XIII

Mr. Barton could think of nothing but the muscles of the strained back of a dying Briton and a Roman soldier who cut the cords that bound the white captive to the sacrificial oak; but it would be no use returning to the studio until these infernal tenants were settled with, and he loitered about the drawing-room windows looking pale, picturesque, and lymphatic. His lack of interest in his property irritated Mrs. Barton. 'Darling, you must try to get them to take twenty per cent.' At times she strove to prompt the arguments that should be used to induce the tenants to accept the proffered abatement, but she could not detach her thoughts from the terrible interview she was about to go through with Captain Hibbert. She expected him to be violent; he would insist on seeing Olive, and she watched wearily the rain dripping from the wooden edges of the verandah. The last patches of snow melted, and at last a car was seen approaching, closely followed by another bearing four policemen.

'Here's your agent,' exclaimed Mrs. Barton hurriedly. 'Don't bring him in here; go out and meet him, and when you see Captain Hibbert welcome him as cordially as you can. But don't speak to him of Olive, and don't give him time to speak to you; say you are engaged. I don't want Mr. Scully to know anything about this break-off. It is most unfortunate you didn't tell me you were going to meet your tenants to-day. However, it is too late now.'

'Very well, my dear, very well,' said Mr. Barton, trying to find his hat. 'I would, I assure you, give twenty pounds to be out of the whole thing. I can't argue with those fellows about their rents. I think the Government ought to let us fight it out. I should be very glad to take the command of a flying column of landlords, and make a dash into Connemara. I have always thought my military genius more allied to that of Napoleon than to that of Wellington.'

It was always difficult to say how far Mr. Barton believed in the extravagant remarks he was in the habit of giving utterance to. He seemed to be aware of their absurdity, without, however, relinquishing all belief in their truth. And now, as he picked his way across the wet stones, his pale hair blown about in the wind, he presented a strange contrast with the short-set man who had just jumped down from the car, his thick legs encased in gaiters, and a long ulster about them.

'Howd' yer do, Barton?' he exclaimed. 'D'yer know that I think things are gitting worse instid of bither. There's been another bailiff shot in Mayo, and we've had a process-server nearly beaten to death down our side of the counthry. Gad! I was out with the Sub-Sheriff and fifty police thrying to serve notices on Lord Rosshill's estate, and we had to come back as we wint. Such blawing of horns you niver heard in yer life. The howle counthry was up, and they with a trench cut across the road as wide as a canal.'

'Well, what do you think we had better do with these fellows? Do you think they will take the twenty per cent.?'

''Tis impossible to say. Gad! the Lague is gittin' stronger ivery day, Barton. But they ought to take it; twenty per cent. will bring it very nearly to Griffith's.'

'But if they don't take it?'

'Well, I don't know what we will do, for notices it is impossible to serve. Gad! I'll never forgit how we were pelted the other day—such firing of stones, such blawing of horns! I think you'll have to give them the thirty; but we'll thry them at twinty-foive.'

'And if they won't take it—?'

'What! the thirty? They'll take that and jumping, you needn't fear. Here they come.'

Turning, the two men watched the twenty or thirty peasants who, with heads set against the gusts, advanced steadily up the avenue, making way for a horseman; and from the drawing-room window Mrs. Barton recognized the square-set shoulders of Captain Hibbert. After shaking hands and speaking a few words with Mr. Barton, he trotted round to the stables; and when he walked back and entered the house, in all the clean-cut elegance of military boots and trousers, the peasants lifted their hats, and the interview began.

'Now, boys,' said Mr. Barton, who thought that a little familiarity would not be inappropriate, 'I've asked you to meet me so that we might come to some agreement about the rents. We've known each other a long time, and my family has been on this estate I don't know for how many generations. Therefore—why, of course, I should be very sorry if we had any falling out. I don't know much about farming, but I hear everyone say that this has been a capital year, and . . . I think I cannot do better than to make you again the same offer as I made you before—that is to say, of twenty per cent, abatement all round; that will bring your rents down to Griffith's valuation.'

Mr. Barton had intended to be very impressive, but, feeling that words were betraying him, he stopped short, and waited anxiously to hear what answer the peasant who had stepped forward would make. The old man began by removing a battered tall-hat, out of which fell a red handkerchief. The handkerchief was quickly thrown back into the crown, and, at an intimation from Mr. Barton, hat and handkerchief were replaced upon the white head. He then commenced:

'Now, yer honour, the rints is too high; we cannot pay the present rint, at least without a reduction. I have been a tinent on the property, and my fathers before me, for the past fifty years. And it was in forty-three that the rints was ruz—in the time of your father, the Lord have mercy on his soul!—but he had an agent who was a hard man, and he ruz the rints, and since then we have been in poverty, livin' on yaller mail and praties, and praties that is watery; there is no diet in them, yer honour. And if yer honour will come down and walk the lands yerself, yer wi' see I am spaking the truth. We ask nothing better than yer should walk the lands yerself. There is two acres of my land, yer honour, flooded for three months of the year, and for that land I am paying twenty-five shillings an acre. I have my receipts, paid down to the last gale-day.'

And, still speaking, the old man fumbled in his pockets and produced a large pile of papers, which he strove to push into Mr. Barton's hand, alluding all the while to the losses he had sustained. Two pigs had died on him, and he had lost a fine mare and foal. His loquacity was, however, cut short by a sturdy, middle-aged peasant standing next him.

'And I, too, yer honour, am payin' five-and-twenty shillin's for the same flooded land. Yer honour can come down any day and see it. It is not worth, to me, more than fifteen shillings an acre at the bare outside. But it could be drained, for there is a fall into the marin stream betwixt your honour's property and the Miss Brennans'. It wouldn't cost more than forty pound, and the Miss Brennans will pay half if yer honour will pay the other.'

Mr. Barton listened patiently to those peasant-like digressions, while Mrs. Barton listened patiently to the Captain's fervid declarations of love. He had begun by telling her of the anguish it had caused him to have been denied, and three times running, admittance to Brookfield. One whole night he had lain awake wondering what he had done to offend them. Mrs. Barton could imagine how he had suffered, for she, he ventured to say, must have long since guessed what were his feelings for her daughter.

'We were very sorry to have been out, and it is so unusual that we should be,' said Mrs. Barton, leaning forward her face insinuatingly. 'But you were speaking of Olive. We say here that there is no one like le beau capitaine, no one so handsome, no one so nice, no one so gallant, and—and—' here Mrs. Barton laughed merrily, for she thought the bitterness of life might be so cunningly wrapped up in sweet compliments that both could be taken together, like sugared-medicine—in one child-like gulp. 'There is, of course, no one I should prefer to le beau capitaine—there is no one to whom I would confide my Olive more willingly; but, then, one must look to other things; one cannot live entirely on love, even if it be the love of a beau capitaine.'

Nevertheless, the man's face darkened. The eyebrows contracted, the straight white nose seemed to grow straighter, and he twirled his moustache angrily.

'I am aware, my dear Mrs. Barton, that I cannot give your daughter the position I should like to, but I am not as poor as you seem to imagine. Independent of my pay I have a thousand a year; Miss Barton has, if I be not mistaken, some money of her own; and, as I shall get my majority within the next five years, I may say that we shall begin life upon something more than fifteen hundred a year.'

'It is true that I have led you to believe that Olive has money, but Irish money can be no longer counted upon. Were Mr. Barton to create a charge on his property, how would it be possible for him to guarantee the payment of the interest in such times as the present? We are living on the brink of a precipice. We do not know what is, and what is not, our own. The Land League is ruining us, and the Government will not put it down; this year the tenants may pay at twenty per cent. reduction, but next year they may refuse to pay at all. Look out there: you see they are making their own terms with Mr. Barton.'

'I should be delighted to give you thirty per cent. if I could afford it,' said Mr. Barton, as soon as the question of reduction, that had been lost sight of in schemes for draining, and discussion concerning bad seasons, had been re-established; 'but you must remember that I have to pay charges, and my creditors won't wait any more than yours will. If you refuse to pay your rents and I get sold out, you will have another landlord here; you'll ruin me, but you won't do yourselves any good. You will have some Englishman here who will make you pay your rents.'

'An Englishman here!' exclaimed a peasant. 'Arrah! he'll go back quicker than he came.'

'Maybe he wouldn't go back at all,' cried another, chuckling. 'We'd make an Oirishman of him for ever.'

'Begad, we'd make him wear the grane in raal earnest, and, a foine scraw it would be,' said a third.

The witticism was greeted with a roar of laughter, and upon this expression of a somewhat verdant patriotism the dispute concerning the reduction was resumed.

'Give us the land all round at the Government valuation,' said a man in the middle of the group.

'Why, you are only fifteen per cent. above the valuation,' cried Mr.
Scully.

For a moment this seemed to create a difference of opinion among the peasants; but the League had drawn them too firmly together to be thus easily divided. They talked amongst themselves in Irish. Then the old man said:

'We can't take less than thirty, yer honour. The Lague wouldn't let us.'

'I can't give you more than twenty.'

'Thin let us come on home, thin; no use us wasting our toime here,' cried a sturdy peasant, who, although he had spoken but seldom, seemed to exercise an authority over the others. With one accord they followed him; but, rushing forward, Mr. Scully seized him by the arm, saying:

'Now then, boys, come back, come back; he'll settle with you right enough if you'll listen to reason.'

From the drawing-room window Mrs. Barton watched the conflict. On one side she saw her daughter's beautiful white face becoming the prize of a penniless officer; on the other she saw the pretty furniture, the luxurious idleness, the very silk dress on her back, being torn from them, and distributed among a crowd of Irish-speaking, pig-keeping peasants. She could see that some new and important point was being argued; and it was with a wrench she detached her thoughts from the pantomime that was being enacted within her view, and, turning to Captain Hibbert, said:

'You see—you see what is happening. We are—that is to say, we may be—ruined at any moment by this wicked agitation. As I have said before, there is no one I should like so much as yourself; but, in the face of such a future, how could I consent to give you my daughter?—that is to say, I could not unless you could settle at least a thousand a year upon her. She has been brought up in every luxury.'

'That may be, Mrs. Barton. I hope to give her quite as comfortable a home as any she has been accustomed to. But a thousand a year is impossible. I haven't got it. But I can settle five hundred on her, and there's many a peeress of the realm who hasn't that. Of course five hundred a year is very little. No one feels it more than I. For had I the riches of the world, I should not consider them sufficient to create a place worthy of Olive's beauty. But love must be allowed to count for something, and I think—yes, I can safely say—she will never find—'

'Yes, I know—I am sure; but it cannot be.'

'Then you mean to say that you will sacrifice your daughter's happiness for the sake of a little wretched pride?'

'Why press the matter further? Why cannot we remain friends?'

'Friends! Yes, I hope we shall remain friends; but I will never consent to give up Olive. She loves me. I know she does. My life is bound up in hers. No, I'll never consent to give her up, and I know she won't give me up.'

'Olive has laughed and flirted with you, but it was only pour passer le temps; and I may as well tell you that you are mistaken when you think that she loves you.'

'Olive does love me. I know she does; and I'll not believe she does not—at least, until she tells me so. I consider I am engaged to her; and I must beg of you, Mrs. Barton, to allow me to see her and hear from her own lips what she has to say on this matter.'

With the eyes of one about to tempt fortune adventurously, like one about to play a bold card for a high stake, Mrs. Barton looked on the tall, handsome man before her; and, impersonal as were her feelings, she could not but admire, for the space of one swift thought, the pale aristocratic face now alive with passion. Could she depend upon Olive to say no to him? The impression of the moment was that no girl would. Nevertheless, she must risk the interview, and gliding towards the door, she called; and then, as a cloud that grows bright in the sudden sunshine, the man's face glowed with delight at the name, and a moment after, white and drooping like a cut flower, the girl entered. Captain Hibbert made a movement as if he were going to rush forward to meet her. She looked as if she would have opened her arms to receive him, but Mrs. Barton's words fell between them like a sword.

'Olive,' she said, 'I hear you are engaged to Captain Hibbert! Is it true?'

Startled in the drift of her emotions, and believing her confidence had been betrayed, the girl's first impulse was to deny the impeachment. No absolute promise of marriage had she given him, and she said:

'No, mamma, I am not engaged. Did Edward—I mean Captain Hibbert—say I was engaged to him? I am sure—'

'Didn't you tell me, Olive, that you loved me better than anyone else? Didn't you even say you could never love anyone else? If I had thought that—'

'I knew my daughter would not have engaged herself to you, Captain Hibbert, without telling me of it. As I have told you before, we all like you very much, but this marriage is impossible; and I will never consent, at least for the present, to an engagement between you.'

'Olive, have you nothing to say? I will not give you up unless you tell me yourself that I must do so.'

'Oh, mamma, what shall I do?' said Olive, bursting into a passionate flood of tears.

'Say what I told you to say,' whispered Mrs. Barton.

'You see, Edward, that mamma won't consent, at least not for the present, to our engagement.'

This was enough for Mrs. Barton's purpose, and, soothing her daughter with many words, she led her to the door. Then, confronting Captain Hibbert, she said:

'There is never any use in forcing on these violent scenes. As I have told you, there is no one I should prefer to yourself. We always say here that there is no one like le beau capitaine; but, in the face of these bad times, how can I give you my daughter? And you soldiers forget so quickly. In a year's time you'll have forgotten all about Olive.'

'That isn't true; I shall never forget her. I cannot forget her; but I will consent to wait if you will consent to our being engaged.'

'No, Captain Hibbert, I think it is better not. I do not approve of those long engagements.'

'Then you'll forget what has passed between us, and let us be the same friends as we were before?'

'I hope we shall always remain friends; but I do not think, for my daughter's peace of mind, it would be advisable for us to see as much of each other as we have hitherto done. And I hope you will promise me not to communicate with my Olive in any way.'

'Why should I enter into promises with you, Mrs. Barton, when you decline to enter into any with me?'

Mrs. Barton did not look as if she intended to answer this question. The conversation had fallen, and her thoughts had gone back to the tenants and the reduction that Mr. Scully was now persuading them to accept. He talked apart, first with one, then with another. His square bluff figure in a long coarse ulster stood out in strong relief against the green grass and the evergreens.

'Thin it is decided yer pay at twinty-foive per cint.,' said Mr. Scully.

'Then, Captain Hibbert,' said Mrs. Barton a little sternly, 'I am very sorry indeed, that we can't agree; but, after what has passed between us to-day, I do not think you will be justified in again trying to see my daughter.'

'Begad, sor, they were all aginst me for agraying to take the twinty-foive,' whispered the well-to-do tenant who was talking to the agent.

'I fail to understand,' said Captain Hibbert haughtily, 'that Miss Barton said anything that would lead me to suppose that she wished me to give her up. However, I do not see that anything would be gained by discussing this matter further. Good-morning, Mrs. Barton.'

'Good-morning, Captain Hibbert;' and Mrs. Barton smiled winningly as she rang the bell for the servant to show him out. When she returned to the window the tenants were following Mr. Scully into the rent-office, and, with a feeling of real satisfaction she murmured to herself:

'Well, after all, nothing ever turns out as badly as we expect it.'