Phineas Finn Part 109

"But I am not coming among you."

"Yes you are, Finn, and bringing Monk with you." It was now becoming very disagreeable, and Phineas was beginning to perceive that it would soon be his turn to say something rough. "Now I'll tell you what my proposition is. If you'll do us two leaders a week through the session, you shall have a cheque for 16 on the last day of every month. If that's not honester money than what you got in Downing Street, my name is not Quintus Slide."

"Mr. Slide," said Phineas,--and then he paused.

"If we are to come to business, drop the Mister. It makes things go so much easier."

"We are not to come to business, and I do not want things to go easy.

I believe you said some things of me in your newspaper that were very scurrilous."

"What of that? If you mind that sort of thing--"

"I did not regard it in the least. You are quite welcome to continue it. I don't doubt but you will continue it. But you are not welcome to come here afterwards."

"Do you mean to turn me out?"

"Just that. You printed a heap of lies--"

"Lies, Mr. Finn! Did you say lies, sir?"

"I said lies;--lies;--lies!" And Phineas walked over at him as though he were going to pitch him instantly out of the window. "You may go and write as many more as you like. It is your trade, and you must do it or starve. But do not come to me again." Then he opened the door and stood with it in his hand.

"Very well, sir. I shall know how to punish this."

"Exactly. But if you please you'll go and do your punishment at the office of the _Banner_,--unless you like to try it here. You want to kick me and spit at me, but you will prefer to do it in print."

"Yes, sir," said Quintus Slide. "I shall prefer to do it in print,--though I must own that the temptation to adopt the manual violence of a ruffian is great, very great, very great indeed." But he resisted the temptation and walked down the stairs, concocting his article as he went.

Mr. Quintus Slide did not so much impede the business of his day but what Phineas was with Mr. Monk by two, and in his place in the House when prayers were read at four. As he sat in his place, conscious of the work that was before him, listening to the presentation of pet.i.tions, and to the formal reading of certain notices of motions, which with the asking of sundry questions occupied over half an hour, he looked back and remembered accurately his own feelings on a certain night on which he had intended to get up and address the House. The ordeal before him had then been so terrible, that it had almost obliterated for the moment his senses of hearing and of sight.

He had hardly been able to perceive what had been going on around him, and had vainly endeavoured to occupy himself in recalling to his memory the words which he wished to p.r.o.nounce. When the time for p.r.o.nouncing them had come, he had found himself unable to stand upon his legs. He smiled as he recalled all this in his memory, waiting impatiently for the moment in which he might rise. His audience was a.s.sured to him now, and he did not fear it. His opportunity for utterance was his own, and even the Speaker could not deprive him of it. During these minutes he thought not at all of the words that he was to say. He had prepared his matter but had prepared no words. He knew that words would come readily enough to him, and that he had learned the task of turning his thoughts quickly into language while standing with a crowd of listeners around him,--as a practised writer does when seated in his chair. There was no violent beating at his heart now, no dimness of the eyes, no feeling that the ground was turning round under his feet. If only those weary vain questions would get themselves all asked, so that he might rise and begin the work of the night. Then there came the last thought as the House was hushed for his rising. What was the good of it all, when he would never have an opportunity of speaking there again?

But not on that account would he be slack in his endeavour now.

He would be listened to once at least, not as a subaltern of the Government but as the owner of a voice prominent in opposition to the Government. He had been taught by Mr. Monk that that was the one place in the House in which a man with a power of speaking could really enjoy pleasure without alloy. He would make the trial,--once, if never again. Things had so gone with him that the rostrum was his own, and a House crammed to overflowing was there to listen to him.

He had given up his place in order that he might be able to speak his mind, and had become aware that many intended to listen to him while he spoke. He had observed that the rows of strangers were thick in the galleries, that peers were standing in the pa.s.sages, and that over the reporter's head, the ribbons of many ladies were to be seen through the bars of their cage. Yes;--for this once he would have an audience.

He spoke for about an hour, and while he was speaking he knew nothing about himself, whether he was doing it well or ill. Something of himself he did say soon after he had commenced,--not quite beginning with it, as though his mind had been laden with the matter. He had, he said, found himself compelled to renounce his happy allegiance to the First Lord of the Treasury, and to quit the pleasant company in which, humble as had been his place, he had been allowed to sit and act, by his unfortunate conviction in this great subject. He had been told, he said, that it was a misfortune in itself for one so young as he to have convictions. But his Irish birth and Irish connection had brought this misfortune of his country so closely home to him that he had found the task of extricating himself from it to be impossible.

Of what further he said, speaking on that terribly unintelligible subject, a tenant-right proposed for Irish farmers, no English reader will desire to know much. Irish subjects in the House of Commons are interesting or are dull, are debated before a crowded audience composed of all who are leaders in the great world of London, or before empty benches, in accordance with the importance of the moment and the character of the debate. For us now it is enough to know that to our hero was accorded that attention which orators love,--which will almost make an orator if it can be a.s.sured. A full House with a promise of big type on the next morning would wake to eloquence the propounder of a Canadian grievance, or the mover of an Indian budget.

Phineas did not stir out of the House till the division was over, having agreed with Mr. Monk that they two would remain through it all and hear everything that was to be said. Mr. Gresham had already spoken, and to Mr. Palliser was confided the task of winding up the argument for the Government. Mr. Robson spoke also, greatly enlivening the tedium of the evening, and to Mr. Monk was permitted the privilege of a final reply. At two o'clock the division came, and the Ministry were beaten by a majority of twenty-three. "And now,"

said Mr. Monk, as he again walked home with Phineas, "the pity is that we are not a bit nearer tenant-right than we were before."

"But we are nearer to it."

"In one sense, yes. Such a debate and such a majority will make men think. But no;--think is too high a word; as a rule men don't think.

But it will make them believe that there is something in it. Many who before regarded legislation on the subject as chimerical, will now fancy that it is only dangerous, or perhaps not more than difficult.

And so in time it will come to be looked on as among the things possible, then among the things probable;--and so at last it will be ranged in the list of those few measures which the country requires as being absolutely needed. That is the way in which public opinion is made."

"It is no loss of time," said Phineas, "to have taken the first great step in making it."

"The first great step was taken long ago," said Mr. Monk,--"taken by men who were looked upon as revolutionary demagogues, almost as traitors, because they took it. But it is a great thing to take any step that leads us onwards."

Two days after this Mr. Gresham declared his intention of dissolving the House because of the adverse division which had been produced by Mr. Monk's motion, but expressed a wish to be allowed to carry an Irish Reform Bill through Parliament before he did so. He explained how expedient this would be, but declared at the same time that if any strong opposition were made, he would abandon the project. His intention simply was to pa.s.s with regard to Ireland a measure which must be pa.s.sed soon, and which ought to be pa.s.sed before a new election took place. The bill was ready, and should be read for the first time on the next night, if the House were willing. The House was willing, though there were very many recalcitrant Irish members.

The Irish members made loud opposition, and then twitted Mr. Gresham with his promise that he would not go on with his bill, if opposition were made. But, nevertheless, he did go on, and the measure was hurried through the two Houses in a week. Our hero who still sat for Loughshane, but who was never to sit for Loughshane again, gave what a.s.sistance he could to the Government, and voted for the measure which deprived Loughshane for ever of its parliamentary honours.

"And very dirty conduct I think it was," said Lord Tulla, when he discussed the subject with his agent. "After being put in for the borough twice, almost free of expense, it was very dirty." It never occurred to Lord Tulla that a member of Parliament might feel himself obliged to vote on such a subject in accordance with his judgment.

This Irish Reform Bill was scrambled through the two Houses, and then the session was over. The session was over, and they who knew anything of the private concerns of Mr. Phineas Finn were aware that he was about to return to Ireland, and did not intend to reappear on the scene which had known him so well for the last five years. "I cannot tell you how sad it makes me," said Mr. Monk.

"And it makes me sad too," said Phineas. "I try to shake off the melancholy, and tell myself from day to day that it is unmanly. But it gets the better of me just at present."

"I feel quite certain that you will come back among us again," said Mr. Monk.

"Everybody tells me so; and yet I feel quite certain that I shall never come back,--never come back with a seat in Parliament. As my old tutor, Low, has told me scores of times, I began at the wrong end. Here I am, thirty years of age, and I have not a shilling in the world, and I do not know how to earn one."

"Only for me you would still be receiving ever so much a year, and all would be pleasant," said Mr. Monk.

"But how long would it have lasted? The first moment that Daubeny got the upper hand I should have fallen lower than I have fallen now. If not this year, it would have been the next. My only comfort is in this,--that I have done the thing myself, and have not been turned out." To the very last, however, Mr. Monk continued to express his opinion that Phineas would come back, declaring that he had known no instance of a young man who had made himself useful in Parliament, and then had been allowed to leave it in early life.

Among those of whom he was bound to take a special leave, the members of the family of Lord Brentford were, of course, the foremost. He had already heard of the reconciliation of Miss Effingham and Lord Chiltern, and was anxious to offer his congratulation to both of them. And it was essential to him that he should see Lady Laura. To her he wrote a line, saying how much he hoped that he should be able to bid her adieu, and a time was fixed for his coming at which she knew that she would meet him alone. But, as chance ruled it, he came upon the two lovers together, and then remembered that he had hardly ever before been in the same room with both of them at the same time.

"Oh, Mr. Finn, what a beautiful speech you made. I read every word of it," said Violet.

"And I didn't even look at it, old fellow," said Chiltern, getting up and putting his arm on the other's shoulder in a way that was common with him when he was quite intimate with the friend near him.

"Laura went down and heard it," said Violet. "I could not do that, because I was tied to my aunt. You can't conceive how dutiful I am during this last month."

"And is it to be in a month, Chiltern?" said Phineas.

"She says so. She arranges everything,--in concert with my father.

When I threw up the sponge, I simply asked for a long day. 'A long day, my lord,' I said. But my father and Violet between them refused me any mercy."

"You do not believe him," said Violet.

"Not a word. If I did he would want to see me on the coast of Flanders again, I don't doubt. I have come to congratulate you both."

"Thank you, Mr. Finn," said Violet, taking his hand with hearty kindness. "I should not have been quite happy without one nice word from you."

"I shall try and make the best of it," said Chiltern. "But, I say, you'll come over and ride Bonebreaker again. He's down there at the Bull, and I've taken a little box close by. I can't stand the governor's county for hunting."

"And will your wife go down to Willingford?"

"Of course she will, and ride to hounds a great deal closer than I can ever do. Mind you come, and if there's anything in the stable fit to carry you, you shall have it."

Then Phineas had to explain that he had come to bid them farewell, and that it was not at all probable that he should ever be able to see Willingford again in the hunting season. "I don't suppose that I shall make either of you quite understand it, but I have got to begin again. The chances are that I shall never see another foxhound all my life."

"Not in Ireland!" exclaimed Lord Chiltern.

"Not unless I should have to examine one as a witness. I have nothing before me but downright hard work; and a great deal of that must be done before I can hope to earn a shilling."