Part 29 (2/2)

”It will look jollier in the evening, when there's a good fire on the hearth, and a strong brew of that pleasant spirit smokin' afore us;”

and Mr. Dodge vouchsafed a strange sort of grin, which was the nearest approach he could make to a laugh, and Luttrell, stung by the notion that another was a.s.suming to do the honours of _his_ house, and to himself too, retired hastily without speaking.

CHAPTER XIX. THE LAWYER ”ABROAD.”

To reach the ”store-room” where Mr. M'Kinlay lay--for of course it is needless to inform our readers he was the much-terrified voyager alluded to--Luttrell was obliged to pa.s.s through the kitchen, and in so doing, beheld a scene which had never before presented itself to his eyes in that spot. Molly Ryan, feeling all the importance of the occasion, and well knowing that her master would never remember to give her any orders on the subject, had issued a general requisition for supplies all over the island, which was so quickly, and well responded to, that the place looked less like a room in a dwelling-house than a great mart for all sorts of provisions.

Great baskets of fish stood on every side--fish of the strangest and most uncouth forms, many of them, and with names as uncouth. There were varieties of ugliness among them to gratify the most 'exacting naturalist, flat-headed, many-toothed, monsters, with bony projections all over them, and dorsal fins like hand-saws. Even the cognate creatures wore an especial wildness in that wild spot, and lobsters looked fiercer, and crabs more crabbed, while oysters, least aggressive of all floating things, had a ragged and rocky exterior that seemed to defy all attempt at penetration. Besides, there were hampers of eggs, and ”creels” of potatoes, and such other garden produce as the simple cultivation permitted. While, meekly in one corner, and awaiting his fate with that air of conscious martyrdom which distinguishes the race, stood a very lean sheep, fastened by a hay-rope to the leg of a dresser.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 169]

But the object which more than others attracted Luttrell's attention, was a pale, sallow-faced man, who sat next the fire on a low seat, all propped up by pillows, and his legs enveloped in a blanket; his wan and singular appearance being considerably heightened by the feathers of a goose having lighted on him, giving him half the look of some enormous fowl in the act of being plucked. This addition to his picturesqueness was contributed by Harry, who, engaged in plucking a goose at the opposite side of the fire, sent all the down and feathers in that direction. Harry himself, without shoes or stockings, indeed with nothing but a flannel s.h.i.+rt and trousers, was entertaining the stranger?

and giving him, so far as he could, an insight into the life and habits of the islanders.

It is perhaps fortunate for me that it is not part of my task to record the contributions to history which Harry Luttrell afforded the stranger; they were not, possibly, divested of a little aid from that fancy which narrators are sometimes led to indulge in, and certainly Mr. M'Kinlay felt on hearing them, that terrible as were the perils of the voyage, the dangers that beset his place of refuge seemed infinitely more terrible. A few traditionary maxims were all that they knew of law, of religion they knew still less; in a word, the stranger learned that he was in the midst of a people who cared no more for British rule than they did for the sway of the Grand Llama; and in a place where, if it were very difficult to live, few things were so easy as to get rid of life.

So intensely interested was M'Kinlay in the boy's narrative, that he never noticed Luttrell, who entered the kitchen, and made his way towards him. Luttrell himself was so preoccupied with one thought, that he hardly acknowledged the salutations of the people who made way for him to pa.s.s. The thought that engaged him was this: that the man before him was the bearer of a writ against him. That the law, which in his fastness he had so long defied or evaded, had at last tracked him home, and though he knew that, were this to be the case, nothing could be easier for him than to conceal himself in the island--there were spots there, where, had it been safe to have followed, no search could have discovered him--yet, in the pa.s.sionate boldness which prompted him always to meet the coming peril half way, he now sought out this man, whatever might be his mission, to confront him.

Who can tell, besides, what an insolent pride he felt in being able to say to the emissary of the law, ”Go back to those who sent you, and tell them that you saw and spoke to Luttrell of Arran, but that you did not dare to lay a hand upon him, nor utter the stupid formula of your craft, because one single word from him would have settled your doom for ever; that he did not avoid nor evade you; that he received you courteously, and, so far as he could, hospitably; but, with the proud consciousness that _he_ was more the master of _your_ fate than were you of _his_, and that the wisest thing you could do was to forget the errand you came upon, and go back as you came.” With some such thoughts as these Luttrell now came forward and stood before the stranger, and for some seconds each looked in silence at the other.

”Are you Mr. Luttrell of Arran?” asked M'Kinlay, in a low feeble tone.

”I am accustomed to believe, Sir, that a stranger usually announces his own name and quality first, when presenting himself in the house of another,” said Luttrell, slowly and gravely.

”I ask pardon; my name is Robert M'Kinlay, Sir, of Purniyal's Inn, and 28, Regents-terrace, London, conveyancer.”

”And I am John Hamilton Luttrell of Arran. Now that we know each other, are there any matters we can treat of, or is this meeting to have merely the character of a pleasant 'rencontre?'”

”It was business brought me here, Mr. Luttrell!” said M'Kinlay, with a groan of such intense sincerity that Luttrell almost smiled at it.

”Whenever you feel equal to treat of it, you'll find me at your service,” said Luttrell.

”Could it be now, Mr. Luttrell--could it be now?” cried M'Kinlay, with eagerness.

”It shall be this minute, if you desire it.”

Unwrapping the blanket from around him, and disposing it not very gracefully, perhaps, over his shoulders, Mr. M'Kinlay scrambled rather than walked after Luttrell to his room.

”Ah, Sir!” cried he, as he entered, ”if I had but the shadow of a suspicion of what the expedition was before me, I'd have refused flatly; ay, Sir, if I had to throw up the agency for it the day after.”

”I am truly sorry, Sir, your impressions of this place should be so unfavourable.”

Mr. M'Kinlay was too full of his disastrous experiences to listen to excuses, and he went on: ”People cross the Atlantic every week and don't suffer one-half what I did since I left Westport. I vow I think they might round the Cape with less actual danger; and when we tacked about and ran down to take up the creatures that were upset, one of our sailors--no, indeed, but two of them--declared that it was at the imminent risk of our own lives we were doing it; that if something held on, or didn't hold on, I forget which, and that if we were to get entangled in the wreck--but I can't describe it, only I remember that the American--the greatest savage I ever met in my life--took a pistol out of his pocket, and swore he'd shoot the man at the helm if he didn't bear up for the wreck. He swore--I'll never forget his awful oaths, doubly terrible at such a moment--that he saw a boy, or, as he called it, 'a buoy,' on a spar waving his cap to us, and he said, 'I'll go down to him if we upset beside him.' Yes, Sir, it sounds incredible that a man so dead to any sentiment of humanity could exist, and who could declare that he'd imperil five lives, and his own too, just out of--what shall I call it?--a whim, a caprice, a fancy, and for what?--for some fishermen, some starving creatures whose miserable lives ought to make death a release, and a boy that possibly, until your kind cook gave him leave to sit at the kitchen fire, had no home to go to to dry himself.”

Luttrell's face grew almost purple, and then, of a sudden, ashy pale.

To suppress the pa.s.sionate impulse that worked within him, made him feel sick almost to fainting, but he did suppress it, and with an immense effort of self-control said, ”And the American, you say, was resolved that he'd save the boy.”

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