mirror over the fireplace, and stood gazing for a few seconds at his blotched and bloated countenance.
“A year or two left still, belike,” muttered he. “Past insuring, but still seaworthy, or, at least”—and here his voice assumed an intense mockery in tone—“at least, capable of more shipwreck!” The sight of the writing-materials on the table seemed to recall him to something he had half forgotten, and, after a pause of reflection, he arranged the paper before him and sat down to write.
With the ease of one to whom composition was familiar, he dashed off a somewhat long letter; but though he wrote with great rapidity, he recurred from time to time to the whiskey-bottle, drinking the strong spirits undiluted, and, to all seeming, unmoved by its potency. “There,” cried he, as he finished, “I have scuttled my own ship; let's see what will come of it.”
He called for the landlord to give him wax and a seal. Neither were to be had, and he was fain to put up with a wafer. The letter closed and addressed, he set out homewards; scarcely, however, beyond the outskirts of the village, than he turned away from the coast and took the road towards the Rectory. It was now the early evening, one of those brief seasons when the wind lulls and a sort of brief calm supervenes in the boisterous climate of northern Ireland. Along the narrow lane he trod, tall foxgloves and variegated ferns grew luxuriantly, imparting a half-shade to a scene usually desolate and bare; and Layton lingered along it as though its calm seclusion soothed him. At last he found himself at a low wall, over which a stile led to a little woodland path. It was the Rectory; who could mistake its trim neatness, the order and elegance which pervaded all its arrangements? Taking this path, he walked leisurely onward, till he came to a small flower-garden, into which three windows opened, their sashes reaching to the ground. While yet uncertain whether to advance or retire, he heard Ogden's sharp voice from within the room. His tone was loud, and had the vibration of one speaking in anger. “Even on your own showing, Millar, another reason for getting rid of him. You can't be ambitious, I take it, of newspaper notoriety, or a controversy in the public papers. Now, Layton is the very man to drag you into such a conflict. Ask for no explanations, inquire for no reasons, but dismiss him by an act of your board. Your colonel there is the chairman; he could n't refuse what you insist upon, and the thing will be done without your prominence in it.”
Millar murmured a reply, but Layton turned away without listening to it, and made for the hall door. “Give this to your master,” said he, handing the letter to the servant, and turned away.
The last flickerings of twilight guided him down the steep path of the cliff, and, wearied and tired, he reached home.
“What a wearisome day you must have had, Herbert!” said his wife, as she stooped for the hat and cane he had thrown beside him on sitting down.
“I must n't complain, Grace,” said he, with a sad sort of smile. “It is the last of such fatigues.”
“How, or what do you mean?” asked she, eagerly.
“I have given it up. I have resigned my charge of the dispensary. Don't ask any reasons, girl,” broke he in, hastily, “for I scarcely know them myself. All I can tell you is, it is done.”
“I have no doubt you were right, Herbert,” began she. “I feel assured—”
“Do you? Then, by Heaven! you have a greater confidence in me than I have in myself. I believe I was more than two parts drunk when I did it, but doubtless the thought will sober me when I awake to-morrow morning; till when, I do not mean to think of it.”
“You have not eaten, I 'm sure.”
“I cannot eat just yet, Grace; give me a cup of tea, and leave me. I shall be better alone for a while.”
CHAPTER XI. A REMITTANCE
“A letter—a long letter from Alfred,” said Layton's wife, as she knocked at his door on the following morning. “It has been lying for four days at the office in Coleraine. Only think, Herbert, and I fretting and fretting over his silence.”
“Is he well?” asked he, half gruffly.
“Quite well, and so happy; in the midst of kind friends, and enjoying himself, as he says he thought impossible when absent from his home. Pray read it, Herbert. It will do you infinite good to see how cheerfully he writes.”
“No, no; it is enough that I know the boy is well. As to being happy, it is the affair of an hour, or a day, with the luckiest of us.”
“There are so many kind messages to you, and so many anxious inquiries about the laboratory. But you must read them. And then there is a bank order he insists upon your having. Poor fellow! the first money he has ever earned—”
“How much is it, Grace?” asked he, eagerly.
“It is for twenty pounds, Herbert,” said she, in a faltering accent, which, even weak as it was, vibrated with something like reproach.
“Never could it be more welcome,” said he, carelessly. “It was thoughtful, too, of the boy; just as if he had known all that has happened here.” And with this he opened the door, taking hurriedly from her hand the letter and the money-order. “No; not this. I do not want his letter,” said he, handing it back to her, while he muttered over the lines of the bank check. “Why did he not say—or order?” said he, half angrily. “This necessitates my going to Coleraine myself to receive it. It seems that I was overrating his thoughtfulness, after all.”
“Oh, Herbert!” said she, pressing both her hands over her heart, as though an acute pain shot through it.
“I meant what I have said,” said he, roughly; “he might have bethought him what are twelve weary miles of road to one like me, as well as that my clothes are not such as suit appearance in the streets of a town. It was not thoughtful of him, Grace.”
“The poor dear boy's first few pounds; all that he could call his own—”
“I know that,” broke he in, harshly; “and in what other way could they have afforded him a tithe of the pleasure? It was a wise selfishness suggested the act; that is all you can say of it.”
“Oh, but let me read you how gracefully and delicately he has done it, Herbert; how mindful he was not to wound one sentiment—”
“'Pay to Herbert Layton, Esquire,'” read he, half aloud, and not heeding her speech. “He ought to have added 'M. D.'; it is as 'the doctor' they should know me down here. Well, it has come right opportunely, at all events. I believe I was the owner of some fifteen shillings in the world.”
A deep, tremulous sigh was all her answer.
“Fifteen and ninepence,” muttered he, as he counted over the pieces in his hand. “Great must be the self-reliance of the man who, with such a sum for all his worldly wealth, insults his patrons and resigns his office—eh, Grace?”
There was in his tone a blended mockery and seriousness that he often used, and which, by the impossibility of answering, always distressed her greatly.
“It is clear you do not think so,” said he, harshly. “It is evident you take the vulgar view of the incident, and condemn the act as one dictated by ill temper and mere resentment. The world is always more merciful than one's own fireside, and the world will justify me.”
“When you have satisfied your own conscience, Herbert—”
“I'll take good care to make no such appeal,” broke he in. “Besides,” added he, with a bitter levity, “men like myself have not one, but fifty consciences. Their after-dinner conscience is not their waking one next morning; their conscience in the turmoil and bustle of life is not their conscience as they lie out there on the white rocks, listening to the lazy plash of the waves.