The Fortunes Of Glencore Part 33

"Will you call at our inn and speak with us? That's my card," said one, as he pa.s.sed out, and gave a visiting-card into the youth's hand.

He took it without a word; indeed, he was too deeply engaged in his own thoughts to pay much attention to the request.

"The sergeant will accompany you, my good youth, to your lodgings, and verify what you have stated as to your companion. To-morrow you will appear here again, to answer certain questions we shall put to you as to your subsistence, and the means by which you live."

"Is it a crime to have wherewithal to subsist upon?" asked the boy.

"He whose means of living are disproportionate to his evident station may well be an object of suspicion," said the other, with a sneer.

"And who is to say what is my station, or what becomes it? Will _you_ take upon you to p.r.o.nounce upon the question?" cried the boy, boldly.

"Mayhap it is what I shall do very soon!" was the calm answer.

"Then let me have done with this. I'll leave the place as soon as my friend be able to bear removal."

"Even that I 'll not promise for."

"Why, you 'll not detain me here by force?" exclaimed the youth.

A cold, ambiguous smile was the only reply he received to this speech.

"Well, let us see when this restraint is to begin," cried the boy, pa.s.sionately, as he moved towards the door; but no impediment was offered to his departure. On the contrary, the servant, at a signal from the Prefect, threw wide the two sides of the folding-doors, and the youth pa.s.sed out, down the stairs, and into the street.

His mind obscured by pa.s.sion, his heart bursting with indignation, he threaded his way through many a narrow lane and alley, till he reached a small rustic bridge, crossing over which he ascended a narrow flight of steps cut in the solid rock, and gained a little terrace, on which stood a small cottage of the humblest kind.

As usual in Italy, during the summer-time, the gla.s.s sashes of the windows had been removed, and the shutters closed. Opening one of these gently with his hand, he peeped in, and as suddenly a voice cried out, "Are you come back? Oh, how my heart was aching to see you here again!

Come in quickly, and let me touch your hand."

The next moment the boy was seated by the bed, where lay a man greatly emaciated by sickness, and bearing in his worn features the traces of a severe tertian.

"It's going off now," said he, "but the fit was a long one. This morning it began at eight o'clock; but I 'm throwing it off now, and I 'll soon be better."

"My poor fellow," said the boy, caressing the cold fingers within his own hands, "it was in these midnight rambles of mine you caught the terrible malady. As it ever has been, your fidelity is fatal to you. I told you a thousand times that I was born to hard luck, and carried more than enough to swamp all who might try to succor me.

"And don't I say, as the ould heathen philosopher did of fortune, 'Nullum numen habes, si sit prudentia'?" Is it necessary to say that the speaker was Billy Traynor, and the boy his pupil?

"_Prudentia_," said the youth, scoffingly, "may mean anything, from trickery to downright meanness; since, by such acts as these, men grow great in life. _Prudentia_ is thrift and self-denial; but it is more too,--it is a compromise between a man's dignity and his worldly success--it is the compact that says, Bear _this_ that _that_ may happen; and so I 'll none of it."

"Tell me how you fared with the Prefect," asked Billy.

"You shall hear, and judge for yourself," said the other; and related, as well as his memory would serve him, the circ.u.mstances of his late interview.

"Well, well!" said Billy, "it might be worse."

"I knew you 'd say so, poor fellow!" said the youth, affectionately; "you accept the rubs of life as cheerfully as I take them with impatience. But, after all, this is matter of temperament too. _You_ can forgive,--I love better to resist."

"Mine is the better philosophy, though," said Billy, "since it will last one's lifetime. Forgiveness must dignify old age, when your virtue of resistance be no longer possible."

"I never wish to reach the time when I may be too old for it," said the boy, pa.s.sionately.

"Hus.h.!.+ don't say that. It's not for you to determine how long you are to live, nor in what frame of mind years are to find you." He paused, and there was a long unbroken silence between them.

"I have been at the post," said the youth, at last, "and found that letter, which, by the Neapolitan postmark, must have been despatched many weeks since."

Billy Traynor took up the letter, whose seal was yet unbroken, and having examined it carefully, returned it to him, saying, "You did n't answer his last, I think?"

"No; and I half hoped he might have felt offended, and given up the correspondence. What have we to do with amba.s.sadors or great ministers, Billy? Ours is not the grand highway in life, but the humble path on the mountain side."

"I'm content if it only lead upwards," said the sick man; and the words were uttered firmly, but with the solemn fervor of prayer.

CHAPTER XXVIII. A NIGHT SCENE

As young Ma.s.sy--for so we like best to call him--sat with the letter in his hand, a card fell to the ground from between his fingers, and, taking it up, he read the name "Lord Selby."

"What does this mean, Billy?" asked he; "whom can it belong to? Oh, I remember now. There were some strangers at the Podesta's office this morning when I was there; and one of them asked me to call at this inn, and speak with them."

"He has seen the 'Alcibiades,'" exclaimed Billy, eagerly. "He has been at the studio?"

"How should he?" rejoined the youth. "I have not been there myself for two days: here is the key!"

"He has heard of it then,--of that I'm certain; since he could not be in town here an hour without some one telling him of it." Ma.s.sy smiled half sadly, and shook his head. "Go and see him, at all events," said Billy; "and be sure to put on your coat and a hat; for one would n't know what ye were at all, in that cap and dirty blouse."

"I'll go as I am, or not at all," said the other, rising. "I am Sebastian Greppi, a young sculptor. At least," added he, bitterly, "I have about the same right to that name that I have to any other." He turned abruptly away as he spoke, and gained the open air. There for a few moments he stood seemingly irresolute, and then, wiping away a heavy tear that had fallen on his cheek, he slowly descended the steps towards the bridge.

When he reached the inn, the strangers had just dined, but left word that when he called he should be introduced at once, and Ma.s.sy followed the waiter into a small garden, where, in a species of summer-house, they were seated at their wine. One of them arose courteously as the youth came forward, and placing a chair for him, and filling out a gla.s.s of wine, invited him to join them.

"Give him one of your cigars, Baynton," said the other; "they are better than mine." And Ma.s.sy accepted, and began smoking without a word.

"That fellow at the police-office gave you no further trouble, I hope,"

said my lord, in a half-languid tone, and with that amount of difficulty that showed he was no master of Italian.

"No," replied Ma.s.sy; "for the present, he has done nothing more. I 'm not so certain, however, that to-morrow or next day I shall not be ordered away from this."

"On what grounds?"

"Suspicion,--Heavens knows of what!"

"That's infamous, I say. Eh, Baynton?"

"Detestable," muttered the other.

"And whereto can you go?"

"I scarcely know as yet, since the police are in communication throughout the whole Peninsula, and they transmit your character from state to state."

"They 'd not credit this in England, Baynton!"