CHAPTER I.

A king

Upon whose property...

A damn'd defeat was made.

A king

Of shreds and patches.

The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more? Hamlet.

MY son,” said The Macnamara with an air of grandeur, “my son, you've forgotten what's due”—he pronounced it “jew”—“to yourself, what's due to your father, what's due to your forefathers that bled,” and The Macnamara waved his hand gracefully; then, taking advantage of its proximity to the edge of the table, he made a powerful but ineffectual attempt to pull himself to his feet. Finding himself baffled by the peculiar formation of his chair, and not having a reserve of breath to draw upon for another exertion, he concealed his defeat under a pretence of feeling indifferent on the matter of rising, and continued fingering the table-edge as if endeavouring to read the initials which had been carved pretty deeply upon the oak by a humorous guest just where his hand rested. “Yes, my son, you've forgotten the blood of your ancient sires. You forget, my son, that you're the offspring of the Macnamaras and the O'Dermots, kings of Munster in the days when there were kings, and when the Geralds were walking about in blue paint in the woods of the adjacent barbarous island of Britain”—The Macnamara said “barbarious.”

“The Geralds have been at Suanmara for four hundred years,” said Standish quickly, and in the tone of one resenting an aspersion.

“Four hundred years!” cried The Macnamara scornfully. “Four hundred years! What's four hundred years in the existence of a family?” He felt that this was the exact instant for him to rise grandly to his feet, so once more he made the essay, but without a satisfactory result. As a matter of fact, it is almost impossible to release oneself from the embrace of a heavy oak chair when the seat has been formed of light cane, and this cane has become tattered.

“I don't care about the kings of Munster—no, not a bit,” said Standish, taking a mean advantage of the involuntary captivity of his father to insult him.

“I'm dead sick hearing about them. They never did anything for me.”

The Macnamara threw back his head, clasped his hands over his bosom, and gazed up to the cobwebs of the oak ceiling. “My sires—shades of the Macnamaras and the O'Dermots, visit not the iniquity of the children upon the fathers,” he exclaimed. And then there came a solemn pause which the hereditary monarch felt should impress his son deeply; but the son was not deceived into fancying that his father was overcome with emotion; he knew very well that his father was only thinking how with dignity he could extricate himself from his awkward chair, and so he was not deeply affected. “My boy, my boy,” the father murmured in a weak voice, after his apostrophe to the shades of the ceiling, “what do you mean to do? Keep nothing secret from me, Standish; I'll stand by you to the last.”

“I don't mean to do anything. There is nothing to be done—at least—yet.”

“What's that you say? Nothing to be done? You don't mean to say you've been thrifling with the young-woman's affection? Never shall a son of mine, and the offspring of The Macnamaras and the——”

“How can you put such a question to me?” said the young man indignantly. “I throw back the insinuation in your teeth, though you are my father. I would scorn to trifle with the feelings of any lady, not to speak of Miss Gerald, who is purer than the lily that blooms——”

“In the valley of Shanganagh—that's what you said in the poem, my boy; and it's true, I'm sure.”

“But because you find a scrap of poetry in my writing you fancy that I forget my—my duty—my——”

“Mighty sires, Standish; say the word at once, man. Well, maybe I was too hasty, my boy; and if you tell me that you don't love her now, I'll forgive all.”

“Never,” cried the young man, with the vehemence of a mediaeval burning martyr. “I swear that I love her, and that it would be impossible for me ever to think of any one else.”

“This is cruel—cruel!” murmured The Macnamara, still thinking how he could extricate himself from his uneasy seat. “It is cruel for a father, but it must be borne—it must be borne. If our ancient house is to degenerate to a Saxon's level, I'm not to blame. Standish, my boy, I forgive you. Take your father's hand.”

He stretched out his hand, and the young man took it. The grasp of The Macnamara was fervent—it did not relax until he had accomplished the end he had in view, and had pulled himself to his feet. Standish was about to leave the room, when his father, turning his eyes away from the tattered cane-work of the chair, that now closely resembled the star-trap in a pantomime, cried:

“Don't go yet, sir. This isn't to end here. Didn't you tell me that your affection was set upon this daughter of the Geralds?”

“What is the use of continuing such questions?” cried the young man impatiently. The reiteration by his father of this theme—the most sacred to Standish's ears—was exasperating.

“No son of mine will be let sneak out of an affair like this,” said the hereditary monarch. “We may be poor, sir, poor as a bogtrotter's dog——”

“And we are,” interposed Standish bitterly.

“But we have still the memories of the grand old times to live upon, and the name of Macnamara was never joined with anything but honour. You love that daughter of the Geralds—you've confessed it; and though the family she belongs to is one of these mushroom growths that's springing up around us in three or four hundred years—ay, in spite of the upstart family she belongs to, I'll give my consent to your happiness. We mustn't be proud in these days, my son, though the blood of kings—eh, where do ye mean to be going before I've done?”

“I thought you had finished.”

“Did you? well, you're mistaken. You don't stir from here until you've promised me to make all the amends in your power to this daughter of the Geralds.”

“Amends? I don't understand you.”

“Don't you tell me you love her?”

The refrain which was so delightful to the young man's ears when he uttered it alone by night under the pure stars, sounded terrible when reiterated by his father. But what could he do—his father was now upon his feet?

“What is the use of profaning her name in this fashion?” cried Standish. “If I said I loved her, it was only when you accused me of it and threatened to turn me out of the house.”

“And out of the house you'll go if you don't give me a straightforward answer.”

“I don't care,” cried Standish doggedly. “What is there here that should make me afraid of your threat? I want to be turned out. I'm sick of this place.”

“Heavens! what has come over the boy that he has taken to speaking like this? Are ye demented, my son?”

“No such thing,” said Standish. “Only I have been thinking for the past few days over my position here, and I have come to the conclusion that I couldn't be worse off.”

“You've been thinking, have you?” asked The Macnamara contemptuously. “You depart so far from the traditions of your family? Well, well,” he continued in an altered tone, after a pause, “maybe I've been a bad father to you, Standish, maybe I've neglected my duty; maybe——” here The Macnamara felt for his pocket-handkerchief, and having found it, he waved it spasmodically, and was about to throw himself into his chair when he recollected its defects and refrained, even though he was well aware that he was thereby sacrificing much of the dramatic effect up to which he had been working.

“No, father; I don't want to say that you have been anything but good to me, only——”

“But I say it, my son,” said The Macnamara, mopping his brows earnestly with his handkerchief. “I've been a selfish old man, haven't I, now?”

“No, no, anything but that. You have only been too good. You have given me all I ever wanted—except——”

“Except what? Ah, I know what you mean—except money. Ah, your reproach is bitter—bitter; but I deserve it all, I do.”

“No, father: I did not say that at all.”

“But I'll show you, my boy, that your father can be generous once of a time. You love her, don't you, Standish?”

His father had laid his hand upon his shoulder now, and spoke the words in a sentimental whisper, so that they did not sound so profane as before.

“I worship the ground she treads on,” his son answered, tremulous with eagerness, a girlish blush suffusing his cheeks and invading the curls upon his forehead, as he turned his head away.

“Then I'll show you that I can be generous. You shall have her, Standish Macnamara; I'll give her to you, though she is one of the new families. Put on your hat, my boy, and come out with me.”

“Are you going out?” said Standish.

“I am, so order round the car, if the spring is mended. It should be, for I gave Eugene the cord for it yesterday.”

Standish made a slight pause at the door as if about to put another question to his father; after a moment of thoughtfulness, however, he passed out in silence.

When the door had closed—or, at least, moved upon its hinges, for the shifting some years previously of a portion of the framework made its closing an impossibility—The Macnamara put his hands deep into his pockets, jingling the copper coins and the iron keys that each receptacle contained. It is wonderful what suggestions of wealth may be given by the judicious handling of a few coppers and a bunch of keys, and the imagination of The Macnamara being particularly sanguine, he felt that the most scrupulous moneylender would have offered him at that moment, on the security of his personal appearance and the sounds of his jingling metal, any sum of money he might have named. He rather wished that such a moneylender would drop in. But soon his thoughts changed. The jingling in his pockets became modified, resembling in tone an unsound peal of muffled bells; he shook his head several times.

“Macnamara, my lad, you were too weak,” he muttered to himself. “You yielded too soon; you should have stood out for a while; but how could I stand out when I was sitting in that trap?”

He turned round glaring at the chair which he blamed as the cause of his premature relaxation. He seemed measuring its probable capacities of resistance; and then he raised his right foot and scrutinised the boot that covered it. It was not a trustworthy boot, he knew. Once more he glanced towards the chair, then with a sigh he put his foot down and walked to the window.

Past the window at this instant the car was moving, drawn by a humble-minded horse, which in its turn was drawn by a boy in a faded and dilapidated livery that had evidently been originally made for a remarkably tall man. The length of the garment, though undeniably embarrassing in the region of the sleeves, had still its advantages, not the least of which was the concealment of a large portion of the bare legs of the wearer; it was obvious too that when he should mount his seat, the boy's bare feet would be effectually hidden, and from a livery-wearing standpoint this would certainly be worth consideration.

The Macnamara gave a critical glance through the single transparent pane of the window—the pane had been honoured above its fellows by a polishing about six weeks before—and saw that the defective spring of the vehicle had been repaired. Coarse twine had been employed for this purpose; but as this material, though undoubtedly excellent in its way, and of very general utility, is hardly the most suitable for restoring a steel spring to its original condition of elasticity, there was a good deal of jerkiness apparent in the motion of the car, especially when the wheels turned into the numerous ruts of the drive. The boy at the horse's head was, however, skilful in avoiding the deeper depths, and the animal was also most considerate in its gait, checking within itself any unseemly outburst of spirit and restraining every propensity to break into a trot.

“Now, father, I'm ready,” said Standish, entering with his hat on.

“Has Eugene brushed my hat?” asked The Macnamara.

“My black hat, I mean?”

“I didn't know you were going to wear it today, when you were only taking a drive,” said Standish with some astonishment.

“Yes, my boy, I'll wear the black hat, please God, so get it brushed; and tell him that if he uses the blacking-brush this time I'll have his life.” Standish went out to deliver these messages; but The Mac-namara stood in the centre of the big room pondering over some weighty question.

“I will,” he muttered, as though a better impulse of his nature were in the act of overcoming an unworthy suggestion. “Yes, I will; when I'm wearing the black hat things should be levelled up to that standard; yes, I will.”

Standish entered in a few minutes with his father's hat—a tall, old-fashioned silk hat that had at one time, pretty far remote, been black. The Macnamara put it on carefully, after he had just touched the edges with his coat-cuff to remove the least suspicion of dust; then he strode out followed by his son.

The car was standing at the hall door, and Eugene the driver was beside it, giving a last look to the cordage of the spring. When The Macnamara, however, appeared, he sprang up and touched his forehead, with a smile of remarkable breadth. The Macnamara stood impassive, and in dignified silence, looking first at the horse, then at the car, and finally at the boy Eugene, while Standish remained at the other side. Eugene bore the gaze of the hereditary monarch pretty well on the whole, conscious of the abundance of his own coat. The scrutiny of The Macnamara passed gradually down the somewhat irregular row of buttons until it rested on the protruding bare feet of the boy. Then after another moment of impressive silence, he waved one hand gracefully towards the door, saying:

“Eugene, get on your boots.”