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

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СКАЧАТЬ then,” added he, sulkily.

      “Come, come, I ‘ll not let you off thus easily,” said she, passing an arm over his shoulder. “You know well I ‘d not tease you if it could be avoided, but here is a case where I can be no guide. It is a question of the borough, Lord Kilmorris thinks himself strong enough to stand on his own merits, and repudiates your aid and his own principles together.” Martin’s attention being now secured, she went on: “He says – at least as well as I can follow his meaning – that with this new measure must come a total change of policy, – abrogating all old traditions and old notions; that you, of course, are little likely to adopt this opinion, at least at once, and so he releases you from all obligations to support him, and himself from all tie to represent you.”

      “This is Lady Dorothy’s doing,” broke in Martin, passionately; “her confounded letter-writing has brought this upon us. I told her that those fellows were trimming; I warned her that they were only waiting for this Bill to pass, to turn round upon us as a barbarous old remnant of feudal oppression; but he dare n’t do it, Molly, – Kilmorris has n’t a leg to stand upon in the borough. He could n’t count upon twenty – no, not ten votes, without me. It’s a scurvy trick, too, and it sha’n’t succeed, if I stand for the borough myself.” And he blurted out the last words as though they were the expression of an enmity driven to its last resources.

      “No, no, uncle,” said she, caressingly; “after all you have yourself told me of a parliamentary life, that must never be. Its unending intrigues and petty plotting, its fatiguing days and harassing nights, its jealousies and disappointments, and defeats, all hard enough to be borne by those who must make a trade of their politics, but utterly insupportable to one who, like you, can enjoy his independence. Do not think of that, I beseech you.”

      “Then am I to see this man carry my own town in my very teeth?” cried he, angrily. “Is that your advice to me?”

      “You often spoke of Harry. Why not put him forward now he is coming home?”

      “Ay, and the very first thing he’ll do will be to resign the seat because he had not been consulted about the matter before the election. You know him well, Molly; and you know that he exchanged into a regiment in India simply because I had obtained his appointment to the Blues. His amiable mother’s disposition is strong in him!” muttered he, half to himself, but loud enough to be heard by his niece.

      “At all events, see Scanlan,” said she; “learn how the matter really stands; don’t rely on my version of it, but see what Lord Kilmorris intends, and take your own measures calmly and dispassionately afterwards.”

      “Is Scanlan engaged for him?”

      “I think not. I suspect that negotiations are merely in progress.”

      “But if he even was,” broke in Martin, violently, “I have made the fellow what he is, and he should do as I ordered him. Let him come in, Molly.”

      “He is not in the house, uncle; he went down to the village.”

      “Not here? Why didn’t he wait? What impertinence is this?”

      “He wished to bait his horses, and probably to get some breakfast for himself, which I had not the politeness to offer him here.”

      “His horses? His tandem, I’ll be sworn,” said Martin, with a sneer. “I ‘ll ask for no better evidence of what we are coming to than that Maurice Scanlan drives about the county with a tandem.”

      “And handles them very neatly, too,” said Mary, with a malicious sparkle of her eye, for she could n’t refrain from the spiteful pleasure of seeing her uncle in a regular fury for a mere nothing. All the more salutary, as it withdrew his thoughts from weightier themes.

      “I’m sure of it, Miss Martin. I’m certain that he is a most accomplished whip, and as such perfectly sure to find favor in your eyes. Let him come up here at once, however. Say I want him immediately,” added he, sternly; and Mary despatched a servant with the message, and sat down in front of her uncle, neither uttering a word nor even looking towards the other.

      “After all, Molly,” said he, in the quiet, indolent tone so natural to him – “after all, what does it signify who’s in or who’s out? I don’t care a brass farthing about party or party triumphs; and even if I did, I ‘m not prepared – What are you laughing at, – what is it amuses you now?” asked he, half testily, while she laughed out in all the unrestrained flow of joyous mirth.

      “I have been waiting for that confession this half-hour, uncle, and really I was beginning to be afraid of a disappointment. Why, dearest uncle, you were within a hair’s breadth of forgetting your principles, and being actually caught, for once in your life, prepared and ready.”

      “Oh, is that it? Is it my embarrassment, then, that affords you so much amusement?”

      “Far from it,” said she, affectionately. “I was only laughing at that quiet little nook you retire to whenever you ought to be up and doing. Unprepared you say. Not a bit of it. Indisposed, indolent, unwilling, indifferent, any of these you like; but with a mind so full of its own good resources, and as ready to meet every contingency as any one’s, don’t say you are unprepared. Come, now, bear with me this once, dearest uncle, and don’t be angry if I throw myself, like a rock or sandbank, betwixt you and your harbor of refuge. But I hear Mr. Scanlan’s voice, and so I shall leave you. Be resolute, uncle, determined, and – ‘prepared’!” And with a gesture half menace and half drollery, she left the room as the attorney entered it.

      Scanlan, like most of those who came but casually in contact with Martin, had conceived a low idea of his capacity, – lower by far than it deserved, since behind his indolence there lay a fund of good common-sense, – a mine, it must be acknowledged, that he seldom cared to work. The crafty man of law had, however, only seen him in his ordinary moods of careless ease and idleness, and believed that pride of family, fortune, and position were the only ideas that found access to his mind, and that by a dexterous allusion to these topics it would always be an easy task to influence and direct him.

      “What’s this my niece has been telling me of Lord Kilmorris?” said Martin, abruptly, and without even replying to the salutations of the other, who hovered around a chair in an uncertainty as to whether he might dare to seat himself uninvited, – “he’s going to contest the borough with us, is n’t he?”

      Scanlan leaned one arm on the back of the chair, and in a half-careless way replied, —

      “He is afraid that you and he don’t quite agree, sir. He leans to measures that he suspects you may not altogether approve of.”

      “Come, come, none of this balderdash with me, Master Maurice. Has he bought the fellows already, or, rather, have you bought them? Out with it, man! What will he give? Name the sum, and let us treat the matter in a business-like way.”

      Scanlan sat down and laughed heartily for some minutes.

      “I think you know me well enough, Mr. Martin, by this time,” said he, “to say whether I’ma likely man to meddle with such a transaction.”

      “The very likeliest in Ireland; the man I ‘d select amidst ten thousand.”

      “I am sorry to hear you say so, sir, that’s all,” said the other, with a half-offended air; “nor do I see that anything in my past life warrants the imputation.”

      Martin turned fiercely round, about to make a reply which, if once uttered, would have ended all colloquy between them, when suddenly catching himself СКАЧАТЬ