It was not difficult to see that this very lame excuse covered some other motive, and the old skipper was not the man to be put off by a flimsy pretext; but, rough sailor and buccaneer as he was, he could respect the feelings that he thought might be matter of secret meaning, and merely said: "I"m glad to see you back, at all events. I have no one to speak to in this place, and, as I lie here, I get so impatient, that I forget my smashed thigh-bone, and want to be up and about again."
"So you will, very soon, I hope."
"Not so soon, lad!" said he, sorrowfully. "It"s a big spar to splice, the surgeon says, and will take three months; though how I"m to lie here three months is more than I can tell."
"I"ll do my best to make it endurable for you. I"ll get books--they"ve plenty of books here--and maps, and drawings; and I saw a draftboard this morning, and you"ll see the time won"t hang so heavily as you feared."
"That ain"t it at all, Harry. You"ve got to go to Liverpool to Towers and Smales--them"s the fellows know me well. Smales sailed with me as a youngster, and you"ll hand them a letter I"ll write, and they"ll look about for the sort of craft we"re wanting--something bark-rigged, or a three-masted schooner. I was dreaming of one last night--such a clipper on a wind! The French are blockading Vera Cruz just now, and if we could slip past them and get in, one trip would set us all right again."
"I think I should like that well!" cried the youth. "Like it! Why.
wouldn"t you like it? There ain"t nothing to compare with blockade running in this life: stealing carefully up till you see the moment to make a dash--watching your wind, and then with every inch of canvas you can spread, go at it till the knee timbers crack again, and the planks work and writhe like the twigs of a wicker basket, and all the ships of war flying this signal and that to each other, till at last comes a gun across your bows, and you run up a flag of some sort--English belike, for the French never suspect John Bull of having a clipper. Then comes the order to round to, and you pretend to mind it; and just as they man their boat, dead at them you go, swamp every man of them, and hold on, while they fire away, at the risk of hulling each other, and never take more notice of them than one discharge from your pivot-gun, just by way of returning their salute. That"s what I call sport, boy; and I only wish I was at it this fine morning."
"And what happens if you"re taken?"
"That depends on whether you showed fight or not; if you fired a shotted gun, they hang you."
Luttrell shook his head, and muttered, "A dog"s death; I don"t like that."
"That"s prejudice, Sir; nothing more. Every death a man meets bravely is a fine death! I"d just as lieve be hanged as flayed alive by the Choctaws!"
"Perhaps so would!"
"Well, there"s what you"ve got to do. Towers and Smales, shipbuilders!--they"re the men to find what we want, and they know a clipper well; they"ve built more slavers than any house in the trade."
Harry made a wry face; the skipper saw it, and said: "There"s more prejudice; but when you"ve been at sea as long as I have, you"ll think less about the cargo than what you get per ton for the freight."
"I"d not turn slaver, anyhow; that much I can tell you," said he, stoutly.
"I"d not do it myself, Sir, except when business was alack and freights low. It ain"t cheering, noways; and there"s a certain risk in it besides. Towers and Smales--Towers and Smales!" muttered he over to himself three or four times. "They"d not be the men they are to-day, I can tell you, if they never traded in ebony ware! Had you any talk with your grand friend, Sir Gervais, about that loan he offered me?" asked he, after a pause.
"Not a word. I came away hurriedly. I had no good opportunity to speak about it."
"He said, "Two thousand, and pay when I like;" not hard terms certainly."
"And yet I"d rather you"d not accept them," said Harry, slowly.
"Not take money without interest charged or security asked? What do you mean?"
"I mean, I rather you"d wait till I"ve seen those lawyers that managed my father"s affairs, and see whether they can"t sell that trifle of property that comes to me."
"Why, didn"t you tell me your father willed it away to some peasant girl?"
"Yes, the island, for the entail had been broken by my grandfather, but the small estate in Roscommon goes to the next of kin, and that happens to be myself. It must be very little worth, but it may help us at least to get a ship, and we"ll soon do the rest ourselves."
"That will we, Harry. This is the fourth time in my life I"ve had to begin all over again, and I"m as fresh for it as on the first day."
They went on now to talk of the future and all their plans like men who felt the struggle with life a fair stand up fight, that none with a stout heart ought ever to think of declining. The skipper had not only been in every corner of the globe, but had brought back from each spot some memories of gain, or pleasure, or peril--sensations pretty much alike to his appreciation--and whether he commanded a whale-boat at Behring"s Straits, or took in his ship store of cocoa-nuts and yams at the Spice Islands, adventure ever tracked his steps. Dashed with the love of danger was the love of gain, and in his narrative one never could say whether there prevailed more the spirit of enterprise or the temper of the trader.
"We"ll want that loan from Vyner yet, I see, Harry," said he, at the end of a long calculation of necessary outgoings; "and I see no reason against taking it."
"I do, though," said the other, gravely.
"Mayhap some sentimental reason that I"d not give a red cent for, boy.
What is it?"
"I"ll not trouble you with the sentimental reasons," said Luttrell, smiling, "though perhaps I"m not without some of them. What I"ll give you will suffice. While I was one morning with Sir Gervais, going over all about my father and his affairs, of which he knew far more than I did, he opened his writing-desk, and took out a great ma.s.s of letters.
"These," said he, "are in your father"s hand; read them, and you"ll be better acquainted with him than you have yet been." They were on all manner of themes--of society, field sports, books, and much about politics--and interested me vastly, till at last I came upon one which certainly Sir Gervais would not have suffered me to see had he been aware it was amongst them. It was the last letter my father had ever written to him, and was almost entirely about myself. He spoke of the semi-barbarism I had been reared in, and the humble prospects before me, and he told about my disposition, and my faults of temper--the old family faults, he called them--that made us all "intractable to our friends, and intolerable to all who were not friends." At the end he asked Vyner to become my guardian, and he added these words: "Be a friend to my boy in all ways that your kindness, your sympathy, your counsel can dictate. Guide, direct, encourage, or, if need be, reprove him, but never, whatever you do, aid him with your purse. It is on this condition I commit him to you. Remember.""
"Well, I"d be noways obliged to _my_ father if he had made any such condition about _me_. I"ve never been much the better for all the good advice I"ve got, but I"ve found the man that lent me a thousand dollars uncommon useful."
"I am telling you of what my father wished and asked for," said Harry, proudly, "not of anything else."
"And that"s just what I"m objectin" to, youngster. It was _his_ pride to take no help, and it brought him to live and die on a barren rock in the ocean; but _I_ don"t intend to do that, nor to let you do it. We"ve got to say to the world, "Sheer off there, I"m a comin", and I mean comin"
when I say it. There"s maybe room enough for us all, but I"ll be smashed and chawed up but I"ll have room for _me!_"
Whether it was the fierce energy with which he spoke this, or the fact that in a few rough words he had embodied his whole theory of life, but certainly Harry looked at him with a sort of wonder blended with amus.e.m.e.nt.
"Besides this," resumed Bodge, with the same decision of tone, "your father might say, if he pleased, "You shan"t help Harry Luttrell," but he never could say, "You mustn"t help Herodotus Dodge." No, Sir!"
"At all events," said Harry, "you"ll let me try my own plan first. If that fail, there will be time enough to consider the other. I"ll start to-night for Liverpool. After I have seen your friends there, I"ll go over and consult my lawyers in Dublin; and I mean to run across and see Arran--the old rock--once more. It shall be my last look at it."
"It ain"t a beauty, that"s a fact," said Dodge, who saw nothing of the agitation in the other"s voice or manner. "Give me an hour or two, and I"ll write the letters for you, and I"ll tell Smales that if you want any money----"
"I shall not want it."
"Then you"ll be unlike any other man that ever wore shoes, Sir, that"s all!" And Dodge stuffed a formidable piece of tobacco into his mouth, as though to arrest his eloquence and stop the current of his displeasure, while Harry waved him a good-by, and went out.
The same evening he started for Liverpool. The skipper"s friends were most cordial and hospitable to him. They had had long dealings with Dodge, and found him ever honourable and trustworthy, and Harry heard with sincere pleasure the praises of his friend. It was evident, too, that they were taken with young Luttrell, for they brought him about amongst their friends, introducing him everywhere, and extending to him every hospitality of their hospitable city. If Harry was very grateful for all this kindness, his mind continually reverted to the society he had so lately mixed in, and whose charm he appreciated, new as he was to life and the world, with an intense zest--the polished urbanity of Sir Gervais; the thoughtful good nature of Lady Vyner; the gentle gracefulness of Ada; even Miss Courtenay--no favourite of his, nor he of hens--yet even she possessed a winning elegance of manner that was very captivating.
Very unlike all these were the attentions that now surrounded him, and many were the unfavourable comparisons he drew between his present friends and their predecessors. Not that he was in love with Ada; he had asked himself the question more than once, and always had he given the same answer: "If I had been a man of rank and fortune, I"d have deemed my lot perfect to have had such a sister." And really it was sister-like she had been to him; so candid, so frank, so full of those little cares that other "love" shrinks from, and dares not deal in. She had pressed him eagerly, too, to accept a.s.sistance from her father--a step she never could have taken had love been there--and he had refused on grounds which showed he could speak with a frankness love cannot speak.
"I take it," muttered he to himself one day, after long reflection--"I take it that my Luttrell blood moves too slowly for pa.s.sionate affection, and that the energy of my nature must seek its exercise in hatred, not love; and if this be so, what a life is before me!"
At last the ship-builders discovered the craft that Dodge was in search of. She was a slaver recently captured off Bahia, and ordered to be sold by the Admiralty. A few lines from Harry described her with all the enthusiasm that her beauty and fine lines could merit, and he smiled to himself as he read over the expressions of admiration, which no loveliness in human form could have wrung from him.
He sailed for Ireland on the night he wrote, but carried his letter with him, to relate what he might have to say of his meeting with his lawyer.
A little event that occurred at his landing was also mentioned:
"As I was stepping into the boat that was to take me ash.o.r.e, we were hailed by a large ship-rigged vessel just getting under weigh, and from which several boats, crowded with people, were just leaving. We rowed towards her, and found that they wanted us to take on sh.o.r.e a young lady whose cla.s.s evidently prevented her mixing with the vulgar herd that filled the other boats. She was in deep mourning, and so overwhelmed with grief, that she was almost unconscious as they lifted her into the boat. I caught a mere glimpse of her face, and never saw anything so beautiful in my life. Only think! the vessel was a convict-ship, and she had gone there to take a last farewell of some father or brother, perhaps--husband it could scarcely be, she was too young for that.
Can you imagine anything more dreadful? One evidently of rank and birth--there were unmistakable signs of both about her--mixing even for an instant with all the pollution of crime and wickedness that crowd the deck of a convict-ship! I asked leave to accompany her to her house or hotel, or wherever she was going, but she made a gesture of refusal; and, though I"d have given more than I dare tell to have known more about her, I thought it would be so unworthy to follow, her, that I left her the moment we landed, and never saw her more.
"I am sure I did what was right and becoming, but if you knew how sorry I am to have been obliged to do it--if you knew how, now that it is all done and pa.s.sed, I think of her incessantly--ay, and follow every one I see in mourning till I discover that it is not she--you"d wonder what change has come over this thick blood of mine, and set it boiling and bubbling as it never used to do."
He went on next to tell of his visit to the agents of his father"s property. Messrs. Cane and Carter had been duly apprised by Sir Gervais Vyner that Harry Luttrell was alive, and it scarcely needed the letter which he carried as a credential, to authenticate him, so striking was the resemblance he bore to his father.
"You should have been here yesterday, Mr. Luttrell," said Cane. "You would have met your cousin. She has left this for Arran this morning."
Harry muttered something about their not being known to each other, and Cane continued: