Luttrell Of Arran

“No keel! And ought she to have a keel?”

“Well, I think she’d be the better of one,” said Harry, smiling.

“Let us get back, Sir – let us get back at once! This is the reverse of agreeable to me. I don’t understand, and I don’t enjoy it. Put mc ashore anywhere, and leave me to find my way how I can. There – yonder, where you see the rocks – land me there!”

“If I tried it, you’d find your way sure enough, but it would be into the next world! Don’t you see the white line there? Those are breakers!”

“Then turn back, Sir, I command, I implore you,” cried he, with a voice shaking with terror.

“I’ll put about when the wind slackens. I can’t do it just yet. Have a little patience. Take the rudder a moment.”

“No, Sir; I refuse – I decidedly refuse. I protest against any share in what may happen.”

“Perhaps it will be past protesting if you don’t do what I tell you. Hold this, and mind my orders. Keep the tiller so till I cry out hard down; mind me, now – no mistake.” And not waiting for more, he sprang into the bow of the boat as she ran up into the wind, and held out the foresail to the breeze. “Down helm – hard down!” cried he; and round she spun at once, and so rapidly, that the lee gunwale went under water, and M’Kinlay, believing she had upset, uttered one wild cry and fell senseless into the bottom of the boat. Not much grieved at his condition – perhaps, on the whole, almost glad to be rid of his company – Harry lighted a cigar and steered for shore. In less than half an hour they gained the slack water of the little bay, and M’Kinlay, gathering himself up, asked if they were nigh land.

“Close in; get up and have a cigar,” said Harry, curtly.

“No, Sir; I will not.”

“I thought you liked a weed,” said Harry, carelessly.

“My likings or my dislikings must be matter of perfect indifference to you, Sir, or I should not be wet to the skin and shivering as I am now.”

“Take a go of brandy, and you’ll be all right,” said Harry, throwing his flask to him.

Though not very graciously offered, M’Kinlay accepted the dram, and then looked over the side towards the shore with an air of greater contentment. “Considering, Sir, that I came here to-day on your account, I think I might have been treated with somewhat more deference to my tastes,” said he, at last.

“On my account? And in what way on my account?”

“If we are not likely to have any more storms of wind, I can perhaps tell you.”

“No, no, it’s still as a fishpond here. Go on.”

“Before I go on – before I even begin, Mr. Luttrelle I must have your promise that you will not mention to any one what shall pass between us to-day. It is on a subject which concerns you– but still concerns others more nearly.”

“All right. I’ll not speak of it.”

“You will give me your word?”

“I have given it. Didn’t you hear me say I’d not speak of it?”

“Well, Sir, the matter is this: Great uneasiness is being felt here at the intimacy that has grown up between you and Miss Vyner. Motives of extreme delicacy towards you– who, of course, not having lived much in the world, could not be expected to weigh such considerations – but motives of great delicacy, as I say, have prevented any notice being taken of this intimacy, and a hope has been felt that you yourself, once awakened to the fact of the long interval that separates her condition from yours, would soon see the propriety, indeed the necessity, of another line of conduct, and thus not require what may seem an admonition, though I really intend you should receive it as the warning counsel of a friend.”

“Have you been commissioned to say this to me?” asked Luttrell, haughtily.

“Though I had decided with myself not to answer any questions, I will reply to this one – and this only. I have.”

“Who gave you this charge?”

M’Kinlay shook his head, and was silent.

“Was it Sir Gervais Vyner?”

Another shake of the head was the reply.

“I thought not. I am certain, too, it was not Lady Vyner. Be frank, Sir, and tell me candidly. It was Miss Courtenay employed you on this errand?”

“I really see no necessity for any explanation on my part, Mr. Luttrell. I have already transgressed the limits of mere prudence in the avowal I have made you. I trust you will be satisfied with my candour.”

“Let me ask for a little more of that same candour. I want to know what is expected of me. What I am to do?”

“Really, Sir, you make my position a very painful one. You insist upon my being extremely disagreeable to you.”

“Listen to reason. I am telling you that I found myself in considerable embarrassment, and I entreat of you, as a favour, to show me the way out of it. Am I to discontinue all intimacy with Miss Vyner? Am I to avoid her? Am I to leave this, and not return?”

“That I opine to be the most fitting course under the circumstances,” said M’Kinlay, bowing.

“I see,” said Harry, pondering for some seconds – “I see.” And then, with a more fervid manner, resuming: “But if I know, Sir – if I feel – that all this caution is unnecessary, that I have not – that I never had – the slightest pretensions such as you speak of, that Miss Vyner’s manner to me, in its very freedom, repels any suspicion of the kind, – I ask you, is it not a little hard to deny me the greatest happiness I have ever tasted in life – the first holiday after a long spell of work and hardship? Why should I not go straight to Sir Gervais and say this?”

“You forget your promise to myself.”

“Ay, to be sure, that is a barrier. I suppose you are right. The best, the only way, is to go off; and I own I feel ashamed to make this return for all the generous kindness I have met here; and what an insufferable coxcomb must it stamp me, if it ever comes out that I left on such grounds as these.”

“That is not how the world regards such things, Sir. Men are not supposed to measure their affections by their circumstances. If it were so, we should not see so many mésalliances.”

“I don’t know how to go about it. I’m a precious bungler at making excuses, and, whenever I have told a lie in my life, my own shame and confusion have always convicted me; help me to some ingenious pretext for a sudden departure.”

“You can have law business. Your agents wish to see you.”

“But I have no property, or next to none. No, no, that won’t do.”

“You desire to visit your friends in Ireland.”

“Just as bad. I have as little friends as fortune. Try again.”

“Why should not Captain Dodge have sent for you; you left him very ill, and confined to bed, I understand?”

“He told Sir Gervais to keep me as long as possible; that the air of the hospital was bad for me, and had brought back my ague.”

“If you are so very scrupulous, Sir, as to what people generally regard as a mere conventionality, I should say, pack up and be off without any explanation at all.”

“I believe you are right. It is the old story of paying one’s debts with the topsail sheet. Shabby enough, too, but it can’t be helped. Perhaps, Mr. M’Kinlay, if occasion should occur, you would find means to let Sir Gervais know that I am not the ungrateful dog my want of manners might bespeak me; perhaps you would convey to him that this step of mine had been suggested by yourself.”

“It is possible, Mr. Luttrell, that a fortuitous moment for an explanation of the kind you mention might occur, and, if so, you may rely on my willingness to profit by it. You mean to go at once?”

“I suppose so. Is it not what you advise?”

“Most certainly.”

“Here goes, then! I’ll start this instant. They are all out driving, except Miss Courtenay. I see her in the garden yonder. She, I know, will forgive me my abrupt departure, and you’ll make the best story you can out of it, Mr. M’Kinlay. As I was last seen in your company, you’ll be obliged, for your own sake, to say something plausible.”

“I will do my best, Sir. The eccentric habits of a sea-life must bear the burden of the explanation.”

“It’s poor comfort that I can’t be much missed! Good-by!” And, without any more cordial leave-taking, Luttrell turned into a side-path that led directly to the house, while M’Kinlay entered the garden and made straight for the sea-wall, on which Miss Courtenay was sitting, awaiting him.

“Well?” said she, impatiently, as he came forward – “well?”

“It is done – all finished!”

“In what way? How is it finished?”

“He goes away – goes at once!”

“Of course he writes a note, and makes some sort of excuse to my brother-in-law for his hurried departure?”

“I believe not. I fear – that is, I apprehend – he is one of those not very tractable people who always do an awkward thing in the awkwardest way; for when I explained to him that his position here was – what shall I say? – an indiscretion, and that Miss Vyner’s friends saw with uneasiness the growing intimacy between them – ”

“You did not speak of me – you did not mention my name, I hope?” broke she in, in an imperious tone.

“You could not suppose me guilty of such imprudence, Miss Courtenay!” said he, in an offended manner.

“No matter what I suppose, Sir. I want you to tell me that my name was not uttered during your interview.”

“Not by me– certainly not by me!” said he, timidly.

“Was it by him, Sir? Answer me that!”

“Well, I rather think that he did say that I had been deputed by you to convey the message to him.”

“What insolence! And how did you reply?”

“I observed that I was not there exactly for the purpose of a cross-examination; that in my capacity as a friendly adviser, I declined all interrogation.”

“Fiddle faddle, Sir. It would have been far more to the purpose to have said, ‘Miss Courtenay has nothing whatever to do with this communication.’ I really feel ashamed to think I should play the prompter to a professor in subtleties; but I still think that your ingenuity might have hit upon a reason for his going, without any reference to us, or to our wishes. Did it never occur to you, for instance, that the arrival of Sir Within Wardle might offer a convenient plea?”

“Indeed! I might have mentioned that,” said he, in some confusion. “The house does not admit of much accommodation for strangers, and an additional room would be of consequence just now.”

“I think, Sir,” said she, haughtily, “you might have put the matter in a better light than by making it a domestic question. This young man might have been brought to see that the gentleman who was so ungratefully treated – I might say, so shamefully treated – by his near relative, could not be the pleasantest person for him to meet in a narrow family circle.”

“I might. It is quite true, I might have insinuated that consideration,” said he, with a crestfallen air and look.

“I suppose you did your best, Sir!” said she, with a sigh; and he felt all the sarcastic significance of its compassion. “Indeed, I am certain you did, and I thank you.” With these words, not conveyed in any excess of warmth or gratitude, she moved away, and M’Kinlay stood a picture of doubt, confusion, and dismay, muttering to himself some unintelligible words, whose import was, however, the hope of that day coming when these and many similar small scores might be all wiped out together.

CHAPTER LXIII. WITH LAWYERS

“What! that you, Harry? How comes it you have left all the fine folk so soon?” cried Captain Dodge, as he suddenly awoke and saw young Luttrell at his bedside. “Why, lad, I didn’t expect to see you back here these ten days to come. Warn’t they polite and civil to you?”

“That they were. They could not haye treated me better if I had been their own son.”

“How comes it, then, that you slipped your moorings?”

“Well, I can’t well say. There were new guests just arriving, and people I never saw, and so, with one thing or other, I thought I’d just move off; and – and – here I am.”

It was not difficult to see that this very lame excuse covered some other motive, and the old skipper was not the man to be put off by a flimsy pretext; but, rough sailor and buccaneer as he was, he could respect the feelings that he thought might be matter of secret meaning, and merely said: “I’m glad to see you back, at all events. I have no one to speak to in this place, and, as I lie here, I get so impatient, that I forget my smashed thigh-bone, and want to be up and about again.”

“So you will, very soon, I hope.”

“Not so soon, lad!” said he, sorrowfully. “It’s a big spar to splice, the surgeon says, and will take three months; though how I’m to lie here three months is more than I can tell.”

“I’ll do my best to make it endurable for you. I’ll get books – they’ve plenty of books here – and maps, and drawings; and I saw a draftboard this morning, and you’ll see the time won’t hang so heavily as you feared.”

“That ain’t it at all, Harry. You’ve got to go to Liverpool to Towers and Smales – them’s the fellows know me well. Smales sailed with me as a youngster, and you’ll hand them a letter I’ll write, and they’ll look about for the sort of craft we’re wanting – something bark-rigged, or a three-masted schooner. I was dreaming of one last night – such a clipper on a wind! The French are blockading Vera Cruz just now, and if we could slip past them and get in, one trip would set us all right again.”

“I think I should like that well!” cried the youth. “Like it! Why. wouldn’t you like it? There ain’t nothing to compare with blockade running in this life: stealing carefully up till you see the moment to make a dash – watching your wind, and then with every inch of canvas you can spread, go at it till the knee timbers crack again, and the planks work and writhe like the twigs of a wicker basket, and all the ships of war flying this signal and that to each other, till at last comes a gun across your bows, and you run up a flag of some sort – English belike, for the French never suspect John Bull of having a clipper. Then comes the order to round to, and you pretend to mind it; and just as they man their boat, dead at them you go, swamp every man of them, and hold on, while they fire away, at the risk of hulling each other, and never take more notice of them than one discharge from your pivot-gun, just by way of returning their salute. That’s what I call sport, boy; and I only wish I was at it this fine morning.”

“And what happens if you’re taken?”

“That depends on whether you showed fight or not; if you fired a shotted gun, they hang you.”

Luttrell shook his head, and muttered, “A dog’s death; I don’t like that.”

“That’s prejudice, Sir; nothing more. Every death a man meets bravely is a fine death! I’d just as lieve be hanged as flayed alive by the Choctaws!”

“Perhaps so would!”

“Well, there’s what you’ve got to do. Towers and Smales, shipbuilders! – they’re the men to find what we want, and they know a clipper well; they’ve built more slavers than any house in the trade.”

Harry made a wry face; the skipper saw it, and said: “There’s more prejudice; but when you’ve been at sea as long as I have, you’ll think less about the cargo than what you get per ton for the freight.”

“I’d not turn slaver, anyhow; that much I can tell you,” said he, stoutly.

“I’d not do it myself, Sir, except when business was alack and freights low. It ain’t cheering, noways; and there’s a certain risk in it besides. Towers and Smales – Towers and Smales!” muttered he over to himself three or four times. “They’d not be the men they are to-day, I can tell you, if they never traded in ebony ware! Had you any talk with your grand friend, Sir Gervais, about that loan he offered me?” asked he, after a pause.

“Not a word. I came away hurriedly. I had no good opportunity to speak about it.”

“He said, ‘Two thousand, and pay when I like;’ not hard terms certainly.”

“And yet I’d rather you’d not accept them,” said Harry, slowly.

“Not take money without interest charged or security asked? What do you mean?”

“I mean, I rather you’d wait till I’ve seen those lawyers that managed my father’s affairs, and see whether they can’t sell that trifle of property that comes to me.”

“Why, didn’t you tell me your father willed it away to some peasant girl?”

“Yes, the island, for the entail had been broken by my grandfather, but the small estate in Roscommon goes to the next of kin, and that happens to be myself. It must be very little worth, but it may help us at least to get a ship, and we’ll soon do the rest ourselves.”

“That will we, Harry. This is the fourth time in my life I’ve had to begin all over again, and I’m as fresh for it as on the first day.”

They went on now to talk of the future and all their plans like men who felt the struggle with life a fair stand up fight, that none with a stout heart ought ever to think of declining. The skipper had not only been in every corner of the globe, but had brought back from each spot some memories of gain, or pleasure, or peril – sensations pretty much alike to his appreciation – and whether he commanded a whale-boat at Behring’s Straits, or took in his ship store of cocoa-nuts and yams at the Spice Islands, adventure ever tracked his steps. Dashed with the love of danger was the love of gain, and in his narrative one never could say whether there prevailed more the spirit of enterprise or the temper of the trader.

“We’ll want that loan from Vyner yet, I see, Harry,” said he, at the end of a long calculation of necessary outgoings; “and I see no reason against taking it.”

“I do, though,” said the other, gravely.

“Mayhap some sentimental reason that I’d not give a red cent for, boy. What is it?”

“I’ll not trouble you with the sentimental reasons,” said Luttrell, smiling, “though perhaps I’m not without some of them. What I’ll give you will suffice. While I was one morning with Sir Gervais, going over all about my father and his affairs, of which he knew far more than I did, he opened his writing-desk, and took out a great mass of letters. ‘These,’ said he, ‘are in your father’s hand; read them, and you’ll be better acquainted with him than you have yet been.’ They were on all manner of themes – of society, field sports, books, and much about politics – and interested me vastly, till at last I came upon one which certainly Sir Gervais would not have suffered me to see had he been aware it was amongst them. It was the last letter my father had ever written to him, and was almost entirely about myself. He spoke of the semi-barbarism I had been reared in, and the humble prospects before me, and he told about my disposition, and my faults of temper – the old family faults, he called them – that made us all ‘intractable to our friends, and intolerable to all who were not friends.’ At the end he asked Vyner to become my guardian, and he added these words: ‘Be a friend to my boy in all ways that your kindness, your sympathy, your counsel can dictate. Guide, direct, encourage, or, if need be, reprove him, but never, whatever you do, aid him with your purse. It is on this condition I commit him to you. Remember.’”

“Well, I’d be noways obliged to my father if he had made any such condition about me. I’ve never been much the better for all the good advice I’ve got, but I’ve found the man that lent me a thousand dollars uncommon useful.”

“I am telling you of what my father wished and asked for,” said Harry, proudly, “not of anything else.”

“And that’s just what I’m objectin’ to, youngster. It was his pride to take no help, and it brought him to live and die on a barren rock in the ocean; but I don’t intend to do that, nor to let you do it. We’ve got to say to the world, ‘Sheer off there, I’m a comin’, and I mean comin’ when I say it. There’s maybe room enough for us all, but I’ll be smashed and chawed up but I’ll have room for me!”

Whether it was the fierce energy with which he spoke this, or the fact that in a few rough words he had embodied his whole theory of life, but certainly Harry looked at him with a sort of wonder blended with amusement.

“Besides this,” resumed Bodge, with the same decision of tone, “your father might say, if he pleased, ‘You shan’t help Harry Luttrell,’ but he never could say, ‘You mustn’t help Herodotus Dodge.’ No, Sir!”

“At all events,” said Harry, “you’ll let me try my own plan first. If that fail, there will be time enough to consider the other. I’ll start to-night for Liverpool. After I have seen your friends there, I’ll go over and consult my lawyers in Dublin; and I mean to run across and see Arran – the old rock – once more. It shall be my last look at it.”

“It ain’t a beauty, that’s a fact,” said Dodge, who saw nothing of the agitation in the other’s voice or manner. “Give me an hour or two, and I’ll write the letters for you, and I’ll tell Smales that if you want any money – ”

“I shall not want it.”

“Then you’ll be unlike any other man that ever wore shoes, Sir, that’s all!” And Dodge stuffed a formidable piece of tobacco into his mouth, as though to arrest his eloquence and stop the current of his displeasure, while Harry waved him a good-by, and went out.

The same evening he started for Liverpool. The skipper’s friends were most cordial and hospitable to him. They had had long dealings with Dodge, and found him ever honourable and trustworthy, and Harry heard with sincere pleasure the praises of his friend. It was evident, too, that they were taken with young Luttrell, for they brought him about amongst their friends, introducing him everywhere, and extending to him every hospitality of their hospitable city. If Harry was very grateful for all this kindness, his mind continually reverted to the society he had so lately mixed in, and whose charm he appreciated, new as he was to life and the world, with an intense zest – the polished urbanity of Sir Gervais; the thoughtful good nature of Lady Vyner; the gentle gracefulness of Ada; even Miss Courtenay – no favourite of his, nor he of hens – yet even she possessed a winning elegance of manner that was very captivating.

Very unlike all these were the attentions that now surrounded him, and many were the unfavourable comparisons he drew between his present friends and their predecessors. Not that he was in love with Ada; he had asked himself the question more than once, and always had he given the same answer: “If I had been a man of rank and fortune, I’d have deemed my lot perfect to have had such a sister.” And really it was sister-like she had been to him; so candid, so frank, so full of those little cares that other “love” shrinks from, and dares not deal in. She had pressed him eagerly, too, to accept assistance from her father – a step she never could have taken had love been there – and he had refused on grounds which showed he could speak with a frankness love cannot speak.

“I take it,” muttered he to himself one day, after long reflection – “I take it that my Luttrell blood moves too slowly for passionate affection, and that the energy of my nature must seek its exercise in hatred, not love; and if this be so, what a life is before me!”

At last the ship-builders discovered the craft that Dodge was in search of. She was a slaver recently captured off Bahia, and ordered to be sold by the Admiralty. A few lines from Harry described her with all the enthusiasm that her beauty and fine lines could merit, and he smiled to himself as he read over the expressions of admiration, which no loveliness in human form could have wrung from him.

He sailed for Ireland on the night he wrote, but carried his letter with him, to relate what he might have to say of his meeting with his lawyer. A little event that occurred at his landing was also mentioned:

“As I was stepping into the boat that was to take me ashore, we were hailed by a large ship-rigged vessel just getting under weigh, and from which several boats, crowded with people, were just leaving. We rowed towards her, and found that they wanted us to take on shore a young lady whose class evidently prevented her mixing with the vulgar herd that filled the other boats. She was in deep mourning, and so overwhelmed with grief, that she was almost unconscious as they lifted her into the boat. I caught a mere glimpse of her face, and never saw anything so beautiful in my life. Only think! the vessel was a convict-ship, and she had gone there to take a last farewell of some father or brother, perhaps – husband it could scarcely be, she was too young for that. Can you imagine anything more dreadful? One evidently of rank and birth – there were unmistakable signs of both about her – mixing even for an instant with all the pollution of crime and wickedness that crowd the deck of a convict-ship! I asked leave to accompany her to her house or hotel, or wherever she was going, but she made a gesture of refusal; and, though I’d have given more than I dare tell to have known more about her, I thought it would be so unworthy to follow, her, that I left her the moment we landed, and never saw her more.