Lord Kilgobbin

'All Ireland knows of him; and, after all, Mat Kearney, she has only done what her mother did before her.'

'Poor Matty!' said Kearney, as he drew his hand across his eyes.

'Ay, ay! Poor Matty, if you like; but Matty was a beauty run to seed, and, like the rest of them, she married the first good-looking vagabond she saw.

Now, this girl was in the very height and bloom of her beauty, and she took a fellow for other qualities than his whiskers or his legs. They tell me he isn't even well-looking--so that I have hopes of her.'

'Well, well,' said Kearney, 'he has done you a good turn, anyhow--he has got Peter Gill out of the country.'

'And it's the one thing that I can't forgive him, Mat, just the one thing that's fretting me now. I was living in hopes to see that scoundrel Peter on the table, and Counsellor Holmes baiting him in a cross-examination. I wanted to see how the lawyer wouldn't leave him a rag of character or a strip of truth to cover himself with. How he'd tear off his evasions, and confront him with his own lies, till he wouldn't know what he was saying or where he was sitting! I wanted to hear the description he would give of him to the jury; and I'd go home to my dinner after that, and not wait for the verdict.'

'All the same, I'm glad we're rid of Peter.'

'Of course you are. You're a man, and well pleased when your enemy runs away; but if you were a woman, Mat Kearney, you'd rather he'd stand out boldly and meet you, and fight his battle to the end. But they haven't done with me yet. I'll put that little blackguard attorney, that said my letter was a lease, into Chancery; and it will go hard with me if I don't have him struck off the rolls. There's a small legacy of five hundred pounds left me the other day, and, with the blessing of Providence, the Common Pleas shall have it. Don't shake your head, Mat Kearney. I'm not robbing any one. Your daughter will have enough and to spare--'

'Oh, G.o.dmother,' cried Kate imploringly.

'It wasn't I, my darling, that said the five hundred would be better spent on wedding-clothes or house-linen. That delicate and refined suggestion was your father's. It was his lords.h.i.+p made the remark.'

It was a fortunate accident at that conjuncture that a servant should announce the arrival of Mr. Flood, the Tory J.P., who, hearing of Donogan's escape, had driven over to confer with his brother magistrate. Lord Kilgobbin was not sorry to quit the field, where he'd certainly earned few laurels, and hastened down to meet his colleague.

CHAPTER Lx.x.xV

THE END

While the two justices and Curtis discussed the unhappy condition of Ireland, and deplored the fact that the law-breaker never appealed in vain to the sympathies of a people whose instincts were adverse to discipline, Flood's estimate of Donogan went very far to reconcile Kilgobbin to Nina's marriage.

'Out of Ireland, you'll see that man has stuff in him to rise to eminence and station. All the qualities of which home manufacture would only make a rebel will combine to form a man of infinite resource and energy in America. Have you never imagined, Mr. Kearney, that if a man were to employ the muscular energy to make his way through a drawing-room that he would use to force his pa.s.sage through a mob, the effort would be misplaced, and the man himself a nuisance? Our

While they debated such points as these within-doors, d.i.c.k Kearney and Atlee sat on the steps of the hall door and smoked their cigars.

'I must say, Joe,' said d.i.c.k, 'that your accustomed acuteness cuts but a very poor figure in the present case. It was no later than last night you told me that Nina was madly in love with you. Do you remember, as we went upstairs to bed, what you said on the landing? "That girl is my own. I may marry her to-morrow, or this day three months."'

'And I was right.'

'So right were you that she is at this moment the wife of another.'

'And cannot you see why?'

'I suppose I can: she preferred him to you, and I scarcely blame her.'

'No such thing; there was no thought of preference in the matter. If you were not one of those fellows who mistake an ill.u.s.tration, and see everything in a figure but the parallel, I should say that I had trained too finely. Now had she been thoroughbred, I was all right; as a c.o.c.ktail, I was all wrong.'

'I own I cannot follow you.'

'Well, the woman was angry, and she married that fellow out of pique.'

'Out of pique?'

'I repeat it. It was a pure case of temper. I would not ask her to sing. I even found fault with the way she gave the rebel ballad. I told her there was an old lady--Americanly speaking--at the corner of College Green, who enunciated the words better, and then I sat down to whist, and would not even vouchsafe a glance in return for those looks of alternate rage or languishment she threw across the table. She was frantic. I saw it. There was nothing she wouldn't have done. I vow she'd have married even _you_ at that moment. And with all that, she'd not have done it if she'd been "clean-bred." Come, come, don't flare up, and look as if you'd strike me.

On the mother's side she was a Kearney, and all the blood of loyalty in her veins; but there must have been something wrong with the Prince of Delos.

Dido was very angry, but her breeding saved her; _she_ didn't take a head-centre because she quarrelled with aeneas.'

'You are, without exception, the most conceited--'

'No, not a.s.s--don't say a.s.s, for I'm nothing of the kind. Conceited, if you like, or rather if your natural politeness insists on saying it, and cannot distinguish between the vanity of a puppy and the self-consciousness of real power; but come, tell me of something pleasanter than all this personal discussion--how did mademoiselle convey her tidings? have you seen her note? was it "transport"? was it high-pitched, or apologetic?'

'Kate read it to me, and I thought it reasonable enough. She had done a daring thing, and she knew it; she hoped the best, and in any case she was not faint-hearted.'

'Any mention of me?'

'Not a word--your name does not occur.'

'I thought not; she had not pluck for that. Poor girl, the blow is heavier than I meant it.'

'She speaks of Walpole; she incloses a few lines to him, and tells my sister where she will find a small packet of trinkets and such like he had given her.'

'Natural enough all that. There was no earthly reason why she shouldn't be able to talk of Walpole as easily as of Colenso or the cattle plague; but you see she could not trust herself to approach _my_ name.'

'You'll provoke me to kick you, Atlee.'

'In that case I shall sit where I am. But I was going to remark that as I shall start for town by the next train, and intend to meet Walpole, if your sister desires it, I shall have much pleasure in taking charge of that note to his address.'

'All right, I'll tell her. I see that she and Miss Betty are about to drive over to O'Shea's Barn, and I'll give your message at once.'

While d.i.c.k hastened away on his errand, Joe Atlee sat alone, musing and thoughtful. I have no reason to presume my reader cares for his reflections, nor to know the meaning of a strange smile, half scornful and half sad, that played upon his face. At last he rose slowly, and stood looking up at the grim old castle, and its quaint blending of ancient strength and modern deformity. 'Life here, I take it, will go on pretty much as before. All the acts of this drama will resemble each other, but my own little melodrama must open soon. I wonder what sort of house there will be for Joe Atlee's benefit.'

Atlee was right. Kilgobbin Castle fell back to the ways in which our first chapter found it, and other interests--especially those of Kate's approaching marriage--soon effaced the memory of Nina's flight and runaway match. By that happy law by which the waves of events follow and obliterate each other, the present glided back into the past, and the past faded till its colours grew uncertain.

On the second evening after Nina's departure, Atlee stood on the pier of Kingstown as the packet drew up at the jetty. Walpole saw him, and waved his hand in friendly greeting. 'What news from Kilgobbin?' cried he, as he landed.

'Nothing very rose-coloured,' said Atlee, as he handed the note.

'Is this true?' said Walpole, as a slight tremor shook his voice.

'All true.'

'Isn't it Irish?--Irish the whole of it.'

'So they said down there, and, stranger than all, they seemed rather proud of it.'

THE END