Sir Hugh had not raised his voice unduly, and his companion was too cool a diplomatist to notice his looks or his emphasis; he, therefore, continued calmly, but cautiously —
“It is a long time, Sir Hugh, since we have met— “
“Would it were longer — what then?” rejoined the knight, curtly.
“Maybe nothing — and maybe a great deal, Sir Hugh replied his kinsman, tranquilly. “Sir Hugh, will you hear me patiently? nay, pardon me when I say it, you must hear me. Condemn no man unheard; least of all one who, however remotely, claims kindred with yourself; one, besides, who respects you, who honours you, who wishes you well, and means fairly by you. Sir Hugh, I will be heard in my own defence; you have wronged me deeply, wronged me for years — if you but knew how much, your generous spirit would grieve for the injury, and atone for the injustice. But I seek not to inspire remorse — I ask for no concessions, though, as you will one day learn, I, alone, have everything, in this to me most deplorable quarrel, to forgive. But enough — let us look to the future. I am willing to serve you, willing to be your friend — your humble friend, if you will but try me; you shall not need to repent it; on the faith of a Christian man, you shall not— “
“Which faith do you swear by — your old one, or your new?” responded the old man, with a grim sneer.
“If I have changed from what I have been, Sir Hugh, and in more respects than one,” rejoined he, “I may not be the worse man now— “
“Truth for once, at least,” replied his companion, sullenly.
“I am altered thus far at least for the better, you will allow,” replied Miles Garrett, with unruffled but earnest calmness, while he stealthily scanned, in the lines of his companion’s countenance, the effect of his words; “I am, at all events, improved in this, that I can now command the self-denial to seek an interview like this — the humbleness to bear with whatever reception you may please to accord me — and the patience to submit to suspicion and affront, from you, without resentment. This, Sir Hugh, you will acknowledge is a change — and an alteration for the better, too.”
“Well sir, and what then?” rejoined the knight, in a tone which, though far from courteous, was still somewhat less austere.
“Merely that I am prepared, come what, come may, to try this one cast more for peace,” rejoined Miles Garrett; “that I am willing to encounter the mortification and disgrace of repulse and rejection, rather than leave one chance of reconciliation untried. Did I court your favour or friendship, Sir Hugh, when your friends were in power, your prosperity unclouded, your prospects secure? No — but now that matters are in some sort reversed — now that your star has set, and mine burns high and unclouded — now that I have, I care not to conceal it, powerful friends, and prospects which, were I an ambitious man, might well have dazzled me, in this my hour of fortune — when malice cannot conceive, nor ingenuity invent a motive for the act, but the single purpose of having all the past forgotten and forgiven — variance reconciled, and discord reduced to harmony, — I come to proffer you the free use of whatever interest I command — to tender you my services, whenever and however they may stand you in stead — and to offer you— “ he was on the point of saying, ‘my hand,’ and of suiting the action to the word; but fearing to hazard so bold an experiment so soon, he checked himself, and concluded— “and to offer you, in a word, my poor friendship, and all that such an offer can imply.”
“Miles Garrett, you are my kinsman, as you say,” replied Sir Hugh, speaking hesitatingly, and for the first time in a tone which did not indicate actual bitterness of feeling; “there is no denying that — my cousin in the second degree; and I will go with you so far as to say, that it were better that peace were between us, if so it may be, than strife; nay more, it seems to me your offers look fair, and if you mean not fair as well as speak so, I profess I cannot comprehend thee; but — but” — and the old man paused.
How much amiss is silence read at times even by the craftiest men. The thickening twilight obscured the subtle lines in whose varying expression the younger man, as he from time to time eyed his companion askance, had read the feelings which worked within him; this silence, therefore, he read favourably, and forbore to interrupt it.
“The honest knight,” thought he, “is pondering deeply of my offer — even now, perchance, considering how he shall first and best employ my proffered interest; but soft, good, easy man, there’s a condition tacked to the covenant I offer; we do not, at our years, make such splendid presents as those I have named wholly without a purpose.”
But meanwhile, through the mind of the old man were flitting, recollections, obscured but for a moment — scenes charged with black suspicions, inspiring terrible revenge — doubts, whose force shook his very heart within him — and lastly rose before him the chamber, where, in the direst hour of his dark despair and agony, he and the very man who now rode by his side, grappled and tugged in mortal conflict, until both rolled weltering on the floor — the faces of the scared friends who forced asunder the murderous combatants — all the circumstances of the hideous fray rose up before him, like an exhalation from the pit, and with them swelled within him a storm of fiery passions, long dormant, not forgotten — stung as by an adder, he struck his spurs rowel deep into his horse’s flanks, and curbing him as furiously, the strong steed bolted and reared.
The scene which memory had evoked, dissolved and vanished in an instant; but the impressions it had revived remained fixed, stern, and terrible. Suffering the chafed beast to regain his composure as best he might, the old knight sate fixed and silent as a statue of bronze, while his companion, resuming his place by his side, rode silently forward for some time, awaiting the further conversation of the elder gentleman. Finding that they were traversing the time and space which measured their distinct companionship, without any attempt on the part of Sir Hugh to renew the conversation, begun, as he conceived, so auspiciously, Miles Garrett resolved himself to break the silence, and in the full conviction that the weighty considerations which he had suggested, were not lost upon the mind of his bluff companion, he thus pursued his imaginary advantage —
“How strange and wayward is the course of thought — how unlooked for the suggestions of the memory — how unbidden and mysterious the rising, as from the grave of years, of slumbering recollections, to upbraid and soften the wayward heart of man.”
He spoke, as if in contemplative soliloquy — his words, however, and the sentiment which they conveyed, jarred with painful and sudden coincidence upon the old man’s ear — they came like a sneering commentary of the fiend, mocking with an odious parody of truth, the remembrances which had just risen within his own mind, blasting and fiery, as if ascending from the nethermost abyss of hell. Almost with a start, he turned full upon the speaker, and held his breath, well nigh expecting to see the infernal reader of souls himself beside him; and inwardly convinced, that if he were come incarnate in the human shape, to work him mischief, he could not have chosen a more appropriate form for such a mission, than that of his long detested and all but dreaded kinsman.
“I remember once,” continued Miles Garrett, “and I scarce know how the remembrance has been now recalled; it is in my memory, that you once said, before the fatal quarrel which has for so long estranged us, had begun, and while we yet lived in interchange of confidence, and the free flow of natural affection — I remember you said, you earnestly prayed heaven there might subsist between our descendants, the same close and friendly intercourse which then held us together. The recollection of this passing phrase, which may, perchance, long since have faded from your memory, has often times returned to mine, yea, even when the feud was hottest and fiercest between us, and ever with this recollection came the thought — this prayer may be even yet fulfilled.” He paused for a moment, and then resumed with greater animation. “Ay, and lately with growing frequency and strength; with power, even to controul my plans and actions — to balk self-interest, and disarm what others might have thought
a just revenge — I speak of my claim at law, to the wood and manor of Glindarragh — let it not move you — nay, I mean not to pursue it; despite the advice of learned counsel — it is foregone. I boast not of this remission of my claim; you may think my title bad — others thought differently; but, be it good or bad, it is all one to me, I never mean to press it; it is, indeed, to all intents and purposes a nullity, so let that pass, and come we now to other matters, nearer to my heart than ever that was.”
They were now approaching that point of the road where their respective ways again diverged, and the same certainty of immediate separation, which, sustained by something of curiosity, enabled Sir Hugh Willoughby to tolerate in silence the companionship of his artful cousin, urged the latter with the greater precipitancy to open himself fully, and without reserve; he, therefore, collecting himself for what he well knew would prove the crisis of the conference, summoning at once all his caution and his firmness, for he was, by no means, deficient in personal or moral courage — thus pursued his diplomatic discourse: —
“In a word, Sir Hugh Willoughby, I am your kinsman, therefore you will admit of no unworthy blood. I am, moreover, hereditarily your friend. I am so at this moment, by earnest disposition, by the desire to serve, or rather, Sir Hugh, to save you, if you will but give me leave; I am, besides, what the world calls rich. I vaunt not my wealth, but even you will allow it considerable. I possess, besides, claims which if pushed, must necessarily become troublesome. Observe me, however, I do not mean to push them — troublesome, certainly, perhaps perilous, I am, also, your neighbour; and in addition to all this, Sir Hugh, what touches the present matter nearly, your junior, by full twelve years. Here, then, you have a man, rich, friendly, well born, not without credit in high places, and, moreover, not an old man, as you well know, offering to make, in these perilous times, a close alliance with your house — an alliance, Sir Hugh, it had best be spoken plainly, and at once, by marriage. I, Miles Garrett, offer myself as suitor for your daughter’s hand.”
Sir Hugh Willoughby wheeled his horse almost across the narrow road, and while his heart swelled within him, almost to bursting, and his massive frame trembled with ungovernable fury at this most unexpected masterpiece of audacity, he stared at the unabashed delinquent with a scowl of the fiercest wrath.
“My daughter! — my daughter! — to you!” at last he muttered, in accents almost choked with fury— “to you, a scoundrel whose very presence I could scarce bring myself for one forgetful moment to tolerate — whose very name I execrate: traitor to your friends, apostate from your God, consummate miscreant, monster and destroyer, dare to pollute my daughter’s name once more, and I pistol you that instant where you sit.”
CHAPTER VII.
MILES GARRETT’S MESSAGE.
MILES GARRETT, though no very impetuous man, was not proof against the torrent of insult and opprobrium, thus suddenly and unexpectedly discharged upon him. The colour fled from his cheeks, and then the tide of rage returning, darkened his face in livid streams, and with a motion as quick as light, he half drew his rapier from its sheath; with a passionate effort of self-restraint however, he dashed it back again, and waiting for an instant to recover his self-possession, rejoined with a hideous sneer: —
“Very well, sir, we’ll see who is the loser, you or I — a little time will show; as for me, I take the matter coolly enough, as you see, more calmly even than you do: nor shall you move me, by all your oratory, to raise my voice above its accustomed level, or to draw my sword as others might, in a like case, do against your life. Happily, I have learned to control the foolish impulses of passion, otherwise, fore God! one or other of us should have left his life blood on these stones; we are reserved, therefore, for our respective destinies. These are changeful and perilous times, Sir Hugh; none knows to-day what tomorrow may bring; and so sir, I leave you to your reflections and to your doom.”
Having uttered this last word with a menacing emphasis and significance, he turned his horse up the road which led toward Lisnamoe, and without looking back again, he rode away at a sharp trot through the overhanging trees, and under the radiance of the moon, which now began to shine in the cloudless sky.
The abruptness of a steep ascent, on a sudden, compelled him to slacken the pace at which he travelled, and instinctively pausing, as the far off clang of the horseshoe, whose tread was measuring Sir Hugh’s retreat, rang faintly upon his ear, he looked down upon the broad plain from the summit of the hillock, and following with his eye, the winding of the river, now shimmering like silver in the moonlight, his gaze at last rested upon a dark mass of building which crested the river’s bank, and the summits of whose towers and chimneys were touched in silvery relief by the sailing moon. As he looked upon this distant pile, he drew up his gaunt figure to its full height, and while a bitter smile of infernal spite and triumph lit up his sinister features, made more appalling by the stillness and solitude of the surrounding scenery, he sternly muttered through his clenched teeth, from time to time, such sentences as these: —
“Towers and battlements, high walls and strong gates, grand things all to look upon; but will they keep out wreck and ruin? — will they quash a bill of indictment? — will they free your neck from the halter, or save your lands from forfeiture? Hearth and home, reeking kitchen and glowing hall — pleasant things, Sir Hugh — right pleasant things, with honest faces and safe company — but scarce so pleasant, methinks, with such unbidden guests as may look in on you tomorrow night, to share their jollity. Mill and weirs; barns and dovecotes; turf and corn, and all the rest of your rich substance, well builded, and long in gathering too, may yet be quickly spent and spoilt, Sir Hugh, as you shall find — you shall; and so you’ll learn at last — too late, old dotard — the full and dire effect of your infatuated rashness; frantic possession were its better name. The fool who dashes from his lips the one specific which has power to drive the poison from his veins, and save him — is a sage, compared with thee. The wretch who, weary of the world, cuts his own throat, is not more obviously his own destroyer than you, in your malignant blindness. Driveller! you have flung from you your last offer of salvation. The chance that by a thousand lucky accidents your good genius this day proffered you — in your immeasurable presumption, and your transcendant folly, you have spurned; and now shall ruin — ruin, in every terrible shape, from every side converging, pour down on you and yours, till there remains not, of all your wealth, and pride, and insolence, a wreck or vestige. My sword, Sir Hugh, spared you tonight, that I might launch at your house and life a vengeance so stupendous, that it will hurl you and your fancied greatness, like a thunder-blasted tower, into dust.”
He lifted his arm for a moment in an attitude of menace, and in the next he was once more, and at a rapid pace, pursuing his solitary night ride.
As Miles Garrett followed his homeward way through the misty shadows flung by wild hedges and straggling timber across the narrow road, he passed the tall, lean figure of a female, wrapt in a cloak of red cloth; her lank form was curved with age or bodily deformity; she carried a staff of blackthorn in her bony hand, but less, as it seemed, for support than for effect, for she often smote the stones of the road, and often the stooping boughs of the overhanging wood in malignant wantonness, as it seemed, while she advanced with long and leisurely strides over the unequal road; her hood flapped in the light breeze, and occasionally disclosed a sharp hooked nose and the bowl of a short tobacco pipe, from which she drew thin clouds of the narcotic vapour which perfumed the chill night air.
As the grim horseman rode by, almost grazing her shoulder with his jack boot, so closely did she keep the centre of the narrow road, she whined a mendicant petition, which degenerated into a fierce and bitter curse, as he, sullen and unheeding, pursued his way.
“Wisha! one little penny, Miles Garrett, agra, an’ the ould woman ‘il! be prayin’ for you night and morning, an’ may — it’s never mindin’ he’s keepin’, the thatching pincil! Ride away, an’ the widdy
’s curse behind you — you black, ill-lookin’, lean, unlucky scoundrel; may the garron come down an’ crack your long neck in the piper’s quarry, you yellow nigger! an’ if you ever get back may you carry the Phooca home on your shoulders — you shkamin’, double-tongued, poison-faced dog, you. Oh! blur an’ agers! it’s stoppin’ you are, is it? — an’ it’s plenty iv stoppin’ an’ standin’ I wish you this blessed night. Turnin’ round, is it? — may you never find the way home, you down-lookin’ villian; doesn’t the world know you, what sort you are? — as bad as your murdherin’ ould cousin, Willoughby, the hangman: bad luck to every mother’s skin iv you, seed, breed, an’ generation — the bloody pack iv yez — may ye be cuttin’ one another’s throats, it’s all yez are fit for. Aia! byjabers, what’s that? It’s beck’nin’he is — its changin’ your tune you are, afther all, is it?”
As she thus spoke, she quickened her pace, and advanced to meet Miles Garrett, who was now slowly retracing the intervening space which he had lately passed at so sharp a pace.
“Peg Maher!” he said, gruffly, as he approached, “is that Peg Maher?”
“Ah, then, who else id be in it, agra?” she responded, with a whine, “it’s the poor widdy, sure enough, wid no one to help her but the fatherless innocent, that’s more in her way wid his thricks an’ his nansense, God help him, than anything he’s good for the crathur.”
“There — there’s a shilling,” he interrupted, in the same gruff tone, as he dropped the coin into her hand.
“Wisha! nay blessin’ an you night an’ mornin’, Miles Garrett, acushla,” said she, as she glanced from the coin, which glittered on her smoke-dried palm, into the face of the donor, with an undisguised expression of wonder and curiosity; “The widdy’s blessin’ be about you an’ yours this night.”
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 54