“Well, what is it, Molly,--what is it all about?” said Martin, as Mary
entered the library, where he was sitting with an unread newspaper
stretched across his knee.
“It is a piece of news Scanlan has brought, uncle, and not of the most
agreeable kind either.”
“Then I'll not hear more of it,” broke he in, pettishly.
“But you must, uncle, since without your own counsel and advice nothing
can be done.”
“Do nothing, then,” added he, sulkily.
“Come, come, I 'll not let you off thus easily,” said she, passing an
arm over his shoulder. “You know well I 'd not tease you if it could be
avoided, but here is a case where I can be no guide. It is a question of
the borough, Lord Kilmorris thinks himself strong enough to stand on his
own merits, and repudiates your aid and his own principles together.”
Martin's attention being now secured, she went on: “He says--at least as
well as I can follow his meaning--that with this new measure must come a
total change of policy,--abrogating all old traditions and old notions;
that _you_, of course, are little likely to adopt this opinion, at least
at once, and so he releases you from all obligations to support him, and
himself from all tie to represent _you_.”
“This is Lady Dorothy's doing,” broke in Martin, passionately; “her
confounded letter-writing has brought this upon us. I told her that
those fellows were trimming; I warned her that they were only waiting
for this Bill to pass, to turn round upon us as a barbarous old remnant
of feudal oppression; but he dare n't do it, Molly,--Kilmorris has n't
a leg to stand upon in the borough. He could n't count upon twenty--no,
not ten votes, without me. It's a scurvy trick, too, and it sha'n't
succeed, if I stand for the borough myself.” And he blurted out the last
words as though they were the expression of an enmity driven to its last
resources.
“No, no, uncle,” said she, caressingly; “after all you have yourself
told me of a parliamentary life, that must never be. Its unending
intrigues and petty plotting, its fatiguing days and harassing nights,
its jealousies and disappointments, and defeats, all hard enough to
be borne by those who must make a trade of their politics, but utterly
insupportable to one who, like you, can enjoy his independence. Do not
think of that, I beseech you.”
“Then am I to see this man carry my own town in my very teeth?” cried
he, angrily. “Is that your advice to me?”
“You often spoke of Harry. Why not put him forward now he is coming
home?”
“Ay, and the very first thing he'll do will be to resign the seat
because he had not been consulted about the matter before the election.
You know him well, Molly; and you know that he exchanged into a regiment
in India simply because I had obtained his appointment to the Blues.
His amiable mother's disposition is strong in him!” muttered he, half to
himself, but loud enough to be heard by his niece.
“At all events, see Scanlan,” said she; “learn how the matter really
stands; don't rely on my version of it, but see what Lord Kilmorris
intends, and take your own measures calmly and dispassionately
afterwards.”
“Is Scanlan engaged for him?”
“I think not. I suspect that negotiations are merely in progress.”
“But if he even was,” broke in Martin, violently, “I have made the
fellow what he is, and he should do as I ordered him. Let him come in,
Molly.”
“He is not in the house, uncle; he went down to the village.”
“Not here? Why didn't he wait? What impertinence is this?”
“He wished to bait his horses, and probably to get some breakfast for
himself, which I had not the politeness to offer him here.”
“His horses? His tandem, I'll be sworn,” said Martin, with a sneer.
“I 'll ask for no better evidence of what we are coming to than that
Maurice Scanlan drives about the county with a tandem.”
“And handles them very neatly, too,” said Mary, with a malicious sparkle
of her eye, for she could n't refrain from the spiteful pleasure of
seeing her uncle in a regular fury for a mere nothing. All the more
salutary, as it withdrew his thoughts from weightier themes.
“I'm sure of it, Miss Martin. I'm certain that he is a most accomplished
whip, and as such perfectly sure to find favor in _your_ eyes. Let him
come up here at once, however. Say I want him immediately,” added he,
sternly; and Mary despatched a servant with the message, and sat down in
front of her uncle, neither uttering a word nor even looking towards the
other.
“After all, Molly,” said he, in the quiet, indolent tone so natural to
him--“after all, what does it signify who's in or who's out? I don't
care a brass farthing about party or party triumphs; and even if I did,
I 'm not prepared--What are you laughing at,--what is it amuses you
now?” asked he, half testily, while she laughed out in all the
unrestrained flow of joyous mirth.
“I have been waiting for that confession this half-hour, uncle, and
really I was beginning to be afraid of a disappointment. Why, dearest
uncle, you were within a hair's breadth of forgetting your principles,
and being actually caught, for once in your life, prepared and ready.”
“Oh, is that it? Is it my embarrassment, then, that affords you so much
amusement?”
“Far from it,” said she, affectionately. “I was only laughing at that
quiet little nook you retire to whenever you ought to be up and doing.
Unprepared you say. Not a bit of it. Indisposed, indolent, unwilling,
indifferent, any of these you like; but with a mind so full of its own
good resources, and as ready to meet every contingency as any one's,
don't say you are unprepared. Come, now, bear with me this once, dearest
uncle, and don't be angry if I throw myself, like a rock or sandbank,
betwixt you and your harbor of refuge. But I hear Mr. Scanlan's
voice, and so I shall leave you. Be resolute, uncle, determined,
and--'prepared'!” And with a gesture half menace and half drollery, she
left the room as the attorney entered it.
Scanlan, like most of those who came but casually in contact with
Martin, had conceived a low idea of his capacity,--lower by far than
it deserved, since behind his indolence there lay a fund of good
common-sense,--a mine, it must be acknowledged, that he seldom cared to
work. The crafty man of law had, however, only seen him in his ordinary
moods of careless ease and idleness, and believed that pride of family,
fortune, and position were the only ideas that found access to his mind,
and that by a dexterous allusion to these topics it would always be an
easy task to influence and direct him.
“What's this my niece has been telling me of Lord Kilmorris?” said
Martin, abruptly, and without even replying to the salutations of the
other, who hovered around a chair in an uncertainty as to whether
he might dare to seat himself uninvited,--“he's going to contest the
borough with us, is n't he?”
Scanlan leaned one arm on the back of the chair, and in a half-careless
way replied,--
“He is afraid that you and he don't quite agree, sir. He leans to
measures that he suspects you may not altogether approve of.”
“Come, come, none of this balderdash with me, Master Maurice. Has he
bought the fellows already, or, rather, have you bought them? Out with
it, man! What will he give? Name the sum, and let us treat the matter in
a business-like way.”
Scanlan sat down and laughed heartily for some minutes.
“I think you know me well enough, Mr. Martin, by this time,” said he,
“to say whether I'ma likely man to meddle with such a transaction.”
“The very likeliest in Ireland; the man I 'd select amidst ten
thousand.”
“I am sorry to hear you say so, sir, that's all,” said the other, with a
half-offended air; “nor do I see that anything in my past life warrants
the imputation.”
Martin turned fiercely round, about to make a reply which, if once
uttered, would have ended all colloquy between them, when suddenly
catching himself he said, “Have you taken any engagement with his
Lordship?”
“Not as yet, sir,--not formally, at least. My Lord has written me a very
full statement of his ideas on politics, what he means to do, and so
forth, and he seems to think that anything short of a very liberal line
would not give satisfaction to the electors.”
“Who told him so? Who said that the borough was not perfectly content
with the representative that--that”--he stammered and faltered--“that
its best friends had fixed upon to defend its interests? Who said that a
member of my own family might not desire the seat?”
This announcement, uttered with a tone very much akin to menace, failed
to produce either the astonishment or terror that Martin looked for, and
actually supposing that the expression had not been heard, he repeated
it. “I say, sir, has any one declared that a Martin will not stand?”
“I am not aware of it,” said Scanlan, quietly.
“Well, sir,” cried Martin, as if unable to delineate the consequences,
and wished to throw the weight of the duty on his opponent.
“There would be a warm contest, no doubt, sir,” said Scanlan, guardedly.
“No, sir; nor the shadow of a contest,” rejoined Martin, angrily.
“You'll not tell _me_ that my own town--the property that has been in
my family for seven centuries and more--would presume--that is, would
desire--to--to--break the ties that have bound us to each other?”
“I wish I could tell you my mind, Mr. Martin, without offending you;
that is, I wish you 'd let me just say what my own opinion is, and
take it for what it is worth, and in five minutes you 'd be in a better
position to make up your mind about this matter than if we went on
discussing it for a week.” There was a dash of independence in his
utterance of these words that actually startled Martin; for, somehow,
Scanlan had himself been surprised into earnestness by meeting with an
energy on the other's part that he had never suspected; and thus each
appeared in a new light to the other.
“May I speak out? Well, then, here is what I have to say: the Relief
Bill is passed, the Catholics are now emancipated--”
“Yes, and be--” Martin caught himself with a cough, and the other went
on:--
“Well, then, if they don't send one of their own set into Parliament at
once, it is because they 'd like to affect, for a little while at least,
a kind of confidence in the men who gave them their liberties. O'Connell
himself gave a pledge, that of two candidates, equal in all other
respects, they'd select the Protestant; and so they would for a time.
And it lies with you, and other men of your station, to determine how
long that interval is to last; for an interval it will only be, after
all. If you want to pursue the old system of 'keeping down,' you 'll
drive them at once into the hands of the extreme Papist party, who,
thanks to yourselves, can now sit in Parliament; but if you 'll moderate
your views, take a humbler standard of your own power,--conciliate a
prejudice here, obliterate an old animosity there--”
“In fact,” broke in Martin, “swear by this new creed that Lord Kilmorris
has sent you a sketch of in his letter! Then I 'll tell you what, sir--I
'd send the borough and all in it to the--”
“So you might, Mr. Martin, and you 'd never mend matters in the least,”
broke he in, with great coolness.
There was now a dead silence for several minutes; at last Martin spoke,
and it was in a tone and with a manner that indicated deep reflection:--
“I often said to those who would emancipate the Catholics, 'Are you
prepared to change places with them? You have been in the ascendant a
good many years, are you anxious now to try what the other side of the
medal looks like? for, if not, leave them as they are.' Well, they did
n't believe me; and maybe now my prophecy is nigh its accomplishment.”
“It is very likely you were right, sir; but whether or not, it's the law
now, and let us make the best of it,” said Scanlan, who had a practical
man's aversion to all that savored of mere speculative reasoning.
“As how, for instance--in what way, Mr. Scanlan?” asked Martin, curtly.
“If you 'll not support Lord Kilmorris--”
“That I won't, I promise you; put that clean out of your head to begin
with.”
“Well, then, there is but one other course open. Come to some compromise
with the Romanist party; if you don't like to give them a stray
vote--and mark me, they 'd make better terms with _you_ than with a
stranger--but if you don't like that, why, take the representation
alternately with them.”
Martin rose from his chair and advanced close to where Scanlan was
sitting, then, fixing his eyes steadfastly on him, said,--
“Who commissioned you to make this proposition to _me?_”
“No one, upon my oath. There is not a man breathing who has ever so much
as hinted at what I have just said to you.”
“I'm glad of it; I'm heartily glad of it,” said Martin, calmly reseating
himself. “I'm glad there is not another fellow in this county your equal
in impudence! Aye, Mr. Scanlan, you heard me quite correctly. I saw many
a change going on amongst us, and I foresaw many more; but that a Martin
of Cro' Martin should be taught his political duty by Maurice Scanlan,
and that that duty consisted in a beggarly alliance with the riff-raff
of a county town,--that was, indeed, a surprise for which I was in no
wise prepared.”
“Well, sir, I 'm sorry if I have given any offence,” said Scanlan,
rising, and, in a voice of the most quiet intonation, making his
excuses. “Your rejection of the counsel I was bold enough to suggest
leaves me, at least, at liberty to offer my services where they will not
be rejected so contumeliously.”
“Is this a threat, Mr. Scanlan?” said Martin, with a supercilious smile.
“No, sir, nothing of the kind. I know too well what becomes _my_
station, and is _due to yours_, to forget myself so far; but as you
don't set any value on the borough yourself, and as there may be others
who do--”
“Stay and eat your dinner here, Scanlan,” said Martin.
“I promised Mrs. Cronan, sir--”
“Send an apology to her; say it was _my_ fault,--that I detained you.”
And without waiting for a reply, Martin sauntered from the room, leaving
the attorney alone with his reflections.