Hungry Hill Read Free Page A

“but luckily it was discovered in time, and no harm done. The whole affair must have been inspired by some of the dregs of the people, and whoever was responsible will be brought to justice. There was talk of little else in Slane, needless to say. It will have some effect at the elections.”
    “And is Mr. Hare to stand for the County again?” asked Henry.
    “I understand so. Which reminds me, Henry, there is something you can do on the occasion. You can tell all my freeholders to hold themselves ready to vote as I wish them, and if any should absent themselves on the day without valid excuse of ill-health, he will find himself without a roof over his head.”
    “I can vouch for one or two,” laughed Henry, “who will find themselves stricken with fever when the time comes, and the priest by the bedside.”
    “The Reverend Father will keep himself scarce, and out of trouble, if he has any sense,” said John Brodrick, and he took his place at the head of the table.
    The empty chair by his side caused him to frown.
    “John is late again,” he said. “Did he not know I was returning?”
    “I believe he went across to the island,” said Barbara swiftly. “He wanted to arrange a day’s shooting with one of the officers in the garrison.
    Perhaps he has had some difficulty in bringing the boat back.”
    “I will not stand unpunctuality from anyone, and certainly not from a nineteen-year-old boy,” said her father. “Clonmere is not Andriff Castle, and I have not the careless go-as-you-please temperament of Simon Flower.
    You can all of you remember that. Kindly teach your brother better manners, Henry. I thought civility the least you would learn at Eton and Oxford.”
    “I’m sorry, sir,” said Henry, exchanging a glance with his sister.
    “John has never had any idea of time,” complained Brodrick’s second daughter Eliza, who thought, by seeming to side with her father, to find some favour. “He was still fast asleep at breakfast this morning -Thomas had to call him twice.”
    The unfortunate John, entering at this moment, found all eyes upon him in sympathy, excluding Eliza’s and his father’s, and, hastily making his excuses and flushing scarlet as he did so, he took his seat at the table and added to the misery by spilling the gravy on the cloth.
    “Curious,” observed his father drily, “how a prolonged stay in this country makes a boor of a fellow, so that he dribbles his very food. Your friends at Brasenose College would hardly recognise you. However, let us talk of other things. Thomas, you may leave us. Master Henry and Master John will wait upon the ladies. No, the fact of the matter is,” he said deliberately, looking round at his children, when the servant had left the room, “I have something to tell you all, concerning the future.”
    He laid his knife and fork upon his plate, smiling at Henry as though in confirmation of some previous conversation, while the rest of his family waited for him to continue.
    It was a proud moment for John Brodrick. For months now, ever since the possibility of extracting the copper from Hungry Hill had become a certainty in his mind, he had thought and dreamt of little else. He had set himself the task of breaking down the apathy and mistrust of his neighbouring landlord with determination, for he knew that his capital alone would not cover the initial expenses. Besides which, the actual site of the mine was not entirely his possession. Part of the lands of Hungry Hill belonged to the Duncroom estate of Robert Lumley, and without his consent to form the company the mine could not be started. And at last old Robert Lumley had signed the agreement, and the work could begin. It was not, John Brodrick told himself, as he gazed proudly upon his young family, that he wanted a fortune for himself or for them. The money would come, he knew that, he took it for granted. Henry would live in comfort at Clonmere after him, and Henry’s children. He would buy more