O’SHEA’S BARN
There were many more pretentious houses than O’Shea’s Barn. It would
have been easy enough to discover larger rooms and finer furniture, more
numerous servants and more of display in all the details of life; but for
an air of quiet comfort, for the certainty of meeting with every material
enjoyment that people of moderate fortune aspire to, it stood unrivalled.
The rooms were airy and cheerful, with flowers in summer, as they were well
heated and well lighted in winter. The most massive-looking but luxurious
old arm-chairs, that modern taste would have repudiated for ugliness,
abounded everywhere; and the four cumbrous but comfortable seats that stood
around the circular dinner-table--and it was a matter of principle with
Miss Betty that the company should never be more numerous--only needed
speech to have told of traditions of conviviality for very nigh two
centuries back.
As for a dinner at the Barn, the whole countyside confessed that they never
knew how it was that Miss Betty’s salmon was ‘curdier’ and her mountain
mutton more tender, and her woodcocks racier and of higher flavour, than
any one else’s. Her brown sherry you might have equalled--she liked the
colour and the heavy taste--but I defy you to match that marvellous port
which came in with the cheese, and as little, in these days of light
Bordeaux, that stout-hearted Sneyd’s claret, in its ancient decanter, whose
delicately fine neck seemed fashioned to retain the bouquet.
The most exquisite compliment that a courtier ever uttered could not have
given Miss Betty the same pleasure as to hear one of her guests request a
second slice off ‘the haunch.’ This was, indeed, a flattery that appealed
to her finest sensibilities, and as she herself carved, she knew how to
reward that appreciative man with fat.
Never was the virtue of hospitality more self-rewarding than in her case;
and the discriminating individual who ate with gusto, and who never
associated the wrong condiment with his food, found favour in her eyes, and
was sure of re-invitation.
Fortune had rewarded her with one man of correct taste and exquisite palate
as a diner-out. This was the parish priest, the Rev. Luke Delany, who had
been educated abroad, and whose natural gifts had been improved by French
and Italian experiences. He was a small little meek man, with closely-cut
black hair and eyes of the darkest, scrupulously neat in dress, and, by his
ruffles and buckled shoes at dinner, affecting something of the abbé in his
appearance. To such as associated the Catholic priest with coarse manners,
vulgar expressions, or violent sentiments, Father Luke, with his low voice,
his well-chosen words, and his universal moderation, was a standing rebuke;
and many an English tourist who met him came away with the impression of
the gross calumny that associated this man’s order with underbred habits
and disloyal ambitions. He spoke little, but he was an admirable listener,
and there was a sweet encouragement in the bland nod of his head, and a
racy appreciation in the bright twinkle of his humorous eye, that the
prosiest talker found irresistible.
There were times, indeed--stirring intervals of political excitement--when
Miss Betty would have liked more hardihood and daring in her ghostly
counsellor; but Heaven help the man who would have ventured on the open
avowal of such opinion or uttered a word in disparagement of Father Luke.
It was in that snug dinner-room I have glanced at that a party of four sat
over their wine. They had dined admirably, a bright wood fire blazed on the
hearth, and the scene was the emblem of comfort and quiet conviviality.
Opposite Miss O’Shea sat Father Delany, and on either side of her her
nephew Gorman and Mr. Ralph Miller, in whose honour the present dinner was
given.
The Catholic bishop of the diocese had vouchsafed a guarded and cautious
approval of Mr. Miller’s views, and secretly instructed Father Delany to
learn as much more as he conveniently could of the learned gentleman’s
intentions before committing himself to a pledge of hearty support.
‘I will give him a good dinner,’ said Miss O’Shea, ‘and some of the ‘45
claret, and if you cannot get his sentiments out of him after that, I wash
my hands of him.’
Father Delany accepted his share of the task, and assuredly Miss Betty did
not fail on her part.
The conversation had turned principally on the coming election, and Mr.
Miller gave a flourishing account of his success as a canvasser, and even
went the length of doubting if any opposition would be offered to him.
‘Ain’t you and young Kearney going on the same ticket?’ asked Gorman, who
was too new to Ireland to understand the nice distinctions of party.
‘Pardon me,’ said Miller, ‘we differ essentially. _We_ want a government in
Ireland--the Nationalists want none. _We_ desire order by means of timely
concessions and judicious boons to the people. They want disorder--the
display of gross injustice--content to wait for a scramble, and see what
can come of it.’
‘Mr. Miller’s friends, besides,’ interposed Father Luke, ‘would defend
the Church and protect the Holy See’--and this was said with a
half-interrogation.
Miller coughed twice, and said, ‘Unquestionably. We have shown our hand
already--look what we have done with the Established Church.’
‘You need not be proud of it,’ cried Miss Betty. ‘If you wanted to get rid
of the crows, why didn’t you pull down the rookery?’
‘At least they don’t caw so loud as they used,’ said the priest, smiling;
and Miller exchanged delighted glances with him for his opinion.
‘I want to be rid of them, root and branch,’ said Miss Betty.
‘If you will vouchsafe us, ma’am, a little patience. Rome was not built in
a day. The next victory of our Church must be won by the downfall of the
English establishment. Ain’t I right, Father Luke?’
‘I am not quite clear about that,’ said the priest cautiously. ‘Equality is
not the safe road to supremacy.’
‘What was that row over towards Croghan Castle this morning?’ asked Gorman,
who was getting wearied with a discussion he could not follow. ‘I saw the
constabulary going in force there this afternoon.’
‘They were in pursuit of the celebrated Dan Donogan,’ said Father Luke.
‘They say he was seen at Moate.’
‘They say more than that,’ said Miss Betty. ‘They say that he is stopping
at Kilgobbin Castle!’
‘I suppose to conduct young Kearney’s election,’ said Miller, laughing.
‘And why should they hunt him down?’ asked Gorman. ‘What has he done?’
‘He’s a Fenian--a head-centre--a man who wants to revolutionise Ireland,’
replied Miller.
‘And destroy the Church,’ chimed in the priest.
‘Humph!’ muttered Gorman, who seemed to imply, Is this all you can lay to
his charge? ‘Has he escaped? asked he suddenly.
‘Up to this he has,’ said Miller. ‘I was talking to the constabulary chief
this afternoon, and he told me that the fellow is sure to be apprehended.
He has taken to the open bog, and there are eighteen in full cry after him.
There is a search-warrant, too, arrived, and they mean to look him up at
Kilgobbin Castle.’
‘To search Kilgobbin Castle, do you mean?’ asked Gorman.
‘Just so. It will be, as I perceive you think it, a great offence to Mr.
Kearney, and it is not impossible that his temper may provoke him to resist
it.’
‘The mere rumour may materially assist his son’s election,’ said the priest
slyly.
‘Only with the party who have no votes, Father Luke,’ rejoined Miller.
‘That precarious popularity of the mob is about the most dangerous enemy a
man can have in Ireland.’
‘You are right, sir,’ said the priest blandly. ‘The real favour of this
people is only bestowed on him who has gained the confidence of the
clergy.’
‘If that be true,’ cried Gorman, ‘upon my oath I think you are worse off
here than in Austria. There, at least, we are beginning to think without
the permission of the Church.’
‘Let us have none of your atheism here, young man,’ broke in his aunt
angrily. ‘Such sentiments have never been heard in this room before.’
‘If I apprehend Lieutenant Gorman aright,’ interposed Father Luke, ‘he only
refers to the late movement of the Austrian Empire with reference to the
Concordat, on which, amongst religious men, there are two opinions.’
‘No, no, you mistake me altogether,’ rejoined Gorman. ‘What I mean was,
that a man can read, and talk, and think in Austria without the leave of
the priest; that he can marry, and if he like, he can die without his
assistance.’
‘Gorman, you are a beast,’ said the old lady, ‘and if you lived here, you
would be a Fenian.’
‘You’re wrong too, aunt,’ replied he. ‘I’d crush those fellows to-morrow if
I was in power here.’
‘Mayhap the game is not so easy as you deem it,’ interposed Miller.
‘Certainly it is not so easy when played as you do it here. You deal with
your law-breakers only by the rule of legality: that is to say, you respect
all the regulations of the game towards the men who play false. You have
your cumbrous details, and your lawyers, and judges, and juries, and you
cannot even proclaim a county in a state of siege without a bill in your
blessed Parliament, and a basketful of balderdash about the liberty of the
subject. Is it any wonder rebellion is a regular trade with you, and that
men who don’t like work, or business habits, take to it as a livelihood?’
‘But have you never heard Curran’s saying, young gentleman? “You cannot
bring an indictment against a nation,’” said Miller.
‘I’d trouble myself little with indictments,’ replied Gorman. ‘I’d break
down the confederacy by spies; I’d seize the fellows I knew to be guilty,
and hang them.’
‘Without evidence, without trial?’
‘Very little of a trial, when I had once satisfied myself of the guilt.’
‘Are you so certain that no innocent men might be brought to the scaffold?’
asked the priest mildly.
‘No, I am not. I take it, as the world goes, very few of us go through life
without some injustice or another. I’d do my best not to hang the fellows
who didn’t deserve it, but I own I’d be much more concerned about the
millions who wanted to live peaceably than the few hundred rapscallions
that were bent on troubling them.’
‘I must say, sir,’ said the priest, ‘I am much more gratified to know that
you are a Lieutenant of Lancers in Austria than a British Minister in
Downing Street.’
‘I have little doubt myself,’ said the other, laughing, ‘that I am more in
my place; but of this I am sure, that if we were as mealy-mouthed with our
Croats and Slovacks as you are with your Fenians, Austria would soon go to
pieces.’
‘There is, however, a higher price on that man Donogan’s head than Austria
ever offered for a traitor,’ said Miller.
‘I know how you esteem money here,’ said Gorman, laughing. ‘When all else
fails you, you fall back upon it.’
‘Why did I know nothing of these sentiments, young man, before I asked you
under my roof?’ said Miss Betty, in anger.
‘You need never to have known them now, aunt, if these gentlemen had not
provoked them, nor indeed are they solely mine. I am only telling you what
you would hear from any intelligent foreigner, even though he chanced to be
a liberal in his own country.’
‘Ah, yes,’ sighed the priest: ‘what the young gentleman says is too true.
The Continent is alarmingly infected with such opinions as these.’
‘Have you talked on politics with young Kearney?’ asked Miller.
‘He has had no opportunity,’ interposed Miss O’Shea. ‘My nephew will be
three weeks here on Thursday next, and neither Mathew nor his son have
called on him.’
‘Scarcely neighbourlike that, I must say,’ cried Miller.
‘I suspect the fault lies on my side,’ said Gorman boldly. ‘When I was
little more than a boy, I was never out of that house. The old man treated
me like a son. All the more, perhaps, as his own son was seldom at home,
and the little girl Kitty certainly regarded me as a brother; and though we
had our fights and squabbles, we cried very bitterly at parting, and each
of us vowed we should never like any one so much again. And now, after all,
here am I three weeks, within two hours’ ride of them, and my aunt insists
that my dignity requires I should be first called on. Confound such
dignity! say I, if it lose me the best and the pleasantest friends I ever
had in my life.’
‘I scarcely thought of _your_ dignity, Gorman O’Shea,’ said the old lady,
bridling, ‘though I did bestow some consideration on my own.’
‘I’m very sorry for it, aunt, and I tell you fairly--and there’s no
unpoliteness in the confession--that when I asked for my leave, Kilgobbin
Castle had its place in my thoughts as well as O’Shea’s Barn.’
‘Why not say it out, young gentleman, and tell me that the real charm of
coming here was to be within twelve miles of the Kearneys.’
‘The merits of this house are very independent of contiguity,’ said the
priest; and as he eyed the claret in his glass, it was plain that the
sentiment was an honest one.
‘Fifty-six wine, I should say,’ said Miller, as he laid down his glass.
‘Forty-five, if Mr. Barton be a man of his word,’ said the old lady
reprovingly.
‘Ah,’ sighed the priest plaintively, ‘how rarely one meets these old
full-bodied clarets nowadays. The free admission of French wines has
corrupted taste and impaired palate. Our cheap Gladstones have come upon us
like universal suffrage.’
‘The masses, however, benefit,’ remarked Miller.
‘Only in the first moment of acquisition, and in the novelty of the gain,’
continued Father Luke; ‘and then they suffer irreparably in the loss
of that old guidance, which once directed appreciation when there was
something to appreciate.’
‘We want the priest again, in fact,’ broke in Gorman.
‘You must admit they understand wine to perfection, though I would humbly
hope, young gentleman,’ said the Father modestly, ‘to engage your good
opinion of them on higher grounds.’
‘Give yourself no trouble in the matter, Father Luke,’ broke in Miss Betty.
‘Gorman’s Austrian lessons have placed him beyond _your_ teaching.’
‘My dear aunt, you are giving the Imperial Government a credit it never
deserved. They taught me as a cadet to groom my horse and pipeclay my
uniform, to be respectful to my corporal, and to keep my thumb on the seam
of my trousers when the captain’s eye was on me; but as to what passed
inside my mind, if I had a mind at all, or what I thought of Pope, Kaiser,
or Cardinal, they no more cared to know it than the name of my sweetheart.’
‘What a blessing to that benighted country would be one liberal statesman!’
exclaimed Miller: ‘one man of the mind and capacity of our present
Premier!’
‘Heaven forbid!’ cried Gorman. ‘We have confusion enough, without the
reflection of being governed by what you call here “healing measures.”’
‘I should like to discuss that point with you,’ said Miller.
‘Not now, I beg,’ interposed Miss O’Shea. ‘Gorman, will you decant another
bottle?’
‘I believe I ought to protest against more wine,’ said the priest, in his
most insinuating voice; ‘but there are occasions where the yielding to
temptation conveys a moral lesson.’
‘I suspect that I cultivate my nature a good deal in that fashion,’ said
Gorman, as he opened a fresh bottle.
‘This is perfectly delicious,’ said Miller, as he sipped his glass; ‘and if
I could venture to presume so far, I would ask leave to propose a toast.’
‘You have my permission, sir,’ said Miss Betty, with stateliness.
‘I drink, then,’ said he reverently, ‘I drink to the long life, the good
health, and the unbroken courage of the Holy Father.’
There was something peculiarly sly in the twinkle of the priest’s black eye
as he filled his bumper, and a twitching motion of the corner of his mouth
continued even as he said, ‘To the Pope.’
‘The Pope,’ said Gorman as he eyed his wine--
‘“Der Papst lebt herrlich in der Welt.”’
‘What are you muttering there?’ asked his aunt fiercely.
‘The line of an old song, aunt, that tells us how his Holiness has a jolly
time of it.’
‘I fear me it must have been written in other days,’ said Father Luke.
‘There is no intention to desert or abandon him, I assure you,’ said
Miller, addressing him in a low but eager tone. ‘I could never--no Irishman
could--ally himself to an administration which should sacrifice the Holy
See. With the bigotry that prevails in England, the question requires most
delicate handling; and even a pledge cannot be given except in language so
vague and unprecise as to admit of many readings.’
‘Why not bring in a Bill to give him a subsidy, a something per annum, or a
round sum down?’ cried Gorman.
‘Mr. Miller has just shown us that Exeter Hall might become dangerous.
English intolerance is not a thing to be rashly aroused.’
‘If I had to deal with him, I’d do as Bright proposed with your landlords
here. I’d buy him out, give him a handsome sum for his interest, and let
him go.’
‘And how would you deal with the Church, sir?’ asked the priest.
‘I have not thought of that; but I suppose one might put it into
commission, as they say, or manage it by a Board, with a First Lord, like
the Admiralty.’
‘I will give you some tea, gentlemen, when you appear in the drawing-room,’
said Miss Betty, rising with dignity, as though her condescension in
sitting so long with the party had been ill rewarded by her nephew’s
sentiments.
The priest, however, offered his arm, and the others followed as he left
the room.