The Balcony Creaked and Trembled, And at Last Gave Way
A score of sticks rained their blows on the luckless young man, and each time that he tried to rise he was struck back and rolled over by a blow or a kick, till at length he lay still and senseless on the sward, his face covered with blood and his clothes in ribbons.
‘Put him in a cart, boys, and take him off to the gaol,’ said the attorney, McEvoy. ‘We’ll be in a scrape about all this, if we don’t makehimin the wrong.’
His audience fully appreciated the counsel, and while a few were busied in carrying old Gill to the house—for a broken leg made him unable to reach it alone—the others placed O’Shea on some straw in a cart, and set out with him to Kilbeggan.
‘It is not a trespass at all,’ said McEvoy. ‘I’ll make it a burglary and forcible entry, and if he recovers at all, I’ll stake my reputation I transport him for seven years.’
A hearty murmur of approval met the speech, and the procession, with the cart at their head, moved on towards the town.
It was the Tory magistrate, Mr. Flood—the same who had ransacked Walpole’s correspondence—before whom the informations were sworn against Gorman O’Shea, and the old justice of the peace was, in secret, not sorry to see the question of land-tenure a source of dispute and quarrel amongst the very party who were always inveighing against the landlords.
When Lord Kilgobbin arrived at Kilbeggan it was nigh midnight, and as young O’Shea was at that moment a patient in the gaol infirmary, and sound asleep, it was decided between Kearney and his son that they would leave him undisturbed till the following morning.
Late as it was, Kearney was so desirous to know the exact narrative of events that he resolved on seeing Mr. Flood at once. Though Dick Kearney remonstrated with his father, and reminded him that old Tom Flood, as he was called, was a bitter Tory, had neither a civil word nor a kind thought for his adversaries in politics, Kearney was determined not to be turned from his purpose by any personal consideration, and being assured by the innkeeper that he was sure to find Mr. Flood in his dining-room and over his wine, he set out for the snug cottage at the entrance of the town, where the old justice of the peace resided.
Just as he had been told, Mr. Flood was still in the dinner-room, and with his guest, Tony Adams, the rector, seated with an array of decanters between them.
‘Kearney—Kearney!’ cried Flood, as he read the card the servant handed him. ‘Is it the fellow who calls himself Lord Kilgobbin, I wonder?’
‘Maybe so,’ growled Adams, in a deep guttural, for he disliked the effort of speech.
‘I don’t know him, nor do I want to know him. He is one of your half-and-half Liberals that, to my thinking, are worse than the rebels themselves! What is this here in pencil on the back of the card?’ Mr. K. begs to apologise for the hour of his intrusion, and earnestly entreats a few minutes from Mr. Flood. ‘Show him in, Philip, show him in; and bring some fresh glasses.’
Kearney made his excuses with a tact and politeness which spoke of a time when he mixed freely with the world, and old Flood was so astonished by the ease and good-breeding of his visitor that his own manner became at once courteous and urbane.
‘Make no apologies about the hour, Mr. Kearney,’ said he. ‘An old bachelor’s house is never very tight in discipline. Allow me to introduce Mr. Adams, Mr. Kearney, the best preacher in Ireland, and as good a judge of port wine as of theology.’
The responsive grunt of the parson was drowned in the pleasant laugh of the others, as Kearney sat down and filled his glass. In a very few words he related the reason of his visit to the town, and asked Mr. Flood to tell him what he knew of the late misadventure.
‘Sworn information, drawn up by that worthy man, Pat McEvoy, the greatest rascal in Europe, and I hope I don’t hurt you by saying it, Mr. Kearney. Sworn information of a burglarious entry, and an aggravated assault on the premises and person of one Peter Gill, another local blessing—bad luck to him. The aforesaid—if I spoke of hi before—Gorman O’Shea, having,suadente diabolo, smashed down doors and windows, palisadings and palings, and broke open cabinets, chests, cupboards, and other contrivances. In a word, he went into another man’s house, and when asked what he did there, he threw the proprietor out of the window. There’s the whole of it.’
‘Where was the house?’
‘O’Shea’s Barn.’
‘But surely O’Shea’s Barn, being the residence and property of his aunt, there was no impropriety in his going there?’
‘The informant states that the place was in the tenancy of this said Gill, one of your own people, Mr. Kearney. I wish you luck of him.’
‘I disown him, root and branch; he is a disgrace to any side. And where is Miss Betty O’Shea?’
‘In a convent or a monastery, they say. She has turned abbess or monk; but, upon my conscience, from the little I’ve seen of her, if a strong will and a plucky heart be the qualifications, she might be the Pope!’
‘And are the young man’s injuries serious? Is he badly hurt? for they would not let me see him at the gaol.’
‘Serious, I believe they are. He is cut cruelly about the face and head, and his body bruised all over. The finest peasantry have a taste for kicking with strong brogues on them, Mr. Kearney, that cannot be equalled.’
‘I wish with all my heart they’d kick the English out of Ireland!’ cried Kearney, with a savage energy.
‘‘Faith! if they go on governing us in the present fashion, I do not say I’ll make any great objection. Eh, Adams?’
‘Maybe so!’ was the slow and very guttural reply, as the fat man crossed his hands on his waistcoat.
‘I’m sick of them all, Whigs and Tories,’ said Kearney.
Is not every Irish gentleman sick of them, Mr. Kearney? Ain’t you sick of being cheated and cajoled, and ain’twesick of being cheated and insulted? They seek to conciliateyouby outragingus. Don’t you think we could settle our own differences better amongst ourselves? It was Philpot Curran said of the fleas in Manchester, that if they’d all pulled together, they’d have pulled him out of bed. Now, Mr. Kearney, what if we all took to “pulling together?”’
‘We cannot get rid of the notion that we’d be out-jockeyed,’ said Kearney slowly.
‘Weknow,’ cried the other, ‘that we should be out-numbered, and that is worse. Eh, Adams?’
‘Ay!’ sighed Adams, who did not desire to be appealed to by either side.
‘Now we’re alone here, and no eavesdropper near us, tell me fairly, Kearney, are you better because we are brought down in the world? Are you richer—are you greater—are you happier?’
‘I believe we are, Mr. Flood, and I’ll tell you why I say so.’
I’ll be shot if I hear you, that’s all. Fill your glass. That’s old port that John Beresford tasted in the Custom-House Docks seventy-odd years ago, and you are the only Whig living that ever drank a drop of it!’
‘I am proud to be the first exception, and I go so far as to believe—I shall not be the last!’
‘I’ll send a few bottles over to that boy in the infirmary. It cannot but be good for him,’ said Flood.
‘Take care, for Heaven’s sake, if he be threatened with inflammation. Do nothing without the doctor’s leave.’
‘I wonder why the people who are so afraid of inflammation, are so fond of rebellion,’ said he sarcastically.
‘Perhaps I could tell you that, too—’
‘No, do not—do not, I beseech you; reading the Whig Ministers’ speeches has given me such a disgust to all explanations, I’d rather concede anything than hear how it could be defended! Apparently Mr. Disraeli is of my mind also, for he won’t support Paul Hartigan’s motion.’
‘What was Hartigan’s motion?’
‘For the papers, or the correspondence, or whatever they called it, that passed between Danesbury and Dan Donogan.’
‘But there was none.’
‘Is that all you know of it? They were as thick as two thieves. It was “Dear Dane” and “Dear Dan” between them. “Stop the shooting. We want a light calendar at the summer assizes,” says one. “You shall have forty thousand pounds yearly for a Catholic college, if the House will let us.” “Thank you for nothing for the Catholic college,” says Dan. “We want our own Parliament and our own militia; free pardon for political offences.” What would you say to a bill to make landlord-shooting manslaughter, Mr. Kearney?’
‘Justifiable homicide, Mr. Bright called it years ago, but the judges didn’t see it.’
‘This Danesbury “muddle,” for that is the name they give it, will be hushed up, for he has got some Tory connections, and the lords are never hard on one of their “order,” so I hear. Hartigan is to be let have his talk out in the House, and as he is said to be violent and indiscreet, the Prime Minister will only reply to the violence and the indiscretion, and he will conclude by saying that the noble Viceroy has begged Her Majesty to release him of the charge of the Irish Government; and though the Cabinet have urgently entreated him to remain and carry out the wise policy of conciliation so happily begun in Ireland, he is rooted in his resolve, and he will not stay; and there will be cheers; and when he adds that Mr. Cecil Walpole, having shown his great talents for intrigue, will be sent back to the fitting sphere—his old profession of diplomacy—there will be laughter; for as the Minister seldom jokes, the House will imagine this to be a slip, and then, with every one in good humour—but Paul Hartigan, who will have to withdraw his motion—the right honourable gentleman will sit down, well pleased at his afternoon’s work.’
Kearney could not but laugh at the sketch of a debate given with all the mimicry of tone and mock solemnity of an old debater, and the two men now became, by the bond of their geniality, like old acquaintances.
‘Ah, Mr. Kearney, I won’t say we’d do it better on College Green, but we’d do it more kindly, more courteously, and, above all, we’d be less hypocritical in our inquiries. I believe we try to cheat the devil in Ireland just as much as our neighbours. But we don’t pretend that we are arch-bishops all the time we’re doing it. There’s where we differ from the English.’
‘And who is to govern us,’ cried Kearney,’ if we have no Lord-Lieutenant?’
‘The Privy Council, the Lords Justices, or maybe the Board of Works, who knows? When you are going over to Holyhead in the packet, do you ever ask if the man at the wheel is decent, or a born idiot, and liable to fits? Not a bit of it. You know that there are other people to look to this, and you trust, besides, that they’ll land you all safe.’
‘That’s true,’ said Kearney, and he drained his glass; ‘and now tell me one thing more. How will it go with young O’Shea about this scrimmage, will it be serious?’
‘Curtis, the chief constable, says it will be an ugly affair enough. They’ll swear hard, and they’ll try to make out a title to the land through the action of trespass; and if, as I hear, the young fellow is a scamp and a bad lot—’
‘Neither one nor the other,’ broke in Kearney; ‘as fine a boy and as thorough a gentleman as there is in Ireland.’
‘And a bit of a Fenian, too,’ slowly interposed Flood.
‘Not that I know; I’m not sure that he follows the distinctions of party here; he is little acquainted with Ireland.’
‘Ho, ho! a Yankee sympathiser?’
‘Not even that; an Austrian soldier, a young lieutenant of lancers over here for his leave.’
‘And why couldn’t he shoot, or course, or kiss the girls, or play at football, and not be burning his fingers with the new land-laws? There’s plenty of ways to amuse yourself in Ireland, without throwing a man out of window; eh, Adams?’
And Adams bowed his assent, but did not utter a word.
‘You are not going to open more wine?’ remonstrated Kearney eagerly.
‘It’s done. Smell that, Mr. Kearney,’ cried Flood, as he held out a fresh-drawn cork at the end of the screw. ‘Talk to me of clove-pinks and violets and carnations after that? I don’t know whether you have any prayers in your church against being led into temptation.’
‘Haven’t we!’ sighed the other.
‘Then all I say is, Heaven help the people at Oporto; they’ll have more to answer for even than most men.’
It was nigh dawn when they parted, Kearney muttering to himself as he sauntered back to the inn, ‘If port like that is the drink of the Tories, they must be good fellows with all their prejudices.’
‘I’ll be shot if I don’t like that rebel,’ said Flood as he went to bed.
Though Lord Kilgobbin, when he awoke somewhat late in the afternoon, did not exactly complain of headache, he was free to admit that his faculties were slightly clouded, and that his memory was not to the desired extent retentive of all that passed on the preceding night. Indeed, beyond the fact—which he reiterated with great energy—that ‘old Flood, Tory though he was, was a good fellow, an excellent fellow, and had a marvellous bin of port wine,’ his son Dick was totally unable to get any information from him. ‘Bigot, if you like, or Blue Protestant, and all the rest of it; but a fine hearty old soul, and an Irishman to the heart’s core!’ That was the sum of information which a two hours’ close cross-examination elicited; and Dick was sulkily about to leave the room in blank disappointment when the old man suddenly amazed him by asking: ‘And do you tell me that you have been lounging about the town all the morning and have learned nothing? Were you down to the gaol? Have you seen O’Shea? What’shisaccount of it? Who began the row? Has he any bones broken? Do you know anything at all?’ cried he, as the blank look of the astonished youth seemed to imply utter ignorance, as well as dismay.
‘First of all,’ said Dick, drawing a long breath, ‘I have not seen O’Shea; nobody is admitted to see him. His injuries about the head are so severe the doctors are in dread of erysipelas.’
‘What if he had? Have not every one of us had the erysipelas some time or other; and, barring the itching, what’s the great harm?’
‘The doctors declare that if it come, they will not answer for his life.’
‘They know best, and I’m afraid they know why also. Oh dear, oh dear! if there’s anything the world makes no progress in, it’s the science of medicine. Everybody now dies of what we all used to have when I was a boy! Sore throats, smallpox, colic, are all fatal since they’ve found out Greek names for them, and with their old vulgar titles they killed nobody.’
‘Gorman is certainly in a bad way, and Dr. Rogan says it will be some days before he could pronounce him out of danger.’
‘Can he be removed? Can we take him back with us to Kilgobbin?’
‘That is utterly out of the question; he cannot be stirred, and requires the most absolute rest and quiet. Besides that, there is another difficulty—I don’t know if they would permit us to take him away.’
‘What! do you mean, refuse our bail?’
‘They have got affidavits to show old Gill’s life’s in danger; he is in high fever to-day, and raving furiously, and if he should die, McEvoy declares that they’ll be able to send bills for manslaughter, at least, before the grand-jury.’
‘There’s more of it!’ cried Kilgobbin, with a long whistle. ‘Is it Rogan swears the fellow is in danger?’
‘No, it’s Tom Price, the dispensary doctor; and as Miss Betty withdrew her subscription last year, they say he swore he’d pay her off for it.’
‘I know Tom, and I’ll see to that,’ said Kearney. ‘Are the affidavits sworn?’
‘No. They are drawn out; McEvoy is copying them now; but they’ll be ready by three o’clock.’
‘I’ll have Rogan to swear that the boy must be removed at once. We’ll take him over with us; and once at Kilgobbin, they’ll want a regiment of soldiers if they mean to take him. It is nigh twelve o’clock now, is it not?’
‘It is on the stroke of two, sir.’
‘Is it possible? I believe I overslept myself in the strange bed. Be alive now, Dick, and take the 2.40 train to town. Call on McKeown, and find out where Miss Betty is stopping; break this business to her gently—for with all that damnable temper, she has a fine womanly heart—tell her the poor boy was not to blame at all: that he went over to see her, and knew nothing of the place being let out or hired; and tell her, besides, that the blackguards that beat him were not her own people at all, but villains from another barony that old Gill brought over to work on short wages. Mind that you say that, or we’ll have more law, and more trouble—notices to quit, and the devil knows what. I know Miss Betty well, and she’d not leave a man on a town-land if they raised a finger against one of her name! There now, you know what to do: go and do it!’
To hear the systematic and peremptory manner in which the old man detailed all his directions, one would have pronounced him a model of orderly arrangement and rule. Having despatched Dick to town, however, he began to bethink him of all the matters on which he was desirous to learn Miss O’Shea’s mind. Had she really leased the Barn to this man Gill: and if so, for what term? And was her quarrel with her nephew of so serious a nature that she might hesitate as to taking his side here—at least, till she knew he was in the right; and then, was he in the right? That was, though the last, the most vital consideration of all.
‘I’d have thought of all these if the boy had not flurried me so. These hot-headed fellows have never room in their foolish brains for anything like consecutive thought; they can just entertain the one idea, and till they dismiss that, they cannot admit another. Now, he’ll come back by the next train, and bring me the answer to one of my queries, if even that?’ sighed he, as he went on with his dressing.
‘All this blessed business,’ muttered he to himself, ‘comes of this blundering interference with the land-laws. Paddy hears that they have given him some new rights and privileges, and no mock-modesty of his own will let him lose any of them, and so he claims everything. Old experience had taught him that with a bold heart and a blunderbuss he need not pay much rent; but Mr. Gladstone—long life to him—had said, “We must do something for you.” Now what could that be? He’d scarcely go so far as to give them out Minié rifles or Chassepots, though arms of precision, as they call them, would have put many a poor fellow out of pain—as Bob Magrath said when he limped into the public-house with a ball in his back—“It’s only a ‘healing measure,’ don’t make a fuss about it.”’
‘Mr. Flood wants to see your honour when you’re dressed,’ said the waiter, interrupting his soliloquy.
‘Where is he?’
‘Walking up and down, sir, forenent the door.’
‘Will ye say I’m coming down? I’m just finishing a letter to the Lord-Lieutenant,’ said Kilgobbin, with a sly look to the man, who returned the glance with its rival, and then left the room.
‘Will you not come in and sit down?’ said Kearney, as he cordially shook Flood’s hand.
‘I have only five minutes to stay, and with your leave, Mr. Kearney, we’ll pass it here’; and taking the other’s arm, he proceeded to walk up and down before the door of the inn.
‘You know Ireland well—few men better, I am told—and you have no need, therefore, to be told how the rumoured dislikes of party, the reported jealousies and rancours of this set to that, influence the world here. It will be a fine thing, therefore, to show these people here that the Liberal, Mr. Kearney, and that bigoted old Tory, Tom Flood, were to be seen walking together, and in close confab. It will show them, at all events, that neither of us wants to make party capital out of this scrimmage, and that he who wants to affront one of us, cannot, on that ground, at least, count upon the other. Just look at the crowd that is watching us already! There ‘a a fellow neglecting the sale of his pig to stare at us, and that young woman has stopped gartering her stocking for the last two minutes in sheer curiosity about us.’
‘Just Look at the Crowd That is Watching Us Already’
Kearney laughed heartily as he nodded assent.
‘You follow me, don’t you?’ asked Flood. ‘Well, then, grant me the favour I’m about to ask, and it will show me that you see all these things as I do. This row may turn out more seriously than we thought for. That scoundrel Gill is in a high fever to-day—I would not say that just out of spite the fellow would not die. Who knows if it may not become a great case at the assizes; and if so, Kearney, let us have public opinion with us. There are scores of men who will wait to hear what you and I say of this business. There are hundreds more who will expect us to disagree. Let us prove to them that this is no feud between Orange and Green, this is nothing of dispute between Whig and Tory, or Protestant and Papist; but a free fight, where, more shame to them, fifty fell upon one. Now what you must grant me is leave to send this boy back to Kilgobbin in my own carriage, and with my own liveries. There is not a peasant cutting turf on the bog will not reason out his own conclusions when he sees it. Don’t refuse me, for I have set my heart on it.’
‘I’m not thinking of refusing. I was only wondering to myself what my daughter Kitty will say when she sees me sitting behind the blue and orange liveries.’
‘You may send me back with the green flag over me the next day I dine with you,’ cried Flood, and the compact was ratified.
‘It is more than half-past already,’ said Flood. ‘We are to have a full bench at three; so be ready to give your bail, and I’ll have the carriage at the corner of the street, and you shall set off with the boy at once.’
‘I must say,’ said Kearney, ‘whatever be your Tory faults, lukewarmness is not one of them! You stand to me like an old friend in all this trouble.’
‘Maybe it’s time to begin to forget old grudges. Kearney, I believe in my heart neither of us is as bad as the other thinks him. Are you aware that they are getting affidavits to refuse the bail?’
‘I know it all; but I have sent a man to McEvoy about a case that will take all his morning; and he’ll be too late with his affidavits.’
‘By the time he is ready, you and your charge will be snug in Kilgobbin; and another thing, Kearney—for I have thought of the whole matter—you’ll take out with you that little vermin Price, the doctor, and treat him well. He’ll be as indiscreet as you wish, and be sure to give him the opportunity. There, now, give me your most affectionate grasp of the hand, for there’s an attentive public watching us.’
Young O’Shea made the journey from Kilbeggan to Kilgobbin Castle in total unconsciousness. The symptoms had now taken the form which doctors call concussion; and though to a first brief question he was able to reply reasonably and well, the effort seemed so exhausting that to all subsequent queries he appeared utterly indifferent; nor did he even by look acknowledge that he heard them.
Perfect and unbroken quiet was enjoined as his best, if not his only, remedy; and Kate gave up her own room for the sick man, as that most remote from all possible disturbance, and away from all the bustle of the house. The doctors consulted on his case in the fashion that a country physician of eminence condescends to consult with a small local practitioner. Dr. Rogan pronounced his opinion, prophetically declared the patient in danger, and prescribed his remedies, while Price, agreeing with everything, and even slavishly abject in his manner of concurrence, went about amongst the underlings of the household saying, ‘There’s two fractures of the frontal bone. It’s trepanned he ought to be; and when there’s an inquest on the body, I’ll declare I said so.’
Though nearly all the care of providing for the sick man’s nursing fell to Kate Kearney, she fulfilled the duty without attracting any notice whatever, or appearing to feel as if any extra demand were made upon her time or her attention; so much so, that a careless observer might have thought her far more interested in providing for the reception of the aunt than in cares for the nephew.
Dick Kearney had written to say that Miss Betty was so overwhelmed with affliction at young Gorman’s mishap that she had taken to bed, and could not be expected to be able to travel for several days. She insisted, however, on two telegrams daily to report on the boy’s case, and asked which of the great Dublin celebrities of physic should be sent down to see him.
‘They’re all alike to me,’ said Kilgobbin; ‘but if I was to choose, I think I’d say Dr. Chute.’
This was so far unlucky, since Dr. Chute had then been dead about forty years; scarcely a junior of the profession having so much as heard his name.
‘We really want no one,’ said Rogan. ‘We are doing most favourably in every respect. If one of the young ladies would sit and read to him, but not converse, it would be a service. He made the request himself this morning, and I promised to repeat it.’
A telegram, however, announced that Sir St. Xavier Brennan would arrive the same evening, and as Sir X. was physician-in-chief to the nuns of the Bleeding Heart, there could be little doubt whose orthodoxy had chosen him.
He came at nightfall—a fat, comely-looking, somewhat unctuous gentleman, with excellent teeth and snow-white hands, symmetrical and dimpled like a woman’s. He saw the patient, questioned him slightly, and divined without waiting for it what the answer should be; he was delighted with Rogan, pleased with Price, but he grew actually enthusiastic over those charming nurses, Nina and Kate.
‘With such sisters of charity to tend me, I’d consent to pass my life as an invalid,’ cried he.
Indeed, to listen to him, it would seem that, whether from the salubrity of the air, the peaceful quietude of the spot, the watchful kindness and attention of the surrounders, or a certain general air—an actual atmosphere of benevolence and contentment around—there was no pleasure of life could equal the delight of being laid up at Kilgobbin.
‘I have a message for you from my old friend Miss O’Shea,’ said he to Kate the first moment he had the opportunity of speaking with her alone. ‘It is not necessary to tell you that I neither know, nor desire to know, its import. Her words were these: “Tell my godchild to forgive me if she still has any memory for some very rude words I once spoke. Tell her that I have been sorely punished for them since, and that till I know I have her pardon, I have no courage to cross her doors.” This was my message, and I was to bring back your answer.’
‘Tell her,’ cried Kate warmly, ‘I have no place in my memory but for the kindnesses she has bestowed on me, and that I ask no better boon from Fortune than to be allowed to love her, and to be worthy of her love.’
‘I will repeat every word you have told me; and I am proud to be bearer of such a speech. May I presume, upon the casual confidence I have thus acquired, to add one word for myself; and it is as the doctor I would speak.’
‘Speak freely. What is it?’
‘It is this, then: you young ladies keep your watches in turn in the sick-room. The patient is unfit for much excitement, and as I dare not take the liberty of imposing a line of conduct on Mademoiselle Kostalergi, I have resolved to run the hazard withyou! Lethersbe the task of entertaining him; letherbe the reader—and he loves being read to—and the talker, and the narrator of whatever goes on. To you be the part of quiet watchfulness and care, to bathe the heated brow, or the burning hand, to hold the cold cup to the parched lips, to adjust the pillow, to temper the light, and renew the air of the sick-room, but to speak seldom, if at all. Do you understand me?’
‘Perfectly; and you are wise and acute in your distribution of labour: each of us has her fitting station.’
‘I dared not have said this much toher: my doctor’s instinct told me I might be frank withyou.’
‘You are safe in speaking to me,’ said she calmly.
‘Perhaps I ought to say that I give these suggestions without any concert with my patient. I have not only abstained from consulting, but—’
‘Forgive my interrupting you, Sir X. It was quite unnecessary to tell me this.’
‘You are not displeased with me, dear lady?’ said he, in his softest of accents.
‘No; but do not say anything which might make me so.’
The doctor bowed reverentially, crossed his white hands on his waistcoat, and looked like a saint ready for martyrdom.
Kate frankly held out her hand in token of perfect cordiality, and her honest smile suited the action well.
‘Tell Miss Betty that our sick charge shall not be neglected, but that we want her here herself to help us.’
‘I shall report your message word for word,’ said he, as he withdrew.
As the doctor drove back to Dublin, he went over a variety of things in his thoughts. There were serious disturbances in the provinces; those ugly outrages which forerun long winter nights, and make the last days of October dreary and sad-coloured. Disorder and lawlessness were abroad; and that want of something remedial to be done which, like the thirst in fever, is fostered and fed by partial indulgence. Then he had some puzzling cases in hospital, and one or two in private practice, which harassed him; for some had reached that critical stage where a false move would be fatal, and it was far from clear which path should be taken. Then there was that matter of Miss O’Shea herself, who, if her nephew were to die, would most likely endow that hospital in connection with the Bleeding Heart, and of which he was himself the founder; and that this fate was by no means improbable, Sir X. persuaded himself, as he counted over all the different stages of peril that stood between him and convalescence. ‘We have now the concussion, with reasonable prospect of meningitis; and there may come on erysipelas from the scalp wounds, and high fever, with all its dangers; next there may be a low typhoid state, with high nervous excitement; and through all these the passing risks of the wrong food or drink, the imprudent revelations, or the mistaken stimulants. Heigh-ho!’ said he at last, ‘we come through storm and shipwreck, forlorn-hopes, and burning villages, and we succumb to ten drops too much of a dark-brown liquor, or the improvident rashness that reads out a note to us incautiously!
‘Those young ladies thought to mystify me,’ said he aloud, after a long reverie. ‘I was not to know which of them was in love with the sick boy. I could make nothing of the Greek, I own, for, except a half-stealthy regard for myself, she confessed to nothing, and the other was nearly as inscrutable. It was only the little warmth at last that betrayed her. I hurt her pride, and as she winced, I said, “There’s the sore spot—there’s mischief there!” How the people grope their way through life who have never studied physic nor learned physiology is a puzzle tome! With all its aid and guidance I find humanity quite hard enough to understand every day I live.’
Even in his few hours’ visit—in which he remarked everything, from the dress of the man who waited at dinner, to the sherry decanter with the smashed stopper, the weak ‘Gladstone’ that did duty as claret, and the cotton lace which Nina sported as ‘point d’Alençon,’ and numberless other shifts, such as people make who like to play false money with Fortune—all these he saw, and he saw that a certain jealous rivalry existed between the two girls; but whether either of them, or both, cared for young O’Shea, he could not declare; and, strange as it may seem, his inability to determine this weighed upon him with all the sense of a defeat.
Leaving the sick man to the tender care of those ladies whose division of labour we have just hinted at, we turn to other interests, and to one of our characters, who, though to all seeming neglected, has not lapsed from our memory.
Joe Atlee had been despatched on a very confidential mission by Lord Danesbury. Not only was he to repossess himself of certain papers he had never heard of, from a man he had never seen, but he was also to impress this unknown individual with the immense sense of fidelity to another who no longer had any power to reward him, and besides this, to persuade him, being a Greek, that the favour of a great ambassador of England was better than roubles of gold and vases of malachite.
Modern history has shown us what a great aid to success in life is the contribution of a ‘light heart,’ and Joe Atlee certainly brought this element of victory along with him on his journey.
His instructions were assuredly of the roughest. To impress Lord Danesbury favourably on the score of his acuteness he must not press for details, seek for explanations, and, above all, he must ask no questions. In fact, to accomplish that victory which he ambitioned for his cleverness, and on which his Excellency should say, ‘Atlee saw it at once—Atlee caught the whole thing at a glance,’ Joe must be satisfied with the least definite directions that ever were issued, and the most confused statement of duties and difficulties that ever puzzled a human intelligence. Indeed, as he himself summed up his instructions in his own room, they went no further than this: That there was a Greek, who, with a number of other names, was occasionally called Speridionides—a great scoundrel, and with every good reason for not being come at—who was to be found somewhere in Stamboul—probably at the bazaar at nightfall. He was to be bullied, or bribed, or wheedled, or menaced, to give up some letters which Lord Danesbury had once written to him, and to pledge himself to complete secrecy as to their contents ever after. From this Greek, whose perfect confidence Atlee was to obtain, he was to learn whether Kulbash Pasha, Lord Danesbury’s sworn friend and ally, was not lapsing from his English alliance and inclining towards Russian connections. To Kulbash himself Atlee had letters accrediting him as the trusted and confidential agent of Lord Danesbury, and with the Pasha, Joe was instructed to treat with an air and bearing of unlimited trustfulness. He was also to mention that his Excellency was eager to be back at his old post as ambassador, that he loved the country, the climate, his old colleagues in the Sultan’s service, and all the interests and questions that made up their political life.
Last of all, Atlee was to ascertain every point on which any successor to Lord Danesbury was likely to be mistaken, and how a misconception might be ingeniously widened into a grave blunder; and by what means such incidents should be properly commented on by the local papers, and unfavourable comparisons drawn between the author of these measures and ‘the great and enlightened statesman’ who had so lately left them.
In a word, Atlee saw that he was to personate the character of a most unsuspecting, confiding young gentleman, who possessed a certain natural aptitude for affairs of importance, and that amount of discretion such as suited him to be employed confidentially; and to perform this part he addressed himself.
The Pasha liked him so much that he invited him to be his guest while he remained at Constantinople, and soon satisfied that he was a guileless youth fresh to the world and its ways, he talked very freely before him, and affecting to discuss mere possibilities, actually sketched events and consequences which Atlee shrewdly guessed to be all within the range of casualties.
Lord Danesbury’s post at Constantinople had not been filled up, except by the appointment of a Chargé-d’Affaires; it being one of the approved modes of snubbing a government to accredit a person of inferior rank to its court. Lord Danesbury detested this man with a hate that only official life comprehends, the mingled rancour, jealousy, and malice suggested by a successor, being a combination only known to men who serve their country.
‘Find out what Brumsey is doing; he is said to be doing wrong. He knows nothing of Turkey. Learn his blunders, and let me know them.’
This was the easiest of all Atlee’s missions, for Brumsey was the weakest and most transparent of all imbecile Whigs. A junior diplomatist of small faculties and great ambitions, he wanted to do something, not being clear as to what, which should startle his chiefs, and make ‘the Office’ exclaim: ‘See what Sam Brumsey has been doing! Hasn’t Brumsey hit the nail on the head! Brumsey’s last despatch is the finest state-paper since the days of Canning!’ Now no one knew the short range of this man’s intellectual tether better than Lord Danesbury—since Brumsey had been his own private secretary once, and the two men hated each other as only a haughty superior and a craven dependant know how to hate.
The old ambassador was right. Russian craft had dug many a pitfall for the English diplomatist, and Brumsey had fallen into every one of them. Acting on secret information—all ingeniously prepared to entrap him—Brumsey had discovered a secret demand made by Russia to enable one of the imperial family to make the tour of the Black Sea with a ship-of-war. Though it might be matter of controversy whether Turkey herself could, without the assent of the other Powers to the Treaty of Paris, give her permission, Brumsey was too elated by his discovery to hesitate about this, but at once communicated to the Grand-Vizier a formal declaration of the displeasure with which England would witness such an infraction of a solemn engagement.
As no such project had ever been entertained, no such demand ever made, Kulbash Pasha not only laughed heartily at the mock-thunder of the Englishman, but at the energy with which a small official always opens fire, and in the jocularity of his Turkish nature—for they are jocular, these children of the Koran—he told the whole incident to Atlee.
‘Your old master, Mr. Atlee,’ said he, ‘would scarcely have read us so sharp a lesson as that; but,’ he added, ‘we always hear stronger language from the man who couldn’t station a gunboat at Pera than from the ambassador who could call up the Mediterranean squadron from Malta.’
If Atlee’s first letter to Lord Danesbury admitted of a certain disappointment as regarded Speridionides, it made ample compensation by the keen sketch it conveyed of how matters stood at the Porte, the uncertain fate of Kulbash Pasha’s policy, and the scarcely credible blunder of Brumsey.
To tell the English ambassador how much he was regretted and how much needed, how the partisans of England felt themselves deserted and abandoned by his withdrawal, and how gravely the best interests of Turkey itself were compromised for want of that statesmanlike intelligence that had up to this guided the counsels of the Divan: all these formed only a part of Atlee’s task, for he wrote letters and leaders, in this sense, to all the great journals of London, Paris, and Vienna; so that when theTimesand thePostasked the English people whether they were satisfied that the benefit of the Crimean War should be frittered away by an incompetent youth in the position of a man of high ability, theDébatscommented on the want of support France suffered at the Porte by the inferior agency of England, and theNeue Presseof Vienna more openly declared that if England had determined to annex Turkey and govern it as a crown colony, it would have been at least courtesy to have informed her co-signatories of the fact.
At the same time, an Irish paper in the National interest quietly desired to be informed how was it that the man who made such a mull of Ireland could be so much needed in Turkey, aided by a well-known fellow-citizen, more celebrated for smashing lamps and wringing off knockers than for administering the rights of a colony; and by which of his services, ballad-writing or beating the police, he had gained the favour of the present Cabinet. ‘In fact,’ concluded the writer, ‘if we hear more of this appointment, we promise our readers some biographical memoirs of the respected individual, which may serve to show the rising youth of Ireland by what gifts success in life is most surely achieved, as well as what peculiar accomplishments find most merit with the grave-minded men who rule us.’
A Cork paper announced on the same day, amongst the promotions, that Joseph Atlee had been made C.B., and mildly inquired if the honour were bestowed for that paper on Ireland in the lastQuarterly, and dryly wound up by saying, ‘We are not selfish, whatever people may say of us. Our friends on the Bosporus shall have the noble lord cheap! Let his Excellency only assure us that he will return with his whole staff, and not leave us Mr. Cecil Walpole, or any other like incapacity, behind him, as a director of the Poor-Law Board, or inspector-general of gaols, or deputy-assistant-secretary anywhere, and we assent freely to the change that sends this man to the East and leaves us here to flounder on with such aids to our mistakes as a Liberal Government can safely afford to spare us.’
A paragraph in another part of the same paper, which asked if the Joseph Atlee who, it was rumoured, was to go out as Governor to Labuan, could be this man, had, it is needless to say, been written by himself.
TheLevant Heraldcontented itself with an authorised contradiction to the report that Sir Joseph Atlee—the Sir was an ingenious blunder—had conformed to Islamism, and was in treaty for the palace of Tashkir Bey at Therapia.
With a neatness and tact all his own, Atlee narrated Brumsey’s blunder in a tone so simple and almost deferential, that Lord Danesbury could show the letter to any of his colleagues. The whole spirit of the document was regret that a very well-intentioned gentleman of good connections and irreproachable morals should be an ass! Not that he employed the insufferable designation.
The Cabinet at home were on thorns lest the press—the vile Tory organs—should get wind of the case and cap the blundering government of Ireland with the almost equally gross mistake in diplomacy.
‘We shall have theStandardat us,’ said the Premier.
‘Far worse,’ replied the Foreign Secretary. ‘I shall have Brunow here in a white passion to demand an apology and the recall of our man at Constantinople.’
To accuse a well-known housebreaker of a burglary that he had not committed, nor had any immediate thought of committing, is the very luckiest stroke of fortune that could befall him. He comes out not alone innocent, but injured. The persecutions by which bad men have assailed him for years have at last their illustration, and the calumniated saint walks forth into the world, his head high and his port erect, even though a crowbar should peep out from his coat-pocket and the jingle of false keys go with him as he went.
Far too astute to make the scandal public by the newspapers, Atlee only hinted to his chief the danger that might ensue if the secret leaked out. He well knew that a press scandal is a nine-day fever, but a menaced publicity is a chronic malady that may go on for years.
The last lines of his letter were: ‘I have made a curious and interesting acquaintance—a certain Stephanotis Bey, governor of Scutari in Albania, a very venerable old fellow, who was never at Constantinople till now. The Pasha tells me in confidence that he is enormously wealthy. His fortune was made by brigandage in Greece, from which he retired a few years ago, shocked by the sudden death of his brother, who was decapitated at Corinth with five others. The Bey is a nice, gentle-mannered, simple-hearted old man, kind to the poor, and eminently hospitable. He has invited me down to Prevesa for the pig-shooting. If I have your permission to accept the invitation, I shall make a rapid visit to Athens, and make one more effort to discover Speridionides. Might I ask the favour of an answer by telegraph? So many documents and archives were stolen here at the time of the fire of the Embassy, that, by a timely measure of discredit, we can impair the value of all papers whatever, and I have already a mass of false despatches, notes, and telegrams ready for publication, and subsequent denial, if you advise it. In one of these I have imitated Walpole’s style so well that I scarcely think he will read it without misgivings. With so much “bad bank paper” in circulation, Speridionides is not likely to set a high price on his own scrip.’