Lord Kilgobbin

‘Who would have thought to see you here at this hour?’ said he, saluting her with deep respect.

‘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?’

‘Do I know? – too well.’

‘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 your project?’

‘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.’

‘And can they tell you anything that would be likely to interest you?’

‘Yes, their very mistakes would convey their hopes; and hopes have come to mean a great deal in Ireland.’

‘Our roads are then the same. I am on my way to Croghan Castle.’

‘Croghan is but a mile from my village of Cruhan,’ said he.

‘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.’

‘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.’

‘Do you think you could manage to seat yourself on that shelf at the back?’

‘It is a great temptation you offer me, if I were not ashamed to be a burden.’

‘Not to me, certainly; and as for the pony, I scarcely think he’ll mind it.’

‘At all events, I shall walk the hills.’

‘I believe there are none. If I remember aright, it is all through a level bog.’

‘You were at tea last night when a certain telegram came?’

‘To be sure I was. I was there, too, when one came for you, and saw you leave the room immediately after.’

‘In evident confusion?’ added he, smiling.

‘Yes, I should say, in evident confusion. At least, you looked like one who had got some very unexpected tidings.’

‘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.’

‘Which means that he is no friend of yours.’

‘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.’

‘And you are a rebel?’

‘At your service, Mademoiselle Kostalergi.’

‘And a Fenian, and head-centre?’

‘A Fenian and a head-centre.’

‘And probably ought to be in prison?’

‘I have been already, and as far as the sentence of English law goes, should be still there.’

‘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.’

‘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.’

‘What if I were to drive you into Moate and give you up?’

‘You might. I’ll not run away.’

‘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.’”

‘How came you by my name?’ asked he curtly.

‘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.’

‘I am in your hands completely,’ said he, in the same calm voice; ‘but I repeat my words: I’ll not run away.’

‘That is, because you trust to my honour.’

‘It is exactly so – because I trust to your honour.’

‘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?’

‘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.”’

‘So it would. I have just thought that.’

‘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?”’

‘And are there many?’

‘I should say close on two millions at home here, and some hundred thousand in America.’

‘And if you be as strong as you say, what craven creatures you must be not to assert your own convictions.’

‘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.’

‘That is to say, you are terrified.’

‘Well, if you like that word better, I’ll not quarrel about it.’

‘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.’

‘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.’

‘How dare you defame a great people!’ cried she angrily.

‘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.’

‘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.’

‘I know that. I know your story from one who loved to talk of you, all unworthy as he was of such a theme.’

‘And who was this?’

‘Atlee – Joe Atlee, whom you saw here some months ago.’

‘I remember him,’ said she thoughtfully.

‘He was here, if I mistake not, with that other friend of yours you have so strangely escaped from to-day.’

‘Mr. Walpole?’

‘Yes, Mr. Walpole; to meet whom would not have involved you, at least, in any contrariety.’

‘Is this a question, sir? Am I to suppose your curiosity asks an answer here?’

‘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.’

‘Well, sir, you were right. I am not sure that my reasons for avoiding him were exactly as strong as yours, but they sufficed for me.’

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. We 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!’

‘What do you know of Mr. Walpole?’ asked she abruptly.

‘Very little beyond the fact that he is an agent of the Government, who believes that he understands the Irish people.’

‘Which you are disposed to doubt?’

‘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.”’

‘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.’

‘That distinction was never his– that was your own.’

‘So it was; but he adopted it when he heard it.’

‘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.’

‘Is not that our village yonder, where I see the smoke?’

‘Yes; and there on the stile sits your little groom awaiting you. I shall get down here.’

‘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.

CHAPTER XXXVI

THE EXCURSION

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.

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.

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 Times commissioner when he came to report on the condition of the cottier in Ireland.

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.

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.

‘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.

‘What is he saying?’ asked Nina.

‘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.’

‘Is it quite safe for yourself?’ whispered she. ‘Is there not some danger in being seen here?’

‘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!’

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.

‘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.’

‘Such interest would be but ill-bestowed if it only served to heighten your danger. Are you known here?’

‘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.’

‘Then what do you mean to do?’ asked she hurriedly.

‘Walk boldly through the village at the head of your pony, as I am now – your guide to Croghan Castle.’

‘But we were to have stabled the beast here. I intended to have gone on foot to Croghan.’

‘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 you owe nothing to this owner of the soil; it’s enough that they are found amongst the chattels of his debtors.’

‘I cannot believe this is law.’

‘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.’

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.

‘What are they saying?’ asked she; ‘I do not know their language.’

‘It is Irish,’ said he; ‘they are talking of your beauty.’

‘I should so like to follow their words,’ said she, with the smile of one to whom such homage had ever its charm.

‘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.”’

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.

‘The police are to be here at one o’clock,’ said Donogan, translating a phrase of one of the bystanders.

‘And is there anything for them to seize on?’ asked she.

‘No; but they can level the cabins,’ cried he bitterly. ‘We have no more right to shelter than to food.’

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.

Larry, as usual, had found something to interest him, and dropped behind in the village, and they were alone.

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.’

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.’

‘It is a very proud slavery – command me how you will,’ muttered he, not without emotion.

‘That,’ continued she, pointing to the basket, ‘contains my breakfast, and luncheon or dinner, and I invite you to be my guest.’

‘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!’

‘If so, Fate has scarcely been generous to you.’ And her lip curled half superciliously as she spoke.

‘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?’

‘I don’t know that I have much sympathy with political ambitions,’ said she pettishly.

‘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.’

‘This is very pretty enthusiasm.’

‘Oh, how is it that you, who can stimulate one’s heart to such confessions, know nothing of the sentiment?’

‘I have my ambitions,’ said she coldly, almost sternly.

‘Let me hear some of them.’

‘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.’

‘Shall I do what will best please myself? If so, it will be to lie here and look at you.’

‘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.’

‘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.

‘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.’

‘How am I to aid you?’ asked he, in sheer simplicity.

‘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.’

‘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?’

‘I know nothing of Greek ballads. How does it go?’

‘It is a simple melody, in a low key.’ And he sang, in a deep but tremulous voice, to a very plaintive air —

‘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.’

‘What had he done to merit such a hope?’ said she haughtily.

‘Loved her – only loved her!’

‘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.’

‘And you would call that marrying for love?’

‘Why not? Who has such a claim upon my life as he who makes the life worth living for? Did you hear that shout?’

‘I heard it,’ said he, standing still to listen.

‘It came from the village. What can it mean?’

‘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.’

‘You are not going into danger?’ said she; and her cheek grew paler as she spoke.

‘And if I were, who is to care for it?’

‘Have you no mother, sister, sweetheart?’

‘No, not one of the three. Good-bye.’

‘But if I were to say – stay?’

‘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.

‘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.

‘What is it, Larry? What has happened?’ asked she.

‘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.

‘Go where? and why?’

‘Yes,’ said he, with a stolid look, ‘you are.’

‘I am to do what? Speak out, boy! Who sent you here?’

‘Yes,’ said he again.

‘Are they in trouble yonder? Is there fighting at the village?’

‘No.’ And he shook his head, as though he said so regretfully.

‘Will you tell me what you mean, boy?’

‘The pony is ready?’ said he, as he stooped down to pack away the things in the basket.

‘Is that gentleman coming back here – that gentleman whom you saw with me?’

‘He is gone; he got away.’ And here he laughed in a malicious way, that was more puzzling even than his words.