From the day that Sir Brook made the acquaintance of Tom Lendrick and
his sister, he determined he would “pitch his tent,” as he called it,
for some time at Killaloe. They had, so to say, captivated the old man.
The young fellow, by his frank, open, manly nature, his ardent love
of sport in every shape, his invariable good-humor, and more than all
these, by the unaffected simplicity of his character, had strongly
interested him; while Lucy had made a far deeper impression by her
gentleness, her refinement, an elegance in deportment that no teaching
ever gives, and, along with these, a mind stored with thought and
reflectiveness. Let us, however, be just to each, and own that her
beauty and the marvellous fascination of her smile gave her, even in
that old man's eyes, an irresistible charm. It was a very long bygone,
but he had once been in love, and the faint flicker of the memory
had yet survived in his heart. It was just as likely Lucy bore no
resemblance to her he had loved, but he fancied she did,--he imagined
that she was her very image. That was the smile, the glance, the tone,
the gesture which once had set his heart a-throbbing, and the illusion
threw around her an immense fascination.
She liked him too. Through all the strange incongruities of his
character, his restless love of adventure and excitement, there ran a
gentle liking for quiet pleasures. He loved scenery passionately, and
with a painter's taste for color and form; he loved poetry, which he
read with a wondrous charm of voice and intonation. Nor was it without
its peculiar power, this homage of an old, old man, who rendered her the
attentive service of a devoted admirer.
There is very subtle flattery in the obsequious devotion of age to
youth. It is, at least, an honest worship, an unselfish offering, and in
this way the object of it may well feel proud of its tribute.
From the vicar, Dr. Mills, Fossbrooke had learned the chief events
of Dr. Lendrick's history, of his estrangement from his father, his
fastidious retirement from the world, and, last of all, his narrow
fortune, apparently now growing narrower, since within the last year he
had withdrawn his son from the University on the score of its expense.
A gold-medallist and a scholar, Dr. Lendrick would have eagerly coveted
such honors for his son. It was, probably, the one triumph in life he
would have set most store by, but Tom was one not made for collegiate
successes. He had abilities, but they were not teachable qualities;
he could pick up a certain amount of almost anything,--he could learn
nothing. He could carry away from a chance conversation an amount of
knowledge it had cost the talkers years to acquire, and yet set him
down regularly to work book-fashion, and either from want of energy, or
concentration, or of that strong will which masters difficulties just
as a full current carries all before it--whichever of these was his
defect,--he arose from his task wearied, worn, but unadvanced.
When, therefore, his father would speak, as he sometimes did,
in confidence to the vicar, in a tone of depression about Tom's
deficiencies, the honest parson would feel perfectly lost in amazement
at what he meant. To his eyes Tom Lendrick was a wonder, a prodigy.
There was not a theme he could not talk on, and talk well too. “It was
but the other day he told the chief engineer of the Shannon Company more
about the geological formation of the river-basin than all his staff
knew. Ay, and what's stranger,” added the vicar, “he understands the
whole Colenso controversy better than I do myself.” It is just possible
that in the last panegyric there was nothing of exaggeration or excess.
“And with all that, sir, his father goes on brooding over his neglected
education, and foreshadowing the worst results from his ignorance.”
“He is a fine fellow,” said Fossbrooke, “but not to be compared with his
sister.”
“Not for mere looks, perhaps, nor for a graceful manner, and a winning
address; but who would think of ranking Lucy's abilities with her
brother's?”
“Not I,” said Fossbrooke, boldly, “for I place hers far and away above
them.”
A sly twinkle of the parson's eye showed to what class of advantages
he ascribed the other's preference; but he said no more, and the
controversy ended.
Every morning found Sir Brook at the “Swan's Nest.” He was fond of
gardening, and had consummate taste in laying out ground, so that many
pleasant surprises had been prepared for Dr. Lendrick's return. He drew,
too, with great skill, and Lucy made considerable progress under his
teaching; and as they grew more intimate, and she was not ashamed of the
confession that she delighted in the Georgics of Virgil, they read whole
hours together of those picturesque descriptions of rural life and its
occupations, which are as true to nature at this hour as on the day they
were written.
Perhaps the old man fancied that it was he who had suggested this
intense appreciation of the poet. It is just possible that the young
girl believed that she had reclaimed a wild, erratic, eccentric nature,
and brought him back ta the love of simple pleasures and a purer source
of enjoyment. Whichever way the truth inclined, each was happy, each
contented. And how fond are we all, of every age, of playing the
missionary, of setting off into the savage districts of our neighbors'
natures and combating their false idols, their superstitions and strange
rites! The least adventurous and the least imaginative have these little
outbursts of conversion, and all are more or less propagandists.
It was one morning, a bright and glorious one too, that, while Tom
and Lucy were yet at breakfast, Sir Brook arrived and entered the
breakfast-room.
“What a day for a gray hackle, in that dark pool under the larch-trees!”
cried Tom, as he saw him.
“What a day for a long walk to Mount Laurel!” said Lucy. “You said,
t'other morning, you wanted cloud effects on the upper lake. I 'll show
you splendid ones to-day.”
“I 'll promise you a full basket before four o'clock,” broke in Tom.
“I 'll promise you a full sketch-book,” said Lucy, with one of her
sweetest smiles.
“And I 'm going to refuse both; for I have a plan of my own, and a plan
not to be gainsaid.”
“I know it, You want us to go to work on that fish-pond. I'm certain
it's that.”
“No, Tom; it's the catalogue,--the weary catalogue that he told me, as a
punishment for not being able to find Machiavelli's comedies last week,
he 'd make me sit down to on the first lovely morning that came.”
“Better that than those dreary Georgics which remind one of school, and
the third form. But what 's your plan, Sir Brook? We have thought of all
the projects that can terrify us, and you look as if it ought to be a
terror.”
“Mine is a plan for pleasure, and pleasure only; so pack up at once and
get ready. Trafford arrived this morning.”
“Where is he? I am so glad! Where's Trafford?” cried Tom, delighted.
“I have despatched him with the vicar and two well-filled hampers to
Holy Island, where I mean that we shall all picnic. There 's my plan.”
“And a jolly plan too! I adhere unconditionally.”
“And you, Lucy, what do you say?” asked Sir Brook, as the young girl
stood with a look of some indecision and embarrassment.
“I don't say that it's not a very pleasant project, but--”
“But what, Lucy? Where 's the but?”
She whispered a few words in his ear, and he cried out: “Is n't this too
bad? She tells me Nicholas does not like all this gayety; that Nicholas
disapproves of our mode of life.”
“No, Tom; I only said Nicholas thinks that papa would not like it.”
“Couldn't we see Nicholas? Couldn't we have a commission to examine
Nicholas?” asked Sir Brook, laughingly.
“I 'll not be on it, that 's all I know; for I should finish by chucking
the witness into the Shannon. Come along, Lucy; don't let us lose this
glorious morning. I 'll get some lines and hooks together. Be sure you
're ready when I come back.”
As the door closed after him, Sir Brook drew near to Lucy, where she
stood in an attitude of doubt and hesitation. “I mustn't risk your good
opinion of me rashly. If you really dislike this excursion, I will give
it up,” said he, in a low, gentle voice.
“Dislike it? No; far from it. I suspect I would enjoy it more than
any of you. My reluctance was simply on the ground that all this is
so unlike the life we have been leading hitherto. Papa will surely
disapprove of it. Oh, there comes Nicholas with a letter!” cried she,
opening the sash-window. “Give it to me; it is from papa.”
She broke the seal hurriedly, and ran rapidly over the lines. “Oh, yes!
I will go now, and go with delight too. It is full of good news. He is
to see grandpapa, if not to-morrow, the day after. He hopes all will
be well. Papa knows your name, Sir Brook. He says, 'Ask your friend
Sir Brook if he be any relative of a Sir Brook Foss-brooke who rescued
Captain Langton some forty years ago from a Neapolitan prison. The
print-shops were filled with his likeness when I was a boy.' Was he one
of your family?” inquired she, looking at him.
“I am the man,” said he, calmly and coldly. “Langton was sentenced to
the galleys for life for having struck the Count d'Aconi across the face
with his glove; and the Count was nephew to the King. They had him at
Capri working in chains, and I landed with my yacht's crew and liberated
him.”
“What a daring thing to do!”
“Not so daring as you fancy. The guard was surprised, and fled. It was
only when reinforced that they showed fight. Our toughest enemies were
the galley-slaves, who, when they discovered that we never meant to
liberate them, attacked us with stones. This scar on my temple is a
memorial of the affair.”
“And Langton, what became of him?”
“He is now Lord Burrowfield. He gave me two fingers to shake the last
time I met him at the Travellers'.”
“Oh, don't say that! Oh, don't tell me of such ingratitude!”
“My dear child, people usually regard gratitude as a debt which, once
acknowledged, is acquitted; and perhaps they are right. It makes all
intercourse freer and less trammelled.”
“Here comes Tom. May I tell him this story, or will you tell him
yourself?”
“Not either, my dear Lucy. Your brother's blood is over-hot as it is.
Let him not have any promptings to such exploits as these.”
“But may I tell papa?”
“Just as well not, Lucy. There were scores of wild things attributed to
me in those days. He may possibly remember some of them, and begin to
suspect that his daughter might be in better company.”
“How was it that you never told me of this exploit?” asked she, looking,
not without admiration, at the hard stern features before her.
“My dear child, egotism is the besetting sin of old people, and even
the most cautious lapse into it occasionally. Set me once a-talking of
myself, all my prudence, all my reserve vanishes; so that, as a measure
of safety for my friends and myself too, I avoid the theme when I can.
There! Tom is beckoning to us. Let us go to him at once.”
Holy Island, or Inishcaltra, to give it its Irish name, is a wild spot,
with little remarkable about it, save the ruins of seven churches and
a curious well of fabulous depth. It was, however, a favorite spot with
the vicar, whose taste in localities was somehow always associated with
some feature of festivity, the great merit of the present spot being
that you could dine without any molestation from beggars. In such
estimation, indeed, did he hold the class, that he seriously believed
their craving importunity to be one of the chief reasons of dyspepsia,
and was profoundly convinced that the presence of Lazarus at his gate
counterbalanced many of the goods which fortune had bestowed upon Dives.
“Here we dine in real comfort,” said he, as he seated himself under the
shelter of an ivy-covered wall, with a wide reach of the lake at his
feet.
“When I come back from California with that million or two,” said
Tom, “I 'll build a cottage here, where we can all come and dine
continually.”
“Let us keep the anniversary of the present day as a sort of foundation
era,” said the vicar.
“I like everything that promises pleasure,” said Sir Brook, “but I like
to stipulate that we do not draw too long a bill on Fortune. Think how
long a year is. This time twelvemonth, for example, you, my dear doctor,
may be a bishop, and not over inclined to these harmless levities. Tom
there will be, as he hints, gold-crushing, at the end of the earth.
Trafford, not improbably, ruling some rajah's kingdom in the far East.
Of your destiny, fair Lucy, brightest of all, it is not for me to speak.
Of my own it is not worth speaking.”
“Nolo episcopari,” said the vicar; “pass me the Madeira.”
“You forget, perhaps, that is the phrase for accepting the mitre,” said
Sir Brook, laughing. “Bishops, like belles, say 'No' when they mean
'Yes.'”
“And who told you that belles did?” broke in Lucy. “I am in a sad
minority here, but I stand up for my sex.”
“I repeat a popular prejudice, fair lady.”
“And Lucy will not have it that belles are as illogical as bishops? I
see I was right in refusing the bench,” said the vicar.
“What bright boon of Fortune is Trafford meditating the rejection of?”
said Sir Brook; and the young fellow's cheek grew crimson as he tried to
laugh off the reply.
“Who made this salad?” cried Tom.
“It was I; who dares to question it?” said Lucy. “The doctor has
helped himself twice to it, and that test I take to be a certificate to
character.”
“I used to have some skill in dressing a salad, but I have foregone the
practice for many a day; my culinary gift got me sent out of Austria in
twenty-four hours. Oh, it 's nothing that deserves the name of a story,”
said Sir Brook, as the others looked at him for an explanation. “It was
as long ago as the year 1806. Sir Robert Adair had been our minister at
Vienna, when, a rupture taking place between the two Governments, he was
recalled. He did not, however, return to England, but continued to live
as a private citizen at Vienna. Strangely enough, from the moment that
our embassy ceased to be recognized by the Government, our countrymen
became objects of especial civility. I myself, amongst the rest, was
the _bien-venu_ in some of the great houses, and even invited by Count
Cobourg Cohari to those _déjeuners_ which he gave with such splendor at
Maria Hülfe.
“At one of these, as a dish of salad was handed round, instead of eating
it, like the others, I proceeded to make a very complicated dressing for
it on my plate, calling for various condiments, and seasoning my mess in
a most refined and ingenious manner. No sooner had I given the finishing
touch to my great achievement than the Grand-Duchess Sophia, who it
seems had watched the whole performance, sent a servant round to beg
that I would send her my plate. She accompanied the request with a
little bow and a smile whose charm I can still recall. Whatever the
reason, before I awoke next morning, an agent of the police entered my
room and informed me my passports were made out for Dresden, and that
his orders were to give me the pleasure of his society till I crossed
the frontier. There was no minister, no envoy to appeal to, and nothing
left but to comply. They said 'Go,' and I went.”
“And all for a dish of salad!” cried the vicar.
“All for the bright eyes of an archduchess, rather,” broke in Lucy,
laughing.
The old man's grateful smile at the compliment to his gallantry showed
how, even in a heart so world-worn, the vanity of youth survived.
“I declare it was very hard,” said Tom,--“precious hard.”
“If you mean to give up the salad, so think I too,” cried the vicar.
“I 'll be shot if I 'd have gone,” broke in Trafford.
“You'd probably have been shot if you had stayed,” replied Tom.
“There are things we submit to in life, not because the penalty of
resistance affrights us, but because we half acquiesce in their justice.
You, for instance, Trafford, are well pleased to be here on leave,
and enjoy yourself, as I take it, considerably; and yet the call
of duty--some very commonplace duty, perhaps--would make you return
tomorrow in all haste.”
“Of course it would,” said Lucy.
“I 'm not so sure of it,” murmured Trafford, sullenly; “I 'd rather go
into close arrest for a week than I 'd lose this day here.”
“Bravo! here's your health, Lionel,” cried Tom. “I do like to hear a
fellow say he is willing to pay the cost of what pleases him.”
“I must preach wholesome doctrine, my young friends,” broke in the
vicar. “Now that we have dined well, I would like to say aword on
abstinence.”
“You mean to take no coffee, doctor, then?” asked Lucy, laughing.
“That I do, my sweet child,--coffee and a pipe, too, for I know you are
tolerant of tobacco.”
“I hope she is,” said Tom, “or she 'd have a poor time of it in the
house with me.”
“I 'll put no coercion upon my tastes on this occasion, for I 'll take a
stroll through the ruins, and leave you to your wine,” said she, rising.
They protested, in a mass, against her going. “We cannot lock the door,
Lucy, _de facto_,” said Sir Brook, “but we do it figuratively.”
“And in that case I make my escape by the window,” said she, springing
through an old lancet-shaped orifice in the Abbey wall.
“There goes down the sun and leaves us but a gray twilight,” said Sir
Brook, mournfully, as he looked after her. “If there were only enough
beauty on earth, I verily believe we might dispense with parsons.”
“Push me over the bird's-eye, and let me nourish myself till your
millennium comes,” said the vicar.
“What a charming girl she is! her very beauty fades away before the
graceful attraction of her manner!” whispered Sir Brook to the doctor.
“Oh, if you but knew her as I do! If you but knew how, sacrificing all
the springtime of her bright youth, she has never had a thought save
to make herself the companion of her poor father,--a sad, depressed,
sorrow-struck man, only rescued from despair by that companionship! I
tell you, sir, there is more courage in submitting one's self to the
nature of another than in facing a battery.”
Sir Brook grasped the parson's hand and shook it cordially. The action
spoke more than any words. “And the brother, doctor,--what say you of
the brother?” whispered he.
“One of those that the old adage says 'either makes a spoon or spoils
the horn.' That 's Master Tom there.”
Low as the words were uttered, they caught the sharp ears of him they
spoke of, and with a laughing eye he cried out, “What 's that evil
prediction you 're uttering about me, doctor?”
“I am just telling Sir Brook here that it's pure head or tail how you
turn out. There's stuff in you to make a hero, but it's just as likely
you 'll stop short at a highwayman.”
“I think I could guess which of the two would best suit the age we live
in,” said Tom, gayly. “Are we to have another bottle of that Madeira,
for I suspect I see the doctor putting up the corkscrew?”
“You are to have no more wine than what's before you till you land me
at the quay of Killaloe. When temperance means safety as well as
forbearance, it's one of the first of virtues.”
The vicar, indeed, soon grew impatient to depart. Fine as the evening
was then, it might change. There was a feeling, too, not of damp, but
chilliness; at all events, he was averse to being on the water late; and
as he was the great promoter of these little convivial gatherings, his
word was law.
It is not easy to explain how it happened that Trafford sat beside Lucy.
Perhaps the trim of the boat required it; certainly, however, nothing
required that the vicar, who sat next Lucy on the other side, should
fall fast asleep almost as soon as he set foot on board. Meanwhile
Sir Brook and Tom had engaged in an animated discussion as to the
possibility of settling in Ireland as a man settles in some lone island
in the Pacific, teaching the natives a few of the needs of civilization
and picking up a few convenient ways of theirs in turn, Sir Brook
warming with the theme so far as to exclaim at last, “If I only had a
few of those thousands left me which I lost, squandered, or gave away, I
'd try the scheme, and you should be my lieutenant, Tom.”
It was one of those projects, very pleasant in their way, where men can
mingle the serious with the ludicrous, where actual wisdom may go hand
in hand with downright absurdity; and so did they both understand it,
mingling, the very sagest reflections with projects the wildest and most
eccentric. Their life, as they sketched it, was to be almost savage in
freedom, untrammelled by all the tiresome conventionalities of the outer
world, and at the same time offering such an example of contentedness
and comfort as to shame the condition of all without the Pale.
They agreed that the vicar must join them; he should be their Bishop.
He might grumble a little at first about the want of hot plates or
finger-glasses, but he would soon fall into their ways, and some native
squaw would console him for the loss of Mrs. Brennan's housekeeping
gifts.
And Trafford and Lucy all this time,--what did they talk of? Did they,
too, imagine a future and plan out a life-road in company? Far too timid
for that,--they lingered over the past, each asking some trait of the
other's childhood, eager to hear any little incident which might
mark character or indicate temper. And at last they came down to the
present,--to the very hour they lived in, and laughingly wondered at
the intimacy that had grown up between them. “Only twelve days to-morrow
since we first met,” said Lucy, and her color rose as she said it, “and
here we are talking away as if--as if--”
“As if what?” cried he, only by an effort suppressing her name as it
rose to his lips.
“As if we knew each other for years. To me it seems the strangest thing
in the world,--I who have never had friendships or companionships. To
you, I have no doubt, it is common enough.”
“But it is not,” cried he, eagerly. “Such fortune never befell me
before. I have gone a good deal into life,--seen scores of people in
country-houses and the like; but I never met any one before I could
speak to of myself,--I mean, that I had courage to tell--not that,
exactly--but that I wanted them to know I was n't so bad a fellow--so
reckless or so heartless as people thought me.”
“And is that the character you bear?” said she, with, though not visible
to him, a faint smile on her mouth.
“I think it's what my family would say of me,--I mean now, for once on a
time I was a favorite at home.”
“And why are you not still?”
“Because I was extravagant; because I went into debt; because I got
very easily into scrapes, and very badly out of them,--not dishonorably,
mind; the scrapes I speak of were money troubles, and they brought me
into collision with my governor. That was how it came about I was sent
over here. They meant as a punishment what has turned out the greatest
happiness of my life.”
“How cold the water is!” said Lucy, as, taking off her glove, she
suffered her hand to dip in the water beside the boat.
“Deliciously cold,” said he, as, plunging in his hand, he managed, as
though by accident, to touch hers. She drew it rapidly away, however,
and then, to prevent the conversation returning to its former channel,
said aloud: “What _are_ you laughing over so heartily, Sir Brook? You
and Tom appear to have fallen upon a mine of drollery. Do share it with
us.”
“You shall hear it all one of these days, Lucy. Jog the doctor's arm now
and wake him up, for I see the lights at the boat-house, and we shall
soon be on shore.”
“And sorry I am for it,” muttered Trafford, in a whisper; “I wish this
night could be drawn out to years.”