Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I Part 5

"Not I," said Fossbrooke, boldly, "for I place hers far and away above them."

A sly twinkle of the parson's eye showed to what cla.s.s of advantages he ascribed the other's preference; but he said no more, and the controversy ended.

Every morning found Sir Brook at the "Swan's Nest." He was fond of gardening, and had consummate taste in laying out ground, so that many pleasant surprises had been prepared for Dr. Lendrick's return. He drew, too, with great skill, and Lucy made considerable progress under his teaching; and as they grew more intimate, and she was not ashamed of the confession that she delighted in the Georgics of Virgil, they read whole hours together of those picturesque descriptions of rural life and its occupations, which are as true to nature at this hour as on the day they were written.

Perhaps the old man fancied that it was he who had suggested this intense appreciation of the poet. It is just possible that the young girl believed that she had reclaimed a wild, erratic, eccentric nature, and brought him back ta the love of simple pleasures and a purer source of enjoyment. Whichever way the truth inclined, each was happy, each contented. And how fond are we all, of every age, of playing the missionary, of setting off into the savage districts of our neighbors'

natures and combating their false idols, their superst.i.tions and strange rites! The least adventurous and the least imaginative have these little outbursts of conversion, and all are more or less propagandists.

It was one morning, a bright and glorious one too, that, while Tom and Lucy were yet at breakfast, Sir Brook arrived and entered the breakfast-room.

"What a day for a gray hackle, in that dark pool under the larch-trees!"

cried Tom, as he saw him.

"What a day for a long walk to Mount Laurel!" said Lucy. "You said, t'other morning, you wanted cloud effects on the upper lake. I 'll show you splendid ones to-day."

"I 'll promise you a full basket before four o'clock," broke in Tom.

"I 'll promise you a full sketch-book," said Lucy, with one of her sweetest smiles.

"And I 'm going to refuse both; for I have a plan of my own, and a plan not to be gainsaid."

"I know it, You want us to go to work on that fish-pond. I'm certain it's that."

"No, Tom; it's the catalogue,--the weary catalogue that he told me, as a punishment for not being able to find Machiavelli's comedies last week, he 'd make me sit down to on the first lovely morning that came."

"Better that than those dreary Georgics which remind one of school, and the third form. But what 's your plan, Sir Brook? We have thought of all the projects that can terrify us, and you look as if it ought to be a terror."

"Mine is a plan for pleasure, and pleasure only; so pack up at once and get ready. Trafford arrived this morning."

"Where is he? I am so glad! Where's Trafford?" cried Tom, delighted.

"I have despatched him with the vicar and two well-filled hampers to Holy Island, where I mean that we shall all picnic. There 's my plan."

"And a jolly plan too! I adhere unconditionally."

"And you, Lucy, what do you say?" asked Sir Brook, as the young girl stood with a look of some indecision and embarra.s.sment.

"I don't say that it's not a very pleasant project, but--"

"But what, Lucy? Where 's the but?"

She whispered a few words in his ear, and he cried out: "Is n't this too bad? She tells me Nicholas does not like all this gayety; that Nicholas disapproves of our mode of life."

"No, Tom; I only said Nicholas thinks that papa would not like it."

"Couldn't we see Nicholas? Couldn't we have a commission to examine Nicholas?" asked Sir Brook, laughingly.

"I 'll not be on it, that 's all I know; for I should finish by chucking the witness into the Shannon. Come along, Lucy; don't let us lose this glorious morning. I 'll get some lines and hooks together. Be sure you 're ready when I come back."

As the door closed after him, Sir Brook drew near to Lucy, where she stood in an att.i.tude of doubt and hesitation. "I mustn't risk your good opinion of me rashly. If you really dislike this excursion, I will give it up," said he, in a low, gentle voice.

"Dislike it? No; far from it. I suspect I would enjoy it more than any of you. My reluctance was simply on the ground that all this is so unlike the life we have been leading hitherto. Papa will surely disapprove of it. Oh, there comes Nicholas with a letter!" cried she, opening the sash-window. "Give it to me; it is from papa."

She broke the seal hurriedly, and ran rapidly over the lines. "Oh, yes!

I will go now, and go with delight too. It is full of good news. He is to see grandpapa, if not to-morrow, the day after. He hopes all will be well. Papa knows your name, Sir Brook. He says, 'Ask your friend Sir Brook if he be any relative of a Sir Brook Foss-brooke who rescued Captain Langton some forty years ago from a Neapolitan prison. The print-shops were filled with his likeness when I was a boy.' Was he one of your family?" inquired she, looking at him.

"I am the man," said he, calmly and coldly. "Langton was sentenced to the galleys for life for having struck the Count d'Aconi across the face with his glove; and the Count was nephew to the King. They had him at Capri working in chains, and I landed with my yacht's crew and liberated him."

"What a daring thing to do!"

"Not so daring as you fancy. The guard was surprised, and fled. It was only when reinforced that they showed fight. Our toughest enemies were the galley-slaves, who, when they discovered that we never meant to liberate them, attacked us with stones. This scar on my temple is a memorial of the affair."

"And Langton, what became of him?"

"He is now Lord Burrowfield. He gave me two fingers to shake the last time I met him at the Travellers'."

"Oh, don't say that! Oh, don't tell me of such ingrat.i.tude!"

"My dear child, people usually regard grat.i.tude as a debt which, once acknowledged, is acquitted; and perhaps they are right. It makes all intercourse freer and less trammelled."

"Here comes Tom. May I tell him this story, or will you tell him yourself?"

"Not either, my dear Lucy. Your brother's blood is over-hot as it is.

Let him not have any promptings to such exploits as these."

"But may I tell papa?"

"Just as well not, Lucy. There were scores of wild things attributed to me in those days. He may possibly remember some of them, and begin to suspect that his daughter might be in better company."

"How was it that you never told me of this exploit?" asked she, looking, not without admiration, at the hard stern features before her.

"My dear child, egotism is the besetting sin of old people, and even the most cautious lapse into it occasionally. Set me once a-talking of myself, all my prudence, all my reserve vanishes; so that, as a measure of safety for my friends and myself too, I avoid the theme when I can.

There! Tom is beckoning to us. Let us go to him at once."

Holy Island, or Inishcaltra, to give it its Irish name, is a wild spot, with little remarkable about it, save the ruins of seven churches and a curious well of fabulous depth. It was, however, a favorite spot with the vicar, whose taste in localities was somehow always a.s.sociated with some feature of festivity, the great merit of the present spot being that you could dine without any molestation from beggars. In such estimation, indeed, did he hold the cla.s.s, that he seriously believed their craving importunity to be one of the chief reasons of dyspepsia, and was profoundly convinced that the presence of Lazarus at his gate counterbalanced many of the goods which fortune had bestowed upon Dives.

"Here we dine in real comfort," said he, as he seated himself under the shelter of an ivy-covered wall, with a wide reach of the lake at his feet.

"When I come back from California with that million or two," said Tom, "I 'll build a cottage here, where we can all come and dine continually."

"Let us keep the anniversary of the present day as a sort of foundation era," said the vicar.

"I like everything that promises pleasure," said Sir Brook, "but I like to stipulate that we do not draw too long a bill on Fortune. Think how long a year is. This time twelvemonth, for example, you, my dear doctor, may be a bishop, and not over inclined to these harmless levities. Tom there will be, as he hints, gold-crushing, at the end of the earth.

Trafford, not improbably, ruling some rajah's kingdom in the far East.

Of your destiny, fair Lucy, brightest of all, it is not for me to speak.

Of my own it is not worth speaking."

"Nolo episcopari," said the vicar; "pa.s.s me the Madeira."