Lord Kilgobbin Part 16

'What do you mean by a fellow like me?' broke in d.i.c.k, somewhat angrily.

'I mean this, that I'd as soon set to work to explain the theory of exchequer bonds to an Eskimo, as to make an unimaginative man understand something purely speculative. What you, and scores of fellows like you, denominate vanity, is only another form of hopefulness. You and your brethren--for you are a large family--do you know what it is to Hope! that is, you have no idea of what it is to build on the foundation of certain qualities you recognise in yourself, and to say that "if I can go so far with such a gift, such another will help me on so much farther."'

'I tell you one thing I do hope, which is, that the next time I set out a twelve miles' walk, I'll have a companion less imbued with self-admiration.'

'And you might and might not find him pleasanter company. Cannot you see, old fellow, that the very things you object to in me are what are wanting in you? they are, so to say, the compliments of your own temperament.'

'Have you a cigar?'

'Two--take them both. I'd rather talk than smoke just now.'

'I am almost sorry for it, though it gives me the tobacco.'

'Are we on your father's property yet?'

'Yes; part of that village we came through belongs to us, and all this bog here is ours.'

'Why don't you reclaim it? labour costs a mere nothing in this country.

Why don't you drain those tracts, and treat the soil with lime? I'd live on potatoes, I'd make my family live on potatoes, and my son, and my grandson, for three generations, but I'd win this land back to culture and productiveness.'

'The fee-simple of the soil wouldn't pay the cost. It would be cheaper to save the money and buy an estate.'

'That is one, and a very narrow view of it; but imagine the glory of restoring a lost tract to a nation, welcoming back the prodigal, and installing him in his place amongst his brethren. This was all forest once.

Under the shade of the mighty oaks here those gallant O'Caharneys your ancestors followed the chase, or rested at noontide, or skedaddled in double-quick before those smart English of the Pale, who I must say treated your forbears with scant courtesy.'

'We held our own against them for many a year.'

'Only when it became so small it was not worth taking. Is not your father a Whig?'

'He's a Liberal, but he troubles himself little about parties.'

'He's a stout Catholic, though, isn't he?'

'He is a very devout believer in his Church,' said d.i.c.k with the tone of one who did not desire to continue the theme.

'Then why does he stop at Whiggery? why not go in for Nationalism and all the rest of it?'

'And what's all the rest of it?'

'Great Ireland--no first flower of the earth or gem of the sea humbug--but Ireland great in prosperity, her harbours full of s.h.i.+ps, the woollen trade, her ancient staple, revived: all that vast unused water-power, greater than all the steam of Manchester and Birmingham tenfold, at full work; the linen manufacture developed and promoted--'

'And the Union repealed?'

'Of course; that should be first of all. Not that I object to the Union, as many do, on the grounds of English ignorance as to Ireland. My dislike is, that, for the sake of carrying through certain measures necessary to Irish interests, I must sit and discuss questions which have no possible concern for me, and touch me no more than the debates in the Cortes, or the Reichskammer at Vienna. What do you or I care for who rules India, or who owns Turkey? What interest of mine is it whether Great Britain has five ironclads or fifty, or whether the Yankees take Canada, and the Russians Kabul?'

'You're a Fenian, and I am not.'

'I suppose you'd call yourself an Englishman?'

'I am an English subject, and I owe my allegiance to England.'

'Perhaps for that matter, I owe some too; but I owe a great many things that I don't distress myself about paying.'

'Whatever your sentiments are on these matters--and, Joe, I am not disposed to think you have any very fixed ones--pray do me the favour to keep them to yourself while under my father's roof. I can almost promise you he'll obtrude none of his peculiar opinions on _you_, and I hope you will treat _him_ with a like delicacy.'

'What will your folks talk, then? I can't suppose they care for books, art, or the drama. There is no society, so there can be no gossip. If that yonder be the cabin of one of your tenants, I'll certainly not start the question of farming.'

'There are poor on every estate,' said d.i.c.k curtly.

'Now what sort of a rent does that fellow pay--five pounds a year?'

'More likely five-and-twenty or thirty s.h.i.+llings.'

'By Jove, I'd like to set up house in that fas.h.i.+on, and make love to some delicately-nurtured miss, win her affections, and bring her home to such a spot. Wouldn't that be a touchstone of affection, d.i.c.k?'

'If I could believe you were in earnest, I'd throw you neck and heels into that bog-hole.'

'Oh, if you would!' cried he, and there was a ring of truthfulness in his voice now there could be no mistaking. Half-ashamed of the emotion his idle speech had called up, and uncertain how best to treat the emergency, Kearney said nothing, and Atlee walked on for miles without a word.

'You can see the house now. It tops the trees yonder,' said d.i.c.k.

'That is Kilgobbin Castle, then?' said Joe slowly.

'There's not much of castle left about it. There is a square block of a tower, and you can trace the moat and some remains of outworks.'

'Shall I make you a confession, d.i.c.k? I envy you all that! I envy you what smacks of a race, a name, an ancestry, a lineage. It's a great thing to be able to "take up the running," as folks say, instead of making all the race yourself; and there's one inestimable advantage in it, it rescues you from all indecent haste about a.s.serting your station. You feel yourself to be a somebody and you've not hurried to proclaim it. There now, my boy, if you'd have said only half as much as that on the score of your family, I'd have called you an arrant sn.o.b. So much for consistency.'

'What you have said gave me pleasure, I'll own that.'

'I suppose it was you planted those trees there. It was a nice thought, and makes the transition from the bleak bog to the cultivated land more easy and graceful. Now I see the castle well. It's a fine portly ma.s.s against the morning sky, and I perceive you fly a flag over it.'

'When the lord is at home.'

'Ay, and by the way, do you give him his t.i.tle while talking to him here?'

'The tenants do, and the neighbours and strangers do as they please about it.'

'Does he like it himself?'

'If I was to guess, I should perhaps say he does like it. Here we are now.

Inside this low gate you are within the demesne, and I may bid you welcome to Kilgobbin. We shall build a lodge here one of these days. There's a good stretch, however, yet to the castle. We call it two miles, and it's not far short of it.'

'What a glorious morning. There is an ecstasy in scenting these nice fresh woods in the clear sunrise, and seeing those modest daffodils make their morning toilet.'

'That's a fancy of Kate's. There is a border of such wild flowers all the way to the house.'

'And those rills of clear water that flank the road, are they of her designing?'

'That they are. There was a cutting made for a railroad line about four miles from this, and they came upon a sort of pudding-stone formation, made up chiefly of white pebbles. Kate heard of it, purchased the whole ma.s.s, and had these channels paved with them from the gate to the castle, and that's the reason this water has its crystal clearness.'