Tis sweet and commendable in your nature,
To give these... duties to your father.
In that and all things we show our duty.
_King_. What wouldst thou beg, Laertes?
What wouldst thou have?
_Laertes_. Your leave and favour to ret urn--_Hamlet_.
|TO these four exiles from Erin sitting out on the stoep of the Dutch
cottage after dinner very sweet it was to dream of fatherland. The soft
light through which the broad-leaved, motionless plants glimmered was,
of course, not to be compared with the long dwindling twilights that
were wont to overhang the slopes of Lough Suangorm; and that mighty peak
which towered above them, flanked by the long ridge of Table Mountain,
was a poor thing in the eyes of those who had witnessed the glories of
the heather-swathed Slieve Docas.
The cries ot the bullock wagoners, which were faintly heard from the
road, did not interfere with the musings of any of the party, nor with
the harangue of The Macnamara.
Very pleasant it was to hear The Macnamara talk about his homeless
condition as attributable to the long course of oppression persisted
in by the Saxon Monarchy--at least so Colonel Gerald thought, for in a
distant colony a harangue on the subject of British tyranny in Ireland
does not sound very vigorous, any more than does a burning revolutionary
ode when read a century or so after the revolution has taken place.
But poor Standish, who had spent a good many years of his life breathing
in of the atmosphere of harangue, began to feel impatient at his sire's
eloquence. Standish knew very well that his father had made a hard
bargain with the railway and hotel company that had bought the land;
nay, he even went so far as to conjecture that the affectionate yearning
which had caused The Macnamara to come out to the colony in search
of his son might be more plainly defined as an impulse of prudence
to escape from certain of his creditors before they could hear of his
having received a large sum of money. Standish wondered how Colonel
Gerald could listen to all that his father was saying when he could not
help being conscious of the nonsense of it all, for the young man was
not aware of the pleasant memories of his youth that were coming back to
the colonel under the influence of The Macnamara's speech.
The next day, however, Standish had a conversation of considerable
length with his father, and The Macnamara found that he had made rapid
progress in his knowledge of the world since he had left his secluded
home. In the face of his father he insisted on his father's promising to
remove from the Dutch cottage at the end of a few days. The Macnamara's
notions of hospitality were very large, and he could not see why Colonel
Gerald should have the least feeling except of happiness in entertaining
a shelterless monarch; but Standish was firm, and Colonel Gerald did not
resist so stoutly as The Macnamara felt he should have done; so that at
the end of the week Daireen and her father were left alone for the first
time since they had come together at the Cape.
They found it very agreeable to be able to sit together and ride
together and talk without reserve. Standish Macnamara was, beyond doubt,
very good company, and his father was even more inclined to be sociable,
but no one disputed the wisdom of the young man's conduct in curtailing
his visit and his father's to the Dutch cottage. The Macnamara had his
pockets filled with money, and as Standish knew that this was a strange
experience for him, he resolved that the weight of responsibility
which the preservation of so large a sum was bound to entail, should be
reduced; so he took a cottage at Rondebosch for his father and himself,
and even went the length of buying a horse. The lordliness of the ideas
of the young man who had only had a few months' experience of the world
greatly impressed his father, and he paid for everything without a
murmur.
Standish had, at the intervals of his father's impassioned discourses,
many a long and solitary ride and many a lengthened reverie amongst the
pines that grow beside The Flats. The resolutions he made as to his life
at the Castaway group were very numerous, and the visions that floated
before his eyes were altogether very agreeable. He was beginning to feel
that he had accomplished a good deal of that ennobling hard work in
the world which he had resolved to set about fulfilling. His previous
resolutions had not been made carelessly: he had grappled with adverse
Fate, he felt, and was he not getting the better of this contrary power?
But not many days after the arrival of The Macnamara another personage
of importance made his appearance in Cape Town. The Bishop of the
Calapash Islands and Metropolitan of the Salamander Archipelago had at
last found a vessel to convey him to where his dutiful son was waiting
for him.
The prelate felt that he had every reason to congratulate himself upon
the opportuneness of his arrival, for Mr. Glaston assured his father,
after the exuberance of their meeting had passed away, that if the
vessel had not appeared within the course of another week, he would
have been compelled to defer the gratification of his filial desires for
another year.
“A colony is endurable for a week,” said Mr. Glaston; “it is wearisome
at the end of a fortnight; but a month spent with colonists has got a
demoralising effect that years perhaps may fail to obliterate.”
The bishop felt that indeed he had every reason to be thankful that
unfavourable winds had not prolonged the voyage of his vessel.
Mrs. Crawford was, naturally enough, one of the first persons at the
Cape to visit the bishop, for she had known him years before--she had
indeed known most Colonial celebrities in her time--and she took the
opportunity to explain to him that Colonel Gerald had been counting the
moments until the arrival of the vessel from the Salamanders, so great
was his anxiety to meet with the Metropolitan of that interesting
archipelago, with whom he had been acquainted a good many years before.
This was very gratifying to the bishop, who liked to be remembered by
his friends; he had an idea that even the bishop of a distant colony
runs a chance of being forgotten in the world unless he has written an
heretical book, so he was glad when, a few days after his arrival at
Cape Town, he received a visit from Colonel Gerald and an invitation to
dinner.
This was very pleasing to Mrs. Crawford, for, of course, Algernon
Glaston was included in the invitation, and she contrived without any
difficulty that he should be seated by the side of Miss Gerald. Her
skill was amply rewarded, she felt, when she observed Mr. Glaston
and Daireen engaged in what sounded like a discussion on the musical
landscapes of Liszt; to be engaged--even on a discussion of so subtle a
nature--was something, Mrs. Crawford thought.
In the course of this evening, she herself, while the bishop was smiling
upon Daireen in a way that had gained the hearts, if not the souls,
of the Salamanderians, got by the side of Mr. Glaston, intent upon
following up the advantage the occasion offered.
“I am so glad that the bishop has taken a fancy to Daireen,” she said.
“Daireen is a dear good girl--is she not?”
Mr. Glaston raised his eyebrows and touched the extreme point of
his moustache before he answered a question so pronounced. “Ah, she
is--improving,” he said slowly. “If she leaves this place at once she
may improve still.”
“She wants some one to be near her capable of moulding her tastes--don't
you think?”
“She _needs_ such a one. I should not like to say _wants,_” remarked Mr.
Glaston.
“I am sure Daireen would be very willing to learn, Mr. Glaston; she
believes in you, I know,” said Mrs. Crawford, who was proceeding on
an assumption of the broad principles she had laid down to Daireen
regarding the effect of flattery upon the race. But her words did not
touch Mr. Glaston deeply: he was accustomed to be believed in by girls.
“She has taste--some taste,” he replied, though the concession was not
forced from him by Mrs. Crawford's revelation to him. “Yes; but of what
value is taste unless it is educated upon the true principles of Art?”
“Ah, what indeed?”
“Miss Gerald's taste is as yet only approaching the right tracks of
culture. One shudders, anticipating the effect another month of life
in such a place as this may have upon her. For my own part, I do not
suppose that I shall be myself again for at least a year after I return.
I feel my taste utterly demoralised through the two months of my stay
here; and I explained to my father that it will be necessary for him
to resign his see if he wishes to have me near him at all. It is quite
impossible for me to come out here again. The three months' absence from
England that my visit entails is ruinous to me.”
“I have always thought of your self-sacrifice as an example of true
filial duty, Mr. Glaston. I know that Daireen thinks so as well.”
But Mr. Glaston did not seem particularly anxious to talk of Daireen.
“Yes; my father must resign his see,” he continued.
“The month I have just passed has left too terrible recollections behind
it to allow of my running a chance of its being repeated. The only
person I met in the colony who was not hopelessly astray was that Miss
Vincent.”
“Oh!” cried Mrs. Crawford, almost shocked. “Oh, Mr. Glaston! you surely
do not mean that! Good gracious!--Lottie Vincent!”
“Miss Vincent was the only one who, I found, had any correct idea of
Art; and yet, you see, how she turned out.”
“Turned out? I should think so indeed. Lottie Vincent was always turning
out since the first time I met her.”
“Yes; the idea of her acting in company of such a man as this Markham--a
man who had no hesitation in going to view a picture by candlelight--it
is too distressing.”
“My dear Mr. Glaston, I think they will get on very well together. You
do not know Lottie Vincent as I know her. She has behaved with the most
shocking ingratitude towards me. But we are parted now, and I shall take
good care she does not impose upon me again.”
“It scarcely matters how one's social life is conducted if one's
artistic life is correct,” said Mr. Glaston.
At this assertion, which she should have known to be one of the articles
of Mr. Glaston's creed, Mrs. Crawford gave a little start. She thought
it better, however, not to question its soundness. As a matter of fact,
the bishop himself, if he had heard his son enunciate such a precept,
would not have questioned its soundness; for Mr. Glaston spake as one
having authority, and most people whose robustness was not altogether
mental, believed his Gospel of Art.
“No doubt what you say is--ah--very true,” said Mrs. Crawford. “But I
do wish, Mr. Glaston, that you could find time to talk frequently to
Daireen on these subjects. I should be so sorry if the dear child's
ideas were allowed to run wild. Your influence might work wonders with
her. There is no one here now who can interfere with you.”
“Interfere with me, Mrs. Crawford?”
“I mean, you know, that Mr. Harwood, with his meretricious cleverness,
might possibly--ah--well, you know how easily girls are led.”
“If there would be a possibility of Miss Gerald's being influenced in a
single point by such a man as that Mr. Harwood, I fear not much can be
hoped for her,” said Mr. Glaston.
“We should never be without hope,” said Mrs. Crawford. “For my own
part, I hope a great deal--a very great deal--from your influence over
Daireen; and I am exceedingly happy that the bishop seems so pleased
with her.”
The good bishop was indeed distributing his benedictory smiles freely,
and Daireen came in for a share of his favours. Her father wondered at
the prodigality of the churchman's smiles; for as a chaplain he was not
wont to be anything but grave. The colonel did not reflect that while
smiling may be a grievous fault in a chaplain, it can never be anything
but ornamental to a bishop.
A few days afterwards Mrs. Crawford called upon the bishop, and had an
interesting conversation with him on the subject of his son's future--a
question to which of late the bishop himself had given a good deal
of thought; for in the course of his official investigations on the
question of human existence he had been led to believe that the
duration of life has at all times been uncertain; he had more than
once communicated this fact to dusky congregations, and by reducing the
application of the painful truth, he had come to feel that the life of
even a throned bishop is not exempt from the fatalities of mankind.
As the bishop's son was accustomed to spend half of the revenues of
his father's see, his father was beginning to have an anxiety about the
future of the young man; for he did not think that his successor to
the prelacy of the Calapash Islands would allow Mr. Glaston to draw,
as usual, upon the income accruing to the office. The bishop was not
so utterly unworldly in his notions but that he knew there exist other
means of amassing wealth than by writing verses in a pamphlet-magazine,
or even composing delicate impromptus in minor keys for one's own
hearing, His son had not felt it necessary to occupy his mind with any
profession, so that his future was somewhat difficult to foresee with
any degree of clearness.
Mrs. Crawford, however, spoke many comforting words to the bishop
regarding a provision for his son's future. Daireen Gerald, she assured
him, besides being one of the most charming girls in the world, was
the only child of her father, and her father's estates in the South of
Ireland were extensive and profitable.
When Mrs. Crawford left him, the bishop felt glad that he had smiled
so frequently upon Miss Gerald. He had heard that no kindly smile was
bestowed in vain, but the truth of the sentiment had never before so
forced itself upon his mind. He smiled again in recollection of his
previous smiles. He felt that indeed Miss Gerald was a charming girl,
and Mrs. Crawford was most certainly a wonderful woman; and it can
scarcely be doubted that the result of the bishop's reflections proved
the possession on his part of powerful mental resources, enabling him to
arrive at subtle conclusions on questions of perplexity.