Lord Kilgobbin Part 3

'At Vinegar Hill, when our fathers were fighters, With numbers against them, they cared not a pin; They needed no orders from newspaper writers, To tell them the day it was time to begin.

'To sit here in sadness and silence to bear it, Is harder to face than the battle's loud din; 'Tis the shame that will kill me--I vow it, I swear it?

Now or never's the time, if we mean to begin.'

There was a wild rapture in the way he struck the last chords, that, if it did not evince ecstasy, seemed to counterfeit enthusiasm.

'Very poor doggerel, with all your bravura,' said Kearney sneeringly.

'What would you have? I only got three-and-six for it.'

'You! Is that thing yours?'

'Yes, sir; that thing is mine. And the Castle people think somewhat more gravely about it than you do.'

'At which you are pleased, doubtless?'

'Not pleased, but proud, Master d.i.c.k, let me tell you. It's a very stimulating reflection to the man who dines on an onion, that he can spoil the digestion of another fellow who has been eating turtle.'

'But you may have to go to prison for this.'

'Not if you don't peach on me, for you are the only one who knows the authors.h.i.+p. You see, d.i.c.k, these things are done cautiously. They are dropped into a letter-box with an initial letter, and a clerk hands the payment to some of those itinerant hags that sing the melody, and who can be trusted with the secret as implicitly as the briber at a borough election.'

'I wish you had a better livelihood, Joe.'

'So do I, or that my present one paid better. The fact is, d.i.c.k, patriotism never was worth much as a career till one got to the top of the profession.

But if you mean to sleep at all, old fellow, "it's time to begin,"' and he chanted out the last words in a clear and ringing tone, as he banged the door behind him.

CHAPTER IV

AT 'TRINITY'

It was while the two young men were seated at breakfast that the post arrived, bringing a number of country newspapers, for which, in one shape or other, Joe Atlee wrote something. Indeed, he was an 'own correspondent,'

dating from London, or Paris, or occasionally from Rome, with an easy freshness and a local colour that vouched for authenticity. These journals were of a very political tint, from emerald green to the deepest orange; and, indeed, between two of them--the _Tipperary Pike_ and the _Boyne Water_, hailing from Carrickfergus--there was a controversy of such violence and intemperance of language, that it was a curiosity to see the two papers on the same table: the fact being capable of explanation, that they were both written by Joe Atlee--a secret, however, that he had not confided even to his friend Kearney.

'Will that fellow that signs himself Terry O'Toole in the _Pike_ stand this?' cried Kearney, reading aloud from the _Boyne Water_:--

'"We know the man who corresponds with you under the signature of Terry O'Toole, and it is but one of the aliases under which he has lived since he came out of the Richmond Bridewell, filcher, forger, and false witness.

There is yet one thing he has never tried, which is to behave with a little courage. If he should, however, be able to persuade himself, by the aid of his accustomed stimulants, to accept the responsibility of what he has written, we bind ourselves to pay his expenses to any part of France or Belgium, where he will meet us, and we shall also bind ourselves to give him what his life little ent.i.tles him to, a Christian burial afterwards.

'"No SURRENDER."'

'I am just reading the answer,' said Joe. 'It is very brief: here it is:--

"'If 'No Surrender'--who has been a newsvender in your establishment since you yourself rose from that employ to the editor's chair--will call at this office any morning after distributing his eight copies of your daily issue, we promise to give him such a kicking as he has never experienced during his literary career. TERRY O'TOOLE.'"

'And these are the amenities of journalism,' cried Kearney.

'For the matter of that, you might exclaim at the quack doctor of a fair, and ask, Is this the dignity of medicine?' said Joe. 'There's a head and a tail to every walk in life: even the law has a Chief-Justice at one end and a Jack Ketch at the other.'

'Well, I sincerely wish that those blackguards would first kick and then shoot each other.'

'They'll do nothing of the kind! It's just as likely that they wrote the whole correspondence at the same table and with the same jug of punch between them.'

'If so, I don't envy you your career or your comrades.'

'It's a lottery with big prizes in the wheel all the same! I could tell you the names of great swells, Master d.i.c.k, who have made very proud places for themselves in England by what you call "journalism." In France it is the one road to eminence. Cannot you imagine, besides, what capital fun it is to be able to talk to scores of people you were never introduced to? to tell them an infinity of things on public matters, or now and then about themselves; and in so many moods as you have tempers, to warn them, scold, compa.s.sionate, correct, console, or abuse them? to tell them not to be over-confident or b.u.mptious, or purse-proud--'

'And who are _you_, may I ask, who presume to do all this?'

'That's as it may be. We are occasionally Guizot, Thiers, Prevot Paradol, Lytton, Disraeli, or Joe Atlee.'

'Modest, at all events.'

'And why not say what I feel--not what I have done, but what is in me to do? Can't you understand this: it would never occur to me that I could vault over a five-bar gate if I had been born a cripple? but the conscious possession of a little pliant muscularity might well tempt me to try it.'

'And get a cropper for your pains.'

'Be it so. Better the cropper than pa.s.s one's life looking over the top rail and envying the fellow that had cleared it; but what's this? here's a letter here: it got in amongst the newspapers. I say, d.i.c.k, do you stand this sort of thing?' said he, as he read the address.

'Stand what sort of thing?' asked the other, half angrily.

'Why, to be addressed in this fas.h.i.+on? The Honourable Richard Kearney, Trinity College, Dublin.'

'It is from my sister,' said Kearney, as he took the letter impatiently from his hand; 'and I can only tell you, if she had addressed me otherwise, I'd not have opened her letter.'

'But come now, old fellow, don't lose temper about it. You have a right to this designation, or you have not--'

'I'll spare all your eloquence by simply saying, that I do not look on you as a Committee of Privilege, and I'm not going to plead before you.

Besides,' added he, 'it's only a few minutes ago you asked me to credit you for something you have not shown yourself to be, but that you intended and felt that the world should see you were, one of these days.'

'So, then, you really mean to bring your claim before the Lords?'

Kearney, if he heard, did not heed this question, but went on to read his letter. 'Here's a surprise!' cried he. 'I was telling you, the other day, about a certain cousin of mine we were expecting from Italy.'

'The daughter of that swindler, the mock prince?'

'The man's character I'll not stand up for, but his rank and t.i.tle are alike indisputable,' said Kearney haughtily.

'With all my heart. We have soared into a high atmosphere all this day, and I hope my respiration will get used to it in time. Read away!'

It was not till after a considerable interval that Kearney had recovered composure enough to read, and when he did so it was with a brow furrowed with irritation:--

'KILGOBBIN.

'My dear d.i.c.k,--We had just sat down to tea last night, and papa was fidgeting about the length of time his letter to Italy had remained unacknowledged, when a sharp ring at the house-door startled us. We had been hearing a good deal of searches for arms lately in the neighbourhood, and we looked very blankly at each other for a moment. We neither of us said so, but I feel sure our thoughts were on the same track, and that we believed Captain Rock, or the head-centre, or whatever be his latest t.i.tle, had honoured us with a call. Old Mathew seemed of the same mind too, for he appeared at the door with that venerable blunderbuss we have so often played with, and which, if it had any evil thoughts in its head, I must have been tried for a murder years ago, for I know it was loaded since I was a child, but that the lock has for the same s.p.a.ce of time not been on speaking terms with the barrel. While, then, thus confirmed in our suspicions of mischief by Mat's warlike aspect, we both rose from the table, the door opened, and a young girl rushed in, and fell--actually threw herself into papa's arms. It was Nina herself, who had come all the way from Rome alone, that is, without any one she knew, and made her way to us here, without any other guidance than her own good wits.