“Ah, Robinson!” cried he, laughing; and Vyner blushed deeply as he fancied how the child had repeated the nickname. “There’s only one way he could want such assistance, and if he but live here, he’ll never need it.”
“Live here! but you cannot mean that he should?”
“Why not? What need is there that he should know of all those fine prizes that his father strove for and never won, any more than of fine food, or fine clothes, or fine equipages?”
Vyner shook his head in dissent, and the other went on with increase of energy.
“My own mistake was, to have borne the thing so long; I might have come here before my health was broken, my hand unsteady, my foot weak, and my nerves shattered. I’d have gone out to see you, Vyner,” said he, suddenly; “but Harry told me you were not alone; you had a friend. Who is he?”
“Grenfell; you remember a Grenfell at Christ Church?”
“Only Cox and Grenfell’s son, the potted-shrimp man; of course it’s not he?”
“Yes it is, and a very clever fellow too.”
“There’s what I couldn’t do, Vyner; there you beat me,” cried he, aloud; “with the peasant, with the mountaineer, with the fisherman, yes, I can live in daily, hourly companionship. I can eat as coarse food, wear as coarse clothes, lie down on as mean a bed, talk as penuriously, and think as humbly, but I couldn’t endure the continual refinement of your fellow of new-made wealth, nor the pretensions of one who feels that by money he is to be any one’s equal.”
“How your old pride of family stirs you still, Luttrell.”
“Not so; it is not for myself I am pleading. I am not come of a stock so distinguished that I can arrogate to myself the defence of my order. The first of my name who came over here was a Dutch pedlar; some generations of thrift and industry made us gentlemen. For time does for family what it does for wine, and just merely by age your poor light Medoc mellows into very drinkable claret. But how have you made me rattle on in my old guise! See, they are signalling to you, yonder; that lantern at the peak has been run up now.”
“I must manage to let them know I’m here; how to make a fire is the question.”
“There’s abundance of broken wood along here. The fishermen’s boats fare ill along this coast; we’ll soon gather enough for your purpose.”
As they strayed about collecting the fragments of broken timber, Vyner pondered over the absence of all move on Luttrell’s part to invite him to his home. Indeed, in his alacrity to make the signal, he only showed his eagerness to aid his departure. He wondered, too, how much external change, and how little real alteration, had taken place in Luttrell. His old conversational turn was there, though he seemed half ashamed when he found he had fallen into it.
“I told you we should not be long making a respectable pile,” said Luttrell. “The wreck furnishing the bonfire is the law of nature. If my eyes do not deceive me, they have lowered a boat;” as he spoke, he knelt down to kindle the wood, by using his hat to fan the flame, which, after smouldering for a moment, sprang up into a clear tongue of fire. “There, Vyner, they see it; they have thrice lowered the light from the peak.”
“The boat can come in here safely?”
“There’s water for a large ship in this bay. Great facilities exist in these Islands of Arran, and if trade were ever to turn its steps hither, I’d direct my attention to wrecking to-morrow. The man who has so successfully achieved his own ruin, ought to be able to assist others.”
A shout from the beach was now replied to by Vyner, and the stout rowers pulled in vigorously to the shore.
“I have not shocked you, Vyner,” said Luttrell, “by asking you to see what would have shocked you—the place I live in. If you were one of those men to whom mere curiosity affords some pleasure, I’d have shelved my pride, or my shame, or whatever be the name of it, and said, ‘Come and look at my den; see to what poor conclusions a life of blunders leads;’ but you are made of other stuff, and would find no happiness in my humiliation.”
“Will you not come on board with me, Luttrell, and let us have one long summer’s night gossip together?”
“I’d scarce refuse if you had been alone; I can’t face your distinguished friend.”
“You are unjust, quite unjust to him; besides, knowing our old ties, he’ll leave us to ourselves, and we shall have our talk unmolested. Is there not in the past something to build on for the future—— Well, for Harry?”
“I think not. It is not necessary to plot out the life of one bred and trained as he is. Let the world treat him as it may, he’ll scarcely meet any hardships he has not had a foretaste of.”
“But what do you intend by him?”
“If he likes idleness, the elegant leisure of my own life, for instance,” said he, with a mocking laugh, “he’ll have about the amount of fortune such a mode of living requires. If he be ambitious, or prefer a course of activity, he can go on board some of these American traders, or sail with a fishing lugger. Frankly, Vyner, it’s a matter I have not given much thought to. There is but one part of it, indeed, on which I can declare I have made up my mind. He is to have no protectors, no patrons. We are a hard race to deal with, and we often seem ungrateful when we are merely self-willed.”
“How I wish you’d let me talk all these things over with you,” said Vyner, in a friendly tone, “not to say that I want your advice on my own account.”
“Advice, and from me!”
“Even so, Luttrell. I have a project about purchasing some property on the coast here. Not a very profitable investment, perhaps, but certainly cheap, and at some long future to become possibly remunerative.”
“Derryvaragh, I suppose?” “Yes, that’s the name.”
“The most picturesque spot in the island; finer than the boasted Killarney itself, and far and away beyond Windermere and the Scotch Lakes. I know it well. I have walked the mountains grouse-shooting, and fished every mile of the river; but what would you do with it when you called it yours? You dare not assert one single right of property; the people who live there, and whose fathers have lived there for centuries, have never acknowledged lord or master. You’ll stock it with sheep, and send an agent. They’ll eat your mutton, and shoot your agent. You’ll appeal to the law, and you might as well threaten a New Zealander with a bill in Chancery. Leave such speculations alone; there are no fortunes to be made here, nor even fame for having reformed us. All the privilege your purchase will confer, will be to feed us in times of famine, and be shot at when prices rise and the nights grow longer.”
“Why, you are more discouraging than Grenfell!”
“I don’t know about Grenfell, but I know that Ireland is not to be bettered by men like you. It is out of our own rough energies must come the cure for our own coarse maladies. Go back and build model cottages in Norfolk, give prizes to your oldest farm labourer, or the mother of the largest family. Here’s your yawl; good-by.”
“Do step in and come on board with me, Luttrell, if only for an hour or two.”
“No, I cannot. I’d not stand your friend’s impertinences about Ireland, besides, and I’d be led into rudenesses, which I’d not forgive myself. Lady Vyner is not with you?”
“No, she’s in Wales, at Llantlannoch, where I wish you’d let me tell her you were coming to see her.”
“Who knows!”
“My dear Luttrell, is this a promise?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Will you write to me.”
“I think not.”
“May