A HAPHAZARD VICEROY
When the Government came into office, they were sorely puzzled where to
find a Lord-Lieutenant for Ireland. It is, unhappily, a post that the men
most fitted for generally refuse, while the Cabinet is besieged by a class
of applicants whose highest qualification is a taste for mock-royalty
combined with an encumbered estate.
Another great requisite, beside fortune and a certain amount of ability,
was at this time looked for. The Premier was about, as newspapers call it,
‘to inaugurate a new policy,’ and he wanted a man who knew nothing about
Ireland! Now, it might be carelessly imagined that here was one of those
essentials very easily supplied. Any man frequenting club-life or dining
out in town could have safely pledged himself to tell off a score or two
of eligible Viceroys, so far as this qualification went. The Minister,
however, wanted more than mere ignorance: he wanted that sort of
indifference on which a character for impartiality could so easily be
constructed. Not alone a man unacquainted with Ireland, but actually
incapable of being influenced by an Irish motive or affected by an Irish
view of anything.
Good-luck would have it that he met such a man at dinner. He was an
ambassador at Constantinople, on leave from his post, and so utterly dead
to Irish topics as to be uncertain whether O’Donovan Rossa was a Fenian
or a Queen’s Counsel, and whether he whom he had read of as the ‘Lion of
Judah’ was the king of beasts or the Archbishop of Tuam!
The Minister was pleased with his new acquaintance, and talked much to him,
and long. He talked well, and not the less well that his listener was a
fresh audience, who heard everything for the first time, and with all the
interest that attaches to a new topic. Lord Danesbury was, indeed, that
‘sheet of white paper’ the head of the Cabinet had long been searching for,
and he hastened to inscribe him with the characters he wished.
‘You must go to Ireland for me, my lord,’ said the Minister. ‘I have met
no one as yet so rightly imbued with the necessities of the situation. You
must be our Viceroy.’
Now, though a very high post and with great surroundings, Lord Danesbury
had no desire to exchange his position as an ambassador, even to become a
Lord-Lieutenant. Like most men who have passed their lives abroad, he grew
to like the ways and habits of the Continent. He liked the easy indulgences
in many things, he liked the cosmopolitanism that surrounds existence, and
even in its littleness is not devoid of a certain breadth; and best of all
he liked the vast interests at stake, the large questions at issue, the
fortunes of states, the fate of dynasties! To come down from the great
game, as played by kings and kaisers, to the small traffic of a local
government wrangling over a road-bill, or disputing over a harbour, seemed
too horrible to confront, and he eagerly begged the Minister to allow him
to return to his post, and not risk a hard-earned reputation on a new and
untried career.
‘It is precisely from the fact of its being new and untried I need you,’
was the reply, and his denial was not accepted.
Refusal was impossible; and with all the reluctance a man consents to what
his convictions are more opposed to even than his reasons, Lord Danesbury
gave in, and accepted the viceroyalty of Ireland.
He was deferential to humility in listening to the great aims and noble
conceptions of the mighty Minister, and pledged himself--as he could safely
do--to become as plastic as wax in the powerful hands which were about to
remodel Ireland.
He was gazetted in due course, went over to Dublin, made a state entrance,
received the usual deputations, complimented every one, from the Provost of
Trinity College to the Chief Commissioner of Pipewater; praised the coast,
the corporation, and the city; declared that he had at length reached the
highest goal of his ambition; entertained the high dignitaries at dinner,
and the week after retired to his ancestral seat in North Wales, to recruit
after his late fatigue, and throw off the effects of that damp, moist
climate which already he fancied had affected him.
He had been sworn in with every solemnity of the occasion; he had sat on
the throne of state, named the officers of his household, made a master of
the horse, and a state steward, and a grand chamberlain; and, till stopped
by hearing that he could not create ladies and maids of honour, he fancied
himself every inch a king; but now that he had got over to the tranquil
quietude of his mountain home, his thoughts went away to the old channels,
and he began to dream of the Russians in the Balkan and the Greeks in
Thessaly. Of all the precious schemes that had taken him months to weave,
what was to come of them _now_? How and with what would his successor,
whoever he should be, oppose the rogueries of Sumayloff or the chicanery of
Ignatief? what would any man not trained to the especial watchfulness of
this subtle game know of the steps by which men advanced? Who was to watch
Bulgaria and see how far Russian gold was embellishing the life of Athens?
There was not a hungry agent that lounged about the Russian embassy in
Greek petticoats and pistols whose photograph the English ambassador did
not possess, with a biographical note at the back to tell the fellow’s name
and birthplace, what he was meant for, and what he cost. Of every interview
of his countrymen with the Grand-Vizier he was kept fully informed, and
whether a forage magazine was established on the Pruth, or a new frigate
laid down at Nickolief, the news reached him by the time it arrived at St.
Petersburg. It is true he was aware how hopeless it was to write home about
these things. The ambassador who writes disagreeable despatches is a bore
or an old woman. He who dares to shake the security by which we daily boast
we are surrounded, is an alarmist, if not worse. Notwithstanding this, he
held his cards well ‘up’ and played them shrewdly. And now he was to turn
from this crafty game, with all its excitement, to pore over constabulary
reports and snub justices of the peace!
But there was worse than this. There was an Albanian spy who had been much
employed by him of late, a clever fellow, with access to society, and great
facilities for obtaining information. Seeing that Lord Danesbury should not
return to the embassy, would this fellow go over to the enemy? If so, there
were no words for the mischief he might effect. By a subordinate position
in a Greek government-office, he had often been selected to convey
despatches to Constantinople, and it was in this way his lordship first
met him; and as the fellow frankly presented himself with a very momentous
piece of news, he at once showed how he trusted to British faith not to
betray him. It was not alone the incalculable mischief such a man might do
by change of allegiance, but the whole fabric on which Lord Danesbury’s
reputation rested was in this man’s keeping; and of all that wondrous
prescience on which he used to pride himself before the world, all the
skill with which he baffled an adversary, and all the tact with which he
overwhelmed a colleague, this same ‘Speridionides’ could give the secret
and show the trick.
How much more constantly, then, did his lordship’s thoughts revert to the
Bosporus than the Liffey! all this home news was mean, commonplace, and
vulgar. The whole drama--scenery, actors, plot--all were low and ignoble;
and as for this ‘something that was to be done for Ireland,’ it would of
course be some slowly germinating policy to take root now, and blossom in
another half-century: one of those blessed parliamentary enactments which
men who dealt in heroic remedies like himself regarded as the chronic
placebo of the political quack.
‘I am well aware,’ cried he aloud, ‘for what they are sending me over. I am
to “make a case” in Ireland for a political legislation, and the bill is
already drawn and ready; and while I am demonstrating to Irish Churchmen
that they will be more pious without a religion, and the landlords richer
without rent, the Russians will be mounting guard at the Golden Horn, and
the last British squadron steaming down the Levant.’
It was in a temper kindled by these reflections he wrote this note:--
PLMNUDDM CASTLE, NORTH WALES.
‘DEAR WALPOLE,--I can make nothing out of the papers you have sent me; nor
am I able to discriminate between what you admit to be newspaper slander
and the attack on the castle with the unspeakable name. At all events, your
account is far too graphic for the Treasury lords, who have less of the
pictorial about them than Mr. Mudie’s subscribers. If the Irish peasants
are so impatient to assume their rights that they will not wait for the
“Hatt-Houmaïoun,” or Bill in Parliament that is to endow them, I suspect a
little further show of energy might save us a debate and a third reading. I
am, however, far more eager for news from Therapia. Tolstai has been twice
over with despatches; and Boustikoff, pretending to have sprained his
ankle, cannot leave Odessa, though I have ascertained that he has laid down
new lines of fortification, and walked over twelve miles per day. You may
have heard of the great “Speridionides,” a scoundrel that supplied me with
intelligence. I should like much to get him over here while I am on my
leave, confer with him, and, if possible, save him _from the necessity of
other engagements_. It is not every one could be trusted to deal with a man
of this stamp, nor would the fellow himself easily hold relations with any
but a gentleman. Are you sufficiently recovered from your sprained arm to
undertake this journey for me? If so, come over at once, that I may give
you all necessary indications as to the man and his whereabouts.
‘Maude has been “on the sick-list,” but is better, and able to ride out
to-day. I cannot fill the law-appointments till I go over, nor shall I go
over till I cannot help it. The Cabinet is scattered over the Scotch lakes.
C. alone in town, and preparing for the War Ministry by practising the
goose-step. Telegraph, if possible, that you are coming, and believe me
yours,
DANESBURY.’