Towards the evening of the same day a light breeze from the westward
sprang up, and Mr. Crab argued that there was little use in waiting any
longer to refit, and proposed to sail with the tide. By keeping along
close to shore he learned that the ebb would take him well out to sea
before midnight. Vyner, therefore, gare orders that the yacht should
lie-to after she rounded the extreme promontory of the island, and send
in a boat there to take him off, thus giving him one last ramble over a
spot it was scarcely possible he would ever revisit.
He landed early in the evening, and amused himself strolling at will
along the desolate shore. There were objects enough on every hand to
excite interest, whether the visitor had been man of science or man of
taste. Strange sea-plants and shells abounded; lichens of colour the
most novel and varied; rocks, whose layers defied all theories of
stratification, and were convoluted and enclosed one within another
inextricably. Caves, whose stalactites glittered with the gorgeous tints
of Bohemian glass. The very cries of the sea-fowl had a wild unearthly
shriek in them that seemed to suit the solitude, and their fearlessness
showed how little they knew of molestation.
“How peaceful at first, how dreary at last, must be life in such a
spot!” thought Vyner; who, like all men, would pronounce upon the
problem as it addressed itself to _him_. He could understand the repose
of coming suddenly there out of the din and turmoil of the world, and he
could picture to his mind how the soft teaching of that first sentiment
would darken into the impenetrable blackness of unbroken gloom. As he
thus mused, he was sorry that he had written that note to Luttrell. He
had no right to obtrude himself upon one, who, in withdrawing from the
world, declared that he deserved to be unknown. He was half angry with
himself for a step which now appeared so unjustifiable. “After all,”
thought he, “the man who makes this his home should not fear to have his
door forced; he ought to be able to sleep with his latch ajar, and never
dread an intruder.” Again and again he wished that he had gone his way
without even letting Luttrell know that he had been his neighbour.
As he mused he rambled onward, now, from some rocky point obtaining a
view of the jagged coast line, broken into innumerable bays, some small
enough to be mere fissures, now turning his glance inward, where a
succession of valleys, brown and purple in the evening light, darkened
and deepened beneath him. He could, besides, in the far distance make
out the copse of trees that sheltered the Abbey, and at last detect the
twinkle of a light through the foliage, and then turning seaward, he
could descry the light and airy spars of his little vessel as she slowly
crept along, a light from a stern window showing where he, too, for
the nonce, owned a home on the blue waters of the Atlantic. What a
difference between these two homes! what blissful thoughts, and budding
hopes, and present enjoyments in the one, what unbroken gloom in the
other! “I was wrong to have written, but I wish he had not repulsed me,”
said he; and still there lingered in his heart a half hope that, if he
were to present himself boldly before Luttrell, he would not reject
him. The dread of Grenfell was too great to make him risk defeat; that
scoffing, sneering spirit, who on the mere fact of thinking ill of every
one, took credit for detecting all individual short-coming, would be so
unforgiving if he had to come and own that he had been twice repulsed!
“No,” thought he, “I ‘ll accept my defeat as it is, and try to think
no more of it;” and then he endeavoured to think of the scene and the
objects around him. From the spur of the mountain, a long, low, shingly
promontory stretched into the sea, at the extremity of which were some
rocks, forming an arm of a large bay that swept boldly inwards, and this
was the spot which, on the map, he had pointed out as a suitable place
for the yacht to lie-to, and wait for him. He now saw, howevar, that in
following out the spit of land, he had diverged largely from the way,
and must retrace his steps for above a mile ere he could reach the
strand, and at the same time, in the half-fading twilight, he could
make out the schooner, under easy sail, heading still farther to the
southward.
Crab had evidently mistaken the headland, and was making for one still
more distant. What was to be done? In coming down to the coast line
he had subjected himself to following out all the jagged and irregular
course of the shore, and yet to venture inland without a guide would
have been the extreme of rashness. There was nothing for it but to make
a signal, if perchance it could be seen; the _Meteor_ was not more
than a mile off, and the project seemed not hopeless. He tied his
handkerchief to his cane, and hastened on towards one of the rocks
before him; as he drew nigher, he saw something which at last he made
out to be the figure of a man, seated with his head supported between
his hands, and gazing steadfastly seaward. Vyner mounted the rock and
waved his signal several times, but in vain; the dark background of the
mountain probably obscured the flag, and prevented its being observed.
“I want to signal the schooner yonder, my good man,” cried he to a
poor-looking creature who sat crouched down close to the water’s edge;
“could you get me some dry leaves or chips together to make a fire?” The
other looked up with a startled air, for he had thought himself alone,
and then rising to his feet, they stood face to face. “My dear old
friend!” cried Vyner, “have we met at last? How glad I am to see you
again.”
“Not this way, surely, not this way,” muttered Luttrell, in a faint and
broken voice.
“To be sure I am, Luttrell. I’ ll call the chance that led me here one
of the happiest of my life, if it brings you back to any of your old
feeling for me.”
“You got my note?” asked the other, in a hoarse voice.
“Yes; and it was no part of my intention to molest you, Luttrell. This
meeting is, I assure you, the merest accident.”
“Let me go, then, Vyner; the shame is killing me; I wouldn’t that you
had seen me thus--in these rags, in all this misery. These are not the
memories I wanted you to carry away with you; but what would you have? I
came here to live like the others.”
“My dear old friend, I wanted to talk of long ago with you; it is not to
reproach you I’ve come. Take my word for it, I feel too acutely all the
wrong you have suffered from mine. I know too well at whose door your
heaviest injuries lie.”
“If I had attempted to be more or better than my neighbours, I couldn’t
have lived here,” cried he, eagerly reverting to his self-defence.
“But why live here, Luttrell? It is not at your age, or with your
abilities, a man retires from the game of life.”
“I have played all my cards, Gervais,” said he, with a wild laugh, “and
never scored a point with them.”
“How many a fellow has had a long run of ill-luck, to be repaid by as
great a share of fortune after.”
“Ay, but I ‘ll not try it! I don’t ask, I don’t wish it. If I were to
win now, I have nothing to do with my winnings.”
“Think of your boy--your fine boy, Luttrell!”
“Ah, Robinson!” cried he, laughing; and Vyner blushed deeply as he
fancied how the child had repeated the nickname. “There’s only one way
he could want such assistance, and if he but live here, he’ll never need
it.”
“Live here! but you cannot mean that he should?”
“Why not? What need is there that he should know of all those fine
prizes that his father strove for and never won, any more than of fine
food, or fine clothes, or fine equipages?”
Vyner shook his head in dissent, and the other went on with increase of
energy.
“My own mistake was, to have borne the thing so long; I might have come
here before my health was broken, my hand unsteady, my foot weak, and
my nerves shattered. I’d have gone out to see you, Vyner,” said he,
suddenly; “but Harry told me you were not alone; you had a friend. Who
is he?”
“Grenfell; you remember a Grenfell at Christ Church?”
“Only Cox and Grenfell’s son, the potted-shrimp man; of course it’s not
he?”
“Yes it is, and a very clever fellow too.”
“There’s what I couldn’t do, Vyner; there you beat me,” cried he, aloud;
“with the peasant, with the mountaineer, with the fisherman, yes, I can
live in daily, hourly companionship. I can eat as coarse food, wear
as coarse clothes, lie down on as mean a bed, talk as penuriously, and
think as humbly, but I couldn’t endure the continual refinement of your
fellow of new-made wealth, nor the pretensions of one who feels that by
money he is to be any one’s equal.”
“How your old pride of family stirs you still, Luttrell.”
“Not so; it is not for myself I am pleading. I am not come of a stock so
distinguished that I can arrogate to myself the defence of my order. The
first of my name who came over here was a Dutch pedlar; some generations
of thrift and industry made us gentlemen. For time does for family what
it does for wine, and just merely by age your poor light Medoc mellows
into very drinkable claret. But how have you made me rattle on in my old
guise! See, they are signalling to you, yonder; that lantern at the peak
has been run up now.”
“I must manage to let them know I’m here; how to make a fire is the
question.”
“There’s abundance of broken wood along here. The fishermen’s boats fare
ill along this coast; we’ll soon gather enough for your purpose.”
As they strayed about collecting the fragments of broken timber, Vyner
pondered over the absence of all move on Luttrell’s part to invite him
to his home. Indeed, in his alacrity to make the signal, he only showed
his eagerness to aid his departure. He wondered, too, how much external
change, and how little real alteration, had taken place in Luttrell. His
old conversational turn was there, though he seemed half ashamed when he
found he had fallen into it.
“I told you we should not be long making a respectable pile,” said
Luttrell. “The wreck furnishing the bonfire is the law of nature. If my
eyes do not deceive me, they have lowered a boat;” as he spoke, he knelt
down to kindle the wood, by using his hat to fan the flame, which, after
smouldering for a moment, sprang up into a clear tongue of fire. “There,
Vyner, they see it; they have thrice lowered the light from the peak.”
“The boat can come in here safely?”
“There’s water for a large ship in this bay. Great facilities exist in
these Islands of Arran, and if trade were ever to turn its steps hither,
I’d direct my attention to wrecking to-morrow. The man who has so
successfully achieved his own ruin, ought to be able to assist others.”
A shout from the beach was now replied to by Vyner, and the stout rowers
pulled in vigorously to the shore.
“I have not shocked you, Vyner,” said Luttrell, “by asking you to see
what would have shocked you--the place I live in. If you were one of
those men to whom mere curiosity affords some pleasure, I’d have shelved
my pride, or my shame, or whatever be the name of it, and said, ‘Come
and look at my den; see to what poor conclusions a life of blunders
leads;’ but you are made of other stuff, and would find no happiness in
my humiliation.”
“Will you not come on board with me, Luttrell, and let us have one long
summer’s night gossip together?”
“I’d scarce refuse if you had been alone; I can’t face your
distinguished friend.”
“You are unjust, quite unjust to him; besides, knowing our old ties,
he’ll leave us to ourselves, and we shall have our talk unmolested. Is
there not in the past something to build on for the future---- Well, for
Harry?”
“I think not. It is not necessary to plot out the life of one bred and
trained as he is. Let the world treat him as it may, he’ll scarcely meet
any hardships he has not had a foretaste of.”
“But what do you intend by him?”
“If he likes idleness, the elegant leisure of my own life, for
instance,” said he, with a mocking laugh, “he’ll have about the amount
of fortune such a mode of living requires. If he be ambitious, or prefer
a course of activity, he can go on board some of these American traders,
or sail with a fishing lugger. Frankly, Vyner, it’s a matter I have not
given much thought to. There is but one part of it, indeed, on which
I can declare I have made up my mind. He is to have no protectors, no
patrons. We are a hard race to deal with, and we often seem ungrateful
when we are merely self-willed.”
“How I wish you’d let me talk all these things over with you,” said
Vyner, in a friendly tone, “not to say that I want your advice on my own
account.”
“Advice, and from me!”
“Even so, Luttrell. I have a project about purchasing some property on
the coast here. Not a very profitable investment, perhaps, but certainly
cheap, and at some long future to become possibly remunerative.”
“Derryvaragh, I suppose?” “Yes, that’s the name.”
“The most picturesque spot in the island; finer than the boasted
Killarney itself, and far and away beyond Windermere and the Scotch
Lakes. I know it well. I have walked the mountains grouse-shooting, and
fished every mile of the river; but what would you do with it when you
called it yours? You dare not assert one single right of property; the
people who live there, and whose fathers have lived there for centuries,
have never acknowledged lord or master. You’ll stock it with sheep, and
send an agent. They’ll eat your mutton, and shoot your agent. You’ll
appeal to the law, and you might as well threaten a New Zealander with
a bill in Chancery. Leave such speculations alone; there are no fortunes
to be made here, nor even fame for having reformed us. All the privilege
your purchase will confer, will be to feed us in times of famine, and be
shot at when prices rise and the nights grow longer.”
“Why, you are more discouraging than Grenfell!”
“I don’t know about Grenfell, but I know that Ireland is not to be
bettered by men like you. It is out of our own rough energies must come
the cure for our own coarse maladies. Go back and build model cottages
in Norfolk, give prizes to your oldest farm labourer, or the mother of
the largest family. Here’s your yawl; good-by.”
“Do step in and come on board with me, Luttrell, if only for an hour or
two.”
“No, I cannot. I’d not stand your friend’s impertinences about Ireland,
besides, and I’d be led into rudenesses, which I’d not forgive myself.
Lady Vyner is not with you?”
“No, she’s in Wales, at Llantlannoch, where I wish you’d let me tell her
you were coming to see her.”
“Who knows!”
“My dear Luttrell, is this a promise?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Will you write to me.”
“I think not.”
“May I write to you?”
“I’d rather you wonld not. You cannot suspect, Vyner, how painful even
these few minutes we have passed together will render the life I go
back to; do not add to that bitterness by what wonld become a ceaseless
sorrow.”
“But Harry. Let Harry come to us; there is an excellent school at
Wrexham.”
“There’s a school on that promontory yonder, where the master, besides
reading and writing, instructs in net-mending, sail-making, caulking,
and fish salting. Your Wrexham fellow couldn’t compete with that.
Good-by.”
With a hurried shake of the hand, and as though nervously irritable at
being stared at by the sailors, Luttrell moved away, and Vyner gazed
after him for a moment, and stepped into the boat.
“Mr. Crab says, Sir, that the weather looks dirty outside,” said the
coxswain; but Vyner did not heed the remark, and sat deeply buried in
his own thoughts.