THE PEOPLE’S FRIEND.
The Mr. Hanlon casually referred to in the previous chapter, had been
the first to set the ball of democracy rolling through Kingslough.
I do not mean that he originated the feeling of discontent; that he
invented a new form of political religion which he invited the people to
join; or that he introduced strange and heretical doctrines concerning
the rights and privileges of the powers that then were to the
consideration of those who were many degrees lower in the social scale.
But he gave the popular sentiment shape; he spoke the ideas that had
never hitherto found voice; he turned the dissatisfaction which had long
and silently prevailed, into a wail of complaint, and then he set his
poetry to music; he wedded the moans of the down-trodden to his own
fervid eloquence, and the men who had never before got a gentleman to
talk their thoughts for them, hung upon his sentences, and believed that
the good time which each succeeding generation seeks but never finds—the
good time, so long in coming—was at hand at last.
A gentleman they called him. Well, perhaps so. And yet, possibly, the
hardiest of his admirers might have hesitated to give him a niche beside
one of the “old stock.” He dressed better, spoke better, was better
educated, was better looking than any other male resident in Kingslough;
he came of a sufficiently respectable family, and he was not destitute
of money, nor mean about spending it. But there was something lacking;
something which, in a different country and a larger sphere, he might
either have lived down or corrected, that prevented his making any mark
socially amongst his equals, or having the right hand of fellowship held
out by his superiors.
And under this neglect the man writhed. The son of an army surgeon who,
after seeing all sorts of places and associating with all kinds and
varieties of men, was well enough content at last to settle down on his
patrimonial estate of a few hundred acres of bog and call himself the
“squire,” Theophilus Hanlon had, from the paternal mansion, looked out
upon the world with an ever-increasing conviction that the world would
be exceedingly glad to welcome his appearance.
He was not singular in this idea: other young men have held the same
opinion, and been disabused of it. The singular thing about Theophilus
Hanlon was that no lapse of time and no sequence of events seemed able
to teach him the world had not waited—was not waiting for him with
breathless anxiety.
He had lived much with women—a bad beginning for one of his
self-conscious, conceited temperament. He was clever, and his mother and
sisters and aunt and grandmother lifted up their hands in astonishment
at the extent of his knowledge.
The years spent by Mr. Hanlon, senior, out of Ireland were not however
entirely bare of fruit. He was wise enough to see that the home
atmosphere did not altogether agree with his son’s mental health, and
that there was not the slightest chance of Theophilus finding his level
unless he went far afield from Hanlon’s-town to do it.
The result of this was, that although it sorely crippled his income to
educate his son in England, he sent him to a good school in one of the
midland counties; and when the lad was considered sufficiently old and
well informed for the purpose, despatched him to Edinburgh, where, after
duly attending lectures, and going through a very respectable course of
private study, he passed his examination, and returned to Ireland and
his parents “licensed to kill.”
But, as at Hanlon’s-town, it was an utter impossibility for him to hope
for patients, as there was nothing in the whole of the neighbourhood on
which to operate, except snipe, teal, and wild-duck, it became necessary
for the young man to select farther afield the scene of his future
triumphs.
Wherever he went he had always been a favourite with women; his curly
brown hair, his hazel eyes, his clear complexion, his upright figure,
his assured walk, his confident manner, his profound belief in his own
abilities, had won him the admiration of that sex which is so apt to
assume as correct the estimate men entertain of their own virtues, until
those men chance to become their husbands; and already Theophilus
considered he had nothing to do except to step across life’s threshold
and walk straight away to success.
So far experience had taught him very little; this Mr. Hanlon, senior,
confessed to himself with a sigh. He might as well have kept his money
as spent it in keeping his boy at school.
“I can’t make out what you want at all,” said Mrs. Hanlon, to whom he
confided his anxieties. “You might search Ireland through and not find
such another as Phil. Why he is as upright as a dart, and as handsome as
a picture, and as dutiful as a girl, and then what is there he can’t do?
what is there he doesn’t know?”
“He doesn’t know anything about himself,” replied Mr. Hanlon; “and I am
not sure that book learning can quite supply that defect. However I have
done all I could——”
“And that you have,” finished the warmhearted, though not overwise
matron, “that you have.” And sold Harkaway, and parted with your diamond
buckles and gold snuff-box, that the boy might not want a start in life.
“But he won’t forget it to you, he won’t,” continued Mrs. Hanlon, the
tears starting into eyes bright and hazel like her son’s, and warming in
her Irish idiom as a high-couraged horse warms to his work; “when he’s
driving through Dublin to the Castle in his carriage and pair, and
another pair to the back of that in his stables besides, he won’t forget
the father who gave up hunting for his sake, and sold the emerald pin
out of the breast of his shirt that his son might want for nothing among
the strangers. It will come home to you, Larry, your goodness and
thought for that boy.”
“Well, I hope so,” said Mr. Hanlon, who evidently entertained a lower
opinion of the soil in which he had sown for future reaping than his
wife. “Anyhow, I have done all I could. My judgment may have been at
fault, but according to my light I have done all I could.”
Had the opinion of Mr. Theophilus Hanlon been taken, he would have
confirmed the hopeful augury of his maternal parent. Judging by results,
nothing could be wiser than the course his father had adopted. Was not
his accent better than English? Had not one of his lady friends assured
him his speech had all the refinement of the Court of St. James’s, while
retaining the mellow softness of the seductive Dublin brogue? He had
added another charm, while retaining the old. Was not his appearance as
attractive as that of the most fashionably-dressed Sackville Street
lounger? Were not his mental acquirements far beyond those of most other
men? Had he not learned and remembered, had he not studied and to good
purpose? Were not his manners fit for a palace? to quote Mrs. Hanlon’s
own words, and to borrow again from the freely expressed statements of
that admiring parent, “Even to his handwriting, there was a character
and a dash about all he did.”
He could shoot, he could ride, he could dance; what should stand between
him and wealth, and fame, and happiness?
Out in that great world of which Mrs. Hanlon knew so little, but where
she had a sure faith heiresses were plentiful and confiding, her boy
would, she opined, “Pick up something worth the lifting.”
Theophilus had no idea of picking up anything in a hurry. If he were
inclined to throw himself away, there was a little girl in
Worcestershire he might have for the asking. A girl who had made eyes at
him when he was only a schoolboy, and who was mistress of a very snug
fortune. Theophilus knew he could have her, for she wrote to him
frequently with a certain tenderness of tone, and on the occasion of his
last visit to her uncle’s house she had gone as close to proposing for
the conceited young Irishman as a girl well could; but he was still at
the entrance of that wood whence he had liberty to select his sapling.
He would not choose hastily, he would see what grew to right and left of
the enchanted pathway and cut accordingly.
Till then behold him a bachelor, careless, unfettered, free to go
wherever chance called or fate beckoned.
Fate beckoned him to Kingslough. The precise chain of circumstances it
would be tedious to follow; but an old friend of Mr. Hanlon’s happening
to hear he wanted to find a good opening for his son, a surgeon, wrote
to say Kingslough presented what he sought.
Only one medical man in the place, town improving and extending yearly;
becoming a fashionable seaside resort; present doctor breaking up,
slightly deaf and sight failing only necessary to take apartments, and
practice certain to follow. Beautiful scenery; good society.
So averred Mr. Hanlon’s informant, who, being a man of good connexion,
an officer, and connected with one or two old families in the north of
Ireland, had probably found a visit to that part of the country very
pleasant indeed.
Strangers often do find sojourning in a neighbourhood more delightful
than the inhabitants themselves; perhaps for the same reason that the
good qualities of most people reveal themselves more fully to
acquaintances than to those of their own household.
Englishmen who have visited the Isle of Saints are always eloquent
concerning the hospitality shown to them. On the same subject, however,
the Irish themselves are occasionally discreetly silent.
After he had been a couple of years in Kingslough, Mr. Hanlon had many
opinions to express relative to this matter, none of them complimentary
to the inhabitants.
Upon the other hand the inhabitants generally were not complimentary
when they spoke of Mr. Hanlon.
Pecuniarily he could not complain of his success. For a young man and a
stranger, he had a large and not unprofitable practice. His living cost
him little, his habits were not expensive. He had made friends with the
beggars, he could afford to go his rounds on horseback, and to wear far
finer broadcloth than Dr. Girvan had ever donned, but the Kingslough
Upper Ten closed their doors upon him.
They would neither let him physick nor associate with them. To invert
the words of a celebrated wit—they returned his medicine and dispensed
with his visits.
Why, who could tell?—they conceived a prejudice against the man. If he
had crouched to them, perhaps in time he might have crept his way into
their parlours and drawing-rooms—had he been humble, and comported
himself with commendable bashfulness, they might possibly have
eventually patted him on the back and bid him take heart of grace, and
not be confounded and overwhelmed by their condescension.
As it was, he held his head too erect, he spoke with too unabashed a
front, he treated even the highest with too great an assumption of
equality to please people who held their own heads very high, and when
they spoke expected to be listened to with deference, and felt
themselves to be better than anybody in the land, unless indeed it might
be the Duke of Leinster and a few others of the same rank.
In a word Kingslough tabooed Mr. Hanlon, and Mr. Hanlon had his revenge.
In our own times we have seen the effect of a judicious bone thrown to a
very dissatisfied and yelping leader of discontented masses. In those
times Kingslough felt the effect of not having asked Mr. Hanlon to
dinner. Had they stopped his mouth with food eaten in good company, the
democrats must have waited a little longer for the arrival of an
exponent of their wrongs.
As matters stood, since Mr. Hanlon could not have the gentry, he ranged
himself with the people. Smarting under slights real and imaginary, he
grew rabid against “those ignorant persons who called themselves the
aristocracy.” “Nature’s gentlemen—those who delved and dug, those who
followed the plough and worked hardly for that they earned honestly,
were the only form of nobility he could recognize.”
“He was neither Whig nor Tory; he was for the people, who were coming to
their rights at last.” “He loved the Irish, but he could not call
mushroom lords or newly created marquises Irish. By what right did they
hold their lands? Should honest men be kept serfs and slaves because a
couple of centuries previously a profligate thief had bestowed stolen
land upon one of the members of his fraternity?” This and much more said
Mr. Hanlon in private and in public. Whenever in the “wild parts of
Ireland,” as the Kingslough people called the midland and southern parts
of their own country—a compliment reciprocated by calling the province
in which Kingslough was situated the “black North,”—one of those
accidents occurred which are not unusual even now, Mr. Hanlon pointed
the moral and adorned the tale.
Not even the “largest circulation in the world” could have idealized a
fact better than he.
Were a landlord shot—and shot plenty of landlords were—he drew pictures
of evicted tenants, of deserted hearths, of cottages whence the
roof-tree had been ruthlessly torn, of nursing mothers driven forth to
feel their sucking children dying at the breast; of men wasted with
fever falling by the wayside and “seeking that justice in heaven they
had been denied on earth.”
That was Mr. Hanlon’s style of oratory, and the facts on which he
founded it were sometimes too true; but then he forgot, like all special
pleaders, the other side—the unpaid rent, the untilled land, the
exhausted acres; the hut it was a disgrace for a man possessed of his
full complement of legs, arms, and senses to call a house and a home;
the half-starved cow; the greyhound-like pig; the energetic fowls that
laid only because they sought their food with twenty times the industry
and courage displayed by their owners. This side of the question of
which the “wild parts of Ireland” presented examples in plenty, was
forgotten by Mr. Hanlon when he waxed eloquent, and I question much
whether when he so wrought upon the feelings of his auditors, one
amongst them bestowed a second thought on the man stricken down in his
prime, of the wife left a widow, of the children orphans.
These things which would in England have driven an orderly population
mad, which would have caused a cry of “blood for blood” to ring from
Berwick to Penzance, failed to stir the hearts of the northern Irish.
They had their ideas about landlords; and if those ideas failed to find
such unmistakable expression in the North as in other parts of the
island, it was not because their feelings were less keen or their
judgment less critical.
Their passions were not vindictive and treacherous, like those of the
truer, more impulsive, scarcely civilized Celt, but they were men more
dangerous to arouse, harder to subdue than any other in Ireland.
Where in the annals of that unhappy country shall we find a parallel to
the holding of Derry, the heroism, the self-denial, the obdurate
determination to win or die?
And it was to the descendants of men such as those who kept the walls of
the maiden city that this man held forth his parable; it was amongst
such enduring fuel that he thrust his torch, trying to kindle the
smouldering discontent into flame.
How he and men like him succeeded there can be no need to tell. Their
success is now a matter of history. Never perhaps was so much, for evil
as some consider, for good as others declare, accomplished in a given
time in any country as in Ireland. Fifty years ago, ay, far less than
fifty, the tenant farmers were of as little account in the estimation of
their landlords as Gurth the Swineherd in the eyes of his master, and
now Jack is as good as Sir Harry in his own eyes, and all the old
landmarks are removed, and a new _régime_ has commenced—inevitable
perhaps, irrevocable certainly, but which, nevertheless, no thoughtful
man can contemplate with pleasure, since progress should be gradual
rather than instantaneous, the growth of years rather than the result of
a political eruption.
Thoughtful people in the days of which I write were much exercised in
their judgments as to what was right and what was wrong. Thoughtful
people have now to accept the change, be it right or wrong; but in those
days the beginning of the end, was only—and no one could prognosticate
how the event should prove.
Now, notwithstanding the fact that women are fervent politicians, it may
very well be questioned whether they take a new measure home to nurse,
as was the case before they had learned, or were permitted, to express
their opinions so fluently, as is the case at present.
Grace Moffat was no politician, though she belonged to a party, and yet
the matters concerning which Mr. Hanlon discoursed so glibly were to her
subjects of daily and hourly consideration.
No one had felt, or could feel more keenly than she, the rotten state of
that fair Denmark in which her lot was cast; she had lived too much
amongst the people not to have learned to love and feel for them; but
she had also heard from her father so many remarks concerning the
improvidence and false views of political economy prevailing in Ireland,
that whilst her sentiments inclined her to one side, her judgment
disposed her to favour the other.
Thus she was in the unenviable position known as between two stools.
When she listened to the opinions that obtained in Tory circles, she
felt herself a Whig; when she heard the Radical outpourings, she felt
herself a Tory. Society had never injured her personally, and therefore
she was not disposed like Mr. Hanlon to sweep away all the distinctions
of society.
In a word, when the new prophet propounded one of his favourite
theories,—
“Worth makes the man—
The want of it the fellow;”
she felt inclined to disagree with a proposition which, carried out by
Mr. Hanlon, declared Amos Scott to be a finer gentleman than Robert
Somerford.
Theoretically Mr. Hanlon might be right, practically she resented his
doctrines. Taking a large view of the subject, Mr. Hanlon might be one
of the best and most disinterested patriots that ever lived; but taking
a personal and private view, Miss Moffat felt she had rarely met a man
who excited in her so sharp an antipathy. Though not free of the magic
circle in Kingslough, Mr. Hanlon had met Miss Moffat—of whom in the new
form of language he saw fit to invent for himself when society refused
to recognize his merits, he spoke as “a good woman,” and Miss Moffat’s
acquaintance with him was more than mere bowing or a formal
How-do-you-do.
She met him on his rounds when she paid her visits to the farmers’
wives; he attended the poor often without asking for fee and reward, and
Miss Moffat had seen that he did not suffer for his generosity; and
thus, though he had never eaten bread or salt at Bayview, he was not
altogether antagonistic to Miss Moffat.
When the humbling of the aristocrats took place, he did not desire to
see Grace lick the dust. If he had the management of public opinion at
that juncture, Miss Moffat should be permitted an independent income,
though, of course, the bulk of her money must be distributed for the
public good.
Although she was of age, Grace had not yet been able to carry out her
more juvenile project of spending her wealth in benefiting her country.
There are practical difficulties in the way of benefiting a country
impossible to guess, till a person comes face to face with the problem.
One of Miss Moffat’s impediments was the spirit of the times. She was
not prepared to enrol herself under the colours of Mr. Hanlon or any one
like him. If ever she married Robert Somerford, she might then be able
to help the people without compromising herself. Meanwhile she felt no
desire to become a representative woman. It was enough for her to help
the poor and needy, to comfort the sorrowful, to provide necessaries for
the sick, to soothe the dying, without entering into the vexed questions
which were disturbing the land.
In the depths of her heart she loved the land and its inhabitants, but
she distrusted those who were about to put all wrongs right by setting
every one by the ears.
Since the earl’s death matters on the Glendare estates had not been
progressing favourably. The new earl was abroad, and the state of his
health prevented any satisfactory settlement of disputed claims.
The demagogues had it all their own way. No one could contradict their
statements. Having always maintained that he personally knew nothing of
any private transactions which might or might not have taken place
between the late earl and some of his tenants, Mr. Dillywn could not now
take up arms on behalf of his late employer, and tell Mr. Hanlon and the
remainder of that clique they were propagating falsehoods by the score.
All the sins, actual and imputed, of the Glendares since their first
advent in Ireland, were resuscitated for the purpose of rounding
sentences more eloquently, of enabling Mr. Hanlon and his friends to
deliver themselves of more passionate bursts of oratory.
The better classes were becoming anxious. Let the dead man and his dead
ancestors have been what they would, it was felt that decency ought to
forbid such attacks on those whose voices were silenced for ever.
Lord Ardmorne had won golden opinions from gentlemen of all creeds and
shades of politics, by protesting at a public meeting against the
intemperance of Mr. Hanlon’s observations—the utter irrelevance of his
remarks.
“No one,” said his lordship, “can accuse me of being a partisan of that
family which the last speaker misses no opportunity of vilifying. In
theory and practice I have been opposed to the Earls of Glendare all my
life. Their ways were not my ways; their thoughts, and ideas, and
opinions differed from mine; but having admitted so much, I go on to
declare that nothing shall induce me to continue to preside over a
meeting where such licence of language prevails—where the dead are
dragged out of their graves to be gibed at and reviled—where the sorrow
and the suffering of the living fail to restrain the buffoonery of a too
facile tongue—where misfortune is spoken of with a taunt, and griefs are
considered fit matters for jest! If such remarks are persisted in, I
shall at once vacate the chair.”
After that public rebuke, it might have been imagined Mr. Hanlon would
transfer his attack from the Glendares to the Marquis. On the contrary,
however, he was wise enough to swallow the compulsory pill with a good
grace.
He apologized in a manner not destitute of tact for his indiscretion,
and was happy enough to be able at the same time to wing a side-shaft at
his censor, by saying in a tone of contrite humility, “He was aware he
had been guilty of bad taste of speaking ill of one nobleman in the
presence of another,”—a remark which, as it cut two ways, was received
with applause—genuine and derisive. “If it were a necessity for some to
be rolling in wealth, while others had not a crust to eat, he could wish
all rich men were such as their noble chairman, or better—supposing that
possible.”
Altogether Mr. Hanlon held his own whilst seeming to yield, but he
respected Lord Ardmorne for his straightforwardness and plain speaking.
“Unlike the Somerfords, who always left their dirty work to be done by
somebody else,” he said, when subsequently discussing the scene with one
who held opinions similar to his own; “why, Robert Somerford was
standing by all the time, and never opened his lips.”
Which was indeed quite true, and had already caused much unfavourable
comment, but then, as Mr. Robert remarked,—
“I have never agreed with the policy of our family, and much of their
practice seems to me utterly indefensible.”
“Still,” urged Grace Moffat, “you surely might have found some word to
speak.”
“Ardmorne said all and more in my opinion than was necessary,” Mr.
Somerford replied. “Hanlon’s a fool! why should I gratify him by
replying to his folly?”
Which was plausible enough and sensible enough too for that matter, but
Grace heard the sentence with a pain at her heart which had been coming
and going for a long time past, but which came more frequently and was
less swift about taking its departure as week followed week, and month
succeeded to month.
She was beginning to doubt Mr. Somerford; to think that, making every
allowance for his uncertain prospects, his dependent position, his dread
of seeming a mere fortune-hunter (a character of which he had often
expressed his abhorrence), he had not acted quite fairly by her.
Other men gave her at least the chance of saying no. Not so Mr.
Somerford. Her prejudices against marrying and giving in marriage might
be the same at twenty-four as at seventeen, but it was absurd to think
of a man honestly playing at the game of fast and loose for all the
years during which he had been her constant and devoted admirer.
Precisely as she had treated John Riley, so Robert Somerford was
treating her, and Grace was beginning to think very seriously over his
position and hers. She had done so often since the day of the earl’s
funeral. She was trying to see what she ought to do, how she ought to
act. Instinctively she felt affairs could not remain as they were.
Two lives now only intervened between Mr. Somerford and the earldom; two
lives held by feeble threads, the strands of which might any day give
way. The fact was well known in Kingslough; it was discussed over every
tea-table, and friends with the same frankness which had distinguished
their utterances in days gone by were now asking Miss Moffat when she
meant to become My Lady.
And yet Mr. Somerford had never once alluded to the possibility either
of his attaining to the peerage or of her assuming a title. Delicacy
might of course have restrained him in the one case as in the other, but
there are times in life when delicacy may be a little overstrained, and
Grace had arrived at the conclusion that if Mr. Somerford ever meant to
take her into his confidence, it was high time he commenced.
Would she marry him if he asked her? Miss Moffat was quite old enough,
and quite sufficient woman of the world to put this question to herself,
and answer it, but, even mentally, she turned aside from a direct reply.
“I am never likely to be tried,” she said, fencing with the idea. “Why,
in any case, should I marry? Have the married people of my acquaintance
been so happy that I should make haste to run my head into the noose?
And yet if I do not marry, what will my life prove? I shall be a comfort
to my father for the rest of his days; I can help the poor a little; I
shall either die young, or else remain till I am old, and be courted and
flattered for my money, and not be able to make up my mind to whom to
leave it. I wish I could fall in love; I wish I could like some one, as
I think I liked Robert Somerford when I was a girl. Oh dear, what a
beautiful world this is! Why are we not happier and more contented in
it?”
And assuredly it was a lovely scene that on which Miss Moffat’s eyes
rested, as she paused on her way to the Castle Farm to take in the
beauty of land and sea stretching below her. Gone were the November
mists; the snows and frosts of winter; past were the vernal equinoxes;
against a clear blue sky the ruins of the old abbey stood out in sharp
distinctness; with scarce a ripple the sea swept gently in upon the
shore; a burst of April sunshine illuminated the distant hills; the
fields were dappled with white lambs and bleating sheep; from the
chimneys of whitewashed cottages, embosomed in trees arrayed in the
tender foliage of the early spring, wreaths of smoke were ascending
almost straight upwards; by the wayside bubbled a clear, swift
streamlet; the air was filled with that indescribable scent which
departs ere the hawthorn blossoms open, and is as surely the smell of
quick, healthy vegetable life, as the decaying leaves of autumn are the
smell of Nature’s death.
Well might Grace Moffat pause, and look at the landscape, though she had
gazed upon it hundreds of times previously: for is not a lovely view
like a fair countenance? does not the beauty grow and grow as each
feature becomes more familiar? did not those who knew Grace best find
some fresh charm each time they beheld her face?
“A delightful morning, and a divine prospect,” remarked some one close
behind her; and, turning, she saw Mr. Hanlon, who had come across the
fields from Kingslough, and now, leaping the narrow rivulet, raised his
hat, and then held out his hand.
“Have you heard the news, Miss Moffat? No; I see you have not. Lady Jane
Somerford is dead.”
“And Amos Scott’s old lease is out,” added Grace, uttering the first
idea suggested by the intelligence.
“And Amos Scott’s old lease is out,” he agreed.
“What will he do now?” she asked.
“If he be well advised, one of three things. He will rent another farm
under Ardmorne as yearly tenant, and take his chance of being turned out
at the next election unless he chooses to change his politics; he will
sell every stick he has and go to America, or he will blow his brains
out. As, however, he is certain not to take advice, no matter how good,
he will probably go to law or try to defy law and justice so called, in
which case we may predict the final result with tolerable accuracy.”
“Will not Mr. Brady come to terms? I would gladly help Scott if any
arrangement could be come to. You are a friend of Mr. Brady, and—”
“Pardon me,” interposed Mr. Hanlon, “I know the master of Maryville. I
attended his children when they had scarlatina, and I tried my best to
save the little girl who would die in spite of me; but I cannot claim
the honour of calling myself Mr. Brady’s friend. Friendship implies some
congeniality of temperament or disposition, and I fear my nature will
never permit of my becoming a sufficiently finished scoundrel to suit
the taste of Scott’s opponent.”
“Then how does it fare with Nettie—with his wife I mean?” Grace asked
eagerly.
“You ask me to tell you something, Miss Moffat, which I do not know
myself, which I do not want to know, of which I should not speak if I
did know. To quote Dr. Girvan, a medical man should be blind and deaf
while in a patient’s house, and dumb when he comes out of it. Poor old
man! he is fast compassing the two former states without any effort of
will; but, indeed, he is right in principle, more particularly in such a
gossiping little town as Kingslough. This much I may say, however,
without any breach of confidence; Mrs. Brady is an admirable wife—as
admirable a wife as she is a devoted mother; and whether she is happy or
whether she is the reverse, no one will ever hear from her.”
For a moment Grace did not reply; her thoughts were in the far away
past, with Nettie in the days when they two were never apart, when, if
their love was not as pure and absorbing as that of Hermione and
Rosalind, it seemed to be so. Very grievous had that severed friendship
proved to Grace; and as she stood silent tears from some hidden fountain
of tenderness welled up and filled her eyes almost to overflowing.
“You were very fond of Mrs. Brady,” Mr. Hanlon suggested; he was not
possessed of sufficient sensitiveness, or of that which stands in as
good stead sometimes, sufficient _savoir-faire_ to appear nonobservant
of her emotion, but Grace Moffat was not one who cared to wear her heart
on her sleeve, and therefore answered quietly,—
“I am so fond of her still, that the opinion you express of her husband
grieves me more than I can say. And how will it fare with Scott?” she
went on rapidly. “Surely Mr. Brady, let him be what he may in other
respects, would not refuse to listen to reason; but, if paid for it,
would be willing to humour the fancy of a man no longer young, who hoped
to die, as he has lived, on the Castle Farm. He can have no associations
with the place. It never belonged to him nor to one of his family.
Money, or another farm, would surely be as valuable in his eyes as our
poor Naboth’s vineyard, and amongst my friends I am certain—”
She paused suddenly. For a moment she had forgotten herself, forgotten
her antagonism against, her distrust of the man she was addressing; but
the look of undisguised admiration with which he listened to her hurried
sentences brought her to a stand.
“I must apologize for my vehemence, Mr. Hanlon,” she resumed, blushing
as she felt with angry consciousness while she spoke. “Of course you
cannot carry my proposal to Mr. Brady. I will speak to my father. I
will—”
“I should think Mr. Somerford would be the best agent you could employ,”
interrupted Mr. Hanlon.
“I should think it most unlikely he would wish to meddle in the affairs
of his most unhappy family,” she retorted.
“No one would stand a better chance of success in persuading Mr. Brady
to a distasteful course than the future Earl of Glendare.”
“He may never be Earl of Glendare.” She spoke sharply, almost rudely.
“What is to prevent him?”
“The present Earl may live,—Mr. Somerford may die.”
He looked at her in amazement. In common with all Kingslough he had
considered the marriage as settled, the engagement certain, and yet she
spoke coolly of the possibility of the man dying. Was this feminine
finessing, or an unconscious evidence of indifference?
More interesting than the study of man’s body was the study of man’s
mind to this self-constituted champion of the people’s rights.
He would study Miss Moffat—the greater included the less; and, although
she was but a woman, still he might learn something during the course of
his investigations that could be turned to account in his dealings with
men.
“You were on your way to the Castle Farm, I conclude, Miss Moffat?” he
said. “Will you allow me to walk there with you?”
“I was going to see Mrs. Scott,” said Grace, “but I will turn back
now—I—I should not like to be present when they hear the news;” and
without any more formal leave-taking she began to retrace her steps.
For a moment Mr. Hanlon stood still, and watched her retreating figure.
“It is delightful to consider,” he remarked to himself, “how in any
emergency of this kind, in a word, when an easy way of backing out of a
difficulty has to be found females at once take refuge in the delicacy
of their sex. She did not want to walk to the Castle Farm with me, and
so she makes a dislike to the sight of pain her excuse. She is a good
woman, but the best of Eve’s daughters are ‘kittle cattle’ to have any
say to.”