Read Ebook: Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I. by Lever Charles James Wheeler Edward J Illustrator

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 2678 lines and 128956 words, and 54 pages

"Well, no man can say that I have not lived up to my convictions; and for myself, I can aver I have thoroughly enjoyed my intercourse with the world, and like it as well to-day as on the first morning I made my bow to it."

"Listen to this, young gentlemen," said the Colonel, turning to his officers, who now gathered around them. "Now and then I hear some of you complaining of being bored or wearied,--sick of this, tired of that; here's my friend, who knows the whole thing better than any of us, and he declares that the world is the best of all possible worlds, and that so far from familiarity with it inspiring disgust with life, his enjoyment of it is as racy as when first he knew it."

"It is rather hard to ask these gentlemen to take me as a guide on trust," said Fossbrooke; "but I have known the fathers of most of those I see around me, and could call many of them as witnesses to character. Major Aylmer, your father and I went up the Nile together, when people talked of it as a journey. Captain Harris, I 'm sure I am not wrong in saying you are the son of Godfrey Harris, of Harrisburg. Your father was my friend on the day I wounded Lord Ecclesmore. I see four or five others too,--so like old companions that I find it hard to believe I am not back again in the old days when I was as young as themselves; and yet I 'm not very certain if I would like to exchange my present quiet enjoyment as a looker-on for all that active share I once took in life and its pleasures."

Something in the fact that their fathers had lived in his intimacy, something in his manner,--a very courteous manner it was,--and something in the bold, almost defiant bearing of the old man, vouching for great energy and dignity together, won greatly upon the young men, and they gathered around him. He was, however, summoned away by a message from Trafford to say that the whist-party waited for him, and he took his leave with a stately courtesy and withdrew.

"There goes one of the strangest fellows in Christendom," said the Colonel, as the other left the room. "He has already gone through three fortunes; he dissipated the first, speculated and lost the second, and the third he, I might say, gave away in acts of benevolence and kindness,--leaving himself so ill off that I actually heard the other day that some friend had asked for the place of barrack-master at Athlone for him; but on coming over to see the place, he found a poor fellow with a wife and five children a candidate for it; so he retired in his favor, and is content, as you see, to go out on the world, and take his chance with it."

Innumerable questions pressed on the Colonel to tell more of his strange friend; he had, however, little beyond hearsay to give them. Of his own experiences, he could only say that when first he met him it was at Ceylon, where he had come in a yacht like a sloop of war to hunt elephants,--the splendor of his retinue and magnificence of his suite giving him the air of a royal personage,--and indeed the gorgeous profusion of his presents to the King and the chief personages of the court went far to impress this notion. "I never met him since," said the Colonel, "till this morning, when he walked into my room, dusty and travel-stained, to say, 'I just heard your name, and thought I 'd ask you to give me my dinner to-day.' I owe him a great many,--not to say innumerable other attentions; and his last act on leaving Trincomalee was to present me with an Arab charger, the most perfect animal I ever mounted. It is therefore a real pleasure to me to receive him. He is a thoroughly fine-hearted fellow, and, with all his eccentricities, one of the noblest natures I ever met. The only flaw in his frankness is as to his age; nobody has ever been able to get it from him. You heard him talk of your fathers,--he might talk of your grandfathers; and he would, too, if we had only the opportunity to lead him on to it. I know of my own knowledge that he lived in the Carlton House coterie, not a man of which except himself survives, and I have heard him give imitations of Burke, Sheridan, Gavin Hamilton, and Pitt, that none but one who had seen them could have accomplished. And now that I have told you all this, will one of you step over to Trafford's rooms, and whisper him a hint to make his whist-points as low as he can; and, what is even of more importance, to take care lest any strange story Sir Brook may tell--and he is full of them--meet a sign of incredulity, still less provoke any quizzing? The slightest shade of such a provocation would render him like a madman."

The Major volunteered to go on this mission, which indeed any of the others would as willingly have accepted, for the old man had interested them deeply, and they longed to hear more about him.

As the Shannon draws near Killaloe, the wild character of the mountain scenery, the dreary wastes and desolate islands which marked Lough Derg, disappear, and give way to gently sloping lawns, dotted over with well-grown timber, well-kept demesnes, spacious country-houses, and a country which, in general, almost recalls the wealth and comfort of England.

About a mile above the town, in a little bend of the river forming a small bay, stands a small but pretty house, with a skirt of rich wood projecting at the back, while the lawn in front descends by an easy slope to the river.

Originally a mere farmhouse, the taste of an ingenious owner had taken every advantage of its irregular outline, and converted it into something Elizabethan in character, a style admirably adapted to the site, where all the features of rich-colored landscape abounded, and where varied foliage, heathy mountain, and eddying river, all lent themselves to make up a scene of fresh and joyous beauty.

In the marvellous fertility of the soil, too, was found an ally to every prospect of embellishment. Sheltered from north and east winds, plants grew here in the open air, which in less favored spots needed the protection of the conservatory; and thus in the neatly shaven lawn were seen groups of blossoming shrubs or flowers of rare excellence, and the camellia and the salvia and the oleander blended with the tulip, the moss-rose, and the carnation, to stud the grass with their gorgeous colors.

Over the front of the cottage, for cottage it really was, a South American creeper, a sort of acanthus, grew, its crimson flowers hanging in rich profusion over cornice and architrave; while a passion-tree of great age covered the entire porch, relieving with its softened tints the almost over-brilliancy of the southern plant.

Seen from the water,--and it came suddenly into view on rounding a little headland,--few could forbear from an exclamation of wonder and admiration at this lovely spot; nor could all the pretentious grandeur of the rich-wooded parks, nor all the more imposing architecture of the great houses, detract from the marvellous charm of this simple home.

A tradition of a swan carried away by some rising of the river from the Castle of Portumna, and swept down the lake till it found refuge in the little bay, had given the name to the place, and for more than a hundred years was it known as the Swan's Nest. The Swan, however, no longer existed, though a little thatched edifice at the water-side marked the spot it had once inhabited, and sustained the truth of the legend.

The owner of the place was a Dr. Lendrick: he had come to it about twenty years before the time at which our story opens,--a widower with two children, a son and a daughter. He was a perfect stranger to all the neighborhood, though by name well known as the son of a distinguished judge, Baron Lendrick of the Court of Exchequer.

It was rumored about, that, having displeased his father, first by adopting medicine instead of law as his profession, and subsequently by marrying a portionless girl of humble family, the Baron had ceased to recognize him in any way. Making a settlement of a few hundreds a year on him, he resolved to leave the bulk of his fortune to a step-son, the child of his second wife, a Colonel Sewell, then in India.

It was with no thought of practising his profession that Dr. Lendrick had settled in the neighborhood; but as he was always ready to assist the poor by his advice and skill, and as the reputation of his great ability gradually got currency, he found himself constrained to yield to the insistence of his neighbors, and consent to practise generally. There were many things which made this course unpalatable to him. He was by nature shy, timid, and retiring; he was fastidiously averse to a new acquaintanceship; he had desired, besides, to live estranged from the world, devoting himself entirely to the education of his children; and he neither liked the forced publicity he became exposed to, nor that life of servitude which leaves the doctor at the hourly mercy of the world around him.

If he yielded, therefore, to the professional calls upon him, he resisted totally all social claims: he went nowhere but as the doctor.

No persuasion, no inducement, could prevail on him to dine out; no exigency of time or season prevent him returning to his home at night. There were in his neighborhood one or two persons whose rank might have, it was supposed, influenced him in some degree to comply with their requests,--and, certainly, whose desire for his society would have left nothing undone to secure it; but he was as obdurate to them as to others, and the Earl of Drum-carran and Sir Reginald Lacy, of Lacy Manor, were not a whit more successful in their blandishments than the Vicar of Killaloe--old Bob Mills, as he was irreverently called--or Lendrick's own colleague, Dr. Tobin, who, while he respected his superior ability and admitted his knowledge, secretly hated him as only a rival doctor knows how to hate a brother practitioner.

For the first time for many years had Dr. Lendrick gone up to Dublin. A few lines from an old family physician, Dr. Beattie, had, however, called him up to town. The Chief Baron had been taken ill in Court, and was conveyed home in a state of insensibility. It was declared that he had rallied and passed a favorable night; but as he was a man of very advanced age, at no time strong, and ever unsparing of himself in the arduous labors of his office, grave doubts were felt that he would ever again resume his seat on the Bench. Dr. Beattie well knew the long estrangement that had separated the father from the son; and although, perhaps, the most intimate friend the Judge had in the world, he never had dared to interpose a word or drop a hint as to the advisability of reconciliation.

Sir William Lendrick was, indeed, a man whom no amount of intimacy could render his friends familiar with. He was positively charming to mere acquaintanceship,--his manner was a happy blending of deference with a most polished wit Full of bygone experiences and reminiscences of interesting people and events, he never overlaid conversation by their mention, but made them merely serve to illustrate the present, either by contrast or resemblance. All this to the world and society was he; to the inmates of his house he was a perfect terror! It was said his first wife had died of a broken heart; his second, with a spirit fierce and combative as his own, had quarrelled with him so often, so seriously, and so hopelessly, that for the last fifteen years of life they had occupied separate houses, and only met as acquaintances, accepting and sending invitations to each other, and outwardly observing all the usages of a refined courtesy.

It is no small tribute to the character of filial affection when one can say, and say truthfully, that scarcely any severity on a parent's part effaces the love that was imbibed in infancy, and that struck root in the heart before it could know what unkindness was! Over and over again in life have I witnessed this deep devotion. Over and over again have I seen a clinging affection to a memory which nothing short of a hallowed tie could have made so dear,--a memory that retained whatever could comfort and sustain, and held nothing that recalled shame or sorrow.

That he was not without a hope of such happiness, might be gathered from one circumstance. He had taken up with him two miniatures of his boy and girl to show "Grandfather," if good fortune should ever offer a fitting moment.

The first words which greeted him on reaching his friend's house were: "Better. A tolerably tranquil night. He can move his hand. The attack was paralysis, and his speech is also improved."

"And his mind? how is his mind?"

"Clear as ever it was,--intensely eager to hear what is said about his illness, and insatiable as to the newspaper versions of the attack."

"Does he speak? Has he spoken of--his family at all?" said he, falteringly.

"Only of Lady Lendrick. He desired to see her. He dictated a note to me, in terms of very finished courtesy, asking her if, without incurring inconvenience, she would favor him with an early call. The whole thing was so like himself that I saw at once he was getting better."

"And so you think him better?" asked Lendrick, eagerly.

"Better! Yes--but not out of danger. I fear as much from his irritability as his malady. He will insist on seeing the newspapers, and occasionally his eye falls on some paragraph that wounds him. It was but yesterday that he read a sort of querulous regret from some writer that 'the learned Judge had not retired some years ago, and before failing health, acting on a very irascible temperament, had rendered him a terror alike to the bar and the suitors.' That unfortunate paragraph cost twenty leeches and ice to his temples for eight hours after."

"Cannot these things be kept from him? Surely your authority ought to be equal to this!"

"Were I to attempt it, he would refuse to see me. In fact, any utility I can contribute depends on my apparent submission to him in everything. Almost his first question to me every morning is, 'Well, sir, who is to be my successor?' Of course I say that we all look with a sanguine hope to see him soon back in his court again. When I said this yesterday, he replied, 'I will sit on Wednesday, sir, to hear appeals; there will be little occasion for me to speak, and I trust another day or two will see the last of this difficulty of utterance. Pemberton, I know, is looking to the Attorney-Generalship, and George Hayes thinks he may order his ermine. Tell them, however, from me, that the Chief Baron intends to preside in his court for many a year to come; that the intellect, such as it is, with which Providence endowed him, is still unchanged and unclouded.' This is his language,--this his tone; and you may know how such a spirit jars with all our endeavors to promote rest and tranquillity."

Lendrick walked moodily up and down the room, his head sunk, and his eyes downcast. "Never to speak of me,--never ask to see me," muttered he, in a voice of intense sadness.

"I half suspected at one time he was about to do so, and indeed he said, 'If this attack should baffle you, Beattie, you must not omit to give timely warning. There are two or three things to be thought of.' When I came away on that morning, I sat down and wrote to you to come up here."

A servant entered at this moment and presented a note to the doctor, who read it hastily and handed it to Lendrick. It ran thus:--

"Dear Dr. Beattie,--The Chief Baron has had an unfavorable turn, partly brought on by excitement. Lose no time in coming here; and believe me, yours sincerely,

"CONSTANTIA LENDRICK."

"They've had a quarrel; I knew they would. I did my best to prevent their meeting; but I saw he would not go out of the world without a scene. As he said last night, 'I mean her to hear my "charge." She must listen to my charge, Beattie;' and I 'd not be astonished if this charge were to prove his own sentence."

"Go to him at once, Beattie; and if it be at all possible, if you can compass it in any way, let me see him once again. Take these with you; who knows but their bright faces may plead better than words for us?" and thus saying, he gave him the miniatuies; and overcome with emotion he could not control, turned away and left the room.

As Dr. Beattie drove off with all speed to the Chief Baron's house, which lay about three miles from the city, he had time to ponder as he went over his late interview. "Tom Lendrick," as he still called him to himself, he had known as a boy, and ever liked him. He had been a patient, studious, gentle-tempered lad, desirous to acquire knowledge, without any of that ambition that wants to make the knowledge marketable. To have gained a professorship would have appeared to have been the very summit of his ambition, and this rather as a quiet retreat to pursue his studies further than as a sphere wherein to display his own gifts. Anything more unlike that bustling, energetic, daring spirit, his father, would be hard to conceive. Throughout his whole career at the bar, and in Parliament, men were never quite sure what that brilliant speaker and most indiscreet talker would do next. Men secured his advocacy with a half misgiving whether they were doing the very best or the very worst for success. Give him difficulties to deal with, and he was a giant; let all go smoothly and well, and he would hunt up some crotchet,--some obsolete usage,--a doubtful point, that in its discussion very frequently led to the damage of his client's cause, and the defeat of his suit.

Display was ever more to him than victory. Let him have a great arena to exhibit in, and he was proof against all the difficulties and all the casualties of the conflict. Never had such a father a son less the inheritor of his temperament and nature; and this same disappointment rankling on through life--a disappointment that embittered all intercourse, and went so far as to make him disparage the high abilities of his son--created a gulf between them that Beattie knew could never be bridged over. He doubted, too, whether as a doctor he could conscientiously introduce a theme so likely to irritate and excite. As he pondered, he opened the two miniatures, and looked at them. The young man was a fine, manly, daring-looking fellow, with a determined brow and a resolute mouth, that recalled his grandfather's face; he was evidently well grown and strong, and looked one that, thrown where he might be in life, would be likely to assert his own.

"I wish he could see the originals," muttered Beattie. "If the old man, with his love of beauty, but saw that girl, it would be worth all the arguments in Christendom. Is it too late for this? Have we time for the experiment?"

Thus thinking, he drove along the well-wooded approach, and gained the large ground-space before the door, whence a carriage was about to drive away. "Oh, doctor," cried a voice, "I'm so glad you 're come; they are most impatient for you." It was the Solicitor-General, Mr. Pemberton, who now came up to the window of Beattie's carriage.

"He has become quite unmanageable, will not admit a word of counsel or advice, resists all interference, and insists on going out for a drive."

"I see him at the window," said Beattie; "he is beckoning to me; good-bye," and he passed on and entered the house.

In the chief drawing-room, in a deep recess of a window, sat the Chief Baron, dressed as if to go out, with an overcoat and even his gloves on. "Come and drive with me, Beattie," cried he, in a feeble but harsh voice. "If I take my man Leonard, they 'll say it was a keeper. You know that the 'Post' has it this morning that it is my mind which has given way. They say they 've seen me breaking for years back. Good heavens! can it be possible, think you, that the mites in a cheese speculate over the nature of the man that eats them? You stopped to talk with Pemberton I saw; what did he say to you?"

"Nothing particular,--a mere greeting, I think."

"No, sir, it was not; he was asking you how many hours there lay between him and the Attorney-Generalship. They 've divided the carcase already. The lion has to assist at his autopsy,--rather hard, is n't it? How it embitters death, to think of the fellows who are to replace us!"

"Let me feel your pulse."

"Don't trust it, Beattie; that little dialogue of yours on the grass plot has sent it up thirty beats; how many is it?"

"Rapid,--very rapid; you need rest,--tranquillity."

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet