Lord Kilgobbin Part 36

'It's himself there likes a rasher--when he can get it,' said she, with a leer, and a motion of her thumb towards the adjoining room.

'Whom do you mean?' asked he, half to learn what and how much she knew of his neighbour.

'Oh! don't I know him well?--Dan Donogan,' replied she, with a grin.

'Didn't I see him in the dock with Smith O'Brien in '48, and wasn't he in trouble again after he got his pardon; and won't he always be in trouble?'

'Hus.h.!.+ don't talk so loud,' cried d.i.c.k warningly.

'He'd not hear me now if I was screechin'; it's the only time he sleeps hard; for he gets up about three or half-past--before it's day--and he squeezes through the bars of the window, and gets out into the park, and he takes his exercise there for two hours, most of the time running full speed and keeping himself in fine wind. Do you know what he said to me the other day? "Molly," says he, "when I know I can get between those bars there, and run round the college park in three minutes and twelve seconds, I feel that there's not many a gaol in Ireland can howld, and the divil a policeman in the island could catch, me."' And she had to lean over the back of a chair to steady herself while she laughed at the conceit.

'I think, after all,' said Kearney, 'I'd rather keep out of the sc.r.a.pe than trust to that way of escaping it.'

'_He_ wouldn't,' said she. 'He'd rather be seducin' soldiers in Barrack Street, or swearing in a new Fenian, or nailing a death-warnin' on a hall door, than he'd be lord mayor! If he wasn't in mischief he'd like to be in his grave.'

'And what comes of it all?' said Kearney, scarcely giving any exact meaning to his words.

'That's what I do be saying myself,' cried the hag. 'When they can transport you for singing a ballad, and send you to pick oak.u.m for a green cravat, it's time to take to some other trade than patriotism!' And with this reflection she shuffled away, to procure the materials for breakfast.

The fresh rolls, the watercress, a couple of red herrings devilled as those ancient damsels are expert in doing, and a smoking dish of rashers and eggs, flanked by a hissing tea-kettle, soon made their appearance, the hag a.s.suring Kearney that a stout knock with the poker on the back of the grate would summon Mr. Donogan almost instantaneously--so rapidly, indeed, and with such indifference as to raiment, that, as she modestly declared, 'I have to take to my heels the moment I call him,' and the modest avowal was confirmed by her hasty departure.

The a.s.surance was so far correct, that scarcely had Kearney replaced the poker, when the door opened, and one of the strangest figures he had ever beheld presented itself in the room. He was a short, thick-set man with a profusion of yellowish hair, which, divided in the middle of the head, hung down on either side to his neck--beard and moustache of the same hue, left little of the face to be seen but a pair of l.u.s.trous blue eyes, deep-sunken in their orbits, and a short wide-nostrilled nose, which bore the closest resemblance to a lion's. Indeed, a most absurd likeness to the king of beasts was the impression produced on Kearney as this wild-looking fellow bounded forward, and stood there amazed at finding a stranger to confront him.

His dress was a flannel-s.h.i.+rt and trousers, and a pair of old slippers which had once been Kearney's own.

'I was told by the college woman how I was to summon you, Mr. Donogan,'

said Kearney good-naturedly. 'You are not offended with the liberty?'

'Are you d.i.c.k?' asked the other, coming forward.

'Yes. I think most of my friends know me by that name.'

'And the old devil has told you mine?' asked he quickly.

'No, I believe I discovered that for myself. I tumbled over some of your things last night, and saw a letter addressed to you.'

'You didn't read it?'

'Certainly not. It fell out of your pocket-book, and I put it back there.'

'So the old hag didn't blab on me? I'm anxious about this, because it's got out somehow that I'm back again. I landed at Kenmare in a fis.h.i.+ng-boat from the New York packet, the _Osprey_, on Tuesday fortnight, and three of the newspapers had it before I was a week on sh.o.r.e.'

'Our breakfast is getting cold; sit down here and let me help you. Will you begin with a rasher?'

Not replying to the invitation, Donogan covered his plate with bacon, and leaning his arm on the table, stared fixedly at Kearney.

'I'm as glad as fifty pounds of it,' muttered he slowly to himself.

'Glad of what?'

'Glad that you're not a swell, Mr. Kearney,' said he gravely. '"The Honourable Richard Kearney," whenever I repeated that to myself, it gave me a cold sweat. I thought of velvet collars and a cravat with a grand pin in it, and a stuck-up creature behind both, that wouldn't condescend to sit down with me.'

'I'm sure Joe Atlee gave you no such impression of me.'

A short grunt that might mean anything was all the reply.

'He was my chum, and knew me better,' reiterated the other.

'He knows many a thing he doesn't say, and he says plenty that he doesn't know. "Kearney will be a swell," said I, "and he'll turn upon me just out of contempt for my condition.'"

'That was judging me hardly, Mr. Donogan.'

'No, it wasn't; it's the treatment the mangy dogs meet all the world over.

Why is England insolent to us, but because we're poor--answer me that? Are we mangy? Don't you feel mangy?--I know _I_ do!'

d.i.c.k smiled a sort of mild contradiction, but said nothing.

'Now that I see you, Mr. Kearney,' said the other, 'I'm as glad as a ten-pound note about a letter I wrote you--'

'I never received a letter from you.'

'Sure I know you didn't! haven't I got it here?' And he drew forth a square-shaped packet and held it up before him. 'I never said that I sent it, nor I won't send it now: here's its present address,' added he, as he threw it on the fire and pressed it down with his foot.

'Why not have given it to me now?' asked the other.

'Because three minutes will tell you all that was in it, and better than writing; for I can reply to anything that wants an explanation, and that's what a letter cannot. First of all, do you know that Mr. Claude Barry, your county member, has asked for the Chiltern, and is going to resign?'

'No, I have not heard it.'

'Well, it's a fact. They are going to make him a second secretary somewhere, and pension him off. He has done his work: he voted an Arms Bill and an Insurrection Act, and he had the influenza when the amnesty pet.i.tion was presented, and sure no more could be expected from any man.'

'The question scarcely concerns me; our interest in the county is so small now, we count for very little.'

'And don't you know how to make your influence greater?'

'I cannot say that I do.'

'Go to the poll yourself, Richard Kearney, and be the member.'

'You are talking of an impossibility, Mr. Donogan. First of all, we have no fortune, no large estates in the county, with a wide tenantry and plenty of votes; secondly, we have no place amongst the county families, as our old name and good blood might have given us; thirdly, we are of the wrong religion, and, I take it, with as wrong politics; and lastly, we should not know what to do with the prize if we had won it.'

'Wrong in every one of your propositions--wholly wrong,' cried the other.

'The party that will send you in won't want to be bribed, and they'll be proud of a man who doesn't overtop them with his money. You don't need the big families, for you'll beat them. Your religion is the right one, for it will give you the Priests; and your politics shall be Repeal, and it will give you the Peasants; and as to not knowing what to do when you're elected, are you so mighty well off in life that you've nothing to wish for?'

'I can scarcely say that,' said d.i.c.k, smiling.

'Give me a few minutes' attention,' said Donogan, 'and I think I'll show you that I've thought this matter out and out; indeed, before I sat down to write to you, I went into all the details.'

And now, with a clearness and a fairness that astonished Kearney, this strange-looking fellow proceeded to prove how he had weighed the whole difficulty, and saw how, in the nice balance of the two great parties who would contest the seat, the Repealer would step in and steal votes from both.