Charles Lever - Lord Kilgobbin

‘By Jove! I think I should be afraid of such a young lady.’

‘So you would. She has more pluck in her heart than half that blessed province you come from. That’s the blood of the old stock you are often pleased to sneer at, and of which the present will be a lesson to teach you better.’

‘May not the lovely Greek be descended from some ancient stock too? Who is to say what blood of Pericles she had not in her veins? I tell you I’ll not give up the notion that she was a sharer in this glory.’

‘If you’ve got the papers with the account, let me see them, Joe. I’ve half a mind to run down by the night-mail – that is, if I can. Have you got any tin, Atlee?’

‘There were some shillings in one of my pockets last night. How much do you want?’

‘Eighteen-and-six first class, and a few shillings for a cab.’

‘I can manage that; but I’ll go and fetch you the papers, there’s time enough to talk of the journey.’

The newsman had just deposited the Croppy on the table as Joe returned to the breakfast-table, and the story of Kilgobbin headed the first column in large capitals. ‘While our contemporaries,’ it began, ‘are recounting with more than their wonted eloquence the injuries inflicted on three poor labouring men, who, in their ignorance of the locality, had the temerity to ask for alms at Kilgobbin Castle yesterday evening, and were ignominiously driven away from the door by a young lady, whose benevolence was administered through a blunderbuss, we, who form no portion of the polite press, and have no pretension to mix in what are euphuistically called the “best circles” of this capital, would like to ask, for the information of those humble classes among which our readers are found, is it the custom for young ladies to await the absence of their fathers to entertain young gentlemen tourists? and is a reputation for even heroic courage not somewhat dearly purchased at the price of the companionship of the admittedly most profligate man of a vicious and corrupt society? The heroine who defended Kilgobbin can reply to our query.’

Joe Atlee read this paragraph three times over before he carried in the paper to Kearney.

‘Here’s an insolent paragraph, Dick,’ he cried, as he threw the paper to him on the bed. ‘Of course it’s a thing cannot be noticed in any way, but it’s not the less rascally for that.’

‘You know the fellow who edits this paper, Joe?’ said Kearney, trembling with passion.

‘No; my friend is doing his bit of oakum at Kilmainham. They gave him thirteen months, and a fine that he’ll never be able to pay; but what would you do if the fellow who wrote it were in the next room at this moment?’

‘Thrash him within an inch of his life.’

‘And, with the inch of life left him, he’d get strong again and write at you and all belonging to you every day of his existence. Don’t you see that all this license is one of the prices of liberty? There’s no guarding against excesses when you establish a rivalry. The doctors could tell you how many diseased lungs and aneurisms are made by training for a rowing match.’

‘I’ll go down by the mail to-night and see what has given the origin to this scandalous falsehood.’

‘There’s no harm in doing that, especially if you take me with you.’

‘Why should I take you, or for what?’

‘As guide, counsellor, and friend.’

‘Bright thought, when all the money we can muster between us is only enough for one fare.’

‘Doubtless, first class; but we could go third class, two of us for the same money. Do you imagine that Damon and Pythias would have been separated if it came even to travelling in a cow compartment?’

‘I wish you could see that there are circumstances in life where the comic man is out of place.’

‘I trust I shall never discover them; at least, so long as Fate treats me with “heavy tragedy.”’

‘I’m not exactly sure, either, whether they ‘d like to receive you just now at Kilgobbin.’

‘Inhospitable thought! My heart assures me of a most cordial welcome.’

‘And I should only stay a day or two at farthest.’

‘Which would suit me to perfection. I must be back here by Tuesday if I had to walk the distance.’

‘Not at all improbable, so far as I know of your resources.’

‘What a churlish dog it is! Now had you, Master Dick, proposed to me that we should go down and pass a week at a certain small thatched cottage on the banks of the Ban, where a Presbyterian minister with eight olive branches vegetates, discussing tough mutton and tougher theology on Sundays, and getting through the rest of the week with the parables and potatoes, I’d have said, Done!’

‘It was the inopportune time I was thinking of. Who knows what confusion this event may not have thrown them into? If you like to risk the discomfort, I make no objection.’

‘To so heartily expressed an invitation there can be but one answer, I yield.’

‘Now look here, Joe, I’d better be frank with you: don’t try it on at Kilgobbin as you do with me.’

‘You are afraid of my insinuating manners, are you?’

‘I am afraid of your confounded impudence, and of that notion you cannot get rid of, that your cool familiarity is a fashionable tone.’

‘How men mistake themselves. I pledge you my word, if I was asked what was the great blemish in my manner, I’d have said it was bashfulness.’

‘Well, then, it is not!’

‘Are you sure, Dick, are you quite sure?’

‘I am quite sure, and unfortunately for you, you’ll find that the majority agree with me.’

‘“A wise man should guard himself against the defects that he might have, without knowing it.” That is a Persian proverb, which you will find in Hafiz . I believe you never read Hafiz !’

‘No, nor you either.’

‘That’s true; but I can make my own Hafiz , and just as good as the real article. By the way, are you aware that the water-carriers at Tehran sing Lalla Rookh , and believe it a national poem?’

‘I don’t know, and I don’t care.’

‘I’ll bring down an Anacreon with me, and see if the Greek cousin can spell her way through an ode.’

‘And I distinctly declare you shall do no such thing.’

‘Oh dear, oh dear, what an unamiable trait is envy! By the way, was that your frock-coat I wore yesterday at the races?’

‘I think you know it was; at least you remembered it when you tore the sleeve.’

‘True, most true; that torn sleeve was the reason the rascal would only let me have fifteen shillings on it.’

‘And you mean to say you pawned my coat?’

‘I left it in the temporary care of a relative, Dick; but it is a redeemable mortgage, and don’t fret about it.’

‘Ever the same!’

‘No, Dick, that means worse and worse! Now, I am in the process of reformation. The natural selection, however, where honesty is in the series, is a slow proceeding, and the organic changes are very complicated. As I know, however, you attach value to the effect you produce in that coat, I’ll go and recover it. I shall not need Terence or Juvenal till we come back, and I’ll leave them in the avuncular hands till then.’

‘I wonder you’re not ashamed of these miserable straits.’

‘I am very much ashamed of the world that imposes them on me. I’m thoroughly ashamed of that public in lacquered leather, that sees me walking in broken boots. I’m heartily ashamed of that well-fed, well-dressed, sleek society, that never so much as asked whether the intellectual-looking man in the shabby hat, who looked so lovingly at the spiced beef in the window, had dined yet, or was he fasting for a wager?’