Part 26 (1/2)

”What do you mean by a child? He's no child, he's a well-grown boy, and if he's eyer to have a man's heart in him, ought to begin to feel it now.”

”It was no night to send him out, anyhow; and I say it, though it was your honour did it!”

”Because you're an old fool, and you think you can presume upon your white head and your tottering limbs. Look here; answer me this----”

A fearful thunder roll, followed by a rattling crash like small-arms, drowned his words. ”It _is_ a severe night,” said he, ”and if she wasn't a fine sea-boat, with a good crew on board her, I'd not feel so easy!”

”Good as she is, it will thry her.”

”What a faint-hearted old dog you are, and you were a pilot once.”

”I was, Sir. I took Sir George Bowyer up the Chesapeak, and Commodore Warren could tell you whether I know the Baltic Sea.”

”And you are frightened by a night like this!”

”I'm not frightened, Sir; but I'd not send a child out in it, just for----” He stopped, and tried to fall back behind the door.

”Just for what?” said Luttrell, with a calm and even gentle voice-- ”just for what?”

”How do I know, your honour. I was saying more than I could tell.”

”Yes; but let me hear it. What was the reason that you supposed--why do you think I did it?”

Deceived and even lured on to frankness by the insinuating softness of his manner, the old man answered: ”Well, it was just your honour's pride, the ould Luttrell pride, that said, 'We'll never send a man where we won't go ourselves,' and it was out of that you'd risk your child's life!”

”I accused you of being half a coward a minute ago,” said Luttrell, in a low deep voice, that vibrated with intense pa.s.sion, ”but I tell you, you're a brave man, a very brave man, to dare to speak such words as these to me! Away with you; be off; and never cross this threshold again.” He banged the door loudly after the old man, and walked up and down the narrow room with impatient steps. Hour after hour he strode up and down with the restless activity of a wild animal in a cage, and as though by mere motion he could counteract the fever that was consuming him. He went to the outer door, but he did not dare to open it, such was the force of the storm; but he listened to the wild sounds of the hurricane--the thundering roar of the sea, as it mingled with the hissing crash, as the waves were broken on the rocks. Some old tree, that had resisted many a gale, seemed at last to have yielded, for the rustling crash of broken timber could be heard, and the rattling of the smaller branches as they were carried along by the swooping wind. ”What a night I what a terrible night!” he muttered to himself. There was a faint light seen through the c.h.i.n.ks of the kitchen door; he drew nigh and peeped in. It was poor Molly on her knees, before a little earthenware image of the Virgin, to whom she was offering a candle, while she poured out her heart in prayer. He looked at her, as, with hands firmly clasped before her, she rocked to and fro in the agony of her affliction, and noiselessly he stole away and entered his room.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 152]

He opened a map upon the table, and tried to trace out the course the boat might have taken. There were three distant headlands to clear before she could reach the open sea. One of these, the Turk's Head, was a noted spot for disasters, and dreaded by fishermen even in moderately fresh, weather. He could not take his eyes from the spot; that little speck so full of fate to him. To have effaced it from the earth's surface at that moment, he would have given all that remained to him in the world! ”Oh, what a destiny!” he cried in his bitterness, ”and what race! Every misfortune, every curse that has fallen upon us, of our own doing! Nothing worse, nothing so bad, have we ever met in life as our own stubborn pride, our own vindictive natures.” It required some actual emergency, some one deeply momentous' crisis, to bring this proud and stubborn spirit down to self-accusation; but when the moment _did_ come, when the dam _was_ opened, the stream rushed forth like the long pent-up waters of a cataract.

All that he had ever done in life, all the fierce provocations he had given, all the insults he had uttered, his short-comings too, his reluctance to make amends when in the wrong, pa.s.sed spectre-like before him, and in the misery of his deep humiliation he felt how all his struggle in life had been with himself.

That long night--and how long it was!--was spent thus. Every wild gust that shook the window-frames, every thunder-clap that seemed to make the old ruin rock, recalling him to thoughts of the wild sea on which his poor child was tossing. ”Have they got well out to sea by this time, or are they beating between the Basket Rocks and the Turk's Head?” would he ask himself over and over. ”Can they and will they put back if they see the storm too much for them?” He tried to remember his parting words.

Had he taunted them with reluctance to venture out? Had he reflected on their courage? He could not now recal (sp) his words, but he hoped and he prayed that he had not.

The leaden grey of morning began to break at last, and the wind seemed somewhat to abate, although the sea still rolled in such enormous waves, and the spray rose over the rocks and fell in showers over the s.h.i.+ngle before the windows. Luttrell strained his eyes through the half-murky light, but could descry nothing like a sail seaward. He mounted the stairs of the tower, and stationing himself at the loopholed window, gazed long and earnestly at the sea. Nothing but waves--a wild, disordered stretch of rolling water--whose rocking motion almost at last made his head reel.

The old pilot, with his hat tied firmly on, was standing below, and, careless of the beating rain, was looking out to sea.

”The gale is lessening, Moriarty,” cried out Luttrell; ”it has blown itself out.”

It was evident the old man had not caught the words aright, for all he said was, ”She's a fine sea-boat if she did, Sir,” and moved away.

”He thinks it doubtful--he does not believe they have weathered the storm,” said Luttrell; and he sat down with his head between his hands, stunned and almost senseless.

There is no such terrible conflict as that of a proud spirit with misfortune. He who sees nothing in his calamities but his own hard fate has the dreariest and least hopeful of all battles before him. Now, though Luttrell was ready to utter his self-accusings aloud, and charge himself audibly with the faults that had wrecked his life, yet, strange as it may seem, the spirit of true humility had never entered his heart, far less any firm resolve to repent.

With all the terrible consequences that his unbridled temper could evoke before him, he still could not but regard himself as more persecuted than erring. ”I did not make myself,” cried he, impiously. ”I no more implanted the pa.s.sions that sway than the limbs that move me!

Other men--is not the world full of them?--have been as haughty, as unyielding, and domineering as myself, and yet have had no such disasters heaped upon them--far from it. Out of their very faults has sprung, their fortune. In their pride they have but a.s.serted that superiority that they knew they possessed.”