Luttrell Of Arran

“The picture is not flattering,” said Luttrell, gravely. “And now, Sir, let us talk of something more nearly interesting to us. I am informed by my correspondent that you have seen the catalogue of my small collection, and desire to examine the objects themselves.”

“If that’s a home brew, Stranger, it does you more credit than the chair,” said Mr. Dodge, smacking his lips after his third tumbler of whisky.

“I am proud to have anything worth offering you, Sir.”

“If you’ve a barrel or two; of that spirit to dispose of, we’ll deal, Sir, that’s a fact;” and Mr. Dodge emptied the bottle into his glass.

“I’m not certain whether my resources extend so far, but if they do, the whisky is much at your service, and I will feel honoured if you accept it.”

“Now for the gimcracks – let’s see ‘em,” said Mr. Dodge, as though eager to show how promptly he could respond to a graceful or generous action.

“Some of the gimcracks are here before you,” said Luttrell, making a rather awkward attempt to smile, as he repeated the word. “This curiously misshapen attempt at a figure is, I have every reason to believe, an image of the idol ‘Crom,’ the object of worship to the Irish in the days of Paganism. You see he holds in his hand a sort of weapon like a fork.”

“It ain’t a brand, and it ain’t a fork! The Choctaws have idols that beat that critter hollow, and they stick eyes in them of a red stone that sparkles when there’s light on it. What’s this?”

“An ancient Irish spear, or javelin.”

“It’s a whale harpoon, and a rare bad one to boot; the spike ain’t well fastened, and no lead on the butt-end. Here’s a bowie-knife, ain’t it?”

“It’s the sword of an Irish chieftain, and was found in the tomb of Thady O’Shaughlen, Prince of the Kiel, and the lands of Maroon; the inscription that you see here – ”

“I see nothing but scratches, made belike with an old nail or a dinner-fork – they ain’t letters.”

“This inscription signifies ‘I am.’”

“Well, I’m blessed if I believe them’s old – they’re rubbish, Stranger, jist rubbish – and as for the big dish – ”

“It is a shield – a more perfect specimen is not extant. It was the battle-shield of Brian Ogh-na-Tiernach; he was killed in the great battle of Gongal-a-Murrah, which some historians have confounded with the battle of Claddahmore.”

Perfectly insensible to the sneers, or the not less offensive ridicule expressed by the American, Luttrell went on displaying object after object with all the zeal of one who gloried in his pursuit, and delighted in his success as an antiquarian. He drew forth rare scraps of manuscript, some worn and tattered fragments discoloured by age, and to all seeming undecipherable; he read out names of kings and saints, valiant chieftains, and holy martyrs, whom he mentioned with a voice tremulous with veneration; and he showed signet-rings and amulets they had worn, as a priest might have displayed the most sacred relics.

“Look here, Stranger,” said the Yankee, as he threw himself into the old chair, and stretched out his legs to the fullest extent, “there’s a museum in my native town of Halkanopolis, and I want to make ‘em a present; it’s to be somethin’ nobody ever seed the like of afore, nor ever will again. I du think this gatherin’ here is pretty nigh that ticket! And now, I say, what will you take for the whole bilin’ as it stands?”

“You have not seen one-tenth of the collection as yet!” cried Luttrell, whose zeal as an antiquarian was far greater than his eagerness as a vendor. “There’s the great book of the Three Curses.”

“We can do the swearin’ and cursin’ pretty well without a book where I come from,” said the Yankee, with a grin.

“Diarmid’s Token, as it is called. This curious gem, with its setting of pure gold, was formerly believed to be a protection against witchcraft.”

“In my country, Britisher, it’s the witches would want the amulet! We’re a pretty hard set down there, and can take care of ourselves without any help from charms. Come, now – let’s deal; what’s the whole figure, in one word?”

“You are unjust to both of us,” said Luttrell. “You neither know what I want to sell, or yourself to buy. Let me go on and show you some curious relics of a later period; they may have more interest for you, perhaps.”

“Not a hickory shaving’s difference, whether you showed me a trowel that helped to build Babel, or a snuff-box of Queen Bess. If you want to please me, talk of dollars, Stranger, hard dollars.”

Luttrell’s face flushed with a passing anger; this reducing him to the position of a tradesman, first displaying and then pricing his wares, sorely tried a temper that was never proof against much pressure. The purpose-like cold face of the American, however, showed him that the man meant no covert impertinence by his demand; but was simply desirous of finishing a bargain as speedily as might be.

“I am sorry, Sir,” said he, at length, “that you will not let me lay before you even the few objects that I prize the most; however, as you give me no choice in the matter, and as circumstances render me anxious to part with my collection, I obey you. I estimated the whole at three hundred pounds. My agent informed me that, in London, two hundred was deemed the value, and I never got a higher offer than a hundred and fifty, which I refused, but which I will now take, if offered me.”

The American took a very scrubby note-book from his pocket, and made a short calculation with a pencil.

“Well!” said he, in a drawling, dreary sort of way, “it ain’t much. I suppose you was years over it?”

“Yes,” said Luttrell, taken suddenly off his guard, “they occupied me many very sad days and nights. They were labours that lightened sorrow, and took me away from cares that were eating into my heart.”

“Ah! and how much better you’d have been, stranger, if you’d ha’ been doin’ something genuine useful, something to make yourself and others more comfortable, and not a grubbin’ after old shoe-buckles and saints’ shinbones. Well, you don’t think so! No matter; that’s our way o’ lookin’ at it. Now to business. There’s just one thing in these diggins that has tuk my fancy. It’s the only thing here that I’d give a red cent for, on my own account; but I do like it wonderful. I don’t suppose you’ll let me have it to buy, but if you’ll jist give a loan of it, we’ll say for a year or two – two years – I’ll close the deal, and give you your first price, fifteen hundred dollars.”

Luttrell’s dark face lighted up at the prospect of relief from much embarrassment, and his eyes ranged over the room to see what it possibly could be that had captivated his strange visitor’s fancy. A few gaffs, a single-barrel gun, and some fishing-taekle, were in one corner, and a pair of high sealskin boots in another, and a rough wolflike “lurcher” lay under the table – could it be any of these? It was scarcely credible, and yet the American had seen none other – he had walked straight from the landing-place to the Abbey. “What signifies what it is?” said Luttrell to himself. “It is the caprice of an unlettered fellow, who would, perhaps, care more for a tobacco-pouch than for my ‘Book of the Four Gospels.’”

“I have no doubt that I shall accept your offer, and gladly accept it” said Luttrell; “but it would gratify me if you were to say what it is that you desire to possess.”

“It’s then just as likely you’d refuse me.”

“And I mistake you much if, in such a case, you’d hold me to my bargain!”

For the first time the American’s features brightened; the dull leaden cheek coloured, and the firm-set thin lip curved into a pleasant smile as he said, “You’re right there, Britisher – you’re right there. I’d not ha’ clinched the nail, if I saw it was goin’ to fester you! Here’s how it is, then,” and he drew a long breath to give him courage – “here’s how it is – I want your ‘buoy.’”

“My what?”

“Your buoy; your son!”

“You want my son,” said Luttrell, drawing himself up, and looking with an air of haughty insolence. “Have you forgotten, Sir, which side of the Atlantic you are standing on, and that you are no longer in a land where men deal in their fellow-men? Or is it that, presuming on what poverty you have seen here, you dare to insult me with a proposal your own mean whites would have resented with a bowie-knife?”

“You’d ha’ been a rare chap on a stump, Britisher, that’s a fact!” said the Yankee, coolly. “Your words come rushin’ out like water out of a pump; but they don’t squash me, for all that. Hairy Dodge – Dan Webster always called me Hairy, the short for Herodotus – Hairy Dodge is a hard grit, and it’s not every millstone can grind him.”

“Will you do me the favour, Sir, to accept the very humble hospitality I can offer,” said Luttrell, proudly, “and let there be no more question of any business between us? I think I heard mention of a sick friend who accompanied you.”

“He ain’t a friend of mine. It was a critter I met at the inn, and who wanted to come over here to see you, and so we agreed we’d take the lugger between us.”

“He is ill, I am told.”

“Jist fright – nothing but fright! The first sea that took the boat on the quarter, he cried out ‘Lord a mercy on us!’ ‘Oh, are ye there?’ says I; ‘are ye a prayin’ for that sort o’ thing?’ and, surely, he did go at it, till he grew too sick for anything but groans. There was no use reasonin’ with him, for all he said was, ‘Put me ashore where you like, and I’ll give you five hundred pounds.’ He got up to a thousand; and once, when the peak halyards gave way, and the sail came clattering down, he raised the bid to half his whole fortune.”

“So that there is no actual malady in the case?”

“Nothin’ o’ the kind. It’s jist fright – mere fright! How you’re ever to get him off this to the mainland again, is clean beyond me. He’ll not go, that’s certain, if he can help it.”

“I must look to him, and see that, so far as our very poor accommodation serves, he wants nothing. You’ll excuse me, I trust, Sir.”

Luttrell spoke in a cold and formal tone, hoping, that his visitor, seeing no prospect of any transaction between them, would now take his leave. Mr. Dodge, however, either did not deem the battle lost, or he saw no reason to retire from the field, for he disposed himself once more in the old chair, and taking out a cigar about as long as a modern parasol, prepared to smoke.

“You haven’t any objection to this sort o’ thing?” he asked, coolly, as he lit it.

“None whatever. I’d say, Make yourself at home, Sir, if it were not that this humble house of mine is so little like a home.”

“It will look jollier in the evening, when there’s a good fire on the hearth, and a strong brew of that pleasant spirit smokin’ afore us;” and Mr. Dodge vouchsafed a strange sort of grin, which was the nearest approach he could make to a laugh, and Luttrell, stung by the notion that another was assuming to do the honours of his house, and to himself too, retired hastily without speaking.

CHAPTER XIX. THE LAWYER “ABROAD.”

To reach the “store-room” where Mr. M’Kinlay lay – for of course it is needless to inform our readers he was the much-terrified voyager alluded to – Luttrell was obliged to pass through the kitchen, and in so doing, beheld a scene which had never before presented itself to his eyes in that spot. Molly Ryan, feeling all the importance of the occasion, and well knowing that her master would never remember to give her any orders on the subject, had issued a general requisition for supplies all over the island, which was so quickly, and well responded to, that the place looked less like a room in a dwelling-house than a great mart for all sorts of provisions.

Great baskets of fish stood on every side – fish of the strangest and most uncouth forms, many of them, and with names as uncouth. There were varieties of ugliness among them to gratify the most ‘exacting naturalist, flat-headed, many-toothed, monsters, with bony projections all over them, and dorsal fins like hand-saws. Even the cognate creatures wore an especial wildness in that wild spot, and lobsters looked fiercer, and crabs more crabbed, while oysters, least aggressive of all floating things, had a ragged and rocky exterior that seemed to defy all attempt at penetration. Besides, there were hampers of eggs, and “creels” of potatoes, and such other garden produce as the simple cultivation permitted. While, meekly in one corner, and awaiting his fate with that air of conscious martyrdom which distinguishes the race, stood a very lean sheep, fastened by a hay-rope to the leg of a dresser.

But the object which more than others attracted Luttrell’s attention, was a pale, sallow-faced man, who sat next the fire on a low seat, all propped up by pillows, and his legs enveloped in a blanket; his wan and singular appearance being considerably heightened by the feathers of a goose having lighted on him, giving him half the look of some enormous fowl in the act of being plucked. This addition to his picturesqueness was contributed by Harry, who, engaged in plucking a goose at the opposite side of the fire, sent all the down and feathers in that direction. Harry himself, without shoes or stockings, indeed with nothing but a flannel shirt and trousers, was entertaining the stranger? and giving him, so far as he could, an insight into the life and habits of the islanders.

It is perhaps fortunate for me that it is not part of my task to record the contributions to history which Harry Luttrell afforded the stranger; they were not, possibly, divested of a little aid from that fancy which narrators are sometimes led to indulge in, and certainly Mr. M’Kinlay felt on hearing them, that terrible as were the perils of the voyage, the dangers that beset his place of refuge seemed infinitely more terrible. A few traditionary maxims were all that they knew of law, of religion they knew still less; in a word, the stranger learned that he was in the midst of a people who cared no more for British rule than they did for the sway of the Grand Llama; and in a place where, if it were very difficult to live, few things were so easy as to get rid of life.

So intensely interested was M’Kinlay in the boy’s narrative, that he never noticed Luttrell, who entered the kitchen, and made his way towards him. Luttrell himself was so preoccupied with one thought, that he hardly acknowledged the salutations of the people who made way for him to pass. The thought that engaged him was this: that the man before him was the bearer of a writ against him. That the law, which in his fastness he had so long defied or evaded, had at last tracked him home, and though he knew that, were this to be the case, nothing could be easier for him than to conceal himself in the island – there were spots there, where, had it been safe to have followed, no search could have discovered him – yet, in the passionate boldness which prompted him always to meet the coming peril half way, he now sought out this man, whatever might be his mission, to confront him.

Who can tell, besides, what an insolent pride he felt in being able to say to the emissary of the law, “Go back to those who sent you, and tell them that you saw and spoke to Luttrell of Arran, but that you did not dare to lay a hand upon him, nor utter the stupid formula of your craft, because one single word from him would have settled your doom for ever; that he did not avoid nor evade you; that he received you courteously, and, so far as he could, hospitably; but, with the proud consciousness that he was more the master of your fate than were you of his, and that the wisest thing you could do was to forget the errand you came upon, and go back as you came.” With some such thoughts as these Luttrell now came forward and stood before the stranger, and for some seconds each looked in silence at the other.

“Are you Mr. Luttrell of Arran?” asked M’Kinlay, in a low feeble tone.

“I am accustomed to believe, Sir, that a stranger usually announces his own name and quality first, when presenting himself in the house of another,” said Luttrell, slowly and gravely.

“I ask pardon; my name is Robert M’Kinlay, Sir, of Purniyal’s Inn, and 28, Regents-terrace, London, conveyancer.”

“And I am John Hamilton Luttrell of Arran. Now that we know each other, are there any matters we can treat of, or is this meeting to have merely the character of a pleasant ‘rencontre?’”

“It was business brought me here, Mr. Luttrell!” said M’Kinlay, with a groan of such intense sincerity that Luttrell almost smiled at it.

“Whenever you feel equal to treat of it, you’ll find me at your service,” said Luttrell.

“Could it be now, Mr. Luttrell – could it be now?” cried M’Kinlay, with eagerness.

“It shall be this minute, if you desire it.”

Unwrapping the blanket from around him, and disposing it not very gracefully, perhaps, over his shoulders, Mr. M’Kinlay scrambled rather than walked after Luttrell to his room.

“Ah, Sir!” cried he, as he entered, “if I had but the shadow of a suspicion of what the expedition was before me, I’d have refused flatly; ay, Sir, if I had to throw up the agency for it the day after.”

“I am truly sorry, Sir, your impressions of this place should be so unfavourable.”

Mr. M’Kinlay was too full of his disastrous experiences to listen to excuses, and he went on: “People cross the Atlantic every week and don’t suffer one-half what I did since I left Westport. I vow I think they might round the Cape with less actual danger; and when we tacked about and ran down to take up the creatures that were upset, one of our sailors – no, indeed, but two of them – declared that it was at the imminent risk of our own lives we were doing it; that if something held on, or didn’t hold on, I forget which, and that if we were to get entangled in the wreck – but I can’t describe it, only I remember that the American – the greatest savage I ever met in my life – took a pistol out of his pocket, and swore he’d shoot the man at the helm if he didn’t bear up for the wreck. He swore – I’ll never forget his awful oaths, doubly terrible at such a moment – that he saw a boy, or, as he called it, ‘a buoy,’ on a spar waving his cap to us, and he said, ‘I’ll go down to him if we upset beside him.’ Yes, Sir, it sounds incredible that a man so dead to any sentiment of humanity could exist, and who could declare that he’d imperil five lives, and his own too, just out of – what shall I call it? – a whim, a caprice, a fancy, and for what? – for some fishermen, some starving creatures whose miserable lives ought to make death a release, and a boy that possibly, until your kind cook gave him leave to sit at the kitchen fire, had no home to go to to dry himself.”

Luttrell’s face grew almost purple, and then, of a sudden, ashy pale. To suppress the passionate impulse that worked within him, made him feel sick almost to fainting, but he did suppress it, and with an immense effort of self-control said, “And the American, you say, was resolved that he’d save the boy.”

“Ah! at any cost! indeed, he had the cruelty to say to myself, ‘If the boat goes over, mind that you keep up, to windward, or to leeward, or somewhere, I don’t know where, for I was well aware that it was down I should go. ‘You can swim,’ said he, ‘I suppose?’ ‘Not a stroke,’ said I. ‘It don’t matter,’ said he, ‘you can grip on all the same.’ Yes, Sir, that was his unfeeling remark. ‘You can grip on all the same.’”

“But he declared that the boy he would save!” cried Luttrell, with a scornful toss of his head at the other’s prolixity.

“That he did; I am willing to make oath of it, let the consequences be what they may to him.”

“He never told me of that,” said Luttrell, thoughtfully.

“I should think not, Sir; it’s not very likely that a man will parade his own inhumanity, and declare how he risked five valuable lives to save a few savage creatures, who might as well be drowned at sea as die of starvation on shore.”

“You are severe, Sir. You judge us somewhat hardly. With all our barbarism, we have our uses, and, more too, we have ties and affections pretty much like our betters.” Though there was far more sadness than sarcasm in the way Luttrell said these words, Mr. M’Kinlay winced under the reproof they conveyed, and hastily blurted out his excuses.

“You cannot suppose I could have meant to include you, Sir. You couldn’t imagine that in speaking of these poor ignorant creatures, I had the slightest intention – ”

“I never suspect an insult where it is possible to believe such was not intended, Sir,” said Luttrell, haughtily. “But I don’t think that we are here now to discuss the fishermen of Arran, or their claim to be deemed civilised.”

“You are right – you are quite right, Mr. Luttrell. I ask pardon for all this digression, the more since it was entirely personal; but a man’s first shipwreck takes a wonderful hold on his imagination;” and the lawyer laughed with one of those practised laughs, which, by setting others off, frequently cut short an unpleasant discussion. Luttrell was, however, impassive in his gravity; if anything, he looked more stern than before. “I have come here,” resumed M’Kinlay, “at the request of my friend and client, Sir Gervais Vyner. This letter is my introduction to you.”

Luttrell took it, read the address, turned it round, and looked at the seal, and then laid it down upon the table. He heaved a long sigh, too, but it was a sigh of relief, for he had had sore misgivings as to M’Kinlay’s visit, and visions of law and its dire consequences in various ways had been flitting before his eyes.

“I opine that the letter will explain the object of my coming here more briefly than I could.”

“Do me the favour to tell it in words, Sir,” said Luttrell, coldly; and the other bowed and began.

Our reader may not be as patient a listener as was Luttrell, nor, indeed, need he hear Mr. M’Kinlay’s account of a mission with which he is already familiar; enough, then, if we say that he was listened to for above an hour in perfect silence, not one word of remark, not a question, not even a gesture interrupted the flow of the narrative, and although at some moments the lawyer grew pathetic over peasant hardships and privations, and at others was jocose over their drolleries, Luttrell neither vouchsafed any show of sentiment or of mirth, but heard him throughout, as might the Chancellor have heard a pleading in Equity. Vyner had cautioned M’Kinlay not to divulge the name of the girl in whose behalf Luttrell was entreated to act, until he had given some pledge of his willingness to accept the trust. He knew well the proud susceptibility of the man, and how instantaneously he would reject what savoured of an advantage to those connected with him, not to speak of the additional pain he would feel in knowing that these peasants had been paraded as his near relatives, and so Vyner had said, “Keep the name of the girl in the background, and even when asked for it, do not appear aware of her being his connexion. Leave it entirely to him to avow it or not, as he pleases. Remember,” said he, as he parted with him, “you will have to treat with not only a very acute, ready-witted man, but one of the most sensitive and easily irritated temperaments in the universe.”

In fact, so profuse had Vyner been of his directions, his counsels, and his warnings, that he frightened M’Kinlay considerably, impressing him with a very wholesome fear of the man he was to deal with. “I’ll let him pick out the facts from the brief itself,” thought he, as he handed the letter. “I’ll not open the case by a speech.” This clever tactic was, however, routed at once by Luttrell, as he said, “Let me hear the statement from yourself, Sir. I will give it all my attention.”

Thus called upon, he spoke, and, apart from those little digressionary excursions into the pathetic and the humorous, he spoke well. He owned, that though Vyner’s desire to be an Irish proprietor met a certain encouragement from himself, that he looked with little favour on the other project, and less even of hope.

Indeed, of this plan, not being a father himself, he spoke less confidently. “But, after all,” said he, smiling, “they are one and the other but a rich man’s fancy. He can afford an unprofitable investment, and a somewhat costly experiment.”

In all he said, Mr. M’Kinlay took pains to show that Sir Gervais was acting under his own judgment; that he, M’Kinlay, was a cool, calm, long-headed man of the world, and only looked on these matters as a case he “was to carry,” not criticise; a question he was to consign to parchment, and not ratify by an opinion.