One Of Them. Lever Charles James

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      By dint of immense effort, and sacrifices the most painful, he succeeded in entering his boy at Cambridge; but in his last year, his means failing, he had obtained a tutorship for him, – no less a charge than that of the young Marquis of Agincourt, – an appointment to which his college tutor had recommended him. Almost immediately after this, a vacancy occurring in the little village of Ballintray for a dispensary doctor, Layton applied for the appointment, and obtained it. Few, indeed, of the electors had ever heard of his name, but all were astonished at the ample qualifications tendered by one willing to accept such humble duties. The rector of the parish, Dr. Millar, was, though his junior, perhaps, the only one well conversant with Layton’s story, for he had been his contemporary at the University.

      On the two or three occasions on which they met, Dr. Millar never evinced by the slightest allusion any knowledge of the other’s antecedents. He even, by adroit reference to English life and habits, in contradistinction to Irish, seemed to infer that his experiences were more at home there; and whatever might have been Layton’s own secret promptings, there was nothing in the clergyman’s manner to provoke the slightest constraint or awkwardness.

      The reader is now sufficiently informed to accompany us to the little cottage on the beach of Port-na-Whapple. It is a warm autumnal afternoon, the air calm and still, but the great sea comes heaving in, wave swelling after wave, as though moved by a storm. Strange contrast to that loud thundering ocean the little peaceful cottage, whose blue smoke rises in a thin, straight column into the air. The door is open, and a few ducks, with their young brood, are waddling up and down the blue stone step, as though educating their young in feats of difficulty and daring. On a coarse wooden perch within the hall sits a very old gray parrot, so old that his feathers have assumed a sort of half-woolly look, and his bleared eyes only open at intervals, as though he had seen quite enough of this world already, and could afford to take it easily. In the attitude of the head, partially thrown forward and slightly on one side, there is a mock air of thought and reflection, marvellously aided by a habit the creature has of muttering to himself such little broken ends of speech as he possesses. Layton had bought him a great many years back, having fancied he could detect a resemblance in him to a once famed vice-provost of Trinity, after whom he called him “Dr. Barret,” a name the bird felt proud of, as well he might, and seemed even now, in his half dotage, to warm up on hearing it. Through the open door of a little room adjoining might be seen a very pale, sickly woman, who coughed almost incessantly as she bent over an embroidery-frame. Though not much more than middle-aged, her hair was perfectly white, and deep discolorations – the track of tears for many a day – marked her worn cheeks.

      On the opposite side of the hall, in a small room whose furniture was an humble truckle-bed, and a few shelves with physic-bottles, the doctor was engaged at his toilet, if by so pretentious a term we may record the few preparations he was making to render his every-day appearance more presentable. As he stood thus in trousers and shirt, his broad chest and powerful neck exposed, he seemed to testify even yet to the athletic vigor of one who was known as the best hurler and racket-player of his day. He had been swimming a long stretch far out to sea, and air and exercise together had effaced many of those signs of dissipation which his face usually wore, while in his voice there was a frank boldness that only came back to him at some rare intervals.

      “I can fancy, Grace,” cried he, loud enough to be heard across the hall, “that Millar is quite proud of his condescension. The great rector of the parish, man of fortune besides, stooping to invite the dispensary doctor! Twelve hundred per annum associating with eighty! To be sure he says, ‘You will only meet two friends and neighbors of mine,’ as though to intimate, ‘I am doing this on the sly; I don’t mean to make you a guest on field-days.’”

      She muttered something, speedily interrupted by a cough; and he, not caring to catch her words, went on: —

      “It is a politeness that cuts both ways, and makes me as uncomfortable as him. This waistcoat has a beggarly account of empty button-holes; and as for my coat, nothing but a dim candle-light would screen its deficiencies. I was a fool to accept!” cried he, impatiently.

      “Don’t go, Tom! don’t go!” screamed the parrot, addressing him by a familiar sobriquet.

      “And why not, doctor?” said Layton, laughing at the apropos.

      “Don’t go! don’t go!” repeated the bird.

      “Give me your reasons, old boy, and not impossible is it I ‘ll agree with you. What do you say, Grace?” added he, advancing to the door of his room the better to catch her words.

      “It is to them the honor is done, not to you,” said she, faintly, and as though the speech cost her heavily.

      “Very hard to persuade the rector of that, – very hard to convince the man of silver side-dishes and cut decanters that he is not the patron of him who dines off Delf and drinks out of pewter. Is this cravat too ragged, Grace? I think I ‘d better wear my black one.”

      “Yes, the black one,” said she, coughing painfully.

      “After all, it is no grand occasion, – a little party of four.”

      “What a swell! what a swell!” shrieked the parrot.

      “Ain’t I? By Jove,” laughed Layton, “the doctor is marvellous in his remarks to-day.”

      “There, I have done my best with such scanty ‘properties,’” said he, as he turned away from the glass. “The greatest peril to a shabby man is the self-imposed obligation to show he is better than he looks. It is an almost invariable blunder.”

      She muttered something inaudibly, and, as usual, he went on with his own thoughts.

      “One either assumes a more dictatorial tone, or takes more than his share of the talk, or is more apt to contradict the great man of the company, – at least I do.”

      “Don’t go, Tom! don’t! don’t!” called out Dr. Barret.

      “Not go? – after all these splendid preparations!” said Layton, with a laugh. “After yourself exclaiming, ‘What a swell!’”

      “It ‘ll never pay, – never pay, – never pay!” croaked out Poll.

      “That I’m sure of, doctor. I never knew one of these politic things that did; but yet we go on through life practising them in the face of all their failure, dancing attendance at levées, loitering in antechambers, all to be remembered by some great man who is just as likely to hate the sight of us. However, this shall be my last transgression.”

      The faint female voice muttered some indistinct words about what he “owed to himself,” and the “rightful station that belonged to him;” but he speedily cut the reflection short as he said: “So long as a man is poor as I am, he can only hold his head high by total estrangement from the world. Let him dare to mix with it, and his threadbare coat and patched shoes will soon convince him that they will extend no equality to him who comes among them in such beggarly fashion. With what authority, I ask, can he speak, whose very poverty refutes his sentiments, and the simple question stands forth unanswerable: ‘If this man knew so much, why is he as we see him?’”

      “This is, then, to say that misfortune is never unmerited. Surely you do not mean that, Herbert?” said she, with an eagerness almost painful.

      “It is exactly what I would say, – that for all the purposes of worldly judgments upon men, there is no easier rule than to assume that they who fail deserve failure. Richelieu never asked those who sought high command, ‘Are you skilful in the field? are you clever in strategy?’ but’ СКАЧАТЬ