Sir Jasper Carew: His Life and Experience. Lever Charles James
me that I need not be, I have no fears,” said she, calmly.
“I must be uncourteous enough to say that I do not concur in the sentiment,” said Fagan; “and, with your leave, Mr. MacNaghten, we will walk.”
“Walk! why, to see anything, you’ll have twelve miles a-foot. It must n’t be thought of, Miss Polly, – I cannot hear of it!” She bowed, as though in half assent; and he continued: “Thanks for the confidence; you shall see it is not misplaced. Now, Fagan – ”
“I am decided, Mr. MacNaghten; I’ll not venture; nor will I permit my daughter to risk her life.”
“Neither would I, I should hope,” said MacNaghten; and, although the words were uttered with something of irritation, there was that in the tone that made Polly blush deeply.
“It’s too bad, by Jove!” muttered he, half aloud, “when a man has so few things that he really can do, to deny his skill in the one he knows best.”
“I am quite ready, sir,” said Polly, in that tone of determination which she was often accustomed to assume, and against which her father rarely or never disputed.
“There now, Fagan, get up into the rumble. I ‘ll not ask you to be the coachman. Come, come, – no more opposition; we shall make them impatient if we keep them standing much longer.”
As he spoke, he offered his arm to Polly, who, with a smile, – the first she had deigned to give him, – accepted it, and then, hastily leading her forward, he handed her into the carriage. In an instant MacNaghten was beside her. With the instinct of hot-tempered cattle, they no sooner felt a hand upon the reins than they became eager to move forward, and, while one pawed the ground with impatience, the other, retiring to the very limit of the pole-strap, prepared for a desperate plunge.
“Up with you, Fagan; be quick – be quick!” cried Dan. “It won’t do to hold them in. Let them go, lads, or they ‘ll smash everything!” and the words were hardly out, when, with a tremendous bound, that carried the front wheels off the road, away they went. “Meet us at the other gate, – they ‘ll show you the way,” cried MacNaghten, as, standing up, he pointed with his whip in the direction he meant. He had no time for more; for all his attention was now needed to the horses, as, each exciting the other, they dashed madly on down the road.
“This comes of keeping them standing,” muttered Dan; “and the scoundrels have curbed them up too tight. You’re not afraid, Miss Polly? By Jove, that was a dash, – Kitty showed her heels over the splash-board. Look at that devil Dan, – see how he ‘s bearing on the pole-piece! – an old trick of his.”
A tremendous cut on his flank now drove him almost furious, and the enraged animal set off at speed.
“We must let them blow themselves, Miss Polly. It all comes of their standing so long. You’re not afraid? – Well, then, they may do their worst.”
By this time the pace had become a tearing gallop, and seeing that nothing short of some miles would suffice to tame them down, MacNaghten turned their heads in the direction of a long avenue which led towards the sea.
It was all in vain that Fagan fastened through the flower-garden, and across a private shrubbery; when he reached the “gate,” there was no sign of the phaeton. The cuckoo and the thrush were the only voices heard in the stillness; and, at intervals, the deep booming of the sea, miles distant, told how unbroken was the silence around. His mind was a conflict of fear and anger; terrible anxieties for his daughter were mixed up with passion at this evidence of her wayward nature, and he walked along, reproaching himself bitterly for having accepted the civilities of MacNaghten.
Fagan’s own schemes for a high alliance for his daughter had made him acquainted with many a counterplot of adventurers against himself. He well knew what a prize Polly Fagan was deemed amongst the class of broken-down and needy spendthrifts who came to him for aid. Often and often had he detected the first steps of such machinations, till at length he had become suspectful of everything and everybody. Now, MacNaghten was exactly the kind of man he most dreaded in this respect. There was that recklessness about him that comes of broken fortune; he was the very type of a desperate adventurer, ready to seize any chance to restore himself to fortune and independence. Who could answer for such a man in such an emergency?
Driven almost mad with these terrors, he now hastened his steps, stopping at times to listen, and at times calling on his daughter in the wildest accents. Without knowing whither he went, he soon lost himself in the mazes of the wood, and wandered on for hours in a state bordering upon distraction. Suspicion had so mastered his reason that he had convinced himself the whole was a deliberate scheme, – that MacNaghten had planned all beforehand. In his disordered fancies, he did not scruple to accuse his daughter of complicity, and inveighed against her falsehood and treachery in the bitterest words.
And what was Dan MacNaghten doing all this time? Anything, everything, in short, but what he was accused of! In good truth, he had little time for love-making, had such a project even entered his head, so divided were his attentions between the care of the cattle and his task of describing the different scenes through which they passed at speed, – the prospect being like one of those modern inventions called dissolving views, – no sooner presenting an object than superseding it by another. In addition to all this, he had to reconcile Miss Polly to what seemed a desertion of her father; so that, what with his “cares of coachman, cicerone, and consoler,” as he himself afterwards said, it was clean beyond him to slip in even a word on his own part. It is no part of my task to inquire how Polly enjoyed the excursion, or whether the dash of recklessness, so unlike every incident of her daily life, did not repay her for any discomfort of her father’s absence: certain is it that when, after about six miles traversed in less than half an hour, they returned to the Castle, her first sense of apprehension was felt by not finding her father to meet her. No sooner had MacNaghten conducted her to the library than he set out himself in search of Fagan, having despatched messengers in all directions on the same errand. Dan, it must be owned, had far rather have remained to reassure Miss Polly, and convince her that her father’s absence would be but momentary; but he felt that it was a point of duty with him to go – and go he did.
It chanced that, by dint of turning and winding, Fagan had at length approached the Castle again, so that MacNaghten came up with him within a few minutes after his search began. “Safe, and where?” were the only words the old man could utter as he grasped the other’s arm. Dan, who attributed the agitation to but one cause, proceeded at once to reassure him on the score of his daughter’s safety, detailing, at the same time, the circumstances which compelled him to turn off in a direction the opposite of that he intended. Fagan drank in every word with eagerness, his gray eyes piercingly fixed on the speaker all the while. Great as was his agitation throughout, it became excessive when MacNaghten chanced to allude to Polly personally, and to speak of the courage she displayed.
“She told you that she was not afraid? – she said so to yourself?” cried he, eagerly.
“Ay, a dozen times,” replied Dan, freely. “It was impossible to have behaved better.”
“You said so, – you praised her for it, I have no doubt,” said the other, with a grim effort at a smile.
“To be sure I did, Tony. By Jove, you’ve reason to be proud of her. I don’t speak of her beauty, – that every one can see; but she’s a noble-minded girl. She would grace any station in the land.”
“She heard you say as much with pleasure, I ‘m certain,” said Fagan, with a smile that was more than half a sneer.
“Nay, faith, Tony, I did not go so far. I praised her courage. I told her that not every man could have behaved so bravely.”
MacNaghten paused at this.
“And then – and then, sir,” cried Fagan, impatiently.
Dan turned suddenly towards him, and, to his amazement, beheld a countenance tremulous with passionate excitement.
“What then, sir? Tell me what then? I have a right to ask, and I will know it. I ‘m her father, and I demand it.”
“Why, what in Heaven’s