Luttrell Of Arran Part 77

"And what will you do, Sir? Have you come to any resolve?" "Yes, I have made up my mind as to what is to be done immediately. I have examined my agent's accounts, and I find that by the eighth of next month I shall have to my credit about seventy pounds. The a.s.sizes are fixed for the twelfth. I will give an order for half of this sum at once. Cane will pay it, I have no doubt, when he sees my necessity. I will also engage to pay the remainder on the eighth, the day I shall receive it; but on one condition, Kate--only one condition--which is, that no matter what course the defence may take, I am not to be summoned as a witness. No one knows better than Malone himself how valueless would any testimony of mine be to him; he knows, besides, what detriment it would be to him if I should be cross-examined; the man's character will not bear sifting, and he is insane to provoke it. If, however, he should persist--and such is the fellow's nature that it is likely he will--in his own plan, we must leave this."

"Leave this! And for where, Sir?"

"How can I tell? I only know that I mean to save myself from this shame at any cost. A few days would carry us over to Holland or to France.

In either of these I should be safe. I have written to my agent, and consented to all his conditions as to the sale of a certain small estate I possess in Mayo. We must seek out a new banishment, Kate. You will say it can scarcely be drearier than the old one; but you don't know, you could not know how sorrow endears a spot, and ties it to the heart of him who lives only to mourn! These rugged cliffs, these pathless moors, these barren hills, and sea-lashed promontories, have been my friends for years--the only friends who have never changed to me. Let me now, however, think only of the present. This man is to be here to-night. It is more than likely he will be able to answer me at once, and declare whether Malone will accept my conditions."

"What think you, uncle, if I were to speak with him? Might it not be possible I could make some terms which you wouldn't have patience to treat about?"

"I thought of that, too, Kate, but the man is one of a cla.s.s you have not met for many a year. It is not that he is not a gentleman, but he is not a peasant. You cannot appeal to him on the claim of honour, and as little on the plea of generosity. He is a cold, harsh, unfeeling fellow, distrustful and false. How could you deal with such a man?"

"A woman will always deal better with a man like this than a fellow-man, if only from the fact that he will be less on his guard before her, and more disposed to think little of her intelligence. Let me try it, uncle."

"You have half persuaded me; but still, Kate, what terms could you propose that I cannot offer myself?"

"True, Sir; but I could press them in a way that your pride might not stoop to, and so let me try."

He paused to consider, and she went on:

"Yes, dear uncle, trust the whole of this negotiation to me; it will be a task far too painful for you. Let me speak to him. Remember that the links that bind me to the cla.s.s he belongs to have only been loosened a year or two back. I have a closer view of such men's natures than you could ever have, and in recognising this he will be franker with me."

"If you really think----"

"I think and I know it, uncle."

"Take this then, Kate," said he, handing her his purse. "It is all the ready money I have. It may help you to deal with him, Kate. I have told you everything. Do the best you can for us." These words he muttered as if to himself, and then turned away and left the room.

Kate spread the money on the table before her, and sat down, supporting her head between her hands, and gazing steadfastly at the pieces. "To think," said she, bitterly--"to think that a few more or a few less of these shall tilt the scale of our fortune, and decide not alone whether we be happy or wretched, but whether we hold a high head in life or stand in a felon's dock! And what scores of them have I not squandered in foolish wastefulness!--sums that any one of them now might rescue this poor old man from a dreadful fate; and set him at liberty. Has not my whole life been just as spendthrift--have I not wasted every gift I possessed, and ended just where I begun?"

"The master sent me," cried Molly, entering, "to say that there's a boat comin' in now, and, maybe, one you know would be aboord of her."

"Very well, Molly. If a stranger should land and ask for his honour or myself, show him in here."

CHAPTER XLVIII. HOW THE TASK TRIED HER

Kate dressed herself with more than usual care--simply, indeed, but with a degree of attention to becomingness that was truly remarkable. Twice did she alter the arrangement of her hair, and more than once did she try what coloured ribbon would best suit the style she had chosen. A man might have pa.s.sed without notice the little details by which she heightened the charms that were nature to her, but a woman would quickly have detected small traits of coquetry in the loose falling curls that fell upon her neck, and the open sleeve that displayed her finely-turned arm; nor would the sprig of dark purple heath she wore in her bosom have escaped the critical eye, well knowing how its sombre colouring "brought out" the transparent brilliancy of the fair skin beneath it.

She had but completed her studied but simple toilet, when Molly ushered into the room "The strange man, Miss, that wants to see the master."

"And that is only to see the mistress, I'm told," added Mr. O'Rorke, as he seated himself, and laid his hat on the floor beside him. It was then that Kate entered, and as the fellow arose to greet her, his looks of admiring wonder sufficiently told what success had waited on her efforts.

"My uncle is not well enough to see you," said she, as she sat down, "but he has told me everything that he would say, and I have ventured to a.s.sure him that, as you and I are somewhat old friends, we should soon come to an understanding together; the more, as we can have but the same wish in the object before us."

"May I never! but you're grown an elegant woman," cried O'Rorke.

"'Tisn't out of flattery I say it, but I don't think there's your equal in Dublin."

"I'm very proud of your approval," said she, with a faint smile, but with the most perfect composure.

"And it's honest--all honest," added he. "It isn't as if you was made up with paint, and false hair, and fine lace, and stiff silk. There you are, as simple as the turnpike man's daughter, and, by the harp of old Ireland, I'll back you against any beauty in St. James's this day."

"My dear Mr. O'Rorke, it's not quite fair to turn my head in this fashion. Don't forget that these are the sort of things I'm not accustomed to hear in this place."

"By my conscience, then, you'll hear them in many another place before you die. Listen to me now, Miss Luttrell. It's a shame and a scandal to them that could help it that you're not at the Court of France this day.

I'm talking good sense when I say you'd make a sensation there such as they never knew since that old blaguard Louis the Fourteenth gathered all the beauties in the world round him instead of pictures and statues.

More by token, he wasn't wrong; flesh and blood beats white marble and canvas easily."

"I suspect I see what sort of a king Mr. O'Rorke would have been!" said she, archly.

"Liberty, first of all, darling," said he, recalled by the personal appeal to the stock theme of his life; "'tis the birthright of the man as he steps on his native earth; 'tis the first whisper of the human heart, whether in the frozen regions of eternal snow, or the sun-scorched plains of the tropics. 'Tis for sacred liberty our fathers fought for seven centuries, and we'll fight seven more.

Erin go Bragh is a nation's cry, 'Tis millions that sing it in chorus, And to that tone, before we die, We'll chase the Saxon before us.

"Oh dear! oh dear!" cried he, wiping his brow. "Why did you set me off so? I took an oath on Sat.u.r.day last that I'd think of nothing but old Peter till the trial was over, and here I am talking of Erin's woes just as if I was at Burgh Quay, and O'Connell in the chair."

"Let us talk of Peter, then. I am longing to hear of him."

"It's a short story. They caught him at sea, in an open boat; he was making for a brig bound for Newfoundland. They caught him, but they had a fight for it, and they got the worst of it, too. Old Peter wasn't a man to be taken with his arms crossed. But it was all the worse, for Tom Crowe says the last business will go harder with him than the first, and Tom says what's true. They'd rather hang Peter Malone than any other ten men in the west of Ireland. This is the fifth time they've had him in the dock; but to be sure he had a fine bar the last trial. He had Daniel O'Connell and d.i.c.k Sheil."

"And who will defend him now?" asked she, eagerly.

"That's what your Uncle Luttrell must answer, Miss Kate; he is the only one can reply to that question."

"Listen to me now attentively, and I will explain to you my uncle's position; a very few words will suffice, and you are not a man to require more than are necessary. He has by great effort and at heavy sacrifice got a small sum of money----"

"What do you call a small sum?" broke he in. "Is it a hundred?"

"No; not fifty!"

A long whistle was O'Rorke's reply, as he arose and took up his hat.

"You had better hear me out," said she, calmly. "This sum I have here--it is thirty-five pounds; he empowers me to place it in your hands to-day, with the promise of as much more the day before the a.s.sizes open."

"And why not at once? Why not now?"

"You shall hear. He desires and demands, in return for this aid, that he be not summoned as a witness on the trial. To call him would be a needless exposure--a mere valueless cruelty."

"It would not," cried the other, fiercely. "It's not at this time of day any one has to know the effect of putting a gentleman in the witness-box, when it is a poor labouring man is in the dock. Let John Luttrell come into court, and, after sitting beside the Chief Baron on the Bench, get up on the table and take his oath that he has known Peter Malone, the prisoner, for more than twenty years, as a hardworking, quiet, decent man, trying to bring up his family respectably, and, indeed, with such a desire to better their condition in life, that he, John Luttrell of Arran, was not ashamed to make one of that same Peter Malone's daughters his wife, so well brought up, so well educated were they----"

"Stop! this cannot be. I tell you it is impossible."

"And why is it impossible? Is it true what I'm saying? Was Peter Malone's daughter John Hamilton Luttrell's wife or not? There's the whole question. And what sort of a man or a gentleman is he that is ashamed to own his wife?"

"Do not speak so loud; and now listen to me. My uncle, for his own good reasons, will not face the exposure of a public trial and the insolence of the Crown lawyers, who would not hesitate to rake up long buried accusations against him, and revive sorrows which even in their decay embitter his life. He will not endure this, and he is right."

"Right to deny a man his chance of life!"

"You know well--none better--how little my uncle's testimony could serve this poor man. His case is too serious for that."