“ ‘I’d rather you’d not talk that way,’ says Luttrell; ‘it makes me feel unpleasant.’
“ ‘I’m sure,’ says the other, ‘nobody ever said I wasn’t polite, or that I ever talked of what was not pleasin’ to the company.’
“ ‘Well,’ says Luttrell, ‘supposin’ that I wanted to be rich, and supposin’ that I wouldn’t agree to anything that would injure my soule, and supposin’ that there was, maybe, something that you’d like me to do, and that wouldn’t hurt me for doin’ it, what would that be?’
“ ‘If you always was as cute about a bargain, Mr. Luttrell,’ says the other, ‘you’d not be the poor man you are to-day.’
“ ‘That’s true, perhaps,’ says he; ‘but, you see, the fellows I made them with wasn’t as cute as the——’
“ ‘Don’t,’ says the other, holding up his hand to stop him; ‘it’s never polite. I told you I didn’t want your soul, for I’m never impatient about anything; all I want is to give you a good lesson—something that your family will be long the better of—and you want it much, for you have, all of you, one great sin.’ “ ‘We’re fond of drink?’ says Luttrell. “ ‘No,’ says he; ‘I don’t mean that.’ “ ‘It’s gamblin’?’ “ ‘Nor that.’
“ ‘It’s a likin’ for the ladies?’ says Luttrell, slyly. “ ‘I’ve nothing to say against that, for they’re always well disposed to me,’ says he.
“ ‘If it’s eatin’, or spendin’ money, or goin’ in debt, or cursin’ or swearin’, or being fond of fightin’——‘’
“ ‘It is not,’ says he; ‘them is all natural. It’s your pride,’ says he—‘your upsettin’ family pride, that won’t let you do this, or say that. There’s what’s destroyin’ you.’
“ ‘It’s pretty well out of me now,’ says Luttrell, with a sigh. “ ‘It is not,’ says the other. ‘If you had a good dinner of beef, and a tumbler of strong punch in you, you’d be as impudent this minute as ever you were.’
“ ‘Maybe you’re right,’ says Luttrell.
“ ‘I know I am, Mr. Luttrell. You’re not the first of your family I was intimate with. You’re an ould stock, and I know ye well.’ “ ‘And how are we to be cured?’ says Luttrell. “ ‘Easy enough,’ says he. ‘When three generations of ye marry peasants, it will take the pride out of your bones, and you’ll behave like other people.’
“ ‘We couldn’t do it,’ says Luttrell. “ ‘Try,’ says the other. “ ‘Impossible!’
“ ‘So you’d say about livin’ on potatoes, and drinkin’ well water.’ “ ‘That’s true,’ says Luttrell.
“ ‘So you’d say about ragged clothes and no shoes to your feet.’ ” Luttrell nodded.
“ ‘So you’d say about settin’ in a cave and talking over family matters to—to a stranger,’ says he, with a laugh.
“ ‘I believe there’s something in it,’ said Luttrell; ‘but sure some of us might like to turn bachelors.’
“ ‘Let them, and welcome,’ says he. ‘I don’t want them to do it one after the other. I’m in no hurry. Take a hundred years—take two, if you like, for it.’
“ ‘Done,’ says Lnttrell. ‘When a man shows a fair spirit, I’ll always meet him in the same. Give me your hand; it’s a bargain.’
“ ‘I hurt my thumb,’ says he; ‘but take my tail, ’twill do all the same.’ And though Mr. Luttrell didn’t like it, he shook it stoutly, and only let it go when it began to burn his fingers. And from that day he was rich, even till he died; but after his death nobody ever knew where to find the gold, nor ever will till the devil tells them.”
“And did his family keep the bargain; did they marry the peasants?” asked Grenfell.
“Two of them. One before, John Lnttrell of Arran; and another must do it, and soon too, for they say the two hundred years is near out now.”
“And is it said that the remedy succeeded?” asked Vyner; “are the Luttrells cured of their family pride?”
“They can’t be till the third marriage takes place; indeed, my grandfather says they’ll be worse than ever just before they’re cured; ‘for,’ says he, ‘every one that makes a bargain with the devil thinks he has the best of it.’ ”
“And that, I suspect, is a mistake, Katherine,” said Vyner.
She threw down her eyes, and seemed lost in thought, making no reply whatever to his remark.
“I’d have had no dealings with him at all,” said Vyner.
“You are rich, and you don’t need him,” said she, almost fiercely, as though his words had conveyed a sneer.
“That’s just it, Kitty,” said Grenfell; “or if he did want him it would be for something different from money.”
She gave a saucy toss of her head, as though to show she agreed with him, and turned to the table where Vyner was at work with his chalks.
“That’s me,” said she, gravely.
“I like your own face better,” said Vyner.
“So would that little fellow with the pipe that you were telling us of,” said Grenfell.
“Let him say so,” said she, with a ringing laugh; and she bounded from the spot, and skipping from crag to crag flew down the rock, and hurried down the little path at speed.
“There’s a man coming up the road; don’t you see him waving his hat?”
“It’s an old man,” said Vyner, as he looked through his telescope. “I snppose her grandfather.”
CHAPTER XII. THE WALK IN THE MOUNTAINS
When Vyner went to sleep that night, it was to dream of all that the last few days had presented before him. The wild and rocky Arran, with its ruined Abbey and its lonely occupant; the bright-eyed but over-thoughtful-looking boy, with all the freshness of childhood and all the contemplative temperament of a man; then the iron-bound shore and the semi-savage natives; and last of all the mountain region where he then was, with that fairy figure more deeply impressed than he had drawn her, and whom he now fancied to be tripping lightly before him up the rocky sides of Strathmore.
As he opened his eyes, the view that met them startled him. It was one of those vast stretches of landscape which painters cannot convey. They are too wide, too boundless for picture. The plain which lay outstretched before him, rising and falling like a vast prairie, was unmarked by habitation—not a hovel, not a hut to be seen. Vast groups of rocks stood out here and there abruptly, grotesque and strange in outline, as though giants had been petrified in the act of some great conflict, the stunted trees that crowned the summits serving as feathers on the helmets. A great amphitheatre of mountain girded the plain, save at one spot, the Gap of Glenvallah, through which, as his map told him, his road on that morning lay.
His object was to see with his own eyes the so much vaunted scenery of this region, to visit the lonely spot, and talk himself with its wild natives; he doubted, indeed, if both the solemnity and the savagery had not been exaggerated. To acquire the property was, after all, only one of those caprices which rich men can afford themselves. They can buy some rare and costly