HOW THE ‘GOATS’ REVOLTED
In less than a week after the events last related, the members of the
‘Goat Club’ were summoned to an extraordinary and general meeting, by an
invitation from the vice-president, Mr. McGloin, the chief grocer and
hardware dealer of Kilbeggan. The terms of this circular seemed to indicate
importance, for it said--‘To take into consideration a matter of vital
interest to the society.’
Though only the denizen of a very humble country town, McGloin possessed
certain gifts and qualities which might have graced a higher station. He
was the most self-contained and secret of men; he detected mysterious
meanings in every--the smallest--event of life; and as he divulged none of
his discoveries, and only pointed vaguely and dimly to the consequences, he
got credit for the correctness of his unuttered predictions as completely
as though he had registered his prophecies as copyright at Stationers’
Hall. It is needless to say that on every question, religious, social, or
political, he was the paramount authority of the town. It was but rarely
indeed that a rebellious spirit dared to set up an opinion in opposition to
his; but if such a hazardous event were to occur, he would suppress it with
a dignity of manner which derived no small aid from the resources of a
mind rich in historical parallel; and it was really curious for those who
believe that history is always repeating itself, to remark how frequently
John McGloin represented the mind and character of Lycurgus, and how often
poor old, dreary, and bog-surrounded Moate recalled the image of Sparta and
its ‘sunny slopes.’
Now, there is one feature of Ireland which I am not quite sure is very
generally known or appreciated on the other side of St. George’s Channel,
and this is the fierce spirit of indignation called up in a county
habitually quiet, when the newspapers bring it to public notice as the
scene of some lawless violence. For once there is union amongst Irishmen.
Every class, from the estated proprietor to the humblest peasant, is loud
in asserting that the story is an infamous falsehood. Magistrates, priests,
agents, middlemen, tax-gatherers, and tax-payers rush into print to abuse
the ‘blackguard’--he is always the blackguard--who invented the lie;
and men upwards of ninety are quoted to show that so long as they could
remember, there never was a man injured, nor a rick burned, nor a heifer
hamstrung in the six baronies round! Old newspapers are adduced to show
how often the going judge of assize has complimented the grand-jury on the
catalogue of crime; in a word, the whole population is ready to make oath
that the county is little short of a terrestrial paradise, and that it is
a district teeming with gentle landlords, pious priests, and industrious
peasants, without a plague-spot on the face of the county, except it be
the police-barrack, and the company of lazy vagabonds with crossbelts and
carbines that lounge before it. When, therefore, the press of Dublin at
first, and afterwards of the empire at large, related the night attack for
arms at Kilgobbin Castle, the first impulse of the county at large was
to rise up in the face of the nation and deny the slander! Magistrates
consulted together whether the high-sheriff should not convene a meeting of
the county. Priests took counsel with the bishop, whether notice should not
be taken of the calumny from the altar. The small shopkeepers of the small
towns, assuming that their trade would be impaired by these rumours of
disturbance--just as Parisians used to declaim against barricades in the
streets--are violent in denouncing the malignant falsehoods upon a quiet
and harmless community; so that, in fact, every rank and condition vied
with its neighbour in declaring that the whole story was a base tissue
of lies, and which could only impose upon those who knew nothing of
the county, nor of the peaceful, happy, and brother-like creatures who
inhabited it.
It was not to be supposed that, at such a crisis, Mr. John McGloin would be
inactive or indifferent. As a man of considerable influence at elections,
he had his weight with a county member, Mr. Price; and to him he wrote,
demanding that he should ask in the House what correspondence had passed
between Mr. Kearney and the Castle authorities with reference to this
supposed outrage, and whether the law-officers of the Crown, or the adviser
of the Viceroy, or the chiefs of the local police, or--to quote the exact
words--‘any sane or respectable man in the county’ believed on word of the
story. Lastly, that he would also ask whether any and what correspondence
had passed between Mr. Kearney and the Chief Secretary with respect to a
small house on the Kilgobbin property, which Mr. Kearney had suggested as
a convenient police-station, and for which he asked a rent of twenty-five
pounds per annum; and if such correspondence existed, whether it had any or
what relation to the rumoured attack on Kilgobbin Castle?
If it should seem strange that a leading member of the ‘Goat Club’ should
assail its president, the explanation is soon made: Mr. McGloin had long
desired to be the chief himself. He and many others had seen, with some
irritation and displeasure, the growing indifference of Mr. Kearney for the
‘Goats.’ For many months he had never called them together, and several
members had resigned, and many more threatened resignation. It was time,
then, that some energetic steps should be taken. The opportunity for this
was highly favourable. Anything unpatriotic, anything even unpopular in
Kearney’s conduct, would, in the then temper of the club, be sufficient to
rouse them to actual rebellion; and it was to test this sentiment, and, if
necessary, to stimulate it, Mr. McGloin convened a meeting, which a
bylaw of the society enabled him to do at any period when, for the three
preceding months, the president had not assembled the club.
Though the members generally were not a little proud of their president,
and deemed it considerable glory to them to have a viscount for their
chief, and though it gave great dignity to their debates that the rising
speaker should begin ‘My Lord and Buck Goat,’ yet they were not without
dissatisfaction at seeing how cavalierly he treated them, what slight value
he appeared to attach to their companionship, and how perfectly indifferent
he seemed to their opinions, their wishes, or their wants.
There were various theories in circulation to explain this change of temper
in their chief. Some ascribed it to young Kearney, who was a ‘stuck-up’
young fellow, and wanted his father to give himself greater airs and
pretensions. Others opinioned it was the daughter, who, though she played
Lady Bountiful among the poor cottiers, and affected interest in the
people, was in reality the proudest of them all. And last of all, there
were some who, in open defiance of chronology, attributed the change to a
post-dated event, and said that the swells from the Castle were the ruin
of Mathew Kearney, and that he was never the same man since the day he saw
them.
Whether any of these were the true solution of the difficulty or not,
Kearney’s popularity was on the decline at the moment when this unfortunate
narrative of the attack on his castle aroused the whole county and excited
their feelings against him. Mr. McGloin took every step of his proceeding
with due measure and caution: and having secured a certain number of
promises of attendance at the meeting, he next notified to his lordship,
how, in virtue of a certain section of a certain law, he had exercised his
right of calling the members together; and that he now begged respectfully
to submit to the chief, that some of the matters which would be submitted
to the collective wisdom would have reference to the ‘Buck Goat’ himself,
and that it would be an act of great courtesy on his part if he should
condescend to be present and afford some explanation.
That the bare possibility of being called to account by the ‘Goats’ would
drive Kearney into a ferocious passion, if not a fit of the gout, McGloin
knew well; and that the very last thing on his mind would be to come
amongst them, he was equally sure of: so that in giving his invitation
there was no risk whatever. Mathew Kearney’s temper was no secret; and
whenever the necessity should arise that a burst of indiscreet anger should
be sufficient to injure a cause, or damage a situation, ‘the lord’ could be
calculated on with a perfect security. McGloin understood this thoroughly;
nor was it matter of surprise to him that a verbal reply of ‘There is
no answer’ was returned to his note; while the old servant, instead of
stopping the ass-cart as usual for the weekly supply of groceries at
McGloin’s, repaired to a small shop over the way, where colonial products
were rudely jostled out of their proper places by coils of rope, sacks of
rape-seed, glue, glass, and leather, amid which the proprietor felt far
more at home than amidst mixed pickles and mocha.
Mr. McGloin, however, had counted the cost of his policy: he knew well that
for the ambition to succeed his lordship as Chief of the Club, he should
have to pay by the loss of the Kilgobbin custom; and whether it was that
the greatness in prospect was too tempting to resist, or that the sacrifice
was smaller than it might have seemed, he was prepared to risk the venture.
The meeting was in so far a success that it was fully attended. Such a
flock of ‘Goats’ had not been seen by them since the memory of man, nor was
the unanimity less remarkable than the number; and every paragraph of
Mr. McGloin’s speech was hailed with vociferous cheers and applause, the
sentiment of the assembly being evidently highly National, and the feeling
that the shame which the Lord of Kilgobbin had brought down upon their
county was a disgrace that attached personally to each man there present;
and that if now their once happy and peaceful district was to be proclaimed
under some tyranny of English law, or, worse still, made a mark for the
insult and sarcasm of the _Times_ newspaper, they owed the disaster and the
shame to no other than Mathew Kearney himself.
‘I will now conclude with a resolution,’ said McGloin, who, having filled
the measure of allegation, proceeded to the application. ‘I shall move that
it is the sentiment of this meeting that Lord Kilgobbin be called on to
disavow, in the newspapers, the whole narrative which has been circulated
of the attack on his house; that he declare openly that the supposed
incident was a mistake caused by the timorous fears of his household,
during his own absence from home: terrors aggravated by the unwarrantable
anxiety of an English visitor, whose ignorance of Ireland had worked upon
an excited imagination; and that a copy of the resolution be presented to
his lordship, either in letter or by a deputation, as the meeting shall
decide.’
While the discussion was proceeding as to the mode in which this bold
resolution should be most becomingly brought under Lord Kilgobbin’s notice,
a messenger on horseback arrived with a letter for McGloin. The bearer was
in the Kilgobbin livery, and a massive seal, with the noble lord’s arms,
attested the despatch to be from himself.
‘Shall I put the resolution to the vote, or read this letter first,
gentlemen?’ said the chairman.
‘Read! read!’ was the cry, and he broke the seal. It ran thus:--
‘Mr. McGloin,--Will you please to inform the members of the “Goat Club” at
Moate that I retire from the presidency, and cease to be a member of that
society? I was vain enough to believe at one time that the humanising
element of even one gentleman in the vulgar circle of a little obscure
town, might have elevated the tone of manners and the spirit of social
intercourse. I have lived to discover my great mistake, and that the
leadership of a man like yourself is far more likely to suit the instincts
and chime in with the sentiments of such a body.--Your obedient and
faithful servant,
Kilgobbin.’
The cry which followed the reading of this document can only be described
as a howl. It was like the enraged roar of wild animals, rather than the
union of human voices; and it was not till after a considerable interval
that McGloin could obtain a hearing. He spoke with great vigour and
fluency. He denounced the letter as an outrage which should be proclaimed
from one end of Europe to the other; that it was not their town, or their
club, or themselves had been insulted, but Ireland! that this mock-lord
(cheers)--this sham viscount--(greater cheers)--this Brummagem peer, whose
nobility their native courtesy and natural urbanity had so long deigned to
accept as real, should now be taught that his pretensions only existed on
sufferance, and had no claim beyond the polite condescension of men whom
it was no stretch of imagination to call the equals of Mathew Kearney.
The cries that received this were almost deafening, and lasted for some
minutes.
‘Send the ould humbug his picture there,’ cried a voice from the crowd, and
the sentiment was backed by a roar of voices; and it was at once decreed
the portrait should accompany the letter which the indignant ‘Goats’ now
commissioned their chairman to compose.
That same evening saw the gold-framed picture on its way to Kilgobbin
Castle, with an ample-looking document, whose contents we have no curiosity
to transcribe--nor, indeed, is the whole incident one which we should have
cared to obtrude upon our readers, save as a feeble illustration of the way
in which the smaller rills of public opinion swell the great streams of
life, and how the little events of existence serve now as impulses, now
obstacles, to the larger interests that sway fortune. So long as Mathew
Kearney drank his punch at the ‘Blue Goat’ he was a patriot and a
Nationalist; but when he quarrelled with his flock, he renounced his
Irishry, and came out a Whig.