Lord Kilgobbin. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ in Hafiz. I believe you never read Hafiz!’

      ‘No, nor you either.’

      ‘That’s true; but I can make my own Hafiz, and just as good as the real article. By the way, are you aware that the water-carriers at Tehran sing Lalla Rookh, and believe it a national poem?’

      ‘I don’t know, and I don’t care.’

      ‘I’ll bring down an Anacreon with me, and see if the Greek cousin can spell her way through an ode.’

      ‘And I distinctly declare you shall do no such thing.’

      ‘Oh dear, oh dear, what an unamiable trait is envy! By the way, was that your frock-coat I wore yesterday at the races?’

      ‘I think you know it was; at least you remembered it when you tore the sleeve.’

      ‘True, most true; that torn sleeve was the reason the rascal would only let me have fifteen shillings on it.’

      ‘And you mean to say you pawned my coat?’

      ‘I left it in the temporary care of a relative, Dick; but it is a redeemable mortgage, and don’t fret about it.’

      ‘Ever the same!’

      ‘No, Dick, that means worse and worse! Now, I am in the process of reformation. The natural selection, however, where honesty is in the series, is a slow proceeding, and the organic changes are very complicated. As I know, however, you attach value to the effect you produce in that coat, I’ll go and recover it. I shall not need Terence or Juvenal till we come back, and I’ll leave them in the avuncular hands till then.’

      ‘I wonder you’re not ashamed of these miserable straits.’

      ‘I am very much ashamed of the world that imposes them on me. I’m thoroughly ashamed of that public in lacquered leather, that sees me walking in broken boots. I’m heartily ashamed of that well-fed, well-dressed, sleek society, that never so much as asked whether the intellectual-looking man in the shabby hat, who looked so lovingly at the spiced beef in the window, had dined yet, or was he fasting for a wager?’

      ‘There, don’t carry away that newspaper; I want to read over that pleasant paragraph again!’

      CHAPTER XII

THE JOURNEY TO THE COUNTRY

      The two friends were deposited at the Moate station at a few minutes after midnight, and their available resources amounting to something short of two shillings, and the fare of a car and horse to Kilgobbin being more than three times that amount, they decided to devote their small balance to purposes of refreshment, and then set out for the castle on foot.

      ‘It is a fine moonlight; I know all the short cuts, and I want a bit of walking besides,’ said Kearney; and though Joe was of a self-indulgent temperament, and would like to have gone to bed after his supper and trusted to the chapter of accidents to reach Kilgobbin by a conveyance some time, any time, he had to yield his consent and set out on the road.

      ‘The fellow who comes with the letter-bag will fetch over our portmanteau,’ said Dick, as they started.

      ‘I wish you’d give him directions to take charge of me, too,’ said Joe, who felt very indisposed to a long walk.

      ‘I like you,’ said Dick sneeringly; ‘you are always telling me that you are the sort of fellow for a new colony, life in the bush, and the rest of it, and when it conies to a question of a few miles’ tramp on a bright night in June, you try to skulk it in every possible way. You’re a great humbug, Master Joe.’

      ‘And you a very small humbug, and there lies the difference between us. The combinations in your mind are so few, that, as in a game of only three cards, there is no skill in the playing; while in my nature, as in that game called tarocco, there are half-a-dozen packs mixed up together, and the address required to play them is considerable.’

      ‘You have a very satisfactory estimate of your own abilities, Joe.’

      ‘And why not? If a clever fellow didn’t know he was clever, the opinion of the world on his superiority would probably turn his brain.’

      ‘And what do you say if his own vanity should do it?’

      ‘There is really no way of explaining to a fellow like you – ’

      ‘What do you mean by a fellow like me?’ broke in Dick, somewhat angrily.

      ‘I mean this, that I’d as soon set to work to explain the theory of exchequer bonds to an Eskimo, as to make an unimaginative man understand something purely speculative. What you, and scores of fellows like you, denominate vanity, is only another form of hopefulness. You and your brethren – for you are a large family – do you know what it is to Hope! that is, you have no idea of what it is to build on the foundation of certain qualities you recognise in yourself, and to say that “if I can go so far with such a gift, such another will help me on so much farther.”’

      ‘I tell you one thing I do hope, which is, that the next time I set out a twelve miles’ walk, I’ll have a companion less imbued with self-admiration.’

      ‘And you might and might not find him pleasanter company. Cannot you see, old fellow, that the very things you object to in me are what are wanting in you? they are, so to say, the compliments of your own temperament.’

      ‘Have you a cigar?’

      ‘Two – take them both. I’d rather talk than smoke just now.’

      ‘I am almost sorry for it, though it gives me the tobacco.’

      ‘Are we on your father’s property yet?’

      ‘Yes; part of that village we came through belongs to us, and all this bog here is ours.’

      ‘Why don’t you reclaim it? labour costs a mere nothing in this country. Why don’t you drain those tracts, and treat the soil with lime? I’d live on potatoes, I’d make my family live on potatoes, and my son, and my grandson, for three generations, but I’d win this land back to culture and productiveness.’

      ‘The fee-simple of the soil wouldn’t pay the cost. It would be cheaper to save the money and buy an estate.’

      ‘That is one, and a very narrow view of it; but imagine the glory of restoring a lost tract to a nation, welcoming back the prodigal, and installing him in his place amongst his brethren. This was all forest once. Under the shade of the mighty oaks here those gallant O’Caharneys your ancestors followed the chase, or rested at noontide, or skedaddled in double-quick before those smart English of the Pale, who I must say treated your forbears with scant courtesy.’

      ‘We held our own against them for many a year.’

      ‘Only when it became so small it was not worth taking. Is not your father a Whig?’

      ‘He’s a Liberal, but he troubles himself little about parties.’

      ‘He’s a stout Catholic, though, isn’t he?’

      ‘He is a very devout believer in his Church,’ said Dick with the tone of one who did not desire to continue the theme.

      ‘Then why does he stop at Whiggery? why not go in for Nationalism and all СКАЧАТЬ