Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I Part 51

"I did not speak."

"No, sir; but you uttered what implied an ironical a.s.sent,--a _nisi prius_ trick,--like the leer I have seen you bestow upon the jury-box.

How hard it is for the cunning man to divest himself of the subtlety of his calling!"

"I want to hear how it all ended," muttered Haire.

"You shall hear, sir, if you will vouchsafe me a little patience. When men are in the full vigor of their faculties, they should be tolerant to those footsore and weary travellers who, like myself, halt behind and delay the march. But bear in mind, Haire, I was not always thus. There was a time when I walked in the van. Ay, sir, and bore myself bravely too. I was talking with that child when they announced Mr. Balfour, the private secretary, a man most distasteful to me; but I told them to show him in, curious, indeed, to hear what new form of compromise they were about to propose to me. He had come with a secret and confidential message from the Viceroy, and really seemed distressed at having to speak before a child of six years old, so mysterious and reserved was he. He made a very long story of it,--full an hour; but the substance was this: The Crown had been advised to dispute my right of appointment to the registrarship, and to make a case for a jury; but--mark the 'but'--in consideration for my high name and great services, and in deference to what I might be supposed to feel from an open collision with the Government, they were still willing for an accommodation, and would consent to ratify any appointment I should make, other than that of the gentleman I had already named,--Colonel Sewell.

"Self-control is not exactly the quality for which my friends give me most credit. Haire, there, will tell you I am a man of ungovernable temper, and who never even tried to curb his pa.s.sion; but I would hope there is some injustice in this award. I became a perfect dove in gentleness, as I asked Balfour for the reasons which compelled his Excellency to make my stepson's exclusion from office a condition. 'I am not at liberty to state them,' was the cool reply. 'They are personal, and, of course, delicate?' asked I, in a tone of submission, and he gave a half a.s.sent in silence. I concurred,--that is, I yielded the point. I went even further. I hinted, vaguely of course, at the courteous reserve by which his Excellency was willing to spare me such pain as an unpleasant disclosure--if there were such--might occasion me. I added, that old men are not good subjects for shocks; and I will say, sirs, that he looked at me as I spoke with a compa.s.sionate pity which won all my grat.i.tude! Ay, Beattie, and though my veins swelled at the temples, and I felt a strange rushing sound in my ears, I had no fit, and in a moment or two was as calm as I am this instant.

"'Let me be clear upon this point,' said I to him. 'I am to nominate to the office any one except Sewell, and you will confirm such nomination?'

'Precisely,' replied he. 'Such act on my part in no way to prejudice whatever claim I lay to the appointment in perpetuity, or jeopardize any rights I now a.s.sert?' 'Certainly not,' said he. 'Write it,' said I, pushing towards him a pen and paper; and so overjoyed was he with his victorious negotiation that he wrote word for word as I dictated. When I came to the name Sewell, I added, 'To whose nomination his Excellency demurs, on grounds of character and conduct sufficient in his Excellency's estimation to warrant such exclusion; but which, out of deference to the Chief Baron's feelings, are not set forth in this negotiation.' 'Is this necessary?' asked he, as he finished writing. 'It is,' was my reply; 'put your name at foot, and the date;' and he did so.

"I now read over the whole aloud; he winced at the concluding lines, and said, 'I had rather, with your permission, erase these last words; for though I know the whole story, and believe it too, there 's no occasion for entering upon it here.'

"As he spoke, I folded the paper and placed it in my pocket. 'Now, sir,'

said I, 'let _me_ hear the story you speak of.' 'I cannot. I told you before I was not at liberty to repeat it.' I insisted, and he refused.

There was a positive altercation between us and he raised his voice in anger, and demanded back from me the paper which he said I had tricked him into writing. I will not say that he meant to use force, but he sprang from his chair and came towards me with such an air of menace that the boy, who was playing in the corner, rushed at him and struck him with his drumstick, saying, 'You sha'n't beat grandpapa!' I believe I rang the bell; yes, I rang the bell sharply. The child was crying when they came. I was confused and flurried. Balfour was gone."

"And the paper?" asked Haire.

"The paper is here, sir," said he, touching his breastpocket. "The country shall ring with it, or such submission shall I exact as will bring that Viceroy and his minions to my feet in abject contrition. Were you to ask me now, I know not what terms I would accept of."

"I would rather you said no more at present," said Beattie. "You need rest and quietness."

"I need reparation and satisfaction, sir; that is what I need."

"Of course--of course; but you must be strong and well to enforce it,"

said Beattie.

"I told Lady Lendrick to leave the child with me. She said she would bring him back to-morrow. I like the boy. What does my pulse say, Beattie?"

"It says that all this talking and agitation are injurious to you,--that you must be left alone."

The old man sighed faintly, but did not speak.

"Haire and I will take a turn in the garden, and be within call if you want us," said Beattie.

"Wait a moment,--what was it I had to say? You are too abrupt, Beattie; you snap the cords of thought by such rough handling, and we old men lose our dexterous knack of catching the loose ends, as we once did.

There, there--leave me now; the skein is all tangled in hopeless confusion." He waved his hand in farewell, and they left him.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII. A LADY'S LETTER

"Lucy asked me to show him this note from her brother," said Haire, as he strolled with Beattie down the lawn. "It was no time to do so. Look over it and say what you advise."

"The boy wants a nurse, not a doctor," said Beattie. "A little care and generous diet would soon bring him round; but they are a strange race, these Lendricks. They have all the stern qualities that brave danger, and they are terribly sensitive to some small wound to their self-love.

Let that young fellow, for instance, only begin to feel that he is forgotten or an outcast, and he 'll droop at once. A few kind words, and a voice he loved, _now_, will do more than all my art could replace a little later."

"You mean that we ought to have him back here?" asked Haire, bluntly.

"I mean that he ought to be where he can be carefully and kindly treated."

"I 'll tell the Chief you think so. I 'll say that you dropped the remark to myself, of course,--never meaning to dictate anything to _him_."

Beattie shook his head in sign of doubt.

"I know him well, better perhaps than any one, and I know there's no more generous man breathing; but he must not be coerced,--he must not be even influenced, where the question be one for a decision. As he said to me one day, 'I want the evidence, sir, I don't want your speech to it.'"

"There 's the evidence, then," said Beattie,--"that note with its wavering letters, weak and uncertain as the fingers that traced them,--show him that. Say, if you like, that _I_ read it and thought the lad's case critical. If, after that, he wishes to talk to me on the subject, I 'm ready to state my opinion. If the boy be like his father, a few tender words and a little show of interest for him will be worth all the tonics that ever were brewed."

"It's the grandfather's nature too; but the world has never known it,--probably never will know it," said Haire.

"In that I agree with you," said Beattie, dryly.

"He regards it as a sort of weakness when people discover any act of generosity or any trait of kindliness about him; and do you know," added he, confidentially, "I have often thought that what the world regarded as irritability and sharpness was nothing more nor less than shyness,--just shyness."

"I certainly never suspected that he was the victim of that quality."

"No, I imagine not. A man must know him as I do to-understand it. I remember one day, long, long ago, I went so far as to throw out a half hint that I thought he labored under this defect; he only smiled and said, 'You suspect me of diffidence. I am diffident,--no man more so, sir; but it is of the good or great qualities in other men.' Was n't that a strange reply? I never very clearly understood it,--do you?"

"I suspect I do; but here comes a message to us."

Haire spoke a word with the servant, and then, turning: to Beattie, said: "He wants to see me. I 'll just step in, and be back in a moment."

Beattie promised not to leave till he returned, and strolled along by the side of a little brook which meandered tastefully through the greensward. He had fallen into a revery,--a curious inquiry within himself whether it were a boon or an evil for a man to have acquired that sort of influence over another mind which makes his every act and word seem praiseworthy and excellent. "I wonder is the Chief the better or the worse for this indiscriminating attachment? Does it suggest a standard to attain to, or does it merely minister to self-love and conceit? Which is it? which is it?" cried he, aloud, as he stood and gazed on the rippling rivulet beside him.

"Shall I tell you?" said a low, sweet voice; and Lucy Lendrick slipped her arm within his as she spoke,--"shall I tell you, doctor?"

"Do, by all means."

"A little of both, I opine. Mind," said she, laughing, "I have not the vaguest notion of what you were balancing in your mind, but somehow I suspect unmixed good or evil is very rare, and I take my stand on a compromise. Am I right?"

"I scarcely know, but I can't submit the case to you. I have an old-fashioned prejudice against letting young people judge their seniors. Let us talk of something else. What shall it be?"

"I want to talk to you of Tom."

"I have just been speaking to Haire about him. We must get him back here, Lucy,--we really must."

"Do you mean here, in this house, doctor?"

"Here, in this house. Come, don't shake your head, Lucy. I see the necessity for it on grounds you know nothing of. Lady Lendrick is surrounding your grandfather with her family, and I want Tom back here just that the Chief should see what a thorough Lendrick he is. If your grandfather only knew the stuff that's in him, he 'd be prouder of him than of all his own successes."

"No, no, no,--a thousand times no, doctor! It would never do,--believe me, it would never do. There are things which a girl may submit to in quiet obedience, which in a man would require subserviency. The Sewells, too, are to be here on Sat.u.r.day, and who is to say what that may bring forth?"

"She wrote to you," said the doctor, with a peculiar significance in his voice.