The Fortunes Of Glencore. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ world he begins to die, and the great event, after all, is only the coup de grace to a long agony of torture.” Do write to him, then; the address is “Glencore Castle, Leenane, Ireland,” where, I suppose, I shall be still a resident for another fortnight to come.

      Glencore has just sent for me; but I must close this for the post, or it will be too late.

      Yours ever truly,

      George Harcourt.

      I open this to say that he sent for me to ask your address, – whether through the Foreign Office, or direct to Stuttgard. You ‘ll probably not hear for some days, for he writes with extreme difficulty, and I leave it to your wise discretion to write to him or not in the interval.

      Poor fellow, he looks very ill to-day. He says that he never slept the whole night, and that the laudanum he took to induce drowsiness only excited and maddened him. I counselled a hot jorum of mulled porter before getting into bed; but he deemed me a monster for the recommendation, and seemed quite disgusted besides. Could n’t you send him over a despatch? I think such a document from Stuttgard ought to be an unfailing soporific.

      CHAPTER VI. QUEER COMPANIONSHIP

      When Harcourt repaired to Glencore’s bedroom, where he still lay, wearied and feverish after a bad night, he was struck by the signs of suffering in the sick man’s face. The cheeks were bloodless and fallen iq, the lips pinched, and in the eyes there shone that unnatural brilliancy which results from an over-wrought and over-excited brain.

      “Sit down here, George,” said he, pointing to a chair beside the bed; “I want to talk to you. I thought every day that I could muster courage for what I wish to say; but somehow, when the time arrived, I felt like a criminal who entreats for a few hours more of life, even though it be a life of misery.”

      “It strikes me that you were never less equal to the effort than now,” said Harcourt, laying his hand on the other’s pulse.

      “Don’t believe my pulse, George,” said Glencore, smiling faintly. “The machine may work badly, but it has wonderful holding out. I ‘ve gone through enough,” added he, gloomily, “to kill most men, and here I am still, breathing and suffering.”

      “This place doesn’t suit you, Glencore. There are not above two days in the month you can venture to take the air.”

      “And where would you have me go, sir?” he broke in, fiercely. “Would you advise Paris and the Boulevards, or a palace in the Piazza di Spagna at Rome; or perhaps the Chiaja at Naples would be public enough? Is it that I may parade disgrace and infamy through Europe that I should leave this solitude?”

      “I want to see you in a better climate, Glencore, – in a place where the sun shines occasionally.”

      “This suits me,” said the other, bluntly; “and here I have the security that none can invade, – none molest me. But it is not of myself I wish to speak, – it is of my boy.”

      Harcourt made no reply, but sat patiently to listen to what was coming.

      “It is time to think of him,” added Glencore, slowly. “The other day, – it seems but the other day, – and he was a mere child; a few years more, – to seem when past like a long dreary night, – and he will be a man.”

      “Very true,” said Harcourt; “and Charley is one of those fellows who only make one plunge from the boy into all the responsibilities of manhood. Throw him into a college at Oxford, or the mess of a regiment to-morrow, and this day week you’ll not know him from the rest.”

      Glencore was silent; if he had heard, he never noticed Harcourt’s remark.

      “Has he ever spoken to you about himself, Harcourt?” asked he, after a pause.

      “Never, except when I led the subject in that direction; and even then reluctantly, as though it were a topic he would avoid.”

      “Have you discovered any strong inclination in him for a particular kind of life, or any career in preference to another?”

      “None; and if I were only to credit what I see of him, I ‘d say that this dull monotony and this dreary uneventful existence is what he likes best of all the world.”

      “You really think so?” cried Glencore, with an eagerness that seemed out of proportion to the remark.

      “So far as I see,” rejoined Harcourt, guardedly, and not wishing to let his observation carry graver consequences than he might suspect.

      “So that you deem him capable of passing a life of a quiet, unambitious tenor, – neither seeking for distinctions nor fretting after honors?”

      “How should he know of their existence, Glencore? What has the boy ever heard of life and its struggles? It’s not in Homer or Sallust he ‘d learn the strife of parties and public men.”

      “And why need he ever know them?” broke in Glencore, fiercely.

      “If he doesn’t know them now, he’s sure to be taught them hereafter. A young fellow who will succeed to a title and a good fortune – ”

      “Stop, Harcourt!” cried Glencore, passionately. “Has anything of this kind ever escaped you in intercourse with the boy?”

      “Not a word – not a syllable.”

      “Has he himself ever, by a hint, or by a chance word, implied that he was aware of – ”

      Glencore faltered and hesitated, for the word he sought for did not present itself. Harcourt, however, released him from all embarrassment by saying, —

      “With me the boy is rarely anything but a listener; he hears me talk away of tiger-shooting and buffalo-hunting, scarcely ever interrupting me with a question. But I can see in his manner with the country people, when they salute him, and call him ‘my lord’ – ”

      “But he is not ‘my lord,’” broke in Glencore.

      “Of course he is not; that I am well aware of.”

      “He never will – never shall be,” cried Glencore, in a voice to which a long pent-up passion imparted a terrible energy.

      “How! – what do you mean, Glencore?” said Harcourt, eagerly. “Has he any malady; is there any deadly taint?”

      “That there is, by Heaven!” cried the sick man, grasping the curtain with one hand, while he held the other firmly clenched upon his forehead, – “a taint, the deadliest that can stain a human heart! Talk of station, rank, title – what are they, if they are to be coupled with shame, ignominy, and sorrow? The loud voice of the herald calls his father Sixth Viscount of Glencore, but a still louder voice proclaims his mother a – ”

      With a wild burst of hysteric laughter, he threw himself, face downwards, on the bed; and now scream after scream burst from him, till the room was filled by the servants, in the midst of whom appeared Billy, who had only that same day returned from Leenane, whither he had gone to make a formal resignation of his functions as letter-carrier.

      “This is nothing but an accessio nervosa,” said Billy; “clear the room, ladies and gentlemen, and lave me with the patient.” And Harcourt gave the signal for obedience by first taking his departure.

      Lord Glencore’s СКАЧАТЬ