Part 20 (1/2)
”I suppose the person he sent before,” said his grace.
Lady Firebrace shook her head.
”Lord Haddington will not go to Ireland again,” replied her ladys.h.i.+p, mysteriously; ”mark me. And Lord De Grey does not like to go; and if he did, there are objections. And the Duke of Northumberland, he will not go. And who else is there? We must have a n.o.bleman of the highest rank for Ireland; one who has not mixed himself up with Irish questions; who has always been in old days for emanc.i.p.ation; a conservative, not an orangeman. You understand. That is the person Sir Robert will send, and whom Sir Robert wants.”
”He will have some difficulty in finding such a person,” said the duke.
”If, indeed, the blundering affair of 1834 had not occurred, and things had taken their legitimate course, and we had seen a man like Lord Stanley for instance at the head of affairs, or leading a great party, why then indeed your friends the conservatives,--for every sensible man must be a conservative, in the right sense of the word,--would have stood in a very different position; but now--,” and his grace shook his head.
”Sir Robert will never consent to form a government again without Lord Stanley,” said Lady Firebrace.
”Perhaps not,” said the duke.
”Do you know whose name I have heard mentioned in a certain quarter as the person Sir Robert would wish to see in Ireland?” continued Lady Firebrace.
His grace leant his ear.
”The Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine,” said Lady Firebrace.
”Quite impossible,” said the duke. ”I am no party man; if I be anything, I am a supporter of the government. True it is I do not like the way they are going on, and I disapprove of all their measures; but we must stand by our friends, Lady Firebrace. To be sure, if the country were in danger, and the Queen personally appealed to one, and the conservative party were really a conservative party, and not an old crazy faction vamped up and whitewashed into decency--one might pause and consider.
But I am free to confess I must see things in a very different condition to what they are at present before I could be called upon to take that step. I must see men like Lord Stanley--”
”I know what you are going to say, my dear Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine. I tell you again Lord Stanley is with us, heart and soul; and before long I feel persuaded I shall see your grace in the Castle of Dublin.”
”I am too old; at least, I am afraid so,” said the Duke of Fitz-Aquitaine, with a relenting smile.
Book 2 Chapter 16
About three miles before it reaches the town, the river Mowe undulates through a plain. The scene, though not very picturesque, has a glad and sparkling character. A stone bridge unites the opposite banks by three arches of good proportion; the land about consists of meads of a vivid colour, or vegetable gardens to supply the neighbouring population, and whose various hues give life and lightness to the level ground.
The immediate boundaries of the plain on either side are chiefly woods; above the crest of which in one direction expands the brown bosom of a moor. The few cottages which are sprinkled about this scene being built of stone, and on an ample scale, contribute to the idea of comfort and plenty which, with a serene sky and on a soft summer day, the traveller willingly a.s.sociates with it.
Such was the sky and season in which Egremont emerged on this scene a few days after the incidents recorded in our last chapter. He had been fis.h.i.+ng in the park of Mowbray, and had followed the rivulet through many windings until, quitting the enclosed domain it had forced its way through some craggy underwood at the bottom of the hilly moors we have noticed, and finally entering the plain, lost itself in the waters of the greater stream.
Good sport had not awaited Egremont. Truth to say, his rod had played in a very careless hand. He had taken it, though an adept in the craft when in the mood, rather as an excuse to be alone, than a means to be amused.
There are seasons in life when solitude is a necessity; and such a one had now descended on the spirit of the brother of Lord Marney.
The form of Sybil Gerard was stamped upon his brain. It blended with all thoughts; it haunted every object. Who was this girl, unlike all women whom he had yet encountered, who spoke with such sweet seriousness of things of such vast import, but which had never crossed his mind, and with a kind of mournful majesty bewailed the degradation of her race?
The daughter of the lowly, yet proud of her birth. Not a n.o.ble lady in the land who could boast a mien more complete, and none of them thus gifted, who possessed withal the fascinating simplicity that pervaded every gesture and accent of the daughter of Gerard.
Yes! the daughter of Gerard; the daughter of a workman at a manufactory.
It had not been difficult, after the departure of Sybil, to extract this information from the garrulous wife of the weaver. And that father,--he was not unknown to Egremont. His proud form and generous countenance were still fresh in the mind's eye of our friend. Not less so his thoughtful speech; full of knowledge and meditation and earnest feeling!
How much that he had spoken still echoed in the heart, and rung in the brooding ear of Egremont. And his friend, too, that pale man with those glittering eyes, who without affectation, without pedantry, with artlessness on the contrary and a degree of earnest singleness, had glanced like a master of philosophy at the loftiest principles of political science,--was he too a workman? And are these then THE PEOPLE?
If so, thought Egremont, would that I lived more among them! Compared with their converse, the tattle of our saloons has in it something humiliating. It is not merely that it is deficient in warmth, and depth, and breadth; that it is always discussing persons instead of principles, and cloaking its want of thought in mimetic dogmas and its want of feeling in superficial raillery; it is not merely that it has neither imagination, nor fancy, nor sentiment, nor feeling, nor knowledge to recommend it; but it appears to me, even as regards manner and expression, inferior in refinement and phraseology; in short, trivial, uninteresting, stupid, really vulgar.
It seemed to Egremont that, from the day he met these persons in the Abbey ruins, the horizon of his experience had insensibly expanded; more than that, there were streaks of light breaking in the distance, which already gave a new aspect to much that was known, and which perhaps was ultimately destined to reveal much that was now utterly obscure.