In a little cabin standing on the extreme point of the promontory
of Howth, which its fisherman owner usually let to lodgers in the
bathing-season, Sir Brook Fossbrooke had taken up his abode. The view
was glorious from the window where he generally sat, and took in the
whole sweep of the bay, from Killiney, with the background of the
Wicklow mountains, to the very cliffs at his feet; and when the
weather was favorable,--an event, I grieve to say, not of every-day
occurrence,--leading him often to doubt whether in its graceful outline
and varied color he did not prefer it to Cagliari, with its waving
orange groves and vine-clad slopes.
He made a little water-color drawing to enclose in a letter to Lucy; and
now, as he sat gazing on the scene, he saw some effect of light on the
landscape which made him half disposed to destroy his sketch and begin
another.
“Tell your sister, Tom,” wrote he, “that if my letter to her goes
without the picture I promised her, it is because the sun has just got
behind a sort of tattered broken cloud, and is streaming down long slips
of light over the Wicklow hills and the woods at their feet, which are
driving me crazy with envy; but if I look on it any longer, I shall only
lose another post, so now to my task.
“Although I remained a day in the neighborhood, I was not received at
Holt. Sir Hugh was ill, and most probably never heard of my vicinity.
Lady Trafford sent me a polite--a very polite--note of regrets, &c.,
for not being able to ask me to the house, which she called a veritable
hospital, the younger son having just returned from Madeira dangerously
ill. She expressed a hope, more courteous possibly than sincere, that my
stay in England would allow my returning and passing some days there, to
which I sent a civil answer and went my way. The young fellow, I hear,
cannot recover, so that Lionel will be the heir after all; that is, if
Sir Hugh's temper should not carry him to the extent of disinheriting
his son for a stranger. I was spared my trip to Cornwall; spared it
by meeting in London with a knot of mining-people, 'Craig, Pears, and
Denk,' who examined our ore, and pronounced it the finest ever brought
to England. As the material for the white-lead of commerce, they say
it is unrivalled; and when I told them that our supply might be called
inexhaustible, they began to regard me as a sort of Croesus. I dined
with them at a City club, called, I think, the Gresham, a very grand
entertainment,--turtle and blackcock in abundance, and a deal of
talk,--very bumptious talk of all the money we were all going to make,
and how our shares, for we are to be a company, must run up within a
week to eight or ten premium. They are, I doubt not, very honest
fine fellows, but they are vulgar dogs, Tom, I may say it to you in
confidence, and use freedoms with each other in intercourse that are
scarcely pleasing. To myself personally there was no lack of courtesy,
nor can I complain that there was any forgetful-ness of due respect. I
could not accept their invitation to a second dinner at Greenwich, but
deferred it till my return from Ireland.
“I came on here on Wednesday last, and if you ask me what I have done,
my answer is, Nothing--absolutely nothing. I have been four several
times at the office where Sewell presides, but always to meet the
same reply, 'Not in town to-day;' and now I learn that he is hunting
somewhere in Cheshire. I am averse to going after him to the Chief
Baron's house, where he resides, and am yet uncertain how to act. It is
just possible he may have learned that I am in Ireland, and is keeping
out of my way, though I have neglected no precaution of secrecy,
have taken a humble lodging some miles from town, and have my letters
addressed to the post-office to be called for. Up to this I have not
met one who knows me. The Viceroy is away in England, and in broken
health,--indeed, so ill that his return to Ireland is more than
doubtful; and Balfour, who might have recognized me, is happily so much
occupied with the 'Celts,' as the latest rebels call themselves, that he
has no time to go much abroad.
“The papers which I have sent you regularly since my arrival will inform
you about this absurd movement. You will also see the debate on your
grandfather. He will not retire, do all that they may; and now, as a
measure of insult, they have named a special commission and omitted his
name.
“They went so far as to accuse him of senile weakness and incapacity;
but the letter which has been published with his name is one of the most
terrific pieces of invective I ever read: I will try and get a copy to
send you.
“I am anxious to call and see Beattie; but until I have met Sewell, and
got this troublesome task off my mind, I have no heart for anything.
From chance travellers in the train, as I go up to town, I hear that
the Chief Baron is living at a most expensive rate,--large dinners every
week, and costly morning parties, of a style Dublin has not seen before.
They say, too, that he dresses now like a man of five-and-thirty,
rides a blood horse, and is seen joining in all the festivities of the
capital. Of myself, of course, I can confirm none of these stories.
There comes the rain again. It is now dashing like hail against the
windows; and of the beautiful bay and the rocky islands, the leafy shore
and the indented coast-line I can see nothing,--nothing but the dense
downpour that, thickening at every moment, shuts out all view, so that
even the spars of the little pinnace in the bay beneath are now lost to
me. A few minutes ago I was ready to declare that Europe had nothing to
compare with this island, and now I 'd rather take rocky Ischia, with
its scraggy cliffs, sunlit and scorching, than live here watery and
bloated like a slug on a garden-wall. Perhaps my temper is not improved
by the reflection that I 'll have to walk to the post, about two miles
off, with this letter, and then come back to my own sad company for the
rest of the evening.
“I had half a mind to run down and look at the 'Nest,' but I am told I
should not know it again, it has been so changed in every way. I have
spared myself, therefore, the pain the sight would have given me, and
kept my memory of it as I saw it on my first visit, when Lucy met me at
the door. Tell her from me, that when--”
The letter broke off here, and was continued lower down the page in a
more hurried hand, thus:--
“In their ardor to suppress the insurrection here, some one has
denounced _me_; and my pistols and my packet of lead, and my
bullet-mould, have so far confirmed suspicion against me, that I am to
go forthwith before a magistrate. It is so far provoking that my name
will probably figure in the newspapers, and I have no fancy to furnish
a laugh to the town on such grounds. The chief of the party (there are
three of them, and evidently came prepared to expect resistance) is
very polite, and permits me to add these few lines to explain my abrupt
conclusion. Tell Lucy I shall keep back my letter to her, and finish
it to-morrow. I do not know well whether to laugh or be angry at this
incident. If a mere mistake, it is of course absurd, but the warrant
seems correct in every respect. The officer assures me that any
respectable bail will be at once accepted by the magistrate; and I have
not the courage to tell him that I do not possess a single friend or
acquaintance in this city whom I could ask to be my surety.
“After all, I take it, the best way is to laugh at the incident. It was
only last night, as I walked home here in the dark, I was thinking I had
grown too old for adventures, and here comes one--at least it may prove
so--to contradict me.
“The car to convey me to town has arrived; and with loves to dear Lu and
yourself, I am, as ever, yours,
“Bk. Fossbrooke.
“It is a great relief to me--it will be also to you--to learn that the
magistrate can, if he please, examine me in private.”