The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II). Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ in all business transactions, only marred by one solitary weak point, – an intense desire to be received intimately by persons of a station above his own, and to seem, at least, to be the admitted guest of very fashionable society. It was not a very easy matter to know if this Lord-worship of his was real, or merely affected, since, certainly, the profit he derived from the assumption was very considerable, and Maurice was intrusted with a variety of secret-service transactions, and private affairs for the nobility, which they would never have dreamed of committing to the hands of their more recognized advisers.

      If men would have been slow to engage his services in any grave or important suit, he was invaluable in all the ordinary and constantly occurring events of this changeful world. He knew every one’s difficulties and embarrassments. There was not a hitch in a settlement, nor a spavin in your stables, could escape him. He seemed to possess a kind of intuitive appreciation of a flaw; and he pounced upon a defect with a rapidity that counterfeited genius. To these gifts he added a consummate knowledge of his countrymen. He had emerged from the very humblest class of the people, and he knew them thoroughly; with all their moods of habitual distrust and momentary enthusiasm, – with all their phases of sanguine hopefulness he was familiar; and he could mould and fashion and weld them to his will, as passive subjects as the heated bar under the hammer of the smith.

      As an electioneering agent he was unequalled. It was precisely the sphere in which his varied abilities were best exercised; and it was, besides, an arena in which he was proud of figuring.

      For a while he seemed – at least in his own eyes – to stand on a higher eminence than the candidate he represented, and to be a more prominent and far grander personage than his principal. In fact, it was only under some tacit acknowledgment of this temporary supremacy that his services were obtainable; his invariable stipulation being that he was to have the entire and uncontrolled direction of the election.

      Envious tongues and ungenerous talkers did, indeed, say that Maurice insisted upon this condition with very different objects in view, and that his unlimited powers found their pleasantest exercise in the inexplorable realms of secret bribery; however, it is but fair to say that he was eminently successful, and that one failure alone in his whole career occurred to show the proverbial capriciousness of fortune.

      With the little borough of Oughterard he had become so identified that his engagement was regarded as one of the first elements of success. Hitherto, indeed, the battle had been always an easy one. The Liberal party – as they pleasantly assumed to style themselves – had gone no further in opposition than an occasional burst of intemperate language, and an effort – usually a failure – at a street row during the election. So little of either energy or organization had marked their endeavors, that the great leader of the day had stigmatized their town with terms of heavy censure, and even pronounced them unworthy of the cause. An emissary, deputed to report upon the political state of the borough, had described the voters as mere dependants on the haughty purse-proud proprietor of Cro’ Martin, who seemed, even without an effort, to nominate the sitting member.

      The great measure of the year ‘29 – the Catholic Relief Bill – had now, however, suggested to even more apathetic constituencies the prospect of a successful struggle. The thought of being represented by “one of their own sort” was no mean stimulant to exertion; and the leading spirits of the place had frequently conferred together as to what steps should be taken to rescue the borough from the degrading thraldom of an aristocratic domination. Lord Kilmorris, it is true, was rather popular with them than the reverse. The eldest son of an Earl, who only cared to sit in Parliament on easy terms, till the course of time and events should call him to the Upper House, he never took any very decided political line, but sat on Tory benches and gave an occasional vote to Liberal measures, as though foreshadowing that new school who were to take the field under the middle designation of Conservatives. Some very remote relationship to Lady Dorothea’s family had first introduced him to the Martins’ notice; and partly from this connection, and partly because young Harry Martin was too young to sit in Parliament, they had continued to support him to the present time.

      Mr. Martin himself cared very little for politics; had he even cared more, he would not have sacrificed to them one jot of that indolent, lazy, apathetic existence which alone he seemed to prize. He was rather grateful than otherwise to Lord Kilmorris for taking upon him the trouble of a contest, if there should be such a thing. His greatest excuse through life, at least to himself, had ever been that he was “unprepared.” He had been in that unhappy state about everything since he was born, and so, apparently, was he destined to continue to the very last. With large resources, he was never prepared for any sudden demand for money. When called on for any exertion of mind or body, when asked to assist a friend or rescue a relation from difficulty, he was quite unprepared; and so convinced was he that this was a fatality under which he labored, that no sooner had he uttered the expression than he totally absolved himself from every shadow of reproach that might attach to his luke-warmness.

      The uncontrolled position he occupied, joined to the solitary isolation in which he lived, had doubtless engendered this cold and heartless theory. There was no one to dispute his will, – none to gainsay his opinions. There was not for him any occasion for the healthful exertion which is evoked by opposition, and he sunk gradually down into a moping, listless, well-meaning, but utterly good-for-nothing gentleman, who would have been marvellously amazed had any one arraigned him for neglect of his station and its great requirements.

      That such an insolent possibility could be, was only demonstrated to him in that morning’s newspaper. To be called a despot was bad enough, but a petty despot, – and to be told that such despotism was already doomed – aroused in him a degree of indignation all the more painful that the sensation was one he had not experienced for many a year back. Whose fault was it that such an impertinence had ever been uttered? Doubtless, Kilmorris’s. Some stupid speech, some absurd vote, some ridiculous party move had brought down this attack upon him; or perhaps it was Mary, with her new-fangled ideas about managing the estate, her school-houses, and her model-farms. The ignorant people had possibly revolted against her interference; or it might be Lady Dorothea herself, whose haughty manner had given offence; at all events, he was blameless, and strange to say, either he was not perfectly assured of the fact, or that the assumption was not pleasant, but he seemed very far from being satisfied with the explanation. In the agitated mood these feelings produced, a servant came to inform him that Mr. Scanlan had just arrived.

      “Say I ‘m out – I ‘m unwell – I don’t feel quite myself to-day. Call Miss Mary to him.” And with an impatient gesture he motioned the servant away.

      “Miss Mary will be down in a few minutes, sir,” said the man, entering the room where Mr. Scanlan stood arranging his whiskers before the chimney-glass, and contemplating with satisfaction his general appearance.

      “It was Mr. Martin himself, Thomas, that I wanted to see.”

      “I know that, sir, but the Master is n’t well this morning; he told me to send Miss Mary to you.”

      “All right,” said Scanlan, giving a finishing touch to the tie of his cravat, and then gracefully bestowing his person into an easy-chair. To common observation he looked perfectly unconcerned in every gesture, and yet no man felt less at his ease at that moment than Mr. Maurice Scanlan; and though the cause involves something like a secret, the reader shall know it. Mr. Scanlan had seen a good deal of the world – that is, of his world. He had mixed with barristers and solicitors, “Silk Gowns,” masters in Chancery, and even puisne judges had he come into contact with; he had mingled in turf experiences with certain sporting lords and baronets, swapped horses, and betted and handicapped with men of fortune; he had driven trotting-matches, and ridden hurdle-races against young heirs to good estates, and somehow always found himself not inferior in worldly craft and address to those he came in contact with, – nay, he even fancied that he was occasionally rather a little more wide awake than his opponents; and what with a little blustering here, a little blarney there, a dash of mock frankness to this man, or СКАЧАТЬ