"It would take t.i.tian himself to paint her; and even he couldn't give all the softness and delicacy of the expression,--that would take Raffaelle; and Vand.y.k.e for her eyes, when they flash out at times; and Giordano for the hair. Oh, if he could have seen it just as I did a minute ago, when the wind blew it back, and the sunlight fell over it!

"Arrah!" cried he, impatiently, as with a pa.s.sionate gesture he tore the leaf from his book and crushed it in his hand,--"arrah! What right have I even to attempt it?" And he sat down, covering his face with his hands, to muse and mourn in silence.

Simpson--or as he was more generally known, Simmy Crow--was neither a Michael Angelo nor a Raffaelle; but he was a simple-minded, honest-hearted creature, whose life had been a long hand-to-hand fight with fortune. Originally a drawing-master in some country academy, the caprice--for it was little else--of a whimsical old lady had sent him abroad to study; that is, sent him to contemplate the very highest triumphs of genius with a mind totally unprepared and uncultivated, to gaze on the grandest conceptions without the shadow of a clew to them, and to try and pick up the secrets of art when he stood in utter ignorance of its first principles. The consequence was, he went wild in the enthusiasm of his admiration; he became a pa.s.sionate worshipper at the shrine, but never essayed to be priest at the altar. Disgusted and dispirited by his own miserable attempts, he scarcely ever touched a pencil, but roved from city to city, and from gallery to gallery, entranced,--enchanted by a fascination that gradually insinuated itself into his very being, and made up the whole aim and object of his thoughts. This idolatry imparted an ecstasy to his existence that lifted him above every accident of fortune. Poor, hungry, and ill-clad, he still could enter a gallery or a church, sit down before a Guido or a Rembrandt, and forget all, save the glorious creation before him. By the sudden death of his patroness, he was left, without a shilling, hundreds of miles from home. Humble as his requirements were, he could not supply them; he offered to teach, but it was in a land where all have access to the best models; he essayed to copy, but his efforts were unsalable.

To return home to his country was now his great endeavor; and after innumerable calamities and reverses, he did arrive in England, whence he made his way to Ireland, poorer than he had quitted it.

Had he returned in better plight, had he come back with some of the appearance of success, the chances are that he might have thriven on the accidents of fame; but he was famishing and in beggary. Some alleged that he was a worthless fellow who had pa.s.sed a life of idleness and debauch; others, that he was not without ability, but that his habits of dissipation rendered him hopeless; and a few--a very few--pitied him as a weak-brained enthusiast, who had no bad about him, but was born to failure!

In his utter dest.i.tution he obtained work as a house-painter,--an employment which he followed for three or four yeare, and in which capacity he had been sent by his master to paint some ornamental stucco-work at Cro' Martin. The ability he displayed attracted Lady Dorothea's notice, and she engaged him to decorate a small garden villa with copies from her own designs. He was entirely successful, and so much pleased was her Ladyship that she withdrew him from his ign.o.ble servitude and attached him to her own household, where now he had been living two years, the latter half of which period had been pa.s.sed in the great work of which we have already made some mention. It so chanced that poor Simmy had never sold but two copies in his life: one was The Abdication of Charles V., the other, The Finding of Moses; and so, out of grat.i.tude to these successes, he went on multiplying new versions of these subjects _ad infinitum_, eternally writing fresh variations on the old themes, till the King and the Lawgiver filled every avenue of his poor brain, and he ceased to have a belief that any other story than these could be the subject of high art.

Happy as he now was, he never ceased to feel that his position exposed him to many an ungenerous suspicion.

"They 'll say I 'm humbugging this old lady," was the constant self-reproach he kept repeating. "I know well what they 'll think of me; I think I hear the sneering remarks as I pa.s.s." And so powerfully had this impression caught hold of him, that he vowed, come what would of it, he 'd set out on his travels again, and face the cold stern world, rather than live on what seemed to be the life of a flatterer and a sycophant. He could not, however, endure the thought of leaving his "Abdication" unfinished, and he now only remained to complete this great work. "Then I 'm off," said he; "and then they 'll see if poor Simmy Crow was the fellow they took him for." Better thoughts on this theme were now pa.s.sing through his mind, from which at last he aroused himself to proceed with his picture. Once at work, his spirits rose; hopes flitted across his brain, and he was happy. His own creations seemed to smile benignly on him, too, and he felt towards them like a friend, and even talked with them, and confided his secret thoughts to them. In this pleasant mood we shall leave him, then; nor shall we linger to listen to the avowals he is making of his upright intentions, nor his willingness to bear the hardest rubs of fortune, so that none can reproach him for a mean subserviency.

CHAPTER VI. A DASH OF POLITICS

"Well, what is it, Molly,--what is it all about?" said Martin, as Mary entered the library, where he was sitting with an unread newspaper stretched across his knee.

"It is a piece of news Scanlan has brought, uncle, and not of the most agreeable kind either."

"Then I'll not hear more of it," broke he in, pettishly.

"But you must, uncle, since without your own counsel and advice nothing can be done."

"Do nothing, then," added he, sulkily.

"Come, come, I 'll not let you off thus easily," said she, pa.s.sing an arm over his shoulder. "You know well I 'd not tease you if it could be avoided, but here is a case where I can be no guide. It is a question of the borough, Lord Kilmorris thinks himself strong enough to stand on his own merits, and repudiates your aid and his own principles together."

Martin's attention being now secured, she went on: "He says--at least as well as I can follow his meaning--that with this new measure must come a total change of policy,--abrogating all old traditions and old notions; that _you_, of course, are little likely to adopt this opinion, at least at once, and so he releases you from all obligations to support him, and himself from all tie to represent _you_."

"This is Lady Dorothy's doing," broke in Martin, pa.s.sionately; "her confounded letter-writing has brought this upon us. I told her that those fellows were tr.i.m.m.i.n.g; I warned her that they were only waiting for this Bill to pa.s.s, to turn round upon us as a barbarous old remnant of feudal oppression; but he dare n't do it, Molly,--Kilmorris has n't a leg to stand upon in the borough. He could n't count upon twenty--no, not ten votes, without me. It's a scurvy trick, too, and it sha'n't succeed, if I stand for the borough myself." And he blurted out the last words as though they were the expression of an enmity driven to its last resources.

"No, no, uncle," said she, caressingly; "after all you have yourself told me of a parliamentary life, that must never be. Its unending intrigues and petty plotting, its fatiguing days and hara.s.sing nights, its jealousies and disappointments, and defeats, all hard enough to be borne by those who must make a trade of their politics, but utterly insupportable to one who, like you, can enjoy his independence. Do not think of that, I beseech you."

"Then am I to see this man carry my own town in my very teeth?" cried he, angrily. "Is that your advice to me?"

"You often spoke of Harry. Why not put him forward now he is coming home?"

"Ay, and the very first thing he'll do will be to resign the seat because he had not been consulted about the matter before the election.

You know him well, Molly; and you know that he exchanged into a regiment in India simply because I had obtained his appointment to the Blues.

His amiable mother's disposition is strong in him!" muttered he, half to himself, but loud enough to be heard by his niece.

"At all events, see Scanlan," said she; "learn how the matter really stands; don't rely on my version of it, but see what Lord Kilmorris intends, and take your own measures calmly and dispa.s.sionately afterwards."

"Is Scanlan engaged for him?"

"I think not. I suspect that negotiations are merely in progress."

"But if he even was," broke in Martin, violently, "I have made the fellow what he is, and he should do as I ordered him. Let him come in, Molly."

"He is not in the house, uncle; he went down to the village."

"Not here? Why didn't he wait? What impertinence is this?"

"He wished to bait his horses, and probably to get some breakfast for himself, which I had not the politeness to offer him here."

"His horses? His tandem, I'll be sworn," said Martin, with a sneer.

"I 'll ask for no better evidence of what we are coming to than that Maurice Scanlan drives about the county with a tandem."

"And handles them very neatly, too," said Mary, with a malicious sparkle of her eye, for she could n't refrain from the spiteful pleasure of seeing her uncle in a regular fury for a mere nothing. All the more salutary, as it withdrew his thoughts from weightier themes.

"I'm sure of it, Miss Martin. I'm certain that he is a most accomplished whip, and as such perfectly sure to find favor in _your_ eyes. Let him come up here at once, however. Say I want him immediately," added he, sternly; and Mary despatched a servant with the message, and sat down in front of her uncle, neither uttering a word nor even looking towards the other.

"After all, Molly," said he, in the quiet, indolent tone so natural to him--"after all, what does it signify who's in or who's out? I don't care a bra.s.s farthing about party or party triumphs; and even if I did, I 'm not prepared--What are you laughing at,--what is it amuses you now?" asked he, half testily, while she laughed out in all the unrestrained flow of joyous mirth.

"I have been waiting for that confession this half-hour, uncle, and really I was beginning to be afraid of a disappointment. Why, dearest uncle, you were within a hair's breadth of forgetting your principles, and being actually caught, for once in your life, prepared and ready."

"Oh, is that it? Is it my embarra.s.sment, then, that affords you so much amus.e.m.e.nt?"

"Far from it," said she, affectionately. "I was only laughing at that quiet little nook you retire to whenever you ought to be up and doing.

Unprepared you say. Not a bit of it. Indisposed, indolent, unwilling, indifferent, any of these you like; but with a mind so full of its own good resources, and as ready to meet every contingency as any one's, don't say you are unprepared. Come, now, bear with me this once, dearest uncle, and don't be angry if I throw myself, like a rock or sandbank, betwixt you and your harbor of refuge. But I hear Mr. Scanlan's voice, and so I shall leave you. Be resolute, uncle, determined, and--'prepared'!" And with a gesture half menace and half drollery, she left the room as the attorney entered it.

Scanlan, like most of those who came but casually in contact with Martin, had conceived a low idea of his capacity,--lower by far than it deserved, since behind his indolence there lay a fund of good common-sense,--a mine, it must be acknowledged, that he seldom cared to work. The crafty man of law had, however, only seen him in his ordinary moods of careless ease and idleness, and believed that pride of family, fortune, and position were the only ideas that found access to his mind, and that by a dexterous allusion to these topics it would always be an easy task to influence and direct him.

"What's this my niece has been telling me of Lord Kilmorris?" said Martin, abruptly, and without even replying to the salutations of the other, who hovered around a chair in an uncertainty as to whether he might dare to seat himself uninvited,--"he's going to contest the borough with us, is n't he?"

Scanlan leaned one arm on the back of the chair, and in a half-careless way replied,--

"He is afraid that you and he don't quite agree, sir. He leans to measures that he suspects you may not altogether approve of."

"Come, come, none of this balderdash with me, Master Maurice. Has he bought the fellows already, or, rather, have you bought them? Out with it, man! What will he give? Name the sum, and let us treat the matter in a business-like way."

Scanlan sat down and laughed heartily for some minutes.

"I think you know me well enough, Mr. Martin, by this time," said he, "to say whether I'ma likely man to meddle with such a transaction."

"The very likeliest in Ireland; the man I 'd select amidst ten thousand."

"I am sorry to hear you say so, sir, that's all," said the other, with a half-offended air; "nor do I see that anything in my past life warrants the imputation."

Martin turned fiercely round, about to make a reply which, if once uttered, would have ended all colloquy between them, when suddenly catching himself he said, "Have you taken any engagement with his Lordship?"

"Not as yet, sir,--not formally, at least. My Lord has written me a very full statement of his ideas on politics, what he means to do, and so forth, and he seems to think that anything short of a very liberal line would not give satisfaction to the electors."

"Who told him so? Who said that the borough was not perfectly content with the representative that--that"--he stammered and faltered--"that its best friends had fixed upon to defend its interests? Who said that a member of my own family might not desire the seat?"

This announcement, uttered with a tone very much akin to menace, failed to produce either the astonishment or terror that Martin looked for, and actually supposing that the expression had not been heard, he repeated it. "I say, sir, has any one declared that a Martin will not stand?"