Sir Brook Fossbrooke, Volume II.. Lever Charles James
of dependants.”
“The fault I find with him,” said Tom, “is his credulity. He believes everything, and, what’s worse, every one. There are fellows here who persuade him this mine is to make his fortune; and if he had thousands to-morrow, he would embark them all in this speculation, the only result of which is to enrich these people, and ruin ourselves.”
“Is that your view of it?” asked Cave, in some alarm.
“Of course it is; and if you doubt it, come down with me into the gallery, as they call it, and judge for yourself.”
“But I have already joined the enterprise.”
“What! invested money in it?”
“Ay. Two thousand pounds, – a large sum for me, I promise you. It was with immense persuasion, too, I got Fossbrooke to let me have these shares. He offered me scores of other things as a free gift in preference, – salmon-fisheries in St. John’s; a saw-mill on Lake Huron; a large tract of land at the Cape; I don’t know what else: but I was firm to the copper, and would have nothing but this.”
“I went in for lead,” said Trafford, laughingly.
“You; and are you involved in this also?” asked Tom.
“Yes; so far as I have promised to sell out, and devote whatever remains after paying my debts to the mine.”
“Why, this beats all the infatuation I ever heard of! You have not the excuse of men at a distance, who have only read or listened to plausible reports; but you have come here, – you have been on the spot, – you have seen with your own eyes the poverty-stricken air of the whole concern, the broken machinery, the ruined scaffoldings, the mounds of worthless dross that hide the very approach to the shaft; and you have seen us, too, and where and how we live!”
“Very true,” broke in Cave; “but I have heard him talk, and I could no more resist the force of his words than I could stand in a current and not be carried down by it.”
“Exactly so,” chimed in Trafford; “he was all the more irresistible that he did not seek to persuade. Nay, he tried his utmost to put me off the project, and, as with the Colonel, he offered me dozens of other ways to push my fortune, without costing me a farthing.”
“Might not we,” said Cave, “ask how it comes that you, taking this dispiriting view of all here, still continue to embark your fortunes in its success?”
“It is just because they are my fortunes; had it been my fortune, I had been more careful. There is all the difference in life between a man’s hopes and his bank-stock. But if you ask me why I hang on here, after I have long ceased to think anything can come of it, my answer is, I do so just as I would refuse to quit the wreck, when he declared he would not leave it. It might be I should save my life by deserting him; but it would be little worth having afterwards; and I ‘d rather live with him in daily companionship, watching his manly courageous temper and his high-hearted way of dealing with difficulties, than I would go down the stream prosperously with many another; and over and over have I said to myself, If that fine nature of his can make defeat so endurable, what splendor of triumph would it not throw over a real success!”
“And this is exactly what we want to share,” said Traf-ford, smiling.
“But what do either of you know of the man, beyond the eccentricity, or the general kindliness with which he meets you? You have not seen him as I have, rising to his daily toil with a racking head and a fevered frame, without a word of complaint, or anything beyond a passing syllable of discomfort; never flinching, never yielding; as full of kind thought for others, as full of hopeful counsel, as in his best days; lightening labor with proverb and adage, and stimulating zeal with many a story. You can’t picture to yourselves this man, once at the head of a princely fortune, which he dispensed with more than princely liberality, sharing a poor miner’s meal of beans and oil with pleasant humor, and drinking a toast, in wine that would set the teeth on edge, to that good time when they would have more generous fare, and as happy hearts to enjoy it.
“Nor have you seen him, as I have, the nurse beside the sick-bed, so gentle, so thoughtful, – a very woman in tenderness; and all that after a day of labor that would have borne down the strongest and the stoutest. And who is he that takes the world in such good part, and thinks so hopefully of his fellow-men? The man of all his time who has been most betrayed, most cheated, whose trust has been most often abused, whose benefits have been oftenest paid back in ingratitude. It is possible enough he may not be the man to guide one to wealth and fortune; but to whatever condition of life he leads, of one thing I am certain, there will be no better teacher of the spirit and temper to enjoy it; there will be none who will grace any rank – the highest or the humblest – with a more manly dignity.”
“It was knowing all this of him,” said Cave, “that impelled me to associate myself with any enterprise he belonged to. I felt that if success were to be won by persistent industry and determination, his would do it, and that his noble character gave a guarantee for fair dealing better than all the parchments lawyers could engross.”
“From what I have seen of life, I ‘d not say that success attends such men as he is,” said Tom. “The world would be, perhaps, too good if it were so.”
Silence now fell upon the party, and the three men smoked on for some time without a word. At last Tom, rising from the bench where he had been seated, said, “Take my advice; keep to your soldiering, and have nothing to do with this concern here. You sail on Saturday next, and by Sunday evening, if you can forget that there is such an island as Sardinia, and such poor devils on it as ourselves, it will be all the better for you.”
“I am sorry to see you so depressed, Lendrick,” said Cave.
“I ‘m not so low as you suspect; but I’d be far lower if I thought that others were going to share our ill-fortunes.”
Though the speech had no direct reference to Trafford, it chanced that their eyes met as he spoke, and Trafford’s face flushed to a deep crimson as he felt the application of the words.
“Come here, Tom,” said he, passing his arm within Len-drick’s, and leading him off the terrace into a little copse of wild hollies at the foot of it. “Let me have one word with you.” They walked on some seconds without a word, and when Trafford spoke his voice trembled with agitation. “I don’t know,” muttered he, “if Sir Brook has told you of the change in my fortunes, – that I am passed over in the entail by my father, and am, so to say, a beggar.”
Lendrick nodded, but said nothing.
“I have got debts, too, which, if not paid by my family, will compel me to sell out, – has he told you this?”
“Yes; I think he said so.”
“Like the kind, good fellow he is,” continued Trafford, “he thinks he can do something with my people, – talk my father over, and induce my mother to take my side. I ‘m afraid I know them better, and that they ‘re not sorry to be rid of me at last. It is, however, just possible – I will not say more, but just possible – that he may succeed in making some sort of terms for me before they cut me off altogether. I have no claim whatever, for I have spent already the portion that should have come to me as a younger son. I must be frank with you, Tom. There ‘s no use in trying to make my case seem better than it is.” He paused, and appeared to expect that the other would say something; but Tom smoked on and made no sign whatever.
“And it comes to this,” said Trafford, drawing a long breath and making a mighty effort, “I shall either have some small pittance or other, – and small it must be, – or be regularly cleaned out without a shilling.”
A slight, very slight, motion of Tom’s shoulders showed that he had heard him.
“If the worst is to befall me,” said Traflford, with more energy than he had shown before, “I ‘ll no more be a burden to you than to any other of my friends. You shall hear little more of me; but if fortune is going to give me her last chance, will you give me one also?”
“What do you mean?” said Tom, curtly.
“I