'If doughty deedsMy lady please!'
That was his tone, was it? Oh dear! and I fancied the man had something new or original about him. Truth is, dearest, it is in love as in war,—there are nothing but the same old weapons to fight with, and we are lost or won just as our great-great-grandmothers were before us.”
“I wish you would be serious, Lucy,” said the girl, half rebukefully.
“Don't you know me well enough by this time to perceive that I am never more thoughtful than in what seems my levity? and this on principle, too, for in the difficulties of life Fancy will occasionally suggest a remedy Reason had never hit upon, just as sportsmen will tell you that a wild, untrained spaniel will often flush a bird a more trained dog had never 'marked.' And now, to be most serious, you want to choose between the eligible man who is sure of you, and the most unequal suitor who despairs of his success. Is not that your case?”
May shook her head dissentingly.
“Well, it is sufficiently near the issue for our purpose. Not so? Come, then, I 'll put it differently. You are balancing whether to refuse your fortune to Charles Heathcote or yourself to Alfred Layton; and my advice is, do both.”
May grew very pale, and, after an effort to say something, was silent.
“Yes, dearest, between the man who never pledges to pay and him who offers a bad promissory note, there is scant choice, and I 'd say, take neither.”
“I know how it will wound my dear old guardian, who loves me like a daughter,” began May. But the other broke in,—
“Oh! there are scores of things one can do in life to oblige one's friends, but marriage is not one of them. And then, bethink you, May, how little you have seen of the world; and surely there is a wider choice before you than between a wearied lounger on half-pay and a poor tutor.”
“Yes; a poor tutor if you will, but of a name and family the equal of my own,” said May, hastily, and with a dash of temper in the words.
“Who says so? Who has told you that?”
“He himself. He told me that though there were some painful circumstances in his family history he would rather not enter upon, that, in point of station, he yielded to none in the rank of untitled gentry. He spoke of his father as a man of the very highest powers.”
“Did he tell you what station he occupied at this moment?”
“No. And do you know it?”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Morris, gravely.
“Will you not tell me, Lucy?” asked May, eagerly.
“No; there is not any reason that I should. You have just said, 'What is Mr. Layton to me, or I to him?' and in the face of such a confession why should I disparage him?”
“So, then, the confession would disparage him?”
“It might.”
“This reserve is not very generous towards me, I must say,” said the girl, passionately.
“It is from generosity to you that I maintain it,” said the other, coldly.
“But if I were to tell you that the knowledge interests me deeply; that by it I may possibly be guided in a most eventful decision?”
“Oh, if you mean to say, 'Alfred Layton has asked me to marry him, and my reply depends upon what I may learn about his family and their station '—”
“No, no; I have not said that,” burst in May.
“Not said, only implied it. Still, if it be what you desire me to entertain, I will have no concealments from you.”
“I cannot buy your secret by a false pretence, Loo; there is no such compact as this between Layton and myself. Alfred asked me—”
“Alfred!” said Mrs. Morris, repeating the name after her, and with such a significance as sent all the color to the girl's cheek and forehead,—“Alfred! And what did Alfred ask you?”
“I scarcely know what I am saying,” cried May, as she covered her face with her hands.
“Poor child!” cried Mrs. Morris, tenderly, “I can find my way into your heart without your breaking it. Do not cry, dearest. I know as well all that he said as if I had overheard him saying it! The world has just its two kinds of suitors,—the one who offers us marriage in a sort of grand princely fashion, and the other who, beseechingly proclaiming his utter unworthiness, asks us to wait,—to wait for an uncle or a stepmother's death; to wait till he has got this place in the colonies, or that vicarage in Bleakshire; to wait till he has earned fame and honor, and Heaven knows what; till, in fact, he shall have won a wreath of laurel for his brows, and we have attained to a false plait for ours!” She paused a second or two to see if May would speak, but as she continued silent, Mrs. Morris went on: “There are few stock subjects people are more eloquent in condemning than what are called long engagements. There are some dozen of easy platitudes that every one has by heart on this theme; and yet, if the truth were to be told, it is the waiting is the best of it,—the marriage is the mistake! That faint little flickering hope that lighted us on for years and years is extinguished at the church door, and never relighted after; so that, May, my advice to you is, never contract a long engagement until you have made up your mind not to marry at the end of it! My poor, poor child! why are you sobbing so bitterly? Surely I have said nothing to cause you sorrow?”
May turned away without speaking, but her heaving shoulders betrayed how intensely she was weeping.
“MayIsee him,—mayIspeak with him, May?” said Mrs. Morris, drawing her arm affectionately around her waist.
“To what end,—with what view?” said the girl, suddenly and almost haughtily.
“Now that you ask me in that tone, May, I scarcely know. I suppose I meant to show him how inconsiderate, how impossible his hopes were; that there was nothing in his station or prospects that could warrant this presumption. I suppose I had something of this sort on my mind, but I own to you now, your haughty glance has completely routed all my wise resolutions.”
“Perhaps you speculated on the influence of that peculiar knowledge of his family history you appear to be possessed of?” said May, with some pique.
“Perhaps so,” was the dry rejoinder.
“And which you do not mean to confide tome?” said the girl, proudly.
“I have not said so. So long as you maintained that Mr. Layton was to you nothing beyond a mere acquaintance, my secret, as you have so grandly called it, might very well rest in my own keeping. If, however, the time were come that he should occupy a very different place in your regard—”
“Instead of saying 'were come,' Loo, just say, 'If the time might come,” said May, timidly.
“Well, then, 'if the timemightcome,' Imighttell all that I know about him.”
“But then it might be too late. I mean, that it might come when it could only grieve, and not guide me.”
“Oh, if I thoughtthat, you should never know it! Be assured of one thing, May: no one ever less warred against the inevitable than myself. When I read, 'No passage this way,' I never hesitate about seeking another road.”
“And I mean to go mine, and without a guide either!” said May, moving towards the door.
“So I perceived some time back,” was the dry reply of Mrs. Morris, as she busied herself with the papers before her.
“Good-night, dear, and forgive my interruption,” said May, opening the door.
“Good-night, and delightful dreams to you,” said Mrs. Morris, in her own most silvery accents. And May was gone.
The door had not well closed when Mrs. Morris was again, pen in hand, glancing rapidly over what she had written, to catch up the clew. This was quickly accomplished, and she wrote away rapidly. It is not “in our brief” to read that letter; nor would it be “evidence;” enough, then, that we say it was one of those light, sparkling little epistles which are thrown off in close confidence, and in which the writer fearlessly touches any theme that offers. She sketched off the Heathcotes with a few easy graphic touches, giving a very pleasing portraiture of May herself, ending with these words:—
“Add to all these attractions a large estate and a considerable sum in the funds, and then say, dear pa, is not this what Ludlow had so long been looking for? I am well aware of his pleasant habit of believing nothing, nor any one, so that you must begin by referring him to Doctors' Commons, where he can see the will. General Leslie died in 18—, and left Sir William Heathcote sole executor. When fully satisfied on the money question, you can learn anything further from me that you wish; one thing only I stipulate for, and that is, to hold no correspondence myself with L. Of course, like as in everything else, he'll not put any faith in this resolution; but time will teach him at last. The negotiation must be confided to your own hands. Do not employ Collier nor any one else. Be secret, and be speedy, for I plainly perceive the young lady will marry some one immediately after learning a disappointment now impending. Remember, my own conditions are: all the letters, and that we meet as utter strangers. I ask nothing more, I will accept nothing less. As regards Clara, he cannot, I suspect, make any difficulty; but that may be a question for ulterior consideration. Clara is growing up pretty, but has lost all her spirits, and will, in a few months more, look every day of her real age. I am sadly vexed about this; but it comes into the long category of the things to be endured.”
The letter wound up with some little light and flippant allusions to her father's complaints about political ingratitude:—
“I really do forget, dear papa, which are our friends; but surely no party would refuse your application for a moderate employment. The only creature I know personally amongst them is the Colonial Sec., and he says, 'They 've left me nothing to give but the bishoprics.' Better that, perhaps, than nothing, but could you manage to accept one?thatis the question. There is an Irish M.P. here—a certain O'Shea—who tells me there are a variety of things to give in the West Indies, with what he calls wonderful pickings—meaning, I suppose, stealings. Why not look for one of these? I 'll question my friend the Member more closely, and give you the result.
“It was odd enough, a few months ago, O'S., never suspecting to whom he was talking, said, 'There was an old fellow in Ireland, a certain Nick Holmes, could tell more of Government rogueries and rascalities than any man living; and if I were he, I 'd make them give me the first good thing vacant, or I 'd speak out.' Dear papa, having made so much out of silence, is it not worth while to think how much eloquence might be worth?
“Your affectionate daughter,
“Lucy M.”
It was a severe night of early winter,—one of those stormy intervals in which Italy seems to assume all the rigors of some northern land, with an impetuosity derived from her own more excitable latitude. The rain beat against the windows with distinct and separate plashes, and the wind rattled and shook the strong walls with a violence that seemed irresistible.
In a large old room of a very old palace at Lucca, Alfred Layton walked to and fro, stopping every now and then to listen to some heightened effort of the gale without, and then resuming his lonely saunter. There were two large and richly ornamented fireplaces, and in one of them a small fire was burning, and close to this stood a table with a shaded lamp, and by these frail lights a little brightness was shed over this portion of the vast chamber, while the remainder was shrouded in deep shadow. As the fitful flashes of the wood-fire shone from time to time on the walls, little glimpses might be caught of a much-faded tapestry, representing some scenes from the “Æneid;” but on none of these did Layton turn an eye nor bestow a thought, for he was deep in sorrowful reflections of his own,—cares too heavy to admit of any passing distraction. He was alone, for Agincourt had gone to spend the day at the “Caprini,” whither Alfred would have accompanied him but for a letter which the morning's post had brought to his hands, and whose contents had overwhelmed him with sorrow.
It was from his mother, written from a sick-bed, and in a hand that betokened the most extreme debility. And oh! what intense expression there is in these weak and wavering lines, wherein the letters seemed to vibrate still with the tremulous motion of the fevered fingers!—what a deep significance do we attach to every word thus written! till at length, possessed of every syllable and every stop, we conjure up the scene where all was written, and feel as though we heard the hurried breathing of the sick-room. She had put off writing week after week, but now could defer no longer. It was upwards of two months since his father had left her to go to Dublin, and, from the day he went, she had never heard from him. A paragraph, however, in a morning paper, though not giving his name, unmistakably alluded to him as one who had grievously fallen from the high and honorable station he had once occupied, and spoke of the lamentable reverse that should show such a man in the dock of a police-court on the charge of insulting and libelling a public character in a ribald handbill. The prisoner was so hopelessly sunk in drunkenness, it added, that he was removed from the court, and the examination postponed.
By selling one by one the little articles of furniture she had, she contrived, hitherto, to eke out a wretched support, and it was only when at last these miserable resources had utterly failed her that she was driven to grieve her son with her sad story. Nor was the least touching part of her troubles that in which she spoke of her straits to avoid being considered an object of charity by her neighbors. The very fact of the rector having overpaid for a few books he had purchased made her discontinue to send him others, so sensitive had misery made her. And yet, strangely enough, there did not exist the same repugnance to accept of little favors and trifling kindnesses from the poor people about her, of whom she spoke with a deep and affectionate gratitude. Her whole heart was, however, full of one thought and one hope,—to see her dear son before she died. It was a last wish, and she felt as though indulging it had given her the energy which had prolonged her life. Doubts would cross her mind from time to time if it were possible for him to come; if he could be so far his own master as to be able to hasten to her; and even if doing so, he could be yet in time; but all these would give way before the strength of her hope.
“That I should see you beside my bed,—that you should hold my hand as I go hence,—will be happiness enough to requite me for much sorrow!” wrote she. “But if this may not be, and that we are to meet no more here, never forget that in my last prayer your name was mingled, and that when I entreated forgiveness for myself, I implored a blessing foryou!”
“That letter was written on the Monday before; and where had he been on that same Monday evening?” asked he of himself. “How had he been occupied in those same hours when she was writing this? Yes, that evening he was seated beside May Leslie at the piano, while she played and sang for him. They had been talking of German songwriters, and she was recalling here and there such snatches of Uhland and Schiller as she could remember; while Clara, leaning over the back of his chair, was muttering the words when May forgot them, and in an accent the purest and truest. What a happy hour was that tohim!and toherhow wretched, how inexpressibly wretched, as, alone and friendless, she wrote those faint lines!”
Poor Layton felt very bitterly the thought that, while he was living in an easy enjoyment of life, his mother, whom he loved dearly, should be in deep want and suffering.
In the easy carelessness of a disposition inherited from his father, he had latterly been spending money far too freely. His constant visits to Marlia required a horse, and then, with all a poor man's dread to be thought poor, he was ten times more liberal to servants than was called for, and even too ready to join in whatever involved cost or expense. Latterly, too, he had lost at play; small sums, to be sure, but they were the small sums of a small exchequer, and they occurred every day, for at the game of pool poor Layton's ball was always the first on the retired list; and the terrible Mr. O'Shea, who observed a sort of reserve with Charles Heathcote, made no scruple of employing sharp practice with the tutor.
He emptied the contents of his purse on the table, and found that all his worldly wealth was a trifle over fifteen pounds, and of this he was indebted to Charles Heathcote some three or four,—the losses of his last evening at the “Caprini.” What was to be done? A journey to Ireland would cost fully the double of all he possessed, not to say that, once there, he would require means. So little was he given to habits of personal indulgence, that he had nothing—absolutely nothing—to dispose of save his watch, and that was of little value; a few books, indeed, he possessed, but their worth, even if he could obtain it, would have been of no service. With these embarrassing thoughts of his poverty came also others, scarcely less fraught with difficulty. How should he relieve himself of his charge of Lord Agincourt? There would be no time to write to his guardians and receive their reply. He could not leave the boy in Italy; nor dare he, without the consent of his relatives, take him back to England. How to meet these difficulties he knew not, and time was pressing,—every hour of moment to him. Was there one, even one, whose counsel he could ask, or whose assistance he could bespeak? He ran over the names of those around him, but against each, in turn, some insuperable objection presented itself. There possibly had been a time he might have had recourse to Sir William, frankly owning how he was circumstanced, and bespeaking his aid for the moment; but of late the old Baronet's manner towards him had been more cold and reserved than at first,—studiously courteous, it is true, but a courtesy that excluded intimacy. As to Charles, they had never been really friendly together, and yet there was a familiarity between them that made a better understanding more remote than ever.
While he revolved all these troubles in his head, he walked up and down his room with the feverish impatience of one to whom rest was torture. At last, even the house seemed too narrow for his restless spirit, and, taking his hat, he went out, careless of the swooping rain, nor mindful of the cold and cutting wind as it swept down from the last spur of the Apennines. As the chill rain drenched him, there seemed almost a sense of relief in the substitution of a bodily suffering to the fever that burned in his brain, and seeking out the bleakest part of the old ramparts, he stood breasting the storm, which had now increased to a perfect hurricane.
“The rain cannot beat upon one more friendless and forlorn,” muttered he, as he stood shivering there; the strange fascination of misery suggesting a sort of bastard heroism to his spirit. “The humblest peasant in that dreary Campagna has more of sympathy and kindness than I have. He has those poor as himself and powerless to aid, but willing to befriend him.” There was ever in his days of depression a fierce revolt in his nature against the position he occupied in the world. The acceptance on sufferance, the recognition accorded to his pupil being his only claim to attention, were painful wounds to a haughty temperament, and, with the ingenuity of a self-tormentor, he ascribed every reverse he met in life to his false position. He accepted it, no doubt, to be able to help those who had made such sacrifices for him, and yet even in this it was a failure. There lay his poor mother, dying of very want, in actual destitution, and he could not help—could not even be with her!
Though his wet clothes, now soaked with half-frozen drift, sent a deadly chill through him, the fever of his blood rendered him unconscious of it, and his burning brain seemed to defy the storm, while in the wild raging of the elements he caught up a sort of excitement that sustained him. For more than two hours he wandered about in that half-frenzied state, and at length, benumbed and exhausted, he turned homeward. To his surprise, he perceived, as he drew near, that the windows were all alight, and a red glow of a large wood-fire sent its mellow glare across the street; but greater was his astonishment on entering to see the tall figure of a man stretched at full length on three chairs before the fire, fast asleep, a carpet-bag and a travelling-cloak beside him.
Never was Layton less disposed to see a stranger and play the host to any one, and he shook the sleeper's shoulder in a fashion that speedily awoke him; who, starting up with a bound, cried out, “Well, Britisher, I must say this is a kinder droll way to welcome a friend.”
“Oh, Colonel, is it you?” said Layton. “Pray forgive my rudeness. But coming in as I did, without expecting any one, wet and somewhat tired—” He stopped and looked vacantly about him, as though not clearly remembering where he was.
Quackinboss had, however, been keenly examining him while he spoke, and marked in his wildly excited eyes and flushed cheeks the signs of some high excitement “You ain't noways right; you 're wet through and cold, besides,” said he, taking his hand in both his own. “Do you feel ill?”
“Yes; that is—I feel as if—I—had—lost my way,” muttered he, with long pauses between the words.
“There 's nothing like bed and a sound sleep for that,” said the other, gently; while, taking Layton's arm, he led him quietly along towards the half-open door of his bedroom. Passively surrendering himself to the other's care, Alfred made no resistance to all he dictated, and, removing his dripping clothes, he got into bed.
“It is here the most pain is now,” said he, placing his palm on his temple,—“here, and inside my head.”
“I wish I could talk to that servant of yours; he don't seem a very bright sort of creetur, but I could make him of use.” With this muttered remark, Quackinboss walked back into the sitting-room, where Layton's man was now extinguishing the lights and the fire. “You have to keep that fire in, I say—fire—great fire—hot water. Understand me?”
“'Strissimo! si,” said the Tuscan, bowing courteously.
“Well, then, do you fetch some lemons—lemons. You know lemons, don't you?”
A shrug was the unhappy reply.
“Lemong—lemong! You knowthem?”
“Limoni! oh si.” And he made the sign of squeezing them; and then, hastening out of the room, he speedily reappeared with lemons and other necessaries to concoct a drink.
“That's it,—bravo, that's it! Brew it right hot, my worthy fellow,” said Quackinboss, with a gesture that implied the water was to be boiled immediately. He now returned to Layton, whom he found sitting up in the bed, talking rapidly to himself, but with all the distinctness of one perfectly collected.
“By Marseilles I could reach Paris on Tuesday night, and London on Wednesday. Isn't there a daily packet for Genoa?” asked he, as Quackinboss entered.
“Well, I guess there's more than 's good of 'em,” drawled out the other; “ill-found, ill-manned, dirty craft as ever I put foot in!”
“Yes, but they leave every day, don't they?” asked Layton, impatiently.
“I ain't posted up in their doin's, nor I don't want to, that's a fact. We went ashore with a calm sea and a full moon, coming up from Civita-Vecchia—”
Layton burst into a laugh at the strange pronunciation,—a wild, unearthly sort of laugh that ended in a low, faint sigh, after which he lay back like one exhausted.
ONE0182
“I 'm a-goin' to take a little blood from you, I am!” said Quackinboss, producing a lancet which, from its shape and size, seemed more conversant with horse than human practice.
“I 'll not be bled! How am I to travel a journey of seven, eight, or ten days and nights, if I 'm bled?” cried the sick man, angrily.
“I 've got to bleed you, and I 'll do it!” said Quackinboss, as, taking ont his handkerchief, he tore a long strip, like a ribbon, from its border.
“Francesco—Francesco!” screamed out Layton, wildly, “take this man away; he has no right to be here. I 'll not endure it. Leave me—go—leave me!” screamed he, angrily.
There was that peculiar something about the look of Quackinboss that assured Francesco it would be as well not to meddle with him; and, like all his countrymen, he was quick to read an expression and profit by his knowledge. Even to the sick man, too, did the influence extend, and the determinate, purpose-like tone of his manner enforced obedience without even an effort.
“I was mystery-man for three years among the Choctaws,” said he, as he bound up Layton's arm, “and I 'll yield to no one livin' how to treat a swamp fever, and that's exactly what you 've got.” While the blood trickled from the open vein he continued to talk on in the same strain. “I 've seen a red man anoint hisself all over with oil, and set fire to it, and then another stood by with a great blanket to wrap him up afore he was more than singed, and it always succeeded in stoppin' the fever. It brought it out to the surface like. Howsomever, it's only an Indian's fixin', and I don't like it with a white man. How d' ye feel now,—better?”
A muttering, dissatisfied sound, but half articulate, seemed to say, “No better.”
“It ain't to be expected yet,” said Quackinboss. “Lie down, and be quiet a bit.”
Although the first effect of the bleeding seemed to calm the sufferer and arrest his fever, the symptoms of the malady came back in full force afterwards, and, ere day broke, he was raving wildly. At one moment he fancied he was at work in the laboratory with his father, and he ran over great calculations of mental arithmetic with a marvellous volubility; then he was back in his chambers at Trinity, but he could not find his books; they were gone—lost—no, not lost, he suddenly remembered that he had sold them—sold them to send a pittance to his poor sick mother. “It's a sad story, every part of it,” whispered he in Quackinboss's ear, while he clutched him closely with his hands. “It was a great man was lost, mark you; and in a great shipwreck even the fragments of the wreck work sad destruction, and, of course, none will say a word for him. But remember, sir, I am his son, and will not hear a syllable against him, from you nor any other.” From this he abruptly broke off to speak of O'Shea, and his late altercation with him. “I waited at home all the morning for him, and at last got a note to say that he had forgotten to tell me of an appointment he had made to ride out with Miss Leslie, but he 'll be punctual to the hour to-morrow. So it's better as it is, Colonel, for you 'll be here, and can act as my friend,—won't you? Your countrymen understand all these sort of things so well. And then, if I be called away suddenly to England, don't tell them,” whispered he, mysteriously,—“don't tell them at the villa whither I 've gone. They know nothing of me nor of my family; never heard of my ruined father, nor my poor, sick, destitute mother, dying of actual want,—think of that,—while I was playing the man of fortune here, affecting every extravagance,—yes, it was you yourself said so; I overheard you in the garden, asking why or how was it, with such ample means, I would become a tutor.”
It was not alone that these words were uttered in a calm and collected tone, but they actually recalled to the American a remark he had once made about Layton. “Well,” said he, as if some apology was called for, “it warn't any business of mine, but I was sorry to see it.”
“But you didn't know—you couldn't know,” cried the other, eagerly, “that I had no choice; my health was breaking. I had overworked my head; I could n't go on. Have you ever tried what it is to read ten hours a day? Answer me that.”
“No; but I've been afoot sixteen out of the twenty-four for weeks together, on an Indian trail; and that's considerable worse, I take it.”
“Who cares for mere fatigue of body?” said Layton, contemptuously.
“And who says it's mere fatigue of body?” rejoined the other, “when every sense a man has is strained and stretched to breakin', his ear to the earth, and his eyes rangin' over the swell of the prairies, till his brain aches with the strong effort; for, mark ye, Choctaws isn't Pawnees: they 're on you with a swoop, just like a white squall in the summer time.” There is no saying how far Quackinboss, notwithstanding all his boasted skill in physic, might have been tempted to talk on about a theme he loved so well, when he was suddenly admonished, by the expression of Layton's face, that the sick man was utterly unconscious of all around him. The countenance had assumed that peculiar stern and stolid gaze which is so markedly the characteristic of an affected brain.
“There,” muttered Quackinboss to himself, “I 've been a-talkin' all this time to a poor creetur as is ravin' mad; all I 've been doin' is to make him worse.”
Who owns the smart tandem that trips along so flippantly over the slightly frosted road from the Bagni towards Lucca? What genius, cunning in horseflesh, put that spicy pair together, perfect matches as they are in all but color, for the wheeler is a blood chestnut, and the leader a bright gray, with bone and substance enough for hunters? They have a sort of lithe and wiry action that reminds one of the Hungarian breed, and so, indeed, a certain jaunty carriage of the head, and half wild-looking expression of eye, bespeak them. The high dog-cart, however, is unmistakably English, as well as the harness, with its massive mountings and broad straps. What an air of mingled elegance and solidity pervades the entire! It is, as it were, all that such an equipage can pretend to compass,—lightness, speed, and a dash of sporting significance being its chief characteristics.
It is not necessary to present you to the portly gentleman who holds the ribbons, all encased as he is in box-coats and railway wrappers; you can still distinguish Mr. O'Shea, and as unmistakably recognize his man Joe beside him. The morning is sharp, clear, and frosty, but so perfectly still that the blue smoke of Mr. O'Shea's cigar hangs floating in the air behind him, as the nimble nags spin along at something slightly above thirteen miles an hour. Joe, too, solaces himself with the bland weed, but in more primitive fashion, from a short “dudeen” of native origin: his hat is pressed down firmly over his brows, and his hands, even to the wrists, deeply encased in his pockets, for Joe, be it owned, is less amply supplied with woollen comforts than his master, and feels the morning sharp.
“Now, I call this a very neat turn-out; the sort of thing a man might not be ashamed to tool along through any town in Europe,” said O'Shea.
“You might show it in Sackville Street!” said Joe, proudly.
“Sackville Street?” rejoined O'Shea, in an accent of contemptuous derision. “Is there any use, I wonder, in bringing you all over the world?”
“There is not,” said the other, in his most dogged manner.
“If there was,” continued O'Shea, “you'd know that Dublin had no place amongst the great cities of Europe,—that nobody went there,—none so much as spoke of it. I 'd just as soon talk of Macroom in good society.”
“And why would n't you talk of Macroom? What's the shame in it?” asked the inexorable Joe.
“There would be just the same shame as if I was to bring you along with me when I was asked out to dinner!”
“You might do worse,” was the dry reply.
“I 'm curious to hear how.”
“Troth, you might; and easy too,” said Joe, sententiously.
These slight passages did not seem to invite conversation, and so, for above a mile or two, nothing was spoken on either side. At last Mr. O'Shea said,—
“I think that gray horse has picked up a stone; he goes tenderly near side.”
“He does not; he goes as well as you do,” was Joe's answer.
“You're as blind as a bat, or you'd see he goes lame,” said O'Shea, drawing up.
“There, he's thrown it now; it was only a bit of a pebble,” said Joe, as though the victory was still on his side.
“Upon my life, I wonder why I keep you at all,” burst out O'Shea, angrily.
“So do I; and I wonder more why I stay.”
“Does it ever occur to you to guess why?”
“No; never.”
“It has nothing to say to being well fed, well lodged, well paid, and well cared for?”
“No; it has not,” said Joe, gravely. “The bit I ate, I get how I can; these is my own clothes, and sorrow sixpence I seen o' your money since last Christmas.”
“Get down,—get down on the road this instant. You shall never sit another mile beside me.”
“I will not get down. Why would I, in a strange counthry, and not a farthin' in my pocket!”
“Have a civil tongue, then, and don't provoke me to turn you adrift on the world.”
“I don't want to provoke you.”
“What beastly stuff is that you are smoking?” said O'Shea, as a whole cloud from Joe's pipe came wafted across him.
“'Tis n't bastely at all. I took it out of your own bag this morning.”
“Not out of the antelope's skin?” asked O'Shea, eagerly.
“Yes; out of the hairy bag with the little hoofs on it.”
A loud burst of laughter was O'Shea's reply, and for several seconds he could not control his mirth.
“Do you know what you're smoking! It's Russian camomile!”
“Maybe it is.”
“I got it to make a bitter mixture.”
“It's bitther, sure enough, but it has a notion of tobacco too.”
O'Shea again laughed out, and longer than before.
“It's just a chance that you were n't poisoned,” said he, at last. “Here—here's a cigar for you, and a real Cuban, too, one that young Heathcote never fancied would grace your lips.”
Joe accepted the boon without acknowledgment; indeed, he scrutinized the gift with an air of half-depreciation.
“You don't seem to think much of a cigar,” said O'Shea, testily.
“When I can get no betther,” said Joe, biting off the end.
O'Shea frowned and turned away. It was evident that he had some difficulty in controlling himself, but he succeeded, and was silent. The effort, however, could not be sustained very long, and at last he said, but in a slow and measured tone,—
“Shall I tell you a home-truth, Master Joe?”
“Yes, if you like.”
“It is this, then: it is that same ungracious and ungrateful way with which you, and every one like you in Ireland, receive benefits, disgusts every stranger.”
“Benefits!”
“Yes, benefits,—I said benefits.”
“Sure, what's our own isn't benefits,” rejoined Joe, calmly.
“Your own? May I ask if the contents of that bag were your own?”
“'T is at the devil I 'm wishin' it now,” said Joe, putting his hand on his stomach. “Tis tearing me to pieces, it is, bad luck to it!”
O'Shea was angry, but such was the rueful expression of Joe's face that he laughed out again.
“Now he's goin' lame if you like!” cried Joe, with a tone of triumph that said, “All the mishaps are not onmyside.”
O'Shea pulled up, and knowing, probably, the utter inutility of employing Joe at such a moment, got down himself to see what was amiss.
“No, it's the off leg,” cried Joe, as his master was carefully examining the near one.
“I suppose he must have touched the frog on a sharp stone,” said O'Shea, after a long and fruitless exploration.
“I don't think so,” said Joe; “'t is more like to be a dizaze of the bone,—one of thim dizazes of the fetlock that's never cured.”
A deeply uttered malediction was O'Shea's answer to the pleasant prediction.
“I never see one of them recover,” resumed Joe, who saw his advantage; “but the baste will do many a day's slow work—in a cart.”
“Hold your prate, and be hanged to you!” muttered O'Shea, as between anger and stooping, he was threatened with a small apoplexy. “Move them on gently for a few yards, till I get a look at him.”
Joe leisurely moved into his master's place, and bestowed the rug very comfortably around his legs. This done, with a degree of detail and delay that seemed almost intended to irritate, he next slowly arranged the reins in his fingers, and then, with a jerk of his whip-hand, sending out the lash in a variety of curves, he brought the whipcord down on the leader with a “nip” that made him plunge, while the wheeler, understanding the hint, started off at full swing. So sudden and unexpected was the start, that O'Shea had barely time to spring out of the way to escape the wheel. Before, indeed, he had thoroughly recovered his footing, Joe had swept past a short turning of the road, leaving nothing but a light train of dust to mark his course.
“Stop! pull up! stop! confound you!” cried O'Shea, with other little expletives that print is not called on to repeat, and then, boiling with passion, he set off in pursuit. When he had gained the angle of the road, it was only to catch one look at his equipage as it disappeared in the distance; the road, dipping suddenly, showed him little more than a torso of the “faithful Joe,” diminishing rapidly to a head, and then vanishing entirely.
“What a scoundrel! what a rascal!” cried O'Shea, as he wiped his forehead; and then, with his fist clenched and upraised, “registered a vow,” as Mr. O'Connell used to say, of unlimited vengeance. If this true history does not record the full measure of the heart-devouring anger of O'Shea, it is not from any sense of its being undeserved or unreasonable, for, after all, worthy reader, it might have pushed evenyourpatience to have been left standing, of a sharp November morning, on a lonely road, while your carriage was driven off by an insolent “flunkey.”
As he was about midway between the Bagni and the town of Lucca, to which he was bound, he half hesitated whether to go on or to return. There was shame in either course,—shame in going back to recount his misadventure; shame in having to call Joe to a reckoning in Lucca before a crowd of strangers, and that vile population of the stable-yard, with which, doubtless, Joe would have achieved popularity before his master could arrive.
Of a verity the situation was embarrassing, and in his muttered comments upon it might be read how thoroughly his mind took in every phase of its difficulty. “How they 'll laugh at me up at the Villa! It will last Sir William for the winter; he 'll soon hear how I won the trap from his son, and he 'll be ready with the old saw, 'Ah! ill got, ill gone!' How young Heathcote will enjoy it; and the widow,—if she be a widow,—won't she caricature me, as I stand halloaing out after the runaway rascal? Very hard to get out of all this ridicule without something serious to cover it. That's the only way to get out of a laughable adventure; so, Master Layton, it's all the worse foryouthis morning.” In this train of thought was he deeply immersed as a peasant drove past in his light “calesina.” O'Shea quickly hailed the man, and bargained with him for a seat to Lucca.
Six weary miles of a jolting vehicle did not contribute much to restore his calm of mind, and it was in a perfect frenzy of anger he walked into the inn-yard, where he saw his carriage now standing. In the stables his horses stood, sheeted up, but still dirty and travel-stained. Joe was absent. “He had been there five minutes ago; he was not an instant gone; he had never left his horses till now; taken such care of them,—watered, fed, groomed, and clothed them; he was a treasure,—there was not his like to be found.” These, and suchlike, were the eulogies universally bestowed by the stable constituency upon one whom O'Shea was at the same time consigning in every form to the infernal gods! The grooms and helpers wore a half grin on their faces as he passed out, and again he muttered, “All the worse foryou, Layton; you'll have to pay the reckoning.”
He was not long in finding the Barsotti Palace, where Layton lodged; an old tumble-down place it was, with a grass-grown, mildewed court, and some fractured statues, green with damp, around it. The porter, indicating with a gesture of his thumb where the stranger lived, left O'Shea to plod up the stairs alone.
It was strange enough that it should then have occurred to him, for the first time, that he had no definite idea about what he was coming for. Layton and he had, it is true, some words, and Layton had given him time and place to continue the theme; but in what way? To make Layton reiterate in cold blood something he might have uttered in anger, and would probably retract, if called upon courteously,—this would be very poor policy. While, on the other hand, to permit him to insinuate anything on the score of his success at play might be even worse again. It was a case for very nice management, and so O'Shea thought, as, after arriving at a door bearing Layton's name on a visiting-card, he took a turn in the lobby to consider his course of proceeding. The more he thought over it, the more difficult he found it; in fact, at last he saw it to be one of those cases in which the eventuality alone can decide the line to take, and so he gave a vigorous pull at the bell, determined to begin the campaign at once.
The door was not opened immediately, and he repeated his summons still louder. Scarcely had the rope quitted his hand, however, when a heavy bolt was drawn back, the door was thrown wide, and a tall athletic man, in shirt and trousers, stood before him.
“Well, stranger, you arn't much distressed with patience, that's a fact,” said a strongly nasal accent, while the speaker gave a look of very fierce defiance at the visitor.
“Am I speaking to Colonel Quackinboss?” asked O'Shea, in some surprise.
“Well, sir, if it ain't him, it's some one inhisskin, I'm thinkin'.”
“My visit was to Mr. Layton,” said the other, stiffly. “Is he at home?”
“Yes, sir; but he 's not a-goin' to see you.”
“I came here by his appointment.”
“That don't change matters a red cent, stranger; and as I said a'ready, he ain't a-goin' to see you.”
“Oh, then I 'm to understand that he has placed himself inyourhands? You assume to act for him?” said O'Shea, stiffly.
“Well, if you like to take it from that platform, I 'll offer no objection,” said Quackinboss, gravely.
“Am I, or am I not, to regard you as a friend on this occasion?” said O'Shea, authoritatively.
“I 'll tell you a secret, stranger; you 'll not be your own friend if you don't speak to me in another tone of voice. I ain't used to be halloaed at, I ain't.”
“One thing at a time, sir,” said O'Shea. “When I have finished the business which brought me here, I shall be perfectly at your service.”
“Now I call that talkin' reasonable. Step inside, sir, and take a seat,” said Quackinboss, whose manner was now as calm as possible.
Whatever irritation O'Shea really felt, he contrived to subdue it in appearance, as he followed the other into the room.
O'Shea was not so deficient in tact that he could not see his best mode of dealing with the American was to proceed with every courtesy and deference, and so, as he seated himself opposite him, he mentioned the reason of his coming there without anything like temper, and stated that from a slight altercation such a difference arose as required either an explanation or a meeting.
“He can't go a-shooting with you, stranger; he 's struck down this morning,” said Quackinboss, gravely, as the other finished.
“Do you mean he 's ill?”
“I s'pose I do, when I said he was down, sir.”
“This is most unfortunate,” broke in O'Shea. “My duties as a public man require my being in England next week. I hoped to have settled this little matter before my departure. I see nothing for it but to beg you will in writing—a few lines will suffice—corroborate the fact of my having presented myself here, according to appointment, and mention the sad circumstances by which our intentions, for I believe I may speak of Mr. Layton's as my own, have been frustrated.”
“Well, now, stranger, we are speakin' in confidence here, and I may just as well observe to you that of all the weapons that fit a man's hands, the pen is the one I 'm least ready with. I 'm indifferent good with firearms or a bowie, but a pen, you see, cuts the fingers that hold it just as often as it hurts the enemy, and I don't like it.”
“But surely, where the object is merely to testify to a plain matter-of-fact—”
“There ain't no such things on the 'arth as plain matters of fact, sir,” broke in Quackinboss, eagerly. “I've come to the middle period of life, and I never met one of 'em!”
O'Shea made a slight, very slight movement of impatience at these words; but the other remarked it, and said,—
“We 'll come to that presently, sir. Let us just post up this account of Mr. Layton's, first of all.”
“I don't think there is anything further to detain me here,” said O'Shea, rising with an air of stiff politeness.
“Won't you take something, sir,—won't you liquor?” asked Quackinboss, calmly.
“Excuse me; I never do of a morning.”
“I 'm sorry for it. I was a-thinkin', maybe you 'd warm up a bit with a glass of something strong. I was hopin' it's the cold of the day chilled you!”
“Do you mean this for insult, sir?” said O'Shea. “I ask you, because, really, your use of the English language is of a kind to warrant the question.”
“That 's where I wanted to see you, sir. You 're coming up to a good boilin'-point now, stranger,” said Quackinboss, with a pleased look.
“Is he mad, is he deranged?” muttered O'Shea, half aloud.
“No, sir. We Western men are little liable to insanity; our lives are too much abroad and open-air lives for that. It's your thoughtful, reflective, deep men, as wears a rut in their mind with thinkin'; them 's the fellows goes mad.”
O'Shea's stare of astonishment at this speech scarcely seemed to convey a concurrence in the assertion, and he made a step towards the door.
“If you're a-goin', I've nothing more to say, sir,” said Quackinboss.
“I cannot see what there is to detain me here!” said the other, sternly.
“There ain't much, that's a fact,” was the cool reply. “There's nothing remarkable in them bottles; it's new brandy and British gin; and as for myself, sir, I can only say I must give you a bill payable at sight,—whenever we may meet again, I mean; for just now this young man here can't spare me. I 'm his nurse, you see. I hope you understand me?”
“I believe I do.”
“Well, that's all right, stranger, and here's my hand on 't.” And even before O'Shea was well aware, the other had taken his hand in his strong grasp and was shaking it heartily. O'Shea found it very hard not to laugh outright, but there was a meaning-like determination in the American's manner that showed it was no moment for mirth.
It was, however, necessary to say something to relieve a very awkward pause, and so he observed,—
“I hope Mr. Layton's illness is not a serious one. I saw him, as I thought, perfectly well two days back.”
“He's main bad, sir; very sick,—very sick, indeed.”
“You have a doctor, I suppose?”
“No, sir. I have some experience myself, and I 'm just a-treatin' him by what I picked up among people that have very few apothecaries,—the Mandan Indians.”
“Without being particular, I must own I 'd prefer a more civilized course of physic,” said O'Shea, with a faint smile.
“Very likely, stranger; and if you had a dispute, you 'd rather, mayhap, throw it into a law court, and leave it to three noisy fellows to quarrel over; whileI'd look out for two plain fellows, with horny hands and honest hearts, and say, 'What's the rights o' this, gentlemen?'”
“I wish you every success, I'm sure,” said O'Shea, bowing.
“The same to you, sir,” said the other, in a sing-song tone. “Good-bye.”
When O'Shea had reached the first landing, he stopped, and, leaning against the wall, laughed heartily. “I hope I 'll be able to remember all he said,” muttered he, as he fancied himself amusing some choice company by a personation of the Yankee. “The whole thing was as good as a play! But,” added he, after a pause, “I 'm not sorry it's over, and that I have done with him!” Very true and heartfelt was this last reflection of the Member for Inch,—a far more honest recognition than even the hearty laugh he had just enjoyed,—and then there came an uneasy afterthought, that asked, “What could he mean by talking of a long bill, payable at some future opportunity? Surely he can't imagine that we 're to renew all this if we ever meet again. No, no, Colonel, your manners and your medicine may be learned amongst the Mandans, but they won't do here with us!” And so he issued into the street, not quite reassured, but somewhat more comforted.
So occupied was his mind with the late scene, that he had walked fully half-way back to his inn ere he bestowed a thought upon Joe. Wise men were they who suggested that the sentence of a prisoner should not immediately follow the conclusion of his trial, but ensue after the interval of some two or three days. In the impulse of a mind fully charged with a long narrative of guilt there is a force that seeks its expansion in severity; whereas, in the brief respite of even some hours, there come doubts and hesitations and regrets and palliations. In a word, a variety of considerations unadmitted before find entrance now to the mind, and are suffered to influence it.
Now, though Mr. O' Shea's first and not very unnatural impulse was to give Joe a sound thrashing and then discharge him, the interval we have just described moderated considerably the severity of this resolve. In the first place, although the reader may be astonished at the assertion, Joe was one very difficult to replace, since, independently of his aptitude to serve as groom, valet, or cook, he was deeply versed in all the personal belongings of his master. He had been with him through long years of difficulty, and aided him in various ways, from corrupting the virtuous freeholders of Inchabogue to raising an occasional supply on the rose-amethyst ring. Joe had fought for him and lied for him, with a zealous devotion not to be forgotten. Not, indeed, that he loved his master more, but that he liked the world less, and Joe found a sincere amount of pleasure in seeing how triumphantly their miserable pretensions swayed and dominated over mankind. And, lastly, he had another attribute, not to be undervalued in an age like ours,—he had no wages! It is not to be understood that he served O'Shea out of some sense of heroic devotion or attachment: no; Joe lived, as they say in India, on “loot”. When times were prosperous,—that is, when billiards and blind-hookey smiled, and to his master's pockets came home small Californias of half-crowns and even sovereigns,—Joe prospered also. He drank boldly and freely from the cup when brimful, but the half-empty goblet he only sipped at. When seasons of pressure set in, Joe's existence was maintained by some inscrutable secret of his own; for, be it known that on O'Shea's arrival at an hotel, his almost first care was to announce, “You will observe my servant is on board wages; he pays for himself;” and Joe would corroborate the myth with a bow. Bethink yourself, good reader, had you been the Member for Inch, it might have been a question whether to separate from such a follower.
By the fluctuations of O'Shea's fortunes, Joe's whole conduct seemed moulded. When the world went well with his master, his manner grew somewhat almost respectful; let the times grow worse, Joe became indifferent; a shade lower, and he was familiar and insolent; and, by long habit, O'Shea had come to recognize these changes as part of the condition of a varying fortune.
Little wonder was it that Joe grew to speak of his master and himself as one, complaining, as he would, “We never got sixpence out of our property. 'T is the ruin of us paying that annuity to our mother;” and so on.
Now, these considerations, and many others like them, weighed deeply on O'Shea's mind, as he entered the room of the hotel, angry and irritated, doubtless, but far from decided as to how he should manifest it. Indeed, the deliberation was cut short, for there stood Joe before him.
“I thought I was never to see your face again,” said O'Shea, scowling at him. “How dare you have the insolence to appear before me?”
“Is n't it well for you that I 'm alive? Ain't you lucky that you 're not answering for my death this minute?” said the other, boldly. “And if I did n't drive like blazes, would I be here now? Appear before you, indeed! I'd like to know who you 'd be appearin' before, if I was murthered with them bitthers you gave me?”
“Lying scoundrel! you think to turn it all off in this manner. You commit a theft first, and if the offence had killed you, it's no more than you deserved. Who told you to steal the contents of that bag, sir?”
“The devil, I suppose, for I never felt pain like it,—twistin' and tearin' and torturin' me as if you had a pinchers in my inside, and were nippin' me to pieces!”
“I 'm glad of it,—heartily glad of it.”
“I know you are,—I know you well. 'T is a corpse you 'd like to see me this minute.”
“So that I never set eyes on you, I don't care what becomes of you.”
“That 's enough,—enough said. I 'm goin'.”
“Go, and be———!”
“No, I won't. I 'll go and earn my livin'; and I 'll have my carakter, too,—eleven years last Lady-day; and I 'll be paid back to my own counthry; and I'll have my wages up to Saturday next; and the docther's bill, here, for all the stuff I tuk since I came in; and when you are ready with all this, you can ring for me.” And with his hands clasped over his stomach, and in a half-bent position, Joe shuffled out and left his master to his own reflections.
The world is full of its strange vicissitudes, and in nothing more remarkably than the way people are reconciled, ignore the past, and start afresh in life to incur more disagreements, and set to bickering again. Great kings and kaisers indulge in this pastime; profound statesmen and politicians do very little else. What wonder, then, if the declining sun saw the smart tandem slipping along towards the Bagni, with the O'Shea and his man sitting side by side in pleasant converse! They were both smoking, and seemed like men who enjoyed their picturesque drive, and the inspiriting pace they travelled at.
“When I 'll singe these 'cat hairs' off, and trim him a little about the head, he 'll look twice as well,” said Joe, with his eye on the leader. “It's a pity to see a collar on him.”
“We 'll take him down to Rome, and show him off over the hurdles,” said his master, joyfully.
“I was just thinkin' of that this minute; wasn't that strange now?”
“We 'll have to go, for they 're going to break up house here, and go off to Rome for the winter.”
“How will we settle with Pan?” said Joe, thoughtfully.
“A bill, I suppose.”
Joe shook his head doubtingly. “I 'm afraid not.”
“Go I will, and go I must,” said O'Shea, resolutely. “I 'm not going to lose the best chance I ever had in life for the sake of a beggarly innkeeper.”
“Why would you? Sure, no one would ask you! For, after all, 't is only drivin' away, if we 're put to it I don't think he 'd overtake us.”
“Not if we went the same pace you did this morning, Joe,” said O'Shea, laughing; and Joe joined pleasantly in the laugh, and the event ceased to be a grievance from that instant.