The Martins Of Cro' Martin, Vol. I (of II). Lever Charles James
the imputation.”
Martin turned fiercely round, about to make a reply which, if once uttered, would have ended all colloquy between them, when suddenly catching himself he said, “Have you taken any engagement with his Lordship?”
“Not as yet, sir, – not formally, at least. My Lord has written me a very full statement of his ideas on politics, what he means to do, and so forth, and he seems to think that anything short of a very liberal line would not give satisfaction to the electors.”
“Who told him so? Who said that the borough was not perfectly content with the representative that – that” – he stammered and faltered – “that its best friends had fixed upon to defend its interests? Who said that a member of my own family might not desire the seat?”
This announcement, uttered with a tone very much akin to menace, failed to produce either the astonishment or terror that Martin looked for, and actually supposing that the expression had not been heard, he repeated it. “I say, sir, has any one declared that a Martin will not stand?”
“I am not aware of it,” said Scanlan, quietly.
“Well, sir,” cried Martin, as if unable to delineate the consequences, and wished to throw the weight of the duty on his opponent.
“There would be a warm contest, no doubt, sir,” said Scanlan, guardedly.
“No, sir; nor the shadow of a contest,” rejoined Martin, angrily. “You’ll not tell me that my own town – the property that has been in my family for seven centuries and more – would presume – that is, would desire – to – to – break the ties that have bound us to each other?”
“I wish I could tell you my mind, Mr. Martin, without offending you; that is, I wish you ‘d let me just say what my own opinion is, and take it for what it is worth, and in five minutes you ‘d be in a better position to make up your mind about this matter than if we went on discussing it for a week.” There was a dash of independence in his utterance of these words that actually startled Martin; for, somehow, Scanlan had himself been surprised into earnestness by meeting with an energy on the other’s part that he had never suspected; and thus each appeared in a new light to the other.
“May I speak out? Well, then, here is what I have to say: the Relief Bill is passed, the Catholics are now emancipated – ”
“Yes, and be – ” Martin caught himself with a cough, and the other went on: —
“Well, then, if they don’t send one of their own set into Parliament at once, it is because they ‘d like to affect, for a little while at least, a kind of confidence in the men who gave them their liberties. O’Connell himself gave a pledge, that of two candidates, equal in all other respects, they’d select the Protestant; and so they would for a time. And it lies with you, and other men of your station, to determine how long that interval is to last; for an interval it will only be, after all. If you want to pursue the old system of ‘keeping down,’ you ‘ll drive them at once into the hands of the extreme Papist party, who, thanks to yourselves, can now sit in Parliament; but if you ‘ll moderate your views, take a humbler standard of your own power, – conciliate a prejudice here, obliterate an old animosity there – ”
“In fact,” broke in Martin, “swear by this new creed that Lord Kilmorris has sent you a sketch of in his letter! Then I ‘ll tell you what, sir – I ‘d send the borough and all in it to the – ”
“So you might, Mr. Martin, and you ‘d never mend matters in the least,” broke he in, with great coolness.
There was now a dead silence for several minutes; at last Martin spoke, and it was in a tone and with a manner that indicated deep reflection: —
“I often said to those who would emancipate the Catholics, ‘Are you prepared to change places with them? You have been in the ascendant a good many years, are you anxious now to try what the other side of the medal looks like? for, if not, leave them as they are.’ Well, they did n’t believe me; and maybe now my prophecy is nigh its accomplishment.”
“It is very likely you were right, sir; but whether or not, it’s the law now, and let us make the best of it,” said Scanlan, who had a practical man’s aversion to all that savored of mere speculative reasoning.
“As how, for instance – in what way, Mr. Scanlan?” asked Martin, curtly.
“If you ‘ll not support Lord Kilmorris – ”
“That I won’t, I promise you; put that clean out of your head to begin with.”
“Well, then, there is but one other course open. Come to some compromise with the Romanist party; if you don’t like to give them a stray vote – and mark me, they ‘d make better terms with you than with a stranger – but if you don’t like that, why, take the representation alternately with them.”
Martin rose from his chair and advanced close to where Scanlan was sitting, then, fixing his eyes steadfastly on him, said, —
“Who commissioned you to make this proposition to me?”
“No one, upon my oath. There is not a man breathing who has ever so much as hinted at what I have just said to you.”
“I’m glad of it; I’m heartily glad of it,” said Martin, calmly reseating himself. “I’m glad there is not another fellow in this county your equal in impudence! Aye, Mr. Scanlan, you heard me quite correctly. I saw many a change going on amongst us, and I foresaw many more; but that a Martin of Cro’ Martin should be taught his political duty by Maurice Scanlan, and that that duty consisted in a beggarly alliance with the riff-raff of a county town, – that was, indeed, a surprise for which I was in no wise prepared.”
“Well, sir, I ‘m sorry if I have given any offence,” said Scanlan, rising, and, in a voice of the most quiet intonation, making his excuses. “Your rejection of the counsel I was bold enough to suggest leaves me, at least, at liberty to offer my services where they will not be rejected so contumeliously.”
“Is this a threat, Mr. Scanlan?” said Martin, with a supercilious smile.
“No, sir, nothing of the kind. I know too well what becomes my station, and is due to yours, to forget myself so far; but as you don’t set any value on the borough yourself, and as there may be others who do – ”
“Stay and eat your dinner here, Scanlan,” said Martin.
“I promised Mrs. Cronan, sir – ”
“Send an apology to her; say it was my fault, – that I detained you.” And without waiting for a reply, Martin sauntered from the room, leaving the attorney alone with his reflections.
CHAPTER VII. A COLLEGE COMPETITOR
Young Nelligan had distanced all his competitors in his college career; some who were his equals in ability, were inferior to him in habits of hard and patient labor; and others, again, were faint-hearted to oppose one in whose success they affected to believe luck had no small share. One alone had the honest candor to avow that he deserved his pre-eminence, on the true ground of his being their superior. This was a certain Jack Massingbred, a young fellow of good family and fortune, and who, having been rusticated at Oxford, and involved in some outrage against authority in Cambridge, had come over to finish his college career in the “Silent Sister.”
Although Irish by birth, and connected with Ireland by ties of family and fortune, he had passed all his life in England, his father having repaired to that country after the Union, exchanging the barren honor of a seat for an Irish borough for a snug Treasury appointment. His son had very early given proof of superior capacity. At Rugby he was distinguished as a scholar; and in his opening life at Oxford his talents won high praise for him. Soon after his entrance, however, he had fallen into a fast set, – of hunting, tandem-driving, and occasionally hard-drinking men, – in whose society he learned to forget all his aim for college success, and to be far more anxious for distinction as a whip or a stroke-oar than for all the honors of scholarship. At first he experienced a sense of pride in the thought that he could hold his own with either set, and