Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.. Lever Charles James

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ and Fussy,’ meaning Sir Brook and the Baron Geramb, a German friend and follower of the Prince.”

      “I suspect a good deal changed since that day, in person as well as purse,” said the vicar, sadly.

      “Indeed! I heard of his having inherited some immense fortune.”

      “So he did, and squandered every shilling of it.”

      “And the chicks are well, you tell me?” said Lendrick, whose voice softened as he talked of home and his children.

      “Could n’t be better. We had a little picnic on Holy Island yesterday, and only wanted yourself to have been perfectly happy. Lucy was for refusing at first.”

      “Why so?”

      “Some notion she had that you would n’t like it. Some idea about not doing in your absence anything that was not usual when you are here.”

      “She is such a true girl, so loyal,” said Lendrick, proudly.

      “Well, I take the treason on my shoulders. I made her come. It was a delightful day, and we drank your health in as good a glass of Madeira as ever ripened in the sun. Now for your own news?”

      “First let us get on the road. I am impatient to be back at home again. Have you your car here?”

      “All is ready, and waiting for you at the gate.”

      As they drove briskly along, Lendrick gave the vicar a detailed account of his visit to Dublin. Passing over the first days, of which the reader already has heard something, we take up the story from the day on which Lendrick learned that his father would see him.

      “My mind was so full of myself, doctor,” said he, “of all the consequences which had followed from my father’s anger with me, that I had no thought of anything else till I entered the room where he was. Then, however, as I saw him propped up with pillows in a deep chair, his face pale, his eyes colorless, and his head swathed up in a bandage after leeching, my heart sickened, alike with sorrow and shame at my great selfishness.

      “I had been warned by Beattie on no account to let any show of feeling or emotion escape me, to be as cool and collected as possible, and in fact, he said, to behave as though I had seen him the day before.

      “‘Leave the room, Poynder,’ said he to his man, ‘and suffer no one to knock at the door – mind, not even to knock – till I ring my bell.’ He waited till the man withdrew, and then in a very gentle voice said, ‘How are you, Tom? I can’t give you my right hand, – the rebellious member has ceased to know me!’ I thought I should choke as the words met me; I don’t remember what I said, but I took my chair and sat down beside him.

      “‘I thought you might have been too much agitated, Tom, but otherwise I should have wished to have had your advice along with Beattie. I believe, on the whole, however, he has treated me well.’

      “I assured him that none could have done more skilfully.

      “The skill of the doctor with an old patient is the skill of an architect with an old wall. He must not breach it, or it will tumble to pieces.

      “‘Beattie is very able, sir,’ said I.

      “‘No man is able,’ replied he, quickly, ‘when the question is to repair the wastes of time and years. Draw that curtain, and let me look at you. No; stand yonder, where the light is stronger. What! is it my eyes deceive me, – is your hair white?’

      “‘It has been so eight years, sir.’

      “‘And I had not a gray hair till my seventy-second year, – not one. I told Beattie, t’ other day, that the race of the strong was dying out. Good heavens, how old you look! Would any one believe in seeing us that you could be my son?’

      “‘I feel perhaps even more than I look it, sir.’

      “‘I could swear you did. You are the very stamp of those fellows who plead guilty – “Guilty, my Lord; we throw ourselves on the mercy of the court.” I don’t know how the great judgment-seat regards these pleas, – with me they meet only scorn. Give me the man who says, “Try me, test me.” Drop that curtain, and draw the screen across the fire. Speak lower, too, my dear,’ said he, in a weak soft voice; ‘you suffer yourself to grow excited, and you excite me.’

      “‘I will be more cautious, sir,’ said I.

      “‘What are these drops he is giving me? They have an acrid sweet taste.’

      “‘Aconite, sir; a weak solution.’

      “‘They say that our laws never forgot feudalism, but I declare I believe medicine has never been able to ignore alchemy: drop me out twenty, I see that your hand does not shake. Strange thought, is it not, to feel that a little phial like that could make a new Baron of the Exchequer? You have heard, I suppose, of the attempts – the indecent attempts – to induce me to resign. You have heard what they say of my age. They quote the registry of my baptism, as though it were the date of a conviction. I have yet to learn that the years a man has devoted to his country’s service are counts in the indictment against his character. Age has been less merciful to me than to my fellows, – it has neither made me deaf to rancor nor blind to ingratitude. I told the Lord-Lieutenant so yesterday.’

      “‘You saw him then, sir?’ asked I.

      “‘Yes, he was gracious enough to call here; he sent his secretary to ask if I would receive a visit from him. I thought that a little more tact might have been expected from a man in his station, – it is the common gift of those in high places. I perceive,’ added he, after a pause, ‘you don’t see what I mean. It is this: royalties, or mock royalties, for they are the same in this, condescend to these visits as deathbed attentions. They come to us with their courtesies as the priest comes with his holy cruet, only when they have the assurance that we are beyond recovery. His Excellency ought to have felt that the man to whom he proposed this attention was not one to misunderstand its significance.’

      “‘Did he remain long, sir?’

      “‘Two hours and forty minutes. I measured it by my watch.’

      “‘Was the fatigue not too much for you?’

      “‘Of course it was; I fainted before he got to his carriage. He twice rose to go away, but on each occasion I had something to say that induced him to sit down again. It was the whole case of Ireland we reviewed, – that is, I did. I deployed the six millions before him, and he took the salute. Yes, sir, education, religious animosities, land-tenure, drainage, emigration, secret societies, the rebel priest and the intolerant parson, even nationality and mendicant insolence, all marched past, and he took the salute! “And now, my Lord,” said I, “it is the man who tells you these things, who has the courage to tell and the ability to display them, and it is this man for whose retirement your Ex-lency is so eager, that you have actually deigned to make him a visit, that he may carry away into the next world, perhaps, a pleasing memory of this; it is this man, I say, whom you propose to replace – and by what, my Lord, and by whom? Will a mere lawyer, will any amount of nisi prius craft or precedent, give you the qualities you need on that bench, or that you need, sadly need, at this council-board? Go back, my Lord, and tell your colleagues of the Cabinet that Providence is more merciful than a Premier, and that the same overruling hand that has sustained me through this trial will uphold me, I trust, for years to serve my country, and save it for some time longer from your blundering legislation.”

      “‘He СКАЧАТЬ