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.”
“And you 're telling me this in the very spot that contradicts every word you say!” cried Crow, half angrily; for the port had given him courage, and the decanter waxed low.
“How so?” exclaimed Scanlan.
“Here, where we sit—on this very estate of Cro' Martin—where a young girl—a child the other day—has done more to raise the condition of the people, to educate and civilize, than the last six generations together.”
A long wailing whistle from Scanlan was the insulting reply to the assertion.
“What do you mean by that?” cried Crow, passionately.
“I mean that she has done more mischief to the property than five-and-forty years' good management will ever repair, Now don't be angry, Simmy; keep your temper, and draw your chair back again to the table. I 'm not going to say one word against her intentions; but when I see the waste of thousands of pounds on useless improvements, elegant roads that lead nowhere, bridges that nobody will ever pass, and harbors without boats, not to say the habits of dependence the people have got by finding everything done for them. I tell you again, ten years more of Miss Mary's rule will finish the estate.”
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“I don't believe a word of it!” blurted out Simmy, boldly. “I saw her yesterday coming out of a cabin, where she passed above an hour, nursing typhus fever and cholera. The cloak she took off the door—for she left it there to dry—was still soaked with rain; her wet hair hung down her shoulders, and as she stood bridling her own pony,—for there was not a living soul to help her—”
“She 'd have made an elegant picture,” broke in Scanlan, with a laugh. “But that's exactly the fault of us in Ireland,—we are all picturesque; I wish we were prosperous! But come, Simmy, finish your wine; it's not worth disputing about. If all I hear about matters be true, there will be very little left of Cro' Martin when the debts are paid.”
“What! do you mean to say that they 're in difficulty?”
“Far worse; the stories that reach me call it—ruin!”
Simmy drew his chair closer to the table, and in a whisper scarcely breathed, said, “That chap's not asleep, Maurice.”
“I know it,” whispered the other; and added, aloud, “Many a fellow that thinks he has the first charge on the property will soon discover his mistake; there are mortgages of more than eighty years' standing on the estate. You've had a great sleep, sir,” said he, addressing Merl, who now yawned and opened his eyes; “I hope our talking did n't disturb you?”
“Not in the least,” said Merl, rising and stretching his legs. “I'm all right now, and quite fresh for anything.”
“Let me introduce Mr. Crow to you, sir,—a native artist that we 're all proud of.”
“That's exactly what you are not then,” said Crow; “nor would you be if I deserved it. You 'd rather gain a cause at the Quarter Sessions, or take in a friend about a horse, than be the man that painted the Madonna at Florence.”
“He's cross this evening,—cross and ill-humored,” said Scanlan, laughing. “Maybe he 'll be better tempered when we have tea.”
“I was just going to ask for it,” said Merl, as he arranged his whiskers, and performed a small impromptu toilet before the glass, while Simmy issued forth to give the necessary orders.
“We 'll have tea, and a rubber of dummy afterwards,” said Scanlan, “if you've no objection.”
“Whatever you like,—I 'm quite at your disposal,” replied Merl, who now seated himself with an air of bland amiability, ready, according to the amount of the stake, to win pounds or lose sixpences.