Sir Brook Fossbrooke Volume I Part 4

"I am almost ashamed, sir," said she, as they turned towards the house, "to have asked you to see such humble objects as these to which we attach value, for my brother tells me you are a great traveller; but it is just possible you have met in your journeys others who, like us, lived so much out of the world that they fancied they had the prettiest spot in it for their own."

"You must not ask me what I think of all I have seen: here, Miss Lendrick, till my enthusiasm calms down;" and his look of admiration, so palpably addressed to herself, sent a flush to her cheek. "A man's belongings are his history," said Sir Brook, quickly turning the conversation into an easier channel: "show me his study, his stable, his garden; let me see his hat, his cane, the volume he thrusts into his pocket, and I 'll make you an indifferent good guess about his daily doings."

"Tell me of papa's. Come here, Tom," cried she, as the two young men came towards her, "and listen to a bit of divination."

"Nay, I never promised a lecture. I offered a confidence," said he, in a half whisper; but she went on: "Sir Brook says that he reads people pretty much as Cuvier p.r.o.nounced on a mastodon, by some small minute detail that pertained to them. Here's Tom's cigar-case," said she, taking it from his pocket; "what do you infer from that, sir?"

"That he smokes the most execrable tobacco."

"But can you say why?" asked Tom, with a sly twinkle of his eye.

"Probably for the same reason I do myself," said Sir Brook, producing a very cheap cigar.

"Oh, that's a veritable Cuban compared to one of mine," cried Tom; "and by way of making my future life miserable, here has been Mr. Trafford filling my pocket with real havannahs, giving me a taste for luxuries I ought never to have known of."

"Know everything, sir, go everywhere, see all that the world can show you; the wider a man's experiences the larger his nature and the more open his heart," said Foss-brooke, boldly.

"I like the theory," said Trafford to Miss Lendrick; "do you?"

"Sir Brook never meant it for women, I fancy," said she, in a low tone; but the old man overheard her, and said: "You are right. The guide ought to know every part of the mountain; the traveller need only know the path."

"Here comes a guide who is satisfied with very short excursions," cried Tom, laughing; "this is our parson, Dr. Mills."

The little, mellow-looking, well-cared-for person who now joined them was a perfect type of old-bachelorhood, in its aspect of not unpleasant selfishness. Everything about him was neat, orderly, and appropriate; and though you saw at a glance it was all for himself and his own enjoyment it was provided, his good manners and courtesy were ever ready to extend its benefits to others; and a certain genial look he wore, and a manner that nature had gifted him with, did him right good service in life, and made him pa.s.s for "an excellent fellow, though not much of a parson."

He was of use now, if only that by his presence Lucy felt more at ease, not to say that his violoncello, which always remained at the Nest, made a pleasant accompaniment when she played, and that he sang with much taste some of those lyrics which arc as much linked to Ireland by poetry as by music.

"I wish he was our chaplain,--by Jove I do!" whispered Trafford to Lendrick; "he's the jolliest fellow of his cloth I have ever met."

"And such a cook," muttered the other.

"A cook!"

"Ay, a cook. I 'll make him ask us to dinner, and you 'll tell me if you ever ate fish as he gives it, or tasted macaroni as dressed by him. I have a salmon for you, doctor, a ten-pound fish. I wish it were bigger!

but it is in splendid order."

"Did you set it?" asked the parson, eagerly.

"What does he mean by set it?" whispered Trafford.

"Setting means plunging it in very hot water soon after killing it, to preserve and harden the 'curd.' Yes; and I took your hint about the arbutus leaves, too, doctor. I covered it all up with them."

"You are a teachable youth, and shall be rewarded. Come and eat him to-morrow. Dare I hope that these gentlemen are disengaged, and will honor my poor parsonage? Will you favor me with your company at five o'clock, sir?"

Sir Brook bowed, and accepted the invitation with pleasure.

"And you, sir?"

"Only too happy," said Trafford.

"Lucy, my dear, you must be one of us."

"Oh, I could not; it is impossible, doctor,--you know it is."

"I know nothing of the kind."

"Papa away,--not to speak of his never encouraging us to leave home,"

muttered she, in a whisper.

"I accept no excuses, Lucy; such a rare opportunity may not occur to me in a hurry. Mrs. Brennan, my housekeeper, will be so proud to see you, that I 'm not sure she 'll not treat these gentlemen to her brandy peaches,--a delicacy, I feel bound to say, she has never conceded to any one less than the bishop of the diocese."

"Don't ask me, doctor. I know that papa--"

But he broke in, saying,--"'You know I 'm your priest, and your conscience is mine;' and besides, I really do want to see how the parsonage will look with a lady at the top of the table: who knows what it may lead to?"

"Come, Lucy, that's the nearest thing to a proposal I 've heard for some time. You really must go now," said Tom.

"Papa will not like it," whispered she in his ear.

"Then he'll have to settle the matter with me, Lucy," said the doctor, "for it was I who overruled you."

"Don't look to me, Miss Lendrick, to sustain you in your refusal," said Sir Brook, as the young girl turned towards him. "I have the strongest interest in seeing the doctor successful."

If Trafford said nothing, the glance he gave her more than backed the old man's speech, and she turned away half vexed, half pleased, puzzled how to act, and flattered at the same time by an amount of attention so new to her and so strange. Still she could not bring herself to promise she would go, and wished them all good-night at last, without a pledge.

"Of course she will," muttered Tom in the doctor's ear. "She's afraid of the governor; but I know he'll not be displeased,--you may reckon on her."

CHAPTER V. THE PICNIC ON HOLY ISLAND

From the day that Sir Brook made the acquaintance of Tom Lendrick and his sister, he determined he would "pitch his tent," as he called it, for some time at Killaloe. They had, so to say, captivated the old man.

The young fellow, by his frank, open, manly nature, his ardent love of sport in every shape, his invariable good-humor, and more than all these, by the unaffected simplicity of his character, had strongly interested him; while Lucy had made a far deeper impression by her gentleness, her refinement, an elegance in deportment that no teaching ever gives, and, along with these, a mind stored with thought and reflectiveness. Let us, however, be just to each, and own that her beauty and the marvellous fascination of her smile gave her, even in that old man's eyes, an irresistible charm. It was a very long bygone, but he had once been in love, and the faint flicker of the memory had yet survived in his heart. It was just as likely Lucy bore no resemblance to her he had loved, but he fancied she did,--he imagined that she was her very image. That was the smile, the glance, the tone, the gesture which once had set his heart a-throbbing, and the illusion threw around her an immense fascination.

She liked him too. Through all the strange incongruities of his character, his restless love of adventure and excitement, there ran a gentle liking for quiet pleasures. He loved scenery pa.s.sionately, and with a painter's taste for color and form; he loved poetry, which he read with a wondrous charm of voice and intonation. Nor was it without its peculiar power, this homage of an old, old man, who rendered her the attentive service of a devoted admirer.

There is very subtle flattery in the obsequious devotion of age to youth. It is, at least, an honest wors.h.i.+p, an unselfish offering, and in this way the object of it may well feel proud of its tribute.

From the vicar, Dr. Mills, Fossbrooke had learned the chief events of Dr. Lendrick's history, of his estrangement from his father, his fastidious retirement from the world, and, last of all, his narrow fortune, apparently now growing narrower, since within the last year he had withdrawn his son from the University on the score of its expense.

A gold-medallist and a scholar, Dr. Lendrick would have eagerly coveted such honors for his son. It was, probably, the one triumph in life he would have set most store by, but Tom was one not made for collegiate successes. He had abilities, but they were not teachable qualities; he could pick up a certain amount of almost anything,--he could learn nothing. He could carry away from a chance conversation an amount of knowledge it had cost the talkers years to acquire, and yet set him down regularly to work book-fas.h.i.+on, and either from want of energy, or concentration, or of that strong will which masters difficulties just as a full current carries all before it--whichever of these was his defect,--he arose from his task wearied, worn, but unadvanced.

When, therefore, his father would speak, as he sometimes did, in confidence to the vicar, in a tone of depression about Tom's deficiencies, the honest parson would feel perfectly lost in amazement at what he meant. To his eyes Tom Lendrick was a wonder, a prodigy.

There was not a theme he could not talk on, and talk well too. "It was but the other day he told the chief engineer of the Shannon Company more about the geological formation of the river-basin than all his staff knew. Ay, and what's stranger," added the vicar, "he understands the whole Colenso controversy better than I do myself." It is just possible that in the last panegyric there was nothing of exaggeration or excess.

"And with all that, sir, his father goes on brooding over his neglected education, and foreshadowing the worst results from his ignorance."

"He is a fine fellow," said Fossbrooke, "but not to be compared with his sister."

"Not for mere looks, perhaps, nor for a graceful manner, and a winning address; but who would think of ranking Lucy's abilities with her brother's?"