“But I spoke of gentlemen, sir,” said the stranger, with a strong emphasis on the word,—“men who should be the first to prove their birth and blood when a season of peril was near.”
“Thrue for you, sir,” chimed in Joe, who suddenly detected the blunder he had committed. “The Martins ought not to have run away in the middle of our distress.”
“They left the ship in a storm; they 'll find a sorry wreck when they return to it,” muttered the stranger, as he ascended the stairs.
“By Jacob! just what I suspected,” said Merl to himself, while he closed the door; “this property won't be worth sixpence, and I am regularly 'done.'”
CHAPTER XIII. A NIGHT OF STORM
The curtains were closely drawn, and a cheerful turf fire blazed in the room where Mr. Merl sat at dinner. The fare was excellent, and even rustic cookery sufficed to make fresh salmon and mountain mutton and fat woodcocks delectable; while the remains of Mr. Scanlan's hamper set forth some choice Madeira and several bottles of Sneyd's claret. Nor was he for whose entertainment these good things were provided in any way incapable of enjoying them. With the peculiar sensuality of his race, he loved his dinner all to himself and alone. He delighted in the privileged selfishness that isolation conferred, and he revelled in a sort of complacent flattery at the thought of all the people who were dining worse than himself, and the stray thousands besides who were not destined on that day to dine at all.
The self-caressing shudder that came over him as the sound of a horse at speed on the shore outside was heard, spoke plainly as words themselves the pleasant comparison that crossed his mind between the condition of the rider and his own. He drew nearer the fire, he threw on a fresh log of pine, and, filling up a bumper, seemed to linger as he viewed it, as though wishing health and innumerable blessings to Mr. Herman Merl.
The noise of the clattering hoofs died away in distance and in the greater uproar of the storm, and Mr. Merl thought no more of them. How often happens it, dear reader, that some brief interruption flashes through our seasons of enjoyment; we are startled, perhaps; we even need a word or two to reassure us that all is well, and then the work of pleasure goes on, and we forget that it had ever been retarded; and yet, depend upon it, in that fleeting second of time some sad episode of human life has, like a spectre, crossed our path, and some deep sorrow gone wearily past us.
Let us follow that rider, then, who now, quitting the bleak shore, has entered a deep gorge between the mountain. The rain swept along in torrents; the wind in fitful gusts dashes the mountain stream in many a wayward shape, and snaps the stems of old trees in pieces; landslips and broken rocks impede the way; and yet that brave horse holds ever onward, now stretching to a fast gallop, now gathering himself to clear some foaming torrent, or some fragment of fallen timber.