LITMIR.BIZ

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or less happily circumstanced than themselves.”

      “Faix,” said Billy, “it isn’t sitting here at the same table with yourself that I ought to gainsay that remark.”

      And Harcourt was so struck by the air of good breeding in which he spoke, that he grasped his hand, and shook it warmly.

      “And what is more,” continued Billy, “from this day out I ‘ll never think so.”

      He drank off his glass as he spoke, giving to the libation all the ceremony of a solemn vow.

      “D’ ye hear that? – them’s oars; there’s a boat coming in.”

      “You have sharp hearing, master,” said Harcourt, laughing.

      “I got the gift when I was a smuggler,” replied he. “I could put my ear to the ground of a still night, and tell you the tramp of a revenue boot as well as if I seen it. And now I’ll lay sixpence it’s Pat Morissy is at the bow oar there; he rows with a short jerking stroke there ‘s no timing. That’s himself, and it must be something urgent from the post-office that brings him over the lough to-night.”

      The words were scarcely spoken when Craggs entered with a letter in his hand.

      “This is for you, Colonel,” said he; “it was marked ‘immediate,’ and the post-mistress despatched it by an express.”

      The letter was a very brief one; but, in honor to the writer, we shall give it a chapter to itself.

      CHAPTER VII. A GREAT DIPLOMATIST

      My dear Harcourt, – I arrived here yesterday, and by good fortune caught your letter at F. O., where it was awaiting the departure of the messenger for Germany.

      Your account of poor Glencore is most distressing. At the same time, my knowledge of the man and his temper in a measure prepared me for it. You say that he wishes to see me, and intends to write. Now, there is a small business matter between us, which his lawyer seems much disposed to push on to a difficulty, if not to worse. To prevent this, if possible, – at all events to see whether a visit from me might not be serviceable, – I shall cross over to Ireland on Tuesday, and be with you by Friday, or at latest Saturday. Tell him that I am coming, but only for a day. My engagements are such that I must be here again early in the following week. On Thursday I go down to Windsor.

      There is wonderfully little stirring here, but I keep that little for our meeting. You are aware, my dear friend, what a poor, shattered, broken-down fellow I am; so that I need not ask you to give me a comfortable quarter for my one night, and some shell-fish, if easily procurable, for my one dinner.

      Yours, ever and faithfully,

      H. U.

      We have already told our reader that the note was a brief one, and yet was it not altogether uncharacteristic. Sir Horace Upton – it will spare us both some repetition if we present him at once – was one of a very composite order of human architecture; a kind of being, in fact, of which many would deny the existence, till they met and knew them, so full of contradictions, real and apparent, was his nature. Chivalrous in sentiment and cunning in action, noble in aspiration and utterly sceptical as regards motives, one half of his temperament was the antidote to the other. Fastidious to a painful extent in matters of taste, he was simplicity itself in all the requirements of his life; and with all a courtier’s love of great people, not only tolerating, but actually preferring the society of men beneath him. In person he was tall, and with that air of distinction in his manner that belongs only to those who unite natural graces with long habits of high society. His features were finely formed, and would have been strikingly handsome, were the expression not spoiled by a look of astuteness, – a something that implied a tendency to overreach, – which marred their repose and injured their uniformity. Not that his manner ever betrayed this weakness; far from it, – his was a most polished courtesy. It was impossible to conceive an address more bland or more conciliating. His very gestures, his voice, languid by a slight habit of indisposition, seemed as though exerted above their strength in the desire to please, and making the object of his attentions to feel himself the mark of peculiar honor. There ran through all his nature, through everything he did or said or thought, a certain haughty humility, which served, while it assigned an humble place to himself, to mark out one still more humble for those about him. There were not many things he could not do; indeed, he had actually done most of those which win honor and distinction in life. He had achieved a very gallant but brief military career in India, made a most brilliant opening in Parliament, where his abilities at once marked him out for office, was suspected to be the writer of the cleverest political satire, and more than suspected to be the author of “the novel” of the day. With all this, he had great social success. He was deep enough for a ministerial dinner, and “fast” enough for a party of young Guardsmen at Greenwich. With women, too, he was especially a favorite; there was a Machiavelian subtlety which he could throw into small things, a mode of making the veriest trifles little Chinese puzzles of ingenuity, that flattered and amused them. In a word, he had great adaptiveness, and it was a quality he indulged less for the gratification of others than for the pleasure it afforded himself.

      He had mixed largely in society, not only of his own, but of every country of Europe. He knew every chord of that complex instrument which people call the world, like a master; and although a certain jaded and wearied look, a tone of exhaustion and fatigue, seemed to say that he was tired of it all, that he had found it barren and worthless, the real truth was, he enjoyed life to the full as much as on the first day in which he entered it; and for this simple reason, – that he had started with an humble opinion of mankind, their hopes, fears, and ambitions, and so he continued, not disappointed, to the end.

      The most governing notion of his own life was an impression that he had a disease of the chest, some subtle and mysterious affection which had defied the doctors, and would go on to defy them to the last. He had been dangerously wounded in the Burmese war, and attributed the origin of his malady to this cause. Others there were who said that the want of recognition to his services in that campaign was the direst of all the injuries he had received. And true it was, a most brilliant career had met with neither honors nor advancement, and Upton left the service in disgust, carrying away with him only the lingering sufferings of his wound. To suggest to him that his malady had any affinity to any known affection was to outrage him, since the mere supposition would reduce him to a species of equality with some one else, – a thought infinitely worse than any mere physical suffering; and, indeed, to avoid this shocking possibility, he vacillated as to the locality of his disorder, making it now in the lung, now in the heart, at one time in the bronchial tubes, at another in the valves of the aorta. It was his pleasure to consult for this complaint every great physician of Europe, and not alone consult, but commit himself to their direction, and this with a credulity which he could scarcely have summoned in any other cause.

      It was difficult to say how far he himself believed in this disorder, – the pressure of any momentous event, the necessity of action, never finding him unequal to any effort, no matter how onerous. Give him a difficulty, – a minister to outwit, a secret scheme to unravel, a false move to profit by, – and he rose above all his pulmonary symptoms, and could exert himself with a degree of power and perseverance that very few men could equal, none surpass. Indeed it seemed as though he kept this malady for the pastime of idle hours, as other men do a novel or a newspaper, but would never permit it to interfere with the graver business of life.

      We have, perhaps, been prolix in our description; but we have felt it the more requisite to be thus diffuse, since the studious simplicity which marked all his manner might have deceived our reader, and which the impression of his mere words have failed to convey.

      “You will be glad to hear Upton is in England, Glen-core,” said Harcourt, as the sick man was assisted to his seat in the library, “and, what is more, intends to pay you a visit.”

      “Upton coming here!” exclaimed Glencore, with an expression of mingled astonishment and confusion; “how do you know that?”

      “He writes me from Long’s to say that he ‘ll be with us by Friday, or, if not, by Saturday.”

      “What a miserable place to receive him!” exclaimed Glencore.

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