CHAPTER XVIII. A HASTY PLEDGE
While these things were happening within the ruined castle of the O'Donoghue, a guest, equally unexpected as theirs, had arrived at “the Lodge.” Frederick Travers, delayed in Bristol by contrary winds, had come over in the same packet with Kate; but without being able either to learn her name, or whither she was going. His unlooked for appearance at “the Lodge,” was a most welcome surprise both to Sir Marmaduke and Sybella; and as he did not desire to avow the real object of his coming, it was regarded by them as the most signal proof of affection. They well knew how much London life engrossed him—how completely its peculiar habits and haunts possessed attractions for him—and with what a depreciating estimate he looked down on every part of the globe, save that consecrated to the fashionable follies and amusements of his own set.
He was not, in reality, insensible to other and better influences; his affection for his father and sister was unbounded; he had a bold, manly spirit, unalloyed with any thing mean or sordid; a generous, candid nature, and straightforward earnestness of purpose, that often carried him farther by impulse, than he was followed by his convictions. Still a conventional cant, a tone of disparaging, half-contemptuous indifference to every thing which characterized his associates, had already infected him; and he felt ashamed to confess to those sentiments and opinions, to possess and to act upon which should have been his dearest pride.
“Well, Fred,” said Sybella, as they drew around the fire after dinner, in that happy home circle so suggestive of enjoyment, “let us hear what you thought of the scenery. Is not Glenflesk fine?”
“Matlock on a larger scale,” said he coolly. “Less timber and more rocks..”
“Matlock! dear friend. You might as well compare Keim-an-eigh with Holborn—you are only jesting.”
“Compare what? Repeat that droll name, I beg of you.”
“Keim-an-eigh. It is a mountain pass quite close to us here.”
“Admirably done! Why, Sybella dear, I shall not be surprised to see you take to the red petticoat and bare-feet soon. You have indoctrinated yourself wonderfully since your arrival.”
“I like the people with all my heart, Fred,” said she artlessly; “and if I could imitate many of their traits of forbearance and long-suffering patience by following their costume, I promise you I'd don the scarlet.”
“Ay, Fred,” said Sir Marmaduke, with a sententious gravity, “they don't know these Irish at all at our side of the water. They mistake them totally. They only want teaching, a little example—a little encouragement—that's all: and they are as docile and tractable as possible. I'll show you to-morrow what improvements a few months have effected. I'll bring you over a part of the estate, where there was not a hovel fit for a dog, and you shall see what comfortable dwellings they have. We hear nothing in England but the old songs about popery, and superstition, and all that. Why, my dear Fred, these people don't care a straw for the priest—they'd be any thing I asked them.”
“Devilish high principled that, any way,” said Fred, drily.
“I didn't exactly mean that; at least in the sense you take it. I was about to say, that such is their confidence, such their gratitude to the landlord, that—tha——”
“That in short they'd become Turks, for an abatement in the rent. Well, Sybella dear, is this one of the traits you are so anxious to imitate?”
“Why will you misunderstand, Fred?” said Sybella imploringly. “Cannot you see that gratitude may lead an uninstructed people far beyond the limits of reason—my father is so good to them.”
“With all my heart—I have not the slightest objection in life; indeed I'm not sure, if all the estate be like what I passed through this afternoon, if my generosity wouldn't go farther, and, instead of reducing the rent, make them an honest present of the fee simple.”
“Foolish boy!” said Sir Marmaduke, half angrily. “There are forty thousand acres of reclaimable land——”
“Which might bear crops, Anno Domini 3095.”
“There are mines of inexhaustible wealth.”
“And would cost such to work them, sir, no doubt. Come, come, father—Hemsworth has passed a life among these people. He knows more than we do, or ever shall.
“I tell you, sir,” said Sir Marmaduke, nettled by such a sarcasm on his powers of observation, “I know them perfectly—I can read them like a book. They are a guileless, simple-minded, confiding people—you may see every thought they have in their countenances. They only need the commonest offices of kindness to attach them; and, as for political or religious leanings, I have questioned them pretty closely, and, without a single exception, have heard nothing but sentiments of loyalty and attachment to the church.”
“Well, I only hope you don't mean to prolong your stay here. I'm sure you have done enough for any ordinary call of conscience, and, if you have not, set about it in right earnest—convert the tens into hundreds—make them all as comfortable as possible—and then, in heaven's name, get back again to England. There is no earthly reason why you should pass your time here; and as for Sybella——”
“Don't include me, Fred, in your reasons for departure. I never was so happy in my life.”
“There, boy—there's an example for you; and if you need another, here am I, ready to confess the same thing. I don't mean that there are not little dampers and difficulties. There's that fool about the mill-wheel, and that fellow that persists in dragging the river with a net;” and so he muttered on for some minutes beneath his teeth, to the evident enjoyment of Fred, whose quivering lip and laughing eye told how he appreciated the conflicting evidence memory was eliciting.
Thus, for some time, the conversation continued, until Miss Travers retired for the night. Then, Sir Marmaduke drew his chair closer to his son's, and, in an earnest manner, related the whole circumstance of Sybella's escape from the mountain torrent—dwelling with grateful eloquence on the young O'Donoghue's heroism in coming to her rescue. “The youth has narrowly escaped with his life. The doctor, who left this but a few hours ago, said 'he never witnessed a more dangerous case than the symptoms at one time presented.' He is well, however, now—the risk is past—and I want your aid, Fred, to devise some suitable mode of evincing our gratitude.'
“These O'Donoghues are your tenants—are they not?” asked the young man.
“Yes, they are tenants; but on that score we must not say much in their favour. Wylie tells me that they have been at feud with Hems-worth for years past—they neither pay rent, nor will they surrender possession. The whole thing is a difficult matter to understand; first of all, there is a mortgage——”
“There, there, my dear father, don't puzzle my brain and your own with a statement we'll never get to the end of. The point I want to learn is, they are your tenants——”
“Yes, at least for part of the land they occupy. There is a dispute about another portion; but I believe Hemsworth has got the Attorney-General's opinion, that their case cannot stand.”
“Tush—never mind the Attorney-General. Give up the question at issue; send him, or his father, or whoever it is, the receipt for the rent due, and take care Hemsworth does not molest him in future.”
“But you don't see, boy, what we are doing. We hope to obtain the whole of the Ballyvourney property—that is part of our plan; the tenants there are in a state of absolute misery and starvation.”
“Then, in God's name, give them plenty to eat; it doesn't signify much, I suppose, whose tenantry they are, when they're hungry.”
The old gentleman was scarcely prepared for such an extended basis for his philanthropy, and, for a moment or two, seemed quite dumbfounded by his son's proposition, while Fred continued—“If I understand the matter, it lies thus: you owe a debt of gratitude which you are desirous to acquit—you don't care to pay highly.”
“On the contrary, I am quite willing,” interposed Sir Marmaduke; “but let the price be one, which shall realize a benefit equivalent to its amount. If I assure these people in the possession of their land, what security have I, that they will not continue, as of old, the same useless, wasteful, spendthrift set they ever were—presenting the worst possible example to the other tenants, and marring the whole force of the lesson I am endeavouring to inculcate?”
“That, I take it, is more their affair than yours, after all,” said Fred; “you are not to confer the boon, and allocate its advantages afterwards—but come, what kind of people are they?”
“Oh! a species of half-gentry, half-farmer set, I believe—proud as they are poor—deeming themselves, as O'Donoghues, at least our equals; but living, as I believe, in every kind of privation.”
“Very well; sit down there, and let me have a check on your banker for five hundred pounds, and leave the affair to me.”
“But you mistake, Fred, they are as haughty as Lucifer.”
“Just leave it to me, sir: I fancy I know something of the world by this time. It may require more money, but the result I will answer for.”
Sir Marmaduke's confidence in his son's tact and worldly skill was one of the articles of his faith, and he sat down at the table and wrote the order on the bank at once. “Here Fred,” said he; “I only beg of you to remember, that the way to express the grateful sense I entertain of this boy's conduct is not by wounding the susceptibilities of his feelings; and if they be above the class of farmers, which I really cannot ascertain, your steps must demand all your caution.”
“I hope, sir,” said Fred with some vanity in the tone, “that I have never made you blush for my awkwardness, and I don't intend to do so now. I promise for the success of my negociation; but I must not say a word more of how I mean to obtain it.”
Sir Marmaduke was very far from feeling satisfied with himself for having even so far encouraged a plan, that his own blind confidence in his son's cleverness had for a moment entrapped him into; he would gladly have withdrawn his consent, but old experience taught him that Fred was never completely convinced he was right, until he met opposition to his opinion. So he parted with him for the night, hoping that sleep might suggest a wiser counsel and a clearer head; and that being left free to act, he might possibly feel a doubt as to the correctness of his own judgment.
As for Fred, no sooner was he alone than he began to regret the pledge his precipitancy had carried him into. What were the nature of the advances he was to make—how to open the negociation, in a quarter the habits and prejudices of which he was utterly ignorant of, he had not the most vague conception; and, as he sought his chamber, he had half persuaded himself to the conviction, that the safest, and the most honest course, after all, would be to avow in the morning that he had overstated his diplomatic abilities, and fairly abandon a task, to which he saw himself inadequate. These were his last sleeping thoughts; for his waking resolves, we must enter upon another chapter.