and I believe it! The woman certainly has deserted him, and her whereabouts cannot be ascertained. The scandal of such a cause would of course be very great; but if you were here we might chance upon some mode of averting it,--at all events, your niece shouldn't be deserted at such a moment. What a n.o.ble girl it is, Martin, and how gloriously she comprehends her station! Give me a dozen like her, and I 'll bid defiance to all the machinations of all the agitators; and they know it!

"If your estate has resisted longer than those of your neighbors the demoralizing influences that are now at work here, you owe it to Mary.

If crime has not left its track of blood along your avenue or on your door-sill, it is she who has saved you. If the midnight hour has not been scared by the flame of your burning house or haggard, thank _her_ for it,--ay, Martin, _her_ courage, _her_ devotion, _her_ watchful charity, _her_ unceasing benevolence, the glorious guarantee her daily life gives, that _she_, at least, is with the people in all their sufferings and their trials! You or I had abandoned with impatience the cause that she had succored against every disappointment. Her woman's nature has endowed her with a higher and a n.o.bler energy than ever a man possessed. She _will not_ be defeated.

"Henderson may bewail, and Maurice Scanlan deride, the shortcomings of the people. But through evil and good report she is there to hear from their own lips, to see with her own eyes, the story of their sorrows. Is this nothing? Is there no lesson in the fact that she, nurtured in every luxury, braves the wildest day of winter in her mission of charity?--that the most squalid misery, the most pestilent disease never deterred her? I saw her a few days back coming home at daybreak; she had pa.s.sed the night in a hovel where neither you nor I would have taken shelter in a storm. The hectic flush of fatigue and anxiety was on her cheek; her eyes, deep sunk, showed weariness; and her very voice, as she spoke to me, was tremulous and weak; and of what, think you, was her mind full? Of the n.o.ble calm, the glorious, patient endurance of those she had just quitted. 'What lessons might we not learn,' said she,'beneath the wet thatch of poverty! There are three struck down with fever in that cabin; she who remains to nurse them is a little girl of scarcely thirteen. There is all that can render sickness wretched around them. They are in pain and in want; cold winds and rain sweep across their beds, if we could call them such. If they cherish the love of life, it must be through some instinct above all reason; and there they lie, uncomplaining. The little remnant of their strength exhausts itself in a look of thankfulness,--a faint effort to say their grat.i.tude. Oh, if querulous hypochondriacism could but see them, what teaching it might learn! Sufferings that call forth from us not alone peevishness and impatience, but actually traits of rude and ungenerous meaning, develop in them an almost refined courtesy, and a trustfulness that supplies all that is most choice in words of grat.i.tude.'

"And this is the girl whose life every day, every hour is imperilling,--who encounters all the hazards of our treacherous climate, and all the more fatal dangers of a season of pestilence, without friends, without a home! Now, Martin, apart from all higher and better considerations on the subject, this was not your compact,--such was not the text of your bargain with poor Barry. The pledge you gave him at your last parting was that she should be your daughter. That you made her feel all the affection of one, none can tell more surely than myself. That your own heart responds to her love I am as fully convinced of. But this is not enough, my dear Martin. She has rights--actual rights--that no special pleading on the score of intentions or good wishes can satisfy. I should but unworthily discharge my office, as your oldest friend in the world, if I did not place this before you broadly and plainly. The country is dull and wearisome, devoid of society, and without resources, and you leave it; but you leave behind you, to endure all its monotony, all its weariness, one who possesses every charm and every attention that are valued in the great world! There is fever and plague abroad, insurrection threatens, and midnight disturbances are rife, and she who is to confront these perils is a girl of twenty. The spirit of an invading party threatens to break down all the prestige of old family name and property,--a cunningly devised scheme menaces the existence of an influence that has endured for centuries; and to oppose its working, or fall victim to its onslaught, you leave a young lady, whose very impulses of generous meaning may be made snares to entrap her. In a word, you neglect duty, desert danger, shun the path of honorable exertion, and retreat before the menace of an encounter, to place, where you should stand yourself, the frail figure and gentle nature of one who was a child, as it were, but yesterday. Neither your health nor your happiness can be purchased at such a price,--your conscience is too sound for that,--nor can your ease! No, Martin, your thoughts will stray over here, and linger amongst these lonely glens that she is treading. Your fancy will follow her through the dark nights of winter, as alone she goes forth on her mission of mercy. You will think of her, stooping to teach the young--bending over the sick-bed of age. And then, tracing her footsteps homeward, you will see her sit down by a solitary hearth,--none of her own around her,--not one to advise, to counsel, to encourage her! I will say no more on this theme; your own true heart has already antic.i.p.ated all that _I_ could _speak_,--all that _you_ should _do_.

"Now for one more question, and I shall have finished the most painful letter I ever wrote in my life. There are rumors--I cannot trace them, nor fully understand them, but they imply that Captain Martin has been raising very considerable sums by reversionary bonds and post-obits.

Without being able to give even a guess, as to the truth of this, I draw your attention to the bare possibility, as of a case full of very serious complications. Speak to your son at once on the subject, and learn the truth,--the whole truth. My own fears upon the matter have been considerably strengthened by hearing of a person who has been for several weeks back making inquiries on the estate. He has resided usually at Kilkieran, and spends his time traversing the property in all directions, investigating questions of rent, wages, and tenure of land.

They tell marvellous stories of his charity and so forth,--blinds, doubtless, to cover his own immediate objects. Mary, however, I ought to say, takes a very different view of his character, and is so anxious to know him personally that I promised her to visit him, and bring him to visit her at the cottage. And, by the way, Martin, why should she be at the cottage,--why not at Cro' Martin? What miserable economy has dictated a change that must reflect upon her influence, not to speak of what is justly due to her own station? I could swear that you never gave a willing consent to this arrangement. No, no, Martin, the plan was never yours.

"I 'm not going to bore you with borough politics. To tell truth, I can't comprehend them. They want to get rid of Ma.s.singbred, but they don't see who is to succeed him. Young Nelligan ought to be the man, but he will not. He despises his party,--or at least what would call itself his party,--and is resolved never to concern himself with public affairs. Meanwhile he is carrying all before him at the Bar, and is as sure of the Bench as though he were on it.

"When he heard of Magennis's intention of bringing this action against Mary, he came up to town to ask me to engage him on our side, 'since,'

said he, 'if they send me a brief I cannot refuse it, and if I accept it, I promise you it shall be my last cause, for I have resolved to abandon the Bar the day after.' This, of course, was in strictest secrecy, and so you must regard it. He is a cold, calm fellow, and yet on this occasion he seemed full of impulsive action.

"I had something to tell you about Henderson, but I actually forget what it was. I can only remember it was disagreeable; and as this epistle has its due share of bitters, my want of memory is perhaps a benefit; and so to release you at once, I 'll write myself, as I have never ceased to be for forty years,

"Your attached friend,

"Val. Repton."

"I believe I was wrong about Henderson; at least the disagreeable went no further than that he is supposed to be the channel through which Lady Dorothea occasionally issues directions, not always in agreement with Mary's notions. And as your niece never liked the man, the measures are not more palatable when they come through his intervention."

Lady Dorothea was still pondering over this letter, in which there were so many things to consider, when a hurried message called her to the sick-room. As she approached the room, she could hear Martin's voice calling imperiously and angrily to the servants, and ordering them to dress him. The difficulty of utterance seemed to increase his irritation, and gave to his words a harsh, discordant tone, very unlike his natural voice.

"So," cried he, as she entered, "you have come at last. I am nigh exhausted with telling them what I want. I must get up, Dora. They must help me to dress."

As he was thus speaking, the servants, at a gesture from her Ladyship, quietly stole from the chamber, leaving her alone at his bedside.

"You are too weak for this exertion, G.o.dfrey," said she, calmly. "Any effort like this is certain to injure you."

"You think so?" asked he, with the tone of deference that he generally used towards her. "Perhaps you are right, Dora; but how can it be helped?--there is so much to do, such a long way to travel. What a strange confusion is over me! Do you know, Dolly,"--here his voice fell to a mere whisper,--"you'll scarcely credit it; but all the time I have been fancying myself at Cro' Martin, and here we are in--in--what do you call the place?"

"Baden."

"Yes--yes--but the country?"

"Germany."

"Ay, to be sure, Germany; hundreds of miles away from home!" Here he raised himself on one arm, and cast a look of searching eagerness through the room. "Is he gone?" whispered he, timidly.

"Of whom are you speaking?" said she.

"Hush, Dolly, hush!" whispered he, still lower. "I promised I 'd not tell any one, even you, of his being here. But I must speak of it--I must--or my brain will turn. He was here--he sat in that very chair--he held my hand within both his own. Poor, poor fellow! how his eyes filled when he saw me! He little knew how changed he himself was!--his hair white as snow, and his eyes so dimmed!"

"This was a dream, G.o.dfrey,--only a dream!"

"I thought you 'd say so,--I knew it," said he, sorrowfully; "but _I_ know better. The dear old voice rang in my heart as I used to hear it when a child, as he said, 'Do you remember me?' To be sure I remembered him, and told him to go and fetch Molly; and his brow darkened when I said this, and he drew back his hand and said, 'You have deserted her,--she is not here!'"

"All this is mere fancy, G.o.dfrey; you have been dreaming of home."

"Ay," muttered he, gloomily, "it was but too true; we did desert her, and that was not our bargain, Dolly. It was all the poor fellow asked at our hands,--his last, his only condition. What's that letter you have there?" cried he, impatiently, as Lady Dorothea, in the agitation of the moment, continued to crumple Repton's letter between her fingers.

"A letter I have been reading," said she, sternly.

"From whom--from whom?" asked he, still more eagerly.

"A letter from Mr. Repton. You shall read it when you are better. You are too weak for all this exertion, G.o.d-frey; you must submit--"

"Submit!" broke he in; "the very word he said. You submit yourself to anything, if it only purchase your selfish ease. No, Dolly, no, I am wrong. It was I that said so. I owned to him how unworthily I had acted.

Give me that letter, madam. Let me see it," said he, imperiously.

"When you are more tranquil, G.o.dfrey,--in a fitting state."

"I tell you, madam," cried he, fiercely, "this, is no time for trifling or deception. Repton knows all our affairs. If he has written now, it is because matters are imminent. My head is clear now. I can think--I can speak. It is full time Harry should hear the truth. Let him come here."

"Take a little rest, G.o.dfrey, be it only half an hour, and you shall have everything as you wish it."

"Half an hour! you speak of half an hour to one whose years are minutes now!" said he, in a broken voice. "This poor brain, Dora, is already wandering. The strange things I have seen so lately--that poor fellow come back after so many years--so changed, so sadly changed--but I knew him through all the mist and vapor of this feverish state; I saw him clearly, my own dear Barry!" The word, as it were the last barrier to his emotion, brought forth a gush of tears; and burying his face within the bedclothes, he sobbed himself to sleep. As he slept, however, he continued to mutter about home and long pa.s.sed years,--of boyish sports with his brother; childish joys and sorrows were all mingled there, with now and then some gloomier reveries of later days.

"He has been wandering in his mind!" whispered Lady Dorothea to her son, as he joined her in the darkened room. "He woke up, believing that he had seen his brother, and the effect was very painful."

"Has he asked for _me?_" inquired the other.

"No; he rambled on about Mary, and having deserted her, and all that; and just as ill-luck would have it, here is a letter from Repton, exactly filled with the very same theme. He insists on seeing it; but of course he will have forgotten it when he awakes."

"You have written to Scanlan?" asked he.

"Yes; my letter has been sent off."

"Minutes are precious now. If anything should occur here,"--his eyes turned towards the sick-bed as he spoke,--"Merl will refuse to treat.

His people--I know they are his--are hovering about the hotel all the morning. I heard the waiter whispering as I pa.s.sed, and caught the words, 'No better; worse, if anything.' The tidings would be in London before the post."

Lady Dorothea made no reply, and all was now silent, save the unequal but heavy breathings of the sick man, and the faint, low mutterings of his dream. "In the arras--between the window and the wall--there it is, Barry," cried he, in a clear, distinct voice. "Repton has a copy of it, too, with Catty's signature,--old Catty Broon."

"What is he dreaming of?" asked the young man.

But, instead of replying to the question, Lady Dorothea bent down her head to catch the now muttered words of the sleeper.

"He says something of a key. What key does he mean?" asked he.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 297]

"Fetch me that writing-desk," said Lady Dorothea, as she took several keys from her pockets; and noiselessly unlocking the box, she began to search amidst its contents. As she continued, her gestures grew more and more hurried; she threw papers recklessly here and there, and at last emptied the entire contents upon the table before her. "See, search if there be a key here," cried she, in a broken voice; "I saw it here three days ago."

"There is none here," said he, wondering at her eagerness.