Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I Part 19

"The proposal could come from me," said Sir Brook, proudly, "if he would graciously accord me an interview."

Tom turned away to hide a smile, for he thought, if such a meeting were to take place, what he would give to be an unseen witness of it,--to watch the duel between antagonists so different, and whose weapons were so unlike.

"My sister knows him better than any of us," said Tom, at last; "might I consult her as to the likelihood of any success with him?"

"By all means; it is what I would have myself advised."

"I will do so, then, to-day. I ought to have gone to see her yesterday; but I will go to-day, and report progress when I come back. I have a long budget for her," added he, with a sigh,--"a catalogue of all the things I am not going to do. I am not going to be a medallist, nor win a fellows.h.i.+p, nor even be a doctor; it will, however, give me great courage if I can say, I 'll be a miner."

Tom Lendrick was right when he said he should have gone to see his sister on the day before, though he was not fully aware how right. The Chief Baron, in laying down a few rules for Lucy's guidance, made a point of insisting that she should only receive visitors on one day of the week; and in this regulation he included even her brother. So averse was the old man to be exposed to even a pa.s.sing meeting with strangers, that on these Tuesdays he either kept his room or retired to a little garden of which he kept the key, and from whose precincts all were rigorously excluded.

Well knowing her brother's impatience of anything like restricted liberty, and how rapidly he would connect such an injunction as this with a life of servitude and endurance, Lucy took care to make the time of receiving him appear a matter of her own choice and convenience, and at the time of parting would say, "Good-bye till Tuesday, Tom; don't forget Tuesday, for we shall be sure to be alone and to ourselves." He the more easily believed this, that on these same Tuesdays the whole place seemed deserted and desolate. The grave-looking man in black, who preceded him up the stairs, ushered him along the corridor, and finally announced him, awaited him like a piece of machinery, repeating every movement and gesture with an unbroken uniformity, and giving him to understand that not only his coming was expected, but all the details of his reception had been carefully prescribed and determined on.

"As I follow that fellow along the pa.s.sage, Lucy," said Tom, one day, "I can't help thinking that I experience every sensation of a man going to be hanged,--his solemn face, his measured tread, the silence, and the gloom,--only needing pinioned arms to make the illusion perfect."

"Tie them around me, dearest Tom," said she, laughing, and drawing him to a seat beside her on the sofa; "and remember," added she, "you have a long day. Your sentence will not come off for another week;" and thus jestingly did she contrive to time his coming without ever letting him know the restrictions that defined his visits.

Now, the day before this conversation between Sir Brook and Tom took place being a Tuesday, Lucy had watched long and anxiously for his coming. She knew he had gone down to Killaloe on the preceding Sat.u.r.day, but he had a.s.sured her he would be back and be with her by Tuesday.

Lucy's life was far from unhappy, but it was one of unbroken uniformity, and the one sole glimpse of society was that meeting with her brother, whose wayward thoughts and capricious notions imparted to all he said a something striking and amusing. He usually told her how his week had been pa.s.sed,--where he had been and with whom,--and she had learned to know his companions, and ask after them by name. Her chief interest was, however, about Sir Brook, from whom Tom usually brought a few lines, but always in an unsealed envelope, inscribed, "By the favor of Mr.

Lendrick, jun."

How often would Tom quiz her about the respectful devotion of her old admirer, and jestingly ask her if she could consent to marry him. "I know he'll ask you the question one of these days, Lucy, and it's your own fault if you give him such encouragement as may mislead him." And then they would talk over the romance of the old man's nature, wondering whether the real world would be rendered more tolerable or the reverse by that ideal tone which so imaginative a temperament could give it "Is it not strange," said Tom, one day, "that I can see all the weakness of his character wherever my own interests do not come, but the moment he presents before me some bright picture of a splendid future, a great name to achieve, a great fortune to make, that moment he takes me captive, and I regard him not as a visionary or a dreamer, but as a man of consummate shrewdness and great knowledge of life?"

"In this you resemble Sancho Panza, Tom," said she, laughing. "He had little faith in his master's chivalry, but he implicitly believed in the island he was to rule over;" and from that day forward she called her brother Sancho and Sir Brook the Don.

On the day after that on which Tom's visit should have been but was not paid, Lucy sat at luncheon with her grandfather in a small breakfast-room which opened on the lawn. The old Judge was in unusual spirits; he had just received an address from the Bar, congratulating him on his recovery, and expressing hope that he might be soon again seen on that Bench he had so much ornamented by his eloquence and his wisdom. The newspapers, too, with a fickleness that seems their most invariable feature, spoke most flatteringly of his services, and placed his name beside those who had conferred highest honor on the judges.h.i.+p.

"It is neatly worded, Lucy," said the old man, taking up the paper on which the address was written; "and the pa.s.sage that compares me with Mansfield is able as well as true. Both Mansfield and myself understood how there stands above all written law that higher, greater, grander law, that is based in the heart of all humanity, in the hope of an eternal justice, and soars above every technicality, by the intense desire of truth. It would have been, however, no more than fair to have added that, to an intellect the equal of Mansfield, I brought a temper which Mansfield had not, and a manner which if found in the courts of royalty, is seldom met with on the Bench. I do not quite like that phrase, 'the rapid and unerring glance of Erskine.' Erskine was brilliant for a Scotchman, but a brilliant Scotchman is but a third-rate Irishman. They who penned this might have known as much. I am better pleased with the words, 'the n.o.ble dignity of Lord Eldon.' There, my child, there, they indeed have hit upon a characteristic. In Eldon nature seemed to have created the judicial element in a high degree. It would be the vulgarity of modesty to pretend not to recognize in my own temperament a like organization.

"May I read you, Lucy, the few words in which I mean to reply to this courteous address? Will it bore you, my dear?"

"On the contrary, sir, I shall feel myself honored as well as interested."

"Sit where you are, then, and I will retire to the far corner of the room. You shall judge if my voice and delivery be equal to the effort; for I mean to return my thanks in person, Lucy. I mean to add the force of my presence to the vigor of my sentiments. I have bethought me of inviting those who have signed this doc.u.ment to luncheon here; and it may probably be in the large drawing-room that I shall deliver this reply. If not, it may possibly be in my court before rising,--I have not fully determined." So saying, he arose, and with feeble steps--a.s.sisting himself, as he went, by the table, and then grasping a chair--he moved slowly across the room. She knew him too well to dare to offer her arm, or appear in any way to perceive his debility. That he felt, and felt bitterly, "the curse of old age," as he once profanely called it, might be marked in the firm compression of his lips and the stern frown that settled on him, while, as he sank into a seat, a sad weary sigh declared the utter exhaustion that overcame him.

It was not till after some minutes that he rallied sufficiently to unroll his ma.n.u.script and adjust his spectacles. The stillness in the room was now perfect; not a sound was heard save the faint hum of a bee which had strayed into the room, and was vaguely floating about to find an exit. Lucy sat in an att.i.tude of patient attention,--her hands crossed before her, and her eyes slightly downcast.

A faint low cough, and he began, but in a voice tremulous and faint, "'Mr. Chief Sergeant, and Gentlemen of the Bar'--do you hear me, Lucy?"

"Yes, sir, I hear you."

"I will try to be more audible; I will rest for a moment." fie laid his paper on his knees, closed his eyes, and sat immovable for some seconds.

It was at this moment, when to the intense stillness was added a sense of expectancy, the honeysuckle that grew across the window moved, the frail branches gave way, and a merry voice called out, "Scene the first: a young lady discovered at luncheon!" and with a spring Tom Lendrick bounced into the room, and, ere her cry of alarm had ended, was clasping his sister in his arms.

"Oh, Tom, dearest Tom, why to-day? Grandpapa--grandpapa is here," sighed she, rather than whispered, in his ear.

The young man started back, more struck by the emotion he had shown than by her words, and the Chief Baron advanced towards him with a manner of blended courtesy and dignity, saying, "I am glad to know you. Your sister's brother must be very welcome to me."

"I wish I could make a proper excuse for this mode of entry, sir. First of all, I thought Lucy was alone; and, secondly--"

"Never mind the second plea; I submit to a verdict on the first," said the Judge, smiling.

"Tom forgot; it was Tuesday was his day," began Lucy.

"I have no day; days are all alike to me, Lucy. My occupations of Monday could be transferred to a Sat.u.r.day, or, if need be, postponed indefinitely beyond it."

"The glorious leisure of the fortunate," said the Judge, with a peculiar smile.

"Or the vacuity of the unlucky, possibly," said Tom, with an easy laugh.

"At all events, young gentleman, you carry your load jauntily."

"One reason is, perhaps, that I never knew it was a load. I have always paraded in heavy marching order, so that I don't mind the weight of my pack."

For the first time did the old man's features relax into a look of kindly meaning. To find the youth not merely-equal to appreciate a figure of speech, but able to carry on the ill.u.s.tration, seemed so to identify him with his own blood and kindred that the old Judge felt himself instinctively drawn towards him.

"Lucy, help your brother to something; there was an excellent curry there awhile ago,--if it be not cold."

"I have set my affections on that cold beef. It seems tome an age since I have seen a real sirloin."

A slight twitch crossed the Judge's face,--a pang he felt at what might be an insinuated reproach at his in hospitality; and he said, in a tone of almost apology, "We see no one---absolutely no one--here. Lucy resigns herself to the companions.h.i.+p of a very dreary old man whom all else have forgotten."

"Don't say so, grandpapa, on the day when such a testimony of esteem and affection reaches you."

Young Lendrick looked up from his plate, turning his eyes first towards his sister, then towards his grandfather; his glance was so palpably an interrogatory, there was no-mistaking it. Perhaps the old man's first impulse was not to reply; but his courtesy or his vanity, or a blending of both, carried the day, and he said, in a voice of much feeling: "Your sister refers to an address I have just received,--an address which the Irish Bar have deemed proper to transmit to me with their congratulations on my recovery. It is as gratifying, it is as flattering, as she says. My brethren have shown that they can rise above all consideration of sect or party in tendering their esteem to a man whom no administration has ever been able to convert into a partisan."

"But you have always been a Whig, sir, haven't you?" said Tom, bluntly.

"I have been a Whig, sir, in the sense that a King is a Royalist," said the old man, haughtily; and though Tom felt sorely provoked to reply to this pretentious declaration, he only gave a wicked glance at his sister, and drank off his wine.

"It was at the moment of your unexpected appearance," continued the Judge, "that I was discussing with your sister whether my reply to this compliment would come better if delivered here, or from my place on the Bench."

"I 'd say from the Bench," said Tom, as he helped himself to another slice of beef.

The old man gave a short cough, with a start. The audacity of tendering advice so freely and positively overcame him; and his color, faint indeed, rose to his withered cheek, and his eye glittered as he said, "Might I have the benefit of hearing the reasons which have led you to this opinion?"

"First of all," said Tom, in a careless off-hand way, "I take it the thing would have more--what shall I say?--dignity; secondly, the men who have signed the address might feel they were treated with more consideration; and lastly,--it 's not a very good reason, but I 'm bound to own it,--I 'd like to hear it myself, which I could if it were delivered in public, but which I am not so likely to do if spoken here."

"Oh, Tom, dear Tom!" whispered his sister, in dismay at a speech so certain to be accepted in its least pleasing signification.

"You have already to-day reminded me of my deficiencies in hospitality, sir. This second admonition was uncalled for. It is happy for _me_ that my defence is una.s.sailable. It is happy for _you_ that your impeachment is unwitnessed."

"You have mistaken me, sir," said Tom, eagerly. "I never thought of reflecting on your hospitality. I simply meant to say that as I find myself here to-day by a lucky accident, I scarcely look to Fortune to do me such another good turn in a hurry."

"Your father's fault--a fault that would have s.h.i.+pwrecked fourfold more ability than ever he possessed--was a timidity that went to very cowardice. He had no faith in himself, and he inspired no confidence in others. Yours is, if possible, a worse failing. You have boldness without knowledge. You have the rashness that provokes a peril, and no part of the skill that teaches how to meet it. It was with a wise prescience that I saw we should not be safe company for each other."

He arose as he spoke, and, motioning back Lucy as she approached to offer her arm, he tottered from the room, to all seeming more overcome by pa.s.sion than even by years and infirmity.