Kitabı oku: «The O'Donoghue: Tale of Ireland Fifty Years Ago», sayfa 14
CHAPTER XIX. A DIPLOMATIST DEFEATED
If Frederick Travers went to sleep at night with very considerable doubts, as to the practicability of his plans regarding the O’Donoghues, his waking thoughts were very far from re-assuring him, and he heartily wished he had never engaged in the enterprize. Now, however, his honour was in a manner pledged; he had spoken so confidently of success, there was nothing for it but to go forward, and endeavour, as as well he might, to redeem his promise.
At the time we speak of, military men never for a moment divested themselves of the emblems of their career; the uniform and the sword, the plumed hat and the high boot, formed a costume not to be worn at certain periods and laid aside at others, but was their daily dress, varying merely in the degree of full or half dress, as the occasion warranted. There was no affectation of the happy freedom of “Mufti” – no pretended enjoyment of the incognito of a black coat and round hat; on the contrary, the king’s livery was borne with a pride which, erring on the opposite side, suggested a degree of assumption and conscious importance in the wearer, which more or less separated the soldier from the civilian in bearing, and gradually originated a feeling of soreness on the part of the more humbly clad citizen towards the more favoured order.
A certain haughty, overbearing tone of manner, was then popular in the army, and particularly in those regiments which boasted of an unalloyed nobility among the officers. If they assumed an air of superiority to the rest of the service, so much the more did they look down upon the mere civilian, whom they considered as belonging to a very subordinate class and order of mankind. To mark the sense of this difference of condition in a hundred little ways, and by a hundred petty observances, was part of a military education, and became a more unerring test of the soldier in society, than even the cockade and the cross-belt. To suppose that such a line of conduct should not have inspired those against whom it was directed with a feeling of counter hatred, would be to disbelieve in human nature. The civilian, indeed, reciprocated with dislike the soldier’s insolence, and, in their estrangement from each other, the breach grew gradually wider – the dominant tyranny of the one, and the base-born vulgarity of the other, being themes each loved to dilate upon without ceasing.
Now, this consciousness of superiority, so far from relieving Frederick Travers of any portion of the difficulty of his task, increased it tenfold. He knew and felt he was stooping to a most unwarrantable piece of condescension in seeking these people at all; and although he trusted firmly that his aristocratic friends were very unlikely to hear of proceedings in a quarter so remote and unvisited, yet how he should answer to his own heart for such a course, was another and a far more puzzling matter. He resolved, then, in the true spirit of his order, to give his conduct all the parade of a most condescending act, to let them see plainly, how immeasurably low he had voluntarily descended to meet them; and to this end he attired himself in his full field uniform, and with as scrupulous a care as though the occasion were a review before his Majesty. His costume of scarlet coat, with blue velvet facings, separating at the breast, so as to show a vest of white kerseymere, trimmed with a gold border – his breeches of the same colour and material, met at the knee by the high and polished boot, needed but the addition of his cocked hat, fringed with an edging of ostrich feathers, to set off a figure of singular elegance and symmetry. The young men of the day were just beginning to dispense with hair powder, and Fred wore his rich brown locks, long and floating, in the new mode – a fashion which well became him, and served to soften down the somewhat haughty carriage of his head. There was an air of freedom, an absence of restraint, in the military costume of the period, which certainly contributed to increase the advantages of a naturally good-looking man, in the same way as the present stiff, Prussian mode of dress, will, assuredly, conceal many defects in mould and form among less-favoured individuals. The loosely-falling flaps of the waistcoat – the deep hanging cuffs of the coat – the easy folds of the long skirt – gave a character of courtliness to uniform which, to our eye, it at present is very far from possessing. In fact, the graceful carriage and courteous demeanour of the drawing-room, suffered no impediment from the pillory of a modern stock, or the rigid inflexibility of a coat strained almost to bursting.
“Are you on duty, Fred?” said Sir Marmaduke, laughing, as his son entered the breakfast-room, thus carefully attired.
“Yes, sir; I am preparing for my mission; and it would ill become an ambassador to deliver his credentials in undress.”
“To what court are you then accredited?” said Sybella, laughing.
“His Majesty, The O’Donoghue,” interposed his father; “King of Glenflesk, Baron of Inchigeela, Lord Protector of – of half the blackguards in the county, I verily believe,” added he, in a more natural key.
“Are you really going to Carrig-na-curra, Fred?” asked Miss Travers, hurriedly; “are you going to visit our neighbours?”
“I’ll not venture to say that such is the place, much less pretend to pronounce it after you, my dear sister, but I am about to wait on these worthy people, and, if they will permit me, have a peep at the interior of their stockade or wigwam, whichever it be.”
“It must have been a very grand thing in its day: that old castle has some fine features about it yet,” replied she calmly.
“Like Windsor, I suppose,” said Fred as he replied to her, and then complacently glanced at the well-fitting boot which ornamented his leg. “They’ll not be over-ceremonious, I hope, about according me an audience.”
“Not in the forenoon, I believe,” said Sir Marmaduke drily; for he was recalling the description old Roach had given him of his own reception by Kerry O’Leary, and which circumstance, by-the-by, figured somewhat ostentatiously in his charge to the old baronet.
“Oh, then, they receive early,” resumed Fred; “the old French style – the ‘petit levée du roi’ – before ten o’clock. Another cup of tea, Sybella, and then I must look after a horse.
“I have given orders already on that score. I flatter myself you’ll rather approve of my stud; for, amongst the incongruities of Ireland, I have fallen upon an honest horse-dealer.”
“Indeed!” said the young man, with more interest than he had yet shown in the conversation; “I must cultivate that fellow, one might exhibit him with great success in London.”
“Unquestionably, Fred, he is a curiosity; for while he is a perfect simpleton about the value of an animal; an easy-tempered, good-natured, soft fellow – with respect to knowledge of a horse, his points, his performance, and his soundness, I never saw his equal.”
“I’ll give him a commission to get me two chargers,” said Fred, delighted at the prospect of deriving so much benefit from his Irish journey. “What makes you look so serious, Sybella?”
“Was I so, Fred? I scarcely know – perhaps I was regretting,” added she archly, “that there were no ladies at Carrig-na-curra to admire so very smart a cavalier.”
Frederick coloured slightly and endeavoured to laugh, but the consciousness that his “bravery” of costume was somewhat out of place, worried him and he made no reply.
“You’ll not be long, Fred,” said his father, “I shall want you to take a walk with me to the lake.”
“No, Fred – don’t stay long away; it is not above two miles from tills at farthest.”
“Had I not better send a guide with you?”
“No, no; if the place be larger than a mud hovel, I cannot mistake it. So here comes our steed. Well, I own, he is the best thing I’ve yet seen in these parts;” and the youth opened the window, and stepped out to approach the animal. He was, indeed, a very creditable specimen of Lanty’s taste in horse-flesh – the model of a compact and powerfully-built cob horse.
“A hundred guineas, eh?” said Fred, in a tone of question.
“Sixty – not a pound more,” said the old man in conscious pride. “The fellow said but fifty; I added ten on my own account.”
Frederick mounted the cob, and rode him across the grass, with that quiet hand and steady seat which bespeaks the judgment of one called upon to be critical. “A little, a very little over-done in the mouthing, but his action perfect,” said he, as he returned to the window, and held the animal in an attitude to exhibit his fine symmetry to advantage. “The prince has a passion for a horse of this class; I hope you have not become attached to him?”
“His Royal Highness shall have him at once, Fred, if he will honour you by accepting him.” And as he spoke, he laid a stress on the you, to evince the pleasure he anticipated in the present being made by Frederick, and not himself.
“Now, then, with God and St. George!” cried Fred, laughingly, as he waved an adieu with his plumed hat, and cantered easily towards the high road.
It was a clear and frosty day in December, with a blue sky above, and all below bright and glittering in a thin atmosphere. The lake, clear as crystal, reflected every cliff and crag upon the mountain – while each island on its surface was defined with a crisp sharpness of outline, scarce less beautiful than in the waving foliage of summer. The many-coloured heaths, too, shone in hues more bright and varied, than usual in our humid climate; and the voices which broke the silence, heard from long distances away, came mellowed and softened in their tones, and harmonized well with the solitary grandeur of the scene. Nor was Frederick Travers insensible to its influence; the height of those bold mountains – their wild and fanciful outlines – the sweeping glens that wound along their bases – the wayward stream that flowed through the deep valleys, and, as if in sportiveness, serpentined their course, were features of scenery he had not witnessed before; while the perfect solitude awed and appalled him.
He had not ridden long, when the tall towers of the old castle of Carrig-na-curra caught his eye, standing proudly on the bold mass of rock above the road. The unseemly adjunct of farm-house and stables were lost to view at such a distance, or blended with the general mass of building, so that the whole gave the impression of extent and pretension to a degree he was by no means prepared for. These features, however, gradually diminished as he drew nearer; the highly-pitched roof, pierced with narrow windows, patched and broken – the crumbling battlements of the towers themselves – the ruinous dilapidation of the outer buildings, disenchanted the spectator of his first more favourable opinion; until at length, as he surveyed the incongruous and misshapen pile, with its dreary mountain back-ground, he wondered how, at any point of view, he should have deemed it other than the gloomy abode it seemed at that moment.
The only figure Frederick Travers had seen, as he rode along, was that of a man carrying a gun in his hand, in a dress somewhat like a gamekeeper’s, who, at some short distance from the road, moved actively across the fields, springing lightly from hillock to hillock with the step of a practised mountain walker, and seemingly regardless of the weight of a burden which he carried on one shoulder: so rapidly did he move, that Frederick found it difficult to keep pace with him, as the road was deeply cut up, and far from safe for horse travel. Curious to make out what he carried, Travers spurred eagerly forward; and, at last, but not without an effort, came within hail of him at the iron-barred gate which formed the outer entrance to the castle from the high road. The burden was now easily seen, and at once suggested to Frederick’s mind the reason of the bearer’s haste. It was a young buck, just killed; the blood still trickled from the wound in its skull.
“Leave that gate open, my good fellow,” cried Frederick, in a voice of command, as the other pushed the frail portal wide, and let it fall back heavily to its place again – “Do you hear me? – leave it open.”
“We always leap it when mounted,” was the cool reply, as the speaker turned his head round, and then, without deigning either another word or look, continued his way up the steep ascent.
Travers felt the rude taunt sorely, and would have given much to be near him who uttered it; but, whether disdaining to follow a counsel thus insolently conveyed, or, it might be, not over-confident of his horse, he dismounted, and, flinging wide the gate, rode quickly up the causeway – not, however, in time to overtake the other; for, although the way was enclosed by walls on both sides, he had disappeared already, but in what manner, and how, it seemed impossible to say.
“My father has omitted poaching, it would seem, in his catalogue of Irish virtues,” muttered the young man, as he rode through the arched keep, and halted at the chief entrance to the house. The door lay open, displaying the cheerful blaze of a pine-wood fire, that burned briskly within the ample chimney, in the keen air of a frosty morning. “I see I shall have my ride for my pains,” was Fred’s reflection as he passed into the wide hall, and beheld the old weapons and hunting spoils arranged around the walls. “These people affect chieftainship, and go hungry to bed, to dream of fourteen quarterings. Be it so. I shall see the old rookery at all events;” and, so saying, he gave a vigorous pull at the old bell, which answered loudly in its own person, and, also, by a deep howl from the aged fox-hound, then lying at the fire in the drawing-room. These sounds soon died away, and a silence deep and unbroken as before succeeded. A second time, and a third, Travers repeated his summons, but without any difference of result, save that the dog no longer gave tongue; – it seemed as if he were becoming reconciled to the disturbance, as one that needed no farther attention from him.
“I must explore for myself,” thought Fred, and so, attaching his horse to the massive ring by which a chain used once to be suspended across the portal, he entered the house. Walking leisurely forward, he gained the long corridor; for a second or two he was uncertain how to proceed, when a gleam of light from the half-open door in the tower led him onward. As he drew near he heard the deep tones of a man’s voice recounting, as it seemed, some story of the chase; the last words, at least, were – “I fired but one shot – the herd is wild enough already.” Travers pushed wide the door, and entered; as he did so, he involuntarily halted; the evidences of habits and tastes he was not prepared for, suddenly rebuked his unannounced approach, and he would gladly have retreated, were it now practicable.
“Well, sir,” said the same voice he heard before, and from a young man, who leaned with one arm on the chimney-piece, and with the other hand held his gun, while he appeared as if he had been conversing with a pale and sickly youth, popped and pillowed in a deep arm-chair. They were the only occupants of the room.
“Well, sir, it would seem you have made a mistake; the inn is lower down the glen – you’ll see a sign over the door-way.”
The look which accompanied this insolent speech recalled at once to Frederick’s mind the same figure he had seen in the glen; and, stung by impertinence from such a quarter, he replied —
“Have no fear, young fellow; you may poach every acre for twenty miles round – I have not tracked you on that score.”
“Poach! – tracked me!” reiterated Mark O’Donoghue, for it is needless to say it was he; and then, as if the ludicrous were even stronger in his mind than mere passion, he burst into a rude laugh; while the sick boy’s pale face grew a deep crimson, as, with faltering accents, he said —
“You must be a stranger here, sir, I fancy.”
“I am so,” said Travers mildly and yielding at once to the respect ever due to suffering; “my name is Travers. I have come over here to enquire after a young gentleman who saved my sister’s life.”
“Then you’ve tracked him well,” interposed Mark, with an emphasis on the word. “Here he is.”
“Will you not sit down,” said Herbert, motioning with his wasted hand to a seat.
Frederick took his place beside the boy at once and said – “We owe you, sir, the deepest debt of gratitude it has ever been our fortune to incur; and if anything could enhance the obligation, it has been the heroism, the personal daring – ”
“Hold there,” said Mark, sternly. “It’s not our custom here to listen to compliments on our courage – we are O’Donoghues.”
“This young gentleman’s daring was no common one,” answered Travers, as if stung by the taunt.
“My brother will scarce feel flattered by your telling him so,” was Mark’s haughty answer; and for some seconds Frederick knew not how to resume the conversation; at last, turning to Herbert, he said —
“May I hope that, without offending you, we may be permitted in some shape to express the sentiment I speak of; it is a debt which cannot be requited; let us at least have some evidence that we acknowledge it.”
“It is the more like some of our own,” broke in Mark with a fierce laugh; “we have parchments enough, but we never pay. Your father’s agent could tell you that.”
Frederick gave no seeming attention to this speech, but went on – “When I say there is nothing in our power we would deem enough, I but express the feelings of my father and myself.”
“There, there,” cried Mark, preventing Herbert who was about to reply, “you’ve said far more than was needed for a wet jacket and a few weeks’ low diet. Let us have a word about the poaching you spoke of.”
His fixed and steady stare – the rigid brow, by which these words were accompanied, at once proclaimed the intention of one who sought reparation for an insult, and so instantly did they convey the sentiment, that Travers, in a second, forgot all about his mission, and, starting to his feet, replied in a whisper, audible but to Mark —
“True, it was a very hazardous guess; but when, in England, we meet with a fustian jacket and a broken beaver, in company with a gun and a game-bag, we have little risk in pronouncing the owner a game-keeper or a poacher.”
Mark struck his gun against the ground with such violence as shivered the stock from the barrel, while he grasped the corner of the chimney-piece convulsively with the other hand. It seemed as if passion had actually paralysed him: as he stood thus, the door opened, and Kate O’Donoghue entered. She was dressed in the becoming half-toilette of the morning, and wore on her head one of those caps of blue velvet, embroidered in silver, which are so popular among the peasantry of Rhenish Germany. The light airiness of her step as she came forward, unconscious of a stranger’s presence, displayed her figure in its most graceful character. Suddenly her eyes fell upon Frederick Travers, she stopped and courtesied low to him, while he, thunderstruck with amazement at recognizing his fellow traveller so unexpectedly, could scarcely return her salute with becoming courtesy.
“Mr. Travers,” said Herbert, after waiting in vain for Mark to speak; “Mr. Travers has been kind enough to come and enquire after me. Miss O’Donoghue, sir;” and the boy, with much bashfulness, essayed in some sort the ceremony of introduction.
“My cousin, Mr. Mark O’Donoghue,” said Kate, with a graceful movement of her hand towards Mark, whose attitude led her to suppose he was not known to Travers.
“I have had the honour of presenting myself already,” said Frederick, bowing; but Mark responded not to the inclination, but stood still with bent brow and clenched lip, seemingly unconscious of all around him, while Kate seated herself, and motioned to Travers to resume his place. She felt how necessary it was she should atone, by her manner, for the strange rudeness of her cousin’s; and her mind being now relieved of the fear which first struck her, that Frederick’s visit might be intended for herself, she launched freely and pleasantly into conversation, recurring to the incidents of the late journey, and the fellow-travellers they had met with.
If Kate was not sorry to learn that “the Lodge” was tenanted by persons of such condition and class, as might make them agreeable neighbours, Travers, on the other hand, was overjoyed at discovering one of such attractions within an easy visiting distance, while Herbert sat by, wondering how persons, so little known to each other, could have so many things to say, and so many topics which seemed mutually interesting. For so it is; they who are ignorant of the world and its habits, can scarcely credit the great extent of those generalities which form food for daily intercourse – nor with what apparent interest people can play the game of life, with but counterfeit coinage. He listened at first with astonishment, and afterwards with delight, to the pleasant flippancy of each, as in turn they discussed scenes, and pleasures, and people, of whom he never so much as heard. The “gentillesse” of French manner – would that we had a name for the thing in English – imparted to Kate’s conversation a graceful ease our more reserved habits rarely permit; and while in her costume and her carriage there was a certain coquetry discernible, not a particle of affectation pervaded either her opinions or expressions. Travers, long accustomed to the best society of London, had yet seen scarcely anything of the fascination of foreign agreeability, and yielded himself so insensibly to its charm, that an hour slipped away unconsciously, and he totally forgot the great object of his visit, and lost all recollection of the luckless animal he had attached to the door ring – luckless, indeed, for already a heavy snow-drift was falling, and the day had assumed all the appearance of severe winter.
“You cannot go now, sir,” said Herbert, as Frederick rose to take his leave; – “there’s a heavy snow-storm without;” for the boy was so interested in all he heard, he could not endure the thought of his departure.
“Oh! it’s nothing,” said Travers, lightly. “There’s an old adage – ‘Snow should not scare a soldier.’”
“There’s another proverb in the French service,” said Kate, laughing, as she pointed to the blazing hearth – “‘Le soldat ne tourne pas son dos au feu.’”
“I accept the augury,” cried Frederick, laughing heartily at the witty misapplication of the phrase, and resumed his seat once more.
“Cousin Kate plays chess,” said Herbert, in his anxiety to suggest a plausible pretext for delaying Frederick’s departure.
“And I am passionately fond of the game; would you favour me so far?”
“With pleasure,” said she smiling; “I only ask one condition, ‘point se grace’ – no giving back – the O’Donoghues never take or give quarter – isn’t that so, Mark? Oh! he’s gone,” and now for the first time it was remarked that he had left the apartment.
In a few moments after, they had drawn the little marquetrie table close to the fire, and were deeply interested in the game.
At first, each party played with a seeming attention, which certainly imposed on Herbert, who sat eagerly watching the progress of the game. Frederick Travers was, however, far more occupied in observing his antagonist than in the disposition of his rooks and pawns. While she, soon perceiving his inattention, half suspected that he did not deem her an enemy worth exerting his skill upon, and thus, partly in pique, she bestowed more watchfulness than at first.
“So, Mademoiselle,” cried Travers at length, recurring to his game, “I perceive you have only permitted me to advance thus far, to cut off my retreat for ever. How am I to save myself now?”
“It’s hard to say, Sir Captain. It’s the old tactique of Celts and Saxons on both sides; you would advance into the heart of the enemy’s country, and as, unhappily, the men in ivory are truer than the natives were here, and won’t take bribes to fight against their fellows, you must e’en stand or fall by your own deservings.”
“Come, then, the bold policy for ever. Check.”
“And you lose your castle.”
“And you your bishop!”
“We must avenge the church, sir. Take care of your queen.”
“‘Parbleu,’ Mademoiselle, you are a fierce foe. What say you, if we draw the battle?”
“No, no, cousin Kate; continue, and you win it.”
“Be it so. And now for my turn,” said Travers, who was really a first-rate player, and at length began to feel interested in the result.
The move he made exhibited so much of skill, that Kate foresaw that the fortune of the day was about to change. She leaned her brow upon her hand, and deliberated long on the move; and at length, lifting her head, she said —
“I should like much to beat you – but in fair fight, remember – no courtesy nor favour.”
“I can spare neither,” said Travers, smiling.
“Then, defeat is no dishonour. There’s my move.”
“And mine,” cried Fred, as rapidly.
“What prevents my taking you? I see nothing.”
“Nor I either,” said he, half chagrined, for his move was an oversight.
“You are too proud to ask quarter – of course, you are – or I should say, take it back.”
“No, Kate, no,” whispered Herbert, whose excitement was at the highest.
“I must abide my fortune,” said Frederick, bowing; “and the more calmly, as I have won the game.”
“Won the game! How? – where?”
“Check!”
“How tauntingly he says it now,” said Kate, while her eyes sparkled brilliantly. “There is too much of the conqueror in all that.”
Frederick’s glance met hers at the instant, and her cheek coloured deeply.
Who knows the source of such emotions, or of how much pleasure and pain they are made up! “And yet, I have not won,” said he, in a low voice.
“Then, be it a drawn battle,” said Kate. “You can afford to be generous, and I can’t bear being beaten – that’s the truth of it.”
“If I could but win!” muttered Travers, as he rose from the table; and whether she overheard the words, and that they conveyed more than a mere allusion to the game, she turned hastily away, and approached the window.
“Is that snow-ball your horse, Captain Travers?” said she, with a wicked smile.
“My father’s favourite cob, by Jove!” exclaimed Frederick; and, as if suddenly aroused to the memory of his lengthy visit, made his ‘adieus’ with more confusion than was exactly suitable to a fashionable Guardsman – and departed.
“I like him,” said Herbert, as he looked out of the window after him. “Don’t you, cousin Kate?”
But cousin Kate did not reply.
