Lord Kilgobbin Part 70

'That bubble has burst already; don't you know what happened at Birr? They tore down all Miller's notices and mine, they smashed our booths, beat our voters out of the town, and placed Donogan--the rebel Donogan--at the head of the poll, and the head-centre is now M.P. for King's County.'

'And he has a right to sit in the House?'

'There's the question. The matter is discussed every day in the newspapers, and there are as many for as against him. Some aver that the popular will is a sovereign edict that rises above all eventualities; others a.s.sert that the sentence which p.r.o.nounces a man a felon declares him to be dead in law.'

'And which side do you incline to?'

'I believe in the latter: he'll not be permitted to take his seat.'

'You'll have another chance, then?'

'No; I'll venture no more. Indeed, but for this same man Donogan, I had never thought of it. He filled my head with ideas of a great part to be played and a proud place to be occupied, and that even without high abilities, a man of a strong will, a fixed resolve, and an honest conscience, might at this time do great things for Ireland.'

'And then betrayed you?'

'No such thing; he no more dreamed of Parliament himself than you do now.

He knew he was liable to the law,--he was hiding from the police--and well aware that there was a price upon his head.'

'But if he was true to you, why did he not refuse this honour? why did he not decline to be elected?'

'They never gave him the choice. Don't you see, it is one of the strange signs of the strange times we are living in that the people fix upon certain men as their natural leaders and compel them to march in the van, and that it is the force at the back of these leaders that, far more than their talents, makes them formidable in public life.'

'I only follow it in part. I scarcely see what they aim at, and I do not know if they see it more clearly themselves. And now, what will you turn to?'

'I wish you could tell me.'

'About as blank a future as my own,' muttered Gorman.

'Come, come, _you_ have a career: you are a lieutenant of lancers; in time you will be a captain, and eventually a colonel, and who knows but a general at last, with Heaven knows how many crosses and medals on your breast.'

'Nothing less likely--the day is gone by when Englishmen were advanced to places of high honour and trust in the Austrian army. There are no more field-marshals like Nugent than major-generals like O'Connell. I might be made a Rittmeister, and if I lived long enough, and was not superannuated, a major; but there my ambition must cease.'

'And you are content with that prospect?'

'Of course I am not. I go back to it with something little short of despair.'

'Why go back, then?'

'Tell me what else to do--tell me what other road in life to take--show me even one alternative.'

The silence that now succeeded lasted several minutes, each immersed in his own thoughts, and each doubtless convinced how little presumption he had to advise or counsel the other.

'Do you know, O'Shea,' cried Kearney, 'I used to fancy that this Austrian life of yours was a mere caprice--that you took "a cast," as we call it in the hunting-field, amongst those fellows to see what they were like and what sort of an existence was theirs--but that being your aunt's heir, and with a snug estate that must one day come to you, it was a mere "lark," and not to be continued beyond a year or two?'

'Not a bit of it. I never presumed to think I should be my aunt's heir--and now less than ever. Do you know, that even the small pension she has allowed me hitherto is now about to be withdrawn, and I shall be left to live on my pay?'

'How much does that mean?'

'A few pounds more or less than you pay for your saddle-horse at livery at Dycers'.'

'You don't mean that?'

'I do mean it, and even that beggarly pittance is stopped when I am on my leave; so that at this moment my whole worldly wealth is here,' and he took from his pocket a handful of loose coin, in which a few gold pieces glittered amidst a ma.s.s of discoloured and smooth-looking silver.

'On my oath, I believe you are the richer man of the two,' cried Kearney, 'for except a few half-crowns on my dressing-table, and some coppers, I don't believe I am master of a coin with the Queen's image.'

'I say, Kearney, what a horrible take-in we should prove to mothers with daughters to marry!'

'Not a bit of it. You may impose upon any one else--your tailor, your bootmaker, even the horsy gent that jobs your cabriolet, but you'll never cheat the mamma who has the daughter on sale.'

Gorman could not help laughing at the more than ordinary irritability with which these words were spoken, and charged him at last with having uttered a personal experience.

'True, after all!' said d.i.c.k, half indolently. 'I used to spoon a pretty girl up in Dublin, ride with her when I could, and dance with her at all the b.a.l.l.s, and a certain chum of mine--a Joe Atlee--of whom you may have heard--under-took, simply by a series of artful rumours as to my future prospects--now extolling me as a man of fortune and a fine estate, to-morrow exhibiting me as a mere pretender with a mock t.i.tle and mock income--to determine how I should be treated in this family; and he would say to me, "d.i.c.k, you are going to be asked to dinner on Sat.u.r.day next"; or, "I say, old fellow, they're going to leave you out of that picnic at Powerscourt. You'll find the Clancys rather cold at your next meeting."'

'And he would be right in his guess?'

'To the letter! Ay, and I shame to say that the young girl answered the signal as promptly as the mother.'

'I hope it cured you of your pa.s.sion?'

'I don't know that it did. When you begin to like a girl, and find that she has regularly installed herself in a corner of your heart, there is scarcely a thing she can do you'll not discover a good reason for; and even when your ingenuity fails, go and pay a visit; there is some artful witchery in that creation you have built up about her--for I heartily believe most of us are merely clothing a sort of lay figure of loveliness with attributes of our fancy--and the end of it is, we are about as wise about our idols as the South Sea savages in their homage to the G.o.ds of their own carving.'

'I don't think that!' said Gorman sternly. 'I could no more invent the fascination that charms me than I could model a Venus or an Ariadne.'

'I see where your mistake lies. You do all this, and never know you do it.

Mind, I am only giving you Joe Atlee's theory all this time; for though I believe in, I never invented it.'

'And who is Atlee?'

'A chum of mine--a clever dog enough--who, as he says himself, takes a very low opinion of mankind, and in consequence finds this a capital world to live in.'

'I should hate the fellow.'

'Not if you met him. He can be very companionable, though I never saw any one take less trouble to please. He is popular almost everywhere.'

'I know I should hate him.'

'My cousin Nina thought the same, and declared, from the mere sight of his photograph, that he was false and treacherous, and Heaven knows what else besides; and now she'll not suffer a word in his disparagement. She began exactly as you say you would, by a strong prejudice against him. I remember the day he came down here--her manner towards him was more than distant; and I told my sister Kate how it offended me; and Kate only smiled and said, "Have a little patience, d.i.c.k."'

'And you took the advice? You did have a little patience?'

'Yes; and the end is they are firm friends. I'm not sure they don't correspond.'

'Is there love in the case, then?'

'That is what I cannot make out. So far as I know either of them, there is no trustfulness in their dispositions; each of them must see into the nature of the other. I have heard Joe Atlee say, "With that woman for a wife, a man might safely bet on his success in life." And she herself one day owned, "If a girl was obliged to marry a man without sixpence, she might take Atlee."'

'So, I have it, they will be man and wife yet!'