CHAPTER XXXVIII. REPTON’S LAST CAUSE
We have no right, as little have we the inclination, to inflict our reader with the details by which Barry Martin asserted and obtained his own. A suit in which young Martin assumed to be the defendant developed the whole history to the world, and proclaimed his title to the estate. It was a memorable case in many ways; it was the last brief Val Repton ever held. Never was his clear and searching intellect more conspicuous; never did he display more logical acuteness, nor trace out a difficult narrative with more easy perspicuity.
“My Lords,” said he, as he drew nigh the conclusion of his speech, “it would have been no ordinary satisfaction to me to close a long life of labor in these courts by an effort which restores to an ancient name the noble heritage it had held for centuries. I should have deemed such an occasion no unfitting close to a career not altogether void of its successes; but the event has still stronger claims upon my gratitude. It enables me in all the unembellished sternness of legal proof to display to an age little credulous of much affection the force of a brother’s love, – the high-hearted devotion by which a man encountered a long life of poverty and privation, rather than disturb the peaceful possession of a brother.
“Romance has its own way of treating such themes; but I do not believe romance can add one feature to the simple fact of this man’s self-denial.
“We should probably be lost in our speculations as to the noble motives of this sacrifice, if our attention was not called away to something infinitely finer and more exalted than even this. I mean the glorious life and martyr’s death of her who has made a part of this case less like a legal investigation than the page of an affecting story. Story, do I say! Shame on the word! It is in truth and reality alone are such virtues inscribed. Fiction cannot deal with the humble materials that make up such an existence, – the long hours of watching by sickness; the weary care of teaching the young; the trying disappointments to hope bravely met by fresh efforts; the cheery encouragement drawn from a heart exhausting itself to supply others. Think of a young girl – a very child in the world’s wisdom, more than a man in heroism and daring, with a heart made for every high ambition, and a station that might command the highest – calmly consenting to be the friend of destitution, the companion of misery, the daily associate of every wretchedness; devoting grace that might have adorned a court to shed happiness in a cabin, and making of beauty that would have shed lustre around a palace the sunshine that pierced the gloom of a peasant’s misery! Picture to yourself the hand a prince might have knelt to kiss, holding the cup to the lips of fever; fancy the form whose elegance would have fascinated, crouched down beside the embers as she spoke words of consolation or hope to some bereaved mother or some desolate orphan!
“These are not the scenes we are wont to look on here. Our cares are, unhappily, more with the wiles and snares of crafty men than with the sorrows and sufferings of the good! It is not often human nature wears its best colors in this place; the spirit of litigious contest little favors the virtues that are the best adornments of our kind. Thrice happy am I, then, that I end my day where a glorious sunset gilds its last hours; that I close my labors not in reprobating crime or stigmatizing baseness, but with a full heart, thanking God that my last words are an elegy over the grave of the best of The Martins of Cro’ Martin.’”
The inaccurate record from which we take these passages – for the only report of the trial is in a newspaper of the time – adds that the emotion of the speaker had so far pervaded the court that the conclusion was drowned in mingled expressions of applause and sorrow; and when Repton retired, he was followed by the whole bar, eagerly pressing to take their last farewell of its honored father.
The same column of the paper mentions that Mr. Joseph Nelligan was to have made his first motion that day as Solicitor-General, but had left the court from a sudden indisposition, and the cause was consequently deferred.
If Val Repton never again took his place in court, he did not entirely abdicate his functions. Barry Martin had determined on making a conveyance of the estate to his nephew, and the old lawyer was for several weeks busily employed in that duty. Although Merl’s claim became extinguished when young Martin’s right to the property was annulled, Barry Martin insisted on arrangements being made to repay him all that he had advanced, – a course which Repton, with some little hesitation, at last concurred in. He urged Barry to reserve a life-interest to himself in the property, representing the various duties which more properly would fall to his lot than to that of a young and inexperienced proprietor. But he would not hear of it.
“He cannot abide the place,” said Repton, when talking the matter over with Massingbred. “He is one of those men who never can forgive the locality where they have been miserable, nor the individual who has had a share in their sorrow. When he settles his account with Henderson, then he ‘ll leave the West forever.”
“And will he still leave Henderson in his charge?” asked Jack.
“That is as it may be,” said Repton, cautiously. “There is, as I understand, some very serious reckoning between them. It is the only subject on which Martin has kept mystery with me, and I do not like even to advert to it.”
Massingbred pondered long over these words, without being able to make anything of them.
It might be that Henderson’s conduct had involved him in some grave charge; and if so, Jack’s own intentions with regard to the daughter would be burdened with fresh complications. “The steward” was bad enough; but if he turned out to be the “unjust steward” – “I ‘ll start for Galway to-night,” thought he. “I ‘ll anticipate the discovery, whatever it be. She can no longer refuse to see me on the pretext of recent sorrow. It is now two months and more since this bereavement befell her. I can no longer combat this life of anxiety and doubt. – What can I do for you in the West, sir?” asked he of Repton, suddenly.
“Many things, my young friend,” said Repton, “if you will delay your departure two days, since they are matters on which I must instruct you personally.”
Massingbred gave a kind of half-consent, and the other went on to speak of the necessity for some nice diplomacy between the uncle and his nephew. “They know each other but little; they are on the verge of misunderstandings a dozen times a day. Benefits are, after all, but sorry ties between man and man. They may ratify the treaty of affection; they rarely inscribe the contract!”
“Still Martin cannot but feel that to the noblest act of his uncle’s generosity he is indebted for all he possesses.”
“Of course he knows, and he feels it; but who is to say whether that same consciousness is not a load too oppressive to bear. I know already Barry Martin’s suggestions as to certain changes have not been well taken, and he is eager and pressing to leave Ireland, lest anything should disturb the concord, frail as it is, between them.”
“By Jove!” exclaimed Massingbred, passionately, “there is wonderfully little real good in this world; wonderfully little that can stand the test of the very basest of all motives, – mere gain.”
“Don’t say so!” cried Repton. “Men have far better natures than you think; the fault lies in their tempers. Ay, sir, we are always entering into heavy recognizances with our passions, to do fifty things we never cared for. We have said this, we have heard the other; somebody sneered at that, and some one else agreed with him; and away we go, pitching all reason behind us, like an old shoe, and only seeking to gratify a whim, or a mere caprice, suggested by temper. Why do people maintain friendly intercourse at a distance for years, who could not pass twenty-four hours amicably under the same roof? Simply because it is their natures, and not their tempers, are in exercise.”
“I scarcely can separate the two in my mind,” said Jack, doubtingly.
“Can’t you, sir? Why, nature is your skin, temper only your great-coat.” And the old lawyer laughed heartily at his own conceit. “But here comes the postman.”
The double knock had scarcely reverberated through the spacious hall when the servant entered with a letter.
“Ah! Barry Martin’s hand. What have we here?” said Repton, as he ran his eyes over it. “So-so; just as I was saying this minute, only that Barry has the good sense to see it himself. ‘My nephew,’ he writes, ‘has his own ideas on all these subjects, which are not mine; and as it is no part of my plan to hamper my gift with conditions that might impair its value, I mean to leave this at once.
“‘I have had my full share of calamity since I set foot in this land; and if this rugged old nature could be crushed by mere misfortune, the last two months might have done it. But no, Repton, the years by which we survive friends serve equally to make us survive affections, and we live on, untouched by time!
“‘I mean to be with you this evening. Let us dine alone together, for I have much to say to you.
“’ Yours ever,
“‘Barry Martin.
“‘I hope I may see Massingbred before I sail. I ‘d like to shake hands with him once again. Say so to him, at all events.’”
“Come in to-morrow to breakfast,” said Repton; “by that time we’ll have finished all mere business affairs.” And Massingbred having assented, they parted.
CHAPTER XXXIX. TOWARDS THE END
Repton was standing at his parlor window, anxiously awaiting his friend’s arrival, when the chaise with four posters came to the door. “What have we here?” said the old lawyer to himself, as Barry assisted a lady dressed in deep mourning to alight, and hurried out to receive them.
“I have not come alone, Repton,” said the other. “I have brought my daughter with me.” Before Repton could master his amazement at these words, she had thrown back her veil, revealing the well-known features of Kate Henderson.
“Is this possible? – is this really the case?” cried Repton, as he grasped her hand between both his own. “Do I, indeed, see one I have so long regarded and admired, as the child of my old friend?”
“Fate, that dealt me so many heavy blows of late, had a kindness in reserve for me, after all,” said Barry. “I am not to be quite alone in this world!”
“If you be grateful, what ought not to be my thankfulness?” said Kate, tremulously.
“Leave us for a moment together, Kate,” said Barry; and taking Repton’s arm, he led him into an inner room.
“I have met with many a sore cut from fortune, Repton,” said he, in the fierce tone that was most natural to him; “the nearest and dearest to me not the last to treat me harshly. I need not tell you how I have been requited in life; not, indeed, that I seek to acquit myself of my own share of ill. My whole career has been a fault; it could not bring other fruit than misery.” He paused, and for a while seemed laboring in strong emotion. At last he went on: —
“When that girl was born – it was two years before I married – I intrusted the charge of her to Henderson, who placed her with a sister of his in Bruges. I made arrangements for her maintenance and education, – liberally for one as poor as I was. I made but one condition about her. It was that under no circumstances save actual want should she ever be reduced to earn her own bread; but if the sad hour did come, never – as had been her poor mothers fate – never as a governess! It was in that fearful struggle of condition I first knew her. I continued, year after year, to hear of her; remitting regularly the sums I promised, – doubling, tripling them, when fortune favored me with a chance prosperity. The letters spoke of her as well and happy, in humble but sufficient circumstances, equally remote from privation as from the seductions of a more exalted state. I insisted eagerly on my original condition, and hoped some day to hear of her being married to some honest but humble man. It was not often that I had time for self-reproach; but when such seasons would beset me, I thought of this girl, and her poor mother long dead and gone – But let me finish. While I struggled – and it was often a hard struggle – to maintain my side of the compact, selling at ruinous loss acquisitions it had cost me years of labor to obtain, this fellow, this Henderson, was basely betraying the trust I placed in him! The girl, for whose protection, whose safety I was toiling, was thrown by him into the very world for which I had distinctly excepted her; her talents, her accomplishments, her very graces, farmed out and hired for his own profit! Launched into the very sea where her own mother met shipwreck, she was a mere child, sent to thread her way through the perils of the most dissipated society. Hear her own account of it, Repton. Let her tell you what is the tone of that high life to which foreign nobility imparts its fascinations. Not that I want to make invidious comparisons; our own country sends its high tributaries to every vice of Europe! I know not what accident saved her amidst this pollution. Some fancied theory of popular wrongs, she thinks, gave her a kind of factitious heroism; elevating her, at least to her own mind, above the frivolous corruptions around her. She was a democrat, to rescue her from being worse.
“At last came a year of unusual pressure; my remittance was delayed, but when sent was never acknowledged. From that hour out I never heard of her. How she came into my brother’s family, you yourself know. What was her life there, she has told me! Not in any spirit of complaint, – nay, she acknowledges to many kindnesses and much trust. Even my cold sister-in-law showed traits for which I had not given her credit. I have already forgotten her wrongs towards myself, in requital of her conduct to this poor girl.”
“I’ll spare you the scene with Henderson, Repton,” said he, after a long pause. “When the fellow told me that the girl was the same I had seen watching by another’s sickbed, that she it was whose never-ceasing cares had soothed the last hours of one dearer than herself, I never gave another thought to him. I rushed out in search of her, to tell her myself the tidings.”
“How did she hear it?” asked Repton, eagerly.
“More calmly than I could tell it. Her first words were, ‘Thank God for this, for I never could love that man I had called my father!’”
“She knows, then, every circumstance of her birth?”
“I told her everything. We know each other as well as though we had lived under the same roof for years. She is my own child in every sentiment and feeling. She is frank and fearless, Repton, – two qualities that will do well enough in the wild savannahs of the New World, but would be unmanageable gifts in the Old, and thither we are bound. I have written to Liverpool about a ship, and we shall sail on Saturday.”
“How warmly do I sympathize in this your good fortune, Martin!” said Repton. “She is a noble creature, and worthy of belonging to you.”
“I ask for nothing more, Repton,” said he, solemnly. “Fortune and station, such as they exist here, I have no mind for! I’m too old now to go to school about party tactics and politics; I’m too stubborn, besides, to yield up a single conviction for the sake of unity with a party, – so much for my unfitness for public life. As to private, I am rough and untrained; the forms of society so pleasant to others would be penalties to me. And then,” said he, rising, and drawing up his figure to its full height, “I love the forest and the prairie; I glory in the vastness of a landscape where the earth seems boundless as the sky, and where, if I hunt down a buffalo-ox, after twenty miles of a chase, I have neither a game-law nor a gamekeeper nor a charge of trespass hanging over me.”
“There’s some one knocking at the door,” said Repton, as he arose and opened it.
“A thousand pardons for this interruption,” said Mas-singbred, in a low and eager voice, “but I cannot keep my promise to you; I cannot defer my journey to the West. I start to-night. Don’t ask me the reasons. I ‘ll be free enough to give them if they justify me.”
“But here is one who wishes to shake hands with you, Massingbred,” said Repton, as he led him forward into the room.
“I hope you are going to keep your pledge with me, though,” said Barry. “Have you forgotten you have promised to be my guest over the sea?”
“Ah,” said Jack, sighing, “I ‘ve had many a day-dream of late!”
“The man’s in love,” said Repton. “Nay, prisoner, you are not called on to say what may criminate you. I ‘ll tell you what, Barry, you ‘ll do the boy good service by taking him along with you. There ‘s a healthful sincerity in the active life of the New World well fitted to dispel illusions that take their rise in the indolent voluptuousness of the Old. Carry him off then, I say; accept no excuses nor apologies. Send him away to buy powder and shot, leather gaiters, and the rest of it. When I saw him first myself, it was in the character of a poacher, and he filled the part well. Ah! he is gone,” added he, perceiving that Martin had just quitted the room. “Poor fellow, he is so full of his present happiness, – the first gleam of real sunshine on a long day of lowering gloom! He has just found a daughter, – an illegitimate one, but worthy to be the rightful-born child to the first man in the land. The discovery has carried him back twenty years of life, and freshened a heart whose wells of feeling were all but dried up forever. If I mistake not, you must have met her long ago at Cro’ Martin.”
“Possibly. I have no recollection of it,” said Jack, musing.
“An ignoble confession, sir,” said Repton; “no less shocked should I be were she to tell me she was uncertain if she had ever met Mr. Massingbred. As Burke once remarked to me, ‘Active intelligences, like appropriate ingredients in chemistry, never meet without fresh combinations.’ It is then a shame to ignore such products. I ‘d swear that when you did meet you understood each other thoroughly; agreed well, – ay, and what is more to the purpose, differed in the right places too.”
“I’m certain we did,” said Jack, smiling, “though I’m ungrateful enough to forget all about it.”
“Well,” said Martin, entering, “I have sent for another advocate to plead my cause. My daughter will tell you, sir, that she, at least, is not afraid to encounter the uncivilized glens beside the Orinoco. Come in, Kate. You tell me that you and Mr. Massingbred are old friends.”
Massingbred started as he heard the name, looked up, and there stood Kate before him, with her hand extended in welcome.
“Good heavens! what is this? Am I in a dream? Can this be real?” cried Jack, pressing his hands to his temples, and trembling from head to foot in the intensity of his anxiety.
“My father tells me of an invitation he has given you, Mr. Massingbred,” said she, smiling faintly at his embarrassment, “and asks me to repeat it; but I know far better than he does all that you would surrender by exile from the great world wherein you are destined to eminence. The great debater, the witty conversationalist, the smart reviewer, might prove but a sorry trapper, and even a bad shot! I have my scruples, then, about supporting a cause where my conscience does not go along with me.”
“My head on’t, but he ‘ll like the life well,” said Barry, half impatiently.
“Am I to think that you will not ask me to be your guest?” said Jack, in a whisper, only audible by Kate.
“I have not said so,” said she, in the same low tone. “Will you go further, Kate,” muttered he, in tremulous eagerness, “and say, ‘Come’?” “Yes!” said she. “Come!”
“I accept!” cried Jack, rushing over, and grasping Martin’s hands between his own. “I ‘m ready, – this hour, this instant, if you like it.”
“We find the prisoner guilty, my Lords,” said Repton; “but we recommend him to mercy, as his manner on this occasion convinces us it is a first offence.”
We have now done with the Martins of Cro’ Martin. Should any of our readers feel a curiosity as to the future fortunes of the estate, its story, like that of many another Irish property, is written in the Encumbered Estates Court. Captain Martin only grew wiser by the especial experience of one class of difficulties. His indolent, easy disposition and a taste for expense led him once again into embarrassments from which there was but one issue, – the sale of his property. He has still, however, a handsome subsistence remaining, and lives with Lady Dorothea, notable and somewhat distinguished residents of a city on the Continent.
We cannot persuade ourselves that we have inspired interest for the humbler characters of our piece. Nor dare we ask the reader to hear more about Mrs. Cronan and her set, nor learn how Kilkieran fared in the changes around it.
For Joseph Nelligan, however, we claim a parting word. He was the first of an order of men who have contributed no small share to the great social revolution of Ireland in late years. With talents fully equal to the best in the opposite scale of party, and a character above all reproach, he stood a rebuking witness to all the taunts and sarcasms once indiscriminately levelled at his class; and, at the same time, inspired his own party with the happy knowledge that there was a nobler and more legitimate road to eminence than by factious display and popular declamation.
We do not wish to inquire how far the one great blow to his happiness – the disappointment of his early life – contributed to his success by concentrating his ambition on his career. Certain is it, no man achieved a higher or more rapid elevation, and old Dan lived to receive at his board the Chief Justice of the Queen’s Bench in the person of his own son.
Poor Simmy Crow! for if we would forget him, he has taken care that oblivion is not to be his fate. He has sent from the Rocky Mountains, where he is now wandering with Barry Martin, some sketches of Indian Life to the Irish Art Exhibition.
If it be a pleasure to trace in our friends the traits we have admired in them in youth, and remark the embers of the fires that once wanned their hearts, Simmy affords us this gratification, since his drawings reveal the inspirations that first filled his early mind. The Chief in his war-paint has a fac-simile likeness to his St. John in the Wilderness; and as for the infant the squaw is bathing in the stream, we can produce twelve respectable witnesses to depose that it is “Moses.”
We are much tempted to add a word about the Exiles themselves, but we abstain. It is enough to say that all the attractive prospects of ambition held out by friends, all the seductions of generous offers from family, have never tempted them to return to the Old World; but that they live on happily, far away from the jarring collisions of life, the tranquil existence they had longed for.
THE END.