Kitabı oku: «The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 1», sayfa 2

CHAPTER II. A TRAVELLING ACQUAINTANCE

Whatever the merits or demerits of the great question, the legislative union between England and Ireland, – and assuredly we have neither the temptation of duty nor inclination to discuss such here, – the means employed by Ministers to carry the measure through Parliament were in the last degree disgraceful. Never was bribery practised with more open effrontery, never did corruption display itself with more daring indifference to public opinion; the Treasury office was an open mart, where votes were purchased, and men sold their country, delighted, as a candid member of the party confessed, – delighted “to have a country to sell.”

The ardor of a political career, like the passion for the chase, would seem in its high excitement to still many compunctious murmurings of conscience which in calmer moments could not fail to be heard and acknowledged: the desire to succeed, that ever-present impulse to win, steels the heart against impressions which, under less pressing excitements, had been most painful to endure; and, in this way, honorable and high-minded men have often stooped to acts which, with calmer judgment to guide them, they would have rejected with indignation.

Such was Dick Forester’s position at the moment. An aide-de-camp on the staff of the Viceroy, a near relative of the Secretary, he was intrusted with many secret and delicate negotiations, affairs in which, had he been a third party, he would have as scrupulously condemned the tempter as the tempted; the active zeal of agency allayed, however, all such qualms of conscience, and every momentary pang of remorse was swallowed up in the ardor for success.

Few men will deny in the abstract the cruelty of many field-sports they persist in following; fewer still abandon them on such scruples; and while Forester felt half ashamed to himself of the functions committed to him, he would have been sorely disappointed if he had been passed over in the selection of his relative’s political adherents.

Of this nature were some of Dick Forester’s reflections as he posted along towards the West; nor was the scene through which he journeyed suggestive of pleasanter thoughts. If any of our readers should perchance be acquainted with that dreary line of country which lies along the great western road of Ireland, they will not feel surprised if the traveller’s impressions of the land were not of the brightest or fairest. The least reflective of mortals cannot pass through a dreary and poverty-stricken district without imbibing some of the melancholy which broods over the place. Forester was by no means such, and felt deeply and sincerely for the misery he witnessed on every hand, and was in the very crisis of some most patriotic scheme of benevolence, when his carriage arrived in front of the little inn of Kilbeggan. Resisting, without much violence to his inclinations, the civil request of the landlord to alight, he leaned back to resume the broken thread of his lucubrations, while fresh horses were put to. How long he thus waited, or what progress his benign devices accomplished in the mean while, this true history is unable to record; enough if we say that when he next became aware of the incidents then actually happening around him, he discovered that his carriage was standing fast in the same place as at the moment of his arrival, and the rain falling in torrents, as before.

To let down the glass and call out to the postilions was a very natural act; to do so with the addition of certain expletives not commonly used in good society, was not an extraordinary one. Forester did both; but he might have spared his eloquence and his indignation, for the postilions were both in the stable, and his servant agreeably occupied in the bar over the comforts of a smoking tumbler of punch. The merciful schemes so late the uppermost object of his thoughts were routed in a moment, and, vowing intentions of a very different purport to the whole household, he opened the door and sprang out. Dark as the night was, he could see that there were no horses to the carriage, and, with redoubled anger at the delay, he strode into the inn.

“Holloa, I say – house here! Linwood! Where the devil is the fellow?”

“Here, sir,” cried a smart-looking London servant, as he sprang from the bar with his eyes bolting out of his head from the heat of the last mouthful, swallowed in a second. “I’ve been a trying for horses, sir; but they’ve never got ‘em, though they ‘ve been promising to let us have a pair this half-hour.”

“No horses! Do you mean that they’ve not got a pair of posters in a town like this?”

“Yes, indeed, sir,” interposed a dirty waiter in a nankeen jacket; for the landlord was too indignant at the rejection of his proposal to appear again, “we’ve four pair, besides a mare in foal; but there’s a deal of business on the line this week past, and there’s a gentleman in the parlor now has taken four of them.”

“Taken four! Has he more than one carriage?”

“No, sir, a light chariot it is; but he likes to go fast.”

“And so do I – when I can,” muttered Forester, the last words being an addition almost independent of him. “Could n’t you tell him that there’s a gentleman here very much pressed to push on, and would take it as a great favor if he’d divide the team?”

“To be sure, sir, I’ll go and speak to him,” said the waiter, as he hurried away on the errand.

“I see how it is, sir,” said Linwood, who, with true servant dexterity, thought to turn his master’s anger into any other channel than towards himself, “they wants to get you to stop the night here.”

“Confound this trickery! I’ll pay what they please for the horses, only let us have them. – Well, waiter, what does he say?”

“He says, sir,” said the waiter, endeavoring to suppress a laugh, “if you ‘ll come in and join him at supper, you shall have whatever you like.”

“Join him at supper! No, no; I’m hurried, I’m anxious to get forward, and not the least hungry besides.”

“Hadn’t you better speak a word to him, anyhow?” said the waiter, half opening the parlor door. And Forester, accepting the suggestion, entered.

In the little low-ceilinged apartment of the small inn, at a table very amply and as temptingly covered, sat a large and, for his age, singularly handsome man. A forehead both high and broad surmounted two clear blue eyes, whose brilliancy seemed to defy the wear of time; regular and handsome teeth; and a complexion the very type of health appeared to vouch for a strength of constitution rare at his advanced age. His dress was the green coat so commonly worn by country gentlemen, with leather breeches and boots, nor, though the season was winter, did he appear to have any great-coat, or other defence against the weather. He was heaping some turf upon the fire as Forester entered, and, laughingly interrupting the operation, he stood up and bowed courteously.

“I have taken a great liberty, sir, first, to suppose that any man at this hour of the night is not the worse for something to eat and drink; and, secondly, that he might have no objection to partake of either in my company.” Forester was not exactly prepared for a manner so palpably that of the best society, and, at once repressing every sign of his former impatience, replied by apologizing for a request which might inconvenience the granter. “Let me help you to this grouse-pie, and fill yourself a glass of sherry; and by the time you have taken some refreshment, the horses will be put to. I am most happy to offer you a seat.”

“I am afraid there is a mistake somewhere,” said Forester, half timidly. “I heard you had engaged the only four horses here, and as my carriage is without, my request was to obtain two if you – ”

“But why not come with me? I ‘m pressed, and must be up, if possible, before morning. Remember, we are forty-eight miles from Dublin.”

“Dublin! But I’m going the very opposite road. I’m for Westport.”

“Oh, by Jove! that is different. What a stupid fellow the waiter is! Never mind; sit down. Let us have a glass of wine together. You shall have two of the horses. Old Wilkins must only make his spurs supply the place of the leaders.”

There was a hearty good-nature in every accent of the old man’s voice, and Forester drew his chair to the table, by no means sorry to spend some time longer in his company.

There is a kind of conversation sacred to the occupations of the table, – a mixture of the culinary and the social, the gustatory with the agreeable. And the stranger led the way to this, with the art of an accomplished proficient, and while recommending the good things to Forester’s attention, contrived to season their enjoyment by a tone at once pleasing and cordial.

“I could have sworn you were hungry,” said he, laughing, as Forester helped himself for the second time to the grouse-pie. “I know you did not expect so appetizing a supper in such a place; but Rickards has always something in the larder for an old acquaintance, and I have been travelling this road close upon sixty years now.”

“And a dreary way it is,” said Forester, “except for this most agreeable incident. I never came so many miles before with so little to interest me.”

“Very true; it is a flat, monotonous-looking country, and poor besides; but nothing like what I remember it as a boy.”

“You surely do not mean that the people were ever worse off than they seem now to be?”

“Ay, a hundred times worse off. They may be rack-rented and over-taxed in some instances now, – not as many as you would suppose, after all, – but then, they were held in actual slavery, nearly famished, and all but naked; no roads, no markets; subject to the caprice of the landowners on every occasion in life, and the faction fights – those barbarous vestiges of a rude time – kept up and encouraged by those who should have set the better example of mutual charity and good feeling. These unhappy practices have not disappeared, but they are far less frequent than formerly; and however the confession may seem to you a sad one, to me there is a pride in saying, Ireland is improving.”

“It is hard to conceive a people more miserably off than these,” said Forester, with a sigh.

“So they seem to your eyes; but let me remark that there is a transition state between rude barbarism and civilization which always appears more miserable than either; habits of life which suggest wants that can rarely, if ever, be supplied. The struggle between poverty and the desire for better, is a bitter conflict, and such is the actual condition of this people. You are young enough to witness the fruits of the reformation; I am too old ever to hope to see them, but I feel assured that the day is coming.”

“I like your theory well; it has Hope for its ally,” said Forester, as he gazed on the benevolent features of the old squire.

“It has even better, sir, it has truth; and hence it is that the peasantry, as they approach nearer to the capital, – the seat of civilization, – have fewest of those traits that please or attract strangers; they are in the transition state I speak of; while down in my wild country, you can see them in their native freshness, reckless and improvident, but light-hearted and happy.”

“Where may the country be you speak of, sir?” said Forester.

“The Far West, beside the Atlantic. You have heard of Mayo?”

“Oh, that is my destination at this moment; I am going beyond Westport, to visit one of the chieftains there. I have not the honor to know him, but I conclude that his style of living and habits will not be a bad specimen of the gentry customs generally.”

“I know that neighborhood tolerably well. May I ask the name of your future host?”

“The Knight of Gwynne is his title – Mr. Darcy – ”

“Oh! an old acquaintance, – I may almost say an old friend of mine,” said the other, smiling. “And so you are going to pass some time at Gywnne?”

“A week or so; I scarcely think I can spare more.”

“They ‘ll call that a very inhospitable visit at Gwynne, sir; the Knight’s guests rarely stay less than a month. I have just left it, and there were some there who had been since the beginning of the partridge-shooting, and not the least welcome of the party.”

“I am sorry I had not the good fortune to meet you there,” said Forester.

“Make your visit a fortnight, and I ‘ll join you, then,” said the old man, gayly. “I ‘m going up to town to settle a wager, – a foolish excursion, you ‘ll say, at my time of life; but it’s too late to mend.”

“The horses is put to, sir,” said the waiter, announcing the fact for something like the fourth time, without being attended to.

“Well, then, it is time to start. Am I to take it as a pledge that I shall find you at Gwynne this day fortnight?”

“I cannot answer for my host,” said Forester, laughing.

“Oh! old Darcy is sure to ask you to stay. By the way, would you permit me to trouble you with five lines to a friend who is now stopping there?”

“Of course; I shall be but too happy to be of any service to you.”

The old gentleman sat down, and, tearing a leaf from a capacious pocket-book, wrote a few hurried lines, which, having folded and sealed, he addressed, “Bagenal Daly, Esquire, Gwynne Abbey.”

“There, that’s my commission; pray add my service to the Knight himself, when you see him.”

“Permit me to ask, how shall I designate his friend?”

“Oh! I forgot, you don’t know me,” said he, laughing. “I have half a mind to leave the identification with your own descriptive powers.”

“I’d wager five guineas I could make the portrait a resemblance.”

“Done, then; I take the bet,” said the other; “and I promise you, on the word of a gentleman, I am known to every visitor in the house.”

Each laughed heartily at the drollery of such a wager, and, with many a profession of the pleasure a future meeting would afford to both, they parted, less like casual acquaintances than as old and intimate friends.

CHAPTER III. GWYNNE ABBEY

When Forester parted with his chance companion at Kilbeggan, he pursued his way without meeting a single incident worth recording; nor, although he travelled with all the speed of posters, aided by the persuasive power of additional half-crowns, shall we ask of our reader to accompany him, but, at one bound, cross the whole island, and stand with us on the margin of that glorious sheet of water which, begirt with mountains and studded with its hundred islands, is known as Clue Bay.

At the southern extremity of the bay rises the great mountain of Croagh Patrick, its summit nearly five thousand feet above the sea; on the side next the ocean, it is bold and precipitous, crag rising above crag in succession, and not even the track of a mountain goat visible on the dangerous surface; landward, however, a gentle slope descends about the lower third of the mountain, and imperceptibly is lost in the rich and swelling landscape beneath. Here, sheltered from the western gales, and favored by the fertility of the soil, the trees are seen to attain a girth and height rarely met with elsewhere, while they preserve their foliage to a much later period than in other parts of the country.

The ruins of an ancient church, whose very walls are washed by the Atlantic, show that the luxuriant richness of the spot was known in times past. They who founded these goodly edifices were no mean judges of the resources of the land, and the rich woods and blossoming orchards that still shelter their ruined shrines evidence with what correctness they selected their resting-places.

The coast-road which leads from Westport skirts along the edge of the bay, and is diversified by many a pretty cottage whose trellised walls and rose-covered porches vouch for the mildness of the climate, and are in summer resorted to as bathing-lodges by numbers from the inland counties. The high-road has, however, a grander destiny than to such humble, though picturesque, dwellings, for it suddenly ceases at the gate of an immense demesne, whose boundary wall may be seen stretching away for miles, and at last is traced high up the mountain side, where it forms the enclosure of a deer park.

Two square and massive towers connected by an arch form the gateway, and though ivy and honeysuckle have covered many an architectural device which once were looked on with pride, a massive armorial escutcheon in yellow stone forms the key of the arch, while two leopards supporting a crown, with the motto, “Ne la touchez pas!” proclaim the territory of the Knight of Gwynne.

Within, an avenue wide enough for a high-road led through a park of great extent, dotted with trees single or in groups, and bounded by a vast wood, whose waving tops were seen for miles of distance. If a landscape-gardener would have deplored with uplifted hands the glorious opportunities of embellishment which neglect or ignorance had suffered to lie undeveloped within these grounds, a true lover of scenery would have felt delighted at the wild and picturesque beauty around him, as, sometimes, the road would dip into a deep glade, where the overhanging banks were clothed with the dog-rose and the sweet-brier, still and hushed to every sound save the song of the thrush or the not less sweet ripple of the little stream that murmured past; and again, emerging from the shade, it wound along some height whence the great mountain might be seen, or, between the dark foliage, the blue surface of the sea, swelling and heaving with ever-restless motion. All the elements of great picturesque beauty were here, and in that glorious profusion with which nature alone diffuses her wealth, – the mountain, the forest, and the ocean, the greensward, the pebbly shore, the great rocks, the banks blue with the violet and the veronica, – and all diversified and contrasted to produce effects the most novel and enchanting.

Many a road and many a pathway led through these woods and valleys, some grass-grown, as though disused, others bearing the track of recent wheels, still, as you went, the hares and the rabbits felt no terror, the wood-pigeon sat upon the branch above your head, nor was scared at your approach; for though the Knight was a passionate lover of sport, it was his fancy to preserve the demesne intact, nor would he suffer a shot to be fired within its precincts. These may seem small and insignificant matters to record, but they added indescribably to the charms of the spot, completing, as they did, the ideas of tranquillity and peace suggested by the scene.

The approach was of some miles in extent, not needlessly prolonged by every device of sweep and winding, but in reality proceeding by its nearest way to the house, which, for the advantage of a view over the sea, was situated on the slope of the mountain. Nor was the building unworthy of its proud position: originally an abbey, its architecture still displayed the elaborate embellishment which characterized the erections of the latter part of the sixteenth century.

A long façade, interrupted at intervals by square towers, formed the front, the roof consisting of a succession of tall and pointed gables, in each of which some good saint stood enshrined in stone; the windows, throughout this long extent, were surmounted by pediments and figures not rudely chiselled, but with high pretension as works of art, and evidencing both taste and skill in the designer; while the great entrance was a miracle of tracery and carving, the rich architraves retreating one within another to the full depth of twelve feet, such being the thickness of the external wall.

Spacious and imposing as this great mass of building appeared at first sight, it formed but a fragment of the whole, and was in reality but the side of a great quadrangle, the approach to which led through one of the large towers, defended by fosse and drawbridge, while overhead the iron spikes of a massive portcullis might be seen; for the Abbot of Gwynne had been a “puissance” in days long past, and had his servitors in steel, as well as his followers in sackcloth. This road, which was excessively steep and difficult of access, was yet that by which carriages were accustomed to approach the house; for the stables occupied one entire wing of the quadrangle, the servants, of whom there were a goodly company, holding possession of the suite of rooms overhead, once the ancient dormitory of the monks of Gwynne.

In the middle of the courtyard was a large fountain, over which an effigy of St. Francis had formerly stood; but the saint had unhappily been used as a lay figure whereupon to brush hunting-coats and soiled leathers, and gradually his proportions had suffered grievous injury, till at last nothing remained of him save the legs, which were still profaned as a saddle-tree; for grooms and stable-boys are irreverent in their notions, and, probably, deemed it no disgrace for a saint to carry such honorable trappings.

The appearance of the abbey from within was even more picturesque than when seen from the outside, each side of the quadrangle displaying a different era and style of architecture; for they had been built with long intervals of time between them, and one wing, a low, two-storied range, with jail-like windows and a small, narrow portal, bore, on a three-cornered stone, the date 1304.

We shall not ask of our readers to accompany us further in our dry description, nor even cast a glance up at that myriad of strange beasts which, in dark gray stone, are frowning or grinning, or leaping or rearing, from every angle and corner of the building, – a strange company, whose representatives in real life it would puzzle the zoologist to produce; but there they were, some with a coat-of-arms between their paws, some supporting an ornamental capital, and others actually, as it seemed, cutting their uncouth capers out of pure idleness.

At the back of the abbey, and terraced on the mountain side, lay a perfect wilderness of flower-gardens and fishponds, amid which a taste more profane than that of the founders had erected sundry summer-houses in rockwork, hermitages without hermits, and shrines without worshippers, but all moss-grown, and old enough to make them objects of curiosity, while some afforded glorious points of view over the distant bay and the rich valley where stands the picturesque town of Westport.

The interior of this noble edifice was worthy of its appearance from without. Independent of the ample accommodation for a great household, there was a suite of state apartments running along the entire front and part of one wing, and these were fitted up and furnished with a luxury and costliness that would not have disgraced a royal palace. Here were seen velvet hangings and rich tapestries upon the walls, floors inlaid with tulip and sandal-wood, windows of richly stained glass threw a mysterious and mellow light over richly carved furniture, the triumphs of that art which the Netherlands once boasted; cabinets, curiously inlaid with silver and tortoiseshell, many of them gifts of distinguished donors, few without their associations of story; while one chamber, the ancient hall of audience, was hung round with armor and weapons, the trophies of long-buried ancestors, the proud memorials of a noble line; dark suits of Milan mail, or richly inlaid cuirasses of Spanish workmanship, with great two-handed swords and battle-axes, and, stranger still, weapons of Eastern mould and fashion, for more than one of the house had fought against the Turks, and crossed his broadsword with the scimitar.

There were objects rare and curious enough within these walls to stay and linger over; but even if we dared to take such a liberty with our reader, our duty would not permit the dalliance, and it is to a very different part of the building, and one destined for far other uses, that we must now for a brief space conduct him.

In a small chamber of the ground-floor, whose curiously groined roof and richly stained window showed that its occupancy had once been held by those in station above the common, now sat two persons at a well-garnished table, while before them, on the wide hearth, blazed a cheerful fire of bog deal. On either side of the fireplace was a niche, in which formerly some saintly effigy had stood, but now – such are Time’s chances – an earthenware pitcher, with a pewter lid, decorated each, of whose contents the boon companions drank jovially to each other. One of these was a short, fat old fellow of nigh eighty years; his bowed legs and wide round shoulders the still surviving signs of great personal strength in days gone by; his hair, white as snow, was carefully brushed back from his forehead, and tied into “queue” behind. Old as he was, the features were intelligent and pleasing, the hale and hearty expression of good health and good temper animated them when he spoke, nor were the words the less mellow to an Irish ear that they smacked of the “sweet south,” for Tate Sullivan was a Kerry man, and possessed in full measure the attributes of that pleasant kingdom; he was courteous and obliging, faithful in his affections, and if a bit hasty in temper, the very first to discover and correct it. His failing was the national one, – the proneness to conceal a truth if its disclosure were disagreeable: he could not bring himself to bear bad tidings; and this tendency had so grown with years that few who knew his weakness could trust any version of a fact from his lips without making due allowance for blarney.

For eight-and-forty years he had been a butler in the Knight’s family, and his reverence for his master went on increasing with his years; in his eyes he was the happy concentration of every good quality of humanity, nor could he bring himself to believe that his like would ever come again.

Opposite to him sat one as unlike him in form and appearance as he was in reality by character: a gaunt, thin, hollow-cheeked man of sixty-six or seven, rueful and sad-looking, with a greenish gray complexion, and a head of short, close gray hair, cut horseshoe fashion over the temples, his long thin nose, pointed chin, and his cold green eye only wanted the additional test of his accent to pronounce him from the North. So it was, Sandy M’Grane was from Antrim, and a keener specimen of the “cold countrie” need not have been looked for.

His dress was a wide-skirted, deep-cuffed brown coat, profusely studded with large silver buttons richly crested, one sleeve of which, armless and empty, was attached to his breast; a dark-crimson waistcoat, edged with silver lace, descended below the hips; black leather breeches and high black boots, – a strange costume, uniting in some respects the attributes of in-door life and the road. On the high back of his oaken chair hung a wide-brimmed felt hat and a black leather belt, from which a short straight sword depended, the invariable companion of his journeys; for Sandy had travelled in strange lands, where protective police were unknown, and his master, Mr. Bagenal Daly, was one who ever preferred his own administration of criminal law, when the occasion required such, to the slower process of impartial justice.

Meagre and fleshless as he looked, he was possessed of great personal strength, and it needed no acute physiognomist to pronounce, from the character of his head and features, that courage had not been omitted among the ingredients of his nature.

A word of explanation may be necessary as to how a western gentleman, as Bagenal Daly was, should have attached to his person for some forty years a native of a distant county, and one all whose habits and sympathies seemed so little in unison with his own part of the country. Short as the story is, we should not feel warranted in obtruding it on our readers if it did not to a certain extent serve to illustrate the characters of both master and man.

Mr. Daly when a very young man chanced to make an excursion to the northern part of the island, the principal object of which was to see the Giant’s Causeway, and the scenery in the neighborhood. The visit was undertaken with little foresight or precaution, and happened at the very time of the year when severe gales from the north and west prevail, and a heavy sea breaks along that iron-bound coast. Having come so far to see the spot, he was unwilling to be baulked in his object; but still, the guides and boatmen of the neighborhood refused to venture out, and, notwithstanding the most tempting offers, would not risk their lives by an enterprise so full of danger.

Daly’s ardor for the expedition seemed to increase as the difficulty to its accomplishment grew greater, and he endeavored, now by profuse offers of money, now by taunting allusions to their want of courage, to stimulate the men to accompany him; when, at last, a tall, hard-featured young fellow stood forward and offered, if Daly himself would pull an oar, to go along with him. Overjoyed at his success, Daly agreed to the proposal; and although a heavy sea was then running, and the coast for miles was covered with fragments of a wreck, the skiff was Boon launched, and stood out to sea.

“I’ll ga wi’ye to the twa caves and Dunluce; but I ‘ll no engage to ga to Carrig-a-rede,” said Sandy, as the sea broke in masses on the bow, and fell in torrents over them.

After about an hour’s rowing, during which the boat several times narrowly escaped being swamped, and was already more than half full of water, they arrived off the great cave, and could see the boiling surf as, sent back with force, it issued beneath the rock, with a music louder than thunder, while from the great cliffs overhead the water poured in a thick shower, as each receding wave left a part behind it.

“The cobble” (so is the boat termed there) “is aye drawing in to shore,” said Sandy; “I trow we ‘d better pull back, noo.”

“Not till we ‘ve seen Carrig-a-rede, surely,” said Daly, on whom danger acted like the most exciting of all stimulants.

“Ye may go there by yersel,” said Sandy, “when ye put me ashore; I tauld you, I ‘d no ga so far.”

“Come, come, it’s no time to flinch now,” said Daly; “turn her head about, and lean down to your oar.”