Lord Kilgobbin Part 61

'Fine fellow--a fine fellow!' cried Nina enthusiastically.

'That fine fellow has done a deal of mischief,' said Kate thoughtfully.

'He has escaped, has he not?' asked Nina.

'We hope not--that is, we know that he is about to sail for St. John's by a clipper now in Belfast, and we shall have a fast steam-corvette ready to catch her in the Channel. He'll be under Yankee colours, it is true, and claim an American citizenship; but we must run risks sometimes, and this is one of those times.'

'But you know where he is now? Why not apprehend him on sh.o.r.e?'

'The very thing we do not know, mademoiselle. I'd rather be sure of it than have five thousand pounds in my hand. Some say he is here, in the neighbourhood; some that he is gone south; others declare that he has reached Liverpool. All we really do know is about the ship that he means to sail in, and on which the second mate has informed us.'

'And all your boasted activity is at fault,' said she insolently, 'when you have to own you cannot track him.'

'Nor is it so easy, mademoiselle, where a whole population befriend and feel for him.'

'And if they do, with what face can you persecute what has the entire sympathy of a nation?'

'Don't provoke answers which are sure not to satisfy you, and which you could but half comprehend; but tell Mr. Curtis you will use your influence to make Mr. Walpole forget this mishap.'

'But I do want to go to the bottom of this question. I will insist on learning why people rebel here.'

'In that case, I'll go home to breakfast, and I'll be quite satisfied if I see you at luncheon,' said Kate.

'Do, pray, Mr. Curtis, tell me all about it. Why do some people shoot the others who are just as much Irish as themselves? Why do hungry people kill the cattle and never eat them? And why don't the English go away and leave a country where n.o.body likes them? If there be a reason for these things, let me hear it.'

'Bye-bye,' said Kate, waving her hand, as she turned away.

'You are so ungenerous,' cried Nina, hurrying after her; 'I am a stranger, and would naturally like to learn all that I could of the country and the people; here is a gentleman full of the very knowledge I am seeking. He knows all about these terrible Fenians. What will they do with Donogan if they take him?'

'Transport him for life; they'll not hang him, I think.'

'That's worse than hanging. I mean--that is--Miss Kearney would rather they'd hang him.'

'I have not said so,' replied Kate, 'and I don't suspect I think so, either.'

'Well,' said Nina, after a pause, 'let us go back to breakfast. You'll see Mr. Walpole--he's sure to be down by that time; and I'll tell him what you wish is, that he must not think any more of the incident; that it was a piece of official stupidity, done, of course, out of the best motives; and that if he should cut a ridiculous figure at the end, he has only himself to blame for the worse than ambiguity of his private papers.'

'I do not know that I 'd exactly say that,' said Kate, who felt some difficulty in not laughing at the horror-struck expression of Mr. Curtis's face.

'Well, then, I'll say--this was what I wished to tell you, but my cousin Kate interposed and suggested that a little adroit flattery of you, and some small coquetries that might make you believe you were charming, would be the readiest mode to make you forget anything disagreeable, and she would charge herself with the task.'

'Do so,' said Kate calmly; 'and let us now go back to breakfast.'

CHAPTER XLV

SOME IRISHRIES

That which the English irreverently call 'chaff' enters largely as an element into Irish life; and when Walpole stigmatised the habit to Joe Atlee as essentially that of the smaller island, he was not far wrong. I will not say that it is a high order of wit--very elegant, or very refined; but it is a strong incentive to good-humour--a vent to good spirits; and being a weapon which every Irishman can wield in some fashion or other, establishes that sort of joust which prevailed in the melee tournaments, and where each tilted with whom he pleased.

Any one who has witnessed the progress of an Irish trial, even when the crime was of the very gravest, cannot fail to have been struck by the continual clash of smart remark and smarter rejoinder between the Bench and the Bar; showing how men feel the necessity of ready-wittedness, and a prompt.i.tude to repel attack, in which even the prisoner in the dock takes his share, and cuts his joke at the most critical moment of his existence.

The Irish theatre always exhibits traits of this national taste; but a dinner-party, with its due infusion of barristers, is the best possible exemplification of this give and take, which, even if it had no higher merit, is a powerful ally of good-humour, and the sworn foe to everything like over-irritability or morbid self-esteem. Indeed, I could not wish a very conceited man, of a somewhat grave temperament and distant demeanour, a much heavier punishment than a course of Irish dinner-parties; for even though he should come out scathless himself, the outrages to his sense of propriety, and the insults to his ideas of taste, would be a severe suffering.

That breakfast-table at Kilgobbin had some heavy hearts around the board.

There was not, with the exception of Walpole, one there who had not, in the doubts that beset his future, grave cause for anxiety; and yet to look at, still more to listen to them, you would have said that Walpole alone had any load of care upon his heart, and that the others were a light-hearted, happy set of people, with whom the world went always well. No cloud!--not even a shadow to darken the road before them. Of this levity, for I suppose I must give it a hard name--the source of much that is best and worst amongst us--our English rulers take no account, and are often as ready to charge us with a conviction, which was no more than a caprice, as they are to nail us down to some determination, which was simply a drollery; and until some intelligent traveller does for us what I lately perceived a clever tourist did for the j.a.panese, in explaining their modes of thought, impulses, and pa.s.sions to the English, I despair of our being better known in Downing Street than we now are.

Captain Curtis--for it is right to give him his rank--was fearfully nervous and uneasy, and though he tried to eat his breakfast with an air of unconcern and carelessness, he broke his egg with a tremulous hand, and listened with painful eagerness every time Walpole spoke.

'I wish somebody would send us the _Standard_; when it is known that the Lord-Lieutenant's secretary has turned Fenian,' said Kilgobbin, 'won't there be a grand Tory out-cry over the unprincipled Whigs?'

'The papers need know nothing whatever of the incident,' interposed Curtis anxiously, 'if old Flood is not busy enough to inform them.'

'Who is old Flood?' asked Walpole.

'A Tory J.P., who has copied out a considerable share of your correspondence,' said Kilgobbin.

'And four letters in a lady's hand,' added d.i.c.k, 'that he imagines to be a treasonable correspondence by symbol.'

'I hope Mr. Walpole,' said Kate, 'will rather accept felony to the law than falsehood to the lady.'

'You don't mean to say--' began Walpole angrily; then correcting his irritable manner, he added, 'Am I to suppose my letters have been read?'

'Well, roughly looked through,' said Curtis. 'Just a glance here and there to catch what they meant.'

'Which I must say was quite unnecessary,' said Walpole haughtily.

'It was a sort of journal of yours,' blundered out Curtis, who had a most unhappy knack of committing himself, 'that they opened first, and they saw an entry with Kilgobbin Castle at the top of it, and the date last July.'

'There was nothing political in that, I'm sure,' said Walpole.

'No, not exactly, but a trifle rebellious, all the same; the words, "We this evening learned a Fenian song, 'The time to begin,' and rather suspect it is time to leave off; the Greek better-looking than ever, and more dangerous."'

Curtis's last words were drowned in the laugh that now shook the table; indeed, except Walpole and Nina herself, they actually roared with laughter, which burst out afresh, as Curtis, in his innocence, said, 'We could not make out about the Greek, but we hoped we'd find out later on.'

'And I fervently trust you did,' said Kilgobbin.

'I'm afraid not; there was something about somebody called Joe, that the Greek wouldn't have him, or disliked him, or snubbed him--indeed, I forget the words.'

'You are quite right, sir, to distrust your memory,' said Walpole; 'it has betrayed you most egregiously already.'

'On the contrary,' burst in Kilgobbin, 'I am delighted with this proof of the captain's acuteness; tell us something more, Curtis.'

'There was then, "From the upper castle yard, Maude," whoever Maude is, "says, 'Deny it all, and say you never were there,' not so easy as she thinks, with a broken right arm, and a heart not quite so whole as it ought to be."'