DICK KEARNEY’S CHAMBERS
When Dick Kearney quitted Kilgobbin Castle for Dublin, he was very far from
having any projects in his head, excepting to show his cousin Nina that he
could live without her.
‘I believe,’ muttered he to himself, ‘she counts upon me as another
“victim.” These coquettish damsels have a theory that the “whole drama of
life” is the game of their fascinations and the consequences that come
of them, and that we men make it our highest ambition to win them, and
subordinate all we do in life to their favour. I should like to show her
that one man at least refuses to yield this allegiance, and that whatever
her blandishments do with others, with him they are powerless.’
These thoughts were his travelling-companions for nigh fifty miles of
travel, and, like most travelling-companions, grew to be tiresome enough
towards the end of the journey.
When he arrived in Dublin, he was in no hurry to repair to his quarters in
Trinity; they were not particularly cheery in the best of times, and now it
was long vacation, with few men in town, and everything sad and spiritless;
besides this, he was in no mood to meet Atlee, whose free-and-easy
jocularity he knew he would not endure, even with his ordinary patience.
Joe had never condescended to write one line since he had left Kilgobbin,
and Dick, who felt that in presenting him to his family he had done him
immense honour, was proportionately indignant at this show of indifference.
But, by the same easy formula with which he could account for anything in
Nina’s conduct by her ‘coquetry,’ he was able to explain every deviation
from decorum of Joe Atlee’s by his ‘snobbery.’ And it is astonishing how
comfortable the thought made him, that this man, in all his smartness and
ready wit, in his prompt power to acquire, and his still greater quickness
to apply knowledge, was after all a most consummate snob.
He had no taste for a dinner at commons, so he ate his mutton-chop at a
tavern, and went to the play. Ineffably bored, he sauntered along the
almost deserted streets of the city, and just as midnight was striking, he
turned under the arched portal of the college. Secretly hoping that Atlee
might be absent, he inserted the key and entered his quarters.
The grim old coal-bunker in the passage, the silent corridor, and the
dreary room at the end of it, never looked more dismal than as he surveyed
them now by the light of a little wax-match he had lighted to guide his
way. There stood the massive old table in the middle, with its litter of
books and papers--memories of many a headache; and there was the paper of
coarse Cavendish, against which he had so often protested, as well as a
pewter-pot--a new infraction against propriety since he had been away.
Worse, however, than all assaults on decency, were a pair of coarse
highlows, which had been placed within the fender, and had evidently
enjoyed the fire so long as it lingered in the grate.
‘So like the fellow! so like him!’ was all that Dick could mutter, and he
turned away in disgust.
As Atlee never went to bed till daybreak, it was quite clear that he was
from home, and as the college gates could not reopen till morning, Dick was
not sorry to feel that he was safe from all intrusion for some hours. With
this consolation, he betook him to his bedroom, and proceeded to undress.
Scarcely, however, had he thrown off his coat than a heavy, long-drawn
respiration startled him. He stopped and listened: it came again, and from
the bed. He drew nigh, and there, to his amazement, on his own pillow, lay
the massive head of a coarse-looking, vulgar man of about thirty, with a
silk handkerchief fastened over it as nightcap. A brawny arm lay outside
the bedclothes, with an enormous hand of very questionable cleanness,
though one of the fingers wore a heavy gold ring.
Wishing to gain what knowledge he might of his guest before awaking
him, Dick turned to inspect his clothes, which, in a wild disorder, lay
scattered through the room. They were of the very poorest; but such
still as might have belonged to a very humble clerk, or a messenger in a
counting-house. A large black leather pocket-book fell from a pocket of the
coat, and, in replacing it, Dick perceived it was filled with letters.
On one of these, as he closed the clasp, he read the name, ‘Mr. Daniel
Donogan, Dartmouth Gaol.’
‘What!’ cried he, ‘is this the great head-centre, Donogan, I have read so
much of? and how is he here?’
Though Dick Kearney was not usually quick of apprehension, he was not
long here in guessing what the situation meant: it was clear enough that
Donogan, being a friend of Joe Atlee, had been harboured here as a safe
refuge. Of all places in the capital, none were so secure from the visits
of the police as the college; indeed, it would have been no small hazard
for the public force to have invaded these precincts. Calculating therefore
that Kearney was little likely to leave Kilgobbin at present, Atlee had
installed his friend in Dick’s quarters. The indiscretion was a grave
one; in fact, there was nothing--even to expulsion itself--might not have
followed on discovery.
‘So like him! so like him!’ was all he could mutter, as he arose and walked
about the room.
While he thus mused, he turned into Atlee’s bedroom, and at once it
appeared why Mr. Donogan had been accommodated in his room. Atlee’s was
perfectly destitute of everything: bed, chest of drawers, dressing-table,
chair, and bath were all gone. The sole object in the chamber was a coarse
print of a well-known informer of the year ‘98, ‘Jemmy O’Brien,’
under whose portrait was written, in Atlee’s hand, ‘Bought in at
fourpence-halfpenny, at the general sale, in affectionate remembrance of
his virtues, by one who feels himself to be a relative.--J.A.’ Kearney tore
down the picture in passion, and stamped upon it; indeed, his indignation
with his chum had now passed all bounds of restraint.
‘So like him in everything!’ again burst from him in utter bitterness.
Having thus satisfied himself that he had read the incident aright, he
returned to the sitting-room, and at once decided that he would leave
Donogan to his rest till morning.
‘It will be time enough then to decide what is to be done,’ thought he.
He then proceeded to relight the fire, and drawing a sofa near, he wrapped
himself in a railway-rug, and lay down to sleep. For a long time he could
not compose himself to slumber: he thought of Nina and her wiles--ay, they
were wiles; he saw them plainly enough. It was true he was no prize--no
‘catch,’ as they call it--to angle for, and such a girl as she was could
easily look higher; but still he might swell the list of those followers
she seemed to like to behold at her feet offering up every homage to
her beauty, even to their actual despair. And he thought of his own
condition--very hopeless and purposeless as it was.
‘What a journey, to be sure, was life without a goal to strive for.
Kilgobbin would be his one day; but by that time would it be able to pay
off the mortgages that were raised upon it? It was true Atlee was no
richer, but Atlee was a shifty, artful fellow, with scores of contrivances
to go windward of fortune in even the very worst of weather. Atlee would do
many a thing _he_ would not stoop to.’
And as Kearney said this to himself, he was cautious in the use of his
verb, and never said ‘could,’ but always ‘would’ do; and oh dear! is it
not in this fashion that so many of us keep up our courage in life, and
attribute to the want of will what we well know lies in the want of power.
Last of all he bethought himself of this man Donogan, a dangerous fellow in
a certain way, and one whose companionship must be got rid of at any price.
Plotting over in his mind how this should be done in the morning, he at
last fell fast asleep.
So overcome was he by slumber, that he never awoke when that venerable
institution called the college woman--the hag whom the virtue of unerring
dons insists o imposing as a servant on resident students--entered, made up
the fire, swept up the room, and arranged the breakfast-table. It was only
as she jogged his arm to ask him for an additional penny to buy more milk,
that he awoke and remembered where he was.
‘Will I get yer honour a bit of bacon?’ asked she, in a tone intended to be
insinuating.
‘Whatever you like,’ said he drowsily.
‘It’s himself there likes a rasher--when he can get it,’ said she, with a
leer, and a motion of her thumb towards the adjoining room.
‘Whom do you mean?’ asked he, half to learn what and how much she knew of
his neighbour.
‘Oh! don’t I know him well?--Dan Donogan,’ replied she, with a grin.
‘Didn’t I see him in the dock with Smith O’Brien in ‘48, and wasn’t he in
trouble again after he got his pardon; and won’t he always be in trouble?’
‘Hush! don’t talk so loud,’ cried Dick warningly.
‘He’d not hear me now if I was screechin’; it’s the only time he sleeps
hard; for he gets up about three or half-past--before it’s day--and he
squeezes through the bars of the window, and gets out into the park, and he
takes his exercise there for two hours, most of the time running full speed
and keeping himself in fine wind. Do you know what he said to me the other
day? “Molly,” says he, “when I know I can get between those bars there, and
run round the college park in three minutes and twelve seconds, I feel that
there’s not many a gaol in Ireland can howld, and the divil a policeman in
the island could catch, me.”’ And she had to lean over the back of a chair
to steady herself while she laughed at the conceit.
‘I think, after all,’ said Kearney, ‘I’d rather keep out of the scrape than
trust to that way of escaping it.’
‘_He_ wouldn’t,’ said she. ‘He’d rather be seducin’ soldiers in Barrack
Street, or swearing in a new Fenian, or nailing a death-warnin’ on a hall
door, than he’d be lord mayor! If he wasn’t in mischief he’d like to be in
his grave.’
‘And what comes of it all?’ said Kearney, scarcely giving any exact meaning
to his words.
‘That’s what I do be saying myself,’ cried the hag. ‘When they can
transport you for singing a ballad, and send you to pick oakum for a green
cravat, it’s time to take to some other trade than patriotism!’ And with
this reflection she shuffled away, to procure the materials for breakfast.
The fresh rolls, the watercress, a couple of red herrings devilled as those
ancient damsels are expert in doing, and a smoking dish of rashers and
eggs, flanked by a hissing tea-kettle, soon made their appearance, the hag
assuring Kearney that a stout knock with the poker on the back of the grate
would summon Mr. Donogan almost instantaneously--so rapidly, indeed, and
with such indifference as to raiment, that, as she modestly declared, ‘I
have to take to my heels the moment I call him,’ and the modest avowal was
confirmed by her hasty departure.
The assurance was so far correct, that scarcely had Kearney replaced the
poker, when the door opened, and one of the strangest figures he had ever
beheld presented itself in the room. He was a short, thick-set man with a
profusion of yellowish hair, which, divided in the middle of the head, hung
down on either side to his neck--beard and moustache of the same hue, left
little of the face to be seen but a pair of lustrous blue eyes, deep-sunken
in their orbits, and a short wide-nostrilled nose, which bore the closest
resemblance to a lion’s. Indeed, a most absurd likeness to the king of
beasts was the impression produced on Kearney as this wild-looking fellow
bounded forward, and stood there amazed at finding a stranger to confront
him.
His dress was a flannel-shirt and trousers, and a pair of old slippers
which had once been Kearney’s own.
‘I was told by the college woman how I was to summon you, Mr. Donogan,’
said Kearney good-naturedly. ‘You are not offended with the liberty?’
‘Are you Dick?’ asked the other, coming forward.
‘Yes. I think most of my friends know me by that name.’
‘And the old devil has told you mine?’ asked he quickly.
‘No, I believe I discovered that for myself. I tumbled over some of your
things last night, and saw a letter addressed to you.’
‘You didn’t read it?’
‘Certainly not. It fell out of your pocket-book, and I put it back there.’
‘So the old hag didn’t blab on me? I’m anxious about this, because it’s got
out somehow that I’m back again. I landed at Kenmare in a fishing-boat from
the New York packet, the _Osprey_, on Tuesday fortnight, and three of the
newspapers had it before I was a week on shore.’
‘Our breakfast is getting cold; sit down here and let me help you. Will you
begin with a rasher?’
Not replying to the invitation, Donogan covered his plate with bacon, and
leaning his arm on the table, stared fixedly at Kearney.
‘I’m as glad as fifty pounds of it,’ muttered he slowly to himself.
‘Glad of what?’
‘Glad that you’re not a swell, Mr. Kearney,’ said he gravely. ‘“The
Honourable Richard Kearney,” whenever I repeated that to myself, it gave me
a cold sweat. I thought of velvet collars and a cravat with a grand pin in
it, and a stuck-up creature behind both, that wouldn’t condescend to sit
down with me.’
‘I’m sure Joe Atlee gave you no such impression of me.’
A short grunt that might mean anything was all the reply.
‘He was my chum, and knew me better,’ reiterated the other.
‘He knows many a thing he doesn’t say, and he says plenty that he doesn’t
know. “Kearney will be a swell,” said I, “and he’ll turn upon me just out
of contempt for my condition.’”
‘That was judging me hardly, Mr. Donogan.’
‘No, it wasn’t; it’s the treatment the mangy dogs meet all the world over.
Why is England insolent to us, but because we’re poor--answer me that? Are
we mangy? Don’t you feel mangy?--I know _I_ do!’
Dick smiled a sort of mild contradiction, but said nothing.
‘Now that I see you, Mr. Kearney,’ said the other, ‘I’m as glad as a
ten-pound note about a letter I wrote you--’
‘I never received a letter from you.’
‘Sure I know you didn’t! haven’t I got it here?’ And he drew forth a
square-shaped packet and held it up before him. ‘I never said that I sent
it, nor I won’t send it now: here’s its present address,’ added he, as he
threw it on the fire and pressed it down with his foot.
‘Why not have given it to me now?’ asked the other.
‘Because three minutes will tell you all that was in it, and better than
writing; for I can reply to anything that wants an explanation, and that’s
what a letter cannot. First of all, do you know that Mr. Claude Barry, your
county member, has asked for the Chiltern, and is going to resign?’
‘No, I have not heard it.’
‘Well, it’s a fact. They are going to make him a second secretary
somewhere, and pension him off. He has done his work: he voted an Arms Bill
and an Insurrection Act, and he had the influenza when the amnesty petition
was presented, and sure no more could be expected from any man.’
‘The question scarcely concerns me; our interest in the county is so small
now, we count for very little.’
‘And don’t you know how to make your influence greater?’
‘I cannot say that I do.’
‘Go to the poll yourself, Richard Kearney, and be the member.’
‘You are talking of an impossibility, Mr. Donogan. First of all, we have no
fortune, no large estates in the county, with a wide tenantry and plenty of
votes; secondly, we have no place amongst the county families, as our old
name and good blood might have given us; thirdly, we are of the wrong
religion, and, I take it, with as wrong politics; and lastly, we should not
know what to do with the prize if we had won it.’
‘Wrong in every one of your propositions--wholly wrong,’ cried the other.
‘The party that will send you in won’t want to be bribed, and they’ll be
proud of a man who doesn’t overtop them with his money. You don’t need the
big families, for you’ll beat them. Your religion is the right one, for it
will give you the Priests; and your politics shall be Repeal, and it
will give you the Peasants; and as to not knowing what to do when you’re
elected, are you so mighty well off in life that you’ve nothing to wish
for?’
‘I can scarcely say that,’ said Dick, smiling.
‘Give me a few minutes’ attention,’ said Donogan, ‘and I think I’ll show
you that I’ve thought this matter out and out; indeed, before I sat down to
write to you, I went into all the details.’
And now, with a clearness and a fairness that astonished Kearney, this
strange-looking fellow proceeded to prove how he had weighed the whole
difficulty, and saw how, in the nice balance of the two great parties who
would contest the seat, the Repealer would step in and steal votes from
both.
He showed not only that he knew every barony of the county, and every
estate and property, but that he had a clear insight into the different
localities where discontent prevailed, and places where there was something
more than discontent.
‘It is down there,’ said he significantly, ‘that I can be useful. The man
that has had his foot in the dock, and only escaped having his head in the
noose, is never discredited in Ireland. Talk Parliament and parliamentary
tactics to the small shopkeepers in Moate, and leave me to talk treason to
the people in the bog.’
‘But I mistake you and your friends greatly,’ said Kearney, ‘if these were
the tactics you always followed; I thought that you were the physical-force
party, who sneered at constitutionalism and only believed in the pike.’
‘So we did, so long as we saw O’Connell and the lawyers working the game of
that grievance for their own advantage, and teaching the English Government
how to rule Ireland by a system of concession to _them_ and to _their_
friends. Now, however, we begin to perceive that to assault that heavy
bastion of Saxon intolerance, we must have spies in the enemy’s fortress,
and for this we send in so many members to the Whig party. There are scores
of men who will aid us by their vote who would not risk a bone in our
cause. Theirs is a sort of subacute patriotism; but it has its use. It
smashes an Established Church, breaks down Protestant ascendency, destroys
the prestige of landed property, and will in time abrogate entail and
primogeniture, and many another fine thing; and in this way it clears the
ground for our operations, just as soldiers fell trees and level houses
lest they interfere with the range of heavy artillery.’
‘So that the place you would assign me is that very honourable one you have
just called a “spy in the camp”?’
‘By a figure I said that, Mr. Kearney; but you know well enough what I
meant was, that there’s many a man will help us on the Treasury benches
that would not turn out on Tallaght; and we want both. I won’t say,’ added
he, after a pause, ‘I’d not rather see you a leader in our ranks than
a Parliament man. I was bred a doctor, Mr. Kearney, and I must take
an illustration from my own art. To make a man susceptible of certain
remedies, you are often obliged to reduce his strength and weaken his
constitution. So it is here. To bring Ireland into a condition to be
bettered by Repeal, you must crush the Church and smash the bitter
Protestants. The Whigs will do these for us, but we must help them. Do you
understand me now?’
‘I believe I do. In the case you speak of, then, the Government will
support my election.’
‘Against a Tory, yes; but not against a pure Whig--a thorough-going
supporter, who would bargain for nothing for his country, only something
for his own relations.’
‘If your project has an immense fascination for me at one moment, and
excites my ambition beyond all bounds, the moment I turn my mind to the
cost, and remember my own poverty, I see nothing but hopelessness.’
‘That’s not my view of it, nor when you listen to me patiently, will it, I
believe, be yours. Can we have another talk over this in the evening?’
‘To be sure! we’ll dine here together at six.’
‘Oh, never mind me, think of yourself, Mr. Kearney, and your own
engagements. As to the matter of dining, a crust of bread and a couple of
apples are fully as much as I want or care for.’
‘We’ll dine together to-day at six,’ said Dick, ‘and bear in mind, I am
more interested in this than you are.’