Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume Ii Part 5

"What! invested money in it?"

"Ay. Two thousand pounds,--a large sum for me, I promise you. It was with immense persuasion, too, I got Fossbrooke to let me have these shares. He offered me scores of other things as a free gift in preference,--salmon-fisheries in St. John's; a saw-mill on Lake Huron; a large tract of land at the Cape; I don't know what else: but I was firm to the copper, and would have nothing but this."

"I went in for lead," said Trafford, laughingly.

"_You_; and are _you_ involved in this also?" asked Tom.

"Yes; so far as I have promised to sell out, and devote whatever remains after paying my debts to the mine."

"Why, this beats all the infatuation I ever heard of! You have not the excuse of men at a distance, who have only read or listened to plausible reports; but you have come here,--you have been on the spot,--you have seen with your own eyes the poverty-stricken air of the whole concern, the broken machinery, the ruined scaffoldings, the mounds of worthless dross that hide the very approach to the shaft; and you have seen us, too, and where and how we live!"

"Very true," broke in Cave; "but I have heard _him_ talk, and I could no more resist the force of his words than I could stand in a current and not be carried down by it."

"Exactly so," chimed in Trafford; "he was all the more irresistible that he did not seek to persuade. Nay, he tried his utmost to put me off the project, and, as with the Colonel, he offered me dozens of other ways to push my fortune, without costing me a farthing."

"Might not we," said Cave, "ask how it comes that you, taking this dispiriting view of all here, still continue to embark your fortunes in its success?"

"It is just because they are my fortunes; had it been my fortune, I had been more careful. There is all the difference in life between a man's hopes and his bank-stock. But if you ask me why I hang on here, after I have long ceased to think anything can come of it, my answer is, I do so just as I would refuse to quit the wreck, when he declared he would not leave it. It might be I should save my life by deserting him; but it would be little worth having afterwards; and I 'd rather live with him in daily companionship, watching his manly courageous temper and his high-hearted way of dealing with difficulties, than I would go down the stream prosperously with many another; and over and over have I said to myself, If that fine nature of his can make defeat so endurable, what splendor of triumph would it not throw over a real success!"

"And this is exactly what we want to share," said Traf-ford, smiling.

"But what do either of you know of the man, beyond the eccentricity, or the general kindliness with which he meets you? You have not seen him as I have, rising to his daily toil with a racking head and a fevered frame, without a word of complaint, or anything beyond a pa.s.sing syllable of discomfort; never flinching, never yielding; as full of kind thought for others, as full of hopeful counsel, as in his best days; lightening labor with proverb and adage, and stimulating zeal with many a story. You can't picture to yourselves this man, once at the head of a princely fortune, which he dispensed with more than princely liberality, sharing a poor miner's meal of beans and oil with pleasant humor, and drinking a toast, in wine that would set the teeth on edge, to that good time when they would have more generous fare, and as happy hearts to enjoy it.

"Nor have you seen him, as I have, the nurse beside the sick-bed, so gentle, so thoughtful,--a very woman in tenderness; and all that after a day of labor that would have borne down the strongest and the stoutest.

And who is he that takes the world in such good part, and thinks so hopefully of his fellow-men? The man of all his time who has been most betrayed, most cheated, whose trust has been most often abused, whose benefits have been oftenest paid back in ingrat.i.tude. It is possible enough he may not be the man to guide one to wealth and fortune; but to whatever condition of life he leads, of one thing I am certain, there will be no better teacher of the spirit and temper to enjoy it; there will be none who will grace any rank--the highest or the humblest--with a more manly dignity."

"It was knowing all this of him," said Cave, "that impelled me to a.s.sociate myself with any enterprise he belonged to. I felt that if success were to be won by persistent industry and determination, his would do it, and that his n.o.ble character gave a guarantee for fair dealing better than all the parchments lawyers could engross."

"From what I have seen of life, I 'd not say that success attends such men as he is," said Tom. "The world would be, perhaps, too good if it were so."

Silence now fell upon the party, and the three men smoked on for some time without a word. At last Tom, rising from the bench where he had been seated, said, "Take my advice; keep to your soldiering, and have nothing to do with this concern here. You sail on Sat.u.r.day next, and by Sunday evening, if you can forget that there is such an island as Sardinia, and such poor devils on it as ourselves, it will be all the better for you."

"I am sorry to see you so depressed, Lendrick," said Cave.

"I 'm not so low as you suspect; but I'd be far lower if I thought that others were going to share our ill-fortunes."

Though the speech had no direct reference to Trafford, it chanced that their eyes met as he spoke, and Trafford's face flushed to a deep crimson as he felt the application of the words.

"Come here, Tom," said he, pa.s.sing his arm within Len-drick's, and leading him off the terrace into a little copse of wild hollies at the foot of it. "Let me have one word with you." They walked on some seconds without a word, and when Trafford spoke his voice trembled with agitation. "I don't know," muttered he, "if Sir Brook has told you of the change in my fortunes,--that I am pa.s.sed over in the entail by my father, and am, so to say, a beggar."

Lendrick nodded, but said nothing.

"I have got debts, too, which, if not paid by my family, will compel me to sell out,--has he told you this?"

"Yes; I think he said so."

"Like the kind, good fellow he is," continued Trafford, "he thinks he can do something with my people,--talk my father over, and induce my mother to take my side. I 'm afraid I know them better, and that they 're not sorry to be rid of me at last. It is, however, just possible--I will not say more, but just possible--that he may succeed in making some sort of terms for me before they cut me off altogether. I have no claim whatever, for I have spent already the portion that should have come to me as a younger son. I must be frank with you, Tom. There 's no use in trying to make my case seem better than it is." He paused, and appeared to expect that the other would say something; but Tom smoked on and made no sign whatever.

"And it comes to this," said Trafford, drawing a long breath and making a mighty effort, "I shall either have some small pittance or other,--and small it must be,--or be regularly cleaned out without a shilling."

A slight, very slight, motion of Tom's shoulders showed that he had heard him.

"If the worst is to befall me," said Traflford, with more energy than he had shown before, "I 'll no more be a burden to you than to any other of my friends. You shall hear little more of me; but if fortune is going to give me her last chance, will _you_ give me one also?"

"What do you mean?" said Tom, curtly.

"I mean," stammered out Trafford, whose color came and went with agitation as he spoke,--"I mean, shall I have your leave--that is, may I go over to Maddalena?--may I--O Tom," burst he out at last, "you know well what hope my heart clings to."

"If there was nothing but a question of money in the way," broke in Tom, boldly, "I don't see how beggars like ourselves could start very strong objections. That a man's poverty should separate him from us would be a little too absurd; but there 's more than that in it. You have got into some sc.r.a.pe or other. I don't want to force a confidence--I don't want to hear about it. It's enough for me that you are not a free man."

"If I can satisfy you that this is not the case--"

"It won't do to satisfy _me,_" said Tom, with a strong emphasis on the last word.

"I mean, if I can show that nothing unworthy, nothing dishonorable, attaches to me."

"I don't suspect all that would suffice. It's not a question of your integrity or your honor. It's the simple matter whether when professing to care for one woman you made love to another?"

"If I can disprove that. It 's a long story--"

"Then, for Heaven's sake, don't tell it to me."

"Let me, at least, show that it is not fair to shun me."

There was such a tone of sorrow in his voice as he spoke that Tom turned at once towards him, and said: "If you can make all this affair straight--I mean, if it be clear that there was no more in it than such a pa.s.sing levity that better men than either of us have now and then fallen into--I don't see why you may not come back with me."

"Oh, Tom, if you really will let me!"

"Remember, however, you come at your own peril. I tell you frankly, if your explanation should fail to satisfy the one who has to hear it, it fails with me too,--do you understand me?"

"I think I do," said Trafford, with dignity.

"It's as well that we should make no mistake; and now you are free to accept my invitation or to refuse it. What do you say?"

"I say, yes. I go back with you."

"I'll go and see, then, if Cave will join us," said Tom, turning hastily away, and very eager to conceal the agitation he was suffering, and of which he was heartily ashamed.

Cave accepted the project with delight,--he wanted to see the island,--but, more still, he wanted to see that Lucy Lendrick of whom Sir Brook had spoken so rapturously. "I suppose," whispered he in Tom's ear, "you know all about Trafford. You 've heard that he has been cut out of the estate, and been left with nothing but his pay?"

Tom nodded a.s.sent.

"He's not a fellow to sail under false colors, but he might still have some delicacy in telling about it--"

"He has told me all," said Tom, dryly.

"There was a sc.r.a.pe, too,--not very serious, I hope,--in Ireland."

"He has told me of that also," said Tom. "When shall you be ready? Will four o'clock suit you?"