One Of Them

“All wrong! all wrong!” croaked the parrot.

“By Jove! he has half shaken my resolution,” said Layton, as he sat down and drew his hand across his brow. “I wish any one would explain to me why it is that he who has all his life resented advice as insult, should be the slave of his belief in omens.” This was uttered in a half-soliloquy, and he went on: “I can go back to at least a dozen events wherein I have had to rue or to rejoice in this faith.”

“I too would say, Don’t go, Herbert,” said she, languidly.

“How foolish all this is!” said be, rising; “don’t you know the old Spanish proverb, Grace, ‘Good luck often sends us a message, but very rarely calls at the door herself?’ meaning that we must not ask Fortune to aid us without our contributing some effort of our own. I will go, Grace. Yes, I will go. No more auguries, doctor,” said he, throwing a handkerchief playfully over the bird and then withdrawing it, – a measure that never failed to enforce silence. “This time, at least,” said he, “I mean to be my own oracle.”

CHAPTER XII. A FELLOW-TRAVELLER ON THE COACH

The morning was raw, cold, and ungenial, as Layton took his outside seat on the coach for Dublin. For sake of shelter, being but poorly provided against ill weather, he had taken the seat behind the coachman, the place beside him being reserved for a traveller who was to be taken up outside the town. The individual in question was alluded to more than once by the driver and the guard as “the Captain,” and in the abundance of fresh hay provided for his feet, and the care taken to keep his seat dry, there were signs of a certain importance being attached to his presence. As they gained the foot of a hill, where the road crossed a small bridge, they found the stranger awaiting them, with his carpet-bag; he had no other luggage, but in his own person showed unmistakable evidence of being well prepared for a journey. He was an elderly man, short, square, and thick-set, with a rosy, cheerful countenance, and a bright, merry eye. As he took off his hat, punctiliously returning the coachee’s salute, he showed a round, bald head, fringed around the base by a curly margin of rich brown hair. So much Layton could mark, – all signs, as he read them, of a jovial temperament and a healthy constitution; nor did the few words he uttered detract from the impression: they were frank and cheerful, and their tone rich and pleasing to the ear.

The stranger’s first care on ascending to his place was to share a very comfortable rug with his neighbor, the civility being done in a way that would have made refusal almost impossible; his next move was to inquire if Layton was a smoker, and, even before the answer, came the offer of a most fragrant cigar. The courtesy of the offered snuff-box amongst our grandfathers is now replaced by the polite proffer of a cigar, and, simple as the act of attention is in itself, there are some men who are perfect masters in the performance. The Captain was of this category; and although Layton was a cold, proud, off-standing man, such was the other’s tact, that, before they had journeyed twenty miles in company, an actual intimacy had sprung up between them.

There is no pleasanter companionship to the studious and reading man than that of a man of life and the world, one whose experience, drawn entirely from the actual game of life, is full of incident and adventure. The Captain had travelled a great deal and seen much, and there was about all his observations the stamp of a mind that had learned to judge men and things by broader, wider rules than are the guides of those who live in more narrow spheres.

It was in discoursing on the political condition of Ireland that they reached the little village of Cookstown, about a mile from which, on a slight eminence, a neat cottage was observable, the trim laurel hedge that separated it from the road being remarkable in a country usually deficient in such foliage.

“A pretty spot,” remarked Layton, carelessly, “and, to all seeming, untenanted.”

“Yes, it seems empty,” said the other, in the same easy tone.

“There’s never been any one livin’ there, Captain, since that,” said the coachman, turning round on his seat, and addressing the stranger.

“Since what?” asked Layton, abruptly.

“He is alluding to an old story, – a very old story, now,” rejoined the other. “There were two men – a father and son – named Shehan, taken from that cottage in the year of Emmet’s unhappy rebellion, under a charge of high treason, and hanged.”

“I remember the affair perfectly: Curran defended them. If I remember aright, too, they were convicted on the evidence of a noted informer.”

“The circumstance is painfully impressed on my memory, by the fact that I have the misfortune to bear the same name; and it is by my rank alone that I am able to avoid being mistaken for him. My name is Holmes.”

“To be sure,” cried Layton, “Holmes was the name; Curran rendered it famous on that day.”

The coachman had turned round to listen to this conversation, and at its conclusion touched his hat to the Captain as if in polite acquiescence.

By the time they had reached Castle Blayney, such had been the Captain’s success in ingratiating himself into Layton’s good opinion, that the doctor had accepted his invitation to dinner.

“We shall not dine with the coach travellers,” whispered the stranger, “but at a small house I ‘ll show you just close by. I have already ordered my cutlet there, and there will be enough for us both.”

Never was speech less boastful; a most admirable hot dinner was ready as they entered the little parlor, and such a bottle of port as Layton fancied he had never tasted the equal. By good luck there was ample time to enjoy these excellent things, as the mail was obliged to await at this place for an hour or more the arrival of a cross-post. A second and a third brother of the same racy vintage succeeded; and Layton, warmed by the generous wine, grew open and confidential, not only in speaking of the past, but also to reveal all his hopes for the future, and the object of his journey. Though the Captain was nothing less than a man of science, he could fathom sufficiently the details the other gave to see that the speaker was no ordinary man, and his discovery no small invention.

“Ay,” said the doctor, as, carried away by the excitement of the wine, he grew boastful and vain, “you ‘ll see, sir, that the man who sat shivering beside you on the outside of the mail without a great-coat to cover him, will, one of these days, be recognized as amongst the first of his nation, and along with Hunter and Bell and Brodie will stand the name of Herbert Layton!”

“You had a very distinguished namesake once, a Fellow of Trinity – ”

“Myself, sir, none other. I am the man!” cried he, in a burst of triumphant pride. “I am – that is, I was – the Regius Professor of Medicine; I was Gold Medallist in 18 – ; then Chancellor’s Prizeman; the following year I beat Stack and Naper, – you ‘ve heard of them, I ‘m sure, on the Fellowship bench; I carried away the Verse prize from George Wolffe; and now, this day, – ay, sir, this day, – I don’t think I ‘d have eaten if you had not asked me to dine with you.”

“Come, come,” said the Captain, pushing the decanter towards him, “there are good days coming. Even in a moneyed point of view, your discovery is worth some fifteen or twenty thousand pounds.”

“I ‘d not sell it for a million; it shall be within the reach of the humblest peasant in the land the day I have perfected the details. It shall be for Parliament – the two Houses of the nation – to reward me, or I ‘ll never accept a shilling.”

“That’s a very noble and high-spirited resolve. I like you for it; I respect you for it,” said the Captain, warmly.

“I know well what had been my recognition if I had been born a German or a Frenchman. It is in England alone scientific discovery brings neither advancement nor honor. They pension the informer that betrays his confederates, and they leave the man of intellect to die, as Chatterton died, of starvation in a garret. Is n’t that true?”

“Too true, – too true, indeed!” sighed the Captain, mournfully.

“And as to the Ireland of long ago,” said Layton, “how much more wise her present-day rulers are than those who governed her in times past, and whose great difficulty was to deal with a dominant class, and to induce them to abate any of the pretensions which years of tried loyalty would seem to have confirmed into rights! I speak as one who was once a ‘United Irishman,’” said he.

Laying down the glass he was raising to his lips, the Captain leaned across the table and grasped Layton’s hand; and although there was nothing in the gesture which a bystander could have noticed, it seemed to convey a secret signal, for Layton cried out exultingly, —

“A brother in the cause!”

“You may believe how your frank, outspoken nature has won upon me,” said he, “when I have confided to you a secret that would, if revealed, certainly cost me my commission, and might imperil my life; but I will do more, Layton, I will tell you that our fraternity exists in full vigor, – not here, but thousands of miles away, – and England will have to reap in India the wrongs she has sown in Ireland.”

“With this I have no sympathy,” burst in Layton, boldly. “Our association – at least, as I understood it – was to elevate and enfranchise Ireland, not humiliate England. It was well enough for Wolfe Tone and men of his stamp to take this view, but Nielson and myself were differently minded, and we deemed that the empire would be but the greater when all who served it were equals.”

Was it that the moment was propitious, was it that Layton’s persuasive power was at its highest, was it that the earnest zeal of the man had carried conviction with his words? However it happened, the Captain, after listening to a long and well-reasoned statement, leaned his head thoughtfully on his hand, and said, —

“I wish I had known you in earlier days, Layton. You have placed these things before me in a point I have never seen them before, nor do I believe that there are ten men amongst us who have. Grant me a favor,” said he, as if a sudden thought had just crossed him.

“What is it?” asked Layton.

“Come and stay a week or two with me at my little cottage at Glasnevin; I am a bachelor, and live that sort of secluded life that will leave you ample time for your own pursuits.”

“Give me a corner for my glass bottles and a furnace, and I ‘m your man,” said Layton, laughingly.

“You shall make a laboratory of anything but the dinner-room,” cried Holmes, shaking hands on the compact, and thus sealing it.

The guard’s horn soon after summoned them to their places, and they once more were on the road.

The men who have long waged a hand-to-hand combat with fortune, unfriended and uncheered, experience an intense enjoyment when comes the moment in which they can pour out all their sorrows and their selfishness into some confiding ear. It is no ordinary pleasure with them to taste the sympathy of a willing listener. Layton felt all the ecstasy of such a moment, and he told not alone of himself and his plans and his hopes, but of his son Alfred, – what high gifts the youth possessed, and how certain was he, if common justice should be but accorded to him, to win a great place in the world’s estimation.

“The Captain” was an eager listener to all the other said, and never interrupted, save to throw in some passing word of encouragement, some cheering exhortation to bear up bravely and courageously.

Layton’s heart warmed with the words of encouragement, and he confided many a secret source of hope that he had never revealed before. He told how, in the course of his labors, many an unexpected discovery had burst upon him, – now some great fact applicable to the smelting of metals, now some new invention available to agriculture. They were subjects, he owned, he had not pursued to any perfect result, but briefly committed to some rough notes, reserving them for a time of future leisure.

“And if I cannot convince the world,” said he, laughingly, “that they have neglected and ignored a great genius, I hope, at least, to make you a convert to that opinion.”

“You see those tall elms yonder?” said Holmes, as they drew nigh Dublin. “Well, screened beneath their shade lies the little cottage I have told you about. Quiet and obscure enough now, but I ‘m greatly mistaken if it will not one day be remembered as the spot where Herbert Layton lived when he brought his great discovery to completion.”

“Do you really think so?” cried Layton, with a swelling feeling about the heart as though it would burst his side. “Oh, if I could only come to feel that hope myself! How it would repay me for all I have gone through! How it would reconcile me to my own heart!”

CHAPTER XIII. HOW THEY LIVED AT THE VILLA

The Heathcotes had prolonged their stay at Marlia a full month beyond their first intention. It was now November, and yet they felt most unwilling to leave it. To be sure, it was the November of Italy in one of its most favored spots. The trees had scarcely began to shed their leaves, and were only in that stage of golden and purple transition that showed the approach of winter. The grass was as green, and the dog-roses as abundant, as in May; indeed, it was May itself, only wanting the fireflies and the violets. One must have felt the languor of an Italian summer, with its closed-shutter existence, its long days of reclusion, without exercise, without prospect, almost without light, to feel the intense delight a bright month of November can bring, with its pathways dry, its rivulets clear, its skies cloudless and blue, – to be able to be about again, to take a fast canter or a brisk walk, is enjoyment great as the first glow of convalescence after sickness. Never are the olive-trees more silvery; never does the leafy fig, or the dark foliage of the orange, contrast so richly with its golden fruit. To enjoy all these was reason enough why the Heathcotes should linger there; at least, they said that was their reason, and they believed it. Layton, with his pupil, had established himself in the little city of Lucca, a sort of deserted, God-forgotten old place, with tumble-down palaces, with strange iron “grilles” and quaint old armorial shields over them; he said they had gone there to study, and he believed it.

Mr. O’Shea was still a denizen of the Panini Hotel at the Bagni, – from choice, he said, but he did not believe it; the Morgans had gone back to Wales; Mr. Mosely to Bond Street; and Quackinboss was off to “do” his Etruscan cities, the “pottery, and the rest of it;” and so were they all scattered, Mrs. Penthony Morris and Clara being, however, still at the villa, only waiting for letters to set out for Egypt. Her visit had been prolonged by only the very greatest persuasions. “She knew well – too bitterly did she know – what a blank would life become to her when she had quitted the dear villa.” “What a dreary awaking was in store for them.” “What a sad reverse to poor Clara’s bright picture of existence.” “The dear child used to fancy it could be all like this!” “Better meet the misery at once than wait till they could not find strength to tear themselves away.” Such-like were the sentiments uttered, sometimes tearfully, sometimes in a sort of playful sadness, always very gracefully, by the softest of voices, accompanied by the most downcast of long-fringed eyelids.