In the pause which now ensued, Billy Traynor's feelings underwent a sore trial; for while he bethought him that now or never had come the moment to reconcile the father and the son, thus mysteriously separated, his fears also whispered the danger of any ill-advised step on his part, and the injury he might by possibility inflict on one he loved best on earth.
“You make me this pledge, therefore, before we part,” said Lord Glencore, who continued to ruminate on what he had spoken. “It is less for my sake than that of another.” Billy took the hand Glencore tendered towards him respectfully in his own, and kissed it twice.
“There are men who have no need of oaths to ratify their faith and trustfulness. You are one of them, Tray-nor,” said Glencore, affectionately.
Billy tried to speak, but his heart was too full, and he could not utter a word.
“A dying man's words have ever their solemn weight,” said Glencore, “and mine beseech you not to desert one who has no prize in life equal to your friendship. Promise me nothing, but do not forget my prayer to you.” And with this, Lord Glencore turned away, and buried his face between his hands.
“And in the name of Heaven,” muttered Billy to himself as he stole away, “what is it that keeps them apart and won't let them love one another? Sure it wasn't in nature that a boy of his years could ever do what would separate them this way. What could he possibly say or do that his father might n't forget and forgive by this time? And then if it was n't the child's fault at all, where's the justice in makin' him pay for another's crime? Sure enough, great people must be unlike poor craytures like me, in their hearts and feelin's as well as in their grandeur; and there must be things that we never mind nor think of, that are thought to be mortial injuries by them. Ay, and that is raysonable too! We see the same in the matayrial world. There's fevers that some never takes; and there's climates some can live in, and no others can bear!
“I suppose, now,” said he, with a wise shake of the head, “pride—pride is at the root of it all, some way or other; and if it is, I may give up the investigation at onst, for divil a one o' me knows what pride is,—barrin' it's the delight one feels in consthruin' a hard bit in a Greek chorus, or hittin' the manin' of a doubtful passage in ould Æschylus. But what's the good o' me puzzlin' myself? If I was to speculate for fifty years, I 'd never be able to think like a lord, after all!” And with this conclusion he began to prepare for his journey.
CHAPTER XLVIII. HOW A SOVEREIGN TREATS WITH HIS MINISTER
“What can have brought them here, Stubber?” said the Duke of Massa, as he walked to and fro in his dressing-room, with an air of considerable perturbation. “Be assured of one thing, they have come for mischief! I know that Sabloukoff well. She it was separated Prince Max from my sister, and that Montenegro affair was all her doing also.”