Charles Lever - The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. 1

“We must have him at his own price, if he has one. Is he rich?”

“He has an immense estate, but, as I hear, greatly encumbered; but don’t think of money with him, that will never do.”

“What’s the bait, then? Does he care for rank? Has he any children grown up?”

“One son and one daughter are all his family; and as for title, I don’t think that he ‘d exchange that of Knight of Gwynne for a Dukedom. His son is a lieutenant in the Guards.”

“Yes; and the best fellow in the regiment,” broke in Forester. “In every quality of a high-spirited gentleman, Lionel Darcy has no superior.”

“The better deserving of rapid promotion,” said his Lordship, smiling significantly.

“I should be sorry to offer it to him at the expense of his father’s principles,” said Forester.

“Very little fear of your having to do so,” said Heffernan, quickly; “the Knight would be no easy purchase.”

“You must see him, however, Dick.” said the Secretary; “there is no reason why he should not be with us on grounds of conviction. He is a man of enlightened and liberal mind, and surely will not think the worse of a measure because its advocates are in a position to serve his son’s interests.”

“If that topic be kept very studiously out of sight, it were all the more prudent,” said Con, dryly.

“Of course; Forester will pay his visit, and only advert to the matter with caution and delicacy. To gain him to our side is a circumstance of so much moment that I say carte blanche for the terms.”

“I knew the time that a foxhound would have been a higher bribe than a blue ribbon with honest Maurice; but it’s many years since we met, now, and Heaven knows what changes time may have wrought in him. A smile and a soft speech from a pretty woman, or a bold exploit of some hare-brained fellow, were sure to find favor with him, when he would have heard flattery from the lips of royalty without pride or emotion.”

“His colleague in the county is with us; has he any influence over the Knight?”

“Far from it. Mr. Hickman O’Reilly is the last man in the world to have weight with Maurice Darcy, and if it be your intention to make O’Reilly a peer, you could have taken no readier method to arm the Knight against you. No, no; if you really are bent on having him, leave all thought of a purchase aside; let Forester, as the friend and brother officer of young Darcy, go down to Gwynne, make himself as agreeable to the Knight as may be, and when he has one foot on the carriage-step at his departure, turn sharply round, and say, ‘Won’t you vote with us, Knight?’ What between surprise and courtesy, he may be taken too short for reflection, and if he say but ‘Yes,’ ever so low, he’s yours. That’s my advice to you. It may seem a poor chance, but I fairly own I see no better one.”

“I should have thought rank might be acceptable in such a quarter,” said the Secretary, proudly.

“He has it, my Lord, – at least as much as would win all the respect any rank could confer; and besides, these new peerages have no prestige in their favor yet a while; we must wait for another generation. This claret is perfect now, but I should not say it were quite so delicate in flavor the first year it was bottled. The squibs and epigrams on the new promotions are remembered where the blazons of the Heralds’ College are forgotten; that unlucky banker, for instance, that you made a Viscount the other day, both his character and his credit have suffered for it.”

“What was that you allude to? – an epigram, was it?”

“Yes, very short, but scarcely sweet. Here it is: —

you, remember, my Lord, how true both allegations are, —

“‘With a name that is borrow’d, a title that’s bought, Sir William would fain be a gentleman thought; While his Wit is mere cunning, his Courage but vapor, His Pride is but money, his Money but paper.’”

“Very severe, certainly,” said his Lordship, in the same calm tone he ever spoke. “Not your lines, Mr. Heffernan?”

“No, my Lord; a greater than Con Heffernan indited these, – one who did not scruple to reply to yourself in the House in an imitation of your own inimitable manner.”

“Oh, I know whom you mean, – a very witty person indeed,” said the Secretary, smiling; “and if we were to be laughed out of office, he might lead the Opposition. But these are very business-like, matter-of-fact days we ‘re fallen upon. The cabinet that can give away blue ribbons may afford to be indifferent to small jokers. But to revert to matters more immediate: you must start at once, Forester, for the West, see the Knight, and do whatever you can to bring him towards us. I say carte blanche for the terms; I only wish our other elevations to the peerage had half the pretension he has; and, whatever our friend Mr. Heffernan may say, I opine to the mere matter of compact, which says, so much for so much.”

“Here’s success to the mission, however its negotiations incline,” said Heffernan, as he drained off his glass and rose to depart. “We shall see you again within ten days or a fortnight, I suppose?”

“Oh, certainly; I’ll not linger in that wild district an hour longer than I must.” And so, with good night and good wishes, the party separated, – Forester to make his preparations for a journey which, in those days, was looked on as something formidable.

Whatever the merits or demerits of the great question, the legislative union between England and Ireland, – and assuredly we have neither the temptation of duty nor inclination to discuss such here, – the means employed by Ministers to carry the measure through Parliament were in the last degree disgraceful. Never was bribery practised with more open effrontery, never did corruption display itself with more daring indifference to public opinion; the Treasury office was an open mart, where votes were purchased, and men sold their country, delighted, as a candid member of the party confessed, – delighted “to have a country to sell.”

The ardor of a political career, like the passion for the chase, would seem in its high excitement to still many compunctious murmurings of conscience which in calmer moments could not fail to be heard and acknowledged: the desire to succeed, that ever-present impulse to win, steels the heart against impressions which, under less pressing excitements, had been most painful to endure; and, in this way, honorable and high-minded men have often stooped to acts which, with calmer judgment to guide them, they would have rejected with indignation.

Such was Dick Forester’s position at the moment. An aide-de-camp on the staff of the Viceroy, a near relative of the Secretary, he was intrusted with many secret and delicate negotiations, affairs in which, had he been a third party, he would have as scrupulously condemned the tempter as the tempted; the active zeal of agency allayed, however, all such qualms of conscience, and every momentary pang of remorse was swallowed up in the ardor for success.

Few men will deny in the abstract the cruelty of many field-sports they persist in following; fewer still abandon them on such scruples; and while Forester felt half ashamed to himself of the functions committed to him, he would have been sorely disappointed if he had been passed over in the selection of his relative’s political adherents.

Of this nature were some of Dick Forester’s reflections as he posted along towards the West; nor was the scene through which he journeyed suggestive of pleasanter thoughts. If any of our readers should perchance be acquainted with that dreary line of country which lies along the great western road of Ireland, they will not feel surprised if the traveller’s impressions of the land were not of the brightest or fairest. The least reflective of mortals cannot pass through a dreary and poverty-stricken district without imbibing some of the melancholy which broods over the place. Forester was by no means such, and felt deeply and sincerely for the misery he witnessed on every hand, and was in the very crisis of some most patriotic scheme of benevolence, when his carriage arrived in front of the little inn of Kilbeggan. Resisting, without much violence to his inclinations, the civil request of the landlord to alight, he leaned back to resume the broken thread of his lucubrations, while fresh horses were put to. How long he thus waited, or what progress his benign devices accomplished in the mean while, this true history is unable to record; enough if we say that when he next became aware of the incidents then actually happening around him, he discovered that his carriage was standing fast in the same place as at the moment of his arrival, and the rain falling in torrents, as before.