THE HEAD CONSTABLE
The Inspector, or, to use the irreverent designation of the neighbourhood, the Head Peeler, who had carried away Walpole’s luggage and papers, no sooner discovered the grave mistake he had committed, than he hastened to restore them, and was waiting personally at Kilgobbin Castle to apologise for the blunder, long before any of the family had come downstairs. His indiscretion might cost him his place, and Captain Curtis, who had to maintain a wife and family, three saddle-horses, and a green uniform with more gold on it than a field-marshal’s, felt duly anxious and uneasy for what he had done.
‘Who is that gone down the road?’ asked he, as he stood at the window, while a woman was setting the room in order.
‘Sure it’s Miss Kate taking the dogs out. Isn’t she always the first up of a morning?’ Though the captain had little personal acquaintance with Miss Kearney, he knew her well by reputation, and knew therefore that he might safely approach her to ask a favour. He overtook her at once, and in a few words made known the difficulty in which he found himself.
‘Is it not after all a mere passing mistake, which once apologised for is forgotten altogether?’ asked she. ‘Mr. Walpole is surely not a person to bear any malice for such an incident?’
‘I don’t know that, Miss Kearney,’ said he doubtingly. ‘His papers have been thoroughly ransacked, and old Mr. Flood, the Tory magistrate, has taken copies of several letters and documents, all of course under the impression that they formed part of a treasonable correspondence.’
‘Was it not very evident that the papers could not have belonged to a Fenian leader? Was not any mistake in the matter easily avoided?’
‘Not at once, because there was first of all a sort of account of the insurrectionary movement here, with a number of queries, such as, “Who is M——?” “Are F. Y—— and McCausland the same person?” “What connection exists between the Meath outrages and the late events in Tipperary?” “How is B—— to explain his conduct sufficiently to be retained in the Commission of the Peace?” In a word, Miss Kearney, all the troublesome details by which a Ministry have to keep their own supporters in decent order, are here hinted at, if not more, and it lies with a batch of red-hot Tories to make a terrible scandal out of this affair.’
‘It is graver than I suspected,’ said she thoughtfully.
‘And I may lose my place,’ muttered Curtis, ‘unless, indeed, you would condescend to say a word for me to Mr. Walpole.’
‘Willingly, if it were of any use, but I think my cousin, Mademoiselle Kostalergi, would be likelier of success, and here she comes.’
Nina came forward at that moment, with that indolent grace of movement with which she swept the greensward of the lawn as though it were the carpet of a saloon. With a brief introduction of Mr. Curtis, her cousin Kate, in a few words, conveyed the embarrassment of his present position, and his hope that a kindly intercession might avert his danger.
‘What droll people you must be not to find out that the letters of a Viceroy’s secretary could not be the correspondence of a rebel leader,’ said Nina superciliously.
‘I have already told Miss Kearney how that fell out,’ said he; ‘and I assure you there was enough in those papers to mystify better and clearer heads.’
‘But you read the addresses, and saw how the letters began, “My dear Mr. Walpole,” or “Dear Walpole”?’
‘And thought they had been purloined. Have I not found “Dear Clarendon” often enough in the same packet with cross-bones and a coffin.’
‘What a country!’ said Nina, with a sigh.
‘Very like Greece, I suppose,’ said Kate tartly; then, suddenly, ‘Will you undertake to make this gentleman’s peace with Mr. Walpole, and show how the whole was a piece of ill-directed zeal?’
‘Indiscreet zeal.’
‘Well, indiscreet, if you like it better.’
‘And you fancied, then, that all the fine linen and purple you carried away were the properties of a head-centre?’
‘We thought so.’
‘And the silver objects of the dressing-table, and the ivory inlaid with gold, and the trifles studded with turquoise?’
‘They might have been Donogan’s. Do you know, mademoiselle, that this same Donogan was a man of fortune, and in all the society of the first men at Oxford when—a mere boy at the time—he became a rebel?’
‘How nice of him! What a fine fellow!’
‘I’d say what a fool!’ continued Curtis. ‘He had no need to risk his neck to achieve a station, the thing was done for him. He had a good house and a good estate in Kilkenny; I have caught salmon in the river that washes the foot of his lawn.’
‘And what has become of it; does he still own it?’
‘Not an acre—not a rood of it; sold every square yard of it to throw the money into the Fenian treasury. Rifled artillery, Colt’s revolvers, Remington’s, and Parrot guns have walked off with the broad acres.’
‘Fine fellow—a fine fellow!’ cried Nina enthusiastically.
‘That fine fellow has done a deal of mischief,’ said Kate thoughtfully.
‘He has escaped, has he not?’ asked Nina.
‘We hope not—that is, we know that he is about to sail for St. John’s by a clipper now in Belfast, and we shall have a fast steam-corvette ready to catch her in the Channel. He’ll be under Yankee colours, it is true, and claim an American citizenship; but we must run risks sometimes, and this is one of those times.’
‘But you know where he is now? Why not apprehend him on shore?’
‘The very thing we do not know, mademoiselle. I’d rather be sure of it than have five thousand pounds in my hand. Some say he is here, in the neighbourhood; some that he is gone south; others declare that he has reached Liverpool. All we really do know is about the ship that he means to sail in, and on which the second mate has informed us.’
‘And all your boasted activity is at fault,’ said she insolently, ‘when you have to own you cannot track him.’
‘Nor is it so easy, mademoiselle, where a whole population befriend and feel for him.’
‘And if they do, with what face can you persecute what has the entire sympathy of a nation?’
‘Don’t provoke answers which are sure not to satisfy you, and which you could but half comprehend; but tell Mr. Curtis you will use your influence to make Mr. Walpole forget this mishap.’
‘But I do want to go to the bottom of this question. I will insist on learning why people rebel here.’
‘In that case, I’ll go home to breakfast, and I’ll be quite satisfied if I see you at luncheon,’ said Kate.
‘Do, pray, Mr. Curtis, tell me all about it. Why do some people shoot the others who are just as much Irish as themselves? Why do hungry people kill the cattle and never eat them? And why don’t the English go away and leave a country where nobody likes them? If there be a reason for these things, let me hear it.’
‘Bye-bye,’ said Kate, waving her hand, as she turned away.
‘You are so ungenerous,’ cried Nina, hurrying after her; ‘I am a stranger, and would naturally like to learn all that I could of the country and the people; here is a gentleman full of the very knowledge I am seeking. He knows all about these terrible Fenians. What will they do with Donogan if they take him?’
‘Transport him for life; they’ll not hang him, I think.’
‘That’s worse than hanging. I mean—that is—Miss Kearney would rather they’d hang him.’
‘I have not said so,’ replied Kate, ‘and I don’t suspect I think so, either.’
‘Well,’ said Nina, after a pause, ‘let us go back to breakfast. You’ll see Mr. Walpole—he’s sure to be down by that time; and I’ll tell him what you wish is, that he must not think any more of the incident; that it was a piece of official stupidity, done, of course, out of the best motives; and that if he should cut a ridiculous figure at the end, he has only himself to blame for the worse than ambiguity of his private papers.’
‘I do not know that I ‘d exactly say that,’ said Kate, who felt some difficulty in not laughing at the horror-struck expression of Mr. Curtis’s face.
‘Well, then, I’ll say—this was what I wished to tell you, but my cousin Kate interposed and suggested that a little adroit flattery of you, and some small coquetries that might make you believe you were charming, would be the readiest mode to make you forget anything disagreeable, and she would charge herself with the task.’
‘Do so,’ said Kate calmly; ‘and let us now go back to breakfast.’