The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      He had been recommended to Lord Culduff’s notice by his Lordship’s London agent, who had said, “He knows the scientific part of his business as well as the great swells of his profession, and he knows the world a precious sight better than they do. They could tell you if you have coal, but he will do that and more; he will tell you what to do with it.” It was on the advice thus given Lord Culduff had secured his services, and taken him over to Ireland. It was a bitter pill to swallow, for this old broken-down man of fashion, self-indulgent, fastidious, and refined, to travel in such company; but his affairs were in a sad state, from years of extravagance and high living, and it was only by the supposed discovery of these mines on this unprofitable part of his estate that his creditors consented to defer that settlement which might sweep away almost all that remained to him. Cutbill was told, too, – “His Lordship is rather hard up just now, and cannot be liberal as he could wish; but he is a charming person to know, and will treat you like a brother.” The one chink in this shrewd fellow’s armor was his snobbery. It was told of him once, in a very dangerous illness, when all means of inducing perspiration had failed, that some one said, “Try him with a lord; it never failed with Tom yet.” If an untitled squire had proposed to take Mr. Cutbill over special to Ireland for a hundred pound note and his expenses, he would have indignantly refused the offer, and assisted the proposer besides to some unpalatable reflections on his knowledge of life; the thought, however, of journeying as Lord Culduff’s intimate friend, being treated as his brother, thrown, from the very nature of the country they travelled in, into close relations, and left free to improve the acquaintance by all those social wiles and accomplishments on which he felt he could pride himself, was a bribe not to be resisted. And thus was it that these two men, so unlike in every respect, found themselves fellow-travellers and companions.

      A number of papers, plans, and drawings littered the breakfast table at which they were seated, and one of these, representing the little promontory of arid rock, tastefully colored and converted into a handsome pier, with flights of steps descending to the water, and massive cranes swinging bulky masses of merchandise into tall-masted ships, was just then beneath his Lordship’s double eyeglass.

      “Where may all this be, Cutbill? is it Irish?” asked he.

      “It is to be out yonder, my Lord,” said he, pointing through the little window to the rugged line of rocks, over which the sea was breaking in measured rhythm.

      “You don’t mean there?” said Lord Culduff, half horrified.

      “Yes, my Lord, there! Your Lordship is doubtless not aware that of all her Majesty’s faithful lieges the speculative are the least gifted with the imaginative faculty, and to supply this unhappy want in their natures, we whose function it is to suggest great industrial schemes or large undertakings – we ‘promoters,’ as we are called, are obliged to supply, not merely by description, but actually pictorially, the results which success will in due time arrive at. We have, as the poet says, to annihilate ‘both time and space,’ and arrive at a goal which no effort of these worthy people’s minds could possibly attain to. What your Lordship is now looking at is a case in point, and however little promising the present aspect of that coast-line may seem, time and money – yes, my Lord, time and money – the two springs of all success – will make even greater change than you see depicted here.”

      Mr. Cutbill delivered these words with a somewhat pompous tone, and in a voice such as he might have used in addressing an acting committee or a special board of works; for one of his fancies was to believe himself an orator of no mean power.

      “I trust – I fervently trust, Mr. Cutbill,” said his Lordship, nervously, “that the coal-fields are somewhat nigher the stage of being remunerative than that broken line of rock is to this fanciful picture before me.”

      “Wealth, my Lord, like heat, has its latent conditions.”

      “Condescend to a more commonplace tone, sir, in consideration of my ignorance, and tell me frankly, is the mine as far from reality as that reef there?”

      Fortunately for Mr. Cutbill, perhaps, the door was opened at this critical juncture, and the landlord presented himself with a note, stating that the groom who brought it would wait for the answer.

      Somewhat agitated by the turn of his conversation with the engineer, Lord Culduff tore open the letter, and ran his eyes towards the end to see the signature.

      “Who is Bramleigh – Temple Bramleigh? Oh, I remember, – an attaché. What’s all this about Castello? Where ‘s Castello?”

      “That’s the name they give the Bishop’s Folly, my Lord,” said the landlord, with a half grin.

      “What business have these people to know I am here at all? Why must they persecute me? You told me, Cutbill, that I was not to be discovered.”

      “So I did, my Lord, and I made the ‘Down Express’ call you Mr. Morris, of Charing Cross.”

      His Lordship winced a little at the thought of such a liberty, even for a disguise, but he was now engaged with the note, and read on without speaking.

      “Nothing could be more courteous, certainly,” said he, folding it up, and laying it beside him on the table. “They invite me over to – what’s the name? – Castello, and promise me perfect liberty as regards my time. ‘To make the place my headquarters,’ as he says. Who are these Bramleighs? You know every one, Cutbill; who are they?”

      “Bramleigh and Underwood are bankers, very old established firm. Old Bramleigh was a brewer, at Slough; George the Third never would drink any other stout than Bramleigh’s. There was a large silver flagon, called the ‘King’s Quaigh,’ always brought out when his Majesty rode by, and very vain old Bramleigh used to be of it, though I don’t think it figures now on the son’s sideboard, – they have leased the brewery.”

      “Oh, they have leased the brewery, have they?”

      “That they have; the present man got himself made Colonel of militia, and meant to be a county member, and he might, too, if he had n’t been in too great a hurry about it; but county people won’t stand being carried by assault. Then they made other mistakes; tried it on with the Liberals, in a shire where everything that called itself gentleman was Tory; in fact, they plunged from one hole into another, till they regularly swamped themselves; and as their house held a large mortgage on these estates in Ireland, they paid off the other incumbrances and have come to live here. I know the whole story, for it was an old friend of mine who made the plans for restoring the mansion.”

      “I suspect that the men in your profession, Cutbill, know as much of the private history of English families as any in the land?”

      “More, my Lord; far more even than the solicitors, for people suspect the solicitors, and they never suspect us. We are detectives in plain clothes.”

      The pleasant chuckle with which Mr. Cutbill finished his speech was not responded to by his Lordship, who felt that the other should have accepted his compliment, without any attempt on his own part to “cap” it.

      “How long do you imagine I may be detained here, Cutbill?” asked he, after a pause.

      “Let us say a week, my Lord, or ten days at furthest. We ought certainly to see that new pit opened, before you leave.”

      “In that case I may as well accept this invitation. I can bear a little boredom if they have only a good cook. Do you suppose they have a good cook?”

      “The agent, Jos Harding, told me they had a Frenchman, and that the house is splendidly got up.”

      “What’s СКАЧАТЬ