Lord Kilgobbin Part 24

'I'm coming to that, if you'll have a little patience. Here is a letter from Tom McKeown, of Abbey Street. I wrote to him about raising a few hundreds on mortgage, to clear off some of our debts, and have a trifle in hand for drainage and to buy stock, and he tells me that there's no use in going to any of the money-lenders so long as your extravagance continues to be the talk of the town. Ay, you needn't grow red nor frown that way. The letter was a private one to myself, and I'm only telling it to you in confidence. Hear what he says: "You have a right to make your son a fellow-commoner if you like, and he has a right, by his father's own showing, to behave like a man of fortune; but neither of you have a right to believe that men who advance money will accept these pretensions as good security, or think anything but the worse of you both for your extravagance."'

'And you don't mean to horsewhip him, sir?' burst out d.i.c.k.

'Not, at any rate, till I pay off two thousand pounds that I owe him, and two years' interest at six per cent. that he has suffered me to become his debtor for.'

'Lame as he is, I'll kick him before twenty-four hours are over.'

'If you do, he'll shoot you like a dog, and it wouldn't be the first time he handled a pistol. No, no, Master d.i.c.k. Whether for better or worse, I can't tell, but the world is not what it was when I was your age. There's no provoking a man to a duel nowadays; nor no posting him when he won't fight. Whether it's your fortune is damaged or your feelings hurt, you must look to the law to redress you; and to take your cause into your own hands is to have the whole world against you.'

'And this insult is, then, to be submitted to?'

'It is, first of all, to be ignored. It's the same as if you never heard it. Just get it out of your head, and listen to what he says. Tom McKeown is one of the keenest fellows I know; and he has business with men who know not only what's doing in Downing Street, but what's going to be done there.

Now here's two things that are about to take place: one is the same as done, for it's all ready prepared--the taking away the landlord's right, and making the State determine what rent the tenant shall pay, and how long his tenure will be. The second won't come for two sessions after, but it will be law all the same. There's to be no primogeniture cla.s.s at all, no entail on land, but a subdivision, like in America and, I believe, in France.'

'I don't believe it, sir. These would amount to a revolution.'

'Well, and why not? Ain't we always going through a sort of mild revolution? What's parliamentary government but revolution, weakened, if you like, like watered grog, but the spirit is there all the same. Don't fancy that, because you can give it a hard name, you can destroy it.

But hear what Tom is coming to. "Be early," says he, "take time by the forelock: get rid of your entail and get rid of your land. Don't wait till the Government does both for you, and have to accept whatever condition the law will c.u.mber you with, but be before them! Get your son to join you in docking the entail; pet.i.tion before the court for a sale, yourself or somebody for you; and wash your hands clean of it all. It's bad property, in a very ticklish country," says Tom--and he dashes the words--"bad property in a very ticklish country; and if you take my advice, you'll get clear of both." You shall read it all yourself by-and-by; I am only giving you the substance of it, and none of the reasons.'

'This is a question for very grave consideration, to say the least of it.

It is a bold proposal.'

'So it is, and so says Tom himself; but he adds: "There's no time to be lost; for once it gets about how Gladstone's going to deal with land, and what Bright has in his head for eldest sons, you might as well whistle as try to dispose of that property." To be sure, he says,' added he, after a pause--'he says, "If you insist on holding on--if you cling to the dirty acres because they were your father's and your great-grandfather's, and if you think that being Kearney of Kilgobbin is a sort of t.i.tle, in the name of G.o.d stay where you are, but keep down your expenses. Give up some of your useless servants, reduce your saddle-horses"--_my_ saddle-horses, d.i.c.k! "Try if you can live without foxhunting." Foxhunting! "Make your daughter know that she needn't dress like a d.u.c.h.ess"--poor Kitty's very like a d.u.c.h.ess; "and, above all, persuade your lazy, idle, and very self-sufficient son to take to some respectable line of life to gain his living. I wouldn't say that he mightn't be an apothecary; but if he liked law better than physic, I might be able to do something for him in my own office."'

'Have you done, sir?' said d.i.c.k hastily, as his father wiped his spectacles, and seemed to prepare for another heat.

'He goes on to say that he always requires one hundred and fifty guineas fee with a young man; "but we are old friends, Mathew Kearney," says he, "and we'll make it pounds."'

'To fit me to be an attorney!' said d.i.c.k, articulating each word with a slow and almost savage determination.

''Faith! it would have been well for us if one of the family had been an attorney before now. We'd never have gone into that action about the mill-race, nor had to pay those heavy damages for levelling Moore's barn.

A little law would have saved us from evicting those blackguards at Mullenalick, or kicking Mr. Hall's bailiff before witnesses.'

To arrest his father's recollection of the various occasions on which his illegality had betrayed him into loss and damage, d.i.c.k blurted out, 'I'd rather break stones on the road than I'd be an attorney.'

'Well, you'll not have to go far for employment, for they are just laying down new metal this moment; and you needn't lose time over it,' said Kearney, with a wave of his hand, to show that the audience was over and the conference ended.

'There's just one favour I would ask, sir,' said d.i.c.k, with his hand on the lock.

'You want a hammer, I suppose,' said his father, with a grin--'isn't _that_ it?'

With something that, had it been uttered aloud, sounded very like a bitter malediction, d.i.c.k rushed from the room, slamming the door violently after him as he went.

'That's the temper that helps a man to get on in life,' said the old man, as he turned once more to his accounts, and set to work to see where he had blundered in his figures.

CHAPTER XVII

d.i.c.k'S REVERIE

When d.i.c.k Kearney left his father, he walked from the house, and not knowing or much caring in what direction he went, turned into the garden.

It was a wild, neglected sort of spot, with fruit-trees of great size, long past bearing, and close underwood in places that barred the pa.s.sage. Here and there little patches of cultivation appeared, sometimes flowering plants, but oftener vegetables. One long alley, with tall hedges of box, had been preserved, and led to a little mound planted with laurels and arbutus, and known as 'Laurel Hill'; here a little rustic summer-house had once stood, and still, though now in ruins, showed where, in former days, people came to taste the fresh breeze above the tree-tops, and enjoy the wide range of a view that stretched to the Slieve-Bloom Mountains, nearly thirty miles away.

Young Kearney reached this spot, and sat down to gaze upon a scene every detail of which was well known to him, but of which he was utterly unconscious as he looked. 'I am turned out to starve,' cried he aloud, as though there was a sense of relief in thus proclaiming his sorrow to the winds. 'I am told to go and work upon the roads, to live by my daily labour. Treated like a gentleman until I am bound to that condition by every tie of feeling and kindred, and then bade to know myself as an outcast. I have not even Joe Atlee's resource--I have not imbibed the instincts of the lower orders, so as to be able to give them back to them in fiction or in song. I cannot either idealise rebellion or make treason tuneful.

'It is not yet a week since that same Atlee envied me my station as the son and heir to this place, and owned to me that there was that in the sense of name and lineage that more than balanced personal success, and here I am now, a beggar! I can enlist, however, blessings on the n.o.ble career that ignores character and defies capacity. I don't know that I'll bring much loyalty to Her Majesty's cause, but I'll lend her the aid of as broad shoulders and tough sinews as my neighbours.' And here his voice grew louder and harsher, and with a ring of defiance in it. 'And no cutting off the entail, my Lord Kilgobbin! no escape from that cruel necessity of an heir! I may carry my musket in the ranks, but I'll not surrender my birthright!'

The thought that he had at length determined on the path he should follow aroused his courage and made his heart lighter; and then there was that in the manner he was vindicating his station and his claim that seemed to savour of heroism. He began to fancy his comrades regarding him with a certain deference, and treating him with a respect that recognised his condition. 'I know the shame my father will feel when he sees to what he has driven me. What an offence to his love of rank and station to behold his son in the coa.r.s.e uniform of a private! An only son and heir, too! I can picture to myself his shock as he reads the letter in which I shall say good-bye, and then turn to tell my sister that her brother is a common soldier, and in this way lost to her for ever!

'And what is it all about? What terrible things have I done? What entanglements have I contracted? Where have I forged? Whose name have I stolen? whose daughter seduced? What is laid to my charge, beyond that I have lived like a gentleman, and striven to eat and drink and dress like one? And I'll wager my life that for one who will blame him, there will be ten--no, not ten, fifty--to condemn me. I had a kind, trustful, affectionate father, restricting himself in scores of ways to give me my education among the highest cla.s.s of my contemporaries. I was largely supplied with means, indulged in every way, and if I turned my steps towards home, welcomed with love and affection.'

'And fearfully spoiled by all the petting he met with,' said a soft voice leaning over his shoulder, while a pair of very liquid grey eyes gazed into his own.

'What, Nina!--Mademoiselle Nina, I mean,' said he, 'have you been long there?'

'Long enough to hear you make a very pitiful lamentation over a condition that I, in my ignorance, used to believe was only a little short of Paradise.'

'You fancied that, did you?'

'Yes, I did so fancy it.'

'Might I be bold enough to ask from what circ.u.mstance, though? I entreat you to tell me, what belongings of mine, what resources of luxury or pleasure, what incident of my daily life, suggested this impression of yours?'

'Perhaps, as a matter of strict reasoning, I have little to show for my conviction, but if you ask me why I thought as I did, it was simply from contrasting your condition with my own, and seeing that in everything where my lot has gloom and darkness, if not worse, yours, my ungrateful cousin, was all sunshine.'

'Let us see a little of this sunshine, Cousin Nina. Sit down here beside me, and show me, I pray, some of those bright tints that I am longing to gaze on.'

'There's not room for both of us on that bench.'

'Ample room; we shall sit the closer.'

'No, Cousin d.i.c.k; give me your arm and we'll take a stroll together.'

'Which way shall it be?'

'You shall choose, cousin.'

'If I have the choice, then, I'll carry you off, Nina, for I'm thinking of bidding good-bye to the old house and all within it.'

'I don't think I'll consent that far,' said she, smiling. 'I have had my experience of what it is to be without a home, or something very nearly that. I'll not willingly recall the sensation. But what has put such gloomy thoughts in your head? What, or rather who is driving you to this?'

'My father, Nina, my father!'

'This is past my comprehending.'