There was a small closet-like room in Layton's cottage which he had fitted up, as well as his very narrow means permitted, as a laboratory. Everything in it was, of course, of the very humblest kind; soda-water flasks were fashioned into retorts, and even blacking-jars held strange chemical mixtures. Here, however, he spent most of his time in the search of some ingredient by which he hoped to arrest the progress of all spasmodic disease. An accidental benefit he had himself derived from a certain salt of ammonia had suggested the inquiry, and for years back this had constituted the main object of all his thoughts. Determined, if his discovery were to prove a success, it should burst upon the world in all its completeness, he had never revealed to any one but his son the object of his studies. Alfred, indeed, was made participator of his hopes and ambitions; he had seen all the steps of the inquiry, and understood thoroughly the train of reasoning on which the theory was based. The young man's patience in investigation and his powers of calculation were of immense value to his father, and Layton deeply regretted the absence of the one sole assistant he could or would confide in. A certain impatience, partly constitutional, partly from habits of intemperance, had indisposed the old man to those laborious calculations by which chemical discovery is so frequently accompanied, and these he threw upon his son, who never deemed any labor too great, or any investigation too wearisome, if it should save his father some part of his daily fatigue. It was not for months after Alfred's departure that Layton could re-enter his study, and resume his old pursuits. The want of the companionship that cheered him, and the able help that seconded all his efforts, had so damped his ardor, that he had, if not abandoned his pursuit, at least deferred its prosecution indefinitely. At last, however, by a vigorous effort, he resumed his old labor, and in the interest of his search he soon regained much of his former ambition for success.
The investigations of chemistry have about them all the fluctuating fortunes of a deep and subtle game. There are the same vacillations of good and bad luck; the same tides of hope and fear; the almost certain prospect of success dashed and darkened by failure; the grief and disappointment of failure dispelled by glimpses of bright hope. So many are the disturbing influences, so subtle the causes which derange experiment, where some infinitesimal excess or deficiency, some minute accession of heat or cold, some chance adulteration in this or that ingredient, can vitiate a whole course of inquiry, requiring the labor of weeks to be all begun again, that the pursuit at length assumes many of the features of a game, and a game only to be won by securing every imaginable condition of success.
Perhaps this very character was what imparted to Layton's mind one of the most stimulating of all interests; at all events, he addressed himself to his task like one who, baffled and repulsed as he might be, would still not acknowledge defeat. As well from the indefatigable ardor he showed, as from the occasional bursts of boastful triumph in anticipation of a great success in store, his poor ailing wife had grown to fancy that his pursuit was something akin to those wonderful researches after the elixir vitae, or the philosopher's stone. She knew as little of his real object as of the means he employed to attain it, but she could see the feverish eagerness that daily gained on him, mark his long hours of intense thought, his days of labor, his nights of wakefulness, and her fears were that these studies were undermining his strength and breaking up his vigor.
It was, then, with a grateful joy at her heart she saw him invited to the Rectory,—admitted once more to the world of his equals, and the notice of society. She had waited hour by hour for his return home, and it was already daybreak ere she heard him enter the cottage, and repair to his own room. Who knows what deep and heartfelt anxieties were hers as she sought her bed at last? What sorrowful forebodings might not have oppressed her? What bitter tears have coursed along her worn cheeks? for his step was short and impatient as he crossed the little hall, and the heavy slam of his door, and the harsh grating of the lock, told that he was ruffled and angry. The morning wore on heavily,—drearily to her, as she watched and waited, and at last she crept noiselessly to the door, and tapped at it gently.
“Who's there? Come in!” cried he, roughly.
“I came only to ask if you would not have your breakfast,” said she, timidly. “It is already near eleven o'clock.”
ONE0120
“So late, Grace?” said he, with a more kindly accent, as he offered her a seat. “I don't well know how the time slipped over; not that I was engaged in anything that interested me,—I do not believe I have done anything whatever,—no, nothing,” muttered he, vaguely, as his wearied eye ranged over the table.
“You are tired to-day, Herbert, and you need rest,” said she, in a soft, gentle tone. “Let this be a holiday.”
“Mine are all holidays now,” replied he, with an effort at gayety. Then suddenly, with an altered voice, he added: “I ought never to have gone there last night, Grace. I knew well what would come of it. I have no habits, no temper, no taste, for such associates. What other thoughts could cross me as I sat there, sipping their claret, than of the cold poverty that awaited me at home? What pleasure to me could that short hour of festivity be, when I knew and felt I must come back to this? And then, the misery, the insult of that state of watchfulness, to see that none took liberties with me on the score of my humble station.”
“But surely, Herbert, there is not any one—”
“I don't know that,” broke he in. “He who wears finer linen than you is often a terrible tyrant, on no higher or better ground. If any man has been taught that lesson,Ihave! The world has one easy formula for its guidance. If you be poor, you must be either incompetent or improvident, or both; your patched coat and shabby hat are vouchers for one or the other, and sleek success does not trouble itself to ask which.”
“The name of Herbert Layton is a sure guarantee against such depreciation,” said she, in a voice tremulous with pride and emotion.
“So it might, if it had not earned a little extra notoriety in police courts,” said he, with a laugh of intense bitterness.
“Tell me of your dinner last night,” said she, eager to withdraw him from the vein she ever dreaded most. “Was your party a pleasant one?”
“Pleasant!—no, the very reverse of pleasant! We had discussion instead of conversation, and in lieu of those slight differences of sentiment which flavor talk, we had stubborn contradictions. Allmyfault, too, Grace. I was in one ofmyunhappy humors, and actually forgot I was a dispensary doctor and in the presence of an ex-Treasury Lord, with great influence and high acquaintances. You can fancy, Grace, how boldly I dissented from all he said.”
“But if you were in the right, Herbert—”
“Which is exactly what I was not; at least, I was quite as often in the wrong. My amusement was derived from seeing how powerless he was to expose the fallacies that outraged him. He was stunned by a fire of blank cartridge, and obliged to retreat before it. But now that it's all over, I may find the amusement a costly one. And then, I drank too much wine—” She gave a heavy sigh, and turned away to hide her look. “Yes,” resumed he, with a fierce bitterness in his tone, “the momentary flush of self-esteem—Dutch courage, though it be—is a marvellous temptation to a poor, beaten-down, crushed spirit, and wine alone can give it; and so I drank, and drank on.”
“But not to excess,” said she, in a half-broken whisper.
“At least to unconsciousness. I know nothing of how or when I quitted the Rectory, nor how I came down the cliffs and reached this in safety. The path is dangerous enough at noonday with a steady head and a cautious foot, and yet last night assuredly I could not boast of either.”
Another and a deeper sigh escaped her, despite her efforts to stifle it.
“Ay, Grace, the doctor was right when he said to me, 'Don't go there.' How well if I had but taken his advice! I am no longer fit for such associates. They live lives of easy security,—they have not the cares and struggles of a daily conflict for existence; we meet, therefore, on unequal grounds. Their sentiments cost them no more care than the French roll upon their breakfast-table. They can afford to be wrong as they can afford debt, but the poor wretch like myself, a bare degree above starvation, has as little credit with fine folk as with the huckster. I ought never to have gone there! Leave me now,” added he, half sternly; “let me see if these gases and essences will not make me forget humanity. No, I do not care for breakfast,—I cannot eat!”
With the same noiseless step she had entered, she now glided softly from the room, closing the door so gently that it was only when he looked round that he was aware of being alone. For a moment or two he busied himself with the objects on the table; he arranged phials and retorts, he lighted his stove, he stood fanning the charcoal till the red mass glowed brightly, and then, as though forgetting the pursuit he was engaged in, he sat down upon a chair, and sank into a dreamy revery.
Another low tap at the door aroused him from his musings, and the low voice he knew so well gently told him it was his morning to attend the dispensary, a distance fully three miles off. More than one complaint had been already made of his irregularity and neglect, and, intending to pay more attention in future, he had charged his wife to keep him mindful of his duties.
“You will scarcely reach Ballintray before one o'clock, Herbert,” said she, in her habitually timid tone.
“What if I should not try? What if I throw up the beggarly office at once? What if I burst through this slavery of patrons and chairmen and boards? Do you fancy we should starve, Grace?”
“Oh, no, Herbert,” cried she, eagerly; “I have no fears for our future.”
“Then your courage is greater than mine,” said he, bitterly, and with one of the sudden changes of humor which often marked him. “Can't you anticipate how the world would pass sentence on me, the idle debauchee, who would not earn his livelihood, but must needs forfeit his subsistence from sheer indolence?—ay, and the world would be right too. He who breaks stones upon the highroad will not perform his task the better because he can tell the chemical constituent of every fragment beneath his hammer. Men want common work from common workmen, and there are always enough to be found. I'll set out at once.”
With this resolve, uttered in a tone she never gainsaid or replied to, he took his hat and left the cottage.
There is no more aggressive spirit than that of the man who, with the full consciousness of great powers, sees himself destined to fill some humble and insignificant station, well knowing the while the inferiority of those who have conquered the high places in life. Of all the disqualifying elements of his own character, his unsteadiness, his want of thrift, perseverance, or conduct, his deficiency in tact or due courtesy, his stubborn indifference to others,—of all these he will take no account as he whispers to his heart,
“I passed that fellow at school!—I beat this one at college!—how often have I helped yonder celebrity with his theme!—how many times have I written his exercise for that great dignitary!” Oh, what a deep well of bitterness lies in the nature of one so tried and tortured, and how cruel is the war that he at last wages with the world, and, worse again, with his own heart!
Scarcely noticing the salutations of the country people, as they touched their hats to him on the road, or the more familiar addresses of the better-to-do farmers as they passed, Layton strode onwards to the little village where his dispensary stood.
“Yer unco late, docther, this morning,” said one, in that rebukeful tone the northern Irishman never scruples to employ when he thinks he has just cause of complaint.
“It's na the way to heal folk to keep them waitin' twa hours at a closed door,” said another.
“I'se warrant he's gleb eneuch to call for his siller when it's due to him,” said a third.
“My gran'mither is just gane hame; she would na bide any longer for yer comin',” said a pert-looking girl, with a saucy toss of her head.
“It's na honest to take people's money and gie naething for it,” said an old white-haired man on crutches; “and I 'll just bring it before the board.”
Layton turned an angry look over the crowd, but never uttered a word. Pride alone would have prevented him from answering them, had he not the deeper motive that in his conflict with himself he took little heed of what they said.
“Where's the key, Sandy?” cried he, impatiently, to an old cripple who assisted him in the common work of the dispensary.
The man came close and whispered something secretly in his ear.
“And carried the key away, do you say?” asked Layton, eagerly.
“Just so, sir. There was anither wi' him,—a stranger,—and he was mair angry than his rev'rance, and said, 'What can ye expec'? Is it like that a man o' his habits could be entrusted with such a charge as this?”
“And Dr. Millar—what did he reply?”
“Na much; he just shook his head this way, and muttered, 'I hoped for better,—I hoped for better!' I dinna think they 'd have taken away the key, but that old Jonas Graham kem up at the time, and said, 'It's mair than a month since we seen him'—yourself he meant—'down here, and them as has the strength for it would rather gae all the gait to Coleraine than tak their chance o' him.' For a' that,” said Sandy, “I opened the dispensary door, and was sarvin' out salts and the like, when the stranger said, 'Is it to a cretur like that the people are to trust their health? Just turn the key in the door, Millar, and you'll certainly save some one from being poisoned this morning.' And so he did, and here we are.” And poor Sandy turned a rueful look on the surrounders as he finished.
“I can't cure you as kings used to cure the evil, long ago, by royal touch, good people,” said Layton, mockingly; “and your guardians, or governors, or whatever they call themselves, have shut me out of my own premises. I am a priest cut off from his temple.”
“I 'm na come here to ask for charity,” said a stout old fellow, who stood alongside of a shaggy mountain pony; “I 'm able to pay ye for a' your docther's stuff, and your skill besides.”
“Well spoken, and like a man of independence,” said Layton. “Let us open the treaty with a gill of brandy, and you shall tell me your case while I am sipping it.” And with these words he led the way into a public-house, followed by the farmer, leaving the crowd to disperse when and how they pleased.
Whatever the nature of those ailments now so confidentially imparted, they were long enough in narration not only to require one, or two, or three gills, but a full bottle of strong mountain whiskey, of which it is but fair to say the farmer took his share. Layton's powers as a talker were not long in exercise ere they gained their due influence over his companion. Of the very themes the countryman deemed his own, he found the doctor knew far more than himself; while by his knowledge of life and human nature generally, he surprised his listener, who actually could not tear himself away from one so full of anecdote and observation.
Partly warned by the lateness of the hour—for already the market was over and the streets deserted—and partly by the thick utterance of his companion, whose heavy, bloodshot eye and sullen look now evidenced how deeply he had exceeded, the farmer at last arose to go away.
“You 're not 'flitting.' as you call it hereabouts,” said Layton, half stupidly, “you're not thinking of leaving me alone to my own company, are you?”
“I maun be thinkin' of home; it's more than twalve miles o' a mountain that's afore me. There's na anither but yoursel' had made me forget it a' this while,” said the farmer, as he buttoned his coat and prepared for the road. “Just tell me now what's to pay for the bit o' writin' ye gav' me.”
“You 've had a consultation, my friend,—not a visit, but a regular consultation. You've not been treated like the outer populace, and only heard the oracles from afar, but you have been suffered to sit down beside the augur, to question him, and to drink with him. Pay,—nothing to pay! I'll cure your boy, there's my word on't. These cases are specialities with me. Bell used to say, 'Ask Layton to look at that fellow in such a ward; he's the only one of us understands this sort of thing. Layton will tell us all about it.' And I 'm Layton! Ay, sir, this poor, shabby, ill-dressed fellow that you see before you is that same Herbert Layton; so much for brains and ability to work a man's way in life! Order another quart of Isla whiskey, man,—that's my fee; at least it shall be to-day. Tell them to send me pen, ink, and paper, and not disturb me; tell them, besides—no, nevermind, I'll tell them that! And now, good-day, my honest fellow.You've beenmyphysician to-day as much asIhave beenyours. You have cured a sick heart—cheated it, at least—out of one paroxysm, and so, a good journey, and safe home to you. Send me news of your boy, and good-bye.” And his head dropped as he spoke; his arms fell heavily at his sides; and he appeared to have sunk into a profound sleep. The stupor was but brief; the farmer was not well out of the village when Layton, calling for a basin of cold water, plunged his face and part of his head in it, baring his brawny throat, and bathing it with the refreshing liquid. As he was thus employed, he caught sight of his face reflected in a much-cracked mirror over the fireplace, and stood gazing for a few seconds at his blotched and bloated countenance.
“A year or two left still, belike,” muttered he. “Past insuring, but still seaworthy, or, at least”—and here his voice assumed an intense mockery in tone,—“at least, capable of more shipwreck!” The sight of the writing-materials on the table seemed to recall him to something he had half forgotten, and, after a pause of reflection, he arranged the paper before him and sat down to write.
With the ease of one to whom composition was familiar, he dashed off a somewhat long letter; but though he wrote with great rapidity, he recurred from time to time to the whiskey-bottle, drinking the strong spirits undiluted, and, to all seeming, unmoved by its potency. “There,” cried he, as he finished, “I have scuttled my own ship; let's see what will come of it.”
He called for the landlord to give him wax and a seal. Neither were to be had, and he was fain to put up with a wafer. The letter closed and addressed, he set out homewards; scarcely, however, beyond the outskirts of the village, than he turned away from the coast and took the road towards the Rectory. It was now the early evening, one of those brief seasons when the wind lulls and a sort of brief calm supervenes in the boisterous climate of northern Ireland. Along the narrow lane he trod, tall foxgloves and variegated ferns grew luxuriantly, imparting a half-shade to a scene usually desolate and bare; and Layton lingered along it as though its calm seclusion soothed him. At last he found himself at a low wall, over which a stile led to a little woodland path. It was the Rectory; who could mistake its trim neatness, the order and elegance which pervaded all its arrangements? Taking this path, he walked leisurely onward, till he came to a small flower-garden, into which three windows opened, their sashes reaching to the ground. While yet uncertain whether to advance or retire, he heard Ogden's sharp voice from within the room. His tone was loud, and had the vibration of one speaking in anger. “Even on your own showing, Millar, another reason for getting rid of him.Youcan't be ambitious, I take it, of newspaper notoriety, or a controversy in the public papers. Now, Layton is the very man to drag you into such a conflict. Ask for no explanations, inquire for no reasons, but dismiss him by an act of your board. Your colonel there is the chairman; he could n't refuse what you insist upon, and the thing will be done without your prominence in it.”
Millar murmured a reply, but Layton turned away without listening to it, and made for the hall door. “Give this to your master,” said he, handing the letter to the servant, and turned away.
The last flickerings of twilight guided him down the steep path of the cliff, and, wearied and tired, he reached home.
“What a wearisome day you must have had, Herbert!” said his wife, as she stooped for the hat and cane he had thrown beside him on sitting down.
“I must n't complain, Grace,” said he, with a sad sort of smile. “It is the last of such fatigues.”
“How, or what do you mean?” asked she, eagerly.
“I have given it up. I have resigned my charge of the dispensary. Don't ask any reasons, girl,” broke he in, hastily, “for I scarcely know them myself. All I can tell you is, it is done.”
“I have no doubt you were right, Herbert,” began she. “I feel assured—”
“Do you? Then, by Heaven! you have a greater confidence in me thanIhave in myself. I believe I was more than two parts drunk when I did it, but doubtless the thought will sober me when I awake to-morrow morning; till when, I do not mean to think of it.”
“You have not eaten, I 'm sure.”
“I cannot eat just yet, Grace; give me a cup of tea, and leave me. I shall be better alone for a while.”
“A letter,—a long letter from Alfred,” said Layton's wife, as she knocked at his door on the following morning. “It has been lying for four days at the office in Coleraine. Only think, Herbert, and I fretting and fretting over his silence.”
“Is he well?” asked he, half gruffly.
“Quite well, and so happy; in the midst of kind friends, and enjoying himself, as he says he thought impossible when absent from his home. Pray read it, Herbert. It will do you infinite good to see how cheerfully he writes.”
“No, no; it is enough that I know the boy is well. As to being happy, it is the affair of an hour, or a day, with the luckiest of us.”
“There are so many kind messages to you, and so many anxious inquiries about the laboratory. But you must read them. And then there is a bank order he insists upon your having. Poor fellow! the first money he has ever earned—”
“How much is it, Grace?” asked he, eagerly.
“It is for twenty pounds, Herbert,” said she, in a faltering accent, which, even weak as it was, vibrated with something like reproach.
“Never could it be more welcome,” said he, carelessly. “It was thoughtful, too, of the boy; just as if he had known all that has happened here.” And with this he opened the door, taking hurriedly from her hand the letter and the money-order. “No; not this. I do not want his letter,” said he, handing it back to her, while he muttered over the lines of the bank check. “Why did he not say,—or order?” said he, half angrily. “This necessitates my going to Coleraine myself to receive it. It seems that I was overrating his thoughtfulness, after all.”
“Oh, Herbert!” said she, pressing both her hands over her heart, as though an acute pain shot through it.
“I meant what I have said,” said he, roughly; “he might have bethought him what are twelve weary miles of road to one like me, as well as that my clothes are not such as suit appearance in the streets of a town. It wasnotthoughtful of him, Grace.”
“The poor dear boy's first few pounds; all that he could call his own—”
“I know that,” broke he in, harshly; “and in what other way could they have afforded him a tithe of the pleasure? It was a wise selfishness suggested the act; that is all you can say of it.”
“Oh, but let me read you how gracefully and delicately he has done it, Herbert; how mindful he was not to wound one sentiment—”
“'Pay to Herbert Layton, Esquire,'” read he, half aloud, and not heeding her speech. “He ought to have added 'M. D.'; it is as 'the doctor' they should know me down here. Well, it has come right opportunely, at all events. I believe I was the owner of some fifteen shillings in the world.”
A deep, tremulous sigh was all her answer.
“Fifteen and ninepence,” muttered he, as he counted over the pieces in his hand. “Great must be the self-reliance of the man who, with such a sum for all his worldly wealth, insults his patrons and resigns his office,—eh, Grace?”
There was in his tone a blended mockery and seriousness that he often used, and which, by the impossibility of answering, always distressed her greatly.
“It is clear you do not think so,” said he, harshly. “It is evident you take the vulgar view of the incident, and condemn the act as one dictated by ill temper and mere resentment. The world is always more merciful than one's own fireside, and the world will justify me.”
“When you have satisfied your own conscience, Herbert—”
“I'll take good care to make no such appeal,” broke he in. “Besides,” added he, with a bitter levity, “men like myself have not one, but fifty consciences. Their after-dinner conscience is not their waking one next morning; their conscience in the turmoil and bustle of life is not their conscience as they lie out there on the white rocks, listening to the lazy plash of the waves. Not to say that, after forty, every man's conscience grows casuistical,—somewhat the worse for wear, like himself.”
It was one of Layton's pastimes to sport thus with the feelings of his poor wife, uttering at random sentiments that he well knew must pain her deeply; and there were days when this spirit of annoyance overbore his reason and mastered all his self-control.
“What pleasant little sketches Alfred gives of his travelling acquaintances!” said she, opening the letter, and almost asking to be invited to read it.
“These things have no value from one as untried in life as he is,” broke he in, rudely. “One only learns to decipher character by the time the world has become very wearisome. Does he tell you how he likes his task? How does he fancy bear-leading?”
“He praises Lord Agincourt very much. He calls him a fine, generous boy, with many most attaching qualities.”
“They are nearly all such in that class in very early life, but, as Swift says, the world is full of promising princes and bad kings.”
“Lord Agincourt would appear to be very much attached to Alfred.”
“So much the worse; such friendships interfere with the work of tuition, and they never endure after it is over. To be sure, now and then a tutor is remembered, and if he has shown himself discreet about his pupil's misdeeds, reserved as to his shortcomings, and only moderately rebukeful as to his faults, such virtue is often rewarded with a bishopric. What have we here, Grace? Is not that a row-boat rounding the point yonder, and heading into the bay?”
So rare an event might well have caused astonishment; for since the place had been deserted by the fishermen, the landlocked waters of the little cove had never seen the track of a boat.
“Who can it be?” continued he; “I see a round hat in the stern-sheets. Look, he is pointing where they are to land him, quite close to our door here.” Stimulated by an irrepressible curiosity, Herbert arose and walked out; but scarcely had he reached the strand when he was met by Colonel Karstairs.
“I could n't trust my gouty ankles down that precipice, doctor,” cried he out; “and although anything but a good sailor, I came round here by water. What a charming spot you have here, when one does reach it!”
“It is pretty; and it is better,—it is solitary,” said Layton, coldly; for somehow he could not avoid connecting the Colonel with a scene very painful to his memory.
“I don't think I ever saw anything more beautiful,” said Karstairs, as he gazed around him. “The wild, fantastic outlines of those rocks, the variegated colors of the heath blossom, the golden strand, and the cottage itself, make up a fairy scene.”
“Let me show you the interior, though it dispel the illusion,” said Layton, as he moved towards the door.
“I hope my visit is not inconvenient,” said Karstairs, as he entered and took a seat; “and I hope, besides, when you hear the object of it, you will, at least, forgive me.” He waited for a reply of some sort, but Layton only bowed his head stiffly, and suffered him to continue: “I am a sorry diplomatist, doctor, and have not the vaguest idea of how to approach a point of any difficulty; but what brought me here this morning was simply this: you sent that letter”—here he drew one from his pocket, and handed it to Layton—“to our friend the rector.”
“Yes; it is my hand, and I left it myself at the parsonage.”
“Well, now, Millar has shown it to no one but myself,—indeed, he placed it in my hands after reading it; consequently, its contents are unknown save to our two selves; there can, therefore, be no difficulty in your withdrawing it. You must see that the terms you have employed towards him are not such as—are not civil, I mean; in fact, they are not fair. He is an excellent fellow, and sincerely your friend, besides. Now, don't let a bit of temper get the mastery over better feeling, nor do not, out of a momentary pique, throw up your appointment. None of us, nowadays, can afford to quarrel with his bread-and-butter; and though you are certainly clever enough and skilful enough not to regard such an humble place as this, yet, remember, you had a score of competitors when you looked for it. Not to say that we all only desire to know how to be of service to you, to make your residence amongst us agreeable, and—and all that sort of thing, which you can understand far better than I can say it!” Nor, to do the worthy Colonel justice, was this a very difficult matter, seeing that, in his extreme confusion and embarrassment, he stammered and stuttered at every word, while, to increase his difficulty, the manner of Layton was cold and almost stately.
“Am I to suppose, sir,” said he, at length, “that you are here on the part of Dr. Millar?”
“No, no; nothing of the kind. Millar knows, of course, the step I have taken; perhaps he concurs in it; indeed, I 'm sure he does. He is your sincere well-wisher, doctor,—a man who really wants to be your friend.”
“Too much honor,” said Layton, haughtily. “Not to say how arduous the task of him who would protect a man against himself; and such I opine to be the assumed object here.”
“I 'm sure, if I had as much as suspected how you would have taken my interference,” said the Colonel, more hurt by Layton's tone than by his mere words, “I 'd have spared myself my mission.”
“You had no right to have anticipated it, sir. It was very natural for you to augur favorably of any intervention by a colonel,—a C.B., with other glorious distinctions—in regard to a poor dispensary doctor, plodding the world wearily, with a salary less than a butler's. You had only to look down the cliff, and see the humble cottage where he lived, to calculate what amount of resistance could such a man offer to any proposal that promised him bread.”
“I must say, I wish you would not mistake me,” broke in Karstairs, with warmth.
“I am not stating anything with reference to you, sir; only with respect to those judgments the world at large would pronounce uponme.”
“Am I to conclude, then,” said the Colonel, rising, and evidently in anger,—“am I to conclude, then, that this is your deliberate act, that you wish to abide by this letter, that you see nothing to recall nor retract in its contents?”
Layton bowed an assent
“This is too bad—too bad,” muttered the Colonel, as he fumbled for his gloves, and dropped them twice over in his confusion. “I know well enough where the sting lies: you are angry with Ogden; you suspect that he has been meddling. Well, it's no affair of mine; you are the best judge. Not but a little prudence might have shown you that Ogden was a dangerous man to offend,—a very dangerous man; but of course you know best. I have only to ask pardon for obtruding my advice unasked, a stupid act always, but I 'm right sorry for it.”
“I am very grateful for the intention, sir,” said Layton, with dignity.
“That 's all I can claim,” muttered the Colonel, whose confusion increased every moment. “It was a fool's errand, and ends as it ought. Good-bye!”
Layton arose and opened the door with a respectful air.
Karstairs offered his hand, and, as he grasped the other's warmly, said, “I wish you would let me talk this over with your wife, Layton.”
The doctor drew haughtily back, and, with a cold stare of astonishment, said: “I have addressed you by your title, sir;Ihave mine. At all events, there is nothing in your station nor in my own to warrant this familiarity.”
“You are quite right,—perfectly right,—and I ask pardon.”
It was a liberty never to be repeated, and the bronzed weatherbeaten face of the old soldier became crimson with shame as he bowed deeply and passed out.
Layton walked punctiliously at his side till he reached the boat, neither uttering a word; and thus they parted. Layton stood for a moment gazing after the boat. Perhaps he thought that Karstairs would turn his head again towards the shore; perhaps—who knows?—he hoped it. At all events, the old Colonel never once looked back, and the boat soon rounded the point and was lost to view.
There are men so combative in their natures that their highest enjoyment is derived from conflict with the world,—men whose self-esteem is never developed till they see themselves attacking or attacked. Layton was one of this unhappy number, and it was with a sort of bastard heroism that he strolled back to the cottage, proud in the thought of how he stood, alone and friendless, undeterred by the enmity of men of a certain influence and station.
He was soon in his laboratory and at work, the reaction imparting a great impulse to his energy. He set to work with unwonted vigor and determination. Chemical investigation has its good and evil days,—its periods when all goes well, experiments succeed, tests answer, and results respond to what was looked for; and others when disturbing causes intervene, gases escape, and retorts smash. This was one of the former; and the subtle essence long sought after by Layton, so eagerly desired, and half despaired of, seemed at last almost within reach. A certain salt, an ingredient very difficult of preparation, was, however, wanting to his further progress, and it was necessary that he should provide himself with it ere he advanced any further. To obtain this without any adulterating admixture and in all purity was essential to success; and he determined to set out immediately for Dublin, where he could himself assist in its preparation.
“What good luck it was, Grace,” said he, as he entered the room where she sat awaiting dinner for him,—“what good luck that the boy should have sent us this money! I must go up to Dublin to-morrow, and without it I must have given up the journey.”
“To Dublin!” said she, in a half-frightened voice, for she dreaded—not without reason—the temptations he would be exposed to when accidentally lifted above his usual poverty.
“Ay, girl; I want a certain 'cyanuret' of which you have never heard, nor can help me to any knowledge of, but which a Dublin chemist that I know of will assist me to procure; and with this salt I purpose to make myself a name and reputation that even Mr. Ogden will not dare to dispute. I shall, I hope, have discovered what will render disease painless, and deprive operation of all its old terrors. If my calculations be just, a new era will dawn upon medical science, and the physician come to the sick man as a true comforter. My discovery, too, is no empyric accident for which I can give no reason, nor assign no cause, but the result of patient investigation, based upon true knowledge. My appeal will be to the men of science, not to popular judgments. I ask no favor; I seek no patronage. Herbert Layton would be little likely to find either; but we shall see if the name will not soar above both favor and patronage, and rank with the great discoverers, or, better again, with the great benefactors of mankind.”
Vainglorious and presumptuous as this speech was,—uttered, too, in a tone boastful as the words themselves,—it was the mood which Layton's wife loved to see him indulge. If for nothing else than it was the reverse of the sardonic and bitter raillery he often practised,—a spirit of scoff in which he inveighed against the world and himself,—it possessed for her an indescribable charm. It represented her husband, besides, in what she loved to think his true character,—that of a noble, enthusiastic man, eagerly bent upon benefiting his fellows. To her thinking, there was nothing of vanity,—no overweening conceit in all these foreshadowings of future fame; nay, if anything, he understated the claims he would establish upon the world's gratitude.
With what eager delight, then, did she listen! how enchanting were the rich tones of his voice as he thus declaimed!
“How it cheers my heart, Herbert, when I hear you speak thus! how bright everything looks when you throw such sunlight around you!”
“'Is this the debauchee,—is this the fellow we have been reading of in the reports from Scotland Yard? Methinks I hear them whispering to each other. Ay, and that haughty University, ashamed of its old injustice, will stoop to share the lustre of the man it once expelled.”
“Oh, think of the other and the better part of your triumph!” cried she, eagerly.
“The best part of all will be the vengeance on those who have wronged me. What will these calumniators say when it is a nation does homage to my success?”
“There are higher and better rewards than such feelings,” said she, half reproachfully.
“How little you know of it!” said he, in his tone of accustomed bitterness. “The really high and great rewards of England are given to wealth, to political intrigue, to legal success. It's your banker, your orator, or your scheming barrister, who win the great prizes in our State Lottery. Find out some secret by which life can be restored to the drowned, convert an atmosphere of pestilence into an air of health and vigor, discover how an avalanche may be arrested in its fall, and, if you be an Englishman, you can do nothing better with your knowledge than sell it to a company, and make it marketable through shareholders. Philanthropy can be quoted on 'Change like a Welsh tin-mine or a patent fuel company; and if you could raise the dead, make a 'limited liability' scheme of it before you tell the world your secret.”
“Oh, Herbert, it was not thus you were wont to speak.”
“No, Grace,” said he, in a tone of gentle, sorrowful meaning; “but there is no such misanthrope as the man who despises himself.” And with this he hastened to his room and locked the door. It was while carelessly and recklessly he scattered the harsh words by which he grieved her most that he now and then struck some chord that vibrated with a pang of almost anguish within him, uttering aloud some speech which from another he would have resented with a blow. Still, as the criminal is oftentimes driven to confess the guilt whose secret burden is too heavy for his heart, preferring even the execration of mankind to the terrible isolation of secrecy, so did he feel a sort of melancholy satisfaction in discovering how humbly and meanly he appeared before himself.
“A poor man's pack is soon made, Grace,” said he, with a sad smile, as he entered the room, where she was busily engaged in the little preparations for his journey.
“Tom, don't go! don't go! don't!” screamed out the parrot, wildly.
“Only listen to the creature,” said he; “he 's at his warnings again. I wish he would condescend to be more explanatory and less oracular.”
She only smiled, without replying.
“Not but he was right once, Grace,” said Layton, gravely. “You remember how he counselled me against that visit to the Rectory.”
“Don't! don't!” croaked out the bird, in a low, guttural voice.
“You are too dictatorial, doctor, even for a vice-provost. I will go.”
“All wrong! all wrong!” croaked the parrot.
“By Jove! he has half shaken my resolution,” said Layton, as he sat down and drew his hand across his brow. “I wish any one would explain to me why it is that he who has all his life resented advice as insult, should be the slave of his belief in omens.” This was uttered in a half-soliloquy, and he went on: “I can go back to at least a dozen events wherein I have had to rue or to rejoice in this faith.”
“I too would say, Don't go, Herbert,” said she, languidly.
“How foolish all this is!” said be, rising; “don't you know the old Spanish proverb, Grace, 'Good luck often sends us a message, but very rarely calls at the door herself?' meaning that we must not ask Fortune to aid us without our contributing some effort of our own. I will go, Grace. Yes, I will go. No more auguries, doctor,” said he, throwing a handkerchief playfully over the bird and then withdrawing it,—a measure that never failed to enforce silence. “This time, at least,” said he, “I mean to be my own oracle.”
The morning was raw, cold, and ungenial, as Layton took his outside seat on the coach for Dublin. For sake of shelter, being but poorly provided against ill weather, he had taken the seat behind the coachman, the place beside him being reserved for a traveller who was to be taken up outside the town. The individual in question was alluded to more than once by the driver and the guard as “the Captain,” and in the abundance of fresh hay provided for his feet, and the care taken to keep his seat dry, there were signs of a certain importance being attached to his presence. As they gained the foot of a hill, where the road crossed a small bridge, they found the stranger awaiting them, with his carpet-bag; he had no other luggage, but in his own person showed unmistakable evidence of being well prepared for a journey. He was an elderly man, short, square, and thick-set, with a rosy, cheerful countenance, and a bright, merry eye. As he took off his hat, punctiliously returning the coachee's salute, he showed a round, bald head, fringed around the base by a curly margin of rich brown hair. So much Layton could mark,—all signs, as he read them, of a jovial temperament and a healthy constitution; nor did the few words he uttered detract from the impression: they were frank and cheerful, and their tone rich and pleasing to the ear.
The stranger's first care on ascending to his place was to share a very comfortable rug with his neighbor, the civility being done in a way that would have made refusal almost impossible; his next move was to inquire if Layton was a smoker, and, even before the answer, came the offer of a most fragrant cigar. The courtesy of the offered snuff-box amongst our grandfathers is now replaced by the polite proffer of a cigar, and, simple as the act of attention is in itself, there are some men who are perfect masters in the performance. The Captain was of this category; and although Layton was a cold, proud, off-standing man, such was the other's tact, that, before they had journeyed twenty miles in company, an actual intimacy had sprung up between them.
There is no pleasanter companionship to the studious and reading man than that of a man of life and the world, one whose experience, drawn entirely from the actual game of life, is full of incident and adventure. The Captain had travelled a great deal and seen much, and there was about all his observations the stamp of a mind that had learned to judge men and things by broader, wider rules than are the guides of those who live in more narrow spheres.
It was in discoursing on the political condition of Ireland that they reached the little village of Cookstown, about a mile from which, on a slight eminence, a neat cottage was observable, the trim laurel hedge that separated it from the road being remarkable in a country usually deficient in such foliage.
“A pretty spot,” remarked Layton, carelessly, “and, to all seeming, untenanted.”
“Yes, it seems empty,” said the other, in the same easy tone.
“There's never been any one livin' there, Captain, sincethat,” said the coachman, turning round on his seat, and addressing the stranger.
“Since what?” asked Layton, abruptly.
“He is alluding to an old story,—a very old story, now,” rejoined the other. “There were two men—a father and son—named Shehan, taken from that cottage in the year of Emmet's unhappy rebellion, under a charge of high treason, and hanged.”
“I remember the affair perfectly: Curran defended them. If I remember aright, too, they were convicted on the evidence of a noted informer.”
“The circumstance is painfully impressed on my memory, by the fact that I have the misfortune to bear the same name; and it is by my rank alone that I am able to avoid being mistaken for him. My name is Holmes.”
“To be sure,” cried Layton, “Holmes was the name; Curran rendered it famous on that day.”
The coachman had turned round to listen to this conversation, and at its conclusion touched his hat to the Captain as if in polite acquiescence.
By the time they had reached Castle Blayney, such had been the Captain's success in ingratiating himself into Layton's good opinion, that the doctor had accepted his invitation to dinner.
“We shall not dine with the coach travellers,” whispered the stranger, “but at a small house I 'll show you just close by. I have already ordered my cutlet there, and there will be enough for us both.”
Never was speech less boastful; a most admirable hot dinner was ready as they entered the little parlor, and such a bottle of port as Layton fancied he had never tasted the equal. By good luck there was ample time to enjoy these excellent things, as the mail was obliged to await at this place for an hour or more the arrival of a cross-post. A second and a third brother of the same racy vintage succeeded; and Layton, warmed by the generous wine, grew open and confidential, not only in speaking of the past, but also to reveal all his hopes for the future, and the object of his journey. Though the Captain was nothing less than a man of science, he could fathom sufficiently the details the other gave to see that the speaker was no ordinary man, and his discovery no small invention.
“Ay,” said the doctor, as, carried away by the excitement of the wine, he grew boastful and vain, “you 'll see, sir, that the man who sat shivering beside you on the outside of the mail without a great-coat to cover him, will, one of these days, be recognized as amongst the first of his nation, and along with Hunter and Bell and Brodie will stand the name of Herbert Layton!”
“You had a very distinguished namesake once, a Fellow of Trinity—”
“Myself, sir, none other. I am the man!” cried he, in a burst of triumphant pride. “I am—that is, I was—the Regius Professor of Medicine; I was Gold Medallist in 18—; then Chancellor's Prizeman; the following year I beat Stack and Naper,—you 've heard ofthem, I 'm sure, on the Fellowship bench; I carried away the Verse prize from George Wolffe; and now, this day,—ay, sir, this day,—I don't think I 'd have eaten if you had not asked me to dine with you.”
“Come, come,” said the Captain, pushing the decanter towards him, “there are good days coming. Even in a moneyed point of view, your discovery is worth some fifteen or twenty thousand pounds.”
“I 'd not sell it for a million; it shall be within the reach of the humblest peasant in the land the day I have perfected the details. It shall be for Parliament—the two Houses of the nation—to reward me, or I 'll never accept a shilling.”
“That's a very noble and high-spirited resolve. I like you for it; I respect you for it,” said the Captain, warmly.
“I know well what had been my recognition if I had been born a German or a Frenchman. It is in England alone scientific discovery brings neither advancement nor honor. They pension the informer that betrays his confederates, and they leave the man of intellect to die, as Chatterton died, of starvation in a garret. Is n't that true?”
“Too true,—too true, indeed!” sighed the Captain, mournfully.
“And as to the Ireland of long ago,” said Layton, “how much more wise her present-day rulers are than those who governed her in times past, and whose great difficulty was to deal with a dominant class, and to induce them to abate any of the pretensions which years of tried loyalty would seem to have confirmed into rights! I speak as one who was once a 'United Irishman,'” said he.
Laying down the glass he was raising to his lips, the Captain leaned across the table and grasped Layton's hand; and although there was nothing in the gesture which a bystander could have noticed, it seemed to convey a secret signal, for Layton cried out exultingly,—
“A brother in the cause!”
“You may believe how your frank, outspoken nature has won upon me,” said he, “when I have confided to you a secret that would, if revealed, certainly cost me my commission, and might imperil my life; but I will do more, Layton, I will tell you that our fraternity exists in full vigor,—not here, but thousands of miles away,—and England will have to reap in India the wrongs she has sown in Ireland.”
“With this I have no sympathy,” burst in Layton, boldly. “Our association—at least, as I understood it—was to elevate and enfranchise Ireland, not humiliate England. It was well enough for Wolfe Tone and men of his stamp to take this view, but Nielson and myself were differently minded, andwedeemed that the empire would be but the greater when all who served it were equals.”
Was it that the moment was propitious, was it that Layton's persuasive power was at its highest, was it that the earnest zeal of the man had carried conviction with his words? However it happened, the Captain, after listening to a long and well-reasoned statement, leaned his head thoughtfully on his hand, and said,—
“I wish I had known you in earlier days, Layton. You have placed these things before me in a point I have never seen them before, nor do I believe that there are ten men amongst us who have. Grant me a favor,” said he, as if a sudden thought had just crossed him.
“What is it?” asked Layton.
“Come and stay a week or two with me at my little cottage at Glasnevin; I am a bachelor, and live that sort of secluded life that will leave you ample time for your own pursuits.”
“Give me a corner for my glass bottles and a furnace, and I 'm your man,” said Layton, laughingly.
“You shall make a laboratory of anything but the dinner-room,” cried Holmes, shaking hands on the compact, and thus sealing it.
The guard's horn soon after summoned them to their places, and they once more were on the road.
The men who have long waged a hand-to-hand combat with fortune, unfriended and uncheered, experience an intense enjoyment when comes the moment in which they can pour out all their sorrows and their selfishness into some confiding ear. It is no ordinary pleasure with them to taste the sympathy of a willing listener. Layton felt all the ecstasy of such a moment, and he told not alone of himself and his plans and his hopes, but of his son Alfred,—what high gifts the youth possessed, and how certain was he, if common justice should be but accorded to him, to win a great place in the world's estimation.
“The Captain” was an eager listener to all the other said, and never interrupted, save to throw in some passing word of encouragement, some cheering exhortation to bear up bravely and courageously.
Layton's heart warmed with the words of encouragement, and he confided many a secret source of hope that he had never revealed before. He told how, in the course of his labors, many an unexpected discovery had burst upon him,—now some great fact applicable to the smelting of metals, now some new invention available to agriculture. They were subjects, he owned, he had not pursued to any perfect result, but briefly committed to some rough notes, reserving them for a time of future leisure.
“And if I cannot convince the world,” said he, laughingly, “that they have neglected and ignored a great genius, I hope, at least, to makeyoua convert to that opinion.”
“You see those tall elms yonder?” said Holmes, as they drew nigh Dublin. “Well, screened beneath their shade lies the little cottage I have told you about. Quiet and obscure enough now, but I 'm greatly mistaken if it will not one day be remembered as the spot where Herbert Layton lived when he brought his great discovery to completion.”
“Do you really think so?” cried Layton, with a swelling feeling about the heart as though it would burst his side. “Oh, if I could only come to feel that hope myself! How it would repay me for all I have gone through! How it would reconcile me to my own heart!”