Czytaj książkę: «The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)», strona 8

“The Captain dropped in about four o’clock, and as the weather was unfavorable, we sat down to our party of piquet. By a little address, I continued to lose nearly every game, and so gradually led him into a conversation while we played; but I soon saw that he only knew something had occurred ‘upstairs,’ but knew not what.

“’ I suspect, however,’ added he, ‘it is only the old question as to Kate’s going away.’ “‘Going away! Going where?’ cried I.

“‘Home to her father; she is resolutely bent upon it, – has been so ever since we left Paris. My mother, who evidently – but on what score I know not – had some serious difference with her, is now most eager to make concessions, and would stoop to – what for her is no trifle – even solicitation to induce her to stay, has utterly failed; so, too, has my father. Persuasion and entreaty not succeeding, I suspect – but it is only suspicion – that they have had recourse to parental authority, and asked old Henderson to interfere. At least, a letter has come this morning from the West of Ireland, for Kate, which I surmise to be in his hand. She gave it, immediately on reading it, to my mother, and I could detect in her Ladyship’s face, while she perused it, unmistakable signs of satisfaction. When she handed it back, too, she gave a certain condescending smile, which, in my mother, implies victory, and seems to say, “Let us be friends now, – I ‘m going to signal – cease firing.”’

“‘And Kate, did she make any remark – say anything?’ “‘Not a syllable. She folded up the document, carefully and steadily, and placed it in her work-box, and then resumed her embroidery in silence. I watched her narrowly, while I affected to read the paper, and saw that she had to rip out half she had done. After a while my mother said, – “’”You ‘ll not answer that letter to-day, probably?”

“‘"I mean to do so, my Lady,” said she; “and, with your permission, will beg you to read my reply.”

“‘"Very well,” said my mother, and left the room. I was standing outside on the balcony at the time, so that Kate believed, after my mother’s departure, she was quite alone. It was then she opened the letter, and re-read it carefully. I never took my eyes off her; and yet what was passing in her mind, whether joy, grief, disappointment, or pleasure, I defy any man to declare; nor when, having laid it down once more, she took up her work, not a line or a lineament betrayed her. It was plain enough the letter was no pleasant one, and I expected to have heard her sigh perhaps, or at least show some sign of depression; but no, she went on calmly, and at last began to sing, in a low, faint voice, barely audible where I stood, one of her little barcarole songs she is so fond of; and if there was no sorrow in her own heart, by Jove! she made mine throb heavily as I listened! I stood it as long as I was able, and then coughed to show that I was there, and entered the room. She never lifted her head, or noticed me, not even when I drew a chair close to her, and sat down at her side.

“‘I suppose, Massingbred,’ said he, after a pause, ‘you ‘ll laugh at me, if I tell you I was in love with the Governess! Well, I should have laughed too, some six months ago, if any man had prophesied it; but the way I put the matter to myself is this: If I do succeed to a good estate, I have a right to indulge my own fancy in a wife; if I don’t, – that is, if I be a ruined man, – where ‘s the harm in marrying beneath me?’

“‘Quite right, admirably argued,’ said I, impatiently; ‘go on.’

“‘I ‘m glad you agree with me,’ said he, with the stupid satisfaction of imbecility. ‘I thought I had reduced the question to its very narrowest bounds.’

“‘So you have; go on,’ cried I.

“‘"Miss Henderson,” said I, – for I determined to show that I was speaking seriously, and so I did n’t call her Kate, – “Miss Henderson, I want to speak to you. I have been long seeking this opportunity; and if you will vouchsafe me a few minutes now, and hear me, on a subject upon which all my happiness in life depends – ”

“‘When I got that far, she put her work down on her knee, and stared at me with those large, full eyes of hers so steadily – ay, so haughtily, too – that I half wished myself fifty miles away.

“‘"Captain Martin,” said she, in a low, distinct voice, “has it ever occurred to you in life to have, by a mere moment of reflection, a sudden flash of intelligence, saved yourself from some step, some act, which, if accomplished, had brought nothing but outrage to your feeling, and insult to your self-esteem? Let such now rescue you from resuming this theme.”

“‘"But you# don’t understand me,” said I. “What I wish to say – ” Just at that instant my father came into the room in search of her, and I made my escape to hide the confusion that I felt ready to overwhelm me.’

“‘And have you not seen her since?’

“‘No. Indeed, I think it quite as well, too. She ‘ll have time to think over what I said, and see what a deuced good offer it is; for though I know she was going to make objections about inequality of station and all that at the time, reflection will bring better thoughts.’

“‘And she ‘ll consent, you think?’

“‘I wish I had a bet on it,’ said he.

“‘So you shall, then,’ said I, endeavoring to seem thoroughly at my ease. ‘It’s a very unworthy occasion for a wager, Martin; but I’ll lay five hundred to one she refuses you.’

“‘Taken, and booked,’ cried he, writing it down in his note-book. “I only regret it is not in thousands.’

“‘So it should be, if I could honestly stake what I have n’t got.’

“‘You are so sanguine of winning? ‘

“’ So certain, you ought to say.’

“’ Of course you use no influence against me, – you take no step of any kind to affect her decision.’

“‘Certainly not.’

“‘Nor are you – But,’ added he, laughing, ‘I need n’t make that proviso. I was going to say, you are not to ask her yourself.’

“‘I ‘ll even promise you that, if you like,’ said I.

“‘Then what can you mean?’ said he, with a puzzled look. ‘But whatever it be, I can stand the loss. I ‘ve won very close to double as much from you this evening.’

“‘And as to the disappointment?’

“‘Oh, you ‘ll not mention it, I ‘m certain, neither will she, so none will be the wiser; and, after all, the real bore in all these cases is the gossip.’ And with this consolatory reflection he left me to dress for dinner. How well bred a fellow seems who has no feeling, but just tact enough to detect the tone of the world and follow it! That’s Martin’s case, and his manners are perfect! After he was gone, I was miserable for not having quarrelled with him, – said something outrageous, insolent, and unbearable. That he should have dared to insult the young girl by such presumption as the offer of his hand is really too much. What difference of station – wide as the poles asunder – could compare with their real inequality? The fop, the idler, the incompetent, to aspire to her! Even his very narrative proclaimed his mean nature, wandering on, as it did, from a lounge on the balcony to an offer of marriage!

“Now, to conclude this wearisome story – and I fancy, Harry, that already you half deem me a fitting rival for the tiresome Captain, – but to finish, Martin came early into my room, and laying a bank-note for £100 on the bed, merely added, ‘You were right; there’s your money.’ I’d have given double the sum to hear the details of this affair, – in what terms the refusal was conveyed, – on what grounds she based it; but he would not afford me the slightest satisfaction on any of these points. Indeed, he displayed more vigor of character than I suspected in him, in the way he arrested my inquiries. He left this for Paris immediately after, so that the mystery of that interview will doubtless remain impenetrable to me.

“We are all at sixes and sevens to-day. Old Martin, shocked by some tidings of Ireland that he chanced upon in the public papers, I believe, has had a stroke of paralysis, or a seizure resembling that malady. Lady Dorothea is quite helpless from terror, and but for Kate, the whole household would be in utter chaos and disorganization; but she goes about, with her arm in a sling, calm and tranquil, but with the energy and activity of one who feels that all depends upon her guidance and direction. The servants obey her with a promptitude that proclaims instinct; and even the doctor lays aside the mysterious jargon of his craft, and condescends to talk sense to her. I have not seen her; passing rumors only reach me in my solitude, and I sit here writing and brooding alternately.

“P. S. Martin is a little better; no immediate danger to life, but slight hopes of ultimate recovery. I was wrong as to the cause. It was a proclamation of outlawry against his son, the Captain, which he read in the ‘Times.’ Some implacable creditor or other had pushed his claim so far, as I believe is easy enough to do nowadays; and poor Martin, who connected this stigma with all the disgrace that once accompanied such a sentence, fell senseless to the ground, and was taken up palsied. He is perfectly collected and even tranquil now, and they wheeled me in to sit with him for an hour or so. Lady Dorothea behaves admirably; the first shock overwhelmed her, but that passed off, and she is now all that could be imagined of tenderness and zeal.

“Kate I saw but for a second. She asked me to write to Captain Martin, and request him to hasten home. It was no time to trifle with her; so I simply promised to do so, adding, – “‘You, I trust, will not leave this at such a moment?’

“‘Assuredly not,’ said she, slightly coloring at what implied my knowledge of her plans.

“‘Then all will go on well in that case,’ said I.

“‘I never knew that I was reckoned what people call lucky,’ said she, smiling. ‘Indeed, most of those with whom I have been associated in life might say the opposite.’ And then, without waiting to hear me, she left the room.

“My brain is throbbing and my cheeks burning; some feverish access is upon me. So I send off this ere I grow worse.

“Your faithful friend,

“Jack Massingbred.”

CHAPTER X. HOW ROGUES AGREE!

Leaving the Martins in their quiet retreat at Spa, nor dwelling any longer on a life whose daily monotony was unbroken by an incident, we once more turn our glance westward. Were we assured that our kind readers’ sympathies were with us, the change would be a pleasure to us, since it is there, in that wild mountain tract, that pathless region of fern and wild furze, that we love to linger, rambling half listlessly through silent glens and shady gorges, or sitting pensively on the storm-lashed shore, till sea and sky melt into one, and naught lowers through the gloom save the tall crags above us.

We are once more back again at the little watering-place of Kilkieran, to which we introduced our readers in an early chapter of this narrative; but another change has come over that humble locality. The Osprey’s Nest, the ornamented villa, on which her Ladyship had squandered so lavishly good money and bad taste, was now an inn! A vulgar sign-board, representing a small boat in a heavy sea, hung over the door, with the words “The Corragh” written underneath. The spacious saloon, whose bay-windows opened on the Atlantic, was now a coffee-room, and the small boudoir that adjoined it – desecration of desecrations – the bar!

It needs not to have been the friend or favored guest beneath a roof where elegance and refinement have prevailed to feel the shock at seeing them replaced by all that ministers to coarse pleasure and vulgar association. The merest stranger cannot but experience a sense of disgust at the contrast. Whichever way you turned, some object met the eye recalling past splendor and present degradation; indeed, Toby Shea, the landlord, seemed to feel as one of his brightest prerogatives the right of insulting the memory of his predecessors, and throwing into stronger antithesis the “former” and the “now.”

“Here ye are now, sir, in my Lady’s own parlor; and that’s her bedroom, where I left your trunk,” said he, as he ushered in a newly arrived traveller, whose wet and road-stained drapery bore traces of an Irish winter’s day. “Mr. Scanlan told me that your honor would be here at four o’clock, and he ordered dinner for two, at five, and a good dinner you ‘ll have.”

“There; let them open my traps, and fetch me a pair of slippers and a dressing-gown,” broke in the traveller; “and be sure to have a good fire in my bedroom. What an infernal climate! It has rained since the day I landed at Dublin; and now that I have come down here, it has blown a hurricane besides. And how cold this room is!” added he, shuddering.

“That’s all by reason of them windows,” said Toby, – “French windows they call them; but I’ll get real Irish sashes put up next season, if I live. It was a fancy of that ould woman that built the place to have nothing that was n’t foreign.”

“They are not popular, then, – the Martins?” asked the stranger.

“Popular!” echoed Toby. “Begorra, they are not. Why would they be? Is it rack-renting, process sarving, extirminating, would make them popular? Sure we’re all ruined on the estate. There isn’t a mother’s son of us might n’t be in jail; and it’s not Maurice’s fault, either, – Mr. Scanlan’s, I mean. Your honor’s a friend of his, I believe,” added he, stealthily. The stranger gave a short nod. “Sure he only does what he’s ordered; and it’s breaking his heart it is to do them cruel things they force him to.”

“Was the management of the estate better when they lived at home?” asked the stranger.

“Some say yes, more says no. I never was their tenant myself, for I lived in Oughterard, and kept the ‘Goose and Griddle’ in John Street; but I believe, if the truth was told, it was always pretty much the same. They were azy and moderate when they did n’t want money, but ready to take your skin off your back when they were hard up.”

“And is that their present condition?”

“I think it is,” said he, with a confident grin. “They ‘re spending thousands for hundreds since they went abroad; and that chap in the dragoons – the Captain they call him – sells a farm, or a plot of ground, just the way ye ‘d tear a leaf out of a book. There ‘s Mr. Maurice now, – and I ‘ll go and hurry the dinner, for he ‘ll give us no peace if we ‘re a minute late.”

The stranger – or, to give him his proper name, Mr. Merl – now approached the window, and watched, not without admiration, the skilful management by which Scanlan skimmed along the strand, zigzagging his smart nag through all the awkward impediments of the way, and wending his tandem through what appeared a labyrinth of confusion.

Men bred and born in great cities are somewhat prone to fancy that certain accomplishments, such as tandem-driving, steeple-chasing, and such like, are the exclusive acquirements of rank and station. They have only witnessed them as the gifts of guardsmen and “young squires of high degree,” never suspecting that in the country a very inferior class is often endowed with these skilful arts. Mr. Merl felt, therefore, no ordinary reverence for Maurice Scanlan, a sentiment fully reciprocated by the attorney, as he beheld the gorgeous dressing-gown, rich tasselled cap, and Turkish trousers of the other.

“I thought I’d arrive before you, sir,” said Scanlan, with a profound bow, as he entered the room; “but I’m glad you got in first. What a shower that was!”

“Shower!” said Merl; “a West India hurricane is a zephyr to it. I ‘d not live in this climate if you ‘d give me the whole Martin estate!”

“I ‘m sure of it, sir; one must be bred in the place, and know no better, to stand it.” And although the speech was uttered in all humility, Merl gave the speaker a searching glance, as though to say, “Don’t lose your time trying to humbug me; I’m ‘York,’ too.” Indeed, there was species of freemasonry in the looks that now passed between the two; each seemed instinctively to feel that he was in the presence of an equal, and that artifice and deceit might be laid aside for the nonce.

“I hope you agree with me,” said Scanlan, in a lower and more confidential voice, “that this was the best place to come to. Here you can stay as long as you like, and nobody the wiser; but in the town of Oughterard they’d be at you morning, noon, and night, tracking your steps, questioning the waiter, ay, and maybe taking a peep at your letters. I ‘ve known that same before now.”

“Well, I suppose you ‘re right; only this place does look a little dull, I confess.”

“It’s not the season, to be sure,” said Scanlan, apologetically.

“Oh! and there is a season here?”

“Isn’t there, by George!” said Maurice, smacking his lips. “I ‘ve seen two heifers killed here of a morning, and not so much as a beefsteak to be got before twelve o’clock. ‘T is the height of fashion comes down here in July, – the Rams of Kiltimmon, and the Bodkins of Crossmaglin; and there was talk last year of a lord, – I forget his name; but he ran away from Newmarket, and the story went that he was making for this.”

“Any play?” asked Merl.

“Play is it? That there is; whist every night, and backgammon.”

Merl threw up his eyebrows with pretty much the same feeling with which the Great Napoleon repeated the words “Bows and Arrows!” as the weapons of a force that offered him alliance.

“If you’d allow me to dine in this trim, Mr. Scanlan,” said he, “I’d ask you to order dinner.”

“I was only waiting for you to give the word, sir,” said Maurice, reverting to the habit of respect at any fresh display of the other’s pretensions; and opening the door, he gave a shrill whistle.

The landlord himself answered the summons, and whispered a few words in Scanlan’s ear.

“That’s it, always,” cried Maurice, angrily. “I never came into the house for the last ten days without hearing the same story. I ‘d like to know who and what he is, that must always have the best that ‘s going?” Then turning to Merl, he added: “It’s a lodger he has upstairs; an old fellow that came about a fortnight back; and if there’s a fine fish or a fat turkey or a good saddle of mutton to be got, he ‘ll have it.”

“Faix, he pays well,” said Toby, “whoever he is.”

“And he has secured our salmon, I find, and left us to dine on whiting,” said Maurice.

“An eighteen-pound fish!” echoed Toby; “and it would be as much as my life is worth to cut it in two.”

“And he’s alone, too?”

“No, sir. Mr. Crow, the painter, is to dine with him. He’s making drawings for him of all the wonderful places down the coast.”

“Well, give us what we ‘re to have at once,” said Maurice, angrily. “The basket of wine was taken out of the gig?”

“Yes, sir; all right and ready for you; and barrin’ the fish you ‘ll have an elegant dinner.”

This little annoyance over, the guests relished their fare like hungry men; nor, time and place considered, was it to be despised.

“Digestion is a great leveller.” Mr. Merl and Mr. Scan-Ian felt far more on an equality when, the dinner over and the door closed, they drew the table close to the fire, and drank to each other in a glass of racy port.

“Well, I believe a man might live here, after all,” said Merl, as he gazed admiringly on the bright hues of his variegated lower garments.

“I ‘m proud to hear you say so,” said Scanlan; “for, of course, you’ve seen a deal of life; and when I say life, I mean fashion and high style, – nobs and swells.”

“Yes; I believe I have,” said Merl, lighting his cigar; “that was always my ‘line.’ I fancy there’s few fellows going have more experience of the really great world than Herman Merl.”

“And you like it?” asked Maurice, confidentially.

“I do, and I do not,” said the Jew, hesitatingly. “To one like myself, who knows them all, always on terms of close intimacy, – friendship, I may say, – it ‘s all very well; but take a new hand just launched into life, a fellow not of their own set, – why, sir, there ‘s no name for the insults and outrage he’ll meet with.”

“But what could they do?” asked Scanlan, inquiringly.

“What? – anything, everything; laugh at him, live on him, win his last guinea, – and then, blackball him!”

“And could n’t he get a crack at them?”

“A what?”

“Couldn’t he have a shot at some of them, at least?” asked Maurice.

“No, no,” said Mr. Merl, half contemptuously; “they don’t do that.”

“Faix! and we ‘d do it down here,” said Scanlan, “devil may care who or what he was that tried the game.”

“But I ‘m speaking of London and Paris; I ‘m not alluding to the Sandwich Islands,” said Merl, on whose brain the port and the strong fire were already producing their effects.

Scanlan’s face flushed angrily; but a glance at the other checked the reply he was about to make, and he merely pushed the decanter across the table.

“You see, sir,” said Merl, in the tone of a man laying down a great dictum, “there ‘s worlds and worlds. There’s Claude Willoughby’s world, which is young Martin’s and Stanhope’s and mine. There, we are all young fellows of fortune, good family, good prospects, you understand, – no, thank you, no more wine; – I feel that what I ‘ve taken has got into my head; and this cigar, too, is none of the best. Would it be taking too great a liberty with you if I were to snatch a ten minutes’ doze, – just ten minutes?”

“Treat me like an old friend; make yourself quite at home,” said Maurice. “There ‘s enough here” – and he pointed to the bottles on the table – “to keep me company; and I ‘ll wake you up when I ‘ve finished them.”

Mr. Merl made no reply; but drawing a chair for his legs, and disposing his drapery gracefully around him, he closed his eyes, and before Maurice had replenished his glass, gave audible evidence of a sound sleep.

Now, worthy reader, we practise no deceptions with you; nor so far as we are able, do we allow others to do so. It is but fair, therefore, to tell you that Mr. Merl was not asleep, nor had he any tendency whatever to slumber about him. That astute gentleman, however, had detected that the port was, with the addition of a great fire, too much for him; he recognized in himself certain indications of confusion that implied wandering and uncertain faculties, and he resolved to arrest the progress of such symptoms by a little repose. He felt, in short, that if he had been engaged in play, that he should have at once “cut out,” and so he resolved to give himself the advantage of the prerogative which attaches to a tired traveller. There he lay, then, with closed eyes, – breathing heavily, – to all appearance sound asleep.

Maurice Scanlan, meanwhile, scanned the recumbent figure before him with the eye of a connoisseur. We have once before said that Mr. Scanlan’s jockey experiences had marvellously aided his worldly craft, and that he scrutinized those with whom he came in contact through life, with all the shrewd acumen he would have bestowed upon a horse whose purchase he meditated. It was easy to see that the investigation puzzled him. Mr. Merl did not belong to any one category he had ever seen before. Maurice was acquainted with various ranks and conditions of men; but here was a new order, not referable to any known class. He opened Captain Martin’s letter, which he carried in his pocket-book, and re-read it; but it was vague and uninstructive. He merely requested that “every attention might be paid to his friend Mr. Merl, who wanted to see something of the West, and know all about the condition of the people, and such like. He’s up to everything, Master Maurice,” continued the writer, “and so just the man for you.” There was little to be gleaned from this source, and so he felt, as he folded and replaced the epistle in his pocket.

“What can he be,” thought Scanlan, “and what brings him down here? Is he a member of Parliament, that wants to make himself up about Ireland and Irish grievances? Is he a money-lender, that wants to see the security before he makes a loan? Are they thinking of him for the agency?” – and Maurice flushed as the suspicion crossed him, – “or is it after Miss Mary he is?” And a sudden paleness covered his face at the thought. “I ‘d give a cool hundred, this minute, if I could read you,” said he to himself, “Ay, and I’d not ask any one’s help how to deal with us afterwards,” added he, as he drained off his glass. While he was thus ruminating, a gentle tap was heard at the door, and, anxious not to disturb the sleeper, Scanlan crossed the room with noiseless steps, and opened it.

“Oh, it’s you, Simmy,” said he, in a low voice. “Come in, and make no noise; he’s asleep.”

“And that’s him!” said Crow, standing still to gaze on the recumbent figure before him, which he scrutinized with all an artist’s appreciation.

“Ay, and what do you think of him?” whispered Scanlan.

“That chap is a Jew,” said Sim, in the same cautious tone. “I know the features well; you see the very image of him in the old Venetian pictures. Whenever they wanted cunning and cruelty – but more cunning than cruelty – they always took that type.”

“I would n’t wonder if you were right, Simmy,” said Scanlan, on whom a new light was breaking.

“I know I am; look at the spread of the nostrils, and the thick, full lips, and the coarse, projecting under-jaw. Faix!” said he to himself, “I ‘ve seen the day I ‘d like to have had a study of your face.”

“Indeed!” said Scanlan.

“Just so; he’d make a great Judas!” said Crow, enthusiastically. “It is the miser all over. You know,” added he, “if one took him in the historical way, you ‘d get rid of the vulgarity, and make him grander and finer; for, looking at him now, he might be a dog-stealer.”

Scanlan gave a low, cautious laugh as he placed a chair beside his own for the artist, and filled out for him a bumper of port.

“I was just dying for a glass of this,” said Crow. “I dined with Mr. Barry upstairs; and though he’s a fine-hearted old fellow in many respects, he’s too abstemious; a pint of sherry for two at dinner, and a pint of port after, that’s the allowance. Throw out as many hints as you like, suggest how and what you will, but devil a drop more you’ll get.”

“And who is he?” asked Scanlan.

“I wish you could tell me,” said Crow.

“You haven’t a notion; nor what he is?”

“Not the slightest. I think, indeed, he said he was in the army; but I’m not clear it wasn’t a commissary or a surgeon; maybe he was, but he knows a little about everything. Take him on naval matters, and he understands them well; ask him about foreign countries, – egad, he was everywhere. Ireland seems the only place new to him, and it won’t be so long; for he goes among the people, and talks to them, and hears all they have to say, with a patience that breaks my heart. Like all strangers, he’s astonished with the acuteness he meets with, and never ceases saying, ‘Ain’t they a wonderful people? Who ever saw their equal for intelligence?’”

“Bother!” said Scanlan, contemptuously.

“But it is not bother! Maurice; he’s right. They are just what he says.”

“Arrah! don’t be humbugging me, Mr. Crow,” said the other. “They ‘re a set of scheming, plotting vagabonds, that are unmanageable by any one, except a fellow that has the key to them as I have.”

“You know them, that’s true,” said Crow, half apologetically, for he liked the port, and did not feel he ought to push contradiction too far.

“And that’s more than your friend Barry does, or ever will,” said Scanlan. “I defy an Englishman – I don’t care how shrewd he is – to understand Paddy.”

A slight movement on Mr. Merl’s part here admonished the speaker to speak lower.

“Ay,” continued Maurice, “that fellow there – whoever he is or whatever he is – is no fool! he ‘s deep enough; and yet there ‘s not a bare-legged gossoon on the estate I won’t back to take him in.”

“But Barry’s another kind of man entirely. You wouldn’t call him cute or cunning; but he’s a sensible, well-judging man, that has seen a deal of life.”

“And what is it, he says, brings him here?” asked Scanlan.

“He never said a word about that yet,” replied Crow, “further than his desire to visit a country he had heard much of, and, if I understand him aright, where some of his ancestors came from; for, you see, at times he’s not so easy for one to follow, for he has a kind of a foreign twang in his tongue, and often mumbles to himself in a strange language.”

“I mistrust all these fellows that go about the world, pretending they want to see this and observe that,” said Scanlan, sententiously.

“It’s mighty hard to mistrust a man that gives you the likes of that,” said Crow, as he drew a neatly folded banknote from his pocket, and handed it to Scanlan. “Twenty pounds! And he gave you that?” “This very evening. ‘It is a little more than our bargain, Mr. Crow,’ said he, ‘but not more than I can afford to give; and so I hope you ‘ll not refuse it.’ These were his words, as he took my lot of drawings – poor daubs they were – and placed them in his portfolio.”

“So that he is rich?” said Maurice, pensively, “There seems no end of his money; there’s not a day goes over he does n’t spend fifteen or sixteen pounds in meat, potatoes, barley, and the like. Sure, you may say he ‘s been feeding the two islands himself for the last fortnight; and what’s more, one must n’t as much as allude to it. He gets angry at the slightest word that can bring the subject forward. It was the other day he said to myself, ‘If you can relieve destitution without too much parade of its sufferings, you are not only obviating the vulgar display of rich benevolence, but you are inculcating high sentiments and delicacy of feeling in those that are relieved. Take care how you pauperize the heart of a people, for you ‘ll have to make a workhouse of the nation.’”

“Sure, they’re paupers already!” exclaimed Scanlan, contemptuously. “When I hear all these elegant sentiments uttered about Ireland, I know a man is an ass! This is a poor country, – the people is poor, the gentry is poor, the climate is n’t the best, and bad as it is, you ‘re never sure of it. All that anybody can hope to do is to make his living out of it; but as to improving it, – raising the intellectual standard of the people, and all that balderdash we hear of, – you might just as well tell me that there was an Act of Parliament to make everybody in Connaught six feet high. Nature says one thing, and it signifies mighty little if the House of Commons says the other.”