It struck Cashel, while Linton was speaking, how effectually Maritaña herself, by one proud look, one haughty gesture, would have silenced such flippant raillery; and he could not help feeling it a kind of treason to their old friendship that he should listen to it in patient endurance.
“Listen to me, amigo mio,” said he, in a tone of earnest passion that seemed almost estranged from his nature latterly,—“listen to me while I tell you that in those faraway countries, whose people you regard with such contemptuous pity, there are women—ay, young girls—whose daring spirit would shame the courage of many of those fine gentlemen we spend our lives with; and I, for one, have so much of the Indian in me, as to think that courage is the first of virtues.”
“I cannot help fancying,” said Linton, with an almost imperceptible raillery, “that there are other qualities would please me as well in a wife or a mistress.”
“I have no doubt of it—and suit you better, too,” said Cashel, savagely; then hastily correcting himself for his rude speech, he added, “I believe, in good earnest, that you would as little sympathize with that land and its people as I do with this. Ay, if you want a confession, there's one for you. I'm longing to be back once more among the vast prairies of the West, galloping free after the dark-backed bisons, and strolling along in the silent forests. The enervation of this life wearies and depresses me; worse than all, I feel that, with a little more of it, I shall lose all energy and zest for that activity of body, which, to men like myself, supplies the place of thought,—a little more of it, and I shall sink into that languid routine where dissipation supplies the only excitement.”
“This is a mere passing caprice; a man who has wealth—”
“There it is,” cried Cashel, interrupting him impetuously; “that is the eternal burden of your song. As if wealth, in forestalling the necessity for labor, did not, at the same time, deprive life of all the zeal of enterprise. When I have stepped into my boat to board a Chilian frigate, I have had a prouder throbbing at my heart than ever the sight of that banker's check-book has given me. There's many a Gambusino in the Rocky Mountains a happier—ay, and a finer fellow, too, than the gayest of those gallants that ever squandered the gold he quarried! But why go on?—we are speaking in unknown tongues to each other.”
The tone of irritation into which, as it seems unconsciously, Cashel had fallen, was not lost on the keen perception of Linton, and he was not sorry to feign a pretext for closing an interview whose continuance might be unpleasant.
“I was thinking of a hurried trip down to Tubbermore,” said he, rising; “we shall have these guests of yours in open rebellion, if we don't affect at least something like preparation for their reception. I'll take Perystell along with me, and we'll see what can be done to get the old house in trim.”
“Thanks,” said Cashel, as he walked up and down, his thoughts seeming engaged on some other theme.
“I 'll write to you a report of the actual condition of the fortress,” said Linton, assuming all his habitual easy freedom of manner, “and then, if you think of anything to suggest, you'll let me hear.”