Lord Kilgobbin

Like all men who aspire to something in Ireland, Kearney desired to see his son a barrister; for great as are the rewards of that high career, they are not the fascinations which appeal most strongly to the squirearchy, who love to think that a country gentleman may know a little law and be never the richer for it – may have acquired a profession, and yet never know what was a client or what a fee.

That Kearney of Kilgobbin Castle should be reduced to tramping his way down the Bachelor’s Walk to the Four Courts, with a stuff bag carried behind him, was not to be thought of; but there were so many positions in life, so many situations for which that gifted creature the barrister of six years’ standing was alone eligible, that Kearney was very anxious his son should be qualified to accept that £1000 or £1800 a year which a gentleman could hold without any shadow upon his capacity, or the slightest reflection on his industry.

Dick Kearney, however, had not only been living a very gay life in town, but, to avail himself of a variety of those flattering attentions which this interested world bestows by preference on men of some pretension, had let it be believed that he was the heir to a very considerable estate, and, by great probability, also to a title. To have admitted that he thought it necessary to follow any career at all, would have been to abdicate these pretensions, and so he evaded that question of the law in all discussions with his father, sometimes affecting to say he had not made up his mind, or that he had scruples of conscience about a barrister’s calling, or that he doubted whether the Bar of Ireland was not, like most high institutions, going to be abolished by Act of Parliament, and all the litigation of the land be done by deputy in Westminster Hall.

On the morning after the visitors took their departure from Kilgobbin, old Kearney, who usually relapsed from any exercise of hospitality into a more than ordinary amount of parsimony, sat thinking over the various economies by which the domestic budget could be squared, and after a very long séance with old Gill, in which the question of raising some rents and diminishing certain bounties was discussed, he sent up the steward to Mr. Richard’s room to say he wanted to speak to him.

Dick at the time of the message was stretched full length on a sofa, smoking a meerschaum, and speculating how it was that the ‘swells’ took to Joe Atlee, and what they saw in that confounded snob, instead of himself. Having in a degree satisfied himself that Atlee’s success was all owing to his intense and outrageous flattery, he was startled from his reverie by the servant’s entrance.

‘How is he this morning, Tim?’ asked he, with a knowing look. ‘Is he fierce – is there anything up – have the heifers been passing the night in the wheat, or has any one come over from Moate with a bill?’

‘No, sir, none of them; but his blood’s up about something. Ould Gill is gone down the stair swearing like mad, and Miss Kate is down the road with a face like a turkey-cock.’

‘I think you’d better say I was out, Tim – that you couldn’t find me in my room.’

‘I daren’t, sir. He saw that little Skye terrier of yours below, and he said to me, “Mr. Dick is sure to be at home; tell him I want him immediately.”’

‘But if I had a bad headache, and couldn’t leave my bed, wouldn’t that be excuse enough?’

‘It would make him come here. And if I was you, sir, I’d go where I could get away myself, and not where he could stay as long as he liked.’

‘There’s something in that. I’ll go, Tim. Say I’ll be down in a minute.’

Very careful to attire himself in the humblest costume of his wardrobe, and specially mindful that neither studs nor watch-chain should offer offensive matter of comment, he took his way towards the dreary little den, which, filled with old top-boots, driving-whips, garden-implements, and fishing-tackle, was known as ‘the lord’s study,’ but whose sole literary ornament was a shelf of antiquated almanacs. There was a strange grimness about his father’s aspect which struck young Kearney as he crossed the threshold. His face wore the peculiar sardonic expression of one who had not only hit upon an expedient, but achieved a surprise, as he held an open letter in one hand and motioned with the other to a seat.

‘I’ve been waiting till these people were gone, Dick – till we had a quiet house of it – to say a few words to you. I suppose your friend Atlee is not coming back here?’

‘I suppose not, sir.’

‘I don’t like him, Dick; and I’m much mistaken if he is a good fellow.’

‘I don’t think he is actually a bad fellow, sir. He is often terribly hard up and has to do scores of shifty things, but I never found him out in anything dishonourable or false.’

‘That’s a matter of taste, perhaps. Maybe you and I might differ about what was honourable or what was false. At all events, he was under our roof here, and if those nobs – or swells, I believe you call them – were like to be of use to any of us, we, the people that were entertaining them, were the first to be thought of; but your pleasant friend thought differently, and made such good use of his time that he cut you out altogether, Dick – he left you nowhere.’

‘Really, sir, it never occurred to me till now to take that view of the situation.’

‘Well, take that view of it now, and see how you’ll like it! You have your way to work in life as well as Mr. Atlee. From all I can judge, you’re scarcely as well calculated to do it as he is. You have not his smartness, you have not his brains, and you have not his impudence – and, ‘faith, I’m much mistaken but it’s the best of the three!’

‘I don’t perceive, sir, that we are necessarily pitted against each other at all.’

‘Don’t you? Well, so much the worse for you if you don’t see that every fellow that has nothing in the world is the rival of every other fellow that’s in the same plight. For every one that swims, ten, at least, sink.’

‘Perhaps, sir, to begin, I never fully realised the first condition. I was not exactly aware that I was without anything in the world.’

‘I’m coming to that, if you’ll have a little patience. Here is a letter from Tom McKeown, of Abbey Street. I wrote to him about raising a few hundreds on mortgage, to clear off some of our debts, and have a trifle in hand for drainage and to buy stock, and he tells me that there’s no use in going to any of the money-lenders so long as your extravagance continues to be the talk of the town. Ay, you needn’t grow red nor frown that way. The letter was a private one to myself, and I’m only telling it to you in confidence. Hear what he says: “You have a right to make your son a fellow-commoner if you like, and he has a right, by his father’s own showing, to behave like a man of fortune; but neither of you have a right to believe that men who advance money will accept these pretensions as good security, or think anything but the worse of you both for your extravagance.”’

‘And you don’t mean to horsewhip him, sir?’ burst out Dick.

‘Not, at any rate, till I pay off two thousand pounds that I owe him, and two years’ interest at six per cent. that he has suffered me to become his debtor for.’

‘Lame as he is, I’ll kick him before twenty-four hours are over.’

‘If you do, he’ll shoot you like a dog, and it wouldn’t be the first time he handled a pistol. No, no, Master Dick. Whether for better or worse, I can’t tell, but the world is not what it was when I was your age. There’s no provoking a man to a duel nowadays; nor no posting him when he won’t fight. Whether it’s your fortune is damaged or your feelings hurt, you must look to the law to redress you; and to take your cause into your own hands is to have the whole world against you.’

‘And this insult is, then, to be submitted to?’

‘It is, first of all, to be ignored. It’s the same as if you never heard it. Just get it out of your head, and listen to what he says. Tom McKeown is one of the keenest fellows I know; and he has business with men who know not only what’s doing in Downing Street, but what’s going to be done there. Now here’s two things that are about to take place: one is the same as done, for it’s all ready prepared – the taking away the landlord’s right, and making the State determine what rent the tenant shall pay, and how long his tenure will be. The second won’t come for two sessions after, but it will be law all the same. There’s to be no primogeniture class at all, no entail on land, but a subdivision, like in America and, I believe, in France.’

‘I don’t believe it, sir. These would amount to a revolution.’

‘Well, and why not? Ain’t we always going through a sort of mild revolution? What’s parliamentary government but revolution, weakened, if you like, like watered grog, but the spirit is there all the same. Don’t fancy that, because you can give it a hard name, you can destroy it. But hear what Tom is coming to. “Be early,” says he, “take time by the forelock: get rid of your entail and get rid of your land. Don’t wait till the Government does both for you, and have to accept whatever condition the law will cumber you with, but be before them! Get your son to join you in docking the entail; petition before the court for a sale, yourself or somebody for you; and wash your hands clean of it all. It’s bad property, in a very ticklish country,” says Tom – and he dashes the words – “bad property in a very ticklish country; and if you take my advice, you’ll get clear of both.” You shall read it all yourself by-and-by; I am only giving you the substance of it, and none of the reasons.’

‘This is a question for very grave consideration, to say the least of it. It is a bold proposal.’

‘So it is, and so says Tom himself; but he adds: “There’s no time to be lost; for once it gets about how Gladstone’s going to deal with land, and what Bright has in his head for eldest sons, you might as well whistle as try to dispose of that property.” To be sure, he says,’ added he, after a pause – ‘he says, “If you insist on holding on – if you cling to the dirty acres because they were your father’s and your great-grandfather’s, and if you think that being Kearney of Kilgobbin is a sort of title, in the name of God stay where you are, but keep down your expenses. Give up some of your useless servants, reduce your saddle-horses” —my saddle-horses, Dick! “Try if you can live without foxhunting.” Foxhunting! “Make your daughter know that she needn’t dress like a duchess” – poor Kitty’s very like a duchess; “and, above all, persuade your lazy, idle, and very self-sufficient son to take to some respectable line of life to gain his living. I wouldn’t say that he mightn’t be an apothecary; but if he liked law better than physic, I might be able to do something for him in my own office.”’

‘Have you done, sir?’ said Dick hastily, as his father wiped his spectacles, and seemed to prepare for another heat.

‘He goes on to say that he always requires one hundred and fifty guineas fee with a young man; “but we are old friends, Mathew Kearney,” says he, “and we’ll make it pounds.”’

‘To fit me to be an attorney!’ said Dick, articulating each word with a slow and almost savage determination.

‘‘Faith! it would have been well for us if one of the family had been an attorney before now. We’d never have gone into that action about the mill-race, nor had to pay those heavy damages for levelling Moore’s barn. A little law would have saved us from evicting those blackguards at Mullenalick, or kicking Mr. Hall’s bailiff before witnesses.’

To arrest his father’s recollection of the various occasions on which his illegality had betrayed him into loss and damage, Dick blurted out, ‘I’d rather break stones on the road than I’d be an attorney.’

‘Well, you’ll not have to go far for employment, for they are just laying down new metal this moment; and you needn’t lose time over it,’ said Kearney, with a wave of his hand, to show that the audience was over and the conference ended.

‘There’s just one favour I would ask, sir,’ said Dick, with his hand on the lock.

‘You want a hammer, I suppose,’ said his father, with a grin – ‘isn’t that it?’

With something that, had it been uttered aloud, sounded very like a bitter malediction, Dick rushed from the room, slamming the door violently after him as he went.

‘That’s the temper that helps a man to get on in life,’ said the old man, as he turned once more to his accounts, and set to work to see where he had blundered in his figures.