Charles Lever - Lord Kilgobbin

‘What for? What is it all about?’

‘A new ballad he has published; but which, for the matter of that, they were singing at every corner as I came along.’

‘Was it good? Did you buy a copy?’

‘Buy a copy? I should think not.’

‘Couldn’t your patriotism stand the test of a penny?’

‘It might if I wanted the production, which I certainly did not; besides, there is a run upon this, and they were selling it at sixpence.’

‘Hurrah! There’s hope for Ireland after all! Shall I sing it for you, old fellow? Not that you deserve it. English corruption has damped the little Irish ardour that old rebellion once kindled in your heart; and if you could get rid of your brogue, you’re ready to be loyal. You shall hear it, however, all the same.’ And taking up a very damaged-looking guitar, he struck a few bold chords, and began: —

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 Dick, 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 authorship. You see, Dick, 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, Dick, 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.

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 entitles 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 Dick, 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, compassionate, correct, console, or abuse them? to tell them not to be over-confident or bumptious, 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, Prévot 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 pass 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, Dick, do you stand this sort of thing?’ said he, as he read the address.