MATHEW KEARNEY’S REFLECTIONS
To have his house full of company, to see his table crowded with guests,
was nearer perfect happiness than anything Kearney knew; and when he set
out, the morning after the arrival of the strangers, to show Major Lockwood
where he would find a brace of woodcocks, the old man was in such spirits
as he had not known for years.
‘Why don’t your friend Walpole come with us?’ asked he of his companion, as
they trudged across the bog.
‘I believe I can guess,’ mumbled out the other; ‘but I’m not quite sure I
ought to tell.’
‘I see,’ said Kearney, with a knowing leer; ‘he’s afraid I’ll roast him
about that unlucky despatch he wrote. He thinks I’ll give him no peace
about that bit of stupidity; for you see, major, it _was_ stupid, and
nothing less. Of all the things we despise in Ireland, take my word for
it, there is nothing we think so little of as a weak Government. We can
stand up strong and bold against hard usage, and we gain self-respect by
resistance; but when you come down to conciliations and what you call
healing measures, we feel as if you were going to humbug us, and there
is not a devilment comes into our heads we would not do, just to see how
you’ll bear it; and it’s then your London newspapers cry out: “What’s the
use of doing anything for Ireland? We pulled down the Church, and we robbed
the landlords, and we’re now going to back Cardinal Cullen for them, and
there they are murthering away as bad as ever.”’
‘Is it not true?’ asked the major.
‘And whose fault if it _is_ true? Who has broke down the laws in Ireland
but yourselves? We Irish never said that many things _you_ called crimes
were bad in morals, and when it occurs to you now to doubt if they are
crimes, I’d like to ask you, why wouldn’t _we_ do them? You won’t give us
our independence, and so we’ll fight for it; and though, maybe, we can’t
lick you, we’ll make your life so uncomfortable to you, keeping us down,
that you’ll beg a compromise--a healing measure, you’ll call it--just as
when I won’t give Tim Sullivan a lease, he takes a shot at me; and as I
reckon the holes in my hat, I think better of it, and take a pound or two
off his rent.’
‘So that, in fact, you court the policy of conciliation?’
‘Only because I’m weak, major--because I’m weak, and that I must live
in the neighbourhood. If I could pass my days out of the range of Tim’s
carbine, I wouldn’t reduce him a shilling.’
‘I can make nothing of Ireland or Irishmen either.’
‘Why would you? God help us! we are poor enough and wretched enough; but
we’re not come down to that yet that a major of dragoons can read us like
big print.’
‘So far as I see you wish for a strong despotism.’
‘In one way it would suit us well. Do you see, major, what a weak
administration and uncertain laws do? They set every man in Ireland about
righting himself by his own hand. If I know I shall be starved when I am
turned out of my holding, I’m not at all so sure I’ll be hanged if I shoot
my landlord. Make me as certain of the one as the other, and I’ll not shoot
him.’
‘I believe I understand you.’
‘No, you don’t, nor any Cockney among you.’
‘I’m not a Cockney.’
‘I don’t care, you’re the same: you’re not one of us; nor if you spent
fifty years among us, would you understand us.’
‘Come over and see me in Berkshire, Kearney, and let me see if you can read
our people much better.’
‘From all I hear, there’s not much to read. Your chawbacon isn’t as cute a
fellow as Pat.’
‘He’s easier to live with.’
‘Maybe so; but I wouldn’t care for a life with such people about me. I like
human nature, and human feelings--ay, human passions, if you must call them
so. I want to know--I can make some people love me, though I well know
there must be others will hate me. You’re all for tranquillity all over in
England--a quiet life you call it. I like to live without knowing what’s
coming, and to feel all the time that I know enough of the game to be able
to play it as well as my neighbours. Do you follow me now, major?’
‘I’m not quite certain I do.’
‘No--but I’m quite certain you don’t; and, indeed, I wonder at myself
talking to you about these things at all.’
‘I’m much gratified that you do so. In fact, Kearney, you give me courage
to speak a little about myself and my own affairs; and, if you will allow
me, to ask your advice.’
This was an unusually long speech for the major, and he actually seemed
fatigued when he concluded. He was, however, consoled for his exertions by
seeing what pleasure his words had conferred on Kearney; and with what
racy self-satisfaction, that gentleman heard himself mentioned as a ‘wise
opinion.’
‘I believe I do know a little of life, major,’ said he sententiously. ‘As
old Giles Dackson used to say, “Get Mathew Kearney to tell you what he
thinks of it.” You knew Giles?’
‘No.’
‘Well, you’ve heard of him? No! not even that. There’s another proof of
what I was saying--we’re two people, the English and the Irish. If it
wasn’t so, you’d be no stranger to the sayings and doings of one of the
cutest men that ever lived.’
‘We have witty fellows too.’
‘No, you haven’t! Do you call your House of Commons’ jokes wit? Are
the stories you tell at your hustings’ speeches wit? Is there one over
there’--and he pointed in the direction of England--‘that ever made a smart
repartee or a brilliant answer to any one about anything? You now and then
tell an Irish story, and you forget the point; or you quote a French _mot_,
and leave out the epigram. Don’t be angry--it’s truth I’m telling you.’
‘I’m not angry, though I must say I don’t think you are fair to us.’
The last bit of brilliancy you had in the House was Brinsley Sheridan, and
there wasn’t much English about _him_.’
‘I’ve never heard that the famous O’Connell used to convulse the House with
his drollery.’
‘Why should he? Didn’t he know where he was? Do you imagine that O’Connell
was going to do like poor Lord Killeen, who shipped a cargo of coalscuttles
to Africa?’
‘Will you explain to me then how, if you are so much shrewder and wittier
and cleverer than us, it does not make you richer, more prosperous, and
more contented?’
‘I could do that too--but I’m losing the birds. There’s a cock now. Well
done! I see you can shoot a bit.--Look here, major, there’s a deal in
race--in the blood of a people. It’s very hard to make a light-hearted,
joyous people thrifty. It’s your sullen fellow, that never cuts a joke, nor
wants any one to laugh at it, that’s the man who saves. If you’re a wit,
you want an audience, and the best audience is round a dinner-table; and
we know what that costs. Now, Ireland has been very pleasant for the last
hundred and fifty years in that fashion, and you, and scores of other
low-spirited, depressed fellows, come over here to pluck up and rouse
yourselves, and you go home, and you wonder why the people who amused you
were not always as jolly as you saw them. I’ve known this country now nigh
sixty years, and I never knew a turn of prosperity that didn’t make us
stupid; and, upon my conscience, I believe, if we ever begin to grow rich,
we’ll not be a bit better than yourselves.’
‘That would be very dreadful,’ said the other, in mock-horror.
‘So it would, whether you mean it or not.--There’s a hare missed this
time!’
‘I was thinking of something I wanted to ask you. The fact is, Kearney, I
have a thing on my mind now.’
‘Is it a duel? It’s many a day since I was out, but I used to know every
step of the way as well as most men.’
‘No, it’s not a duel!’
‘It’s money, then! Bother it for money! What a deal of bad blood it leads
to. Tell me all about it, and I’ll see if I can’t deal with it.’
‘No, it’s not money; it has nothing to do with money. I’m not hard up. I
was never less so.’
‘Indeed!’ cried Kearney, staring at him.
‘Why, what do you mean by that?’
‘I was curious to see how a man looks, and I’d like to know how he feels,
that didn’t want money. I can no more understand it than if a man told me
he didn’t want air.’
‘If he had enough to breathe freely, could he need more?’
‘That would depend on the size of his lungs, and I believe mine are pretty
big. But come now, if there’s nobody you want to shoot, and you have a good
balance at the banker’s, what can ail you, except it’s a girl you want to
marry, and she won’t have you?’
‘Well, there is a lady in the case.’
‘Ay, ay! she’s a married woman,’ cried Kearney, closing one eye, and
looking intensely cunning. ‘Then I may tell you at once, major, I’m no use
to you whatever. If it was a young girl that liked you against the wish
of her family, or that you were in love with though she was below you in
condition, or that was promised to another man but wanted to get out of her
bargain, I’m good for any of these, or scores more of the same kind; but if
it’s mischief, and misery, and lifelong sorrow you have in your head, you
must look out for another adviser.’
‘It’s nothing of the kind,’ said the other bluntly. ‘It’s marriage I was
thinking of. I want to settle down and have a wife.’
‘Then why couldn’t you, if you think it would be any comfort to you?’
The last words were rather uttered than spoken, and sounded like a sad
reflection uttered aloud.
‘I am not a rich man,’ said the major, with that strain it always cost
him to speak of himself, ‘but I have got enough to live on. A goodish
old house, and a small estate, underlet as it is, bringing me about two
thousand a year, and some expectations, as they call them, from an old
grand-aunt.’
‘You have enough, if you marry a prudent girl,’ muttered Kearney, who was
never happier than when advocating moderation and discretion.
‘Enough, at least, not to look for money with a wife.’
‘I’m with you there, heart and soul,’ cried Kearney. ‘Of all the shabby
inventions of our civilisation, I don’t know one as mean as that custom
of giving a marriage-portion with a girl. Is it to induce a man to take
her? Is it to pay for her board and lodging? Is it because marriage is a
partnership, and she must bring her share into the “concern”? or is it to
provide for the day when they are to part company, and each go his own
road? Take it how you like, it’s bad and it’s shabby. If you’re rich enough
to give your daughter twenty or thirty thousand pounds, wait for some
little family festival--her birthday, or her husband’s birthday, or a
Christmas gathering, or maybe a christening--and put the notes in her
hand. Oh, major dear,’ cried he aloud, ‘if you knew how much of life you
lose with lawyers, and what a deal of bad blood comes into the world by
parchments, you’d see the wisdom of trusting more to human kindness and
good feeling, and above all, to the honour of gentlemen--things that
nowadays we always hope to secure by Act of Parliament.’
‘I go with a great deal of what you say.’
‘Why not with all of it? What do we gain by trying to overreach each other?
What advantage in a system where it’s always the rogue that wins? If I was
a king to-morrow, I’d rather fine a fellow for quoting Blackstone than
for blasphemy, and I’d distribute all the law libraries in the kingdom as
cheap fuel for the poor. We pray for peace and quietness, and we educate a
special class of people to keep us always wrangling. Where’s the sense of
that?’
While Kearney poured out these words in a flow of fervid conviction, they
had arrived at a little open space in the wood, from which various alleys
led off in different directions. Along one of these, two figures were
slowly moving side by side, whom Lockwood quickly recognised as Walpole and
Nina Kostalergi. Kearney did not see them, for his attention was suddenly
called off by a shout from a distance, and his son Dick rode hastily up to
the spot.
‘I have been in search of you all through the plantation,’ cried he. ‘I
have brought back Holmes the lawyer from Tullamore, who wants to talk to
you about this affair of Gorman’s. It’s going to be a bad business, I
fear.’
‘Isn’t that more of what I was saying?’ said the old man, turning to the
major. ‘There’s law for you!’
‘They’re making what they call a “National” event of it,’ continued Dick.
‘The _Pike_ has opened a column of subscriptions to defray the cost of
proceedings, and they’ve engaged Battersby with a hundred-guinea retainer
already.’
It appeared from what tidings Dick brought back from the town, that the
Nationalists--to give them the much unmerited name by which they called
themselves--were determined to show how they could dictate to a jury.
‘There’s law for you!’ cried the old man again.
‘You’ll have to take to vigilance committees, like the Yankees,’ said the
major.
‘We’ve had them for years; but they only shoot their political opponents.’
‘They say, too,’ broke in the young man, ‘that Donogan is in the town, and
that it is he who has organised the whole prosecution. In fact, he intends
to make Battersby’s speech for the plaintiff a great declaration of the
wrongs of Ireland; and as Battersby hates the Chief Baron, who will try
the cause, he is determined to insult the Bench, even at the cost of a
commitment.’
‘What will he gain by that?’ asked Lockwood.
‘Every one cannot have a father that was hanged in ‘98; but any one can go
to gaol for blackguarding a Chief-Justice,’ said Kearney.
For a moment or two the old man seemed ashamed at having been led to make
these confessions to ‘the Saxon,’ and telling Lockwood where he would
be likely to find a brace of cocks, he took his son’s arm and returned
homeward.