Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I Part 26

"I don't think her a fool," said Mrs. Sewell, slowly.

"I don't exactly mean so much; but that she has no knowledge of life, and knows nothing whatever of the position she is placed in, nor how to profit by it."

"I'd not even go that far," said Mrs. Sewell, in the same quiet tone.

"Don't pay too much attention to _that_," said the Colonel to his mother. "It's one of her ways always to see something in every one that n.o.body else has discovered."

"I made that mistake once too often for my own welfare," said she, in a voice only audible to his ear.

"She tells me, mother, that she made that same mistake once too often for her own welfare; which being interpreted, means in taking me for her husband,--a civil speech to make a man in presence of his mother."

"I begin to think that politeness is not the quality any of us are eager about," said Lady Lendrick; "and I must say I am not at all sorry that the drive is over."

"If I had been permitted to smoke, you'd not have been distressed by any conversational excesses on my part," said the Colonel.

"I shall know better another time, Dudley; and possibly-it would be as well to be suffocated with tobacco as half-choked with anger. Thank heaven we are at the door!"

"May I take your horses as far as the Club?" asked Sewell, as he handed her out.

"Yes, but not to wait. You kept them on Tuesday night till past four o'clock."

"On second thought, I'll walk," said he, turning away. "Good-night;"

and leaving his wife to be a.s.sisted down the steps by the footman, he lighted his cigar, and walked away.

CHAPTER XXIII. A VERY HUMBLE DWELLING

The little lodging occupied by Sir Brook and young Lendrick was in a not very distinguished suburb near Cullen's Wood. It was in a small one-storied cottage, whose rickety gate bore the inscription "Avoca Villa" on a black board, under which, in the form of permanence that indicated frequent changes of domicile, were the words, "Furnished Apartments, and Board if required." A small enclosure, with three hollyhocks in a raised mound in the centre, and a luxurious crop of nettles around, served as garden: a narrow path of very rough shingle conducted to the door.

The rooms within were very small, low, and meanly furnished; they bespoke both poverty and neglect; and while the broken windows, the cobwebbed ceiling, and the unwashed floor all indicated that no attention was bestowed on comfort or even decency, over the fireplace, in a large black frame, was a painting representing the genealogical tree of the house of the proprietor, Daniel O'Reardon, Esquire, the lineal descendant of Frenok-Dhubh-na-Bochlish O'Reardon, who was King of West Carbarry, a.d. 703, and who, though at present only a doorkeeper in H. M. Court of Exchequer, had royal blood in his veins, and very kingly thoughts in his head.

If a cruel destiny compelled Mr. O'Reardon to serve the Saxon, he "took it out" in a most hearty hatred of his patron. He denounced him when he talked, and he reviled him when he sang. He treasured up paragraphs of all the atrocities of the English press, and he revelled in the severe strictures which the Irish papers bestowed on them. So far as hating went, he was a true patriot.

If some people opined that Mr. O'Reardon's political opinions rather partook of what was in vogue some sixty-odd years ago than what characterized a time nearer our own day, there were others, less generous critics, who scrupled not to say that he was a paid spy of the Government, and that all the secret organization of treason--all the mysterious plotting of rebellion that seems never to die completely out in Ireland--were known to and reported by this man to the Castle.

Certain it was that he lived in a way his humble salary at the Four Courts could not have met, and indulged in convivial excesses far beyond the reach of his small income.

When Sir Brook and Tom Lendrick became his lodgers, he speedily saw that they belonged to a cla.s.s far above what usually resorted to his humble house. However studiously simple they might be in all their demands, they were unmistakably gentlemen; and this fact, coupled with their evident want of all employment or occupation, considerably puzzled Mr.

O'Reardon, and set him a-thinking what they could be, who they were, and, as he phrased it, "what they were at." No letters came for them, nor, as they themselves gave no names, was there any means of tracing their address; and to his oft-insinuated request, "If any one asks for you, sir, by what name will I be able to answer?" came the same invariable "No one will call;" and thus was Mr. O'Reardon reduced to designate them to his wife as the "old chap" and the "young one,"--t.i.tles which Sir Brook and Tom more than once overheard through the frail part.i.tions of the ill-built house.

It is not impossible that O'Reardon's peculiar habits and line of life disposed him to attach a greater significance to the seeming mystery that surrounded his lodgers than others might have ascribed; it is probable that custom had led him to suspect everything that was in any way suspicious. These men draw many a cover where there is no fox, but they rarely pa.s.s a gorse thicket and leave one undetected. His lodgers thus became to him a study. Had he been a man of leisure, he would have devoted the whole of it to their service; he would have dogged their steps, learned their haunts, and watched their acquaintances,--if they had any. Sunday was, however, his one free day, and by some inconceivable perversity they usually spent the entire of it at home.

The few books they possessed bore no names, some of them were in foreign languages, and increased thereby Mr. O'Reardon's suspicious distrust; but none gave any clew to their owners. There was another reason for his eagerness and anxiety; for a long time back Ireland had been generally in a condition of comparative quiet and prosperity; there was less of distress, and, consequently, less of outrage. The people seemed at length to rely more upon themselves and their own industry than on the specious promises of trading politicians, and Mr. O'Reardon, whose functions, I fear, were not above reproach in the matter of secret information, began to fear lest some fine morning he might be told his occupation was gone, and that his employers no longer needed the fine intelligence that could smell treason, even by a sniff; he must, he said, do something to revive the memory of his order, or the chance was it would be extinguished forever.

He had to choose between denouncing them as French emissaries or American sympathizers. A novel of Balzac's that lay on the table decided for the former, for he knew enough to be aware it was in French; and fortified with this fact, he proceeded to draw up his indictment for the Castle.

It was, it must be confessed, a very meagre doc.u.ment; it contained little beyond the writer's own suspicions. Two men who were poor enough to live in Avoca Villa, and yet rich enough to do nothing for their livelihood, who gave no names, went out at unseasonable hours, and understood French, ought to be dangerous, and required to be watched, and therefore he gave an accurate description of their general appearance, age, and dress, at the office of the Private Secretary, and asked for his "instructions" in consequence.

Mr. O'Reardon was not a bad portrait-painter with his pen, and in the case of Sir Brook there were peculiarities enough to make even a caricature a resemblance; his tall narrow head, his long drooping moustache, his ma.s.sive gray eyebrows, his look of stern dignity, would have marked him, even without the singularities of dress which recalled the fashions of fifty years before.

Little, indeed, did the old man suspect that his high-collared coat and bell-shaped hat were subjecting him to grave doubts upon his loyalty.

Little did he think, as he sauntered at evening along the green lanes in this retired neighborhood, that his thoughts ought to have been on treason and bloodshed.

He had come to the little lodging, it is true, for privacy. After his failure in that memorable interview with Sir William Lendrick, he had determined that he would not either importune the Viceroy for place, or would he be in any way the means of complicating the question between the Government and the Chief Baron by exciting the Lord-Lieutenant's interest in his behalf.

"We must change our lodging, Tom," said he, when he came home on that night. "I am desirous that, for the few days we remain here, none should trace nor discover us. I will not accept what are called compensations, nor will I live on here to be either a burden or a reproach to men who were once only my equals."

"You found my worthy grandfather somewhat less tractable than you thought for, sir?" asked Tom.

"He was very fiery and very haughty; but on the whole, there was much that I liked in him. Such vitality in a man of his years is in itself a grand quality, and even in its aggressiveness suggests much to regard.

He refused to hear of me for the vacant office, and he would not accept _you_."

"How did he take your proposal to aid us by a loan?"

"I never made it. The terms we found ourselves on after half an hour's discussion of other matters rendered such a project impossible."

"And Lucy, how did she behave through it all?"

"She was not there; I did not see her."

"So that it turned out as I predicted,--a mere meeting to exchange amenities."

"The amenities were not many, Tom; and I doubt much if your grandfather will treasure up any very delightful recollections of my acquaintance."

"I'd like to see the man, woman, or child," burst out Tom, "who ever got out of his cage without a scratch. I don't believe that Europe contains his equal for irascibility."

"Don't dwell on these views of life," said Sir Brook, almost sternly.

"You, nor I, know very little what are the sources of those intemperate outbreaks we so often complain of,--what sore trials are ulcerating the nature, what agonizing maladies, what secret terrors, what visions of impending misery; least of all do we know or take count of the fact that it is out of these high-strung temperaments we obtain those thrilling notes of human pa.s.sion and tenderness coa.r.s.er natures never attain to.

Let us bear with a pa.s.sing discord in the instrument whose cadences can move us to very ecstasy."

Tom hung his head in silence, but he certainly did not seem convinced.

Sir Brook quietly resumed: "How often have I told you that the world has more good than bad in it,--yes, and what's more, that as we go on in life this conviction strengthens in us, and that our best experiences are based on getting rid of our disbeliefs. Hear what happened me this morning. You know that for some days back I have been negotiating to raise a small loan of four hundred pounds to take us to Sardinia and start our mine. Mr. Waring, who was to have lent me this sum on the security of the mine itself, took it into his head to hesitate at the last hour, and inserted an additional clause that I should insure my life in his behalf.

"I was disconcerted, of course, by this,--so much so, that had I not bought a variety of tools and implements on trust, I believe I would have relinquished the bargain and tried elsewhere. It was, however, too late for this; I was driven to accept his terms, and, accredited with a printed formula from an insurance office, I waited on the doctor who was to examine me.

"A very brief investigation satisfied him that I was not seaworthy; he discovered I know not what about the valves of my heart, that implied mischief, and after 'percussing' me, as he called it, and placing his ear to my chest, he said, 'I regret to say, sir, that I cannot p.r.o.nounce you insurable.'

"I could have told him that I came of a long-lived race on either side; that during my life I had scarcely known an illness, that I had borne the worst climates without injury, and such-like,--but I forbore; I had too much deference for his station and his acquirements to set my judgment against them, and I arose to take my leave. It is just possible, though I cannot say I felt it, that his announcement might have affected me; at all events, the disappointment did so, and I was terrified about the difficulties in which I saw myself involved. I became suddenly sick, and I asked for a gla.s.s of water; before it came I had fainted, a thing that never in my whole life had befallen me.

When, I rallied, he led me to talk of my usual habits and pursuits, and gradually brought me to the subject which had led me-to his house.

'What!' said he, 'ask for any security beyond the property itself! It is absurd; Waring is always-doing these things. Let me advance this money.

I know a great deal more about you, Sir Brook, than you think; my friend Dr. Lendrick has spoken much of you, and of all your kindness to his son; and though you may not have heard of my name,--Beattie,--I am very familiar with yours.'

"In a word, Tom, he advanced the money. It is now in that writing-desk; and I have--I feel it--a friend the-more in the world. As I left his door, I could not help saying to myself, What signify a few days more or less of life, so long as such generous traits as this follow one to the last? He made me a happier man by his n.o.ble trust in me than if he had declared me a miracle of strength and vigor. Who is that looking in at the window, Tom? It's the second time I have seen a face there."

Tom started to his feet and hurried to the door. There was, however, no one there; and the little lane was silent and deserted. He stopped a few minutes to listen, but not a footfall could be heard, and he returned to the room believing it must have been a mere illusion.

"Let us light candles, Tom, and have out our maps. I want to see whether Ma.r.s.eilles will not be our best and cheapest route to the island."

They were soon poring eagerly over the opened map, Sir Brook carefully studying all the available modes of travel; while Tom, be it owned, let his eyes wander from land to land, till following out the Danube to the Black Sea, he crossed over and stretched away into the mountain gorges of Circa.s.sia, where Schamyl and his brave followers were then fighting for liberty. For maps, like the lands they picture, never offer to two minds kindred thoughts; each follows out in s.p.a.ce the hopes and ambitions that his heart is charged with; and where one reads wars and battle-fields, another but sees pastoral pleasures and a tranquil existence,--home and home-happiness.