Davenport Dunn, a Man of Our Day. Volume 1

“She would gladly welcome the change you speak of.” said the Secretary.

“I’m not so sure of that, sir; you have not already shown yourselves so very tolerant when tried. It is but a few years ago, and your bar rebelled at the thought of an Irishman being made Master of the Rolls in England, and that Irishman, Plunkett.”

“I must say,” burst in the Attorney-General, fresh from his first session in Parliament, and, more still, his first season in town, “this is but a prejudice, – an unjust prejudice. I can assert for myself that I never rose in the House without experiencing a degree of attention, – a deference, in short – ”

“Eminently the right of one whose opinions were so valuable,” said the Secretary, bowing blandly, and smiling.

“You did not lash them too often nor too much, Hutchard,” said the dark man. “If I remember aright, you rose once in the session, and that was to move an adjournment.”

“Ah, Lindley,” said the other, good-humoredly, “you are an unforgiving enemy.” Then, turning to the Chief Secretary, he said: “He cannot pardon my efforts, successful as they have been, to enable the Fellows of the University to marry. He obtained his fellowship as a safe retirement, and now discovers that his immunity is worth nothing.”

“I beg pardon,” said Lindley; “I have forgiven you long ago. It was from your arguments in its favor the measure was so long resisted. You are really blameless in the matter!”

The sharp give and take of these sallies – the fruit of those intimacies which small localities produce – rather astonished the English officials, and the Secretary and the Commissioner exchanged glances of significant import; nor was this lost on the Chief Baron, who, to change the topic, suddenly asked, —

“Who bought that estate – Kellett’s Court, I think they call it – was sold this morning?”

“I purchased it in trust,” said Dunn, “for an English peer.”

“Does he intend ever to reside there?”

“He talks of it, my Lord,” said Dunn, “the way men talk of something very meritorious that they mean to do – one day or other.”

“It went, I hear, for half its value,” remarked some one.

“A great deal above that, I assure you,” said Dunn. “Indeed, as property is selling now, I should not call the price a bad one.”

“Evidently Mr. Kellett was not of your mind,” said the former speaker, laughing.

“I ‘m told he burst into court to-day and abused every one, from the Bench to the crier, called the sale a robbery, and the judge a knave.”

“Not exactly that. He did, it is true, interrupt the order of the Court, but the sale was already concluded. He used very violent language, and so far forgot his respect for the Bench as to incur the penalty of a committal.”

“And was he committed?” asked the Secretary.

“He was; but rather as a measure of precaution than punishment. The Court suspected him to be insane.” Here Dunn leaned over and whispered a few words in the Secretary’s ear. “Nor was it without difficulty,” muttered he, in a low tone. “He continued to inveigh in the most violent tone against us all; declared he ‘d never leave the Jail without a public apology from the Bench; and, in fact, conducted himself so extravagantly that I half suspected the judge to be right, and that there was some derangement in the case.”

“I remember Paul Kellett at the head of the grand jury of his county,” said one.

“He was high sheriff the first year I went that circuit,” said the judge.

“And how has it ended? – where is he now?” whispered the Secretary.

“I persuaded him to come home here with me, and after a little calming down he became reasonable and has gone to his own house, but only within the last hour. It was that my servant whispered me, when he last brought in the wine.”

“And I suppose, after all,” said the Poor-Law Commissioner, “there was nothing peculiar in this instance; his case was one of thousands.”

“Quite true, sir,” said Lindley. “Statistical tables can take no note of such-like applicants for out-door relief; all are classified as paupers.”

“It must be acknowledged,” said the Secretary, in a tone of half rebuke, “that the law has worked admirably; there is but one opinion on that subject in England.”

“I should be greatly surprised were it otherwise,” said Lindley; “I never heard that the Cornish fishermen disparaged shipwrecks!”

“Who is that gentleman?” whispered the Secretary to Dunn.

“A gentleman very desirous to be Crown Prosecutor at Melbourne,” said Dunn, with a smile.

“He expresses himself somewhat freely,” whispered the other.

“Only here, sir, – only here, I assure you. He is our stanchest supporter in the College.”

“Of course we shall take Sebastopol, sir,” said a colonel from the end of the table. “The Russians are already on half rations, and their ammunition is nigh exhausted.” And now ensued a lively discussion of military events, wherein the speakers displayed as much confidence as skill.

“It strikes me,” said Lindley, “we are at war with the Emperor Nicholas for practising pretty much the same policy we approve of so strenuously for ourselves. He wanted to treat Turkey like an encumbered estate. There was the impoverished proprietor, the beggared tenantry, the incapacity for improvement, – all the hackneyed arguments, in fact, for selling out the Sultan that we employ so triumphantly against the Irish gentleman.”

“Excuse me,” said the Attorney-General, “he wanted to take forcible possession.”

“Nothing of the kind. He was as ready to offer compensation as we ourselves are when we superannuate a clerk or suppress an office. His sole mistake was that he proposed a robbery at the unlucky moment that the nation had taken its periodical attack of virtue, – we were in the height of our honest paroxysm when he asked us to be knaves; and hence all that has followed.”

“You estimate our national morality somewhat cheaply, sir,” said the Commissioner.

“As to morals, I think we are good political economists. We buy cheaply, and endeavor, at least, to sell in the dearest markets.”

“No more wine, thank you,” said the Secretary, rising. “A cup of coffee, with pleasure.”

It was a part of Davenport Dunn’s policy to sprinkle his dinner company with men like Lindley. They were what physicians call a sort of mild irritants, and occasionally very useful in their way; but, in the present instance, he rather suspected that the application had been pushed too far, and he approached the Secretary in the drawing-room with a kind of half apology for his guest.

“Ireland,” said he, “has always possessed two species of place-hunters: the one, patiently supporting Government for years, look calmly for the recognition of their services as a debt to be paid; the other, by an irritating course of action, seem to indicate how vexatious and annoying they may prove if not satisfactorily dealt with. Lindley is one of these, and he ought to be provided for.”

“I declare to you, Dunn,” said the Secretary, as he drew his arm within the other’s, and walked with him into the back drawing-room, “these kind of men make government very difficult in Ireland. There is no reserve – no caution about them. They compromise one at every step. You are the only Irishman I ever met who would seem to understand the necessity of reserve.”

Dunn bowed twice. It was like the acknowledgment of what he felt to be a right.

“I go further,” said the other, warming; “you are the only man here who has given us real and effective support, and yet never asked for anything.”

“What could I wish for better than to see the country governed as it is?” said Dunn, courteously.

“All are not inspired so patriotically, Dunn. Personal advantages have their influence on most men.”

“Of course, – naturally enough. But I stand in no need of aid in this respect I don’t want for means. I could n’t, if you offered it, take office; my hands are too full already, and of work which another might not be able to carry out. Rank, of course – distinction – ” and he stopped, and seemed confused.

“Well, come, we might meet you there, Dunn,” said the other, coaxingly. “Be frank with me. What do you wish for?”

“My family is of humble origin, it is true,” said Dunn; “but, without invidious reflection, I might point to some others – ” Again he hesitated.

“That need not be an obstacle,” said the Secretary.

“Well, then, on the score of fortune, there are some poorer than myself in – in – ” He stopped again.