CHAPTER XXXIX. TOWARDS THE END
Repton was standing at his parlor window, anxiously awaiting hisfriend's arrival, when the chaise with four posters came to the door."What have we here?" said the old lawyer to himself, as Barry assisteda lady dressed in deep mourning to alight, and hurried out to receivethem.
"I have not come alone, Repton," said the other. "I have brought mydaughter with me." Before Repton could master his amazement at thesewords, she had thrown back her veil, revealing the well-known featuresof Kate Henderson.
"Is this possible?--is this really the case?" cried Repton, as hegrasped her hand between both his own. "Do I, indeed, see one I have solong regarded and admired, as the child of my old friend?"
"Fate, that dealt me so many heavy blows of late, had a kindness inreserve for me, after all," said Barry. "I am not to be quite alone inthis world!"
"If _you_ be grateful, what ought not to be _my_ thankfulness?" saidKate, tremulously.
"Leave us for a moment together, Kate," said Barry; and taking Repton'sarm, he led him into an inner room.
"I have met with many a sore cut from fortune, Repton," said he, in thefierce tone that was most natural to him; "the nearest and dearest tome not the last to treat me harshly. I need not tell you how I have beenrequited in life; not, indeed, that I seek to acquit myself of my ownshare of ill. My whole career has been a fault; it could not bring otherfruit than misery." He paused, and for a while seemed laboring in strongemotion. At last he went on:--
"When that girl was born--it was two years before I married--I intrustedthe charge of her to Henderson, who placed her with a sisterof his in Bruges. I made arrangements for her maintenance andeducation,--liberally for one as poor as I was. I made but one conditionabout her. It was that under no circumstances save actual want shouldshe ever be reduced to earn her own bread; but if the sad hour did come,never--as had been her poor mothers fate--never as a governess! It wasin that fearful struggle of condition I first knew her. I continued,year after year, to hear of her; remitting regularly the sums Ipromised,--doubling, tripling them, when fortune favored me with achance prosperity. The letters spoke of her as well and happy, in humblebut sufficient circumstances, equally remote from privation as from theseductions of a more exalted state. I insisted eagerly on my originalcondition, and hoped some day to hear of her being married tosome honest but humble man. It was not often that I had time forself-reproach; but when such seasons would beset me, I thought of thisgirl, and her poor mother long dead and gone--But let me finish. While Istruggled--and it was often a hard struggle--to maintain my side of thecompact, selling at ruinous loss acquisitions it had cost me years oflabor to obtain, this fellow, this Henderson, was basely betraying thetrust I placed in him! The girl, for whose protection, whose safetyI was toiling, was thrown by him into the very world for which I haddistinctly excepted her; her talents, her accomplishments, her verygraces, farmed out and hired for his own profit! Launched into the verysea where her own mother met shipwreck, she was a mere child, sent tothread her way through the perils of the most dissipated society. Hearher own account of it, Repton. Let _her_ tell you what is the tone ofthat high life to which foreign nobility imparts its fascinations. Notthat I want to make invidious comparisons; our own country sends itshigh tributaries to every vice of Europe! I know not what accident savedher amidst this pollution. Some fancied theory of popular wrongs, shethinks, gave her a kind of factitious heroism; elevating her, at leastto her own mind, above the frivolous corruptions around her. She was ademocrat, to rescue her from being worse.
"At last came a year of unusual pressure; my remittance was delayed, butwhen sent was never acknowledged. From that hour out I never heard ofher. How she came into my brother's family, you yourself know. What washer life there, she has told me! Not in any spirit of complaint,--nay,she acknowledges to many kindnesses and much trust. Even my coldsister-in-law showed traits for which I had not given her credit. I havealready forgotten her wrongs towards myself, in requital of her conductto this poor girl."
"I'll spare you the scene with Henderson, Repton," said he, after a longpause. "When the fellow told me that the girl was the same I had seenwatching by another's sickbed, that she it was whose never-ceasing careshad soothed the last hours of one dearer than herself, I never gaveanother thought to him. I rushed out in search of her, to tell hermyself the tidings."
"How did she hear it?" asked Repton, eagerly.
"More calmly than I could tell it. Her first words were, 'Thank God forthis, for I never could love that man I had called my father!'"
"She knows, then, every circumstance of her birth?"
"I told her everything. We know each other as well as though we hadlived under the same roof for years. She is my own child in everysentiment and feeling. She is frank and fearless, Repton,--two qualitiesthat will do well enough in the wild savannahs of the New World, butwould be unmanageable gifts in the Old, and thither we are bound. I havewritten to Liverpool about a ship, and we shall sail on Saturday."
"How warmly do I sympathize in this your good fortune, Martin!" saidRepton. "She is a noble creature, and worthy of belonging to you."
"I ask for nothing more, Repton," said he, solemnly. "Fortune andstation, such as they exist here, I have no mind for! I'm too old nowto go to school about party tactics and politics; I'm too stubborn,besides, to yield up a single conviction for the sake of unity with aparty,--so much for my unfitness for public life. As to private, I amrough and untrained; the forms of society so pleasant to others would bepenalties to _me_. And then," said he, rising, and drawing up his figureto its full height, "I love the forest and the prairie; I glory in thevastness of a landscape where the earth seems boundless as the sky, andwhere, if I hunt down a buffalo-ox, after twenty miles of a chase,I have neither a game-law nor a gamekeeper nor a charge of trespasshanging over me."
"There's some one knocking at the door," said Repton, as he arose andopened it.
"A thousand pardons for this interruption," said Mas-singbred, in a lowand eager voice, "but I cannot keep my promise to you; I cannot defer myjourney to the West. I start to-night. Don't ask me the reasons. I 'llbe free enough to give them if they justify me."
"But here is one who wishes to shake hands with you, Massingbred," saidRepton, as he led him forward into the room.
"I hope you are going to keep your pledge with me, though," said Barry."Have you forgotten you have promised to be my guest over the sea?"
"Ah," said Jack, sighing, "I 've had many a day-dream of late!"
"The man's in love," said Repton. "Nay, prisoner, you are not called onto say what may criminate you. I 'll tell you what, Barry, you 'll dothe boy good service by taking him along with you. There 's a healthfulsincerity in the active life of the New World well fitted to dispelillusions that take their rise in the indolent voluptuousness of theOld. Carry him off then, I say; accept no excuses nor apologies. Sendhim away to buy powder and shot, leather gaiters, and the rest of it.When I saw him first myself, it was in the character of a poacher, andhe filled the part well. Ah! he is gone," added he, perceiving thatMartin had just quitted the room. "Poor fellow, he is so full of hispresent happiness,--the first gleam of real sunshine on a long day oflowering gloom! He has just found a daughter,--an illegitimate one, butworthy to be the rightful-born child to the first man in the land. Thediscovery has carried him back twenty years of life, and freshened aheart whose wells of feeling were all but dried up forever. If I mistakenot, you must have met her long ago at Cro' Martin."
"Possibly. I have no recollection of it," said Jack, musing.
"An ignoble confession, sir," said Repton; "no less shocked should Ibe were she to tell me she was uncertain if she had ever met Mr.Massingbred. As Burke once remarked to me, 'Active intelligences,like appropriate ingredients in chemistry, never meet without freshcombinations.' It is then a shame to ignore such products. I 'd swearthat when you did meet you understood each other thoroughly; agreedwell,--ay, and what is more to the purpose, diff
ered in the right placestoo."
"I'm certain we did," said Jack, smiling, "though I'm ungrateful enoughto forget all about it."
"Well," said Martin, entering, "I have sent for another advocate toplead my cause. My daughter will tell you, sir, that she, at least, isnot afraid to encounter the uncivilized glens beside the Orinoco. Comein, Kate. You tell me that you and Mr. Massingbred are old friends."
Massingbred started as he heard the name, looked up, and there stoodKate before him, with her hand extended in welcome.
"Good heavens! what is this? Am I in a dream? Can this be real?" criedJack, pressing his hands to his temples, and trembling from head to footin the intensity of his anxiety.
"My father tells me of an invitation he has given you, Mr. Massingbred,"said she, smiling faintly at his embarrassment, "and asks me to repeatit; but I know far better than he does all that you would surrender byexile from the great world wherein you are destined to eminence. Thegreat debater, the witty conversationalist, the smart reviewer, mightprove but a sorry trapper, and even a bad shot! I have my scruples,then, about supporting a cause where my conscience does not go alongwith me."
"My head on't, but he 'll like the life well," said Barry, halfimpatiently.
"Am I to think that you will not ask me to be your guest?" said Jack, ina whisper, only audible by Kate.
"I have not said so," said she, in the same low tone. "Will you gofurther, Kate," muttered he, in tremulous eagerness, "and say, 'Come'?""Yes!" said she. "Come!"
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"I accept!" cried Jack, rushing over, and grasping Martin's handsbetween his own. "I 'm ready,--this hour, this instant, if you like it."
"We find the prisoner guilty, my Lords," said Repton; "but we recommendhim to mercy, as his manner on this occasion convinces us it is a firstoffence."
We have now done with the Martins of Cro' Martin. Should any of ourreaders feel a curiosity as to the future fortunes of the estate, itsstory, like that of many another Irish property, is written in theEncumbered Estates Court. Captain Martin only grew wiser by the especialexperience of one class of difficulties. His indolent, easy dispositionand a taste for expense led him once again into embarrassments fromwhich there was but one issue,--the sale of his property. He has still,however, a handsome subsistence remaining, and lives with Lady Dorothea,notable and somewhat distinguished residents of a city on the Continent.
We cannot persuade ourselves that we have inspired interest for thehumbler characters of our piece. Nor dare we ask the reader to hearmore about Mrs. Cronan and her set, nor learn how Kilkieran fared in thechanges around it.
For Joseph Nelligan, however, we claim a parting word. He was the firstof an order of men who have contributed no small share to the greatsocial revolution of Ireland in late years. With talents fully equalto the best in the opposite scale of party, and a character above allreproach, he stood a rebuking witness to all the taunts and sarcasmsonce indiscriminately levelled at his class; and, at the same time,inspired his own party with the happy knowledge that there was a noblerand more legitimate road to eminence than by factious display andpopular declamation.
We do not wish to inquire how far the one great blow to hishappiness--the disappointment of his early life--contributed to hissuccess by concentrating his ambition on his career. Certain is it,no man achieved a higher or more rapid elevation, and old Dan livedto receive at his board the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench in theperson of his own son.
Poor Simmy Crow! for if we would forget him, he has taken care thatoblivion is not to be his fate. He has sent from the Rocky Mountains,where he is now wandering with Barry Martin, some sketches of IndianLife to the Irish Art Exhibition.
If it be a pleasure to trace in our friends the traits we have admiredin them in youth, and remark the embers of the fires that once wannedtheir hearts, Simmy affords us this gratification, since his drawingsreveal the inspirations that first filled his early mind. The Chiefin his war-paint has a fac-simile likeness to his St. John in theWilderness; and as for the infant the squaw is bathing in the stream, wecan produce twelve respectable witnesses to depose that it is "Moses."
We are much tempted to add a word about the Exiles themselves, butwe abstain. It is enough to say that all the attractive prospects ofambition held out by friends, all the seductions of generous offers fromfamily, have never tempted them to return to the Old World; but thatthey live on happily, far away from the jarring collisions of life, thetranquil existence they had longed for.
THE END.
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