Lord Kilgobbin

‘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.

‘“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.

‘“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.’

‘“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.’

‘“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.

‘“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.

‘“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.

‘“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.

‘“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.

‘“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.

‘“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,

‘“JOE ATLEE.

‘“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.’”

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.

‘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.’

‘He is not over complimentary to myself,’ said Kearney, and the irritation he felt was not to be concealed.

‘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!’

‘This is brief enough, at any rate,’ said Kearney, as he broke open the second letter: —

‘“DUBLIN CASTLE, Wednesday Evening.

‘“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,

CECIL WALPOLE.”’