Though they carried their convivialities into a late hour of the
night, Sir Brook was stirring early on the next morning, and was at Tom
Lendrick's bedside ere he was awake.
“We had no time for much talk together, Tom, when you came up last
night,” said he; “nor is there much now, for I am off to England within
an hour.”
“Off to England! and the mine?”
“The mine must take care of itself, Tom, till you are stronger and able
to look after it. My care at present is to know if Trafford be going
back with you.”
“I meant that he should; in fact, I came over here expressly to ask
you what was best to be done. You can guess what I allude to; and I
had brought with me a letter which Lucy thought you ought to read; and,
indeed, I intended to be as cautious and circumspect as might be, but I
was scarcely on shore when Trafford rushed across a street and threw
his arm over my shoulder, and almost sobbed out his joy at seeing me. So
overcome was I that I forgot all my prudence,--all, indeed, that I came
for. I asked him to come up with me,--ay, and to come back, too, with me
to the island and stay a week there.”
“I scarcely think that can be done,” said the old man, gravely. “I like
Trafford well, and would be heartily glad I could like him still better;
but I must learn more about him ere I consent to his going over to
Maddalena. What is this letter you speak of?”
“You 'll find it in the pocket of my dressing-case there. Yes; that's
it.”
“It's a longish epistle, but in a hand I well know,--at least, I knew it
well long ago.” There was an indescribable sadness in the tone in which
he said this, and he turned away that his face should not be seen. He
seated himself in a recess of the window, and read the letter from end
to end. With a heavy sigh he laid it on the table, and muttered below
his breath, “What a long, long way to have journeyed from what I first
saw her to _that!_”
Tom did not venture to speak, nor show by any sign that he had heard
him, and the old man went on in broken sentences: “And to think that
these are the fine natures--the graceful--the beautiful--that are thus
wrecked! It is hard to believe it. In the very same characters of that
letter I have read such things, so beautiful, so touching, so tender, as
made the eyes overflow to follow them. You see I was right, Tom,” cried
he, aloud, in a strong stern voice, “when I said that she should not be
your sister's companion. I told Sewell I would not permit it. I was in
a position to dictate my own terms to him, and I did so. I must see
Trafford about this!” and as he spoke he arose and left the room.
While Tom proceeded to dress himself, he was not altogether pleased with
the turn of events. If he had made any mistake in inviting Trafford to
return with him, there would be no small awkwardness in recalling
the invitation. He saw plainly enough he had been precipitate, but
precipitation is one of those errors which, in their own cases, men
are prone to ascribe to warm-heartedness. “Had I been as distrustful
or suspicious as that publican yonder,” is the burden of their
self-gratulation; and in all that moral surgery where men operate on
themselves, they cut very gingerly.
“Of course,” muttered Tom, “I can't expect Sir Brook will take the same
view of these things. Age and suspicion are simply convertible terms,
and, thank Heaven, I have not arrived at either.”
“What are you thanking Heaven for?” said Sir Brook, entering. “In nine
cases out of ten, men use that formula as a measure of their own vanity.
For which of your shortcomings were you professing your gratitude, Tom?”
“Have you seen Trafford, sir?” asked Tom, trying to hide his confusion
by the question.
“Yes; we have had some talk together.”
Tom waited to hear further, and showed by his air of expectation how
eager he felt; but the old man made no sign of any disclosure, but sat
there silent and wrapped in thought. “I asked him this,” said the old
man, fiercely, “'If you had got but one thousand pounds in all the
world, would it have occurred to you to go down and stake it on a match
of billiards against Jonathan?' 'Unquestionably not,' he replied; 'I
never could have dreamed of such presumption.'
“'And on what pretext, by what impulse of vanity,' said I, 'were you
prompted to enter the lists with one every way your superior in tact, in
craft, and in coquetry? If she accepted your clumsy addresses, did
you never suspect that there was a deeper game at issue than your
pretensions?'
“'You are all mistaken,' said he, growing crimson with shame as he
spoke. 'I made no advances whatever. I made her certain confidences,
it is true, and I asked her advice; and then, as we grew to be more
intimate, we wrote to each other, and Sewell came upon my letters, and
affected to think I was trying to steal his wife's affection. She could
have dispelled the suspicion at once. She could have given the key
to the whole mystery, and why she did not is more than I can say. My
unlucky accident just then occurred, and I only issued from my
illness to hear that I had lost largely at play, and was so seriously
compromised, besides, that it was a question whether he should shoot me,
or sue for a divorce.'
“It was clear enough that so long as he represented the heir to the Holt
property, Sewell treated him with a certain deference; but when Trafford
declared to his family that he would accept no dictation, but go his own
road, whatever the cost, from that moment Sewell pressed his claims, and
showed little mercy in his exactions.
“'And what's your way out of this mess?' asked I, 'What do you propose
to do?'
“I have written to my father, begging he will pay off this debt for
me,--the last I shall ever ask him to acquit. I have requested my
brother to back my petition; and I have told Sewell the steps I have
taken, and promised him if they should fail that I will sell out, and
acquit my debt at the price of my commission.'
“'And at the price of your whole career in life?'
“'Just so. If you 'll not employ me in the mine, I must turn navvy.'
“'And how, under such circumstances as these, can you accept Tom
Lendrick's invitation, and go over to Maddalena?'
“'I could not well say no when he asked me, but I determined not to go.
I only saw the greater misery I should bring on myself. Cave can send
me off in haste to Gibraltar or to Malta. In fact, I pass off the stage,
and never turn up again during the rest of the performance. '”
“Poor fellow!” said Tom, with deep feeling.
“He was so manly throughout it all,” said Fossbrooke, “so
straightforward and so simple. Had there been a grain of coxcomb in his
nature, the fellow would have thought the woman in love with him, and
made an arrant fool of himself in consequence, but his very humility
saved him. I 'm not sure, Master Tom, you 'd have escaped so safely,
eh?”
“I don't see why you think so.”
“Now for action,” said Fossbrooke. “I must get to England at once. I
shall go over to Holt, and see if I can do anything with Sir Hugh. I
expect little, for when men are under the frown of fortune they plead
with small influence. I shall then pass over to Ireland. With Sewell I
can promise myself more success. I may be away three or four weeks. Do
you think yourself strong enough to come back here and take my place
till I return?”
“Quite so. I 'll write and tell Lucy to join me.”
“I'd wait till Saturday,” said Fossbrooke, in a low voice. “Cave says
they can sail by Saturday morning, and it would be as well Lucy did not
arrive till they are gone.”
“You are right,” said Tom, thoughtfully.
“It's not his poverty I 'm thinking of,” cried Fossbrooke. “With health
and strength and vigor, a man can fight poverty. I want to learn that he
is as clean-handed in this affair with the Sewells as he thinks himself.
If I once were sure of that, I 'd care little for his loss of fortune.
I 'd associate him with us in the mine, Tom. There will always be more
wealth here than we can need. That new shaft promises splendidly. Such
fat ore I have not seen for many a day.”
Tom's mouth puckered, and his expression caught a strange sort of
half-quizzical look, but he did not venture to speak.
“I know well,” added the old man, cautiously, “that it 's no good
service to a young fellow to plunge him at once into ample means without
making him feel the fatigues and trials of honest labor. He must be
taught to believe that there is work before him,--hard work too. He
must be made to suppose that it is only by persistence and industry, and
steady devotion to the pursuit, that it will yield its great results.”
“I don't suspect our success will turn his head,” said Tom, dryly.
“That 's the very thing I want to guard against, Tom. Don't you see it
is there all my anxiety lies?”
“Let him take a turn of our life here, and I 'll warrant him against the
growth of an over-sanguine disposition.”
“Just so,” said Fossbrooke, too intensely immersed in his own thought
either to notice the words or the accents of the other,--“just so: a
hard winter up here in the snows, with all the tackle frozen, ice on the
cranks, ice on the chains, ice everywhere, a dense steam from the heated
air below, and a cutting sleet above, try a man's chest smartly; and
then that lead colic, of which you can tell him something. These give a
zest and a difficulty that prove what a man's nature is like.”
“They have proved mine pretty well,” said Tom, with a bitter laugh.
“And there's nothing like it in all the world for forming a man!” cried
Fossbrooke, in a voice of triumph. “Your fair-weather fellows go through
life with half their natures unexplored. They know no more of the
interior country of their hearts than we do of Central Africa. Beyond
the fact that there is something there--something--they know nothing. A
man must have conflict, struggle, peril, to feel what stuff there 's in
him. He must be baffled, thwarted, ay, and even defeated. He must
see himself amongst other men as an unlucky dog that fellows will
not willingly associate with. He must, on poor rations and tattered
clothing, keep up a high heart,--not always an easy thing to do; and,
hardest of all, he must train himself never in all his poverty to
condescend to a meanness that when his better day comes he would have to
blush for.”
“If you weight poverty with all those fine responsibilities, I suspect
you'll break its back at once,” said Tom, laughing.
“Far from it. It is out of these self-same responsibilities that poverty
has a backbone at all;” and the old man stood bolt upright, and threw
back his head as though he were emblematizing what he had spoken of.
“Now, Tom, for business. Are you strong enough to come back here and
look after the shaft?”
“Yes, I think so. I hope so.”
“I shall probably be some weeks away. I 'll have to go over to Holt; and
I mean to run adown amongst the Cornwall fellows and show them some of
our ore. I 'll make their mouths water when they see it.”
Tom bit off the end of his cigar, but did not speak.
“I mean to make Beattie a present of ten shares in that new shaft, too.
I declare it's like a renewal of youth to me to feel I can do this sort
of thing again. I 'll have to write to your father to come back also.
Why should he live in exile while we could all be together again in
affluence and comfort?”
Tom's eyes ranged round the bare walls and the shattered windows, and he
raised his eyebrows in astonishment at the other's illusions.
“We had a stiff 'heat' before we weathered the point, that's certain,
Tom,” said the old man. “There were days when the sky looked dark
enough, and it needed all our pluck and all our resolution to push
on; but I never lost heart,--I never wavered about our certainty of
success,--did I?”
“No; that you did not. And if you had, I certainly should not have
wondered at it.”
“I 'll ask you to bear this testimony to me one of these days, and to
tell how I bore up at times that you yourself were not over hopeful.”
“Oh, that you may. I'll be honest enough to own that the sanguine humor
was a rare one with me.”
“And it's your worst fault. It is better for a young fellow to be
disappointed every hour of the twenty-four than to let incredulity gain
on him. Believe everything that it would be well to believe, and never
grow soured with fortune if the dice don't turn up as you want them. I
declare I 'm sorry to leave this spot just now, when all looks so bright
and cheery about it. You 're a lucky dog, Tom, to come in when the
battle is won, and nothing more to do than announce the victory.” And so
saying, he hurried off to prepare for the road, leaving Tom Lendrick in
a state of doubt whether he should be annoyed or amused at the opinions
he had heard from him.