"So, then, according to the record," said Ma.s.singbred, holding up the book, "there is an end of the 'Martins of Cro' Martin'?"

"That's it, sir, in one word."

"It is too shocking--too horrible to believe," said Mas-singbred, with more of sincerity than his manner usually displayed. "Eh, Scanlan,--is it not so?" added he, as waiting in vain for some show of concurrence.

"I believe, however," said the other, "it's the history of every great family's downfall: small liabilities growing in secrecy to become heavy charges, severe pressure exerted by those out of whose pockets came eventually the loans to meet the difficulties,--shrewdness and rapacity on one side, folly and wastefulness on the other."

"Ay, ay; but who ever heard of a whole estate disposed of for less than two years of its rental?"

"That's exactly the case, sir," said he, in the same calm tone as before; "and what makes matters worse, we have little time to look out for expedients. Magennis will put us on our t.i.tle at the new trial next a.s.sizes. Merl will take fright at the insecurity of his claim, and dispose of it,--Heaven knows to whom,--perhaps to that very league now formed to raise litigation against all the old tenures."

"Stop, stop, Scanlan! There is quite enough difficulty before us, without conjuring up new complications," cried Ma.s.singbred. "Have you anything to suggest? What ought to be done here?"

Scanlan was silent, and leaning his head on his hand seemed lost in thought.

"Come, Scanlan, you 've thought over all this ere now. Tell me, man, what do you advise?"

Scanlan was silent.

"Out with it, Scanlan. I know, I feel that you have a resource in store against all these perils! Out with it, man."

"Have I any need to remind you of your promise, Mr. Ma.s.singbred?" asked the other, stealthily.

"Not the slightest, Scanlan. I never forget a pledge."

"Very well, sir; that's enough," said Scanlan, speaking rapidly, and like one anxious to overcome his confusion by an effort. "We have just one thing to do. We must buy out Merl. Of course as reasonably as we can, but buy him out we must. What between his own short experiences of Ireland, and the exposure that any litigation is sure to bring with it, he's not likely to be hard to deal with, particularly when we are in possession, as I suppose we may be, through _your_ intimacy with the Captain, of all the secret history of these transactions. I take it for granted that he 'll be as glad of a settlement that keeps all 'snug,'

as ourselves. Less than the twenty-two thousand we can't expect he'll take."

"And how are we to raise that sum without Mr. Martin's concurrence?"

"I wish that was the only difficulty," said Scanlan.

"What do you mean?"

"Just this: that in his present state no act of his would stand. Sure his mind is gone. There isn't a servant about him could n't swear to his fancies and imaginations. No, sir, the whole thing must be done amongst ourselves. I have eight thousand some hundred pounds of my own available at a moment; old Nelligan would readily--for an a.s.signment of the Brewery and the Market Square--advance us ten thousand more;--the money, in short, could be had--more if we wanted it--the question--"

"As to the dealing with Merl?" broke in Jack.

"No, sir, not that, though of course it is a most important consideration."

"Well, what then?"

"As to the dealing with Maurice Scanlan, sir," said he, making a great effort. "There's the whole question in one word."

"I don't see that there can be any grave obstacle against that. You know the property."

"Every acre of it."

"You know how you'd like your advance to be secured to you--on what part of the estate. The conditions, I am certain, might be fairly left in your own hands; I feel a.s.sured you'd not ask nor expect anything beyond what was equitable and just."

"Mr. Ma.s.singbred, we might talk this way a twelvemonth, and never be a bit nearer our object than when we began," said Scanlan, resolutely. "I want two things, and I won't take less than the two together. One is to be secured in the agency of the estate, under n.o.body's control whatever but the Martins themselves. No Mister Repton to say 'Do this, sign that, seal the other.' I 'll have n.o.body over me but him that owns the property."

"Well, and the other condition?"

"The other--the other--" said Scanlan, growing very red--"the other, I suppose, will be made the great difficulty--at least, on my Lady's side.

She 'll be bristling up about her uncle the Marquis, and her half-cousin the Duke, and she'll be throwing in my teeth who I am, and what I was, and all the rest of it, forgetting all the while where they 'll be if they reject my terms, and how much the most n.o.ble Viceroy will do for her when she has n't a roof over her head, and how many letters his Grace will write when she has n't a place to address them to,--not to say that the way they're treating the girl at this very moment shows how much they think of her as one of themselves, living with old Catty Broon, and cantering over the country without as much as a boy after her. Sure, if they were n't Pride itself, it's glad they might be that a--a--a respectable man, that is sure to be devoted to their own interests forever, and one that knows the estate well, and, moreover than that, that doesn't want to be going over to London,--no, nor even to Dublin,--that doesn't care a bra.s.s farthing for the castle and the lodge in the park,--that, in short, Mr. Ma.s.singbred, asks nothing for anybody, but is willing to trust to his industry and what he knows of life--There it is now,--there's my whole case," said he, stammering, and growing more and more embarra.s.sed. "I haven't a word to add to it, except this: that if they'd rather be ruined entirely, left without stick or stone, roof or rafter in the world, than take my offer, they 've nothing to blame but themselves and their own infernal pride!" And with this peroration, to deliver which cost him an effort like a small apoplexy, Maurice Scanlan sat down at the table, and crossed his arms on his breast like one prepared to await his verdict with a stout heart.

At last, and with the start of one who "suddenly bethought him of a precaution that ought not to be neglected," he said,--"Of course, this is so far all between ourselves, for if I was to go up straight to my Lady, and say, 'I want to marry your niece,' I think I know what the answer would be."

Although Ma.s.singbred had followed this rambling and incoherent effort at explanation with considerable attention, it was only by the very concluding words that he was quite certain of having comprehended its meaning. If we acknowledge that he felt almost astounded by the pretension, it is but fair to add that nothing in his manner or air betokened this feeling. Nay, he even by a slight gesture of the head invited the other to continue; and when the very abrupt conclusion did ensue, he sat patiently, as it were revolving the question in his own mind.

Had Scanlan been waiting for the few words which from a jury-box determine a man's fate forever, he could not have suffered more acute anxiety than he felt while contemplating the other's calm and unmoved countenance. A bold, open rejection of his plan, a defiant repudiation of his presumption, would not probably have pained him more, if as much as the impa.s.sive quietness of Jack's demeanor.

"If you think that this is a piece of impudence on my part, Mr.

Ma.s.singbred,--if it's your opinion that in aspiring to be connected with the Martins I'm forgetting my place and my station, just say so at once.

Tell it to me frankly, and I'll know how to bear it," said he, at last, when all further endurance had become impossible.

"Nothing of the kind, my dear Scanlan," said Jack, smiling blandly.

"Whatever sn.o.bbery once used to prevail on these subjects, we have come to live in a more generous age. The man of character, the man who unites an untarnished reputation to very considerable abilities, with talent to win any station, and virtues to adorn it, such a man wants no blazonry to ill.u.s.trate his name, and it is mainly by such accessions that our English aristocracy, refreshed and invigorated as it is, preserves its great acknowledged superiority."

It would have required a more acute critic than Maurice Scanlan to have detected the spirit in which this rhapsody was uttered. The apparent earnestness of the manner did not exactly consort with a certain pomposity of enunciation and an over-exactness in the tone of the declamation. On the whole Maurice did not like it. It smacked to his ears very like what he had often listened to in the Four Courts at the close of a "junior's" address; and there was a Nisi Prius jingle in it that sounded marvellously unlike conviction.

"If, then," resumed Ma.s.singbred, "they who by the accidents of fortune, or the meritorious services of their forefathers, represent rather in their elevation the grat.i.tude of their country than--"

"I 'm sorry to interrupt you, sir,--indeed, I'm ashamed of myself for doing it,--for your remarks are beautiful, downright eloquent; but the truth is, this is a case touches me too closely to make me care for a grand speech about it. I 'd rather have just a few words--to the evidence, as one might say,--or a simple answer to a plain question, Can this thing be done?"

"There's where you beat us, Scanlan. There's where we cannot approach you. You are practical. You reduce a matter at once to the simple dimension of efficacy first, then possibility, and with these two conditions before you you reject the fifty extraneous considerations, outlying contingencies, that distract and embarra.s.s such fellows as me.

"I have no pretension to abilities like yours, Mr. Ma.s.singbred," said Scanlan, with una.s.sumed modesty.

"Ah, Scanlan, yours are the true gifts, take my word for it!--the recognized currency by which a man obtains what he seeks for; and there never was an era in which such qualities bore a higher value. Our statesmen, our diplomatists, our essay-writers,--nay, our very poets, addressing themselves as they do to the correction of social wrongs and cla.s.s inequalities,--they are all 'practical'! That is the type of our time, and future historians will talk of this as the 'Age of Fact'!"

If one were to judge from Maurice Scanlan's face during the delivery of this peroration, it might be possibly inferred that he scarcely accepted the speech as an ill.u.s.tration in point, since anything less practical he had never listened to.

"When I think," resumed he, "what a different effect I should have produced in the 'House' had I possessed this requisite! You, possibly, may be under the impression that I achieved a great success?"

"Well, I did hear as much," said Scanlan, half doggedly.

"Perhaps it was so. A first speech, you are aware, is always listened to indulgently; not so a second, especially if a man rises soon after his first effort. They begin to suspect they have got a talkative fellow, eager and ready to speak on every question; they dread that, and even if he be clever, they 'll vote him a bore!"

"Faith! I don't wonder at it!" said Maurice, with a hearty sincerity in the tone.

"Yet, after all, Scanlan, let us be just! How in Heaven's name, are men to become debaters, except by this same training? You require men not alone to be strong upon the ma.s.s of questions that come up in debate, but you expect them to be prompt with their explanations, always prepared with their replies. Not ransacking history, or searching through 'Hansard,' you want a man who, at the spur of the moment, can rise to defend, to explain, to simplify, or mayhap to a.s.sail, to denounce, to annihilate. Is n't that true?"

"I don't want any such thing, sir!" said Scanlan, with a sulky determination that there was no misunderstanding.

"You don't. Well, what _do_ you ask for?"

"I'll tell you, sir, and in very few words, too, what I do _not_ ask for! I don't ask to be humbugged, listening to this, that, and the other, that I have nothing to say to; to hear how you failed or why you succeeded; what you did or what you could n't do. I put a plain case to you, and I wanted as plain an answer. And as to your flattering me about being practical, or whatever you call it, it's a clean waste of time, neither less nor more!"