She tried to speak,, but could not.
“If those on the mainland should try to encroach—if they should come upon your fishing-grounds, girl—defend your rights. We have had these royalties for more than three hundred years. Be firm, be bold!” He muttered on for some moments, and the last words his lips uttered were, “A Luttrell of Arran!” His eyes closed as he said it, and he covered his face with his hand. Kate thought it was sleep, but it was the last sleep of all.
CHAPTER LVIII. SIR WITHIN ABROAD
SIR Within, accompanied by Grenfell, who was now become an “indispensable” to him, left Dalradern for the Continent. The old man neither knew nor cared what direction he should take. The consciousness that any avowal of his love for Kate would but expose him to bitter raillery and ridicule, debarred him from all the sympathy he so much needed. Such a passion at his age was exactly one of those follies that all concur to laugh at, and it is precisely in the class that this old man pertained to, these dowagers of the world of statecraft, that ridicule is most powerful. The man who deems a witty “mot” a triumph, is just as ready to accept a severe epigram as a death-wound.
One would not have believed how a few days of sorrow could have aged him. It was not alone that a stern melancholy sat on his features, but that even his erect carriage and firm step had left him, and he walked now with bent-down head feebly and uncertainly. Arrived at Paris, Grenfell endeavoured to interest him by some of the pleasures of that marvellous capital. He induced him to dine at the “Rocher,” and to drive in the Bois; he narrated all the passing gossip of the day; told him the scandals in vogue, and showed him the actors in them as they drove by on the Boulevards; but it seemed as though all the world of these vanities had closed for him, and he neither smiled nor vouchsafed a word as he listened.
Once only did he betray the slightest animation of voice or manner; it was when Grenfell pointed out to him in a carriage one of the great beauties of the time. The old man looked fixedly for an instant at her, and then, turning away his head, muttered, “She is infinitely more beautiful.”
Paris he soon discovered to be too noisy and too bustling. For Switzerland, the season was already late, and the climate was severe. Spain or Italy remained, and he was yet hesitating which to take, when Grenfell mentioned that he saw Mr. M’Kinlay’s name amongst the arrivals at the hotel, and, on inquiry, learned that he was on his way out to Italy to see Vyner, and was to leave Paris that night.