While this discussion was going on, Martin was seated in his own room,
examining the contents of his letter-bag, which the post had just
delivered to him. A very casual glance at his features would have
discovered that the tidings which met his eye were very rarely of a
pleasant character. For the most part the letters were importunate
appeals for money, subscriptions, loans, small sums to be repaid when
the borrower had risen above his present difficulties, aids to effect
some little enterprise on whose very face was failure. Then there were
the more formal demands for sums actually due, written in the perfection
of coercive courtesy, subjecting the reader to all the tortures of a
moral surgical operation, a suffering actually increased by the very
dexterity of the manipulator. Then came, in rugged hand and gnarled
shape, urgent entreaties for abatements and allowances, pathetic
pictures of failing crops, sickness and sorrow! Somewhat in contrast to
these in matter--most strikingly unlike them in manner--was a short note
from Mr. Maurice Scanlan. Like a rebutting witness in a cause, he spoke
of everything as going on favorably; prices were fair, the oat crop a
reasonable one. There was distress, to be sure, but who ever saw the
West without it? The potatoes had partially failed; but as there was a
great deal of typhus and a threat of cholera, there would be fewer to
eat them. The late storms had done a good deal of mischief, but as the
timber thrown down might be sold without any regard to the entail, some
thousand pounds would thus be realized; and as the gale had carried away
the new pier at Kilkieran, there would be no need to give a bounty to
the fishermen who could not venture out to sea. The damage done to the
house and the conservatories at Cro' Martin offered an opportunity to
congratulate the owner on the happiness of living in a milder climate;
while the local squabbles of the borough suggested a pleasant contrast
with all the enjoyments of a life abroad.
On the whole, Mr. Scanlan's letter was rather agreeable than the
reverse, since he contrived to accompany all the inevitable ills of
fortune by some side-wind consolations, and when pushed hard for these,
skilfully insinuated in what way “things might have been worse.” If the
letter did not reflect very favorably on either the heart or brain that
conceived it, it well suited him to whom it was addressed. To screen
himself from whatever might irritate him, to escape an unpleasant
thought or unhappy reflection, to avoid, above all things, the slightest
approach of self-censure, was Martin's great philosophy; and he esteemed
the man who gave him any aid in this road. Now newspapers might croak
their dark predictions about the coming winter, prophesy famine, fever,
and pestilence; Scanlan's letter, “written from the spot,” by “one who
enjoyed every opportunity for forming a correct opinion,” was there,
and _he_ said matters were pretty much as usual. The West of Ireland had
never been a land of milk and honey, and nobody expected it ever would
be,--the people could live in it, however, and pay rents too; and as
Martin felt that he had no undue severity to reproach himself with,
he folded up the epistle, saying that “when a man left his house and
property for a while, it was a real blessing to have such a fellow as
Scanlan to manage for him;” and truly, if one could have his conscience
kept for a few hundreds a year, the compact might be a pleasant one. But
even to the most self-indulgent this plan is impracticable; and so might
it now be seen in Martin's heightened color and fidgety manner, and
that even _he_ was not as much at ease within as he wished to persuade
himself he was.
Amid the mass of correspondence, pamphlets and newspapers, one note,
very small and neatly folded, had escaped Martin's notice till the very
last; and it was only as he heaped up a whole bundle to throw into the
fire that he discovered this, in Mary's well-known hand. He held it
for some time ere he broke the seal, and his features assumed a sadder,
graver cast than before. His desertion of her--and he had not blinked
the word to himself--had never ceased to grieve him; and however
disposed he often felt to throw upon others the blame which attached to
himself here, he attempted no casuistry, but stood quietly, without one
plea in his favor, before his own heart.
The very consciousness of his culpability had prevented him writing to
her as he ought; his letters were few, short, and constrained. Not all
the generous frankness of hers could restore to him the candid ease of
his former intercourse with her; and every chance expression he used was
conned over and canvassed by him, lest it might convey some sentiment,
or indicate some feeling foreign to his intention. At length so painful
had the task become that he had ceased writing altogether, contenting
himself with a message through Kate Henderson,--some excuse about his
health, fatigue,-and so forth, ever coupled with a promise that he
would soon be himself again, and as active a correspondent as she could
desire.
To these apologies Mary always replied in a kindly spirit. Whatever
sorrow they might have cost her she kept for herself; they never
awakened one expression of impatience, not a word of reproach. She
understood him thoroughly,--his easy indolence of disposition, his
dislike to a task, his avoidance of whatever was possible to defer;
more even than all these, his own unforgiveness of himself for his part
towards her. To alleviate, so far as she might, the poignancy of the
last, was for a while the great object of all her letters; and so
she continued to expatiate on the happy life she was leading, her
contentment with the choice she had made of remaining there, throwing
in little playful sallies of condolence at her uncle's banishment, and
jestingly assuring him how much happier he would be at home!
In whatever mood, however, she wrote, there was a striking absence of
whatever could fret or grieve her uncle throughout all her letters. She
selected every pleasant topic and the favorable side of every theme to
tell of. She never forgot any little locality which he had been partial
to, or any of the people who were his favorites; and, in fact, it might
have seemed that the great object she had in view was to attach him more
and more to the home he had left, and strengthen every tie that bound
him to his own country. And all this was done lightly and playfully, and
with a pleasant promise of the happiness he should feel on the day of
his return.
These letters were about the pleasantest incidents in Martin's present
life; and the day which brought him one was sure to pass agreeably,
while he made vigorous resolutions about writing a reply, and sometimes
got even so far as to open a desk and ruminate over an answer. It so
chanced that now a much longer interval had occurred since Mary's last
letter, and the appearance of the present note, so unlike the voluminous
epistle she usually despatched, struck him with a certain dismay. “Poor
Molly,” said he, as he broke the seal, “she is growing weary at last;
this continued neglect is beginning to tell upon her. A little more,
and she 'll believe--as well she may--that we have forgotten her
altogether.”
The note was even briefer than he had suspected. It was written, too,
in what might seem haste, or agitation, and the signature forgotten.
Martin's hand trembled, and his chest heaved heavily as he read the
following lines:--
“Cro' Martin, Wednesday Night
“Dearest Uncle,--You will not suffer these few lines to remain
unanswered, since they are written in all the pressure of a great
emergency. Our worst fears for the harvest are more than realized; a
total failure in the potatoes--a great diminution in the oat crop; the
incessant rains have flooded all the low meadows, and the cattle are
almost without forage, while from the same cause no turf can be cut, and
even that already cut and stacked cannot be drawn away from the bogs.
But, worse than all these, typhus is amongst us, and cholera, they say,
coming. I might stretch out this dreary catalogue, but here is enough,
more than enough, to awaken your sympathies and arouse you to action.
There is a blight on the land; the people are starving--dying. If every
sense of duty was dead within us, if we could harden our hearts against
every claim of those from whose labor we derive ease, from whose toil we
draw wealth and leisure, we might still be recalled to better things
by the glorious heroism of these poor people, so nobly courageous, so
patient are they in their trials. It is not now that I can speak of
the traits I have witnessed of their affection, their charity, their
self-denial, and their daring--but now is the moment to show them that
we, who have been dealt with more favorably by fortune, are not devoid
of the qualities which adorn their nature.
“I feel all the cruelty of narrating these things to you, too far away
from the scene of sorrow to aid by your counsel and encourage by your
assistance; but it would be worse than cruelty to conceal from you
that a terrible crisis is at hand, which will need all your energy to
mitigate.
“Some measures are in your power, and must be adopted at once. There
must be a remission of rent almost universally, for the calamity has
involved all; and such as are a little richer than their neighbors
should be aided, that they may be the more able to help them. Some
stores of provisions must be provided to be sold at reduced rates, or
even given gratuitously. Medical aid must be had, and an hospital
of some sort established. The able-bodied must be employed on some
permanent work; and for these, we want power from you and some present
moneyed assistance. I will not harrow your feelings with tales of
sufferings. You have seen misery here--enough, I say--you have witnessed
nothing like this, and we are at but the beginning.
“Write to me at once yourself--this is no occasion to employ a
deputy--and forgive me, dearest uncle, for I know not what faults of
presumption I may have here committed. My head is confused; the crash
of misfortunes has addled me, and each succeed so rapidly on each other,
that remedies are scarcely employed than they have to be abandoned.
When, however, I can tell the people that it is their own old friend and
master that sends them help, and bids them to be of good cheer,--when
I can show them that, although separated by distance, your heart never
ceases to live amongst them,--I know well the magic working of such a
spell upon them, and how, with a bravery that the boldest soldier never
surpassed, they will rise up against the stern foes of sickness and
famine, and do battle with hard fortune manfully.
“You have often smiled at what you deemed my exaggerated opinion of
these poor people,--my over-confidence in their capacity for good.
Oh--take my word for it--I never gave them credit for one half the
excellence of their natures. They are on their trial now, and nobly do
they sustain it!
“I have no heart to answer all your kind questions about myself,--enough
that I am well; as little can I ask you about all your doings in Paris.
I 'm afraid I should but lose temper if I heard that they were pleasant
ones; and yet, with my whole soul, I wish you to be happy; and with
this,
“Believe me your affectionate
“Mr. Repton has written me the kindest of letters, full of good advice
and good sense; he has also enclosed me a check for £100, with an offer
of more if wanted. I was low and depressed when his note reached me,
but it gave me fresh energy and hope. He proposed to come down here if
I wished; but how could I ask such a sacrifice,--how entreat him to face
the peril?”
“Tell Captain Martin I wish to speak to him,” said Martin, as he
finished the perusal of this letter. And in a few minutes after, that
gallant personage appeared, not a little surprised at the summons.
“I have got a letter from Mary here,” said Martin, vainly endeavoring
to conceal his agitation as he spoke, “which I want to show you. Matters
are in a sad plight in the West. She never exaggerates a gloomy story,
and her account is very afflicting. Read it.”
The Captain lounged towards the window, and, leaning listlessly against
the wall, opened the epistle.
“You have not written to her lately, then?” asked he, as he perused the
opening sentence.
“I am ashamed to say I have not; every day I made a resolution; but
somehow--”
“Is all this anything strange or new?” broke in the Captain. “I 'm
certain I have forty letters from my mother with exactly the same story.
In fact, before I ever broke the seal, I 'd have wagered an equal
fifty that the potatoes had failed, the bogs were flooded, the roads
impassable, and the people dying in thousands; and yet, when spring came
round, by some happy miracle they were all alive and merry again!”
“Read on,” said Martin, impatiently, and barely able to control himself
at this heartless commentary.
“Egad! I 'd have sworn I had read all this before, except these same
suggestions about not exacting the rents, building hospitals, and so
forth; that _is_ new. And why does she say, 'Don't write by deputy'? Who
_was_ your deputy?”
“Kate Henderson has written for me latterly.”
“And I should say she 's quite equal to that sort of thing; she dashes
off my mother's notes at score, and talks away, too, all the time she 's
writing.”
“That is not the question before us,” said Martin, sternly.
“When I sent for you to read that letter, it was that you might advise
and counsel me what course to take.”
“If you can afford to give away a year's income in the shape of rent,
and about as much more in the shape of a donation, of course you 're
quite free to do it. I only wish that your generosity would begin at
home, though; for I own to you I 'm very hard-up at this moment.” This
the Captain spoke with an attempted jocularity which decreased with
every word, till it subsided into downright seriousness ere he finished.
“So far from being in a position to do an act of munificence, I am
sorely pressed for money,” said Martin.
The Captain started; the half-smile with which he had begun to receive
this speech died away on his lips as he asked, “Is this really the
case?”
“Most truly so,” said Martin, solemnly.
“But how, in the name of everything absurd--how is this possible? By
what stratagem could you have spent five thousand a year at Cro' Martin,
and your estate was worth almost three times as much? Giving a very wide
margin for waste and robbery, I 'd say five thousand could not be made
away with there in a twelvemonth.”
“Your question only shows me how carelessly you must have read my
letters to you, in India,” said Martin; “otherwise you could not have
failed to see the vast improvements we have been carrying out on the
property,--the roads, the harbors, the new quarries opened, the extent
of ground covered by plantation,--all the plans, in fact, which Mary had
matured--”
“Mary! Mary!” exclaimed the Captain. “And do you tell me that all these
things were done at the instigation of a young girl of nineteen or
twenty, without any knowledge, or even advice--”
“And who said she was deficient in knowledge?” cried Martin. “Take up
the map of the estate; see the lands she has reclaimed; look at the
swamps you used to shoot snipe over bearing corn crops; see the thriving
village, where once the boatmen were starving, for they dared not
venture out to sea without a harbor against bad weather.”
“Tell me the cost of all this. What's the figure?” said the Captain;
“that's the real test of all these matters, for if _your_ income could
only feed this outlay, I pronounce the whole scheme the maddest thing
in Christendom. My mother's taste for carved oak cabinets and historical
pictures is the quintessence of wisdom in comparison.”
Martin was overwhelmed and silent, and the other went on,--“Half the
fellows in 'ours' had the same story to tell,--of estates wasted,
and fine fortunes squandered in what are called improvements. If the
possession of a good property entails the necessity to spend it all in
this fashion, one is very little better than a kind of land-steward to
one's own estate; and, for my part, I 'd rather call two thousand a year
my own, to do what I pleased with, than have a nominal twenty, of which
I must disburse nineteen.”
“Am I again to remind you that this is not the question before us?” said
Martin, with increased sternness.
“That is exactly the very question,” rejoined the Captain. “Mary here
coolly asks you, in the spirit of this same improvement-scheme, to
relinquish a year's income, and make a present of I know not how much
more, simply because things are going badly with them, just as if
everybody has n't their turn of ill-fortune. Egad, I can answer for it,
_mine_ has n't been flourishing latterly, and yet I have heard of no
benevolent plan on foot to aid or release me!”
To this heartless speech, uttered, however, in most perfect sincerity,
Martin made no reply whatever, but sat with folded arms, deep in
contemplation. At length, raising his head, he asked, “And have you,
then, no counsel to give,--no suggestion to make me?”
“Well,” said he, suddenly, “if Mary has not greatly overcharged all this
story--”
“That she has not,” cried Martin, interrupting him. “There 's not a
line, not a word of her letter, I 'd not guarantee with all I 'm worth
in the world.”
“In that case,” resumed the Captain, in the same indolent tone, “they
must be in a sorry plight, and _I_ think ought to cut and run as fast as
they can. I know that's what _we_ do in India; when the cholera comes,
we break up the encampment, and move off somewhere else. Tell Mary,
then, to advise them to keep out of 'the jungle,' and make for the hill
country.'”
Martin stared at the speaker for some seconds, and it was evident how
difficult he found it to believe that the words he had just listened to
were uttered in deliberate seriousness.
“If you have read that letter, you certainly have not understood it,”
said he at last, in a voice full of melancholy meaning.
“Egad, it's only too easy of comprehension,” replied the Captain; “of
all things in life, there's no mistaking a demand for money.”
“Just take it with you to your own room, Harry,” said Martin, with
a manner of more affection than he had yet employed. “It is my firm
persuasion that when you have re-read and thought over it, your
impression will be a different one. Con it over in solitude, and then
come back and give me your advice.”
The Captain was not sorry to adopt a plan which relieved him so speedily
from a very embarrassing situation, and, folding up the note, he turned
and left the room.
There are a great number of excellent people in this world who believe
that “Thought,” like “Écarté,” is a game which requires two people to
play. The Captain was one of these; nor was it within his comprehension
to imagine how any one individual could suffice to raise the doubts he
was called on to canvass or decide. “Who should he now have recourse
to?” was his first question; and he had scarcely proposed it to himself
when a soft low voice said, “What is puzzling Captain Martin?--can I be
of any service to him?” He turned and saw Kate Henderson.
“Only think how fortunate!” exclaimed he. “Just come in here to this
drawing-room, and give me your advice.”
“Willingly,” said she, with a courtesy the more marked because his
manner indicated a seriousness that betokened trouble.
“My father has just dismissed me to cogitate over this epistle; as
if, after all, when one has read a letter, that any secret or mystical
interpretation is to come by all the reconsideration and reflection in
the world.”
“Am I to read it?” asked Kate, as he placed it in her hand.
“Of course you are,” said he.
“There is nothing confidential or private in it which I ought not to
see?”
“Nothing; and if there were,” added he, warmly, “_you_ are one of
ourselves, I trust,--at least _I_ think you so.”
Kate's lips closed with almost stern % impressiveness, but her color
never changed at this speech, and she opened the letter in silence. For
some minutes she continued to read with the same impassive expression;
but gradually her cheek became paler, and a haughty, almost scornful,
expression settled on her lips. “So patient are they in their trials,”
said she, reading aloud the expression of Mary's note. “Is it not
possible, Captain Martin, that patience may be pushed a little beyond a
virtue, and become something very like cowardice,--abject cowardice?
And then,” cried she impetuously, and not waiting for his reply, “to
say that now is the time to show these poor people the saving care and
protection that the rich owe them, as if the duty dated from the hour of
their being struck down by famine, laid low by pestilence, or that the
debt could ever be acquitted by the relief accorded to pauperism! Why
not have taught these same famished creatures self-dependence, elevated
them to the rank of civilized beings by the enjoyment of rights that
give men self-esteem as well as liberty? What do you mean to do,
sir?--or is that your difficulty?” cried she, hastily changing her tone
to one of less energy.
“Exactly,--that is _my difficulty_. My father, I suspect, wishes me to
concur in the pleasant project struck out by Mary, and that, by way of
helping _them_, we should ruin _ourselves_.”
“And _you_ are for--” She stopped, as if to let him finish her question
for her.
“Egad, I don't know well what I'm for, except it be self-preservation.
I mean,” said he, correcting himself, as a sudden glance of almost
insolent scorn shot from Kate's eyes towards him,--“I mean that I 'm
certain more than half of this account is sheer exaggeration. Mary is
frightened,--as well she may be,--finding herself all alone, and
hearing nothing but the high-colored stories the people brings her, and
listening to calamities from morning to night.”
“But still it _may_ be all true,” said Kate, solemnly. “It may be--as
Miss Martin writes--that 'there is a blight on the land.'”
“What's to be done, then?” asked he, in deep embarrassment.
“The first step is to ascertain what is fact,--the real extent of the
misfortune.”
“And how is that to be accomplished?” asked he.
“Can you not think of some means?” said she, with a scarcely perceptible
approach to a smile.
“No, by Jove! that I cannot, except by going over there one's self.”
“And why not that?” asked she, more boldly, while she fixed her large
full eyes directly upon him.
“If _you_ thought that I ought to go,--if you advised it and would
actually say 'Go'--”
“Well, if I should?”
“Then I'd set off to-night; though, to say truth, neither the journey
nor the business are much to my fancy.”
“Were they ten times less so, sir, I'd say, 'Go,'” said she, resolutely.
“Then go I will,” cried the Captain; “and I'll start within two hours.”