The vicar having some business to transact in Limerick, agreed to
go that far with Sir Brook and Trafford, and accompanied them to the
railroad to see them off.
A down train from Dublin arrived as they were waiting, and a passenger,
descending, hastily hurried after the vicar, and seized his hand. The
vicar, in evident delight, forgot his other friends for a moment,
and became deeply interested in the new-comer. “We must say good-bye,
doctor,” said Fossbrooke; “here comes our train.”
“A thousand pardons, my dear Sir Brook. The unlooked-for arrival of my
friend here--but I believe you don't know him. Lendrick, come here,
I want to present you to Sir Brook Fossbrooke. Captain Trafford, Dr.
Lendrick.”
“I hope these gentlemen are not departing,” said Lendrick, with the
constraint of a bashful man.
“It is our misfortune to do so,” said Sir Brook; “but I have passed too
many happy hours in this neighborhood not to come back to it as soon as
I can.”
“I hope we shall see you. I hope I may have an opportunity of thanking
you, Sir Brook.”
“Dublin! Dublin! Dublin! get in, gentlemen: first class, this way, sir,”
screamed a guard, amidst a thundering rumble, a scream, and a hiss. All
other words were drowned, and with a cordial shake-hands the new friends
parted.
“Is the younger man his son?” asked Lendrick; “I did not catch the
name?”
“No; he's Trafford, a son of Sir Hugh Trafford,--a Lincolnshire man,
isn't he?”
“I don't know. It was of the other I was thinking. I felt it so strange
to see a man of whom when a boy I used to hear so much. I have an old
print somewhere of two over-dressed 'Bloods,' as they were called in
those days, with immense whiskers, styled 'Fossy and Fussy,' meaning Sir
Brook and the Baron Geramb, a German friend and follower of the Prince.”
“I suspect a good deal changed since that day, in person as well as
purse,” said the vicar, sadly.
“Indeed! I heard of his having inherited some immense fortune.”
“So he did, and squandered every shilling of it.”
“And the chicks are well, you tell me?” said Lendrick, whose voice
softened as he talked of home and his children.
“Could n't be better. We had a little picnic on Holy Island yesterday,
and only wanted yourself to have been perfectly happy. Lucy was for
refusing at first.”
“Why so?”
“Some notion she had that you would n't like it. Some idea about not
doing in your absence anything that was not usual when you are here.”
“She is such a true girl, so loyal,” said Lendrick, proudly.
“Well, I take the treason on my shoulders. I made her come. It was a
delightful day, and we drank your health in as good a glass of Madeira
as ever ripened in the sun. Now for your own news?”
“First let us get on the road. I am impatient to be back at home again.
Have you your car here?”
“All is ready, and waiting for you at the gate.”
As they drove briskly along, Lendrick gave the vicar a detailed account
of his visit to Dublin. Passing over the first days, of which the reader
already has heard something, we take up the story from the day on which
Lendrick learned that his father would see him.
“My mind was so full of myself, doctor,” said he, “of all the
consequences which had followed from my father's anger with me, that I
had no thought of anything else till I entered the room where he was.
Then, however, as I saw him propped up with pillows in a deep chair,
his face pale, his eyes colorless, and his head swathed up in a bandage
after leeching, my heart sickened, alike with sorrow and shame at my
great selfishness.
“I had been warned by Beattie on no account to let any show of feeling
or emotion escape me, to be as cool and collected as possible, and in
fact, he said, to behave as though I had seen him the day before.
“'Leave the room, Poynder,' said he to his man, 'and suffer no one to
knock at the door--mind, not even to knock--till I ring my bell.' He
waited till the man withdrew, and then in a very gentle voice said, 'How
are you, Tom? I can't give you my right hand,--the rebellious member
has ceased to know me!' I thought I should choke as the words met me; I
don't remember what I said, but I took my chair and sat down beside him.
“'I thought you might have been too much agitated, Tom, but otherwise
I should have wished to have had your advice along with Beattie. I
believe, on the whole, however, he has treated me well.'
“I assured him that none could have done more skilfully.
“The skill of the doctor with an old patient is the skill of an
architect with an old wall. He must not breach it, or it will tumble to
pieces.
“'Beattie is very able, sir,' said I.
“'No man is able,' replied he, quickly, 'when the question is to repair
the wastes of time and years. Draw that curtain, and let me look at
you. No; stand yonder, where the light is stronger. What! is it my eyes
deceive me,--is your hair white?'
“'It has been so eight years, sir.'
“'And I had not a gray hair till my seventy-second year,--not one. I
told Beattie, t' other day, that the race of the strong was dying out.
Good heavens, how old you look! Would any one believe in seeing us that
you could be my son?'
“'I feel perhaps even more than I look it, sir.'
“'I could swear you did. You are the very stamp of those fellows who
plead guilty--“Guilty, my Lord; we throw ourselves on the mercy of
the court.” I don't know how the great judgment-seat regards these
pleas,--with _me_ they meet only scorn. Give me the man who says, “Try
me, test me.” Drop that curtain, and draw the screen across the fire.
Speak lower, too, my dear,' said he, in a weak soft voice; 'you suffer
yourself to grow excited, and you excite me.'
“'I will be more cautious, sir,' said I.
“'What are these drops he is giving me? They have an acrid sweet taste.'
“'Aconite, sir; a weak solution.'
“'They say that our laws never forgot feudalism, but I declare I believe
medicine has never been able to ignore alchemy: drop me out twenty, I
see that your hand does not shake. Strange thought, is it not, to feel
that a little phial like that could make a new Baron of the Exchequer?
You have heard, I suppose, of the attempts--the indecent attempts--to
induce me to resign. You have heard what they say of my age. They quote
the registry of my baptism, as though it were the date of a conviction.
I have yet to learn that the years a man has devoted to his country's
service are counts in the indictment against his character. Age has been
less merciful to me than to my fellows,--it has neither made me deaf
to rancor nor blind to ingratitude. I told the Lord-Lieutenant so
yesterday.'
“'You saw him then, sir?' asked I.
“'Yes, he was gracious enough to call here; he sent his secretary to ask
if I would receive a visit from him. I thought that a little more tact
might have been expected from a man in his station,--it is the common
gift of those in high places. I perceive,' added he, after a pause, 'you
don't see what I mean. It is this: royalties, or mock royalties, for
they are the same in this, condescend to these visits as deathbed
attentions. They come to us with their courtesies as the priest comes
with his holy cruet, only when they have the assurance that we are
beyond recovery. His Excellency ought to have felt that the man to
whom he proposed this attention was not one to misunderstand its
significance.'
“'Did he remain long, sir?'
“'Two hours and forty minutes. I measured it by my watch.'
“'Was the fatigue not too much for you?'
“'Of course it was; I fainted before he got to his carriage. He twice
rose to go away, but on each occasion I had something to say that
induced him to sit down again. It was the whole case of Ireland we
reviewed,--that is, I did. I deployed the six millions before him,
and he took the salute. Yes, sir, education, religious animosities,
land-tenure, drainage, emigration, secret societies, the rebel priest
and the intolerant parson, even nationality and mendicant insolence, all
marched past, and he took the salute! “And now, my Lord,” said I, “it is
the man who tells you these things, who has the courage to tell and the
ability to display them, and it is this man for whose retirement your
Ex-lency is so eager, that you have actually deigned to make him a
visit, that he may carry away into the next world, perhaps, a pleasing
memory of this; it is this man, I say, whom you propose to replace--and
by what, my Lord, and by whom? Will a mere lawyer, will any amount of
_nisi prius_ craft or precedent, give you the qualities you need on that
bench, or that you need, sadly need, at this council-board? Go back, my
Lord, and tell your colleagues of the Cabinet that Providence is more
merciful than a Premier, and that the same overruling hand that has
sustained me through this trial will uphold me, I trust, for years to
serve my country, and save it for some time longer from your blundering
legislation.”
“'He stood up, sir, like a prisoner when under sentence; he stood up,
sir, and as he bowed, I waved my adieu to him as though saying, You
have heard me, and you are not to carry away from this place a hope, the
faintest, that any change will come over the determination I have this
day declared.
“'He went away, and I fainted. The exertion was too long sustained,
too much for me. I believe, after all,' added he, with a smile, 'his
Excellency bore it very little better. He told the Archbishop the same
evening that he'd not go through another such morning for “the garter.”
Men in his station hear so little of truth that it revolts them like
coarse diet. They 'd rather abstain altogether till forced by actual
hunger to touch it. When they come to me, however, it is the only fare
they will find before them.'
“There was a long pause after this,” continued Lendrick. “I saw that
the theme had greatly excited him, and I forbore to say a word, lest
he should be led to resume it. 'Too old for the bench!' burst he out
suddenly; 'my Lord, there are men who are never too old, as there are
those who are never too young. The oak is but a sapling when the pine is
in decay. Is there that glut of intellect just now in England, are we
so surfeited with ability that, to make room for the coming men, we, who
have made our mark on the age, must retire into obscurity?' He tried
to rise from his seat; his face was flushed, and his eyes flashing; he
evidently forgot where he was, and with whom, for he sank back with
a faint sigh, and said, 'Let us talk of it no more. Let us think of
something else. Indeed, it was to talk of something else I desired to
see you.' He went on, then, to say that he wished something could be
done for me. His own means were, he said, sadly crippled; he spoke
bitterly, resentfully, I thought. 'It is too long a story to enter on,
and were it briefer, too disagreeable a one,' added he. 'I ought to be a
rich man, and I am poor; I should be powerful, and I have no influence.
All has gone ill with me.' After a silence, he continued, 'They have
a place to offer you: the inspectorship, I think they call it, of
hospitals at the Cape; it is worth, altogether, nigh a thousand a year,
a thing not to be refused.'
“'The offer could only be made in compliment to you, sir; and if my
acceptance were to compromise your position--'
“'Compromise _me!_' broke he in. 'I 'll take care it shall not. No man
need instruct me in the art of self-defence, sir. Accept at once.'
“'I will do whatever you desire, sir,' was my answer.
“'Go out there yourself, alone,--at first, I mean. Let your boy continue
his college career; the girl shall come to me.'
“'I have never been separated from my children, sir,' said I, almost
trembling with anxiety.
“'Such separations are bearable,' added he, 'when it is duty dictates
them, not disobedience.'
“He fixed his eyes sternly on me, and I trembled as I thought that the
long score of years was at last come to the reckoning. He did not dwell
on the theme, however, but in a tone of much gentler meaning, went
on: 'It will be an act of mercy to let me see a loving face, to hear a
tender voice. Your boy would be too rough for me.'
“'You would like him, sir. He is thoroughly truthful and honest.'
“'So he may, and yet be self-willed, be noisy, be over-redolent of that
youth which age resents like outrage. Give me the girl, Tom; let her
come here, and bestow some of those loving graces on the last hours of
my life her looks show she should be rich in. For your sake she will be
kind to me. Who knows what charm there may be in gentleness, even to
a tiger-nature like mine? Ask her, at least, if she will make the
sacrifice.'
“I knew not what to answer. If I could not endure the thought of
parting from Lucy, yet it seemed equally impossible to refuse his
entreaty,--old, friendless, and deserted as he was. I felt, besides,
that my only hope of a real reconciliation with him lay through this
road; deny him this, and it was clear he would never see me more. He
said, too, it should only be for a season. I was to see how the place,
the climate, suited for a residence. In a word, every possible argument
to reconcile me to the project rushed to my mind, and I at last said,
'Lucy shall decide, sir. I will set out for home at once, and you shall
have her own answer.'
“'Uninfluenced, sir,' cried he,--'mind that. If influence were to be
used, I could perhaps tell her what might decide her at once; but I
would not that pity should plead for me, till she should have seen if
I be worth compassion! There is but one argument I will permit in my
favor,--tell her that her picture has been my pleasantest companion
these three long days. There it lies, always before me. Go now, and let
me hear from you as soon as may be.' I arose, but somehow my agitation,
do what I would, mastered me. It was so long since we had met! All the
sorrows the long estrangement had cost me came to my mind, together
with little touches of his kindness in long-past years, and I could not
speak. 'Poor Tom! poor Tom!' said he, drawing me towards him; and he
kissed me.”
As Lendrick said this, emotion overcame him, and he covered his face
with his hands, and sobbed bitterly. More than a mile of road was
traversed before a word passed between them. “There they are, doctor!
There 's Tom, there's Lucy! They are coming to meet me,” cried he.
“Good-bye, doctor; you 'll forgive me, I know,--goodbye;” and he sprang
off the car as he spoke, while the vicar, respecting the sacredness of
the joy, wheeled his horse round, and drove back towards the town.