Lord Kilgobbin Part 96

'I scarcely know. I suppose you understand each other, and are tolerant about capricious moods and ways, which, to strangers, might seem to have a deeper significance. I believe you are not as hasty, or as violent, or as rash as you seem, and I am sure you are not as impulsive in your generosity, or as headlong in your affections. Not exactly that you mean to be false, but you are hypocrites to yourselves.'

'A very flattering picture of us.'

'I do not mean to flatter you; and it is to this end I say, you are Italians without the subtlety of the Italian, and Greeks without their genius.--You need not curtsy so profoundly.--I could say worse than this, Kate, if I were minded to do so.'

'Pray do not be so minded, then. Pray remember that, even when you wound me, I cannot return the thrust.'

'I know what you mean,' cried Nina rapidly. 'You are veritable Arabs in your estimate of hospitality, and he who has eaten your salt is sacred.'

'You remind me of what I had nigh forgotten, Nina--of our coming guests.'

'Do you know why Walpole and his friend are coming?'

'They are already come, Nina--they are out walking with papa; but what has brought them here I cannot guess, and, since I have heard your description of Ireland, I cannot imagine.'

'Nor can I,' said she indolently, and moved away.

CHAPTER LXXV

MATHEW KEARNEY'S REFLECTIONS

To have his house full of company, to see his table crowded with guests, was nearer perfect happiness than anything Kearney knew; and when he set out, the morning after the arrival of the strangers, to show Major Lockwood where he would find a brace of woodc.o.c.ks, the old man was in such spirits as he had not known for years.

'Why don't your friend Walpole come with us?' asked he of his companion, as they trudged across the bog.

'I believe I can guess,' mumbled out the other; 'but I'm not quite sure I ought to tell.'

'I see,' said Kearney, with a knowing leer; 'he's afraid I'll roast him about that unlucky despatch he wrote. He thinks I'll give him no peace about that bit of stupidity; for you see, major, it _was_ stupid, and nothing less. Of all the things we despise in Ireland, take my word for it, there is nothing we think so little of as a weak Government. We can stand up strong and bold against hard usage, and we gain self-respect by resistance; but when you come down to conciliations and what you call healing measures, we feel as if you were going to humbug us, and there is not a devilment comes into our heads we would not do, just to see how you'll bear it; and it's then your London newspapers cry out: "What's the use of doing anything for Ireland? We pulled down the Church, and we robbed the landlords, and we're now going to back Cardinal Cullen for them, and there they are murthering away as bad as ever."'

'Is it not true?' asked the major.

'And whose fault if it _is_ true? Who has broke down the laws in Ireland but yourselves? We Irish never said that many things _you_ called crimes were bad in morals, and when it occurs to you now to doubt if they are crimes, I'd like to ask you, why wouldn't _we_ do them? You won't give us our independence, and so we'll fight for it; and though, maybe, we can't lick you, we'll make your life so uncomfortable to you, keeping us down, that you'll beg a compromise--a healing measure, you'll call it--just as when I won't give Tim Sullivan a lease, he takes a shot at me; and as I reckon the holes in my hat, I think better of it, and take a pound or two off his rent.'

'So that, in fact, you court the policy of conciliation?'

'Only because I'm weak, major--because I'm weak, and that I must live in the neighbourhood. If I could pa.s.s my days out of the range of Tim's carbine, I wouldn't reduce him a shilling.'

'I can make nothing of Ireland or Irishmen either.'

'Why would you? G.o.d help us! we are poor enough and wretched enough; but we're not come down to that yet that a major of dragoons can read us like big print.'

'So far as I see you wish for a strong despotism.'

'In one way it would suit us well. Do you see, major, what a weak administration and uncertain laws do? They set every man in Ireland about righting himself by his own hand. If I know I shall be starved when I am turned out of my holding, I'm not at all so sure I'll be hanged if I shoot my landlord. Make me as certain of the one as the other, and I'll not shoot him.'

'I believe I understand you.'

'No, you don't, nor any c.o.c.kney among you.'

'I'm not a c.o.c.kney.'

'I don't care, you're the same: you're not one of us; nor if you spent fifty years among us, would you understand us.'

'Come over and see me in Berkshire, Kearney, and let me see if you can read our people much better.'

'From all I hear, there's not much to read. Your chawbacon isn't as cute a fellow as Pat.'

'He's easier to live with.'

'Maybe so; but I wouldn't care for a life with such people about me. I like human nature, and human feelings--ay, human pa.s.sions, if you must call them so. I want to know--I can make some people love me, though I well know there must be others will hate me. You're all for tranquillity all over in England--a quiet life you call it. I like to live without knowing what's coming, and to feel all the time that I know enough of the game to be able to play it as well as my neighbours. Do you follow me now, major?'

'I'm not quite certain I do.'

'No--but I'm quite certain you don't; and, indeed, I wonder at myself talking to you about these things at all.'

'I'm much gratified that you do so. In fact, Kearney, you give me courage to speak a little about myself and my own affairs; and, if you will allow me, to ask your advice.'

This was an unusually long speech for the major, and he actually seemed fatigued when he concluded. He was, however, consoled for his exertions by seeing what pleasure his words had conferred on Kearney; and with what racy self-satisfaction, that gentleman heard himself mentioned as a 'wise opinion.'

'I believe I do know a little of life, major,' said he sententiously. 'As old Giles Dackson used to say, "Get Mathew Kearney to tell you what he thinks of it." You knew Giles?'

'No.'

'Well, you've heard of him? No! not even that. There's another proof of what I was saying--we're two people, the English and the Irish. If it wasn't so, you'd be no stranger to the sayings and doings of one of the cutest men that ever lived.'

'We have witty fellows too.'

'No, you haven't! Do you call your House of Commons' jokes wit? Are the stories you tell at your hustings' speeches wit? Is there one over there'--and he pointed in the direction of England--'that ever made a smart repartee or a brilliant answer to any one about anything? You now and then tell an Irish story, and you forget the point; or you quote a French _mot_, and leave out the epigram. Don't be angry--it's truth I'm telling you.'

'I'm not angry, though I must say I don't think you are fair to us.'

The last bit of brilliancy you had in the House was Brinsley Sheridan, and there wasn't much English about _him_.'

'I've never heard that the famous O'Connell used to convulse the House with his drollery.'

'Why should he? Didn't he know where he was? Do you imagine that O'Connell was going to do like poor Lord Killeen, who shipped a cargo of coalscuttles to Africa?'

'Will you explain to me then how, if you are so much shrewder and wittier and cleverer than us, it does not make you richer, more prosperous, and more contented?'

'I could do that too--but I'm losing the birds. There's a c.o.c.k now. Well done! I see you can shoot a bit.--Look here, major, there's a deal in race--in the blood of a people. It's very hard to make a light-hearted, joyous people thrifty. It's your sullen fellow, that never cuts a joke, nor wants any one to laugh at it, that's the man who saves. If you're a wit, you want an audience, and the best audience is round a dinner-table; and we know what that costs. Now, Ireland has been very pleasant for the last hundred and fifty years in that fashion, and you, and scores of other low-spirited, depressed fellows, come over here to pluck up and rouse yourselves, and you go home, and you wonder why the people who amused you were not always as jolly as you saw them. I've known this country now nigh sixty years, and I never knew a turn of prosperity that didn't make us stupid; and, upon my conscience, I believe, if we ever begin to grow rich, we'll not be a bit better than yourselves.'

'That would be very dreadful,' said the other, in mock-horror.

'So it would, whether you mean it or not.--There's a hare missed this time!'