The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly Part 80

The tone--so evidently that of a gentleman, and the slight touch of a foreign accent--apparently at once conciliated the stranger, for he said, "I have enough and to spare; spread this blanket over you; and here 's a cushion for a pillow."

These courtesies, accepted frankly as offered, soon led them to talk together; and the two men speedily found themselves chatting away like old acquaintances.

"I am puzzling myself," said the stranger at last, "to find out are you an Englishman, who has lived long abroad, or are you a foreigner?"

"Is my English so good as that?" asked Pracontal, laughing.

"The very best I ever heard from any not a born Briton."

"Well, I'm a Frenchman--or a half Frenchman--with some Italian and some English blood, too, in me."

"Ah! I knew you must have had a dash of John Bull in you. No man ever spoke such English as yours without it."

"Well, but my English temperament goes two generations back. I don't believe my father was ever in England."

With this opening they talked away about national traits and peculiarities: the Frenchman with all the tact and acute-ness travel and much intercourse with life conferred; and the other with the especial shrewdness that marks a Londoner. "How did you guess I was a c.o.c.kney?"

asked he, laughingly. "I don't take liberties with my H 's."

"If you had, it's not likely I'd have known it," said Pracontal. "But your reference to town, the fidelity with which you clung to what London would think of this, or say to that, made me suspect you to be a Londoner; and I see I was right."

"After all, you Frenchmen are just as full of Paris."

"Because Paris epitomizes France, and France is the greatest of all countries."

"I 'll not stand that. I deny it _in toto_."

"Well, I'll not open the question now, or maybe you'd make me give up this blanket."

"No. I 'll have the matter out on fair grounds. Keep the blanket, but just let me hear on what grounds you claim precedence for France before England."

"I'm too unlucky in matters of dispute to-day," said Pracontal, sadly, "to open a new discussion. I quarrelled with, perhaps, the best friend I had in the world this morning for a mere nothing; and though there is little fear that anything we could say to each other now would provoke ill feeling between us, I 'll run no risks."

"By Jove! it must be Scotch blood is in you. I never heard of such caution!"

"No, I believe my English connection is regular Saxon. When a man has been in the newspapers in England, he need not affect secrecy or caution in talking of himself. I figured in a trial lately; I don't know if you read the cause. It was tried in Ireland--Count Bramleigh de Pracontal against Bramleigh."

"What, are you Pracontal?" cried the stranger, starting to a sitting posture. "Yes. Why are you so much interested?"

"Because I have seen the place. I have been over the property in dispute, and the question naturally interests me."

"Ha! you know Castello, then?"

"Castello, or Bishop's Folly. I know it best by the latter name."

"And whom am I speaking to?" said Pracontal; "for as you know me, perhaps I have some right to ask this."

"My name is Cutbill; and now that you've heard it, you're nothing the wiser."

"You probably know the Bramleighs?"

"Every one of them; Augustus, the eldest, I am intimate with."

"It's not my fault that I have no acquaintance with him. I desired it much; and Lady Augusta conveyed my wish to Mr. Bramleigh, but he declined. I don't know on what grounds; but he refused to meet me, and we have never seen each other."

"If I don't greatly mistake, you ought to have met. I hope it may not be yet too late."

"Ah, but it is! We are _en pleine guerre_ now, and the battle must be fought out. It is he, and not I, would leave the matter to this issue.

I was for a compromise; I would have accepted an arrangement; I was unwilling to overthrow a whole family and consign them to ruin. They might have made their own terms with me; but no, they preferred to defy me. They determined I should be a mere pretender. They gave me no alternative; and I fight because there is no retreat open to me."

"And yet if you knew Bramleigh--"

"_Mon cher_, he would not give me the chance; he repulsed the offer I made; he would not touch the hand I held out to him."

"I am told that the judge declared that he never tried a cause where the defendant displayed a more honorable line of conduct."

"That is all true. Kelson, my lawyer, said that everything they did was straightforward and creditable; but he said, too, don't go near them, don't encourage any acquaintance with them, or some sort of arrangement will be patched up which will leave everything unsettled to another generation--when all may become once more litigated with less light to guide a decision and far less chance of obtaining evidence."

"Never mind the lawyers, Count, never mind the lawyers. Use your own good sense, and your own generous instincts; place yourself--in idea--in Bramleigh's position, and ask yourself could you act more handsomely than he has done? and then bethink you, what is the proper way to meet such conduct."

"It's all too late for this now; don't ask me why, but take my word for it, it is too late."

"It's never too late to do the right thing, though it may cost a man some pain to own he is changing his mind."

"It's not that; it's not that," said the other, peevishly, "though I cannot explain to you why or how."

"I don't want to hear secrets," said Cutbill, bluntly; "all the more that you and I are strangers to each other. I don't think either of us has had a good look at the other's face yet."

"I've seen yours, and I don't distrust it," said the Frenchman.

"Good-night, then, there's a civil speech to go to sleep over," and so saying, he rolled over to the other side, and drew his blanket over his head.

Pracontal lay a long time awake, thinking of the strange companion he had chanced upon, and that still stranger amount of intimacy that had grown up between them. "I suppose," muttered he to himself, "I must be the most indiscreet fellow in the world; but after all, what have I said that he has not read in the newspapers, or may not read next week or the week after? I know how Kelson would condemn me for this careless habit of talking of myself and my affairs to the first man I meet on a railroad or a steamer; but I must be what nature made me, and after all, if I show too much of my hand, I gain something by learning what the bystanders say of it."

It was not till nigh daybreak that he dropped off to sleep; and when he awoke it was to see Mr. Cutbill with a large bowl of hot coffee in one hand, and a roll in the other, making an early breakfast; a very rueful figure, too, was he--as, black with smoke and coal-dust, he propped himself against the binnacle, and gazed out over the waste of waters.

"You are a good sailor, I see, and don't fear sea-sickness," said Praoontal.

"Don't I? that's all you know of it; but I take everything they bring me. There's a rasher on its way to me now, if I survive this."

"I'm for a basin of cold water and coa.r.s.e towels," said the other, rising.

"That's two points in your favor towards having English blood in you,"

said Cutbill, gravely, for already his qualms were returning; "when a fellow tells you he cares for soap, he can't be out and out a Frenchman." This speech was delivered with great difficulty, and when it was done he rolled over and covered himself up, over face and head, and spoke no more.

CHAPTER LIV. THE LETTER BAG.