The Fortunes Of Glencore

“That ‘s as much as she could do,” said the sailor; “and I would not like to ax her to do more.”

“I agree with you,” said Harcourt, secretly stealing his feet back again into his shoes, which he had just kicked off.

“It’s freshening it is every minute,” said the man; “and I’m not sure that we could make the islands if it lasts.”

“Well, – what then?”

“There’s nothing for it but to be blown out to say,” said he, calmly, as, having filled his tobacco-pipe, he struck a light and began to smoke.

“The very thing I was wishing for,” said Harcourt, touching his cigar to the bright ashes. “How she labors! Do you think she can stand this?”

“She can, if it’s no worse, sir.” “But it looks heavier weather outside.”

“As well as I can see, it’s only beginnin’.”

Harcourt listened with a species of admiration to the calm and measured sentiment of the sailor, who, fully conscious of all the danger, yet never, by a word or gesture, showed that he was flurried or excited.

“You have been out on nights as bad as this, I suppose?” said Harcourt.

“Maybe not quite, sir, for it’s a great say is runnin’; and, with the wind off shore, we could n’t have this, if there was n’t a storm blowing farther out.”

“From the westward, you mean?”

“Yes, sir, – a wind coming over the whole ocean, that will soon meet the land wind.”

“And does that often happen?”

The words were but out, when, with a loud report like a cannon-shot, the wind reversed the sail, snapping the strong sprit in two, and bringing down the whole canvas clattering into the boat. With the aid of a hatchet, the sailor struck off the broken portion of the spar, and soon cleared the wreck, while the boat, now reduced to a mere foresail, labored heavily, sinking her prow in the sea at every bound. Her course, too, was now altered, and she flew along parallel to the shore, the great cliffs looming through the darkness, and seeming as if close to them.

“The boy! – the boy!” cried Harcourt; “what has become of him? He never could have lived through that squall.”

“If the spar stood, there was an end of us, too,” said the sailor; “she’d have gone down by the stern, as sure as my name is Peter.”

“It is all over by this time,” muttered Harcourt, sorrowfully.

“Pace to him now!” said the sailor, as he crossed himself, and went over a prayer.

The wind now raged fearfully; claps, like the report of cannon, struck the frail boat at intervals, and laid her nearly keel uppermost; while the mast bent like a whip, and every rope creaked and strained to its last endurance. The deafening noise close at hand told where the waves were beating on the rock-bound coast, or surging with the deep growl of thunder through many a cavern. They rarely spoke, save when some emergency called for a word. Each sat wrapped up in his own dark reveries, and unwilling to break them. Hours passed thus, – long, dreary hours of darkness, that seemed like years of suffering, so often in this interval did life hang in the balance.

As morning began to break with a grayish blue light to the westward, the wind slightly abated, blowing more steadily, too, and less in sudden gusts; while the sea rolled in large round waves, unbroken above, and showing no crest of foam.

“Do you know where we are?” asked Harcourt.

“Yes, sir; we ‘re off the Rooks’ Point, and if we hold on well, we ‘ll soon be in slacker water.”

“Could the boy have reached this, think you?”

The man shook his head mournfully, without speaking.

“How far are we from Glencore?”

“About eighteen miles, sir; but more by land.”

“You can put me ashore, then, somewhere hereabouts.”

“Yes, sir, in the next bay; there’s a creek we can easily run into.”

“You are quite sure he couldn’t have been blown out to sea?”

“How could he, sir? There’s only one way the wind could dhrive him. If he isn’t in the Clough Bay, he’s in glory.”

All the anxiety of that dreary night was nothing to what Harcourt now suffered, in his eagerness to round the Rooks’ Point, and look in the bay beyond it. Controlling it as he would, still would it break out in words of impatience and even anger.

“Don’t curse the boat, yer honor,” said Peter, respectfully, but calmly; “she’s behaved well to us this night, or we ‘d not be here now.”

“But are we to beat about here forever?” asked the other, angrily.

“She’s doin’ well, and we ought to be thankful,” said the man; and his tone, even more than his words, served to reprove the other’s impatience. “I’ll try and set the mainsail on her with the remains of the sprit.”

Harcourt watched him, as he labored away to repair the damaged rigging; but though he looked at him, his thoughts were far away with poor Glencore upon his sick bed, in sorrow and in suffering, and perhaps soon to hear that he was childless. From these he went on to other thoughts. What could have occurred to have driven the boy to such an act of desperation? Harcourt invented a hundred imaginary causes, to reject them as rapidly again. The affection the boy bore to his father seemed the strongest principle of his nature. There appeared to be no event possible in which that feeling would not sway and control him. As he thus ruminated, he was aroused by the sudden cry of the boatman.

“There’s a boat, sir, dismasted, ahead of us, and drifting out to say.”

“I see her! – I see her!” cried Harcourt; “out with the oars, and let’s pull for her.”

Heavily as the sea was rolling, they now began to pull through the immense waves, Harcourt turning his head at every instant to watch the boat, which now was scarcely half a mile ahead of them.

“She’s empty! – there’s no one in her!” said Peter, mournfully, as, steadying himself by the mast, he cast a look seaward.

“Row on, – let us get beside her,” said Harcourt.

“She’s the yawl! – I know her now,” cried the man.

“And empty?”

“Washed out of her with a say, belike,” said Peter, resuming his oar, and tugging with all his strength.

A quarter of an hour’s hard rowing brought them close to the dismasted boat, which, drifting broadside on the sea, seemed at every instant ready to capsize.

“There’s something in the bottom, – in the stern-sheets!” screamed Peter. “It’s himself! O blessed Virgin, it’s himself!” And, with a bound, he sprang from his own boat into the other.

The next instant he had lifted the helpless body of the boy from the bottom of the boat, and, with a shout of joy, screamed out, —

“He’s alive! – he’s well! – it’s only fatigue!”

Harcourt pressed his hands to his face, and sank upon his knees in prayer.

CHAPTER XIII. A “VOW” ACCOMPLISHED

Just as Upton had seated himself at that fragal meal of weak tea and dry toast he called his breakfast, Harcourt suddenly entered the room, splashed and road-stained from head to foot, and in his whole demeanor indicating the work of a fatiguing journey.

“Why, I thought to have had my breakfast with you,” cried he, impatiently, “and this is like the diet of a convalescent from fever. Where is the salmon – where the grouse pie – where are the cutlets – and the chocolate – and the poached eggs – and the hot rolls, and the cherry bounce?”

“Say, rather, where are the disordered livers, worn-out stomachs, fevered brains, and impatient tempers, my worthy Colonel?” said Upton, blandly. “Talleyrand himself once told me that he always treated great questions starving.”

“And he made a nice mess of the world in consequence,” blustered out Harcourt. “A fellow with an honest appetite and a sound digestion would never have played false to so many masters.”

“It is quite right that men like you should read history in this wise,” said Upton, smiling, as he dipped a crust in his tea and ate it.

“Men like me are very inferior creatures, no doubt,” broke in Harcourt, angrily; “but I very much doubt if men like you had come eighteen miles on foot over a mountain this morning, after a night passed in an open boat at sea, – ay, in a gale, by Jove, such as I sha’ n’t forget in a hurry.”

“You have hit it perfectly, Harcourt; suum caique; and if only we could get the world to see that each of us has his speciality, we should all of us do much better.”

By the vigorous tug he gave the bell, and the tone in which he ordered up something to eat, it was plain to see that he scarcely relished the moral Upton had applied to his speech. With the appearance of the good cheer, however, he speedily threw off his momentary displeasure, and as he ate and drank, his honest, manly face lost every trace of annoyance. Once only did a passing shade of anger cross his countenance. It was when, suddenly looking up, he saw Upton’s eyes settled on him, and his whole features expressing a most palpable sensation of wonderment and compassion.

“Ay,” cried he, “I know well what’s passing in your mind this minute. You are lost in your pitying estimate of such a mere animal as I am; but, hang it all, old fellow, why not be satisfied with the flattering thought that you are of another stamp, – a creature of a different order?”

“It does not make one a whit happier,” sighed Upton, who never shrunk from accepting the sentiment as his own.

“I should have thought otherwise,” said Harcourt, with a malicious twinkle of the eye; for he fancied that he had at last touched the weak point of his adversary.

“No, my dear Harcourt, the crasso naturo have rather the best of it, since no small share of this world’s collisions are actually physical shocks; and that great strong pipkin that encloses your brains will stand much that would smash the poor egg-shell that shrouds mine.”

“Whenever you draw a comparison in my favor, I always find at the end I come off worst,” said Harcourt, bluntly; and Upton laughed one of his rich, musical laughs, in which there was indeed nothing mirthful, but something that seemed to say that his nature experienced a sense of enjoyment higher, perhaps, than anything merely comic could suggest.

“You came off best this time, Harcourt,” said he, good-humoredly; and such a thorough air of frankness accompanied the words that Harcourt was disarmed of all distrust at once, and joined in the laugh heartily.

“But you have not yet told me, Harcourt,” said the other, “where you have been, and why you spent your night on the sea.”

“The story is not a very long one,” replied he; and at once gave a full recital of the events, which our reader has already had before him in our last chapter, adding, in conclusion,

“I have left the boy in a cabin at Belmullet; he is in a high fever, and raving so loud that you could hear him a hundred yards away. I told them to keep cold water on his head, and give him plenty of it to drink, – nothing more, – till I could fetch our doctor over, for it will be impossible to move the boy from where he is for the present.”

“Glencore has been asking for him already this morning. He did not desire to see him, but he begged of me to go to him and speak with him.”

“And have you told him that he was from home, – that he passed the night away from this?”

“No; I merely intimated that I should look after him, waiting for your return to guide myself afterwards.”

“I don’t suspect that when we took him from the boat the malady had set in; he appeared rather like one overcome by cold and exhaustion. It was about two hours after, – he had taken some food and seemed stronger, – when I said to him, ‘Come, Charley, you ‘ll soon be all right again; I have sent a fellow to look after a pony for you, and you ‘ll be able to ride back, won’t you?’

“‘Ride where?’ cried he, eagerly.

“‘Home, of course,’ said I, ‘to Glencore.’

“‘Home! I have no home,’ cried he; and the wild scream he uttered the words with, I ‘ll never forget. It was just as if that one thought was the boundary between sense and reason, and the instant he had passed it, all was chaos and confusion; for now his raving began, – the most frantic imaginations; always images of sorrow, and with a rapidity of utterance there was no following. Of course in such cases the delusions suggest no clew to the cause, but all his fancies were about being driven out of doors an outcast and a beggar, and of his father rising from his sick bed to curse him. Poor boy! Even in this his better nature gleamed forth as he cried, ‘Tell him’ – and he said the words in a low whisper – ‘tell him not to anger himself; he is ill, very ill, and should be kept tranquil. Tell him, then, that I am going – going away forever, and he’ll hear of me no more.’” As Harcourt repeated the words, his own voice faltered, and two heavy drops slowly coursed down his bronzed cheeks. “You see,” added he, as if to excuse the emotion, “that was n’t like raving, for he spoke this just as he might have done if his very heart was breaking.”

“Poor fellow!” said Upton; and the words were uttered with real feeling.

“Some terrible scene must have occurred between them,” resumed Harcourt; “of that I feel quite certain.”

“I suspect you are right,” said Upton, bending over his teacup; “and our part, in consequence, is one of considerable delicacy; for until Glencore alludes to what has passed, we of course, can take no notice of it. The boy is ill; he is in a fever: we know nothing more.”

“I’ll leave you to deal with the father; the son shall be my care. I have told Traynor to be ready to start with me after breakfast, and have ordered two stout ponies for the journey. I conclude there will be no objection in detaining the doctor for the night: what think you, Upton?”

“Do you consult the doctor on that head; meanwhile, I ‘ll pay a visit to Glencore. I ‘ll meet you in the library.” And so saying, Upton rose, and gracefully draping the folds of his dressing-gown, and arranging the waving lock of hair which had escaped beneath his cap, he slowly set out towards the sick man’s chamber.

Of all the springs of human action, there was not one in which Sir Horace Upton sympathized so little as passion. That any man could adopt a line of conduct from which no other profit could result than what might minister to a feeling of hatred, jealousy, or revenge, seemed to him utterly contemptible. It was not, indeed, the morality of such a course that he called in question, although he would not have contested that point. It was its meanness, its folly, its insufficiency. His experience of great affairs had imbued him with all the importance that was due to temper and moderation. He scarcely remembered an instant where a false move had damaged a negotiation that it could not be traced to some passing trait of impatience, or some lurking spirit of animosity biding the hour of its gratification.

He had long learned to perceive how much more temperament has to do, in the management of great events, than talent or capacity, and his opinion of men was chiefly founded on this quality of their nature. It was, then, with an almost pitying estimate of Glenoore that he now entered the room where the sick man lay.

Anxious to be alone with him, Glenoore had dismissed all the attendants from his room, and sat, propped up by pillows, eagerly awaiting his approach.

Upton moved through the dimly lighted room like one familiar to the atmosphere of illness, and took his seat beside the bed with that noiseless quiet which in him was a kind of instinct.

It was several minutes before Glencore spoke, and then, in a low, faint voice, he said, “Are we alone, Upton?”

“Yes,” said the other, gently pressing the wasted fingers which lay on the counterpane before him.

“You forgive me, Upton,” said he, – and the words trembled as he uttered them, – “You forgive me, Upton, though I cannot forgive myself.”

“My dear friend, a passing moment of impatience is not to breach the friendship of a lifetime. Your calmer judgment would, I know, not be unjust to me.”

“But how am I to repair the wrong I have done you?”

“By never alluding to it, – never thinking of it again, Glenoore.”

“It is so unworthy, so ignoble in me!” cried Glenoore, bitterly; and a tear fell over his eyelid and rested on his wan and worn cheek.

“Let us never think of it, my dear Glenoore. Life has real troubles enough for either of us, not to dwell on those which we may fashion out of our emotions. I promise you, I have forgotten the whole incident.”

Glenoore sighed heavily, but did not speak; at last he said, “Be it so, Upton,” and, covering his face with his hand, lay still and silent. “Well,” said he, after a long pause, “the die is cast, Upton: I have told him!”

“Told the boy?” said Upton.

He nodded an assent. “It is too late to oppose me now, Upton, – the thing is done. I didn’t think I had strength for it; but revenge is a strong stimulant, and I felt as though once more restored to health, as I proceeded. Poor fellow! he bore it like a man. Like a man, do I say? No, but better than man ever bore such crushing tidings.”

“He asked me to stop once, while his head reeled, and said, ‘In a minute I shall be myself again,’ and so he was, too; you should have seen him, Upton, as he rose to leave me. So much of dignity was there in his look that my heart misgave me; and I told him that still, as my son, he should never want a friend and a protector. He grew deadly pale, and caught at the bed for support. Another moment, and I ‘d not have answered for myself. I was already relenting; but I thought of her, and my resolution came back in all its force. Still, I dared not look on him. The sight of that wan cheek, those quivering lips and glassy eyes, would certainly have unmanned me. I turned away. When I looked round, he was gone!’ As he ceased to speak, a clammy perspiration burst forth over his face and forehead, and he made a sign to Upton to wet his lips.

“It is the last pang she is to cost me, Upton, but it is a sore one!” said he, in a low, hoarse whisper.

“My dear Glencore, this is all little short of madness; even as revenge it is a failure, since the heaviest share of the penalty recoils upon yourself.”

“How so?” cried he, impetuously.

“Is it thus that an ancient name is to go out forever? Is it in this wise that a house noble for centuries is to crumble into ruin? I will not again urge upon you the cruel wrong you are doing. Over that boy’s inheritance you have no more right than over mine, – you cannot rob him of the protection of the law. No power could ever give you the disposal of his destiny in this wise.”

“I have done it, and I will maintain it, sir,” cried Glencore; “and if the question is, as you vaguely hint, to be one of law – ”

“No, no, Glencore; do not mistake me.”

“Hear me out, sir,” said he, passionately. “If it is to be one of law, let Sir Horace Upton give his testimony, – tell all that he knows, – and let us see what it will avail him. You may – it is quite open to you – place us front to front as enemies. You may teach the boy to regard me as one who has robbed him of his birthright, and train him up to become my accuser in a court of justice. But my cause is a strong one, it cannot be shaken; and where you hope to brand me with tyranny, you will but visit bastardy upon him. Think twice, then, before you declare this combat. It is one where all your craft will not sustain you.”

“My dear Glencore, it is not in this spirit that we can speak profitably to each other. If you will not hear my reasons calmly and dispassionately, to what end am I here? You have long known me as one who lays claim to no more rigid morality than consists with the theory of a worldly man’s experiences. I affect no high-flown sentiments. I am as plain and practical as may be; and when I tell you that you are wrong in this affair, I mean to say that what you are about to do is not only bad, but impolitic. In your pursuit of a victim, you are immolating yourself.”

“Be it so; I go not alone to the stake; there is another to partake of the torture,” cried Glencore, wildly; and already his flushed cheek and flashing eyes betrayed the approach of a feverish access.

“If I am not to have any influence with you, then,” resumed Upton, “I am here to no purpose. If to all that I say – to arguments you cannot answer – you obstinately persist in opposing an insane thirst for revenge, I see not why you should desire my presence. You have resolved to do this great wrong?”

“It is already done, sir,” broke in Glencore.

“Wherein, then, can I be of any service to you?”

“I am coming to that. I had come to it before, had you not interrupted me. I want you to be guardian to the boy. I want you to replace me in all that regards authority over him. You know life well, Upton. You know it not alone in its paths of pleasure and success, but you understand thoroughly the rugged footway over which humble men toil wearily to fortune. None can better estimate a man’s chances of success, nor more surely point the road by which he is to attain it. The provision which I destine for him will be an humble one, and he will need to rely upon his own efforts. You will not refuse me this service, Upton. I ask it in the name of our old friendship.”

“There is but one objection I could possibly have, and yet that seems to be insurmountable.”

“And what may it be?” cried Glencore.

“Simply, that in acceding to your request, I make myself an accomplice in your plan, and thus aid and abet the very scheme I am repudiating.”

“What avails your repudiation if it will not turn me from my resolve? That it will not, I ‘ll swear to you as solemnly as ever an oath was taken. I tell you again, the thing is done. For the consequences which are to follow on it you have no responsibility; these are my concern.”

“I should like a little time to think over it,” said Upton, with the air of one struggling with irresolution. “Let me have this evening to make up my mind; to-morrow you shall have my answer.”

“Be it so, then,” said Glencore; and, turning his face away, waved a cold farewell with his hand.

We do not purpose to follow Sir Horace as he retired, nor does our task require that we should pry into the secret recesses of his wily nature; enough if we say that in asking for time, his purpose was rather to afford another opportunity of reflection to Glencore than to give himself more space for deliberation. He had found, by the experience of his calling, that the delay we often crave for, to resolve a doubt, has sufficed to change the mind of him who originated the difficulty.

“I’ll give him some hours, at least,” thought he, “to ponder over what I have said. Who knows but the argument may seem better in memory than in action? Such things have happened before now.” And having finished this reflection, he turned to peruse the pamphlet of a quack doctor who pledged himself to cure all disorders of the circulation by attending to tidal influences, and made the moon herself enter into the materia medica. What Sir Horace believed, or did not believe, in the wild rhapsodies of the charlatan, is known only to himself. Whether his credulity was fed by the hope of obtaining relief, or whether his fancy only was aroused by the speculative images thus suggested, it is impossible to say. It is not altogether improbable that he perused these things as Charles Fox used to read all the trashiest novels of the Minerva Press, and find, in the very distorted and exaggerated pictures, a relief and a relaxation which more correct views of life had failed to impart. Hard-headed men require strange indulgences.

CHAPTER XIV. BILLY TRAYNOR AND THE COLONEL

It was a fine breezy morning as the Colonel set out with Billy Traynor for Belmullet. The bridle-path by which they travelled led through a wild and thinly inhabited tract, – now dipping down between grassy hills, now tracing its course along the cliffs over the sea. Tall ferns covered the slopes, protected from the west winds, and here and there little copses of stunted oak showed the traces of what once had been forest. It was, on the whole, a silent and dreary region, so that the travellers felt it even relief as they drew nigh the bright blue sea, and heard the sonorous booming of the waves as they broke along the shore.

“It cheers one to come up out of those dreary dells, and hear the pleasant plash of the sea,” said Harcourt; and his bright face showed that he felt the enjoyment.

“So it does, sir,” said Billy. “And yet Homer makes his hero go heavy-hearted as he hears the ever-sounding sea.”