Kitabı oku: «Luttrell Of Arran», sayfa 3

CHAPTER IV. ON BOARD

“It was not an easy matter to get him to come, Sir,” said the sailor in a whisper to Vyner, as he assisted the boy to get on the deck.

“Where did you find him?”

“Sitting all alone on that rocky point yonder, Sir; he seemed to have been crying, and we suspect he has run away from home.”

Vyner now turned to look at the child, who all this while stood calm and composed, amazed, it is true, by all he saw around him, yet never suffering his curiosity to surprise him into a word of astonishment. In age from ten to twelve, he was slightly though strongly built, and carried himself erect as a soldier. The dress which Vyner at first thought was entirely made of skins was only in reality trimmed with these, being an attempt to make the clothes he had long worn sufficiently large for him. His cap alone was of true island make, and was a conical contrivance of undressed seal-skin, which really had as savage a look as need be.

“Do you live on this island, my little fellow?” asked Vyner, with a kindly accent.

“Yes,” said he, calmly, as he looked up full into his face.

“And have you always lived here?”

“So long as I remember.”

“Where do you live?”

“On the other side of the mountain – at St. Finbar’s Abbey.”

“May I ask your name?”

“My name,” said the boy, proudly, “is Harry Grenville Luttrell.”

“Are you a Luttrell?” cried Vyner, as he laid his hand affectionately on the boy’s shoulders; but the little fellow seemed not to like the familiarity, and stepped back to escape it.

“Are you the son of John Hamilton Luttrell?”

“Yes. What is your name?”

“Mine,” said the other, repressing a smile – “mine is Gervais Vyner.”

“And do you own this ship?”

“Yes.”

“And why have you come here?”

“Partly by chance – partly through curiosity.”

“And when will you go away?”

“Something will depend on the weather – something on whether we like the place and find it agreeable to us; but why do you ask? Do you wish we should go away?”

“The people do! I do not care!”

It is not easy to give an idea of the haughty dignity with which he spoke the last words. They were like the declaration of one who felt himself so secure in station, that he could treat the accidents of the day as mere trifles.

“But why should the people wish it? We are not very likely to molest or injure them.”

“That much you may leave to themselves,” said the boy, insolently. “They’ll not let you do it.”

“You seem very proud of your island, my little man! Have you any brothers or sisters?”

“No – none.”

“None belonging to you but father and mother?”

“I have no mother now,” said he, with an effort to utter the words unmoved; but the struggle was too much, and he had to turn away his head as he tried to suppress the sobbing that overcame him.

“I am very, very sorry to have pained you, my boy,” said Vyner, with kindness. “Come down with me here, and see a little daughter of mine, who is nearly your own age.”

“I don’t want to see her. I want to go ashore.”

“So you shall, my boy; but you will eat something with us first, and see the strange place we live in. Come along;” and he took his hand to lead him forward.

“I could swim to the land if I liked,” said the boy, as he gazed down at the blue water.

“But you’ll not have to swim, Harry.”

“Why do you call me Harry? I never knew you.”

“I have a better claim than you suspect. At least, I used to call your father John long ago.”

“Don’t do it any more, then,” said he, defiantly.

“And why?”

“He wouldn’t bear it – that is the why! Stand clear, there!” cried he to one of the sailors on the gangway. “I’m off!” and he prepared himself for a run ere he jumped overboard, but just at this moment Ada tripped up the cabin ladder and stood before him. The long yellow ringlets fell on her shoulders and her neck, and her lustrous blue eyes were wide in astonishment at the figure in front of her. As for the boy, he gazed at her as at something of unearthly beauty. It was to his eyes that Queen of the Fairies who might have soared on a light cloud, or tripped daintily on the crest of the wide sea waves.

“Here is a playfellow for you, Ada,” said her father, as he led her towards him.

“It is Robinson Crusoe, papa,” said she, in a whisper.

The boy’s quick ear had, however, caught the words, and he said quickly, “I wish I was Robinson!” The speech seemed to strike some chord in the little girl’s heart, for she went freely towards him at once, and said, “Oh, wasn’t it nice to live in that pretty island, and have everything one’s own?”

“This island here is mine!” said the boy, proudly.

“Yes, Ada,” said Vyner, “what he, says is quite correct; his father owns the whole of these islands. But come along into the cabin, Harry; I want you to see our home, though it is a very narrow one.”

With the gravity of a North American Indian, and with a self-possession that never broke down under every trial to which curiosity exposed it, the boy looked at all around him. If Aladdin himself Was not more wonder-struck at the splendours of the cave, he never for a moment betrayed his amazement. He ate and drank, too, with the same air of composure, and bore himself throughout with a quiet dignity that was remarkable. Ada displayed before him her prettiest toys, her games, and her picture-books, and was half piqued at the little evidences of astonishment they created. No suspicion crossed her mind how the colour that came and went and came again, how the hurried breathing, how the clammy fingers that trembled as they touched an object, were signs of emotion far deeper and more intense than all that a cry of wonderment could evidence.

“I suppose,” said she, at last, when impatience mastered her, “you have got such masses of these yourself, that you don’t care for them?”

“I – I have nothing – nothing but a crossbow to shoot the seagulls, and a hatchet, and the hatchet is too heavy for me.”

“But what can you do with a hatchet?” asked she, smiling.

“Split logs, and cut a way through the thicket like fellows on an uninhabited island; or sometimes I think I’m fighting a bear. I’d like to fight a young bear! – wouldn’t you?”

“I suspect not. Girls do not fight bears.”

“Ah, I forgot!” said he, blushing deeply; and, ashamed of his blunder, he bent his head over a picture.

Meanwhile, Vyner and Grenfell were walking the deck and conversing in a low tone.

“It would be a mistake, Vyner, a great mistake, take my word for it,” said the other. “To the man who assumes the incognito, all attempt at recognition is offensive. Besides, what is it to lead to? You can’t imagine he’ll want to talk over the past, and for such a man there is no speculation in the future.”

“But the idea of being on the very island with him, knowing that he was within a mile of me, and that I never went to see him! It sounds very heartless, and I feel it would be so.”

“I have nothing to say when you put the question on the ground of a sentiment. I can only discuss it as a matter of expediency, or the reverse. You don’t charge a man with the opinions you find in an anonymous book, because, even supposing they are his, he has not thought proper to avow them; well, you owe exactly the same deference to him who lives under an incognito, or retires to some secluded, unfrequented spot. His object is to escape notice; under what plea do you drag him forth into the broad noonday?”

“I am certain my wife wouldn’t forgive me if I left without even an effort to see him.”

“As to that, I can say nothing. I never was married, and I do not pretend to know what are the ‘cases of conscience’ discussed connubially.”

“You see, Grenfell,” said the other, confidentially, “we all feel, as we have a right to feel, that we have done this man a great wrong. There has not been one single calamity of his life, from the day we broke with him, that is not traceable to us. His unfortunate line in politics, his low political associates, the depraved life some assert that he lived, and, worse than all, his wretched marriage with a poor uneducated peasant girl.”

“And do you fancy that a morning call from you is the reparation for all this?”

“Come, come, that is not the fair way to put it. Luttrell and I were once great friends. I was, I well know, very much his inferior in knowledge and power, but in worldliness and tact I was more than his match, and he gave way to me on every question of this sort. It may be – I’d like to think it might prove the case – that this old sentiment has not died out of his heart, that, as he used to say long ago, and people laughed when he said it, ‘Let us hear what Vyner says.’ Now, if this were so, I might even yet do something, if not for him, for that fine boy there.”

“Leave that fine boy alone, Vyner, that’s my advice to you. I never saw a fellow of his years with such an overweaning self-confidence. There is, I don’t deny it, a certain ‘gentleman’ element in him, but it is dashed with something which I neither understand, nor could venture to say what it may lead to; but I repeat, leave him alone.”

Vyner shook his head dissentingly, but did not speak.

“Besides, let us be practical. What could you do for him? You’d not adopt him, I take it?” Vyner was silent, and he continued: “Well, then, you’d cut off the one tie he has in life, and not substitute another. Besides, don’t you remember what old Scott said at the Huxleigh steeple-chase: ‘I never back the half-bred ‘uns, no matter how well they look in training.’”

“What a stickler for blood you have become,” said Vyner, laughing; and it was only as he saw the crimson flush in the other’s cheek that he bethought him how the remark might have offended.

“Take your own line, then,” said Grenfell, angrily; “it doesn’t signify to me personally a brass farthing. Our dinner company with old Crab and the German Fran can scarcely but be improved, even though it be by the admixture of a little rebellion through it.”

“For all that, you’d like Luttrell immensely if you met him.”

“I like none but men of the world – men who know the people, the places and the things one is daily connected with – who can take up the game of society where it left off last night, and have not to read themselves up in daily life the way fellows read their history out of the Annual Register.”

“Well, I’ll write him a note,” said Vyner, following out his own thoughts; “I’ll tell him, in a few words, how I chanced to come here, and I’ll ask if he will receive me, or, better still, – if he’ll come and dine with us to-morrow.”

“I know the answer you’ll get as well as if I had written it.”

“Well, what will it be?”

“See you hanged first!”

“What is all this going on below? Are you quarrelling, children?” cried Vyner, as a great uproar burst forth from the cabin.

“Oh no, papa; but Robinson is so droll; he put baby-doll into a boat and had her shipwrecked, and saved by the little negro; and now they are going to be married. Just come and see it all.”

“Tell me, Harry,” said Vyner, “what would papa say if I were to write him a note and say that I have detained you here to dinner, and wouldn’t let you go?”

“He’d say I could have jumped overboard,” said the boy, reddening at what he thought was an imputation on his personal prowess.

“I don’t exactly mean by force, my dear boy; I intended to say, by persuasion.”

Either the view now submitted to him was not very clear, or that it was combined with other element, but he made no reply.

“I will put it this wise: I’ll say I have made Harry’s acquaintance this morning-by a lucky accident, and I hope you will not be displeased if he should stay and dine with us. I have a little girl of his own age who is delighted to have his company, and I feel certain you will not deprive her of so agreeable a playfellow.”

“Papa will not know,” said the boy, moodily.

“Not know what, my little man?”

“Papa will not care,” said he; and a slight tremor shook his voice.

“Not care for what?”

“I mean,” said he, resolutely, “that I often go away at daybreak and never come back till late at night, and papa does not mind it – he never asks for me.”

As he spoke, Ada drew nigh her father, and clasped his hand in her own, while her tearful eyes turned alternately from her father to the child, the sense of her own happy lot, loved and cherished as she was, blending with a deep pity for one so desolate and friendless.

“That’s the way boys are made independent and bold-hearted,” said Vyner, hastily. “Men like their sons to be trained up in the free habits they enjoyed themselves. So, then, my note is not necessary – you can remain without it?”

“Would you like it?” said he, turning to Ada.

“Oh, how much!” cried she, eagerly.

“Then I’ll stay!” As he spoke, he leaned back in his chair, and, who knows with what thoughts, sighed faintly, while two heavy tears rolled slowly down his cheeks. Vyner saw it, but turned away and went on deck.

“I can gather from what that boy has just said,” said he to Gren-fell, “that his father is almost indifferent about him; he never knows of his coming or going, nor ever looks for him at meal-times.”

“I should be surprised if it were otherwise,” said Grenfell. “Demoralisation never works by halves. When a man begins to go down hill, he never takes any other road. What could remain of your great scholar and double first man after years of association with brutal companionship and a peasant for a wife! How could it be possible for him to retain any one of the habits of his own class amidst the daily frictions of that vulgar existence!”

“I begin to fear as much myself,” said Vyner, sorrowfully. As he spoke, he felt Ada’s hand in his own; she drew him to one side, and whispered, “Harry is crying, papa. He says he must go home, but he won’t tell me why.”

“Perhaps I can guess, darling. Let me speak with him alone. Vyner went down into the cabin by himself, but whatever passed between him and the boy, the result, so far as persuading him to stay, was not successful, and young Luttrell came on deck along with him.

“Man a boat, there,” said Vyner, “and take this young gentleman on shore. I will write one line to your father, Harry.”

The two children stood hand in hand while Vyner wrote. They wore each of them a look of sorrow at parting; but the boy’s face had a flush of shame as well as sorrow. They never uttered a word, however.

Vyner’s note was in these words:

“My dear Luttrell, – Will you allow an old friend to see you, when he calls himself?

“Affectionately yours,

“Gervais Vyner.”

He did not show this note to Grenfell, but handed it to the boy at once.

“He won’t take the books, papa,” whispered Ada, “nor anything else I offered him.”

“He’ll know us all better later on, dearest. Do not embarrass him now by attention; he is ashamed to refuse, and does not care to accept. If papa will let you come out to breakfast with us to-morrow, Harry, we shall be glad to see you; and remember, I look to you to show me where we are to catch the lobsters.”

“I’ll tell you that now,” said the boy. “You see that great rock yonder. Well, a little more inland, where the water is about four fathoms, and perfectly clear, that’s the spot.”

When the boat was announced as ready, the boy took his leave of each in turn, shaking hands with Vyner, and Ada, and the governess; and then, advancing towards Grenfell, he stopped, and simply said good-by.

“Good day, Sir,” said Grenfell, stiffly, for he was one of those men whose egotism even a child could wound. “Is that boy like his father?” asked he, as Harry passed over the side.

“Wonderfully like, since his face took that expression of seriousness.”

“Then it is not a good face.”

“Not a good face?”

“Mind, I didn’t say not a handsome face, for it is strikingly regular and well proportioned, but the expression is furtive and secret.”

“Nothing of the kind. Luttrell was as frank a fellow as ever breathed. I think, after what I told you, you can see that it was trustfulness proved his ruin.”

“Isn’t he what your countrymen would call a ‘Wunderkind,’ Mademoiselle?” asked Grenfell of the governess.

“No, Saar, he is a much-to-be-pitied, and not the less-for-that-very dignified youth.”

“How Homeric it makes language to think in German. There he is, Ada, waving a rag of some sort, in farewell to you.”

Ada kissed her hand several times to him, and then hastened below into the cabin.

“I have asked Luttrell’s leave to call on him,” said Vyner.

“I thought you would,” was the dry reply.

“I only wrote one line, and made my request in the name of our old friendship.”

“Well, of course, you are the best judge of your own duties; only, for my own part, I beg, if I ever should turn hermit, that you’ll not think yourself bound to have me shaved and trimmed for the honour of dining some one day at your table.”

“Upon my word, I think it would be a pity to take you out of your cave, or whatever you call it,” said the governess, with a spiteful laugh.

“There, don’t fight any more till tea-time,” said Vyner, laughingly.

“Who’ll come on shore with me? I’m for a ramble over that purple mountain yonder.”

“I have the music-lesson.”

“And I have the remainder of that article in the Quarterly,” said Grenfell, “which proves incontestably the utter hopelessness of Ireland. The writer knows the people well, and describes their faults of character perfectly.”

A low faint sob caught Vyner’s ear, and, on hurrying below, he found Ada seated at the table, with her head leaning on her arms.

“What’s the matter, Ada darling?” asked he, gently.

“Oh, papa, it was for his mother he was crying, for though she seldom spoke to him or noticed him, he used to see her at the window, and now he’ll never see her more.”

“We must try and comfort him, Ada; the poor boy has a very dreary lot in life.”

“He says he is happy, papa! and that he only hopes he’ll never have to leave this lonely island all his life.”

“Did he speak of his father at all?”

“No, papa; only to say that he’d never remember whether he was at home or abroad, and that it was so pleasant not to have any one who cared what became of one.”

“And you – did you agree with him?”

“Oh no, no!” cried she, as her eyes swam in tears. “I could have told him how much better it was to be loved.”

Vyner turned away to hide his own emotion, and then, with an affected carelessness, said, “Get over this music-lesson now, and whenever you are free tell Mr. Crab to hoist a bit of white bunting to the peak, and I’ll come back to fetch you for a walk with me.”

“Is Mr. Grenfell going, papa?”

“No, darling; but why do you ask?”

“Because – because – I’d rather go with you alone. It is always so much nicer and happier.”

“How is it that Grenfell, with all his smartness, can never hit it off with any one, young or old, rich or poor?” thought Vyner, as he walked the deck, deep in thought. “He reads everything, has a smattering of all subjects, with a good memory and a glib tongue, and yet I believe I am the only man about town who could tolerate him.” If this were a reflection that had more than once occurred to his mind, it usually ended by impressing the conviction that he, Vyner, must have rare qualities of head and heart, not merely to endure, but actually to almost like, a companionship for which none other would have had taste or temper but himself. Now, however – not easy is it to say why – a doubt flashed across him that his doubting, distrustful, scoffing nature might prove in the end an evil, just as a certain malaria, not strong enough to give fever, will ultimately impregnate the blood and undermine the constitution.

“I don’t think he has done me any mischief as yet,” said he to himself, with a smile; “but shall I always be able to say as much?”

“You must read this paper – positively you must,” cried Grenfell from the sofa, where he lay under a luxurious awning. “This fellow writes well; he shows that the Irish never had any civilisation, nor, except where it crept in through English influence, has there ever been a vestige of such in the island.”

“I don’t see I shall be anything the better for believing him!”

“It may save you from that blessed purchase of an Irish property that brought you down to all this savagery. It may rescue you from the regret of having a gentleman shot because he was intrepid enough to collect your rents. That surely is something.”

“But I have determined on the purchase of Derryvaragh,” said Vyner, “if it only be what descriptions make it.”

“To live here, I hope – to turn Carib – cross yourself when you meet a priest, and wear a landlord’s scalp at your waist-belt.”

“Nay, nay! I hope for better things, and that the English influences you spoke of so feelingly will not entirely desert me in my banishment.”

“Don’t imagine that any one will come over here to see you, Vyner, if you mean that.”

“Not even the trusty Grenfell?” said he, with a half smile.

“Not if you were to give me the fee-simple of the barbarous tract you covet.”

“I’ll not believe it, George. I’ll back your friendship against all the bogs that ever engulphed an oak forest. But what is that yonder? Is it a boat? It seems only a few feet long.”

“It is one of those naval constructions of your charming islanders; and coming this way, too.”

“The fellow has got a letter, Sir; he has stuck it in his hatband,” said Mr. Crab.

“An answer from Luttrell,” muttered Vyner. “I wonder will he receive me?”