Lord Kilgobbin

‘Read that, and tell us what you think of it.’

‘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.’

‘How do you understand the despatch?’ asked Kearney quickly.

‘Easily enough. His Excellency wants to know what you’ll have for shooting down three – I think they were three – Irishmen.’

‘The fellows came to demand arms, and with loaded guns in their hands.’

‘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?’

‘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?’

‘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?”’

‘Scarcely with that programme.’

‘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?’

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?’