When Mr. M’Kinlay set out from the cottage in Wales, it was in no
especial good humour towards Miss Courtenay. She had what is vulgarly
called “snubbed him” and this is a process uncommonly painful to a
well-to-do middle-aged gentleman, accustomed to a great deal of daily
respect, and not a little looked up to in his peculiar sphere.
All night long, as he travelled, he pondered over these things, his
irritation growing ever deeper. He recalled every word she had said, and
in his anger even imitated to himself the careless impertinence of her
tone as she said, “And are _you_ going yachting?” just as if such, a
thought was too absurd to be entertained. “And why not, I’d like to
know? Is there anything in my status or position that would make a
pleasure excursion ridiculous in a man like me? I could afford it. I
hope she doesn’t imply I’m too old for it. Age is an ugly subject; she’d
better not cross-examine her witnesses there. And my red tapery! What
a blessing it was that there were creatures to docket, and tie up, and
register, and save superior souls the trouble of remembering anything!
And then her last impertinence, when, after a sneer at Irish property,
she said she wished I had one! I’m much mistaken, Madam,” cried he, half
aloud, “if a little of that same secluded savagery that Ireland affords
wouldn’t do you a world of good--if a couple of years of country life,
with a bog landscape and a rainy sky, wouldn’t prove an admirable
alterative to you! No fine acquaintances, none of those pleasant idlers,
who like to run down for a week to the country, and bring all the gossip
of town along with them, will follow you to Ireland. No fealty, no
affection will cross the Channel and traverse that dreary waste of
morass, dotted with mud-hovels, they call in irony the Green Isle. If
anything could bring you to your senses, Madam, it would be a residence
here.”
Such were Mr. M’Kinlay’s thoughts as the mail lumbered heavily along
through the deeply-rutted roads, and the rain swooped down in torrents.
“I should like to see her yonder,” mattered he, as they passed a dreary
two-storied house that stood alone on the bleak moor they call the
Curragh. “That’s the reformatory I should like to try you with!”
With such benevolent intentions as these did he arrive at Carrick’s
Royal Hotel, in Westport, just as Vyner and Grenfell had reached the
same spot.
“You’ve had an uncomfortable journey of it, I fear, Mr. M’Kinlay,” said
Vyner, as he shook him cordially by the hand. “Nothing but wind and rain
for the last three days. Come in to my room here, I want to speak to you
before you meet any one. I don’t think you know Grenfell,” said he, when
they were alone, “and I should like to prepare you a little for a man
who, with unquestionable abilities, has a number of oddities about
him, and has a most intense pleasure in contradiction. This has been
especially called out by a project of mine, which, perhaps, you will not
fully approve, but, at all events, will accept as a pardonable caprice.”
With this prelude he related his plan about the little girl whom he
destined to make a companion for Ada. He told how he had been struck
by her wonderful beauty, but far more by the signs of remarkable
intelligence she displayed, and the traits of decision and firmness so
rare in a creature of her age. He urged the advantage it would be to
Ada, whose fault was an excess of timidity, to see one of her own age so
bold and fearless. “That intrepid spirit, trained to independence, will
certainly impart some of its nature to my timid and gentle girl,” said
he, “and the companionship will as certainly dispel the tendency to
depression which is the besetting sin of my dear child.”
“Do you mean to adopt her?” asked the lawyer.
“No, not adopt her. I mean to educate her, and bring her up with Ada,
portion her when she is married, or make some provision for her if she
lives single.”
“That is to say, you want some eight or ten years of her life, and are
not overburdened with anxiety as to what comes of her after.”
“Grenfell himself couldn’t have judged me more unfairly, M’Kinlay. I
want to deal honourably and liberally by her, and I want you to counsel
me how to do so.”
“Make a settlement on her, fix upon a sum, appoint trustees, and
arrange that on her coming to a certain age she shall be declared in the
enjoyment of it.”
“I’m quite willing; nay, more, I’ll leave the entire matter in your
hands. You shall decide on the amount--yes, I insist upon it--and shall
make all the other arrangements. I don’t think there will be much more
to detain us here, for I am not so eager about this property as I was
some weeks ago.”
“Have you been over it?”
“Yes, and am delighted with its picturesque beauty. It is infinitely
finer than I expected, and if I believed they’d let me live there for a
few weeks every year, I would even build a house and furnish it.”
“And who doubts it?”
“I do; and so would you, M’Kinlay, if you talked the matter over, as
I did with a committee of the whole House. We discussed the thing very
coolly and impartially; we entered upon the question of landlordism in
all its bearings, what it contained of good, and where it degenerated
into evil; and although they failed to convince me that capital, skill,
and intelligence, backed by an honest desire to do good, were only
unwarrantable interferences with people who wanted none of them, they
assuredly made me believe that the pleasure of possession would be dear
at the price of being shot at, and that the great probability of being
thrown over a precipice rather detracted from one’s enjoyment of wild
scenery.”
“The fellows who talk like this are not the stuff murderers are made of,
Sir Gervais. They like to frighten away purchasers, just as people get
up ghost stories to deter persons from taking a house. If you like the
property----”
“I repeat, I am charmed with it.”
“In that case, don’t lose it. Ireland cannot remain for ever out of the
law. One day or other she must come into civilisation, and these acres,
that are bought for less money than so much land in South Africa or New
Zealand, will be as profitable as an estate in the West Riding.”
Vyner smiled and shook his head. “Have you not been hearing this story
for more than a century back?”
“Let us hear it for a century still, and the investment will pay cent.
per cent. But come, I will tell you of a plan to test this problem
fairly. Make the estate the fortune you intend for this young girl, with
a power of redemption on your part by payment of a certain sum--let us
say half as much more as you are now to pay for it. By the time that
she will have grown up to womanhood you will have had the opportunity of
deciding whether you desire to become an Irish proprietor or not. At
all events, she will have either a good round sum in hand, or an estate
which certainly will be no perilous heritage to her, though it might be
a dangerous possession to you. This, I think, meets every difficulty.”
“Grenfell would tell us that instead of overcoming one obstacle it
raises two,” said Vyner, laughing.
“But why consult him on the matter?”
“Because I shall want him. I should like to make him a trustee; he’s a
hard-headed man of the world, and well adapted for the office.”
“And whom will you name for the other? Has the girl any relative or
connexion of a class sufficiently elevated for the duty?”
“I suspect not; they are all peasants, and of the very poorest kind.
I doubt greatly if there be one amongst the number who could read and
write. Stay!” cried he, suddenly. “An idea just occurs to me, and if the
notion be at all practicable, it solves every difficulty at once. This
child’s aunt, a peasant like the others, was married to a gentleman, an
old friend and college companion of my own. Unfortunate in many ways,
and, of course, lost to the world of society by this unequal match, he
retired to a lonely island on the coast, where he has lived for some
years in a condition and with habits scarcely above the half-savage
creatures about him. He was and is still a man of considerable ability,
although soured and disgusted with a world wherein he met nothing but
failure. I met him last week by mere accident, having landed on the
lonely rock he inhabits. I will not say he was at all pleased with the
recognition, but, in short, we renewed acquaintance, and parted a little
more like friends than we met. If he could be induced to accept this
trust, it would accomplish all that I wish.”
“Has his wife any influence over him?”
“She is dead. She died a few days since.”
“Does he care for and interest himself about those who belonged to her?”
“I have no means of knowing; but I suspect not.”
“Then probably it would be better that you made this proposition to him
without any intimation that you knew of the relationship between him
and this girl; asking him to assist you in carrying out a whim--a mere
caprice?”
“I have been thinking over that. I believe you are right. He might
not feel indisposed to serve these people, though he might shrink from
declaring them his near connexions. At the same time, I feel he may
refuse us on other grounds. He rejects whatever in the remotest way
would lead him back into the world he has quitted. His is a passive sort
of misanthropy,--I believe, the least curable kind.”
“It would be a pity not to secure him; he is the very man, with his
local knowledge and thorough acquaintance with the people, to give your
experiment the fairest chance of success.”
“Well, here goes for the attempt. Let us first have our dinner,
M’Kinlay, and then I’ll write your credentials. You shall go over to
Arran, and use your best powers of persuasion. I’ll tell you by-and-by
all that you ought to know beforehand of your adversary, for adversary
you’ll find him, whatever subject you broach; but I shall call it a
great victory if you succeed.”
“Where is Arran?” asked the lawyer, in some trepidation, for he only
half liked his mission.
“Here it is,” said Vyner, spreading a map over the table, and pointing
to some three or four insignificant dots off the coast of Donegal. “It is
the most northern of these--that one.”
“And how is it to be come at?”
“We must learn all that from the people of the inn here. A fishing
lugger, I take it----”
“I declare, frankly, I have no fancy for the expedition; nor is there,
indeed, any reason for it. A letter will be amply sufficient to explain
your object.”
“Yes, but not to urge and persuade him--not to meet the doubts and
the difficulties he will suggest--not to reassure him about this, and
convince him about that. He’s a clever fellow, M’Kinlay, and one who
will require to examine every phase of a subject before he’ll accept
it.”
“Good Heavens! what a place to go to,” cried the other, as his eyes were
still intently bent upon the little spots on the map.
“The place is most interesting; some remarkable scenery, and a very
curious ruin of an ancient Abbey.”
“Not in my way--not at all in my way, Sir Gervais. I’d rather see a snug
chop-house than the purest specimen of pointed Gothic.”
“Well, it will be an event in your life, at any rate--an incident to
recal (sp) hereafter; and more than all, it will be a service to myself
personally, which I shall not easily forget.”
“If you make a point of it, I’ll certainly go. I have told you that the
adventurous spirit is not my strongest characteristic. Out-of-the-way
places or buildings, or out-of-the-way people, have no interest far me.
They are like a language I don’t know; they may be eloquent and charming
to others, to me they make no appeal; but I’ll go, as you wish it, and
I’ll do my best.”
“And you’ll succeed, too, I know it. Luttrell and you will understand
each other at once. He’ll be pleased with your purpose-like,
straightforward manner, while he’d reject flatly any attempt to
influence or cajole him. He’ll possibly oppose his habitual indolence
and his life of isolation to all plans for exertion or activity,
but you’ll satisfy him that we have no intention to burden him
unnecessarily, and that, in all likelihood he’ll not be called upon for
more than a single act of an executive nature.”
“What are these luggers like? Are they considered safe?”
“The best sea-boats in the world.”
“And the sailors?”
“None better in the kingdom. In fact, on a coast like this----”
Be stopped suddenly, just remembering in time, that by any picturesque
description of an iron-bound shore or an Atlantic swell, he might
effectually deter M’Kinky from all thought of the expedition. “Say
nothing of what we’ve been talking over, at dinner,” said he; “and I
rejoice to say, here comes the waiter to announce it.”
M’Kinlay sighed; he could have eaten with a capital appetite half
an hour ago. It was all gone now. He’d have liked a stiff glass of
brandy-and-Seltzer-water, nothing more.