Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume I.

As though set in a beautiful frame, the lovely girl stood for an instant in the porch, where drooping honeysuckles and the tangled branches of a vine hung around her, and then came courteously to meet and welcome them.

“I am in ecstasy with all I see here, Miss Lendrick,” said Sir Brook. “Old traveller that I am, I scarcely know where I have ever seen such a combination of beauty.”

“Papa will be delighted to hear this,” said she, with a pleasant smile; “it is the flattery he loves best.”

“I ‘m always saying we could keep up a salmon-weir on the river for a tithe of what these carnations and primroses cost us,” said Tom.

“Why, sir, if you had been in Eden you ‘d have made it a market garden,” said the old man.

“If the governor was a Duke of Devonshire, all these-caprices might be pardonable; but my theory is, roast-beef before roses.”

While young Lendrick attached himself to Trafford, and took him here and there to show him the grounds, Sir Brook walked beside Lucy, who did the honors of the place with a most charming courtesy.

“I am almost ashamed, sir,” said she, as they turned towards the house, “to have asked you to see such humble objects as these to which we attach value, for my brother tells me you are a great traveller; but it is just possible you have met in your journeys others who, like us, lived so much out of the world that they fancied they had the prettiest spot in it for their own.”

“You must not ask me what I think of all I have seen: here, Miss Lendrick, till my enthusiasm calms down;” and his look of admiration, so palpably addressed to herself, sent a flush to her cheek. “A man’s belongings are his history,” said Sir Brook, quickly turning the conversation into an easier channel: “show me his study, his stable, his garden; let me see his hat, his cane, the volume he thrusts into his pocket, and I ‘ll make you an indifferent good guess about his daily doings.”

“Tell me of papa’s. Come here, Tom,” cried she, as the two young men came towards her, “and listen to a bit of divination.”

“Nay, I never promised a lecture. I offered a confidence,” said he, in a half whisper; but she went on: “Sir Brook says that he reads people pretty much as Cuvier pronounced on a mastodon, by some small minute detail that pertained to them. Here’s Tom’s cigar-case,” said she, taking it from his pocket; “what do you infer from that, sir?”

“That he smokes the most execrable tobacco.”

“But can you say why?” asked Tom, with a sly twinkle of his eye.

“Probably for the same reason I do myself,” said Sir Brook, producing a very cheap cigar.

“Oh, that’s a veritable Cuban compared to one of mine,” cried Tom; “and by way of making my future life miserable, here has been Mr. Trafford filling my pocket with real havannahs, giving me a taste for luxuries I ought never to have known of.”

“Know everything, sir, go everywhere, see all that the world can show you; the wider a man’s experiences the larger his nature and the more open his heart,” said Foss-brooke, boldly.

“I like the theory,” said Trafford to Miss Lendrick; “do you?”

“Sir Brook never meant it for women, I fancy,” said she, in a low tone; but the old man overheard her, and said: “You are right. The guide ought to know every part of the mountain; the traveller need only know the path.”

“Here comes a guide who is satisfied with very short excursions,” cried Tom, laughing; “this is our parson, Dr. Mills.”

The little, mellow-looking, well-cared-for person who now joined them was a perfect type of old-bachelorhood, in its aspect of not unpleasant selfishness. Everything about him was neat, orderly, and appropriate; and though you saw at a glance it was all for himself and his own enjoyment it was provided, his good manners and courtesy were ever ready to extend its benefits to others; and a certain genial look he wore, and a manner that nature had gifted him with, did him right good service in life, and made him pass for “an excellent fellow, though not much of a parson.”

He was of use now, if only that by his presence Lucy felt more at ease, not to say that his violoncello, which always remained at the Nest, made a pleasant accompaniment when she played, and that he sang with much taste some of those lyrics which arc as much linked to Ireland by poetry as by music.

“I wish he was our chaplain, – by Jove I do!” whispered Trafford to Lendrick; “he’s the jolliest fellow of his cloth I have ever met.”

“And such a cook,” muttered the other.

“A cook!”

“Ay, a cook. I ‘ll make him ask us to dinner, and you ‘ll tell me if you ever ate fish as he gives it, or tasted macaroni as dressed by him. I have a salmon for you, doctor, a ten-pound fish. I wish it were bigger! but it is in splendid order.”

“Did you set it?” asked the parson, eagerly.

“What does he mean by set it?” whispered Trafford.

“Setting means plunging it in very hot water soon after killing it, to preserve and harden the ‘curd.’ Yes; and I took your hint about the arbutus leaves, too, doctor. I covered it all up with them.”

“You are a teachable youth, and shall be rewarded. Come and eat him to-morrow. Dare I hope that these gentlemen are disengaged, and will honor my poor parsonage? Will you favor me with your company at five o’clock, sir?”

Sir Brook bowed, and accepted the invitation with pleasure.

“And you, sir?”

“Only too happy,” said Trafford.

“Lucy, my dear, you must be one of us.”

“Oh, I could not; it is impossible, doctor, – you know it is.”

“I know nothing of the kind.”

“Papa away, – not to speak of his never encouraging us to leave home,” muttered she, in a whisper.

“I accept no excuses, Lucy; such a rare opportunity may not occur to me in a hurry. Mrs. Brennan, my housekeeper, will be so proud to see you, that I ‘m not sure she ‘ll not treat these gentlemen to her brandy peaches, – a delicacy, I feel bound to say, she has never conceded to any one less than the bishop of the diocese.”

“Don’t ask me, doctor. I know that papa – ”

But he broke in, saying, – “‘You know I ‘m your priest, and your conscience is mine;’ and besides, I really do want to see how the parsonage will look with a lady at the top of the table: who knows what it may lead to?”

“Come, Lucy, that’s the nearest thing to a proposal I ‘ve heard for some time. You really must go now,” said Tom.

“Papa will not like it,” whispered she in his ear.

“Then he’ll have to settle the matter with me, Lucy,” said the doctor, “for it was I who overruled you.”

“Don’t look to me, Miss Lendrick, to sustain you in your refusal,” said Sir Brook, as the young girl turned towards him. “I have the strongest interest in seeing the doctor successful.”

If Trafford said nothing, the glance he gave her more than backed the old man’s speech, and she turned away half vexed, half pleased, puzzled how to act, and flattered at the same time by an amount of attention so new to her and so strange. Still she could not bring herself to promise she would go, and wished them all good-night at last, without a pledge.

“Of course she will,” muttered Tom in the doctor’s ear. “She’s afraid of the governor; but I know he’ll not be displeased, – you may reckon on her.”

CHAPTER V. THE PICNIC ON HOLY ISLAND

From the day that Sir Brook made the acquaintance of Tom Lendrick and his sister, he determined he would “pitch his tent,” as he called it, for some time at Killaloe. They had, so to say, captivated the old man. The young fellow, by his frank, open, manly nature, his ardent love of sport in every shape, his invariable good-humor, and more than all these, by the unaffected simplicity of his character, had strongly interested him; while Lucy had made a far deeper impression by her gentleness, her refinement, an elegance in deportment that no teaching ever gives, and, along with these, a mind stored with thought and reflectiveness. Let us, however, be just to each, and own that her beauty and the marvellous fascination of her smile gave her, even in that old man’s eyes, an irresistible charm. It was a very long bygone, but he had once been in love, and the faint flicker of the memory had yet survived in his heart. It was just as likely Lucy bore no resemblance to her he had loved, but he fancied she did, – he imagined that she was her very image. That was the smile, the glance, the tone, the gesture which once had set his heart a-throbbing, and the illusion threw around her an immense fascination.

She liked him too. Through all the strange incongruities of his character, his restless love of adventure and excitement, there ran a gentle liking for quiet pleasures. He loved scenery passionately, and with a painter’s taste for color and form; he loved poetry, which he read with a wondrous charm of voice and intonation. Nor was it without its peculiar power, this homage of an old, old man, who rendered her the attentive service of a devoted admirer.

There is very subtle flattery in the obsequious devotion of age to youth. It is, at least, an honest worship, an unselfish offering, and in this way the object of it may well feel proud of its tribute.

From the vicar, Dr. Mills, Fossbrooke had learned the chief events of Dr. Lendrick’s history, of his estrangement from his father, his fastidious retirement from the world, and, last of all, his narrow fortune, apparently now growing narrower, since within the last year he had withdrawn his son from the University on the score of its expense.

A gold-medallist and a scholar, Dr. Lendrick would have eagerly coveted such honors for his son. It was, probably, the one triumph in life he would have set most store by, but Tom was one not made for collegiate successes. He had abilities, but they were not teachable qualities; he could pick up a certain amount of almost anything, – he could learn nothing. He could carry away from a chance conversation an amount of knowledge it had cost the talkers years to acquire, and yet set him down regularly to work book-fashion, and either from want of energy, or concentration, or of that strong will which masters difficulties just as a full current carries all before it – whichever of these was his defect, – he arose from his task wearied, worn, but unadvanced.

When, therefore, his father would speak, as he sometimes did, in confidence to the vicar, in a tone of depression about Tom’s deficiencies, the honest parson would feel perfectly lost in amazement at what he meant. To his eyes Tom Lendrick was a wonder, a prodigy. There was not a theme he could not talk on, and talk well too. “It was but the other day he told the chief engineer of the Shannon Company more about the geological formation of the river-basin than all his staff knew. Ay, and what’s stranger,” added the vicar, “he understands the whole Colenso controversy better than I do myself.” It is just possible that in the last panegyric there was nothing of exaggeration or excess. “And with all that, sir, his father goes on brooding over his neglected education, and foreshadowing the worst results from his ignorance.”

“He is a fine fellow,” said Fossbrooke, “but not to be compared with his sister.”

“Not for mere looks, perhaps, nor for a graceful manner, and a winning address; but who would think of ranking Lucy’s abilities with her brother’s?”

“Not I,” said Fossbrooke, boldly, “for I place hers far and away above them.”

A sly twinkle of the parson’s eye showed to what class of advantages he ascribed the other’s preference; but he said no more, and the controversy ended.

Every morning found Sir Brook at the “Swan’s Nest.” He was fond of gardening, and had consummate taste in laying out ground, so that many pleasant surprises had been prepared for Dr. Lendrick’s return. He drew, too, with great skill, and Lucy made considerable progress under his teaching; and as they grew more intimate, and she was not ashamed of the confession that she delighted in the Georgics of Virgil, they read whole hours together of those picturesque descriptions of rural life and its occupations, which are as true to nature at this hour as on the day they were written.

Perhaps the old man fancied that it was he who had suggested this intense appreciation of the poet. It is just possible that the young girl believed that she had reclaimed a wild, erratic, eccentric nature, and brought him back ta the love of simple pleasures and a purer source of enjoyment. Whichever way the truth inclined, each was happy, each contented. And how fond are we all, of every age, of playing the missionary, of setting off into the savage districts of our neighbors’ natures and combating their false idols, their superstitions and strange rites! The least adventurous and the least imaginative have these little outbursts of conversion, and all are more or less propagandists.

It was one morning, a bright and glorious one too, that, while Tom and Lucy were yet at breakfast, Sir Brook arrived and entered the breakfast-room.

“What a day for a gray hackle, in that dark pool under the larch-trees!” cried Tom, as he saw him.

“What a day for a long walk to Mount Laurel!” said Lucy. “You said, t’other morning, you wanted cloud effects on the upper lake. I ‘ll show you splendid ones to-day.”

“I ‘ll promise you a full basket before four o’clock,” broke in Tom.

“I ‘ll promise you a full sketch-book,” said Lucy, with one of her sweetest smiles.

“And I ‘m going to refuse both; for I have a plan of my own, and a plan not to be gainsaid.”

“I know it, You want us to go to work on that fish-pond. I’m certain it’s that.”

“No, Tom; it’s the catalogue, – the weary catalogue that he told me, as a punishment for not being able to find Machiavelli’s comedies last week, he ‘d make me sit down to on the first lovely morning that came.”

“Better that than those dreary Georgics which remind one of school, and the third form. But what ‘s your plan, Sir Brook? We have thought of all the projects that can terrify us, and you look as if it ought to be a terror.”

“Mine is a plan for pleasure, and pleasure only; so pack up at once and get ready. Trafford arrived this morning.”

“Where is he? I am so glad! Where’s Trafford?” cried Tom, delighted.

“I have despatched him with the vicar and two well-filled hampers to Holy Island, where I mean that we shall all picnic. There ‘s my plan.”

“And a jolly plan too! I adhere unconditionally.”

“And you, Lucy, what do you say?” asked Sir Brook, as the young girl stood with a look of some indecision and embarrassment.

“I don’t say that it’s not a very pleasant project, but – ”

“But what, Lucy? Where ‘s the but?”

She whispered a few words in his ear, and he cried out: “Is n’t this too bad? She tells me Nicholas does not like all this gayety; that Nicholas disapproves of our mode of life.”

“No, Tom; I only said Nicholas thinks that papa would not like it.”

“Couldn’t we see Nicholas? Couldn’t we have a commission to examine Nicholas?” asked Sir Brook, laughingly.

“I ‘ll not be on it, that ‘s all I know; for I should finish by chucking the witness into the Shannon. Come along, Lucy; don’t let us lose this glorious morning. I ‘ll get some lines and hooks together. Be sure you ‘re ready when I come back.”

As the door closed after him, Sir Brook drew near to Lucy, where she stood in an attitude of doubt and hesitation. “I mustn’t risk your good opinion of me rashly. If you really dislike this excursion, I will give it up,” said he, in a low, gentle voice.

“Dislike it? No; far from it. I suspect I would enjoy it more than any of you. My reluctance was simply on the ground that all this is so unlike the life we have been leading hitherto. Papa will surely disapprove of it. Oh, there comes Nicholas with a letter!” cried she, opening the sash-window. “Give it to me; it is from papa.”

She broke the seal hurriedly, and ran rapidly over the lines. “Oh, yes! I will go now, and go with delight too. It is full of good news. He is to see grandpapa, if not to-morrow, the day after. He hopes all will be well. Papa knows your name, Sir Brook. He says, ‘Ask your friend Sir Brook if he be any relative of a Sir Brook Foss-brooke who rescued Captain Langton some forty years ago from a Neapolitan prison. The print-shops were filled with his likeness when I was a boy.’ Was he one of your family?” inquired she, looking at him.

“I am the man,” said he, calmly and coldly. “Langton was sentenced to the galleys for life for having struck the Count d’Aconi across the face with his glove; and the Count was nephew to the King. They had him at Capri working in chains, and I landed with my yacht’s crew and liberated him.”

“What a daring thing to do!”

“Not so daring as you fancy. The guard was surprised, and fled. It was only when reinforced that they showed fight. Our toughest enemies were the galley-slaves, who, when they discovered that we never meant to liberate them, attacked us with stones. This scar on my temple is a memorial of the affair.”

“And Langton, what became of him?”

“He is now Lord Burrowfield. He gave me two fingers to shake the last time I met him at the Travellers’.”

“Oh, don’t say that! Oh, don’t tell me of such ingratitude!”

“My dear child, people usually regard gratitude as a debt which, once acknowledged, is acquitted; and perhaps they are right. It makes all intercourse freer and less trammelled.”

“Here comes Tom. May I tell him this story, or will you tell him yourself?”

“Not either, my dear Lucy. Your brother’s blood is over-hot as it is. Let him not have any promptings to such exploits as these.”

“But may I tell papa?”

“Just as well not, Lucy. There were scores of wild things attributed to me in those days. He may possibly remember some of them, and begin to suspect that his daughter might be in better company.”

“How was it that you never told me of this exploit?” asked she, looking, not without admiration, at the hard stern features before her.

“My dear child, egotism is the besetting sin of old people, and even the most cautious lapse into it occasionally. Set me once a-talking of myself, all my prudence, all my reserve vanishes; so that, as a measure of safety for my friends and myself too, I avoid the theme when I can. There! Tom is beckoning to us. Let us go to him at once.”

Holy Island, or Inishcaltra, to give it its Irish name, is a wild spot, with little remarkable about it, save the ruins of seven churches and a curious well of fabulous depth. It was, however, a favorite spot with the vicar, whose taste in localities was somehow always associated with some feature of festivity, the great merit of the present spot being that you could dine without any molestation from beggars. In such estimation, indeed, did he hold the class, that he seriously believed their craving importunity to be one of the chief reasons of dyspepsia, and was profoundly convinced that the presence of Lazarus at his gate counterbalanced many of the goods which fortune had bestowed upon Dives.

“Here we dine in real comfort,” said he, as he seated himself under the shelter of an ivy-covered wall, with a wide reach of the lake at his feet.

“When I come back from California with that million or two,” said Tom, “I ‘ll build a cottage here, where we can all come and dine continually.”

“Let us keep the anniversary of the present day as a sort of foundation era,” said the vicar.

“I like everything that promises pleasure,” said Sir Brook, “but I like to stipulate that we do not draw too long a bill on Fortune. Think how long a year is. This time twelvemonth, for example, you, my dear doctor, may be a bishop, and not over inclined to these harmless levities. Tom there will be, as he hints, gold-crushing, at the end of the earth. Trafford, not improbably, ruling some rajah’s kingdom in the far East. Of your destiny, fair Lucy, brightest of all, it is not for me to speak. Of my own it is not worth speaking.”

“Nolo episcopari,” said the vicar; “pass me the Madeira.”

“You forget, perhaps, that is the phrase for accepting the mitre,” said Sir Brook, laughing. “Bishops, like belles, say ‘No’ when they mean ‘Yes.’”

“And who told you that belles did?” broke in Lucy. “I am in a sad minority here, but I stand up for my sex.”

“I repeat a popular prejudice, fair lady.”

“And Lucy will not have it that belles are as illogical as bishops? I see I was right in refusing the bench,” said the vicar.

“What bright boon of Fortune is Trafford meditating the rejection of?” said Sir Brook; and the young fellow’s cheek grew crimson as he tried to laugh off the reply.

“Who made this salad?” cried Tom.

“It was I; who dares to question it?” said Lucy. “The doctor has helped himself twice to it, and that test I take to be a certificate to character.”

“I used to have some skill in dressing a salad, but I have foregone the practice for many a day; my culinary gift got me sent out of Austria in twenty-four hours. Oh, it ‘s nothing that deserves the name of a story,” said Sir Brook, as the others looked at him for an explanation. “It was as long ago as the year 1806. Sir Robert Adair had been our minister at Vienna, when, a rupture taking place between the two Governments, he was recalled. He did not, however, return to England, but continued to live as a private citizen at Vienna. Strangely enough, from the moment that our embassy ceased to be recognized by the Government, our countrymen became objects of especial civility. I myself, amongst the rest, was the bien-venu in some of the great houses, and even invited by Count Cobourg Cohari to those déjeuners which he gave with such splendor at Maria Hülfe.

“At one of these, as a dish of salad was handed round, instead of eating it, like the others, I proceeded to make a very complicated dressing for it on my plate, calling for various condiments, and seasoning my mess in a most refined and ingenious manner. No sooner had I given the finishing touch to my great achievement than the Grand-Duchess Sophia, who it seems had watched the whole performance, sent a servant round to beg that I would send her my plate. She accompanied the request with a little bow and a smile whose charm I can still recall. Whatever the reason, before I awoke next morning, an agent of the police entered my room and informed me my passports were made out for Dresden, and that his orders were to give me the pleasure of his society till I crossed the frontier. There was no minister, no envoy to appeal to, and nothing left but to comply. They said ‘Go,’ and I went.”

“And all for a dish of salad!” cried the vicar.

“All for the bright eyes of an archduchess, rather,” broke in Lucy, laughing.

The old man’s grateful smile at the compliment to his gallantry showed how, even in a heart so world-worn, the vanity of youth survived.

“I declare it was very hard,” said Tom, – “precious hard.”

“If you mean to give up the salad, so think I too,” cried the vicar.

“I ‘ll be shot if I ‘d have gone,” broke in Trafford.

“You’d probably have been shot if you had stayed,” replied Tom.

“There are things we submit to in life, not because the penalty of resistance affrights us, but because we half acquiesce in their justice. You, for instance, Trafford, are well pleased to be here on leave, and enjoy yourself, as I take it, considerably; and yet the call of duty – some very commonplace duty, perhaps – would make you return tomorrow in all haste.”

“Of course it would,” said Lucy.

“I ‘m not so sure of it,” murmured Trafford, sullenly; “I ‘d rather go into close arrest for a week than I ‘d lose this day here.”

“Bravo! here’s your health, Lionel,” cried Tom. “I do like to hear a fellow say he is willing to pay the cost of what pleases him.”

“I must preach wholesome doctrine, my young friends,” broke in the vicar. “Now that we have dined well, I would like to say aword on abstinence.”

“You mean to take no coffee, doctor, then?” asked Lucy, laughing.

“That I do, my sweet child, – coffee and a pipe, too, for I know you are tolerant of tobacco.”

“I hope she is,” said Tom, “or she ‘d have a poor time of it in the house with me.”

“I ‘ll put no coercion upon my tastes on this occasion, for I ‘ll take a stroll through the ruins, and leave you to your wine,” said she, rising.

They protested, in a mass, against her going. “We cannot lock the door, Lucy, de facto,” said Sir Brook, “but we do it figuratively.”

“And in that case I make my escape by the window,” said she, springing through an old lancet-shaped orifice in the Abbey wall.