The morning was raw, cold, and ungenial, as Layton took his outside seat
on the coach for Dublin. For sake of shelter, being but poorly provided
against ill weather, he had taken the seat behind the coachman, the
place beside him being reserved for a traveller who was to be taken up
outside the town. The individual in question was alluded to more than
once by the driver and the guard as “the Captain,” and in the abundance
of fresh hay provided for his feet, and the care taken to keep his seat
dry, there were signs of a certain importance being attached to his
presence. As they gained the foot of a hill, where the road crossed a
small bridge, they found the stranger awaiting them, with his carpet-
bag; he had no other luggage, but in his own person showed unmistakable
evidence of being well prepared for a journey. He was an elderly man,
short, square, and thick-set, with a rosy, cheerful countenance, and a
bright, merry eye. As he took off his hat, punctiliously returning the
coachee's salute, he showed a round, bald head, fringed around the base
by a curly margin of rich brown hair. So much Layton could mark,--all
signs, as he read them, of a jovial temperament and a healthy
constitution; nor did the few words he uttered detract from the
impression: they were frank and cheerful, and their tone rich and
pleasing to the ear.
The stranger's first care on ascending to his place was to share a very
comfortable rug with his neighbor, the civility being done in a way that
would have made refusal almost impossible; his next move was to inquire
if Layton was a smoker, and, even before the answer, came the offer of a
most fragrant cigar. The courtesy of the offered snuff-box amongst our
grandfathers is now replaced by the polite proffer of a cigar, and,
simple as the act of attention is in itself, there are some men who are
perfect masters in the performance. The Captain was of this category;
and although Layton was a cold, proud, off-standing man, such was the
other's tact, that, before they had journeyed twenty miles in company,
an actual intimacy had sprung up between them.
There is no pleasanter companionship to the studious and reading man
than that of a man of life and the world, one whose experience, drawn
entirely from the actual game of life, is full of incident and
adventure. The Captain had travelled a great deal and seen much, and
there was about all his observations the stamp of a mind that had
learned to judge men and things by broader, wider rules than are the
guides of those who live in more narrow spheres.
It was in discoursing on the political condition of Ireland that they
reached the little village of Cookstown, about a mile from which, on a
slight eminence, a neat cottage was observable, the trim laurel hedge
that separated it from the road being remarkable in a country usually
deficient in such foliage.
“A pretty spot,” remarked Layton, carelessly, “and, to all seeming,
untenanted.”
“Yes, it seems empty,” said the other, in the same easy tone.
“There's never been any one livin' there, Captain, since _that_,” said
the coachman, turning round on his seat, and addressing the stranger.
“Since what?” asked Layton, abruptly.
“He is alluding to an old story,--a very old story, now,” rejoined the
other. “There were two men--a father and son--named Shehan, taken from
that cottage in the year of Emmet's unhappy rebellion, under a charge of
high treason, and hanged.”
“I remember the affair perfectly: Curran defended them. If I remember
aright, too, they were convicted on the evidence of a noted informer.”
“The circumstance is painfully impressed on my memory, by the fact that
I have the misfortune to bear the same name; and it is by my rank alone
that I am able to avoid being mistaken for him. My name is Holmes.”
“To be sure,” cried Layton, “Holmes was the name; Curran rendered it
famous on that day.”
The coachman had turned round to listen to this conversation, and at its
conclusion touched his hat to the Captain as if in polite acquiescence.
By the time they had reached Castle Blayney, such had been the Captain's
success in ingratiating himself into Layton's good opinion, that the
doctor had accepted his invitation to dinner.
“We shall not dine with the coach travellers,” whispered the stranger,
“but at a small house I 'll show you just close by. I have already
ordered my cutlet there, and there will be enough for us both.”
Never was speech less boastful; a most admirable hot dinner was ready as
they entered the little parlor, and such a bottle of port as Layton
fancied he had never tasted the equal. By good luck there was ample time
to enjoy these excellent things, as the mail was obliged to await at
this place for an hour or more the arrival of a cross-post. A second and
a third brother of the same racy vintage succeeded; and Layton, warmed
by the generous wine, grew open and confidential, not only in speaking
of the past, but also to reveal all his hopes for the future, and the
object of his journey. Though the Captain was nothing less than a man of
science, he could fathom sufficiently the details the other gave to see
that the speaker was no ordinary man, and his discovery no small
invention.
“Ay,” said the doctor, as, carried away by the excitement of the wine,
he grew boastful and vain, “you 'll see, sir, that the man who sat
shivering beside you on the outside of the mail without a great-coat to
cover him, will, one of these days, be recognized as amongst the first
of his nation, and along with Hunter and Bell and Brodie will stand the
name of Herbert Layton!”
“You had a very distinguished namesake once, a Fellow of Trinity--”
“Myself, sir, none other. I am the man!” cried he, in a burst of
triumphant pride. “I am--that is, I was--the Regius Professor of
Medicine; I was Gold Medallist in 18--; then Chancellor's Prizeman; the
following year I beat Stack and Naper,--you 've heard of _them_, I 'm
sure, on the Fellowship bench; I carried away the Verse prize from
George Wolffe; and now, this day,--ay, sir, this day,--I don't think I
'd have eaten if you had not asked me to dine with you.”
“Come, come,” said the Captain, pushing the decanter towards him, “there
are good days coming. Even in a moneyed point of view, your discovery is
worth some fifteen or twenty thousand pounds.”
“I 'd not sell it for a million; it shall be within the reach of the
humblest peasant in the land the day I have perfected the details. It
shall be for Parliament--the two Houses of the nation--to reward me, or
I 'll never accept a shilling.”
“That's a very noble and high-spirited resolve. I like you for it; I
respect you for it,” said the Captain, warmly.
“I know well what had been my recognition if I had been born a German or
a Frenchman. It is in England alone scientific discovery brings neither
advancement nor honor. They pension the informer that betrays his
confederates, and they leave the man of intellect to die, as Chatterton
died, of starvation in a garret. Is n't that true?”
“Too true,--too true, indeed!” sighed the Captain, mournfully.
“And as to the Ireland of long ago,” said Layton, “how much more wise
her present-day rulers are than those who governed her in times past,
and whose great difficulty was to deal with a dominant class, and to
induce them to abate any of the pretensions which years of tried loyalty
would seem to have confirmed into rights! I speak as one who was once a
'United Irishman,'” said he.
Laying down the glass he was raising to his lips, the Captain leaned
across the table and grasped Layton's hand; and although there was
nothing in the gesture which a bystander could have noticed, it seemed
to convey a secret signal, for Layton cried out exultingly,--
“A brother in the cause!”
“You may believe how your frank, outspoken nature has won upon me,” said
he, “when I have confided to you a secret that would, if revealed,
certainly cost me my commission, and might imperil my life; but I will
do more, Layton, I will tell you that our fraternity exists in full
vigor,--not here, but thousands of miles away,--and England will have to
reap in India the wrongs she has sown in Ireland.”
“With this I have no sympathy,” burst in Layton, boldly. “Our
association--at least, as I understood it--was to elevate and
enfranchise Ireland, not humiliate England. It was well enough for Wolfe
Tone and men of his stamp to take this view, but Nielson and myself were
differently minded, and _we_ deemed that the empire would be but the
greater when all who served it were equals.”
Was it that the moment was propitious, was it that Layton's persuasive
power was at its highest, was it that the earnest zeal of the man had
carried conviction with his words? However it happened, the Captain,
after listening to a long and well-reasoned statement, leaned his head
thoughtfully on his hand, and said,--
“I wish I had known you in earlier days, Layton. You have placed these
things before me in a point I have never seen them before, nor do I
believe that there are ten men amongst us who have. Grant me a favor,”
said he, as if a sudden thought had just crossed him.
“What is it?” asked Layton.
“Come and stay a week or two with me at my little cottage at Glasnevin;
I am a bachelor, and live that sort of secluded life that will leave you
ample time for your own pursuits.”
“Give me a corner for my glass bottles and a furnace, and I 'm your
man,” said Layton, laughingly.
“You shall make a laboratory of anything but the dinner-room,” cried
Holmes, shaking hands on the compact, and thus sealing it.
The guard's horn soon after summoned them to their places, and they once
more were on the road.
The men who have long waged a hand-to-hand combat with fortune,
unfriended and uncheered, experience an intense enjoyment when comes the
moment in which they can pour out all their sorrows and their
selfishness into some confiding ear. It is no ordinary pleasure with
them to taste the sympathy of a willing listener. Layton felt all the
ecstasy of such a moment, and he told not alone of himself and his plans
and his hopes, but of his son Alfred,--what high gifts the youth
possessed, and how certain was he, if common justice should be but
accorded to him, to win a great place in the world's estimation.
“The Captain” was an eager listener to all the other said, and never
interrupted, save to throw in some passing word of encouragement, some
cheering exhortation to bear up bravely and courageously.
Layton's heart warmed with the words of encouragement, and he confided
many a secret source of hope that he had never revealed before. He told
how, in the course of his labors, many an unexpected discovery had burst
upon him,--now some great fact applicable to the smelting of metals, now
some new invention available to agriculture. They were subjects, he
owned, he had not pursued to any perfect result, but briefly committed
to some rough notes, reserving them for a time of future leisure.
“And if I cannot convince the world,” said he, laughingly, “that they
have neglected and ignored a great genius, I hope, at least, to make
_you_ a convert to that opinion.”
“You see those tall elms yonder?” said Holmes, as they drew nigh Dublin.
“Well, screened beneath their shade lies the little cottage I have told
you about. Quiet and obscure enough now, but I 'm greatly mistaken if it
will not one day be remembered as the spot where Herbert Layton lived
when he brought his great discovery to completion.”
“Do you really think so?” cried Layton, with a swelling feeling about
the heart as though it would burst his side. “Oh, if I could only come
to feel that hope myself! How it would repay me for all I have gone
through! How it would reconcile me to my own heart!”