The search for any document that could authenticate my father's marriage proved totally unsuccessful, and although poor MacNaghten's zeal was untiring and unwearied, all his efforts were fruitless.
Guided by the clew afforded in some of my father's letters, Dan proceeded to Wales, ascertained the cottage where they had passed their first month of married life, and found out many who had known them by sight; but could chance upon nothing which should lead him to the important fact where, and by whom, the marriage ceremony was solemnized.
The state of my mother's health was so precarious for a long time as to render all inquiry from her impracticable; while there was also a very natural fear of the consequences that might ensue, were she to suspect the object of any investigation, and learn the perilous position in which she stood. Her condition was, indeed, a pitiable one,—a young and widowed mother; a stranger in a foreign land, of whose language she knew scarcely anything; without one friend of her own sex, separated by what, in those days, seemed an immense distance from all belonging to her. It was a weary load of misfortune to be borne by one who till that moment had never known a sorrow.
Nor was MacNaghten's lot more enviable as, day by day, he received packets of letters detailing the slow but steady march of those legal proceedings which were to end in the ruin of those whom he felt to have been bequeathed to his friendship. Already two claimants for the estate had appeared in the field,—one, a distant relation of my father, a very rich southern baronet, a certain Carew O'Moore; the other, an unknown, obscure person, whose pretensions, it was said, were favored by Fagan, and at whose cost the suit was said to be maintained. With the former, MacNaghten at once proceeded to open relations personally, by a letter describing in simple but touching terms the sad state in which my poor mother yet lay, and appealing to his feelings as a gentleman and a man of humanity to stay the course of proceedings for a while, at least, and give time to enable her to meet them by such information as she might possess.
A very polite reply was at once returned to this, assuring MacNaghten that whatever delays could be accorded to the law proceedings—short of defeating the object altogether—should certainly be accorded; that nothing was further from Sir Carew's desire than to increase, in the slightest, the sorrows of one so heavily visited; and expressing, in conclusion, a regret that his precarious health should preclude him paying his personal visit of condolence at the Castle, where, he trusted, the lady would continue to reside so long as her health or convenience made it desirable. If the expressions of the letter were not as hearty and generous as honest Dan might have wished them, they were more gratifying than the note he received from Fagan, written with all the caution and reserve of the Grinder's manner; for, while not going so far as to admit that he was personally interested and concerned for the new claimant, he guardedly avoided giving any denial to the fact.
For three weeks did MacNaghten continue to search through immense masses of papers and documents; he ransacked musty drawers of mustier cabinets; he waded through piles of correspondence, in the hope of some faint flickering of light, some chance phrase that might lead him to the right track; but without success! He employed trusty and sharp-witted agents to trace back, through England, the journey my father and mother had come by, but so secretly had every step of that wedding-tour been conducted, that no clew remained.
Amidst the disappointments of this ineffectual pursuit, there came, besides, the disheartening reflection that from those who were most intimately acquainted with my father's affairs he met neither counsel nor co-operation. On the contrary, Crowther's manner was close and secret on every matter of detail, and as to the chances of a suit, avowed how little ground they had for resistance. Fagan even went further, and spoke with an assumed regret that my father should have made no provision for those belonging to him.
All these were, however, as nothing to the misery of that day in which McNaughten was obliged to break the disclosure to my mother, and explain to her the position of ruin and humiliation in which she was placed! She was still weak and debilitated from her illness, her bodily strength impaired, and her mind broken by suffering, when this new shock came upon her; nor could she at first be made to understand the full measure of her misfortune, nor to what it exactly tended. That the home of her husband was no longer to be hers was a severe blow; it was endeared to her by so many of the tenderest recollections. It was all that really remained associated with him she had lost. “But perhaps,” thought she, “this is the law of the country: such are the inevitable necessities of the land.” Her boy would, if he lived, one day possess it for his own, and upon this thought she fell back for consolation.
MacNaghten did not venture in his first interview to undeceive her; a second and even a third passed over without his being equal to the task: but the inexorable course of law gave, at last, no time for further delay. The tenants of the estate had received formal notice to pay the amount of their several holdings into court, pending the litigation of the property. A peremptory order to surrender the house and demesne was also issued. The servants talked openly of the approaching break-up of the household, and already vague and shadowy rumors ran that my father had died intestate, and that my mother was left without a shilling.
From early morning till late at night, MacNaghten had toiled without ceasing. He had visited lawyers, attended consultations, instituted fresh searches through Crowther's papers, but all with the same result. The most hopeful counsels only promised a barren resistance, the less sanguine advisers recommended any compromise that might secure to my mother some moderate competence to live on. So much had the course of events preyed upon his mind, and so dispirited had he grown that, as he afterwards owned, he found himself listening to arguments, and willing to entertain projects, which, had they been presented but a few weeks before, he had rejected with scorn and indignation. It was then, too, and for the first time, that the possibility struck him that my father's marriage might have been solemnized without that formality which should make it good in law. He remembered the reserve with which, in all their frank friendship, the subject was ever treated. He bethought him of the reluctance with which my father suffered himself to be drawn into any allusion to that event; and that, in fact, it was the only theme on which they never conversed in perfect frankness and sincerity.
“After all,” thought he, “the matter may be difficult of proof. There may have been reasons, real or imaginary, for secrecy; there may have been certain peculiar circumstances requiring unusual caution or mystery; but Watty was quite incapable of presenting to his friends and to the world as his wife one who had not every title to the name, while she who held that place gave the best guarantee, by her manner and conduct, that it was hers by right.” To this consolation he was obliged to fall back at each new moment of discomfiture; but although it served to supply him with fresh energy and courage, it also oppressed him with the sad reflection that conviction and belief in his friend's honor would have no weight in the legal discussion of the case, and that one scrawled fragment of paper would be better in evidence than all the trustfulness that was ever inspired by friendship.
If gifted with a far more than common amount of resolution and energy, MacNaghten was by nature impulsive to rashness, and consequently not well suited to deal with those who, more cautious by temperament, and less given to exhibit their feelings, find their profit in trading upon the warmer and less suspectful natures of others. In proportion as his daily disappointment preyed upon him, he displayed the effect in his manner and appearance, and at length, between mental agitation and bodily fatigue, became the mere wreck of what he had been. It was thus that, after a long day passed in toil and excitement, he strolled into one of the squares after nightfall, to seek in the solitude of the spot some calm and tranquillity for his harassed spirit.
It was the autumn,—that season when Dublin is almost deserted by its residents, and scarcely any of those who constitute what is called society were in the capital. Mac-Naghten, therefore, was not likely to find any to interfere with the loneliness he sought for, and loitered unmolested for hours through the lanes and alleys of the silent square. There was a certain freshness in the night air that served to rally his jaded frame; and he felt, in the clear and half* frosty atmosphere, a sense of invigoration that made him unwilling to leave the spot. While thus gathering strength for the coming day, he thought he heard footsteps in the walk behind him; he listened, and now distinctly heard the sound of a voice talking in loud tones, and the shuffling sounds of feet on the gravel. Stepping aside into the copse, he waited to see who and for what purpose might they be who came there at this unfrequented hour.
To his astonishment, a solitary figure moved past, walking with short, hasty steps, while he talked and gesticulated to himself with every appearance of intense excitement. Mac-Naghten had but to hear a word or two, at once to recognize the speaker as Curtis—that strange, half-misanthropic creature, who, partly from fault, and in part from misfortune, now lived in a state of friendless isolation.
It was rumored that, although his bearing and manner before the Court displayed consummate coolness and self-possession, that the effect of the recent trial had been to shake his intellect seriously, and, while impressing upon him more strongly the notion of his being selected and marked out for persecution by the Government, to impart to him a kind of martyr's determination to perish in the cause. At no time were he and Dan congenial spirits. Their natures and their temperaments were widely different; and, from the great disparity in their ages, as well as in all their associations, there was scarcely one point of friendly contact in common to them.
There is a companionable element in misfortune, however, stronger than what we discover in prosperity; and partly from this cause, and partly from a sense of compassion, MacNaghten followed him quickly, and hailed him by his name.
“Joe Curtis!” repeated the old man, stopping suddenly. “I submit, my Lord, that this is an insufficient designation. I am Joseph Curtis, Esquire, of Meagh-valley House.”
“With all my heart,” said MacNaghten, cordially taking his hand and shaking it warmly, “though I think you'll suffer an old friend to be less ceremonious with you.”
“Ah! you here, Dan MacNaghten,—why, what in the name of all mischief has led you to this place? I thought I was the only maniac in this ward;” and he gave a harsh, grating laugh of irony at his own jesting allusion.
“I came here partly by accident, and have loitered from choice.”
“We must take care that no gentlemen have fixed this evening for a meeting here,” said Curtis, in a low, guarded whisper. “You and I, MacNaghten, would fare badly, depend upon it. What! with our known reputations, and the nails in our boots,—eh! the nails in our boots,—they 'll make what's called a strong case against us! You'd get off,—they 've nothing against you; but they 'll not let me slip through, like last time. Did you ever know such a close thing? The foreman, old Andrews, told me since, 'We had quite made up our minds, sir. We 'd have said guilty without leaving the box.' Just think of their dilemma if they had hanged me! My papers, for I took care to leave all in writing, would have shown up the whole conspiracy. I 've set forth the game they have been playing since the year '42. I detailed all their machinations, and showed the secret orders they had given to each successive Viceroy. There were three men—only three men—in all Ireland that they dreaded! And that blundering fool Carew must rush in with his rashness and absurdity! Who ever heard or saw the like?”
“Poor fellow!” muttered MacNaghten.
“'Poor fellow,' as much as you wish, sir; but remember that some degree of consideration is due to me also! I was a prisoner seven weeks in Newgate; I stood in the dock, arraigned for a murder; I was on the eve of a false conviction and a false sentence; and there is no man living can say what results might not have followed on my being falsely executed! Your friend's stupid interference has spoiled everything, and you need n't ask me, at least, to feel grateful to him.”
“There are men who, in your situation that day, would not hesitate to acknowledge their gratitude, notwithstanding,” said MacNaghten.
“There are poor-spirited, contemptible curs in every country, sir, if you mean that!” said Curtis. “As for Carew, he was a gentleman by birth. He had the fortune and the education of one. He might, if he had wished it, have been one of the first, if not the very first, men in this country. He thought it a finer thing to be a horse-racer and a gambler. He saw greater distinction in being the dangler at the court of a foreign debauchee to being the leading character in his own land. Don't interrupt me, sir,” cried he, haughtily, waving his hand, while he went on, with increased vehemence. “I tell you again that Walter Carew might now have been a great living patriot—instead of—”
“If you utter one syllable of insult to his memory,” broke in MacNaghten, boldly, “neither your age nor your folly shall save you; for, by Heaven—”
He stopped, for the aspect of the broken-down, white-' haired figure in front of him suddenly overcame him with shame for his own violence.
“Well, and what then?” said Curtis, calmly. “Shall I finish your threat for you? for, in truth, you seem quite unable to do so yourself. No, I 'll not—Dan MacNaghten—never fear me. I 'm just as incapable of defaming him who has left us as you are of offering insult to an old, decrepit, half-crazed man, whose only use in life is to cast obloquy upon those that have made him the thing he is.”
“Forgive me, Curtis; I am heartily sorry for my rude speech,” cried MacNaghten.
“Forgive you, sir!” said he, already following out another and a very different train of thought. “I have nothing to forgive. You were only doing what all the world does; what your Government and its authorities give the example of,—insulting one whom it is safe to outrage! You treat me as you treat Ireland, that's all! Give me your hand, MacNaghten; I think, indeed I always said, you were the best of those fellows about Carew. If he had n't been away from you, probably he 'd not have fallen into that stupid mistake,—that French connection.”
“His marriage, do you mean?” cried Dan, eagerly.
“Marriage, if you like to call it so!” rejoined the other.
“Have you a single doubt that it was such?”
“Have I a single reason to believe it?” said Curtis, doggedly. “If a man of fifteen thousand a-year takes a wife, he selects a woman whose rank and station are at least equal to his own, and he takes care besides that the world knows it. If she brings him no fortune, he makes the more fuss about her family, and parades her high relations. He does n't wed in secret, and keep the day, the place, the witnesses, a mystery; he doesn't avoid even a chance mention of the event to his dearest friends; he does n't settle down to live in an obscure retreat, when he owns a princely residence in the midst of his friends. When he does come back amongst them, he does not shrink from presenting her to the world; to be driven at last by necessity to the bold course,—to fill his house with company, and see them drop off,—fritter away one by one, distrustful, dissatisfied, and suspecting. Don't tell me, sir, that if he had a good cause and a safe cause behind him, that Walter Carew would n't have asked explanations, ay, and enforced them, too, from some of those guests who rewarded his hospitality so scurvily. You knew him well; and I ask you, was he the man to suffer the insolent attacks of the public journals, if it were not that he dreaded even worse exposures by provocation? You are a shrewd and a clever fellow, MacNaghten; and if you don't see this matter as all the world sees it—”
“And is this the common belief? Do you tell me that such is the impression abroad in society?”
“Consult Matt Fosbroke. Ask Harvey Hempton what his wife says. Go to George Tisdall and get his account of their departure from Castle Carew, and the answer they sent when invited there a second time.”
“Why, all this is new to me!” cried MacNaghten, in amazement.
“To be sure, it's only circumstantial evidence,” broke in Curtis, with a bitter laugh; “but that is precisely what the courts of law tell you is the most unimpeachable of all testimony. It may fail to convince you, but it would be quite sufficient to hang me!”
The bare recurrence, for a second, to this theme at once brought back the old man to his own case, into which he launched with all the fervor of a full mind; now sneering at the capacity of those before whom he was arraigned, now detailing with delight the insolent remarks he had taken occasion to make on the administration of justice generally. It was in vain that MacNaghten tried to lead him away from the subject. It constituted his world to him, and he would not quit it. A chance mention of Fagan's name in the proceedings of the trial gave occasion at last for interruption, and MacNaghten said,—
“By the way, Fagan is a difficult fellow to deal with. You know him well, I believe?”
“Know him. Ay, that I do, sir. I have known that den of his since it was an apple-stall. My first post-obit was cashed by his worthy father. My last bill”—here he laughed heartily—“my last bill was protested by the son! And yet the fellow is afraid of me. Ay, there is no man that walks this city he dreads so much as me!”
Curtis was so much in the habit of exaggerating his own importance, and particularly as it affected others, that MacNaghten paid but little attention to this remark, when the other quickly rejoined,—
“If you want to manage Fagan, take me with you. He 'll not give you money on my bond, nor will he discount a bill for my name's sake; but he 'll do what costs him to the full as much,—he 'll tell you the truth, sir. Mark that,—he 'll tell you the truth.”
“Will you accompany me to his house to-morrow?” asked Dan, eagerly.
“Ay, whenever you will.”
“I 'll call upon you at ten o'clock, then, if not too early, and talk over the business for which I want your assistance. Where are you stopping?”
“My town residence is let to Lord Belview, and to avoid the noise and turmoil of a hotel, I live in lodgings,” said Curtis, slowly, and with a certain pomposity of air and manner; suddenly changing which to his ordinary jocular tone, he said: “You have, maybe, heard of a place called Fum's Alley. It lies in the Liberty, and opens upon that classic precinct called 'The Poddle.' There, sir, at a door over which a straw chair is suspended,—it's the manufacture of the house,—there, sir, lives Joe Curtis.”
“I 'll be with you at ten,” said Dan; and, with some pass-ing allusion to the lateness of the hour, he led the way back into the town, where they parted.
MacNaghten's object in seeking an interview with Fagan was to ascertain, in the first place, who that claimant to the estate was whose views he advocated; and, secondly, what prospect there might be of effecting some species of compromise which should secure to my mother a reasonable competence. Although, in his isolation, he had grasped eagerly even at such co-operation as that of Curtis, the more he thought over the matter, the less reason did he see to rejoice in the alliance. Even before misfortune had affected his intellect, his temper was violent, and his nature impracticable. Always yielding to impulse far more than to mature judgment, he rushed madly on, scrambling from difficulty to difficulty, and barely extricated from one mishap till involved in another.
Such aid as he could proffer, therefore, promised little, and Dan felt more than half disposed to relinquish it. This, however, should be done with all respect to the feelings of Curtis, and, reflecting in what way the object could best be compassed, MacNaghten slowly sauntered onwards to the appointed place. It was not without some difficulty that he at last discovered the miserable lane, at the entrance to which a jaunting-car was now waiting,—a mark of aristocratic intercourse which seemed, by the degree of notice it attracted, to show that such equipages rarely visited this secluded region. MacNaghten's appearance, however, soon divided public curiosity with the vehicle, and he was followed by a ragged gathering of every age and sex, who very unceremoniously canvassed the object of his coming, and with a most laudable candor criticised his look and appearance. Although poor and wretched in the extreme, none of them asked alms, nor seemed in the slightest degree desirous of attracting attention to their own destitution.
“Is it a lodgin' yer honer wants?” whispered an old fellow on crutches, sidling close up to MacNaghten, and speaking in a confidential tone. “I 've a back room looks out on the Poddle, for two shillings a week, furnished.”
“I've the elegant place Mary Murdoch lived in for ten months, yer honer, in spite of all the polis', and might be livin' there yet, if she did n't take into her head to go to Fishamble Street playhouse one night and get arrested,” cried a one-eyed old hag, with a drummer's coat on.
“He does n't want a room,—the gentleman is n't the likes of them that comes here,” growled out a cripple, who, with the sagacity that often belongs to the maimed, seemed better to divine Dan's motives.
“You 're right, my lad; I was trying to find out where a friend of mine lived,—Mr. Curtis.”
“Faix, ould Joe has company this mornin',” said the first speaker. “It was to see him that the fat man came on the jaunting-car.”
“Are yiz goin' to try him agen?” said a red-eyed, fierce-looking woman, whose face was a mass of bruises.
“Sure the gentleman isn't a bailiff nor a polisman,” broke in the cripple, rebukingly.
“There's not a man in the Poddle won't stand up for Joe Curtis, if he needs it,” cried a powerfully built man, whose energy of manner showed that he was the leader of a party.
“Yer honer's looking for Kitty Nelligan; but she's gone,” whispered a young creature, with a baby at her breast; and her eyes overran with tears as she spoke. “She died o' Friday last,” added she, in a still fainter voice.
“Did n't ye hear him say it was Mister Joe he wanted? and there's the house he lives in,” said another.
“Yis, but he can't go up to him now,” said the man who affected to assume rule amongst them; “the one that came on the car said he was n't to be disturbed on any account.”
“Begorra,” chimed in the cripple, “if it's a levee, yer honer must wait yer turn!”
“I 'm quite willing,” said Dan, good-humoredly; “a man has no right to be impatient in the midst of such pleasant company;” and as he spoke, he seated himself on a low stone bench beside the house door, with, all the ease of one bent on being companionable.
Had MacNaghten assumed airs of haughty superiority or insolent contempt for that motley assembly, he never could have attained to the position to which the last words, carelessly uttered as they were, at once raised him. They not only pronounced him a gentleman, but a man of the world besides,—the two qualities in the very highest repute in that class by which he was surrounded. Instead, therefore, of the familiar tone they had previously used towards him, they now stood silently awaiting him to speak.
“Do the people hereabouts follow any particular trade?” asked Dan.
“'T is straw chairs principally, your honer,” replied the cripple, “is the manufacture of the place; but most of us are on the streets.”
“On the streets,—how do you mean?”
“There's Billy Glory, there yonder, he sings ballads; that man with the bit of crape round his hat hawks the papers; more of us cry things lost or stolen; and a few more lives by rows and rucktions at elections, and the like.”
“Faix! and,” sighed the strong man, “the trade isn't worth the following now. I remember when Barry O'Hara would n't walk the streets without a body-guard,—five in front, and five behind him,—and well paid they were; and I remember Hamilton Brown payin' fifty of us to keep College Green against the Government, on a great Parliament night. Ay, and we did it too!”
“They wor good times for more than you,” broke in the woman in the uniform coat; “I made seven-and-sixpence on Essex Bridge in one night by the 'Shan van voght.'”
“The grandest ballad that ever was written,” chimed in an old man with one eye; “does yer honer know it?”
“I'm ashamed to say not perfectly,” said Dan, with an air of humility.
“Molly Daly's the one can sing it well, then,” cried he; a sentiment re-echoed with enthusiasm by all.
“I'm low and down-hearted of a mornin',” said Molly, bashfully; “but maybe after a naggin and a pint I'll be better.”
“Let me have the honor to treat the company,” said Dan, handing a crown-piece to one near him.
“If your honor wants to hear Molly right, make her sing Tom Molloy's ballad for the Volunteers,” whispered the cripple; and he struck up in a hoarse voice,—
“'Was she not a fool,When she took off our wool,To leave us so much of theLeather—the leather!“'It ne'er entered her pateThat a sheepskin will 'bate,'Will drive a whole nationTogether—together.'”
“I'd rather she 'd sing Mosy Cassan's new song on Barry Rutledge,” growled out a bystander.
“A song on Rutledge?” cried Dan.
“Yes, sir. It was describin' how Watty Carew enticed him downstairs, to kill him. Faix, but there's murder now goin' on upstairs; do ye hear ould Joe, how he's cursin' and swearin'?”
The uproar was assuredly enough to attract attention; for Curtis was heard screaming something at the top of his voice, and as if in high altercation with his visitor. Mac-Naghten accordingly sprang from his seat, and hurried up the stairs at once, followed by the powerful-looking fellow I have already mentioned. As he came near Curtis's chamber, however, the sounds died away and nothing could be heard but the low voices of persons conversing in ordinary tones together.
“Step in here, sir,” said the fellow to Dan, unlocking a door at the back of the house; “step in here, and I'll tell you when Mister Joe is ready to see you.”
MacNaghten accepted the offer, and now found himself in a mean-looking chamber, scantily furnished, and looking out upon some of those miserable lanes and alleys with which the place abounded. The man retired, locking the door after him, and leaving Dan to his own meditations in solitude.
He was not destined to follow these thoughts long undisturbed, for again he could hear Curtis's voice, which, at first from a distant room, was now to be heard quite close, as he came into the very chamber adjoining that where Dan was.
“Come this way, come this way, I say,” cried the old man, in a voice tremulous with passion. “If you want to seize, you shall see the chattels at once,—no need to trouble yourself about an inventory! There is my bed; I got fresh straw into the sacking on Saturday. The blanket is a borrowed one; that horseman's cloak is my own. There 's not much in that portmanteau,” cried he, kicking it with his foot against the wall. “Two ragged shirts and a lambskin waistcoat, and the title-deeds of estates that not even your chicanery could get back for me. Take them all, take that old blunderbuss, and tell the Grinder that if I 'd have put it to my head twenty years ago, it would have been mercy, compared to the slow torture of his persecution!”
“My dear Mr. Curtis, my dear sir,” interposed a bland, soft voice that Dan at once recognized as belonging to Mr. Crowther, the attorney, “you must allow me once more to protest against this misunderstanding. There is nothing farther from my thoughts at this moment than any measure of rigor or severity towards you.”
“What do you mean, then, by that long catalogue of my debts? Why have you hunted me out to show me bills I can never pay, and bonds I can never release?”
“Pray be calm, sir; bear with me patiently, and you will see that my business here this morning is the very reverse of what you suspect it to be. It is perfectly true that Mr. Fagan possesses large, very large, claims upon you.”
“How incurred, sir?—answer me that. Who can stand forty, fifty, ay, sixty per cent? Has he not succeeded to every acre of my estate? Have I anything, except that settle-bed, that is n't his?”
“You cannot expect me to go at length into these matters, sir,” said Crowther, mildly; “they are now bygones, and it is of the future I wish to speak.”
“If the past be bad, the future promises to be worse,” cried Curtis, bitterly. “It is but sorry mercy to ask me to look forward!”
“I think I can convince you to the contrary, sir, if you vouchsafe me a hearing. I hope to show you that there are in all probability many happy years before you,—years of ease and affluence. Yes, sir, in spite of that gesture of incredulity, I repeat it,—of ease and affluence.”
“So, then, they think to buy me at last,” broke in the old man. “The scoundrels must have met with few honest men, or they had never dared to make such a proposal. What do the rascals think to bribe me with, eh? Tell me that.”
“You persist in misunderstanding me, sir. I do not come from the Government; I would not presume to wait on you in such a cause!”
“What's the peerage to me? I have no descendants to profit by my infamy. I cannot barter my honor for my children's greatness! I 'm prouder with that old hat on my head than with the coronet; tell them that. Tell them that Joe Curtis was the only man in all Ireland they never could purchase; tell them that when I had an estate I swore to prosecute for a poacher their ducal Viceroy if he shot a snipe over my lands; and that I 'm the same man now I was then!”
Crowther sighed heavily, like one who has a wearisome task before him, but must go through with it.
“If I could but persuade you, sir, to believe that my business here has no connection with politics whatever; that the Castle has nothing to do with it—”
“Ay, I see,” cried Curtis, “it's Lord Charlemont sent you. It 's no use; I 'll have nothing to say to any of them. He's too fond of Castle dinners and Castle company for me! I never knew any good come of the patriotism that found its way up Corkhill at six o'clock of an evening!”
“Once for all, Mr. Curtis, I say that what brought me here this morning was to show you that Mr. Fagan would be willing to surrender all claim against you for outstanding liabilities, and besides to settle on you a very handsome annuity, in consideration of some concessions on your part with respect to a property against which he has very large claims.”
“What's the annuity,—how much?” cried Curtis, hastily.
“What sum would you yourself feel sufficient, sir? He empowered me to consult your own wishes and expectations on the subject.”
“If I was to say a thousand a-year, for instance?” said Curtis, slowly.
“I'm certain he would not object, sir.”
“Perhaps if I said two, he 'd comply?”
“Two thousand pounds a-year is a large income for a single man,” replied Crowther, sententiously.
“So it is; but I could spend it. I spent eight thousand a-year once in my life, and when my estate was short of three! and that 's what comes of it;” and he gave the settle-bed a rude kick as he spoke. “Would he give two? That's the question, Crowther: would he give two?”
“I do not feel myself competent to close with that offer, Mr. Curtis; but if you really think that such a sum is necessary—”
“I do,—I know it; I could n't do with a shilling less; in fact, I'd find myself restricted enough with that. Whenever I had to think about money, it was hateful to me. Tell him two is the lowest, the very lowest, I 'd accept of; and if he wishes to treat me handsomely, he may exceed it. You 're not to judge of my habits, sir, from what you see here,” added he, fiercely; “this is not what I have been accustomed to. You don't know the number of people who look up to me for bread. My father's table was laid for thirty every day, and it had been well for us if as many more were not fed at our cost elsewhere.”
“I have often heard tell of Meagh-valley House and its hospitalities,” said Crowther, blandly.
“'Come over and drink a pipe of port' was the invitation when I was a boy. A servant was sent round to the neighborhood to say that a hogshead of claret was to be broached on such a day, and to beg that the gentlemen around would come over and help to drink it,—ay, to drink it out! Your piperly hounds, with their two-bottle magnum, think themselves magnificent nowadays; why, in my time they 'd have been laughed to scorn!”
“They were glorious times indeed,” cried Crowther, with mad enthusiasm.
“Glorious times to beggar a nation, to prostitute public honor and private virtue,” broke in Curtis, passionately; “to make men heartless debauchees first, that they might become shameless scoundrels after; to teach them a youth of excess and an old age of venality. These were your Glorious Times! But you, sir, may be forgiven for praising them; to you, and others like you, they have been indeed 'Glorious Times'! Out of them grew those lawsuits and litigations that have enriched you, while they ruined us. Out of that blessed era of orgie and debauch came beggared families and houseless gentry; men whose fathers lay upon down couches, and whose selves sleep upon the like of that;” and the rude settle rocked as his hand shook it. “Out upon your Glorious Times, say I; you might as well call the drunken scene of a dinner-party a picture of domestic comfort and happiness! It was a long night of debauchery, and this that we now see is the sad morning afterwards! Do you know besides, sir,” continued he, in a still fiercer tone, “that in those same 'Glorious Times,' you, and others of your stamp, would have been baited like badgers if found within the precincts of a gentleman's house? Ay, faith, and if my memory does not betray me, I can call to mind one or two such instances.”
The violence of the old man's passion seemed to have exhausted him, and he sat down on the bed, breathing heavily and panting.
“Where were we?” cried he at last. “What was it that we were arguing? Yes—ay—to be sure—these bills—these confounded bills. I can't pay them. I would n't if I could. That scoundrel Fagan has made enough of me without that. What was it you said of an annuity? There was some talk of an annuity, eh?”
Crowther bent down, and spoke some words in a low, murmuring voice.
“Well, and for that what am I to do?” cried Curtis, suddenly. “My share of the compact is heavy enough, I'll be sworn. What is it?”
“I think I can show you that it is not much of a sacrifice, sir. I know you hate long explanations, and I 'll make mine very brief. Mr. Fagan has very heavy charges against an estate which is not unlikely to be the subject of a disputed ownership. It may be a long suit, with all the delays and difficulties of Chancery; and in looking over the various persons who may prefer claims here and there, we find your name amongst the rest, for it is a long list, sir. There may be forty or forty-five in all! The principal one, however, is a wealthy baronet who has ample means to prosecute his claim, and with fair hopes of succeeding. My notion, however, was that if Mr. Fagan could arrange with the several persons in the cause to waive their demands for a certain consideration, that it would not be difficult then to arrange some compromise with the baronet himself,—he surrendering the property to Fagan for a certain amount, on taking with it all its liabilities. You understand?”
“And who's the owner?” asked Curtis, shortly.
“He is dead, sir.”
“Who was he when alive?”
“An old friend, or rather the son of an old friend of yours, Mr. Curtis!”
“Ah, Brinsley Morgan! I guess him at once; but you are wrong, quite wrong there, my good fellow. I have n't the shadow of a lien on his estate. We talked it over together one day, and Hackett, the Attorney-General, who was in the house, said that my claim was n't worth five shillings. But I 'll tell you where I have a claim,—at least Hackett said so, I have a very strong claim—No, no; I was forgetting again,—my memory is quite gone. It is so hard when one grows old to bear the last ten or fifteen years in mind. I can remember my boyhood and my school-days like yesterday. It is late events that confuse me! You 'll scarce believe me when I tell you I often find myself going to dine with some old friend, and only discover when I reach his door that he is dead and gone this many a day! There was something in my mind to tell you, and it has escaped me already. Oh! I have it. There are some curious old family papers in that musty-looking portmanteau. I should like to find out some clever fellow that would look them over without rushing me into a lawsuit, mind ye, for I have no heart for that now! My brother Harry's boy is dead. India finished him, poor fellow! That's the key of it,—see if it will open the lock.”
“If you like I 'll take them back with me, sir, and examine them myself at home.”
“Do so, Crowther. Only understand me well, no bills of costs, my worthy friend; no searches after this, or true copies of that; I 'll have none of them. As Dick Parsons said, I 'd rather spend my estate at the 'Fives' than the 'Four' Courts.”
Crowther gave one of his complacent laughs; and having induced Curtis to accept an invitation for the following day at dinner, he took the portmanteau under his arm and withdrew.
He had scarcely descended the stairs when Dan found the door unlocked, and proceeded to pay his visit to Curtis, his mind full of all that he had just overheard, and wondering at the many strange things he had been a listener to.
When MacNaghten entered, he found Curtis sitting at a table, with his head resting on his hand, and looking like one deeply engaged in thought. Dan saluted him twice, without obtaining a reply, and at last said,—
“They said that you had a visitor this morning, and so I have been waiting for some time to see you.”
The other nodded assentingly, but did not speak.
“You are, perhaps, too much tired now,” said Dan, in a kind voice, “for much talking. Come and have a turn in the open air; it will refresh you.”
Curtis arose and took his hat, without uttering a word.
“You are a good walker, Curtis,” said MacNaghten, as they reached the street. “What say you if we stroll down to Harold's Cross, and eat our breakfast at the little inn they call 'The Friar'?”
“Agreed,” muttered the other, and walked along at his side, without another word; while Dan, to amuse his companion, and arouse him from the dreary stupor that oppressed him, exerted himself in various ways, recounting the popular anecdotes of the day, and endeavoring, so far as might be, to entertain him.
It was soon, however, evident that Curtis neither heard nor heeded the efforts the other was making, for he continued to move along with his head down, mumbling at intervals to himself certain broken and incoherent words. At first, MacNaghten hoped that this moody dejection would pass away, and his mind recover its wonted sharpness; but now he saw that the impression under which he labored was no passing or momentary burden, but a heavy load that weighed wearily on his spirits.
“I am afraid you are scarcely so well as usual to-day?” asked Dan, after a long interval of silence between them.
“I have a pain hereabouts,—it is not a pain either, but I feel uneasy,” said Curtis, pushing his hat back from his forehead, and touching his temple with his finger.
“It will pass away with the fresh air and a hearty breakfast, I hope. If not, I will see some one on our return. Who is your doctor?”
“My doctor! You ask a man who has lived eighty-four years who is his doctor! That nature that gave him a good stout frame; the spirit that told him what it could, and what it could not, bear,—these, and a hearty contempt for physic and all that live by it, have guided me so far, and you may call them my doctors if you wish.”
Rather pleased to have recalled the old man to his habitual energy, Dan affected to contest his opinions, by way of inducing him to support them; but he quickly saw his error, for Curtis, as though wearied by even this momentary effort, seemed more downcast and depressed than before.
MacNaghten, therefore, contented himself with some commonplace remarks about the country around and the road they were walking, when Curtis came to a sudden halt, and said,—
“You would n't take the offer, I 'll be sworn. You 'd say at once: 'Show me what rights I 'm surrendering; let me know the terms of the agreement.' But what signifies all that at my age?—the last of the stock besides! If I lay by what will pay the undertaker, it's all the world has a right to demand at my hands.”
“Here's 'The Friar,'—this is our inn,” said MacNaghten. “Shall I be the caterer, eh? What say you to some fried fish and a glass of Madeira, to begin with?”
“I 'll have a breakfast, sir, that suits my condition,” said Curtis, haughtily. “Send the landlord here for my orders.”
“Here's our man, then,” said MacNaghten, humoring the whim, as he pushed the innkeeper towards him.
“What's your name, my good fellow?” asked Curtis, with a supercilious look at the short but well-conditioned figure before him.
“Billy Mathews, sir,” said the other, with difficulty restraining a smile at the dilapidated look of his interrogator.
“Well, Mathews, keep the Billy for your equals, my good friend. Mathews, I say, let us have the best your house affords, served in your best room and in your best manner. If I ate prison fare for nine weeks, sir, it is no reason that I am not accustomed to something different. My name is Joseph Curtis, of Meagh-valley House; I sat in Parliament for eight-and-twenty years, for the borough of Kilternon; and I was tried for a murder at the last commission. There, sir! it's not every day you have a guest who can say as much.”
As the landlord was moving away to give his orders, Curtis called out once more:—
“Stay, sir; hear me out. There are spies of the Castle wherever I go. Who have you here just now? Who's in this house?”
“There's but one gentleman here at present, sir. I've known him these twenty years, and I 'll vouch for it he's neither a Government spy nor an informer.”
“And who will be satisfied with your guarantee, sir?” cried Curtis, insolently. “It's not a fellow in your position that can assure the scruples of a man in mine. Who is he? What's his name?”
“He's a respectable man, sir, well known in Dublin, and the son of one that held a good position once.”
“His name,—his name!” cried Curtis, imperiously.
“It's no matter about his name!” replied the host, sulkily. “He has come to eat his breakfast here, as he does once or twice a week, and that's all that I have to say to him.”
“But I 'll have his name,—I 'll insist upon it,” shouted out Curtis, in a voice of high excitement; “persecuted and hunted down as I am, I'll defend myself. Your Castle bloodhounds shall see that Joe Curtis will not run from them. This gentleman here is the son of MacNaghten of Greenan. What signifies it to you if he be ruined! What affair is it of yours, I ask, if he has n't a sixpence in the world?—I'll pay for what he takes here. I'm responsible for everything. I have two thousand a year secured on my life,”—he stopped, and seemed to reflect for a moment, then added,—“that is, I may have it if I please.”
MacNaghten made a signal for the innkeeper to serve the breakfast, and not notice any of the extravagances of his strange companion. Mathews was about to obey, when Curtis, recurring to his former thought, cried out,—
“Well, sir, this fellow's name?”
“Tell him who it is,” whispered Dan, secretly; and the host said,—
“The gentleman is one Mr. Raper, sir, head clerk to Mr. Fagan, of Mary's Abbey.”
“Leave the room—close the door,” said Curtis, with an air of caution. “I saw the signal you gave the innkeeper a moment ago, MacNaghten,” said he, in the same low and guarded tone. “I read its meaning perfectly. You would imply: The old fellow is not right—a crack in the upper story—humor him a bit. Don't deny it, man; you acted for the best; you thought, as many think, that my misfortunes had affected my intellect and sapped my understanding; and so they had done this many a day,” added he, fiercely, “but for one thing. I had one grand security against madness, Dan; one great barrier, my boy: shall I tell it you? It was this, then: that if my head wandered sometimes, my heart never did—never! I hated the English and their party in this country with a hate that never slept, never relaxed! I knew well that I was the only man in Ireland that they could not put down. Some they bought—some they ruined—some they intimidated—some they destroyed by calumny. They tried all these with me, and at last were driven to a false accusation, and had me up for a murder! and that failed them, too! Here I stand, their opponent, just as I did fifty-two years ago, and the only man in all Ireland that dares to brave and defy them. They 'd make me a peer to-morrow, Dan; they 'd give me a colonial government; they 'd take me into the Cabinet; there is not a demand of mine they 'd say 'No' to, if I 'd join them; but my answer is, 'Never! never!' Go down to your grave, Joe Curtis, ruined, ragged, half-famished, mayhap. Let men call you a fool, and worse! but the time will come, and the people will say: There was once a man in Ireland that never truckled to the Castle, nor fawned on the Viceroy; and that when he stood in the dock, with his life on the venture, told them that he despised their vengeance, though he knew that they were covering it with all the solemnity of a law-court; and that man his contemporaries—ay, even his friends—were pleased to call Mad!”
“Come, come, Curtis, you know well this is not my impression of you; you only say so jestingly.”
“It's a sorry theme to crack jokes upon,” said the other, sadly. He paused, and seemed to reflect deeply for some minutes, and then, in a voice of peculiar meaning, and with a look of intense cunning in his small gray eyes, said, “We heard the name he mentioned,—Raper, Fagan's man of business. Let 's have him in, MacNaghten; the fellow is a half simpleton in many things. Let's talk to him.”
“Would you ask Mr. Raper to join our breakfast?” asked Dan of the innkeeper.
“He has just finished his own, sir; some bread and watercresses, with a cup of milk, are all that he takes.”
“Poor fellow!” said Dan, “I see him yonder in the summer-house; he appears to be in hard study, for he has not raised his head since we entered the room. I 'll go and ask him how he is.”
MacNaghten had not only time to approach the little table where Raper was seated unobserved, but even to look over the object of his study, before his presence was recognized.
“German, Mr. Raper; reading German?” cried MacNaghten. “I know the characters, at least.”
“Yes, sir, it is German; an odd volume of Richter that I picked up a few days ago. A difficult author at first, somewhat involved and intricate in construction: here, for instance is a passage—”
“My dear friend, it is all a Greek chorus to me, or anything else you can fancy equally unintelligible.”
“It is the story of an humble man, a village cobbler, who becomes by an accident of fortune suddenly rich. Now, the author, instead of describing the incidents of life and the vicissitudes that encounter him, leaves us only to guess, or rather to supply them for ourselves, by simply dwelling upon all the 'Gedänkskriege,' or mental conflicts, that are the consequences of his altered position. The notion is ingenious, and if not overlayed with a certain dreamy mysticism, would be very interesting.”
“I,” said Dan, “would far rather hear of his acts than his reflections. What he did would amuse me more to know than to learn why.”
“But how easy to imagine the one!” exclaimed Raper. “Wealth has its habits all stereotyped: from Dives to our own days the catalogue has been ever the same, 'purple and fine linen.' And if some have added to the mere sensual pleasures the higher enjoyments derivable from objects of art and the cultivation of letters, has it not been because their own natures were more elevated, and required such refinements as daily necessaries? The humble man, suddenly enriched, lives no longer in the sphere of his former associates, but ascends into one of whose habits he knows nothing; and Jean Paul condemns him for this, and reminds him that when a river is swollen by autumn rains it does not desert its ancient channel, but enlarges the sphere of its utility, by spreading fertilization on each side of it, seeming to think: I may, by the accidents of life, grow small and humble again; it is as well that I should not quit the tiny course I have followed in my humble fortunes.”
“And do you agree with him?” asked Dan, more amazed by the enthusiasm of his companion than by the theme that suggested it.
“I do so in everything; I speak, of course, as one who knows nothing of those ambitions by which wealthy men are encompassed; I am not in the position of one who has seen and felt these fascinations, and who emerges from his poverty to re-assume a former station. Take the case of Mr. Curtis, for instance.”
“What! old Curtis—Joe Curtis?” asked Dan, eagerly.
“Yes, Curtis, formerly of Meagh-valley. Well, if his claim be as good as they suppose, he 'll not only inherit the great Wicklow estates, but the Western property so long in Chancery.”
MacNaghten saw that Raper was pouring forth this knowledge without being conscious that he was making an important revelation, and gave a dry, commonplace assent.
“Who can say what may not be his income?” exclaimed Raper, thoughtfully; “twenty thousand a-year, at the least.”
“And his prospects are good, you say,—his chances of success?”
“The marriage certificate of Noah Curtis and Eleanor Carew has been discovered, sir, and if the will of Fownes Carew be authentic, the case, I believe, is clear.”
“What Carews were these?”
“The ancestors of Walter Carew, sir, whose estates now descend to the heirs of the female branch.”
“And Curtis will inherit these?”
The tone in which Dan uttered these words so startled Raper that he suddenly recovered his self-possession, and remembered how unguardedly he had related this mysterious piece of intelligence.
“When was this discovery made?—who chanced to trace this relationship between Curtis and the Carew family?” cried MacNaghten, in intense anxiety.
A signal from Raper suddenly suggested caution and reserve; but Dan, too much excited to attend it, went on:
“Sir, never believe it! It is some infernal scheme concocted between Fagan and the lawyers. They have put forward this wretched old man, half-witted as he is—”
A hand grasped Dan's arm as he said this; he turned, and there stood Curtis beside him!
“I 've heard you both!” said the old man, dryly. “To you, sir,” said he to Raper, “I owe my thanks for a piece of welcome news; to you, MacNaghten, I feel grateful for all your candor!”
“Come, come, Curtis; be angry with me, if you will; but for Heaven's sake do not lend yourself to these base plots and schemes. If there be a conspiracy to rob poor Walter's widow and her child, let not one of his oldest, best friends have any share in it.”
“I 'll maintain my rights, sir, be assured of that!” said Curtis, with a degree of resolution strangely different from his former manner. “Mr. MacNaghten's impression of my competence to conduct my own affairs may possibly be disparaging, but, happily, there is another tribunal which shall decide on that question. Raper, I 'm going into town,—will you accompany me? Mr. MacNaghten, I wish you a good morning.” And with these words he took Raper's arm, and retired, leaving Dan still standing, mute, overwhelmed, and thunderstruck.