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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lord Kilgobbin + +Author: Charles Lever + +Release Date: August 14, 2004 [EBook #8941] +Last Updated: September 3, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD KILGOBBIN *** + + + + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders. Illustrated HTML version by +David Widger + + + + + + +</pre> + +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0001" id="linkimage-0001"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/001.jpg" alt="She Suffered Her Hand to Remain" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<h1> +LORD KILGOBBIN +</h1> +<h3> +by +</h3> +<h2> +Charles Lever +</h2> +<p> +<br /><br /><br /> TO THE MEMORY OF ONE<br /> WHOSE COMPANIONSHIP MADE THE +HAPPINESS OF A LONG LIFE,<br /> AND WHOSE LOSS HAS LEFT ME HELPLESS,<br /> I +DEDICATE THIS WORK,<br /> WRITTEN IN BREAKING HEALTH AND BROKEN SPIRITS.<br /> +THE TASK, THAT ONCE WAS MY JOY AND MY PRIDE,<br /> I HAVE LIVED TO FIND +ASSOCIATED WITH MY SORROW:<br /> IT IS NOT, THEN, WITHOUT A CAUSE I SAY,<br /> +I HOPE THIS EFFORT MAY BE MY LAST.<br /> <br /> CHARLES LEVER.<br /> <br /> +TRIESTE, <i>January 20, 1872</i>. <br /> <br /><br /><br /> <a +name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE +</h2> +<p> +‘Lord Kilgobbin’ appeared originally as a serial, (illustrated by Luke +Fildes) in ‘The Cornhill Magazine,’ commencing in the issue for October +1870, and ending in the issue for March 1872. It was first published in +book form in three volumes in 1872, with the following title-page: +</p> +<p> +LORD KILGOBBIN | A TALE OF IRELAND IN OUR OWN TIME | BY | CHARLES LEVER, +LL.D. | AUTHOR OF | ‘THE BRAMLEIGHS OF BISHOP’S FOLLY,’ ‘THAT BOY OF +NORCOTT’S,’ | ETC., ETC. | IN THREE VOLUMES | [VOL. I.] | LONDON | SMITH, +ELDER, AND CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE | 1872. | [THE RIGHT OF TRANSLATION IS +RESERVED.] +</p> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<blockquote> +<p class="toc"> +<big><b>CONTENTS</b></big> +</p> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2H_4_0001"> BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE </a> +</p> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0001"> CHAPTER I </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0002"> CHAPTER II </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0003"> CHAPTER III </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0004"> CHAPTER IV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0005"> CHAPTER V </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0006"> CHAPTER VI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0007"> CHAPTER VII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0008"> CHAPTER VIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0009"> CHAPTER IX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0010"> CHAPTER X </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0011"> CHAPTER XI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0012"> CHAPTER XII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0013"> CHAPTER XIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0014"> CHAPTER XIV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0015"> CHAPTER XV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0016"> CHAPTER XVI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0017"> CHAPTER XVII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0018"> CHAPTER XVIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0019"> CHAPTER XIX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0020"> CHAPTER XX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0021"> CHAPTER XXI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0022"> CHAPTER XXII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0023"> CHAPTER XXIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0024"> CHAPTER XXIV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0025"> CHAPTER XXV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0026"> CHAPTER XXVI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0027"> CHAPTER XXVII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0028"> CHAPTER XXVIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0029"> CHAPTER XXIX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0030"> CHAPTER XXX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0031"> CHAPTER XXXI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0032"> CHAPTER XXXII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0033"> CHAPTER XXXIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0034"> CHAPTER XXXIV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0035"> CHAPTER XXXV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0036"> CHAPTER XXXVI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0037"> CHAPTER XXXVII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0038"> CHAPTER XXXVIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0039"> CHAPTER XXXIX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0040"> CHAPTER XL </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0041"> CHAPTER XLI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0042"> CHAPTER XLII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0043"> CHAPTER XLIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0044"> CHAPTER XLIV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0045"> CHAPTER XLV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0046"> CHAPTER XLVI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0047"> CHAPTER XLVII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0048"> CHAPTER XLVIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0049"> CHAPTER XLIX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0050"> CHAPTER L </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0051"> CHAPTER LI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0052"> CHAPTER LII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0053"> CHAPTER LIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0054"> CHAPTER LIV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0055"> CHAPTER LV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0056"> CHAPTER LVI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0057"> CHAPTER LVII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0058"> CHAPTER LVIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0059"> CHAPTER LIX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0060"> CHAPTER LX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0061"> CHAPTER LXI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0062"> CHAPTER LXII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0063"> CHAPTER LXIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0064"> CHAPTER LXIV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0065"> CHAPTER LXV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0066"> CHAPTER LXVI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0067"> CHAPTER LXVII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0068"> CHAPTER LXVIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0069"> CHAPTER LXIX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0070"> CHAPTER LXX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0071"> CHAPTER LXXI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0072"> CHAPTER LXXII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0073"> CHAPTER LXXIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0074"> CHAPTER LXXIV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0075"> CHAPTER LXXV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0076"> CHAPTER LXXVI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0077"> CHAPTER LXXVII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0078"> CHAPTER LXXVIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0079"> CHAPTER LXXIX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0080"> CHAPTER LXXX </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0081"> CHAPTER LXXXI </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0082"> CHAPTER LXXXII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0083"> CHAPTER LXXXIII </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0084"> CHAPTER LXXXIV </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#link2HCH0085"> CHAPTER LXXXV </a> +</p> +<p> +<br /><br /> <br /><br /> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<big><b>ILLUSTRATIONS</b></big> +</p> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0001"> She Suffered Her Hand to Remain </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0002"> ‘What Lark Have You Been On, Master Joe?’ +</a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0003"> ‘One More Sitting I Must Have, Sir, for the +Hair’ </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0004"> ‘How That Song Makes Me Wish We Were Back +Again Where I Heard It First’ </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0005"> He Entered and Nina Arose As he Came Forward. +</a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0006"> ‘You Are Right, I See It All,’ and Now he +Seized Her Hand And Kissed It </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0007"> Kate, Still Dressed, Had Thrown Herself on +the Bed, and Was Sound Asleep </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0008"> ‘Is Not That As Fine As Your Boasted +Campagna?’ </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0009"> ‘You Wear a Ring of Great Beauty—may I +Look at It?’ </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0010"> ‘True, There is No Tender Light There,’ +Muttered He, Gazing At Her Eyes </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0011"> He Knelt Down on One Knee Before Her </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0012"> Nina Came Forward at That Moment </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0013"> Nina Kostalergi Was Busily Engaged in Pinning +up the Skirt Of Her Dress </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0014"> The Balcony Creaked and Trembled, And at Last +Gave Way </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0015"> ‘Just Look at the Crowd That is Watching Us +Already’ </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0016"> ‘I Should Like to Have Back My Letters’ </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0017"> Walpole Looked Keenly at the Other’s Face As +he Read The Paper </a> +</p> +<p class="toc"> +<a href="#linkimage-0018"> ‘I Declare You Have Left a Tear Upon My +Cheek,’ Said Kate </a> +</p> +</blockquote> +<p> +<br /><br /> +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +<br /><br /> <a name="link2HCH0001" id="link2HCH0001"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> <br /><br /> +</p> +<h2> +CHAPTER I +</h2> +<h3> +KILGOBBIN CASTLE +</h3> +<p> +Some one has said that almost all that Ireland possesses of picturesque +beauty is to be found on, or in the immediate neighbourhood of, the +seaboard; and if we except some brief patches of river scenery on the Nore +and the Blackwater, and a part of Lough Erne, the assertion is not devoid +of truth. The dreary expanse called the Bog of Allen, which occupies a +tableland in the centre of the island, stretches away for miles—flat, +sad-coloured, and monotonous, fissured in every direction by channels of +dark-tinted water, in which the very fish take the same sad colour. This +tract is almost without trace of habitation, save where, at distant +intervals, utter destitution has raised a mud-hovel, undistinguishable +from the hillocks of turf around it. +</p> +<p> +Fringing this broad waste, little patches of cultivation are to be seen: +small potato-gardens, as they are called, or a few roods of oats, green +even in the late autumn; but, strangely enough, with nothing to show where +the humble tiller of the soil is living, nor, often, any visible road to +these isolated spots of culture. Gradually, however—but very +gradually—the prospect brightens. Fields with inclosures, and a +cabin or two, are to be met with; a solitary tree, generally an ash, will +be seen; some rude instrument of husbandry, or an ass-cart, will show that +we are emerging from the region of complete destitution and approaching a +land of at least struggling civilisation. At last, and by a transition +that is not always easy to mark, the scene glides into those rich +pasture-lands and well-tilled farms that form the wealth of the midland +counties. Gentlemen’s seats and waving plantations succeed, and we are in +a country of comfort and abundance. +</p> +<p> +On this border-land between fertility and destitution, and on a tract +which had probably once been part of the Bog itself, there stood—there +stands still—a short, square tower, battlemented at top, and +surmounted with a pointed roof, which seems to grow out of a cluster of +farm-buildings, so surrounded is its base by roofs of thatch and slates. +Incongruous, vulgar, and ugly in every way, the old keep appears to look +down on them—time-worn and battered as it is—as might a +reduced gentleman regard the unworthy associates with which an altered +fortune had linked him. This is all that remains of Kilgobbin Castle. +</p> +<p> +In the guidebooks we read that it was once a place of strength and +importance, and that Hugh de Lacy—the same bold knight ‘who had won +all Ireland for the English from the Shannon to the sea’—had taken +this castle from a native chieftain called Neal O’Caharney, whose family +he had slain, all save one; and then it adds: ‘Sir Hugh came one day, with +three Englishmen, that he might show them the castle, when there came to +him a youth of the men of Meath—a certain Gilla Naher O’Mahey, +foster-brother of O’Caharney himself—with his battle-axe concealed +beneath his cloak, and while De Lacy was reading the petition he gave him, +he dealt him such a blow that his head flew off many yards away, both head +and body being afterwards buried in the ditch of the castle.’ +</p> +<p> +The annals of Kilronan further relate that the O’Caharneys became +adherents of the English—dropping their Irish designation, and +calling themselves Kearney; and in this way were restored to a part of the +lands and the castle of Kilgobbin—‘by favour of which act of grace,’ +says the chronicle, ‘they were bound to raise a becoming monument over the +brave knight, Hugh de Lacy, whom their kinsman had so treacherously slain; +but they did no more of this than one large stone of granite, and no +inscription thereon: thus showing that at all times, and with all men, the +O’Caharneys were false knaves and untrue to their word.’ +</p> +<p> +In later times, again, the Kearneys returned to the old faith of their +fathers and followed the fortunes of King James; one of them, Michael +O’Kearney, having acted as aide-de-camp at the ‘Boyne,’ and conducted the +king to Kilgobbin, where he passed the night after the defeat, and, as the +tradition records, held a court the next morning, at which he thanked the +owner of the castle for his hospitality, and created him on the spot a +viscount by the style and title of Lord Kilgobbin. +</p> +<p> +It is needless to say that the newly-created noble saw good reason to keep +his elevation to himself. They were somewhat critical times just then for +the adherents of the lost cause, and the followers of King William were +keen at scenting out any disloyalty that might be turned to good account +by a confiscation. The Kearneys, however, were prudent. They entertained a +Dutch officer, Van Straaten, on King William’s staff, and gave such +valuable information besides as to the condition of the country, that no +suspicions of disloyalty attached to them. +</p> +<p> +To these succeeded more peaceful times, during which the Kearneys were +more engaged in endeavouring to reconstruct the fallen condition of their +fortunes than in political intrigue. Indeed, a very small portion of the +original estate now remained to them, and of what once had produced above +four thousand a year, there was left a property barely worth eight +hundred. +</p> +<p> +The present owner, with whose fortunes we are more Immediately concerned, +was a widower. Mathew Kearney’s family consisted of a son and a daughter: +the former about two-and-twenty, the latter four years younger, though to +all appearance there did not seem a year between them. +</p> +<p> +Mathew Kearney himself was a man of about fifty-four or fifty-six; hale, +handsome, and powerful; his snow-white hair and bright complexion, with +his full grey eyes and regular teeth giving him an air of genial +cordiality at first sight which was fully confirmed by further +acquaintance. So long as the world went well with him, Mathew seemed to +enjoy life thoroughly, and even its rubs he bore with an easy jocularity +that showed what a stout heart he could oppose to Fortune. A long minority +had provided him with a considerable sum on his coming of age, but he +spent it freely, and when it was exhausted, continued to live on at the +same rate as before, till at last, as creditors grew pressing, and +mortgages threatened foreclosure, he saw himself reduced to something less +than one-fifth of his former outlay; and though he seemed to address +himself to the task with a bold spirit and a resolute mind, the old habits +were too deeply rooted to be eradicated, and the pleasant companionship of +his equals, his life at the club in Dublin, his joyous conviviality, no +longer possible, he suffered himself to descend to an inferior rank, and +sought his associates amongst humbler men, whose flattering reception of +him soon reconciled him to his fallen condition. His companions were now +the small farmers of the neighbourhood and the shopkeepers in the +adjoining town of Moate, to whose habits and modes of thought and +expression he gradually conformed, till it became positively irksome to +himself to keep the company of his equals. Whether, however, it was that +age had breached the stronghold of his good spirits, or that conscience +rebuked him for having derogated from his station, certain it is that all +his buoyancy failed him when away from society, and that in the quietness +of his home he was depressed and dispirited to a degree; and to that +genial temper, which once he could count on against every reverse that +befell him, there now succeeded an irritable, peevish spirit, that led him +to attribute every annoyance he met with to some fault or shortcoming of +others. +</p> +<p> +By his neighbours in the town and by his tenantry he was always addressed +as ‘My lord,’ and treated with all the deference that pertained to such +difference of station. By the gentry, however, when at rare occasions he +met them, he was known as Mr. Kearney; and in the village post-office, the +letters with the name Mathew Kearney, Esq., were perpetual reminders of +what rank was accorded him by that wider section of the world that lived +beyond the shadow of Kilgobbin Castle. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps the impossible task of serving two masters is never more palpably +displayed than when the attempt attaches to a divided identity—when +a man tries to be himself in two distinct parts in life, without the +slightest misgiving of hypocrisy while doing so. Mathew Kearney not only +did not assume any pretension to nobility amongst his equals, but he would +have felt that any reference to his title from one of them would have been +an impertinence, and an impertinence to be resented; while, at the same +time, had a shopkeeper of Moate, or one of the tenants, addressed him as +other than ‘My lord,’ he would not have deigned him a notice. +</p> +<p> +Strangely enough, this divided allegiance did not merely prevail with the +outer world, it actually penetrated within his walls. By his son, Richard +Kearney, he was always called ‘My lord’; while Kate as persistently +addressed and spoke of him as papa. Nor was this difference without +signification as to their separate natures and tempers. +</p> +<p> +Had Mathew Kearney contrived to divide the two parts of his nature, and +bequeathed all his pride, his vanity, and his pretensions to his son, +while he gave his light-heartedness, his buoyancy, and kindliness to his +daughter, the partition could not have been more perfect. Richard Kearney +was full of an insolent pride of birth. Contrasting the position of his +father with that held by his grandfather, he resented the downfall as the +act of a dominant faction, eager to outrage the old race and the old +religion of Ireland. Kate took a very different view of their condition. +She clung, indeed, to the notion of their good blood; but as a thing that +might assuage many of the pangs of adverse fortune, not increase or +embitter them; and ‘if we are ever to emerge,’ thought she, ‘from this +poor state, we shall meet our class without any of the shame of a mushroom +origin. It will be a restoration, and not a new elevation.’ She was a +fine, handsome, fearless girl, whom many said ought to have been a boy; +but this was rather intended as a covert slight on the narrower nature and +peevish temperament of her brother—another way, indeed, of saying +that they should have exchanged conditions. +</p> +<p> +The listless indolence of her father’s life, and the almost complete +absence from home of her brother, who was pursuing his studies at the +Dublin University, had given over to her charge not only the household, +but no small share of the management of the estate—all, in fact, +that an old land-steward, a certain Peter Gill, would permit her to +exercise; for Peter was a very absolute and despotic Grand-Vizier, and if +it had not been that he could neither read nor write, it would have been +utterly impossible to have wrested from him a particle of power over the +property. This happy defect in his education—happy so far as Kate’s +rule was concerned—gave her the one claim she could prefer to any +superiority over him, and his obstinacy could never be effectually +overcome, except by confronting him with a written document or a column of +figures. Before these, indeed, he would stand crestfallen and abashed. +Some strange terror seemed to possess him as to the peril of opposing +himself to such inscrutable testimony—a fear, be it said, he never +felt in contesting an oral witness. +</p> +<p> +Peter had one resource, however, and I am not sure that a similar +stronghold has not secured the power of greater men and in higher +functions. Peter’s sway was of so varied and complicated a kind; the +duties he discharged were so various, manifold, and conflicting; the +measures he took with the people, whose destinies were committed to him, +were so thoroughly devised, by reference to the peculiar condition of each +man—what he could do, or bear, or submit to—and not by any +sense of justice; that a sort of government grew up over the property full +of hitches, contingencies, and compensations, of which none but the +inventor of the machinery could possibly pretend to the direction. The +estate being, to use his own words, ‘so like the old coach-harness, so +full of knots, splices, and entanglements, there was not another man in +Ireland could make it work, and if another were to try it, it would all +come to pieces in his hands.’ +</p> +<p> +Kate was shrewd enough to see this; and in the same way that she had +admiringly watched Peter as he knotted a trace here and supplemented a +strap there, strengthening a weak point, and providing for casualties even +the least likely, she saw him dealing with the tenantry on the property; +and in the same spirit that he made allowance for sickness here and +misfortune there, he would be as prompt to screw up a lagging tenant to +the last penny, and secure the landlord in the share of any season of +prosperity. +</p> +<p> +Had the Government Commissioner, sent to report on the state of +land-tenure in Ireland, confined himself to a visit to the estate of Lord +Kilgobbin—for so we like to call him—it is just possible that +the Cabinet would have found the task of legislation even more difficult +than they have already admitted it to be. +</p> +<p> +First of all, not a tenant on the estate had any certain knowledge of how +much land he held. There had been no survey of the property for years. ‘It +will be made up to you,’ was Gill’s phrase about everything. ‘What matters +if you have an acre more or an acre less?’ Neither had any one a lease, +nor, indeed, a writing of any kind. Gill settled that on the 25th March +and 25th September a certain sum was to be forthcoming, and that was all. +When ‘the lord’ wanted them, they were always to give him a hand, which +often meant with their carts and horses, especially in harvest-time. Not +that they were a hard-worked or hard-working population: they took life +very easy, seeing that by no possible exertion could they materially +better themselves; and even when they hunted a neighbour’s cow out of +their wheat, they would execute the eviction with a lazy indolence and +sluggishness that took away from the act all semblance of ungenerousness. +</p> +<p> +They were very poor, their hovels were wretched, their clothes ragged, and +their food scanty; but, with all that, they were not discontented, and +very far from unhappy. There was no prosperity at hand to contrast with +their poverty. The world was, on the whole, pretty much as they always +remembered it. They would have liked to be ‘better off’ if they knew how, +but they did not know if there were a ‘better off,’ much less how to come +at it; and if there were, Peter Gill certainly did not tell them of it. +</p> +<p> +If a stray visitor to fair or market brought back the news that there was +an agitation abroad for a new settlement of the land, that popular orators +were proclaiming the poor man’s rights and denouncing the cruelties of the +landlord, if they heard that men were talking of repealing the laws which +secured property to the owner, and only admitted him to a sort of +partnership with the tiller of the soil, old Gill speedily assured them +that these were changes only to be adopted in Ulster, where the tenants +were rack-rented and treated like slaves. ‘Which of you here,’ would he +say, ‘can come forward and say he was ever evicted?’ Now as the term was +one of which none had the very vaguest conception—it might, for +aught they knew, have been an operation in surgery—the appeal was an +overwhelming success. ‘Sorra doubt of it, but ould Peter’s right, and +there’s worse places to live in, and worse landlords to live under, than +the lord.’ Not but it taxed Gill’s skill and cleverness to maintain this +quarantine against the outer world; and he often felt like Prince +Metternich in a like strait—that it would only be a question of +time, and, in the long run, the newspaper fellows must win. +</p> +<p> +From what has been said, therefore, it may be imagined that Kilgobbin was +not a model estate, nor Peter Gill exactly the sort of witness from which +a select committee would have extracted any valuable suggestions for the +construction of a land-code. +</p> +<p> +Anything short of Kate Kearney’s fine temper and genial disposition would +have broken down by daily dealing with this cross-grained, wrong-headed, +and obstinate old fellow, whose ideas of management all centred in craft +and subtlety—outwitting this man, forestalling that—doing +everything by halves, so that no boon came unassociated with some +contingency or other by which he secured to himself unlimited power and +uncontrolled tyranny. +</p> +<p> +As Gill was in perfect possession of her father’s confidence, to oppose +him in anything was a task of no mean difficulty; and the mere thought +that the old fellow should feel offended and throw up his charge—a +threat he had more than once half hinted—was a terror Kilgobbin +could not have faced. Nor was this her only care. There was Dick +continually dunning her for remittances, and importuning her for means to +supply his extravagances. ‘I suspected how it would be,’ wrote he once, +‘with a lady paymaster. And when my father told me I was to look to you +for my allowance, I accepted the information as a heavy percentage taken +off my beggarly income. What could you—what could any young girl—know +of the requirements of a man going out into the best society of a capital? +To derive any benefit from associating with these people, I must at least +seem to live like them. I am received as the son of a man of condition and +property, and you want to bound my habits by those of my chum, Joe Atlee, +whose father is starving somewhere on the pay of a Presbyterian minister. +Even Joe himself laughs at the notion of gauging my expenses by his. +</p> +<p> +‘If this is to go on—I mean if you intend to persist in this plan—be +frank enough to say so at once, and I will either take pupils, or seek a +clerkship, or go off to Australia; and I care precious little which of the +three. +</p> +<p> +‘I know what a proud thing it is for whoever manages the revenue to come +forward and show a surplus. Chancellors of the Exchequer make great +reputations in that fashion; but there are certain economies that lie +close to revolutions; now don’t risk this, nor don’t be above taking a +hint from one some years older than you, though he neither rules his +father’s house nor metes out his pocket-money.’ +</p> +<p> +Such, and such like, were the epistles she received from time to time, and +though frequency blunted something of their sting, and their injustice +gave her a support against their sarcasm, she read and thought over them +in a spirit of bitter mortification. Of course she showed none of these +letters to her father. He, indeed, only asked if Dick were well, or if he +were soon going up for that scholarship or fellowship—he did not +know which, nor was he to blame—‘which, after all, it was hard on a +Kearney to stoop to accept, only that times were changed with us! and we +weren’t what we used to be’—a reflection so overwhelming that he +generally felt unable to dwell on it. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0002" id="link2HCH0002"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER II +</h2> +<h3> +THE PRINCE KOSTALERGI +</h3> +<p> +Mathew Kearney had once a sister whom he dearly loved, and whose sad fate +lay very heavily on his heart, for he was not without self-accusings on +the score of it. Matilda Kearney had been a belle of the Irish Court and a +toast at the club when Mathew was a young fellow in town; and he had been +very proud of her beauty, and tasted a full share of those attentions +which often fall to the lot of brothers of handsome girls. +</p> +<p> +Then Matty was an heiress, that is, she had twelve thousand pounds in her +own right; and Ireland was not such a California as to make a very pretty +girl with twelve thousand pounds an everyday chance. She had numerous +offers of marriage, and with the usual luck in such cases, there were +commonplace unattractive men with good means, and there were clever and +agreeable fellows without a sixpence, all alike ineligible. Matty had that +infusion of romance in her nature that few, if any, Irish girls are free +from, and which made her desire that the man of her choice should be +something out of the common. She would have liked a soldier who had won +distinction in the field. The idea of military fame was very dear to her +Irish heart, and she fancied with what pride she would hang upon the arm +of one whose gay trappings and gold embroidery emblematised the career he +followed. If not a soldier, she would have liked a great orator, some +leader in debate that men would rush down to hear, and whose glowing words +would be gathered up and repeated as though inspirations; after that a +poet, and perhaps—not a painter—a sculptor, she thought, might +do. +</p> +<p> +With such aspirations as these, it is not surprising that she rejected the +offers of those comfortable fellows in Meath, or Louth, whose military +glories were militia drills, and whose eloquence was confined to the bench +of magistrates. +</p> +<p> +At three-and-twenty she was in the full blaze of her beauty; at +three-and-thirty she was still unmarried, her looks on the wane, but her +romance stronger than ever, not untinged perhaps with a little bitterness +towards that sex which had not afforded one man of merit enough to woo and +win her. Partly out of pique with a land so barren of all that could +minister to imagination, partly in anger with her brother who had been +urging her to a match she disliked, she went abroad to travel, wandered +about for a year or two, and at last found herself one winter at Naples. +</p> +<p> +There was at that time, as secretary to the Greek legation, a young fellow +whom repute called the handsomest man in Europe; he was a certain +Spiridion Kostalergi, whose title was Prince of Delos, though whether +there was such a principality, or that he was its representative, society +was not fully agreed upon. At all events, Miss Kearney met him at a Court +ball, when he wore his national costume, looking, it must be owned, so +splendidly handsome that all thought of his princely rank was forgotten in +presence of a face and figure that recalled the highest triumphs of +ancient art. It was Antinous come to life in an embroidered cap and a +gold-worked jacket, and it was Antinous with a voice like Mario, and who +waltzed to perfection. This splendid creature, a modern Alcibiades in +gifts of mind and graces, soon heard, amongst his other triumphs, how a +rich and handsome Irish girl had fallen in love with him at first sight. +He had himself been struck by her good looks and her stylish air, and +learning that there could be no doubt about her fortune, he lost no time +in making his advances. Before the end of the first week of their +acquaintance he proposed. She referred him to her brother before she could +consent; and though, when Kostalergi inquired amongst her English friends, +none had ever heard of a Lord Kilgobbin, the fact of his being Irish +explained their ignorance, not to say that Kearney’s reply, being a +positive refusal of consent, so fully satisfied the Greek that it was ‘a +good thing,’ he pressed his suit with a most passionate ardour: threatened +to kill himself if she persisted in rejecting him, and so worked upon her +heart by his devotion, or on her pride by the thought of his position, +that she yielded, and within three weeks from the day they first met, she +became the Princess of Delos. +</p> +<p> +When a Greek, holding any public employ, marries money, his Government is +usually prudent enough to promote him. It is a recognition of the merit +that others have discovered, and a wise administration marches with the +inventions of the age it lives in. Kostalergi’s chief was consequently +recalled, suffered to fall back upon his previous obscurity—he had +been a commission-agent for a house in the Greek trade—and the +Prince of Delos gazetted as Minister Plenipotentiary of Greece, with the +first class of St. Salvador, in recognition of his services to the state; +no one being indiscreet enough to add that the aforesaid services were +comprised in marrying an Irishwoman with a dowry of—to quote the <i>Athenian +Hemera</i>—‘three hundred and fifty thousand drachmas.’ +</p> +<p> +For a while—it was a very brief while—the romantic mind of the +Irish girl was raised to a sort of transport of enjoyment. Here was +everything—more than everything—her most glowing imagination +had ever conceived. Love, ambition, station all gratified, though, to be +sure, she had quarrelled with her brother, who had returned her last +letters unopened. Mathew, she thought, was too good-hearted to bear a long +grudge: he would see her happiness, he would hear what a devoted and good +husband her dear Spiridion had proved himself, and he would forgive her at +last. +</p> +<p> +Though, as was well known, the Greek envoy received but a very moderate +salary from his Government, and even that not paid with a strict +punctuality, the legation was maintained with a splendour that rivalled, +if it did not surpass, those of France, England, or Russia. The Prince of +Delos led the fashion in equipage, as did the Princess in toilet; their +dinners, their balls, their fêtes attracted the curiosity of even the +highest to witness them; and to such a degree of notoriety had the Greek +hospitality attained, that Naples at last admitted that without the +Palazzo Kostalergi there would be nothing to attract strangers to the +capital. +</p> +<p> +Play, so invariably excluded from the habits of an embassy, was carried on +at this legation to such an excess that the clubs were completely +deserted, and all the young men of gambling tastes flocked here each +night, sure to find lansquenet or faro, and for stakes which no public +table could possibly supply. It was not alone that this life of a gambler +estranged Kostalergi from his wife, but that the scandal of his +infidelities had reached her also, just at the time when some vague +glimmering suspicions of his utter worthlessness were breaking on her +mind. The birth of a little girl did not seem in the slightest degree to +renew the ties between them; on the contrary, the embarrassment of a baby, +and the cost it must entail, were the only considerations he would +entertain, and it was a constant question of his—uttered, too, with +a tone of sarcasm that cut her to the heart: ‘Would not her brother—the +Lord Irlandais—like to have that baby? Would she not write and ask +him?’ Unpleasant stories had long been rife about the play at the Greek +legation, when a young Russian secretary, of high family and influence, +lost an immense sum under circumstances which determined him to refuse +payment. Kostalergi, who had been the chief winner, refused everything +like inquiry or examination; in fact, he made investigation impossible, +for the cards, which the Russian had declared to be marked, the Greek +gathered up slowly from the table and threw into the fire, pressing his +foot upon them in the flames, and then calmly returning to where the other +stood, he struck him across the face with his open hand, saying, as he did +it: ‘Here is another debt to repudiate, and before the same witnesses +also!’ +</p> +<p> +The outrage did not admit of delay. The arrangements were made in an +instant, and within half an hour—merely time enough to send for a +surgeon—they met at the end of the garden of the legation. The +Russian fired first, and though a consummate pistol-shot, agitation at the +insult so unnerved him that he missed: his ball cut the knot of +Kostalergi’s cravat. The Greek took a calm and deliberate aim, and sent +his bullet through the other’s forehead. He fell without a word, stone +dead. +</p> +<p> +Though the duel had been a fair one, and the <i>procès-verbal</i> drawn up +and agreed on both sides showed that all had been done loyally, the +friends of the young Russian had influence to make the Greek Government +not only recall the envoy, but abolish the mission itself. +</p> +<p> +For some years the Kostalergis lived in retirement at Palermo, not knowing +nor known to any one. Their means were now so reduced that they had barely +sufficient for daily life, and though the Greek prince—as he was +called—constantly appeared on the public promenade well dressed, and +in all the pride of his handsome figure, it was currently said that his +wife was literally dying of want. +</p> +<p> +It was only after long and agonising suffering that she ventured to write +to her brother, and appeal to him for advice and assistance. But at last +she did so, and a correspondence grew up which, in a measure, restored the +affection between them. When Kostalergi discovered the source from which +his wretched wife now drew her consolation and her courage, he forbade her +to write more, and himself addressed a letter to Kearney so insulting and +offensive—charging him even with causing the discord of his home, +and showing the letter to his wife before sending it—that the poor +woman, long failing in health and broken down, sank soon after, and died +so destitute, that the very funeral was paid for by a subscription amongst +her countrymen. Kostalergi had left her some days before her death, +carrying the girl along with him, nor was his whereabouts learned for a +considerable time. +</p> +<p> +When next he emerged into the world it was at Rome, where he gave lessons +in music and modern languages, in many in which he was a proficient. His +splendid appearance, his captivating address, his thorough familiarity +with the modes of society, gave him the entrée to many houses where his +talents amply requited the hospitality he received. He possessed, amongst +his other gifts, an immense amount of plausibility, and people found it, +besides, very difficult to believe ill of that well-bred, somewhat +retiring man, who, in circumstances of the very narrowest fortunes, not +only looked and dressed like a gentleman, but actually brought up a +daughter with a degree of care and an amount of regard to her education +that made him appear a model parent. +</p> +<p> +Nina Kostalergi was then about seventeen, though she looked at least three +years older. She was a tall, slight, pale girl, with perfectly regular +features—so classic in the mould, and so devoid of any expression, +that she recalled the face one sees on a cameo. Her hair was of wondrous +beauty—that rich gold colour which has <i>reflets</i> through it, as +the light falls full or faint, and of an abundance that taxed her +ingenuity to dress it. They gave her the sobriquet of the Titian Girl at +Rome whenever she appeared abroad. +</p> +<p> +In the only letter Kearney had received from his brother-in-law after his +sister’s death was an insolent demand for a sum of money, which he alleged +that Kearney was unjustly withholding, and which he now threatened to +enforce by law. ‘I am well aware,’ wrote he, ‘what measure of honour or +honesty I am to expect from a man whose very name and designation are a +deceit. But probably prudence will suggest how much better it would be on +this occasion to simulate rectitude than risk the shame of an open +exposure.’ +</p> +<p> +To this gross insult Kearney never deigned any reply; and now more than +two years passed without any tidings of his disreputable relative, when +there came one morning a letter with the Roman postmark, and addressed, ‘<i>À +Monsieur le Vicomte de Kilgobbin, à son Château de Kilgobbin, en Irlande.</i>’ +To the honour of the officials in the Irish post-office, it was forwarded +to Kilgobbin with the words, ‘Try Mathew Kearney, Esq.,’ in the corner. +</p> +<p> +A glance at the writing showed it was not in Kostalergi’s hand, and, after +a moment or two of hesitation, Kearney opened it. He turned at once for +the writer’s name, and read the words, ‘Nina Kostalergi’—his +sister’s child! ‘Poor Matty,’ was all he could say for some minutes. He +remembered the letter in which she told him of her little girl’s birth, +and implored his forgiveness for herself and his love for her baby.’ I +want both, my dear brother,’ wrote she; ‘for though the bonds we make for +ourselves by our passions—’ And the rest of the sentence was erased—she +evidently thinking she had delineated all that could give a clue to a +despondent reflection. +</p> +<p> +The present letter was written in English, but in that quaint, peculiar +hand Italians often write. It began by asking forgiveness for daring to +write to him, and recalling the details of the relationship between them, +as though he could not have remembered it. ‘I am, then, in my right,’ +wrote she, ‘when I address you as my dear, dear uncle, of whom I have +heard so much, and whose name was in my prayers ere I knew why I knelt to +pray.’ +</p> +<p> +Then followed a piteous appeal—it was actually a cry for protection. +Her father, she said, had determined to devote her to the stage, and +already had taken steps to sell her—she said she used the word +advisedly—for so many years to the impresario of the ‘Fenice’ at +Venice, her voice and musical skill being such as to give hope of her +becoming a prima donna. She had, she said, frequently sung at private +parties at Rome, but only knew within the last few days that she had been, +not a guest, but a paid performer. Overwhelmed with the shame and +indignity of this false position, she implored her mother’s brother to +compassionate her. ‘If I could not become a governess, I could be your +servant, dearest uncle,’ she wrote. ‘I only ask a roof to shelter me, and +a refuge. May I go to you? I would beg my way on foot if I only knew that +at the last your heart and your door would be open to me, and as I fell at +your feet, knew that I was saved.’ +</p> +<p> +Until a few days ago, she said, she had by her some little trinkets her +mother had left her, and on which she counted as a means of escape, but +her father had discovered them and taken them from her. +</p> +<p> +‘If you answer this—and oh! let me not doubt you will—write to +me to the care of the Signori Cayani and Battistella, bankers, Rome. Do +not delay, but remember that I am friendless, and but for this chance +hopeless.—Your niece, +</p> +<p> +‘NINA KOSTALERGI.’ +</p> +<p> +While Kearney gave this letter to his daughter to read, he walked up and +down the room with his head bent and his hands deep in his pockets. +</p> +<p> +‘I think I know the answer you’ll send to this, papa,’ said the girl, +looking up at him with a glow of pride and affection in her face. ‘I do +not need that you should say it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It will take fifty—no, not fifty, but five-and-thirty pounds to +bring her over here, and how is she to come all alone?’ +</p> +<p> +Kate made no reply; she knew the danger sometimes of interrupting his own +solution of a difficulty. +</p> +<p> +‘She’s a big girl, I suppose, by this—fourteen or fifteen?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Over nineteen, papa.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So she is, I was forgetting. That scoundrel, her father, might come after +her; he’d have the right if he wished to enforce it, and what a scandal +he’d bring upon us all!’ +</p> +<p> +‘But would he care to do it? Is he not more likely to be glad to be +disembarrassed of her charge?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not if he was going to sell her—not if he could convert her into +money.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He has never been in England; he may not know how far the law would give +him any power over her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t trust that, Kate; a blackguard always can find out how much is in +his favour everywhere. If he doesn’t know it now, he’d know it the day +after he landed.’ He paused an instant, and then said: ‘There will be the +devil to pay with old Peter Gill, for he’ll want all the cash I can scrape +together for Loughrea fair. He counts on having eighty sheep down there at +the long crofts, and a cow or two besides. That’s money’s worth, girl!’ +</p> +<p> +Another silence followed, after which he said, ‘And I think worse of the +Greek scoundrel than all the cost.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Somehow, I have no fear that he’ll come here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’ll have to talk over Peter, Kitty’—he always said Kitty when he +meant to coax her. ‘He’ll mind you, and at all events, you don’t care +about his grumbling. Tell him it’s a sudden call on me for railroad +shares, or’—and here he winked knowingly—‘say, it’s going to +Rome the money is, and for the Pope!’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s an excellent thought, papa,’ said she, laughing; ‘I’ll certainly +tell him the money is going to Rome, and you’ll write soon—you see +with what anxiety she expects your answer.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll write to-night when the house is quiet, and there’s no racket nor +disturbance about me.’ Now though Kearney said this with a perfect +conviction of its truth and reasonableness, it would have been very +difficult for any one to say in what that racket he spoke of consisted, or +wherein the quietude of even midnight was greater than that which +prevailed there at noonday. Never, perhaps, were lives more completely +still or monotonous than theirs. People who derive no interests from the +outer world, who know nothing of what goes on in life, gradually subside +into a condition in which reflection takes the place of conversation, and +lose all zest and all necessity for that small talk which serves, like the +changes of a game, to while away time, and by the aid of which, if we do +no more, we often delude the cares and worries of existence. +</p> +<p> +A kind good-morning when they met, and a few words during the day—some +mention of this or that event of the farm or the labourers, and rare +enough too—some little incident that happened amongst the tenants, +made all the materials of their intercourse, and filled up lives which +either would very freely have owned were far from unhappy. +</p> +<p> +Dick, indeed, when he came home and was weather-bound for a day, did +lament his sad destiny, and mutter half-intelligible nonsense of what he +would not rather do than descend to such a melancholy existence; but in +all his complainings he never made Kate discontented with her lot, or +desire anything beyond it. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s all very well,’ he would say, ‘till you know something better.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But I want no better.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you mean you’d like to go through life in this fashion?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can’t pretend to say what I may feel as I grow older; but if I could be +sure to be as I am now, I could ask nothing better.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I must say, it’s a very inglorious life?’ said he, with a sneer. +</p> +<p> +‘So it is, but how many, may I ask, are there who lead glorious lives? Is +there any glory in dining out, in dancing, visiting, and picnicking? Where +is the great glory of the billiard-table, or the croquet-lawn? No, no, my +dear Dick, the only glory that falls to the share of such humble folks as +we are, is to have something to do, and to do it.’ +</p> +<p> +Such were the sort of passages which would now and then occur between +them, little contests, be it said, in which she usually came off the +conqueror. +</p> +<p> +If she were to have a wish gratified, it would have been a few more books—something +besides those odd volumes of Scott’s novels, <i>Zeluco</i> by Doctor +Moore, and <i>Florence McCarthy</i>, which comprised her whole library, +and which she read over and over unceasingly. She was now in her usual +place—a deep window-seat—intently occupied with Amy Robsart’s +sorrows, when her father came to read what he had written in answer to +Nina. If it was very brief it was very affectionate. It told her in a few +words that she had no need to recall the ties of their relationship; that +his heart never ceased to remind him of them; that his home was a very +dull one, but that her cousin Kate would try and make it a happy one to +her; entreated her to confer with the banker, to whom he remitted forty +pounds, in what way she could make the journey, since he was too broken in +health himself to go and fetch her. ‘It is a bold step I am counselling +you to take. It is no light thing to quit a father’s home, and I have my +misgivings how far I am a wise adviser in recommending it. There is, +however, a present peril, and I must try, if I can, to save you from it. +Perhaps, in my old-world notions, I attach to the thought of the stage +ideas that you would only smile at; but none of our race, so far as I +know, fell to that condition—nor must you while I have a roof to +shelter you. If you would write and say about what time I might expect +you, I will try to meet you on your landing in England at Dover. Kate +sends you her warmest love, and longs to see you.’ +</p> +<p> +This was the whole of it. But a brief line to the bankers said that any +expense they judged needful to her safe convoy across Europe would be +gratefully repaid by him. +</p> +<p> +‘Is it all right, dear? Have I forgotten anything?’ asked he, as Kate read +it over. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s everything, papa—everything. And I <i>do</i> long to see her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope she’s like Matty—if she’s only like her poor mother, it will +make my heart young again to look at her.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0003" id="link2HCH0003"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER III +</h2> +<h3> +THE CHUMS +</h3> +<p> +In that old square of Trinity College, Dublin, one side of which fronts +the Park, and in chambers on the ground-floor, an oak door bore the names +of ‘Kearney and Atlee.’ Kearney was the son of Lord Kilgobbin; Atlee, his +chum, the son of a Presbyterian minister in the north of Ireland, had been +four years in the university, but was still in his freshman period, not +from any deficiency of scholarlike ability to push on, but that, as the +poet of the <i>Seasons</i> lay in bed, because he ‘had no motive for +rising,’ Joe Atlee felt that there need be no urgency about taking a +degree which, when he had got, he should be sorely puzzled to know what to +do with. He was a clever, ready-witted, but capricious fellow, fond of +pleasure, and self-indulgent to a degree that ill suited his very smallest +of fortunes, for his father was a poor man, with a large family, and had +already embarrassed himself heavily by the cost of sending his eldest son +to the university. Joe’s changes of purpose—for he had in succession +abandoned law for medicine, medicine for theology, and theology for civil +engineering, and, finally, gave them all up—had so outraged his +father that he declared he would not continue any allowance to him beyond +the present year; to which Joe replied by the same post, sending back the +twenty pounds inclosed him, and saying: ‘The only amendment I would make +to your motion is—as to the date—let it begin from to-day. I +suppose I shall have to swim without corks some time. I may as well try +now as later on.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0002" id="linkimage-0002"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/031.jpg" alt="‘What Lark Have You Been On, Master Joe?’" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +The first experience of his ‘swimming without corks’ was to lie in bed two +days and smoke; the next was to rise at daybreak and set out on a long +walk into the country, from which he returned late at night, wearied and +exhausted, having eaten but once during the day. +</p> +<p> +Kearney, dressed for an evening party, resplendent with jewellery, +essenced and curled, was about to issue forth when Atlee, dusty and +wayworn, entered and threw himself into a chair. +</p> +<p> +‘What lark have you been on, Master Joe?’ he said. ‘I have not seen you +for three days, if not four!’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; I’ve begun to train,’ said he gravely. ‘I want to see how long a +fellow could hold on to life on three pipes of Cavendish per diem. I take +it that the absorbents won’t be more cruel than a man’s creditors, and +will not issue a distraint where there are no assets, so that probably by +the time I shall have brought myself down to, let us say, seven stone +weight, I shall have reached the goal.’ +</p> +<p> +This speech he delivered slowly and calmly, as though enunciating a very +grave proposition. +</p> +<p> +‘What new nonsense is this? Don’t you think health worth something?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Next to life, unquestionably; but one condition of health is to be alive, +and I don’t see how to manage that. Look here, Dick, I have just had a +quarrel with my father; he is an excellent man and an impressive preacher, +but he fails in the imaginative qualities. Nature has been a niggard to +him in inventiveness. He is the minister of a little parish called +Aghadoe, in the North, where they give him two hundred and ten pounds per +annum. There are eight in family, and he actually does not see his way to +allow me one hundred and fifty out of it. That’s the way they neglect +arithmetic in our modern schools!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Has he reduced your allowance?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He has done more, he has extinguished it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have you provoked him to this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have provoked him to it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But is it not possible to accommodate matters? It should not be very +difficult, surely, to show him that once you are launched in life—’ +</p> +<p> +‘And when will that be, Dick?’ broke in the other. ‘I have been on the +stocks these four years, and that launching process you talk of looks just +as remote as ever. No, no; let us be fair; he has all the right on his +side, all the wrong is on mine. Indeed, so far as conscience goes, I have +always felt it so, but one’s conscience, like one’s boots, gets so pliant +from wear, that it ceases to give pain. Still, on my honour, I never +hip-hurraed to a toast that I did not feel: there goes broken boots to one +of the boys, or, worse again, the cost of a cotton dress for one of the +sisters. Whenever I took a sherry-cobbler I thought of suicide after it. +Self-indulgence and self-reproach got linked in my nature so inseparably, +it was hopeless to summon one without the other, till at last I grew to +believe it was very heroic in me to deny myself nothing, seeing how sorry +I should be for it afterwards. But come, old fellow, don’t lose your +evening; we’ll have time enough to talk over these things—where are +you going?’ +</p> +<p> +‘To the Clancys’.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To be sure; what a fellow I am to forget it was Letty’s birthday, and I +was to have brought her a bouquet! Dick, be a good fellow and tell her +some lie or other—that I was sick in bed, or away to see an aunt or +a grandmother, and that I had a splendid bouquet for her, but wouldn’t let +it reach her through other hands than my own, but to-morrow—to-morrow +she shall have it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You know well enough you don’t mean anything of the sort.’ +</p> +<p> +‘On my honour, I’ll keep my promise. I’ve an old silver watch yonder—I +think it knows the way to the pawn-office by itself. There, now be off, +for if I begin to think of all the fun you’re going to, I shall just dress +and join you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, I’d not do that,’ said Dick gravely, ‘nor shall I stay long myself. +Don’t go to bed, Joe, till I come back. Good-bye.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Say all good and sweet things to Letty for me. Tell her—’ Kearney +did not wait for his message, but hurried down the steps and drove off. +</p> +<p> +Joe sat down at the fire, filled his pipe, looked steadily at it, and then +laid it on the mantel-piece. ‘No, no, Master Joe. You must be thrifty now. +You have smoked twice since—I can afford to say—since +dinner-time, for you haven’t dined. It is strange, now that the sense of +hunger has passed off, what a sense of excitement I feel. Two hours back I +could have been a cannibal. I believe I could have eaten the vice-provost—though +I should have liked him strongly devilled—and now I feel stimulated. +Hence it is, perhaps, that so little wine is enough to affect the heads of +starving people—almost maddening them. Perhaps Dick suspected +something of this, for he did not care that I should go along with him. +Who knows but he may have thought the sight of a supper might have +overcome me. If he knew but all. I’m much more disposed to make love to +Letty Clancy than to go in for galantine and champagne. By the way, I +wonder if the physiologists are aware of that? It is, perhaps, what +constitutes the ethereal condition of love. I’ll write an essay on that, +or, better still, I’ll write a review of an imaginary French essay. +Frenchmen are permitted to say so much more than we are, and I’ll be +rebukeful on the score of his excesses. The bitter way in which a +Frenchman always visits his various incapacities—whether it be to +know something, or to do something, or to be something—on the +species he belongs to; the way in which he suggests that, had he been +consulted on the matter, humanity had been a much more perfect +organisation, and able to sustain a great deal more of wickedness without +disturbance, is great fun. I’ll certainly invent a Frenchman, and make him +an author, and then demolish him. What if I make him die of hunger, having +tasted nothing for eight days but the proof-sheets of his great work—the +work I am then reviewing? For four days—but stay—if I starve +him to death, I cannot tear his work to pieces. No; he shall be alive, +living in splendour and honour, a frequenter of the Tuileries, a favoured +guest at Compiègne.’ +</p> +<p> +Without perceiving it, he had now taken his pipe, lighted it, and was +smoking away. ‘By the way, how those same Imperialists have played the +game!—the two or three middle-aged men that Kinglake says, “put +their heads together to plan for a livelihood.” I wish they had taken me +into the partnership. It’s the sort of thing I’d have liked well; ay, and +I could have done it, too! I wonder,’ said he aloud—‘I wonder if I +were an emperor should I marry Letty Clancy? I suspect not. Letty would +have been flippant as an empress, and her cousins would have made +atrocious princes of the imperial family, though, for the matter of that—Hullo! +Here have I been smoking without knowing it! Can any one tell us whether +the sins we do inadvertently count as sins, or do we square them off by +our inadvertent good actions? I trust I shall not be called on to +catalogue mine. There, my courage is out!’ As he said this he emptied the +ashes of his pipe, and gazed sorrowfully at the empty bowl. +</p> +<p> +‘Now, if I were the son of some good house, with a high-sounding name, and +well-to-do relations, I’d soon bring them to terms if they dared to cast +me off. I’d turn milk or muffin man, and serve the street they lived in. +I’d sweep the crossing in front of their windows, or I’d commit a small +theft, and call on my high connections for a character—but being who +and what I am, I might do any or all o these, and shock nobody. +</p> +<p> +‘Next to take stock of my effects. Let me see what my assets will bring +when reduced to cash, for this time it shall be a sale.’ And he turned to +a table where paper and pens were lying, and proceeded to write. +‘Personal, sworn under, let us say, ten thousand pounds. Literature first. +To divers worn copies of <i>Virgil</i>, <i>Tacitus</i>, <i>Juvenal</i>, +and <i>Ovid</i>, Cæsar’s <i>Commentaries</i>, and <i>Catullus</i>; to +ditto ditto of <i>Homer</i>, <i>Lucian</i>, <i>Aristophanes</i>, <i>Balzac</i>, +<i>Anacreon</i>, Bacon’s <i>Essays</i>, and Moore’s <i>Melodies</i>; to +Dwight’s <i>Theology</i>—uncut copy, Heine’s <i>Poems</i>—very +much thumbed, <i>Saint Simon</i>—very ragged, two volumes of <i>Les +Causes Célèbres</i>, Tone’s <i>Memoirs</i>, and Beranger’s <i>Songs</i>; +to Cuvier’s <i>Comparative Anatomy</i>, Shroeder on <i>Shakespeare</i>, +Newman’s <i>Apology</i>, Archbold’s <i>Criminal Law</i> and <i>Songs of +the Nation</i>; to Colenso, East’s <i>Cases for the Crown</i>, Carte’s <i>Ormonde</i>, +and <i>Pickwick</i>. But why go on? Let us call it the small but +well-selected library of a distressed gentleman, whose cultivated mind is +reflected in the marginal notes with which these volumes abound. Will any +gentleman say, “£10 for the lot”? Why the very criticisms are worth—I +mean to a man of literary tastes—five times the amount. No offer at +£10? Who is it that says “five”? I trust my ears have deceived me. You +repeat the insulting proposal? Well, sir, on your own head be it! Mr. +Atlee’s library—or the Atlee collection is better—was +yesterday disposed of to a well-known collector of rare books, and, if we +are rightly informed, for a mere fraction of its value. Never mind, sir, I +bear you no ill-will! I was irritable, and to show you my honest animus in +the matter, I beg to present you in addition with this, a handsomely-bound +and gilt copy of a sermon by the Reverend Isaac Atlee, on the opening of +the new meeting-house in Coleraine—a discourse that cost my father +some sleepless nights, though I have heard the effect on the congregation +was dissimilar. +</p> +<p> +‘The pictures are few. Cardinal Cullen, I believe, is Kearney’s; at all +events, he is the worse for being made a target for pistol firing, and the +archiepiscopal nose has been sorely damaged. Two views of Killarney in the +weather of the period—that means July, and raining in torrents—and +consequently the scene, for aught discoverable, might be the Gaboon. +Portrait of Joe Atlee, <i>ætatis</i> four years, with a villainous squint, +and something that looks like a plug in the left jaw. A Skye terrier, +painted, it is supposed, by himself; not to recite unframed prints of +various celebrities of the ballet, in accustomed attitudes, with the +Reverend Paul Bloxham blessing some children—though from the gesture +and the expression of the juveniles it might seem cuffing them—on +the inauguration of the Sunday school at Kilmurry Macmacmahon. +</p> +<p> +‘Lot three, interesting to anatomical lecturers and others, especially +those engaged in palæontology. The articulated skeleton of an Irish giant, +representing a man who must have stood in his no-stockings eight feet four +inches. This, I may add, will be warranted as authentic, in so far that I +made him myself out of at least eighteen or twenty big specimens, with a +few slight “divergencies” I may call them, such as putting in eight more +dorsal vertebrae than the regulation, and that the right femur is two +inches longer than the left. The inferior maxillary, too, was stolen from +a “Pithacus Satyrus” in the Cork Museum by an old friend, since +transported for Fenianism. These blemishes apart, he is an admirable +giant, and fully as ornamental and useful as the species generally. +</p> +<p> +‘As to my wardrobe, it is less costly than curious; an alpaca paletot of a +neutral tint, which I have much affected of late, having indisposed me to +other wear. For dinner and evening duty I usually wear Kearney’s, though +too tight across the chest, and short in the sleeves. These, with a silver +watch which no pawnbroker—and I have tried eight—will ever +advance more on than seven-and-six. I once got the figure up to nine +shillings by supplementing an umbrella, which was Dick’s, and which still +remains, “unclaimed and unredeemed.” +</p> +<p> +‘Two o’clock, by all that is supperless! evidently Kearney is enjoying +himself. Ah, youth, youth! I wish I could remember some of the spiteful +things that are said of you—not but on the whole, I take it, you +have the right end of the stick. Is it possible there is nothing to eat in +this inhospitable mansion?’ He arose and opened a sort of cupboard in the +wall, scrutinising it closely with the candle. ‘“Give me but the +superfluities of life,” says Gavarni, “and I’ll not trouble you for its +necessaries.” What would he say, however, to a fellow famishing with +hunger in presence of nothing but pickled mushrooms and Worcester sauce! +Oh, here is a crust! “Bread is the staff of life.” On my oath, I believe +so; for this eats devilish like a walking-stick. +</p> +<p> +‘Hullo! back already?’ cried he, as Kearney flung wide the door and +entered. ‘I suppose you hurried away back to join me at supper.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Thanks; but I have supped already, and at a more tempting banquet than +this I see before you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Was it pleasant? was it jolly? Were the girls looking lovely? Was the +champagne-cup well iced? Was everybody charming? Tell me all about it. Let +me have second-hand pleasure, since I can’t afford the new article.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was pretty much like every other small ball here, where the garrison +get all the prettiest girls for partners, and take the mammas down to +supper after.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Cunning dogs, who secure flirtation above stairs and food below! And what +is stirring in the world? What are the gaieties in prospect? Are any of my +old flames about to get married?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I didn’t know you had any.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have I not! I believe half the parish of St. Peter’s might proceed +against me for breach of promise; and if the law allowed me as many wives +as Brigham Young, I’d be still disappointing a large and interesting +section of society in the suburbs.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They have made a seizure on the office of the <i>Pike</i>, carried off +the press and the whole issue, and are in eager pursuit after Madden, the +editor.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What for? What is it all about?’ +</p> +<p> +‘A new ballad he has published; but which, for the matter of that, they +were singing at every corner as I came along.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Was it good? Did you buy a copy?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Buy a copy? I should think not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Couldn’t your patriotism stand the test of a penny?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It might if I wanted the production, which I certainly did not; besides, +there is a run upon this, and they were selling it at sixpence.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Hurrah! There’s hope for Ireland after all! Shall I sing it for you, old +fellow? Not that you deserve it. English corruption has damped the little +Irish ardour that old rebellion once kindled in your heart; and if you +could get rid of your brogue, you’re ready to be loyal. You shall hear it, +however, all the same.’ And taking up a very damaged-looking guitar, he +struck a few bold chords, and began:— +</p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +‘Is there anything more we can fight or can hate for? +The “drop” and the famine have made our ranks thin. +In the name of endurance, then, what do we wait for? +Will nobody give us the word to begin? + +‘Some brothers have left us in sadness and sorrow, +In despair of the cause they had sworn to win; +They owned they were sick of that cry of “to-morrow”; +Not a man would believe that we meant to begin. + +‘We’ve been ready for months—is there one can deny it? +Is there any one here thinks rebellion a sin? +We counted the cost—and we did not decry it, +And we asked for no more than the word to begin? + +‘At Vinegar Hill, when our fathers were fighters, +With numbers against them, they cared not a pin; +They needed no orders from newspaper writers, +To tell them the day it was time to begin. + +‘To sit here in sadness and silence to bear it, +Is harder to face than the battle’s loud din; +‘Tis the shame that will kill me—I vow it, I swear it? +Now or never’s the time, if we mean to begin.’ +</pre> +<p> +There was a wild rapture in the way he struck the last chords, that, if it +did not evince ecstasy, seemed to counterfeit enthusiasm. +</p> +<p> +‘Very poor doggerel, with all your bravura,’ said Kearney sneeringly. +</p> +<p> +‘What would you have? I only got three-and-six for it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You! Is that thing yours?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, sir; that thing is mine. And the Castle people think somewhat more +gravely about it than you do.’ +</p> +<p> +‘At which you are pleased, doubtless?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not pleased, but proud, Master Dick, let me tell you. It’s a very +stimulating reflection to the man who dines on an onion, that he can spoil +the digestion of another fellow who has been eating turtle.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But you may have to go to prison for this.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not if you don’t peach on me, for you are the only one who knows the +authorship. You see, Dick, these things are done cautiously. They are +dropped into a letter-box with an initial letter, and a clerk hands the +payment to some of those itinerant hags that sing the melody, and who can +be trusted with the secret as implicitly as the briber at a borough +election.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish you had a better livelihood, Joe.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So do I, or that my present one paid better. The fact is, Dick, +patriotism never was worth much as a career till one got to the top of the +profession. But if you mean to sleep at all, old fellow, “it’s time to +begin,”’ and he chanted out the last words in a clear and ringing tone, as +he banged the door behind him. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0004" id="link2HCH0004"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER IV +</h2> +<h3> +AT ‘TRINITY’ +</h3> +<p> +It was while the two young men were seated at breakfast that the post +arrived, bringing a number of country newspapers, for which, in one shape +or other, Joe Atlee wrote something. Indeed, he was an ‘own +correspondent,’ dating from London, or Paris, or occasionally from Rome, +with an easy freshness and a local colour that vouched for authenticity. +These journals were of a very political tint, from emerald green to the +deepest orange; and, indeed, between two of them—the <i>Tipperary +Pike</i> and the <i>Boyne Water</i>, hailing from Carrickfergus—there +was a controversy of such violence and intemperance of language, that it +was a curiosity to see the two papers on the same table: the fact being +capable of explanation, that they were both written by Joe Atlee—a +secret, however, that he had not confided even to his friend Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘Will that fellow that signs himself Terry O’Toole in the <i>Pike</i> +stand this?’ cried Kearney, reading aloud from the <i>Boyne Water</i>:— +</p> +<p> +‘“We know the man who corresponds with you under the signature of Terry +O’Toole, and it is but one of the aliases under which he has lived since +he came out of the Richmond Bridewell, filcher, forger, and false witness. +There is yet one thing he has never tried, which is to behave with a +little courage. If he should, however, be able to persuade himself, by the +aid of his accustomed stimulants, to accept the responsibility of what he +has written, we bind ourselves to pay his expenses to any part of France +or Belgium, where he will meet us, and we shall also bind ourselves to +give him what his life little entitles him to, a Christian burial +afterwards. +</p> +<p> +‘“No SURRENDER.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am just reading the answer,’ said Joe. ‘It is very brief: here it is:— +</p> +<p> +“‘If ‘No Surrender’—who has been a newsvender in your establishment +since you yourself rose from that employ to the editor’s chair—will +call at this office any morning after distributing his eight copies of +your daily issue, we promise to give him such a kicking as he has never +experienced during his literary career. TERRY O’TOOLE.’” +</p> +<p> +‘And these are the amenities of journalism,’ cried Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘For the matter of that, you might exclaim at the quack doctor of a fair, +and ask, Is this the dignity of medicine?’ said Joe. ‘There’s a head and a +tail to every walk in life: even the law has a Chief-Justice at one end +and a Jack Ketch at the other.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I sincerely wish that those blackguards would first kick and then +shoot each other.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They’ll do nothing of the kind! It’s just as likely that they wrote the +whole correspondence at the same table and with the same jug of punch +between them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If so, I don’t envy you your career or your comrades.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s a lottery with big prizes in the wheel all the same! I could tell +you the names of great swells, Master Dick, who have made very proud +places for themselves in England by what you call “journalism.” In France +it is the one road to eminence. Cannot you imagine, besides, what capital +fun it is to be able to talk to scores of people you were never introduced +to? to tell them an infinity of things on public matters, or now and then +about themselves; and in so many moods as you have tempers, to warn them, +scold, compassionate, correct, console, or abuse them? to tell them not to +be over-confident or bumptious, or purse-proud—’ +</p> +<p> +‘And who are <i>you</i>, may I ask, who presume to do all this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s as it may be. We are occasionally Guizot, Thiers, Prévot Paradol, +Lytton, Disraeli, or Joe Atlee.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Modest, at all events.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And why not say what I feel—not what I have done, but what is in me +to do? Can’t you understand this: it would never occur to me that I could +vault over a five-bar gate if I had been born a cripple? but the conscious +possession of a little pliant muscularity might well tempt me to try it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And get a cropper for your pains.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Be it so. Better the cropper than pass one’s life looking over the top +rail and envying the fellow that had cleared it; but what’s this? here’s a +letter here: it got in amongst the newspapers. I say, Dick, do you stand +this sort of thing?’ said he, as he read the address. +</p> +<p> +‘Stand what sort of thing?’ asked the other, half angrily. +</p> +<p> +‘Why, to be addressed in this fashion? The Honourable Richard Kearney, +Trinity College, Dublin.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is from my sister,’ said Kearney, as he took the letter impatiently +from his hand; ‘and I can only tell you, if she had addressed me +otherwise, I’d not have opened her letter.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But come now, old fellow, don’t lose temper about it. You have a right to +this designation, or you have not—’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll spare all your eloquence by simply saying, that I do not look on you +as a Committee of Privilege, and I’m not going to plead before you. +Besides,’ added he, ‘it’s only a few minutes ago you asked me to credit +you for something you have not shown yourself to be, but that you intended +and felt that the world should see you were, one of these days.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So, then, you really mean to bring your claim before the Lords?’ +</p> +<p> +Kearney, if he heard, did not heed this question, but went on to read his +letter. ‘Here’s a surprise!’ cried he. ‘I was telling you, the other day, +about a certain cousin of mine we were expecting from Italy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The daughter of that swindler, the mock prince?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The man’s character I’ll not stand up for, but his rank and title are +alike indisputable,’ said Kearney haughtily. +</p> +<p> +‘With all my heart. We have soared into a high atmosphere all this day, +and I hope my respiration will get used to it in time. Read away!’ +</p> +<p> +It was not till after a considerable interval that Kearney had recovered +composure enough to read, and when he did so it was with a brow furrowed +with irritation:— +</p> +<p> +‘KILGOBBIN. +</p> +<p> +‘My dear Dick,—We had just sat down to tea last night, and papa was +fidgeting about the length of time his letter to Italy had remained +unacknowledged, when a sharp ring at the house-door startled us. We had +been hearing a good deal of searches for arms lately in the neighbourhood, +and we looked very blankly at each other for a moment. We neither of us +said so, but I feel sure our thoughts were on the same track, and that we +believed Captain Rock, or the head-centre, or whatever be his latest +title, had honoured us with a call. Old Mathew seemed of the same mind +too, for he appeared at the door with that venerable blunderbuss we have +so often played with, and which, if it had any evil thoughts in its head, +I must have been tried for a murder years ago, for I know it was loaded +since I was a child, but that the lock has for the same space of time not +been on speaking terms with the barrel. While, then, thus confirmed in our +suspicions of mischief by Mat’s warlike aspect, we both rose from the +table, the door opened, and a young girl rushed in, and fell—actually +threw herself into papa’s arms. It was Nina herself, who had come all the +way from Rome alone, that is, without any one she knew, and made her way +to us here, without any other guidance than her own good wits. +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot tell you how delighted we are with her. She is the loveliest +girl I ever saw, so gentle, so nicely mannered, so soft-voiced, and so +winning—I feel myself like a peasant beside her. The least thing she +says—her laugh, her slightest gesture, the way she moves about the +room, with a sort of swinging grace, which I thought affected at first, +but now I see is quite natural—is only another of her many +fascinations. +</p> +<p> +‘I fancied for a while that her features were almost too beautifully +regular for expression, and that even when she smiled and showed her +lovely teeth, her eyes got no increase of brightness; but, as I talked +more with her, and learned to know her better, I saw that those eyes have +meanings of softness and depths in them of wonderful power, and, stranger +than all, an archness that shows she has plenty of humour. +</p> +<p> +‘Her English is charming, but slightly foreign; and when she is at a loss +for a word, there is just that much of difficulty in finding it which +gives a heightened expression to her beautifully calm face, and makes it +lovely. You may see how she has fascinated me, for I could go on raving +about her for hours. +</p> +<p> +‘She is very anxious to see you, and asks me over and over again, Shall +you like her? I was almost candid enough to say “too well.” I mean that +you could not help falling in love with her, my dear Dick, and she is so +much above us in style, in habit, and doubtless in ambition, that such +would be only madness. When she saw your photo she smiled, and said, “Is +he not superb?—I mean proud?” I owned you were, and then she added, +“I hope he will like me.” I am not perhaps discreet if I tell you she does +not like the portrait of your chum, Atlee. She says “he is very +good-looking, very clever, very witty, but isn’t he false?” and this she +says over and over again. I told her I believed not; that I had never seen +him myself, but that I knew that you liked him greatly, and felt to him as +a brother. She only shook her head, and said, “<i>Badate bene a quel che +dico</i>. I mean,” said she, “<i>I’m right,</i> but he’s very nice for all +that!” If I tell you this, Dick, it is just because I cannot get it out of +my head, and I will keep saying over and over to myself—“If Joe +Atlee be what she suspects, why does she call him very nice for all that?” +I said you intended to ask him down here next vacation, and she gave the +drollest little laugh in the world—and does she not look lovely when +she shows those small pearly teeth? Heaven help you, poor Dick, when you +see her! but, if I were you, I should leave Master Joe behind me, for she +smiles as she looks at his likeness in a way that would certainly make me +jealous, if I were only Joe’s friend, and not himself. +</p> +<p> +‘We sat up in Nina’s room till nigh morning, and to-day I have scarcely +seen her, for she wants to be let sleep, after that long and tiresome +journey, and I take the opportunity to write you this very rambling +epistle; for you may feel sure I shall be less of a correspondent now than +when I was without companionship, and I counsel you to be very grateful if +you hear from me soon again. +</p> +<p> +‘Papa wants to take Duggan’s farm from him, and Lanty Moore’s meadows, and +throw them into the lawn; but I hope he won’t persist in the plan; not +alone because it is a mere extravagance, but that the county is very +unsettled just now about land-tenure, and the people are hoping all sorts +of things from Parliament, and any interference with them at this time +would be ill taken. Father Cody was here yesterday, and told me +confidentially to prevent papa—not so easy a thing as he thinks, +particularly if he should come to suspect that any intimidation was +intended—and Miss O’Shea unfortunately said something the other day +that papa cannot get out of his head, and keeps on repeating. “So, then, +it’s our turn now,” the fellows say; “the landlords have had five hundred +years of it; it’s time we should come in.” And this he says over and over +with a little laugh, and I wish to my heart Miss Betty had kept it to +herself. By the way, her nephew is to come on leave, and pass two months +with her; and she says she hopes you will be here at the same time, to +keep him company; but I have a notion that another playfellow may prove a +dangerous rival to the Hungarian hussar; perhaps, however, you would hand +over Joe Atlee to him. +</p> +<p> +‘Be sure you bring us some new books, and some music, when you come, or +send them, if you don’t come soon. I am terrified lest Nina should think +the place dreary, and I don’t know how she is to live here if she does not +take to the vulgar drudgeries that fill my own life. When she abruptly +asked me, “What do you do here?” I was sorely puzzled to know what to +answer, and then she added quickly: “For my own part, it’s no great +matter, for I can always dream. I’m a great dreamer!” Is it not lucky for +her, Dick? She’ll have ample time for it here. +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose I never wrote so long a letter as this in my life; indeed I +never had a subject that had such a fascination for myself. Do you know, +Dick, that though I promised to let her sleep on till nigh dinner-time, I +find myself every now and then creeping up gently to her door, and only +bethink me of my pledge when my hand is on the lock; and sometimes I even +doubt if she is here at all, and I am half crazy at fearing it may be all +a dream. +</p> +<p> +‘One word for yourself, and I have done. Why have you not told us of the +examination? It was to have been on the 10th, and we are now at the 18th. +Have you got—whatever it was? the prize, or the medal, or—the +reward, in short, we were so anxiously hoping for? It would be such cheery +tidings for poor papa, who is very low and depressed of late, and I see +him always reading with such attention any notice of the college he can +find in the newspaper. My dear, dear brother, how you would work hard if +you only knew what a prize success in life might give you. Little as I +have seen of her, I could guess that she will never bestow a thought on an +undistinguished man. Come down for one day, and tell me if ever, in all +your ambition, you had such a goal before you as this? +</p> +<p> +‘The hoggets I sent in to Tullamore fair were not sold; but I believe Miss +Betty’s steward will take them; and, if so, I will send you ten pounds +next week. I never knew the market so dull, and the English dealers now +are only eager about horses, and I’m sure I couldn’t part with any if I +had them. With all my love, I am your ever affectionate sister, +</p> +<p> +‘KATE KEARNEY.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have just stepped into Nina’s room and stolen the photo I send you. I +suppose the dress must have been for some fancy ball; but she is a hundred +million times more beautiful. I don’t know if I shall have the courage to +confess my theft to her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is that your sister, Dick?’ said Joe Atlee, as young Kearney withdrew the +carte from the letter, and placed it face downwards on the +breakfast-table. +</p> +<p> +‘No,’ replied he bluntly, and continued to read on; while the other, in +the spirit of that freedom that prevailed between them, stretched out his +hand and took up the portrait. +</p> +<p> +‘Who is this?’ cried he, after some seconds. ‘She’s an actress. That’s +something like what the girl wears in <i>Don Cæsar de Bazan</i>. To be +sure, she is Maritana. She’s stunningly beautiful. Do you mean to tell me, +Dick, that there’s a girl like that on your provincial boards?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I never said so, any more than I gave you leave to examine the contents +of my letters,’ said the other haughtily. +</p> +<p> +‘Egad, I’d have smashed the seal any day to have caught a glimpse of such +a face as that. I’ll wager her eyes are blue grey. Will you have a bet on +it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘When you have done with your raptures, I’ll thank you to hand the +likeness to me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But who is she? what is she? where is she? Is she the Greek?’ +</p> +<p> +‘When a fellow can help himself so coolly to his information as you do, I +scarcely think he deserves much aid from others; but, I may tell you, she +is not Maritana, nor a provincial actress, nor any actress at all, but a +young lady of good blood and birth, and my own first cousin.’ +</p> +<p> +‘On my oath, it’s the best thing I ever knew of you.’ +</p> +<p> +Kearney laughed out at this moment at something in the letter, and did not +hear the other’s remark. +</p> +<p> +‘It seems, Master Joe, that the young lady did not reciprocate the +rapturous delight you feel, at sight of <i>your</i> picture. My sister +says—I’ll read you her very words—“she does not like the +portrait of your friend Atlee; he may be clever and amusing, she says, but +he is undeniably false.” Mind that—undeniably false.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s all the fault of the artist. The stupid dog would place me in so +strong a light that I kept blinking.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no. She reads you like a book,’ said the other. +</p> +<p> +‘I wish to Heaven she would, if she would hold me like one.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And the nice way she qualifies your cleverness, by calling you amusing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She could certainly spare that reproach to her cousin Dick,’ said he, +laughing; ‘but no more of this sparring. When do you mean to take me down +to the country with you? The term will be up on Tuesday.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That will demand a little consideration now. In the fall of the year, +perhaps. When the sun is less powerful the light will be more favourable +to your features.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My poor Dick, I cram you with good advice every day; but one counsel I +never cease repeating, “Never try to be witty.” A dull fellow only cuts +his finger with a joke; he never catches it by the handle. Hand me over +that letter of your sister’s; I like the way she writes. All that about +the pigs and the poultry is as good as the <i>Farmer’s Chronicle</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +The other made no other reply than by coolly folding up the letter and +placing it in his pocket; and then, after a pause, he said— +</p> +<p> +‘I shall tell Miss Kearney the favourable impression her epistolary powers +have produced on my very clever and accomplished chum, Mr. Atlee.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do so; and say, if she’d take me for a correspondent instead of you, +she’d be “exchanging with a difference.” On my oath,’ said he seriously, +‘I believe a most finished education might be effected in letter-writing. +I’d engage to take a clever girl through a whole course of Latin and +Greek, and a fair share of mathematics and logic, in a series of letters, +and her replies would be the fairest test of her acquirement.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall I propose this to my sister?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do so, or to your cousin. I suspect Maritana would be an apter pupil.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The bell has stopped. We shall be late in the hall,’ said Kearney, +throwing on his gown hurriedly and hastening away; while Atlee, taking +some proof-sheets from the chimney-piece, proceeded to correct them, a +slight flicker of a smile still lingering over his dark but handsome face. +</p> +<p> +Though such little jarring passages as those we have recorded were nothing +uncommon between these two young men, they were very good friends on the +whole, the very dissimilarity that provoked their squabbles saving them +from any more serious rivalry. In reality, no two people could be less +alike: Kearney being a slow, plodding, self-satisfied, dull man, of very +ordinary faculties; while the other was an indolent, discursive, +sharp-witted fellow, mastering whatever he addressed himself to with ease, +but so enamoured of novelty that he rarely went beyond a smattering of +anything. He carried away college honours apparently at will, and might, +many thought, have won a fellowship with little effort; but his passion +was for change. Whatever bore upon the rogueries of letters, the frauds of +literature, had an irresistible charm for him; and he once declared that +he would almost rather have been Ireland than Shakespeare; and then it was +his delight to write Greek versions of a poem that might attach the mark +of plagiarism to Tennyson, or show, by a Scandinavian lyric, how the +laureate had been poaching from the Northmen. Now it was a mock pastoral +in most ecclesiastical Latin that set the whole Church in arms; now a mock +despatch of Baron Beust that actually deceived the <i>Revue des Deux +Mondes</i> and caused quite a panic at the Tuileries. He had established +such relations with foreign journals that he could at any moment command +insertion for a paper, now in the <i>Mémorial Diplomatique</i>, now in the +<i>Golos</i> of St. Petersburg, or the <i>Allgemeine Zeitung</i>; while +the comment, written also by himself, would appear in the <i>Kreuz Zeitung</i> +or the <i>Times</i>; and the mystification became such that the shrewdest +and keenest heads were constantly misled, to which side to incline in a +controversy where all the wires were pulled by one hand. Many a discussion +on the authenticity of a document, or the veracity of a conversation, +would take place between the two young men; Kearney not having the vaguest +suspicion that the author of the point in debate was then sitting opposite +to him, sometimes seeming to share the very doubts and difficulties that +were then puzzling himself. +</p> +<p> +While Atlee knew Kearney in every fold and fibre of his nature, Kearney +had not the very vaguest conception of him with whom he sat every day at +meals, and communed through almost every hour of his life. He treated Joe, +indeed, with a sort of proud protection, thinking him a sharp, clever, +idle fellow, who would never come to anything higher than a bookseller’s +hack or an ‘occasional correspondent.’ He liked his ready speech, and his +fun, but he would not consent to see in either evidences of anything +beyond the amusing qualities of a very light intelligence. On the whole, +he looked down upon him, as very properly the slow and ponderous people in +life do look down upon their more volatile brethren, and vote them +triflers. Long may it be so! There would be more sunstrokes in the world, +if it were not that the shadows of dull men made such nice cool places for +the others to walk in! +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0005" id="link2HCH0005"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER V +</h2> +<h3> +HOME LIFE AT THE CASTLE +</h3> +<p> +The life of that quaint old country-house was something very strange and +odd to Nina Kostalergi. It was not merely its quiet monotony, its unbroken +sameness of topics as of events, and its small economies, always appearing +on the surface; but that a young girl like Kate, full of life and spirits, +gay, handsome, and high-hearted—that she should go her mill-round of +these tiresome daily cares, listening to the same complaints, remedying +the same evils, meeting the same difficulties, and yet never seem to +resent an existence so ignoble and unworthy! This was, indeed, scarcely +credible. +</p> +<p> +As for Nina herself—like one saved from shipwreck—her first +sense of security was full of gratitude. It was only as this wore off that +she began to see the desolation of the rock on which she had clambered. +Not that her former life had been rose-tinted. It had been of all things +the most harassing and wearing—a life of dreary necessitude—a +perpetual struggle with debt. Except play, her father had scarcely any +resource for a livelihood. He affected, indeed, to give lessons in Italian +and French to young Englishmen; but he was so fastidious as to the rank +and condition of his pupils, so unaccommodating as to his hours and so +unpunctual, that it was evident that the whole was a mere pretence of +industry, to avoid the reproach of being utterly dependent on the +play-table; besides this, in his capacity as a teacher he obtained access +to houses and acceptance with families where he would have found entrance +impossible under other circumstances. +</p> +<p> +He was polished and good-looking. All his habits bespoke familiarity with +society; and he knew to the nicest fraction the amount of intimacy he +might venture on with any one. Some did not like him—the man of a +questionable position, the reduced gentleman, has terrible prejudices to +combat. He must always be suspected—Heaven knows of what, but of +some covert design against the religion or the pocket, or the influence of +those who admit him. Some thought him dangerous because his manners were +insinuating, and his address studiously directed to captivate. Others did +not fancy his passion for mixing in the world, and frequenting society to +which his straitened means appeared to deny him rightful access; but when +he had succeeded in introducing his daughter to the world, and people +began to say, ‘See how admirably M. Kostalergi has brought up that girl! +how nicely mannered she is, how ladylike, how well bred, what a linguist, +what a musician!’ a complete revulsion took place in public opinion, and +many who had but half trusted, or less than liked him before, became now +his stanchest friends and adherents. Nina had been a great success in +society, and she reaped the full benefit of it. Sufficiently well born to +be admitted, without any special condescension, into good houses, she was +in manner and style the equal of any; and though her dress was ever of the +cheapest and plainest, her fresh toilet was often commented on with praise +by those who did not fully remember what added grace and elegance the +wearer had lent it. +</p> +<p> +From the wealthy nobles to whom her musical genius had strongly +recommended her, numerous and sometimes costly presents were sent in +acknowledgment of her charming gifts; and these, as invariably, were +converted into money by her father, who, after a while, gave it to be +understood that the recompense would be always more welcome in that form. +</p> +<p> +Nina, however, for a long time knew nothing of this; she saw herself +sought after and flattered in society, selected for peculiar attention +wherever she went, complimented on her acquirements, and made much of to +an extent that not unfrequently excited the envy and jealousy of girls +much more favourably placed by fortune than herself. If her long mornings +and afternoons were passed amidst solitude and poverty, vulgar cares, and +harassing importunities, when night came, she emerged into the blaze of +lighted lustres and gilded salons, to move in an atmosphere of splendour +and sweet sounds, with all that could captivate the senses and exalt +imagination. This twofold life of meanness and magnificence so wrought +upon her nature as to develop almost two individualities. The one hard, +stern, realistic, even to grudgingness; the other gay, buoyant, +enthusiastic, and ardent; and they who only saw her of an evening in all +the exultation of her flattered beauty, followed about by a train of +admiring worshippers, addressed in all that exaggeration of language Italy +sanctions, pampered by caresses, and honoured by homage on every side, +little knew by what dreary torpor of heart and mind that joyous ecstasy +they witnessed had been preceded, nor by what a bound her emotions had +sprung from the depths of brooding melancholy to this paroxysm of delight; +nor could the worn-out and wearied followers of pleasure comprehend the +intense enjoyment produced by sights and sounds which in their case no +fancy idealised, no soaring imagination had lifted to the heaven of bliss. +</p> +<p> +Kostalergi seemed for a while to content himself with the secret resources +of his daughter’s successes, but at length he launched out into heavy play +once more, and lost largely. It was in this strait that he bethought him +of negotiating with a theatrical manager for Nina’s appearance on the +stage. These contracts take the precise form of a sale, where the victim, +in consideration of being educated, and maintained, and paid a certain +amount, is bound, legally bound, to devote her services to a master for a +given time. The impresario of the ‘Fenice’ had often heard from travellers +of that wonderful mezzo-soprano voice which was captivating all Rome, +where the beauty and grace of the singer were extolled not less loudly. +The great skill of these astute providers for the world’s pleasure is +evidenced in nothing more remarkably than the instinctive quickness with +which they pounce upon the indications of dramatic genius, and hasten away—half +across the globe if need be—to secure it. Signor Lanari was not slow +to procure a letter of introduction to Kostalergi, and very soon +acquainted him with his object. +</p> +<p> +Under the pretence that he was an old friend and former schoolfellow, +Kostalergi asked him to share their humble dinner, and there, in that +meanly-furnished room, and with the accompaniment of a wretched and +jangling instrument, Nina so astonished and charmed him by her +performance, that all the habitual reserve of the cautious bargainer gave +way, and he burst out into exclamations of enthusiastic delight, ending +with—‘She is mine! she is mine! I tell you, since Persiani, there +has been nothing like her!’ +</p> +<p> +Nothing remained now but to reveal the plan to herself, and though +certainly neither the Greek nor his guest were deficient in descriptive +power, or failed to paint in glowing colours the gorgeous processions of +triumphs that await stage success, she listened with little pleasure to it +all. She had already walked the boards of what she thought a higher arena. +She had tasted flatteries unalloyed with any sense of decided inferiority; +she had moved amongst dukes and duchesses with a recognised station, and +received their compliments with ease and dignity. Was all this reality of +condition to be exchanged for a mock splendour, and a feigned greatness? +was she to be subjected to the licensed stare and criticism and coarse +comment, it may be, of hundreds she never knew, nor would stoop to know? +and was the adulation she now lived in to be bartered for the vulgar +applause of those who, if dissatisfied, could testify the feeling as +openly and unsparingly? She said very little of what she felt in her +heart, but no sooner alone in her room at night, than she wrote that +letter to her uncle entreating his protection. +</p> +<p> +It had been arranged with Lanari that she should make one appearance at a +small provincial theatre so soon as she could master any easy part, and +Kostalergi, having some acquaintance with the manager at Orvieto, hastened +off there to obtain his permission for her appearance. It was of this +brief absence she profited to fly from Rome, the banker conveying her as +far as Civita Vecchia, whence she sailed direct for Marseilles. And now we +see her, as she found herself in the dreary old Irish mansion, sad, +silent, and neglected, wondering whether the past was all a dream, or if +the unbroken calm in which she now lived was not a sleep. +</p> +<p> +Conceding her perfect liberty to pass her time how she liked, they exacted +from her no appearance at meals, nor any conformity with the ways of +others, and she never came to breakfast, and only entered the drawing-room +a short time before dinner. Kate, who had counted on her companionship and +society, and hoped to see her sharing with her the little cares and duties +of her life, and taking interest in her pursuits, was sorely grieved at +her estrangement, but continued to believe it would wear off with time and +familiarity with the place. Kearney himself, in secret, resented the +freedom with which she disregarded the discipline of his house, and +grumbled at times over foreign ways and habits that he had no fancy to see +under his roof. When she did appear, however, her winning manners, her +grace, and a certain half-caressing coquetry she could practise to +perfection, so soothed and amused him that he soon forgot any momentary +displeasure, and more than once gave up his evening visit to the club at +Moate to listen to her as she sang, or hear her sketch off some trait of +that Roman society in which British pretension and eccentricity often +figured so amusingly. +</p> +<p> +Like a faithful son of the Church, too, he never wearied hearing of the +Pope and of the Cardinals, of glorious ceremonials of the Church, and +festivals observed with all the pomp and state that pealing organs, and +incense, and gorgeous vestments could confer. The contrast between the +sufferance under which his Church existed at home and the honours and +homage rendered to it abroad, were a fruitful stimulant to that +disaffection he felt towards England, and would not unfrequently lead him +away to long diatribes about penal laws and the many disabilities which +had enslaved Ireland, and reduced himself, the descendant of a princely +race, to the condition of a ruined gentleman. +</p> +<p> +To Kate these complainings were ever distasteful; she had but one +philosophy, which was ‘to bear up well,’ and when, not that, ‘as well as +you could.’ She saw scores of things around her to be remedied, or, at +least, bettered, by a little exertion, and not one which could be helped +by a vain regret. For the loss of that old barbaric splendour and profuse +luxury which her father mourned over, she had no regrets. She knew that +these wasteful and profligate livers had done nothing for the people +either in act or in example; that they were a selfish, worthless, +self-indulgent race, caring for nothing but their pleasures, and making +all their patriotism consist in a hate towards England. +</p> +<p> +These were not Nina’s thoughts. She liked all these stories of a time of +power and might, when the Kearneys were great chieftains, and the old +castle the scene of revelry and feasting. +</p> +<p> +She drew prettily, and it amused her to illustrate the curious tales the +old man told her of rays and forays, the wild old life of savage +chieftains and the scarcely less savage conquerors. On one of these—she +called it ‘The Return of O’Caharney’—she bestowed such labour and +study, that her uncle would sit for hours watching the work, not knowing +if his heart were more stirred by the claim of his ancestor’s greatness, +or by the marvellous skill that realised the whole scene before him. The +head of the young chieftain was to be filled in when Dick came home. +Meanwhile great persuasions were being used to induce Peter Gill to sit +for a kern who had shared the exile of his masters, but had afterwards +betrayed them to the English; and whether Gill had heard some dropping +word of the part he was meant to fill, or that his own suspicion had taken +alarm from certain directions the young lady gave as to the expression he +was to assume, certain is it nothing could induce him to comply, and go +down to posterity with the immortality of crime. +</p> +<p> +The little long-neglected drawing-room where Nina had set up her easel +became now the usual morning lounge of the old man, who loved to sit and +watch her as she worked, and, what amused him even more, listen while she +talked. It seemed to him like a revival of the past to hear of the world, +that gay world of feasting and enjoyment, of which for so many years he +had known nothing; and here he was back in it again, and with grander +company and higher names than he ever remembered. ‘Why was not Kate like +her?’ would he mutter over and over to himself. Kate was a good girl, +fine-tempered and happy-hearted, but she had no accomplishments, none of +those refinements of the other. If he wanted to present her at ‘the +Castle’ one of these days, he did not know if she would have tact enough +for the ordeal; but Nina!—Nina was sure to make an actual sensation, +as much by her grace and her style as by her beauty. Kearney never came +into the room where she was without being struck by the elegance of her +demeanour, the way she would rise to receive him, her step, her carriage, +the very disposal of her drapery as she sat; the modulated tone of her +voice, and a sort of purring satisfaction as she took his hand and heard +his praises of her, spread like a charm over him, so that he never knew +how the time slipped by as he sat beside her. +</p> +<p> +Have you ever written to your father since you came here?’ asked he one +day as they talked together. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, sir; and yesterday I got a letter from him. Such a nice letter, sir—no +complainings, no reproaches for my running away; but all sorts of good +wishes for my happiness. He owns he was sorry to have ever thought of the +stage for me; but he says this lawsuit he is engaged in about his +grandfather’s will may last for years, and that he knew I was so certain +of a great success, and that a great success means more than mere money, +he fancied that in my triumph he would reap the recompense for his own +disasters. He is now, however, far happier that I have found a home, a +real home, and says, “Tell my lord I am heartily ashamed of all my +rudeness with regard to him, and would willingly make a pilgrimage to the +end of Europe to ask his pardon”; and say besides that “when I shall be +restored to the fortune and rank of my ancestors”—you know,’ added +she, ‘he is a prince—“my first act will be to throw myself at his +feet, and beg to be forgiven by him.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘What is the property? is it land?’ asked he, with the half-suspectfulness +of one not fully assured of what he was listening to. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, sir; the estate is in Delos. I have seen the plan of the grounds and +gardens of the palace, which are princely. Here, on this seal,’ said she, +showing the envelope of her letter, ‘you can see the arms; papa never +omits to use it, though on his card he is written only “of the princes”—a +form observed with us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what chance has he of getting it all back again?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is more than I can tell you; he himself is sometimes very confident, +and talks as if there could not be a doubt of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Used your poor mother to believe it?’ asked he, half-tremulously. +</p> +<p> +‘I can scarcely say, sir; I can barely remember her; but I have heard papa +blame her for not interesting her high connections in England in his suit; +he often thought that a word to the ambassador at Athens would have almost +decided the case.’ +</p> +<p> +‘High connections, indeed!’ burst he forth. ‘By my conscience, they’re +pretty much out at elbows, like himself; and if we were trying to recover +our own right to-morrow, the look-out would be bleak enough!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Papa is not easily cast down, sir; he has a very sanguine spirit.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe you think it’s what is wanting in my case, eh, Nina? Say it out, +girl; tell me, I’d be the better for a little of your father’s +hopefulness, eh?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You could not change to anything I could like better than what you are,’ +said she, taking his hand and kissing it. +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, you ‘re a rare one to say coaxing things,’ said he, looking fondly on +her. ‘I believe you’d be the best advocate for either of us if the courts +would let you plead for us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish they would, sir,’ said she proudly. +</p> +<p> +‘What is that?’ cried he suddenly; ‘sure it’s not putting myself you are +in the picture!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I am, sir. Was not the O’Caharney your ancestor? Is it likely +that an old race had not traits of feature and lineament that ages of +descent could not efface? I’d swear that strong brow and frank look must +be an heirloom.’ +</p> +<p> +‘‘Faith, then, almost the only one!’ said he, sighing. ‘Who’s making that +noise out there?’ said he, rising and going to the window. ‘Oh, it’s Kate +with her dogs. I often tell her she ‘d keep a pair of ponies for less than +those troublesome brutes cost her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They are great company to her, she says, and she lives so much in the +open air.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know she does,’ said he, dropping his head and sitting like one whose +thoughts had taken a brooding, despondent turn. +</p> +<p> +‘One more sitting I must have, sir, for the hair. You had it beautifully +yesterday: it fell over on one side with a most perfect light on a large +lock here. Will you give me half an hour to-morrow, say?’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0003" id="linkimage-0003"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/060.jpg" + alt="‘One More Sitting I Must Have, Sir, for the Hair’" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘I can’t promise you, my dear. Peter Gill has been urging me to go over to +Loughrea for the fair; and if we go, we ought to be there by Saturday, and +have a quiet look at the stock before the sales begin.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And are you going to be long away?’ said she poutingly, as she leaned +over the back of his chair, and suffered her curls to fall half across his +face. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll be right glad to be back again,’ said he, pressing her head down +till he could kiss her cheek, ‘right glad!’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0006" id="link2HCH0006"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER VI +</h2> +<h3> +THE ‘BLUE GOAT’ +</h3> +<p> +The ‘Blue Goat’ in the small town of Moate is scarcely a model hostel. The +entrance-hall is too much encumbered by tramps and beggars of various +orders and ages, who not only resort there to take their meals and play at +cards, but to divide the spoils and settle the accounts of their several +‘industries,’ and occasionally to clear off other scores which demand +police interference. On the left is the bar; the right-hand being used as +the office of a land-agent, is besieged by crowds of country-people, in +whom, if language is to be trusted, the grievous wrongs of land-tenure are +painfully portrayed—nothing but complaint, dogged determination, and +resistance being heard on every side. Behind the bar is a long +low-ceilinged apartment, the parlour <i>par excellence</i>, only used by +distinguished visitors, and reserved on one especial evening of the week +for the meeting of the ‘Goats,’ as the members of a club call themselves—the +chief, indeed the founder, being our friend Mathew Kearney, whose title of +sovereignty was ‘Buck-Goat,’ and whose portrait, painted by a native +artist and presented by the society, figured over the mantel-piece. The +village Van Dyck would seem to have invested largely in carmine, and +though far from parsimonious of it on the cheeks and the nose of his +sitter, he was driven to work off some of his superabundant stock on the +cravat, and even the hands, which, though amicably crossed in front of the +white-waistcoated stomach, are fearfully suggestive of some recent deed of +blood. The pleasant geniality of the countenance is, however, reassuring. +Nor—except a decided squint, by which the artist had ambitiously +attempted to convey a humoristic drollery to the expression—is there +anything sinister in the portrait. +</p> +<p> +An inscription on the frame announces that this picture of their respected +founder was presented, on his fiftieth birthday, ‘To Mathew Kearney, sixth +Viscount Kilgobbin’; various devices of ‘caprine’ significance, heads, +horns, and hoofs, profusely decorating the frame. If the antiquary should +lose himself in researches for the origin of this society, it is as well +to admit at once that the landlord’s sign of the ‘Blue Goat’ gave the +initiative to the name, and that the worthy associates derived nothing +from classical authority, and never assumed to be descendants of fauns or +satyrs, but respectable shopkeepers of Moate, and unexceptional judges of +‘poteen.’ A large jug of this insinuating liquor figured on the table, and +was called ‘Goat’s-milk’; and if these humoristic traits are so carefully +enumerated, it is because they comprised all that was specially droll or +quaint in these social gatherings, the members of which were a very +commonplace set of men, who discussed their little local topics in very +ordinary fashion, slightly elevated, perhaps, in self-esteem, by thinking +how little the outer world knew of their dulness and dreariness. +</p> +<p> +As the meetings were usually determined on by the will of the president, +who announced at the hour of separation when they were to reassemble, and +as, since his niece’s arrival, Kearney had almost totally forgotten his +old associates, the club-room ceased to be regarded as the holy of holies, +and was occasionally used by the landlord for the reception of such +visitors as he deemed worthy of peculiar honour. +</p> +<p> +It was on a very wet night of that especially rainy month in the Irish +calendar, July, that two travellers sat over a turf fire in this sacred +chamber, various articles of their attire being spread out to dry before +the blaze, the owners of which actually steamed with the effects of the +heat upon their damp habiliments. Some fishing-tackle and two knapsacks, +which lay in a corner, showed they were pedestrians, and their looks, +voice, and manner proclaimed them still more unmistakably to be gentlemen. +</p> +<p> +One was a tall, sunburnt, soldierlike man of six or seven-and-thirty, +powerfully built, and with that solidity of gesture and firmness of tread +sometimes so marked with strong men. A mere glance at him showed he was a +cold, silent, somewhat haughty man, not given to hasty resolves or in any +way impulsive, and it is just possible that a long acquaintance with him +would not have revealed a great deal more. He had served in a half-dozen +regiments, and although all declared that Henry Lockwood was an honourable +fellow, a good soldier, and thoroughly ‘safe’—very meaning epithet—there +were no very deep regrets when he ‘exchanged,’ nor was there, perhaps, one +man who felt he had lost his ‘pal’ by his going. He was now in the +Carbineers, and serving as an extra aide-de-camp to the Viceroy. +</p> +<p> +Not a little unlike him in most respects was the man who sat opposite him—a +pale, finely-featured, almost effeminate-looking young fellow, with a +small line of dark moustache, and a beard <i>en Henri Quatre</i>, to the +effect of which a collar cut in Van Dyck fashion gave an especial +significance. Cecil Walpole was disposed to be pictorial in his get-up, +and the purple dye of his knickerbocker stockings, the slouching plumage +of his Tyrol hat, and the graceful hang of his jacket, had excited envy in +quarters where envy was fame. He too was on the viceregal staff, being +private secretary to his relative the Lord-Lieutenant, during whose +absence in England they had undertaken a ramble to the Westmeath lakes, +not very positive whether their object was to angle for trout or to fish +for that ‘knowledge of Ireland’ so popularly sought after in our day, and +which displays itself so profusely in platform speeches and letters to the +Times. Lockwood, not impossibly, would have said it was ‘to do a bit of +walking’ he had come. He had gained eight pounds by that indolent +Phoenix-Park life he was leading, and he had no fancy to go back to +Leicestershire too heavy for his cattle. He was not—few hunting men +are—an ardent fisherman; and as for the vexed question of Irish +politics, he did not see why he was to trouble his head to unravel the +puzzles that were too much for Mr. Gladstone; not to say, that he felt to +meddle with these matters was like interfering with another man’s +department. ‘I don’t suspect,’ he would say, ‘I should fancy John Bright +coming down to “stables” and dictating to me how my Irish horses should be +shod, or what was the best bit for a “borer.”’ He saw, besides, that the +game of politics was a game of compromises: something was deemed admirable +now that had been hitherto almost execrable; and that which was utterly +impossible to-day, if done last year would have been a triumphant success, +and consequently he pronounced the whole thing an ‘imposition and a +humbug.’ ‘I can understand a right and a wrong as well as any man,’ he +would say, ‘but I know nothing about things that are neither or both, +according to who’s in or who’s out of the Cabinet. Give me the command of +twelve thousand men, let me divide them into three flying columns, and if +I don’t keep Ireland quiet, draft me into a West Indian regiment, that’s +all.’ And as to the idea of issuing special commissions, passing new Acts +of Parliament, or suspending old ones, to do what he or any other +intelligent soldier could do without any knavery or any corruption, ‘John +Bright might tell us,’ but he couldn’t. And here it may be well to observe +that it was a favourite form of speech with him to refer to this +illustrious public man in this familiar manner; but always to show what a +condition of muddle and confusion must ensue if we followed the counsels +that name emblematised; nor did he know a more cutting sarcasm to reply to +an adversary than when he had said, ‘Oh, John Bright would agree with +you,’ or, ‘I don’t think John Bright could go further.’ +</p> +<p> +Of a very different stamp was his companion. He was a young gentleman whom +we cannot more easily characterise than by calling him, in the cant of the +day, ‘of the period.’ He was essentially the most recent product of the +age we live in. Manly enough in some things, he was fastidious in others +to the very verge of effeminacy; an aristocrat by birth and by +predilection, he made a parade of democratic opinions. He affected a sort +of Crichtonism in the variety of his gifts, and as linguist, musician, +artist, poet, and philosopher, loved to display the scores of things he +might be, instead of that mild, very ordinary young gentleman that he was. +He had done a little of almost everything: he had been in the Guards, in +diplomacy, in the House for a brief session, had made an African tour, +written a pleasant little book about the Nile, with the illustrations by +his own hand. Still he was greater in promise than performance. There was +an opera of his partly finished; a five-act comedy almost ready for the +stage; a half-executed group he had left in some studio in Rome, showed +what he might have done in sculpture. When his distinguished relative the +Marquis of Danesbury recalled him from his post as secretary of legation +in Italy, to join him at his Irish seat of government, the phrase in which +he invited him to return is not without its significance, and we give it +as it occurred in the context: ‘I have no fancy for the post they have +assigned me, nor is it what I had hoped for. They say, however, I shall +succeed here. <i>Nous verrons</i>. Meanwhile, I remember your often +remarking, “There is a great game to be played in Ireland.” Come over at +once, then, and let me have a talk with you over it. I shall manage the +question of your leave by making you private secretary for the moment. We +shall have many difficulties, but Ireland will be the worst of them. Do +not delay, therefore, for I shall only go over to be sworn in, etc., and +return for the third reading of the Church Bill, and I should like to see +you in Dublin (and leave you there) when I go.’ +</p> +<p> +Except that they were both members of the viceregal household, and English +by birth, there was scarcely a tie between these very dissimilar natures; +but somehow the accidents of daily life, stronger than the traits of +disposition, threw them into intimacy, and they agreed it would be a good +thing ‘to see something of Ireland’; and with this wise resolve they had +set out on that half-fishing excursion, which, having taken them over the +Westmeath lakes, now was directing them to the Shannon, but with an +infirmity of purpose to which lack of sport and disastrous weather were +contributing powerfully at the moment we have presented them to our +reader. +</p> +<p> +To employ the phrase which it is possible each might have used, they +‘liked each other well enough’—that is, each found something in the +other he ‘could get on with’; but there was no stronger tie of regard or +friendship between them, and each thought he perceived some flaw of +pretension, or affected wisdom, or selfishness, or vanity, in the other, +and actually believed he amused himself by its display. In natures, +tastes, and dispositions, they were miles asunder, and disagreement +between them would have been unceasing on every subject, had they not been +gentlemen. It was this alone—this gentleman element—made their +companionship possible, and, in the long run, not unpleasant. So much more +has good-breeding to do in the common working of daily life than the more +valuable qualities of mind and temperament. +</p> +<p> +Though much younger than his companion, Walpole took the lead in all the +arrangements of the journey, determined where and how long they should +halt, and decided on the route next to be taken; the other showing a real +or affected indifference on all these matters, and making of his town-bred +apathy a very serviceable quality in the midst of Irish barbarism and +desolation. On politics, too—if that be the name for such light +convictions as they entertained—they differed: the soldier’s ideas +being formed on what he fancied would be the late Duke of Wellington’s +opinion, and consisted in what he called ‘putting down.’ Walpole was a +promising Whig; that is, one who coquets with Radical notions, but +fastidiously avoids contact with the mob; and who, fervently believing +that all popular concessions are spurious if not stamped with Whig +approval, would like to treat the democratic leaders as forgers and +knaves. +</p> +<p> +If, then, there was not much of similarity between these two men to attach +them to each other, there was what served for a bond of union: they +belonged to the same class in life, and used pretty nigh the same forms +for their expression of like and dislike; and as in traffic it contributes +wonderfully to the facilities of business to use the same money, so in the +common intercourse of life will the habit to estimate things at the same +value conduce to very easy relations, and something almost like +friendship. +</p> +<p> +While they sat over the fire awaiting their supper, each had lighted a +cigar, busying himself from time to time in endeavouring to dry some +drenched article of dress, or extracting from damp and dripping pockets +their several contents. +</p> +<p> +‘This, then,’ said the younger man—‘this is the picturesque Ireland +our tourist writers tell us of; and the land where the <i>Times</i> says +the traveller will find more to interest him than in the Tyrol or the +Oberland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What about the climate?’ said the other, in a deep bass voice. +</p> +<p> +‘Mild and moist, I believe, are the epithets; that is, it makes you damp, +and it keeps you so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And the inns?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The inns, it is admitted, might be better; but the traveller is +admonished against fastidiousness, and told that the prompt spirit of +obligeance, the genial cordiality, he will meet with, are more than enough +to repay him for the want of more polished habits and mere details of +comfort and convenience.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Rotten humbug! <i>I</i> don’t want cordiality from my innkeeper.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should think not! As, for instance, a bit of carpet in this room would +be worth more than all the courtesy that showed us in.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What was that lake called—the first place I mean?’ asked Lockwood. +</p> +<p> +‘Lough Brin. I shouldn’t say but with better weather it might be pretty.’ +</p> +<p> +A half-grunt of dissent was all the reply, and Walpole went on— +</p> +<p> +It’s no use painting a landscape when it is to be smudged all over with +Indian ink. There are no tints in mountains swathed in mist, no colour in +trees swamped with moisture; everything seems so imbued with damp, one +fancies it would take two years in the tropics to dry Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I asked that fellow who showed us the way here, why he didn’t pitch off +those wet rags he wore, and walk away in all the dignity of nakedness.’ +</p> +<p> +A large dish of rashers and eggs, and a mess of Irish stew, which the +landlord now placed on the table, with a foaming jug of malt, seemed to +rally them out of their ill-temper; and for some time they talked away in +a more cheerful tone. +</p> +<p> +‘Better than I hoped for,’ said Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘Fair!’ +</p> +<p> +‘And that ale, too—I suppose it is called ale—is very +tolerable.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s downright good. Let us have some more of it.’ And he shouted, +‘Master!’ at the top of his voice. ‘More of this,’ said Lockwood, touching +the measure. ‘Beer or ale, which is it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Castle Bellingham, sir,’ replied the landlord; ‘beats all the Bass and +Allsopp that ever was brewed.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You think so, eh?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m sure of it, sir. The club that sits here had a debate on it one +night, and put it to the vote, and there wasn’t one man for the English +liquor. My lord there,’ said he, pointing to the portrait, ‘sent an +account of it all to <i>Saunders</i>’ newspaper.’ +</p> +<p> +While he left the room to fetch the ale, the travellers both fixed their +eyes on the picture, and Walpole, rising, read out the inscription—‘Viscount +Kilgobbin.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s no such title,’ said the other bluntly. +</p> +<p> +‘Lord Kilgobbin—Kilgobbin? Where did I hear that name before?’ +</p> +<p> +‘In a dream, perhaps.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no. I <i>have</i> heard it, if I could only remember where and how! I +say, landlord, where does his lordship live?’ and he pointed to the +portrait. +</p> +<p> +‘Beyond, at the castle, sir. You can see it from the door without when the +weather’s fine.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That must mean on a very rare occasion!’ said Lockwood gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘No indeed, sir. It didn’t begin to rain on Tuesday last till after three +o’clock.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Magnificent climate!’ exclaimed Walpole enthusiastically. +</p> +<p> +‘It is indeed, sir. Glory be to God!’ said the landlord, with an honest +gravity that set them both off laughing. +</p> +<p> +‘How about this club—does it meet often?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It used, sir, to meet every Thursday evening, and my lord never missed a +night, but quite lately he took it in his head not to come out in the +evenings. Some say it was the rheumatism, and more says it’s the unsettled +state of the country; though, the Lord be praised for it, there wasn’t a +man fired at in the neighbourhood since Easter, and <i>he</i> was a +peeler.’ +</p> +<p> +‘One of the constabulary?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, sir; a dirty, mean chap, that was looking after a poor boy that set +fire to Mr. Hagin’s ricks, and that was over a year ago.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And naturally forgotten by this time?’ +</p> +<p> +‘By coorse it was forgotten. Ould Mat Hagin got a presentment for the +damage out of the grand-jury, and nobody was the worse for it at all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And so the club is smashed, eh?’ +</p> +<p> +‘As good as smashed, sir; for whenever any of them comes now of an +evening, he just goes into the bar and takes his glass there.’ +</p> +<p> +He sighed heavily as he said this, and seemed overcome with sadness. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m trying to remember why the name is so familiar to me. I know I have +heard of Lord Kilgobbin before,’ said Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe so,’ said the landlord respectfully. ‘You may have read in books +how it was at Kilgobbin Castle King James came to stop after the Boyne; +that he held a “coort” there in the big drawing-room—they call it +the “throne-room” ever since—and slept two nights at the castle +afterwards?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s something to see, Walpole,’ said Lockwood. +</p> +<p> +‘So it is. How is that to be managed, landlord? Does his lordship permit +strangers to visit the castle?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing easier than that, sir,’ said the host, who gladly embraced a +project that should detain his guests at the inn. ‘My lord went through +the town this morning on his way to Loughrea fair; but the young ladies is +at home; and you’ve only to send over a message, and say you’d like to see +the place, and they’ll be proud to show it to you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Let us send our cards, with a line in pencil,’ said Walpole, in a whisper +to his friend. +</p> +<p> +‘And there are young ladies there?’ asked Lockwood. +</p> +<p> +‘Two born beauties; it’s hard to say which is handsomest,’ replied the +host, overjoyed at the attraction his neighbourhood possessed. +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose that will do?’ said Walpole, showing what he had written on his +card. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, perfectly.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Despatch this at once. I mean early to-morrow; and let your messenger ask +if there be an answer. How far is it off?’ +</p> +<p> +‘A little over twelve miles, sir; but I’ve a mare in the stable will +“rowle” ye over in an hour and a quarter.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All right. We’ll settle on everything after breakfast to-morrow.’ And the +landlord withdrew, leaving them once more alone. +</p> +<p> +‘This means,’ said Lockwood drearily, ‘we shall have to pass a day in this +wretched place.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It will take a day to dry our wet clothes; and, all things considered, +one might be worse off than here. Besides, I shall want to look over my +notes. I have done next to nothing, up to this time, about the Land +Question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I thought that the old fellow with the cow, the fellow I gave a cigar to, +had made you up in your tenant-right affair,’ said Lockwood. +</p> +<p> +‘He gave me a great deal of very valuable information; he exposed some of +the evils of tenancy at will as ably as I ever heard them treated, but he +was occasionally hard on the landlord.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose one word of truth never came out of his mouth!’ +</p> +<p> +‘On the contrary, real knowledge of Ireland is not to be acquired from +newspapers; a man must see Ireland for himself—<i>see</i> it,’ +repeated he, with strong emphasis. +</p> +<p> +‘And then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And then, if he be a capable man, a reflecting man, a man in whom the +perceptive power is joined to the social faculty—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Look here, Cecil, one hearer won’t make a House: don’t try it on +speechifying to me. It’s all humbug coming over to look at Ireland. You +may pick up a little brogue, but it’s all you’ll pick up for your +journey.’ After this, for him, unusually long speech, he finished his +glass, lighted his bedroom candle, and nodding a good-night, strolled +away. +</p> +<p> +‘I’d give a crown to know where I heard of you before!’ said Walpole, as +he stared up at the portrait. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0007" id="link2HCH0007"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER VII +</h2> +<h3> +THE COUSINS +</h3> +<p> +‘Only think of it!’ cried Kate to her cousin, as she received Walpole’s +note. ‘Can you fancy, Nina, any one having the curiosity to imagine this +old house worth a visit? Here is a polite request from two tourists to be +allowed to see the—what is it?—the interesting interior of +Kilgobbin Castle!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Which I hope and trust you will refuse. The people who are so eager for +these things are invariably tiresome old bores, grubbing for antiquities, +or intently bent on adding a chapter to their story of travel. You’ll say +No, dearest, won’t you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Certainly, if you wish it. I am not acquainted with Captain Lockwood, nor +his friend Mr. Cecil Walpole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Did you say Cecil Walpole?’ cried the other, almost snatching the card +from her fingers. ‘Of all the strange chances in life, this is the very +strangest! What could have brought Cecil Walpole here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You know him, then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should think I do! What duets have we not sung together? What waltzes +have we not had? What rides over the Campagna? Oh dear! how I should like +to talk over these old times again! Pray tell him he may come, Kate, or +let me do it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And papa away!’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is the castle, dearest, he wants to see, not papa! You don’t know what +manner of creature this is! He is one of your refined and supremely +cultivated English—mad about archæology and mediæval trumpery. He’ll +know all your ancestors intended by every insane piece of architecture, +and every puzzling detail of this old house; and he’ll light up every +corner of it with some gleam of bright tradition.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I thought these sort of people were bores, dear?’ said Kate, with a sly +malice in her look. +</p> +<p> +‘Of course not. When they are well-bred and well-mannered—-’ +</p> +<p> +‘And perhaps well-looking?’ chimed in Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, and so he is—a little of the <i>petit-maître</i>, perhaps. +He’s much of that school which fiction-writers describe as having +“finely-pencilled eyebrows, and chins of almost womanlike roundness”; but +people in Rome always called him handsome, that is if he be my Cecil +Walpole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, then, will you tell YOUR Cecil Walpole, in such polite terms as you +know how to coin, that there is really nothing of the very slightest +pretension to interest in this old place; that we should be ashamed at +having lent ourselves to the delusion that might have led him here; and +lastly, that the owner is from home?’ +</p> +<p> +‘What! and is this the Irish hospitality I have heard so much of—the +cordial welcome the stranger may reckon on as a certainty, and make all +his plans with the full confidence of meeting?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is such a thing as discretion, also, to be remembered, Nina,’ said +Kate gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘And then there’s the room where the king slept, and the chair that—no, +not Oliver Cromwell, but somebody else sat in at supper, and there’s the +great patch painted on the floor where your ancestor knelt to be +knighted.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He was created a viscount, not a knight!’ said Kate, blushing. ‘And there +is a difference, I assure you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So there is, dearest, and even my foreign ignorance should know that +much, and you have the parchment that attests it—a most curious +document, that Walpole would be delighted to see. I almost fancy him +examining the curious old seal with his microscope, and hear him unfolding +all sorts of details one never so much as suspected.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Papa might not like it,’ said Kate, bridling up. ‘Even were he at home, I +am far from certain he would receive these gentlemen. It is little more +than a year ago there came here a certain book-writing tourist, and +presented himself without introduction. We received him hospitably, and he +stayed part of a week here. He was fond of antiquarianism, but more eager +still about the condition of the people—what kind of husbandry they +practised, what wages they had, and what food. Papa took him over the +whole estate, and answered all his questions freely and openly. And this +man made a chapter of his book upon us, and headed it, “Rack-renting and +riotous living,” distorting all he heard and sneering at all he saw.’ +</p> +<p> +‘These are gentlemen, dearest Kate,’ said Nina, holding out the card. +‘Come now, do tell me that I may say you will be happy to see them?’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you must have it so—if you really insist—’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do! I do!’ cried she, half wildly. ‘I should go distracted if you +denied me. O Kate! I must own it. It will out. I do cling devotedly, +terribly, to that old life of the past. I am very happy here, and you are +all good, and kind, and loving to me; but that wayward, haphazard +existence, with all its trials and miseries, had got little glimpses of +such bliss at times that rose to actual ecstasy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I was afraid of this,’ said Kate, in a low but firm voice. ‘I thought +what a change it would be for you from that life of brightness and +festivity to this existence of dull and unbroken dreariness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no, no! Don’t say that! Do not fancy that I am not happier than I +ever was or ever believed I could be. It was the castle-building of that +time that I was regretting. I imagined so many things, I invented such +situations, such incidents, which, with this sad-coloured landscape here +and that leaden sky, I have no force to conjure up. It is as though the +atmosphere is too weighty for fancy to mount in it. You, my dearest Kate,’ +said she, drawing her arm round her, and pressing her towards her, ‘do not +know these things, nor need ever know them. Your life is assured and safe. +You cannot, indeed, be secure from the passing accidents of life, but they +will meet you in a spirit able to confront them. As for me, I was always +gambling for existence, and gambling without means to pay my losses if +Fortune should turn against me. Do you understand me, child?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Only in part, if even that,’ said she slowly. +</p> +<p> +‘Let us keep this theme, then, for another time. Now for <i>ces messieurs</i>. +I am to invite them?’ +</p> +<p> +‘If there was time to ask Miss O’Shea to come over—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you not fancy, Kate, that in your father’s house, surrounded with your +father’s servants, you are sufficiently the mistress to do without a +chaperon? Only preserve that grand austere look you have listened to me +with these last ten minutes, and I should like to see the youthful +audacity that could brave it. There, I shall go and write my note. You +shall see how discreetly and properly I shall word it.’ +</p> +<p> +Kate walked thoughtfully towards a window and looked out, while Nina +skipped gaily down the room, and opened her writing-desk, humming an opera +air as she wrote:— +</p> +<p> +‘KILGOBBIN CASTLE. +</p> +<p> +‘DEAR MR. WALPOLE,—I can scarcely tell you the pleasure I feel at +the prospect of seeing a dear friend, or a friend from dear Italy, +whichever be the most proper to say. My uncle is from home, and will not +return till the day after to-morrow at dinner; but my cousin, Miss +Kearney, charges me to say how happy she will be to receive you and your +fellow-traveller at luncheon to-morrow. Pray not to trouble yourself with +an answer, but believe me very sincerely yours, ‘NINA KOSTALERGI.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I was right in saying luncheon, Kate, and not dinner—was I not? It +is less formal.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose so; that is, if it was right to invite them at all, of which I +have very great misgivings.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wonder what brought Cecil Walpole down here?’ said Nina, glad to turn +the discussion into another channel. ‘Could he have heard that I was here? +Probably not. It was a mere chance, I suppose. Strange things these same +chances are, that do so much more in our lives than all our plottings!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Tell me something of your friend, perhaps I ought to say your admirer, +Nina!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, very much my admirer; not seriously, you know, but in that charming +sort of adoration we cultivate abroad, that means anything or nothing. He +was not titled, and I am afraid he was not rich, and this last misfortune +used to make his attention to me somewhat painful—to <i>him</i> I +mean, not to <i>me</i>; for, of course, as to anything serious, I looked +much higher than a poor Secretary of Legation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Did you?’ asked Kate, with an air of quiet simplicity. +</p> +<p> +‘I should hope I did,’ said she haughtily; and she threw a glance at +herself in a large mirror, and smiled proudly at the bright image that +confronted her. ‘Yes, darling, say it out,’ cried she, turning to Kate. +‘Your eyes have uttered the words already.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What words?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Something about insufferable vanity and conceit, and I own to both! Oh, +why is it that my high spirits have so run away with me this morning that +I have forgotten all reserve and all shame? But the truth is, I feel half +wild with joy, and joy in <i>my</i> nature is another name for +recklessness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I sincerely hope not,’ said Kate gravely. ‘At any rate, you give me +another reason for wishing to have Miss O’Shea here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will not have her—no, not for worlds, Kate, that odious old +woman, with her stiff and antiquated propriety. Cecil would quiz her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am very certain he would not; at least, if he be such a perfect +gentleman as you tell me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, but you’d never know he did it. The fine tact of these consummate men +of the world derives a humoristic enjoyment in eccentricity of character, +which never shows itself in any outward sign beyond the heightened +pleasure they feel in what other folks might call dulness or mere oddity.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I would not suffer an old friend to be made the subject of even such +latent amusement.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nor her nephew, either, perhaps?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The nephew could take care of himself, Nina; but I am not aware that he +will be called on to do so. He is not in Ireland, I believe.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He was to arrive this week. You told me so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps he did; I had forgotten it!’ and Kate flushed as she spoke, +though whether from shame or anger it was not easy to say. As though +impatient with herself at any display of temper, she added hurriedly, ‘Was +it not a piece of good fortune, Nina? Papa has left us the key of the +cellar, a thing he never did before, and only now because you were here!’ +</p> +<p> +‘What an honoured guest I am!’ said the other, smiling. +</p> +<p> +‘That you are! I don’t believe papa has gone once to the club since you +came here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Now, if I were to own that I was vain of this, you’d rebuke me, would not +you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘<i>Our</i> love could scarcely prompt to vanity.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How shall I ever learn to be humble enough in a family of such humility?’ +said Nina pettishly. Then quickly correcting herself, she said, ‘I’ll go +and despatch my note, and then I’ll come back and ask your pardon for all +my wilfulness, and tell you how much I thank you for all your goodness to +me.’ +</p> +<p> +And as she spoke she bent down and kissed Kate’s hand twice or thrice +fervently. +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, dearest Nina, not this—not this!’ said Kate, trying to clasp +her in her arms; but the other had slipped from her grasp, and was gone. +</p> +<p> +‘Strange girl,’ muttered Kate, looking after her. ‘I wonder shall I ever +understand you, or shall we ever understand each other?’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0008" id="link2HCH0008"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER VIII +</h2> +<h3> +SHOWING HOW FRIENDS MAY DIFFER +</h3> +<p> +The morning broke drearily for our friends, the two pedestrians, at the +‘Blue Goat.’ A day of dull aspect and soft rain in midsummer has the added +depression that it seems an anachronism. One is in a measure prepared for +being weather-bound in winter. You accept imprisonment as the natural +fortune of the season, or you brave the elements prepared to let them do +their worst, while, if confined to house, you have that solace of +snugness, that comfortable chimney-corner which somehow realises an +immense amount of the joys we concentrate in the word ‘Home.’ It is in the +want of this rallying-point, this little domestic altar, where all gather +together in a common worship, that lies the dreary discomfort of being +weather-bound in summer, and when the prison is some small village inn, +noisy, disorderly, and dirty, the misery is complete. +</p> +<p> +‘Grand old pig that!’ said Lockwood, as he gazed out upon the filthy yard, +where a fat old sow contemplated the weather from the threshold of her +dwelling. +</p> +<p> +‘I wish she’d come out. I want to make a sketch of her,’ said the other. +</p> +<p> +‘Even one’s tobacco grows too damp to smoke in this blessed climate,’ said +Lockwood, as he pitched his cigar away. ‘Heigh-ho! We ‘re too late for the +train to town, I see.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’d not go back, would you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should think I would! That old den in the upper castle-yard is not very +cheery or very nice, but there is a chair to sit on, and a review and a +newspaper to read. A tour in a country and with a climate like this is a +mistake.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect it is,’ said Walpole drearily. +</p> +<p> +‘There is nothing to see, no one to talk to, nowhere to stop at!’ +</p> +<p> +‘All true,’ muttered the other. ‘By the way, haven’t we some plan or +project for to-day—something about an old castle or an abbey to +see?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, and the waiter brought me a letter. I think it was addressed to you, +and I left it on my dressing-table. I had forgotten all about it. I’ll go +and fetch it.’ +</p> +<p> +Short as his absence was, it gave Walpole time enough to recur to his late +judgment on his tour, and once more call it a ‘mistake, a complete +mistake.’ The Ireland of wits, dramatists, and romance-writers was a +conventional thing, and bore no resemblance whatsoever to the rain-soaked, +dreary-looking, depressed reality. ‘These Irish, they are odd without +being droll, just as they are poor without being picturesque; but of all +the delusions we nourish about them, there is not one so thoroughly absurd +as to call them dangerous.’ +</p> +<p> +He had just arrived at this mature opinion, when his friend re-entered and +handed him the note. +</p> +<p> +‘Here is a piece of luck. <i>Per Bacco</i>!’ cried Walpole, as he ran over +the lines. ‘This beats all I could have hoped for. Listen to this—“Dear +Mr. Walpole,—I cannot tell you the delight I feel in the prospect of +seeing a dear friend, or a friend from dear Italy, which is it? “’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who writes this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘A certain Mademoiselle Kostalergi, whom I knew at Rome; one of the +prettiest, cleverest, and nicest girls I ever met in my life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not the daughter of that precious Count Kostalergi you have told me such +stories of?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The same, but most unlike him in every way. She is here, apparently with +an uncle, who is now from home, and she and her cousin invite us to +luncheon to-day.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a lark!’ said the other dryly. +</p> +<p> +‘We’ll go, of course?’ +</p> +<p> +‘In weather like this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why not? Shall we be better off staying here? I now begin to remember how +the name of this place was so familiar to me. She was always asking me if +I knew or heard of her mother’s brother, the Lord Kilgobbin, and, to tell +truth, I fancied some one had been hoaxing her with the name, and never +believed that there was even a place with such a designation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Kilgobbin does not sound like a lordly title. How about Mademoiselle—what +is the name?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Kostalergi; they call themselves princes.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With all my heart. I was only going to say, as you’ve got a sort of knack +of entanglement—is there, or has there been, anything of that sort +here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Flirtation—a little of what is called “spooning”—but no more. +But why do you ask?’ +</p> +<p> +‘First of all, you are an engaged man.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All true, and I mean to keep my engagement. I can’t marry, however, till +I get a mission, or something at home as good as a mission. Lady Maude +knows that; her friends know it, but none of us imagine that we are to be +miserable in the meantime.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not talking of misery. I’d only say, don’t get yourself into any +mess. These foreign girls are very wide-awake.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t believe that, Harry; one of our home-bred damsels would give them a +distance and beat them in the race for a husband. It’s only in England +girls are trained to angle for marriage, take my word for it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Be it so—I only warn you that if you get into any scrape I’ll +accept none of the consequences. Lord Danesbury is ready enough to say +that, because I am some ten years older than you, I should have kept you +out of mischief. I never contracted for such a bear-leadership; though I +certainly told Lady Maude I’d turn Queen’s evidence against you if you +became a traitor.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wonder you never told me that before,’ said Walpole, with some +irritation of manner. +</p> +<p> +‘I only wonder that I told it now!’ replied the other gruffly. +</p> +<p> +‘Then I am to take it, that in your office of guardian, you’d rather we’d +decline this invitation, eh?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t care a rush for it either way, but, looking to the sort of day it +is out there, I incline to keep the house.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t mind bad weather, and I’ll go,’ said Walpole, in a way that +showed temper was involved in the resolution. +</p> +<p> +Lockwood made no other reply than heaping a quantity of turf on the fire, +and seating himself beside it. +</p> +<p> +When a man tells his fellow-traveller that he means to go his own road—that +companionship has no tie upon him—he virtually declares the +partnership dissolved; and while Lockwood sat reflecting over this, he was +also canvassing with himself how far he might have been to blame in +provoking this hasty resolution. +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps he was irritated at my counsels, perhaps the notion of anything +like guidance offended him; perhaps it was the phrase, “bear-leadership,” +and the half-threat of betraying him, has done the mischief.’ Now the +gallant soldier was a slow thinker; it took him a deal of time to arrange +the details of any matter in his mind, and when he tried to muster his +ideas there were many which would not answer the call, and of those which +came, there were not a few which seemed to present themselves in a +refractory and unwilling spirit, so that he had almost to suppress a +mutiny before he proceeded to his inspection. +</p> +<p> +Nor did the strong cheroots, which he smoked to clear his faculties and +develop his mental resources, always contribute to this end, though their +soothing influence certainly helped to make him more satisfied with his +judgments. +</p> +<p> +‘Now, look here, Walpole,’ said he, determining that he would save himself +all unnecessary labour of thought by throwing the burden of the case on +the respondent—‘Look here; take a calm view of this thing, and see +if it’s quite wise in you to go back into trammels it cost you some +trouble to escape from. You call it spooning, but you won’t deny you went +very far with that young woman—farther, I suspect, than you’ve told +me yet. Eh! is that true or not?’ +</p> +<p> +He waited a reasonable time for a reply, but none coming, he went on—‘I +don’t want a forced confidence. You may say it’s no business of mine, and +there I agree with you, and probably if you put <i>me</i> to the question +in the same fashion, I’d give you a very short answer. Remember one thing, +however, old fellow—I’ve seen a precious deal more of life and the +world than you have! From sixteen years of age, when <i>you</i> were +hammering away at Greek verbs and some such balderdash at Oxford, I was up +at Rangoon with the very fastest set of men—ay, of women too—I +ever lived with in all my life. Half of our fellows were killed off by it. +Of course people will say climate, climate! but if I were to give you the +history of one day—just twenty-four hours of our life up there—you’d +say that the wonder is there’s any one alive to tell it.’ +</p> +<p> +He turned around at this, to enjoy the expression of horror and surprise +he hoped to have called up, and perceived for the first time that he was +alone. He rang the bell, and asked the waiter where the other gentleman +had gone, and learned that he had ordered a car, and set out for Kilgobbin +Castle more than half an hour before. +</p> +<p> +‘All right,’ said he fiercely. ‘I wash my hands of it altogether! I’m +heartily glad I told him so before he went.’ He smoked on very vigorously +for half an hour, the burden of his thoughts being perhaps revealed by the +summing-up, as he said, ‘And when you are “in for it,” Master Cecil, and +some precious scrape it will be, if I move hand or foot to pull you +through it, call me a Major of Marines, that’s all—just call me a +Major of Marines!’ The ineffable horror of such an imputation served as +matter for reverie for hours. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0009" id="link2HCH0009"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER IX +</h2> +<h3> +A DRIVE THROUGH A BOG +</h3> +<p> +While Lockwood continued thus to doubt and debate with himself, Walpole +was already some miles on his way to Kilgobbin. Not, indeed, that he had +made any remarkable progress, for the ‘mare that was to rowle his honour +over in an hour and a quarter,’ had to be taken from the field where she +had been ploughing since daybreak, while ‘the boy’ that should drive her, +was a little old man who had to be aroused from a condition of drunkenness +in a hayloft, and installed in his office. +</p> +<p> +Nor were these the only difficulties. The roads that led through the bog +were so numerous and so completely alike that it only needed the dense +atmosphere of a rainy day to make it matter of great difficulty to +discover the right track. More than once were they obliged to retrace +their steps after a considerable distance, and the driver’s impatience +always took the shape of a reproach to Walpole, who, having nothing else +to do, should surely have minded where they were going. Now, not only was +the traveller utterly ignorant of the geography of the land he journeyed +in, but his thoughts were far and away from the scenes around him. Very +scattered and desultory thoughts were they, at one time over the Alps and +with ‘long-agoes’: nights at Rome clashing with mornings on the Campagna; +vast salons crowded with people of many nations, all more or less busy +with that great traffic which, whether it take the form of religion, or +politics, or social intrigue, hate, love, or rivalry, makes up what we +call ‘the world’; or there were sunsets dying away rapidly—as they +will do—over that great plain outside the city, whereon solitude and +silence are as much masters as on a vast prairie of the West; and he +thought of times when he rode back at nightfall beside Nina Kostalergi, +when little flashes would cross them of that romance that very worldly +folk now and then taste of, and delight in, with a zest all the greater +that the sensation is so new and strange to them. Then there was the +revulsion from the blaze of waxlights and the glitter of diamonds, the +crash of orchestras and the din of conversation, the intoxication of the +flattery that champagne only seems to ‘accentuate,’ to the unbroken +stillness of the hour, when even the footfall of the horse is unheard, and +a dreamy doubt that this quietude, this soothing sense of calm, is higher +happiness than all the glitter and all the splendour of the ball-room, and +that in the dropping words we now exchange, and in the stray glances, +there is a significance and an exquisite delight we never felt till now; +for, glorious as is the thought of a returned affection, full of ecstasy +the sense of a heart all, all our own, there is, in the first +half-doubtful, distrustful feeling of falling in love, with all its +chances of success or failure, something that has its moments of bliss +nothing of earthly delight can ever equal. To the verge of that +possibility Walpole had reached—but gone no further—with Nina +Kostalergi. The young men of the age are an eminently calculating and +prudent class, and they count the cost of an action with a marvellous +amount of accuracy. Is it the turf and its teachings to which this crafty +and cold-blooded spirit is owing? Have they learned to ‘square their book’ +on life by the lessons of Ascot and Newmarket, and seen that, no matter +how probably they ‘stand to win’ on this, they must provide for that, and +that no caution or foresight is enough that will not embrace every +casualty of any venture? +</p> +<p> +There is no need to tell a younger son of the period that he must not +marry a pretty girl of doubtful family and no fortune. He may have his +doubts on scores of subjects: he may not be quite sure whether he ought to +remain a Whig with Lord Russell, or go in for Odgerism and the ballot; he +may be uncertain about Colenso, and have his misgivings about the +Pentateuch; he may not be easy in his mind about the Russians in the East, +or the Americans in the West; uncomfortable suspicions may cross him that +the Volunteers are not as quick in evolution as the Zouaves, or that +England generally does not sing ‘Rule Britannia’ so lustily as she used to +do. All these are possible misgivings, but that he should take such a +plunge as matrimony, on other grounds than the perfect prudence and profit +of the investment, could never occur to him. +</p> +<p> +As to the sinfulness of tampering with a girl’s affections by what in +slang is called ‘spooning,’ it was purely absurd to think of it. You might +as well say that playing sixpenny whist made a man a gambler. And then, as +to the spooning, it was <i>partie égale</i>, the lady was no worse off +than the gentleman. If there were by any hazard—and this he was +disposed to doubt—‘affections’ at stake, the man ‘stood to lose’ as +much as the woman. But this was not the aspect in which the case presented +itself, flirtation being, in his idea, to marriage what the preliminary +canter is to the race—something to indicate the future, but so dimly +and doubtfully as not to decide the hesitation of the waverer. +</p> +<p> +If, then, Walpole was never for a moment what mothers call serious in his +attentions to Mademoiselle Kostalergi, he was not the less fond of her +society; he frequented the places where she was likely to be met with, and +paid her that degree of ‘court’ that only stopped short of being +particular by his natural caution. There was the more need for the +exercise of this quality at Rome, since there were many there who knew of +his engagement with his cousin, Lady Maude, and who would not have +hesitated to report on any breach of fidelity. Now, however, all these +restraints were withdrawn. They were not in Italy, where London, by a +change of venue, takes its ‘records’ to be tried in the dull days of +winter. They were in Ireland, and in a remote spot of Ireland, where there +were no gossips, no clubs, no afternoon-tea committees, to sit on +reputations, and was it not pleasant now to see this nice girl again in +perfect freedom? These were, loosely stated, the thoughts which occupied +him as he went along, very little disposed to mind how often the puzzled +driver halted to decide the road, or how frequently he retraced miles of +distance. Men of the world, especially when young in life, and more +realistic than they will be twenty years later, proud of the incredulity +they can feel on the score of everything and everybody, are often fond of +making themselves heroes to their own hearts of some little romance, which +shall not cost them dearly to indulge in, and merely engage some +loose-lying sympathies without in any way prejudicing their road in life. +They accept of these sentimentalities as the vicar’s wife did the sheep in +the picture, pleased to ‘have as many as the painter would put in for +nothing.’ +</p> +<p> +Now, Cecil Walpole never intended that this little Irish episode—and +episode he determined it should be—should in any degree affect the +serious fortunes of his life. He was engaged to his cousin, Lady Maude +Bickerstaffe, and they would be married some day. Not that either was very +impatient to exchange present comfort—and, on her side, affluence—for +a marriage on small means, and no great prospects beyond that. They were +not much in love. Walpole knew that the Lady Maude’s fortune was small, +but the man who married her must ‘be taken care of,’ and by either side, +for there were as many Tories as Whigs in the family, and Lady Maude knew +that half-a-dozen years ago, she would certainly not have accepted +Walpole; but that with every year her chances of a better <i>parti</i> +were diminishing; and, worse than all this, each was well aware of the +inducements by which the other was influenced. Nor did the knowledge in +any way detract from their self-complacence or satisfaction with the +match. +</p> +<p> +Lady Maude was to accompany her uncle to Ireland, and do the honours of +his court, for he was a bachelor, and pleaded hard with his party on that +score to be let off accepting the viceroyalty. +</p> +<p> +Lady Maude, however, had not yet arrived, and even if she had, how should +she ever hear of an adventure in the Bog of Allen! +</p> +<p> +But was there to be an adventure? and, if so, what sort of adventure? +Irishmen, Walpole had heard, had all the jealousy about their women that +characterises savage races, and were ready to resent what, in civilised +people, no one would dream of regarding as matter for umbrage. Well, then, +it was only to be more cautious—more on one’s guard—besides +the tact, too, which a knowledge of life should give— +</p> +<p> +‘Eh, what’s this? Why are you stopping here?’ +</p> +<p> +This was addressed now to the driver, who had descended from his box, and +was standing in advance of the horse. +</p> +<p> +‘Why don’t I drive on, is it?’ asked he, in a voice of despair. ‘Sure, +there’s no road.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And does it stop here?’ cried Walpole in horror, for he now perceived +that the road really came to an abrupt ending in the midst of the bog. +</p> +<p> +‘Begorra, it’s just what it does. Ye see, your honour,’ added he, in a +confidential tone, ‘it’s one of them tricks the English played us in the +year of the famine. They got two millions of money to make roads in +Ireland, but they were so afraid it would make us prosperous and richer +than themselves, that they set about making roads that go nowhere. +Sometimes to the top of a mountain, or down to the sea, where there was no +harbour, and sometimes, like this one, into the heart of a bog.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That was very spiteful and very mean, too,’ said Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘Wasn’t it just mean, and nothing else! and it’s five miles we’ll have to +go back now to the cross-roads. Begorra, your honour, it’s a good dhrink +ye’ll have to give me for this day’s work.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You forget, my friend, that but for your own confounded stupidity, I +should have been at Kilgobbin Castle by this time.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And ye’ll be there yet, with God’s help!’ said he, turning the horse’s +head. ‘Bad luck to them for the road-making, and it’s a pity, after all, +it goes nowhere, for it’s the nicest bit to travel in the whole country.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Come now, jump up, old fellow, and make your beast step out. I don’t want +to pass the night here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You wouldn’t have a dhrop of whisky with your honour?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nor even brandy?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not even brandy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Musha, I’m thinking you must be English,’ muttered he, half sulkily. +</p> +<p> +‘And if I were, is there any great harm in that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘By coorse not; how could ye help it? I suppose we’d all of us be better +if we could. Sit a bit more forward, your honour; the belly band does be +lifting her, and as you’re doing nothing, just give her a welt of that +stick in your hand, now and then, for I lost the lash off my whip, and +I’ve nothing but this!’ And he displayed the short handle of what had once +been a whip, with a thong of leather dangling at the end. +</p> +<p> +‘I must say I wasn’t aware that I was to have worked my passage,’ said +Walpole, with something between drollery and irritation. +</p> +<p> +‘She doesn’t care for bating—stick her with the end of it. That’s +the way. We’ll get on elegant now. I suppose you was never here before?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; and I think I can promise you I’ll not come again.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope you will, then, and many a time too. This is the Bog of Allen +you’re travelling now, and they tell there’s not the like of it in the +three kingdoms.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I trust there’s not!’ +</p> +<p> +‘The English, they say, has no bogs. Nothing but coal.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Quite true.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Erin, <i>ma bouchal</i> you are! first gem of the say! that’s what Dan +O’Connell always called you. Are you gettin’ tired with the stick?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m tired of your wretched old beast, and your car, and yourself, too,’ +said Walpole; ‘and if I were sure that was the castle yonder, I’d make my +way straight to it on foot.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And why wouldn’t you, if your honour liked it best? Why would ye be +beholden to a car if you’d rather walk. Only mind the bog-holes: for +there’s twenty feet of water in some of them, and the sides is so +straight, you’ll never get out if you fall in.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Drive on, then. I’ll remain where I am; but don’t bother me with your +talk; and no more questioning.’ +</p> +<p> +‘By coorse I won’t—why would I? Isn’t your honour a gentleman, and +haven’t you a right to say what you plaze; and what am I but a poor boy, +earning his bread. Just the way it is all through the world; some has +everything they want and more besides, and others hasn’t a stitch to their +backs, or maybe a pinch of tobacco to put in a pipe.’ +</p> +<p> +This appeal was timed by seeing that Walpole had just lighted a fresh +cigar, whose fragrant fumes were wafted across the speaker’s nose. +</p> +<p> +Firm to his determination to maintain silence, Walpole paid no attention +to the speech, nor uttered a word of any kind; and as a light drizzling +rain had now begun to fall, and obliged him to shelter himself under an +umbrella, he was at length saved from his companion’s loquacity. Baffled, +but not beaten, the old fellow began to sing, at first in a low, droning +tone; but growing louder as the fire of patriotism warmed him, he shouted, +to a very wild and somewhat irregular tune, a ballad, of which Walpole +could not but hear the words occasionally, while the tramping of the +fellow’s feet on the foot-board kept time to his song:— +</p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +‘‘Tis our fun they can’t forgive us, +Nor our wit so sharp and keen; +But there’s nothing that provokes them +Like our wearin’ of the green. +They thought Poverty would bate us, +But we’d sell our last “boneen” +And we’ll live on cowld paytatees, +All for wearin’ of the green. +Oh, the wearin’ of the green—the wearin’ of the green! +‘Tis the colour best becomes us +Is the wearin’ of the green!’ +</pre> +<p> +‘Here’s a cigar for you, old fellow, and stop that infernal chant.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s only five verses more, and I’ll sing them for your honour before +I light the baccy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you do, then, you shall never light baccy of mine. Can’t you see that +your confounded song is driving me mad?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Faix, ye’re the first I ever see disliked music,’ muttered he, in a tone +almost compassionate. +</p> +<p> +And now as Walpole raised the collar of his coat to defend his ears, and +prepared, as well as he might, to resist the weather, he muttered, ‘And +this is the beautiful land of scenery; and this the climate; and this the +amusing and witty peasant we read of. I have half a mind to tell the world +how it has been humbugged!’ And thus musing, he jogged on the weary road, +nor raised his head till the heavy clash of an iron gate aroused him, and +he saw that they were driving along an approach, with some clumps of +pretty but young timber on either side. +</p> +<p> +‘Here we are, your honour, safe and sound,’ cried the driver, as proudly +as if he had not been five hours over what should have been done in one +and a half. ‘This is Kilgobbin. All the ould trees was cut down by Oliver +Cromwell, they say, but there will be a fine wood here yet. That’s the +castle you see yonder, over them trees; but there’s no flag flying. The +lord’s away. I suppose I’ll have to wait for your honour? You’ll be coming +back with me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, you’ll have to wait.’ And Walpole looked at his watch, and saw it +was already past five o’clock. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0010" id="link2HCH0010"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER X +</h2> +<h3> +THE SEARCH FOR ARMS +</h3> +<p> +When the hour of luncheon came, and no guests made their appearance, the +young girls at the castle began to discuss what they should best do. ‘I +know nothing of fine people and their ways,’ said Kate—‘you must +take the whole direction here, Nina.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is only a question of time, and a cold luncheon can wait without +difficulty.’ +</p> +<p> +And so they waited till three, then till four, and now it was five +o’clock; when Kate, who had been over the kitchen-garden, and the calves’ +paddock, and inspecting a small tract laid out for a nursery, came back to +the house very tired, and, as she said, also very hungry. ‘You know, +Nina,’ said she, entering the room, ‘I ordered no dinner to-day. I +speculated on our making our dinner when your friends lunched; and as they +have not lunched, we have not dined; and I vote we sit down now. I’m +afraid I shall not be as pleasant company as that Mr.—do tell me his +name—Walpole—but I pledge myself to have as good a appetite.’ +</p> +<p> +Nina made no answer. She stood at the open window; her gaze steadily bent +on the strip of narrow road that traversed the wide moor before her. +</p> +<p> +‘Ain’t you hungry? I mean, ain’t you famished, child?’ asked Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘No, I don’t think so. I could eat, but I believe I could go without +eating just as well.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I must dine; and if you were not looking so nice and fresh, with a +rose-bud in your hair and your white dress so daintily looped up, I’d ask +leave not to dress.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you were to smooth your hair, and, perhaps, change your boots—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh I know, and become in every respect a little civilised. My poor dear +cousin, what a mission you have undertaken among the savages. Own it +honestly, you never guessed the task that was before you when you came +here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, it’s very nice savagery, all the same,’ said the other, smiling +pleasantly. +</p> +<p> +‘There now!’ cried Kate, as she threw her hat to one side, and stood +arranging her hair before the glass. ‘I make this toilet under protest, +for we are going in to luncheon, not dinner, and all the world knows, and +all the illustrated newspapers show, that people do not dress for lunch. +And, by the way, that is something you have not got in Italy. All the +women gathering together in their garden-bonnets and their +morning-muslins, and the men in their knickerbockers and their coarse +tweed coats.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I declare I think you are in better spirits since you see these people +are not coming.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is true. You have guessed it, dearest. The thought of anything grand—as +a visitor; anything that would for a moment suggest the unpleasant +question, Is this right? or, Is that usual? makes me downright irritable. +Come, are you ready? May I offer you my arm?’ +</p> +<p> +And now they were at table, Kate rattling away in unwonted gaiety, and +trying to rally Nina out of her disappointment. +</p> +<p> +‘I declare Nina, everything is so pretty I am ashamed to eat. Those +chickens near you are the least ornamental things I see. Cut me off a +wing. Oh, I forgot, you never acquired the barbarous art of carving.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can cut this,’ said Nina, drawing a dish of tongue towards her. +</p> +<p> +‘What! that marvellous production like a parterre of flowers? It would be +downright profanation to destroy it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then shall I give you some of this, Kate?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why, child, that is strawberry-cream. But I cannot eat all alone; do help +yourself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I shall take something by-and-by.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What do young ladies in Italy eat when they are—no, I don’t mean in +love—I shall call it—in despair?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Give me some of that white wine beside you. There! don’t you hear a +noise? I’m certain I heard the sound of wheels.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Most sincerely I trust not. I wouldn’t for anything these people should +break in upon us now. If my brother Dick should drop in I’d welcome him, +and he would make our little party perfect. Do you know, Nina, Dick can be +so jolly. What’s that? there are voices there without.’ +</p> +<p> +As she spoke the door was opened, and Walpole entered. The young girls had +but time to rise from their seats, when—they never could exactly say +how—they found themselves shaking hands with him in great +cordiality. +</p> +<p> +‘And your friend—where is he?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nursing a sore throat, or a sprained ankle, or a something or other. +Shall I confess it—as only a suspicion on my part, however—that +I do believe he was too much shocked at the outrageous liberty I took in +asking to be admitted here to accept any partnership in the impertinence?’ +</p> +<p> +‘We expected you at two or three o’clock,’ said Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘And shall I tell you why I was not here before? Perhaps you’ll scarcely +credit me when I say I have been five hours on the road.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Five hours! How did you manage that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘In this way. I started a few minutes after twelve from the inn—I on +foot, the car to overtake me.’ And he went on to give a narrative of his +wanderings over the bog, imitating, as well as he could, the driver’s +conversations with him, and the reproaches he vented on his inattention to +the road. Kate enjoyed the story with all the humoristic fun of one who +knew thoroughly how the peasant had been playing with the gentleman, just +for the indulgence of that strange, sarcastic temper that underlies the +Irish nature; and she could fancy how much more droll it would have been +to have heard the narrative as told by the driver of the car. +</p> +<p> +‘And don’t you like his song, Mr. Walpole!’ +</p> +<p> +‘What, “The Wearing of the Green”? It was the dreariest dirge I ever +listened to.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Come, you shall not say so. When we go into the drawing-room, Nina shall +sing it for you, and I’ll wager you recant your opinion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And do you sing rebel canticles, Mademoiselle Kostalergi?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I do all my cousin bids me. I wear a red cloak. How is it called?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Connemara?’ +</p> +<p> +Nina nodded. +</p> +<p> +‘That’s the name, but I’m not going to say it; and when we go abroad—that +is, on the bog there, for a walk—we dress in green petticoats and +wear very thick shoes.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And, in a word, are very generally barbarous.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, if you be really barbarians,’ said Walpole, filling his glass, ‘I +wonder what I would not give to be allowed to join the tribe.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, you’d want to be a sachem, or a chief, or a mystery-man at least; and +we couldn’t permit that,’ cried Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘No; I crave admission as the humblest of your followers.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall we put him to the test, Nina?’ +</p> +<p> +‘How do you mean?’ cried the other. +</p> +<p> +‘Make him take a Ribbon oath, or the pledge of a United Irishman. I’ve +copies of both in papa’s study.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should like to see these immensely,’ said Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll see if I can’t find them,’ cried Kate, rising and hastening away. +</p> +<p> +For some seconds after she left the room there was perfect silence. +Walpole tried to catch Nina’s eye before he spoke, but she continued +steadily to look down, and did not once raise her lids. +</p> +<p> +‘Is she not very nice—is she not very beautiful?’ asked she, in a +low voice. +</p> +<p> +‘It is of <i>you</i> I want to speak.’ +</p> +<p> +And he drew his chair closer to her, and tried to take her hand, but she +withdrew it quickly, and moved slightly away. +</p> +<p> +‘If you knew the delight it is to me to see you again, Nina—well, +Mademoiselle Kostalergi. Must it be Mademoiselle?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t remember it was ever “Nina,”’ said she coldly. +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps only in my thoughts. To my heart, I can swear, you were Nina. But +tell me how you came here, and when, and for how long, for I want to know +all. Speak to me, I beseech you. She’ll be back in a moment, and when +shall I have another instant alone with you like this? Tell me how you +came amongst them, and are they really all rebels?’ +</p> +<p> +Kate entered at the instant, saying, ‘I can’t find it, but I’ll have a +good search to-morrow, for I know it’s there.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do, by all means, Kate, for Mr. Walpole is very anxious to learn if he be +admitted legitimately into this brotherhood—whatever it be; he has +just asked me if we were really all rebels here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I trust he does not suppose I would deceive him,’ said Kate gravely. ‘And +when he hears you sing “The blackened hearth—the fallen roof,” he’ll +not question <i>you</i>, Nina.—Do you know that song, Mr. Walpole?’ +</p> +<p> +He smiled as he said ‘No.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Won’t it be so nice,’ said she, ‘to catch a fresh ingenuous Saxon +wandering innocently over the Bog of Allen, and send him back to his +friends a Fenian!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Make me what you please, but don’t send me away.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Tell me, really, what would you do if we made you take the oath?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Betray you, of course, the moment I got up to Dublin.’ +</p> +<p> +Nina’s eyes flashed angrily, as though such jesting was an offence. +</p> +<p> +‘No, no, the shame of such treason would be intolerable; but you’d go your +way and behave as though you never saw us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, he could do that without the inducement of a perjury,’ said Nina, in +Italian; and then added aloud, ‘Let’s go and make some music. Mr. Walpole +sings charmingly, Kate, and is very obliging about it—at least he +used to be.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0004" id="linkimage-0004"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/095.jpg" + alt="‘How That Song Makes Me Wish We Were Back Again Where I Heard It First’" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘I am all that I used to be—towards that,’ whispered he, as she +passed him to take Kate’s arm and walk away. +</p> +<p> +‘You don’t mean to have a thick neighbourhood about you,’ said Walpole. +‘Have you any people living near?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, we have a dear old friend—a Miss O’Shea, a maiden lady, who +lives a few miles off. By the way, there’s something to show you—an +old maid who hunts her own harriers.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What! are you in earnest?’ +</p> +<p> +‘On my word, it is true! Nina can’t endure her; but Nina doesn’t care for +hare-hunting, and, I’m afraid to say, never saw a badger drawn in her +life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And have you?’ asked he, almost with horror in his tone. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll show you three regular little turnspit dogs to-morrow that will +answer that question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How I wish Lockwood had come out here with me,’ said Walpole, almost +uttering a thought. +</p> +<p> +‘That is, you wish he had seen a bit of barbarous Ireland he’d scarcely +credit from mere description. But perhaps I’d have been better behaved +before him. I’m treating you with all the freedom of an old friend of my +cousin’s.’ +</p> +<p> +Nina had meanwhile opened the piano, and was letting her hands stray over +the instrument in occasional chords; and then in a low voice, that barely +blended its tones with the accompaniment, she sang one of those little +popular songs of Italy, called ‘Stornelli’—-wild, fanciful melodies, +with that blended gaiety and sadness which the songs of a people are so +often marked by. +</p> +<p> +‘That is a very old favourite of mine,’ said Walpole, approaching the +piano as noiselessly as though he feared to disturb the singer; and now he +stole into a chair at her side. ‘How that song makes me wish we were back +again, where I heard it first,’ whispered he gently. +</p> +<p> +‘I forget where that was,’ said she carelessly. +</p> +<p> +‘No, Nina, you do not,’ said he eagerly; ‘it was at Albano, the day we all +went to Pallavicini’s villa.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I sang a little French song, “<i>Si vous n’avez rien à me dire</i>,” +which you were vain enough to imagine was a question addressed to +yourself; and you made me a sort of declaration; do you remember all +that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Every word of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why don’t you go and speak to my cousin; she has opened the window and +gone out upon the terrace, and I trust you understand that she expects you +to follow her.’ There was a studied calm in the way she spoke that showed +she was exerting considerable self-control. +</p> +<p> +‘No, no, Nina, it is with you I desire to speak; to see you that I have +come here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And so you do remember that you made me a declaration? It made me laugh +afterwards as I thought it over.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Made you laugh!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I laughed to myself at the ingenious way in which you conveyed to me +what an imprudence it was in you to fall in love with a girl who had no +fortune, and the shock it would give your friends when they should hear +she was a Greek.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How can you say such painful things, Nina? how can you be so pitiless as +this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was you who had no pity, sir; I felt a deal of pity; I will not deny +it was for myself. I don’t pretend to say that I could give a correct +version of the way in which you conveyed to me the pain it gave you that I +was not a princess, a Borromeo, or a Colonna, or an Altieri. That Greek +adventurer, yes—you cannot deny it, I overheard these words myself. +You were talking to an English girl, a tall, rather handsome person she +was—I shall remember her name in a moment if you cannot help me to +it sooner—a Lady Bickerstaffe—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, there was a Lady Maude Bickerstaffe; she merely passed through Rome +for Naples.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You called her a cousin, I remember.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is some cousinship between us; I forget exactly in what degree.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do try and remember a little more; remember that you forgot you had +engaged me for the cotillon, and drove away with that blonde beauty—and +she was a beauty, or had been a few years before—at all events, you +lost all memory of the daughter of the adventurer.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You will drive me distracted, Nina, if you say such things.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know it is wrong and it is cruel, and it is worse than wrong and cruel, +it is what you English call underbred, to be so individually disagreeable, +but this grievance of mine has been weighing very heavily on my heart, and +I have been longing to tell you so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why are you not singing, Nina?’ cried Kate from the terrace. ‘You told me +of a duet, and I think you are bent on having it without music.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, we are quarrelling fiercely,’ said Nina. ‘This gentleman has been +rash enough to remind me of an unsettled score between us, and as he is +the defaulter—’ +</p> +<p> +‘I dispute the debt.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall I be the judge between you?’ asked Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘On no account; my claim once disputed, I surrender it,’ said Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘I must say you are very charming company. You won’t sing, and you’ll only +talk to say disagreeable things. Shall I make tea, and see if it will +render you more amiable?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do so, dearest, and then show Mr. Walpole the house; he has forgotten +what brought him here, I really believe.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You know that I have not,’ muttered he, in a tone of deep meaning. +</p> +<p> +‘There’s no light now to show him the house; Mr. Walpole must come +to-morrow, when papa will be at home and delighted to see him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘May I really do this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps, besides, your friend will have found the little inn so +insupportable, that he too will join us. Listen to that sigh of poor +Nina’s and you’ll understand what it is to be dreary!’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; I want my tea.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And it shall have it,’ said Kate, kissing her with a petting affectation +as she left the room. +</p> +<p> +‘Now one word, only one,’ said Walpole, as he drew his chair close to her: +‘If I swear to you—’ +</p> +<p> +‘What’s that? who is Kate angry with?’ cried Nina, rising and rushing +towards the door. ‘What has happened?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll tell you what has happened,’ said Kate, as with flashing eyes and +heightened colour she entered the room. ‘The large gate of the outer yard, +that is every night locked and strongly barred at sunset, has been left +open, and they tell me that three men have come in, Sally says five, and +are hiding in some of the outhouses.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What for? Is it to rob, think you?’ asked Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘It is certainly for nothing good. They all know that papa is away, and +the house so far unprotected,’ continued Kate calmly. ‘We must find out +to-morrow who has left the gate unbolted. This was no accident, and now +that they are setting fire to the ricks all round us, it is no time for +carelessness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall we search the offices and the outbuildings?’ asked Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘Of course not; we must stand by the house and take care that they do not +enter it. It’s a strong old place, and even if they forced an entrance +below, they couldn’t set fire to it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Could they force their way up?’ asked Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘Not if the people above have any courage. Just come and look at the +stair; it was made in times when people thought of defending themselves.’ +They issued forth now together to the top of the landing, where a narrow, +steep flight of stone steps descended between two walls to the +basement-storey. A little more than half-way down was a low iron gate or +grille of considerable strength; though, not being above four feet in +height, it could have been no great defence, which seemed, after all, to +have been its intention. ‘When this is closed,’ said Kate, shutting it +with a heavy bang, ‘it’s not such easy work to pass up against two or +three resolute people at the top; and see here,’ added she, showing a deep +niche or alcove in the wall, ‘this was evidently meant for the sentry who +watched the wicket: he could stand here out of the reach of all fire.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Would you not say she was longing for a conflict?’ said Nina, gazing at +her. +</p> +<p> +‘No, but if it comes I’ll not decline it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You mean you’ll defend the stair?’ asked Walpole. +</p> +<p> +She nodded assent. +</p> +<p> +‘What arms have you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Plenty; come and look at them. Here,’ said she, entering the dining-room, +and pointing to a large oak sideboard covered with weapons, ‘Here is +probably what has led these people here. They are going through the +country latterly on every side, in search of arms. I believe this is +almost the only house where they have not called.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And do they go away quietly when their demands are complied with?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, when they chance upon people of poor courage, they leave them with +life enough to tell the story.—What is it, Mathew?’ asked she of the +old serving-man who entered the room. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s the “boys,” miss, and they want to talk to you, if you’ll step out +on the terrace. They don’t mean any harm at all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What do they want, then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just a spare gun or two, miss, or an ould pistol, or a thing of the kind +that was no use.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Was it not brave of them to come here, when my father was from home? +Aren’t they fine courageous creatures to come and frighten two lone girls—eh, +Mat?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t anger them, miss, for the love of Joseph! don’t say anything hard; +let me hand them that ould carbine there, and the fowling-piece; and if +you’d give them a pair of horse-pistols, I’m sure they’d go away quiet.’ +</p> +<p> +A loud noise of knocking, as though with a stone, at the outer door, broke +in upon the colloquy, and Kate passed into the drawing-room, and opened +the window, out upon the stone terrace which overlooked the yard: ‘Who is +there?—who are you?—what do you want?’ cried she, peering down +into the darkness, which, in the shadow of the house, was deeper. +</p> +<p> +‘We’ve come for arms,’ cried a deep hoarse voice. +</p> +<p> +‘My father is away from home—come and ask for them when he’s here to +answer you.’ +</p> +<p> +A wild, insolent laugh from below acknowledged what they thought of this +speech. +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe that was the rayson we came now, miss,’ said a voice, in a lighter +tone. +</p> +<p> +‘Fine courageous fellows you are to say so! I hope Ireland has more of +such brave patriotic men.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’d better leave that, anyhow,’ said another, and as he spoke he +levelled and fired, but evidently with intention to terrify rather than +wound, for the plaster came tumbling down from several feet above her +head; and now the knocking at the door was redoubled, and with a noise +that resounded through the house. +</p> +<p> +‘Wouldn’t you advise her to give up the arms and let them go?’ said Nina, +in a whisper to Walpole; but though she was deadly pale there was no +tremor in her voice. +</p> +<p> +‘The door is giving way, the wood is completely rotten. Now for the +stairs. Mr. Walpole, you’re going to stand by me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should think so, but I’d rather you’d remain here. I know my ground +now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, I must be beside you. You’ll have to keep a rolling fire, and I can +load quicker than most people. Come along now, we must take no light with +us—follow me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Take care,’ said Nina to Walpole as he passed, but with an accent so full +of a strange significance it dwelt on his memory long after. +</p> +<p> +‘What was it Nina whispered you as you came by?’ said Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘Something about being cautious, I think,’ said he carelessly. +</p> +<p> +‘Stay where you are, Mathew,’ said the girl, in a severe tone, to the old +servant, who was officiously pressing forward with a light. +</p> +<p> +‘Go back!’ cried she, as he persisted in following her. +</p> +<p> +‘That’s the worst of all our troubles here, Mr. Walpole,’ said she boldly; +‘you cannot depend on the people of your own household. The very people +you have nursed in sickness, if they only belong to some secret +association, will betray you!’ She made no secret of her words, but spoke +them loud enough to be heard by the group of servants now gathered on the +landing. Noiseless she tripped down the stairs, and passed into the little +dark alcove, followed by Walpole, carrying any amount of guns and carbines +under his arm. +</p> +<p> +‘These are loaded, I presume?’ said he. +</p> +<p> +‘All, and ready capped. The short carbine is charged with a sort of +canister shot, and keep it for a short range—if they try to pass +over the iron gate. Now mind me, and I will give you the directions I +heard my father give on this spot once before. Don’t fire till they reach +the foot of the stair.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot hear you,’ said he, for the din beneath, where they battered at +the door, was now deafening. +</p> +<p> +‘They’ll be in in another moment—there, the lock has fallen off—the +door has given way,’ whispered she; ‘be steady now, no hurry—steady +and calm.’ +</p> +<p> +As she spoke, the heavy oak door fell to the ground, and a perfect silence +succeeded to the late din. After an instant, muttering whispers could be +heard, and it seemed as if they doubted how far it was safe to enter, for +all was dark within. Something was said in a tone of command, and at the +moment one of the party flung forward a bundle of lighted straw and tow, +which fell at the foot of the stairs, and for a few seconds lit up the +place with a red lurid gleam, showing the steep stair and the iron bars of +the little gate that crossed it. +</p> +<p> +‘There’s the iron wicket they spoke of,’ cried one. ‘All right, come on!’ +And the speaker led the way, cautiously, however, and slowly, the others +after him. +</p> +<p> +‘No, not yet,’ whispered Kate, as she pressed her hand upon Walpole’s. +</p> +<p> +‘I hear voices up there,’ cried the leader from below. ‘We’ll make them +leave that, anyhow.’ And he fired off his gun in the direction of the +upper part of the stair; a quantity of plaster came clattering down as the +ball struck the ceiling. +</p> +<p> +‘Now,’ said she. ‘Now, and fire low!’ +</p> +<p> +He discharged both barrels so rapidly that the two detonations blended +into one, and the assailants replied by a volley, the echoing din almost +sounding like artillery. Fast as Walpole could fire, the girl replaced the +piece by another; when suddenly she cried, ‘There is a fellow at the gate—the +carbine—the carbine now, and steady.’ A heavy crash and a cry +followed his discharge, and snatching the weapon from him, she reloaded +and handed it back with lightning speed. ‘There is another there,’ +whispered she; and Walpole moved farther out, to take a steadier aim. All +was still, not a sound to be heard for some seconds, when the hinges of +the gate creaked and the bolt shook in the lock. Walpole fired again, but +as he did so, the others poured in a rattling volley, one shot grazing his +cheek, and another smashing both bones of his right arm, so that the +carbine fell powerless from his hand. The intrepid girl sprang to his side +at once, and then passing in front of him, she fired some shots from a +revolver in quick succession. A low, confused sound of feet and a +scuffling noise followed, when a rough, hoarse voice cried out, ‘Stop +firing; we are wounded, and going away.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Are you badly hurt?’ whispered Kate to Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing serious: be still and listen!’ +</p> +<p> +‘There, the carbine is ready again. Oh, you cannot hold it—leave it +to me,’ said she. +</p> +<p> +From the difficulty of removal, it seemed as though one of the party +beneath was either killed or badly wounded, for it was several minutes +before they could gain the outer door. +</p> +<p> +‘Are they really retiring?’ whispered Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; they seem to have suffered heavily.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Would you not give them one shot at parting—that carbine is +charged?’ asked he anxiously. +</p> +<p> +‘Not for worlds,’ said she; ‘savage as they are, it would be ruin to break +faith with them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Give me a pistol, my left hand is all right.’ Though he tried to speak +with calmness, the agony of pain he was suffering so overcame him that he +leaned his head down, and rested it on her shoulder. +</p> +<p> +‘My poor, poor fellow,’ said she tenderly, ‘I would not for the world that +this had happened.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They’re gone, Miss Kate, they’ve passed out at the big gate, and they’re +off,’ whispered old Mathew, as he stood trembling behind her. +</p> +<p> +‘Here, call some one, and help this gentleman up the stairs, and get a +mattress down on the floor at once; send off a messenger, Sally, for +Doctor Tobin. He can take the car that came this evening, and let him make +what haste he can.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is he wounded?’ said Nina, as they laid him down on the floor. Walpole +tried to smile and say something, but no sound came forth. +</p> +<p> +‘My own dear, dear Cecil,’ whispered Nina, as she knelt and kissed his +hand, ‘tell me it is not dangerous.’ He had fainted. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0011" id="link2HCH0011"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XI +</h2> +<h3> +WHAT THE PAPERS SAID OF IT +</h3> +<p> +The wounded man had just fallen into a first sleep after his disaster, +when the press of the capital was already proclaiming throughout the land +the attack and search for arms at Kilgobbin Castle. In the National papers +a very few lines were devoted to the event; indeed, their tone was one of +party sneer at the importance given by their contemporaries to a very +ordinary incident. ‘Is there,’ asked the <i>Convicted Felon</i>, ‘anything +very strange or new in the fact that Irishmen have determined to be armed? +Is English legislation in this country so marked by justice, clemency, and +generosity that the people of Ireland prefer to submit their lives and +fortunes to its sway, to trusting what brave men alone trust in—their +fearlessness and their daring? What is there, then, so remarkable in the +repairing to Mr. Kearney’s house for a loan of those weapons of which his +family for several generations have forgotten the use?’ In the Government +journals the story of the attack was headed, ‘Attack on Kilgobbin Castle. +Heroic resistance by a young lady’; in which Kate Kearney’s conduct was +described in colours of extravagant eulogy. She was alternately Joan of +Arc and the Maid of Saragossa, and it was gravely discussed whether any +and what honours of the Crown were at Her Majesty’s disposal to reward +such brilliant heroism. In another print of the same stamp the narrative +began: ‘The disastrous condition of our country is never displayed in +darker colours than when the totally unprovoked character of some outrage +has to be recorded by the press. It is our melancholy task to present such +a case as this to our readers to-day. If it was our wish to exhibit to a +stranger the picture of an Irish estate in which all the blessings of good +management, intelligence, kindliness, and Christian charity were +displayed; to show him a property where the wellbeing of landlord and +tenant were inextricably united, where the condition of the people, their +dress, their homes, their food, and their daily comforts, could stand +comparison with the most favoured English county, we should point to the +Kearney estate of Kilgobbin; and yet it is here, in the very house where +his ancestors have resided for generations, that a most savage and +dastardly attack is made; and if we feel a sense of shame in recording the +outrage, we are recompensed by the proud elation with which we can recount +the repulse—the noble and gallant achievement of an Irish girl. +History has the record of more momentous feats, but we doubt that there is +one in the annals of any land in which a higher heroism was displayed than +in this splendid defence by Miss Kearney.’ Then followed the story; not +one of the papers having any knowledge of Walpole’s presence on the +occasion, or the slightest suspicion that she was aided in any way. +</p> +<p> +Joe Atlee was busily engaged in conning over and comparing these somewhat +contradictory reports, as he sat at his breakfast, his chum Kearney being +still in bed and asleep after a late night at a ball. At last there came a +telegraphic despatch for Kearney; armed with which, Joe entered the +bedroom and woke him. +</p> +<p> +‘Here’s something for you, Dick,’ cried he. ‘Are you too sleepy to read +it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Tear it open and see what it is, like a good fellow,’ said the other +indolently. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s from your sister—at least, it is signed Kate. It says: “There +is no cause for alarm. All is going on well, and papa will be back this +evening. I write by this post.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘What does all that mean?’ cried Dick, in surprise. +</p> +<p> +‘The whole story is in the papers. The boys have taken the opportunity of +your father’s absence from home to make a demand for arms at your house, +and your sister, it seems, showed fight and beat them off. They talk of +two fellows being seen badly wounded, but, of course, that part of the +story cannot be relied on. That they got enough to make them beat a +retreat is, however, certain; and as they were what is called a strong +party, the feat of resisting them is no small glory for a young lady.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was just what Kate was certain to do. There’s no man with a braver +heart.’ +</p> +<p> +I wonder how the beautiful Greek behaved? I should like greatly to hear +what part she took in the defence of the citadel. Was she fainting or in +hysterics, or so overcome by terror as to be unconscious?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll make you any wager you like, Kate did the whole thing herself. There +was a Whiteboy attack to force the stairs when she was a child, and I +suppose we rehearsed that combat fully fifty—ay, five hundred times. +Kate always took the defence, and though we were sometimes four to one, +she kept us back.’ +</p> +<p> +‘By Jove! I think I should be afraid of such a young lady.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So you would. She has more pluck in her heart than half that blessed +province you come from. That’s the blood of the old stock you are often +pleased to sneer at, and of which the present will be a lesson to teach +you better.’ +</p> +<p> +‘May not the lovely Greek be descended from some ancient stock too? Who is +to say what blood of Pericles she had not in her veins? I tell you I’ll +not give up the notion that she was a sharer in this glory.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you’ve got the papers with the account, let me see them, Joe. I’ve +half a mind to run down by the night-mail—that is, if I can. Have +you got any tin, Atlee?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There were some shillings in one of my pockets last night. How much do +you want?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Eighteen-and-six first class, and a few shillings for a cab.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can manage that; but I’ll go and fetch you the papers, there’s time +enough to talk of the journey.’ +</p> +<p> +The newsman had just deposited the <i>Croppy</i> on the table as Joe +returned to the breakfast-table, and the story of Kilgobbin headed the +first column in large capitals. ‘While our contemporaries,’ it began, ‘are +recounting with more than their wonted eloquence the injuries inflicted on +three poor labouring men, who, in their ignorance of the locality, had the +temerity to ask for alms at Kilgobbin Castle yesterday evening, and were +ignominiously driven away from the door by a young lady, whose benevolence +was administered through a blunderbuss, we, who form no portion of the +polite press, and have no pretension to mix in what are euphuistically +called the “best circles” of this capital, would like to ask, for the +information of those humble classes among which our readers are found, is +it the custom for young ladies to await the absence of their fathers to +entertain young gentlemen tourists? and is a reputation for even heroic +courage not somewhat dearly purchased at the price of the companionship of +the admittedly most profligate man of a vicious and corrupt society? The +heroine who defended Kilgobbin can reply to our query.’ +</p> +<p> +Joe Atlee read this paragraph three times over before he carried in the +paper to Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘Here’s an insolent paragraph, Dick,’ he cried, as he threw the paper to +him on the bed. ‘Of course it’s a thing cannot be noticed in any way, but +it’s not the less rascally for that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You know the fellow who edits this paper, Joe?’ said Kearney, trembling +with passion. +</p> +<p> +‘No; my friend is doing his bit of oakum at Kilmainham. They gave him +thirteen months, and a fine that he’ll never be able to pay; but what +would you do if the fellow who wrote it were in the next room at this +moment?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Thrash him within an inch of his life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And, with the inch of life left him, he’d get strong again and write at +you and all belonging to you every day of his existence. Don’t you see +that all this license is one of the prices of liberty? There’s no guarding +against excesses when you establish a rivalry. The doctors could tell you +how many diseased lungs and aneurisms are made by training for a rowing +match.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll go down by the mail to-night and see what has given the origin to +this scandalous falsehood.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s no harm in doing that, especially if you take me with you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why should I take you, or for what?’ +</p> +<p> +‘As guide, counsellor, and friend.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Bright thought, when all the money we can muster between us is only +enough for one fare.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Doubtless, first class; but we could go third class, two of us for the +same money. Do you imagine that Damon and Pythias would have been +separated if it came even to travelling in a cow compartment?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish you could see that there are circumstances in life where the comic +man is out of place.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I trust I shall never discover them; at least, so long as Fate treats me +with “heavy tragedy.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not exactly sure, either, whether they ‘d like to receive you just +now at Kilgobbin.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Inhospitable thought! My heart assures me of a most cordial welcome.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I should only stay a day or two at farthest.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Which would suit me to perfection. I must be back here by Tuesday if I +had to walk the distance.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not at all improbable, so far as I know of your resources.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a churlish dog it is! Now had you, Master Dick, proposed to me that +we should go down and pass a week at a certain small thatched cottage on +the banks of the Ban, where a Presbyterian minister with eight olive +branches vegetates, discussing tough mutton and tougher theology on +Sundays, and getting through the rest of the week with the parables and +potatoes, I’d have said, Done!’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was the inopportune time I was thinking of. Who knows what confusion +this event may not have thrown them into? If you like to risk the +discomfort, I make no objection.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To so heartily expressed an invitation there can be but one answer, I +yield.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Now look here, Joe, I’d better be frank with you: don’t try it on at +Kilgobbin as you do with me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are afraid of my insinuating manners, are you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am afraid of your confounded impudence, and of that notion you cannot +get rid of, that your cool familiarity is a fashionable tone.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How men mistake themselves. I pledge you my word, if I was asked what was +the great blemish in my manner, I’d have said it was bashfulness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, then, it is not!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Are you sure, Dick, are you quite sure?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am quite sure, and unfortunately for you, you’ll find that the majority +agree with me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘“A wise man should guard himself against the defects that he might have, +without knowing it.” That is a Persian proverb, which you will find in <i>Hafiz</i>. +I believe you never read <i>Hafiz</i>!’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, nor you either.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s true; but I can make my own <i>Hafiz</i>, and just as good as the +real article. By the way, are you aware that the water-carriers at Tehran +sing <i>Lalla Rookh</i>, and believe it a national poem?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know, and I don’t care.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll bring down an <i>Anacreon</i> with me, and see if the Greek cousin +can spell her way through an ode.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I distinctly declare you shall do no such thing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh dear, oh dear, what an unamiable trait is envy! By the way, was that +your frock-coat I wore yesterday at the races?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I think you know it was; at least you remembered it when you tore the +sleeve.’ +</p> +<p> +‘True, most true; that torn sleeve was the reason the rascal would only +let me have fifteen shillings on it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you mean to say you pawned my coat?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I left it in the temporary care of a relative, Dick; but it is a +redeemable mortgage, and don’t fret about it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ever the same!’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, Dick, that means worse and worse! Now, I am in the process of +reformation. The natural selection, however, where honesty is in the +series, is a slow proceeding, and the organic changes are very +complicated. As I know, however, you attach value to the effect you +produce in that coat, I’ll go and recover it. I shall not need Terence or +Juvenal till we come back, and I’ll leave them in the avuncular hands till +then.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wonder you’re not ashamed of these miserable straits.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am very much ashamed of the world that imposes them on me. I’m +thoroughly ashamed of that public in lacquered leather, that sees me +walking in broken boots. I’m heartily ashamed of that well-fed, +well-dressed, sleek society, that never so much as asked whether the +intellectual-looking man in the shabby hat, who looked so lovingly at the +spiced beef in the window, had dined yet, or was he fasting for a wager?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There, don’t carry away that newspaper; I want to read over that pleasant +paragraph again!’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0012" id="link2HCH0012"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XII +</h2> +<h3> +THE JOURNEY TO THE COUNTRY +</h3> +<p> +The two friends were deposited at the Moate station at a few minutes after +midnight, and their available resources amounting to something short of +two shillings, and the fare of a car and horse to Kilgobbin being more +than three times that amount, they decided to devote their small balance +to purposes of refreshment, and then set out for the castle on foot. +</p> +<p> +‘It is a fine moonlight; I know all the short cuts, and I want a bit of +walking besides,’ said Kearney; and though Joe was of a self-indulgent +temperament, and would like to have gone to bed after his supper and +trusted to the chapter of accidents to reach Kilgobbin by a conveyance +some time, any time, he had to yield his consent and set out on the road. +</p> +<p> +‘The fellow who comes with the letter-bag will fetch over our +portmanteau,’ said Dick, as they started. +</p> +<p> +‘I wish you’d give him directions to take charge of me, too,’ said Joe, +who felt very indisposed to a long walk. +</p> +<p> +‘I like <i>you</i>,’ said Dick sneeringly; ‘you are always telling me that +you are the sort of fellow for a new colony, life in the bush, and the +rest of it, and when it conies to a question of a few miles’ tramp on a +bright night in June, you try to skulk it in every possible way. You’re a +great humbug, Master Joe.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you a very small humbug, and there lies the difference between us. +The combinations in your mind are so few, that, as in a game of only three +cards, there is no skill in the playing; while in my nature, as in that +game called tarocco, there are half-a-dozen packs mixed up together, and +the address required to play them is considerable.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You have a very satisfactory estimate of your own abilities, Joe.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And why not? If a clever fellow didn’t know he was clever, the opinion of +the world on his superiority would probably turn his brain.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what do you say if his own vanity should do it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is really no way of explaining to a fellow like you—’ +</p> +<p> +‘What do you mean by a fellow like me?’ broke in Dick, somewhat angrily. +</p> +<p> +‘I mean this, that I’d as soon set to work to explain the theory of +exchequer bonds to an Eskimo, as to make an unimaginative man understand +something purely speculative. What you, and scores of fellows like you, +denominate vanity, is only another form of hopefulness. You and your +brethren—for you are a large family—do you know what it is to +Hope! that is, you have no idea of what it is to build on the foundation +of certain qualities you recognise in yourself, and to say that “if I can +go so far with such a gift, such another will help me on so much +farther.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘I tell you one thing I do hope, which is, that the next time I set out a +twelve miles’ walk, I’ll have a companion less imbued with +self-admiration.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you might and might not find him pleasanter company. Cannot you see, +old fellow, that the very things you object to in me are what are wanting +in you? they are, so to say, the compliments of your own temperament.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have you a cigar?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Two—take them both. I’d rather talk than smoke just now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am almost sorry for it, though it gives me the tobacco.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Are we on your father’s property yet?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; part of that village we came through belongs to us, and all this bog +here is ours.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why don’t you reclaim it? labour costs a mere nothing in this country. +Why don’t you drain those tracts, and treat the soil with lime? I’d live +on potatoes, I’d make my family live on potatoes, and my son, and my +grandson, for three generations, but I’d win this land back to culture and +productiveness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The fee-simple of the soil wouldn’t pay the cost. It would be cheaper to +save the money and buy an estate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is one, and a very narrow view of it; but imagine the glory of +restoring a lost tract to a nation, welcoming back the prodigal, and +installing him in his place amongst his brethren. This was all forest +once. Under the shade of the mighty oaks here those gallant O’Caharneys +your ancestors followed the chase, or rested at noontide, or skedaddled in +double-quick before those smart English of the Pale, who I must say +treated your forbears with scant courtesy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We held our own against them for many a year.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Only when it became so small it was not worth taking. Is not your father +a Whig?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He’s a Liberal, but he troubles himself little about parties.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He’s a stout Catholic, though, isn’t he?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is a very devout believer in his Church,’ said Dick with the tone of +one who did not desire to continue the theme. +</p> +<p> +‘Then why does he stop at Whiggery? why not go in for Nationalism and all +the rest of it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what’s all the rest of it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Great Ireland—no first flower of the earth or gem of the sea humbug—but +Ireland great in prosperity, her harbours full of ships, the woollen +trade, her ancient staple, revived: all that vast unused water-power, +greater than all the steam of Manchester and Birmingham tenfold, at full +work; the linen manufacture developed and promoted—’ +</p> +<p> +‘And the Union repealed?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course; that should be first of all. Not that I object to the Union, +as many do, on the grounds of English ignorance as to Ireland. My dislike +is, that, for the sake of carrying through certain measures necessary to +Irish interests, I must sit and discuss questions which have no possible +concern for me, and touch me no more than the debates in the Cortes, or +the Reichskammer at Vienna. What do you or I care for who rules India, or +who owns Turkey? What interest of mine is it whether Great Britain has +five ironclads or fifty, or whether the Yankees take Canada, and the +Russians Kabul?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’re a Fenian, and I am not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose you’d call yourself an Englishman?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am an English subject, and I owe my allegiance to England.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps for that matter, I owe some too; but I owe a great many things +that I don’t distress myself about paying.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Whatever your sentiments are on these matters—and, Joe, I am not +disposed to think you have any very fixed ones—pray do me the favour +to keep them to yourself while under my father’s roof. I can almost +promise you he’ll obtrude none of his peculiar opinions on <i>you</i>, and +I hope you will treat <i>him</i> with a like delicacy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What will your folks talk, then? I can’t suppose they care for books, +art, or the drama. There is no society, so there can be no gossip. If that +yonder be the cabin of one of your tenants, I’ll certainly not start the +question of farming.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There are poor on every estate,’ said Dick curtly. +</p> +<p> +‘Now what sort of a rent does that fellow pay—five pounds a year?’ +</p> +<p> +‘More likely five-and-twenty or thirty shillings.’ +</p> +<p> +‘By Jove, I’d like to set up house in that fashion, and make love to some +delicately-nurtured miss, win her affections, and bring her home to such a +spot. Wouldn’t that be a touchstone of affection, Dick?’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I could believe you were in earnest, I’d throw you neck and heels into +that bog-hole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, if you would!’ cried he, and there was a ring of truthfulness in his +voice now there could be no mistaking. Half-ashamed of the emotion his +idle speech had called up, and uncertain how best to treat the emergency, +Kearney said nothing, and Atlee walked on for miles without a word. +</p> +<p> +‘You can see the house now. It tops the trees yonder,’ said Dick. +</p> +<p> +‘That is Kilgobbin Castle, then?’ said Joe slowly. +</p> +<p> +‘There’s not much of castle left about it. There is a square block of a +tower, and you can trace the moat and some remains of outworks.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall I make you a confession, Dick? I envy you all that! I envy you what +smacks of a race, a name, an ancestry, a lineage. It’s a great thing to be +able to “take up the running,” as folks say, instead of making all the +race yourself; and there’s one inestimable advantage in it, it rescues you +from all indecent haste about asserting your station. You feel yourself to +be a somebody and you’ve not hurried to proclaim it. There now, my boy, if +you’d have said only half as much as that on the score of your family, I’d +have called you an arrant snob. So much for consistency.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What you have said gave me pleasure, I’ll own that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose it was you planted those trees there. It was a nice thought, +and makes the transition from the bleak bog to the cultivated land more +easy and graceful. Now I see the castle well. It’s a fine portly mass +against the morning sky, and I perceive you fly a flag over it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘When the lord is at home.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ay, and by the way, do you give him his title while talking to him here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The tenants do, and the neighbours and strangers do as they please about +it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Does he like it himself?’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I was to guess, I should perhaps say he does like it. Here we are now. +Inside this low gate you are within the demesne, and I may bid you welcome +to Kilgobbin. We shall build a lodge here one of these days. There’s a +good stretch, however, yet to the castle. We call it two miles, and it’s +not far short of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a glorious morning. There is an ecstasy in scenting these nice fresh +woods in the clear sunrise, and seeing those modest daffodils make their +morning toilet.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s a fancy of Kate’s. There is a border of such wild flowers all the +way to the house.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And those rills of clear water that flank the road, are they of her +designing?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That they are. There was a cutting made for a railroad line about four +miles from this, and they came upon a sort of pudding-stone formation, +made up chiefly of white pebbles. Kate heard of it, purchased the whole +mass, and had these channels paved with them from the gate to the castle, +and that’s the reason this water has its crystal clearness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She’s worthy of Shakespeare’s sweet epithet, the “daintiest Kate in +Christendom.” Here’s her health!’ and he stooped down, and filling his +palm with the running water, drank it off. +</p> +<p> +‘I see it’s not yet five o’clock. We’ll steal quietly off to bed, and have +three or four hours sleep before we show ourselves.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0013" id="link2HCH0013"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XIII +</h2> +<h3> +A SICK-ROOM +</h3> +<p> +Cecil Walpole occupied the state-room and the state-bed at Kilgobbin +Castle; but the pain of a very serious wound had left him very little +faculty to know what honour was rendered him, or of what watchful +solicitude he was the object. The fever brought on by his wound had +obliterated in his mind all memory of where he was; and it was only now—that +is, on the same morning that the young men had arrived at the castle—that +he was able to converse without much difficulty, and enjoy the +companionship of Lockwood, who had come over to see him and scarcely +quitted his bedside since the disaster. +</p> +<p> +It seems going on all right,’ said Lockwood, as he lifted the iced cloths +to look at the smashed limb, which lay swollen and livid on a pillow +outside the clothes. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s not pretty to look at, Harry; but the doctor says “we shall save it”—his +phrase for not cutting it off.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They’ve taken up two fellows on suspicion, and I believe they were of the +party here that night.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t much care about that. It was a fair fight, and I suspect I did +not get the worst of it. What really does grieve me is to think how +ingloriously one gets a wound that in real war would have been a title of +honour.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I had to give a V.C. for this affair, it would be to that fine girl +I’d give it, and not to you, Cecil.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So should I. There is no question whatever as to our respective shares in +the achievement.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And she is so modest and unaffected about it all, and when she was +showing me the position and the alcove, she never ceased to lay stress on +the safety she enjoyed during the conflict.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then she said nothing about standing in front of me after I was wounded?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not a word. She said a great deal about your coolness and indifference to +danger, but nothing about her own.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I suppose it’s almost a shame to own it—not that I could have +done anything to prevent it—but she did step down one step of the +stair and actually cover me from fire.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She’s the finest girl in Europe,’ said Lockwood warmly. +</p> +<p> +‘And if it was not the contrast with her cousin, I’d almost say one of the +handsomest,’ said Cecil. +</p> +<p> +‘The Greek is splendid, I admit that, though she’ll not speak—she’ll +scarcely notice me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How is that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can’t imagine, except it might have been, an awkward speech I made when +we were talking over the row. I said, “Where were you? what were you doing +all this time? “’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what answer did she make you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘None; not a word. She drew herself proudly up, and opened her eyes so +large and full upon me, that I felt I must have appeared some sort of +monster to be so stared at.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ve seen her do that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was very grand and very beautiful; but I’ll be shot if I’d like to +stand under it again. From that time to this she has never deigned me more +than a mere salutation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And are you good friends with the other girl?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The best in the world. I don’t see much of her, for she’s always abroad, +over the farm, or among the tenants: but when we meet we are very cordial +and friendly.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And the father, what is he like?’ +</p> +<p> +‘My lord is a glorious old fellow, full of hospitable plans and pleasant +projects; but terribly distressed to think that this unlucky incident +should prejudice you against Ireland. Indeed, he gave me to understand +that there must have been some mistake or misconception in the matter, for +the castle had never been attacked before; and he insists on saying that +if you will stop here—I think he said ten years—you’ll not see +another such occurrence.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s rather a hard way to test the problem though.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What’s more, he included me in the experiment.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And this title? Does he assume it, or expect it to be recognised?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can scarcely tell you. The Greek girl “my lords” him occasionally; his +daughter, never. The servants always do so; and I take it that people use +their own discretion about it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Or do it in a sort of indolent courtesy, as they call Marsala, sherry, +but take care at the same time to pass the decanter. I believe you +telegraphed to his Excellency?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; and he means to come over next week.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Any news of Lady Maude?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Only that she comes with him, and I’m sorry for it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So am I—deuced sorry! In a gossiping town like Dublin there will be +surely some story afloat about these handsome girls here. She saw the +Greek, too, at the Duke of Rigati’s ball at Rome, and she never forgets a +name or a face. A pleasant trait in a wife.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course the best plan will be to get removed, and be safely installed +in our old quarters at the Castle before they arrive.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We must hear what the doctor says.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He’ll say no, naturally, for he’ll not like to lose his patient. He will +have to convey you to town, and we’ll try and make him believe it will be +the making of him. Don’t you agree with me, Cecil, it’s the thing to do?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have not thought it over yet. I will to-day. By the way, I know it’s +the thing to do,’ repeated he, with an air of determination. ‘There will +be all manner of reports, scandals, and falsehoods to no end about this +business here; and when Lady Maude learns, as she is sure to learn, that +the “Greek girl” is in the story, I cannot measure the mischief that may +come of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Break off the match, eh?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is certainly “on the cards.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect even that would not break your heart.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t say it would, but it would prove very inconvenient in many ways. +Danesbury has great claims on his party. He came here as Viceroy dead +against his will, and, depend upon it, he made his terms. Then if these +people go out, and the Tories want to outbid them, Danesbury could take—ay, +and would take—office under them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot follow all that. All I know is, I like the old boy himself, +though he is a bit pompous now and then, and fancies he’s Emperor of +Russia.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish his niece didn’t imagine she was an imperial princess.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That she does! I think she is the haughtiest girl I ever met. To be sure +she was a great beauty.’ +</p> +<p> +‘<i>Was</i>, Harry! What do you mean by “was”? Lady Maude is not +eight-and-twenty.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ain’t she, though? Will you have a ten-pound note on it that she’s not +over thirty-one; and I can tell you who could decide the wager?’ +</p> +<p> +‘A delicate thought!—a fellow betting on the age of the girl he’s +going to marry!’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0005" id="linkimage-0005"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/120.jpg" + alt="He Entered and Nina Arose As he Came Forward." width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘Ten o’clock!—nearly half-past ten!’ said Lockwood, rising from his +chair. ‘I must go and have some breakfast. I meant to have been down in +time to-day, and breakfasted with the old fellow and his daughter; for +coming late brings me to a <i>tête-à-tête</i> with the Greek damsel, and +it isn’t jolly, I assure you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t you speak?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Never a word?’ She’s generally reading a newspaper when I go in. She lays +it down; but after remarking that she fears I’ll find the coffee cold, she +goes on with her breakfast, kisses her Maltese terrier, asks him a few +questions about his health, and whether he would like to be in a warmer +climate, and then sails away.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And how she walks!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is she bored here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘She says not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She can scarcely like these people; they ‘re not the sort of thing she +has ever been used to.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She tells me she likes them: they certainly like her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well,’ said Lockwood, with a sigh, ‘she’s the most beautiful woman, +certainly, I’ve ever seen; and, at this moment, I’d rather eat a crust +with a glass of beer under a hedge than I’d go down and sit at breakfast +with her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll be shot if I’ll not tell her that speech the first day I’m down +again.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So you may, for by that time I shall have seen her for the last time.’ +And with this he strolled out of the room and down the stairs towards the +breakfast-parlour. +</p> +<p> +As he stood at the door he heard the sound of voices laughing and talking +pleasantly. He entered, and Nina arose as he came forward, and said, ‘Let +me present my cousin—Mr. Richard Kearney, Major Lockwood; his +friend, Mr. Atlee.’ +</p> +<p> +The two young men stood up—Kearny stiff and haughty, and Atlee with +a sort of easy assurance that seemed to suit his good-looking but +certainly snobbish style. As for Lockwood, he was too much a gentleman to +have more than one manner, and he received these two men as he would have +received any other two of any rank anywhere. +</p> +<p> +‘These gentlemen have been showing me some strange versions of our little +incident here in the Dublin papers,’ said Nina to Lockwood. ‘I scarcely +thought we should become so famous.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose they don’t stickle much for truth,’ said Lockwood, as he broke +his egg in leisurely fashion. +</p> +<p> +‘They were scarcely able to provide a special correspondent for the +event,’ said Atlee; ‘but I take it they give the main facts pretty +accurately and fairly.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed!’ said Lockwood, more struck by the manner than by the words of +the speaker. ‘They mention, then, that my friend received a bad fracture +of the forearm.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, I don’t think they do; at least so far as I have seen. They speak of +a night attack on Kilgobbin Castle, made by an armed party of six or seven +men with faces blackened, and their complete repulse through the heroic +conduct of a young lady.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The main facts, then, include no mention of poor Walpole and his +misfortune?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think that we mere Irish attach any great importance to a broken +arm, whether it came of a cricket-ball or gun; but we do interest +ourselves deeply when an Irish girl displays feats of heroism and courage +that men find it hard to rival.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was very fine,’ said Lockwood gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘Fine! I should think it was fine!’ burst out Atlee. ‘It was so fine that, +had the deed been done on the other side of this narrow sea, the nation +would not have been satisfied till your Poet Laureate had commemorated it +in verse.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have they discovered any traces of the fellows?’ said Lockwood, who +declined to follow the discussion into this channel. +</p> +<p> +‘My father has gone over to Moate to-day,’ said Kearney, now speaking for +the first time, ‘to hear the examination of two fellows who have been +taken up on suspicion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You have plenty of this sort of thing in your country,’ said Atlee to +Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘Where do you mean when you say my country?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I mean Greece.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But I have not seen Greece since I was a child, so high; I have lived +always in Italy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, Italy has Calabria and the Terra del Lavoro.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And how much do we in Rome know about either?’ +</p> +<p> +‘About as much,’ said Lockwood, ‘as Belgravia does of the Bog of Allen.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’ll return to your friends in civilised life with almost the fame of +an African traveller, Major Lockwood,’ said Atlee pertly. +</p> +<p> +‘If Africa can boast such hospitality, I certainly rather envy than +compassionate Doctor Livingstone,’ said he politely. +</p> +<p> +‘Somebody,’ said Kearney dryly, ‘calls hospitality the breeding of the +savage.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But I deny that we are savage,’ cried Atlee. ‘I contend for it that all +our civilisation is higher, and that class for class we are in a more +advanced culture than the English; that your chawbacon is not as +intelligent a being as our bogtrotter; that your petty shopkeeper is +inferior to ours; that throughout our middle classes there is not only a +higher morality but a higher refinement than with you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I read in one of the most accredited journals of England the other day +that Ireland had never produced a poet, could not even show a second-rate +humorist,’ said Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘Swift and Sterne were third-rate, or perhaps, English,’ said Atlee. +</p> +<p> +‘These are themes I’ll not attempt to discuss,’ said Lockwood; ‘but I know +one thing, it takes three times as much military force to govern the +smaller island.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is to say, to govern the country after <i>your</i> fashion; but +leave it to ourselves. Pack your portmanteaus and go away, and then see if +we’ll need this parade of horse, foot, and dragoons; these batteries of +guns and these brigades of peelers.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’d be the first to beg us to come back again.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Doubtless, as the Greeks are begging the Turks. Eh, mademoiselle; can you +fancy throwing yourself at the feet of a Pasha and asking leave to be his +slave?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The only Greek slave I ever heard of,’ said Lockwood, ‘was in marble and +made by an American.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Come into the drawing-room and I’ll sing you something,’ said Nina, +rising. +</p> +<p> +‘Which will be far nicer and pleasanter than all this discussion,’ said +Joe. +</p> +<p> +‘And if you’ll permit me,’ said Lockwood, ‘we’ll leave the drawing-room +door open and let poor Walpole hear the music.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Would it not be better first to see if he’s asleep?’ said she. +</p> +<p> +‘That’s true. I’ll step up and see.’ +</p> +<p> +Lockwood hurried away, and Joe Atlee, leaning back in his chair, said, +‘Well, we gave the Saxon a canter, I think. As you know, Dick, that fellow +is no end of a swell.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You know nothing about him,’ said the other gruffly. +</p> +<p> +‘Only so much as newspapers could tell me. He’s Master of the Horse in the +Viceroy’s household, and the other fellow is Private Secretary, and some +connection besides. I say, Dick, it’s all King James’s times back again. +There has not been so much grandeur here for six or eight generations.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There has not been a more absurd speech made than that, within the time.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And he is really somebody?’ said Nina to Atlee. +</p> +<p> +‘A <i>gran signore davvero</i>,’ said he pompously. ‘If you don’t sing +your very best for him, I’ll swear you are a republican.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Come, take my arm, Nina. I may call you Nina, may I not?’ whispered +Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘Certainly, if I may call you Joe.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You may, if you like,’ said he roughly, ‘but my name is Dick.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am Beppo, and very much at your orders,’ said Atlee, stepping forward +and leading her away. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0014" id="link2HCH0014"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XIV +</h2> +<h3> +AT DINNER +</h3> +<p> +They were assembled in the drawing-room before dinner, when Lord Kilgobbin +arrived, heated, dusty, and tired, after his twelve miles’ drive. ‘I say, +girls,’ said he, putting his head inside the door, ‘is it true that our +distinguished guest is not coming down to dinner, for, if so, I’ll not +wait to dress?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, papa; he said he’d stay with Mr. Walpole. They’ve been receiving and +despatching telegrams all day, and seem to have the whole world on their +hands,’ said Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, sir, what did you do at the sessions?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, my lord,’ broke in Nina, eager to show her more mindful regard to +his rank than Atlee displayed; ‘tell us your news?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect we have got two of them, and are on the traces of the others. +They are Louth men, and were sent special here to give me a lesson, as +they call it. That’s what our blessed newspapers have brought us to. Some +idle vagabond, at his wits’ end for an article, fastens on some unlucky +country gentleman, neither much better nor worse than his neighbours, +holds him up to public reprobation, perfectly sure that within a week’s +time some rascal who owes him a grudge—the fellow he has evicted for +non-payment of rent, the blackguard he prosecuted for perjury, or some +other of the like stamp—will write a piteous letter to the editor, +relating his wrongs. The next act of the drama is a notice on the hall +door, with a coffin at the top; and the piece closes with a charge of +slugs in your body, as you are on your road to mass. Now, if I had the +making of the laws, the first fellow I’d lay hands on would be the +newspaper writer. Eh, Master Atlee, am I right?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I go with you to the furthest extent, my lord.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I vote we hang Joe, then,’ cried Dick. ‘He is the only member of the +fraternity I have any acquaintance with.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What—do you tell me that you write for the papers?’ asked my lord +slyly. +</p> +<p> +‘He’s quizzing, sir; he knows right well I have no gifts of that sort.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Here’s dinner, papa. Will you give Nina your arm? Mr. Atlee, you are to +take me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’ll not agree with me, Nina, my dear,’ said the old man, as he led her +along; ‘but I’m heartily glad we have not that great swell who dined with +us yesterday.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do agree with you, uncle—I dislike him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps I am unjust to him; but I thought he treated us all with a sort +of bland pity that I found very offensive.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; I thought that too. His manner seemed to say, “I am very sorry for +you, but what can be done?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is the other fellow—the wounded one—as bad?’ +</p> +<p> +She pursed up her lip, slightly shrugged her shoulders, and then said, +‘There’s not a great deal to choose between them; but I think I like him +better.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How do you like Dick, eh?’ said he, in a whisper. +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, so much,’ said she, with one of her half-downcast looks, but which +never prevented her seeing what passed in her neighbour’s face. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, don’t let him fall in love with <i>you</i>,’ said he, with a smile, +‘for it would be bad for you both.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But why should he?’ said she, with an air of innocence. +</p> +<p> +‘Just because I don’t see how he is to escape it. What’s Master Atlee +saying to you, Kitty?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He’s giving me some hints about horse-breaking,’ said she quietly. +</p> +<p> +‘Is he, by George? Well, I ‘d like to see him follow you over that fallen +timber in the back lawn. We’ll have you out, Master Joe, and give you a +field-day to-morrow,’ said the old man. +</p> +<p> +‘I vote we do,’ cried Dick; ‘unless, better still, we could persuade Miss +Betty to bring the dogs over and give us a cub-hunt.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I want to see a cub-hunt,’ broke in Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘Do you mean that you ride to hounds, Cousin Nina?’ asked Dick. +</p> +<p> +‘I should think that any one who has taken the ox-fences on the Roman +Campagna, as I have, might venture to face your small stone-walls here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s plucky, anyhow; and I hope, Joe, it will put you on your metal to +show yourself worthy of your companionship. What is old Mathew looking so +mysteriously about? What do you want?’ +</p> +<p> +The old servant thus addressed had gone about the room with the air of one +not fully decided to whom to speak, and at last he leaned over Miss +Kearney’s shoulder, and whispered a few words in her ear. ‘Of course not, +Mat!’ said she, and then turning to her father—‘Mat has such an +opinion of my medical skill, he wants me to see Mr. Walpole, who, it +seems, has got up, and evidently increased his pain by it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, but is there no doctor near us?’ asked Nina eagerly. +</p> +<p> +‘I’d go at once,’ said Kate frankly, ‘but my skill does not extend to +surgery.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have some little knowledge in that way: I studied and walked the +hospitals for a couple of years,’ broke out Joe. ‘Shall I go up to him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘By all means,’ cried several together, and Joe rose and followed Mathew +upstairs. +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, are you a medical man?’ cried Lockwood, as the other entered. +</p> +<p> +‘After a fashion, I may say I am. At least, I can tell you where my skill +will come to its limit, and that is something.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Look here, then—he would insist on getting up, and I fear he has +displaced the position of the bones. You must be very gentle, for the pain +is terrific.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; there’s no great mischief done—the fractured parts are in a +proper position. It is the mere pain of disturbance. Cover it all over +with the ice again, and’—here he felt his pulse—‘let him have +some weak brandy-and-water.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s sensible advice—I feel it. I am shivery all over,’ said +Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll go and make a brew for you,’ cried Joe, ‘and you shall have it as +hot as you can drink it.’ +</p> +<p> +He had scarcely left the room, when he returned with the smoking compound. +</p> +<p> +‘You’re such a jolly doctor,’ said Walpole, ‘I feel sure you’d not refuse +me a cigar?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Certainly not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Only think! that old barbarian who was here this morning said I was to +have nothing but weak tea or iced lemonade.’ +</p> +<p> +Lockwood selected a mild-looking weed, and handed it to his friend, and +was about to offer one to Atlee, when he said— +</p> +<p> +‘But we have taken you from your dinner—pray go back again.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, we were at dessert. I’ll stay here and have a smoke, if you will let +me. Will it bore you, though?’ +</p> +<p> +‘On the contrary,’ said Walpole, ‘your company will be a great boon to us; +and as for myself, you have done me good already.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What would you say, Major Lockwood, to taking my place below-stairs? They +are just sitting over their wine—some very pleasant claret—and +the young ladies, I perceive, here, give half an hour of their company +before they leave the dining-room.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Here goes, then,’ said Lockwood. ‘Now that you remind me of it, I do want +a glass of wine.’ +</p> +<p> +Lockwood found the party below-stairs eagerly discussing Joe Atlee’s +medical qualifications, and doubting whether, if it was a knowledge of +civil engineering or marine gunnery had been required, he would not have +been equally ready to offer himself for the emergency. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll lay my life on it, if the real doctor arrives, Joe will take the +lead in the consultation,’ cried Dick: ‘he is the most unabashable villain +in Europe.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, he has put Cecil all right,’ said Lockwood: ‘he has settled the arm +most comfortably on the pillow, the pain is decreasing every moment, and +by his pleasant and jolly talk he is making Walpole even forget it at +times.’ +</p> +<p> +This was exactly what Atlee was doing. Watching carefully the sick man’s +face, he plied him with just that amount of amusement that he could bear +without fatigue. He told him the absurd versions that had got abroad of +the incident in the press; and cautiously feeling his way, went on to tell +how Dick Kearney had started from town full of the most fiery intentions +towards that visitor whom the newspapers called a ‘noted profligate’ of +London celebrity. ‘If you had not been shot before, we were to have +managed it for you now,’ said he. +</p> +<p> +‘Surely these fellows who wrote this had never heard of me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course they had not, further than you were on the Viceroy’s staff; but +is not that ample warranty for profligacy? Besides, the real intention was +not to assail you, but the people here who admitted you.’ Thus talking, he +led Walpole to own that he had no acquaintanceship with the Kearneys, that +a mere passing curiosity to see the interesting house had provoked his +request, to which the answer, coming from an old friend, led to his visit. +Through this channel Atlee drew him on to the subject of the Greek girl +and her parentage. As Walpole sketched the society of Rome, Atlee, who had +cultivated the gift of listening fully as much as that of talking, knew +where to seem interested by the views of life thrown out, and where to +show a racy enjoyment of the little humoristic bits of description which +the other was rather proud of his skill in deploying; and as Atlee always +appeared so conversant with the family history of the people they were +discussing, Walpole spoke with unbounded freedom and openness. +</p> +<p> +‘You must have been astonished to meet the “Titian Girl” in Ireland?’ said +Joe at last, for he had caught up the epithet dropped accidentally in the +other’s narrative, and kept it for use. +</p> +<p> +‘Was I not! but if my memory had been clearer, I should have remembered +she had Irish connections. I had heard of Lord Kilgobbin on the other side +of the Alps.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t doubt that the title would meet a readier acceptance there than +here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, you think so!’ cried Walpole. ‘What is the meaning of a rank that +people acknowledge or deny at pleasure? Is this peculiar to Ireland?’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you had asked whether persons anywhere else would like to maintain +such a strange pretension, I might perhaps have answered you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘For the few minutes of this visit to me, I liked him; he seemed frank, +hearty, and genial.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose he is, and I suspect this folly of the lordship is no fancy of +his own.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nor the daughter’s, then, I’ll be bound?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; the son, I take it, has all the ambition of the house.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you know them well?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, I never saw them till yesterday. The son and I are chums: we live +together, and have done so these three years.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You like your visit here, however?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes. It’s rather good fun on the whole. I was afraid of the indoor life +when I was coming down, but it’s pleasanter than I looked for.’ +</p> +<p> +‘When I asked you the question, it was not out of idle curiosity. I had a +strong personal interest in your answer. In fact, it was another way of +inquiring whether it would be a great sacrifice to tear yourself away from +this.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, inasmuch as the tearing-away process must take place in a couple of +days—three at farthest.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That makes what I have to propose all the easier. It is a matter of great +urgency for me to reach Dublin at once. This unlucky incident has been so +represented by the newspapers as to give considerable uneasiness to the +Government, and they are even threatened with a discussion on it in the +House. Now, I’d start to-morrow, if I thought I could travel with safety. +You have so impressed me with your skill, that, if I dared, I’d ask you to +convoy me up. Of course I mean as my physician.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But I’m not one, nor ever intend to be.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You studied, however?’ +</p> +<p> +‘As I have done scores of things. I know a little bit of criminal law, +have done some shipbuilding, rode <i>haute école</i> in Cooke’s circus, +and, after M. Dumas, I am considered the best amateur macaroni-maker in +Europe.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And which of these careers do you intend to abide by?’ +</p> +<p> +‘None, not one of them. “Financing” is the only pursuit that pays largely. +I intend to go in for money.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should like to hear your ideas on that subject.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So you shall, as we travel up to town.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You accept my offer, then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I do. I am delighted to have so many hours in your company. I +believe I can safely say I have that amount of skill to be of service to +you. One begins his medical experience with fractures. They are the +pothooks and hangers of surgery, and I have gone that far. Now, what are +your plans?’ +</p> +<p> +‘My plans are to leave this early to-morrow, so as to rest during the hot +hours of the day, and reach Dublin by nightfall. Why do you smile?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I smile at your notion of climate; but I never knew any man who had been +once in Italy able to disabuse himself of the idea that there were three +or four hours every summer day to be passed with closed shutters and iced +drinks.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I believe I was thinking of a fiercer sun and a hotter soil than +these. To return to my project: we can find means of posting, carriage and +horses, in the village. I forget its name.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll take care of all that. At what hour will you start?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should say by six or seven. I shall not sleep; and I shall be all +impatience till we are away.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, is there anything else to be thought of?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is—that is, I have something on my mind, and I am debating +with myself how far, on a half-hour’s acquaintance, I can make you a +partner in it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot help you by my advice. I can only say that if you like to trust +me, I’ll know how to respect the confidence.’ +</p> +<p> +Walpole looked steadily and steadfastly at him, and the examination seemed +to satisfy him, for he said, ‘I will trust you—not that the matter +is a secret in any sense that involves consequences; but it is a thing +that needs a little tact and discretion, a slight exercise of a light +hand, which is what my friend Lockwood fails in. Now you could do it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I can, I will. What is it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, the matter is this. I have written a few lines here, very illegibly +and badly, as you may believe, for they were with my left hand; and +besides having the letter conveyed to its address, I need a few words of +explanation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The Titian Girl,’ muttered Joe, as though thinking aloud. +</p> +<p> +‘Why do you say so?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, it was easy enough to see her greater anxiety and uneasiness about +you. There was an actual flash of jealousy across her features when Miss +Kearney proposed coming up to see you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And was this remarked, think you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Only by me. <i>I</i> saw, and let her see I saw it, and we understood +each other from that moment.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I mustn’t let you mistake me. You are not to suppose that there is +anything between Mademoiselle Kostalergi and myself. I knew a good deal +about her father, and there were family circumstances in which I was once +able to be of use; and I wished to let her know that if at any time she +desired to communicate with me, I could procure an address, under which +she could write with freedom.’ +</p> +<p> +‘As for instance: “J. Atlee, 48 Old Square, Trinity College, Dublin.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I did not think of that at the moment,’ said Walpole, smiling. +‘Now,’ continued he, ‘though I have written all this, it is so blotted and +disgraceful generally—done with the left hand, and while in great +pain—that I think it would be as well not to send the letter, but +simply a message—’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee nodded, and Walpole went on: ‘A message to say that I was wishing to +write, but unable; and that if I had her permission, so soon as my fingers +could hold a pen, to finish—yes, to finish that communication I had +already begun, and if she felt there was no inconvenience in writing to +me, under cover to your care, I should pledge myself to devote all my zeal +and my best services to her interests.’ +</p> +<p> +‘In fact, I am to lead her to suppose she ought to have the most implicit +confidence in you, and to believe in me, because I say so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do not exactly see that these are my instructions to you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, you certainly want to write to her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know that I do.’ +</p> +<p> +‘At all events, you want her to write to <i>you</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are nearer the mark now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That ought not to be very difficult to arrange. I’ll go down now and have +a cup of tea, and I may, I hope, come up and see you again before +bed-time.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Wait one moment,’ cried Walpole, as the other was about to leave the +room. ‘Do you see a small tray on that table yonder, with some trinkets? +Yes, that is it. Well, will you do me the favour to choose something +amongst them as your fee? Come, come, you know you are my doctor now, and +I insist on this. There’s nothing of any value there, and you will have no +misgivings.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Am I to take it haphazard?’ asked Atlee. +</p> +<p> +‘Whatever you like,’ said the other indolently. +</p> +<p> +‘I have selected a ring,’ said Atlee, as he drew it on his finger. +</p> +<p> +‘Not an opal?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, it is an opal with brilliants round it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’d rather you’d taken all the rest than that. Not that I ever wear it, +but somehow it has a bit of memory attached to it!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you know,’ said Atlee gravely, ‘you are adding immensely to the value +I desired to see in it? I wanted something as a souvenir of you—what +the Germans call an <i>Andenken</i>, and here is evidently what has some +secret clue to your affections. It was not an old love-token?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; or I should certainly not part with it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It did not belong to a friend now no more?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nor that either,’ said he, smiling at the other’s persistent curiosity. +</p> +<p> +‘Then if it be neither the gift of an old love nor a lost friend, I’ll not +relinquish it,’ cried Joe. +</p> +<p> +‘Be it so,’ said Walpole, half carelessly. ‘Mine was a mere caprice after +all. It is linked with a reminiscence—there’s the whole of it; but +if you care for it, pray keep it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do care for it, and I will keep it.’ +</p> +<p> +It was a very peculiar smile that curled Walpole’s lip as he heard this +speech, and there was an expression in his eyes that seemed to say, ‘What +manner of man is this, what sort of nature, new and strange to me, is he +made of?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Bye-bye!’ said Atlee carelessly, and he strolled away. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0015" id="link2HCH0015"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XV +</h2> +<h3> +IN THE GARDEN AT DUSK +</h3> +<p> +When Atlee quitted Walpole’s room, he was far too full of doubt and +speculation to wish to join the company in the drawing-room. He had need +of time to collect his thoughts, too, and arrange his plans. This sudden +departure of his would, he well knew, displease Kearney. It would savour +of a degree of impertinence, in treating their hospitality so cavalierly, +that Dick was certain to resent, and not less certain to attribute to a +tuft-hunting weakness on Atlee’s part of which he had frequently declared +he detected signs in Joe’s character. +</p> +<p> +‘Be it so. I’ll only say, you’ll not see me cultivate “swells” for the +pleasure of their society, or even the charms of their cookery. If I turn +them to no better uses than display, Master Dick, you may sneer freely at +me. I have long wanted to make acquaintance with one of these fellows, and +luck has now given me the chance. Let us see if I know how to profit by +it.’ +</p> +<p> +And, thus muttering to himself, he took his way to the farmyard, to find a +messenger to despatch to the village for post-horses. +</p> +<p> +The fact that he was not the owner of a half-crown in the world very +painfully impressed itself on a negotiation, which, to be prompt, should +be prepaid, and which he was endeavouring to explain to two or three very +idle but very incredulous listeners—not one of whom could be induced +to accept a ten miles’ tramp on a drizzling night without the prompting of +a tip in advance. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s every step of eight miles,’ cried one. +</p> +<p> +‘No, but it’s ten,’ asseverated another with energy, ‘by rayson that you +must go by the road. There’s nobody would venture across the bog in the +dark.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Wid five shillings in my hand—’ +</p> +<p> +‘And five more when ye come back,’ continued another, who was terrified at +the low estimate so rashly adventured. +</p> +<p> +‘If one had even a shilling or two to pay for a drink when he got in to +Kilbeggan wet through and shivering—’ +</p> +<p> +The speaker was not permitted to finish his ignominiously low proposal, +and a low growl of disapprobation smothered his words. +</p> +<p> +‘Do you mean to tell me,’ said Joe angrily, ‘that there’s not a man here +will step over to the town to order a chaise and post-horses?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And if yer honour will put his hand in his pocket and tempt us with a +couple of crown-pieces, there’s no saying what we wouldn’t do,’ said a +little bandy old fellow, who was washing his face at the pump. +</p> +<p> +‘And are crown-pieces so plentiful with you down here that you can earn +them so easily?’ said Atlee, with a sneer. +</p> +<p> +‘Be me sowl, yer honour, it’s thinking that they’re not so aisy to come +at, makes us a bit lazy this evening!’ said a ragged fellow, with a grin, +which was quickly followed by a hearty laugh from those around him. +</p> +<p> +Something that sounded like a titter above his head made Atlee look up, +and there, exactly over where he stood, was Nina, leaning over a little +stone balcony in front of a window, an amused witness of the scene +beneath. +</p> +<p> +‘I have two words for yourself,’ cried he to her in Italian. ‘Will you +come down to the garden for one moment?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Cannot the two words be said in the drawing-room?’ asked she, half +saucily, in the same language. +</p> +<p> +‘No, they cannot be said in the drawing-room,’ continued he sternly. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s dropping rain. I should get wet.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Take an umbrella, then, but come. Mind me, Signora Nina, I am the bearer +of a message for you.’ +</p> +<p> +There was something almost disdainful in the toss of her head as she heard +these words, and she hastily retired from the balcony and entered the +room. +</p> +<p> +Atlee watched her, by no means certain what her gesture might portend. Was +she indignant with him for the liberty he had taken? or was she about to +comply with his request, and meet him? He knew too little of her to +determine which was the more likely; and he could not help feeling that, +had he only known her longer, his doubt might have been just as great. Her +mind, thought he, is perhaps like my own: it has many turnings, and she’s +never very certain which one of them she will follow. Somehow, this +imputed wilfulness gave her, to his eyes, a charm scarcely second to that +of her exceeding beauty. And what beauty it was! The very perfection of +symmetry in every feature when at rest, while the varied expressions of +her face as she spoke, or smiled, or listened, imparted a fascination +which only needed the charm of her low liquid voice to be irresistible. +</p> +<p> +How she vulgarises that pretty girl, her cousin, by mere contrast! What +subtle essence is it, apart from hair and eyes and skin, that spreads an +atmosphere of conquest over these natures, and how is it that men have no +ascendencies of this sort—nothing that imparts to their superiority +the sense that worship of them is in itself an ecstasy? +</p> +<p> +‘Take my message into town,’ said he to a fellow near, ‘and you shall have +a sovereign when you come back with the horses’; and with this he strolled +away across a little paddock and entered the garden. It was a large, +ill-cultivated space, more orchard than garden, with patches of smooth +turf, through which daffodils and lilies were scattered, and little +clusters of carnations occasionally showed where flower-beds had once +existed. ‘What would I not give,’ thought Joe, as he strolled along the +velvety sward, over which a clear moonlight had painted the forms of many +a straggling branch—‘What would I not give to be the son of a house +like this, with an old and honoured name, with an ancestry strong enough +to build upon for future pretensions, and then with an old home, peaceful, +tranquil, and unmolested, where, as in such a spot as this, one might +dream of great things, perhaps more, might achieve them! What books would +I not write! What novels, in which, fashioning the hero out of my own +heart, I could tell scores of impressions the world had made upon me in +its aspect of religion, or of politics, or of society! What essays could I +not compose here—the mind elevated by that buoyancy which comes of +the consciousness of being free for a great effort! Free from the vulgar +interruptions that cling to poverty like a garment, free from the paltry +cares of daily subsistence, free from the damaging incidents of a doubtful +position and a station that must be continually asserted. That one +disparagement, perhaps, worst of all,’ cried he aloud: ‘how is a man to +enjoy his estate if he is “put upon his title” every day of the week? One +might as well be a French Emperor, and go every spring to the country for +a character.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What shocking indignity is this you are dreaming of?’ said a very soft +voice near him, and turning he saw Nina, who was moving across the grass, +with her dress so draped as to show the most perfect instep and ankle with +a very unguarded indifference. +</p> +<p> +‘This is very damp for you; shall we not come out into the walk?’ said he. +</p> +<p> +‘It is very damp,’ said she quickly; ‘but I came because you said you had +a message for me: is this true?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you think I could deceive you?’ said he, with a sort of tender +reproachfulness. +</p> +<p> +‘It might not be so very easy, if you were to try,’ replied she, laughing. +</p> +<p> +‘That is not the most gracious way to answer me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I don’t believe we came here to pay compliments; certainly I did +not, and my feet are very wet already—look there, and see the ruin +of a <i>chaussure</i> I shall never replace in this dear land of coarse +leather and hobnails.’ +</p> +<p> +As she spoke she showed her feet, around which her bronzed shoes hung limp +and misshapen. +</p> +<p> +‘Would that I could be permitted to dry them with my kisses,’ said he, as, +stooping, he wiped them with his handkerchief, but so deferentially and so +respectfully, as though the homage had been tendered to a princess. Nor +did she for a moment hesitate to accept the service. +</p> +<p> +‘There, that will do,’ said she haughtily. ‘Now for your message.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We are going away, mademoiselle,’ said Atlee, with a melancholy tone. +</p> +<p> +‘And who are “we,” sir?’ +</p> +<p> +‘By “we,” mademoiselle, I meant to convey Walpole and myself.’ And now he +spoke with the irritation of one who had felt a pull-up. +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, indeed!’ said she, smiling, and showing her pearly teeth. ‘“We” meant +Mr. Walpole and Mr. Atlee.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You should never have guessed it?’ cried he in question. +</p> +<p> +‘Never—certainly,’ was her cool rejoinder. +</p> +<p> +‘Well! <i>He</i> was less defiant, or mistrustful, or whatever be the name +for it. We were only friends of half-an-hour’s growth when he proposed the +journey. He asked me to accompany him as a favour; and he did more, +mademoiselle: he confided to me a mission—a very delicate and +confidential mission—such an office as one does not usually depute +to him of whose fidelity or good faith he has a doubt, not to speak of +certain smaller qualities, such as tact and good taste.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of whose possession Mr. Atlee is now asserting himself?’ said she +quietly. +</p> +<p> +He grew crimson at a sarcasm whose impassiveness made it all the more +cutting. +</p> +<p> +‘My mission was in this wise, mademoiselle,’ said he, with a forced calm +in his manner. ‘I was to learn from Mademoiselle Kostalergi if she should +desire to communicate with Mr. Walpole touching certain family interests +in which his counsels might be of use; and in this event, I was to place +at her disposal an address by which her letters should reach him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, sir,’ said she quietly, ‘you have totally mistaken any instructions +that were given you. Mr. Walpole never pretended that I had written or was +likely to write to him; he never said that he was in any way concerned in +family questions that pertained to me; least of all did he presume to +suppose that if I had occasion to address him by letter, I should do so +under cover to another.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You discredit my character of envoy, then?’ said he, smiling easily. +</p> +<p> +‘Totally and completely, Mr. Atlee; and I only wait for you yourself to +admit that I am right, to hold out my hand to you and say let us be +friends.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’d perjure myself twice at such a price. Now for the hand.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not so fast—first the confession,’ said she, with a faint smile. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, on my honour,’ cried he seriously, ‘he told me he hoped you might +write to him. I did not clearly understand about what, but it pointed to +some matter in which a family interest was mixed up, and that you might +like your communication to have the reserve of secrecy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All this is but a modified version of what you were to disavow.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I am only repeating it now to show you how far I am going to +perjure myself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is, you see, in fact, that Mr. Walpole could never have presumed to +give you such instructions—that gentlemen do not send such messages +to young ladies—do not presume to say that they dare do so; and last +of all, if they ever should chance upon one whose nice tact and cleverness +would have fitted him to be the bearer of such a commission, those same +qualities of tact and cleverness would have saved him from undertaking it. +That is what you see, Mr. Atlee, is it not?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are right. I see it all.’ And now he seized her hand and kissed it as +though he had won the right to that rapturous enjoyment. +</p> +<p> +She drew her hand away, but so slowly and so gently as to convey nothing +of rebuke or displeasure. ‘And so you are going away?’ said she softly. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; Walpole has some pressing reason to be at once in Dublin. He is +afraid to make the journey without a doctor; but rather than risk delay in +sending for one, he is willing to take <i>me</i> as his body-surgeon, and +I have accepted the charge.’ +</p> +<p> +The frankness with which he said this seemed to influence her in his +favour, and she said, with a tone of like candour, ‘You were right. His +family are people of influence, and will not readily forget such a +service.’ +</p> +<p> +Though he winced under the words, and showed that it was not exactly the +mode in which he wanted his courtesy to be regarded, she took no account +of the passing irritation, but went on— +</p> +<p> +If you fancy you know something about me, Mr. Atlee, <i>I</i> know far +more about <i>you</i>. Your chum, Dick Kearney, has been so outspoken as +to his friend, that my cousin Kate and I have been accustomed to discuss +you like a near acquaintance—what am I saying?—I mean like an +old friend.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am very grateful for this interest; but will you kindly say what is the +version my friend Dick has given of me? what are the lights that have +fallen upon my humble character?’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0006" id="linkimage-0006"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/141.jpg" + alt="‘You Are Right, I See It All,’ and Now he Seized Her Hand And Kissed It" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘Do you fancy that either of us have time at this moment to open so large +a question? Would not the estimate of Mr. Joseph Atlee be another mode of +discussing the times we live in, and the young gentlemen, more or less +ambitious, who want to influence them? would not the question embrace +everything, from the difficulties of Ireland to the puzzling +embarrassments of a clever young man who has everything in his favour in +life, except the only thing that makes life worth living for?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You mean fortune—money?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I mean money. What is so powerless as poverty? do I not know it—not +of yesterday, or the day before, but for many a long year? What so +helpless, what so jarring to temper, so dangerous to all principle, and so +subversive of all dignity? I can afford to say these things, and you can +afford to hear them, for there is a sort of brotherhood between us. We +claim the same land for our origin. Whatever our birthplace, we are both +Bohemians!’ +</p> +<p> +She held out her hand as she spoke, and with such an air of cordiality and +frankness that Joe caught the spirit of the action at once, and, bending +over, pressed his lips to it, as he said, ‘I seal the bargain.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And swear to it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I swear to it,’ cried he. +</p> +<p> +‘There, that is enough. Let us go back, or rather, let me go back alone. I +will tell them I have seen you, and heard of your approaching departure.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0016" id="link2HCH0016"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XVI +</h2> +<h3> +THE TWO ‘KEARNEYS’ +</h3> +<p> +A visit to his father was not usually one of those things that young +Kearney either speculated on with pleasure beforehand, or much enjoyed +when it came. Certain measures of decorum, and some still more pressing +necessities of economy, required that he should pass some months of every +year at home; but they were always seasons looked forward to with a mild +terror, and when the time drew nigh, met with a species of dogged, fierce +resolution that certainly did not serve to lighten the burden of the +infliction; and though Kate’s experience of this temper was not varied by +any exceptions, she would still go on looking with pleasure for the time +of his visit, and plotting innumerable little schemes for enjoyment while +he should remain. The first day or two after his arrival usually went over +pleasantly enough. Dick came back full of his town life, and its +amusements; and Kate was quite satisfied to accept gaiety at second-hand. +He had so much to tell of balls, picnics, charming rides in the Phoenix, +of garden-parties in the beautiful environs of Dublin, or more pretentious +entertainments, which took the shape of excursions to Bray or Killiney, +that she came at last to learn all his friends and acquaintances by name, +and never confounded the stately beauties that he worshipped afar off with +the ‘awfully jolly girls’ whom he flirted with quite irresponsibly. She +knew, too, all about his male companions, from the flash young +fellow-commoner from Downshire, who had a saddle-horse and a mounted groom +waiting for him every day after morning lecture, down to that scampish Joe +Atlee, with whose scrapes and eccentricities he filled many an idle hour. +</p> +<p> +Independently of her gift as a good listener, Kate would very willingly +have heard all Dick’s adventures and descriptions not only twice but +tenth-told; just as the child listens with unwearied attention to the +fairy-tale whose end he is well aware of, but still likes the little +detail falling fresh upon his ear, so would this young girl make him go +over some narratives she knew by heart, and would not suffer him to omit +the slightest incident or most trifling circumstance that heightened the +history of the story. +</p> +<p> +As to Dick, however, the dull monotony of the daily life, the small and +vulgar interests of the house or the farm, which formed the only topics, +the undergrowl of economy that ran through every conversation, as though +penuriousness was the great object of existence—but, perhaps more +than all these together, the early hours—so overcame him that he at +first became low-spirited, and then sulky, seldom appearing save at +meal-times, and certainly contributing little to the pleasure of the +meeting; so that at last, though she might not easily have been brought to +the confession, Kate Kearney saw the time of Dick’s departure approach +without regret, and was actually glad to be relieved from that terror of a +rupture between her father and her brother of which not a day passed +without a menace. +</p> +<p> +Like all men who aspire to something in Ireland, Kearney desired to see +his son a barrister; for great as are the rewards of that high career, +they are not the fascinations which appeal most strongly to the +squirearchy, who love to think that a country gentleman may know a little +law and be never the richer for it—may have acquired a profession, +and yet never know what was a client or what a fee. +</p> +<p> +That Kearney of Kilgobbin Castle should be reduced to tramping his way +down the Bachelor’s Walk to the Four Courts, with a stuff bag carried +behind him, was not to be thought of; but there were so many positions in +life, so many situations for which that gifted creature the barrister of +six years’ standing was alone eligible, that Kearney was very anxious his +son should be qualified to accept that £1000 or £1800 a year which a +gentleman could hold without any shadow upon his capacity, or the +slightest reflection on his industry. +</p> +<p> +Dick Kearney, however, had not only been living a very gay life in town, +but, to avail himself of a variety of those flattering attentions which +this interested world bestows by preference on men of some pretension, had +let it be believed that he was the heir to a very considerable estate, +and, by great probability, also to a title. To have admitted that he +thought it necessary to follow any career at all, would have been to +abdicate these pretensions, and so he evaded that question of the law in +all discussions with his father, sometimes affecting to say he had not +made up his mind, or that he had scruples of conscience about a +barrister’s calling, or that he doubted whether the Bar of Ireland was +not, like most high institutions, going to be abolished by Act of +Parliament, and all the litigation of the land be done by deputy in +Westminster Hall. +</p> +<p> +On the morning after the visitors took their departure from Kilgobbin, old +Kearney, who usually relapsed from any exercise of hospitality into a more +than ordinary amount of parsimony, sat thinking over the various economies +by which the domestic budget could be squared, and after a very long +séance with old Gill, in which the question of raising some rents and +diminishing certain bounties was discussed, he sent up the steward to Mr. +Richard’s room to say he wanted to speak to him. +</p> +<p> +Dick at the time of the message was stretched full length on a sofa, +smoking a meerschaum, and speculating how it was that the ‘swells’ took to +Joe Atlee, and what they saw in that confounded snob, instead of himself. +Having in a degree satisfied himself that Atlee’s success was all owing to +his intense and outrageous flattery, he was startled from his reverie by +the servant’s entrance. +</p> +<p> +‘How is he this morning, Tim?’ asked he, with a knowing look. ‘Is he +fierce—is there anything up—have the heifers been passing the +night in the wheat, or has any one come over from Moate with a bill?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, sir, none of them; but his blood’s up about something. Ould Gill is +gone down the stair swearing like mad, and Miss Kate is down the road with +a face like a turkey-cock.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I think you’d better say I was out, Tim—that you couldn’t find me +in my room.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I daren’t, sir. He saw that little Skye terrier of yours below, and he +said to me, “Mr. Dick is sure to be at home; tell him I want him +immediately.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘But if I had a bad headache, and couldn’t leave my bed, wouldn’t that be +excuse enough?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It would make him come here. And if I was you, sir, I’d go where I could +get away myself, and not where he could stay as long as he liked.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s something in that. I’ll go, Tim. Say I’ll be down in a minute.’ +</p> +<p> +Very careful to attire himself in the humblest costume of his wardrobe, +and specially mindful that neither studs nor watch-chain should offer +offensive matter of comment, he took his way towards the dreary little +den, which, filled with old top-boots, driving-whips, garden-implements, +and fishing-tackle, was known as ‘the lord’s study,’ but whose sole +literary ornament was a shelf of antiquated almanacs. There was a strange +grimness about his father’s aspect which struck young Kearney as he +crossed the threshold. His face wore the peculiar sardonic expression of +one who had not only hit upon an expedient, but achieved a surprise, as he +held an open letter in one hand and motioned with the other to a seat. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ve been waiting till these people were gone, Dick—till we had a +quiet house of it—to say a few words to you. I suppose your friend +Atlee is not coming back here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose not, sir.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t like him, Dick; and I’m much mistaken if he is a good fellow.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think he is actually a bad fellow, sir. He is often terribly hard +up and has to do scores of shifty things, but I never found him out in +anything dishonourable or false.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s a matter of taste, perhaps. Maybe you and I might differ about +what was honourable or what was false. At all events, he was under our +roof here, and if those nobs—or swells, I believe you call them—were +like to be of use to any of us, we, the people that were entertaining +them, were the first to be thought of; but your pleasant friend thought +differently, and made such good use of his time that he cut you out +altogether, Dick—he left you nowhere.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Really, sir, it never occurred to me till now to take that view of the +situation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, take that view of it now, and see how you’ll like it! <i>You</i> +have your way to work in life as well as Mr. Atlee. From all I can judge, +you’re scarcely as well calculated to do it as he is. You have not his +smartness, you have not his brains, and you have not his impudence—and, +‘faith, I’m much mistaken but it’s the best of the three!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t perceive, sir, that we are necessarily pitted against each other +at all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t you? Well, so much the worse for you if you don’t see that every +fellow that has nothing in the world is the rival of every other fellow +that’s in the same plight. For every one that swims, ten, at least, sink.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps, sir, to begin, I never fully realised the first condition. I was +not exactly aware that I was without anything in the world.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m coming to that, if you’ll have a little patience. Here is a letter +from Tom McKeown, of Abbey Street. I wrote to him about raising a few +hundreds on mortgage, to clear off some of our debts, and have a trifle in +hand for drainage and to buy stock, and he tells me that there’s no use in +going to any of the money-lenders so long as your extravagance continues +to be the talk of the town. Ay, you needn’t grow red nor frown that way. +The letter was a private one to myself, and I’m only telling it to you in +confidence. Hear what he says: “You have a right to make your son a +fellow-commoner if you like, and he has a right, by his father’s own +showing, to behave like a man of fortune; but neither of you have a right +to believe that men who advance money will accept these pretensions as +good security, or think anything but the worse of you both for your +extravagance.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you don’t mean to horsewhip him, sir?’ burst out Dick. +</p> +<p> +‘Not, at any rate, till I pay off two thousand pounds that I owe him, and +two years’ interest at six per cent. that he has suffered me to become his +debtor for.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Lame as he is, I’ll kick him before twenty-four hours are over.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you do, he’ll shoot you like a dog, and it wouldn’t be the first time +he handled a pistol. No, no, Master Dick. Whether for better or worse, I +can’t tell, but the world is not what it was when I was your age. There’s +no provoking a man to a duel nowadays; nor no posting him when he won’t +fight. Whether it’s your fortune is damaged or your feelings hurt, you +must look to the law to redress you; and to take your cause into your own +hands is to have the whole world against you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And this insult is, then, to be submitted to?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is, first of all, to be ignored. It’s the same as if you never heard +it. Just get it out of your head, and listen to what he says. Tom McKeown +is one of the keenest fellows I know; and he has business with men who +know not only what’s doing in Downing Street, but what’s going to be done +there. Now here’s two things that are about to take place: one is the same +as done, for it’s all ready prepared—the taking away the landlord’s +right, and making the State determine what rent the tenant shall pay, and +how long his tenure will be. The second won’t come for two sessions after, +but it will be law all the same. There’s to be no primogeniture class at +all, no entail on land, but a subdivision, like in America and, I believe, +in France.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t believe it, sir. These would amount to a revolution.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, and why not? Ain’t we always going through a sort of mild +revolution? What’s parliamentary government but revolution, weakened, if +you like, like watered grog, but the spirit is there all the same. Don’t +fancy that, because you can give it a hard name, you can destroy it. But +hear what Tom is coming to. “Be early,” says he, “take time by the +forelock: get rid of your entail and get rid of your land. Don’t wait till +the Government does both for you, and have to accept whatever condition +the law will cumber you with, but be before them! Get your son to join you +in docking the entail; petition before the court for a sale, yourself or +somebody for you; and wash your hands clean of it all. It’s bad property, +in a very ticklish country,” says Tom—and he dashes the words—“bad +property in a very ticklish country; and if you take my advice, you’ll get +clear of both.” You shall read it all yourself by-and-by; I am only giving +you the substance of it, and none of the reasons.’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is a question for very grave consideration, to say the least of it. +It is a bold proposal.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So it is, and so says Tom himself; but he adds: “There’s no time to be +lost; for once it gets about how Gladstone’s going to deal with land, and +what Bright has in his head for eldest sons, you might as well whistle as +try to dispose of that property.” To be sure, he says,’ added he, after a +pause—‘he says, “If you insist on holding on—if you cling to +the dirty acres because they were your father’s and your +great-grandfather’s, and if you think that being Kearney of Kilgobbin is a +sort of title, in the name of God stay where you are, but keep down your +expenses. Give up some of your useless servants, reduce your +saddle-horses”—<i>my</i> saddle-horses, Dick! “Try if you can live +without foxhunting.” Foxhunting! “Make your daughter know that she needn’t +dress like a duchess”—poor Kitty’s very like a duchess; “and, above +all, persuade your lazy, idle, and very self-sufficient son to take to +some respectable line of life to gain his living. I wouldn’t say that he +mightn’t be an apothecary; but if he liked law better than physic, I might +be able to do something for him in my own office.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have you done, sir?’ said Dick hastily, as his father wiped his +spectacles, and seemed to prepare for another heat. +</p> +<p> +‘He goes on to say that he always requires one hundred and fifty guineas +fee with a young man; “but we are old friends, Mathew Kearney,” says he, +“and we’ll make it pounds.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘To fit me to be an attorney!’ said Dick, articulating each word with a +slow and almost savage determination. +</p> +<p> +‘‘Faith! it would have been well for us if one of the family had been an +attorney before now. We’d never have gone into that action about the +mill-race, nor had to pay those heavy damages for levelling Moore’s barn. +A little law would have saved us from evicting those blackguards at +Mullenalick, or kicking Mr. Hall’s bailiff before witnesses.’ +</p> +<p> +To arrest his father’s recollection of the various occasions on which his +illegality had betrayed him into loss and damage, Dick blurted out, ‘I’d +rather break stones on the road than I’d be an attorney.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, you’ll not have to go far for employment, for they are just laying +down new metal this moment; and you needn’t lose time over it,’ said +Kearney, with a wave of his hand, to show that the audience was over and +the conference ended. +</p> +<p> +‘There’s just one favour I would ask, sir,’ said Dick, with his hand on +the lock. +</p> +<p> +‘You want a hammer, I suppose,’ said his father, with a grin—‘isn’t +<i>that</i> it?’ +</p> +<p> +With something that, had it been uttered aloud, sounded very like a bitter +malediction, Dick rushed from the room, slamming the door violently after +him as he went. +</p> +<p> +‘That’s the temper that helps a man to get on in life,’ said the old man, +as he turned once more to his accounts, and set to work to see where he +had blundered in his figures. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0017" id="link2HCH0017"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XVII +</h2> +<h3> +DICK’S REVERIE +</h3> +<p> +When Dick Kearney left his father, he walked from the house, and not +knowing or much caring in what direction he went, turned into the garden. +</p> +<p> +It was a wild, neglected sort of spot, with fruit-trees of great size, +long past bearing, and close underwood in places that barred the passage. +Here and there little patches of cultivation appeared, sometimes flowering +plants, but oftener vegetables. One long alley, with tall hedges of box, +had been preserved, and led to a little mound planted with laurels and +arbutus, and known as ‘Laurel Hill’; here a little rustic summer-house had +once stood, and still, though now in ruins, showed where, in former days, +people came to taste the fresh breeze above the tree-tops, and enjoy the +wide range of a view that stretched to the Slieve-Bloom Mountains, nearly +thirty miles away. +</p> +<p> +Young Kearney reached this spot, and sat down to gaze upon a scene every +detail of which was well known to him, but of which he was utterly +unconscious as he looked. ‘I am turned out to starve,’ cried he aloud, as +though there was a sense of relief in thus proclaiming his sorrow to the +winds. ‘I am told to go and work upon the roads, to live by my daily +labour. Treated like a gentleman until I am bound to that condition by +every tie of feeling and kindred, and then bade to know myself as an +outcast. I have not even Joe Atlee’s resource—I have not imbibed the +instincts of the lower orders, so as to be able to give them back to them +in fiction or in song. I cannot either idealise rebellion or make treason +tuneful. +</p> +<p> +‘It is not yet a week since that same Atlee envied me my station as the +son and heir to this place, and owned to me that there was that in the +sense of name and lineage that more than balanced personal success, and +here I am now, a beggar! I can enlist, however, blessings on the noble +career that ignores character and defies capacity. I don’t know that I’ll +bring much loyalty to Her Majesty’s cause, but I’ll lend her the aid of as +broad shoulders and tough sinews as my neighbours.’ And here his voice +grew louder and harsher, and with a ring of defiance in it. ‘And no +cutting off the entail, my Lord Kilgobbin! no escape from that cruel +necessity of an heir! I may carry my musket in the ranks, but I’ll not +surrender my birthright!’ +</p> +<p> +The thought that he had at length determined on the path he should follow +aroused his courage and made his heart lighter; and then there was that in +the manner he was vindicating his station and his claim that seemed to +savour of heroism. He began to fancy his comrades regarding him with a +certain deference, and treating him with a respect that recognised his +condition. ‘I know the shame my father will feel when he sees to what he +has driven me. What an offence to his love of rank and station to behold +his son in the coarse uniform of a private! An only son and heir, too! I +can picture to myself his shock as he reads the letter in which I shall +say good-bye, and then turn to tell my sister that her brother is a common +soldier, and in this way lost to her for ever! +</p> +<p> +‘And what is it all about? What terrible things have I done? What +entanglements have I contracted? Where have I forged? Whose name have I +stolen? whose daughter seduced? What is laid to my charge, beyond that I +have lived like a gentleman, and striven to eat and drink and dress like +one? And I’ll wager my life that for one who will blame him, there will be +ten—no, not ten, fifty—to condemn me. I had a kind, trustful, +affectionate father, restricting himself in scores of ways to give me my +education among the highest class of my contemporaries. I was largely +supplied with means, indulged in every way, and if I turned my steps +towards home, welcomed with love and affection.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And fearfully spoiled by all the petting he met with,’ said a soft voice +leaning over his shoulder, while a pair of very liquid grey eyes gazed +into his own. +</p> +<p> +‘What, Nina!—Mademoiselle Nina, I mean,’ said he, ‘have you been +long there?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Long enough to hear you make a very pitiful lamentation over a condition +that I, in my ignorance, used to believe was only a little short of +Paradise.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You fancied that, did you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I did so fancy it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Might I be bold enough to ask from what circumstance, though? I entreat +you to tell me, what belongings of mine, what resources of luxury or +pleasure, what incident of my daily life, suggested this impression of +yours?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps, as a matter of strict reasoning, I have little to show for my +conviction, but if you ask me why I thought as I did, it was simply from +contrasting your condition with my own, and seeing that in everything +where my lot has gloom and darkness, if not worse, yours, my ungrateful +cousin, was all sunshine.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Let us see a little of this sunshine, Cousin Nina. Sit down here beside +me, and show me, I pray, some of those bright tints that I am longing to +gaze on.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s not room for both of us on that bench.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ample room; we shall sit the closer.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, Cousin Dick; give me your arm and we’ll take a stroll together.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Which way shall it be?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You shall choose, cousin.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I have the choice, then, I’ll carry you off, Nina, for I’m thinking of +bidding good-bye to the old house and all within it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think I’ll consent that far,’ said she, smiling. ‘I have had my +experience of what it is to be without a home, or something very nearly +that. I’ll not willingly recall the sensation. But what has put such +gloomy thoughts in your head? What, or rather who is driving you to this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘My father, Nina, my father!’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is past my comprehending.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll make it very intelligible. My father, by way of curbing my +extravagance, tells me I must give up all pretension to the life of a +gentleman, and go into an office as a clerk. I refuse. He insists, and +tells me, moreover, a number of little pleasant traits of my unfitness to +do anything, so that I interrupt him by hinting that I might possibly +break stones on the highway. He seizes the project with avidity, and +offers to supply me with a hammer for my work. All fact, on my honour! I +am neither adding to nor concealing. I am relating what occurred little +more than an hour ago, and I have forgotten nothing of the interview. He, +as I said, offers to give me a stone-hammer. And now I ask you, is it for +me to accept this generous offer, or would it be better to wander over +that bog yonder, and take my chance of a deep pool, or the bleak world +where immersion and death are just as sure, though a little slower in +coming?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have you told Kate of this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, I have not seen her. I don’t know, if I had seen her, that I should +have told her. Kate has so grown to believe all my father’s caprices to be +absolute wisdom, that even his sudden gusts of passion seem to her like +flashes of a bright intelligence, too quick and too brilliant for mere +reason. She could give me no comfort nor counsel either.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not of your mind,’ said she slowly. ‘She has the great gift of what +people so mistakingly call <i>common</i> sense.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And she’d recommend me, perhaps, not to quarrel with my father, and to go +and break the stones.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Were you ever in love, Cousin Dick?’ asked she, in a tone every accent of +which betokened earnestness and even gravity. +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps I might say never. I have spooned or flirted or whatever the name +of it might be, but I was never seriously attached to one girl, and unable +to think of anything but her. But what has your question to do with this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Everything. If you really loved a girl—that is, if she filled every +corner of your heart, if she was first in every plan and project of your +life, not alone her wishes and her likings, but her very words and the +sound of her voice—if you saw her in everything that was beautiful, +and heard her in every tone that delighted you—if to be moving in +the air she breathed was ecstasy, and that heaven itself without her was +cheerless—if—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, don’t go on, Nina. None of these ecstasies could ever be mine. I have +no nature to be moved or moulded in this fashion. I might be very fond of +a girl, but she’d never drive me mad if she left me for another.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope she may, then, if it be with such false money you would buy her,’ +said she fiercely. ‘Do you know,’ added she, after a pause, ‘I was almost +on the verge of saying, go and break the stones; the <i>métier</i> is not +much beneath you, after all!’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is scarcely civil, mademoiselle; see what my candour has brought +upon me!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Be as candid as you like upon the faults of your nature. Tell every +wickedness that you have done or dreamed of, but don’t own to +cold-heartedness. For <i>that</i> there is no sympathy!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Let us go back a bit, then,’ said he, ‘and let us suppose that I did love +in the same fervent and insane manner you spoke of, what and how would it +help me here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course it would. Of all the ingenuity that plotters talk of, of all +the imagination that poets dream, there is nothing to compare with love. +To gain a plodding subsistence a man will do much. To win the girl he +loves, to make her his own, he will do everything: he will strive, and +strain, and even starve to win her. Poverty will have nothing mean if +confronted for her, hardship have no suffering if endured for her sake. +With her before him, all the world shows but one goal; without her, life +is a mere dreary task, and himself a hired labourer.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I confess, after all this, that I don’t see how breaking stones would be +more palatable to me because some pretty girl that I was fond of saw me +hammering away at my limestone!’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you could have loved as I would wish you to love, your career had +never fallen to this. The heart that loved would have stimulated the head +that thought. Don’t fancy that people are only better because they are in +love, but they are greater, bolder, brighter, more daring in danger, and +more ready in every emergency. So wonder-working is the real passion that +even in the base mockery of Love men have risen to genius. Look what it +made Petrarch, and I might say Byron too, though he never loved worthy of +the name.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And how came you to know all this, cousin mine? I’m really curious to +know that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I was reared in Italy, Cousin Dick, and I have made a deep study of +nature through French novels.’ +</p> +<p> +Now there was a laughing devilry in her eye as she said this that terribly +puzzled the young fellow, for just at the very moment her enthusiasm had +begun to stir his breast, her merry mockery wafted it away as with a +storm-wind. +</p> +<p> +‘I wish I knew if you were serious,’ said he gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘Just as serious as you were when you spoke of being ruined.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I was so, I pledge my honour. The conversation I reported to you really +took place; and when you joined me, I was gravely deliberating with myself +whether I should take a header into a deep pool or enlist as a soldier.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Fie, fie! how ignoble all that is. You don’t know the hundreds of +thousands of things one can do in life. Do you speak French or Italian?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can read them, but not freely; but how are they to help me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You shall see: first of all, let me be your tutor. We shall take two +hours, three if you like, every morning. Are you free now from all your +college studies?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can be after Wednesday next. I ought to go up for my term examination.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, do so; but mind, don’t bring down Mr. Atlee with you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My chum is no favourite of yours?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s as it may be,’ said she haughtily. ‘I have only said let us not +have the embarrassment, or, if you like it, the pleasure of his company. +I’ll give you a list of books to bring down, and my life be on it, but <i>my</i> +course of study will surpass what you have been doing at Trinity. Is it +agreed?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Give me till to-morrow to think of it, Nina.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That does not sound like a very warm acceptance; but be it so: till +to-morrow.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Here are some of Kate’s dogs,’ cried he angrily. ‘Down, Fan, down! I say. +I’ll leave you now before she joins us. Mind, not a word of what I told +you.’ +</p> +<p> +And, without another word, he sprang over a low fence, and speedily +disappeared in the copse beyond it. +</p> +<p> +‘Wasn’t that Dick I saw making his escape?’ cried Kate, as she came up. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, we were taking a walk together, and he left me very abruptly.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish I had not spoiled a <i>tête-à-tête</i>,’ said Kate merrily. +</p> +<p> +‘It is no great mischief: we can always renew it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Dear Nina,’ said the other caressingly, as she drew her arm around her—‘dear, +dear Nina, do not, do not, I beseech you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t what, child?—you must not speak in riddles.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t make that poor boy in love with you. You yourself told me you could +save him from it if you liked.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And so I shall, Kate, if you don’t dictate or order me. Leave me quite to +myself, and I shall be most merciful.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0018" id="link2HCH0018"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XVIII +</h2> +<h3> +MATHEW KEARNEY’S ‘STUDY’ +</h3> +<p> +Had Mathew Kearney but read the second sheet of his correspondent’s +letter, it is more than likely that Dick had not taken such a gloomy view +of his condition. Mr. McKeown’s epistle continued in this fashion: ‘That +ought to do for him, Mathew, or my name ain’t Tom McKeown. It is not that +he is any worse or better than other young fellows of his own stamp, but +he has the greatest scamp in Christendom for his daily associate. Atlee is +deep in all the mischief that goes on in the National press. I believe he +is a head-centre of the Fenians, and I know he has a correspondence with +the French socialists, and that Rights-of-labour-knot of vagabonds who +meet at Geneva. Your boy is not too wise to keep himself out of these +scrapes, and he is just, by name and station, of consequence enough to +make these fellows make up to and flatter him. Give him a sound fright, +then, and when he is thoroughly alarmed about his failure, send him abroad +for a short tour, let him go study at Halle or Heidelberg—anything, +in short, that will take him away from Ireland, and break off his intimacy +with this Atlee and his companions. While he is with you at Kilgobbin, +don’t let him make acquaintance with those Radical fellows in the county +towns. Keep him down, Mathew, keep him down; and if you find that you +cannot do this, make him believe that you’ll be one day lords of +Kilgobbin, and the more he has to lose the more reluctant he’ll be to risk +it. If he’d take to farming, and marry some decent girl, even a little +beneath him in life, it would save you all uneasiness; but he is just that +thing now that brings all the misery on us in Ireland. He thinks he’s a +gentleman because he can do nothing; and to save himself from the disgrace +of incapacity, ‘he’d like to be a rebel.’ +</p> +<p> +If Mr. Tom McKeown’s reasonings were at times somewhat abstruse and hard +of comprehension to his friend Kearney, it was not that he did not bestow +on them due thought and reflection; and over this private and strictly +confidential page he had now meditated for hours. +</p> +<p> +‘Bad luck to me,’ cried he at last, ‘if I see what he’s at. If I’m to tell +the boy he is ruined to-day, and to-morrow to announce to him that he is a +lord—if I’m to threaten him now with poverty, and the morning after +I’m to send him to Halle, or Hell, or wherever it is—I’ll soon be +out of my mind myself through bare confusion. As to having him “down,” +he’s low enough; but so shall I be too, if I keep him there. I’m not used +to seeing my house uncomfortable, and I cannot bear it.’ +</p> +<p> +Such were some of his reflections, over his agent’s advice; and it may be +imagined that the Machiavellian Mr. McKeown had fallen upon a very inapt +pupil. +</p> +<p> +It must be owned that Mathew Kearney was somewhat out of temper with his +son even before the arrival of this letter. While the ‘swells,’ as he +would persist in calling the two English visitors, were there, Dick took +no trouble about them, nor to all seeming made any impression on them. As +Mathew said, ‘He let Joe Atlee make all the running, and, signs on it! Joe +Atlee was taken off to town as Walpole’s companion, and Dick not so much +as thought of. Joe, too, did the honours of the house as if it was his +own, and talked to Lockwood about coming down for the partridge-shooting +as if he was the head of the family. The fellow was a bad lot, and McKeown +was right so far—the less Dick saw of him the better.’ +</p> +<p> +The trouble and distress these reflections, and others like them, cost him +would more than have recompensed Dick, had he been hard-hearted enough to +desire a vengeance. ‘For a quarter of an hour, or maybe twenty minutes,’ +said he, ‘I can be as angry as any man in Europe, and, if it was required +of me during that time to do anything desperate—downright wicked—I +could be bound to do it; and what’s more, I’d stand to it afterwards if it +cost me the gallows. But as for keeping up the same mind, as for being +able to say to myself my heart is as hard as ever, I’m just as much bent +on cruelty as I was yesterday—that’s clean beyond me; and the +reason, God help me, is no great comfort to me after all—for it’s +just this: that when I do a hard thing, whether distraining a creature out +of his bit of ground, selling a widow’s pig, or fining a fellow for +shooting a hare, I lose my appetite and have no heart for my meals; and as +sure as I go asleep, I dream of all the misfortunes in life happening to +me, and my guardian angel sitting laughing all the while and saying to me, +“Didn’t you bring it on yourself, Mathew Kearney? couldn’t you bear a +little rub without trying to make a calamity of it? Must somebody be +always punished when anything goes wrong in life? Make up your mind to +have six troubles every day of your life, and see how jolly you’ll be the +day you can only count five, or maybe four.”’ +</p> +<p> +As Mr. Kearney sat brooding in this wise, Peter Gill made his entrance +into the study with the formidable monthly lists and accounts, whose +examination constituted a veritable doomsday to the unhappy master. +</p> +<p> +‘Wouldn’t next Saturday do, Peter?’ asked Kearney, in a tone of almost +entreaty. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m afther ye since Tuesday last, and I don’t think I’ll be able to go on +much longer.’ +</p> +<p> +Now as Mr. Gill meant by this speech to imply that he was obliged to trust +entirely to his memory for all the details which would have been committed +to writing by others, and to a notched stick for the manifold dates of a +vast variety of events, it was not really a very unfair request he had +made for a peremptory hearing. +</p> +<p> +‘I vow to the Lord,’ sighed out Kearney, ‘I believe I’m the hardest-worked +man in the three kingdoms.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe you are,’ muttered Gill, though certainly the concurrence scarcely +sounded hearty, while he meanwhile arranged the books. +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, I know well enough what you mean. If a man doesn’t work with a spade +or follow the plough, you won’t believe that he works at all. He must +drive, or dig, or drain, or mow. There’s no labour but what strains a +man’s back, and makes him weary about the loins; but I’ll tell you, Peter +Gill, that it’s here’—and he touched his forehead with his finger—‘it’s +here is the real workshop. It’s thinking and contriving; setting this +against that; doing one thing that another may happen, and guessing what +will come if we do this and don’t do that; carrying everything in your +brain, and, whether you are sitting over a glass with a friend or taking a +nap after dinner, thinking away all the time! What would you call that, +Peter Gill—what would you call that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Madness, begorra, or mighty near it!’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; it’s just work—brain-work. As much above mere manual labour as +the intellect, the faculty that raises us above the brutes, is above the—the—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes,’ said Gill, opening the large volume and vaguely passing his hand +over a page. ‘It’s somewhere there about the Conacre!’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’re little better than a beast!’ said Kearney angrily. +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe I am, and maybe I’m not. Let us finish this, now that we’re about +it.’ +</p> +<p> +And so saying, he deposited his other books and papers on the table, and +then drew from his breast-pocket a somewhat thick roll of exceedingly +dirty bank-notes, fastened with a leather thong. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m glad to see some money at last, Peter,’ cried Kearney, as his eye +caught sight of the notes. +</p> +<p> +‘Faix, then, it’s little good they’ll do ye,’ muttered the other gruffly. +</p> +<p> +‘What d’ye mean by that, sir?’ asked he angrily. +</p> +<p> +‘Just what I said, my lord, the devil a more nor less, and that the money +you see here is no more yours nor it is mine! It belongs to the land it +came from. Ay, ay, stamp away, and go red in the face: you must hear the +truth, whether you like it or no. The place we’re living in is going to +rack and ruin out of sheer bad treatment. There’s not a hedge on the +estate; there isn’t a gate that could be called a gate; the holes the +people live in isn’t good enough for badgers; there’s no water for the +mill at the cross-roads; and the Loch meadows is drowned with wet—we’re +dragging for the hay, like seaweed! And you think you’ve a right to these’—and +he actually shook the notes at him—to go and squander them on them +“impedint” Englishmen that was laughing at you! Didn’t I hear them myself +about the tablecloth that one said was the sail of a boat.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will you hold your tongue?’ cried Kearney, wild with passion. +</p> +<p> +‘I will not! I’ll die on the floore but I’ll speak my mind.’ +</p> +<p> +This was not only a favourite phrase of Mr. Gill’s, but it was so far +significant that it always indicated he was about to give notice to leave—a +menace on his part of no unfrequent occurrence. +</p> +<p> +‘Ye’s going, are ye?’ asked Kearney jeeringly. +</p> +<p> +‘I just am; and I’m come to give up the books, and to get my receipts and +my charac—ter.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It won’t be hard to give the last, anyway,’ said Kearney, with a grin. +</p> +<p> +‘So much the better. It will save your honour much writing, with all that +you have to do.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you want me to kick you out of the office, Peter Gill?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, my lord, I’m going quiet and peaceable. I’m only asking my rights.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’re bidding hard to be kicked out, you are.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Am I to leave them here, or will your honour go over the books with me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Leave the notes, sir, and go to the devil.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will, my lord; and one comfort at least I’ll have—it won’t be +harder to put up with his temper.’ +</p> +<p> +Mr. Gill’s head barely escaped the heavy account-book which struck the +door above him as he escaped from the room, and Mathew Kearney sat back in +his chair and grasped the arms of it like one threatened with a fit. +</p> +<p> +‘Where’s Miss Kitty—where’s my daughter?’ cried he aloud, as though +there was some one within hearing. ‘Taking the dogs a walk, I’ll be +bound,’ muttered he, ‘or gone to see somebody’s child with the measles, +devil fear her! She has plenty on her hands to do anywhere but at home. +The place might be going to rack and ruin for her if there was only a +young colt to look at, or a new litter of pigs! And so you think to +frighten me, Peter Gill! You’ve been doing the same thing every Easter, +and every harvest, these five-and-twenty years! I can only say I wish you +had kept your threat long ago, and the property wouldn’t have as many +tumble-down cabins and ruined fences as it has now, and my rent-roll, too, +wouldn’t have been the worse. I don’t believe there’s a man in Ireland +more cruelly robbed than myself. There isn’t an estate in the county has +not risen in value except my own! There’s not a landed gentleman hasn’t +laid by money in the barony but myself, and if you were to believe the +newspapers, I’m the hardest landlord in the province of Leinster. Is that +Mickey Doolan there? Mickey!’ cried he, opening the window, ‘did you see +Miss Kearney anywhere about?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, my lord. I see her coming up the Bog road with Miss O’Shea.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The worse luck mine!’ muttered he, as he closed the window, and leaned +his head on his hand. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0019" id="link2HCH0019"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XIX +</h2> +<h3> +AN UNWELCOME VISIT +</h3> +<p> +If Mathew Kearney had been put to the question, he could not have +concealed the fact that the human being he most feared and dreaded in life +was his neighbour Miss Betty O’Shea. +</p> +<p> +With two years of seniority over him, Miss Betty had bullied him as a +child, snubbed him as a youth, and opposed and sneered at him ever after; +and to such an extent did her influence over his character extend, +according to his own belief, that there was not a single good trait of his +nature she had not thwarted by ridicule, nor a single evil temptation to +which he had yielded that had not come out of sheer opposition to that +lady’s dictation. +</p> +<p> +Malevolent people, indeed, had said that Mathew Kearney had once had +matrimonial designs on Miss Betty, or rather, on that snug place and nice +property called ‘O’Shea’s Barn,’ of which she was sole heiress; but he +most stoutly declared this story to be groundless, and in a forcible +manner asseverated that had he been Robinson Crusoe and Miss Betty the +only inhabitant of the island with him, he would have lived and died in +celibacy. +</p> +<p> +Miss Betty, to give her the name by which she was best known, was no +miracle of either tact or amiability, but she had certain qualities that +could not be disparaged. She was a strict Catholic, charitable, in her own +peculiar and imperious way, to the poor, very desirous to be strictly just +and honest, and such a sure foe to everything that she thought pretension +or humbug of any kind—which meant anything that did not square with +her own habits—that she was perfectly intolerable to all who did not +accept herself and her own mode of life as a model and an example. +</p> +<p> +Thus, a stout-bodied copper urn on the tea-table, a very uncouth +jaunting-car, driven by an old man, whose only livery was a cockade, some +very muddy port as a dinner wine, and whisky-punch afterwards on the brown +mahogany, were so many articles of belief with her, to dissent from any of +which was a downright heresy. +</p> +<p> +Thus, after Nina arrived at the castle, the appearance of napkins palpably +affected her constitution; with the advent of finger-glasses she ceased +her visits, and bluntly declined all invitations to dinner. That coffee +and some indescribable liberties would follow, as postprandial excesses, +she secretly imparted to Kate Kearney in a note, which concluded with the +assurance that when the day of these enormities arrived, O’Shea’s Barn +Would be open to her as a refuge and a sanctuary; ‘but not,’ added she, +‘with your cousin, for I’ll not let the hussy cross my doors.’ +</p> +<p> +For months now this strict quarantine had lasted, and except for the +interchange of some brief and very uninteresting notes, all intimacy had +ceased between the two houses—a circumstance, I am loth to own, +which was most ungallantly recorded every day after dinner by old Kearney, +who drank ‘Miss Betty’s health, and long absence to her.’ It was then with +no small astonishment Kate was overtaken in the avenue by Miss Betty on +her old chestnut mare Judy, a small bog-boy mounted on the croup behind to +act as groom; for in this way Paddy Walshe was accustomed to travel, +without the slightest consciousness that he was not in strict conformity +with the ways of Rotten Row and the ‘Bois.’ +</p> +<p> +That there was nothing ‘stuck-up’ or pretentious about this mode of being +accompanied by one’s groom—a proposition scarcely assailable—was +Miss Betty’s declaration, delivered in a sort of challenge to the world. +Indeed, certain ticklesome tendencies in Judy, particularly when touched +with the heel, seemed to offer the strongest protest against the practice; +for whenever pushed to any increase of speed or admonished in any way, the +beast usually responded by a hoist of the haunches, which invariably +compelled Paddy to clasp his mistress round the waist for safety—a +situation which, however repugnant to maiden bashfulness, time, and +perhaps necessity, had reconciled her to. At all events, poor Paddy’s +terror would have been the amplest refutation of scandal, while the stern +immobility of Miss Betty during the embrace would have silenced even +malevolence. +</p> +<p> +On the present occasion, a sharp canter of several miles had reduced Judy +to a very quiet and decorous pace, so that Paddy and his mistress sat +almost back to back—a combination that only long habit enabled Kate +to witness without laughing. +</p> +<p> +‘Are you alone up at the castle, dear?’ asked Miss Betty, as she rode +along at her side; ‘or have you the house full of what the papers call +“distinguished company”?’ +</p> +<p> +‘We are quite alone, godmother. My brother is with us, but we have no +strangers.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am glad of it. I’ve come over to “have it out” with your father, and +it’s pleasant to know we shall be to ourselves.’ +</p> +<p> +Now, as this announcement of having ‘it out’ conveyed to Kate’s mind +nothing short of an open declaration of war, a day of reckoning on which +Miss O’Shea would come prepared with a full indictment, and a resolution +to prosecute to conviction, the poor girl shuddered at a prospect so +certain to end in calamity. +</p> +<p> +‘Papa is very far from well, godmother,’ said she, in a mild way. +</p> +<p> +‘So they tell me in the town,’ said the other snappishly. ‘His brother +magistrates said that the day he came in, about that supposed attack—the +memorable search for arms—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Supposed attack! but, godmother, pray don’t imagine we had invented all +that. I think you know me well enough and long enough to know—’ +</p> +<p> +‘To know that you would not have had a young scamp of a Castle +aide-de-camp on a visit during your father’s absence, not to say anything +about amusing your English visitor by shooting down your own tenantry.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will you listen to me for five minutes?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not for three.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Two, then—one even—one minute, godmother, will convince you +how you wrong me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I won’t give you that. I didn’t come over about you nor your affairs. +When the father makes a fool of himself, why wouldn’t the daughter? The +whole country is laughing at him. His lordship indeed! a ruined estate and +a tenantry in rags; and the only remedy, as Peter Gill tells me, raising +the rents—raising the rents where every one is a pauper.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What would you have him do, Miss O’Shea?’ said Kate, almost angrily. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll tell you what I’d have him do. I’d have him rise of a morning before +nine o’clock, and be out with his labourers at daybreak. I’d have him +reform a whole lazy household of blackguards, good for nothing but waste +and wickedness. I’d have him apprentice your brother to a decent trade or +a light business. I’d have him declare he’d kick the first man that called +him “My lord”; and for yourself, well, it’s no matter—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, but it is, godmother, a great matter to me at least. What about +myself?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I don’t wish to speak of it, but it just dropped out of my lips by +accident; and perhaps, though not pleasant to talk about, it’s as well it +was said and done with. I meant to tell your father that it must be all +over between you and my nephew Gorman; that I won’t have him back here on +leave as I intended. I know it didn’t go far, dear. There was none of what +they call love in the case. You would probably have liked one another well +enough at last; but I won’t have it, and it’s better we came to the right +understanding at once.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Your curb-chain is loose, godmother,’ said the girl, who now, pale as +death and trembling all over, advanced to fasten the link. +</p> +<p> +‘I declare to the Lord, he’s asleep!’ said Miss Betty, as the wearied head +of her page dropped heavily on her shoulder. ‘Take the curb off, dear, or +I may lose it. Put it in your pocket for me, Kate; that is, if you wear a +pocket.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I do, godmother. I carry very stout keys in it, too. Look at +these.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ay, ay. I liked all that, once on a time, well enough, and used to think +you’d be a good thrifty wife for a poor man; but with the viscount your +father, and the young princess your first cousin, and the devil knows what +of your fine brother, I believe the sooner we part good friends the +better. Not but if you like my plan for you, I’ll be just as ready as ever +to aid you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have not heard the plan yet,’ said Kate faintly. +</p> +<p> +‘Just a nunnery, then—no more nor less than that. The “Sacred Heart” +at Namur, or the Sisters of Mercy here at home in Bagot Street, I believe, +if you like better—eh?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is soon to be able to make up one’s mind on such a point. I want a +little time for this, godmother.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You would not want time if your heart were in a holy work, Kate Kearney. +It’s little time you’d be asking if I said, will you have Gorman O’Shea +for a husband?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is such a thing as insult, Miss O’Shea, and no amount of long +intimacy can license that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I ask your pardon, godchild. I wish you could know how sorry I feel.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Say no more, godmother, say no more, I beseech you,’ cried Kate, and her +tears now gushed forth, and relieved her almost bursting heart. ‘I’ll take +this short path through the shrubbery, and be at the door before you,’ +cried she, rushing away; while Miss Betty, with a sharp touch of the spur, +provoked such a plunge as effectually awoke Paddy, and apprised him that +his duties as groom were soon to be in request. +</p> +<p> +While earnestly assuring him that some changes in his diet should be +speedily adopted against somnolency, Miss Betty rode briskly on, and +reached the hall door. +</p> +<p> +‘I told you I should be first, godmother,’ said the girl; and the pleasant +ring of her voice showed she had regained her spirits, or at least such +self-control as enabled her to suppress her sorrow. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0020" id="link2HCH0020"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XX +</h2> +<h3> +A DOMESTIC DISCUSSION +</h3> +<p> +It is a not infrequent distress in small households, especially when some +miles from a market-town, to make adequate preparation for an unexpected +guest at dinner; but even this is a very inferior difficulty to that +experienced by those who have to order the repast in conformity with +certain rigid notions of a guest who will criticise the smallest deviation +from the most humble standard, and actually rebuke the slightest +pretension to delicacy of food or elegance of table-equipage. +</p> +<p> +No sooner, then, had Kate learned that Miss O’Shea was to remain for +dinner, than she immediately set herself to think over all the possible +reductions that might be made in the fare, and all the plainness and +simplicity that could be imparted to the service of the meal. +</p> +<p> +Napkins had not been the sole reform suggested by the Greek cousin. She +had introduced flowers on the table, and so artfully had she decked out +the board with fruit and ornamental plants, that she had succeeded in +effecting by artifice what would have been an egregious failure if more +openly attempted—the service of the dishes one by one to the guests +without any being placed on the table. These, with finger-glasses, she had +already achieved, nor had she in the recesses of her heart given up the +hope of seeing the day that her uncle would rise from the table as she +did, give her his arm to the drawing-room, and bow profoundly as he left +her. Of the inestimable advantages, social, intellectual, and moral, of +this system, she had indeed been cautious to hold forth; for, like a great +reformer, she was satisfied to leave her improvements to the slow test of +time, ‘educating her public,’ as a great authority has called it, while +she bided the result in patience. +</p> +<p> +Indeed, as poor Mathew Kearney was not to be indulged with the luxury of +whisky-punch during his dinner, it was not easy to reply to his question, +‘When am I to have my tumbler?’ as though he evidently believed the +aforesaid ‘tumbler’ was an institution that could not be abrogated or +omitted altogether. +</p> +<p> +Coffee in the drawing-room was only a half-success so long as the +gentlemen sat over their wine; and as for the daily cigarette Nina smoked +with it, Kate, in her simplicity, believed it was only done as a sort of +protest at being deserted by those unnatural protectors who preferred +poteen to ladies. +</p> +<p> +It was therefore in no small perturbation of mind that Kate rushed to her +cousin’s room with the awful tidings that Miss Betty had arrived and +intended to remain for dinner. +</p> +<p> +‘Do you mean that odious woman with the boy and band-box behind her on +horseback?’ asked Nina superciliously. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, she always travels in that fashion; she is odd and eccentric in +scores of things, but a fine-hearted, honest woman, generous to the poor, +and true to her friends.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t care for her moral qualities, but I do bargain for a little +outward decency, and some respect for the world’s opinion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You will like her, Nina, when you know her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I shall profit by the warning. I’ll take care not to know her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She is one of the oldest, I believe the oldest, friend our family has in +the world.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a sad confession, child; but I have always deplored longevity.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t be supercilious or sarcastic, Nina, but help me with your own good +sense and wise advice. She has not come over in the best of humours. She +has, or fancies she has, some difference to settle with papa. They seldom +meet without a quarrel, and I fear this occasion is to be no exception; so +do aid me to get things over pleasantly, if it be possible.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She snubbed me the only time I met her. I tried to help her off with her +bonnet, and, unfortunately, I displaced, if I did not actually remove, her +wig, and she muttered something “about a rope-dancer not being a dexterous +lady’s-maid.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘O Nina, surely you do not mean—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not that I was exactly a rope-dancer, Kate, but I had on a Greek jacket +that morning of blue velvet and gold, and a white skirt, and perhaps these +had some memories of the circus for the old lady.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are only jesting now, Nina.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t you know me well enough to know that I never jest when I think, or +even suspect, I am injured?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Injured!’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s not the word I wanted, but it will do; I used it in its French +sense.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You bear no malice, I’m sure?’ said the other caressingly. +</p> +<p> +‘No!’ replied she, with a shrug that seemed to deprecate even having a +thought about her. +</p> +<p> +‘She will stay for dinner, and we must, as far as possible, receive her in +the way she has been used to here, a very homely dinner, served as she has +always seen it—no fruit or flowers on the table, no claret-cup, no +finger-glasses.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope no tablecloth; couldn’t we have a tray on a corner table, and +every one help himself as he strolled about the room?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Dear Nina, be reasonable just for this once.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll come down just as I am, or, better still, I’ll take down my hair and +cram it into a net; I’d oblige her with dirty hands, if I only knew how to +do it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I see you only say these things in jest; you really do mean to help me +through this difficulty.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But why a difficulty? what reason can you offer for all this absurd +submission to the whims of a very tiresome old woman? Is she very rich, +and do you expect an heritage?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no; nothing of the kind.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Does she load you with valuable presents? Is she ever ready to +commemorate birthdays and family festivals?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Has she any especial quality or gift beyond riding double and a bad +temper? Oh, I was forgetting; she is the aunt of her nephew, isn’t she?—the +dashing lancer that was to spend his summer over here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You were indeed forgetting when you said this,’ said Kate proudly, and +her face grew scarlet as she spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘Tell me that you like him or that he likes you; tell me that there is +something, anything, between you, child, and I’ll be discreet and +mannerly, too; and more, I’ll behave to the old lady with every regard to +one who holds such dear interests in her keeping. But don’t bandage my +eyes, and tell me at the same time to look out and see.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have no confidences to make you,’ said Kate coldly. ‘I came here to ask +a favour—a very small favour, after all—and you might have +accorded it without question or ridicule.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But which you never need have asked, Kate,’ said the other gravely. ‘You +are the mistress here; I am but a very humble guest. Your orders are +obeyed, as they ought to be; my suggestions may be adopted now and then—partly +in caprice, part compliment—but I know they have no permanence, no +more take root here than—than myself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do not say that, my dearest Nina,’ said Kate, as she threw herself on her +neck and kissed her affectionately again and again. ‘You are one of us, +and we are all proud of it. Come along with me, now, and tell me all that +you advise. You know what I wish, and you will forgive me even in my +stupidity.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Where’s your brother?’ asked Nina hastily. +</p> +<p> +‘Gone out with his gun. He’ll not be back till he is certain Miss Betty +has taken her departure.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why did he not offer to take me with him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Over the bog, do you mean?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Anywhere; I’d not cavil about the road. Don’t you know that I have days +when “don’t care” masters me—when I’d do anything, go anywhere—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Marry any one?’ said the other, laughing. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, marry any one, as irresponsibly as if I was dealing with the destiny +of some other that did not regard me. On these days I do not belong to +myself, and this is one of them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know nothing of such humours, Nina; nor do I believe it a healthy mind +that has them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I did not boast of my mind’s health, nor tell you to trust to it. Come, +let us go down to the dinner-room, and talk that pleasant leg-of-mutton +talk you know you are fond of.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And best fitted for, say that,’ said Kate, laughing merrily. +</p> +<p> +The other did not seem to have heard her words, for she moved slowly away, +calling on Kate to follow her. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0021" id="link2HCH0021"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXI +</h2> +<h3> +A SMALL DINNER-PARTY +</h3> +<p> +It is sad to have to record that all Kate’s persuasions with her cousin, +all her own earnest attempts at conciliation, and her ably-planned schemes +to escape a difficulty, were only so much labour lost. A stern message +from her father commanded her to make no change either in the house or the +service of the dinner—an interference with domestic cares so novel +on his part as to show that he had prepared himself for hostilities, and +was resolved to meet his enemy boldly. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s no use, all I have been telling you, Nina,’ said Kate, as she +re-entered her room, later in the day. ‘Papa orders me to have everything +as usual, and won’t even let me give Miss Betty an early dinner, though he +knows she has nine miles of a ride to reach home.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That explains somewhat a message he has sent myself,’ replied Nina, ‘to +wear my very prettiest toilet and my Greek cap, which he admired so much +the other day.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am almost glad that <i>my</i> wardrobe has nothing attractive,’ said +Kate, half sadly. ‘I certainly shall never be rebuked for my +becomingness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And do you mean to say that the old woman would be rude enough to extend +her comments to <i>me</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have known her do things quite as hardy, though I hope on the present +occasion the other novelties may shelter you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why isn’t your brother here? I should insist on his coming down in +discreet black, with a white tie and that look of imposing solemnity young +Englishmen assume for dinner.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Dick guessed what was coming, and would not encounter it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And yet you tell me you submit to all this for no earthly reason. She can +leave you no legacy, contribute in no way to your benefit. She has neither +family, fortune, nor connections; and, except her atrocious manners and +her indomitable temper, there is not a trait of her that claims to be +recorded.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh yes; she rides capitally to hounds, and hunts her own harriers to +perfection.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am glad she has one quality that deserves your favour.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She has others, too, which I like better than what they call +accomplishments. She is very kind to the poor, never deterred by any +sickness from visiting them, and has the same stout-hearted courage for +every casualty in life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A commendable gift for a squaw, but what does a gentlewoman want with +this same courage?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Look out of the window, Nina, and see where you are living! Throw your +eyes over that great expanse of dark bog, vast as one of the great +campagnas you have often described to us, and bethink you how mere +loneliness—desolation—needs a stout heart to bear it; how the +simple fact that for the long hours of a summer’s day, or the longer hours +of a winter’s night, a lone woman has to watch and think of all the +possible casualties lives of hardship and misery may impel men to. Do you +imagine that she does not mark the growing discontent of the people? see +their careworn looks, dashed with a sullen determination, and hear in +their voices the rising of a hoarse defiance that was never heard before? +Does she not well know that every kindness she has bestowed, every +merciful act she has ministered, would weigh for nothing in the balance on +the day that she will be arraigned as a landowner—the receiver of +the poor man’s rent! And will you tell me after this she can dispense with +courage?’ +</p> +<p> +‘<i>Bel paese davvero!</i>’ muttered the other. +</p> +<p> +‘So it is,’ cried Kate; ‘with all its faults I’d not exchange it for the +brightest land that ever glittered in a southern sun. But why should I +tell you how jarred and disconcerted we are by laws that have no reference +to our ways—conferring rights where we were once contented with +trustfulness, and teaching men to do everything by contract, and nothing +by affection, nothing by good-will.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no, tell me none of all these; but tell me, shall I come down in my +Suliote jacket of yellow cloth, for I know it becomes me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And if we women had not courage,’ went on Kate, not heeding the question, +‘what would our men do? Should we see them lead lives of bolder daring +than the stoutest wanderer in Africa?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And my jacket and my Theban belt?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Wear them all. Be as beautiful as you like, but don’t be late for +dinner.’ And Kate hurried away before the other could speak. +</p> +<p> +When Miss O’Shea, arrayed in a scarlet poplin and a yellow gauze turban—the +month being August—arrived in the drawing-room before dinner, she +found no one there—a circumstance that chagrined her so far that she +had hurried her toilet and torn one of her gloves in her haste. ‘When they +say six for the dinner-hour, they might surely be in the drawing-room by +that hour,’ was Miss Betty’s reflection as she turned over some of the +magazines and circulating-library books which since Nina’s arrival had +found their way to Kilgobbin. The contemptuous manner in which she treated +<i>Blackwood</i> and <i>Macmillan</i>, and the indignant dash with which +she flung Trollope’s last novel down, showed that she had not been yet +corrupted by the light reading of the age. An unopened country newspaper, +addressed to the Viscount Kilgobbin, had however absorbed all her +attention, and she was more than half disposed to possess herself of the +envelope, when Mr. Kearney entered. +</p> +<p> +His bright blue coat and white waistcoat, a profusion of shirt-frill, and +a voluminous cravat proclaimed dinner-dress, and a certain pomposity of +manner showed how an unusual costume had imposed on himself, and suggested +an important event. +</p> +<p> +‘I hope I see Miss O’Shea in good health?’ said he, advancing. +</p> +<p> +‘How are you, Mathew?’ replied she dryly. ‘When I heard that big bell +thundering away, I was so afraid to be late that I came down with one +bracelet, and I have torn my glove too.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was only the first bell—the dressing-bell,’ he said. +</p> +<p> +‘Humph! That’s something new since I was here last,’ said she tartly. +</p> +<p> +‘You remind me of how long it is since you dined with us, Miss O’Shea.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, indeed, Mathew, I meant to be longer, if I must tell the truth. I +saw enough the last day I lunched here to show me Kilgobbin was not what +it used to be. You were all of you what my poor father—who was +always thinking of the dogs—used to call “on your hind-legs,” +walking about very stately and very miserable. There were three or four +covered dishes on the table that nobody tasted; and an old man in red +breeches ran about in half-distraction, and said, “Sherry, my lord, or +Madeira?” Many’s the time I laughed over it since.’ And, as though to +vouch for the truth of the mirthfulness, she lay back in her chair and +shook with hearty laughter. +</p> +<p> +Before Kearney could reply—for something like a passing apoplexy had +arrested his words—the girls entered, and made their salutations. +</p> +<p> +‘If I had the honour of knowing you longer, Miss Costigan,’ said Miss +O’Shea—for it was thus she translated the name Kostalergi—‘I’d +ask you why you couldn’t dress like your cousin Kate. It may be all very +well in the house, and it’s safe enough here, there’s no denying it; but +my name’s not Betty if you’d walk down Kilbeggan without a crowd yelling +after you and calling names too, that a respectable young woman wouldn’t +bargain for; eh, Mathew, is that true?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s the dinner-bell now,’ said Mathew; ‘may I offer my arm?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s thin enough that arm is getting, Mathew Kearney,’ said she, as he +walked along at her side. ‘Not but it’s time, too. You were born in the +September of 1809, though your mother used to deny it; and you’re now a +year older than your father was when he died.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will you take this place?’ said Kearney, placing her chair for her. ‘We +‘re a small party to-day. I see Dick does not dine with us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe I hunted him away. The young gentlemen of the present day are frank +enough to say what they think of old maids. That’s very elegant, and I’m +sure it’s refined,’ said she, pointing to the mass of fruit and flowers so +tastefully arranged before her. ‘But I was born in a time when people +liked to see what they were going to eat, Mathew Kearney, and as I don’t +intend to break my fast on a stockgilly-flower, or make a repast of +raisins, I prefer the old way. Fill up my glass whenever it’s empty,’ said +she to the servant, ‘and don’t bother me with the name of it. As long as I +know the King’s County, and that’s more than fifty years, we’ve been +calling Cape Madeira, Sherry!’ +</p> +<p> +‘If we know what we are drinking, Miss O’Shea, I don’t suppose it matters +much.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing at all, Mathew. Calling you the Viscount Kilgobbin, as I read a +while ago, won’t confuse me about an old neighbour.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Won’t you try a cutlet, godmother?’ asked Kate hurriedly. +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed I will, my dear. I don’t know why I was sending the man away. I +never saw this way of dining before, except at the poorhouse, where each +poor creature has his plateful given him, and pockets what he can’t eat.’ +And here she laughed long and heartily at the conceit. +</p> +<p> +Kearney’s good-humour relished the absurdity, and he joined in the laugh, +while Nina stared at the old woman as an object of dread and terror. +</p> +<p> +‘And that boy that wouldn’t dine with us. How is he turning out, Mathew? +They tell me he’s a bit of a scamp.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He’s no such thing, godmother. Dick is as good a fellow and as +right-minded as ever lived, and you yourself would be the first to say it +if you saw him,’ cried Kate angrily. +</p> +<p> +‘So would the young lady yonder, if I might judge from her blushes,’ said +Miss Betty, looking at Nina. ‘Not indeed but it’s only now I’m remembering +that you’re not a boy. That little red cap and that thing you wear round +your throat deceived me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is not the lot of every one to be so fortunate in a head-dress as Miss +O’Shea,’ said Nina, very calmly. +</p> +<p> +‘If it’s my wig you are envying me, my dear,’ replied she quietly, +‘there’s nothing easier than to have the own brother of it. It was made by +Crimp, of Nassau Street, and box and all cost four pound twelve.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Upon my life, Miss Betty,’ broke in Kearney, ‘you are tempting me to an +extravagance.’ And he passed his hand over his sparsely-covered head as he +spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘And I would not, if I was you, Mathew Kearney,’ said she resolutely. +‘They tell me that in that House of Lords you are going to, more than half +of them are bald.’ +</p> +<p> +There was no possible doubt that she meant by this speech to deliver a +challenge, and Kate’s look, at once imploring and sorrowful, appealed to +her for mercy. +</p> +<p> +‘No, thank you,’ said Miss Betty to the servant who presented a dish, +‘though, indeed, maybe I’m wrong, for I don’t know what’s coming.’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is the <i>menu</i>,’ said Nina, handing a card to her. +</p> +<p> +‘The bill of fare, godmother,’ said Kate hastily. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, indeed, it’s a kindness to tell me, and if there is any more +novelties to follow, perhaps you’ll be kind enough to inform me, for I +never dined in the Greek fashion before.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The Russian, I believe, madam, not the Greek,’ said Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘With all my heart, my dear. It’s about the same, for whatever may happen +to Mathew Kearney or myself, I don’t suspect either of us will go to live +at Moscow.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’ll not refuse a glass of port with your cheese?’ said Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed I will, then, if there’s any beer in the house, though perhaps +it’s too vulgar a liquor to ask for.’ +</p> +<p> +While the beer was being brought, a solemn silence ensued, and a less +comfortable party could not easily be imagined. +</p> +<p> +When the interval had been so far prolonged that Kearney himself saw the +necessity to do something, he placed his napkin on the table, leaned +forward with a half-motion of rising, and, addressing Miss Betty, said, +‘Shall we adjourn to the drawing-room and take our coffee?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’d rather stay where I am, Mathew Kearney, and have that glass of port +you offered me a while ago, for the beer was flat. Not that I’ll detain +the young people, nor keep yourself away from them very long.’ +</p> +<p> +When the two girls withdrew, Nina’s look of insolent triumph at Kate +betrayed the tone she was soon to take in treating of the old lady’s good +manners. +</p> +<p> +‘You had a very sorry dinner, Miss Betty, but I can promise you an honest +glass of wine,’ said Kearney, filling her glass. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s very nice,’ said she, sipping it, ‘though, maybe, like myself, it’s +just a trifle too old.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A good fault, Miss Betty, a good fault.’ +</p> +<p> +‘For the wine, perhaps,’ said she dryly, ‘but maybe it would taste better +if I had not bought it so dearly.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think I understand you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I was about to say that I have forfeited that young lady’s esteem by the +way I obtained it. She’ll never forgive me, instead of retiring for my +coffee, sitting here like a man—and a man of that old hard-drinking +school, Mathew, that has brought all the ruin on Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Here’s to their memory, anyway,’ said Kearney, drinking off his glass. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll drink no toasts nor sentiments, Mathew Kearney, and there’s no +artifice or roguery will make me forget I’m a woman and an O’Shea.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Faix, you’ll not catch me forgetting either,’ said Mathew, with a droll +twinkle of his eye, which it was just as fortunate escaped her notice. +</p> +<p> +‘I doubted for a long time, Mathew Kearney, whether I’d come over myself, +or whether I ‘d write you a letter; not that I’m good at writing, but, +somehow, one can put their ideas more clear, and say things in a way that +will fix them more in the mind; but at last I determined I’d come, though +it’s more than likely it’s the last time Kilgobbin will see me here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I sincerely trust you are mistaken, so far.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, Mathew, I’m not often mistaken! The woman that has managed an +estate for more than forty years, been her own land-steward and her own +law-agent, doesn’t make a great many blunders; and, as I said before, if +Mathew has no friend to tell him the truth among the men of his +acquaintance, it’s well that there is a woman to the fore, who has courage +and good sense to go up and do it.’ +</p> +<p> +She looked fixedly at him, as though expecting some concurrence in the +remark, if not some intimation to proceed; but neither came, and she +continued. +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose you don’t read the Dublin newspapers?’ said she civilly. +</p> +<p> +‘I do, and every day the post brings them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You see, therefore, without my telling you, what the world is saying +about you. You see how they treat “the search for arms,” as they head it, +and “the Maid of Saragossa!” O Mathew Kearney! Mathew Kearney! whatever +happened the old stock of the land, they never made themselves +ridiculous.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have you done, Miss Betty?’ asked he, with assumed calm. +</p> +<p> +‘Done! Why, it’s only beginning I am,’ cried she. ‘Not but I’d bear a deal +of blackguarding from the press—as the old woman said when the +soldier threatened to run his bayonet through her: “Devil thank you, it’s +only your trade.” But when we come to see the head of an old family making +ducks and drakes of his family property, threatening the old tenants that +have been on the land as long as his own people, raising the rent here, +evicting there, distressing the people’s minds when they’ve just as much +as they can to bear up with—then it’s time for an old friend and +neighbour to give a timely warning, and cry “Stop.’” +</p> +<p> +‘Have you done, Miss Betty?’ And now his voice was more stern than before. +</p> +<p> +‘I have not, nor near done, Mathew Kearney. I’ve said nothing of the way +you’re bringing up your family—that son, in particular—to make +him think himself a young man of fortune, when you know, in your heart, +you’ll leave him little more than the mortgages on the estate. I have not +told you that it’s one of the jokes of the capital to call him the +Honourable Dick Kearney, and to ask him after his father the viscount.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You haven’t done yet, Miss O’Shea?’ said he, now with a thickened voice. +</p> +<p> +‘No, not yet,’ replied she calmly—‘not yet; for I’d like to remind +you of the way you’re behaving to the best of the whole of you—the +only one, indeed, that’s worth much in the family—your daughter +Kate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, what have I done to wrong <i>her</i>?’ said he, carried beyond his +prudence by so astounding a charge. +</p> +<p> +‘The very worst you could do, Mathew Kearney; the only mischief it was in +your power, maybe. Look at the companion you have given her! Look at the +respectable young lady you’ve brought home to live with your decent +child!’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’ll not stop?’ cried he, almost choking with passion. +</p> +<p> +‘Not till I’ve told you why I came here, Mathew Kearney; for I’d beg you +to understand it was no interest about yourself or your doings brought me. +I came to tell you that I mean to be free about an old contract we once +made—that I revoke it all. I was fool enough to believe that an +alliance between our families would have made me entirely happy, and my +nephew Gorman O’Shea was brought up to think the same. I have lived to +know better, Mathew Kearney: I have lived to see that we don’t suit each +other at all, and I have come here to declare to you formally that it’s +all off. No nephew of mine shall come here for a wife. The heir to Shea’s +Barn shan’t bring the mistress of it out of Kilgobbin Castle.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Trust <i>me</i> for that, old lady,’ cried he, forgetting all his good +manners in his violent passion. +</p> +<p> +‘You’ll be all the freer to catch a young aide-de-camp from the Castle,’ +said she sneeringly; ‘or maybe, indeed, a young lord—a rank equal to +your own.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Haven’t you said enough?’ screamed he, wild with rage. +</p> +<p> +‘No, nor half, or you wouldn’t be standing there, wringing your hands with +passion and your hair bristling like a porcupine. You’d be at my feet, +Mathew Kearney—ay, at my feet.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So I would, Miss Betty,’ chimed he in, with a malicious grin, ‘if I was +only sure you’d be as cruel as the last time I knelt there. Oh dear! oh +dear! and to think that I once wanted to marry that woman!’ +</p> +<p> +‘That you did! You’d have put your hand in the fire to win her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘By my conscience, I’d have put myself altogether there, if I had won +her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You understand now, sir,’ said she haughtily, ‘that there’s no more +between us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Thank God for the same!’ ejaculated he fervently. +</p> +<p> +‘And that no nephew of mine comes courting a daughter of yours?’ +</p> +<p> +‘For his own sake, he’d better not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s for his own sake I intend it, Mathew Kearney. It’s of himself I’m +thinking. And now, thanking you for the pleasant evening I’ve passed, and +your charming society, I’ll take my leave.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope you’ll not rob us of your company till you take a dish of tea,’ +said he, with well-feigned politeness. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s hard to tear one’s self away, Mr. Kearney; but it’s late already.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Couldn’t we induce you to stop the night, Miss Betty?’ asked he, in a +tone of insinuation. ‘Well, at least you’ll let me ring to order your +horse?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You may do that if it amuses you, Mathew Kearney; but, meanwhile, I’ll +just do what I’ve always done in the same place—I’ll just go look +for my own beast and see her saddled myself; and as Peter Gill is leaving +you to-morrow, I’ll take him back with me to-night.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is he going to you?’ cried he passionately. +</p> +<p> +‘He’s going to <i>me</i>, Mr. Kearney, with your leave, or without it, I +don’t know which I like best.’ And with this she swept out of the room, +while Kearney closed his eyes and lay back in his chair, stunned and +almost stupefied. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0022" id="link2HCH0022"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXII +</h2> +<h3> +A CONFIDENTIAL TALK +</h3> +<p> +Dick Kearney walked the bog from early morning till dark without firing a +shot. The snipe rose almost at his feet, and wheeling in circles through +the air, dipped again into some dark crevice of the waste, unnoticed by +him! One thought only possessed, and never left him, as he went. He had +overheard Nina’s words to his sister, as he made his escape over the +fence, and learned how she promised to ‘spare him’; and that if not +worried about him, or asked to pledge herself, she should be ‘merciful,’ +and not entangle the boy in a hopeless passion. +</p> +<p> +He would have liked to have scoffed at the insolence of this speech, and +treated it as a trait of overweening vanity; he would have gladly accepted +her pity as a sort of challenge, and said, ‘Be it so; let us see who will +come safest out of this encounter,’ and yet he felt in his heart he could +not. +</p> +<p> +First of all, her beauty had really dazzled him, and the thousand graces +of a manner of which he had known nothing captivated and almost bewildered +him. He could not reply to her in the same tone he used to any other. If +he fetched her a book or a chair, he gave it with a sort of deference that +actually reacted on himself, and made him more gentle and more courteous, +for the time. ‘What would this influence end in making me?’ was his +question to himself. ‘Should I gain in sentiment or feeling? Should I have +higher and nobler aims? Should I be anything of that she herself described +so glowingly, or should I only sink to a weak desire to be her slave, and +ask for nothing better than some slight recognition of my devotion? I take +it that she would say the choice lay with <i>her</i>, and that I should be +the one or the other as she willed it, and though I would give much to +believe her wrong, my heart tells me that I cannot. I came down here +resolved to resist any influence she might attempt to have over me. Her +likeness showed me how beautiful she was, but it could not tell me the +dangerous fascination of her low liquid voice, her half-playful, +half-melancholy smile, and that bewitching walk, with all its stately +grace, so that every fold as she moves sends its own thrill of ecstasy. +And now that I know all these, see and feel them, I am told that to me +they can bring no hope! That I am too poor, too ignoble, too +undistinguished, to raise my eyes to such attraction. I am nothing, and +must live and die nothing. +</p> +<p> +‘She is candid enough, at all events. There is no rhapsody about her when +she talks of poverty. She chronicles every stage of the misery, as though +she had felt them all; and how unlike it she looks! There is an almost +insolent well-being about her that puzzles me. She will not heed this, or +suffer that, because it looks mean. Is this the subtle worship she offers +Wealth, and is it thus she offers up her prayer to Fortune? +</p> +<p> +‘But why should she assume I must be her slave?’ cried he aloud, in a sort +of defiance. ‘I have shown her no such preference, nor made any advances +that would show I want to win her favour. Without denying that she is +beautiful, is it so certain it is the kind of beauty I admire? She has +scores of fascinations—I do not deny it; but should I say that I +trust her? And if I should trust her and love her too, where must it all +end in? I do not believe in her theory that love will transform a fellow +of my mould into a hero, not to say that I have my own doubt if she +herself believes it. I wonder if Kate reads her more clearly? Girls so +often understand each other by traits we have no clue to; and it was Kate +who asked her, almost in tone of entreaty, “to spare me,” to save me from +a hopeless passion, just as though I were some peasant-boy who had set his +affection on a princess. Is that the way, then, the world would read our +respective conditions? The son of a ruined house or the guest of a +beggared family leaves little to choose between! Kate—the world—would +call my lot the better of the two. The man’s chance is not irretrievable, +at least such is the theory. Those half-dozen fellows, who in a century or +so contrive to work their way up to something, make a sort of precedent, +and tell the others what they might be if they but knew how. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not vain enough to suppose I am one of these, and it is quite plain +that she does not think me so.’ He pondered long over this thought, and +then suddenly cried aloud, ‘Is it possible she may read Joe Atlee in this +fashion? is that the stuff out of which she hopes to make a hero?’ There +was more bitterness in this thought than he had first imagined, and there +was that of jealousy in it too that pained him deeply. +</p> +<p> +Had she preferred either of the two Englishmen to himself, he could have +understood and, in a measure, accepted it. They were, as he called them, +‘swells.’ They might become, he knew not what. The career of the Saxon in +fortune was a thing incommensurable by Irish ideas; but Joe was like +himself, or in reality less than himself, in worldly advantages. +</p> +<p> +This pang of jealousy was very bitter; but still it served to stimulate +him and rouse him from a depression that was gaining fast upon him. It is +true, he remembered she had spoken slightingly of Joe Atlee. Called him +noisy, pretentious, even vulgar; snubbed him openly on more than one +occasion, and seemed to like to turn the laugh against him; but with all +that she had sung duets with him, corrected some Italian verses he wrote, +and actually made a little sketch in his note-book for him as a souvenir. +A souvenir! and of what? Not of the ridicule she had turned upon him! not +the jest she had made upon his boastfulness. Now which of these two did +this argue: was this levity, or was it falsehood? Was she so little +mindful of honesty that she would show these signs of favour to one she +held most cheaply, or was it that her distaste to this man was mere +pretence, and only assumed to deceive others. +</p> +<p> +After all, Joe Atlee was a nobody; flattery might call him an adventurer, +but he was not even so much. Amongst the men of the dangerous party he +mixed with he was careful never to compromise himself. He might write the +songs of rebellion, but he was little likely to tamper with treason +itself. So much he would tell her when he got back. Not angrily, nor +passionately, for that would betray him and disclose his jealousy, but in +the tone of a man revealing something he regretted—confessing to the +blemish of one he would have liked better to speak well of. There was not, +he thought, anything unfair in this. He was but warning her against a man +who was unworthy of her. Unworthy of her! What words could express the +disparity between them? Not but if she liked him—and this he said +with a certain bitterness—or thought she liked him, the +disproportion already ceased to exist. +</p> +<p> +Hour after hour of that long summer day he walked, revolving such thoughts +as these; all his conclusions tending to the one point, that <i>he</i> was +not the easy victim she thought him, and that, come what might, <i>he</i> +should not be offered up as a sacrifice to her worship of Joe Atlee. +</p> +<p> +‘There is nothing would gratify the fellow’s vanity,’ thought he, ‘like a +successful rivalry of him! Tell him he was preferred to me, and he would +be ready to fall down and worship whoever had made the choice.’ +</p> +<p> +By dwelling on all the possible and impossible issues of such an +attachment, he had at length convinced himself of its existence, and even +more, persuaded himself to fancy it was something to be regretted and +grieved over for worldly considerations, but not in any way regarded as +personally unpleasant. +</p> +<p> +As he came in sight of home and saw a light in the small tower where +Kate’s bedroom lay, he determined he would go up to his sister and tell +her so much of his mind as he believed was finally settled, and in such a +way as would certainly lead her to repeat it to Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘Kate shall tell her that if I have left her suddenly and gone back to +Trinity to keep my term, I have not fled the field in a moment of +faint-heartedness. I do not deny her beauty. I do not disparage one of her +attractions, and she has scores of them. I will not even say that when I +have sat beside her, heard her low soft voice, and watched the tremor of +that lovely mouth vibrating with wit, or tremulous with feeling, I have +been all indifference; but this I will say, she shall not number <i>me</i> +amongst the victims of her fascinations; and when she counts the trinkets +on her wrist that record the hearts she has broken—a pastime I once +witnessed—not one of them shall record the initial of Dick Kearney.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0007" id="linkimage-0007"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/186.jpg" + alt="Kate, Still Dressed, Had Thrown Herself on the Bed, and Was Sound Asleep" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +With these brave words he mounted the narrow stair and knocked at his +sister’s door. No answer coming, he knocked again, and after waiting a few +seconds, he slowly opened the door and saw that Kate, still dressed, had +thrown herself on her bed, and was sound asleep. The table was covered +with account-books and papers; tax-receipts, law-notices, and tenants’ +letters lay littered about, showing what had been the task she was last +engaged on; and her heavy breathing told the exhaustion which it had left +behind it. +</p> +<p> +‘I wish I could help her with her work,’ muttered he to himself, as a pang +of self-reproach shot through him. This certainly should have been his own +task rather than hers; the question was, however, Could he have done it? +And this doubt increased as he looked over the long column of tenants’ +names, whose holdings varied in every imaginable quantity of acres, roods, +and perches. Besides these there were innumerable small details of +allowances for this and compensation for that. This one had given so many +days’ horse-and-car hire at the bog; that other had got advances ‘in +seed-potatoes’; such a one had a claim for reduced rent, because the +mill-race had overflowed and deluged his wheat crop; such another had fed +two pigs of ‘the lord’s’ and fattened them, while himself and his own were +nigh starving. +</p> +<p> +Through an entire column there was not one case without its complication, +either in the shape of argument for increased liability or claim for +compensation. It was makeshift everywhere, and Dick could not but ask +himself whether any tenant on the estate really knew how far he was +hopelessly in debt or a solvent man? It only needed Peter Gill’s peculiar +mode of collecting the moneys due, and recording the payment by the +notched stick, to make the complication perfect; and there, indeed, upon +the table, amid accounts and bills and sale warrants, lay the memorable +bits of wood themselves, as that worthy steward had deposited them before +quitting his master’s service. +</p> +<p> +Peter’s character, too, written out in Kate’s hand, and only awaiting her +father’s signature, was on the table—the first intimation Dick +Kearney had that old Gill had quitted his post. +</p> +<p> +‘All this must have occurred to-day,’ thought Dick; ‘there were no +evidences of these changes when I left this morning! Was it the backwater +of my disgrace, I wonder, that has overwhelmed poor Gill?’ thought he, ‘or +can I detect Miss Betty’s fine Roman hand in this incident?’ +</p> +<p> +In proportion to the little love he bore Miss O’Shea, were his convictions +the stronger that she was the cause of all mischief. She was one of those +who took very ‘utilitarian’ notions of his own career, and he bore her +small gratitude for the solicitude. There were short sentences in pencil +along the margin of the chief book in Kate’s handwriting which could not +fail to strike him as he read them, indicating as they did her difficulty, +if not utter incapacity, to deal with the condition of the estate. Thus:— +</p> +<p> +‘There is no warranty for this concession. It cannot be continued.’—‘The +notice in this case was duly served, and Gill knows that it was to papa’s +generosity they were indebted for remaining.’—‘These arrears have +never been paid, on that point I am positive!’—‘Malone’s holding was +not fairly measured, he has a just claim to compensation, and shall have +it.’—‘Hannigan’s right to tenancy must not be disputed, but cannot +be used as a precedent by others on the same part of the estate, and I +will state why.’—‘More of Peter Gill’s conciliatory policy! The +Regans, for having been twice in gaol, and once indicted, and nearly +convicted of Ribbonism, have established a claim to live rent-free! This I +will promise to rectify.’—‘I shall make no more allowances for +improvements without a guarantee, and a penalty besides on +non-completion.’ +</p> +<p> +And last of all came these ominous words:— +</p> +<p> +‘It will thus be seen that our rent-roll since ‘64 has been progressively +decreasing, and that we have only been able to supply our expenses by +sales of property. Dick must be spoken to on this, and at once.’ +</p> +<p> +Several entries had been already rubbed out, and it was clear that she had +been occupied in the task of erasion on that very night. Poor girl! her +sleep was the heavy repose of one utterly exhausted; and her closely +clasped lips and corrugated brow showed in what frame of intense thought +she had sunk to rest. He closed the book noiselessly, as he looked at her, +replaced the various objects on the table, and rose to steal quietly away. +</p> +<p> +The accidental movement of a chair, however, startled her; she turned, and +leaning on her elbow, she saw him as he tried to move away. ‘Don’t go, +Dick, don’t go. I’m awake, and quite fresh again. Is it late?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s not far from one o’clock,’ said he, half-roughly, to hide his +emotion; for her worn and wearied features struck him now more forcibly +than when she slept. +</p> +<p> +‘And are you only returned now? How hungry you must be. Poor fellow—have +you dined to-day?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; I got to Owen Molloy’s as they were straining the potatoes, and sat +down with them, and ate very heartily too.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Weren’t they proud of it? Won’t they tell how the young lord shared their +meal with them?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think they are as cordial as they used to be, Kate; they did not +talk so openly, nor seem at their ease, as I once knew them. And they did +one thing, significant enough in its way, that I did not like. They quoted +the county newspaper twice or thrice when we talked of the land.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am aware of that, Dick; they have got other counsellors than their +landlords now,’ said she mournfully, ‘and it is our own fault if they +have.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What, are you turning Nationalist, Kitty?’ said he, laughing. +</p> +<p> +‘I was always a Nationalist in one sense,’ said she, ‘and mean to continue +so; but let us not get upon this theme. Do you know that Peter Gill has +left us?’ +</p> +<p> +‘What, for America?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; for “O’Shea’s Barn.” Miss Betty has taken him. She came here to-day +to “have it out” with papa, as she said; and she has kept her word. +Indeed, not alone with him, but with all of us—even Nina did not +escape.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Insufferable old woman. What did she dare to say to Nina?’ +</p> +<p> +‘She got off the cheapest of us all, Dick,’ said she, laughing. ‘It was +only some stupid remark she made her about looking like a boy, or being +dressed like a rope-dancer. A small civility of this sort was her share of +the general attention.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And how did Nina take the insolence?’ +</p> +<p> +‘With great good-temper, or good-breeding. I don’t know exactly which +covered the indifference she displayed, till Miss Betty, when taking her +leave, renewed the impertinence in the hall, by saying something about the +triumphant success such a costume would achieve in the circus, when Nina +curtsied, and said: “I am charmed to hear you say so, madam, and shall +wear it for my benefit; and if I could only secure the appearance of +yourself and your little groom, my triumph would be, indeed, complete.” I +did not dare to wait for more, but hurried out to affect to busy myself +with the saddle, and pretend that it was not tightly girthed.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’d have given twenty pounds, if I had it, to have seen the old woman’s +face. No one ever ventured before to pay her back with her own money.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But I give you such a wrong version of it, Dick. I only convey the +coarseness of the rejoinder, and I can give you no idea of the ineffable +grace and delicacy which made her words sound like a humble apology. Her +eyelids drooped as she curtsied, and when she looked up again, in a way +that seemed humility itself, to have reproved her would have appeared +downright cruelty.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She is a finished coquette,’ said he bitterly; ‘a finished coquette.’ +</p> +<p> +Kate made no answer, though he evidently expected one; and after waiting a +while, he went on: ‘Not but her high accomplishments are clean thrown away +in such a place as this, and amongst such people. What chance of fitting +exercise have they with my father or myself? Or is it on Joe Atlee she +would try the range of her artillery?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not so very impossible this, after all,’ muttered Kate quietly. +</p> +<p> +‘What, and is it to <i>that</i> her high ambitions tend? Is <i>he</i> the +prize she would strive to win?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can be no guide to you in this matter, Dick. She makes no confidences +with me, and of myself I see nothing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You have, however, some influence over her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; not much.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I did not say much; but enough to induce her to yield to a strong +entreaty, as when, for instance, you implored her to spare your brother—that +poor fellow about to fall so hopelessly in love—’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not sure that my request did not come too late after all,’ said she, +with a laughing malice in her eye. +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t be too sure of that,’ retorted he, almost fiercely. +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, I never bargained for what you might do in a moment of passion or +resentment.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is neither one nor the other here. I am perfectly cool, calm, and +collected, and I tell you this, that whoever your pretty Greek friend is +to make a fool of, it shall not be Dick Kearney.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It might be very nice fooling, all the same, Dick.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know—that is, I believe I know—what you mean. You have +listened to some of those high heroics she ascends to in showing what the +exaltation of a great passion can make of any man who has a breast capable +of the emotion, and you want to see the experiment tried in its least +favourable conditions—on a cold, soulless, selfish fellow of my own +order; but, take my word for it, Kate, it would prove a sheer loss of time +to us both. Whatever she might make of me, it would not be a <i>hero</i>; +and whatever I should strive for, it would not be her <i>love</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think I’d say that if I were a man.’ +</p> +<p> +He made no answer to these words, but arose and walked the room with hasty +steps. ‘It was not about these things I came here to talk to you, Kitty,’ +said he earnestly. ‘I had my head full of other things, and now I cannot +remember them. Only one occurs to me. Have you got any money? I mean a +mere trifle—enough to pay my fare to town?’ +</p> +<p> +‘To be sure I have that much, Dick; but you are surely not going to leave +us?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes. I suddenly remembered I must be up for the last day of term in +Trinity. Knocking about here—I’ll scarcely say amusing myself—I +had forgotten all about it. Atlee used to jog my memory on these things +when he was near me, and now, being away, I have contrived to let the +whole escape me. You can help me, however, with a few pounds?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have got five of my own, Dick; but if you want more—’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no; I’ll borrow the five of your own, and don’t blend it with more, +or I may cease to regard it as a debt of honour.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And if you should, my poor dear Dick—’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’d be only pretty much what I have ever been, but scarcely wish to be +any longer,’ and he added the last words in a whisper. ‘It’s only to be a +brief absence, Kitty,’ said he, kissing her; ‘so say good-bye for me to +the others, and that I shall be soon back again.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall I kiss Nina for you, Dick?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do; and tell her that I gave you the same commission for Miss O’Shea, and +was grieved that both should have been done by deputy!’ +</p> +<p> +And with this he hurried away. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0023" id="link2HCH0023"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXIII +</h2> +<h3> +A HAPHAZARD VICEROY +</h3> +<p> +When the Government came into office, they were sorely puzzled where to +find a Lord-Lieutenant for Ireland. It is, unhappily, a post that the men +most fitted for generally refuse, while the Cabinet is besieged by a class +of applicants whose highest qualification is a taste for mock-royalty +combined with an encumbered estate. +</p> +<p> +Another great requisite, beside fortune and a certain amount of ability, +was at this time looked for. The Premier was about, as newspapers call it, +‘to inaugurate a new policy,’ and he wanted a man who knew nothing about +Ireland! Now, it might be carelessly imagined that here was one of those +essentials very easily supplied. Any man frequenting club-life or dining +out in town could have safely pledged himself to tell off a score or two +of eligible Viceroys, so far as this qualification went. The Minister, +however, wanted more than mere ignorance: he wanted that sort of +indifference on which a character for impartiality could so easily be +constructed. Not alone a man unacquainted with Ireland, but actually +incapable of being influenced by an Irish motive or affected by an Irish +view of anything. +</p> +<p> +Good-luck would have it that he met such a man at dinner. He was an +ambassador at Constantinople, on leave from his post, and so utterly dead +to Irish topics as to be uncertain whether O’Donovan Rossa was a Fenian or +a Queen’s Counsel, and whether he whom he had read of as the ‘Lion of +Judah’ was the king of beasts or the Archbishop of Tuam! +</p> +<p> +The Minister was pleased with his new acquaintance, and talked much to +him, and long. He talked well, and not the less well that his listener was +a fresh audience, who heard everything for the first time, and with all +the interest that attaches to a new topic. Lord Danesbury was, indeed, +that ‘sheet of white paper’ the head of the Cabinet had long been +searching for, and he hastened to inscribe him with the characters he +wished. +</p> +<p> +‘You must go to Ireland for me, my lord,’ said the Minister. ‘I have met +no one as yet so rightly imbued with the necessities of the situation. You +must be our Viceroy.’ +</p> +<p> +Now, though a very high post and with great surroundings, Lord Danesbury +had no desire to exchange his position as an ambassador, even to become a +Lord-Lieutenant. Like most men who have passed their lives abroad, he grew +to like the ways and habits of the Continent. He liked the easy +indulgences in many things, he liked the cosmopolitanism that surrounds +existence, and even in its littleness is not devoid of a certain breadth; +and best of all he liked the vast interests at stake, the large questions +at issue, the fortunes of states, the fate of dynasties! To come down from +the great game, as played by kings and kaisers, to the small traffic of a +local government wrangling over a road-bill, or disputing over a harbour, +seemed too horrible to confront, and he eagerly begged the Minister to +allow him to return to his post, and not risk a hard-earned reputation on +a new and untried career. +</p> +<p> +‘It is precisely from the fact of its being new and untried I need you,’ +was the reply, and his denial was not accepted. +</p> +<p> +Refusal was impossible; and with all the reluctance a man consents to what +his convictions are more opposed to even than his reasons, Lord Danesbury +gave in, and accepted the viceroyalty of Ireland. +</p> +<p> +He was deferential to humility in listening to the great aims and noble +conceptions of the mighty Minister, and pledged himself—as he could +safely do—to become as plastic as wax in the powerful hands which +were about to remodel Ireland. +</p> +<p> +He was gazetted in due course, went over to Dublin, made a state entrance, +received the usual deputations, complimented every one, from the Provost +of Trinity College to the Chief Commissioner of Pipewater; praised the +coast, the corporation, and the city; declared that he had at length +reached the highest goal of his ambition; entertained the high dignitaries +at dinner, and the week after retired to his ancestral seat in North +Wales, to recruit after his late fatigue, and throw off the effects of +that damp, moist climate which already he fancied had affected him. +</p> +<p> +He had been sworn in with every solemnity of the occasion; he had sat on +the throne of state, named the officers of his household, made a master of +the horse, and a state steward, and a grand chamberlain; and, till stopped +by hearing that he could not create ladies and maids of honour, he fancied +himself every inch a king; but now that he had got over to the tranquil +quietude of his mountain home, his thoughts went away to the old channels, +and he began to dream of the Russians in the Balkan and the Greeks in +Thessaly. Of all the precious schemes that had taken him months to weave, +what was to come of them <i>now</i>? How and with what would his +successor, whoever he should be, oppose the rogueries of Sumayloff or the +chicanery of Ignatief? what would any man not trained to the especial +watchfulness of this subtle game know of the steps by which men advanced? +Who was to watch Bulgaria and see how far Russian gold was embellishing +the life of Athens? There was not a hungry agent that lounged about the +Russian embassy in Greek petticoats and pistols whose photograph the +English ambassador did not possess, with a biographical note at the back +to tell the fellow’s name and birthplace, what he was meant for, and what +he cost. Of every interview of his countrymen with the Grand-Vizier he was +kept fully informed, and whether a forage magazine was established on the +Pruth, or a new frigate laid down at Nickolief, the news reached him by +the time it arrived at St. Petersburg. It is true he was aware how +hopeless it was to write home about these things. The ambassador who +writes disagreeable despatches is a bore or an old woman. He who dares to +shake the security by which we daily boast we are surrounded, is an +alarmist, if not worse. Notwithstanding this, he held his cards well ‘up’ +and played them shrewdly. And now he was to turn from this crafty game, +with all its excitement, to pore over constabulary reports and snub +justices of the peace! +</p> +<p> +But there was worse than this. There was an Albanian spy who had been much +employed by him of late, a clever fellow, with access to society, and +great facilities for obtaining information. Seeing that Lord Danesbury +should not return to the embassy, would this fellow go over to the enemy? +If so, there were no words for the mischief he might effect. By a +subordinate position in a Greek government-office, he had often been +selected to convey despatches to Constantinople, and it was in this way +his lordship first met him; and as the fellow frankly presented himself +with a very momentous piece of news, he at once showed how he trusted to +British faith not to betray him. It was not alone the incalculable +mischief such a man might do by change of allegiance, but the whole fabric +on which Lord Danesbury’s reputation rested was in this man’s keeping; and +of all that wondrous prescience on which he used to pride himself before +the world, all the skill with which he baffled an adversary, and all the +tact with which he overwhelmed a colleague, this same ‘Speridionides’ +could give the secret and show the trick. +</p> +<p> +How much more constantly, then, did his lordship’s thoughts revert to the +Bosporus than the Liffey! all this home news was mean, commonplace, and +vulgar. The whole drama—scenery, actors, plot—all were low and +ignoble; and as for this ‘something that was to be done for Ireland,’ it +would of course be some slowly germinating policy to take root now, and +blossom in another half-century: one of those blessed parliamentary +enactments which men who dealt in heroic remedies like himself regarded as +the chronic placebo of the political quack. +</p> +<p> +‘I am well aware,’ cried he aloud, ‘for what they are sending me over. I +am to “make a case” in Ireland for a political legislation, and the bill +is already drawn and ready; and while I am demonstrating to Irish +Churchmen that they will be more pious without a religion, and the +landlords richer without rent, the Russians will be mounting guard at the +Golden Horn, and the last British squadron steaming down the Levant.’ +</p> +<p> +It was in a temper kindled by these reflections he wrote this note:— +</p> +<p> +PLMNUDDM CASTLE, NORTH WALES. +</p> +<p> +‘DEAR WALPOLE,—I can make nothing out of the papers you have sent +me; nor am I able to discriminate between what you admit to be newspaper +slander and the attack on the castle with the unspeakable name. At all +events, your account is far too graphic for the Treasury lords, who have +less of the pictorial about them than Mr. Mudie’s subscribers. If the +Irish peasants are so impatient to assume their rights that they will not +wait for the “Hatt-Houmaïoun,” or Bill in Parliament that is to endow +them, I suspect a little further show of energy might save us a debate and +a third reading. I am, however, far more eager for news from Therapia. +Tolstai has been twice over with despatches; and Boustikoff, pretending to +have sprained his ankle, cannot leave Odessa, though I have ascertained +that he has laid down new lines of fortification, and walked over twelve +miles per day. You may have heard of the great “Speridionides,” a +scoundrel that supplied me with intelligence. I should like much to get +him over here while I am on my leave, confer with him, and, if possible, +save him <i>from the necessity of other engagements</i>. It is not every +one could be trusted to deal with a man of this stamp, nor would the +fellow himself easily hold relations with any but a gentleman. Are you +sufficiently recovered from your sprained arm to undertake this journey +for me? If so, come over at once, that I may give you all necessary +indications as to the man and his whereabouts. +</p> +<p> +‘Maude has been “on the sick-list,” but is better, and able to ride out +to-day. I cannot fill the law-appointments till I go over, nor shall I go +over till I cannot help it. The Cabinet is scattered over the Scotch +lakes. C. alone in town, and preparing for the War Ministry by practising +the goose-step. Telegraph, if possible, that you are coming, and believe +me yours, +</p> +<p> +DANESBURY.’ <a name="link2HCH0024" id="link2HCH0024"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXIV +</h2> +<h3> +TWO FRIENDS AT BREAKFAST +</h3> +<p> +Irishmen may reasonably enough travel for climate, they need scarcely go +abroad in search of scenery. Within even a very short distance from the +capital, there are landscapes which, for form, outline, and colour, equal +some of the most celebrated spots of continental beauty. +</p> +<p> +One of these is the view from Bray Head over the wide expanse of the Bay +of Dublin, with Howth and Lambay in the far distance. Nearer at hand lies +the sweep of that graceful shore to Killiney, with the Dalky Islands +dotting the calm sea; while inland, in wild confusion, are grouped the +Wicklow Mountains, massive with wood and teeming with a rich luxuriance. +</p> +<p> +When sunlight and stillness spread colour over the blue mirror of the sea—as +is essential to the scene—I know of nothing, not even Naples or +Amalfi, can surpass this marvellous picture. +</p> +<p> +It was on a terrace that commanded this view that Walpole and Atlee sat at +breakfast on a calm autumnal morning; the white-sailed boats scarcely +creeping over their shadows; and the whole scene, in its silence and +softened effect, presenting a picture of almost rapturous tranquillity. +</p> +<p> +‘With half-a-dozen days like this,’ said Atlee, as he smoked his +cigarette, in a sort of languid grace, ‘one would not say O’Connell was +wrong in his glowing admiration for Irish scenery. If I were to awake +every day for a week to this, I suspect I should grow somewhat crazy +myself about the green island.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And dash the description with a little treason too,’ said the other +superciliously. ‘I have always remarked the ingenious connection with +which Irishmen bind up a love of the picturesque with a hate of the +Saxon.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why not? They are bound together in the same romance. Can you look on the +Parthenon and not think of the Turk?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Apropos of the Turk,’ said the other, laying his hand on a folded letter +which lay before him, ‘here’s a long letter from Lord Danesbury about that +wearisome “Eastern question,” as they call the ten thousand issues that +await the solution of the Bosporus. Do you take interest in these things.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Immensely. After I have blown myself with a sharp burst on home politics, +I always take a canter among the Druses and the Lebanites; and I am such +an authority on the “Grand Idea,” that Rangabe refers to me as “the +illustrious statesman whose writings relieve England from the stain of +universal ignorance about Greece.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And do you know anything on the subject?’ +</p> +<p> +‘About as much as the present Cabinet does of Ireland. I know all the +clap-traps: the grand traditions that have sunk down into a present +barbarism—of course, through ill government; the noble instincts +depraved by gross usage; I know the inherent love of freedom we cherish, +which makes men resent rents as well as laws, and teaches that taxes are +as great a tyranny as the rights of property.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And do the Greeks take this view of it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course they do; and it was in experimenting on them that your great +Ministers learned how to deal with Ireland. There was but one step from +Thebes to Tipperary. Corfu was “pacified”—that’s the phrase for it—by +abolishing the landlords. The peasants were told they might spare a little +if they liked to the ancient possessor of the soil; and so they took the +ground, and they gave him the olive-trees. You may imagine how fertile +these were, when the soil around them was utilised to the last fraction of +productiveness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is that a fair statement of the case?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Can you ask the question? I’ll show it to you in print.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps written by yourself?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And why not? What convictions have not broken on my mind by reading my +own writings? You smile at this; but how do you know your face is clean +till you look in a glass?’ +</p> +<p> +Walpole, however, had ceased to attend to the speaker, and was deeply +engaged with the letter before him. +</p> +<p> +‘I see here,’ cried he, ‘his Excellency is good enough to say that some +mark of royal favour might be advantageously extended to those Kilgobbin +people, in recognition of their heroic defence. What should it be, is the +question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Confer on him the peerage, perhaps.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is totally out of the question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was Kate Kearney made the defence; why not give her a commission in +the army?—make it another “woman’s right.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are absurd, Mr. Atlee.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Suppose you endowed her out of the Consolidated Fund? Give her twenty +thousand pounds, and I can almost assure you that a very clever fellow I +know will marry her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A strange reward for good conduct.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A prize of virtue. They have that sort of thing in France, and they say +it gives a great support to purity of morals.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Young Kearney might accept something, if we knew what to offer him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’d say a pair of black trousers; for I think I’m now wearing his last in +that line.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Atlee,’ said the other grimly, ‘let me remind you once again, that +the habit of light jesting—<i>persiflage</i>—is so essentially +Irish, you should keep it for your countrymen; and if you persist in +supposing the career of a private secretary suits you, this is an +incongruity that will totally unfit you for the walk.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am sure you know your countrymen, sir, and I am grateful for the +rebuke.’ +</p> +<p> +Walpole’s cheek flushed at this, and it was plain that there was a hidden +meaning in the words which he felt, and resented. +</p> +<p> +‘I do not know,’ continued Walpole, ‘if I am not asking you to curb one of +the strongest impulses of your disposition; but it rests entirely with +yourself whether my counsel be worth following.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course it is, sir. I shall follow your advice to the letter, and keep +all my good spirits and my bad manners for my countrymen.’ +</p> +<p> +It was evident that Walpole had to exercise some strong self-control not +to reply sharply; but he refrained, and turned once more to Lord +Danesbury’s letter, in which he was soon deeply occupied. At last he said: +‘His Excellency wants to send me out to Turkey to confer with a man with +whom he has some confidential relations. It is quite impossible that, in +my present state of health, I could do this. Would the thing suit you, +Atlee—that is, if, on consideration, I should opine that <i>you</i> +would suit <i>it</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect,’ replied Atlee, but with every deference in his manner, ‘if +you would entertain the last part of the contingency first, it would be +more convenient to each of us. I mean whether I were fit for the +situation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, perhaps so,’ said the other carelessly; ‘it is not at all +impossible, it may be one of the things you would acquit yourself well in. +It is a sort of exercise for tact and discretion—an occasion in +which that light hand of yours would have a field for employment, and that +acute skill in which I know you pride yourself as regards reading +character—’ +</p> +<p> +‘You have certainly piqued my curiosity,’ said Atlee. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know that I ought to have said so much; for, after all, it +remains to be seen whether Lord Danesbury would estimate these gifts of +yours as highly as I do. What I think of doing is this: I shall send you +over to his Excellency in your capacity as my own private secretary, to +explain how unfit I am in my present disabled condition to undertake a +journey. I shall tell my lord how useful I have found your services with +regard to Ireland, how much you know of the country and the people, and +how worthy of trust I have found your information and your opinions; and I +shall hint—but only hint, remember—that, for the mission he +speaks of, he might possibly do worse than fix upon yourself. As, of +course, it rests with him to be like-minded with me or not upon this +matter—to take, in fact, his own estimate of Mr. Atlee from his own +experiences of him—you are not to know anything whatever of this +project till his Excellency thinks proper to open it to you. You +understand that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Thoroughly.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Your mission will be to explain—when asked to explain—certain +difficulties of Irish life and habits, and if his lordship should direct +conversation to topics of the East, to be careful to know nothing of the +subject whatever—mind that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I shall be careful. I have read the <i>Arabian Nights</i>—but +that’s all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And of that tendency to small joking and weak epigram I would also +caution you to beware; they will have no success in the quarter to which +you are going, and they will only damage other qualities which you might +possibly rely on.’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee bowed a submissive acquiescence. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know that you’ll see Lady Maude Bickerstaffe, his lordship’s +niece.’ He stopped as if he had unwittingly uttered an awkwardness, and +then added—‘I mean she has not been well, and may not appear while +you are at the castle; but if you should—and if, which is not at all +likely, but still possible, you should be led to talk of Kilgobbin and the +incident that has got into the papers, you must be very guarded in all you +say. It is a county family of station and repute. We were there as +visitors. The ladies—I don’t know that I ‘d say very much of the +ladies.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Except that they were exceedingly plain in looks, and somewhat <i>passées</i> +besides,’ added Atlee gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t see why you should say that, sir,’ replied the other stiffly. ‘If +you are not bent on compromising me by an indiscretion, I don’t perceive +the necessity of involving me in a falsehood.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You shall be perfectly safe in my hands,’ said Atlee. +</p> +<p> +‘And that I may be so, say as little about me as you can. I know the +injunction has its difficulties, Mr. Atlee, but pray try and observe it.’ +</p> +<p> +The conversation had now arrived at a point in which one angry word more +must have produced a rupture between them; and though Atlee took in the +whole situation and its consequences at a glance, there was nothing in the +easy jauntiness of his manner that gave any clue to a sense of anxiety or +discomfort. +</p> +<p> +‘Is it likely,’ asked he at length, ‘that his Excellency will advert to +the idea of recognising or rewarding these people for their brave +defence?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am coming to that, if you will spare me a little patience: Saxon +slowness is a blemish you’ll have to grow accustomed to. If Lord Danesbury +should know that you are an acquaintance of the Kilgobbin family, and ask +you what would be a suitable mode of showing how their conduct has been +appreciated in a high quarter, you should be prepared with an answer.’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee’s eyes twinkled with a malicious drollery, and he had to bite his +lips to repress an impertinence that seemed almost to master his prudence, +and at last he said carelessly— +</p> +<p> +‘Dick Kearney might get something.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose you know that his qualifications will be tested. You bear that +in mind, I hope—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes. I was just turning it over in my head, and I thought the best thing +to do would be to make him a Civil Service Commissioner. They are the only +people taken on trust.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are severe, Mr. Atlee. Have these gentlemen earned this dislike on +your part?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you mean by having rejected me? No, that they have not. I believe I +could have survived that; and if, however, they had come to the point of +telling me that they were content with my acquirements, and what is called +“passed me,” I fervently believe I should have been seized with an +apoplexy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Atlee’s opinion of himself is not a mean one,’ said Walpole, with a +cold smile. +</p> +<p> +‘On the contrary, sir, I have occasion to feel pretty often in every +twenty-four hours what an ignominious part a man plays in life who has to +affect to be taught what he knows already—to be asking the road +where he has travelled every step of the way—and to feel that a +threadbare coat and broken boots take more from the value of his opinions +than if he were a knave or a blackleg.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t see the humility of all this.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I feel the shame of it, though,’ said Atlee; and as he arose and walked +out upon the terrace, the veins in his forehead were swelled and knotted, +and his lips trembled with suppressed passion. +</p> +<p> +In a tone that showed how thoroughly indifferent he felt to the other’s +irritation, Walpole went on to say: ‘You will then make it your business, +Mr. Atlee, to ascertain in what way most acceptable to those people at +Kilgobbin his Excellency may be able to show them some mark of royal +favour—bearing in mind not to commit yourself to anything that may +raise great expectations. In fact, a recognition is what is intended, not +a reward.’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee’s eyes fell upon the opal ring, which he always wore since the day +Walpole had given it to him, and there was something so significant in the +glance that the other flushed as he caught it. +</p> +<p> +‘I believe I appreciate the distinction,’ said Atlee quietly. ‘It is to be +something in which the generosity of the donor is more commemorated than +the merits of the person rewarded, and, consequently, a most appropriate +recognition of the Celt by the Saxon. Do you think I ought to go down to +Kilgobbin Castle, sir?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not quite sure about that; I’ll turn it over in my mind. Meanwhile +I’ll telegraph to my lord that, if he approves, I shall send you over to +Wales; and you had better make what arrangements you have to make, to be +ready to start at a moment.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Unfortunately, sir, I have none. I am in the full enjoyment of such +complete destitution, that I am always ready to go anywhere.’ +</p> +<p> +Walpole did not notice the words, but arose and walked over to a +writing-table to compose his message for the telegraph. +</p> +<p> +‘There,’ said he, as he folded it, ‘have the kindness to despatch this at +once, and do not be out of the way about five, or half-past, when I shall +expect an answer.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Am I free to go into town meanwhile?’ asked Atlee. +</p> +<p> +Walpole nodded assent without speaking. +</p> +<p> +‘I wonder if this sort of flunkeydom be good for a man,’ muttered Atlee to +himself as he sprang down the stairs. ‘I begin to doubt it. At all events, +I understand now the secret of the first lieutenant’s being a tyrant: he +has once been a middy. And so I say, let me only reach the ward-room, and +Heaven help the cockpit!’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0025" id="link2HCH0025"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXV +</h2> +<h3> +ATLEE’S EMBARRASSMENTS +</h3> +<p> +When Atlee returned to dress for dinner, he was sent for hurriedly by +Walpole, who told him that Lord Danesbury’s answer had arrived with the +order, ‘Send him over at once, and write fully at the same time.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is an eleven o’clock packet, Atlee, to-night,’ said he: ‘you must +manage to start by that. You’ll reach Holyhead by four or thereabouts, and +can easily get to the castle by mid-day.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish I had had a little more time,’ muttered the other. ‘If I am to +present myself before his Excellency in such a “rig” as this—’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have thought of that. We are nearly of the same size and build; you +are, perhaps, a trifle taller, but nothing to signify. Now Buckmaster has +just sent me a mass of things of all sorts from town; they are in my +dressing-room, not yet unpacked. Go up and look at them after dinner: take +what suits you—as much—all, if you like—but don’t delay +now. It only wants a few minutes of seven o’clock.’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee muttered his thanks hastily, and went his way. If there was a +thoughtfulness in the generosity of this action, the mode in which it was +performed—the measured coldness of the words—the look of +impassive examination that accompanied them, and the abstention from +anything that savoured of apology for a liberty—were all deeply felt +by the other. +</p> +<p> +It was true, Walpole had often heard him tell of the freedom with which he +had treated Dick Kearney’s wardrobe, and how poor Dick was scarcely sure +he could call an article of dress his own, whenever Joe had been the first +to go out into the town. The innumerable straits to which he reduced that +unlucky chum, who had actually to deposit a dinner-suit at an hotel to +save it from Atlee’s rapacity, had amused Walpole; but then these things +were all done in the spirit of the honest familiarity that prevailed +between them—the tie of true <i>camaraderie</i> that neither +suggested a thought of obligation on one side nor of painful inferiority +on the other. Here it was totally different. These men did not live +together with that daily interchange of liberties which, with all their +passing contentions, so accustom people to each other’s humours as to +establish the soundest and strongest of all friendships. Walpole had +adopted Atlee because he found him useful in a variety of ways. He was +adroit, ready-witted, and intelligent; a half-explanation sufficed with +him on anything—a mere hint was enough to give him for an interview +or a reply. He read people readily, and rarely failed to profit by the +knowledge. Strange as it may seem, the great blemish of his manner—his +snobbery—Walpole rather liked than disliked it. I was a sort of +qualifying element that satisfied him, as though it said, ‘With all that +fellow’s cleverness, he is not “one of us.” He might make a wittier reply, +or write a smarter note; but society has its little tests—not one of +which he could respond to.’ And this was an inferiority Walpole loved to +cherish and was pleased to think over. +</p> +<p> +Atlee felt that Walpole might, with very little exercise of courtesy, have +dealt more considerately by him. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not exactly a valet,’ muttered he to himself, ‘to whom a man flings a +waistcoat as he chucks a shilling to a porter. I am more than Mr. +Walpole’s equal in many things, which are not accidents of fortune.’ +</p> +<p> +He knew scores of things he could do better than him; indeed, there were +very few he could not. +</p> +<p> +Poor Joe was not, however, aware that it was in the ‘not doing’ lay +Walpole’s secret of superiority; that the inborn sense of abstention is +the great distinguishing element of the class Walpole belonged to; and he +might harass himself for ever, and yet never guess where it was that the +distinction evaded him. +</p> +<p> +Atlee’s manner at dinner was unusually cold and silent. He habitually made +the chief efforts of conversation, now he spoke little and seldom. When +Walpole talked, it was in that careless discursive way it was his wont to +discuss matters with a familiar. He often put questions, and as often went +on without waiting for the answers. +</p> +<p> +As they sat over the dessert and were alone, he adverted to the other’s +mission, throwing out little hints, and cautions as to manner, which Atlee +listened to in perfect silence, and without the slightest sign that could +indicate the feeling they produced. +</p> +<p> +‘You are going into a new country, Atlee,’ said he at last, ‘and I am sure +you will not be sorry to learn something of the geography.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Though it may mar a little of the adventure,’ said the other, smiling. +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, that’s exactly what I want to warn you against. With us in England, +there are none of those social vicissitudes you are used to here. The game +of life is played gravely, quietly, and calmly. There are no brilliant +successes of bold talkers, no <i>coups de théâtre</i> of amusing <i>raconteurs</i>: +no one tries to push himself into any position of eminence.’ +</p> +<p> +A half-movement of impatience, as Atlee pushed his wine-glass before him, +arrested the speaker. +</p> +<p> +‘I perceive,’ said he stiffly, ‘you regard my counsels as unnecessary.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not that, sir, so much as hopeless,’ rejoined the other coldly. +</p> +<p> +‘His Excellency will ask you, probably, some questions about this country: +let me warn you not to give him Irish answers.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think I understand you, sir.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I mean, don’t deal in any exaggerations, avoid extravagance, and never be +slapdash.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, these are Irish, then?’ +</p> +<p> +Without deigning reply to this, Walpole went on— +</p> +<p> +‘Of course you have your remedy for all the evils of Ireland. I never met +an Irishman who had not. But I beg you spare his lordship your theory, +whatever it is, and simply answer the questions he will ask you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will try, sir,’ was the meek reply. +</p> +<p> +‘Above all things, let me warn you against a favourite blunder of your +countrymen. Don’t endeavour to explain peculiarities of action in this +country by singularities of race or origin; don’t try to make out that +there are special points of view held that are unknown on the other side +of the Channel, or that there are other differences between the two +peoples, except such as more rags and greater wretchedness produce. We +have got over that very venerable and time-honoured blunder, and do not +endeavour to revive it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Fact, I assure you. It is possible in some remote country-house to chance +upon some antiquated Tory who still cherishes these notions; but you’ll +not find them amongst men of mind or intelligence, nor amongst any class +of our people.’ +</p> +<p> +It was on Atlee’s lip to ask, ‘Who were our people?’ but he forbore by a +mighty effort, and was silent. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know if I have any other cautions to give you. Do you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, sir. I could not even have reminded you of these, if you had not +yourself remembered them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, I had almost forgotten it. If his Excellency should give you anything +to write out, or to copy, don’t smoke while you are over it: he abhors +tobacco. I should have given you a warning to be equally careful as +regards Lady Maude’s sensibilities; but, on the whole, I suspect you’ll +scarcely see her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is that all, sir?’ said the other, rising. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I think so. I shall be curious to hear how you acquit yourself—how +you get on with his Excellency, and how he takes you; and you must write +it all to me. Ain’t you much too early? it’s scarcely ten o’clock.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A quarter past ten; and I have some miles to drive to Kingstown.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And not yet packed, perhaps?’ said the other listlessly. +</p> +<p> +‘No, sir; nothing ready.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh! you’ll be in ample time; I’ll vouch for it. You are one of the +rough-and-ready order, who are never late. Not but in this same flurry of +yours you have made me forget something I know I had to say; and you tell +me you can’t remember it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, sir.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And yet,’ said the other sententiously, ‘the crowning merit of a private +secretary is exactly that sort of memory. <i>Your</i> intellects, if +properly trained, should be the complement of your chief’s. The infinite +number of things that are too small and too insignificant for <i>him</i>, +are to have their place, duly docketed and dated, in <i>your</i> brain; +and the very expression of his face should be an indication to you of what +he is looking for and yet cannot remember. Do you mark me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Half-past ten,’ cried Atlee, as the clock chimed on the mantel-piece; and +he hurried away without another word. +</p> +<p> +It was only as he saw the pitiable penury of his own scanty wardrobe that +he could persuade himself to accept of Walpole’s offer. +</p> +<p> +‘After all,’ he said, ‘the loan of a dress-coat may be the turning-point +of a whole destiny. Junot sold all he had to buy a sword, to make his +first campaign; all I have is my shame, and here it goes for a suit of +clothes!’ And, with these words, he rushed down to Walpole’s +dressing-room, and not taking time to inspect and select the contents, +carried off the box, as it was, with him. ‘I’ll tell him all when I +write,’ muttered he, as he drove away. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0026" id="link2HCH0026"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXVI +</h2> +<h3> +DICK KEARNEY’S CHAMBERS +</h3> +<p> +When Dick Kearney quitted Kilgobbin Castle for Dublin, he was very far +from having any projects in his head, excepting to show his cousin Nina +that he could live without her. +</p> +<p> +‘I believe,’ muttered he to himself, ‘she counts upon me as another +“victim.” These coquettish damsels have a theory that the “whole drama of +life” is the game of their fascinations and the consequences that come of +them, and that we men make it our highest ambition to win them, and +subordinate all we do in life to their favour. I should like to show her +that one man at least refuses to yield this allegiance, and that whatever +her blandishments do with others, with him they are powerless.’ +</p> +<p> +These thoughts were his travelling-companions for nigh fifty miles of +travel, and, like most travelling-companions, grew to be tiresome enough +towards the end of the journey. +</p> +<p> +When he arrived in Dublin, he was in no hurry to repair to his quarters in +Trinity; they were not particularly cheery in the best of times, and now +it was long vacation, with few men in town, and everything sad and +spiritless; besides this, he was in no mood to meet Atlee, whose +free-and-easy jocularity he knew he would not endure, even with his +ordinary patience. Joe had never condescended to write one line since he +had left Kilgobbin, and Dick, who felt that in presenting him to his +family he had done him immense honour, was proportionately indignant at +this show of indifference. But, by the same easy formula with which he +could account for anything in Nina’s conduct by her ‘coquetry,’ he was +able to explain every deviation from decorum of Joe Atlee’s by his +‘snobbery.’ And it is astonishing how comfortable the thought made him, +that this man, in all his smartness and ready wit, in his prompt power to +acquire, and his still greater quickness to apply knowledge, was after all +a most consummate snob. +</p> +<p> +He had no taste for a dinner at commons, so he ate his mutton-chop at a +tavern, and went to the play. Ineffably bored, he sauntered along the +almost deserted streets of the city, and just as midnight was striking, he +turned under the arched portal of the college. Secretly hoping that Atlee +might be absent, he inserted the key and entered his quarters. +</p> +<p> +The grim old coal-bunker in the passage, the silent corridor, and the +dreary room at the end of it, never looked more dismal than as he surveyed +them now by the light of a little wax-match he had lighted to guide his +way. There stood the massive old table in the middle, with its litter of +books and papers—memories of many a headache; and there was the +paper of coarse Cavendish, against which he had so often protested, as +well as a pewter-pot—a new infraction against propriety since he had +been away. Worse, however, than all assaults on decency, were a pair of +coarse highlows, which had been placed within the fender, and had +evidently enjoyed the fire so long as it lingered in the grate. +</p> +<p> +‘So like the fellow! so like him!’ was all that Dick could mutter, and he +turned away in disgust. +</p> +<p> +As Atlee never went to bed till daybreak, it was quite clear that he was +from home, and as the college gates could not reopen till morning, Dick +was not sorry to feel that he was safe from all intrusion for some hours. +With this consolation, he betook him to his bedroom, and proceeded to +undress. Scarcely, however, had he thrown off his coat than a heavy, +long-drawn respiration startled him. He stopped and listened: it came +again, and from the bed. He drew nigh, and there, to his amazement, on his +own pillow, lay the massive head of a coarse-looking, vulgar man of about +thirty, with a silk handkerchief fastened over it as nightcap. A brawny +arm lay outside the bedclothes, with an enormous hand of very questionable +cleanness, though one of the fingers wore a heavy gold ring. +</p> +<p> +Wishing to gain what knowledge he might of his guest before awaking him, +Dick turned to inspect his clothes, which, in a wild disorder, lay +scattered through the room. They were of the very poorest; but such still +as might have belonged to a very humble clerk, or a messenger in a +counting-house. A large black leather pocket-book fell from a pocket of +the coat, and, in replacing it, Dick perceived it was filled with letters. +On one of these, as he closed the clasp, he read the name, ‘Mr. Daniel +Donogan, Dartmouth Gaol.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What!’ cried he, ‘is this the great head-centre, Donogan, I have read so +much of? and how is he here?’ +</p> +<p> +Though Dick Kearney was not usually quick of apprehension, he was not long +here in guessing what the situation meant: it was clear enough that +Donogan, being a friend of Joe Atlee, had been harboured here as a safe +refuge. Of all places in the capital, none were so secure from the visits +of the police as the college; indeed, it would have been no small hazard +for the public force to have invaded these precincts. Calculating +therefore that Kearney was little likely to leave Kilgobbin at present, +Atlee had installed his friend in Dick’s quarters. The indiscretion was a +grave one; in fact, there was nothing—even to expulsion itself—might +not have followed on discovery. +</p> +<p> +‘So like him! so like him!’ was all he could mutter, as he arose and +walked about the room. +</p> +<p> +While he thus mused, he turned into Atlee’s bedroom, and at once it +appeared why Mr. Donogan had been accommodated in his room. Atlee’s was +perfectly destitute of everything: bed, chest of drawers, dressing-table, +chair, and bath were all gone. The sole object in the chamber was a coarse +print of a well-known informer of the year ‘98, ‘Jemmy O’Brien,’ under +whose portrait was written, in Atlee’s hand, ‘Bought in at +fourpence-halfpenny, at the general sale, in affectionate remembrance of +his virtues, by one who feels himself to be a relative.—J.A.’ +Kearney tore down the picture in passion, and stamped upon it; indeed, his +indignation with his chum had now passed all bounds of restraint. +</p> +<p> +‘So like him in everything!’ again burst from him in utter bitterness. +</p> +<p> +Having thus satisfied himself that he had read the incident aright, he +returned to the sitting-room, and at once decided that he would leave +Donogan to his rest till morning. +</p> +<p> +‘It will be time enough then to decide what is to be done,’ thought he. +</p> +<p> +He then proceeded to relight the fire, and drawing a sofa near, he wrapped +himself in a railway-rug, and lay down to sleep. For a long time he could +not compose himself to slumber: he thought of Nina and her wiles—ay, +they were wiles; he saw them plainly enough. It was true he was no prize—no +‘catch,’ as they call it—to angle for, and such a girl as she was +could easily look higher; but still he might swell the list of those +followers she seemed to like to behold at her feet offering up every +homage to her beauty, even to their actual despair. And he thought of his +own condition—very hopeless and purposeless as it was. +</p> +<p> +‘What a journey, to be sure, was life without a goal to strive for. +Kilgobbin would be his one day; but by that time would it be able to pay +off the mortgages that were raised upon it? It was true Atlee was no +richer, but Atlee was a shifty, artful fellow, with scores of contrivances +to go windward of fortune in even the very worst of weather. Atlee would +do many a thing <i>he</i> would not stoop to.’ +</p> +<p> +And as Kearney said this to himself, he was cautious in the use of his +verb, and never said ‘could,’ but always ‘would’ do; and oh dear! is it +not in this fashion that so many of us keep up our courage in life, and +attribute to the want of will what we well know lies in the want of power. +</p> +<p> +Last of all he bethought himself of this man Donogan, a dangerous fellow +in a certain way, and one whose companionship must be got rid of at any +price. Plotting over in his mind how this should be done in the morning, +he at last fell fast asleep. +</p> +<p> +So overcome was he by slumber, that he never awoke when that venerable +institution called the college woman—the hag whom the virtue of +unerring dons insists o imposing as a servant on resident students—entered, +made up the fire, swept up the room, and arranged the breakfast-table. It +was only as she jogged his arm to ask him for an additional penny to buy +more milk, that he awoke and remembered where he was. +</p> +<p> +‘Will I get yer honour a bit of bacon?’ asked she, in a tone intended to +be insinuating. +</p> +<p> +‘Whatever you like,’ said he drowsily. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s himself there likes a rasher—when he can get it,’ said she, +with a leer, and a motion of her thumb towards the adjoining room. +</p> +<p> +‘Whom do you mean?’ asked he, half to learn what and how much she knew of +his neighbour. +</p> +<p> +‘Oh! don’t I know him well?—Dan Donogan,’ replied she, with a grin. +‘Didn’t I see him in the dock with Smith O’Brien in ‘48, and wasn’t he in +trouble again after he got his pardon; and won’t he always be in trouble?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Hush! don’t talk so loud,’ cried Dick warningly. +</p> +<p> +‘He’d not hear me now if I was screechin’; it’s the only time he sleeps +hard; for he gets up about three or half-past—before it’s day—and +he squeezes through the bars of the window, and gets out into the park, +and he takes his exercise there for two hours, most of the time running +full speed and keeping himself in fine wind. Do you know what he said to +me the other day? “Molly,” says he, “when I know I can get between those +bars there, and run round the college park in three minutes and twelve +seconds, I feel that there’s not many a gaol in Ireland can howld, and the +divil a policeman in the island could catch, me.”’ And she had to lean +over the back of a chair to steady herself while she laughed at the +conceit. +</p> +<p> +‘I think, after all,’ said Kearney, ‘I’d rather keep out of the scrape +than trust to that way of escaping it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘<i>He</i> wouldn’t,’ said she. ‘He’d rather be seducin’ soldiers in +Barrack Street, or swearing in a new Fenian, or nailing a death-warnin’ on +a hall door, than he’d be lord mayor! If he wasn’t in mischief he’d like +to be in his grave.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what comes of it all?’ said Kearney, scarcely giving any exact +meaning to his words. +</p> +<p> +‘That’s what I do be saying myself,’ cried the hag. ‘When they can +transport you for singing a ballad, and send you to pick oakum for a green +cravat, it’s time to take to some other trade than patriotism!’ And with +this reflection she shuffled away, to procure the materials for breakfast. +</p> +<p> +The fresh rolls, the watercress, a couple of red herrings devilled as +those ancient damsels are expert in doing, and a smoking dish of rashers +and eggs, flanked by a hissing tea-kettle, soon made their appearance, the +hag assuring Kearney that a stout knock with the poker on the back of the +grate would summon Mr. Donogan almost instantaneously—so rapidly, +indeed, and with such indifference as to raiment, that, as she modestly +declared, ‘I have to take to my heels the moment I call him,’ and the +modest avowal was confirmed by her hasty departure. +</p> +<p> +The assurance was so far correct, that scarcely had Kearney replaced the +poker, when the door opened, and one of the strangest figures he had ever +beheld presented itself in the room. He was a short, thick-set man with a +profusion of yellowish hair, which, divided in the middle of the head, +hung down on either side to his neck—beard and moustache of the same +hue, left little of the face to be seen but a pair of lustrous blue eyes, +deep-sunken in their orbits, and a short wide-nostrilled nose, which bore +the closest resemblance to a lion’s. Indeed, a most absurd likeness to the +king of beasts was the impression produced on Kearney as this wild-looking +fellow bounded forward, and stood there amazed at finding a stranger to +confront him. +</p> +<p> +His dress was a flannel-shirt and trousers, and a pair of old slippers +which had once been Kearney’s own. +</p> +<p> +‘I was told by the college woman how I was to summon you, Mr. Donogan,’ +said Kearney good-naturedly. ‘You are not offended with the liberty?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Are you Dick?’ asked the other, coming forward. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes. I think most of my friends know me by that name.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And the old devil has told you mine?’ asked he quickly. +</p> +<p> +‘No, I believe I discovered that for myself. I tumbled over some of your +things last night, and saw a letter addressed to you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You didn’t read it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Certainly not. It fell out of your pocket-book, and I put it back there.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So the old hag didn’t blab on me? I’m anxious about this, because it’s +got out somehow that I’m back again. I landed at Kenmare in a fishing-boat +from the New York packet, the <i>Osprey</i>, on Tuesday fortnight, and +three of the newspapers had it before I was a week on shore.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Our breakfast is getting cold; sit down here and let me help you. Will +you begin with a rasher?’ +</p> +<p> +Not replying to the invitation, Donogan covered his plate with bacon, and +leaning his arm on the table, stared fixedly at Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m as glad as fifty pounds of it,’ muttered he slowly to himself. +</p> +<p> +‘Glad of what?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Glad that you’re not a swell, Mr. Kearney,’ said he gravely. ‘“The +Honourable Richard Kearney,” whenever I repeated that to myself, it gave +me a cold sweat. I thought of velvet collars and a cravat with a grand pin +in it, and a stuck-up creature behind both, that wouldn’t condescend to +sit down with me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m sure Joe Atlee gave you no such impression of me.’ +</p> +<p> +A short grunt that might mean anything was all the reply. +</p> +<p> +‘He was my chum, and knew me better,’ reiterated the other. +</p> +<p> +‘He knows many a thing he doesn’t say, and he says plenty that he doesn’t +know. “Kearney will be a swell,” said I, “and he’ll turn upon me just out +of contempt for my condition.’” +</p> +<p> +‘That was judging me hardly, Mr. Donogan.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, it wasn’t; it’s the treatment the mangy dogs meet all the world over. +Why is England insolent to us, but because we’re poor—answer me +that? Are we mangy? Don’t you feel mangy?—I know <i>I</i> do!’ +</p> +<p> +Dick smiled a sort of mild contradiction, but said nothing. +</p> +<p> +‘Now that I see you, Mr. Kearney,’ said the other, ‘I’m as glad as a +ten-pound note about a letter I wrote you—’ +</p> +<p> +‘I never received a letter from you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Sure I know you didn’t! haven’t I got it here?’ And he drew forth a +square-shaped packet and held it up before him. ‘I never said that I sent +it, nor I won’t send it now: here’s its present address,’ added he, as he +threw it on the fire and pressed it down with his foot. +</p> +<p> +‘Why not have given it to me now?’ asked the other. +</p> +<p> +‘Because three minutes will tell you all that was in it, and better than +writing; for I can reply to anything that wants an explanation, and that’s +what a letter cannot. First of all, do you know that Mr. Claude Barry, +your county member, has asked for the Chiltern, and is going to resign?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, I have not heard it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, it’s a fact. They are going to make him a second secretary +somewhere, and pension him off. He has done his work: he voted an Arms +Bill and an Insurrection Act, and he had the influenza when the amnesty +petition was presented, and sure no more could be expected from any man.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The question scarcely concerns me; our interest in the county is so small +now, we count for very little.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And don’t you know how to make your influence greater?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot say that I do.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Go to the poll yourself, Richard Kearney, and be the member.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are talking of an impossibility, Mr. Donogan. First of all, we have +no fortune, no large estates in the county, with a wide tenantry and +plenty of votes; secondly, we have no place amongst the county families, +as our old name and good blood might have given us; thirdly, we are of the +wrong religion, and, I take it, with as wrong politics; and lastly, we +should not know what to do with the prize if we had won it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Wrong in every one of your propositions—wholly wrong,’ cried the +other. ‘The party that will send you in won’t want to be bribed, and +they’ll be proud of a man who doesn’t overtop them with his money. You +don’t need the big families, for you’ll beat them. Your religion is the +right one, for it will give you the Priests; and your politics shall be +Repeal, and it will give you the Peasants; and as to not knowing what to +do when you’re elected, are you so mighty well off in life that you’ve +nothing to wish for?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can scarcely say that,’ said Dick, smiling. +</p> +<p> +‘Give me a few minutes’ attention,’ said Donogan, ‘and I think I’ll show +you that I’ve thought this matter out and out; indeed, before I sat down +to write to you, I went into all the details.’ +</p> +<p> +And now, with a clearness and a fairness that astonished Kearney, this +strange-looking fellow proceeded to prove how he had weighed the whole +difficulty, and saw how, in the nice balance of the two great parties who +would contest the seat, the Repealer would step in and steal votes from +both. +</p> +<p> +He showed not only that he knew every barony of the county, and every +estate and property, but that he had a clear insight into the different +localities where discontent prevailed, and places where there was +something more than discontent. +</p> +<p> +‘It is down there,’ said he significantly, ‘that I can be useful. The man +that has had his foot in the dock, and only escaped having his head in the +noose, is never discredited in Ireland. Talk Parliament and parliamentary +tactics to the small shopkeepers in Moate, and leave me to talk treason to +the people in the bog.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But I mistake you and your friends greatly,’ said Kearney, ‘if these were +the tactics you always followed; I thought that you were the +physical-force party, who sneered at constitutionalism and only believed +in the pike.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So we did, so long as we saw O’Connell and the lawyers working the game +of that grievance for their own advantage, and teaching the English +Government how to rule Ireland by a system of concession to <i>them</i> +and to <i>their</i> friends. Now, however, we begin to perceive that to +assault that heavy bastion of Saxon intolerance, we must have spies in the +enemy’s fortress, and for this we send in so many members to the Whig +party. There are scores of men who will aid us by their vote who would not +risk a bone in our cause. Theirs is a sort of subacute patriotism; but it +has its use. It smashes an Established Church, breaks down Protestant +ascendency, destroys the prestige of landed property, and will in time +abrogate entail and primogeniture, and many another fine thing; and in +this way it clears the ground for our operations, just as soldiers fell +trees and level houses lest they interfere with the range of heavy +artillery.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So that the place you would assign me is that very honourable one you +have just called a “spy in the camp”?’ +</p> +<p> +‘By a figure I said that, Mr. Kearney; but you know well enough what I +meant was, that there’s many a man will help us on the Treasury benches +that would not turn out on Tallaght; and we want both. I won’t say,’ added +he, after a pause, ‘I’d not rather see you a leader in our ranks than a +Parliament man. I was bred a doctor, Mr. Kearney, and I must take an +illustration from my own art. To make a man susceptible of certain +remedies, you are often obliged to reduce his strength and weaken his +constitution. So it is here. To bring Ireland into a condition to be +bettered by Repeal, you must crush the Church and smash the bitter +Protestants. The Whigs will do these for us, but we must help them. Do you +understand me now?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe I do. In the case you speak of, then, the Government will +support my election.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Against a Tory, yes; but not against a pure Whig—a thorough-going +supporter, who would bargain for nothing for his country, only something +for his own relations.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If your project has an immense fascination for me at one moment, and +excites my ambition beyond all bounds, the moment I turn my mind to the +cost, and remember my own poverty, I see nothing but hopelessness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s not my view of it, nor when you listen to me patiently, will it, I +believe, be yours. Can we have another talk over this in the evening?’ +</p> +<p> +‘To be sure! we’ll dine here together at six.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, never mind me, think of yourself, Mr. Kearney, and your own +engagements. As to the matter of dining, a crust of bread and a couple of +apples are fully as much as I want or care for.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We’ll dine together to-day at six,’ said Dick, ‘and bear in mind, I am +more interested in this than you are.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0027" id="link2HCH0027"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXVII +</h2> +<h3> +A CRAFTY COUNSELLOR +</h3> +<p> +As they were about to sit down to dinner on that day, a telegram, +re-directed from Kilgobbin, reached Kearney’s hand. It bore the date of +that morning from Plmnuddm Castle, and was signed ‘Atlee.’ Its contents +were these: ‘H. E. wants to mark the Kilgobbin defence with some sign of +approval. What shall it be? Reply by wire.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Read that, and tell us what you think of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Joe Atlee at the Viceroy’s castle in Wales!’ cried the other. ‘We’re +going up the ladder hand over head, Mr. Kearney! A week ago his ambition +was bounded on the south by Ship Street, and on the east by the Lower +Castle Yard.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How do you understand the despatch?’ asked Kearney quickly. +</p> +<p> +‘Easily enough. His Excellency wants to know what you’ll have for shooting +down three—I think they were three—Irishmen.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The fellows came to demand arms, and with loaded guns in their hands.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And if they did! Is not the first right of a man the weapon that defends +him? He that cannot use it or does not possess it, is a slave. By what +prerogative has Kilgobbin Castle within its walls what can take the life +of any, the meanest, tenant on the estate?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not going to discuss this with you; I think I have heard most of it +before, and was not impressed when I did so. What I asked was, what sort +of a recognition one might safely ask for and reasonably expect?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s not long to look for. Let them support you in the county. +Telegraph back, “I’m going to stand, and, if I get in, will be a Whig +whenever I am not a Nationalist. Will the party stand by me?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Scarcely with that programme.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And do you think that the priests’ nominees, who are three-fourths of the +Irish members, offer better terms? Do you imagine that the men that crowd +the Whig lobby have not reserved their freedom of action about the Pope, +and the Fenian prisoners, and the Orange processionists? If they were not +free so far, I’d ask you with the old Duke, How is Her Majesty’s +Government to be carried on?’ +</p> +<p> +Kearney shook his head in dissent. +</p> +<p> +‘And that’s not all,’ continued the other; ‘but you must write to the +papers a flat contradiction of that shooting story. You must either +declare that it never occurred at all, or was done by that young scamp +from the Castle, who happily got as much as he gave.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That I could not do,’ said Kearney firmly. +</p> +<p> +‘And it is that precisely that you must do,’ rejoined the other. ‘If you +go into the House to represent the popular feeling of Irishmen, the hand +that signs the roll must not be stained with Irish blood.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You forget; I was not within fifty miles of the place.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And another reason to disavow it. Look here, Mr. Kearney: if a man in a +battle was to say to himself, I’ll never give any but a fair blow, he’d +make a mighty bad soldier. Now, public life is a battle, and worse than a +battle in all that touches treachery and falsehood. If you mean to do any +good in the world, to yourself and your country, take my word for it, +you’ll have to do plenty of things that you don’t like, and, what’s worse, +can’t defend.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The soup is getting cold all this time. Shall we sit down?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not till we answer the telegram. Sit down and say what I told you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Atlee will say I’m mad. He knows that I have not a shilling in the +world.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Riches is not the badge of the representation,’ said the other. +</p> +<p> +‘They can at least pay the cost of the elections.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, we’ll pay ours too—not all at once, but later on; don’t fret +yourself about that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They’ll refuse me flatly.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, we have a lien on the fine gentleman with the broken arm. What would +the Tories give for that story, told as I could tell it to them? At all +events, whatever you do in life, remember this—that if asked your +price for anything you have done, name the highest, and take nothing if +it’s refused you. It’s a waiting race, but I never knew it fail in the +end.’ +</p> +<p> +Kearney despatched his message, and sat down to the table, far too much +flurried and excited to care for his dinner. Not so his guest, who ate +voraciously, seldom raising his head and never uttering a word. ‘Here’s to +the new member for King’s County,’ said he at last, and he drained off his +glass; ‘and I don’t know a pleasanter way of wishing a man prosperity than +in a bumper. Has your father any politics, Mr. Kearney?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He thinks he’s a Whig, but, except hating the Established Church and +having a print of Lord Russell over the fireplace, I don’t know he has +other reason for the opinion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All right; there’s nothing finer for a young man entering public life +than to be able to sneer at his father for a noodle. That’s the practical +way to show contempt for the wisdom of our ancestors. There’s no appeal +the public respond to with the same certainty as that of the man who +quarrels with his relations for the sake of his principles, and whether it +be a change in your politics or your religion, they’re sure to uphold +you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If differing with my father will ensure my success, I can afford to be +confident,’ said Dick, smiling. +</p> +<p> +‘Your sister has her notions about Ireland, hasn’t she?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I believe she has; but she fancies that laws and Acts of Parliament +are not the things in fault, but ourselves and our modes of dealing with +the people, that were not often just, and were always capricious. I am not +sure how she works out her problem, but I believe we ought to educate each +other; and that in turn, for teaching the people to read and write, there +are scores of things to be learned from them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And the Greek girl?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The Greek girl’—began Dick haughtily, and with a manner that +betokened rebuke, and which suddenly changed as he saw that nothing in the +other’s manner gave any indication of intended freedom or insolence—‘The +Greek is my first cousin, Mr. Donogan,’ said he calmly; ‘but I am anxious +to know how you have heard of her, or indeed of any of us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘From Joe—Joe Atlee! I believe we have talked you over—every +one of you—till I know you all as well as if I lived in the castle +and called you by your Christian names. Do you know, Mr. Kearney’—and +his voice trembled now as he spoke—‘that to a lone and desolate man +like myself, who has no home, and scarcely a country, there is something +indescribably touching in the mere picture of the fireside, and the family +gathered round it, talking over little homely cares and canvassing the +changes of each day’s fortune. I could sit here half the night and listen +to Atlee telling how you lived, and the sort of things that interested +you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So that you’d actually like to look at us?’ +</p> +<p> +Donogan’s eyes grew glassy, and his lips trembled, but he could not utter +a word. +</p> +<p> +‘So you shall, then,’ cried Dick resolutely. ‘We’ll start to-morrow by the +early train. You’ll not object to a ten miles’ walk, and we’ll arrive for +dinner.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you know who it is you are inviting to your father’s house? Do you +know that I am an escaped convict, with a price on my head this minute? Do +you know the penalty of giving me shelter, or even what the law calls +comfort?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know this, that in the heart of the Bog of Allen, you’ll be far safer +than in the city of Dublin; that none shall ever learn who you are, nor, +if they did, is there one—the poorest in the place—would +betray you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is of you, sir, I’m thinking, not of me,’ said Donogan calmly. +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t fret yourself about us. We are well known in our county, and above +suspicion. Whenever you yourself should feel that your presence was like +to be a danger, I am quite willing to believe you’d take yourself off.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You judge me rightly, sir, and I am proud to see it; but how are you to +present me to your friends?’ +</p> +<p> +‘As a college acquaintance—a friend of Atlee’s and of mine—a +gentleman who occupied the room next me. I can surely say that with +truth.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And dined with you every day since you knew him. Why not add that?’ +</p> +<p> +He laughed merrily over this conceit, and at last Donogan said, ‘I’ve a +little kit of clothes—something decenter than these—up in +Thomas Street, No. 13, Mr. Kearney; the old house Lord Edward was shot in, +and the safest place in Dublin now, because it is so notorious. I’ll step +up for them this evening, and I’ll be ready to start when you like.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Here’s good fortune to us, whatever we do next,’ said Kearney, filling +both their glasses; and they touched the brims together, and clinked them +before they drained them. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0028" id="link2HCH0028"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXVIII +</h2> +<h3> +‘ON THE LEADS’ +</h3> +<p> +Kate Kearney’s room was on the top of the castle, and ‘gave’ by a window +over the leads of a large square tower. On this space she had made a +little garden of a few flowers, to tend which was of what she called her +‘dissipations.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0008" id="linkimage-0008"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/225.jpg" + alt="‘Is Not That As Fine As Your Boasted Campagna?’" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +Some old packing-cases filled with mould sufficed to nourish a few stocks +and carnations, a rose or two, and a mass of mignonette, which possibly, +like the children of the poor, grew up sturdy and healthy from some of the +adverse circumstances of their condition. It was a very favourite spot +with her; and if she came hither in her happiest moments, it was here also +her saddest hours were passed, sure that in the cares and employments of +her loved plants she would find solace and consolation. It was at this +window Kate now sat with Nina, looking over the vast plain, on which a +rich moonlight was streaming, the shadows of fast-flitting clouds throwing +strange and fanciful effects over a space almost wide enough to be a +prairie. +</p> +<p> +‘What a deal have mere names to do with our imaginations, Nina!’ said +Kate. ‘Is not that boundless sweep before us as fine as your boasted +Campagna? Does not the night wind career over it as joyfully, and is not +the moonlight as picturesque in its breaks by turf-clamp and hillock as by +ruined wall and tottering temple? In a word, are not we as well here, to +drink in all this delicious silence, as if we were sitting on your loved +Pincian?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t ask me to share such heresies. I see nothing out there but bleak +desolation. I don’t know if it ever had a past; I can almost swear it will +have no future. Let us not talk of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What shall we talk of?’ asked Kate, with an arch smile. +</p> +<p> +‘You know well enough what led me up here. I want to hear what you know of +that strange man Dick brought here to-day to dinner.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I never saw him before—never even heard of him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you like him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have scarcely seen him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t be so guarded and reserved. Tell me frankly the impression he makes +on you. Is he not vulgar—very vulgar?’ +</p> +<p> +‘How should I say, Nina? Of all the people you ever met, who knows so +little of the habits of society as myself? Those fine gentlemen who were +here the other day shocked my ignorance by numberless little displays of +indifference. Yet I can feel that they must have been paragons of +good-breeding, and that what I believed to be a very cool +self-sufficiency, was in reality the very latest London version of good +manners.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, you did not like that charming carelessness of Englishmen that goes +where it likes and when it likes, that does not wait to be answered when +it questions, and only insists on one thing, which is—“not to be +bored.” If you knew, dearest Kate, how foreigners school themselves, and +strive to catch up that insouciance, and never succeed—never!’ +</p> +<p> +‘My brother’s friend certainly is no adept in it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is insufferable. I don’t know that the man ever dined in the company +of ladies before; did you remark that he did not open the door as we left +the dinner-room? and if your brother had not come over, I should have had +to open it for myself. I declare I’m not sure he stood up as we passed.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh yes; I saw him rise from his chair.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll tell you what you did not see. You did not see him open his napkin +at dinner. He stole his roll of bread very slyly from the folds, and then +placed the napkin, carefully folded, beside him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You seem to have observed him closely, Nina.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I did so, because I saw enough in his manner to excite suspicion of his +class, and I want to know what Dick means by introducing him here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Papa liked him; at least he said that after we left the room a good deal +of his shyness wore off, and that he conversed pleasantly and well. Above +all, he seems to know Ireland perfectly.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed!’ said she, half disdainfully. +</p> +<p> +‘So much so that I was heartily sorry to leave the room when I heard them +begin the topic; but I saw papa wished to have some talk with him, and I +went.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They were gallant enough not to join us afterwards, though I think we +waited tea till ten.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Till nigh eleven, Nina; so that I am sure they must have been interested +in their conversation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope the explanation excuses them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know that they are aware they needed an apology. Perhaps they +were affecting a little of that British insouciance you spoke of—’ +</p> +<p> +‘They had better not. It will sit most awkwardly on their Irish habits.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Some day or other I’ll give you a formal battle on this score, Nina, and +I warn you you’ll not come so well out of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Whenever you like. I accept the challenge. Make this brilliant companion +of your brother’s the type, and it will test your cleverness, I promise +you. Do you even know his name?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Daniel, my brother called him; but I know nothing of his country or +of his belongings.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Daniel is a Christian name, not a family name, is it not? We have scores +of people like that—Tommasina, Riccardi, and such like—in +Italy, but they mean nothing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Our friend below-stairs looks as if <i>that</i> was not his failing. I +should say that he means a good deal.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, I know you are laughing at my stupid phrase—no matter; you +understand me, at all events. I don’t like that man.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Dick’s friends are not fortunate with you. I remember how unfavourably +you judged of Mr. Atlee from his portrait.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, he looked rather better than his picture—less false, I mean; +or perhaps it was that he had a certain levity of manner that carried off +the perfidy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What an amiable sort of levity!’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are too critical on me by half this evening,’ said Nina pettishly; +and she arose and strolled out upon the leads. +</p> +<p> +For some time Kate was scarcely aware she had gone. Her head was full of +cares, and she sat trying to think some of them ‘out,’ and see her way to +deal with them. At last the door of the room slowly and noiselessly +opened, and Dick put in his head. +</p> +<p> +‘I was afraid you might be asleep, Kate,’ said he, entering, ‘finding all +so still and quiet here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No. Nina and I were chatting here—squabbling, I believe, if I were +to tell the truth; and I can’t tell when she left me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What could you be quarrelling about?’ asked he, as he sat down beside +her. +</p> +<p> +‘I think it was with that strange friend of yours. We were not quite +agreed whether his manners were perfect, or his habits those of the +well-bred world. Then we wanted to know more of him, and each was +dissatisfied that the other was so ignorant; and, lastly, we were +canvassing that very peculiar taste you appear to have in friends, and +were wondering where you find your odd people.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So then you don’t like Donogan?’ said he hurriedly. +</p> +<p> +‘Like whom? And you call him Donogan!’ +</p> +<p> +‘The mischief is out,’ said he. ‘Not that I wanted to have secrets from +you; but all the same, I am a precious bungler. His name is Donogan, and +what’s more, it’s Daniel Donogan. He was the same who figured in the dock +at, I believe, sixteen years of age, with Smith O’Brien and the others, +and was afterwards seen in England in ‘59, known as a head-centre, and +apprehended on suspicion in ‘60, and made his escape from Dartmoor the +same year. There’s a very pretty biography in skeleton, is it not?’ +</p> +<p> +‘But, my dear Dick, how are you connected with him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not very seriously. Don’t be afraid. I’m not compromised in any way, nor +does he desire that I should be. Here is the whole story of our +acquaintance.’ +</p> +<p> +And now he told what the reader already knows of their first meeting and +the intimacy that followed it. +</p> +<p> +‘All that will take nothing from the danger of harbouring a man charged as +he is,’ said she gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘That is to say, if he be tracked and discovered.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is what I mean.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, one has only to look out of that window, and see where we are, and +what lies around us on every side, to be tolerably easy on that score.’ +</p> +<p> +And, as he spoke, he arose and walked out upon the terrace. +</p> +<p> +‘What, were you here all this time?’ asked he, as he saw Nina seated on +the battlement, and throwing dried leaves carelessly to the wind. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I have been here this half-hour, perhaps longer.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And heard what we have been saying within there?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Some chance words reached me, but I did not follow them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, it was here you were, then, Nina!’ cried Kate. ‘I am ashamed to say I +did not know it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We got so warm in discussing your friend’s merits or demerits, that we +parted in a sort of huff,’ said Nina. ‘I wonder was he worth quarrelling +for?’ +</p> +<p> +‘What should <i>you</i> say?’ asked Dick inquiringly, as he scanned her +face. +</p> +<p> +‘In any other land, I might say he was—that is, that some interest +might attach to him; but here, in Ireland, you all look so much brighter, +and wittier, and more impetuous, and more out of the common than you +really are, that I give up all divination of you, and own I cannot read +you at all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope you like the explanation,’ said Kate to her brother, laughing. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll tell my friend of it in the morning,’ said Dick; ‘and as he is a +great national champion, perhaps he’ll accept it as a defiance.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You do not frighten me by the threat,’ said Nina calmly. +</p> +<p> +Dick looked from her face to her sister’s and back again to hers, to +discern if he might how much she had overheard; but he could read nothing +in her cold and impassive bearing, and he went his way in doubt and +confusion. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0029" id="link2HCH0029"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXIX +</h2> +<h3> +ON A VISIT AT KILGOBBIN +</h3> +<p> +Before Kearney had risen from his bed the next morning, Donogan was in his +room, his look elated and his cheek glowing with recent exercise. ‘I have +had a burst of two hours’ sharp walking over the bog,’ cried he; ‘and it +has put me in such spirits as I have not known for many a year. Do you +know, Mr. Kearney, that what with the fantastic effects of the morning +mists, as they lift themselves over these vast wastes—the glorious +patches of blue heather and purple anemone that the sun displays through +the fog—and, better than all, the springiness of a soil that sends a +thrill to the heart, like a throb of youth itself, there is no walking in +the world can compare with a bog at sunrise! There’s a sentiment to open a +paper on nationalities! I came up with the postboy, and took his letters +to save him a couple of miles. Here’s one for you, I think from Atlee; and +this is also to your address, from Dublin; and here’s the last number of +the <i>Pike</i>, and you’ll see they have lost no time. There’s a few +lines about you. “Our readers will be grateful to us for the tidings we +announce to-day, with authority—that Richard Kearney, Esq., son of +Mathew Kearney, o Kilgobbin Castle, will contest his native county at the +approaching election. It will be a proud day for Ireland when she shall +see her representation in the names of those who dignify the exalted +station they hold in virtue of their birth and blood, by claims of +admitted talent and recognised ability. Mr. Kearney, junior, has swept the +university of its prizes, and the college gate has long seen his name at +the head of her prizemen. He contests the seat in the National interest. +It is needless to say all our sympathies, and hopes, and best wishes go +with him.”’ +</p> +<p> +Dick shook with laughing while the other read out the paragraph in a +high-sounding and pretentious tone. +</p> +<p> +‘I hope,’ said Kearney at last, ‘that the information as to my college +successes is not vouched for on authority.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who cares a fig about them? The phrase rounds off a sentence, and nobody +treats it like an affidavit.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But some one may take the trouble to remind the readers that my victories +have been defeats, and that in my last examination but one I got +“cautioned.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you imagine, Mr. Kearney, the House of Commons in any way reflects +college distinction? Do you look for senior-wranglers and double-firsts on +the Treasury bench? and are not the men who carry away distinction the men +of breadth, not depth? Is it not the wide acquaintance with a large field +of knowledge, and the subtle power to know how other men regard these +topics, that make the popular leader of the present day? and remember, it +is talk, and not oratory, is the mode. You must be commonplace, and even +vulgar, practical, dashed with a small morality, so as not to be classed +with the low Radical; and if then you have a bit of high-faluting for the +peroration, you’ll do. The morning papers will call you a young man of +great promise, and the whip will never pass you without a shake-hands.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But there are good speakers.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is Bright—I don’t think I know another—and he only at +times. Take my word for it, the secret of success with “the collective +wisdom” is reiteration. Tell them the same thing, not once or twice or +even ten, but fifty times, and don’t vary very much even the way you tell +it. Go on repeating your platitudes, and by the time you find you are +cursing your own stupid persistence, you may swear you have made a convert +to your opinions. If you are bent on variety, and must indulge it, ring +your changes on the man who brought these views before them—yourself, +but beyond these never soar. O’Connell, who had a variety at will for his +own countrymen, never tried it in England: he knew better. The chawbacons +that we sneer at are not always in smock-frocks, take my word for it; they +many of them wear wide-brimmed hats and broadcloth, and sit above the +gangway. Ay, sir,’ cried he, warming with the theme, ‘once I can get my +countrymen fully awakened to the fact of who and what are the men who rule +them, I’ll ask for no Catholic Associations, or Repeal Committees, or +Nationalist Clubs—the card-house of British supremacy will tumble of +itself; there will be no conflict, but simply submission.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We’re a long day’s journey from these convictions, I suspect,’ said +Kearney doubtfully. +</p> +<p> +‘Not so far, perhaps, as you think. Do you remark how little the English +press deal in abuse of us to what was once their custom? They have not, I +admit, come down to civility; but they don’t deride us in the old fashion, +nor tell us, as I once saw, that we are intellectually and physically +stamped with inferiority. If it was true, Mr. Kearney, it was stupid to +tell it to us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I think we could do better than dwell upon these things.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I deny that: deny it <i>in toto</i>. The moment you forget, in your +dealings with the Englishman, the cheap estimate he entertains, not alone +of your brains and your skill, but of your resolution, your persistence, +your strong will, ay, your very integrity, that moment, I say, places him +in a position to treat you as something below him. Bear in mind, however, +how he is striving to regard you, and it’s your own fault if you’re not +his equal, and something more perhaps. There was a man more than the +master of them all, and his name was Edmund Burke; and how did they treat +<i>him</i>? How insolently did they behave to O’Connell in the House till +he put his heel on them? Were they generous to Sheil? Were they just to +Plunket? No, no. The element that they decry in our people they know they +have not got, and they’d like to crush the race, when they cannot +extinguish the quality.’ +</p> +<p> +Donogan had so excited himself now that he walked up and down the room, +his voice ringing with emotion, and his arms wildly tossing in all the +extravagance of passion. ‘This is from Joe Atlee,’ said Kearney, as he +tore open the envelope:— +</p> +<p> +‘“DEAR DICK,—I cannot account for the madness that seems to have +seized you, except that Dan Donogan, the most rabid dog I know, has bitten +you. If so, for Heaven’s sake have the piece cut out at once, and use the +strongest cautery of common sense, if you know of any one who has a little +to spare. I only remembered yesterday that I ought to have told you I had +sheltered Dan in our rooms, but I can already detect that you have made +his acquaintance. He is not a bad fellow. He is sincere in his opinions, +and incorruptible, if that be the name for a man who, if bought to-morrow, +would not be worth sixpence to his owner. +</p> +<p> +‘“Though I resigned all respect for my own good sense in telling it, I was +obliged to let H. E. know the contents of your despatch, and then, as I +saw he had never heard of Kilgobbin, or the great Kearney family, I told +more lies of your estated property, your county station, your influence +generally, and your abilities individually, than the fee-simple of your +property, converted into masses, will see me safe through purgatory; and I +have consequently baited the trap that has caught myself; for, persuaded +by my eloquent advocacy of you all, H. E. has written to Walpole to make +certain inquiries concerning you, which, if satisfactory, he, Walpole, +will put himself in communication with you, as to the extent and the mode +to which the Government will support you. I think I can see Dan Donogan’s +fine hand in that part of your note which foreshadows a threat, and hints +that the Walpole story would, if published abroad, do enormous damage to +the Ministry. This, let me assure you, is a fatal error, and a blunder +which could only be committed by an outsider in political life. The days +are long past since a scandal could smash an administration; and we are so +strong now that arson or forgery could not hurt, and I don’t think that +infanticide would affect us. +</p> +<p> +‘“If you are really bent on this wild exploit, you should see Walpole, and +confer with him. You don’t talk well, but you write worse, so avoid +correspondence, and do all your indiscretions verbally. Be angry if you +like with my candour, but follow my counsel. +</p> +<p> +‘“See him, and show him, if you are able, that, all questions of +nationality apart, he may count upon your vote; that there are certain +impracticable and impossible conceits in politics—like repeal, +subdivision of land, restoration of the confiscated estates, and such like—on +which Irishmen insist on being free to talk balderdash, and air their +patriotism; but that, rightfully considered, they are as harmless and mean +just as little as a discussion on the Digamma, or a debate on perpetual +motion. The stupid Tories could never be brought to see this. Like genuine +dolts, they would have an army of supporters, one-minded with them in +everything. We know better, and hence we buy the Radical vote by a little +coquetting with communism, and the model working-man and the rebel by an +occasional gaol-delivery, and the Papist by a sop to the Holy Father. Bear +in mind, Dick—and it is the grand secret of political life—it +takes all sort of people to make a ‘party.’ When you have thoroughly +digested this aphorism, you are fit to start in the world. +</p> +<p> +‘“If you were not so full of what I am sure you would call your +‘legitimate ambitions,’ I’d like to tell you the glorious life we lead in +this place. Disraeli talks of ‘the well-sustained splendour of their +stately lives,’ and it is just the phrase for an existence in which all +the appliances to ease and enjoyment are supplied by a sort of magic, that +never shows its machinery, nor lets you hear the sound of its working. The +saddle-horses know when I want to ride by the same instinct that makes the +butler give me the exact wine I wish at my dinner. And so on throughout +the day, ‘the sustained splendour’ being an ever-present luxuriousness +that I drink in with a thirst that knows no slaking. +</p> +<p> +‘“I have made a hit with H.E., and from copying some rather muddle-headed +despatches, I am now promoted to writing short skeleton sermons on +politics, which, duly filled out and fattened with official nutriment, +will one day astonish the Irish Office, and make one of the Nestors of +bureaucracy exclaim, ‘See how Danesbury has got up the Irish question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘“I have a charming collaborateur, my lord’s niece, who was acting as his +private secretary up to the time of my arrival, and whose explanation of a +variety of things I found to be so essential that, from being at first in +the continual necessity of seeking her out, I have now arrived at a point +at which we write in the same room, and pass our mornings in the library +till luncheon. She is stunningly handsome, as tall as the Greek cousin, +and with a stately grace of manner and a cold dignity of demeanour I’d +give my heart’s blood to subdue to a mood of womanly tenderness and +dependence. Up to this, my position is that of a very humble courtier in +the presence of a queen, and she takes care that by no momentary +forgetfulness shall I lose sight of the ‘situation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘“She is engaged, they say, to be married to Walpole; but as I have not +heard that he is heir-apparent, or has even the reversion to the crown of +Spain, I cannot perceive what the contract means. +</p> +<p> +‘“I rode out with her to-day by special invitation, or permission—which +was it?—and in the few words that passed between us, she asked me if +I had long known Mr. Walpole, and put her horse into a canter without +waiting for my answer. +</p> +<p> +‘“With H. E. I can talk away freely, and without constraint. I am never +very sure that he does not know the things he questions me on better than +myself—a practice some of his order rather cultivate; but, on the +whole, our intercourse is easy. I know he is not a little puzzled about +me, and I intend that he should remain so. +</p> +<p> +‘“When you have seen and spoken with Walpole, write me what has taken +place between you; and though I am fully convinced that what you intend is +unmitigated folly, I see so many difficulties in the way, such obstacles, +and such almost impossibilities to be overcome, that I think Fate will be +more merciful to you than your ambitions, and spare you, by an early +defeat, from a crushing disappointment. +</p> +<p> +‘“Had you ambitioned to be a governor of a colony, a bishop, or a Queen’s +messenger—they are the only irresponsible people I can think of—I +might have helped you; but this conceit to be a Parliament man is such +irredeemable folly, one is powerless to deal with it. +</p> +<p> +‘“At all events, your time is not worth much, nor is your public character +of a very grave importance. Give them both, then, freely to the effort, +but do not let it cost you money, nor let Donogan persuade you that you +are one of those men who can make patriotism self-supporting. +</p> +<p> +‘“H. E. hints at a very confidential mission on which he desires to employ +me; and though I should leave this place now with much regret, and a more +tender sorrow than I could teach you to comprehend, I shall hold myself at +his orders for Japan if he wants me. Meanwhile, write to me what takes +place with Walpole, and put your faith firmly in the good-will and +efficiency of yours truly, +</p> +<p> +‘“JOE ATLEE. +</p> +<p> +‘“If you think of taking Donogan down with you to Kilgobbin, I ought to +tell you that it would be a mistake. Women invariably dislike him, and he +would do you no credit.’” +</p> +<p> +Dick Kearney, who had begun to read this letter aloud, saw himself +constrained to continue, and went on boldly, without stop or hesitation, +to the last word. +</p> +<p> +‘I am very grateful to you, Mr. Kearney, for this mark of trustfulness, +and I’m not in the least sore about all Joe has said of me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is not over complimentary to myself,’ said Kearney, and the irritation +he felt was not to be concealed. +</p> +<p> +‘There’s one passage in his letter,’ said the other thoughtfully, ‘well +worth all the stress he lays on it. He tells you never to forget it “takes +all sorts of men to make a party.” Nothing can more painfully prove the +fact than that we need Joe Atlee amongst ourselves! And it is true, Mr. +Kearney,’ said he sternly, ‘treason must now, to have any chance at all, +be many-handed. We want not only all sorts of men, but in all sorts of +places; and at tables where rebel opinions dared not be boldly announced +and defended, we want people who can coquet with felony, and get men to +talk over treason with little if any ceremony. Joe can do this—he +can write, and, what is better, sing you a Fenian ballad, and if he sees +he has made a mistake, he can quiz himself and his song as cavalierly as +he has sung it! And now, on my solemn oath I say it, I don’t know that +anything worse has befallen us than the fact that there are such men as +Joe Atlee amongst us, and that we need them—ay, sir, we need them!’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is brief enough, at any rate,’ said Kearney, as he broke open the +second letter:— +</p> +<p> +‘“DUBLIN CASTLE, <i>Wednesday Evening</i>. +</p> +<p> +‘“DEAR SIR,—Would you do me the great favour to call on me here at +your earliest convenient moment? I am still an invalid, and confined to a +sofa, or would ask for permission to meet you at your chambers.—Believe +me, yours faithfully, +</p> +<p> +CECIL WALPOLE.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘That cannot be delayed, I suppose?’ said Kearney, in the tone of a +question. +</p> +<p> +‘Certainly not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll go up by the night-mail. You’ll remain where you are, and where I +hope you feel you are with a welcome.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I feel it, sir—I feel it more than I can say.’ And his face was +blood-red as he spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘There are scores of things you can do while I am away. You’ll have to +study the county in all its baronies and subdivisions. There, my sister +can help you; and you’ll have to learn the names and places of our great +county swells, and mark such as may be likely to assist us. You’ll have to +stroll about in our own neighbourhood, and learn what the people near home +say of the intention, and pick up what you can of public opinion in our +towns of Moate and Kilbeggan.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have bethought me of all that—-’ He paused here and seemed to +hesitate if he should say more; and after an effort, he went on: ‘You’ll +not take amiss what I’m going to say, Mr. Kearney. You’ll make full +allowance for a man placed as I am; but I want, before you go, to learn +from you in what way, or as what, you have presented me to your family? Am +I a poor sizar of Trinity, whose hard struggle with poverty has caught +your sympathy? Am I a chance acquaintance, whose only claim on you is +being known to Joe Atlee? I’m sure I need not ask you, have you called me +by my real name and given me my real character?’ +</p> +<p> +Kearney flushed up to the eyes, and laying his hand on the other’s +shoulder, said, ‘This is exactly what I have done. I have told my sister +that you are the noted Daniel Donogan, United Irishman and rebel.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But only to your sister?’ +</p> +<p> +‘To none other.’ +</p> +<p> +‘<i>She</i>‘ll not betray me, I know that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are right there, Donogan. Here’s how it happened, for it was not +intended.’ And now he related how the name had escaped him. +</p> +<p> +‘So that the cousin knows nothing?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing whatever. My sister Kate is not one to make rash confidences, and +you may rely on it she has not told her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope and trust that this mistake will serve you for a lesson, Mr. +Kearney, and show you that to keep a secret, it is not enough to have an +honest intention, but a man must have a watch over his thoughts and a +padlock on his tongue. And now to something of more importance. In your +meeting with Walpole, mind one thing: no modesty, no humility; make your +demands boldly, and declare that your price is well worth the paying; let +him feel that, as he must make a choice between the priests and the +nationalists, we are the easier of the two to deal with: first of all, we +don’t press for prompt payment; and, secondly, we’ll not shock Exeter +Hall! Show him that strongly, and tell him that there are clever fellows +amongst us who’ll not compromise him or his party, and will never desert +him on a close division. Oh dear me, how I wish I was going in your +place.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So do I, with all my heart; but there’s ten striking, and we shall be +late for breakfast.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0030" id="link2HCH0030"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXX +</h2> +<h3> +THE MOATE STATION +</h3> +<p> +The train by which Miss Betty O’Shea expected her nephew was late in its +arrival at Moate, and Peter Gill, who had been sent with the car to fetch +him over, was busily discussing his second supper when the passengers +arrived. +</p> +<p> +‘Are you Mr. Gorman O’Shea, sir?’ asked Peter of a well-dressed and +well-looking young man, who had just taken his luggage from the train. +</p> +<p> +‘No; here he is,’ replied he, pointing to a tall, powerful young fellow, +whose tweed suit and billycock hat could not completely conceal a +soldierlike bearing and a sort of compactness that comes of ‘drill.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s my name. What do you want with me?’ cried he, in a loud but +pleasant voice. +</p> +<p> +‘Only that Miss Betty has sent me over with the car for your honour, if +it’s plazing to you to drive across.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What about this broiled bone, Miller?’ asked O’Shea. ‘I rather think I +like the notion better than when you proposed it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect you do,’ said the other; ‘but we’ll have to step over to the +“Blue Goat.” It’s only a few yards off, and they’ll be ready, for I +telegraphed them from town to be prepared as the train came in.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You seem to know the place well.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes. I may say I know something about it. I canvassed this part of the +county once for one of the Idlers, and I secretly determined, if I ever +thought of trying for a seat in the House, I’d make the attempt here. They +are a most pretentious set of beggars these small townsfolk, and they’d +rather hear themselves talk politics, and give their notions of what they +think “good for Ireland,” than actually pocket bank-notes; and that, my +dear friend, is a virtue in a constituency never to be ignored or +forgotten. The moment, then, I heard of M——‘s retirement, I +sent off a confidential emissary down here to get up what is called a +requisition, asking me to stand for the county. Here it is, and the +answer, in this morning’s <i>Freeman</i>. You can read it at your leisure. +Here we are now at the “Blue Goat”; and I see they are expecting us.’ +</p> +<p> +Not only was there a capital fire in the grate, and the table ready laid +for supper, but a half-dozen or more of the notabilities of Moate were in +waiting to receive the new candidate, and confer with him over the coming +contest. +</p> +<p> +‘My companion is the nephew of an old neighbour of yours, gentlemen,’ said +Miller; ‘Captain Gorman O’Shea, of the Imperial Lancers of Austria. I know +you have heard of, if you have not seen him.’ +</p> +<p> +A round of very hearty and demonstrative salutations followed, and +O’Gorman was well pleased at the friendly reception accorded him. +</p> +<p> +Austria was a great country, one of the company observed. They had got +liberal institutions and a free press, and they were good Catholics, who +would give those heretical Prussians a fine lesson one of these days; and +Gorman O’Shea’s health, coupled with these sentiments, was drank with all +the honours. +</p> +<p> +‘There’s a jolly old face that I ought to remember well,’ said Gorman, as +he looked up at the portrait of Lord Kilgobbin over the chimney. ‘When I +entered the service, and came back here on leave, he gave me the first +sword I ever wore, and treated me as kindly as if I was his son.’ +</p> +<p> +The hearty speech elicited no response from the hearers, who only +exchanged significant looks with each other, while Miller, apparently less +under restraint, broke in with, ‘That stupid adventure the English +newspapers called “The gallant resistance of Kilgobbin Castle” has lost +that man the esteem of Irishmen.’ +</p> +<p> +A perfect burst of approval followed these words; and while young O’Shea +eagerly pressed for an explanation of an incident of which he heard for +the first time, they one and all proceeded to give their versions of what +had occurred; but with such contradictions, corrections, and emendations +that the young man might be pardoned if he comprehended little of the +event. +</p> +<p> +‘They say his son will contest the county with you, Mr. Miller,’ cried +one. +</p> +<p> +‘Let me have no weightier rival, and I ask no more.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Faix, if he’s going to stand,’ said another, ‘his father might have taken +the trouble to ask us for our votes. Would you believe it, sir, it’s going +on six months since he put his foot in this room?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And do the “Goats” stand that?’ asked Miller. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t wonder he doesn’t care to come into Moate. There’s not a shop in +the town he doesn’t owe money to.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And we never refused him credit—-’ +</p> +<p> +‘For anything but his principles,’ chimed in an old fellow, whose oratory +was heartily relished. +</p> +<p> +‘He’s going to stand in the National interest,’ said one. +</p> +<p> +‘That’s the safe ticket when you have no money,’ said another. +</p> +<p> +‘Gentlemen,’ said Miller, who rose to his legs to give greater importance +to his address:—‘If we want to make Ireland a country to live in, +the only party to support is the Whig Government! The Nationalist may open +the gaols, give license to the press, hunt down the Orangemen, and make +the place generally too hot for the English. But are these the things that +you and I want or strive for? We want order and quietness in the land, and +the best places in it for ourselves to enjoy these blessings. Is Mr. Casey +down there satisfied to keep the post-office in Moate when he knows he +could be the first secretary in Dublin, at the head office, with two +thousand a year? Will my friend Mr. McGloin say that he’d rather pass his +life here than be a Commissioner of Customs, and live in Merrion Square? +Ain’t we men? Ain’t we fathers and husbands? Have we not sons to advance +and daughters to marry in the world, and how much will Nationalism do for +these? +</p> +<p> +‘I will not tell you that the Whigs love us or have any strong regard for +us; but they need us, gentlemen, and they know well that, without the +Radicals, and Scotland, and our party here, they couldn’t keep power for +three weeks. Now why is Scotland a great and prosperous country? I’ll tell +you. Scotland has no sentimental politics. Scotland says, in her own +homely adage, “Claw me and I’ll claw thee.” Scotland insists that there +should be Scotchmen everywhere—in the Post-Office, in the Privy +Council, in the Pipewater, and in the Punjab! Does Scotland go on +vapouring about an extinct nationality or the right of the Stuarts? Not a +bit of it. She says, Burn Scotch coal in the navy, though the smoke may +blind you and you never get up steam! She has no national absurdities: she +neither asks for a flag nor a Parliament. She demands only what will pay. +And it is by supporting the Whigs you will make Ireland as prosperous as +Scotland. Literally, the Fenians, gentlemen, will never make my friend +yonder a baronet, or put me on the Bench; and now that we are met here in +secret committee, I can say all this to you and none of it get abroad. +</p> +<p> +‘Mind, I never told you the Whigs love us, or said that we love the Whigs; +but we can each of us help the other. When <i>they</i> smash the +Protestant party, they are doing a fine stroke of work for Liberalism in +pulling down a cruel ascendency and righting the Romanists. And when we +crush the Protestants, we are opening the best places in the land to +ourselves by getting rid of our only rivals. Look at the Bench, gentlemen, +and the high offices of the courts. Have not we Papists, as they call us, +our share in both? And this is only the beginning, let me tell you. There +is a university in College Green due to us, and a number of fine palaces +that their bishops once lived in, and grand old cathedrals whose very +names show the rightful ownership; and when we have got all these—as +the Whigs will give them one day—even then we are only beginning. +And now turn the other side, and see what you have to expect from the +Nationalists. Some very hard fighting and a great number of broken heads. +I give in that you’ll drive the English out, take the Pigeon-House Fort, +capture the Magazine, and carry away the Lord-Lieutenant in chains. And +what will you have for it, after all, but another scrimmage amongst +yourselves for the spoils. Mr. Mullen, of the <i>Pike</i>, will want +something that Mr. Darby McKeown, of the <i>Convicted Felon</i>, has just +appropriated; Tom Casidy, that burned the Grand Master of the Orangemen, +finds that he is not to be pensioned for life; and Phil Costigan, that +blew up the Lodge in the Park, discovers that he is not even to get the +ruins as building materials. I tell you, my friends, it’s not in such +convulsions as these that you and I, and other sensible men like us, want +to pass our lives. We look for a comfortable berth and quarter-day; that’s +what we compound for—quarter-day—and I give it to you as a +toast with all the honours.’ +</p> +<p> +And certainly the rich volume of cheers that greeted the sentiment vouched +for a hearty and sincere recognition of the toast. +</p> +<p> +‘The chaise is ready at the door, councillor,’ cried the landlord, +addressing Mr. Miller, and after a friendly shake-hands all round, Miller +slipped his arm through O’Shea’s and drew him apart. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll be back this way in about ten days or so, and I’ll ask you to +present me to your aunt. She has got above a hundred votes on her +property, and I think I can count upon you to stand by me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can, perhaps, promise you a welcome at the Barn,’ muttered the young +fellow in some confusion; ‘but when you have seen my aunt, you’ll +understand why I give you no pledges on the score of political support.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, is that the way?’ asked Miller, with a knowing laugh. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, that’s the way, and no mistake about it,’ replied O’Shea, and they +parted. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0031" id="link2HCH0031"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXXI +</h2> +<h3> +HOW THE ‘GOATS’ REVOLTED +</h3> +<p> +In less than a week after the events last related, the members of the +‘Goat Club’ were summoned to an extraordinary and general meeting, by an +invitation from the vice-president, Mr. McGloin, the chief grocer and +hardware dealer of Kilbeggan. The terms of this circular seemed to +indicate importance, for it said—‘To take into consideration a +matter of vital interest to the society.’ +</p> +<p> +Though only the denizen of a very humble country town, McGloin possessed +certain gifts and qualities which might have graced a higher station. He +was the most self-contained and secret of men; he detected mysterious +meanings in every—the smallest—event of life; and as he +divulged none of his discoveries, and only pointed vaguely and dimly to +the consequences, he got credit for the correctness of his unuttered +predictions as completely as though he had registered his prophecies as +copyright at Stationers’ Hall. It is needless to say that on every +question, religious, social, or political, he was the paramount authority +of the town. It was but rarely indeed that a rebellious spirit dared to +set up an opinion in opposition to his; but if such a hazardous event were +to occur, he would suppress it with a dignity of manner which derived no +small aid from the resources of a mind rich in historical parallel; and it +was really curious for those who believe that history is always repeating +itself, to remark how frequently John McGloin represented the mind and +character of Lycurgus, and how often poor old, dreary, and bog-surrounded +Moate recalled the image of Sparta and its ‘sunny slopes.’ +</p> +<p> +Now, there is one feature of Ireland which I am not quite sure is very +generally known or appreciated on the other side of St. George’s Channel, +and this is the fierce spirit of indignation called up in a county +habitually quiet, when the newspapers bring it to public notice as the +scene of some lawless violence. For once there is union amongst Irishmen. +Every class, from the estated proprietor to the humblest peasant, is loud +in asserting that the story is an infamous falsehood. Magistrates, +priests, agents, middlemen, tax-gatherers, and tax-payers rush into print +to abuse the ‘blackguard’—he is always the blackguard—who +invented the lie; and men upwards of ninety are quoted to show that so +long as they could remember, there never was a man injured, nor a rick +burned, nor a heifer hamstrung in the six baronies round! Old newspapers +are adduced to show how often the going judge of assize has complimented +the grand-jury on the catalogue of crime; in a word, the whole population +is ready to make oath that the county is little short of a terrestrial +paradise, and that it is a district teeming with gentle landlords, pious +priests, and industrious peasants, without a plague-spot on the face of +the county, except it be the police-barrack, and the company of lazy +vagabonds with crossbelts and carbines that lounge before it. When, +therefore, the press of Dublin at first, and afterwards of the empire at +large, related the night attack for arms at Kilgobbin Castle, the first +impulse of the county at large was to rise up in the face of the nation +and deny the slander! Magistrates consulted together whether the +high-sheriff should not convene a meeting of the county. Priests took +counsel with the bishop, whether notice should not be taken of the calumny +from the altar. The small shopkeepers of the small towns, assuming that +their trade would be impaired by these rumours of disturbance—just +as Parisians used to declaim against barricades in the streets—are +violent in denouncing the malignant falsehoods upon a quiet and harmless +community; so that, in fact, every rank and condition vied with its +neighbour in declaring that the whole story was a base tissue of lies, and +which could only impose upon those who knew nothing of the county, nor of +the peaceful, happy, and brother-like creatures who inhabited it. +</p> +<p> +It was not to be supposed that, at such a crisis, Mr. John McGloin would +be inactive or indifferent. As a man of considerable influence at +elections, he had his weight with a county member, Mr. Price; and to him +he wrote, demanding that he should ask in the House what correspondence +had passed between Mr. Kearney and the Castle authorities with reference +to this supposed outrage, and whether the law-officers of the Crown, or +the adviser of the Viceroy, or the chiefs of the local police, or—to +quote the exact words—‘any sane or respectable man in the county’ +believed on word of the story. Lastly, that he would also ask whether any +and what correspondence had passed between Mr. Kearney and the Chief +Secretary with respect to a small house on the Kilgobbin property, which +Mr. Kearney had suggested as a convenient police-station, and for which he +asked a rent of twenty-five pounds per annum; and if such correspondence +existed, whether it had any or what relation to the rumoured attack on +Kilgobbin Castle? +</p> +<p> +If it should seem strange that a leading member of the ‘Goat Club’ should +assail its president, the explanation is soon made: Mr. McGloin had long +desired to be the chief himself. He and many others had seen, with some +irritation and displeasure, the growing indifference of Mr. Kearney for +the ‘Goats.’ For many months he had never called them together, and +several members had resigned, and many more threatened resignation. It was +time, then, that some energetic steps should be taken. The opportunity for +this was highly favourable. Anything unpatriotic, anything even unpopular +in Kearney’s conduct, would, in the then temper of the club, be sufficient +to rouse them to actual rebellion; and it was to test this sentiment, and, +if necessary, to stimulate it, Mr. McGloin convened a meeting, which a +bylaw of the society enabled him to do at any period when, for the three +preceding months, the president had not assembled the club. +</p> +<p> +Though the members generally were not a little proud of their president, +and deemed it considerable glory to them to have a viscount for their +chief, and though it gave great dignity to their debates that the rising +speaker should begin ‘My Lord and Buck Goat,’ yet they were not without +dissatisfaction at seeing how cavalierly he treated them, what slight +value he appeared to attach to their companionship, and how perfectly +indifferent he seemed to their opinions, their wishes, or their wants. +</p> +<p> +There were various theories in circulation to explain this change of +temper in their chief. Some ascribed it to young Kearney, who was a +‘stuck-up’ young fellow, and wanted his father to give himself greater +airs and pretensions. Others opinioned it was the daughter, who, though +she played Lady Bountiful among the poor cottiers, and affected interest +in the people, was in reality the proudest of them all. And last of all, +there were some who, in open defiance of chronology, attributed the change +to a post-dated event, and said that the swells from the Castle were the +ruin of Mathew Kearney, and that he was never the same man since the day +he saw them. +</p> +<p> +Whether any of these were the true solution of the difficulty or not, +Kearney’s popularity was on the decline at the moment when this +unfortunate narrative of the attack on his castle aroused the whole county +and excited their feelings against him. Mr. McGloin took every step of his +proceeding with due measure and caution: and having secured a certain +number of promises of attendance at the meeting, he next notified to his +lordship, how, in virtue of a certain section of a certain law, he had +exercised his right of calling the members together; and that he now +begged respectfully to submit to the chief, that some of the matters which +would be submitted to the collective wisdom would have reference to the +‘Buck Goat’ himself, and that it would be an act of great courtesy on his +part if he should condescend to be present and afford some explanation. +</p> +<p> +That the bare possibility of being called to account by the ‘Goats’ would +drive Kearney into a ferocious passion, if not a fit of the gout, McGloin +knew well; and that the very last thing on his mind would be to come +amongst them, he was equally sure of: so that in giving his invitation +there was no risk whatever. Mathew Kearney’s temper was no secret; and +whenever the necessity should arise that a burst of indiscreet anger +should be sufficient to injure a cause, or damage a situation, ‘the lord’ +could be calculated on with a perfect security. McGloin understood this +thoroughly; nor was it matter of surprise to him that a verbal reply of +‘There is no answer’ was returned to his note; while the old servant, +instead of stopping the ass-cart as usual for the weekly supply of +groceries at McGloin’s, repaired to a small shop over the way, where +colonial products were rudely jostled out of their proper places by coils +of rope, sacks of rape-seed, glue, glass, and leather, amid which the +proprietor felt far more at home than amidst mixed pickles and mocha. +</p> +<p> +Mr. McGloin, however, had counted the cost of his policy: he knew well +that for the ambition to succeed his lordship as Chief of the Club, he +should have to pay by the loss of the Kilgobbin custom; and whether it was +that the greatness in prospect was too tempting to resist, or that the +sacrifice was smaller than it might have seemed, he was prepared to risk +the venture. +</p> +<p> +The meeting was in so far a success that it was fully attended. Such a +flock of ‘Goats’ had not been seen by them since the memory of man, nor +was the unanimity less remarkable than the number; and every paragraph of +Mr. McGloin’s speech was hailed with vociferous cheers and applause, the +sentiment of the assembly being evidently highly National, and the feeling +that the shame which the Lord of Kilgobbin had brought down upon their +county was a disgrace that attached personally to each man there present; +and that if now their once happy and peaceful district was to be +proclaimed under some tyranny of English law, or, worse still, made a mark +for the insult and sarcasm of the <i>Times</i> newspaper, they owed the +disaster and the shame to no other than Mathew Kearney himself. +</p> +<p> +‘I will now conclude with a resolution,’ said McGloin, who, having filled +the measure of allegation, proceeded to the application. ‘I shall move +that it is the sentiment of this meeting that Lord Kilgobbin be called on +to disavow, in the newspapers, the whole narrative which has been +circulated of the attack on his house; that he declare openly that the +supposed incident was a mistake caused by the timorous fears of his +household, during his own absence from home: terrors aggravated by the +unwarrantable anxiety of an English visitor, whose ignorance of Ireland +had worked upon an excited imagination; and that a copy of the resolution +be presented to his lordship, either in letter or by a deputation, as the +meeting shall decide.’ +</p> +<p> +While the discussion was proceeding as to the mode in which this bold +resolution should be most becomingly brought under Lord Kilgobbin’s +notice, a messenger on horseback arrived with a letter for McGloin. The +bearer was in the Kilgobbin livery, and a massive seal, with the noble +lord’s arms, attested the despatch to be from himself. +</p> +<p> +‘Shall I put the resolution to the vote, or read this letter first, +gentlemen?’ said the chairman. +</p> +<p> +‘Read! read!’ was the cry, and he broke the seal. It ran thus:— +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. McGloin,—Will you please to inform the members of the “Goat +Club” at Moate that I retire from the presidency, and cease to be a member +of that society? I was vain enough to believe at one time that the +humanising element of even one gentleman in the vulgar circle of a little +obscure town, might have elevated the tone of manners and the spirit of +social intercourse. I have lived to discover my great mistake, and that +the leadership of a man like yourself is far more likely to suit the +instincts and chime in with the sentiments of such a body.—Your +obedient and faithful servant, +</p> +<p> +Kilgobbin.’ +</p> +<p> +The cry which followed the reading of this document can only be described +as a howl. It was like the enraged roar of wild animals, rather than the +union of human voices; and it was not till after a considerable interval +that McGloin could obtain a hearing. He spoke with great vigour and +fluency. He denounced the letter as an outrage which should be proclaimed +from one end of Europe to the other; that it was not their town, or their +club, or themselves had been insulted, but Ireland! that this mock-lord +(cheers)—this sham viscount—(greater cheers)—this +Brummagem peer, whose nobility their native courtesy and natural urbanity +had so long deigned to accept as real, should now be taught that his +pretensions only existed on sufferance, and had no claim beyond the polite +condescension of men whom it was no stretch of imagination to call the +equals of Mathew Kearney. The cries that received this were almost +deafening, and lasted for some minutes. +</p> +<p> +‘Send the ould humbug his picture there,’ cried a voice from the crowd, +and the sentiment was backed by a roar of voices; and it was at once +decreed the portrait should accompany the letter which the indignant +‘Goats’ now commissioned their chairman to compose. +</p> +<p> +That same evening saw the gold-framed picture on its way to Kilgobbin +Castle, with an ample-looking document, whose contents we have no +curiosity to transcribe—nor, indeed, is the whole incident one which +we should have cared to obtrude upon our readers, save as a feeble +illustration of the way in which the smaller rills of public opinion swell +the great streams of life, and how the little events of existence serve +now as impulses, now obstacles, to the larger interests that sway fortune. +So long as Mathew Kearney drank his punch at the ‘Blue Goat’ he was a +patriot and a Nationalist; but when he quarrelled with his flock, he +renounced his Irishry, and came out a Whig. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0032" id="link2HCH0032"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXXII +</h2> +<h3> +AN UNLOOKED-FOR PLEASURE +</h3> +<p> +When Dick Kearney waited on Cecil Walpole at his quarters in the Castle, +he was somewhat surprised to find that gentleman more reserved in manner, +and in general more distant, than when he had seen him as his father’s +guest. +</p> +<p> +Though he extended two fingers of his hand on entering, and begged him to +be seated, Walpole did not take a chair himself, but stood with his back +to the fire—the showy skirts of a very gorgeous dressing-gown +displayed over his arms—where he looked like some enormous bird +exulting in the full effulgence of his bright plumage. +</p> +<p> +‘You got my note, Mr. Kearney?’ began he, almost before the other had sat +down, with the air of a man whose time was too precious for mere +politeness. +</p> +<p> +‘It is the reason of my present visit,’ said Dick dryly. +</p> +<p> +‘Just so. His Excellency instructed me to ascertain in what shape most +acceptable to your family he might show the sense entertained by the +Government of that gallant defence of Kilgobbin; and believing that the +best way to meet a man’s wishes is first of all to learn what the wishes +are, I wrote you the few lines of yesterday.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect there must be a mistake somewhere,’ began Kearney, with +difficulty. ‘At least, I intimated to Atlee the shape in which the +Viceroy’s favour would be most agreeable to us, and I came here prepared +to find you equally informed on the matter.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, indeed! I know nothing—positively nothing. Atlee telegraphed +me, “See Kearney, and hear what he has to say. I write by post.—ATLEE.” +There’s the whole of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And the letter—’ +</p> +<p> +‘The letter is there. It came by the late mail, and I have not opened it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Would it not be better to glance over it now?’ said Dick mildly. +</p> +<p> +‘Not if you can give me the substance by word of mouth. Time, they tell +us, is money, and as I have got very little of either, I am obliged to be +parsimonious. What is it you want? I mean the sort of thing we could help +you to obtain. I see,’ said he, smiling, ‘you had rather I should read +Atlee’s letter. Well, here goes.’ He broke the envelope, and began:— +</p> +<p> +‘“MY DEAR MR. WALPOLE,—I hoped by this time to have had a report to +make you of what I had done, heard, seen, and imagined since my arrival, +and yet here I am now towards the close of my second week, and I have +nothing to tell; and beyond a sort of confused sense of being immensely +delighted with my mode of life, I am totally unconscious of the flight of +time. +</p> +<p> +‘“His Excellency received me once for ten minutes, and later on, after +some days, for half an hour; for he is confined to bed with gout, and +forbidden by his doctor all mental labour. He was kind and courteous to a +degree, hoped I should endeavour to make myself at home—giving +orders at the same time that my dinner should be served at my own hour, +and the stables placed at my disposal for riding or driving. For +occupation, he suggested I should see what the newspapers were saying, and +make a note or two if anything struck me as remarkable. +</p> +<p> +‘“Lady Maude is charming—and I use the epithet in all the +significance of its sorcery. She conveys to me each morning his +Excellency’s instructions for my day’s work; and it is only by a mighty +effort I can tear myself from the magic thrill of her voice, and the +captivation of her manner, to follow what I have to reply to, investigate, +and remark on. +</p> +<p> +‘“I meet her each day at luncheon, and she says she will join me ‘some day +at dinner.’ When that glorious occasion arrives, I shall call it the event +of my life, for her mere presence stimulates me to such effort in +conversation that I feel in the very lassitude afterwards what a strain my +faculties have undergone.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘What an insufferable coxcomb, and an idiot to boot!’ cried Walpole. ‘I +could not do him a more spiteful turn than to tell my cousin of her +conquest. There is another page, I see, of the same sort. But here you are—this +is all about you: I’ll read it. “In <i>re</i> Kearney. The Irish are +always logical; and as Miss Kearney once shot some of her countrymen, when +on a mission they deemed National, her brother opines that he ought to +represent the principles thus involved in Parliament.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is this the way in which he states my claims!’ broke in Dick, with +ill-suppressed passion. +</p> +<p> +‘Bear in mind, Mr. Kearney, this jest, and a very poor one it is, was +meant for me alone. The communication is essentially private, and it is +only through my indiscretion you know anything of it whatever.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not aware that any confidence should entitle him to write such an +impertinence.’ +</p> +<p> +‘In that case, I shall read no more,’ said Walpole, as he slowly refolded +the letter.’ The fault is all on my side, Mr. Kearney,’ he continued;’ but +I own I thought you knew your friend so thoroughly that extravagance on +his part could have neither astonished nor provoked you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are perfectly right, Mr. Walpole; I apologise for my impatience. It +was, perhaps, in hearing his words read aloud by another that I forgot +myself, and if you will kindly continue the reading, I will promise to +behave more suitably in future.’ +</p> +<p> +Walpole reopened the letter, but, whether indisposed to trust the pledge +thus given, or to prolong the interview, ran his eyes over one side and +then turned to the last page. ‘I see,’ said he, ‘he augurs ill as to your +chances of success; he opines that you have not well calculated the great +cost of the venture, and that in all probability it has been suggested by +some friend of questionable discretion. “At all events,”’ and here he read +aloud—‘"at all events, his Excellency says, ‘We should like to mark +the Kilgobbin affair by some show of approbation; and though supporting +young K. in a contest for his county is a “higher figure” than we meant to +pay, see him, and hear what he has to say of his prospects—what he +can do to obtain a seat, and what he will do if he gets one. We need not +caution him against’”—‘hum, hum, hum,’ muttered he, slurring over +the words, and endeavouring to pass on to something else. +</p> +<p> +‘May I ask against what I am supposed to be so secure?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, nothing, nothing. A very small impertinence, but which Mr. Atlee +found irresistible.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Pray let me hear it. It shall not irritate me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He says, “There will be no more a fear of bribery in your case than of a +debauch at Father Mathew’s.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is right there,’ said Kearney. ‘The only difference is that our +forbearance will be founded on something stronger than a pledge.’ +</p> +<p> +Walpole looked at the speaker, and was evidently struck by the calm +command he had displayed of his passion. +</p> +<p> +‘If we could forget Joe Atlee for a few minutes, Mr. Walpole, we might +possibly gain something. I, at least, would be glad to know how far I +might count on the Government aid in my project.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, you want to—in fact, you would like that we should give you +something like a regular—eh?—that is to say, that you could +declare to certain people—naturally enough, I admit; but here is how +we are, Kearney. Of course what I say now is literally between ourselves, +and strictly confidential.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I shall so understand it,’ said the other gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, now, here it is. The Irish vote, as the Yankees would call it, is +of undoubted value to us, but it is confoundedly dear! With Cardinal +Cullen on one side and Fenianism on the other, we have no peace. Time was +when you all pulled the one way, and a sop to the Pope pleased you all. +Now that will suffice no longer. The “Sovereign Pontiff dodge” is the +surest of all ways to offend the Nationals; so that, in reality, what we +want in the House is a number of Liberal Irishmen who will trust the +Government to do as much for the Catholic Church as English bigotry will +permit, and as much for the Irish peasant as will not endanger the rights +of property over the Channel.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s a wide field there, certainly,’ said Dick, smiling. +</p> +<p> +‘Is there not?’ cried the other exultingly. ‘Not only does it bowl over +the Established Church and Protestant ascendency, but it inverts the +position of landlord and tenant. To unsettle everything in Ireland, so +that anybody might hope to be anything, or to own Heaven knows what—to +legalise gambling for existence to a people who delight in high play, and +yet not involve us in a civil war—was a grand policy, Kearney, a +very grand policy. Not that I expect a young, ardent spirit like yourself, +fresh from college ambitions and high-flown hopes, will take this view.’ +</p> +<p> +Dick only smiled and shook his head. +</p> +<p> +‘Just so,’ resumed Walpole. ‘I could not expect you to like this +programme, and I know already all that you allege against it; but, as B. +says, Kearney, the man who rules Ireland must know how to take command of +a ship in a state of mutiny, and yet never suppress the revolt. There’s +the problem—as much discipline as you can, as much indiscipline as +you can bear. The brutal old Tories used to master the crew and hang the +ringleaders; and for that matter, they might have hanged the whole ship’s +company. We know better, Kearney; and we have so confused and addled them +by our policy, that, if a fellow were to strike his captain, he would +never be quite sure whether he was to be strung up at the gangway or made +a petty-officer. Do you see it now?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can scarcely say that I do see it—I mean, that I see it as <i>you</i> +do.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I scarcely could hope that you should, or, at least, that you should do +so at once; but now, as to this seat for King’s County, I believe we have +already found our man. I’ll not be sure, nor will I ask you to regard the +matter as fixed on, but I suspect we are in relations—you know what +I mean—with an old supporter, who has been beaten half-a-dozen times +in our interest, but is coming up once more. I’ll ascertain about this +positively, and let you know. And then’—here he drew breath freely +and talked more at ease—‘if we should find our hands free, and that +we see our way clearly to support you, what assurance could you give us +that you would go through with the contest, and fight the battle out?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe, if I engage in the struggle, I shall continue to the end,’ +said Dick, half doggedly. +</p> +<p> +‘Your personal pluck and determination I do not question for a moment. +Now, let us see’—here he seemed to ruminate for some seconds, and +looked like one debating a matter with himself. ‘Yes,’ cried he at last, +‘I believe that will be the best way. I am sure it will. When do you go +back, Mr. Kearney—to Kilgobbin, I mean?’ +</p> +<p> +‘My intention was to go down the day after to-morrow.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That will be Friday. Let us see, what is Friday? Friday is the 15th, is +it not?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Friday’—muttered the other—‘Friday? There’s the Education +Board, and the Harbour Commissioners, and something else at—to be +sure, a visit to the Popish schools with Dean O’Mahony. You couldn’t make +it Saturday, could you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not conveniently. I had already arranged a plan for Saturday. But why +should I delay here—to what end?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Only that, if you could say Saturday, I would like to go down with you.’ +</p> +<p> +From the mode in which he said these words, it was clear that he looked +for an almost rapturous acceptance of his gracious proposal; but Dick did +not regard the project in that light, nor was he overjoyed in the least at +the proposal. +</p> +<p> +‘I mean,’ said Walpole, hastening to relieve the awkwardness of silence—‘I +mean that I could talk over this affair with your father in a practical +business fashion, that you could scarcely enter into. Still, if Saturday +could not be managed, I’ll try if I could not run down with you on Friday. +Only for a day, remember, I must return by the evening train. We shall +arrive by what hour?’ +</p> +<p> +‘By breakfast-time,’ said Dick, but still not over-graciously. +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing could be better; that will give us a long day, and I should like +a full discussion with your father. You’ll manage to send me on to—what’s +the name?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Moate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Moate. Yes; that’s the place. The up-train leaves at midnight, I +remember. Now that’s all settled. You’ll take me up, then, here on Friday +morning, Kearney, on your way to the station, and meanwhile I’ll set to +work, and put off these deputations and circulars till Saturday, when, I +remember, I have a dinner with the provost. Is there anything more to be +thought of?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe not,’ muttered Dick, still sullenly. +</p> +<p> +‘Bye-bye, then, till Friday morning,’ said he, as he turned towards his +desk, and began arranging a mass of papers before him. +</p> +<p> +‘Here’s a jolly mess with a vengeance,’ muttered Kearney, as he descended +the stair. ‘The Viceroy’s private secretary to be domesticated with a +“head-centre” and an escaped convict. There’s not even the doubtful +comfort of being able to make my family assist me through the difficulty.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0033" id="link2HCH0033"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXXIII +</h2> +<h3> +PLMNUDDM CASTLE, NORTH WALES +</h3> +<p> +Among the articles of that wardrobe of Cecil Walpole’s of which Atlee had +possessed himself so unceremoniously, there was a very gorgeous blue +dress-coat, with the royal button and a lining of sky-blue silk, which +formed the appropriate costume of the gentlemen of the viceregal +household. This, with a waistcoat to match, Atlee had carried off with him +in the indiscriminating haste of a last moment, and although thoroughly +understanding that he could not avail himself of a costume so +distinctively the mark of a condition, yet, by one of the contrarieties of +his strange nature, in which the desire for an assumption of any kind was +a passion, he had tried on that coat fully a dozen times, and while +admiring how well it became him, and how perfectly it seemed to suit his +face and figure, he had dramatised to himself the part of an aide-de-camp +in waiting, rehearsing the little speeches in which he presented this or +that imaginary person to his Excellency, and coining the small money of +epigram in which he related the news of the day. +</p> +<p> +‘How I should cut out those dreary subalterns with their mess-room +drolleries, how I should shame those tiresome cornets, whose only glitter +is on their sabretaches!’ muttered he, as he surveyed himself in his +courtly attire. ‘It is all nonsense to say that the dress a man wears can +only impress the surrounders. It is on himself, on his own nature and +temper, his mind, his faculties, his very ambition, there is a +transformation effected; and I, Joe Atlee, feel myself, as I move about in +this costume, a very different man from that humble creature in grey +tweed, whose very coat reminds him he is a “cad,” and who has but to look +in the glass to read his condition.’ +</p> +<p> +On the morning he learned that Lady Maude would join him that day at +dinner, Atlee conceived the idea of appearing in this costume. It was not +only that she knew nothing of the Irish Court and its habits, but she made +an almost ostentatious show of her indifference to all about it, and in +the few questions she asked, the tone of interrogation might have suited +Africa as much as Ireland. It was true, she was evidently puzzled to know +what place or condition Atlee occupied; his name was not familiar to her, +and yet he seemed to know everything and everybody, enjoyed a large share +of his Excellency’s confidence, and appeared conversant with every detail +placed before him. +</p> +<p> +That she would not directly ask him what place he occupied in the +household he well knew, and he felt at the same time what a standing and +position that costume would give him, what self-confidence and ease it +would also confer, and how, for once in his life, free from the necessity +of asserting a station, he could devote all his energies to the exercise +of agreeability and those resources of small-talk in which he knew he was +a master. +</p> +<p> +Besides all this, it was to be his last day at the castle—he was to +start the next morning for Constantinople, with all instructions regarding +the spy Speridionides, and he desired to make a favourable impression on +Lady Maude before he left. Though intensely, even absurdly vain, Atlee was +one of those men who are so eager for success in life that they are ever +on the watch lest any weakness of disposition or temper should serve to +compromise their chances, and in this way he was led to distrust what he +would in his puppyism have liked to have thought a favourable effect +produced by him on her ladyship. She was intensely cold in manner, and yet +he had made her more than once listen to him with interest. She rarely +smiled, and he had made her actually laugh. Her apathy appeared complete, +and yet he had so piqued her curiosity that she could not forbear a +question. +</p> +<p> +Acting as her uncle’s secretary, and in constant communication with him, +it was her affectation to imagine herself a political character, and she +did not scruple to avow the hearty contempt she felt for the usual +occupation of women’s lives. Atlee’s knowledge, therefore, actually amazed +her: his hardihood, which never forsook him, enabled him to give her the +most positive assurances on anything he spoke; and as he had already +fathomed the chief prejudices of his Excellency, and knew exactly where +and to what his political wishes tended, she heard nothing from her uncle +but expressions of admiration for the just views, the clear and definite +ideas, and the consummate skill with which that ‘young fellow’ +distinguished himself. +</p> +<p> +‘We shall have him in the House one of these days,’ he would say; ‘and I +am much mistaken if he will not make a remarkable figure there.’ +</p> +<p> +When Lady Maude sailed proudly into the library before dinner, Atlee was +actually stunned by amazement at her beauty. Though not in actual +evening-dress, her costume was that sort of demi-toilet compromise which +occasionally is most becoming; and the tasteful lappet of Brussels lace, +which, interwoven with her hair, fell down on either side so as to frame +her face, softened its expression to a degree of loveliness he was not +prepared for. +</p> +<p> +It was her pleasure—her caprice, perhaps—to be on this +occasion unusually amiable and agreeable. Except by a sort of quiet +dignity, there was no coldness, and she spoke of her uncle’s health and +hopes just as she might have discussed them with an old friend of the +house. +</p> +<p> +When the butler flung wide the folding-doors into the dining-room and +announced dinner, she was about to move on, when she suddenly stopped, and +said, with a faint smile, ‘Will you give me your arm?’ Very simple words, +and commonplace too, but enough to throw Atlee’s whole nature into a +convulsion of delight. And as he walked at her side it was in the very +ecstasy of pride and exultation. +</p> +<p> +Dinner passed off with the decorous solemnity of that meal, at which the +most emphatic utterances were the butler’s ‘Marcobrunner,’ or +‘Johannisberg.’ The guests, indeed, spoke little, and the strangeness of +their situation rather disposed to thought than conversation. +</p> +<p> +‘You are going to Constantinople to-morrow, Mr. Atlee, my uncle tells me,’ +said she, after a longer silence than usual. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; his Excellency has charged me with a message, of which I hope to +acquit myself well, though I own to my misgivings about it now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are too diffident, perhaps, of your powers,’ said she; and there was +a faint curl of the lip that made the words sound equivocally. +</p> +<p> +‘I do not know if great modesty be amongst my failings,’ said he +laughingly. ‘My friends would say not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You mean, perhaps, that you are not without ambitions?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is true. I confess to very bold ones.’ And as he spoke he stole a +glance towards her; but her pale face never changed. +</p> +<p> +‘I wish, before you had gone, that you had settled that stupid muddle +about the attack on—I forget the place.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Kilgobbin?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, Kil-gobbin—horrid name!—for the Premier still persists +in thinking there was something in it, and worrying my uncle for +explanations; and as somebody is to ask something when Parliament meets, +it would be as well to have a letter to read to the House.’ +</p> +<p> +‘In what sense, pray?’ asked Atlee mildly. +</p> +<p> +‘Disavowing all: stating the story had no foundation: that there was no +attack—no resistance—no member of the viceregal household +present at any time.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That would be going too far; for then we should next have to deny +Walpole’s broken arm and his long confinement to house.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You may serve coffee in a quarter of an hour, Marcom,’ said she, +dismissing the butler; and then, as he left the room—‘And you tell +me seriously there was a broken arm in this case?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can hide nothing from you, though I have taken an oath to silence,’ +said he, with an energy that seemed to defy repression. ‘I will tell you +everything, though it’s little short of a perjury, only premising this +much, that I know nothing from Walpole himself.’ +</p> +<p> +With this much of preface, he went on to describe Walpole’s visit to +Kilgobbin as one of those adventurous exploits which young Englishmen +fancy they have a sort of right to perform in the less civilised country. +‘He imagined, I have no doubt,’ said he, ‘that he was studying the +condition of Ireland, and investigating the land question, when he carried +on a fierce flirtation with a pretty Irish girl.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And there was a flirtation?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, but nothing more. Nothing really serious at any time. So far he +behaved frankly and well, for even at the outset of the affair he owned to—a +what shall I call it?—an entanglement was, I believe, his own word—an +entanglement in England—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Did he not state more of this entanglement, with whom it was, or how, or +where?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should think not. At all events, they who told me knew nothing of these +details. They only knew, as he said, that he was in a certain sense tied +up, and that till Fate unbound him he was a prisoner.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Poor fellow, it <i>was</i> hard.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So <i>he</i> said, and so <i>they</i> believed him. Not that I myself +believe he was ever seriously in love with the Irish girl.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And why not?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I may be wrong in my reading of him; but my impression is that he regards +marriage as one of those solemn events which should contribute to a man’s +worldly fortune. Now an Irish connection could scarcely be the road to +this.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What an ungallant admission,’ said she, with a smile. ‘I hope Mr. Walpole +is not of your mind.’ After a pause she said, ‘And how was it that in your +intimacy he told you nothing of this?’ +</p> +<p> +He shook his head in dissent. +</p> +<p> +‘Not even of the “entanglement”?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not even of that. He would speak freely enough of his “egregious +blunder,” as he called it, in quitting his career and coming to Ireland; +that it was a gross mistake for any man to take up Irish politics as a +line in life; that they were puzzles in the present and lead to nothing in +the future, and, in fact, that he wished himself back again in Italy every +day he lived.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Was there any “entanglement” there also?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot say. On these he made me no confidences.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Coffee, my lady!’ said the butler, entering at this moment. Nor was Atlee +grieved at the interruption. +</p> +<p> +‘I am enough of a Turk,’ said she laughingly, ‘to like that muddy, strong +coffee they give you in the East, and where the very smallness of the cups +suggests its strength. You, I know, are impatient for your cigarette, Mr. +Atlee, and I am about to liberate you.’ While Atlee was muttering his +assurances of how much he prized her presence, she broke in, ‘Besides, I +promised my uncle a visit before tea-time, and as I shall not see you +again, I will wish you now a pleasant journey and a safe return.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Wish me success in my expedition,’ said he eagerly. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I will wish that also. One word more. I am very short-sighted, as +you may see, but you wear a ring of great beauty. May I look at it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is pretty, certainly. It was a present Walpole made me. I am not sure +that there is not a story attached to it, though I don’t know it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps it may be linked with the “entanglement,’” said she, laughing +softly. +</p> +<p> +‘For aught I know, so it may. Do you admire it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Immensely,’ said she, as she held it to the light. +</p> +<p> +‘You can add immensely to its value if you will,’ said he diffidently. +</p> +<p> +‘In what way?’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0009" id="linkimage-0009"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/264.jpg" + alt="‘You Wear a Ring of Great Beauty--May I Look at It?’" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘By keeping it, Lady Maude,’ said he; and for once his cheek coloured with +the shame of his own boldness. +</p> +<p> +‘May I purchase it with one of my own? Will you have this, or this?’ said +she hurriedly. +</p> +<p> +‘Anything that once was yours,’ said he, in a mere whisper. +</p> +<p> +‘Good-bye, Mr. Atlee.’ +</p> +<p> +And he was alone! +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0034" id="link2HCH0034"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXXIV +</h2> +<h3> +AT TEA-TIME +</h3> +<p> +The family at Kilgobbin Castle were seated at tea when Dick Kearney’s +telegram arrived. It bore the address, ‘Lord Kilgobbin,’ and ran thus: +‘Walpole wishes to speak with you, and will come down with me on Friday; +his stay cannot be beyond one day.—RICHARD KEARNEY.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What can he want with me?’ cried Kearney, as he tossed over the despatch +to his daughter. ‘If he wants to talk over the election, I could tell him +per post that I think it a folly and an absurdity. Indeed, if he is not +coming to propose for either my niece or my daughter, he might spare +himself the journey.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who is to say that such is not his intention, papa?’ said Kate merrily. +‘Old Catty had a dream about a piebald horse and a haystack on fire, and +something about a creel of duck eggs, and I trust that every educated +person knows what <i>they</i> mean.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do not,’ cried Nina boldly. +</p> +<p> +‘Marriage, my dear. One is marriage by special license, with a bishop or a +dean to tie the knot; another is a runaway match. I forget what the eggs +signify.’ +</p> +<p> +‘An unbroken engagement,’ interposed Donogan gravely, ‘so long as none of +them are smashed.’ +</p> +<p> +‘On the whole, then, it is very promising tidings,’ said Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘It may be easy to be more promising than the election,’ said the old man. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not flattered, uncle, to hear that I am easier to win than a seat in +Parliament.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That does not imply you are not worth a great deal more,’ said Kearney, +with an air of gallantry. ‘I know if I was a young fellow which I’d strive +most for. Eh, Mr. Daniel? I see you agree with me.’ +</p> +<p> +Donogan’s face, slightly flushed before, became now crimson as he sipped +his tea in confusion, unable to utter a word. +</p> +<p> +‘And so,’ resumed Kearney, ‘he’ll only give us a day to make up our minds! +It’s lucky, girls, that you have the telegram there to tell you what’s +coming.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It would have been more piquant, papa, if he had made his message say, “I +propose for Nina. Reply by wire.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Or, “May I marry your daughter?” chimed in Nina quickly. +</p> +<p> +‘There it is, now,’ broke in Kearney, laughing, ‘you’re fighting for him +already! Take my word for it, Mr. Daniel, there’s no so sure way to get a +girl for a wife, as to make her believe there’s another only waiting to be +asked. It’s the threat of the opposition coach on the road keeps down the +fares.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Papa is all wrong,’ said Kate. ‘There is no such conceivable pleasure as +saying No to a man that another woman is ready to accept. It is about the +most refined sort of self-flattery imaginable.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not to say that men are utterly ignorant of that freemasonry among women +which gives us all an interest in the man who marries one of us,’ said +Nina. ‘It is only your confirmed old bachelor that we all agree in +detesting.’ +</p> +<p> +‘‘Faith, I give you up altogether. You’re a puzzle clean beyond me,’ said +Kearney, with a sigh. +</p> +<p> +‘I think it is Balzac tells us,’ said Donogan, ‘that women and politics +are the only two exciting pursuits in life, for you never can tell where +either of them will lead you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And who is Balzac?’ asked Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, uncle, don’t let me hear you ask who is the greatest novelist that +ever lived.’ +</p> +<p> +‘‘Faith, my dear, except <i>Tristram Shandy</i> and <i>Tom Jones</i>, and +maybe <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>—if that be a novel—my experience +goes a short way. When I am not reading what’s useful—as in the <i>Farmer’s +Chronicle</i> or Purcell’s “Rotation of Crops”—I like the +“Accidents” in the newspapers, where they give you the name of the +gentleman that was smashed in the train, and tell you how his wife was +within ten days of her third confinement; how it was only last week he got +a step as a clerk in Somerset House. Haven’t you more materials for a +sensation novel there than any of your three-volume fellows will give +you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The times we are living in give most of us excitement enough,’ said +Donogan. ‘The man who wants to gamble for life itself need not be balked +now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You mean that a man can take a shot at an emperor?’ said Kearney +inquiringly. +</p> +<p> +‘No, not that exactly; though there are stakes of that kind some men would +not shrink from. What are called “arms of precision” have had a great +influence on modern politics. When there’s no time for a plebiscite, +there’s always time for a pistol.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Bad morality, Mr. Daniel,’ said Kearney gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect we do not fairly measure what Mr. Daniel says,’ broke in Kate. +‘He may mean to indicate a revolution, and not justify it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I mean both!’ said Donogan. ‘I mean that the mere permission to live +under a bad government is too high a price to pay for life at all. I’d +rather go “down into the streets,” as they call it, and have it out, than +I’d drudge on, dogged by policemen, and sent to gaol on suspicion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is right,’ cried Nina. ‘If I were a man, I’d think as he does.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then I’m very glad you’re not,’ said Kearney; ‘though, for the matter of +rebellion, I believe you would be a more dangerous Fenian as you are. Am I +right, Mr. Daniel?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am disposed to say you are, sir,’ was his mild reply. +</p> +<p> +‘Ain’t we important people this evening!’ cried Kearney, as the servant +entered with another telegram. ‘This is for you, Mr. Daniel. I hope we’re +to hear that the Cabinet wants you in Downing Street.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’d rather it did not,’ said he, with a very peculiar smile, which did +not escape Kate’s keen glance across the table, as he said, ‘May I read my +despatch?’ +</p> +<p> +‘By all means,’ said Kearney; while, to leave him more undisturbed, he +turned to Nina, with some quizzical remark about her turn for the +telegraph coming next. ‘What news would you wish it should bring you, +Nina?’ asked he. +</p> +<p> +‘I scarcely know. I have so many things to wish for, I should be puzzled +which to place first.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Should you like to be Queen of Greece?’ asked Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘First tell me if there is to be a King, and who is he?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe it’s Mr. Daniel there, for I see he has gone off in a great hurry +to say he accepts the crown.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What should you ask for, Kate,’ cried Nina, ‘if Fortune were civil enough +to give you a chance?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Two days’ rain for my turnips,’ said Kate quickly. ‘I don’t remember +wishing for anything so much in all my life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Your turnips!’ cried Nina contemptuously. +</p> +<p> +‘Why not? If you were a queen, would you not have to think of those who +depended on you for support and protection? And how should I forget my +poor heifers and my calves—calves of very tender years some of them—and +all with as great desire to fatten themselves as any of us have to do what +will as probably lead to our destruction?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’re not going to have the rain, anyhow,’ said Kearney; ‘and you’ll not +be sorry, Nina, for you wanted a fine day to finish your sketch of Croghan +Castle.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh! by the way, has old Bob recovered from his lameness yet, to be fit to +be driven?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ask Kitty there; she can tell you, perhaps.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I don’t think I’d harness him yet. The smith has pinched him in the +off fore-foot, and he goes tender still.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So do I when I go afoot, for I hate it,’ cried Nina; ‘and I want a day in +the open air, and I want to finish my old Castle of Croghan—and last +of all,’ whispered she in Kate’s ear, ‘I want to show my distinguished +friend Mr. Walpole that the prospect of a visit from him does not induce +me to keep the house. So that, from all the wants put together, I shall +take an early breakfast, and start to-morrow for Cruhan—is not that +the name of the little village in the bog?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s Miss Betty’s own townland—though I don’t know she’s much the +richer of her tenants,’ said Kearney, laughing. ‘The oldest inhabitants +never remember a rent-day.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a happy set of people!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just the reverse. You never saw misery till you saw them. There is not a +cabin fit for a human being, nor is there one creature in the place with +enough rags to cover him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They were very civil as I drove through. I remember how a little basket +had fallen out, and a girl followed me ten miles of the road to restore +it,’ said Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘That they would; and if it were a purse of gold they ‘d have done the +same,’ cried Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘Won’t you say that they’d shoot you for half a crown, though?’ said +Kearney, ‘and that the worst “Whiteboys” of Ireland come out of the same +village?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do like a people so unlike all the rest of the world,’ cried Nina; +‘whose motives none can guess at, none forecast. I’ll go there to-morrow.’ +</p> +<p> +These words were said as Daniel had just re-entered the room, and he +stopped and asked, ‘Where to?’ +</p> +<p> +‘To a Whiteboy village called Cruhan, some ten miles off, close to an old +castle I have been sketching.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you mean to go there to-morrow?’ asked he, half-carelessly; but not +waiting for her answer, and as if fully preoccupied, he turned and left +the room. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0035" id="link2HCH0035"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXXV +</h2> +<h3> +A DRIVE AT SUNRISE +</h3> +<p> +The little basket-carriage in which Nina made her excursions, and which +courtesy called a phaeton, would scarcely have been taken as a model at +Long Acre. A massive old wicker-cradle constituted the body, which, from a +slight inequality in the wheels, had got an uncomfortable ‘lurch to port,’ +while the rumble was supplied by a narrow shelf, on which her foot-page +sat <i>dos à dos</i> to herself—a position not rendered more +dignified by his invariable habit of playing pitch-and-toss with himself, +as a means of distraction in travel. +</p> +<p> +Except Bob, the sturdy little pony in the shafts, nothing could be less +schooled or disciplined than Larry himself. At sight of a party at marbles +or hopscotch, he was sure to desert his post, trusting to short cuts and +speed to catch up his mistress later on. +</p> +<p> +As for Bob, a tuft of clover or fresh grass on the roadside were +temptations to the full as great to him, and no amount of whipping could +induce him to continue his road leaving these dainties untasted. As in Mr. +Gill’s time, he had carried that important personage, he had contracted +the habit of stopping at every cabin by the way, giving to each halt the +amount of time he believed the colloquy should have occupied, and then, +without any admonition, resuming his journey. In fact, as an index to the +refractory tenants on the estate, his mode of progression, with its +interruptions, might have been employed, and the sturdy fashion in which +he would ‘draw up’ at certain doors might be taken as the forerunner of an +ejectment. +</p> +<p> +The blessed change by which the county saw the beast now driven by a +beautiful young lady, instead of bestrode by an inimical bailiff, added to +a popularity which Ireland in her poorest and darkest hour always accords +to beauty; and they, indeed, who trace points of resemblance between two +distant peoples, have not failed to remark that the Irish, like the +Italians, invariably refer all female loveliness to that type of +surpassing excellence, the Madonna. +</p> +<p> +Nina had too much of the South in her blood not to like the heartfelt, +outspoken admiration which greeted her as she went; and the ‘God bless you—but +you are a lovely crayture!’ delighted, while it amused her in the way the +qualification was expressed. +</p> +<p> +It was soon after sunrise on this Friday morning that she drove down the +approach, and made her way across the bog towards Cruhan. Though +pretending to her uncle to be only eager to finish her sketch of Croghan +Castle, her journey was really prompted by very different considerations. +By Dick’s telegram she learned that Walpole was to arrive that day at +Kilgobbin, and as his stay could not be prolonged beyond the evening, she +secretly determined she would absent herself so much as she could from +home—only returning to a late dinner—and thus show her +distinguished friend how cheaply she held the occasion of his visit, and +what value she attached to the pleasure of seeing him at the castle. +</p> +<p> +She knew Walpole thoroughly—she understood the working of such a +nature to perfection, and she could calculate to a nicety the +mortification, and even anger, such a man would experience at being thus +slighted. ‘These men,’ thought she, ‘only feel for what is done to them +before the world: it is the insult that is passed upon them in public, the +<i>soufflet</i> that is given in the street, that alone can wound them to +the quick.’ A woman may grow tired of their attentions, become capricious +and change, she may be piqued by jealousy, or, what is worse, by +indifference; but, while she makes no open manifestation of these, they +can be borne: the really insupportable thing is, that a woman should be +able to exhibit a man as a creature that had no possible concern or +interest for her—one might come or go, or stay on, utterly +unregarded or uncared for. To have played this game during the long hours +of a long day was a burden she did not fancy to encounter, whereas to fill +the part for the short space of a dinner, and an hour or so in the +drawing-room, she looked forward to rather as an exciting amusement. +</p> +<p> +‘He has had a day to throw away,’ said she to herself, ‘and he will give +it to the Greek girl. I almost hear him as he says it. How one learns to +know these men in every nook and crevice of their natures, and how by +never relaxing a hold on the one clue of their vanity, one can trace every +emotion of their lives.’ +</p> +<p> +In her old life of Rome these small jealousies, these petty passions of +spite, defiance, and wounded sensibility, filled a considerable space of +her existence. Her position in society, dependent as she was, exposed her +to small mortifications: the cold semi-contemptuous notice of women who +saw she was prettier than themselves, and the half-swaggering carelessness +of the men, who felt that a bit of flirtation with the Titian Girl was as +irresponsible a thing as might be. +</p> +<p> +‘But here,’ thought she, ‘I am the niece of a man of recognised station; I +am treated in his family with a more than ordinary deference and respect—his +very daughter would cede the place of honour to me, and my will is never +questioned. It is time to teach this pretentious fine gentleman that our +positions are not what they once were. If I were a man, I should never +cease till I had fastened a quarrel on him; and being a woman, I could +give my love to the man who would avenge me. Avenge me of what? a mere +slight, a mood of impertinent forgetfulness—nothing more—as if +anything could be more to a woman’s heart! A downright wrong can be +forgiven, an absolute injury pardoned—one is raised to self-esteem +by such an act of forgiveness; but there is no elevation in submitting +patiently to a slight. It is simply the confession that the liberty taken +with you was justifiable—was even natural.’ +</p> +<p> +These were the sum of her thoughts as she went, ever recurring to the +point how Walpole would feel offended by her absence, and how such a mark +of her indifference would pique his vanity, even to insult. +</p> +<p> +Then she pictured to her mind how this fine gentleman would feel the +boredom of that dreary day. True, it would be but a day; but these men +were not tolerant of the people who made time pass heavily with them, and +they revenged their own ennui on all around them. How he would snub the +old man for the son’s pretensions, and sneer at the young man for his +disproportioned ambition; and last of all, how he would mystify poor Kate, +till she never knew whether he cared to fatten calves and turkeys, or was +simply drawing her on to little details, which he was to dramatise one day +in an after-dinner story. +</p> +<p> +She thought of the closed pianoforte, and her music on the top—the +songs he loved best; she had actually left Mendelssohn there to be seen—a +very bait to awaken his passion. She thought she actually saw the fretful +impatience with which he threw the music aside and walked to the window to +hide his anger. +</p> +<p> +‘This excursion of Mademoiselle Nina was then a sudden thought, you tell +me; only planned last night? And is the country considered safe enough for +a young lady to go off in this fashion. Is it secure—is it decent? I +know he will ask, “Is it decent?” Kate will not feel—she will not +see the impertinence with which he will assure her that she herself may be +privileged to do these things; that her “Irishry” was itself a safeguard, +but Dick will notice the sneer. Oh, if he would but resent it! How little +hope there is of that. These young Irishmen get so overlaid by the English +in early life, they never resist their dominance: they accept everything +in a sort of natural submission. I wonder does the rebel sentiment make +them any bolder?’ And then she bethought her of some of those national +songs Mr. Daniel had been teaching her, and which seemed to have such an +overwhelming influence over his passionate nature. She had even seen the +tears in his eyes, and twice he could not speak to her with emotion. What +a triumph it would have been to have made the high-bred Mr. Walpole feel +in this wise. Possibly at the moment, the vulgar Fenian seemed the finer +fellow. Scarcely had the thought struck her, than there, about fifty yards +in advance, and walking at a tremendous pace, was the very man himself. +</p> +<p> +‘Is not that Mr. Daniel, Larry?’ asked she quickly. +</p> +<p> +But Larry had already struck off on a short cut across the bog, and was +miles away. +</p> +<p> +Yes, it could be none other than Mr. Daniel. The coat thrown back, the +loose-stepping stride, and the occasional flourish of the stick as he +went, all proclaimed the man. The noise of the wheels on the hard road +made him turn his head; and now, seeing who it was, he stood uncovered +till she drove up beside him. +</p> +<p> +‘Who would have thought to see you here at this hour?’ said he, saluting +her with deep respect. +</p> +<p> +‘No one is more surprised at it than myself,’ said she, laughing; ‘but I +have a partly-done sketch of an old castle, and I thought in this fine +autumn weather I should like to throw in the colour. And besides, there +are now and then with me unsocial moments when I fancy I like to be alone. +Do you know what these are?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do I know?—too well.’ +</p> +<p> +‘These motives then, not to think of others, led me to plan this +excursion; and now will you be as candid, and say what is <i>your</i> +project?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am bound for a little village called Cruhan: a very poor, unenticing +spot; but I want to see the people there, and hear what they say of these +rumours of new laws about the land.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And can <i>they</i> tell you anything that would be likely to interest <i>you</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, their very mistakes would convey their hopes; and hopes have come to +mean a great deal in Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Our roads are then the same. I am on my way to Croghan Castle.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Croghan is but a mile from my village of Cruhan,’ said he. +</p> +<p> +‘I am aware of that, and it was in your village of Cruhan, as you call it, +I meant to stable my pony till I had finished my sketch; but my gentle +page, Larry, I see, has deserted me; I don’t know if I shall find him +again.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will you let me be your groom? I shall be at the village almost as soon +as yourself, and I’ll look after your pony.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you think you could manage to seat yourself on that shelf at the +back?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is a great temptation you offer me, if I were not ashamed to be a +burden.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not to me, certainly; and as for the pony, I scarcely think he’ll mind +it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘At all events, I shall walk the hills.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe there are none. If I remember aright, it is all through a level +bog.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You were at tea last night when a certain telegram came?’ +</p> +<p> +‘To be sure I was. I was there, too, when one came for you, and saw you +leave the room immediately after.’ +</p> +<p> +‘In evident confusion?’ added he, smiling. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I should say, in evident confusion. At least, you looked like one +who had got some very unexpected tidings.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So it was. There is the message.’ And he drew from his pocket a slip of +paper, with the words,’ Walpole is coming for a day. Take care to be out +of the way till he is gone.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Which means that he is no friend of yours.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is neither friend nor enemy. I never saw him; but he is the private +secretary, and, I believe, the nephew of the Viceroy, and would find it +very strange company to be domiciled with a rebel.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you are a rebel?’ +</p> +<p> +‘At your service, Mademoiselle Kostalergi.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And a Fenian, and head-centre?’ +</p> +<p> +‘A Fenian and a head-centre.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And probably ought to be in prison?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have been already, and as far as the sentence of English law goes, +should be still there.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How delighted I am to know that. I mean, what a thrilling sensation it is +to be driving along with a man so dangerous, that the whole country would +be up and in pursuit of him at a mere word.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is true. I believe I should be worth a few hundred pounds to any one +who would capture me. I suspect it is the only way I could turn to +valuable account.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What if I were to drive you into Moate and give you up?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You might. I’ll not run away.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should go straight to the Podestà, or whatever he is, and say, “Here is +the notorious Daniel Donogan, the rebel you are all afraid of.’” +</p> +<p> +‘How came you by my name?’ asked he curtly. +</p> +<p> +‘By accident. I overheard Dick telling it to his sister. It dropped from +him unawares, and I was on the terrace and caught the words.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am in your hands completely,’ said he, in the same calm voice; ‘but I +repeat my words: I’ll not run away.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is, because you trust to my honour.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is exactly so—because I trust to your honour.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But how if I were to have strong convictions in opposition to all you +were doing—how if I were to believe that all you intended was a +gross wrong and a fearful cruelty?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Still you would not betray me. You would say, “This man is an enthusiast—he +imagines scores of impossible things—but, at least, he is not a +self-seeker—a fool possibly, but not a knave. It would be hard to +hang him.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘So it would. I have just thought <i>that</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And then you might reason thus: “How will it serve the other cause to +send one poor wretch to the scaffold, where there are so many just as +deserving of it?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And are there many?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should say close on two millions at home here, and some hundred +thousand in America.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And if you be as strong as you say, what craven creatures you must be not +to assert your own convictions.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So we are—I’ll not deny it—craven creatures; but remember +this, mademoiselle, we are not all like-minded. Some of us would be +satisfied with small concessions, some ask for more, some demand all; and +as the Government higgles with some, and hangs the others, they mystify us +all, and end by confounding us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is to say, you are terrified.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, if you like that word better, I’ll not quarrel about it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wonder how men as irresolute ever turn to rebellion. When our people +set out for Crete, they went in another spirit to meet the enemy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t be too sure of that. The boldest fellows in that exploit were the +liberated felons: they fought with desperation, for they had left the +hangman behind.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How dare you defame a great people!’ cried she angrily. +</p> +<p> +‘I was with them, mademoiselle. I saw them and fought amongst them; and to +prove it, I will speak modern Greek with you, if you like it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh! do,’ said she. ‘Let me hear those noble sounds again, though I shall +be sadly at a loss to answer you. I have been years and years away from +Athens.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know that. I know your story from one who loved to talk of you, all +unworthy as he was of such a theme.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And who was this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Atlee—Joe Atlee, whom you saw here some months ago.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I remember him,’ said she thoughtfully. +</p> +<p> +‘He was here, if I mistake not, with that other friend of yours you have +so strangely escaped from to-day.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Walpole?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, Mr. Walpole; to meet whom would not have involved <i>you</i>, at +least, in any contrariety.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is this a question, sir? Am I to suppose your curiosity asks an answer +here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not so bold; but I own my suspicions have mastered my discretion, +and, seeing you here this morning, I did think you did not care to meet +him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, sir, you were right. I am not sure that <i>my</i> reasons for +avoiding him were exactly as strong as <i>yours</i>, but they sufficed for +<i>me</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +There was something so like reproof in the way these words were uttered +that Donogan had not courage to speak for some time after. At last he +said, ‘In one thing, your Greeks have an immense advantage over us here. +In your popular songs you could employ your own language, and deal with +your own wrongs in the accents that became them. <i>We</i> had to take the +tongue of the conqueror, which was as little suited to our traditions as +to our feelings, and travestied both. Only fancy the Greek vaunting his +triumphs or bewailing his defeats in Turkish!’ +</p> +<p> +‘What do you know of Mr. Walpole?’ asked she abruptly. +</p> +<p> +‘Very little beyond the fact that he is an agent of the Government, who +believes that he understands the Irish people.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Which you are disposed to doubt?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I only know that I am an Irishman, and I do not understand them. An +organ, however, is not less an organ that it has many “stops.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not sure Cecil Walpole does not read you aright. He thinks that you +have a love of intrigue and plot, but without the conspirator element that +Southern people possess; and that your native courage grows impatient at +the delays of mere knavery, and always betrays you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That distinction was never <i>his</i>—that was your own.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So it was; but he adopted it when he heard it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is the way the rising politician is educated,’ cried Donogan. ‘It is +out of these petty thefts he makes all his capital, and the poor people +never suspect how small a creature can be their millionaire.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is not that our village yonder, where I see the smoke?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; and there on the stile sits your little groom awaiting you. I shall +get down here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Stay where you are, sir. It is by your blunder, not by your presence, +that you might compromise me.’ And this time her voice caught a tone of +sharp severity that suppressed reply. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0036" id="link2HCH0036"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXXVI +</h2> +<h3> +THE EXCURSION +</h3> +<p> +The little village of Cruhan-bawn, into which they now drove, was, in +every detail of wretchedness, dirt, ruin, and desolation, intensely Irish. +A small branch of the well-known bog-stream, the ‘Brusna,’ divided one +part of the village from the other, and between these two settlements so +separated there raged a most rancorous hatred and jealousy, and +Cruhan-beg, as the smaller collection of hovels was called, detested +Cruhan-bawn with an intensity of dislike that might have sufficed for a +national antipathy, where race, language, and traditions had contributed +their aids to the animosity. +</p> +<p> +There was, however, one real and valid reason for this inveterate +jealousy. The inhabitants of Cruhan-beg—who lived, as they said +themselves, ‘beyond the river’—strenuously refused to pay any rent +for their hovels; while ‘the cis-Brusnaites,’ as they may be termed, +demeaned themselves to the condition of tenants in so far as to +acknowledge the obligation of rent, though the oldest inhabitant vowed he +had never seen a receipt in his life, nor had the very least conception of +a gale-day. +</p> +<p> +If, therefore, actually, there was not much to separate them on the score +of principle, they were widely apart in theory, and the sturdy denizens of +the smaller village looked down upon the others as the ignoble slaves of a +Saxon tyranny. The village in its entirety—for the division was a +purely local and arbitrary one—belonged to Miss Betty O’Shea, +forming the extreme edge of her estate as it merged into the vast bog; +and, with the habitual fate of frontier populations, it contained more +people of lawless lives and reckless habits than were to be found for +miles around. There was not a resource of her ingenuity she had not +employed for years back to bring these refractory subjects into the pale +of a respectable tenantry. Every process of the law had been essayed in +turn. They had been hunted down by the police, unroofed, and turned into +the wide bog; their chattels had been ‘canted,’ and themselves—a +last resource—cursed from the altar; but with that strange tenacity +that pertains to life where there is little to live for, these creatures +survived all modes of persecution, and came back into their ruined hovels +to defy the law and beard the Church, and went on living—in some +strange, mysterious way of their own—an open challenge to all +political economy, and a sore puzzle to the <i>Times</i> commissioner when +he came to report on the condition of the cottier in Ireland. +</p> +<p> +At certain seasons of county excitement—such as an election or an +unusually weighty assizes—it was not deemed perfectly safe to visit +the village, and even the police would not have adventured on the step +except with a responsible force. At other periods, the most marked feature +of the place would be that of utter vacuity and desolation. A single +inhabitant here and there smoking listlessly at his door—a group of +women, with their arms concealed beneath their aprons, crouching under a +ruined wall—or a few ragged children, too miserable and dispirited +even for play, would be all that would be seen. +</p> +<p> +At a spot where the stream was fordable for a horse, the page Larry had +already stationed himself, and now walked into the river, which rose over +his knees, to show the road to his mistress. +</p> +<p> +‘The bailiffs is on them to-day,’ said he, with a gleeful look in his eye; +for any excitement, no matter at what cost to others, was intensely +pleasurable to him. +</p> +<p> +‘What is he saying?’ asked Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘They are executing some process of law against these people,’ muttered +Donogan. ‘It’s an old story in Ireland; but I had as soon you had been +spared the sight.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is it quite safe for yourself?’ whispered she. ‘Is there not some danger +in being seen here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, if I could but think that you cared—I mean ever so slightly,’ +cried he, with fervour, ‘I’d call this moment of my danger the proudest of +my life!’ +</p> +<p> +Though declarations of this sort—more or less sincere as chance +might make them—were things Nina was well used to, she could not +help marking the impassioned manner of him who now spoke, and bent her +eyes steadily on him. +</p> +<p> +‘It is true,’ said he, as if answering the interrogation in her gaze. ‘A +poor outcast as I am—a rebel—a felon—anything you like +to call me—the slightest show of your interest in me gives my life a +value, and my hope a purpose I never knew till now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Such interest would be but ill-bestowed if it only served to heighten +your danger. Are you known here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He who has stood in the dock, as I have, is sure to be known by some one. +Not that the people would betray me. There is poverty and misery enough in +that wretched village, and yet there’s not one so hungry or so ragged that +he would hand me over to the law to make himself rich for life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then what do you mean to do?’ asked she hurriedly. +</p> +<p> +‘Walk boldly through the village at the head of your pony, as I am now—your +guide to Croghan Castle.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But we were to have stabled the beast here. I intended to have gone on +foot to Croghan.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Which you cannot now. Do you know what English law is, lady?’ cried he +fiercely. ‘This pony and this carriage, if they had shelter here, are +confiscated to the landlord for his rent. It’s little use to say <i>you</i> +owe nothing to this owner of the soil; it’s enough that they are found +amongst the chattels of his debtors.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot believe this is law.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You can prove it—at the loss of your pony; and it is mercy and +generous dealing when compared with half the enactments our rulers have +devised for us. Follow me. I see the police have not yet come down. I will +go on in front and ask the way to Croghan.’ +</p> +<p> +There was that sort of peril in the adventure now that stimulated Nina and +excited her; and as they stoutly wended their way through the crowd, she +was far from insensible to the looks of admiration that were bent on her +from every side. +</p> +<p> +‘What are they saying?’ asked she; ‘I do not know their language.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is Irish,’ said he; ‘they are talking of your beauty.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should so like to follow their words,’ said she, with the smile of one +to whom such homage had ever its charm. +</p> +<p> +‘That wild-looking fellow, that seemed to utter an imprecation, has just +pronounced a fervent blessing; what he has said was, “May every glance of +your eye be a candle to light you to glory.”’ +</p> +<p> +A half-insolent laugh at this conceit was all Nina’s acknowledgment of it. +Short greetings and good wishes were now rapidly exchanged between Donogan +and the people, as the little party made their way through the crowd—the +men standing bareheaded, and the women uttering words of admiration, some +even crossing themselves piously, at sight of such loveliness, as, to +them, recalled the ideal of all beauty. +</p> +<p> +‘The police are to be here at one o’clock,’ said Donogan, translating a +phrase of one of the bystanders. +</p> +<p> +‘And is there anything for them to seize on?’ asked she. +</p> +<p> +‘No; but they can level the cabins,’ cried he bitterly. ‘We have no more +right to shelter than to food.’ +</p> +<p> +Moody and sad, he walked along at the pony’s head, and did not speak +another word till they had left the village far behind them. +</p> +<p> +Larry, as usual, had found something to interest him, and dropped behind +in the village, and they were alone. +</p> +<p> +A passing countryman, to whom Donogan addressed a few words in Irish, told +them that a short distance from Croghan they could stable the pony at a +small ‘shebeen.’ +</p> +<p> +On reaching this, Nina, who seemed to have accepted Donogan’s +companionship without further question, directed him to unpack the +carriage and take out her easel and her drawing materials. ‘You’ll have to +carry these—fortunately not very far, though,’ said she, smiling, +‘and then you’ll have to come back here and fetch this basket.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is a very proud slavery—command me how you will,’ muttered he, +not without emotion. +</p> +<p> +‘That,’ continued she, pointing to the basket, ‘contains my breakfast, and +luncheon or dinner, and I invite you to be my guest.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I accept with rapture. Oh!’ cried he passionately, ‘what whispered to +my heart this morning that this would be the happiest day of my life!’ +</p> +<p> +‘If so, Fate has scarcely been generous to you.’ And her lip curled half +superciliously as she spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘I’d not say that. I have lived amidst great hopes, many of them dashed, +it is true, by disappointment; but who that has been cheered by glorious +daydreams has not tasted moments at least of exquisite bliss?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know that I have much sympathy with political ambitions,’ said +she pettishly. +</p> +<p> +‘Have you tasted—have you tried them? Do you know what it is to feel +the heart of a nation throb and beat?—to know that all that love can +do to purify and elevate, can be exercised for the countless thousands of +one’s own race and lineage, and to think that long after men have +forgotten your name, some heritage of freedom will survive to say that +there once lived one who loved his country.’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is very pretty enthusiasm.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, how is it that you, who can stimulate one’s heart to such +confessions, know nothing of the sentiment?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have my ambitions,’ said she coldly, almost sternly. +</p> +<p> +‘Let me hear some of them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They are not like yours, though they are perhaps just as impossible.’ She +spoke in a broken, unconnected manner, like one who was talking aloud the +thoughts that came laggingly; then with a sudden earnestness she said, +‘I’ll tell you one of them. It’s to catch the broad bold light that has +just beat on the old castle there, and brought out all its rich tints of +greys and yellows in such a glorious wealth of colour. Place my easel +here, under the trees; spread that rug for yourself to lie on. No—you +won’t have it? Well, fold it neatly, and place it there for my feet: very +nicely done. And now, Signer Ribello, you may unpack that basket, and +arrange our breakfast, and when you have done all these, throw yourself +down on the grass, and either tell me a pretty story, or recite some nice +verses for me, or be otherwise amusing and agreeable.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall I do what will best please myself? If so, it will be to lie here +and look at you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Be it so,’ said she, with a sigh. ‘I have always thought, in looking at +them, how saints are bored by being worshipped—it adds fearfully to +martyrdom, but happily I am used to it. “Oh, the vanity of that girl!” +Yes, sir, say it out: tell her frankly that if she has no friend to +caution her against this besetting wile, that you will be that friend. +Tell her that whatever she has of attraction is spoiled and marred by this +self-consciousness, and that just as you are a rebel without knowing it, +so should she be charming and never suspect it. Is not that coming +nicely,’ said she, pointing to the drawing; ‘see how that tender light is +carried down from those grey walls to the banks beneath, and dies away in +that little pool, where the faintest breath of air is rustling. Don’t look +at me, sir, look at my drawing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘True, there is no tender light there,’ muttered he, gazing at her eyes, +where the enormous size of the pupils had given a character of steadfast +brilliancy, quite independent of shape, or size, or colour. +</p> +<p> +‘You know very little about it,’ said she saucily; then, bending over the +drawing, she said, ‘That middle distance wants a bit of colour: you shall +aid me here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How am I to aid you?’ asked he, in sheer simplicity. +</p> +<p> +‘I mean that you should be that bit of colour. There, take my scarlet +cloak, and perch yourself yonder on that low rock. A few minutes will do. +Was there ever immortality so cheaply purchased! Your biographer shall +tell that you were the figure in that famous sketch—what will be +called in the cant of art, one of Nina Kostalergi’s earliest and happiest +efforts. There, now, dear Mr. Donogan, do as you are bid.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you know the Greek ballad, where a youth remembers that the word +“dear” has been coupled with his name—a passing courtesy, if even so +much, but enough to light up a whole chamber in his heart?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know nothing of Greek ballads. How does it go?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is a simple melody, in a low key.’ And he sang, in a deep but +tremulous voice, to a very plaintive air— +</p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +‘I took her hand within my own, +I drew her gently nearer, +And whispered almost on her cheek, +“Oh, would that I were dearer.” +Dearer! No, that’s not my prayer: +A stranger, e’en the merest, +Might chance to have some value there; +But I would be the dearest.’ +</pre> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0010" id="linkimage-0010"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/285.jpg" + alt="‘True, There is No Tender Light There,’ Muttered He, Gazing At Her Eyes" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘What had he done to merit such a hope?’ said she haughtily. +</p> +<p> +‘Loved her—only loved her!’ +</p> +<p> +‘What value you men must attach to this gift of your affection, when it +can nourish such thoughts as these! Your very wilfulness is to win us—is +not that your theory? I expect from the man who offers me his heart that +he means to share with me his own power and his own ambition—to make +me the partner of a station that is to give me some pre-eminence I had not +known before, nor could gain unaided.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you would call that marrying for love?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why not? Who has such a claim upon my life as he who makes the life worth +living for? Did you hear that shout?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I heard it,’ said he, standing still to listen. +</p> +<p> +‘It came from the village. What can it mean?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s the old war-cry of the houseless,’ said he mournfully. ‘It’s a note +we are well used to here. I must go down to learn. I’ll be back +presently.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are not going into danger?’ said she; and her cheek grew paler as she +spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘And if I were, who is to care for it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have you no mother, sister, sweetheart?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not one of the three. Good-bye.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But if I were to say—stay?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should still go. To have your love, I’d sacrifice even my honour. +Without it—’ he threw up his arms despairingly and rushed away. +</p> +<p> +‘These are the men whose tempers compromise us,’ said she thoughtfully. +‘We come to accept their violence as a reason, and take mere impetuosity +for an argument. I am glad that he did not shake my resolution. There, +that was another shout, but it seemed in joy. There was a ring of gladness +in it. Now for my sketch.’ And she reseated herself before her easel. ‘He +shall see when he comes back how diligently I have worked, and how small a +share anxiety has had in my thoughts. The one thing men are not proof +against is our independence of them.’ And thus talking in broken sentences +to herself, she went on rapidly with her drawing, occasionally stopping to +gaze on it, and humming some old Italian ballad to herself. ‘His Greek air +was pretty. Not that it was Greek; these fragments of melody were left +behind them by the Venetians, who, in all lust of power, made songs about +contented poverty and humble joys. I feel intensely hungry, and if my +dangerous guest does not return soon, I shall have to breakfast alone—another +way of showing him how little his fate has interested me. My foreground +here does want that bit of colour. Why does he not come back?’ As she rose +to look at her drawing, the sound of somebody running attracted her +attention, and turning, she saw it was her foot-page Larry coming at full +speed. +</p> +<p> +‘What is it, Larry? What has happened?’ asked she. +</p> +<p> +‘You are to go—as fast as you can,’ said he; which being for him a +longer speech than usual, seemed to have exhausted him. +</p> +<p> +‘Go where? and why?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes,’ said he, with a stolid look, ‘you are.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am to do what? Speak out, boy! Who sent you here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes,’ said he again. +</p> +<p> +‘Are they in trouble yonder? Is there fighting at the village?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No.’ And he shook his head, as though he said so regretfully. +</p> +<p> +‘Will you tell me what you mean, boy?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The pony is ready?’ said he, as he stooped down to pack away the things +in the basket. +</p> +<p> +‘Is that gentleman coming back here—that gentleman whom you saw with +me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is gone; he got away.’ And here he laughed in a malicious way, that +was more puzzling even than his words. +</p> +<p> +‘And am I to go back home at once?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes,’ replied he resolutely. +</p> +<p> +‘Do you know why—for what reason?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Come, like a good boy, tell me, and you shall have this.’ And she drew a +piece of silver from her purse, and held it temptingly before him. ‘Why +should I go back, now?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Because,’ muttered he, ‘because—’ and it was plain, from the glance +in his eyes, that the bribe had engaged all his faculties. +</p> +<p> +‘So, then, you will not tell me?’ said she, replacing the money in her +purse. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes,’ said he, in a despondent tone. +</p> +<p> +‘You can have it still, Larry, if you will but say who sent you here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘<i>He</i> sent me,’ was the answer. +</p> +<p> +‘Who was he? Do you mean the gentleman who came here with me?’ A nod +assented to this. ‘And what did he tell you to say to me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes,’ said he, with a puzzled look, as though once more the confusion of +his thoughts was mastering him. +</p> +<p> +‘So, then, it is that you will not tell me?’ said she angrily. He made no +answer, but went on packing the plates in the basket. ‘Leave those there, +and go and fetch me some water from the spring yonder.’ And she gave him a +jug as she spoke, and now she reseated herself on the grass. He obeyed at +once, and returned speedily with water. +</p> +<p> +‘Come now, Larry,’ said she kindly to him. ‘I’m sure you mean to be a good +boy. You shall breakfast with me. Get me a cup, and I’ll give you some +milk; here is bread and cold meat.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes,’ muttered Larry, whose mouth was already too much engaged for +speech. +</p> +<p> +‘You will tell me by-and-by what they were doing at the village, and what +that shouting meant—won’t you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes,’ said he, with a nod. Then suddenly bending his head to listen, he +motioned with his hand to keep silence, and after a long breath said, +‘They’re coming.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who are coming?’ asked she eagerly; but at the same instant a man emerged +from the copse below the hill, followed by several others, whom she saw by +their dress and equipment to belong to the constabulary. +</p> +<p> +Approaching with his hat in his hand, and with that air of servile +civility which marked him, old Gill addressed her. ‘If it’s not displazin’ +to ye, miss, we want to ax you a few questions,’ said he. +</p> +<p> +‘You have no right, sir, to make any such request,’ said she, with a +haughty air. +</p> +<p> +‘There was a man with you, my lady,’ he went on, ‘as you drove through +Cruhan, and we want to know where he is now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That concerns you, sir, and not me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe it does, my lady,’ said he, with a grin; ‘but I suppose you know +who you were travelling with?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You evidently don’t remember, sir, whom you are talking to.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The law is the law, miss, and there’s none of us above it,’ said he, half +defiantly; ‘and when there’s some hundred pounds on a man’s head, there’s +few of us such fools as to let him slip through our fingers.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t understand you, sir, nor do I care to do so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The sergeant there has a warrant against him,’ said he, in a whisper he +intended to be confidential; ‘and it’s not to do anything that your +ladyship would think rude that I came up myself. There’s how it is now,’ +muttered he, still lower. ‘They want to search the luggage, and examine +the baskets there, and maybe, if you don’t object, they’d look through the +carriage.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And if I should object to this insult?’ broke she in. +</p> +<p> +‘Faix, I believe,’ said he, laughing, ‘they’d do it all the same. Eight +hundred—I think it’s eight—isn’t to be made any day of the +year!’ +</p> +<p> +‘My uncle is a justice of the peace, Mr. Gill; and you know if he will +suffer such an outrage to go unpunished.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s the more reason that a justice shouldn’t harbour a Fenian, miss,’ +said he boldly; ‘as he’ll know when he sees the search-warrant.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Get ready the carriage, Larry,’ said she, turning contemptuously away, +‘and follow me towards the village.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The sergeant, miss, would like to say a word or two,’ said Gill, in his +accustomed voice of servility. +</p> +<p> +‘I will not speak with him,’ said she proudly, and swept past him. +</p> +<p> +The constables stood to one side, and saluted in military fashion as she +passed down the hill. There was that in her queenlike gesture and carriage +that so impressed them, the men stood as though on parade. +</p> +<p> +Slowly and thoughtfully as she sauntered along, her thoughts turned to +Donogan. Had he escaped? was the idea that never left her. The presence of +these men here seemed to favour that impression; but there might be others +on his track, and if so, how in that wild bleak space was he to conceal +himself? A single man moving miles away on the bog could be seen. There +was no covert, no shelter anywhere! What an interest did his fate now +suggest, and yet a moment back she believed herself indifferent to him. +‘Was he aware of his danger,’ thought she,’ when he lay there talking +carelessly to me? was that recklessness the bravery of a bold man who +despised peril?’ And if so, what stuff these souls were made of! These +were not of the Kearney stamp, that needed to be stimulated and goaded to +any effort in life; nor like Atlee, the fellow who relied on trick and +knavery for success; still less such as Walpole, self-worshippers and +triflers. ‘Yes,’ said she aloud,’ a woman might feel that with such a man +at her side the battle of life need not affright her. He might venture too +far—he might aspire to much that was beyond his reach, and strive +for the impossible; but that grand bold spirit would sustain him, and +carry him through all the smaller storms of life: and such a man might be +a hero, even to her who saw him daily. These are the dreamers, as we call +them,’ said she. ‘How strange it would be if <i>they</i> should prove the +realists, and that it was <i>we</i> should be the mere shadows! If these +be the men who move empires and make history, how doubly ignoble are we in +our contempt of them.’ And then she bethought her what a different faculty +was that great faith that these men had in themselves from common vanity; +and in this way she was led again to compare Donogan and Walpole. +</p> +<p> +She reached the village before her little carriage had overtaken her, and +saw that the people stood about in groups and knots. A depressing silence +prevailed over them, and they rarely spoke above a whisper. The same +respectful greeting, however, which welcomed her before, met her again; +and as they lifted their hats, she saw, or thought she saw, that they +looked on her with a more tender interest. Several policemen moved about +through the crowd, who, though they saluted her respectfully, could not +refrain from scrutinising her appearance and watching her as she went. +With that air of haughty self-possession which well became her—for +it was no affectation—she swept proudly along, resolutely determined +not to utter a word, or even risk a question as to the way. +</p> +<p> +Twice she turned to see if her pony were coming, and then resumed her +road. From the excited air and rapid gestures of the police, as they +hurried from place to place, she could guess that up to this Donogan had +not been captured. Still, it seemed hopeless that concealment in such a +place could be accomplished. +</p> +<p> +As she gained the little stream that divided the village, she stood for a +moment uncertain, when a countrywoman, as it were divining her difficulty, +said, ‘If you’ll cross over the bridge, my lady, the path will bring you +out on the highroad.’ +</p> +<p> +As Nina turned to thank her, the woman looked up from her task of washing +in the river, and made a gesture with her hand towards the bog. Slight as +the action was, it appealed to that Southern intelligence that reads a +sign even faster than a word. Nina saw that the woman meant to say Donogan +had escaped, and once more she said, ‘Thank you—from my heart I +thank you!’ +</p> +<p> +Just as she emerged upon the highroad, her pony and carriage came up. A +sergeant of police was, however, in waiting beside it, who, saluting her +respectfully, said, ‘There was no disrespect meant to you, miss, by our +search of the carriage—our duty obliged us to do it. We have a +warrant to apprehend the man that was seen with you this morning, and it’s +only that we know who you are, and where you come from, prevents us from +asking you to come before our chief.’ +</p> +<p> +He presented his arm to assist her to her place as he spoke; but she +declined the help, and, without even noticing him in any way, arranged her +rugs and wraps around her, took the reins, and motioning Larry to his +place, drove on. +</p> +<p> +‘Is my drawing safe?—have all my brushes and pencils been put in?’ +asked she, after a while. But already Larry had taken his leave, and she +could see him as he flitted across the bog to catch her by some short cut. +</p> +<p> +That strange contradiction by which a woman can journey alone and in +safety through the midst of a country only short of open insurrection, +filled her mind as she went, and thinking of it in every shape and fashion +occupied her for miles of the way. The desolation, far as the eye could +reach, was complete—there was not a habitation, not a human thing to +be seen. The dark-brown desert faded away in the distance into low-lying +clouds, the only break to the dull uniformity being some stray ‘clamp,’ as +it is called, of turf, left by the owners from some accident of season or +bad weather, and which loomed out now against the sky like a vast +fortress. +</p> +<p> +This long, long day—for so without any weariness she felt it—was +now in the afternoon, and already long shadows of these turf-mounds +stretched their giant limbs across the waste. Nina, who had eaten nothing +since early morning, felt faint and hungry. She halted her pony, and +taking out some bread and a bottle of milk, proceeded to make a frugal +luncheon. The complete loneliness, the perfect silence, in which even the +rattling of the harness as the pony shook himself made itself felt, gave +something of solemnity to the moment, as the young girl sat there and +gazed half terrified around her. +</p> +<p> +As she looked, she thought she saw something pass from one turf-clamp to +the other, and, watching closely, she could distinctly detect a figure +crouching near the ground, and, after some minutes, emerging into the open +space, again to be hidden by some vast turf-mound. There, now—there +could not be a doubt—it was a man, and he was waving his +handkerchief as a signal. It was Donogan himself—she could recognise +him well. Clearing the long drains at a bound, and with a speed that +vouched for perfect training, he came rapidly forward, and, leaping the +wide trench, alighted at last on the road beside her. +</p> +<p> +‘I have watched you for an hour, and but for this lucky halt, I should not +have overtaken you after all,’ cried he, as he wiped his brow and stood +panting beside her. +</p> +<p> +‘Do you know that they are in pursuit of you?’ cried she hastily. +</p> +<p> +‘I know it all. I learned it before I reached the village, and in time—only +in time—to make a circuit and reach the bog. Once there, I defy the +best of them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They have what they call a warrant to search for you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know that too,’ cried he. ‘No, no!’ said he passionately, as she +offered him a drink, ‘let me have it from the cup you have drank from. It +may be the last favour I shall ever ask you—don’t refuse me this!’ +</p> +<p> +She touched the glass slightly with her lips, and handed it to him with a +smile. +</p> +<p> +‘What peril would I not brave for this!’ cried he, with a wild ecstasy. +</p> +<p> +‘Can you not venture to return with me?’ said she, in some confusion, for +the bold gleam of his gaze now half abashed her. +</p> +<p> +‘No. That would be to compromise others as well as myself. I must gain +Dublin how I can. There I shall be safe against all pursuit. I have come +back for nothing but disappointment,’ added he sorrowfully. ‘This country +is not ready to rise—they are too many-minded for a common effort. +The men like Wolfe Tone are not to be found amongst us now, and to win +freedom you must dare the felony.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is it not dangerous to delay so long here?’ asked she, looking around her +with anxiety. +</p> +<p> +‘So it is—and I will go. Will you keep this for me?’ said he, +placing a thick and much-worn pocket-book in her hands. ‘There are papers +there would risk far better heads than mine; and if I should be taken, +these must not be discovered. It may be, Nina—oh, forgive me if I +say your name! but it is such joy to me to utter it once—it may be +that you should chance to hear some word whose warning might save me. If +so, and if you would deign to write to me, you’ll find three, if not four, +addresses, under any of which you could safely write to me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I shall not forget. Good fortune be with you. Adieu!’ +</p> +<p> +She held out her hand; but he bent over it, and kissed it rapturously; and +when he raised his head, his eyes were streaming, and his cheeks deadly +pale. ‘Adieu!’ said she again. +</p> +<p> +He tried to speak, but no sound came from his lips; and when, after she +had driven some distance away, she turned to look after him, he was +standing on the same spot in the road, his hat at his foot, where it had +fallen when he stooped to kiss her hand. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0037" id="link2HCH0037"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXXVII +</h2> +<h3> +THE RETURN +</h3> +<p> +Kate Kearney was in the act of sending out scouts and messengers to look +out for Nina, whose long absence had begun to alarm her, when she heard +that she had returned and was in her room. +</p> +<p> +‘What a fright you have given me, darling!’ said Kate, as she threw her +arms about her, and kissed her affectionately. ‘Do you know how late you +are?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; I only know how tired I am.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a long day of fatigue you must have gone through. Tell me of it +all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Tell me rather of yours. You have had the great Mr. Walpole here: is it +not so?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; he is still here—he has graciously given us another day, and +will not leave till to-morrow night.’ +</p> +<p> +‘By what good fortune have you been so favoured as this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ostensibly to finish a long conversation or conference with papa, but +really and truthfully, I suspect, to meet Mademoiselle Kostalergi, whose +absence has piqued him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, piqued is the word. It is the extreme of the pain he is capable of +feeling. What has he said of it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing beyond the polite regrets that courtesy could express, and then +adverted to something else.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With an abruptness that betrayed preparation?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not perhaps, but certainly so. Vanity such as his has no variety. It +repeats its moods over and over; but why do we talk of him? I have other +things to tell you of. You know that man who came here with Dick. That Mr. +——’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know—I know,’ cried the other hurriedly, ‘what of him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He joined me this morning, on my way through the bog, and drove with me +to Cruhan.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed!’ muttered Kate thoughtfully. +</p> +<p> +‘A strange, wayward, impulsive sort of creature—unlike any one—interesting +from his strong convictions—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Did he convert you to any of his opinions, Nina?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You mean, make a rebel of me. No; for the simple reason that I had none +to surrender. I do not know what is wrong here, nor what people would say +was right.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are aware, then, who he is?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I am. I was on the terrace that night when your brother told +you he was Donogan—the famous Fenian Donogan. The secret was not +intended for me, but I kept it all the same, and I took an interest in the +man from the time I heard it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You told him, then, that you knew who he was.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To be sure I did, and we are fast friends already; but let me go on with +my narrative. Some excitement, some show of disturbance at Cruhan, +persuaded him that what he called—I don’t know why—the Crowbar +Brigade was at work and that the people were about to be turned adrift on +the world by the landlord, and hearing a wild shout from the village, he +insisted on going back to learn what it might mean. He had not left me +long, when your late steward, Gill, came up with several policemen, to +search for the convict Donogan. They had a warrant to apprehend him, and +some information as to where he had been housed and sheltered.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Here—with us?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Here—with you! Gill knew it all. This, then, was the reason for +that excitement we had seen in the village—the people had heard the +police were coming, but for what they knew not; of course the only thought +was for their own trouble.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Has he escaped? Is he safe?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Safe so far, that I last saw him on the wide bog, some eight miles away +from any human habitation; but where he is to turn to, or who is to +shelter him, I cannot say.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He told you there was a price upon his head?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, a few hundred pounds, I forget how much, but he asked me this +morning if I did not feel tempted to give him up and earn the reward.’ +</p> +<p> +Kate leaned her head upon her hand, and seemed lost in thought. +</p> +<p> +‘They will scarcely dare to come and search for him here,’ said she; and, +after a pause, added, ‘And yet I suspect that the chief constable, Mr. +Curtis, owes, or thinks he owes, us a grudge: he might not be sorry to +pass this slight upon papa.’ And she pondered for some time over the +thought. +</p> +<p> +‘Do you think he can escape?’ asked Nina eagerly. +</p> +<p> +‘Who, Donogan?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course—Donogan.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I suspect he will: these men have popular feeling with them, even +amongst many who do not share their opinions. Have you lived long enough +amongst us, Nina, to know that we all hate the law? In some shape or other +it represents to the Irish mind a tyranny.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are Greeks without their acuteness,’ said Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll not say that,’ said Kate hastily. ‘It is true I know nothing of your +people, but I think I could aver that for a shrewd calculation of the cost +of a venture, for knowing when caution and when daring will best succeed, +the Irish peasant has scarcely a superior anywhere.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have heard much of his caution this very morning,’ said Nina +superciliously. +</p> +<p> +‘You might have heard far more of his recklessness, if Donogan cared to +tell of it,’ said Kate, with irritation. ‘It is not English squadrons and +batteries he is called alone to face, he has to meet English gold, that +tempts poverty, and English corruption, that begets treachery and +betrayal. The one stronghold of the Saxon here is the informer, and mind, +I, who tell you this, am no rebel. I would rather live under English law, +if English law would not ignore Irish feeling, than I’d accept that Heaven +knows what of a government Fenianism could give us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I care nothing for all this, I don’t well know if I can follow it; but I +do know that I’d like this man to escape. He gave me this pocket-book, and +told me to keep it safely. It contains some secrets that would compromise +people that none suspect, and it has, besides, some three or four +addresses to which I could write with safety if I saw cause to warn him of +any coming danger.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you mean to do this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I do; I feel an interest in this man. I like him. I like his +adventurous spirit. I like that ambitious daring to do or to be something +beyond the herd around him. I like that readiness he shows to stake his +life on an issue. His enthusiasm inflames his whole nature. He vulgarises +such fine gentlemen as Mr. Walpole, and such poor pretenders as Joe Atlee, +and, indeed, your brother, Kate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will suffer no detraction of Dick Kearney,’ said Kate resolutely. +</p> +<p> +‘Give me a cup of tea, then, and I shall be more mannerly, for I am quite +exhausted, and I am afraid my temper is not proof against starvation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But you will come down to the drawing-room, they are all so eager to see +you,’ said Kate caressingly. +</p> +<p> +‘No; I’ll have my tea and go to bed, and I’ll dream that Mr. Donogan has +been made King of Ireland, and made an offer to share the throne with me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Your Majesty’s tea shall be served at once,’ said Kate, as she curtsied +deeply and withdrew. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0038" id="link2HCH0038"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXXVIII +</h2> +<h3> +O’SHEA’S BARN +</h3> +<p> +There were many more pretentious houses than O’Shea’s Barn. It would have +been easy enough to discover larger rooms and finer furniture, more +numerous servants and more of display in all the details of life; but for +an air of quiet comfort, for the certainty of meeting with every material +enjoyment that people of moderate fortune aspire to, it stood unrivalled. +</p> +<p> +The rooms were airy and cheerful, with flowers in summer, as they were +well heated and well lighted in winter. The most massive-looking but +luxurious old arm-chairs, that modern taste would have repudiated for +ugliness, abounded everywhere; and the four cumbrous but comfortable seats +that stood around the circular dinner-table—and it was a matter of +principle with Miss Betty that the company should never be more numerous—only +needed speech to have told of traditions of conviviality for very nigh two +centuries back. +</p> +<p> +As for a dinner at the Barn, the whole countyside confessed that they +never knew how it was that Miss Betty’s salmon was ‘curdier’ and her +mountain mutton more tender, and her woodcocks racier and of higher +flavour, than any one else’s. Her brown sherry you might have equalled—she +liked the colour and the heavy taste—but I defy you to match that +marvellous port which came in with the cheese, and as little, in these +days of light Bordeaux, that stout-hearted Sneyd’s claret, in its ancient +decanter, whose delicately fine neck seemed fashioned to retain the +bouquet. +</p> +<p> +The most exquisite compliment that a courtier ever uttered could not have +given Miss Betty the same pleasure as to hear one of her guests request a +second slice off ‘the haunch.’ This was, indeed, a flattery that appealed +to her finest sensibilities, and as she herself carved, she knew how to +reward that appreciative man with fat. +</p> +<p> +Never was the virtue of hospitality more self-rewarding than in her case; +and the discriminating individual who ate with gusto, and who never +associated the wrong condiment with his food, found favour in her eyes, +and was sure of re-invitation. +</p> +<p> +Fortune had rewarded her with one man of correct taste and exquisite +palate as a diner-out. This was the parish priest, the Rev. Luke Delany, +who had been educated abroad, and whose natural gifts had been improved by +French and Italian experiences. He was a small little meek man, with +closely-cut black hair and eyes of the darkest, scrupulously neat in +dress, and, by his ruffles and buckled shoes at dinner, affecting +something of the abbé in his appearance. To such as associated the +Catholic priest with coarse manners, vulgar expressions, or violent +sentiments, Father Luke, with his low voice, his well-chosen words, and +his universal moderation, was a standing rebuke; and many an English +tourist who met him came away with the impression of the gross calumny +that associated this man’s order with underbred habits and disloyal +ambitions. He spoke little, but he was an admirable listener, and there +was a sweet encouragement in the bland nod of his head, and a racy +appreciation in the bright twinkle of his humorous eye, that the prosiest +talker found irresistible. +</p> +<p> +There were times, indeed—stirring intervals of political excitement—when +Miss Betty would have liked more hardihood and daring in her ghostly +counsellor; but Heaven help the man who would have ventured on the open +avowal of such opinion or uttered a word in disparagement of Father Luke. +</p> +<p> +It was in that snug dinner-room I have glanced at that a party of four sat +over their wine. They had dined admirably, a bright wood fire blazed on +the hearth, and the scene was the emblem of comfort and quiet +conviviality. Opposite Miss O’Shea sat Father Delany, and on either side +of her her nephew Gorman and Mr. Ralph Miller, in whose honour the present +dinner was given. +</p> +<p> +The Catholic bishop of the diocese had vouchsafed a guarded and cautious +approval of Mr. Miller’s views, and secretly instructed Father Delany to +learn as much more as he conveniently could of the learned gentleman’s +intentions before committing himself to a pledge of hearty support. +</p> +<p> +‘I will give him a good dinner,’ said Miss O’Shea, ‘and some of the ‘45 +claret, and if you cannot get his sentiments out of him after that, I wash +my hands of him.’ +</p> +<p> +Father Delany accepted his share of the task, and assuredly Miss Betty did +not fail on her part. +</p> +<p> +The conversation had turned principally on the coming election, and Mr. +Miller gave a flourishing account of his success as a canvasser, and even +went the length of doubting if any opposition would be offered to him. +</p> +<p> +‘Ain’t you and young Kearney going on the same ticket?’ asked Gorman, who +was too new to Ireland to understand the nice distinctions of party. +</p> +<p> +‘Pardon me,’ said Miller, ‘we differ essentially. <i>We</i> want a +government in Ireland—the Nationalists want none. <i>We</i> desire +order by means of timely concessions and judicious boons to the people. +They want disorder—the display of gross injustice—content to +wait for a scramble, and see what can come of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Miller’s friends, besides,’ interposed Father Luke, ‘would defend the +Church and protect the Holy See’—and this was said with a +half-interrogation. +</p> +<p> +Miller coughed twice, and said, ‘Unquestionably. We have shown our hand +already—look what we have done with the Established Church.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You need not be proud of it,’ cried Miss Betty. ‘If you wanted to get rid +of the crows, why didn’t you pull down the rookery?’ +</p> +<p> +‘At least they don’t caw so loud as they used,’ said the priest, smiling; +and Miller exchanged delighted glances with him for his opinion. +</p> +<p> +‘I want to be rid of them, root and branch,’ said Miss Betty. +</p> +<p> +‘If you will vouchsafe us, ma’am, a little patience. Rome was not built in +a day. The next victory of our Church must be won by the downfall of the +English establishment. Ain’t I right, Father Luke?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not quite clear about that,’ said the priest cautiously. ‘Equality +is not the safe road to supremacy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What was that row over towards Croghan Castle this morning?’ asked +Gorman, who was getting wearied with a discussion he could not follow. ‘I +saw the constabulary going in force there this afternoon.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They were in pursuit of the celebrated Dan Donogan,’ said Father Luke. +‘They say he was seen at Moate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They say more than that,’ said Miss Betty. ‘They say that he is stopping +at Kilgobbin Castle!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose to conduct young Kearney’s election,’ said Miller, laughing. +</p> +<p> +‘And why should they hunt him down?’ asked Gorman. ‘What has he done?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He’s a Fenian—a head-centre—a man who wants to revolutionise +Ireland,’ replied Miller. +</p> +<p> +‘And destroy the Church,’ chimed in the priest. +</p> +<p> +‘Humph!’ muttered Gorman, who seemed to imply, Is this all you can lay to +his charge? ‘Has he escaped? asked he suddenly. +</p> +<p> +‘Up to this he has,’ said Miller. ‘I was talking to the constabulary chief +this afternoon, and he told me that the fellow is sure to be apprehended. +He has taken to the open bog, and there are eighteen in full cry after +him. There is a search-warrant, too, arrived, and they mean to look him up +at Kilgobbin Castle.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To search Kilgobbin Castle, do you mean?’ asked Gorman. +</p> +<p> +‘Just so. It will be, as I perceive you think it, a great offence to Mr. +Kearney, and it is not impossible that his temper may provoke him to +resist it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The mere rumour may materially assist his son’s election,’ said the +priest slyly. +</p> +<p> +‘Only with the party who have no votes, Father Luke,’ rejoined Miller. +‘That precarious popularity of the mob is about the most dangerous enemy a +man can have in Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are right, sir,’ said the priest blandly. ‘The real favour of this +people is only bestowed on him who has gained the confidence of the +clergy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If that be true,’ cried Gorman, ‘upon my oath I think you are worse off +here than in Austria. There, at least, we are beginning to think without +the permission of the Church.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Let us have none of your atheism here, young man,’ broke in his aunt +angrily. ‘Such sentiments have never been heard in this room before.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I apprehend Lieutenant Gorman aright,’ interposed Father Luke, ‘he +only refers to the late movement of the Austrian Empire with reference to +the Concordat, on which, amongst religious men, there are two opinions.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no, you mistake me altogether,’ rejoined Gorman. ‘What I mean was, +that a man can read, and talk, and think in Austria without the leave of +the priest; that he can marry, and if he like, he can die without his +assistance.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Gorman, you are a beast,’ said the old lady, ‘and if you lived here, you +would be a Fenian.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’re wrong too, aunt,’ replied he. ‘I’d crush those fellows to-morrow +if I was in power here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mayhap the game is not so easy as you deem it,’ interposed Miller. +</p> +<p> +‘Certainly it is not so easy when played as you do it here. You deal with +your law-breakers only by the rule of legality: that is to say, you +respect all the regulations of the game towards the men who play false. +You have your cumbrous details, and your lawyers, and judges, and juries, +and you cannot even proclaim a county in a state of siege without a bill +in your blessed Parliament, and a basketful of balderdash about the +liberty of the subject. Is it any wonder rebellion is a regular trade with +you, and that men who don’t like work, or business habits, take to it as a +livelihood?’ +</p> +<p> +‘But have you never heard Curran’s saying, young gentleman? “You cannot +bring an indictment against a nation,’” said Miller. +</p> +<p> +‘I’d trouble myself little with indictments,’ replied Gorman. ‘I’d break +down the confederacy by spies; I’d seize the fellows I knew to be guilty, +and hang them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Without evidence, without trial?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Very little of a trial, when I had once satisfied myself of the guilt.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Are you so certain that no innocent men might be brought to the +scaffold?’ asked the priest mildly. +</p> +<p> +‘No, I am not. I take it, as the world goes, very few of us go through +life without some injustice or another. I’d do my best not to hang the +fellows who didn’t deserve it, but I own I’d be much more concerned about +the millions who wanted to live peaceably than the few hundred +rapscallions that were bent on troubling them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I must say, sir,’ said the priest, ‘I am much more gratified to know that +you are a Lieutenant of Lancers in Austria than a British Minister in +Downing Street.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have little doubt myself,’ said the other, laughing, ‘that I am more in +my place; but of this I am sure, that if we were as mealy-mouthed with our +Croats and Slovacks as you are with your Fenians, Austria would soon go to +pieces.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is, however, a higher price on that man Donogan’s head than Austria +ever offered for a traitor,’ said Miller. +</p> +<p> +‘I know how you esteem money here,’ said Gorman, laughing. ‘When all else +fails you, you fall back upon it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why did I know nothing of these sentiments, young man, before I asked you +under my roof?’ said Miss Betty, in anger. +</p> +<p> +‘You need never to have known them now, aunt, if these gentlemen had not +provoked them, nor indeed are they solely mine. I am only telling you what +you would hear from any intelligent foreigner, even though he chanced to +be a liberal in his own country.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, yes,’ sighed the priest: ‘what the young gentleman says is too true. +The Continent is alarmingly infected with such opinions as these.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have you talked on politics with young Kearney?’ asked Miller. +</p> +<p> +‘He has had no opportunity,’ interposed Miss O’Shea. ‘My nephew will be +three weeks here on Thursday next, and neither Mathew nor his son have +called on him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Scarcely neighbourlike that, I must say,’ cried Miller. +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect the fault lies on my side,’ said Gorman boldly. ‘When I was +little more than a boy, I was never out of that house. The old man treated +me like a son. All the more, perhaps, as his own son was seldom at home, +and the little girl Kitty certainly regarded me as a brother; and though +we had our fights and squabbles, we cried very bitterly at parting, and +each of us vowed we should never like any one so much again. And now, +after all, here am I three weeks, within two hours’ ride of them, and my +aunt insists that my dignity requires I should be first called on. +Confound such dignity! say I, if it lose me the best and the pleasantest +friends I ever had in my life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I scarcely thought of <i>your</i> dignity, Gorman O’Shea,’ said the old +lady, bridling, ‘though I did bestow some consideration on my own.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m very sorry for it, aunt, and I tell you fairly—and there’s no +unpoliteness in the confession—that when I asked for my leave, +Kilgobbin Castle had its place in my thoughts as well as O’Shea’s Barn.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why not say it out, young gentleman, and tell me that the real charm of +coming here was to be within twelve miles of the Kearneys.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The merits of this house are very independent of contiguity,’ said the +priest; and as he eyed the claret in his glass, it was plain that the +sentiment was an honest one. +</p> +<p> +‘Fifty-six wine, I should say,’ said Miller, as he laid down his glass. +</p> +<p> +‘Forty-five, if Mr. Barton be a man of his word,’ said the old lady +reprovingly. +</p> +<p> +‘Ah,’ sighed the priest plaintively, ‘how rarely one meets these old +full-bodied clarets nowadays. The free admission of French wines has +corrupted taste and impaired palate. Our cheap Gladstones have come upon +us like universal suffrage.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The masses, however, benefit,’ remarked Miller. +</p> +<p> +‘Only in the first moment of acquisition, and in the novelty of the gain,’ +continued Father Luke; ‘and then they suffer irreparably in the loss of +that old guidance, which once directed appreciation when there was +something to appreciate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We want the priest again, in fact,’ broke in Gorman. +</p> +<p> +‘You must admit they understand wine to perfection, though I would humbly +hope, young gentleman,’ said the Father modestly, ‘to engage your good +opinion of them on higher grounds.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Give yourself no trouble in the matter, Father Luke,’ broke in Miss +Betty. ‘Gorman’s Austrian lessons have placed him beyond <i>your</i> +teaching.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My dear aunt, you are giving the Imperial Government a credit it never +deserved. They taught me as a cadet to groom my horse and pipeclay my +uniform, to be respectful to my corporal, and to keep my thumb on the seam +of my trousers when the captain’s eye was on me; but as to what passed +inside my mind, if I had a mind at all, or what I thought of Pope, Kaiser, +or Cardinal, they no more cared to know it than the name of my +sweetheart.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a blessing to that benighted country would be one liberal +statesman!’ exclaimed Miller: ‘one man of the mind and capacity of our +present Premier!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Heaven forbid!’ cried Gorman. ‘We have confusion enough, without the +reflection of being governed by what you call here “healing measures.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should like to discuss that point with you,’ said Miller. +</p> +<p> +‘Not now, I beg,’ interposed Miss O’Shea. ‘Gorman, will you decant another +bottle?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe I ought to protest against more wine,’ said the priest, in his +most insinuating voice; ‘but there are occasions where the yielding to +temptation conveys a moral lesson.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect that I cultivate my nature a good deal in that fashion,’ said +Gorman, as he opened a fresh bottle. +</p> +<p> +‘This is perfectly delicious,’ said Miller, as he sipped his glass; ‘and +if I could venture to presume so far, I would ask leave to propose a +toast.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You have my permission, sir,’ said Miss Betty, with stateliness. +</p> +<p> +‘I drink, then,’ said he reverently, ‘I drink to the long life, the good +health, and the unbroken courage of the Holy Father.’ +</p> +<p> +There was something peculiarly sly in the twinkle of the priest’s black +eye as he filled his bumper, and a twitching motion of the corner of his +mouth continued even as he said, ‘To the Pope.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The Pope,’ said Gorman as he eyed his wine— +</p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +‘“Der Papst lebt herrlich in der Welt.”’ +</pre> +<p> +‘What are you muttering there?’ asked his aunt fiercely. +</p> +<p> +‘The line of an old song, aunt, that tells us how his Holiness has a jolly +time of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I fear me it must have been written in other days,’ said Father Luke. +</p> +<p> +‘There is no intention to desert or abandon him, I assure you,’ said +Miller, addressing him in a low but eager tone. ‘I could never—no +Irishman could—ally himself to an administration which should +sacrifice the Holy See. With the bigotry that prevails in England, the +question requires most delicate handling; and even a pledge cannot be +given except in language so vague and unprecise as to admit of many +readings.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why not bring in a Bill to give him a subsidy, a something per annum, or +a round sum down?’ cried Gorman. +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Miller has just shown us that Exeter Hall might become dangerous. +English intolerance is not a thing to be rashly aroused.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I had to deal with him, I’d do as Bright proposed with your landlords +here. I’d buy him out, give him a handsome sum for his interest, and let +him go.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And how would you deal with the Church, sir?’ asked the priest. +</p> +<p> +‘I have not thought of that; but I suppose one might put it into +commission, as they say, or manage it by a Board, with a First Lord, like +the Admiralty.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will give you some tea, gentlemen, when you appear in the +drawing-room,’ said Miss Betty, rising with dignity, as though her +condescension in sitting so long with the party had been ill rewarded by +her nephew’s sentiments. +</p> +<p> +The priest, however, offered his arm, and the others followed as he left +the room. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0039" id="link2HCH0039"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XXXIX +</h2> +<h3> +AN EARLY GALLOP +</h3> +<p> +Mathew Kearney had risen early, an unusual thing with him of late; but he +had some intention of showing his guest Mr. Walpole over the farm after +breakfast, and was anxious to give some preliminary orders to have +everything ‘ship-shape’ for the inspection. +</p> +<p> +To make a very disorderly and much-neglected Irish farm assume an air of +discipline, regularity, and neatness at a moment’s notice, was pretty much +such an exploit as it would have been to muster an Indian tribe, and pass +them before some Prussian martinet as a regiment of guards. +</p> +<p> +To make the ill-fenced and misshapen fields seem trim paddocks, wavering +and serpentining furrows appear straight and regular lines of tillage, +weed-grown fields look marvels of cleanliness and care, while the lounging +and ragged population were to be passed off as a thriving and industrious +peasantry, well paid and contented, were difficulties that Mr. Kearney did +not propose to confront. Indeed, to do him justice, he thought there was a +good deal of pedantic and ‘model-farming’ humbug about all that English +passion for neatness he had read of in public journals, and as our fathers—better +gentlemen, as he called them, and more hospitable fellows than any of us—had +got on without steam-mowing and threshing, and bone-crushing, he thought +we might farm our properties without being either blacksmiths or stokers. +</p> +<p> +‘God help us,’ he would say, ‘I suppose we’ll be chewing our food by steam +one of these days, and filling our stomachs by hydraulic pressure. But for +my own part, I like something to work for me that I can swear at when it +goes wrong. There’s little use in cursing a cylinder.’ +</p> +<p> +To have heard him amongst his labourers that morning, it was plain to see +that they were not in the category of machinery. On one pretext or +another, however, they had slunk away one by one, so that at last he found +himself storming alone in a stubble-field, with no other companion than +one of Kate’s terriers. The sharp barking of this dog aroused him in the +midst of his imprecations, and looking over the dry-stone wall that +inclosed the field, he saw a horseman coming along at a sharp canter, and +taking the fences as they came like a man in a hunting-field. He rode +well, and was mounted upon a strong wiry hackney—a cross-bred horse, +and of little money value, but one of those active cats of horseflesh that +a knowing hand can appreciate. Now, little as Kearney liked the liberty of +a man riding over his ditches and his turnips when out of hunting season, +his old love of good horsemanship made him watch the rider with interest +and even pleasure. ‘May I never!’ muttered he to himself, ‘if he’s not +coming at this wall.’ And as the inclosure in question was built of large +jagged stones, without mortar, and fully four feet in height, the upper +course being formed of a sort of coping in which the stones stood +edgewise, the attempt did look somewhat rash. Not taking the wall where it +was slightly breached, and where some loose stones had fallen, the rider +rode boldly at one of the highest portions, but where the ground was good +on either side. +</p> +<p> +‘He knows what he’s at!’ muttered Kearney, as the horse came bounding over +and alighted in perfect safety in the field. +</p> +<p> +‘Well done! whoever you are,’ cried Kearney, delighted, as the rider +removed his hat and turned round to salute him. +</p> +<p> +‘And don’t you know me, sir?’ asked he. +</p> +<p> +‘‘Faith, I do not,’ replied Kearney; ‘but somehow I think I know the +chestnut. To be sure I do. There’s the old mark on her knee, how ever she +found the man who could throw her down. Isn’t she Miss O’Shea’s Kattoo?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That she is, sir, and I’m her nephew.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Are you?’ said Kearney dryly. +</p> +<p> +The young fellow was so terribly pulled up by the unexpected repulse—more +marked even by the look than the words of the other—that he sat +unable to utter a syllable. ‘I had hoped, sir,’ said he at last, ‘that I +had not outgrown your recollection, as I can promise none of your former +kindness to me has outgrown mine.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But it took you three weeks to recall it, all the same,’ said Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘It is true, sir, I am very nearly so long here; but my aunt, whose guest +I am, told me I must be called on first; that—I’m sure I can’t say +for whose benefit it was supposed to be—I should not make the first +visit; in fact, there was some rule about the matter, and that I must not +contravene it. And although I yielded with a very bad grace, I was in a +measure under orders, and dared not resist.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She told you, of course, that we were not on our old terms: that there +was a coldness between the families, and we had seen nothing of each other +lately?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not a word of it, sir.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nor of any reason why you should not come here as of old?’ +</p> +<p> +‘None, on my honour; beyond this piece of stupid etiquette, I never heard +of anything like a reason.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am all the better pleased with my old neighbour,’ said Kearney, in his +more genial tone. ‘Not, indeed, that I ought ever to have distrusted her, +but for all that—Well, never mind,’ muttered he, as though debating +the question with himself, and unable to decide it, ‘you are here now—eh! +You are here now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You almost make me suspect, sir, that I ought not to be here now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘At all events, if you were waiting for me you wouldn’t be here. Is not +that true, young gentleman?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Quite true, sir, but not impossible to explain.’ And he now flung himself +to the ground, and with the rein over his arm, came up to Kearney’s side. +‘I suppose, but for an accident, I should have gone on waiting for that +visit you had no intention to make me, and canvassing with myself how long +you were taking to make up your mind to call on me, when I heard only last +night that some noted rebel—I’ll remember his name in a minute or +two—was seen in the neighbourhood, and that the police were on his +track with a warrant, and even intended to search for him here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘In my house—in Kilgobbin Castle?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, here in your house, where, from a sure information, he had been +harboured for some days. This fellow—a head-centre, or leader, with +a large sum on his head—has, they say, got away; but the hope of +finding some papers, some clue to him here, will certainly lead them to +search the castle, and I thought I’d come over and apprise you of it at +all events, lest the surprise should prove too much for your temper.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do they forget I’m in the commission of the peace?’ said Kearney, in a +voice trembling with passion. +</p> +<p> +‘You know far better than me how far party spirit tempers life in this +country, and are better able to say whether some private intention to +insult is couched under this attempt.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s true,’ cried the old man, ever ready to regard himself as the +object of some secret malevolence. ‘You cannot remember this rebel’s name, +can you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was Daniel something—that’s all I know.’ +</p> +<p> +A long, fine whistle was Kearney’s rejoinder, and after a second or two he +said, ‘I can trust you, Gorman; and I may tell you they may be not so +great fools as I took them for. Not that I was harbouring the fellow, mind +you; but there came a college friend of Dick’s here a few days back—a +clever fellow he was, and knew Ireland well—and we called him Mr. +Daniel, and it was but yesterday he left us and did not return. I have a +notion now he was the head-centre they’re looking for.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you know if he has left any baggage or papers behind him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know nothing about this whatever, nor do I know how far Dick was in his +secret.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You will be cool and collected, I am sure, sir, when they come here with +the search-warrant. You’ll not give them even the passing triumph of +seeing that you are annoyed or offended?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That I will, my lad. I’m prepared now, and I’ll take them as easy as if +it was a morning call. Come in and have your breakfast with us, and say +nothing about what we’ve been talking over.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Many thanks, sir, but I think—indeed I feel sure—I ought to +go back at once. I have come here without my aunt’s knowledge, and now +that I have seen you and put you on your guard, I ought to go back as fast +as I can.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So you shall, when you feed your beast and take something yourself. Poor +old Kattoo isn’t used to this sort of cross-country work, and she’s +panting there badly enough. That mare is twenty-one years of age.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She’s fresh on her legs—not a curb nor a spavin, nor even a +wind-gall about her,’ said the young man. +</p> +<p> +‘And the reward for it all is to be ridden like a steeplechaser!’ sighed +old Kearney. ‘Isn’t that the world over? Break down early, and you are a +good-for-nothing. Carry on your spirit, and your pluck, and your endurance +to a green old age, and maybe they won’t take it out of you!—always +contrasting you, however, with yourself long ago, and telling the +bystanders what a rare beast you were in your good days. Do you think they +had dared to pass this insult upon <i>me</i> when I was five-and-twenty or +thirty? Do you think there’s a man in the county would have come on this +errand to search Kilgobbin when I was a young man, Mr. O’Shea?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I think you can afford to treat it with the contempt you have determined +to show it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s all very fine now,’ said Kearney; ‘but there was a time I’d rather +have chucked the chief constable out of the window and sent the sergeant +after him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know whether that would have been better,’ said Gorman, with a +faint smile. +</p> +<p> +‘Neither do I; but I know that I myself would have felt better and easier +in my mind after it. I’d have eaten my breakfast with a good appetite, and +gone about my day’s work, whatever it was, with a free heart and fearless +in my conscience! Ay, ay,’ muttered he to himself, ‘poor old Ireland isn’t +what it used to be!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m very sorry, sir, but though I’d like immensely to go back with you, +don’t you think I ought to return home?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think anything of the sort. Your aunt and I had a tiff the last +time we met, and that was some months ago. We’re both of us old and +cross-grained enough to keep up the grudge for the rest of our lives. Let +us, then, make the most of the accident that has led you here, and when +you go home, you shall be the bearer of the most submissive message I can +invent to my old friend, and there shall be no terms too humble for me to +ask her pardon.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s enough, sir. I’ll breakfast here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course you’ll say nothing of what brought you over here. But I ought +to warn you not to drop anything carelessly about politics in the county +generally, for we have a young relative and a private secretary of the +Lord-Lieutenant’s visiting us, and it’s as well to be cautious before +him.’ +</p> +<p> +The old man mentioned this circumstance in the cursory tone of an ordinary +remark, but he could not conceal the pride he felt in the rank and +condition of his guest. As for Gorman, perhaps it was his foreign +breeding, perhaps his ignorance of all home matters generally, but he +simply assented to the force of the caution, and paid no other attention +to the incident. +</p> +<p> +‘His name is Walpole, and he is related to half the peerage,’ said the old +man, with some irritation of manner. +</p> +<p> +A mere nod acknowledged the information, and he went on— +</p> +<p> +‘This was the young fellow who was with Kitty on the night they attacked +the castle, and he got both bones of his forearm smashed with a shot.’ +</p> +<p> +‘An ugly wound,’ was the only rejoinder. +</p> +<p> +‘So it was, and for a while they thought he’d lose the arm. Kitty says he +behaved beautifully, cool and steady all through.’ +</p> +<p> +Another nod, but this time Gorman’s lips were firmly compressed. +</p> +<p> +‘There’s no denying it,’ said the old man, with a touch of sadness in his +voice—‘there’s no denying it, the English have courage; though,’ +added he afterwards, ‘it’s in a cold, sluggish way of their own, which we +don’t like here. There he is, now, that young fellow that has just parted +from the two girls. The tall one is my niece—I must present you to +her.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0040" id="link2HCH0040"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XL +</h2> +<h3> +OLD MEMORIES +</h3> +<p> +Though both Kate Kearney and young O’Shea had greatly outgrown each +other’s recollection, there were still traits of feature remaining, and +certain tones of voice, by which they were carried back to old times and +old associations. +</p> +<p> +Amongst the strange situations in life, there are few stranger, or, in +certain respects, more painful, than the meeting after long absence of +those who, when they had parted years before, were on terms of closest +intimacy, and who now see each other changed by time, with altered habits +and manners, and impressed in a variety of ways with influences and +associations which impart their own stamp on character. +</p> +<p> +It is very difficult at such moments to remember how far we ourselves have +changed in the interval, and how much of what we regard as altered in +another may not simply be the new standpoint from which we are looking, +and thus our friend may be graver, or sadder, or more thoughtful, or, as +it may happen, seem less reflective and less considerative than we have +thought him, all because the world has been meantime dealing with +ourselves in such wise that qualities we once cared for have lost much of +their value, and others that we had deemed of slight account have grown +into importance with us. +</p> +<p> +Most of us know the painful disappointment of revisiting scenes which had +impressed us strongly in early life: how the mountain we regarded with a +wondering admiration had become a mere hill, and the romantic tarn a pool +of sluggish water; and some of this same awakening pursues us in our +renewal of old intimacies, and we find ourselves continually warring with +our recollections. +</p> +<p> +Besides this, there is another source of uneasiness that presses +unceasingly. It is in imputing every change we discover, or think we +discover in our friend, to some unknown influences that have asserted +their power over him in our absence, and thus when we find that our +arguments have lost their old force, and our persuasions can be stoutly +resisted, we begin to think that some other must have usurped our place, +and that there is treason in the heart we had deemed to be loyally our +own. +</p> +<p> +How far Kate and Gorman suffered under these irritations, I do not stop to +inquire, but certain it is, that all their renewed intercourse was little +other than snappish reminders of unfavourable change in each, and +assurances more frank than flattering that they had not improved in the +interval. +</p> +<p> +‘How well I know every tree and alley of this old garden!’ said he, as +they strolled along one of the walks in advance of the others. ‘Nothing is +changed here but the people.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And do you think we are?’ asked she quietly. +</p> +<p> +‘I should think I do! Not so much for your father, perhaps. I suppose men +of his time of life change little, if at all; but you are as ceremonious +as if I had been introduced to you this morning.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You addressed me so deferentially as Miss Kearney, and with such an +assuring little intimation that you were not either very certain of <i>that</i>, +that I should have been very courageous indeed to remind you that I once +was Kate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not Kate—Kitty,’ rejoined he quickly. +</p> +<p> +‘Oh yes, perhaps, when you were young, but we grew out of that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Did we? And when?’ +</p> +<p> +‘When we gave up climbing cherry-trees, and ceased to pull each other’s +hair when we were angry.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh dear!’ said he drearily, as his head sank heavily. +</p> +<p> +‘You seem to sigh over those blissful times, Mr. O’Shea,’ said she, ‘as if +they were terribly to be regretted.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So they are. So I feel them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I never knew before that quarrelling left such pleasant associations.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My memory is good enough to remember times when we were not quarrelling—when +I used to think you were nearer an angel than a human creature—ay, +when I have had the boldness to tell you so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You don’t mean <i>that</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do mean it, and I should like to know why I should not mean it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘For a great many reasons—one amongst the number, that it would have +been highly indiscreet to turn a poor child’s head with a stupid +flattery.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But were you a child? If I’m right, you were not very far from fifteen at +the time I speak of.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How shocking that you should remember a young lady’s age!’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is not the point at all,’ said he, as though she had been +endeavouring to introduce another issue. +</p> +<p> +‘And what is the point, pray?’ asked she haughtily. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, it is this—how many have uttered what you call stupid +flatteries since that time, and how have they been taken.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is this a question?’ asked she. ‘I mean a question seeking to be +answered?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Assuredly, then, Mr. O’Shea, however time has been dealing with <i>me</i>, +it has contrived to take marvellous liberties with <i>you</i> since we +met. Do you know, sir, that this is a speech you would not have uttered +long ago for worlds?’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I have forgotten myself as well as you,’ said he, with deep humility, +‘I very humbly crave pardon. Not but there were days, ‘added he, ‘when my +mistake, if I made one, would have been forgiven without my asking.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s a slight touch of presumption, sir, in telling me what a +wonderful person I used to think you long ago.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So you did,’ cried he eagerly. ‘In return for the homage I laid at your +feet—as honest an adoration as ever a heart beat with—you +condescended to let me build my ambitions before you, and I must own you +made the edifice very dear to me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To be sure, I do remember it all, and I used to play or sing, “<i>Mein +Schatz ist ein Reiter</i>,” and take your word that you were going to be a +Lancer— +</p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +“In file arrayed, +With helm and blade, +And plume in the gay wind dancing.” +</pre> +<p> +I’m certain my cousin would be charmed to see you in all your bravery.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Your cousin will not speak to me for being an Austrian.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Has she told you so?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, she said it at breakfast.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That denunciation does not sound very dangerously; is it not worth your +while to struggle against a misconception?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have had such luck in my present attempt as should scarcely raise my +courage.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are too ingenious by far for me, Mr. O’Shea,’ said she carelessly. ‘I +neither remember so well as you, nor have I that nice subtlety in +detecting all the lapses each of us has made since long ago. Try, however, +if you cannot get on better with Mademoiselle Kostalergi, where there are +no antecedents to disturb you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will; that is if she let me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I trust she may, and not the less willingly, perhaps, as she evidently +will not speak to Mr. Walpole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, indeed, and is <i>he</i> here?’ he stopped and hesitated; and the +full bold look she gave him did not lessen his embarrassment. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, sir,’ asked she, ‘go on: is this another reminiscence?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, Miss Kearney; I was only thinking of asking you who this Mr. Walpole +was.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Cecil Walpole is a nephew or a something to the Lord-Lieutenant, +whose private secretary he is. He is very clever, very amusing—sings, +draws, rides, and laughs at the Irish to perfection. I hope you mean to +like him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course, or I should not have bespoken your sympathy. My cousin used to +like him, but somehow he has fallen out of favour with her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Was he absent some time?’ asked he, with a half-cunning manner. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I believe there was something of that in it. He was not here for a +considerable time, and when we saw him again, we almost owned we were +disappointed. Papa is calling me from the window, pray excuse me for a +moment.’ She left him as she spoke, and ran rapidly back to the house, +whence she returned almost immediately. ‘It was to ask you to stop and +dine here, Mr. O’Shea,’ said she. ‘There will be ample time to send back +to Miss O’Shea, and if you care to have your dinner-dress, they can send +it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is Mr. Kearney’s invitation?’ asked he. +</p> +<p> +‘Of course; papa is the master at Kilgobbin.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But will Miss Kearney condescend to say that it is hers also.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Certainly, though I’m not aware what solemnity the engagement gains by my +co-operation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I accept at once, and if you allow me, I’ll go back and send a line to my +aunt to say so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t you remember Mr. O’Shea, Dick?’ asked she, as her brother lounged +up, making his first appearance that day. +</p> +<p> +‘I’d never have known you,’ said he, surveying him from head to foot, +without, however, any mark of cordiality in the recognition. +</p> +<p> +‘All find me a good deal changed!’ said the young fellow, drawing himself +to his full height, and with an air that seemed to say—‘and none the +worse for it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I used to fancy I was more than your match,’ rejoined Dick, smiling; ‘I +suspect it’s a mistake I am little likely to incur again.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t, Dick, for he has got a very ugly way of ridding people of their +illusions,’ said Kate, as she turned once more and walked rapidly towards +the house. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0041" id="link2HCH0041"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XLI +</h2> +<h3> +TWO FAMILIAR EPISTLES +</h3> +<p> +There were a number of bolder achievements Gorman O’Shea would have dared +rather than write a note; nor were the cares of the composition the only +difficulties of the undertaking. He knew of but one style of +correspondence—the report to his commanding officer, and in this he +was aided by a formula to be filled up. It was not, then, till after +several efforts, he succeeded in the following familiar epistle:— +</p> +<p> +‘KILGOBBIN CASTLE. +</p> +<p> +‘DEAR AUNT,—Don’t blow up or make a rumpus, but if I had not taken +the mare and come over here this morning, the rascally police with their +search-warrant might have been down upon Mr. Kearney without a warning. +They were all stiff and cold enough at first: they are nothing to brag of +in the way of cordiality even yet—Dick especially—but they +have asked me to stay and dine, and, I take it, it is the right thing to +do. Send me over some things to dress with—and believe me your +affectionate nephew, +</p> +<p> +‘G. O’SHEA. +</p> +<p> +‘I send the mare back, and shall walk home to-morrow morning. +</p> +<p> +‘There’s a great Castle swell here, a Mr. Walpole, but I have not made his +acquaintance yet, and can tell nothing about him.’ +</p> +<hr /> +<p> +Towards a late hour of the afternoon a messenger arrived with an ass-cart +and several trunks from O’Shea’s Barn, and with the following note:— +</p> +<p> +‘DEAR NEPHEW GORMAN,—O’Shea’s Barn is not an inn, nor are the horses +there at public livery. So much for your information. As you seem fond of +“warnings,” let me give you one, which is, To mind your own affairs in +preference to the interests of other people. The family at Kilgobbin are +perfectly welcome—so far as I am concerned—to the fascinations +of your society at dinner to-day, at breakfast to-morrow, and so on, with +such regularity and order as the meals succeed. To which end, I have now +sent you all the luggage belonging to you here.—I am, very +respectfully, your aunt, ELIZABETH O’SHEA.’ +</p> +<p> +The quaint, old-fashioned, rugged writing was marked throughout by a +certain distinctness and accuracy that betoken care and attention—there +was no evidence whatever of haste or passion—and this expression of +a serious determination, duly weighed and resolved on, made itself very +painfully felt by the young man as he read. +</p> +<p> +‘I am turned out—in plain words, turned out!’ said he aloud, as he +sat with the letter spread out before him. ‘It must have been no common +quarrel—not a mere coldness between the families—when she +resents my coming here in this fashion.’ That innumerable differences +could separate neighbours in Ireland, even persons with the same interests +and the same religion, he well knew, and he solaced himself to think how +he could get at the source of this disagreement, and what chance there +might be of a reconciliation. +</p> +<p> +Of one thing he felt certain. Whether his aunt were right or wrong, +whether tyrant or victim, he knew in his heart all the submission must +come from the others. He had only to remember a few of the occasions in +life in which he had to entreat his aunt’s forgiveness for the injustice +she had herself inflicted, to anticipate what humble pie Mathew Kearney +must partake of in order to conciliate Miss Betty’s favour. +</p> +<p> +‘Meanwhile,’ he thought, and not only thought, but said too—‘Meanwhile, +I am on the world.’ +</p> +<p> +Up to this, she had allowed him a small yearly income. Father Luke, whose +judgment on all things relating to continental life was unimpeachable, had +told her that anything like the reputation of being well off or connected +with wealthy people would lead a young man into ruin in the Austrian +service; that with a sum of 3000 francs per annum—about £120—he +would be in possession of something like the double of his pay, or rather +more, and that with this he would be enabled to have all the necessaries +and many of the comforts of his station, and still not be a mark for that +high play and reckless style of living that certain young Hungarians of +family and large fortune affected; and so far the priest was correct, for +the young Gorman was wasteful and extravagant from disposition, and his +quarter’s allowance disappeared almost when it came. His money out, he +fell back at once to the penurious habits of the poorest subaltern about +him, and lived on his florin-and-half per diem till his resources came +round again. He hoped—of course he hoped—that this momentary +fit of temper would not extend to stopping his allowance. +</p> +<p> +‘She knows as well as any one,’ muttered he, ‘that though the baker’s son +from Prague, or the Amtmann’s nephew from a Bavarian Dorf, may manage to +“come through” with his pay, the young Englishman cannot. I can neither +piece my own overalls, nor forswear stockings, nor can I persuade my +stomach that it has had a full meal by tightening my girth-strap three or +four holes. +</p> +<p> +‘I’d go down to the ranks to-morrow rather than live that life of struggle +and contrivance that reduces a man to playing a dreary game with himself, +by which, while he feels like a pauper, he has to fancy he felt like a +gentleman. No, no, I’ll none of this. Scores of better men have served in +the ranks. I’ll just change my regiment. By a lucky chance, I don’t know a +man in the Walmoden Cuirassiers. I’ll join them, and nobody will ever be +the wiser.’ +</p> +<p> +There is a class of men who go through life building very small castles, +and are no more discouraged by the frailty of the architecture than is a +child with his toy-house. This was Gorman’s case; and now that he had +found a solution of his difficulties in the Walmoden Cuirassiers, he +really dressed for dinner in very tolerable spirits. ‘It’s droll enough,’ +thought he, ‘to go down to dine amongst all these “swells,” and to think +that the fellow behind my chair is better off than myself.’ The very +uncertainty of his fate supplied excitement to his spirits, for it is +amongst the privileges of the young that mere flurry can be pleasurable. +</p> +<p> +When Gorman reached the drawing-room, he found only one person. This was a +young man in a shooting-coat, who, deep in the recess of a comfortable +arm-chair, sat with the <i>Times</i> at his feet, and to all appearance as +if half dozing. +</p> +<p> +He looked around, however, as young O’Shea came forward, and said +carelessly, ‘I suppose it’s time to go and dress—if I could.’ +</p> +<p> +O’Shea making no reply, the other added, ‘That is, if I have not overslept +dinner altogether.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope not, sincerely,’ rejoined the other, ‘or I shall be a partner in +the misfortune.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, you ‘re the Austrian,’ said Walpole, as he stuck his glass in his eye +and surveyed him. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; and you are the private secretary of the Governor.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Only we don’t call him Governor. We say Viceroy here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With all my heart, Viceroy be it.’ +</p> +<p> +There was a pause now—each, as it were, standing on his guard to +resent any liberty of the other. At last Walpole said, ‘I don’t think you +were in the house when that stupid stipendiary fellow called here this +morning?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; I was strolling across the fields. He came with the police, I +suppose?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, he came on the track of some Fenian leader—a droll thought +enough anywhere out of Ireland, to search for a rebel under a magistrate’s +roof; not but there was something still more Irish in the incident.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How was that?’ asked O’Shea eagerly. +</p> +<p> +‘I chanced to be out walking with the ladies when the escort came, and as +they failed to find the man they were after, they proceeded to make +diligent search for his papers and letters. That taste for practical +joking, that seems an instinct in this country, suggested to Mr. Kearney +to direct the fellows to my room, and what do you think they have done? +Carried off bodily all my baggage, and left me with nothing but the +clothes I’m wearing!’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a lark!’ cried O’Shea, laughing. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I take it that is the national way to look at these things; but that +passion for absurdity and for ludicrous situations has not the same hold +on us English.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know that. You are too well off to be droll.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not exactly that; but when we want to laugh we go to the Adelphi.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Heaven help you if you have to pay people to make fun for you!’ +</p> +<p> +Before Walpole could make rejoinder, the door opened to admit the ladies, +closely followed by Mr. Kearney and Dick. +</p> +<p> +‘Not mine the fault if I disgrace your dinner-table by such a costume as +this,’ cried Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘I’d have given twenty pounds if they’d have carried off yourself as the +rebel!’ said the old man, shaking with laughter. ‘But there’s the soup on +the table. Take my niece, Mr. Walpole; Gorman, give your arm to my +daughter. Dick and I will bring up the rear.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0042" id="link2HCH0042"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XLII +</h2> +<h3> +AN EVENING IN THE DRAWING-ROOM +</h3> +<p> +The fatalism of youth, unlike that of age, is all rose-coloured. That +which is coming, and is decreed to come, cannot be very disagreeable. This +is the theory of the young, and differs terribly from the experiences of +after-life. Gorman O’Shea had gone to dinner with about as heavy a +misfortune as could well befall him, so far as his future in life was +concerned. All he looked forward to and hoped for was lost to him: the +aunt who, for so many years, had stood to him in place of all family, had +suddenly thrown him off, and declared that she would see him no more; the +allowance she had hitherto given him withdrawn, it was impossible he could +continue to hold his place in his regiment. Should he determine not to +return, it was desertion—should he go back, it must be to declare +that he was a ruined man, and could only serve in the ranks. These were +the thoughts he revolved while he dressed for dinner, and dressed, let it +be owned, with peculiar care; but when the task had been accomplished, and +he descended to the drawing-room, such was the elasticity of his young +temperament, every thought of coming evil was merged in the sense of +present enjoyment, and the merry laughter which he overheard as he opened +the door, obliterated all notion that life had anything before him except +what was agreeable and pleasant. +</p> +<p> +‘We want to know if you play croquet, Mr. O’Shea?’ said Nina as he +entered. ‘And we want also to know, are you a captain, or a Rittmeister, +or a major? You can scarcely be a colonel.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Your last guess I answer first. I am only a lieutenant, and even that +very lately. As to croquet, if it be not your foreign mode of pronouncing +cricket, I never even saw it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is not my foreign mode of pronouncing cricket, Herr Lieutenant,’ said +she pertly, ‘but I guessed already you had never heard of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is an out-of-door affair,’ said Dick indolently, ‘made for the +diffusion of worked petticoats and Balmoral boots.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should say it is the game of billiards brought down to universal +suffrage and the million,’ lisped out Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘Faith,’ cried old Kearney, ‘I’d say it was just football with a stick.’ +</p> +<p> +‘At all events,’ said Kate, ‘we purpose to have a grand match to-morrow. +Mr. Walpole and I are against Nina and Dick, and we are to draw lots for +you, Mr. O’Shea.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My position, if I understand it aright, is not a flattering one,’ said +he, laughing. +</p> +<p> +‘We’ll take him,’ cried Nina at once. ‘I’ll give him a private lesson in +the morning, and I’ll answer for his performance. These creatures,’ added +she, in a whisper, ‘are so drilled in Austria, you can teach them +anything.’ +</p> +<p> +Now, as the words were spoken O’Shea caught them, and drawing close to +her, said, ‘I do hope I’ll justify that flattering opinion.’ But her only +recognition was a look of half-defiant astonishment at his boldness. +</p> +<p> +A very noisy discussion now ensued as to whether croquet was worthy to be +called a game or not, and what were its laws and rules—points which +Gorman followed with due attention, but very little profit; all Kate’s +good sense and clearness being cruelly dashed by Nina’s ingenious +interruptions and Walpole’s attempts to be smart and witty, even where +opportunity scarcely offered the chance. +</p> +<p> +‘Next to looking on at the game,’ cried old Kearney at last, ‘the most +tiresome thing I know of is to hear it talked over. Come, Nina, and give +me a song.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What shall it be, uncle?’ said she, as she opened the piano. +</p> +<p> +‘Something Irish, I’d say, if I were to choose for myself. We’ve plenty of +old tunes, Mr. Walpole,’ said Kearney, turning to that gentleman, ‘that +rebellion, as you call it, has never got hold of. There’s <i>“Cushla +Macree”</i> and the <i>“Cailan deas cruidhte na Mbo.”</i>’ +</p> +<p> +‘Very like hard swearing that,’ said Walpole to Nina; but his simper and +his soft accent were only met by a cold blank look, as though she had not +understood his liberty in addressing her. Indeed, in her distant manner, +and even repelling coldness, there was what might have disconcerted any +composure less consummate than his own. It was, however, evidently +Walpole’s aim to assume that she felt her relation towards him, and not +altogether without some cause; while she, on her part, desired to repel +the insinuation by a show of utter indifference. She would willingly, in +this contingency, have encouraged her cousin, Dick Kearney, and even led +him on to little displays of attention; but Dick held aloof, as though not +knowing the meaning of this favourable turn towards him. He would not be +cheated by coquetry. How many men are of this temper, and who never +understand that it is by surrendering ourselves to numberless little +voluntary deceptions of this sort, we arrive at intimacies the most real +and most truthful. +</p> +<p> +She next tried Gorman, and here her success was complete. All those +womanly prettinesses, which are so many modes of displaying graceful +attraction of voice, look, gesture, or attitude, were especially dear to +him. Not only they gave beauty its chief charm, but they constituted a +sort of game, whose address was quickness of eye, readiness of perception, +prompt reply, and that refined tact that can follow out one thought in a +conversation just as you follow a melody through a mass of variations. +</p> +<p> +Perhaps the young soldier did not yield himself the less readily to these +captivations that Kate Kearney’s manner towards him was studiously cold +and ceremonious. +</p> +<p> +‘The other girl is more like the old friend,’ muttered he, as he chatted +on with her about Rome, and Florence, and Venice, imperceptibly gliding +into the language which the names of places suggested. +</p> +<p> +‘If any had told me that I ever could have talked thus freely and openly +with an Austrian soldier, I’d not have believed him,’ said she at length, +‘for all my sympathies in Italy were with the National party.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0011" id="linkimage-0011"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/326.jpg" alt="He Knelt Down on One Knee Before Her" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘But we were not the “Barbari” in your recollection, mademoiselle,’ said +he. ‘We were out of Italy before you could have any feeling for either +party.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The tradition of all your cruelties has survived you, and I am sure, if +you were wearing your white coat still, I’d hate you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are giving me another reason to ask for a longer leave of absence,’ +said he, bowing courteously. +</p> +<p> +‘And this leave of yours—how long does it last?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am afraid to own to myself. Wednesday fortnight is the end of it; that +is, it gives me four days after that to reach Vienna.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And presenting yourself in humble guise before your colonel, to say, “<i>Ich +melde mich gehorsamst</i>.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not exactly that—but something like it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll be the Herr Oberst Lieutenant,’ said she, laughing; ‘so come forward +now and clap your heels together, and let us hear how you utter your few +syllables in true abject fashion. I’ll sit here, and receive you.’ As she +spoke, she threw herself into an arm-chair, and assuming a look of intense +hauteur and defiance, affected to stroke an imaginary moustache with one +hand, while with the other she waved a haughty gesture of welcome. +</p> +<p> +‘I have outstayed my leave,’ muttered Gorman, in a tremulous tone. ‘I hope +my colonel, with that bland mercy which characterises him, will forgive my +fault, and let me ask his pardon.’ And with this, he knelt down on one +knee before her, and kissed her hand. +</p> +<p> +‘What liberties are these, sir?’ cried she, so angrily, that it was not +easy to say whether the anger was not real. +</p> +<p> +‘It is the latest rule introduced into our service,’ said he, with mock +humility. +</p> +<p> +‘Is that a comedy they are acting yonder,’ said Walpole, ‘or is it a +proverb?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Whatever the drama,’ replied Kate coldly, ‘I don’t think they want a +public.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You may go back to your duty, Herr Lieutenant,’ said Nina proudly, and +with a significant glance towards Kate. ‘Indeed, I suspect you have been +rather neglecting it of late.’ And with this she sailed majestically away +towards the end of the room. +</p> +<p> +‘I wish I could provoke even that much of jealousy from the other,’ +muttered Gorman to himself, as he bit his lip in passion. And certainly, +if a look and manner of calm unconcern meant anything, there was little +that seemed less likely. +</p> +<p> +‘I am glad you are going to the piano, Nina,’ said Kate. ‘Mr. Walpole has +been asking me by what artifice you could be induced to sing something of +Mendelssohn.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am going to sing an Irish ballad for that Austrian patriot, who, like +his national poet, thinks “Ireland a beautiful country to live out of.”’ +Though a haughty toss of her head accompanied these words, there was a +glance in her eye towards Gorman that plainly invited a renewal of their +half-flirting hostilities. +</p> +<p> +‘When I left it, <i>you</i> had not been here,’ said he, with an +obsequious tone, and an air of deference only too marked in its courtesy. +</p> +<p> +A slight, very faint blush on her cheek showed that she rather resented +than accepted the flattery, but she appeared to be occupied in looking +through the music-books, and made no rejoinder. +</p> +<p> +‘We want Mendelssohn, Nina,’ said Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘Or at least Spohr,’ added Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘I never accept dictation about what I sing,’ muttered Nina, only loud +enough to be overheard by Gorman. ‘People don’t tell you what theme you +are to talk on; they don’t presume to say, “Be serious or be witty.” They +don’t tell you to come to the aid of their sluggish natures by passion, or +to dispel their dreariness by flights of fancy; and why are they to dare +all this to <i>us</i> who speak through song?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just because you alone can do these things,’ said Gorman, in the same low +voice as she had spoken in. +</p> +<p> +‘Can I help you in your search, dearest?’ said Kate, coming over to the +piano. +</p> +<p> +‘Might I hope to be of use?’ asked Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. O’Shea wants me to sing something for <i>him</i>,’ said Nina coldly. +‘What is it to be?’ asked she of Gorman. With the readiness of one who +could respond to any sudden call upon his tact, Gorman at once took up a +piece of music from the mass before him, and said, ‘Here is what I have +been searching for.’ It was a little Neapolitan ballad, of no peculiar +beauty, but one of those simple melodies in which the rapid transition +from deep feeling to a wild, almost reckless, gaiety imparts all the +character. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I’ll sing that,’ said Nina; and almost in the same breath the notes +came floating through the air, slow and sad at first, as though labouring +under some heavy sorrow; the very syllables faltered on her lips like a +grief struggling for utterance—when, just as a thrilling cadence +died slowly away, she burst forth into the wildest and merriest strain, +something so impetuous in gaiety, that the singer seemed to lose all +control of expression, and floated away in sound with every caprice of +enraptured imagination. When in the very whirlwind of this impetuous +gladness, as though a memory of a terrible sorrow had suddenly crossed +her, she ceased; then, in tones of actual agony, her voice rose to a cry +of such utter misery as despair alone could utter. The sounds died slowly +away as though lingeringly. Two bold chords followed, and she was silent. +</p> +<p> +None spoke in the room. Was this real passion, or was it the mere +exhibition of an accomplished artist, who could call up expression at +will, as easily as a painter could heighten colour? Kate Kearney evidently +believed the former, as her heaving chest and her tremulous lip betrayed, +while the cold, simpering smile on Walpole’s face, and the ‘brava, +bravissima’ in which he broke the silence, vouched how he had interpreted +that show of emotion. +</p> +<p> +‘If that is singing, I wonder what is crying,’ cried old Kearney, while he +wiped his eyes, very angry at his own weakness.’ And now will any one tell +me what it was all about?’ +</p> +<p> +‘A young girl, sir,’ replied Gorman, ‘who, by a great effort, has rallied +herself to dispel her sorrow and be merry, suddenly remembers that her +sweetheart may not love her, and the more she dwells on the thought, the +more firmly she believes it. That was the cry, “He never loved me,” that +went to all our hearts.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Faith, then, if Nina has to say that,’ said the old man, ‘Heaven help the +others.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed, uncle, you are more gallant than all these young gentlemen,’ said +Nina, rising and approaching him. +</p> +<p> +‘Why they are not all at your feet this moment is more than I can tell. +They’re always telling me the world is changed, and I begin to see it +now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect, sir, it’s pretty much what it used to be,’ lisped out Walpole. +‘We are only less demonstrative than our fathers.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just as I am less extravagant than mine,’ cried Kilgobbin, ‘because I +have not got it to spend.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope Mademoiselle Nina judges us more mercifully,’ said Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘Is that song a favourite of yours?’ asked she of Gorman, without noticing +Walpole’s remark in any way. +</p> +<p> +‘No,’ said he bluntly; ‘it makes me feel like a fool, and, I am afraid, +look like one too, when I hear it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m glad there’s even that much blood in you,’ cried old Kearney, who had +caught the words. ‘Oh dear! oh dear! England need never be afraid of the +young generation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That seems to be a very painful thought to you, sir,’ said Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘And so it is,’ replied he. ‘The lower we bend, the more you’ll lay on us. +It was your language, and what you call your civilisation, broke us down +first, and the little spirit that fought against either is fast dying out +of us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you want Mr. Walpole to become a Fenian, papa?’ asked Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘You see, they took him for one to-day,’ broke in Dick, ‘when they came +and carried off all his luggage.’ +</p> +<p> +‘By the way,’ interposed Walpole, ‘we must take care that that stupid +blunder does not get into the local papers, or we shall have it circulated +by the London press.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have already thought of that,’ said Dick, ‘and I shall go into Moate +to-morrow and see about it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Does that mean to say that you desert croquet?’ said Nina imperiously. +</p> +<p> +‘You have got Lieutenant O’Shea in my place, and a better player than me +already.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I fear I must take my leave to-morrow,’ said Gorman, with a touch of real +sorrow, for in secret he knew not whither he was going. +</p> +<p> +‘Would your aunt not spare you to us for a few days?’ said the old man. ‘I +am in no favour with her just now, but she would scarcely refuse what we +would all deem a great favour.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My aunt would not think the sacrifice too much for her,’ said Gorman, +trying to laugh at the conceit. +</p> +<p> +‘You shall stay,’ murmured Nina, in a tone only audible to him; and by a +slight bow he acknowledged the words as a command. +</p> +<p> +‘I believe my best way,’ said Gorman gaily, ‘will be to outstay my leave, +and take my punishment, whatever it be, when I go back again.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is military morality,’ said Walpole, in a half-whisper to Kate, but +to be overheard by Nina. ‘We poor civilians don’t understand how to keep a +debtor and creditor account with conscience.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Could you manage to provoke that man to quarrel with you?’ said Nina +secretly to Gorman, while her eyes glanced towards Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘I think I might; but what then? <i>He</i> wouldn’t fight, and the rest of +England would shun me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is true,’ said she slowly. ‘When any is injured here, he tries to +make money out of it. I don’t suppose you want money?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not earned in that fashion, certainly. But I think they are saying +good-night.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They’re always boasting about the man that found out the safety-lamp,’ +said old Kearney, as he moved away; ‘but give me the fellow that invented +a flat candlestick!’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0043" id="link2HCH0043"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XLIII +</h2> +<h3> +SOME NIGHT-THOUGHTS +</h3> +<p> +When Gorman reached his room, into which a rich flood of moonlight was +streaming, he extinguished his candle, and, seating himself at the open +window, lighted his cigar, seriously believing he was going to reflect on +his present condition, and forecast something of the future. Though he had +spoken so cavalierly of outstaying his time, and accepting arrest +afterwards, the jest was by no means so palatable now that he was alone, +and could own to himself that the leave he possessed was the unlimited +liberty to be houseless and a vagabond, to have none to claim, no roof to +shelter him. +</p> +<p> +His aunt’s law-agent, the same Mr. McKeown who acted for Lord Kilgobbin, +had once told Gorman that all the King’s County property of the O’Sheas +was entailed upon him, and that his aunt had no power to alienate it. It +is true the old lady disputed this position, and so strongly resented even +allusion to it, that, for the sake of inheriting that twelve thousand +pounds she possessed in Dutch stock, McKeown warned Gorman to avoid +anything that might imply his being aware of this fact. +</p> +<p> +Whether a general distrust of all legal people and their assertions was +the reason, or whether mere abstention from the topic had impaired the +force of its truth, or whether—more likely than either—he +would not suffer himself to question the intentions of one to whom he owed +so much, certain is it young O’Shea almost felt as much averse to the +belief as the old lady herself, and resented the thought of its being +true, as of something that would detract from the spirit of the affection +she had always borne him, and that he repaid by a love as faithful. +</p> +<p> +‘No, no. Confound it!’ he would say to himself. ‘Aunt Betty loves me, and +money has no share in the affection I bear her. If she knew I must be her +heir, she’d say so frankly and freely. She’d scorn the notion of doling +out to me as benevolence what one day would be my own by right. She is +proud and intolerant enough, but she is seldom unjust—never so +willingly and consciously. If, then, she has not said O’Shea’s Barn must +be mine some time, it is because she knows well it cannot be true. +Besides, this very last step of hers, this haughty dismissal of me from +her house, implies the possession of a power which she would not dare to +exercise if she were but a life-tenant of the property. Last of all, had +she speculated ever so remotely on my being the proprietor of Irish landed +property, it was most unlikely she would so strenuously have encouraged me +to pursue my career as an Austrian soldier, and turn all my thoughts to my +prospects under the Empire.’ +</p> +<p> +In fact, she never lost the opportunity of reminding him how unfit he was +to live in Ireland or amongst Irishmen. +</p> +<p> +Such reflections as I have briefly hinted at here took him some time to +arrive at, for his thoughts did not come freely, or rapidly make place for +others. The sum of them, however, was that he was thrown upon the world, +and just at the very threshold of life, and when it held out its more +alluring prospects. +</p> +<p> +There is something peculiarly galling to the man who is wincing under the +pang of poverty to find that the world regards him as rich and well off, +and totally beyond the accidents of fortune. It is not simply that he +feels how his every action will be misinterpreted and mistaken, and a +spirit of thrift, if not actual shabbiness, ascribed to all that he does, +but he also regards himself as a sort of imposition or sham, who has +gained access to a place he has no right to occupy, and to associate on +terms of equality with men of tastes and habits and ambitions totally +above his own. It was in this spirit he remembered Nina’s chance +expression, ‘I don’t suppose <i>you</i> want money!’ There could be no +other meaning in the phrase than some foregone conclusion about his being +a man of fortune. Of course she acquired this notion from those around +her. As a stranger to Ireland, all she knew, or thought she knew, had been +conveyed by others. ‘I don’t suppose <i>you</i> want money’ was another +way of saying, ‘You are your aunt’s heir. You are the future owner of the +O’Shea estates. No vast property, it is true; but quite enough to maintain +the position of a gentleman.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who knows how much of this Lord Kilgobbin or his son Dick believed?’ +thought he. ‘But certainly my old playfellow Kate has no faith in the +matter, or if she have, it has little weight with her in her estimate of +me. +</p> +<p> +‘It was in this very room I was lodged something like five years ago. It +was at this very window I used to sit at night, weaving Heaven knows what +dreams of a future. I was very much in love in those days, and a very +honest and loyal love it was. I wanted to be very great, and very gallant, +and distinguished, and above all, very rich; but only for <i>her</i>, only +that <i>she</i> might be surrounded with every taste and luxury that +became her, and that she should share them with me. I knew well she was +better than me—better in every way: not only purer, and simpler, and +more gentle, but more patient, more enduring, more tenacious of what was +true, and more decidedly the enemy of what was merely expedient. Then, was +she not proud? not with the pride of birth or station, or of an old name +and a time-honoured house, but proud that whatever she did or said amongst +the tenantry or the neighbours, none ever ventured to question or even +qualify the intention that suggested it. The utter impossibility of +ascribing a double motive to her, or of imagining any object in what she +counselled but the avowed one, gave her a pride that accompanied her +through every hour of life. +</p> +<p> +‘Last of all, she believed in <i>me</i>—believed I was going to be +one day something very famous and distinguished: a gallant soldier, whose +very presence gave courage to the men who followed him, and with a name +repeated in honour over Europe. The day was too short for these fancies, +for they grew actually as we fed them, and the wildest flight of +imagination led us on to the end of the time when there would be but one +hope, one ambition, and one heart between us. +</p> +<p> +‘I am convinced that had any one at that time hinted to her that I was to +inherit the O’Shea estates, he would have dealt a most dangerous blow to +her affection for me. The romance of that unknown future had a great share +in our compact. And then we were so serious about it all—the very +gravity it impressed being an ecstasy to our young hearts in the thought +of self-importance and responsibility. Nor were we without our little +tiffs—those lovers’ quarrels that reveal what a terrible civil war +can rage within the heart that rebels against itself. I know the very spot +where we quarrelled; I could point to the miles of way we walked side by +side without a word; and oh! was it not on that very bed I have passed the +night sobbing till I thought my heart would break, all because I had not +fallen at her feet and begged her forgiveness ere we parted? Not that she +was without her self-accusings too; for I remember one way in which she +expressed sorrow for having done me wrong was to send me a shower of +rose-leaves from her little terraced garden; and as they fell in shoals +across my window, what a balm and bliss they shed over my heart! Would I +not give every hope I have to bring it all back again? to live it over +once more—to lie at her feet in the grass, affecting to read to her, +but really watching her long black lashes as they rested on her cheek, or +that quivering lip as it trembled with emotion. How I used to detest that +work which employed the blue-veined hand I loved to hold within my own, +kissing it at every pause in the reading, or whenever I could pretext a +reason to question her! And now, here I am in the self-same place, amidst +the same scenes and objects. Nothing changed but <i>herself</i>! She, +however, will remember nothing of the past, or if she does, it is with +repugnance and regret; her manner to me is a sort of cold defiance, not to +dare to revive our old intimacy, nor to fancy that I can take up our +acquaintanceship from the past. I almost fancied she looked resentfully at +the Greek girl for the freedom to which she admitted me—not but +there was in the other’s coquetry the very stamp of that levity other +women are so ready to take offence at; in fact, it constitutes amongst +women exactly the same sort of outrage, the same breach of honour and +loyalty, as cheating at play does amongst men, and the offenders are as +much socially outlawed in one case as in the other. I wonder, am I what is +called falling in love with the Greek—that is, I wonder, have the +charms of her astonishing beauty and the grace of her manner, and the +thousand seductions of her voice, her gestures, and her walk, above all, +so captivated me that I do not want to go back on the past, and may hope +soon to repay Miss Kate Kearney by an indifference the equal of her own? I +don’t think so. Indeed, I feel that even when Nina was interesting me +most, I was stealing secret glances towards Kate, and cursing that fellow +Walpole for the way he was engaging her attention. Little the Greek +suspected, when she asked if “I could not fix a quarrel on him,” with what +a motive it was that my heart jumped at the suggestion! He is so +studiously ceremonious and distant with me; he seems to think I am not one +of those to be admitted to closer intimacy. I know that English theory of +“the unsafe man,” by which people of unquestionable courage avoid contact +with all schooled to other ways and habits than their own. I hate it. “I +am unsafe,” to his thinking. Well, if having no reason to care for safety +be sufficient, he is not far wrong. Dick Kearney, too, is not very +cordial. He scarcely seconded his father’s invitation to me, and what he +did say was merely what courtesy obliged. So that in reality, though the +old lord was hearty and good-natured, I believe I am here now because +Mademoiselle Nina commanded me, rather than from any other reason. If this +be true, it is, to say the least, a sorry compliment to my sense of +delicacy. Her words were, “You shall stay,” and it is upon this I am +staying.’ +</p> +<p> +As though the air of the room grew more hard to breathe with this thought +before him, he arose and leaned half-way out of the window. +</p> +<p> +As he did so, his ear caught the sound of voices. It was Kate and Nina, +who were talking on the terrace above his head. +</p> +<p> +‘I declare, Nina,’ said Kate, ‘you have stripped every leaf off my poor +ivy-geranium; there’s nothing left of it but bare branches.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There goes the last handful,’ said the other, as she threw them over the +parapet, some falling on Gorman as he leaned out. ‘It was a bad habit I +learned from yourself, child. I remember when I came here, you used to do +this each night, like a religious rite.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose they were the dried or withered leaves that I threw away,’ said +Kate, with a half-irritation in her voice. +</p> +<p> +‘No, they were not. They were oftentimes from your prettiest roses, and as +I watched you, I saw it was in no distraction or inadvertence you were +doing this, for you were generally silent and thoughtful some time before, +and there was even an air of sadness about you, as though a painful +thought was bringing its gloomy memories.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What an object of interest I have been to you without suspecting it,’ +said Kate coldly. +</p> +<p> +‘It is true,’ said the other, in the same tone; ‘they who make few +confidences suggest much ingenuity. If you had a meaning in this act and +told me what it was, it is more than likely I had forgotten all about it +ere now. You preferred secrecy, and you made me curious.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There was nothing to reward curiosity,’ said she, in the same measured +tone; then, after a moment, she added, ‘I’m sure I never sought to ascribe +some hidden motive to <i>you</i>. When <i>you</i> left my plants leafless, +I was quite content to believe that you were mischievous without knowing +it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I read you differently,’ said Nina. ‘When <i>you</i> do mischief you mean +mischief. Now I became so—so—what shall I call it, <i>intriguée</i> +about this little “fetish” of yours, that I remember well the night you +first left off and never resumed it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And when was that?’ asked Kate carelessly. +</p> +<p> +‘On a certain Friday, the night Miss O’Shea dined here last; was it not a +Friday?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Fridays, we fancy, are unlucky days,’ said Kate, in a voice of easy +indifference. +</p> +<p> +‘I wonder which are the lucky ones?’ said Nina, sighing. ‘They are +certainly not put down in the Irish almanac. By the way, is not this a +Friday?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. O’Shea will not call it amongst his unlucky days,’ said Kate +laughingly. +</p> +<p> +‘I almost think I like your Austrian,’ said the other. +</p> +<p> +‘Only don’t call him <i>my</i> Austrian.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, he was yours till you threw him off. No, don’t be angry: I am only +talking in that careless slang we all use when we mean nothing, just as +people employ counters instead of money at cards; but I like him: he has +that easy flippancy in talk that asks for no effort to follow, and he says +his little nothings nicely, and he is not too eager as to great ones, or +too energetic, which you all are here. I like him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I fancied you liked the eager and enthusiastic people, and that you felt +a warm interest in Donogan’s fate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I do hope they’ll not catch him. It would be too horrid to think of +any one we had known being hanged! And then, poor fellow, he was very much +in love.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Poor fellow!’ sighed out Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘Not but it was the only gleam of sunlight in his existence; he could go +away and fancy that, with Heaven knows what chances of fortune, he might +have won me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Poor fellow!’ cried Kate, more sorrowfully than before. +</p> +<p> +‘No, far from it, but very “happy fellow” if he could feed his heart with +such a delusion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you think it fair to let him have this delusion?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I do. I’d no more rob him of it than I’d snatch a life-buoy +from a drowning man. Do you fancy, child, that the swimmer will always go +about with the corks that have saved his life?’ +</p> +<p> +‘These mock analogies are sorry arguments,’ said Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘Tell me, does your Austrian sing? I see he understands music, but I hope +he can sing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can tell you next to nothing of my Austrian—if he must be called +so. It is five years since we met, and all I know is how little like he +seems to what he once was.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m sure he is vastly improved: a hundred times better mannered; with +more ease, more quickness, and more readiness in conversation. I like +him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I trust he’ll find out his great good-fortune—that is, if it be not +a delusion.’ +</p> +<p> +For a few seconds there was a silence—a silence so complete that +Gorman could hear the rustle of a dress as Nina moved from her place, and +seated herself on the battlement of the terrace. He then could catch the +low murmuring sounds of her voice, as she hummed an air to herself, and at +length traced it to be the song she had sung that same evening in the +drawing-room. The notes came gradually more and more distinct, the tones +swelled out into greater fulness, and at last, with one long-sustained +cadence of thrilling passion, she cried, ‘<i>Non mi amava—non mi +amava!</i>’ with an expression of heart-breaking sorrow, the last +syllables seeming to linger on the lips as if a hope was deserting them +for ever. ‘<i>Oh, non mi amava!</i>’ cried she, and her voice trembled as +though the avowal of her despair was the last effort of her strength. +Slowly and faintly the sounds died away, while Gorman, leaning out to the +utmost to catch the dying notes, strained his hearing to drink them in. +All was still, and then suddenly, with a wild roulade that sounded at +first like the passage of a musical scale, she burst out into a fit of +laughter, crying ‘<i>Non mi amava,</i>’ through the sounds, in a +half-frantic mockery. ‘<i>No, no, non mi amava,</i>’ laughed she out, as +she walked back into the room. The window was now closed with a heavy +bang, and all was silent in the house. +</p> +<p> +‘And these are the affections we break our hearts for!’ cried Gorman, as +he threw himself on his bed, and covered his face with both his hands. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0044" id="link2HCH0044"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XLIV +</h2> +<h3> +THE HEAD CONSTABLE +</h3> +<p> +The Inspector, or, to use the irreverent designation of the neighbourhood, +the Head Peeler, who had carried away Walpole’s luggage and papers, no +sooner discovered the grave mistake he had committed, than he hastened to +restore them, and was waiting personally at Kilgobbin Castle to apologise +for the blunder, long before any of the family had come downstairs. His +indiscretion might cost him his place, and Captain Curtis, who had to +maintain a wife and family, three saddle-horses, and a green uniform with +more gold on it than a field-marshal’s, felt duly anxious and uneasy for +what he had done. +</p> +<p> +‘Who is that gone down the road?’ asked he, as he stood at the window, +while a woman was setting the room in order. +</p> +<p> +‘Sure it’s Miss Kate taking the dogs out. Isn’t she always the first up of +a morning?’ Though the captain had little personal acquaintance with Miss +Kearney, he knew her well by reputation, and knew therefore that he might +safely approach her to ask a favour. He overtook her at once, and in a few +words made known the difficulty in which he found himself. +</p> +<p> +‘Is it not after all a mere passing mistake, which once apologised for is +forgotten altogether?’ asked she. ‘Mr. Walpole is surely not a person to +bear any malice for such an incident?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know that, Miss Kearney,’ said he doubtingly. ‘His papers have +been thoroughly ransacked, and old Mr. Flood, the Tory magistrate, has +taken copies of several letters and documents, all of course under the +impression that they formed part of a treasonable correspondence.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Was it not very evident that the papers could not have belonged to a +Fenian leader? Was not any mistake in the matter easily avoided?’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0012" id="linkimage-0012"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/341.jpg" alt="Nina Came Forward at That Moment" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘Not at once, because there was first of all a sort of account of the +insurrectionary movement here, with a number of queries, such as, “Who is +M——?” “Are F. Y—— and McCausland the same person?” +“What connection exists between the Meath outrages and the late events in +Tipperary?” “How is B—— to explain his conduct sufficiently to +be retained in the Commission of the Peace?” In a word, Miss Kearney, all +the troublesome details by which a Ministry have to keep their own +supporters in decent order, are here hinted at, if not more, and it lies +with a batch of red-hot Tories to make a terrible scandal out of this +affair.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is graver than I suspected,’ said she thoughtfully. +</p> +<p> +‘And I may lose my place,’ muttered Curtis, ‘unless, indeed, you would +condescend to say a word for me to Mr. Walpole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Willingly, if it were of any use, but I think my cousin, Mademoiselle +Kostalergi, would be likelier of success, and here she comes.’ +</p> +<p> +Nina came forward at that moment, with that indolent grace of movement +with which she swept the greensward of the lawn as though it were the +carpet of a saloon. With a brief introduction of Mr. Curtis, her cousin +Kate, in a few words, conveyed the embarrassment of his present position, +and his hope that a kindly intercession might avert his danger. +</p> +<p> +‘What droll people you must be not to find out that the letters of a +Viceroy’s secretary could not be the correspondence of a rebel leader,’ +said Nina superciliously. +</p> +<p> +‘I have already told Miss Kearney how that fell out,’ said he; ‘and I +assure you there was enough in those papers to mystify better and clearer +heads.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But you read the addresses, and saw how the letters began, “My dear Mr. +Walpole,” or “Dear Walpole”?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And thought they had been purloined. Have I not found “Dear Clarendon” +often enough in the same packet with cross-bones and a coffin.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a country!’ said Nina, with a sigh. +</p> +<p> +‘Very like Greece, I suppose,’ said Kate tartly; then, suddenly, ‘Will you +undertake to make this gentleman’s peace with Mr. Walpole, and show how +the whole was a piece of ill-directed zeal?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indiscreet zeal.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, indiscreet, if you like it better.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you fancied, then, that all the fine linen and purple you carried +away were the properties of a head-centre?’ +</p> +<p> +‘We thought so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And the silver objects of the dressing-table, and the ivory inlaid with +gold, and the trifles studded with turquoise?’ +</p> +<p> +‘They might have been Donogan’s. Do you know, mademoiselle, that this same +Donogan was a man of fortune, and in all the society of the first men at +Oxford when—a mere boy at the time—he became a rebel?’ +</p> +<p> +‘How nice of him! What a fine fellow!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’d say what a fool!’ continued Curtis. ‘He had no need to risk his neck +to achieve a station, the thing was done for him. He had a good house and +a good estate in Kilkenny; I have caught salmon in the river that washes +the foot of his lawn.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what has become of it; does he still own it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not an acre—not a rood of it; sold every square yard of it to throw +the money into the Fenian treasury. Rifled artillery, Colt’s revolvers, +Remington’s, and Parrot guns have walked off with the broad acres.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Fine fellow—a fine fellow!’ cried Nina enthusiastically. +</p> +<p> +‘That fine fellow has done a deal of mischief,’ said Kate thoughtfully. +</p> +<p> +‘He has escaped, has he not?’ asked Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘We hope not—that is, we know that he is about to sail for St. +John’s by a clipper now in Belfast, and we shall have a fast +steam-corvette ready to catch her in the Channel. He’ll be under Yankee +colours, it is true, and claim an American citizenship; but we must run +risks sometimes, and this is one of those times.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But you know where he is now? Why not apprehend him on shore?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The very thing we do not know, mademoiselle. I’d rather be sure of it +than have five thousand pounds in my hand. Some say he is here, in the +neighbourhood; some that he is gone south; others declare that he has +reached Liverpool. All we really do know is about the ship that he means +to sail in, and on which the second mate has informed us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And all your boasted activity is at fault,’ said she insolently, ‘when +you have to own you cannot track him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nor is it so easy, mademoiselle, where a whole population befriend and +feel for him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And if they do, with what face can you persecute what has the entire +sympathy of a nation?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t provoke answers which are sure not to satisfy you, and which you +could but half comprehend; but tell Mr. Curtis you will use your influence +to make Mr. Walpole forget this mishap.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But I do want to go to the bottom of this question. I will insist on +learning why people rebel here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘In that case, I’ll go home to breakfast, and I’ll be quite satisfied if I +see you at luncheon,’ said Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘Do, pray, Mr. Curtis, tell me all about it. Why do some people shoot the +others who are just as much Irish as themselves? Why do hungry people kill +the cattle and never eat them? And why don’t the English go away and leave +a country where nobody likes them? If there be a reason for these things, +let me hear it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Bye-bye,’ said Kate, waving her hand, as she turned away. +</p> +<p> +‘You are so ungenerous,’ cried Nina, hurrying after her; ‘I am a stranger, +and would naturally like to learn all that I could of the country and the +people; here is a gentleman full of the very knowledge I am seeking. He +knows all about these terrible Fenians. What will they do with Donogan if +they take him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Transport him for life; they’ll not hang him, I think.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s worse than hanging. I mean—that is—Miss Kearney would +rather they’d hang him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have not said so,’ replied Kate, ‘and I don’t suspect I think so, +either.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well,’ said Nina, after a pause, ‘let us go back to breakfast. You’ll see +Mr. Walpole—he’s sure to be down by that time; and I’ll tell him +what you wish is, that he must not think any more of the incident; that it +was a piece of official stupidity, done, of course, out of the best +motives; and that if he should cut a ridiculous figure at the end, he has +only himself to blame for the worse than ambiguity of his private papers.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do not know that I ‘d exactly say that,’ said Kate, who felt some +difficulty in not laughing at the horror-struck expression of Mr. Curtis’s +face. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, then, I’ll say—this was what I wished to tell you, but my +cousin Kate interposed and suggested that a little adroit flattery of you, +and some small coquetries that might make you believe you were charming, +would be the readiest mode to make you forget anything disagreeable, and +she would charge herself with the task.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do so,’ said Kate calmly; ‘and let us now go back to breakfast.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0045" id="link2HCH0045"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XLV +</h2> +<h3> +SOME IRISHRIES +</h3> +<p> +That which the English irreverently call ‘chaff’ enters largely as an +element into Irish life; and when Walpole stigmatised the habit to Joe +Atlee as essentially that of the smaller island, he was not far wrong. I +will not say that it is a high order of wit—very elegant, or very +refined; but it is a strong incentive to good-humour—a vent to good +spirits; and being a weapon which every Irishman can wield in some fashion +or other, establishes that sort of joust which prevailed in the mêlée +tournaments, and where each tilted with whom he pleased. +</p> +<p> +Any one who has witnessed the progress of an Irish trial, even when the +crime was of the very gravest, cannot fail to have been struck by the +continual clash of smart remark and smarter rejoinder between the Bench +and the Bar; showing how men feel the necessity of ready-wittedness, and a +promptitude to repel attack, in which even the prisoner in the dock takes +his share, and cuts his joke at the most critical moment of his existence. +</p> +<p> +The Irish theatre always exhibits traits of this national taste; but a +dinner-party, with its due infusion of barristers, is the best possible +exemplification of this give and take, which, even if it had no higher +merit, is a powerful ally of good-humour, and the sworn foe to everything +like over-irritability or morbid self-esteem. Indeed, I could not wish a +very conceited man, of a somewhat grave temperament and distant demeanour, +a much heavier punishment than a course of Irish dinner-parties; for even +though he should come out scathless himself, the outrages to his sense of +propriety, and the insults to his ideas of taste, would be a severe +suffering. +</p> +<p> +That breakfast-table at Kilgobbin had some heavy hearts around the board. +There was not, with the exception of Walpole, one there who had not, in +the doubts that beset his future, grave cause for anxiety; and yet to look +at, still more to listen to them, you would have said that Walpole alone +had any load of care upon his heart, and that the others were a +light-hearted, happy set of people, with whom the world went always well. +No cloud!—not even a shadow to darken the road before them. Of this +levity, for I suppose I must give it a hard name—the source of much +that is best and worst amongst us—our English rulers take no +account, and are often as ready to charge us with a conviction, which was +no more than a caprice, as they are to nail us down to some determination, +which was simply a drollery; and until some intelligent traveller does for +us what I lately perceived a clever tourist did for the Japanese, in +explaining their modes of thought, impulses, and passions to the English, +I despair of our being better known in Downing Street than we now are. +</p> +<p> +Captain Curtis—for it is right to give him his rank—was +fearfully nervous and uneasy, and though he tried to eat his breakfast +with an air of unconcern and carelessness, he broke his egg with a +tremulous hand, and listened with painful eagerness every time Walpole +spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘I wish somebody would send us the <i>Standard</i>; when it is known that +the Lord-Lieutenant’s secretary has turned Fenian,’ said Kilgobbin, ‘won’t +there be a grand Tory out-cry over the unprincipled Whigs?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The papers need know nothing whatever of the incident,’ interposed Curtis +anxiously, ‘if old Flood is not busy enough to inform them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who is old Flood?’ asked Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘A Tory J.P., who has copied out a considerable share of your +correspondence,’ said Kilgobbin. +</p> +<p> +‘And four letters in a lady’s hand,’ added Dick, ‘that he imagines to be a +treasonable correspondence by symbol.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope Mr. Walpole,’ said Kate, ‘will rather accept felony to the law +than falsehood to the lady.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You don’t mean to say—’ began Walpole angrily; then correcting his +irritable manner, he added, ‘Am I to suppose my letters have been read?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, roughly looked through,’ said Curtis. ‘Just a glance here and there +to catch what they meant.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Which I must say was quite unnecessary,’ said Walpole haughtily. +</p> +<p> +‘It was a sort of journal of yours,’ blundered out Curtis, who had a most +unhappy knack of committing himself, ‘that they opened first, and they saw +an entry with Kilgobbin Castle at the top of it, and the date last July.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There was nothing political in that, I’m sure,’ said Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘No, not exactly, but a trifle rebellious, all the same; the words, “We +this evening learned a Fenian song, ‘The time to begin,’ and rather +suspect it is time to leave off; the Greek better-looking than ever, and +more dangerous.”’ +</p> +<p> +Curtis’s last words were drowned in the laugh that now shook the table; +indeed, except Walpole and Nina herself, they actually roared with +laughter, which burst out afresh, as Curtis, in his innocence, said, ‘We +could not make out about the Greek, but we hoped we’d find out later on.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I fervently trust you did,’ said Kilgobbin. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m afraid not; there was something about somebody called Joe, that the +Greek wouldn’t have him, or disliked him, or snubbed him—indeed, I +forget the words.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are quite right, sir, to distrust your memory,’ said Walpole; ‘it has +betrayed you most egregiously already.’ +</p> +<p> +‘On the contrary,’ burst in Kilgobbin, ‘I am delighted with this proof of +the captain’s acuteness; tell us something more, Curtis.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There was then, “From the upper castle yard, Maude,” whoever Maude is, +“says, ‘Deny it all, and say you never were there,’ not so easy as she +thinks, with a broken right arm, and a heart not quite so whole as it +ought to be.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘There, sir—with the permission of my friends here—I will ask +you to conclude your reminiscences of my private papers, which can have no +possible interest for any one but myself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Quite wrong in that,’ cried Kilgobbin, wiping his eyes, which had run +over with laughter. ‘There’s nothing I’d like so much as to hear more of +them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What was that about his heart?’ whispered Curtis to Kate; ‘was he wounded +in the side also?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe so,’ said she dryly; ‘but I believe he has got quite over it by +this time.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will you say a word or two about me, Miss Kearney?’ whispered he again; +‘I’m not sure I improved my case by talking so freely; but as I saw you +all so outspoken, I thought I’d fall into your ways.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Captain Curtis is much concerned for any fault he may have committed in +this unhappy business,’ said Kate, ‘and he trusts that the agitation and +excitement of the Donogan escape will excuse him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s your policy now,’ interposed Kilgobbin. ‘Catch the Fenian fellow, +and nobody will remember the other incident.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We mean to give out that we know he has got clear away to America,’ said +Curtis, with an air of intense cunning. ‘And to lull his suspicions, we +have notices in print to say that no further rewards are to be given for +his apprehension; so that he’ll get a false confidence, and move about as +before.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With such acuteness as yours on his trail, his arrest is certain,’ said +Walpole gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I hope so, too,’ said Curtis, in good faith for the compliment.’ +Didn’t I take up nine men for the search of arms here, though there were +only five? One of them turned evidence,’ added he gravely;’ he was the +fellow that swore Miss Kearney stood between you and the fire after they +wounded you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are determined to make Mr. Walpole your friend,’ whispered Nina in +his ear; ‘don’t you see, sir, that you are ruining yourself?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have often been puzzled to explain how it was that crime went +unpunished in Ireland,’ said Walpole sententiously. +</p> +<p> +‘And you know now?’ asked Curtis. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; in a great measure, you have supplied me with the information.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe it’s all right now,’ muttered the captain to Kate. ‘If the +swell owns that I have put him up to a thing or two, he’ll not throw me +over.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Would you give me three minutes of your time?’ whispered Gorman O’Shea to +Lord Kilgobbin, as they arose from table. +</p> +<p> +‘Half an hour, my boy, or more if you want it. Come along with me now into +my study, and we’ll be safe there from all interruption.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0046" id="link2HCH0046"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XLVI +</h2> +<h3> +SAGE ADVICE +</h3> +<p> +‘So then you’re in a hobble with your aunt,’ said Mr. Kearney, as he +believed he had summed up the meaning of a very blundering explanation by +Gorman O’Shea; ‘isn’t that it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, sir; I suppose it comes to that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The old story, I’ve no doubt, if we only knew it—as old as the +Patriarchs: the young ones go into debt, and think it very hard that the +elders dislike the paying it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no; I have no debts—at least, none to speak of.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s a woman, then? Have you gone and married some good-looking girl, +with no fortune and less family? Who is she?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not even that, sir,’ said he, half impatient at seeing how little +attention had been bestowed on his narrative. +</p> +<p> +‘‘Tis bad enough, no doubt,’ continued the old man, still in pursuit of +his own reflections; ‘not but there’s scores of things worse; for if a man +is a good fellow at heart, he’ll treat the woman all the better for what +she has cost him. That is one of the good sides of selfishness; and when +you have lived as long as me, Gorman, you’ll find out how often there’s +something good to be squeezed out of a bad quality, just as though it were +a bit of our nature that was depraved, but not gone to the devil +entirely.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is no woman in the case here, sir,’ said O’Shea bluntly, for these +speculations only irritated him. +</p> +<p> +‘Ho, ho! I have it, then,’ cried the old man. ‘You’ve been burning your +fingers with rebellion. It’s the Fenians have got a hold of you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing of the kind, sir. If you’ll just read these two letters. The one +is mine, written on the morning I came here: here is my aunt’s. The first +is not word for word as I sent it, but as well as I can remember. At all +events, it will show how little I had provoked the answer. There, that’s +the document that came along with my trunks, and I have never heard from +her since.’ +</p> +<p> +‘“Dear Nephew,”’ read out the old man, after patiently adjusting his +spectacles—‘"O’Shea’s Barn is not an inn,”—And more’s the +pity,’ added he; ‘for it would be a model house of entertainment. You’d +say any one could have a sirloin of beef or a saddle of mutton; but where +Miss Betty gets hers is quite beyond me. “Nor are the horses at public +livery,”’ read he out. ‘I think I may say, if they were, that Kattoo won’t +be hired out again to the young man that took her over the fences. “As you +seem fond of warnings,”’ continued he, aloud—‘Ho, ho! that’s at <i>you</i> +for coming over here to tell me about the search-warrant; and she tells +you to mind your own business; and droll enough it is. We always fancy +we’re saying an impertinence to a man when we tell him to attend to what +concerns him most. It shows, at least, that we think meddling a luxury. +And then she adds, “Kilgobbin is welcome to you,” and I can only say you +are welcome to Kilgobbin—ay, and in her own words—“with such +regularity and order as the meals succeed.”—“All the luggage +belonging to you,” etc., and “I am, very respectfully, your Aunt.” By my +conscience, there was no need to sign it! That was old Miss Betty all the +world over!’ and he laughed till his eyes ran over, though the rueful face +of young O’Shea was staring at him all the time. ‘Don’t look so gloomy, +O’Shea,’ cried Kearney: ‘I have not so good a cook, nor, I’m sorry to say, +so good a cellar, as at the Barn; but there are young faces, and young +voices, and young laughter, and a light step on the stairs; and if I know +anything, or rather, if I remember anything, these will warm a heart at +your age better than ‘44 claret or the crustiest port that ever stained a +decanter.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am turned out, sir—sent adrift on the world,’ said the young man +despondently. +</p> +<p> +‘And it is not so bad a thing after all, take my word for it, boy. It’s a +great advantage now and then to begin life as a vagabond. It takes a deal +of snobbery out of a fellow to lie under a haystack, and there’s no better +cure for pretension than a dinner of cold potatoes. Not that I say you +need the treatment—far from it—but our distinguished friend +Mr. Walpole wouldn’t be a bit the worse of such an alterative.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I am left without a shilling in the world?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then you must try what you can do on sixpence—the whole thing is +how you begin. I used not to be able to eat my dinner when I did not see +the fellow in a white tie standing before the sideboard, and the two +flunkeys in plush and silk stockings at either side of the table; and when +I perceived that the decanters had taken their departure, and that it was +beer I was given to drink, I felt as if I had dined, and was ready to go +out and have a smoke in the open air; but a little time, even without any +patience, but just time, does it all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Time won’t teach a man to live upon nothing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It would be very hard for him if it did; let him begin by having few +wants, and work hard to supply means for them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Work hard! why, sir, if I laboured from daylight to dark, I’d not earn +the wages of the humblest peasant, and I’d not know how to live on it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I have given you all the philosophy in my budget, and to tell you +the truth, Gorman, except so far as coming down in the world in spite of +myself, I know mighty little about the fine precepts I have been giving +you; but this I know, you have a roof over your head here, and you’re +heartily welcome to it; and who knows but your aunt may come to terms all +the sooner, because she sees you here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are very generous to me, and I feel it deeply,’ said the young man; +but he was almost choked with the words. +</p> +<p> +‘You have told me already, Gorman, that your aunt gave you no other reason +against coming here than that I had not been to call on you; and I believe +you—believe you thoroughly; but tell me now, with the same +frankness, was there nothing passing in your mind—had you no +suspicions or misgivings, or something of the same kind, to keep you away? +Be candid with me now, and speak it out freely.’ +</p> +<p> +‘None, on my honour; I was sorely grieved to be told I must not come, and +thought very often of rebelling, so that indeed, when I did rebel, I was +in a measure prepared for the penalty, though scarcely so heavy as this.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t take it to heart. It will come right yet—everything comes +right if we give it time—and there’s plenty of time to the fellow +who is not five-and-twenty. It’s only the old dogs, like myself, who are +always doing their match against time, are in a hobble. To feel that every +minute of the clock is something very like three weeks of the almanac, +flurries a man, when he wants to be cool and collected. Put your hat on a +peg, and make your home here. If you want to be of use, Kitty will show +you scores of things to do about the garden, and we never object to see a +brace of snipe at the end of dinner, though there’s nobody cares to shoot +them; and the bog trout—for all their dark colour—are +excellent catch, and I know you can throw a line. All I say is, do +something, and something that takes you into the open air. Don’t get to +lying about in easy-chairs and reading novels; don’t get to singing duets +and philandering about with the girls. May I never, if I’d not rather find +a brandy-flask in your pocket than Tennyson’s poems!’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0047" id="link2HCH0047"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XLVII +</h2> +<h3> +REPROOF +</h3> +<p> +‘Say it out frankly, Kate,’ cried Nina, as with flashing eyes and +heightened colour she paced the drawing-room from end to end, with that +bold sweeping stride which in moments of passion betrayed her. ‘Say it +out. I know perfectly what you are hinting at.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I never hint,’ said the other gravely; ‘least of all with those I love.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So much the better. I detest an equivoque. If I am to be shot, let me +look the fire in the face.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is no question of shooting at all. I think you are very angry for +nothing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Angry for nothing! Do you call that studied coldness you have observed +towards me all day yesterday nothing? Is your ceremonious manner—exquisitely +polite, I will not deny—is that nothing? Is your chilling salute +when we met—I half believe you curtsied—nothing? That you shun +me, that you take pains not to keep my company, never to be with me alone +is past denial.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I do not deny it,’ said Kate, with a voice of calm and quiet meaning. +</p> +<p> +‘At last, then, I have the avowal. You own that you love me no longer.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, I own nothing of the kind: I love you very dearly; but I see that our +ideas of life are so totally unlike, that unless one should bend and +conform to the other, we cannot blend our thoughts in that harmony which +perfect confidence requires. You are so much above me in many things, so +much more cultivated and gifted—I was going to say civilised, and I +believe I might—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ta—ta—ta,’ cried Nina impatiently. ‘These flatteries are very +ill-timed.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So they would be, if they were flatteries; but if you had patience to +hear me out, you’d have learned that I meant a higher flattery for +myself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t I know it? don’t I guess?’ cried the Greek. ‘Have not your downcast +eyes told it? and that look of sweet humility that says, “At least I am +not a flirt?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nor am I,’ said Kate coldly. +</p> +<p> +‘And I am! Come now, do confess. You want to say it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With all my heart I wish you were not!’ And Kate’s eyes swam as she +spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘And what if I tell you that I know it—that in the very employment +of the arts of what you call coquetry, I am but exercising those powers of +pleasing by which men are led to frequent the salon instead of the café, +and like the society of the cultivated and refined better than—’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no, no!’ burst in Kate. ‘There is no such mock principle in the case. +You are a flirt because you like the homage it secures you, and because, +as you do not believe in such a thing as an honest affection, you have no +scruple about trifling with a man’s heart.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So much for captivating that bold hussar,’ cried Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘For the moment I was not thinking of him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of whom, then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of that poor Captain Curtis, who has just ridden away.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, indeed!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes. He has a pretty wife and three nice little girls, and they are the +happiest people in the world. They love each other, and love their home—so, +at least, I am told, for I scarcely know them myself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what have I done with <i>him</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Sent him away sad and doubtful—very doubtful if the happiness he +believed in was the real article after all, and disposed to ask himself +how it was that his heart was beating in a new fashion, and that some new +sense had been added to his nature, of which he had no inkling before. +Sent him away with the notes of a melody floating through his brain, so +that the merry laugh of his children will be a discord, and such a memory +of a soft glance, that his wife’s bright look will be meaningless.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I have done all this? Poor me!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, and done it so often, that it leaves no remorse behind it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And the same, I suppose, with the others?’ +</p> +<p> +‘With Mr. Walpole, and Dick, and Mr. O’Shea, and Mr. Atlee too, when he +was here, in their several ways.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, in theirs, not in mine, then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am but a bungler in my explanation. I wished to say that you adapted +your fascinations to the tastes of each.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a siren!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, yes—what a siren; for they’re all in love in some fashion or +other; but I could have forgiven you these, had you spared the married +man.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So you actually envy that poor prisoner the gleam of light and the breath +of cold air that comes between his prison bars—that one moment of +ecstasy that reminds him how he once was free and at large, and no +manacles to weigh him down? You will not let him even touch bliss in +imagination? Are <i>you</i> not more cruel than <i>me</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is mere nonsense,’ said Kate boldly. ‘You either believe that man +was fooling <i>you</i>, or that you have sent him away unhappy? Take which +of these you like.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Can’t your rustic nature see that there is a third case, quite different +from both, and that Harry Curtis went off believing—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Was he Harry Curtis?’ broke in Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘He was dear Harry when I said good-bye,’ said Nina calmly. +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, then, I give up everything—I throw up my brief.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So you ought, for you have lost your cause long ago.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Even that poor Donogan was not spared, and Heaven knows he had troubles +enough on his head to have pleaded some pity for him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And is there no kind word to say of <i>me</i>, Kate?’ +</p> +<p> +‘O Nina, how ashamed you make me of my violence, when I dare to blame you! +but if I did not love you so dearly, I could better bear you should have a +fault.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have only one, then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know of no great one but this. I mean, I know of none that endangers +good-nature and right feeling.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And are you so sure that this does? Are you so sure that what you are +faulting is not the manner and the way of a world you have not seen? that +all these levities, as you would call them, are not the ordinary wear of +people whose lives are passed where there is more tolerance and less +pain?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Be serious, Nina, for a moment, and own that it was by intention you were +in the approach when Captain Curtis rode away: that you said something to +him, or looked something—perhaps both—on which he got down +from his horse and walked beside you for full a mile?’ +</p> +<p> +‘All true,’ said Nina calmly. ‘I confess to every part of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’d far rather that you said you were sorry for it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But I am not; I’m very glad—I’m very proud of it. +</p> +<p> +Yes, look as reproachfully as you like, Kate! “very proud” was what I +said.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then I am indeed sorry,’ said Kate, growing pale as she spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think, after all this sharp lecturing of me, that you deserve +much of my confidence, and if I make you any, Kate, it is not by way of +exculpation; for I do not accept your blame; it is simply out of caprice—mind +that, and that I am not thinking of defending myself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can easily believe that,’ said Kate dryly. +</p> +<p> +And the other continued: ‘When Captain Curtis was talking to your father, +and discussing the chances of capturing Donogan, he twice or thrice +mentioned Harper and Fry—names which somehow seemed familiar to me; +and on thinking the matter over when I went to my room, I opened Donogan’s +pocket-book and there found how these names had become known to me. Harper +and Fry were tanners, in Cork Street, and theirs was one of the addresses +by which, if I had occasion to warn Donogan, I could write to him. On +hearing these names from Curtis, it struck me that there might be +treachery somewhere. Was it that these men themselves had turned traitors +to the cause? or had another betrayed them? Whichever way the matter went, +Donogan was evidently in great danger; for this was one of the places he +regarded as perfectly safe. +</p> +<p> +‘What was to be done? I dared not ask advice on any side. To reveal the +suspicions which were tormenting me required that I should produce this +pocket-book, and to whom could I impart this man’s secret? I thought of +your brother Dick, but he was from home, and even if he had not been, I +doubt if I should have told him. I should have come to you, Kate, but that +grand rebukeful tone you had taken up this last twenty-four hours repelled +me; and finally, I took counsel with myself. I set off just before Captain +Curtis started, to what you have called waylay him in the avenue. +</p> +<p> +‘Just below the beech-copse he came up; and then that small flirtation of +the drawing-room, which has caused you so much anger and me such a sharp +lesson, stood me in good stead, and enabled me to arrest his progress by +some chance word or two, and at last so far to interest him that he got +down and walked along at my side. I shall not shock you by recalling the +little tender “nothings” that passed between us, nor dwell on the small +mockeries of sentiment which we exchanged—I hope very harmlessly—but +proceed at once to what I felt my object. He was profuse of his gratitude +for what I had done for him with Walpole, and firmly believed that my +intercession alone had saved him; and so I went on to say that the best +reparation he could make for his blunder would be some exercise of +well-directed activity when occasion should offer. “Suppose, for +instance,” said I, “you could capture this man Donogan?” +</p> +<p> +‘“The very thing I hope to do,” cried he. “The train is laid already. One +of my constables has a brother in a well-known house in Dublin, the +members of which, men of large wealth and good position, have long been +suspected of holding intercourse with the rebels. Through his brother, +himself a Fenian, this man has heard that a secret committee will meet at +this place on Monday evening next, at which Donogan will be present. +Molloy, another head-centre, will also be there, and Cummings, who escaped +from Carrickfergus.” I took down all the names, Kate, the moment we +parted, and while they were fresh in my memory. “We’ll draw the net on +them all,” said he; “and such a haul has not been made since ‘98. The +rewards alone will amount to some thousands.” It was then I said, “And is +there no danger, Harry? “’ +</p> +<p> +‘O Nina!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, darling, it was very dreadful, and I felt it so; but somehow one is +carried away by a burst of feeling at certain moments, and the shame only +comes too late. Of course it was wrong of me to call him Harry, and he, +too, with a wife at home, and five little girls—or three, I forget +which—should never have sworn that he loved me, nor said all that +mad nonsense about what he felt in that region where chief constables have +their hearts; but I own to great tenderness and a very touching +sensibility on either side. Indeed, I may add here, that the really +sensitive natures amongst men are never found under forty-five; but for +genuine, uncalculating affection, for the sort of devotion that flings +consequences to the winds, I say, give me fifty-eight or sixty.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nina, do not make me hate you,’ said Kate gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘Certainly not, dearest, if a little hypocrisy will avert such a +misfortune. And so to return to my narrative, I learned, as accurately as +a gentleman so much in love could condescend to inform me, of all the +steps taken to secure Donogan at this meeting, or to capture him later on +if he should try to make his escape by sea.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You mean, then, to write to Donogan and apprise him of his danger?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is done. I wrote the moment I got back here. I addressed him as Mr. +James Bredin, care of Jonas Mullory, Esq., 41 New Street, which was the +first address in the list he gave me. I told him of the peril he ran, and +what his friends were also threatened by, and I recounted the absurd +seizure of Mr. Walpole’s effects here; and, last of all, what a dangerous +rival he had in this Captain Curtis, who was ready to desert wife, +children, and the constabulary to-morrow for me; and assuring him +confidentially that I was well worth greater sacrifices of better men, I +signed my initials in Greek letters.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Marvellous caution and great discretion,’ said Kate solemnly. +</p> +<p> +‘And now come over to the drawing-room, where I have promised to sing for +Mr. O’Shea some little ballad that he dreamed over all the night through; +and then there’s something else—what is it? what is it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘How should I know, Nina? I was not present at your arrangement.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Never mind; I’ll remember it presently. It will come to my recollection +while I’m singing that song.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If emotion is not too much for you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just so, Kate—sensibilities permitting; and, indeed,’ she said,’ I +remember it already. It was luncheon.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0048" id="link2HCH0048"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XLVIII +</h2> +<h3> +HOW MEN IN OFFICE MAKE LOVE +</h3> +<p> +‘Is it true they have captured Donogan?’ said Nina, coming hurriedly into +the library, where Walpole was busily engaged with his correspondence, and +sat before a table covered not only with official documents, but a number +of printed placards and handbills. +</p> +<p> +He looked up, surprised at her presence, and by the tone of familiarity in +her question, for which he was in no way prepared, and for a second or two +actually stared at without answering her. +</p> +<p> +‘Can’t you tell me? Are they correct in saying he has been caught?’ cried +she impatiently. +</p> +<p> +‘Very far from it. There are the police returns up to last night from +Meath, Kildare, and Dublin; and though he was seen at Naas, passed some +hours in Dublin, and actually attended a night meeting at Kells, all trace +of him has been since lost, and he has completely baffled us. By the +Viceroy’s orders, I am now doubling the reward for his apprehension, and +am prepared to offer a free pardon to any who shall give information about +him, who may not actually have committed a felony.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is he so very dangerous, then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Every man who is so daring is dangerous here. The people have a sort of +idolatry for reckless courage. It is not only that he has ventured to come +back to the country where his life is sacrificed to the law, but he +declares openly he is ready to offer himself as a representative for an +Irish county, and to test in his own person whether the English will have +the temerity to touch the man—the choice of the Irish people.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is bold,’ said she resolutely. +</p> +<p> +‘And I trust he will pay for his boldness! Our law-officers are prepared +to treat him as a felon, irrespective of all claim to his character as a +Member of Parliament.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The danger will not deter him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You think so?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know it,’ was the calm reply. +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed,’ said he, bending a steady look at her. ‘What opportunities, +might I ask, have you had to form this same opinion?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Are not the public papers full of him? Have we not an almost daily record +of his exploits? Do not your own rewards for his capture impart an almost +fabulous value to his life?’ +</p> +<p> +‘His portrait, too, may lend some interest to his story,’ said he, with a +half-sneering smile. ‘They say this is very like him.’ And he handed a +photograph as he spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘This was done in New York,’ said she, turning to the back of the card, +the better to hide an emotion she could not entirely repress. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, done by a brother Fenian, long since in our pay.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How base all that sounds! how I detest such treachery!’ +</p> +<p> +‘How deal with treason without it? Is it like him?’ asked he artlessly. +</p> +<p> +‘How should I know?’ said she, in a slightly hurried tone. ‘It is not like +the portrait in the <i>Illustrated News</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wonder which is the more like,’ added he thoughtfully, ‘and I fervently +hope we shall soon know. There is not a man he confides in who has not +engaged to betray him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I trust you feel proud of your achievement.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not proud, but very anxious for its success. The perils of this +country are too great for mere sensibilities. He who would extirpate a +terrible disease must not fear the knife.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not if he even kill the patient?’ asked she. +</p> +<p> +‘That might happen, and would be to be deplored,’ said he, in the same +unmoved tone. ‘But might I ask, whence has come all this interest for this +cause, and how have you learned so much sympathy with these people?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I read the newspapers,’ said she dryly. +</p> +<p> +‘You must read those of only one colour, then,’ said he slyly; ‘or perhaps +it is the tone of comment you hear about you. Are your sentiments such as +you daily listen to from Lord Kilgobbin and his family?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know that they are. I suspect I’m more of a rebel than he is; but +I’ll ask him if you wish it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘On no account, I entreat you. It would compromise me seriously to hear +such a discussion even in jest. Remember who I am, mademoiselle, and the +office I hold.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Your great frankness, Mr. Walpole, makes me sometimes forget both,’ said +she, with well-acted humility. +</p> +<p> +‘I wish it would do something more,’ said he eagerly. ‘I wish it would +inspire a little emulation, and make you deal as openly with <i>me</i> as +I long to do with <i>you</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It might embarrass you very much, perhaps.’ +</p> +<p> +‘As how?’ asked he, with a touch of tenderness in his voice. +</p> +<p> +For a second or two she made no answer, and then, faltering at each word, +she said, ‘What if some rebel leader—this man Donogan, for instance—drawn +towards you b some secret magic of trustfulness, moved by I know not what +need of your sympathy—for there is such a craving void now and then +felt in the heart—should tell you some secret thought of his nature—something +that he could utter alone to himself—would you bring yourself to use +it against him? Could you turn round and say, “I have your inmost soul in +my keeping. You are mine now—mine—mine?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do I understand you aright?’ said he earnestly. ‘Is it just possible, +even possible, that you have that to confide to me which would show that +you regard me as a dear friend?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh! Mr. Walpole,’ burst she out passionately, ‘do not by the greater +power of <i>your</i> intellect seek the mastery over <i>mine</i>. Let the +loneliness and isolation of my life here rather appeal to you to pity than +suggest the thought of influencing and dominating me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Would that I might. What would I not give or do to have that power that +you speak of.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is this true?’ said she. +</p> +<p> +‘It is.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will you swear it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Most solemnly.’ +</p> +<p> +She paused for a moment, and a slight tremor shook her mouth; but whether +the motion expressed a sentiment of acute pain or a movement of repressed +sarcasm, it was very difficult to determine. +</p> +<p> +‘What is it, then, that you would swear?’ asked she calmly and even +coldly. +</p> +<p> +‘Swear that I have no hope so high, no ambition so great, as to win your +heart.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed! And that other heart that you have won—what is to become of +it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Its owner has recalled it. In fact, it was never in <i>my</i> keeping but +as a loan.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How strange! At least, how strange to me this sounds. I, in my ignorance, +thought that people pledged their very lives in these bargains.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So it ought to be, and so it would be, if this world were not a web of +petty interests and mean ambitions; and these, I grieve to say, will find +their way into hearts that should be the home of very different +sentiments. It was of this order was that compact with my cousin—for +I will speak openly to you, knowing it is her to whom you allude. We were +to have been married. It was an old engagement. Our friends—that is, +I believe, the way to call them—liked it. They thought it a good +thing for each of us. Indeed, making the dependants of a good family +intermarry is an economy of patronage—the same plank rescues two +from drowning. I believe—that is, I fear—we accepted all this +in the same spirit. We were to love each other as much as we could, and +our relations were to do their best for us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And now it is all over?’ +</p> +<p> +‘All—and for ever.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How came this about?’ +</p> +<p> +‘At first by a jealousy about <i>you</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A jealousy about <i>me</i>! You surely never dared—’ and here her +voice trembled with real passion, while her eyes flashed angrily. +</p> +<p> +‘No, no. I am guiltless in the matter. It was that cur Atlee made the +mischief. In a moment of weak trustfulness, I sent him over to Wales to +assist my uncle in his correspondence. He, of course, got to know Lady +Maude Bickerstaffe—by what arts he ingratiated himself into her +confidence, I cannot say. Indeed, I had trusted that the fellow’s +vulgarity would form an impassable barrier between them, and prevent all +intimacy; but, apparently, I was wrong. He seems to have been the +companion of her rides and drives, and under the pretext of doing some +commissions for her in the bazaars of Constantinople, he got to correspond +with her. So artful a fellow would well know what to make of such a +privilege.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And is he your successor now?’ asked she, with a look of almost +undisguised insolence. +</p> +<p> +‘Scarcely that,’ said he, with a supercilious smile. ‘I think, if you had +ever seen my cousin, you would scarcely have asked the question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But I have seen her. I saw her at the Odescalchi Palace at Rome. I +remember the stare she was pleased to bestow on me as she swept past me. I +remember more, her words as she asked, “Is this your Titian Girl I have +heard so much of?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And may hear more of,’ muttered he, almost unconsciously. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes—even that too; but not, perhaps, in the sense you mean.’ Then, +as if correcting herself, she went on, ‘It was a bold ambition of Mr. +Atlee. I must say I like the very daring of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘<i>He</i> never dared it—take my word for it.’ +</p> +<p> +An insolent laugh was her first reply. ‘How little you men know of each +other, and how less than little you know of us! You sneer at the people +who are moved by sudden impulse, but you forget it is the squall upsets +the boat.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe I can follow what you mean. You would imply that my cousin’s +breach with <i>me</i> might have impelled her to listen to Atlee?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not so much that as, by establishing himself as her confidant, he got the +key of her heart, and let himself in as he pleased.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect he found little to interest him there.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The insufferable insolence of that speech! Can you men never be brought +to see that we are not all alike to each of you; that our natures have +their separate watchwords, and that the soul which would vibrate with +tenderness to this, is to that a dead and senseless thing, with no trace +or touch of feeling about it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I only believe this in part.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Believe it wholly, then, or own that you know nothing of love—no +more than do those countless thousands who go through life and never taste +its real ecstasy, nor its real sorrow; who accept convenience, or caprice, +or flattered vanity as its counterfeit, and live out the delusion in lives +of discontent. You have done wrong to break with your cousin. It is clear +to me you suited each other.’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is sarcasm.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If it is, I am sorry for it. I meant it for sincerity. In <i>your</i> +career, ambition is everything. The woman that could aid you on your road +would be the real helpmate. She who would simply cross your path by her +sympathies, or her affections, would be a mere embarrassment. Take the +very case before us. Would not Lady Maude point out to you how, by the +capture of this rebel, you might so aid your friends as to establish a +claim for recompense? Would she not impress you with the necessity of +showing how your activity redounded to the credit of your party? She would +neither interpose with ill-timed appeals to your pity or a misplaced +sympathy. <i>She</i> would help the politician, while another might hamper +the man.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All that might be true, if the game of political life were played as it +seems to be on the surface, and my cousin was exactly the sort of woman to +use ordinary faculties with ability and acuteness; but there are scores of +things in which her interference would have been hurtful, and her secrecy +dubious. I will give you an instance, and it will serve to show my +implicit confidence in yourself. Now with respect to this man, Donogan, +there is nothing we wish less than to take him. To capture means to try—to +try means to hang him—and how much better, or safer, or stronger are +we when it is done? These fellows, right or wrong, represent opinions that +are never controverted by the scaffold, and every man who dies for his +convictions leaves a thousand disciples who never believed in him before. +It is only because he braves us that we pursue him, and in the face of our +opponents and Parliament we cannot do less. So that while we are offering +large rewards for his apprehension, we would willingly give double the sum +to know he had escaped. Talk of the supremacy of the Law—the more +you assert that here, the more ungovernable is this country by a Party. An +active Attorney-General is another word for three more regiments in +Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I follow you with some difficulty; but I see that you would like this man +to get away, and how is that to be done?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Easily enough, when once he knows that it will be safe for him to go +north. He naturally fears the Orangemen of the northern counties. They +will, however, do nothing without the police, and the police have got +their orders throughout Antrim and Derry. Here—on this strip of +paper—here are the secret instructions:—“To George Dargan, +Chief Constable, Letterkenny District. Private and confidential.—It +is, for many reasons, expedient that the convict Donogan, on a proper +understanding that he will not return to Ireland, should be suffered to +escape. If you are, therefore, in a position to extort a pledge from him +to this extent—and it should be explicit and beyond all cavil—you +will, taking due care not to compromise your authority in your office, aid +him to leave the country, even to the extent of moneyed assistance.” To +this are appended directions how he is to proceed to carry out these +instructions: what he may, and what he may not do, with whom he may seek +for co-operation, and where he is to maintain a guarded and careful +secrecy. Now, in telling you all this, Mademoiselle Kostalergi, I have +given you the strongest assurance in my power of the unlimited trust I +have in you. I see how the questions that agitate this country interest +you. I read the eagerness with which you watch them, but I want you to see +more. I want you to see that the men who purpose to themselves the great +task of extricating Ireland from her difficulties must be politicians in +the highest sense of the word, and that you should see in us statesmen of +an order that can weigh human passions and human emotions—and see +that hope and fear, and terror and gratitude, sway the hearts of men who, +to less observant eyes, seem to have no place in their natures but for +rebellion. That this mode of governing Ireland is the one charm to the +Celtic heart, all the Tory rule of the last fifty years, with its hangings +and banishments and other terrible blunders, will soon convince you. The +Priest alone has felt the pulse of this people, and we are the only +Ministers of England who have taken the Priest into our confidence. I own +to you I claim some credit for myself in this discovery. It was in long +reflecting over the ills of Ireland that I came to see that where the +malady has so much in its nature that is sensational and emotional, so +must the remedy be sensational too. The Tories were ever bent on +extirpating—<i>we</i> devote ourselves to “healing measures.” Do you +follow me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do,’ said she thoughtfully. +</p> +<p> +‘Do I interest you?’ asked he, more tenderly. +</p> +<p> +‘Intensely,’ was the reply. +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, if I could but think <i>that</i>. If I could bring myself to believe +that the day would come, not only to secure your interest, but your aid +and your assistance in this great task! I have long sought the opportunity +to tell you that we, who hold the destinies of a people in our keeping, +are not inferior to our great trust, that we are not mere creatures of a +state department, small deities of the Olympus of office, but actual +statesmen and rulers. Fortune has given me the wished-for moment, let it +complete my happiness, let it tell me that you see in this noble work one +worthy of your genius and your generosity, and that you would accept me as +a fellow-labourer in the cause.’ +</p> +<p> +The fervour which he threw into the utterance of these words contrasted +strongly and strangely with the words themselves; so unlike the +declaration of a lover’s passion. +</p> +<p> +‘I do—not—know,’ said she falteringly. +</p> +<p> +‘What is that you do not know?’ asked he, with tender eagerness. +</p> +<p> +‘I do not know if I understand you aright, and I do not know what answer I +should give you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will not your heart tell you?’ +</p> +<p> +She shook her head. +</p> +<p> +‘You will not crush me with the thought that there is no pleading for me +there.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you had desired in honesty my regard, you should not have prejudiced +me: you began here by enlisting my sympathies in your Task; you told me of +your ambitions. I like these ambitions.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why not share them?’ cried he passionately. +</p> +<p> +‘You seem to forget what you ask. A woman does not give her heart as a man +joins a party or an administration. It is no question of an advantage +based upon a compromise. There is no sentiment of gratitude, or +recompense, or reward in the gift. She simply gives that which is no +longer hers to retain! She trusts to what her mind will not stop to +question—she goes where she cannot help but follow.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How immeasurably greater your every word makes the prize of your love.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is in no vanity that I say I know it,’ said she calmly. ‘Let us speak +no more on this now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But you will not refuse to listen to me, Nina?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will read you if you write to me,’ and with a wave of good-bye she +slowly left the room. +</p> +<p> +‘She is my master, even at my own game,’ said Walpole, as he sat down, and +rested his head between his hands. ‘Still she is mistaken: I can write +just as vaguely as I can speak, and if I could not, it would have cost me +my freedom this many a day. With such a woman one might venture high, but +Heaven help him when he ceased to climb the mountain!’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0049" id="link2HCH0049"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER XLIX +</h2> +<h3> +A CUP OP TEA +</h3> +<p> +It was so rare an event of late for Nina to seek her cousin in her own +room, that Kate was somewhat surprised to see Nina enter with all her old +ease of manner, and flinging away her hat carelessly, say, ‘Let me have a +cup of tea, dearest, for I want to have a clear head and a calm mind for +at least the next half-hour.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is almost time to dress for dinner, especially for you, Nina, who make +a careful toilet.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps I shall make less to-day, perhaps not go down to dinner at all. +Do you know, child, I have every reason for agitation, and maiden +bashfulness besides? Do you know I have had a proposal—a proposal in +all form—from—but you shall guess whom. +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. O’Shea, of course.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not Mr. O’Shea, though I am almost prepared for such a step on his +part—nor from your brother Dick, who has been falling in and out of +love with me for the last three months or more. My present conquest is the +supremely arrogant, but now condescending, Mr. Walpole, who, for reasons +of state and exigencies of party, has been led to believe that a pretty +wife, with a certain amount of natural astuteness, might advance his +interests, and tend to his promotion in public life; and with his old +instincts as a gambler, he is actually ready to risk his fortunes on a +single card, and I, the portionless Greek girl, with about the same +advantages of family as of fortune—I am to be that queen of trumps +on which he stands to win. And now, darling, the cup of tea, the cup of +tea, if you want to hear more.’ +</p> +<p> +While Kate was busy arranging the cups of a little tea-service that did +duty in her dressing-room, Nina walked impatiently to and fro, talking +with rapidity all the time. +</p> +<p> +‘The man is a greater fool than I thought him, and mistakes his native +weakness of mind for originality. If you had heard the imbecile nonsense +he talked to me for political shrewdness, and when he had shown me what a +very poor creature he was, he made me the offer of himself! This was so +far honest and above-board. It was saying in so many words, “You see, I am +a bankrupt.” Now, I don’t like bankrupts, either of mind or money. Could +he not have seen that he who seeks my favour must sue in another fashion?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And so you refused him?’ said Kate, as she poured out her tea. +</p> +<p> +‘Far from it—I rather listened to his suit. I was so far curious to +hear what he could plead in his behalf, that I bade him write it. Yes, +dearest; it was a maxim of that very acute man my papa, that when a person +makes you any dubious proposition in words, you oblige him to commit it to +writing. Not necessarily to be used against him afterwards, but for this +reason—and I can almost quote my papa’s phrase on the occasion—in +the homage of his self-love, a man will rarely write himself such a knave +as he will dare to own when he is talking, and in that act of weakness is +the gain of the other party to the compact.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think I understand you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m sure you do not; and you have put no sugar in my tea, which is worse. +Do you mean to say that your clock is right, and that it is already nigh +seven? Oh dear! and I, who have not told you one-half of my news, I must +go and dress. I have a certain green silk with white roses which I mean to +wear, and with my hair in that crimson Neapolitan net, it is a toilet <i>à +la</i> minute.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You know how it becomes you,’ said Kate, half slyly. +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I do, or in this critical moment of my life I should not risk +it. It will have its own suggestive meaning too. It will recall <i>ce cher</i> +Cecil to days at Baia, or wandering along the coast at Portici. I have +known a fragment of lace, a flower, a few bars of a song, do more to link +the broken chain of memory than scores of more laboured recollections; and +then these little paths that lead you back are so simple, so free from all +premeditation. Don’t you think so, dear?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do not know, and if it were not rude, I’d say I do not care?’ +</p> +<p> +‘If my cup of tea were not so good, I should be offended, and leave the +room after such a speech. But you do not know, you could not guess, the +interesting things that I could tell you,’ cried she, with an almost +breathless rapidity. ‘Just imagine that deep statesman, that profound +plotter, telling me that they actually did not wish to capture Donogan—that +they would rather that he should escape!’ +</p> +<p> +‘He told you this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He did more: he showed me the secret instructions to his police creatures—I +forget how they are called—showing what they might do to connive at +his escape, and how they should—if they could—induce him to +give some written pledge to leave Ireland for ever.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, this is impossible!’ cried Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘I could prove it to you, if I had not just sent off the veritable bit of +writing by post. Yes, stare and look horrified if you like; it is all +true. I stole the piece of paper with the secret directions, and sent it +straight to Donogan, under cover to Archibald Casey, Esq., 9 Lower Gardner +Street, Dublin.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How could you have done such a thing?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Say, how could I have done otherwise. Donogan now knows whether it will +become him to sign this pact with the enemy. If he deem his life worth +having at the price, it is well that <i>I</i> should know it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is then of yourself you were thinking all the while.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of myself and of him. I do not say I love this man; but I do say his +conduct now shall decide if he be worth loving. There’s the bell for +dinner. You shall hear all I have to say this evening. What an interest it +gives to life, even this much of plot and peril! Short of being with the +rebel himself, Kate, and sharing his dangers, I know of nothing could have +given me such delight.’ +</p> +<p> +She turned back as she left the door, and said, ‘Make Mr. Walpole take you +down to dinner to-day; I shall take Mr. O’Shea’s arm, or your brother’s.’ +</p> +<p> +The address of Archibald Casey, which Nina had used on this occasion, was +that of a well-known solicitor in Dublin, whose Conservative opinions +placed him above all suspicion or distrust. One of his clients, however—a +certain Mr. Maher—had been permitted to have letters occasionally +addressed to him to Casey’s care; and Maher, being an old college friend +of Donogan’s, afforded him this mode of receiving letters in times of +unusual urgency or danger. Maher shared very slightly in Donogan’s +opinions. He thought the men of the National party not only dangerous in +themselves, but that they afforded a reason for many of the repressive +laws which Englishmen passed with reference to Ireland. A friendship of +early life, when both these young men were college students, had overcome +such scruples, and Donogan had been permitted to have many letters marked +simply with a D., which were sent under cover to Maher. This facility had, +however, been granted so far back as ‘47, and had not been renewed in the +interval, during which time the Archibald Casey of that period had died, +and been succeeded by a son with the same name as his father. +</p> +<p> +When Nina, on looking over Donogan’s note-book, came upon this address, +she saw also some almost illegible words, which implied that it was only +to be employed as the last resort, or had been so used—a phrase she +could not exactly determine what it meant. The present occasion—so +emergent in every way—appeared to warrant both haste and security; +and so, under cover to S. Maher, she wrote to Donogan in these words:— +</p> +<p> +‘I send you the words, in the original handwriting, of the instructions +with regard to you. You will do what your honour and your conscience +dictate. Do not write to me; the public papers will inform me what your +decision has been, and I shall be satisfied, however it incline. I rely +upon you to burn the inclosure.’ +</p> +<p> +A suit-at-law, in which Casey acted as Maher’s attorney at this period, +required that the letters addressed to his house for Maher should be +opened and read; and though the letter D. on the outside might have +suggested a caution, Casey either overlooked or misunderstood it, and +broke the seal. Not knowing what to think of this document, which was +without signature, and had no clue to the writer except the postmark of +Kilgobbin, Casey hastened to lay the letter as it stood before the +barrister who conducted Maher’s cause, and to ask his advice. The Right +Hon. Paul Hartigan was an ex-Attorney-General of the Tory party—a +zealous, active, but somewhat rash member of his party; still in the +House, a member for Mallow, and far more eager for the return of his +friends to power than the great man who dictated the tactics of the +Opposition, and who with more of responsibility could calculate the +chances of success. +</p> +<p> +Paul Hartigan’s estimate of the Whigs was such that it would have in +nowise astonished him to discover that Mr. Gladstone was in close +correspondence with O’Donovan Rossa, or that Chichester Fortescue had been +sworn in as a head-centre. That the whole Cabinet were secretly Papists, +and held weekly confession at the feet of Dr. Manning, he was prepared to +prove. He did not vouch for Mr. Lowe; but he could produce the form of +scapular worn by Mr. Gladstone, and had a facsimile of the scourge by +which Mr. Cardwell diurnally chastened his natural instincts. +</p> +<p> +If, then, he expressed but small astonishment at this ‘traffic of the +Government with rebellion,’ for so he called it—he lost no time in +endeavouring to trace the writer of the letter, and ascertaining, so far +as he might, the authenticity of the inclosure. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s all true, Casey,’ said he, a few days after his receipt of the +papers. ‘The instructions are written by Cecil Walpole, the private +secretary of Lord Danesbury. I have obtained several specimens of his +writing. There is no attempt at disguise or concealment in this. I have +learned, too, that the police-constable Dargan is one of their most +trusted agents; and the only thing now to find out is, who is the writer +of the letter, for up to this all we know is, the hand is a woman’s.’ +</p> +<p> +Now it chanced that when Mr. Hartigan—who had taken great pains and +bestowed much time to learn the story of the night attack on Kilgobbin, +and wished to make the presence of Mr. Walpole on the scene the ground of +a question in Parliament—had consulted the leader of the Opposition +on the subject, he had met not only a distinct refusal of aid, but +something very like a reproof for his ill-advised zeal. The Honourable +Paul, not for the first time disposed to distrust the political loyalty +that differed with his own ideas, now declared openly that he would not +confide this great disclosure to the lukewarm advocacy of Mr. Disraeli; he +would himself lay it before the House, and stand or fall by the result. +</p> +<p> +If the men who ‘stand or fall’ by any measure were counted, it is to be +feared that they usually would be found not only in the category of the +latter, but that they very rarely rise again, so very few are the matters +which can be determined without some compromise, and so rare are the +political questions which comprehend a distinct principle. +</p> +<p> +What warmed the Hartigan ardour, and, indeed, chafed it to a white heat on +this occasion, was to see by the public papers that Daniel Donogan had +been fixed on by the men of King’s County as the popular candidate, and a +public meeting held at Kilbeggan to declare that the man who should oppose +him at the hustings should be pronounced the enemy of Ireland. To show +that while this man was advertised in the <i>Hue and Cry</i>, with an +immense reward for his apprehension, he was in secret protected by the +Government, who actually condescended to treat with him; what an occasion +would this afford for an attack that would revive the memories of +Grattan’s scorn and Curran’s sarcasm, and declare to the senate of England +that the men who led them were unworthy guardians of the national honour! +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0050" id="link2HCH0050"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER L +</h2> +<h3> +CROSS-PURPOSES +</h3> +<p> +Whether Walpole found some peculiar difficulty in committing his +intentions to writing, or whether the press of business which usually +occupied his mornings served as an excuse, or whether he was satisfied +with the progress of his suit by his personal assiduities, is not easy to +say; but his attentions to Mademoiselle Kostalergi had now assumed the +form which prudent mothers are wont to call ‘serious,’ and had already +passed into that stage where small jealousies begin, and little episodes +of anger and discontent are admitted as symptoms of the complaint. +</p> +<p> +In fact, he had got to think himself privileged to remonstrate against +this, and to dictate that—a state, be it observed, which, whatever +its effect upon the ‘lady of his love,’ makes a man particularly odious to +the people around him, and he is singularly fortunate if it make him not +ridiculous also. +</p> +<p> +The docile or submissive was not the remarkable element in Nina’s nature. +She usually resisted advice, and resented anything like dictation from any +quarter. Indeed, they who knew her best saw that, however open to casual +influences, a direct show of guidance was sure to call up all her spirit +of opposition. It was, then, a matter of actual astonishment to all to +perceive not only how quietly and patiently she accepted Walpole’s +comments and suggestions, but how implicitly she seemed to obey them. +</p> +<p> +All the little harmless freedoms of manner with Dick Kearney and O’Shea +were now completely given up. No more was there between them that +interchange of light persiflage which, presupposing some subject of common +interest, is in itself a ground of intimacy. +</p> +<p> +She ceased to sing the songs that were their favourites. Her walks in the +garden after breakfast, where her ready wit and genial pleasantry used to +bring her a perfect troop of followers, were abandoned. The little +projects of daily pleasure, hitherto her especial province, were changed +for a calm subdued demeanour which, though devoid of all depression, wore +the impress of a certain thoughtfulness and seriousness. +</p> +<p> +No man was less observant than old Kearney, and yet even he saw the change +at last, and asked Kate what it might mean. ‘She is not ill, I hope,’ said +he, ‘or is our humdrum life too wearisome to her?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do not suspect either,’ said Kate slowly. ‘I rather believe that as Mr. +Walpole has paid her certain attentions, she has made the changes in her +manner in deference to some wishes of his.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He wants her to be more English, perhaps,’ said he sarcastically. +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, she is not born one of us, but she is like us all the same, and +I’ll be sorely grieved if she’ll give up her light-heartedness and her +pleasantry to win that Cockney.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I think she has won the Cockney already, sir.’ +</p> +<p> +A long low whistle was his reply. At last he said, ‘I suppose it’s a very +grand conquest, and what the world calls “an elegant match”; but may I +never see Easter, if I wouldn’t rather she’d marry a fine dashing young +fellow over six feet high, like O’Shea there, than one of your +gold-chain-and-locket young gentlemen who smile where they ought to laugh, +and pick their way through life as a man crosses a stream on +stepping-stones.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe she does not like Mr. O’Shea, sir.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And do you think she likes the other man? or is it anything else than one +of those mercenary attachments that you young ladies understand better, +far better, than the most worldly-minded father or mother of us all?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Walpole has not, I believe, any fortune, sir. There is nothing very +dazzling in his position or his prospects.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No. Not amongst his own set, nor with his own people—he is small +enough there, I grant you; but when he come down to ours, Kitty, we think +him a grandee of Spain; and if he was married into the family, we’d get +off all his noble relations by heart, and soon start talking of our aunt, +Lady Such-a-one, and Lord Somebody else, that was our first-cousin, till +our neighbours would nearly die out of pure spite. Sitting down in one’s +poverty, and thinking over one’s grand relations, is for all the world +like Paddy eating his potatoes, and pointing at the red-herring—even +the look of what he dare not taste flavours his meal.’ +</p> +<p> +‘At least, sir, you have found an excuse for our conduct.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Because we are all snobs, Kitty; because there is not a bit of honesty or +manliness in our nature; and because our women, that need not be +bargaining or borrowing—neither pawnbrokers nor usurers—are +just as vulgar-minded as ourselves; and now that we have given twenty +millions to get rid of slavery, like to show how they can keep it up in +the old country, just out of defiance.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you disapprove of Mr. Walpole, sir, I believe it is full time you +should say so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I neither approve nor disapprove of him. I don’t well know whether I have +any right to do either—I mean so far as to influence her choice. He +belongs to a sort of men I know as little about as I do of the Choctaw +Indians. They have lives and notions and ways all unlike ours. The world +is so civil to them that it prepares everything to their taste. If they +want to shoot, the birds are cooped up in a cover, and only let fly when +they’re ready. When they fish, the salmon are kept prepared to be caught; +and if they make love, the young lady is just as ready to rise to the fly, +and as willing to be bagged as either. Thank God, my darling, with all our +barbarism, we have not come to that in Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Here comes Mr. Walpole now, sir; and if I read his face aright, he has +something of importance to say to you.’ Kate had barely time to leave the +room as Walpole came forward with an open telegram and a mass of papers in +his hand. +</p> +<p> +‘May I have a few moments of conversation with you?’ said he; and in the +tone of his words, and a certain gravity in his manner, Kearney thought he +could perceive what the communication portended. +</p> +<p> +‘I am at your orders,’ said Kearney, and he placed a chair for the other. +</p> +<p> +‘An incident has befallen my life here, Mr. Kearney, which, I grieve to +say, may not only colour the whole of my future career, but not impossibly +prove the barrier to my pursuit of public life.’ +</p> +<p> +Kearney stared at him as he finished speaking, and the two men sat fixedly +gazing on each other. +</p> +<p> +‘It is, I hasten to own, the one unpleasant, the one, the only one, +disastrous event of a visit full of the happiest memories of my life. Of +your generous and graceful hospitality, I cannot say half what I desire—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Say nothing about my hospitality,’ said Kearney, whose irritation as to +what the other called a disaster left him no place for any other +sentiment; ‘but just tell me why you count this a misfortune.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I call a misfortune, sir, what may not only depose me from my office and +my station, but withdraw entirely from me the favour and protection of my +uncle, Lord Danesbury.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then why the devil do you do it?’ cried Kearney angrily. +</p> +<p> +‘Why do I do what, sir? I am not aware of any action of mine you should +question with such energy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I mean, if it only tends to ruin your prospects and disgust your family, +why do you persist, sir? I was going to say more, and ask with what face +you presume to come and tell these things to <i>me</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am really unable to understand you, sir.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mayhap, we are both of us in the same predicament,’ cried Kearney, as he +wiped his brow in proof of his confusion. +</p> +<p> +‘Had you accorded me a very little patience, I might, perhaps, have +explained myself.’ +</p> +<p> +Not trusting himself with a word, Kearney nodded, and the other went on: +‘The post this morning brought me, among other things, these two +newspapers, with penmarks in the margin to direct my attention. This is +the <i>Lily of Londonderry</i>, a wild Orange print; this the <i>Banner of +Ulster</i>, a journal of the same complexion. Here is what the <i>Lily</i> +says: “Our county member, Sir Jonas Gettering, is now in a position to +call the attention of Parliament to a document which will distinctly show +how Her Majesty’s Ministers are not only in close correspondence with the +leaders of Fenianism, but that Irish rebellion receives its support and +comfort from the present Cabinet. Grave as this charge is, and momentous +as would be the consequences of such an allegation if unfounded, we repeat +that such a document is in existence, and that we who write these lines +have held it in our hands and have perused it.” +</p> +<p> +‘The <i>Banner</i> copies the paragraph, and adds, “We give all the +publicity in our power to a statement which, from our personal knowledge, +we can declare to be true. If the disclosures which a debate on this +subject must inevitably lead to will not convince Englishmen that Ireland +is now governed by a party whose falsehood and subtlety not even +Machiavelli himself could justify, we are free to declare we are ready to +join the Nationalists to-morrow, and to cry out for a Parliament in +College Green, in preference to a Holy Inquisition at Westminster.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘That fellow has blood in him,’ cried Kearney, with enthusiasm, ‘and I go +a long way with him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That may be, sir, and I am sorry to hear it,’ said Walpole coldly; ‘but +what I am concerned to tell you is, that the document or memorandum here +alluded to was among my papers, and abstracted from them since I have been +here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So that there <i>was</i> actually such a paper?’ broke in Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘There was a paper which the malevolence of a party journalist could +convert to the support of such a charge. What concerns me more immediately +is, that it has been stolen from my despatch-box.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Are you certain of that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe I can prove it. The only day in which I was busied with these +papers, I carried them down to the library, and with my own hands I +brought them back to my room and placed them under lock and key at once. +The box bears no trace of having been broken, so that the only solution is +a key. Perhaps my own key may have been used to open it, for the document +is gone.’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is a bad business,’ said Kearney sorrowfully. +</p> +<p> +‘It is ruin to <i>me</i>,’ cried Walpole, with passion. ‘Here is a +despatch from Lord Danesbury, commanding me immediately to go over to him +in Wales, and I can guess easily what has occasioned the order.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll send for a force of Dublin detectives. I’ll write to the chief of +the police. I’ll not rest till I have every one in the house examined on +oath,’ cried Kearney. ‘What was it like? Was it a despatch—was it in +an envelope?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was a mere memorandum—a piece of post-paper, and headed, +“Draught of instruction touching D.D. Forward to chief constable of police +at Letterkenny. October 9th.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘But you had no direct correspondence with Donogan?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe, sir, I need not assure you I had not. The malevolence of party +has alone the merit of such an imputation. For reasons of state, we +desired to observe a certain course towards the man, and Orange malignity +is pleased to misrepresent and calumniate us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And can’t you say so in Parliament?’ +</p> +<p> +‘So we will, sir, and the nation will believe us. Meanwhile, see the +mischief that the miserable slander will reflect upon our administration +here, and remember that the people who could alone contradict the story +are those very Fenians who will benefit by its being believed.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do your suspicions point to any one in particular? Do you believe that +Curtis—?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I had it in my hand the day after he left.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Was any one aware of its existence here but yourself?’ +</p> +<p> +‘None—wait, I am wrong. Your niece saw it. She was in the library +one day. I was engaged in writing, and as we grew to talk over the +country, I chanced to show her the despatch.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Let us ask her if she remembers whether any servant was about at the +time, or happened to enter the room.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can myself answer that question. I know there was not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Let us call her down and see what she remembers,’ said Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘I’d rather not, sir. A mere question in such a case would be offensive, +and I would not risk the chance. What I would most wish is, to place my +despatch-box, with the key, in your keeping, for the purposes of the +inquiry, for I must start in half an hour. I have sent for post-horses to +Moate, and ordered a special train to town. I shall, I hope, catch the +eight o’clock boat for Holyhead, and be with his lordship before this time +to-morrow. If I do not see the ladies, for I believe they are out walking, +will you make my excuses and my adieux? my confusion and discomfiture +will, I feel sure, plead for me. It would not be, perhaps, too much to ask +for any information that a police inquiry might elicit; and if either of +the young ladies would vouchsafe me a line to say what, if anything, has +been discovered, I should feel deeply gratified.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll look to that. You shall be informed.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There was another question that I much desired to speak of,’ and here he +hesitated and faltered; ‘but perhaps, on every score, it is as well I +should defer it till my return to Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You know best, whatever it is,’ said the old man dryly. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I think so. I am sure of it. ‘A hurried shake-hands followed, and he +was gone. +</p> +<p> +It is but right to add that a glance at the moment through the window had +shown him the wearer of a muslin dress turning into the copse outside the +garden, and Walpole dashed down the stairs and hurried in the direction he +saw Nina take, with all the speed he could. +</p> +<p> +‘Get my luggage on the carriage, and have everything ready,’ said he, as +the horses were drawn up at the door. ‘I shall return in a moment.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0051" id="link2HCH0051"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LI +</h2> +<h3> +AWAKENINGS +</h3> +<p> +When Walpole hurried into the beech alley which he had seen Nina take, and +followed her in all haste, he did not stop to question himself why he did +so. Indeed, if prudence were to be consulted, there was every reason in +the world why he should rather have left his leave-takings to the care of +Mr. Kearney than assume the charge of them himself; but if young gentlemen +who fall in love were only to be logical or ‘consequent,’ the tender +passion would soon lose some of the contingencies which give it much of +its charm, and people who follow such occupations as mine would discover +that they had lost one of the principal employments of their lifetime. +</p> +<p> +As he went along, however, he bethought him that as it was to say good-bye +he now followed her, it behoved him to blend his leave-taking with that +pledge of a speedy return, which, like the effects of light in landscape, +bring out the various tints in the richest colouring, and mark more +distinctly all that is in shadow. ‘I shall at least see,’ muttered he to +himself, ‘how far my presence here serves to brighten her daily life, and +what amount of gloom my absence will suggest.’ Cecil Walpole was one of a +class—and I hasten to say it is a class—who, if not very +lavish of their own affections, or accustomed to draw largely on their own +emotions, are very fond of being loved themselves, and not only are they +convinced that as there can be nothing more natural or reasonable than to +love them, it is still a highly commendable feature in the person who +carries that love to the extent of a small idolatry, and makes it the +business of a life. To worship the men of this order constitutes in their +eyes a species of intellectual superiority for which they are grateful, +and this same gratitude represents to themselves all of love their natures +are capable of feeling. +</p> +<p> +He knew thoroughly that Nina was not alone the most beautiful woman he had +ever seen, that the fascinations of her manner, and her grace of movement +and gesture, exercised a sway that was almost magic; that in quickness to +apprehend and readiness to reply, she scarcely had an equal; and that +whether she smiled, or looked pensive, or listened, or spoke, there was an +absorbing charm about her that made one forget all else around her, and +unable to see any but her; and yet, with all this consciousness, he +recognised no trait about her so thoroughly attractive as that she admired +<i>him</i>. +</p> +<p> +Let me not be misunderstood. This same sentiment can be at times something +very different from a mere egotism—not that I mean to say it was +such in the present case. Cecil Walpole fully represented the order he +belonged to, and was a most well-looking, well-dressed, and well-bred +young gentleman, only suggesting the reflection that, to live amongst such +a class pure and undiluted, would be little better than a life passed in +the midst of French communism. +</p> +<p> +I have said that, after his fashion, he was ‘in love’ with her, and so, +after his fashion, he wanted to say that he was going away, and to tell +her not to be utterly disconsolate till he came back again. ‘I can +imagine,’ thought he, ‘how I made her life here, how, in developing the +features that attract <i>me</i>, I made her a very different creature to +herself.’ +</p> +<p> +It was not at all unpleasant to him to think that the people who should +surround her were so unlike himself. ‘The barbarians,’ as he courteously +called them to himself, ‘will be very hard to endure. Nor am I very sorry +for it, only she must catch nothing of their traits in accommodating +herself to their habits. On that I must strongly insist. Whether it be by +singing their silly ballads—that four-note melody they call “Irish +music,” or through mere imitation, she has already caught a slight accent +of the country. She must get rid of this. She will have to divest herself +of all her “Kilgobbinries” ere I present her to my friends in town.’ Apart +from these disparagements, she could, as he expressed it, ‘hold her own,’ +and people take a very narrow view of the social dealings of the world, +who fail to see how much occasion a woman has for the exercise of tact and +temper and discretion and ready-wittedness and generosity in all the +well-bred intercourse of life. Just as Walpole had arrived at that stage +of reflection to recognise that she was exactly the woman to suit him and +push his fortunes with the world, he reached a part of the wood where a +little space had been cleared, and a few rustic seats scattered about to +make a halting-place. The sound of voices caught his ear, and he stopped, +and now, looking stealthily through the brushwood, he saw Gorman O’Shea as +he lay in a lounging attitude on a bench and smoked his cigar, while Nina +Kostalergi was busily engaged in pinning up the skirt of her dress in a +festoon fashion, which, to Cecil’s ideas at least, displayed more of a +marvellously pretty instep and ankle than he thought strictly warranted. +Puzzling as this seemed, the first words she spoke gave the explanation. +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0013" id="linkimage-0013"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/384.jpg" + alt="Nina Kostalergi Was Busily Engaged in Pinning up the Skirt Of Her Dress" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘Don’t flatter yourself, most valiant soldier, that you are going to teach +me the “Czardasz.” I learned it years ago from Tassilo Esterhazy; but I +asked you to come here to set me right about that half-minuet step that +begins it. I believe I have got into the habit of doing the man’s part, +for I used to be Pauline Esterhazy’s partner after Tassilo went away.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You had a precious dancing-master in Tassilo,’ growled out O’Shea. ‘The +greatest scamp in the Austrian army.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know nothing of the moralities of the Austrian army, but the count was +a perfect gentleman, and a special friend of mine.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am sorry for it,’ was the gruff rejoinder. +</p> +<p> +‘You have nothing to grieve for, sir. You have no vested interest to be +imperilled by anything that I do.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Let us not quarrel, at all events,’ said he, as he arose with some +alacrity and flung away his cigar; and Walpole turned away, as little +pleased with what he had heard as dissatisfied with himself for having +listened. ‘And we call these things accidents,’ muttered he; ‘but I +believe Fortune means more generously by us when she crosses our path in +this wise. I almost wish I had gone a step farther, and stood before them. +At least it would have finished this episode, and without a word. As it +is, a mere phrase will do it—the simple question as to what progress +she makes in dancing will show I know all. But do I know all?’ Thus +speculating and ruminating, he went his way till he reached the carriage, +and drove off at speed, for the first time in his life, really and deeply +in love! +</p> +<p> +He made his journey safely, and arrived at Holyhead by daybreak. He had +meant to go over deliberately all that he should say to the Viceroy, when +questioned, as he expected to be, on the condition of Ireland. It was an +old story, and with very few variations to enliven it. +</p> +<p> +How was it that, with all his Irish intelligence well arranged in his mind—the +agrarian crime, the ineffective police, the timid juries, the insolence of +the popular press, and the arrogant demands of the priesthood—how +was it that, ready to state all these obstacles to right government, and +prepared to show that it was only by ‘out-jockeying’ the parties, he could +hope to win in Ireland still, that Greek girl, and what he called her +perfidy, would occupy a most disproportionate share of his thoughts, and a +larger place in his heart also? The simple truth is, that though up to +this Walpole found immense pleasure in his flirtation with Nina +Kostalergi, yet his feeling for her now was nearer love than anything he +had experienced before. The bare suspicion that a woman could jilt him, or +the possible thought that a rival could be found to supplant him, gave, by +the very pain it occasioned, such an interest to the episode, that he +could scarcely think of anything else. That the most effectual way to deal +with the Greek was to renew his old relations with his cousin Lady Maude +was clear enough. ‘At least I shall seem to be the traitor,’ thought he, +‘and she shall not glory in the thought of having deceived <i>me</i>.’ +While he was still revolving these thoughts, he arrived at the castle, and +learned as he crossed the door that his lordship was impatient to see him. +</p> +<p> +Lord Danesbury had never been a fluent speaker in public, while in private +life a natural indolence of disposition, improved, so to say, by an +Eastern life, had made him so sparing of his words, that at times when he +was ill or indisposed he could never be said to converse at all, and his +talk consisted of very short sentences strung loosely together, and not +unfrequently so ill-connected as to show that an unexpressed thought very +often intervened between the uttered fragments. Except to men who, like +Walpole, knew him intimately, he was all but unintelligible. The private +secretary, however, understood how to fill up the blanks in any discourse, +and so follow out indications which, to less practised eyes, left no +footmarks behind them. +</p> +<p> +His Excellency, slowly recovering from a sharp attack of gout, was propped +by pillows, and smoking a long Turkish pipe, as Cecil entered the room and +saluted him. ‘Come at last,’ was his lordship’s greeting. ‘Ought to have +been here weeks ago. Read that.’ And he pushed towards him a <i>Times</i>, +with a mark on the margin: ‘To ask the Secretary for Ireland whether the +statement made by certain newspapers in the North of a correspondence +between the Castle authorities and the Fenian leader was true, and whether +such correspondence could be laid on the table of the House?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Read it out,’ cried the Viceroy, as Walpole conned over the paragraph +somewhat slowly to himself. +</p> +<p> +‘I think, my lord, when you have heard a few words of explanation from me, +you will see that this charge has not the gravity these newspaper-people +would like to attach to it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Can’t be explained—nothing could justify—infernal blunder—and +must go.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Pray, my lord, vouchsafe me even five minutes.’ +</p> +<p> +‘See it all—balderdash—explain nothing—Cardinal more +offended than the rest—and here, read.’ And he pushed a letter +towards him, dated Downing Street, and marked private. ‘The idiot you left +behind you has been betrayed into writing to the rebels and making +conditions with them. To disown him now is not enough.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Really, my lord, I don’t see why I should submit to the indignity of +reading more of this.’ +</p> +<p> +His Excellency crushed the letter in his hand, and puffed very vigorously +at his pipe, which was nearly extinguished. ‘Must go,’ said he at last, as +a fresh volume of smoke rolled forth. +</p> +<p> +‘That I can believe—that I can understand, my lord. When you tell me +you cease to endorse my pledges, I feel I am a bankrupt in your esteem.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Others smashed in the same insolvency—inconceivable blunder—where +was Cartwright?—what was Holmes about? No one in Dublin to keep you +out of this cursed folly?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Until your lordship’s patience will permit me to say a few words, I +cannot hope to justify my conduct.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No justifying—no explaining—no! regular smash and complete +disgrace. Must go.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am quite ready to go. Your Excellency has no need to recall me to the +necessity.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Knew it all—and against my will, too—said so from the first—thing +I never liked—nor see my way in. Must go—must go.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I presume, my lord, I may leave you now. I want a bath and a cup of +coffee.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Answer that!’ was the gruff reply, as he tossed across the table a few +lines signed, ‘Bertie Spencer, Private Secretary.’ +</p> +<p> +‘“I am directed to request that Mr. Walpole will enable the Right +Honourable Mr. Annihough to give the flattest denial to the inclosed.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘That must be done at once,’ said the Viceroy, as the other ceased to read +the note. +</p> +<p> +‘It is impossible, my lord; I cannot deny my own handwriting.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Annihough will find some road out of it,’ muttered the other. ‘<i>You</i> +were a fool, and mistook your instructions, or the <i>constable</i> was a +fool and required a misdirection, or the <i>Fenian</i> was a fool, which +he would have been if he gave the pledge you asked for. Must go, all the +same.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But I am quite ready to go, my lord,’ rejoined Walpole angrily. ‘There is +no need to insist so often on that point.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who talks—who thinks of <i>you</i>, sir?’ cried the other, with an +irritated manner. ‘I speak of myself. It is <i>I</i> must resign—no +great sacrifice, perhaps, after all; stupid office, false position, +impracticable people. Make them all Papists to-morrow, and ask to be +Hindus. They’ve got the land, and not content if they can’t shoot the +landlords!’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you think, my lord, that by any personal explanation of mine, I could +enable the Minister to make his answer in the House more plausible—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Leave the plausibility to himself, sir,’ and then he added, half aloud, +‘he’ll be unintelligible enough without <i>you</i>. There, go, and get +some breakfast—come back afterwards, and I’ll dictate my letter of +resignation. Maude has had a letter from Atlee. Shrewd fellow, Atlee—done +the thing well.’ +</p> +<p> +As Walpole was near the door, his Excellency said, ‘You can have +Guatemala, if they have not given it away. It will get you out of Europe, +which is the first thing, and with the yellow fever it may do more.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am profoundly grateful, my lord,’ said he, bowing low. +</p> +<p> +‘Maude, of course, would not go, so it ends <i>that</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am deeply touched by the interest your lordship vouchsafes to my +concerns.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Try and live five years, and you’ll have a retiring allowance. The last +fellow did, but was eaten by a crocodile out bathing.’ And with this he +resumed his <i>Times</i>, and turned away, while Walpole hastened off to +his room, in a frame of mind very far from comfortable or reassuring. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0052" id="link2HCH0052"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LII +</h2> +<h3> +A CHANCE AGREEMENT +</h3> +<p> +As Dick Kearney and young O’Shea had never attained any close intimacy—a +strange sort of half-jealousy, inexplicable as to its cause, served to +keep them apart—it was by mere accident that the two young men met +one morning after breakfast in the garden, and on Kearney’s offer of a +cigar, the few words that followed led to a conversation. +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot pretend to give you a choice Havana, like one of Walpole’s,’ +said Dick, ‘but you’ll perhaps find it smokeable.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not difficult,’ said the other; ‘and as to Mr. Walpole’s tobacco, I +don’t think I ever tasted it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I,’ rejoined the other, ‘as seldom as I could; I mean, only when +politeness obliged me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I thought you liked him?’ said Gorman shortly. +</p> +<p> +‘I? Far from it. I thought him a consummate puppy, and I saw that he +looked down on us as inveterate savages.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He was a favourite with your ladies, I think?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Certainly not with my sister, and I doubt very much with my cousin. Do <i>you</i> +like him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not at all; but then he belongs to a class of men I neither +understand nor sympathise with. Whatever <i>I</i> know of life is +associated with downright hard work. As a soldier I had my five hours’ +daily drill and the care of my equipments, as a lieutenant I had to see +that my men kept to their duty, and whenever I chanced to have a little +leisure, I could not give it up to ennui or consent to feel bored and +wearied.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And do you mean to say you had to groom your horse and clean your arms +when you served in the ranks?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not always. As a cadet I had a soldier-servant, what we call a “Bursche”; +but there were periods when I was out of funds, and barely able to grope +my way to the next quarter-day, and at these times I had but one meal a +day, and obliged to draw my waist-belt pretty tight to make me feel I had +eaten enough. A Bursche costs very little, but I could not spare even that +little.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Confoundedly hard that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All my own fault. By a little care and foresight, even without thrift, I +had enough to live as well as I ought; but a reckless dash of the old +spendthrift blood I came of would master me now and then, and I’d launch +out into some extravagance that would leave me penniless for months +after.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe I can understand that. One does get horribly bored by the +monotony of a well-to-do existence: just as I feel my life here—almost +insupportable.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But you are going into Parliament; you are going to be a great public +man.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That bubble has burst already; don’t you know what happened at Birr? They +tore down all Miller’s notices and mine, they smashed our booths, beat our +voters out of the town, and placed Donogan—the rebel Donogan—at +the head of the poll, and the head-centre is now M.P. for King’s County.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And he has a right to sit in the House?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s the question. The matter is discussed every day in the +newspapers, and there are as many for as against him. Some aver that the +popular will is a sovereign edict that rises above all eventualities; +others assert that the sentence which pronounces a man a felon declares +him to be dead in law.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And which side do you incline to?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe in the latter: he’ll not be permitted to take his seat.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’ll have another chance, then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; I’ll venture no more. Indeed, but for this same man Donogan, I had +never thought of it. He filled my head with ideas of a great part to be +played and a proud place to be occupied, and that even without high +abilities, a man of a strong will, a fixed resolve, and an honest +conscience, might at this time do great things for Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And then betrayed you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No such thing; he no more dreamed of Parliament himself than you do now. +He knew he was liable to the law,—he was hiding from the police—and +well aware that there was a price upon his head.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But if he was true to you, why did he not refuse this honour? why did he +not decline to be elected?’ +</p> +<p> +‘They never gave him the choice. Don’t you see, it is one of the strange +signs of the strange times we are living in that the people fix upon +certain men as their natural leaders and compel them to march in the van, +and that it is the force at the back of these leaders that, far more than +their talents, makes them formidable in public life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I only follow it in part. I scarcely see what they aim at, and I do not +know if they see it more clearly themselves. And now, what will you turn +to?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish you could tell me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘About as blank a future as my own,’ muttered Gorman. +</p> +<p> +‘Come, come, <i>you</i> have a career: you are a lieutenant of lancers; in +time you will be a captain, and eventually a colonel, and who knows but a +general at last, with Heaven knows how many crosses and medals on your +breast.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing less likely—the day is gone by when Englishmen were +advanced to places of high honour and trust in the Austrian army. There +are no more field-marshals like Nugent than major-generals like O’Connell. +I might be made a Rittmeister, and if I lived long enough, and was not +superannuated, a major; but there my ambition must cease.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you are content with that prospect?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I am not. I go back to it with something little short of +despair.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why go back, then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Tell me what else to do—tell me what other road in life to take—show +me even one alternative.’ +</p> +<p> +The silence that now succeeded lasted several minutes, each immersed in +his own thoughts, and each doubtless convinced how little presumption he +had to advise or counsel the other. +</p> +<p> +‘Do you know, O’Shea,’ cried Kearney, ‘I used to fancy that this Austrian +life of yours was a mere caprice—that you took “a cast,” as we call +it in the hunting-field, amongst those fellows to see what they were like +and what sort of an existence was theirs—but that being your aunt’s +heir, and with a snug estate that must one day come to you, it was a mere +“lark,” and not to be continued beyond a year or two?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not a bit of it. I never presumed to think I should be my aunt’s heir—and +now less than ever. Do you know, that even the small pension she has +allowed me hitherto is now about to be withdrawn, and I shall be left to +live on my pay?’ +</p> +<p> +‘How much does that mean?’ +</p> +<p> +‘A few pounds more or less than you pay for your saddle-horse at livery at +Dycers’.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You don’t mean that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do mean it, and even that beggarly pittance is stopped when I am on my +leave; so that at this moment my whole worldly wealth is here,’ and he +took from his pocket a handful of loose coin, in which a few gold pieces +glittered amidst a mass of discoloured and smooth-looking silver. +</p> +<p> +‘On my oath, I believe you are the richer man of the two,’ cried Kearney, +‘for except a few half-crowns on my dressing-table, and some coppers, I +don’t believe I am master of a coin with the Queen’s image.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I say, Kearney, what a horrible take-in we should prove to mothers with +daughters to marry!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not a bit of it. You may impose upon any one else—your tailor, your +bootmaker, even the horsy gent that jobs your cabriolet, but you’ll never +cheat the mamma who has the daughter on sale.’ +</p> +<p> +Gorman could not help laughing at the more than ordinary irritability with +which these words were spoken, and charged him at last with having uttered +a personal experience. +</p> +<p> +‘True, after all!’ said Dick, half indolently. ‘I used to spoon a pretty +girl up in Dublin, ride with her when I could, and dance with her at all +the balls, and a certain chum of mine—a Joe Atlee—of whom you +may have heard—under-took, simply by a series of artful rumours as +to my future prospects—now extolling me as a man of fortune and a +fine estate, to-morrow exhibiting me as a mere pretender with a mock title +and mock income—to determine how I should be treated in this family; +and he would say to me, “Dick, you are going to be asked to dinner on +Saturday next”; or, “I say, old fellow, they’re going to leave you out of +that picnic at Powerscourt. You’ll find the Clancys rather cold at your +next meeting.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And he would be right in his guess?’ +</p> +<p> +‘To the letter! Ay, and I shame to say that the young girl answered the +signal as promptly as the mother.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope it cured you of your passion?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know that it did. When you begin to like a girl, and find that +she has regularly installed herself in a corner of your heart, there is +scarcely a thing she can do you’ll not discover a good reason for; and +even when your ingenuity fails, go and pay a visit; there is some artful +witchery in that creation you have built up about her—for I heartily +believe most of us are merely clothing a sort of lay figure of loveliness +with attributes of our fancy—and the end of it is, we are about as +wise about our idols as the South Sea savages in their homage to the gods +of their own carving.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think that!’ said Gorman sternly. ‘I could no more invent the +fascination that charms me than I could model a Venus or an Ariadne.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I see where your mistake lies. You do all this, and never know you do it. +Mind, I am only giving you Joe Atlee’s theory all this time; for though I +believe in, I never invented it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And who is Atlee?’ +</p> +<p> +‘A chum of mine—a clever dog enough—who, as he says himself, +takes a very low opinion of mankind, and in consequence finds this a +capital world to live in.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should hate the fellow.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not if you met him. He can be very companionable, though I never saw any +one take less trouble to please. He is popular almost everywhere.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know I should hate him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My cousin Nina thought the same, and declared, from the mere sight of his +photograph, that he was false and treacherous, and Heaven knows what else +besides; and now she’ll not suffer a word in his disparagement. She began +exactly as you say you would, by a strong prejudice against him. I +remember the day he came down here—her manner towards him was more +than distant; and I told my sister Kate how it offended me; and Kate only +smiled and said, “Have a little patience, Dick.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you took the advice? You did have a little patience?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; and the end is they are firm friends. I’m not sure they don’t +correspond.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is there love in the case, then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is what I cannot make out. So far as I know either of them, there is +no trustfulness in their dispositions; each of them must see into the +nature of the other. I have heard Joe Atlee say, “With that woman for a +wife, a man might safely bet on his success in life.” And she herself one +day owned, “If a girl was obliged to marry a man without sixpence, she +might take Atlee.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘So, I have it, they will be man and wife yet!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who knows! Have another weed?’ +</p> +<p> +Gorman declined the offered cigar, and again a pause in the conversation +followed. At last he suddenly said, ‘She told me she thought she would +marry Walpole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She told <i>you</i> that? How did it come about to make <i>you</i> such a +confidence?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just this way. I was getting a little—not spooney—but +attentive, and rather liked hanging after her; and in one of our walks in +the wood—and there was no flirting at the time between us—she +suddenly said, “I don’t think you are half a bad fellow, lieutenant.” +“Thanks for the compliment,” said I coldly. She never heeded my remark, +but went on, “I mean, in fact, that if you had something to live for, and +somebody to care about, there is just the sort of stuff in you to make you +equal to both.” Not exactly knowing what I said, and half, only half in +earnest, I answered, “Why can I not have one to care for?” And I looked +tenderly into her eyes as I spoke. She did not wince under my glance. Her +face was calm, and her colour did not change; and she was full a minute +before she said, with a faint sigh, “I suppose I shall marry Cecil +Walpole.” “Do you mean,” said I, “against your will?” “Who told you I had +a will, sir?” said she haughtily; “or that if I had, I should now be +walking here in this wood alone with you? No, no,” added she hurriedly, +“you cannot understand me. There is nothing to be offended at. Go and +gather me some of those wild flowers, and we’ll talk of something else.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘How like her!—how like her!’ said Dick, and then looked sad and +pondered. ‘I was very near falling in love with her myself!’ said he, +after a considerable pause. +</p> +<p> +‘She has a way of curing a man if he should get into such an +indiscretion,’ muttered Gorman, and there was bitterness in his voice as +he spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘Listen! listen to that!’ and from an open window of the house there came +the prolonged cadence of a full sweet voice, as Nina was singing an Irish +ballad air. ‘That’s for my father! “Kathleen Mavourneen” is one of his +favourites, and she can make him cry over it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not very soft-hearted,’ muttered Gorman, ‘but she gave me a sense of +fulness in the throat, like choking, the other day, that I vowed to myself +I’d never listen to that song again.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is not her voice—it is not the music—there is some +witchery in the woman herself that does it,’ cried Dick, almost fiercely. +‘Take a walk with her in the wood, saunter down one of these alleys in the +garden, and I’ll be shot if your heart will not begin to beat in another +fashion, and your brain to weave all sorts of bright fancies, in which she +will form the chief figure; and though you’ll be half inclined to declare +your love, and swear that you cannot live without her, some terror will +tell you not to break the spell of your delight, but to go on walking +there at her side, and hearing her words just as though that ecstasy could +last for ever.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect you are in love with her,’ said O’Shea dryly. +</p> +<p> +‘Not now. Not now; and I’ll take care not to have a relapse,’ said he +gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘How do you mean to manage that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The only one way it is possible—not to see her, nor to hear her—not +to live in the same land with her. I have made up my mind to go to +Australia. I don’t well know what to do when I get there; but whatever it +be, and whatever it cost me to bear, I shall meet it without shrinking, +for there will be no old associates to look on and remark upon my shabby +clothes and broken boots.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What will the passage cost you?’ asked Gorman eagerly. +</p> +<p> +‘I have ascertained that for about fifty pounds I can land myself in +Melbourne, and if I have a ten-pound note after, it is as much as I mean +to provide.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I can raise the money, I’ll go with you,’ said O’Shea. +</p> +<p> +‘Will you? is this serious? is it a promise?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I pledge my word on it. I’ll go over to the Barn to-day and see my aunt. +I thought up to this I could not bring myself to go there, but I will now. +It is for the last time in my life, and I must say good-bye, whether she +helps me or not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’ll scarcely like to ask her for money,’ said Dick. +</p> +<p> +‘Scarcely—at all events, I’ll see her, and I’ll tell her that I’m +going away, with no other thought in my mind than of all the love and +affection she had for me, worse luck mine that I have not got them still.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall I walk over with—? would you rather be alone?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe so! I think I should like to be alone.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Let us meet, then, on this spot to-morrow, and decide what is to be +done?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Agreed!’ cried O’Shea, and with a warm shake-hands to ratify the pledge, +they parted: Dick towards the lower part of the garden, while O’Shea +turned towards the house. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0053" id="link2HCH0053"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LIII +</h2> +<h3> +A SCRAPE +</h3> +<p> +We have all of us felt how depressing is the sensation felt in a family +circle in the first meeting after the departure of their guests. The +friends who have been staying some time in your house not only bring to +the common stock their share of pleasant converse and companionship, but, +in the quality of strangers, they exact a certain amount of effort for +their amusement, which is better for him who gives than for the recipient, +and they impose that small reserve which excludes the purely personal +inconveniences and contrarieties, which unhappily, in strictly family +intercourse, have no small space allotted them for discussion. +</p> +<p> +It is but right to say that they who benefit most by, and most gratefully +acknowledge, this boon of the visitors, are the young. The elders, +sometimes more disposed to indolence than effort, sometimes irritable at +the check essentially put upon many little egotisms of daily use, and +oftener than either, perhaps, glad to get back to the old groove of home +discussion, unrestrained by the presence of strangers; the elders are now +and then given to express a most ungracious gratitude for being once again +to themselves, and free to be as confidential and outspoken and +disagreeable as their hearts desire. +</p> +<p> +The dinner at Kilgobbin Castle, on the day I speak of, consisted solely of +the Kearney family, and except in the person of the old man himself, no +trace of pleasantry could be detected. Kate had her own share of +anxieties. A number of notices had been served by refractory tenants for +demands they were about to prefer for improvements, under the new land +act. The passion for litigation, so dear to the Irish peasant’s heart—that +sense of having something to be quibbled for, so exciting to the +imaginative nature of the Celt, had taken possession of all the tenants on +the estate, and even the well-to-do and the satisfied were now bestirring +themselves to think if they had not some grievance to be turned into +profit, and some possible hardship to be discounted into an abatement. +</p> +<p> +Dick Kearney, entirely preoccupied by the thought of his intended journey, +already began to feel that the things of home touched him no longer. A few +months more and he should be far away from Ireland and her interests, and +why should he harass himself about the contests of party or the balance of +factions, which never again could have any bearing on his future life. His +whole thought was what arrangement he could make with his father by which, +for a little present assistance, he might surrender all his right on the +entail and give up Kilgobbin for ever. +</p> +<p> +As for Nina, her complexities were too many and too much interwoven for +our investigation; and there were thoughts of all the various persons she +had met in Ireland, mingled with scenes of the past, and, more strangely +still, the people placed in situations and connections which by no +likelihood should they ever have occupied. The thought that the little +comedy of everyday life, which she relished immensely, was now to cease +for lack of actors, made her serious—almost sad—and she seldom +spoke during the meal. +</p> +<p> +At Lord Kilgobbin’s request, that they would not leave him to take his +wine alone, they drew their chairs round the dining-room fire; but, except +the bright glow of the ruddy turf, and the pleasant look of the old man +himself, there was little that smacked of the agreeable fireside. +</p> +<p> +‘What has come over you girls this evening?’ said the old man. ‘Are you in +love, or has the man that ought to be in love with either of you +discovered it was only a mistake he was making?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ask Nina, sir,’ said Kate gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps you are right, uncle,’ said Nina dreamily. +</p> +<p> +‘In which of my guesses—the first or the last?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t puzzle me, sir, for I have no head for a subtle distinction. I only +meant to say it is not so easy to be in love without mistakes. You mistake +realities and traits for something not a bit like them, and you mistake +yourself by imagining that you mind them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think I understand you,’ said the old man. +</p> +<p> +‘Very likely not, sir. I do not know if I had a meaning that I could +explain.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nina wants to tell you, my lord, that the right man has not come forward +yet, and she does not know whether she’ll keep the place open in her heart +for him any longer,’ said Dick, with a half-malicious glance. +</p> +<p> +‘That terrible Cousin Dick! nothing escapes him,’ said Nina, with a faint +smile. +</p> +<p> +‘Is there any more in the newspapers about that scandal of the +Government?’ cried the old man, turning to Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘Is there not going to be some inquiry as to whether his Excellency wrote +to the Fenians?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There are a few words here, papa,’ cried Kate, opening the paper. ‘“In +reply to the question of Sir Barnes Malone as to the late communications +alleged to have passed between the head of the Irish Government and the +head-centre of the Fenians, the Right Honourable the First Lord of the +Treasury said, ‘That the question would be more properly addressed to the +noble lord the Secretary for Ireland, who was not then in the House. +Meanwhile, sir,’ continued he, ‘I will take on myself the responsibility +of saying that in this, as in a variety of other cases, the zeal of party +has greatly outstripped the discretion that should govern political +warfare. The exceptional state of a nation, in which the administration of +justice mainly depends on those aids which a rigid morality might +disparage—the social state of a people whose integrity calls for the +application of means the most certain to disseminate distrust and +disunion, are facts which constitute reasons for political action that, +however assailable in the mere abstract, the mind of statesmanlike form +will at once accept as solid and effective, and to reject which would only +show that, in over-looking the consequences of sentiment, a man can ignore +the most vital interests of his country.’”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Does he say that they wrote to Donogan?’ cried Kilgobbin, whose patience +had been sorely pushed by the Premier’s exordium. +</p> +<p> +‘Let me read on, papa.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Skip all that, and get down to a simple question and answer, Kitty; don’t +read the long sentences.’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is how he winds up, papa. “I trust I have now, sir, satisfied the +House that there are abundant reasons why this correspondence should not +be produced on the table, while I have further justified my noble friend +for a course of action in which the humanity of the man takes no lustre +from the glory of the statesman”—then there are some words in Latin—“and +the right hon. gentleman resumed his seat amidst loud cheers, in which +some of the Opposition were heard to join.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘I want to be told, after all, did they write the letter to say Donogan +was to be let escape?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Would it have been a great crime, uncle?’ said Nina artlessly. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not going into that. I’m only asking what the people over us say is +the best way to govern us. I’d like to know, once for all, what was wrong +and what was right in Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Has not the Premier just told you, sir,’ replied Nina, ‘that it is always +the reverse of what obtains everywhere else?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have had enough of it, anyhow,’ cried Dick, who, though not intending +it before, now was carried away by a momentary gust of passion to make the +avowal. +</p> +<p> +‘Have you been in the Cabinet all this time, then, without our knowing +it?’ asked Nina archly. +</p> +<p> +‘It is not of the Cabinet I was speaking, mademoiselle. It was of the +country.’ And he answered haughtily. +</p> +<p> +‘And where would you go, Dick, and find better?’ said Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘Anywhere. I should find better in America, in Canada, in the Far West, in +New Zealand—but I mean to try in Australia.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what will you do when you get there?’ asked Kilgobbin, with a grim +humour in his look. +</p> +<p> +‘Do tell me, Cousin Dick, for who knows that it might not suit me also?’ +</p> +<p> +Young Kearney filled his glass, and drained it without speaking. At last +he said, ‘It will be for you, sir, to say if I make the trial. It is clear +enough, I have no course open to me here. For a few hundred pounds, or, +indeed, for anything you like to give me, you get rid of me for ever. It +will be the one piece of economy my whole life comprises.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Stay at home, Dick, and give to your own country the energy you are +willing to bestow on a strange land,’ said Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘And labour side by side with the peasant I have looked down upon since I +was able to walk.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t look down on him, then—do it no longer. If you would treat +the first stranger you met in the bush as your equal, begin the Christian +practice in your own country.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But he needn’t do that at all,’ broke in the old man. ‘If he would take +to strong shoes and early rising here at Kilgobbin, he need never go to +Geelong for a living. Your great-grandfathers lived here for centuries, +and the old house that sheltered them is still standing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What should I stay for—?’ He had got thus far when his eyes met +Nina’s, and he stopped and hesitated, and, as a deep blush covered his +face, faltered out, ‘Gorman O’Shea says he is ready to go with me, and two +fellows with less to detain them in their own country would be hard to +find.’ +</p> +<p> +‘O’Shea will do well enough,’ said the old man; ‘he was not brought up to +kid-leather boots and silk linings in his greatcoat. There’s stuff in <i>him</i>, +and if it comes to sleeping under a haystack or dining on a red-herring, +he’ll not rise up with rheumatism or heartburn. And what’s better than +all, he’ll not think himself a hero because he mends his own boots or +lights his own kitchen-fire.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A letter for your honour,’ said the servant, entering with a very +informal-looking note on coarse paper, and fastened with a wafer. ‘The +gossoon, sir, is waiting for an answer; he run every mile from Moate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Read it, Kitty,’ said the old man, not heeding the servant’s comment. +</p> +<p> +‘It is dated “Moate Jail, seven o’clock,”’ said Kitty, as she read: ‘“Dear +Sir,—I have got into a stupid scrape, and have been committed to +jail. Will you come, or send some one to bail me out. The thing is a mere +trifle, but the ‘being locked up’ is very hard to bear.—Yours +always, G. O’Shea.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is this more Fenian work?’ cried Kilgobbin. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m certain it is not, sir,’ said Dick. ‘Gorman O’Shea has no liking for +them, nor is he the man to sympathise with what he owns he cannot +understand. It is a mere accidental row.’ +</p> +<p> +‘At all events, we must see to set him at liberty. Order the gig, Dick, +and while they are putting on the harness, I’ll finish this decanter of +port. If it wasn’t that we’re getting retired shopkeepers on the bench, +we’d not see an O’Shea sent to prison like a gossoon that stole a bunch of +turnips.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What has he been doing, I wonder?’ said Nina, as she drew her arm within +Kate’s and left the room. +</p> +<p> +‘Some loud talk in the bar-parlour, perhaps,’ was Kate’s reply, and the +toss of her head as she said it implied more even than the words. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0054" id="link2HCH0054"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LIV +</h2> +<h3> +HOW IT BEFELL +</h3> +<p> +While Lord Kilgobbin and his son are plodding along towards Moate with a +horse not long released from the harrow, and over a road which the late +rains had sorely damaged, the moment is not inopportune to explain the +nature of the incident, small enough in its way, that called on them for +this journey at nightfall. It befell that when Miss Betty, indignant at +her nephew’s defection, and outraged that he should descend to call at +Kilgobbin, determined to cast him off for ever, she also resolved upon a +project over which she had long meditated, and to which the conversation +at her late dinner greatly predisposed her. +</p> +<p> +The growing unfertility of the land, the sturdy rejection of the authority +of the Church, manifested in so many ways by the people, had led Miss +O’Shea to speculate more on the insecurity of landed property in Ireland +than all the long list of outrages scheduled at assizes, or all the +burning haggards that ever flared in a wintry sky. Her notion was to +retire into some religious sisterhood, and away from life and its cares, +to pass her remaining years in holy meditation and piety. She would have +liked to have sold her estate and endowed some house or convent with the +proceeds, but there were certain legal difficulties that stood in the way, +and her law-agent, McKeown, must be seen and conferred with about these. +</p> +<p> +Her moods of passion were usually so very violent that she would stop at +nothing; and in the torrent of her anger she would decide on a course of +action which would colour a whole lifetime. On the present occasion her +first step was to write and acquaint McKeown that she would be at Moodie’s +Hotel, Dominick Street, the same evening, and begged he might call there +at eight or nine o’clock, as her business with him was pressing. Her next +care was to let the house and lands of O’Shea’s Barn to Peter Gill, for +the term of one year, at a rent scarcely more than nominal, the said Gill +binding himself to maintain the gardens, the shrubberies, and all the +ornamental plantings in their accustomed order and condition. In fact, the +extreme moderation of the rent was to be recompensed by the large space +allotted to unprofitable land, and the great care he was pledged to +exercise in its preservation; and while nominally the tenant, so manifold +were the obligations imposed on him, he was in reality very little other +than the caretaker of O’Shea’s Barn and its dependencies. No fences were +to be altered, or boundaries changed. All the copses of young timber were +to be carefully protected by palings as heretofore, and even the +ornamental cattle—the shorthorns, and the Alderneys, and a few +favourite ‘Kerries,’—were to be kept on the allotted paddocks; and +to old Kattoo herself was allotted a loose box, with a small field +attached to it, where she might saunter at will, and ruminate over the +less happy quadrupeds that had to work for their subsistence. +</p> +<p> +Now, though Miss Betty, in the full torrent of her anger, had that much of +method in her madness to remember the various details, whose interests +were the business of her daily life, and so far made provision for the +future of her pet cows and horses and dogs and guinea-fowls, so that if +she should ever resolve to return she should find all as she had left it, +the short paper of agreement by which she accepted Gill as her tenant was +drawn up by her own hand, unaided by a lawyer; and, whether from the +intemperate haste of the moment, or an unbounded confidence in Gill’s +honesty and fidelity, was not only carelessly expressed, but worded in a +way that implied how her trustfulness exonerated her from anything beyond +the expression of what she wished for, and what she believed her tenant +would strictly perform. Gill’s repeated phrase of ‘Whatever her honour’s +ladyship liked’ had followed every sentence as she read the document aloud +to him; and the only real puzzle she had was to explain to the poor man’s +simple comprehension that she was not making a hard bargain with him, but +treating him handsomely and in all confidence. +</p> +<p> +Shrewd and sharp as the old lady was, versed in the habits of the people, +and long trained to suspect a certain air of dulness, by which, when +asking the explanation of a point, they watch, with a native casuistry, to +see what flaw or chink may open an equivocal meaning or intention, she was +thoroughly convinced by the simple and unreasoning concurrence this humble +man gave to every proviso, and the hearty assurance he always gave ‘that +her honour knew what was best. God reward and keep her long in the way to +do it!’—with all this, Miss O’Shea had not accomplished the first +stage of her journey to Dublin, when Peter Gill was seated in the office +of Pat McEvoy, the attorney at Moate—smart practitioner, who had +done more to foster litigation between tenant and landlord than all the +‘grievances’ that ever were placarded by the press. +</p> +<p> +‘When did you get this, Peter?’ said the attorney, as he looked about, +unable to find a date. +</p> +<p> +‘This morning, sir, just before she started.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’ll have to come before the magistrate and make an oath of the date, +and, by my conscience, it’s worth the trouble.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why, sir, what’s in it?’ cried Peter eagerly. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m no lawyer if she hasn’t given you a clear possession of the place, +subject to certain trusts, and even for the non-performance of these there +is no penalty attached. When Councillor Holmes comes down at the assizes, +I’ll lay a case before him, and I’ll wager a trifle, Peter, you will turn +out to be an estated gentleman.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Blood alive!’ was all Peter could utter. +</p> +<p> +Though the conversation that ensued occupied more than an hour, it is not +necessary that we should repeat what occurred, nor state more than the +fact that Peter went home fully assured that if O’Shea’s Barn was not his +own indisputably, it would be very hard to dispossess him, and that, at +all events, the occupation was secure to him for the present. The +importance that the law always attaches to possession Mr. McEvoy took care +to impress on Gill’s mind, and he fully convinced him that a forcible +seizure of the premises was far more to be apprehended than the slower +process of a suit and a verdict. +</p> +<p> +It was about the third week after this opinion had been given, when young +O’Shea walked over from Kilgobbin Castle to the Barn, intending to see his +aunt and take his farewell of her. +</p> +<p> +Though he had steeled his heart against the emotion such a leave-taking +was likely to evoke, he was in nowise prepared for the feelings the old +place itself would call up, and as he opened a little wicket that led by a +shrubbery walk to the cottage, he was glad to throw himself on the first +seat he could find and wait till his heart could beat more measuredly. +What a strange thing was life—at least that conventional life we +make for ourselves—was his thought now. ‘Here am I ready to cross +the globe, to be the servant, the labourer of some rude settler in the +wilds of Australia, and yet I cannot be the herdsman here, and tend the +cattle in the scenes that I love, where every tree, every bush, every +shady nook, and every running stream is dear to me. I cannot serve my own +kith and kin, but must seek my bread from the stranger! This is our +glorious civilisation. I should like to hear in what consists its +marvellous advantage.’ +</p> +<p> +And then he began to think of those men of whom he had often heard—gentlemen +and men of refinement—who had gone out to Australia, and who, in all +the drudgery of daily labour—herding cattle on the plains or +conducting droves of horses long miles of way—still managed to +retain the habits of their better days, and, by the instinct of the +breeding, which had become a nature, to keep intact in their hearts the +thoughts and the sympathies and the affections that made them gentlemen. +</p> +<p> +‘If my dear aunt only knew me as I know myself, she would let me stay here +and serve her as the humblest labourer on her land. I can see no indignity +in being poor and faring hardly. I have known coarse food and coarse +clothing, and I never found that they either damped my courage or soured +my temper.’ +</p> +<p> +It might not seem exactly the appropriate moment to have bethought him of +the solace of companionship in such poverty, but somehow his thoughts <i>did</i> +take that flight, and unwarrantable as was the notion, he fancied himself +returning at nightfall to his lowly cabin, and a certain girlish figure, +whom our reader knows as Kate Kearney, standing watching for his coming. +</p> +<p> +There was no one to be seen about as he approached the house. The hall +door, however, lay open. He entered and passed on to the little +breakfast-parlour on the left. The furniture was the same as before, but a +coarse fustian jacket was thrown on the back of a chair, and a clay-pipe +and a paper of tobacco stood on the table. While he was examining these +objects with some attention, a very ragged urchin, of some ten or eleven +years, entered the room with a furtive step, and stood watching him. From +this fellow, all that he could hear was that Miss Betty was gone away, and +that Peter was at the Kilbeggan Market, and though he tried various +questions, no other answers than these were to be obtained. Gorman now +tried to see the drawing-room and the library, but these, as well as the +dining-room, were all locked. He next essayed the bedrooms, but with the +same unsuccess. At length he turned to his own well-known corner—the +well-remembered little ‘green-room’—which he loved to think his own. +This too was locked, but Gorman remembered that by pressing the door +underneath with his walking-stick, he could lift the bolt from the +old-fashioned receptacle that held it, and open the door. Curious to have +a last look at a spot dear by so many memories, he tried the old artifice +and succeeded. +</p> +<p> +He had still on his watch-chain the little key of an old marquetrie +cabinet, where he was wont to write, and now he was determined to write a +last letter to his aunt from the old spot, and send her his good-bye from +the very corner where he had often come to wish her ‘good-night.’ +</p> +<p> +He opened the window and walked out on the little wooden balcony, from +which the view extended over the lawn and the broad belt of wood that +fenced the demesne. The Sliebh Bloom Mountain shone in the distance, and +in the calm of an evening sunlight the whole picture had something in its +silence and peacefulness of almost rapturous charm. +</p> +<p> +Who is there amongst us that has not felt, in walking through the rooms of +some uninhabited house, with every appliance of human comfort strewn +about, ease and luxury within, wavy trees and sloping lawn or eddying +waters without—who, in seeing all these, has not questioned himself +as to why this should be deserted? and why is there none to taste and feel +all the blessedness of such a lot as life here should offer? Is not the +world full of these places? is not the puzzle of this query of all lands +and of all peoples? That ever-present delusion of what we should do—what +be if we were aught other than ourselves: how happy, how contented, how +unrepining, and how good—ay, even our moral nature comes into the +compact—this delusion, I say, besets most of us through life, and we +never weary of believing how cruelly fate has treated us, and how unjust +destiny has been to a variety of good gifts and graces which are doomed to +die unrecognised and unrequited. +</p> +<p> +I will not go to the length of saying that Gorman O’Shea’s reflections +went thus far, though they did go to the extent of wondering why his aunt +had left this lovely spot, and asked himself, again and again, where she +could possibly have found anything to replace it. +</p> +<p> +‘My dearest aunt,’ wrote he, ‘in my own old room at the dear old desk, and +on the spot knitted to my heart by happiest memories, I sit down to send +you my last good-bye ere I leave Ireland for ever. +</p> +<p> +‘It is in no mood of passing fretfulness or impatience that I resolve to +go and seek my fortune in Australia. As I feel now, believing you are +displeased with me, I have no heart to go further into the question of my +own selfish interests, nor say why I resolve to give up soldiering, and +why I turn to a new existence. Had I been to you what I have hitherto +been, had I the assurance that I possessed the old claim on your love +which made me regard you as a dear mother, I should tell you of every step +that has led me to this determination, and how carefully and anxiously I +tried to study what might be the turning-point of my life.’ +</p> +<p> +When he had written thus far, and his eyes had already grown glassy with +the tears which would force their way across them, a heavy foot was heard +on the stairs, the door was burst rudely open, and Peter Gill stood before +him. +</p> +<p> +No longer, however, the old peasant in shabby clothes, and with his look +half-shy, half-sycophant, but vulgarly dressed in broadcloth and bright +buttons, a tall hat on his head, and a crimson cravat round his neck. His +face was flushed, and his eye flashing and insolent, so that O’Shea only +feebly recognised him by his voice. +</p> +<p> +‘You thought you’d be too quick for me, young man,’ said the fellow, and +the voice in its thickness showed he had been drinking, ‘and that you +would do your bit of writing there before I’d be back, but I was up to +you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I really do not know what you mean,’ cried O’Shea, rising; ‘and as it is +only too plain you have been drinking, I do not care to ask you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Whether I was drinking or no is my own business; there’s none to call me +to account now. I am here in my own house, and I order you to leave it, +and if you don’t go by the way you came in, by my soul you’ll go by that +window!’ A loud bang of his stick on the floor gave the emphasis to the +last words, and whether it was the action or the absurd figure of the man +himself overcame O’Shea, he burst out in a hearty laugh as he surveyed +him. ‘I’ll make it no laughing matter to you,’ cried Gill, wild with +passion, and stepping to the door he cried out, ‘Come up, boys, every man +of ye: come up and see the chap that’s trying to turn me out of my +holding.’ +</p> +<p> +The sound of voices and the tramp of feet outside now drew O’Shea to the +window, and passing out on the balcony, he saw a considerable crowd of +country-people assembled beneath. They were all armed with sticks, and had +that look of mischief and daring so unmistakable in a mob. As the young +man stood looking at them, some one pointed him out to the rest, and a +wild yell, mingled with hisses, now broke from the crowd. He was turning +away from the spot in disgust when he found that Gill had stationed +himself at the window, and barred the passage. +</p> +<p> +‘The boys want another look at ye,’ said Gill insolently; ‘go back and +show yourself: it is not every day they see an informer.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Stand back, you old fool, and let me pass,’ cried O’Shea. +</p> +<p> +‘Touch me if you dare; only lay one finger on me in my own house,’ said +the fellow, and he grinned almost in his face as he spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘Stand back,’ said Gorman, and suiting the action to the word, he raised +his arm to make space for him to pass out. Gill, no sooner did he feel the +arm graze his chest, than he struck O’Shea across the face; and though the +blow was that of an old man, the insult was so maddening that O’Shea, +seizing him by the arms, dragged him out upon the balcony. +</p> +<p> +‘He’s going to throw the old man over,’ cried several of those beneath, +and amidst the tumult of voices, a number soon rushed up the stairs and +out on the balcony, where the old fellow was clinging to O’Shea’s legs in +his despairing attempt to save himself. The struggle scarcely lasted many +seconds, for the rotten wood-work of the balcony creaked and trembled, and +at last gave way with a crash, bringing the whole party to the ground +together. +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0014" id="linkimage-0014"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/411.jpg" + alt="The Balcony Creaked and Trembled, And at Last Gave Way" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +A score of sticks rained their blows on the luckless young man, and each +time that he tried to rise he was struck back and rolled over by a blow or +a kick, till at length he lay still and senseless on the sward, his face +covered with blood and his clothes in ribbons. +</p> +<p> +‘Put him in a cart, boys, and take him off to the gaol,’ said the +attorney, McEvoy. ‘We’ll be in a scrape about all this, if we don’t make +<i>him</i> in the wrong.’ +</p> +<p> +His audience fully appreciated the counsel, and while a few were busied in +carrying old Gill to the house—for a broken leg made him unable to +reach it alone—the others placed O’Shea on some straw in a cart, and +set out with him to Kilbeggan. +</p> +<p> +‘It is not a trespass at all,’ said McEvoy. ‘I’ll make it a burglary and +forcible entry, and if he recovers at all, I’ll stake my reputation I +transport him for seven years.’ +</p> +<p> +A hearty murmur of approval met the speech, and the procession, with the +cart at their head, moved on towards the town. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0055" id="link2HCH0055"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LV +</h2> +<h3> +TWO J.P.‘S +</h3> +<p> +It was the Tory magistrate, Mr. Flood—the same who had ransacked +Walpole’s correspondence—before whom the informations were sworn +against Gorman O’Shea, and the old justice of the peace was, in secret, +not sorry to see the question of land-tenure a source of dispute and +quarrel amongst the very party who were always inveighing against the +landlords. +</p> +<p> +When Lord Kilgobbin arrived at Kilbeggan it was nigh midnight, and as +young O’Shea was at that moment a patient in the gaol infirmary, and sound +asleep, it was decided between Kearney and his son that they would leave +him undisturbed till the following morning. +</p> +<p> +Late as it was, Kearney was so desirous to know the exact narrative of +events that he resolved on seeing Mr. Flood at once. Though Dick Kearney +remonstrated with his father, and reminded him that old Tom Flood, as he +was called, was a bitter Tory, had neither a civil word nor a kind thought +for his adversaries in politics, Kearney was determined not to be turned +from his purpose by any personal consideration, and being assured by the +innkeeper that he was sure to find Mr. Flood in his dining-room and over +his wine, he set out for the snug cottage at the entrance of the town, +where the old justice of the peace resided. +</p> +<p> +Just as he had been told, Mr. Flood was still in the dinner-room, and with +his guest, Tony Adams, the rector, seated with an array of decanters +between them. +</p> +<p> +‘Kearney—Kearney!’ cried Flood, as he read the card the servant +handed him. ‘Is it the fellow who calls himself Lord Kilgobbin, I wonder?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe so,’ growled Adams, in a deep guttural, for he disliked the effort +of speech. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know him, nor do I want to know him. He is one of your +half-and-half Liberals that, to my thinking, are worse than the rebels +themselves! What is this here in pencil on the back of the card?’ Mr. K. +begs to apologise for the hour of his intrusion, and earnestly entreats a +few minutes from Mr. Flood. ‘Show him in, Philip, show him in; and bring +some fresh glasses.’ +</p> +<p> +Kearney made his excuses with a tact and politeness which spoke of a time +when he mixed freely with the world, and old Flood was so astonished by +the ease and good-breeding of his visitor that his own manner became at +once courteous and urbane. +</p> +<p> +‘Make no apologies about the hour, Mr. Kearney,’ said he. ‘An old +bachelor’s house is never very tight in discipline. Allow me to introduce +Mr. Adams, Mr. Kearney, the best preacher in Ireland, and as good a judge +of port wine as of theology.’ +</p> +<p> +The responsive grunt of the parson was drowned in the pleasant laugh of +the others, as Kearney sat down and filled his glass. In a very few words +he related the reason of his visit to the town, and asked Mr. Flood to +tell him what he knew of the late misadventure. +</p> +<p> +‘Sworn information, drawn up by that worthy man, Pat McEvoy, the greatest +rascal in Europe, and I hope I don’t hurt you by saying it, Mr. Kearney. +Sworn information of a burglarious entry, and an aggravated assault on the +premises and person of one Peter Gill, another local blessing—bad +luck to him. The aforesaid—if I spoke of hi before—Gorman +O’Shea, having, <i>suadente diabolo</i>, smashed down doors and windows, +palisadings and palings, and broke open cabinets, chests, cupboards, and +other contrivances. In a word, he went into another man’s house, and when +asked what he did there, he threw the proprietor out of the window. +There’s the whole of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Where was the house?’ +</p> +<p> +‘O’Shea’s Barn.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But surely O’Shea’s Barn, being the residence and property of his aunt, +there was no impropriety in his going there?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The informant states that the place was in the tenancy of this said Gill, +one of your own people, Mr. Kearney. I wish you luck of him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I disown him, root and branch; he is a disgrace to any side. And where is +Miss Betty O’Shea?’ +</p> +<p> +‘In a convent or a monastery, they say. She has turned abbess or monk; +but, upon my conscience, from the little I’ve seen of her, if a strong +will and a plucky heart be the qualifications, she might be the Pope!’ +</p> +<p> +‘And are the young man’s injuries serious? Is he badly hurt? for they +would not let me see him at the gaol.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Serious, I believe they are. He is cut cruelly about the face and head, +and his body bruised all over. The finest peasantry have a taste for +kicking with strong brogues on them, Mr. Kearney, that cannot be +equalled.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish with all my heart they’d kick the English out of Ireland!’ cried +Kearney, with a savage energy. +</p> +<p> +‘‘Faith! if they go on governing us in the present fashion, I do not say +I’ll make any great objection. Eh, Adams?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe so!’ was the slow and very guttural reply, as the fat man crossed +his hands on his waistcoat. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m sick of them all, Whigs and Tories,’ said Kearney. +</p> +<p> +Is not every Irish gentleman sick of them, Mr. Kearney? Ain’t you sick of +being cheated and cajoled, and ain’t <i>we</i> sick of being cheated and +insulted? They seek to conciliate <i>you</i> by outraging <i>us</i>. Don’t +you think we could settle our own differences better amongst ourselves? It +was Philpot Curran said of the fleas in Manchester, that if they’d all +pulled together, they’d have pulled him out of bed. Now, Mr. Kearney, what +if we all took to “pulling together?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘We cannot get rid of the notion that we’d be out-jockeyed,’ said Kearney +slowly. +</p> +<p> +‘We <i>know</i>,’ cried the other, ‘that we should be out-numbered, and +that is worse. Eh, Adams?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ay!’ sighed Adams, who did not desire to be appealed to by either side. +</p> +<p> +‘Now we’re alone here, and no eavesdropper near us, tell me fairly, +Kearney, are you better because we are brought down in the world? Are you +richer—are you greater—are you happier?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe we are, Mr. Flood, and I’ll tell you why I say so.’ +</p> +<p> +I’ll be shot if I hear you, that’s all. Fill your glass. That’s old port +that John Beresford tasted in the Custom-House Docks seventy-odd years +ago, and you are the only Whig living that ever drank a drop of it!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am proud to be the first exception, and I go so far as to believe—I +shall not be the last!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll send a few bottles over to that boy in the infirmary. It cannot but +be good for him,’ said Flood. +</p> +<p> +‘Take care, for Heaven’s sake, if he be threatened with inflammation. Do +nothing without the doctor’s leave.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wonder why the people who are so afraid of inflammation, are so fond of +rebellion,’ said he sarcastically. +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps I could tell you that, too—’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, do not—do not, I beseech you; reading the Whig Ministers’ +speeches has given me such a disgust to all explanations, I’d rather +concede anything than hear how it could be defended! Apparently Mr. +Disraeli is of my mind also, for he won’t support Paul Hartigan’s motion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What was Hartigan’s motion?’ +</p> +<p> +‘For the papers, or the correspondence, or whatever they called it, that +passed between Danesbury and Dan Donogan.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But there was none.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is that all you know of it? They were as thick as two thieves. It was +“Dear Dane” and “Dear Dan” between them. “Stop the shooting. We want a +light calendar at the summer assizes,” says one. “You shall have forty +thousand pounds yearly for a Catholic college, if the House will let us.” +“Thank you for nothing for the Catholic college,” says Dan. “We want our +own Parliament and our own militia; free pardon for political offences.” +What would you say to a bill to make landlord-shooting manslaughter, Mr. +Kearney?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Justifiable homicide, Mr. Bright called it years ago, but the judges +didn’t see it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘This Danesbury “muddle,” for that is the name they give it, will be +hushed up, for he has got some Tory connections, and the lords are never +hard on one of their “order,” so I hear. Hartigan is to be let have his +talk out in the House, and as he is said to be violent and indiscreet, the +Prime Minister will only reply to the violence and the indiscretion, and +he will conclude by saying that the noble Viceroy has begged Her Majesty +to release him of the charge of the Irish Government; and though the +Cabinet have urgently entreated him to remain and carry out the wise +policy of conciliation so happily begun in Ireland, he is rooted in his +resolve, and he will not stay; and there will be cheers; and when he adds +that Mr. Cecil Walpole, having shown his great talents for intrigue, will +be sent back to the fitting sphere—his old profession of diplomacy—there +will be laughter; for as the Minister seldom jokes, the House will imagine +this to be a slip, and then, with every one in good humour—but Paul +Hartigan, who will have to withdraw his motion—the right honourable +gentleman will sit down, well pleased at his afternoon’s work.’ +</p> +<p> +Kearney could not but laugh at the sketch of a debate given with all the +mimicry of tone and mock solemnity of an old debater, and the two men now +became, by the bond of their geniality, like old acquaintances. +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, Mr. Kearney, I won’t say we’d do it better on College Green, but we’d +do it more kindly, more courteously, and, above all, we’d be less +hypocritical in our inquiries. I believe we try to cheat the devil in +Ireland just as much as our neighbours. But we don’t pretend that we are +arch-bishops all the time we’re doing it. There’s where we differ from the +English.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And who is to govern us,’ cried Kearney,’ if we have no Lord-Lieutenant?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The Privy Council, the Lords Justices, or maybe the Board of Works, who +knows? When you are going over to Holyhead in the packet, do you ever ask +if the man at the wheel is decent, or a born idiot, and liable to fits? +Not a bit of it. You know that there are other people to look to this, and +you trust, besides, that they’ll land you all safe.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s true,’ said Kearney, and he drained his glass; ‘and now tell me +one thing more. How will it go with young O’Shea about this scrimmage, +will it be serious?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Curtis, the chief constable, says it will be an ugly affair enough. +They’ll swear hard, and they’ll try to make out a title to the land +through the action of trespass; and if, as I hear, the young fellow is a +scamp and a bad lot—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Neither one nor the other,’ broke in Kearney; ‘as fine a boy and as +thorough a gentleman as there is in Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And a bit of a Fenian, too,’ slowly interposed Flood. +</p> +<p> +‘Not that I know; I’m not sure that he follows the distinctions of party +here; he is little acquainted with Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ho, ho! a Yankee sympathiser?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not even that; an Austrian soldier, a young lieutenant of lancers over +here for his leave.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And why couldn’t he shoot, or course, or kiss the girls, or play at +football, and not be burning his fingers with the new land-laws? There’s +plenty of ways to amuse yourself in Ireland, without throwing a man out of +window; eh, Adams?’ +</p> +<p> +And Adams bowed his assent, but did not utter a word. +</p> +<p> +‘You are not going to open more wine?’ remonstrated Kearney eagerly. +</p> +<p> +‘It’s done. Smell that, Mr. Kearney,’ cried Flood, as he held out a +fresh-drawn cork at the end of the screw. ‘Talk to me of clove-pinks and +violets and carnations after that? I don’t know whether you have any +prayers in your church against being led into temptation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Haven’t we!’ sighed the other. +</p> +<p> +‘Then all I say is, Heaven help the people at Oporto; they’ll have more to +answer for even than most men.’ +</p> +<p> +It was nigh dawn when they parted, Kearney muttering to himself as he +sauntered back to the inn, ‘If port like that is the drink of the Tories, +they must be good fellows with all their prejudices.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll be shot if I don’t like that rebel,’ said Flood as he went to bed. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0056" id="link2HCH0056"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LVI +</h2> +<h3> +BEFORE THE DOOR +</h3> +<p> +Though Lord Kilgobbin, when he awoke somewhat late in the afternoon, did +not exactly complain of headache, he was free to admit that his faculties +were slightly clouded, and that his memory was not to the desired extent +retentive of all that passed on the preceding night. Indeed, beyond the +fact—which he reiterated with great energy—that ‘old Flood, +Tory though he was, was a good fellow, an excellent fellow, and had a +marvellous bin of port wine,’ his son Dick was totally unable to get any +information from him. ‘Bigot, if you like, or Blue Protestant, and all the +rest of it; but a fine hearty old soul, and an Irishman to the heart’s +core!’ That was the sum of information which a two hours’ close +cross-examination elicited; and Dick was sulkily about to leave the room +in blank disappointment when the old man suddenly amazed him by asking: +‘And do you tell me that you have been lounging about the town all the +morning and have learned nothing? Were you down to the gaol? Have you seen +O’Shea? What’s <i>his</i> account of it? Who began the row? Has he any +bones broken? Do you know anything at all?’ cried he, as the blank look of +the astonished youth seemed to imply utter ignorance, as well as dismay. +</p> +<p> +‘First of all,’ said Dick, drawing a long breath, ‘I have not seen O’Shea; +nobody is admitted to see him. His injuries about the head are so severe +the doctors are in dread of erysipelas.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What if he had? Have not every one of us had the erysipelas some time or +other; and, barring the itching, what’s the great harm?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The doctors declare that if it come, they will not answer for his life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They know best, and I’m afraid they know why also. Oh dear, oh dear! if +there’s anything the world makes no progress in, it’s the science of +medicine. Everybody now dies of what we all used to have when I was a boy! +Sore throats, smallpox, colic, are all fatal since they’ve found out Greek +names for them, and with their old vulgar titles they killed nobody.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Gorman is certainly in a bad way, and Dr. Rogan says it will be some days +before he could pronounce him out of danger.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Can he be removed? Can we take him back with us to Kilgobbin?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is utterly out of the question; he cannot be stirred, and requires +the most absolute rest and quiet. Besides that, there is another +difficulty—I don’t know if they would permit us to take him away.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What! do you mean, refuse our bail?’ +</p> +<p> +‘They have got affidavits to show old Gill’s life’s in danger; he is in +high fever to-day, and raving furiously, and if he should die, McEvoy +declares that they’ll be able to send bills for manslaughter, at least, +before the grand-jury.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s more of it!’ cried Kilgobbin, with a long whistle. ‘Is it Rogan +swears the fellow is in danger?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, it’s Tom Price, the dispensary doctor; and as Miss Betty withdrew her +subscription last year, they say he swore he’d pay her off for it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know Tom, and I’ll see to that,’ said Kearney. ‘Are the affidavits +sworn?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No. They are drawn out; McEvoy is copying them now; but they’ll be ready +by three o’clock.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll have Rogan to swear that the boy must be removed at once. We’ll take +him over with us; and once at Kilgobbin, they’ll want a regiment of +soldiers if they mean to take him. It is nigh twelve o’clock now, is it +not?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is on the stroke of two, sir.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is it possible? I believe I overslept myself in the strange bed. Be alive +now, Dick, and take the 2.40 train to town. Call on McKeown, and find out +where Miss Betty is stopping; break this business to her gently—for +with all that damnable temper, she has a fine womanly heart—tell her +the poor boy was not to blame at all: that he went over to see her, and +knew nothing of the place being let out or hired; and tell her, besides, +that the blackguards that beat him were not her own people at all, but +villains from another barony that old Gill brought over to work on short +wages. Mind that you say that, or we’ll have more law, and more trouble—notices +to quit, and the devil knows what. I know Miss Betty well, and she’d not +leave a man on a town-land if they raised a finger against one of her +name! There now, you know what to do: go and do it!’ +</p> +<p> +To hear the systematic and peremptory manner in which the old man detailed +all his directions, one would have pronounced him a model of orderly +arrangement and rule. Having despatched Dick to town, however, he began to +bethink him of all the matters on which he was desirous to learn Miss +O’Shea’s mind. Had she really leased the Barn to this man Gill: and if so, +for what term? And was her quarrel with her nephew of so serious a nature +that she might hesitate as to taking his side here—at least, till +she knew he was in the right; and then, was he in the right? That was, +though the last, the most vital consideration of all. +</p> +<p> +‘I’d have thought of all these if the boy had not flurried me so. These +hot-headed fellows have never room in their foolish brains for anything +like consecutive thought; they can just entertain the one idea, and till +they dismiss that, they cannot admit another. Now, he’ll come back by the +next train, and bring me the answer to one of my queries, if even that?’ +sighed he, as he went on with his dressing. +</p> +<p> +‘All this blessed business,’ muttered he to himself, ‘comes of this +blundering interference with the land-laws. Paddy hears that they have +given him some new rights and privileges, and no mock-modesty of his own +will let him lose any of them, and so he claims everything. Old experience +had taught him that with a bold heart and a blunderbuss he need not pay +much rent; but Mr. Gladstone—long life to him—had said, “We +must do something for you.” Now what could that be? He’d scarcely go so +far as to give them out Minié rifles or Chassepots, though arms of +precision, as they call them, would have put many a poor fellow out of +pain—as Bob Magrath said when he limped into the public-house with a +ball in his back—“It’s only a ‘healing measure,’ don’t make a fuss +about it.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Flood wants to see your honour when you’re dressed,’ said the waiter, +interrupting his soliloquy. +</p> +<p> +‘Where is he?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Walking up and down, sir, forenent the door.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will ye say I’m coming down? I’m just finishing a letter to the +Lord-Lieutenant,’ said Kilgobbin, with a sly look to the man, who returned +the glance with its rival, and then left the room. +</p> +<p> +‘Will you not come in and sit down?’ said Kearney, as he cordially shook +Flood’s hand. +</p> +<p> +‘I have only five minutes to stay, and with your leave, Mr. Kearney, we’ll +pass it here’; and taking the other’s arm, he proceeded to walk up and +down before the door of the inn. +</p> +<p> +‘You know Ireland well—few men better, I am told—and you have +no need, therefore, to be told how the rumoured dislikes of party, the +reported jealousies and rancours of this set to that, influence the world +here. It will be a fine thing, therefore, to show these people here that +the Liberal, Mr. Kearney, and that bigoted old Tory, Tom Flood, were to be +seen walking together, and in close confab. It will show them, at all +events, that neither of us wants to make party capital out of this +scrimmage, and that he who wants to affront one of us, cannot, on that +ground, at least, count upon the other. Just look at the crowd that is +watching us already! There ‘a a fellow neglecting the sale of his pig to +stare at us, and that young woman has stopped gartering her stocking for +the last two minutes in sheer curiosity about us.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0015" id="linkimage-0015"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/422.jpg" + alt="‘Just Look at the Crowd That is Watching Us Already’" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +Kearney laughed heartily as he nodded assent. +</p> +<p> +‘You follow me, don’t you?’ asked Flood. ‘Well, then, grant me the favour +I’m about to ask, and it will show me that you see all these things as I +do. This row may turn out more seriously than we thought for. That +scoundrel Gill is in a high fever to-day—I would not say that just +out of spite the fellow would not die. Who knows if it may not become a +great case at the assizes; and if so, Kearney, let us have public opinion +with us. There are scores of men who will wait to hear what you and I say +of this business. There are hundreds more who will expect us to disagree. +Let us prove to them that this is no feud between Orange and Green, this +is nothing of dispute between Whig and Tory, or Protestant and Papist; but +a free fight, where, more shame to them, fifty fell upon one. Now what you +must grant me is leave to send this boy back to Kilgobbin in my own +carriage, and with my own liveries. There is not a peasant cutting turf on +the bog will not reason out his own conclusions when he sees it. Don’t +refuse me, for I have set my heart on it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not thinking of refusing. I was only wondering to myself what my +daughter Kitty will say when she sees me sitting behind the blue and +orange liveries.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You may send me back with the green flag over me the next day I dine with +you,’ cried Flood, and the compact was ratified. +</p> +<p> +‘It is more than half-past already,’ said Flood. ‘We are to have a full +bench at three; so be ready to give your bail, and I’ll have the carriage +at the corner of the street, and you shall set off with the boy at once.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I must say,’ said Kearney, ‘whatever be your Tory faults, lukewarmness is +not one of them! You stand to me like an old friend in all this trouble.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe it’s time to begin to forget old grudges. Kearney, I believe in my +heart neither of us is as bad as the other thinks him. Are you aware that +they are getting affidavits to refuse the bail?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know it all; but I have sent a man to McEvoy about a case that will +take all his morning; and he’ll be too late with his affidavits.’ +</p> +<p> +‘By the time he is ready, you and your charge will be snug in Kilgobbin; +and another thing, Kearney—for I have thought of the whole matter—you’ll +take out with you that little vermin Price, the doctor, and treat him +well. He’ll be as indiscreet as you wish, and be sure to give him the +opportunity. There, now, give me your most affectionate grasp of the hand, +for there’s an attentive public watching us.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0057" id="link2HCH0057"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LVII +</h2> +<h3> +A DOCTOR +</h3> +<p> +Young O’Shea made the journey from Kilbeggan to Kilgobbin Castle in total +unconsciousness. The symptoms had now taken the form which doctors call +concussion; and though to a first brief question he was able to reply +reasonably and well, the effort seemed so exhausting that to all +subsequent queries he appeared utterly indifferent; nor did he even by +look acknowledge that he heard them. +</p> +<p> +Perfect and unbroken quiet was enjoined as his best, if not his only, +remedy; and Kate gave up her own room for the sick man, as that most +remote from all possible disturbance, and away from all the bustle of the +house. The doctors consulted on his case in the fashion that a country +physician of eminence condescends to consult with a small local +practitioner. Dr. Rogan pronounced his opinion, prophetically declared the +patient in danger, and prescribed his remedies, while Price, agreeing with +everything, and even slavishly abject in his manner of concurrence, went +about amongst the underlings of the household saying, ‘There’s two +fractures of the frontal bone. It’s trepanned he ought to be; and when +there’s an inquest on the body, I’ll declare I said so.’ +</p> +<p> +Though nearly all the care of providing for the sick man’s nursing fell to +Kate Kearney, she fulfilled the duty without attracting any notice +whatever, or appearing to feel as if any extra demand were made upon her +time or her attention; so much so, that a careless observer might have +thought her far more interested in providing for the reception of the aunt +than in cares for the nephew. +</p> +<p> +Dick Kearney had written to say that Miss Betty was so overwhelmed with +affliction at young Gorman’s mishap that she had taken to bed, and could +not be expected to be able to travel for several days. She insisted, +however, on two telegrams daily to report on the boy’s case, and asked +which of the great Dublin celebrities of physic should be sent down to see +him. +</p> +<p> +‘They’re all alike to me,’ said Kilgobbin; ‘but if I was to choose, I +think I’d say Dr. Chute.’ +</p> +<p> +This was so far unlucky, since Dr. Chute had then been dead about forty +years; scarcely a junior of the profession having so much as heard his +name. +</p> +<p> +‘We really want no one,’ said Rogan. ‘We are doing most favourably in +every respect. If one of the young ladies would sit and read to him, but +not converse, it would be a service. He made the request himself this +morning, and I promised to repeat it.’ +</p> +<p> +A telegram, however, announced that Sir St. Xavier Brennan would arrive +the same evening, and as Sir X. was physician-in-chief to the nuns of the +Bleeding Heart, there could be little doubt whose orthodoxy had chosen +him. +</p> +<p> +He came at nightfall—a fat, comely-looking, somewhat unctuous +gentleman, with excellent teeth and snow-white hands, symmetrical and +dimpled like a woman’s. He saw the patient, questioned him slightly, and +divined without waiting for it what the answer should be; he was delighted +with Rogan, pleased with Price, but he grew actually enthusiastic over +those charming nurses, Nina and Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘With such sisters of charity to tend me, I’d consent to pass my life as +an invalid,’ cried he. +</p> +<p> +Indeed, to listen to him, it would seem that, whether from the salubrity +of the air, the peaceful quietude of the spot, the watchful kindness and +attention of the surrounders, or a certain general air—an actual +atmosphere of benevolence and contentment around—there was no +pleasure of life could equal the delight of being laid up at Kilgobbin. +</p> +<p> +‘I have a message for you from my old friend Miss O’Shea,’ said he to Kate +the first moment he had the opportunity of speaking with her alone. ‘It is +not necessary to tell you that I neither know, nor desire to know, its +import. Her words were these: “Tell my godchild to forgive me if she still +has any memory for some very rude words I once spoke. Tell her that I have +been sorely punished for them since, and that till I know I have her +pardon, I have no courage to cross her doors.” This was my message, and I +was to bring back your answer.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Tell her,’ cried Kate warmly, ‘I have no place in my memory but for the +kindnesses she has bestowed on me, and that I ask no better boon from +Fortune than to be allowed to love her, and to be worthy of her love.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will repeat every word you have told me; and I am proud to be bearer of +such a speech. May I presume, upon the casual confidence I have thus +acquired, to add one word for myself; and it is as the doctor I would +speak.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Speak freely. What is it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is this, then: you young ladies keep your watches in turn in the +sick-room. The patient is unfit for much excitement, and as I dare not +take the liberty of imposing a line of conduct on Mademoiselle Kostalergi, +I have resolved to run the hazard with <i>you</i>! Let <i>hers</i> be the +task of entertaining him; let <i>her</i> be the reader—and he loves +being read to—and the talker, and the narrator of whatever goes on. +To you be the part of quiet watchfulness and care, to bathe the heated +brow, or the burning hand, to hold the cold cup to the parched lips, to +adjust the pillow, to temper the light, and renew the air of the +sick-room, but to speak seldom, if at all. Do you understand me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perfectly; and you are wise and acute in your distribution of labour: +each of us has her fitting station.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I dared not have said this much to <i>her</i>: my doctor’s instinct told +me I might be frank with <i>you</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are safe in speaking to me,’ said she calmly. +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps I ought to say that I give these suggestions without any concert +with my patient. I have not only abstained from consulting, but—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Forgive my interrupting you, Sir X. It was quite unnecessary to tell me +this.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are not displeased with me, dear lady?’ said he, in his softest of +accents. +</p> +<p> +‘No; but do not say anything which might make me so.’ +</p> +<p> +The doctor bowed reverentially, crossed his white hands on his waistcoat, +and looked like a saint ready for martyrdom. +</p> +<p> +Kate frankly held out her hand in token of perfect cordiality, and her +honest smile suited the action well. +</p> +<p> +‘Tell Miss Betty that our sick charge shall not be neglected, but that we +want her here herself to help us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I shall report your message word for word,’ said he, as he withdrew. +</p> +<p> +As the doctor drove back to Dublin, he went over a variety of things in +his thoughts. There were serious disturbances in the provinces; those ugly +outrages which forerun long winter nights, and make the last days of +October dreary and sad-coloured. Disorder and lawlessness were abroad; and +that want of something remedial to be done which, like the thirst in +fever, is fostered and fed by partial indulgence. Then he had some +puzzling cases in hospital, and one or two in private practice, which +harassed him; for some had reached that critical stage where a false move +would be fatal, and it was far from clear which path should be taken. Then +there was that matter of Miss O’Shea herself, who, if her nephew were to +die, would most likely endow that hospital in connection with the Bleeding +Heart, and of which he was himself the founder; and that this fate was by +no means improbable, Sir X. persuaded himself, as he counted over all the +different stages of peril that stood between him and convalescence. ‘We +have now the concussion, with reasonable prospect of meningitis; and there +may come on erysipelas from the scalp wounds, and high fever, with all its +dangers; next there may be a low typhoid state, with high nervous +excitement; and through all these the passing risks of the wrong food or +drink, the imprudent revelations, or the mistaken stimulants. Heigh-ho!’ +said he at last, ‘we come through storm and shipwreck, forlorn-hopes, and +burning villages, and we succumb to ten drops too much of a dark-brown +liquor, or the improvident rashness that reads out a note to us +incautiously! +</p> +<p> +‘Those young ladies thought to mystify me,’ said he aloud, after a long +reverie. ‘I was not to know which of them was in love with the sick boy. I +could make nothing of the Greek, I own, for, except a half-stealthy regard +for myself, she confessed to nothing, and the other was nearly as +inscrutable. It was only the little warmth at last that betrayed her. I +hurt her pride, and as she winced, I said, “There’s the sore spot—there’s +mischief there!” How the people grope their way through life who have +never studied physic nor learned physiology is a puzzle to <i>me</i>! With +all its aid and guidance I find humanity quite hard enough to understand +every day I live.’ +</p> +<p> +Even in his few hours’ visit—in which he remarked everything, from +the dress of the man who waited at dinner, to the sherry decanter with the +smashed stopper, the weak ‘Gladstone’ that did duty as claret, and the +cotton lace which Nina sported as ‘point d’Alençon,’ and numberless other +shifts, such as people make who like to play false money with Fortune—all +these he saw, and he saw that a certain jealous rivalry existed between +the two girls; but whether either of them, or both, cared for young +O’Shea, he could not declare; and, strange as it may seem, his inability +to determine this weighed upon him with all the sense of a defeat. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0058" id="link2HCH0058"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LVIII +</h2> +<h3> +IN TURKEY +</h3> +<p> +Leaving the sick man to the tender care of those ladies whose division of +labour we have just hinted at, we turn to other interests, and to one of +our characters, who, though to all seeming neglected, has not lapsed from +our memory. +</p> +<p> +Joe Atlee had been despatched on a very confidential mission by Lord +Danesbury. Not only was he to repossess himself of certain papers he had +never heard of, from a man he had never seen, but he was also to impress +this unknown individual with the immense sense of fidelity to another who +no longer had any power to reward him, and besides this, to persuade him, +being a Greek, that the favour of a great ambassador of England was better +than roubles of gold and vases of malachite. +</p> +<p> +Modern history has shown us what a great aid to success in life is the +contribution of a ‘light heart,’ and Joe Atlee certainly brought this +element of victory along with him on his journey. +</p> +<p> +His instructions were assuredly of the roughest. To impress Lord Danesbury +favourably on the score of his acuteness he must not press for details, +seek for explanations, and, above all, he must ask no questions. In fact, +to accomplish that victory which he ambitioned for his cleverness, and on +which his Excellency should say, ‘Atlee saw it at once—Atlee caught +the whole thing at a glance,’ Joe must be satisfied with the least +definite directions that ever were issued, and the most confused statement +of duties and difficulties that ever puzzled a human intelligence. Indeed, +as he himself summed up his instructions in his own room, they went no +further than this: That there was a Greek, who, with a number of other +names, was occasionally called Speridionides—a great scoundrel, and +with every good reason for not being come at—who was to be found +somewhere in Stamboul—probably at the bazaar at nightfall. He was to +be bullied, or bribed, or wheedled, or menaced, to give up some letters +which Lord Danesbury had once written to him, and to pledge himself to +complete secrecy as to their contents ever after. From this Greek, whose +perfect confidence Atlee was to obtain, he was to learn whether Kulbash +Pasha, Lord Danesbury’s sworn friend and ally, was not lapsing from his +English alliance and inclining towards Russian connections. To Kulbash +himself Atlee had letters accrediting him as the trusted and confidential +agent of Lord Danesbury, and with the Pasha, Joe was instructed to treat +with an air and bearing of unlimited trustfulness. He was also to mention +that his Excellency was eager to be back at his old post as ambassador, +that he loved the country, the climate, his old colleagues in the Sultan’s +service, and all the interests and questions that made up their political +life. +</p> +<p> +Last of all, Atlee was to ascertain every point on which any successor to +Lord Danesbury was likely to be mistaken, and how a misconception might be +ingeniously widened into a grave blunder; and by what means such incidents +should be properly commented on by the local papers, and unfavourable +comparisons drawn between the author of these measures and ‘the great and +enlightened statesman’ who had so lately left them. +</p> +<p> +In a word, Atlee saw that he was to personate the character of a most +unsuspecting, confiding young gentleman, who possessed a certain natural +aptitude for affairs of importance, and that amount of discretion such as +suited him to be employed confidentially; and to perform this part he +addressed himself. +</p> +<p> +The Pasha liked him so much that he invited him to be his guest while he +remained at Constantinople, and soon satisfied that he was a guileless +youth fresh to the world and its ways, he talked very freely before him, +and affecting to discuss mere possibilities, actually sketched events and +consequences which Atlee shrewdly guessed to be all within the range of +casualties. +</p> +<p> +Lord Danesbury’s post at Constantinople had not been filled up, except by +the appointment of a Chargé-d’Affaires; it being one of the approved modes +of snubbing a government to accredit a person of inferior rank to its +court. Lord Danesbury detested this man with a hate that only official +life comprehends, the mingled rancour, jealousy, and malice suggested by a +successor, being a combination only known to men who serve their country. +</p> +<p> +‘Find out what Brumsey is doing; he is said to be doing wrong. He knows +nothing of Turkey. Learn his blunders, and let me know them.’ +</p> +<p> +This was the easiest of all Atlee’s missions, for Brumsey was the weakest +and most transparent of all imbecile Whigs. A junior diplomatist of small +faculties and great ambitions, he wanted to do something, not being clear +as to what, which should startle his chiefs, and make ‘the Office’ +exclaim: ‘See what Sam Brumsey has been doing! Hasn’t Brumsey hit the nail +on the head! Brumsey’s last despatch is the finest state-paper since the +days of Canning!’ Now no one knew the short range of this man’s +intellectual tether better than Lord Danesbury—since Brumsey had +been his own private secretary once, and the two men hated each other as +only a haughty superior and a craven dependant know how to hate. +</p> +<p> +The old ambassador was right. Russian craft had dug many a pitfall for the +English diplomatist, and Brumsey had fallen into every one of them. Acting +on secret information—all ingeniously prepared to entrap him—Brumsey +had discovered a secret demand made by Russia to enable one of the +imperial family to make the tour of the Black Sea with a ship-of-war. +Though it might be matter of controversy whether Turkey herself could, +without the assent of the other Powers to the Treaty of Paris, give her +permission, Brumsey was too elated by his discovery to hesitate about +this, but at once communicated to the Grand-Vizier a formal declaration of +the displeasure with which England would witness such an infraction of a +solemn engagement. +</p> +<p> +As no such project had ever been entertained, no such demand ever made, +Kulbash Pasha not only laughed heartily at the mock-thunder of the +Englishman, but at the energy with which a small official always opens +fire, and in the jocularity of his Turkish nature—for they are +jocular, these children of the Koran—he told the whole incident to +Atlee. +</p> +<p> +‘Your old master, Mr. Atlee,’ said he, ‘would scarcely have read us so +sharp a lesson as that; but,’ he added, ‘we always hear stronger language +from the man who couldn’t station a gunboat at Pera than from the +ambassador who could call up the Mediterranean squadron from Malta.’ +</p> +<p> +If Atlee’s first letter to Lord Danesbury admitted of a certain +disappointment as regarded Speridionides, it made ample compensation by +the keen sketch it conveyed of how matters stood at the Porte, the +uncertain fate of Kulbash Pasha’s policy, and the scarcely credible +blunder of Brumsey. +</p> +<p> +To tell the English ambassador how much he was regretted and how much +needed, how the partisans of England felt themselves deserted and +abandoned by his withdrawal, and how gravely the best interests of Turkey +itself were compromised for want of that statesmanlike intelligence that +had up to this guided the counsels of the Divan: all these formed only a +part of Atlee’s task, for he wrote letters and leaders, in this sense, to +all the great journals of London, Paris, and Vienna; so that when the <i>Times</i> +and the <i>Post</i> asked the English people whether they were satisfied +that the benefit of the Crimean War should be frittered away by an +incompetent youth in the position of a man of high ability, the <i>Débats</i> +commented on the want of support France suffered at the Porte by the +inferior agency of England, and the <i>Neue Presse</i> of Vienna more +openly declared that if England had determined to annex Turkey and govern +it as a crown colony, it would have been at least courtesy to have +informed her co-signatories of the fact. +</p> +<p> +At the same time, an Irish paper in the National interest quietly desired +to be informed how was it that the man who made such a mull of Ireland +could be so much needed in Turkey, aided by a well-known fellow-citizen, +more celebrated for smashing lamps and wringing off knockers than for +administering the rights of a colony; and by which of his services, +ballad-writing or beating the police, he had gained the favour of the +present Cabinet. ‘In fact,’ concluded the writer, ‘if we hear more of this +appointment, we promise our readers some biographical memoirs of the +respected individual, which may serve to show the rising youth of Ireland +by what gifts success in life is most surely achieved, as well as what +peculiar accomplishments find most merit with the grave-minded men who +rule us.’ +</p> +<p> +A Cork paper announced on the same day, amongst the promotions, that +Joseph Atlee had been made C.B., and mildly inquired if the honour were +bestowed for that paper on Ireland in the last <i>Quarterly</i>, and dryly +wound up by saying, ‘We are not selfish, whatever people may say of us. +Our friends on the Bosporus shall have the noble lord cheap! Let his +Excellency only assure us that he will return with his whole staff, and +not leave us Mr. Cecil Walpole, or any other like incapacity, behind him, +as a director of the Poor-Law Board, or inspector-general of gaols, or +deputy-assistant-secretary anywhere, and we assent freely to the change +that sends this man to the East and leaves us here to flounder on with +such aids to our mistakes as a Liberal Government can safely afford to +spare us.’ +</p> +<p> +A paragraph in another part of the same paper, which asked if the Joseph +Atlee who, it was rumoured, was to go out as Governor to Labuan, could be +this man, had, it is needless to say, been written by himself. +</p> +<p> +The <i>Levant Herald</i> contented itself with an authorised contradiction +to the report that Sir Joseph Atlee—the Sir was an ingenious blunder—had +conformed to Islamism, and was in treaty for the palace of Tashkir Bey at +Therapia. +</p> +<p> +With a neatness and tact all his own, Atlee narrated Brumsey’s blunder in +a tone so simple and almost deferential, that Lord Danesbury could show +the letter to any of his colleagues. The whole spirit of the document was +regret that a very well-intentioned gentleman of good connections and +irreproachable morals should be an ass! Not that he employed the +insufferable designation. +</p> +<p> +The Cabinet at home were on thorns lest the press—the vile Tory +organs—should get wind of the case and cap the blundering government +of Ireland with the almost equally gross mistake in diplomacy. +</p> +<p> +‘We shall have the <i>Standard</i> at us,’ said the Premier. +</p> +<p> +‘Far worse,’ replied the Foreign Secretary. ‘I shall have Brunow here in a +white passion to demand an apology and the recall of our man at +Constantinople.’ +</p> +<p> +To accuse a well-known housebreaker of a burglary that he had not +committed, nor had any immediate thought of committing, is the very +luckiest stroke of fortune that could befall him. He comes out not alone +innocent, but injured. The persecutions by which bad men have assailed him +for years have at last their illustration, and the calumniated saint walks +forth into the world, his head high and his port erect, even though a +crowbar should peep out from his coat-pocket and the jingle of false keys +go with him as he went. +</p> +<p> +Far too astute to make the scandal public by the newspapers, Atlee only +hinted to his chief the danger that might ensue if the secret leaked out. +He well knew that a press scandal is a nine-day fever, but a menaced +publicity is a chronic malady that may go on for years. +</p> +<p> +The last lines of his letter were: ‘I have made a curious and interesting +acquaintance—a certain Stephanotis Bey, governor of Scutari in +Albania, a very venerable old fellow, who was never at Constantinople till +now. The Pasha tells me in confidence that he is enormously wealthy. His +fortune was made by brigandage in Greece, from which he retired a few +years ago, shocked by the sudden death of his brother, who was decapitated +at Corinth with five others. The Bey is a nice, gentle-mannered, +simple-hearted old man, kind to the poor, and eminently hospitable. He has +invited me down to Prevesa for the pig-shooting. If I have your permission +to accept the invitation, I shall make a rapid visit to Athens, and make +one more effort to discover Speridionides. Might I ask the favour of an +answer by telegraph? So many documents and archives were stolen here at +the time of the fire of the Embassy, that, by a timely measure of +discredit, we can impair the value of all papers whatever, and I have +already a mass of false despatches, notes, and telegrams ready for +publication, and subsequent denial, if you advise it. In one of these I +have imitated Walpole’s style so well that I scarcely think he will read +it without misgivings. With so much “bad bank paper” in circulation, +Speridionides is not likely to set a high price on his own scrip.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0059" id="link2HCH0059"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LIX +</h2> +<h3> +A LETTER-BAG +</h3> +<p> +Lord Danesbury read Atlee’s letter with an enjoyment not unlike the +feeling an old sportsman experiences in discovering that his cover hack—an +animal not worth twenty pounds—was a capital fencer; that a beast +only destined to the commonest of uses should actually have qualities that +recalled the steeplechaser—that the scrubby little creature with the +thin neck and the shabby quarters should have a turn of speed and a ‘big +jump’ in him, was something scarcely credible, and highly interesting. +</p> +<p> +Now political life has its handicaps like the turf, and that old jockey of +many Cabinets began seriously to think whether he might not lay a little +money on that dark horse Joe Atlee, and make something out of him before +he was better known in ‘the ring.’ +</p> +<p> +He was smarting, besides, under the annoyances of that half-clever fellow +Walpole, when Atlee’s letter reached him, and though the unlucky Cecil had +taken ill and kept his room ever since his arrival, his Excellency had +never forgiven him, nor by a word or sign showed any disposition to +restore him to favour. +</p> +<p> +That he was himself overwhelmed by a correspondence, and left to deal with +it almost alone, scarcely contributed to reconcile him to a youth who was +not really ill, but smarting, as he deemed it, under a recent defeat; and +he pointed to the mass of papers which now littered his breakfast-table, +and querulously asked his niece if that brilliant young gentleman upstairs +could be induced to postpone his sorrows and copy a despatch. +</p> +<p> +‘If it be not something very difficult or requiring very uncommon care, +perhaps I could do it myself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So you could, Maude, but I want you too—I shall want you to copy +out parts of Atlee’s last letter, which I wish to place before the Foreign +Office Secretary. He ought to see what his protégé Brumsey is making of +it. These are the idiots who get us into foreign wars, or those apologetic +movements in diplomacy, which are as bad as lost battles. What a contrast +to Atlee—a rare clever dog, Atlee—and so awake, not only to +one, but to every contingency of a case. I like that fellow—I like a +fellow that stops all the earths! Your half-clever ones never do that; +they only do enough to prolong the race; they don’t win it. That bright +relative of ours—Cecil—is one of those. Give Atlee Walpole’s +chances, and where would he be?’ +</p> +<p> +A very faint colour tinged her cheek as she listened, but did not speak. +</p> +<p> +‘That’s the real way to put it,’ continued he, more warmly. ‘Say to Atlee, +“You shall enter public life without any pressing need to take office for +a livelihood; you shall have friends able to push you with one party, and +relations and connections with the Opposition, to save you from +unnecessary cavil or question; you shall be well introduced socially, and +have a seat in the House before—” What’s his age? five-and-twenty?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should say about three-and-twenty, my lord; but it is a mere guess.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Three-and-twenty is he? I suspect you are right—he can’t be more. +But what a deal the fellow has crammed for that time—plenty of +rubbish, no doubt: old dramatists and such like; but he is well up in his +treaties; and there’s not a speaker of eminence in the House that he +cannot make contradict himself out of Hansard.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Has he any fortune?’ sighed she, so lazily that it scarcely sounded as a +question. +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nor any family?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Brothers and sisters he may have—indeed, he is sure to have; but if +you mean connections—belonging to persons of admitted station—of +course he has not. The name alone might show it.’ +</p> +<p> +Another little sigh, fainter than before, followed, and all was still. +</p> +<p> +‘Five years hence, if even so much, the plebeian name and the unknown +stock will be in his favour; but we have to wade through a few dreary +measures before that. I wish he was in the House—he ought to be in +the House.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is there a vacancy?’ said she lazily. +</p> +<p> +‘Two. There is Cradford, and there is that Scotch place—the +something-Burg, which, of course, one of their own people will insist on.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Couldn’t he have Cradford?’ asked she, with a very slight animation. +</p> +<p> +‘He might—at least if Brand knew him, he’d see he was the man they +wanted. I almost think I’ll write a line to Brand, and send him some +extracts of the last letter. I will—here goes.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you’ll tell me—’ +</p> +<p> +‘DEAR B.,—Read the inclosed, and say have you anybody better than +the writer for your ancient borough of Cradford? The fellow can talk, and +I am sure he can speak as well as he writes. He is well up in all Irish +press iniquities. Better than all, he has neither prejudices nor +principles, nor, as I believe, a five-pound note in the world. He is now +in Greece, but I’ll have him over by telegraph if you give me +encouragement. +</p> +<p> +‘Tell Tycross at F. O. to send Walpole to Guatemala, and order him to his +post at once. G. will have told you that I shall not go back to Ireland. +The blunder of my ever seeing it was the blackest in the life of yours, +DANESBUBY.’ +</p> +<p> +The first letter his lordship opened gave him very little time or +inclination to bestow more thought on Atlee. It was from the head of the +Cabinet, and in the coldest tone imaginable. The writer directed his +attention to what had occurred in the House the night before, and how +impossible it was for any Government to depend on colleagues whose +administration had been so palpably blundering and unwise. ‘Conciliation +can only succeed by the good faith it inspires. Once that it leaks out you +are more eager to achieve a gain than confer a benefit, you cease to +conciliate, and you only cajole. Now your lordship might have apprehended +that, in this especial game, the Popish priest is your master and mine—not +to add that he gives an undivided attention to a subject which we have to +treat as one amongst many, and with the relations and bearings which +attach it to other questions of state. +</p> +<p> +‘That you cannot, with advantage to the Crown, or, indeed, to your own +dignity, continue to hold your present office, is clear enough; and the +only question now is in what way, consistent with the safety of the +Administration, and respect for your lordship’s high character, the +relinquishment had best be made. The debate has been, on Gregory’s motion, +adjourned. It will be continued on Tuesday, and my colleagues opine that +if your resignation was in their hands before that day, certain leaders of +the Opposition would consent to withdraw their motion. I am not wholly +agreed with the other members of the Cabinet on this point; but, without +embarrassing you by the reasons which sway my judgment, I will simply +place the matter before you for your own consideration, perfectly assured, +as I am, that your decision will be come to only on consideration of what +you deem best for the interests of the country. +</p> +<p> +‘My colleague at the Foreign Office will write to-day or to-morrow with +reference to your former post, and I only allude to it now to say the +unmixed satisfaction it would give the Cabinet to find that the greatest +interests of Eastern Europe were once more in the keeping of the ablest +diplomatist of the age, and one of the most far-sighted of modern +statesmen. +</p> +<p> +‘A motion for the abolition of the Irish viceroyalty is now on the notice +paper, and it will be matter for consideration whether we may not make it +an open question in the Cabinet. Perhaps your lordship would favour me +with such opinions on the subject as your experiences suggest. +</p> +<p> +‘The extra session has wearied out every one, and we can with difficulty +make a House.—Yours sincerely, G. ANNIVEY.’ +</p> +<p> +The next he opened was briefer. It ran thus:— +</p> +<p> +‘DEAR DANESBURY,—You must go back at once to Turkey. That +inscrutable idiot Brumsey has discovered another mare’s-nest, and we are +lucky if Gortschakoff does not call upon us for public apology. Brunow is +outrageous and demands B.‘s recall. I sent off the despatch while he was +with me. Leflo Pasha is very ill, they say dying, so that you must haste +back to your old friend (query: which is he?) Kulbash, if it be not too +late, as Apponyi thinks.—Yours, G. +</p> +<p> +‘<i>P.S.</i>—Take none of your Irish suite with you to the East. The +papers are sure to note the names and attack you if you should. They shall +be cared for somehow, if there be any who interest you. +</p> +<p> +‘You have seen that the House was not over civil to you on Saturday night, +though A. thinks you got off well.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Resign!’ cried he aloud, as he dashed the letter on the table. ‘I think I +would resign! If they asked what would tempt me to go back there, I should +be sorely puzzled to name it. No; not the blue ribbon itself would induce +me to face that chaos once more. As to the hint about my Irish staff, it +was quite unnecessary. Not very likely, Maude, we should take Walpole to +finish in the Bosporus what he has begun on the Liffey.’ +</p> +<p> +He turned hastily to the <i>Times</i>, and threw his eyes over the summary +of the debate. It was acrimonious and sneery. The Opposition leaders, with +accustomed smoothness, had made it appear that the Viceroy’s Eastern +experience had misled him, and that he thought ‘Tipperary was a +Pashalick!’ Imbued with notions of wholesale measures of government, so +applicable to Turkey, it was easy to see how the errors had affected his +Irish policy. ‘There was,’ said the speaker, ‘somebody to be conciliated +in Ireland, and some one to be hanged; and what more natural than that he +should forget which, or that he should make the mistake of keeping all the +flattery for the rebel and the rope for the priest.’ The neatness of the +illustration took with the House, and the speaker was interrupted by ‘much +laughter.’ And then he went on to say that, ‘as with those well-known +ointments or medicines whose specific virtues lay in the enormous +costliness of some of the constituents, so it must give unspeakable value +to the efficacy of those healing measures for Ireland, to know that the +whole British Constitution was boiled down to make one of them, and every +right and liberty brayed in the mortar to furnish even one dose of this +precious elixir.’ And then there was ‘laughter’ again. +</p> +<p> +‘He ought to be more merciful to charlatans. Dogs do not eat dogs,’ +muttered his lordship to himself, and then asked his niece to send Walpole +to him. +</p> +<p> +It was some time before Walpole appeared, and when he did, it was with +such a wasted look and careworn aspect as might have pleaded in his +favour. +</p> +<p> +‘Maude told me you wished to see me, my lord,’ said he, half diffidently. +</p> +<p> +‘Did I? eh? Did I say so? I forget all about it. What could it be? Let us +see. Was it this stupid row they were making in the House? Have you read +the debate?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, my lord; not looked at a paper.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course not; you have been too ill, too weak. Have you seen a doctor?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t care to see a doctor; they all say the same thing. I only need +rest and quiet.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Only that! Why, they are the two things nobody can get. Power cannot have +them, nor money buy them. The retired tradesman—I beg his pardon, +the cheesemonger—he is always a cheesemonger now who represents +vulgarity and bank-stock—he may have his rest and quiet; but a +Minister must not dream of such a luxury, nor any one who serves a +Minister. Where’s the quiet to come from, I ask you, after such a tirade +of abuse as that?’ And he pointed to the <i>Times</i>. ‘There’s <i>Punch</i>, +too, with a picture of me measuring out “Danesbury’s drops to cure +loyalty.” That slim youth handing the spoon is meant for <i>you</i>, +Walpole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps so, my lord,’ said he coldly. +</p> +<p> +‘They haven’t given you too much leg, Cecil,’ said the other, laughing; +but Cecil scarcely relished the joke. +</p> +<p> +‘I say, Piccadilly is scarcely the place for a man after that: I mean, of +course, for a while,’ continued he. ‘These things are not eternal; they +have their day. They had me last week travelling in Ireland on a camel; +and I was made to say, “That the air of the desert always did me good!” +Poor fun, was it not?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Very poor fun indeed!’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you were the boy preparing my chibouque; and, I must say, devilish +like.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I did not see it, my lord.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s the best way. Don’t look at the caricatures; don’t read the <i>Saturday +Review</i>; never know there is anything wrong with you; nor, if you can, +that anything disagrees with you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should like the last delusion best of all,’ said he. +</p> +<p> +‘Who would not?’ cried the old lord. ‘The way I used to eat potted prawns +at Eton, and peach jam after them, and iced guavas, and never felt better! +And now everything gives acidity.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just because our fathers and grandfathers would have those potted prawns +you spoke of.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no; you are all wrong. It’s the new race—it’s the new +generation. They don’t bear reverses. Whenever the world goes wrong with +them, they talk as they feel, they lose appetite, and they fall down in a +state like your—a—Walpole—like your own!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, my lord, I don’t think I could be called captious for saying that +the world has not gone over well with me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ah—hum. You mean—no matter—I suppose the luckiest hand +is not all trumps! The thing is to score the trick—that’s the point, +Walpole, to score the trick!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Up to this, I have not been so fortunate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, who knows what’s coming! I have just asked the Foreign Office +people to give you Guatemala; not a bad thing, as times go.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why, my lord, it’s banishment and barbarism together. The pay is +miserable! It <i>is</i> far away, and it <i>is</i> not Pall Mall or the +Rue Rivoli.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not that. There is twelve hundred for salary, and something for a +house, and something more for a secretary that you don’t keep, and an +office that you need not have. In fact, it makes more than two thousand; +and for a single man in a place where he cannot be extravagant, it will +suffice.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, my lord; but I was presumptuous enough to imagine a condition in +which I should not be a single man, and I speculated on the possibility +that another might venture to share even poverty as my companion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A woman wouldn’t go there—at least, she ought not. It’s all bush +life, or something like it. Why should a woman bear that? or a man ask her +to do so?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You seem to forget, my lord, that affections may be engaged, and pledges +interchanged.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Get a bill of indemnity, therefore, to release you: better that than wait +for yellow fever to do it.’ ‘I confess that your lordship’s words give me +great discouragement, and if I could possibly believe that Lady Maude was +of your mind—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maude! Maude! why, you never imagined that Lady Maude would leave comfort +and civilisation for this bush life, with its rancheros and rattlesnakes. +I confess,’ said he, with a bitter laugh, ‘I did not think either of you +were bent on being Paul or Virginia.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have I your lordship’s permission to ask her own judgment in the matter: +I mean with the assurance of its not being biassed by you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Freely, most freely do I give it. She is not the girl I believe her if +she leaves you long in doubt. But I prejudge nothing, and I influence +nothing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Am I to conclude, my lord, that I am sure of this appointment?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I almost believe I can say you are. I have asked for a reply by +telegraph, and I shall probably have one to-morrow.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You seemed to have acted under the conviction that I should be glad to +get this place.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, such was my conclusion. After that fiasco in Ireland you must go +somewhere, for a time at least, out of the way. Now as a man cannot die +for half-a-dozen years and come back to life when people have forgotten +his unpopularity, the next best thing is South America. Bogota and the +Argentine Republic have whitewashed many a reputation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will remember your lordship’s wise words.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do so,’ said my lord curtly, for he felt offended at the flippant tone in +which the other spoke. ‘I don’t mean to say that I’d send the writer of +that letter yonder to Yucatan or Costa Rica.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who may the gifted writer be, my lord?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Atlee, Joe Atlee; the fellow you sent over here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed!’ was all that Walpole could utter. +</p> +<p> +‘Just take it to your room and read it over. You will be astonished at the +thing. The fellow has got to know the bearings of a whole set of new +questions, and how he understands the men he has got to deal with!’ +</p> +<p> +‘With your leave I will do so,’ said he, as he took the letter and left +the room. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0060" id="link2HCH0060"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LX +</h2> +<h3> +A DEFEAT +</h3> +<p> +Cecil Walpole’s Italian experiences had supplied him with an Italian +proverb which says, ‘<i>Tutto il mal non vien per nuocere</i>,’ or, in +other words, that no evil comes unmixed with good; and there is a +marvellous amount of wisdom in the adage. +</p> +<p> +That there is a deep philosophy, too, in showing how carefully we should +sift misfortune to the dregs, and ascertain what of benefit we might +rescue from the dross, is not to be denied; and the more we reflect on it, +the more should we see that the germ of all real consolation is intimately +bound up in this reservation. +</p> +<p> +No sooner, then, did Walpole, in novelist phrase, ‘realise the fact’ that +he was to go to Guatemala, than he set very practically to inquire what +advantages, if any, could be squeezed out of this unpromising incident. +</p> +<p> +The creditors—and he had some—would not like it! The dreary +process of dunning a man across half the globe, the hopelessness of +appeals that took two months to come to hand, and the inefficacy of +threats that were wafted over miles of ocean! And certainly he smiled as +he thought of these, and rather maliciously bethought him of the truculent +importunity that menaced him with some form of publicity in the more +insolent appeal to some Minister at home. ‘Our tailor will moderate his +language, our jeweller will appreciate the merits of polite +letter-writing,’ thought he. ‘A few parallels of latitude become a great +school-master.’ +</p> +<p> +But there were greater advantages even than these. This banishment—for +it was nothing else—could not by any possibility be persisted in, +and if Lady Maude should consent to accompany him, would be very +short-lived. +</p> +<p> +‘The women will take it up,’ said he, ‘and with that charming clanship +that distinguishes them, will lead the Foreign Secretary a life of misery +till he gives us something better.—“Maude says the thermometer has +never been lower than 132°, and that there is no shade. The nights have no +breeze, and are rather hotter than the days. She objects seriously to be +waited on by people in feathers, and very few of them, and she +remonstrates against alligators in the kitchen-garden, and wild cats +coming after the canaries in the drawing-room.” +</p> +<p> +‘I hear the catalogue of misfortunes, which begins with nothing to eat, +plus the terror of being eaten. I recognise the lament over lost +civilisation and a wasted life, and I see Downing Street besieged with +ladies in deputations, declaring that they care nothing for party or +politics, but a great deal for the life of a dear young creature who is to +be sacrificed to appease some people belonging to the existing Ministry. I +think I know how beautifully illogical they will be, but how necessarily +successful; and now for Maude herself.’ +</p> +<p> +Of Lady Maude Bickerstaffe Walpole had seen next to nothing since his +return; his own ill-health had confined him to his room, and her inquiries +after him had been cold and formal; and though he wrote a tender little +note and asked for books, slyly hinting what measure of bliss a five +minutes’ visit would confer on him, the books he begged for were sent, but +not a line of answer accompanied them. On the whole, he did not dislike +this little show of resentment. What he really dreaded was indifference. +So long as a woman is piqued with you, something can always be done; it is +only when she becomes careless and unmindful of what you do, or say, or +look, or think, that the game looks hopeless. Therefore it was that he +regarded this demonstration of anger as rather favourable than otherwise. +</p> +<p> +‘Atlee has told her of the Greek! Atlee has stirred up her jealousy of the +Titian Girl. Atlee has drawn a long indictment against me, and the fellow +has done me good service in giving me something to plead to. Let me have a +charge to meet, and I have no misgivings. What really unmans me is the +distrust that will not even utter an allegation, and the indifference that +does not want disproof.’ +</p> +<p> +He learned that her ladyship was in the garden, and he hastened down to +meet her. In his own small way Walpole was a clever tactician; and he +counted much on the ardour with which he should open his case, and the +amount of impetuosity that would give her very little time for reflection. +</p> +<p> +‘I shall at once assume that her fate is irrevocably knitted to my own, +and I shall act as though the tie was indissoluble. After all, if she puts +me to the proof, I have her letters—cold and guarded enough, it is +true. No fervour, no gush of any kind, but calm dissertations on a future +that must come, and a certain dignified acceptance of her own part in it. +Not the kind of letters that a Q.C. could read with much rapture before a +crowded court, and ask the assembled grocers, “What happiness has life to +offer to the man robbed of those precious pledges of affection—how +was he to face the world, stripped of every attribute that cherished hope +and fed ambition?”’ +</p> +<p> +He was walking slowly towards her when he first saw her, and he had some +seconds to prepare himself ere they met. +</p> +<p> +‘I came down after you, Maude,’ said he, in a voice ingeniously modulated +between the tone of old intimacy and a slight suspicion of emotion. ‘I +came down to tell you my news’—he waited, and then added—‘my +fate!’ +</p> +<p> +Still she was silent, the changed word exciting no more interest than its +predecessor. +</p> +<p> +‘Feeling as I do,’ he went on, ‘and how we stand towards each other, I +cannot but know that my destiny has nothing good or evil in it, except as +it contributes to your happiness.’ He stole a glance at her, but there was +nothing in that cold, calm face that could guide him. With a bold effort, +however, he went on: ‘My own fortune in life has but one test—is my +existence to be shared with you or not? With <i>your</i> hand in mine, +Maude,’—and he grasped the marble-cold fingers as he spoke—‘poverty, +exile, hardships, and the world’s neglect, have no terrors for me. With +your love, every ambition of my heart is gratified. Without it—’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0016" id="linkimage-0016"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/447.jpg" alt="‘I Should Like to Have Back My Letters’" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘Well, without it—what?’ said she, with a faint smile. +</p> +<p> +‘You would not torture me by such a doubt? Would you rack my soul by a +misery I have not words to speak of?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I thought you were going to say what it might be, when I stopped you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, drop this cold and bantering tone, dearest Maude. Remember the +question is now of my very life itself. If you cannot be affectionate, at +least be reasonable!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I shall try,’ said she calmly. +</p> +<p> +Stung to the quick by a composure which he could not imitate, he was able, +however, to repress every show of anger, and with a manner cold and +measured as her own, he went on: ‘My lord advises that I should go back to +diplomacy, and has asked the Ministers to give me Guatemala. It is nothing +very splendid. It is far away in a remote part of the world; not over-well +paid, but at least I shall be Chargé-d’Affaires, and by three years—four +at most, of this banishment—I shall have a claim for something +better. +</p> +<p> +‘I hope you may, I’m sure,’ said she, as he seemed to expect something +like a remark. +</p> +<p> +‘That is not enough, Maude, if the hope be not a wish—and a wish +that includes self-interest.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am so dull, Cecil: tell me what you mean.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Simply this, then: does your heart tell you that you could share this +fortune, and brave these hardships; in one word, will you say what will +make me regard this fate as the happiest of my existence? will you give me +this dear hand as my own—my own?’ and he pressed his lips upon it +rapturously as he spoke. +</p> +<p> +She made no effort to release her hand; nor for a second or two did she +say one word. At last, in a very measured tone, she said, ‘I should like +to have back my letters.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Your letters? Do you mean, Maude, that—that you would break with +me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I mean certainly that I should not go to this horrid place—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then I shall refuse it,’ broke he in impetuously. +</p> +<p> +‘Not that only, Cecil,’ said she, for the first time faltering; ‘but +except being very good friends, I do not desire that there should be more +between us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No engagement?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no engagement. I do not believe there ever was an actual promise, at +least on my part. Other people had no right to promise for either of us—and—and, +in fact, the present is a good opportunity to end it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To end it,’ echoed he, in intense bitterness; ‘to end it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I should like to have my letters,’ said she calmly, while she took +some freshly plucked flowers from a basket on her arm, and appeared to +seek for something at the bottom of the basket. +</p> +<p> +‘I thought you would come down here, Cecil,’ said she, ‘when you had +spoken to my uncle. Indeed, I was sure you would, and so I brought these +with me.’ And she drew forth a somewhat thick bundle of notes and letters +tied with a narrow ribbon. ‘These are yours,’ said she, handing them. +</p> +<p> +Far more piqued by her cold self-possession than really wounded in +feeling, he took the packet without a word; at last he said, ‘This is your +own wish—your own, unprompted by others?’ +</p> +<p> +She stared almost insolently at him for answer. +</p> +<p> +‘I mean, Maude—oh, forgive me if I utter that dear name once more—I +mean there has been no influence used to make you treat me thus?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You have known me to very little purpose all these years, Cecil Walpole, +to ask me such a question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not sure of that. I know too well what misrepresentation and calumny +can do anywhere; and I have been involved in certain difficulties which, +if not explained away, might be made accusations—grave accusations.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I make none—I listen to none.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have become an object of complete indifference, then? You feel no +interest in me either way. If I dared, Maude. I should like to ask the +date of this change—when it began?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t well know what you mean. There was not, so far as I am aware, +anything between us, except a certain esteem and respect, of which +convenience was to make something more. Now convenience has broken faith +with us, but we are not the less very good friends—excellent friends +if you like.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Excellent friends! I could swear to the friendship!’ said he, with a +malicious energy. +</p> +<p> +‘So at least I mean to be,’ said she calmly. +</p> +<p> +‘I hope it is not I shall fail in the compact. And now, will my quality of +friend entitle me to ask one question, Maude?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not sure till I hear it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I might have hoped a better opinion of my discretion; at all events, I +will risk my question. What I would ask is, how far Joseph Atlee is mixed +up with your judgment of me? Will you tell me this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will only tell you, sir, that you are over-vain of that discretion you +believe you possess.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then I am right,’ cried he, almost insolently. ‘I <i>have</i> hit the +blot.’ +</p> +<p> +A glance, a mere glance of haughty disdain, was the only reply she made. +</p> +<p> +‘I am shocked, Maude,’ said he at last. ‘I am ashamed that we should spend +in this way perhaps the very last few minutes we shall ever pass together. +Heart-broken as I am, I should desire to carry away one memory at least of +her whose love was the loadstar of my existence.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I want my letters, Cecil,’ said she coldly. +</p> +<p> +‘So that you came down here with mine, prepared for this rupture, Maude? +It was all prearranged in your mind.’ +</p> +<p> +‘More discretion—more discretion, or good taste—which is it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I ask pardon, most humbly I ask it; your rebuke was quite just. I was +presuming upon a past which has no relation to the present. I shall not +offend any more. And now, what was it you said?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I want my letters.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They are here,’ said he, drawing a thick envelope fully crammed with +letters from his pocket and placing it in her hand. ‘Scarcely as carefully +or as nicely kept as mine, for they have been read over too many times; +and with what rapture, Maude. How pressed to my heart and to my lips, how +treasured! Shall I tell you?’ +</p> +<p> +There was that of exaggerated passion—almost rant—in these +last words, that certainly did not impress them with reality; and either +Lady Maude was right in doubting their sincerity, or cruelly unjust, for +she smiled faintly as she heard them. +</p> +<p> +‘No, don’t tell me,’ said she faintly. ‘I am already so much flattered by +courteous anticipation of my wishes that I ask for nothing more.’ +</p> +<p> +He bowed his head lowly; but his smile was one of triumph, as he thought +how, this time at least, he had wounded her. +</p> +<p> +‘There are some trinkets, Cecil,’ said she coldly, ‘which I have made into +a packet, and you will find them on your dressing-table. And—it may +save you some discomfort if I say that you need not give yourself trouble +to recover the little ring with an opal I once gave you, for I have it +now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘May I dare?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You may not dare. Good-bye.’ +</p> +<p> +And she gave her hand; he bent over it for a moment, scarcely touched it +with his lips, and turned away. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0061" id="link2HCH0061"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXI +</h2> +<h3> +A CHANGE OF FRONT +</h3> +<p> +Of all the discomfitures in life there was one which Cecil Walpole did not +believe could possibly befall him. Indeed, if it could have been made a +matter of betting, he would have wagered all he had in the world that no +woman should ever be able to say she refused his offer of marriage. +</p> +<p> +He had canvassed the matter very often with himself, and always arrived at +the same conclusion—that if a man were not a mere coxcomb, blinded +by vanity and self-esteem, he could always know how a woman really felt +towards him; and that where the question admitted of a doubt—where, +indeed, there was even a flaw in the absolute certainty—no man with +a due sense of what was owing to himself would risk his dignity by the +possibility of a refusal. It was a part of his peculiar ethics that a man +thus rejected was damaged, pretty much as a bill that has been denied +acceptance. It was the same wound to credit, the same outrage on +character. Considering, therefore, that nothing obliged a man to make an +offer of his hand till he had assured himself of success, it was to his +thinking a mere gratuitous pursuit of insult to be refused. That no +especial delicacy kept these things secret, that women talked of them +freely—ay, triumphantly—that they made the staple of +conversation at afternoon tea and the club, with all the flippant comments +that dear friends know how to contribute as to your vanity and +presumption, he was well aware. Indeed, he had been long an eloquent +contributor to that scandal literature which amuses the leisure of fashion +and helps on the tedium of an ordinary dinner. How Lady Maude would report +the late scene in the garden to the Countess of Mecherscroft, who would +tell it to her company at her country-house!—How the Lady Georginas +would discuss it over luncheon, and the Lord Georges talk of it out +shooting! What a host of pleasant anecdotes would be told of his +inordinate puppyism and self-esteem! How even the dullest fellows would +dare to throw a stone at him! What a target for a while he would be for +every marksman at any range to shoot at! All these his quick-witted +ingenuity pictured at once before him. +</p> +<p> +‘I see it all,’ cried he, as he paced his room in self-examination. ‘I +have suffered myself to be carried away by a burst of momentary impulse. I +brought up all my reserves, and have failed utterly. Nothing can save me +now, but a “change of front.” It is the last bit of generalship remaining—a +change of front—a change of front!’ And he repeated the words over +and over, as though hoping they might light up his ingenuity. ‘I might go +and tell her that all I had been saying was mere jest—that I could +never have dreamed of asking her to follow me into barbarism: that to go +to Guatemala was equivalent to accepting a yellow fever—it was +courting disease, perhaps death; that my insistence was a mere mockery, in +the worst possible taste; but that I had already agreed with Lord +Danesbury, our engagement should be cancelled; that his lordship’s memory +of our conversation would corroborate me in saying I had no intention to +propose such a sacrifice to her; and indeed I had but provoked her to say +the very things, and use the very arguments, I had already employed to +myself as a sort of aid to my own heartfelt convictions. Here would be a +“change of front” with a vengeance. +</p> +<p> +‘She will already have written off the whole interview: the despatch is +finished,’ cried he, after a moment. ‘It is a change of front the day +after the battle. The people will read of my manoeuvre with the bulletin +of victory before them. +</p> +<p> +‘Poor Frank Touchet used to say,’ cried he aloud, ‘“Whenever they refuse +my cheques at the Bank, I always transfer my account”; and fortunately the +world is big enough for these tactics for several years. That’s a change +of front too, if I knew how to adapt it. I must marry another woman—there’s +nothing else for it. It is the only escape; and the question is, who shall +she be?’ The more he meditated over this change of front the more he saw +that his destiny pointed to the Greek. If he could see clearly before him +to a high career in diplomacy, the Greek girl, in everything but fortune, +would suit him well. Her marvellous beauty, her grace of manner, her +social tact and readiness, her skill in languages, were all the very +qualities most in request. Such a woman would make the full complement, by +her fascinations, of all that her husband could accomplish by his +abilities. The little indiscretions of old men—especially old men—with +these women, the lapses of confidence they made them, the dropping +admissions of this or that intention, made up what Walpole knew to be high +diplomacy. +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing worth hearing is ever got by a man,’ was an adage he treasured as +deep wisdom. Why kings resort to that watering-place, and accidentally +meet certain Ministers going somewhere else; why kaisers affect to review +troops here, that they may be able to talk statecraft there; how princely +compacts and contracts of marriage are made at sulphur springs; all these +and such like leaked out as small-talk with a young and pretty woman, +whose frivolity of manner went bail for the safety of the confidence, and +went far to persuade Walpole, that though bank-stock might be a surer +investment, there were paying qualities in certain women that in the end +promised larger returns than mere money and higher rewards than mere +wealth. ‘Yes,’ cried he to himself, ‘this is the real change of front—this +has all in its favour.’ +</p> +<p> +Nor yet all. Strong as Walpole’s self-esteem was, and high his estimate of +his own capacity, he had—he could not conceal it—a certain +misgiving as to whether he really understood that girl or not. ‘I have +watched many a bolt from her bow,’ said he, ‘and think I know their range. +But now and then she has shot an arrow into the clear sky, and far beyond +my sight to follow it.’ +</p> +<p> +That scene in the wood too. Absurd enough that it should obtrude itself at +such a moment, but it was the sort of indication that meant much more to a +man like Walpole than to men of other experiences. Was she flirting with +this young Austrian soldier? No great harm if she were; but still there +had been passages between himself and her which should have bound her over +to more circumspection. Was there not a shadowy sort of engagement between +them? Lawyers deem a mere promise to grant a lease as equivalent to a +contract. It would be a curious question in morals to inquire how far the +licensed perjuries of courtship are statutory offences. Perhaps a sly +consciousness on his own part that he was not playing perfectly fair made +him, as it might do, more than usually tenacious that his adversary should +be honest. What chance the innocent public would have with two people who +were so adroit with each other was his next thought; and he actually +laughed aloud as it occurred to him. ‘I only wish my lord would invite us +here before we sail. If I could but show her to Maude, half an hour of +these women together would be the heaviest vengeance I could ask her! I +wonder how could that be managed?’ +</p> +<p> +‘A despatch, sir, his lordship begs you to read,’ said a servant, +entering. It was an open envelope, and contained these words on a slip of +paper:— +</p> +<p> +‘W. shall have Guatemala. He must go out by the mail of November 15. Send +him here for instructions.’ Some words in cipher followed, and an +under-secretary’s initials. +</p> +<p> +‘Now, then, for the “change of front.” I’ll write to Nina by this post. +I’ll ask my lord to let me tear off this portion of the telegram, and I +shall inclose it.’ +</p> +<p> +The letter was not so easily written as he thought—at least he made +more than one draft—and was at last in great doubt whether a long +statement or a few and very decided lines might be better. How he +ultimately determined, and what he said, cannot be given here; for, +unhappily, the conditions of my narrative require I should ask my reader +to accompany me to a very distant spot and other interests which were just +then occupying the attention of an almost forgotten acquaintance of ours, +the redoubted Joseph Atlee. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0062" id="link2HCH0062"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXII +</h2> +<h3> +WITH A PASHA +</h3> +<p> +Joseph Atlee had a very busy morning of it on a certain November day at +Pera, when the post brought him tidings that Lord Danesbury had resigned +the Irish viceroyalty, and had been once more named to his old post as +ambassador at Constantinople. +</p> +<p> +‘My uncle desires me,’ wrote Lady Maude, ‘to impress you with the now +all-important necessity of obtaining the papers you know of, and, so far +as you are able, to secure that no authorised copies of them are extant. +Kulbash Pasha will, my lord says, be very tractable when once assured that +our return to Turkey is a certainty; but should you detect signs of +hesitation or distrust in the Grand-Vizier’s conduct, you will hint that +the investigation as to the issue of the Galatz shares—“preference +shares”—may be reopened at any moment, and that the Ottoman Bank +agent, Schaffer, has drawn up a memoir which my uncle now holds. I copy my +lord’s words for all this, and sincerely hope you will understand it, +which, I confess,<i> I</i> do not at all. My lord cautioned me not to +occupy your time or attention by any reference to Irish questions, but +leave you perfectly free to deal with those larger interests of the East +that should now engage you. I forbear, therefore, to do more than mark +with a pencil the part in the debates which might interest you especially, +and merely add the fact, otherwise, perhaps, not very credible, that Mr. +Walpole <i>did</i> write the famous letter imputed to him—<i>did</i> +promise the amnesty, or whatever be the name of it, and <i>did</i> pledge +the honour of the Government to a transaction with these Fenian leaders. +With what success to his own prospects, the <i>Gazette</i> will speak that +announces his appointment to Guatemala. +</p> +<p> +‘I am myself very far from sorry at our change of destination. I prefer +the Bosporus to the Bay of Dublin, and like Pera better than the Phoenix. +It is not alone that the interests are greater, the questions larger, and +the consequences more important to the world at large, but that, as my +uncle has just said, you are spared the peddling impertinence of +Parliament interfering at every moment, and questioning your conduct, from +an invitation to Cardinal Cullen to the dismissal of a chief constable. +Happily, the gentlemen at Westminster know nothing about Turkey, and have +the prudence not to ventilate their ignorance, except in secret committee. +I am sorry to have to tell you that my lord sees great difficulty in what +you propose as to yourself. F. O., he says, would not easily consent to +your being named even a third secretary without your going through the +established grade of attaché. All the unquestionable merits he knows you +to possess would count for nothing against an official regulation. The +course my lord would suggest is this: To enter now as mere attaché, to +continue in this position some three or four months, come over here for +the general election in February, get into “the House,” and after some few +sessions, one or two, rejoin diplomacy, to which you might be appointed as +a secretary of legation. My uncle named to me three, if not four cases of +this kind—one, indeed, stepped at once into a mission and became a +minister; and though of course the Opposition made a fuss, they failed in +their attempt to break the appointment, and the man will probably be soon +an ambassador. I accept the little yataghan, but sincerely wish the +present had been of less value. There is one enormous emerald in the +handle which I am much tempted to transfer to a ring. Perhaps I ought, in +decency, to have your permission for the change. The burnous is very +beautiful, but I could not accept it—an article of dress is in the +category of things impossible. Have you no Irish sisters, or even cousins? +Pray give me a destination to address it to in your next. +</p> +<p> +‘My uncle desires me to say that, all invaluable as your services have +become where you are, he needs you greatly here, and would hear with +pleasure that you were about to return. He is curious to know who wrote +“L’Orient et Lord D.” in the last <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>. The +savagery of the attack implies a personal rancour. Find out the author, +and reply to him in the <i>Edinburgh</i>. My lord suspects he may have had +access to the papers he has already alluded to, and is the more eager to +repossess them.’ +</p> +<p> +A telegraphic despatch in cipher was put into his hands as he was reading. +It was from Lord Danesbury, and said: ‘Come back as soon as you can, but +not before making K. Pasha know his fate is in my hands.’ +</p> +<p> +As the Grand-Vizier had already learned from the Ottoman ambassador at +London the news that Lord Danesbury was about to resume his former post at +Constantinople, his Turkish impassiveness was in no way imperilled by +Atlee’s abrupt announcement. It is true he would have been pleased had the +English Government sent out some one new to the East and a stranger to all +Oriental questions. He would have liked one of those veterans of diplomacy +versed in the old-fashioned ways and knaveries of German courts, and whose +shrewdest ideas of a subtle policy are centred in a few social spies and a +‘Cabinet Noir.’ The Pasha had no desire to see there a man who knew all +the secret machinery of a Turkish administration, what corruption could +do, and where to look for the men who could employ it. +</p> +<p> +The thing was done, however, and with that philosophy of resignation to a +fact in which no nation can rival his own, he muttered his polite +congratulations on the event, and declared that the dearest wish of his +heart was now accomplished. +</p> +<p> +‘We had half begun to believe you had abandoned us, Mr. Atlee,’ said he. +‘When England commits her interests to inferior men, she usually means to +imply that they are worth nothing better. I am rejoiced to see that we +are, at last, awakened from this delusion. With his Excellency Lord +Danesbury here, we shall be soon once more where we have been.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Your fleet is in effective condition, well armed, and well disciplined?’ +</p> +<p> +‘All, all,’ smiled the Pasha. +</p> +<p> +‘The army reformed, the artillery supplied with the most efficient guns, +and officers of European services encouraged to join your staff?’ +</p> +<p> +‘All.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Wise economies in your financial matters, close supervision in the +collection of the revenue, and searching inquiries where abuses exist?’ +</p> +<p> +‘All.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Especial care that the administration of justice should be beyond even +the malevolence of distrust, that men of station and influence should be +clear-handed and honourable, not a taint of unfairness to attach to them?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Be it all so,’ ejaculated the Pasha blandly. +</p> +<p> +‘By the way, I am reminded by a line I have just received from his +Excellency with reference to Sulina, or was it Galatz?’ +</p> +<p> +The Pasha could not decide, and he went on— +</p> +<p> +‘I remember, it is Galatz. There is some curious question there of a +concession for a line of railroad, which a Servian commissioner had the +skill to obtain from the Cabinet here, by a sort of influence which our +Stock Exchange people in London scarcely regard as regular.’ +</p> +<p> +The Pasha nodded to imply attention, and smoked on as before. +</p> +<p> +‘But I weary your Excellency,’ said Atlee, rising, ‘and my real business +here is accomplished.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Tell my lord that I await his arrival with impatience, that of all +pending questions none shall receive solution till he comes, that I am the +very least of his servants.’ And with an air of most dignified sincerity, +he bowed him out, and Atlee hastened away to tell his chief that he had +‘squared the Turk,’ and would sail on the morrow. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0063" id="link2HCH0063"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXIII +</h2> +<h3> +ATLEE ON HIS TRAVELS +</h3> +<p> +On board the Austrian Lloyd’s steamer in which he sailed from +Constantinople, Joseph Atlee employed himself in the composition of a +small volume purporting to be <i>The Experiences of a Two Years’ Residence +in Greece</i>. In an opening chapter of this work he had modestly +intimated to the reader how an intimate acquaintance with the language and +literature of modern Greece, great opportunities of mixing with every +class and condition of the people, a mind well stored with classical +acquirements and thoroughly versed in antiquarian lore, a strong poetic +temperament and the feeling of an artist for scenery, had all combined to +give him a certain fitness for his task; and by the extracts from his +diary it would be seen on what terms of freedom he conversed with +Ministers and ambassadors, even with royalty itself. +</p> +<p> +A most pitiless chapter was devoted to the exposure of the mistakes and +misrepresentations of a late <i>Quarterly</i> article called ‘Greece and +her Protectors,’ whose statements were the more mercilessly handled and +ridiculed that the paper in question had been written by himself, and the +sarcastic allusions to the sources of the information not the less pungent +on that account. +</p> +<p> +That the writer had been admitted to frequent audiences of the king, that +he had discussed with his Majesty the cutting of the Isthmus of Corinth, +that the king had seriously confided to him his belief that in the event +of his abdication, the Ionian Islands must revert to him as a personal +appanage, the terms on which they were annexed to Greece being decided by +lawyers to bear this interpretation—all these Atlee denied of his +own knowledge, an asked the reader to follow him into the royal cabinet +for his reasons. +</p> +<p> +When, therefore, he heard that from some damage to the machinery the +vessel must be detained some days at Syra to refit, Atlee was scarcely +sorry that necessity gave him an opportunity to visit Athens. +</p> +<p> +A little about Ulysses and a good deal about Lord Byron, a smattering of +Grote, and a more perfect memory of About, were, as he owned to himself, +all his Greece; but he could answer for what three days in the country +would do for him, particularly with that spirit of candid inquiry he could +now bring to his task, and the genuine fairness with which he desired to +judge the people. +</p> +<p> +‘The two years’ resident’ in Athens must doubtless often have dined with +his Minister, and so Atlee sent his card to the Legation. +</p> +<p> +Mr. Brammell, our ‘present Minister at Athens,’ as the <i>Times</i> +continued to designate him, as though to imply that the appointment might +not be permanent, was an excellent man, of that stamp of which diplomacy +has more—who consider that the Court to which they are accredited +concentrates for the time the political interests of the globe. That any +one in Europe thought, read, spoke, or listened to anything but what was +then happening in Greece, Mr. Brammell could not believe. That France or +Prussia, Spain or Italy, could divide attention with this small kingdom; +that the great political minds of the Continent were not more eager to +know what Comoundouros thought and Bulgaris required, than all about +Bismarck and Gortschakoff, he could not be brought to conceive; and in +consequence of these convictions, he was an admirable Minister, and fully +represented all the interests of his country. +</p> +<p> +As that admirable public instructor, the <i>Levant Herald</i>, had +frequently mentioned Atlee’s name, now as the guest of Kulbash Pasha, now +as having attended some public ceremony with other persons of importance, +and once as ‘our distinguished countryman, whose wise suggestions and +acute observations have been duly accepted by the imperial cabinet,’ +Brammell at once knew that this distinguished countryman should be +entertained at dinner, and he sent him an invitation. That habit—so +popular of late years—to send out some man from England to do +something at a foreign Court that the British ambassador or Minister there +either has not done, or cannot do, possibly ought never to do, had +invested Atlee in Brammell’s eyes with the character of one of those +semi-accredited inscrutable people whose function it would seem to be to +make us out the most meddlesome people in Europe. +</p> +<p> +Of course Brammell was not pleased to see him at Athens, and he ran over +all the possible contingencies he might have come for. It might be the old +Greek loan, which was to be raked up again as a new grievance. It might be +the pensions that they would not pay, or the brigands that they would not +catch—pretty much for the same reasons—that they could not. It +might be that they wanted to hear what Tsousicheff, the new Russian +Minister, was doing, and whether the farce of the ‘Grand Idea’ was +advertised for repetition. It might be Crete was on the <i>tapis</i>, or +it might be the question of the Greek envoy to the Porte that the Sultan +refused to receive, and which promised to turn out a very pretty quarrel +if only adroitly treated. +</p> +<p> +The more Brammell thought of it, the more he felt assured this must be the +reason of Atlee’s visit, and the more indignant he grew that +extra-official means should be employed to investigate what he had written +seventeen despatches to explain—seventeen despatches, with nine +‘inclosures,’ and a ‘private and confidential,’ about to appear in a +blue-book. +</p> +<p> +To make the dinner as confidential as might be, the only guests besides +Atlee were a couple of yachting Englishmen, a German Professor of +Archæology, and the American Minister, who, of course, speaking no +language but his own, could always be escaped from by a digression into +French, German, or Italian. +</p> +<p> +Atlee felt, as he entered the drawing-room, that the company was what he +irreverently called afterwards, a scratch team; and with an almost equal +quickness, he saw that he himself was the ‘personage’ of the +entertainment, the ‘man of mark’ of the party. +</p> +<p> +The same tact which enabled him to perceive all this, made him especially +guarded in all he said, so that his host’s efforts to unveil his +intentions and learn what he had come for were complete failures. ‘Greece +was a charming country—Greece was the parent of any civilisation we +boasted. She gave us those ideas of architecture with which we raised that +glorious temple at Kensington, and that taste for sculpture which we +exhibited near Apsley House. Aristophanes gave us our comic drama, and +only the defaults of our language made it difficult to show why the member +for Cork did not more often recall Demosthenes.’ +</p> +<p> +As for insolvency, it was a very gentlemanlike failing; while brigandage +was only what Sheil used to euphemise as ‘the wild justice’ of noble +spirits, too impatient for the sluggard steps of slow redress, and too +proud not to be self-reliant. +</p> +<p> +Thus excusing and extenuating wherein he could not flatter, Atlee talked +on the entire evening, till he sent the two Englishmen home heartily sick +of a bombastic eulogy on the land where a pilot had run their cutter on a +rock, and a revenue officer had seized all their tobacco. The German had +retired early, and the Yankee hastened to his lodgings to ‘jot down’ all +the fine things he could commit to his next despatch home, and overwhelm +Mr. Seward with an array of historic celebrities such as had never been +seen at Washington. +</p> +<p> +‘They’re gone at last,’ said the Minister. ‘Let us have our cigar on the +terrace.’ +</p> +<p> +The unbounded frankness, the unlimited trustfulness that now ensued +between these two men, was charming. Brammell represented one hard worked +and sorely tried in his country’s service—the perfect slave of +office, spending nights long at his desk, but not appreciated, not valued +at home. It was delightful, therefore, to him, to find a man like Atlee to +whom he could tell this—could tell for what an ungrateful country he +toiled, what ignorance he sought to enlighten, what actual stupidity he +had to counteract. He spoke of the Office—from his tone of horror it +might have been the Holy Office—with a sort of tremulous terror and +aversion: the absurd instructions they sent him, the impossible things he +was to do, the inconceivable lines of policy he was to insist on; how but +for him the king would abdicate, and a Russian protectorate be proclaimed; +how the revolt at Athens would be proclaimed in Thessaly; how Skulkekoff, +the Russian general, was waiting to move into the provinces ‘at the first +check my policy shall receive here,’ cried he. ‘I shall show you on this +map; and here are the names, armament, and tonnage of a hundred and +ninety-four gunboats now ready at Nicholief to move down on +Constantinople.’ +</p> +<p> +Was it not strange, was it not worse than strange, after such a show of +unbounded confidence as this, Atlee would reveal nothing? Whatever his +grievances against the people he served—and who is without them?—he +would say nothing, he had no complaint to make. Things he admitted were +bad, but they might be worse. The monarchy existed still, and the House of +Lords was, for a while at least, tolerated. Ireland was disturbed, but not +in open rebellion; and if we had no army to speak of, we still had a navy, +and even the present Admiralty only lost about five ships a year! +</p> +<p> +Till long after midnight did they fence with each other, with buttons on +their foils—very harmlessly, no doubt, but very uselessly too: +Brammell could make nothing of a man who neither wanted to hear about +finance or taxation, court scandal, schools, or public robbery; and though +he could not in so many words ask—What have you come for? why are +you here? he said this in full fifty different ways for three hours and +more. +</p> +<p> +‘You make some stay amongst us, I trust?’ said the Minister, as his guest +rose to take leave. ‘You mean to see something of this interesting country +before you leave?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I fear not; when the repairs to the steamer enable her to put to sea, +they are to let me know by telegraph, and I shall join her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Are you so pressed for time that you cannot spare us a week or two?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Totally impossible! Parliament will sit in January next, and I must +hasten home.’ +</p> +<p> +This was to imply that he was in the House, or that he expected to be, or +that he ought to be, and even if he were not, that his presence in England +was all-essential to somebody who was in Parliament, and for whom his +information, his explanation, his accusation, or anything else, was all +needed, and so Brammell read it and bowed accordingly. +</p> +<p> +‘By the way,’ said the Minister, as the other was leaving the room, and +with that sudden abruptness of a wayward thought, ‘we have been talking of +all sorts of things and people, but not a word about what we are so full +of here. How is this difficulty about the new Greek envoy to the Porte to +end? You know, of course, the Sultan refuses to receive him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The Pasha told me something of it, but I confess to have paid little +attention. I treated the matter as insignificant.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Insignificant! You cannot mean that an affront so openly administered as +this, the greatest national offence that could be offered, is +insignificant?’ and then with a volubility that smacked very little of +want of preparation, he showed that the idea of sending a particular man, +long compromised by his complicity in the Cretan revolt, to +Constantinople, came from Russia, and that the opposition of the Porte to +accept him was also Russian. ‘I got to the bottom of the whole intrigue. I +wrote home how Tsousicheff was nursing this new quarrel. I told our people +facts of the Muscovite policy that they never got a hint of from their +ambassador at St. Petersburg.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was rare luck that we had you here: good-night, good-night,’ said +Atlee as he buttoned his coat. +</p> +<p> +‘More than that, I said, “If the Cabinet here persist in sending +Kostalergi—“’ +</p> +<p> +‘Whom did you say? What name was it you said?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Kostalergi—the Prince. As much a prince as you are. First of all, +they have no better; and secondly, this is the most consummate adventurer +in the East.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should like to know him. Is he here—at Athens?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course he is. He is waiting till he hears the Sultan will receive +him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should like to know him,’ said Atlee, more seriously. +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing easier. He comes here every day. Will you meet him at dinner +to-morrow?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Delighted! but then I should like a little conversation with him in the +morning. Perhaps you would kindly make me known to him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘With sincere pleasure. I’ll write and ask him to dine—and I’ll say +that you will wait on him. I’ll say, “My distinguished friend Mr. Atlee, +of whom you have heard, will wait on you about eleven or twelve.” Will +that do?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perfectly. So then I may make my visit on the presumption of being +expected?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Certainly. Not that Kostalergi wants much preparation. He plays baccarat +all night, but he is at his desk at six.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is he rich?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Hasn’t a sixpence—but plays all the same. And what people are more +surprised at, pays when he loses. If I had not already passed an evening +in your company, I should be bold enough to hint to you the need of +caution—great caution—in talking with him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know—I am aware,’ said Atlee, with a meaning smile. +</p> +<p> +‘You will not be misled by his cunning, Mr. Atlee, but beware of his +candour.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will be on my guard. Many thanks for the caution. Good-night!—once +more, good-night!’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0064" id="link2HCH0064"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXIV +</h2> +<h3> +GREEK MEETS GREEK +</h3> +<p> +So excited did Atlee feel about meeting the father of Nina Kostalergi—of +whose strange doings and adventurous life he had heard much—that he +scarcely slept the entire night. It puzzled him greatly to determine in +what character he should present himself to this crafty Greek. Political +amateurship was now so popular in England, that he might easily enough +pass off for one of those ‘Bulls’ desirous to make himself up on the Greek +question. This was a part that offered no difficulty. ‘Give me five +minutes of any man—a little longer with a woman—and I’ll know +where his sympathies incline to.’ This was a constant boast of his, and +not altogether a vain one. He might be an archæological traveller eager +about new-discovered relics and curious about ruined temples. He might be +a yachting man, who only cared for Salamis as good anchorage, nor thought +of the Acropolis, except as a point of departure; or he might be one of +those myriads who travel without knowing where, or caring why: airing +their ennui now at Thebes, now at Trolhatten; a weariful, dispirited race, +who rarely look so thoroughly alive as when choosing a cigar or changing +their money. There was no reason why the ‘distinguished Mr. Atlee’ might +not be one of these—he was accredited, too, by his Minister, and his +‘solidarity,’ as the French call it, was beyond question. +</p> +<p> +While yet revolving these points, a kavass—with much gold in his +jacket, and a voluminous petticoat of white calico—came to inform +him that his Excellency the Prince hope to see him at breakfast at eleven +o’clock; and it now only wanted a few minutes of that hour. Atlee detained +the messenger to show him the road, and at last set out. +</p> +<p> +Traversing one dreary, ill-built street after another, they arrived at +last at what seemed a little lane, the entrance to which carriages were +denied by a line of stone posts, at the extremity of which a small green +gate appeared in a wall. Pushing this wide open, the kavass stood +respectfully, while Atlee passed in, and found himself in what for Greece +was a garden. There were two fine palm-trees, and a small scrub of +oleanders and dwarf cedars that grew around a little fish-pond, where a +small Triton in the middle, with distended cheeks, should have poured +forth a refreshing jet of water, but his lips were dry, and his +conch-shell empty, and the muddy tank at his feet a mere surface of broad +water-lilies convulsively shaken by bull-frogs. A short shady path led to +the house, a two-storeyed edifice, with the external stair of wood that +seemed to crawl round it on every side. +</p> +<p> +In a good-sized room of the ground-floor Atlee found the prince awaiting +him. He was confined to a sofa by a slight sprain, he called it, and +apologised for his not being able to rise. +</p> +<p> +The prince, though advanced in years, was still handsome: his features had +all the splendid regularity of their Greek origin; but in the enormous +orbits, of which the tint was nearly black, and the indented temples, +traversed by veins of immense size, and the firm compression of his lips, +might be read the signs of a man who carried the gambling spirit into +every incident of life, one ready ‘to back his luck,’ and show a bold +front to fortune when fate proved adverse. +</p> +<p> +The Greek’s manner was perfect. There was all the ease of a man used to +society, with a sort of half-sly courtesy, as he said, ‘This is kindness, +Mr. Atlee—this is real kindness. I scarcely thought an Englishman +would have the courage to call upon anything so unpopular as I am.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have come to see you and the Parthenon, Prince, and I have begun with +you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you will tell them, when you get home, that I am not the terrible +revolutionist they think me: that I am neither Danton nor Félix Pyat, but +a very mild and rather tiresome old man, whose extreme violence goes no +further than believing that people ought to be masters in their own house, +and that when any one disputes the right, the best thing is to throw him +out of the window.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If he will not go by the door,’ remarked Atlee. +</p> +<p> +‘No, I would not give him the chance of the door. Otherwise you make no +distinction between your friends and your enemies. It is by the mild +methods—what you call “milk-and-water methods”—men spoil all +their efforts for freedom. You always want to cut off somebody’s head and +spill no blood. There’s the mistake of those Irish rebels: they tell me +they have courage, but I find it hard to believe them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do believe them then, and know for certain that there is not a braver +people in Europe.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How do you keep them down, then?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You must not ask <i>me</i> that, for I am one of them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You Irish?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, Irish—very Irish.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ah! I see. Irish in an English sense? Just as there are Greeks here who +believe in Kulbash Pasha, and would say, Stay at home and till your +currant-fields and mind your coasting trade. Don’t try to be civilised, +for civilisation goes badly with brigandage, and scarcely suits trickery. +And you are aware, Mr. Atlee, that trickery and brigandage are more to +Greece than olives or dried figs?’ +</p> +<p> +There was that of mockery in the way he said this, and the little smile +that played about his mouth when he finished, that left Atlee in +considerable doubt how to read him. +</p> +<p> +‘I study your newspapers, Mr. Atlee,’ resumed he. ‘I never omit to read +your <i>Times</i>, and I see how my old acquaintance, Lord Danesbury, has +been making Turkey out of Ireland! It is so hard to persuade an old +ambassador that you cannot do everything by corruption!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I scarcely think you do him justice.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Poor Danesbury,’ ejaculated he sorrowfully. +</p> +<p> +‘You opine that his policy is a mistake?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Poor Danesbury!’ said he again. +</p> +<p> +‘He is one of our ablest men, notwithstanding. At this moment we have not +his superior in anything.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I was going to say, Poor Danesbury, but I now say, Poor England.’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee bit his lips with anger at the sarcasm, but went on, ‘I infer you +are not aware of the exact share subordinates have had in what you call +Lord Danesbury’s Irish blunders—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Pardon my interrupting you, but a really able man has no subordinates. +His inferior agents are so thoroughly absorbed by his own individuality +that they have no wills—no instincts—and, therefore, they can +do no indiscretions They are the simple emanations of himself in action.’ +</p> +<p> +‘In Turkey, perhaps,’ said Atlee, with a smile. +</p> +<p> +‘If in Turkey, why not in England, or, at least, in Ireland? If you are +well served—and mind, you must be well served, or you are powerless—you +can always in political life see the adversary’s hand. That he sees yours, +is of course true: the great question then is, how much you mean to +mislead him by the showing it? I give you an instance: Lord Danesbury’s +cleverest stroke in policy here, the one hit probably he made in the East, +was to have a private correspondence with the Khedive made known to the +Russian embassy, and induce Gortschakoff to believe that he could not +trust the Pasha! All the Russian preparations to move down on the +Provinces were countermanded. The stores of grain that were being made on +the Pruth were arrested, and three, nearly four weeks elapsed before the +mistake was discovered, and in that interval England had reinforced the +squadron at Malta, and taken steps to encourage Turkey—always to be +done by money, or promise of money.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was a <i>coup</i> of great adroitness,’ said Atlee. +</p> +<p> +‘It was more,’ cried the Greek, with elation. ‘It was a move of such +subtlety as smacks of something higher than the Saxon! The men who do +these things have the instinct of their craft. It is theirs to understand +that chemistry of human motives by which a certain combination results in +effects totally remote from the agents that produce it. Can you follow +me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe I can.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I would rather say, Is my attempt at an explanation sufficiently clear to +be intelligible?’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee looked fixedly at him, and he could do so unobserved, for the other +was now occupied in preparing his pipe, without minding the question. +Therefore Atlee set himself to study the features before him. It was +evident enough, from the intensity of his gaze and a certain trembling of +his upper lip, that the scrutiny cost him no common effort. It was, in +fact, the effort to divine what, if he mistook to read aright, would be an +irreparable blunder. +</p> +<p> +With the long-drawn inspiration a man makes before he adventures a daring +feat, he said: ‘It is time I should be candid with you, Prince. It is time +I should tell you that I am in Greece only to see <i>you</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To see me?’ said the other, and a very faint flush passed across his +face. +</p> +<p> +‘To see you,’ said Atlee slowly, while he drew out a pocket-book and took +from it a letter. ‘This,’ said he, handing it, ‘is to your address.’ The +words on the cover were M. Spiridionides. +</p> +<p> +‘I am Spiridion Kostalergi, and by birth a Prince of Delos,’ said the +Greek, waving back the letter. +</p> +<p> +‘I am well aware of that, and it is only in perfect confidence that I +venture to recall a past that your Excellency will see I respect,’ and +Atlee spoke with an air of deference. +</p> +<p> +‘The antecedents of the men who serve this country are not to be measured +by the artificial habits of a people who regulate condition by money. <i>Your</i> +statesmen have no need to be journalists, teachers, tutors; Frenchmen and +Italians are all these, and on the Lower Danube and in Greece we are these +and something more.—Nor are we less politicians that we are more men +of the world.—The little of statecraft that French Emperor ever +knew, he picked up in his days of exile.’ All this he blurted out in short +and passionate bursts, like an angry man who was trying to be logical in +his anger, and to make an effort of reason subdue his wrath. +</p> +<p> +‘If I had not understood these things as you yourself understand them, I +should not have been so indiscreet as to offer you that letter,’ and once +more he proffered it. +</p> +<p> +This time the Greek took it, tore open the envelope, and read it through. +</p> +<p> +‘It is from Lord Danesbury,’ said he at length. ‘When we parted last, I +was, in a certain sense, my lord’s subordinate—that is, there were +things none of his staff or secretaries or attachés or dragomen could do, +and I could do them. Times are changed, and if we are to meet again, it +will be as colleagues. It is true, Mr. Atlee, the ambassador of England +and the envoy of Greece are not exactly of the same rank. I do not permit +myself many illusions, and this is not one of them; but remember, if Great +Britain be a first-rate Power, Greece is a volcano. It is for us to say +when there shall be an eruption.’ +</p> +<p> +It was evident, from the rambling tenor of this speech, he was speaking +rather to conceal his thoughts and give himself time for reflection, than +to enunciate any definite opinion; and so Atlee, with native acuteness, +read him, as he simply bowed a cold assent. +</p> +<p> +‘Why should I give him back his letters?’ burst out the Greek warmly. +‘What does he offer me in exchange for them? Money! mere money! By what +presumption does he assume that I must be in such want of money, that the +only question should be the sum? May not the time come when I shall be +questioned in our chamber as to certain matters of policy, and my only +vindication be the documents of this same English ambassador, written in +his own hand, and signed with his name? Will you tell me that the +triumphant assertion of a man’s honour is not more to him than +bank-notes?’ +</p> +<p> +Though the heroic spirit of this speech went but a short way to deceive +Atlee, who only read it as a plea for a higher price, it was his policy to +seem to believe every word of it, and he looked a perfect picture of quiet +conviction. +</p> +<p> +‘You little suspect what these letters are?’ said the Greek. +</p> +<p> +I believe I know: I rather think I have a catalogue of them and their +contents,’ mildly hinted the other. +</p> +<p> +‘Ah! indeed, and are you prepared to vouch for the accuracy and +completeness of your list?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You must be aware it is only my lord himself can answer that question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is there—in your enumeration—is there the letter about Crete? +and the false news that deceived the Baron de Baude? Is there the note of +my instructions to the Khedive? Is there—I’m sure there is not—any +mention of the negotiation with Stephanotis Bey?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have seen Stephanotis myself; I have just come from him,’ said Atlee, +grasping at the escape the name offered. +</p> +<p> +‘Ah, you know the old Paiikao?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Intimately; we are, I hope, close friends; he was at Kulbash Pasha’s +while I was there, and we had much talk together.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And from him it was you learned that Spiridionides was Spiridion +Kostalergi?’ said the Greek slowly. +</p> +<p> +‘Surely this is not meant as a question, or, at least, a question to be +answered?’ said Atlee, smiling. +</p> +<p> +‘No, no, of course not,’ replied the other politely. ‘We are chatting +together, if not like old friends, like men who have every element to +become dear friends. We see life pretty much from the same point of view, +Mr. Atlee, is it not so?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It would be a great flattery to me to think it.’ And Joe’s eyes sparkled +as he spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘One has to make his choice somewhat early in the world, whether he will +hunt or be hunted: I believe that is about the case.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I did not take long to decide: <i>I</i> took my place with the wolves!’ +Nothing could be more quietly uttered than these words; but there was a +savage ferocity in his look as he said them that held Atlee almost +spell-bound. ‘And you, Mr. Atlee? and you? I need scarcely ask where <i>your</i> +choice fell!’ It was so palpable that the words meant a compliment, Atlee +had only to smile a polite acceptance of them. +</p> +<p> +‘These letters,’ said the Greek, resuming, and like one who had not +mentally lapsed from the theme—‘these letters are all that my lord +deems them. They are the very stuff that, in your country of publicity and +free discussion, would make or mar the very best reputations amongst you. +And,’ added he, after a pause, ‘there are none of them destroyed, none!’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is aware of that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, he is not aware of it to the extent I speak of, for many of the +documents that he believed he saw burned in his own presence, on his own +hearth, are here, here in the room we sit in! So that I am in the proud +position of being able to vindicate his policy in many cases where his +memory might prove weak or fallacious.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Although I know Lord Danesbury’s value for these papers does not bear out +your own, I will not suffer myself to discuss the point. I return at once +to what I have come for. Shall I make you an offer in money for them, +Monsieur Kostalergi?’ +</p> +<p> +‘What is the amount you propose?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I was to negotiate for a thousand pounds first. I was to give two +thousand at the last resort. I will begin at the last resort and pay you +two.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why not piastres, Mr. Atlee? I am sure your instructions must have said +piastres.’ +</p> +<p> +Quite unmoved by the sarcasm, Atlee took out his pocket-book and read from +a memorandum: ‘Should M. Kostalergi refuse your offer, or think it +insufficient, on no account let the negotiation take any turn of acrimony +or recrimination. He has rendered me great services in past times, and it +will be for himself to determine whether he should do or say what should +in any way bar our future relations together.’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is not a menace?’ said the Greek, smiling superciliously. +</p> +<p> +‘No. It is simply an instruction,’ said the other, after a slight +hesitation. +</p> +<p> +‘The men who make a trade of diplomacy,’ said the Greek haughtily, +‘reserve it for their dealings with Cabinets. In home or familiar +intercourse they are straightforward and simple. Without these papers your +noble master cannot return to Turkey as ambassador. Do not interrupt me. +He cannot come back as ambassador to the Porte! It is for him to say how +he estimates the post. An ambitious man with ample reason for his +ambition, an able man with a thorough conviction of his ability, a +patriotic man who understood and saw the services he could render to his +country, would not bargain at the price the place should cost him, nor say +ten thousand pounds too much to pay for it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ten thousand pounds!’ exclaimed Atlee, but in real and unfeigned +astonishment. +</p> +<p> +‘I have said ten thousand, and I will not say nine—nor nine thousand +nine hundred.’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee slowly arose and took his hat. +</p> +<p> +‘I have too much respect for yourself and for your time, M. Kostalergi, to +impose any longer on your leisure. I have no need to say that your +proposal is totally unacceptable.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You have not heard it all, sir. The money is but a part of what I insist +on. I shall demand, besides, that the British ambassador at Constantinople +shall formally support my claim to be received as envoy from Greece, and +that the whole might of England be pledged to the ratification of my +appointment.’ +</p> +<p> +A very cold but not uncourteous smile was all Atlee’s acknowledgment of +this speech. +</p> +<p> +‘There are small details which regard my title and the rank that I lay +claim to. With these I do not trouble you. I will merely say I reserve +them if we should discuss this in future.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of that there is little prospect. Indeed, I see none whatever. I may say +this much, however, Prince, that I shall most willingly undertake to place +your claims to be received as Minister for Greece at the Porte under Lord +Danesbury’s notice, and, I have every hope, for favourable consideration. +We are not likely to meet again: may I assume that we part friends?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You only anticipate my own sincere desire.’ +</p> +<p> +As they passed slowly through the garden, Atlee stopped and said: ‘Had I +been able to tell my lord, “The Prince is just named special envoy at +Constantinople. The Turks are offended at something he has done in Crete +or Thessaly. Without certain pressure on the Divan they will not receive +him. Will your lordship empower me to say that you will undertake this, +and, moreover, enable me to assure him that all the cost and expenditure +of his outfit shall be met in a suitable form?” If, in fact, you give me +your permission to submit such a basis as this, I should leave Athens far +happier than I feel now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The Chamber has already voted the outfit. It is very modest, but it is +enough. Our national resources are at a low ebb. You might, indeed—that +is, if you still wished to plead my cause—you might tell my lord +that I had destined this sum as the fortune of my daughter. I have a +daughter, Mr. Atlee, and at present sojourning in your own country. And +though at one time I was minded to recall her, and take her with me to +Turkey, I have grown to doubt whether it would be a wise policy. Our Greek +contingencies are too many and too sudden to let us project very far in +life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Strange enough,’ said Atlee thoughtfully, ‘you have just—as it were +by mere hazard—struck the one chord in the English nature that will +always respond to the appeal of a home affection. Were I to say, “Do you +know why Kostalergi makes so hard a bargain? It is to endow a daughter. It +is the sole provision he stipulates to make her—Greek statesmen can +amass no fortunes—this hazard will secure the girl’s future!” On my +life, I cannot think of one argument that would have equal weight.’ +</p> +<p> +Kostalergi smiled faintly, but did not speak. +</p> +<p> +‘Lord Danesbury never married, but I know with what interest and affection +he follows the fortunes of men who live to secure the happiness of their +children. It is the one plea he could not resist; to be sure he might say, +“Kostalergi told you this, and perhaps at the time he himself believed it; +but how can a man who likes the world and its very costliest pleasures +guard himself against his own habits? Who is to pledge his honour that the +girl will ever be the owner of this sum?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘I shall place <i>that</i> beyond a cavil or a question: he shall be +himself her guardian. The money shall not leave his hands till she +marries. You have your own laws, by which a man can charge his estate with +the payment of a certain amount. My lord, if he assents to this, will know +how it may be done. I repeat, I do not desire to touch a drachma of the +sum.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You interest me immensely. I cannot tell you how intensely I feel +interested in all this. In fact, I shall own to you frankly that you have +at last employed an argument, I do not know how, even if I wished, to +answer. Am I at liberty to state this pretty much as you have told it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Every word of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will you go further—will you give me a little line, a memorandum in +your own hand, to show that I do not misstate nor mistake you—that I +have your meaning correctly, and without even a chance of error?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will write it formally and deliberately.’ +</p> +<p> +The bell of the outer door rang at the moment. It was a telegraphic +message to Atlee, to say that the steamer had perfected her repairs and +would sail that evening. +</p> +<p> +‘You mean to sail with her?’ asked the Greek. ‘Well, within an hour, you +shall have my packet. Good-bye. I have no doubt we shall hear of each +other again.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I think I could venture to bet on it,’ were Atlee’s last words as he +turned away. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0065" id="link2HCH0065"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXV +</h2> +<h3> +IN TOWN +</h3> +<p> +Lord Danesbury had arrived at Bruton Street to confer with certain members +of the Cabinet who remained in town after the session, chiefly to consult +with him. He was accompanied by his niece, Lady Maude, and by Walpole, the +latter continuing to reside under his roof, rather from old habit than +from any strong wish on either side. +</p> +<p> +Walpole had obtained a short extension of his leave, and employed the time +in endeavouring to make up his mind about a certain letter to Nina +Kostalergi, which he had written nearly fifty times in different versions +and destroyed. Neither his lordship nor his niece ever saw him. They knew +he had a room or two somewhere, a servant was occasionally encountered on +the way to him with a breakfast-tray and an urn; his letters were seen on +the hall-table; but, except these, he gave no signs of life—never +appeared at luncheon or at dinner—and as much dropped out of all +memory or interest as though he had ceased to be. +</p> +<p> +It was one evening, yet early—scarcely eleven o’clock—as Lord +Danesbury’s little party of four Cabinet chiefs had just departed, that he +sat at the drawing-room fire with Lady Maude, chatting over the events of +the evening’s conversation, and discussing, as men will do at times, the +characters of their guests. +</p> +<p> +‘It has been nearly as tiresome as a Cabinet Council, Maude!’ said he, +with a sigh, ‘and not unlike it in one thing—it was almost always +the men who knew least of any matter who discussed it most exhaustively.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I conclude you know what you are going out to do, my lord, and do not +care to hear the desultory notions of people who know nothing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just so. What could a First Lord tell me about those Russian intrigues in +Albania, or is it likely that a Home Secretary is aware of what is +preparing in Montenegro? They get hold of some crotchet in the <i>Revue +des Deux Mondes</i>, and assuming it all to be true, they ask defiantly, +“How are you going to deal with that? Why did you not foresee the other?” +and such like. How little they know, as that fellow Atlee says, that a man +evolves his Turkey out of the necessities of his pocket, and captures his +Constantinople to pay for a dinner at the “Frères.” What fleets of Russian +gunboats have I seen launched to procure a few bottles of champagne! I +remember a chasse of Kersch, with the café, costing a whole battery of +Krupp’s breech-loaders!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Are our own journals more correct?’ +</p> +<p> +‘They are more cautious, Maude—far more cautious. Nine days’ wonders +with us would be too costly. Nothing must be risked that can affect the +funds. The share-list is too solemn a thing for joking.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The Premier was very silent to-night,’ said she, after a pause. +</p> +<p> +‘He generally is in company: he looks like a man bored at being obliged to +listen to people saying the things that he knows as well, and could tell +better, than they do.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How completely he appears to have forgiven or forgotten the Irish +fiasco.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course he has. An extra blunder in the conduct of Irish affairs is +only like an additional mask in a fancy ball—the whole thing is +motley; and asking for consistency would be like requesting the company to +behave like arch-deacons.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And so the mischief has blown over?’ +</p> +<p> +‘In a measure it has. The Opposition quarrelled amongst themselves; and +such as were not ready to take office if we were beaten, declined to press +the motion. The irresponsibles went on, as they always do, to their own +destruction. They became violent, and, of course, our people appealed +against the violence, and with such temperate language and good-breeding +that we carried the House with us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I see there was quite a sensation about the word “villain.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; miscreant. It was miscreant—a word very popular in O’Connell’s +day, but rather obsolete now. When the Speaker called on the member for an +apology, we had won the day! These rash utterances in debate are the +explosive balls that no one must use in battle; and if we only discover +one in a fellow’s pouch, we discredit the whole army.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I forget; did they press for a division?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; we stopped them. We agreed to give them a “special committee to +inquire.” Of all devices for secrecy invented, I know of none like a +“special committee of inquiry.” Whatever people have known beforehand, +their faith will now be shaken in, and every possible or accidental +contingency assume a shape, a size, and a stability beyond all belief. +They have got their committee, and I wish them luck of it! The only men +who could tell them anything will take care not to criminate themselves, +and the report will be a plaintive cry over a country where so few people +can be persuaded to tell the truth, and nobody should seem any worse in +consequence.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Cecil certainly did it,’ said she, with a certain bitterness. ‘I suppose +he did. These young players are always thinking of scoring eight or ten on +a single hazard: one should never back them!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Atlee said there was some female influence at work. He would not tell +what nor whom. Possibly he did not know.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I rather suspect he <i>did</i> know. They were people, if I mistake not, +belonging to that Irish castle—Kil—Kil-somebody, or +Kil-something.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Was Walpole flirting there? was he going to marry one of them?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Flirting, I take it, must have been the extent of the folly. Cecil often +said he could not marry Irish. I have known men do it! You are aware, +Maude,’ and here he looked with uncommon gravity, ‘the penal laws have all +been repealed.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I was speaking of society, my lord, not the statutes,’ said she +resentfully, and half suspicious of a sly jest. +</p> +<p> +‘Had she money?’ asked he curtly. +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot tell; I know nothing of these people whatever! I remember +something—it was a newspaper story—of a girl that saved +Cecil’s life by throwing herself before him—a very pretty incident +it was; but these things make no figure in a settlement; and a woman may +be as bold as Joan of Arc, and not have sixpence. Atlee says you can +always settle the courage on the younger children.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Atlee’s an arrant scamp,’ said my lord, laughing. ‘He should have written +some days since.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose he is too late for the borough: the Cradford election comes on +next week?’ Though there could not be anything more languidly indifferent +than her voice in this question, a faint pinkish tinge flitted across her +cheek, and left it colourless as before. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, he has his address out, and there is a sort of committee—certain +licensed-victualler people—to whom he has been promising some +especial Sabbath-breaking that they yearn after. I have not read it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have; and it is cleverly written, and there is little more radical in +it than we heard this very day at dinner. He tells the electors, “You are +no more bound to the support of an army or a navy, if you do not wish to +fight, than to maintain the College of Surgeons or Physicians, if you +object to take physic.” He says, “To tell <i>me</i> that I, with eight +shillings a week, have an equal interest in resisting invasion as your +Lord Dido, with eighty thousand per annum, is simply nonsense. If you,” +cries he to one of his supporters, “were to be offered your life by a +highwayman on surrendering some few pence or halfpence you carried in <i>your</i> +pocket, you do not mean to dictate what my Lord Marquis might do, who has +got a gold watch and a pocketful of notes in <i>his</i>. And so I say once +more, let the rich pay for the defence of what they value. You and I have +nothing worth fighting for, and we will not fight. Then as to religion—“’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, spare me his theology! I can almost imagine it, Maude. I had no +conception he was such a Radical.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is not really, my lord; but he tells me that we must all go through +this stage. It is, as he says, like a course of those waters whose benefit +is exactly in proportion to the way they disagree with you at first. He +even said, one evening before he went away, “Take my word for it, Lady +Maude, we shall be burning these apostles of ballot and universal suffrage +in effigy one day; but I intend to go beyond every one else in the +meanwhile, else the rebound will lose half its excellence.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘What is this?’ cried he, as the servant entered with a telegram. ‘This is +from Athens, Maude, and in cipher, too. How are we to make it out.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Cecil has the key, my lord. It is the diplomatic cipher.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you think you could find it in his room, Maude? It is possible this +might be imminent.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I shall see if he is at home,’ said she, rising to ring the bell. The +servant sent to inquire returned, saying that Mr. Walpole had dined +abroad, and not returned since dinner. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m sure you could find the book, Maude, and it is a small square-shaped +volume, bound in dark Russia leather, marked with F. O. on the cover.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know the look of it well enough; but I do not fancy ransacking Cecil’s +chamber.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do not know that I should like to await his return to read my despatch. +I can just make out that it comes from Atlee.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose I had better go, then,’ said she reluctantly, as she rose and +left the room. +</p> +<p> +Ordering the butler to precede and show her the way, Lady Maude ascended +to a storey above that she usually inhabited, and found herself in a very +spacious chamber, with an alcove, into which a bed fitted, the remaining +space being arranged like an ordinary sitting-room. There were numerous +chairs and sofas of comfortable form, a well-cushioned ottoman, smelling, +indeed, villainously of tobacco, and a neat writing-table, with a most +luxurious arrangement of shaded wax-lights above it. +</p> +<p> +A singularly well-executed photograph of a young and very lovely woman, +with masses of loose hair flowing over her neck and shoulders, stood on a +little easel on the desk, and it was, strange enough, with a sense of +actual relief, Maude read the word Titian on the frame. It was a copy of +the great master’s picture in the Dresden Gallery, and of which there is a +replica in the Barberini Palace at Rome; but still the portrait had +another memory for Lady Maude, who quickly recalled the girl she had once +seen in a crowded assembly, passing through a murmur of admiration that no +conventionality could repress, and whose marvellous beauty seemed to glow +with the homage it inspired. +</p> +<p> +Scraps of poetry, copies of verses, changed and blotted couplets, were +scrawled on loose sheets of paper on the desk; but Maude minded none of +these, as she pushed them away to rest her arm on the table, while she sat +gazing on the picture. +</p> +<p> +The face had so completely absorbed her attention—so, to say, +fascinated her—that when the servant had found the volume he was in +search of, and presented it to her, she merely said, ‘Take it to my lord,’ +and sat still, with her head resting on her hands, and her eyes fixed on +the portrait. ‘There may be some resemblance, there may be, at least, what +might remind people of “the Laura “—so was it called; but who will +pretend that <i>she</i> carried her head with that swing of lofty pride, +or that <i>her</i> look could rival the blended majesty and womanhood we +see here! I do not—I cannot believe it!’ +</p> +<p> +‘What is it, Maude, that you will not or cannot believe?’ said a low +voice, and she saw Walpole standing beside her. +</p> +<p> +‘Let me first excuse myself for being here,’ said she, blushing. ‘I came +in search of that little cipher-book to interpret a despatch that has just +come. When Fenton found it, I was so engrossed by this pretty face that I +have done nothing but gaze at it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what was it that seemed so incredible as I came in?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Simply this, then, that any one should be so beautiful.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Titian seems to have solved that point; at least, Vasari tells us this +was a portrait of a lady of the Guicciardini family.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know—I know that,’ said she impatiently; ‘and we do see faces in +which Titian or Velasquez have stamped nobility and birth as palpably as +they have printed loveliness and expression. And such were these women, +daughters in a long line of the proud Patricians who once ruled Rome.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And yet,’ said he slowly, ‘that portrait has its living counterpart.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am aware of whom you speak: the awkward angular girl we all saw at +Rome, whom young gentlemen called the Tizziana.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She is certainly no longer awkward, nor angular, now, if she were once +so, which I do not remember. She is a model of grace and symmetry, and as +much more beautiful than that picture as colour, expression, and movement +are better than a lifeless image.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is the fervour of a lover in your words, Cecil,’ said she, smiling +faintly. +</p> +<p> +‘It is not often I am so forgetful,’ muttered he; ‘but so it is, our +cousinship has done it all, Maude. One revels in expansiveness with his +own, and I can speak to you as I cannot speak to another.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is a great flattery to me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘In fact, I feel that at last I have a sister—a dear and loving +spirit who will give to true friendship those delightful traits of pity +and tenderness, and even forgiveness, of which only the woman’s nature can +know the needs.’ +</p> +<p> +Lady Maude rose slowly, without a word. Nothing of heightened colour or +movement of her features indicated anger or indignation, and though +Walpole stood with an affected submissiveness before her, he marked her +closely. ‘I am sure, Maude,’ continued he, ‘you must often have wished to +have a brother.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Never so much as at this moment!’ said she calmly—and now she had +reached the door. ‘If I had had a brother, Cecil Walpole, it is possible I +might have been spared this insult!’ +</p> +<p> +The next moment the door closed, and Walpole was alone. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0066" id="link2HCH0066"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXVI +</h2> +<h3> +ATLEE’S MESSAGE +</h3> +<p> +‘I am right, Maude,’ said Lord Danesbury as his niece re-entered the +drawing-room. ‘This is from Atlee, who is at Athens; but why there I +cannot make out as yet. There are, according to the book, two explanations +here. 491 means a white dromedary or the chief clerk, and B + 49 = 12 +stands for our envoy in Greece or a snuffer-dish.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t you think, my lord, it would be better for you to send this up to +Cecil? He has just come in. He has had much experience of these things.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are quite right, Maude; let Fenton take it up and beg for a speedy +transcript of it. I should like to see it at once!’ +</p> +<p> +While his lordship waited for his despatch, he grumbled away about +everything that occurred to him, and even, at last, about the presence of +the very man, Walpole, who was at that same moment engaged in serving him. +</p> +<p> +‘Stupid fellow,’ muttered he, ‘why does he ask for extension of his leave? +Staying in town here is only another name for spending money. He’ll have +to go out at last; better do it at once!’ +</p> +<p> +‘He may have his own reasons, my lord, for delay,’ said Maude, rather to +suggest further discussion of the point. +</p> +<p> +‘He may think he has, I’ve no doubt. These small creatures have always +scores of irons in the fire. So it was when I agreed to go to Ireland. +There were innumerable fine things and clever things he was to do. There +were schemes by which “the Cardinal” was to be cajoled, and the whole Bar +bamboozled. Every one was to have office dangled before his eyes, and to +be treated so confidentially and affectionately, under disappointment, +that even when a man got nothing he would feel he had secured the regard +of the Prime Minister! If I took him out to Turkey to-morrow, he’d never +be easy till he had a plan “to square” the Grand-Vizier, and entrap +Gortschakoff or Miliutin. These men don’t know that a clever fellow no +more goes in search of rogueries than a foxhunter looks out for stiff +fences. You “take them” when they lie before you, that’s all.’ This little +burst of indignation seemed to have the effect on him of a little +wholesome exercise, for he appeared to feel himself better and easier +after it. +</p> +<p> +‘Dear me! dear me!’ muttered he, ‘how pleasant one’s life might be if it +were not for the clever fellows! I mean, of course,’ added he, after a +second or two, ‘the clever fellows who want to impress us with their +cleverness.’ +</p> +<p> +Maude would not be entrapped or enticed into what might lead to a +discussion. She never uttered a word, and he was silent. +</p> +<p> +It was in the perfect stillness that followed that Walpole entered the +room with the telegram in his hand, and advanced to where Lord Danesbury +was sitting. +</p> +<p> +‘I believe, my lord, I have made out this message in such a shape as will +enable you to divine what it means. It runs thus: “<i>Athens, 5th, 12 +o’clock. Have seen S——, and conferred at length with him. His +estimate of value</i>” or “<i>his price</i>”—for the signs will mean +either—“<i>to my thinking enormous. His reasonings certainly strong +and not easy to rebut</i>.” That may be possibly rendered, “<i>demands +that might probably be reduced.</i>” “<i>I leave to-day, and shall be in +England by middle of next week.</i>—ATLEE.”’ +</p> +<p> +Walpole looked keenly at the other’s face as he read the paper, to mark +what signs of interest and eagerness the tidings might evoke. There was, +however, nothing to be read in those cold and quiet features. +</p> +<p> +‘I am glad he is coming back,’ said he at length. ‘Let us see: he can +reach Marseilles by Monday, or even Sunday night. I don’t see why he +should not be here Wednesday, or Thursday at farthest. By the way, Cecil, +tell me something about our friend—who is he?’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0017" id="linkimage-0017"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/486.jpg" + alt="Walpole Looked Keenly at the Other’s Face As he Read The Paper" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘Don’t know, my lord.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t know! How came you acquainted with him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Met him at a country-house, where I happened to break my arm, and took +advantage of this young fellow’s skill in surgery to engage his services +to carry me to town. There’s the whole of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is he a surgeon?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, my lord, any more than he is fifty other things, of which he has a +smattering.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Has he any means—any private fortune?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect not.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who and what are his family? Are there Atlees in Ireland?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There may be, my lord. There was an Atlee, a college porter, in Dublin; +but I heard our friend say that they were only distantly related.’ +</p> +<p> +He could not help watching Lady Maude as he said this, and was rejoiced to +see a sudden twitch of her lower lip as if in pain. +</p> +<p> +‘You evidently sent him over to me, then, on a very meagre knowledge of +the man,’ said his lordship rebukingly. +</p> +<p> +‘I believe, my lord, I said at the time that I had by me a clever fellow, +who wrote a good hand, could copy correctly, and was sufficient of a +gentleman in his manners to make intercourse with him easy, and not +disagreeable.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A very guarded recommendation,’ said Lady Maude, with a smile. +</p> +<p> +‘Was it not, Maude?’ continued he, his eyes flashing with triumphant +insolence. +</p> +<p> +‘<i>I</i> found he could do more than copy a despatch—I found he +could write one. He replied to an article in the <i>Edinburgh</i> on +Turkey, and I saw him write it as I did not know there was another man but +myself in England could have done.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps your lordship had talked over the subject in his presence, or +with him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And if I had, sir? and if all his knowledge on a complex question was +such as he could carry away from a random conversation, what a gifted dog +he must be to sift the wheat from the chaff—to strip a question of +what were mere accidental elements, and to test a difficulty by its real +qualities. Atlee is a clever fellow, an able fellow, I assure you. That +very telegram before us is a proof how he can deal with a matter on which +instruction would be impossible.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed, my lord!’ said Walpole, with well-assumed innocence. +</p> +<p> +‘I am right glad to know he is coming home. He must demolish that writer +in the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> at once—some unprincipled French +blackguard, who has been put up to attack me by Thouvenel!’ +</p> +<p> +Would it have appeased his lordship’s wrath to know that the writer of +this defamatory article was no other than Joe Atlee himself, and that the +reply which was to ‘demolish it’ was more than half-written in his desk at +that moment? +</p> +<p> +‘I shall ask,’ continued my lord, ‘I shall ask him, besides, to write a +paper on Ireland, and that fiasco of yours, Cecil.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Much obliged, my lord!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t be angry or indignant! A fellow with a neat, light hand like Atlee +can, even under the guise of allegation, do more to clear you than scores +of vulgar apologists. He can, at least, show that what our distinguished +head of the Cabinet calls “the flesh-and-blood argument,” has its full +weight with us in our government of Ireland, and that our bitterest +enemies cannot say we have no sympathies with the nation we rule over.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect, my lord, that what you have so graciously called <i>my</i> +fiasco is well-nigh forgotten by this time, and wiser policy would say, +“Do not revive it.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s a great policy in saying in “an article” all that could be said +in “a debate,” and showing, after all, how little it comes to. Even the +feeble grievance-mongers grow ashamed at retailing the review and the +newspapers; but, what is better still, if the article be smartly written, +they are sure to mistake the peculiarities of style for points in the +argument. I have seen some splendid blunders of that kind when I sat in +the Lower House! I wish Atlee was in Parliament.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not aware that he can speak, my lord.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Neither am I; but I should risk a small bet on it. He is a ready fellow, +and the ready fellows are many-sided—eh, Maude?’ Now, though his +lordship only asked for his niece’s concurrence in his own sage remark, +Walpole affected to understand it as a direct appeal to her opinion of +Atlee, and said, ‘Is that your judgment of this gentleman, Maude?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have no prescription to measure the abilities of such men as Mr. +Atlee.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You find him pleasant, witty, and agreeable, I hope?’ said he, with a +touch of sarcasm. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I think so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With an admirable memory and great readiness for an <i>apropos</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps he has.’ +</p> +<p> +‘As a retailer of an incident they tell me he has no rival.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot say.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course not. I take it the fellow has tact enough not to tell stories +here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What is all that you are saying there?’ cried his lordship, to whom these +few sentences were an ‘aside.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Cecil is praising Mr. Atlee, my lord,’ said Maude bluntly. +</p> +<p> +‘I did not know I had been, my lord,’ said he. ‘He belongs to that class +of men who interest me very little.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What class may that be?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The adventurers, my lord. The fellows who make the campaign of life on +the faith that they shall find their rations in some other man’s +knapsack.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ha! indeed. Is that our friend’s line?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Most undoubtedly, my lord. I am ashamed to say that it was entirely my +own fault if you are saddled with the fellow at all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do not see the infliction—’ +</p> +<p> +‘I mean, my lord, that, in a measure, I put him on you without very well +knowing what it was that I did.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have you heard—do you know anything of the man that should inspire +caution or distrust?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, these are strong words,’ muttered he hesitatingly. +</p> +<p> +But Lady Maude broke in with a passionate tone, ‘Don’t you see, my lord, +that he does not know anything to this person’s disadvantage; that it is +only my cousin’s diplomatic reserve—that commendable caution of his +order—suggests his careful conduct? Cecil knows no more of Atlee +than we do.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps not so much,’ said Walpole, with an impertinent simper. +</p> +<p> +‘<i>I</i> know,’ said his lordship, ‘that he is a monstrous clever fellow. +He can find you the passage you want or the authority you are seeking for +at a moment; and when he writes, he can be rapid and concise too.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He has many rare gifts, my lord,’ said Walpole, with the sly air of one +who had said a covert impertinence. ‘I am very curious to know what you +mean to do with him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mean to do with him? Why, what should I mean to do with him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The very point I wish to learn. A protégé, my lord, is a parasitic plant, +and you cannot deprive it of its double instincts—to cling and to +climb.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How witty my cousin has become since his sojourn in Ireland,’ said Maude. +</p> +<p> +Walpole flushed deeply, and for a moment he seemed about to reply angrily; +but, with an effort, he controlled himself, and turning towards the +timepiece on the chimney, said, ‘How late! I could not have believed it +was past one! I hope, my lord, I have made your despatch intelligible?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, yes; I think so. Besides, he will be here in a day or two to +explain.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I shall, then, say good-night, my lord. Good-night, Cousin Maude.’ But +Lady Maude had already left the room unnoticed. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0067" id="link2HCH0067"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXVII +</h2> +<h3> +WALPOLE ALONE +</h3> +<p> +Once more in his own room, Walpole returned to the task of that letter to +Nina Kostalergi, of which he had made nigh fifty drafts, and not one with +which he was satisfied. +</p> +<p> +It was not really very easy to do what he wished. He desired to seem a +warm, rapturous, impulsive lover, who had no thought in life—no +other hope or ambition—than the success of his suit. He sought to +show that she had so enraptured and enthralled him that, until she +consented to share his fortunes, he was a man utterly lost to life and +life’s ambitions; and while insinuating what a tremendous responsibility +she would take on herself if she should venture by a refusal of him to rob +the world of those abilities that the age could ill spare, he also dimly +shadowed the natural pride a woman ought to feel in knowing that she was +asked to be the partner of such a man, and that one, for whom destiny in +all likelihood reserved the highest rewards of public life, was then, with +the full consciousness of what he was, and what awaited him, ready to +share that proud eminence with her, as a prince might have offered to +share his throne. +</p> +<p> +In spite of himself, in spite of all he could do, it was on this latter +part of his letter his pen ran most freely. He could condense his +raptures, he could control in most praiseworthy fashion all the +extravagances of passion and the imaginative joys of love, but, for the +life of him, he could abate nothing of the triumphant ecstasy that must be +the feeling of the woman who had won him—the passionate delight of +her who should be his wife, and enter life the chosen one of his +affection. +</p> +<p> +It was wonderful how glibly he could insist on this to himself; and +fancying for the moment that he was one of the outer world commenting on +the match, say, ‘Yes, let people decry the Walpole class how they might—they +are elegant, they are exclusive, they are fastidious, they are all that +you like to call the spoiled children of Fortune in their wit, their +brilliancy, and their readiness, but they are the only men, the only men +in the world, who marry—we’ll not say for “love,” for the phrase is +vulgar—but who marry to please themselves! This girl had not a +shilling. As to family, all is said when we say she was a Greek! Is there +not something downright chivalrous in marrying such a woman? Is it the act +of a worldly man?’ +</p> +<p> +He walked the room, uttering this question to himself over and over. Not +exactly that he thought disparagingly of worldliness and material +advantages, but he had lashed himself into a false enthusiasm as to +qualities which he thought had some special worshippers of their own, and +whose good opinion might possibly be turned to profit somehow and +somewhere, if he only knew how and where. It was a monstrous fine thing he +was about to do; that he felt. Where was there another man in his position +would take a portionless girl and make her his wife? Cadets and cornets in +light-dragoon regiments did these things: they liked their ‘bit of +beauty’; and there was a sort of mock-poetry about these creatures that +suited that sort of thing; but for a man who wrote his letters from +Brookes’s, and whose dinner invitations included all that was great in +town, to stoop to such an alliance was as bold a defiance as one could +throw at a world of self-seeking and conventionality. +</p> +<p> +‘That Emperor of the French did it,’ cried he. ‘I cannot recall to my mind +another. He did the very same thing I am going to do. To be sure, he had +the “pull on me” in one point. As he said himself, “<i>I</i> am a +parvenu.” Now, <i>I</i> cannot go that far! I must justify my act on other +grounds, as I hope I can do,’ cried he, after a pause; while, with head +erect and swelling chest, he went on: ‘I felt within me the place I yet +should occupy. I knew—ay, knew—the prize that awaited me, and +I asked myself, “Do you see in any capital of Europe one woman with whom +you would like to share this fortune? Is there one sufficiently gifted and +graceful to make her elevation seem a natural and fitting promotion, and +herself appear the appropriate occupant of the station?” +</p> +<p> +‘She is wonderfully beautiful: there is no doubt of it. Such beauty as +they have never seen here in their lives! Fanciful extravagances in dress, +and atrocious hair-dressing, cannot disfigure her; and by Jove! she has +tried both. And one has only to imagine that woman dressed and “coifféed,” +as she might be, to conceive such a triumph as London has not witnessed +for the century! And I do long for such a triumph. If my lord would only +invite us here, were it but for a week! We should be asked to Goreham and +the Bexsmiths’. My lady never omits to invite a great beauty. It’s <i>her</i> +way to protest that she is still handsome, and not at all jealous. How are +we to get “asked” to Bruton Street?’ asked he over and over, as though the +sounds must secure the answer. ‘Maude will never permit it. The unlucky +picture has settled <i>that</i> point. Maude will not suffer her to cross +the threshold! But for the portrait I could bespeak my cousin’s favour and +indulgence for a somewhat countrified young girl, dowdy and awkward. I +could plead for her good looks in that <i>ad misericordiam</i> fashion +that disarms jealousy and enlists her generosity for a humble connection +she need never see more of! If I could only persuade Maude that I had done +an indiscretion, and that I knew it, I should be sure of her friendship. +Once make her believe that I have gone clean head over heels into a <i>mésalliance</i>, +and our honeymoon here is assured. I wish I had not tormented her about +Atlee. I wish with all my heart I had kept my impertinences to myself, and +gone no further than certain dark hints about what I could say, if I were +to be evil-minded. What rare wisdom it is not to fire away one’s last +cartridge. I suppose it is too late now. She’ll not forgive me that +disparagement before my uncle; that is, if there be anything between +herself and Atlee, a point which a few minutes will settle when I see them +together. It would not be very difficult to make Atlee regard me as his +friend, and as one ready to aid him in this same ambition. Of course he is +prepared to see in me the enemy of all his plans. What would he not give, +or say, or do, to find me his aider and abettor? Shrewd tactician as the +fellow is, he will know all the value of having an accomplice within the +fortress; and it would be exactly from a man like myself he might be +disposed to expect the most resolute opposition.’ +</p> +<p> +He thought for a long time over this. He turned it over and over in his +mind, canvassing all the various benefits any line of action might +promise, and starting every doubt or objection he could imagine. Nor was +the thought extraneous to his calculations that in forwarding Atlee’s suit +to Maude he was exacting the heaviest ‘vendetta’ for her refusal of +himself. +</p> +<p> +‘There is not a woman in Europe,’ he exclaimed, ‘less fitted to encounter +small means and a small station—to live a life of petty economies, +and be the daily associate of a snob!’ +</p> +<p> +‘What the fellow may become at the end of the race—what place he may +win after years of toil and jobbery, I neither know nor care! <i>She</i> +will be an old woman by that time, and will have had space enough in the +interval to mourn over her rejection of me. I shall be a Minister, not +impossibly at some court of the Continent; Atlee, to say the best, an +Under-Secretary of State for something, or a Poor-Law or Education Chief. +There will be just enough of disparity in our stations to fill her woman’s +heart with bitterness—the bitterness of having backed the wrong man! +</p> +<p> +‘The unavailing regrets that beset us for not having taken the left-hand +road in life instead of the right are our chief mental resources after +forty, and they tell me that we men only know half the poignancy of these +miserable recollections. Women have a special adaptiveness for this kind +of torture—would seem actually to revel in it.’ +</p> +<p> +He turned once more to his desk, and to the letter. Somehow he could make +nothing of it. All the dangers that he desired to avoid so cramped his +ingenuity that he could say little beyond platitudes; and he thought with +terror of her who was to read them. The scornful contempt with which <i>she</i> +would treat such a letter was all before him, and he snatched up the paper +and tore it in pieces. +</p> +<p> +‘It must not be done by writing,’ cried he at last. ‘Who is to guess for +which of the fifty moods of such a woman a man’s letter is to be composed? +What you could say <i>now</i> you dared not have written half an hour ago. +What would have gone far to gain her love yesterday, to-day will show you +the door! It is only by consummate address and skill she can be approached +at all, and without her look and bearing, the inflections of her voice, +her gestures, her “pose,” to guide you, it would be utter rashness to risk +her humour.’ +</p> +<p> +He suddenly bethought him at this moment that he had many things to do in +Ireland ere he left England. He had tradesmen’s bills to settle, and +‘traps’ to be got rid of. ‘Traps’ included furniture, and books, and +horses, and horse-gear: details which at first he had hoped his friend +Lockwood would have taken off his hands; but Lockwood had only written him +word that a Jew broker from Liverpool would give him forty pounds for his +house effects, and as for ‘the screws,’ there was nothing but an auction. +</p> +<p> +Most of us have known at some period or other of our lives what it is to +suffer from the painful disparagement our chattels undergo when they +become objects of sale; but no adverse criticism of your bed or your +bookcase, your ottoman or your arm-chair, can approach the sense of pain +inflicted by the impertinent comments on your horse. Every imputed blemish +is a distinct personality, and you reject the insinuated spavin, or the +suggested splint, as imputations on your honour as a gentleman. In fact, +you are pushed into the pleasant dilemma of either being ignorant as to +the defects of your beast, or wilfully bent on an act of palpable +dishonesty. When we remember that every confession a man makes of his +unacquaintance with matters ‘horsy’ is, in English acceptance, a count in +the indictment against his claim to be thought a gentleman, it is not +surprising that there will be men more ready to hazard their characters +than their connoisseurship. ‘I’ll go over myself to Ireland,’ said he at +last; ‘and a week will do everything.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0068" id="link2HCH0068"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXVIII +</h2> +<h3> +THOUGHTS ON MARRIAGE +</h3> +<p> +Lockwood was seated at his fireside in his quarters, the Upper Castle +Yard, when Walpole burst in upon him unexpectedly. ‘What! you here?’ cried +the major. ‘Have <i>you</i> the courage to face Ireland again?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I see nothing that should prevent my coming here. Ireland certainly +cannot pretend to lay a grievance to my charge.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe not. I don’t understand these things. I only know what people say +in the clubs and laugh over at dinner-tables.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot affect to be very sensitive as to these Celtic criticisms, and I +shall not ask you to recall them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They say that Danesbury got kicked out, all for your blunders!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do they?’ said Walpole innocently. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; and they declare that if old Daney wasn’t the most loyal fellow +breathing, he’d have thrown you over, and owned that the whole mess was of +your own brewing, and that he had nothing to do with it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do they, indeed, say that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s not half of it, for they have a story about a woman—some +woman you met down at Kilgobbin—who made you sing rebel songs and +take a Fenian pledge, and give your word of honour that Donogan should be +let escape.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is that all?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Isn’t it enough? A man must be a glutton for tomfoolery if he could not +be satisfied with that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps you never heard that the chief of the Cabinet took a very +different view of my Irish policy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Irish policy?’ cried the other, with lifted eyebrows. +</p> +<p> +‘I said Irish policy, and repeat the words. Whatever line of political +action tends to bring legislation into more perfect harmony with the +instincts and impulses of a very peculiar people, it is no presumption to +call a policy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With all my heart. Do you mean to deal with that old Liverpool rascal for +the furniture?’ +</p> +<p> +‘His offer is almost an insult.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, you’ll be gratified to know he retracts it. He says now he’ll only +give £35! And as for the screws, Bobbidge, of the Carbineers, will take +them both for £50.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why, Lightfoot alone is worth the money!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Minus the sand-crack.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I deny the sand-crack. She was pricked in the shoeing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course! I never knew a broken knee that wasn’t got by striking the +manger, nor a sand-crack that didn’t come of an awkward smith.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a blessing it would be if all the bad reputations in society could +be palliated as pleasantly.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall I tell Bobbidge you take his offer? He wants an answer at once.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My dear major, don’t you know that the fellow who says that, simply means +to say: “Don’t be too sure that I shall not change my mind.” Look out that +you take the ball at the hop!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Lucky if it hops at all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is that your experience of life?’ said Walpole inquiringly. +</p> +<p> +‘It is one of them. Will you take £50 for the screws?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; and as much more for the break and the dog-cart. I want every rap I +can scrape together, Harry. I’m going out to Guatemala.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I heard that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Infernal place; at least, I believe, in climate—reptiles, fevers, +assassination—it stands without a rival.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So they tell me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was the only thing vacant; and they rather affected a difficulty about +giving it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So they do when they send a man to the Gold Coast; and they tell the +newspapers to say what a lucky dog he is.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can stand all that. What really kills me is giving a man the C.B. when +he is just booked for some home of yellow fever.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They do that too,’ gravely observed the other, who was beginning to feel +the pace of the conversation rather too fast for him. ‘Don’t you smoke?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m rather reducing myself to half batta in tobacco. I’ve thoughts of +marrying.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t do that.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why? It’s not wrong.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, perhaps not; but it’s stupid.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Come now, old fellow, life out there in the tropics is not so jolly all +alone! Alligators are interesting creatures, and cheetahs are pretty pets; +but a man wants a little companionship of a more tender kind; and a nice +girl who would link her fortunes with one’s own, and help one through the +sultry hours, is no bad thing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The nice girl wouldn’t go there.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not so sure of that. With your great knowledge of life, you must know +that there has been a glut in “the nice-girl” market these years back. +Prime lots are sold for a song occasionally, and first-rate samples sent +as far as Calcutta. The truth is, the fellow who looks like a real buyer +may have the pick of the fair, as they call it here.’ +</p> +<p> +So he ought,’ growled out the major. +</p> +<p> +‘The speech is not a gallant one. You are scarcely complimentary to the +ladies, Lockwood.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was you that talked of a woman like a cow, or a sack of corn, not I.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I employed an illustration to answer one of your own arguments.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who is she to be?’ bluntly asked the major. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll tell you whom I mean to ask, for I have not put the question yet.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A long, fine whistle expressed the other’s astonishment. ‘And are you so +sure she’ll say Yes?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have no other assurance than the conviction that a woman might do +worse.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Humph! perhaps she might. I’m not quite certain; but who is she to be?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you remember a visit we made together to a certain Kilgobbin Castle.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To be sure I do. A rum old ruin it was.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you remember two young ladies we met there?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perfectly. Are you going to marry both of them?’ +</p> +<p> +‘My intention is to propose to one, and I imagine I need not tell you +which?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Naturally, the Irish girl. She saved your life—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Pray let me undeceive you in a double error. It is not the Irish girl; +nor did she save my life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps not; but she risked her own to save yours. You said so yourself +at the time.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We’ll not discuss the point now. I hope I feel duly grateful for the +young lady’s heroism, though it is not exactly my intention to record my +gratitude in a special license.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A very equivocal sort of repayment,’ grumbled out Lockwood. +</p> +<p> +‘You are epigrammatic this evening, major.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So, then, it’s the Greek you mean to marry?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is the Greek I mean to ask.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All right. I hope she’ll take you. I think, on the whole, you suit each +other. If I were at all disposed to that sort of bondage, I don’t know a +girl I’d rather risk the road with than the Irish cousin, Miss Kearney.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She is very pretty, exceedingly obliging, and has most winning manners.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She is good-tempered, and she is natural—the two best things a +woman can be.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why not come down along with me and try your luck?’ +</p> +<p> +‘When do you go?’ +</p> +<p> +‘By the 10.30 train to-morrow. I shall arrive at Moate by four o’clock, +and reach the castle to dinner.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They expect you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Only so far, that I have telegraphed a line to say I’m going down to bid +“Good-bye” before I sail for Guatemala. I don’t suspect they know where +that is, but it’s enough when they understand it is far away.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll go with you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will you really?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will. I’ll not say on such an errand as your own, because that requires +a second thought or two; but I’ll reconnoitre, Master Cecil, I’ll +reconnoitre.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose you know there is no money.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should think money most unlikely in such a quarter; and it’s better she +should have none than a small fortune. I’m an old whist-player, and when I +play dummy, there’s nothing I hate more than to see two or three small +trumps in my partner’s hand.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I imagine you’ll not be distressed in that way here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ve got enough to come through with; that is, the thing can be done if +there be no extravagances.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Does one want for more?’ cried Walpole theatrically. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know that. If it were only ask and have, I should like to be +tempted.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have no such ambition. I firmly believe that the moderate limits a man +sets to his daily wants constitute the real liberty of his intellect and +his intellectual nature.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps I’ve no intellectual nature, then,’ growled out Lockwood, ‘for I +know how I should like to spend fifteen thousand a year. I suppose I shall +have to live on as many hundreds.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It can be done.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps it may. Have another weed?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No. I told you already I have begun a tobacco reformation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Does she object to the pipe?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot tell you. The fact is, Lockwood, my future and its fortunes are +just as uncertain as your own. This day week will probably have decided +the destiny of each of us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To our success, then!’ cried the major, filling both their glasses. +</p> +<p> +‘To our success!’ said Walpole, as he drained his, and placed it upside +down on the table. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0069" id="link2HCH0069"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXIX +</h2> +<h3> +AT KILGOBBIN CASTLE +</h3> +<p> +The ‘Blue Goat’ at Moate was destined once more to receive the same +travellers whom we presented to our readers at a very early stage of this +history. +</p> +<p> +‘Not much change here,’ cried Lockwood, as he strode into the little +sitting-room and sat down. ‘I miss the old fellow’s picture, that’s all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ah! by the way,’ said Walpole to the landlord, ‘you had my Lord +Kilgobbin’s portrait up there the last time I came through here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, indeed, sir,’ said the man, smoothing down his hair and looking +apologetically. ‘But the Goats and my lord, who was the Buck Goat, got +into a little disagreement, and they sent away his picture, and his +lordship retired from the club, and—and—that was the way of +it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A heavy blow to your town, I take it,’ said the major, as he poured out +his beer. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, indeed, your honour, I won’t say it was. You see, sir, times is +changed in Ireland. We don’t care as much as we used about the +“neighbouring gentry,” as they called them once; and as for the lord, +there! he doesn’t spend a hundred a year in Moate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How is that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘They get what they want by rail from Dublin, your honour; and he might as +well not be here at all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Can we have a car to carry us over to the castle?’ asked Walpole, who did +not care to hear more of local grievances. +</p> +<p> +‘Sure, isn’t my lord’s car waiting for you since two o’clock!’ said the +host spitefully, for he was not conciliated by a courtesy that was to lose +him a fifteen-shilling fare. ‘Not that there’s much of a horse between the +shafts, or that old Daly himself is an elegant coachman,’ continued the +host; ‘but they’re ready in the yard when you want them.’ +</p> +<p> +The travellers had no reason to delay them in their present quarters, and +taking their places on the car, set out for the castle. +</p> +<p> +‘I scarcely thought when I last drove this road,’ said Walpole, ‘that the +next time I was to come should be on such an errand as my present one.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Humph!’ ejaculated the other. ‘Our noble relative that is to be does not +shine in equipage. That beast is dead lame.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If we had our deserts, Lockwood, we should be drawn by a team of doves, +with the god Cupid on the box.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’d rather have two posters and a yellow postchaise.’ +</p> +<p> +A drizzling rain that now began to fall interrupted all conversation, and +each sank back into his own thoughts for the rest of the way. +</p> +<p> +Lord Kilgobbin, with his daughter at his side, watched the car from the +terrace of the castle as it slowly wound its way along the bog road. +</p> +<p> +‘As well as I can see, Kate, there is a man on each side of the car,’ said +Kearney, as he handed his field-glass to his daughter. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, papa, I see there are two travellers.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I don’t well know why there should be even one! There was no such +great friendship between us that he need come all this way to bid us +good-bye.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Considering the mishap that befell him here, it is a mark of good feeling +to desire to see us all once more, don’t you think so?’ +</p> +<p> +‘May be so,’ muttered he drearily. ‘At all events, it’s not a pleasant +house he’s coming to. Young O’Shea there upstairs, just out of a fever; +and old Miss Betty, that may arrive any moment.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s no question of that. She says it would be ten days or a fortnight +before she is equal to the journey.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Heaven grant it!—hem—I mean that she’ll be strong enough for +it by that time. At all events, if it is the same as to our fine friend, +Mr. Walpole, I wish he’d have taken his leave of us in a letter.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is something new, papa, to see you so inhospitable.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But I am not inhospitable, Kitty. Show me the good fellow that would like +to pass an evening with me and think me good company, and he shall have +the best saddle of mutton and the raciest bottle of claret in the house. +But it’s only mock-hospitality to be entertaining the man that only comes +out of courtesy and just stays as long as good manners oblige him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do not know that I should undervalue politeness, especially when it +takes the shape of a recognition.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, be it so,’ sighed he, almost drearily. ‘If the young gentleman is +so warmly attached to us all that he cannot tear himself away till he has +embraced us, I suppose there’s no help for it. Where is Nina?’ +</p> +<p> +‘She was reading to Gorman when I saw her. She had just relieved Dick, who +has gone out for a walk.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A jolly house for a visitor to come to!’ cried he sarcastically. +</p> +<p> +‘We are not very gay or lively, it is true, papa; but it is not unlikely +that the spirit in which our guest comes here will not need much jollity.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t take it as a kindness for a man to bring me his depression and +his low spirits. I’ve always more of my own than I know what to do with. +Two sorrows never made a joy, Kitty.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There! they are lighting the lamps,’ cried she suddenly. ‘I don’t think +they can be more than three miles away.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have you rooms ready, if there be two coming?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, papa, Mr. Walpole will have his old quarters; and the stag-room is +in readiness if there be another guest.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’d like to have a house as big as the royal barracks, and every room of +it occupied!’ cried Kearney, with a mellow ring in his voice. ‘They talk +of society and pleasant company; but for real enjoyment there’s nothing to +compare with what a man has under his own roof! No claret ever tastes so +good as the decanter he circulates himself. I was low enough half an hour +ago, and now the mere thought of a couple of fellows to dine with me +cheers me up and warms my heart! I’ll give them the green seal, Kitty; and +I don’t know there’s another house in the county could put a bottle of ‘46 +claret before them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So you shall, papa. I’ll go to the cellar myself and fetch it.’ +</p> +<p> +Kearney hastened to make the moderate toilet he called dressing for +dinner, and was only finished when his old servant informed him that two +gentlemen had arrived and gone up to their rooms. +</p> +<p> +‘I wish it was two dozen had come,’ said Kearney, as he descended to the +drawing-room. +</p> +<p> +‘It is Major Lockwood, papa,’ cried Kate, entering and drawing him into a +window-recess; ‘the Major Lockwood that was here before, has come with Mr. +Walpole. I met him in the hall while I had the basket with the wine in my +hand, and he was so cordial and glad to see me you cannot think.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He knew that green wax, Kitty. He tasted that “bin” when he was here +last.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps so; but he certainly seemed overjoyed at something.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Let me see,’ muttered he, ‘wasn’t he the big fellow with the long +moustaches?’ +</p> +<p> +‘A tall, very good-looking man; dark as a Spaniard, and not unlike one.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To be sure, to be sure. I remember him well. He was a capital shot with +the pistol, and he liked his wine. By the way, Nina did not take to him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How do you remember that, papa?’ said she archly. +</p> +<p> +If I don’t mistake, she told me so, or she called him a brute, or a +savage, or some one of those things a man is sure to be, when a woman +discovers he will not be her slave.’ +</p> +<p> +Nina entering at the moment cut short all rejoinder, and Kearney came +forward to meet her with his hand out. +</p> +<p> +‘Shake out your lower courses, and let me look at you,’ cried he, as he +walked round her admiringly. ‘Upon my oath, it’s more beautiful than ever +you are! I can guess what a fate is reserved for those dandies from +Dublin.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you like my dress, sir? Is it becoming?’ asked she. +</p> +<p> +‘Becoming it is; but I’m not sure whether I like it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And how is that, sir?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t see how, with all that floating gauze and swelling lace, a man is +to get an arm round you at all—’ +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot perceive the necessity, sir,’ and the insolent toss of her head, +more forcibly even than her words, resented such a possibility. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0070" id="link2HCH0070"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXX +</h2> +<h3> +ATLEE’S RETURN +</h3> +<p> +When Atlee arrived at Bruton Street, the welcome that met him was almost +cordial. Lord Danesbury—not very demonstrative at any time—received +him with warmth, and Lady Maude gave him her hand with a sort of +significant cordiality that overwhelmed him with delight. The climax of +his enjoyment was, however, reached when Lord Danesbury said to him, ‘We +are glad to see you at home again.’ +</p> +<p> +This speech sank deep into his heart, and he never wearied of repeating it +over and over to himself. When he reached his room, where his luggage had +already preceded him, and found his dressing articles laid out, and all +the little cares and attentions which well-trained servants understand +awaiting him, he muttered, with a tremulous sort of ecstasy, ‘This is a +very glorious way to come home!’ +</p> +<p> +The rich furniture of the room, the many appliances of luxury and ease +around him, the sense of rest and quiet, so delightful after a journey, +all appealed to him as he threw himself into a deep-cushioned chair. He +cried aloud, ‘Home! home! Is this indeed home? What a different thing from +that mean life of privation and penury I have always been associating with +this word—from that perpetual struggle with debt—the miserable +conflict that went on through every day, till not an action, not a +thought, remained untinctured with money, and if a momentary pleasure +crossed the path, the cost of it as certain to tarnish all the enjoyment! +Such was the only home I have ever known, or indeed imagined.’ +</p> +<p> +It is said that the men who have emerged from very humble conditions in +life, and occupy places of eminence or promise, are less overjoyed at this +change of fortune than impressed with a kind of resentment towards the +destiny that once had subjected them to privation. Their feeling is not so +much joy at the present as discontent with the past. +</p> +<p> +‘Why was I not born to all this?’ cried Atlee indignantly. ‘What is there +in me, or in my nature, that this should be a usurpation? Why was I not +schooled at Eton, and trained at Oxford? Why was I not bred up amongst the +men whose competitor I shall soon find myself? Why have I not their ways, +their instincts, their watchwords, their pastimes, and even their +prejudices, as parts of my very nature? Why am I to learn these late in +life, as a man learns a new language, and never fully catches the sounds +or the niceties? Is there any competitorship I should flinch from, any +rivalry I should fear, if I had but started fair in the race?’ +</p> +<p> +This sense of having been hardly treated by Fortune at the outset, marred +much of his present enjoyment, accompanied as it was by a misgiving that, +do what he might, that early inferiority would cling to him, like some rag +of a garment that he must wear over all his ‘braverie,’ proclaiming as it +did to the world, ‘This is from what I sprung originally.’ +</p> +<p> +It was not by any exercise of vanity that Atlee knew he talked better, +knew more, was wittier and more ready-witted than the majority of men of +his age and standing. The consciousness that he could do scores of things +<i>they</i> could not do was not enough, tarnished as it was by a +misgiving that, by some secret mystery of breeding, some freemasonry of +fashion, he was not one of them, and that this awkward fact was suspended +over him for life, to arrest his course in the hour of success, and balk +him at the very moment of victory. +</p> +<p> +‘Till a man’s adoption amongst them is ratified by a marriage, he is not +safe,’ muttered he. ‘Till the fate and future of one of their own is +embarked in the same boat with himself, they’ll not grieve over his +shipwreck.’ +</p> +<p> +Could he but call Lady Maude his wife! Was this possible? There were +classes in which affections went for much, where there was such a thing as +engaging these same affections, and actually pledging all hope of +happiness in life on the faith of such engagements. These, it is true, +were the sentiments that prevailed in humbler walks of life, amongst those +lowly-born people whose births and marriages were not chronicled in +gilt-bound volumes. The Lady Maudes of the world, whatever imprudences +they might permit themselves, certainly never ‘fell in love.’ Condition +and place in the world were far too serious things to be made the sport of +sentiment. Love was a very proper thing in three-volume novels, and Mr. +Mudie drove a roaring trade in it; but in the well-bred world, immersed in +all its engagements, triple-deep in its projects and promises for +pleasure, where was the time, where the opportunity, for this pleasant +fooling? That luxurious selfishness in which people delight to plan a +future life, and agree to think that they have in themselves what can +confront narrow fortune and difficulty—these had no place in the +lives of persons of fashion! In that coquetry of admiration and flattery +which in the language of slang is called spooning, young persons +occasionally got so far acquainted that they agreed to be married, pretty +much as they agreed to waltz or to polka together; but it was always with +the distinct understanding that they were doing what mammas would approve +of, and family solicitors of good conscience could ratify. No tyrannical +sentimentality, no uncontrollable gush of sympathy, no irresistible +convictions about all future happiness being dependent on one issue, +overbore these natures, and made them insensible to title, and rank, and +station, and settlements. +</p> +<p> +In one word, Atlee, after due consideration, satisfied his mind that, +though a man might gain the affections of the doctor’s daughter or the +squire’s niece, and so establish him as an element of her happiness that +friends would overlook all differences of fortune, and try to make some +sort of compromise with Fate, all these were unsuited to the sphere in +which Lady Maude moved. It was, indeed, a realm where this coinage did not +circulate. To enable him to address her with any prospect of success, he +should be able to show—ay, and to show argumentatively—that +she was, in listening to him, about to do something eminently prudent and +worldly-wise. She must, in short, be in a position to show her friends and +‘society’ that she had not committed herself to anything wilful or foolish—had +not been misled by a sentiment or betrayed by a sympathy; and that the +well-bred questioner who inquired, ‘Why did she marry Atlee?’ should be +met by an answer satisfactory and convincing. +</p> +<p> +In the various ways he canvassed the question and revolved it with +himself, there was one consideration which, if I were at all concerned for +his character for gallantry, I should be reluctant to reveal; but as I +feel little interest on this score, I am free to own was this. He +remembered that as Lady Maude was no longer in her first youth, there was +reason to suppose she might listen to addresses now which, some years ago, +would have met scant favour in her eyes. +</p> +<p> +In the matrimonial Lloyd’s, if there were such a body, she would not have +figured A No. 1; and the risks of entering the conjugal state have +probably called for an extra premium. Atlee attached great importance to +this fact; but it was not the less a matter which demanded the greatest +delicacy of treatment. He must know it, and he must not know it. He must +see that she had been the belle of many seasons, and he must pretend to +regard her as fresh to the ways of life, and new to society. He trusted a +good deal to his tact to do this, for while insinuating to her the +possible future of such a man as himself—the high place, and the +great rewards which, in all likelihood, awaited him—there would come +an opportune moment to suggest, that to any one less gifted, less +conversant with knowledge of life than herself, such reasonings could not +be addressed. +</p> +<p> +‘It could never be,’ cried he aloud; ‘to some miss fresh from the +schoolroom and the governess, I could dare to talk a language only +understood by those who have been conversant with high questions, and +moved in the society of thoughtful talkers.’ +</p> +<p> +There is no quality so dangerous to eulogise as experience, and Atlee +thought long over this. One determination or another must speedily be come +to. If there was no likelihood of success with Lady Maude, he must not +lose his chances with the Greek girl. The sum, whatever it might be, which +her father should obtain for his secret papers, would constitute a very +respectable portion. ‘I have a stronger reason to fight for liberal +terms,’ thought he, ‘than the Prince Kostalergi imagines; and, +fortunately, that fine parental trait, that noble desire to make a +provision for his child, stands out so clearly in my brief, I should be a +sorry advocate if I could not employ it.’ +</p> +<p> +In the few words that passed between Lord Danesbury and himself on +arriving, he learned that there was but little chance of winning his +election for the borough. Indeed, he bore the disappointment jauntily and +good-humouredly. That great philosophy of not attaching too much +importance to any one thing in life, sustained him in every venture. ‘Bet +on the field—never back the favourite,’ was his formula for +inculcating the wisdom of trusting to the general game of life, rather +than to any particular emergency. ‘Back the field,’ he would say, ‘and you +must be unlucky, or you’ll come right in the long run.’ +</p> +<p> +They dined that day alone, that is, they were but three at table; and +Atlee enjoyed the unspeakable pleasure of hearing them talk with the +freedom and unconstraint people only indulge in when ‘at home.’ Lord +Danesbury discussed confidential questions of political importance: told +how his colleagues agreed in this, or differed on that; adverted to the +nice points of temperament which made one man hopeful and that other +despondent or distrustful; he exposed the difficulties they had to meet in +the Commons, and where the Upper House was intractable; and even went so +far in his confidences as to admit where the criticisms of the Press were +felt to be damaging to the administration. +</p> +<p> +‘The real danger of ridicule,’ said he, ‘is not the pungency of the +satire, it is the facility with which it is remembered and circulated. The +man who reads the strong leader in the <i>Times</i> may have some general +impression of being convinced, but he cannot repeat its arguments or quote +its expressions. The pasquinade or the squib gets a hold on the mind, and +in its very drollery will ensure its being retained there.’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee was not a little gratified to hear that this opinion was delivered +apropos to a short paper of his own, whose witty sarcasms on the Cabinet +were exciting great amusement in town, and much curiosity as to the +writer. +</p> +<p> +‘He has not seen “The Whitebait Dinner” yet,’ said Lady Maude; ‘the +cleverest <i>jeu d’esprit</i> of the day.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ay, or of any day,’ broke in Lord Danesbury. ‘Even the <i>Anti-Jacobin</i> +has nothing better. The notion is this. The Devil happens to be taking a +holiday, and he is in town just at the time of the Ministerial dinner, and +hearing that he is at Claridge’s, the Cabinet, ashamed at the little +attention bestowed on a crowned head, ask him down to Greenwich. He +accepts, and to kill an hour— +</p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +“He strolled down, of course, +To the Parliament House, +And heard how England stood, +As she has since the Flood, +Without ally or friend to assist her. +But, while every persuasion +Was full of invasion +From Russian or Prussian, +Yet the only discussion +Was, how should a Gentleman marry his sister.”’ +</pre> +<p> +‘Can you remember any more of it, my lord?’ asked Atlee, on whose table at +that moment were lying the proof-sheets of the production. +</p> +<p> +‘Maude has it all somewhere. You must find it for him, and let him guess +the writer—if he can.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What do the clubs say?’ asked Atlee. +</p> +<p> +‘I think they are divided between Orlop and Bouverie. I’m told that the +Garrick people say it’s Sankey, a young fellow in F. O.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You should see Aunt Jerningham about it, Mr. Atlee—her eagerness is +driving her half mad.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Take him out to “Lebanon” on Sunday,’ said my lord; and Lady Maude agreed +with a charming grace and courtesy, adding as she left the room, ‘So +remember you are engaged for Sunday.’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee bowed as he held the door open for her to pass out, and threw into +his glance what he desired might mean homage and eternal devotion. +</p> +<p> +‘Now then for a little quiet confab,’ said my lord. ‘Let me hear what you +mean by your telegram. All I could make out was that you found our man.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I found him, and passed several hours in his company.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Was the fellow very much out at elbows, as usual?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, my lord—thriving, and likely to thrive. He has just been named +envoy to the Ottoman Court.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Bah!’ was all the reply his incredulity could permit. +</p> +<p> +‘True, I assure you. Such is the estimation he is held in at Athens, the +Greeks declare he has not his equal. You are aware that his name is +Spiridion Kostalergi, and he claims to be Prince of Delos.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With all my heart. Our Hellenic friends never quarrel over their +nobility. There are titles and to spare for every one. Will he give us our +papers?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; but not without high terms. He declares, in fact, my lord, that you +can no more return to the Bosporus without <i>him</i> than he can go there +without <i>you</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is the fellow insolent enough to take this ground?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is he. In fact, he presumes to talk as your lordship’s colleague, +and hints at the several points in which you may act in concert.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is very Greek all this.’ +</p> +<p> +‘His terms are ten thousand pounds in cash, and—’ +</p> +<p> +‘There, there, that will do. Why not fifty—why not a hundred +thousand?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He affects a desire to be moderate, my lord.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope you withdrew at once after such a proposal? I trust you did not +prolong the interview a moment longer?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I arose, indeed, and declared that the mere mention of such terms was +like a refusal to treat at all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you retired?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I gained the door, when he detained me. He has, I must admit, a +marvellous plausibility, for though at first he seemed to rely on the +all-importance of these documents to your lordship—how far they +would compromise you in the past and impede you for the future, how they +would impair your influence, and excite the animosity of many who were +freely canvassed and discussed in them—yet he abandoned all that at +the end of our interview, and restricted himself to the plea that the sum, +if a large one, could not be a serious difficulty to a great English +noble, and would be the crowning fortune of a poor Greek gentleman, who +merely desired to secure a marriage-portion for his only daughter.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you believed this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I so far believed him that I have his pledge in writing that, when he has +your lordship’s assurance that you will comply with his terms—and he +only asks that much—he will deposit the papers in the hands of the +Minister at Athens, and constitute your lordship the trustee of the amount +in favour of his daughter, the sum only to be paid on her marriage.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How can it possibly concern me that he has a daughter, or why should I +accept such a trust?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The proposition had no other meaning than to guarantee the good faith on +which his demand is made.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t believe in the daughter.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is, that there is one?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No. I am persuaded that she has no existence. It is some question of a +mistress or a dependant; and if so, the sentimentality, which would seem +to have appealed so forcibly to you, fails at once.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is quite true, my lord; and I cannot pretend to deny the weakness +you accuse me of. There may be no daughter in the question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ah! You begin to perceive now that you surrendered your convictions too +easily, Atlee. You failed in that element of “restless distrust” that +Talleyrand used to call the temper of the diplomatist.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is not the first time I have had to feel I am your lordship’s +inferior.’ +</p> +<p> +‘<i>My</i> education was not made in a day, Atlee. It need be no +discouragement to you that you are not as long-sighted as I am. No, no; +rely upon it, there is no daughter in the case.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With that conviction, my lord, what is easier than to make your adhesion +to his terms conditional on his truth? You agree, if his statement be in +all respects verified.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Which implies that it is of the least consequence to me whether the +fellow has a daughter or not?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is so only as the guarantee of the man’s veracity.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And shall I give ten thousand pounds to test <i>that?</i>’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, my lord; but to repossess yourself of what, in very doubtful hands, +might prove a great scandal and a great disaster.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ten thousand pounds! ten thousand pounds!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why not eight—perhaps five? I have not your lordship’s great +knowledge to guide me, and I cannot tell when these men really mean to +maintain their ground. From my own very meagre experiences, I should say +he was not a very tractable individual. He sees some promise of better +fortune before him, and like a genuine gambler—as I hear he is—he +determines to back his luck.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ten thousand pounds!’ muttered the other, below his breath. +</p> +<p> +‘As regards the money, my lord, I take it that these same papers were +documents which more or less concerned the public service—they were +in no sense personal, although meant to be private; and, although in my +ignorance I may be mistaken, it seems to me that the fund devoted to +secret services could not be more fittingly appropriated than in acquiring +documents whose publicity could prove a national injury.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Totally wrong—utterly wrong. The money could never be paid on such +a pretence—the “Office” would not sanction—no Minister would +dare to advise it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then I come back to my original suggestion. I should give a conditional +acceptance, and treat for a reduction of the amount.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You would say five?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I opine, my lord, eight would have more chance of success.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are a warm advocate for your client,’ said his lordship, laughing; +and though the shot was merely a random one, it went so true to the mark +that Atlee flushed up and became crimson all over. ‘Don’t mistake me, +Atlee,’ said his lordship, in a kindly tone. ‘I know thoroughly how <i>my</i> +interests, and only mine, have any claim on your attention. This Greek +fellow must be less than nothing to you. Tell me now frankly, do you +believe one word he has told you? Is he really named as Minister to +Turkey?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That much I can answer for—he is.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What of the daughter—is there a daughter?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suspect there may be. However, the matter admits of an easy proof. He +has given me names and addresses in Ireland of relatives with whom she is +living. Now, I am thoroughly conversant with Ireland, and, by the +indications in my power, I can pledge myself to learn all, not only about +the existence of this person, but of such family circumstances as might +serve to guide you in your resolve. Time is what is most to be thought of +here. Kostalergi requires a prompt answer—first of all, your +assurance that you will support his claim to be received by the Sultan. +Well, my lord, if you refuse, Mouravieff will do it. You know better than +me how impolitic it might be to throw those Turks more into Russian +influence—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Never mind <i>that</i>, Atlee. Don’t distress yourself about the +political aspect of the question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I promised a telegraphic line to say, would you or would you not sustain +his nomination. It was to be Yes or No—not more.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Say Yes. I’ll not split hairs about what Greek best represents his +nation. Say Yes.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am sure, my lord, you do wisely. He is evidently a man of ability, and, +I suspect, not morally much worse than his countrymen in general.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Say Yes; and then’—he mused for some minutes before he continued—‘and +then run over to Ireland—learn something, if you can, of this girl, +with whom she is staying, in what position, what guarantees, if any, could +be had for the due employment and destination of a sum of money, in the +event of our agreeing to pay it. Mind, it is simply as a gauge of the +fellow’s veracity that this story has any value for us. Daughter or no +daughter, is not of any moment to me; but I want to test the problem—can +he tell one word of truth about anything? You are shrewd enough to see the +bearing of this narrative on all he has told you—where it sustains, +where it accuses him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall I set out at once, my lord?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No. Next week will do. We’ll leave him to ruminate over your telegram. <i>That</i> +will show him we have entertained his project; and he is too practised a +hand not to know the value of an opened negotiation. Cradock and Mellish, +and one or two more, wish to talk with you about Turkey. Graydon, too, has +some questions to ask you about Suez. They dine here on Monday. Tuesday we +are to have the Hargraves and Lord Masham, and a couple of +Under-Secretaries of State; and Lady Maude will tell us about Wednesday, +for all these people, Atlee, are coming to meet <i>you</i>. The newspapers +have so persistently been keeping you before the world, every one wants to +see you.’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee might have told his lordship—but he did not—by what +agency it chanced that his journeys and his jests were so thoroughly known +to the press of every capital in Europe. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0071" id="link2HCH0071"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXI +</h2> +<h3> +THE DRIVE +</h3> +<p> +Sunday came, and with it the visit to South Kensington, where Aunt +Jerningham lived; and Atlee found himself seated beside Lady Maude in a +fine roomy barouche, whirling along at a pace that our great moralist +himself admits to be amongst the very pleasantest excitements humanity can +experience. +</p> +<p> +‘I hope you will add your persuasions to mine, Mr. Atlee, and induce my +uncle to take these horses with him to Turkey. You know Constantinople, +and can say that real carriage-horses cannot be had there.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Horses of this size, shape, and action the Sultan himself has not the +equals of.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No one is more aware than my lord,’ continued she, ‘that the measure of +an ambassador’s influence is, in a great degree, the style and splendour +in which he represents his country, and that his household, his equipage, +his retinue, and his dinners, should mark distinctly the station he +assumes to occupy. Some caprice of Mr. Walpole’s about Arab horses—Arabs +of bone and blood he used to talk of—has taken hold of my uncle’s +mind, and I half fear that he may not take the English horses with him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘By the way,’ said Atlee, half listlessly, ‘where <i>is</i> Walpole? What +has become of him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is in Ireland at this moment.’ +</p> +<p> +‘In Ireland! Good heavens! has he not had enough of Ireland?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Apparently not. He went over there on Tuesday last.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what can he possibly have to do in Ireland?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should say that <i>you</i> are more likely to furnish the answer to +that question than I. If I’m not much mistaken, his letters are forwarded +to the same country-house where you first made each other’s acquaintance.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What, Kilgobbin Castle?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, it is something Castle, and I think the name you mentioned.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And this only puzzles me the more,’ added Atlee, pondering. ‘His first +visit there, at the time I met him, was a mere accident of travel—a +tourist’s curiosity to see an old castle supposed to have some historic +associations.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Were there not some other attractions in the spot?’ interrupted she, +smiling. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, there was a genial old Irish squire, who did the honours very +handsomely, if a little rudely, and there were two daughters, or a +daughter and a niece, I’m not very clear which, who sang Irish melodies +and talked rebellion to match very amusingly.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Were they pretty?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, perhaps courtesy would say “pretty,” but a keener criticism would +dwell on certain awkwardnesses of manner—Walpole called them +Irishries.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, he confessed to have been amused with the eccentric habits and odd +ways, but he was not sparing of his strictures afterwards.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So that there were no “tendernesses?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, I’ll not go that far. I rather suspect there were “tendernesses,” but +only such as a fine gentleman permits himself amongst semi-savage peoples—something +that seems to say, “Be as fond of me as you like, and it is a great +privilege you enjoy; and I, on my side, will accord you such of my +affections as I set no particular store by.” Just as one throws small coin +to a beggar.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, Mr. Atlee!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am ashamed to own that I have seen something of this kind myself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is not like my cousin Cecil to behave in that fashion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I might say, Lady Maude, that your home experiences of people would prove +a very fallacious guide as to what they might or might not do in a society +of whose ways you know nothing.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A man of honour would always be a man of honour.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There are men, and men of honour, as there are persons of excellent +principles with delicate moral health, and they—I say it with regret—must +be satisfied to be as respectably conducted as they are able.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think you like Cecil,’ said she, half-puzzled by his subtlety, +but hitting what she thought to be a ‘blot.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is difficult for me to tell his cousin what I should like to say in +answer to this remark.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, have no embarrassment on that score. There are very few people less +trammelled by the ties of relationship than we are. Speak out, and if you +want to say anything particularly severe, have no fears of wounding my +susceptibilities.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And do you know, Lady Maude,’ said he, in a voice of almost confidential +meaning, ‘this was the very thing I was dreading? I had at one time a good +deal of Walpole’s intimacy—I’ll not call it friendship, for somehow +there were certain differences of temperament that separated us +continually. We could commonly agree upon the same things; we could never +be one-minded about the same people. In <i>my</i> experiences, the world +is by no means the cold-hearted and selfish thing <i>he</i> deems it; and +yet I suppose, Lady Maude, if there were to be a verdict given upon us +both, nine out of ten would have fixed on <i>me</i> as the scoffer. Is not +this so?’ +</p> +<p> +The artfulness with which he had contrived to make himself and his +character a question of discussion achieved only a half-success, for she +only gave one of her most meaningless smiles as she said, ‘I do not know; +I am not quite sure.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And yet I am more concerned to learn what <i>you</i> would think on this +score than for the opinion of the whole world.’ +</p> +<p> +Like a man who has taken a leap and found a deep ‘drop’ on the other side, +he came to a dead halt as he saw the cold and impassive look her features +had assumed. He would have given worlds to recall his speech and stand as +he did before it was uttered; for though she did not say one word, there +was that in her calm and composed expression which reproved all that +savoured of passionate appeal. A now-or-never sort of courage nerved him, +and he went on: ‘I know all the presumption of a man like myself daring to +address such words to you, Lady Maude; but do you remember that though all +eyes but one saw only fog-bank in the horizon, Columbus maintained there +was land in the distance; and so say I, “He who would lay his fortunes at +your feet now sees high honours and great rewards awaiting him in the +future. It is with you to say whether these honours become the crowning +glories of a life, or all pursuit of them be valueless!” May I—dare +I hope?’ +</p> +<p> +‘This is Lebanon,’ said she; ‘at least I think so’; and she held her glass +to her eye. ‘Strange caprice, wasn’t it, to call her house Lebanon because +of those wretched cedars? Aunt Jerningham is so odd!’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is a crowd of carriages here,’ said Atlee, endeavouring to speak +with unconcern. +</p> +<p> +‘It is her day; she likes to receive on Sundays, as she says she escapes +the bishops. By the way, did you tell me you were an old friend of hers, +or did I dream it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m afraid it was the vision revealed it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Because, if so, I must not take you in. She has a rule against all +presentations on Sundays—they are only her intimates she receives on +that day. We shall have to return as we came.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not for worlds. Pray let me not prove an embarrassment. You can make your +visit, and I will go back on foot. Indeed, I should like a walk.’ +</p> +<p> +‘On no account! Take the carriage, and send it back for me. I shall remain +here till afternoon tea.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Thanks, but I hold to my walk.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is a charming day, and I’m sure a walk will be delightful.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Am I to suppose, Lady Maude,’ said he, in a low voice, as he assisted her +to alight, ‘that you will deign me a more formal answer at another time to +the words I ventured to address you? May I live in the hope that I shall +yet regard this day as the most fortunate of my life?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is wonderful weather for November—an English November, too. Pray +let me assure you that you need not make yourself uneasy about what you +were speaking of. I shall not mention it to any one, least of all to “my +lord”; and as for myself, it shall be as completely forgotten as though it +had never been uttered.’ +</p> +<p> +And she held out her hand with a sort of cordial frankness that actually +said, ‘There, you are forgiven! Is there any record of generosity like +this?’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee bowed low and resignedly over that gloved hand, which he felt he was +touching for the last time, and turned away with a rush of thoughts +through his brain, in which certainly the pleasantest were not the +predominating ones. +</p> +<p> +He did not dine that day at Bruton Street, and only returned about ten +o’clock, when he knew he should find Lord Danesbury in his study. +</p> +<p> +‘I have determined, my lord,’ said he, with somewhat of decision in his +tone that savoured of a challenge, ‘to go over to Ireland by the morning +mail.’ +</p> +<p> +Too much engrossed by his own thoughts to notice the other’s manner, Lord +Danesbury merely turned from the papers before him to say, ‘Ah, indeed! it +would be very well done. We were talking about that, were we not, +yesterday? What was it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The Greek—Kostalergi’s daughter, my lord?’ +</p> +<p> +‘To be sure. You are incredulous about her, ain’t you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘On the contrary, my lord, I opine that the fellow has told us the truth. +I believe he has a daughter, and destines this money to be her dowry.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With all my heart; I do not see how it should concern me. If I am to pay +the money, it matters very little to me whether he invests it in a Greek +husband or the Double Zero—speculations, I take it, pretty much +alike. Have you sent a telegram?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have, my lord. I have engaged your lordship’s word that you are willing +to treat.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just so; it is exactly what I am! Willing to treat, willing to hear +argument, and reply with my own, why I should give more for anything than +it is worth.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We need not discuss further what we can only regard from one point of +view, and that our own.’ +</p> +<p> +Lord Danesbury started. The altered tone and manner struck him now for the +first time, and he threw his spectacles on the table and stared at the +speaker with astonishment. +</p> +<p> +‘There is another point, my lord,’ continued Atlee, with unbroken calm, +‘that I should like to ask your lordship’s judgment upon, as I shall in a +few hours be in Ireland, where the question will present itself. There was +some time ago in Ireland a case brought under your lordship’s notice of a +very gallant resistance made by a family against an armed party who +attacked a house, and your lordship was graciously pleased to say that +some recognition should be offered to one of the sons—something to +show how the Government regarded and approved his spirited conduct.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know, I know; but I am no longer the Viceroy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am aware of that, my lord, nor is your successor appointed; but any +suggestion or wish of your lordship’s would be accepted by the Lords +Justices with great deference, all the more in payment of a debt. If, +then, your lordship would recommend this young man for the first vacancy +in the constabulary, or some place in the Customs, it would satisfy a most +natural expectation, and, at the same time, evidence your lordship’s +interest for the country you so late ruled over.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is nothing more pernicious than forestalling other people’s +patronage, Atlee. Not but if this thing was to be done for yourself—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Pardon me, my lord, I do not desire anything for myself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, be it so. Take this to the Chancellor or the Commander-in-Chief’—and +he scribbled a few hasty lines as he talked—‘and say what you can in +support of it. If they give you something good, I shall be heartily glad +of it, and I wish you years to enjoy it.’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee only smiled at the warmth of interest for him which was linked with +such a shortness of memory; but was too much wounded in his pride to +reply. And now, as he saw that his lordship had replaced his glasses and +resumed his work, he walked noiselessly to the door and withdrew. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0072" id="link2HCH0072"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXII +</h2> +<h3> +THE SAUNTER IN TOWN +</h3> +<p> +As Atlee sauntered along towards Downing Street, whence he purposed to +despatch his telegram to Greece, he thought a good deal of his late +interview with Lord Danesbury. There was much in it that pleased him. He +had so far succeeded in <i>re</i> Kostalergi, that the case was not +scouted out of court; the matter, at least, was to be entertained, and +even that was something. The fascination of a scheme to be developed, an +intrigue to be worked out, had for his peculiar nature a charm little +short of ecstasy. The demand upon his resources for craft and skill, +concealment and duplicity, was only second in his estimation to the +delight he felt at measuring his intellect with some other, and seeing +whether, in the game of subtlety, he had his master. +</p> +<p> +Next to this, but not without a long interval, was the pleasure he felt at +the terms in which Lord Danesbury spoke of him. No orator accustomed to +hold an assembly enthralled by his eloquence—no actor habituated to +sway the passions of a crowded theatre—is more susceptible to the +promptings of personal vanity than your ‘practised talker.’ The man who +devotes himself to be a ‘success’ in conversation glories more in his +triumphs, and sets a greater value on his gifts, than any other I know of. +</p> +<p> +That men of mark and station desired to meet him—that men whose +position secured to them the advantage of associating with the pleasantest +people and the freshest minds—men who commanded, so to say, the best +talking in society—wished to confer with and to hear <i>him</i>, was +an intense flattery, and he actually longed for the occasion of display. +He had learned a good deal since he had left Ireland. He had less of that +fluency which Irishmen cultivate, seldom ventured on an epigram, never on +an anecdote, was guardedly circumspect as to statements of fact, and, on +the whole, liked to understate his case, and affect distrust of his own +opinion. Though there was not one of these which were not more or less +restrictions on him, he could be brilliant and witty when occasion served, +and there was an incisive neatness in his repartee in which he had no +equal. Some of those he was to meet were well known amongst the most +agreeable people of society, and he rejoiced that at least, if he were to +be put upon his trial, he should be judged by his peers. +</p> +<p> +With all these flattering prospects, was it not strange that his lordship +never dropped a word, nor even a hint, as to his personal career? He had +told him, indeed, that he could not hope for success at Cradford, and +laughingly said, ‘You have left Odger miles behind you in your Radicalism. +Up to this, we have had no Parliament in England sufficiently advanced for +your opinions.’ On the whole, however, if not followed up—which Lord +Danesbury strongly objected to its being—he said there was no great +harm in a young man making his first advances in political life by +something startling. They are only fireworks, it is true; the great +requisite is, that they be brilliant, and do not go out with a smoke and a +bad smell! +</p> +<p> +Beyond this, he had told him nothing. Was he minded to take him out to +Turkey, and as what? He had already explained to him that the old days in +which a clever fellow could be drafted at once into a secretaryship of +embassy were gone by; that though a parliamentary title was held to +supersede all others, whether in the case of a man or a landed estate, it +was all-essential to be in the House for <i>that</i>, and that a +diplomatist, like a sweep, must begin when he is little. +</p> +<p> +‘As his private secretary,’ thought he, ‘the position is at once fatal to +all my hopes with regard to Lady Maude.’ There was not a woman living more +certain to measure a man’s pretensions by his station. ‘Hitherto I have +not been “classed.” I might be anybody, or go anywhere. My wide +capabilities seemed to say that if I descended to do small things, it +would be quite as easy for me to do great ones; and though I copied +despatches, they would have been rather better if I had drafted them +also.’ +</p> +<p> +Lady Maude knew this. She knew the esteem in which her uncle held him. She +knew how that uncle, shrewd man of the world as he was, valued the sort of +qualities he saw in him, and could, better than most men, decide how far +such gifts were marketable, and what price they brought to their +possessor. +</p> +<p> +‘And yet,’ cried he, ‘they don’t know one-half of me! What would they say +if they knew that it was I wrote the great paper on Turkish Finance in the +<i>Mémorial Diplomatique</i>, and the review of it in the <i>Quarterly</i>; +that it was I who exposed the miserable compromise of Thiers with Gambetta +in the <i>Débuts</i>, and defended him in the <i>Daily News</i>; that the +hysterical scream of the <i>Kreuz Zeitung</i>, and the severe article on +Bismarck in the <i>Fortnightly</i>, were both mine; and that at this +moment I am urging in the <i>Pike</i> how the Fenian prisoners must be +amnestied, and showing in a London review that if they are liberated, Mr. +Gladstone should be attainted for high treason? I should like well to let +them know all this; and I’m not sure I would not risk all the consequences +to do it.’ +</p> +<p> +And then he as suddenly bethought him how little account men of letters +were held in by the Lady Maudes of this world; what a humble place they +assigned them socially; and how small they estimated their chances of +worldly success! +</p> +<p> +‘It is the unrealism of literature as a career strikes them; and they +cannot see how men are to assure themselves of the <i>quoi vivre</i> by +providing what so few want, and even they could exist without.’ +</p> +<p> +It was in a reverie of this fashion he walked the streets, as little +cognisant of the crowd around him as if he were sauntering along some +rippling stream in a mountain gorge. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0073" id="link2HCH0073"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXIII +</h2> +<h3> +A DARKENED KOOM +</h3> +<p> +The ‘comatose’ state, to use the language of the doctors, into which +Gorman O’Shea had fallen, had continued so long as to excite the greatest +apprehensions of his friends; for although not amounting to complete +insensibility, it left him so apathetic and indifferent to everything and +every one, that the girls Kate and Nina, in pure despair, had given up +reading or talking to him, and passed their hours of ‘watching’ in perfect +silence in the half-darkened room. +</p> +<p> +The stern immobility of his pale features, the glassy and meaningless +stare of his large blue eyes, the unvarying rhythm of a long-drawn +respiration, were signs that at length became more painful to contemplate +than evidences of actual suffering; and as day by day went on, and +interest grew more and more eager about the trial, which was fixed for the +coming assize, it was pitiable to see him, whose fate was so deeply +pledged on the issue, unconscious of all that went on around him, and not +caring to know any of those details the very least of which might +determine his future lot. +</p> +<p> +The instructions drawn up for the defence were sadly in need of the sort +of information which the sick man alone could supply; and Nina and Kate +had both been entreated to watch for the first favourable moment that +should present itself, and ask certain questions, the answers to which +would be of the last importance. +</p> +<p> +Though Gill’s affidavit gave many evidences of unscrupulous falsehood, +there was no counter-evidence to set against it, and O’Shea’s counsel +complained strongly of the meagre instructions which were briefed to him +in the case, and his utter inability to construct a defence upon them. +</p> +<p> +‘He said he would tell me something this evening, Kate,’ said Nina; ‘so, +if you will let me, I will go in your place and remind him of his +promise.’ +</p> +<p> +This hopeful sign of returning intelligence was so gratifying to Kate that +she readily consented to the proposition of her cousin taking her ‘watch,’ +and, if possible, learning something of his wishes. +</p> +<p> +‘He said it,’ continued Nina, ‘like one talking to himself, and it was not +easy to follow him. The words, as well as I could make out, were, “I will +say it to-day—this evening, if I can. When it is said”—here he +muttered something, but I cannot say whether the words were, “My mind will +be at rest,” or “I shall be at rest for evermore.”’ +</p> +<p> +Kate did not utter a word, but her eyes swam, and two large tears stole +slowly down her face. +</p> +<p> +‘His own conviction is that he is dying,’ said Nina; but Kate never spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘The doctors persist,’ continued Nina, ‘in declaring that this depression +is only a well-known symptom of the attack, and that all affections of the +brain are marked by a certain tone of despondency. They even say more, and +that the cases where this symptom predominates are more frequently +followed by recovery. Are you listening to me, child?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; I was following some thoughts of my own.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I was merely telling you why I think he is getting better.’ +</p> +<p> +Kate leaned her head on her cousin’s shoulder, and she did not speak. The +heaving motion of her shoulders and her chest betrayed the agitation she +could not subdue. +</p> +<p> +‘I wish his aunt were here; I see how her absence frets him. Is she too +ill for the journey?’ asked Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘She says not, and she seems in some way to be coerced by others; but a +telegram this morning announces she would try and reach Kilgobbin this +evening.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What could coercion mean? Surely this is mere fancy?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not so certain of that. The convent has great hopes of inheriting +her fortune. She is rich, and she is a devout Catholic; and we have heard +of cases where zeal for the Church has pushed discretion very far.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What a worldly creature it is!’ cried Nina; ‘and who would have suspected +it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do not see the worldliness of my believing that people will do much to +serve the cause they follow. When chemists tell us that there is no +finding such a thing as a glass of pure water, where are we to go for pure +motives?’ +</p> +<p> +‘To one’s heart, of course,’ said Nina; but the curl of her perfectly-cut +lip as she said it, scarcely vouched for the sincerity. +</p> +<p> +On that same evening, just as the last flickerings of twilight were dying +away, Nina stole into the sick-room, and took her place noiselessly beside +the bed. +</p> +<p> +Slowly moving his arm without turning his head, or by any gesture whatever +acknowledging her presence, he took her hand and pressed it to his burning +lips, and then laid it upon his cheek. She made no effort to withdraw her +hand, and sat perfectly still and motionless. +</p> +<p> +‘Are we alone?’ whispered he, in a voice hardly audible. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, quite alone.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I should say what—displease you,’ faltered he, his agitation +making speech even more difficult; ‘how shall I tell?’ And once more he +pressed her hand to his lips. +</p> +<p> +‘No, no; have no fears of displeasing me. Say what you would like to tell +me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is this, then,’ said he, with an effort. ‘I am dying with my secret in +my heart. I am dying, to carry away with me the love I am not to tell—my +love for you, Kate.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am <i>not</i> Kate,’ was almost on her lips; but her struggle to keep +silent was aided by that desire so strong in her nature—to follow +out a situation of difficulty to the end. She did not love him, nor did +she desire his love; but a strange sense of injury at hearing his +profession of love for another shot a pang of intense suffering through +her heart, and she lay back in her chair with a cold feeling of sickness +like fainting. The overpowering passion of her nature was jealousy; and to +share even the admiration of a salon, the ‘passing homage,’ as such +deference is called, with another, was a something no effort of her +generosity could compass. +</p> +<p> +Though she did not speak, she suffered her hand to remain unresistingly +within his own. After a short pause he went on: ‘I thought yesterday that +I was dying; and in my rambling intellect I thought I took leave of you; +and do you know my last words—my last words, Kate?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; what were they?’ +</p> +<p> +‘My last words were these: “Beware of the Greek; have no friendship with +the Greek.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And why that warning?’ said she, in a low, faint voice. +</p> +<p> +‘She is not of us, Kate; none of her ways or thoughts are ours, nor would +they suit us. She is subtle, and clever, and sly; and these only mislead +those who lead simple lives.’ +</p> +<p> +‘May it not be that you wrong her?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have tried to learn her nature.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not to love it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe I was beginning to love her—just when you were cold to +me. You remember when?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do; and it was this coldness was the cause? Was it the only cause?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no. She has wiles and ways which, with her beauty, make her nigh +irresistible.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And now you are cured of this passion? There is no trace of it in your +breast?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not a vestige. But why speak of her?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps I am jealous.’ +</p> +<p> +Once more he pressed his lips to her hand, and kissed it rapturously. +</p> +<p> +‘No, Kate,’ cried he, ‘none but you have the place in my heart. Whenever I +have tried a treason, it has turned against me. Is there light enough in +the room to find a small portfolio of red-brown leather? It is on that +table yonder.’ +</p> +<p> +Had the darkness been not almost complete, Nina would scarcely have +ventured to rise and cross the room, so fearful was she of being +recognised. +</p> +<p> +‘It is locked,’ said she, as she laid it beside him on the bed; but +touching a secret spring, he opened it, and passed his fingers hurriedly +through the papers within. +</p> +<p> +‘I believe it must be this,’ said he. ‘I think I know the feel of the +paper. It is a telegram from my aunt; the doctor gave it to me last night. +We read it over together four or five times. This is it, and these are the +words: “If Kate will be your wife, the estate of O’Shea’s Barn is your own +for ever.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is she to have no time to think over this offer?’ asked she. +</p> +<p> +‘Would you like candles, miss?’ asked a maid-servant, of whose presence +there neither of the others had been aware. +</p> +<p> +‘No, nor are you wanted,’ said Nina haughtily, as she arose; while it was +not without some difficulty she withdrew her hand from the sick man’s +grasp. +</p> +<p> +‘I know,’ said he falteringly, ‘you would not leave me if you had not left +hope to keep me company in your absence. Is not that so, Kate?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Bye-bye,’ said she softly, and stole away. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0074" id="link2HCH0074"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXIV +</h2> +<h3> +AN ANGRY COLLOQUY +</h3> +<p> +It was with passionate eagerness Nina set off in search of Kate. Why she +should have felt herself wronged, outraged, insulted even, is not so easy +to say, nor shall I attempt any analysis of the complex web of sentiments +which, so to say, spread itself over her faculties. The man who had so +wounded her self-love had been at her feet, he had followed her in her +walks, hung over the piano as she sang—shown by a thousand signs +that sort of devotion by which men intimate that their lives have but one +solace, one ecstasy, one joy. By what treachery had he been moved to all +this, if he really loved another? That he was simply amusing himself with +the sort of flirtation she herself could take up as a mere pastime was not +to be believed. That the worshipper should be insincere in his worship was +too dreadful to think of. And yet it was to this very man she had once +turned to avenge herself on Walpole’s treatment of her; she had even said, +‘Could you not make a quarrel with him?’ Now, no woman of foreign breeding +puts such a question without the perfect consciousness that, in accepting +a man’s championship, she has virtually admitted his devotion. Her own +levity of character, the thoughtless indifference with which she would +sport with any man’s affections, so far from inducing her to palliate such +caprices, made her more severe and unforgiving. ‘How shall I punish him +for this? How shall I make him remember whom it is he has insulted?’ +repeated she over and over to herself as she went. +</p> +<p> +The servants passed her on the stairs with trunks and luggage of various +kinds; but she was too much engrossed with her own thoughts to notice +them. Suddenly the words, ‘Mr. Walpole’s room,’ caught her ear, and she +asked, ‘Has any one come?’ +</p> +<p> +Yes, two gentlemen had just arrived. A third was to come that night, and +Miss O’Shea might be expected at any moment. +</p> +<p> +‘Where was Miss Kate?’ she inquired. +</p> +<p> +‘In her own room at the top of the house.’ +</p> +<p> +Thither she hastened at once. +</p> +<p> +‘Be a dear good girl,’ cried Kate as Nina entered, ‘and help me in my many +embarrassments. Here are a flood of visitors all coming unexpectedly. +Major Lockwood and Mr. Walpole have come. Miss Betty will be here for +dinner, and Mr. Atlee, whom we all believed to be in Asia, may arrive +to-night. I shall be able to feed them; but how to lodge them with any +pretension to comfort is more than I can see.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am in little humour to aid any one. I have my own troubles—worse +ones, perhaps, than playing hostess to disconsolate travellers.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what are your troubles, dear Nina?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have half a mind not to tell you. You ask me with that supercilious air +that seems to say, “How can a creature like you be of interest enough to +any one or anything to have a difficulty?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘I force no confidences,’ said the other coldly. +</p> +<p> +‘For that reason you shall have them—at least this one. What will +you say when I tell you that young O’Shea has made me a declaration, a +formal declaration of love?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should say that you need not speak of it as an insult or an offence.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed! and if so, you would say what was perfectly wrong. It was both +insult and offence—yes, both. Do you know that the man mistook me +for <i>you</i>, and called me <i>Kate</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘How could this be possible?’ +</p> +<p> +‘In a darkened room, with a sick man slowly rallying from a long attack of +stupor; nothing of me to be seen but my hand, which he devoured with +kisses—raptures, indeed, Kate, of which I had no conception till I +experienced them by counterfeit!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh! Nina, this is not fair!’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is true, child. The man caught my hand and declared he would never +quit it till I promised it should be his own. Nor was he content with +this; but, anticipating his right to be lord and master, he bade you to +beware of <i>me</i>! “Beware of that Greek girl!” were his words—words +strengthened by what he said of my character and my temperament. I shall +spare you, and I shall spare myself, his acute comments on the nature he +dreaded to see in companionship with his wife. I have had good training in +learning these unbiassed judgments—my early life abounded in such +experiences—but this young gentleman’s cautions were candour +itself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am sincerely sorry for what has pained you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I did not say it was this boy’s foolish words had wounded me so acutely. +I could bear sterner critics than he is—his very blundering +misconception of me would always plead his pardon. How could he, or how +could they with whom he lived and talked, and smoked and swaggered, know +of me, or such as me? What could there be in the monotonous vulgarity of +their tiresome lives that should teach them what we are, or what we wish +to be? By what presumption did he dare to condemn all that he could not +understand?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are angry, Nina; and I will not say without some cause.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What ineffable generosity! You can really constrain yourself to believe +that I have been insulted!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should not say insulted.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You cannot be an honest judge in such a cause. Every outrage offered to +<i>me</i> was an act of homage to <i>yourself</i>! If you but knew how I +burned to tell him who it was whose hand he held in his, and to whose ears +he had poured out his raptures! To tell him, too, how the Greek girl would +have resented his presumption, had he but dared to indulge it! One of the +women-servants, it would seem, was a witness to this boy’s declaration. I +think it was Mary was in the room, I do not know for how long, but she +announced her presence by asking some question about candles. In fact, I +shall have become a servants’-hall scandal by this time.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There need not be any fear of that, Nina: there are no bad tongues +amongst our people.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know all that. I know we live amidst human perfectabilities—all +of Irish manufacture, and warranted to be genuine.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I would hope that some of your impressions of Ireland are not +unfavourable?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I scarcely know. I suppose you understand each other, and are tolerant +about capricious moods and ways, which, to strangers, might seem to have a +deeper significance. I believe you are not as hasty, or as violent, or as +rash as you seem, and I am sure you are not as impulsive in your +generosity, or as headlong in your affections. Not exactly that you mean +to be false, but you are hypocrites to yourselves.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A very flattering picture of us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do not mean to flatter you; and it is to this end I say, you are +Italians without the subtlety of the Italian, and Greeks without their +genius.—You need not curtsy so profoundly.—I could say worse +than this, Kate, if I were minded to do so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Pray do not be so minded, then. Pray remember that, even when you wound +me, I cannot return the thrust.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know what you mean,’ cried Nina rapidly. ‘You are veritable Arabs in +your estimate of hospitality, and he who has eaten your salt is sacred.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You remind me of what I had nigh forgotten, Nina—of our coming +guests.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do you know why Walpole and his friend are coming?’ +</p> +<p> +‘They are already come, Nina—they are out walking with papa; but +what has brought them here I cannot guess, and, since I have heard your +description of Ireland, I cannot imagine.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nor can I,’ said she indolently, and moved away. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0075" id="link2HCH0075"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXV +</h2> +<h3> +MATHEW KEARNEY’S REFLECTIONS +</h3> +<p> +To have his house full of company, to see his table crowded with guests, +was nearer perfect happiness than anything Kearney knew; and when he set +out, the morning after the arrival of the strangers, to show Major +Lockwood where he would find a brace of woodcocks, the old man was in such +spirits as he had not known for years. +</p> +<p> +‘Why don’t your friend Walpole come with us?’ asked he of his companion, +as they trudged across the bog. +</p> +<p> +‘I believe I can guess,’ mumbled out the other; ‘but I’m not quite sure I +ought to tell.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I see,’ said Kearney, with a knowing leer; ‘he’s afraid I’ll roast him +about that unlucky despatch he wrote. He thinks I’ll give him no peace +about that bit of stupidity; for you see, major, it <i>was</i> stupid, and +nothing less. Of all the things we despise in Ireland, take my word for +it, there is nothing we think so little of as a weak Government. We can +stand up strong and bold against hard usage, and we gain self-respect by +resistance; but when you come down to conciliations and what you call +healing measures, we feel as if you were going to humbug us, and there is +not a devilment comes into our heads we would not do, just to see how +you’ll bear it; and it’s then your London newspapers cry out: “What’s the +use of doing anything for Ireland? We pulled down the Church, and we +robbed the landlords, and we’re now going to back Cardinal Cullen for +them, and there they are murthering away as bad as ever.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is it not true?’ asked the major. +</p> +<p> +‘And whose fault if it <i>is</i> true? Who has broke down the laws in +Ireland but yourselves? We Irish never said that many things <i>you</i> +called crimes were bad in morals, and when it occurs to you now to doubt +if they are crimes, I’d like to ask you, why wouldn’t <i>we</i> do them? +You won’t give us our independence, and so we’ll fight for it; and though, +maybe, we can’t lick you, we’ll make your life so uncomfortable to you, +keeping us down, that you’ll beg a compromise—a healing measure, +you’ll call it—just as when I won’t give Tim Sullivan a lease, he +takes a shot at me; and as I reckon the holes in my hat, I think better of +it, and take a pound or two off his rent.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So that, in fact, you court the policy of conciliation?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Only because I’m weak, major—because I’m weak, and that I must live +in the neighbourhood. If I could pass my days out of the range of Tim’s +carbine, I wouldn’t reduce him a shilling.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can make nothing of Ireland or Irishmen either.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why would you? God help us! we are poor enough and wretched enough; but +we’re not come down to that yet that a major of dragoons can read us like +big print.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So far as I see you wish for a strong despotism.’ +</p> +<p> +‘In one way it would suit us well. Do you see, major, what a weak +administration and uncertain laws do? They set every man in Ireland about +righting himself by his own hand. If I know I shall be starved when I am +turned out of my holding, I’m not at all so sure I’ll be hanged if I shoot +my landlord. Make me as certain of the one as the other, and I’ll not +shoot him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe I understand you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, you don’t, nor any Cockney among you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not a Cockney.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t care, you’re the same: you’re not one of us; nor if you spent +fifty years among us, would you understand us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Come over and see me in Berkshire, Kearney, and let me see if you can +read our people much better.’ +</p> +<p> +‘From all I hear, there’s not much to read. Your chawbacon isn’t as cute a +fellow as Pat.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He’s easier to live with.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe so; but I wouldn’t care for a life with such people about me. I +like human nature, and human feelings—ay, human passions, if you +must call them so. I want to know—I can make some people love me, +though I well know there must be others will hate me. You’re all for +tranquillity all over in England—a quiet life you call it. I like to +live without knowing what’s coming, and to feel all the time that I know +enough of the game to be able to play it as well as my neighbours. Do you +follow me now, major?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not quite certain I do.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No—but I’m quite certain you don’t; and, indeed, I wonder at myself +talking to you about these things at all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m much gratified that you do so. In fact, Kearney, you give me courage +to speak a little about myself and my own affairs; and, if you will allow +me, to ask your advice.’ +</p> +<p> +This was an unusually long speech for the major, and he actually seemed +fatigued when he concluded. He was, however, consoled for his exertions by +seeing what pleasure his words had conferred on Kearney; and with what +racy self-satisfaction, that gentleman heard himself mentioned as a ‘wise +opinion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I believe I do know a little of life, major,’ said he sententiously. ‘As +old Giles Dackson used to say, “Get Mathew Kearney to tell you what he +thinks of it.” You knew Giles?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, you’ve heard of him? No! not even that. There’s another proof of +what I was saying—we’re two people, the English and the Irish. If it +wasn’t so, you’d be no stranger to the sayings and doings of one of the +cutest men that ever lived.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We have witty fellows too.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, you haven’t! Do you call your House of Commons’ jokes wit? Are the +stories you tell at your hustings’ speeches wit? Is there one over there’—and +he pointed in the direction of England—‘that ever made a smart +repartee or a brilliant answer to any one about anything? You now and then +tell an Irish story, and you forget the point; or you quote a French <i>mot</i>, +and leave out the epigram. Don’t be angry—it’s truth I’m telling +you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not angry, though I must say I don’t think you are fair to us.’ +</p> +<p> +The last bit of brilliancy you had in the House was Brinsley Sheridan, and +there wasn’t much English about <i>him</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ve never heard that the famous O’Connell used to convulse the House +with his drollery.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why should he? Didn’t he know where he was? Do you imagine that O’Connell +was going to do like poor Lord Killeen, who shipped a cargo of +coalscuttles to Africa?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will you explain to me then how, if you are so much shrewder and wittier +and cleverer than us, it does not make you richer, more prosperous, and +more contented?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I could do that too—but I’m losing the birds. There’s a cock now. +Well done! I see you can shoot a bit.—Look here, major, there’s a +deal in race—in the blood of a people. It’s very hard to make a +light-hearted, joyous people thrifty. It’s your sullen fellow, that never +cuts a joke, nor wants any one to laugh at it, that’s the man who saves. +If you’re a wit, you want an audience, and the best audience is round a +dinner-table; and we know what that costs. Now, Ireland has been very +pleasant for the last hundred and fifty years in that fashion, and you, +and scores of other low-spirited, depressed fellows, come over here to +pluck up and rouse yourselves, and you go home, and you wonder why the +people who amused you were not always as jolly as you saw them. I’ve known +this country now nigh sixty years, and I never knew a turn of prosperity +that didn’t make us stupid; and, upon my conscience, I believe, if we ever +begin to grow rich, we’ll not be a bit better than yourselves.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That would be very dreadful,’ said the other, in mock-horror. +</p> +<p> +‘So it would, whether you mean it or not.—There’s a hare missed this +time!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I was thinking of something I wanted to ask you. The fact is, Kearney, I +have a thing on my mind now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is it a duel? It’s many a day since I was out, but I used to know every +step of the way as well as most men.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, it’s not a duel!’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s money, then! Bother it for money! What a deal of bad blood it leads +to. Tell me all about it, and I’ll see if I can’t deal with it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, it’s not money; it has nothing to do with money. I’m not hard up. I +was never less so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed!’ cried Kearney, staring at him. +</p> +<p> +‘Why, what do you mean by that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I was curious to see how a man looks, and I’d like to know how he feels, +that didn’t want money. I can no more understand it than if a man told me +he didn’t want air.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If he had enough to breathe freely, could he need more?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That would depend on the size of his lungs, and I believe mine are pretty +big. But come now, if there’s nobody you want to shoot, and you have a +good balance at the banker’s, what can ail you, except it’s a girl you +want to marry, and she won’t have you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, there is a lady in the case.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ay, ay! she’s a married woman,’ cried Kearney, closing one eye, and +looking intensely cunning. ‘Then I may tell you at once, major, I’m no use +to you whatever. If it was a young girl that liked you against the wish of +her family, or that you were in love with though she was below you in +condition, or that was promised to another man but wanted to get out of +her bargain, I’m good for any of these, or scores more of the same kind; +but if it’s mischief, and misery, and lifelong sorrow you have in your +head, you must look out for another adviser.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s nothing of the kind,’ said the other bluntly. ‘It’s marriage I was +thinking of. I want to settle down and have a wife.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then why couldn’t you, if you think it would be any comfort to you?’ +</p> +<p> +The last words were rather uttered than spoken, and sounded like a sad +reflection uttered aloud. +</p> +<p> +‘I am not a rich man,’ said the major, with that strain it always cost him +to speak of himself, ‘but I have got enough to live on. A goodish old +house, and a small estate, underlet as it is, bringing me about two +thousand a year, and some expectations, as they call them, from an old +grand-aunt.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You have enough, if you marry a prudent girl,’ muttered Kearney, who was +never happier than when advocating moderation and discretion. +</p> +<p> +‘Enough, at least, not to look for money with a wife.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m with you there, heart and soul,’ cried Kearney. ‘Of all the shabby +inventions of our civilisation, I don’t know one as mean as that custom of +giving a marriage-portion with a girl. Is it to induce a man to take her? +Is it to pay for her board and lodging? Is it because marriage is a +partnership, and she must bring her share into the “concern”? or is it to +provide for the day when they are to part company, and each go his own +road? Take it how you like, it’s bad and it’s shabby. If you’re rich +enough to give your daughter twenty or thirty thousand pounds, wait for +some little family festival—her birthday, or her husband’s birthday, +or a Christmas gathering, or maybe a christening—and put the notes +in her hand. Oh, major dear,’ cried he aloud, ‘if you knew how much of +life you lose with lawyers, and what a deal of bad blood comes into the +world by parchments, you’d see the wisdom of trusting more to human +kindness and good feeling, and above all, to the honour of gentlemen—things +that nowadays we always hope to secure by Act of Parliament.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I go with a great deal of what you say.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why not with all of it? What do we gain by trying to overreach each +other? What advantage in a system where it’s always the rogue that wins? +If I was a king to-morrow, I’d rather fine a fellow for quoting Blackstone +than for blasphemy, and I’d distribute all the law libraries in the +kingdom as cheap fuel for the poor. We pray for peace and quietness, and +we educate a special class of people to keep us always wrangling. Where’s +the sense of that?’ +</p> +<p> +While Kearney poured out these words in a flow of fervid conviction, they +had arrived at a little open space in the wood, from which various alleys +led off in different directions. Along one of these, two figures were +slowly moving side by side, whom Lockwood quickly recognised as Walpole +and Nina Kostalergi. Kearney did not see them, for his attention was +suddenly called off by a shout from a distance, and his son Dick rode +hastily up to the spot. +</p> +<p> +‘I have been in search of you all through the plantation,’ cried he. ‘I +have brought back Holmes the lawyer from Tullamore, who wants to talk to +you about this affair of Gorman’s. It’s going to be a bad business, I +fear.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Isn’t that more of what I was saying?’ said the old man, turning to the +major. ‘There’s law for you!’ +</p> +<p> +‘They’re making what they call a “National” event of it,’ continued Dick. +‘The <i>Pike</i> has opened a column of subscriptions to defray the cost +of proceedings, and they’ve engaged Battersby with a hundred-guinea +retainer already.’ +</p> +<p> +It appeared from what tidings Dick brought back from the town, that the +Nationalists—to give them the much unmerited name by which they +called themselves—were determined to show how they could dictate to +a jury. +</p> +<p> +‘There’s law for you!’ cried the old man again. +</p> +<p> +‘You’ll have to take to vigilance committees, like the Yankees,’ said the +major. +</p> +<p> +‘We’ve had them for years; but they only shoot their political opponents.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They say, too,’ broke in the young man, ‘that Donogan is in the town, and +that it is he who has organised the whole prosecution. In fact, he intends +to make Battersby’s speech for the plaintiff a great declaration of the +wrongs of Ireland; and as Battersby hates the Chief Baron, who will try +the cause, he is determined to insult the Bench, even at the cost of a +commitment.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What will he gain by that?’ asked Lockwood. +</p> +<p> +‘Every one cannot have a father that was hanged in ‘98; but any one can go +to gaol for blackguarding a Chief-Justice,’ said Kearney. +</p> +<p> +For a moment or two the old man seemed ashamed at having been led to make +these confessions to ‘the Saxon,’ and telling Lockwood where he would be +likely to find a brace of cocks, he took his son’s arm and returned +homeward. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0076" id="link2HCH0076"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXVI +</h2> +<h3> +VERY CONFIDENTIAL CONVERSATION +</h3> +<p> +When Lockwood returned, only in time to dress for dinner, Walpole, whose +room adjoined his, threw open the door between them and entered. He had +just accomplished a most careful ‘tie,’ and came in with the air of one +fairly self-satisfied and happy. +</p> +<p> +‘You look quite triumphant this evening,’ said the major, half sulkily. +</p> +<p> +‘So I am, old fellow; and so I have a right to be. It’s all done and +settled.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Already?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ay, already. I asked her to take a stroll with me in the garden; but we +sauntered off into the plantation. A woman always understands the exact +amount of meaning a man has in a request of this kind, and her instinct +reveals to her at once whether he is eager to tell her some bit of fatal +scandal of one of her own friends, or to make her a declaration.’ +</p> +<p> +A sort of sulky grunt was Lockwood’s acknowledgment of this piece of +abstract wisdom—a sort of knowledge he never listened to with much +patience. +</p> +<p> +‘I am aware,’ said Walpole flippantly, ‘the female nature was an omitted +part in your education, Lockwood, and you take small interest in those +nice distinctive traits which, to a man of the world, are exactly what the +stars are to the mariner.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Finding out what a woman means by the stars does seem very poor fun.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps you prefer the moon for your observation,’ replied Walpole; and +the easy impertinence of his manner was almost too much for the other’s +patience. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t care for your speculations—I want to hear what passed +between you and the Greek girl.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The Greek girl will in a very few days be Mrs. Walpole, and I shall crave +a little more deference for the mention of her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I forgot her name, or I should not have called her with such freedom! +What is it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Kostalergi. Her father is Kostalergi, Prince of Delos.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All right; it will read well in the <i>Post</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My dear friend, there is that amount of sarcasm in your conversation this +evening, that to a plain man like myself, never ready to reply, and easily +subdued by ridicule, is positively overwhelming. Has any disaster befallen +you that you are become so satirical and severe?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Never mind <i>me</i>—tell me about yourself,’ was the blunt reply. +</p> +<p> +‘I have not the slightest objection. When we had walked a little way +together, and I felt that we were beyond the risk of interruption, I led +her to the subject of my sudden reappearance here, and implied that she, +at least, could not have felt much surprise. “You remember,” said I, “I +promised to return?” +</p> +<p> +‘“There is something so conventional,” said she, “in these pledges, that +one comes to read them like the ‘yours sincerely’ at the foot of a +letter.” +</p> +<p> +‘“I ask for nothing better,” said I, taking her up on her own words, “than +to be ‘yours sincerely.’ It is to ratify that pledge by making you ‘mine +sincerely’ that I am here.” +</p> +<p> +‘“Indeed!” said she slowly, and looking down. +</p> +<p> +‘“I swear it!” said I, kissing her hand, which, however, had a glove on.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why not her cheek?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is not done, major mine, at such times.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, go on.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can’t recall the exact words, for I spoke rapidly; but I told her I was +named Minister at a foreign Court, that my future career was assured, and +that I was able to offer her a station, not, indeed, equal to her deserts, +but that, occupied by her, would be only less than royal.’ +</p> +<p> +‘At Guatemala!’ exclaimed the other derisively. +</p> +<p> +‘Have the kindness to keep your geography to yourself,’ said Walpole. ‘I +merely said in South America, and she had too much delicacy to ask more.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But she said Yes? She consented?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, sir, she said she would venture to commit her future to my charge.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Didn’t she ask you what means you had? what was your income?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not exactly in the categorical way you put it, but she alluded to the +possible style we should live in.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll swear she did. That girl asked you, in plain words, how many +hundreds or thousands you had a year?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I told her. I said, “It sounds humbly, dearest, to tell you we shall +not have fully two thousand a year; but the place we are going to is the +cheapest in the universe, and we shall have a small establishment of not +more than forty black and about a dozen white servants, and at first only +keep twenty horses, taking our carriages on job.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘What about pin-money?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is not much extravagance in toilet, and so I said she must manage +with a thousand a year.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And she didn’t laugh in your face?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, sir! nor was there any strain upon her good-breeding to induce her to +laugh in my face.’ +</p> +<p> +‘At all events, you discussed the matter in a fine practical spirit. Did +you go into groceries? I hope you did not forget groceries?’ +</p> +<p> +‘My dear Lockwood, let me warn you against being droll. You ask me for a +correct narrative, and when I give it, you will not restrain that subtle +sarcasm the mastery of which makes you unassailable.’ +</p> +<p> +‘When is it to be? When is it to come off? Has she to write to His Serene +Highness the Prince of What’s-his-name?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, the Prince of What’s-his-name need not be consulted; Lord Kilgobbin +will stand in the position of father to her.’ +</p> +<p> +Lockwood muttered something, in which ‘Give her away!’ were the only words +audible. ‘I must say,’ added he aloud, ‘the wooing did not take long.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You forget that there was an actual engagement between us when I left +this for London. My circumstances at that time did not permit me to ask +her at once to be my wife; but our affections were pledged, and—even +if more tender sentiments did not determine—my feeling, as a man of +honour, required I should come back here to make her this offer.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All right; I suppose it will do—I hope it will do; and after all, I +take it, you are likely to understand each other better than others +would.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Such is our impression and belief.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How will your own people—how will Danesbury like it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘For their sakes I trust they will like it very much; for mine, it is less +than a matter of indifference to me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She, however—she will expect to be properly received amongst them?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes,’ cried Walpole, speaking for the first time in a perfectly natural +tone, divested of all pomposity. ‘Yes, she stickles for that, Lockwood. It +was the one point she seemed to stand out for. Of course I told her she +would be received with open arms by my relatives—that my family +would be overjoyed to receive her as one of them. I only hinted that my +lord’s gout might prevent him from being at the wedding. I’m not sure +Uncle Danesbury would not come over. “And the charming Lady Maude,” asked +she, “would she honour me so far as to be a bridesmaid?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘She didn’t say that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘She did. She actually pushed me to promise I should ask her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Which you never would.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of that I will not affirm I am quite positive; but I certainly intend to +press my uncle for some sort of recognition of the marriage—a civil +note; better still, if it could be managed, an invitation to his house in +town.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are a bold fellow to think of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not so bold as you imagine. Have you not often remarked that when a man +of good connections is about to exile himself by accepting a far-away +post, whether it be out of pure compassion or a feeling that it need never +be done again, and that they are about to see the last of him; but, +somehow—whatever the reason—his friends are marvellously civil +and polite to him, just as some benevolent but eccentric folk send a +partridge to the condemned felon for his last dinner.’ +</p> +<p> +‘They do that in France.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Here it would be a rumpsteak; but the sentiment is the same. At all +events, the thing is as I told you, and I do not despair of Danesbury.’ +</p> +<p> +‘For the letter, perhaps not; but he’ll never ask you to Bruton Street, +nor, if he did, could you accept.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are thinking of Lady Maude.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There would be no difficulty in that quarter. When a Whig becomes Tory, +or a Tory Whig, the gentlemen of the party he has deserted never take +umbrage in the same way as the vulgar dogs below the gangway; so it is in +the world. The people who must meet, must dine together, sit side by side +at flower-shows and garden-parties, always manage to do their hatreds +decorously, and only pay off their dislikes by instalments. If Lady Maude +were to receive my wife at all, it would be with a most winning +politeness. All her malevolence would limit itself to making the supposed +underbred woman commit a <i>gaucherie</i>, to do or say something that +ought not to have been done or said; and, as I know Nina can stand the +test, I have no fears for the experiment.’ +</p> +<p> +A knock at the door apprised them that the dinner was waiting, neither +having heard the bell which had summoned them a quarter of an hour before. +‘And I wanted to hear all about your progress,’ cried Walpole, as they +descended the staircase together. +</p> +<p> +‘I have none to report,’ was the gruff reply. +</p> +<p> +‘Why, surely you have not passed the whole day in Kearney’s company +without some hint of what you came here for?’ +</p> +<p> +But at the same moment they were in the dining-room. +</p> +<p> +‘We are a man party to-day, I am sorry to say,’ cried old Kearney, as they +entered. ‘My niece and my daughter are keeping Miss O’Shea company +upstairs. She is not well enough to come down to dinner, and they have +scruples about leaving her in solitude.’ +</p> +<p> +‘At least we’ll have a cigar after dinner,’ was Dick’s ungallant +reflection as they moved away. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0077" id="link2HCH0077"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXVII +</h2> +<h3> +TWO YOUNG LADIES ON MATRIMONY +</h3> +<p> +‘I hope they had a pleasanter dinner downstairs than we have had here,’ +said Nina, as, after wishing Miss O’Shea a good-night, the young girls +slowly mounted the stairs. +</p> +<p> +‘Poor old godmother was too sad and too depressed to be cheerful company; +but did she not talk well and sensibly on the condition of the country? +was it not well said, when she showed the danger of all that legislation +which, assuming to establish right, only engenders disunion and class +jealousy?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I never followed her; I was thinking of something else.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She was worth listening to, then. She knows the people well, and she sees +all the mischief of tampering with natures so imbued with distrust. The +Irishman is a gambler, and English law-makers are always exciting him to +play.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It seems to me there is very little on the game.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is everything—home, family, subsistence, life itself—all +that a man can care for.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Never mind these tiresome themes; come into my room; or I’ll go to yours, +for I’m sure you’ve a better fire; besides, I can walk away if you offend +me: I mean offend beyond endurance, for you are sure to say something +cutting.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope you wrong me, Nina.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Perhaps I do. Indeed, I half suspect I do; but the fact is, it is not +your words that reproach me, it is your whole life of usefulness is my +reproach, and the least syllable you utter comes charged with all the +responsibility of one who has a duty and does it, to a mere +good-for-nothing. There, is not that humility enough?’ +</p> +<p> +‘More than enough, for it goes to flattery.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not a bit sure all the time that I’m not the more lovable creature of +the two. If you like, I’ll put it to the vote at breakfast.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, Nina!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Very shocking, that’s the phrase for it, very shocking! Oh dear, what a +nice fire, and what a nice little snug room; how is it, will you tell me, +that though my room is much larger and better furnished in every way, your +room is always brighter and neater, and more like a little home? They +fetch you drier firewood, and they bring you flowers, wherever they get +them. I know well what devices of roguery they practise.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall I give you tea?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I’ll have tea. I expect to be treated like a favoured guest in +all things, and I mean to take this arm-chair, and the nice soft cushion +for my feet, for I warn you, Kate, I’m here for two hours. I’ve an immense +deal to tell you, and I’ll not go till it’s told.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll not turn you out.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll take care of that; I have not lived in Ireland for nothing. I have a +proper sense of what is meant by possession, and I defy what your great +Minister calls a heartless eviction. Even your tea is nicer, it is more +fragrant than any one else’s. I begin to hate you out of sheer jealousy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is about the last feeling I ought to inspire.’ +</p> +<p> +‘More humility; but I’ll drop rudeness and tell you my story, for I have a +story to tell. Are you listening? Are you attentive? Well, my Mr. Walpole, +as you called him once, is about to become so in real earnest. I could +have made a long narrative of it and held you in weary suspense, but I +prefer to dash at once into the thick of the fray, and tell you that he +has this morning made me a formal proposal, and I have accepted him. Be +pleased to bear in mind that this is no case of a misconception or a +mistake. No young gentleman has been petting and kissing my hand for +another’s; no tender speeches have been uttered to the ears they were not +meant for. I have been wooed this time for myself, and on my own part I +have said Yes.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You told me you had accepted him already. I mean when he was here last.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, after a fashion. Don’t you know, child, that though lawyers maintain +that a promise to do a certain thing, to make a lease or some contract, +has in itself a binding significance, that in Cupid’s Court this is not +law? and the man knew perfectly that all passed between us hitherto had no +serious meaning, and bore no more real relation to marriage than an +outpost encounter to a battle. For all that has taken place up to this, we +might never fight—I mean marry—after all. The sages say that a +girl should never believe a man means marriage till he talks money to her. +Now, Kate, he talked money; and I believed him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish you would tell me of these things seriously, and without banter.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So I do. Heaven knows I am in no jesting humour. It is in no outburst of +high spirits or gaiety a girl confesses she is going to marry a man who +has neither wealth nor station to offer, and whose fine connections are +just fine enough to be ashamed of him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Are you in love with him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you mean, do I imagine that this man’s affection and this man’s +companionship are more to me than all the comforts and luxuries of life +with another, I am not in love with him; but if you ask me, am I satisfied +to risk my future with so much as I know of his temper, his tastes, his +breeding, his habits, and his abilities, I incline to say Yes. Married +life, Kate, is a sort of dietary, and one should remember that what he has +to eat of every day ought not to be too appetising.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I abhor your theory.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course you do, child; and you fancy, naturally enough, that you would +like ortolans every day for dinner; but my poor cold Greek temperament has +none of the romantic warmth of your Celtic nature. I am very moderate in +my hopes, very humble in all my ambitions.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is not thus I read you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Very probably. At all events, I have consented to be Mr. Walpole’s wife, +and we are to be Minister Plenipotentiary and Special Envoy somewhere. It +is not Bolivia, nor the Argentine Republic, but some other fabulous +region, where the only fact is yellow fever.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you really like him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope so, for evidently it must be on love we shall have to live, one +half of our income being devoted to saddle-horses and the other to my +toilet.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How absurd you are!’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not I. It is Mr. Walpole himself, who, not trusting much to my skill +at arithmetic, sketched out this schedule of expenditure; and then I +bethought me how simple this man must deem me. It was a flattery that won +me at once. Oh! Kate dearest, if you could understand the ecstasy of being +thought, not a fool, but one easily duped, easily deceived!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know what you mean.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is this, then, that to have a man’s whole heart—whether it be +worth the having is another and a different question—you must +impress him with his immense superiority in everything—that he is +not merely physically stronger than you, and bolder and more courageous, +but that he is mentally more vigorous and more able, judges better, +decides quicker, resolves more fully than you; and that, struggle how you +will, you pass your life in eternally looking up to this wonderful god, +who vouchsafes now and then to caress you, and even say tender things to +you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is it, Nina, that you have made a study of these things, or is all this +mere imagination?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Most innocent young lady! I no more dreamed of these things to apply to +such men as your country furnishes—good, homely, commonplace +creatures—than I should have thought of asking you to adopt French +cookery to feed them. I spoke of such men as one meets in what I may call +the real world: as for the others, if they feel life to be a stage, they +are always going about in slipshod fashion, as if at rehearsal. Men like +your brother and young O’Shea, for instance—tossed here and there by +accidents, made one thing by a chance, and something else by a misfortune. +Take my word for it, the events of life are very vulgar things; the +passions and emotions they evoke, <i>these</i> constitute the high +stimulants of existence, they make the <i>gross jeu</i>, which it is so +exciting to play.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I follow you with some difficulty; but I am rude enough to own I scarcely +regret it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know, I know all about that sweet innocence that fancies to ignore +anything is to obliterate it; but it’s a fool’s paradise, after all, Kate. +We are in the world, and we must accept it as it is made for us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll not ask, does your theory make you better, but does it make you +happier?’ +</p> +<p> +‘If being duped were an element of bliss, I should say certainly not +happier, but I doubt the blissful ignorance of your great moralist. I +incline to believe that the better you play any game—life amongst +the rest—the higher the pleasure it yields. I can afford to marry, +without believing my husband to be a paragon—could <i>you</i> do as +much?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should like to know that I preferred him to any one else.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So should I, and I would only desire to add “to every one else that asked +me.” Tell the truth, Kate dearest, we are here all alone, and can afford +sincerity. How many of us girls marry the man we should like to marry, and +if the game were reversed, and it were to be <i>we</i> who should make the +choice—the slave pick out his master—how many, think you, +would be wedded to their present mates?’ +</p> +<p> +‘So long as we can refuse him we do not like, I cannot think our case a +hard one.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Neither should I if I could stand fast at three-and-twenty. The dread of +that change of heart and feeling that will come, must come, ten years +later, drives one to compromise with happiness, and take a part of what +you once aspired to the whole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You used to think very highly of Mr. Walpole; admired, and I suspect you +liked him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All true—my opinion is the same still. He will stand the great test +that one can go into the world with him and not be ashamed of him. I know, +dearest, even without that shake of the head, the small value you attach +to this, but it is a great element in that droll contract, by which one +person agrees to pit his temper against another’s, and which we are told +is made in heaven, with angels as sponsors. Mr. Walpole is sufficiently +good-looking to be prepossessing, he is well bred, very courteous, +converses extremely well, knows his exact place in life, and takes it +quietly but firmly. All these are of value to his wife, and it is not easy +to over-rate them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is that enough?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Enough for what? If you mean for romantic love, for the infatuation that +defies all change of sentiment, all growth of feeling, that revels in the +thought, experience will not make us wiser, nor daily associations less +admiring, it is not enough. I, however, am content to bid for a much +humbler lot. I want a husband who, if he cannot give me a brilliant +station, will at least secure me a good position in life, a reasonable +share of vulgar comforts, some luxuries, and the ordinary routine of what +are called pleasures. If, in affording me these, he will vouchsafe to add +good temper, and not high spirits—which are detestable—but +fair spirits, I think I can promise him, not that I shall make him happy, +but that he will make himself so, and it will afford me much gratification +to see it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is this real, or—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Or what? Say what was on your lips.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Or are you utterly heartless?’ cried Kate, with an effort that covered +her face with blushes. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think I am,’ said she oddly and calmly; ‘but all I have seen of +life teaches me that every betrayal of a feeling or a sentiment is like +what gamblers call showing your hand, and is sure to be taken advantage of +by the other players. It’s an ugly illustration, dear Kate, but in the +same round game we call life there is so much cheating that if you cannot +afford to be pillaged, you must be prudent.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am glad to feel that I can believe you to be much better than you make +yourself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do so, and as long as you can.’ +</p> +<p> +There was a pause of several moments after this, each apparently following +out her own thoughts. +</p> +<p> +‘By the way,’ cried Nina suddenly, ‘did I tell you that Mary wished me joy +this morning. She had overheard Mr. Gorman’s declaration, and believed he +had asked me to be his wife.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How absurd!’ said Kate, and there was anger as well as shame in her look +as she said it. +</p> +<p> +‘Of course it was absurd. She evidently never suspected to whom she was +speaking, and then—’ She stopped, for a quick glance at Kate’s face +warned her of the peril she was grazing. ‘I told the girl she was a fool, +and forbade her to speak of the matter to any one.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is a servants’-hall story already,’ said Kate quietly. +</p> +<p> +‘Do you care for that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not much; three days will see the end of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I declare, in your own homely way, I believe you are the wiser of the two +of us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My common sense is of the very commonest,’ said Kate, laughing; ‘there is +nothing subtle nor even neat about it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Let us see that! Give me a counsel or, rather, say if you agree with me. +I have asked Mr. Walpole to show me how his family accept my entrance +amongst them; with what grace they receive me as a relative. One of his +cousins called me the Greek girl, and in my own hearing. It is not, then, +over-caution on my part to inquire how they mean to regard me. Tell me, +however, Kate, how far you concur with me in this. I should like much to +hear how your good sense regards the question. Should you have done as I +have?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Answer me first one question. If you should learn that these great folks +would not welcome you amongst them, would you still consent to marry Mr. +Walpole?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not sure, I am not quite certain, but I almost believe I should.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have, then, no counsel to give you,’ said Kate firmly. ‘Two people who +see the same object differently cannot discuss its proportions.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I see my blunder,’ cried Nina impetuously. ‘I put my question stupidly. I +should have said, “If a girl has won a man’s affections and given him her +own—if she feels her heart has no other home than in his keeping—that +she lives for him and by him—should she be deterred from joining her +fortunes to his because he has some fine connections who would like to see +him marry more advantageously?”’ It needed not the saucy curl of her lip +as she spoke to declare how every word was uttered in sarcasm. ‘Why will +you not answer me?’ cried she at length; and her eyes shot glances of +fiery impatience as she said it. +</p> +<p> +‘Our distinguished friend Mr. Atlee is to arrive to-morrow, Dick tells +me,’ said Kate, with the calm tone of one who would not permit herself to +be ruffled. +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed! If your remark has any <i>apropos</i> at all, it must mean that +in marrying such a man as he is, one might escape all the difficulties of +family coldness, and I protest, as I think of it, the matter has its +advantages.’ +</p> +<p> +A faint smile was all Kate’s answer. +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot make you angry; I have done my best, and it has failed. I am +utterly discomfited, and I’ll go to bed.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Good-night,’ said Kate, as she held out her hand. +</p> +<p> +‘I wonder is it nice to have this angelic temperament—-to be always +right in one’s judgments, and never carried away by passion? I half +suspect perfection does not mean perfect happiness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You shall tell me when you are married,’ said Kate, with a laugh; and +Nina darted a flashing glance towards her, and swept out of the room. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0078" id="link2HCH0078"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXVIII +</h2> +<h3> +A MISERABLE MORNING +</h3> +<p> +It was not without considerable heart-sinking and misgiving that old +Kearney heard it was Miss Betty O’Shea’s desire to have some conversation +with him after breakfast. He was, indeed, reassured, to a certain extent, +by his daughter telling him that the old lady was excessively weak, and +that her cough was almost incessant, and that she spoke with extreme +difficulty. All the comfort that these assurances gave him was dashed by a +settled conviction of Miss Betty’s subtlety. ‘She’s like one of the wild +foxes they have in Crim Tartary; and when you think they are dead, they’re +up and at you before you can look round.’ He affirmed no more than the +truth when he said that ‘he’d rather walk barefoot to Kilbeggan than go up +that stair to see her.’ +</p> +<p> +There was a strange conflict in his mind all this time between these +ignoble fears and the efforts he was making to seem considerate and gentle +by Kate’s assurance that a cruel word, or even a harsh tone, would be sure +to kill her. ‘You’ll have to be very careful, papa dearest,’ she said. +‘Her nerves are completely shattered, and every respiration seems as if it +would be the last.’ +</p> +<p> +Mistrust was, however, so strong in him, that he would have employed any +subterfuge to avoid the interview; but the Rev. Luke Delany, who had +arrived to give her ‘the consolations,’ as he briefly phrased it, insisted +on Kearney’s attending to receive the old lady’s forgiveness before she +died. +</p> +<p> +‘Upon my conscience,’ muttered Kearney, ‘I was always under the belief it +was I was injured; but, as the priest says, “it’s only on one’s death-bed +he sees things clearly.”’ +</p> +<p> +As Kearney groped his way through the darkened room, shocked at his own +creaking shoes, and painfully convinced that he was somehow deficient in +delicacy, a low, faint cough guided him to the sofa where Miss O’Shea lay. +‘Is that Mathew Kearney?’ said she feebly. ‘I think I know his foot.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes indeed, bad luck to them for shoes. Wherever Davy Morris gets the +leather I don’t know, but it’s as loud as a barrel-organ.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe they re cheap, Mathew. One puts up with many a thing for a little +cheapness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s the first shot!’ muttered Kearney to himself, while he gave a +little cough to avoid reply. +</p> +<p> +‘Father Luke has been telling me, Mathew, that before I go this long +journey I ought to take care to settle any little matter here that’s on my +mind. “If there’s anybody you bear an ill will to,” says he; “if there’s +any one has wronged you,” says he, “told lies of you, or done you any +bodily harm, send for him,” says he, “and let him hear your forgiveness +out of your own mouth. I’ll take care afterwards,” says Father Luke, “that +he’ll have to settle the account with <i>me</i>; but <i>you</i> mustn’t +mind that. You must be able to tell St. Joseph that you come with a clean +breast and a good conscience “: and that’s’—here she sighed heavily +several times—‘and that’s the reason I sent for you, Mathew +Kearney!’ +</p> +<p> +Poor Kearney sighed heavily over that category of misdoers with whom he +found himself classed, but he said nothing. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t want to say anything harsh to you, Mathew, nor have I strength to +listen, if you’d try to defend yourself; time is short with me now, but +this I must say, if I’m here now sick and sore, and if the poor boy in the +other room is lying down with his fractured head, it is you, and you +alone, have the blame.’ +</p> +<p> +‘May the blessed Virgin give me patience!’ muttered he, as he wrung his +hands despairingly. +</p> +<p> +‘I hope she will; and give you more, Mathew Kearney. I hope she’ll give +you a hearty repentance. I hope she’ll teach you that the few days that +remain to you in this life are short enough for contrition—ay—contrition +and castigation.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ain’t I getting it now,’ muttered he; but low as he spoke the words her +quick hearing had caught them. +</p> +<p> +‘I hope you are; it is the last bit of friendship I can do you. You have a +hard, worldly, selfish nature, Mathew; you had it as a boy, and it grew +worse as you grew older. What many believed high spirits in you was +nothing else than the reckless devilment of a man that only thought of +himself. You could afford to be—at least to look—light-hearted, +for you cared for nobody. You squandered your little property, and you’d +have made away with the few acres that belonged to your ancestors, if the +law would have let you. As for the way you brought up your children, that +lazy boy below-stairs, that never did a hand’s turn, is proof enough, and +poor Kitty, just because she wasn’t like the rest of you, how she’s +treated!’ +</p> +<p> +‘How is that: what is my cruelty there?’ cried he. +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t try to make yourself out worse than you are,’ said she sternly, +‘and pretend that you don’t know the wrong you done her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘May I never—if I understand what you mean.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe you thought it was no business of yours to provide for your own +child. Maybe you had a notion that it was enough that she had her food and +a roof over her while you were here, and that somehow—anyhow—she’d +get on, as they call it, when you were in the other place. Mathew Kearney, +I’ll say nothing so cruel to you as your own conscience is saying this +minute; or maybe, with that light heart that makes your friends so fond of +you, you never bothered yourself about her at all, and that’s the way it +come about.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What came about? I want to know <i>that</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘First and foremost, I don’t think the law will let you. I don’t believe +you can charge your estate against the entail. I have a note there to ask +McKeown’s opinion, and if I’m right, I’ll set apart a sum in my will to +contest it in the Queen’s Bench. I tell you this to your face, Mathew +Kearney, and I’m going where I can tell it to somebody better than a +hard-hearted, cruel old man.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What is it that I want to do, and that the law won’t let me?’ asked he, +in the most imploring accents. +</p> +<p> +‘At least twelve honest men will decide it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Decide what! in the name of the saints?’ cried he. +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t be profane; don’t parade your unbelieving notions to a poor old +woman on her death-bed. You may want to leave your daughter a beggar, and +your son little better, but you have no right to disturb my last moments +with your terrible blasphemies.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m fairly bothered now,’ cried he, as his two arms dropped powerlessly +to his sides. ‘So help me, if I know whether I’m awake or in a dream.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s an excuse won’t serve you where you’ll be soon going, and I warn +you, don’t trust it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have a little pity on me, Miss Betty, darling,’ said he, in his most +coaxing tone; ‘and tell me what it is I have done?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You mean what you are trying to do; but what, please the Virgin, we’ll +not let you!’ +</p> +<p> +‘What is <i>that</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what, weak and ill, and dying as I am, I’ve strength enough left in +me to prevent, Mathew Kearney—and if you’ll give me that Bible +there, I’ll kiss it, and take my oath that, if he marries her, he’ll never +put foot in a house of mine, nor inherit an acre that belongs to me; and +all that I’ll leave in my will shall be my—well, I won’t say what, +only it’s something he’ll not have to pay a legacy duty on. Do you +understand me now, or ain’t I plain enough yet?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not yet. You’ll have to make it clearer still.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Faith, I must say you did not pick up much cuteness from your adopted +daughter.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Who is she?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The Greek hussy that you want to marry my nephew, and give a dowry to out +of the estate that belongs to your son. I know it all, Mathew. I wasn’t +two hours in the house before my old woman brought me the story from Mary. +Ay, stare if you like, but they all know it below-stairs, and a nice way +you are discussed in your own house! Getting a promise out of a poor boy +in a brain fever, making him give a pledge in his ravings! Won’t it tell +well in a court of justice, of a magistrate, a county gentleman, a Kearney +of Kilgobbin? Oh! Mathew, Mathew, I’m ashamed of you!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Upon my oath, you’re making me ashamed of myself that I sit here and +listen to you,’ cried he, carried beyond all endurance. ‘Abusing, ay, +blackguarding me this last hour about a lying story that came from the +kitchen. It’s you that ought to be ashamed, old lady. Not, indeed, for +believing ill of an old friend—for that’s nature in you—but +for not having common sense, just common sense to guide you, and a little +common decency to warn you. Look now, there is not a word—there is +not a syllable of truth in the whole story. Nobody ever thought of your +nephew asking my niece to marry him; and if <i>he</i> did, she wouldn’t +have him. She looks higher, and she has a right to look higher than to be +the wife of an Irish squireen.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Go on, Mathew, go on. You waited for me to be as I am now before you had +courage for words like these.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, I ask your pardon, and ask it in all humiliation and sorrow. My +temper—bad luck to it!—gets the better, or, maybe, it’s the +worse, of me at times, and I say fifty things that I know I don’t feel—just +the way sailors load a gun with anything in the heat of an action.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not in a condition to talk of sea-fights, Mr. Kearney, though I’m +obliged to you all the same for trying to amuse me. You’ll not think me +rude if I ask you to send Kate to me? And please to tell Father Luke that +I’ll not see him this morning. My nerves have been sorely tried. One word +before you go, Mathew Kearney; and have compassion enough not to answer +me. You may be a just man and an honest man, you may be fair in your +dealings, and all that your tenants say of you may be lies and calumnies, +but to insult a poor old woman on her death-bed is cruel and unfeeling; +and I’ll tell you more, Mathew, it’s cowardly and it’s—’ +</p> +<p> +Kearney did not wait to hear what more it might be, for he was already at +the door, and rushed out as if he was escaping from a fire. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m glad he’s better than they made him out,’ said Miss Betty to herself, +in a tone of calm soliloquy; ‘and he’ll not be worse for some of the home +truths I told him.’ And with this she drew on her silk mittens, and +arranged her cap composedly, while she waited for Kate’s arrival. +</p> +<p> +As for poor Kearney, other troubles were awaiting him in his study, where +he found his son and Mr. Holmes, the lawyer, sitting before a table +covered with papers. ‘I have no head for business now,’ cried Kearney. ‘I +don’t feel over well to-day, and if you want to talk to me, you’ll have to +put it off till to-morrow.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Holmes must leave for town, my lord,’ interposed Dick, in his most +insinuating tone, ‘and he only wants a few minutes with you before he +goes.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And it’s just what he won’t get. I would not see the Lord-Lieutenant if +he was here now.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The trial is fixed for Tuesday the 19th, my lord,’ cried Holmes,’ and the +National press has taken it up in such a way that we have no chance +whatever. The verdict will be “Guilty,” without leaving the box; and the +whole voice of public opinion will demand the very heaviest sentence the +law can pronounce.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Think of that poor fellow O’Shea, just rising from a sick-bed,’ said +Dick, as his voice shook with agitation. +</p> +<p> +‘They can’t hang him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, for the scoundrel Gill is alive, and will be the chief witness on the +trial; but they may give him two years with prison labour, and if they do, +it will kill him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know that. I’ve seen more than one fellow come out fresh and +hearty after a spell. In fact, the plain diet, and the regular work, and +the steady habits, are wonderful things for a young man that has been +knocking about in a town life.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, father, don’t speak that way. I know Gorman well, and I can swear +he’d not survive it.’ +</p> +<p> +Kearney shook his head doubtingly, and muttered, ‘There’s a great deal +said about wounded pride and injured feelings, but the truth is, these +things are like a bad colic, mighty hard to bear, if you like, but nobody +ever dies of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘From all I hear about young Mr. O’Shea,’ said Holmes, ‘I am led to +believe he will scarcely live through an imprisonment.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To be sure! Why not? At three or four-and-twenty we’re all of us +high-spirited and sensitive and noble-hearted, and we die on the spot if +there’s a word against our honour. It is only after we cross the line in +life, wherever that be, that we become thick-skinned and hardened, and +mind nothing that does not touch our account at the bank. Sure I know the +theory well! Ay, and the only bit of truth in it all is, that we cry out +louder when we’re young, for we are not so well used to bad treatment.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Right or wrong, no man likes to have the whole press of a nation +assailing him and all the sympathies of a people against him,’ said +Holmes. +</p> +<p> +‘And what can you and your brothers in wigs do against that? Will all your +little beguiling ways and insinuating tricks turn the <i>Pike</i> and the +<i>Irish Cry</i> from what sells their papers? Here it is now, Mr. Holmes, +and I can’t put it shorter. Every man that lives in Ireland knows in his +heart he must live in hot water; but somehow, though he may not like it, +he gets used to it, and he finds it does him no harm in the end. There was +an uncle of my own was in a passion for forty years, and he died at +eighty-six.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish I could only secure your attention, my lord, for ten minutes.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what would you do, counsellor, if you had it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You see, my lord, there are some very grave questions here. First of all, +you and your brother magistrates had no right to accept bail. The injury +was too grave: Gill’s life, as the doctor’s certificate will prove, was in +danger. It was for a judge in Chambers to decide whether bail could be +taken. They will move, therefore, in the Queen’s Bench, for a mandamus—’ +</p> +<p> +‘May I never, if you won’t drive me mad!’ cried Kearney passionately; ‘and +I’d rather be picking oakum this minute than listening to all the possible +misfortunes briefs and lawyers could bring on me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just listen to Holmes, father,’ whispered Dick. ‘He thinks that Gill +might be got over—that if done by <i>you</i> with three or four +hundred pounds, he’d either make his evidence so light, or he’d contradict +himself, or, better than all, he’d not make an appearance at the trial—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Compounding a felony! Catch me at it!’ cried the old man, with a yell. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, Joe Atlee will be here to-night,’ continued Dick. ‘He’s a clever +fellow at all rogueries. Will you let him see if it can’t be arranged.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t care who does it, so it isn’t Mathew Kearney,’ said he angrily, +for his patience could endure no more. ‘If you won’t leave me alone now, I +won’t say but that I’ll go out and throw myself into a bog-hole!’ +</p> +<p> +There was a tone of such perfect sincerity in his speech, that, without +another word, Dick took the lawyer’s arm, and led him from the room. +</p> +<p> +A third voice was heard outside as they issued forth, and Kearney could +just make out that it was Major Lockwood, who was asking Dick if he might +have a few minutes’ conversation with his father. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t suspect you’ll find my father much disposed for conversation just +now. I think if you would not mind making your visit to him at another +time—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just so!’ broke in the old man, ‘if you’re not coming with a +strait-waistcoat, or a coil of rope to hold me down, I’d say it’s better +to leave me to myself.’ +</p> +<p> +Whether it was that the major was undeterred by these forbidding +evidences, or that what he deemed the importance of his communication +warranted some risk, certain it is he lingered at the door, and stood +there where Dick and the lawyer had gone and left him. +</p> +<p> +A faint tap at the door at last apprised Kearney that some one was +without, and he hastily, half angrily, cried, ‘Come in!’ Old Kearney +almost started with surprise as the major walked in. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not going to make any apology for intruding on you,’ cried he. ‘What +I want to say shall be said in three words, and I cannot endure the +suspense of not having them said and answered. I’ve had a whole night of +feverish anxiety, and a worse morning, thinking and turning over the thing +in my mind, and settled it must be at once, one way or other, for my head +will not stand it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My own is tried pretty hard, and I can feel for you,’ said Kearney, with +a grim humour. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ve come to ask if you’ll give me your daughter?’ said Lockwood, and his +face became blood-red with the effort the words had cost him. +</p> +<p> +‘Give you my daughter?’ cried Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘I want to make her my wife, and as I know little about courtship, and +have nobody here that could settle this affair for me—for Walpole is +thinking of his own concerns—I’ve thought the best way, as it was +the shortest, was to come at once to yourself: I have got a few documents +here that will show you I have enough to live on, and to make a tidy +settlement, and do all that ought to be done.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m sure you are an excellent fellow, and I like you myself; but you see, +major, a man doesn’t dispose of his daughter like his horse, and I’d like +to hear what she would say to the bargain.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose you could ask her?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, indeed, that’s true, I could ask her; but on the whole, major, +don’t you think the question would come better from yourself?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That means courtship?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I admit it is liable to that objection, but somehow it’s the usual +course.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no,’ said the other slowly, ‘I could not manage that. I’m sick of +bachelor life, and I’m ready to send in my papers and have done with it, +but I don’t know how to go about the other. Not to say, Kearney,’ added +he, more boldly, ‘that I think there is something confoundedly mean in +that daily pursuit of a woman, till by dint of importunity, and one thing +or another, you get her to like you! What can she know of her own mind +after three or four months of what these snobs call attentions? How is she +to say how much is mere habit, how much is gratified vanity of having a +fellow dangling after her, how much the necessity of showing the world she +is not compromised by the cad’s solicitations? Take my word for it, +Kearney, my way is the best. Be able to go up like a man and tell the +girl, “It’s all arranged. I’ve shown the old cove that I can take care of +you, he has seen that I’ve no debts or mortgages; I’m ready to behave +handsomely, what do you say yourself?”’ +</p> +<p> +‘She might say, “I know nothing about you. I may possibly not see much to +dislike, but how do I know I should like you.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I’d say, “I’m one of those fellows that are the same all through, +to-day as I was yesterday, and to-morrow the same. When I’m in a bad +temper I go out on the moors and walk it off, and I’m not hard to live +with.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s many a bad fellow a woman might like better.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All the luckier for me, then, that I don’t get her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I might say, too,’ said Kearney, with a smile, ‘how much do you know of +my daughter—of her temper, her tastes, her habits, and her likings? +What assurance have you that you would suit each other, and that you are +not as wide apart in character as in country?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll answer for that. She’s always good-tempered, cheerful, and +light-hearted. She’s always nicely dressed and polite to every one. She +manages this old house, and these stupid bog-trotters, till one fancies it +a fine establishment and a first-rate household. She rides like a lion, +and I’d rather hear her laugh than I’d listen to Patti.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll call all that mighty like being in love.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do if you like—but answer me my question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is more than I’m able; but I’ll consult my daughter. I’ll tell her +pretty much in your own words all you have said to me, and she shall +herself give the answer.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All right, and how soon?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, in the course of the day. Should she say that she does not +understand being wooed in this manner, that she would like more time to +learn something more about yourself, that, in fact, there is something too +peremptory in this mode of proceeding, I would not say she was wrong.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But if she says Yes frankly, you’ll let me know at once.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will—on the spot.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0079" id="link2HCH0079"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXIX +</h2> +<h3> +PLEASANT CONGRATULATIONS +</h3> +<p> +The news of Nina’s engagement to Walpole soon spread through the castle at +Kilgobbin, and gave great satisfaction; even the humbler members of the +household were delighted to think there would be a wedding and all its +appropriate festivity. +</p> +<p> +When the tidings at length arrived at Miss O’Shea’s room, so reviving were +the effects upon her spirits, that the old lady insisted she should be +dressed and carried down to the drawing-room that the bridegroom might be +presented to her in all form. +</p> +<p> +Though Nina herself chafed at such a proceeding, and called it a most +‘insufferable pretension,’ she was perhaps not sorry secretly at the +opportunity afforded herself to let the tiresome old woman guess how she +regarded her, and what might be their future relations towards each other. +‘Not indeed,’ added she, ‘that we are likely ever to meet again, or that I +should recognise her beyond a bow if we should.’ +</p> +<p> +As for Kearney, the announcement that Miss Betty was about to appear in +public filled him with unmixed terror, and he muttered drearily as he +went, ‘There’ll be wigs on the green for this.’ Nor was Walpole himself +pleased at the arrangement. Like most men in his position, he could not be +brought to see the delicacy or the propriety of being paraded as an object +of public inspection, nor did he perceive the fitness of that display of +trinkets which he had brought with him as presents, and the sight of which +had become a sort of public necessity. +</p> +<p> +Not the least strange part of the whole procedure was that no one could +tell where or how or with whom it originated. It was like one of those +movements which are occasionally seen in political life, where, without +the direct intervention of any precise agent, a sort of diffused +atmosphere of public opinion suffices to produce results and effect +changes that all are ready to disavow but to accept. +</p> +<p> +The mere fact of the pleasure the prospect afforded to Miss Betty +prevented Kate from offering opposition to what she felt to be both bad in +taste and ridiculous. +</p> +<p> +‘That old lady imagines, I believe, that I am to come down like a <i>prétendu</i> +in a French vaudeville—dressed in a tail-coat, with a white tie and +white gloves, and perhaps receive her benediction. She mistakes herself, +she mistakes us. If there was a casket of uncouth old diamonds, or some +marvellous old point lace to grace the occasion, we might play our parts +with a certain decorous hypocrisy; but to be stared at through a double +eye-glass by a snuffy old woman in black mittens, is more than one is +called on to endure—eh, Lockwood?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know. I think I’d go through it all gladly to have the occasion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have a little patience, old fellow, it will all come right. My worthy +relatives—for I suppose I can call them so now—are too shrewd +people to refuse the offer of such a fellow as you. They have that native +pride that demands a certain amount of etiquette and deference. They must +not seem to rise too eagerly to the fly; but only give them time—give +them time, Lockwood.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ay, but the waiting in this uncertainty is terrible to me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Let it be certainty, then, and for very little I’ll ensure you! Bear this +in mind, my dear fellow, and you’ll see how little need there is for +apprehension. You—and the men like you—snug fellows with +comfortable estates and no mortgages, unhampered by ties and uninfluenced +by connections, are a species of plant that is rare everywhere, but +actually never grew at all in Ireland, where every one spent double his +income, and seldom dared to move a step without a committee of relations. +Old Kearney has gone through that fat volume of the gentry and squirearchy +of England last night, and from Sir Simon de Lockwood, who was killed at +Creçy, down to a certain major in the Carbineers, he knows you all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll bet you a thousand they say No.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ve not got a thousand to pay if I should lose, but I’ll lay a pony—two, +if you like—that you are an accepted man this day—ay, before +dinner.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I only thought so!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Confound it—you don’t pretend you are in love!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know whether I am or not, but I do know how I should like to +bring that nice girl back to Hampshire, and install her at the Dingle. +I’ve a tidy stable, some nice shooting, a good trout-stream, and then I +should have the prettiest wife in the county.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Happy dog! Yours is the real philosophy of life. The fellows who are +realistic enough to reckon up the material elements of their happiness—who +have little to speculate on and less to unbelieve—they are right.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If you mean that I’ll never break my heart because I don’t get in for the +county, that’s true—I don’t deny it. But come, tell me, is it all +settled about your business? Has the uncle been asked?—has he +spoken?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He has been asked and given his consent. My distinguished father-in-law, +the prince, has been telegraphed to this morning, and his reply may be +here to-night or to-morrow. At all events, we are determined that even +should he prove adverse, we shall not be deterred from our wishes by the +caprice of a parent who has abandoned us.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s what people would call a love-match.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I sincerely trust it is. If her affections were not inextricably engaged, +it is not possible that such a girl could pledge her future to a man as +humble as myself?’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is, she is very much in love with <i>you</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope the astonishment of your question does not arise from its seeming +difficulty of belief?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not so much that, but I thought there might have been a little +heroics, or whatever it is, on your side.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Most dull dragoon, do you not know that, so long as a man spoons, he can +talk of his affection for a woman; but that, once she is about to be his +wife, or is actually his wife, he limits his avowals to <i>her</i> love +for <i>him</i>?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I never heard that before. I say, what a swell you are this morning. The +cock-pheasants will mistake you for one of them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing can be simpler, nothing quieter, I trust, than a suit of dark +purple knickerbockers; and you may see that my thread stockings and my +coarse shoes presuppose a stroll in the plantations, where, indeed, I mean +to smoke my morning cigar.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She’ll make you give up tobacco, I suppose?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing of the kind—a thorough woman of the world enforces no such +penalties as these. True free-trade is the great matrimonial maxim, and +for people of small means it is inestimable. The formula may be stated +thus—‘Dine at the best houses, and give tea at your own.’ +</p> +<p> +What other precepts of equal wisdom Walpole was prepared to enunciate were +lost to the world by a message informing him that Miss Betty was in the +drawing-room, and the family assembled, to see him. +</p> +<p> +Cecil Walpole possessed a very fair stock of that useful quality called +assurance; but he had no more than he needed to enter that large room, +where the assembled family sat in a half-circle, and stand to be surveyed +by Miss O’Shea’s eye-glass, unabashed. Nor was the ordeal the less trying +as he overheard the old lady ask her neighbour, ‘if he wasn’t the image of +the Knave of Diamonds.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I thought you were the other man!’ said she curtly, as he made his bow. +</p> +<p> +‘I deplore the disappointment, madam—even though I do not comprehend +it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was the picture, the photograph, of the other man I saw—a fine, +tall, dark man, with long moustaches.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The fine, tall, dark man, with the long moustaches, is in the house, and +will be charmed to be presented to you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ay, ay! presented is all very fine; but that won’t make him the +bridegroom,’ said she, with a laugh. +</p> +<p> +‘I sincerely trust it will not, madam.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And it is you, then, are Major Walpole?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mr. Walpole, madam—my friend Lockwood is the major.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To be sure. I have it right now. You are the young man that got into that +unhappy scrape, and got the Lord-Lieutenant turned away—’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wonder how you endure this,’ burst out Nina, as she arose and walked +angrily towards a window. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think I caught what the young lady said; but if it was, that what +cannot be cured must be endured, it is true enough; and I suppose that +they’ll get over your blunder as they have done many another.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I live in that hope, madam.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not but it’s a bad beginning in public life; and a stupid mistake hangs +long on a man’s memory. You’re young, however, and people are generous +enough to believe it might be a youthful indiscretion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You give me great comfort, madam.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And now you are going to risk another venture?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I sincerely trust on safer grounds.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That’s what they all think. I never knew a man that didn’t believe he +drew the prize in matrimony. Ask him, however, six months after he’s tied. +Say, “What do you think of your ticket now?” Eh, Mat Kearney? It doesn’t +take twenty or thirty years quarrelling and disputing to show one that a +lottery with so many blanks is just a swindle.’ +</p> +<p> +A loud bang of the door, as Nina flounced out in indignation, almost shook +the room. +</p> +<p> +‘There’s a temper you’ll know more of yet, young gentleman; and, take my +word for it, it’s only in stage-plays that a shrew is ever tamed.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I declare,’ cried Dick, losing all patience, ‘I think Miss O’Shea is too +unsparing of us all. We have our faults, I’m sure; but public correction +will not make us more comfortable.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It wasn’t <i>your</i> comfort I was thinking of, young man; and if I +thought of your poor father’s, I’d have advised him to put you out an +apprentice. There’s many a light business—like stationery, or figs, +or children’s toys—and they want just as little capital as +capacity.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Miss Betty,’ said Kearney stiffly, ‘this is not the time nor the place +for these discussions. Mr. Walpole was polite enough to present himself +here to-day to have the honour of making your acquaintance, and to +announce his future marriage.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A great event for us all—and we’re proud of it! It’s what the +newspapers will call a great day for the Bog of Allen. Eh, Mat? The +princess—God forgive me, but I’m always calling her Costigan—but +the princess will be set down niece to Lord Kilgobbin; and if you’—and +she addressed Walpole—‘haven’t a mock-title and a mock-estate, +you’ll be the only one without them!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think any one will deny us our tempers,’ cried Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘Here’s Lockwood,’ cried Walpole, delighted to see his friend enter, +though he as quickly endeavoured to retreat. +</p> +<p> +‘Come in, major,’ said Kearney. ‘We’re all friends here. Miss O’Shea, this +is Major Lockwood, of the Carbineers—Miss O’Shea.’ +</p> +<p> +Lockwood bowed stiffly, but did not speak. +</p> +<p> +‘Be attentive to the old woman,’ whispered Walpole. ‘A word from her will +make your affair all right.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have been very desirous to have had the honour of this introduction, +madam,’ said Lockwood, as he seated himself at her side. +</p> +<p> +‘Was not that a clever diversion I accomplished with “the Heavy “?’ said +Walpole, as he drew away Kearney and his son into a window. +</p> +<p> +‘I never heard her much worse than to-day,’ said Dick. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know,’ hesitated Kilgobbin. ‘I suspect she is breaking. There is +none of the sustained virulence I used to remember of old. She lapses into +half-mildness at moments.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I own I did not catch them, nor, I’m afraid, did Nina,’ said Dick. ‘Look +there! I’ll be shot if she’s not giving your friend the major a lesson! +When she performs in that way with her hands, you may swear she is +didactic.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I think I’ll go to his relief,’ said Walpole; ‘but I own it’s a case for +the V.C.’ +</p> +<p> +As Walpole drew nigh, he heard her saying: ‘Marry one of your own race, +and you will jog on well enough. Marry a Frenchwoman or a Spaniard, and +she’ll lead her own life, and be very well satisfied; but a poor Irish +girl, with a fresh heart and a joyous temper—what is to become of +her, with your dull habits and your dreary intercourse, your county +society and your Chinese manners!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Miss O’Shea is telling me that I must not look for a wife among her +countrywomen,’ said Lockwood, with a touching attempt to smile. +</p> +<p> +‘What I overheard was not encouraging,’ said Walpole; ‘but I think Miss +O’Shea takes a low estimate of our social temperament.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing of the kind! All I say is, you’ll do mighty well for each other, +or, for aught I know, you might intermarry with the Dutch or the Germans; +but it’s a downright shame to unite your slow sluggish spirits with the +sparkling brilliancy and impetuous joy of an Irish girl. That’s a union +I’d never consent to.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope this is no settled resolution,’ said Walpole, speaking in a low +whisper; ‘for I want to bespeak your especial influence in my friend’s +behalf. Major Lockwood is a most impassioned admirer of Miss Kearney, and +has already declared as much to her father.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Come over here, Mat Kearney! come over here this moment!’ cried she, half +wild with excitement. ‘What new piece of roguery, what fresh intrigue is +this? Will you dare to tell me you had a proposal for Kate, for my own +god-daughter, without even so much as telling me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘My dear Miss Betty, be calm, be cool for one minute, and I’ll tell you +everything.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Ay, when I’ve found it out, Mat!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I profess I don’t think my friend’s pretensions are discussed with much +delicacy, time and place considered,’ said Walpole. +</p> +<p> +‘We have something to think of as well as delicacy, young man: there’s a +woman’s happiness to be remembered.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Here it is, now, the whole business,’ said Kearney. ‘The major there +asked me yesterday to get my daughter’s consent to his addresses.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And you never told me,’ cried Miss Betty. +</p> +<p> +‘No, indeed, nor herself neither; for after I turned it over in my mind, I +began to see it wouldn’t do—’ +</p> +<p> +‘How do you mean not do?’ asked Lockwood. +</p> +<p> +‘Just let me finish. What I mean is this—if a man wants to marry an +Irish girl, he mustn’t begin by asking leave to make love to her—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mat’s right!’ cried the old lady stoutly. +</p> +<p> +‘And above all, he oughtn’t to think that the short cut to her heart is +through his broad acres.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mat’s right—quite right!’ +</p> +<p> +‘And besides this, that the more a man dwells on his belongings, and the +settlements, and such like, the more he seems to say, “I may not catch +your fancy in everything, I may not ride as boldly or dance as well as +somebody else, but never mind—you’re making a very prudent match, +and there is a deal of pure affection in the Three per Cents.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I’ll give you another reason,’ said Miss Betty resolutely. ‘Kate +Kearney cannot have two husbands, and I’ve made her promise to marry my +nephew this morning.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What, without any leave of mine?’ exclaimed Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘Just so, Mat. She’ll marry him if you give your consent; but whether you +will or not, she’ll never marry another.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is there, then, a real engagement?’ whispered Walpole to Kearney. ‘Has my +friend here got his answer?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He’ll not wait for another,’ said Lockwood haughtily, as he arose. ‘I’m +for town, Cecil,’ whispered he. +</p> +<p> +‘So shall I be this evening,’ replied Walpole, in the same tone. ‘I must +hurry over to London and see Lord Danesbury. I’ve my troubles too.’ And so +saying, he drew his arm within the major’s, and led him away; while Miss +Betty, with Kearney on one side of her and Dick on the other, proceeded to +recount the arrangement she had made to make over the Barn and the estate +to Gorman, it being her own intention to retire altogether from the world +and finish her days in the ‘Retreat.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And a very good thing to do, too,’ said Kearney, who was too much +impressed with the advantages of the project to remember his politeness. +</p> +<p> +‘I have had enough of it, Mat,’ added she, in a lugubrious tone; ‘and it’s +all backbiting, and lying, and mischief-making, and what’s worse, by the +people who might live quietly and let others do the same!’ +</p> +<p> +‘What you say is true as the Bible.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It may be hard to do it, Mat Kearney, but I’ll pray for them in my hours +of solitude, and in that blessed Retreat I’ll ask for a blessing on +yourself, and that your heart, hard and cruel and worldly as it is now, +may be changed; and that in your last days—maybe on the bed of +sickness—when you are writhing and twisting with pain, with a bad +heart and a worse conscience—when you’ll have nobody but hirelings +near you—hirelings that will be robbing you before your eyes, and +not waiting till the breath leaves you—when even the drop of drink +to cool your lips—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t—don’t go on that way, Miss Betty. I’ve a cold shivering down +the spine of my back this minute, and a sickness creeping all over me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’m glad of it. I’m glad that my words have power over your wicked old +nature—if it’s not too late.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If it’s miserable and wretched you wanted to make me, don’t fret about +your want of success; though whether it all comes too late, I cannot tell +you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We’ll leave that to St. Joseph.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do so! do so!’ cried he eagerly, for he had a shrewd suspicion he would +have better chances of mercy at any hands than her own. +</p> +<p> +‘As for Gorman, if I find that he has any notions about claiming an acre +of the property, I’ll put it all into Chancery, and the suit will outlive +<i>him</i>; but if he owns he is entirely dependent on my bounty, I’ll +settle the Barn and the land on him, and the deed shall be signed the day +he marries your daughter. People tell you that you can’t take your money +with you into the next world, Mat Kearney, and a greater lie was never +uttered. Thanks to the laws of England, and the Court of Equity in +particular, it’s the very thing you can do! Ay, and you can provide, +besides, that everybody but the people that had a right to it shall have a +share. So I say to Gorman O’Shea, beware what you are at, and don’t go on +repeating that stupid falsehood about not carrying your debentures into +the next world.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are a wise woman, and you know life well,’ said he solemnly. +</p> +<p> +‘And if I am, it’s nothing to sigh over, Mr. Kearney. One is grateful for +mercies, but does not groan over them like rheumatism or the lumbago.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Maybe I ‘in a little out of spirits to-day.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I shouldn’t wonder if you were. They tell me you sat over your wine, with +that tall man, last night, till nigh one o’clock, and it’s not at your +time of life that you can do these sort of excesses with impunity; you had +a good constitution once, and there’s not much left of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘My patience, I’m grateful to see, has not quite deserted me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope there’s other of your virtues you can be more sure of,’ said she, +rising, ‘for if I was asked your worst failing, I’d say it was your +irritability.’ And with a stern frown, as though to confirm the judicial +severity of her words, she nodded her head to him and walked away. +</p> +<p> +It was only then that Kearney discovered he was left alone, and that Dick +had stolen away, though when or how he could not say. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m glad the boy was not listening to her, for I’m downright ashamed that +I bore it,’ was his final reflection as he strolled out to take a walk in +the plantation. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0080" id="link2HCH0080"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXX +</h2> +<h3> +A NEW ARRIVAL +</h3> +<p> +Though the dinner-party that day at Kilgobbin Castle was deficient in the +persons of Lockwood and Walpole, the accession of Joe Atlee to the company +made up in a great measure for the loss. He arrived shortly before dinner +was announced, and even in the few minutes in the drawing-room, his gay +and lively manner, his pleasant flow of small talk, dashed with the +lightest of epigrams, and that marvellous variety he possessed, made every +one delighted with him. +</p> +<p> +‘I met Walpole and Lockwood at the station, and did my utmost to make them +turn back with me. You may laugh, Lord Kilgobbin, but in doing the honours +of another man’s house, as I was at that moment, I deem myself without a +rival.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish with all my heart you had succeeded; there is nothing I like as +much as a well-filled table,’ said Kearney. +</p> +<p> +‘Not that their air and manner,’ resumed Joe, ‘impressed me strongly with +the exuberance of their spirits; a pair of drearier dogs I have not seen +for some time, and I believe I told them so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Did they explain their gloom, or even excuse it?’ asked Dick. +</p> +<p> +‘Except on the general grounds of coming away from such fascinating +society. Lockwood played sulky, and scarcely vouchsafed a word, and as for +Walpole, he made some high-flown speeches about his regrets and his torn +sensibilities—so like what one reads in a French novel, that the +very sound of them betrays unreality.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But was it, then, so very impossible to be sorry for leaving this?’ asked +Nina calmly. +</p> +<p> +‘Certainly not for any man but Walpole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And why not Walpole?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Can you ask me? You who know people so well, and read them so clearly; +you to whom the secret anatomy of the “heart” is no mystery, and who +understand how to trace the fibre of intense selfishness through every +tissue of his small nature. He might be miserable at being separated from +himself—there could be no other estrangement would affect <i>him</i>.’ +</p> +<p> +‘This was not always your estimate of your <i>friend</i>,’ said Nina, with +a marked emphasis of the last word. +</p> +<p> +‘Pardon me, it was my unspoken opinion from the first hour I met him. +Since then, some space of time has intervened, and though it has made no +change in him, I hope it has dealt otherwise with me. I have at least +reached the point in life where men not only have convictions but avow +them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Come, come; I can remember what precious good-luck you called it to make +his acquaintance,’ cried Dick, half angrily. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t deny it. I was very nigh drowning at the time, and it was the +first plank I caught hold of. I am very grateful to him for the rescue; +but I owe him more gratitude for the opportunity the incident gave me to +see these men in their intimacy—to know, and know thoroughly, what +is the range, what the stamp of those minds by which states are ruled and +masses are governed. Through Walpole I knew his master; and through the +master I have come to know the slipshod intelligences which, composed of +official detail, House of Commons’ gossip, and <i>Times</i>’ leaders, are +accepted by us as statesmen. And if—’ A very supercilious smile on +Nina’s mouth arrested him in the current of his speech, and he said, ‘I +know, of course, I know the question you are too polite to ask, but which +quivers on your lip: “Who is the gifted creature that sees all this +incompetence and insufficiency around him?” And I am quite ready to tell +you. It is Joseph Atlee—Joseph Atlee, who knows that when he and +others like him—for we are a strong coterie—stop the supply of +ammunition, these gentlemen must cease firing. Let the <i>Débats</i> and +the <i>Times</i>, the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i> and the <i>Saturday</i>, +and a few more that I need not stop to enumerate, strike work, and let us +see how much of original thought you will obtain from your Cabinet sages! +It is in the clash and collision of the thinkers outside of responsibility +that these world-revered leaders catch the fire that lights up their +policy. The <i>Times</i> made the Crimean blunder. The <i>Siècle</i> +created the Mexican fiasco. The <i>Kreuz Zeitung</i> gave the first +impulse to the Schleswig-Holstein imbroglio; and if I mistake not, the +“review” in the last <i>Diplomatic Chronicle</i> will bear results of +which he who now speaks to you will not disown the parentage.’ +</p> +<p> +‘The saints be praised! here’s dinner,’ exclaimed Kearney, ‘or this fellow +would talk us into a brain-fever. Kate is dining with Miss Betty again—God +bless her for it,’ muttered he as he gave his arm to Nina, and led the +way. +</p> +<p> +‘I’ve got you a commission as a “peeler,” Dick,’ said Joe, as they moved +along. ‘You’ll have to prove that you can read and write, which is more +than they would ask of you if you were going into the Cabinet; but we live +in an intellectual age, and we test all the cabin-boys, and it is only the +steersman we take on trust.’ +</p> +<p> +Though Nina was eager to resent Atlee’s impertinence on Walpole, she could +not help feeling interested and amused by his sketches of his travels. +</p> +<p> +If, in speaking of Greece, he only gave the substance of the article he +had written for the <i>Revue des Deux Mondes</i>, as the paper was yet +unpublished all the remarks were novel, and the anecdotes fresh and +sparkling. The tone of light banter and raillery in which he described +public life in Greece and Greek statesmen, might have lost some of its +authority had any one remembered to count the hours the speaker had spent +in Athens; and Nina was certainly indignant at the hazardous effrontery of +the criticisms. It was not, then, without intention that she arose to +retire while Atlee was relating an interesting story of brigandage, and he—determined +to repay the impertinence in kind—continued to recount his history +as he arose to open the door for her to pass out. Her insolent look as she +swept by was met by a smile of admiration on his part that actually made +her cheek tingle with anger. +</p> +<p> +Old Kearney dozed off gently, under the influence of names of places and +persons that did not interest him, and the two young men drew their chairs +to the fire, and grew confidential at once. +</p> +<p> +‘I think you have sent my cousin away in bad humour,’ said Dick. +</p> +<p> +‘I see it,’ said Joe, as he slowly puffed his cigar. ‘That young lady’s +head has been so cruelly turned by flattery of late, that the man who does +not swing incense before her affronts her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; but you went out of your way to provoke her. It is true she knows +little of Greece or Greeks, but it offends her to hear them slighted or +ridiculed; and you took pains to do both.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Contemptible little country! with a mock-army, a mock-treasury, and a +mock-chamber. The only thing real is the debt and the brigandage.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But why tell her so? You actually seemed bent on irritating her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Quite true—so I was. My dear Dick, you have some lessons to learn +in life, and one of them is that, just as it is bad heraldry to put colour +on colour, it is an egregious blunder to follow flattery by flattery. The +woman who has been spoiled by over-admiration must be approached with +something else as unlike it as may be—pique—annoy—irritate—outrage, +but take care that you interest her Let her only come to feel what a very +tiresome thing mere adulation is, and she will one day value your two or +three civil speeches as gems of priceless worth. It is exactly because I +deeply desire to gain her affections, I have begun in this way.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You have come too late.’ +</p> +<p> +‘How do you mean too late—she is not engaged?’ +</p> +<p> +‘She is engaged—she is to be married to Walpole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To Walpole!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; he came over a few days ago to ask her. There is some question now—I +don’t well understand it—about some family consent, or an invitation—something, +I believe, that Nina insists on, to show the world how his family welcome +her amongst them; and it is for this he has gone to London, but to be back +in eight or nine days, the wedding to take place towards the end of the +month.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Is he very much in love?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should say he is.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And she? Of course she could not possibly care for a fellow like +Walpole?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t see why not. He is very much the stamp of man girls admire.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not girls like Nina; not girls who aspire to a position in life, and who +know that the little talents of the salon no more make a man of the world +than the tricks of the circus will make a foxhunter. These ambitious women—she +is one of them—will marry a hopeless idiot if he can bring wealth +and rank and a great name; but they will not take a brainless creature who +has to work his way up in the world. If she has accepted Walpole, there is +pique in it, or ennui, or that uneasy desire of change that girls suffer +from like a malady.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I cannot tell you why, but I know she has accepted him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Women are not insensible to the value of second thoughts.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You mean she might throw him over—might jilt him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll not employ the ugly word that makes the wrong it is only meant to +indicate; but there are few of our resolves in life to which we might not +move amendment, and the changed opinion a woman forms of a man before +marriage would become a grievous injury if it happened after.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But must she of necessity change?’ +</p> +<p> +‘If she marry Walpole, I should say certainly. If a girl has fair +abilities and a strong temper—and Nina has a good share of each—she +will endure faults, actual vices, in a man, but she’ll not stand +littleness. Walpole has nothing else; and so I hope to prove to her +to-morrow and the day after—in fact, during those eight or ten days +you tell me he will be absent.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will she let you? Will she listen to you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not at first—at least, not willingly, or very easily; but I will +show her, by numerous little illustrations and even fables, where these +small people not only spoil their fortunes in life, but spoil life itself; +and what an irreparable blunder it is to link companionship with one of +them. I will sometimes make her laugh, and I may have to make her cry—it +will not be easy, but I shall do it—I shall certainly make her +thoughtful; and if you can do this day by day, so that a woman will recur +to the same theme pretty much in the same spirit, you must be a sorry +steersman, Master Dick, but you will know how to guide these thoughts and +trace the channel they shall follow.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And supposing, which I do not believe, that you could get her to break +with Walpole, what could <i>you</i> offer her?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Myself!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Inestimable boon, doubtless; but what of fortune—position or place +in life?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The first Napoleon used to say that the “power of the unknown number was +incommensurable”; and so I don’t despair of showing her that a man like +myself may be anything.’ +</p> +<p> +Dick shook his head doubtingly, and the other went on: ‘In this round game +we call life it is all “brag.” The fellow with the worst card in the pack, +if he’ll only risk his head on it, keep a bold face to the world and his +own counsel, will be sure to win. Bear in mind, Dick, that for some time +back I have been keeping the company of these great swells who sit highest +in the Synagogue, and dictate to us small Publicans. I have listened to +their hesitating counsels and their uncertain resolves; I have seen the +blotted despatches and equivocal messages given, to be disavowed if +needful; I have assisted at those dress rehearsals where speech was to +follow speech, and what seemed an incautious avowal by one was to be +“improved” into a bold declaration by another “in another place”; in fact, +my good friend, I have been near enough to measure the mighty +intelligences that direct us, and if I were not a believer in Darwin, I +should be very much shocked for what humanity was coming to. It is no +exaggeration that I say, if you were to be in the Home Office, and I at +the Foreign Office, without our names being divulged, there is not a man +or woman in England would be the wiser or the worse; though if either of +us were to take charge of the engine of the Holyhead line, there would be +a smash or an explosion before we reached Rugby.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All that will not enable you to make a settlement on Nina Kostalergi.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; but I’ll marry her all the same.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think so.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will you have a bet on it, Dick? What will you wager?’ +</p> +<p> +‘A thousand—ten, if I had it; but I’ll give you ten pounds on it, +which is about as much as either of us could pay.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Speak for yourself, Master Dick. As Robert Macaire says, “<i>Je viens de +toucher mes dividendes</i>,” and I am in no want of money. The fact is, so +long as a man can pay for certain luxuries in life, he is well off: the +strictly necessary takes care of itself.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Does it? I should like to know how.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With your present limited knowledge of life, I doubt if I could explain +it to you, but I will try one of these mornings. Meanwhile, let us go into +the drawing-room and get mademoiselle to sing for us. She will sing, I +take it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course—if asked by you.’ And there was the very faintest tone of +sneer in the words. +</p> +<p> +And they did go, and mademoiselle did sing all that Atlee could ask her +for, and she was charming in every way that grace and beauty and the wish +to please could make her. Indeed, to such extent did she carry her +fascinations that Joe grew thoughtful at last, and muttered to himself, +‘There is vendetta in this. It is only a woman knows how to make a +vengeance out of her attractions.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Why are you so serious, Mr. Atlee?’ asked she at last. +</p> +<p> +‘I was thinking—I mean, I was trying to think—yes, I remember +it now,’ muttered he. ‘I have had a letter for you all this time in my +pocket.’ +</p> +<p> +‘A letter from Greece?’ asked she impatiently. +</p> +<p> +‘No—at least I suspect not. It was given me as I drove through the +bog by a barefooted boy, who had trotted after the car for miles, and at +length overtook us by the accident of the horse picking up a stone in his +hoof. He said it was for “some one at the castle,” and I offered to take +charge of it—here it is,’ and he produced a square-shaped envelope +of common coarse-looking paper, sealed with red wax, and a shamrock for +impress. +</p> +<p> +‘A begging-letter, I should say, from the outside,’ said Dick. +</p> +<p> +‘Except that there is not one so poor as to ask aid from me,’ added Nina, +as she took the document, glanced at the writing, and placed it in her +pocket. +</p> +<p> +As they separated for the night, and Dick trotted up the stairs at Atlee’s +side, he said, ‘I don’t think, after all, my ten pounds is so safe as I +fancied.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t you?’ replied Joe. ‘My impressions are all the other way, Dick. It +is her courtesy that alarms me. The effort to captivate where there is no +stake to win, means mischief. She’ll make me in love with her whether I +will or not.’ The bitterness of his tone, and the impatient bang he gave +his door as he passed in, betrayed more of temper than was usual for him +to display, and as Dick sought his room, he muttered to himself, ‘I’m glad +to see that these over-cunning fellows are sure to meet their match, and +get beaten even at the game of their own invention.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0081" id="link2HCH0081"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXXI +</h2> +<h3> +AN UNLOOKED-FOR CORRESPONDENT +</h3> +<p> +It was no uncommon thing for the tenants to address petitions and +complaints in writing to Kate, and it occurred to Nina as not impossible +that some one might have bethought him of entreating her intercession in +their favour. The look of the letter, and the coarse wax, and the writing, +all in a measure strengthened this impression, and it was in the most +careless of moods she broke the envelope, scarcely caring to look for the +name of the writer, whom she was convinced must be unknown to her. +</p> +<p> +She had just let her hair fall freely down on her neck and shoulders, and +was seated in a deep chair before her fire, as she opened the paper and +read, ‘Mademoiselle Kostalergi.’ This beginning, so unlikely for a +peasant, made her turn for the name, and she read, in a large full hand, +the words ‘DANIEL DONOGAN.’ So complete was her surprise, that to satisfy +herself there was no trick or deception, she examined the envelope and the +seal, and reflected for some minutes over the mode in which the document +had come to her hands. Atlee’s story was a very credible one: nothing more +likely than that the boy was charged to deliver the letter at the castle, +and simply sought to spare himself so many miles of way, or it might be +that he was enjoined to give it to the first traveller he met on his road +to Kilgobbin. Nina had little doubt that if Atlee guessed or had reason to +know the writer, he would have treated the letter as a secret missive +which would give him a certain power over her. +</p> +<p> +These thoughts did not take her long, and she turned once more to the +letter. ‘Poor fellow,’ said she aloud, ‘why does he write to <i>me</i>?’ +And her own voice sent back its surmises to her; and as she thought over +him standing on the lonely road, his clasped hands before him, and his +hair wafted wildly back from his uncovered head, two heavy tears rolled +slowly down her cheeks and dropped upon her neck. ‘I am sure he loved me—I +know he loved me,’ muttered she, half aloud. ‘I have never seen in any eye +the same expression that his wore as he lay that morning in the grass. It +was not veneration, it was genuine adoration. Had I been a saint and +wanted worship, there was the very offering that I craved—a look of +painful meaning, made up of wonder and devotion, a something that said: +take what course you may, be wilful, be wayward, be even cruel, I am your +slave. You may not think me worthy of a thought, you may be so indifferent +as to forget me utterly, but my life from this hour has but one spell to +charm, one memory to sustain it. It needed not his last words to me to say +that my image would lay on his heart for ever. Poor fellow, <i>I</i> need +not have been added to his sorrows, he has had his share of trouble +without <i>me</i>!’ +</p> +<p> +It was some time ere she could return to the letter, which ran thus:— +</p> +<p> +‘MADEMOISELLE KOSTALERGI,—You once rendered me a great service—not +alone at some hazard to yourself, but by doing what must have cost you +sorely. It is now <i>my</i> turn; and if the act of repayment is not equal +to the original debt, let me ask you to believe that it taxes <i>my</i> +strength even more than <i>your</i> generosity once taxed your own. +</p> +<p> +‘I came here a few days since in the hope that I might see you before I +leave Ireland for ever; and while waiting for some fortunate chance, I +learned that you were betrothed and to be married to the young gentleman +who lies ill at Kilgobbin, and whose approaching trial at the assizes is +now the subject of so much discussion. I will not tell you—I have no +right to tell you—the deep misery with which these tidings filled +me. It was no use to teach my heart how vain and impossible were all my +hopes with regard to you. It was to no purpose that I could repeat over +aloud to myself how hopeless my pretensions must be. My love for you had +become a religion, and what I could deny to a hope, I could still believe. +Take that hope away, and I could not imagine how I should face my daily +life, how interest myself in its ambitions, and even care to live on. +</p> +<p> +‘These sad confessions cannot offend you, coming from one even as humble +as I am. They are all that are left me for consolation—they will +soon be all I shall have for memory. The little lamp in the lowly shrine +comforts the kneeling worshipper far more than it honours the saint; and +the love I bear you is such as this. Forgive me if I have dared these +utterances. To save him with whose fortunes your own are to be bound up +became at once my object; and as I knew with what ingenuity and craft his +ruin had been compassed, it required all my efforts to baffle his enemies. +The National press and the National party have made a great cause of this +trial, and determined that tenant-right should be vindicated in the person +of this man Gill. +</p> +<p> +‘I have seen enough of what is intended here to be aware what mischief may +be worked by hard swearing, a violent press, and a jury not insensible to +public opinion—evils, if you like, but evils that are less of our +own growing than the curse ill-government has brought upon us. It has been +decided in certain councils—whose decrees are seldom gainsaid—that +an example shall be made of Captain Gorman O’Shea, and that no effort +shall be spared to make his case a terror and a warning to Irish +landowners; how they attempt by ancient process of law to subvert the +concessions we have wrung from our tyrants. +</p> +<p> +‘A jury to find him guilty will be sworn; and let us see the judge—in +defiance of a verdict given from the jury-box, without a moment’s +hesitation or the shadow of dissent—let us see the judge who will +dare to diminish the severity of the sentence. This is the language, these +are the very words of those who have more of the rule of Ireland in their +hands than the haughty gentlemen, honourable and right honourable, who sit +at Whitehall. +</p> +<p> +‘I have heard this opinion too often of late to doubt how much it is a +fixed determination of the party; and until now—until I came here, +and learned what interest his fate could have for me—I offered no +opposition to these reasonings. Since then I have bestirred myself +actively. I have addressed the committee here who have taken charge of the +prosecution; I have written to the editors of the chief newspapers; I have +even made a direct appeal to the leading counsel for the prosecution, and +tried to persuade them that a victory here might cost us more than a +defeat, and that the country at large, who submit with difficulty to the +verdict of absolving juries, will rise with indignation at this evidence +of a jury prepared to exercise a vindictive power, and actually make the +law the agent of reprisal. I have failed in all—utterly failed. Some +reproach me as faint-hearted and craven; some condescend to treat me as +merely mistaken and misguided; and some are bold enough to hint that, +though as a military authority I stand without rivalry, as a purely +political adviser, my counsels are open to dispute. +</p> +<p> +‘I have still a power, however, through the organisation of which I am a +chief; and by this power I have ordered Gill to appear before me, and in +obedience to my commands, he will sail this night for America. With him +will also leave the two other important witnesses in this cause; so that +the only evidence against Captain O’Shea will be some of those against +whom he has himself instituted a cross charge for assault. That the +prosecution can be carried on with such testimony need not be feared. Our +press will denounce the infamous arts by which these witnesses have been +tampered with, and justice has been defeated. The insults they may hurl at +our oppressors—for once unjustly—will furnish matter for the +Opposition journals to inveigh against our present Government, and some +good may come even of this. At all events, I shall have accomplished what +I sought. I shall have saved from a prison the man I hate most on earth, +the man who, robbing me of what never could be mine, robs me of every +hope, of every ambition, making my love as worthless as my life! Have I +not repaid you? Ask your heart which of us has done more for the other? +</p> +<p> +‘The contract on which Gill based his right as a tenant, and which would +have sustained his action, is now in my hands; and I will—if you +permit me—place it in yours. This may appear an ingenious device to +secure a meeting with you; but though I long to see you once more, were it +but a minute, I would not compass it by a fraud. If, then, you will not +see me, I shall address the packet to you through the post. +</p> +<p> +‘I have finished. I have told you what it most concerns you to know, and +what chiefly regards your happiness. I have done this as coldly and +impassively, I hope, as though I had no other part in the narrative than +that of the friend whose friendship had a blessed office. I have not told +you of the beating heart that hangs over this paper, nor will I darken one +bright moment of your fortune by the gloom of mine. If you will write me +one line—a farewell if it must be—send it to the care of Adam +Cobb, “Cross Keys,” Moate, where I shall find it up to Thursday next. If—and +oh! how shall I bless you for it—if you will consent to see me, to +say one word, to let me look on you once more, I shall go into my +banishment with a bolder heart, as men go into battle with an amulet. +DANIEL DONOGAN.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Shall I show this to Kate?’ was the first thought of Nina as she laid the +letter down. ‘Is it a breach of confidence to let another than myself read +these lines? Assuredly they were meant for my eyes alone. Poor fellow!’ +said she, once more aloud. ‘It was very noble in him to do this for one he +could not but regard as a rival.’ And then she asked herself how far it +might consist with honour to derive benefit from his mistake—since +mistake it was—in believing O’Shea was her lover, and to be her +future husband. +</p> +<p> +‘There can be little doubt Donogan would never have made the sacrifice had +he known that I am about to marry Walpole.’ From this she rambled on to +speculate on how far might Donogan’s conduct compromise or endanger him +with his own party, and if—which she thought well probable—there +was a distinct peril in what he was doing, whether he would have incurred +that peril if he really knew the truth, and that it was not herself he was +serving. +</p> +<p> +The more she canvassed these doubts, the more she found the difficulty of +resolving them, nor indeed was there any other way than one—distinctly +to ask Donogan if he would persist in his kind intentions when he knew +that the benefit was to revert to her cousin and not to herself. So far as +the evidence of Gill at the trial was concerned, the man’s withdrawal was +already accomplished, but would Donogan be as ready to restore the lease, +and would he, in fact, be as ready to confront the danger of all this +interference, as at first? She could scarcely satisfy her mind how she +would wish him to act in the contingency! She was sincerely fond of Kate, +she knew all the traits of honesty and truth in that simple character, and +she valued the very qualities of straightforwardness and direct purpose in +which she knew she was herself deficient. She would have liked well to +secure that dear girl’s happiness, and it would have been an exquisite +delight to her to feel that she had been an aid to her welfare; and yet, +with all this, there was a subtle jealousy that tortured her in thinking, +‘What will this man have done to prove his love for <i>me</i>? Where am I, +and what are my interests in all this?’ There was a poison in this doubt +that actually extended to a state of fever. ‘I must see him,’ she said at +last, speaking aloud to herself. ‘I must let him know the truth. If what +he proposes shall lead him to break with his party or his friends, it is +well he should see for what and for whom he is doing it.’ +</p> +<p> +And then she persuaded herself she would like to hear Donogan talk, as +once before she had heard him talk, of his hopes and his ambitions. There +was something in the high-sounding inspirations of the man, a lofty +heroism in all he said, that struck a chord in her Greek nature. The cause +that was so intensely associated with danger that life was always on the +issue, was exactly the thing to excite her heart, and, like the +trumpet-blast to the charger, she felt stirred to her inmost soul by +whatever appealed to reckless daring and peril. ‘He shall tell me what he +intends to do—his plans, his projects, and his troubles. He shall +tell me of his hopes, what he desires in the future, and where he himself +will stand when his efforts have succeeded; and oh!’ thought she, ‘are not +the wild extravagances of these men better a thousand times than the +well-turned nothings of the fine gentlemen who surround us? Are not their +very risks and vicissitudes more manly teachings than the small casualties +of the polished world? If life were all “salon,” taste perhaps might +decide against them; but it is not all “salon,” or, if it were, it would +be a poorer thing even than I think it!’ She turned to her desk as she +said this, and wrote:— +</p> +<p> +‘DEAR MR. DONOGAN,—I wish to thank you in person for the great +kindness you have shown me, though there is some mistake on your part in +the matter. I cannot suppose you are able to come here openly, but if you +will be in the garden on Saturday evening at 9 o’clock, I shall be there +to meet you. I am, very truly yours, +</p> +<p> +‘NINA KOSTALERGI.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Very imprudent—scarcely delicate—perhaps, all this, and for a +girl who is to be married to another man in some three weeks hence, but I +will tell Cecil Walpole all when he returns, and if he desires to be off +his engagement, he shall have the liberty. I have one-half at least of the +Bayard Legend, and if I cannot say I am “without reproach,” I am certainly +without fear.’ +</p> +<p> +The letter-bag lay in the hall, and Nina went down at once and deposited +her letter in it; this done, she lay down on her bed, not to sleep, but to +think over Donogan and his letter till daybreak. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0082" id="link2HCH0082"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXXII +</h2> +<h3> +THE BREAKFAST-ROOM +</h3> +<p> +‘Strange house this,’ said Joseph Atlee, as Nina entered the room the next +morning where he sat alone at breakfast. ‘Lord Kilgobbin and Dick were +here a moment ago, and disappeared suddenly; Miss Kearney for an instant, +and also left as abruptly; and now you have come, I most earnestly hope +not to fly away in the same fashion.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; I mean to eat my breakfast, and so far to keep you company.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I thank the tea-urn for my good fortune,’ said he solemnly. +</p> +<p> +‘A <i>tête-à-tête</i> with Mr. Atlee is a piece of good-luck,’ said Nina, +as she sat down. ‘Has anything occurred to call our hosts away?’ +</p> +<p> +‘In a house like this,’ said he jocularly, ‘where people are marrying or +giving in marriage at every turn, what may not happen? It may be a +question of the settlement, or the bridecake, or white satin “slip”—if +that’s the name for it—the orange-flowers, or the choice of the best +man—who knows?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You seem to know the whole bead-roll of wedding incidents.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is a dull <i>répertoire</i> after all, for whether the piece be +melodrama, farce, genteel comedy, or harrowing tragedy, it has to be +played by the same actors.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What would you have—marriages cannot be all alike. There must be +many marriages for things besides love: for ambition, for interest, for +money, for convenience.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Convenience is exactly the phrase I wanted and could not catch.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is not the word <i>I</i> wanted, nor do I think we mean the same thing +by it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What I mean is this,’ said Atlee, with a firm voice, ‘that when a young +girl has decided in her own mind that she has had enough of that social +bondage of the daughter, and cannot marry the man she would like, she will +marry the man that she can.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And like him too,’ added Nina, with a strange, dubious sort of smile. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, and like him too; for there is a curious feature in the woman’s +nature that, without any falsehood or disloyalty, permits her to like +different people in different ways, so that the quiet, gentle, almost +impassive woman might, if differently mated, have been a being of fervid +temper, headstrong and passionate. If it were not for this species of +accommodation, marriage would be a worse thing than it is.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I never suspected you of having made a study of the subject. Since when +have you devoted your attention to the theme?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I could answer in the words of Wilkes—since I have had the honour +to know your Royal Highness; but perhaps you might be displeased with the +flippancy.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should think that very probable,’ said she gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t look so serious. Remember that I did not commit myself after all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I thought it was possible to discuss this problem without a personality.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t you know that, let one deal in abstractions as long as he will, he +is only skirmishing around special instances. It is out of what I glean +from individuals I make up my generalities.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Am I to understand by this that I have supplied you with the material of +one of these reflections?’ +</p> +<p> +‘You have given me the subject of many. If I were to tell you how often I +have thought of you, I could not answer for the words in which I might +tell it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do not tell it, then.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I know—I am aware—I have heard since I came here that there +is a special reason why you could not listen to me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And being so, why do you propose that I should hear you?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will tell you,’ said he, with an earnestness that almost startled her: +‘I will tell you, because there are things on which a doubt or an +equivocation are actually maddening; and I will not, I cannot, believe +that you have accepted Cecil Walpole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Will you please to say why it should seem so incredible?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Because I have seen you not merely in admiration, and that admiration +would be better conveyed by a stronger word; and because I have measured +you with others infinitely beneath you in every way, and who are yet +soaring into very high regions indeed; because I have learned enough of +the world to know that alongside of—often above—the influence +that men are wielding in life by their genius and their capacity, there is +another power exercised by women of marvellous beauty, of infinite +attractions, and exquisite grace, which sways and moulds the fate of +mankind far more than Cabinets and Councils. There are not above half a +dozen of these in Europe, and you might be one added to the number.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Even admitting all this—and I don’t see that I should go so far—it +is no answer to my question.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Must I then say there can be no—not companionship, that’s not the +word; no, I must take the French expression, and call it <i>solidarité</i>—there +can be no <i>solidarité</i> of interests, of objects, of passions, or of +hopes, between people so widely dissevered as you and Walpole. I am so +convinced of this, that still I can dare to declare I cannot believe you +could marry him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And if I were to tell you it were true?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I should still regard it as a passing caprice, that the mere mention of +to-morrow would offend you. It is no disparagement of Walpole to say he is +unworthy of you, for who would be worthy? but the presumption of his +daring is enough to excite indignation—at least, I feel it such. How +he could dare to link his supreme littleness with consummate perfection; +to freight the miserable barque of his fortunes with so precious a cargo; +to encounter the feeling—and there is no escape for it—“I must +drag that woman down, not alone into obscurity, but into all the sordid +meanness of a small condition, that never can emerge into anything +better.” He cannot disguise from himself that it is not within his reach +to attain power, or place, or high consideration. Such men make no name in +life; they leave no mark on their time. They are heaven-born subordinates, +and never refute their destiny. Does a woman with ambition—does a +woman conscious of her own great merits—condescend to ally herself, +not alone with small fortune—that might be borne—but with the +smaller associations that make up these men’s lives? with the peddling +efforts to mount even one rung higher of that crazy little ladder of their +ambition—to be a clerk of another grade—a creature of some +fifty pounds more—a being in an upper office?’ +</p> +<p> +‘And the prince—for he ought to be at least a prince who should make +me the offer of his name—whence is he to come, Mr. Atlee?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There are men who are not born to princely station, who by their genius +and their determination are just as sure to become famous, and who need +but the glorious prize of such a woman’s love—No, no, don’t treat +what I say as rant and rodomontade; these are words of sober sense and +seriousness.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Indeed!’ said she, with a faint sigh. ‘So that it really amounts to this—that +I shall actually have missed my whole fortune in life—thrown myself +away—all because I would not wait for Mr. Atlee to propose to me.’ +</p> +<p> +Nothing less than Atlee’s marvellous assurance and self-possession could +have sustained this speech unabashed. +</p> +<p> +‘You have only said what my heart has told me many a day since.’ +</p> +<p> +‘But you seem to forget,’ added she, with a very faint curl of scorn on +her lip, ‘that I had no more to guide me to the discovery of Mr. Atlee’s +affection than that of his future greatness. Indeed, I could more readily +believe in the latter than the former.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Believe in both,’ cried he warmly. ‘If I have conquered difficulties in +life, if I have achieved some successes—now for a passing triumph, +now for a moment of gratified vanity, now for a mere caprice—try me +by a mere hope—I only plead for a hope—try me by hope of being +one day worthy of calling that hand my own.’ +</p> +<p> +As he spoke, he tried to grasp her hand; but she withdrew it coldly and +slowly, saying, ‘I have no fancy to make myself the prize of any success +in life, political or literary; nor can I believe that the man who reasons +in this fashion has any really high ambition. Mr. Atlee,’ added she, more +gravely, ‘your memory may not be as good as mine, and you will pardon me +if I remind you that, almost at our first meeting, we struck up a sort of +friendship, on the very equivocal ground of a common country. We agreed +that each of us claimed for their native land the mythical Bohemia, and we +agreed, besides, that the natives of that country are admirable +colleagues, but not good partners.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are not quite fair in this,’ he began; but before he could say more +Dick Kearney entered hurriedly, and cried out, ‘It’s all true. The people +are in wild excitement, and all declare that they will not let him be +taken. Oh! I forgot,’ added he. ‘You were not here when my father and I +were called away by the despatch from the police-station, to say that +Donogan has been seen at Moate, and is about to hold a meeting on the bog. +Of course, this is mere rumour; but the constabulary are determined to +capture him, and Curtis has written to inform my father that a party of +police will patrol the grounds here this evening.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And if they should take him, what would happen—to him, I mean?’ +asked Nina coldly. +</p> +<p> +‘An escaped convict is usually condemned to death; but I suppose they +would not hang him,’ said Dick. +</p> +<p> +‘Hang him!’ cried Atlee; ‘nothing of the kind. Mr. Gladstone would present +him with a suit of clothes, a ten-pound note, and a first-class passage to +America. He would make a “healing measure” of him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I must say, gentlemen,’ said Nina scornfully, ‘you can discuss your +friend’s fate with a marvellous equanimity.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So we do,’ rejoined Atlee. ‘He is another Bohemian.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t say so, sir,’ said she passionately. ‘The men who put their lives +on a venture—and that venture not a mere gain to themselves—are +in nowise the associates of those poor adventurers who are gambling for +their daily living. He is a rebel, if you like; but he believes in +rebellion. How much do you believe in, Mr. Atlee?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I say, Joe, you are getting the worst of this discussion. Seriously, +however, I hope they’ll not catch poor Donogan; and my father has asked +Curtis to come over and dine here, and I trust to a good fire and some old +claret to keep him quiet for this evening, at least. We must not molest +the police; but there’s no great harm done if we mislead them.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Once in the drawing-room, if Mademoiselle Kostalergi will only condescend +to aid us,’ added Atlee, ‘I think Curtis will be more than a chief +constable if he will bethink him of his duty.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are a strange set of people, you Irish,’ said Nina, as she walked +away. ‘Even such of you as don’t want to overthrow the Government are +always ready to impede its march and contribute to its difficulties.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She only meant that for an impertinence,’ said Atlee, after she left the +room; ‘but she was wonderfully near the truth, though not truthfully +expressed.’ +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0083" id="link2HCH0083"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXXIII +</h2> +<h3> +THE GARDEN BY MOONLIGHT +</h3> +<p> +There was but one heavy heart at the dinner-table that day; but Nina’s +pride was proof against any disclosure of suffering, and though she was +tortured by anxiety and fevered with doubt, none—not even Kate—suspected +that any care weighed on her. +</p> +<p> +As for Kate herself, her happiness beamed in every line and lineament of +her handsome face. The captain—to give him the name by which he was +known—had been up that day, and partaken of an afternoon tea with +his aunt and Kate. Her spirits were excellent, and all the promise of the +future was rose-coloured and bright. The little cloud of what trouble the +trial might bring was not suffered to darken the cheerful meeting, and it +was the one only bitter in their cup. +</p> +<p> +To divert Curtis from this theme, on which, with the accustomed <i>mal à +propos</i> of an awkward man, he wished to talk, the young men led him to +the subject of Donogan and his party. +</p> +<p> +‘I believe we’ll take him this time,’ said Curtis. ‘He must have some +close relations with some one about Moate or Kilbeggan, for it is remarked +he cannot keep away from the neighbourhood; but who are his friends, or +what they are meditating, we cannot guess.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If what Mademoiselle Kostalergi said this morning be correct,’ remarked +Atlee, ‘conjecture is unnecessary. She told Dick and myself that every +Irishman is at heart a rebel.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I said more or less of one, Mr. Atlee, since there are some who have not +the courage of their opinions.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I hope you are gratified by the emendation,’ whispered Dick; and then +added aloud, ‘Donogan is not one of these.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He’s a consummate fool,’ cried Curtis bluntly. ‘He thinks the attack of a +police-barrack or the capture of a few firelocks will revolutionise +Ireland.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He forgets that there are twelve thousand police, officered by such men +as yourself, captain,’ said Nina gravely. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, there might be worse,’ rejoined Curtis doggedly, for he was not +quite sure of the sincerity of the speaker. +</p> +<p> +‘What will you be the better of taking him?’ said Kilgobbin. ‘If the whole +tree be pernicious, where’s the use of plucking one leaf off it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘The captain has nothing to do with that,’ said Atlee, ‘any more than a +hound has to discuss the morality of foxhunting—his business is the +pursuit.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t like your simile, Mr. Atlee,’ said Nina, while she whispered some +words to the captain, and drew him in this way into a confidential talk. +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t mind him at all, Miss Nina,’ said Curtis; ‘he’s one of those +fellows on the press, and they are always saying impertinent things to +keep their talents in wind. I’ll tell you, in confidence, how wrong he is. +I have just had a meeting with the Chief Secretary, who told me that the +popish bishops are not at all pleased with the leniency of the Government; +that whatever “healing measures” Mr. Gladstone contemplates, ought to be +for the Church and the Catholics; that the Fenians or the Nationalists are +the enemies of the Holy Father; and that the time has come for the +Government to hunt them down, and give over the rule of Ireland to the +Cardinal and his party.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That seems to me very reasonable, and very logical,’ said Nina. +</p> +<p> +‘Well, it is and it is not. If you want peace in the rabbit-warren, you +must banish either the rats or the rabbits; and I suppose either the +Protestants or the Papists must have it their own way here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Then you mean to capture this man?’ +</p> +<p> +‘We do—we are determined on that. And, what’s more, I’d hang him if +I had the power.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And why?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Just because he isn’t a bad fellow! There’s no use in hanging a bad +fellow in Ireland—it frightens nobody; but if you hang a respectable +man, a man that has done generous and fine things, it produces a great +effect on society, and is a terrible example.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There may be a deep wisdom in what you say.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not that they’ll mind me for all that. It’s the men like myself, Miss +Nina, who know Ireland well, who know every assize town in the country, +and what the juries will do in each, are never consulted in England. They +say, “Let Curtis catch him—that’s his business.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And how will you do it?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I’ll tell you. I haven’t men enough to watch all the roads; but I’ll take +care to have my people where he’s least likely to go, that is, to the +north. He’s a cunning fellow is Dan, and he’d make for the Shannon if he +could; but now that he knows we ‘re after him, he’ll turn to Antrim or +Derry. He’ll cut across Westmeath, and make north, if he gets away from +this.’ +</p> +<p> +‘That is a very acute calculation of yours; and where do you suspect he +may be now—I mean, at this moment we’re talking?’ +</p> +<p> +‘He’s not three miles from where we’re sitting,’ said he, in a low +whisper, and a cautious glance round the table. ‘He’s hid in the bog +outside. There’s scores of places there a man could hide in, and never be +tracked; and there’s few fellows would like to meet Donogan single-handed. +He’s as active as a rope-dancer, and he’s as courageous as the devil.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It would be a pity to hang such a fellow.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There’s plenty more of the same sort—not exactly as good as him, +perhaps, for Dan was a gentleman once.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And is, probably, still?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It would be hard for him, with the rapscallions he has to live with, and +not five shillings in his pocket, besides.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t know, after all, if you’ll be happier for giving him up to the +law. He may have a mother, a sister, a wife, or a sweetheart.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He may have a sweetheart, but I know he has none of the others. He said, +in the dock, that no man could quit life at less cost—that there +wasn’t one to grieve after him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Poor fellow! that was a sad confession.’ +</p> +<p> +‘We’re not all to turn Fenians, Miss Nina, because we’re only children and +unmarried.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are too clever for me to dispute with,’ said she, in affected +humility; ‘but I like greatly to hear you talk of Ireland. Now, what +number of people have you here?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I have my orderly, and two men to patrol the demesne; but to-morrow we’ll +draw the net tighter. We’ll call in all the party from Moate, and from +information I have got, we’re sure to track him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What confidences is Curtis making with Mademoiselle Nina?’ said Atlee, +who, though affecting to join the general conversation, had never ceased +to watch them. +</p> +<p> +‘The captain is telling me how he put down the Fenians in the rising of +‘61,’ said Nina calmly. +</p> +<p> +‘And did he? I say, Curtis, have you really suppressed rebellion in +Ireland?’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; nor won’t, Mr. Joe Atlee, till we put down the rascally press—the +unprincipled penny-a-liners, that write treason to pay for their dinner.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Poor fellows!’ replied Atlee. ‘Let us hope it does not interfere with +their digestion. But seriously, mademoiselle, does it not give you a great +notion of our insecurity here in Ireland when you see to what we trust, +law and order. +</p> +<p> +‘Never mind him, Curtis,’ said Kilgobbin. ‘When these fellows are not +saying sharp things, they have to be silent.’ +</p> +<p> +While the conversation went briskly on, Nina contrived to glance unnoticed +at her watch, and saw that it wanted only a quarter of an hour to nine. +Nine was the hour she had named to Donogan to be in the garden, and she +already trembled at the danger to which she had exposed him. She reasoned +thus: so reckless and fearless is this man, that, if he should have come +determined to see me, and I do not go to meet him, he is quite capable of +entering the house boldly, even at the cost of being captured. The very +price he would have to pay for his rashness would be its temptation.’ +</p> +<p> +A sudden cast of seriousness overcame her as she thus thought, and Kate, +perceiving it, rose at once to retire. +</p> +<p> +‘You were not ill, dearest Nina? I saw you grow pale, and I fancied for a +moment you seemed faint.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No; a mere passing weakness. I shall lie down and be better presently.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And then you’ll come up to aunt’s room—I call godmother aunt now—and +take tea with Gorman and us all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, I’ll do that after a little rest. I’ll take half an hour or so of +quiet,’ said she, in broken utterances. ‘I suppose the gentlemen will sit +over their wine; there’s no fear of their breaking-up.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Very little <i>fear</i>, indeed,’ said Kate, laughing at the word. ‘Papa +made me give out some of his rare old ‘41 wine to-day, and they’re not +likely to leave it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Bye-bye, then, for a little while,’ said Nina dreamily, for her thoughts +had gone off on another track. ‘I shall join you later on.’ +</p> +<p> +Kate tripped gaily up the stairs, singing pleasantly as she went, for hers +was a happy heart and a hopeful. +</p> +<p> +Nina lingered for a moment with her hand on the banister, and then hurried +to her room. +</p> +<p> +It was a still cold night of deep winter, a very faint crescent of a new +moon was low in the sky, and a thin snowfall, slightly crisped with frost, +covered the ground. Nina opened her window and looked out. All was still +and quiet without—not a twig moved. She bent her ear to listen, +thinking that on the frozen ground a step might perhaps be heard, and it +was a relief to her anxiety when she heard nothing. The chill cold air +that came in through the window warned her to muffle herself well, and she +drew the hood of her scarlet cloak over her head. Strong-booted, and with +warm gloves, she stood for a moment at her door to listen, and finding all +quiet, she slowly descended the stairs and gained the hall. She started +affrighted as she entered, thinking there was some one seated at the +table, but she rallied in an instant, as she saw it was only the loose +horseman’s coat or cloak of the chief constable, which, lined with red, +and with the gold-laced cap beside it, made up the delusion that alarmed +her. +</p> +<p> +It was not an easy task to withdraw the heavy bolts and bars that secured +the massive door, and even to turn the heavy key in the lock required an +effort; but she succeeded at length, and issued forth into the open. +</p> +<p> +‘How I hope he has not come! how I pray he has not ventured!’ said she to +herself as she walked along. ‘Leave-takings are sad things, and why incur +one so full of peril and misery too? When I wrote to him, of course I knew +nothing of his danger, and it is exactly his danger will make him come!’ +She knew of others to whom such reasonings would not have applied, and a +scornful shake of the head showed that she would not think of them at such +a moment. The sound of her own footsteps on the crisp ground made her once +or twice believe she heard some one coming, and as she stopped to listen, +the strong beating of her heart could be counted. It was not fear—at +least not fear in the sense of a personal danger—it was that high +tension which great anxiety lends to the nerves, exalting vitality to a +state in which a sensation is as powerful as a material influence. +</p> +<p> +She ascended the steps of the little terraced mound of the rendezvous one +by one, overwhelmed almost to fainting by some imagined analogy with the +scaffold, which might be the fate of him she was going to meet. +</p> +<p> +He was standing under a tree, his arms crossed on his breast, as she came +up. The moment she appeared, he rushed to meet her, and throwing himself +on one knee, he seized her hand and kissed it. +</p> +<p> +‘Do you know your danger in being here?’ she asked, as she surrendered her +hand to his grasp. +</p> +<p> +‘I know it all, and this moment repays it tenfold.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You cannot know the full extent of the peril; you cannot know that +Captain Curtis and his people are in the castle at this moment, that they +are in full cry after you, and that every avenue to this spot is watched +and guarded.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What care I! Have I not this?’ And he covered her hand with kisses. +</p> +<p> +‘Every moment that you are here increases your danger, and if my absence +should become known, there will be a search after me. I shall never +forgive myself if my folly should lead to your being captured.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If I could but feel my fate was linked with yours, I’d give my life for +it willingly.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was not to listen to such words as these I came here.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Remember, dearest, they are the last confessions of one you shall never +see more. They are the last cry of a heart that will soon be still for +ever.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, no, no!’ cried she passionately. ‘There is life enough left for you +to win a worthy name. Listen to me calmly now: I have heard from Curtis +within the last hour all his plans for your capture; I know where his +patrols are stationed, and the roads they are to watch.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And did you care to do this?’ said he tenderly. +</p> +<p> +‘I would do more than that to save you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, do not say so!’ cried he wildly, ‘or you will give me such a desire +to live as will make a coward of me.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Curtis suspects you will go northward; either he has had information, or +computes it from what you have done already.’ +</p> +<p> +‘He is wrong, then. When I go hence, it shall be to the court-house at +Tullamore, where I mean to give myself up.’ +</p> +<p> +‘As what?’ +</p> +<p> +‘As what I am—a rebel, convicted, sentenced, and escaped, and still +a rebel.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You do not, then, care for life?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do I not, for such moments of life as this!’ cried he, as, with a wild +rapture, he kissed her hand again and again. +</p> +<p> +‘And were I to ask you, you would not try to save your life?’ +</p> +<p> +‘To share that life with you there is not anything I would not dare. To +live and know you were another’s is more than I can face. Tell me, Nina, +is it true you are to be the wife of this soldier? I cannot utter his +name.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am to be married to Mr. Walpole.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What! to that contemptuous young man you have already told me so much of. +How have they brought you down to this?’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is no thought of bringing down; his rank and place are above my own—he +is by family and connection superior to us all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what is he, or how does he aspire to you? Is the vulgar security of +competence to live on—is that enough for one like you? is the +well-balanced good-breeding of common politeness enough to fill a heart +that should be fed on passionate devotion? You may link yourself to +mediocrity, but can you humble your nature to resemble it. Do you believe +you can plod on the dreary road of life without an impulse or an ambition, +or blend your thoughts with those of a man who has neither?’ +</p> +<p> +She stood still and did not utter a word. +</p> +<p> +‘There are some—I do not know if you are one of them—who have +an almost shrinking dread of poverty.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I am not afraid of poverty.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It has but one antidote, I know—intense love! The all-powerful +sense of living for another begets indifference to the little straits and +trials of narrow fortune, till the mind at last comes to feel how much +there is to live for beyond the indulgence of vulgar enjoyments; and if, +to crown all, a high ambition be present, there will be an ecstasy of +bliss no words can measure.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Have you failed in Ireland?’ asked she suddenly. +</p> +<p> +‘Failed, so far as to know that a rebellion will only ratify the +subjection of the country to England; a reconquest would be slavery. The +chronic discontent that burns in every peasant heart will do more than the +appeal to arms. It is slow, but it is certain.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And where is your part?’ +</p> +<p> +‘My part is in another land; my fortune is linked with America—that +is, if I care to have a fortune.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Come, come, Donogan,’ cried she, calling him inadvertently by his name, +‘men like you do not give up the battle of life so easily. It is the very +essence of their natures to resist pressure and defy defeat.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So I could; so I am ready to show myself. Give me but hope. There are +high paths to be trodden in more than one region of the globe. There are +great prizes to be wrestled for, but it must be by him who would share +them with another. Tell me, Nina,’ said he suddenly, lowering his voice to +a tone of exquisite tenderness, ‘have you never, as a little child, played +at that game of what is called seeking your fortune, wandered out into +some thick wood or along a winding rivulet, to meet whatever little +incident imagination might dignify into adventure; and in the chance +heroism of your situation have you not found an intense delight? And if so +in childhood, why not see if adult years cannot renew the experience? Why +not see if the great world be not as dramatic as the small one? I should +say it is still more so. I know you have courage.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what will courage do for me?’ asked she, after a pause. +</p> +<p> +‘For you, not much; for me, everything.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do not understand you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I mean this—that if that stout heart could dare the venture and +trust its fate to me—to me, poor, outlawed, and doomed—there +would be a grander heroism in a girl’s nature than ever found home in a +man’s.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And what should I be?’ +</p> +<p> +‘My wife within an hour; my idol while I live.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There are some who would give this another name than courage,’ said she +thoughtfully. +</p> +<p> +‘Let them call it what they will, Nina. Is it not to the unbounded trust +of a nature that is above all others that I, poor, unknown, ignoble as I +am, appeal when I ask, Will you be mine? One word—only one—or, +better still—’ +</p> +<p> +He clasped her in his arms as he spoke, and drawing her head towards his, +kissed her cheek rapturously. +</p> +<p> +With wild and fervent words, he now told her rapidly that he had come +prepared to make her the declaration, and had provided everything, in the +event of her compliance, for their flight. By an unused path through the +bog they could gain the main road to Maryborough, where a priest, well +known in the Fenian interest, would join them in marriage. The officials +of the railroad were largely imbued with the Nationalist sentiment, and +Donogan could be sure of safe crossing to Kilkenny, where the members of +the party were in great force. +</p> +<p> +In a very few words he told her how, by the mere utterance of his name, he +could secure the faithful services and the devotion of the people in every +town or village of the kingdom. ‘The English have done this for us,’ cried +he, ‘and we thank them for it. They have popularised rebellion in a way +that all our attempts could never have accomplished. How could I, for +instance, gain access to those little gatherings at fair or market, in the +yard before the chapel, or the square before the court-house—how +could I be able to explain to those groups of country-people what we mean +by a rising in Ireland? what we purpose by a revolt against England? how +it is to be carried on, or for whose benefit? what the prizes of success, +what the cost of failure? Yet the English have contrived to embody all +these in one word, and that word <i>my</i> name!’ +</p> +<p> +There was a certain artifice, there is no doubt, in the way in which this +poorly-clad and not distinguished-looking man contrived to surround +himself with attributes of power and influence; and his self-reliance +imparted to his voice as he spoke a tone of confidence that was actually +dignified. And besides this, there was personal daring—for his life +was on the hazard, and it was the very contingency of which he seemed to +take the least heed. +</p> +<p> +Not less adroit, too, was the way in which he showed what a shock and +amazement her conduct would occasion in that world of her acquaintances—that +world which had hitherto regarded her as essentially a pleasure-seeker, +self-indulgent and capricious. ‘“Which of us all,” will they say, “could +have done what that girl has done? Which of us, having the world at her +feet, her destiny at her very bidding, would go off and brave the storms +of life out of the heroism of her own nature? How we all misread her +nature! how wrongfully and unfairly we judged her! In what utter ignorance +of her real character was every interpretation we made! How scornfully has +she, by one act, replied to all our misconstruction of her! What a sarcasm +on all our worldliness is her devotion!”’ +</p> +<p> +He was eloquent, after a fashion, and he had, above most men, the charm of +a voice of singular sweetness and melody. It was clear as a bell, and he +could modulate its tones till, like the drip, drip of water on a rock, +they fell one by one upon the ear. Masses had often been moved by the +power of his words, and the mesmeric influence of persuasiveness was a +gift to do him good service now. +</p> +<p> +There was much in the man that she liked. She liked his rugged boldness +and determination; she liked his contempt for danger and his +self-reliance; and, essentially, she liked how totally different he was to +all other men. He had not their objects, their hopes, their fears, and +their ways. To share the destiny of such a man was to ensure a life that +could not pass unrecorded. There might be storm, and even shipwreck, but +there was notoriety—perhaps even fame! +</p> +<p> +And how mean and vulgar did all the others she had known seem by +comparison with him—how contemptible the polished insipidity of +Walpole, how artificial the neatly-turned epigrams of Atlee. How would +either of these have behaved in such a moment of danger as this man’s? +Every minute he passed there was another peril to his life, and yet he had +no thought for himself—his whole anxiety was to gain time to appeal +to her. He told her she was more to him than his ambition—she saw +herself she was more to him than life. The whirlwind rapidity of his +eloquence also moved her, and the varied arguments he addressed—now +to her heroism, now to her self-sacrifice, now to the power of her beauty, +now to the contempt she felt for the inglorious lives of commonplace +people—the ignoble herd who passed unnoticed. All these swayed her; +and after a long interval, in which she heard him without a word, she +said, in a low murmur to herself, ‘I will do it.’ +</p> +<p> +Donogan clasped her to his heart as she said it, and held her some seconds +in a fast embrace. ‘At last I know what it is to love,’ cried he, with +rapture. +</p> +<p> +‘Look there!’ cried she, suddenly disengaging herself from his arm. ‘They +are in the drawing-room already. I can see them as they pass the windows. +I must go back, if it be for a moment, as I should be missed.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Can I let you leave me now?’ he said, and the tears were in his eyes as +he spoke. +</p> +<p> +‘I have given you my word, and you may trust me,’ said she, as she held +out her hand. +</p> +<p> +‘I was forgetting this document: this is the lease or the agreement I told +you of.’ She took it, and hurried away. +</p> +<p> +In less than five minutes afterwards she was among the company in the +drawing-room. +</p> +<p> +‘Here have I been singing a rebel ballad, Nina,’ said Kate, ‘and not +knowing the while it was Mr. Atlee who wrote it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘What, Mr. Atlee,’ cried Nina, ‘is the “Time to begin” yours?’ And then, +without waiting for an answer, she seated herself at the piano, and +striking the chords of the accompaniment with a wild and vigorous hand, +she sang— +</p> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> +‘If the moment is come and the hour to need us, +If we stand man to man, like kindred and kin; +If we know we have one who is ready to lead us, +What want we for more than the word to begin?’ +</pre> +<p> +The wild ring of defiance in which her clear, full voice gave out these +words, seemed to electrify all present, and to a second or two of perfect +silence a burst of applause followed, that even Curtis, with all his +loyalty, could not refrain from joining. +</p> +<p> +‘Thank God, you’re not a man, Miss Nina!’ cried he fervently. +</p> +<p> +‘I’m not sure she’s not more dangerous as she is,’ said Lord Kilgobbin. +‘There’s people out there in the bog, starving and half-naked, would face +the Queen’s Guards if they only heard her voice to cheer them on. Take my +word for it, rebellion would have died out long ago in Ireland if there +wasn’t the woman’s heart to warm it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If it were not too great a liberty, Mademoiselle Kostalergi,’ said Joe,’ +I should tell you that you have not caught the true expression of my song. +The brilliant bravura in which you gave the last line, immensely exciting +as it was, is not correct. The whole force consists in the concentrated +power of a fixed resolve—the passage should be subdued.’ +</p> +<p> +An insolent toss of the head was all Nina’s reply, and there was a +stillness in the room, as, exchanging looks with each other, the different +persons there expressed their amazement at Atlee’s daring. +</p> +<p> +‘Who’s for a rubber of whist?’ said Lord Kilgobbin, to relieve the awkward +pause. ‘Are you, Curtis? Atlee, I know, is ready.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Here is all prepared,’ said Dick. ‘Captain Curtis told me before dinner +that he would not like to go to bed till he had his sergeant’s report, and +so I have ordered a broiled bone to be ready at one o’clock, and we’ll sit +up as late as he likes after.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Make the stake pounds and fives,’ cried Joe, ‘and I should pronounce your +arrangements perfection.’ +</p> +<p> +‘With this amendment,’ interposed my lord, ‘that nobody is expected to +pay!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I say, Joe,’ whispered Dick, as they drew nigh the table, ‘my cousin is +angry with you; why have you not asked her to sing?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Because she expects it; because she’s tossing over the music yonder to +provoke it; because she’s in a furious rage with me: that will be nine +points of the game in my favour,’ hissed he out between his teeth. +</p> +<p> +‘You are utterly wrong—you mistake her altogether.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Mistake a woman! Dick, will you tell me what I <i>do</i> know, if I do +not read every turn and trick of their tortuous nature? They are +occasionally hard to decipher when they’re displeased. It’s very big print +indeed when they’re angry.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’re off, are you?’ asked Nina, as Kate was about to leave. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes; I’m going to read to him.’ +</p> +<p> +‘To read to him!’ said Nina, laughing. ‘How nice it sounds, when one sums +up all existence in a pronoun. Good-night, dearest—good-night,’ and +she kissed her twice. And then, as Kate reached the door, she ran towards +her, and said, ‘Kiss me again, my dearest Kate!’ +</p> +<p> +‘I declare you have left a tear upon my cheek,’ said Kate. +</p> +<p> +‘It was about all I could give you as a wedding-present,’ muttered Nina, +as she turned away. +</p> +<p> +‘Are you come to study whist, Nina?’ said Lord Kilgobbin, as she drew nigh +the table. +</p> +<p> +<a name="linkimage-0018" id="linkimage-0018"> +<!-- IMG --></a> +</p> +<div class="fig" style="width:80%;"> +<img src="images/607.jpg" + alt="‘I Declare You Have Left a Tear Upon My Cheek,’ Said Kate" width="100%" /><br /> +</div> +<!-- IMAGE END --> +<p> +‘No, my lord; I have no talent for games, but I like to look at the +players.’ +</p> +<p> +Joe touched Dick with his foot, and shot a cunning glance towards him, as +though to say, ‘Was I not correct in all I said?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Couldn’t you sing us something, my dear? we’re not such infatuated +gamblers that we’ll not like to hear you—eh, Atlee?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, my lord, I don’t know, I’m not sure—that is, I don’t see how +a memory for trumps is to be maintained through the fascinating charm of +mademoiselle’s voice. And as for cards, it’s enough for Miss Kostalergi to +be in the room to make one forget not only the cards, but the Fenians.’ +</p> +<p> +‘If it was only out of loyalty, then, I should leave you!’ said she, and +walked proudly away. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0084" id="link2HCH0084"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXXIV +</h2> +<h3> +NEXT MORNING +</h3> +<p> +The whist-party did not break up till nigh morning. The sergeant had once +appeared at the drawing-room to announce that all was quiet without. There +had been no sign of any rising of the people, nor any disposition to +molest the police. Indeed, so peaceful did everything look, and such an +air of easy indifference pervaded the country, the police were half +disposed to believe that the report of Donogan being in the neighbourhood +was unfounded, and not impossibly circulated to draw off attention from +some other part of the country. +</p> +<p> +This was also Lord Kilgobbin’s belief. ‘The man has no friends, or even +warm followers, down here. It was the merest accident first led him to +this part of the country, where, besides, we are all too poor to be +rebels. It’s only down in Meath, where the people are well off, and rents +are not too high, that people can afford to be Fenians.’ +</p> +<p> +While he was enunciating this fact to Curtis, they were walking up and +down the breakfast-room, waiting for the appearance of the ladies to make +tea. +</p> +<p> +‘I declare it’s nigh eleven o’clock,’ said Curtis, ‘and I meant to have +been over two baronies before this hour.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t distress yourself, captain. The man was never within fifty miles of +where we are. And why would he? It is not the Bog of Allen is the place +for a revolution.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It’s always the way with the people at the Castle,’ grumbled out Curtis. +‘They know more of what’s going on down the country than we that live +here! It’s one despatch after another. Head-centre Such-a-one is at the +“Three Cripples.” He slept there two nights; he swore in fifteen men last +Saturday, and they’ll tell you where he bought a pair of corduroy +breeches, and what he ate for his breakfast—’ +</p> +<p> +‘I wish we had ours,’ broke in Kilgobbin. ‘Where’s Kate all this time?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Papa, papa, I want you for a moment; come here to me quickly,’ cried +Kate, whose head appeared for a moment at the door. ‘Here’s very terrible +tidings, papa dearest,’ said she, as she drew him along towards his study. +‘Nina is gone! Nina has run away!’ +</p> +<p> +‘Run away for what?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Run away to be married; and she is married. Read this, or I’ll read it +for you. A country boy has just brought it from Maryborough.’ +</p> +<p> +Like a man stunned almost to insensibility, Kearney crossed his hands +before him, and sat gazing out vacantly before him. +</p> +<p> +‘Can you listen to me? can you attend to me, dear papa?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Go on,’ said he, in a faint voice. +</p> +<p> +‘It is written in a great hurry, and very hard to read. It runs thus: +“Dearest,—I have no time for explainings nor excuses, if I were +disposed to make either, and I will confine myself to a few facts. I was +married this morning to Donogan—the rebel: I know you have added the +word, and I write it to show how our sentiments are united. As people are +prone to put into the lottery the number they have dreamed of, I have +taken my ticket in this greatest of all lotteries on the same wise +grounds. I have been dreaming adventures ever since I was a little child, +and it is but natural that I marry an adventurer.”’ +</p> +<p> +A deep groan from the old man made her stop; but as she saw that he was +not changed in colour or feature, she went on— +</p> +<p> +‘“He says he loves me very dearly, and that he will treat me well. I like +to believe both, and I do believe them. He says we shall be very poor for +the present, but that he means to become something or somebody later on. I +do not much care for the poverty, if there is hope; and he is a man to +hope with and to hope from. +</p> +<p> +‘“You are, in a measure, the cause of all, since it was to tell me he +would send away all the witnesses against your husband, that is to be, +that I agreed to meet him, and to give me the lease which Miss O’Shea was +so rash as to place in Gill’s hands. This I now send you.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And this she has sent you, Kate?’ asked Kilgobbin. +</p> +<p> +‘Yes, papa, it is here, and the master of the <i>Swallow’s</i> receipt for +Gill as a passenger to Quebec.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Read on.’ +</p> +<p> +‘There is little more, papa, except what I am to say to you—to +forgive her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I can’t forgive her. It was deceit—cruel deceit.’ +</p> +<p> +‘It was not, papa. I could swear there was no forethought. If there had +been, she would have told me. She told me everything. She never loved +Walpole; she could not love him. She was marrying him with a broken heart. +It was not that she loved another, but she knew she could have loved +another.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Don’t talk such muddle to <i>me</i>,’ said he angrily. ‘You fancy life is +to be all courting, but it isn’t. It’s house-rent, and butchers’ bills, +and apothecaries, and the pipe water—it’s shoes, and schooling, and +arrears of rent, and rheumatism, and flannel waistcoats, and toothache +have a considerable space in Paradise!’ And there was a grim comicality in +his utterance of the word. +</p> +<p> +‘She said no more than the truth of herself,’ broke in Kate. ‘With all her +queenly ways, she could face poverty bravely—I know it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So you can—any of you, if a man’s making love to you. You care +little enough what you eat, and not much more what you wear, if he tells +you it becomes you; but that’s not the poverty that grinds and crushes. +It’s what comes home in sickness; it’s what meets you in insolent letters, +in threats of this or menaces of that. But what do you know about it, or +why do I speak of it? She’s married a man that could be hanged if the law +caught him, and for no other reason, that I see, than because he’s a +felon.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I don’t think you are fair to her, papa.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I’m not. Is it likely that at sixty I can be as great a fool as +I was at sixteen?’ +</p> +<p> +‘So that means that you once thought in the same way that she does?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I didn’t say any such thing, miss,’ said he angrily. ‘Did you tell Miss +Betty what’s happened us?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I just broke it to her, papa, and she made me run away and read the note +to you. Perhaps you’ll come and speak to her?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I will,’ said he, rising and preparing to leave the room. ‘I’d rather +hear I was a bankrupt this morning than that news!’ And he mounted the +stairs, sighing heavily as he went. +</p> +<p> +‘Isn’t this fine news the morning has brought us, Miss Betty!’ cried he, +as he entered the room with a haggard look, and hands clasped before him. +‘Did you ever dream there was such disgrace in store for us?’ +</p> +<p> +‘This marriage, you mean,’ said the old lady dryly. +</p> +<p> +‘Of course I do—if you call it a marriage at all.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I do call it a marriage—here’s Father Tierney’s certificate, a copy +made in his own handwriting: “Daniel Donogan, M.P., of Killamoyle and +Innismul, County Kilkenny, to Virginia Kostalergi, of no place in +particular, daughter of Prince Kostalergi, of the same localities, +contracted in holy matrimony this morning at six o’clock, and witnessed +likewise by Morris McCabe, vestry clerk—Mary Kestinogue, her mark.” +Do you want more than that?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Do I want more? Do I want a respectable wedding? Do I want a decent man—a +gentleman—a man fit to maintain her? Is this the way she ought to +have behaved? Is this what we thought of her?’ +</p> +<p> +‘It is not, Mat Kearney—you say truth. I never believed so well of +her till now. I never believed before that she had anything in her head +but to catch one of those English puppies, with their soft voices and +their sneers about Ireland. I never saw her that she wasn’t trying to +flatter them, and to please them, and to sing them down, as she called it +herself—the very name fit for it! And that she had the high heart to +take a man not only poor, but with a rope round his neck, shows me how I +wronged her. I could give her five thousand this morning to make her a +dowry, and to prove how I honour her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Can any one tell who he is? What do we know of him?’ +</p> +<p> +‘All Ireland knows of him; and, after all, Mat Kearney, she has only done +what her mother did before her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Poor Matty!’ said Kearney, as he drew his hand across his eyes. +</p> +<p> +‘Ay, ay! Poor Matty, if you like; but Matty was a beauty run to seed, and, +like the rest of them, she married the first good-looking vagabond she +saw. Now, this girl was in the very height and bloom of her beauty, and +she took a fellow for other qualities than his whiskers or his legs. They +tell me he isn’t even well-looking—so that I have hopes of her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, well,’ said Kearney, ‘he has done you a good turn, anyhow—he +has got Peter Gill out of the country.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And it’s the one thing that I can’t forgive him, Mat, just the one thing +that’s fretting me now. I was living in hopes to see that scoundrel Peter +on the table, and Counsellor Holmes baiting him in a cross-examination. I +wanted to see how the lawyer wouldn’t leave him a rag of character or a +strip of truth to cover himself with. How he’d tear off his evasions, and +confront him with his own lies, till he wouldn’t know what he was saying +or where he was sitting! I wanted to hear the description he would give of +him to the jury; and I’d go home to my dinner after that, and not wait for +the verdict.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All the same, I’m glad we’re rid of Peter.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Of course you are. You’re a man, and well pleased when your enemy runs +away; but if you were a woman, Mat Kearney, you’d rather he’d stand out +boldly and meet you, and fight his battle to the end. But they haven’t +done with me yet. I’ll put that little blackguard attorney, that said my +letter was a lease, into Chancery; and it will go hard with me if I don’t +have him struck off the rolls. There’s a small legacy of five hundred +pounds left me the other day, and, with the blessing of Providence, the +Common Pleas shall have it. Don’t shake your head, Mat Kearney. I’m not +robbing any one. Your daughter will have enough and to spare—’ +</p> +<p> +‘Oh, godmother,’ cried Kate imploringly. +</p> +<p> +‘It wasn’t I, my darling, that said the five hundred would be better spent +on wedding-clothes or house-linen. That delicate and refined suggestion +was your father’s. It was his lordship made the remark.’ +</p> +<p> +It was a fortunate accident at that conjuncture that a servant should +announce the arrival of Mr. Flood, the Tory J.P., who, hearing of +Donogan’s escape, had driven over to confer with his brother magistrate. +Lord Kilgobbin was not sorry to quit the field, where he’d certainly +earned few laurels, and hastened down to meet his colleague. +</p> +<p> +<a name="link2HCH0085" id="link2HCH0085"> +<!-- H2 anchor --> </a> +</p> +<div style="height: 4em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<h2> +CHAPTER LXXXV +</h2> +<h3> +THE END +</h3> +<p> +While the two justices and Curtis discussed the unhappy condition of +Ireland, and deplored the fact that the law-breaker never appealed in vain +to the sympathies of a people whose instincts were adverse to discipline, +Flood’s estimate of Donogan went very far to reconcile Kilgobbin to Nina’s +marriage. +</p> +<p> +‘Out of Ireland, you’ll see that man has stuff in him to rise to eminence +and station. All the qualities of which home manufacture would only make a +rebel will combine to form a man of infinite resource and energy in +America. Have you never imagined, Mr. Kearney, that if a man were to +employ the muscular energy to make his way through a drawing-room that he +would use to force his passage through a mob, the effort would be +misplaced, and the man himself a nuisance? Our old institutions, with all +their faults, have certain ordinary characteristics that answer to +good-breeding and good manners—reverence for authority, respect for +the gradations of rank, dislike to civil convulsion, and such like. We do +not sit tamely by when all these are threatened with overthrow; but there +are countries where there are fewer of these traditions, and men like +Donogan find their place there.’ +</p> +<p> +While they debated such points as these within-doors, Dick Kearney and +Atlee sat on the steps of the hall door and smoked their cigars. +</p> +<p> +‘I must say, Joe,’ said Dick, ‘that your accustomed acuteness cuts but a +very poor figure in the present case. It was no later than last night you +told me that Nina was madly in love with you. Do you remember, as we went +upstairs to bed, what you said on the landing? “That girl is my own. I may +marry her to-morrow, or this day three months.”’ +</p> +<p> +‘And I was right.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So right were you that she is at this moment the wife of another.’ +</p> +<p> +‘And cannot you see why?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I suppose I can: she preferred him to you, and I scarcely blame her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘No such thing; there was no thought of preference in the matter. If you +were not one of those fellows who mistake an illustration, and see +everything in a figure but the parallel, I should say that I had trained +too finely. Now had she been thoroughbred, I was all right; as a cocktail, +I was all wrong.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I own I cannot follow you.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Well, the woman was angry, and she married that fellow out of pique.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Out of pique?’ +</p> +<p> +‘I repeat it. It was a pure case of temper. I would not ask her to sing. I +even found fault with the way she gave the rebel ballad. I told her there +was an old lady—Americanly speaking—at the corner of College +Green, who enunciated the words better, and then I sat down to whist, and +would not even vouchsafe a glance in return for those looks of alternate +rage or languishment she threw across the table. She was frantic. I saw +it. There was nothing she wouldn’t have done. I vow she’d have married +even <i>you</i> at that moment. And with all that, she’d not have done it +if she’d been “clean-bred.” Come, come, don’t flare up, and look as if +you’d strike me. On the mother’s side she was a Kearney, and all the blood +of loyalty in her veins; but there must have been something wrong with the +Prince of Delos. Dido was very angry, but her breeding saved her; <i>she</i> +didn’t take a head-centre because she quarrelled with Æneas.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You are, without exception, the most conceited—’ +</p> +<p> +‘No, not ass—don’t say ass, for I’m nothing of the kind. Conceited, +if you like, or rather if your natural politeness insists on saying it, +and cannot distinguish between the vanity of a puppy and the +self-consciousness of real power; but come, tell me of something +pleasanter than all this personal discussion—how did mademoiselle +convey her tidings? have you seen her note? was it “transport”? was it +high-pitched, or apologetic?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Kate read it to me, and I thought it reasonable enough. She had done a +daring thing, and she knew it; she hoped the best, and in any case she was +not faint-hearted.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Any mention of me?’ +</p> +<p> +‘Not a word—your name does not occur.’ +</p> +<p> +‘I thought not; she had not pluck for that. Poor girl, the blow is heavier +than I meant it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘She speaks of Walpole; she incloses a few lines to him, and tells my +sister where she will find a small packet of trinkets and such like he had +given her.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Natural enough all that. There was no earthly reason why she shouldn’t be +able to talk of Walpole as easily as of Colenso or the cattle plague; but +you see she could not trust herself to approach <i>my</i> name.’ +</p> +<p> +‘You’ll provoke me to kick you, Atlee.’ +</p> +<p> +‘In that case I shall sit where I am. But I was going to remark that as I +shall start for town by the next train, and intend to meet Walpole, if +your sister desires it, I shall have much pleasure in taking charge of +that note to his address.’ +</p> +<p> +‘All right, I’ll tell her. I see that she and Miss Betty are about to +drive over to O’Shea’s Barn, and I’ll give your message at once.’ +</p> +<p> +While Dick hastened away on his errand, Joe Atlee sat alone, musing and +thoughtful. I have no reason to presume my reader cares for his +reflections, nor to know the meaning of a strange smile, half scornful and +half sad, that played upon his face. At last he rose slowly, and stood +looking up at the grim old castle, and its quaint blending of ancient +strength and modern deformity. ‘Life here, I take it, will go on pretty +much as before. All the acts of this drama will resemble each other, but +my own little melodrama must open soon. I wonder what sort of house there +will be for Joe Atlee’s benefit.’ +</p> +<p> +Atlee was right. Kilgobbin Castle fell back to the ways in which our first +chapter found it, and other interests—especially those of Kate’s +approaching marriage—soon effaced the memory of Nina’s flight and +runaway match. By that happy law by which the waves of events follow and +obliterate each other, the present glided back into the past, and the past +faded till its colours grew uncertain. +</p> +<p> +On the second evening after Nina’s departure, Atlee stood on the pier of +Kingstown as the packet drew up at the jetty. Walpole saw him, and waved +his hand in friendly greeting. ‘What news from Kilgobbin?’ cried he, as he +landed. +</p> +<p> +‘Nothing very rose-coloured,’ said Atlee, as he handed the note. +</p> +<p> +‘Is this true?’ said Walpole, as a slight tremor shook his voice. +</p> +<p> +‘All true.’ +</p> +<p> +‘Isn’t it Irish?—Irish the whole of it.’ +</p> +<p> +‘So they said down there, and, stranger than all, they seemed rather proud +of it.’ +</p> +<p> +THE END +</p> +<div style="height: 6em;"> +<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /> +</div> +<pre xml:space="preserve"> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lord Kilgobbin, by Charles Lever + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LORD KILGOBBIN *** + +***** This file should be named 8941-h.htm or 8941-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/8/9/4/8941/ + +Produced by Distributed Proofreaders. 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