The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. II (of II)

“If I did not make a present of them,” rejoined Martin, “the transaction was about as profitable to me.”

“You owed me the money, sir; that, at least, is the way I regard the matter.”

“And when I paid it by these securities, you pledged yourself not to negotiate them. I explained to you how the entail was settled, – that the property must eventually be mine, – and you accepted the arrangement on these conditions.”

“All true, Captain; but nobody told me, at that time, there was going to be a revolution in Paris, – which there will be within forty-eight hours.”

“Confounded fool that I was to trust the fellow!” said Martin to himself, but quite loud enough to be heard; then turning to Merl, he said, “What do you mean by converting them into cash? Are you about to sell part of our estate?”

“Nothing of the kind, Captain,” said Merl, smiling at the innocence of the question. “I am simply going to deposit these where I can obtain an advance upon them. I promise you, besides, it shall not be in any quarter by which the transaction can reach the ears of your family. This assurance will, I trust, satisfy you, and entitle me to the information I ask for.”

“What information do you allude to?” asked Martin, who had totally forgotten what the Jew announced as the reason of his visit.

“I asked you, Captain,” said Merl, resuming the mincing softness of his usual manner, “as to which of these securities might be the more eligible for immediate negotiation?”

“And how should I know, sir?” replied the other, rudely. “I am very little acquainted with the property itself; I know still less about the kind of dealings you speak of. It does not concern me in the least what you do, or how you do it. I believe I may have given you bonds for something very like double the amount of all you ever advanced to me. I hear of nothing from my father but the immense resources of this, and the great capabilities of that; but as these same eventualities are not destined to better my condition, I have not troubled my head to remember anything about them. You have a claim of about twenty thousand against me.”

“Thirty-two thousand four hundred and seventy-eight pounds,” said the Jew, reading from a small note-book which he had just taken from his waistcoat pocket.

“That is some ten thousand more than ever I heard of,” said Martin, with an hysterical sort of laugh. “Egad, Merl, the fellows were right that would not have you in the ‘Cercle.’ You ‘d have ‘cleared every man of them out,’ – as well let a ferret into a rabbit warren.”

“I was n’t aware, – I had not heard that I was put up – ”

“To be sure you were; in all form proposed, seconded, and duly blackballed. I own to you, I thought it very hard, very illiberal. There are plenty of fellows there that have no right to be particular; and so Jack Massingbred as much as told them. The fact is, Merl, you ought to have waited awhile, and by the time that Harlowe and Spencer Cavendish and a few more such were as deep in your books as I am, you ‘d have had a walk over. Willoughby says the same. It might have cost you something smart, but you ‘d have made it pay in the end, – eh, Merl?”

To this speech, uttered in a strain of jocular impertinence, Merl made no reply. He had just torn one of his gloves in pieces in the effort to draw it on, and he was busily exerting himself to get rid of the fragments.

“Lady Dorothea had given me a card for you for Saturday,” resumed the Captain; “but as you ‘re going away – Besides, after this defeat at the Club, you could n’t well come amongst all these people; so there’s nothing for it but patience, Merl, patience – ”

“A lesson that may be found profitable to others, perhaps,” said the Jew, with one of his furtive looks at the Captain, who quailed under it at once.

“I was going to give you a piece of advice, Merl,” said he, in a tone the very opposite to his late bantering one. “It was, that you should just take a run over to Ireland yourself, and see the property.”

“I mean to do so, Captain Martin,” said the other, calmly.

“I can’t offer you letters, for they would defeat what you desire to accomplish; besides, there is no member of the family there at present but a young lady-cousin of mine.”

“Just the kind of introduction I ‘d like,” said the Jew, with all the zest of a man glad to say what he knew would be deemed an impertinence.

Martin grew crimson with suppressed anger, but never spoke a word.

“Is this the Cousin Mary I have heard you speak of,” said Merl, – “the great horsewoman, and she that ventures out alone on the Atlantic in a mere skiff?”

Martin nodded. His temper was almost an overmatch for him, and he dared not trust himself to speak.

“I should like to see her amazingly, Captain,” resumed Merl.

“Remember, sir, you have no lien upon her,” said Martin, sternly.

The Jew smirked and ran his fingers through his hair with the air of one who deemed such an eventuality by no means so very remote.

“Do you know, Master Merl,” said Martin, staring at him from head to foot with an expression the reverse of complimentary, “I ‘m half disposed to give you a few lines to my cousin; and if you ‘ll not take the thing as a mauvais plaisanterie on my part, I will do so.”. “Quite the contrary, Captain. I ‘ll deem it a great favor, indeed,” said Merl, with an admirable affectation of unconsciousness.

“Here goes, then,” said Martin, sitting down to a table, and preparing his writing materials, while in a hurried hand he began: —

“‘Dear Cousin Mary, – This will introduce to you Mr. Herman Merl, who visits your remote regions on a tour of – What shall I say?”

“Pleasure, – amusement,” interposed Merl.

“No, when I am telling a fib, I like a big one, – I ‘ll say, philanthropy, Merl; and there’s nothing so well adapted to cover those secret investigations you are bent upon, – a tour of philanthropy.

“‘You will, I am sure, lend him all possible assistance in his benevolent object, – the same being to dispose of the family acres, – and at the same time direct his attention to whatever may be matter of interest, – whether mines, quarries, or other property easily convertible into cash, – treating him in all respects as one to whom I owe many obligations – and several thousand pounds.’

“Will that do, think you?”

“Perfectly; nothing better.”

“In return, I shall ask one favor at your hands,” said Martin, as he folded and addressed the epistle. “It is that you write me a full account of what you see in the West, – how the country looks, and the people. Of course it will all seem terribly poor and destitute, and all that sort of thing, to your eyes; but just try and find out if it be worse than usual. Paddy is such a shrewd fellow, Merl, that it will require all your own sharpness not to be taken in by him. A long letter full of detail – a dash of figures in it – as to how many sheep have the rot, or how many people have caught the fever, will improve it, – you know the kind of thing I mean; and – I don’t suppose you care about shooting, yourself, but you ‘ll get some one to tell you – are the birds plenty and in good condition. There’s a certain Mr. Scanlan, if you chance upon him; he ‘s up to everything, and not a bad performer at dummy whist, – though I think you could teach him a thing or two.” Merl smiled and tried to look flattered, while the other went on: “And there ‘s another, called Henderson, – the steward, – a very shrewd person, – but you don’t need all these particulars; you may be trusted to your own good guidance, – eh, Merl?”

Merl again smiled in the same fashion as before; in fact, so completely had he resumed the bland expression habitual to him, that the Captain almost forgot the unpleasant cause of his visit, and all the disagreeable incidents of the interview.

“You could n’t give me a few lines to this Mr. Scanlan?” asked Merl, with an air of easy indifference.

“Nothing easier,” cried the Captain, reseating himself; then suddenly rising, with the expression of one to whom a sudden thought had just crossed the mind, “Wait one second for me here, Merl; I’ll be back with you at once.” And as he spoke he dashed out of the room, and hastened to his father.

“By a rare piece of luck,” cried he, as he entered, “I ‘ve just chanced upon the very fellow we want; an acquaintance I picked up at the Cape, – up to everything; he goes over to Ireland to-night, and he ‘ll take a run down to Cro’ Martin, and send us his report of all he sees. Whatever he tells us may be relied upon; for, depend upon ‘t, no lady can humbug him. I ‘ve just given him a note for Mary, and I ‘ll write a few lines also by way of introducing him to Scanlan.”

Martin could barely follow the Captain, as with rapid utterance he poured forth this plan. “Do I know him? What’s his name?” asked he at last.

“You never saw him. His name is Merl, – Herman Merl, – a fellow of considerable wealth; a great speculator, – one of those Stock Exchange worthies who never deal in less than tens of thousands. He has a crotchet in his head about buying up half the West of Ireland, – some scheme about flax and the deep-sea fishery. I don’t understand it, but I suppose he does. At all events, he has plenty of money, and the head to make it fructify; and if he only take a liking to it, he ‘s the very fellow to buy up Kilkieran, and the islands, and the rest of that waste district you were telling me of t’other night. But I must n’t detain him. He starts at four o’clock; and I only ran over here to tell you not to worry yourself any more about Mary’s letter. He ‘ll look to it all.”

And with this consolatory assurance the Captain hastened away, leaving Martin as much relieved in mind as an indolent nature and an easy conscience were sure to make him. To get anybody “to look to” anything had been his whole object in life; to know that, whatever happened, there was always somebody who misstated this, or neglected that, at whose door all the culpability – where there was such – could be laid and but for whom he had himself performed miracles of energy and devotedness, and endured all the tortures and trials of a martyr. He was, indeed, as are a great many others in this world, an excellent man to his own heart, – kind, charitable, and affectionate; a well-wisher to his kind, and hopeful of almost every one; but, all this while, his virtues, like a miser’s gold, had no circulation; they remained locked up within him for his own use alone, and there he sat, counting them over and gazing at them, speculating upon all that this affluence could do, and – never doing it!

Life abounds with such men. They win respect while they live, and white marble records their virtues when they die! Nor are they all useless. Their outward bearing at least simulates whatever we revere in good men, and we accept them in the same spirit of compromise as we take stucco for stone; if they do no more, they show our appreciation of the “real article.”

The Captain was not long in inditing a short note to Scanlan, to whom, “strictly confidential,” Mr. Merl was introduced as a great capitalist and speculator, desirous to ascertain all the resources of the land. Scanlan was enjoined to show him every attention, making his visit in all respects as agreeable as possible.

“This fellow will treat you well, Merl,” said the Captain, as he folded the letter; “will give you the best salmon you ever tasted, and a glass of Gordon’s Madeira such as few could sport now-a-days. And if you have a fancy for a day with my Cousin Mary’s hounds, he ‘ll mount you admirably, and show you the way besides.” And with this speech Martin wished him good-bye; and closing the door after him, added, “And if he’ll kindly assist you to a broken neck, it’s about the greatest service he could render me!”

The laugh, silly and meaningless, that followed his utterance of this speech, showed that it was spoken in all the listlessness of one who had not really character enough to be even a “good hater.”

CHAPTER VII. THE CLUB

So little impression had Merl’s gloomy forebodings made upon Captain Martin, that he actually forgot everything that this shrewd gentleman predicted, and only partially recalled them when the conversation the next morning at the Club turned on the disturbed state of the capital. People in “society” find it excessively difficult to believe in anything like an organized opposition to the authorities of a government. They are so accustomed to hear of street assemblages being scattered by a few soldiers, mobs routed by a handful of mounted policemen, that they are slow to imagine how any formidable movement can take its rise in such a source. But the maladies of states, like those of the human frame, are often mere trifles in their origin; chance, and the concurrence of events swell their importance, till they assume an aspect of perhaps greater menace than they deserve. This is essentially the case in revolutionary struggles, where, at the outset, none ever contemplates the extent to which the mischief may reach. The proclamation of the “Ordinances,” as they were called, had produced a great excitement in Paris. Groups of men in every street were gathered around some one reading aloud the violent commentaries of the public papers; thoughtful and stern faces were met at every corner; a look of expectancy – an expression that seemed to say, What next? – was perceptible on all sides. Many of the shops were half closed, and in some the objects of great value were withdrawn to places of greater security. It was clear to see that men apprehended some great crisis; but whence it should come, or by whose instrumentality promoted, none seemed able to guess. Now and then a mounted orderly would ride by at a smart trot, or a patrol party of dragoons dash past; and the significant glance that followed them indicated how full of meaning these signs appeared.

The day passed in this state of anxious uncertainty; and although the journals discussed the condition of the capital as full of danger and menace, an ostentatious announcement in the “Moniteur” proclaimed Paris to be tranquil. In society – at least in the world of fashion and high life – there were very few who would have disputed the official despatch. “Who and what were they who could dispute the King’s Government? Who and where were there either leaders or followers? In what way should they attempt it? The troops in and around Paris numbered something over forty thousand, commanded by an old Marshal of the Empire, now the trustiest adherent of royalty. The days of Mirabeaus and Robespierres and Dantons had passed away; nor were these times in which men would like to recall the reigns of terror and the guillotine.” So they reasoned – or, if the phrase be too strong, so they talked – who lounged on soft-cushioned ottomans, or moved listlessly over luxurious carpets; all agreeing that it would be treasonable in the Ministers to retreat or abate one jot of the high prerogative of the Crown. Powdered heads shook significantly, and gold-embroidered vests heaved indignantly at the bare thought that the old spirit of ‘95 should have survived amongst them; but not one dreamed that the event boded seriously, or that the destinies of a great nation were then in the balance.

It is but five-and-twenty years ago; and how much more have we learned of the manufacture of revolutions in the interval! Barricades and street warfare have become a science, and the amount of resistance a half-armed populace can offer to a regular force is as much a matter of certainty as a mathematical theorem. At that period, however, men were but in the infancy of this knowledge; the traditions of the Great Revolution scarcely were remembered, and, for the most part, they were inapplicable.

What wonder, then, if people in society smiled scornfully at the purposeless masses that occasionally moved past beneath their windows, shouting with discordant voices some fragments of the “Marseillaise,” or, as they approached the residence of any in authority, venturing on the more daring cry of “Down with the Ordinances!” The same tone of haughty contempt pervaded the “Club.” Young men of fashion, little given to the cares of political life, and really indifferent to the action of laws which never invaded the privileges of the play-table, or curtailed one prerogative of the “Coulisses,” felt an angry impatience at all the turbulence and riot of the public streets.

In a magnificently furnished salon of the Club a number of these young men were now assembled. Gathered from every nation of Europe, – many of them bearing names of high historical interest, – they were, so far as dress, air, and appearance went, no ignoble representatives of the class they belonged to. The proud and haughty Spaniard, the fierce-eyed, daring-looking Pole, the pale, intellectual-faced Italian, the courteous Russian, and the fair-haired, stalwart Saxon were all there; and, however dissimilar in type, banded together by the magic influence of the “set” they moved in, to an almost perfect uniformity of sentiment and opinion.

“I vote that any man be fined ten Louis that alludes, however remotely, to this confounded question again,” cried Count Gardoni, rising impatiently from his chair and approaching a card-table.

“And I second you!” exclaimed a Polish prince, with a Russian decoration at his button-hole.

“Carried nem. con.” said Captain Martin, seating himself at the play-table. “And now for the ‘Lansquenet.’” And in a moment every seat was occupied, and purses of gold and pocket-books of bank-notes were strewed over the board. They were all men who played high; and the game soon assumed the grave character that so invariably accompanies large wagers. Wonderfully little passed, except the terms of the game itself. Gambling is a jealous passion, and never admits its votaries to wander in their attention. And now large sums passed from hand to hand, and all the passions of hope and fear racked heads and hearts around, while a decorous silence prevailed; or, when broken, some softly toned voice alone interrupted the stillness.

“Are you going, Martin?” whispered the young French Count de Nevers, as the other moved noiselessly back from the table.

“It is high time, I think,” said Martin; “this is my seventeenth night of losing, – losing heavily, too. I’m sick of it!”

“Here ‘s a chance for you, Martin,” said a Russian prince, who had just assumed “the bank.” “You shall have your choice of color, and your own stake.”

“Thanks; but I’ll not be tempted.”

“I say red, and a thousand francs,” cried a Neapolitan.

“There ‘s heavier play outside, I suspect,” said Martin, as a wild, hoarse shout from the streets re-echoed through the room.

“A fine, – a fine, – Martin is fined!” cried several around the table.

“You have n’t left me wherewithal to pay it, gentlemen,” said he, laughing. “I was just about to retire, a bankrupt, into private life.”

“That’s platoon fire,” exclaimed the Pole, as the loud detonation of small arms seemed to shake the very room.

“Czernavitz also fined,” cried two together.

“I bow in submission to the Court,” said the Pole, throwing down the money on the table.

“Lend me as much more,” said Martin; “it may change my luck.” And with this gambler’s philosophy, he again drew nigh the table.

This slight interruption over, the game proceeded as before. Martin, however, was now a winner, every wager succeeding, and every bet he made a gain.

“There’s nothing like a dogged persistence,” said the Russian. “Fortune never turns her back on him who shows constancy. See Martin, now; by that very resolution he has conquered, and here we are, all cleared out!”

“I am, for one,” cried an Italian, flinging his empty purse on the table.

“There’s my last Louis,” said Nevers. “I reserve it to pay for my supper.”

“Martin shall treat us all to supper!” exclaimed another.

“Where shall it be, then?” said Martin; “here, or at my own quarters?”

“Here, by all means,” cried some.

“I ‘m for the Place Vendôme,” said the Pole, “for who knows but we shall catch a glimpse of that beautiful girl, Martin’s ‘Belle Irlandaise.’”

“I saw her to-night,” said the Italian, “and I own she is all you say. She was speaking to Villemart, and I assure you the old Minister won’t forget it in a hurry. Something or other he said about the noise in the street drew from him the word canaille. She turned round at once and attacked him. He replied, and the controversy grew warm; so much so, that many gathered around them to listen, amongst whom I saw the Duc de Guiche, Prince du Saulx, and the Austrian Minister. Nothing could be more perfect than her manner, – calm, without any effrontery; assured, and yet no sacrifice of delicacy. It was easy to see, too, that the theme was not one into which she stumbled by an accident; she knew every event of the Great Revolution, and used the knowledge with consummate skill, and, but for one slip, with consummate temper also.

“What was the slip you allude to?” cried the Russian.

“It was when Villemart, after a boastful enumeration of the superior merits of his order, called them the ‘Enlighteners of the People.’

“‘You played that part on one occasion,’ said she; ‘but I scarcely thought you ‘d like to refer to it.’

“‘How so? When do you mean?’ asked he.

“‘When they hung you to the lanterns,’ said she, with the energy of a tigress in her look. Pardié! at that moment I never saw anything so beautiful or so terrible.”

A loud uproar in the street without, in which the sound of troop-horses passaging to and fro could be distinguished, now interrupted the colloquy. As the noise increased, a low, deep roar, like the sound of distant thunder, could be heard, and the Pole cried out, – “Messieurs les Sans-culottes, I strongly advise you to turn homewards, for, if I be not much mistaken, here comes the artillery.”

“The affair may turn out a serious one, after all,” broke in the Italian.

“A serious one!” echoed the Pole, scornfully. “How can it? Forty battalions of infantry, ten thousand sabres, and eight batteries; are they not enough, think you, to rout this contemptible herd of street rioters?”

“There – listen! It has begun already!” exclaimed Martin, as the sharp report of fire-arms, quite close to the windows, was followed by a crash, and then a wild, mad shout, half rage, half defiance.

“There’s nothing for it, in these things, but speedy action,” said the Pole; “grape and cavalry charges to clear the streets, and rifle practice at anything that shows itself at the windows.”

“It is so easy, so very easy, to crush a mob,” said the Russian, “if you only direct your attention to the leader, – think of nothing but him. Once you show that, whatever may be the fate of others, death must be his, the whole assemblage becomes a disorganized, unwieldy mass, to be sabred or shot down at pleasure.”

“Soldiers have no fancy for this kind of warfare,” said De Nevers, haughtily; “victory is never glorious, defeat always humiliation.”

“But who talks of defeat?” exclaimed the Pole, passionately. “The officer who could fail against such an enemy should be shot by a court-martial. We have, I believe, every man of us here, served; and I asked you, what disproportion of force could suggest a doubt of success?”

As he spoke, the door of the room was suddenly opened, and a young man, with dress all disordered, and the fragment of a hat in his hand, entered.

“What, Massingbred!” cried one, “how came you to be so roughly handled?”

“So much for popular politeness!” exclaimed the Russian, as he took up the tattered remains of a dress-coat, and exhibited it to the others.

“Pardon me, Prince,” replied Massingbred, as he filled a glass of water and drank it off, “this courtesy I received at the hands of the military. I was turning my cab from the Boulevard to enter this street, when a hoarse challenge of a sentry, saying I know not what, attracted my attention. I drew up short to learn, and then suddenly came a rush of the people from behind, which terrified my horse, and set him off at speed; the uproar increasing, the affrighted animal dashed madly onward, the crowd flying on every side, when suddenly a bullet whizzed past my head, cutting my hat in two; a second, at the same instant, struck my horse, and killed him on the spot, cab and all rolling over as he fell. How I arose, gained my legs, and was swept away by the dense torrent of the populace, are events of which I am very far from clear. I only know that although the occurrence happened within half an hour ago, it seems to me an affair of days since.”