“He shall not be,” said Mr. Henry.
“You shall pay pretty dear for this,” says the Master.
“I have paid so dear already for a wicked brother,” said Mr. Henry, “that I am bankrupt even of fears. You have no place left where you can strike me.”
“I will show you about that,” says the Master, and went softly away.
“What will he do next, Mackellar?” cries Mr. Henry.
“Let me go away,” said I. “My dear patron, let me go away; I am but the beginning of fresh sorrows.”
“Would you leave me quite alone?” said he.
We were not long in suspense as to the nature of the new assault. Up to that hour the Master had played a very close game with Mrs. Henry; avoiding pointedly to be alone with her, which I took at the time for an effect of decency, but now think to have been a most insidious art; meeting her, you may say, at meal-time only; and behaving, when he did so, like an affectionate brother. Up to that hour, you may say he had scarce directly interfered between Mr. Henry and his wife; except in so far as he had manœuvred the one quite forth from the good graces of the other. Now all that was to be changed; but whether really in revenge, or because he was wearying of Durrisdeer, and looked about for some diversion, who but the devil shall decide?
From that hour, at least, began the siege of Mrs. Henry; a thing so deftly carried on that I scarce know if she was aware of it herself, and that her husband must look on in silence. The first parallel was opened (as was made to appear) by accident. The talk fell, as it did often, on the exiles in France; so it glided to the matter of their songs.
“There is one,” says the Master, “if you are curious in these matters, that has always seemed to me very moving. The poetry is harsh: and yet, perhaps because of my situation, it has always found the way to my heart. It is supposed to be sung, I should tell you, by an exile’s sweetheart; and represents perhaps not so much the truth of what she is thinking, as the truth of what he hopes of her, poor soul! in these far lands.” And here the Master sighed. “I protest it is a pathetic sight when a score of rough Irish, all common sentinels, get to this song; and you may see, by their falling tears, how it strikes home to them. It goes thus, father,” says he, very adroitly taking my lord for his listener, “and if I cannot get to the end of it, you must think it is a common case with us exiles.” And thereupon he struck up the same air as I had heard the Colonel whistle; but now to words, rustic indeed, yet most pathetically setting forth a poor girl’s aspirations for an exiled lover; of which one verse indeed (or something like it) still sticks by me:—