SAGE ADVICE
‘So then you’re in a hobble with your aunt,’ said Mr. Kearney, as he
believed he had summed up the meaning of a very blundering explanation by
Gorman O’Shea; ‘isn’t that it?’
‘Yes, sir; I suppose it comes to that.’
‘The old story, I’ve no doubt, if we only knew it--as old as the
Patriarchs: the young ones go into debt, and think it very hard that the
elders dislike the paying it.’
‘No, no; I have no debts--at least, none to speak of.’
‘It’s a woman, then? Have you gone and married some good-looking girl, with
no fortune and less family? Who is she?’
‘Not even that, sir,’ said he, half impatient at seeing how little
attention had been bestowed on his narrative.
‘’Tis bad enough, no doubt,’ continued the old man, still in pursuit of his
own reflections; ‘not but there’s scores of things worse; for if a man is a
good fellow at heart, he’ll treat the woman all the better for what she has
cost him. That is one of the good sides of selfishness; and when you have
lived as long as me, Gorman, you’ll find out how often there’s something
good to be squeezed out of a bad quality, just as though it were a bit of
our nature that was depraved, but not gone to the devil entirely.’
‘There is no woman in the case here, sir,’ said O’Shea bluntly, for these
speculations only irritated him.
‘Ho, ho! I have it, then,’ cried the old man. ‘You’ve been burning your
fingers with rebellion. It’s the Fenians have got a hold of you.’
‘Nothing of the kind, sir. If you’ll just read these two letters. The one
is mine, written on the morning I came here: here is my aunt’s. The first
is not word for word as I sent it, but as well as I can remember. At all
events, it will show how little I had provoked the answer. There, that’s
the document that came along with my trunks, and I have never heard from
her since.’
‘“Dear Nephew,”’ read out the old man, after patiently adjusting his
spectacles--‘“O’Shea’s Barn is not an inn,”--And more’s the pity,’ added
he; ‘for it would be a model house of entertainment. You’d say any one
could have a sirloin of beef or a saddle of mutton; but where Miss Betty
gets hers is quite beyond me. “Nor are the horses at public livery,”’ read
he out. ‘I think I may say, if they were, that Kattoo won’t be hired out
again to the young man that took her over the fences. “As you seem fond of
warnings,”’ continued he, aloud--‘Ho, ho! that’s at _you_ for coming over
here to tell me about the search-warrant; and she tells you to mind your
own business; and droll enough it is. We always fancy we’re saying an
impertinence to a man when we tell him to attend to what concerns him most.
It shows, at least, that we think meddling a luxury. And then she adds,
“Kilgobbin is welcome to you,” and I can only say you are welcome to
Kilgobbin--ay, and in her own words--“with such regularity and order as the
meals succeed.”--“All the luggage belonging to you,” etc., and “I am, very
respectfully, your Aunt.” By my conscience, there was no need to sign it!
That was old Miss Betty all the world over!’ and he laughed till his eyes
ran over, though the rueful face of young O’Shea was staring at him all the
time. ‘Don’t look so gloomy, O’Shea,’ cried Kearney: ‘I have not so good a
cook, nor, I’m sorry to say, so good a cellar, as at the Barn; but there
are young faces, and young voices, and young laughter, and a light step
on the stairs; and if I know anything, or rather, if I remember anything,
these will warm a heart at your age better than ‘44 claret or the crustiest
port that ever stained a decanter.’
‘I am turned out, sir--sent adrift on the world,’ said the young man
despondently.
‘And it is not so bad a thing after all, take my word for it, boy. It’s a
great advantage now and then to begin life as a vagabond. It takes a deal
of snobbery out of a fellow to lie under a haystack, and there’s no better
cure for pretension than a dinner of cold potatoes. Not that I say you
need the treatment--far from it--but our distinguished friend Mr. Walpole
wouldn’t be a bit the worse of such an alterative.’
‘If I am left without a shilling in the world?’
‘Then you must try what you can do on sixpence--the whole thing is how you
begin. I used not to be able to eat my dinner when I did not see the fellow
in a white tie standing before the sideboard, and the two flunkeys in plush
and silk stockings at either side of the table; and when I perceived that
the decanters had taken their departure, and that it was beer I was given
to drink, I felt as if I had dined, and was ready to go out and have a
smoke in the open air; but a little time, even without any patience, but
just time, does it all.’
‘Time won’t teach a man to live upon nothing.’
‘It would be very hard for him if it did; let him begin by having few
wants, and work hard to supply means for them.’
‘Work hard! why, sir, if I laboured from daylight to dark, I’d not earn the
wages of the humblest peasant, and I’d not know how to live on it.’
‘Well, I have given you all the philosophy in my budget, and to tell you
the truth, Gorman, except so far as coming down in the world in spite of
myself, I know mighty little about the fine precepts I have been giving
you; but this I know, you have a roof over your head here, and you’re
heartily welcome to it; and who knows but your aunt may come to terms all
the sooner, because she sees you here?’
‘You are very generous to me, and I feel it deeply,’ said the young man;
but he was almost choked with the words.
‘You have told me already, Gorman, that your aunt gave you no other reason
against coming here than that I had not been to call on you; and I believe
you--believe you thoroughly; but tell me now, with the same frankness, was
there nothing passing in your mind--had you no suspicions or misgivings, or
something of the same kind, to keep you away? Be candid with me now, and
speak it out freely.’
‘None, on my honour; I was sorely grieved to be told I must not come, and
thought very often of rebelling, so that indeed, when I did rebel, I was in
a measure prepared for the penalty, though scarcely so heavy as this.’
‘Don’t take it to heart. It will come right yet--everything comes right
if we give it time--and there’s plenty of time to the fellow who is not
five-and-twenty. It’s only the old dogs, like myself, who are always doing
their match against time, are in a hobble. To feel that every minute of the
clock is something very like three weeks of the almanac, flurries a man,
when he wants to be cool and collected. Put your hat on a peg, and make
your home here. If you want to be of use, Kitty will show you scores of
things to do about the garden, and we never object to see a brace of snipe
at the end of dinner, though there’s nobody cares to shoot them; and the
bog trout--for all their dark colour--are excellent catch, and I know you
can throw a line. All I say is, do something, and something that takes you
into the open air. Don’t get to lying about in easy-chairs and reading
novels; don’t get to singing duets and philandering about with the girls.
May I never, if I’d not rather find a brandy-flask in your pocket than
Tennyson’s poems!’