With all the ardour of an Irish menial to do honour to her master’s hospitality, Molly Ryan had taken the unwonted step of laying out the dinner in the “sacristy” of the Abbey, which Luttrell had once on a time intended to have converted into a grand gallery for all his rare and curious objects, and from which he soon desisted, deterred by the cost.
It was a long, narrow, vaulted chamber, with four pointed windows in one wall, and blank niches to correspond to them in the other. If in the cold unflattering light of day it would have presented an air of cheerless gloom and destitution, not so did it look now, as a great fire of turf blazed and glowed on the ample hearth, and the light of four huge pine-torches flared red from the niches, and threw a warm and mellow glare over everything; while the board was spread with an abundance which would have been utterly wasteful, if some five-and-twenty sailors and fishermen without were not to revel at second-hand, and feed on what fell from the master’s table.
Luttrell had heard nothing—knew nothing of this arrangement, and when he was told in a whisper that the dinner was ready in the sacristy, his brow darkened, and his cheek flushed with anger. “We need not have starved them with cold as well as hunger,” muttered he, sternly, to the woman; but she knew better than to await his reproaches, and hastened away to the kitchen.
“To you who have seen where I live, gentlemen,” said he to his guests, “it will be unnecessary to apologise for how I live; I can but say how much I regret it foryoursakes, custom has made it easy to myself.” With this he led the way along a little narrow passage, and then crossing a court-yard, entered the sacristy. If M’Kinlay and the Yankee stared with amazement at the ample preparations to regale them, and the fine old hall—for such it looked—in which they were displayed, Luttrell could scarcely master his astonishment at what he saw, and nothing short of that “dignity which doth hedge” a host as well as “a king,” could have prevented him from openly expressing his surprise. Molly whispered a word in his ear, to which as hastily he said, “Certainly, of course,” and just as the guests took their seats, Harry, dressed in what remained to him of his best, came forward, and stood near the table. “Sit opposite to me, Harry; the foot of the table is the fitting place for the heir of the house, is it not, Mr. M’Kinlay?”
“And is this your son, Sir; is this young gentleman the—the——”
“The boy you picked up at sea,” resumed Luttrell, courteously, “and who will be proud to renew his acquaintance with you more pleasantly than it opened.”
“Well, young ‘um, you have got a jollier colour on your cheeks now than when we saw you bobbing behind that bit of broken jib-boom! You was blue, that’s a fact, but I’m a raw Eastern if you was bluer than the lawyer!”
Poor Mr. M’Kinlay! scarcely had one shame overcome him when came the terror of another; for now, for the first time, did he recognise in the Yankee the terrible tourist of the Welsh mountains. A vague something wonld cross him as he lay in the lugger, sea-sick and miserable, that the horrid voice, and the horrid look, and the horrid gesture of his fellow-traveller, were not encountered for the first time; but he was too full of his own sorrows to waste a thought on such speculations, and it was only now, as they sat at the same board, eating of the same dish, and hob-nobbing together, that the measure of his conviction became full. “He doesn’t know—he cannot know me!” muttered he, “and I have only one blunder to atone for, but who could have thought it was his son!” He turned to engage Harry in conversation, to inquire into his habits, his tastes, and his amusements, but the boy, fascinated by the Yankee’s discourse, could not bear to lose a word of it. Dodge—“Gen’ral” he called himself, as he spoke of those days—Gen’ral Dodge had served in many of the wars of the South American Republic; he had been with Bolivar, and against him; he had made and lost his fortune three successive times, had taken part in a buccaneer expedition to Mexico, was imprisoned and condemned to death, and saved by an earthquake that left the gaol and one quarter of Santa Fé in ruins. As to his shipwrecks and adventures with pirates, his hunting exploits, his raids either with Indians or against them, they were legion; and certainly, to these narratives he imparted a “gusto” and an expression which gave them a marvellous power, occasionally corroborated as they were by material evidence, as when he showed where he had lost the thumb and two fingers of his left hand, the terrible cicatrix in the back of his head from an Indian’s attempt to scalp him, and the mark of a bullet which had traversed his body from the neck to the opposite collar-bone. There was no disbelieving a man whose every joint and limb could come into court as his witnesses, not to say that he was one of those men whom few love to contradict. If he were, at some times, rather boastful on the score of his courage and daring, he was, at others, equally frank as to his short-comings in honesty, and he told with an astonishing frankness of some acts which, had they not been committed in unsettled and semi-civilised lands, would worthily have been requited by the galleys.
“Well, Old Ramskin!” said he, addressing M’Kinlay; for while he talked he drank freely, and was already in his third bottle of Burgundy, warmed up with occasional “flashes” of brandy—“well, Old Ramskin, I guess you’d rather be perched on a tall stool in your counting-house than up on a rock, watching for an Indian scout party; but, mark me, it’s all prejudice, and for my part I’d rather put a ball in a red-skin than I’d torture a white man with law and parchments.” He here diversified his personal recollections by some anecdotes of lawyers, and of the esteem in which their fellow-citizens hold them “Far West,” the whole winding up with a declaration that such creatures “warn’t in natur,” and only grew out of a rank, rotten, and stagnant condition of society, which, when only stirred by any healthy breeze of public opinion, either “left ‘em or Lynched ‘em.” He turned round for the approval of his host to this sentiment, and now saw, for the first time, that he had quitted the table.
“If you had not been so energetic in your censures of my profession, Sir;” said M’Kinlay, “you might have heard Mr. Luttrell asking us to excuse his absence for a few minutes while he spoke to his son.”
Perhaps the American felt this rebuke as a sharp one, for he sat in silence for some minutes, when he said, “Am I to have the pleasure of your company to-night when I weigh anchor?”
“Yes; I intend to leave when you do.”
“Your business is done, then?”
“It is.”
“And mine, too,” said the American; and each looked at the other, to see who first would divulge his secret.
“I have made arrangements for the guardianship of his son, whom, by the way, I never suspected to be the boy we picked up at sea,” said M’Kinlay, thus endeavouring, by a half-confidence, to obtain the whole of the American’s.
“He’ll not want such guardianship, I promise you, when he lives a few years with me.”
“With you! What do you mean?”
“Just what I say, stranger; that he’s coming aboard theSquash, bound now for the Isthmus; and, I repeat it, five years with Hairy Dodge will turn him out a long sight cuter than if he passed his ‘prenticeship even with yourself.”
“It is a strange notion of Mr. Luttrel’s—a very strange notion.”
The American raised himself up in his seat, and looked as if he were about to resent the speech, but he repressed the temptation, and merely said, “We’re going to have lighter weather than we came over in, and a fine bright night besides.”
“I hope so, with all my heart,” said the other; and now each sat and sipped his wine in silence.
Leaving them thus, let us turn one moment to Luttrell, as he stood at the window of his room, with his boy beside him. There was neither lamp nor candle, but a strong moonlight streamed into the chamber, and their shadows were distinctly marked upon the floor.
“Why is Molly crying so bitterly, papa? Sure I’m not going away for ever!” said Harry.
“I hope not—I think not; but when people part some are always faint-hearted about the chances of meeting again.”
“But you are not, papa?”
Luttrell did not answer for a few seconds. “Are you quite sure, Harry, that this life is what you like? I mean,” said he, correcting himself quickly—“I mean, would you not rather live here till you were a man, and make Arran your home, as it is mine now?”
“No, papa. I’d like to see the countries that the Captain told of, and see some of the things he did, and then come back very rich, and build a fine castle here, and a great pier out in the sea, and have the finest cutter that ever sailed.”
“But, before all this can come to pass, bethink you what a hard life is before you—what days of storm and nights of weariness. You may be hardly used, and have none to pity you—be ill, and not have one to speak kindly to you. Are you ready for all this, Harry?”
“I suppose I must bear it if I want to be a man;” and he drew himself up proudly as he spoke.
“You’ll have to remember, too, Sir, that you are a gentleman,” said Luttrell, almost sternly; “that there are scores of mean and shabby things the fellows around may-do, a Luttrell must not stoop to. Keep your word when you once pledge it; insult no man willingly; fight him who insults you; and never, if it be your fortune to command others, never say ‘Go,’ in a moment of danger, but ‘Come.’”
“I’ll not forget that,” said the boy, seriously.
“Keep this purse, Harry. It was one your mother knitted, many years ago. The few guineas that are in it spend when and how you like; only remember that when gone they cannot easily be replaced by me. And now give me a kiss, for they must see us part easily.”
The boy sprang into his arms, and held him fast in his embrace, while he kissed him over and over; and Luttrell parted the hair upon his forehead, kissing him tenderly there, as he muttered a few words beneath his breath.
“There, go back to them, Harry, and tell them I will join them presently.”
As Harry left the room, Luttrell lighted his lamp, and sat down at his table to write. It was to Vyner he addressed himself, and intended to be as brief as might be—very little, indeed, more than the intimation that he had accepted the trust proposed to him, and begged in turn Vyner would do as much by him, and consent to be the guardian of his boy, should he be left fatherless.
“I ask this with all the more confidence,” wrote he, “that your kind interest in poor Harry is so fresh in my mind, and all your generous offers to befriend him are the only cheering thoughts that occur to me in this, one of the gloomiest moments of my life.
“An American trading captain, led hither by an accident, has captivated the boy’s imagination by stories of travel and adventure, and I have consented to let Harry go with him. To remain here and live as I have done was open to him; he could have succeeded me in this wild spot without the bitterness of feeling the fall that led to it; but, in the restless spirit of our race, he might some day or other have emerged, and I dreaded to imagine what a semi-savage Luttrell would be; strong of limb, vigorous, daring, and ignorant, with pride of blood and poverty to stimulate him. What is there he might not have done in a fancied retribution against a world that had crushed his race and ruined his family—for such were the lessons he has been learning from his cradle. the only teachings he has ever had!
“The hardships of life at sea will be better training than these. The boy is very like me. I would sorrow over it, Vyner, if I did not count on that resemblance for your love to him. In one respect, however, we are not like. Harrycanforgive an injury. Who knows, however, what he might become were he to grow up in daily contact with me; for I dreaded to mark how each year seemed to develop the Luttrell more and more in his nature. Now, pride of birth with prosperity may lead to intolerance and oppression, but leash it with poverty and it will conduce to violence, perhaps to crime.
“Before the mast he will see things differently. Night-watches and hard junk are stern teachers. To rescue him from my influence, to save him from me, I send him away, and leave myself childless. I can scarcely expect that you will be able to follow me in these reasonings. How could you, happy as you are in every accident of your life, blessed in everything that gives value to existence? I feel I shall never see him again; but I feel, too, just as confidently, that at some day or other—distant it may be—you and he will meet and talk of me, speaking in love and affection, forgiving much, pitying all.
“Say nothing of this guardianship to your wife, lest it should lead her to speak of me; or, at all events, wait till I am gone. Talk of me then they may, for there is no voice so eloquent to defend as the wind that sighs through the long grass over our graves!
“I have made a will, not very formally, perhaps, but there is none likely to contest it. What a grand immunity there is in beggary! and Cane and Co. will, I apprehend, if called upon, vouch for me in that character. There are several lawsuits which have dragged on their slow course for two generations of us. I believe I myself continued the contests rather as obligations of honour than aught else. Harry was not trained with such principles, however, and I shall leave to your discretion whether our claims be abandoned or maintained.
“Last, but far from least of all, the family to which Harry’s mother belonged contains many very bold, restless, and I might say dangerous, men. One of the reasons of my retirement to this lonely spot was the security I possessed in the midst of my own wild islanders against demands not always urged with moderation. They are not likely to forget the near relationship to my boy, if they can make it a source of profit; or, failing that, to convert it to a matter of menace. On every account, therefore, I entreat that he may not come back here, or, if so, but passingly.
“I hope he will never sell these islands; they would be a sorry commodity in the market, and they are the oldest possessions of our name in this kingdom. When Henry the Second sent John de Luttrell as Envoy to Rome but where am I straying to? The shouts that ring without tell me that all is ready for their departure, and in a few moments more I shall be alone in the world. Think of me sometimes, dear friend, even if the thought come in your happy hours to dash its joys with sadness; but do not speak of, last of all, do not write to,
“Yours, while he lives,
“John Hamilton Luttrell.
“I am half ashamed to add one other request; but if my cheeks grow red as I write, my heart will be the calmer when it is written. Be a friend to my boy in all ways that your kindness, your sympathy, your counsel can dictate. Guide, direct, encourage, or, if need be, reprove him; but never, whatever you do, aid him with your purse. It is on this condition alone I commit him to you. Remember!”
“They are growing impatient, papa,” said the boy, entering the room half timidly. “It is nigh flood, and we shall want all the ebb to take us round the Caskets.”
“And areyouso impatient to be off, Harry?” said he, in a low soft voice; “do you wish to leave me, Harry?”
“Not if you would have me stay, papa; but I thought, I used to think at least—that——”
“That we made but little companionship together, you would say,” said Luttrell, mildly; “that we lived too much apart. Well, it is true,” said he, with a deep sigh, “quite true.” He paused for a moment, and then, with a sort of effort, and in a changed voice, continued: “If I should be no more here when you come back, Harry, do not let this old place fall to ruin. It has sheltered me during many a year of sorrow, and sorrow has a very attaching quality!”
“Papa, I will not go. I will not leave you!” said the boy, falling on his neck, and kissing him over and over.
187
“You must be manly, Sir,” said Luttrell, rising and disengaging himself from the boy’s embrace. “When men promise, they are bound to keep their word.”
The tone, the look, the gesture, fully as much as the stern words themselves, recalled Harry to himself, and he drew his hand roughly across his eyes, and stepping back, stationed himself, as he was wont, to hear his father’s commands.
“I have written to Sir Gervais Vyner the letter you see here, asking him to be your guardian in case I should die before your return. I have reason to hope he will not refuse me. If he accept, you will obey him in all things. You would obey me, at all events. Whenever you return to England, seek him out, and learn to know him as the last friend I had left me.”
“I will, Sir.”
The calm and resolute tone of the boy seemed for an instant almost to overcome the father, who stood and stared steadfastly at him.
“I have told Sir Gervais,” he continued, “that he will find you honourable, truthful, and brave; see that my words be borne out. And I have besought him to give you all that his friendship can bestow; but on no account—mind this, boy—on no account assist you with money. You hear me, Harry?”
“I do, Sir. I will not forget your words.”
“If you should have any immediate call for money, I have told your Captain I will repay him for what he will advance you; be thrifty, for I have but little to live on, as you will discover one of these days when it is all your own.”
“My dear Sir,” broke in Mr. M’Kinlay, as he bustled into the room, all coated and muffled for the journey. “Will you pardon me if I say we shall lose the tide if we delay. This young gentleman’s luggage is all onboard, and if there be no very urgent reason for deferring our departure, I should take it as a favour to say good-by.”
“There is nothing unreasonable in your haste, Sir,” said Luttrell, with a faint smile. “This is a place where few would care to dally. I have been saying a few words to my son, before he leaves me. This is the cause of your delay.”
“My dear Sir, I offer a thousand apologies, and beg to retire at once.”
“They are all said, Sir. Harry and I have nothing more of any consequence to talk over. If Sir Gervais had not been here himself, Mr. M’Kinlay, I’d have asked you to paint us somewhat less savage than we are. Oh, here comes the Captain.”
“I say, youngster,” cried Dodge, entering, “if you ain’t bent on kissin’ the ugliest population I ever saw since I left the Feejees, just step out by the back of the house, and make the best of your way down to the shore. Good day, Sir. You shall have news of us. Let me see; it will be a matter of six months, or so. But I’ll have a sharp look out after the ‘buoy,’ and he’ll do well, you’ll see. Don’t you be surprised if you see him a comin’ in some fine morning with a green monkey or a far-caped baboon. Cheer up, Sir! Don’t let the buoy see you down-hearted,” whispered he. “Come along, Harry! Be lively, my lad; out of that window, and let me find you aboard when I get down.”
“Be kind to him!” muttered Luttrell, as he drew his hand hastily across his eyes.
“Lord love ye! I’m the kindest critter that ever breathed. The whole time I was with the Choctaws, I never scalped an enemy. I couldn’t bear it; and whenever I cut a fellow’s head off, I turned him right round, so that I shouldn’t see his face. Soft-hearted, warn’t it? But that’s my natur’. There, I hear them heaving short; so good-by, for the last time.”
“Harry, Harry——one word——”
“He’s gone, poor fellow; don’t break down his courage. Good-by. Don’t call him back.”
“Be it so,” said Luttrell, as he sunk down into his chair, and covered his face with his hands. For a while all was still; then suddenly a wild cheer, a cry, in which the wail of sorrow was blended with the swell of the deep voices crying out; and Luttrell arose, and flung open his window. The lugger was under weigh. The dark shadow of her full canvas moved slowly along, growing fainter and fainter, at least to eyes that were now dimmed with tears; and when he turned away to wipe them, she was gone.
To welcome Sir Gervais Vyner home, the ladies had invited Sir Within Wardle to dinner—one of those privileged little family meetings, to be of which one must be an honoured guest—and so, indeed, did the old Baronet with his fine tact understand it; for he was very skilful in comprehending all those situations which make the so-to-say diplomacy of daily life.
He knew that he was admitted to that very pleasant brevet rank, the friend of the family, before whom everything can be said and talked over; and he showed by innumerable little traits how he valued his promotion, and, with a subtlety all his own, talked of himself and his own affairs with an easy confidence that seemed to say, “Here we are, all in secret committee; we may speak as freely as we like.”
The dinner was a very pleasant one. Vyner gave an amusing account of his Irish experiences, spoke of everything and every one but Luttrell, for his was a name that was never mentioned amongst them. Indeed, in the wrong the Courtenays had done him, was the seal that closed their lips; for, while we can talk, and talk fluently, of those who have injured us, of such as we have ourselves injured, we are dumb.
Sir Within saw, with the old craft of his trade, that there was a reserve; he smelt it like a secret treaty, but it did not touch him, and he was indifferent about it. He joined with the ladies warmly in their depreciation of Ireland as a residence, and laughingly concurred in their insistance that they were never to be asked to go there.
As to the project of adopting the little peasant-girl, they made it the subject of much pleasant banter; for, of course, Vyner was totally unable to reply to one-tenth of the questions which the matter suggested.
“We will suppose she is very pretty: and, what is still harder to believe, we will suppose that she’ll grow up prettier, what is to come of it; what do you intend her to be?” said Georgina.
“Yes,” said Sir Within, “let us look a little to what Italians calle poi?”
“When well brought up, and well educated, she might surely be a governess,” said Lady Vyner, coming to her husband’s rescue.
“And was it worth while to withdraw her from the drudgery she knew, to enter upon a slavery that she never heard of?” asked Georgina.
“To tell truth,” said Vyner, “I must confess I was thinking more of the benefit to Ada, the advantage she would have in a joyous, high-spirited creature of her own age, that might make her hours of Lessons more full of emulation, and her play hours pleasanter.”
Sir Within bowed a courteous assent to a speech principally addressed to himself.
“And,” continued Sir Gervais, bolder for this encouragement, “and, as to forecasting what is to happen to any of us, even if we be alive, some ten or twelve years hence, I really own I don’t think it is called. for.”
“I’m not sure of that,” said Sir Within. “I have made up my mind to live about five-and-thirty years more, and even speculated on the how I am to live it.”
“Do let us hear your plan,” said Georgina, with a slight flush of eagerness in her face.
“I have two,” said he; “and as there is not a little to be said for each, I hesitate between them.”
“We cannot pretend to be of any use in counselling you, unfortunately,” said Lady Vyner; “but if there be anything which what you slightingly call ‘woman’s wit’ can add to your own reasonings, we offer it freely.”
“I am deeply, infinitely gratified; your kindness is most acceptable. My first plan is one with whose details I am but too conversant. It is to live an old bachelor!”
The ladies looked at each other, and then looked down. They did not very well see what was to be said, and they said nothing, though, by his silence, he seemed to expect a remark.
“Well,” said Vyner, trying to break the awkward pause, “you at least know its resources, and what such a mode of life can offer.”
“A good deal,” resumed Sir Within. “A well-cultivated selfishness has very great resources, if one has only sufficient means to indulge them. You can, what is called, live well, consult the climate that suits you, frequent the society you like, know the people that you care to know, buy the picture, the horse, the statue that takes your fancy. You can do anything, and be anything but one.” “And what is that?”
“Be happy—that is denied you! I am not, of course, speculating on any supreme bliss. I leave all these divine notions to novelists and play-writers; but I speak of that moderate share of daily contentment which we in our mundane humility call happiness; this you cannot have.”
“But, if I mistake not, you have given all the ingredients of it in your late description,” said Georgina.
“And the Chinese cook got all the ingredients to make a plum-pudding, but he forgot to tie the bag that held them; so is it the old bachelor’s life has no completeness; it wants what the French call ‘l’ensemble.’”
“Then why not tie the bag, Sir Within?” asked Lady Vyner, laughing.
The old diplomatist’s eyes sparkled with a wicked drollery, and his mouth curved into a half-malicious smile, when Sir Gervais quietly said, “She means, why not marry?”
“Ah, marry!” exclaimed he, throwing up his eyebrows with an air that said, “here is a totally new field before us!” and then, as quickly recovering, he said, “Yes, certainly. There is marriage! But, somehow, I always think on this subject of a remark Charles de Rochefoucauld once made me. He said he was laid up once with an attack of gout in a château near Nancy, without a single friend or acquaintance, and, to beguile the weary hours, he used to play chess with himself, so that at last he fancied he was very fond of the game. When he came up to Paris afterwards, he engaged a person to come every day and play with him; but to his horror he discovered that he could no longer win when he pleased, and he gave up the pursuit and never resumed it. This is, perhaps, one of the discoveries men like myself make when they marry.”
“Not if they marry wisely, Sir Within,” said Lady Vyner.
“I declare,” broke in Georgina, hastily, “I think Sir Within is right. Telling a person to marry wisely, is saying, ‘Go and win that thirty thousand pounds in the lottery.’”
“At all events,” said Vyner, “you’ll never do it, if you don’t take a ticket.”
“But to do that,” said Lady Vyner, laughingly, “one ought to dream of a lucky number, or consult a sorceress at least.”
“Ah! if you would but be the sorceress, Lady Vyner,” exclaimed he, with a mingled seriousness and drollery.
“And tell you, I suppose, when you ought to venture?”
“Just so.”
“Am I so certain that you’d respect my divination—a prophet can’t afford to be slighted.”
“I promise,” said he; and rising from his seat, he extended his right. hand in imitation of a famous incident of the period, and exclaimed, “Je jure!”
“It is then agreed,” said she, quietly, but with a slight show of humour. “If it should be ever revealed to me—intimated to my inner consciousness is the phrase, I believe—that a particular person was Heaven-sent for your especial happiness, I’ll immediately go and tell you.”
“And I’ll marry her.”
“Her consent is, of course, not in question whatever,” said Georgina; “but I think so gallant a person as Sir Within might have mentioned it.”
“So I should, if Lady Vyner hadn’t said she was Heaven-sent. When the whole thing became destiny, it was only obedience was called for.”
“You’re a lucky fellow,” cried Vyner, “if you’re not married off before Easter. There’s nothing so dangerous as giving a commission of this kind to a woman.”
“Sir Within knows he can trust me; he knows that I feel all the responsibility of my charge. It is very possible that I may be too exacting—too difficult——”
“I pray you do so,” cried he, with much eagerness.
“Do you see how he wants to get off?” said Vyner; “like certain capricious ladies, he’d like to see all the wares in the shop, and buy nothing.”
“I fancy it’s pretty much what he has done already,” said Georgina, in a half whisper; but the butler put an end to the discussion by announcing that Mr. M’Kinlay had just arrived.
“Shall we go into the drawing-room?” said Georgina to her sister.
“If you like; but he’ll certainly come in to tea,” was the answer.
“Well, it is at least a reprieve,” said she, with a dreary sigh; and they retired.
As they left by one door, Mr. M’Kinlay entered the room by the other. After a cordial greeting, Sir Gervais presented him to Sir Within, and began to question him about his journey.
“Well, Sir Gervais,” said he, after a long-drawn breath, “it is no exaggeration if I say, that I have not another client in the world for whom I would undergo the same fatigues, not to say dangers.”
“My friend Mr. M’Kinlay has been on an excursion of some peril, and much hardship,” said Sir Vyner to Sir Within.
“Ah! In Canada, I presume.”
“No, Sir,” resumed M’Kinlay, “far worse—infinitely worse than Canada.”
“You speak of Newfoundland, perhaps?”
“Excuse me, Sir, I mean Ireland, and not merely Ireland itself—though I believe a glutton in barbarism might satiate himself there—but, worse again, Sir—I have been over to visit some islands, wretched rocks without vegetation—well would it be, could I say without inhabitants—off the west coast, and in, actually in the wild Atlantic Ocean!”
“The Arran Islands,” interposed Vyner, who saw that Sir Within was doubtful of the geography.
“Yes, Sir; had they called them the Barren Islands there would have been some fitness in the designation.” Mr. M’Kinlay appeared the better of his very email drollery, and drank off a bumper of claret, which also seemed to do him good.
“And was the estate you wished to purchase in these wild regions?” asked Sir Within.
“No; my friend’s mission to Arran was only remotely connected with the purchase. In fact, he went in search of an old friend of mine, whose assistance I needed, and whose caprice it was to retire to that desolate spot, and leave a world in which he might have made a very conspicuous figure. I am not art liberty to tell his name, though, perhaps, you might never have heard it before. M’Kinlay will, however, give us an account of his reception, and all that he saw there.”
“My troubles began,” said Mr. M’Kinlay, “almost immediately after we parted. You remember that on our last evening, at Westport it was, that the waiter informed me a gentleman then in the house had engaged a lugger to take him over to Innishmore, the very island I wanted to reach. I commissioned the man to arrange if he could with the gentleman to accept me as a fellow-traveller. It was settled accordingly, that we were to sail with the ebb tide at eight o’clock the next morning. My first shock, on reaching the pier, was to see what they called the lugger. She was a half-decked tub! I say tub, for her whole length was certainly not double her breadth. She was tarred all over, her sails were patched, her ropes knotted, and for ballast, she had some blocks of granite in a bed of shingle which shifted even as she lay surging in the harbour. They—the sailors, I mean—answered my few questions so rudely, and with so much ferocity of look and demeanour, that I was actually afraid to refuse going on board, lest they should take it as offence, though I would willingly have given five guineas to be excused the expedition, and wait for a more responsible-looking craft. My fellow-traveller, too, a very rough-looking, and evidently seafaring man, settled the point, as seeing my hesitation, he said, ‘Well, Sir, ain’t the boat good enough for you? Why don’t you step aboard? The faces of the bystanders quickly decided me, and I went down the plank praying for my safety, and cursing the day I ever saw Ireland.”
Our reader would possibly not thank us to follow Mr. M’Kinlay in his narrative, which, indeed, only contained sorrows common to many besides himself—the terrors of being shipwrecked added to the miseries of sea-sickness. He told how, through all his agonies, he overheard the discussions that overwhelmed him with terror, whether they could “carry” this, or “take in that;” if such a thing would “hold,” or such another “give way;” and lastly, whether it were better to bear away for Cork or Bantry, or stand out to open sea, and—Heaven knows where! “Terrors that will keep me,” cried he, “in nightmares for the rest of my life!”
“At last—it was all that was wanting to fill the measure of my fears—I heard a sailor say, ‘There! she’s over at last!’ Who’s over?’ cried I.
“‘The fishing-boat that was down to leeward, Sir,’ answered he. ‘They’re au lost.’
“‘Lucky for them,’ said I to myself, ‘if it’s over so soon. This prolonged agony is a thousand deaths.’ ‘They’re on the spars; I see them!’ cried my fellow-traveller; ‘slack off.’ I forget what he said, but it was to slack off something, and run down for them. This atrocious proposal rallied me back to strength again, and I opposed it with an energy, indeed with a virulence, that actually astonished myself. I asked by what right he took the command of the lugger, and why he presumed to peril my life—valuable to a number of people—for God knows what or whom. I vowed the most terrific consequences when we come on shore again, and declared I would have him indicted for a constructive manslaughter, if not worse. I grew bolder as I saw that the sailors, fully alive to our danger, were disposed to take part with me against him, when the fellow—one of the greatest desperadoes I ever met, and, as I afterwards found out, a Yankee pirate and slaver—drew a pistol from his breast and presented it at the helmsman, saying, ‘Down your helm, or I’ll shoot you!’ and as the man obeyed, he turned to me and said, ‘If I hear another word out of your mouth, I’ll put an ounce ball in you, as sure as my name is’—— I think he said ‘Hairy.’ I believe I fainted; at least, I only was aware of what was going on around me as I saw them dragging on board a half-drowned boy, with a flag in his hand, who turned out to be the son of Mr. Lut——”
“There, there, M’Kinlay,” burst in Vyner, “all this agitates you far too much—don’t go on, I’ll not permit you. To-morrow, after a good sleep, and a hearty breakfast, I’ll make you finish your story; but positively I’ll not listen to another word, now.” The hastily thrown glance of displeasure showed the lawyer that this was a command, and he hung his head and muttered out an awkward concurrence. “Won’t you take more wine, Sir Within?”
“No more, thank you. Your capital Bordeaux has made me already exceed my usual quantity.”
“Let us ask the ladies, then, for a cup of tea,” said Vyner, as he opened the door; and, as M’Kinlay passed out, he whispered, “I just caught you in time!”
The ladies received Mr. M’Kinlay with that sort of cool politeness which is cruel enough when extended to the person one sees every day, but has a touch of sarcasm in it when accorded to him who has just come off a long journey.
Now, in the larger gatherings of the world, social preferences are scarcely felt, but they can be very painful things in the small, close circle of a family party.
“You have been to Ireland, Mr. M’Kinlay—I hope you were pleased with your tour? Won’t you have some tea?” said Lady Vyner, with the same amount of interest in each question.
“Mr. M’Kinlay must have proved a most amusing guest,” said Georgina, in a low voice, to Sir Within, “or we should have seen you in the drawing-room somewhat earlier.”
“I felt it an age,” said he, with a little bow and a smile, intended to be of intense captivation.
“But still you remained,” said she, with a sort of pique.
“Ma foi!What was to be done? The excellent man got into a story of his adventures, a narrative of a shipwreck which had not—as I was cruel enough to regret—befallen him, and which, I verily believe, might have lasted all night, if, by some lucky chance, he had not approached so near a topic of some delicacy, or reserve, that your brother-in-law closed ‘the séance,’ and stopped him; and to this accident I owe my freedom.”
“I wonder what it could have been!”
“I cannot give you the faintest clue to it. Indeed, I can’t fashion to my imagination what are called family secrets—very possibly because I never had a family.”
Though Georgina maintained the conversation for some time longer, keeping up that little game of meaningless remark and reply which suffices for tea-table talk, her whole mind was bent upon what could possibly be the mystery he alluded to. Taking the opportunity of a moment when Sir Within was addressing a remark to Lady Vyner, she moved half carelessly away towards the fireplace, where Mr. M’Kinlay sipped his tea in solitude, Sir Gervais being deep in the columns of an evening paper.
“I suppose you are very tired, Mr. M’Kinlay?” said she; and simple as were the words, they were uttered with one of those charming smiles, that sweet captivation of look and intonation, which are the spells by which fine ladies work their miracles on lesser mortals; and, as she spoke, she seated herself on a sofa, gracefully drawing aside the folds of her ample dress, to convey the intimation that there was still place for another.
While Mr. M’Kinlay looked rather longingly at the vacant place, wondering whether he might dare to take it, a second gesture, making the seat beside her still more conspicuous, encouraged him, and he sat down, pretty much with the mixed elation and astonishment he might have felt had the Lord Chancellor invited him to a place beside him on the woolsack.
“I am so sorry not to have heard your account—the most interesting account, my brother tells me—of your late journey,” began she; “and really, though the recital must bring back very acute pain, I am selfish enough to ask you to brave it.”
“I am more than repaid for all, Miss Courtenay, in the kind interest you vouchsafe to bestow on me.”
After which she smiled graciously, and seemed a little—a very little—flurried, as though the speech savoured of gallantry, and then, with a regained serenity, she went on, “You narrowly escaped shipwreck, I think?”
“So narrowly, that I believe every varying emotion that can herald in the sad catastrophe passed through me, and I felt every pang, except the last of all.”
“How dreadful! Where did it happen?”
“Off the west coast of Ireland, Miss Courtenay. Off what mariners declare to be the most perilous lee-shore in Europe, if not in the world; and in an open boat too, at least but half decked, and on a day of such storm that, except ourselves and the unlucky yawl that was lost, not another sail was to be seen.”
“And were the crew lost?”
“No; it was in saving them, as they chung to the floating spars, that we were so near perishing ourselves.”
“But youdidsave them?”
“Every one. It was a daring act; so daring that, landsman as I was, I deemed it almost foolhardy. Indeed, our crew at first resisted, and wouldn’t do it.”
“It was nobly done, be assured, Mr. M’Kinlay; these are occasions well bought at all their cost of danger. Not only is a man higher for them in his own esteem, but that to all who know him, who respect, who——” She hesitated, and, in a flurried sort of way, suddenly said, “And where did you land them?”
“We landed them on the island,” said he, with an almost triumphant air—“we brought them back to their own homes—dreary enough in all conscience; but they never knew better.”
“How is the place called?”
“Innishmore, the most northern of the Arran Islands,” said he, in a whisper, and looking uneasily over at Sir Gerrais, to see that he was not overheard.
“Is the place interesting, or picturesque, or are there any objects of interest?” said she, carelessly, and to let him recover his former composure.
“None whatever,” continued he, in the same cautious voice; “mere barbarism, and such poverty as I never witnessed before. In the house where we were received—the only thing worthy the name of a house in the place—the few articles of furniture were made of the remnants thrown on shore from shipwrecks; and we had on the dinner-table earthenware pipkins, tin cups, glasses, and wooden measures indiscriminately. While, as if to heighten the incongruity, a flagon of silver, which had once been gilt too, figured in the midst, and displayed a very strange crest—a heart rent in two, with the motto,La Zutte réelle, a heraldic version of the name.”
“Luttrell,” whispered she, still lower. “What is his christian name?”
“John Hamilton. But, my dear Miss Courtenay, where have you been leading me all this time? These are all secrets; at least, Sir Gervais enjoined me especially not to speak of where I had been, nor with whom. I am aware it was out of respect for the feelings of this unfortunate man, who, however little trace there remained of it, has once been a gentleman and a man of some fortune.”
“If you never tell my brother that you have revealed this to me, I promise you I’ll not speak of it,” said she; and, with all her effort to appear calm, her agitation nearly overcame her.
“You may depend uponme, Miss Courtenay.”
“Nor to my sister,” muttered she, still dwelling on her own thoughts.
“Certainly not. It was a great indiscretion—that is, it would have been a great indiscretion to have mentioned this to any one less—less——”
While he was searching his brain for an epithet, she arose and walked to a window, and Mr. M’Kinlay, rather shocked at his own impetuous frankness, sat thinking over all that he had said.
“Come, Sir Within,” cried Vyner, “here’s my friend M’Kinlay, a capital whist player. What say you to a rubber? and Georgina, will you join us?”
“Not to-night, Gervais. Laura will take my place.”
Lady Vyner acceded good naturedly, with many excuses for all her ignorance of the game, and while Sir Within and Vyner held a little amicable contest for her as a partner, Georgina drew again nigh to where M’Kinlay was standing.
“Did he look very old and broken? asked she, in a low but shaken voice.
“Terribly broken.”
“What age would you guess him to be?”
“Fifty-four, or five; perhaps older.”
“Absurd!” cried she, peevishly; “he’s not forty.”
“I spoke of what he seemed to be; his hair is perfectly white, he stoops considerably, and looks, in fact, the remains of a shattered, broken man, who never at any time was a strong one.”
An insolent curl moved her mouth, but she bit her lips, and with an effort said, “Did you see his wife?”
“He is a widower; except the little boy that we rescued from the wreck, he has none belonging to him.”
“Come along, M’Kinlay, we are waiting for you,” cried Sir Gervais; and the lawyer moved away, while Georgina, with a motion of her finger to her lips, to enjoin secresy, turned and left the room.