For two entire days Harry Luttrell wandered over the island alone and
miserable, partly resolved never to see Kate again, yet he had not
resolution to leave the spot. She sent frequent messages and notes to
him, entreating he would come up to the Abbey, but he gave mere verbal
replies, and never went.
“Here’s Miss Kate at the door, Sir, asking if you’re in the house,” said
the woman of the inn; “what am I to tell her?”
Harry arose, and went out.
“Come and have a walk with me, Harry,” said she, holding out her hand
cordially towards him. “This is Christmas-day--not a morning to remember
one’s grudges. Come along; I have many things to say to you.”
He drew her arm silently within his own, and walked on. After a few
half-jesting reproaches for his avoidance of her, she became more
serious in manner, and went on to talk of Arran and its future. She told
of what she had done, and what she meant to do, not claiming as her own
many of the projects, but honestly saying that the first suggestions of
them she had found amongst his father’s papers.
“It is of these same papers,” said she, more earnestly, “I desire to
speak. I want you to read them, and to read them carefully, Harry. You
will see that the struggle of a proud man against an unequal marriage
marred the whole success of a life; you will see that it was this
‘low-lived herd’--the hard words are his own--that had stamped ruin
upon him. The disappointment he had met with might have driven him for a
while from the world, but, after a year or two, he would have gone back
to it more eager for success, more determined to assert himself, than
ever. It was the bane of a low connexion poisoned all hope of recovery.
How could he free, himself from the claims of this lawless brood? His
journals are filled with this complaint. It is evident, too, from the
letters of his friends, how he must have betrayed his misery to them,
proud and reserved as he was. There are constant allusions through them
to his stern refusal of all invitations, and to his haughty rejection of
all their friendly devices to draw him back amongst them. It was in
some moment of rash vengeance for an injury real or supposed,” said she,
“that he plunged into this marriage, and it completed his ruin. If there
was a lesson he desired to teach his son, it was this one; if there was
a point which he regarded as the very pivot of a man’s fortune, it was
the belongings which surround and cling to him, for better or for worse,
on his journey through life. I will show you not one, but fifty-ay,
twice fifty--passages in his diary that mark the deep sense he had of
this misfortune. When the terrible tidings reached him that you were
lost, he ceased to make entries regularly in his journal, but on your
birthday recurring, there is this one: ‘Would have been twenty-two
today. Who knows which for the best? No need of my warnings now; no need
to say, Do not as I have done!’ Are you listening to me, Harry?” asked
she, at length, as he never by a word or sign seemed to acknowledge what
she was saying.
“Yes, I hear you,” said he, in a low voice.
“And you see why, my dear Harry, I tell you of these things. They are
more than warnings; they are the last wishes, the dying behests, of a
loving father; and he loved you, Harry--he loved you dearly. Now listen
to me attentively, and mind well what I say. If these be all warnings
to _you_, what are they to _me?_ Do you imagine it is only the well-born
and the noble who have pride? Do you fancy that we poor creatures of
the soil do not resent in our hearts the haughty contempt by which you
separate your lot from ours? Do you believe it is in human nature to
concede a superiority which is to extend not to mere modes of life and
enjoyments, to power, and place, and influence, but to feelings, to
sentiments, to affections? In one word, are you to have the whole
monopoly of pride, and only leave to us so much as the honour of
‘pertaining’ to you? Or is it to be enough for us to know that we have
dragged down the man who tried to raise us? Reflect a little over this,
dear cousin, and you will see that, painful as it is to stoop, it is
worse--ten thousand times worse--to be stooped to! Leave me, then, to my
own road in life--leave me, and forget me, and if you want to remember
me, let it be in some connexion with these poor people, whom I have
loved so well, and whose love will follow me; and above all, Harry,
don’t shake my self-confidence as to the future. It is my only capital;
if I lose it, I am penniless. Are you listening to me?”
“I hear you but too well,” muttered he. “All I gather from your words
is, that while accusing us of pride, _you_ confess to having ten times
more yourself. Perhaps if I had not been a poor sailor, without friends
or fortune, that same haughty spirit of yours had been less stubborn.”
“What do you mean?” said she, disengaging herself from his arm, and
staring at him with wide-opened, flashing eyes. “Of what meanness is
this you dare to accuse me?”
“You have angered me, and I know not what I say.”
“That is not enough, Sir. You must unsay it! After all that I have told
you of my early life, such an imputation is an insult.”
“I unsay it. I ask pardon that I ever said it. Oh, if you but knew the
wretchedness of my heart, you would see it is my misery, not myself that
speaks.”
“Be as brave as I am--or as I mean to be, Harry. Don’t refuse to meet
the coming struggle--whatever it be--in life; meet it like a man.
Take my word for it, had your father lived, he would have backed every
syllable I have spoken to you. Come back to the Abbey now, and give me
your best counsel. You can tell me about this long voyage that is before
me. There are many things I want to ask you.”
As they turned towards the house, she went on talking, but in short,
broken sentences, endeavouring, as it were, to say something---anything
that should leave no pause for thought. The old doorway was decked with
holly-boughs and arbutus-twigs, in tasteful honour of the day, and she
directed his attention to the graceful courtesy of the poor people,
who had bethought them of this attention; and simple as the act was,
it revealed to Harry the wondrous change which had come over these
wild natives, now that their hearts had been touched by sympathy and
kindness. In the old days of long ago there were none of these things.
Times nor seasons met no recognition. The dark shadow of melancholy
brooded drearily over all; none sought to dispel it.
The little children of the school, dressed in their best, were all drawn
up in the Abbey, to wish their benefactress a happy Christmas; and Kate
had provided a store of little toys from Westport that was certain to
render the happiness reciprocal. And there were, too, in the background,
the hardy fishermen and their wives, eager to “pay their duty;” and
venerable old heads, white with years, were there, to bless her who had
made so many hearts light, and so many homes cheery.
“Here is your Master Harry, that you all loved so well,” said Kate, as
she gained the midst of them. “Here he is, come back to live with you.”
And a wild cheer of joy rang through the old walls, while a tumultuous
rush was made to grasp his hand, or even touch his coat. What blessings
were uttered upon him! What honest praises of his handsome face and
manly figure! How like he was to “his Honour,” but far stronger and more
upstanding than his father, in the days they knew him!
They overwhelmed him with questions about his shipwreck and his perils,
and his frank, simple manner delighted them. Their own hardy natures
could feel for such dangers as he told of, and knew how to prize the
courage that had confronted them.
“These are all our guests to-day, Harry,” said Kate. “We’ll come
back and see them by-and-by. Meanwhile, come with me. It is our first
Christmas dinner together; who knows what long years and time may do? It
may not be our last.”
With all those varied powers of pleasing she was mistress of, she made
the time pass delightfully. She told little incidents of her Dalradem
life, with humorous sketches of the society there; she described the old
Castle itself, and the woods around it, with the feeling of a painter;
and then she sang for him snatches of Italian or Spanish romance to the
guitar, till Harry, in the ecstasy of his enjoyment, almost forgot his
grief.
From time to time, too, they would pass out and visit the revellers
in the Abbey, where, close packed together, the hardy peasantry sat
drinking to the happy Christmas that had restored to them the Luttrell
of Arran.
The wild cheer with which they greeted Harry as he came amongst them
sent a thrill through his heart. “Yes, this was home; these were his
own!”
It was almost daybreak ere the festivities concluded, and Kate whispered
in Harry’s ear: “You’ll have a commission from me to-morrow. I shall
want you to go to Dublin for me. Will you go?”
“If I can leave you,” muttered he, as with bent-down head he moved away.