Lord Kilgobbin. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ did not know if she would have tact enough for the ordeal; but Nina! – Nina was sure to make an actual sensation, as much by her grace and her style as by her beauty. Kearney never came into the room where she was without being struck by the elegance of her demeanour, the way she would rise to receive him, her step, her carriage, the very disposal of her drapery as she sat; the modulated tone of her voice, and a sort of purring satisfaction as she took his hand and heard his praises of her, spread like a charm over him, so that he never knew how the time slipped by as he sat beside her.

      Have you ever written to your father since you came here?’ asked he one day as they talked together.

      ‘Yes, sir; and yesterday I got a letter from him. Such a nice letter, sir – no complainings, no reproaches for my running away; but all sorts of good wishes for my happiness. He owns he was sorry to have ever thought of the stage for me; but he says this lawsuit he is engaged in about his grandfather’s will may last for years, and that he knew I was so certain of a great success, and that a great success means more than mere money, he fancied that in my triumph he would reap the recompense for his own disasters. He is now, however, far happier that I have found a home, a real home, and says, “Tell my lord I am heartily ashamed of all my rudeness with regard to him, and would willingly make a pilgrimage to the end of Europe to ask his pardon”; and say besides that “when I shall be restored to the fortune and rank of my ancestors” – you know,’ added she, ‘he is a prince – “my first act will be to throw myself at his feet, and beg to be forgiven by him.”’

      ‘What is the property? is it land?’ asked he, with the half-suspectfulness of one not fully assured of what he was listening to.

      ‘Yes, sir; the estate is in Delos. I have seen the plan of the grounds and gardens of the palace, which are princely. Here, on this seal,’ said she, showing the envelope of her letter, ‘you can see the arms; papa never omits to use it, though on his card he is written only “of the princes” – a form observed with us.’

      ‘And what chance has he of getting it all back again?’

      ‘That is more than I can tell you; he himself is sometimes very confident, and talks as if there could not be a doubt of it.’

      ‘Used your poor mother to believe it?’ asked he, half-tremulously.

      ‘I can scarcely say, sir; I can barely remember her; but I have heard papa blame her for not interesting her high connections in England in his suit; he often thought that a word to the ambassador at Athens would have almost decided the case.’

      ‘High connections, indeed!’ burst he forth. ‘By my conscience, they’re pretty much out at elbows, like himself; and if we were trying to recover our own right to-morrow, the look-out would be bleak enough!’

      ‘Papa is not easily cast down, sir; he has a very sanguine spirit.’

      ‘Maybe you think it’s what is wanting in my case, eh, Nina? Say it out, girl; tell me, I’d be the better for a little of your father’s hopefulness, eh?’

      ‘You could not change to anything I could like better than what you are,’ said she, taking his hand and kissing it.

      ‘Ah, you ‘re a rare one to say coaxing things,’ said he, looking fondly on her. ‘I believe you’d be the best advocate for either of us if the courts would let you plead for us.’

      ‘I wish they would, sir,’ said she proudly.

      ‘What is that?’ cried he suddenly; ‘sure it’s not putting myself you are in the picture!’

      ‘Of course I am, sir. Was not the O’Caharney your ancestor? Is it likely that an old race had not traits of feature and lineament that ages of descent could not efface? I’d swear that strong brow and frank look must be an heirloom.’

      ‘‘Faith, then, almost the only one!’ said he, sighing. ‘Who’s making that noise out there?’ said he, rising and going to the window. ‘Oh, it’s Kate with her dogs. I often tell her she ‘d keep a pair of ponies for less than those troublesome brutes cost her.’

      ‘They are great company to her, she says, and she lives so much in the open air.’

      ‘I know she does,’ said he, dropping his head and sitting like one whose thoughts had taken a brooding, despondent turn.

      ‘One more sitting I must have, sir, for the hair. You had it beautifully yesterday: it fell over on one side with a most perfect light on a large lock here. Will you give me half an hour to-morrow, say?’

      ‘I can’t promise you, my dear. Peter Gill has been urging me to go over to Loughrea for the fair; and if we go, we ought to be there by Saturday, and have a quiet look at the stock before the sales begin.’

      ‘And are you going to be long away?’ said she poutingly, as she leaned over the back of his chair, and suffered her curls to fall half across his face.

      ‘I’ll be right glad to be back again,’ said he, pressing her head down till he could kiss her cheek, ‘right glad!’

      CHAPTER VI

THE ‘BLUE GOAT’

      The ‘Blue Goat’ in the small town of Moate is scarcely a model hostel. The entrance-hall is too much encumbered by tramps and beggars of various orders and ages, who not only resort there to take their meals and play at cards, but to divide the spoils and settle the accounts of their several ‘industries,’ and occasionally to clear off other scores which demand police interference. On the left is the bar; the right-hand being used as the office of a land-agent, is besieged by crowds of country-people, in whom, if language is to be trusted, the grievous wrongs of land-tenure are painfully portrayed – nothing but complaint, dogged determination, and resistance being heard on every side. Behind the bar is a long low-ceilinged apartment, the parlour par excellence, only used by distinguished visitors, and reserved on one especial evening of the week for the meeting of the ‘Goats,’ as the members of a club call themselves – the chief, indeed the founder, being our friend Mathew Kearney, whose title of sovereignty was ‘Buck-Goat,’ and whose portrait, painted by a native artist and presented by the society, figured over the mantel-piece. The village Van Dyck would seem to have invested largely in carmine, and though far from parsimonious of it on the cheeks and the nose of his sitter, he was driven to work off some of his superabundant stock on the cravat, and even the hands, which, though amicably crossed in front of the white-waistcoated stomach, are fearfully suggestive of some recent deed of blood. The pleasant geniality of the countenance is, however, reassuring. Nor – except a decided squint, by which the artist had ambitiously attempted to convey a humoristic drollery to the expression – is there anything sinister in the portrait.

      An inscription on the frame announces that this picture of their respected founder was presented, on his fiftieth birthday, ‘To Mathew Kearney, sixth Viscount Kilgobbin’; various devices of ‘caprine’ significance, heads, horns, and hoofs, profusely decorating the frame. If the antiquary should lose himself in researches for the origin of this society, it is as well to admit at once that the landlord’s sign of the ‘Blue Goat’ gave the initiative to the name, and that the worthy associates derived nothing from classical authority, and never assumed to be descendants of fauns or satyrs, but respectable shopkeepers of Moate, and unexceptional judges of ‘poteen.’ A large jug of this insinuating liquor figured on the table, and was called ‘Goat’s-milk’; and if these humoristic traits are so carefully enumerated, it is because they comprised all that was specially droll or quaint in these social gatherings, the members of which were a very commonplace set of men, who discussed their little local topics in very ordinary fashion, slightly elevated, perhaps, in self-esteem, by thinking how little the outer world СКАЧАТЬ