as he lay wounded, and to all appearance dying, he received a lance-wound through the chest that the surgeon declared must prove fatal. He lived, however, for eight months after,—he lived long enough to reach the Himalayas, where his daughter, an only child, joined him from England. On her way out she became acquainted with a young officer, who was coming out as aide-de-camp to the Governor-General. They were constantly thrown together on the journey, and his attentions to her soon showed the sentiments he had conceived for her. In fact, very soon after Lucy had joined her father, Captain Sewell appeared 'in the Hills' to make a formal demand of her in marriage.
“I was there at the time, and I remember well poor Dillon's expression of disappointment after the first meeting with him. His daughter's enthusiastic description of his looks, his manner, his abilities, his qualities generally, had perhaps prepared him for too much. Indeed, Lucy's own intense admiration for the soldierlike character of her father's features assisted the mistake; for, as Dillon said, 'There must be a dash of the sabreur in the fellow that will win Lucy.' I came into Dillon's room immediately after the first interview. The instant I caught his eye I read what was going on in his brain. 'Sit down here, Brook,' cried he, 'sit in my chair here;' and he arose painfully as he spoke. 'I'll show you the man.' With this he hobbled over to a table where his cap lay, and, placing it rakishly on one side of his head, he stuck his eyeglass in one eye, and, with a hand in his trousers-pocket, lounged forward towards where I sat, saying, 'How d' ye do, Colonel? Wound doing better, I hope. The breezy climate up here soon set you up.' 'Familiar enough this, sir,' cried Dillon, in his own stern voice; 'but without time to breathe, as it were,—before almost I had exchanged a greeting with him,—he entered upon the object of his journey. I scarcely heard a word he said; I knew its purport,—I could mark the theme,—but no more. It was not the fellow himself that filled my mind; my whole thoughts were upon my daughter, and I went on repeating to myself, “Good heavens! is this Lucy's choice? Am I in a trance? Is it this contemptible cur (for he was a cur, sir) that has won the affections of my darling, high-hearted, generous girl? Is the romantic spirit that I have so loved to see in her to bear no better fruit than this? Does the fellow realize to her mind the hero that fills men's thoughts?” I was so overcome, so excited, so confused, Brook, that I begged him to leave me for a while, that one of my attacks of pain was coming on, and that I should not be able to converse farther He said something about trying one of his cheroots,—some impertinence or other, I forget what; but he left me, and I, who never knew a touch of girlish weakness in my life, who when a child had no mood of softness in my nature,—I felt the tears trickling along my cheeks, and my eyes dimmed with them.' My poor friend,” continued Fossbrooke, “could not go on; his emotions mastered him, and he sat with his head buried between his hands and in silence. At last he said, 'She 'll not give him up, Brook; I have spoken to her,—she actually loves him. Good heavens!' he cried, 'how little do we know about our children's hearts! how far astray are we as to the natures that have grown up beside us, imbibing, as we thought, our hopes, our wishes, and our prejudices! We awake some day to discover that some other influence has crept in to undo our teachings, and that the fidelity on which we would have staked our lives has changed allegiance.'
“He talked to me long in this strain, and I saw that the effects of this blow to all his hopes had made themselves deeply felt on his chance of recovery. It only needed a great shock to depress him to make his case hopeless. Within two months after his daughter's arrival he was no more.
“I became Lucy's guardian. Poor Dillon gave me the entire control over her future fortune, and left me to occupy towards her the place he had himself held. I believe that next to her father I held the best place in her affections,—of such affections, I mean, as are accorded to a parent. I was her godfather, and from her earliest infancy she had learned to love me. The reserve—it was positive coldness—with which Dillon had always treated Sewell had caused a certain distance, for the first time in their lives, between the father and daughter. She thought, naturally enough, that her father was unjust; that, unaccustomed to the new tone of manners which had grown up amongst young men,—their greater ease, their less rigid observance of ceremonial, their more liberal self-indulgence,—he was unfairly severe upon her lover. She was annoyed, too, that Sewells attempts to conciliate the old man should have turned out such complete failures. But none of these prejudices extended to me, and she counted much on the good understanding that she expected to find grow up between us.
“If I could have prevented the marriage, I would. I learned many things of the man that I disliked. There is no worse sign of a man than to be at the same time a man of pleasure and friendless. These he was,—he was foremost in every plan of amusement and dissipation, and yet none liked him. Vain fellows get quizzed for their vanity, and selfish men laughed at for their selfishness, and close men for their avarice; but there is a combination of vanity, egotism, small craftiness, and self-preservation in certain fellows that is totally repugnant to all companionship. Their lives are a series of petty successes, not owing to any superior ability or greater boldness of daring, but to a studious outlook for small opportunities. They are ever alive to know the 'right man,' to be invited to the 'right house,' to say the 'right thing.' Never linked with whatever is in disgrace or misfortune, they are always found backing the winning horse, if not riding him.
“Such men as these, so long as the world goes well with them, and events turn out fortunately, are regarded simply as sharp, shrewd fellows, with a keen eye to their own interests. When, however, the weight of any misfortune comes, when the time arrives that they have to bear up against the hard pressure of life, these fellows come forth in their true colors, swindlers and cheats.
“Such was he. Finding that I was determined to settle the small fortune her father had left her inalienably on herself, he defeated me by a private marriage. He then launched out into a life of extravagance to which their means bore no proportion. I was a rich man in those days, and knew nothing better to do with my money than assist the daughter of my oldest friend. The gallant Captain did not balk my good intentions. He first accepted, he then borrowed, and last of all he forged my name. I paid the bills and saved him, not for his sake, I need not tell you, but for hers, who threw herself at my feet, and implored me not to see them ruined. Even this act of hers he turned to profit. He wrote to me to say that he knew his wife had been to my house, that he had long nurtured suspicions against me,—I that was many years older than her own father,—that for the future he desired all acquaintance should cease between us, and that I should not again cross his threshold.
“By what persuasions or by what menaces he led his wife to the step, I do not know; but she passed me when we met without a recognition. This was the hardest blow of all. I tried to write her a letter; but after a score of attempts I gave it up, and left the place.
“I never saw her for eight years. I wish I had not seen her then. I am an old, hardened man of the world, one whom life has taught all its lessons to in the sternest fashion. I have been so baffled and beaten, and thrown back by all my attempts to think well of the world, that nothing short of a dogged resolution not to desert my colors has rescued me from a cold misanthropy; and yet, till I saw, I did not believe there was a new pang of misery my heart had not tasted. What? it is incredible,—surely that is not she who once was Lucy Dillon,—that bold-faced woman with lustrous eyes and rouged cheeks,—brilliant, indeed, and beautiful, but not the beauty that is allied to the thought of virtue,—whose every look is a wile, whose every action is entanglement. She was leaning on a great man's arm, and in the smile she gave him told me how she knew to purchase such distinctions. He noticed me, and shook my hand as I passed. I heard him tell her who I was; and I heard her say that I had been a hanger-on, a sort of dependant of her father's, but she never liked me! I tried to laugh, but the pain was too deep. I came away, and saw her no more.”
He ceased speaking, and for some time they walked along side by side without a word. At last he broke out: “Don't believe the people who say that men are taught by anything they experience in life. Outwardly they may affect it. They may assume this or that manner. The heart cannot play the hypocrite, and no frequency of disaster diminishes the smart. The wondrous resemblance Miss Lendrick bears to Lucy Dillon renews to my memory the bright days of her early beauty, when her poor father would call her to sit down at his feet and read to him, that he might gaze at will on her, weaving whole histories of future happiness and joy for her. 'Is it not like sunshine in the room to see her, Brook?' would he whisper to me. 'I only heard her voice as she passed under my window this morning, and I forgot some dark thought that was troubling me.' And there was no exaggeration in this. The sweet music of her tones “vibrated so softly on the ear, they soothed the sense, just as we feel soothed by the gentle ripple of a stream.
“All these times come back to me since I have been here, and I cannot tell you how the very sorrow that is associated with them has its power over me. Every one knows with what attachment the heart will cling to some little spot in a far-away land that reminds one of a loved place at home,—how we delight to bring back old memories, and how we even like to name old names, to cheat ourselves back into the past. So it is that I feel when I see this girl. The other Lucy was once as my daughter; so, too, do I regard her, and with this comes that dreadful sorrow I have told you of, giving my interest in her an intensity unspeakable. When I saw Trafford's attention to her, the only thing I thought of was how unlike he was to him who won the other Lucy. His frank, unaffected bearing, his fine, manly trustfulness, the very opposite to the other's qualities, made me his friend at once. When I say friend, I mean well-wisher, for my friendship now bears no other fruit. Time was when it was otherwise.”
“What is it, William?” cried the vicar, as his servant came hurriedly forward.
“There 's a gentleman in the drawing-room, sir, wants to see Sir Brook Fossbrooke.”
“Have I your leave?” said the old man, bowing low. “I 'll join you here immediately.”
Within a few moments he was back again. “It was Trafford. He has just got a telegram to call him to his regiment. He suspects something has gone wrong; and seeing his agitation, I offered to go back with him. We start within an hour.”
The vicar having some business to transact in Limerick, agreed to go that far with Sir Brook and Trafford, and accompanied them to the railroad to see them off.
A down train from Dublin arrived as they were waiting, and a passenger, descending, hastily hurried after the vicar, and seized his hand. The vicar, in evident delight, forgot his other friends for a moment, and became deeply interested in the new-comer. “We must say good-bye, doctor,” said Fossbrooke; “here comes our train.”
“A thousand pardons, my dear Sir Brook. The unlooked-for arrival of my friend here—but I believe you don't know him. Lendrick, come here, I want to present you to Sir Brook Fossbrooke. Captain Trafford, Dr. Lendrick.”
“I hope these gentlemen are not departing,” said Lendrick, with the constraint of a bashful man.
“It is our misfortune to do so,” said Sir Brook; “but I have passed too many happy hours in this neighborhood not to come back to it as soon as I can.”
“I hope we shall see you. I hope I may have an opportunity of thanking you, Sir Brook.”
“Dublin! Dublin! Dublin! get in, gentlemen: first class, this way, sir,” screamed a guard, amidst a thundering rumble, a scream, and a hiss. All other words were drowned, and with a cordial shake-hands the new friends parted.
“Is the younger man his son?” asked Lendrick; “I did not catch the name?”
“No; he's Trafford, a son of Sir Hugh Trafford,—a Lincolnshire man, isn't he?”
“I don't know. It was of the other I was thinking. I felt it so strange to see a man of whom when a boy I used to hear so much. I have an old print somewhere of two over-dressed 'Bloods,' as they were called in those days, with immense whiskers, styled 'Fossy and Fussy,' meaning Sir Brook and the Baron Geramb, a German friend and follower of the Prince.”
“I suspect a good deal changed since that day, in person as well as purse,” said the vicar, sadly.
“Indeed! I heard of his having inherited some immense fortune.”
“So he did, and squandered every shilling of it.”
“And the chicks are well, you tell me?” said Lendrick, whose voice softened as he talked of home and his children.
“Could n't be better. We had a little picnic on Holy Island yesterday, and only wanted yourself to have been perfectly happy. Lucy was for refusing at first.”
“Why so?”
“Some notion she had that you would n't like it. Some idea about not doing in your absence anything that was not usual when you are here.”
“She is such a true girl, so loyal,” said Lendrick, proudly.
“Well, I take the treason on my shoulders. I made her come. It was a delightful day, and we drank your health in as good a glass of Madeira as ever ripened in the sun. Now for your own news?”
“First let us get on the road. I am impatient to be back at home again. Have you your car here?”
“All is ready, and waiting for you at the gate.”
As they drove briskly along, Lendrick gave the vicar a detailed account of his visit to Dublin. Passing over the first days, of which the reader already has heard something, we take up the story from the day on which Lendrick learned that his father would see him.
“My mind was so full of myself, doctor,” said he, “of all the consequences which had followed from my father's anger with me, that I had no thought of anything else till I entered the room where he was. Then, however, as I saw him propped up with pillows in a deep chair, his face pale, his eyes colorless, and his head swathed up in a bandage after leeching, my heart sickened, alike with sorrow and shame at my great selfishness.
“I had been warned by Beattie on no account to let any show of feeling or emotion escape me, to be as cool and collected as possible, and in fact, he said, to behave as though I had seen him the day before.
“'Leave the room, Poynder,' said he to his man, 'and suffer no one to knock at the door—mind, not even to knock—till I ring my bell.' He waited till the man withdrew, and then in a very gentle voice said, 'How are you, Tom? I can't give you my right hand,—the rebellious member has ceased to know me!' I thought I should choke as the words met me; I don't remember what I said, but I took my chair and sat down beside him.
“'I thought you might have been too much agitated, Tom, but otherwise I should have wished to have had your advice along with Beattie. I believe, on the whole, however, he has treated me well.'
“I assured him that none could have done more skilfully.
“The skill of the doctor with an old patient is the skill of an architect with an old wall. He must not breach it, or it will tumble to pieces.
“'Beattie is very able, sir,' said I.
“'No man is able,' replied he, quickly, 'when the question is to repair the wastes of time and years. Draw that curtain, and let me look at you. No; stand yonder, where the light is stronger. What! is it my eyes deceive me,—is your hair white?'
“'It has been so eight years, sir.'
“'And I had not a gray hair till my seventy-second year,—not one. I told Beattie, t' other day, that the race of the strong was dying out. Good heavens, how old you look! Would any one believe in seeing us that you could be my son?'
“'I feel perhaps even more than I look it, sir.'
“'I could swear you did. You are the very stamp of those fellows who plead guilty—“Guilty, my Lord; we throw ourselves on the mercy of the court.” I don't know how the great judgment-seat regards these pleas,—with me they meet only scorn. Give me the man who says, “Try me, test me.” Drop that curtain, and draw the screen across the fire. Speak lower, too, my dear,' said he, in a weak soft voice; 'you suffer yourself to grow excited, and you excite me.'
“'I will be more cautious, sir,' said I.
“'What are these drops he is giving me? They have an acrid sweet taste.'
“'Aconite, sir; a weak solution.'
“'They say that our laws never forgot feudalism, but I declare I believe medicine has never been able to ignore alchemy: drop me out twenty, I see that your hand does not shake. Strange thought, is it not, to feel that a little phial like that could make a new Baron of the Exchequer? You have heard, I suppose, of the attempts—the indecent attempts—to induce me to resign. You have heard what they say of my age. They quote the registry of my baptism, as though it were the date of a conviction. I have yet to learn that the years a man has devoted to his country's service are counts in the indictment against his character. Age has been less merciful to me than to my fellows,—it has neither made me deaf to rancor nor blind to ingratitude. I told the Lord-Lieutenant so yesterday.'
“'You saw him then, sir?' asked I.
“'Yes, he was gracious enough to call here; he sent his secretary to ask if I would receive a visit from him. I thought that a little more tact might have been expected from a man in his station,—it is the common gift of those in high places. I perceive,' added he, after a pause, 'you don't see what I mean. It is this: royalties, or mock royalties, for they are the same in this, condescend to these visits as deathbed attentions. They come to us with their courtesies as the priest comes with his holy cruet, only when they have the assurance that we are beyond recovery. His Excellency ought to have felt that the man to whom he proposed this attention was not one to misunderstand its significance.'
“'Did he remain long, sir?'
“'Two hours and forty minutes. I measured it by my watch.'
“'Was the fatigue not too much for you?'
“'Of course it was; I fainted before he got to his carriage. He twice rose to go away, but on each occasion I had something to say that induced him to sit down again. It was the whole case of Ireland we reviewed,—that is, I did. I deployed the six millions before him, and he took the salute. Yes, sir, education, religious animosities, land-tenure, drainage, emigration, secret societies, the rebel priest and the intolerant parson, even nationality and mendicant insolence, all marched past, and he took the salute! “And now, my Lord,” said I, “it is the man who tells you these things, who has the courage to tell and the ability to display them, and it is this man for whose retirement your Ex-lency is so eager, that you have actually deigned to make him a visit, that he may carry away into the next world, perhaps, a pleasing memory of this; it is this man, I say, whom you propose to replace—and by what, my Lord, and by whom? Will a mere lawyer, will any amount of nisi prius craft or precedent, give you the qualities you need on that bench, or that you need, sadly need, at this council-board? Go back, my Lord, and tell your colleagues of the Cabinet that Providence is more merciful than a Premier, and that the same overruling hand that has sustained me through this trial will uphold me, I trust, for years to serve my country, and save it for some time longer from your blundering legislation.”
“'He stood up, sir, like a prisoner when under sentence; he stood up, sir, and as he bowed, I waved my adieu to him as though saying, You have heard me, and you are not to carry away from this place a hope, the faintest, that any change will come over the determination I have this day declared.
“'He went away, and I fainted. The exertion was too long sustained, too much for me. I believe, after all,' added he, with a smile, 'his Excellency bore it very little better. He told the Archbishop the same evening that he'd not go through another such morning for “the garter.” Men in his station hear so little of truth that it revolts them like coarse diet. They 'd rather abstain altogether till forced by actual hunger to touch it. When they come to me, however, it is the only fare they will find before them.'
“There was a long pause after this,” continued Lendrick. “I saw that the theme had greatly excited him, and I forbore to say a word, lest he should be led to resume it. 'Too old for the bench!' burst he out suddenly; 'my Lord, there are men who are never too old, as there are those who are never too young. The oak is but a sapling when the pine is in decay. Is there that glut of intellect just now in England, are we so surfeited with ability that, to make room for the coming men, we, who have made our mark on the age, must retire into obscurity?' He tried to rise from his seat; his face was flushed, and his eyes flashing; he evidently forgot where he was, and with whom, for he sank back with a faint sigh, and said, 'Let us talk of it no more. Let us think of something else. Indeed, it was to talk of something else I desired to see you.' He went on, then, to say that he wished something could be done for me. His own means were, he said, sadly crippled; he spoke bitterly, resentfully, I thought. 'It is too long a story to enter on, and were it briefer, too disagreeable a one,' added he. 'I ought to be a rich man, and I am poor; I should be powerful, and I have no influence. All has gone ill with me.' After a silence, he continued, 'They have a place to offer you: the inspectorship, I think they call it, of hospitals at the Cape; it is worth, altogether, nigh a thousand a year, a thing not to be refused.'
“'The offer could only be made in compliment to you, sir; and if my acceptance were to compromise your position—'
“'Compromise me!' broke he in. 'I 'll take care it shall not. No man need instruct me in the art of self-defence, sir. Accept at once.'
“'I will do whatever you desire, sir,' was my answer.
“'Go out there yourself, alone,—at first, I mean. Let your boy continue his college career; the girl shall come to me.'
“'I have never been separated from my children, sir,' said I, almost trembling with anxiety.
“'Such separations are bearable,' added he, 'when it is duty dictates them, not disobedience.'
“He fixed his eyes sternly on me, and I trembled as I thought that the long score of years was at last come to the reckoning. He did not dwell on the theme, however, but in a tone of much gentler meaning, went on: 'It will be an act of mercy to let me see a loving face, to hear a tender voice. Your boy would be too rough for me.'
“'You would like him, sir. He is thoroughly truthful and honest.'
“'So he may, and yet be self-willed, be noisy, be over-redolent of that youth which age resents like outrage. Give me the girl, Tom; let her come here, and bestow some of those loving graces on the last hours of my life her looks show she should be rich in. For your sake she will be kind to me. Who knows what charm there may be in gentleness, even to a tiger-nature like mine? Ask her, at least, if she will make the sacrifice.'
“I knew not what to answer. If I could not endure the thought of parting from Lucy, yet it seemed equally impossible to refuse his entreaty,—old, friendless, and deserted as he was. I felt, besides, that my only hope of a real reconciliation with him lay through this road; deny him this, and it was clear he would never see me more. He said, too, it should only be for a season. I was to see how the place, the climate, suited for a residence. In a word, every possible argument to reconcile me to the project rushed to my mind, and I at last said, 'Lucy shall decide, sir. I will set out for home at once, and you shall have her own answer.'
“'Uninfluenced, sir,' cried he,—'mind that. If influence were to be used, I could perhaps tell her what might decide her at once; but I would not that pity should plead for me, till she should have seen if I be worth compassion! There is but one argument I will permit in my favor,—tell her that her picture has been my pleasantest companion these three long days. There it lies, always before me. Go now, and let me hear from you as soon as may be.' I arose, but somehow my agitation, do what I would, mastered me. It was so long since we had met! All the sorrows the long estrangement had cost me came to my mind, together with little touches of his kindness in long-past years, and I could not speak. 'Poor Tom! poor Tom!' said he, drawing me towards him; and he kissed me.”
As Lendrick said this, emotion overcame him, and he covered his face with his hands, and sobbed bitterly. More than a mile of road was traversed before a word passed between them. “There they are, doctor! There 's Tom, there's Lucy! They are coming to meet me,” cried he. “Good-bye, doctor; you 'll forgive me, I know,—goodbye;” and he sprang off the car as he spoke, while the vicar, respecting the sacredness of the joy, wheeled his horse round, and drove back towards the town.