Trevannion

“ Miss Trevannion, I have dared—to love you; I have but one excuse to offer, which is, that I have been more than a year in your company, and it is impossible for any one not to love one so pure, so beautiful, and so good. I would have postponed this avowal till I was able to resume my position in society, by the means which industry might have afforded me; but my departure upon this business, and the kind of presentiment which I have, that I may not see you again, has forced it from me. ”

“ Since that I have accepted the command of a vessel, for the idea of being captain was too flattering to my vanity to permit me to refuse; but reflection has again decided me not to engage in it further. I hope this communication will not displease you, Mr. Trevannion. If I am wrong in my opinion at all events I am sincere, for I am giving up my only source of livelihood from a sense of duty.”
“I know that you are sincere, Elrington,” replied Mr. Trevannion, “but at the same time I think that you are much too strait-laced in your opinions. ”

“ Trevannion’s displeasure to gain her approbation; and when I resumed my seat at my desk, and thought of what had passed, I made up my mind to be once more an outcast in the world rather than swerve from the promise which I had made to her. I knew Mr. Trevannion [Pg 130] to be a very decided man, and hasty when offended. ”

“ You may assure yourself that good-will shall never be wanting on my part, and I shall work day and night, if required, to prove my gratitude for so kind an offer.”
“Then, it is settled,” said Mr Trevannion; “but what are we to do with your brother Philip?”
“He thinks for himself, Sir, and does not agree with me on the question in point. Of course, I have no right to insist that my scruples should be his; indeed, I fear that I should have little chance in persuading him, as he is so fond of a life of adventure. It is natural in one so young. ”

“ Trevannion had treated me with harshness and ingratitude.
“Alas!” thought I, “such is the world, and such will ever be the case with such imperfect beings as we are. How vain to expect anything like consistency, much less perfection, in our erring natures! Hurt but the self-love of a man, wound his vanity, and all obligations are forgotten.”
I turned away from the bag of money, which I was resolved not to accept, although I had not at the time twenty guineas at my own disposal. ”

“ Let us put ourselves in his place.”
“A very desirable position; rather too much for imagination,” remarked Trevannion.
“It is a miserable position,” said Hamilton; “therefore we should do well to endeavor to help him out of it. I have no doubt if we had been once in so painful a situation, we should not have considered ourselves as hopeless or irremediable characters—nor is he; he is quite overcome to-night because all have not been quite such savages as he expected.” ”

“ Garstin quickly found more questions to put on other points, more criticisms of Trevannion's replies. The latter at first made desperate efforts to crush him by assuming the calm superiority of the older hand. But with Garstin's logic it was useless to be calm. It was worse than useless to try to be superior. The intruder stuck to his guns with respectful pertinacity. Perhaps the fire had warmed his brain into unwonted activity; Trevannion found himself wondering whether this was so, or whether it was a normal state—the last thought was horrible! ”

“ Thought you'd better hear of it, sir."
"Quite right," said Trevannion judicially. It was a common enough story on the wharf, and he had heard it before without paying much attention, but now—he glanced at the slight figure beside him, who evidently required as many object-lessons as could be given—and decided that here lay the opportunity for giving Lesson No. 2. "Pay O'Donnell and sack him," he commanded.
"Very good, sir," said the ganger, moving away.
"That's the way we have to treat our fellows here," said Trevannion. "Summary justice, you know. ”

“ Trevannion’s counting-house. After dinner, as we, as usual, were smoking our pipes, Mr. Trevannion said: “Elrington, you have been with me now one year, and during that time you have made yourself fully master of your business;—much to my surprise, I acknowledge, but still more to my satisfaction. That I have every reason to be satisfied with you, you may imagine, when I tell you that it is now my intention to take you into partnership, and I trust by my so doing that you will soon be an independent man. You know the capital in the business as well as I do. ”

“ Trevannion prevented my reply. We had been waiting for his return from a walk, and dinner had been ready some time. “I have just seen some of the men of the Arrow,” said Mr. Trevannion, taking off his hat and spencer, “and that detained me.”
“Has Captain Levee arrived, then, Sir?” said I.
“No; but he has sent in a prize—of no great value—laden with light wares. The men in charge tell me he has had a rough affair with a vessel armed en flute, and that he has lost some men. Your brother Philip, as usual, is wounded.” ”

“ Trevannion proposes to take me into Partnership, but I decline the offer from conscientious motives—Miss Trevannion treats me with unmerited coldness—This and her Father’s anger make me resolve to quit the House—What I overhear and see before my departure—The Ring.
You may now behold me in a very different position, my dear Madam; instead of the laced hat and hanger at my side, imagine me in a plain suit of gray with black buttons, and a pen behind my ear; instead of walking the deck and balancing to the motion of the vessel, I am now perched immoveably upon a high stool ”

“ Trevannion had suggested keeping “in shore” and under the shadow of the tree-tops.
“No use,” said the tapuyo; “in ten minutes more there will be light over the water. We’ll be seen all the same, and by following the line of the forest we should give our pursuers the advantage; they, by keeping straight across, would easily overtake us. The trees go round in a circle, don’t you see?”
“True,” replied Trevannion; “I did not think of that. It is to be hoped we shall not have pursuers.”
“If we have they will soon come up with us, for they have more paddles, and are better skilled in the use of them ”

“ His slow peasant brain was working.
'If a body had ever heard of such a thing afore as bows and arrows to get a man out of gaol,' he said, after a while, 'I'd have some patience thinking on it.'
'By the mercy of Providence,' retorted the old lady, her eyes flashing in her angular old face, ''tis not every day in the week that a lad like Roger Trevannion lies within an hour of death, as you might say, and no help forthcoming. Extreme cases need extreme measures. For my part, I am willing to take all risks to help my niece. ”

“ Trevannion, in a very sarcastic tone, ‘that I shall not be able to find any one to replace you in this moral age, Captain Levee; but I will try.’
“‘Sir,’ I replied, ‘I will now answer your sarcasm. There is some excuse for ignorant seamen before the mast, who enter on board of privateers; they are indifferent to blood and carnage, and their feelings are blunted: there is some excuse even for decayed gentlemen like me, Mr. Trevannion (for I am a gentleman born) , who, to obtain a maintenance without labour, risk their lives and shed their blood ”

“ The water was rough, and he judged from the clumsy way in which Garstin handled his oar and his apparent powerlessness to impart vigour to the stroke that muscular development had not formed part of his education. Trevannion stood six-foot-one in his stockings, and his frame was well knit with muscles that were supple as well as strong; naturally, he believed that physical fitness was essential to a good engineer, especially to an engineer in charge of a rather rough crew of workmen. ”

“ Trevannion’s affairs, I found, were much more extensive than I had imagined. He had the two privateers, two vessels on the coast of Africa trading for ivory and gold-dust and other articles, two or three vessels employed in trading to Virginia for tobacco and other produce, and some smaller vessels engaged in the Newfoundland fisheries, which, when they had taken in their cargo, ran to the Mediterranean to dispose of it, and returned with Mediterranean produce to Liverpool. That he was a very wealthy man, independent of his large stakes upon the seas, was certain. ”

“ There is a sermon, Sir, for you from a captain of a privateer, and I now wish you good morning.’ I then got up, and, making a profound bow, I quitted the room before Mr Trevannion made any reply, and here I am. Now all we have to do is to wait quietly, and see what takes place; but first, I shall go on board the Arrow, and let them know that I have quarrelled with the owner. The men are not very well pleased as it is with their want of success these two last voyages, and it will require but little to blow up the discontent into a mutiny. Come, Philip, I shall want you to assist me. ”

“ Thereupon Garstin, with the one idea of rescuing Trevannion in his mind, hurried off to the watchman's hut—only to find that the fellow had left his post. However, he discovered there a lantern and a coil of rope, and, taking these, he returned to Section D, resolved to attempt the rescue by himself. Having shouted and received [Pg 102] a reply, he hitched one end of the rope to a beam, and was about to lower himself down, when he discovered that the rope was so badly frayed in its centre that it could not be trusted to bear even his slight weight. ”

“ One of the white men appeared to be, and was, the proprietor of the montaria, and the employer of its swarthy crew. He was Ralph Trevannion.
The young girl was his daughter, and bore her Peruvian mother’s name, Rosa, more often pronounced by its diminutive of endearment, Rosita. The younger of the two boys—also of dark complexion—was his son Ralph; while the older, of true Saxon physiognomy and hue, was the son of his brother, also bearing his father’s Christian name, Richard. ”

“ A third was slowly trundling a wheelbarrow full of sand towards them. Trevannion took in these details in a flash—and realised their significance. Here was an easy chance of shaming Garstin before the gang, of convicting him of rank and unprofessional [Pg 94] cowardice, of getting his own back again from the office-desk theoretician, yet—an uncontrollable impulse of generosity prevented his seizing it. He stepped on to the bank and stood beside the fear-struck figure.
"You must come on," he said in a whisper that was little more than a breath. "Pull yourself together. I'll hold you." ”

“ We may be pursued, overtaken, and still get off in the end. They may not like close quarters any more than we. That, you see, depends on how many of their vessels are gone to the bottom, and how many are still afloat. If more than half that were scuttled have sunk, we may dread their arrows more than their oars. If more than half are above water, we shall be in more danger from their speed.”
Notwithstanding the enigmatical character of the tapuyo’s speeches, Trevannion, as well as the others, was able to understand them. ”

“ I do not know. No doubt a stranger, who has more money than judgment. I am sorry for this; I am indeed; and if there were any chance of getting metal out of the earth I could have transferred your mortgages with the greatest ease. As it is—but there, I won't talk of it. As for my own little bond on the Towers, that may remain till Doomsday so far as I am concerned. It would cut me to the heart to see the old place in the hands of any one but a Trevanion."
"You're a good fellow, Trevenick," said the Squire, "and I'm grateful to you."
"Not at all, not at all, my dear sir. ”

“ Now, Trevanion had established a high reputation at the University; but less as a scholar, though a pretty fair one, than as a man to rise in life. Every faculty he had was an energy. He aimed at everything: lost some things, gained others. He was a great speaker in a debating society, a member of some politico-economical club. He was an eternal talker,—brilliant, various, paradoxical, florid; different from what he is now, for, dreading fancy, his career since has been one effort to curb it. ”

“ There could not in the world be a stronger contrast to the bland look and courteous expression of Trevanion's handsome features, than the savage scowl of the enraged Frenchman, in whose features the strong and ill-repressed workings of passion were twitching and distorting every lineament and line; indeed no words could ever convey one half so forcibly as did that look, insult—open, palpable, deep, determined insult. ”

“ I have no doubt the horses thrived all the better for it. What Trevanion wants is a concert once a week. With him it is always saddle and spur. Yet, after all, who would not envy him? If life be a drama, his name stands high in the play-bill, and is printed in capitals on the walls.”
“Envy me!” said Trevanion,—“Me! No, you are the enviable man,—you, who have only one grief in the world, and that so absurd a one that I will make you blush by disclosing it. Hear, O sage Austin! ”

“ But fast as Trevanion went, one went as fast. This [438] was a young Greek who had ridden from Salona to Missolonghi with one Lambro, primate of Argos. Beneath the beard and Suliote attire he recognized Trevanion, and his brain leaped to fire with the memory of a twin sister and the fearful fate of the sack to which she had once been abandoned. From an ambush below the entrance of Ulysses’ cave, he shot his enemy through the heart. ”