Quick and decided in all his movements, Fossbrooke set out almost
immediately after this scene with Tom, and it was only as they gathered
together at breakfast that it was discovered he had gone.
“He left Bermuda in the very same fashion,” said Cave. “He had bought a
coffee-plantation in the morning, and he set out the same night; and I
don't believe he ever saw his purchase after. I asked him about it, and
he said he thought--he was n't quite sure--he made it a present to Dick
Molyneux on his marriage. 'I only know,' said he, 'it's not mine now.'”
As they sat over their breakfast, or smoked after it, they exchanged
stories about Fossbrooke, all full of his strange eccentric ways, but
all equally abounding in traits of kind-heartedness and generosity.
Comparing him with other men of liberal mould, the great and essential
difference seemed to be that Fossbrooke never measured his generosity.
When he gave, he gave all that he had; he had no notion of aiding or
assisting. His idea was to establish a man at once,--easy, affluent, and
independent. He abounded in precepts of prudence, maxims of thrift, and
such-like; but in practice he was recklessly lavish.
“Why ain't there more like him?” cried Trafford, enthusiastically.
“I 'm not sure it would be better,” said Cave. “The race of idle,
cringing, do-nothing fellows is large enough already. I suspect men like
Fossbrooke--at least what he was in his days of prosperity--give a large
influence to the spread of dependants.”
“The fault I find with him,” said Tom, “is his credulity. He believes
everything, and, what's worse, every one. There are fellows here who
persuade him this mine is to make his fortune; and if he had thousands
to-morrow, he would embark them all in this speculation, the only result
of which is to enrich these people, and ruin ourselves.”
“Is that your view of it?” asked Cave, in some alarm.
“Of course it is; and if you doubt it, come down with me into the
gallery, as they call it, and judge for yourself.”
“But I have already joined the enterprise.”
“What! invested money in it?”
“Ay. Two thousand pounds,--a large sum for me, I promise you. It was
with immense persuasion, too, I got Fossbrooke to let me have these
shares. He offered me scores of other things as a free gift in
preference,--salmon-fisheries in St. John's; a saw-mill on Lake Huron; a
large tract of land at the Cape; I don't know what else: but I was firm
to the copper, and would have nothing but this.”
“I went in for lead,” said Trafford, laughingly.
“_You_; and are _you_ involved in this also?” asked Tom.
“Yes; so far as I have promised to sell out, and devote whatever remains
after paying my debts to the mine.”
“Why, this beats all the infatuation I ever heard of! You have not the
excuse of men at a distance, who have only read or listened to plausible
reports; but you have come here,--you have been on the spot,--you have
seen with your own eyes the poverty-stricken air of the whole concern,
the broken machinery, the ruined scaffoldings, the mounds of worthless
dross that hide the very approach to the shaft; and you have seen us,
too, and where and how we live!”
“Very true,” broke in Cave; “but I have heard _him_ talk, and I could no
more resist the force of his words than I could stand in a current and
not be carried down by it.”
“Exactly so,” chimed in Trafford; “he was all the more irresistible that
he did not seek to persuade. Nay, he tried his utmost to put me off the
project, and, as with the Colonel, he offered me dozens of other ways to
push my fortune, without costing me a farthing.”
“Might not we,” said Cave, “ask how it comes that you, taking this
dispiriting view of all here, still continue to embark your fortunes in
its success?”
“It is just because they are my fortunes; had it been my fortune, I had
been more careful. There is all the difference in life between a man's
hopes and his bank-stock. But if you ask me why I hang on here, after I
have long ceased to think anything can come of it, my answer is, I do so
just as I would refuse to quit the wreck, when he declared he would not
leave it. It might be I should save my life by deserting him; but it
would be little worth having afterwards; and I 'd rather live with him
in daily companionship, watching his manly courageous temper and his
high-hearted way of dealing with difficulties, than I would go down the
stream prosperously with many another; and over and over have I said to
myself, If that fine nature of his can make defeat so endurable, what
splendor of triumph would it not throw over a real success!”
“And this is exactly what we want to share,” said Traf-ford, smiling.
“But what do either of you know of the man, beyond the eccentricity, or
the general kindliness with which he meets you? You have not seen him
as I have, rising to his daily toil with a racking head and a fevered
frame, without a word of complaint, or anything beyond a passing
syllable of discomfort; never flinching, never yielding; as full of kind
thought for others, as full of hopeful counsel, as in his best days;
lightening labor with proverb and adage, and stimulating zeal with many
a story. You can't picture to yourselves this man, once at the head of a
princely fortune, which he dispensed with more than princely liberality,
sharing a poor miner's meal of beans and oil with pleasant humor, and
drinking a toast, in wine that would set the teeth on edge, to that good
time when they would have more generous fare, and as happy hearts to
enjoy it.
“Nor have you seen him, as I have, the nurse beside the sick-bed, so
gentle, so thoughtful,--a very woman in tenderness; and all that after a
day of labor that would have borne down the strongest and the stoutest.
And who is he that takes the world in such good part, and thinks so
hopefully of his fellow-men? The man of all his time who has been most
betrayed, most cheated, whose trust has been most often abused, whose
benefits have been oftenest paid back in ingratitude. It is possible
enough he may not be the man to guide one to wealth and fortune; but to
whatever condition of life he leads, of one thing I am certain, there
will be no better teacher of the spirit and temper to enjoy it; there
will be none who will grace any rank--the highest or the humblest--with
a more manly dignity.”
“It was knowing all this of him,” said Cave, “that impelled me to
associate myself with any enterprise he belonged to. I felt that if
success were to be won by persistent industry and determination, his
would do it, and that his noble character gave a guarantee for fair
dealing better than all the parchments lawyers could engross.”
“From what I have seen of life, I 'd not say that success attends such
men as he is,” said Tom. “The world would be, perhaps, too good if it
were so.”
Silence now fell upon the party, and the three men smoked on for some
time without a word. At last Tom, rising from the bench where he had
been seated, said, “Take my advice; keep to your soldiering, and have
nothing to do with this concern here. You sail on Saturday next, and
by Sunday evening, if you can forget that there is such an island as
Sardinia, and such poor devils on it as ourselves, it will be all the
better for you.”
“I am sorry to see you so depressed, Lendrick,” said Cave.
“I 'm not so low as you suspect; but I'd be far lower if I thought that
others were going to share our ill-fortunes.”
Though the speech had no direct reference to Trafford, it chanced
that their eyes met as he spoke, and Trafford's face flushed to a deep
crimson as he felt the application of the words.
“Come here, Tom,” said he, passing his arm within Len-drick's, and
leading him off the terrace into a little copse of wild hollies at the
foot of it. “Let me have one word with you.” They walked on some
seconds without a word, and when Trafford spoke his voice trembled with
agitation. “I don't know,” muttered he, “if Sir Brook has told you of
the change in my fortunes,--that I am passed over in the entail by my
father, and am, so to say, a beggar.”
Lendrick nodded, but said nothing.
“I have got debts, too, which, if not paid by my family, will compel me
to sell out,--has he told you this?”
“Yes; I think he said so.”
“Like the kind, good fellow he is,” continued Trafford, “he thinks he
can do something with my people,--talk my father over, and induce my
mother to take my side. I 'm afraid I know them better, and that they
're not sorry to be rid of me at last. It is, however, just possible--I
will not say more, but just possible--that he may succeed in making some
sort of terms for me before they cut me off altogether. I have no claim
whatever, for I have spent already the portion that should have come to
me as a younger son. I must be frank with you, Tom. There 's no use in
trying to make my case seem better than it is.” He paused, and appeared
to expect that the other would say something; but Tom smoked on and made
no sign whatever.
“And it comes to this,” said Trafford, drawing a long breath and making
a mighty effort, “I shall either have some small pittance or other,--and
small it must be,--or be regularly cleaned out without a shilling.”
A slight, very slight, motion of Tom's shoulders showed that he had
heard him.
“If the worst is to befall me,” said Traflford, with more energy than he
had shown before, “I 'll no more be a burden to you than to any other of
my friends. You shall hear little more of me; but if fortune is going to
give me her last chance, will _you_ give me one also?”
“What do you mean?” said Tom, curtly.
“I mean,” stammered out Trafford, whose color came and went with
agitation as he spoke,--“I mean, shall I have your leave--that is, may
I go over to Maddalena?--may I--O Tom,” burst he out at last, “you know
well what hope my heart clings to.”
“If there was nothing but a question of money in the way,” broke in Tom,
boldly, “I don't see how beggars like ourselves could start very strong
objections. That a man's poverty should separate him from us would be a
little too absurd; but there 's more than that in it. You have got into
some scrape or other. I don't want to force a confidence--I don't want
to hear about it. It's enough for me that you are not a free man.”
“If I can satisfy you that this is not the case--”
“It won't do to satisfy _me,_” said Tom, with a strong emphasis on the
last word.
“I mean, if I can show that nothing unworthy, nothing dishonorable,
attaches to me.”
“I don't suspect all that would suffice. It's not a question of your
integrity or your honor. It's the simple matter whether when professing
to care for one woman you made love to another?”
“If I can disprove that. It 's a long story--”
“Then, for Heaven's sake, don't tell it to me.”
“Let me, at least, show that it is not fair to shun me.”
There was such a tone of sorrow in his voice as he spoke that Tom
turned at once towards him, and said: “If you can make all this affair
straight--I mean, if it be clear that there was no more in it than such
a passing levity that better men than either of us have now and then
fallen into--I don't see why you may not come back with me.”
“Oh, Tom, if you really will let me!”
“Remember, however, you come at your own peril. I tell you frankly, if
your explanation should fail to satisfy the one who has to hear it, it
fails with me too,--do you understand me?”
“I think I do,” said Trafford, with dignity.
“It's as well that we should make no mistake; and now you are free to
accept my invitation or to refuse it. What do you say?”
“I say, yes. I go back with you.”
“I'll go and see, then, if Cave will join us,” said Tom, turning hastily
away, and very eager to conceal the agitation he was suffering, and of
which he was heartily ashamed.
Cave accepted the project with delight,--he wanted to see the
island,--but, more still, he wanted to see that Lucy Lendrick of whom
Sir Brook had spoken so rapturously. “I suppose,” whispered he in Tom's
ear, “you know all about Trafford. You 've heard that he has been cut
out of the estate, and been left with nothing but his pay?”
Tom nodded assent.
“He's not a fellow to sail under false colors, but he might still have
some delicacy in telling about it--”
“He has told me all,” said Tom, dryly.
“There was a scrape, too,--not very serious, I hope,--in Ireland.”
“He has told me of that also,” said Tom. “When shall you be ready? Will
four o'clock suit you?”
“Perfectly.”
And they parted.