“How your friend must have appreciated your difficulty!” said Fossbrooke, sarcastically.
“He was frank enough, at all events, to own that he could not share my sense of embarrassment. He jeered a little at my pretension to be an example to my young officers, as well he might. I had selected an unlucky moment to advance such a claim; and then he handed me over my innings, with all the ease and indifference in life.”
“I declare, Cave, I was expecting, to the very last moment, a different ending to your story. I waited to hear that he had handed you a bond of his wife’s guardian, which for prudential reasons should not be pressed for prompt payment.”
“Good heavens! what do you mean?” cried Cave, leaning over the table in intense eagerness. “Who could have told you this?”
“Beresford told me; he brought me the very document once to my house with my own signature annexed to it, – an admirable forgery as ever was, done. My seal, too, was there. By bad luck, however, the paper was stolen from me that very night, – taken out of a locked portfolio. And when Beresford charged the fellow with the fraud, Sewell called him out and shot him.”
Cave sat for several minutes like one stunned and overcome. He looked vacantly before him, but gave no sign of hearing or marking what was said to him. At last he arose, and, walking over to a table, unlocked his writing-desk, and took out a large packet, of which he broke the seal, and without examining the contents, handed it to Fossbrooke, saying, – “Is that like it?”
“It is the very bond itself; there’s my signature. I wish I wrote as good a hand now,” said he, laughing. “It is as I always said, Cave,” cried he, in a louder, fuller voice; “the world persists in calling this swindler a clever fellow, and there never was a greater mistake. The devices of the scoundrel are the very fewest imaginable; and he repeats his three or four tricks, with scarcely a change, throughout a life long.”
“And this is a forgery!” muttered Cave, as he bent over the document and scanned it closely.
“You shall see me prove it such. You ‘ll intrust me with it. I ‘ll promise to take better care of it this time.”
“Of course. What do you mean to do?”
“Nothing by course of law, Cave. So far I promise you, and I know it is of that you are most afraid. No, my good friend. If you never figure in a witness-box till brought there by me, you may snap your fingers for many a day at cross-examinations.”
“This cannot be made the subject of a personal altercation,” said Cave, hesitatingly.
“If you mean a challenge, certainly not; but it may be made the means of extricating Trafford from his difficulties with this man, and I can hardly see where and what these difficulties are.”
“You allude to the wife?”
“We will not speak of that, Cave,” said Fossbrooke, coloring deeply. “Mrs. Sewell has claims on my regard, that nothing her husband could do, nothing that he might become could efface. She was the daughter of the best and truest friend, and the most noble-hearted fellow I ever knew. I have long ceased to occupy any place in her affections, but I shall never cease to remember whose child she was, – how he loved her, and how, in the last words he ever spoke, he asked me to befriend her. In those days I was a rich man, and had the influence that wealth confers. I had access to great people, too, and, wanting nothing for myself, could easily be of use to others; but, where am I wandering to? I only intended to say that her name is not to be involved in any discussion those things may occasion. What are these voices I hear outside in the court? Surely that must be Tom Lendrick I hear.” He arose and flung open the window, and at the same instant a merry voice cried out, “Here we are, Sir Brook, – Trafford and myself. I met him in the Piazza at Cagliari, and carried him off with me.”
“Have you brought anything to eat with you?” asked Fossbrooke.
“That I have, – half a sheep and a turkey,” said Tom.
“Then you are thrice welcome,” said Fossbrooke, laughing; “for Cave and I are reduced to fluids. Come up at once; the fellows will take care of your horses. We ‘ll make a night of it, Cave,” said the old man, as he proceeded to cover the table with bottles. “We’ll drink success to the mine! We ‘ll drink to the day when, as lieutenant-general, you ‘ll come and pay me a visit in that great house yonder, – and here come the boys to help us.”
CHAPTER III. UP AT THE MINE
Though they carried their convivialities into a late hour of the night, Sir Brook was stirring early on the next morning, and was at Tom Lendrick’s bedside ere he was awake.
“We had no time for much talk together, Tom, when you came up last night,” said he; “nor is there much now, for I am off to England within an hour.”
“Off to England! and the mine?”
“The mine must take care of itself, Tom, till you are stronger and able to look after it. My care at present is to know if Trafford be going back with you.”
“I meant that he should; in fact, I came over here expressly to ask you what was best to be done. You can guess what I allude to; and I had brought with me a letter which Lucy thought you ought to read; and, indeed, I intended to be as cautious and circumspect as might be, but I was scarcely on shore when Trafford rushed across a street and threw his arm over my shoulder, and almost sobbed out his joy at seeing me. So overcome was I that I forgot all my prudence, – all, indeed, that I came for. I asked him to come up with me, – ay, and to come back, too, with me to the island and stay a week there.”
“I scarcely think that can be done,” said the old man, gravely. “I like Trafford well, and would be heartily glad I could like him still better; but I must learn more about him ere I consent to his going over to Maddalena. What is this letter you speak of?”
“You ‘ll find it in the pocket of my dressing-case there. Yes; that’s it.”
“It’s a longish epistle, but in a hand I well know, – at least, I knew it well long ago.” There was an indescribable sadness in the tone in which he said this, and he turned away that his face should not be seen. He seated himself in a recess of the window, and read the letter from end to end. With a heavy sigh he laid it on the table, and muttered below his breath, “What a long, long way to have journeyed from what I first saw her to that!”
Tom did not venture to speak, nor show by any sign that he had heard him, and the old man went on in broken sentences: “And to think that these are the fine natures – the graceful – the beautiful – that are thus wrecked! It is hard to believe it. In the very same characters of that letter I have read such things, so beautiful, so touching, so tender, as made the eyes overflow to follow them. You see I was right, Tom,” cried he, aloud, in a strong stern voice, “when I said that she should not be your sister’s companion. I told Sewell I would not permit it. I was in a position to dictate my own terms to him, and I did so. I must see Trafford about this!” and as he spoke he arose and left the room.
While Tom proceeded to dress himself, he was not altogether pleased with the turn of events. If he had made any mistake in inviting Trafford to return with him, there would be no small awkwardness in recalling the invitation. He saw plainly enough he had been precipitate, but precipitation is one of those errors which, in their own cases, men are prone to ascribe to warm-heartedness. “Had I been as distrustful or suspicious as that publican yonder,” is the burden of their self-gratulation; and in all that moral surgery where men operate on themselves, they cut very gingerly.
“Of course,” muttered Tom, “I can’t expect Sir Brook will take the same view of these things. Age and suspicion are simply convertible terms, and, thank Heaven, I have not arrived at either.”
“What are you thanking Heaven for?” said Sir Brook, entering. “In nine cases out of ten, men use that formula as a measure of their own vanity. For which of your shortcomings were you professing your gratitude, Tom?”
“Have you seen Trafford, sir?” asked Tom, trying to hide his confusion by the question.
“Yes; we have had some talk together.”
Tom waited to hear further, and showed by his air of expectation how eager he felt; but the old man made no sign of any disclosure, but sat there silent and wrapped in thought. “I asked him this,” said the old man, fiercely, “‘If you had got but one thousand pounds in all the world, would it have occurred to you to go down and stake it on a match of billiards against Jonathan?’ ‘Unquestionably not,’ he replied; ‘I never could have dreamed of such presumption.’
“‘And on what pretext, by what impulse of vanity,’ said I, ‘were you prompted to enter the lists with one every way your superior in tact, in craft, and in coquetry? If she accepted your clumsy addresses, did you never suspect that there was a deeper game at issue than your pretensions?’
“‘You are all mistaken,’ said he, growing crimson with shame as he spoke. ‘I made no advances whatever. I made her certain confidences, it is true, and I asked her advice; and then, as we grew to be more intimate, we wrote to each other, and Sewell came upon my letters, and affected to think I was trying to steal his wife’s affection. She could have dispelled the suspicion at once. She could have given the key to the whole mystery, and why she did not is more than I can say. My unlucky accident just then occurred, and I only issued from my illness to hear that I had lost largely at play, and was so seriously compromised, besides, that it was a question whether he should shoot me, or sue for a divorce.’
“It was clear enough that so long as he represented the heir to the Holt property, Sewell treated him with a certain deference; but when Trafford declared to his family that he would accept no dictation, but go his own road, whatever the cost, from that moment Sewell pressed his claims, and showed little mercy in his exactions.
“‘And what’s your way out of this mess?’ asked I, ‘What do you propose to do?’
“I have written to my father, begging he will pay off this debt for me, – the last I shall ever ask him to acquit. I have requested my brother to back my petition; and I have told Sewell the steps I have taken, and promised him if they should fail that I will sell out, and acquit my debt at the price of my commission.’
“‘And at the price of your whole career in life?’
“‘Just so. If you ‘ll not employ me in the mine, I must turn navvy.’
“‘And how, under such circumstances as these, can you accept Tom Lendrick’s invitation, and go over to Maddalena?’
“‘I could not well say no when he asked me, but I determined not to go. I only saw the greater misery I should bring on myself. Cave can send me off in haste to Gibraltar or to Malta. In fact, I pass off the stage, and never turn up again during the rest of the performance. ‘”
“Poor fellow!” said Tom, with deep feeling.
“He was so manly throughout it all,” said Fossbrooke, “so straightforward and so simple. Had there been a grain of coxcomb in his nature, the fellow would have thought the woman in love with him, and made an arrant fool of himself in consequence, but his very humility saved him. I ‘m not sure, Master Tom, you ‘d have escaped so safely, eh?”
“I don’t see why you think so.”
“Now for action,” said Fossbrooke. “I must get to England at once. I shall go over to Holt, and see if I can do anything with Sir Hugh. I expect little, for when men are under the frown of fortune they plead with small influence. I shall then pass over to Ireland. With Sewell I can promise myself more success. I may be away three or four weeks. Do you think yourself strong enough to come back here and take my place till I return?”
“Quite so. I ‘ll write and tell Lucy to join me.”
“I’d wait till Saturday,” said Fossbrooke, in a low voice. “Cave says they can sail by Saturday morning, and it would be as well Lucy did not arrive till they are gone.”
“You are right,” said Tom, thoughtfully.
“It’s not his poverty I ‘m thinking of,” cried Fossbrooke. “With health and strength and vigor, a man can fight poverty. I want to learn that he is as clean-handed in this affair with the Sewells as he thinks himself. If I once were sure of that, I ‘d care little for his loss of fortune. I ‘d associate him with us in the mine, Tom. There will always be more wealth here than we can need. That new shaft promises splendidly. Such fat ore I have not seen for many a day.”
Tom’s mouth puckered, and his expression caught a strange sort of half-quizzical look, but he did not venture to speak.
“I know well,” added the old man, cautiously, “that it ‘s no good service to a young fellow to plunge him at once into ample means without making him feel the fatigues and trials of honest labor. He must be taught to believe that there is work before him, – hard work too. He must be made to suppose that it is only by persistence and industry, and steady devotion to the pursuit, that it will yield its great results.”
“I don’t suspect our success will turn his head,” said Tom, dryly.
“That ‘s the very thing I want to guard against, Tom. Don’t you see it is there all my anxiety lies?”
“Let him take a turn of our life here, and I ‘ll warrant him against the growth of an over-sanguine disposition.”
“Just so,” said Fossbrooke, too intensely immersed in his own thought either to notice the words or the accents of the other, – “just so: a hard winter up here in the snows, with all the tackle frozen, ice on the cranks, ice on the chains, ice everywhere, a dense steam from the heated air below, and a cutting sleet above, try a man’s chest smartly; and then that lead colic, of which you can tell him something. These give a zest and a difficulty that prove what a man’s nature is like.”
“They have proved mine pretty well,” said Tom, with a bitter laugh.
“And there’s nothing like it in all the world for forming a man!” cried Fossbrooke, in a voice of triumph. “Your fair-weather fellows go through life with half their natures unexplored. They know no more of the interior country of their hearts than we do of Central Africa. Beyond the fact that there is something there – something – they know nothing. A man must have conflict, struggle, peril, to feel what stuff there ‘s in him. He must be baffled, thwarted, ay, and even defeated. He must see himself amongst other men as an unlucky dog that fellows will not willingly associate with. He must, on poor rations and tattered clothing, keep up a high heart, – not always an easy thing to do; and, hardest of all, he must train himself never in all his poverty to condescend to a meanness that when his better day comes he would have to blush for.”
“If you weight poverty with all those fine responsibilities, I suspect you’ll break its back at once,” said Tom, laughing.
“Far from it. It is out of these self-same responsibilities that poverty has a backbone at all;” and the old man stood bolt upright, and threw back his head as though he were emblematizing what he had spoken of.
“Now, Tom, for business. Are you strong enough to come back here and look after the shaft?”
“Yes, I think so. I hope so.”
“I shall probably be some weeks away. I ‘ll have to go over to Holt; and I mean to run adown amongst the Cornwall fellows and show them some of our ore. I ‘ll make their mouths water when they see it.”
Tom bit off the end of his cigar, but did not speak.
“I mean to make Beattie a present of ten shares in that new shaft, too. I declare it’s like a renewal of youth to me to feel I can do this sort of thing again. I ‘ll have to write to your father to come back also. Why should he live in exile while we could all be together again in affluence and comfort?”
Tom’s eyes ranged round the bare walls and the shattered windows, and he raised his eyebrows in astonishment at the other’s illusions.
“We had a stiff ‘heat’ before we weathered the point, that’s certain, Tom,” said the old man. “There were days when the sky looked dark enough, and it needed all our pluck and all our resolution to push on; but I never lost heart, – I never wavered about our certainty of success, – did I?”
“No; that you did not. And if you had, I certainly should not have wondered at it.”
“I ‘ll ask you to bear this testimony to me one of these days, and to tell how I bore up at times that you yourself were not over hopeful.”
“Oh, that you may. I’ll be honest enough to own that the sanguine humor was a rare one with me.”
“And it’s your worst fault. It is better for a young fellow to be disappointed every hour of the twenty-four than to let incredulity gain on him. Believe everything that it would be well to believe, and never grow soured with fortune if the dice don’t turn up as you want them. I declare I ‘m sorry to leave this spot just now, when all looks so bright and cheery about it. You ‘re a lucky dog, Tom, to come in when the battle is won, and nothing more to do than announce the victory.” And so saying, he hurried off to prepare for the road, leaving Tom Lendrick in a state of doubt whether he should be annoyed or amused at the opinions he had heard from him.
CHAPTER IV. PARTING COUNSELS
Quick and decided in all his movements, Fossbrooke set out almost immediately after this scene with Tom, and it was only as they gathered together at breakfast that it was discovered he had gone.
“He left Bermuda in the very same fashion,” said Cave. “He had bought a coffee-plantation in the morning, and he set out the same night; and I don’t believe he ever saw his purchase after. I asked him about it, and he said he thought – he was n’t quite sure – he made it a present to Dick Molyneux on his marriage. ‘I only know,’ said he, ‘it’s not mine now.’”
As they sat over their breakfast, or smoked after it, they exchanged stories about Fossbrooke, all full of his strange eccentric ways, but all equally abounding in traits of kind-heartedness and generosity. Comparing him with other men of liberal mould, the great and essential difference seemed to be that Fossbrooke never measured his generosity. When he gave, he gave all that he had; he had no notion of aiding or assisting. His idea was to establish a man at once, – easy, affluent, and independent. He abounded in precepts of prudence, maxims of thrift, and such-like; but in practice he was recklessly lavish.
“Why ain’t there more like him?” cried Trafford, enthusiastically.
“I ‘m not sure it would be better,” said Cave. “The race of idle, cringing, do-nothing fellows is large enough already. I suspect men like Fossbrooke – at least what he was in his days of prosperity – give a large influence to the spread of dependants.”
“The fault I find with him,” said Tom, “is his credulity. He believes everything, and, what’s worse, every one. There are fellows here who persuade him this mine is to make his fortune; and if he had thousands to-morrow, he would embark them all in this speculation, the only result of which is to enrich these people, and ruin ourselves.”
“Is that your view of it?” asked Cave, in some alarm.
“Of course it is; and if you doubt it, come down with me into the gallery, as they call it, and judge for yourself.”
“But I have already joined the enterprise.”
“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 passing 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 ingratitude. 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 associate 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 noble 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 Saturday 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, passing 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 passed 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 scrape 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 passing 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 assent.
“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 scrape, 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?”
“Perfectly.”
And they parted.