THE JOURNEY TO THE COUNTRY
The two friends were deposited at the Moate station at a few minutes after
midnight, and their available resources amounting to something short of two
shillings, and the fare of a car and horse to Kilgobbin being more than
three times that amount, they decided to devote their small balance to
purposes of refreshment, and then set out for the castle on foot.
‘It is a fine moonlight; I know all the short cuts, and I want a bit of
walking besides,’ said Kearney; and though Joe was of a self-indulgent
temperament, and would like to have gone to bed after his supper and
trusted to the chapter of accidents to reach Kilgobbin by a conveyance some
time, any time, he had to yield his consent and set out on the road.
‘The fellow who comes with the letter-bag will fetch over our portmanteau,’
said Dick, as they started.
‘I wish you’d give him directions to take charge of me, too,’ said Joe, who
felt very indisposed to a long walk.
‘I like _you_,’ said Dick sneeringly; ‘you are always telling me that you
are the sort of fellow for a new colony, life in the bush, and the rest
of it, and when it conies to a question of a few miles’ tramp on a bright
night in June, you try to skulk it in every possible way. You’re a great
humbug, Master Joe.’
‘And you a very small humbug, and there lies the difference between us.
The combinations in your mind are so few, that, as in a game of only three
cards, there is no skill in the playing; while in my nature, as in that
game called tarocco, there are half-a-dozen packs mixed up together, and
the address required to play them is considerable.’
‘You have a very satisfactory estimate of your own abilities, Joe.’
‘And why not? If a clever fellow didn’t know he was clever, the opinion of
the world on his superiority would probably turn his brain.’
‘And what do you say if his own vanity should do it?’
‘There is really no way of explaining to a fellow like you--’
‘What do you mean by a fellow like me?’ broke in Dick, somewhat angrily.
‘I mean this, that I’d as soon set to work to explain the theory of
exchequer bonds to an Eskimo, as to make an unimaginative man understand
something purely speculative. What you, and scores of fellows like you,
denominate vanity, is only another form of hopefulness. You and your
brethren--for you are a large family--do you know what it is to Hope! that
is, you have no idea of what it is to build on the foundation of certain
qualities you recognise in yourself, and to say that “if I can go so far
with such a gift, such another will help me on so much farther.”’
‘I tell you one thing I do hope, which is, that the next time I set out
a twelve miles’ walk, I’ll have a companion less imbued with
self-admiration.’
‘And you might and might not find him pleasanter company. Cannot you see,
old fellow, that the very things you object to in me are what are wanting
in you? they are, so to say, the compliments of your own temperament.’
‘Have you a cigar?’
‘Two--take them both. I’d rather talk than smoke just now.’
‘I am almost sorry for it, though it gives me the tobacco.’
‘Are we on your father’s property yet?’
‘Yes; part of that village we came through belongs to us, and all this bog
here is ours.’
‘Why don’t you reclaim it? labour costs a mere nothing in this country.
Why don’t you drain those tracts, and treat the soil with lime? I’d live
on potatoes, I’d make my family live on potatoes, and my son, and my
grandson, for three generations, but I’d win this land back to culture and
productiveness.’
‘The fee-simple of the soil wouldn’t pay the cost. It would be cheaper to
save the money and buy an estate.’
‘That is one, and a very narrow view of it; but imagine the glory of
restoring a lost tract to a nation, welcoming back the prodigal, and
installing him in his place amongst his brethren. This was all forest once.
Under the shade of the mighty oaks here those gallant O’Caharneys your
ancestors followed the chase, or rested at noontide, or skedaddled in
double-quick before those smart English of the Pale, who I must say treated
your forbears with scant courtesy.’
‘We held our own against them for many a year.’
‘Only when it became so small it was not worth taking. Is not your father a
Whig?’
‘He’s a Liberal, but he troubles himself little about parties.’
‘He’s a stout Catholic, though, isn’t he?’
‘He is a very devout believer in his Church,’ said Dick with the tone of
one who did not desire to continue the theme.
‘Then why does he stop at Whiggery? why not go in for Nationalism and all
the rest of it?’
‘And what’s all the rest of it?’
‘Great Ireland--no first flower of the earth or gem of the sea humbug--but
Ireland great in prosperity, her harbours full of ships, the woollen trade,
her ancient staple, revived: all that vast unused water-power, greater than
all the steam of Manchester and Birmingham tenfold, at full work; the linen
manufacture developed and promoted--’
‘And the Union repealed?’
‘Of course; that should be first of all. Not that I object to the Union, as
many do, on the grounds of English ignorance as to Ireland. My dislike is,
that, for the sake of carrying through certain measures necessary to Irish
interests, I must sit and discuss questions which have no possible concern
for me, and touch me no more than the debates in the Cortes, or the
Reichskammer at Vienna. What do you or I care for who rules India, or who
owns Turkey? What interest of mine is it whether Great Britain has five
ironclads or fifty, or whether the Yankees take Canada, and the Russians
Kabul?’
‘You’re a Fenian, and I am not.’
‘I suppose you’d call yourself an Englishman?’
‘I am an English subject, and I owe my allegiance to England.’
‘Perhaps for that matter, I owe some too; but I owe a great many things
that I don’t distress myself about paying.’
‘Whatever your sentiments are on these matters--and, Joe, I am not disposed
to think you have any very fixed ones--pray do me the favour to keep them
to yourself while under my father’s roof. I can almost promise you he’ll
obtrude none of his peculiar opinions on _you_, and I hope you will treat
_him_ with a like delicacy.’
‘What will your folks talk, then? I can’t suppose they care for books,
art, or the drama. There is no society, so there can be no gossip. If that
yonder be the cabin of one of your tenants, I’ll certainly not start the
question of farming.’
‘There are poor on every estate,’ said Dick curtly.
‘Now what sort of a rent does that fellow pay--five pounds a year?’
‘More likely five-and-twenty or thirty shillings.’
‘By Jove, I’d like to set up house in that fashion, and make love to some
delicately-nurtured miss, win her affections, and bring her home to such a
spot. Wouldn’t that be a touchstone of affection, Dick?’
‘If I could believe you were in earnest, I’d throw you neck and heels into
that bog-hole.’
‘Oh, if you would!’ cried he, and there was a ring of truthfulness in his
voice now there could be no mistaking. Half-ashamed of the emotion his
idle speech had called up, and uncertain how best to treat the emergency,
Kearney said nothing, and Atlee walked on for miles without a word.
‘You can see the house now. It tops the trees yonder,’ said Dick.
‘That is Kilgobbin Castle, then?’ said Joe slowly.
‘There’s not much of castle left about it. There is a square block of a
tower, and you can trace the moat and some remains of outworks.’
‘Shall I make you a confession, Dick? I envy you all that! I envy you what
smacks of a race, a name, an ancestry, a lineage. It’s a great thing to be
able to “take up the running,” as folks say, instead of making all the race
yourself; and there’s one inestimable advantage in it, it rescues you from
all indecent haste about asserting your station. You feel yourself to be a
somebody and you’ve not hurried to proclaim it. There now, my boy, if you’d
have said only half as much as that on the score of your family, I’d have
called you an arrant snob. So much for consistency.’
‘What you have said gave me pleasure, I’ll own that.’
‘I suppose it was you planted those trees there. It was a nice thought, and
makes the transition from the bleak bog to the cultivated land more easy
and graceful. Now I see the castle well. It’s a fine portly mass against
the morning sky, and I perceive you fly a flag over it.’
‘When the lord is at home.’
‘Ay, and by the way, do you give him his title while talking to him here?’
‘The tenants do, and the neighbours and strangers do as they please about
it.’
‘Does he like it himself?’
‘If I was to guess, I should perhaps say he does like it. Here we are now.
Inside this low gate you are within the demesne, and I may bid you welcome
to Kilgobbin. We shall build a lodge here one of these days. There’s a good
stretch, however, yet to the castle. We call it two miles, and it’s not far
short of it.’
‘What a glorious morning. There is an ecstasy in scenting these nice fresh
woods in the clear sunrise, and seeing those modest daffodils make their
morning toilet.’
‘That’s a fancy of Kate’s. There is a border of such wild flowers all the
way to the house.’
‘And those rills of clear water that flank the road, are they of her
designing?’
‘That they are. There was a cutting made for a railroad line about four
miles from this, and they came upon a sort of pudding-stone formation, made
up chiefly of white pebbles. Kate heard of it, purchased the whole mass,
and had these channels paved with them from the gate to the castle, and
that’s the reason this water has its crystal clearness.’
‘She’s worthy of Shakespeare’s sweet epithet, the “daintiest Kate in
Christendom.” Here’s her health!’ and he stooped down, and filling his palm
with the running water, drank it off.
‘I see it’s not yet five o’clock. We’ll steal quietly off to bed, and have
three or four hours sleep before we show ourselves.’