Roland Cashel Volume I Part 66

If there be certain minds to whom the very air they breathe is doubt, there are others to whom distrust is absolute misery. Of these latter Cashel was one. Nature had made him frank and free-spoken, and the circ.u.mstances of his early life had encouraged the habit. To nourish a grudge would have been as repulsive to his sense of honor as it would be opposed to all the habits of his buccaneering life. To settle a dispute with the sword was invariably the appeal among his old comrades; and such arbitraments are those which certainly leave the fewest traces of lingering malice behind them. To cherish and store up a secret wrong, and wait in patience for the day of reckoning, had something of the Indian about it that, in Roland's eyes, augmented its atrocity.

Oppressed with thoughts like these, and a.s.sociating every vexation he suffered as in some way connected with that wealth whose possession he fancied was to satisfy every wish and every ambition, he sauntered on, little disposed to derive pleasure from the presence of those external objects which fortune had made his own.

"When I was poor," thought he, "I had warm and attached friends, ready to exult in my successes, and sympathize with me in my sorrows. If I had enemies, they were brave fellows, as willing to defend their cause with the sword as myself. None flattered or frowned on him who was richer than the rest. No subtle schemes lay in wait for him whose unsuspecting frankness exposed him to deception; we were _bons camarades_, at least,"

said he, aloud, "and from what I have seen of the great world, I 've lived to prize the distinction."

From this revery he was suddenly recalled by observing, directly in front of him, an elderly gentleman, who, in a stooping posture, seemed to seek for something among the dry leaves and branches beside a low wicket.

"This is the first fruit of our gay neighborhood," said the old man, testily, as he poked the dead leaves with his cane; "we 're lucky if they leave us without more serious inconvenience."

"Can I a.s.sist you in your search?--have you lost something?" said Cashel, approaching.

"There is a key--the key of the wicket--hid somewhere hereabouts, young man," said the other, who, scarcely bestowing a look upon Roland, continued his investigation as busily as before.

Cashel, undaunted by the somewhat ungracious reception, now aided him in his search, while the other continued: "I 've known this path for nigh forty years, and never remember this wicket to have been locked before.

But so it is. My old friend is afraid of the invasion of this noisy neighborhood, and has taken to lock and key to keep them out. The key he promised to hide at the foot of this tree."

"And here it is," said Cashel, as he unlocked the wicket and flung it wide.

"Many thanks for your help, but you have a better reward than my grat.i.tude, in eyes some five-and-thirty years younger," said the old man, with the same half-testy voice as before. "Perhaps you 'd like to see the grounds here, yourself; come along. The place is small, but far better kept than the great demesne, I a.s.sure you; just as many an humble household is more orderly than many a proud retinue."

Roland was rather pleased by the quaint oddity of his new companion, of whom he thought, but could not remember where, he had seen the features before.

"You are a stranger in these parts, I conclude?" said the old man.

"Yes. I only arrived here about an hour ago, and have seen nothing save the path from the Hall to this spot."

"There 's little more worth the seeing on yonder side of the paling, sir. A great bleak expanse, with stunted trees and a tasteless mansion, full of, I take it, very dubious company; but perhaps you are one of them?"

"I confess as much," said Roland, laughing; "but as I have not seen them, don't be afraid I 'll take up the cudgels for my a.s.sociates."

"Labor lost if you did," said the other, bluntly. "I only know of them what the newspapers tell us; but their names are enough."

"Are they all in the same category, then?" asked Cashel, smiling.

"Pigeons or hawks; dupes or swindlers,--an ugly alternative to choose from."

"You are candid, certainly, friend," said Cashel, half angrily; "but don't you fancy there is rather too much of frankness in saying this to one who has already said he is of the party?"

"Just as he likes to take it," said the old man, bluntly. "The wise man takes warning where the fool takes umbrage. There 's a fine view for you--see! there's a glorious bit of landscape," cried he, enthusiastically, as they came to an opening of the wood and beheld the wide expanse of Lough Deny, with its dotted islands and ruined tower.

Roland stood still, silently gazing on the scene, whose beauty was heightened by all the strong effect of light and shade.

"I see you have an eye for landscape," said the old man, as he watched the expression of Cashel's features.

"I 've been a lover of scenery in lands where the pursuit was well rewarded," said Roland, thoughtfully.

"That you may; but never in a country where the contemplation called for more thought than in this before you. See, yonder, where the lazy smoke rises heavily from the mountain side, high up there amid the fern and the tall heath, that is a human dwelling,--there lives some cottier a life of poverty as uncheered and unpitied as though he made no part of the great family of man. For miles and miles of that dreary mountain some small speck may be traced where men live and grow old and die out, unthought of and uncared for by all beside. This misery would seem at its full, if now and then seasons of sickness did not show how fever and ague can augment the sad calamities of daily life. There are men--ay, and old men too--who never have seen bread for years, I say, save when some gamekeeper has broken it to feed the greyhounds in a coursing party."

"And whose the fault of all this?" said Cashel, eagerly.

"It is easy to see, sir," said the other, "that you are no landed proprietor, for not only you had not asked the question, but you had not shown so much emotion when putting it So it is," muttered he to himself.

"It is so ever. They have most sympathy with the poor who have least the power to help them."

"But I ask again, whose the fault of such a system?" cried Cashel.

"Ask your host yonder, and you 'll soon have an answer to your question.

You 'll hear enough of landlords' calamities,--wrecking tenantry, people in barbarism, irreclaimably bad, sunk in crime, black in ingrat.i.tude.

Ask the peasant, and he 'll tell you of clearances,--whole families turned out to starve and die in the highways; the iron pressure of the agent in the dreary season of famine and fever. Ask the priest, and he will say, it is the galling tyranny of the 'rich man's church'

establishment consuming the substance, but restoring nothing to the people. Ask the rector, and he 'll prove it is popery,--the debasing slavery of the very blackest of all superst.i.tions; and so on. Each throws upon another the load which he refuses to bear his share of, and the end is, we have a reckless gentry and a ruined people; all the embittering hatred of a controversy, and little of the active working of Christian charity. Good-bye, sir. I ask pardon for inflicting something like a sermon upon you. Good-bye."

"And yet," said Cashel, "you have only made me anxious to hear more from you. May I ask if we are likely to meet again, and where?"

"If you should chance to be sick during your visit here, and send for the doctor, it's likely they 'll fetch me, as there is no other here."

Cashel started, for he at once remembered that the speaker was Dr.

Tiernay, the friend of his tenant, Mr. Corrigan. As the doctor did not recognize him, however, Roland resolved to keep his secret as long as he could.

"There, sir," said Cashel, "I see some friends accosting you. I 'll say good-bye."

"Too late to do so now," said the other, half sulkily. "Mr. Corrigan would feel it a slight if you turned back, when his table was spread for a meal. You 'll have to breakfast here."

Before Roland could answer, Mr. Corrigan came forward from beneath the porch, and, with a hand to each, bid them welcome.

"I was telling this gentleman," said Tiernay, "that he is too far within your boundaries for retreat. He was about to turn back."

"Nay, nay," said the old man, smiling; "an old fellow like you or me may do a churlish thing, but a young man's nature is fresher and warmer. I tell you, Tiernay, you 're quite wrong; this gentleman will breakfast here."

"With pleasure," said Cashel, cordially, and entered the cottage.

CHAPTER x.x.xIV. ROLAND "HEARS SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE."

Ay, sir, I saw him 'hind the arras.

Sir Gavin.

Cashel would have devoted more attention to the tasteful arrangement of the drawing-room into which they were ushered, if he had not been struck with the handsome and graceful form of a young girl, who from time to time pa.s.sed before his eyes in an inner chamber, engaged in the office of preparing breakfast, and whom he at once recognized as the granddaughter of whom Linton wrote.

"We were talking of poor Ireland," said Tiernay, "and all her sorrows."

"I'll engage you were," cried Corrigan, laughing, "and I 'll swear you did not make a mournful topic a whit less gloomy by your way of treating it--And that's what he calls entertaining a stranger, sir,--like a bankrupt merchant amusing a party by a sight of his schedule. Now, I 'll wager a trifle my young friend would rather hear where a brace of c.o.c.ks was to be found, or the sight of a neat gra.s.s country to ride over after the fox-hounds,--and I can do both one and the other. But here comes Mary,--my granddaughter, Miss Leicester, sir."

Mary saluted the stranger with an easy gracefulness, and she shook the doctor's hand cordially.