Lord Kilgobbin

‘That cannot be delayed, I suppose?’ said Kearney, in the tone of a question.

‘Certainly not.’

‘I’ll go up by the night-mail. You’ll remain where you are, and where I hope you feel you are with a welcome.’

‘I feel it, sir – I feel it more than I can say.’ And his face was blood-red as he spoke.

‘There are scores of things you can do while I am away. You’ll have to study the county in all its baronies and subdivisions. There, my sister can help you; and you’ll have to learn the names and places of our great county swells, and mark such as may be likely to assist us. You’ll have to stroll about in our own neighbourhood, and learn what the people near home say of the intention, and pick up what you can of public opinion in our towns of Moate and Kilbeggan.’

‘I have bethought me of all that – ’ He paused here and seemed to hesitate if he should say more; and after an effort, he went on: ‘You’ll not take amiss what I’m going to say, Mr. Kearney. You’ll make full allowance for a man placed as I am; but I want, before you go, to learn from you in what way, or as what, you have presented me to your family? Am I a poor sizar of Trinity, whose hard struggle with poverty has caught your sympathy? Am I a chance acquaintance, whose only claim on you is being known to Joe Atlee? I’m sure I need not ask you, have you called me by my real name and given me my real character?’

Kearney flushed up to the eyes, and laying his hand on the other’s shoulder, said, ‘This is exactly what I have done. I have told my sister that you are the noted Daniel Donogan, United Irishman and rebel.’

‘But only to your sister?’

‘To none other.’

‘She‘ll not betray me, I know that.’

‘You are right there, Donogan. Here’s how it happened, for it was not intended.’ And now he related how the name had escaped him.

‘So that the cousin knows nothing?’

‘Nothing whatever. My sister Kate is not one to make rash confidences, and you may rely on it she has not told her.’

‘I hope and trust that this mistake will serve you for a lesson, Mr. Kearney, and show you that to keep a secret, it is not enough to have an honest intention, but a man must have a watch over his thoughts and a padlock on his tongue. And now to something of more importance. In your meeting with Walpole, mind one thing: no modesty, no humility; make your demands boldly, and declare that your price is well worth the paying; let him feel that, as he must make a choice between the priests and the nationalists, we are the easier of the two to deal with: first of all, we don’t press for prompt payment; and, secondly, we’ll not shock Exeter Hall! Show him that strongly, and tell him that there are clever fellows amongst us who’ll not compromise him or his party, and will never desert him on a close division. Oh dear me, how I wish I was going in your place.’

‘So do I, with all my heart; but there’s ten striking, and we shall be late for breakfast.’

CHAPTER XXX

THE MOATE STATION

The train by which Miss Betty O’Shea expected her nephew was late in its arrival at Moate, and Peter Gill, who had been sent with the car to fetch him over, was busily discussing his second supper when the passengers arrived.

‘Are you Mr. Gorman O’Shea, sir?’ asked Peter of a well-dressed and well-looking young man, who had just taken his luggage from the train.

‘No; here he is,’ replied he, pointing to a tall, powerful young fellow, whose tweed suit and billycock hat could not completely conceal a soldierlike bearing and a sort of compactness that comes of ‘drill.’

‘That’s my name. What do you want with me?’ cried he, in a loud but pleasant voice.

‘Only that Miss Betty has sent me over with the car for your honour, if it’s plazing to you to drive across.’

‘What about this broiled bone, Miller?’ asked O’Shea. ‘I rather think I like the notion better than when you proposed it.’

‘I suspect you do,’ said the other; ‘but we’ll have to step over to the “Blue Goat.” It’s only a few yards off, and they’ll be ready, for I telegraphed them from town to be prepared as the train came in.’

‘You seem to know the place well.’

‘Yes. I may say I know something about it. I canvassed this part of the county once for one of the Idlers, and I secretly determined, if I ever thought of trying for a seat in the House, I’d make the attempt here. They are a most pretentious set of beggars these small townsfolk, and they’d rather hear themselves talk politics, and give their notions of what they think “good for Ireland,” than actually pocket bank-notes; and that, my dear friend, is a virtue in a constituency never to be ignored or forgotten. The moment, then, I heard of M – ‘s retirement, I sent off a confidential emissary down here to get up what is called a requisition, asking me to stand for the county. Here it is, and the answer, in this morning’s Freeman. You can read it at your leisure. Here we are now at the “Blue Goat”; and I see they are expecting us.’

Not only was there a capital fire in the grate, and the table ready laid for supper, but a half-dozen or more of the notabilities of Moate were in waiting to receive the new candidate, and confer with him over the coming contest.

‘My companion is the nephew of an old neighbour of yours, gentlemen,’ said Miller; ‘Captain Gorman O’Shea, of the Imperial Lancers of Austria. I know you have heard of, if you have not seen him.’

A round of very hearty and demonstrative salutations followed, and O’Gorman was well pleased at the friendly reception accorded him.

Austria was a great country, one of the company observed. They had got liberal institutions and a free press, and they were good Catholics, who would give those heretical Prussians a fine lesson one of these days; and Gorman O’Shea’s health, coupled with these sentiments, was drank with all the honours.

‘There’s a jolly old face that I ought to remember well,’ said Gorman, as he looked up at the portrait of Lord Kilgobbin over the chimney. ‘When I entered the service, and came back here on leave, he gave me the first sword I ever wore, and treated me as kindly as if I was his son.’

The hearty speech elicited no response from the hearers, who only exchanged significant looks with each other, while Miller, apparently less under restraint, broke in with, ‘That stupid adventure the English newspapers called “The gallant resistance of Kilgobbin Castle” has lost that man the esteem of Irishmen.’

A perfect burst of approval followed these words; and while young O’Shea eagerly pressed for an explanation of an incident of which he heard for the first time, they one and all proceeded to give their versions of what had occurred; but with such contradictions, corrections, and emendations that the young man might be pardoned if he comprehended little of the event.

‘They say his son will contest the county with you, Mr. Miller,’ cried one.

‘Let me have no weightier rival, and I ask no more.’

‘Faix, if he’s going to stand,’ said another, ‘his father might have taken the trouble to ask us for our votes. Would you believe it, sir, it’s going on six months since he put his foot in this room?’

‘And do the “Goats” stand that?’ asked Miller.

‘I don’t wonder he doesn’t care to come into Moate. There’s not a shop in the town he doesn’t owe money to.’

‘And we never refused him credit – ’

‘For anything but his principles,’ chimed in an old fellow, whose oratory was heartily relished.

‘He’s going to stand in the National interest,’ said one.

‘That’s the safe ticket when you have no money,’ said another.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Miller, who rose to his legs to give greater importance to his address: – ‘If we want to make Ireland a country to live in, the only party to support is the Whig Government! The Nationalist may open the gaols, give license to the press, hunt down the Orangemen, and make the place generally too hot for the English. But are these the things that you and I want or strive for? We want order and quietness in the land, and the best places in it for ourselves to enjoy these blessings. Is Mr. Casey down there satisfied to keep the post-office in Moate when he knows he could be the first secretary in Dublin, at the head office, with two thousand a year? Will my friend Mr. McGloin say that he’d rather pass his life here than be a Commissioner of Customs, and live in Merrion Square? Ain’t we men? Ain’t we fathers and husbands? Have we not sons to advance and daughters to marry in the world, and how much will Nationalism do for these?

‘I will not tell you that the Whigs love us or have any strong regard for us; but they need us, gentlemen, and they know well that, without the Radicals, and Scotland, and our party here, they couldn’t keep power for three weeks. Now why is Scotland a great and prosperous country? I’ll tell you. Scotland has no sentimental politics. Scotland says, in her own homely adage, “Claw me and I’ll claw thee.” Scotland insists that there should be Scotchmen everywhere – in the Post-Office, in the Privy Council, in the Pipewater, and in the Punjab! Does Scotland go on vapouring about an extinct nationality or the right of the Stuarts? Not a bit of it. She says, Burn Scotch coal in the navy, though the smoke may blind you and you never get up steam! She has no national absurdities: she neither asks for a flag nor a Parliament. She demands only what will pay. And it is by supporting the Whigs you will make Ireland as prosperous as Scotland. Literally, the Fenians, gentlemen, will never make my friend yonder a baronet, or put me on the Bench; and now that we are met here in secret committee, I can say all this to you and none of it get abroad.

‘Mind, I never told you the Whigs love us, or said that we love the Whigs; but we can each of us help the other. When they smash the Protestant party, they are doing a fine stroke of work for Liberalism in pulling down a cruel ascendency and righting the Romanists. And when we crush the Protestants, we are opening the best places in the land to ourselves by getting rid of our only rivals. Look at the Bench, gentlemen, and the high offices of the courts. Have not we Papists, as they call us, our share in both? And this is only the beginning, let me tell you. There is a university in College Green due to us, and a number of fine palaces that their bishops once lived in, and grand old cathedrals whose very names show the rightful ownership; and when we have got all these – as the Whigs will give them one day – even then we are only beginning. And now turn the other side, and see what you have to expect from the Nationalists. Some very hard fighting and a great number of broken heads. I give in that you’ll drive the English out, take the Pigeon-House Fort, capture the Magazine, and carry away the Lord-Lieutenant in chains. And what will you have for it, after all, but another scrimmage amongst yourselves for the spoils. Mr. Mullen, of the Pike, will want something that Mr. Darby McKeown, of the Convicted Felon, has just appropriated; Tom Casidy, that burned the Grand Master of the Orangemen, finds that he is not to be pensioned for life; and Phil Costigan, that blew up the Lodge in the Park, discovers that he is not even to get the ruins as building materials. I tell you, my friends, it’s not in such convulsions as these that you and I, and other sensible men like us, want to pass our lives. We look for a comfortable berth and quarter-day; that’s what we compound for – quarter-day – and I give it to you as a toast with all the honours.’

And certainly the rich volume of cheers that greeted the sentiment vouched for a hearty and sincere recognition of the toast.

‘The chaise is ready at the door, councillor,’ cried the landlord, addressing Mr. Miller, and after a friendly shake-hands all round, Miller slipped his arm through O’Shea’s and drew him apart.

‘I’ll be back this way in about ten days or so, and I’ll ask you to present me to your aunt. She has got above a hundred votes on her property, and I think I can count upon you to stand by me.’

‘I can, perhaps, promise you a welcome at the Barn,’ muttered the young fellow in some confusion; ‘but when you have seen my aunt, you’ll understand why I give you no pledges on the score of political support.’

‘Oh, is that the way?’ asked Miller, with a knowing laugh.