Lord Kilgobbin

Kearney shook his head in dissent.

‘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.’

‘That I could not do,’ said Kearney firmly.

‘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.’

‘You forget; I was not within fifty miles of the place.’

‘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.’

‘The soup is getting cold all this time. Shall we sit down?’

‘No, not till we answer the telegram. Sit down and say what I told you.’

‘Atlee will say I’m mad. He knows that I have not a shilling in the world.’

‘Riches is not the badge of the representation,’ said the other.

‘They can at least pay the cost of the elections.’

‘Well, we’ll pay ours too – not all at once, but later on; don’t fret yourself about that.’

‘They’ll refuse me flatly.’

‘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.’

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?’

‘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.’

‘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.’

‘If differing with my father will ensure my success, I can afford to be confident,’ said Dick, smiling.

‘Your sister has her notions about Ireland, hasn’t she?’

‘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.’

‘And the Greek girl?’

‘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.’

‘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.’

‘So that you’d actually like to look at us?’

Donogan’s eyes grew glassy, and his lips trembled, but he could not utter a word.

‘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.’

‘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?’

‘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.’

‘It is of you, sir, I’m thinking, not of me,’ said Donogan calmly.

‘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.’

‘You judge me rightly, sir, and I am proud to see it; but how are you to present me to your friends?’

‘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.’

‘And dined with you every day since you knew him. Why not add that?’

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.’

‘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.

CHAPTER XXVIII

‘ON THE LEADS’

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.’

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.

‘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?’

‘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.’

‘What shall we talk of?’ asked Kate, with an arch smile.

‘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.’

‘I never saw him before – never even heard of him.’

‘Do you like him?’

‘I have scarcely seen him.’

‘Don’t be so guarded and reserved. Tell me frankly the impression he makes on you. Is he not vulgar – very vulgar?’

‘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.’

‘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!’

‘My brother’s friend certainly is no adept in it.’

‘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.’

‘Oh yes; I saw him rise from his chair.’

‘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.’

‘You seem to have observed him closely, Nina.’

‘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.’

‘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.’

‘Indeed!’ said she, half disdainfully.

‘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.’

‘They were gallant enough not to join us afterwards, though I think we waited tea till ten.’

‘Till nigh eleven, Nina; so that I am sure they must have been interested in their conversation.’

‘I hope the explanation excuses them.’

‘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 – ’

‘They had better not. It will sit most awkwardly on their Irish habits.’

‘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.’

‘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?’

‘Mr. Daniel, my brother called him; but I know nothing of his country or of his belongings.’

‘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.’

‘Our friend below-stairs looks as if that was not his failing. I should say that he means a good deal.’

‘Oh, I know you are laughing at my stupid phrase – no matter; you understand me, at all events. I don’t like that man.’

‘Dick’s friends are not fortunate with you. I remember how unfavourably you judged of Mr. Atlee from his portrait.’

‘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.’

‘What an amiable sort of levity!’

‘You are too critical on me by half this evening,’ said Nina pettishly; and she arose and strolled out upon the leads.

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.

‘I was afraid you might be asleep, Kate,’ said he, entering, ‘finding all so still and quiet here.’

‘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.’

‘What could you be quarrelling about?’ asked he, as he sat down beside her.

‘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.’

‘So then you don’t like Donogan?’ said he hurriedly.

‘Like whom? And you call him Donogan!’

‘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?’

‘But, my dear Dick, how are you connected with him?’

‘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.’

And now he told what the reader already knows of their first meeting and the intimacy that followed it.

‘All that will take nothing from the danger of harbouring a man charged as he is,’ said she gravely.

‘That is to say, if he be tracked and discovered.’

‘It is what I mean.’

‘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.’

And, as he spoke, he arose and walked out upon the terrace.

‘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.

‘Yes, I have been here this half-hour, perhaps longer.’

‘And heard what we have been saying within there?’

‘Some chance words reached me, but I did not follow them.’

‘Oh, it was here you were, then, Nina!’ cried Kate. ‘I am ashamed to say I did not know it.’

‘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?’

‘What should you say?’ asked Dick inquiringly, as he scanned her face.

‘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.’

‘I hope you like the explanation,’ said Kate to her brother, laughing.

‘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.’

‘You do not frighten me by the threat,’ said Nina calmly.

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.

CHAPTER XXIX

ON A VISIT AT KILGOBBIN

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 Pike, 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.”’

Dick shook with laughing while the other read out the paragraph in a high-sounding and pretentious tone.

‘I hope,’ said Kearney at last, ‘that the information as to my college successes is not vouched for on authority.’

‘Who cares a fig about them? The phrase rounds off a sentence, and nobody treats it like an affidavit.’

‘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.”’

‘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.’

‘But there are good speakers.’

‘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.’

‘We’re a long day’s journey from these convictions, I suspect,’ said Kearney doubtfully.

‘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.’

‘I think we could do better than dwell upon these things.’

‘I deny that: deny it in toto. 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 him? 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.’

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: —

‘“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.

‘“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.

‘“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.

‘“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.