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

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СКАЧАТЬ necessity, we here all see and admit it. I could, therefore, no longer represent his opinions, since they would find no echo in the House. To stand for the borough I must stand on my own views, which, I feel bold to say, include justice to both of the contending factions.”

      “Admirably argued,” broke in Mary. “He absolves himself from all ties of gratitude to my uncle by adopting principles the reverse of all he ever professed.”

      “It’s very like that, indeed, Miss Mary,” said Scanlan, timidly.

      “Very like it, sir? it is exactly so. Really the thing would be too gross if it were not actually laughable;” and as she spoke she arose and paced the room in a manner that showed how very little of the ludicrous side of the matter occupied her thoughts. “He will stand for the borough – he means to stand in opposition to us?”

      “That’s his intention – at least, if Mr. Martin should not come to the conclusion that it is better to support his Lordship than risk throwing the seat into the hands of the Roman Catholics.”

      “I can’t follow all these intrigues, Mr. Scanlan. I confess to you, frankly, that you have puzzled me enough already, and that I have found it no small strain on my poor faculties to conceive a gentleman being able to argue himself into any semblance of self-approval by such sentiments as those which you have just read; but I am a poor country girl, very ignorant of great topics and great people. The best thing I can do is to represent this affair to my uncle, and as early as may be.”

      “I hope he’ll not take the thing to heart, miss; and I trust he ‘ll acquit me– ”

      “Be assured he’ll despise the whole business most thoroughly, sir. I never knew him take any deep interest in these themes; and if this be a fair specimen of the way they are discussed, he was all the wiser for his indifference. Do you make any stay in the village? Will it be inconvenient for you to remain an hour or so?”

      “I’ll wait your convenience, miss, to any hour,” said Scanlan, with an air of gallantry which, had she been less occupied with her thoughts, might have pushed her hard to avoid smiling at.

      “I’ll be down at Mrs. Cronan’s till I hear from you, Miss Mary.” And with a look of as much deferential admiration as he dared to bestow, Scanlan took his leave, and mounting to his box, assumed the ribbons with a graceful elegance and a certain lackadaisical languor that, to himself at least, appeared demonstrative of an advanced stage of the tender passion.

      “Begad, she’s a fine girl; devil a lie in it, but she has n’t her equal! and as sharp as a needle, too,” muttered he, as he jogged along the shingly beach, probably for the first time in his whole life forgetting the effect he was producing on the bystanders.

      CHAPTER V. A STUDIO AND AN ARTIST

      “Is my uncle in the library, Terence?” asked Mary of a very corpulent old man, in a red-brown wig.

      “No, miss, he’s in the – bother it, then, if I ever can think of the name of it.”

      “The studio, you mean,” said she, smiling.

      “Just so, Miss Mary,” replied he, with a sigh; for he remembered certain penitential hours passed by himself in the same locality.

      “Do you think you could manage to let him know I want him – that is, that I have something important to say to him?”

      “It’s clean impossible, miss, to get near him when he’s there. Sure, is n’t he up on a throne, dressed out in goold and dimonds, and as cross as a badger besides, at the way they’re tormenting him?”

      “Oh, that tiresome picture, is it never to be completed?” muttered she, half unconsciously.

      “The saints above know whether it is or no,” rejoined Terence, “for one of the servants told me yesterday that they rubbed every bit of the master out, and began him all again; for my Lady said he was n’t half haggard enough, or worn-looking; but, by my conscience, if he goes on as he ‘s doing, he ought to satisfy them.”

      “Why, I thought it was Henderson was sitting,” said Mary, somewhat amused at the old man’s commentaries.

      “So he was; but they rubbed him out, too; for it seems now he ought to be bald, and they ‘ve sent him into Oughter-ard to get his head shaved.”

      “And what were you, Terry?”

      “Arrah, who knows?” said he, querulously. “At first I was to be somebody’s mother that was always cryin’; but they weren’t pleased with the way I done it; and then they made me a monk, and after that they put two hundredweight of armor on me, and made me lean my head on my arm as if I was overcome; and faith, so I was; for I dropped off asleep, and fell into a pot of varnish, and I ‘m in disgrace now, glory be to God! and I only hope it may last.”

      “I wish I shared your fortune, Terry, with all my heart,” said Mary, with some difficulty preserving her gravity.

      “Couldn’t it catch fire – by accident, I mean, miss – some evening after dark?” whispered Terry, confidentially. “Them ‘s materials that would burn easy! for, upon my conscience, if it goes on much longer there won’t be a sarvant will stay in the sarvice. They had little Tom Regan holding a dish of charcoal so long that he tuk to his bed on Friday last, and was never up since; and Jinny Moore says she ‘d rather lave the place than wear that undacent dress; and whist, there’s murder goin’ on now inside!” And with that the old fellow waddled off with a speed that seemed quite disproportionate to his years.

      While Mary was still hesitating as to what she should do, the door suddenly opened, and a man in a mediaeval costume rushed out, tugging after him a large bloodhound, whose glaring eyeballs and frothy mouth betokened intense passion. Passing hurriedly forward, Mary beheld Lady Dorothea bending over the fainting figure of a short little man, who lay on the floor; while her uncle, tottering under a costume he could barely carry, was trying to sprinkle water over him from an urn three feet in height.

      “Mr. Crow has fainted, – mere fright, nothing more!” said Lady Dorothea. “In stepping backward from the canvas he unluckily trod upon Fang’s paw, and the savage creature at once sprung on him. That stupid wretch, Regan, one of your favorites, Miss Martin, never pulled him off till he had torn poor Mr. Crow’s coat, clean in two.”.

      “Egad, if I had n’t smashed my sceptre over the dog’s head the mischief wouldn’t have stopped there; but he ‘s coming to. Are you better, Crow? How do you feel, man?”

      “I hope you are better, sir?” said Lady Dorothea, in an admirable blending of grand benevolence and condescension.

      “Infinitely better; supremely happy, besides, to have become the object of your Ladyship’s kind inquiries,” said the little man, sitting up, and looking around with a very ghastly effort at urbanity and ease.

      “I never knew Fang to bite any one,” said Mary.

      “Does n’t she, by jingo!” exclaimed the artist, who with difficulty caught himself in time before he placed his hand on the supposed seat of his injuries.

      “She shall be muzzled in future,” said Lady Dorothea, haughtily, repressing the familiar tone of the discussion.

      “I think – indeed, I feel sure – I could get her in from memory, my Lady; she ‘s a very remarkable creature, and makes an impression on one.” As he uttered these words ruefully, he lifted from the floor the fragment of his coat-skirt, СКАЧАТЬ