038
If the language they spoke in was strange and unintelligible to Vyner’s ears, it did not the less convey, as the sound of Irish unfailingly does to all unaccustomed ears, a something terribly energetic and passionate—every accent was striking, and every tone full of power—but far more still was he struck by the faces on every side. He had but seen the Irish of St. Giles’s; the physiognomy he alone knew was that blended one of sycophancy and dissipation that a degraded and demoralised class wear. He had never before seen that fierce vigour and concentrated earnestness which mark the native face. Still less had he any idea what its expression could become when heightened by religious fervour. There were fine features, noble foreheads wide and spacious, calm brows, and deeply-set eyes, in many around, but in all were the lower jaw and the mouth coarse and depraved-looking. There was no lack of power, it is true, but it was a power that could easily adapt itself to violence and cruelty, and when they spoke, so overmastering seemed this impulse of their natures, that the eyes lost the gentleness they had worn, and flashed with an angry and vindictive brilliancy.
Drink was served round at intervals, and freely partaken of, and from the gestures and vehemence of the old man, Vyner conjectured that something like toasts were responded to. At moments, too, the prayers for the dead would seem to be forgotten, and brief snatches of conversation would occur, and even joke and laughter were heard; when suddenly, and as though to recal them to the solemn rites of the hour, a voice, always a woman’s, would burst in with a cry, at first faint, but gradually rising till it became a wild yell, at one particular cadence of which—just as one has seen a spaniel howl at a certain note—the rest would seem unable to control themselves, and break in with a rush of sound that made the old walls ring again. Dreadful as it had seemed before, it was far more fearful now, as he stood close by, and could mark, besides, the highly-wrought expressions—the terribly passionate faces around.
So fascinated was he by the scene—so completely had its terrible reality impressed him—that Vyner could not leave the spot, and he gazed till he knew, and for many a long year after could remember, every face that was there. More than once was he disposed to venture in amongst them, and ask, as a stranger, the privilege of joining the solemnity, but fear withheld him; and as the first pinkish streak or dawn appeared, he crept cautiously down and alighted on the grass.
By the grey half-light he could now see objects around him, and perceive that the Abbey was a small structure with little architectural pretensions, though from the character of the masonry of very great age. At one end, where a square tower of evidently later date stood, something like an attempt at a dwelling-house existed—at least, two windows of unequal size appeared, and a low doorway, the timbers of which had once formed part of a ship. Passing round the angle of this humble home, he saw a faint streak of light issue from an open casement, over which a wild honeysuckle had grown, attaching itself to the iron bars that guarded the window, and almost succeeding in shutting out the day. Curious for a glance within this strange dwelling-place, Vyner stole near and peeped in. A tiny oil-lamp on a table was the only light, but it threw its glare on the face of a man asleep in a deep armchair—a pale, careworn, melancholy face it was, with a mass of white hair unkempt hanging partly across it! Vyner passed his hands across his eyes as though to satisfy himself that he was awake. He looked again; he even parted the twigs of the honeysuckle to give him more space, and, as he gazed, the sleeper turned slightly, so that the full features came to view.
042
“Good God! It is Luttrell!” muttered Vyner, as he quietly stole away and set out for the beach.
Anxious at his long absence, two of his crew had come in search of him, and in their company he returned to the shore and went on board.
It was late in the day when Vyner awoke, and got up. Late as it was, he found Grenfell at breakfast. Seated under an awning on the deck, before a table spread with every luxury, that much-to-be-pitied individual was, if not watering his bread with tears, sipping his chocolate with chagrin. “He had no newspaper!”—no broad sheet of gossip, with debates, divorces, bankruptcies, and defalcations—no moral lessons administered to foreign Kings and Kaisers, to show them how the Press of England had its eye on them, and would not fail to expose their short-comings to that great nation, which in the succeeding leader was the text for a grand pæan over increased revenue and augmented exports.
Grenfell had a very national taste for this sort of reading. It supplied to him, as to many others, a sort of patent patriotism, which, like his father’s potted meats, could be carried to any climate, and be always fresh.
“Is not this a glorious day, George?” said Vyner, as he came on deck. “There is something positively exhilarating in the fresh and heath-scented air of that great mountain.”
“I’d rather follow a watering-cart down Piccadilly, if I was on the look-out for a sensation. How long are we to be moored in this dreary spot?”
“Not very long. Don’t be impatient, and listen while I recount to you my adventure of last night.”
“Let me fill my pipe, then. Carter, fetch me my meerschaum. Now for it,” said he, as he disposed his legs on an additional chair. “I only hope the story has no beautiful traits of Irish peasant life, for I own to no very generous dispositions with regard to these interesting people, when I see the place they live in.”
Not in the slightest degree moved by the other’s irritability, Vyner began a narrative of his ramble, told with all the power that a recent impression could impart of the scene of the wake, and pictured graphically enough the passion-wrought faces and wild looks of the mourners.
“I was coming away at last,” said he, “when, on turning an angle of the old church, I found myself directly in front of a little window, from which a light issued. I crept close and peeped in, and there, asleep in a large arm-chair, was a man I once knew well—as well, or even better, than I know you—a man I had chummed with at Christ Church, and lived for years with, on terms of close affection. If it were not that his features were such as never can be forgotten, I might surely have failed to recognise him, for though my own contemporary, he looked fully fifty.”
“Who was he?” abruptly broke in Grenfell.
“You shall hear. Luttrell!”
“Luttrell! Luttrell! You don’t mean the fellow who was to have married your sister-in-law?”
“The same; the first man of his day at Christ Church, the great prizeman and medallist, ‘the double first,’ and, what many thought more of, the best-looking fellow in Oxford.”
“I forget the story. He wanted to marry some one, and she wouldn’t have him. What was it?”
“He wanted to marry my wife,” said Vyner, rather nettled at the cool carelessness of the other. “She was, however, engaged to me, and she said, ‘I have a sister so very like me, that we are constantly taken for each other; come here next week, and you’ll meet her.’ They met, liked each other, and were contracted to be married. I want to be very brief, so I shall skip over all but the principal points.”
“Do so,” said the other, dryly.
“Everything went well for a time. All inquiries as to his fortune, position, connexions, and so forth, were found satisfactory by the Courtenays, when some busybody whispered to Georgina that there was an ugly story about him in Ireland, and suggested that she should ask under what circumstances he had quitted the Irish University and come over to take his degree at Oxford. Luttrell was considerably agitated when the question was put to him, though they were alone at the time; and, after a brief struggle with himself, he said, ‘I’d rather you had not asked me about this, but I meant to have told you of it myself, one day. The thing is very simple, and not very serious. The only thing, however, I exact is, that the confession is to and for yourself alone. You have a right to know the fact; I have a right, that it be kept a secret.’
“She gave the pledge he required, and he went on to say that there existed in Ireland a secret society known by the name of United Irishmen, whose designs were, time and place suiting, to throw off their allegiance to England, and declare for Irish independence. This association was so far formidable, that it embraced men of all classes and conditions, and men of all religious professions, the majority being Presbyterians. He was one of these, and a very foremost one; drawn into the league, in reality, rather by the warm enthusiasm of a generous nature than by any mature consideration of the object or its consequences. In some contest for a prize at College—a gold medal in science, I believe—Luttrell’s closest competitor was the son of the Provost of the University; but, after a three days’ conflict, Luttrell was victorious. When the day of awarding the honours came, Luttrell presented himself at the Hall to receive his laurels, but what was his astonishment to hear, as he entered, that he would be first required to subscribe a declaration that he was not a member of any secret or treasonable society.
“‘If you mean,’ cried he to the Proctor, who recited the terms of the declaration—‘if you mean me to say that I am not an United Irishman, I will not do so. Give your gold medal to that gentleman yonder,’ added he, pointing to the son of the Provost; ‘his father’s loyalty deserves every testimony you can confer on it.’ He left the Hall, took his name off the books, and quitted Ireland the next day. It was gravely debated whether an expulsion should not be passed upon him; but, in consideration of his great collegiate distinction and his youth, the extreme rigour was spared him, and he was suffered to leave uncensured.
“Either the confession was not what she expected, or that she fancied it might cover something far more serious beneath it, but Georgina was not satisfied with the story. She again and again reverted to it. Not a day that they walked out alone that she would not turn the conversation on this theme, which, by frequent discussion, Luttrell came at length to talk of, without any of the reserve he at first maintained. Indeed, some of this was, in a measure, forced upon him, for she questioned him closely as to the details of the association, how far it involved him, and to what extent he was yet bound by its obligations.
“It was in a sort of defence of himself, one day, that he so far forgot prudence as to declare that the society numbered amongst its members many men not only high in station, but actually regarded as strong adherents of the English party. He told how this, that, and the other, who were seen at every levee of the Castle, and not unfrequently quoted as guests of the Viceroy’s table, were brothers of this league; and he indeed mentioned names of distinction and eminence.
“In her eagerness to confute all her father’s opinions on this matter—for she had told him the whole story from the first—Georgina hastened off to enumerate the great men who were engaged in this treason. Two were in Parliament, one was a Law Adviser of the Crown, another was a Commissioner of Customs, and generally regarded as an active partisan of the Government. I remember these, but there were many others of equal note. Mr. Courtenay, who, besides being a ministerial supporter, had once been private secretary to Lord Castlereagh, divulged the whole to the Home Secretary. Investigations were instituted, and, although United Irishism had lost its sting after Emmett’s failure, all who had once belonged to it were marked men, and black-listed in consequence.
“I have been told that the consternation which the disclosure created in Ireland was terrific. Men resigned their commissions of the peace, pretended ill health, went abroad; lawyers and physicians of eminence were ashamed to show their faces; and a well-known editor of a violently ‘English’ newspaper disposed of his journal and went to America.
“‘Who is the traitor?’ was now the universal demand; and, indeed, in the patriotic papers the question stood forth every morning in great capitals.
“‘Who was the traitor?’ none could positively assert; but the controversy was carried on without any squeamish delicacy, and if the papers did not fix on the man, they very freely discussed the probability or improbability of this or that one.
“‘Why not Luttrell? said one writer in a famous print. ‘His father betrayed us before.’ This was an allusion to his having voted for the Union. ‘Why not Luttrell?’ They entered thereupon into some curious family details, to show how these Luttrells had never been ‘true blue’ to any cause. That, with good abilities and fair prospects, they were not successful men, just because they couldn’t be honest to their party, or even to themselves. They were always half way between two opinions, ‘and,’ as the writer said, ‘far more eager to have two roads open to them than to travel either of them.’ Whether excited by a theme which had engrossed much of public attention, or incited by some personal animosity, this editor devoted a portion of each day’s paper to Luttrell. The result was a hostile message. They met and exchanged shots, when the newspaper writer at once declared, ‘If Mr. Luttrell will now disown any connexion with this act of betrayal, I am ready to beg his pardon for all that I have said of him.’ Luttrell for a moment made no reply, and then said, ‘Take your pistol, Sir; I have no explanations to make you.’ At the next fire, Luttrell fell wounded. He was upwards of two months laid in his bed. I saw him frequently during that time; and though we talked every day of the Courtenays, I had not the courage to tell him that they were determined the match should be broken off. Georgina herself—how, I cannot well say, nor ever clearly understood—being brought to believe that Luttrell had done what would for ever exclude him from the society of his equals. I cannot dwell on a period so full of miserable recollections. I never passed so many hours of torture as when sitting by that poor fellow’s bedside. I listened to all his bright projects for a future which in my heart I knew was closed to him for ever. As his convalescence advanced, my task grew more difficult. He used to ask every day when he would be permitted to write to her; he wondered, too, why she had not sent him a few lines, or some token—as a book, or a flower. He questioned and cross-questioned me about her daily life; how she felt his misfortune; had she received a correct account of the incident of the duel; what her family thought and said; and, last of all, why Mr. Courtenay himself had only called once or twice, and never asked to come up and see him?
“My own marriage was to take place early in May. It was now April; and at one time there had been some talk of the two sisters being married on the same day. It was late in the month; I am not clear about the date, but I remember it was on a Sunday morning. I was sitting with him, and he lay propped up on a sofa, to enable him to take his breakfast with me. ‘I was thinking all last night, Vyner,’ said he—‘and nothing but a sick man’s selfishness could have prevented my thinking it long ago—how you must hate me.’
“‘Hateyou, and why?’
“‘Because but for me and my misfortune you’d have been married by the sixth or seventh, and now, who knows how long you must wait?’
“I saw at once that the double marriage was running in his mind, and though my own was fixed for the following Thursday or Friday, I had not nerve to say so; nor was my embarrassment the less that Mr. Courtenay had charged me with the task of telling Luttrell that all should be considered as at an end, and every day used to question me if I had yet done so.
“‘Now or never,’ thought I, as Luttrell said this; but when I turned and saw his wasted cheek, still pink with hectic, and his glassy, feverish eye, I shrunk again from the attempt.
“‘Why did you look at me so pitifully, Vyner?’ said he, eagerly; ‘has the doctor told you that I shall not rub through?’
“‘Nothing of the kind, man; he says he’ll have you down at Hastings before a fortnight is over.’
“‘What was it, then? Do I look very fearfully?’
“‘Not even that. You are pulled down, of course. No man looks the better for eight or ten weeks on a sick-bed.’
“‘Then it is something else,’ said he, thoughtfully; and I made no answer.
“‘Well,’ said he, with a deep sigh, ‘I have had my forebodings of—I don’t know what—but of something that was over me all this time back; and when I lay awake at night, wondering in what shape this disaster would come, I have ever consoled myself by saying, “Well, Vyner certainly does not know it; Vyner has no suspicion of it.” If now, however, I were to be wrong in this; if, in reality, Vynerdidknow that a calamity impended me; and if’—here he fixed his bright staring eyes with their wide pupils full upon me—‘if Vyner knew something, and only forbore to break it to me because he saw me a poor sickly wasted creature, whose courage he doubted, all I can say is, he does not know the stuff the Luttrells are made of.’
“I tried to answer this, but all I could do was to take his hand and press it between my own. ‘Out with it, like a good fellow,’ cried he, with an effort to seem gay—‘out with it, and you’ll see whether I am too vain of my pluck!’
“I turned partly away—at least so far that I could not see his face nor he mine—and I told him everything. I cannot remember how I began or ended. I cannot tell what miserable attempts I made to excuse or to palliate, nor what poor ingenuity I practised to make him believe that all was for the best. I only know that I would have given worlds that he should have interrupted me or questioned me; but he never spoke a word, and when I had concluded he sat there still in silence.
“‘You are a man of honour, Vyner,’ said he, in a low but unshaken voice that thrilled through my heart. ‘Tell me one thing. On your word as a gentleman, has—has—she——’ I saw that he was going to say the name, but stopped himself. ‘Has she been coerced in this affair?’
“‘I believe not. I sincerely believe not. In discussing the matter before her, she has gradually come to see, or at least to suppose———’
“‘There, there; that will do!’ cried he aloud, and with a full tone that resembled his voice in health. ‘Let us talk of it no more. I take it you’ll go abroad after your wedding?’
“I muttered out some stupid common-place, I talked away at random for some minutes, and at last I said good-by. When I came back the next morning he was gone. He had been carried on board of a steam-vessel for some port in the south of Ireland, and left not a line nor a message behind him. From that hour until last night I never set eyes on him.”
“You have heard of him, I suppose?” asked Grenfell.
“Vaguely and at long intervals. He would seem to have mixed himself up with the lowest political party in Ireland—men who represent, in a certain shape, the revolutionary section in France—and though the very haughtiest aristocrat I think I ever knew, and at one time the most fastidious ‘fine gentleman,’ there were stories of his having uttered the most violent denunciations of rank, and inveighed in all the set terms of the old French Convention against the distinctions of class. Last of all, I heard that he had married a peasant girl, the daughter of one of his cottier tenants, and that, lost to all sense of his former condition, had become a confirmed drunkard.”
“The moral of all which is, that your accomplished sister-in-law had a most fortunate escape.”
“I’m not so sure of that. I think Luttrell was a man to have made a great figure in the world. He swept college of its prizes, he could do anything he tried, and, unlike many other clever men, he had great powers of application. He had, too, high ability as a public speaker, and in an age like ours, where oratory does so much, he might have had a most brilliant career in Parliament.”
“There is nothing more delusive than arguing from a fellow’s school or collegiate successes to his triumphs in after life. The first are purely intellectual struggles; but the real battle of life is fought out by tact, and temper, and courage, and readiness, and fifty other things, that have no distinct bearing on mind. Your man there would have failed just as egregiously amongst gentlemen as he has done amongst the ‘canaille’ that he descended to. He had failure written on his passport when he started in life.”
“I don’t believe it; I can’t believe it.”
“Your sister-in-law, I think, never married?”
“No. She has refused some excellent offers, and has declared she never will marry.”
“How like a woman all that! She first mars a man’s fortune, and, by way of a reparation, she destroys her own. That is such feminine logic!”
“Is that a dog they have got in the bow of the launch, yonder?” said Vyner, directing the captain’s attention to one of the boats of the yacht that was now pulling briskly out from the land.
“Well, Sir, as well as I can make out, it’s a child,” said he, as he drew the telescope from the slings, and began to adjust it. “Yes, Sir, it’s a native they have caught, and a wild-looking specimen too;” and he handed the glass to Vyner.
“Poor little fellow! He seems dressed in rabbit-skins. Where is Ada? She must see him.”
“It was not an easy matter to get him to come, Sir,” said the sailor in a whisper to Vyner, as he assisted the boy to get on the deck.
“Where did you find him?”
“Sitting all alone on that rocky point yonder, Sir; he seemed to have been crying, and we suspect he has run away from home.”
Vyner now turned to look at the child, who all this while stood calm and composed, amazed, it is true, by all he saw around him, yet never suffering his curiosity to surprise him into a word of astonishment. In age from ten to twelve, he was slightly though strongly built, and carried himself erect as a soldier. The dress which Vyner at first thought was entirely made of skins was only in reality trimmed with these, being an attempt to make the clothes he had long worn sufficiently large for him. His cap alone was of true island make, and was a conical contrivance of undressed seal-skin, which really had as savage a look as need be.
“Do you live on this island, my little fellow?” asked Vyner, with a kindly accent.
“Yes,” said he, calmly, as he looked up full into his face.
“And have you always lived here?”
“So long as I remember.”
“Where do you live?”
“On the other side of the mountain—at St. Finbar’s Abbey.”
“May I ask your name?”
“My name,” said the boy, proudly, “is Harry Grenville Luttrell.”
“Are you a Luttrell?” cried Vyner, as he laid his hand affectionately on the boy’s shoulders; but the little fellow seemed not to like the familiarity, and stepped back to escape it.
“Are you the son of John Hamilton Luttrell?”
“Yes. What is your name?”
“Mine,” said the other, repressing a smile—“mine is Gervais Vyner.”
“And do you own this ship?”
“Yes.”
“And why have you come here?”
“Partly by chance—partly through curiosity.”
“And when will you go away?”
“Something will depend on the weather—something on whether we like the place and find it agreeable to us; but why do you ask? Do you wish we should go away?”
“The people do! I do not care!”
It is not easy to give an idea of the haughty dignity with which he spoke the last words. They were like the declaration of one who felt himself so secure in station, that he could treat the accidents of the day as mere trifles.
“But why should the people wish it? We are not very likely to molest or injure them.”
“That much you may leave to themselves,” said the boy, insolently. “They’ll not let you do it.”
“You seem very proud of your island, my little man! Have you any brothers or sisters?”
“No—none.”
“None belonging to you but father and mother?”
“I have no mother now,” said he, with an effort to utter the words unmoved; but the struggle was too much, and he had to turn away his head as he tried to suppress the sobbing that overcame him.
“I am very, very sorry to have pained you, my boy,” said Vyner, with kindness. “Come down with me here, and see a little daughter of mine, who is nearly your own age.”
“I don’t want to see her. I want to go ashore.”
“So you shall, my boy; but you will eat something with us first, and see the strange place we live in. Come along;” and he took his hand to lead him forward.
“I could swim to the land if I liked,” said the boy, as he gazed down at the blue water.
“But you’ll not have to swim, Harry.”
“Why do you call me Harry? I never knewyou.”
“I have a better claim than you suspect. At least, I used to call your father John long ago.”
“Don’t do it any more, then,” said he, defiantly.
“And why?”
“He wouldn’t bear it—that is the why! Stand clear, there!” cried he to one of the sailors on the gangway. “I’m off!” and he prepared himself for a run ere he jumped overboard, but just at this moment Ada tripped up the cabin ladder and stood before him. The long yellow ringlets fell on her shoulders and her neck, and her lustrous blue eyes were wide in astonishment at the figure in front of her. As for the boy, he gazed at her as at something of unearthly beauty. It was to his eyes that Queen of the Fairies who might have soared on a light cloud, or tripped daintily on the crest of the wide sea waves.
“Here is a playfellow for you, Ada,” said her father, as he led her towards him.
“It is Robinson Crusoe, papa,” said she, in a whisper.
The boy’s quick ear had, however, caught the words, and he said quickly, “I wish I was Robinson!” The speech seemed to strike some chord in the little girl’s heart, for she went freely towards him at once, and said, “Oh, wasn’t it nice to live in that pretty island, and have everything one’s own?”
“This island here is mine!” said the boy, proudly.
“Yes, Ada,” said Vyner, “what he, says is quite correct; his father owns the whole of these islands. But come along into the cabin, Harry; I want you to see our home, though it is a very narrow one.”
With the gravity of a North American Indian, and with a self-possession that never broke down under every trial to which curiosity exposed it, the boy looked at all around him. If Aladdin himself Was not more wonder-struck at the splendours of the cave, he never for a moment betrayed his amazement. He ate and drank, too, with the same air of composure, and bore himself throughout with a quiet dignity that was remarkable. Ada displayed before him her prettiest toys, her games, and her picture-books, and was half piqued at the little evidences of astonishment they created. No suspicion crossed her mind how the colour that came and went and came again, how the hurried breathing, how the clammy fingers that trembled as they touched an object, were signs of emotion far deeper and more intense than all that a cry of wonderment could evidence.
“I suppose,” said she, at last, when impatience mastered her, “you have got such masses of these yourself, that you don’t care for them?”
“I—I have nothing—nothing but a crossbow to shoot the seagulls, and a hatchet, and the hatchet is too heavy for me.”
“But what can you do with a hatchet?” asked she, smiling.
“Split logs, and cut a way through the thicket like fellows on an uninhabited island; or sometimes I think I’m fighting a bear. I’d like to fight a young bear!—-wouldn’t you?”
“I suspect not. Girls do not fight bears.”
“Ah, I forgot!” said he, blushing deeply; and, ashamed of his blunder, he bent his head over a picture.
Meanwhile, Vyner and Grenfell were walking the deck and conversing in a low tone.
“It would be a mistake, Vyner, a great mistake, take my word for it,” said the other. “To the man who assumes the incognito, all attempt at recognition is offensive. Besides, what is it to lead to? You can’t imagine he’ll want to talk over the past, and for such a man there is no speculation in the future.”
“But the idea of being on the very island with him, knowing that he was within a mile of me, and that I never went to see him! It sounds very heartless, and I feel it would be so.”
“I have nothing to say when you put the question on the ground of a sentiment. I can only discuss it as a matter of expediency, or the reverse. You don’t charge a man with the opinions you find in an anonymous book, because, even supposing they are his, he has not thought proper to avow them; well, you owe exactly the same deference to him who lives under an incognito, or retires to some secluded, unfrequented spot. His object is to escape notice; under what plea do you drag him forth into the broad noonday?”
“I am certain my wife wouldn’t forgive me if I left without even an effort to see him.”
“As to that, I can say nothing. I never was married, and I do not pretend to know what are the ‘cases of conscience’ discussed connubially.”
“You see, Grenfell,” said the other, confidentially, “we all feel, as we have a right to feel, that we have done this man a great wrong. There has not been one single calamity of his life, from the day we broke with him, that is not traceable to us. His unfortunate line in politics, his low political associates, the depraved life some assert that he lived, and, worse than all, his wretched marriage with a poor uneducated peasant girl.”
“And do you fancy that a morning call from you is the reparation for all this?”
“Come, come, that is not the fair way to put it. Luttrell and I were once great friends. I was, I well know, very much his inferior in knowledge and power, but in worldliness and tact I was more than his match, and he gave way to me on every question of this sort. It may be—I’d like to think it might prove the case—-that this old sentiment has not died out of his heart, that, as he used to say long ago, and people laughed when he said it, ‘Let us hear what Vyner says.’ Now, if this were so, I might even yet do something, if not for him, for that fine boy there.”
“Leave that fine boy alone, Vyner, that’s my advice to you. I never saw a fellow of his years with such an overweaning self-confidence. There is, I don’t deny it, a certain ‘gentleman’ element in him, but it is dashed with something which I neither understand, nor could venture to say what it may lead to; but I repeat, leave him alone.”
Vyner shook his head dissentingly, but did not speak.
“Besides, let us be practical. What could you do for him? You’d not adopt him, I take it?” Vyner was silent, and he continued: “Well, then, you’d cut off the one tie he has in life, and not substitute another. Besides, don’t you remember what old Scott said at the Huxleigh steeple-chase: ‘I never back the half-bred ‘uns, no matter how well they look in training.’”
“What a stickler for blood you have become,” said Vyner, laughing; and it was only as he saw the crimson flush in the other’s cheek that he bethought him how the remark might have offended.
“Take your own line, then,” said Grenfell, angrily; “it doesn’t signify to me personally a brass farthing. Our dinner company with old Crab and the German Fran can scarcely but be improved, even though it be by the admixture of a little rebellion through it.”
“For all that, you’d like Luttrell immensely if you met him.”
“I like none but men of the world—men who know the people, the places and the things one is daily connected with—who can take up the game of society where it left off last night, and have not to read themselves up in daily life the way fellows read their history out of theAnnual Register.”
“Well, I’ll write him a note,” said Vyner, following out his own thoughts; “I’ll tell him, in a few words, how I chanced to come here, and I’ll ask if he will receive me, or, better still,-if he’ll come and dine with us to-morrow.”
“I know the answer you’ll get as well as if I had written it.”
“Well, what will it be?”
“See you hanged first!”
“What is all this going on below? Are you quarrelling, children?” cried Vyner, as a great uproar burst forth from the cabin.
“Oh no, papa; but Robinson is so droll; he put baby-doll into a boat and had her shipwrecked, and saved by the little negro; and now they are going to be married. Just come and see it all.”
“Tell me, Harry,” said Vyner, “what would papa say if I were to write him a note and say that I have detained you here to dinner, and wouldn’t let you go?”
“He’d say I could have jumped overboard,” said the boy, reddening at what he thought was an imputation on his personal prowess.
“I don’t exactly mean by force, my dear boy; I intended to say, by persuasion.”
Either the view now submitted to him was not very clear, or that it was combined with other element, but he made no reply.
“I will put it this wise: I’ll say I have made Harry’s acquaintance this morning-by a lucky accident, and I hope you will not be displeased if he should stay and dine with us. I have a little girl of his own age who is delighted to have his company, and I feel certain you will not deprive her of so agreeable a playfellow.”
“Papa will not know,” said the boy, moodily.
“Not know what, my little man?”
“Papa will not care,” said he; and a slight tremor shook his voice.
“Not care for what?”
“I mean,” said he, resolutely, “that I often go away at daybreak and never come back till late at night, and papa does not mind it—he never asks for me.”
As he spoke, Ada drew nigh her father, and clasped his hand in her own, while her tearful eyes turned alternately from her father to the child, the sense of her own happy lot, loved and cherished as she was, blending with a deep pity for one so desolate and friendless.
“That’s the way boys are made independent and bold-hearted,” said Vyner, hastily. “Men like their sons to be trained up in the free habits they enjoyed themselves. So, then, my note is not necessary—you can remain without it?”
“Would you like it?” said he, turning to Ada.
“Oh, how much!” cried she, eagerly.
“Then I’ll stay!” As he spoke, he leaned back in his chair, and, who knows with what thoughts, sighed faintly, while two heavy tears rolled slowly down his cheeks. Vyner saw it, but turned away and went on deck.
“I can gather from what that boy has just said,” said he to Gren-fell, “that his father is almost indifferent about him; he never knows of his coming or going, nor ever looks for him at meal-times.”
“I should be surprised if it were otherwise,” said Grenfell. “Demoralisation never works by halves. When a man begins to go down hill, he never takes any other road. What could remain of your great scholar and double first man after years of association with brutal companionship and a peasant for a wife! How could it be possible for him to retain any one of the habits of his own class amidst the daily frictions of that vulgar existence!”
“I begin to fear as much myself,” said Vyner, sorrowfully. As he spoke, he felt Ada’s hand in his own; she drew him to one side, and whispered, “Harry is crying, papa. He says he must go home, but he won’t tell me why.”
“Perhaps I can guess, darling. Let me speak with him alone. Vyner went down into the cabin by himself, but whatever passed between him and the boy, the result, so far as persuading him to stay, was not successful, and young Luttrell came on deck along with him.
“Man a boat, there,” said Vyner, “and take this young gentleman on shore. I will write one line to your father, Harry.”
The two children stood hand in hand while Vyner wrote. They wore each of them a look of sorrow at parting; but the boy’s face had a flush of shame as well as sorrow. They never uttered a word, however.
Vyner’s note was in these words:
“My dear Luttrell,—Will you allow an old friend to see you, when he calls himself?
“Affectionately yours,
“Gervais Vyner.”
He did not show this note to Grenfell, but handed it to the boy at once.
“He won’t take the books, papa,” whispered Ada, “nor anything else I offered him.”
“He’ll know us all better later on, dearest. Do not embarrass him now by attention; he is ashamed to refuse, and does not care to accept. If papa will let you come out to breakfast with us to-morrow, Harry, we shall be glad to see you; and remember, I look to you to show me where we are to catch the lobsters.”
“I’ll tell you that now,” said the boy. “You see that great rock yonder. Well, a little more inland, where the water is about four fathoms, and perfectly clear, that’s the spot.”
When the boat was announced as ready, the boy took his leave of each in turn, shaking hands with Vyner, and Ada, and the governess; and then, advancing towards Grenfell, he stopped, and simply said good-by.
“Good day, Sir,” said Grenfell, stiffly, for he was one of those men whose egotism even a child could wound. “Is that boy like his father?” asked he, as Harry passed over the side.
“Wonderfully like, since his face took that expression of seriousness.”
“Then it is not a good face.”
“Not a good face?”
“Mind, I didn’t say not a handsome face, for it is strikingly regular and well proportioned, but the expression is furtive and secret.”
“Nothing of the kind. Luttrell was as frank a fellow as ever breathed. I think, after what I told you, you can see that it was trustfulness proved his ruin.”
“Isn’t he what your countrymen would call a ‘Wunderkind,’ Mademoiselle?” asked Grenfell of the governess.
“No, Saar, he is a much-to-be-pitied, and not the less-for-that-very dignified youth.”
“How Homeric it makes language to think in German. There he is, Ada, waving a rag of some sort, in farewell to you.”
Ada kissed her hand several times to him, and then hastened below into the cabin.
“I have asked Luttrell’s leave to call on him,” said Vyner.
“I thought you would,” was the dry reply.
“I only wrote one line, and made my request in the name of our old friendship.”
“Well, of course, you are the best judge of your own duties; only, for my own part, I beg, if I ever should turn hermit, that you’ll not think yourself bound to have me shaved and trimmed for the honour of dining some one day at your table.”
“Upon my word, I think it would be a pity to take you out of your cave, or whatever you call it,” said the governess, with a spiteful laugh.
“There, don’t fight any more till tea-time,” said Vyner, laughingly.
“Who’ll come on shore with me? I’m for a ramble over that purple mountain yonder.”
“I have the music-lesson.”
“And I have the remainder of that article in theQuarterly,” said Grenfell, “which proves incontestably the utter hopelessness of Ireland. The writer knows the people well, and describes their faults of character perfectly.”
A low faint sob caught Vyner’s ear, and, on hurrying below, he found Ada seated at the table, with her head leaning on her arms.
“What’s the matter, Ada darling?” asked he, gently.
“Oh, papa, it was for his mother he was crying, for though she seldom spoke to him or noticed him, he used to see her at the window, and now he’ll never see her more.”
“We must try and comfort him, Ada; the poor boy has a very dreary lot in life.”
“He says he is happy, papa! and that he only hopes he’ll never have to leave this lonely island all his life.”
“Did he speak of his father at all?”
“No, papa; only to say that he’d never remember whether he was at home or abroad, and that it was so pleasant not to have any one who cared what became of one.”
“And you—did you agree with him?”
“Oh no, no!” cried she, as her eyes swam in tears. “I could have told him how much better it was to be loved.”
Vyner turned away to hide his own emotion, and then, with an affected carelessness, said, “Get over this music-lesson now, and whenever you are free tell Mr. Crab to hoist a bit of white bunting to the peak, and I’ll come back to fetch you for a walk with me.”
“Is Mr. Grenfell going, papa?”
“No, darling; but why do you ask?”
“Because—because—I’d rather go with you alone. It is always so much nicer and happier.”
“How is it that Grenfell, with all his smartness, can never hit it off with any one, young or old, rich or poor?” thought Vyner, as he walked the deck, deep in thought. “He reads everything, has a smattering of all subjects, with a good memory and a glib tongue, and yet I believe I am the only man about town who could tolerate him.” If this were a reflection that had more than once occurred to his mind, it usually ended by impressing the conviction that he, Vyner, must have rare qualities of head and heart, not merely to endure, but actually to almost like, a companionship for which none other would have had taste or temper but himself. Now, however—not easy is it to say why—a doubt flashed across him that his doubting, distrustful, scoffing nature might prove in the end an evil, just as a certain malaria, not strong enough to give fever, will ultimately impregnate the blood and undermine the constitution.
“I don’t think he has done me any mischief as yet,” said he to himself, with a smile; “but shall I always be able to say as much?”
“You must read this paper—positively you must,” cried Grenfell from the sofa, where he lay under a luxurious awning. “This fellow writes well; he shows that the Irish never had any civilisation, nor, except where it crept in through English influence, has there ever been a vestige of such in the island.”
“I don’t see I shall be anything the better for believing him!”
“It may save you from that blessed purchase of an Irish property that brought you down to all this savagery. It may rescue you from the regret of having a gentleman shot because he was intrepid enough to collect your rents. That surely is something.”
“But I have determined on the purchase of Derryvaragh,” said Vyner, “if it only be what descriptions make it.”
“To live here, I hope—to turn Carib—cross yourself when you meet a priest, and wear a landlord’s scalp at your waist-belt.”
“Nay, nay! I hope for better things, and that the English influences you spoke of so feelingly will not entirely desert me in my banishment.”
“Don’t imagine that any one will come over here to see you, Vyner, if you mean that.”
“Not even the trusty Grenfell?” said he, with a half smile.
“Not if you were to give me the fee-simple of the barbarous tract you covet.”
“I’ll not believe it, George. I’ll back your friendship against all the bogs that ever engulphed an oak forest. But what is that yonder? Is it a boat? It seems only a few feet long.”
“It is one of those naval constructions of your charming islanders; and coming this way, too.”
“The fellow has got a letter, Sir; he has stuck it in his hatband,” said Mr. Crab.
“An answer from Luttrell,” muttered Vyner. “I wonder will he receive me?”