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He opened a map upon the table, and tried to trace out the course the boat might have taken. There were three distant headlands to clear before she could reach the open sea. One of these, the Turk’s Head, was a noted spot for disasters, and dreaded by fishermen even in moderately fresh, weather. He could not take his eyes from the spot; that little speck so full of fate to him. To have effaced it from the earth’s surface at that moment, he would have given all that remained to him in the world! “Oh, what a destiny!” he cried in his bitterness, “and what race! Every misfortune, every curse that has fallen upon us, of our own doing! Nothing worse, nothing so bad, have we ever met in life as our own stubborn pride, our own vindictive natures.” It required some actual emergency, some one deeply momentous’ crisis, to bring this proud and stubborn spirit down to self-accusation; but when the momentdidcome, when the damwasopened, the stream rushed forth like the long pent-up waters of a cataract.
All that he had ever done in life, all the fierce provocations he had given, all the insults he had uttered, his short-comings too, his reluctance to make amends when in the wrong, passed spectre-like before him, and in the misery of his deep humiliation he felt how all his struggle in life had been with himself.
That long night—and how long it was!—was spent thus. Every wild gust that shook the window-frames, every thunder-clap that seemed to make the old ruin rock, recalling him to thoughts of the wild sea on which his poor child was tossing. “Have they got well out to sea by this time, or are they beating between the Basket Rocks and the Turk’s Head?” would he ask himself over and over. “Can they and will they put back if they see the storm too much for them?” He tried to remember his parting words. Had he taunted them with reluctance to venture out? Had he reflected on their courage? He could not now recal (sp) his words, but he hoped and he prayed that he had not.
The leaden grey of morning began to break at last, and the wind seemed somewhat to abate, although the sea still rolled in such enormous waves, and the spray rose over the rocks and fell in showers over the shingle before the windows. Luttrell strained his eyes through the half-murky light, but could descry nothing like a sail seaward. He mounted the stairs of the tower, and stationing himself at the loopholed window, gazed long and earnestly at the sea. Nothing but waves—a wild, disordered stretch of rolling water—whose rocking motion almost at last made his head reel.
The old pilot, with his hat tied firmly on, was standing below, and, careless of the beating rain, was looking out to sea.
“The gale is lessening, Moriarty,” cried out Luttrell; “it has blown itself out.”
It was evident the old man had not caught the words aright, for all he said was, “She’s a fine sea-boat if she did, Sir,” and moved away.
“He thinks it doubtful—he does not believe they have weathered the storm,” said Luttrell; and he sat down with his head between his hands, stunned and almost senseless.
There is no such terrible conflict as that of a proud spirit with misfortune. He who sees nothing in his calamities but his own hard fate has the dreariest and least hopeful of all battles before him. Now, though Luttrell was ready to utter his self-accusings aloud, and charge himself audibly with the faults that had wrecked his life, yet, strange as it may seem, the spirit of true humility had never entered his heart, far less any firm resolve to repent.
With all the terrible consequences that his unbridled temper could evoke before him, he still could not but regard himself as more persecuted than erring. “I did not make myself,” cried he, impiously. “I no more implanted the passions that sway than the limbs that move me! Other men—is not the world full of them?—have been as haughty, as unyielding, and domineering as myself, and yet have had no such disasters heaped upon them—far from it. Out of their very faults has sprung, their fortune. In their pride they have but asserted that superiority that they knew they possessed.”
While he reasoned thus, his heart, truer to nature than his brain, trembled at every freshening of the storm, and sickened as the dark squalls shot across the sea.
Nor was his agony less that he had to control it, and not let those about him see what he suffered. He sat down to his breakfast at the accustomed hour, and affected to eat as usual. Indeed, he rebuked Molly for some passing carelessness, and sent her away almost choked with tears, “as if,” as she sobbed to herself—“as if she was a dog. To know whether the milk ‘took the fire’ or not! Musha! any man but himself wouldn’t know whether it was milk or salt water was afore him.”
It was his habit to pass the morning in reading. He would not appear to deviate from this custom, but sat down to his books as usual.
No sooner, however, was all still and quiet around him than he stole up to the tower, and stationed himself at the narrow window that looked over the sea.
The wind had greatly abated, and the sea also gone down, but there was still the heavy roll and the deafening crash upon the shore, that follow a storm. “The hurricane is passing westward,” muttered Luttrell; “it has done its work here!” And a bitter scorn curled his lips as he spoke. He was calling upon his pride to sustain him. It was a hollow ally in his time of trouble; for, as he gazed and gazed, his eyeswouldgrow dim with tears, and his heavy heart would sigh, as though to bursting.
As the day wore on, and the hour came when he was habitually about, he strolled down to the beach, pretending to pick up shells, or gather sea anemones, as he was wont. The fishermen saluted him respectfully as he passed, and his heart throbbed painfully as he saw, or fancied he saw, a something of compassionate meaning in their faces. “Do they believe, can they think that it is all over, and that I am childless?” thought he. “Do they know that I am desolate?” A pang shot through him at this, that made him grasp his heart with his hand to suppress the agony.
He rallied after a minute or so, and walked on. He had just reached the summit of the little bay, when a sort of cheer or cry from those behind, startled him. He turned and saw that the fishermen were gathered in a group upon one of the rocks, all looking and pointing seaward; with seeming indolence of gait, while his anxiety was almost suffocating him, he lounged lazily towards them.
“What are the fellows looking at?” said he to the old pilot, who, with some difficulty, had just scrambled down from the rock.
“A large lugger, your honour, coming up broad.”
“And is a fishing-boat so strange a thing in these waters?”
“She’s out of the fishin’ grounds altogether, your honour; for she’s one of the Westport boats. I know her by the dip of her bowsprit.”
“And if she is, what does it signify to us?” asked Luttrell, sternly.
“Only that she’s bearin’ up for the island, your honour, and it’s not often one of them comes here.”
“The seldomer the better,” said Luttrell, gloomily. “When the fellows find there are no grog-shops here, they turn to mischief, break down our fences, lop our trees, and make free with our potatoes. I’ll have to do one of these days what I have so often threatened—warn all these fellows off, and suffer none to land here.”
Perhaps the old pilot thought that other and very different feelings might at that moment have had the sway over him, for he looked away, and shook his head mournfully.
“She has a flag at the peak,” cried one of the men from the rock.
“She has what?” asked Luttrell, impatiently.
“She has the half-black, half-white ensign, your honour.”
“Your own flag at the peak,” said the pilot.
“More of their insolence, I suppose,” said Luttrell; “because they have a hamper or a parcel on board for me, perhaps.”
“I don’t think it’s that, Sir,” said the other, moodily.
“What is it, then?” cried he, harshly.
“‘Tis, maybe, your honour, that they have some news of——” he was going to say “Master Harry,” but the ghastly paleness of Luttrell’s face appalled and stopped him.
“News of what, did you say?”
“Of the big yawl, Sir; they, maybe, saw her at sea.”
“And if they had, would that give them a right to hoist the Luttrell flag? We are low enough in the world, Heaven knows!” he cried; “but we are not come to that pass yet, when every grocer of Westport can carry our crest or our colours.” This burst of mock anger was but to cover a rush of real terror; for he was trembling from head to foot, his sight was dimmed, and his brain turning. He felt the coward, too, in his heart, and did not dare to face the old man again. So, turning abruptly away, he went back to the house.
“My fate will soon be decided now,” said he, as he tottered into his room, and sat down, burying his face in his hands.
The group of fishermen on the rock grew larger and larger, till at last above thirty were clustered on the point, all eagerly watching, and as earnestly discussing every motion of the lugger. It was soon clear that her course was guided by some one who knew the navigation well, for instead of holding on straight for the bay, where she was to cast anchor, she headed to a point far above it, thus showing that her steersman was aware of the strong shore current that had force enough to sweep her considerably out of her course. Meanwhile, they had ample time to discuss her tonnage, her build, her qualities for freight and speed, and her goodness as a sea-boat. “I wonder did she see the yawl?” said one at length, for, with a strange and scarcely accountable terror, none would approach the theme that was uppermost in every heart. The word once uttered, all burst in at once, “‘Tis with news of her she’s come! She saw her ‘put in’ to Belmullet, or to Westport, or she saw her sheltering, perhaps, under the high cliffs of the coast, ‘lying to,’ till the gale lightened.” None would say more than this.
“Hurrah!” cried one at last, with a joyful cheer, that made every heart bound, “I see Master Harry; he’s steerin’!”
“So he is!” shouted another; “he’s settin’ up on the weather gunwale, and his head bare, too. I see his hair flyin’ wild about him.”
“Go up and tell the master.”
“Faix, I’m afeerd; I never spoke to him in my life.”
“Will you, Owen Riley?”
“Sorra step I’ll go; he turned me out of the place for saying that the cobble wanted a coat of pitch, and she sank under me, after. Let ould Moriarty go.”
“So I will. ‘Tis good news I’ll have to bring him, and that never hurt the messenger.” And so saying, the old pilot hastened, as fast as his strength would permit, to the house.
The door was open, and he passed in. He sought for Molly in the kitchen, but poor Molly was away on the beach, following the course the lugger seemed to take, and hoping to be up at the point she might select to anchor at. The old man drew cautiously nigh Luttrell’s door, and tapped at it, respectfully.
“Who’s there? Come in; come in at once,” cried Luttrell, in a harsh voice. “What have you to say? Say it out.”
“‘Tis to tell your honour that Master Harry——”
“What of him? What of him?” screamed Luttrell; and he seized the old man by the shoulders, and shook him violently.
“He’s steerin the lugger, your honour, and all safe.”
A cry, and a wild burst of laughter, broke from the overburdened heart, and Luttrell threw himself across the table and sobbed aloud.
Overcome with terror at such a show of feeling in one he had deemed dead to every emotion, the old man tried to move away unseen; but just as he had closed the door behind him, Luttrell screamed out, “Come back. You saw him—you saw him yourself?”
“No, Sir; but better eyes than mine did, and they could see that he had no cap on his head.”
“And they were sure it was he?”
“There’s no mistakin’ him among a thousand!”
“If they deceived me—if this was false——” he stopped and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. “There, I see her now. She’s rounding to—she’s going to anchor. I have been poorly of late, Moriarty,” said he, in a low, subdued tone; “things fret and worry me, that I’d not let annoy me if I were stronger. Men ofyourstamp fancy there can never be much amiss with men ofmine, because we have enough to eat and drink. What’s that noise without? Who is talking there?”
The door opened suddenly, and Harry, with flushed face and wildly disordered hair, and with clothes all wet and dripping, stood before his father. He made no motion to embrace, nor even approach him, but stood within the door respectful, but not abashed, and as if waiting for leave to advance farther.
Luttrell’s cheek trembled, and changed colour twice, but, subduing his emotion with a great effort, he said, in a tone of affected indifference, “You had rough weather—did you make Westport?”
“No, Sir; we lost the boat.”
“Lost the boat! how was that?”
“She filled; at least, she took so much water that she would not answer her helm, and then she heeled over and went down.”
“Down all at once?”
“Yes; I had barely time to cut away our ensign from the peak. I thought I’d save the Luttrell colours, and so I did.”
“Were you far from land at the time?”
“About fifteen miles; as good as fifty, for the wind was strong off shore, and such a sea!”
“And what did you do?”
“We had plenty of spars. There were oars, and stretchers, and four large planks of the flooring, all floating about, and each of us laid hold of something.”
“By my sowle you’re a brave boy!” cried the old pilot, who could restrain himself no longer.
Luttrell turned a fierce look on the old man, and pointed to the door, and the poor fisherman slunk away overwhelmed with shame.
“So we’ve lost our best boat, and all her tackle,” said Luttrell, moodily; “a heavy loss.”
“It is!” said the boy, gravely; “but the fellows that picked us up say, that they don’t know how we held on so long with an undecked boat. They were watching us for an hour before we went over.”
“Who were they?”
“Westport men; they were taking that man over here you gave us the letter for—a Yankee fellow.”
“What do you mean by a Yankee, Sir?”
“Tom Crab called him so to me, that’s all I know; but he’s a good fellow, and gave me some brandy when he pulled me on board; and I near he rubbed me till I got quite warm.”
“Where is he now?”
“He’s helping them to carry that sick man up here, and I don’t think he’s so sick as they say. I’m sure it’s just fright, and no more; for every time the boat went about in stays, he’d raise his head and give a groan.”
“Of whom are you talking?”
“I don’t know his name, Sir; but they tell me he wants to see you very much. There he goes; they’ve got him in that blanket, and are bringing him here.”
“Where will I put the sick gentleman, Sir?” said Molly, coming in; “may I make a bed in the store-room?”
“Do so,” said Luttrell, briefly; “and for the other, give him the room that was your mistress’s; and do you, Harry, go out and be civil and attentive to these people. I will see them myself later on. They must put up with rough fare, but they came self-invited.”
Luttrell had just made up his mind that he would inform the American visitor he would receive him, when Harry entered, leading the stranger by the hand. “That’s papa,” said the boy, and retired.
“I hope I see you in very good health, Sir,” said Mr. Dodge, advancing boldly, and shaking Luttrell’s hand in a hearty, vigorous manner. “You live in a pretty lonesome spot here, and as the man said to the whip-snake in the spout, ‘You ain’t easy to get at.’”
“Perhaps that was one of the reasons that led me to choose it, Sir,” said Luttrell, stiffly, “and had you got my note, you’d have seen that I never intended you should incur the inconvenience of coming to it.”
“Well, Sir, it warn’t pleasant; I’ll tell no lie, it warn’t pleasant! I’m a seafearin’ man, Sir, and I’ve been one all my life; but such a harbour to get out of, and such a port to get into, and such a craft to do it in, I never seed in all my born days.”
“You compel me to repeat my regrets, Sir. I am, indeed, sincerely sorry for your fruitless journey.”
“Well, it warn’t all time lost—we picked up that crew, and that lad of yours. He’s a fine ‘buoy,’ Sir; I know ‘buoys’ well, and I say it again, he’ll be a smart man.”
Luttrell bowed a cold and haughty acknowledgment.
“He ain’t a bit like you, not a bit; there’s no pride, no stand off abouthim; he’s a raal frank, straight-ahead one. I seed it before he was well aboard. It was all I could do to keep him from swimming after his cap—a darned old sealskin thing it was—but he said it was his best one, and he’d not get another in a hurry.”
“His frankness deserved all your praise, Sir, it went to the extent of exposing his father’s poverty.”
“And if it did—what o’ that? You ain’t ashamed of it, are you? Look at me, Sir; I have a matter of seventy thousand dollars in the Tennessee Bank, and a trifle more in Ohio scrip, and I own every timber in the barquePrettyman Quincey Squashyfour hundred and odd tons, a clipper to sail, and a whale for freight, and I ain’t proud, nor no ways blown up to burstin’ for that!”
“I am delighted to know of your prosperity, Sir, for your sake,” said Luttrell, coldly.
“Mind,” said the other, who accepted the words in their most flattering sense, “I didn’t say it was all got with my hands in my ‘pants-’ pockets. I had a darn’d deal of smart work for it. I was up among the Injians for four years, I was over the Rocky Mountains trappin’, I was a cook aboard a South Sea whaler, and”—here he winked one eye, and gave Luttrell a good-humoured poke with his finger—“and I did a little in Ebony off the Samsoo River, you understand; unwholesome work it was, with the baracoons always flooded, and the alligators flopping through the mud, and stirring up foul air and fever. Ugh!” he cried, with a wry face, “you’d see an ugly sort of a blotch on your cheek at night, and before the same hour next evening the ground sharks would be a fitin’ over you. You haven’t got anything to drink, have you?”
“I can, unfortunately, offer you nothing but our mountain whisky; it is home-made, however, and not bad.”
While Luttrell took a bottle and some glasses from a small cupboard in the wall, Mr. Dodge employed himself in a leisurely examination of the chamber and its furniture. “May I never!” exclaimed he, “if it ain’t a droll sort of crib. Why, Stranger, I’d not live here three months without making something better to sit on, and handier to eat off, than these. Just you give me a hatchet, and a hammer, and a handful of nails, to-morrow morning early, and see if I won’t.”
“I am afraid my furniture deserves all the ill you can say of it,” said Luttrell, with a faint smile.
“That ain’t a chair—it’s not like a chair.”
“I will not defend it, certainly.”
“And yet it shows why you Britishers never can, by any possibility, be a great people—no, Sir, never.”
“I am really curious to hear that explanation.”
“Well, Sir,” said he, tossing off a fresh tumbler of undiluted whisky, “you’re a goin’ to hear it—but ‘don’t be impatient,’ as the bush squirrel said to the young mouse, ‘I’ve got your mother in my mouth, but I’ll eat you presently.’ Here’s how it is. When you was makin’ that chair, you had in your mind some old-fashioned, ramshackle, nine-cornered machine you had seen of your father’s, or your grandfather’s, and nothin’ would persuade you but to imitate that. It was wisdom of your ancestors—but we never had no ancestors. We didn’t begin the world with fifty cranks in our head about how some helpless old critter ten centuries back would ha’ tried to do this, or to mend that. There’s the difference between us, Sir; and mind my words, when we’ve got a ten-inch gun that’ll send a shot from Long Island to the Battery Point, you Britishers will be a going back to bows and arrows, and a paintin’your bodies blue, like your ancestors.”
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“The picture is not flattering,” said Luttrell, gravely. “And now, Sir, let us talk of something more nearly interesting to us. I am informed by my correspondent that you have seen the catalogue of my small collection, and desire to examine the objects themselves.”
“If that’s a home brew, Stranger, it does you more credit than the chair,” said Mr. Dodge, smacking his lips after his third tumbler of whisky.
“I am proud to have anything worth offering you, Sir.”
“If you’ve a barrel or two; of that spirit to dispose of, we’ll deal, Sir, that’s a fact;” and Mr. Dodge emptied the bottle into his glass.
“I’m not certain whether my resources extend so far, but if they do, the whisky is much at your service, and I will feel honoured if you accept it.”
“Now for the gimcracks—let’s see ‘em,” said Mr. Dodge, as though eager to show how promptly he could respond to a graceful or generous action.
“Some of the gimcracks are here before you,” said Luttrell, making a rather awkward attempt to smile, as he repeated the word. “This curiously misshapen attempt at a figure is, I have every reason to believe, an image of the idol ‘Crom,’ the object of worship to the Irish in the days of Paganism. You see he holds in his hand a sort of weapon like a fork.”
“It ain’t a brand, and it ain’t a fork! The Choctaws have idols that beat that critter hollow, and they stick eyes in them of a red stone that sparkles when there’s light on it. What’s this?”
“An ancient Irish spear, or javelin.”
“It’s a whale harpoon, and a rare bad one to boot; the spike ain’t well fastened, and no lead on the butt-end. Here’s a bowie-knife, ain’t it?”
“It’s the sword of an Irish chieftain, and was found in the tomb of Thady O’Shaughlen, Prince of the Kiel, and the lands of Maroon; the inscription that you see here——”
“I see nothing but scratches, made belike with an old nail or a dinner-fork—they ain’t letters.”
“This inscription signifies ‘I am.’”
“Well, I’m blessed if I believe them’s old—they’re rubbish, Stranger, jist rubbish—and as for the big dish——”
“It is a shield—a more perfect specimen is not extant. It was the battle-shield of Brian Ogh-na-Tiernach; he was killed in the great battle of Gongal-a-Murrah, which some historians have confounded with the battle of Claddahmore.”
Perfectly insensible to the sneers, or the not less offensive ridicule expressed by the American, Luttrell went on displaying object after object with all the zeal of one who gloried in his pursuit, and delighted in his success as an antiquarian. He drew forth rare scraps of manuscript, some worn and tattered fragments discoloured by age, and to all seeming undecipherable; he read out names of kings and saints, valiant chieftains, and holy martyrs, whom he mentioned with a voice tremulous with veneration; and he showed signet-rings and amulets they had worn, as a priest might have displayed the most sacred relics.
“Look here, Stranger,” said the Yankee, as he threw himself into the old chair, and stretched out his legs to the fullest extent, “there’s a museum in my native town of Halkanopolis, and I want to make ‘em a present; it’s to be somethin’ nobody ever seed the like of afore, nor ever will again. I du think this gatherin’ here is pretty nigh that ticket! And now, I say, what will you take for the whole bilin’ as it stands?”
“You have not seen one-tenth of the collection as yet!” cried Luttrell, whose zeal as an antiquarian was far greater than his eagerness as a vendor. “There’s the great book of the Three Curses.”
“We can do the swearin’ and cursin’ pretty well without a book where I come from,” said the Yankee, with a grin.
“Diarmid’s Token, as it is called. This curious gem, with its setting of pure gold, was formerly believed to be a protection against witchcraft.”
“In my country, Britisher, it’s the witches would want the amulet! We’re a pretty hard set down there, and can take care of ourselves without any help from charms. Come, now—let’s deal; what’s the whole figure, in one word?”
“You are unjust to both of us,” said Luttrell. “You neither know what I want to sell, or yourself to buy. Let me go on and show you some curious relics of a later period; they may have more interest for you, perhaps.”
“Not a hickory shaving’s difference, whether you showed me a trowel that helped to build Babel, or a snuff-box of Queen Bess. If you want to please me, talk of dollars, Stranger, hard dollars.”
Luttrell’s face flushed with a passing anger; this reducing him to the position of a tradesman, first displaying and then pricing his wares, sorely tried a temper that was never proof against much pressure. The purpose-like cold face of the American, however, showed him that the man meant no covert impertinence by his demand; but was simply desirous of finishing a bargain as speedily as might be.
“I am sorry, Sir,” said he, at length, “that you will not let me lay before you even the few objects that I prize the most; however, as you give me no choice in the matter, and as circumstances render me anxious to part with my collection, I obey you. I estimated the whole at three hundred pounds. My agent informed me that, in London, two hundred was deemed the value, and I never got a higher offer than a hundred and fifty, which I refused, but which I will now take, if offered me.”
The American took a very scrubby note-book from his pocket, and made a short calculation with a pencil.
“Well!” said he, in a drawling, dreary sort of way, “it ain’t much. I suppose you was years over it?”
“Yes,” said Luttrell, taken suddenly off his guard, “they occupied me many very sad days and nights. They were labours that lightened sorrow, and took me away from cares that were eating into my heart.”
“Ah! and how much better you’d have been, stranger, if you’d ha’ been doin’ something genuine useful, something to make yourself and others more comfortable, and not a grubbin’ after old shoe-buckles and saints’ shinbones. Well, you don’t think so! No matter; that’s our way o’ lookin’ at it. Now to business. There’s just one thing in these diggins that has tuk my fancy. It’s the only thing here that I’d give a red cent for, on my own account; but I do like it wonderful. I don’t suppose you’ll let me have it to buy, but if you’ll jist give a loan of it, we’ll say for a year or two—two years—I’ll close the deal, and give you your first price, fifteen hundred dollars.”
Luttrell’s dark face lighted up at the prospect of relief from much embarrassment, and his eyes ranged over the room to see what it possibly could be that had captivated his strange visitor’s fancy. A few gaffs, a single-barrel gun, and some fishing-taekle, were in one corner, and a pair of high sealskin boots in another, and a rough wolflike “lurcher” lay under the table—could it be any of these? It was scarcely credible, and yet the American had seen none other—he had walked straight from the landing-place to the Abbey. “What signifies what it is?” said Luttrell to himself. “It is the caprice of an unlettered fellow, who would, perhaps, care more for a tobacco-pouch than for my ‘Book of the Four Gospels.’”
“I have no doubt that I shall accept your offer, and gladly accept it” said Luttrell; “but it would gratify me if you were to say what it is that you desire to possess.”
“It’s then just as likely you’d refuse me.”
“And I mistake you much if, in such a case, you’d hold me to my bargain!”
For the first time the American’s features brightened; the dull leaden cheek coloured, and the firm-set thin lip curved into a pleasant smile as he said, “You’re right there, Britisher—you’re right there. I’d not ha’ clinched the nail, if I saw it was goin’ to fester you! Here’s how it is, then,” and he drew a long breath to give him courage—“here’s how it is—I want your ‘buoy.’”
“My what?”
“Your buoy; your son!”
“You want my son,” said Luttrell, drawing himself up, and looking with an air of haughty insolence. “Have you forgotten, Sir, which side of the Atlantic you are standing on, and that you are no longer in a land where men deal in their fellow-men? Or is it that, presuming on what poverty you have seen here, you dare to insult me with a proposal your own mean whites would have resented with a bowie-knife?”
“You’d ha’ been a rare chap on a stump, Britisher, that’s a fact!” said the Yankee, coolly. “Your words come rushin’ out like water out of a pump; but they don’t squash me, for all that. Hairy Dodge—Dan Webster always called me Hairy, the short for Herodotus—Hairy Dodge is a hard grit, and it’s not every millstone can grind him.”
“Will you do me the favour, Sir, to accept the very humble hospitality I can offer,” said Luttrell, proudly, “and let there be no more question of any business between us? I think I heard mention of a sick friend who accompanied you.”
“He ain’t a friend of mine. It was a critter I met at the inn, and who wanted to come over here to see you, and so we agreed we’d take the lugger between us.”
“He is ill, I am told.”
“Jist fright—nothing but fright! The first sea that took the boat on the quarter, he cried out ‘Lord a mercy on us!’ ‘Oh, are ye there?’ says I; ‘are ye a prayin’ for that sort o’ thing?’ and, surely, he did go at it, till he grew too sick for anything but groans. There was no use reasonin’ with him, for all he said was, ‘Put me ashore where you like, and I’ll give you five hundred pounds.’ He got up to a thousand; and once, when the peak halyards gave way, and the sail came clattering down, he raised the bid to half his whole fortune.”
“So that there is no actual malady in the case?”
“Nothin’ o’ the kind. It’s jist fright—mere fright! How you’re ever to get him off this to the mainland again, is clean beyond me. He’ll not go, that’s certain, if he can help it.”
“I must look to him, and see that, so far as our very poor accommodation serves, he wants nothing. You’ll excuse me, I trust, Sir.”
Luttrell spoke in a cold and formal tone, hoping, that his visitor, seeing no prospect of any transaction between them, would now take his leave. Mr. Dodge, however, either did not deem the battle lost, or he saw no reason to retire from the field, for he disposed himself once more in the old chair, and taking out a cigar about as long as a modern parasol, prepared to smoke.
“You haven’t any objection to this sort o’ thing?” he asked, coolly, as he lit it.
“None whatever. I’d say, Make yourself at home, Sir, if it were not that this humble house of mine is so little like a home.”
“It will look jollier in the evening, when there’s a good fire on the hearth, and a strong brew of that pleasant spirit smokin’ afore us;” and Mr. Dodge vouchsafed a strange sort of grin, which was the nearest approach he could make to a laugh, and Luttrell, stung by the notion that another was assuming to do the honours ofhishouse, and to himself too, retired hastily without speaking.
To reach the “store-room” where Mr. M’Kinlay lay—for of course it is needless to inform our readers he was the much-terrified voyager alluded to—Luttrell was obliged to pass through the kitchen, and in so doing, beheld a scene which had never before presented itself to his eyes in that spot. Molly Ryan, feeling all the importance of the occasion, and well knowing that her master would never remember to give her any orders on the subject, had issued a general requisition for supplies all over the island, which was so quickly, and well responded to, that the place looked less like a room in a dwelling-house than a great mart for all sorts of provisions.
Great baskets of fish stood on every side—fish of the strangest and most uncouth forms, many of them, and with names as uncouth. There were varieties of ugliness among them to gratify the most ‘exacting naturalist, flat-headed, many-toothed, monsters, with bony projections all over them, and dorsal fins like hand-saws. Even the cognate creatures wore an especial wildness in that wild spot, and lobsters looked fiercer, and crabs more crabbed, while oysters, least aggressive of all floating things, had a ragged and rocky exterior that seemed to defy all attempt at penetration. Besides, there were hampers of eggs, and “creels” of potatoes, and such other garden produce as the simple cultivation permitted. While, meekly in one corner, and awaiting his fate with that air of conscious martyrdom which distinguishes the race, stood a very lean sheep, fastened by a hay-rope to the leg of a dresser.
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But the object which more than others attracted Luttrell’s attention, was a pale, sallow-faced man, who sat next the fire on a low seat, all propped up by pillows, and his legs enveloped in a blanket; his wan and singular appearance being considerably heightened by the feathers of a goose having lighted on him, giving him half the look of some enormous fowl in the act of being plucked. This addition to his picturesqueness was contributed by Harry, who, engaged in plucking a goose at the opposite side of the fire, sent all the down and feathers in that direction. Harry himself, without shoes or stockings, indeed with nothing but a flannel shirt and trousers, was entertaining the stranger? and giving him, so far as he could, an insight into the life and habits of the islanders.
It is perhaps fortunate for me that it is not part of my task to record the contributions to history which Harry Luttrell afforded the stranger; they were not, possibly, divested of a little aid from that fancy which narrators are sometimes led to indulge in, and certainly Mr. M’Kinlay felt on hearing them, that terrible as were the perils of the voyage, the dangers that beset his place of refuge seemed infinitely more terrible. A few traditionary maxims were all that they knew of law, of religion they knew still less; in a word, the stranger learned that he was in the midst of a people who cared no more for British rule than they did for the sway of the Grand Llama; and in a place where, if it were very difficult to live, few things were so easy as to get rid of life.
So intensely interested was M’Kinlay in the boy’s narrative, that he never noticed Luttrell, who entered the kitchen, and made his way towards him. Luttrell himself was so preoccupied with one thought, that he hardly acknowledged the salutations of the people who made way for him to pass. The thought that engaged him was this: that the man before him was the bearer of a writ against him. That the law, which in his fastness he had so long defied or evaded, had at last tracked him home, and though he knew that, were this to be the case, nothing could be easier for him than to conceal himself in the island—there were spots there, where, had it been safe to have followed, no search could have discovered him—yet, in the passionate boldness which prompted him always to meet the coming peril half way, he now sought out this man, whatever might be his mission, to confront him.
Who can tell, besides, what an insolent pride he felt in being able to say to the emissary of the law, “Go back to those who sent you, and tell them that you saw and spoke to Luttrell of Arran, but that you did not dare to lay a hand upon him, nor utter the stupid formula of your craft, because one single word from him would have settled your doom for ever; that he did not avoid nor evade you; that he received you courteously, and, so far as he could, hospitably; but, with the proud consciousness thathewas more the master ofyourfate than were you ofhis, and that the wisest thing you could do was to forget the errand you came upon, and go back as you came.” With some such thoughts as these Luttrell now came forward and stood before the stranger, and for some seconds each looked in silence at the other.
“Are you Mr. Luttrell of Arran?” asked M’Kinlay, in a low feeble tone.
“I am accustomed to believe, Sir, that a stranger usually announces his own name and quality first, when presenting himself in the house of another,” said Luttrell, slowly and gravely.
“I ask pardon; my name is Robert M’Kinlay, Sir, of Purniyal’s Inn, and 28, Regents-terrace, London, conveyancer.”
“And I am John Hamilton Luttrell of Arran. Now that we know each other, are there any matters we can treat of, or is this meeting to have merely the character of a pleasant ‘rencontre?’”
“It was business brought me here, Mr. Luttrell!” said M’Kinlay, with a groan of such intense sincerity that Luttrell almost smiled at it.
“Whenever you feel equal to treat of it, you’ll find me at your service,” said Luttrell.
“Could it be now, Mr. Luttrell—could it be now?” cried M’Kinlay, with eagerness.
“It shall be this minute, if you desire it.”
Unwrapping the blanket from around him, and disposing it not very gracefully, perhaps, over his shoulders, Mr. M’Kinlay scrambled rather than walked after Luttrell to his room.
“Ah, Sir!” cried he, as he entered, “if I had but the shadow of a suspicion of what the expedition was before me, I’d have refused flatly; ay, Sir, if I had to throw up the agency for it the day after.”
“I am truly sorry, Sir, your impressions of this place should be so unfavourable.”
Mr. M’Kinlay was too full of his disastrous experiences to listen to excuses, and he went on: “People cross the Atlantic every week and don’t suffer one-half what I did since I left Westport. I vow I think they might round the Cape with less actual danger; and when we tacked about and ran down to take up the creatures that were upset, one of our sailors—no, indeed, but two of them—declared that it was at the imminent risk of our own lives we were doing it; that if something held on, or didn’t hold on, I forget which, and that if we were to get entangled in the wreck—but I can’t describe it, only I remember that the American—the greatest savage I ever met in my life—took a pistol out of his pocket, and swore he’d shoot the man at the helm if he didn’t bear up for the wreck. He swore—I’ll never forget his awful oaths, doubly terrible at such a moment—that he saw a boy, or, as he called it, ‘a buoy,’ on a spar waving his cap to us, and he said, ‘I’ll go down to him if we upset beside him.’ Yes, Sir, it sounds incredible that a man so dead to any sentiment of humanity could exist, and who could declare that he’d imperil five lives, and his own too, just out of—what shall I call it?—a whim, a caprice, a fancy, and for what?—for some fishermen, some starving creatures whose miserable lives ought to make death a release, and a boy that possibly, until your kind cook gave him leave to sit at the kitchen fire, had no home to go to to dry himself.”
Luttrell’s face grew almost purple, and then, of a sudden, ashy pale. To suppress the passionate impulse that worked within him, made him feel sick almost to fainting, but he did suppress it, and with an immense effort of self-control said, “And the American, you say, was resolved that he’d save the boy.”
“Ah! at any cost! indeed, he had the cruelty to say to myself, ‘If the boat goes over, mind that you keep up, to windward, or to leeward, or somewhere, I don’t know where, for I was well aware that it was down I should go. ‘You can swim,’ said he, ‘I suppose?’ ‘Not a stroke,’ said I. ‘It don’t matter,’ said he, ‘you can grip on all the same.’ Yes, Sir, that was his unfeeling remark. ‘You can grip on all the same.’”
“But he declared that the boy hewouldsave!” cried Luttrell, with a scornful toss of his head at the other’s prolixity.
“That he did; I am willing to make oath of it, let the consequences be what they may to him.”
“He never toldmeof that,” said Luttrell, thoughtfully.
“I should think not, Sir; it’s not very likely that a man will parade his own inhumanity, and declare how he risked five valuable lives to save a few savage creatures, who might as well be drowned at sea as die of starvation on shore.”
“You are severe, Sir. You judge us somewhat hardly. With all our barbarism, we have our uses, and, more too, we have ties and affections pretty much like our betters.” Though there was far more sadness than sarcasm in the way Luttrell said these words, Mr. M’Kinlay winced under the reproof they conveyed, and hastily blurted out his excuses.
“You cannot suppose I could have meant to include you, Sir. You couldn’t imagine that in speaking of these poor ignorant creatures, I had the slightest intention——”
“I never suspect an insult where it is possible to believe such was not intended, Sir,” said Luttrell, haughtily. “But I don’t think that we are here now to discuss the fishermen of Arran, or their claim to be deemed civilised.”
“You are right—you are quite right, Mr. Luttrell. I ask pardon for all this digression, the more since it was entirely personal; but a man’s first shipwreck takes a wonderful hold on his imagination;” and the lawyer laughed with one of those practised laughs, which, by setting others off, frequently cut short an unpleasant discussion. Luttrell was, however, impassive in his gravity; if anything, he looked more stern than before. “I have come here,” resumed M’Kinlay, “at the request of my friend and client, Sir Gervais Vyner. This letter is my introduction to you.”
Luttrell took it, read the address, turned it round, and looked at the seal, and then laid it down upon the table. He heaved a long sigh, too, but it was a sigh of relief, for he had had sore misgivings as to M’Kinlay’s visit, and visions of law and its dire consequences in various ways had been flitting before his eyes.
“I opine that the letter will explain the object of my coming here more briefly than I could.”
“Do me the favour to tell it in words, Sir,” said Luttrell, coldly; and the other bowed and began.
Our reader may not be as patient a listener as was Luttrell, nor, indeed, need he hear Mr. M’Kinlay’s account of a mission with which he is already familiar; enough, then, if we say that he was listened to for above an hour in perfect silence, not one word of remark, not a question, not even a gesture interrupted the flow of the narrative, and although at some moments the lawyer grew pathetic over peasant hardships and privations, and at others was jocose over their drolleries, Luttrell neither vouchsafed any show of sentiment or of mirth, but heard him throughout, as might the Chancellor have heard a pleading in Equity. Vyner had cautioned M’Kinlay not to divulge the name of the girl in whose behalf Luttrell was entreated to act, until he had given some pledge of his willingness to accept the trust. He knew well the proud susceptibility of the man, and how instantaneously he would reject what savoured of an advantage to those connected with him, not to speak of the additional pain he would feel in knowing that these peasants had been paraded as his near relatives, and so Vyner had said, “Keep the name of the girl in the background, and even when asked for it, do not appear aware of her being his connexion. Leave it entirely to him to avow it or not, as he pleases. Remember,” said he, as he parted with him, “you will have to treat with not only a very acute, ready-witted man, but one of the most sensitive and easily irritated temperaments in the universe.”
In fact, so profuse had Vyner been of his directions, his counsels, and his warnings, that he frightened M’Kinlay considerably, impressing him with a very wholesome fear of the man he was to deal with. “I’ll let him pick out the facts from the brief itself,” thought he, as he handed the letter. “I’ll not open the case by a speech.” This clever tactic was, however, routed at once by Luttrell, as he said, “Let me hear the statement from yourself, Sir. I will give it all my attention.”
Thus called upon, he spoke, and, apart from those little digressionary excursions into the pathetic and the humorous, he spoke well. He owned, that though Vyner’s desire to be an Irish proprietor met a certain encouragement from himself, that he looked with little favour on the other project, and less even of hope.
Indeed, of this plan, not being a father himself, he spoke less confidently. “But, after all,” said he, smiling, “they are one and the other but a rich man’s fancy. He can afford an unprofitable investment, and a somewhat costly experiment.”
In all he said, Mr. M’Kinlay took pains to show that Sir Gervais was acting under his own judgment; that he, M’Kinlay, was a cool, calm, long-headed man of the world, and only looked on these matters as a case he “was to carry,” not criticise; a question he was to consign to parchment, and not ratify by an opinion.
Perhaps, he was a little prolix in his excuses and exculpation, dwelling somewhat needlessly on the guarded prudence he had himself maintained throughout the affair, for Luttrell at last said, and rather abruptly, “Come tomenow, Sir. Let me hear what part is assigned to me in these matters, for assuredly I cannot guess it.”
“My friend and client wishes you to be a trustee in this case; that you will act for the young girl on whom he purposes to make the settlement, and, in fact, consent to a sort of guardianship with respect to her.”
Luttrell gave a smile—it was a smile of much meaning, and full of inexpressible sadness. “What a strange choice to have made,” said he, mournfully. “When a captain loses a frigate, the Admiralty are usually slow to give him another; at all events, they don’t pass over scores of able and fortunate officers to fix upon this one unlucky fellow, to entrust him with a new ship. Now this is precisely what your friend would do. With a large and wide acquaintance, surrounded with friends, as few men are, esteemed and loved by many, he goes out of his way to seek for one whose very name carries disaster with it. If, instead of conferring a benefit upon this poor child, he owed her a deep grudge, then, and then only, I could understand his choice of me! Do you know, Sir,” and here his voice became loud and full and ringing—“do you know, Sir, it would be difficult to find a man who has accumulated more failures on his head than he who now stands before you, and these not from what we usually call fate, or bad luck, or misfortune, but simply and purely from an intractable temper, a nature that refused to be taught by its own hard experiences, and a certain stubborn spirit that ever took more pleasure in breasting the flood, than others took in swimming with the full tide of fortune. It takes very little knowledge of life to teach a man one lesson—which is, to avoid such men as me! They whose qualities ensure failure are truly ‘unlucky! Tell Sir Gervais Vyner it is not out of apathy or indolence that I refuse him, it is simply because, when he makesmethe partner of his enterprise, it ensures disaster for it.”
Mr. M’Kinlay replied to this passionate outburst as lamely as men usually do to such like appeals; that is, he strung platitudes and common-places together, which, happily for him, the other never deigned to pay the slightest attention to.
One only observation did reach Luttrell’s ears. It was a remark to which the speaker imparted little force; for when he made it, he had come to the end of his persuasive resources, and was in the position of those gunners who, when their ammunition is expended, charge the piece with the nearest rubbish they can lay hands upon. The remark was to this purpose: that, simple as the act seems, the choice of a trustee is one of the most puzzling things in the world, and nothing is often more embarrassing than being refused by one upon whom, without ever directly asking, we have confidently counted for that office.
Luttrell started; he suddenly bethought him of Harry. What would be more forlorn or friendless in the world than that poor boy’s lot, if he were left fatherless? Except Vyner, was there one he could ask to befriend him? Indeed, whenever the contingency crossed his mind, and the thought of death presented itself full before him, he at once reverted to the hope that Vyner would not refuse this his last request. If, however, by declining what was now asked of him any coldness or estrangement ensued, he could not, of course, make this demand. “I shall have forfeited all my claim upon him,” said he to himself, “if I deny him this small service, and perhaps he will not understand, and, at all events, not give any weight to the scruples I have detailed. He may say these are but the gloomy fancies of a solitary, cheerless life.”—“Yes,” said he, on the closing a discussion with himself and now speaking the result aloud—“Yes. It shall be a bargain between us. Let Vyner be the guardian of my boy, and I will accept this charge; and, to show what confidence I place in his generosity, I shall accede at once; and when you get back to England, you will tell him the compact I have made with him.”
“I do not feel myself in a position, Mr. Luttrell, to make a formal pledge on the part of Sir Gervais Vyner,” began M’Kinlay——
“I shall not ask you, Sir,” broke in Luttrell, proudly; “we have been friends some five-and-twenty years, without any assistance from lawyers, and it is possible we may continue the attachment without their aid. Tell me now of this trust, for I am ashamed to say how little attention I have given the subject hitherto.”
It was a pleasure to Mr. M’Kinlay to leave diplomacy, and get back again into those pleasant pasturages where duties are “recited,” and obligations laid down, with all the rules of action stated, and with the rigid cautions impressed, due stress being stamped at every step on separate responsibility, and reiterated warning given, how “each acted for himself, and not one for the other,” till Luttrell’s less practised brain actually whirled with the repetitions and reiterations; nor was he more comforted by learning that on certain difficulties, not at all improbable, arising, he would have to recur to the law courts for guidance—a gloomy prospect which all Mr. M’Kinlay’s fluent readiness could not dispel, as he said, “A mere matter of form, I assure you, and only requiring a short bill in Equity, and a hearing before the Master.”
“There, there, that will do,” cried he, at last; “don’t terrify me any more. A surgeon never made his operation less painful by describing every step of it beforehand to the patient; but, Sir, I accede; and now forgive me if I leave you for one moment; I have a word to say to your fellow-traveller, whom I see out yonder.”
The American was seated on a rock, smoking, and Harry beside him, when Luttrell drew nigh.
“Come here, Harry,” cried he to the boy; “I want to speak to you.”
“Oh, papa,” said the boy, as he came up, “if you only heard all the pleasant stories he has! There’s nowhere he hasn’t been. In countries where the trees are covered with fruit, and monkeys and peacocks all over them; in lands where there are mines of gold, and silver, and diamonds, all for the taking; in seas, too, where you look down and see great reefs that look like rocks, but are really precious stones. And now he was telling me of a beautiful island, far, far away, so rich in flowers and spices, that you can know for more than a hundred miles off when you are coming to it.”
“Has he asked you to go away with him, Harry?”
“No, papa.”
“But you would like to do so? Speak out, boy; tell me frankly. Do you wish it?”
“Would he take me, papa?” asked he, timidly.
“Yes.”
“And would you let me?” and he spoke with even a fainter voice, and greater anxiety in his look.
“First answer me my question, Harry. Do you wish to go?”
“Yes, papa, greatly.”
Luttrell turned away his head and drew his hand across his eyes, and for several minutes did not look round again. When he did, it was to see the boy standing calm, firm, and erect before him. Not a trace of emotion on his features, as his eyes confronted his own.
“I suppose you are right,” said Luttrell, half speaking to himself. “I suppose you are right. It is very dreary here!”
“And there are no wild beasts to hunt, nor red men to fight, nor beautiful birds to catch, papa; nor any gold——”
“No, boy! There is not any gold, assuredly. But, remember, Harry, how many there are here who never saw gold, never heard of it; brave fellows, too, who are not afraid to scale the straightest cliff, nor venture out on the stormiest sea.”
“And for what, papa? For a curlew’s nest, or a hamper of fish; and he, yonder, tells me, that one good voyage of his barque would buy out all the islands here for ever.”
“So, then, you have eaten of the apple already,” cried he, with a bitter laugh. “Well, as he has tempted, he may take you. Send him to me.”
The boy almost flew in his speed back, and gulping out a word or two, pointed to his father.
“Are you of the same mind, now, that you were an hour or two back? Do you wish to have that boy of mine on board your ship?” asked Luttrell.
“I’ll give you a thousand dollars for him down, Sir, and you shall keep the gimcracks.”
“You may take him. There must be no money-dealings between us now, Sir—I will sell you nothing. Come into the house with me; a very, few minutes will be sufficient.”
As they walked side by side towards the house, the American, with a quaint brevity, told all that Luttrell could have desired to know of him. He and his craft, theQuincey Squash, were well known at Liverpool and London, he was sole owner, and traded in everything, from “lumber” to Leghorn bonnets; he went everywhere, and ventured in everything; in fact, he liked an “assorted cargo of notions” better than a single freight. “I won’t say he’ll come back a rich man to you, Sir, in five years, but you may call me a Creole if he don’t know a bit of life. Just look here,” said he, as he opened a pocket-map and spread it over the table, “there’s ten years of my life marked out on that chart; these lines—some of ‘em pretty long ones—is my voyages.” Captain—for we must now give him his accustomed title—Captain Dodge spoke fluently, and vaingloriously, too, of all he had travelled, and all he had seen; of how he had traded for ivory on the Gold Coast, and for furs up at Hudson’s Bay; how he had panted in the tropics, and shivered at Behring’s Straits. If a little proud of his successes against Malays and Moors, it was not quite certain that he “had not done” a little mild buccaneering occasionally, when “freights were low and trade was heavy.” Not that Luttrell gathered much of what he narrated, for a strange confusion was in his brain, and as he gazed at the chart and tried to follow the lines, a dimness obscured his sight, and he had to turn away and wipe his eyes.
“Wud your honour like the dinner now?” whispered Molly Ryan from the door; “the strange gentleman that was sick is dyin’ of hunger.”
“Yes, we’re quite ready,” said Luttrell; and taking a key from a nail, he betook himself to a little closet which formed his cellar. A few bottles of port, and two or three of Burgundy—remnants of a stock which once had been famous—were all that survived, but he took them forth, saying, “I am unlikely to play the host again, let us make festival for the last time.”